#40+ if the algorithm feels generous

[ryuumeowsuke]

how do people get decent notes on art theyre actually trying on

[violainebriat]

It's a bit weird typing out a full post here on tumblr. I used to be one of these artists that mostly focused on posting only images, the least amount of opinions/thoughts I could share, the better. Today, the art world online feels weird, not only because of AI, but also the algorithms on every platform and the general way our craft is getting replaced for close to 0 dollars. This website was a huge instrument in kickstarting my career as a professional artist, it was an inspiring place were artists shared their art and where we could make friends with anyone in the world, in any industries. It was pretty much the place that paved the way as a social media website outside of Facebook, where you could search art through tags etc. Anyhow, Tumblr still has a place in my heart even if all artists moved away from it after the infamous nsfw ban (mostly to Instagram and twitter). And now we're all playing a game of whack-a-mole trying to figure out if the social media platform we're using is going to sell their user content to AI / deep learning (looking at you reddit, going into stocks). On the Tumblr side, Matt Mullenweg's interviews and thoughts on the platform shows he's down to use AI, and I guess it could help create posts faster but then again, you have to click through multiple menus to protect your art (and writing) from being scraped. It's really kind of sad to have to be on the defensive with posting art/writing online. It doesn't even reflect my personal philosophy on sharing content. I've always been a bit of a "punk" thinking if people want to bootleg my work, it's like free advertisement and a testament to people liking what I created, so I've never really watermarked anything and posted fairly high-res version of my work. I don't even think my art is big enough to warrant the defensiveness of glazing/nightshading it, but the thought of it going through a program to be grinded into a data mush to be only excreted out as the ghost of its former self is honestly sort of deadening.

Finally, the most defeating trend is the quantity of nonsense and low-quality content that's being fed to the internet, made a million times easier with the use of AI. I truly feel like we're living what Neil Postman saw happening over 40 years ago in "amusing ourselves to death"(the brightness of this man's mind is still unrivaled in my eyes).

I guess this is my big rant to tell y'all now I'm gonna be posting crunchy art because Nightshade and Glaze basically make your crispy art look like a low-res JPEG, and I feel like an idiot for doing it but I'm considering it an act of low effort resistance against data scraping. If I can help "poison" data scrapping by wasting 5 minutes of my life to spit out a crunchy jpeg before posting, listen, it's not such a bad price to pay. Anyhow check out my new sticker coming to my secret shop really soon, and how he looks before and after getting glazed haha....

[paper-mario-wiki]

i've noticed a specific species of youtube videos with animators posting short animations (no more than 40 seconds usually), and it's some small skit, but there's ALWAYS a physically effeminate character that's animated just a little bit too carefully in a specific kind of way, and then even if the skit is about some other unrelated character or event, the carefully animated one will be in the thumbnail. it's very obvious to everyone what it is, and that kind of thing isn't necessarily new, but for these specific type of videos in this specific format. it doesn't sit quite right with me. maybe it's the soulless feeling of it, like "this was meant to make someone horny how to algorithm".

and like, usually i can just ignore that kind of thing. the objectification of women has been a part of advertising for longer than ive been alive, so it's not like i havent already figured out how to roll my eyes and ignore it (which, at least in my experience, is a necessary function for being able to maintain a general tolerance for much of what society is). but theres just. SOMETHING about that specific type of video. that just pisses me off for some reason, and i dont know precisely why.

[jesncin]

Lil' musing about Public Domain, AI theft and Transformative creativity

Old essay originally written on Cohost in February 2024. With additions.

I'm putting my thoughts here because I don't want to risk going viral for subtweeting discourse again, here we go! So with the Steamboat Willie Variant of Mickey Mouse going to public domain I've seen the usual cynical pushback over transformative art. Particularly in response to overplayed EDGY DARK WINNIE THE POOH and EDGY DARK STEAMBOAT MICKEY and YOUR CHILDHOOD THING DARK NOW that inevitably happens around this time.

But to group all transformative art as derivative, soul-less, profit-driven, lazy and "reliant on past successes" is frankly just...really silly? I saw a notable concept artist making this over-simplified talking point, and I find it odd that someone can look at the most visible (by being formulaic, provocative and made by rich people) examples of public domain adaptations and just generalize all art ever inspired by a thing as uninventive and compare artists who do that to being "ai-like". It feels like the false dichotomy constantly set between "real books" and fanfiction.

We've seen marginalized people reclaim cosmic horror from Lovecraftian fiction. I've seen queer people reckon with and reclaim the queer history of Peter Pan. There's something special about taking a familiar thing and informing it with a perspective that wasn't present in its original iteration. It takes a whole other part of your creative brain muscles to adapt and reimagine something that already exists. And it can be just as creatively fulfilling as making original stuff.

While it's important to recognize and remember the origin of archetypes in stories or movements in art, I think there's sometimes a misplaced reverence put towards the original version of something. Whenever I talk about how Asian writers like Gene Yang and Sarah Kuhn have more thoroughly integrated Superman's immigrant themes in their re-imaginings of his mythos than their white peers have, I get hit with the constant "hey remember Superman's creators were the sons of Jewish immigrants (who made racist jokes about Chinese people)" and "hey remember, Gene Yang and Gurihiru's Superman Smashes the Klan was based on a radio show arc made by WHITE people first (who made the story about a binary of Good white people vs Bad white people, along with centering how white people feel about racism)".

Especially if it's a means of centering white creatives, people love to dismiss the transformative contributions of marginalized people, but especially that of people of color. It took until 2016 for the World Fantasy Award to change their statuette to not be based after the face of renown racist H.P Lovecraft, after all.

Last year I gave myself the goal to do something "unnecessarily ambitious" with no plan of pitching/printing/selling it. Just "art for art's sake", something really not-algorithm-friendly. And yeah, that ended up being a fully rendered, 40-page martian manhunter fan comic. I did it for no other reason than being a huge fan of a severely unpopular character and feeling like there was a new story I really wanted to tell about the character that would never happen in canon with how little there's been written about him. I don't think it's fair to call writing 40 pages of a new origin story, drawing fully colored pages with unique re-designs, reading hours of martian manhunter comics to tie different aspects of his lore into coherent worldbuilding, putting that comic up for free for the few other Green Justice League Guy fans to read, as lazy, profit-driven, and soul-less.

There's tons of artists who do stuff like this all the time. It just comes off as being very out of touch to view true creativity as only existing one way. That transformative media must inherently be "less". One time a white guy pitched to me some ideas he had for Superman if he ever had a chance to write him, and I said "that sounds cool, you should write a fanfic about it" and another white guy (who felt the need to come to the first one's defense), viewed what I said as an insult. There's something about doing fanart because you enjoy it and don't need to profit out of everything you make that's seen as lesser than having the seal of canonicity from a company.

