#but my recent media consumption has been very sci fi

[puntointerrogativo]

I’ve been mulling over this because I don’t have kids but there’s recently been a birth in the family so this is more me taking notes for my own sake than answering Anon.

“ I'd let them have access to my library. If it's a book, I'll let them figure out when they're ready to handle it. (Works fine as long as you're a decent parent and answer questions that come up without being a weirdo about it and freaking them out so they never ask you anything again.)“

This, so much. You can’t know what they’ll find interesting, the best you can do is give them access to a wide variety of material.

From my childhood I fondly remember some classics: The Three Musketeers, Ivanhoe, Tom Sawyer, Watership Down, Little Women. Guareschi, Rodari, Herriot. Lots of mysteries: Poirot and Miss Marple, Nero Wolf, some Nancy Drew. Small thin history books on a variety of subjects that were very cheap and you could buy at newsstands- the ones on the bubonic plague and the development of vaccines really stand out in my memory.

A bit later there were Tolkien, everything Arthurian, Michael Crichton, George Simenon, Camilleri, Dacia Maraini, Tomasi di Lampedusa. Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison courtesy of my sci-fi loving father (the mysteries were my mom’s).

But of all these the only book that stands out as formative was “The twelve abbots of Challant” by Laura Mancinelli. A less then 150 pages novel that fit into a lot of my interests: it’s set in the 13th century and written to call back to short stories collections like The Canterbury Tales or The Decameron. The abbots die in increasingly creative accidents. It has a few vivid scenes that captured my imagination. And the book’s philosophy is:

“I believe the only sin is the harm we inflict on ourselves and others. […] it is a greater sin to poison people’s minds with the fear of hell, it is a greater sin to instill sadness, anguish and despair in people’s souls than to lavish their limbs with caresses. It’s a greater sin to threaten the trumpets of judgement than to play violas, flutes and mandolins.”

The recognition of a good stance that spared me a lot of grief later in life was immediate and visceral.

And then there were all the deliciously messy “I feel seen” books that I found on my own: A couple of Italian publishers that offered queer titles. Dominique Manotti -loved the way her writing sounded like jazz music. Anne Rice. Billy Marti and his queer cannibalistic serial killers. Like 90’s necrphilia movies, it’s best if you choose these for yourself.

A few more random thoughts:

Talking down what actually interests them in the hopes of guiding them to “better” formative material is a terrible idea. Was Anne Rice the best choice for a…what? 13 years old? Perhaps not but that’s how I ended up actually learning english instead of hating english lessons. I was interested enough to try reading the still untranslated books and a whole world opened up to me.

Make sure what’s available to them isn’t too sanitized, because you never know what a kid will latch onto. One of my clearest memories is reading an unabridged (and old af) edition of the Three Musketeers. I must have been 7 or 8 and I remember stumbling on cursing in the dialogue and my brain going 💡 People said curse words back then! People read this in the 1840s! Those unsmiling serious people in portraits were normal people! History is about real people! And thus my love for history was sparked by a musketeer calling someone a coglione (lit: a testicle)

Give them tools to deal with what comes with media consumption early. Ads, marketing, sponsorships. Fucked up expectations. Memory goes straight to the despairing face of a nun in elementary school asking us “What is advertising and what’s its aim” and a bunch of kids answering things like “it lets you know about cool products/the best products!”. Kudos to my mum for explaining enough that I could answer something like “it’s people paid to make you buy things”.

Movies: Velvet Goldmine was one of mine too. Arthur shouting “that’s me, that’s me!” at the tv screen and me going: Same, Arthur. Same.

Also: Ozpetek’s Hammam, Almodovar and Akira Kurosawa’s movies, Cabaret, The Girl with the Pistol. And Dino Risi’s The Widower.

I remember Cemetery Men! I was never much into Dylan Dog (the comic its based on) but I used to buy a couple of other titles by the same publisher. They had one about a half vampire (drawn to look like Ralph Fiennes, it’s a staple in their comics. They also had a Audrey Hepburn inspired lady detective) that I loved. He traveled the world looking for other vampires and especially the older numbers were full of local legends and quotes by local writers and poets that I looked up religiously. Getting to drag my parents around Prague telling them everything I’d learned about its legends and history thanks to that comic is a lovely memory.

And speaking of comics/manga: CLAMP. I suspect I owe my love for fictional bastards to Tokyo Babylon, X was a trip and Clover had such stunning panels I do not regret at all my first tattoo being a mechanical bird in honor of Sue’s story. And a throwaway mention in the Italian edition was how I discovered the existence of fanfiction :P

audience question: what books/movies would you give (or have given) your kids to become their formative media? i'm interested to see what makes the cut 👀

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I'd let them have access to my library. If it's a book, I'll let them figure out when they're ready to handle it.

(Works fine as long as you're a decent parent and answer questions that come up without being a weirdo about it and freaking them out so they never ask you anything again.)

For films and other things... hmm... it's tricky because all of the formative tings for me were the genre I'd call Weird Art Films About Weird Sex.

If my kid were shaping up to be that kind of weirdo at 14, maybe I'd leave some of these around, but I think it would be pretty intrusive to thrust them upon anybody outside of a film school seminar. Maybe Harold & Maude. My parents rented that when I was a tween. It made An Impression. It's rare for me to see something even two or three times, but Harold and Maude I've seen dozens.

I still think the opening to Harold and Maude is one of the best of any film:

You immediately know what kind of people both of these characters are and that this isn't going to be a simple comedy, dark or otherwise.

The first time I watched it, I knew nothing about the film and was surprised at both this and all of Harold's other antics. It's hilarious until it isn't. It's a movie about zest for life vs. wanting to die, and it walks an interesting line tonally. I remember rewatching it to show it to friends in college... and for the first time understanding that look Harold gets when he sees Maude's arm.

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There was definitely media I loved pre-puberty, but the things I remember are all like Nancy Drew.

I consumed vast quantities of mystery, and it's probably why I'm a mystery novelist today, but I don't remember anything specific that feels formative in other ways. I wouldn't try to stop a kid from reading trash. I remember how infuriating it was to have adults constantly trying to make me read something "better" than Nancy Drew. But I wouldn't specifically hand my kid those or any of the other formulaic junk series (Sweet Valley High et al.). They'll find whichever ones are popular at the time just fine.

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There's a very particular feeling of my brain lighting up that I remember mostly from my teen years. Those media made me quiver and have to pause the movie. I felt seen or maybe I felt too much to handle. That's the feeling I associate with formative media for me.

Here are the ones that instantly spring to mind even after all this time:

Velvet Goldmine - Music fan investigates the glam rockers of his youth, meditating on his sexual awakening and trying to solve the mystery of where one of them went. Ewan McGregor's tweet is the sequel. I will accept no other outcome.

Crash - James Spader at the peak of his beauty falls into the world of car crash fetishists who are dealing with the ennui of modern life and the alienation of the big city and technology by becoming perverts. Contains people going down on scars and tattoos, fetishy leg braces, and what teen me assumed was homoerotic subtext. (Spoiler: it was not subtext.)

