I haven’t unwillingly seen an advertisement on the internet for about 3 or so years now. I don’t watch tv, so every commercial that you’ve seen a few dozen times and you think is hilarious is totally foreign to me. Possibly the most visual advertisement I’ve consumed these days is from the out of doors, or movie advertisements. I heard a few on the radio at mcdonalds, too. Sometimes I read coupon books, which are a form of advertising, I suppose. Sometimes magazine ads. Newspaper ads, definitely.
Though, I think avoiding the ubiquitous tv and internet ads is probably the most effective at cutting down the amount of detritus I end up seeing. I was in a marketing class in high school. I was actually ina marketing organization called DECA, which stands for something totally irrelevant and misleading and I’ve forgotten what. It’s an association of (ta-dah!) marketing students. It was an interesting class. About half of the time it was covering various aspects of advertisement and marketing, the other half it was being marketed or advertised to by some school or other. We learned all about the color associations, how to write interesting copy, how not to write too much copy, how to make an advertisement, how to pitch a product or a concept to someone, and how to speak publicly and write speeches. It was a nice experience but a constant reminder that Marketing as an institution is vapid as all hell , and the people who study it are some of the least creative people on the planet. Pretty much every concept in marketing is ripped off of someone or somewhere else (most notably psychology or aesthetics) and twisted around and used to sell a product.
Marketers are lucky, though. They have some of the coolest jobs in the corporate world. They get to organize all the badass events and plan all sorts of crazy fun things that are sponsored by their company under the assumption that marketing is a necessary expense. So many of them are overpaid and underworked and get to have a rollicking time, all on their corporation’s budget. Hiring a marketing team is a hilariously double-edged sword because you’re hiring experts at selling a thing to sell your thing, but they are busy selling themselves as being experts and capable and worthy of the money you’re giving them first and before they sell your product. This is why 90% of advertising is shitty and forgettable. Because marketers themselves are shitty and forgettable people with a great ability to seem more important and more valuable than they are.
I am constantly shocked and amazed at the sheer amount of money poured into these advertising budgets because they have little to no relation to the reality of consumer purchasing. Advertisers like to claim that much of a well known and well loved product is due to its sheer ubiquity in advertisement; People buy coke because they hear about it and see it all the time. This may have been true in the early years of coke when no one knew what it was, but coke is such a strong and thoroughly ingrained brand in american life that it could shamble on more or less just as well as it has if coke decided to cease all advertising activities. People grow up being given coke as a kid these days. It’s an essential part of their lifestyle. If a child was raised in a strange backwards country where they drank nothing but off brand beverages or supermarket brand beverages, then they may prefer that instead. But coke is available everywhere pretty much all the time. There is no way to avoid it as a child, unless your parents are determined to raise you without it. My point is, sheer branding is far more successful and long lasting than any silly CGI commercial depicting bugs flipping the fuck out when they get ahold of some coke. It’s silly and unnecessary and expensive and stupid.
But it pays the bills. Damn, it pays a lot of bills. Marketers are very highly paid. Much better than I am. Or ever will be, to be honest. Even if I manage to become a professor or something, I will not be paid as highly as the guys who invent little jingles and campaigns to get people to buy dodge trucks or car insurance or whatever the fuck. They are also paid better than you are, unless you’re on your way to an overpaid engineering position or a similar marketing job. All the scientists and researchers in the world can’t measure up to the private sector. The thing is, it’s just money. And money is a physical thing. And you are a person with the free agency to take that money. So why not? Start hunting down people who are grossly overpaid for their terrible products. Hunt them down and kill them and take their money.
Well, not really, I just wanted to end on an action note, it being one of the things I learned from that class. I need to advise action in my speech because otherwise it’s just a rant. Then I summarize the problem again. Marketers are uncreative and worthless people who are paid solely based on their ability to seem more valuable than they are. This is unjust. Unjustice needs to be balanced by justice. Frontier justice.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Politics
It’s a very exciting time. The tea party movement is radically flipping out about nearly everything, the Republican Party is behaving like a spoiled child and refusing to support any legislation, Obama’s ratings are in the shitter despite managing to get two major planks of his platform done in the first half of his first term as president. It’s pretty crazy.
I think the part I like best about the rhetoric is the concept that “the American people don’t want this” or “the American people didn’t vote for this,” or “this is being rammed down the American people’s throats.” What I like best about it is that it completely disavows democracy’s legitimacy and pretends that our votes don’t actually count. It’s a subtle way of simply calling the people in power tyrants. It’s funny, because the president was elected on a fairly comfortable margin. The former republican president actually lost the popular election, probably the biggest perversion of democracy to date. The people’s voices were totally ignored in his presidency. Whereas now, the democrats have a clear, if slim majority and a president in the white house and somehow no one managed to vote for these guys. To hear the rhetoric tell it, they literally snuck into the white house and capitol and suddenly became senators and president.
It’s incredibly disingenuous speech, and in some small way it’s dangerous. When the actual votes of the American people are being denied in favor of what one singular party tells you the American people want, it inspires exactly the kind of hegemony of thought it’s warning against. “Despite the results of the election, the people want a conservative and traditionalist approach to government.” I think I can, with reasonable confidence, say that even during the Bush years when inflammatory anti-Bush rhetoric was practically a requirement of existing in a political sense no democrat stood up and denied the legitimacy of the republican majority in Congress. They may have denied the Bush presidency, but that was largely for the fact that Bush really did lose the first election any way you slice it. Denials of Obama’s presidency were largely based on the ridiculous idea that he was not actually an American citizen, one easily countered and disproven.
All the same, when rhetoric spins around and becomes a common talking point or a popular tirade lede, people tend to believe it based solely on the passion of those who say it. If you’re going to tell a lie, tell it loud and tell it often. So lots of people really do think that the president is an illegal alien or that the democrats weren’t actually lawfully elected or that Obama isn’t doing exactly what he was elected to do. Because that’s all they hear from the fox news to the conservative websites (no newspapers, though, those are all run by left-wing Jewish media elites) to the talk radio on their way to work to the buddies at the office who all consume the same media and talk about the same things. It’s a beautiful thing, public manipulation. Karl Rove was and is a genius, as is Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and all the lovely personalities Rupert Murdoch has promoted through his own media empire. It didn’t start with him, really. It was William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer who developed the concept of using a newspaper owned and run by themselves to support their political ideas. The only real difference between then and now is probably the sheer quantity of media owned by Murdoch. He runs literally every kind of media it is possible to consume, from radio stations to tv stations to newspapers to magazines to websites to a film studio. If one so chose, one could easily only consume media produced by Murdoch owned corporations. And he isn’t even American! He’s an Australian with nothing but a vested interest in making a lot of money by telling people what people with money want them to hear.
So there are all sorts of people who believe all sorts of crazy things about Obama or the democrats or evolution or atheists or homosexuals or abortions or the way the economy works. It’s what they’ve been told. They aren’t stupid. No one (well, except people with legitimate mental handicaps) is really stupid. It’s the scope of their world. When a person lives in an area, grows up in a family that believes a certain worldview, exclusively befriends people with that worldview, takes a job with co-workers with that worldview, you can be damn sure that person will also have that worldview. People are products of their environment. Their environment is a product of their culture. That’s all it comes down to, in the long run. Culture.
Many are convinced that the Tea Party movement simply represents a wing of the Republican Party, and with all the anti-tax rhetoric, you might also be lead to believe this. However, the movement itself actually sprang more or less from Sarah Palin’s abrupt popularity and her adherence to a culture people felt that they could relate to. That coupled with the angry response to the bailout procedures of both Bush and Obama administrations has lead to something of an angry conservative revivalist movement. While the Republican Party has invested themselves in it quite a bit and developed some serious legislative cojones because of them, banking on them helping the Party to take back the senate this November will likely backfire, because the Tea Partiers aren’t just mad at the Democrats. They’re just mad, and totally unfocused in their ire. Huge political missteps, such as the treatment of BP during this oil geyser crisis and the nomination of totally reactionary politicians rather than ones who listen to their electorate will only hold the Party back.
The thing is, the culture that was so long defined by traditional media is being introduced and beset by a new form of media. I’m sure it’s tired and familiar by now, but the internet really is pretty unprecedented and magical. There’s a site, I’m sure you’ve heard of it, called “Wikipedia” that endeavors to create a free and publicly accessible encyclopedia of all human knowledge. This is a totally crazy and new concept and absolutely world-changing if administered correctly. How does one distort facts when they are immediately verifiable through a simple search of the internet? How does a singular culture proliferate when the outputs, reasoning, and comprehension of many others is freely available to anyone? Some people complain about a lack of focused spiritualism and a detachment from ideology in religion, with people who adopt them freely and without much thought to the metaphysical consequences. This is merely a result of the expansion of worldview, the knowledge that not only can other concepts of spirituality exist, they do exist. In the face of this incontrovertible knowledge, how can one accept a singular dogma? This has and will continue to change the political landscape as both party’s hidebound ideologies seem laughable in the face of such diversity. The tea party, the conservatives, and as a whole the entire traditionalist movement is largely fostered and supported in an environment where the usage of internet is limited at best. In places where the technology is readily available and information is cheap and easy to find, there is a much stronger streak of social liberalism and tolerance.
Possibly the smartest and longest lasting planks of the Obama administration and their infrastructure rebuilding stimulus is the promotion of broadband internet access for the entire nation. This should go a long way towards educating those in cloistered communities of alternatives to their way of life. It should bring options to the people. It should foster a worldlier outlook on the outward world. It’s a very exciting time.
I think the part I like best about the rhetoric is the concept that “the American people don’t want this” or “the American people didn’t vote for this,” or “this is being rammed down the American people’s throats.” What I like best about it is that it completely disavows democracy’s legitimacy and pretends that our votes don’t actually count. It’s a subtle way of simply calling the people in power tyrants. It’s funny, because the president was elected on a fairly comfortable margin. The former republican president actually lost the popular election, probably the biggest perversion of democracy to date. The people’s voices were totally ignored in his presidency. Whereas now, the democrats have a clear, if slim majority and a president in the white house and somehow no one managed to vote for these guys. To hear the rhetoric tell it, they literally snuck into the white house and capitol and suddenly became senators and president.
It’s incredibly disingenuous speech, and in some small way it’s dangerous. When the actual votes of the American people are being denied in favor of what one singular party tells you the American people want, it inspires exactly the kind of hegemony of thought it’s warning against. “Despite the results of the election, the people want a conservative and traditionalist approach to government.” I think I can, with reasonable confidence, say that even during the Bush years when inflammatory anti-Bush rhetoric was practically a requirement of existing in a political sense no democrat stood up and denied the legitimacy of the republican majority in Congress. They may have denied the Bush presidency, but that was largely for the fact that Bush really did lose the first election any way you slice it. Denials of Obama’s presidency were largely based on the ridiculous idea that he was not actually an American citizen, one easily countered and disproven.
All the same, when rhetoric spins around and becomes a common talking point or a popular tirade lede, people tend to believe it based solely on the passion of those who say it. If you’re going to tell a lie, tell it loud and tell it often. So lots of people really do think that the president is an illegal alien or that the democrats weren’t actually lawfully elected or that Obama isn’t doing exactly what he was elected to do. Because that’s all they hear from the fox news to the conservative websites (no newspapers, though, those are all run by left-wing Jewish media elites) to the talk radio on their way to work to the buddies at the office who all consume the same media and talk about the same things. It’s a beautiful thing, public manipulation. Karl Rove was and is a genius, as is Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and all the lovely personalities Rupert Murdoch has promoted through his own media empire. It didn’t start with him, really. It was William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer who developed the concept of using a newspaper owned and run by themselves to support their political ideas. The only real difference between then and now is probably the sheer quantity of media owned by Murdoch. He runs literally every kind of media it is possible to consume, from radio stations to tv stations to newspapers to magazines to websites to a film studio. If one so chose, one could easily only consume media produced by Murdoch owned corporations. And he isn’t even American! He’s an Australian with nothing but a vested interest in making a lot of money by telling people what people with money want them to hear.
So there are all sorts of people who believe all sorts of crazy things about Obama or the democrats or evolution or atheists or homosexuals or abortions or the way the economy works. It’s what they’ve been told. They aren’t stupid. No one (well, except people with legitimate mental handicaps) is really stupid. It’s the scope of their world. When a person lives in an area, grows up in a family that believes a certain worldview, exclusively befriends people with that worldview, takes a job with co-workers with that worldview, you can be damn sure that person will also have that worldview. People are products of their environment. Their environment is a product of their culture. That’s all it comes down to, in the long run. Culture.
Many are convinced that the Tea Party movement simply represents a wing of the Republican Party, and with all the anti-tax rhetoric, you might also be lead to believe this. However, the movement itself actually sprang more or less from Sarah Palin’s abrupt popularity and her adherence to a culture people felt that they could relate to. That coupled with the angry response to the bailout procedures of both Bush and Obama administrations has lead to something of an angry conservative revivalist movement. While the Republican Party has invested themselves in it quite a bit and developed some serious legislative cojones because of them, banking on them helping the Party to take back the senate this November will likely backfire, because the Tea Partiers aren’t just mad at the Democrats. They’re just mad, and totally unfocused in their ire. Huge political missteps, such as the treatment of BP during this oil geyser crisis and the nomination of totally reactionary politicians rather than ones who listen to their electorate will only hold the Party back.
