#To adopt an identity related to another to feel some semblance of self. To feel one can be accepted if they change themself; perhaps.

[king-callmeyour]

I believe that I am fronting though perhaps I am not; perhaps I am another speaking through this personification, this representation, this presentation.

Regardless, I will post the to-do list.

Wash dishes

Refill water container

Prepare to take out trash (including bathroom)

Make sure the cats are fed and cared for, I suppose.

Perhaps remind our roommate of his idea to take us out someplace.

Contemplate going out to buy a drink. Food if it's enticing.

As optional objectives:

Do simple figure/gesture studies

-> Learn to not change proportions as you work (typically going from small to large and then finding the legs are much larger and longer than the torso than the head).

Start learning Japanese (despite knowing we will not make much progress)

Attempt to make progress in our Sekiro save(s).

Learn more about Asian culture and history.

Try not to forget about playing honkai star rail (and ignore our roommate's comment about how it's basically Genshin :/)

I would like to add on that yesterday, perhaps the day before (ignore that it is past midnight, this treats it as if today is the 23rd), we have obtained a new fixation. It would be most obvious, of course, but it is the game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The moment it clicked was when Wolf started to smile during the cutscene after killing Emma. Returning to a thought previous, perhaps these fixations should be seen more often through the lens of BPD and FPs, as it becomes increasingly obvious that that must be how we experience it (that 'click', the switch that we had always associated with limerence).

But regardless, it is now a fixation that has begun to eat away at us. I would not regard it as a flashback per se, more an intrusion, but there was a brief flicker of a moment where imagery of Sekiro and Kuro flashed in our mind, and it greatly impacted our emotions. It affected us deeply in that fraction of a second for an unknown reason.

Initially, and presently, we were quite against having this be a new fixation. Primarily due to our roommates and how we would present to them due to such a thing. However, opinions fluctuate and presently, it is a non issue... to an extent. One can only say so much after there had been a panic attack borne from said fixation and the strong aversion to having it.

So, as this is no longer such an issue, we will be... hesitantly, allowing ourself to be... more overt? In the changes this will cause? It is difficult to state, and I am/we are uncertain, but nonetheless it will be.

We are deciding to allow ourself to think what we think, feel what we feel, and become what we may. If it is heavily influenced by the game and its characters, story and themes, then so be it.

One must free themself from the shackles of shame and fear. Allow yourself existence. If we appear to change who we are, it would be unfair to allow another to dictate who you are allowed to be. If they do not like it, {"so mote it be"}{shush; we don't even partake in that (not anymore)} then so be it. Be whoever you are at any given moment; you deserve to find yourself and actualize it.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.3

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as we properly began chapter 6’s investigation, the Hope’s Peak book in Kokichi’s lab was obviously planted and had nothing to do with him, a random kid in one of Shuichi’s fake flashbacks was delightfully relevant to Kaito’s issues, Kokichi’s room was a mess in both a literal and a narrative sense, his motive video at least gave some insight into how he could have been sometimes not a dick and had some vague semblance of actual friendship, Himiko was clearly thinking of Kaito as she declared herself Shuichi’s sidekick, it must have sucked to be Rantaro just before his memories were erased, and another fake flashback happened to show just how amazing Kaito was at hiding his illness.

We’ve finished investigating Rantaro’s lab, and Himiko has now left to go check Rantaro’s dorm room for the other part of his Survivor Perk that he mentioned in the video. (This is the same oversight the writers made with Kokichi’s dorm room in that nobody should be capable of entering it without Keebo blowing up the door. And while Monokuma could potentially have forgotten to lock Kokichi’s door in all the confusion of case 5, Rantaro’s door has been very explicitly locked since the end of chapter 1.)

Shuichi is about to go and head to the library next, since Keebo can blow open the hidden door for him, but before he can, Tsumugi shows up to tell him to come and see something in Kaito’s lab instead. Possibly she’s trying to distract him in the hopes that he’ll never have time to get around to the library, but it’s probably mostly just that she really wants him to see some totally relevant evidence that totally isn’t a red herring. It is very telling that the thing Tsumugi helps you investigate in this chapter is the one thing that’s related to the in-universe story about the Gofer Project and the spaceship, while everything that everyone else helps you find is related to the real truth of the situation that proves that story false – that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair, Rantaro’s previous killing game, etc.

(It’s rather misleading that they describe Kaito’s lab as being on the sixth floor, when we’re currently on the fifth floor and so you’d think that the way there would be to go up. But nope, the only way to Kaito’s lab is all the way back down to the first floor and then up the spiral staircase behind that one door. Of course Kaito’s lab just had to be special, that dork.)

(I also messed up dealing with an Exisal that was in the way. While obviously the Exisals here won’t actually kill Shuichi if you don’t call Keebo to get rid of them quickly enough, they do have an animation which implies Shuichi gets picked up and thrown backwards into the nearest wall, which is neat. So, uh, that happened a couple of times here. Sorry, Shuichi.)

As soon as we enter the cold sleep room that’s been blown open behind Kaito’s lab, there’s another flashback, and it’s… everyone we care about! Well, sort of. This never really happened and is just Tsumugi’s fanfiction of how they would have interacted while meeting each other and preparing to go into cold sleep, but at least she gets them in-character. Or maybe it’s just some kind of simulation based on the data about their personalities in the Flashback Light computer. …Not that it’s super hard to get them right in this context, because this isn’t a very complex conversation and so they’re mostly just displaying their most recognisable character traits.

This is supposedly everyone meeting for the first time, which is the only point at which it actually matters that they were apparently all in different classes at Hope’s Peak, making that a very unnecessary plot point of the previous Flashback Light. Even if they were in different classes, though, wouldn’t each Gofer Project member have sought out the other ones after hearing they’re in the project together, to get to know them better? They’d especially want to talk to that one guy who’s already an astronaut; surely he’d have some interesting thoughts on this situation and would be able to tell them what it’d be like on a spaceship.

Kaito:  “But y’know, it’s a man’s dream to leave Earth behind and travel across the stars!”

Oh, Kaito, of course it is. Mostly just for the kind of man that you are, though. Curiosity!

(grrr I know this isn’t really Kaito and is just a display of some of his most obvious character traits, but I miss him.)

There’s all kinds of stuff here reminding us of old character interactions – Maki jabbing at Kaito even before they were friends, Kaito reacting to being called an idiot, Kokichi being a dick to Keebo (you know, that thing that made him so lovable), Kiyo hinting at being a fucking serial killer (ditto), which, to at least some extent, really does bring back fond memories of when everyone was alive and things weren’t so bleak. There’s also lots of Kaede, being her adorable optimistic self!

Kaede:  “We’re friends from here on out.”

Kokichi:  “Hmm… Even though you just met us and you don’t even know what we’re like?”

They even managed to fit Kokichi’s trust issues in there.

