#the silvio discourse with him)

[harrowscore]

SO close to strangling my dad for what he's saying about berluconi... what a deeply ignorant little man he is at heart

[girlonthelasttrain]

I don't think I can properly convey how long I've wanted for Berlusconi to die (I knew he would never simply retire, and in fact he didn't even if he was ill). I grew up and came of age in the 90s/early 00s and he and his absurd stunts were inescapable, everything was about him, what he wanted, what he'd said five minutes earlier. It was literally everything that was talked about on newspapers and tv, and it revealed the actual emptiness of the political discourse on every side. Italian democracy has always been a very fragile project and Silvio Berlusconi never hesitated to grab a chance to bludgeon it to pieces, while too many people stood there and watched helplessly as it happened

[movinginpicturesfractructures]

The Great Beauty, focused on the sixty-fifth birthday of a successful journalist and social animal in Rome, is a wonderful film: it presents a cosmopolitan portrait of life, and each image in the film seems well-chosen, for its architecture and interior design, for the presentation of nature and scene and visual art, for the location and placement of persons and movement. The central character among many eccentric characters, the journalist Jep Gambardella is smart and suave, a libertine who is too self-aware and honest to be self-infatuated or proud, and too generous to be cynical. Jep Gambardella (actor Toni Servillo) is a wonderfully believable and likable character. His life has been easy (his friends are rich, and he has a grand apartment, and the women are still attracted to him), but that has been part of his problem: Jep has not had to demand much of himself. The motion picture is full of personalities and their smart talk, and it presents diverse stories, different lives, with their comedy and drama. The Great Beauty could be a continuation of the work of great film directors such as Visconti, Fellini, and Bertolucci, men who created photoplays of grandeur and history, strangeness and truth. The importance of consciousness, personal choice, public discourse, art, money, and politics are the content of the conversations, conversations that are serious and also distractions from private dilemmas—a second book that was never written; a husband in love with someone else; a disturbed, suicidal son. The film allows meditation on modern existence, on the complexities and idiosyncrasies of modern contemporary life in great cities: the personal liberties and odd loneliness, and collisions of past and present, prominent industries, celebrity culture, jazz, cocaine, botox parties, and indulgent sexuality. by Daniel Garrett Volume 21, Issue 8 / August 2017

The film is an examination of potential unfulfilled and squandered, with the pursuit of momentary pleasures a salve against deeper wounds. It mixes a phantasmagoric, oblique critique of the excesses of Italy’s recent past under former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with an affectionate unstated tribute to the peculiar, exuberant imagery of Italy’s cinematic maestro, Federico Fellini.

Sorrentino acknowledged that the outsized gestures of his visual style — as also demonstrated in his vividly dense 2008 film “Il Divo,” which starred Servillo as seven-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti — are out of step with trends on the international art house circuit. And he doesn’t mind a bit. - By Mark Olsen

[whatfilmwasthat]

Nelson Pereira dos Santos, another renowned director, managed to make one of the most important films of the decade, called Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês (1971). The film is a reinterpretation of cultural anthropophagy, a theme in vogue at that time. If Macunaíma (Joaquim Pedro de Andrade), a 1969 success, was a tropical interpretation of Mário de Andrade's anti-hero, Nelson Pereira's film subtly resumes a critical bias about the tendency of Brazilian culture to open up, about external influences. To this end, the film conveys allusions about the political defeat of 1964 and the impasses of the left-wing guerrillas, underway in the country.

Inspired by the saga of the German Hans Staden, who spent almost a year among the Tupinambás in the 16th century, the film changes the character's destiny (in this case, a Frenchman). In real life, Staden escaped being eaten by the Indians, while in the film, the foreign civilizing hero is eaten, but, before dying, he utters a kind of curse against the Brazilians who devoured him.

On the other hand, 1972 saw two important national cinema productions. The films Independência ou Morte, by Carlos Coimbra, and Os Inconfidentes, by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, showed different readings of events and official historical characters.

The first film assumed the discourse of official history, narrating the facts linearly and simplistically, emphasizing the emperor's loves and trying to imitate the luxury of foreign productions. Os Inconfidentes, on the other hand, was made within a conception of author cinema, with cheap and stripped-down production. He used the theme of Inconfidência Mineira to discuss the crisis on the Brazilian left and his failed option for armed struggle against the military regime. In the film, revolutionaries/confidantes were lost in illusions of conquering power, utopian projects, and empty speeches, while isolating themselves from the population and workers (in this case, symbolized by slaves).

