#Silicon Valley satire

[joncronshawauthor]

Tech Bros Versus Zombies: A Story of Disruption Gone Wrong

Have you ever wondered what might happen if Silicon Valley accidentally triggered a zombie apocalypse? Not the shambling, brain-eating kind – but the perfectly synchronised, engagement-metrics-obsessed, neural-interface-gone-wrong sort. Well, wonder no more. I’m excited to introduce my latest story, Tech Bros Versus Zombies, now available for free on my Patreon…

[existennialmemes]

"You need to touch grass"

Dudes in Silicon Valley: Ok but what IF we SIMULATED grass in VR, then wired FIBER OPTICS into your BRAIN, so you THINK you're touching grass. Bro, you don't get it. You could REALLY FEEL the grass. Please bro, this is an amazing investment idea. I only need 88 million dollars to get started, bro. Gonna call it "Tüch Græs" The monthly subscription fee is $49.99

[keytaryourheart]

always blue…..

[whats-in-a-sentence]

At the same time, it takes the Moon back to the realm of satire and political speculation, creating and destroying a utopia that has proved particularly beguiling to libertarians, including those in Silicon Valley.*

* That boss of mine who brought about progress by being unreasonable loved it.

"The Moon: A History for the Future" - Oliver Morton

[sandythereadingcafe]

REVIEW:

2040 ( A Silicon Valley Satire) by Pedro Domingos at The Reading Cafe:

'A caustic, cynical and farcical look America’s current political machine'

[thereadingcafe]

[captaingimpy]

The Hilarious Reality of Tech Startups: Silicon Valley Review

Initial Thoughts:“Silicon Valley,” created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler, and Dave Krinsky, offers a satirical glimpse into the high-stakes, often absurd world of tech startups in the eponymous region. Running from 2014 to 2019, the series follows Richard Hendricks and his team as they navigate the treacherous waters of entrepreneurship while developing their revolutionary compression algorithm…

[postmodern-blues]

WHO are these Dinesh haters?? You cannot hate Dinesh and love any of the other characters. They are each as opportunistic and morally untethered as he is. Idk man I think if you hate Dinesh but love Richard you ought to think about why (cough racism). Personally I do not think you can watch SV and attempt to morally absolve any of the characters because ultimately it is a satire. And the main guys are satirical takes on the types of people that occupy startup culture.

I love you Dinesh Chugtai you corrupt bastard. I will kill all your haters and we will rule the valley together.

You know, I understand AND don't understand people who hate Dinesh. He is not a very good person and sometimes he is annoying as a character, all his personal plots are based on his infantilism and desire to get attention, as if the creators of the show dislike him compared to the other members of "Pied Piper". If it wasn't for Kumail's acting, I think he would have been most hated character.

But he's still my favorite because he has traits that I kinda adore: he's awkward with strangers, but he's still actively looking for a girl, he openly expresses his emotions, and despite Gilfoyle's constant teasing, he's sincerely attached to his best friend and so on. But the most important thing is: I see myself in him, a man who is desperately trying to find a special model of behavior for himself, who is sure that he needs to offer people something instead of the real himself, something completely different, because in reality, in his opinion, there is nothing that can interest others to hanging out with him just for HIM, not his achievements, money or fancy hobbies.

From Kumail's interviews, it can be learned that he fully understands Dinesh as a character with a personal drama, and that he put a part of himself into creation of Dinesh. And I think it's amazing.

[onlytiktoks]

Unfortunately, while this ↑ is satire, this ↓ isn't

His name is Chamath Palihapitiya. He was a senior executive at Facebook from 2007 - 2011 (another terrible thing to come out of Facebook)

[emeraldspiral]

Listen, if you think Dib would ever be an Elon Musk stan/Silicon Valley Techbro, you could not be more wrong.

Invader Zim is a satire where the entire point of Dib is to be The Cassandra, trying to warn people about a very real problem that everyone else is too ignorant, apathetic, or complacent to do anything about. Zim is a metaphor for stuff like climate change, the anti-vax movement, the failures of capitalism, the increasing stranglehold of corporations and special interest groups on politics, and the creeping rise of fascism that Dib is the only person woke enough to notice. Sometimes it's not even a metaphor, he just outright calls out mundane real-world corruption like sending kids out to fundraise for their dilapidated, underfunded public skool but then spending the money on prizes instead of desks, or a megacorporation getting kids to invent products for them to make money off of without compensating the creators.