Kaito:  “No matter how many times we fight, we smile in the end… That’s what true friendship is.”

I would say this is also Kaito being good, but… I’m not completely sure that this is something the real him would have said, actually. It sounds a bit too simplistically waxing-lyrical-about-friendship with nothing distinctively Kaito about it. Especially when you consider the fact that Kaito very rarely referred to Shuichi and Maki as his friends because he was so hung up on the whole hero-and-sidekick thing.

But regardless, because this at least seems on the surface to be the characters we know and (mostly) love, this is the one flashback which actually does inspire hope for us in the audience too! And it probably gives more hope to Shuichi than any of the others did, because this one is based on the people who were real and he genuinely cared about instead of only feeling like he cared about them in the first place through fake memories. These are the people he’s already said are his source of hope, and it’s almost like he’s seeing them all again.

While every character in the flashback had at least one line, most of them didn’t have much more than one or two, except for Kaede and Kaito, who had the most. I wonder if this is just because they would be the two most talkative while meeting a new group of people and trying to encourage them all to get along, or whether it’s because we’re seeing a version of this scene which is tailored to Shuichi specifically and therefore puts the most emphasis on the people he cared about the most (and, for example, Himiko’s version gave Tenko and Angie more lines).

Flashback over, the reason Tsumugi really brought us here, of course, is a document about the Gofer Project participants that just happens to be here (why would this have even been left in the cold sleep room of all places?). Specifically, she wants us to see the part of it that claims Kaede had a twin sister.

Tsumugi:  “It said her sister was adopted by a relative and they barely had any contact, but…”

This serves as a convenient excuse for why Kaede never mentioned having a twin. If they didn’t live together, this twin would be functionally more like a cousin to her and not a significant enough part of her life for Kaede to be likely to bring her up unless she was specifically asked about extended family.

But, really? I don’t think Kaede even had a twin at all. Obviously, technically her entire family wasn’t real and was all fake backstory, but I mean in the sense of Kaede thinking she had a twin and remembering that as something about herself. I don’t think she did. This is a desperate last-minute red herring of Tsumugi’s that goes nowhere; if she’d had this idea in mind from before Kaede’s creation then you’d think she’d have gone somewhere with it and made it into an actual thing.

Tsumugi:  “I’m still a little worried. Because Junko Enoshima also had a twin sister.”

Shuichi: “Ah, true, but…”

Tsumugi:  “On top of that, Junko used her twin sister to run her killing game from behind the scenes. I mean… it’s probably just a coincidence, but I thought I should mention it to you, Shuichi.”

For her supposedly thinking it’s probably nothing, she sure is pressing this point that Junko was the same as if she’s trying to get him to think this isn’t nothing, now, isn’t she.

Shuichi:  (This is the first time I’m hearing that Kaede has a twin. But is that… relevant? It doesn’t really matter, does it?)

But Shuichi knows exactly what the fuck is up. This is not remotely relevant, and the fact that Junko had a twin doesn’t change that. The only actual relevance this has is to hint towards the real mastermind’s identity, since Tsumugi was so insistent about telling us this.

As some bonus dialogue, Tsumugi wonders where Maki and Himiko are.

Shuichi:  “Maki is in Kokichi’s room at the dorms.”

Tsumugi:  “Kokichi’s dorm room? Why’s she there?”

Heh, Tsumugi looks slightly worried at this, almost as if she’s afraid they might have seen Kokichi’s motive video and realised he wasn’t a Remnant of Despair at all.

Next, Shuichi and Tsumugi head to the library together and find Maki already there.

Maki:  “…I knew you would come here.”

Maki’s smiling as she says this! She’s friends enough with Shuichi that she’s come to understand him pretty well, and she’s happy about that fact!

Huh, I’m pretty sure that if you ever came back to the library at any point during earlier chapters past 1, the books Kaede set up had been put back to the mess they were in before. But in this scene, they’re still organised. Guess that’s another minor oversight.

Maki:  “I found a design that worried me a little. It was drawn with *too* much detail…”

If you think about it, Kokichi shouldn’t have needed to draw such a detailed blueprint in order for it to be something Miu could make. Miu is the inventor; she should be able to take someone’s idea of “I want a thing that can do this” and figure out the blueprints and how to build it herself. The writers could have had Maki identify a relevant design simply from the fact that it seems actually buildable and potentially useful compared to all his other childish ideas, without the blueprint needing to be detailed.

This blueprint was for the Bugvac, which Maki then grabbed a finished prototype of from Miu’s lab. Despite it being a prototype, it has apparently already been used a few times, which begs the question of how much Kokichi knew about this. If he was the one who used it, he should have known he wouldn’t be able to see these “tiny bugs” for himself and should in theory have gone to Gonta to ask if he could see them. It’s quite possible this did happen, and Kokichi was able to confirm how Monokuma’s surveillance worked and be sure an Electrobomb would knock out the cameras. (Of course, if so, he still never told anyone else about this because lol what is being helpful, that might compromise his plan.) Or it’s possible he just never got around to this – maybe this was the last thing Miu built, and by the time Kokichi realised it was finished, Miu and Gonta were already dead thanks to him, good job Kokichi.

Himiko then also shows up, but is hesitant to say what she found in Rantaro’s room.

Himiko:  “If I say I didn’t find anything, you’re gonna decide I’m useless, aren’t you…? I-I won’t let that happen…”

Aww, don’t worry, Himiko, you’re still a good sidekick. Someone­ had to search Rantaro’s room to confirm there’s nothing in there, and that’s still a useful clue in itself! I do like this little bit in this chapter of Himiko wanting to be useful. After seeing so many others try so hard to make a difference, she must have realised she hasn’t really contributed much herself, and she wants that to change!

Himiko:  “You’ve got guts to label me, the legendary mage, useless!”

This is… perhaps a little bit Kaito of her? It’s not quite exactly like him, because Kaito would never pull out his Luminary of the Stars line when confronted with how useless he felt (he was probably aware how empty and desperate that’d sound), but he did often try and act like he was a much better investigator than he definitely knew he was and what do you mean he’s useless. Himiko having started to feel useless and wanting to be more help in investigations without knowing how is, after all, rather Kaito of her too.

(Why yes, I am also going to be finding every excuse possible to bring up Kaito in this chapter even when the game isn’t directly referencing him, and you can’t stop me here either.)

Himiko:  “Maybe… the mastermind is hiding behind this hidden door?”

Maki:  “Then, if we kill them… we can end this killing game…”

Shuichi:  “No, I told you, we can’t kill them. If you do that, we’d be the same—”

Listen to Shuichi, Maki Roll! And remember what happened the last time you tried to kill the mastermind! It’s so sad that this is still her ingrained go-to method for solving any problem that doesn’t have an easy solution.

Maki:  “…You don’t have to tell me. I’m not going to kill… I’m just going to get revenge. It’s weird… Sometimes, you’re just like him, you know?”

