#which has led to some very odd but also very entertaining paragraphs

[cynicalmusings]

everybody in this au has gone from ‘a little bit silly’ to ‘quite unhinged indeed’

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Hi! I hope you’ll answer this question bc it bothers me quite a lot.. https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-now-that-BTS-are-partial-owners-of-Big-Hit-Entertainment do you think it is true what the second person (Christine Herman) said? After reading this, i started to wonder…what if BTS does really have only profit in mind while doing new projects these days? Maybe they don’t really care anymore about creative and meaningful lyrics and sound? With Butter and PTD…all this generic music sung in English. Of course they say “we wanted to make fans feel good”, “butter and ptd represent who we are” and all these things fans want to hear but.. do you really think it’s true? moreover, don’t get me wrong, i don’t find product placement in their reality shows as something terrible, i believe this is a normal thing, however, nowadays the members really film ads and do marketing a lot. so yeah, for some reason i began to question their integrity dhsjjss i hope you will understand from where my concerns come from and won’t find this ask stupid sjdjjdjd

After reading that persons answer I can immediately tell you that I basically don't agree with an overwhelming majority of what she said (even more so since a lot of it just makes her sound like a manti that hates the company and basically would want them to make music for free or something). Generally I don’t agree with most of the opinions this person holds, and also Quora really isn’t a good source for info or good opinions, most of it is written by mantis, haters, and toxic shippers with an agenda so most ARMY will tell you to stay as far away from that website as possible.

Anyway, her focus in that answer was on money, since BTS are shareholders (and how that’s a conflict of interest despite other artists doing the exact thing but no one really cares or ever thinks about it), but what she failed to consider and note was that Big Hit Music, so BTS' label, isn't part of HYBE in the sense that shareholding has no baring on it since BHM is private. So while BTS profit off of HYBE doing well, and have a small percentage of a voice as shareholders, that has nothing to do with BHM in the classical sense, even if BHM's earnings reflect well on HYBE numbers and the shareholder money. 

BHM was made private to ensure their artistry would remain untouched, that was the whole point of that.

Even if they weren't HYBE shareholders, take Namjoon as example. He has more than 170 KOMCA credits, is among the top 3 Korean artists with the most credits and is also the youngest of them all. It is said that his earnings from that alone can sustain his family for 3 generations over. Look at Hobi and Chicken Noodle Soup, that song was a hit and he paid the original creator of that song 2 million dollars upfront and earned a lot back due to how successful it was. Same goes for Hope World which, again, was and is still immensely successful. Look at Yoongi and his work both as prod. SUGA, featuring artist SUGA, and as Agust D, as well as the credits he holds for his work on BTS songs (giving him as well a total of over 100 KOMCA credits, just like Hobi). Bangtan have worked and continue to work extremely hard for their music, put their heart and souls into it, and it shows even if their style changed as they grew older and more mature.

Yes, money is a major motivator, but looking at the above paragraph, do you really peg the members as these corrupt money hungry sellouts with no music related integrity? Who would need to sign major deals and would throw away their passion to just release empty shells of music for the sole reason of money? Am I naive enough to believe that they don't care about money? Of course not, we live in a capitalist society and even if BTS wouldn't care about money anymore at this point, HYBE very much does, and yet still I can't find it in me to agree with any of what was said in that answer that person wrote.

More below the cut:

And that point about how Hyundai cars were sold out because of BTS, isn't that the point why literally any company ever hires celebrities to advertise and endorse their product? And sure, again, I'm certain they earned a lot on these deals, they aren't the first or last or only ones in the history of ever to do so. Besides, look at JK and what he's done for small companies, or Tae who wore a brooch made my a small creator at the airport which catapulted that creator into the eyes of millions of ARMYs enough so that they could move to a proper studio and earn money with their work. Or the modern hanboks JK wore which led to the brand being able to move into actual stores in malls because of their sudden new popularity and demand. Or him wearing a bracelet that helps whales with a percentage of the money from the sales of said bracelet. And for all of that JK and Tae didn't earn any money at all. JK himself said that he's more conscious of the brand he wears now because he wants to help smaller businesses in these trying times, not because they pay him to do so (especially since they would never be able to afford that), but because he's aware of the influence he has and how he can use it to help others. Sound very much like a capitalistic villain, right?

As for the product placement bit, have you been on YouTube recently? Have you noticed that many, if not most, YouTube videos by “bigger” creators (and by that I mean even people who are around the 100k subscriber mark) begin with them thanking whoever sponsored that particular video and give you a scripted minute to two minute long ad before getting into the actual topic of the video? And In The SOOP featuring Chilsung Cider, FILA clothes and the random mention of how good Samsung phones are isn’t much different from it, though really, if you’re not someone interested in fashion much, would you really notice or care that they wore FILA? It’s just...clothes? If it weren’t a BTS related show, would you even notice it much? And it’s not even like they mentioned those brands every five minutes or anything, just a few times, which sure sounded a bit out of place at times, but personally I thought it was easy to look past. That’s just how things work nowadays and it’s odd for people to behave like somehow BTS are the first and only ones to use product placements despite literally every movie and show doing it in subtle and less so manners.

The answer by that person you sent also mentioned the Hyundai song for their car IONIQ and, unsurprisingly, that person wrote it off as just some commercial jingle but I’d actually disagree with that. Not to sound like a Hyundai and Samsung stan, which I am neither of, but I actually think those two knew best how to utilize the artist they have spent millions on signing a deal with. Hyundai didn’t just write them off as pretty faces with a millions strong fan army behind them and that’s it, they remembered that they are musicians so they gave them a song and made a whole music video for it as well. And say what you will, it is a good song. Then, just a few days ago, Samsung stepped up their game and we were given Over The Horizon Prod by SUGA of BTS. For those who aren’t Samsung users, Over The Horizon is their signature ringtone and basically their company sound, and over the years different artists were asked to make their own version of it. And this time they reached out to Yoongi and asked if he’d like to do it as well. It’s kind of a big deal. Sure, Butter is used in one of their commercials much the way Dynamite was last year, but that’s beside the point. Would that person make the same claim about Imagine Dragons whose song Believer is also part of the ads for the new Samsung phones? I have my doubts.

Furthermore, and I don't want this to come across as mean toward you but, I think it is uncalled for to question their artistic integrity based on a total of 3 (three) English songs when last year alone we received 50+ songs, most of which were in Korean, among them the entirety of BE which was, according to the members, the album they were most involved in ever when it comes to both music and everything around it.

You can dislike their English songs, that’s more than fine, they have a very extensive discography you can listen to instead, but questioning their integrity based on them doing something that most, if not every, artist on their level does (as in sign ad deals with brands etc) is a bit much if you ask me. Does that mean indie artists whose songs get picked up for commercials (or for Netflix shows or movies) and thus it catapults them into the mainstream are also just money hungry people with no integrity and ones who don’t care about their music? Or is that, again, just a standard Bangtan is held to (as in that their integrity is questioned based on everything, even the most trivial/normal things) that only applies to them and no one else?

In the recent Weverse Magazine article about how Permission to Dance came to be there is a lot of talk about not only that song but also Butter and Dynamite, among the things being discussed and talked about they mentioned how the original lyrics for Butter were much more materialistic but that the members didn't like that so they asked for that to be changed. Likewise the original lyrics for Permission to Dance, as you'd expect from the penmanship of Ed Sheeran, were much more romantic, almost proposal like, which wasn't what the members wanted either so it was, again, adjusted in a way that would fit what they, as well as the A&R team, wanted. While you may not like these songs, they still had a say in them to a certain degree, could say yes or no and ask for adjustments. Why else would PTD take eight months?

While they might outsource their English songs, their main focus, so their Korean (as well as Japanese) discography is still centered around them, their lyrics, their songs, their sound. Of course you’ll also find outside producers and some lyricists on those as well, because that’s how music works these days, as in collaboratively, that doesn’t change anything at large. Their integrity is still very much there, their hearts are still in it, what other reason would any of them have to say that they want to continue for a long time, for Yoongi to say they want to figure out how to make their career last as long as possible, for JK to say that he wants to sing forever?

Admin 2 also wanted me to add that in their opinion, to a certain degree (though not fully of course), their English songs are like a way to laugh at and expose how shallow the English-centric music industry is. As in, while they made music in Korean with deep and meaningful lyrics, the US industry didn’t care but once they switched to easy to listen to sound with easy to understand English lyrics, they suddenly paid attention, are played on the radio, and even received a Grammy nomination which they wouldn’t have gotten for a Korean song ( A1: regardless how much Black Swan or Spring Day really would’ve deserved it...). 