My motto with making needlessly ambitious fancomics is "You don't need to work for DC Comics to make DC comics". Because canonicity has nothing to do with what makes art special.

To bring this back to edgy Mickey Mouse spin offs, even if you do just want to make cliche mascot-horrified stuff because you enjoy it, then by all means go ahead! I always go back to this video Sagan Hawkes did about petscop-inspired video series. There's a running theme about grappling with the concept of Originality in Art in relation to youtube horror projects (the thesis comes around at 2:04:10), and some valuable words are shared in the collected interviews with web series creatives (2:18:47) in the end. SeireaSong (creator behind Diminish) talks about how misguided conversations surrounding "originality" can be (2:29:43). It's so worth it to watch when you have the time.

Anyway happy 2024! Be good to each other.

[storkmuffin]

Male Idol Groups & Korean Perception

I've been asked by more than one foreign Atiny how Ateez as a group or a particular member is perceived or thought of in Korea, by the general public, and I really had no source material to go into because of the following: (a) I'm weird, ND etc and blatantly dgaf about stuff that 'everyone' cares about so the vice versa has always also been true, (b) fan forums and leading K-Atiny blogs on Naver and TheQoo and such are like-talking-to-like so it's impossible to get a big picture, (c) the general news media coverage of idols, especially male Idol groups tends to either be (i) promotional material put out by the Idol companies themselves or (ii) coverage of scandals about drugs, alcohol, violence or rape.

The algorithm took it upon itself to show me content made by three Korean Dudes made a pair of interesting videos, one called The Dark Ages of Male Idols and the other, Idol History in 40 Minutes on their youtube channel where they discuss Kpop.

They have just over 8K subscribers, and it's three dudes who don't share their name or their faces, so it's not like they are a big deal or anything, but I wanted to watch it when the algorithm showed it to me precisely because these are three guys who clearly consider themselves the 'average, standard, middle of the road, Korean man on the street.' I mean, I'm in what I consider the Golden Age of myi fandom experience since it only began in relation to anything to do with Kpop only from October 2024, and already I've been to my first concert in March 2025, and feeling very excited about the prospect of fighting to the death for the July 2025 concert in Incheon. Anyway this is the video (which unfortunately has no English or any other translation).

The question overlaid over these darling faces (at least four of of these people are darling to me but I have no idea who any of the others are) is, IS THIS HOW IT ENDS FOR MALE IDOLS?

When they put this video together, the OP put San (top row, second from left), the guy that made the Harry Potter content with Wooyoung (top row, second from right), Hongjoong (bottom row, second from left), and Felix of Stray Kids (bottom right corner). I wonder if they shoved this into generative AI and said, make me a table of 25 Boy Idol faces and put it into a table, and this is what was spat out. ( A later image shows that Lee Know of Skz is also included in the dead center).

The basic thesis of these videos is a regurgitation of things I've read already (and dutifully posted about here): Girl groups in KPop aim for popularity with the general public. They use songs that rely on hooks, don't introduce any concept that is challenging, nor any dances that someone putting in a bit of effort wouldn't be able to imitate. Boy groups have decided to go all in on creating a core fandom that buys everything they suggest, and they use two different ways of bringing in and hooking that fandom:

Very complicated lore, and shipping.

These three OPs profess a lot of "Who the hell is this?' and "Never heard of them" types of reactions about everyone but they do know to be very afraid of BTS's ARMY fandom, because they're like No matter what else we say, we are not talking about BTS because they are their own category.

I found this very amusing, in a bitter way. Also I still don't know and will never know all the names of everyone in that band, because they're not my thing.

From the History of Idols content, they make the point that 3rd Gen are immensely financially successful (they sell huge numbers of CDs and do endless rounds of very successful world tours). They mention Stray Kids and Boy Next Door, specifically, and if Stray Kids is 3rd Gen, so is Ateez, because they debuted in the same calendar year. The comment that the 'average Korean guy' has though about any of these male Idol groups is "Who the hell are you, though?"

Guy 1 on top asks, Do you know any members of Stray Kids, assuming you've heard of them? And the answer is a unanimous No.

And they wonder why that is, given the chart with all the pink highlights: These are the best selling albums, globally, of 2024, and all the pink ones are male Idol groups. To these three guys, none of these groups or individuals are famous (but for whoever belongs to BTS).

What's the problem? These Korean Everyman men identify three:

The music is noisy and ugly.

The lore is impenetrable and ponderous, making the songs incomprehensible on top of being noisy unless you're already in the fandom, since they tend to be shaped by the lore.

Shipping culture, specifically Business Gay Performance (a Konglish descriptor) makes the whole of Male Idol culture sick, a violation of human rights of the artist, shameful, harmful to the artists, and fundamentally makes it impossible for the artists to see themselves as musicians nor take pride in their work, making general popularity impossible. 알페스 ( Real Person Slash - RPS) is also a huge problem, and it makes the three Korean Everyman sick to their stomach to consider that young performers are being forced (and they see it as entirely forced) to do degrading things like pretending (and they see it as entirely pretense and nothing else) to be in love with or fucking their bandmate.

When in the course of research these guys learned about slash fiction, members flirting and enacting romantic dynamics with other members, and the whole model of idol companies mining fanfiction for content and marketing strategy, they profess that they felt unalloyed, horrified disbelief. They end the segment discussing the horrors of shipping by wishing that male Idol groups and their (unspoken but indicated to be female) fans go back to "healthy" ways of loving each other.

They also blame male Idol fandom for 'ruining' kpop. Allegedly, fans of male Idol groups will indiscriminately buy anything that is marketing to them, and the record and entertainment companies respond to money, so the whole idol music industry is, according to them, locked into this terrible deaths spiral of 'sick' RPF culture, straight men pretending to be gay for the money, and unlistenable music that nobody but the core fandom that is obsessed with the lore can get anything out of.

The OPs wonder if male Idols could ever actually be happy in their careers, though they make money, if no Korean knows who the hell they are, they aren't really actually famous at home, and when their parents or friends search for their names, what comes up are word porno about their fucking their coworkers.

So what's the solution? The ray of hope? it's songs like Get a Guitar and Boom Boom Base by Riize.

Guy 3 was particularly full of praise about these songs. I have to say, this is where they lost me entirely, because both these songs like they're 100% copyright infringement of several songs each, are incredibly processed and the voices are so completely indistinct so as to be AI generated. But this is the kind of 'sound' that these self-proclaimed S. Korean everyman thinks is sophisticated, palatable, masculine, and cool.

