#but they way they perceive and interact with the princess reflects real experiences

[tinygameroom]

Have we even talked about the trans implications of being a god of change...

Editing to add my tags and context

When I say 'incidental' at the beginning I'm saying it feels incidental and artificial and then go on to partially deconstruct the idea that it actually is incidental and give examples of why it's not. This is not a full analysis which is why the concept is not explored with the clarity and structure that that would imply, but I'm not actually calling gender irrelevant to the game because it's clearly an ongoing part of the text. I didn't intend this to get reblogged at all much less with responses to my tags, so any issues you have with my rambles are due to lack of clarity and finished thought, due to them being rambles, not a correct understanding of my actual point.

Anyway I think there's tons of interesting analysis to be done about how the game approaches gender, and I don't have the energy or interest to actually analyze about it right now which is why I was more just spitballing about it. What's most interesting to me tho is that contradiction where the Princess being perceived as a woman seemingly has nothing to do with anything, yet is ever present as a commentary on agency and perception, and how people who have experienced misogyny will connect with that. I am also fascinated by the Genderlessness/Genderfulness of the Shifting Mound as an entity of change, how she appears so very feminine but her entire philosophy rejects the idea of simple classification, etc.

As a transmasc nonbinary person the ideas of being perceived as female/feminine (and therefore feeble, innocent, alien, small, stupid, etc etc) and the idea of having a feminine role that doesn't quite or always fit me assumed by others despite that are ideas that resonate a lot. I have lots of thoughts and they're unorganized!

[giftdubaionline]

FATHER’S DAY GIFTS Daughters adore their dads – here’s why

Best Father’s Day Gifts Online

Father's Day is the perfect opportunity to express love and gratitude towards the remarkable dads in our lives. If you're a daughter searching for the ideal gift for your father, look no further! We've curated a list of meaningful Father's Day gift ideas that are sure to make him feel cherished and appreciated.

Personalized Photo Cake:

Capture a cherished memory of you and your dad in a beautifully engraved photo on the cake. This sentimental gift will remind him of the special bond you share every time he looks at it.

Engraved Glass Crystal:

Consider gifting your dad a timeless gift of glass crystal engraved with a heartfelt message or Photo. Every time, he'll be reminded of your love and appreciation.

Customized Dad Mug:

Surprise your dad with a personalized mug adorned with a heartfelt message or a memorable photo. It will become his go-to mug for enjoying his morning coffee or tea, and every sip will bring a smile to his face.

Handwritten Letter or Poem:

Sometimes, the most meaningful gifts come from the heart. Write a heartfelt letter or a touching poem expressing your love and admiration for your dad. It will be a keepsake he'll treasure forever.

Experience Gift:

Treat your dad to an unforgettable experience that he'll truly enjoy. Whether it's a spa day, a sports event, a concert, or a cooking class, choose an activity aligned with his interests and spend quality time together.

Personalized Keychain:

Gift your dad a custom-made keychain with his initials or a special message. It will be a practical reminder of your love that he can carry with him wherever he goes.

Remember, the best gift for your father is one that comes from the heart. Choose something that reflects his personality, interests, and the unique bond you share. With these meaningful Father's Day gift ideas, you can show your dad just how much he means to you.

Respective and supportive fathers teach their daughters to expect all these good things in every relationship. Daughters also perceive their dads in their own romantic relationships. The way fathers interact with their daughters can influence the rest of their life choices. This Father’s Day send gifts online from www.giftdubaionline.com.

Dads always recall every tiny detail about their little princesses. The bond shared by fathers and daughters is inexplicable and is a lot more than just secrets. It is this bond that also builds the girl’s life with confidence into adulthood. In turn, fathers become all mushy around their daughters, however strict they might seem.

The real benchmark

Daughters are always inspired by their fathers and tend to benchmark everything and all situations in their lives based on their dad’s behaviors. Her relationship with the opposite gender and outlook towards relationships are dependent upon the way the father behaved with the mother. She compares every man that she meets with her father, thus automatically creating a benchmark for life.

Confidence builders

A sense of assurance and confidence is instilled in daughters whose fathers praise, love and support them. When fathers listen to their daughters carefully, they are actually boosting their self-esteem and helping them become successful adults.

Go-getter behavior

A go-getter always understands the value of working hard and smart. These are also people who work with a sense of purpose that propels them forward each day. For most daughters, dads are responsible for giving them the go-getter attitude that keeps them on their toes all the time. It inspires her to tackle challenges and problems in life with vigour as deal with them in a well-balanced manner, physically and mentally. As a result, she is able to figure out things for herself and is not afraid to start over again at any time.

Daughters feel secure and protected

For fathers, daughters are precious. When they were small, dads would bubble wrap everything pointed around the house so that she can play around freely. Fathers are shadows who investigate a boyfriend or friends and walk behind their daughters to support them every time.

Dads are the Gold Standard of romantic relationships

Older daughters always tend to pick mates who possess similar attributes as their fathers. Dads are thus role models for daughters, influencing their choices in every way. For the daughter, it is a magical experience, when she is given complete freedom but is yet watched over carefully by her father.

Academic performance

It’s actually true! Fathers who support and provide their daughters with unconditional love bestow the gift of confidence. Girls whose dads take an interest and actively participate in their daughters’ education often do a lot better in school. You will notice that daughters whose dads encourage academic assistance are amazingly successful.

Fathers are often considered the fixers, rescuers, and protectors of their daughters. They also encourage them to take risks, be adventurous and resolve their own problems. GDO is sure that daughters can relate to all of the above. Sometimes, you don’t even need special Father’s Day to tell them how much they mean to you. Celebrate Dad in the best way possible with Father’s Day gifts from GDO.

[thatgamefromthatad]

Mobile Game Review - Helix Waltz (Recommended by @raimi)

🎻 What is this app? Helix Waltz is a dress up game with an elaborate storyline that heavily involves character interactions. On the App Store it’s described as a “thrilling ballroom drama set in Baroque style dress,” which I think accurately reflects the sort of vintage European court-style setting the game takes place in. The setting also has fantasy elements, including characters of different “races” such as elves and people with animal ears and tails called Orens.

The game follows a main storyline as well as various side storylines and has a large cast of characters with their own personalities and preferences, all of whom you can build up your relationship with, which will affect their interactions with you depending on the level of favor you have with them. Rather than playing out in a linear set of stages or chapters, the story progresses as you accept and complete missions and attend balls where you have the chance to encounter other characters attending the same ball. There’s a bit of freedom in that sense where you can attend any of the available balls you want and encounter any of the characters that are there without necessarily following the main storyline, building up favor and getting to know anyone you want.

The dress up part is structured somewhat similarly to other dress up games I’ve played - there are various items in different categories (hairstyles, headwear, dresses, shoes, different types of accessories, etc.) with different attributes and rarities that will affect your “chic” level at any ball or other outing you attend, as well as how other characters perceive you depending on their preferences. You can have “beauty contests” with other characters you encounter at balls that compares your outfit’s chic level to theirs and there are other parts of the game where your outfits can compete with others players’. You can gain new dress up items through completing quests and through a gacha-type mechanic where you draw from different sets of potential items.

📝 Review Summary: The sheer number of different characters you can interact with in this game is very impressive, and it’s definitely entertaining getting to know them all and try to build relationships with them. I definitely found myself getting invested in certain characters and wanting to progress through the storyline so I could learn more. The art in this game is also very beautiful, which includes both the character designs and clothing items.

The follower who recommended this game noted that there is queer representation, including a trans character, which is a positive aspect, but I noticed there was not a lot of BIPOC representation, specifically a lack of characters with dark skin and limited options to have dark for your own character. The default character you play is white with very pale skin, and from my understanding from doing a little research, skin color changes are included as makeup items which definitely seems wrong, not only because you have to get your hands on the right item to have darker skin but because skin color as makeup seems to imply blackface, even if that’s completely unintentional (the makeup items in this game aren’t technically just makeup - they also change the shape of facial features). I definitely think this game should add different base skin tones, as well as characters who aren’t all super pale.

Full review below:

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👍What’s good about this app? The enormous cast of characters in this game and the multi-faceted system involved in gaining favor with them and getting to know them are definitely this game’s biggest assets, in my opinion. Each character has their own unique personality, backstory, style, relationships and role within the in-game society, but what’s really enticing is the fact that the story tends to build up a bit of mystery and intrigue about different characters and families/factions, which motivates you even more to get close with certain NPCs and learn the different secrets they hold. The game is pretty immersive that way in the sense that your goal of building up enough trust and prestige to gain access to the most interesting intel/gossip aligns with the main character’s goal of integrating and positioning herself strategically amidst higher society.

That sense of immersion also comes through in the way the game is structured to allow you to interact pretty freely with the characters rather than following a linear path from one encounter to another. You encounter other characters similarly to how you would if you really were a young noble in this sort of society - by wandering around ballrooms or other settings and seeing who you run into or seeking out those that you already have some level of relationship with. You can even get letters from them! You can choose to follow closely to the main plot, or pick your favorite characters and go out of your way to interact with them, or a mixture of both. This game really focuses around character interactions in a way I’ve never personally seen before, and it’s very impressive - and fun!

Another great aspect of this game is the art, which of course is an important aspect for any dress up game. I’m not very well-versed in fashion in general, but I can say from an average Joe perspective that the clothing items and outfit sets are overall just very pleasing to look at and give me that sort of mouthwatery fashion-p*rn feeling whenever I see some extravagant “look” whether it be from real life, a game or any other sort of media. You could say I’m easily pleased though since I can say that about just about any other dress up game I’ve played or been widely exposed to (Love Nikki, Time Princess etc.). One thing I think is especially cool in this game is the perfume category which I can best describe as creating a kind of animated aura around your character that differs in appearance depending on the perfume. This works well with the fantasy-type setting of the game and gives a little extra magical oomph to the outfits. Other outfit pieces can also be animated, like jewelry that sparkles for example, which is also a nice touch.