[ohnohetaliasues]

Stones to Abbigale {Ch. 1}

(Kat)

This is going to be the worst thing I’ve ever read, isn’t it?

Am I going to actively want to die? Yes, most likely. But apparently, because I run a blog like this, I can endure suffering.

Flashbacks to Blood Raining Night.

Here we go. We will start with the introduction, written by the onion lord himself.

I want to be direct, my name is Greg. I go by “Onision” online.

Okay, I dunno what it is, but something feels off about this sentence.

This book is made up of events that occurred in my own life mixed with fiction from the made up life of James. James is essentially a better version of myself.

I can’t imagine how good that could be, seeing as the man who wrote this is a child predator and is just an overall piece of hot garbage.

His home, his school & his life all resemble my own at his age.

Don’t ever use a fucking ampersand instead of the word ‘and.’ It’s just bad grammar.

The people James analyzes and is surrounded by are not so unlike those I’ve known as well.

Analyzes?

Why?

I have experienced much of the loss James has however his happier moments are more often than not also mine.

Then write a memoir. Not this.

I want to share my story without it being purely non-fiction.

I mean, some people do this with books about their lives, but this feels... Odd?

I simply felt this approach would make for a far better book. At points I cried while writing this, at others I laughed.

Congratulations.

I don’t care.

Stones To Abbigale is not just a book I wrote, it is a piece of who I am.

That’s a given for all writers, but I still don’t care. 

I’m going to rip this book to shreds.

Okay here we go.

I was asleep until I met her, but when I woke, I learned the meaning of "perfect imperfection."

Is this Onion boy trying to be poetic?

It actually made me want to die.

I've always been the type of person to focus on stars as we spin beneath them, the cool breeze on a sunny day, scattered patches of grass under my feet, the world around me, often forgetting to even glance at the one within.

‘The one within.’

Okay so the way this is written makes those three things seem disconnected. I often do stuff like this when I write, but I’d write it like ‘as we spin beneath them, focus on the breeze on a sunny day, on the scattered patches of grass, etc.’

You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to rewrite that garbage sentence. This is all very waxing poetic and not in a good well structured way.

I had remained emotionally unexplored for so much of my life.

That must’ve been boring, not experiencing human emotions like the rest of us.

You sociopath, you.

It's painful knowing some can go an entire lifetime without understanding their own heart, an internal lock waiting for the right key to change everything.

Yeah, whatever, shut the hell up, you whiny idiot.

This is like an introduction by a teenager who just opened a poetry book and was like ‘yup. I wanna write like that.’

Except you aren’t William Blake or Walt Whitman and you never will be.

Sorry, Onion boy.

Except I’m not.

Die mad about it, grease ball.

It was the first Monday of November. I opened my eyes, blinded by my recently painted wall-to-wall white room. Even my bed frame, constructed of purely metal, was painted white.

Okay, cool. I’m a descriptive writer and I take every chance I can get to mention details, but even I find this description awkward. It feels irrelevant in this situation.

It bounced off the walls causing my eyelids to desperately clamp together. Painting my room like this was a clear act of subtle self-inflicted psychological torture.

Then why in the sweet hell did you do it? Do you enjoy suffering?

Actually, he probably does.

Because this is edgy as hell.

I was going through another phase, from darkness to light, and repeat. Seemed like the story of my life.

This is so edgy I am in physical pain.

You know your symbolism is good when it’s so random that you have to point it out and explain it to your audience.

My mom could see the darker colors were depressing me, I felt comforted by them, but found there were good aspects of both extremes. I was happy to visit either side, they are both so simple. But right now the intense light bouncing from wall to wall felt like it was ripping my mind in two.

Am I an idiot or is that just... word salad?

My mom didn't wake me. My alarm clock sat on my dresser with no explanation for it's failure to function. The clock only illuminated a blank stare with 8:17 written all over it's face. While entirely robotic, I imagined the clock to have the dumbest possible expression, one complementing its failure to behave any way outside its random glitch-infested nature.

That was the worst way to write a personification ever, but okay.

In the reflection of it's plastic face I could see myself unconsciously making the dumb expression I was imaging the clock to have. I laughed in my casual dorky tone and began to get ready to leave home.

I’m not laughing, idiot.

Without breakfast, I left for school with a bogus note in hand to idealistically explain my tardiness.

You... You wrote a fake note?

Do you realize you could get in trouble for that?

You’re an idiot.

I think most of my teachers were too exhausted to worry about small variances in our appearance from time to time. With how low their pay likely was, I imagined there were very few rules most teachers cared about.

That isn’t true at all. Teachers have to pay attention to rules unless they want to get, I dunno, fired.

It was another cold day in Lakewood. The wind hit my eyes forcing tears to form in the corners as I sped along the sidewalk at a no-doubt unreasonable speed.

I cannot imagine any good imagery for this scene. I’m just imagining this gif:

I passed Lauren and Raymon walking the opposite direction, no doubt headed toward the nearby church where all the students go to smoke, make out and hide out till school ends.

Um okay. Does this guy know that if characters don’t have relivance to the story, if they have no reason to be named, than they don’t have to be?

No.

Because he’s a 34 year old man baby.

They seemed so childish as they held hands and smiled excitedly as if they had gotten away with some tremendous crime.

That sentence seems so robotic I genuinely can’t.

Mr. Hanson, my heavy-set, middle-aged history teacher, rolled his eyes as I walked into class. "James, talk to me after class" he said quickly, looking away from me as if I were an undervalued employee who was barely important enough to make eye contact with let alone deliver a full sentence to.

It bothers me so deeply that a new paragraph wasn’t started when this character talked.

"I have a note," I said. He ignored me, and continued his lecture on yet another topic that would not only be completely useless later in life, but wasn't even relevant for even a few seconds after the words left his mouth.

Why is this teacher acting like a petty teenager?

I’m deeply annoyed by this.

And yeah, it’s relevant. You have tests, you idiot. Take notes. And it’s also history, which is, again, relevant.

In conclusion, shut your mouth and stop bitching.

There was only 15 minutes left in the class, but I felt it would be more stimulating to integrate myself into the room to yet again study my classmates' behavior than to sit in a hall watching the rows of scum covered tiles inevitably slide off the decaying walls.

That’s a health code violation, friends.

Or Onion is an awful writer and he thinks describing a school like this is a good idea. My money is on that.

For as long as I remember I've enjoyed seeing how people move around and talk to each other, like they're all animals at the zoo.

Something is wrong with you, friend. Liking to people watch is one thing, but doing shit like this is something else entirely.

Uh, try sociopath-like?

Creepy as hell?

We’ll go with both.

I would try to deliver a more accurate analogy if I felt there was one

Bitch, there is. I can’t name one off the top of my head because reading this makes me feel like my brain is melting out of my ears, but I’m 100% sure there is a better analogy. Even though this feels more like a simile.

but so many of them seemed incredibly unaware of themselves, just living life as if it were some generic predefined routine.

Oh, and you’re so much better obviously, you pretentious bastard.

Sometimes I felt like an alien who had a VIP pass to submerge myself in primitive human culture just for entertainment.

Congratulations, that’s also what you sound like.

I sense everything I can take in around me. The seemingly limitless audible tones, tremors in the voices of growing children rang in my ears. In studying people, I found myself gradually learning to literally feel the various personality types I encountered.

Do you... Do you have psychic powers?

If not, shut your damn mouth.

I hyper analyzed every inconsistent smell, the seemingly random clothing styles, freckles, and assorted hairstyles filled my mind with questions. Trying to rationalize and understand what sequence of events led them to decide who they would become.

You are the most pretentious protagonist I have ever read. I’m half a chapter in and I already fucking hate you.

This character is so poorly written and immediately unlikable. i cannot relate to him at all and if someone does, I suggest you go get some help because how this asshole is behaving doesn’t sound human.

I took favor of categorizing most everyone around me. The socially inept know-it-all, the dumb attention-seeking drama kid

On behalf of all drama kids, go fuck yourself.

and the bleach blonde bimbo who gets overly defensive at the slightest hint of criticism.

Do you mean you?

Onion obviously didn’t let anyone edit this garbage.

Then there were the kids who just hoped no one noticed them at all. There was so much to be seen, to be considered and organized in my mind.

Mhm.

I don’t care.

Class had just ended so I walked over to Mr. Hanson's' desk &

And*

placed the tardy note down in passing. As I walked out with the rest of my class, he called after me. "James! We still need to talk!" I responded but continued to walk outside the room. "I have to be early to my next class! Let's talk tomorrow!"

You’re an asshole.

And I hate you.