What I reallly was amused by was these guys' confidence in their ignorance, and their comfort with positing that whatever they were discomfited by must be extremely offputting to all other, 'normal' people. I also tend to subscribe to the God Forbid Women Do Anything philosophy, so that's all I want to say about shipping and RPF and these dude's commentary on that, except to say that this might be a useful hint on figuring out why certain members of Ateez for example are deadset against providing any fodder for shipping materials, others are ambivalent, and some go all in some of the time. The correct, general public opinion is to disapprove of that sort of fan service.

[max1461]

Thought for a moment in the 2010s that we were entering a new serious era (e.g. 1920s, 30s, 40s), but it seems that we're instead in an increasingly tacky era (50s, 60s, 70s). Like look at the change in YouTube. Well you all are textheads you don't do video, I know that. But like. In 2017 there was ContraPoints. Agree or disagree with her opinions, what she was doing was conceptually and aesthetically serious. Even her early, low-production-value stuff. She was talking about incels and other internet shit, but the internet is part of the real world, that's fine. In fact that's what gave me hope for another serious era, people were finally talking about internet stuff the way 1920s German intellectuals or whatever talked about the cultural trends of their day. Maybe because Contra has half a philosophy PhD and was explicitly influenced by those German intellectuals.

Another example from a totally disjoint cultural niche was Digi a.k.a. Trixie a.k.a. Ygg Studios or whatever they go by now. Drunk, smelly, and unkempt—yes. Or at least so went the persona. Talking seriously about anime—also yes. When they claimed they were the only good anime reviewer on the internet it made a lot of people mad. But they were right!

There were thinkers, we had thinkers. My generation, or roughly my generation, had thinkers. To be clear, when I include Contra here I'm not including all of her ilk, I'm not including the leftist-theory-regurgitators and so on. But Contra herself was a thinker! Digi was a thinker! We had thinkers.

But that era is over now, on YouTube at least. I go on there and it's all algorithmic drivel. I look for anime content and as I've explained it's all about #hype and #epic and how the new season of whatever #hits different and other empty meaningless bullshit. No analysis, no thought, fundementally unserious bullshit. Tacky! It's tacky! The the YouTube thumbnail O-face is fucking 70s-ass fake wood paneling tacky bullshit!

MrBeast. I've never seen a MrBeast video but I hate him for what he represents. I used to watch this channel called Wranglerstar, he made videos about different types of axes and forest fire fighting equipment and various other stuff. "Modern homesteading" I believe was the tagline. And it was always evident that he was a far-right guy but who gives a shit, his videos where good. Serious videos about interesting topics, that a fucking normal guy might watch. Well around 2020 he basically started flooding his channel with covid conspiracy bullshit and "the Chinese are going to attack us any day!" bullshit and other unserious crap. And I had to stop watching. How could I find any of that compelling? It's vapid nonsense.

And I don't know if it's a shift in the algorithm or people becoming more savvy to the algorithm or what, but all of YouTube is like this now. Vapid clickbait empty meaningless bullshit for another tacky commercialized bullshit era.

And you know, I felt like it might just be localized to YouTube for a while, but I started to look around, and it just feels like everything is like this. Backsliding to the tacky times. God I hate tackiness. I hate unseriousness. I'm having a little meltdown. At least SMW kaizo hacks are having a renaissance. People are doing serious shit in that space, serious shit that is also not anachronistic, you know, it's kept up with the modern world. It addresses modern concerns (fun to play hard Mario). But it's serious. People are serious. One of the few serious things happening in my orbit.

Even in science it feels like people aren't serious anymore. You know, standard Sabine Hossenfelder complaint about particle physics. But I don't really know enough about that to say. Get the vibe that biology is still serious these days.

To be clear, everything I'm saying here is pure vibes. I'm just saying shit. I'm just saying shit that I feel. But I'll be deeply disappointed if I have to live my youth in another tacky era, god damn it. Even the 80s seem like they were better than this.

[sophieinwonderland]

I feel like what im gonna say about AI is a different t total position and may sound """bad""" when I didn't mean but I believe AI is making more. "dumber'? Because if you give something that literally does it FOR you. You are not gonna learn and (some or a lot) of people use it in high school, college, and academia in general I think it leads to an Idiocary-like situation at some point in the future. Im being fair here and I've only seen the environmental stuff but here we go. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-01787-8 https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-01787-8 From the second study IT stated this "found a concerning trend where users exhibit an over-reliance on AI dialogue systems, often accepting their generated outputs, AI hallucination, without validation. This overdependence is exacerbated by cognitive biases where judgments deviate from rationality and heuristics or the use of mental shortcuts, leading to uncritical acceptance of AI-generated information." This mean that most people just take on its face. Which you could argue for "oh its their fault if they fell it without fact-checking" the study FOCUSES on STUDENTS. So are you just saying that people who are just started life and (maybe) naive and didn't think to fact-check what the AI says because after all. It fed on a lot of data it probably will be 100% correct (when its not) (yes I admit I USE Grammarly however it shouldn't devalue my argument and in all things considered very minor and doesn't really do a negative impact) Heres a fat table (disorganized tho from the study) https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7/tables/2

(EFL learners are just people who are learning English as their second language.) https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7/tables/2 From the same study it also said

"Duhaylungsod and Chavez (2023) investigated 16 college students’ interactions with AI dialogue systems for academic tasks. The results indicated that AI dialogue systems efficiently decreased the time dedicated to research and information retrieval."" as well from the review "The study reports the potential reduction in critical thinking skills when depending on AI (75%), the risk of excessive reliance on technology (73%), and the prevalence of misinformation and inaccuracies (70%). Furthermore, there is substantial apprehension regarding the ethical implications of unintentional plagiarism (69%) and algorithmic biases (40%)." 75 PER CENT. PERCENT

Yes! The brain drain in academics is something I think should be a huge concern!

Given how many high schoolers have used AI to cheat on essays and other work, it might be a good idea to just keep essay writing and research in the classroom on school computers where AI wouldn't be available. Otherwise, you are going to end up with a generation that graduates high school without the skills they were supposed to learn.

But this doesn't really work as well in higher education like in those studies you cited. Especially online education.

There is a high probability a lot of people graduating college in the coming years may not have much of an understanding of the subjects they studied because they took shortcuts with AI.

This is another one of those things though that's... well, the genie is out of the bottle, so how do we as a society deal with it?

Can I say that at least part of this is cultural too though? In the early 2000s, it seemed like everyone was taught not to trust everything they read on the internet.

What happened to that culture?

What happened to the culture of being skeptical of what you see online?

Because it seems like so many people just accept whatever they read uncritically, and this is a cultural shift that started before the ChatGPT era.

We need to bring back skepticism and critical thinking in the age of AI!