The last positive thing I’d like to mention is the theme song of this game that plays in the main menu (and pretty much everywhere else except outings), it’s so beautiful and I love it so much I added it to my Spotify playlist I listen to every day lol. The song is Sans Toi by Sarah Natasha Warne if you’re curious.

In the video below you can see a perfume item in action creating a galaxy-like aura around the character, and hear a short clip of the song as well.

[Video Description: A screen recording showing a fully dressed-up character wearing a luxurious red white and gold robe over an ornate black and white collared top with a red vest and loose-fitting brown pants that have two golden stripes at the end of each pant leg. They are holding a sword, have long blond hair tied in a high-set ponytail that drapes over their left shoulder and have a large, circular golden ornament position behind their head resembling a sun or halo. They are wearing dark stockings and black high heels, and there is a sparkling, swirling aura around them with streams of light changing color from blue to purple flowing toward them. The rest of the character and clothing is still except for jewelry and accessories that sparkle and glow and some golden parts of the clothing that shimmer.]

👎 What’s wrong with this app? There are a few minor flaws with this app such as a glitch(?) I experienced a few times where I was talking with one character and another character suddenly appeared and then disappeared, which I’m pretty sure was a glitch because after it happened for some reason I wasn’t able to complete any of my goals at the ball. Also if you don’t have a great internet connection it can be very frustrating because the game will freeze often, although I can’t criticize this that much since my internet connection just sucks and I’ve experienced this with other games before that are just highly reliant on having a constant internet connection.

Probably my main problem with this game is the lack of diversity in skin tones, both in the cast of characters and in your options for your own character. Like I said there are dozens of characters in this game but from what I’ve seen so far they almost all have pale/light skin. I don’t really think the setting of this game is an excuse considering it’s a fantasy setting and there are definitely characters from different regions or backgrounds but they all just happen to have very light skin. Another reason I think there should definitely be more diversity is that there are definitely themes of racial discrimination in the story - some characters will spout stereotypes and hateful comments about other races, in reference to fantasy races or other social groups in the game, and I’m definitely not saying the targets of those comments should be dark-skinned, I just feel like if you’re going to touch on those subjects but have little to no representation of the people who experience that kind of discrimination in real-life, it seems a bit hypocritical. As a disclaimer I am mixed-race (East Asian and white) and semi-white passing with pale skin so I’m not an authority on the skin tone issue specifically but my opinion as someone reviewing this game is that there’s no reason to not have more diversity in the game, even regardless of whether it involves the themes that I mentioned.

Below is just a handful of the NPCs but as I scrolled through the list pretty much everyone had pale/light skin, Gedanh is the NPC with the darkest skin tone as far as I know:

As far as a lack of diversity in selecting a skin tone for your own character, that didn’t specifically stand out to me at first considering the main character is a pre-established character and not as much of a self-insert as in other games like Time Princess, but the fact that you can change your facial features using “makeup items” and skin tone is also locked to certain makeup items doesn’t seem fair, since it makes whiteness the default and limits darker skin tones to these specific items and corresponding makeup looks. I’m not sure what adding diverse base skin tones would look like from a programming perspective for this game but with everything else this game has going on that is so complex and impressive I feel like there’s not an excuse in this day and age to exclude something as basic as different skin colors.

While the lack of diversity is definitely my biggest criticism of the game, I’ll just add that another flaw is that many aspects of the game can be confusing and despite a pretty lengthy series of tutorial quests that teach you about different parts of the game, I still have some confusion after playing for a while. For example I’m still not even completely sure if winning a beauty contest against a character strengthens your relationship with them, and I had to look at the Helix Waltz wiki to learn how to investigate NPCs’ preferences and exactly how remaking clothes works etc. The wiki and other players are a great resource, but having more guidance in-game, even if it’s in the Help/FAQ section (which I checked and still didn’t have all the info I needed), would be an improvement.

🪞Full list of features (there are a lot but I’ll try to cover them to the best of my ability):

Storyline (main plot, side plots that unlock when you strengthen your relationships with characters and event plots)

Quests (there are quests that go along with the plot or events as well as daily quests. The daily quests are more simple such as “talk to X amount of NPCs” or “attend X amount of balls” while the other quests involve having interactions with specific characters, wearing specific dress up items to certain events, etc.)

Dress up (you dress up for every ball or other outing you attend. Each ball will have a different clothing attribute, such as a certain color or style, that increases your chic points if you wear items with the corresponding tag. Different characters also have style preferences but you need to investigate to find out each character’s preference. In addition to dress up before events, the mirror section of the main interface allows you to make whatever outfit you want with the items you have, which will be the outfit your character wears during scenes outside of outings. There are different categories of items corresponding to different parts of the outfit and for some categories you can wear more than one item from the same category, such as wearing a different bracelet on each wrist)

Balls (this is one of the two main ways you will interact with characters and complete quests. There are a few balls you can choose to attend at any given time, hosted by a specific family or faction, with specific characters attending that you can check before you enter the ball. Once you enter the ball and dress up, you can choose to approach a certain character if that option is available - I think you can only approach characters directly if you’ve already talked to them at the ball or if you are wearing an outfit they like but I’m not sure about that part - or you can choose “wander around” and have the chance to encounter different characters who are attending)

Other outings (in addition to balls there are other places in the game where you can encounter other characters, such as the slum and the tavern, and these outings work similarly to balls in terms of character interactions)

Conversation (for basic conversation you pick from a selection of topics and you can gain favor with a certain character by correctly picking the topic they prefer. There is dialog to read for every conversation although these are stock conversations that repeat so you’ll usually want to just speed through them. When you increase your relationship with a character you can unlock special conversations with them that are more unique and tied to the plot)

Q&A (sometimes a character will ask you a question and depending on if they like your answer it can boost your favor with them)

Beauty contests (while conversing with a character sometimes you can have a beauty contest against them comparing your outfit to theirs, and if you win you get points that I believe go toward earning in-game currency - another thing I’m not 100% sure about. I think you can only have a beauty contest with female characters but there is at least one male character I’ve been able to have a beauty contest with. Sometimes a character will immediately force you into a beauty contest when you encounter them)

Dancing (sometimes when interacting with a character at a ball you’ll have the option to dance with them which opens up a short memory-based minigame. I think completing the minigame correctly yields similar rewards to winning a beauty contest. I think you can only dance with male characters as I’ve never had the option come up with female characters so far)

Gathering intel (intel is a resource in the game that is used to learn more about characters and that can be exchanged with characters for rewards. While wandering around a ball you may have the chance to eavesdrop on characters and gain intel)

Gift Box/gacha mechanic (The Gift Box section of the game is where you can draw from different gacha-type pools for items and resources. Different pools take different currencies and have different sets of items)

Remaking, dyeing and enchanting clothes (you can change the style or color of some clothing items if you collect the right resources, which changes both the item’s outward appearance and attributes that go toward chic points/gaining favor with different characters. You can also enchant clothing items, which changes their appearance and increases their chic points)

Events (there are limited-time events such as events that offer limited-time items/gacha pools and limited-time quests)

Illusion Contests (one way you can compete with other players in the game rather than NPCs. You are given preset clothes items to choose from in order to put together an outfit, and can give the outfit a name. Your outfit is scored based on a voting system where two outfits are shown and players can vote for one or the other. You get rewards based on how many votes you get and you also get rewarded for voting on other outfits)

Championship (another way to compete with others players using your owned items rather than preset items. I have not participated in the championship myself yet but from my understanding you make one outfit to defend against other players challenging you and then make outfits to challenge other players’ defending outfits. The players you have the option to challenge will be the same rank as you so the competition is balanced and I believe this competition is based on the attributes of your items and a theme set for the current championship cycle, a bit more like a NPC beauty contest than the voting-based Illusion Contests.)

⭐️ Overall Rating: 4/5 (this would definitely be a 5/5 game if they fixed the racial diversity issue but it’s unfortunate that a game that’s otherwise so complex and engaging - and has LGBTQ+ representation - drops the ball in this area. I definitely hope they at least add the ability to have different base skin tones in the future.)

I really enjoyed this game so thank you to @raimi for suggesting it! If anyone else has any game review suggestions feel free to send them 🥳

[holy-mountaineering]

This Tree of Life is for an anonymous friend who shall go unnamed but they are not unloved!

Think of this spread as a sort of quantum map, or even the land of a regular map, everything is happening at once, in each place. It’s important to think of yourself as moving “through” the map but you are also simultaneously everywhere at once. For the sake of this specific experiment, think of this as a map. Maybe as a person, the Qabalistic Adam Kadmon.

Where we’re starting the journey from is Kether, the monad, the first sign of creation. We’ll call this your hometown, since it is where you’re from originally. Here we have the “meh” card, Queen of Swords, or how you feel about what you think and your reasoning.

Ideally, this Queen is the “caller out of bullshit.” She is watery (intuitive) enough to feel when a facade is being put up and airy (intelligent) enough to cut the shit and address the fakery. The difference between someone trying to take advantage of another and a person who accidentally causes misfortune is the intention of said individual. Don’t be fooled by kind wolves or rabid sheep.

She rests at her throne with the head or mask of a man and the sword of her mind she severed the head/mask with. Her expression is one of disinterest, she’s done this many times before and shall again and again. It is her nature.

Be aware of intentions, even  your own. Be wary of situations and people talking from behind masks they wish to use to obscure their true meaning. Especially be aware of yourself and your masks you hide behind.

In Chokmah, which is like your freeway getting you out onto the road out of  your hometown is the always welcomed X Fortune, Jupiter, Kaph. 

The “wheel of” Fortune is the rotating of things from confusing and/or destructive to beneficial. The gods Hanuman and Sobek to Crowley represented these ideas and the spinning ‘Wheel of Fortune, ol’ Fortuna is the constant motion of life and our experience stuck in it.. The Sphinx on top has waited through the turns patiently and meditatively and now It is on top again. 

Expand your influence through patience. It’s getting better just you wait.

In Binah, which is ruled by Saturn and for the sake of this reading we will call the first stop on your roadtrip. You haven’t really arrived anywhere but you’re stopping and getting a chance to repack your car in a more efficient way. Sitting in Binah is the fuckery of the 7 of Swords, Futility.

