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racingtoaredlight · 1 year ago

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HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

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I have found myself crying in public multiple times this summer, standing next to strangers who were also crying in public. I do not mean to suggest we were welling up or misty-eyed or otherwise feeling our feelings with some kind of dignity. We were not. We were properly crying, the sniffling and sobbing type, absolutely overwhelmed with joy.

I've cried after listening to music. Mahler's 9th is a piece that I think every person who loves music will be sobbing at by the end...it's essentially an epic musical poem about the composer's own death. Steely Dan's "Charlie Freak" is a song about reuniting with a friend who's a junkie, and who goes on to sell his last remaining possession for the fix that'll kill him. That shit hits deep.

Lets see what the author's referring to.

All of these tearful gatherings have been concerts. I wept when Taylor Swift played “The Archer” at her Eras Tour in a 60,000-person stadium. I bawled my eyes out when Joni Mitchell took the stage at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington State for her first announced concert in more than two decades, as the sun set behind a venue overlooking the Columbia River. I was overcome again watching a fan cry-sing into Phoebe Bridgers’ shoulder onstage during a boygenius show.

Perhaps you’ve experienced this yourself, or seen evidence of it on your social media feeds: the videos, for example, of teary-eyed crowds with hands on their hearts as Ms. Swift sings, “It’s been a long time coming.” The Eras Tour, her first tour since 2018 and a sprawling, three-hour spectacle highlighting a 44-song set list, is simply the biggest and most extravagant of the summer’s great attractions. Beyoncé and Drake are also touring, each after a five-year hiatus. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are back on the road for the first time since 2017. The Cure is touring. Ed Sheeran is touring. Luke Combs, with his hit cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” is touring. Morgan Wallen, with his No. 1 album, is touring. Boygenius, the supergroup that comprises the singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers, is touring. The only disappointment of the summer for fans so far is that Madonna’s long-anticipated Celebration Tour, a career retrospective, was postponed because of a last-minute health crisis. (It’s now scheduled to start in Europe in October.)

This is a rundown of the absolute shittiest pop music that exists.

I read this and I immediately think "I bet this guy jacks off to how many Twitter followers he has." This is why gatekeepers exist. Because if you don't have some socially retarded asshole doing this...

...then you get the legitimate retards running roughshod over the entire artistic landscape.

I can...and have...given you reason after reason after reason why Beyonce is not a good singer in any way, and at this point in her career is almost entirely reliant on studio tricks to make her music passable. Can you give me a reason not tied to popularity for why her music is good?

Likely not. And why is this important? Lets keep reading because, no, there obviously won't be something that gives spencer a heart attack in the next quote...

Back in March, a Live Nation executive told Bloomberg that his company was seeing “incredible demand” for live music — which now seems almost comically understated. Ms. Swift’s tour alone is on pace to earn over a billion dollars...

I know we don't live in a just world. In a just world, Taylor Swift would've been thoroughly ignored at an open mic night in Duluth, would get married, have a few kids, pop a few SSRI's per day, and her cheap guitar would collect dust.

Instead A SINGLE TOUR is on pace to earn over a billion dollars.

One tour. A billion dollars.

I like to use the Cleveland Orchestra's annual budget as a good barometer because...a) they're a top 10 world orchestra, and b) it's nice and neat around $50mm per year. For the whole orchestra...musicians, staff, travel expenses, real estate expenses, taxes, all that shit.

This one tour of a chick that wouldn't know what a secondary dominant was if you pointed it out in a theory book is EARNING TWENTY YEARS OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA'S EXISTENCE IN A SINGLE YEAR'S TOUR.

Spare me your bullshit about popularity and "listening to classical music doesn't get you laid" like you're all hitting the clubs and grinding up. She makes shit music, and fuckers around the goddamned world are lining up for it.

When a fire loses oxygen, it's gone. Money is oxygen.

Of course, part of the reason for these record-breaking grosses is record-breaking ticket prices. While the average ticket price for the Bruce Springsteen tour is an already hefty $250, thanks to so-called dynamic pricing, tickets have been on sale for as much as $5,000. And audiences — at least those who are able — seem willing to pay the extraordinary tab. No doubt fueled by the relative scarcity of big-name acts over several years, the concert has now achieved a new status. It’s no longer a casual entertainment decision, like a movie or a baseball game, to fill a summer evening. Instead, it’s more like a summer vacation: something you plan for, save for and splurge on, chasing the promise of a lifelong transcendent memory.

Idiots spend lots of money on stupid shit. Movie at 11.

With prices and expectations this high, performers understand it’s not enough to come onstage and sing a few songs. You have to be spectacular. Beyoncé’s tour this summer boasts a giant metallic tank and robot arms, and Ms. Swift’s set is like a traveling Vegas production.

I.e. things that are not music.

You know who doesn't need shit like robot arms and fireworks and bullshit like this? Musicians who are good at music.

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Oh, and lets be doubly honest...people aren't going to see the music, they're going for social status. This Dead and Company shit might as well be renamed Dead and Cosplay...because anyone who was around during their heyday looks at whats going on now with fucking disgust.

Those with the means who are persistent and lucky enough might just snag a ticket. For everyone else, there’s social media — and there’s been plenty this summer for online audiences to enjoy. TikTok exploded in popularity when everyone was confined indoors, so this is the first summer when TikTok’s viral potential has fully collided with an abundance of live music events. The prospect of thousands of cameras fixed on a performer’s micro-expressions transforms each show into a potential melodrama — and buoys the possibility that it might be interrupted by a rowdy onlooker. Online you can watch Pink’s puzzled reaction when someone apparently throws their parent’s ashes onstage, or the time a fan threw a vape to Drake onstage, presumably hoping he might smoke it. Another concertgoer foolishly threw a drink on Cardi B — who threw the mic right back.

Idiots being the center of attention is the theme of this post, so why should we be surprised when it happens? The bolded part is what I want to focus on though.

Here's a news segment with the unedited video of the incident. Start at 0:08.

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Now here's the thing...I grew up in an era where Milli Vanilli were absolutely ripped to shreds because of their lip syncing incident. Same with Ashlee Simpson on SNL.

In a few short years, a performer can THROW HER MIC WHILE HER VOCAL TRACK CONTINUES TO PLAY, and nobody will say a goddamned thing about it. That's how far we've fallen. That's how low our fucking standards have become. We can't even be bothered to ask our MUSICIANS to actually MUSIC anymore...it's all about the fucking spectacle. The show. The bullshit.

The fact that this isn't still being talked about on Twitter as one of the biggest musical scandals of recent vintage is beyond me. Forget the trash behavior from Cardi B...that's not what pisses me off...it's the fact that she can't even pull off the easiest possible shit in the world live, and nobody cares.

Perhaps chasing a social media moment, artists are getting interactive with the crowds: Everyone from Harry Styles to Shania Twain is willing to lend a hand with gender reveals and coming-out announcements. Swifties have turned the Eras Tour into a must-watch drama, as the extremely online fandom has developed rituals around show nights, including “surprise song o’clock,” the point in the show where Ms. Swift plays two songs acoustically that are not on the original set list. Online fans tune in to hundreds of live streams of surprise song o’clock on TikTok and Instagram, temporarily joining the crowds to revel.

All the available online theatricality hasn’t kept people away from big tours, though — if anything, it seems to have upped the urgency of attending in person. It’s not just a concert anymore, it’s the chance to witness a viral moment that everyone will be talking about online. You might even be the one to post it.

Why in the fuck would you encourage this type of shit?

Or, as I’ve experienced on multiple occasions, it’s a chance to step outside of life and feel overwhelmed in the best possible way. For all the extravagance of this year’s tours, I think our concert summer is being powered by a simpler idea: a reminder of just how good it feels to be in the presence of one another once again. At Ms. Swift’s concerts, fans bring dozens of friendship bracelets to exchange. Before the boygenius show, a fan created a TikTok group to help coordinate a secret project to surprise the band with a rainbow light display for Pride.

What the fuck have we become?

Halfway through the set at the Joni Mitchell concert, thousands of people turned their cellphone lights on while swaying to “Shine,” to create a moment that’s become familiar to anyone who has regularly attended concerts in recent years. But Mitchell, who has rarely performed since the ubiquity of cellphones, was deeply moved. “You’re stardust, and golden,” she told the audience (paraphrasing her song “Woodstock”). “You look like a fallen constellation.” Behind me, one woman remarked to her friend, “How can I ever take this cellphone light thing for granted ever again?” Her friend replied, in a tearful voice, “Honestly, how can we ever take any of this for granted ever again?”

"How can we take any of this for granted ever again?"

You likely live in a decent cized city or town or whatever. There are probably local musicians in this city that kick ass and put on an awesome show. Have you seen any of those musicians?

Likely not on any sustainable level, based on who I've been networking with. Because the local music scenes in just about every city...including cities like Austin and Nashville and NYC and SF...are smoldering shells of what they used to be. Wanna know why?

Because they've been taken for granted.

You know why shitty piped in music has replaced professional musicians at resataurants, clubs, etc? Because they've been taken for granted. You know why there fewer and fewer bars that have live music? Because they've been taken for granted. You know DJ's have replaced bands at weddings? Because they've been taken for granted. You know why there aren't any bands in your city playing original music anymore? Because they've been taken for granted. You know why orchestras across the globe are shuttering because of lack of funds? Because they've been taken for granted. You know why jazz is dead? Well that's jazz's fault, because it took itself for granted.

For "cellphone light things."

Look at the meme that festival posters have become in the comments. It's always "make fun of the two headlining acts, say 'who?' for everyone else." And I'm not saying this as it's a tired joke or it isn't funny...just that how many fucking festivals have we done this for in the past year?!?

What we're watching is the process of rot and decay. I certainly don't find it funny, but I was raised in a cynical household and have felt this way about popular music going back to grade school.

Wait...you know what? Lets shift gears abrupty and take a look at some other Joni Mitchell Quotes real quick...

“I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate.”

“My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species.”

“This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.”

That last one...damn...that could have replaced my entire screed.

I'm just so sick and tired of this fucking bullshit.

#Youtube

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tyrianludaship · 11 months ago

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How The Narrator Is Written and How He Subverts the Narrator Role: (FINISHED)

The Stanley Parable has incredibly strong writing and witty humor that would make other games be potentially unbearable if the game was not as self-aware. Most gamers in the modern age are strongly resistant to being controlled by the narrative, because video games can easily be enjoyable without narratives. However, the Stanley Parable knows this fact quite well, being able to accommodate the most anti-authoriatian of gamers by making their lack of choice be funny. The Narrator chastises the player’s actions if they do not follow his story, yes, but a lot of gamers found humor in his degradation. Even his voice actor considers it as part of the game’s charm.[1] The Broom Closet Ending is an unironically great example of this type of humor. The player chooses to put Stanley in a broom closet with legitimately nothing to find, a goal or even a reward. Unless you consider the Narrator’s degradation as a reward because he humiliates you greatly for your misplaced curiosity. He thinks your decision to stay is so asinine, he mocks you even when he suspects you’re dead.

(Honestly I wrote this bottom paragraph because I wanted to disclose how Brighting's voice was definitely heard in a church. Imagine going to church on Sunday, and you hear him talk about Jesus. YOU WOULD NOT CONCENTRATE.)

The writing makes or breaks a premise and Davey Wreden as well as William Pugh executed the comedy of the premise perfectly. In an (interview) with Kevan Brighting, he explained how witty the script was and how surprised it made him since he believed at first it was a script for a Christian church.[2] So at least some parts of the writing was regarded immediately as appealing and humorous. Even for individuals who did not even know the game would be comedic in the first place.

The Narrator would not be as comedic if the writing took his side 100% and never mocked him at all. The game mocks both you and the Narrator, making the two feel like equals in some regard; even if that means getting shamed as well. The game shows how imperfect the Narrator is, despite him believing and presenting himself as otherwise. When he talks about the Memory Zone, he reminisces about the awards and recognition the original game had, completely ignoring the negative reviews. When he eventually reads the negative reviews, he becomes offended and self-conscious about him being called preachy and unfunny. When he complains about the new content, he says he’s going to hold the developers accountable on Twitter. The Narrator is a hot mess, and the writing team knows this. He shows behaviors that people relate with or directly experienced in their lives, causing a form of familiarity. A person believing they have more power and authority than they actually have, is super common in both real life and in comedy. The writing for the Narrator is borderline perfect because if you don’t like him, you laugh at his imperfections; and if you like him, you sympathize and relate with him… Hear me out.

If you felt nostalgic over a specific previous era in your life, you’ve experienced a similar level of rose-tinted glasses as much as the Narrator. In my experience, I felt like my life was getting worse during the ages of 11 through 13 because of a personal loss and some other stuff. During that time when I had the ability to relax, I would reminisce over times when I was younger (around 7-9) and believed my life then was a miracle. When in reality, not really. Despite me experiencing less hardship during those ages, there still were hardships. Believing my life had no issues at all as a kid, was illogical. And during that time when I was like “facts don’t care about your feelings”, having to realize that I was wrong was an interesting process. I look back at those years with context of why I was like that. Because I was an emotional trainwreck, puberty made it worse and I wanted to feel better during the wack ass time known as middle school. In this regard despite not relating to this issue anymore, I can understand why the Narrator had this mental blindspot. I kinda relate to him in that respect. This is not the only quality or flaw of the Narrator I relate with and I’ll go more in depth about that later.

(Example: his insecurity of not wanting to sound annoying and his want to be funny, is personally super relatable. There’s a lot of jokes in this essay and I’m still worrying if they’re funny or not. Like I wanna be the funny, silly, little jester to amuse the king. My want to be the class clown in middle school is starting to bite me in the ass.)

The inclusion of these imperfections with the Narrator is unironically perfect when thinking about him as a character we can understand deep down. Whatever superiority he claims to have, falls apart when the player sees him in a vulnerable state; when we see him make mistakes and logical pitfalls. When we see him become agitated or nervous or even self-conscious. When we see him get petty or annoying and when we see him get things stupidly wrong. When we see him get desperate for his story to work out and lose touch with reality as a result. When we see him learn and figure things out right in front of us, seeing how much thought he really puts into making the best story. Even to his own detriment. When we see him as more human and less as a disembodied British Narrator. The Narrator is not perfect but that is why he is so interesting as a character.

It would be very uninteresting if we see him with absolutely no flaws. As well as not making sense. Because the role of a narrator is a huge responsibility; no one would possibly be perfect. There will evidently be a mistake the Narrator would make that affects the story greatly. The more authority a person has, the more ability one would have to make flawed, questionable or simply bad decisions. What’s more authority than literally controlling the reality around a person? A narrator in storytelling, because of them being written by an imperfect, subjective person, is always going to be imperfect and subjective. The Stanley Parable’s Narrator is a great example of a narrator at their most subjective and reflects this inherent quality quite well. This is not only an interesting literary tool to humanize, but it can be intriguing in many other angles; especially with how many possibilities video games hold. Such as…

Why People Love and Care About the Narrator (Freedom Ending + Zending Ending + Miscellaneous): (WORK IN PROGRESS)

(Note: This is the most subjective section in this essay. This is where I’ll most likely call him a ‘babygirl’. Forgive that.)

This is one of many perspectives of the Narrator the player may feel when thinking about him. Personally this is the perspective I usually fall into, as I have an attachment to the character. I mean if I had no attachment, I would not be writing 30+ pages about this guy. However I recognise how people have different interpretations of the Narrator and those interpretations are not always positive portrayals of his personality. And that is fine by me. The execution of the writing for the Narrator makes it so the player may have a complicated perspective on the character. How one player thinks of the Narrator is not the exact same as how another player thinks of the Narrator. Again, that is also fine by me. I love this fictional character and I love talking about him but I also like to make fun of him. As long as the discussion of those interpretations doesn’t lead to unnecessary arguments, I have no problem with anyone thinking of the Narrator as a pathetic loser. Like his goddamn voice actor describes him as ‘contrary and peevish’, and those aren’t exactly compliments but I’m not even mad. I agree with him actually. I’m not 13 anymore; I can understand why people think of the Narrator differently than I do. This is just a section about how I personally think of the Narrator and one of the many interpretations of his personality. Then I’ll talk about the other versions because well, I kind of like to understand almost any interpretation of the Narrator that isn’t my own. Of course I have a limit to understanding some interpretations, even when I try to understand because I'm a bit of a biased idiot. But I digress.

The most effective quality of the Narrator being the main voice you hear in the game, is that you know him more than any other character and as a result, you build a connection with him. This is a genuine benefit by having the Narrator ramble about writing and explaining his thought process, as it establishes his character and also makes you understand him in some regard. I recognise how the main criticism of the game is usually people thinking the Narrator’s ramblings are annoying or unnecessary. In which case, I very much disagree. I believe this quality is very necessary when analyzing his character and I personally find it endearing. In my personal experience of talking about things I really like, I ramble quite often because I have so many thoughts in my head about said things. The only reason I can write my feelings about the Narrator semi-coherently in this essay, is because I go to the kitchen or to the shower and just ramble about him. For me, I don’t find someone rambling about what they care about as ‘annoying’. Unless I really don’t like the person. I would usually want to know what they have to say because then, I understand where they’re coming from. When I hear the Narrator ramble about writing and storytelling, I both relate and understand this part of his personality. It makes me pick up just how much the Narrator cares about his Parable story and how many ideas he has to make it the best it can be.

Since there are a few ways a person can like a character, I’ll explain some of them in depth. First, a person might like the Narrator because of relatability; relating to parts of his personality and sympathizing with his motivations.