The thing is, the culture that was so long defined by traditional media is being introduced and beset by a new form of media. I’m sure it’s tired and familiar by now, but the internet really is pretty unprecedented and magical. There’s a site, I’m sure you’ve heard of it, called “Wikipedia” that endeavors to create a free and publicly accessible encyclopedia of all human knowledge. This is a totally crazy and new concept and absolutely world-changing if administered correctly. How does one distort facts when they are immediately verifiable through a simple search of the internet? How does a singular culture proliferate when the outputs, reasoning, and comprehension of many others is freely available to anyone? Some people complain about a lack of focused spiritualism and a detachment from ideology in religion, with people who adopt them freely and without much thought to the metaphysical consequences. This is merely a result of the expansion of worldview, the knowledge that not only can other concepts of spirituality exist, they do exist. In the face of this incontrovertible knowledge, how can one accept a singular dogma? This has and will continue to change the political landscape as both party’s hidebound ideologies seem laughable in the face of such diversity. The tea party, the conservatives, and as a whole the entire traditionalist movement is largely fostered and supported in an environment where the usage of internet is limited at best. In places where the technology is readily available and information is cheap and easy to find, there is a much stronger streak of social liberalism and tolerance.
Possibly the smartest and longest lasting planks of the Obama administration and their infrastructure rebuilding stimulus is the promotion of broadband internet access for the entire nation. This should go a long way towards educating those in cloistered communities of alternatives to their way of life. It should bring options to the people. It should foster a worldlier outlook on the outward world. It’s a very exciting time.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
America
George W. Bush is my hero. He’s putting out a memoir a week after the election. He’s totally staying out of politics. The closest he’s come is boosting his Haiti relief fund long after everyone else has forgotten about Haiti like the douchebags they are. What a smart way to go. Sure, it’s pretty much what every president has done immediately after presidency. But it’s so nice in the face of ridiculous billboards stating “miss me yet” and all sorts of “please come back and be our president again” talk. Then again he did start 2 (two) major wars and helped contribute to the inevitable economic slide (one thing you’ll learn when you live as long as I have, the president actually doesn’t have much control over the economy, but the president does have responsibility for it all the same. It’s like a rebellious teenager or something) and he did more or less steal an election. Plus he reacted to the whole 9/11 dealio (9 years ago almost) in possibly the most backwards and warmongering way. He fostered an America that was warlike and hostile about anything that deviated from America, from freedom fries to buying made in America products. He fostered nationalism, in that sense. Pride in our country for being the best damn country in the world. That’s what everyone who lives here thinks. Every last one. Even the people who are adamantly against everything this country stands for still think this country is better than anywhere else. Some even profess their desire to destroy the country as being because they love it so much, moved to tears on national television by their passion.
Tim Rogers, still basically my favorite writer ever, wrote an article a few months ago complaining about how much he disliked living in Japan. He enumerated the precise things he disliked and explicated his reasons. I thought it was a great article, especially in the sense that it highlighted a lot of differences in culture between the two countries. Many of his complaints were from a very American perspective of Japanese culture. The comments on his article were overwhelmingly negative, as most comments on his column (whiny little fuckers who complain about being “forced” to read a 15,000 word article. Pussies), but they were negative in a weird sense. Lots of people leapt to Japan’s defense. Lots of people demanded to know why he lived there if he hated it so much. Lots of people told him to sit down and shut up. I feel like the audience largely missed the point of the article, and Tim did too, so he published in the following month things he liked about Japan, which really didn’t inspire much more understanding in the audience but again did an excellent job of describing American culture as it approaches Japanese culture.
Inevitably, I live here, and I like to think that America is pretty neat inasmuch as people are capable of doing weird and crazy things and often do. I’m a huge fan of people who do whatever takes up residence in their head for no reason than it feels like a right and good thing to do. Gay culture bores me insofar that it has run its course and is understood as reasonably acceptable. Internet culture enthralls me because it is considered so shameful and taboo to belong to, yet people live much of their lives there. You might tell your family that you are gay, but would you admit to them that you browse a website where the word nigger is as common as the word fag and neither of them have much meaning anymore? Would you tell them you visit a website where all manner of sexual perversion are not only discussed but proliferated? Would you tell them you visit a website that finds the most offensive things funny, almost solely based upon their offensiveness? It’s the ultimate form of irreverence, a denial of the standards of sociability. It’s standing up and saying “This shit doesn’t even matter, why does it offend you?” But of course it offends. So no one admits it. I do feel like that only in this country could such a complete divorce from traditionalism occur. Perhaps other societies are more publicly free, perhaps France has more lenient standards for sexual behavior onscreen or at home but the societies themselves are fairly conservative and restrictive. Perhaps Japan has a more successful and popular paraphilia market, with more divergent concepts of sexuality than other nations, but the society itself is extremely narrow and uncreative. I feel like, if anywhere in the world would be able to achieve sexual and social enlightenment; it would have to be the U.S. The people here are simply more willing and more capable of acting out social deviance in public.
We’re in a country where we have developed and instituted the concept of the people having a right to privacy, despite there never having been such a right in any other country. We’re entitled to do what we want by virtue of de facto belief. So we do. There are all sorts of nuts all over the place, and we leave them alone. It’s not our problem. Even the most conservative prudes of us simply avoid the people they find distasteful, and mostly wave signs at them. It’s very cool, especially when you consider that not 100 years ago they might have formed up a posse and killed people who didn’t fit in.
The thing is, when will the pure irreverence of the internet become public? It comes in drips and drabs and terrible phrases but has yet to crack the shell of the world at large. As America becomes increasingly internet dependent, will people begin saying what they do on the net in real life? Will the words “nigger” and “fag” ever be understood as meaningless in reality? Maybe. It might not happen in my lifetime, and it might never happen. I feel like, though, if it were to happen it would happen here in this country. I believe in the power of expression and I believe that all expression is necessary and important. I understand that many people feel that there is a standard, a sort of speech that ought to be silenced because it ostensibly does harm to those who hear it. Insults and hate speech and the like. I reject this simple censoring of what is truly still there under the surface. Denying them the ability to express their hatred does not remove their hatred and does not help anyone comprehend the reason and purpose of their hatred. We must understand. Only through understanding why a thing is can we hope to change it. Simply smothering an emotion with society is about as effective as putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
America (or, for sticklers and pedants, the United States of) is at an interesting sort of point in time here. We’ve been the largest and richest nation for some time now, and we’re getting used to our job as global police. The economic crisis, though, really was the result of the weaknesses in the system. Our country has relied on other nations for its prosperity for an incredibly long time, despite our constant refutations of the fact. We’re only the biggest nation because most other nations decided that we ought to be. China is one of our biggest supporters, as our companies love to set up factories over there and reap the benefits of what is essentially slave labor. The higher ups of china are perfectly okay with this, as they make plenty of money and for years they’ve been garnering influence as a nation that’s totally down with corporate greed and willing to shit all over its own land for the sake of profit. We literally can’t compete. There will be a war with China, but that war will be far too late and far too little to change anything. It’s not evil, really. It’s just a fact of life. It’s a fact of capitalism. None of capitalism’s huge proponents here in the U.S. will even dare to mention it, but China has been kicking our butts for years, because they play dirty.
That’s the thing about slavery, it doesn’t end. It never really ended. Slavery is necessary for the kind of lives that we live. There has to be some caste of people who do all the work in order for there to be another caste of people who don’t. After industrialization, we foolishly believed that technological advances allowing just a few people to produce food for hundreds would lead to an end to slavery. We believed that through our technology we would be able to minimize the work done so that the people may all enjoy leisure and hedony. It was around this time (1921) that the play Rossum’s Universal Robots was produced, further emphasizing this concept of existence. So the future was bright! Device, machines, automatons would be introduced for our use and all would be made by them and no one would have to work again. Of course that turned out to be too expensive and unfeasible. No technology for that sort of thing. Factory workers were used instead. But they kept demanding higher wages and rebelling and forming unions and cutting into the profit margins. Can’t have that. So we found an alternative. Build that factories somewhere where no one will form a union, no one will rebel, and you can pay them as little as you like because no one has money anyway. So Nixon went to China and here we are today, enjoy the finest quality of goods all of which traveled by huge boats to get here and be consumed by you. We live on the backs of the Chinese proletariat.
And it’s okay! You’ve never met one of them, have you? In fact I doubt you’ve even been to china. It doesn’t matter what happens in a country that far away. In fact, we’re angry! Angry that those faceless Chinese have taken all the good American jobs away from us. We’re angry that all of the technology jobs have been shipped to India. We’re angry that other people aren’t simply recognizing our inherent superiority. Keep those Mexicans out of here, They’re going to take what American jobs are left!
As is the case with most anger, not a whole lot of thought has gone into the problem causing the anger. We’re angry because of the results, the symptoms, but we do not recognize the disease itself. Rich people have money to buy things, poor people don’t: there is no mobility. We live in a country of consumers. We import everything because we can, and stunningly, we don’t even need to pay our people to do it, they’ll gladly go into debt to keep buying things. There’s no need to pay people reasonable amounts, just pay them shitty amounts and watch them shoulder a huge amount of debt. Hell, that’s what we do to the government, why shouldn’t we do it to the people? The people are the government, after all.
Tim Rogers said a thing a while back: “All around the world, people like myself and Bob are finding ourselves in a state where legitimately earning money is about as complicated as downloading pirated music.” Bob trades stocks online. He makes money doing this through some sort of voodoo magic and a willingness to stay on top of these things. Tim started a small business here in the U.S. that he’s very mum about. He moved to Japan to take various jobs there, but still collects the proceeds from that business, affording him a great deal of flexibility when it comes to the jobs he does there. The statement is true in a sense, but not true for the vast majority of people. Perhaps he has the knowledge and fortuitousness to succeed, but this isn’t a common trait in the populace. Being able to swindle people out of their money only works if there are people with money that are swindle-able.
That’s what America is made of. Swindle-able people with money. They believe in the system, but totally don’t realize that the system will never get them what they want. It’s the system that keeps them where they are, in fact. In a roundabout and horrible way, the people are the arbiters of their own poverty, forever trapped in a concept of living that encompasses their entire universe. Grow up, go to school, go to college, get a job, have kids, retire, all of it a series of expected events. Perhaps you’ll get a really nice job and come away with lots of money and be one of the many rich people in America. Far more likely, though, you’ll waste your time trying to follow an ideal you can’t afford and can’t handle until you find yourself trapped in the same pattern of behavior, unable to escape your own personal bonds, much less the bonds you owe others. C’est la vie, or at least c’est la American vie. So much sorrow, so much heartbreak, so many problems are caused by this, but the dream is there and the dream is real if nothing else is. America is a land of dreams hampered by reality. Or perhaps it’s a land of reality, supported by dreams. Either way, I’m glad I live here and not in china as a wage slave. Sucks to be them.
Tim Rogers, still basically my favorite writer ever, wrote an article a few months ago complaining about how much he disliked living in Japan. He enumerated the precise things he disliked and explicated his reasons. I thought it was a great article, especially in the sense that it highlighted a lot of differences in culture between the two countries. Many of his complaints were from a very American perspective of Japanese culture. The comments on his article were overwhelmingly negative, as most comments on his column (whiny little fuckers who complain about being “forced” to read a 15,000 word article. Pussies), but they were negative in a weird sense. Lots of people leapt to Japan’s defense. Lots of people demanded to know why he lived there if he hated it so much. Lots of people told him to sit down and shut up. I feel like the audience largely missed the point of the article, and Tim did too, so he published in the following month things he liked about Japan, which really didn’t inspire much more understanding in the audience but again did an excellent job of describing American culture as it approaches Japanese culture.
Inevitably, I live here, and I like to think that America is pretty neat inasmuch as people are capable of doing weird and crazy things and often do. I’m a huge fan of people who do whatever takes up residence in their head for no reason than it feels like a right and good thing to do. Gay culture bores me insofar that it has run its course and is understood as reasonably acceptable. Internet culture enthralls me because it is considered so shameful and taboo to belong to, yet people live much of their lives there. You might tell your family that you are gay, but would you admit to them that you browse a website where the word nigger is as common as the word fag and neither of them have much meaning anymore? Would you tell them you visit a website where all manner of sexual perversion are not only discussed but proliferated? Would you tell them you visit a website that finds the most offensive things funny, almost solely based upon their offensiveness? It’s the ultimate form of irreverence, a denial of the standards of sociability. It’s standing up and saying “This shit doesn’t even matter, why does it offend you?” But of course it offends. So no one admits it. I do feel like that only in this country could such a complete divorce from traditionalism occur. Perhaps other societies are more publicly free, perhaps France has more lenient standards for sexual behavior onscreen or at home but the societies themselves are fairly conservative and restrictive. Perhaps Japan has a more successful and popular paraphilia market, with more divergent concepts of sexuality than other nations, but the society itself is extremely narrow and uncreative. I feel like, if anywhere in the world would be able to achieve sexual and social enlightenment; it would have to be the U.S. The people here are simply more willing and more capable of acting out social deviance in public.