I walked quickly down the hall towards my art class, which was awkwardly placed in a trailer outside my clearly poorly funded high school.

Um.

Okay.

On my way to the class a fight had already broken out between two jocks who, no doubt, both had controlling, iron-fisted fathers who brainwashed them into believing conflicts between men are best resolved with the bloodying of their fists.

That’s a bold thing to assume, dear Onion.

These kinds of men plagued my mind with wonder. I could not conceive a scenario in which they could justify their primitive & pointless mentalities yet they would always continue to perpetuate their self-destructive attitudes as if it offered the slightest legitimate benefit.

Oh, shut your pretentious mouth.

Most everyone nearby crowded around the fight. None of them likely cared who was winning, what it was about or how far it went. All they ever seemed to show concern for was their own amusement, always excited to see violence without having to pull out their wallets to pay for it.

Are you joking?

Where are the teachers?

This is complete bullshit.

This is high school, not a fucking fight club.

Does Onion even try to make this believable? Or is he just vomiting all over his keyboard and just accepting whatever nonsense that makes?

As the sounds of flesh collided fist to cheek & chest quickly followed the howls from the surrounding students. They would scream "Oooohhhh!" as if it were sincerely delightful to witness creatures like themselves suffer & fall apart before their eyes.

The use of ampersands is making me lose my goddamn mind.

Even if I had time to stop, I never really took pleasure in seeing strangers hurt each other. Most all fights seemed avoidable and were often initiated for a senseless reason.

Go choke on air. This protagonist annoys me more than any protagonist has. I’m not joking. Fuck this dickwad.

I know, you could say it's more complicated than that, I would like to think it were as well, but reality trumps the way I wish things would be. There's no sense in fighting it when doing so rarely helps anyone.

While this is true, this is worded in a way that’s so pretentious it’s painful and also in a way that paints this protagonist in such a white knight-y way that it makes me want to die.

As I approached my next class the image of Abbi's face illuminated the neon walls of my mind like a projector teasing a theatre screen with fleeting moments of depth & purpose.

That is complete and utter word salad. Stop immediately.

Ever since I met her, she had occupied a part of my consciousness; whenever I wasn't near her I missed her to an unrealistic extent. You could call my longing sad especially considering we had barely talked; she just had a strange effect on me, one no doubt similar to a willful addiction.

That’s called a crush, but the way that was just described is so creepy.

There are people in life which we pass by on a daily basis, barely aware of their existence, but on an exceptionally rare occasion you can find a person who fills an area inside your little world you didn't even realize needed filling.

While that’s technically not untrue, it feels like a lizard person is trying to tell me what having a crush on someone is like.

As I walked up the creaking stairs into my art class trailer I could see Abbi was sitting at her shared-desk, alone, same makeup, hairstyle & general appearance I had thought about repeatedly over the last couple days. She was drawing pictures on her blue-lined paper, distracting herself from the cold that filled the oddly glowing room.

This... This imagery is so fucking weird.

I smiled slightly trying not to be too obvious and sat down on my chilled metal chair positioned a few seats to the left in front of her. Glancing over, I could see she hadn't moved at all, I felt like she didn't even notice me come in.

You aren’t the center of her world, so yeah, she’s focused on something else. That’s just how it is, asshat.

I wanted to inspire some acknowledgment of my existence from Abbi so I opened my mouth to greet her when my fingers brushed up against freshly smeared gum under my desk. "Eeew!" I shouted out on impulse. She looked up at me with a blank expression.

I’ve accidentally touched gum on the bottom of my desk before, as I can imagine everyone has, but I’ve never shouted about it like a lunatic.

Bursting into the room came a group of boys. "Dude I think John's done bro!" one of the other boys laughed, saying "Won't see them for a week at least."

Nobody talks like this. Have you ever spoke to another human?

I looked back at Abbi to see she also didn't react to their outburst. Strangely knowing that her apathy was generalized and impersonal gave me comfort.

There needs to be a comma after ‘strangely,’ but whatever.

Her influence on how I felt was obviously dangerous but I didn't care as no matter how fond I was of the idea that I was not of the world, I knew my place and had no real interest in pretending otherwise.

Explain to me how in the hell that’s dangerous.

Jason, one of the boys energetically praising the fight they had just seen, sat in his seat next to Abbi. I smirked watching her shoulders shift away from him. Her body language sent a loud message that she had the same impression of Jason as I did. He was just another moron, placed on this Earth to live his life completely unexamined,

That word is not used properly in that sentence.

a pawn that had no awareness of its own role let alone that it was just another tiny component within a massive unstoppably twisted game.

Shut your pretentious mouth because that doesn’t make any goddamn fucking sense.

I know it sounds morbid and condescending but my attitude was just something that naturally developed the more I studied human behavior.

Bullshit.

I would be more optimistic but I find doing so would be like walking into a room with no windows and turning out the light. If you refuse to see the world around you for what it is you're just wasting your eyes.

Being optimistic means looking on the good side of things. You’ve heard the glass half empty or half full thing. it’s that. And as someone who jumps between optimism and pessimism, being optimistic isn’t like this at all.

Don’t try to be poetic or funny, Onion. Those are two things that you aren’t.

Art class was about to begin. My teacher, Mrs. Stanley, who looked like she should have retired a ridiculous thirty years ago, approached the front of the room talking about how art is sacred. She also discussed the random object she had us all draw the previous school day and ironically graded it by using her own narrow-minded definition of art.

That isn’t ironic.

I always wondered how teachers could even attempt objectively grading art. Is there any logic behind validating a form of self-expression using a cold black and white mathematical system?

It’s a class where you have to follow the curricula. Shut your damn mouth.

And this is coming from someone who hated her art teacher. But this art teacher was so utterly closed minded that she didn’t accept anyone else’s creative process. She basically told us that if we didn’t follow her process, we weren’t real artists.

"Today I'm going to place you with partners" Mrs. Stanley said as she pulled out sheets of paper outlining our activities to come. "To keep this simple, I'm going to partner you with the person you are currently assigned to share a desk with" she said. I sighed knowing I was bound to be paired up with Alex, a guy I had specifically asked to be seated away from ever since he peed in a jar literally right next to me under our desk, acting like he was so cool for publicly exposing himself while simultaneously urinating.

That... He expected to be treated like he was cool for this?

That’s fucking disgusting.

It happened weeks ago and I still can't figure out what kind of crazy it takes for you to, in the presence of people you barely know but have to see nearly on a daily basis, pee in a jar held in your hand just beneath your desk in the middle of a classroom.

At first when I read this, I thought that the wayit was worded made it sound like Alex forced James to hold the jar while he peed in it, but okay, whatever.

What then? You show it off like you will be praised and accepted as if it were an accomplishment? Alex, despite being borderline mental, was one of my least favorite people to study.

It is actually physically exhausting to read this shit. James is a pretentious asshole.

I couldn't help but feel there was some defect in his mind that invalidated the point of conducting a thorough analysis of him.

This just makes it seem like James has mind reading powers.

He was completely irrelevant when considering the realities of normal human behavior.

Behavior you don’t act according to, you lizard person sociopath.

As I was off on a tangent in my own mind I heard a familiar voice ring out, one that inspired the very same emotion you experience when a song you had forgotten you loved, randomly plays in the background of your daily life. "Can I be paired up with James?" her voice was just as I remembered.

Is this Abbi?

I have a friend who spells her name like this, so I really hate that there’s a character in this shitty book who shares a name with her.

Despite her having not spoken in class in some time, she hadn't changed a note. Abbi had interrupted the teacher just to partner with me, but I asked myself if was it really just to work with me or just to get away from Jason.

Um. Okay.

The teacher, looking irritated but understanding Abbi's discomfort with Jason responded "Alex and Jason, you'll be partners. James, switch seats with Jason" "Thank you!" Abbi said with a slight smile. With a cocky grin Jason stood up and in a comedic fashion smelled his armpit. "Wow, I didn't know I smelled that bad" Jason said as he walked over to sit by Alex.

That isn’t funny and Onion boy isn’t funny.

Approaching Abbi was no doubt a way scarier act in my mind than it was to everyone around me, I felt like my head was burning from the inside out.

That’s a little extreme.

Nevertheless I continued to remind myself that her public outcry to partner with me could have meant nothing. I sat down next to her and did all I could not to turn into a complete dork on her. She reached out and grabbed the project outline that was being passed out. Mrs. Stanley began to read the description of the assignment. "Today you will both be taking something meaningful, but expendable, from your own homes."

If something is meaningful it isn’t expendable. Stop.

Mrs. Stanley looked up and emphasized, "That you own!" then looked back down at her paper. "You will tear those items apart here in class. You will then take those items and, using the adhesives, staples and the strings available in class, find a way to create something new out of those possessions."