As a result of relating to the Narrator, it becomes easier to feel compassion for him. Especially in the endings that represent the Narrator as experiencing emotional distress or hints of comfort and happiness. Because the Player sees him first in a light-hearted and comedic way, they have a basic gist of what the Narrator’s character is supposed to be. It is common for writing to introduce their characters in simple and endearing situations before adding turmoil into their story. So when we see a character that we know experience something that introduces a more nuanced part of their personal story, we get emotionally invested in it. Sometimes a simple statement from the creator outside of the story, is enough to give fans complex ideas about that character.

If you don’t know what I am implying, Davey Wreden said on a Twitch stream with DougDougDoug that the Narrator is the “platonic ideal of divorce”. This little tidbit without any explanation was enough to create so many inside-jokes in the Stanley Parable community, but for me, I’m always wondering what this is supposed to imply since I heard it a few months ago. But I’ll try to figure it out now.

The platonic ideal of a concept is a theory derived from Platonic philosophy, describing the absolute idea of a concept but not the physical concept itself. The theory describes how everything in nature can be derived from a perfect form or concept, but will only serve as an imitation of that described ‘perfect’ form. We have never actually seen a perfect circle or a straight line in real life for example, however we understand what a perfect circle is in theory. This is an incredibly simple way of me explaining a very complicated and controversial point of philosophy, so pardon me if I sounded really dumb in this part. Regardless, an example of a platonic ideal of, let’s say, love, is described to be the concept of love in its most perfect, purest, form. So with this in mind, a platonic ideal of divorce is the concept of divorce in its most perfect, purist, form. The meaning of divorce generally outside of legal terms and law, is the separation or dissociation between two things; whether objects or people. So after that unnecessarily long explanation of material reality and philosophy, the Narrator is basically the concept of divorce and severance in its purest form. Now, how the hell does that reflect his character in the Stanley Parable games and how would people care about him?

Since Wreden said this without any explanation and did not elaborate what this tidbit was supposed to mean, there can be a few possibilities. If I were to write a character that was meant as a pure personification of a concept, I would think of the qualities that make the concept the way it is. If I wrote a character meant as a pure personification of love, I would associate their personality and presence with qualities associated with love. Divorce as a non-legal concept, mostly has qualities associated with separation and alienation. So if someone is divorced from a situation, that usually means they are separate from the situation or are uninvolved. For me this does not really connect with anything unless I can guess how the concept relates to the Narrator. He could be the one bringing divorce and separation to other people, but could also be the one who experiences separation and divorce throughout his existence. If I were to take the concept of divorce in its most abstract form, I would say the Narrator divorced Stanley from his original life; separating him from his coworkers. Due to how little information we got about the Narrator’s connection with divorce, this interpretation is merely an educated guess.

There is another interpretation I have that is about as possible as the first one I just brought up. The Narrator may be divorced from reality, being separated from directly communicating with anyone who could reciprocate. This is a common quality for Narrators in modern storytelling, as they are meant for a purpose and their purpose is not to interact with the audience directly. With the exception of Ancient Greek theatrics or improv, modern literature keeps the creation and audience separate to maintain their suspension of disbelief. So this divorce from reality outside of their written purpose for other narrators reflects with the Narrator’s divorce from reality in TSP. Despite the Player being familiar with the Narrator by the end of the games, it’s implied that he isn’t entirely human or at least, he doesn’t understand social conventions. As a result, there’s a definite chance that the Narrator feels alienated from both other people, and reality itself.

I don’t know about you but I can absolutely see people who feel separated from reality, finding a connection with the Narrator’s alienation. Feeling like you don’t belong or as though you're not human in comparison to other people, is quite a common emotion. Or at least with my experience. The possibilities for why those feelings of alienation occur is frankly endless, so a person who felt any kind of severance from reality or people would find that part of the Narrator very relatable. For me personally, it’s simply more than that just offhandedly calling him ‘relatable’. I also feel compassion for the Narrator, to relieve his situation of being alienated. Normally when people relate to a character, especially with their flaws, it’s common to want that character to overcome those flaws and be better. Because in our perspective, we identify with that character so we want ourselves to be better alongside this character. To see them grow and be a better person with us. To maintain a connection with this character despite the odds.

His divorce from reality can be both physical and metaphorical, another way in which this is the case is of him being in a video game. Even though most current games usually attempt to immerse the Player into a new world, this only succeeds in an emotional fashion. The physical is not only different in this regard but it will possibly always be different, no matter how much game corporations advertise virtual reality. Because even in VR, the player is not even directly experiencing the game in the same way they would with reality. This is no different from the Stanley Parable, and definitely not with the Narrator. We feel an emotional connection with the Narrator but the developers went out their way to not have us feel any physical connection; by not even showing us what the Narrator looks like. The Player can’t talk to the Narrator, they can’t hold his hand, they can’t give him a soft look, they can’t give him a reassuring embrace. This is the pure embodiment of feeling physically divorced from the reality you’re actively trying to engage in.

Okay. Now I’m just yearning at this point. I just wanna hold the Narrator’s hand dude.

The Character of the Stanley Parable's Narrator

Alternative Title: Why the Narrator is my baby girl. My boyfriend. The love of my life if you will. My wife even. So beautiful.

Note: This is the Preamble.

Spoiler Warning: (FINISHED)

I think if you’re reading this, you probably know the Stanley Parable in at least a basic regard. As in like you know the gist of the game and you know the Narrator. I would say be careful if you do not want spoilers but talking about the game at all is a spoiler. As well as such, it’s required for me to go into spoiler territory to fully analyze the Narrator, so please keep that in mind while reading. You might see an ending you didn’t play or even knew existed.

Introduction of the Narrator’s Role and Gaming: (FINISHED)

Before we particularly start on his specific personality, we need to understand the role he plays that make the Stanley Parable the way it is. If his name was not enough of an indicator, he is a narrator and more specifically; an omniscient third-person Narrator. This type of narrator knows and sees all; they know the exact motivations, beliefs, and internal dialogue of the characters in the story. This narrator type fulfills the similar essence of a deity. Narrators in fiction contribute heavily to the story, as they’re a common way for the audience to understand the situation the characters are experiencing. The Stanley Parable subverts this idea by having the audience fulfill the role of the main character, with the Narrator being forced to adapt to the unpredictable wants of the player.

We see him as that type of narrator if the player follows the exact story the Narrator lays out for them. However a fairly common way people play video games is experiencing the world themselves, without any restrictions or guidelines. So normally, the player doesn’t see him as an omniscient third person narrator; rather an interactable being they can piss off. This lays out a specific difference between modern video games and written literature. Video games are expected to be adaptable to specific playing styles, where written literature is expected to have a focused/contained narrative. If a video game is unadaptable and rigid, it becomes tiring to the player and would require a hefty reward for them to keep playing. A common criticism for most AAA games is how they go under the facade of being open world but directly forcing the player to go in the directions the developers want them to take. If written literature has a confused or unclear narrative, it becomes difficult for the reader to keep their suspension of disbelief. The usual response if the narrative is all over the place and incoherent, is wondering if the writer has ever read a book.

This difference between the two mediums is crucial for the game’ conflict to work effectively as it does. The Narrator represents the expectations of written literature from the reader with everything else representing the expectations of video games from the player. The Narrator is written as rigid and unadaptable and Stanley is designed to be capable of the opposite. This could also explain the aura of poshness surrounding the Narrator, as reading literature had always been associated with the high-class and sometimes pretentiousness; even in the modern era. Additionally, narrators in fiction are expected to be authoritative; having enough knowledge to explain the story to the reader. This could be potentially noted how the Narrator has a voice that can be described as older and mature. This is why unreliable narrators invoke a strong feeling for the reader; as it forces them to be distrustful of authority. At least for a short moment. By contrast, the common expectation for gamers is to understand the story in their terms; without being told by a disembodied voice. And yet…

The Stanley Parable exists and the game is incredibly popular for being an indie title. Looking up ‘popular indie games’, you get a list where the Stanley Parable is right next to all the other big fellas.

Giving a slight glance at YouTube, you can see the first result when you look up the game garnering around twenty-three million views. It would be too easy to say “it’s because of Markiplier”, but he has played the original game before and the most popular video of the original has only 6 million views. There is certainly a more recent, specific niche the Ultra Deluxe version filled, while the original game did not; at least not as efficiently. As such, I will be analyzing the most iconic facets of the Narrator in the Ultra Deluxe version since we see this character in more perspectives. There is something special about the game that is more than simply the additional content. It may be because you get to hear the Narrator’ smooth voice more but that might just be how the Narrator acts as a character. Also noting here, I will be talking about Sad-ist’s Clock 0ut at some point but for me to have this essay be sort of organized; I’m gonna write about it somewhere else. (Note: I tried to make a Clock 0ut essay but that never happened; sorry)

List of Endings and General Observations / TL;DR for some of the endings (Work In Progress)

The Freedom Ending

“He had won! He had defeated the machine!” - The Narrator

Narrator as a Character: Pure Omniscient Third-Person Narrator

Notes: It’s an interesting contradiction that the only way Stanley gains “freedom”, is when you obey every word and direction the Narrator says. As beautiful as this ending is, it's also deeply ironic.

The Countdown Ending

“After they kept you enslaved all those years, you go and you try to take control of the machine for yourself, is that what you wanted? Control?” - The Narrator

(Kevan Brighting did not need to go hard with the monologue. He did though, and I love it)

Narrator as a Character: Antagonist

Notes: Ever since I saw this ending + the Jack short film, it’s really fun to imagine a horrific edge to the Narrator. It’s cool as hell. The fact the Narrator’s voice borders on sounding like Brighting’s actual talking voice, actually makes him sound more intimidating.

The Museum Ending

“When every path you can walk has been created for you long in advance, death becomes meaningless, making life the same. Do you see now? Do you see that Stanley was already dead from the moment he hit start?" - The Female Narrator

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: If I heard more of the Female Narrator, I’d probably be as attracted to her as I would with the Male Narrator (Bisexual moment).

The Broom Closet Ending

“OH, DID U GET THE BROOM CLOSET ENDING? THEB ROOM CLOSET ENDING WAS MY FAVRITE!1 XD' ... I hope your friends find this concerning.” - The Narrator

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: It’s funny as hell

The Apartment Ending

“This is a very sad story about the death of a man named Stanley.” - The Narrator

Narrator as a Character: Pure Omniscient Third-Person Narrator

Notes:

Not Stanley Ending (or the Real Person Ending)

“Wait a second, did I just see... no, that's not possible. I can't believe it. How had I not noticed it sooner? You're not Stanley. You're a real person.” - The Narrator

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: I like how the ending shows a clear difference between the player and Stanley; and players still feel like Stanley in some of the other endings.

Zending Ending (or the S*icide Ending)

“If we just stay here, right in this moment, with this place... Stanley, I think I feel... happy. I actually feel happy.” - The Narrator

(God I just want to stay in that place for him and sleep gently with him in my arms. I feel so bad for him. I want him happy and comfortable.)

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: Hold up brb *cries in the shower*

New Content Ending

“If this is new content then I could just read you the entire dictionary, there's 20 hours of new content right there!” - The Narrator

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: I'd kill someone in cold blood to hear him read the entire dictionary

Skip Button Ending

“You constantly have to stop doing anything so the narrator can catch up with his long-winded explanations of what's happening. I wish there was a skip button.” - Cookie9’ bullshit review

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: God they really made my babygirl suffer in silence, desperately begging Stanley to not skip any further; losing his mind as more time slips by

The Sequel Ending

“So forget this Ultra Deluxe nonsense! I say we take it one step even further. Which is why I'm very proud to announce, for the first time ever, The Stanley Parable 2!”- The Narrator

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: I love how this ending was barely an allegory for half-hearted attempts at releases of the once beloved games. How games corporations want franchises so badly, they pump out soulless nostalgia to their audience. Like it’s not subtle at all but I love the honesty.

The Figurines Ending

“It's just - it's those figurines. Those Figleys. I haven't stopped thinking about them since you nabbed every last one.” - The Narrator

Narrator as a Character:

Notes: I love how excited this old British man gets when he's talking about the Figley Wiggleys. He's such a babygirl

(07/16/23: Why tf did I write this???)

Little Clarification before I go Balls Deep (The Player =/= Stanley) (FINISHED)

In this essay, I will analyze the Narrator’s personality as well as how he interacts with other characters; but basically just Stanley. However I perceive Stanley and the Player as different entities, so this is here to explain my thought process. So Stanley is purely a fictional character and is in at least two layers of being controlled; by both the Narrator and the Player. The Player is not fictional and can decide to have Stanley follow or disobey the Narrator. Despite the Player being the main cause of Stanley’s actions, the Narrator reprimands and rewards Stanley as if his actions are of his free will. Example; the Player chooses to put Stanley in the Countdown Ending, where the Narrator believes Stanley did it on his own accord. Aside from the Real Person Ending, the Narrator has no clue that Stanley is controlled by the Player. The Player is different from Stanley but the Narrator is unaware of this. So, I’ll write Stanley and the Player as different people in the context of the Narrator. I hope that makes sense because without knowing the game, you’re probably gonna be very confused. Especially when I talk about the Real Person Ending.

(Additional Note: The section about the difference between The Player and Stanley is how I made my self insert. Nothing too cool; I just thought it was neat.)

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urmoonstone · 2 years ago

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a fresh start~!

welcome yall!

im so excited to see so many people already showing up! i consider anyone who found me through twitter to be what i call:

~ the real ones ~

you've stuck through thick and thin and i truly appreciate you giving a shit about me that much to follow a little link to a whole ass other place to keep in touch! that really means a ton to me.

seriously, i have been so disenchanted with twitter and general public spaces for.. a while now! for a couple reasons - mostly personal. i don't think i've talked about this much publicly and since we're.. looks left looks right ~ the real ones ~ here... i figure i'll talk about it a bit

a couple things on why i've been so quiet in places lately. i plan to talk a LOT on tumblr so.. get ready LOL

another me & frozen time

thousands of people found me through videos that i don't want to be associated with anymore. i had my twitter account for years but it never surpassed a couple hundred. it was mostly just friends and people i knew from early abridged series days. that all changed when my twitter handle was blasted on videos that literally a million eyeballs have seen. at that time i was coming off of the actual lowest point of my life. i really wasn't ready to be in front of so many people publicly like that, but situations played out a certain way and i took a leap and went for it.

because i was still so mentally rattled, i put on this performer face that was full of energy and ready to be interactive and reactionary so that, well, the hundreds of thousands of new eyeballs on me would like me. i didn't want to let them down. this was a huge opportunity after all and i did have a natural performer presence already. i just kinda, dialed it up a ton because a camera was on. and what do you know, it worked! people liked my stupid shit. they liked my banter with others, and it all worked out. for a while. keeping on that mask takes a lot of energy. i'm not naturally that extroverted. i think so few people are. but, the impression was already set in people's minds. i was "salty" and "annoying" at my worst but a chaotic spaz who injected fun at my best.

people captured this image of me in time that they can constantly replay and it's a version of myself that i despise. a fake hyperbole that's farthest from genuine imaginable. so when people followed through to the thing in those videos, my twitter, they expected that same person, that same version of myself and.. well they would rarely get it. keeping up that "bit" forever wasn't feasible for someone like me. and i frankly can't keep up at something like that. it made me more depressed trying to meet up to certain expectations, and the volume of critical and downright hateful messages really took a toll on me.

not to say that all of them are bad! i've met so many amazing and wonderful people through those videos. i don't regret doing them. but after they're published, what the world does with them is out of my control. and they kind of exploded in a way that i really didn't expect. and so people look for this thing from me, they don't get it, and they move on. but some of them still followed me on twitter, and it kind of inflated that number to a point that stressed me out constantly. i can handle eyes on me, but.. how many of those eyes were on the real me? not a ton. most of them were looking for another me. the one frozen in time in youtube uploads, always making the same jokes. a caricature on display.

and so i tried to be more human.

public venting & the timeskip

on some videos i let slip that yknow, i had depression and anxiety. people heard about this and asked questions. as the numbers grew i started to feel like my voice was more and more legitimate, that i had something to say that people should be listening to. and at the end of the day i wanted to be a voice that could lift people up and encourage others. i wanted to be a teacher, dammit! but really the motivation was always helping people. so i tried to a bit of that on twitter, in, well, maybe not the best way.

i treated twitter like a journal. i was extremely open about my struggles throughout the days. at 2 am i would post about how miserable i was, but how grateful i was to have people in my corner. and sure enough a ton of people would send in a bunch of kind messages my way. they were genuine and encouraging. i had open DMs and broadcast to people: "hey! if you need someone to talk to at 3 in the morning cuz you're goin thru it, i'm here to listen"

and i was!! there were hundreds of people that messaged me and i did my best to listen and to offer advice if i had any. some just sent in their own kind words and that was always sweet. some of them we had a longer back and forth talking through situations and they thanked me afterward. i got a DM the other day from someone who messaged me years ago to say thank you for hearing them out back in 2016. that really made my day.

but it was really difficult keeping up with all of that, and throughout all of this i wasn't in therapy myself. my messages became growingly personal on twitter to where a couple of my friends would approach me and say "you probably shouldn't be so open about this on twitter." and i ignored them!! looking back on it they were right. there were people who thanked me for being so open about it and said that my openness showed them that they weren't alone in what they were dealing with. which is its own comfort. i'm really glad for that. but finding that next step to improving on things is where the action is. and i couldn't be that. i'm not a therapist or a counselor. (honestly i would like to be but... maybe that'll be later in life!)

for a time this would go on though. i would vent on twitter, being way more open than i probably should've been, people would reply in kind, and it would repeat. i knew things couldn't keep going this way, and so i sought the help of a therapist. this was at the start of 2020.

do you know who else needed therapy at the start of 2020?

my mom everyone!!

everyone was stuck inside. so many people realized they had the same problems i did. and now they were online more than ever to post openly about their struggles, to vent on twitter, to add to the chorus of complaints. sometimes it's good to complain. sometimes it's good to vent! but there needs to be something in place to help you figure out where to go from there, and so many people would just circle the drain of depression, never moving forward, commiserating forever.