Matador - A serial killer murders her victims like a bullfighter would; she stalks her favorite retired bullfighter who is also a serial killer. Antonio Banderas plays a dweeb like always in Spain. (The rest of Almodóvar's 80s and 90s movies were also favorites.)

Kissed - The fluffy necrophilia movie

The City of Lost Children - Less horny, but what is up with Miette and One's vibe? Visually a feast. Ten times the movie Amélie is. Sorry, not sorry.

Cemetery Man - Rupert Everett kills zombies in this bizarre Italian horror movie based on a comic book character drawn to look like Rupert Everett. My stepfather thought it looked like something I'd like and rented it for one of my birthday parties in high school. Around the time of the quasi necrophilia sex scene I realized 1. he'd chosen well and 2. he had clearly not read the back too carefully.

The Pillow Book - Japanese-Chinese novelist named after Sei Shonagon has a battle of literary wits with the publisher who blackmailed her father into sex with him. Involves a lot of calligraphy on naked men, including Ewan McGregor.

Sex, Lies & Videotape - Unfulfilled housewife has her world turned upside down when her shitty husband's college best friend comes to visit. This dude has become unable to be with women after a bad breakup and interviews and videotapes women discussing their masturbation habits for his own private use. Contains a famous and stupid quote about men falling in love with the people they sleep with and women becoming more and more attracted to the people they love, but the movie is far less gender normative than the character saying that.

Tesis - Uptight film student who pretends not to like violence decides to do a thesis on violence in Spanish media. Her advisor dies while watching a mysterious tape he got from somewhere. She steals it, finds out it's a snuff film, and investigates with the help of a creepy horror film nerd.

The best scene is when they're watching some violent shit she asked him for ("for her thesis") and she says "What kind of people watch this stuff?"

He answers: "You, for example."

That one I discovered when my roommate in Japan was watching it a couple of years after college. Many of these I saw in high school. That's the range where I remember things being particularly formative. Or maybe it's about what I'm open to at different points in my life: I think weird art films can still make me feel too much, but I don't always like that feeling, and I don't seek them out as much now.

Knife+Heart made me flash back to that era though. It's a neon-drenched period piece about a lesbian director of artsy gay male pornos investigating a serial killer targeting her actors. The sheer levels of meta insanity and horny murder scenes, my god!!!

Running through all of these are themes of ambiguous sexuality, often queer but also non-genitally-focused, massive quantities of voyeurism, meditations on what it means to be a fan, and a boatload of death=sex=death vibes.

--

That's not quite what you asked, but basically, my own formative media isn't something I'd share with just anyone. If people want to watch necrophilia-filled art films of the 90s, I think they need to choose that for themselves.

I guess all that access to Beatrix Potter and watching basically no TV other than Mystery! or Masterpiece Theater (i.e. UK costume dramas catering to a teaboo market and co-funded by the US) during my early childhood had an effect. So did going to schools where we studied Asian American history and read Dragonwings.

None of those media stand out. I'd share them with my kid, but one example is as good as another. Knives Out delivers substantially the same experience as most of them. Watching whatever anime is hot now will be as good as watching the anime I liked when I was young.

[sad-goomy]

Failure to Launch

Three more screws fall, and Gladion thinks that it must be the work of some cheap Silph Co. Multitool. To think, Aether Paradise is a top-of-the-line starship meant to sustain life in even the midst of a supernova, and yet it can be dismantled with one of the oldest tools in the galaxy. With all four screws off, it’s clear that the grate is stuck, and it’s a wonder Lusamine can’t hear the heaving effort whoever is up in the vent is putting into slamming it open. Come to think of it, he should be more worried about this, shouldn’t he? “–not even listening.” His mother’s sneer is in view, and Gladion blinks, too used to her vitriol to flinch as she nearly screams, “When are you ever going to grow up and realize that the universe is not going to drop someone in to save you?” Someone drops from the vent.

Read the rest on Ao3

[qqueenofhades]

Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

[is6621]

The Effects Of Netflix's Expansions Into the Korean Entertainment Industry by Katy Lee

I remember before I had the luxury of subscribing to Netflix, I had to go through other means to watch Korean Dramas/ Movies. Then, when I did subscribe, it was to watch other American movies or Netflix Original shows. However, I think in the past few years I’ve noticed Netflix has started to incorporate a lot more international content and a major one being Korean dramas and movies. Not only do I see old dramas being added but new ones as well. Some are even produced by Netflix themselves in partnership with other Korean firms. Even my friends who have never watched Korean Dramas/Movies see it pop up on their recommendation. How and why is it getting so much presence on Netflix? How is this affecting the Korean entertainment industry now? 

In 2016 Netflix, which has about 139 million subscribers in 190 countries, entered the Korean market. Many expected this entry as a short term glory for Netflix and was ready to see it vanish quickly. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case as it has slowly become the number one OTT (Over The Top) content provider in Korea. This was the result of a "localization strategy" by actively investing large amounts of capital in Korean content. Netflix realized that in order to increase domestic subscribers in South Korea, they need to localize their content. Soon after, they invested in a Korean film  “Okja” in late 2016 directed by Bong Joon Ho who also directed the award-winning “Parasite”. According to WiseApp, after this release, the number of subscribers in Korea shot from around 90,000 to 200,000. In 2020, WiseApp estimated that Netflix had 3.28 million subscribers in April ― up from 1.42 million in April last year.

Korean media along with Asian media in general has become a lot more popular and recognized from people all over the world in recent years. K-Dramas are very popular to watch right now hence why we see Netflix and other streaming sites are trying to add more shows and even invest in the production part of them. It is important for these streaming sites to have a variety of shows to keep their viewers interested. Platforms like Netflix help to boost the consumption of Korean movies and dramas by making them more accessible to foreign audiences. Unlike movie theaters, there is no barrier to sample Korean movies, since all that is required is a subscription rather than the purchase of a movie ticket to see a Korean film in the theater. The algorithms used by Netflix will also help to develop new fans.

Recently, they signed long-term contracts with two Korean drama production companies: Studio Dragon and J Contentree. By premiering and licensing their content on Netflix, it opens a doorway for them to expand into the global market and even beyond Netflix in the future. These types of opportunities would’ve been impossible. Without a company like Netflix making the investment the small companies would not have any leverage against the dominating ones. Netflix has given opportunity for smaller production firms to rise-up and possibly compete with the other major networks through creating authentic and exclusive content that will attract everyone around the world. Before K-drama revolved heavily around romance however as we see a wider demographic of audience the content produced is even adapting. For example, sci-fi, horror/ thriller, and medical content are becoming more common in the industry. This might be the effect the global market is having on the Korean Entertainment industry. I think by constantly making these investments, Netflix will not only be a channel to introduce Korean media to other parts of the world but drastically shift and even challenge the Korean entertainment industry.