He would NOT be an Elon Musk stan. Elon Musk is the closest equivalent we have to a real life Zim. An obviously incompetent, narcissistic attention whore who still somehow manages to swindle gullible people into buying whatever bullshit he spews and who we could probably trick into fucking off forever if we just played to his ego and told him we had an important mission for him in outer space. Except even Zim is at least a real tech genius. Which brings me to my next point.

Dib is at least a third generation scientist/inventor. He and his father and his grandparents all know how to do actual math and coding and experimentation and physically build their own tech. They don't just come up with a half-baked idea and then pass it off to someone else to actually figure out how to make it workable. No way in hell would Dib be fooled by Muskrat's phony "real life Tony Stark" persona.

[mariacallous]

When I read a tweet about four noted Silicon Valley executives being inducted into a special detachment of the United States Army Reserve, including Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, I questioned its veracity. It’s very hard to discern truth from satire in 2025, in part because of social media sites owned by Bosworth’s company. But it indeed was true. According to an official press release, they’re in the Army now, specifically Detachment 201: the Executive Innovation Corps. Boz is now lieutenant colonel Bosworth.

The other newly commissioned officers include Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s head of product; Bob McGrew, a former OpenAI head of research now advising Mira Murati’s company Thinking Machines Lab; and Shyam Sankar, the CTO of Palantir. These middle-aged tech execs were sworn into their posts wearing camo fatigues, as if they just wandered off some Army base in Kandahar, to join a corps that is named after an HTTP status code. (Colonel David Butler, communications adviser to the Army chief of staff, told me their dress uniforms weren’t ready yet.) Detachment 201, wrote the Army in a press release, is part of a military-wide transformation initiative that “aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.”

Don’t blame Donald Trump for this. The program has been in the works for over a year, the brainchild of Brynt Parmeter, the Pentagon’s first chief talent management officer. Parmeter, a former combat soldier who headed veteran support at Walmart before joining the Department of Defense in 2023, had been pondering how to bring experienced technologists into service to update an insufficiently tech-savvy militia when he met Sankar at a conference early last year. The idea, he says, was to create “an Oppenheimer-like situation” where senior executives could serve right away, while keeping their current jobs.

Both men collaborated on a plan to bring in people like, well, Sankar, who has been a vocal cheerleader of the Valley’s recent embrace of the military, proclaiming that the US is in an “undeclared state of emergency” that requires a tech-led military rehaul. When The Wall Street Journal wrote about the forthcoming program last October, Sankar vowed to be “first in line.”

In a sign that it’s no longer taboo in the Valley to face the fact that its creations go hand in hand with boosting deadly force in the military, the program was fast-tracked and is now in operation. “Ten years ago this probably would have gotten me canceled,” Weil told me. “It’s a much better state of the world where people look at this and go, ‘Oh, wow, this is important. Freedom is not free.’”

The four new officers are full members of the Army Reserve. Unlike other reservists, however, they will not be required to undergo basic training, though they will undergo less immersive fitness and shooting training after induction. They will also have the flexibility to spend some of the approximately 120 annual hours working remotely, a perk not offered to other reservists.

The Army also says that these men will not be sent to battle, so they will not be risking their lives in potential theaters of war in Iran, Greenland, or downtown Los Angeles, California. Their mission is to use their undeniable expertise to school their colleagues and superiors in the military on how to utilize cutting-edge technologies for efficiency and deadly force.

One might assume the Army would have done an extensive study of the specific talents required for this pilot program and pulled those people from an open call for the best candidates. That did not happen. Sankar helped recruit the other three future officers—all male, which by intention or coincidence seems to satisfy the anti-DEI bent of today’s military—and they all accepted. According to Butler, “Lieutenant colonel Sankar said ‘I want to wear the uniform. And I have three other guys willing to go with me.’” Weil confirms that he joined after a request from Sankar. (Parmeter said to me that since this is a pilot program with an unknown outcome, a closed process was appropriate.)

Clearly, the four new officers genuinely want to serve their country. Weil, who I’ve known for years, told me that when Sankar explained the program, “I was just like, ‘Yes, I want to help—that sounds amazing.’” But during a wave of widespread unease over privileges of tech elite—did you see those disgusting billionaire bros on that show Mountainhead?—special arrangements for well-off digital achievers seems tone-deaf.