But she’s fighting against that ingrained instinct! She is learning from what Kaito taught her! And even though anyone would not want their friend to kill someone, Maki associates that sentiment with Kaito in particular because he was always so adamant about saving her from ever killing again.

I also like the way she just says “him”, because she knows Shuichi will know exactly who she’s talking about. He’s still so important to them.

Maki:  “I’ll go in first… I’m the only one who can fight if anything happens.”

And she’s realising that she can fight to protect people! She wasn’t able to use her skills to protect Kaito in the end, but at least she still can for the rest of her friends!

Motherkuma:  “Puhuhu… You found me. Or rather, you just found a place that you were meant to find.”

Sort of. Motherkuma definitely didn’t plan for things to enter “endgame” mode just yet, but since Keebo’s gone rogue and there’s nothing he can do about that, I suppose he does now want to give them hints that’ll help them figure out the mastermind so that the story can be entertaining.

Motherkuma explains that he’s the machine that can make spare Monokumas, and everyone thinks it’s too convenient that he’s just admitting this, which I suppose is a reasonable excuse for why they all then try and get him to prove it.

Shuichi:  “Could you do that right now?”

Tsumugi:  “Yeah! Try and make a new Monokuma!”

Tsumugi is the first one to directly ask, before Motherkuma has brought up the word “birth”. Because of this, it doesn’t seem so out of place that she doesn’t use that word.

Motherkuma:  “I can’t birth a Monokuma for someone who doesn’t love me.” […]

Himiko:  “Whatever, just give birth to a Monokuma!”

Motherkuma:  “No! I won’t do it! I’m not gonna birth one for someone I don’t like just cuz they tell me to!”

Maki:  “…Hurry up and give birth to a Monokuma.”

Motherkuma:  “…”

Shuichi:  “…Are you listening? We said to give birth to a new Monokuma.”

And then once Motherkuma uses the word, everyone else who asks phrases it that way. Which honestly is still pretty forced – that’s not the usual way you’d describe a robot making a copy of itself – but it’s at least somewhat reasonable why they all used that word when Tsumugi did not. And of course Tsumugi doesn’t chip in on this sudden train of people awkwardly saying “birth”, because she’s totally already asked him to do that, right?

I say this is awkwardly forced that everyone says “birth” like this, but even so, I absolutely did not catch the significance of this at all, even after Motherkuma later explained that the word “birth” was important. If Tsumugi had only asked after everyone else had said “birth” and had not used that word, it would probably have stuck out, but because she went beforehand, it’s genuinely pretty innocuous even if everyone else using the word seems a bit odd.

Tsumugi:  “I wonder if the thing about the spares… was a lie after all.”

Shuichi:  (A lie, huh… But why lie about that? There has to be some motivation to lie…)

Obviously it’s not at all a lie. But even if it was a lie and Motherkuma couldn’t make spares (and there was always just the one spare Monokuma lying around for that one time at the beginning I guess?), lying about it would make perfect sense. The supposed Monokuma-making machine was exactly why Kaede ended up “killing” Rantaro, and keeping up that lie even now would help prevent Shuichi from figuring out it was all just a trap.

Survivor Perk Monopad:  Your best chance of exposing them is when Monokuma needs a spare. At that time, the mastermind will go to the library’s hidden room.

Yep. Rantaro was very much lured there by the mastermind so that (hopefully) Kaede would kill him.

Survivor Perk Monopad:  To prove this hint is accurate, I will predict something. The first thing you will remember is the Ultimate Hunt.

Still not sure how that was supposed to be any proof of credibility at all (especially since the plan was to get Rantaro killed before that Flashback Light even happened). Maybe it was purely to get Rantaro to mention it and make himself sound even more suspicious and end up feeling even less safe trusting anyone, which is exactly what happened.

Survivor Perk Monopad:  Only share this information with people who you know you can trust. How you determine that will mean your life or your death.

And they definitely didn’t want Rantaro to go trusting anyone enough to tell them about his plan in case that prevented Kaede from accidentally killing him. So here’s another part that’s trying to make Rantaro super paranoid.

Survivor Perk Monopad:  —Rantaro Amami

Yeah, no, it wasn’t written by Rantaro’s past self at all. This whole thing is simply a note, so there’s no proof it was really from him, and everything in it is designed to get Rantaro killed off in exactly the way that it happened.

Shuichi wonders about the blood on the Monopad, and Maki offers to go retrieve the relevant photo of Rantaro from Kokichi’s room since he was such a convenient mysterious hoarder.

Shuichi:  “Maki… be careful, okay? Keebo and the Exisals are fighting—”

Maki:  “Hey, who do you think I am?” [she smiles] “…Do you want to die?”

[Maki runs off]

Shuichi:  “…I’ve finally reached the point where I can tell that was a joke.”

They are friends! It’s not just that Shuichi can tell she’s joking now, but also that Maki’s become better at showing when she’s joking. I also just like Shuichi worrying about her – of course he already knows she can protect herself and she doesn’t actually need to remind him, but he still worries just a little bit about her getting hurt anyway because she’s his friend!

Shuichi:  (Inspecting it closely, I can see several pink fibers stuck to the surface of the shot.) “They’re pink…” (Wait! That means, this shot…) [he winces] “…” (…I understand. I know how to pin down the mastermind of this killing game…)

Shuichi obviously can’t directly voice what he just figured out because the players need a game to play, but regardless, I do like this moment of him realising that… Oh. Oh, shit, Kaede didn’t actually kill Rantaro, that’s awful… but at least he can use that fact to end this game and finally fulfil her wish.

Shuichi has one last flashback, about when Monokuma woke him up from cold sleep to taunt him before wiping his memories.

Monokuma:  “Although we’re meeting for the first time, you already know me… Puhuhu… Well, of course you know. I’m famous, after all.”

While Monokuma goes on to clarify that this is because everyone watched the Hope’s Peak killing game, these lines here happen to amusingly line up perfectly well with the real truth. He could have said these exact lines to pregame Shuichi, hypothetically.

Monokuma:  “The bonds of trust you’ve forged, your disgusting promises of friendship… All that’s gonna go bye-bye when the killing game starts!”

Yeah, there’s definitely not going to be any bonds of trust or promises of friendship whatsoever in this killing game, right? Hah. This is supposed to make them sad about losing those bonds, but really they forged better bonds after the killing game started than they had in that one supposed brief conversation beforehand. (It was stupid of Tsumugi to write that they were in different classes and didn’t know each other; that just makes this backstory seem even more irrelevant.)

Shuichi:  “What…? Wh-Why are you doing this…?”

Monokuma:  “There’s no point in asking me questions. You’re gonna forget everything, anyway.”

Shuichi:  “Who’s behind this!? Who *are* you!? Junko Enoshima is dead—”

Monokuma:  “Like I said, there’s no point. You’ll just forget that, too.”

