Random Thought of the Day

[Ironman]

Humans want the most boring things. It's all an illusion. Take away desire and what are we left with?

Yeah - I'd settle for peace of mind lol

[Nyctophilia]

Started reading Limited Edition of One finally but have stopped a few pages in none the less lol. Hoping to finish this or at least read the part with the short story about his new album before/if he starts touring that album and I hope he does because I think it might be my favourite of his solo albums at this point.

It starts in 2010 at a Porcupine Tree concert so I don't know if it's going to go back further I assume it will at some point. On the other hand if the focus is mostly on his solo career perhaps it won't. But I'm really into the whole early days/psychedelic period atm so that would be cool.
There's a chapter called The Laughing Gnome which sounds funny.

To make up for our (my) perceived lack of stage presence we have our visuals

I like it though. It's chill. Stage presence is cool too like that's what made Green Day so awesome when I saw them live - they stand out in this area compared to most bands/musicians I've ever seen live but if you have great music it doesn't really matter and actually makes it more interesting in some ways.

Over the years I've noted with envy that playing heavy metal, for example, gives you an instant 95audience: festivals, magazines and radio shows with hundreds of thousands of potential fans already waiting

Yeah it's a very marketable genre with a clear associated subculture + associated aesthetics which helps. When you try and do something new or even something with a less significant subculture and image attached it's much harder to get any kind of following.

What did for that was Porcupine Tree had the misfortune of being a certain kind of rock band - music first, image not even second; album-oriented, theoretical, evolved - at a time when the capacity for such a band had all but vanished.

If we'd been doing what we are doing in the seventies and eighties, it might have been different. The path to global success was already a well-worn trail. Make consistently strong albums, then tour and tour and tour. Until you gradually build up a massive fan base that you keep faith with, and that stays loyal to you. Floyd, Zeppelin, Yes, Elton John, The Police, Jethro Tull, that's how the west was won. We had looked forward to the challenge, convinced we had what it takes.

One snag: Although we didn't know it then, that kind of old-school approach to fame and fortune had already begun to disappear about the time we got our first deal with a major American record company, nearly a decade before, but already several years into our career.

[...]

They told us they believed Porcupine Tree was going to be 'the new Floyd.' I'd heard that before, of course, but only from fans or music journalists, never from a big-shot A&R executive behind a fancy desk in New York with the means to make it happen. Or so I believed.

All I knew at the time of signing was that if this big American label was interested in signing us and putting us into their machinery how could we fail?

Quite easily I think. Especially relatively speaking. I mean they're already famous and at that point were playing The Royal Albert Hall so you're talking about degrees at the high end of fame really lol. Most of the big super popular musicians are actually just expert business people now like Taylor Swift. People don't realise either especially when it's women they don't realise their skillset and how necessary it is. They turn themselves into a brand. Paris Hilton also. But Taylor Swift in particular is insane from what I've read. But then it becomes almost impossible to balance that with any kind of personal life because that always comes first.

Because the golden age of boundary-free, album oriented rock music was already over, that's how. Each of the four albums we made over the next few years was supposed to be the 'break-through' for us. But each time the changing climate, made it just a little bit harder, as physical sales decreased, record stores closed, and the media became increasingly uninterested in white heterosexual men playing intellectual rock music.

Nevertheless, by 2010, and by virtue of sheer bloody mindedness, Porcupine Tree has created a successful niche for ourselves and has educated fans all over the world, even if we are commercially very far from the 'new' Pink Floyd.

I don't think it's impossible - Tool managed it at a similar time and then with a massive hiatus later on, but definitely not easy. I also feel like TOOL modernised the genre. They kind of combined alt metal with prog music. I suppose this relates to the point about metal music only I would not consider them really to be a metal band in the classic sense. Also they have stylised visual art that kind of stands out more and like a band logo. The band logo thing is kind of popular with metal bands too. Porcupine Tree doesn't (nothing comes to mind anyway,) because yeah they didn't focus on image or branding at all and neither did the record company they worked for seemingly.

I hate all this [BEEP] myself I really do. So I kind of half [BEEP] that with my YouTube channel a bit and haven't changed my cover banner + profile pic in ages, but I know it's important. There's even a channel that makes gaming content for the game I mostly make content for and people always comment on their branding essentially lol like cover art, video outros, consistent art style etc. I think people like my outro + intro but like I haven't updated it in ages and my cover banner is just [BEEP] lol really.

I think it's also easier being one of the first people to do something if it becomes a 'thing' (I know this sounds insane but I think this at least applies to entertainment and creative stuff.) Like I helped invent a subgenre of YouTube content for a certain game and so the following I got from that is small because the game is a bit dated (it was definitely very popular in it's time but it predates the YouTube generation,) and the audience of people who watch videos about it in general is also not huge. The most popular channel that doesn't lean into content for other games is probably about 40k subs when it comes to English speaking channels. (One person has a bigger non-English channel though.) But the reason it gained any attention is because no one else was really doing the same thing and people would point this out sometimes (which isn't surprising because I wasn't watching YouTube content for gaming in general and especially for that game because I always preferred to play games then watch.) Then around that time another person had independently started doing something similar and later others started making content inspired by my content or in one case re-creating a video I made. People still end up referencing you because 'I decided to do this because of [x]' and then when people discuss anything similar they say 'oh that's like [x]' 'someone should tell [x] about this.' Whereas if you're the next [x] you're the next [x] and you can get big off that but the more time passes the more competition there is, and the more hype dies down for that particular niche.

And I really should be making YouTube videos right now. I'm now writing about YouTube to avoid YouTube. Which I've done a bunch of times. That's a whole other level of procrastination. Someone mentioned me on reddit recently so I got a notification which I didn't even realise was a thing they could do lol. Like some weird experiment idea and they were like [x] should do this and I didn't have the energy to respond.

It sucks because I have a bunch of ideas already and I think they're interesting I just can't get started often and it's gotten worse again over the past several months. I hate my brain.

I've reached the point now where I just daydream about getting hold of testosterone because a side effect people often mention is improved focus and concentration lmfao. I used to think about that to get a lower voice pitch and other people think about that so they get bigger muscles and such. Aesthetic [BEEP] basically. Now I'm like 'maybe I can be functional as a Human.'

I know I (probably,) can't though because my brother is sort of the same sometimes better, sometimes worse. Same genetics, higher testosterone levels. Not to mention all my other family members. If anything my mum is the most productive member of her family and my immediate family.

I say this and then say it's not that hard to make money on YouTube (some money obviously not a living,) :') but eh I stumbled on that niche accidentally initially and I think you can do lazier + more popular stuff if you want like lean into bs culture war controversies for content. It helps if you're funny but if you can make people angry it's fine too.

At this point it seems impossible to become super big in the music industry if you're seeking that out unless you're a very skilled business person with a particular image surrounded by others. You have to appeal to the female demographic obviously too now (and even bands like Led Zeppelin did at the time.) You can only really make a living off it (if you're lucky,) not get super famous + rich or anything like that.

It's probably easier to get a following on the lower end than it was in the past, but much more difficult around the middle end or to become significantly famous. A lot of people can't even afford to tour now. Well that's what I hear from musicians who are sort of famous they say it's become more difficult for them over time to reach people and to fund their music, but on the other hand it's much easier to attract thousands of followers now then it was 2 decades ago.

When you think about it achieving insane levels of global fame is obviously going to be an extreme exception. It's weird that anyone ever did and it's really only something that you can get by appealing to people who are completely obsessed. So generally speaking that's going to be women. Cause aside from Trump it's harder to build that kind of following with men. Notice also he's a business guy again (not a coincidence.)

Instead Porcupine Tree has gradually carved out our own niche, making fans one by one, mostly by word of mouth.

Funny he says that because I only heard about Porcupine Tree after discovering his solo work (at about the same time really listening to tracks on YouTube,) but I found his music on Tumblr because Tumblr like skinny nerdy white guys (stereotype about the site,) so somebody was talking about him and had posted photos.

And I thought 'That looks like someone I used to have a crush on irl' (who later came out as non-binary though I didn't know that at the time.) I will go and check out this music link. Hmm yes this is good music.'

This is not how Porcupine Tree got most of their fans obviously LOL. But it still cracks me up.

And it's somewhat ironic because it's Tumblr lmfao. I actually don't think it is ironic but some people would think it's ironic because they think of Tumblr as being very 'woke' but I don't think it's as focussed on race as other issues ime and the main focus is just creative stuff. Also they give white guys a pass if they seem 'nerdy.'

[Lucid]

^Hey I'm not a moderator or anything like that but the above stuff doesn't belong in the random thoughts section. Probably be a good idea to move this,put a
warning label on it and remember what kind of site you're posting on.

Tc

[Nyctophilia]

^Hey I'm not a moderator or anything like that but the above stuff doesn't belong in the random thoughts section. Probably be a good idea to move this,put a
warning label on it and remember what kind of site you're posting on.

Tc

Eh you're probably right. I've been posting in this thread because it seems more inactive than the blog section and seemed people were paying less attention to it. Plus this site is mostly inactive in general.