At the end of the decade, Cacá Diegues performed Bye-Bye Brasil (1979), which sought to reconcile social and political criticism with a lighter and more humorous language. The film, a success with audiences and critics alike, told the story of a caravan of poor artists, the “Caravana Rolidei”, which traveled the interior of Brazil. Based on this theme, Diegues presented a critical assessment of the conservative Brazilian modernization of the 1970s, full of regional and social disparities, and the effects of the cultural industry in deep Brazil.

Almost at the end of the military regime, Brazilian cinema began to build a film memory of the dictatorship, especially in films set in the lead years. In 1982, Roberto Farias directed Pra Frente Brasil, which showed, with all possible realism, the torture that an ordinary and innocent citizen, mistaken for a left-wing “terrorist”, suffered at the hands of right-wing paramilitaries. Even avoiding directly incriminating the Armed Forces for all the violence shown in the film, the work caused much controversy and was almost censored.

The documentary cinema was also an important space for reflection on the dictatorship, especially from the 1980s onwards, achieving great public success, with films such as Jango (Silvio Tendler, 1984) and Cabra Marcado para Morrer (Eduardo Coutinho, 1984). The first resumed the political and personal trajectory of the reformist president overthrown in 1964, while the second plunged into the various paths followed by the popular classes after the coup and the repression that befallen workers and peasants.

After the crisis of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, themes related to the military dictatorship once again inspired dozens of Brazilian films, not only in terms of documentaries but also in fiction.

[cryptodictation]

Silvio Santos classifies Bolsonaro as 'his boss'

The greatest communicator on Brazilian television took an attitude considered by many to be unusual. Silvio Saints, owner of SBT, refuted information published by Veja Magazine. In it, the media reported that the 'entrepreneur of the Chest', would have indicated the name of a substitute for the Minister of Health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who left, on Thursday (16), the Ministry of Health.

Silvio Santos it does not usually hit notes published in the media. On the contrary. He always receives a collection of information that comes out about him in the press and often has fun with the publications of certain subjects.

This time, the communicator reacted. He wrote a note, which was sent to the magazine's Radar column. In it, the businessman stresses that he does not usually meddle in political matters. Silvio Santos recognizes that the concession of his broadcaster is public, belongs to the government, so it would not be against the decision “of my boss”, in this case the President of the Republic. “My television concession belongs to the federal government and I would never be against any decision by my” boss “who is the owner of my concession,” he said.

Emphasis

This question of subordination to the “boss” is emphasized in another section of the note. For Silvio Santos, the employee who opposes the boss reaches two paths: either accept the opinion or find another job. The note from Veja magazine highlights that business-related names closed the question about the name of Nelson Taich to take over the Ministry of Health, but Silvio Santos went against it when he appointed Claudio Lottenberg, director of Albert Einstein, to the position.

Story

Silvio Santos has flirted with power since the 1970s. For many years, he aired a weekly program in which he brought the political agenda of the presidents of the Republic, the famous Week of the President.

Later, this program left the grid of the Brazilian Television System. Recently, in the management Jair Bolsonaro, the businessman and presenter of auditorium programs considered the return of the news to be produced by the TV Journalism Department under his concession.

Resignation

Luiz Henrique Mandetta was dismissed on Thursday afternoon (16). For weeks, he had been in an intense political clash with President Jair Bolsonaro (without a party). The first advocates social isolation; the head of the executive branch, however, expressed concern about this distance and the consequent decline in the economy.

On Sunday (12), Mandetta gave an interview to “Fantástico”, from Rede Globo. On that occasion, he defended the unity of discourse between the Ministry of Health and the Presidency of the Republic. For members of the government, the chat was considered an affront to Bolsonaro, who has no affection for the Marinho family broadcaster.

With that, the military, who supported the maintenance of Mandetta, would have withdrawn that support.

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[hollywoodjuliorivas]

Trumpism deserves to be called a cult

VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

The comparisons have come hard and fast, at least since 2015. Trump is like Silvio Berlusconi, like Adolf Hitler, like Boris Johnson. A 2018 film called “The Trump Prophecy” took the evangelical route, comparing Trump to Cyrus the Great, the 6th century BC Persian monarch chosen by God to free Jewish captives in Babylon.

But maybe it’s time to stop searching for the exact analogy for Trump, be he Cyrus or Boris, Adolf or a Silvio. What demands analysis is less the arrogant 73-year-old mediocrity in the Oval Office, but the worshipful attitude so many Americans have toward him.

A lot of nut jobs have peddled lies to Americans before, and even styled themselves as messianic. But at no time in history have so many Americans been drawn to what’s looking increasingly like a cult. I don’t use the term recklessly.

