#early internet culture I guess

[centrally-unplanned]

I recently re-read Lost at Sea, the first truly-published work of Bryan Lee O’Malley (author of Scott Pilgrim), which is one of my favourite short-form comics. It's a re-read inspired by all my FLCL work; I commented before about the ways in which our main girl Raleigh is a distaff-Mamimi. I definitely still see it; she is what I am now referring to as a “Sadamoto Poet Girl”, those people who express their feelings in waves of metaphors they never truly clarify:

It helps that Raleigh is a teenager; it makes sure that any risk she might have of becoming pretentious is buried by how pathetically lost she is. She also may not be rocking any of the emo drip of the time but she has full depression vibes where it counts:

That mask you're wearing is bleeding black from overuse, frikkin hardcore Raleigh. This is definitely a teen angst book but I am highlighting the peaks here, a bunch of its silly chatter with her new roadtrip friends. She isn’t haughtily looking down on a world she knows is useless; she just has no clue, yet, how to make it useful. A key trait for the Sadamoto Poet Girl; their ambiguity of expression is how they cope with the ambiguity of how to relate to their own existence.

Which I think is what makes them work, both for me and in general; the actual ‘plot’ of Lost at Sea is that Raleigh has just meet up with her online older boyfriend for the first time, it went amazingly, and then he (probably) broke up with her and she has no clue how to deal. That is very concrete, and could be very basic - but by making the entirety of Raleigh’s emotional spectrum abstract and confused, the singular plot event becomes a drop in the ocean of her generalized ennui. This is a short story, and to make an impact it needs to be efficient in its expression. Abstraction is, ironically, very good at that; with no singular concrete meaning an abstract idea can hold a dozen simultaneously. Raleigh feels very real in a few short pages due to how much ground her in-her-head narration covers, without it being didactic.

Beyond being a proto-Mamami, though, what I was struck by was how similar she is to another Ash-favourite: Mara from Perfect Tides, a visual novel by webcomic artist turned game developer Meredith Gran (that, coincidentally, Bryan Lee O’Malley playtested as they are comic-artist friends). To start, how terminally online Raleigh is did not sink in for me the first time reading this, which is Mara’s defining trait in Perfect Tides; it's not as big in Lost at Sea, but her estrangement from her physical reality due to the superiority of the virtual is readily apparent. There are these two scenes in both stories that hit directly on that beat (“this place” being their writing forum in PT):

They share other traits too - both of them, being women online in the 2000’s, are fiction writers, and being fiction writing alt girls they both live incredibly in their own heads. I have talked already about how Raleigh does that; Mara has this great way of having an idealized version of *everything* that could be that she constantly holds reality up to. There is this moment in PT where Mara smokes a cigarette for the first time, and is shocked to find it is not an effortless habit:

The author in her playthrough cackles during this scene, and describes it as “some real foreshadowing”, and it absolutely is - Mara can never glimpse reality cleanly because her abstractions about reality constantly interfere. Raleigh is more self-aware, but equally cursed by her own hallucinations.

They also just cannot handle the few moments they break through their walls of awkwardness and socially “succeed”:

Mara hilariously abandons the entirety of her emo identity and thinks she has finally Found Her Tribe until the next time some inanity triggers her spiraling self-doubt, while Raleigh is mature enough to know it's not gonna last; but they both experience the same assault from the idea of social acceptance. They are both downstream of their anxieties, if that makes sense - they build castles of rationalizations in their heads in order to defend against the emotions that beset them from elsewhere. Its why the “poet girl” vibes work - they are (generally desperate) attempts at self-understanding as much as self-expression.

I enjoy typologies, and all of this is me saying that within these characters I see a type, and I see causal linkages to the context of said type. The way a girl in the 2000’s would build an identity out of forum posts and metaphors, because society ~sucks~ but she can build an alternative online, in writing, in her head, a place for the alts and weirdos. But the very limitations that attracted those weirdos in the first place also snap back to prevent that new world from being a full substitute. Reality always wins. That identity exists today, for sure, but there is something of the time and place, of the era, that cohered this identity with a specificity I see in stories (or even people) that capture it. It's structural, and the structure has changed. In things like FLCL I see it, but you see the differences too - how the structures of Japan & the US (and Canada, Raleigh represent) intersect and how they don’t. My kind of gap moe, I guess.

Though, side note: something Raleigh and Mara do not share is that Raleigh, typical for an alt-indie 2000’s teen girl protagonist, is effortlessly pretty:

I will credit the comic, ‘effortlessly’ is overselling it - another of the petty normalities that breaks through her emo shell is how she has favorite dresses and brought them to look hot for her boyfriend. Still, the 2000’s era reeks through here; audiences wanted hot leads, even indie audiences. Mara meanwhile is a full 2020’s girl in her squat, pallid normality; the relatability privileged over the aspirational. Her story may take place in the year 2000, but it's still written for today.

[vimbry]

something that always surprises me is when people say like, "this humour was ahead of its time" about pink-to-flood-era tmbg things, which is like. late '80s early '90s, a real get silly/irreverent period of comedy in general

[omgthatdress]

An Analysis of the Ubiquity of Mall Brands in the late 1990s to early 2000s, or

I Fucking Hate These Guys

by OMG!thatdress

If you were a tween to teenager from roughly 1997 to 2004, chances are, you were left with profound life-long trauma caused by someone wearing Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren, Nautica, American Eagle, The Gap, Old Navy, or, if you were came along a little later, Hollister or Aeropoastale.

I cannot overstate to my young followers how over-saturated these brand names were in teen culture at the turn of the millennium, the extend to which EVERYONE was wearing them, and yet, in a weird way, how light the imprint they actually left on fashion history was.

Watching iconic teen shows of the era, you don't see any of them because a.) TV teenagers tend to be way cooler and more stylish than awkward and desperate real teenagers actually are, and b.) these brands were all copyright protected, which kept their names and logos off the airwaves.

Look in a middle school yearbook, however, you'll see it. Look at your aunt and uncle's high school photo albums, you'll see it. Ask any late Gen X or early Millennial. It was real and it was fucking awful.

The big question is why? Why? WHY, GOD WHY?! There's a lot of answers to that question.

First of all, I'm going to cite this absolutely wonderful article from Collector's Weekly about why everyone's grandma had a hideous orange couch in the 70s, and give the most simple and straightforward answer: it's what was available.

This is when the concept of online shopping is still very much in its infancy, and the hub of American consumer culture was still your local mall. If you needed new clothes, you went to the mall. And guess what stores were at every local mall? You guessed it.

For the second answer, I'm going to dig up this utter relic from the early days of internet meme-ing, that has nonetheless stuck with me and had a profound impact of my understanding of how popular fashion works:

I'm pretty sure that the reason Abercrombie & Fitch manages to survive as a brand today rests solely increasingly middle-aged Millennial men whose sense of style has refused to evolve past the shit their mom bought them in high school.

And why the hell would they? Nobody wore Abercrombie because it made them stand out or feel special. I'm still pretty convinced that nobody actually *liked* the aesthetic or thought the clothes actually looked good. You need not look past the basic color palette to understand these were not brands meant for uniqueness or self-expression.

