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Universal appeal vs. freaks

Once, I had a conversation with someone who I think gave me the worst take on art I think I've ever heard in my life. His take was that if a piece of art does not primarily explore topics that most of the human population can relate to, then it is a bad piece of art. Now, if you have more than a brain cell or are something at least a little more exciting than the most boring person alive, you could probably see why this is a questionable view on art. Themes such as love, family, or God, even, and other commonalities among most people are apparently the ONLY acceptable topics if you want to make a "good" piece of art. I regret not asking what drives him to think this, but I'm going to interrogate it for a moment. My first thought is that this person is just utterly privileged, as when I brought up movies on racial or LGBT topics, like the fantastic film Moonlight (a two in one), he was completely dismissive. So clearly, those topics aren't good ones to cover either. But, I think it also comes down to how we define "good" art.

Some pieces of art are inevitably going to resonate with certain crowd deeper than others, but the more specific you get with your theming the more granular your audience gets, which theoretically could limit "universal appeal". And by conventional definition, "good" art is something appealing, so, if "good" art by definition is something universally appealing then specific art must be "bad" art.

This, I think is deranged. The typical expression is that art is subjective, but I think most people don't really evaluate that phrase beyond "it sucks" or "it's good". I think it runs deeper than that, to where the quality of the art is not the only subjective thing, but how we interpret the art too. Some details in media are things certain crowds of people, or perhaps even most things are not going to understand. I call these implicit details.

The discussion was spurred by Steven Universe, which for those unaware is a cartoon for kids that sometimes dives in to some pretty specific topics relating to mental health and relationships, especially near the end. Despite being a kids show, I think the show goes to some pretty interesting places with its theming, and I in particular appreciate it for combining cartoony aesthetics with those themes, but to him, the fact that it bothers with those things at all is a bad thing. I think this is either a fundamental failure of media literacy or to be frank, empathy or knowledge on the topic.

Not to spoil the show, but the story a point delves in to themes of trauma, and how people may not even realize they have it's brought to their attention by or by getting outside help. This is in fact, pretty realistic, and I can relate to this completely as someone who has suffered trauma in the past I didn't start dealing with until recently. This to me, makes this part of the show a more powerful piece of art with the surprising amount of nuance and darkness it covers the topic with.

Being a kids show, it is pretty heavy handed, but for the sake of simplicity this is something I call an implicit detail. Someone who hasn't suffered this or lacks knowledge on the topic would not relate to this. But does this make it a bad piece of art? No, not at all, I would say it's better off for going these places and all while executing it in a way the target demographic can understand. If it's successful in exploring the topic and talking to its target audience, then I can't see it as a failure. But someone who doesn't understand life long trauma, no less experienced it would not understand this part of the show at all and dismiss it as being stupid or contrived.

To bring this to the extreme, it makes me wonder that if we came in contact with aliens with completely esoteric tastes from humans, would our definition of broadly appealing art change?

This doesn't just extend to themes either, being more specific is also apart of the aesthetics too, and how themes and aesthetics intermingle. For me, I really like heavy or thrilling subject matter, but you could also say I'm a freak who still likes cartoons, so I like when both of them are put together. This to many people, is completely esoteric. Some think that drawings, much less abstract and cartoony ones are just not the right avenue to explore topics like that. I completely disagree with that, but to go in to that now is beyond the scope of this post. But as a result of there being things like this, it feels like there is art specifically for me, especially these days, and it's art I truly cherish.

A common phrase is "when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one", I thought? I think that holds true for most things. When art is watered down for as many people as possible you end up with things that don't have anything to say or hardly any inspiration behind it to give it substance. The example this person gave me of a an actually good film was a fucking Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. Granted, one I like, but I think that tells you all you need to know. Guardians of the Galaxy is the one with the most esoteric tone and aesthetics, too. So I just don't get it. Real good art, I think, is the kind that really comes from somewhere specific to a person, and how it's expressed is also special to them, because in perhaps a semi contradictory way, I think that ends up speaking to more people than generalizing your art for literally everyone.