[troydooly]

I have the privilege to mentor some young guys almost every day. This week, one of them found out that his ex-wife had remarried. It might not seem like a big deal to some, but he’s only 25. Another guy I know is 35 and has already been married three times.

While chatting, he looked at me and said, “It’s not like when you were young, Troy.” I reminded him that I got married at 18, separated by 21, and was divorced by 22. Suddenly, a single dad with two boys was thinking, ‘No girl will ever want us!’

I have a couple of young women in my life who feel the same way. One is in her early 30s and divorced, and the other is in her 40s. Both want to find lasting, meaningful love.

Interestingly, they all feel like life isn’t what it used to be. Why is that? What’s really changed?

I think we’re dealing with two major things these days:

1. Comparison: With social media everywhere, we constantly compare ourselves to others based on their perfect online lives. People put on a show, hiding their struggles and insecurities behind this ideal image that looks flawless.

2. Self-indulgence: Instead of taking a hard look at why we’re feeling what we feel, we let algorithms feed us what we want to hear, which just keeps us feeling unsatisfied.

For example, we scroll through our feeds and see all these “happy, successful” images of others, making us crave that same lifestyle. Then we start searching for things we think will create a life like theirs.

Before we know it, those algorithms are hitting us with more articles and images we want. At first, we get a kick from it, but then reality hits hard. Our excitement fades, and we might end up feeling worse than we did before. It’s like the body keeps score!

Next thing you know, we’re saying stuff like, “Why can’t you be like him?” or “You used to take care of yourself, like her.” Thoughts like, “Why can’t you have grades like your siblings or classmates?” pop up too.

Yet, we look in the mirror and the self-talk gets brutal: “I’m fat, I’m skinny, my body doesn’t look right, I don’t look the same as the guy/girl in the picture.

And sometimes it has nothing to do with our bodies. Sometimes it how other’s lives look so peaceful and calm, while ours feels like a Nightmere on Elm street.

These feelings of NOT Being Good Enough were less common in earlier generations. So we end up stuck in a fantasy that feels more like a nightmare than an adventure.

As I listened to these young adults talk about wanting the kind of relationship I have, I asked them to describe what they think my relationship looks like.

I won’t spill the beans on their perceptions, but I’ll throw out three questions for you to consider:

1. What three words define a healthy relationship for you?

2. Are you living by those three words in your current relationship?

3. Do you make excuses for people in your life when they keep crossing those important boundaries, especially when it's you?

If you want the kind of love you’re dreaming about, it all starts with you! You’ve got to figure out what I’ve learned and begin working on your PIES:

- Physical Self

- Intellectual Self

- Emotional Self

- Spiritual Self

You can’t do this by yourself! We weren’t made to go solo, scrolling through feeds, binge-watching videos, or dreaming about “what could have been.”

More bluntly, you weren’t meant to build relationships based on the false security of an OnlyFans world—feeling so hurt and lonely that you end up isolating yourself while pretending to be wanted and loved in a completely transactional way. On both ends!

[scumgristle]

from 1-800-HOT-DUCK

Cursed media corrupts the feed. For a second, something leaks out like a raw wound in the 200mph section of rotten dot com. Like Christine Chubbuck, the TV news anchor who went live on-air in 1974. After going through the motions of the daily news, she quickly said the words: “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts…” And then she pulled a gun from under her desk and shot herself in the head. Coworkers thought it was special effects at first and laughed it off until the blood pumped too hard onto the floor of the station. Her final critique of the spectacle was the broadcast itself. It left the coppery aftertaste of agency in the mouth of a system that commodified violence. The tape is supposedly lost, confiscated by police because it’s, well, nasty. But you don’t need to see it to feel it. You already know what it means.

When media fails to perform its assigned role, it occupies the cursed airways. It doesn’t absorb you into the machine. Instead, it spits you out like afterbirth. Grieving the loss of reality becomes visible; it refuses to be contained within the frame, rupturing into an experience close to the bone. Media that says what it’s not supposed to say is the nightmare of civilized society. It gives us back what the spectacle took, which is proximity to the real. It is the deep ache for a state of existence that is gone forever, overwritten by the algorithm and branding. That grief is wildly alive and sentient, tucked in the corners of the screen. It wants nothing more than for you to bear witness while you search for love, community, the natural world, anything real. Anything. We’re often unaware of what is real, save for fleeting moments of horror and recognition that we’ve strayed too far away from the tracks.

I run an archive of work sourced from the internet, often scraped from the bottom of some really disturbing digital barrels. Some media feels wrong in the room, like it brought something with it. I’ve watched files so unclean that I’ve had to open the windows and rosemary my whole house after.

Magnetic media remembers. I don’t know if ghosts live in machines, but I know the shape of grief does. Like a white sheet floating in the dark. Every playback is a small haunting, placed onto the tongue of the passive consumer like a sacrament by something that wants us to remember. A Sophia of syndication.

When I watch old files, passed through too many rounds of digital decay, especially the ones worn down by love, grief, and desperation, I’m not moved by nostalgia. I long for contact and memory in a time when disconnect and erasure drives sales. Cursed media, haunted commercials, suicide-ridden kids’ shows brush against something raw and necessary. They wear their damage openly. Under harsh lights, in forgotten aspect ratios, pixels lost like a stop sign in a suburban town, they show you your own hurt, and the generational legacy of trauma and longing that we have to reckon with or it will return. Like a recurring nightmare.

We are lonelier than ever. Caught in an endless doom scroll, drowned in curated intimacy. Loneliness has become the product, the platform, and the spectacle. Cursed media looks you dead in the eyes, watching you back.

The things we forget are still here, and they want you to know: We were alone. Just like you. Witnessing. - Chrissy Mare Jones

[emotionallychargedtowel]

shuffled (sort of)

I was tagged for this by @lurkingshan and it looked like fun, so I made up a way to participate even though I don't listen to music on any of those services that people tend to use for these things. The closest I get is listening to things on youtube so I made a list of songs the YT algorithm suggested to me. That list was a bit long so I used a random number generator to pick ten. Well, I really hit paydirt. I couldn't have come up with a better list if I had chosen it all myself.

And then weeks went by and I sat on this nearly-finished post for no good reason! Now I'm dusting it off and getting it out of my drafts.

I'm never big on tagging people on these things, it makes me incredibly anxious. But after this much time has passed, I really can't imagine doing it. That said, if anyone reads this and feels inspired to do it too, please consider yourself tagged.

Orange Juice - I Can’t Help Myself

One of the best tracks on my favorite Orange Juice album. This is a really good distillation of their sound that shows their influences really clearly (postpunk, classic soul, the Velvet Underground, Chic, the Buzzcocks, etc. etc.) while showing how they did something with them that's completely their own. It doesn't hurt that no one sounds quite like Edwyn Collins.