This is the main thrust of the Will through the mind being thwarted by in helpful organization of ideas. Each sword with a planetary sigil are like the spikes in a parking garage, one way. It isn’t that the ideas or aspects represented by these swords are “bad” just that their placement and yours are not lined up in the best way right now. 

Mentally and communication wise pull back from what you’re going at and work on how your organizing the information in your head.

In Chesed which is ruled by Jupiter and again for the sake of this experiment we’ll say involves your influence and benevolence in your current trip is the 9 of Cups, Happiness. 

I call this ‘mutually beneficial relationships’ or expanding influence (Jupiter) going or being pulled both ways (Pisces). Each cup has its own source but everything is flowing into each other down to the base of the 3x3 structure. There is a lot of water and all it represents and it hasn’t reached its peak yet and is still driving upward and outward.

Cultivate relationships and connective feelings that aren’t lopsided or just giving/taking. Keep building  you’re not done yet.

Across the Tree in Geburah, which is Mars Town, where you find your drive and what you’re trying to accomplish/conquer is the popular tonight Atu XIX The Sun, Resh, Sol. 

The Sun is The Lord of Light and Life, the center of our little Solar System. Everything in the fairly large gravitational pull of the Sun is affected by it which pulls everything to it. If it weren’t for The Sun, nothing in our Solar System (named after Sol, The Sun Himself) would be where it is or nearly as well lit or full of life.

This more or less self sufficient little nuclear reactor in space gives life and light but also pulls small things which cannot maintain an orbit around it in for the final burn. bright and full of life and light but deal not with bullshit trifles. 

Center yourself but be aware of what you effect and how. Keep pumping out the power but make sure it’s that good good renewable energy.

In Tiphareth, the Sun and center of gravity holding all this in place, the heart pumping the blood through this, your heart is the (more fuckery) Princess of Swords, the earthy part of Air.

This is the material situations that manifest from your way of thinking and communicating! You have to understand that we literally create reality with our perception, thoughts, and language. And that can get messy if we don’t keep them in check.

Get your head into the game as they say, you’re here right now and what is going on in this moment is what you need to focus on. Stay away from nostalgia and daydreaming, think on your situation, not possible scenarios. 

In Netzach, Venus town, where you have the realization about how this is going to change you as a person with a personality is well EXTRA FUCKERY, self fuckery, if thou wilt. The 9 of Swords, Cruelty (to self and then by proxy, others).

Like the other 9s this is a massive building up, in this case of Air, mind, thinking, communicating. This is beating yourself up about a decision that must be made. Astrologically, Mars in Gemini relates to action being thwarted because of a split mind on a matter.

You are mentally at a fork in the road and you need to make a choice one way or another.

You’re building up a lot of ideas but you need to decide which way you want to go or it’s going to keep tearing you up mentally. There is a lot of force and mass here, move it or lose it.

In Mercury Town Hod-ville, where all the Universities are and everyone has real intellectual shit going on is a whole new way of thinking and perceiving, Atu XX The Aeon, Shin, Fire.

Think about where you are now and how you go about doing things in general. Do you remember a time before this point in your life when you acted differently and didn’t have this kind of understanding of the world? The Aeon is a new understanding and thus a new way of acting in your life.

Harpocrates giving the sign of silence has to do with the meditative process of accepting this new law of life. You must truly grasp the meaning of this change in order to act in the new “spirit of the age” if you will.

You are being born anew through fire and blood, you are emerging from the egg in the background and coming forth.  What you take away from this will be with you forever but one day will also be improved on and brought to a new level. 

On the Moon in Yesod, the receptive and reflective place that is a lot about the feelings that you’re picking up from all this is the organized 6 of Wands, Victory. 

This is organizing each action to interact with another to create friction at the intersections. 6s are like the idealized form of each of the suits, in this case FIRE or action, movement. Victory is achieved through strong organization. Here the strands come together to form the rope you pull yourself up with. Each piece is strong on it’s own but when you twist them together correctly you have a much better tool. 

Don’t do isolated things, use each action to build on your goals.

Down here in Malkuth-istan, the everyday life mundane, waking up pooping, and going to work world is a wedding! VI The Lovers. 

These Lovers aren’t about romantic love as much as it is the ‘Love unites the divided.’ This is the ceremony part of the alchemical wedding or the announcement of the intention to dissolve duality. Coagula.

All inverse and adverse elements of the card are brought together under the blessing of the Initiator who is giving the sign of the enterer. This is to say he is blessing your entering into this union of your shadow and conscious self.

You have some work to do on making a more unified you. There are issues that once brought together and balanced make more sense. Bring opposites or aspects of yourself you’re not familiar with/comfortable with together in your life to make a more complete whole. Set intention to do this, maybe even formally. 

SO, whenever you get over being over “it all” and you realize it’s just a stuck point, shit will finish getting different, again. This change in “luck” should give you a chance to look at how you’re organizing your own funeral, so to speak. If you feel like you’re pushing a fucking boulder up hill, maybe don’t. Maybe figure out a pulley system or conning someone else into doing the work like your little one eye’d Friend, lol.

And you’ll gain more important influence by surrounding yourself with folks who give and take in relatively equal proportions. I know, I know, this is “The Dream” but it is possible to cut off people that just sap your “love force” leaving you with nothing but force. Refocus on YOUR goals and YOUR Light and the things in Orbit of you will makes sense and hold their satellite positions and continue to do their little (and big) jobs. But this is all done by GETTING YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME. If you see yourself as a lone wolf fighting winter alone, winter will eat your ass every time, and not in a fun ass eating way, more in an ice giant just gobbling you up. You make your reality, possibly more than most, so make it one that puts you at the center so you can get shit done.

You aren’t going to grow from this garbage heap if you don’t stop beating yourself up about every goat-forsaken choice you make! Your total understanding of your standing in the Universe is about to get a reboot anyhow, so just surround yourself with people and energy that allows you to build toward that anomalyous “self goals” thing we’ve been kinda talking about. You’re doing one “Supreme Ritual” that is your life, so make it all Work together instead of weird little stand alone actions you do every once and a while when it suits your fancy, Your Path requires a fuck load more that that from you.

And speaking of demands, that wedding… You’re hanging in there (pun absolutely intended) to do Greater things, and Greater means integrating. Like I was just saying about that 6 of Wands, bring it all together as a “Supreme Ritual” of your Goatdamned life and get out there and fucking take it, announcing that you shall take what is yours, which is of course, only you…

Well, there you are anonymous bud and Odin friend/family/familiar.

Beat down the walls and Goatspeed on your journey UP!

-Frater N0vght

[daisyguanisme]

How “Bojack Horseman” is a perfect example of realistic animation.

The animation series depicts a world where animals and humans live together and interact socially. The visual production is simple and feels like a child’s drawing, but its perception and pressures endowed to the audience are realistic even depressing. I used to not understand why there have to be animal characters in the series, and why can’t they just use all humans to tell the story. After reading Jason Mittell’s “Cartoon Realism: Genre Mixing and the Cultural Life of The Simpsons”, I begin to understand that having animals and humans together is a way of genre mixing. According to the concept brought by Mittell, realism animation can take advantage of both emphasizing the realistic part (such as the content, dialogue, the storyline and so on), as well as the animation part to keep a distance from reality. In this way, it can avoid projecting too overloaded and depressing thoughts and feelings to the audience. Animation makes it easier to talk about dark issues and is ideal for its implicit distance. In the show, they are stressed about managing relationships, find life goals, pressures from a career-wise, unhappy childhood and so on. Such kept distance is well applied: animation has a relaxing coat to constantly remind people “don’t take it too seriously”, but also the realistic content makes the audience identify themselves with the show. 

The differentiation between animals and humans is also meaningful. In Bojack Horseman, Mr. Peanut Butter is a dog, and Princess Caroline is a cat. They are never bothered by the question to figure out who they are. Princess Caroline has specific plans for her life and she always knows what she wants, which explains why she is so determined when making decisions. Mr. PeanutButter is always positive and cheerful. In contrast, human characters such as Diane and Todd are stuck in the self-questioning all the time. They are exhausted to figure out the answer, and Todd does not even know his true sexual orientation until after the seasons of the show. He stays at Bojack’s sofa every day and doing nothing, happily live inconsistent, gradual, but implicit pain. Comparing with the four supporting characters who can be clearly distinguished between animals and humans, the main character Bojack is the one hesitating between. The complex personalities and life issues he faces make the series much more than a cartoon but a realistic production that really motivates the audience to think through, just as how Jason mentioned in his work that its reflexivity and self-awareness breaks down the artifice and illusion, and brings in realism because producers usually project themselves in the production.  

In the show, Bojack keeps questioning himself for what he wants and who he is: The scene depicting people keep asking him “Are you the one who was in the Horse-in Around Show?” “Are you Bojack?” repeats almost in every episode. Therefore, I consider it as a realistic animation, as Jason Mittell defined, a production with hyper-reflexivity and self-awareness. Besides, it examines universal human behaviors, which allows it to be relatable and have a larger audience base, as claimed by Rex Kruger. We do not fight with magic in real life, but we do try to figure out our self-identities. There are configured cultural hierarchies and norms, and the conflict between self and the outside world.   Rex Krueger talks about how obeying the physics rule in the animation makes the series more realistic. In Bojack Horseman, there’s no falling from a skyscraper or jump out of windows, it mainly depicts how characters talk and only normal physical interactions. It may seem dry and simplified at first, but I feel a stronger desire to identify with them since that’s how we act in real life. Rex also mentions how the connection producing new experiences and a sense of reality when he talks about adaptation and appropriation. Bojack is a series initially online but I still see how connection produces realism between seasons. The opening title part of Bojack keeps along with the plot: other characters appear or disappear according to the plot as the background in Bojack’s house. Rex Kruger also talks about how “The Boondocks encourages the audience to question their own personal motivation” (315), and Bojack Horseman does a good job of using supporting characters to reveal and fulfill the main character: Hollyhock represents the childish side and ignorance of Bojack. It reflects the idea of how one’s identity is revealed and counter-projected by people around us. Bojack is the series that motivate the audience to question and think through, so it is realistic. Next, Rex defined “fluid relationships with current events” keeps an animation realistic, and Bojack season 4 often addresses social issues such as social media, online violence, gun control, and so on. In the form of animation, the cartoon enhances perceived realism, and it breaks sitcom and produces greater realism. And I like how animation allows production more freedom, as addressed by Rex: Bojack takes the drug and his emotions of craziness, black humor, being absurd can be shown without acting limitations but strongly relatable as well. Jason has brought up a concept called “Parody in the context of cultural life”, and in Bojack sometimes the audience will be reminded that some characters are animals when they almost forget the fact. For example, a polar bear wears shorts in winter; the license plate for Mr. Peanut Butter is “GOOD BOY”...Such balance will drag the audience back to the setting of animation and being relaxed. I think realistic cartoons still have to do a good job of keeping the balance by taking some seriousness out of the picture: it can’t be the behaviors, so animal appearances become the top choice. 