We’re in a country where we have developed and instituted the concept of the people having a right to privacy, despite there never having been such a right in any other country. We’re entitled to do what we want by virtue of de facto belief. So we do. There are all sorts of nuts all over the place, and we leave them alone. It’s not our problem. Even the most conservative prudes of us simply avoid the people they find distasteful, and mostly wave signs at them. It’s very cool, especially when you consider that not 100 years ago they might have formed up a posse and killed people who didn’t fit in.
The thing is, when will the pure irreverence of the internet become public? It comes in drips and drabs and terrible phrases but has yet to crack the shell of the world at large. As America becomes increasingly internet dependent, will people begin saying what they do on the net in real life? Will the words “nigger” and “fag” ever be understood as meaningless in reality? Maybe. It might not happen in my lifetime, and it might never happen. I feel like, though, if it were to happen it would happen here in this country. I believe in the power of expression and I believe that all expression is necessary and important. I understand that many people feel that there is a standard, a sort of speech that ought to be silenced because it ostensibly does harm to those who hear it. Insults and hate speech and the like. I reject this simple censoring of what is truly still there under the surface. Denying them the ability to express their hatred does not remove their hatred and does not help anyone comprehend the reason and purpose of their hatred. We must understand. Only through understanding why a thing is can we hope to change it. Simply smothering an emotion with society is about as effective as putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
America (or, for sticklers and pedants, the United States of) is at an interesting sort of point in time here. We’ve been the largest and richest nation for some time now, and we’re getting used to our job as global police. The economic crisis, though, really was the result of the weaknesses in the system. Our country has relied on other nations for its prosperity for an incredibly long time, despite our constant refutations of the fact. We’re only the biggest nation because most other nations decided that we ought to be. China is one of our biggest supporters, as our companies love to set up factories over there and reap the benefits of what is essentially slave labor. The higher ups of china are perfectly okay with this, as they make plenty of money and for years they’ve been garnering influence as a nation that’s totally down with corporate greed and willing to shit all over its own land for the sake of profit. We literally can’t compete. There will be a war with China, but that war will be far too late and far too little to change anything. It’s not evil, really. It’s just a fact of life. It’s a fact of capitalism. None of capitalism’s huge proponents here in the U.S. will even dare to mention it, but China has been kicking our butts for years, because they play dirty.
That’s the thing about slavery, it doesn’t end. It never really ended. Slavery is necessary for the kind of lives that we live. There has to be some caste of people who do all the work in order for there to be another caste of people who don’t. After industrialization, we foolishly believed that technological advances allowing just a few people to produce food for hundreds would lead to an end to slavery. We believed that through our technology we would be able to minimize the work done so that the people may all enjoy leisure and hedony. It was around this time (1921) that the play Rossum’s Universal Robots was produced, further emphasizing this concept of existence. So the future was bright! Device, machines, automatons would be introduced for our use and all would be made by them and no one would have to work again. Of course that turned out to be too expensive and unfeasible. No technology for that sort of thing. Factory workers were used instead. But they kept demanding higher wages and rebelling and forming unions and cutting into the profit margins. Can’t have that. So we found an alternative. Build that factories somewhere where no one will form a union, no one will rebel, and you can pay them as little as you like because no one has money anyway. So Nixon went to China and here we are today, enjoy the finest quality of goods all of which traveled by huge boats to get here and be consumed by you. We live on the backs of the Chinese proletariat.
And it’s okay! You’ve never met one of them, have you? In fact I doubt you’ve even been to china. It doesn’t matter what happens in a country that far away. In fact, we’re angry! Angry that those faceless Chinese have taken all the good American jobs away from us. We’re angry that all of the technology jobs have been shipped to India. We’re angry that other people aren’t simply recognizing our inherent superiority. Keep those Mexicans out of here, They’re going to take what American jobs are left!
As is the case with most anger, not a whole lot of thought has gone into the problem causing the anger. We’re angry because of the results, the symptoms, but we do not recognize the disease itself. Rich people have money to buy things, poor people don’t: there is no mobility. We live in a country of consumers. We import everything because we can, and stunningly, we don’t even need to pay our people to do it, they’ll gladly go into debt to keep buying things. There’s no need to pay people reasonable amounts, just pay them shitty amounts and watch them shoulder a huge amount of debt. Hell, that’s what we do to the government, why shouldn’t we do it to the people? The people are the government, after all.
Tim Rogers said a thing a while back: “All around the world, people like myself and Bob are finding ourselves in a state where legitimately earning money is about as complicated as downloading pirated music.” Bob trades stocks online. He makes money doing this through some sort of voodoo magic and a willingness to stay on top of these things. Tim started a small business here in the U.S. that he’s very mum about. He moved to Japan to take various jobs there, but still collects the proceeds from that business, affording him a great deal of flexibility when it comes to the jobs he does there. The statement is true in a sense, but not true for the vast majority of people. Perhaps he has the knowledge and fortuitousness to succeed, but this isn’t a common trait in the populace. Being able to swindle people out of their money only works if there are people with money that are swindle-able.
That’s what America is made of. Swindle-able people with money. They believe in the system, but totally don’t realize that the system will never get them what they want. It’s the system that keeps them where they are, in fact. In a roundabout and horrible way, the people are the arbiters of their own poverty, forever trapped in a concept of living that encompasses their entire universe. Grow up, go to school, go to college, get a job, have kids, retire, all of it a series of expected events. Perhaps you’ll get a really nice job and come away with lots of money and be one of the many rich people in America. Far more likely, though, you’ll waste your time trying to follow an ideal you can’t afford and can’t handle until you find yourself trapped in the same pattern of behavior, unable to escape your own personal bonds, much less the bonds you owe others. C’est la vie, or at least c’est la American vie. So much sorrow, so much heartbreak, so many problems are caused by this, but the dream is there and the dream is real if nothing else is. America is a land of dreams hampered by reality. Or perhaps it’s a land of reality, supported by dreams. Either way, I’m glad I live here and not in china as a wage slave. Sucks to be them.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Sometimes
Sometimes when I close my eyes I try really hard to imagine I’m somewhere else and hope that when I open them I’ll be there. Sometimes when I reach for things, I try to use my thoughts to move the object into my hand, rather than moving in reach. Sometimes I snap my fingers and hope stuff happens. Sometimes I imagine I’m shooting a fireball out of my hands, or using my fingers to guide liquid from my drinks into my mouth. Sometimes I jump into the air and imagine not coming back down. Sometimes I close my eyes and pretend to be flying a space ship. Sometimes I pretend to be a detective in a film noir and I shrug up my coat and Mutter witty lines at myself. Sometimes I pretend to be British or Australian, depending on how well I’m pulling an accent. Sometimes I think of using the Robot to punctuate things I say to people. Sometimes I walk past people who look “cool” and break into a wide grin for no reason. Sometimes I pick things up and open doors with my feet. Sometimes I stack things in restaurants for no reason. Sometimes I flip coins to make my decisions. Sometimes I imagine that one day I am going to fall asleep and wake up and find out that I am still 8 and everything since has been all a crazy dream.
Sometimes when I stand up too fast when it’s particularly warm or hot I get very near fainting. I’ve only fainted proper once, because usually I remember to do the only thing you can do in that situation, take some deep breaths and lean on something. It’s a scary feeling because your vision goes out entirely in a haze of orange and there’s this great constricting feeling and your balance doesn’t work and everything buzzes. I imagine it’s sort of how it would feel to die. I get this problem once in a while. Particularly in summer or when I’m excessively tired. It usually happens in little bursts, and can be kind of unpredictable. It usually happens right after getting up, but sometimes it waits a little bit before hitting you.
I’ve looked up stuff about it, and there are a couple of explanations. Low blood pressure (huh), low blood sugar from not eating (plausible), some sort of a heart condition (runs in the family), all sorts of stuff. Any of them could be likely. I don’t know if I care. The internet says to go to a doctor. I haven’t been to a doctor in about 4 years. Can’t afford that luxury. My dad offers, but I never accept because I don’t like doctors anyway. Long story.
I really hope dying is sort of like that, because it’s not altogether unpleasant. It’s like taking a nap, only you’re standing and your eyes are open. I’ll let you know if it is, okay.
I went to a gambling hall because in Montana, you can waste your money at 18. It was really small, mostly because it was essentially a novelty attachment to the red lion hotel it was in. I was carded, which I find hilarious because for fucks sake, I look young but not that young. I hope. I was wandering around and looking at the fancy machines and it occurred to me, Hey, I already waste my money on novelty clothing and musical instruments. Gambling is just a different way of doing that without the ability to look silly when you go outside. I went to the bank that same day and was solicited for a savings account by the bank lady, and I told her that when I had one I often had the problem of having money in my savings that I couldn’t get to and needed, and that when I stopped running out of money all the time I would take her up on it.
Humh. Different day, I talked to a homeless guy named Randy (well, he talked, mostly) because I couldn’t hear him asking me for a cigarette and I didn’t have anything else to do. He’s been living by the railroad here in Kalispell for some three years now, made it through two winters. He told me he came from Oregon and lost all his money after his wife divorced him and spends most of his time doing odd jobs and begging. There are a lot of churches around here, so he gets by okay, but he was quite correct when he said that you can’t buy a job around here. He’s got some stuff together and told me he has a plan to go down to Florida on a discounted bus ticket for $128. When he gets there he plans to work on cleaning up the oil spill, because he heard (or thinks) that they’re just hiring people up down there. He got on to talking about how many rich assholes there were up hear and would yell and point out pickups driving by with boats on the back and tell me how expensive the boats were and how much he hated the guys with them who just tool around on them in the lakes. He told me about some houses that he worked on up north a bit, closer to Glacier, where single guys were building houses with dozens of rooms just for themselves. We talked about what a shame it was that they’ve been putting these big box stores in Kalispell (they just opened a Wal-Mart Supercenter, and it is ridiculously huge) but they’ve been building them way out of town, so he can’t even panhandle properly. He is apparently 60, and apologized for forgetting my name already because apparently he has a touch of Alzheimer’s, just like his mom had and died from.
We were interrupted by a swarthy, sort of overweight guy who was maybe in his mid to late forties who walked up to ask him about churches around town, and I was treated to the sidelines of a conversation between the two. For one reason or another the guy didn’t really acknowledge my presence unless I laughed. He apparently jumped off the train headed to Seattle in the middle of Glacier Park because He had some problem with a stewardess and felt like some other stewards were watching him. The police (“the law”) picked him up and dropped him off in Kalispell, and while he was able to get a hotel room for a night (at $100 which seems pretty outrageous for this area) but he didn’t have the cash for another one, so he was hoping Randy could help him find a church to help him out. Apparently the Lutheran church had agreed to help him, but hadn’t gotten back to him with the money, something that he swore several times about. He offered to let Randy stay in the room with him in exchange for the help and after some more discussion where Randy said more or less the same things he had already said to me, the two walked off.
Humh. At the wedding, I talked to a photography major in her senior year about a project she was doing concerning people who have had suicides in their immediate family or of a close friend. It was a multimedia project where she would interview them and then photograph them holding something that reminds them of the person who had killed themselves. She had taken a semester off of doing it, because she found the whole process emotionally draining, but was ready to gear back up and finish it. She talked about the fact that almost everyone she mentions the project to has had a similar experience, especially given the state of the State.
April said something about being passively suicidal. I really hadn’t thought of it that way, but it’s a good description? I tend to explain it like so: my passion for living for the sake of living was broken a while back, one way or another. I continue to exist, certainly, but I don’t really feel like I have any ties here. If my life were hard, I might simply enjoy the challenge of existing, if it were insurmountably so, I think I’d quit. As it is, I’m just a bit listless. I want something to happen in my life that would create or justify a massive change, I think. But that’s gotta be me, and there’s not much I can do when I can’t even see two months from now. Ultimately, it was probably a mistake to go to college. Not because I don’t love learning or I won’t succeed, but I hate making decisions that I can’t change and debt is pretty much one of those. I’m not worried, though. I have no time or reason for worrying. Everything that happens happens because it was bound to and nothing could have ever been any different. I just dislike the concept that I may be tied to something for any reason. It’s funny to say that I breathed a ridiculous sigh of relief when I was informed that in the case of my death, my student loan debts will not be transferred to anyone else. Haha. People don’t believe that I’m this morbid, because I’m actually a cheery and relaxed person most of the time. I’m just ignoring it, is all. No reason to let your mortality prevent you from enjoying what life you have, right?
Sometimes when I stand up too fast when it’s particularly warm or hot I get very near fainting. I’ve only fainted proper once, because usually I remember to do the only thing you can do in that situation, take some deep breaths and lean on something. It’s a scary feeling because your vision goes out entirely in a haze of orange and there’s this great constricting feeling and your balance doesn’t work and everything buzzes. I imagine it’s sort of how it would feel to die. I get this problem once in a while. Particularly in summer or when I’m excessively tired. It usually happens in little bursts, and can be kind of unpredictable. It usually happens right after getting up, but sometimes it waits a little bit before hitting you.
I’ve looked up stuff about it, and there are a couple of explanations. Low blood pressure (huh), low blood sugar from not eating (plausible), some sort of a heart condition (runs in the family), all sorts of stuff. Any of them could be likely. I don’t know if I care. The internet says to go to a doctor. I haven’t been to a doctor in about 4 years. Can’t afford that luxury. My dad offers, but I never accept because I don’t like doctors anyway. Long story.