SZA - Ghost in the Machine

For a couple of years now I've been trading song recommendations with a close friend of mine. In other words, we take turns giving each other a song to listen to. It's been great, in part because our tastes are pretty danged different (though with enough overlap to have common ground). I've found out about a lot of amazing stuff through her but I don't think there's a song that has stuck with me more from this project than Ghost in the Machine. This song just keeps giving me goosebumps after...it's been a year and change, I think.

Taemin - Criminal

Years ago I asked my old internet friend Kate (who I've been interacting with since our livejournal days) about kpop. She has always been better than I am at keeping up with new music and I knew she knew a thing or two about it. She gave me a short list of songs to check out and Criminal was on it. It didn't quite click at first but it stuck in my brain somehow. I came back to it later and boom. It clicked big time. It reminds me of a few things. The la-la-la part definitely has a debt to Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head and the lead-up to the chorus reminds me of Roy Orbison's I Drove All Night. It has a retro quality that probably makes it more palatable to a middle-aged listener like myself but when I hear the synthpop tones of my childhood through a contemporary filter I don't get nostalgia so much as a distorted time-warp feeling (in a nice way).

Brave Girls - We Ride

A while back I was emailing back and forth with another friend of mine who I talk to about music a lot--wow, I didn't know that was going to be such a theme here, but I love it--and we were talking about new and old East Asian pop genres. He made me a list of a few recent kpop and jpop songs that he thought were reminiscent of city pop, an 80s genre out of Japan that's a favorite of his. There were quite a few winners on that list but this song is the one I've listened to the most. There's another theme: sounds from my formative years filtered through a contemporary lens. I can see why my friend associated it with city pop. The combination of disco/funk elements (like that choppy Nile Rodgers guitar part) and soft pop (the harmonies, the synth strings) fits right into that category. These elements were everywhere when I was a kid but they didn't get put together in this way.

Tsunami - Be Like That

This song about a has-been ex-boyfriend is more relatable to me in my 40s than it was when I first heard it in my 20s, but that's how old Jenny Toomey was when she wrote it. I've never gotten super into Tsunami despite liking a couple of their songs quite a lot (this one, and Valentine, from their album Deep End). I should probably revisit them. They always had a way with washy guitars and interesting chords, and Jenny Toomey's voice is legendary for a reason. (The version of I Only Have Eyes for You that she recorded with Grenadine, her side project with Mark Robinson from Unrest and the drummer from the Eggs, makes really good use of that voice. It's fucking exquisite and literally gives me goosebumps.)

Spoon - Me and the Bean

This one's a bit personal. I was active in the indie rock scene in Austin in the early 'aughts when Spoon was transitioning from their status as a cautionary tale of major label abandonment* into the period where they reached greater heights on an indie than that major label ever would have allowed. That scene wasn't very big so it's not surprising that in addition to Girls Can Tell-era Spoon being nearly omnipresent for a period of my life, I also have some personal connections there. Anyway, people seldom notice that this song is a cover. I never saw the Sidehackers, the band who originally performed the song (I'm not sure if they even managed to record it). But if this song ends up being what people remember most about them, it would make a respectable legacy. I don't know the later Spoon stuff as well as this era, but back then, there weren't a lot of Spoon originals that were as overtly emotional as this one. (You didn't typically hear a line like "I have your blood inside my heart" in an original Spoon song.) Britt Daniel may not have written this, but he doesn't hold back in his performance. So I always appreciated how it balanced out the more emotionally reserved style of the other songs on Girls Can Tell.

*They channeled the experience into songwriting to good effect. "The Agony of Lafitte," about the A&R guy that signed them to Elektra before the label screwed them over, is probably my favorite Spoon song.

the Chills - Pink Frost

I feel like so much has been written about this song that there isn't much point trying to say anything about it. It has a truly important place in the history of New Zealand indie music, and the events surrounding it are pretty interesting. But mostly it's just a really well-crafted piece of dark, sneakily poppy post-postpunk. Among people my age with similar tastes to mine, I can't think of a song that ended up on more mixtapes. (Though a friend of mine always used to say he regretted that he couldn't really put it on mixtapes for girls he was interested in because of the whole murdered girlfriend aspect of it.)

Veronica Falls - Misery

This song is obscenely catchy. It only takes one listen to get me singing it to myself in the kitchen for months. It's pretty fun to sing to oneself, in the kitchen or otherwise, but I'm sure it would be a million times more so if you could reproduce the harmonies with a partner. Veronica Falls really are unparalleled in the harmony department, and it's even more enjoyable because they usually use those pretty harmonies to sing about morbid, depressing things. And that juxtaposition never feels like a schtick to me, which it easily could in the wrong hands.

Bolbbalgan4 - Dream

I've gotten into quite a few songs because they were featured on kdramas, but this is the only song where it happened the other way around—I liked it first, then watched Hwarang because of it. There was a video for it on youtube with clips from the series and the song made the show seem more interesting. Not to imply anything negative about the series, I think there's a lot to be said for it. But it was this song that made me want to watch it. I love this kind of super emotional kpop song that's so plentiful in kdramas. Maybe it's because during the decades when rock music was de facto banned in South Korea the country's dominant genre was the ballad. Maybe it's because of that particular brand of despair that kdramas excel at so much, coming up in a slightly different setting. This type of song is just more emotional in a certain way that any other genre I've run across. And this particularly example is, to my mind, the pièce de résistance.

Shearwater - Breaking the Yearlings

This is one of the highlights of Animal Life, which is my favorite Shearwater album. It took me a while to warm up to Shearwater. The thing that really sold me on them was going on a whim to see Jonathan Meiburg play a solo acoustic set in front of a tiny audience at the Cactus Cafe. I think maybe some friends of mine opened for him or something, because something must have gotten me in the door. I ended up being really glad I went. Meiburg's set was downright mesmerizing, and I was sold on Shearwater from that point on. This particular song gets in my head a lot because the washing machine in my building puts out this one repetitive tone when you're starting a load of clothes that is really close to the opening notes of this song.

[themilaarchive]

the loss of a collective aesthetic

Every generation, or at least decade, is thought to have a distinct aesthetic. The 40s were utilitarian but still traditional until the New Look was introduced and dominated the 50s. The 60s saw the rise of skirt hemlines and British-mod inspired fashion, led by the new middle-class teen consumers. The 70s were earthy tones with 1940s inspired menswear inspiring womenswear. The 80s were vibrant and neon with over exaggerated hair, shoulder pads, and jewelry. The 90s, on the other hand, were led by minimalism, with some influences of grunge and goth. The 2000s were mainly gothic/preppy inspired. The 2010s were very 1950s inspired with their peplums and A-line skirts. But, by 2024, there is no distinct style we can assign this decade. Why is this?

