Kulturkampf

[Nintex]

Welp, people doing hit and runs in stolen cars for likes now. 

[Puffy Fucking Baby]

More credence to my theory that everybody is a retard now.

[Nintex]

[Potato]

Lol, Russell Brand, that most odious of cunts, has the cancellaratti coming for him now.

[HaughtyFrank]

Uhhhhh....

[Uncle]

Uhhhhh....

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[PhoenixDark]

There's some lazy boths-sides stuff in there but overall I agree. We're witnessing an interesting mixture of anti-intellectualism and anti-expertise mixed with a post truth society where the only thing that matters is political will. It doesn't matter if Russell Brand is a rapist or not, he's on the Good Side and the Bad Side wants to eliminate him so we must...subscribe to his channel, donate to his legal fund, and pay for his Patreon. It's a pretty genius scam reminiscent of mega church pastors demanding absolute reverence from their congregation.

Of course, the Brand story is incredibly detailed and researched. And you can bet that, as with every other major Me Too story from Weinstein to Cosby, more women will come out. At which point Elon and others will have to dig their heels in until it's too late. But it doesn't matter. He's on our side, and whether he goes to jail or remains free it doesn't matter.

The thing that interests me most is the thought process. During the pandemic I watched some Joe Rogan for the first time, as well as Joe Budden and others. It's largely the same shit. The way they think is not "normative" or intelligent. It's also performative. They know the audience wants them to "get to the truth" no matter what it is, and that means questioning everything. Was the moon landing faked? Why is the government lying about aliens? Was 911 an inside job? You hook people with that and then go deeper and deeper until it's a psychosis of FUD. 

On the flip side there's this very surface level approach to art where their only interest is in seeking out agendas, easter eggs or insider information. What's the story behind the producer's demands on this movie? Did the label demand this artist collaborate with that artist? And of course...wokeness. You don't hear intelligent discussions about film or television as art, instead it's just #content to be consumed - and the focus is on whether The Powers That Be added wokeness or not. This caters to a very immature, perpetually adolescent group of people who exclusively consume the most juvenile of Stuff. Videogames, Star Wars, comic books, Disney cartoon remakes. And when they decide to eat some vegetables like a big boy, they still find a way to bring the psychosis in. I can't wait to see the insane "wokeness" accusations that will be hurled at that upcoming Scorsese film for instance. There will be no discussion of the film's themes or dialogue or acting. It'll be pure political warfare.

[Potato]

Remember when the Internet was young and you tried to discuss some topic that you enjoyed and thought you were pretty knowledgeable about? You know, like Star Wars, video games, fantasy novels...hell, even something as benign as tea or coffee?

Do you remember what happened to you when you tried that?

I guarantee you were yelled at by a bunch of no-life losers who clearly spent way too much time amassing volumes useless knowledge about the most intricate details of said topic (at the expense of any social skills) and completely shamed you into believing that you weren't really a fan of that particular thing/hobby/interest area on the first place.

Well, those idiots became bloggers and then they were indoctrinated by a bunch of political activists and then they made any discourse online about any topic completely unbearable.

Those people then influenced a bunch of slack arse idiots like resetera who then made online discourse even more unbearable because now everyone is armed with the same shitty "knowledge" and everyone is an "expert".

TL;DR Everyone on the Internet is a fucking idiot

[Besticus Maximus]

Lectures on media literacy from American comic book fans is my favourite band

[benji]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[Polident]

So many of the voices on the internet haven’t grown past high school. Whether they peaked or had a miserable time, it continues to define them. It’s really something. That modern internet and social media doesn’t discriminate by age further fuels it. In real life, imagine discussing, well, anything of value at a table where ages 14, 19, 24, 37, and (Elon’s age won’t google) are of equal importance.

[Potato]

So many of the voices on the internet haven’t grown past high school. Whether they peaked or had a miserable time, it continues to define them. It’s really something. That modern internet and social media doesn’t discriminate by age further fuels it. In real life, imagine discussing, well, anything of value at a table where ages 14, 19, 24, 37, and (Elon’s age won’t google) are of equal importance.

Even worse, absolutely none of them have any qualifications to speak of aside from their "lived experience"...