this, my friends, is ~the timeskip~. a lot of people are upset. the world seems scarier than ever. i won't pretend a lot of it isn't scary! and that venting isn't okay! but it was just.. too much for me. after pursuing therapy and making fundamental changes in myself, i decided that i wouldn't broadcast all my negativity on twitter. i saw what was happening and wanted to be a happy, positive, genuine voice to lift people up. i was already working on my game development project and so i tried to encourage others to pursue their creative endeavors, doing literally anything other than festering on the negatives. because that will only make everything worse!

sometimes depression and anxiety doesn't give you a choice on how to feel, but you have a choice to get on twitter & contribute to the cacophony. i choose not to! and even now i feel like saying something like this is BAD because...

public enemy

i'm not about to say my depression is "cured," but therapy has helped more than ever to get my depression in a manageable spot. i don't feel helpless. i know that i can figure things out. i've made it through worse! but what still creeps its ugly head from time to time is...

anxiety

i'm a perfectionist and always have been. i didn't understand until the past couple of years that anxiety and perfectionism are basically the same thing! scared of failure, imagining the worst possible outcome and becoming paralyzed by indecision. what if you do the wrong thing? what if you say the wrong thing..??

and this fear has kept me from saying.. basically anything online!

i see my almost 30,000 twitter followers and would think "all it takes is to say something wrong for that ONE person and i'm done." Even now i'm sitting here like, "why even bother saying this?" but i'd rather get this out there for ~ the real ones ~ (and i need the writing practice!).

i'm not about to complain about ~ cancel culture ~ but i can't pretend that being someone with that many eyes on me hasn't made me clam up more than ever.

i see other creators with hundreds of thousands of eyes on them who keep their head buried in their creation and their public presence to a minimum. and i envy that. i want to do that more and more. i would rather that my creative works speak for themselves and people can enjoy and interpret the art i make. i know i only have the smallest percentage of publicity as someone like toby fox, but i get why you'd want to stay more anonymous with how mean some people can be online. even typing these words i think "i'm sure someone's gonna be mad about this" and you know what?

fuck em~!

i know that i'm not a bad person. i want to help people. i have only ever wanted to raise people up and encourage them to do their best. and to be the best they can be!

i think a lot of people are scared to be honest about things, and i can see why. but i want to be authentic.

i want to be myself.

i am cringe.

but i am free.

and all of ~ the real ones ~ will be getting nothing less than that! i hope you will be your cringe ass as well.

in conclusion

i'm grateful for the opportunities i've had and things i've been able to do, but i'm ready to make a solid foot forward establishing my identity as who i really am, not as some caricature. i'll still be doing goofy gameplay videos with Grant here and there because we've known each other forever and he's my best friend and i love him! but my main focus is definitely making this card game and video game and other creative things!

thank you so much for stopping by and sticking with me. i know i may not be exactly what you expected when you first followed, or however you found me. maybe i'm exactly what you expected! in which case... oh no... i have to dial the cringometer at least another 10 notches...

i really enjoy writing like this and haven't had an outlet for it in some time. expect to see more like this as well as some gamedev / game design posts from meeeee. i'm excited to see all the artists on here and to post my own cringe ass art stuff soon too!

have a good one. much love to yall.

おやすみ～

#cringe #lol

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winteriine · 4 years ago

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just found out about the Tommy situation, and not gonna lie,,, I had no idea about the context??? i’ve never looked into KSI in the past so i’ve had legitimately zero clue about him being transphobic

and since Tommy has never quite been one to look at Twitter and other places when it comes to discourse, i wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t know the extent of KSI’s behavior? the joke he made about Dream’s fans hating KSI is insensitive, but it’s likely that Tommy didn’t even know the context behind it and just took the bit and ran with it.

What i’m saying is that Twitter needs to chill and stop trying to absolutely ruin him because of this one joke he made. He clearly wasn’t trying to target the people who hate KSI for valid reasons, and he will probably apologize for it once he’s become more educated on the situation. He’s always been very careful about the jokes he’s made and a good portion of his content persona is satirical and meant to mock the people who genuinely do act that way. Forgiveness is a word that exists; Tommy shouldn’t be completely cancelled for a single joke that he probably didn’t even realize was harmful. Let him take responsibility for his actions and stop trying to completely end his career over one instance.

Also for the people who are mad at Tommy for recording a video with KSI in the first place,,,,, where was this resentment when he did the among us videos with the Sidemen and started the whole fighting bit with KSI? I genuinely don’t know if there was an issue with this back then but if there wasn’t, why is it only here now?

Those of you trying to educate Tommy on the situation, I appreciate y’all and you’re doing your best — but I think it might also be important to point out why the joke was actually offensive because I personally didn’t understand how it was linked to transphobia until reading like 12 of the top tweets in the tag

And those of you genuinely hating on Tommy, saying that “he’s becoming the next Schlatt” and “he doesn’t deserve his fanbase” get yourselves off of this platform right now so help me

i genuinely don’t want to know what it feels like to open up twitter and find that an entire tag full of hate against you has started trending.

yes there’s some helpful, genuinely informative posts but so much of it is just insulting and hurtful and generally degrading that i can’t even consider the tag to not be a hate tag now. good god.

#tommyinnit #twitter #twitter drama #mcyt #tommyinnit drama #?#i don’t really know how to tag this i don’t usually make posts about actual discourse #discourse #tommyinnit discourse

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seerofmike · 4 years ago

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The Writing In Apex Kinda Sucks And Also They Use Ship Bait As A Plot Device I Hate It Here

a stupid essay/rant encouraged by @zombiegloss that originally started as a youtube video script so if its like. weird at points. this was intended to be a verbal rant SNZISKSIA

basically i'm gonna talk abt the caustic-wattson-crypto relationship drama and how i think it was mishandled and how much the writers kind of Suck because i Can

you are free to disagree with me on any of my points and think that this aspect of the story was handled well, this is just my opinion, and i'd love to hear your thoughts and counterpoints !

first, addressing some things:

i know this is a battle royale and not necessarily a story-based game, so i can’t expect it to have masterful witcher-style writing.

but with the direction the game seems to be going; putting quests, evolving interactions, and comics in the game, plus coming out with a lore book and hinting at something bigger in the future, i think it’s fair to criticize it for lackluster writing, especially since what i’m criticizing has been something present since Apex’s story technically began.

secondly, i am not a professional writer. i’m a high schooler who writes as a hobby. i don’t have the decades of experience that some of the apex writers do, and i can’t claim to be a better writer than they are--but i also don’t have to be a five-star chef to realize that something tastes bad. when i critique something and give suggestions, i am not saying i could’ve done it better. i’m just bringing up what i think could have worked.

third, before i upset anyone , when i say a relationship is badly written, i’m not telling you that you can’t ship it or that your ship sucks. i’ll briefly touch on the shipping aspect of this and how it’s a detriment to the story but Ye

okay, so with that out of the way, let us Begin

relationships are often the emotional core of a story, and how strong your reaction is to conflict in these relationships depends on how the story sets them up. if you want the audience to care about these characters and what they go through, you need to develop them and establish the type of relationship they have well. it’s why so many people cried in the last episode of telltale’s the walking dead. you’ve spent roughly 12 hours bonding with clementine and protecting her, and your relationship with her is part of several story beats as well as character beats for lee.

when these two characters’ relationship reaches its peak at the end of the game, it’s powerful, and it’s emotional. you care. you feel something, and the fact that you have to choose what to do to lee only makes it more gut-wrenching.

now, the walking dead is entirely story-based and especially character-driven, so it may be unfair to compare it to apex, but i just wanted to lay the groundwork down for what i think is a strong relationship that makes you feel something when conflict arrives, in this case the conflict being lee getting bit and clementine having to decide his fate.

the broken ghost in general is kind of not-good sometimes, tom casiello previously wrote for soap operas and you can really, REALLY tell sometimes.

this story feels like it should’ve taken place a little later, and that we should’ve had a season to actually set up the characters and their relationships, but that’s a story for another day.

to put it bluntly, the set-up for the crypto, wattson, and caustic conflict is done poorly. for caustic and wattson's relationship it’s a little better, but not by much.

wattson and caustic having a relationship was hinted at in season 2, when her lore indicated that caustic was among one of the Legends who comforted her after her father died. In season four lore materials posted on Twitter, an email from Jacob Young states that Caustic is acting paternal towards Wattson. In season five, interactions get added to the Game, and this is the first time we actually see their relationship in action, as they have unique revive voice lines for each other. in the quests, when wattson is injured, caustic lashes out at loba and attacks her out of what seems to be anger at wattson’s current state.

Side Note this plot point was really stupid and done for cheap drama because she literally wakes up like two chapters later and they don’t even give her anything to say it’s just suddenly oh yeah crypto and wattson are working together. the same exact injury thing happens to octane later but nobody gIVES A SHIT because again, it’s just cheap soap opera drama.

their relationship might seem a little bit sudden for anyone who wasn’t on top of twitter lore drops, but like, it’s okay, i guess. i’ll give it the slightest credit for at least establishing something between the two in terms of voice lines and stuff, even if for some it might seem like it came out of nowhere.

what did come out of nowhere, though, was crypto and wattson’s friendship. in the quests, crypto and wattson are tasked with rebuilding the broken ghost because of their respective skills, and they’re seen talking in chapter six while they work on it. we’re not really given a clear timeline on how long the story in the broken ghost is, but i think it takes about a week, maybe.

unlike wattson and caustic, their relationship has been given absolutely zero material to work with before now, not even a passing glance in the trailers--which is a little weird considering crypto took down the repulsor tower and destroyed wattson’s home, but. Whatever.

tl dr of the chapter: crypto and wattson talk to each other while doing nerd shit, crypto laughs at wattson’s bad pun, and then suddenly they’re BESTIEEEES, until a couple dozen lines later in the same chapter. then they’re Not.

crypto’s drone gets hacked by revenant while everyone was kind of on edge after the reveal of a spy in their midst, he gets framed as the spy by caustic, anddddd wattson gets upset.

before i get into how dumb this storyline is, i’m gonna talk about the set-up to this conflict.

we have been given no reason to believe that these characters have ever talked to each other, and quite frankly, their friendship doesn’t really make sense.

ignoring the fact that crypto destroyed wattson’s home--which she probably doesn’t know about, so that’s forgiven for now--crypto is a paranoid guy. in the lore book he makes people stand on fucking footprints in his house so he can scan them for weapons and listening devices, and he apparently doesn’t stick around much after the games and nobody knows anything about him because he doesn’t talk to them.

a key part of crypto’s story is the fact that he is undercover and afraid of anyone finding out anything about him ever. him becoming friends with wattson kind of comes out of the blue, and we’re not even given a reason as to why they supposedly became close in the first place. i would kind of understand if like, maybe he draws parallels with her and mila in his mind and it makes him open up a little more, but that doesn’t happen. he just laughs at her joke and suddenly they’re friends.

maybe they’re trying to go for this ‘wattson can become friends with anybody’ angle, kind of hinted at with caustic but not really we’ll get into that, but that also? kind of doesn’t make sense since so many of her voice lines straight-up say she doesn’t understand people and electricity is more her thing, but honestly, she also does have those really friendly elements in her voice lines too, so its not as egregious as what they did with crypto.

their sudden out-of-the-blue friendship would’ve been fine if they spent a little more time fleshing it out, and giving us something to work with, but instead, the story immediately tries to rip it apart and frame it as this grand conflict where crypto is framed as the mole, crypto then accuses caustic, and wattson feels betrayed.

except it doesn’t really work, because we don’t give a shit. for several reasons.

one: crypto and wattson became friends and then ended their friendship in the same exact chapter. they did not speak to each other onscreen until this chapter began, you can read the entire quest on the wiki and see for yourself that their interactions up until that point were nonexistent aside from mentions in the narration that they were building something together.

the reason wattson feels betrayed is kind of stupid too. why does she really care that much if one of them betrayed loba? nobody else really cared about the fact that one of them was a spy, in fact, nobody even seems to like loba that much, and they just found out that loba’s been lying to them this whole time, and wattson was conscious for that conversation and had a speaking line, so she’s fully aware of the situation.

maybe it’s just like, the idea that one of them lied, but that’s still kind of a weak reason.

this entire betrayal thing is just dumb, and it gets even worse when you realize that there could have been an actual legitimate reason for wattson to feel betrayed by crypto--even if it still would’ve come across as weak conflict because of their newly established friendship, it would’ve made more sense than this.

Crypto destroyed Wattson’s home. He took down the tower and then all the flyers and stuff invaded Kings Canyon and made it their bitch. Not only that, but Wattson considers the Syndicate her family. The Syndicate are the very people who framed Crypto for murder and he’s trying to take them down.

They could’ve set up actual conflict with these things, and it almost seemed like they would, because Caustic briefly brings up that Crypto could be working with Revenant because he has something against the Syndicate but then that doesn’t really go anywhere and we’re just back to Wattson feeling betrayed because either Crypto or Caustic was a spy and she doesn’t know who.

Weak conflict could’ve been made better by a strong relationship and a weak relationship could’ve still been interesting with strong conflict, but both the relationship between Crypto and Wattson and the conflict that drives them splitting up as friends were really weak and didn’t make much sense.

It would’ve been ten times more interesting if Wattson found out Crypto ruined her home, the arena she grew up in, and was now participating in the Games to take out the people she regards as her family. That’s where her distrust could’ve manifested and conflict could’ve began, but instead it was the stupid betraying loba thing. why do you care. you just started talking to this guy like 2 hours ago.

also caustic’s whole reason for framing crypto feels stupid as fuck. he didn’t just frame crypto randomly, he framed him specifically because he doesn't want him to influence wattsob because he likes her Big Brain, but this is the FIRST time we have seen those two interact.

what influence is he talking about? wraith and wattson have been shown to be friendly with each other in the trailers, according to tom’s tweets, and in the story too so why doesn’t he frame her? at this point the audience had slightly more build-up for those two’s relationship than crypto and wattson and a betrayal storyline would’ve felt a little more deserved if still weak.

this is the point where i briefly want to touch upon shipping, and the fact that part of this conflict feels driven by shipbait.

aside from their relationship coming out of nowhere and the writers trying to make the stakes seem high and deeply emotional to the characters involved (despite this essentially being the first time they’ve ever interacted) tom casiello literally addresses shippers in a tweet regarding chapter seven, and as the story between these characters progresses, it becomes clear to me, at least that the crypto-wattson thing is just bait for shippers, and it’s lazy.

it’s easy to get away with giving your characters little to no relationship development if you’re just counting on shippers to do the heavy mental lifting for you

why should i put any effort into making this relationship seem believable? people are going to see a young guy and a young girl having bare minimum interaction and assume there’s romantic interest! then i don’t have to do any work, see look, it’s a ready-made relationship wrapped in a bow for me! all that’s left for me to do is give them conflict so i can keep teasing shippers with lines like ‘you never deserved her’!

i think it’s reasonable for me to suspect shipbait, since tom casiello likes doing darksparks shipbait on twitter, and i’m like, eighty percent sure mirage and bloodhound suddenly being childhood friends in the book is shipbait too, because these characters were the number one ship in apex for a long time despite little to no interaction, and then all of a sudden in the lore book they’re childhood friends despite this literally never being mentioned before?

like bloodhound is set up to be mysterious and nobody knows what they look like, or where they’re from, or who their family is--except for mirage Apparently, who played with them when he was a kid on their home planet, and has seen them with their mask off, because bloodhound did not wear a mask when their parents were still alive.

its weird.

i’m pretty sure they’ve said somewhere they were working on this book before apex even came out, so i could just be completely wrong and they always planned for mirage and bloodhound to know each other, but if that’s the case, why did they never mention it like they did octane and lifeline?

i refuse to believe MIRAGE never brought it up either like ‘heeeeyy bloodhound remember when we used to throw eggs at our parents lab haha wanna go do to that to bangalore’s room’

[silence]

‘good talk buddy’

ANYWAYS I GOT OFF TOPIC. POINT IS, shipping is a detriment to the story because the writers don’t feel like they actually have to put any work into establishing or developing the relationship between characters when they know the community’s just going to do it for them anyways, and that they can put in shipbait and it’s fine and it makes sense when it really doesn’t.

imagine watching captain america civil war after not seeing a single other marvel movie.

why would you care about the avengers splitting up or tony and steve butting heads or steve’s commitment to bucky? you wouldn’t care, at least not as much as someone who’s seen all the movies and knows the relationship between the characters and why the sokovia accords exist in the first place. you don’t have context and you don’t have any reason to be emotionally invested in these characters’ relationship.

this feels like that. the writers tried to squeeze this relationship and stuff into a single chapter and we don’t fucking care unless we were already invested in the idea of their relationship (shippers) because we barely spent any time with it.

so to summarize this little section, the set-up of this storyline Kinda Sucks! crypto and wattson barely seem to know each other, because we the audience barely saw them together and the writers are relying on shipbait in place of a relationship.

wattson and caustic are a little better but not great, but the conflict is stupid and it only gets stupider.

moving onto summarizing the rest of the broken ghost, gibraltar and caustic talk, caustic LITERALLY confesses to being the mole and says he framed crypto so he couldn’t corrupt wattson and to appear innocent because his identity was suspected, then that wraps up the season storyline.

season six begins with new voice lines, where wattson has had enough of crypto and caustic’s shit and is all passive-aggressive and going ‘this doesn’t change anything’. she has to decide who to trust, and how to figure out The Truth for herself because she’s not a little girl anymore. crypto and caustic are both trying to convince her they’re innocent and it creates some interesting conflict.

just kidding. it’s terrible conflict. you want to know why?