While Britney Spears pranced around stage in her iconic neon colors and body glitter, American teenagers existed in a never-ending hellscape of washed-out neutrals, faded denim, and American flag primary colors.

All of which served its exact purpose: it was safety. It was a way to appear cool if you didn't want to go through the ordeal of actually having a personality or a sense of style. Which, of course, goes back to point number one: it was just shit you bought at the mall because you needed clothes.

It wasn't enough to save you once the school bully caught that whiff of autism and/or queerness on you, but it was enough that you could blend into the herd and pray no one ever noticed you.

Underneath it all was a very subtle undercurrent of class and classism: to wear mall brands was to declare to the world that you could indeed afford to shop at the mall. It meant you weren't, god forbid, poor.

Status symbol clothing goes back to the invention of clothing itself. The concept of brands as status symbols is still very much alive and well, its just more limited to actual luxury brands nowadays. One need look no further than your favorite high-end children's clothing website to see that rich parents still very much think it important that you know their five-year-old is wiping its boogers on Versace.

None of these brands were actual high-end luxury brands, but they still advertised and presented themselves as such. Their ads featured signifiers of "all-american" (read: White) wealth: yachts, skiing, horses, beaches, shirtless dudes with chiseled abs playing verious sportsballs.

The color palettes and cuts mimicked the preppy "Ivy" style of the New England old-money elite, along with their hobbies and lifestyle. You may not actually own a horse, but you can wear a polo shirt. You may not be able to run without breaking your ankle, but you wear the same shirt as the dude holding a football in the ad.

It was an elitist, White and skinny image that didn't age well into the diversity and body-positivity of the 2010s.

In 2003, a lawsuit was filed against Abercrombie & Fitch alleging systematic racial discrimination. People of color were rarely hired, and if they were, they were given jobs in the back, away from customer view. In 2005, the U.S. district court approved a settlement of $50,000. A few years ago, Netflix released the documentary White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch which admittedly I haven't watched yet because my hatred runs too deep to remind myself of its existence.

It was a hatred of Abercrombie & the (white, thin, neurotypical, heterosexual) conformity that it represented that drove me screaming into the loving arms of Hot Topic and Linkin Park. Jordan Calhoun wrote an excellent article for the Atlantic about his experience growing up poor and Black and not fitting in to the Abercrombie aesthetic.

I would be very remiss if I didn't bring up the "urban" mall brands of the early 2000s: Fubu, Sean Jean, Ecko, Baby Phat, among others. They were favored by Black teenagers and White teenagers who wanted to be Black. I know there's a lot to be said about these brands, but I'm too Caucasian to really be able to talk about them with nuance. Maybe someone else will, and I will be very happy to listen.

As much as I hate Tommy Hilfiger, I really do have to give him credit for recognizing the incredibly lucrative "street wear" market and selling power of hip-hop. While most of these mall brands kept their image sparkling White, Tommy made Aaliyah his brand ambassador and regularly appeared in the wardrobes of popular rap and R&B artists of the time.

It'd be very easy and very reductive to say that the changing ideology of the 2010s was the downfall of preppy mall brands, but really, the thing that truly killed them was the downfall of the mall itself. Shopping habits changed, and logos and brand names no longer held the power they once had.

The moral of the story is that being a teenager is fucking hell, and these popular brands both offered the safety of conformity and a status symbol to hold over the heads of the poor and uncool. The irony is that everyone who hated them as teenagers (read: ME) and the freaks who grew up to truly love the power of self-expression through personal style (read: ME) became the truly cool people. If you wore Abercrombie you grew up to vote for Donald Trump.

GO GOTH. PREPS SUCK. THE END.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey sex witch, you’ve talked a lot about porn addiction on here but I have some other questions if that’s ok.

I go to Christian highschool and we often have discussions about porn addiction.

my teacher says that most addicted people start consuming porn at around 9. And that even seeing one naked person or one porn or whatever on the internet can put you at higher risk of developing an addiction to porn.

does absolutely any of this have a base in science? Or is this all fear mongering and what not?

hi anon,

first of all, I just want to say that I think it rules that you're seeking information outside of what's being taught at your school. learning how to question what you're told and seek out answers from other sources is a really important skill that can be VERY hard to even begin if you aren't given the resources to easily go looking for information, and I think it's great that you're taking the initiative of seeking out other perspectives :)

now, let's break this down: the concept of "porn addiction" is one largely discredited by psychologists. while people can certainly develop maladaptive coping mechanisms around sexuality, porn, and/or masturbation, this isn't strictly the same as addiction, and several studies have found that the people who are most likely to identify themselves as porn addicts are people who harbor religious or cultural shame about sexuality and porn use, rather than people who use porn more than the average person. it is, largely, a matter of perception.

while access to smartphones means that many people first encounter pornography at a young age - the current average age is somewhere between 9 and 13, depending on the study - and that can be confusing to a child who isn't given the proper framework to understand what they're seeing, it's also not a new phenomenon. in my role as a sex educator I also get to talk with a lot of parents about their early sexual experiences, and many of them recall encountering printed pornography as children when they find it in gutters, the woods, the bedroom of parents or friends' parents, or even stowed in farm equipment. these adults tend to remember being intrigued and excited along with a little confused or alarmed by this first brush with sexuality, but crucially it did not define them as people. as evidence by the fact that they've grown up to send their children to queer-friendly, sex positive, nonjudgmental sex ed classes, early exposure to porn did not stop them from growing into curious, thoughtful, and supportive parents who want to encourage healthy attitudes toward sexuality for their children. porn alone does not have the power to determine the direction of someone's life.

just seeing a naked person or pornography on the internet also cannot immediately make you an "addict." as you've already guessed, this is what we call fear mongering, using information in a way that's exaggerated to make people nervous to even engage with a topic. fear mongering about sex is common among adults and education systems that don't want to young people to be curious about their bodies; another common one is "teaching" young people about sexually transmitted infections by only showing them pictures of untreated cases that have become drastic and painful while insisting that no STI can ever be treated, which is definitely not the case. but the facts don't matter; the priority is trying to make sure teenagers are too scared to have sex until they're adults and the school system is no longer responsible for them.

(and it doesn't even work; states with higher rates of abstinence only education are CONSISTENTLY among those with the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.)

when presented with absolutist statements like this, it's worth poking holes in the logic. for instance, if seeing any naked figure is bad, what about classical art? do nude marble statues put you at risk of being a porn addict? what about other artistic depictions of nudity? or anatomical illustrations? what about real people just changing clothes in a locker room, or young siblings bathing together? does it not count for people who are nearly or partially nude, like someone wearing a bathing suit or athletic clothes? people changing in a locker room together? what about young children being bathed together? and what about all of those depictions about Jesus on the cross wearing nothing but a loincloth? what's the line between "good" and "bad" nudity, and who's deciding where that line is? can such a line even really exist at all?

the truth is that people are undressed or partially undressed in all kinds of situations, and none of them are a corrosive influence on your brain. just looking at something is not enough to completely rewire your brain and permanently change your behavior. ultimately, you are responsible for your own actions.