I really hope dying is sort of like that, because it’s not altogether unpleasant. It’s like taking a nap, only you’re standing and your eyes are open. I’ll let you know if it is, okay.
I went to a gambling hall because in Montana, you can waste your money at 18. It was really small, mostly because it was essentially a novelty attachment to the red lion hotel it was in. I was carded, which I find hilarious because for fucks sake, I look young but not that young. I hope. I was wandering around and looking at the fancy machines and it occurred to me, Hey, I already waste my money on novelty clothing and musical instruments. Gambling is just a different way of doing that without the ability to look silly when you go outside. I went to the bank that same day and was solicited for a savings account by the bank lady, and I told her that when I had one I often had the problem of having money in my savings that I couldn’t get to and needed, and that when I stopped running out of money all the time I would take her up on it.
Humh. Different day, I talked to a homeless guy named Randy (well, he talked, mostly) because I couldn’t hear him asking me for a cigarette and I didn’t have anything else to do. He’s been living by the railroad here in Kalispell for some three years now, made it through two winters. He told me he came from Oregon and lost all his money after his wife divorced him and spends most of his time doing odd jobs and begging. There are a lot of churches around here, so he gets by okay, but he was quite correct when he said that you can’t buy a job around here. He’s got some stuff together and told me he has a plan to go down to Florida on a discounted bus ticket for $128. When he gets there he plans to work on cleaning up the oil spill, because he heard (or thinks) that they’re just hiring people up down there. He got on to talking about how many rich assholes there were up hear and would yell and point out pickups driving by with boats on the back and tell me how expensive the boats were and how much he hated the guys with them who just tool around on them in the lakes. He told me about some houses that he worked on up north a bit, closer to Glacier, where single guys were building houses with dozens of rooms just for themselves. We talked about what a shame it was that they’ve been putting these big box stores in Kalispell (they just opened a Wal-Mart Supercenter, and it is ridiculously huge) but they’ve been building them way out of town, so he can’t even panhandle properly. He is apparently 60, and apologized for forgetting my name already because apparently he has a touch of Alzheimer’s, just like his mom had and died from.
We were interrupted by a swarthy, sort of overweight guy who was maybe in his mid to late forties who walked up to ask him about churches around town, and I was treated to the sidelines of a conversation between the two. For one reason or another the guy didn’t really acknowledge my presence unless I laughed. He apparently jumped off the train headed to Seattle in the middle of Glacier Park because He had some problem with a stewardess and felt like some other stewards were watching him. The police (“the law”) picked him up and dropped him off in Kalispell, and while he was able to get a hotel room for a night (at $100 which seems pretty outrageous for this area) but he didn’t have the cash for another one, so he was hoping Randy could help him find a church to help him out. Apparently the Lutheran church had agreed to help him, but hadn’t gotten back to him with the money, something that he swore several times about. He offered to let Randy stay in the room with him in exchange for the help and after some more discussion where Randy said more or less the same things he had already said to me, the two walked off.
Humh. At the wedding, I talked to a photography major in her senior year about a project she was doing concerning people who have had suicides in their immediate family or of a close friend. It was a multimedia project where she would interview them and then photograph them holding something that reminds them of the person who had killed themselves. She had taken a semester off of doing it, because she found the whole process emotionally draining, but was ready to gear back up and finish it. She talked about the fact that almost everyone she mentions the project to has had a similar experience, especially given the state of the State.
April said something about being passively suicidal. I really hadn’t thought of it that way, but it’s a good description? I tend to explain it like so: my passion for living for the sake of living was broken a while back, one way or another. I continue to exist, certainly, but I don’t really feel like I have any ties here. If my life were hard, I might simply enjoy the challenge of existing, if it were insurmountably so, I think I’d quit. As it is, I’m just a bit listless. I want something to happen in my life that would create or justify a massive change, I think. But that’s gotta be me, and there’s not much I can do when I can’t even see two months from now. Ultimately, it was probably a mistake to go to college. Not because I don’t love learning or I won’t succeed, but I hate making decisions that I can’t change and debt is pretty much one of those. I’m not worried, though. I have no time or reason for worrying. Everything that happens happens because it was bound to and nothing could have ever been any different. I just dislike the concept that I may be tied to something for any reason. It’s funny to say that I breathed a ridiculous sigh of relief when I was informed that in the case of my death, my student loan debts will not be transferred to anyone else. Haha. People don’t believe that I’m this morbid, because I’m actually a cheery and relaxed person most of the time. I’m just ignoring it, is all. No reason to let your mortality prevent you from enjoying what life you have, right?
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Gaming
I can’t quite figure out why I continue to comment on Kotaku. I hold pretty much every other commenter there in the highest contempt for their petty squabbles, incessant complaint, and furious nitpicking. And I make no attempt to hide my contempt. And for it I’ve been starred twice, destarred twice, and banned twice. (if you’re wondering, it’s a newish merit system to comments, people who are otherwise completely undeserving can be given a star and the ability to have their comments appear by default on posts, being the representatives of what is supposedly the most “mature” of the group and making Kotaku look good)
I go there for news and to read articles by what is essentially my favorite author, Tim Rogers. I can’t help myself sometimes, I just scroll on past the news and legitimate journalizing to descend into the morass of morons who misread, misunderstood, or misinterpreted the above article, moving me to my misanthropy.
Sorry.
Everyone complains about the same damn thing over and over again. It makes me unbelievably annoyed. Gaming is my hobby, supposedly. I haven’t played a video game in about two weeks, though. I don’t… I’m not all that into it right now. Despite that, it’s still my hobby and I follow news about it. I’ve been doing so for some godawful number of years now. More than ten. It is funny, because I was at a wedding the other day and I got to say “yeah, I haven’t been to a wedding in fifteen years.” It’s kind of neat to be able to say stuff like that. “Yeah, I’ve been gaming off and on for about 16 years now.” To me, and probably a fairly large amount of my generation, that’s about as mundane as saying “yes, I’ve been breathing air for about 20 years.” The thing is, I go to these websites and read these comments and it’s like I’m living five years ago. “Games are too expensive.” “I can’t wait for half-life 3/kingdom hearts 3/the next Zelda.” “The new sonic is going to suck, just as every sonic since a varying marker from sonic 2 to sonic adventure 2.” “Videogame companies are evil because they stifle the awesome creativity of the artists that make games.” “The wii/gamecube/n64 is for babies, real men play the xbox/ps2/360/ps3.”
It’s just the weirdest feeling, one that is almost sort of comforting. It’s like being stuck in a time warp. I don’t know how it’s particularly relevant to the people playing it, but having games like Pokemon fire red or heart gold just feels awkward and confusing, because the original games only came out about 10-15 years ago. The push for remakes just feels strange. The original King Kong came out in 1933. The remake was released in 2005. That’s 72 years of prime vintage time right there. King Kong had more than enough time to be established as a classic and well respected by several generations. The remake was regarded pretty widely as “not bad.” The original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film was released in 1971. The remake was also released in 2005. That’s 34 years, just enough time for it to become relevant to a new generation of youngsters. Reviews are mixed. I liked it stylistically over the first one, it felt more coherent, but the first one seemed more fun and memorable. They’re very different films, despite the basic premise being the same.
Remaking videogames, however, is a much more immediate trend largely fueled by the clamoring of nostalgia driven fans that played the originals and want to see a fancier new version. Ostensibly because it would be cool, but purposefully to attempt to re-create the emotions and ambiance of playing the original. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, used to sell many things. Commercials attempting to invoke a quieter, simpler time are rife on television. It’s the very basis of a major political party’s appeal. So it’s not entirely surprising to see it being used to sell entertainment products. I just find it strange that the range of nostalgia in the gaming community appears to be somewhere in the ballpark of 10 years. That seems remarkably short, given that Reaganites have been begging for a return to a time now almost thirty years ago.
Perhaps nostalgia is not limited by the amount of time passed. Perhaps it can be as simple as a few years down the road, after the person experiencing it is in a place from which they can’t return. Even so, what is nostalgia when the products of it can be experienced anew in its original form? If you miss the original Mario game, just go and purchase one of the many times it’s been re-released in its entirety. Heck, given its age and technical simplicity, you can easily pirate a copy and run it on nearly any technological device available these days with a screen and some sort of input. All it takes is a little time and a willingness to break shaky copyright laws.
But the originals won’t do it. The players don’t feel that same sense of discovery or wonderment. Playing the game on these new devices, they may see the rough edges, or the poor design choices thanks to limited contemporary technology. It just won’t be the same. And so it goes with all nostalgia. Nothing is as interesting as it is when you experience it for the first time. The neural pathways are already created, and plodding through them again becomes mind-numbing chore, instead of delight. So remakes are suggested. Why not create something that is true to the original, but with all the new nuance and flashy technology available today. Thus we can re-experience it and feel some appreciation of a new side to an old game. That’s the concept, anyway. How well it works is up to the player. However, if the 3DS is any indication, we’re going to see quite a few remakes being re-made. Everything will be bigger, better, and flashier. We’re going to be sold the same games we already played, again. Again again, actually, given that the originals are already on the “virtual console,” essentially an in-house version of the emulation technology available on the internet for years, only not nearly as legally shaky because money is passing hands.
A cynical person would point out that a large component of the idea of remaking things is that a game can be produced without much of the effort necessary to conceptualize a new story or system of play, thus being far less expensive than creating new content, but that’s a sort of cynicism that has also been wielded as complaint for some ridiculous amount of time. “Sequel-itis” they call it. “Why hasn’t Nintendo produced any new franchises in so long?” “Who even cares about another God of War/Gears of War/Dawn of War?” and so on. All the same, new stuff comes out and the games industry is largely the same as it’s always been. There are some sure winners, some franchises that rock, lots and lots of crap all over the place all the time, and the occasional weird quirky critical favorite that no one buys. It’s a lot like films these days. Or even books. Or music. They’re incredibly similar in approach, actually. I can’t say that many books have been remade (though a lot have been abridged or edited or made into synopses of their original stories using contemporary language) but songs are covered all the time and movies get remade every so often. It’s probably in a larger sense a result of the commercialization of story-telling, rather than any medium-based trend. But don’t tell that to the fans. Oh no, video games are a higher order of entertainment.
The intense hubris of the video gaming community astonishes me every single time that I am confronted by it. Those heavily invested in games truly do believe their hobby, their passion, to be superior to all others. I suppose this should come as no surprise. I’ve known plenty people who will talk at great length about how print is a vastly superior medium to all others. I’ve mentioned hubris before, mostly to make the point that a certain amount of self-importance is essential for anything to survive. A being or concept that was completely selfless, had no inherent valuation of itself, and had free agency would likely self-terminate for the reasoning that by its very existence it was utilizing additional space and resources that could go to other, more worthy beings. I assume this is how anti-matter feels.
So in a fandom, people will irrationally support their fandom solely for the sake of justifying their activities. “I’m a connoisseur of digital art” they’ll say. “Video games are capable of a wider and deeper depth of emotional expression than any medium before because of their interactivity.” Doesn’t that sound much better than “I purchase entertainment vehicles from corporations who are delighted to produce something that requires so little resources and yet garners them so much raw money?” Despite the expected and understandable response, it’s still a little grating, especially when developers like Peter Molyneux hyping everything they produce to be “the biggest step in interactive storytelling yet.” Interactive storytelling started and has stayed around campfires, dinner tables, play rooms, tiny model houses, any old time when a group of friends got together to play pretend. Modern video games are much more akin to playing a choose-your-own-adventure book by yourself.
Occasionally games are described as being “a conversation between the developer and the player.” This could not be more disingenuous. Let’s start with the technical aspects of such a claim. The vast majority of games are produced as a collaborative effort between a team of people. Though one man may be the lead or the director of the game, it would be ridiculous to claim that every aspect of the game was created by them. Even directors of movies often work with a script written by someone else, a group of actors with their own concept of the characters they are playing, a filmography team with certain equipment and techniques, a special effects studio that has their own style of effects, an audio engineering team with their idea of acoustical performance, so on and so forth. The director may strongly influence all of these, but he cannot control their interpretations of his idea. The exact principle holds for every game produced by a major publisher. It’s preposterous.
Perhaps it refers to independent games made by one person to express something. These games, like many underground films, animation, and music, are noted for their creativity and divergent art styles. They often feature themes that would prove unpopular in a mainstream setting, or themes that are not commonly introduced to videogames. I will use for example the game Loved. It’s an artistic “short story” made by a single person: Alexander Ocias, an Australian artist and web developer who works with primarily digital medium. The game, or story, or however I am to refer to it, presents a fairly simple 2d platformer interposed with vaguely unsettling phrases and commands. The game invites you to choose to either obey or disobey the commands, and the world alters based on your choice. If you follow the commands, the game world becomes more detailed and slopes appear, easing some of the jumps. The world, however, remains ugly and bleak, despite its detail. If you do not obey the commands, portions of the world begin to change colors in blocks, until near the end you find yourself swimming through a relative sea of pixilated color. The dangers of the world remain vague and unfocused, except as blocks of brilliant red. Very deep. The interactivity comes in the ability to choose your fate. The story comes in the form of the unsettling things the voice-over (text-over?) says.