BECAUSE GIBRALTAR TRIED TO TELL HER THE TRUTH, RIGHT AFTER THE SEASON 5 QUEST HAPPENED, AND SHE LITERALLY REFUSED TO HEAR IT.

LIKE THERE’S A SEASON 6 LOADING SCREEN WHERE HE’S TELLING EVERYONE THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, AND WHEN HE GETS TO WATTSON AND IS LIKE HEY I KNOW WHO THE MOLE WAS AND WHY THEY DID IT, SHE JUST GOES i dont wanna hear it. i need to think

IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH WHY ARE YOU REFUSING TO HEAR IT

SHE SPENDS ALMOST TWO ENTIRE SEASONS MAD AT CRYPTO FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO BECAUSE SHE TOLD GIBRALTAR TO FUCK OFF WHEN HE TRIED TO TELL HER WHAT HAPPENED

ITS SO DUMB

i think it was towards the end of season 6 or the beginning of season 7 where apex posted this picture of wattson asleep at her desk where she has a letter from gibraltar on it that looks like it tells her the truth, so she knows now, she knows what happened, but NOW her issue is the fact that she doesn’t know anything about crypto.

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT IS YOUR GODDAMN DAMAGE. YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BLOODHOUND EITHER ARE YOU THIS UPSET WITH BLOODHOUND TOO?? HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO PATHFINDER. DO YOU HATE PATHFINDER TOO

oh but she was friends with crypto and now she’s mad that he lied to her EXCEPT THEIR RELATIONSHIP WASN’T BUILT UP WELL SO IT JUST FEELS STUPID. THEY SPENT LONGER BEING NOT-FRIENDS THAN THEY SPENT BEING FRIENDS. THEY BECAME FRIENDS IN ONE CHAPTER AND THEN IMMEDIATELY AT THE END OF THAT CHAPTER THEIR FRIENDSHIP ENDED AND THEN WATTSON SPENT LIKE 2 SEASONS MAD AT HIM FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO .

AND THE WRITERS TRIED TO RECTIFY THIS BY SAYING OH SHE’S NOT MAD ABOUT THE TRAITOR THING SHE’S MAD BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM AND IT’S LIKE WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT MAKE THAT CLEAR WHY DOES SHE SAY ‘IT DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DID’ IN HER VOICE LINES WHY DOES SHE CALL HIM A TRAITOR IF HER CONFLICT WAS HER NOT KNOWING MUCH ABOUT HIM . WHAT DID HE DO.

HE JUST STOOD THERE AND LAUGHED AT HER JOKE AND THEN HE GOT FRAMED AND THEN THAT WAS THE END OF THE CHAPTER AND NOW SHES SUDDENLY LIKE IM ACTUALLY MAD BECAUSE YOURE A LIAR AND I CANT TRUST YOU EVEN THOUGH I NOW KNOW YOU WERE FRAMED I STILL DO NOT LIKE YOU AND HES LIKE YEAH THATS MY FAULT

The Caustic voicelines are stupid too, again his reason for framing Crypto was stupid and a lot of his voicelines just seem to be that shipbait thing again but like from the angle of overprotective dad who doesn’t like the new boyfriend. it’s stupid but not as egeregious as this next part which is

crypto telling wattson his identity.

CRYPTO was framed for MURDER and is paranoid and can’t trust anyone and doesn’t talk to anyone and the last time he did talk to someone he got framed for Another thing and the person he was talking to turned her back on him and actively refused to know the truth for like 2 seasons and then he went This Is Fine I Can Tell Her My Identity

the stupidest update to this storyline was crypto telling wattson the truth

why did they do it on the dropship where there are presumably syndicate members and other legends around.

why didn’t he scan wattson for listening devices like he did for pathfinder in the book.

why is he telling her his identity when he knows she has very close ties to the people that FRAMED HIM for MURDER. Does he trust her that much? WHY? They spoke to each other in a chapter and then spent two seasons not talking to each other beyond passive-aggressive BS. why are you so fucking stupid taejoon

their relationship was so poorly set-up that even if the writers maybe intended for them to come across as close friends who had spent weeks bonding, it really feels like they became friends in a single conversation, had a falling out, and now crypto suddenly trusts her with his identity after an undetermined amount of time because he wants to be friends again.

that does not make SENSE this conflict feels contrived AS FUCK and the resolution feels even worse and unearned UGGGHHHH

it honestly comes across as crypto feeling desperate for friendship, and maybe this would’ve worked better if that’s the angle they played it as.

he’s been alone for roughly two years, and just wants a friend, and he’s honestly so lonely he just breaks down to the first person who’s really talked to him. it could’ve been an interesting little part of his character, and they could've gone into depth about how much this situation has affected him, but that’s not what they’re doing. he’s still paranoid and anxious and doesn’t trust anyone, except for wattson, because the plot needs him to or else there won’t be any stupid soap opera drama.

and to rub salt in the wound, wattson’s new voice lines with caustic have him telling her that she forgave crypto.

WHAT ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR. ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR BEING FRAMED? WHY DID HE HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO HEAR THE TRUTH?

did the conversation just go hey my real name is taejoon park and something bad happened to me and she went aight i forgive you WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

Caustic’s new voice lines to Crypto where he’s like ‘what did you tell her’--YOU TOLD GIBRALTAR STRAIGHT-UP YOUR EVIL MASTER PLAN LIKE A SUPERVILLAIN AND NOW YOU’RE SURPRISED WATTSON AND CRYPTO ARE ON GOOD TERMS NOW?!

THAT’S LIKE TELLING SOMEONE YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND THEN BEING SURPRISED WHEN YOU BECOME THE VICTIM OF IDENTITY FRAUD. YOU SET YOURSELF UP FOR THIS WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE CRYPTO DID SOMETHING SINISTER OR LIED OR WHATEVER. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY DO YOU HAVE LIKE 3 BRAINCELLS

this is at like ten pages already so i’m going to just try and wrap this up quickly.

it’s frustrating seeing this storyline play out when there are actually good relationships and storylines written into apex. i’m kind of getting tired of the loba and revenant conflict, but we at least had set-up to it in the form of a few animated shorts and it doesn’t play out as stupidly as this story does. bangalore and loba’s friendship is actually developed well, even if the point between the end of season 5 and season 6 where they suddenly talk like each other feels like it could’ve used a little more.

where crypto and wattson having an established friendship in the broken ghost failed, lifeline and octane’s established friendship works because we’ve been told since octane’s release they were childhood friends and given lore materials that indicate they’ve known each other for a very long time.

apex wants this storyline between crypto and wattson and caustic to feel dramatic and tense and ultimately rewarding when crypto and wattson did become friends for real and stuff, but instead it just comes across as hollow and empty.

there’s nothing there. it’s a case of tell, don’t show, and it looks like this stupid conflict is gonna keep going for another couple of seasons at this rate.

side note: this entire script was written before the new twitter comics

please tell me ur thoughts and feel free to respond with ur own lil essay

also believe it or not this is not the "shipping is a detriment to apex's story" essay i was gonna write this is a completely different essay that has some overlap SKXISOSOW

#apex legends #apex critical #crypto #wattson

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marcilled · 4 years ago

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[this is gonna be a big long post about minecraft youtuber drama... press J to scroll past this if you don’t care about that. lol. sorry]

idunno if anybody took my post the other day as me “cancelling dream for cheating in a videogame”, i posted it mostly out of bemusement of the whole situation, and because that video was really well put-together. (context: his 1.16 speedruns were disqualified by the minecraft speedrun.com moderators & there was a video & document explaining why).

I definitely don’t correlate cheating a speedrun w/ ableism, racism, etc etc. I already knew about a lot of nasty shit dream has done, like the video he did with Notch, and how all of his early content was about pewdiepie, just further normalizing those two to his young audience. I’ve always disliked him for those things, which I’ve been aware of pretty much as long as I’ve known of him, and he has never apologized for those things. It’s why whenever I posted about him before (which was... maybe once or twice?), I always say “don’t stan him or anything he sucks”.

I had no idea there was so much more to it honestly. It’s kind of galling seeing the full context now, because whenever I’ve seen any kind of criticism against him, it’s been him presenting it in an apology. I dunno why I wasn’t suspicious of this given what I already knew about him, but the guy seems to be very clever with how he damage controls any sort of possible controversy regarding him. He presents a really heartfelt, honest apology for whatever happened and gives a few cherrypicked examples of things that people said about him and says how wrong he was and how he doesn’t want to alienate his viewers.

The fact that it’s Dream presenting the evidence of his controversies, means that he gets to control how the conversation goes. Instead of a popular “mcyt” stan account getting to control the conversation, pointing out the shit he’s said and done, he addresses it in a livestream, and does not provide the original context. Huh, I wonder why. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want everyone to see that his mistakes are more than just little “oopsies”, it’s him being actively malicious and getting so defensive that he tells off anybody who could possibly disagree with his view of things.

While his actions and words are pretty horrid on their own, I think the thing that has me most concerned about Dream is... He seems pretty fuckin’ good at manipulating peoples’ perception of him.

-----

After the video about his speedruns being cheated came out the other day, he had this to say on twitter (this is his second, “personal” account):

Now, as I said before, cheating in a videogame isn’t at all comparable to racism or ableism. What I’m trying to point out here is his response to any sort of criticism.

The video he’s referring to is this one, published by Geosquare 2 days ago (dec 11th). What’s interesting to note here is how he singles out Geosquare specifically in this tweet. If you click on the video, the first few seconds establishes that it’s a video made by the entire Minecraft java edition speedrunning mod team (which is made up of a team of over a dozen people). The video and document was a true team effort from every single one of them, and it only got posted to Geosquare’s account (& got his narration) because he’s already a youtuber with a pretty comfortable amount of subscribers.

So, instead of pointing his ire (and those of his many, many fans) at the whole speedrun mod team, instead, he points it squarely on Geosquare, so that people have a convenient name to latch onto. He then accuses Geosquare of using his name as “clickbait” in order to get “easy views”, sowing the seed of this idea that Geosquare is doing this in an opportunistic grab for personal gain. If you clicked on the video and saw the description/pinned comment, you’d see that not only did Geosquare disable monetization on the video, he disabled monetization on his entire channel for as long as this drama goes on (and he knew there would be drama, dream made extra sure to threaten the mods with a video of his own in retaliation if they ended up banning him).

Then, in a reply to the first tweet, he says that there are “multiple moderators” messaging him saying the verdict was “biased” and that they may quit the mod team. He provides no evidence for this. However, if you click on the tweet and view any of the thousands of replies from his fans, it doesn’t matter that he gave no evidence, his word is enough. If you’re wondering, Geosquare and a few other mods have stated many times that it was a group decision on their part, and nobody had any question in their mind that Dream must have cheated. So... Dream, who are these “mods” that are messaging you? He won’t say.

Lastly here, I want to point out that in his next tweet on the matter, he makes this very bitter comment about how useless it was for them to investigate a “16th place run”. It’s a minor detail, but I think it’s worth mentioning; this kind of downplays how impressive his run was at the time. At the time he submitted his sub-20 minute speedrun, it was a top 5 run, in a very competitive category of speedrunning the game. In the 2 months since, several people have passed his time using new strats, but that doesn’t diminish the fact it was a pretty amazing “run”... if it weren’t cheated of course. But, I’m just rambling on about how petty I am about him cheating at this point so let me get back to the main point here.

If you see the numbers on these tweets (hundreds of thousands of likes), you’ll understand why this is pretty scary for those speedrun mods. The same day this happened Geosquare joked around “I’ve only gotten one death threat so far!”. Dream’s fanbase is unparalleled in minecraft youtube, and incredibly sizeable for a youtube channel overall. If you’re not familiar with this new wave of “mcyt” minecraft accounts, it’s... it’s pretty much exclusively because of Dream’s fame. He’s the driving force of minecraft youtube content right now. Any youtuber who even breathes near the guy blows up in subscribers & views. His minecraft server, “Dream SMP”, is like... it has a legitimate cultural impact, whether that sentence disgusts you or not. Especially for young gen Z kids.

The point I’m trying to make is, ever since he came onto the scene in early 2019, he’s grown and grown at exponential rates, and I can’t understate the kind of influence he has on not just his own fans, but the fans of like. Pretty much anyone who is plugged in to anything minecraft youtube related right now.

People have discussed this before, but Dream’s sudden rise to fame happened shockingly quick. So quick that it’s almost impossible it were by accident. He’d spent something like a year or two studying how the youtube algorithm works, how famous youtubers grow their popularity, etc. He spent a lot of time studying, and it paid off for him. It makes me wonder if he’s studied how youtubers deal with controversy as well. Because it seems like he’s doing everything right to keep his fans “loyal” to him.

So I think it’s not unreasonable to say that it is pretty goddamn concerning when he reacts to criticism like this. His immense fanbase, who are often worryingly obsessed with him, of mostly impressionable kids... It’s a recipe for disaster, in the hands of someone so entitled and immature.

I think what really has me worried, though, is a video he published to his second channel the other day. Recently, he published a video about his “stans”. The entire video essentially boiled down to him disputing claims that “dream stans” were toxic, or that stanning people or “stan culture” was creepy/unhealthy. He spent a lot of the video comparing stans of content creators to passionate fans of football teams, and expressed repeatedly how he thought it was normal and OK to be totally obsessed with a content creator and engage in “stan culture”, as long as you weren’t being a legitimate stalker. He pretty much only talked about the positives of being a Dream Stan, and how positive the “community” is. The whole video painted this really idealistic image of what it means to be a Stan of a person, and fandom in general.

Now... I don’t know about everyone else reading this, but I found that video to be... incredibly creepy and weird. It completely ignores any actual arguments about how stan culture can be unhealthy, and how engaging so heavily in parasocial relationships can be quite damaging, especially to younger people.

But, mostly? It seemed like the whole video was basically designed just to reinforce the most unhealthy impulses of his stans, and reward them with the positive encouragement that he actually enjoys it when they are obsessed with him so much that they can’t imagine he could ever possibly do anything wrong.

And that? That is fucking dangerous for a person with such a huge fanbase to be peddling to their fans.

Surely, he must know- a great deal of his fans are so obsessed with him, that they think they know him as well as, if not more than, a personal friend. So that when he does something disagreeable and wrong, and he claims “no that’s not how it happened, they’re biased and trying to cancel me because they’re jealous”, they just take that at face value, because why would he lie? He’s so honest and genuine in his videos and livestreams!

This sort of behavior from Dream, along with his tweets I posted earlier, reads to me as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. I think he is purposefully insulating his fans from the truth of his actions, so that he can present this idealistic picture of him in their mind, so that it seems absurd that he would do something wrong.

I think it’s only a matter of time before it comes out he’s done something much worse, honestly. What it is, is hard to say- he’s already done so much that anyone reading this should rescind their support for him, imo. But, I know that none of this matters to his millions of fans. While I worry for them, I also worry for anyone who becomes a target of Dream. I could see this speedrunning drama being the start of a downward spiral for him. Things could get real ugly with all that minecraft clout getting to his head... I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

TL;DR, dream sucks, and not just because he cheats at videogames.

I apologize again for writing a multi paragraph post about a minecraft youtuber. I will not post about this anymore (probably) please do not unfollow me .

#vivi bleats #txt #long post #i might delete this cuz im embarrassed i typed this much about this topic #but idk i already typed it so.#dream

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press-x-tojason · 4 years ago

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Giant Bomb is dead, and I care way less than I thought I would. Probably because 83% of the people who I ever cared about had already left or died, or were already relegated to reduced content roles.

Honestly, though, the writing’s been on the wall for a bit. They haven’t had anything worthy of paying for premium in several years, and, even though they’ve had well over a year to figure out a plan for the COVID era, they maybe made it a month with their plans to have a series of streams daily. I actually managed to forget I followed them on Twitch at all, for about 4 months, because they only streamed the podcasts and the occasional former Harmonix employee (who was literally paid to make content with their games while employed at Giant Bomb, which was funny because he blocked me on Twitter for making a post, addressing no one, back in 2014, which was asking about the legitimacy of the leaked list of “games “””””journalists”””””” who had taken money from publishers for positive reviews, a list which included him and multiple then-coworkers. I didn’t follow him, he didn’t follow me. He was manually searching the keywords, because he was, and is, a prick.) solo Rock Band stream in the last 8 months or so. Even when Jeff would manage to do one of his 20 streams from home a year, it would be on his own channel. There was just no content. And they’re surprised their “pay for our unique premium content!” model failed. They always “feigned” anger at Dan for “making” them do the Mario Party Parties, and literally never promoted his and Drew’s Metal Gear series after the first game... but I bet that, when only those, UPF, and the ad-free versions of the podcasts were premium features, those two series were keeping them afloat. Well, that and the remaining goodwill they miraculously managed to hold onto for a few years after Ryan died. Shit, I follow several people who are GB staff-adjacent, and... I can’t think of the last time they mentioned anything that happened on-site. Even the people who’ve been directly supporting them for over 10 years were out.