I've actually met two people who are obsessed with the concept of universal appeal, one concerned with cartoons and movies and the other obsessed with video games. I may go in to the other one some other time, because it had to do with some of my favourite games.

Make your art for freaks, or maybe even just one freak. Most of the best art is. And if you're not a freak, then find the one in you.

[lavolamp]

Too late to make a blog?

Hello. In a conversation with friends I decided to start using this Tumblr blog as a means of, well, blogging. I would use some website like Wordpress, Neocities or even Blogspot, because those tend to have features that make organizing blogs by tags a little easier, but I will admit I am a bit vain and don't want to feel like I'm screaming in to a void when I could instead reach out to the remains of Tumblr's userbase post-porn. This is absolutely the best website for it at the moment. And this would also make it easier for people to reach me for whatever reason. I kind of thought of blogs as outdated, because everybody's lives have become so consolidated in to websites like Twittex and Instagram and even this one that leave little room for larger scale personal thoughts and travels. I remember the Myspace or Geocities or Blogspot days where everyone had their own cute little website, and the internet was much smaller so it was easier to find people posting things that fit your interests. Nowadays things are just too huge, so apart of me thinks blogging might be a little ridiculous. But I think there is still a use for these, because I would ultimately like to use this blog to organize my thoughts on things and document my progress on my projects, mainly so that I don't just end up bothering my friends on Discord about stuff, because I'd feel bad. Maybe one of the goals of this blog is to find out if there is a reason to blog in 2024.

I suppose I should introduce myself. I've posted a few pieces of art on this blog before, so as you could guess I'm somewhat of an artist. The medium I primarily work with are comics, because not only are they a very accessible medium to work in but I also just have a deep appreciation for the medium. I'm working on many comics at any given time, but at the moment I'm focusing down on two. A comic made for the Webtoon platform and one that I would like to be published as a book. I'm more enthused about the book than the webtoon. Maybe I'll make a post about that later. Otherwise I'm big into cinema, animated cartoons and especially video games, and one of the two things I pretty much only think about is storytelling. Whenever I am not thinking about that and the other thing, everything in my life kind of feels like a dream. So I suppose this blog will primarily be focused on storytelling, but that's just a means about talking about my opinions on art in general. Otherwise, I think people would tend to describe me as very passionate in my beliefs, which is to say when I like something I really like it, and when I hate something I suddenly transform in to one of the world's leading professional haters. And I guess I'll make you know it. I'm bad about making impulse and useless purchases and I really like chocolate. Don't ask me how many video games I have on Steam or how many tubs of chocolate ice cream I've had stacked sitting in my room at some points.

Anyway, to kick things off I'd like to talk about the last thing I did, which is beat the game Alan Wake II from Remedy games. They've done a few things like the Max Payne games and the critically acclaimed Control, but the Alan Wake series in particular holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the first "triple a" games I ever played, because at that point I had mostly played Nintendo games on GBA, DS and Wii (I played Gamecube games too, don't worry) and adventure type games on my computer. Games outside of PC classics and Nintendo games were a new frontier for me. Earlier in 2010 I got an Xbox 360 in order to play Modern Warfare 2 with the other kids at school, in which afterwards I found out that they all had PS3's instead. But at least I could play Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing with Banjo Kazooie, whom I didn't even like or even ever had played his games but his design is fun so whatever. By the way, no spoilers for Alan Wake or it's sequel here aside from me saying how I felt about the ending.