When Steven Hassan, an expert in cults and an ex-Moonie (as in the Unification Church, founded by a Korean businessman, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon), published “The Cult of Trump” last spring, some reviewers objected to his use of the cult framework as incendiary and not all that useful.

Indeed, for Trump critics to call his admirers cult members might be just another salvo in our nasty political warfare. It’s similar to the Trump psychologizing over the years that often doubles as name-calling: He’s a baby, a psychopath, a stone-cold narcissist.

The discourse around cults partakes of some woolly theories. “Mind control” and “brainwashing” are shibboleths from the 1950s, when the coinages were used to describe what Chinese Communists did to convert freethinkers to their cause. The implicit suggestion is that unsavory ideas and ideologies can only win adherents using extreme and witchy measures.

All that put me off the notion of Trumpism as a cult. But then in August, Trump looked heavenward and called himself “the chosen one.”

Suddenly, among evangelicals, it wasn’t enough to make comparisons with Cyrus or even King David. He had to be the savior himself. The far-right radio host Wayne Allyn Root called Trump “the second coming of God.” Then former Energy Secretary Rick Perry straight up affirmed Trump’s craziness, telling him, “You are here in this time because God ordained you.”

As 2019 drew to a close, my doubts about Trumpism as a cult dissolved. And I’m not alone.

Republican lawyer George Conway reportedly described his wife, Trump’s presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, as a member of a cult. Former GOP strategist John Weaver has used the term. Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s onetime communications director, concurs. Also news vet Dan Rather, conservative political scientist Norman Ornstein, science journalist Steve Silberman, pastor John Pavlovitz and academic and journalist Jared Yates Sexton.

What the cult diagnosis may lack in scholarly rigor, it makes up for in explanatory power. When polled, far too many Republicans come across as having abandoned their commitment to libertarianism, family values or simple logic in favor of Trump worship. They’re lost to paranoia and factually unmoored talking points, just the way Hassan was lost to Sun Myung Moon.

It can be heartbreaking when loved ones succumb to Trumpism. (It’s a double whammy when your grief is dismissed as liberal tears.) A true believer undergoes a “radical personal change,” as Hassan puts it. The person you once knew seems somehow ... not there.

Journalists Luke O’Neil and Edwin Lyngar, as well as Jen Senko in “The Brainwashing of My Dad,” have compiled stories of Americans who have gone over. O’Neil summarized the transformation this way: “A loved one … sat down in front of Fox News, found some kind of deep, addictive comfort in the anger and paranoia, and became a different person.”

Sounds about right.

Hassan — who remembers, during his Moonie days, shouting, “I don’t care if Moon is like Hitler. I’ve chosen to follow him, and I’ll follow him to the end” — broke free, and became an expert on cults and how to leave them. He has spent his career proving it’s possible.

To see Trumpism as a cult is not to refuse to engage with its effects, the crimes committed in its name or the way it has awakened and emboldened the cruelest and most destructive beliefs and practices in the American playbook. Instead, the cult framework should relieve the pressure many of us feel to call Trumpites back to themselves, to keep arguing with them. They are stuck in a bad relationship with a controlling figure.

Understanding Trump is a fool’s errand. He’s sui generis, and far too erratic and finally insubstantial to reward close attention. Trump zealots are another matter. They are part of the tradition of radical converts in American history who elected to forfeit their authentic personalities and principles rather than refine or strengthen them. We need to stay focused on how so many Americans came to this pass and took this destructive course. The Trump cult will define American politics for decades to come, even after its dear leader is gone.

[asiastemcells-blog]

Adult Stem Cells - Significant Progress Made in 2010

Thinking back on 2010, I needed to impart to you a preview of the amazing advancement that has been made this previous year as far as undifferentiated cell science and regenerative drug.

This year empowered researchers to share their inconceivable discoveries around the world, extending from disclosures inside their labs through to the accomplishments of various clinical preliminaries. What made these triumphs increasingly important were the astounding stories that were told by individuals from varying backgrounds who took an interest in grown-up undifferentiated organism contextual analyses, s/cell treatment and medications. They have (with the assistance of the web) had the option to share their unfathomable encounters indicating us direct the advantages and progress they accomplished in an extremely brief time.

2010 was a genuinely wonderful and huge year for every one of those engaged with grown-up immature microorganism science and treatment. A critical achievement was seeing such a significant number of advantages reach such huge numbers of individuals, everything being equal, who have such fluctuating well being challenges.

The manner in which we care for and protect our great well being is as much an open door as when we have to recuperate from an ailment, infection or damage.

Regardless of what your condition of well being or age, anybody would now be able to profit, whether it be taking an undifferentiated organism supplement through to the individuals who experience full immature microorganism substitution treatment (which is currently turning into a day by day outpatient technique in numerous nations).