But yeah, the site is super dead. They pretended in the announcements like they’re going to make a go of it still, but... you’ve got like 4 content people left, and the only one people give a shit about is Jeff. You just saw 3/4 of the side of the site that was still trying these past several months jump ship in a 3 month span. One of those was, by nearly any definition, a founding member. Of which you had already lost one, and are losing another from the main side. Jeff’s been way less active until the last week or two, probably because he heard they were leaving and was like “oops, should probably check on the ship that’s been sinking for years!” Then you have Jason “The Human Mumble” Oestricher, the charisma vacuum, whose legitimate public-facing reaction to first hearing that all but one of his GB predecessors were going to be gone. was, and I quote, “Hoo Boy.” Ben and Jan are the definition of “fine”. They would have been great, as they are today, as secondary members 8-10 years ago. But carry the site, they cannot. They’re down to, what, 5 named members now? It hasn’t been that dire since the beginning of 2009, before they hired Drew, when they hadn’t even started the P4 endurance run. You know, that surprise massive, internet-changing thing that essentially popularized the Let’s Play concept, loosening its definition and making it something that could be as personality-driven as game-driven, made simply to give them something to put on the website, beyond the rare review and, slightly later, quick look. This kinda illustrates the problem with modern Giant Bomb. When they were figuring shit out, flying by the seats of their pants, they came up with great shit, and they gave enough of a shit to make it happen. 0.000% chance they do a 10 hour Thanksgiving Kinect stream if the Kinect was new today. 0.000% chance the core members would have done an endurance run in the last 10 years if CT and Shenmue (which I haven’t watched) weren’t driven by the younger members. And you could see it in the fact that they never made a real, true mobile app. The number one thing that would have made them indispensable this past decade, an app to integrate premium features, the podcast, their video player, etc. all in one place in a mobile-friendly package, that could sync with the website... and they never even raised the idea publicly. I wonder how much of the innovation was the group think-tank of the first 5 years. Beyond Dan’s couple major contributions, I don’t think they added a single new type of content after 2012, which... still means the last 6.5 years lacked any semblance of innovation. I guess that’s a big part of why I fell off tremendously quickly after late 2014. There was just nothing new, and believe me, I was looking. I wanted reasons to stay watching. I supported them with my dollar. I believed in those brave early days. And I went back yesterday to watch the DP endurance run from VJ again. I still miss that rapport. And really, that hurt, too. Vinny moving back east, less than a year after Ryan passed... short term, it was fine. You had more people than ever to cover the gaps. But the spark was gone. The chemistry made the site. When I think of Giant Bomb, I still think of Jeff, Vinny, and Ryan, first and foremost. Those early podcasts, the NintenDownloads, the crazy tangents that everyone could seamlessly follow up on(well, except Brad, because he essentially slept through most of the podcasts, unless he was talking about the thing he did that week), the weird high-concept GOTY stuff... it wasn’t perfect, but you were entertained. You laughed. You were engaged. It never felt like you were watching them working, even though you could see the work they put in. It felt like, when they released something, you were experiencing a group of legitimate friends doing what they wanted to do anyways.(And boy have I seen enough groups do everything they can to NOT be enjoying doing that, and break up as a result due to hating the jobs that they chose to do).

Part of me would love to make it as simple as “Ryan died, and so did the original spirit”, and... to a degree, it’s true. If you go back to any retrospective they’ve done about the founding of the site, or the podcast they recorded after Ryan passed, you can’t help but recognize that Giant Bomb never happens if these core members don’t all quit their jobs, led by Ryan, because they respect their boss/manager, Jeff, and know he’s doing the right things(for them, for the reader/viewer, etc.) ahead of what GameSpot management wants him to do. Jeff could have been left in the wilderness, trying find a spot elsewhere, with the rumor going around between executives that Jeff wasn’t going to help them promote anything, essentially killing their revenue. He would have been done in terms of getting employed by a major site. But Ryan first, and soon after, Vinny and Brad, gave up their jobs to make this fledgling little project go. As much as the ERs brought me in and gave the impression that Jeff and Vinny were the long-standing duo, no, it was Ryan who was Jeff’s partner in crime. And, 8 years later, I can comfortably say... Giant Bomb never recovered from losing him.

But it was so much more. Everything that set them apart slowly went away, in time. I don’t think they’ve posted reviews for games in consecutive MONTHS since 2017; 2018 at the latest. They have done one Endurance Run in 9 years. They have not had a meaningful live event in 6 years. Unprofessional Fridays were more formulaic and lesser in volume and frequency after the major players started moving east. The lack of coordination between coasts killed the camaraderie, to the point that I think one of the last 5 true gameplay crossovers was their series of 2016-2017 PUBG shitfests. I remember when Vinny starting GBEast was supposed to be the start of a new era of content, and... it was, but not in a positive way, like it sounded. When half of each side seemed to constantly have no interest in making anything, nothing got made. But I guess that’s what happens when your second in command in one of your headquarters is just a former marketing grunt with an attitude problem, and the guy with the biggest ego on the team is the one who refuses to move to join either side, and just pushes out the most self-important drivel as a header to what were literally just copy-pasted articles from other sites every week while sitting at his desk, dreaming of the days Gawker would pay him to plagiarize political drivel instead, because that’s what really gets the soulless clicks. One of your founding members becomes depressed due to losing his two closest work friends, one for real, one to a 3000 mile separation, within a year, while the other one who is left virtually stopped playing anything but DOTA 2 for 2 years. Suddenly your most prominent personalities are the 2 new guys(one the aforementioned charisma vacuum, the other a walking mark) and your previously-mostly-off-camera producer who is best known to the wider Internet for... blinking. So, yeah, lifeless. And NOW, all you’ve got is old melancholy dad, charisma vacuum dad, and the two ADHD kids whose defining trait is that they choose to exclusively refer to their partners as “my partner” in voices that make it sound like they are embarrassed to have partners, while also talking more about what their partners are doing than what they do. It’s confounding.

But yeah, TL:DR: RIP zombie Giant Bomb. Glad you’re finally getting taken behind the shed. It took 3 years too long, minimum.

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innuendostudios · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

The newest installment of The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 4: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship - is a little different. This installment was presented live at Solidarity Lowell, and includes a bonus Q&A section. This video expands on the ideas put forth in How to Radicalize a Normie.

If you would like more videos like this to come out, please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

He is intriguing, yet unpredictable. He demands unconditional loyalty. He seems to have an intuitive understanding of what people want to hear but no actual empathy; he treats others as simply bodies or objects. And he’s surrounded by a network of subordinates but the personnel is always changing.

Does it sound like I’m describing The President? Because these are, according to Alexandra Stein, qualities of a cult leader.

Hi. My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, the flagship endeavor of which is currently The Alt-Right Playbook, a series on the political and rhetorical strategies the Alt-Right uses to legitimize itself and gain power. And, if that sounds interesting to you, and you haven’t already, please like share and subscribe.

The most recent episode of The Alt-Right Playbook is about how people get recruited into these largely online reactionary communities like the Alt-Right, a subject which, as it turns out, is real fuckin’ hard to research.

What I want to talk about with you today is how I go about studying a population that is incredibly hostile towards being studied. It involves finding the bits and pieces of the Alt-Right that we do have data on - the pockets of good research, the outsider observations, the stories of lived experience - as well as looking at older movements the Alt-Right grew out of, that have been extensively researched, and spotting the ways the Alt-Right is continuous with them, and trying to extrapolate how those structures might recreate themselves in the social media age.

So it’s… a lot. And, in the process of researching, I found a wealth of interesting perspectives that, by focusing the video on recruitment specifically, I barely dipped a toe in. All that stuff is what I’d like to get into with you today. But I’m trying to thread a needle here: you don’t need to have seen my video, How to Radicalize a Normie, to follow this talk, but, if you have seen it already, I will try not to be redundant. This talk is one part making my case for why I think the conclusions in that video are correct, one part repository for all the stuff I couldn’t get into, and one part how I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right as a result of this research, including some pet theories I wouldn’t feel right claiming as truth without further research, but I do think are on the right track.

This talk is called Isolation, Engulfment, and Pain: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, from information processing to emotional development, but we’re necessarily also going to cover racism and violence and abuse dynamics. So this is an introduction and a content warning: if some of these subjects are particularly charged for you, no offense will be taken if you at any point leave the room. I have to research this stuff for a living, and it is rough, and sometimes I have to step away. We don’t judge here.

Now. Requisite dash of self-deprecation: don’t give me too much credit for all this. I am proud of the work I do and I think I’m genuinely good at it, but much of this video was compiling the work of others. Besides research I had already done and my own observations, the video had 27 sources: three books, five research papers, six articles, one leaked document, three testimonials, four videos, four pages of statistics, and one Twitter joke. I also spoke to four professional researchers who study right-wing extremism and one former Alt-Righter.

Without all their hard work, I would have nothing to compile.

OK? Let’s begin.

We’re gonna center on those three main texts: Alt-America by David Neiwert, a history of the Alt-Right’s origins; Healing from Hate by Michael Kimmel, about how young men get into (and out of) extremist groups, be they neo-Nazi or jihadist; and Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein, about how people are courted by and kept inside cults and totalitarian regimes.

I began with Kimmel. The premise of Healing from Hate is that extremist groups tend to be between 75 and 90% male, and that you cannot understand radical conservatism without looking at it through the lens of toxic masculinity. Which makes it all the more disappointing that Kimmel has been accused by multiple women of bullying and harassment. I found the book incredibly useful, and we’re still going to talk about it, I just need to caveat here that retweets are not endorsements. Also, if I spoil the book for you then you don’t need to buy it, give your money to someone who isn’t a creep.

Kimmel’s argument is that extremism begins with a pain peculiar to young men. He calls it “aggrieved entitlement.” I call it Durden Syndrome. You know that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rockstars, but we won’t, we’re slowly learning that fact, and we are very, very pissed off”? Yeah, that. As men, the world promised us something, and the promise wasn’t kept.

Some men skew towards social progressivism when they realize this promise was never made to women, or men of color, or queer or trans or nonbinary people, and recognize the injustice of that. Some men skew towards economic leftism when they realize that every cishet white man being a millionaire rockstar movie god is mathematically impossible. But they skew towards reactionary conservatism when they feel the promise should have been kept. That’s the life they were supposed to have, and someone took it from them.

Hate groups appeal to that sense of emasculation. “You wanna feel like a Real Man? Shave off your hair, dance to hatecore, and let’s beat the crap out of someone.” Kimmel notes that the greatest indicator someone will join a hate group is a broken home: divorce, foster care, parents with addictions, physical or sexual abuse. The greater the distance between the life they were promised and the life they are living, the more enticing Real Masculinity becomes. Their fellow extremists are brothers, the leaders father figures.

The group does give them someone to blame for their lot in life - immigrants, feminists, the Jewish conspiracy - but that’s not why they join. They’re after empowerment. According to Kimmel, “Their embrace of neo-Nazi ideology is a consequence of their recruitment and indoctrination process, not its cause."

But once an Other has been identified as the locus of a hate group’s hate, new recruits are brought along when the group terrorizes that Other. Events like cross burnings and street fights are dangerous and morally fraught, and are often traumatic for a new recruit. And experiencing an emotional or physical trauma can create an intense bond with the people experiencing it with him, even though they’re the ones who brought him to the traumatic event in the first place. The creation of this bond is one of the reasons some hate groups usher new recruits out into the field as early as possible: the sooner they are emotionally invested in the community, the faster they will embrace the community’s politics.

This Othering also estranges recruits from the people they are supposed to hate, which makes it hard to stop hating them.

So there’s this concept that comes up a lot in my research called Contact Hypothesis. Contact Hypothesis argues that, the more contact you have with a different walk of life, the easier it is to tolerate it. It’s like exposure therapy. We talk about how big cities and college campuses tend to be liberal strongholds; the Right likes to claim this is because of professors and politicians poisoning your mind, but it’s really just because they’re diverse. When you share space with a lot of different kinds of people, a degree of liberalism becomes necessary just to get by. And we see that belief systems which rely on a strict orthodoxy get really cagey about members having contact with outsiders. We see this in all the groups we’re discussing today - extremists, cultists, totalitarians - but also religious fundamentalists; Mormons only wanna send their kids to Brigham Young. They are belief systems that can only be reliably maintained so long as no one gets exposed to other people with other beliefs.

So that’s some of what I took from Kimmel. Next I read Stein talking, primarily, about cults.

Stein’s window into all of this is applying the theory of Attachment Styles to what researchers calls totalism, which is any structure that subsumes a person’s entire life the way cults and totalitarian governments do. Attachment is a concept you may be familiar with if have, or have ever dated, a therapist. (I’ve done both.)

So, for a quick primer:

Imagine you’re walking in the park with a three-year-old. And the three-year-old sees a dog, and ask, “Can I pet the dog?” And you say yes, and the kid steps away from your side and reaches out. And the dog gets excited, and jumps up, and the kid gets scared and runs back to you. So you hold the kid and go, “Oh, no no no, don’t worry! They’re not gonna hurt you! They were just happy to see you!” And you take a few moments to calm the kid down, and then you ask, “Do you still want to pet the dog?” And the kid says “yes,” so they step away from you again and reach out. The dog jumps up again, but this time the kid doesn’t run away, and they pet the dog, and you, the kid, and the dog are all happy. Hooray!

This is a fundamental piece of a child’s emotional development. They take a risk, have a negative experience, and retreat to a point of comfort. Then, having received that comfort, feel bolstered enough to take a slightly greater risk. A healthy childhood is steadily venturing further and further from that point of comfort, and taking on greater risks, secure in the knowledge that safety is there when they need it. And, as an adult, they will form many interdependent points of comfort rather than relying on only one or two.

If all goes according to plan, that is Secure Attachment. But: sometimes things go wrong when the kid seeks comfort and doesn’t get enough. This may be because the adult is withholding or the kid doesn’t know how to express their needs or they’re just particularly fearful. But the kid may start seeking comfort more than seems reasonable, and be particularly averse to risk, and over-focus on the people who give them comfort, because they’re operating at a deficit. We call that Anxious Attachment. Alternately, the kid may give up on receiving comfort altogether, even though they still need it, and just go it alone, developing a distrust of other people and a fear of being vulnerable. We call that Avoidant Attachment.

Now, these styles are all formed in early childhood, but Stein focuses on a fourth kind of Attachment, one that can be formed at any age regardless of the Attachment Style you came in with. It’s what happens when the negative experience and the comfort come from the same place. We see it in children and adults who are mistreated by the people they trust. It’s called Disorganized Attachment.

According to Stein, cults foster Disorganized Attachment by being intensely unpredictable. In a cult, you may be praised for your commitment on Monday and have your commitment questioned on Tuesday, with no change in behavior. You may be assigned a romantic partner, who may, at any point, be taken away, assigned to someone else. Your children may be taken from you to be raised by a different family. You may be told the cult leader wants to sleep with you, which may make you incredibly happy or be terrifying, but you won’t be given a choice. And the rules you are expected to follow will be rewritten without warning.

This creates a kind of emotional chaos, where you can’t predict when you will be given good feelings and when you will be given bad ones. But you’re so enmeshed in the community you have noplace else to go for good feelings; hurting you just draws you in deeper, because they are also where you seek comfort. And your pain is always your fault: you wouldn’t feel so shitty if you were more committed. Trying to make sense of this causes so much confusion and anguish that you eventually just stop thinking for yourself. These are the rules now? OK. He’s not my brother anymore? OK. This is my life now? OK.

Hardly anyone would seek out such a dynamic, which is why cults present as religions, political activists, and therapy groups; things people in questioning phases of their lives are liable to seek out, and then they fall down the rabbit hole before they know what’s happening. The cult slowly consumes more and more of a recruit’s life, and tightly controls access to relationships outside the cult, because the biggest threat to a Disorganized Attachment relationship is having separate, Securely Attached points of comfort.

And at this point I said, “Hold up. You’re telling me cults recruit by offering people community and purpose in times of need, become the focal point of their entire lives, estrange them from all outside perspectives, and then cause emotional distress that paradoxically makes them more committed because they have nowhere else to go for support?”

Isn’t that exactly how Kimmel described joining a hate group?

Now, these are commonalities, not a one-to-one comparison. A cult is far more organized and rigidly controlled than a hate group. But Stein points out that this dynamic of isolation, engulfment, and pain is the same dynamic as an abusive relationship. The difference is just scale. A cult is functionally a single person having a very complex domestic abuse situation with a whole lot of people, #badpolyamory.

So if we posit a spectrum with domestic abuse on one end and cults and totalitarianism on the other, I started wondering, could we put extremist groups, like ISIS and Aryan Nations, around… here?

And, if so, where would we put the Alt-Right?

Now, I have to tread carefully here. There are reasons this talk is called “How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship” and not “How the Alt-Right is Like a Cult,” because the moment you say the second thing, a lot of people stop listening to you. Our conception of cults and totalitarianism is way more controlled and structured than a pack of loud, racist assholes on the internet. But we’re not talking about organizational structure, we’re talking about a relationship, an emotional dynamic Stein calls “anxious dependency,” which fosters an irrational loyalty to people who are bad for you and gets you to adopt an ideology you would have previously rejected. (I would also love to go on a rant puncturing the idea that cultists and fascists are organized, pointing out this notion is propaganda and their systems are notoriously corrupt and mismanaged, but we don’t have time; ask me about it in the Q&A if you want me to go off.)

So I started looking through what I knew, and what I could find, about the Alt-Right to see if I could spot this same pattern of isolation, engulfment, and pain online funneling people towards the Alt-Right. And I did not come up short.

Isolation? Well, the Alt-Right traffics in all the same dehumanizing narratives about their enemies as Kimmel’s hate groups - like, the worst things you can imagine a human being saying about a group of people are said every day in these forums. They often berate and harass each other for any perceived sympathy towards The Other Side. They also regularly harass people from The Other Side off of platforms, and falsely report their tweets, posts, and videos as terrorism to get them taken down. (This has happened to me, incidentally.) I found figureheads adored by the Alt-Right who expressly tell people to cut ties with liberal family members.

We talked before about Contact Hypothesis? There’s also this idea called Parasocial Contact Hypothesis. A parasocial relationship is a strong emotional connection that only goes one way, like if you really love my videos and have started thinking of me almost as a friend even though I don’t know you exist? Yeah. Parasocial relationship. They’ve been in The Discourse lately, largely thanks to my friend Shannon Strucci making a really great video about them (check it out, I make a cameo, but… clear your schedule). Parasocial Contact Hypothesis is this phenomenon where, if people form parasocial feelings for public figures or even fictional characters, and those people happen to be Black, white audience members become less racist similar to how they would if they had Black friends. Your logical brain knows that these are strangers, but your lizard brain doesn’t know the difference between empathy for a queer friend and empathy for a queer character in a video game. So of course the Alt-Right makes a big stink about queer characters in video games, and leads boycotts against “forced diversity,” because diverse media is bad for recruitment.