I was on another site where I often felt like I was walking on eggshells and self censoring which I got banned from anyway (also some censoring was unrelated to rules and just not wanting to post certain info for reasons I won't go into,) but I wanted somewhere I could post thoughts which would be mostly ignored but with the illusion of not writing like a diary in wordpad or something so ended up using this thread this way and overcorrected in the opposite direction.

It's hard to find places that aren't either social media, more active, IM stuff like Discord etc. Probably should switch to some blogging site though.

[Lucid]

No worries no eggshells.We are all here for a reason. (Request for cleanup after the edit and quote I look like a gigantic asshole lol]

[Doseone]

I think they fall under random thoughts.

[Doseone]

Me existing is so unlikely under physicalism that it's basically impossible. Every event since the big bang had to happen exactly as it did. I can't believe that. It also would have done so, just because. If we're going to go with brute facts, consciousness should be what's fundamental.

Also, this is cool:

[Nyctophilia]

Someone posted a video of Trace Lysette (trans actress,) talking about Dave Chapelle's makeup (stage makeup that is, not visible makeup. Pretty much everyone on TV etc is wearing makeup even if they don't in everyday life.) Only most people have no idea what she's saying lol because of all the slang.

But basically she's talking about how some guys who see trans prostitutes like crossdressing or end up wanting to transition etc (this is a known phenomenon where straight trans women often end up dating guys who later come out as trans or enjoy crossdressing, and there was a controversial research paper suggesting this made up about 50% of that group for some reason. Sexuality is weird.) And she's saying that either his makeup makes him look like someone like that or:

"It's one of those two things it's either giving client wanting to be one of the girls or the butch queen who did his makeup set him up."

I'm polyam nonbinary dating two trans women and chatting up another enby and I have no idea what half of those words meant, if it makes you feel any better

Lol I was going to say this may as well be another language but I figured out the gist after a couple of listens. I actually don't think the slang is the barrier to understanding here because I still don't know what a bunch of the words mean but I'm aware of that phenomenon which is useful. Plus the caption explains the most useful word for figuring it out.

And I'm always surprised by people who have lives like this person commenting because my reality is just near total social isolation and I don't know any [BEEP] people. Imagine having multiple partners somehow.

Reminds me of this dumb tweet lol:

Many converts to the new right believe polyamory will follow trans as the Left Patronage Network's fresh conquest.

But I predict that it will not. True polyamory necessitates Mormon-style polygamy, which condones/serves straight male sexuality in ways the Longhouse can't stand.

Polyamory with one man and many wives will remain illegal. Other permutations, with a trans thing married to a non-binary lesbian with 5 gimp gay husbands will be allowed and celebrated

Well they're part way there. Clearly I'm doing this wrong.

unironically though yes sort of but it's not new or really a trans thing. I was having this conversation with some guy online many years ago. He suggested the cultural left subtly promotes poly dynamics with multiple men but I've seen more and more people bring it up recently yet it's been going on for a long time now. It just makes sense because the sexual revolution has led to an imbalance in this area and it's a general interest since the emo era or probably further back in some cases. Lol I wrote an entire post about voyeurism and slash etc and 'female harems' once. There's a reason this tends to be niche though. It's suppressed in most cultures. It probably won't ever become popular but there are lots of weird things technology is doing now so I wouldn't say impossible. As the 'instinct' appears to be there...

Though there are many right wing guys who ignore this and anything that deviates from certain norms. I think they're low key horrified so they're in denial even when the whole emo thing was a really sizeable subculture which is about as big as it's gotten in the West. Although there was slash fanfiction involving real and fictional people long before that was as self aware as it's gotten. This makes them uncomfortable too

The issue would be on the male end because several guys aren't going to want to share one female partner in most cases. Louis Theroux did a documentary on polyamory once which I haven't watched but I watched an interview where he talked about it and he said what he found was that in dynamics where there was a guy and multiple women it only really worked out if the women got along with each other. I'm assuming the examples he looked at had more women in and like one guy.

There are relationships where it doesn't work out and the two women leave together as well like with Alan Moore's first marriage.

Also I'm low key enjoying the implication from some right wingers online that the cultural left are basically like The Forsaken in WoW or something lol. Like mad scientists. That's my aesthetic.

I don't care if Dave Chappelle wants to joke about trans or LGBT+ people. On a personal level none of it's going to really apply to me well anyway especially at this point in my life since I'm older and non-binary which is already an anomaly as most non-binary people are younger. I don't even label my sexuality which is somewhere between asexual and bisexual but I guess I do sit on chairs weirdly and always have done and that's a bisexual stereotype so there you go lol...

The same tedious media cycle happens over and over which is irritating and emotionally exhausting where the media talk about how offensive something is, a bunch of people claim that people from that group are really offended, and then people are manipulated into watching/consuming something just because a group they find annoying or disagree with were 'triggered.'

The Trace Lysette video only interested me because it touched on my special interest in sexology lol. If she decided to 'read' (slang term,) him in any other way it would have had no significance to me.

The funny thing is that Dave Chappelle wouldn't understand what she's saying at all because he doesn't have that level of familiarity. There isn't a singular trans community either there are lots of different subcultures and experiences and these experiences and subcultures overlap with cis and straight people and some of these communities and interests are considered shameful and people try to distance themselves from them like erotic crossdressing if you're a trans woman or amab and transgender, or reading slash fanfiction if you're a trans guy or afab and transgender. So there's tons of material there for a comedian.

I don't watch South Park but the creators of that show had a great episode on BL and slash called Tweek x Craig. Well it was mostly about BL really even though it was a Western/slash pairing and those subcultures are different despite overlaps and have different language and aesthetic trends etc (also usually you use a / not a x for same gender pairings =P,) most people are more aware and knowledgeable of the yaoi subculture somehow even in the West compared to slash. Also most people just use the label BL now since yaoi implies sexual content I think whereas BL is more general and includes romance stuff like slash can. But I think the episode uses both terms.

But still even BL and the people who consume that are mostly unheard of in mainstream Western television and comedy (despite having sizeable Western audiences,) so I thought that was interesting. Apparently they'd noticed that people were creating fanart of the characters on the show which led them to investigate more. They even reached out to people to create fanart for the episode lol.

I think the funniest part was when Randy? Yeah that dad character pretended to be very knowledgeable but had no idea what he was talking about lol. He talks to the Chinese government who are basically like 'that's just Japan' and then he later starts talking about how Japanese people make some people gay and how it dates back to World War 2 and then gets a bunch of stuff wrong about that too lol.

The writers talk about this episode here:



I'm interested in people who can write comedy like that about niche groups ideally without contempt.

That's why I liked the South Park Episode even though it wasn't an exhaustive look or perfect and a lot was missing. You can tell they spent a significant amount of time researching things nevertheless.

There are lots of subcultures and niche groups that rarely get included in comedy but are reasonably sizeable and have been around for many decades at least. To the point where mainstream sitcoms and comedy shows can feel a bit out of touch in some ways.

I started watching New Girl recently again (I started watching it years ago but didn't finish it and forgot most of the episodes, my friend started watching it which reminded me.) I'm up to early season 4 atm. At this point that show is dated since it started in 2011, but even still it was a show of the 2010s where a lot of the jokes and the social topics being explored felt like the 1990s although there are some exceptions. You have punchlines like in the 2nd season where a guy says he's bisexual and the main character is immediately turned off and this is just taken as an 'of course that's a turn off' moment which feels weird for the time (and other similar jokes,) but perhaps it's just weird to see how much changed in such a short space of time. Like in 2015 you had a sitcom (Schitt's Creek,) with a main male character who was pansexual.

There's also a whole episode where a guy is wearing what's apparently a female coat and this is supposed to be weird and funny but he looks good in it so I never really understood that and why they kept pointing out lol. They kept saying it was a woman's coat, but it was a fairly neutral looking coat not even a dress or something like that so it felt more like they had to remind the audience because if they said nothing most people wouldn't have thought about it. Imo basically anyone over a certain height looks good in long coats though. Sadly I am too short to pull that off RIP.

The early 2010s already feel like a completely different era honestly. There's the overlap between flip phones and smartphones in the early seasons of this and other shows of that time, an episode with Prince who has been dead since 2016 which is kind of bittersweet. Obama was still president during a significant chunk of the show and there are mentions of him, 'hipsters.' The amount of casual sex everyone is having seems ironic with the way social media discourse is now which is simutlaneosuly focussed on a 'sex recession,' while simultaneously everyone is complaining about the amount of casual sex a minority of people have. The surreal sensation of watching a show where the 20 year olds were my peers at the time it was airing but now I'm closer in age to the main characters.

The weird thing is that I expected the lead writer to be a boomer guy but it's a 42 year old woman.

[Nyctophilia]

Stumbled on this article while looking up New Girl stuff or something:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dga...m-tv-and-video

It struck me during Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World that I was watching the end of an era: Late in the film, Julie (Renate Reinsve) listens to her elder millennial cartoonist ex Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) expound upon a life lived through media. He tells her, wistfully, of his young life "without internet and mobile phones? spent going to record shops, comic spots, video stores, "a time when culture was passed along through objects".