My big question is whether these men could have provided the same assistance from the private sector. Parmeter and Butler both cited precedent of cases where top executives were directly commissioned, including a top railway executive in 1917, the head of a gas and electric company in 1944, and the General Motors Company president in 1942. But those were full-time roles during world wars. Parmeter also reminded me that many currently serving reservists are already in the tech industry, including, he claimed, some generals at Google(!). Presumably none of them, however, began their military careers as senior officers, and they presumably do not receive special dispensation to perform some of their service from home.

Another program, the Defense Digital Service, gives tech workers a chance to lend expertise to the Pentagon full time for up to two years. What’s more, Parmeter conceded that the military already has a trusted adviser program, where civilians could work part or full time on projects. "That’s obviously still going on, and that’s something that is useful,” he says. “But in this case, we wanted to go beyond that.”

The Army says that there is no conflict of interest in having these privately employed officers provide advice on high-tech subjects. They will have no say in what contracts the Army makes with the private sector. The expertise they offer, however, seems inseparable from the sectors of AI, VR, and data mining at the center of their companies’ business models. Maybe it’s just bad timing, but the month before Bosworth was sworn in, Meta announced a deal with Anduril, a defense contractor cofounded by former fired employee Palmer Luckey, to pursue military contracts.

Around the time lieutenant colonel Weil raised a hand beside Boz, OpenAI announced a $200 million defense contract: it’s also working with Anduril to develop an air defense system. Sankar’s employer Palantir has billions of dollars worth of government deals, including a $759 million Army contract for advanced AI systems. (Thinking Machines Lab, which McGrew advises, is still in semi-stealth, so there’s no news of its plans for military contracts.) Also, while these soldiers are serving in a personal capacity, their employers will undoubtedly benefit from the inside-the-perimeter knowledge that they will gather while simultaneously working on military contracts.

Lieutenant Kevin Weil, OpenAI's head of product and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy A. George Photograph: Leroy Council/DVIDS

OK, so what will they do? Parmeter provides a hypothetical scenario: the commander of the Indo-Pacific region is figuring out how to address threats in the Far East over the next five to 10 years. They might ask Detachment 201 to tell them how the future state of machine learning and AI would affect security in that context. Or, the new officers might operate more tactically, advising how soldiers could use new tools to understand battlefield conditions.

This kind of sounds like … consulting. Weil argues, however, that advice coming from an actual officer would be more seriously heeded: “There’s nothing wrong with being a contractor,” he says. “But if we’re off supporting an exercise somewhere, it’s different that we’re wearing the same uniform, having taken the same oath.”

A more serious consequence might come from these men having dual loyalty when setting policy at their private companies. Companies like Meta, Open AI, and Thinking Machines Lab are helping create superintelligence that could profoundly impact the world. OpenAI is among those companies that prohibit their models from being used to harm others, and that includes developing weapons. But the mission of the US military is exactly the opposite. Working inside the Army, these recruits are explicitly charged with making the technologies more lethal—in fact, in a hearing this very week, Army secretary Daniel P. Driscoll told senators that the Army Transformation Initiative, which involves Detachment 201, will eliminate programs that do not contribute to lethality.

Who will these officers be serving when they make those determinations? (Weil emphatically tells me that his service is a personal matter, and in any case there are plenty of uses for AI in the military that don’t involve killing.) When I brought this issue up to Parmeter, he said that when determining the direction of future AI at their companies, the officers’ wider perspective would be a plus. Then again, Parmeter did mention Oppenheimer, who created the atom bomb.

Bottom line: Sankar, Bosworth, Weil, and McGrew are soldiers now, even if critics are already accusing them of being rich tech bros cosplaying the real thing. Considering the optics, they would do well to avoid any chest-thumping. Weil displayed humility when I spoke to him. But an op-ed Sankar wrote in the Free Press to explain his motives hit a sour note. Though much of it set out the benefits of a private tech industry in sync with the military, and his family’s inspiring American immigrant story (which might not have happened under current Trump policies), he veered into self-aggrandizement. “None of these men need to pad their résumé,” he wrote of his Detachment 201 blood brothers and, by implication, himself. “None have free time between fatherhood, demanding day jobs, and a dozen other demands. But all feel called to serve.”

Forgive me for thinking that their sacrifices rank in the bottom rung of what the vast majority of soldiers experience. In our conversation, Weil, again, was humble about becoming an instant senior officer, a rank given to reflect his achievements in private life. “I’m still a little bit sensitive to the title, because there’s so many people that have given their lives or spent their lives dedicated to this,” he told me. “So I want to earn the title.”