I hope this has been a helpful answer, and that you stay curious about what you're being taught.

[thewiglesswonder]

You know the TFA Decepticons aren’t an oppressed minority right? DJW even said their Rise Up rhetoric was a jab at how conservatives preach about Protecting Freedoms, and in the Allspark Almanac it’s explained they wanted to colonize other planets and the Autobots objected to that. The Decepticons were exiled for being military fascists.

I'd really, really love to know where I've ever said that on this blog, but since you seem very convinced that I did, let's look at the lore again. I don't feel like trawling the internet for this specific tweet/whatever form this DJW evidence has, so if you have that, I'd love to see it.

This timeline from the Allspark Almanac II pretty clearly states that the entire crux of Cybertronian society as a whole has rested on colonization, very early on in their species' history. Their "Golden Age" 8 billion stellar cycles ago is characterized by expansion that led to the colonization (!!!) of their solar system, further colonization only prevented by isolationism.

The earliest indications of the factional split that mark their history exist within the ruling class Guardians and the Malignus, defined as a "military caste". This implies that Golden Age Cybertron existed as a caste system. Which I would take a guess as not being particularly great.

And when we get to the first (again, quoted from the text here,) "military coup", it's executed by the political ancestors of the Autobots. Not a peep about the Malignus while that was going on.

This faction eventually becomes the Protectobots, and the most notable thing about them is that their leader attempted a Great Purge of "undesirable elements" from their society. I'd be hard pressed to think I'm wrong in thinking that's kinda fucked up. We're not given explicit reasons for this 17 million year war, but wars don't happen without someone to oppose someone else, and we get this in the form of the Destrons.

As for the point about colonization: my point is not that the Decepticon's motivations are not what we see in canon. Not at all. My point is that the Autobots have the same fucking motivation.

The Age of Expansion literally begins when the Autobots take power! It only ends when they butt heads with the Quintessons! Colonization, militarism, and facism, as you put it, are not traits that are unique to Decepticons.

And, according to this timeline and historical reasoning given, there is no mention of either faction's position on further expansion. The formation of the Decepticons is rooted in the divide between labor and military aligned Cybertronians. Both sections are equally responsible for the imperialistic efforts of their Empire/Commonwealth/whatever you want to call it, and make no mistake, this does continue into the present day! From both factions!

Assuming you're referring to my hefty lean towards the Cons in terms of character/exploration interest in the gist of your message, my goal here is not to elevate them to the same Good Guy Status the Autobots have by virtue of being the protagonists. I am fully and completely aware that they are a group of insane zealots that have rallied under a guy who was described by his own VA as an "elegant bully". Rather, I think what you're picking up on is my focus on the fact that the Autobots in Animated have more than their fair share of insidious shit going on.

They retain what is essentially a military dictatorship, with the position of Magnus being only theoretically beholden to the will of the Council and Guilds, as seen when Sentinel was able to fire Fortress Maximus with no approval from the Council and got nothing more than a disapproving sentence from Alpha Trion. We have no word on how their schooling institutions work, but all of it seems heavily centered on their version of the military they've concocted in the absence of warbuilds. And, just in case we forgot about Sentinel's proposed budget...

And that's not even getting into how fucked up Autobot culture is! They're unspeakably xenophobic, throw around propagandistic phrases like they're nothing ("Cogs in the Great Autobot Machine", anyone?), have an incredibly questionable justice system if Wasp is anything to go by, and this only seems to be getting worse at the end of Season 3, if Sentinel's curfews and public service announcements are anything to go by.

I'm not trying to make the Decepticons look better. I'm trying to make the Autobots look worse.

[lucky-lucky-duck]

Snapshot: Life as a Vagastrom Student

I love Leo, but I love to argue with him in my head like we're rival mean girls in an early 00's movie when I'm freaking out about finals even more. Then this was born. Tada ⋄

Gender Neutral Ghoul Student!Reader with Alan, Leo, and Sho. Relationships written ambiguously.

Slight warning for language? It's not really that bad.

⋄Explaining internet culture to Alan⋄

You don't bother to repress your sigh as the blank look forms on your captain's face. "They called you a boomer, man. It means you're old. Which is, like, factually inaccurate, considering there's a vampire on campus." A small frown tugs at the edges of your mouth, "It's also mean. Who said that to you?"

A hand lands on your head in a clear a show show of thanks, and the achingly gentle nature of the touch is completely unwarranted for the situation. "Doesn't matter. Thanks."

Warmth radiates from your cheeks, and you duck your face away as you respond at Alan's retreating back, "No worries, dude... Remind me to show you Urban Dictionary some time."

⋄ Communicating with Leo via passive aggressive Tiktok trends ⋄

"I'm passing the phone to the worst candidate for vice-captain, who ate my fucking oreo's without replacing them." The faux cheer in your voice is a stark contrast to the primal rage in your eyes when your gaze meets the man across from you. You're pretty sure this trend is supposed to be done in separate rooms, but it's not like that matters when Leo and his stigma are involved. Plus, this feels like a much better way to drive home the point.

A sly, wicked smile slides up the sides of Leo's lips, and you don't have time to feel regret before the words leave his mouth like daggers with ruthless precision, "I'm passing the phone to a No-Name NPC who is so unremarkable that the faculty evaluators actually forgot they existed."

A pregnant pause fills the common area. Even some of the general students have paused, the hustle and bustle of the garage doing nothing to stop the growing tension. "Hey, so, why are you always such a cun--"

⋄ Tasting all Sho's newest recipes ⋄

"What do you think?"

The taste hits your tongue in an explosion of different sensations. The crispiness of the tortilla blends wonderfully with the different spices and garnishes. If you didn't know that this is Sho's first attempt at both street tacos and using the anomalous mystery meat from the student store, you wouldn't have guessed. "It's great."

"Just great? That's all you've got to say?"

“It is great,” you bristle defensively and lean down to take another large bite.

“I legitimately invited you here to give feedback,” Sho snipes back, grimacing at the bits of food that drop from your mouth as you speak with your mouth full.

“Yeah, and I told you it’s great?” You decidedly ignore the thick judgemental edge in the man's tone as you finish off the last bit of your meal and hold your plate out for another. “No notes.”

The next taco is placed onto your plate, and Sho's eye-roll is fully audible, despite him turning back to the stove. “Just be quiet and eat.”

[lovelylittlelevity]

Im very sorry to say that as of 5/29/24 Lovely Little Levity's blog and game has been decided to become a content archive.

this was a team decision, and due to the lack of motivation and health issues (mental and physical) among us, we've come to the conclusion to simply let sleeping dogs lie. While I wish I could say we ended with a bang or something else interesting, it was a simple decision to choose us and our health before LLL.

below are the final statements of those who wished to speak

---

Melody:

While I wish I could say I had fun, that was only true intitially. While I understand I made my mistakes, nothing I did gave the free pass some of y'all think you have to stalk me through multiple blogs telling me to kill myself and otherwise harrass me. I really hope I can find the joy of creating with friends again with the other projects I have ongoing. I guess to the people who still want to make "expose" documents/posts about me all I gotta say is: Grow up. Get a life outside of fandom culture. Some of y'all are forgetting what an actual problematic person looks like/have never faced REAL conflict and it shows. EDIT: On @sugaryapplepie I have posted the completed scripts. I had finished Macaque, Wukong, and MK's scripts and each Y/N Route therein. If y'all wanna read 'em, head on over there.