"I spent my life doing that. Collecting all that stuff, comics, books and I just continued, even when it stopped giving me the powerful emotions I felt in my 20s. And now it's all I have left. Knowledge and memories of stupid, futile things nobody cares about

"I reached a point in my life when suddenly I began to worship what had been. And now I have nothing else."

Yeah.

I knew that I was watching the Last Millennial Film - an acknowledgement of time passing, youth fading, life continuing on within and without us. The unbearably familiar rhythms of the film both resonated and frustrated, not only as memories from my own life but also as ones I absorbed from culture across my 33 years of life. Telling the difference was tricky: Like Aksel, I grappled with the ephemera that made me. But what made me was less tangible - entire histories confined to obsolete formats, blogs that go offline, server transfers that fail. In an existential haze, I sought to finally answer a question that has haunted me since downloading a leaked copy of Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion shortly before my 20th birthday: "Am I really all the things that are outside of me?"

Through the 90s, there was a hopeful idea of what millennials could become. At some point, that optimism shattered. We've been mourning that loss ever since.

I actually don't think I was ever that optimistic exactly. I was writing kind of dark and depressing stuff from about the age of 11. Nevertheless I still operate from a place of nostalgia. But learning that nostalgia is psychologically a coping mechanism for loneliness made the current prevalence make a lot more sense.

Upended by America’s War on Terror, a global financial crisis, sudden outbursts of mass violence in public spaces, and the single most consequential technological shift since the Industrial Revolution, it makes sense that millennials wanted to look backward. Justifiably unsettled in the present, and terrified by what's to come, “The Millennial” mythologises our past and eulogises a childhood that never really was, an impossible youth.

I like the idea of the future portrayed in things like Star Trek even though I'm not a fan of the TV show really, and I've gone back to reading some Star Trek fanfiction lately. It's very hard not to do dystopias now though. Mostly I'm bummed that I'm going to die before various potentially cool and useful technology will be created. Before space travel exists, before artificial wombs, before increased lifespans that might match the incredibly slow pace I'm moving at, before improved medicine (relative to now obviously it constantly evolves,) before shapeshifting technology exists if that's even possible, before hopefully someone creates a better way for people to find community and relationships/friendships than now and integrating that with technology if necessary.

And so far I've never seen bioluminescence irl.

The fact remains that, for all our influence over the past 20-ish years, we don't actually own anything. All we have is our media.

And much of the time, we don't even have that.

That's often true.

These films are imperfect critiques, in the same way my list isn't airtight: I know the canon I put together is riddled with blind spots, dead ends, confusing detours. After all, where's Drake? Where's Kendrick? Where's Nicki? All three contributed unforgettable visuals for our era and their influence cannot be understated. But it's the images of Soulja Boy in a Web 1.0 browser, or Tyler, The Creator eating a cockroach, or Le1f launching a Kamehameha wave, or MC Ride screaming in a car filled with TV static, or Azealia Banks grinning on the block in a Mickey Mouse sweater that feel closer to the admittedly limited narrative of millennialism explored in the list. The triumphalism of pop icons gives the culture something to aspire to. But there's a reason I selected Homecoming over Lemonade, or 'Formation' or even 'Single Ladies' - 'The Millennial' could never be Beyonce. We just watch her in awe.

Yeah for sure. This is very millennial:



And Beyonce is literally but her image isn't the stereotype. It's the black and white for no reason, the Mickey Mouse jumper as mentioned, the white guy with the glasses, her twin braided hairstyle. Cutesy but low effort image. Complete with social media meltdown persona. It's very NYC too lol there's random footage of a bodega I think?



Tbh though there's (not surprisingly) a big difference from people born in the early 80s and the early 90s due to technological changes etc.

They've created a list of well as they put it:

Chris Osborn: The Millennial Canon

A list of 125 moving image artifacts that, for better and worse, feel most representative to the cultural construction of "The Millennial Experience."

https://letterboxd.com/olepbr/list/c...lennial-canon/

Though I'm not a fan of a lot of this I can see why they picked a lot of the things they did. My Chemical Romance are very millennial but Helena wasn't my favourite song props for not going for a song from The Black Parade I guess lol.

Also can see why they picked Oblivion by Grimes stylistically but I'd want to go with Genesis. I mean it was probably the first Grimes song I listened to.



I never watched the OC but I liked the theme song and learnt how to play it on the keyboard lol.

Frances Ha is a movie I actually did watch but don't remember well at all now. For some reason it was in black and white (again.) Adam Driver is in this film (and in a bunch of key millennial stuff.) And the only reason I watched it was because one of the main characters had glasses and I liked the way she looked in some gifs I stumbled on. I feel like these glasses are closer to gen z aesthetics now:



Like back in the day we all had rectangular glasses. I still do because I'm avoiding getting my eyes tested again and buying new glasses. My first pair cost me over 100 pounds.

There's a lot of stuff that's just not good but is reflective like Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Speaking of being the worst generation:

- Girls (2012)

I had to stop watching Broad City because despite it being a comedy it was bumming me out or something like that. Just bad vibes.

A lot of this music I haven't listened to, and films I haven't watched, and/or don't care about.

- Euphoria (2019)

^ This I don't even consider a millenial work but gen z, although it is basically the US version of Skins. The US had a Skins adaptation but it didn't work out from what I remember like many of their reboots. Also I never watched Skins but it should be included since it's early seasons were when I was in sixth form and it was very culturally relevant. So I guess by extension Euphoria is a millennial show played by gen Z.

Mean Girls is a classic.

This is all very American I would also throw in Enter Shikari:



I was never that into their music, I only heard a couple of songs. They're not an important band for me but there's a period from when I was in sixth form and uni where their music videos kind of represent a bunch of the vibes and certain people.

No idea what this is but Google suggests some 4chan thing posted on the music board:

- Still Life: Betamale (2013)

OK so it seems to be a 4 minute age restricted video which includes clips of what seem to be hermit guys/hikikomori rooms I guess. I think shoeonhead once made a video tangentially related to this about guy's posting images of their rooms. Some of those photos she included are actually in this video I think, mixed up with like anime and pixel art and cartoon porn, some electronic music. It's sort of vaguely similar to vaporwave and stuff like that.

Created by this guy I think:

Jon Rafman (born 1981) is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, and essayist. His work centers around the emotional, social and existential impact of technology on contemporary life. His artwork has gained international attention and was exhibited in 2015 at Musee d'art contemporain de Montr?al (Montreal)[1] and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.[2] He is widely known for exhibiting found images from Google Street View in his online artwork 9-Eyes (2009-ongoing).[3][4]

I first saw this film 7 years ago. It's one of the few pieces of art that I return to at least once or twice per year.

I'm sure someone who isn't "from" the internet, doesn't browse 4chan, nor participate in the seedier sides of the internet would simply find this film repulsive and nothing more.

It's only when you are willing to accept what people reveal themselves to be in those anonymous corners of the internet that you will be able to truly understand this film.

This video screams: "if only you knew how bad things really are".

I don't see this as bleak, I see it as a celebration of what the internet really is. Also an objective document of how the internet has touched and impacted humanity.

This is sort of what I meant when I said comedy is outdated but we're not comfortable with anything besides self hate and horror right now.

On that note I would include more micro egenre work of the early 2010s, deliberately bad animation from YouTube, YouTube videos in general since millennials make up most of the big original YouTubers. Crystal Castles....

One half of the millennial internet seems to be surreal weird and creepy stuff and the other half is like Bo Burnham comedy songs and autotune schmoyoho type stuff. This is also often what people bring up when they talk about millennial comedy that a lot of it centres music. And the video essayists are kind of a mix of millennials aged 30-34 and older gen z.

Overall I think there's this kind of bouncy bright youthful vibe and then The Nightmare (tm.)

I guess the art movement he's considered part of, and also vaporwave and also Grimes is referred to as 'post-internet' which is a very ironic title since most of the time someone uses the post prefix it's to describe something that's moved beyond and of course we haven't moved beyond the internet yet. But I guess they're using it like 'stuff that was created after the dawn of the internet and grew out of e-culture with a certain aesthetic.'

Post-Internet is a 21st-century art movement[1] involving works that are derived from the Internet or its effects on aesthetics, culture and society.[2]

The issue with this list though is some of this is art created by millenials like Grimes Oblivion and most likely that 4chan video, and some is created by gen x or other generations and just stuff that millenials consumed and were inspired by so it's kind of hazy anyway. Even that movie they're talking about was described by someone as an example of 'gen x ennui' in the 3 or so minutes I was googling about it.

Also I'd throw in The Matrix in that list despite the death of the author situation going on there.