Depending on how people view it, this effect can either be positive or negative. Positive in a way that more people are being introduced to culture/content and opens up opportunities. Negative in a way that locals finding the content losing its originality and personality it used to have as it is gearing more towards the global market and the other large domestic competitors may now be at threat. As they step their foot into production and gain licensing distribution from other smaller Korean broadcasting firms, the long standing companies might be at threat. Lots of people especially the younger ones won’t rely on the major broadcasting channels to watch Korean entertainment but instead might just use Netflix. Production companies might gear towards Netflix as a distribution channel rather than a domestic broadcasting network as they know it will probably get more recognition. As always, there's always a good and bad side but for now I see Netflix’s move having an overall positive impact as to the Korean entertainment industry and to themselves more so than a negative one. Has Netflix introduced you to any Korean content that you  may not have otherwise come across? 

 Sources: 

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2019/01/133_262635.html

https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/how-netflix-is-reshaping-south-korean-entertainment/

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2020/09/688_293689.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/09/netflix-bets-on-korean-drama-for-expansion.html

https://asiatimes.com/2020/01/netflix-buys-big-into-k-dramas/

[irinapaleolog]

In A Lonely Lockdown, With Books Slow To Come, Fanfiction Booms

Anna Zhang can’t get enough of Nirvana In Fire, a TV drama based in fourth-century China that first aired in 2015. The 21-year-old college student first watched the show on her phone during lunch breaks at high school before revisiting the 100-plus-episode series twice more with friends in college.

The coronavirus lockdown triggered a fourth round, only this time, confined to her childhood home in Beijing, Zhang dove deep into White Flame, a fan-written spinoff that puts the characters into the time of the 2003 SARS epidemic.

“Reading my favorite characters overcoming the adversities and saving lives really gave me more strength to face the current event,” says Zhang, who adds it was watching hours of news from Wuhan that led her back to the series.

She’s not alone. With many parts of the world on lockdown or reeling from the effects of it, fanfiction is booming, even in China, where the government has banned access to the non-profit Archive Of Our Own (AO3), the top website for readers and writers of fanfiction, in part because of the sexual content in the stories, Zhang says. AO3 announced “emergency measures” at the end of March after weekly page views rose to 298 million over two weeks and, on April 7, the no-frills site recorded an all-time daily high of 51.4 million views with readership rising about 20% month-over-month. Visits are on pace for 1.5 billion, 60% higher than April 2019.

Fanfiction is a curious corner of the world of blockbuster hits where superfans create their own content using pre-existing stories and well-known characters. It was inspired by fans of Star Trek, the cultish sci-fi TV show of the 1960s and 1970s, who shared their stories via self-published journals, known as “fanzines.”

“By and large, the writers are women and queer folks,” says Amanda Firestone, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Tampa. “If you’re not seeing yourself or the stories that you want to be told represented in large mainstream media like blockbusters, then you find a way to write those stories yourself.”

It’s tiny by entertainment standards. AO3, which cost $204,000 to run in 2019, has no full-time employees with volunteers raising $694,000 last year to fund expenses. The genre saw a sort of commercial apex with E.L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, which originated as Master of The Universe, an erotic fanfiction loosely derived from the Twilight series that was first published on FanFiction.net. An edited version of the story, which had already moved the narrative to a different city and changed the personalities of the original characters, went on to become a bestselling book and film series.

It’s not likely to happen that way very often, according to Claudia Rebaza, who works at AO3’s parent organization, Organization for Transformative Works. Fanfiction rarely gets converted into commercially published work, and most of the time writers submit new works to publishers because of copyright concerns that make commercial success harder and rarer. Although James was able to separate the world of Twilight from her books, a lot of fanfiction writers base their stories on existing universes and characters that would not be open to such modification, Firestone says.

Other hits that have spawned a substantial body of fanfiction include J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise, which has inspired stories reimagining Harry’s romantic life or his upbringing such as the global sensation Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, as well as Star Wars and The Untamed, another Chinese hit that is produced by Tencent Video and was recently picked up by Netflix. The internet is now home to thousands of writers and 50 million free fanfiction stories, though none have yet to even brush up against the success James has had with Fifty Shades, which sold more than 70 million copies worldwide, making her the highest earning author of 2013 with $95 million.

Coronavirus is bringing attention back around to it, with millions of aspiring authors, like Zhang, turning to fanfiction as a way of coping with the anxiety and isolation of quarantining. According to data from AO3, users posted an average of 4,000 pieces every day in March as opposed to 3,000 a year ago.

“Fanfiction is produced within a community,” says Memé Calixto, a 29-year-old English teacher in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. “Anyone can take reality into their hands and make it be whatever they want to, right now.”

Calixto has doubled her consumption of fanfiction since the beginning of the pandemic. It’s the same for Karen Hill, a 55-year-old mother of five in Prosperity, South Carolina, who is isolating with her five teenage children; two of them currently work at a grocery store and one is in the fast food business. Fans are using the messaging platform Slack to create reading clubs and creating writing challenges called “Big Bangs.” In Michigan, a COVID-19 hotspot in the U.S., 34-year-old veterinarian Theresa Perrault is part of a 100-person Les Misérables Big Bang with more than 100 participants, some of whom are spending up to five hours a week crafting communal fiction.

“It’s been extraordinarily stressful for me to send [my kids] off to work every day, knowing that they are in danger,” says Hill. “Being able to just submerge myself in a story, whether I’m reading it or writing it has been terribly therapeutic. It just erases all of this horribleness.”

Her initial fixation? Star Wars: A New Hope, which she saw 22 times in a movie theater in Blacksburg, Virginia almost four decades ago. Hill has more than doubled the number of hours a day she spends reading and writing not only about Star Wars but also Japanese manga series such as Attack on Titan and Hunter Hunter.

Grace Laporte, locked down in Windsor, Canada, and separated from her fiancée in Detroit, has increased her fanfiction reading from two hours a week to almost six hours a day. The 31-year-old has taken to writing out her frustrations through Reylo, a name spun by fans for the romantic relationship between the protagonist of Star Wars’ latest trilogy; Rey, and her counterpart, Kylo Ren.

“It’s kind of pathetic but I’m just kind of desperate for human interaction,” she says. “I love people.”

[sophygurl]

Did my what’s coming up on TV quarterly-ish organizational project and re-did my shows I watch page. Figured it would be a good time to make an update post on my media consumption of late.

I’m still embroiled in the Big Brother season. It’s been a pretty terrible season truth be told, and I’d have noped out except for there being one houseguest left in there that I adore and want to support, and of course the fan community I have (a chat room I’ve been in for a decade now and also a twitter list of fans, update sites, and BB alum I enjoy interacting with). We’ve still got a ways to go, and I am not watching the live feeds much this season, but still watching the shows (mostly to chat with my friends about) and keeping up with the feeds via twitter to see what’s happening and watching the few small clips of that one hg i still enjoy. 

It’s an interesting thing when being part of a fandom starts to feel like a chore. Like, yes, you do this for entertainment purposes and could stop at any point when it stops being fun for you - but you do also create a community around you and half the fun is that community interaction and it’s harder to let go of that. Because you can’t generally pack that whole community up and take them to another show or experience with you. 

Another fan experience that was a let-down this summer was Veronica Mars. I won’t post any spoilers in case there is anyone out there yet who wants to watch S4 unspoiled and has yet to find out what happened, but suffice to say I am not pleased. 