That’s actually kind of an interesting idea. But like. Maybe with a cup? I don’t wanna rip apart something I care about.

She looked up and said in a low voice sounding somewhat like Dracula "Two, will become one."

That is unnecessarily creepy. It reads like an innuendo.

Also, what in fresh hell does Dracula’s voice sound like?

Did she say it with a Transylvanian accent? I’m confused.

Jason raised his hand objecting, "All due respect Mrs. Stanley I'm not breaking something of mine for this class."

Jason has the right idea.

She replied putting her hands on her hips, "That's fine Jason. We'll supply you with a toilet paper rolls, we have plenty of extras around here." Jason suddenly looked disturbed and sarcastically spouted "Freaking great!"

Why???

That’s better than ripping apart a t-shirt.

Mrs. Stanley asked, "Are you sure? Your grade shouldn't suffer that much if you two just take Alex's piss jar and tape it to a toilet paper roll. You're already failing this class."

What in the literal fuck?!

You cannot say that to students. No, you can’t say that to anyone.

Jason couldn't believe what she had just said

Same.

and Alex maintained an awkward frozen facial expression with his mouth slightly open in his normal weirdo somewhat robotic fashion.

"Oh my god" Abbi whispered under her breath with a slight smirk. I grinned uncontrollably; just seeing her amused was amazing to me.

That wasn’t really funny, it was just shocking.

I could hear a scream in the back of my mind reminding me my dorkiness and borderline obsession was escaping through my face.

It's not that I couldn't help being in awe of Abbi and basically every little thing she did, I simply didn't want to change how I felt. In a way, she was like your favorite song or book, you could pretend not to like it and in time with the right mental coaching maybe you would sincerely dislike it, but life just felt so much better embracing your condition entirely, letting all your nerdy admiration flow freely.

This just reads like an obsession. I don’t have the energy to actually express how romantic feelings actually feel, but this is terrifying.

Mrs. Stanley continued, "If there's anyone else who has an issue, please take it up with my 1800 number which is?" She put her hand up to the air signaling the students to react but only a couple kids replied aloud with her catch phrase. "1-800-BOO-HOOO" they mumbled.

Sweet Jesus.

So this is what it feels like to lose my mind.

She continued, "Good, now for the rest of class please work with your partner on what you plan to bring and draw up a prototype sketch of what you feel your final piece of art will look like." Mrs. Stanley walked to the back of her room and sat down at her 1950's looking rust-infested desk.

Is this school just a giant health code violation? And what the hell do you mean by ‘1950′s desk?’ All I got when I googled that were pictures of wooden desks.

I would always laugh internally when I looked at the old thing. Maybe it was my way of coping with the fact I attended one of the most run down schools in the state.

I have nothing that isn’t full of curse words and fact checking to say here.

"What are you going to bring James?" Abbi asked.

This sentence is put so Abbi looks like she’s asking if James is going to bring himself without the comma after the word ‘bring.’ Did Onion really not edit his book at all? These are simple and fixable grammatical mistakes.

It was amazing hearing my name pass her lips but I had no time to think, if I didn't respond right away she would think I was totally awkward. "I... have no idea..." I responded. Smiling she said, "I'm going to bring my hamster cage", I asked, "Did he die or something?" she laughed, "No, I never got one, the cage was just a gift from my dad."

But you’re supposed to cut it up.

Hamster cages are made of metal.

Does Abbi just have superhuman strength? Is she going to bring a pair of bolt cutters?

"Your dad didn't get you a hamster... for the cage?" I asked.

My question exactly.

Sometimes you just...

You just gotta give your daughter a hamster cage but no hamster.

She paused and started to lose her smile.

Oh fabulous, she’s one of those characters.

At the first sign of her smile fading I felt a crushing pressure in my chest. "Hopefully you can find something that will work with that," she said. I couldn't help but feel like a total jerk despite not even knowing what I did wrong.

That interaction was so... Weird? Robotic? i don’t know. Something felt wrong about it.

I had the overwhelming urge to fix how she felt so I took a gamble, "Well, I could always bring that weird vibrating thing my mom hides in her drawers all wrapped up in a cloth" I said.

What is wrong with you?

I cannot fathom what made Onion think this joke was funny.

She busted out laughing hysterically as a huge grinned filled my face. I was so happy I could get her to smile again. "Eeew! James!" she continued to laugh as the extent of my grin began to stress my cheeks. I couldn't remember a time when I was this obvious about how I felt.

This... Something is wrong with just... all the dialogue.

And with the formatting. You make a new paragraph when someone starts talking. A 34 year old man should know this. He writes like me when I first started writing, and while this probably means he just started writing, I was 11 years old when I wrote like this.

He is a 34 year old adult. There is no excuse for how bad this formatting and how generally terribly written these interactions are.

Abbi's laughing trailed off and she paused. Turning to me she said, "You... you didn't actu- ally... your moms?"

*Pained groaning.*

I responded, "No, I wouldn't know about that, but I'm glad it made you laugh." She responded, returning to a soft laugh "You're more goofy than I thought James." I sat next to her looking at my fingers interlaced in front of me; my wide smile relaxed but still filled my cheeks with warmth.

This entire chapter, everything here, is so awkwardly written.

As class came to a close Abbi patted me on my arm. I turned and she handed me a note. Instinctively I put it in my pocket and said "See ya tomorrow", she just smiled and walked away.

????

On my way to my next class, I opened the note. I didn't understand why, but it read "NISEONE."

Not knowing what to make of it and with little time, I stuffed it back in my pocket to look over later.

Yeah, that’s cryptic as hell.

Not feeling like skating home,

Oh, we’re really getting into edgy 2000′s shit now.

I got on the bus to see all the normal rejects and misfits waiting. Davis, a short and scrawny kid who had been my best friend since middle school despite being one grade behind me excitedly waved me over.

Oh, good, more terrible characters.

"James! Nice to seeeee you!"

Oh, this bitch needs to die.

he said in seemingly the dorkiest way possible. I smiled as he stood up giving me the window seat, knowing very well by then that I preferred it.

Um. Okay.

As I sat down I began looking out the window, analyzing the little humans running left and right to get on their busses.

Buses*

And I am going to eventually kick your ass for this pretentious bullshit.

Something reached out and caught the corner of my eye. I immediately shifted my head to see what it was and quickly realized it was Abbi standing in the parking lot by some beat-up sedan.

"What'cha looking at James?" Davis asked. Without hesitation I began to respond, "Oh, it's Abbi, she's in my art..." my heart sank as I witnessed a boy I barely knew, named Seth, walk up and kiss Abbi on the lips.

Oh, boo fucking hoo. Get over the fact that she has a life outside of your crush on her.

"James?" Davis said, but by that point his voice was a faint echo in the darkness my mind instantaneously lost itself in. I felt like after a life of numbness I was finally about to truly feel warmth for the first time only to have it all taken away in an instant, leaving me hopeless in the shadows, alone once again.

Cry me a goddamn river.

You angsty pretentious idiot.

Don’t give me angsty word salad about how sad this makes you, I don’t actually care at all.

I looked down at my knees feeling as if I lost all muscle control in my neck.

That isn’t a thing that happens ever when someone is upset.

"Are... you ok?" Davis asked. I responded with hesitation "...I'm... just stupid."

You spoke to her once, you fucking dumbass.

"No you're not. You're one of the coolest guys I know!" Davis replied. I continued my silence as he offered words of encouragement. "Okie dokie, well, you're awesome and should be super happy so if you want to talk, I'm your buddy so... so I'm here to talk."

That’s uh, nice of him.

But the way he’s talking sounds like... almost mechanical? All he’s done since he was introduced has been compliment James.

I was too focused on the con- flict raging in my mind to hear anyone at that point. I couldn't think about anything but Seth kissing Abbi the entire trip home.

Oh, get the fuck over it.

That night my mom was literally just serving lentil beans she prepared on her crock-pot for the billionth time, a fair exaggeration but still, it was excessive to say the least. My sister was behaving as she usually did at the dinner table, talking about how stupid she thought school was and how she couldn't wait for college. "How was work mom?"

I mean, I’m also tired of high school. I’m really done with judge-y teenagers.

I asked trying to keep my mind off the haunting images looping in my mind.

YOU HAVE HAD ONE FUCKING CONVERSATION WITH HER. CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER, YOU BITCH.

Any normal person would express disappointment over the fact that a person they like has a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner in general, not go into a damn depression about it.

"Well, no one at work respects me or listens to me and I generally can't stand it, but you know, we still have food on the table" she said in a stern tone.