Puppit:

Honestly it was fun at first but after a while it felt more like we have forced ourselves to make it because y'all wouldn't stop rushing us some of the time and kept on asking when the game was going to be finished. But when we released the demo, y'all said it felt forced. So it didn't feel fun anymore. It just became stressful in the end. Honestly the LMK fandom is just a whole disaster to the point so many are just at each other's throat. I just really hope it gets better for all of you.

Ekko:

In all honesty LLL was a mess. Early on we had the Scott issue, and then later more personal issues that slowed work down. Even when we had a pickup on motivation the constant pressure and rude comments were too much. It's not hard to be kind on the fucking internet, the world wont end if you dont click send on that kys message I swear. I could handle it better than the other members of LLL, however it doesn't mean i should have to. Thank you to everyone who was kind in welcoming me and aware of my tone deafness, you are appreciated more than you know.

-xoxo EK

[fixing-bad-comic-art]

So like, I watch a lot of documentaries, and one of the ones I've been chewing on recently is this one by bobbybrocoli about the lenna image , tldr there's a crop of a Playboy bunny that was used to train and test a lot of early image processing algorithms. and there's been significant push to retire the image bc a. it's old and not really useful for much of anything anymore, your program working with Lena in 2023 doesn't prove it works, it proves it turns on. and b. It's a crop of a scan of an erotic photo from a Playboy magazine. the documentary goes a into a lot more detail about it's reception and use and interviews a few folk about it's presence in the field and the culture around it.

and i was watching the documentary again while working on that last edit and finally something clicked for me.

I've never been happy with saying the issue with the sexualization of women in comics was an issue because of the sexualization on its own. Sexuality and the expression of it is normal and benign. the lenna image isn't anything special. It's a nice 512px picture of a pretty lady in a fun hat, you probably wouldn't guess it's origins from looking at it.

The problem is that it's not Just one image, and it's not Just a tendency to endulge in a little extra sex appeal in the occasional comic. to use an analogy put forward by one of the programmers interviewed; They're both individual bricks in much larger walls.

The Lenna image wouldn't be an issue if there wasn't massive issues with sex based discrimination in programming.

The sexualization wouldn't be an issue if the women on the page were given the same agency and value in the stories as the men, if the women behind the scenes were paid the same as the men and hired to work the same roles, if comic fan spaces weren't often outright hostile to women and girls just trying to enjoy the same fun as the boys.

the sexualization is just one brick in the wall and it also happens to be the easiest to point at and talk about. It's visual. You can draw literal red lines around it. all the other bricks are much larger culture issues that can't be pinned on single artists. They don't have faces and names you cane be mad at on the internet. Then the more you look the easier it is to see these two bricks, the Lenna image and the sexualization in comics, are part of the same massive wall.

[redpanther23]

A great work of art should illicit an emotional response. Cannibal Holocaust (1980), one of the most infamous movies ever made, does exactly this, in spades. The creative leads were Italian, but the majority of the actors are Yanomami, the same ethnicity as most of the actors in Boorman's The Emerald Forest (1985.)

The beginning of the movie establishes that a group of young people researching cannibalism went missing after a expedition into the Amazon to contact previously isolated tribes. After a search, their bodies and footage are recovered, and this found footage makes up the majority of the film. It reveals that the young filmmakers were extremely prejudiced, and when they find the tribe they’re looking for, they terrify them with guns and violence, and burn their entire village. The jungle people rightfully murder the townies, and then just to be extra cool, they eat them, too.

Cannibalism is a controversial topic. In most human cultures, it’s extremely taboo; in some it’s abstracted and ritualized (such as in Catholicism); and to some chads still living out in the bush it’s highly sacred. I think European people are extremely oversensitive about culturally diverse funereal practices – for example, thanks to the colonial government occupying my country, I’ll be unable to keep my father’s bones after he dies, an ancient Choctaw tradition that we both would prefer to follow. To the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, the only respectful way of handling your loved one’s corpse is to eat their brains. Most cultures that practice cannibalism eat their enemies after defeating them in battle, which is similar to the culture of our cousins, the Chimpanzees. There’s also evidence of the practice by some early hominids in Europe. This leads me to think battlefield cannibalism was once universally practiced by our shared ancestors, and then dropped by certain cultures over time, so really you anti-cannibals are the freaks. Cannibalism is an especially controversial topic among some indigenous activists, because historically some North American tribes were accused of practicing it who never did, to justify European conquest (most of us always had a taboo similar to Europeans.) Personally, I think it would be better to rest in the warm belly of a friend, than to spend eternity in the cold, hard ground. Maybe if colonizers had to eat what they killed, they would kill less people. Human flesh makes good food for thought, at any rate.

Aside from the staged cannibalism, this movie contains footage of real war atrocities, and multiple real hunting scenes. They butcher and eat every animal killed on film. If the abstract thought of killing an animal to eat it is disgusting to you, I think you are probably extremely out of touch with reality. Colonial society separates people from food production so thoroughly that extremely normal things are frightening and strange to adults, as they ought only to be to young children. Even if you’re vegan, the fact of the matter is that without animal products our ancestors would not have survived, and animal products are indispensable to the future of sustainable living (if you think “vegan leather,” aka plastic, is better for the environment, you are a fucking moron, and don’t even get me started on the detrimental effects of synthetic fabrics, dyes, and scents, not to mention their byproducts.) “Wah wah, I don’t want want to look, dead animals are yucky.” Actually dead animals are beautiful and delicious, but have fun living in la-la fantasy land I guess. Non-human animals kill and eat each other all the time, even supposedly herbivorous deer and cows will eat meat when they have a chance. The idea that it's somehow immoral for humans to do so is anthropocentric elitism, which contributes to colonialism and environmental destruction. You will never survive the glorious people’s revolution.

Another reason this movie is so effective is the groundbreaking special effects, which are extremely convincing, especially given that they're placed alongside real animal violence. There's also several rape scenes - the one most commented on by mainstream reviewers is the one committed by a Yanomami man, but the European characters actually rape more women and break rules of consent in more varied contexts throughout the movie. During one of the only two times characters have sex and it isn't assault, it's filmed without the woman's consent, and the other time the Yanomami are forced to watch, so there's actually no consensual sex in the entire movie.