Engulfment? Well, I learned way too much about how the Alt-Right will overtake your entire internet life. There was a paper made the rounds last year by Rebecca Lewis charting the interconnectedness of conservative YouTube. (Reactionaries really hated this paper because it said things they didn’t like.) Lewis argues that, once you enter what she calls the Alternative Influence Network, it tends to keep you inside it. Start with some YouTuber conservatives like but who’s branded as a moderate, or even a “classic liberal.” Take someone like Dave Rubin; call Dave Rubin Alt-Right, people yell at you, I speak from experience. Well, Dave Rubin’s had Jordan Peterson on his show, so, if you watch Rubin, Peterson ends up in your recommendations. Peterson has been on the Joe Rogan show, so, you watch Peterson, Rogan ends up in your recommendations. And Rogan has interviewed Gavin McInnes, so you watch Rogan and McInnes ends up in your recommendations.

Gavin McInnes is the head of the Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” organization that’s mostly known for beating up liberals and leftists. They have ties to neo-fascist groups like Identity Evropa and neo-fascist militias like the Oath Keepers, they run security for white nationalists, and their lawyer just went on record that he identifies as a fascist. And, if you’re one of these kids who has YouTube in the background with autoplay on, and you’re watching Dave Rubin? You might be as few as 3 videos away from watching Gavin McInnes.

There’s a lot of talk these days about algorithms funneling people towards the Right, and that’s not wrong, but it’s an oversimplification. The real problem is that the Right knows how to hijack an algorithm.

I also learned about the Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral from a piece by Mike Caulfield. Caulfiend uses the horrific example of Dylann Roof. You remember him? He shot up a church in a Black neighborhood a few years ago. Roof says he was radicalized when he googled “Black on white crime” and saw the results. Now, if you search the phrase “crime statistics by demographic,” you will find fairly nonpartisan results that show most crimes are committed against members of the perpetrator’s own race, and Black people commit crimes against white people at about the same rate as any other two demographics. But that specific phrase, “Black on white crime,” is used almost exclusively by white racists, and so Roof’s first hit wasn’t a database of crime statistics, it was the Council of Conservative Citizens. Now, the CCC is an outgrowth of the White Citizens Councils of the 50’s and 60’s which rebranded in ‘85. They publish bogus statistics that paint Black people as uniquely violent. And they introduce a number of other politically-loaded phrases - like, say, “Muslim fertility rates” - that nonpartisan sites don’t use, and so, if Roof googles them as well, he gets similarly weighted results.

I have tons more examples of this stuff. I literally don’t have time to show it all. Like, have you heard of Google bombing? That’s a thing I didn’t know existed. The point is, the same way search engines tailor your results to what they think you want, once you scratch the surface of the Alt-Right they are highly adept at making it so, whenever you go online, their version of reality is all you know and all you see.

Finally, pain. This was the difficult one. Can you create a Disorganized Attachment relationship over the internet with a largely faceless and decentralized movement? I pitched the idea to one the researchers I spoke to, and he said, “That sounds very plausible, and nearly impossible to research.” See, cults and hate groups? They don’t wanna talk to researchers anymore than the Alt-Right wants to talk to me. Stein and Kimmel get their data by speaking to formers, people who’ve exited these movements and are all too happy to share how horrible they were. But the Alt-Right is still very young, and there just aren’t that many formers yet.

I found some testimonials, and they mostly back up my hypothesis, but there’s not enough that I could call them statistically significant. So I had to look where the data was.

My fellow YouTuber ContraPoints made a video last year - in my opinion, her best one - about incels (that’s “involuntary celibate,” men who can’t get laid). Incel forums tend to be deeply misogynistic and antifeminist, and have a high overlap with the Alt-Right. If you remember Elliot Rodger, he was an incel. Contra’s observation was that these forums were incredibly fatalistic: you are too ugly and women too shallow for you to ever have sex, so you should give up. She described a certain catharsis, like picking a really painful scab, in hearing other people voice your worst fears. But there was no uplift; these communities seemed to have a zero-tolerance policy for optimism. She likened it so some deeply unhealthy trans forums she used to visit, where people wallowed in their own dysphoria.

And I remembered the forums I researched five years ago in preparation for my video on GamerGate. (If you don’t know what GamerGate was, I will not rob you of your precious innocence. But, in a lot of ways, GamerGate was the trial run for what the Alt-Right has become.) These forums were full of angry guys surrounding themselves with people saying, “You’re right to be angry.” And, yeah, if everywhere else you go treats your anger as invalid, that scratches an itch. But I never saw any of them calm down. They came in angry and they came out angrier. And most didn’t have anywhere else to vent, so they all came back.

I found a paper on Alt-Right forums that described a similar type of nihilism, and another on 8chan. What humor was on these sites was always shocking, furiously punching down, and deeply self-referential, but it didn’t seem like anyone was expected to laugh anymore, just, you know, catch the reference. I found one testimonial saying that having healthy relationships in these spaces is functionally impossible, and the one former I talked to said, yeah, when the Alt-Right isn’t winning everyone’s miserable.

So I think it might fit. The place they go for relief also makes them unhappy, so they come back to get relief again, and it just repeats. Same reason people stay with abusers. I wanna look into this further, so, I’ll just say this part to the camera: if there are any researchers watching who wanna study this, get at me.

Finally, I read Alt-America by David Neiwert, a supremely useful book that I highly recommend if you wanna know how the Alt-Right is the natural outgrowth of the militia and Patriot movements of the 90’s and early 2000’s, not to mention the Tea Party. Neiwert also does an excellent job illustrating how conspiracism serves to fill in the gap between the complexity of the modern world and the simplistic, might-makes-right worldview of fascism.

Neiwert also provides an interesting piece of the puzzle, suggesting what people are actually looking for when they get recruited. He references work done by John Bargh and Katelyn McKenna on Identity Demarginalization. Bargh and McKenna looked at the internet habits of people whose identities are both devalued in our society and invisible. By invisible, what I mean is, ok, if you’re a person of color, our society devalues your identity, but you can look around a room and, within a certain margin of error, see who else is POC, and form community with them if you wish. But, if you’re queer, you can’t see who else in a room is queer unless one of you runs up a flag. And revealing yourself always means taking on a certain amount of risk that you’ve misread the signals, that the person you reveal yourself to is not only not queer, but a homophobe.

According to Bargh and McKenna, people in this situation are much more likely to seek online spaces that self-select for that identity. A fan forum for RuPaul’s Drag Race is maybe a safer place to come out and find community. And people tend to get very emotionally tied to these online spaces where they can be themselves.

Neiwert points out that the same phenomenon happens among privileged people who have identities that are devalued even as they’re not actually oppressed. Say, nerds, or conservatives in liberal towns, or men who don’t fit traditional notions of masculinity. They are also likely to deeply invest themselves in online spaces made for them. And if the Far Right can build such a community, or get a foothold in one that already exists, it is very easy to channel that sense of marginalization into Durden Syndrome. I connected this with Rebecca Lewis’ observation that the Alternative Influence Network tends to present itself as nerd-focused life advice first and politics second, and the long history of reactionaries recruiting from fandoms.

So I can see all the pieces of the abuse dynamic being recreated here: offer you something you need, estrange you from other perspectives and healthy relationships, overtake your life, and provoke emotional distress that makes you seek comfort only your abuser is offering. And I found a lot more parallels than what I’m sharing right now, I only have half an hour! But the thing that’s missing that’s usually central to such a system is, an abusive relationship orbits around the abuser, a cult around the cult leader, a totalitarian government around a dictator. They are built to serve the whims of an individual. But I look at the ad hoc nature of the Alt-Right and I have to ask: who is the architect?

I can see a lot of people profiting off of this structure; our current President rode it to great success, but he didn’t build it. It predates him. It’s more like Kimmel’s hate groups, which don’t promote an individual so much as a class of individuals, but, even then, their structure is much more deliberate, designed, where the Alt-Right seems almost improvised.

Well… one observation I took from Stein is that cult recruiters often rely on two different kinds of propaganda: the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche. The diatribe is when someone talks at length, sounds smart, and seems to know what they’re talking about but isn’t actually making sense, and the thought-terminating cliche comes from Robert Jay Lifton’s studies into brainwashing. So, I went vegetarian in middle school, and, when I would tell other kids I was vegetarian, some would get kind of defensive and say things like, “humans aren’t meant to be vegetarian, it’s the food chain.” Now, saying “it’s the food chain” isn’t meant to be a good argument, it’s meant to communicate “I have said something so axiomatically true that the argument need not continue.” That’s a thought-terminating cliche; something that may not be true, but feels true and gives you permission to think about something else.

Both these techniques rely on what’s called Peripheral-Route Processing. So, I’m up here talking about politics, and, Solidarity Lowell, you are a group of politically-engaged people, so you probably have enough context to know whether I’m talking out of my ass. That’s Direct-Route Processing, where you judge the contents of my argument. But if I were up here talking about string theory, you might not know whether I was talking out of my ass because there’s only so many people on Earth who understand string theory. So then you might look at secondary characteristics of my argument: the fact that I’ve been invited to speak on string theory implies I know what I’m talking about; maybe I put up a lot of equations and drop the names of mathematicians and say they agree with me; maybe I just sound really authoritative. All that’s Peripheral-Route Processing: judging the quality of my argument by how it’s delivered.

Every act of communication involves both, but if you’re trying to sell people on something that’s fundamentally irrational, you’re going to rely heavily on Peripheral-Route tactics, which is what the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche are.

I noted that these two methods mapped pretty cleanly onto the rhetorical stylings of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. But here’s the question: cults use these techniques to recruit people. But can I say with any confidence that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are trying to recruit people into the Alt-Right?

The thing is, “Alt-Right” isn’t a term like “klansman.” It’s more akin to a term like “modernism.” It’s a label applied to a trend. In the same way we debate the line between modernism and postmodernism, we debate the line between Right and Alt-Right. People don’t sign up to be in the Alt-Right, you are Alt-Right if you say you’re Alt-Right. But the nature of the Alt-Right is that 90% of them would never admit to it.

So are Peterson and Shapiro intentionally recruiting for the Alt-Right? Are they grifters merely profiting off of the Alt-Right? Are they even aware they’re recruiting for the Alt-Right? Part of my work has been accepting that you can’t know for sure. It would be naive to say they’re unaware; when they give speeches they get Nazis in their Q&A sections, and they know that. But how aware are they? I suspect Shapiro moreso than Peterson, but that’s just my gut talking and I can’t prove it. Like 90% of the Alt-Right, it’s debatable.

I don’t know if they’re trying to be part of this system, I just know they’re not trying not to be.

A final academic term before we say goodnight that’s been making the rounds among lefty YouTubers is “Stochastic Terrorism.” There’s a really great video about this by the channel NonCompete called The PewDiePipeline. Stochastic Terrorism is the myriad ways you can increase the likelihood that someone will commit violence without actually telling them to. You simply create an environment in which lone wolf violence becomes more acceptable and appealing. It mirrors the structure of terrorism without the control or culpability.

And I hear about this, and I look at this recruitment structure I see approximated in the Alt-Right, and I remember something I learned much earlier in my research, from Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarians. Altemeyer has been studying authoritarianism for decades, he has a wealth of data, and one thing he observes is that authoritarianism is the few exerting power over the many, which means there are two types of authoritarians: the ones who lead and the ones who follow. Turns out those are completely different personality profiles. Followers don’t want to be in charge, they want someone to tell them what to do, to say “you’re the good guys,” and put them in charge of punishing the bad guys. They don’t even care who the bad guys are; part of the appeal is that someone else makes that judgment for them.

So if you can encourage a degree of authoritarian sentiment in people, get them wanting nothing more than to be ensconced in a totalist system that will take their agency away from them, putting them in the orbit of an authoritarian leader, but no leader presents themself… can you just kind of… appoint one?

Like, if you don’t have a leader, can you just find yourself an authoritarian and treat him like one? And, if he doesn’t give you enough directives, can you just make some up? And, if you don’t have recruiters, can you find a conservative who speaks in thought-terminating cliches just because he thinks they win arguments; find a conservative who speaks in meaningless diatribes because he thinks he’s making sense; and then maneuver those speeches and videos in front of people you want to recruit? If you’re sick of waiting for Moses to come down the mountain with the Word of God, can you just build your own god from whatever’s handy?

Every piece of this structure, you can find people, algorithms, and arguments that, put in sequence, can generate Disorganized Attachment whether they’re trying to or not, which makes every part plausibly deniable. Debatable. You just need to make it profitable enough for the ones involved that they don’t fix it. This is a system created collaboratively, on the fly, with the help of a lot of people from hate movements past, mostly by throwing a ton of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Alt-Right is a rapidly-mutating virus and the web is the perfect incubator; it very quickly finds a structure that works, and it’s a structure we’ve seen before, just a little weirder this time.

I’ve started calling this Stochastic Totalism.

Now, again, I’m not a professional researcher; I do my homework but I don’t have the background. I have an art degree. This isn’t something I can prove so much as a way I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right that makes sense to me and helps me understand them. And I got a lot of comments on my last video from people who used to be Alt-Right that echoed my assumptions. But don’t take it as gospel.

Mostly I wanted to share this because, if it can help you make sense of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s worth putting out there.

Thank you.

#video essay

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sommniac · 4 years ago

Text

correcting misinformation regarding bts

I watched affectaed’s video the mistreatment of bts and was appalled by the misinformation in it. I posted a comment on the video but I also understand that a lot of baby armys have similar misconceptions, so I thought posting this on tumblr could gain more traction.

When I first got into BTS about three years ago, I found myself ensnared by a ridiculous amount of falsehoods and presented those lies as facts to others. I know that this experience is common and I just want to help others avoid this struggle. The source linked in the video’s description does not cover all the information in this video so I cannot verify credibility but a twitter thread is not exactly the pinnacle of ethos. I try to be as factual as possible by linking all my sources but even then I might get some things wrong here. Please do not hesitate to correct me.

Please do not send this video or this creator any sort of hate, mistakes happen and I highly doubt they had any sort of malicious intent.

All links are integrated into the text (ex: click “friend,” “former employee,” “Park Jinyoung, the head of the Big 3 company JYP Entertainment,” or “JYP even loaned artists for Big Hit to comanage like 2 AM to help them get on their feet” in the first paragraph for sources)

"Big Hit wasn't a large company with great connections"

This is partially untrue as, at the time of Big Hit’s founding, Big Hit's CEO and founder Bang Sihyuk was a friend, former employee, and former roommate of Park Jinyoung, the head of the Big 3 company JYP Entertainment. JYP even loaned artists for Big Hit to comanage like 2 AM to help them get on their feet. So although the company was small, they did have rather large connections.

Trigger warning for the next point: Mentions of r*pe, domestic abuse, and racism. The link to Fxxk You contains disturbing video and lyric content. Viewer discretion is highly advised.

"Their music bashed so many different forms of society and they were trying to thrive with that raw meaning in their music in an industry that was incredibly superficial."

Although partially true, this is a blanket statement clearly intended to discredit and dismiss the Kpop industry as a whole. The generalization renders this entire claim false. Even though they were the minority, many artists did create music with an important message. Back in the 90's, Seo Taiji and the Boys, the first kpop artist, wrote a multitude of socially critical songs like Come Back Home and Classroom Ideas, both of which went on to be covered by BTS. Gain, a member of Brown Eyed Girls, the oldest still active girl group, released Fxxk You, a song addressing rape and domestic abuse, just months after BTS's debut. Yoon Mirae, a rapper RM collaborated with on the song Bucku Bucku, discussed racism on Black Happiness all the way back in 2007. And those are just a few examples. While BTS is absolutely one of the larger artists that brought attention to important issues, they were not the first.

This is a point regarding the graphic of the music chart at 1:17 (shown below)

It may not have been intentional, but showing this 2015 chart is a bit manipulative considering it was surrounded by details from 2013. I will, however, note that this achievement was still quite impressive considering BTS is one of just two non Big 3 artists on that list.

"BTS were nominated for Rookie of the Year at MNet Asian Music Awards. However, even though they were the best-selling rookie group of that year, MNet refused to give them that award"

Sales success does not automatically entitle an artist to a win. In contrast, BTS won Artist of the Year in 2016 despite EXO having over 600,000 more album sales. To claim BTS deserved to win Rookie of the Year and Artist of the Year would be hypocritical based off of this sales criteria.

“In 2014, a year after BTS debuted, they attended their first real variety show.”

Ignoring the descriptor of a “real” variety show because who can really define a variety show as being “real,” BTS appeared on After School Club on September 25, 2013, over half a year before they attended MNET Beatles Code 3D (the shown variety show). In fact, they appeared on ASC twice before the Beatles Code 3D episode aired (not including Jimin and RM’s appearances the day after the airing).

“BTS won their first Grand Prize award at the 2017 M-net Asian Music Awards”

This is completely, blatantly false. BTS won their first Grand Prize, better known as a Daesang, in 2016 at MMA for Album of the Year for their album HYYH: Young Forever.

”As the industry came to realize that there was no stopping BTS, a lot of agencies tried to buy them from Big Hit Entertainment.”

I do not actually know if this is wrong because I’m having a lot of trouble finding any sources for this claim.

”SM Entertainment bought the boy group Infinite as soon as they started to become a threat to their boy group EXO.”

SM did not buy Infinite, they merged with Infinite’s company Woollim.

”The Kpop industry had no part in BTS’s success considering how they were the ones trying so hard to shut them out.”