Since he’s going to forget this, Monokuma should have no reason not to explain himself anyway only to taunt him that he’ll just forget it all. But he doesn’t, because the only actual reason this exchange exists is as something Shuichi will “remember”, and they didn’t want to give him any meaningful information in it. Or rather, since there is no meaningful information in a backstory that’s all lies, Tsumugi probably hadn’t even figured out the exact supposed reason for this killing game in the context of the Hope’s Peak universe at all, so it was easier to just be vague.

Monokuma:  “I’m gonna use this light, then I’m gonna shove you all into lockers while you’re unconscious…”

So apparently everybody was in lockers at the beginning. But there aren’t sixteen lockers in this school. Damn it, this game and its thing of how any part of the story that you the player don’t need to interact with simply doesn’t exist as part of the game world.

Himiko volunteers to stay behind in the hidden room to look for more clues, since she still feels that she hasn’t been particularly useful yet.

Himiko:  “With my skills, I’ll catch the dastardly Monokuma and the mastermind!”

Shuichi:  “…I understand. Then I’ll leave it to you, Himiko.”

Himiko:  “What? W-Wait, really? Are you seriously going to leave it to me? All by myself?”

Aww. She’s not used to people actually believing in her and giving her this much responsibility! She was talking herself up like the great mage she totally is, but she doesn’t really think she’s that good at helping at all.

Himiko:  “Since you believe in me, I need to give it my all… I’ll find the clue, even if it uses up every last drop of my magic and kills me!”

Tsumugi:  “D-Don’t say such unlucky things…”

Himiko:  “I’m just letting you know how determined I am. You guys should believe in me and go on ahead.”

Shuichi:  “Thank you. That really makes me feel better, Himiko.”

She’s being a performer! She’s saying things she doesn’t quite mean in order to give people a certain impression of her and influence their mood to be more positive and optimistic! Kaito’s shoes were very big shoes, but Himiko’s doing the best job she can at filling them.

(Himiko Yumeno, Luminary of Magic. She’s trying, at least.)

Shuichi:  “We need to split up and check all the labs one more time. If we missed a clue in any of them… it would most likely be *that* one.”

We never find out which lab Shuichi is thinking about here. The only other lab I can think of that’d have anything relevant in it would be his own, thanks to all fifty-two of those very telling murder case files in there, but Shuichi never gets to have another look at that.

As soon as Shuichi and Tsumugi leave the hidden room, Keebo’s fight with an Exisal accidentally blows up the entrance, leaving Himiko trapped inside behind a pile of rubble.

Shuichi:  “…Let’s use the Exisal.”

Keebo:  “What?”

Tsumugi:  “Use the Exisal…? How? We don’t have any more of Miu’s inventions, and the Monokubs are in the Exisals—”

We should technically still have four charged Electrohammers lying somewhere near the entrance of the hangar and could run to get those. The story kind of conveniently pretended they stopped existing last chapter as soon as everyone saw the body in the press.

(We would also have an Electrobomb and the Exisal remote if only a certain someone who is under that press had ever cared about actually helping us, of course.)

Tsumugi:  “Himiko is the Ultimate Magician… I bet she’ll use her magic to find a clue in that room that’s just plain amazing.”

I wonder if Tsumugi is actually worried that she will. After all, Himiko’s talent should make her very good at finding secret mechanisms and hidden passageways.

Keebo:  “I can’t keep evading the Exisals’ attacks beyond that time limit. If we don’t settle this soon, I’ll be destroyed.”

This is the actual reason why Keebo gave us this arbitrary time limit, even though it’s still pretty flimsy that he’d apparently know exactly how long he could keep it up for.

(Oh, hey, Keebo sure would be able to keep it up longer and give us longer to investigate if someone had given us the goddamn Exisal remote, now, wouldn’t he???)

Tsumugi:  “I don’t know if I can get to all of them, but I’ll do what I can! I’ll see you later!”

So Tsumugi is in fact going to go check all of the labs for extra clues. Supposedly. Obviously she very deliberately never goes to Shuichi’s lab and points out the very relevant clues in there. She’s not going to bring back anything of note from any of the labs at all, because of course she wouldn’t want to do that.

This part here is a window of time in which it is possible that Tsumugi could in fact have gone to her own lab and used the sets in there and her ridiculous cosplay-shapeshifter skills to fake the audition videos that she’ll show us in the trial. I acknowledge that possibility, but I don’t believe that’s what happened. We’ll get to that when we see the videos.

---

[Next post]

[dweemeister]

The Girl from Yesterday (2017, Vietnam)

In the West, there has been a reevaluation of films featuring teenage stars or the vast high school subgenre. Such examinations have come from ardent fans of those movies, and even the central actor of a number of those films, Molly Ringwald. Yet those movies never traveled to many pockets of the world, where the major American movie studios had yet to stake claims in those untapped markets – whether due to economic and/or political realities. Among those nations is Vietnam, where its (relatively) recent adoption of a “socialist-oriented market economy” left it largely untouched by Western cinema, as the nation’s cinema begins to discover its cinematic identity outside of government-funded features about the heroism of revolution. The subject of this write-up, The Girl from Yesterday, is a product of that filmmaking environment in Vietnam – a piece more inspired by popular contemporary Asian media than that of America.

The Girl from Yesterday is director and co-screenwriter Phan Gia Nhật Linh’s second feature film, adapting author Nguyễn Nhật Ánh’s young adult novel of the same name (another Nguyễn YA novel, Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass, was recently adapted as a film, and was well-received by critics and audiences). The romantic games that its main characters play will be familiar to fans of high school movies – albeit deprived of an overt, invasive sexuality that one often finds in their American counterparts. Colored with a nostalgic lens throughout, this is a gentle romantic comedy not afraid of wackiness, nonsense.

It is 1997 in Central Vietnam. Thư (Ngô Kiến Huy) is in his final year before university, and his failing grades are not the first thing on his mind. He has instantly fallen for the new transfer student, Việt An (Miu Lê), who notices Thư’s affections but dismisses his advances. Her behavior vexes Thư – a rambunctious fellow used to being in control of his friends. As he becomes more unsure on how to approach his new classmate, let alone getting to know her better, Thư increasingly reflects on the first girl he loved. Ten years ago, Thư (Minh Khang as seven-year-old Thư) met next-door neighbor and classmate Tiểu Li (Hà Mi). Initially, their friendship could not be described as one of equals. But as the younger Thư learns how to be a true friend to Tiểu Li, his pride prevents him from expressing how important she is to him. As the film progresses, these flashbacks are cross-cut more frequently with the present day – reflecting Thư’s mental tumult towards Việt An.

Also featured in this film are Việt An’s friends Chiêu Minh (Lê Hạ Anh) and Hồng Hoa (Hoàng Yến Chibi); Thư’s best friend, Hải (Jun Phạm); and teachers Hường (Lan Phương), Hinh (Tiểu Bảo Quốc), and Lực (Tùng Min).