I did enjoy most of the series right up until the ending. I know a lot of people are upset about other things that happened, but I can defend or at least explain most of that based on what the show and the characters have always been. But that ending. Wow. I am still recovering. And not at all interested in a season 5 or really anything else that Rob Thomas might want to work on in the future. He’s really ruined any fan goodwill he had in my eyes. 

Other TV shows I’ve been enjoying this summer: 

The 100 delivered another fascinating season. I know the show is problematic in a number of ways, but it still has such wonderful characters with incredible arcs of growth and struggle and learning to overcome together. The plots get wilder and wilder, but whatever, I’m along for the ride. 

Agents of Shield was ... interesting. I don’t even know what to say about it anymore, tbh.

American Princess on Lifetime was a surprisingly fun new show - a NY socialite runs off on her wedding day and ends up at a Ren Faire, where she meets new friends and decides to stay and create a new life for herself. It’s charming, sweet, romantic, funny, and fun for any found family fans. 

BH90210′s pilot episode cracked me tf up. I kind of can’t believe the cast is going along with this satirical version of playing themselves trying to get a reboot of the original show going. It’s soapy and campy and so delightfully weird, while also being nostalgic. Can’t wait to see what they do with it. (Also I miss Luke Perry enormously)

Elementary has one episode left and I will be very sad when the story is complete, but happy for everyone involved for having been part of such a unique spin on Sherlock Holmes in such a successful way.

Euphoria season one was an intense emotional process, watching teens and their families struggle with addiction, violence, abusive relationships, sexual discoveries, gender navigation, mental illness, and so much more. Also just a visually stunning show. 

Grand Hotel is a fun soapy new show that I am enjoying very much. Classic soap tropes, a largely Latinx cast, a lesbian main character, and lots of eye candy.

Jane the Virgin put out a wonderful final season and series finale. I laughed. I cried. I was very satisfied. 

Killjoys has started up it’s final season. I’m loving it, but I also wanna cling to it and scream “no! don’t go!” 

Pandora is a new show on the CW, which is interesting. Futuristic space academy featuring a clone, a mind reader, an augmented human, an alien from a planet we were recently at war with, and Pandora herself who has some kinda mystery surrounding her and the recent death of her parents. Lots of political intrigue and conspiracy, with episodic plots that the young adults uncover together each week, and just about every sci-fi trope you could think of being covered. 

Trinkets on Netflix was a cute lil show about teenage girls in a shoplifting support group. It was a really genuine look at the highs and lows of female friendship at that age. 

In other TV watching news, I finally got all of the Northern Exposure DVDs and am doing a long-awaited re-watch of my all-time favorite show. I’m on the second season. 

In addition to completing that DVD collection, I also completed collecting all of the Realm of the Eldering books (yay birthday money!) and am doing my re-read of those. It’s going to take me a long time, because my re-reading gets done while attempting to fall asleep and also when I wake up trying to get back to sleep, so depending on how the insomnia is going, it could be anywhere from a couple of paragraphs to maybe 50 pages tops per night and RotE is a looooot of books. I’m still on the first novel now. 

That also means, I am taking a little break from my otherwise-continual Raven Cycle re-reading lol. 

Other stuff I’ve been reading - started the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire, finished Tamora Pierce’s Emelan series (although I think she’s writing one more of those yet), and got caught up on Patricia Brigg’s Mercyverse series. Then, since I’m caught up on all the series I’m reading (other than Wayward Children since I just started it), I went and put a crapton of new books on my library hold list - some of which are the first books in series themselves. So here we go! 

And of course, I’ve been playing lots of Sims. Love love loving the Island Living expansion pack. The mermaids are so much fun, as is swimming and boating in the ocean, other beach activities, and just living in a more communal setting (people show up to help put out fires, bring food over randomly, fix things that are broken, etc.). I definitely won’t tire of the stuff in this pack before the next new pack comes out, which I imagine will be sometime late this fall or early winter, if they go according to the usual schedule. 

Guess that’s all for now. Might do some more specific VMars meta at some point, once I get my thoughts and feelings more collected. IDK. This post is so all over the place I’m not sure if I’m gonna tag it with any specific fandom or media. 

[cvby2-media]

My favourite genre is Fantasy, in film, television, games, et cetera. I like the idea of creators being able to break boundaries and limitations on imagination, such as through magic, races and creatures and even entire worlds.

Sci-fi touches on this sort of thing, too, but I prefer the more rustic kinds of technology, those seen in the ‘steampunk’ umbrella or basic medieval or early victorian technology. Active Spectatorship Often in fantasy film, or game communities, storytellers and artists get heavily involved. I, myself am no different. When I find enjoyment in a movie or film I go out of my  way to draw characters that inspire me, such as Mazikeen from the TV series ‘Lucifer’. These communities are considered ‘Fandoms’, and most often than not all they do is grow that community, and provide fresh perspectives. However, where there are creators, there are also people that would disagree with what it is that they create. In the ‘Once Upon A Time’ fandom community, for example, there are lots of so-called ‘ship wars’ where people go tooth-and-nail at one another in arguments and debates as to which characters should be in relationships with who, and why their ‘ship’ (relationship) or ‘otp’ (one true pairing) is the best. The most common ship war in that community is the SwanQueen versus CaptainSwan rivalry. SwanQueen revolves around a non-existant relationship beyond friendship with the ‘Evil Queen’ Regina, and Emma Swan (The main character of the series), whilst CaptainSwan follows the actual relationship of Emma Swan and Killian Jones (Captain Hook, hence the name.) This rivalry tends to be lots of people making arguments either against the LGBT community, or assumed arguments against such a community, and then alleged claims of emotional abuse in the heterosexual relationship, with both sides grasping at straws. Fandom wars like this can often ruin a community, with facebook groups closing or blocking their members to avoid elongated arguments, or simply turning fans off of the community with their constant bickering.

Preferred Readings Prefererd reading is where you take out of a film or series exactly what the director/writer intended. Often times with fantasy films, this is the easiest case, as it is harder to add obscurity and questions into something which needs heavy explanation. Of course, there is always room for people to analyse a film too deeply, like that of an English Literature professor, but if you can leave a film feeling you knew exactly what was happening when, why and how it happened, then you understood the film, and saw it for exactly what it was. Sadly, the fantasy film ‘Warcraft’ left far too much unexplained, and far too many questions for its new audience, which arguably could be why it was labelled as a failure.

Frameworks of Interpretation Mentioned above, the Warcraft movie leaves far too much to question without researching the lore before or after the movie. It requires external reading and research, which shouldn’t be the point of a movie. Interpretation could also change with time. You may watch a movie in your childhood, and love or hate it, and then rewatch it as an older person, and have a completely different view on the subject matter. Remakes can also change your opinion on a film, for example, they can bring new life to a film that might not necessarily have gotten your attention in the beginning. As time changes, technology improves and even just the visuals or sound quality can change your opinion on a film.

