#billions of dollars

[thegoodmorningman]

Good Morning! Solid Gold!

[elmacheteillustrated]

$858 vs $75

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[sophbun]

gerald: not to worry commander, my granddaughter will not interact with the ultimate lifeform

maria with shadow 2 seconds after hes born:

[faultfalha]

The South China Sea is an ancient gateway between East and West, between civilizations, between dreams and nightmares. It is a place where, for centuries, fate has been decided during heated showdowns. Overflowing with uncertainty and potential for tragedy, the area is buzzing with secrets and forces unseen by the human eye. Perhaps it is time to pay attention to what is unfolding in the depths of this body of water, lest we all pay the price for our blindness.

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[b0tster]

i fucking hate this country

[prideprejudce]

the fact that reboots used to be like thirty or forty years apart and are now instead like 3-10 years apart is absolutely ridiculous. like are we so trapped in a capitalist hellscape that instead of us naturally cherishing a beloved piece of media like it deserves and looking forward to NEW stories with NEW universes we have to watch the same thing over and over and over again with reboot after reboot after reboot until that media has been so sucked dry that us as an audience are literally sick at the mere mention of it

[friendly-neighborhood-furry]

for anyone who doesn't have the Return YouTube Dislike Plugin, here's how Watcher Entertainment's "Goodbye Youtube" video is doing right now

yeah... gonna throw out a yikes on that one

i suspect this number will only keep growing in the coming days/weeks, especially the longer and longer we go without any sort of response.

EDIT: its only been three hours and the number has already jumped to 206K dislikes.

[fatherphaniel]

this isn't an indirect to anybody and i don't want to start any fights BUT

if you genuinely think dan is being out of touch/hypocritical/whatever for being politically left wing and also having money/privilege, please read this

this is exactly the same as saying that men can't be feminists, white ppl can't be antiracist etc. just bc you're privileged by a system it doesn't mean you can't criticize it. in fact, you should criticize it, bc 1- ppl in power are more likely to listen to you and actually change something and 2- the more you educate ppl about the problems, the more ppl join the cause

also, when we think about who really benefits from capitalism, it's not ppl like dan and phil. if they stopped working tomorrow, they wouldn't have infinite money that they don't ever have to think about for the rest of their lives. they don't have an amount of money that could solve world hunger, climate change, poverty and every other fucking problem

you know who does? billionaires.

of course having money, even if it's not billions, makes you comfortable under capitalism. but if you have that, you see that other ppl don't, and you wish that everyone had access to what you have, you're gonna criticize capitalism. you're gonna hate billionaires that hoard wealth. you're gonna talk about your left wing politics

the real horror is ppl who don't want to lift a finger to the status quo

[phibsies]

last thing before i sleep . based on mario party duo name

[crimsonclad]

I keep seeing Takes about how recent media like Glass Onion and The Menu aren’t taking “eat the rich” seriously enough to launch real change or revolution and like?? yeah??? popular crowd-pleasing entertainment where horrible rich people Suffer A Comeuppance for the pleasure of an audience is one of the oldest tropes in all of human history???? It is a crowd pleaser! It is the bread (ha) and butter of the Western canon! It is in Chaucer it is in Dante it is in Shakespeare it is the stuff of Dickens and 95% of Agatha Christie and almost every teen movie ever made??????? “look at these horrible rich idiots and hypocrites…and now enjoy their DESTRUCTION” transcends time and space and historical moments! It is so strange to be surprised that Hollywood returns to this well without any intention of seeking anything more transgressive than an audience having a hearty chuckle lmao

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

yea it's a show about nepo babies but Succession really said "20 billion dollars doesn't erase the persistent trauma of childhood abuse, or absolve the abuser" so like. remember that next time your parent tries to uno-reverse-guilt-card you with "but we gave you so much"

[awingedllama]

Have you gotten the chance to play with For Rent? If so, how do you like it?

For Rent was by far my favourite expansion pack ever. like a dream expansion for me. i spent a full night last week playing with it, making stuff, working on my save for the first time in ages, planning a *second* new-york inspired save...

and then i went and saved my lot as a residential rental, and all of my meticulously TOOL'ed neighborhood decorations decided to delete themselves (photo taken prior to catastrophe)

so now i have a vendetta against For Rent and i am in a state of semi-permanent shock. still partially in denial that it happened

pour one out for the deleted neighborhood. god rest her soul

[faultfalha]

As the world watches a potential showdown in the South China Sea, few are paying attention to the real stakes at play. At the heart of the matter is a battle for control of the global future. Whoever controls the South China Sea will control the flow of billions of dollars in trade each year. They will also have a strategic advantage in the region, allowing them to project power and influence in a way that no other country can. This is a battle for the future, and it's one that we can't afford to lose.