One constant problem throughout the narrative is its committal to using late 1990s Vietnam as a backdrop. The film – from its production design, costume design, and even the screenplay itself – looks nothing like that period in Vietnamese history. Decades of ostracism from the international community and botched communist economic plans had taken their toll on the populace, rendering Vietnam one of the poorest countries in Asia. Thư, narrating the film, will occasionally mention economic hardships while his family – and all of his classmates’ families – seem to be economically comfortable, or at least are curiously silent about things not having to do with his pursuit of Việt An. Some may argue that financially uncertain times are incompatible with romantic comedies, but there are moments in The Girl from Yesterday that appear to almost pull off this precarious balancing act. The film could use a more versatile blend of comedy, as things become one-note after the half-hour mark.

Too much of The Girl from Yesterday’s hilarity revolves around misunderstanding, Thư’s daydreaming and general immaturity, and his inability to fully explain himself to Việt An, his parents – hell, anyone and everyone. It might even compel you to reach into the screen and shake him violently from the scruff of his neck. Thư’s behavior goes beyond farcical, and his misadventures with Hải may grate the nerves of the less patient. One’s mileage will vary as Thư swings between domineering arrogance (played for laughs, as the older Thư does not mean to intend to be cruel to others) and cartoonish vulnerability in front of Việt An (making Peanuts’ Charlie Brown look like a social butterfly by comparison, because at least he has some semblance of self-control). The Girl from Yesterday is filled with puppy love immaturity, and that never quite grows into something more, leaving it little meaningful to say about Hải and Việt An or their friends surrounding them.

Screenwriters Phan and Nguyễn Thái Hà employs flashbacks to intersperse the storyline to show how Thư, as a child, helps explain Thư, as an adolescent whose post-secondary school plans have been derailed with the arrival of the newest transfer student. The most effective moments occur during the flashbacks themselves, as we see how friendly yet insensitive Thư can be towards his childhood friend, Tiểu Li. Meaningful friends stay friends – no matter their differences, no matter time’s unpredictability. Tiểu Li’s loyalty is admirable, accepting of her friend’s immaturity and deeply forgiving. Perhaps this is unwarranted, setting up Tiểu Li as a force of platonic purity, turning the other cheek every time Thư misbehaves. Not so in this film. Tiểu Li becomes angry some days, but she is not armed with the vocabulary (and probably, given her age, the wisdom) of how friends are supposed to treat the other. As he approaches adulthood, Thư he begun to realize how much Tiểu Li meant to him (and he to her), and how he used her friendship for selfish reasons. These revelations and Thư’s epiphany arrive in the final half-hour, while the film leaves unclear why exactly the flashbacks are a part of The Girl from Yesterday until its climax. It is pure soap, in the manner of populist Asian cinematic and television dramas, but the child performances sell even the most cliched plot points.

For the supposedly teenager actors – as hilarious as they can be – they are much too old to be playing high schoolers. All of them are in their early twenties (a handful are Vietnamese pop music stars by trade, not actors) and though some apologists might point to several teenage-centric/high school films with the characters being played by actors in their thirties, this is still a distraction to an otherwise lighthearted, somewhat contrived romp. An over-dependence of mediocre visual effects and inexplicable placements of those effects override whatever emotions that Nguyen is attempting here. If Phan is unable to convey certain feelings through his images and storytelling, then he will never accomplish those feats by using any sort of animation or visual effects.

A forgettable, sometimes cartoonish original score does little but telegraph what is already happening on-screen. Besides that, pop singer Vũ Cát Tường provides the film’s original title song, benefitting from its moving lyrics. The song is partially hampered by a turn away from the beautiful piano line into a light beat too prevalent in Vietnamese pop music.

Anything related to author Nguyễn Nhật Ánh often translates to financial success in Vietnam, and such was the case with The Girl from Yesterday. It is also reflective of Vietnamese tastes in their domestic cinema – when it comes to romantic storylines, broad humor rather than intense drama (associated with Serious Western Cinema that has made few inroads among Vietnamese audiences) is preferred. A messy screenplay aside, Phan Gia Nhật Linh displays an acute sense of comedic timing and an understanding of how to develop characters within the realm of a comedy. The Girl from Yesterday is not exactly a dramedy, but its ability to summon internal character conflicts from the past displays how much of an individual’s behavior is dictated by how they treated others no longer in their lives. The worst of such behavior can only be addressed, the film says, unless room for introspection is allowed.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

NOTE: Parts of this write-up have been adapted from the synopsis that I wrote for the 2018 Viet Film Fest in Orange, California.

[queermediastudies]

Photo Essay - Ahmed & Hawk

              Contemporary Pop Icons’ Appropriation of LGBTQ Culture

Pop music has a nasty history of appropriating much of the most popular tropes from the LGBT community’s culture seemingly without regard to the way this may affect the minority groups within the community. The appropriation of the culture is especially insulting when it is being taken from a community that has little else. Drag culture has existed in the underground community for a long time, particularly in New York, and pop music has been stealing the queens’ ideas for almost as long. Many seemingly heterosexual (female) pop stars use queer experiences (e.g. Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”) to appeal to a wider audience, namely a straight, cisgender male audience. Yet, men in pop music are often relegated to the closet for fear of their sexual orientation ruining their career (e.g. Ricky Martin). Disparities in rights and recognition between the LGBTQ community and the dominant group present in America is an issue, which should be addressed and combated, especially when an individual has a large platform and the necessary following to affect change.  When pop icons take popular aspects or practices from the LGBT community, without acknowledging their origins or giving any sort of respect to them, it actually does the non-dominant group a disservice and effectively appropriates their culture.  This appropriation perpetuates stereotypes and social expectations, which can be oppressive and regressive toward various sexual and gender minority groups.

Madonna made voguing popular in mainstream culture.  Her appropriation of this action from drag culture, without giving any sort of credit or acknowledgment to the community, effectively damages it. In the music video, she also features effeminate men used in the background for added flare.

“Vogue” is arguably Madonna’s most iconic hit with a lasting impression on younger generations, as almost anyone can vogue or strike a pose, but she never once gave credit to the ballroom scene for giving her the material needed to make the song and dance combo that rocked the world. The ballroom scene started as a way for gay men to get together in secret and dance together in ways they couldn’t in public. They gained publicity and popularity in the 1920s [Stabbe] and allowed drag queens to enter in some of the first shows and dance offs that would eventually shape the current drag culture. It was there that the art of voguing was created; it was a brand of dance exclusive to the queens (and the queer community), and it was something all their own to hold onto. The balls existed, and still exists, to allow a semblance of community and togetherness within an oppressed minority population. This was especially important in the 1980s-90's when the AIDS epidemic forced many gay men to remain in the closet, keeping the majority of their lives secret, for fear of violence or backlash from the homophobic population. Madonna released “Vogue” in 1990--right in the middle of the epidemic--when the entire gay population was fighting to end the stigmas and intense pressures being placed on them, and she simply took their dances and used it to make herself famous without a mention of the queens who had created the fame machine for her. In Making Things Perfectly Queer by Doty, the phenomenon of the idealization of female icons by homosexual men is explained, specifically in Madonna’s case: “Musto finds Madonna ‘unlike past icons’ as she’s ‘not a vulnerable toy;’ this indicates to him the need to reexamine gay culture’s enthusiasms for women stars with greater attention to how shifting historic (and perhaps generational) contexts alter the meanings and uses of these stars for particular groups of gay men” (10).  