Media Literacy Those interested or invested in media will have different interpretations or opinions on film than people who aren’t necessarily educated on it. When you spend your time analysing films and giving your opinion, you know what to look out for as downpoints or little errors like a failure to maintain continuity on an object in a room. Children and youths are very media literate in their usage, but might not necessarily have the understanding to match.

Conditions of Reception Based on however a piece of film or media is released, it will attract different audiences. Some people enjoy going to the cinema, whilst others will not watch a film until it has been released on line via Netflix or Hulu. Because of this, sales can be affected. People will buy DVD’s less and less as time goes on, and online availability becomes far more apparent. As I’m not an Apple product fan, it wasn’t until recently that I knew you could buy movies and television shows on the iTunes store or later consumption. This is just one more way in which film viewing is becoming more and more digital.

Pre-Post Viewing Experiences After watching a film you might find yourself wanting to find more people interested in the subject, and some people take it as far as creating costumes and going to convention events to show their appreciation for the film, tv show or comic of their choosing. Before you see a movie or tv show, often times there will be advertising campaigns to visit and be a part of. Sometimes fans with a proclaimed high interest in such things might receive items like preorder bonuses, or thanks gifts.

[njawaidofficial]

Transgender Actors Say They're So Far Behind That "Pay Equity Is A Non-Issue For Us"

https://styleveryday.com/transgender-actors-say-theyre-so-far-behind-that-pay-equity-is-a-non-issue-for-us/

Transgender Actors Say They're So Far Behind That "Pay Equity Is A Non-Issue For Us"

“When I first came to Hollywood, there were no trans people to look at onscreen. We really didn’t know if there was going to be any work for us, and my agent said the same thing when she first signed me,” said Nashville actor Jen Richards.

Three years later, she still sees every audition and every role she books as “educational moments,” opportunities to encourage Hollywood’s casting directors and producers to hire trans actors. The first-ever transgender actor to appear on CMT and the cable channel’s country music drama, Richards said she knew going into the project that the stakes were high. “I’m hyperaware walking into that situation that I might be the first openly trans person they’ve ever met — and certainly the first trans actor that they’ve worked with,” she told BuzzFeed News.

As cisgender women and men of color continue fighting to close the industry’s gender and race wage gap, drawing support from their colleagues, the public, and California lawmakers, transgender actors like Richards say they are fighting an entirely different battle. Multiple trans actors, from newcomers to more established names, told BuzzFeed News their primary concern is not equal pay but simply finding work.

“I think any of us would just be so thrilled to get a deeper part and to get paid at all.”

“We are so far behind that pay equity is a non-issue for us right now. … I think any of us would just be so thrilled to get a deeper part and to get paid at all. Like that would feel like such progress,” said Richards, who also cocreated, cowrote, and starred in Her Story, an Emmy-nominated web series about two trans women.

The dearth of work available to trans actors leaves few in the position to push back for higher salaries. It wasn’t until recently that Richards felt qualified to negotiate for more money than the minimum wage set forth by the Screen Actors Guild. After she landed a series regular role on a not-yet-announced television series, for which the pay was significantly “higher than average,” Richards’ agent managed to push back and secure more money for her client.

“Now that I’ve [made] this amount of money for a show, I don’t think my agent would counsel me to say yes to anything less,” Richards said of her breakthrough. “I’m really lucky in that I have a fantastic agent who’s very experienced, who’s been in this industry a long time, who really believed in me and has never led me astray. And she doesn’t treat me differently than any other client, so I don’t think she would allow anyone to treat me differently than any other client.”

Jen Richards photographed on April 24, 2018 in Los Angeles.

JSquared for BuzzFeed News

While there has been a relative increase in roles for trans actors in recent years, like Laverne Cox’s Emmy-nominated work on Orange Is The New Black and Trace Lysette and Alexandra Billings’ roles on Transparent, the opportunities are still scarce. GLAAD Media Institute, an LGBT advocacy organization, counted just 17 regular and recurring transgender characters across broadcast, cable, and streaming television series in the 2017-2018 season, still a significant increase from the seven they found in 2015.

When the rare transgender role does come around, cisgender actors often get the part, said Maximilliana, an actor who has appeared on the Clueless television series as a “Tall ‘Woman’” and on the original Gilmore Girls as “Marilyn Monroe.” “It’s been such a struggle to be even offered the job to start with because generally the job is going to a cis actor,” said Maximilliana, who identifies as gender fluid, calling out Anything, an upcoming film about a transgender sex worker, for its controversial decision to cast Matt Bomer in the lead. Such was also the case with The Danish Girl, for which Eddie Redmayne garnered an Oscar nomination for his performance as a trans woman, and with Dallas Buyers Club, for which Jared Leto won an Oscar for playing a trans woman with HIV. There’s also Jeffrey Tambor, who starred in Transparent for four seasons as the series lead, Maura Pfefferman, a trans woman. (Amazon Studios has since fired him after his former assistant, Van Barnes, and costar Trace Lysette said that he sexually harassed them; through a representative, Tambor said the accusations were “false” and criticized the studio’s investigation.)

D’Lo, a Tamil Sri Lankan–American comedian and actor, told BuzzFeed News that finding work can be particularly difficult for those who, like him, identify as trans masculine. “We’re still in what people have been calling the trans moment of television. But the narrative has largely been about trans femininity,” he said.

D’Lo photographed on April 24, 2018 in Los Angeles.

JSquared for BuzzFeed News

According to GLAAD, of the 17 transgender characters that appeared on screen in 2017, nine were trans women. Four were trans men, in addition to four characters who identified as nonbinary.

Richards said that the lack of work for trans men and transmasculine actors can be attributed to a host of issues. But she boiled it down to “garden-variety misogyny” and Hollywood’s tendency to depict women as objects of desire, often for the consumption of cis, straight male viewers. “Part of it is that trans women capture the imagination a little bit more because our default is male,” Richards explained. “So the idea of a man who gives up that kind of privileged position to be female is more interesting than a woman becoming a man. It’s a kind of sense of, ‘Well, of course you’d want to do that.’”

Although D’Lo has landed small roles in Sense8, a popular Netflix sci-fi series, and Transparent, he said his past credits aren’t paying the bills. “Most of it is deferred payment and ultra low-budget SAG.” To make a living, D’Lo stars in digital projects, tours the country as a stand-up comic and theater performer, and facilitates writing and performing workshops. Television, he said, would be the “gateway to getting more opportunities.” It’s also a path to establishing a personal rate or “actor’s quote,” as Richards recently did.

For D’Lo, pushing back during negotiations has never been an option. “If an agent brokered the thing, then I would get a day-player rate,” the minimum for a one-day speaking part stipulated by SAG. (As of today, the union’s rate for a day performer is $956.) “Basically, there was never a moment where somebody was advocating for me to get a higher wage,” he explained.

“Whether it’s an Emmy nomination, a win — all these things add on to negotiating points.”

But transgender rights advocate and actor Angelica Ross has be in the position to demand higher pay. “Anything I’ve ever done, if it comes to a deal, I’ve always negotiated,” she told BuzzFeed News.