Defying Categorization Under Increased Surveillance

As tech advanced in the 21st century and social media became prevalent among all demographics, surveillance increased too (Farah). There have been multiple cases where social media companies have stolen their users' information and categorized them to sell to third-party groups. One of the most recent cases is when millions of profiles were harvested from Facebook and given to a third-party party to benefit certain parties in the US 2016 presidential election and Brexit (Cadwalladr and Graham-Harrison). Facebook failed to alert these people even after learning of the data breach (Cadwalladr and Graham-Harrison). Most websites now require a subscription in which you are expected to happily hand over identifiable information like phone numbers, addresses, and credit cards. Some governments and police have begun using information from the internet to identify criminals, even though this may lead to serious racial profiling. 

Like every generation before it, Generation Z’s instinct will be to go against mainstream culture. Past trends often had a select number of sub-trends. For example, in the 90s, counterculture fashion trends had sub-trends like grunge, punk, and goth. These people were easily categorizable due to the distinct elements found in one sub-trend but not another. This generation, most likely to avoid this categorization by institutions whose values are openly questioned, has blurred these sub-trends and promoted mixing-and-matching instead. Accordingly, there will not be one singular trend the majority of people will follow and companies have to abandon their “one-size-fits-all” approach to the youth (Farrah).

Incentivized fast fashion via social media algorithm

Social media, especially short-form social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, pays creators with affiliate links They also have their own online shopping tools like TikTok shop. Proportionately, more people want to be an influencer or content creator as a profession—57% of Gen Zers to be exact (Malinsky). For users, it has become incredibly easy to click and buy a whole new wardrobe without considering the impact of overconsumption ( Venkatraman). Also, since these platforms are largely short form, it means that creators are forced to compete for the users attention and engagement. As a result, they have to introduce new items on a rotary basis to keep their stats, resulting in multiple trends that rise and fall quickly. People feel the need to keep up due to the fear of being “cheugy,” which is the following of outdated 2010s trends (Venkatraman).

These micro-trends have also been amplified by fast fashion. Whether or not microtrends have caused fast fashion or fast fashion has caused microtrends can be debated. But, its impact on how easily people can buy into new trends monthly, or even daily, is undeniable. Fast fashion brands like Zara and Shien copy popular designs often seen on celebrities within a short time frame, sometimes as soon as 24 hours, and sell them for affordable prices. The promotion of overconsumption and its accessibility has allowed people to look widely different from each other. There is no longer one distinct trend that reins supreme.

Tech ruins attention spans and everything is blurred

Have you noticed how the major trends since the turn of the 21th century have not changed? By major trends, I mean the everyday clothes people wear. In schools, for instance, the common uniform for students, at least public school students, are pajama pants and hoodies. They lack the soul, as I would describe it, other generations had with their every-day clothes. 

The environmental conditions for this generation are widely different from past generations. The 20th century oversaw chaotic events (Balugo). However, if you were trying to remember the events of the 20th century, you’d probably be able to name these events in order. With tech, though, time has sort of blurred. Algorithms and personalization of how and what news people get and ruined attention spans make this harder for the 21st century. This contributes to the lack of collectiveness we feel. Even old counterculture movements led to mainstream trends eventually (Balugo). But this took time—time you don’t have with microtrends!

In the 20th century, trends were more collective with older people engaging in trends like 80s neon (Balugo). It was not exclusive to teens, 30 year olds, or 60 year olds. Everyone had a similar aesthetic going on. Now, perhaps due to the increased amount of choice people have, older people do not join in on trends as they used to. This causes a divide between the looks of older and younger generations. Also, thrift stores, places where you can get one-of-a-kind items have become more popular and mainstream now. They are a way to access old trends and pull inspiration. This leads to individualistic choices that harm mass culture. 

In conclusion, the loss of a collective aesthetic is a symptom of a much larger issue: the loss of true shared experiences. It’s not only sad that life has become so much more chaotic due to tech, fast fashion, and consequential digital surveillance, but it’s even sadder that society has in some ways deteriorated in ways that make it harder and harder to return it to the way it once was. There isn’t much more to say other than the days of buying quality clothing items for an affordable price in a local store are slowly being phased out, and with that comes the connection we have to an aesthetic. Share what you think below!

[the-adoptable-marketplace]

Anthro Bighorn Sheep adopt-OPEN

-$40

-$5+up-tier Patreon supporters get a -$5 discount -MUST be 18+ in order to purchase this design; please confirm with me that you are 18+ in order to adopt this design -Please state clearly whether you are adopting the design as-is( Gender-Neutral/Androgyne ) when claiming, or if you wan the design to have other options based on this linked reference/options menu: https://sta.sh/02dxsaleqw9s -ONCE THE EDITS HAVE BEEN MADE, THEY ARE LOCKED IN & NO FURTHER EDITS/ALTERATIONS WILL BE MADE/ACCEPTED Please comment ONLY if you are claiming to purchase Please comment ONLY if you are claiming to purchase Please comment ONLY if you are claiming to purchase GENERAL COMMENTS WILL BE HIDDEN AND IGNORED -First come first serve+comment on the adopt listing to claim -No holds/reserves longer than 12hrs -Kofi or paypal only -once your claim has been confirmed via reply, I will send to you a kofi link to send the payment to-if you do not have a kofi, please provide a paypal email I can send an invoice to -Please have payment ready within THE SAME DAY of claiming+confirmation+having an invoice sent to you, otherwise the adopt WILL go back up for sale if payment cannot be made -If I do not reply to your comment claim, or payment, it is most likely that I am either away from the computer or am asleep+I will respond/reply when I am next available -If for any reason you KNOW that you will not be able to respond/send payment within that hour, PLEASE LET ME KNOW BEFOREHAND+HOW LONG YOU WILL BE AWAY; I will go ahead & hold onto the design for you for X amount of hours if you are FOR CERTAIN still going to purchase the design; I will, however not hold the design for longer than 12hrs -Please leave THE NOTES/COMMENTS SECTION BLANK FOR ALL PAYMENTS -Please be sure to confirm to me that payment has been sent, please let me know via comment reply or PM just in case I do not get the Kofi ping for it -Any further gender alterations, backstory, name and other post-adoption alterations are entirely up to the person who adopts this character; do not ask me to make any further alterations OUTSIDE OF WHAT I ALREADY OFFER for you, they WILL be refused -You may trade/give the character away/resell later on if you no longer feel connected to them -Nothing created by me may be used in any blockchain-related technology, this includes NFTs, cryptocurrency, or future inventions in the space -Nothing created by me may be used in AI algorithms or any form of machine learning/training

-All copyrighted source materials are the property of their respective owners-I DO NOT CLAIM OWNERSHIP of these franchises; all character designs based on these materials are considered fan-characters & are thereby transformative works & fall under Fair Use

[faerspell]

Some US political complaining- feel free to ignore

It’s like the more I become engaged with the US progressive/leftist movement, the more I see that so many people just don’t know how politics works.