But is it art? Art conveys a message, specifically an emotional message, and the best art is the art where an artist conveys a complex emotion particularly well. J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is well known for capturing the complex cocktail of emotions that adolescence brings. The book conveys the feeling so well that many people cannot simply enjoy the book without a strong opinion of the main character. Either they hate the book because of the main character’s attitude, or they love the book because of his attitude and the emotional resonance it brings. Loved, however does not evoke this same wide-reaching reaction, and does not properly convey its message. Sure the game, if properly invested into, creates a heavy feeling of malaise and unease. Certainly there is some emotional reaction behind the choices one is forced to make and the outcome of those choices, but it is not clear what message is being conveyed. This can most obliquely be demonstrated by the schism of reaction between myself and the people who have commented on the game on Kongregate.com. While their take, or the take of the person whose comment is most promoted, is that the game demonstrates “Doing everything that you're told makes others happy. But then your life lacks color.” my understanding is that this is a game about an abusive relationship. My experience in abusive relationships might be the cause of my interpretation, and the Kongregate commenter’s lack of experience might lead to his misconception, but it may be the other way around, with myself jumping to the most depressing and relevant conclusion while the creator simply wanted to make a statement about freedom.
And there are other interpretations. Even if you follow the voice’s instruction, it intentionally misattributes your gender and age until near the end, when it finally acknowledges your maturity and gender. Perhaps, then, this is a game about growing up. Seriously, who knows? The creator might, but he’s not telling. A good magician never reveals his tricks. But this isn’t art. This is simple perplexation. No message is being transferred but the message interpreted by the player. It is the same as carving a rock into a cube and calling it “sphere” and putting it on display. Maybe you’re making a statement about irony; maybe you’re trying to demonstrate differing perceptions. Or maybe you have no idea what the hell you’re doing and you’re just creating something that seems pretty deep to you, or mimicking other people’s concept of what art should be.
So far, that’s all games have. Mimicry of cinematic techniques, mimicry of literary techniques, even mimicry of musical techniques with sound effects tuned just so to create a pleasing musical palette. So far, no one has quite understood how to use an interactive medium to convey a static message that’s more complex than general righteous anger or sadness for the death of a character or so on. Sometimes games have some legitimate emotional impact that appears to be unintentional, and as such usually isn’t properly explored. Often the impact comes from storylines that truly aren’t interactive in any real sense, as is often the case with Japanese produced role playing games. Axel’s death in Kingdom Hearts 2 only developed further meaning and impact after playing through the prequel (sequel (lousy condensation of play-style into a technically impressive version of the game given the console)) 358/2 Days. But it’s not in any case interactive. No amount of button mashing would have saved him from his fairly lame death. It’s not much better in western role playing games that try to replace coherent story with a large amount of choice and exploration. Fallout 3’s most dramatic event had next to no legitimate impact. Sure you spent some time with your (Liam Neeson) dad at the start and a part of the reason you head out on your journey is to find him, but after all the adventuring to go and save him to have him up and die not a few hours after rescuing him is quite an emotional anticlimax, to say the least.
So games aren’t art, despite what gamers will insist. Even if your definition of art is broad and varied, games are at the least a much commercialized art; like the art of an advertisement or the design of a logo. It lacks the creative expression that legitimate art is so lauded for. Because games are made by companies. They are made by gigantic soulless entities whose sole motive is to make a profit. It’s a commercial enterprise. Many gamers can’t stand this concept. They hear Bobby Kotick telling his stockholders that Activision is interested in making a profit and not just messing around and making “art” and they flip out. Gamers hate Kotick with a passion that political parties spend millions to attempt to inspire in their base. It’s not just Kotick that they hate, either. Nearly every gaming executive who is not directly involved in the creation of games is demonized in one form or another. While I typically applaud anti-corporate sentiments, this sort of base and irrational hatred is something to be lamented as the confused whining of toddlers. All I ask is for a shred of realism concerning the companies and an understanding of the place a gamer holds as a consumer, rather than a “connoisseur” they assume themselves to be.
It’s the repetition that really irks me. The repeated comments, the repeated complaints, the repeated clamor. It’s been the same for so long, I am sick and tired of it. It’s dumb to say, but I feel like I’ve already heard everything there is to hear from the community and since my voice is too controversial, I can’t myself contribute anything new. Perhaps I’m a radical and this is just another way of me being excluded from the mainstream. Perhaps I’m just simply wrong and everything is okay and I should get over it. I’m almost certainly being unreasonable. But damn, who in the hell is being reasonable in this community? Is it really so bad that Sonic games no longer cater to your nostalgic concept of them? Do we really need to hear your feelings about it every single time Sonic is mentioned in the news? Are video games really so important that the most inflammatory comments need to be made concerning which vehicle of profit (sorry, console) is superior? Does anyone ever grow out of it? Am I reading a new generation of people behaving like the last generation? I have no clue. I wish someone would tell me.
In some sense of dramatic cosmic irony, when I began this post, I was a banned commenter, now that I am finished, I find myself with my ability to comment restored. Will I learn anything from my experience? Will I finally accept the futility of standing against the tide of idiocy before me? Not bloody likely. If you liked this post at all, feel free to follow me on Kotaku as “thejakeman” and join me in making trouble and snidely insulting people I don’t like.
After all, I’m a gamer too.
Update: No, I am banned again. Humorously, I was banned the day of being unbanned for commenting on and agreeing with this comment here. Crecente also banned the other people involved. Clearly the claim of advertisement is something of a bugaboo for him, since he went on banning all these other people and starred the one person who defended his terrible article here. This is just ridiculously petty stuff. Damn. and I thought Kotaku was a news website, not a prima donna conglomerate. Oh well. *shrug*
I go there for news and to read articles by what is essentially my favorite author, Tim Rogers. I can’t help myself sometimes, I just scroll on past the news and legitimate journalizing to descend into the morass of morons who misread, misunderstood, or misinterpreted the above article, moving me to my misanthropy.
Sorry.
Everyone complains about the same damn thing over and over again. It makes me unbelievably annoyed. Gaming is my hobby, supposedly. I haven’t played a video game in about two weeks, though. I don’t… I’m not all that into it right now. Despite that, it’s still my hobby and I follow news about it. I’ve been doing so for some godawful number of years now. More than ten. It is funny, because I was at a wedding the other day and I got to say “yeah, I haven’t been to a wedding in fifteen years.” It’s kind of neat to be able to say stuff like that. “Yeah, I’ve been gaming off and on for about 16 years now.” To me, and probably a fairly large amount of my generation, that’s about as mundane as saying “yes, I’ve been breathing air for about 20 years.” The thing is, I go to these websites and read these comments and it’s like I’m living five years ago. “Games are too expensive.” “I can’t wait for half-life 3/kingdom hearts 3/the next Zelda.” “The new sonic is going to suck, just as every sonic since a varying marker from sonic 2 to sonic adventure 2.” “Videogame companies are evil because they stifle the awesome creativity of the artists that make games.” “The wii/gamecube/n64 is for babies, real men play the xbox/ps2/360/ps3.”
It’s just the weirdest feeling, one that is almost sort of comforting. It’s like being stuck in a time warp. I don’t know how it’s particularly relevant to the people playing it, but having games like Pokemon fire red or heart gold just feels awkward and confusing, because the original games only came out about 10-15 years ago. The push for remakes just feels strange. The original King Kong came out in 1933. The remake was released in 2005. That’s 72 years of prime vintage time right there. King Kong had more than enough time to be established as a classic and well respected by several generations. The remake was regarded pretty widely as “not bad.” The original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film was released in 1971. The remake was also released in 2005. That’s 34 years, just enough time for it to become relevant to a new generation of youngsters. Reviews are mixed. I liked it stylistically over the first one, it felt more coherent, but the first one seemed more fun and memorable. They’re very different films, despite the basic premise being the same.
Remaking videogames, however, is a much more immediate trend largely fueled by the clamoring of nostalgia driven fans that played the originals and want to see a fancier new version. Ostensibly because it would be cool, but purposefully to attempt to re-create the emotions and ambiance of playing the original. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, used to sell many things. Commercials attempting to invoke a quieter, simpler time are rife on television. It’s the very basis of a major political party’s appeal. So it’s not entirely surprising to see it being used to sell entertainment products. I just find it strange that the range of nostalgia in the gaming community appears to be somewhere in the ballpark of 10 years. That seems remarkably short, given that Reaganites have been begging for a return to a time now almost thirty years ago.
Perhaps nostalgia is not limited by the amount of time passed. Perhaps it can be as simple as a few years down the road, after the person experiencing it is in a place from which they can’t return. Even so, what is nostalgia when the products of it can be experienced anew in its original form? If you miss the original Mario game, just go and purchase one of the many times it’s been re-released in its entirety. Heck, given its age and technical simplicity, you can easily pirate a copy and run it on nearly any technological device available these days with a screen and some sort of input. All it takes is a little time and a willingness to break shaky copyright laws.
But the originals won’t do it. The players don’t feel that same sense of discovery or wonderment. Playing the game on these new devices, they may see the rough edges, or the poor design choices thanks to limited contemporary technology. It just won’t be the same. And so it goes with all nostalgia. Nothing is as interesting as it is when you experience it for the first time. The neural pathways are already created, and plodding through them again becomes mind-numbing chore, instead of delight. So remakes are suggested. Why not create something that is true to the original, but with all the new nuance and flashy technology available today. Thus we can re-experience it and feel some appreciation of a new side to an old game. That’s the concept, anyway. How well it works is up to the player. However, if the 3DS is any indication, we’re going to see quite a few remakes being re-made. Everything will be bigger, better, and flashier. We’re going to be sold the same games we already played, again. Again again, actually, given that the originals are already on the “virtual console,” essentially an in-house version of the emulation technology available on the internet for years, only not nearly as legally shaky because money is passing hands.
A cynical person would point out that a large component of the idea of remaking things is that a game can be produced without much of the effort necessary to conceptualize a new story or system of play, thus being far less expensive than creating new content, but that’s a sort of cynicism that has also been wielded as complaint for some ridiculous amount of time. “Sequel-itis” they call it. “Why hasn’t Nintendo produced any new franchises in so long?” “Who even cares about another God of War/Gears of War/Dawn of War?” and so on. All the same, new stuff comes out and the games industry is largely the same as it’s always been. There are some sure winners, some franchises that rock, lots and lots of crap all over the place all the time, and the occasional weird quirky critical favorite that no one buys. It’s a lot like films these days. Or even books. Or music. They’re incredibly similar in approach, actually. I can’t say that many books have been remade (though a lot have been abridged or edited or made into synopses of their original stories using contemporary language) but songs are covered all the time and movies get remade every so often. It’s probably in a larger sense a result of the commercialization of story-telling, rather than any medium-based trend. But don’t tell that to the fans. Oh no, video games are a higher order of entertainment.
The intense hubris of the video gaming community astonishes me every single time that I am confronted by it. Those heavily invested in games truly do believe their hobby, their passion, to be superior to all others. I suppose this should come as no surprise. I’ve known plenty people who will talk at great length about how print is a vastly superior medium to all others. I’ve mentioned hubris before, mostly to make the point that a certain amount of self-importance is essential for anything to survive. A being or concept that was completely selfless, had no inherent valuation of itself, and had free agency would likely self-terminate for the reasoning that by its very existence it was utilizing additional space and resources that could go to other, more worthy beings. I assume this is how anti-matter feels.
So in a fandom, people will irrationally support their fandom solely for the sake of justifying their activities. “I’m a connoisseur of digital art” they’ll say. “Video games are capable of a wider and deeper depth of emotional expression than any medium before because of their interactivity.” Doesn’t that sound much better than “I purchase entertainment vehicles from corporations who are delighted to produce something that requires so little resources and yet garners them so much raw money?” Despite the expected and understandable response, it’s still a little grating, especially when developers like Peter Molyneux hyping everything they produce to be “the biggest step in interactive storytelling yet.” Interactive storytelling started and has stayed around campfires, dinner tables, play rooms, tiny model houses, any old time when a group of friends got together to play pretend. Modern video games are much more akin to playing a choose-your-own-adventure book by yourself.
Occasionally games are described as being “a conversation between the developer and the player.” This could not be more disingenuous. Let’s start with the technical aspects of such a claim. The vast majority of games are produced as a collaborative effort between a team of people. Though one man may be the lead or the director of the game, it would be ridiculous to claim that every aspect of the game was created by them. Even directors of movies often work with a script written by someone else, a group of actors with their own concept of the characters they are playing, a filmography team with certain equipment and techniques, a special effects studio that has their own style of effects, an audio engineering team with their idea of acoustical performance, so on and so forth. The director may strongly influence all of these, but he cannot control their interpretations of his idea. The exact principle holds for every game produced by a major publisher. It’s preposterous.
Perhaps it refers to independent games made by one person to express something. These games, like many underground films, animation, and music, are noted for their creativity and divergent art styles. They often feature themes that would prove unpopular in a mainstream setting, or themes that are not commonly introduced to videogames. I will use for example the game Loved. It’s an artistic “short story” made by a single person: Alexander Ocias, an Australian artist and web developer who works with primarily digital medium. The game, or story, or however I am to refer to it, presents a fairly simple 2d platformer interposed with vaguely unsettling phrases and commands. The game invites you to choose to either obey or disobey the commands, and the world alters based on your choice. If you follow the commands, the game world becomes more detailed and slopes appear, easing some of the jumps. The world, however, remains ugly and bleak, despite its detail. If you do not obey the commands, portions of the world begin to change colors in blocks, until near the end you find yourself swimming through a relative sea of pixilated color. The dangers of the world remain vague and unfocused, except as blocks of brilliant red. Very deep. The interactivity comes in the ability to choose your fate. The story comes in the form of the unsettling things the voice-over (text-over?) says.