Bojack Horseman season 6 trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOGxOQxXjdo&t=9s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGyxgE19Xjc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8a_3KxB9uE

All in all, the depression and struggle, ironically, are my reasons to love this comedy cartoon.

 References: 

Mittell, Jason. The Velvet Lightrap. “Cartoon Realism: Genre Mixing and the Cultural Life of The Simpsons”. 2001. pp15-28.

Krueger, Rex. Animation. “Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks and Its Transition From Comic Strip to Animated Series”. 2010. pp 313-329.

[space-feminist]

rewatched the aladdin trilogy because i had free time and there’s a remake coming out and, boy, do i have thoughts:

section 1: aladdin is a normal silly disney movie that happens to be set in Middle-Eastern-Stereotype-Land

i remember there being this big uproar that the actors in the live-action version should be Middle Eastern and i was like, ah yes, this movie set in Middle-Eastern-Stereotype-Land full of scantily clad harem girls and shifty traders in turbans and beards is obviously going to be woke if it has middle eastern people playing the leads. sure.

i’m not saying whitewashing isn’t bad, i’m just saying that if we want to discuss the representation of poc on film in the context of aladdin, we might want to go a little deeper than “cast Middle Eastern actors”. people will argue that it’s not meant to be accurate because it’s fantasy-Arabia, but accuracy isn’t actually what’s at stake when people talk about racism in fiction, they’re talking about dehumanizing stereotypes. dehumanizing stereotypes like giving your villain dark skin and a turban and a beard and an accent while your heroes are coded more white. 

a) why is no one talking about this?

i like aladdin. i think it’s a good disney movie, full of fun characters and songs, and of course Robin Williams’s genie is a highlight. that’s probably why it hasn’t gotten the same criticism as other disney movies have. it is a fun movie that just happens to be set in a stereotype-laden world.

contrast, say, pocahontas, which is widely criticized for its representation of Native Americans and of American history. pocahontas just isn’t a good movie. it’s got pretty animation and songs, but pocahontas and john smith are fairly uninteresting characters, and the villain doesn’t have the threat level or aesthetic or motivation of a good disney villain. it isn’t really trying to be a fun movie, it’s trying to be deep and meaningful and real (after all, it’s set in ‘the real world’). when you take into account the actual historical reality, the entire movie falls apart because the setting and message are the only memorable parts.

aladdin doesn’t try to do what pocahontas does so it doesn’t fail in the same way. the plot of aladdin isn’t tied to its setting aside from the maybe the inclusion of a genie, which i believe is a figure specifically from middle-eastern folklore (i’m white though so don’t take my word for that). replace the genie with some other wish-granting magical being, change sultan to king, and you could set it in europe no problem. it’s both completely stereotypical about the middle east and also a totally white-washed version of it.

what i’m saying is that aladdin is an enjoyable story without the window-dressing, and i can’t fault you for enjoying that especially when i enjoy it as well. i also think this has somewhat shielded it from accusations of racism.

HOWEVER

b) the live action remake is going to be a disaster

these disney live-action remakes add new stuff to supposedly “fix” problems, but they also don’t deviate too far because then they can’t pump out the nostalgia dollars. there’s no way to walk that line with aladdin’s problems, so what we’re going to get is a shallow rehash of the original with maybe a token change that really does nothing to fix anything.

with 1992 aladdin, we can go “there’s some good bits in there despite the racism of the setting”, but all the good bits of the new aladdin will also be present in the earlier movie, rendering it devoid of any value at all.

section 2: you remember what i said earlier about how you can separate the story from the seting? now i’m doing that

a) misconceptions and bad takes

people rag on jasmine a lot for not recognizing aladdin at first but in her defense she 100% does and he denies it, plus she believes he’s dead. and then even after the carpet ride, she asks him about abu. she believes his second lie a little too readily, though, but despite being this spunky princess who defies norms she’s still been very sheltered.

this brings me to the thing people rag on aladdin for, which is lying to get into a girl’s billowy pants. this frustrates me similar to the hot takes that claim beauty and the beast is about abuse, like. it’s called a character arc. he regrets his actions and is about to come clean when jafar starts trying to take over the world. please. leave him alone.

b) An Analysis Of Aladdin Through The Lens of Class

“sometimes you just feel…trapped” aladdin and jasmine say in unison. jasmine is talking about the expectation to marry a prince, while aladdin’s talking about poverty and constanly running from police because he steals to survive. aladdin dreams about a life of luxury in the palace, while jasmine dreams of the freedom of living on the streets.

the fact that the movie tries to equate those two experiences is laughable. jasmine is a privileged person romanticizing and play-acting at poverty for fun, so disconnected from the realities of her people that she doesn’t even know that should have brought money when she escaped the palace. aladdin dreams of wealth because it will solve his material needs.

certainly from an anti-capitalist perspective, we can critique how aladdin’s fantasies reflect an embrace of the system that excludes him - rather than calling for an end to the wealth inequality between the people and the ruling classes, he instead dreams of joining the ruling classes. when the prince walks through the town, aladdin says “if i were as rich as you, i could afford some manners!” and in his princely guise the genie gives him, he throws handfuls of gold coins to the public. he seems to believe that it is possible to be both moral and rich. 

however, i am uncomfortable with leveling much of my anti-capitalist critique at the character who is in poverty rather than at the ineffectual government of agrabah. a weak, childish king, puppeted by a conniving, power-hungry advisor. the princess isn’t allowed even the smallest interaction with the people she will someday govern. the police force sends out an entire squad after someone who stole a loaf of bread. it’s basically pre-revolutionary france, and someone needs to guillotine the sultan.

in the end, the status quo of agrabah remains unchanged except for aladdin, who manages to achieve the capitalist dream. it’s unclear whether he’ll be able to enact any of the broad sweeping reforms agrabah desperately needs.

ultimately, this is a movie that brings up the issue of class divides, but offers the safe pro-capitalist answer that you’d expect of a major corporation like disney.

c) An Analysis Of The Aladdin Sequels Through The Lens Of Class 

in both sequels, aladdin finds himself advocating for a criminal - iago the parrot in “return of jafar”, and his father, casim, in “king of thieves”. jafar mentions rescuing iago from a cage in a bazaar. casim leaves his family to seek fortune, and ends up falling in with the forty thieves. aladdin advocates for them because he understands how poverty and desperation can drive someone to a life of crime. he was there.

he is now in a position where he thinks he can use his privilege to help people, but he doesn’t quite have the privilege he thinks he does. he’s distrusted for trusting iago, and the police force seems delighted to hear he’s related to the king of thieves and that they now have an excuse to chase him down again. notably, he’s called “the prince of thieves” by the police chief - he’s not just perceived as criminal because he’s helping criminals, but because of the circumstances of his birth. aladdin is jay gatsby, discovering that old money is unimpressed by new money.

but yet again, the ending stops short of pursuing this critique to its fullest. aladdin is, in fact, accepted by old money and he ends up marrying his Daisy Buchanan. iago and casim are never accepted into the upper classes. again, we end with aladdin maintaining the current power structures. it is yet again, the safe answer you’d expect from a corporation like disney, that created these direct-to-video sequels simply to pump more money out of the consumer.

section 3: this was super fun

honestly, these movies were legitimately delightful. maybe it was nostalgia or the robin williams, but i thorougly enjoyed myself watching them and writing this post. i’m not saying i recommend watching disney sequels (most of them are bad, and even “king of thieves”, probably the best, has its cringy moments), but i do highly recommend indulging in your nostalgia every once in a while.

[holden-norgorov]

S01E01: Limbic Resonance.

Kalagang analyses per episode.

In the first episode of the show, we don’t get to see Wolfgang and Kala interacting yet, but we still gain a huge amount of details regarding their psychology and a pretty solid foundation for their character arcs. These retrospective, episode-by-episode analyses will not be only focused on their connection, but also on the individual transformation and path that both of them will face and overcome thanks to it. Full episode analysis is under the cut.

First of all, I want to begin with a bit of an introduction 1. by analyzing their names, the meaning behind them and what they suggest about the characters and 2. by pointing out their bond with water and what it represents to them.

Wolfgang: traditional German name made up of the words “wolf” (wolf) and “gang” (path, journey). It can be linked to the meaning “advancing at a stealthy pace” and to the image of a lone wolf preparing to storm into battle. Superficially, it refers to the closed, introverted nature of the character and the violent and dangerous environment he grew up in, which always forced him to conduct a solitary lifestyle. The “journey” he has to face is to learn how to have faith in himself and then open up and rely on others thanks to that. Kala is symbolically fundamental in making him understand that it’s not true that he “doesn’t need anyone” (2x05) and that he is unworthy of being loved. On a deeper level, though, it’s interesting to notice that the animal of the wolf has always been deeply misunderstood in cultural mythologies and depicted as a feral predator because of fear and superstitions, while in the totem tradition it actually symbolically embodies the traits of cordiality and generosity. This duality speaks also about the character very precisely: Wolfgang always gets easily judged solely regarding his external, apparent brutality, whereas his vulnerable and selfless inner nature always ends up being ignored or not acknowledged at all. Except for Kala, who can clearly see that he has “something good and beautiful” hidden inside of him that always becomes evident when they are together (2x01).