Most movies are about how the world is really a good place, and kindness wins out in the end. To me, the world has not always been so nice, and I’ve seen many real life examples where good people did not win, so horror movies are actually life-affirming in a very satisfying way. I’m not trying to say the tribe portrayed by the Yanomami are worse than the European characters (far from it) but what makes this a great horror movie is that there aren’t actually any “good” characters. We’re shown some pretty violent traditions the fictional tribe keeps, and I think some of the inhuman, barbaric practices of our “modern civilization” would be equally offensive to an isolated jungle nation, such as industrial pollution and prison slavery (not to mention the actions of the European characters in the movie.) Frankly, if you don’t like seeing racist white people get torn apart and eaten by some tribal-ass cannibal dudes, I think you probably just have bad taste.

[anghraine]

I'm usually irritated by the people sneering about fanfic insisting it is just intrinsically inferior to early modern writers raiding Ovid or Chaucer or the news or each other or whomever. I've never seen anyone have a decent rationale beyond early modern writing is intrinsically Art and fanfic is intrinsically Not Art, because of reasons (the artistic purity of working within early modern patronage and censorship, I guess?).

I'm not talking Shakespeare specifically (though Lear <3). He was by no means alone in borrowing characters and plots from previous sources and then doing his own thing with them. A lot of my favorite plays of the time re-purpose established stories in this way.

But also, it comes around to kind of funny when people are not only insisting that fanfic is definitionally Not Art and in some way totally different from the usual kind of borrowing that goes back millennia, but also that fanfic is somehow morally degenerate and harmful and unhinged in a new and shocking way.

Because if early modern English literature is defined by anything, it's being absolutely fucking unhinged.

I mean! The Revenger's Tragedy?? The White Devil (borrowed directly from the murder headlines)??? My best beloved 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (pretty obviously a spin on Romeo and Juliet But Now With Incest and Even More Murder)? These things are batshit. And fantastic! I love them! But holding them up on some pedestal of artistic and moral purity is just bizarre IMO.

There are differences between what they did and contemporary fanfic because we live in different eras and cultures, in some ways radically so, because copyright and intellectual property work so differently now and have affected storytelling so much, because of the effects of things like genre romance and the Internet and AO3, because patronage and censorship now work very differently in a lot of ways, because educations and literary norms are so different, and so on.

But is fanfic in some way uniquely trashy and shocking by contrast to what those men were thinking up? Nah.

[anbroids]

as homestuck gets older and becomes more and more of a period piece i think it’s really interesting to see how continuations and fanworks take different approaches to maintaining that or not.

and i don’t want to outright say one is superior to the other. i think if you can find ways to introduce aspects of more contemporary pop culture or politics or technology into homestuck as a framework and still make it an interesting intentional choice then that’s a big achievement and not something to be scoffed at just by virtue of it being divergent from homestuck proper.

i think in a lot of ways it can keep it fresh and add a layer of relatability to the fans that grew up on it. after all, i think hussie was intending to make (or perhaps just coincidentally happened to make) homestuck relatable to his particular demographic of young adults on the internet in the late 2000s / early 2010s. i think rereading homestuck in my 20s really solidified this to me that homestuck was not intended to be a story about kids for kids but rather a story for adults about childhood and growing up. it’s funny that it wasn’t more obvious to me back then, or maybe i did pick up on it but i just didn’t really think about it all that much? because it’s so obvious. there’s so much 80s and 90s kid nostalgia in it and the tropes that the characters portray were already outdated or at least didn’t even really exist like they used to by 2009. and in many ways the characters themselves outgrow their own tropes and then later acknowledge it in the work itself both as time progresses and the narrative develops into something more complex and the characters become increasingly multi-dimensional.

i guess it’s just an interesting question to me. is having content in a story that will indefinitely age the work a “good” or “bad” choice? and several years down the line, will we be able to tell what choices were intentionally made so that it would one day be reflective of the state of technology / political landscape / pop culture at the time?

artists who set out to make their work as timeless as possible do kind of miss out on the opportunity to be a time capsule later on. or just generally representative of the climate it was created in, which is something that i think a lot of us can both appreciate but also find pretty unsavory about homestuck proper (cough dancestors cough) but then can i really say i wish those unsavory parts of homestuck didn’t exist? idk. they aren’t fun to read but i like that they make me think critically about the flaws of that particular part of internet history.

politics aside i think the fact that there’s a homestuck panel that incorporates vine is so cool. because it sort of inadvertently swallowed up a piece of internet history that would come to disappear into its already massive time capsule of media and pop culture and hussie didn’t even know. it’s just cool to me idk.

at the same time i think younger artists and writers that really prioritize keeping homestuck grounded in its era of internet and even going so far as to honor the nostalgia of an older generation is something i really admire and appreciate. and this is something that is becoming more common as homestuck ages (and becomes more of a period piece etc etc). i often find myself at a crossroads between exploring contemporary elements in my work and trying to emulate homestuck’s original tone and time period for the sake of preserving that integrity. like man. i could go on about this for such a long time because i feel like it’s just a really interesting discussion to see what we weigh as a meaningful divergence and refreshing change from homestuck proper vs what compromises the (for lack of better phrasing lol) “feels like homestuck” factor.

i think the discussions about sexuality and gender identity towards the end of comic and then further in the epilogues is an obvious example of this. hussie didn’t necessarily shy away from nuances of gender and sexuality but he didn’t really address them outright with labels either for the majority of homestuck proper until the end when other writers got involved. in early act 6 dirk is explicitly stated as gay (insert disney diversity win meme blah blah blah) but the character himself, which i feel like is an interesting reflection of hussie and homestuck’s general feelings about the topic of identity and labels (if i may speculate lmao), considers the act of labeling his sexuality as sort of this out of date, irrelevant thing in the grand scheme of things. whether that be in reference to who he is or what’s going on in the comic or a more metanarrative choice of hussie’s. some people interpret this to be a kind of admission of shame or maybe dirk just being pretentious but i personally interpret this as hussie kind of just being like. i don’t really want to spend too much time Talking about characters being gay i just want them to exist in the story and Be Gay. similarly to how the trolls don’t have a concept of sexuality in the same way the human characters do. it gives hussie an opportunity to have characters do Objectively gay things, from the reader’s perspective, without having to spell out their relationships to their own sexualities by real societal standards in the work itself when he was clearly more interested and comfortable talking about the trolls’ relationships to their fictional societal ones. and i think as a writer i find that pretty fair. (and yeah yeah i know another aspect of dirk’s whole deal is that he’s from the future so of course he would say that / the trolls are from another planet and all of this is in comedic foil to john i am not a homosexual egbert as the protagonist but i digress. idk i’m really only speculating here and maybe projecting lol)

bc tbh i also kind of shudder at the thought of writing gay characters who are always expected to spell out their identities to the audience when i’d rather just have them Do Actual Gay Things. (using gay as an umbrella term for lgbt+ yada yada). personally i’d rather have a scene where a character binds their chest to reveal an aspect of their gender presentation rather than feel obligated to spell out their relationship to their identity in words and explicit labels and also describe exactly how they Feel About All That. not because i want to cop out on representation and have their identities be totally open to interpretation necessarily, but more-so because i think it becomes exhausting sometimes as a gay person myself to have to keep acknowledging a character’s State of Differentness as obviously as possible every time i put a gay person in a piece of art.