But is it art? Art conveys a message, specifically an emotional message, and the best art is the art where an artist conveys a complex emotion particularly well. J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is well known for capturing the complex cocktail of emotions that adolescence brings. The book conveys the feeling so well that many people cannot simply enjoy the book without a strong opinion of the main character. Either they hate the book because of the main character’s attitude, or they love the book because of his attitude and the emotional resonance it brings. Loved, however does not evoke this same wide-reaching reaction, and does not properly convey its message. Sure the game, if properly invested into, creates a heavy feeling of malaise and unease. Certainly there is some emotional reaction behind the choices one is forced to make and the outcome of those choices, but it is not clear what message is being conveyed. This can most obliquely be demonstrated by the schism of reaction between myself and the people who have commented on the game on Kongregate.com. While their take, or the take of the person whose comment is most promoted, is that the game demonstrates “Doing everything that you're told makes others happy. But then your life lacks color.” my understanding is that this is a game about an abusive relationship. My experience in abusive relationships might be the cause of my interpretation, and the Kongregate commenter’s lack of experience might lead to his misconception, but it may be the other way around, with myself jumping to the most depressing and relevant conclusion while the creator simply wanted to make a statement about freedom.
And there are other interpretations. Even if you follow the voice’s instruction, it intentionally misattributes your gender and age until near the end, when it finally acknowledges your maturity and gender. Perhaps, then, this is a game about growing up. Seriously, who knows? The creator might, but he’s not telling. A good magician never reveals his tricks. But this isn’t art. This is simple perplexation. No message is being transferred but the message interpreted by the player. It is the same as carving a rock into a cube and calling it “sphere” and putting it on display. Maybe you’re making a statement about irony; maybe you’re trying to demonstrate differing perceptions. Or maybe you have no idea what the hell you’re doing and you’re just creating something that seems pretty deep to you, or mimicking other people’s concept of what art should be.
So far, that’s all games have. Mimicry of cinematic techniques, mimicry of literary techniques, even mimicry of musical techniques with sound effects tuned just so to create a pleasing musical palette. So far, no one has quite understood how to use an interactive medium to convey a static message that’s more complex than general righteous anger or sadness for the death of a character or so on. Sometimes games have some legitimate emotional impact that appears to be unintentional, and as such usually isn’t properly explored. Often the impact comes from storylines that truly aren’t interactive in any real sense, as is often the case with Japanese produced role playing games. Axel’s death in Kingdom Hearts 2 only developed further meaning and impact after playing through the prequel (sequel (lousy condensation of play-style into a technically impressive version of the game given the console)) 358/2 Days. But it’s not in any case interactive. No amount of button mashing would have saved him from his fairly lame death. It’s not much better in western role playing games that try to replace coherent story with a large amount of choice and exploration. Fallout 3’s most dramatic event had next to no legitimate impact. Sure you spent some time with your (Liam Neeson) dad at the start and a part of the reason you head out on your journey is to find him, but after all the adventuring to go and save him to have him up and die not a few hours after rescuing him is quite an emotional anticlimax, to say the least.
So games aren’t art, despite what gamers will insist. Even if your definition of art is broad and varied, games are at the least a much commercialized art; like the art of an advertisement or the design of a logo. It lacks the creative expression that legitimate art is so lauded for. Because games are made by companies. They are made by gigantic soulless entities whose sole motive is to make a profit. It’s a commercial enterprise. Many gamers can’t stand this concept. They hear Bobby Kotick telling his stockholders that Activision is interested in making a profit and not just messing around and making “art” and they flip out. Gamers hate Kotick with a passion that political parties spend millions to attempt to inspire in their base. It’s not just Kotick that they hate, either. Nearly every gaming executive who is not directly involved in the creation of games is demonized in one form or another. While I typically applaud anti-corporate sentiments, this sort of base and irrational hatred is something to be lamented as the confused whining of toddlers. All I ask is for a shred of realism concerning the companies and an understanding of the place a gamer holds as a consumer, rather than a “connoisseur” they assume themselves to be.
It’s the repetition that really irks me. The repeated comments, the repeated complaints, the repeated clamor. It’s been the same for so long, I am sick and tired of it. It’s dumb to say, but I feel like I’ve already heard everything there is to hear from the community and since my voice is too controversial, I can’t myself contribute anything new. Perhaps I’m a radical and this is just another way of me being excluded from the mainstream. Perhaps I’m just simply wrong and everything is okay and I should get over it. I’m almost certainly being unreasonable. But damn, who in the hell is being reasonable in this community? Is it really so bad that Sonic games no longer cater to your nostalgic concept of them? Do we really need to hear your feelings about it every single time Sonic is mentioned in the news? Are video games really so important that the most inflammatory comments need to be made concerning which vehicle of profit (sorry, console) is superior? Does anyone ever grow out of it? Am I reading a new generation of people behaving like the last generation? I have no clue. I wish someone would tell me.
In some sense of dramatic cosmic irony, when I began this post, I was a banned commenter, now that I am finished, I find myself with my ability to comment restored. Will I learn anything from my experience? Will I finally accept the futility of standing against the tide of idiocy before me? Not bloody likely. If you liked this post at all, feel free to follow me on Kotaku as “thejakeman” and join me in making trouble and snidely insulting people I don’t like.
After all, I’m a gamer too.
Update: No, I am banned again. Humorously, I was banned the day of being unbanned for commenting on and agreeing with this comment here. Crecente also banned the other people involved. Clearly the claim of advertisement is something of a bugaboo for him, since he went on banning all these other people and starred the one person who defended his terrible article here. This is just ridiculously petty stuff. Damn. and I thought Kotaku was a news website, not a prima donna conglomerate. Oh well. *shrug*
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Whining, transhumanism, Danny Elfman
I’m a pretty inconsistent person. I can’t focus on any one thing for any real length of time. This sort of behavior runs up and down everything I do, from actual physical activity to things I’m interested in. It’s a rather large part of my character, and I sort of hate it. I’m not sure what it is (actually, I have a few depressing theories that I will tack to the end of this) and I don’t really like it. It makes it hard for me to finish things sometimes. I get distracted and decide to do something else instead. In order to really finish things, I need to devote all of the time I have that I am still interested in doing them all at once. I write, yes? I write everything I write in more or less one sitting, because I can rarely come back to it and find myself in the same mindset that drove me to write the original. It’s tough.
What I worry about most, though, is how it must appear and affect other people. I do my best to be reliable, I really do. I don’t promise things very often, but the things I say I’ll do, I almost always do. It’s just that once in a while I wake up in the morning and think “Ugh, I don’t want to do whatever it is I agreed to do today” and then I don’t and I feel sort of bad, but I get over it pretty quick because I am pretty self-centered. Check out all those “I”s. I have moved a total of 13 times in my life, most of those as a kid. I don’t keep in touch with anyone that is not in my immediate vicinity any more.
I really don’t get super attached to people or stuff because of this. I literally have no clue where I’ll be the next year. I had no clue I would be where I am last year. I never minded much, because that’s just how stuff is. It’s not a huge deal, you get used to it. I can’t hold on to people, so I rarely try. Welcome to Jake-land, where all is Jake because Jake is all I have. I dunno, I forgot what my point was a while ago. Let’s make it sound angry and stuff like usual. HEY YOU FAGS BE GRATEFUL FOR THE SHIT YOU’VE GOT. I guess. I dunno, nothing I say or yell will make a difference to you. Maybe if I were your psychotic parent who threw away your shit and kicked you to relatives for no reason then I could impart something of what I’m talking about. I really wouldn’t wish that sort of instability on anyone, though.
So I guess that’s what I am here to whine about now. I am an unstable person because I was brought up in an unstable way. That shit is kind of uncool. Obviously I don’t mean emotionally unstable, I just mean incapable of keeping focus.
But none of that feels true. I do things pretty regularly. I sit on the internet for hours at a time bouncing from the same websites and do that day after day. So maybe I am not unstable, just lazy? I’m not all that lazy, either. I don’t know. Clearly I didn’t think this one out too well. I have been sitting here applying for scholarships and WASHING FUCKING EVERYTHING so I can clean up in here. My dad who I have the misfortune to live with has told me that he has essentially broken up with his fiancé and he wants to move to LA of all things to attend UCLA for…. some reason. I am a few months behind on rent because I am unexpectedly broke this summer, so I get to hear all about how anything I do that isn’t directly related to getting a job is an out and out waste of time. Anyway, I am trying to clean up and make my stuff more or less ready to go, both for this Montana trip and the point in time in which I get back from Montana and he kicks me out again for some retarded reason. I really hate this “not having a support structure” thing.
It’s not really true that I don’t have one, my mom’s side of the family is very nice and are pretty willing to help me in any capacity that they can, for which I am incredibly grateful. I just think they’re a bit overbearing and I don’t really want to take any more help from them than I have to. It’s stupid. My dad’s side of the family has no idea who the fuck I am, for the most part. There was something of a schism after my grandpa died. Or something. They’re just not close at all. I don’t know what I’m going on about now, really, but let’s get back to the angry and say HEY FAGS, BE GRATEFUL FOR ALL THAT FAMILY SHIT YOU GOT.
I guess the only thing that is stopping me is money right now, which would probably explain why I have been complaining about it so much. Stopping me from what, though. I don’t know. I want to go find somewhere nice that I can live and hang out with people that I like. The only friends I do keep in touch with anyway, the ones I really have never met. But that would be dumb.
Who am I even writing to anyway? I don’t even know any more. Who was I writing to before? Hi Bill! I love that someone reads the stuff I write. It makes me happy, which is the only real reason I am sitting here at three in the morning whining about dumb stuff. It’s funny. I write stuff like this and there is literally an internal monologue going “Stop whining so much, Jake, so many people have it so much worse than you. None of your problems really matter. No one will read about them. No one cares. Everything you do is awful.” I think this would be enough for most people to just give up, and that is why most people don’t write rambling 1500 word essays about how shitty they feel. The thing is all I can hear when I hear that is my mother telling me that I have problems and that everything is my fault and why won’t I just get over it and behave. That stuff just makes me mad. So I’ll write this and publish it anyway. I don’t even care. Maybe if more people were able to personify their insecurities into a person they don’t like, less people would be so insecure.
Haha, that was sort of silly. I like to talk dramatically. I’m a melodramatic person, I think. Every emotion that is worth feeling is worth feeling to the fullest extent possible. I am going to join a Slaaneshi pleasure cult. That will be fun. Until my inevitable mutation and death, I suppose.
I’m a determinist and a strong proponent of the concept that humans are just complex chemical reactions, but I get a bit frightened of the implications of that idea. Today I was confronted (in a dark alley(it had a knife(I threw my wallet at it and ran))) by the question “if transhumanism works out and we find a way to hook up the pleasure circuits to run constantly, would you?” The obvious answer is yes, as life is essentially a quest to receive that sensation or one closely related. If the easiest way was simply to hook your brain up to an automatic dopaminifier or whatever this thing would be, then that would be the best way to go. It’s not a question of which way is more honorable or any sort of maniacal religious belief that demands a greater difficulty in achieving pleasure, it’s closer to a question of “there are two houses near your job for sale for the same price. One is behind a deadly mountain range filled with cavernous gaps and rickety rope ladders, the other is across the street from your workplace.” If it were that simple, it would be unwise to choose the harder path. No argument could be made because all of the sensations associated with anything else you do and at any intensity would be covered.
Then, what if human life is reduced to essentially auto-hedonic activity, assisted by these machines or this escape from the physical limits of the body? How will humanity cope with essentially the most powerful drug ever? Will that finally signal the end of the species, not in violent war but in masturbatory pleasure? Is that heaven? I really do hope such a thing is never invented, or at least humanity reacts essentially the same way as rats whose pleasure centers are constantly stimulated and they crawl to the corners of their cage and die in ecstasy. But what a way to die. I’m sure it will be extremely popular. It feels a little strange to bring this up, it’s not a new idea at all. I just worry that it is a legitimate problem I am going to have to deal with in my lifetime. Technology has been advancing at a breakneck pace, and it’s aimed straight at what I’m talking about. Entertainment is the biggest and best selling branch of high tech knickemknacks. I can get pleasurable vibrations transmitted into my ears by devices not much larger than a pebble.
The only real difference between an iPod and a drug is the ridiculous notion that iPods have no harmful side-effects. Of course they have side-effects. Look at the obsessive reliance on iPods just to get through the day, look at the vast amount of accessories designed to increase your time exposed to music, look at the people who are finding themselves hard of hearing because they blast the pleasure waves into their brains as loudly as they can to drown out the unpleasantness of the rest of the world. It’s totally a drug, and anyone who disagrees is in denial. The same with TV, movies, video games. They’re all designed to evoke a pleasurable reaction in their users. It’s all an industry entirely set up because we’ve gotten so good at keeping ourselves alive that we can devote time to simply making ourselves feel good.