Kala: traditional Hindi name that possesses three different layers of interpretation fitting with the nature of the character. Its first meaning is “fine arts, lady, princess” and it obviously refers to the superficial display of Kala’s behavior and how she is commonly perceived by others. She has been taught her all life to behave nicely and pleasantly in order to evolve in a fine and proper Indian woman, even though this cultural indoctrination doesn’t provide her any happiness and undermines her self-worth. She constantly has to hide her true nature and conduct a life of fakeness by constructing the untrue image of an apparently perfect and socially-praiseworthy lady. “Fine arts” also gives the idea of her role in Wolfgang’s growth and gain of self-awareness: she becomes his emotional Muse. This concept is linked with the second meaning of her name: “sunlight”. Kala is often shown to be fundamental in restoring Wolfgang’s hope and appreciation for life. She enlightens his perspective and provides new colors and shades to his obscure and frightening world. In many occasions we can see her actively bringing him into the light, both physically (2x06; 2x10) and metaphorically (1x07). This lighthearted nature of her contrasts with what we learn with the third meaning, which is “dark blue, black”. Deep down, Kala doesn’t see herself as the kind of woman she pretends to be in public and has “something dark and wicked” hidden inside of her that can be freely and comfortably exposed only with Wolfgang (2x01).

Both Wolfgang and Kala also share a deep connection with water since their first breath. Water constantly brings them together. And since this trait of their connection is always present in their bond and recurring in many of their scenes in both seasons, I thought about giving a general explanation of what this element means to them at the very beginning of these analyses (so here) and then pointing out references every time water is involved in the future. This should save time and prevent unneeded repetitions from happening.

Water perfectly encapsulate the dualistic nature of their characters. It’s a transformative element that can be both clean, pure and soothing and dirty, destructive and devastating at the same time. It mirrors Kala and Wolfgang’s inner and outer personalities and reflects the contrast of “light” (limpidity: Kala’s outer and Wolfgang’s inner selves) and “dark” (turbidity: Kala’s inner and Wolfgang’s outer selves) that aesthetically and metaphorically concerns them throughout both seasons.

Water washes out the fake constructions and imperfections and reveals the true nature of things. It’s the source of a purification and healing process. Both Kala and Wolfgang are able to evoke their true essences only around each other; by triggering their connections, water symbolically leaves them naked of all their walls (cultural ones for Kala and emotional ones for Wolfgang) and destroys those fences with an uncontrolled flow. Water lets them create an intimate, genuine bond by connecting them while purified and exposed. It testifies the clean and transparent nature of their relationship.

Water is religiously associated to the gain of knowledge and wisdom. Both Kala and Wolfgang need each other in order to reach a new level of self-awareness because each of them provides the other of what they are lacking to evolve as people and characters. On many occasions they are shown to be thirsty of each other’s presence and of its empowering and enriching effect on them.

Water in many traditions symbolizes the moon. Both the water and the moon share a double face (always one side of the moon is illuminated and the other one is obscured). This is also interesting because the moon doesn’t have her own source of light but reflects the sun’s one. Which means that: the sun provides light to one side of the moon, and that side of the moon is the one that is traditionally believed to attract the howls of the wolves. The moon (water) acts as a mediator between the “sunlight” (Kala) and the howling “wolf” (Wolfgang) who develops a deep attraction to its bright side.

Water is also connected to fluidity and sexuality. This is very clear in a lot of interactions between Wolfgang and Kala where water is present in the form of sweat, snow or rain. They visit each other in the most intimate places and moments. They were both birthed in a water-filled environment and finally joined their bodies together in the same way. Also, as water, being a malleable element, can be prevented from flowing freely and be imprisoned by banks or canals, in the same way sexuality can be restrained by the nature of self or channeled in a precise direction. Kala’s demisexual nature provided a metaphorical drain through which water (sexual attraction) could be channeled towards Wolfgang only thanks to their connection.

Water grants eventually the access to a deep and mysterious underworld. The unknown and unconquerable nature of the ocean resembles Wolfgang and Kala’s impossibility of legitimately acting on their love. Their feelings are denied exposure and are conceived as a secret to be hidden in the abyss; their connection goes very deep and the more it escapes the surface, the more powerful and overwhelming it becomes, just as marine currents. 

All that said, let’s finally dive into the episode (no pun intended).

We are firstly introduced to Kala when she is at her father’s restaurant. She briefly connects with Wolfgang and experiences thunder and rain. Their affinity to water is already established in this moment and will keep coming back in a lot of episodes. In Kala’s case, the actual external storm coming from Wolfgang’s sensations mirrors her internal struggle and unfavorable feelings regarding marrying a man she doesn’t love. Since, even if we don’t know that yet, she already unwillingly accepted Rajan’s hand, that storm becomes a metaphor for her emotional turmoil and the fear of letting her parents down on her hesitancy. So, Wolfgang’s physical rainy environment is symbolically conceived to have a deep access to Kala’s interiority and provide an accurate representation of her concealed, real thoughts about the marriage. From the very first moment, their connection is already intimate and self-revealing.

In this scene it’s also already clear that Kala loves her father so much that, in order for him to be really happy (since it’s clarified that this union to him is more satisfying and important than her work and studies), she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness and keep this as a secret to him. This gesture creates a complicated dynamic in their relationship that will persist for all the two seasons. Kala behaves as it is expected from a “fine” Indian girl; by fulfilling a duty she doesn’t really desire just to provide happiness and pride to her family, she basically condemns herself to conduct a future life where her relationship with her parents will only be based on lies and dishonesty. This is why she ultimately finds comfort in visiting the Ganesha temple, because in this moment the Indian god is “the only one she can talk to”. This will be replaced in S2, where Kala won’t be able to access to the temple anymore and this role will be definitely taken by Wolfgang, “the only person she ever felt she could say anything to” (2x04). Kala’s fate, by accepting this unwanted marriage, is living a life where she constantly has to lie to everyone she physically knows. Wolfgang’s future sensate presence in her intimacy will be the only thing able to give her stability and the opportunity to give vent to her real feelings and free her real self from the chains of cultural indoctrination. In this moment, though, all she feels is that she is trapped and overtaken by both an actual and metaphorical storm.

In the next scene, we are introduced to Wolfgang, who is in the middle of a downpour. The funeral moment already highlights the contrasting essence of his bond with Kala. While she is willing to commit herself to huge sacrifices in order to ensure her dad’s happiness, he is shown to have had a horrible relationship with his own father, to the point that he has a pee on his grave. The look on his face in that moment is one of determination, fulfilment and challenge. What’s important to understand about Wolfgang is that he is living a kind of lifestyle he didn’t choose for himself. He needs to find a purpose capable of making him feel worthy and important, because he has been treated badly his entire life and therefore thinks he doesn’t deserve anything. He’s lost and trapped in a directionless and self-undermining life environment he can’t gain any happiness and satisfaction from. Kala will be the one finally providing him a purpose and a reason to truly appreciate life (this is why he will always treat her like the most important thing in the world, because to him she really is). But for now, the only thing he can do to prove himself that he has value and is not worthless is mastering what his father wasn’t able to accomplish. He wants to constantly show and testify that he is “not as stupid as my father” (1x05). This is why he feels the need to crack the same safe (S&D) his father couldn’t open on his own: 1. to remind himself that he didn’t turn out to be like him, but a better version and 2. in order for this brief success to fill the void of his pointless everyday life and make him feel as if he matters and his life has a meaning. He craves self-appreciation and proud because he was literally raised to believe he will never be enough or worth considering at all. It’s his coping mechanism.

The last Kala’s scene of the episode is set in the Ganesha temple. As I said before, it’s the only place where she can truly be herself, and this is why in S1 she will be seen here a lot. Ganesha, by being this silent and listening presence, provides her of assurance and understanding. It’s interesting to notice that, since the god himself clearly can’t answer and his statue is a projection of the character’s faith, Kala turns out to be not only her own moral persecutor, but also her own pressure valve. The process of conversing with Ganesha provides her the same venting, healing effect of writing on a secret diary. It’s her coping mechanism. Here she says that she is about to marry a very important man who everyone in her society thinks of as the perfect Indian husband, but that she actually doesn’t love. “How could I say no?” she asks nearly in tears, thinking about her parents “dancing around the house”. She develops an internal moral struggle that will be the source of her character’s essence for two seasons. She is not about to enter an arranged marriage, because the man who proposed to her wasn’t specifically chosen by her parents. This conscious decision on her (which is what led her family consider this as a “love union”, despite not being such) is not the result of an imposed coercion from the outside, but of an internal sacrifice that she experiences as a necessary burden thanks to the mentality she inherited from her culture. She is putting societal expectations and her parents’ happiness above her own because she believes that this is the kind of behavior that is excepted from her in order to be appreciated and judged as “proper” and “adequate”. It’s a matter of cultural indoctrination. She is consciously making a choice that she knows will only satisfy others. In this moment Kala is truly suffering and almost ends up crying: this is not a choice she’s making for herself. She is suffocating her real self and building a superficial, fake image of a lady she doesn’t feel comfortable being just because in her societal environment there’s only room for that lady.