The words “no part” render this statement entirely false. I find it appalling that, so quickly after (rightfully) bashing SM for reducing the KPop industry to a series of generalizations, this video turns around and generalizes the Kpop industry as hungrily claiming credit for BTS based on Lee Sooman’s comments. That is textbook hypocrisy. Additionally, it is outright false. Yes, the industry did significantly hinder BTS’s success, but it did not have “no part” in BTS’s rise. A majority of BTS’s original fans, the ones who got the group off the ground, were established Kpop stans and products of the industry that supposedly did nothing for them. More than that, BTS was on award shows early in their career when most artists never get to perform at any award shows. They performed at 2013 MMA mere months after debut. They even had a massive collaboration stage with Block B, a huge group (who were friends with RM predebut), in 2015. More than that, BTS won several best new artist/rookie of the year awards in their very first year. That’s more than countless other artists receive in their entire lives. So even though the industry wasn’t exactly kind to BTS, they absolutely played a part in their success by granting them a platform on some of the biggest stages in Kpop exceptionally soon after debut when considering their company’s small size.

Not all of the information in this video is incorrect but there are some egregious errors that undermine the point of this video which is that BTS suffered a lot on their rise to the top. Which is true. BTS has the most incredible underdog story in KPop. They are my role models and have gotten me through the toughest moments in my life for years. But that doesn’t mean we can just invent struggles, not when they had so many legitimate ones. In 2016 alone, there was EXOLs mass petitioning that took down the Blue House website after BTS’s MMA win; there was the Black Wave at MMA and GDA; and then there was the infamous May “Terror” Month. All of these moments were results of targeted harassment (although there is some debate over what really happened at GDA) and are entirely factual.

#bts #btsarmy #misinformation #correction #bighit #bang sihyuk #seo taiji #brown eyed girls gain #yoon mirae #bts mma #bts gda #bts mama #tw r*pe #tw domestic abuse #tw abuse #tw racism #idk how to tag pls lmk if i did something wrong #excessive link integration

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calamariimpossible · 4 years ago

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Magicians on the internet, crypto, and the email that broke me.

This is a continuation of a twitter thread that Muz (@mzkrx) started to write out in his car but then when he plotted out his thoughts, it made more sense to him to put it down in a blog format rather than a thread. You'll find out why as you read through.

Stuck in the car for half an hour so I'm gonna do a thread (Editor's note: Now a whole-ass blog post) about a strange email I got recently.

So I was casually watching magic tricks on YouTube. the funnest part of which to me is reading the comments. YouTube commenters love explaining how they think the trick is done and it's fun to read through their theories and connect dots between similar tricks, etc.

And then one time as I was scrolling I noticed a comment that didn't make sense. It was a string of an almost sentence. Intelligible enough to not be random words but odd enough to read like a trigger phrase for something.

The closest I can describe it as is like the string Zemo used to wake up the Winter Soldier, but with some syntax to it. Like "many thermos wiggle throughout exotic harbinger of circle ascending fuchsia entrapment".

Initially I thought nothing of it, but then I kept seeing them in these magic trick video comment sections. They're never the same string, and it's always under magic trick videos. from different channels even.

Hmmm.

The profiles that posted these comments are also always blank accounts with zero videos and no profile pic. Just their name. I felt like it was too much of a coincidence for these comments to only be under magic trick videos.

I also knew that the world of performance magic is thick with secrets. That is to say, there is deliberate obfuscation of information whenever you try to go online to find out how a trick works.

Magicians get together online and share information with each other just like performers of every other sort as well but the amount of code and doublespeak they use is an order of magnitude more annoying to decipher compared to say, an engineering message board or a gamedev forum.

Knowing that, I thought maybe this almost parsable gibberish I keep seeing everywhere was also some kind of code these people were using to talk to each other.

So I started investigating.

First things first, let's just Google one of the phrases. Maybe that's enough?

And it sorta was.

Pasting them onto the search bar lent me to only 1 result (wild!) and it was a website that looked really dank. Like geocities dank. Annoying neon colours and badly margined jpegs of tarot card images everywhere and a big bold header text that said something to the effect of:

"Congratulations, you've found our hidden message. This portal is only for those seeking knowledge beyond what is on the surface. Continue below."

* * *

I haven't been doing well. I feel like I say that too much. I say it on Patreon, on my personal podcast, whenever any of my friends ask me how I'm doing, pretty much everywhere. I feel very heavy. I understand I'm not the only one feeling like this during a pandemic.

Duh.

But I have this other version of worry that I can't quite articulate until right now: I'm scared I won't be funny anymore. Anwar and Farid can attest that even during our recordings I don't feel up to being funny. I question my jokes a lot. I barely enjoy telling them. I'm worried I'm letting everyone down.

To me, silliness and absurdism as virtues only make sense when the world has trace amounts of injustice and wrongness that training ourselves to see it in our everyday helps us remind ourselves of what is just and fair. The more we consume silliness, the more we are able to recognize silly and point it out. So we don't ignore it when things go wrong, so we talk about it, manage it. So we can take care of each other.

Maybe I can't be sure if we're all up for taking care of each other right now.

* * *

"Continue below" seems instructive, but it wasn't. Like I mentioned, the margins were haphazard and the CSS was all over the place. Some jpegs were straight up cropped off.

Meaning I can't be sure what "below" meant. But there were clickable images and text so I was readily intrigued.

It was tantalizing. Did I stumble into some secret order of Extremely Online Magicians? Maybe I'll finally find out why there aren't many female magicians out there. Maybe it's some sort of secret initiation to a secret message board full of secrety secrets. Secretly.

Y'all.

I didn't click on any of the linked images or anything. I closed the tab. That was the end of that.

An earlier version of myself would gladly run headlong into this rabbit hole to find out more and sink hours into some goddessforsaken labyrinth of links. But the current version of me recognizes this for what it almost certainly is: an abandoned roleplaying game.

Back in the early 00s when the internet was the realm of nerds and nerds only, it was full of people who loved sharing things for sharing's sake. It used to be punk rock to maintain a blog that only talked about snails or have a lo-fi YouTube channel that uploads biweekly 3-minute news about your house, or manage a little message board where people roleplay as wizards who rummage around the net looking for clues.

That last part was a thing I remember being actively involved in. In '03, a group of online friends and I wrote up a scavenger hunt of sorts where we sent people through various blog pages that we have where the goal is to just dick around and have fun. We wasted each other's time for sure. Hundreds of hours of it for literally no gain at all but for some laughs and fun memories.

The internet isn't like that anymore. People don't share something online for sharing anymore. Not really. There's this idea that if you put stuff out there, you want people's attention because numbers are good. You get a lotta reblogs and RTs and Likes which means people Like you.

If you don't have a lotta numbers, you don't matter. If you do, everyone has to talk about what you said or did because it's 'News' now.

Isn't that kinda gross, you think? That we need people to interact through an app to be sure that we're Liked? I say "we" but I mean me. I've successfully poisoned my brain to believe this to a certain extent too and it's not good.

I felt myself physically react when I closed that geocities magician website tab. I shuddered because my brain went from "this is cool" to "I gotta let people know I found this" to "this'll get me hella RTs" to "ew Muz why did you think that" within 3 seconds and I was disgusted with myself.

As a dude who started my online presence on YouTube and parlayed it into my real life comedy/writing career, I've believed for a long time that doing good work and putting it out there is what it takes for a working creative to make it because that's what I did. So there's this idea that making stuff and having it be seen is some kind of virtuous.

But it's not anymore. People pick fights with children for clout. Newspapers post about people's tweets as if its important. People are investing in crypto, a thing that literally only exists as electrical waste on a grand scale. We're boiling the oceans to yell at each other over nothing and exchange bits of code everyone agrees has ever-rising value but doesn't. Everyone is making and eating junk, it feels like.

So am I making junk? Have I just been making useless junk for literally over a decade now? Is that what I've been good for this entire time?

* * *

So the email.

It was a response from a company I applied to for a job. I applied as a creative writer and they're an advertising agency.

Receiving emails from a prospective employer when you're in need of a job is exciting! So soon after I applied, too. Wonderful. Here's what it said:

We just received your application today but would love to extend the opportunity for you to participate in the Case Competition as a prerequisite of your job application for Creative Writer position with [REDACTED] and stand a chance to be a winner for cash awards up to a total worth of RM1,800.

Yea.

They want me to enter a competition where I compete with other candidates to get a chance of being hired.

This company saw how many people applied for a job with them, and decided to dangle some cash and throw it over the fence to see which candidate will fight for it the most.

I didn't expect to feel vomitous after reading an email but that did it. I almost dry heaved. That's where we are now.

Recruiters see a glut of applicants and decided to play Fall Guys. These people watch Istana Takeshi and think Takeshi is the good guy. It hurts. It hurt me. That email caused me pain.

I can't at all empathise with recruiters who think this was okay to do. They really believed that creative writers will do a little dance for them just for money.

Look, I know we all need to eat. But I can also hate that people undervalue the work of creatives to this painful extent.

I don't give a shit about earning a lot of dough. I just wanna make things that tickle people. I want you to smile more.

That's the whole point of that weird little YouTube comment that led to the quirky website. That's the whole idea of making silly videos and dumb tweets and memes. We just want you to laugh.

But it seems people think so little of joy that they'll do whatever they can to avoid legitimately supporting and paying for stuff that gets them through the day. So much so that they want free work from us for the potential of maybe being able to get paid for more work. It breaks me, man.

I hate that I cannot make a living just trying my best to make people happy.

That's the best way I know to take care of you.

I know I don't just 'make junk' for a living. People have messaged me personally that my work has helped them get through tough times in school, in their relationships, at the office and I am eternally grateful that they took the time to tell me that.

I just also wish my feelings about my work aren't easily brought down by the majority of people who insist its worthless. Even if sometimes those people is me.

So forgive me if I won't be funny for a while. I'm gonna need some time to process this. Thank you for reading. I love you.

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scotfem · 4 years ago

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Ooooh my god. Read the whole thing it's mind boggling and written by a TRA that doesn't actually know what oppression is

Last month, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon posted a heartfelt video statement online.

She said that she would make a stance to address transphobia in her party, outlining that it ‘is wrong and we must treat it with the zero tolerance we treat racism or homophobia.’

I – like many other Scottish National Party members who left in January – watched in tears.

Yet, I fear that Sturgeon’s words have come too late to undo the SNP’s slide into becoming one of the most concerning hubs of transphobia in Scotland.

When I, a non-binary person, joined the SNP In February 2019, the party felt like a beacon of hope. Scotland had a great LGBTQ+ equalities rating, and Nicola herself, as a life-long feminist and LGBTQ+ ally, was a role model I held in deep respect.

But at just three months in, I felt first-hand the party’s disregard for the safety and wellbeing of trans people.

After I appeared in a short social media video for the SNP’s official student wing, I became the focus of a disproportionately large hate campaign launched by anti-trans activists online. They pored over screenshots of my body shared over Mumsnet, mocking my features, which they found unfeminine.

As I watched the party fail to act as the same activists who attacked me sent thank you cards to SNP politicians like Joanna Cherry for her opposition to trans rights, I never took it upon myself to report what had happened. I was aware of other complaints that had received no response.

That was until I came to a crisis point in 2020 when I was subjected to coordinated, planned abuse by anti-trans activists at a branch meeting I had been invited to.

The leaked branch meeting minutes were seen by The Herald describing, ‘At one point photocopies of men taken from the internet were passed with the comments that they had all been convicted of predatory and paedophilic behaviour against women and girls while self-identifying as women’.

In shock at their actions, I did not look at them all but one picture stood out to me, of a well-known UK trans public figure.

This trans woman had experienced abuse online for her appearance not fitting the patriarchal ideal of what ‘woman’ looks like. Yet they compared her to convicted rapists and paedophiles, just for being who she is.

I couldn’t help but compare it to what happened to me over the SNP Student video; the sheer disgust at our bodies – objects to be ridiculed.

As the night went on that room devolved into a den of transphobia. The minutes detail that anti-trans activists ‘shouted comments of men getting access to women/girls in toilets and changing rooms and raping them and the infiltration of LGBT information in primary schools encouraging children to identify as gay or trans.’

I was too scared to say anything although the branch executive apologised for these activists’ actions and ushered me to safety; it took me three months to summon up the courage to talk publicly about it.

And my fear was justified. Six months after I formally complained, nothing was done. I felt hurt and betrayed when I did not receive the support I should have been able to expect.

I emailed the new National Secretary Stewart Stevenson MSP, setting my intention to leave unless an update on my complaint was provided within two weeks.

He said nothing. And so, I left.

The sad part is many other instances go unreported due to the survivors being too scared to come forward out of fear of harassment. I was not the first trans person to come forward about being abused in the SNP.

Emma Cuthbertson, the former convenor for the party’s official LGBTQ+ wing, said she sent ‘at least 21 complaints’ outlining instances of transphobic abuse she received from other party members to SNP HQ, the national secretary and even Sturgeon herself. She said no one responded and subsequently left to join the Scottish Greens.

The rumbles of bigotry and party inaction came to a crescendo on Tuesday January 26, the day before Holocaust Memorial Day, as prominent SNP MP Joanna Cherry appeared to defend an anti-trans activist whose Twitter account has been suspended for violating its ‘hateful conduct’ policy.

Cherry tweeted claiming that ‘Twitter moderation policies are a violation of #FreeSpeech & your hateful conduct policy does not protect women…As a Member of Parliament I’m calling you out on your sexism & your #HumanRights violations’, which was to me insinuating that sexism led to the account being banned rather than acknowledging the discriminatory remarks aimed at trans and Jewish people.

Last week, the SNP had a reshuffle and dropped Cherry from the front bench – Anne McLaughlin MP has been appointed instead as the party’s spokeswoman on justice and immigration.

Recently, Justice Minister Humza Yousaf submitted highly controversial proposals to the Hate Crime Bill, which seems to enshrine in law the demand of anti-trans activists to be exempt from hate crime regulations when criticising trans people’s identities.

This accumulation of stories shared over social media, to significant outrage, meant it was understandable that a sliver of recognition from Sturgeon in her video was enough to make mytears start.

Watching her was like having two years of fear and silence finally be put into words. I cried out of pain, mourning and exhaustion because I feel this has come too late to heal the harm done to trans people both inside and outwith the party.

At this time, I don’t think the SNP support trans people on our road to an equal and inclusive independent Scotland at all. Trans healthcare was already at crisis levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, waiting times are at such severe levels that some trans people wait up tothree years just for their first appointment at a Gender Identity Clinic.

Trans women are experiencing an epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence, including domestic and sexual abuse from their partners.

I’ve watched as close friends’ lives have been ruined by these problems, but they seem of little interest to a party in which the mere mention of trans rights acts as a lightning rod for amplifying transphobia, and distracts from the mission of independence. Trans people are tired of having to ‘wheesht for Indy’ (‘wheest’ meaning hush).

It’s a horrible situation. Young people joined the SNP out of hope for a new Scotland and now many are regretting that decision.

Sturgeon has promised change and I believe her to be an ally but until change happens, I cannot see the SNP as a safe space for already marginalised trans people.

The onus is on all of our allies to pressure the SNP leadership to launch an independent, external review of its transphobic culture, with a focus on many ignored instances of discrimination and abuse, before a generation of its activists are lost.

‘We hope our efforts will reaffirm the status of the SNP as great supporters of the LGBT+ movement. The door remains open for Teddy, other trans people and trans allies, should they wish to re-join the party at any time.’

Joanna Cherry QC MP said: ‘I am not aware of anyone in the SNP who wants to undermine the rights of Trans people. As a lesbian, a feminist and a veteran of the struggles for equality I believe that everyone deserves equal protection under the law and I am very proud of the fact that in Scotland we have very good rights-based protections for Trans people.

‘There is currently a debate about changing the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland. Some people have advocated for a policy of self-identification of gender. In response Women have raised legitimate concerns about the impact on their sex-based rights enshrined under the Equalities Act. It is concerning that in this area it is difficult to express a viewpoint without being labelled a transphobe. The Scottish Government’s proposed amendment to the draft Hate Crime bill was designed to ensure that people who wish to discuss women’s sex-based rights would be protected from charges of transphobic hate crime. Without such protections Scotland will end up in breach of Article 10 ECHR which protects the right of free speech.‘

-End of article-

You read that right folx, this idiot is actually saying that women being able to congregate and speak about issues that affect us is hate speech and wants it to be enshrined in law. The trans movement couldn't be any more anti-woman if they tried

#scottish radfem #terfs do interact #terfs do touch #libfems dni #radical feminism

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valeriannnn · 5 years ago

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if youve ever wanted to think about what almost every major RWBY character would main in professional overwatch, then today is your lucky day! brought to you by hiatus, return of owl, and 3am delirium

RUBY - Star DPS. Extremely flashy, always on the highlight reel. Will play whatever is needed to pound the enemies into dirt, but also the type to say "fuck it ok guys trust me im gonna pop off" and swap to her signature widow/tracer to Pop Off. Works unfailingly. Team captain and emotional core. Prefers mobile heroes and an unpredictable playstyle.

WhiteSnow - Flex Support/Flex DPS. Put her on any sniper (including and especially Ana) and watch all hell rain down. Methodical playstyle, favors high-utility heroes. Aside from snipers, can often be found on Baptiste/Mei/Symmetra. Enables teammates to make big plays, but often sacrifices her own presence in the killfeed for the benefit of the team as a whole. Loves to maker opponents' lives a living hell with CC. Line em up, knock em down.

Belladonna - Offtank. Extremely attentive to her backline, constantly running interference and peeling for allies. Impossible to catch off-guard. Delights in thwarting the enemy team's plans and preventing them from making the plays they want to. Excellent map awareness and always the one to touch point to preserve overtime. Shotcaller. Struggled with committing to risky/aggressive plays, but being on a reliable team has made her more comfortable performing her role and trusting her teammates to have her back. Prefers mobile heroes but will adapt to any situation to work in perfect tandem with...