I don’t know, I guess I’m not really worried about what other people choose to do with their lives. I probably wouldn’t get into it, or even if I did, I would lose interest because I’m not a consistent person. I think the thing I will be most bitter about is if this sort of invention keeps us here on earth instead of exploring and traveling through space. That’s all I really want to see happen, I think.
Note: it’s not that I think that music, movies, television, or video games are incapable of providing a legitimate artistic medium through which to share ideas and emotions. I just saw this music video of an old Oingo Boingo song and realized that it did a great job of expressing how it feels to be me when I feel lonely and shut in from the lyrics to the expressions on the face of Danny Elfman. Here’s the video. I just dislike the trend of pulpy movies made to visually delight but not to particularly think. But what am I saying, I loved Speed Racer. Everything in moderation, I guess. Balance is really where it’s at.
Theories of my inconsistency:
1. I am inconsistent because if I work too hard on one thing I begin to feel like I’m stuck doing that thing, and in order to free myself from the grasp of an activity, I switch to something else. This is possibly some sort of delayed rebellion from the intense level of structure that I was forced into in my adolescence. I instinctively try to destroy that structure before it can affect me.
2. I have some form of ADD or AD/HD. I really don’t think this one is true, but I have probably been diagnosed with this before? I’ve been diagnosed with pretty much everything at one point or another. I don’t really agree that these are real disease; it is much more likely that they are simply a result of living in a world, or at least a culture, where there’s been a dramatic upswing in things to do. And I can certainly focus if I really want to. I spent a good week solid doing little more than playing WoW. I read every Harry Potter book after the third nonstop until I was finished when I got them. I have done nothing this evening but write this, with occasional music and textan.
3. I blow my load too soon. Metaphorically. I enjoy something and then I exhaust everything I enjoy about it instead of experiencing it in full. I used to have this problem with music. I would really like one song and then I would listen to it over and over and over until I pretty much didn’t like it any more. There was no newness left, because I had worn it out instead of taking it in moderation or mixing it with other songs by the same artist.
4. I think too damn much. For years I have been doing this weird sort of psychological conditioning experiment with myself where I try to think without using words, because my thoughts are always faster than the words I make out of them. It’s worked pretty well, and I’ve got great intuition for a lot of things. Stuff occurs to me really fast. This can be really distracting, though, cause I can sort of detach from a situation and start simply absorbing my surroundings and making free associations. Lots of fun, but terrible if you’re trying to get something done.
5. I am just buttfuckingly lazy. I don’t consistently put a lot of effort into things because I really don’t like putting any effort into anything. Seriously if it involves a lot of movement or strain I generally put it off until the last minute. I am only really skinny because I am too fucking lazy to eat most of the time. It’s pretty pathetic. (:D)
Like I always always always say: the answer is probably some horrible amalgamation of these and several additional factors. There really are no simple clear-cut answers whenever living things are involved. That’s part of why I like anthropology and sociology so much. If you can come up with a theory and argue it well, it may end up as canon. Though, it does bug me when self-help “psychological professionals” start trumpeting their theories as the end-all be-all of human behavior. “Evolutionary psychology” is probably the most egregious offender. I’ve read EP essays supporting the most absurdly sexist ideas, arguing that culture has no appreciable value to a person’s psychological makeup, and just in general promoting the concept that Human behavior is inherited instead of learned. It’s a major reason why I hate atheists and Richard Dawkins in particular. They all have their heads up their asses for these sweeping statements about humanity that are poorly researched, poorly conceived and poorly understood. It’s a god damn fucking religion and a terrible one because it pretends to have some sort of scientific legitimacy rather than a blind faith in the process that creates it. It gives the rest of legitimate social studies a bad name. Oooh, I am livid now.
Sorry.
What I worry about most, though, is how it must appear and affect other people. I do my best to be reliable, I really do. I don’t promise things very often, but the things I say I’ll do, I almost always do. It’s just that once in a while I wake up in the morning and think “Ugh, I don’t want to do whatever it is I agreed to do today” and then I don’t and I feel sort of bad, but I get over it pretty quick because I am pretty self-centered. Check out all those “I”s. I have moved a total of 13 times in my life, most of those as a kid. I don’t keep in touch with anyone that is not in my immediate vicinity any more.
I really don’t get super attached to people or stuff because of this. I literally have no clue where I’ll be the next year. I had no clue I would be where I am last year. I never minded much, because that’s just how stuff is. It’s not a huge deal, you get used to it. I can’t hold on to people, so I rarely try. Welcome to Jake-land, where all is Jake because Jake is all I have. I dunno, I forgot what my point was a while ago. Let’s make it sound angry and stuff like usual. HEY YOU FAGS BE GRATEFUL FOR THE SHIT YOU’VE GOT. I guess. I dunno, nothing I say or yell will make a difference to you. Maybe if I were your psychotic parent who threw away your shit and kicked you to relatives for no reason then I could impart something of what I’m talking about. I really wouldn’t wish that sort of instability on anyone, though.
So I guess that’s what I am here to whine about now. I am an unstable person because I was brought up in an unstable way. That shit is kind of uncool. Obviously I don’t mean emotionally unstable, I just mean incapable of keeping focus.
But none of that feels true. I do things pretty regularly. I sit on the internet for hours at a time bouncing from the same websites and do that day after day. So maybe I am not unstable, just lazy? I’m not all that lazy, either. I don’t know. Clearly I didn’t think this one out too well. I have been sitting here applying for scholarships and WASHING FUCKING EVERYTHING so I can clean up in here. My dad who I have the misfortune to live with has told me that he has essentially broken up with his fiancé and he wants to move to LA of all things to attend UCLA for…. some reason. I am a few months behind on rent because I am unexpectedly broke this summer, so I get to hear all about how anything I do that isn’t directly related to getting a job is an out and out waste of time. Anyway, I am trying to clean up and make my stuff more or less ready to go, both for this Montana trip and the point in time in which I get back from Montana and he kicks me out again for some retarded reason. I really hate this “not having a support structure” thing.
It’s not really true that I don’t have one, my mom’s side of the family is very nice and are pretty willing to help me in any capacity that they can, for which I am incredibly grateful. I just think they’re a bit overbearing and I don’t really want to take any more help from them than I have to. It’s stupid. My dad’s side of the family has no idea who the fuck I am, for the most part. There was something of a schism after my grandpa died. Or something. They’re just not close at all. I don’t know what I’m going on about now, really, but let’s get back to the angry and say HEY FAGS, BE GRATEFUL FOR ALL THAT FAMILY SHIT YOU GOT.
I guess the only thing that is stopping me is money right now, which would probably explain why I have been complaining about it so much. Stopping me from what, though. I don’t know. I want to go find somewhere nice that I can live and hang out with people that I like. The only friends I do keep in touch with anyway, the ones I really have never met. But that would be dumb.
Who am I even writing to anyway? I don’t even know any more. Who was I writing to before? Hi Bill! I love that someone reads the stuff I write. It makes me happy, which is the only real reason I am sitting here at three in the morning whining about dumb stuff. It’s funny. I write stuff like this and there is literally an internal monologue going “Stop whining so much, Jake, so many people have it so much worse than you. None of your problems really matter. No one will read about them. No one cares. Everything you do is awful.” I think this would be enough for most people to just give up, and that is why most people don’t write rambling 1500 word essays about how shitty they feel. The thing is all I can hear when I hear that is my mother telling me that I have problems and that everything is my fault and why won’t I just get over it and behave. That stuff just makes me mad. So I’ll write this and publish it anyway. I don’t even care. Maybe if more people were able to personify their insecurities into a person they don’t like, less people would be so insecure.
Haha, that was sort of silly. I like to talk dramatically. I’m a melodramatic person, I think. Every emotion that is worth feeling is worth feeling to the fullest extent possible. I am going to join a Slaaneshi pleasure cult. That will be fun. Until my inevitable mutation and death, I suppose.
I’m a determinist and a strong proponent of the concept that humans are just complex chemical reactions, but I get a bit frightened of the implications of that idea. Today I was confronted (in a dark alley(it had a knife(I threw my wallet at it and ran))) by the question “if transhumanism works out and we find a way to hook up the pleasure circuits to run constantly, would you?” The obvious answer is yes, as life is essentially a quest to receive that sensation or one closely related. If the easiest way was simply to hook your brain up to an automatic dopaminifier or whatever this thing would be, then that would be the best way to go. It’s not a question of which way is more honorable or any sort of maniacal religious belief that demands a greater difficulty in achieving pleasure, it’s closer to a question of “there are two houses near your job for sale for the same price. One is behind a deadly mountain range filled with cavernous gaps and rickety rope ladders, the other is across the street from your workplace.” If it were that simple, it would be unwise to choose the harder path. No argument could be made because all of the sensations associated with anything else you do and at any intensity would be covered.
Then, what if human life is reduced to essentially auto-hedonic activity, assisted by these machines or this escape from the physical limits of the body? How will humanity cope with essentially the most powerful drug ever? Will that finally signal the end of the species, not in violent war but in masturbatory pleasure? Is that heaven? I really do hope such a thing is never invented, or at least humanity reacts essentially the same way as rats whose pleasure centers are constantly stimulated and they crawl to the corners of their cage and die in ecstasy. But what a way to die. I’m sure it will be extremely popular. It feels a little strange to bring this up, it’s not a new idea at all. I just worry that it is a legitimate problem I am going to have to deal with in my lifetime. Technology has been advancing at a breakneck pace, and it’s aimed straight at what I’m talking about. Entertainment is the biggest and best selling branch of high tech knickemknacks. I can get pleasurable vibrations transmitted into my ears by devices not much larger than a pebble.
The only real difference between an iPod and a drug is the ridiculous notion that iPods have no harmful side-effects. Of course they have side-effects. Look at the obsessive reliance on iPods just to get through the day, look at the vast amount of accessories designed to increase your time exposed to music, look at the people who are finding themselves hard of hearing because they blast the pleasure waves into their brains as loudly as they can to drown out the unpleasantness of the rest of the world. It’s totally a drug, and anyone who disagrees is in denial. The same with TV, movies, video games. They’re all designed to evoke a pleasurable reaction in their users. It’s all an industry entirely set up because we’ve gotten so good at keeping ourselves alive that we can devote time to simply making ourselves feel good.
I don’t know, I guess I’m not really worried about what other people choose to do with their lives. I probably wouldn’t get into it, or even if I did, I would lose interest because I’m not a consistent person. I think the thing I will be most bitter about is if this sort of invention keeps us here on earth instead of exploring and traveling through space. That’s all I really want to see happen, I think.
Note: it’s not that I think that music, movies, television, or video games are incapable of providing a legitimate artistic medium through which to share ideas and emotions. I just saw this music video of an old Oingo Boingo song and realized that it did a great job of expressing how it feels to be me when I feel lonely and shut in from the lyrics to the expressions on the face of Danny Elfman. Here’s the video. I just dislike the trend of pulpy movies made to visually delight but not to particularly think. But what am I saying, I loved Speed Racer. Everything in moderation, I guess. Balance is really where it’s at.
Theories of my inconsistency:
1. I am inconsistent because if I work too hard on one thing I begin to feel like I’m stuck doing that thing, and in order to free myself from the grasp of an activity, I switch to something else. This is possibly some sort of delayed rebellion from the intense level of structure that I was forced into in my adolescence. I instinctively try to destroy that structure before it can affect me.
2. I have some form of ADD or AD/HD. I really don’t think this one is true, but I have probably been diagnosed with this before? I’ve been diagnosed with pretty much everything at one point or another. I don’t really agree that these are real disease; it is much more likely that they are simply a result of living in a world, or at least a culture, where there’s been a dramatic upswing in things to do. And I can certainly focus if I really want to. I spent a good week solid doing little more than playing WoW. I read every Harry Potter book after the third nonstop until I was finished when I got them. I have done nothing this evening but write this, with occasional music and textan.
3. I blow my load too soon. Metaphorically. I enjoy something and then I exhaust everything I enjoy about it instead of experiencing it in full. I used to have this problem with music. I would really like one song and then I would listen to it over and over and over until I pretty much didn’t like it any more. There was no newness left, because I had worn it out instead of taking it in moderation or mixing it with other songs by the same artist.
4. I think too damn much. For years I have been doing this weird sort of psychological conditioning experiment with myself where I try to think without using words, because my thoughts are always faster than the words I make out of them. It’s worked pretty well, and I’ve got great intuition for a lot of things. Stuff occurs to me really fast. This can be really distracting, though, cause I can sort of detach from a situation and start simply absorbing my surroundings and making free associations. Lots of fun, but terrible if you’re trying to get something done.
5. I am just buttfuckingly lazy. I don’t consistently put a lot of effort into things because I really don’t like putting any effort into anything. Seriously if it involves a lot of movement or strain I generally put it off until the last minute. I am only really skinny because I am too fucking lazy to eat most of the time. It’s pretty pathetic. (:D)
Like I always always always say: the answer is probably some horrible amalgamation of these and several additional factors. There really are no simple clear-cut answers whenever living things are involved. That’s part of why I like anthropology and sociology so much. If you can come up with a theory and argue it well, it may end up as canon. Though, it does bug me when self-help “psychological professionals” start trumpeting their theories as the end-all be-all of human behavior. “Evolutionary psychology” is probably the most egregious offender. I’ve read EP essays supporting the most absurdly sexist ideas, arguing that culture has no appreciable value to a person’s psychological makeup, and just in general promoting the concept that Human behavior is inherited instead of learned. It’s a major reason why I hate atheists and Richard Dawkins in particular. They all have their heads up their asses for these sweeping statements about humanity that are poorly researched, poorly conceived and poorly understood. It’s a god damn fucking religion and a terrible one because it pretends to have some sort of scientific legitimacy rather than a blind faith in the process that creates it. It gives the rest of legitimate social studies a bad name. Oooh, I am livid now.