It is no secret that sexuality is used to sell music, especially pop music, but playing into the male fantasy in particular is of the utmost importance to the average pop star, as much of pop music’s core audience is young women and, usually, their mothers.

The infamous kiss between Britney Spears and Madonna was potentially done for shock value or the attainment of heterosexual men’s attention.  This “performance” reinforces the commodification of women’s sexuality and the importance that is often placed on the male gaze in society.

This was showcased perfectly when Madonna and Britney Spears kissed on stage in 2003.  Madonna also shared a kiss with Christina Aguilera in a moment of passion. The moment allowed Spears and Aguilera to shed their “innocent” images and move into the “real world” of pop while allowing Madonna to gain the traction she needed to stay relevant in a changing world. The kiss is widely regarded as the wildest moment on live television, so popular in fact that the women used it to sell a video for a later collaborative song. And yet, it did absolutely nothing to further the fight for LGBT equality—it would be another twelve years before it would be federally legal for gay couples to get married. But queer doesn’t seem so “queer” when it’s coming from the seemingly heterosexual celebrities we see everyday.

Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl was just one of the many appropriations of LGBTQ culture and the temporary adoption of their identities, in the attempt to gain attention and recognition from the masses. In the song she claims that she kissed a girl, that she liked it, and that she hopes her boyfriend won’t mind it.

        Katy Perry’s breakout hit titled “I Kissed a Girl” came out in 2008 and slowly crawled its way to the top of the chart. With lyrics like “I kissed a girl and I liked it/I kissed a girl just to try it/Hope my boyfriend won’t mind it,” adolescent girls across the country could be found singing the catchy hook without giving a second thought to the consistent oppression of the LGBT community that was evident in almost every city across the country. The idea that she had a “boyfriend” but was still kissing girls as a form of experimentation perpetuates the idea that women are never “really” gay or the idea that all women are “a little gay,” both of which play into the male-gaze-centric society we live in--where essentially everything revolves around the presence of a man (usually straight, cisgender, and white).

Katy Perry’s hit song “Ur So Gay” features a chorus that states “Ur so gay and you don’t even like boys.”  This sentiment shows the continual lack of regard and consideration for the LGBT community, as she uses “gay” and a plethora of other stereotypes to describe this man, perpetuating the idea that being gay is a bad thing and somehow a punishment to be referred to as such.

Her track titled “Ur So Gay” was released at the same time and featured a hook that stated “You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys,” while listing all of the stereotypes she could possibly fit into one song that apparently described this man. She is seemingly angry at a man she was dating for a time, and it appears that calling him “gay” was the only way she could possibly come up with to get back at him. Fast forward to 2017 and she can be found on Saturday Night Live using drag queens to make her performance more interesting. Thus continuing to appropriate the LGBT community for her own benefit.

Katy Perry recently performed on Saturday Night Live, one of the most widely watched late night television programs in history.  Standing behind her mic and surrounded by drag queens, individuals of the LGBTQ community cannot help but see the objectification and commodification of drag queens as a ploy for publicity and attention.  

The release and suggestive messages within this song may be viewed as accepting and progressive; however, Demi Lovato’s refusal to admit any sort of same-sex relations or interactions with other women makes the authenticity of it seem questionable.

        In 2015 Demi Lovato released a track titled “Cool for the Summer,” in which she claims she has “taste for the cherry” and she just needs to take a bite. The entire song is a euphemism for having sexual relations with another woman, which feels like a win for the community. Except she won’t admit having same-sex tendencies so as of right now it seems like she is exploiting the struggle of being a queer woman in society for the catchy chorus that will sell millions of copies and have her spend two summers on every award show and “Good Morning America” style pseudo-news talk show.

Considered to be a “gay anthem” by many individuals, Born This Way is a message of tolerance, acceptance, and authenticity.  Although the sentiment is supposed to be uplifting, there is a questionable play on words within the song: “Don’t be a drag/Just be a queen.”  In this context, Gaga means “drag” as a bore, but coupled with the following line of “queen,” it makes individuals wonder what implicit message she is sending about drag culture.

        Lady Gaga has become a queer hero for releasing songs such as “Born This Way” and preaching that everyone should be accepted for who they are, no matter if they are “gay, straight, or bi.” She even created a foundation that gives back to LGBT friendly organizations and provides funding for various services catering to the community.

Lady Gaga’s meat dress at the Video Music Awards in 2010 was the point when she began to receive backlash and criticisms regarding her outfits and choices.  Shortly after this appearance, she began to focus back in on her music.

But when she began her career, she was more famous for her eye-catching outfits more so than her music, which she arguably got the idea for from drag culture.  This tendency to use these outspoken and deliberate outfits and personas to “let her freak flag fly” and show the importance of individuality and living authentically effectively aligns with Moore’s understanding of “fierceness” and the ways in which it is expressed in her piece Tina Theory: Notes on Fierceness: “Through fashion, style, and self-presentation… performers used fierceness to transgress and transcend restrictive boundaries” (p. 75).  Despite this potentially beneficial aspect of her strange and novel outfits, she eventually began to receive criticisms for some extreme looks.  At the 2010 Video Music Awards, she received negative attention for a dress made out of literal meat that she cut back and began to put the passion into music instead of being the scene-stealer on the runway.

Paris is Burning is a film from 1990 (filmed in the 80s) about the prominent ballroom scene in underground New York. The Ballroom scene allowed for a sense of community and safe haven for the gay community, especially the more flamboyant men that risked the consequences of homophobia and violence in the world.

Paris is Burning highlighted the importance of the ballroom scene for gay men in the city, especially in New York (still a huge hub for queer community). The ballroom scene takes a lot of its cues from the world of fashion where many of the men could not openly perform or partake in the activities for fear of being outed and eventually attacked.  According to Oliver Stabbe (2016) in his piece Queens and Queers: The Rise of Drag Ball Culture in the 1920’s:

As the secret of the balls spread within the gay community, they became a safe place for gay men to congregate. Despite their growing popularity, drag balls were deemed illegal and immoral by mainstream society… By the 1920s, the balls had gained more public visibility. What were once known as Masquerade and Civic Balls were dubbed "Faggots Balls" by the general public after it became well known that these spectacles were frequented by gay, lesbian, and transgender people.