YangXiaoLong - Main Tank. Could have been a DPS main but early on committed to tank role to enable her duo parter (and little sister) to pop off (and have shorter queue times). Developed a real knack for controlling space and being a brick goddamn wall between her squishies and the enemy team. Extremely aggressive playstyle, but has cooled down in recent years to be more of a team player. Still loves to thrash about when given the opportunity. Known for bold plays and phatty shatties.

Arc - Main Support. Tried for years to be a DPS hotshot but was determinedly mediocre and got hard stuck in plat. Persuaded by Pyrrha to pocket her for a few games, and discovered the depth and fulfillment of playing support to a well-coordinated team. Nurtured his aptitude for assisting from the backline and quickly rose through the ranks. Will play whatever is meta but will always be a Mercy main at heart. Played Brig during GOATS. Shotcaller.

Valkyrie - Doomfist.

Nikos - Main Tank. Extremely methodical player, reknowned for big brain cerebral plays and unflappability. Can be slow to push advantages, but never makes mistakes. Loves the mind games in a Rein v Rein matchup, and unfailingly blocks the enemy shatter (delights in cucking the enemy Rein). Will play Orisa For The Good Of The Team but takes no joy in it. Terrifying on defense; takes a strong position and allows time pressure to force enemies into missteps. When you make a mistake, she will be there. Strategic backbone of the team.

RenLie - Flex Support. Bloodthirsty support. Likes the balance of damage potential and support capacity in Zenyatta, but puts forth strong showings on Moira and Ana as well. First priority is of course keeping his team alive, but flankers trying to dive him in the back line tend to get sent home in tears. Big Jjonak energies. :uwuknife: Can be susceptible to tunnel vision/desperation, and occasionally needs teammates to re-ground him. Always nanos Nora.

PPolen - Offtank. D.Va one-trick. Absolutely notorious for eating ults; absolutely infuriating to play hitscan into. Flawless mechanical skill. Occasionally struggles with communication, but honestly so on-the-ball that it doesn't usually come back to bite her. Always has gold objective time.

Qrow - True flex. Exclusively solo-queues on ladder, just plays the leaderboards. Played just about every role at some point (except main tank, fuck that), but currently on a flex support kick. Holds world records for gravs/blizzards/immortality feels clipping through the geometry and falling out of the map. The sort of Ana who will singlehandedly take out both enemy DPS when beset by flankers only to immediately die to an errant Moira orb. Gamers can we get an F in chat. Accustomed to playing on 200+ ping and is deeply unsettled when he moves somewhere with good internet and has to re-learn all his timings.

RWBY+JNPR+P All form a single 9-man roster. Sub out roles with redundant players for map set strategies and for flexible plays. Probably called the Beacon Huntsmen or something generic like that, who cares

Winter - Main Tank and Offtank. Excellent mechanical skill. Unparalleled when allowed to execute her set strategy, but struggles with adaptability. Extremely self-sacrificial, and knows exactly how to leverage her health pool to buy time and/or space for her allies to make the plays they need to. Will unflinchingly act upon callouts, good or bad, because the worst outcome is a split decision. Especially fond of a quick reset.

Whitley - Doesn't play Overwatch, but holds several championship trophies in international Pokemon tournaments. Minecraft youtuber.

Adam - Widow one-trick. Highly overrated, inexplicably popular streamer. Mechanically talented but poison in a team environment. Picked up and quickly dropped from several professional teams. Teabags. Looks impressive on stream but crumbles against opponents with any semblance of coordination. Eventually blacklisted from professional environments after one too many scandals in his personal life.

Ozpin -Franchise owner. Has never actually touched Overwatch, but used to be a respected Starcraft player back in the day. Took on a coaching role for a time, but now largely manages from afar. Has a sparse and cryptic social media presence. Makes business decisions largely at random, unbeknownst to all his subordinates.

Salem - Hates videogames. Will unplug the router if you piss her off.

Ace Ops - High profile roster hand-picked for perfectly complementary hero pools. Hyped to fuck in the preseason. Unparalleled individual play but poor communication, incompatible playstyles, and truly abysmal coaching staff keep them from being a top-tier team. Widely considered a disappointment considering the talent and money backing them.

Harriet - DPS. Exclusively plays flankers and extremely mobile DPS. Tries to solo-carry; in her defense, it often works. Unironically brags/complains about having gold medals. Quick to tilt but often uses the negative energy to pop off even harder. Overtime clutch god.

Marrow - Flex DPS. Cautious player, often hesitant to commit to risky strats. Flawless positioning, both personally and for thrown abilities. Talent for projectile DPS; probably contributed not-insignificantly to scatter arrow being removed from the game. Prefers to understand the enemy's strategy before acting. Shotcaller. Nobody listens.

Elm - Main Tanks (Except Reinhardt), Zarya. Aggressive tank player, frequently found with gold damage. Generally good natured but vulnerable to tilt if on a losing streak. Highly momentum-based. Makes tutorial videos on strategy and positioning for her youtube channel. Wants to see the competitive scene develop and flourish, but sensitive to feeling threatened by new talent. Helps them anyway.

Vine - Flex Tanks (except Zarya), Reinhardt. Unflappable, regardless of quality of games or recent performance. Good at reading enemy team and tracking ults. Generally calls enemy plays before they happen. Always sticks with Elm, largely out of obligation to bail her out when her aggression puts her in a dicey position. Understated player, rarely in highlight compilations, but extremely consistent performance. Plays off-meta in scrims so as not to reveal strats.

Clover - Main Healer. Can play any support, but Lucio main through and through. Suffers from Reddit Lucio syndrome, but usually good enough (or lucky enough) to get away with it. Loves to deny enemy followup. Peel master, boop god. PMA to a borderline-irritating degree. Gives great pep talks at half time. Tends to overcommit to strategies that are dead in the water; sometimes it's better to call it and switch comps while you still have time on the clock. Despite this, is opportunistic in the moment-to-moment sense and quick to capitalize on enemy vulnerabilities.

Flynt Coal - Lucio one-trick. I mean, come on.

Wukong - ??? Exclusively plays off-meta heroes and weird shit. Talented but remains on ladder because he doesn’t like the rigid structure of tournament play. Refuses to be confined to a single role. Hates role lock cause he can’t swap mid game anymore. Despite all this, somehow tends to be more of an asset than a detriment. Definitely a team player. PMA king. Occasionally finds legitimately competitive strata for underutilized heroes. Nutty with hammond movement, godawful with mines. Has the Winston skin equipped, of course.

Ilia - DPS. Popular streamer. Tried going pro for a bit, but didn’t like the schedule and retired shortly. Frequently plays with the community and does weird custom game modes for a laugh. Loves Daddy Rein Chases Tiny Torblets. Refuses to open loot boxes, much to the dismay of her stream. Plays Golfing Over It during long queues. Draws all her own custom emotes.

Watts - DPS. Mains Widow, Sombra; plays anything that lets him avoid ever actually engaging the enemy at close range. Thinks the game stopped being good when Sombra GOATS stopped being a thing. Spends all day on twitter heckling pro players and declaring Overwatch a dead game. Suspected of cheating. Considers himself a shotcaller but isn't very good at it.

Tyrian - Plays Junkrat and Roadhog exclusively. Thinks it's bullshit that the game doesn't have friendly fire. Thinks it's bullshit that Junkrat doesn't deal self-inflicted damage anymore. Master of the bounce shot. Tends to treat the game like a TDM and forget the objective in favor fragging out. Targets a single enemy player and tries to get them to tilt. Uses voice chat but only laughs. Never makes callouts. Trash talks in all-chat. Considers it a personal victory if he gets someone to rage quit.

Hazel - No Role. Doesn't really get the idea of the metagame; knows it's generally good to have a balanced team but thats about as deep as he chooses to go. Was one of the old guards of PC gaming but now that it's a mainstream hobby has to refuses to confront that he's hot garbage at them. Can't really parse everything that's happening onscreen in a fast-paced game like overwatch, so he just picks Torb (regardless of map or attacking/defending status) and uses the turret as a security blanket. Godawful turret placement. Still has a good time somehow.

Cinder - Main Tank. Likes the importance of the role, and especially the way her team has to follow her calls for any chance of success. A nice balance of aggression and craftiness, she makes a fearsome opponent. Callouts could be more frequent/detailed, but her directions are always good when given. Very susceptible to emotional ups and downs, and often takes out frustration on teammates. Takes losses very hard, gloats about wins. Happiest with an Ana pocket.

Emerald - Offtank. Would be much happier on DPS or Support, but desperate to show off and live up to Cinder's expectations. Sticks with her main tank except when it's absolutely necessary to peel for the back line. Tends to be overcautious with ults; she's good enough mechanically to earn them relatively quickly, but fear of whiffing one makes her reticent to spend them. Flawless bubble timing on Zarya.

Mercury - Support. Still considers Symmetra a support. Quick to whip out the blaster and try to fight off flankers instead of calling for assistance. Knows all the angles for a narsty biotic grenade. Plays as though he's got better positioning and backup than he does; frequently gets opponents to back off just by winning the mental game. Will let allies die on ladder if they piss him off.

#rwby #rwby meta #kind of?????????#yall have my SINCEREST apologies if the readmore dont work and youre on mobile #long post #anyway heres Content #feel free to add your fave that i couldnt think of anything for #eventually i fell asleep

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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What weird food combinations do you enjoy? I’m willing to experiment mayonnaise with most food. I also dip my fries in hot fudge sundae and because I’m Filipino I have to have my fried chicken paired with banana ketchup. Where do you get your news? Usually from the Twitter and Facebook handles of my go-to news outlets. My dad is also the only one who turns on the TV in the dining area so whenever he’s home and watches the evening news I get to hear the reports as well. What social stigma does society need to get over? HIV/AIDS, dating or marrying the same sex, tattoos... even breastfeeding is a fucking stigma lmao. So many people are babies. What is the best/worst prank that you've played on someone? I hate being the victim of pranks so I never pull them on anyone. What was the last photo you took? My dog jumping up to ask for food last night.

What makes you roll your eyes every time you hear it? Lately our president has been wanting to give nightly addresses on TV every midnight so when I hear another announcement from the government I just roll my eyes because I know it’s gonna be another hour-long speech that not only has absolutely zero substance to it, but made everyone unnecessarily stay up that late. What are you currently worried about? I’m worried about my remaining academic requirements. With the suspension of online classes and the lockdown being extended until April 30 (which is virtually the end of the semester), I have no idea what’s gonna become of our academic calendar and my grades – and the status of my graduation.

A notable school in the country already mass-promoted (read: passed) all their students and is planning to give tuition fee refunds since only two months of the sem were used. It’s honestly the most responsible thing to do for now and I hope all other universities follow suit.

Do you think aliens exist? I believe we aren’t the only ones alive out here but I also don’t think they look like the creatures books or movies have made them out to be. What mythical creature do you wish actually existed? Meh, was never a fan of anything mythical/mythological. What are you interested in that most people aren't? Pro wrestling. In my 15 years of being a fan I’ve only found literally a handful of people (at least who are also Filipino) who shared the same passion or amount of interest as I have. It’s just never been a popular topic or fanbase here so I never get to bring it up – and I’m afraid to bring it up because people seem to judge anyone still into wrestling these days. What's the most ridiculous thing you have bought? My most pointless purchase was a pink bar of soap with lettering that says “Gay Bar.” It’s a novelty item at best and I never needed to buy it, but I had money that day so I did and now it’s gathering dust in one of my drawers. What sounds hit you with major nostalgia every time you hear them? The PS1 start-up noise is a big candidate. If given the oppurtunity to open a museum, what kind would you create? They have museums about everything now, so I think it’d be a good idea to turn to my roots and make an ancestral house instead and have it in our home province. My family has a rich history and it’d be a waste if we allowed ourselves to forget. When was the last time you immediately regretted what you said? I think last night? We were having pork belly bought from outside for dinner and I was talking about how good it tasted and that it was the best thing I’ve had in a while. I forgot my dad has been cooking us a different meal every single day since the quarantine started and they all have tasted amazing as well. After I realized what I said I felt like shit and immediately downplayed the pork belly so that he didn’t feel left out. What's the silliest thing you've seen someone get upset about? My mom is a champion of this list lmao, there’s so much stupid shit she’s thrown a fit over. The most ridiculous one happened last year when my sister sprained her ankle and my mom would not help her walk around and even walked faster than the rest of us. It was like she was purposely leaving us behind, which confused and pissed me off. Anyway I was left assisting Nina as she hobbled on. Eventually I caught up to my mom and asked her to slow down and to be with us and to help my sister walk. Apparently it was enough to piss her off and the whole ride home she was yelling at me and legitimately sobbing about how humiliated she was when I called her out because she thinks people overheard and are judging her for it. I mean if you’re afraid of getting judged isn’t that proof you know you did something shitty?

The sermon also turned personal and she started screaming about how I was a horrible daughter and that I’ve never done anything right, and that I was a disappointment, and that I was straying further from God everyday and she could see the horns growing on my head. How’s that for abusive? What was the best thing that happened to you today? I finally finished the level I’ve been stuck on in Mario Kart 8 and now I’m officially done with the game. I’ve never finished any video game before so it feels pretty bitching!!!!!!!!! Do you consider yourself a good cook? I don’t even consider myself a cook. What's the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? ^ The thing I just talked about, even though it wasn’t technically an argument because my mom didn’t let me talk throughout.

The next dumbest thing I could think of is probably when my grown-ass aunt fought me back when I was 13 on whether Beyoncé lip-syncs or not. It was a random family discussion and I was just talking about how much I like Beyoncé and she not only stole my thunder by picking a fight with me, but she also made me feel bad about something I loved lol. She was so insistent that she lip-syncs and was so hungry for an argument, I didn’t understand why?????? so I just dropped it and rolled my eyes at my dad. IT’S SO DUMB RIGHT What did you google last? Information I needed for an article I’m currently writing. What fashion trend makes you cringe or laugh everytime you see it? Skirts paired with either denim jeans or leggings, and short vests. All the Disney stars wore them and it was the epitome of fashion for us at the time aaaahhhhhhahahahahaha. What's your favorite holiday movie? LOVE ACTUALLY. For sure. I’d also say It’s A Wonderful Life but it has some very low points that ruins the Christmas-yness for me. How ambitious are you? I’m pretty ambitious and also a bit of a perfectionist, but I’m also aware of my limits and I don’t always jump onto tasks feeling confident. I know what I’m capable of so if I’m faced with something I know other people can be better at, I’ll consciously be less ambitious at it cos I usually let my insecurity get in the way. What was the biggest realization you have had about yourself? As someone who’s always thrived on being an introvert, the last few months and years have taught me that I CAN talk to people if I have to? And they’re not scary? I had little hope for myself prior to my internship - but it ended up being fun and I met a lot of awesome new people. I also never thought I’d get to write articles solely because I hate interviewing people - but my sources have all been nothing but nice to me. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve always doubted my ability to talk to people and dive in to unfamiliar scenarios, but when I do either it’s always turned out to be great experiences for me.

What topic could you spend forever talking about? If we’re going for what’s been the most recent hot topic, it would be the government’s incompetence in dealing with COVID-19 so far. Which way should toilet paper hang, over or under? Over. What word is a lot of fun to say? I dunno. I don’t think of words in terms of how fun they are to say. Maybe curse words? HAHAHA If you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time? Assuming the internet is nothing to worry about, I’d watch all the series I’ve long planned on watching but can’t because Netflix does a big pull on the entire household’s connection. Are you usually early or late? Early or on time. There is no ‘late’ for me. What do you wish you knew more about? The future. Not knowing the answers to it is so irritating/boring to me. What is the most annoying question you've been asked? Asking if I go to rallies/am an activist/am part of the NPA just because of the school I come from. None of those things are bad at all, but I’ve always been annoyed at the stereotyping. How different was your life 1 year ago? I wasn’t graduating yet then. And I was OUTSIDE MOST DAYS because there wasn’t any fucking virus. What movie title best describes your life? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, except I literally have to be stuck at home. What was the last lie you told? Telling my groupmates I had some family stuff at home to fix before getting started on our group project, but really I had to take a bath first because I wanted to feel fresh while working. It’s a minor lie, but it still made me feel bad. What type of music do you listen to? It’s usually varied but my go-to genres are indie pop, electropop, alternative rock, punk rock, *some* indie, R&B, and pop.

Are you a good listener? Yeah, it’s why I prefer to be one than a talker. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Cookies and cream or some peanut butter/chocolate concoction. Do you think you're brave? I can be. Just not about everything. What are you most grateful for in your life? The relatively comfortable life we live considering where we live. And that covers everything from the food we eat, the schools we’ve been sent to, where we get to travel (or the fact that we can travel at all), etc.

What was the worst phase in your life? My rebellious, no-one-understands-me, angsty teen phase when I was 12-13 and my time readjusting in college when I was 18-19. What is a relationship deal breaker for you? Verbal abuse. What are some things that give you complete peace of mind? Staying in coffee shops, driving at midnight, views of the skyline at night, staying on the rooftop at night and being under the stars... I just like a lot of things about the night. Would you like to explore another planet? Yesssssss. Who was your favorite cartoon character as a child? Spongebob. Cosmo from The Fairly Oddparents comes at a close second. What would you do if you were the president of your own country? Right now? I’d assure people everything was being taken care of – mass testing, support for doctors, provision of PPEs and free transportation for frontliners, making all the senators (who are all expectedly not doing anything, save for one) work their asses off, put part of the P275B fund to assist middle- and lower-class people who can’t – instead of imposing shoot-to-kill orders for the military to anyone criticizing the government or rambling about absolutely fucking nothing in nation addresses.

#survey #surveys

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