[Uncle]

The thing that interests me most is the thought process. During the pandemic I watched some Joe Rogan for the first time, as well as Joe Budden and others. It's largely the same shit. The way they think is not "normative" or intelligent. It's also performative. They know the audience wants them to "get to the truth" no matter what it is, and that means questioning everything. Was the moon landing faked? Why is the government lying about aliens? Was 911 an inside job? You hook people with that and then go deeper and deeper until it's a psychosis of FUD.

there is absolutely nothing wrong with questioning everything as long as your eventual answer to the question represents reality

the alternate is dogma and an unexamined life/belief system

if what you believe is actually true, then it will stand up to scrutiny (and plenty of Joe Rogan's wacko guest theories do not)

[Nintex]

It's all about

I blame Obamna because he started the whole "use data and ux dark patterns to politcally motivate people to donate" thing. He shifted the battleground to the web and made channels like twitter official government channels. Barry was the original grift, pre-dating Kony2012. And because he was such an icon most politicians copied him.

They made fun of Romney and the GOP on election day for not having a real data/internet strategy. Romney just couldn't compete without much of an online campaign as Obama flooded the web with ads. He was virtually unchallenged in the carefully orchestrated Facebook streams and other appearances. Which I believe gave birth to the idea that if you said the "right thing" and make it sound smart you wouldn't be critized either.

Trump had seen all that and did what he always does. He used their own tools against them and deployed the most powerful weapon of all: trolling. He turned politics into a game where you teabag your opponents like you do in Halo and when they finally ganged up on him and scored a point he simply respawned.

[PhoenixDark]

Remember when the Internet was young and you tried to discuss some topic that you enjoyed and thought you were pretty knowledgeable about? You know, like Star Wars, video games, fantasy novels...hell, even something as benign as tea or coffee?

Do you remember what happened to you when you tried that?

I guarantee you were yelled at by a bunch of no-life losers who clearly spent way too much time amassing volumes useless knowledge about the most intricate details of said topic (at the expense of any social skills) and completely shamed you into believing that you weren't really a fan of that particular thing/hobby/interest area on the first place.

Well, those idiots became bloggers and then they were indoctrinated by a bunch of political activists and then they made any discourse online about any topic completely unbearable.

Those people then influenced a bunch of slack arse idiots like resetera who then made online discourse even more unbearable because now everyone is armed with the same shitty "knowledge" and everyone is an "expert".

TL;DR Everyone on the Internet is a fucking idiot

I kinda feel like those are separate groups. The nerds obsessed with lore, gatekeeping, and obscure information still exist. Now there's also a large group of tumblr-centric fans who are more interested in perceived social, moral, sexual or political messaging in the source material and have little interest in lore/detail. They read/watch things in order to reinforce their beliefs or identity, and seemingly despise those older fans who demand 1:1 adaptation.

So yea the toxicity has always been there but it seems to be worse now, and a lot of it is driven by a group of people who probably move on to the next thing soon. Whereas those older fans are always gonna be there. Basically that guy on the random forum who used to angrily argue about Arwen's scenes in FOTR circa 2003 still exists, unless he died of covid lol.

[Uncle]

not from a lore standpoint but a moviemaking/storytelling standpoint, her scenes in TTT and ROTK do bring the story to a screeching halt when we really want to see what's going on with literally anyone else

if you're gonna have her marry aragorn at the end it's important to remind the audience she exists from time to time, but I feel like there could've been a better way

doesn't have anything to do with "omg a stupid female in my fantasy epic" and everything to do with wispy ethereal slo-mo for someone who is a hundred miles away not involved with the main quest, would be just as jarring if aragorn was gay and his gay lover Arwang was slowly dying

[benji]

[benji]

Autistics and ADHDers all around the world can rejoice because the live-action "Little Mermaid" is finally streaming on Disney+, meaning we can rewatch it a million times and analyze it frame by frame till everyone around us gets sick of us. If you're one of those people who had an issue with Ariel being portrayed by a Black woman, you're most probably not going to like where this is going, so this is your warning: even more representation of marginalized groups lies ahead.