[Nyctophilia]

Windows start bar graphics have been really great lately but also maybe creepy in its relevance to my personal interests. I mean there were aliens, and then there was a platypus (I love those. I was talking to my brother about them the a few times recently. They're mammals but they lay eggs, have fur and a beak, they're biofluorescent. They're such random impossible animals... Could only be from Australia but obviously they're from outerspace.) Today there's a desert scene with cacti. This is what I mean (yes I do save screenshots of the ones I like lol...):







If I click on the desert it's like 'Discover Phoenix'

Are you spying on me? 🤨 Maybe but I also think these are super common interests.

Also:

The issue with this list though is some of this is art created by millenials like Grimes Oblivion and most likely that 4chan video, and some is created by gen x or other generations and just stuff that millenials consumed and were inspired by so it's kind of hazy anyway. Even that movie they're talking about was described by someone as an example of 'gen x ennui' in the 3 or so minutes I was googling about it.

Also I'd throw in The Matrix in that list despite the death of the author situation going on there.

I was going to delete this post but I ended up having more thoughts. Stuff like American Psycho and Fight Club which became more relevant to younger millennials and gen z was created by gen x about gen x. I think overall these are bigger influences for older gen z though but American Psycho was one of my favourite films since I watched it back when I was at uni.

And it's weird because it seems like the author of the book spends more time talking about millennials now but that might be because his boyfriend is a millennial. Like this I just found:

https://creammagazine.com/2023/06/10...py-generation/

"It's an argument that my partner and I get into a lot. I grew up admiring individuals doing something amazing or creative. He cares more about the group and what the group thinks. What does the group think about this video? Or this video game? Or this victim movement?"

But I feel like he (and/or the person asking him these questions,) combines millenials and gen z into one generation and if you read it that way it makes more sense. Like these quotes:

If someone in their twenties would read three of your earlier books, say 'Less Than Zero', 'Rules of Attraction' and even 'Glamorama', do you think they'd have less of an antagonistic attitude toward you?


Completely, because that's what reading fiction does; it makes you more empathic; it puts you in someone else's shoes, whether it?s Oliver Twist's, Lily Bart's, or Patrick Bateman's. I think that sustained concentration on these pages and on these characters who are so different to you, that's why fiction always thrilled me; to take you into these different worlds. I'm not sure if it fully works that way anymore in this hectic, busy world. And I don't think video games today work like fiction novels: they last for 36 hours and you're in control of the narrative. Sometimes I do feel very old-mannish about the novel. You know, "The novel is the greatest medium!" Many people don't think this anymore. I think I was just raised in the right time.

People in their early 20s aren't millennials and don't have an antagonistic attitude towards him afaik (even late 20s is like barely millenial and this was written in 2023,) and younger guys seem to aspire to be like Patrick Bateman which is a choice lol and some people identify with elements of his character. A lot of other people find the film interesting and it's not aged out of relevance though it's probably less relevant than Fight Club is for millenial and younger men.

I think some women have often disliked American Psycho and judge him mostly based on that work, but that's not a generational thing it's been going on a while. There have been complaints from different political interest groups going back a long time and about the film which was ironically created by a feminist and a lesbian woman lol.

There's a lot of elements to the film that can appeal to millenials like the dissociation and surreal vibe obviously. And the music. I think he said at some point (can't find the quote now) that people criticised him for using music references in the book because they felt it would date the work. At that point no one had considered how important nostalgia and false nostalgia would become though I think.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/mu...-musical-taste

There are plenty of novelists out there whose work pulses with the influence of contemporary music, but none use music references quite so effectively as Bret Easton Ellis. Few divide opinion quite as much as him either. Those who love him, really love him. His critics, however, dismiss him as an empty stylist, a yuppie or, even worse, a misogynist.

Another work that does this a lot that's popular with millenials is the Perks of Being a Wallflower. I actually read that book and liked it a lot when I was 17 but didn't end up watching the film.

Also I think video games can work that way but it depends on the genre and game and the player.

Instead of the proverbial silver soon, would you say Millennials were born with a silver smartphone in their mouth?

Completely I would. Obviously there's pain there; this is not the happy generation.

This as well even younger millennials were young adults when we started using and buying those so that's what I mean when I say he combines the two and possibly even the generation after gen z really if you mean literally born with them.

It's like the '90s meme 'Kill your idols' is suddenly going viral.

Yes, but around the world, people still do like soccer stars, people do respond to huge pop stars. But one-on-one, when I talk to my boyfriend or his friends, they identify with people who are injured in some way more than people who aren't.

Is there a certain Us-versus-Them at play? When a person is liking someone's victim situation, aren't they kind of saying 'there's someone weaker than me, hence I like it'?

Yes, of course, that plays into it as well.

Isn't that less celebratory and more sadistic and sinister?


Well I've never met a more passive-aggressive generation than Millennials. There's a passive-aggressiveness there, and I think you've just located it. There is a very 'Oh, I'm just a likeable victim' mentality going on but 'I'm very positive and I really want the best for everybody' - but the slightest questioning of that, the slightest hint of the reality that comes in, I have never seen a group turn on you with a snarl and a snap so goddamn quickly it'll make your head spin.

It's like an episode of 'RuPaul's Drag Race' but real life, really.

Yes, and not with drag queens, sadly. That is a very strange dichotomy; between that upbeat positivity and this almost whiplash anger at almost anything that intrudes upon it.

That's kind of what I was trying to say in my other post it comes out creatively like... On one end there's a kind of dark surreal sadistic angry self pitying monster thing, and then on the other there's a kind of childlike upbeat optimistic somewhat naive happy thing. This is reflected in character archetypes you can find like Jessica Day from New Girl and April Ludgate on Parks and Rec (though this is really more of a reference to characters in the late 80s and 90s like Wednesday Addams and Lydia Deetz, which is because of the gen x influence.) I dunno maybe this scene lol:



New girl is pretty weird though in some aspects. I can't remember if I brought this up but it's like they couldn't decide what to do with Winston so he sometimes feels like a fifth wheel etc but that's not the only weird thing about him. He starts off as this relatively normal character and just gets weirder and weirder lol. It just hit me while writing this he has the vibes of a ghost. And then I googled it and other people were thinking the same thing:

Is Winston a ghost?
I'm in Season 4, and for the past two seasons, Winston just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Like he's a ghost that doesn't know he's dead yet, and the isolation of any actual human interaction is slowly making him less and less human.

Every other character has some sort of relationship (friendship or otherwise) with someone else, even multiple people - But not Winston. Winston is there to make weird, off-handed comments about what's happening around him. [...]

Is Winston even alive? Is he the previous tenant who died in that apartment before the rest of them all moved in there?

That is the exact energy.

I think it begins somewhere around the episode where they talk about how he's no good at pranks because he either does something completely boring that has no impact or something way too extreme and over the top. Then there's the beaver air vent incident, the whole cat saga in general.

I noticed multiple actors from It's Always Sunny have appeared on this show so far and there's elements of his character that overlap with Charlie especially the cat stuff, so I feel like it's related or something.



And initially I just thought 'well this is bad writing this character seems poorly integrated compared to the others.' I don't know if it was deliberate or what. I was even contemplating if it was just that the writers weren't comfortable writing a black character at one point but then they brought back Coach and it became obvious that wasn't the issue (I mean all the characters have cheesy stereotyped aspects that don't entirely work and it gets cringe, but that's not what I'm getting at here.) Sometimes he does connect though and he even has a back story with another character but it still feels that way. It's so fucking weird lol. I feel like by the time I finish the show I'm going to want to create some kind of video essay about Winston, or at least someone could, if they haven't already.

Cece also has sadistic moments on the show.

Then you see this combination of traits with real people.

Also, of course, a lot of this is just a Human experience really since nobody is just one thing.

But I do love this it's kind of mixing nostalgia, transience, surrealness and darkness together:











No I'm rambling about l̷̢̹̺͈̤̲̭̓͗i̵̧̩̥̘̖̫̠͋̾͋͐̈͝m̴̥̲͚̲̺͎͐̄̓̆̏̕͜i̸̩̋͛̕ n̷͝ ͈̀à̶̡̜̯̟͉̞̱̂̇̋͝l̷̨̝̝̹̰̰̚͜͝ stuff again. That's also a coping mechanism. Pretty sure I have undiagnosed autism because of the repetition among all the other things.

And I was trying to find a way to describe this emotional memory that's like... I think often you're waiting or you're not occupied much and then you start to contemplate the space and there's this strange feeling. It doesn't just happen when looking at the photos etc. I have memories of it as a kid. Maybe in a Mcdonald's or something. Which is why it's so effective.

But there are a few different feelings. I mean there's the service station/motorway/night lights vibe feeling with Little Chef if you're in the UK which is also now dead apparently:

The chain had become unsustainable with many motorists choosing to flock to a roadside McDonald's or Burger King to eat instead. Many of the former Little Chef sites have been converted into other food businesses, while others have been left unused and derelict since closing.

I never ate at one with my family but I always remembered the logo/signs.

And then there's the surreal creepy kids shopping centre feeling (which was still kind of there at the time,) and so on.