not that i don’t find narratives that exclusively or heavily talk about and center themselves around identity and being in a State of Differentness in very outright ways important. to me that’s something very different and meaningful in completely different ways that can’t be accurately compared here. there are plenty of homestuck fanworks that make discussions of gender and identity a large priority that i think are extremely meaningful and one of the biggest reasons why i came back to homestuck after all these years and still really love the community of artists and writers that engage with it in this way. i think it’s an extremely wonderful thing, especially because with the homestuck community so niche, it really feels like a group of people spreading art that is, by a large majority, by gay people and for gay people. but in narratives that are not specifically centered around that, or has not centered themselves about that previously (like homestuck several acts into the comic) i can totally see how it comes across as off-putting. i think sometimes there’s a slippery slope with bigger projects with a large audience where the existence of gay characters in the work start to read as teaching tools for non-[insert identity here] or virtue signaling. i.e. it stops feeling like media that the reader can identity with as a gay person and more like media that is trying to represent gayness “accurately and positively” for a straight reader (or perhaps a gay reader who is completely new to their identity and appreciate this kind of easy-to-swallow and comfortable introduction). i find that in cases like this, the “representation” more often than not falls into the pitfall of being extremely generalized and sterilized or even stereotypical. which is a whole conversation in itself. bc when an identity is always easy to digest and understand, it risks reducing this character to the identity itself. water is wet i guess lol. idk it’s just a tricky balance. but definitely something i think about a lot when i’m engaging with contemporary homestuck fanwork.

long aside but. all of this to say. i just find it interesting to see how homestuck, as a kind of specific multimedia form of art and storytelling online that seemed to set a new precedent for the webcomic format at large, has taken on a genre of its own like any piece of art does that is unique and off the beaten path in its execution. idk it just makes me think of art history in general. like it’s fascinating to me to see something like homestuck which was once very new and fresh to me become a piece of art that has aged enough to open discussion about approaching the framework of homestuck in either a traditional or contemporary way. as a continuation or a fanwork or an homage. i guess the only point i’m trying to make here is that i don’t think one is better than the other and there’s something i appreciate about both.

i feel like i’m kind of avoiding the elephant in the room here which is that there’s a lot of discussion going on right now about maintaining consistency with homestuck proper in the current continuation with homestuck2 and that’s sort of a whole other can of worms i don’t really want to get into. but i would like to acknowledge how interesting it is that these discussions really obviously highlight how fast memes get “stale” nowadays in the current state of social media and everything seems to exist in a perpetual state of blink-and-you-miss-it virality. i really sympathize with the homestuck2 team who i’m sure are feeling a huge amount of pressure to strike a balance between making something refreshing / relatable to the current homestuck audience and also maintaining the “feels like homestuck” factor. all the while attempting to fulfill as many reader wishes as possible within reason. (not to mention the standard of “reason” being extremely subjective) it’s not an easy thing to do and definitely a hugely different creative process than the one hussie went through during early homestuck days. each with their own complicated hoops to jump through in terms of Making Art People Will Engage With.

[x-mendacium]

Started to think about MePhone in relation to my own experiences again, specifically the fact the running away from home rewires your brain.

Good timezone. My name is Niall Dashiell, and I am still seen as a runaway by my county. I’m a lot better now though, so don’t worry!

It’s nice to meet you!

Enough with introduction, let’s move on to some MePhone stuff. Keep in mind all is based on my own subjective experiences!

Running away from home, especially one you see as abusive, does a lot of things to your way of thinking.

The biggest thing I noticed was definitely a large shift in my identity. Things I once just found interesting suddenly clawed their way to being the foundation of my identity.

iPhones are interesting? Well, now I find extreme pleasure in learning about them. Especially the two from 2011 and 2012.

PLUR culture? Guess where my style is now.

Early 2000 internet? Yes! Gimmie blinkies, old web, and stamps!

I’m not exactly sure if it was regression or my neurodivergence (though, I also hc MePhone as neurodivergent, so it fits) but still. My whole identity became this. All because I wanted to change myself, and distance myself, from the old me.

If we consider MePhone went through the same mental gymnastics of finding himself again that I did, it isn’t that out of pocket to think this is the reason he landed on reality shows.

He was interested in them. Check. It was a way to build his confidence back. Check. And it was also a way to feel like he had control over something in his life. Check.

It’s the perfect solution.

I would go for it if I could.

Another thing it does is the “I was independent. I need to stay independent”. Basically it makes your think that since you saved yourself once beforey you don’t need to be saved by someone else.

I have even more trouble accepting help than I had before. It’s hard to realize I even need help after I thought of a whole plan to safe myrself and it worked.

Why would I, or in this case MePhone, need help? I saved myself when nobody else did.

This whole thing goes hand in hand with not being able to hold up relationships of any kind.

You don’t wanna get to attached, because your brain has already decided that running away worked and you’ll do it again if anything, even the slightest thing, does wrong. You don’t wanna be sad, and don’t want the person to be sad as well.

It’s hard to keep relationships with this in my head.

So yeah, one reason why Inanimate Insanity exists might be the fact that MePhone ran away and didn’t get kicked out or something.

But this was just a collection of thoughts I’ve been having.

See you soon! (On another MePhone post probably.)

[dontmindmyunicorn]

i will never understand the hate that some older millennials direct towards younger adults born in the mid to late 90s. i’m a zillennial (january of ‘98) and while i haven’t lived either the FULL millennial or gen z experience, i DO know that shitting on people solely for the year they were born in is fucked up. it’s very disheartening how grown adults will gatekeep entire cultural phenomena. the commodification of media thanks to sites like buzzfeed has convinced us that we did not truly experience something unless we had physical ephemera of that era. if we didn’t have 20 beanie babies or didn’t hear bye bye bye on a hitclip or had to wait 20 minutes to use dial-up internet or used T9 on a flip phone or watched clarissa explains it all live on nickelodeon, we weren’t really #millennials. 30-year-old grown adults are saying shit like ‘oh, you like that? well guess what, i grew up with it and LIVED through it.’ on the flip side of this coin, we can and should ALSO acknowledge the existence of cringe without making people feel excluded from participating in said phenomena. if we shit on zoomers for rediscovering early 2000s fashion trends or listening to music of the late 90s, or shit on 1997 & 1998 adults for having little to no recollections of a time before 9/11, what are we doing? what does that say about our generation? what does that say about how we define ourselves?? it’s a boomer mentality that is tainting the experience for all of us, not to mention dividing us up. we can be nostalgic for a time when life was indeed simpler without being actively harsh to young people also partaking in that innocence. please be kind and let people enjoy things.