I have no idea how their Army-mates will regard them, but all who hold lower ranks, including life-long soldiers and veterans of combat, will be required to salute the Detachment 201 lieutenant colonels on sight. According to Butler, these overnight officers haven’t yet mastered the art of crisply returning those salutes. “They’ve got a bit of work to do,” he told me.

Time Travel

Weil is correct when he says that a decade ago, Silicon Valley would have condemned him for accepting his post. He was working for Facebook as Instagram’s head of product during the time that Luckey was tossed out of the company for supporting Donald Trump and lavishingly expressing his fondness for the military. In my book Facebook: The Inside Story I describe how in 2016 Palmer Luckey alienated Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook workforce—by acting like Zuckerberg would act in 2025. All is copacetic now as the two are partners in developing VR technology for today’s military.

Luckey was a political conservative, supporting the right wing with the same enthusiasm he devoted to fast food, cosplay photos with his girlfriend, and soldering artisanal computer peripherals. He was a huge admirer of the military. [Brendan] Iribe [cofounder of Oculus] remembers that he once got a call saying Luckey had driven a tank on the Facebook campus. The police had been called. The vehicle was Luckey’s Humvee, repurposed from military service with toy machine guns attached to the postings. [The orange-colored guns were clearly not operational.] To Facebook’s workers though, it might as well have been a nuclear bomb. Luckey defused the situation and wound up posing for pictures with the cops, but the incident was a black mark on his record. “Here at Facebook, you can’t drive Humvees with guns—military vehicles—onto the lot and have the police show up,” says Iribe. “That’s not what we’re focused on here.”

[failworse]

silicon valley is an infuriating show because the comedy is so acerbic and the satire so competent that it would really make for a first-rate piece of media IF the creators weren't so uninterested in actually addressing the politics of its very political subject matter

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK # 221:

JANET PLANET is the first meditative movie directed by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker, who must be a very fine author and playwright, and whose plays I wish I could experience. It's a gentle relationship story between a lonely girl and her single mother Julianne Nicholson who live in rural western Massachusetts in 1991. The mother is irresponsible, getting in and out of relationships without control, and the daughter watches her silently. It's subtle, and tender, and prone to long silences and pauses. The 10 yo actress is a revelation, and it's like getting inside her head. 9/10.

The trailer actually is way too loud: the story itself is much softer. [*Female Director*]

🍿

TO BE AND TO HAVE (2002) is an award-winning, empathetic, small documentary about a one-room school in rural France, where the students (ranging in age from 4 to 11) are educated by a single dedicated teacher. Reminiscent of François Truffaut's 'Small Change' in spirit and approach. Simple and heart-warming. The trailer. 8/10.

🍿

"Ramen burritos? Maybe not just now..."

I'm a rabid Mike Judge fan. After Office Space, Idiocracy and Silicon Valley, now comes his new COMMON SIDE EFFECTS, a fantastic adult animated thriller series about magic mushrooms that can heal the whole world. It's a Late-Stage-Capitalism "Deep State Conspiracy" story, and it literally opens with a line from 'In the loop' about Diarrhea.

Top notch style and dialogue, funny and nuanced. 8.7 score on IMDb. Well deserved 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. 9/10.

The director/creator of the show did the earlier SCAVENGERS (2016), a science-fiction short in a similar style and feel. 8/10.

🍿

I only saw 'Promotion' and 'The Oner', the first two available episodes of Seth Rogan's new parody THE STUDIO, and I loved them! It's the best Hollywood satire since Altman's 'The player', with Bryan Cranston playing "Griffin Mill" himself. Episode 1 with Martin Scorsese’s script about the Jonestown cult Vs. Kool-Aid the IP franchise. And Episode 2 filming a one-shot scene with Greta Lee - in one shot - were both wonderful.

Smart and hilarious. 10/10 for E1 and E2.

🍿

PALE FLOWER (1964), my first by Masahiro Shinoda, a little-known Japanese masterpiece of dark, stylish Noir. How come I never heard of it before? "Two self destructive souls who find each other in underground gambling dens." As existentially solid as J-P Melville, with a tragic and laconic anti-hero gangster as cool as Belmondo or Delon, and a mysterious Femme fatale, who flirts with danger, and won't stop until she's all spent. She's addicted to the rush of gambling with larger sums of money, speeding at night, shooting heroin and playing with death.