This aesthetic and the backrooms inspired one of my YouTube videos last year too. Oh it's basically old news now though (and then,) this aesthetic peaked in 2019 and the Stanley Parable had the same vibe in 2013. There's also stuff like the hallways in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining film from 1980 and Relativity by M. C. Escher in 1953 (though I'd probably give more credit to The Shining film for this aesthetic,) but still~

There's a kind of nightmare/dreamlike quality to a lot of it or like a vague memory you can't recall in detail. Pools are also very significant for me growing up, and in my dreams. Lots of it has this kind of 90s and 80s decor thing going on from childhood which is where the nostalgia comes in again. I know this appeals to a lot of millennials but obviously as I keep saying older gen z are also creating this as well maybe even more. They're really into Stranger Things.

Also a big part of why I love Steven Wilson's new album (but also musically it might be his best solo album tbh.) I didn't like this song on first listen as much as some of the others on the album the video was really cool though:



They worked on The Impossible Tightrope video too.

2002 (never paid attention to the lyrics beyond the chorus really until today lol):



I find myself in the same place again
With floors and stairs across the walls
It's like a courtyard under glass ceilings
And there's no way to go outside

Ohh-ohh, nobody's watching me
Turn around, lean out of the balustrade
Ohh-ohh, something is guiding me
Through an endless corridor

Is everything real
Is everything real
Is everything real
Is everything

The elevator in the final room
A metal square without walls
In asymmetrical trajectories
Vertical movements through trapdoors


It's weird how stuff from the past can gain significance or relevance in new contexts even though they were probably just messing around at the time or doing something unconsciously. Like there's this lot in The Sims 2 Nightlife (2005) that I always thought had a weird name for what it was (a clothing shop,) but I never paid too close attention and now it fits right in lol:

Building Trap Doors since 1987. Hans' Trap Door Corp has had many recent complaints of missing employees in the prototype department. Watch your step while visiting!

This lot has unique architecture. There are flower bushes planted on the outer foundation, with soil flooring beneath. It's also the tallest building in Downtown, but only the first floor is accessible. Behind the cashier, there are 4 doors that lead to a small room, which connects to the back door. The middle doors lead to "trap doors", which inspires the lot's name, Hans' Trap Door Corp, as well as the written lot description about employees going missing in the trap holes. In practice, Sims cannot actually get stuck in the traps, but will simply walk in the hole.

Obviously there were other tangential things that predated this aesthetic or... Maybe went alongside it really like the fixation with abandoned malls. And a lot of that is a kind of neo-gothic 'the empire is dying' sort of thing. Vaporwave too. But, the Liminal Spaces thing is more personal than that.

A lot of millenial's fixation is really on group level stuff from Occupy Wall Street to the planet is dying because of climate change. Lots of focus on saving the world/planet. Also what Bret Easton Ellis mentioned with caring about what groups think. With younger millennials that's kind of related to the films we watched growing up and the games we played like all the superhero stuff and Final Fantasy VII etc, I think. Also being very connected online from late childhood/early adolescence. I mean I've actually used this exact track from that video game to describe the sensation of being online lol:



And that game has everything. An evil megacorporation, an environmental extremist group, a super soldier who was born as an experiment convinced he's a monster and the fans can't decide if he's androgynous or hyper masculine he also has an obsession with this narrative he's built around his genetic mother who is an alien, a protagonist with identity issues, intelligent talking animals. It's the millennial video game compilation (moreso if you consider the lore of every work in that universe.)

Always being connected in that way has a weird impact on psychology. It can feel nice (like the stuff I'm talking about in this post,) but because of how social media works now it often feels terrible. That's because a lot of social media is trying to make you feel angry and pushes us vs them thinking and there are no bubbles (contrary to popular belief.) You are constantly exposed to opinions you disagree with. I'm sure people are more exposed now to opinions they disagree with then in the past. This probably leaves people in a permanent fight/flight state. I also find sometimes I'll watch something and just imagine people having issues with various things. Like 'get out of my head.'

The focus on identity in younger generations might seem like self obsession (which is you know an accusation that's always chucked at millenials along with being narcissists and I definitely am but that's besides the point here,) but it involves group level dynamics, tribalism and losing yourself in something bigger again. But then it's the combination of losing yourself but also projecting yourself onto everything.

And again that's a very Human thing.

I'm sure this pattern must be even more apparent with gen z who were on social media from a young age because the individualism of the early internet was reduced even more and social media sites are kind of like the internet versions of shopping malls...

I've been comparing the two for many years now but it seems I'm not alone which isn't really surprising they definitely give off that vibe. Minimalistic, largely uncustomizable beyond banners and avatars (not including tumblr which is in between):

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/th...ll-but-still-a

"You don't find a sense of community in malls." - Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent

There are two kinds of users on for-profit social media: people with something to sell (or promote, etc.) and suckers, frankly, who don't realize they're trying to authentically express themselves in someone else's shopping mall. See- Malls can't have too many features that don't earn money, because then customers wouldn't be customers, they would just be people. And malls, like social media, don't want people. They want consumers.

Like social media, real malls have to strike the balance of maximizing the money it's taking in from tenants (stores), but without doing it too aggressively or in a way makes customers uncomfortable. The difference between actual shopping malls and social media of course is that you can get real stuff at the mall, whereas social media at best provides shallow entertainment (often cosplaying as news). You could say social media offers all the superficial "fun" associated with 1980's and 90's suburban mall culture, without actually giving you anything of substance, or at least, not giving you anything more substantial than you could get without it.

The liminal aesthetic feels more personal because it's a kind of projection of the self onto environments (which also I think gives the surreal nightmare/dream quality because it's kind of subconscious.) So if nostalgia comes from loneliness it's a kind of desperate attempt to connect by projecting Humanity and meaning onto these soulless transient spaces and office environments.

The aesthetic may convey moods of eeriness, surrealness, nostalgia, or sadness, and elicit responses of both comfort and unease

This interests me too because over time I noticed people describing my videos with a similar combination of responses. Initially I was kind of enjoying that it was freaking people out, but I also got lots of comments from people expressing some kind of comfort from them. Like

The Olive Garden joke took me out more than I thought it would.

No not that. I'm glad someone enjoyed that from years ago lol... Uh:

omg this was so amazing! I wanna go on a nostalgia trip and watch some old [video game] horror films x

So there's something about horror that actually makes people nostalgic lol and I kind of get this too even though I don't watch horror films and I'm not that big into the genre but when I was a kid/teen I'd go to charity shops and market stalls and alternative clothing stores etc and there were a bunch of like old horror aesthetic stuff around and Hellraiser video tapes and things like that and some of these are probably false memories since it's often more of a vague sensation, but it's kind of jumbled up in my brain that way.

There's an indoor market in the shopping centre in my hometown that very much has backrooms vibes and there were always a couple of stalls in there when I was growing up that had like a bunch of sort of gothic/horror stuff and comic book stuff. Lol literally #mallgoth. No one used that label as far as I remember definitely not as a self identity thing.

And if I look now there are actually a bunch of websites talking about nostalgia horror, and how horror can be nostalgic lol. Also how newer horror uses retro imagery.

Obviously Stranger Things is the most blatant example.

There's also stuff like The Lovely Bones which seems to play into that false nostalgia vibe in a weird way. Both of these works have incorporated a lot of older music like Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush. I've only seen the first season of Stranger Things though but it was impossible not to hear about Running Up That Hill everywhere lol. I might watch the rest eventually but who knows.

These vids are so nostalgic and cozy in a weird way!

Really clever and creative! Loved the worldbuilding, that maze felt like a mix between Pixar and a horror movie.

I think it's the mix of nostalgia, mystery, spookiness, and most of all the intrigue of watching someone destroying their game from within the way we personally wouldn't have the courage and patience to.

This is such Creepy-Pasta material, you could make an ARG-ish thing with this sorta stuff-

(alternate reality game.)

I just... Find it really interesting that I wasn't trying to do anything especially initially but this kind of unfolded exactly like this anyway? Like what's the word... I don't think it's serendipity. Synchronicity? I feel like there was a film with the word I'm looking for that I've forgotten lol but synchronicity works so that will do.

Of course the original game also has these vibes and a lot of older video games have this uncanny vibe that combines with nostalgia now for people who grew up playing them. There are even some hobby fan games now based on ps1 titles that are kind of highlighting this.

People who procrastinate tend to have high levels of anxiety as well as poor impulse control.


Yes.

"Millennials weren't created in a vacuum; they were a reaction to many of the values of my generation and Gen X. Of course they were tired of our nihilism, our negativity, our coolness, our irony. Maybe it's normal to react against that with an aspirational viewpoint, but it's disturbing to hear them say "Why would I want to see that movie when it's so negative?"

This also only applies to certain groups of millennials which is an issue with generational theory more generally. If you consider 4chan they kind of took irony to the extreme and other people also use it as a way to obfuscate their real thoughts/feelings now.

I think a lot of us are tired of the negativity though from media at least. When you're kind of trapped living in a certain way you don't want it reflected back at you. I feel like The Walking Dead might have been the last straw. I dunno.