The "truth can be stranger than fiction" articles and recordings simply didn't stop all through 2010 and these were by a long shot the greatest approval of achievement we would ever request.

Grown-up Stem Cell Accomplishments in 2010

It's been conceivable to bring undeveloped cell medicines into the domains of therapeutic practice and furthermore into the home as far as increasingly fundamental well being applications.

These huge achievements include:

• Adult undeveloped cell substitution treatment.

• The banking of undeveloped cells. Numerous moms are presently saving their infant's umbilical string platelets so they can be utilized at a later arrange (if necessary) to help with the treatment of maladies, for example, leukemia. The cells can be protected for a normal of 21 years.

• Organs being developed in the research center with grown-up undifferentiated cells. In years to come it is accepted contributor organs will have the option to be developed in tremendous numbers in research centers, dispensing with the gigantic requirement for live benefactors and long holding up records.

• Stem cell supplements - experimentally demonstrated and incredibly viable. These enemy of maturing "regular" supplements initiate the foundational microorganisms inside our bone marrow and send them into the circulation system where they go about as a fix and restoration pack, bolster ideal tissue and organ work, and fortify our resistant framework. Foundational microorganism enhancements are quick turning into the crucial enhancement that everybody can stand to take.

On sixteenth September 2010, Jean Peduzzi Nelson Ph.D. from Wayne State University tended to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. Jean Nelson is a neuroscientist who is doing unbelievable work on presenting grown-up immature microorganism medications, especially for those with spinal string wounds, head wounds and radiotherapy harm. In her discourse she alluded to "the valiant pioneers who originally investigated the capability of grown-up undeveloped cell treatment. The advancement of grown-up s/cells has now gone a long ways past these specific patients (as noted underneath) permitting long haul follow up consequences of various patients in friend explored distributed clinical preliminaries."

All through the 1990 s and mid 2000 s, grown-up s/cells researchers and backers confronted numerous difficulties and obstructions that deferred advancement (for example a noteworthy absence of subsidizing, government limitations, an absence of clinical preliminaries and information to back up the realities). The confirmation is presently accessible.

Dr Jean Peduzzi Nelson discussed a few patients who have been helped by grown-up undifferentiated cells. These patients were a piece of a clinical preliminary and their outcomes were distributed in a companion checked on diary in 2010. A rundown of these examples of overcoming adversity are delineated underneath.

• Silvio had a spinal line damage at the base of his neck (cervical level 6/7, American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) A, total damage. Evaluation An is viewed as the more terrible, which demonstrates total spinal rope damage where no engine or tangible capacity is protected in the sacral fragments S4-S5). Silvio was left with no development of his legs and insignificant development of his fingers.

2 years after his damage, and after escalated recovery neglected to prompt an improvement, Silvio got his own grown-up foundational microorganisms. Today he can keep up standing position and wave without assistance. With a walker and short props, he can stroll more than 30 feet without anybody helping him. He would now be able to move his fingers, which he couldn't do previously. Joined with an uncommon recovery program called BIONT (cerebrum started non-mechanical/non-weight upheld preparing) created by Dr Lazzeri and Dr Arcangeli, that Silvio utilized at Center Giusto in Italy he figured out how to walk once more. Dr Jean Nelson is hoping to bring olfactory mucosal s/cell treatment to the individuals of the US with the assistance of the NIH and/or the Department of Defense. At the point when grown-up s/cell treatment/medications are joined with a successful recovery program for Grade A spinal string wounds, the majority of the patients recaptured some muscle development in their legs. These discoveries were reported with EMG and SSEP accounts.

• Doug Rice was told in 1998 that he had 2 years to live because of incessant heart disappointment after numerous cardiovascular failures. Around then he could barely walk. He didn't meet all requirements for any US clinical preliminaries. Doug Rice thusly went to Thailand to have grown-up immature microorganism treatment. The cells were sent to an organization in Israel where they were cleansed and permitted to increase. They were then sent back to Thailand for infusion. Since that time, Doug has more vitality and is getting a charge out of life. This isn't a disconnected episode. In 2010, an article was distributed in the European Journal of Heart Failure detailing the follow up of 191 patients who got s/cells from their very own bone marrow contrasted with 200 patients with equivalent side effects. Those patients who had gotten grown-up s/cell treatment lived longer and had a more noteworthy ability to do works out. Their heart worked much better dependent on countless tests (left ventricular discharge division, cardiovascular file, oxygen take-up and left ventricle contractility). This report of the STAR-heart study gives the controlled clinical preliminary information, and new preliminaries are currently continuing in the US.