The original Alan Wake game came out in mid May of 2010. I was about 11 at the time, but I was about to turn 12 as my birthday was at the end of the month. Around when the game came out I ended up catching a lot of press footage and playthroughs showing off the game, and I was just enchanted by it. It was a game that was really nothing like I'd ever seen before. It was dark, gritty, moody, realistic, and revolved around shooting but unlike other 360 games it had this incredibly unique and eerie vibe that pulled me in, and while I didn't really understand the story very much, I thought Alan was a really funny protagonist because he just kind of came across as a dick. Kid me's mind kind of rationalized it as Sonic but he's basically just in the real world. I also thought the main mechanic of the game was also really cool. I guess it sounds too convenient to be true, but I've always loved flashlights. It's a device that's just a beam you can turn on to dispel darkness. I feel like a detective. It's fun to wave them around and point at things, I always kind of thought of them like a really cool sword. I especially love the big ones because it feels like I'm holding a cannon in my hands.

But anyway, everything about the game was just really interesting to me, and in a way it also kind of made me feel a little more adult because of the graphics and tone. So with my birthday at the end of the month, you can imagine what I asked for. In the days leading up to my birthday, I was kind of obsessed with the game and I spoiled much of it for myself. But eventually my birthday came and I finally had the game in my hands! I've still got that copy next to me as I type this. It's in far better condition than my other 360 boxes too, cause my Sonic Unleashed box is in real bad condition. Maybe it's an object of power. Anyway, I played through the game, loved it, loved the twists, scares and turns, surprisingly hilarious characters and utterly beautiful music, and how unique of a protagonist Alan was. But then, I beat the game. I won't spoil the ending, but it's the kind of ending where I'm still not sure how it's designed to make you feel. It's basically a cliffhanger, (and while there eventually was DLC that continued the story I never got around to playing it and none of it really took the story anywhere) and it left a longing in me. I wanted more. I wanted to see what happened to Alan and the people in his life. But the game didn't provide any real closure. Afterwards I scoured the internet for answers, reading other people's theories and consuming all the lore in the game that I missed, obsessively trying to get a a straight answer, any kind of meaning. I desperately wanted someone to tell me anything so I could know how to feel. Nothing else before really left me like this! You know how a lot of people, especially in the past decade enjoy watching videos that explain the lore of their favourite games, like Dark Souls or Five Night's at Freddy's? That was me with this game. But it wasn't just for the sake of consuming content, I needed closure. But I couldn't find it. I guess like Alan I was left wandering in the darkness fruitlessly searching for a way out of this headspace this stupid game got me in. Sonic had fucking closure. I was happy I had the experience, but other games had closure!

By the way this is kind of irrelevant, but in case you're wondering why my parents would let me play games like this at a young age like that, I think my dad stopped caring after I had a little argument with him in 2008 when Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out and it had a T rating but then he saw the game was fine. Or maybe he just thought I could take it, or maybe he just didn't care. He let me play No More Heroes, which, for the uninitiated, is not a child's game.

Anyway, I eventually got bored of searching for answers and my interest in the game eventually faded into the background. As I grew older I didn't forget about the game. I still listened to the music from time to time, but it definitely became a second thought, and sometimes I felt it might have been because of the ending. Sometimes though, periodically, I would revisit the game. Watch the cutscenes, look at the ending again, try to formulate a theory. It was still a game I liked, but I couldn't kick the feeling of a giant blueballing. But as you grow up, you change, and experiences you just had become a nostalgic memory. I don't think you change as much as people say you do, I think it's more like you realize things about yourself as you're able to better articulate your feelings into words. As I grew up, and now I think I almost fully realize, is that I kind of love not knowing some things. Maybe not in like a, hell yeah I love not having answers kind of thing, but I find it's utterly intoxicating. Witnessing the rise of Dark Souls and Five Nights at Freddy's in the 2010s and also being able to think about storytelling on a deeper level, I realized something that seems kind of insane to me. Alan Wake is a video game with a definitive beginning and a definitive end. At some point, the game runs out of content to show you and you will have inevitably seen and done everything. But what if I told you there was a way to keep the game going even after it's exhausted it's digital limits?