[earthstellar]

it is time to be old on the internet: TFP Ratchet's hatred of 2010 era human tech is hilarious

every time Ratchet complains about shitty human technology in TFP, it's so funny to me, that shit is so good

because, I mean, I grew up with the first computer in my house being a fucking Tandy 1000, which to be fair wasn't exactly the hottest model even then, but still LMAO

the first modem I ever messed with as a kid was the wood box phone receiver type, the acoustic coupler ones, which was my dad's, and he only had it because his job at a local university meant he could borrow one from their tech lab (so we didn't technically own it)

if I remember correctly, the one we had ran at 300 baud, which was fucking amazing for such a set up at the time. slightly later AOL dial up looked like lightning speed compared to that shit.

my first chat rooms were BBS/Usenet (whenever I could connect) and IRC chats. now everyone has Discord and I still don't understand how that shit works lmao but that's more of a me problem and less of an age problem, I think

we got dial up (in the "modern" sense of it being AOL dial up service with the infamous hell noises) in my household in 1994, back when it was pretty much a brand new thing (at least for AOL), and I remember the Eternal September Usenet rush, lmao

imagine if TFP took place in the 80s/90s, oh my god

(I'm assuming TFP takes place in roughly 2010 because that's when the show premiered, and Miko has some kind of Razr-inspired flip phone, so if we assume it's supposed to be based on the first model of Razr, then at the earliest that places the show in 2004)

Ratchet would have gone completely insane with old school internet capable consumer level human tech

Ratchet: "How do I look at photos on this monitor?"

80s Raf: "what"

Ratchet: "what"

oh god now I want an 80s/90s TFP AU so fucking bad. imagine 80s Raf. it's so good

oh god, IMAGINE 90s RAF. just getting traumatised by terrifying shitty mid-90s FMV horror games. this poor boy. but imagine his hype when the PS1 would come out in the USA in 1995. the hype would be so fucking real. lmao

also for those of you who are Younger and Blessed With Good Internet From An Early Age, if you want a good idea of old school internet shit, go ahead and watch WarGames (1983) and look up 2600 Magazine and Mondo 2000 if you don't already know about those.

(personally I consider WarGames and Hackers (1995) to be the two best simultaneously dumbest and best movie depictions of computer bullshit in their respective eras, although Hackers was more of a thing that informed cyber culture after it released rather than reflecting actual hacker culture as it was at that exact time but anyway, please watch them if you have not seen them already, you will love this shit lmao)

I assume almost all of you already know about this stuff, but just in case, I want to mention it. those two movies are really good. lol

anyway, Ratchet dealing with early internet. early shitty human tech. or at least the 90s shit. imagine Ratchet having to listen to the fucking dial up screeching. the kids having to look through geocities webrings to see if any images of the bots had been leaked on any conspiracy websites. just 10/10 lmaooo

"I hate talking to machines" Ratchet, buddy, you have NO IDEA how bad it could have been!!!

anyway I'm old, I guess that's the point of this post LOL

[captain-crowfish]

The Warrior Cats Phenomenon

A beloved xenofiction series that is, in reality, incredibly mediocre, is subsequently glamorized and over-inflated by the perception of adolescents, influenced by the cultural landscape at the time of the fandom's mainstream conception. The era of the early 2000s brought about the popularization of the internet, and with it came a new sub-division in alt. youth pop culture; which for the sake of this tangent I will refer to as "Alternative animal expressionism." In less formal terms, just about all the artsy kids on deviantart had a fursona that walked on four legs and was adorned with an abundance of accessories and bright colors, as well as punk/emo-resembling hair styles. This is reflective of the commonplace visual aesthetics we now refer to as MySpace/MyScene subculture. MySpace was designed as a platform for older teenagers and young adults, and just so happened to collide with the rise of Youtube, and with it came two other communities that were skyrocketing in popularity; AMVs and furries. The history of furries is too long to elaborate on here, however many of them were pioneers in developing crucial components of code still used in modern operating systems. What defines a "Furry" is debated, but mostly revolves around an enjoyment of anthropomorphized animals. arguably one of if not the most popular forms of media depicting animals with such characteristics at the time was Walt Disney's The Lion King, and the growing number of forum websites meant that multiple forums and websites were bound to surface that were entirely dedicated to The Lion King and its fans, serving as a dedicated space to discuss the film, and potentially their own fan-made characters. AMV is an incredibly broad and potentially outdated term. The Acronym "AMV" was first coined as "Anime music video." Although for reasons I will touch on a bit later it can also mean "Animated music video." Again, with the notoriety of forum websites and online fan spaces, information can much more easily be found, given, and spread. Anime was still a relatively new concept in the world of Western entertainment (and was first popularized by, you guessed it, Furries.), and until files and videos could easily be shared over the internet, the only way to watch Anime was to get your hands on a physical VHS tape, which at the time still proved to be difficult and an incredibly niche practice, especially if you wanted subtitled or dubbed Anime.

Now in the 2000's, the popularity of Anime has increased almost tenfold. And while animation is a media that can be easily translated is necessary and enjoyed by a Western Audience, Japanese music did not quite reach the same level of popularity, at least not alongside Anime. Western audiences often combined clips of various Anime TV shows and films to music, most of which was Western-made. The intent, editing style, and end result of each fan-made music video often differed greatly from each other, although a common idea was evidently present: The music landscape at the time, brought on by the newest wave of counter culture, could be relatable to the situations of the animated characters. (This was not a completely new concept, and full disclosure I do not know how people made fan made music videos before computer video editing software was invented. According to Wikipedia, "The first AMV was created in 1982 by 21-year-old Jim Kaposztas. [He] hooked up two videocassette recorders to each other and edited the most violent scenes from Star Blazers to "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles to produce a humorous effect.") These were also sometimes referred to as "Anime mixes", particularly if they contained footage from more than one property. Similar media also included MMVs ("Manga music videos"), FMVs (literally "Fan Music Videos") and HMVs (which were obviously created for a more adult audience).