That

That is weirdly passive aggressive and mechanical.

My sister barked as food flew out of her mouth, "Well at least it's not high school. I'm learning how to be a successful person from a bunch of low-income losers."

Oh, I guess bitching runs in the family.

My mom replied "Whatever your teachers are, they have full-time jobs, which is more than a lot of people can say." My mom gave my sister Lisa a disap- pointed look. Lisa was well known for showing little respect for hard-working people. To her it didn't matter how much you gave back to society, it only mattered how much money you made.

That’s a very black and white way to look at things.

After the rerun of lentil soup I washed the dishes per my mom's orders and headed to the shower. I sat on the floor of the tub thinking about Abbi, barely feeling the water as it hit my chest.

Sat on the floor... while water hits your chest? Are you like sitting with your back arched so the water can hit your chest?

This imagery is so odd.

I was so consumed with what I had seen that I had completely forgotten the note until that moment. I quickly reached over to my pants resting on the toilette.

Why the fuck did you spell toilet like that?

That’s literally the word for ‘toilet’ but in French. It isn’t a spelling used in English. It just makes you sound even more pretentious.

Also, he reached over to the toilet to grab the note from his pants while he’s in the shower?

It’s gonna get wet, you idiot.

I had hoped I read it wrong the first time and that it would make sense with a second look only to see it read exactly what I gathered in my initial passing glance. "NISEONE"

I fucking hate you, Onion.

This literally looks like you scrambled your screen name up.

Die.

In a fire.

I mumbled to myself. I joked with the idea in my head that she handed me the wrong note but still assumed it wasn't a failed attempt to say "Nice one," which could be taken as a compliment if you were desperate enough.

That joke, while just a little funnier, is still fucking lame.

Seconds into looking at the note my eyes widened, having figured out what it meant, I jumped up slipping to my feet and screamed "YEAH!!!" I had cracked it, only to immediately after feel completely stupid for not having figured it out sooner.

I’m just done functioning.

My mom screamed through the door from her bedroom "WHAT?" I responded "Sorry! Nothing!" I hurried to finish showering.

I’d just assume he got really into jerking off.

I’ll see myself out.

Staring at my phone wearing only a towel, I smiled as I typed in "NISEONE" or "647-3663" into the number keys.

That is the most cryptic and strange way to give someone your phone number.

I assumed we shared the same area code otherwise she likely would have given me a longer sequence of letters and I was right. After two rings I got an answer.
"What do you want?" a disgruntled man's voice asked.

This... This girl gave this guy a home phone number?

I guess that’s fine since this is probably set in the early 2000′s, but it’s still odd.

Like a bad engine struggling to start in a monster movie I clumsily belted out a response "I... uh... I was looking for..." An unenthusiastic female voice in the background said, "Give me the phone." "Whatever" he said dropping phone in front of her.

James can apparently see through the phone, or he wouldn’t know that probably Abbi’s dad did this.

"Hello?" I could recognize the voice now it was Abbi.

Trying to hide my excitement by maintaining a normal tone I said, "This is James." Abbi excitedly screamed

Like how girls screamed in Disney Channel shows?

That’s ridiculous.

and responded "Oh my god you figured it out!" Hearing her optimistic tone I laughed saying, "So... why..." She interrupted. "I was hoping to find out if you figured out what you're bringing to art class."

Why the hell didn’t you just fucking ask? Or give him your regular phone number? This is just unnecessarily complicated.

I said "Oh!" and looked quickly around my room. I couldn't see anything immediately so I just said, "I'll... surprise you!" She then replied "Oh come on, tell me." My eyes locked on to a plausible item for the project. "How about my... bear... I'll bring my bear!"

You’re okay with destroying a teddy bear? Okay, I guess.

I said. She replied "Oh, ok, oh! I have an idea. Instead of the cage, I'll bring in a stuffed animal of mine and we'll make like, a zombie bear."

Sounds fine.

I don’t care.

You guys are fucking boring.

I laughed "Awesome" I said. "Ok, I'll see you tomorrow ok?" she replied happily. I answered "Ok, byeee."

I would appreciate it if you would fuck off.

I can’t believe this shit is on GoodReads.

Just before she hung up I could still hear her laughing, leaving me with a sense of accomplishment and a lasting smile as if it were painted across my face.

That’s the end of chapter one?

Oh god, okay.

That was.

Terrible.

The characters are bland and flavorless and I cannot get attached to any of them. I can already tell I’m going to completely despise this.

I’ll see you next time. I need to go think about my life.

~Kat

[recentanimenews]

(Analog) Preservation in the Age of (Digital) Decay: Save <cite>Chargeman Ken</cite>

Chargeman Ken, the resplendent, violent fever dream of 1970s toy shows, is too beautiful to not be saved. It's challenging to put into words the exact, specific nature of why Chargeman Ken is so beloved, so maybe it's best we start with the bare facts. Chargeman Ken is a 1974 short form anime by the enigmatic studio KnacK (as immortalised in the title cards) that aired 65 episodes from April to June of 1974. Heavily inspired by more well known contemporaries like the work of Go Nagai, Shotaro Ishinomori and Tatsuo Yoshida, Ken Izumi is an 11-year old with an array of futuristic powers constantly beset by the invading extraterrestrial force of the Juraliens. Each roughly seven-minute episode aired once a day Monday-Friday in a production schedule so clearly punishing to the staff that every episode bears the scars. It aired so long ago and was so thoroughly unnoticed that a number of basic questions about who made the show are lost to time. Almost entirely forgotten for the better part of 30 years, it was rediscovered in the early 2000s, when its unique visuals and madcap plotting made it an easy favourite of the online generations’ iterative remix culture and surrealist sense of humour. It’s now available on Crunchyroll and on home video from Discotek Media.

That describes what the show is, but doesn't at all capture why it’s so beloved. You’ll find very little to entertain you if your ideal anime is a list of staff, a Shounen Jump-style adventure, a turgid and creaky robot show. Similarly, despite being riddled with errors, if pointing out flaws in “bad” media is your thing Chargeman Ken isn't for you. No, the real appeal of Chargeman Ken is, as I'm so fond of saying, you could never make something this good intentionally. It's the kind of thing that can only come from an earnest and misapplied effort succeeding in a way the creators didn't ever intend.

Ken's powers are wonderfully, gloriously unexplained (beyond having some kind of connection to light itself). Every single episode, you hear the theme song in the opening, and then again as Ken performs his “Charging Go!��� transformation to turn regular Izumi Ken into Chargeman Ken. The threadbare 5-minute plots rely heavily on you having an existing familiarity with other media to fill in the gaps and despite being incredibly formulaic, you truly never know what's going to happen in any given episode. It contains incredible contrast after incredible contrast: An inspirational children's choir promises us Earth is our utopia, just a town in the universe, as Ken mercilessly kills sentient creatures over and over. The Juraliens, led by off-brand Braiking Boss, seek to disrupt Ken's life in bizarre and elaborate ways but rarely have a plan more sophisticated than “just attack him”. The oil crisis era-paranoia, a perfect middle-class existence horribly interrupted by some malignant outside force. The oddness of the nuclear family plus a sentient robot with the personality of a middle-aged man.

Left: Braiking Boss from Neo-Human Casshern. Right: The Juralien’s leader.

Chargeman Ken is loved as disposable ephemera, it’s flaws elevating to the level of high art by successive generations who have known nothing but a broken society. It resonates with people in the same way any openly flawed work resonates sympathetically with a viewer who sees their own flaws and failures in it. Sadly Chargeman Ken in its original form, the last-century medium of celluloid, is decaying, as are so many things expected to last forever. The chemicals used to make the miracle of sound will inevitably decay into acetic acid, permanently ruining film unless it's stopped and preserved from the original negatives. Which is where you and I come in.

In this episode Ken fights human flesh-eating butterflies. How can you not want to see that in glorious HD?

Editor’s Note: The following paragraph was written before the crowdfunding campaign closed with well over it’s original goal. Personally, I think it adds to the pathos of this piece.

The former studio Knack (now ICHI Corporation) recently launched a crowdfunding campaign which easily sailed over its goal with just over a week left, as of writing. ICHI have been making Chargeman Ken more easily and widely available/shamelessly profiting off of it's unlikely popularity. Crowdfunding campaigns by corporations are not new or unique, per se, but it is a fascinating contrast to the constant struggle to piece together a more sustainable living for those who work in the industry, even if KnacK and/or ICHI haven't animated anything in over a decade. It's also somewhat rare for a company to be interested in this kind of historical preservation, even if it is their cash cow. However, and regrettably it's a pretty big however, it is also the only way to preserve this unique little show for however many years civilization has left. Hell, you can get your name in the credits if you want, along with a ton of other goodies on offer.