Stealing tropes from the LGBT community is an old hat and we have seen it all before. But even with the increase of rights (like the right to marriage), our society has a long way to go. Little things like “Cool for the Summer” seem like wins on the surface, but instead they perpetuate negative ideas, like women just “needing to find the right man,” in order to avoid homosexual tendencies. It undercuts the progress we have yet to make by convincing most of the world that it’s already widely accepted, which may be getting truer by the day, but doesn’t prevent a baker from feeling well within their rights to refuse service to a gay couple for simply being gay. Outright representation is important, but only if we are ready to have the conversation that needs to come with it.

References 

Doty, A. (1993). Making things perfectly queer. University of Minnesota Press. Print.

Moore, M. (2012). Tina theory: Notes on Fierceness. Yale University: Wiley Publications. Print. 

Stabbe, O. (2016). Queens and queers: The rise of drag ball culture in the 1920′s. The National Museum of American History. Electronic. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWbLkXhGEmo

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[laurelkrugerr]

Why We Need ‘Dadpreneurs’ to Step Up Now

June 17, 2020 7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There’s no doubt that it’s a challenging time to be an entrepreneur. Unprecedented changes in the way that we work and live have upended the best laid plans of most business owners, regardless of what stage of business development their venture is in. For entrepreneurs who are parents, however, the challenges they face are even more daunting. They are now tasked with managing fragile businesses while also overseeing home-schooling, 24/7 childcare, and housework without a break in sight. Not surprisingly, parent entrepreneurs are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and exhausted.

For many mothers who are entrepreneurs, the sense that parenting responsibilities and entrepreneurial goals are deeply intertwined is nothing new. In data collected in the months leading up to the global health crisis, one of the study’s authors, Kylie King, found that mothers were nearly twice as likely to identify themselves as “mom entrepreneurs,” than fathers who self-identied as “dad entrepreneurs.” This speaks, in part, to persistent gendered divisions of childcare. Dr. King found that father entrepreneurs were nearly twice as likely to have a spouse/partner who does not work or works part-time.

However, it also speaks to a persistent gender bias in our conceptualization of what an “entrepreneur” looks like. Generally speaking, the “default” entrepreneur is conceptualized as a white childless male – and other entrepreneurs are judged by the extent to which they deviate from that image. Indeed, the popularity of the term “mompreneur” signals the extent to which many mother entrepreneurs are identified (either by themselves or by others) by their gender, parental and career roles (and for mothers of color, by their race, as well). Regardless of whether you find the term dismissive or empowering, it nonetheless signals a greater individual and societal acceptance of the intertwined nature of parenting and entrepreneurship for mothers. We recently asked Hitha Palepu, a CEO, entrepreneur and investor, how she feels about the term “mompreneur.” She aptly pointed out that we wouldn’t use the “dadpreneur” to describe fathers who are entrepreneurs. But perhaps we should.

This crisis has made it clear that parenting and work are not separate. Indeed, they never were. However, until now, many father entrepreneurs had the privilege of creating the illusion of separation. This was made possible by the virtue of partners who undertook most of the childcare and household responsibilities, and by way of our collective capacity to separate professional and parental identities when we think about men. The health crisis has caused the veil that separates these two worlds to fray.

Now is the time for father entrepreneurs to step up and embrace these dual identities. Jill Salzman, CEO and founder of The Founding Moms (an organization dedicated to the advancement of mom entrepreneurs), points out that, “If ever there was a time for entrepreneurial fathers to realize that their work and their parenting do not have to be separated anymore, now is that time. Quarantine has ushered in a new era for adults to learn how to weave their work into their family lives. Those who strive to keep them as separate experience additional stress and frustration since they’re working against what they truly are — parent entrepreneurs.”

Related: Life as a Dad-trepreneur: Balancing Fatherhood and a Startup at the …

By consciously adopting the identity of a “parent entrepreneur” (or “dadpreneur,” if you prefer) during this time, fathers can gain wider acceptance for acknowledging and embracing multiple life roles. As a result, when this pandemic subsides and we return to some semblance of normal, rather than insisting that mother entrepreneurs sublimate their parental role in order to be taken seriously as entrepreneurs, we can have a more egalitarian mindset that empowers all parents to embrace their entrepreneurial journey in alignment with their parenting, rather than in spite of it. 

For father entrepreneurs who are willing to take this leap, I have co-authored a book with Stew Friedman called Parents Who Lead. Here are a few key takeaways.

Communicate your values

While most entrepreneurs know the importance of articulating their organization’s mission and vision, they often fail to express what is personally meaningful and important to them. This crisis provides an opportunity to more vulnerably share what matters most to us with those around us. Women who embrace the “mom entrepreneur” identity are clearly communicating the value they place on their parental role. Father entrepreneurs should now step up to express the importance of their identity as a father, in tandem with their identity as an entrepreneur. 

Share your reality

We’re conditioned to present a polished, professional image of ourselves to the world outside our home. Explore ways in which you might more authentically reveal the challenges, mess, and interruptions of parenting while working at home. This will help normalize the reality that these parts of life are not truly separable, especially now. While you probably shouldn’t air your dirty laundry (literally) in the zoom background, you might more vocally acknowledge that meetings need to be arranged around children’s schedules or have a child who sits in your lap during a meeting.  Mom entrepreneurs have often had no choice but to do this, so this is an opportunity for fathers to proactively do so as well.

Related: Becoming a Dad Inspired Me to Grow My Business Even Faster

Engage the people who matter most

As our lives have been turned upside down, it’s no surprise that many entrepreneurs transitioned quickly into survival mode. However, this default mode may not best serve you as an individual, your business, or your family. By engaging with the people who matter most to you in all parts of your life (e.g. children, partner, colleagues, investors, friends) you can take stock of how things are going and identify opportunities to better meet one another’s needs.

Try a new way

Consider experimenting with how you manage your time, attention, and energy. There’s no one “right way” to be a parent entrepreneur right now, but there may be opportunities for greater harmony, if you look for them. Ideas for new approaches often emerge as a result of communicating your values and your reality with the people who matter most. As father entrepreneurs, there is an opportunity to find creative new ways to integrate work and life.  Be willing to try a new way, evaluate how it’s going, and take a new tack if it’s not quite right.

It’s a hard time to be an entrepreneur. It’s a hard time to be a parent. But, by more fully embracing how these roles intersect, dad entrepreneurs can join mom entrepreneurs in expressing both the challenges and joys of these dual identities. As we move into the next chapter, whatever it might look like, this will build a foundation for greater /////////////////////////”pgender equity in entrepreneurship. It will change our ideas about what an entrepreneur should look like.

Related: 10 Single Mom Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Business Advice

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[cohesionarts]

This just in from Cohesion Arts

New Post has been published on http://cohesionarts.com/2018/02/16/dispatches-whither-facebookistan/

Dispatches from the Outskirts: Whither Facebookistan?