The last Wolfgang’s scene of the episode features him performing a robbery. The really important moment here happens when he takes a break from trying to crack the S&D safe and turns on the tv. Despite knowing how uncomfortable he feels singing in public, he states that watching music competitions actually relaxes him (probably because, as we discover in the finale episode, he used to sing a lot with his mother when he was young, which likely was the only distraction they had from the violence of his father). Here, though, the singing competition becomes a metaphor for how Wolfgang feels internally, as suggested by the comparison between the girl’s performance and his own flashback. In this memory a young Wolfgang is shown being unable to perform on stage because of his father’s general presence ― that scares him, since he was constantly abused by him — and particular attitude in that moment — that makes him feel worthless and nullified. Felix’s comment about the girl being unable to win the competition not because of her singing talent but because of her physical aspect (i.e. something irrelevant to a fair and objective judgement) mirrors young Wolfgang’s feeling of being unable to sing not because of stage fright or failure worries (he actually enjoys singing) but because of the terror of being constantly ridiculed and put down by his father. He was traumatized. The fact that the girl in tv actually ends up losing the competition is a testament of Wolfgang’s permanent inability of recovering from his internalized childhood traumas that still torment him nowadays. This finale recognition is what ultimately forces him to fulfil the need of “cracking the uncrackable” and definitely release himself from his father’s mockeries. The satisfied look on his face, once he finally opens the safe, steams not only from the concrete opportunity of collecting the diamonds, but especially from the abstract gain of a new self-worth and praise that discredit what his father always accustomed him to think about himself. He finally proved his father wrong.

That’s all for the pilot. We’ll see in the next episode, where things start to get really interesting for Kalagang.

[30-days-of-exciting-stuff-blog]

Day 10 - Black Mirror [Series]

Do you ever feel fabulously grateful for something crappy that happened to you, because it eventually led to something good? This is one of my favourite things in the world. I had one of these moments a few weeks ago. A co-worker had been motivating us all week to spend a crazy Friday night out. For totally work-unrelated reasons, I had been feeling pretty depressed lately and most of my evenings were spent alone in my apartment (mostly re-watching bad Youtube videos, probably in order to make sure that I still didn’t like them), so I looked forward to this night out. Getting anywhere close to drunk was off the table because I had made some damn good resolutions, but I was kind of hoping that we’d meet wonderfully weird people, and find a place where the decoration would make me laugh even more than the huge portrait of Angela Merkel that took up all the space of the ladies’ restroom door in a Germany-themed bar I once went to. Enjoying the city lights and probably dancing - to some terrible 2000’s music that would remind me of the awkward teenage parties I usually wasn’t invited to anyway – sounded like a nice sequel to this.

In case you wonder: The weird Angela Merkel bar is actually called the Black Forest Society, and it’s located in Lyon, France. They have nice, original, good-resolutions-incompatible cocktails made with Black Forest Gin and fancy liquors and cocoa, sometimes served in kitschy recipients. A bit expensive, but still a nice experience. Oh, and they have bretzels as well.

Unfortunately, they had all lost their motivation sparkle by the time Friday came. Some of them wanted to get up early tomorrow, some had other plans, some were tired. I ended up being the only one who actually wanted to go. I had booked my train tickets to my parents’ for the next morning, so it became clear that this would be another lonely night in my flat. I soon found myself texting my co-worker, whining about how bored I was and asking her if she could think of something nice for me to read or watch.  She suggested me to try Black Mirror if I wanted food for thought about modern society. Black Mirror is a series of one-hour standalone episodes. That, my friends, is already a pretty great point for people like me who try to watch a zillion series at once - and inevitably end up forgetting what the hell the hot smart gay intern’s name is because 1) all these character names adding up can be rather confusing 2) they find time for an episode of the show every two months or so. Standalone episodes have that great habit of rightly assuming that, just like Jon Snow, the viewer knows nothing. Each one has its own cast, setting, and reality, which basically makes them short movies. What they all have in common in Black Mirror is the theme of new technologies and their unexpected consequences.

By the way: Connor Walsh. The hot smart gay intern from How to get away with murder is Connor Walsh. He’s one of the main characters for the Seven’s sake, how could you even forget?

As you may have noticed, the theme is pretty broad, which allows for a number of variations. Some episodes are built around a specific fictional technology – what would happen, for instance, if everyone had a chimp implant that recorded everything they did, saw or heard, and allowed them to replay the entire memory, either in front of their eyes or on a screen? The Entire History of You is centered around that possibility. In an alternative reality where this technology allows personal data storage to go even further than it currently does – and anyone who once cringed in front of an n-th attempt from Facebook to revive awkward 8-year-old memories to celebrate a virtual friendship birthday will probably argue that this has already gone way too far – memories are never faded, let alone erased. Every recording is potentially an evidence to the jealous protagonist, who suspects his wife to have cheated on him with her ex and gets more and more paranoid as he keeps replaying potentially incriminating memories. The chilling Be right back, on the other hand, introduces us to realistic androids simulating the deceased using their previous communication data. Martha, a grieving young woman whose husband died in a car crash, reluctantly begins to communicate with an artificial intelligence accurately imitating her late partner – humour, interests, reactions, everything is calculated to sound like him. The digital ghost is convincing and Martha soon finds herself in love with him, until she gets frustrated with his inability to express emotions accurately, and his lack of the traits that were not expressed by her deceased husband in his digital life. The resulting story is truly haunting – no pun intended -, and is both a heart-wrenching exploration of grief and a starting point to an authentic riot of questions in the viewer’s mind, the most interesting probably being “What spares the human from a thinking machine anticipating its reaction to every situation, and able to be loved by the ones who knew the person behind?”.

The Entire History of You - Nah, you told me your relationship had lasted one week, not one month, LOOK, I HAVE PROOF. *Memory replays*

Hi digital ghost, I guess.

My favourite episodes, however, are those set in dehumanized, acerbic, cynical dystopias, built and revealed slowly over the course of the episode. In the thought-provoking Fifteen million merits, citizens only go out of their confined sleeping boxes to cycle endlessly on exercise bikes to power their screen-covered surroundings and generate Merits, a currency that allows them to skip the untimely, inopportune, sometimes obscene advertisements that keep interrupting their activities to sell them nothing but virtual items such as accessories for their avatars. Sleep. Cycle. Skip ad – if you can afford it. Interact briefly with one or two avatars. Repeat. The protagonist progressively becomes aware of the vacuity of this existence and craves realness since he got a glimpse of it in the singing voice of one of his co-cyclers, but even the only perceived escapes usually turn out to be smoking mirrors. Another great episode, Nosedive, is set in a colourful, alternative reality where people rate one another using their phones. Ratings determine their employability, access to services and overall value in society – some neighbourhoods are exclusively reserved to people with high ratings, and a low rating will make you lose your job. This leads people to obsess over their ratings and calculate every single social interaction, hoping to get the favours of high-rated people in order to raise their score and finally be able to get the discount they need to rent a house. Satires about social media society probably aren’t uncommon, but this one has that cynical feel created by the sharp contrast between the pink-and-pastel visuals and the hypocritical, chained social interactions that take place under a social media eye constantly ready to pull people under if they dare speak their minds or complain about anything. Nosedive gets even scarier when you think back about it and realise that the terrifying society described over the episode already exists, although in a less visible way. Social media does play a huge role in our personal and professional lives – who never thought of posting something on the social media just to impress someone? Who never heard a story of someone who got in trouble at work, or didn’t get hired, because of social media material? Who never got stuck into a conversation about what a common acquaintance posted on social media the day before? Who never paid at least a little attention to the number of likes they got on their Facebook post? And about the whole rating thing – I’m pretty sure you’re already familiar with “We’ll go to that restaurant, it’s really well-rated on Tripadvisor” or “If you liked it, please don’t forget to rate us”. And actually, apps that rate people are already a thing.

Fifteen million merits and Nosedive - Different atmospheres, different alternate realities, same feeling of suffocating fakeness.

This is where Black Mirror generally gets brilliant: Although the alternate realities depicted in the show are usually noticeably different from ours, the viewer always ends up seeing a reflection of their own society. The scenarios X-ray aspects of our modern world and disguise them in a satirical, clever, accurate way that makes you think back about Black Mirror episodes long after you watched them. The questions raised by the series go way beyond the usual “You should all turn off your phones, get real again and go for a walk in the forest with your neighbour, social media turned you into narcissist brainless zombies” rhetoric. The variety of scenarios, from political satire to intimate drama, make sure you keep being surprised and never get bored. However, you will probably get uneasy pretty often – and I’m not saying that because the first episode revolves around the Prime Minister being ordered to have sex with a pig in order to save a princess from being killed. A cuddly blanket, a nice cup of tea, your favourite biscuits and a pair of arms/loving cat/soft toy (depending on what you have in store) are probably advised during, or after, a Black Mirror episode. Not providing yourself with that equipment and watching it right before going to bed will be at your own risk – I promise you don’t want your nightmares to turn into technologically advanced dystopias. Old school monsters are easier to run from.

And also: This is the tenth post of this Tumblr, which definitely deserves to be celebrated with the song that kind of inspired it. As hinted in the Crypt of the Necrodancer post, it’s the famous standard “My favorite things” (except I usually write it, like everything on that Tumblr, with the British spelling – I’m neither British nor American, and I’m trying hard to avoid cliché-ridden justifications such as “because it makes my blog posts smell like my beloved Twinings tea”). Just like that enthusiastic blog of mine, it’s an enumeration of amazing things. Let’s face it, “whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens” probably sound much better than “sad novels, weird computer games, robot exhibits and sci-fi-ish series”, but I promise I love kittens and soft mittens as well. I just don’t have enough material to write about them. Anyway, I thought you may enjoy this cover by Pomplamoose as much as I do.

[nancygduarteus]

The Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed With YouTube

Toddlers crave power. Too bad for them, they have none. Hence the tantrums and absurd demands. (No, I want this banana, not that one, which looks identical in every way but which you just started peeling and is therefore worthless to me now.)

They just want to be in charge! This desire for autonomy clarifies so much about the behavior of a very small human.  It also begins to explains the popularity YouTube among toddlers and preschoolers, several development psychologists told me.

If you don’t have a 3-year-old in your life, you may not be aware of YouTube Kids, an app that’s essentially a stripped-down version of the original video blogging site, with videos filtered by the target audience’s age. And because the mobile app is designed for use on a phone or tablet, kids can tap their way across a digital ecosystem populated by countless videos—all conceived with them in mind.

The videos that surface on the app are generated by YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which takes into account a user’s search history, viewing history, demographic region, gender, age, and other individual data. The algorithm is basically a funnel through which every YouTube video is poured—with only a few making it onto a person’s screen.