The word “cult” is over-used to describe anything that lacks the following of whatever American television program or film is currently occupying your coworkers, but does genuinely capture something about the fans of Chargeman Ken. The rapturous love it inspires in people. It's almost a feeling, obvious on the surface to everyone in the know and oblique and peculiar to everyone else. Chargeman Ken has inspired countless fan works, meet-ups, lasting relationships and even an extremely fun-looking stage musical.

The same online era that rediscovered Ken’s ultraviolent adventures has been similarly terrible for preservation, and digital culture itself frequently simply ceases to exist. But Ken deserves to be saved in the same way that all ephemera deserves to be saved, and not just because it clearly resonated with so many people years after it was first created. It's not just the most popular works by the most famous people that deserve preservation. Every crazy frame of Chargeman Ken preserves a specific moment in the lives of its creators and every one of them is worth saving.

(Analog) Preservation in the Age of (Digital) Decay originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on September 6, 2020 at 4:00 PM.

By: Inaki

[thisdaynews]

How Will History Books Remember the 2010s?

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-will-history-books-remember-the-2010s/

How Will History Books Remember the 2010s?

Illustration by Max-o-matic; Photos: AP/Getty

We aren’t just approaching the end of a very newsy year; we’re approaching the end of a very eventful decade. To mark the occasion, Politico Magazine asked a group of historians to put all that happened over the past 10 years in its proper historical context—and literally write the paragraph that they think will describe the 2010s in American history books written a century from now.

Will the seemingly significant events we have lived through this decade be important in the grand scheme? Are there powerful historical forces playing out that we’re missing? Where will Black Lives Matter, the social media revolution, #MeToo, climate change, Barack Obama and Donald Trump fit into the history books?

Many described the 2010s, in the words of Andrew Bacevich, as an era of “venomous division,” characterized by massive racial, economic and political divisions. Some saw hope in the discord—as a catalyst for much needed reform, soon to come. Still other historians pointed out less-noticed trends—in technology and foreign policy—that will resonate far into the future.

How will the future remember the 2010s? Here’s what the experts had to say:

The innovation of white supremacy

Marcia Chatelain is a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University.

The 2010s were characterized by the seeming dissonance of the 2016 presidential election. In that election, Donald J. Trump expertly galvanized racial resentments, manipulated a bifurcated media landscape and utilized his alliances with foreign governments to become president. Although it was unremarkable for a racist to become president of the United States, the election of the former reality television star immediately after former Senator Barack Obama, the first black man elected to the office, led some observers to believe that his presidential win was a sign of racial backlash, a phenomenon repeated across American history since the end of slavery. Trump’s election was distinct in that it helped highlight the centrality of technology in the efficient reproduction and circulation of racist ideologies, and it forced the public to confront tensions between an expanding public sphere and its ability to galvanize narrow-minded and socially dangerous thinking. On the cusp of 2020, Americans alarmed by the spread of falsehoods via the Internet and the radicalization of racists through social media channels realizedthat the ideology of white supremacy—with its longstanding ability to shapeshift to meet the demands of the day—had innovated alongside the technology industry.

The end of privacy

Vanessa Walker is the Morgan assistant professor of diplomatic history at Amherst College.

At the close of the 2010s, political polarization, reactionary nationalism and escalating public conflict over systemic racism, gender inequality and climate change dominated characterizations of the decade. Less noticed, the decade marked the end of privacy. State surveillance was nothing new. The war on terror in the aughts had already ushered in new invasive profiling practices. But the pervasive, hyper-individualized, corporate-based collection and aggregation of personal data in partnership with government marked a new frontier in surveillance. The collection of personal information through individuals’ phones, computers and virtual assistants—and the social media and online platforms they utilized—informed almost every aspect of social and political interactions. Over the decade, these instruments insinuated themselves into peoples’ everyday lives for convenience, for entertainment, for basic daily information and communication in a way that made it difficult to imagine functioning without them. Like the proverbial frog being boiled alive, people became accustomed not only to trading their personal information for basic services, but also the idea that they were always being watched. Appeased by the pretense of being able to “opt out,” consumers accepted vague assertions that data collection was consensual, anonymous and secure. Yet, as the decade drew to a close, law enforcement officials, political campaigns and foreign governments increasingly used information gathered for commercial purposes in ways completely at odds with the assurances of privacy and consent. As scandals like Cambridge Analytica revealed, the data usagewas also at odds with the integrity of democratic institutions and confidence in the electoral process. Big data clearly contained potential benefits for society in terms of health innovations, service optimization and energy efficiencies. However, without meaningful transparency over what was collected, who had access and how it was used, the looming surveillance state’s threat to individual freedom and collective security dwarfed those potential benefits.

A democracy grapples with its success

Tom Nichols is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

FromA Century of Change: The United States from 1945-2045:

Historians have struggled to explain the paradox of the 2010s. On the one hand, it was a decade of economic and military recovery that was by any standard peaceful and prosperous, even under two very different American presidents. And yet, it was characterized by a poisonous anger and extreme polarization that is normally the hallmark of defeated and bankrupted states on the verge of collapse. In retrospect, the 2010s represented an unexpected and politically destructive synergy between peace, affluence and technology. Despite skyrocketing income inequality, for example, an array of technological advances narrowed the daily living standards between rich and poor compared with even a few decades earlier. These advances, in turn, spurred increasingly unattainable demands from the public on both government and industry for even higher living standards and more consumer choices. Universal education produced unprecedented levels of literacy, but electronic entertainment and media undermined the ability of literacy to create informed citizens; by 2020, it was fair to say that never in modern history had a more educated people rejected science and rationalism in such numbers. Abroad, America was still supremely powerful, with interstate war nearly unheard of, and terrorism mostly contained at great distances (albeit at great cost). Yet this increased security reduced the sense of shared threat among Americans and thus dissolved any chance that foreign affairs might prove to be an arena of common interest. And the “era of social media,” as we refer to it today, not only allowed Americans to peer into heavily edited versions of each other’s lives—thus fueling huge social resentments—but encouraged them to voice their views in the most extreme manner, with each citizen offered a chance at notoriety if even for only a moment. By their end, the 2010s raised a question which remains unanswered as America heads toward completing its third century of existence: Can democracies cope with success?

Populist threats to the social order

David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers, is a contributing editor at Politico Magazine.

The 2010s posed resonant rebukes to established authority the world over. The decade opened with an eruption of grassroots social movements in the U.S. and abroad—the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Arab Spring—and continued on through the anti-Trump marches, #MeToo and 2019’s Hong Kong, Iran and India uprisings. Though typically short-lived and sometimes unsuccessful, these movements and their underlying discontents destabilized political structures everywhere. Anti-establishment politics also fed the rise of outsider candidates and populist demagogues, left and right, and dramatically weakened venerable political parties in many countries. For many people, this upheaval offered hope for the advent of a more equal and just society—but as Donald Trump’s presidency and other right-wing nationalist regimes held fast to power, there seemed at least as great a chance that it would fatally undermine the liberal international order that had underwritten peace and prosperity for so long.

The collapse of vital infrastructures

Sarah E. Igo is a professor of history and political science at Vanderbilt.

In the 2010s, Americans reckoned with their neglect of vital infrastructures: political, technological and environmental. Their constitutional democracy was the most obvious system in disarray. Vulnerable to Russian cyberattacks during the 2016 election, U.S. political institutions suffered equally from the unchecked flouting of governing norms by the reality-TV star president, Donald Trump, who was the beneficiary of those attacks. Americans’ communications infrastructure also proved precarious. As news and exchanges of all sorts moved onto electronic platforms in that decade, they became ever-more captive to corporate profits, eroding individual privacy as well as the means for achieving verifiable facts. Finally, in common with people around the world, Americans grasped in that decade the potentially irreversible harm humans had done to the natural systems supporting life on the planet. Raging fires, hurricanes and floods; attacks on democratic processes; social media surveillance and fake news. These were the shocks that exposed the fragility of the systems Americans depended on—but that also galvanized citizens to repair them in the 2020s.

The emergence of an Obama-Trump foreign policy

William Inboden is associate professor of public policy at the LBJ School and executive director of the Clements Center for National Security, University of Texas at Austin.