It's late May 2023, and I'm sandwiched between my teenage brother and my little sister at our local cinema waiting for the live-action "Little Mermaid" to start playing. I had already grown up watching the original animated version and despite enjoying it, had already hammered into my brain that it was not feminist. This experience was not going to do anything for me. I was so wrong. I went in hoping my darker-skinned 7-year-old sister could finally see that she doesn't have to be white to feel like a princess. I never would've expected 21-year-old me to be the one who would leave feeling seen.

"Are you OK?" my brother asked, confusing my erratic movement for anxiety-induced shaking. Ariel's character (Halle Bailey) had just been introduced and I was already bouncing (literally) in my seat, flapping my hands and suppressing happy squeals.

"She's autistic!"

Makeisha Mirza is a journalist and writer from Pakistan, currently pursuing a journalism degree with a minor in media and politics from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, in Qatar. Her interests lie in mental health, race, gender and sexuality, disability justice and media.

This will go just fine.

[Potato]

When I briefly studied journalism aeons ago, we did that round table thing at the first tutorial where we introduced ourselves and said why we were studying journalism.

If anyone had said their interest in journalism was "mental health, race, gender and sexuality, disability justice and media" there would have been laughter and a lot of confused looks.

The fact that journalism graduates interested in writing about those topics are more likely to be able to make a living than someone interested in being a business, economics or science journalist is absurd, but absolutely logical for this fucking idiotic generation.

[benji]

"Write what you know."

But at some point this got translated into a bunch of selected identities and fantasies that the person just assumes they know because they claim them.

Not that journalism was ever not credulous of desired ingroup claims.

[HaughtyFrank]

"She's autistic!"

4chan or journalism challenge

[Puffy Fucking Baby]

Always journalism, as if any bitches post on the chans

[Nintex]

Guilty until proven innocent.


But President Trump was right again.

[Uncle]

...is this a new low?

has youtube stopped paying other random people in the past when they were under suspicion of something they did off-site?

because there are a LOT of shitty/weirdo youtubers pretty much constantly under various forms of suspicion

danny from game grumps was said to have groomed a fan, did youtube suspend the grumps?

[Puffy Fucking Baby]

None of them were the number 1 story in the world tho

They will be under massive pressure from outside forces and all the UK channels are ditching any content that he was on in the past from their services too. Dunno if Netflix have yet too, but theyre massive cucks so will do.

[Nintex]

This was the reason given

“If a creator's off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community”.

Brand on X when 

[Uncle]

[HaughtyFrank]

So at least we're now all in agreement that acting sexual in front of an audience full of kids is a bad thing?

[benji]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[benji]

Rubble & Crew, a spin-off of Nickelodeon’s smash-hit kids’ show Paw Patrol, has dropped an episode with the franchise’s first nonbinary character (and first confirmed LGBTQ character overall), written by Lindz Amer of Queer Kid Stuff.

In the episode “The Crew Builds an Observatory,” bulldog Rubble and his construction crew of builder pups meet human skateboarder River (voiced by nonbinary actor Cihang Ma), who’s new in town. River (who reads as Asian) loves taking photos and wants to photograph a shooting star that’s whizzing by that night. River asks for Rubble’s help in building an observatory. The crew encounters obstacles along the way, but (spoiler!) perseveres and completes the job just in time for River to grab the shot.

The episode’s writer, Lindz Amer, is the creator of Queer Kid Stuff, which launched in 2016 as an LGBTQ+ and social justice webseries, and now offers a variety of LGBTQ-inclusive resources, storytimes, and more for kids and their adults. They’re also the author of the terrific Rainbow Parenting: Your Guide to Raising Queer Kids and Their Allies

Amer explained on Instagram, “I wanted to write a nonbinary character that was aspirational and incredibly cool, someone for the pups (and kids at home) to look up to. They found an awesome non-binary actor to voice River and I’m so so happy about how it turned out.”

The motivation for creating the character came from the show’s permanent team, who then asked Amer to help. Amer told me in a direct message that they said I could share:
I was brought on as a consultant initially because they wanted to develop a nonbinary character and I let them know I’m a writer as well so I could script the character. So I did a little bit more than a typical freelance writer. Talking about what the character will be like, naming the character, looking at character design, all of that in addition to outlining, scripting, and going through notes and revisions.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

https://web.archive.org/web/20200612190105/https://twitter.com/lindzamer/status/1271489940673769472