The oldest AMV on Youtube (at least that I could find) After some time, the appeal of creating a fan-made music video spread to other fandoms (again through social cross-pollination, i.e. someone who was a fan of both Anime and The Lion King was more likely to adopt these mediums), particularly The Lion King, and fan made music videos using footage from the film and its sequels began to surface, although still using the "AMV" Moniker. The next logical step for anyone who enjoyed Western mainstream animation was to include other Disney properties in fan-made music videos. But why stop at mainstream? Why stop at films? the medium soon evolved to contain and pay tribute to all kinds of Western animation, from Walt Disney to cult classics such as the likes of Watership Down, to TV shows like Avatar The Last Airbender (the latter of which was often understandably grouped in with Anime and AMVs).  In 2003, a group of authors underneath the pseudonym Erin Hunter released the first book in what would become one of the most popular and most beloved xenofiction book series of all time. Warriors: Into the Wild. Like most budding fandoms, Warrior Cats also sprouted dedicated fan websites for discussion of the series. The up-and-coming Warrior Cats fandom found itself somewhere on the spectrum between the anime and furry communities, combining the ingenuity and creative thinking with the"Sparkledog" furry art style. However, the more "visual" creative types lacked almost any pre-existing media to work with, and before 2009, fan-made music videos often consisted of picture slideshows with simple or non-existent effects and transitions, with some scattered fan-made animations here and there. And then, everything changed when a small team of artists and animators driven purely by devotion, passion, and seemingly sheer creative will, released the first episode of their new Anime-inspired, episodic retelling of the first Warriors book. SSSWarriorCats was so Anime-inspired, both in animation style, direction and pacing, perfectly straddling the balance between the Anime and furry communities, respectfully. The series, although technically incomplete, still garners an enormous fanbase to this day. Evidently Warrior Cats fans have been inspired by these animations for over a decade, and it's not hard to see why. And thus the release and subsequent releases of episodes sparked what is regarded as the “Classic” period in Warrior Cats fan animations, and also sparked the creation of “MAPs” (“Multi-Animator-Projects”), as opportunities to collaborate with fellow artists. To summarize, Warrior Cats had the ingenuity of Anime fans to create music videos out of already-existing content, but upon realizing they had none, looked to the furry, tactile-based artistic side of their fandom’s conception to create it, instead of waiting for an official adaptation to surface. (And considering what Tencent animation is doing… I’m glad they did.) In other, perhaps more unserious terminology, the Warrior Cats fandom is the cultural brainchild of the Anime and Furry communities. To summarize, Warrior Cats had the ingenuity of Anime fans to create music videos out of already-existing content, but upon realizing they had none, looked to the furry, tactile-based artistic side of their fandom’s conception to create it, instead of waiting for an official adaptation to surface. (And considering what Tencent animation is doing… I’m glad they did.) In other, perhaps more unserious terminology, the Warrior Cats fandom is the cultural brainchild of the Anime and Furry communities. The Warrior Cats Fandom continues to persist, even after two decades, seemingly out of sheer artistic will. But, of course, the question remains as to why all of this happened, why does the possibility for these ideas to occur exist in the first place? The answer is simple, The perception of adolescents that such amalgamated fan-made media can be perceived as "mature" or even "edgy" is not one that has disappeared from our culture and probably never will. Cringe culture is dead.

[submalevolentgrace]

hey videogames enjoyers, play a little 'what if?' game with me.

imagine an alternate timeline where the modern first person shooter didn't and doesn't exist. no call of duty, no titanfall, no borderlands, no bioshock, no pubg, no overwatch, not even halflife. they never existed. there was however still a small experimental game way back in the 80's called 'wolfenstein 3d' that basically nobody remembers, leaving pretty much no cultural impact or legacy on the gaming landscape. and sure, around y2k if you fell down some very specific internet forum rabbit holes you'd find a small niche community playing some equally obscure successors inspired by wolfenstein: doom, quake, hexen, and some weird one called rise of the triad; 'wolfensteinies', the community called them, in honour of the original. most gamers would be put off by their confusing and frustrating mechanics, but of course, everyone that stuck around long enough to really get into one of these cult-canonical 'big four' in the genre was captivated by them. people in this tiny community loved their wolfensteinies so much that it was a (true) running joke that basically everyone was trying to make their own version of one.

but if you played these unknown games, or even just attempted to describe their characteristics to other gamers, they'd look at you like you were insane. who'd play games like that? they have such ugly primitive graphics, and you just shoot people with bullets that come out of your eyes somehow and you have to keep picking up fuel for the shooting, and the enemies shoot you back, and you're stuck in some kind of unfathomable maze and have to keep walking and opening doors until you find your way out, and you keep having to shoot at enemies the whole time while running out of shooting fuel? people play that for fun???

and over the years there were a few attempts at making something approaching this bizarre "shooting people from your eyes and opening lots of doors" kind of gameplay more mainstream for various 16-bit and early 3d consoles… but despite being both faithful to the wolfenstein roots and also bringing something fun and unique to the table, they always did poorly both critically and commercially, even with a big brand tie-in like pokemon or final fantasy attached, so were forgotten.

and the genre of wolfensteinies died out.

but then, something unusual happens in the early-to-mid 2010's; the indie game scene kinda explodes, and goes fully mainstream. it's never been easier to get your game up on steam or even a console's digital store, and with the boom in experimental indie games playing around with what's possible, a new type of game - a whole new genre! - blasts onto the scene: the "wolfensteinie". nobody seems to know where the genre or name came from, but suddenly every other indie game that comes out is a wolfensteinie or has wolfensteinie-style mechanics in it. mainstream gamers and fans of this brand new genre have still never heard of quake or doom let alone the original, but 'wolfensteinie' popularity has skyrocketed. confusingly, however, all these indie darling wolfensteinie games - that are ostensibly drawing inspiration from wolfenstein 3d or else why would they still be calling themselves wolfensteinies - none of them are really first person shooters… the first person shooter still doesn't exist, or at least hasn't for decades. some of these games have a first person viewpoint but most don't, many have guns in them but many don't, a few of them take place in mazey castles i guess, but it honestly kinda seems like none of the people making these games have ever even heard of wolfenstein 3d or the big classic wolfensteinies.

so what even makes a modern game a wolfensteinie then, if none of them are fps's? well it's the coloured keycards and dogfood, duh! that's what wolfensteinies are all about! you collect coloured keycards to unlock the respective coloured doors, and there is dogfood that you can eat. everyone knows that's what a game means when it says it has 'wolfensteinie mechanics' in it! and since these mechanics are so popular, game designers want to put them into as many of their games as possible. an action adventure wolfensteinie with soulslike combat, a dungeon crawling dating sim with wolfensteinie mechnics, an island hopping life sim wolfensteinie! although as the genre has broadened its appeal, the mechanics have obviously been softened a bit for the average gamer; it's generally accepted that painting over keycards to open unmatched doors and storing dogfood as an inventory item for later instead of having to eat straight from the bowl still let a game count as a wolfensteinie, or at least 'wolfensteinish'.

the word 'wolfenstein' is still literally in the title of the genre, but its roots and history and identity have been so unrecognisably mangled that most people seemingly don't even question where the name came from, whether this 'wolfenstein' thing might have originally been its own unique game, with its own unique mechanics almost completely unexplored in the modern genre. what would fans say of the original genre-defining game?

"eww, that's so ugly and basic, we have way better games now with keycards and dogfood in them, if opening doors in a maze is what you find fun gameplay."

imagine that world. no first person shooters are made, but the market is absolutely flooded with indie games - and AAA titles now too! - all proudly claiming lineage from wolfenstein 3d, all absolutely certain that what makes them part of that lineage is coloured keycards and dogfood. imagine the absurdity. imagine you were one of those big four cult fans from back in the day, struggling to even find a copy of 'doom community support edition' that can run on a modern operating system, while fans of keycard and dogfood games think you're nuts for wanting to play something as obscure, bespoke, ugly and just plain uninspired as doom.

imagine that reality. keycards and dogfood being the cultural legacy of first person shooters.

because, yeah, this post is an old gamer's lament for the absurd reality that exists with a little genre that for some reason is still called 'roguelikes'.

rogue? nethack, angband, linley's dungeon crawl, adom? a massive amount of complexly interactive elements allowing for inventive solutions and emergent gameplay unlocked through iterative knowledge and creative thinking of available tools? people play that for fun???

"eww, that's so ugly and basic, we have way better games now with permadeath and procedural generation in them, if playing the same bits over and over and over is what you find fun gameplay."