We do really like escapism though I think.

"There's a lot of stress; a lot of anxiety about being likeable; about dealing with technology; about being distracted by technology; and I think there's a real lack of pleasure in the amount of information they're privy to. You've got so much of everything that nothing really matters in the end."

I saw a headline some time ago that read: Bret Easton Ellis Takes On Generation Wuss?


That happened years ago on my Twitter feed where I began to notice things about my partner and his friends that were so shockingly weak. Little things that they couldn't do or were confused by. So I decided to put some of that stuff in my book [White] and I really did not think it was going to be circled so heavily and dissected by Millennial writers - I mean the angriest, longest reviews have been from Millennials. The reviewers were, like, "The old and irrelevant white writer Bret Easton Ellis". That is Millennial in a nutshell; Exhibit B of what I'm talking about: this over-reaching hysteria about anything that comes close to investigating the world with a critical eye. It's depressing in a way, but I never meant to poke a stick at Millennials.

I think it's because of that knowledge and information that we know every generation always does this and that makes everything feel a bit like an endless cycle/groundhog day or...

Like The Matrix.

Apparently there's going to be a musical of American Psycho which is quite insane. I wanted to blame millennials (in a good way,) but as with most musicals the creators are still gen x (or boomers):

It may not have seemed possible but American Psycho has been turned into a musical. Yep, all those ironic songs from the 1980s that Patrick Bateman played on the big screen as he hacked his way through the city of New York can now be heard in dandy musical format.

[Nyctophilia]

I started reading the liminal spaces wikipedia page which surprisingly I haven't read before then fell down a weird rabbit hole of reading a bunch of TV tropes pages about stuff I like. I had some more thoughts but then lost all of them when my browser crashed lol.

But I was thinking as I said in my previous post about the fact that liminal spaces are often nostalgic for people and it's interesting that the wikipedia page emphasises the uncanny valley aspect of liminal spaces. Obviously as it points out this is usually applied to Humanoids. But I feel like there's a kind of projected Humanity onto these spaces especially The Backrooms. This would also fit with the appeal of anthropomorphisation in recent years - objects, animals, plants along with the general classic speculative fiction stuff like aliens, robots, vampires, werewolves etc. Apparently this is more common for autistic people according to research and again seems to overlap with loneliness. There are some studies suggesting autistic people are more likely to be lonely than neurotypical people.

This sort of thing isn't new to Humanity though since animism is often described as a foundational belief in cultures:

Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion").[10] The term "animism" is an anthropological construct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminal_space_(aesthetic)

Research by Alexander Diel and Michael Lewis of Cardiff University has attributed the unsettling nature of liminal spaces to the phenomenon of the uncanny valley. The term, which is usually applied to humanoids whose inexact resemblance to humans elicits feelings of unease, may explain similar responses to liminal imagery. In this case, physical places that appear familiar but subtly deviate from reality create the sense of eeriness typical of liminal spaces.[1]

Also interesting that Mark Fisher has been referenced:

Peter Heft of Pulse: the Journal of Science and Culture further explores this sense of eeriness. Drawing on the works of Mark Fisher, Heft explains such eeriness may be felt when an individual views a situation in a different context to what they expect. For example, a schoolhouse, expected to be a busy amalgamation of teachers and students, becomes unsettling when depicted as unnaturally empty. This "failure of presence" was considered by Fisher to be one of the hallmarks of the aesthetic experience of eeriness.[2]

I figured this would be something that would appeal to him if he was still alive.

I was thinking about how my videos inspired similar reactions from people and it makes a lot of sense because there's the fact that the game is removed from it's original purpose/context and even while experimenting myself it can feel creepy lol. There's also the hybridisation element though that happened by accident initially, similar themes are part of the original game and I've always liked that and kind of incorporated stuff like that into my writing, drawing/painting, anything really. But this is a very common recurring theme for a lot of people.

Broadly, the term liminal space is used to describe a place or state of change or transition; this may be physical (e.g. a doorway) or psychological (e.g. the period of adolescence).[3] Liminal space imagery often depicts this sense of "in-between", capturing transitional places (such as stairwells, roads, corridors, or hotels) unsettlingly devoid of people.[4] The aesthetic may convey moods of eeriness, surrealness, nostalgia, or sadness, and elicit responses of both comfort and unease.[5]

This also interests me and I think even before I was really paying attention to liminal spaces (though I can't be sure,) I had the word liminal as some user title because I identified with that. I also used the word chaos on my old livejournal as a user title or the subtitle back in the 2000s. That's another word that became very popular in the 2010s with the whole order/chaos thing.

Also obviously the inspiration for liminal spaces is partly real life but also partly video games. Especially the backrooms meme so video games in general lend themself to that kind of thing. There's the kind of noclip thing in games. This is the description of the backrooms reddit page (probably came from 4chan originally):

If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.

And then like I said I fell down a TV tropes rabbit hole and found a lot of useful/related terms lol.

I was also thinking about how for a long while I'd been interested in emergent gameplay and narratives (not sure if those are the closest terms for what I mean,) like the Falador Massacre in Runescape and how it was incorporated later into the video game lore:

The Falador Massacre was an infamous glitch and subsequent violation of the bug abuse rule that occurred on 5/6 June 2006 in world 111[1][2], which gave it the nickname the "w111 glitch" or the "Doomsday Massacre" due to the date of the event abbreviating to 666.

Many players who gained this ability, against RuneScape rules, took advantage of it by attacking other players in crowded cities. A Jagex Moderator eventually took action by locking down the accounts of the massacre leaders. The players who took advantage of the bug were then given black marks, and those who killed a large number of players were permanently banned.

The bug initially spread from Rimmington[10] to Falador East bank[11] as players ran north trying to escape the attackers by the Rimmington house portal. Though most players abusing the bug were attacking nearby players, one also used it to protect players by attacking the bug abusers. Jagex' night shift Community Management team were quickly alerted to the event by the Player Moderators sending in emergency tickets through the website[12]. However, the reacting Jagex Moderators were unable to ban the PKers, as they couldn't be logged out whilst still in combat. Instead, the moderators messaged the bug abusers asking them to stop[13], waiting for the remaining abusers to leave combat before applying bans.

Runescape also breaks the 4th wall a lot in writing and builds that into some quests. Recently they also added a 'fake bug' with the advent calendar feature where there was a day 0 on the advent calender and then if you keep 'communicating' with the voice telling you you're not supposed to be there (creepy vibes again lol,) eventually they give you a treasure hunter key and then warn you if you keep bugging them they'll disappear and then vanishes.

The Corrupted Blood incident in WoW is similar leading to a virtual pandemic in game:

The Corrupted Blood incident (also known as the World of Warcraft pandemic[1][2]) took place between September 13 and October 8, 2005, in World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. When participating in a boss battle at the end of a raid, player characters would become infected with a debuff that was transmitted between characters in close proximity. While developers intended to keep the effects of the debuff in the boss's game region, a programming oversight soon led to an in-game pandemic throughout the fictional world of Azeroth.

Although it was the result of a software bug, the Corrupted Blood incident gained attention from World of Warcraft players and disease researchers. Blizzard developed intentional in-game pandemics in two expansion sets: Wrath of the Lich King in 2008 and Shadowlands in 2020. Epidemiologists, meanwhile, took interest in how MMORPGs, unlike mathematical models, could capture individual human responses to disease outbreaks rather than generating assumptions about behavior.

So yeah The glitch entity thing really interested me growing up too like missingno and glitch city in Pokemon red. That was really fascinating to me when I first learnt about it and started messing around to get that in that game when I was a kid:

A Glitch Entity is a Video Game item or character whose very existence is actually just a flaw in the game's internal programming. Can be considered a Good Bad Bug in and of itself, but all bets are off.
May be found in a Minus World, and often exists for the same sort of reason -- the game accidentally tries to load character data from a section of memory that is intended for some other purpose entirely, leading to the resulting "character" appearing. If a Glitch Entity is noticeably more powerful than anything obtainable at the point in the game that it can be gotten, using it treads into Not the Intended Use territory.

Because this character was never intended to actually exist, merely encountering the Glitch Entity can trigger an unpredictable bevy of side effects, ranging from other Good Bad Bugs to game crashes, or even more severe bugs. In the rare worst-case scenario, it can even corrupt the player's save file, forcing them to erase it and start the game over from the beginning. Some Glitch Entities can eventually become an Ascended Glitch, though.

There also exist In-Universe examples, characters who are living glitches, usually used to explore the concept and how they interact with the world they are in. They can range from benevolent characters to mischievous tricksters to malicious Digital Abominations. These characters are common antagonists in Digital Horror media.

I think glitches fall into a kind of uncanny territory too.

I can't remember 100% but I actually think I learnt about those things in Pokemon from other kids while on holiday lol? Some stuff I definitely did with those games but not sure about that. There were a lot of myths surrounding early Pokemon games as well.