EDIT: Masahiro Shinoda died on March 25, 2025, at the age of 94.

🍿

One of my last missing Buñuel's, the ambiguous DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (1964) with Jeanne Moreau (I had only seen the Léa Seydoux version). A timeless, pessimistic, masterly lesson in film-making, it is the first in his French period, and his first collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière (who also plays the priest). A powerful, self-assured woman who must encounter perversion, corruption, and cruelty in the petit-bourgeois manor in the 1930's, selling herself and her body to survive. Servitude, fascism, victimhood, fetishism and abuse of power. 8/10.

🍿

SANTA SANGRE (1989), my 7th surrealist psycho film by Alejandro Jodorowsky. I'm a fan, obviously [See Quote Above], but this one I just couldn't finish. The fact that it was played in English was a huge first turn-off. It had the usual mystical stock characters populating his bizarro world: The boy with the mustache, the elephant funeral, the obese streetwalker, the armless lover, naked mental hospital patient devouring raw fish, sacrilegious orgies, the dwarfs and the giants. But when the down syndrome inmates replaced the tattooed circus freaks, and the bloody murders started, I had to quit. All the Mambo and Mariachi music in the world couldn't get me to go through the second half. ⬇️Could Not Finish⬇️

🍿

"Mac, you ever been in love?" "No, I've been a bartender all me life."

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) - First watch and only my 5th myth-making film by John Ford. One of cinema's first retelling of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone Arizona and the Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday friendship. Good Guy Henry Fonda on the porch leaning back in his chair... 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿

"How charming: an aphorist!"

My 4th re-watch in 5 years of INTOLERABLE CRUELTY ♻️. From its delightful 'Suspicious Minds' main title sequence (which is as good as 'The big Lebowski' opening) to the slick editing by "Roderick Jaynes", it's as smooth a story as any screwball comedy. I can't understand why many rate it on the low-end in the Coen Brothers body of work. Some claim that it's not funny, but I disagree: it's consistently hilarious, and I'm going to start re-watching it often. 10/10.

"Forget about Kirshner for a second!"

🍿

MY FIRST THREE BY MARCO BELLOCCHIO:

🍿 SLAP THE MONSTER ON PAGE ONE, an uncompromising political thriller, made in 1972, during the violent Italian "Years of Lead". A young woman is raped and murdered outside Milan, and ruthless editor of a right-wing newspaper Gian Maria Volonté manipulates the reporting of the news to fit the needs of his reactionary backers. Bellocchio was unabashedly Marxist-Leninist, and was not interested in pretending to appear "Fair and balanced". He knew who was right and who was wrong. "Everyone knows their place, it's only the workers that don't do what they're told." The trailer.

🍿 In THE FIGHT (2018), a young man wakes up from a nap by the river, to find himself hunted down by a group of Nazi soldiers. But as he dives underwater to escape, he returns to the peaceful present, where there are no worthy causes to fight for. 2/10.

🍿 In CLOWNS (2016), an opera singer asks his wealthy mother to fund a staging based on the opera I Pagliacci. There's also hypnotism, and familial conflict, and good singing. 2/10.

🍿

First re-watch in many decades: THE GRADUATE (1967), a love triangle between clueless 21 yo Dustin Hoffman and the seductive Mrs. Robinson (and her daughter). He's naive and immature, whiny and unpleasant. And then at the end he turns into an obsessive stalker full of male entitlements. But he gets the girl at the end. A story about Mrs. Robinson would be so much more interesting today. Also, I will not be going to Scarborough Fair... 6/10. ♻️

🍿

Gérard Depardieu [on trial for rape charges in France at the moment] is a bank robber released from prison after 5 years, in the silly comedy THE FUGITIVES (1986). Pierre Richard and his cute little daughter get involved. 2/10.

🍿

"Tomorrow I go back to Athens!"

NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950), only my 2nd dark Noir by Jules Dassin, his first movie after being exiled from Hollywood for being a communist. An angry, relentless story of flailing conman Richard Widmark burning to score one big hustle in London wrestling underworld. No hope, no redemption, no positive role models, only failures and disappointments. I didn't see the De Nero remake, but this story could make a great modern version (in the hands of the right director).

I need to see more of Gene Tierney.