Bang bang, and here we go again… 

A gun goes off, people – children! – are killed and wounded, and the cycle of social media outrage – over the act, over the response or lack-thereof, over the unfathomable tragedy of it all – resumes, along with the meaningless deluge of “thoughts and prayers” that pours into the digital ether all over again.

The last time this happened (well, no, not the last time, because amid this week’s news comes the revelation that Parkland was, what, the nineteenth gun-related multiple-death incident this year?!?!),  in the aftermath of the Country Music Massacre in Las Vegas last October, I started to scroll through the countless expressions of futility and declared that “The Moment That Facebook Became Insufferable.”

Then I went into a self-imposed exile from “Facebookistan.”

It didn’t last.

Too much has already been written about the irresistible lure of our devices and the impact their mere presence has on our focus, our concentration – our very consciousness.

I can’t find the source now, but I’ve read several times about a recent study where one group was asked to leave their phones in another room while the other group kept theirs beside them; the group that left the phones outside demonstrated better focus and concentration because they were less inclined to glance at their gizmo in search of some random new input.  The other group’s attention was, how shall we say, more fragmented.

I know the feeling.

Dozens of times every day – especially when I am trying to write something, or in the midst of editing photos, or learning/practicing something on guitar… I will fill a momentary void by flipping over to my browser; all I have to do is enter the letter “f” and Facebook appears…

When I went into my self-imposed Facebook exile back in October, I did two things that I thought would make all the difference: First, I removed the Facebook app from my iPhone; second, I  removed the permanently pinned “Facebook” tab in my browser – which was, until then, the first tab in the line-up of ten permanently pinned tabs I keep open.  That way (I told myself) I was keeping Facebook at arm’s length.  This, I now realize, was the alcoholic’s equivalent of locking the liquor cabinet but keeping the key.

Then I tried to adopt a routine of only posting things to my own website, and using a social media plugin to “toss” those posts “over the wall” into “Facebookistan.”

But jeez, who was I kidding?

Looking back over the past few months I realize how I let my weakness prevail: What I didn’t do was remove the Facebook app from my iPad.  I must have fooled myself into thinking that was safe because I don’t have the tablet with me all day like I do the phone.  But whenever I did open the tablet, like on a break at work, too often the first thing I did was open the damn Facebook app.

Turns out was my ‘gateway app.’

And while I no longer have the Facebook app on my phone,  after a few weeks I got into the nasty (and very inefficient) habit of opening Facebook in the phone’s native browser – all the while telling myself the compulsion was under some kind of control because I wasn’t using the app.  And as I said, even though the permanent tab is gone from my desktop browser, Facebook is still just one or two clicks and the letter “f” away…

There is a pernicious cycle at work here: even when something is posted “indirectly” as I was doing, the immediate impulse is “has anybody seen it?”  “Does it have any Likes yet?”  “Are there any comments that I can reply to?”  And before I knew it, the whole damn sickness had crept back into my life.

My favorite line in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (of which I have been an inconsistent member for over 30 years) is the line that says,

“half measures availed us nothing.”

I took that mandate deeply to heart 30 years ago when I stopped puffing and sipping and snorting.   I probably owe my continued existence to my adherence to that one clause.

Now, to the extent that it is fair to say that the Internet/Social Media/Facebook engagement bears many of the qualities of classic addiction, I’ve got an even better sense or just what that “half measures” business is really about.

I tried “half measures” with Facebook – much as the alcoholic tells himself “hey, I can have a beer now and again” or “this glass of wine with dinner is no problem…” – and like that alcoholic, over the course of a few months, I now find myself once again lying face down on the floor of the digital saloon.

It is a strange time we find ourselves living in. In the 20th century, “celebrity” – a public persona – was the exclusive enclave of people who had achieved some demonstrably high level of achievement.  In the 21st century, anybody with a keyboard and screen has a platform and access to a potential audience of billions.  Before there was Facebook or Twitter, only the most deserving  (or the most notorious) lived in the fishbowl of celebrity. Now we all have a public persona.  Some are better developed than others.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had an interesting email exchange with a friend with whom I also often interact on Facebook.  Let’s call him “Ken” (because, well, that’s his name..).

I shared with Ken my frustration over, “the effective integration of Facebook into my life” and this sense that it’s just a habit that can’t be knocked.  Ken wrote back,

I don’t struggle with FB quite as much. It’s a tool for me, one that I’m pretty good at using, and pretty good at staying away from when needed or warranted.  And I think I’ve gotten over the ‘likeitis’ wondering who or how many liked something witty.  At this point I know I’m pretty witty and folks are going to respond to it that way-and quite honestly I just don’t care anymore who or how many like anything I do or say.

That sounds much healthier than whatever is that I’m doing with Facebook.  But I also think I’ve come up with a clue why that is.  Bear with me, it gets confessional from here…

The word “struggle” in Ken’s message triggered the sardonic voices in my head, whispering “Facebook is life.  I struggle with life, therefore I struggle with Facebook.”

By ‘struggle’ I mean: I wrestle daily with fundamental questions about my identity, my abilities, and WTF am I doing here?  My father died at 37, my brother at 62, and yet, here I am at 67, still fumbling from one day to the next, trying to find some semblance of my own shit to hold together (and don’t even start me on the existential crises of the past two years, though I suppose they are all inter-related…)

I think Ken has the advantage of a much healthier perspective: He found his life’s purpose (he’s a brilliant instrumental guitarist) a long time ago and everything about his “public persona” flows from that.

I, on the other hand… still struggle to narrow it down, or even define my life broadly.  Consequently,  my “public persona” is a perfect reflection of that inner turmoil.

As as kid, I had all these creative things I could do: write stories, play guitar and sing, and at various times over the years make pictures (but only with the help of lenses – I discovered in the first grade that I had no talent for actual ‘drawing’, which is probably when my estrangement from the word “art” as a means of personal expression began…).

But for one reason or another that not even a lifetime of therapy has managed to unearth, those abilities languish, never fully developed or manifest. I still feel like there are all these things I can almost do. So I am probably not going to get an effective handle on any kind of “public persona” until, like Ken, I’ve got a better sense of what actual purpose I’m using all these “tools” for.

Until then, I rail against the futility of it all, particularly in the face of collective tragedy.

And so, like the Big Book says, I just have to admit that “I am powerless over Facebook and my life has become unmanageable…”  And then, I guess, seek the counsel of a Higher Power (or a new therapist?).

Meanwhile, we have come full circle:  another bullet-induced national calamity (deep in the midst of the broader calamity that befell The Republic a little over a year ago) and the cycle is back to its full, flaming, alcoholic fury: tens of millions of outraged citizens of Facebookistan spilling into their public personae while just trying to get a grip on imponderable madness.

But wait: Do I have any “Like”s yet?  Any comments??