Preying on the beloved experiences of your past and the inherent oddity and vulnerability (both to malevolent users and glitches) of the digital worlds you made them in, Digital Horror is a subgenre of horror that derives its scare factor from disturbing the memories of the viewer. It primarily takes the form of online video series, Video Games, urban legends passed through social media and Fora, and Websites.

Even when not relying on your sense of nostalgia, Digital Horror works lull you into a false sense of security by presenting themselves as being limited to the confines of the digital world -- only to pull the rug out from under you, either by messing with the in-universe protagonist or in the case of games and other forms of interactive fiction, affecting things outside the bounds of the work itself.

And yeah actually Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is a pretty great example of 'cosy horror' actually.

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared loosely plays with this in Episode 4, on top of its normal Disguised Horror Story flavor as an educational children's show.

Enter the Disguised Horror Story -- a work in the horror genre that masquerades as a non-horror work. It sets up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly drops the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work is the Subverted Kids' Show, which often employs a stereotypical, Sugar Bowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring. The marketing can further enhance the effect by intentionally hiding the true nature of the work and playing up its saccharine elements - though just as many give away the story's true nature in order to attract horror fans who might otherwise ignore it. Either way, the twist will generally only work for so long before the work becomes known for its hidden dark nature, but one can still expect at least a few complaints from parents who thought it would be a great thing to show their kids.

[Heelsbythebridge]

Everywhere is closed here till 10am besides coffee shops. I cannot drink anymore coffee

[Ironman]

Bundle up, Buttercup! It's going to be a long, cold week.

[Nyctophilia]

Before I get into the main thing I wanted to talk about in this post I went back to that guy's profile who makes audio stuff I've been listening to recently with the cute voice and he'd uploaded something with a male nymph character. It wasn't suitable for the purpose I was using it for (being vague haha,) but it was still cute and so weird that he decided to do that. I mentioned before in some other post that some of his other stuff weirdly fit my 'interests' like the femboy audio (technically I don't know if the word femboy was used but basically,) and apparently he wrote this script for a woman to upload and then he was listening to the uploads and thought it would be fun to switch the genders. So he re-uploaded it with a male nymph. It's so hard to find stuff like that but I used to write and daydream about lots of similar stuff as a teenger. I mean I didn't call them nymphs but like male or androgynous characters who have a connection to the forest and are plant elves (so Humanoid plants,) with various abilities, and things like that.

He seems to like comments so I should comment on his stuff. Especially that one... But I'm basically too lazy to many a new reddit account just to comment on 'things like that.' It's not easy to switch accounts either I have three already logged in on different browsers. YouTube reddit account for stuff related to my YT channel where I actually have followers and recently realised people can mention you on reddit so you get a notification which is weird, the reddit account that seems to have become about responding to anything that's controversial or gender related argumentatively maybe used once every 1-3 months sometimes less, and a reddit account just for responding to stuff about music or other interests. I've compartmentalised myself haha.

So a while back I was looking for romance stuff with humanoid male bunny hybrids (that guy also had something like that in audio form which inspired me but I'd read stuff about Humanoid bunnies before and thought the idea was cute a few times in recent years before stumbling on his audio,) I've found though that a lot of the stuff I like and the themes I like only exist in slash or homoerotic form which is increasingly annoying to me. Like the straight stuff is just automatically heteronormative and I don't mind reading that, I read a variety of stuff, but not all the time (it's not even what I like to imagine most of the time when thinking about guys I find attractive hence audio stuff.) It's also impossible to find stuff that's sort of 'non-binary' and even if I could it would prob be some weird gen z stereotype that didn't work for me.

The reason I struggle with slash stuff now is because I don't want to feel bad about the fact I'm not a cis guy, and I don't have a dick but at the same time that stuff technically works better and I don't want to imagine myself in a female sexual role because of dysphoria etc so it's just... Terrible all round. At least with sex. (if I end up self inserting anyway, usually I don't.)

But while searching for that Humanoid bunny thing Google sent me an entirely unrelated reddit thread of some guy asking for romance stories written for men. (I've mentioned this before too but this is an update.)

In this thread I discovered The Rosie Project which I thought would have appealed to me in my late teens and early 20s because of the main character.

Once around that time I picked up The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Nighttime because my mum had it on her bookshelf and the cover caught my attention then I just read the whole thing in a day or two.

I also really like romance stuff with characters who are either autistic or coded as having similar traits which is why I was reading Spock/Uhura fanfiction at the time and again recently (also because I wanted to read something romantic recently and the Star Trek universe is more optimistic than the clusterfuck that is social media. So it was either that or LoTR with elves) Also used to like Sheldon/Penny fanfiction at one point briefly.

There were lots of negative reviews of the book when I looked into it. The Internet kind of ruined people like this and now everyone's a transphobic tradcon who is against surrogacy and uses evo-psych to argue for all these things etc (exaggeration,) and I don't read fiction books anymore only fanfiction and erotica so I decided not to read it but then felt the urge to read it again yesterday so I read the amazon preview first and I kind of liked the main character's 'voice' so then decided to buy the ebook.

I've read just over 50 percent of the book so far and there's something pretty interesting about it.

Something I like about the main character is he has a system for food where he cooks the same thing weekly to reduce cognitive load. This is why I cook the same thing over and over again because I don't enjoy cooking and I don't want to think about it much. But unlike him I don't have an exact system and I haven't optimised this nutritionally which is something I'd want to do/should do ideally but I'm not that organised and I'm more chaotic (the main character is very conscientious which has a lot of advantages, I'm the opposite of that usually lol,) and so I just stick to basic stuff which is often less ideal. It also takes a while before you can cook something on autopilot if it's more complicated.

When I say I'm more chaotic. I have over 2000 tabs open right now in Google Chrome alone (I also have a bunch of stuff open in firefox and edge,) and it's affecting the performance of my PC and causing Chrome to crash periodically. I need to go through a bunch of them and close them.

The main character (age 39,) is an autistic professor who designs a questionnaire to find the perfect wife. He is best friends with another professor (ate 56,) who is in an open marriage and has sex with lots of women of every nationality (the main character describes this as his project he sees everything as a science project,) the main female love interest (age 29) dyes her hair, wears alternative fashion, and has strong feminist views that come out, the main character and his best friend are very focused on genetics evo-psych etc, main character is quite judgmental in a kind of pragmatic way especially about intelligence, the rest I will have to put under a spoiler tag

Spoiler: It turns out she's a student but works part time at a gay bar the main character eventually questions if she's gay on this basis. It's not revealed straight away but she's a student of the guy who sleeps around and she doesn't like him and considers him a sexist pig. Main character eventually realises she was the woman arguing with his friend when he came to talk to his friend. When the main character asks him if she's gay the best friend's response is to say 'she might as well be have you seen how she dresses.'

She also hid that she was a student instead of just a bartender as she disliked the stereotypes about intelligence she also dislikes the term barmaid (at one point she mentions shes bad at maths and it's her least favourite part of her job so main character concludes she has a low IQ,)

Also the main character is helping her find her biological dad as she was raised by another man she doesn't get on well with and her mum died when she was 10.

This is a bit of a cliche and is a scenario a lot of men online fixate on now so it's interesting to see that included here too.

It loosely matches the backstory of Kat Bjelland lead singer of Babes In Toyland (riot grrrl band,) I was reading about the other day. Whose mum left and so she was raised by her step dad and she didn't get on with her step mum but weirdly people only fixate on the daddy issues part when it comes to girls and women...

Katherine Lynne Bjelland was born on December 9, 1963,[3] in Salem, Oregon, to Lynne Irene Bjelland (n?e Higginbotham).[4] She is of English and German descent.[5] Bjelland was raised by her mother and stepfather, Lyle Bjelland, until age 3, when her mother separated from her stepfather and gave him full custody, after which he raised her as his own.[5][6] She was not made aware of her biological father until age 18, and did not meet him until age 23.[5] "[It] was weird", Bjelland recalled of the revelation. "I was like, 'Huh? I have a different dad? I'm not Norwegian?!'"[5]

[...]

Bjelland's stepfather subsequently remarried, after which she claimed to have been physically and verbally abused by his wife.[8][9] "You know, I really hate to talk about it because she's great now, but in my childhood she was very abusive", Bjelland said. "It probably did help my creativity a lot [though]. I was always grounded. I hate to talk about it because I feel like she doesn't think that she did it, but she was [abusive] and it influenced my life quite a great deal."[9]

Main character can't figure out why she dislikes her stepdad or is looking for a deeper reason than those she lists. Stuff she talks about atm is: he seemed to buy her affection, never got to know her, and would get her girly stuff for her birthdays which she disliked instead of a chess set which her mum's close friends brought her, also emotionally inconsistent and promised things without following through.

Also I feel like I knew straight away who her biological father is going to be, and if it turns out to be him that was pretty predictable lol (at least to me.)