• Joe Davis was brought into the world with serious sickle cell iron deficiency. Sickle cell frailty is a blood ailment that influences 1/500 African-Americans. Specialists thought Joe probably won't live to see his teenagers. At the point when Joe was 2 years of age in 2002, he got a transplant of immature microorganisms from his more youthful sibling's umbilical rope. Joe never again has sickle cell pallor. So where are we now? In the US, around 72,000 individuals have sickle cell frailty that causes torment, interminable tiredness from iron deficiency and serious diseases, generally starting when they are babies. In a distributed report a year ago in the New England Journal of Medicine that was upheld by NIH, ten grown-ups were treated with grown-up s/cells from their sibling or sister. Of these patients, nine never again had side effects of sickle cell weakness and were excelling at 4 years after their treatment. A comparable report was distributed in 2008 demonstrating that 6/7 of the youngsters with extreme sickle cell pallor treated along these lines were without sickle cell side effects when they were analyzed at 2-8 years after treatment.

• Barry Goudy was experiencing numerous sclerosis. He had various backslides and prescription was not helping his condition. Barry was a piece of an investigation led at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and got his own undifferentiated organisms in 2003. His MS indications vanished in 4 months, and he keeps on being side effect free today. Results were distributed a year ago in Lancet Neurology - 1 March 2009 (Vol 8. Issue 3, Pages 244 - 253).

• Next we have the wonderful recuperation of patients who have corneal illness. Corneal ailment is the second driving reason for visual impairment after waterfalls on the planet. Patients had grown-up undifferentiated cells expelled from their contrary eye and embedded into their harmed eye. The patients went from scarcely having the option to see hand developments to ordinary sight in these eyes. This technique was fruitful in over 75% of the 112 patients. A portion of these patients were pursued for a long time.

• Amazing advancement was likewise made utilizing grown-up undeveloped cells in adolescent diabetes. An ongoing clinical preliminary report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that most of 23 patients who got grown-up undifferentiated organisms accomplished insulin freedom in the multi year development.

The examples of overcoming adversity simply continued coming in 2010. Caught underneath is only a little outline:

• Windpipes made with Adult Stem Cells Help Cancer Patients. [As revealed by Colleen Barry, The Washington Post]. ROME - Italian specialists have declared the utilization of patients' own grown-up s/cells to create new tracheas for two malignant growth patients. To grow another trachea, the specialists began with a benefactor trachea and expelled the majority of the cells. The ligament framework left after the strategy was then washed in the patient's bone marrow grown-up s/cells before transplantation. Over a time of 2-3 months the grown-up s/cells spread the framework with new tissue, developed inside the body of the patient.

• BERLIN, November 26, 2010 (Life Site News.com) - Doctors related with the German umbilical rope blood donation center Vita 34 state they have relieved a youngster's leukemia totally utilizing an implantation of s/cells from umbilical line blood.

• Stem Cell Spray Heals Burns. November 26th, 2010. By Ed Yeates. SALT LAKE CITY - A shower arrangement of a patient's own s/cells is recuperating their extreme consumes. Up until this point, early tries under a University of Utah pilot undertaking are demonstrating some amazing outcomes.

• ABC News - 5 June 2010 - Mike Dunkirk depicted on ABC News, how Ves Cell grown-up s/cell treatment improved hello there, Asia Stem Cell

[anghealachghorm]

When I was 15 I discovered anthropology at Maynooth University. I fell in love and I didn’t want to learn anything else. It called out to me in a way few subjects have since. Philosophy and nature are its parents. It is like a river, you never step in the same one twice.[i] Which is why it’s so uniquely suited to everything.

I managed to graduate from my undergrad, how, I’m still not certain. 2010 marked a tumultuous time in my life, and I only understand now how depression and anxiety played their parts. I spend 3 long years in the job market (miserably). Then a light came in 2013 when I was accepted for a Masters in anthropology and development, in my beloved Maynooth. So over 2 years, I studied my favourite subject again, this time solely.

Even with the seriousness of the subject matter, I still found my whimsical side, which I would like to share with you today. In 2014 I wrote an essay for a class by Dr Steve Coleman of Maynooth University. Rereading it has at times made me laugh out loud. Why he gave me a 2.1 on it I’ll never truly know. Shout out to Steve!

I’ve included some extracts below and it has been sufficiently altered for syntax and clarity. Also, Jenni of today has added some stuff for context and you can see that in italics. So if you’ve made it this far enjoy my stalwart friend!