After years of working steadily to earn her SAG membership, Ross rose to prominence after starring in Richards’ web series, Her Story. She was in an episode of the CBS drama Doubt alongside Laverne Cox and an episode of Transparent. She also landed a recurring role on TNT’s Claws, the Rashida Jones–produced drama about five money-laundering nail manicurists. She has since been able to leverage the critical acclaim of shows she’s appeared in during the negotiations process. “Whether it’s an Emmy nomination, a win — all these things add on to negotiating points,” she said. Although she acknowledged there is always a risk of losing the part, she said Hollywood executives have hired her based on her reputation and credits. “They know I deliver. They know I’m professional. I show up on time. I don’t dillydally,” she said.

This summer, Ross is set to star in Pose, FX’s upcoming musical television series cocreated by Glee and American Horror Story’s Ryan Murphy. An eight-episode drama about New York’s 1980s ball culture, Pose has been touted as a “history-making” project that features the largest cast of transgender actors in series-regular roles and the most LGBT actors in an American scripted television series.

Angelica Ross photographed on April 26, 2018 at Suite3 Studios in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Annie Tritt for BuzzFeed News

Ross is eager to join Hollywood’s pay disparity conversation, as she doesn’t feel cisgender actors have been all that inclusive of people of color or trans people. While racial diversity on television has increased in recent years, people of color still hold fewer roles than their white peers. The gap is even wider for trans actors of color: Of the 17 transgender characters GLAAD counted, thirteen were white, two were black, one was Latinx, and one was Asian-Pacific Islander.

“I’ve been on television sets and movie sets. I’ve been fortunate enough to be in this business a long time, mostly in the background, but you see how they don’t want to spend money, especially on certain talent, especially on people of color,” Ross said. “It’s so interesting how I see across the board, people of color having to prove themselves, and to have so many documents and portfolios and receipts and accolades before they get the job.”

Ross says she and Laverne Cox have begun discussing pay among themselves: “Laverne and I kind of tiptoe a little bit and started talking about what we’re getting paid. … I’ve kind of confided in her about some things.” But that’s the extent to which trans actors are discussing pay, she said. “It just hasn’t been that space where we’re all talking openly about what we’re getting paid.” The shortage of data on trans actors doesn’t help the cause.

“The focus really needs to be on just getting more trans people on the shows.”

“SAG barely has actors that identify as trans because it’s too expensive to join,” Ross continued. “So trying to get that data on what trans actors are being paid? We’re a long way from knowing any of that information. But in the meantime, I think that my role — as well as Trace Lysette, who’s a white trans woman — we need to join in on this conversation with women, with black women, about this pay gap.”

But like the cisgender women and men of color fighting for pay equity, Richards and D’Lo both emphasized that there needs to be more working opportunities for trans actors before they can demand higher wages.

“The focus really needs to be on just getting more trans people on the shows. And that means writing more and better parts for trans people and giving trans actors the opportunities to play parts that aren’t written for trans people,” said Richards.

Despite the long road ahead, Richards remains optimistic, citing the baby steps Hollywood has achieved. “Now that there are quite of few of us onscreen, I’m hoping that younger people will see that and think, ‘Oh, that’s a viable career path now.’” ●

LINK: Actors Say There Won’t Be Equal Pay Until Hollywood Creates More Diverse Roles

LINK: The Prince Got Paid More Than The Queen On “The Crown” And People Aren’t Happy About It

[pamphletstoinspire]

Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 52

Laudato Si, "The Curate's Egg" I. The Excellent Parts

Story with image:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/catholic-physics-reflections-scientist-part-52-harold-baines/?published=t

Bishop: "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones"; Curate: "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!" - From "True Humility" by George du Maurier, originally published inPunch, 9 November 1895. (See story with image)

"(1) He [the Pope] cannot speak as a private theologian but in his official capacity as vicar of Christ and head of the Church; (2) He must officially define a doctrine relating to faith or morals (unfortunately, the pope is not infallible when it comes to science, politics, weather, and the outcome of sporting events); and (3) The pronouncement must not be directed only to a single individual or particular group of people, but it must be promulgated for the benefit of the entire Church" Patrick Madrid, The Papacy and Galileo

"Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins." St. Thomas Aquinas. III Quodlibet 27.

There has been much heat and just a little light engendered by Pope Francis's recent Encyclical, Laudato Si. Unlike many who have either praised or condemned Laudato Si, I have read the whole work, not once but three times. What I propose to do in this post is to list, with minimal comment, the sections that I find laudatory (that's a pun, son) and then in a second post, the parts that I find questionable or objectionable. The Encyclical is 184 pages, so it will be necessary to focus selectively on the material.

THE EXCELLENT PARTS

Pope Francis enjoins against abortion and the culture of death, and promotes the value of the family, as has been done in previous encyclicals by other Popes.

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. Item 117.

The sheer novelty involved in the emergence of a personal being within a material universe presupposes a direct action of God and a particular call to life and to relationship on the part of a “Thou” who addresses himself to another “thou" Item 81.

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is un comfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away." Item 120, quote from Caritates in Vertate, 2009.

I would stress the great importance of the family, which is “the place in which life – the gift of God – can be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth. In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life”.  Item 213

Pope Francis calls us on us to reject consumerism, not to rely solely on technology, and to focus on that which has human values.

Furthermore, when media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the risk of going unheard amid the noise and distractions of an information overload. Item 47

“while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognized that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development” Quoting the Pontifical Council for Justice Peace(483). Item 50

Each of us has his or her own personal identity and is capable of entering into dialogue with others and with God himself. Our capacity to reason, to develop arguments, to be inventive, to interpret reality and to create art, along with other not yet discovered capacities, are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology. Item 81

The basic problem goes even deeper: it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. It is as if the subject were to find itself in the presence of something formless, completely open to manipulation Item 106

It cannot be maintained that empirical science provides a complete explanation of life, the interplay of all creatures and the whole of reality. This would be to breach the limits imposed by its own methodology. If we reason only within the confines of the latter, little room would be left for aesthetic sensibility, poetry, or even reason’s ability to grasp the ultimate meaning and purpose of things. Item 199

Pope Francis calls on us to enter into a relationship with Christ in the Eucharist.

It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures. The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter. He comes not from above, but from within, he comes that we might find him in this world of ours. In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved; it is the living centre of the universe, the overflowing core of love and of inexhaustible life. Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love. Item 236

THE PARTS THAT ARE EXCELLENT BUT MAY GO BAD

In the first sections of Laudato Si Pope Francis exhorts us to be one with nature and to realize God in His creation, emulating Saint Francis in his paean to Brother Sun and Sister Moon.   There is much beautiful in these sections, and I emphasize with them.  I recall the times more than 70 years ago when I lay underneath the big trees in Yosemite (as a summer Forest Service worker), or sat in the Griffith Planetarium marveling at the night sky in other times and other places.