During this decade, the United States elected two presidents who could not be more dissimilar in temperament, character and background: Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Yet as history unfolded, it turns out that Obama’s and Trump’s different personas and governing styles obscured what were similar policy choices and convictions in the realm of American foreign policy. Both Obama and Trump disdained the foreign policy “establishment” and its prescriptions, trusting instead in their own instincts; both expressed skepticism about American exceptionalism; neither president forged close personal relationships with other foreign leaders. Both Obama and Trump voiced vexation with America’s allies and weakened America’s alliance commitments; both sought to reduce the American presence in the troubled Middle East; both were ambivalent about free trade agreements; both downplayed the promotion of human rights and democracy; and both attempted to reorient the United States away from being the dominant global superpower to instead adopting a more restrained posture in the emerging multipolar world. The Obama-Trump era of international politics, as it came to be seen, recognized correctly the need for a recalibration in America’s international role, especially given public discontent and the upsurge in global populist movements. But in time it proved to be the wrong prescription. Malign powers such as China and Russia filled the void left by American international leadership, contributing to the increase in global conflict and instability that characterized the unhappy decade of the 2020s.

A spotlight on state-sanctioned violence

Keisha N. Blain is an associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and president of the African American Intellectual History Society.

On July 13, 2015, Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman from Illinois, was found dead in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Only three days prior, Bland had been stopped by a white officer while driving in Prairie View, Texas. The tense exchange between the two, which was recorded on the officer’s dashboard camera and on Bland’s cellphone, circulated widely across the nation. Thousands decried the circumstances that led to Bland’s tragic death, questioning the stop, the detainment and the officer’s repeated threats. Bland’s life and untimely death cast a spotlight on one of the social issues that dominated public discourse during the 2010s: state-sanctioned violence. The public awareness around this issue can be attributed to Black Lives Matter (BLM), a nationwide and global movement to end state-sanctioned violence. What began as a hashtag on social media—launched by activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi in 2013—following the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer evolved into a protest movement that shook the nation to its core. After the 2014 police shooting of Mike Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, BLM rose to national prominence, demanding justice for Brown’s family and the thousands of unarmed Black people murdered by the police. From uprisings in cities across the nation to organized acts of resistance on college campuses, BLM compelled Americans to acknowledge the systemic problem of state-sanctioned violence and take steps to bring about necessary changes. Despite backlash and a host of internal and external challenges, the BLM movement, led by young radical activists, transformed the American political landscape, shaping national discussions on race and policing, and forcing several presidential candidates during the 2016 elections to confront the issue.

The two faces of American democracy

Peniel Joseph is a professor of history and public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

The story of the second decade of the 21st century is one marked by the Janus-faced nature of American democracy. Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, ushered in his own version of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society through passage of sweeping health care legislation. The promise of a more just and fair society proved elusive however, undercut by growing disparities between the rich and the poor; the rise of mass incarceration; racial and economic segregation in neighborhoods and public schools; and an assault on the concept of American citizenship and democracy fueled by right wing social media, white nationalism, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment. President Donald Trump’s ascension represented the literal and figurative inversion of the grand hopes of the Obama Era. Whereas Obama offered the hope of racial reconciliation based on a democracy expansive enough to embrace the historically marginalized and oppressed, Trump’s electoral coalition resounded with Americans longing for the sepia-toned past, one suffused with white supremacy. These dueling narratives of American democracy reverberated globally as well. The Obama Doctrine vowed to end international war through peace efforts (including the Iran Nuclear Deal) that at times upset allies. In contrast, the Trump Doctrine touted “America First” as a slogan that signaled the abandoning of longstanding alliances in favor of a more insular foreign policy—one that saw an American president openly courting authoritarian leaders in North Korean and Russia.

Polarization and the rise of politically active women

Heather Cox Richardson is a history professor at Boston College.

The perfect symbol of the 2010s came in February 2015, when an image of a dress went viral on social media as Americans fought over whether its pattern was #blackandblue or #whiteandgold. America was divided in this decade, with splits over economics, politics, religion and culture exacerbated by social media. A set of increasingly extreme Republicans stayed in power by convincing voters that Democrats under biracial president Barack Obama, whose signature piece of legislation was the Affordable Care Act making health care accessible, were intent on destroying America by giving tax dollars to lazy people of color and feminists who wanted to murder babies. And in 2016, Republicans leaders weaponized social media with the help of Russians to elect to the White House Donald J. Trump, who promised to end this “American carnage.”On the other side, in 2013, the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement helped galvanize those who believed the system was stacked against them. And in January 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration, the Women’s March became the largest single-day protest in American history. By the end of that year, the #MeToo Movement took off as women shared their ubiquitous experiences with sexual harassment and demanded an end to male dominance. In 2018, when Republicans forced through the Senate the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who had been creditably accused of sexual assault, they helped convinced voters to elect a historic number of women and racial minorities to Congress in in the 2018 midterm elections, almost entirely on the Democratic side. The story of the 2010s is of increasing American polarization, but also the rise of politically active women to defend American democracy against the growing power of a Republican oligarchy.

Globalization as uniter—and divider

George H. Nash is a historian and the author of The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945.

The 2010s were a decade in which the forces of globalization pulled the nations of the world closer together—and began to drive them apart. It was a period in which more people were on the move in the world than at any time in the history of the human race (and more and more of them made America their destination). This unprecedented intermingling not just of goods and services but of peoples and cultures was accompanied by a revolutionary transformation in the structure and velocity of mass communication. The pace of life—especially public life—accelerated. Tribalization, polarization and combative populism permeated the political systems of many lands. In America itself, the apocalyptic language of war—even civil war—increasingly marked public discourse, and serious observers began openly to question whether the United States of America would remain indivisible in the years ahead. As the decade ended, no one could say with certainty whether the worldwide ferment was a passing spasm of discontent or a harbinger of deeper upheavals.

A period of paralysis

Kevin Kruse is a history professor at Princeton University.

The 2010s were a period of paralysis. From the Tea Party protests in 2010 through the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump in 2019, the American political system staggered from one partisan showdown to another. Amplified by the growth of partisan media, both on cable and the internet, Americans increasingly lined themselves into hostile camps with all political progress stalled. The federal government shut down three times due to funding impasses, while routine matters of housekeeping like the debt ceiling became, in the words of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2011, “a hostage worth ransoming.” As the government gridlocked, little progress was made on larger social concerns. There were, to be sure, notable changes such as the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, but on other issues little progress was made. The increasing crisis in climate change, which manifested in record temperatures and alarming levels of hurricanes, flooding and wildfires, only continued to worsen. Mass shootings accelerated as well, with four of the five deadliest incidents in U.S. history taking place in the decade, with little substantial action. The optimism over race relations that had marked the election of the first African American president, meanwhile, became dashed with the revival of white nationalist extremism and divisive fights over immigration from Muslim-majority nations and a proposed border wall with Mexico. By the end of the decade, the United States seemed more deeply divided and directionless than it had been in a half century.

The backlash against elites

Geoff Kabaservice is the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party.

Decades rarely begin at neat decennial intervals. The 2010s, in hindsight, began with the 2007-08 financial crisis. The inability to foresee and prevent that crisis, combined with the subsequent lack of punishment for anyone behind it, served notice to much of the population that the establishment (whatever that was) was no longer doing its job (whatever that meant). As the crisis led to economic collapse in rural and formerly industrial areas, working-class and lower-middle-class citizens responded angrily to what they saw as a broader failure by elites (not just in politics but also in the media, think tanks and academia)to respond to the problems of globalization (including trade, immigration and crumbling communities) that primarily afflicted the left-behind regions. The result was a furious populist backlash—one that played out in country after country across the developed world, with movements that were more or less alike in their grievances and lack of coherent solutions. The real question of the decade was: Why did elites fail to see the reaction coming, and what would they do about it? The shape of the next decade was thus determined by whether parties of the center-left and center-right could revive anything like the post-World War II social unity and capitalism that produced steadily rising living standards for all, or whether the 2020s would look more like the 1930s.

A pathway to a new beginning

Jeremi Suri is a professor of public affairs and history at the LBJ School at the University of Texas Austin.

The decade began with the nation’s worst recession since the Great Depression and it ended with the worst political divisions since the close of the 19th century. The inherited institutions and practices of democracy in the United States took a repeated beating. In the last weeks of the decade, the House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump while his supporters defended near-monarchical powers for the commander-in-chief. Nonetheless, the crises that dominated the decade were transitional. They marked the demise of a still white, post-industrial, baby-boomer society filled with men and women resisting their decline. The decade opened a new America that was more racially and ethnically diverse, more feminine, led by millennials, and organized around artificial intelligence technologies. 2020 was a powerful new beginning built on the destruction of the previous years. The United States renewed its democracy through a messy, prolonged and ultimately productive generational change in leadership at all levels— from local businesses and schools to the White House. It was an ugly time that generated bright reforms thereafter.