My aunt has gotten me girly Christmas presents the last two years like stuff prepubescent female children might like honestly. It's hard to picture adults in general liking that stuff. Like pink girly slipper socks with love hearts on, and some pick girly hair brush last year also this little box with soap in. The soap is practical at least but then the box would have been OK - it had like some kind of newspaper print thing on it but then there was pink glitter on it. I hate this and she's wasting her money but I'm not in contact with her. She just gives them to my mum. The stuff she gets for my brother fits better like she got him a multitool I think and then just a hat this year. He found it hilarious. If it was from someone who did know me it would definitely be an obvious joke.

Also I was very girly as a young child (probably why she buys that stuff, yet the obvious double standard with my brother,) so I feel like that phase of my life is over. I don't have to do it again. I've played that game already lol. Even then there was other stuff I liked like computers, video games etc. This is why gender roles are retarded though.

When me and my friend buy stuff for each other we just ask each other lol and then buy stuff most of the time. We were doing that recently because we have overlapping birthdays.

The trans debate so far doesn't make an appearance at all (this book was published in 2013,) but otherwise it's like the author decided to take the culture war and turn it into a romance book. That's the interesting thing about the book. That subtext which is there.

I'm enjoying it for the same reason I enjoyed reading all the other stuff I mentioned before.

It feels like a book that would piss everyone off but for different reasons. Romance books shouldn't be this polarising but they often are. There's also this tendency to hate everything women like eg: Twilight, Justin Bieber, kpop, but this isn't even that lol. Although in a sense it kind of is.

I noticed before (from what I remember anyway,) a lot of people felt the main character was a dick, his best friend was terrible, and questioned the main character's martial arts ability 'like the writer wanted to make autistic James Bond.' I think someone said.. Except he doesn't do well in social situations at all.. I do think it's slightly unrealistic and the characters fit very obvious group archetype/stereotype roles but it fits in well with how people are now online.

Also one reddit thread had the title: The Rosie Project is the worst book I've ever read.

It would be surprising if someone said it was the best book they ever read (unless they hadn't read many books even by my standards,) but it seems like an overreaction so far. I've definitely read worse stuff in this genre.

For example, there's a scene where he is somehow giving a lecture to an auditorium of college students and researchers and during the question and answer portion he calls on a woman in the back by saying, "Yes you, the large fat woman! What's your question?" The author tries to write it as a funny scene as if he's just socially awkward but in reality it's brutally cruel.

That's not how I read it and that isn't an exact quote either. It is unbelievable that someone would be that socially unaware about that in the present day though. They'd have to be very socially clueless. I've met a couple of people online who fit that but most don't. My brother's best friend is also autistic and I can't imagine him saying something like that. He clearly doesn't get various social norms/cues and comes across very differently from neurotypical people (so he's obviously autistic and that's why he was diagnosed as a kid,) but yeah.

The main character is like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory but on steroids. He's a super genius, who's also apparently good looking, a young professor at a very prestigious university, in incredible physical shape and he even knows martial arts like Jason Bourne.

The story is that he's actually got some kind of mental issue, like an extreme case of autism or aspergers (the author's words, not mine), that makes him unable to understand social cues or engage romantically with women. He doesn't come off as quirky or cute like Sheldon Cooper or Steve Urkel. He's a total psychopath and just downright mean.

Yeah I thought they went with James Bond lol but same thing.

All the female characters he meets are immediately head over heals horny for him for some reason. They're also all described as "stunning, beautiful etc". I can't recall anything being memorable about the female character's thoughts or minds.

This isn't really accurate. The book constantly highlights how he can't make or keep relationships platonic or otherwise. It does point out at least once that he's physically fit. He seems to be the only person who finds Rosie as attractive as he does so far, and the other female characters vary a lot in appearance. It's from his pov so aside from when you hear other character's comments you don't see how other people view the characters, or what the other character's are thinking and he's also autistic so not a good judge.

Again I'm only 50% of the way through though.

So, anyway the main character, in a quest to find a female breeding partner, makes a checklist of 200 questions for each women to complete so he can determine a perfect match for himself. It's absurd.

My girlfriend and I tried, really tried to get through this book and we quit 3/4ths of the way through. The main character is just unbelievable, irredeemable and boring. The author has no idea what asbergers really looks like.

Now, whyyyy did I suggest this book to my gf and why did I try reading it? I'll tell you but you won't believe me -- I had a chance run in with Bill Gates several years ago. Just a short conversation, the kind you'd have in an elevator. I asked him if he was reading any good books at the time and he said, "oh yeah, Melinda and I read The Rosie Project, it was really good. Check it out." I said I would and that was the one and only conversation I ever had with him

I forgot about this this review is great haha. If this is true.

It's the worst book I've ever read. It's like a really, really dumb 1970s romcom.

Yeah some people really hated it.

I bet his girlfriend secretly liked it. Or he's worried she might.

'You don't like Amanda Palmer do you? No.'

Something like that. Has the same energy lol.

I was gifted this book and felt pressured to read it so I did. The worst part of it is when the character continues to hang out with Rosie, he becomes more sociable and has less autistic tendencies like she is curing him 🙄

Copying others? behavior is something that helps those on the autism spectrum. Girls are often undiagnosed until later in life because they seem to do this better than boys. So, it?s not a cure because autism is not a disease, but people do adapt their behavior given their environment and social influences, so this believable : )

Yep.

You're amazing for explaining this in such a nice way. This post has got me so frustrated.

If you'll notice, it's not usually autistic people claiming how the book is "sooooo unrealistic 🙄"

lol. The backlash to it is more 'problematic' than the book I think.

Ftr I haven't even noticed what they're even talking about yet. It hasn't happened yet.

It's so offensive to women and also people with social difficulties and mental health issues simultaneously

Also having never read it, I'll say from what I've read here is that it comes across as an incel fantasy.

I love how this word has lots 100% of it's meaning in the 2020s haha.

I still remember how infuriated that teenage boy was with Justin Bieber and Justin Bieber is actually a dick but he was so violently angry and talking about how he wanted to stab and kill him and it was fascinating to watch in this video clip I saw again recently. Someone had included it in their video about something. Some video essay. And it's obviously coming from a place of envy.

Edit Just clarifying here that I don't claim to know a single thing about the Autism Spectrum or whatever the term Aspergers used to mean. The author used these words and claims to understand them very well. My criticism is that he has no idea what he's talking about and his use of these terms is offensive to some*.

How can you possibly argue it's unrealistic if you don't know anything?

I never met these people irl at uni in the 2010s though people I met then fit other stereotypes sometimes or less extreme apolitical versions of these. Now I live back in a working class town so people are even further removed. I stopped dying my hair 10 years ago. But these people exist in the US in universities, weird niche subcultures and online.

I also think the questionnaire thing is something people in the rationalist community actually do online to find partners. I've seen people do similar stuff at least, and online over the years I've spoken to lots of people who are very similar to the main character (in that community or adj to it,) so they exist as well.

The book is probably set in Australia though because the author is Australian yet I'm 50% of the way through and you could imagine it's any Anglosphere country that has dollars as a currency and it's not clear to me where it's set except that it's not the UK. That's interesting too.

The culture war isn't the main theme. I don't think it was intended to be or even that that's what the writer had in mind but it still seems to be there as a backdrop for the entire work. Just like it's a backdrop to people's entire life. I can't visit my dad without him using the word woke.

I also was really surprised to realise who the female character was. I was expecting someone entirely different (even moreso after seeing it suggested on the subreddit where I initially found it,) and that was a really odd direction to go in lol.

I mean because a lot of men online aren't exactly huge fans of aggressive women who dye their hair and talk about gender roles etc. Whether they self identify as feminists or not.

My ex boyfriend who I'm still friends with is a less stereotypical version of this personality type though and he's a computer programmer. He also doesn't listen to music much (but sometimes creates it.) Unlike this guy he never drank alcohol though and was even more introverted I would say but also not as socially unaware (not diagnosed autistic.)

My personality is a mixture of both of those stereotypes + aesthetics and others.

Very weird/uncomfortable to be making this connection but I'm using it as a kind of comparison point I guess to argue that it's not that unrealistic irl if you don't think of people as 2d Memes and the extreme version of certain personas. Also if you don't expect some kind of happy ending for life.

Also like with that female character a few people made statements about me being a lesbian (I'd guess now people would assume you're non-binary if you present that way instead of gay because that style became associated.) or questioned why I act like a guy or complained about me not wearing dresses, that I'm boring to shop with, or commented on how I don't fulfil other gender roles at a similar time period (early 2010s.) Kind of weird because I saw my style then as being feminine and not how most guys would present (also never had short hair,) but then a lot of the comments probably weren't about style as well. Some of it seemed to be body language and how I interacted with people. Sometimes people read me (or did,) as being young too because of my social anxiety and personality (which has always bothered me obviously.) I was also forced into a makeover in high school once. So a lot of this stuff that people think is unrealistic in films etc actually happens lol. Also films, TV etc then inspire people to do that stuff.

It's also very millennial.

[Doseone]

I keep having a dream about me writing an unfinished book. I've never considered writing a book, but I remember my neighbor saying that I will write a book when I told him I used to write (bad) poetry when I was younger. He said he wrote poetry, so that's how it came up.