He cites the works of past Popes who have been concerned about the environment, Paul VI, Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and quotes at length the remarks of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew:

At the same time, Bartholomew has drawn attention to the ethical and spiritual roots of environmental problems, which require that we look for solutions not only in technology but in a change of humanity; otherwise we would be dealing merely with symptoms. He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism which “entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what God’s world needs..."  Item 9, Quoting from Lecture at the Monastery of Ulstein,

I can't quarrel with any of those statements.  What concerns me, however, is that they are adopted and corrupted by those who do not believe in a Creating God, but instead worship the creation--Gaia, Mother Earth.*  We see the farmers in San Joaquin Valley in California struggling to produce food--their water supply has been diverted to the San Francisco Bay to preserve (presumably) a small fish, the snail darter.  One extreme faction of the Green worshipers of Mother Earth would have human reproduction minimized or eliminated.  Thank God, Pope Francis spoke against that.

MORE TO COME

In the post to follow, I will present what Pope Francis has to say on the relation of politics and economics to the environment and climate science.  And I'll explain why I disagree with many of these positions.

*A comment on this post published in another blog (William Briggs, Statistician to the Stars) remarked that I had the order of support mixed up--Pope Francis is following the Greens and Gaia worshippers, rather than the converse.   Indeed, he had Naomi Klein, invited to Rome, to help support his campaign against global warming.  Naomi Klein holds all the popular, extreme left/radical views. She is anti-capitalist (nationalize the industries), anti-Israel, pro AGW, and very probably a pro-abortion advocate. Here’s a quote–population control relevant-from an interview:

“Well, to be honest, for a long time, I just couldn’t see a future for a child that wasn’t some, like, Mad Max climate warrior thing. And, you know, I’d joke about it with my husband, like, you want to have a little climate warrior? [laughter] And it seems like that was the best thing I could imagine for a child. I couldn’t see a future that wasn’t just incredibly grim — maybe I’d seen too much sci-fi and read too much climate science. But I just couldn’t see it. ”

So I wonder what sort of conversations Pope Francis and Naomi Klein will have about “be fruitful and multiply”…there are some inconsistencies with what is good in the Encyclical, arguing against population control, and inviting Naomi Klein to Rome.

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

[raystart]

Pentagram’s Natasha Jen on Pseudo Feminism, the Power of Passive Activism, and “Alien Stuff”

It’s peaceful to sit in the second floor waiting area of Pentagram’s New York City headquarters. Perhaps it’s due to the full-floor view of leafy Madison Square Park across Fifth Avenue. Or maybe it’s the nostalgic touches throughout the office*—an unplugged black rotary phone, for example, sits on a side table next to the comfy red couches. The most civilized touch could definitely be the The New York Times hanging from a metal rack on the wall. Sitting there in Pentagram’s elevated lobby, eyeing the Times, one feels a certain desire to chuck their always-on cellphone into the Fifth Avenue traffic, curl up with the inky newsprint, and spend the afternoon leisurely reading. But then the whole reason for this stop is to interview Natasha Jen. Her reputation precedes her. She was named one of Pentagram’s youngest partners ever, in 2012 at age 35.

Her far-reaching resume shows she can do just about anything: brand identities, multi-scale exhibitions, signage systems, print, motion, and interactive graphics, collaborations with universities, museums, fashion brands, and restaurants. There is even a rumor that she can fly.

Still, it leaves one question unanswered: Who is Natasha Jen? The impetus for having lunch was to hear about the life experiences that have shaped her perspective and contributed to her success.

Natasha Jen photographed in and around her home in downtown Brooklyn.

At the 2017 99U Conference, you gave a talk that argued that design thinking is bullshit, which hit on a topic many other designers also felt passionate about and sparked a constructive debate on the subject. Is there another topic on your mind these days that has you fired up?

Oh yeah. It started during the U.S Presidential election when Donald Trump said awful things about, and exhibited awful behaviors toward, women. Since then there has been this rise of renewed feminism in American culture. Since the election, there has been news about sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, one after another, from different industries. The idea of feminism is in women’s heads and in our daily conversation. But, I’ve been noticing brands, especially women’s brands, use this newfound popularity of feminism to gain profit. To me, this is not genuine feminism. Some brands are actually trying to create, I think, a lot of insecurity in women; to make women feel: “Oh, I’m not good. Therefore, I need that.” I’ve seen that kind of rhetoric in different ways, but they are under this disguise of empowerment. I’m sorry, but they are not about empowerment. They are about generating profit.

This is something I have noticed more and more in advertising; how people approach topics around women’s body types. It’s not anything new, but there is a problem when we’re still talking about a certain body type as a kind of “ideal” body type. For example, there is a trend towards celebrating plus-size women, which is wonderful, but it is also a fine line. So, okay, skinny is now no good. We need to actually be large-size, but then if you look at being large, which a lot of times is biological, there is a fine line between being large and being obese. Are we actually saying that it’s okay to be obese? It’s not, right? Alternatively, we used to idealize thin, shapeless bodies. Which is equally problematic, because we were not really saying being anorexic was good, either.

Currently, our society does not have the selective ability to question these topics because, the way that social media works is that when you respond to something, you like it. If you don’t like it, you can walk away. There is not any form of dialogue in-between. We lose our ability to question. And we end up in this situation where there’s this kind of pseudo feminism wrapped under capitalism and we don’t have a way to question these things that are important for the progress of women’s rights, body image and feminism.

Can branding or design do anything to impact this?

Yes. And it’s actually doing a lot of things to enable this kind of pseudo feminism. I don’t want to call out names, but branding and marketing contributes, which is sad.

What would you do in response to what you’re seeing?

This may sound passive on the surface – as we can’t un-involve ourselves from capitalism – but we can choose not to participate in the consumption and production of these brands and their products. I still believe that the choice of not participating is a kind of activism.

You grew up in Taiwan, and have lived in New York City ever since you moved here to attend the School of Visual Arts (SVA). As a teenager, were your peers traveling internationally for college, or was this unique?

The reason why I pursued my college outside of Taiwan was because I just didn’t fit into the education system there. It’s a highly competitive, exam-based culture. In order to go from junior high to high school, you have to take a national exam. It’s brutal. They only take the top 30% of students for these schools and for the rest of the people it’s: “Good luck!” I couldn’t fit into that system. I did poorly in high school. Therefore, we all knew that there was no chance for me in the college entrance exam.

Basically, there would be no colleges in Taiwan who would let me in because I would be automatically eliminated. Where else could I go? I wanted to pursue art. Really, I wanted to become a painter. New York is an obvious artistic hub. I was late in my applications, so I applied only to SVA. I got in surprisingly. That’s how I got to New York.

What was your first impression of New York City?

It was mesmerizing. The first place that I went to after I got off the plane was Coney Island. My father had two friends, a couple living there, and they took me in. There was, and still is, a very big Russian town there. That was amazing to me—before that I had no idea what Russian culture was like. School was another new thing to me. I had never seen so many different ethnicities all in the same class. That was eye-opening.

Growing up you had career ambitions of being an astronaut, a detective, or, literally, Indiana Jones. What was it about these lines of work?

A sense of adventure, discovery, getting into the unknown, solving a mystery. I think astronauts are very similar to Indiana Jones, in different domains, but I feel that the nature of their work is similar. And I’m still very much drawn to adventurous archeology type of stories.