Animation as Performance

The online world is an endless void of connected humanity. Projections of the self are possible online which are not available to us in the tactile world. Although there are situations where it is acceptable to enact your fandom in ‘real time,’ through ‘Cosplay,’ (the practice of dressing up as a character from a film, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga or anime) such as during Halloween, at conventions, or in theme parks; online personalities offer an outlet for people who want to explore an alternative version of themselves. This often takes place through participation in online communities such as MMO’s (an online video game which can be played by a very large number of people simultaneously). Manning & Gershon explain how the avatars make it possible for people to distance themselves from their bodies:

“…in the virtual worlds of Massively Multiple Online Games (MMOGs). Avatars are virtual embodiments that permit, at the outset, a complete divorce between the body of the offline player and the body of the online character and permit large numbers of offline players to interact socially within a single virtual world mediated by these online embodiments.”[3]

Jesse & James (Pokémon)

Jesse & James (Cosplay)

Animation has rapidly become one of the most prevalent expressions of new media this century. Silvio provides a perspective on the popularity of animation:

“The proliferation of animation and animated characters is not simply an effect or symptom of the intersection of computer technology and structural transformations in global capitalism. Animation is also popular because it provides a productive trope for thinking through this intersection.”[4]

The topics I will discuss are YouTube and its relevant fandoms. People reinvent themselves online, they perform through the genre of another, and live action has even been transformed into animation. Silvio reinforces, “animation as an alternative model of and for human action in the world,”[5] which is something anthropology seeks to link new animism.

Animism: Descola and Kohn

Descola provides a lens with which to look upon humanity, and the dual system of nature-culture, in his work ‘The Ecology of Others,’

“Making modern dualism the template for all the states of the world has thus lead anthropology to a particular form of academic Eurocentrism, which consists in believing not that the realities that humans objectivise are everywhere identical, but that our own manner of objectivising is universally shared.”[6]

This thought process, although not new, challenges both the dualism of the Eurocentric (focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as pre-eminent) anthropology and the belief of anthropologist that all cosmologies (an account or theory of the origin of the universe) objectify the same way. Performance in animation can be adopted here in order to understand cosmologies that may appear to be outside the scope of animism, such as European cultures. Though the stories enacted often have a ‘first world perspective,’ the potential of the digital age to create analogies requires further exploration. Never before could we channel our likes, wants, and needs into something such as the video platform YouTube. YouTube is a nascent form of media which allows anyone to upload content, as long as it follows the community guidelines. The platform is relatively democratic, your views are the votes for what content is pushed to the fore.

The more we watch, the more YouTube calculates our interests through their algorithms, which in turn can generate advertisement revenue, incentivising the creators. YouTube also creates a market for animations. The consumers get what they want, which is more of their favourite animated characters. This is then exemplified by fans seeing themselves in the animated characters. It cannot be ignored and Silvio provides us with this concept:

“My project in this essay, to set up animation as a platform for the comparative study of how human beings negotiate the relationship between self and world, both includes such projects of intellectual history and, of course, should itself be subjected to cultural and historical contextualization.”[7]

Here we can replace the terms ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ with ‘self’ and ‘world’. Which is what Descola was trying to produce in the ‘Ecology of Others.’ Western discourse believes it is complete and therefore other cosmologies should reflect it. It is pertinent however that we do not assume this. Each individual has their own system of meaning which they attach to the nature of their being. It seems both appropriate and fashionable in Western cultures to separate cultural being from natural being, as only one of those has the tools to survive within the systems capitalism and the neoliberal market have constructed. What must be understood is that all cognizant beings have a ‘self.’ This ‘self’ is only separated into sections by the environment they find themselves in such as their workplace or their community. What animation may give us is the picture of the human as a whole rather than the pieces we normally find ourselves in.

Fandoms, Youtubers, and Performance

We continue our journey through the internet with animation as our guiding trope. We encounter a phenomenon which lends itself to the anthropology as far back as Mauss, and gift exchange. With online community accounts offered for free, people can spend leisure time creating or enjoying fan art, which is more often than not, a reflection of some fandom or other.

The offering from YouTube comes from those who describe themselves as ‘Lets Plays.’ These YouTubers record themselves playing video games and their reactions to them. The most common reaction type is comedic, however, they vary. One such YouTuber calls himself Markiplier; his popularity exceeds 6 million subscribers. (Now with over 20 million as of June 2018). With this enormous fanbase dutifully watching his videos, he is able to make a living out of YouTube. Markiplier is known to play horror games in which he appears authentically frightened, which seems to be a large part of his allure. He is brave, according to himself. He uses his voice to give life to characters in the game. A memorable life-giving moment took place in his ‘lets play’ for an Amnesia custom story. He encounters a ‘tiny box’, pictured below, which he proceeds to call, ‘Tiny Box Tim.’ He announces he will bring Tiny Box Tim on adventures with him. Markiplier gives voice and life to an animation from a game. The first question that must be addressed is why? It would appear that humans give life to the inanimate; it seems to be innate for us to personify the world around us.