You probably know where this is going, but I realized that it wasn't the fact that Alan Wake had an ending with a ton of closure that kept it going in my mind, it was the that it left a ton of things unanswered! There are so many pieces of media I've played, or watched where it just ends, and while I enjoy them I never really paid a second thought to them afterwards. They just fade. But Alan was a light that continued to burn bright in my mind. This feeling of longing that I had after beating it, in a way that's better than just a happy ending. Other works of fiction have used this to their advantage. I don't think it's any coincidence any time David Lynch gets his hands on Twin Peaks, which Alan Wake is teetering very close on being a ripoff of sometimes, it ends on things that leave you with a billion more questions than you came in with. Sam Lake and Lynch understand the power of planting a seed in your head. Because that not only lets the work of art live far past it's expiration, but that's where the imagination also flourishes. There are so many other people who come up with theories trying to interpret these works of art, and because of this I don't think they'll ever truly die. Now, I don't think every piece of art should do this, because I will admit, most of the time it is nice to just have a neat bow placed on something. But like every device in a story, it is merely a tool that is waiting for the right time to be used. Even in stories with closure we can use this to keep things going, the possibilities are never ending. It's so exciting to think about.

But like I said, as time passes other things take precedent. Other works of art and stuff, so these things, even Alan Wake will eventually fade in to the background. The game if I recall sold well and became a cult classic through word of mouth. Even some of my normie friends know about the game. But I never really thought it would continue. Mainly because of the open ended nature of the ending and the fact it isn't an uber popular game that exists in a gaming environment where the maximum amount of money needs to be pumped in to every game in order to make the maximum amount of money back, which is why to my absolute jaw dropping, during the Game Awards 2021, a fucking Alan Wake II was announced. When the trailer first came on, I had my suspicions it might be Alan Wake II, because even in my faded memory I could still recall the layout of the main town in the game. And then he showed up, it was fucking Alan Wake. Rocking a beard and looking very conspicuously a lot more like John Wick, but still, it was him. The title dropped and I couldn't believe it. It was actually happening. Now, this was already kind of insane year for me in games. Because it just so happened not one, but THREE other games I liked a ton as a kid got sequels I thought were utterly impossible earlier that year. In the same week no less, Psychonauts 2 and No More Heroes 3 came out! And then a couple of months later, a Metroid 5! Hell, Mega Man 11 also came out in 2018. What the hell was going on? Why are all these old ass games that I thought were just made for me getting sequels? Now, of all times? I guess nostalgia plays a big part in getting these made, but it's still kinda weird. Hell, even Shadow the Hedgehog is getting his own fucking game this year. If a Portal 3 happened, I think that might just be a sign of the end times. But, regardless, because of this, I also have to wonder if, just like starting a blog in 2024, if it's just kind of too late to make sequels to these kinds of games.

Admittedly, I don't think about this topic a ton, because at heart I'm a consumer of media and much of the time I like to see things I like get continued, but the adventures of Alan Wake is a weird one. This is a game that opened me up to the idea of never getting closure, but here we are with a sequel. It could either do two things, give us closure and kill the vibe or continue not giving us answers and leave us feeling the exact same way the original game did.