🍿

In COUNTERPART (2017), the terrific Jonathan Kimble Simmons ("J.K.") plays a double role very well. He quietly works at a secretive UN office in Berlin, but then he meets a doppelganger of himself, an action hero operative / contract assassin who arrives via a "Gateway" from a "parallel" dimension. It has mirror elements of 'Severance' and Nolan's time-bending fantasies, and it's headed by the Norwegian Morten Tyldum (who did 'Headhunters').

It also has 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes, but I could only stay for the first two of twenty episodes. The convoluted science-fiction logic, the improbable plot, with metaphysical spy intrigues and a copy of the 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' killer, made it impossible for me to continue. ⬇️Could Not Finish⬇️

🍿

First watch: The highly successful Cinderella romance NOTTING HILL, "the highest-grossing British film of all time". I watched it because Dylan Moran had a small role in it (as well as Gina McKee), but obviously it was a Julia Roberts vehicle. At the height of her popularity, she played herself as a major superstar, hounded by paparazzi. Then she falls for this lame, bland, milquetoast guy who owns a quaint bookstore. Why? It's not spelt out. Lowbrow 2/10.

🍿

“Doctor, I can’t piss anymore.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 82 years old.”

“You’ve pissed enough.”

YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE, Gerry Marshall's first film was a parody/spoof, like what if 'Airplane!' but in a hospital, and not as great. Lots of throwaway funny lines like"Your attention, please. Due to a mix-up in urology no apple juice will be served this morning.", "Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper. Please report to the diabetes ward at once." and "Nice, doctor. While I'm down here trying to save this man's life, you're up there making fart jokes." It's hard to think of pecker-head Michael McKean as a sexy lead role, but not young Sean Young. CW: a dwarf surgeon, Héctor Elizondo cross-dressing, gay stuff, unfunny cursing, oral sex jokes, and more dated 1982 stuff. 3/10.

🍿

THE SHORTS:

🍿 "For your information, your uncle died by falling from the sky on a cold day in Africa."

DAYIM ("MY UNCLE"), my first film by Turkish Tayfun Pirselimoğlu (1999), a wonderful, too-short fairy tale about an eccentric bachelor who dreams about flying. 7/10.

🍿 SLICK HARE, a Bugs Bunny / Elmer Fudd cartoon taking place at a 1947 Los Angeles restaurant-club and including parodies of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, The Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Carmen Miranda and Sydney Greenstreet.

🍿

READY FOR DUTY: NAZIS AND FASCISTS ON BEHALF OF THE CIA is a terrible 2013 German documentary about the Cold War connections between the CIA war machine and high-ranking Nazi survivors. It brings together Paul Dickopf and Klaus Barbie, Operation Paperclip, Henry Kissinger, Italian Fascists, Augusto Pinochet, Carlos the Jackel, the Chilean Colonia Dignidad, Etc., Etc. All in the name of anti-communism. But it's done badly, and offer no compelling new information. 1/10.

🍿

[NOT A "MOVIE":].

"There's a reason they only let us see him speaking German."

I lost all tolerance to listening to online people talking in front of their cameras, and it's been awhile since I stopped watching most internet videos of young people explaining things and expressing their opinions about stuff, any topic, but especially about conspiracies. CONSPIRACY, however, by YouTube video essayist Natalie Wynn (a.k.a ContraPoints) won my heart. I was riveted by her funny monologue performance for 2 hrs and 40 min.(!) non-stop. And I'm going to deep dive into the rest of her channel. 8/10. Recommended. [*Female Director*] (Screenshot Above).

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[skapediem]

you were into silicon valley at one point right? that's what got me into zach originally, i have an intense love-hate relationship with it like you do with ave 5 lol

it's sort of a potential vs execution thing + i feel like the writing sorta dropped off in the later seasons, characters got flanderized (i'll never forgive them for what they did to nelson "big head" bighetti he was just a normal dude at the start and then they decided to make him the least smart man on earth) & interesting conflicts that could've spanned several episodes or even a season were resolved within a half hour (or, often, less)

i'll be deranged about jarrich forever though especially jared like you CANNOT tell me "this is a half hour ensemble comedy satirizing the tech industry" and then hand me a character with the most gutwrenching backstory and incredible, thoughtful portrayal and expect me to be normal about him. zach woods when i find you