This event spawned an animation in which a cartoon Markiplier and Tiny Box Tim were inserted into the game, pictured in below, using an audio snippet from Markiplier’s original video. This 2.00-minute animation, which on Markiplier’s channel now has over 7 million views(now at 20 million), Was a made by a fellow YouTuber, and Markiplier fan called Lixian. This animation fascinating, not only as it awards the opportunity for the gamer Markiplier to appear inside the game, but it also gives life by means of animation to Tiny Box Tim. This character has gone on to appear in other Amnesia stories and animations with Markiplier. Markiplier set this in motion by imprinting himself onto Tiny Box Tim, which has spawned much fan art from Markiplier fans.

This is a wonderful example of Marcel Maus idea of gift exchange. Markiplier is free to use the channel to upload videos, he is compensated by YouTube for ad revenues in relation to time watched on his videos, allowing his viewers to watch for free. This is the result of a gift exchange between the YouTuber and the ‘fan’. This is described by Helleskon:

“…The gifts have value within the fannish economy in that they are designed to create and cement a social structure, but they themselves are not meaningful outside their context…”

So what we see unfolding is Markiplier’s video which provides comedy, in response fans that cannot compensate him in a conventional sense, create fan art such as the animation above. This performance is projected onto animations such as those during gameplay. Markiplier’s voice and personality is projected onto something inanimate, such as a tiny box.

This also is something which may affect Silvio’s belief that animated characters are the only ones that have lives of their own, as this is something live ‘characters’ such as Marilyn Monroe or Mick Jagger cannot have. In the case I have described above the animator Lixian became the live character of Markiplier by creating a representation of Markiplier through his own unique animation style, and use of Markiplier’s original audio. If we follow Silvio on this:

“When we follow an animated character we do much more than anthropormorpasize theme, we in fact, inject ourselves into them. Not only becoming like them, but becoming them, feeling what they are feeling and experiencing what they are feeling. Giving life and logic to something like an animated toy in Toy Story.”

Lixian created his interpretation of what happened, and now the animation gives us the possibility to feel not only what Markiplier felt but what Tiny Box Tim felt. Which pictured in below were; determination, joy, pride, and sadness.

The labour of humanity has allowed this to exist. Not only has a tiny box been animated, but it has been given the range of human emotions, making it real to us.

“Thanks to labour, humans extract their means of subsistence from their environment which they partially transform, metamorphosing themselves in the process in that they establish a social mediation with their fellow humans and with objects.”

Humans have this ability to personify the inanimate as we have a deep-rooted need to define the world. This is increasingly becoming the reality of play for children and adults alike. Play is now extended beyond childhood into a safe online environment, where we can build and define our relationships. We can see how we may like ourselves to be. The act of YouTubing as a ‘lets player’ has some interesting connotations when we consider this quote.

“Silvio points out that this is also true for moments of performance—all sorts of people enable actors to do their jobs. But when people interpret actors’ performance, they still focus on the embodied nature of the performance and the relationship of the actor to the role. Not so with animation. Animation brings this misrecognition in which a character is created by many to the foreground. So the labor underlying animation also contributes to the ways multiplicities can be conflated with an individual character…”

YouTubers are a phenomenon yet to be examined in great detail. YouTuber’s will often find animations of themselves, whether solicited or unsolicited, appearing from clips of their popular videos. This enables the fans to both insert themselves in the narrative of the YouTuber and also insert the YouTuber into the world of the game. The initial reaction of a YouTuber is as if they are in the game environment, which is the nature of gaming, whether you video yourself or not. By animating the moments, life has been brought to both the character of the YouTuber and the environment of the game.

Concluding Notions

Incredibly Manning & Gershon take Silvio animation tropes one step further adding an interesting dimension:

“What if this trope of animation sheds light on dilemmas otherwise obscured when one interprets interactions based on a self-divided by the tension between character and actor, between performance and true self?”

This offers something anthropology is always searching for in its discourse, especially when we consider the idea of the human having more than one self-described by Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ and ‘field’ model. Although we are a complete person at all times when we are in certain situations we are enacting different versions of ourselves. Therefore interaction with animation is an interesting lens with which to view a person. For example, cosplayers, take an animated character, and embodied them, being both the character and themselves at the same time. Not only is this identifying mimicking an animation, but holding more than one reality in your mind at once.