Why hasn’t UN/US/EU stopped Israel? For the same reason they haven’t stopped Russia- short of an invasion and setting up a new government, they can’t. Nations don’t answer to any higher entity. UN is a conflict resolution organization between established nation-states. It’s “power” is entirely dependent on countries wanting to abide by it. The UN isn’t some international cop who can force countries to do what it wants- and certainly not countries with highly advanced economies and nuclear weapons. The most the UN can do is use economic sanctions and international aid as leverage- but those really don’t work on countries with self-sufficient economies. And nobody wants to invade a country with an ambiguously sized nuclear arsenal (like Israel’s) because it’s a terrible idea.

And the single-issue voter thing is every bit as concerning as the most radical anti-choice activists I grew up around. This is how the GOP has managed to generate and maintain such high support and turnout to help achieve their other goals and now the evangelicals are eating out of their hand. But in the progressive/leftist sphere, it’s being used to stop people from voting, or to vote third party.

And the third party thing is another wild thing to see. Like, do people genuinely think they can get 40+ million people to vote for Dr. Stein when the vast majority of America has never heard of her? The internet, especially Tumblr and anything with an algorithm, is an echo chamber, certainly, but do so many people in the progressive/leftist movement not realize they’re a tiny percentage of the national voter base?? Dr. Stein’s highest voter score was 20%- and that was a local election. She’s never gotten more than 1% in a national election. Self identified Liberals are only 25% of the voter base, and of those, progressives are an even smaller portion.

Like. Maybe 2 people in 10 are progressive. That’s it. As a political minority, we need to be realistic here. We need to know how the system works, what the rest of our allies think, and act accordingly. We’re not going to win an election by ourselves. Period. That’s not an if/maybe- that’s math. But we can definitely lose an election. And that’s what happened in 2016.

Democracy is about compromise and progress happens slowly and gradually. I don’t know why that’s so hard for people to comprehend- and being in a minority means having to make the compromises to get the majority onboard. Sure, it’s annoying, and frustrating, but that’s how things work. We can talk all we want about changing the system, but that’s going to take just as long to accomplish. And no, “the revolution” is not an option. But Bangladesh! Bangladesh has a parliament, not a bicameral congress and a separate presidency. It’s far easier to bring down a parliamentary government without destroying the entire political infrastructure.

[kfcdoubledown]

I bought Nothing Ears! (2024)

Picture credit to PCMag.

I'm a very big fan of the Nothing aesthetic but haven't committed to any of their non-earbuds products, because unfortunately I like having specs and RAM more than I like having LEDs on the back of my phone. That said I've bought all of their flagship earbuds at this point and liked the Ear (1)s enough to later buy the Ear (2)s, and after unfortunately setting one earbud through the laundry and the case simultaneously deciding it didn't want to charge the remaining earbud, I am now in possession of Nothing Ears at $150.

What a horrible naming scheme they've got going! They're already giving up the (1) (2) thing and not doing (3) and just dropping that. Now it's not clear what the latest model is actually supposed to be without checking release dates. Ear (1), Ear (2), Ear (A) floor models, and Ear? Fuck off.

Despite the schizophrenic reuse of their own case and earbud design for the third generation in a row and their inability to settle on a name after giving up the (Numbered) aesthetic the Ears are excellent, they fit comfortably into the ear, have pinch touch-controls on the stem, and look super sleek. The default controls are intuitive and have forward/reverse/play already bound, with a pinch-and-hold maneuver flipping through noise-cancellation settings. Pinch controls also aren't susceptible to water, unlike some Google Pixel Buds Pro I have that seize their touch controls if my fingers are damp. Pairing is quick and can be done with two devices simultaneously. Low-lag mode is still just as anemic as it is on any other wireless headset that claims the feature, I really don't think it's gonna happen for any earbuds at this point, just stop trying to give us wireless as a replacement for wired.

Noise cancellation on Nothing earbuds have an excellent bonus in that you can actually use the feature with just one earbud in. Very good for noisy work environments that still require you be attentive (like mine) or if you just don't want the volume at 75% of the way up on your phone just to hear everything. Transparency mode being the only available setting on basically any other wireless in-ears can eat me, I want to make just one ear feel full sometimes. Either way Nothing's algorithm for transparency mode and noise-cancellation is actually very good, and noise-cancellation especially shines for the aforementioned purpose of using it as a form of volume control. Detail in sound is not lost with noise-cancellation, but can be lost with transparency mode.

Sound quality is quite good, Nothing Ears come equipped with ceramic drivers (more of a marketing point than an actual benefit) and a mostly complete equalizer in the Nothing X app. A bass boost feature and a much more generalized equalizer feature also exist. Supports the AAC, LDAC, LHDC 5.0, and SBC audio codecs. Battery life is estimated by Nothing to be 8 1/2 hours on a full charge for both buds and a cumulative 40 1/2 hours with a full case charge. Sound comes across to me as fairly balanced but trends a bit towards bassy, which is a good thing in an earbud or TWS headphone.

I'm overall very pleased with the Nothing Ears and do recommend them as a $150 offering, but I'm not pleased that the Ear (A) floor model equivalent does not have Qi charging. I haven't tried Xiaomi's buds in a fat minute so I can't say anything about how they compare to Buds 4 Pro or Buds 5 Pro, but I do know Xiaomi's typically budget earbuds are getting heftier in price (5 Pro are at $100 now) and Nothing is $150 for a very solid option in the more "flagship earbuds" space while still being compatible with both iOS and Android. Xiaomi also dropped Qi charging on anything above the Redmi Buds 3 Pro which totals at $50, so I don't think it's a cost thing for them to have just stopped offering Qi charging. There are also Earfun earbuds at the same RB3P price-point with Qi charging.

[ziggykyeons]

Full Name: Ziggy Kyeon.

Nicknames: Zigs, Kyeon, Stardust.

Pronouns and Gender: He/Him, cis man.

Birthday: July 15th, 1995.

Birth place: Aurora Bay.

How long have they been in town?: His whole life / been back and forth to LA frequently.

Sexuality: Bisexual.

Housing: Seabrook Quarter.