YEAH!!! i totally understand all of that that is very very very fair criticism esp about bighead but tbh im probably a bit blinded by how i got into it - i watched it through for the first time during the massive 2021 melbourne lockdown and then went on to watch it about. 4 or 5? more times in the next 2 weeks so it ended up being a pretty big comfort show to me lol. as stupid as a lot of it was i found it very endearing and i really liked how they were able to poke fun at so many success stories in the tech business having absolute morons behind it. while i do think some of the plots definitely couldve gone on longer i think i enjoy it being a pretty easy to watch comedy that you don't needa stay super focused on for ages especially since there aren't many quality ones like that around anymore at least compared to the late 2000s/early 2010s. i dunno i just!! i get what you're saying its absolutely valid i just really love that dumb show lol

THATS SOOO REAL THOUGH To Be Honest the ones i went more crazyinsane over were dinfoyle like What the fuck was going on there but i loved jarrich too ofc just all the dynamics in that house were crazy. zach woods is a madman though have you seen his instagram

[maysshortmoviereviews]

Silicon Valley (2014-2019)

🎬Follows the struggle of Richard Hendricks, a Silicon Valley engineer trying to build his own company called Pied Piper.

📝If you like satire and comedy, then definitely check this out. Comedy, as I keep writing, is one tough genre so this show gets it right. It gets the nerdy, the crazy, the backstabbing world of Palo Alto. I have binge watched two seasons in one go so I think I can safely say that this is actually a good show! I recommend it. It is really funny and the actors really nail their role. It also has rude humour so as long as that doesn't bother you, it's great.

EDIT: I have started season 3 and I am not enjoying it as much as season 1 and 2. It feels a bit repetitive and not as funny.

[creatorofarcadia]

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter Review

Very mild spoilers maybe? - mostly just the synopsis and character names

Ripe introduces us to Cassie, a depressed, deeply disillusioned woman, working at a competitive Silicon Valley start-up. Trapped in an environment that encourages productivity to the point of self-destruction, Cassie struggles to cope with the long hours, unethical practices and exacting standards of her once dream job. Although isolated from her 'Believer' peers, who seem to swallow the company dogma easily, Cassie is never alone, as she is haunted by a black hole that no one else can see.

I adored this. Just to be clear, I don't think Ripe is going to be for everyone and I completely understand any dissenting opinions. This book is slow, meandering, heavy on the atmosphere and without any startling plot twists to keep you engaged if that's something you enjoy. Furthermore, our narrator Cassie is in a bad place here, her sardonic and frankly depressing musings reflect that. If that sounds unappealing, this probably isn't for you.

For me it was perfect. Etter manages to capture the cynical tone of someone disillusioned with life and late-stage capitalism in a way that is heartbreakingly relatable. It truly felt like she had read my most world-weary thoughts and put them on display for the world to see, making Ripe an incredibly cathartic read. Etter's descriptions are rich and visceral, with plenty of re-occurring themes to sink your teeth into. In particular, Cassie's narrative voice was reminiscent of Fight Club's Narrator, due to her cynicism and borderline violent imaginings when describing the Silicon Valley culture. As a fan of Palahniuk's most infamous novel, it was a joy to see.

I also have nothing but praise for the side characters that Etter presents us with. Some, like the CEO are delightfully satirical and two-dimensional (not even having names), which works wonderfully to emphasis Cassie's intense isolation as she navigates a world of zombie-like husks. Other characters like Cassie's Father, provide some really tender moments, granting much needed relief from the harsh world Cassie occupies. There are also characters such as Sasha, who occupy a sort of liminal space between caricature and real person. Initially appearing completely heartless, Etter lays enough groundwork to imply that Cassie's viewpoint of Sasha is unreliable - Sasha may have a vulnerable underbelly after all.

On the topic of Cassie's unreliability, the moments Etter reminds us that Cassie's perspective is fallible are among some of the strongest in the novel, inviting you to question how much Cassie's bleak outlook contributes to her poor mental state. Her material problems are undeniable and her disillusionment understandable. However, Cassie's skewed perspective often simply hinders her further and I appreciated the skill with which Etter revealed Cassie's biases while remaining tied to her point-of-view.

The unique structure of Ripe was lovely to absorb, keeping things fresh and entertaining from the first page to the last. In particular, the use of the definitions to start each chapter helped to keep the reader grounded as they traversed through a multitude of vignettes.

Finally, I thought the art included was lovely, particularly the recurring image of the black hole, which grows bigger with each recurrence. Overall, a fantastic read with excellent musings on capitalism, feminism and mental health.