Because I'll finally cut to the chase, I think Alan Wake 2 is pretty much a perfect video game. The new survival horror gameplay that is apparently just ripping off Resident Evil 2 now was great, the puzzles were great, the scares were legitimately good, the music was still amazing, the game was funnier and had even more quirky characters and moments than the first one, and the story was very well thought out! I would recommend it instantly. Despite all the differences from the original game in gameplay, tone and even featuring a new protagonist, it still felt like a perfect followup. But I beat the game, got to the ending...and to what I suppose is not justified shock, I felt exactly the same completing Alan Wake 2 as I did completing Alan Wake 1 all those years ago. I feel a longing. Maybe not as painful, but it's still there. But for the record, I think this is a really cool thing, I think that just proves Sam Lake and the team at Remedy haven't lost it, that they can make a game that feels just like the original. But....is that even a good thing? It makes me feel good, on some kind of dopamine level to think that they haven't lost it, but do we actually want those exact same vibes? Is it healthy? Playing the game, I was ready for something different, something new, but instead I kind of just got exactly what I paid for...I got more Alan Wake. Like, you feel me, right? It's intoxicating to have a perfect recreation of those same feelings, but I'm also really conflicted here. From a consumer point of view, it's great that we just got more of what we like. And in a lot of cases, this is what a "good" sequel is considered to be. But here's my thing about that; I've never felt like that is sustainable. Assume a franchise keeps going forever with the same vibes, eventually it's just going to get stuck in it's own tropes and formulas and themes. You need to introduce new elements to the story to keep things exciting, I think that's just how it is. Some people might tell you that it's possible to do something new with a franchise while sticking to all the same things, but I think that's total bullshit.

Eventually, you will hit a wall where there isn't a new topic to be explored without introducing some kind of tonal shift or alien plot element. I think that's just how stories fundamentally work. Everything is a runner that eventually runs out of track to run when it reaches the end. Why do you think so many sequels to things end up so repetitious? I think many creatives at heart are aware of this, and in today's environment of nostalgia and IP centric mania we have people attempting to do new things with certain franchises, but sometimes that just ends up pissing old head consumers of those things off! But we're not allowed to make anything new so what else are we to do?? Everything these days like fucking Star Wars or Batman needs to be beholden to it's own internal logic and rules and established characters and themes to work, but if you don't do anything new it's just not interesting! But if you be different you'll just make people mad! It pleases nobody! Hell, an example is Psychonauts 2. I've seen several people complain about Psychonauts 2 (one of my all time favourite games for the record) because of the tonal shifts from the first game (granted, a few other things too, like not focusing on the previous game's characters more, but that's also another thing that contributes to my argument). It's an incredible game that I believe is a true work of art, but would it have just been better if it were a new IP rather than a sequel? Maybe so. I think it manages to build upon the established lore, themes and rules of the first game magnificently while still retaining the same twisted sense of humor, but for some people, they just wanted a goofy cartoon game with interesting looking levels and instead got a careful examination of several individual's deeply held personal trauma. It's just a like, a different thing!

We don't need new IPs...no, new worlds, NOT because of new characters, or even new storylines. We need them because we need new rules for stories to function under. We need them in order to elicit new, different feelings in us.

I'm conflicted. I think having the same vibes as the original thing is truly intoxicating, but I worry that it's not healthy. I worry that this definition of a "good" sequel just creates a negative trend where we just can't allow anything new to be done with established franchises. If we will just hit a point where any change is instantly disagreeable on the basis of not fitting some perceived version of the original product. Like, it gets even more insane when everyone just has their own version of something in their head, it all depends on taste. I could probably go on about what I think makes a sensible evolution of something, or if we should even respect the notion of evolution in favor of a new creation, but this post is already excessively long so I think the easiest way to put it is that I think we just need a healthy balance of the old and the new In both established series and new series, and in what the big slop corporations feed us. I look forward to the day this trend of sequels pass and companies seek out new stuff again. Despite my complicated feelings on Alan Wake 2, I think it is almost an exception to this, because I feel it is a true work of art that came from a place of passion and hard work. It thoughtfully takes elements from the original game and expands upon them in ways that are fresh and interesting while also introducing crazy new elements that make it feel fresh! But I guess this sentiment could also vary from person to person depending on what the work of art is.

The point is, Play Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2!

and uhh, Alan Wake's American Nightmare. You can play it, I think it's cool too. Anyway, as a reward for getting to the end of this post, here's an old sketch of the main character from the comic book I'm working on meeting Alan Wake. Your reward is more reading.

[lavolamp]

Vera & The Monster

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the delivery company, along with your package, promises a great big smile from an optimistic youth

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bag

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