This recommendation engine poses a difficult task, simply because of the scale of the platform. “YouTube recommendations are responsible for helping more than a billion users discover personalized content from an ever-growing corpus of videos,” researchers at Google, which owns YouTube, wrote in a 2016 paper about the algorithm. That includes many hours of video uploaded to the site every second of every day. Making a recommendation system that’s worthwhile is  “extremely challenging,” they wrote, because the algorithm has to continuously sift through a mind-boggling trove of content and instantly identify the freshest and most relevant videos—all while knowing how to ignore the noise.

The architecture of YouTube’s recommendation system, in which “candidate videos” are retrieved and ranked before presenting only a few to the user. (Google / YouTube)

And here’s where the ouroboros factor comes in: Kids watch the same kinds of videos over and over. Videomakers take notice of what’s most popular, then mimic it, hoping that kids will click on their stuff. When they do, YouTube’s algorithm takes notice, and recommends those videos to kids. Kids keep clicking on them, and keep being offered more of the same. Which means video makers keep making those kinds of videos—hoping kids will click.

This is, in essence, how all algorithms work. It’s how filter bubbles are made. A little bit of computer code tracks what you find engaging—what sorts of videos do you watch most often, and for the longest periods of time?—then sends you more of that kind of stuff. Viewed a certain way, YouTube Kids is offering programming that’s very specifically tailored to what children want to see. Kids are actually selecting it themselves, right down to the second they lose interest and choose to tap on something else. The YouTube app, in other words, is a giant reflection of what kids want.  In this way, it opens a special kind of window into a child’s psyche.

But what does it reveal?

“Up until very recently, surprisingly few people were looking at this,” says Heather Kirkorian, an assistant professor of human development in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “In the last year or so, we’re actually seeing some research into apps and touchscreens. It’s just starting to come out.”

Kids videos are among the most watched content in YouTube history. This video, for example, has been viewed more than 2.3 billion times, according to YouTube’s count:

You can find some high-quality animation on YouTube Kids, plus clips from television shows like Peppa Pig, and sing-along nursery rhymes. “Daddy Finger” is basically the YouTube Kids anthem, and ChuChu TV’s dynamic interpretations of popular kid songs are basically inescapable.

Many of the most popular videos have an amateur feel. Toy demonstrations like surprise-egg videos are huge. These videos are just what they sound like: adults narrate as they play with various toys, often by pulling them out of plastic eggs or peeling away layers of slime or Play-Doh to reveal a hidden figurine.

Kids go nuts for these things.

Here’s a video from the YouTube Kids vloggers Toys Unlimited that’s logged more than 25 million views, for example:

The vague weirdness of these videos aside, it’s actually easy to see why kids like them. “Who doesn’t want to get a surprise? That’s sort of how all of us operate,” says Sandra Calvert, the director of the Children’s Digital Media Center at Georgetown University. In addition to surprises being fun, many of the videos are basically toy commercials. (This video of a person pressing sparkly Play-Doh onto chintzy Disney princess figurines has been viewed 550 million times.) And they let kids tap into a whole internet’s worth of plastic eggs and perceived power. They get to choose what they watch. And kids love being in charge, even in superficial ways.

“It’s sort of like rapid-fire channel surfing,” says Michael Rich, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Center on Media and Child Health. “In many ways YouTube Kids is better suited to the attention span of a young child—just by virtue of its length—than something like a half-hour or hour broadcast program can be.”

Rich and others compare the app to predecessors like Sesame Street, which introduced short segments within a longer program, in part to keep the attention of the young children watching. For decades, researchers have looked at how kids respond to television. Now they’re examining the way children use mobile apps—how many hours they’re spending, which apps they’re using, and so on.

It makes sense that researchers have begun to take notice. In the mobile internet age, the same millennials who have ditched cable television en masse are now having babies, which makes apps like YouTube Kids the screentime option du jour. Instead of being treated to a 28-minute episode of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, a toddler or preschooler might be offered 28 minutes of phone time to play with the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood app. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is a television program, too—a spin-off of Mr. Roger’s—aimed at viewers aged 2 years old to 4 years old.

But toddlers and preschoolers are actually pretty separate groups, as far researchers are concerned. A 2-year-old and a 4-year-old might both like watching Daniel Tiger, or the same YouTube Kids video, but their takeaway is apt to be much different, Kirkorian told me. Children under the age of 3 tend to have difficulty taking information relayed to them through a screen and applying it to real-life situations. Many studies have reached similar conclusions, with a few notable exceptions. Researchers recently discovered that when a screentime experience becomes interactive—Facetiming with Grandmère, let’s say—kids under 3 years old actually can make strong connections between what’s happening onscreen and offscreen.

Kirkorian’s lab designed a series of experiments to see how much of a role interactivity plays in helping a young child transfer information this way. She and her colleagues found striking learning differences among what young children learned—even kids under 2 years old—when they could interact with an app versus when they were just watching a screen. Other researchers, too, have found that incorporating some sort of interactivity helps children retain information better. Researchers at different institutions have different definitions of “interactivity,” but in one experiment it was an act as simple as pressing a spacebar.

“So there does seem to be something about the act of choosing, having some kind of agency,  that makes a difference for little kids,” Kirkorian says. “The speculative part is why that makes a difference.”

One idea is that kids, especially, like to watch the same things over and over and over again until they really understand it. I watched the Dumbo VHS so many times as a little kid that I would recite the movie on long car rides. Apparently, this is not unusual—at least not since the age of VCRs and, subsequently, on-demand programming and apps. “If they have the opportunity to choose what they’re watching, then they’re likely to interact in a way that meets their learning goals,” Kirkorian says. “We know the act of learning new information is rewarding, so they’re likely to pick the information or videos that are in that sweet spot.”

“Children like to watch the same thing over and over,” says Calvert, of Georgetown. “Some of that is a comprehension issue, so they’ll repeatedly look at it so they can understand the story. Kids often don’t understand people’s motives, and that’s a major driver for a story. They don’t often understand the link between actions and consequences.”

Young kids are also just predisposed to becoming obsessive about relatively narrow interests. (Elephants! Trains! The moon! Ice cream!) Around the 18-month mark, many toddlers develop “extremely intense interests,” says Georgene Troseth, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. Which is part of why kids using apps like YouTube Kids often select videos that portray familiar concepts—ones that feature a cartoon character or topic they’re already drawn to. This presents a research challenge, however. If kids are just tapping a thumbnail of a video because they recognize it, it’s hard to say how much they’re learning—or how different the app environment really is from other forms of play.

Even the surprise-egg craze isn’t really novel, says Rachel Barr, a developmental psychologist at Georgetown. “They are relatively fast paced and they include something that young children really like: things being enclosed and unwrapped,” she told me. “I have not tested it, but it seems unlikely that children are learning from these videos since they are not clearly constructed.”

“Interactivity is not always a good thing,” she added.

Researchers differ on the degree to which YouTube Kids is a valuable educational tool. Obviously, it depends on the video and the involvement of a caregiver to help contextualize what’s on screen. But questions about how the algorithm works also play a role. It’s not clear, for instance, how heavily YouTube weighs previous watching behaviors in its recommendation engine. If a kid binge-watches a bunch of videos that are lower quality in terms of learning potential, are they then stuck in a filter bubble where they’ll only see similarly low-quality programming?

There isn’t a human handpicking the best videos for kids to watch. The only human input on YouTube’s side is to monitor the app for inappropriate content, a spokesperson for YouTube told me. Quality control has still been an issue, however. YouTube Kids last year featured a video that showed Mickey Mouse-esque characters shooting one another in the head with guns, Today reported.

“The available content is not curated but rather filtered into the app via the algorithm,” said Nina Knight, a YouTube spokesperson. “So unlike traditional TV, where the content is being selected for you at a specified time, the YouTube Kids app gives each child and family more of the type of content they love and anytime they want it, which is incredibly unique.”

At the same time, the creators of YouTube Kids videos spend countless hours trying to game the algorithm so that their videos are viewed as many times as possible—more views translate into more advertising dollars for them. Here’s a video by Toys AndMe that’s logged more than 125 million views since it was posted in September 2016:

“You have to do what the algorithm wants for you,” says Nathalie Clark, the co-creator of a similarly popular channel, Toys Unlimited, and a former ICU nurse who quit her job to make videos full-time. “You can’t really jump back and forth between themes.”

What she means is, once YouTube’s algorithm has determined that a certain channel is a source of videos about slime, or colors, or shapes, or whatever else—and especially once a channel has had a hit video on a given topic—videomakers stray from that classification at their peril. “Honestly, YouTube picks for you,” she says. “Trending right now is Paw Patrol, so we do a lot of Paw Patrol.”

There are other key strategies for making a YouTube Kids video go viral. Make enough of these things and you start to get a sense of what children want to see, she says. “I wish I could tell you more,” she added, “But I don’t want to introduce competition. And, honestly, nobody really understands it. ”

The other thing people don’t yet understand is how growing up in the mobile internet age will change the way children think about storytelling. “There’s a rich set of literature showing kids who are reading more books are more imaginative,” says Calvert, of the Children’s Digital Media Center. “But in the age of interactivity, it’s no just longer consuming what somebody else makes. It’s also making you’re own thing.”

In other words, the youngest generation of app users is developing new expectations about narrative structure and informational environments. Beyond the thrill a preschooler gets from tapping a screen, or watching The Bing Bong Song video for the umpteenth time, the long-term implications for cellphone-toting toddlers are tangled up with all the other complexities of living in a highly networked on-demand world.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/what-youtube-reveals-about-the-toddler-mind/534765/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

The Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed With YouTube

Toddlers crave power. Too bad for them, they have none. Hence the tantrums and absurd demands. (No, I want this banana, not that one, which looks identical in every way but which you just started peeling and is therefore worthless to me now.)

They just want to be in charge! This desire for autonomy clarifies so much about the behavior of a very small human.  It also begins to explains the popularity YouTube among toddlers and preschoolers, several development psychologists told me.