We must remember we live in a world which is dominated by an online presence. Those of us online, have so many different identities, even in our use of emoticons to animate our emotions and reactions on what is a 2-dimensional space. It is undeniable that there are many versions of ourselves, and many use art to project themselves. A writer cannot separate themselves from their words, we now we have animations to enact ourselves through. They are templates waiting for someone to come along and ‘play’ them.

Bibliography

Philippe Descola. 2013. The Ecology of Others. Prickly Paradigm Press, LLC 5629 South University Avenue.

Kohn, Eduardo. 2013. How Forests Think: Towards An Anthropology Beyond The Human. University of California Press. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London.

Silvio, Teri. 2010. Animation: The New Performance? Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. American Anthropological Association.

Manning, Paul & Gershon, Ilana. 2013. Animating Interaction. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3 (3): 107–37. Indiana University & Trent University.

Hellekson, Karen. 2009 A Fannish Field of Value: Online Fan Gift Culture. Cinema Journal, Vol. 48, No. 4 , pp. 113-118. Published by: University of Texas Press Society for Cinema & Media Studies.

Salzman, Philip Carl. 2002. On Reflexivity. American Anthropologist, Vol. 104, No. 3, pp. 805-813 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association.

Gibson, Priscilla. Dickens’s Uses of Animism. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 283-291 Published by: University of California Press.

Pictures

http://nilesysahah.comoj.com/pokemon-team-rocket-jessie-james-edition-gba.php

http://kotaku.com/5633241/pokemon-team-rocket-cosplay-awarded-rare-4040

Amnesia Customer Story reference begins at 4.16minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fngFfn_MXMo

Tiny Box Tim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hZT6XCCp8

Tiny Box Tim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hZT6XCCp8

Lixian Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/LixianTV

Markiplier Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markiplierGAME

[i] Pocahontas. Disney.

Anthropology & Youtube When I was 15 I discovered anthropology at Maynooth University. I fell in love and I didn’t want to learn anything else.

[cubaverdad]

Raul Castro Apparently Decided to Change His Personal Image

Raul Castro Apparently Decided to Change His Personal Image / Juan Juan Almeida Juan Juan Almeida, 11 July 2017 — The President of the Councils of State and of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba recently underwent cosmetic surgery to improve his chin. The chief of Cuban communists wants to be rejuvenated so that young people won't feel they are being governed by an old man of 86. The absurdity is that a process so normal and ordinary acquires, on the island, the unusual dimension of a "State Secret." The problem that arises from such a "mystery" is that as a recognized public figure he is under the magnifying glass of the public observer who, from now on, will compare his current appearance with old photographs of him. Apparently, and this could not be confirmed, patient Raul Castro refused general anesthesia for fear of bad intentions. The truth is that the operation on the president was performed by a Cuban eminence of cosmetic surgery, a celebrity of the guild, of whom I will only say that he is an assistant professor and first class specialist in plastic surgery, because I want to protect his identity from future attacks or implacable witch hunts. Some time ago he had problems at CIMEQ hospital, and later started to work in one of the most well-known teaching hospitals in Havana. General Raul Castro is a man of particular appetites that grew over time, the influence of alcohol and a real frivolity. It is normal with this surgery to try to correct the traces of a person's excesses, without exaggerating or abandoning his disagreeable natural aspects. However, he is not the first president, nor will he be the last, who tries to improve his image using surgical techniques. Plastic surgery ("plastic" derives from the Green "plastikos" which means to mold or give shape) is the medical specialty that deals with the correction or restoration of the form and functions of the body through medical and surgical techniques. In 1994, while Libya was faced with an international embargo, a group of Brazilian doctors traveled to Tripoli via Tunisia, to perform a hair implant and neck surgery on the now deceased Muammar Ghaddafi. In 2011, the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi underwent a long cosmetic surgical procedure on his jaw which, according to reports from his personal doctor, lasted more than four hours. Argentina's former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner also succumbed to vanity and was remodeled with the help of the scalpel. And although the Kremlin spokespeople insist on the contrary, one only has to look at old photos and images of President Vladimir Putin and compare them to recent ones. The change is obvious. It is normal that the Cold War raised the conflict between ideologies and the leaders of that time needed to focus on strategy and wisdom. Then, with the coming of globalization, nationalist discourses lost political strength. Now, in today's world, several leaders, some fierce, some bullies, prostitute their political ends paying special attention to self-promotion on the internet and on social networks. Raul Castro cannot escape the desire to look like a modern old man and subjects himself to discrete adjustments with the truculent intention of showing himself to be less despicable. Source: Raul Castro Apparently Decided to Change His Personal Image / Juan Juan Almeida – Translating Cuba - http://ift.tt/2uiG1Eg via Blogger http://ift.tt/2vihtrq