Occupation: YouTuber, Twitch Streamer, Attendant @ Comic Emporium. // @aurorabayaesthetic

BIO:

born in aurora bay to an american mother and a korean father, ziggy grew up the only child of a couple who had always longed for a larger family that never happened for them

due to being the only child they would ever have, ziggy's parents were generous with their time, money, love and patience - the last of which he often found himself using up copious amounts of

ever since he was a child, he could recall feeling odd that he had no idea what he wanted to do, what he wanted to be when he was older

none of the cliches held any appeal (doctor? no. racecar driver? no. astronaut? maybe! also no) and by the time he reached high school the unsureness of his path started to stress him out to a noticeable degree

it was freshman year of high school when he decided that distraction above all else was needed, and he made his youtube channel. getziggywithit was initially a resounding flop, barely cracking triple digit views due to the randomness of the videos and the lack of editing

At 16 he made his twitch channel, where he often streamed himself playing horror games. that garnered attention far quicker than his main channel ever did, and he kept himself to a mostly regular streaming schedule to try and ride the momentum

he kept at both and eventually overhauled his youtube channel to put most of his time into curating a presence that aligned with his twitch channel and with a more concrete direction, he eventually found initial online success with his coverage of supernatural events and haunted locations

though he graduated high school, he certainly didn't do as well as he could have if he had of applied himself adequately, but he was too focused on subscriber counts and algorithms to give it as much effort as he should have

with no desire to go to university, he knew his parents would support him through choosing to pursue his youtube/twitch careers full time and so he let them

to feel less like a sponge (and not the bob kind that he thinks changed the landscape of comedy) he got a job at the comic emporium because it was the easiest money he could earn around town while still engaging with something that actually interests him

to this day he's still doing all three, the comic emporium mostly because he's grown fond of it rather than actually needing to and he's kept to his upload schedule more religiously than he's ever kept to anything else

has been debating exploring starting some kind of podcast (because the world needs more of those, clearly)

PERSONALITY.

+ creative, imaginative, honest.

- jealous, escapist, opinionated.

FUN ADJACENT FACTS.

has unironically said "like and subscribe" in a casual conversation but is at least haunted by it

has had a second channel for 2 years now, it deviates from his main content and leans into more talking / commentary videos. was nearly doxed by harry potter adults for joking about the zealous nature of hp stans in their 30s

had a no lines, background cameo in resident evil: raccoon city because of how hard he goes for the resident evil franchise on his twitch channel

huge comic book fan and catches almost every cbm the week of release (or day of if he gets a premiere invitation)

goes to san diego comic con every year and goes all out with his choice of costume every time

CURRENT CONNECTIONS.

ex boyfriend of @maura-cortes

best friend of / marriage pact at 40 with @cherryxkoch

sometimes collaborator of @darcyxanthonyx

co-worker of @paxton-brady

friend of @cricketcampbell

family friend / hook up of @milaxclarke

ex-friend of @aeris-flores

real housewives franchise enthusiast with @macaulaymontgomery

ex of @mercureial

SPECIFIC WANTED CONNECTIONS.

a roommate or two! he's in the process of buying his house in seabrook but lmao he thought he was going to be living in it with his now ex so that uppended a lotttt of his plans

tba.

GENERIC WANTED CONNECTIONS.

connections wise he’s pretty much an open book right now, but some baseline ideas that can be springboarded off are:

friendly.

a best friend / ride or dies / close friends / childhood friends / pseudo-siblings / friends / drunk friends / new friends / former roommate / people he's met in la / people he met at comic con / fellow nerds / follow horror enthusiasts / fellow gamers.

romantic

flirtationship / friends with benefits / one time hook ups / tinder matches / unrequited crush (can be either way) / blind dates / exes from high school / exes on good terms.

antagonistic.

enemies / former (best) friends / exes on bad terms / frenemies / rivals / negative influence / people who find him grating because he's videos can be a little annoying at times.

[americascomic]

I thought I'd talk about my tiktok channel (Amber Flannery Field, the trans "only good tour guide in New York") since a few of you all know me through tiktok and I wanna get my thoughts out.

For videos, I think to help root and organize my thoughts I kinda think myself as doing an HBO-style prestige TV show and letting my emotional and intellectual growth over a course of a year being my "story arc." And I kinda especially like the idea of collecting all my videos at the end of a year and posting on YouTube it as a compliation of a "season," and that kinda structure I think helps motivate me and think of ideas and where to take the next video.

And TV structure is this kinda thing that's shared with TikTok, where I'll always have a large audience of people watching me for the first time but then loyal viewers following me every episode. So, as a TV show, I'll have "filler episodes" where I'll either do a silly shitpost or just a general fun "fast fact" video, but then I have "continuity episodes" where I do video essays, some of which actually have an internal stand-alone story structure to it and slowly little by little reveal my weird backstory (I haven't even begun on the reveals) that also advances the "plot" or shows my growth and reveals information about myself to the point where you can see a lot of growth between my first couple of videos and my most recent ones.

I have like three more videos I want to do and then I'd hit a year on TikTok and I kinda want my final video to be a "season finale" of sorts. The video I'm probably most known for is on White People Jazz, and the season finale will be a sequel to that one (and a less popular one, on Game of Thrones/transmisogny) - specifically again revisiting the subject of appropriation through the word "Slay," and it'll have it end with what I think would be a very dramatic mic drop to leave viewers hanging on.

And then coming back, kinda thinking of prestige television, the first episodes of a new season sets up new problems and new motivations for a character based on what happened in the previous year, and I think a fun semi-fictional motivation to come back to is "my New Years resolution is to get more enemies."

I think it's especially a fun contrast to the previous "season" where a lot of it was about my survival and search for community, and then I sorta cleave into tiktok etiquette and start trying to (lightly) start shit with random tiktokers.

And after a couple of "filler" episodes (it takes the algorithm to catch back up after hiatuses) I wanna do this series of three video essays - effectively a story arc - on "transtagonism" and basically my relationship with negative feelings towards people; competitiveness, pettiness, envy, jealousy and so on.

And I don't know where to go from there. I mentioned HBO Prestige shows as being the sorta structure of my videos, but another structure I borrow from is professional wrestling. There, they do long-term storytelling but they can't really plot everything out because wrestling is so unpredictable that they basically make it up on the fly; you can't plan a long-term storyline if a wrestler gets injured.

So you kinda have to rely on strong motivations and improvise, which I think is one of the things I do with my videos. A lot of them are like 40% improvised, where I'll go in with an essay already written but then completely throw it out and arrive to a different conclusion or location on the day of shooting.

Anyways, this is all pretentious nonsense, but it's fun.

Thanks for following me and thanks to the two or three people who read this.