If you don’t have a 3-year-old in your life, you may not be aware of YouTube Kids, an app that’s essentially a stripped-down version of the original video blogging site, with videos filtered by the target audience’s age. And because the mobile app is designed for use on a phone or tablet, kids can tap their way across a digital ecosystem populated by countless videos—all conceived with them in mind.

The videos that surface on the app are generated by YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which takes into account a user’s search history, viewing history, demographic region, gender, age, and other individual data. The algorithm is basically a funnel through which every YouTube video is poured—with only a few making it onto a person’s screen.

This recommendation engine poses a difficult task, simply because of the scale of the platform. “YouTube recommendations are responsible for helping more than a billion users discover personalized content from an ever-growing corpus of videos,” researchers at Google, which owns YouTube, wrote in a 2016 paper about the algorithm. That includes many hours of video uploaded to the site every second of every day. Making a recommendation system that’s worthwhile is  “extremely challenging,” they wrote, because the algorithm has to continuously sift through a mind-boggling trove of content and instantly identify the freshest and most relevant videos—all while knowing how to ignore the noise.

The architecture of YouTube’s recommendation system, in which “candidate videos” are retrieved and ranked before presenting only a few to the user. (Google / YouTube)

And here’s where the ouroboros factor comes in: Kids watch the same kinds of videos over and over. Videomakers take notice of what’s most popular, then mimic it, hoping that kids will click on their stuff. When they do, YouTube’s algorithm takes notice, and recommends those videos to kids. Kids keep clicking on them, and keep being offered more of the same. Which means video makers keep making those kinds of videos—hoping kids will click.

This is, in essence, how all algorithms work. It’s how filter bubbles are made. A little bit of computer code tracks what you find engaging—what sorts of videos do you watch most often, and for the longest periods of time?—then sends you more of that kind of stuff. Viewed a certain way, YouTube Kids is offering programming that’s very specifically tailored to what children want to see. Kids are actually selecting it themselves, right down to the second they lose interest and choose to tap on something else. The YouTube app, in other words, is a giant reflection of what kids want.  In this way, it opens a special kind of window into a child’s psyche.

But what does it reveal?

“Up until very recently, surprisingly few people were looking at this,” says Heather Kirkorian, an assistant professor of human development in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “In the last year or so, we’re actually seeing some research into apps and touchscreens. It’s just starting to come out.”

Kids videos are among the most watched content in YouTube history. This video, for example, has been viewed more than 2.3 billion times, according to YouTube’s count:

You can find some high-quality animation on YouTube Kids, plus clips from television shows like Peppa Pig, and sing-along nursery rhymes. “Daddy Finger” is basically the YouTube Kids anthem, and ChuChu TV’s dynamic interpretations of popular kid songs are basically inescapable.

Many of the most popular videos have an amateur feel. Toy demonstrations like surprise-egg videos are huge. These videos are just what they sound like: adults narrate as they play with various toys, often by pulling them out of plastic eggs or peeling away layers of slime or Play-Doh to reveal a hidden figurine.

Kids go nuts for these things.

Here’s a video from the YouTube Kids vloggers Toys Unlimited that’s logged more than 25 million views, for example:

The vague weirdness of these videos aside, it’s actually easy to see why kids like them. “Who doesn’t want to get a surprise? That’s sort of how all of us operate,” says Sandra Calvert, the director of the Children’s Digital Media Center at Georgetown University. In addition to surprises being fun, many of the videos are basically toy commercials. (This video of a person pressing sparkly Play-Doh onto chintzy Disney princess figurines has been viewed 550 million times.) And they let kids tap into a whole internet’s worth of plastic eggs and perceived power. They get to choose what they watch. And kids love being in charge, even in superficial ways.

“It’s sort of like rapid-fire channel surfing,” says Michael Rich, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Center on Media and Child Health. “In many ways YouTube Kids is better suited to the attention span of a young child—just by virtue of its length—than something like a half-hour or hour broadcast program can be.”

Rich and others compare the app to predecessors like Sesame Street, which introduced short segments within a longer program, in part to keep the attention of the young children watching. For decades, researchers have looked at how kids respond to television. Now they’re examining the way children use mobile apps—how many hours they’re spending, which apps they’re using, and so on.

It makes sense that researchers have begun to take notice. In the mobile internet age, the same millennials who have ditched cable television en masse are now having babies, which makes apps like YouTube Kids the screentime option du jour. Instead of being treated to a 28-minute episode of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, a toddler or preschooler might be offered 28 minutes of phone time to play with the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood app. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is a television program, too—a spin-off of Mr. Roger’s—aimed at viewers aged 2 years old to 4 years old.

But toddlers and preschoolers are actually pretty separate groups, as far researchers are concerned. A 2-year-old and a 4-year-old might both like watching Daniel Tiger, or the same YouTube Kids video, but their takeaway is apt to be much different, Kirkorian told me. Children under the age of 3 tend to have difficulty taking information relayed to them through a screen and applying it to real-life situations. Many studies have reached similar conclusions, with a few notable exceptions. Researchers recently discovered that when a screentime experience becomes interactive—Facetiming with Grandmère, let’s say—kids under 3 years old actually can make strong connections between what’s happening onscreen and offscreen.

Kirkorian’s lab designed a series of experiments to see how much of a role interactivity plays in helping a young child transfer information this way. She and her colleagues found striking learning differences among what young children learned—even kids under 2 years old—when they could interact with an app versus when they were just watching a screen. Other researchers, too, have found that incorporating some sort of interactivity helps children retain information better. Researchers at different institutions have different definitions of “interactivity,” but in one experiment it was an act as simple as pressing a spacebar.

“So there does seem to be something about the act of choosing, having some kind of agency,  that makes a difference for little kids,” Kirkorian says. “The speculative part is why that makes a difference.”

One idea is that kids, especially, like to watch the same things over and over and over again until they really understand it. I watched the Dumbo VHS so many times as a little kid that I would recite the movie on long car rides. Apparently, this is not unusual—at least not since the age of VCRs and, subsequently, on-demand programming and apps. “If they have the opportunity to choose what they’re watching, then they’re likely to interact in a way that meets their learning goals,” Kirkorian says. “We know the act of learning new information is rewarding, so they’re likely to pick the information or videos that are in that sweet spot.”

“Children like to watch the same thing over and over,” says Calvert, of Georgetown. “Some of that is a comprehension issue, so they’ll repeatedly look at it so they can understand the story. Kids often don’t understand people’s motives, and that’s a major driver for a story. They don’t often understand the link between actions and consequences.”

Young kids are also just predisposed to becoming obsessive about relatively narrow interests. (Elephants! Trains! The moon! Ice cream!) Around the 18-month mark, many toddlers develop “extremely intense interests,” says Georgene Troseth, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. Which is part of why kids using apps like YouTube Kids often select videos that portray familiar concepts—ones that feature a cartoon character or topic they’re already drawn to. This presents a research challenge, however. If kids are just tapping a thumbnail of a video because they recognize it, it’s hard to say how much they’re learning—or how different the app environment really is from other forms of play.

Even the surprise-egg craze isn’t really novel, says Rachel Barr, a developmental psychologist at Georgetown. “They are relatively fast paced and they include something that young children really like: things being enclosed and unwrapped,” she told me. “I have not tested it, but it seems unlikely that children are learning from these videos since they are not clearly constructed.”

“Interactivity is not always a good thing,” she added.

Researchers differ on the degree to which YouTube Kids is a valuable educational tool. Obviously, it depends on the video and the involvement of a caregiver to help contextualize what’s on screen. But questions about how the algorithm works also play a role. It’s not clear, for instance, how heavily YouTube weighs previous watching behaviors in its recommendation engine. If a kid binge-watches a bunch of videos that are lower quality in terms of learning potential, are they then stuck in a filter bubble where they’ll only see similarly low-quality programming?

There isn’t a human handpicking the best videos for kids to watch. The only human input on YouTube’s side is to monitor the app for inappropriate content, a spokesperson for YouTube told me. Quality control has still been an issue, however. YouTube Kids last year featured a video that showed Mickey Mouse-esque characters shooting one another in the head with guns, Today reported.

“The available content is not curated but rather filtered into the app via the algorithm,” said Nina Knight, a YouTube spokesperson. “So unlike traditional TV, where the content is being selected for you at a specified time, the YouTube Kids app gives each child and family more of the type of content they love and anytime they want it, which is incredibly unique.”

At the same time, the creators of YouTube Kids videos spend countless hours trying to game the algorithm so that their videos are viewed as many times as possible—more views translate into more advertising dollars for them. Here’s a video by Toys AndMe that’s logged more than 125 million views since it was posted in September 2016:

“You have to do what the algorithm wants for you,” says Nathalie Clark, the co-creator of a similarly popular channel, Toys Unlimited, and a former ICU nurse who quit her job to make videos full-time. “You can’t really jump back and forth between themes.”

What she means is, once YouTube’s algorithm has determined that a certain channel is a source of videos about slime, or colors, or shapes, or whatever else—and especially once a channel has had a hit video on a given topic—videomakers stray from that classification at their peril. “Honestly, YouTube picks for you,” she says. “Trending right now is Paw Patrol, so we do a lot of Paw Patrol.”

There are other key strategies for making a YouTube Kids video go viral. Make enough of these things and you start to get a sense of what children want to see, she says. “I wish I could tell you more,” she added, “But I don’t want to introduce competition. And, honestly, nobody really understands it. ”

The other thing people don’t yet understand is how growing up in the mobile internet age will change the way children think about storytelling. “There’s a rich set of literature showing kids who are reading more books are more imaginative,” says Calvert, of the Children’s Digital Media Center. “But in the age of interactivity, it’s no just longer consuming what somebody else makes. It’s also making you’re own thing.”

In other words, the youngest generation of app users is developing new expectations about narrative structure and informational environments. Beyond the thrill a preschooler gets from tapping a screen, or watching The Bing Bong Song video for the umpteenth time, the long-term implications for cellphone-toting toddlers are tangled up with all the other complexities of living in a highly networked on-demand world.

Article source here:The Atlantic