Prior to Pentagram, you had your own studio, njenworks, and then you joined Pentagram in 2012. Joining Pentagram seems like a no-brainer for just about any designer, but did you ever have any self-doubt about it or question the decision?

It wasn’t a 100%-sure decision for me, to tell the truth, because I had no experience running a business. Even when I was doing my own studio, the scale was so small that I didn’t have any business professional mechanism set up, such as payroll—I was the payroll department. So, there was a lot of self-doubt when I was invited.

First of all, it was just like: “Can I actually live up to the standard of Pentagram?” It was also mysterious to me as to how business is done here. But my partners shared the preliminary revenue numbers that I had to deliver that first year and it was a reasonable number –I was already doing that at my own studio. I thought, “Okay. That’s all right.” That’s how I stepped in.

How does the partnership at Pentagram work?

The structure of the partnership is equal among the partners, and each partner is an independent business center when it comes to their staffing and team’s overhead. However, the entire partnership shares the office’s collective overhead—the rent, utilities, that kind of stuff. It creates this practical support to each business. On an intellectual and philosophical level, the benefit of this model is that it allows each partner the freedom to pursue what they want, while also being able to draw upon the collective experience and wisdom of the other partners. The partnership creates a self-disciplined culture where you understand that you are a part of a larger ecosystem, and that your business actually matters to the rest of your partners.

Why is it important for creatives to have a strong understanding of the business side of the design business?

Having experience with your own business helps you to better relate to your clients’ businesses. You can feel their pain points and see the struggles, and you may be able to contribute some thinking beyond the design that may help their business.

How much of your time today is spent designing and how much is spent on project management, client relations, and business operations?

Design-wise, actually I don’t design on a computer anymore. But I’m very involved with the design process alongside my designers. The majority of my time, say 70%, is dedicated to designing the business, how the team works, and client relationships. I see this as a kind of design, but it’s very different from thinking about typography, for example.

What criteria do you use to evaluate which clients you want to take on?

Two things: Our personal interest in a particular subject matter or the problem and budget; if we can actually meet our budget. Pentagram doesn’t have strict criteria regarding qualifying new business the way that a traditional agency does, so I tend to follow my gut.

Where do you look for stories, for ideas?

There are cult magazines or websites that I occasionally visit. Not at the office because people would be at my door wondering, “What is she looking at? Alien stuff again?” I’m on Netflix a lot. In recent years, we’ve had several thought-provoking sci-fi films, from Prometheus to the Alien remake and now the Blade Runner remake. Sci-fi touches on a lot of the issues—technological, moral, environmental, cultural, geo-political—that we’re facing today, but ultimately it’s about what makes humans human.

Are there any cardinal rules to the Natasha Jen school of design?

I can’t stand line breaks shorter than, every 4-5 words Like the way this sentence is designed.

A recent news article reported that the pastel-colored, minimalist packaging redesign you did for Brooklyn ice cream brand Van Leeuwen—which allows the pints to stand out in an aisle of pints that look similar—has contributed to a 200% uptick in sales. Can design really sell more ice cream?

Design can sell anything. Design can also destroy everything. Design is this double-edged sword.

To what degree does Taiwanese culture influence your design perspective and work?

It’s a very interesting question. I haven’t gotten that resolved yet. Taiwan is primarily Chinese culture; the language is Mandarin. And you’re constantly exposed to the 5,000-year-old history, always. Then Taiwan is also a former Japanese colony. Therefore, there’s a lot of residual Japanese stuff in the culture, from comic books to magazines to TV shows. I grew up with the intertwined nature of these two cultures. Taiwan is dense and has a lot of energy, but it’s not the most visually beautiful place. That environment does affect my sensibility because I gravitate toward something that has a vibrancy and density to it, but not necessarily visually busy.

Then I learned my entire design language and knowledge here in America—the knowledge I have about design is actually, primarily, a Western design thinking and philosophy. These two manifest in my work. I don’t know which one is influencing the other, but I think that on a surface level, you actually don’t see any kind of Chinese or Asian influence at all, unless there is a project that actually has that cultural background. Then you see that, Oh yeah, whoever designed this knows what she’s talking about.

What impact has New York City had on your work?

There is a kind of ambition that is unique to New York. You really have to want something in order to be here, and that has been a primary driver to our work. We’ve had experiences where we’ve been on the seventh round of a client revision, and we just keep going. That is a very New York characteristic—you just keep going.

Is there a New York landmark that most designers wouldn’t consider good design but that you love?

The NYC subway.

Wow, you’re taking a stand there. What makes it great in your eyes?

The MTA’s campaign posters and messaging are incredible, especially now that they have started to install digital screens in the cars. These posters for ‘If you see something, say something,’ ‘Do not breakdance in the cars,’ and ‘Don’t pick your phone up if you drop it on the tracks,’ with pictogram-style people. Now all these are becoming animations that I find hilarious, uniquely New York, and inspiring. The MTA deserves a lot more design credit.

I’ve noticed you have a tattoo of a fleuron on your wrist.

This was a kind of mindless and thoughtless decision when I first came to New York. It happened between my first year and second year at SVA. During that summer I got an internship at Eric Baker Design. Eric had a small but wonderful office on 23rd Street. It had an amazing library, but the library was a mess, so my first assignment was to help Eric organize the books. I literally had to go through every book, and categorize it as graphic design, typography, etc. At one point I found this old type specimen book, German Type Specimen Books (Schriftartexemplare), that has different typefaces, from Bodoni to gothic letters.

I was really drawn into the gothic letters, and I saw this one and thought, That’s such a pretty thing. Let me just put it on my body. So I Xeroxed the page and took it to a tattoo shop in the East Village. There’s no concept or meaning in it. It just marked a time that I was working with Eric, going through a library, and found this book. I got another one on my ankle of my initial “N,” from the same book. Growing up in Taiwan, I had never seen Gothic letters before and I started scanning a bunch of them and using them in my school assignments. Using this incredible library was the biggest benefit I got from working for Eric, and you will see a lot of stuff from the book everywhere in my life.

Including on your person.

Exactly.

You came to New York at a relatively young age, and you’ve built a strong career. Of course intellect, instinct, and ability all contribute to this, but what about on the personal character side of things? Was there a defining life moment that helped you develop the drive and perseverance necessary for success?

I remember one summer, my second summer in New York, where my father passed away, and I was broke. I had no kind of money or any skill whatsoever. And then a friend at school, who was also from Taiwan, said he knew about this city bus tour for Chinese tourists. It’s an all-day activity, and the tour company was looking for guides to describe the different New York landmarks—Wall Street, Central Park, the UN Building. He said I might get tips depending on how well I did. It sounded interesting, so I thought I would try it. Of course, I had no knowledge about any of these places; I hadn’t even been to most of them. So I went to Barnes & Noble the day before I started working and got two books on New York and memorized everything. The next day I got on the bus and guided tours for the whole summer. I actually made good money. You just figure it out.

*Pentagram has since moved to Park Avenue.