An era of competing populist movements

Claire Potter is a professor of history at the New School.

The partisanship, and the populisms, that came to characterize the 2010s were already coalescing as the ball dropped in Times Square on New Year’s Eve 2008. As Barack Obama, the first African American president, prepared to take office, disgruntled conservatives and libertarians began meeting in small, community groups—eventually forming the populist Tea Party movement, devoted to limiting the Obama legislative agenda to the expansion of public health care. By 2010, Tea Party-endorsed candidates were preparing to take their oaths of office in Congress as part of a new Republican House majority. By 2013, as many as 10 percent of Americans were said to identify with the movement. Fueled by similar grievances—economic despair, frustration with government, and the ability to organize and share ideas on social media—left populisms also flourished in the 2010s. By September 2011, protesters who identified as the Occupy Wall Street movement had established a self-governing encampment in Lower Manhattan, protesting economic policies that privileged the “1%” over the “99%,” forcing issues like student debt, workers’ rights and climate change to the center of political conversation and reviving the United States’ long-dormant socialist politics. In 2013, angered by the failure of a black president to stem violence against their communities, populists who were queer and of color coalesced under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to renew the struggle for racial civil rights. By the 2016 election, centrists in both parties suddenly found themselves besieged by new candidates who represented these competing populist movements. Socialist Bernie Sanders battered presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, nearly costing her the nomination; on the right, real estate developer Donald Trump recast himself as a man of the people, wooing nationalists and corporate America with conspiracy theories, and the promise of a country renewed by wealth and whiteness, to defeat Clinton in the general election. The final four years of the decade would see a United States defined by the collapse of the political center, by the consequences of moving conservative populism to the center, and by the determination of left populists to remake the Democratic Party—and retake the government.

The privileged strike back

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of California, Irvine.

The 2010s, a decade that concluded the three-part movie trilogy of Star Wars, could be understood as an epic battle between good and evil, the small and seemingly insignificant against the dark forces and the imperial. There was the rise in protest movements for social justice: Occupy, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, Standing Rock, Mauna Kea, youth against gun violence and Greta Thunberg. Standing in opposition were those with privilege and power, who continued to consider themselves the victims and the marginalized. Their fears about having to share their society and the possible loss of authority generated hate violence, mass incarceration, the detainment and abuse of refugee children, and self-righteous anger. As the U.S. approached 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment, the nation had elected its first African American/multi-racial president but had yet to elect a female president. In fact, the backlash against President Barack Obama and what he represented led to conspiracy theories about his birthplace, a new visibility and escalation of racialized police brutality, voter suppression laws and the confirmation of questionable nominees at all levels of the political system. The 2010s was a decade of civil war in the United States. How did this battle end? Was it possible to resolve the conflicts, given the historical depths of these divisions? Might a sense of compassion and a belief in justice lead to a renewed society, one that built bridges and not walls? The 2020 brought the possibility of a faint, new hope.

An era of venomous division

Andrew Bacevich is professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University.

By the second year of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, it had become apparent that his presidency would fall well short of transformational. While Obama’s two terms were not devoid of accomplishments, they tended to be incremental, for example his healthcare reforms, or short-lived, such as his efforts to stem the further proliferation of nuclear arms. Events quickly dashed expectations of the nation’s first black president ushering in a new forward-looking era of American politics. Instead, racial and cultural cleavages deepened, egregious inequality persisted and futile wars dragged on. Obama managed to prolong the life of the political consensus that had formed in the wake of the Cold War. Yet with the race to choose his successor in 2016, that consensus collapsed, the political novice Donald Trump prevailing over the far more seasoned Hillary Clinton. Former Secretary of State Clinton stood for unchecked individual autonomy, globalized neoliberalism and militarized U.S. “global leadership.” Although himself utterly devoid of principle, Trump presented himself as intent on repudiating all of these things. His election thereby brought to the fore divisions related to class, race and ethnicity that had been latent or ignored. A very considerable portion of the electorate wasted no time in dismissing his presidency as illegitimate. The signature of the ensuing Age of Trump was venomous division. In terms of policy, the theme of the 2010s became drift, with issues such as climate change treated as an afterthought, if at all.

The consequences of deregulation

David A. Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis professor emeritus at UC Berkeley.

The deregulation approved by many Democrats as well as Republicans in previous decades resulted in a series of seismic transformations of the life of the United States in the 2010s. The deregulation of the communications industry led to the tribalization of the news media, most prominently in the creation of Fox News as a semi-official propaganda organ of the wealthy, extremely conservative Republicans who rallied around President Donald Trump in 2016. Fox News and its smaller counterparts cemented the loyalties of millions of voters by disseminating a steady stream of deeply misleading and often downright false accounts of virtually every issue being contested in public life. The deregulation of the financial, fossil fuel and other industries had similarly transformative consequences, facilitating economic inequality on a scale unknown for many decades and contributing to global warming on a scale scientists found apocalyptic. President Barack Obama tried to reverse these developments when he first came into office, but it was late in the day, and too many of the leading Democrats refused to support the policies Obama tried to advance. Ultimately, it was the Democratic Party’s failure to use the political and cultural resources available to it to enact and maintain an appropriate regulatory structure as late as the mid-1990s—during the neo-liberal administration of Bill Clinton—that did more than any other single factor to determine the course of American history in the 2010s. Rarely in the history of industrialized societies had a political leadership equipped with such magnificent opportunities squandered them so spectacularly, and thus betrayed the nation of which they were entrusted to be the stewards.

Democracy under siege

Nicole Hemmer is author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.

Bookended on one end byCitizens Unitedand on the other by a president impeached for inviting foreign interference in U.S. elections, the 2010s were the decade of democracy under siege. Red states instituted strict voter ID laws and purged their voter rolls, while the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Super PACs fueled dark-money politics. State-house Republicans stripped power from their rivals, and congressional Republicans broke every institutional norm in an attempt to thwart a popular Democratic president. And social media, which techno-optimists hailed as a force of democratization at the start of the decade, ended the 2010s as a dystopian hellscape crawling with wannabe Nazis and disinformation campaigns. It was also a decade of grassroots pro-democracy movements, from Occupy Wall Street to Moral Mondays to Black Lives Matter to the Women’s March to March for Our Lives, reminders that some Americans were resisting democratic decline.

Groundwork for a Constitutional revision

Jack Rakove is a professor of history and political science, emeritus, at Stanford University.The decade of the 2010s placed the American constitutional system under the greatest stress it had known since the New Deal crisis of the 1930s. President Donald Trump demonstrated that he felt none of the “veneration” (to quote James Madison’s 49thFederalistpaper) required to sustain the norms of constitutional governance. Worse still, however, was the behavior of the Senate and the Supreme Court. Under Republican control, the Senate blithely ignored the well-documented charges under which the House of Representatives had impeached Trump. For its part, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court fulfilled its long-frustrated agenda: In two leading decisions in June 2020, it gutted the Affordable Care Act and authorized individual states to impose severe limits on the right to choice secured in the 1974 decision inRoe v. Wade.

The events of the 2010s thus set the stage for the Great Constitutional Revision of 2024. Although Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, Republicans held on to the Senate and the Supreme Court retained its conservative majority. With the national government in a state of near paralysis, a coalition of blue states coalesced to demand a constitutional convention. A phalanx of 18 solidly red states, representing less than a fifth of the nation’s population, quickly rejected this proposal, keeping it two states shy of the two-thirds margin that Article V of the Constitution required. Invoking the precedent set in 1787, when the first Constitutional Convention threw out the amendment rules laid down in the Articles of Confederation, the blue states insisted that the meeting must be held. Rather than side with the smaller bloc of solidly red states, the now hotly contested states of Texas and Florida sent delegations to the Chicago convention.The dominant theme of the Convention was to make constitutional decision-making directly responsive to the one person, one vote standard. That was also how votes were allocated in the Convention itself. The resulting deliberations led to a radically revised Constitution. Among other changes, the president would now be elected by a single nation-wide popular vote. The House of Representatives was enlarged to 600 members, with all its districts designed by an AI process to be as competitive as possible. The Senate became an advisory body that could no longer vote down legislation enacted by the House, and senators were now elected on a regional basis, rather than by individual states. The Supreme Court was enlarged to 15 justices, who would serve 18-year terms on a staggered basis. When the bloc of small red states balked at ratifying the results, they were told they could form their own separate confederacy. A few months of considering how costly it would be to sustain their states government without the financial support of the far more economically productive blue states quickly led them to abandon their position.

Trump’s one inadvertent contribution to American history was to make these changes possible.

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