Sorry.
Monday, June 21, 2010
"You rely too much on your voice, it lacks structure."
I played a lot of wow two weeks ago, and for a stunning twist I spent pretty much all of last week hanging out with other people. I missed the weekly. Big deal, I know. Sometimes I complain about living here. Actually, a lot of the time I complain about living here. There’s nothing to do and no real clear hangout to meet people at. Everyone who has lived here for a significant portion of their lives has essentially their own clique of friends. Certainly, there’s overlap, but they all grow up with the mindset that you know who you know and meeting new people is pointless because you already have a group or two to hang out with. Make new friends but keep the old, the first one’s silver, the other gold. It permeates every person born or raised here. No one is free from it. That’s why no one escapes. That’s why people live here for all of their lives, or move out and move back, or have friends they’ve known from high school in the same area. It’s a mindset. It’s stagnancy. This area is very fortunate to be as wealthy as it is, but that wealth breeds complacency. It breeds ignorance and hostility. It breeds a warped perspective on “the way things really are™. It’s an illusion, an oasis in the desert of life.
It’s wealth, is what it is. It’s the lack of needs. Mankind’s most compelling reason to associate with each other is nearly always linked to some sort of need, some survival necessity that cannot be gotten on one’s own. We collaborate, it’s what we do. It’s what makes us unique from nearly every other animal besides hive-based insects. But here we have people without needs. Without compelling reasons to collaborate with others. They’re provided for. Their parents cover the cost of living. In the event of lacking needs, Humans have this amazing capacity to create more needs. Needs that don’t exist, needs that have very little relation to legitimate survival. So they need coffee. They need cool hangouts. They need the latest gadget or doodad. It’s really not all their fault. A lot of companies wised up and realized that these people had a bunch of money to waste and nothing in particular to waste it on. So they spend billions each year convincing them to need the things the companies sell. It’s a very tidy operation. Unfortunately it becomes a mindset, a consumerist lifestyle. Things become more important than people. Things become a means to an end. Shopping malls become a place to hang out, not just to shop. Artsy stores become hip and trendy.
But none of these things are necessary. No one goes to grocery shops to hang out. There are no trendy hardware stores. The hippest people wouldn’t be caught dead in a Wal-mart. It’s just as superficial and hollow as money itself. Part of the process, though is the buy-in. Once a person is invested in all these things, they can’t stop, they can’t give it up and admit it’s a sham. That would be foolish and they would feel foolish. It’s a modern Emperor’s New Clothes.
Bah, what am I complaining about?
I guess I’m complaining about the crosswalk buttons that loudly state “Cross street with caution, vehicles may not stop.” I’m complaining about the 2,000 seat theatre set to be built right next to the 500 seat theatre, within 2 years of that theatre’s opening. I’m complaining about the pine tree with yellow ribbons and American flags next to a giant downtown flag in front of two fountains and a very noisy and very busy street. I’m complaining about the fact that a major issue raised by some old woman in a city council woman was that they were worried that all the new buildings might make it hard to see aforementioned giant American flag from afar.
I guess I just want to live really far away from here and nearly everywhere else I’ve been and forget they all exist. But I can’t. Not yet anyway. I need to play the game for a little while longer. I need to live here for a little more. But I’m not letting that time go to waste any more. As long as I’m stuck here I am going to make sure everyone I know and everyone I meet knows exactly why and how this place is terrible. I will do everything in my power to make it less terrible. I’ll get away as much as I can, even if they’re only sojourns. I will not let this bullshitty bullshit place keep me down. It’ll be hard, especially with me being as retardedly shy as I am, but by George I will do it. For starters, I joined the school paper for next year, on which I intend to spend most of my time complaining. I also joined the radio, where I will mostly play techno and rant about politics. I’m working on an advanced level academic project, which will hopefully vastly improve my ability to get the hell out of this town. I’m getting the hell out of this place for a few weeks next week, which should help ameliorate my dissatisfaction with everything. Please, if you live here and also hate it, hit me up when I get back. I really don’t do a whole lot with my time and I secretly actually like people, even though I sound angry and misanthropic. It’s crowds I don’t like. Crowds and cliques and authority.
I also canceled my wow subscription (again(haha(until cataclysm comes out(this game should be illegal(fucking crack-game))))).
It’s wealth, is what it is. It’s the lack of needs. Mankind’s most compelling reason to associate with each other is nearly always linked to some sort of need, some survival necessity that cannot be gotten on one’s own. We collaborate, it’s what we do. It’s what makes us unique from nearly every other animal besides hive-based insects. But here we have people without needs. Without compelling reasons to collaborate with others. They’re provided for. Their parents cover the cost of living. In the event of lacking needs, Humans have this amazing capacity to create more needs. Needs that don’t exist, needs that have very little relation to legitimate survival. So they need coffee. They need cool hangouts. They need the latest gadget or doodad. It’s really not all their fault. A lot of companies wised up and realized that these people had a bunch of money to waste and nothing in particular to waste it on. So they spend billions each year convincing them to need the things the companies sell. It’s a very tidy operation. Unfortunately it becomes a mindset, a consumerist lifestyle. Things become more important than people. Things become a means to an end. Shopping malls become a place to hang out, not just to shop. Artsy stores become hip and trendy.
But none of these things are necessary. No one goes to grocery shops to hang out. There are no trendy hardware stores. The hippest people wouldn’t be caught dead in a Wal-mart. It’s just as superficial and hollow as money itself. Part of the process, though is the buy-in. Once a person is invested in all these things, they can’t stop, they can’t give it up and admit it’s a sham. That would be foolish and they would feel foolish. It’s a modern Emperor’s New Clothes.
Bah, what am I complaining about?
I guess I’m complaining about the crosswalk buttons that loudly state “Cross street with caution, vehicles may not stop.” I’m complaining about the 2,000 seat theatre set to be built right next to the 500 seat theatre, within 2 years of that theatre’s opening. I’m complaining about the pine tree with yellow ribbons and American flags next to a giant downtown flag in front of two fountains and a very noisy and very busy street. I’m complaining about the fact that a major issue raised by some old woman in a city council woman was that they were worried that all the new buildings might make it hard to see aforementioned giant American flag from afar.
I guess I just want to live really far away from here and nearly everywhere else I’ve been and forget they all exist. But I can’t. Not yet anyway. I need to play the game for a little while longer. I need to live here for a little more. But I’m not letting that time go to waste any more. As long as I’m stuck here I am going to make sure everyone I know and everyone I meet knows exactly why and how this place is terrible. I will do everything in my power to make it less terrible. I’ll get away as much as I can, even if they’re only sojourns. I will not let this bullshitty bullshit place keep me down. It’ll be hard, especially with me being as retardedly shy as I am, but by George I will do it. For starters, I joined the school paper for next year, on which I intend to spend most of my time complaining. I also joined the radio, where I will mostly play techno and rant about politics. I’m working on an advanced level academic project, which will hopefully vastly improve my ability to get the hell out of this town. I’m getting the hell out of this place for a few weeks next week, which should help ameliorate my dissatisfaction with everything. Please, if you live here and also hate it, hit me up when I get back. I really don’t do a whole lot with my time and I secretly actually like people, even though I sound angry and misanthropic. It’s crowds I don’t like. Crowds and cliques and authority.
I also canceled my wow subscription (again(haha(until cataclysm comes out(this game should be illegal(fucking crack-game))))).
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Whorled Of Wharfcraft
I spent the last week or two playing a lot of WoW. Pretty dorky, I know, but I got hooked back in after quitting for a few months. I’ve finally got to level eighty where they have all this nice stuff for max level players to do so they don’t get bored and quit. Very cool. They’ve got this “emblem” system that doles out emblems for every boss kill in heroic or “hard” dungeons, or two for completing one entire dungeon. The thing is, you need like 40-60 of the easy to get kind to get anything cool with them, like better armor and stuff. And then there’s the best tier armor that you need to collect at least 60 for the cheapest parts of it, but you can only get two of those a day, and like another 9ish per week. Plus some more in Icecrown Citadel, the final final boss zone. More or less. Vance once told me that he didn’t like WoW because he felt like it was too artificially paced, intentionally made that way to keep people playing for longer periods of time. It was too obvious and fake to him. I can totally get where he is coming from, actually. It is pretty fucking annoying that end-game gear is set up precisely that you’d need to make multiple runs of raids that you can literally only do once a week to get any really decent stuff. It’s pretty messed up.
Of course the difference between him and me is that I am totally hooked. I have a totally different perspective on it, I think, because I do dumb things like collect Jarritos bottle caps. I only buy them maybe three or four at a time, and most of the lids are only one point (unos puntos) so it has taken me quite a while to collect them. I still don’t have enough for the awesome our lady of Guadalupe bottle cap earrings that I want because it so perfectly iconizes the commercialization of Mexican culture into a form acceptable to the American model of capitalism. I collect them anyway, even though I only get one maybe every week on average because that is what I do. I suppose the difference is that I am paying fifteen bucks a month for the privilege of collecting virtual bottle caps. It really could be worse. I could play Magic: The Gathering Online and pay real money for packs of virtual cards. Man, that just bugs the bejeezus out of me. On the other hand, I do pay four bucks for tiny packages of art printed on worthless paper. Haha. I guess I’m just doomed to frivolously spend money on things that tangentially make me feel happy or accomplished. It’s the curse of the consumer. This might be a nice launching point for some anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist invective. Nah, I don’t really want to talk about that.
I am not a big fan of American culture. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I hate American culture. I hate the culture of competition. I hate the idea that in order to get anywhere I am supposed to stab my brother in the eye and step on the backs of everyone else. It’s just dumb. I hate the concept that we must be vigilant for every other nation or obscure terrorist cell is out to steal our freedoms. This constant war, this constant masculinity wears on me. It really does. I dunno, I guess it’s just cause I am lazy. I don’t want to compete. Too hard. Maybe I don’t think I will do a great job. Maybe it’s my lack of self-esteem that keeps me from going out there and batting all comers off with my huge dick. Maybe I am just too much of a pussy to appreciate the eternal struggle that is America. I just don’t accept the popularity of sports. They reinforce the constant conflict that America is in. I should be contributing to the conflict. I need to be fighting. I need to be throwing my money at American produced products and supporting our soldiers in times of war and peace and so on and so forth. I need to do it, because America is always at the edge of the precipice of disaster. We’re always about to collapse forever. We need to be. If we weren’t so busy trying to prop up America from its perceived dangers, we might become complacent and learn to forget the meaning of America, the purpose of a national boundary. We might lose pride in being American. We might figure out that our borders are just invisible lines that mean nothing to anyone outside of the government. We might forget that we’re better and different than everyone else because we have more guns. Heaven forbid we might lay down those guns and forget that we have enemies and remember that first and foremost, we are brothers and sisters. We might remember that all of us are human and this is to be celebrated.
No, I’m pretty much an idiot. We Americans love peace. We would gladly share our peace with everyone, but they don’t want it, the ingrates. That is why we have to go over there and enforce peace. It is our job to keep the peace, by shooting anyone who disagrees with us. Peace in the majority, friend.
I keep telling people that money doesn’t exist. I will keep telling them this and I will shout it at them until I am blue in the face, because so many people live their lives focused on money. Their existence depends on it. Their very self-worth is attached to the cash they make. In an Asian or other traditionalist cultures, your very worth to your family is how much money you make. I can’t tell you how messed up this is. It’s worship. It’s a distorted sort of secular worship, but it’s still worship all the same. We pray at the altar of mammon, and the douchebags up in Wall Street who generate money from thin air are our priests. We watch crap like Jim Cramer’s Mad Money because we need someone to interpret the market for us. He’s a modern diviner, coming down from the mount to tell us to buy, sell, or hold. It’s absurd. I don’t care about money. I am a jerk for this, I suppose, but really it has long lost its original point and become a farcical tool of social demarcation. It’s no different from pretty much every society since we discovered crop rotation. At least one family gets really lucky and really rich and dictates the activities of everyone else because they seem more valuable than anyone else. It really hasn’t changed. I am so dull. Look at me complaining about the same thing people have complained about for thousands of years.
The problem is that our competitive nation is tied to its money. We need to be more financially active. We need more guns and more peril, we need to be leaning on the red button at any given time. Why? So we can justify our money. Money as it is today is essentially based on the idea that the American government won’t fail. That’s about it. Money has even less meaning than when it was tied to shiny bricks of metal. It’s laughable. Money has exactly as much value as we believe it has. Maybe more appropriate, money has exactly as much value as we can be convinced it has. Money in the real world has literally no more value than money in WoW. They even translate. About 1k gold is $2 according to gold-sellers. Maybe a better analogy is EVE online. You can convert about $15 into an in-game item that lets you play for another month. This item is worth about 300 million Isk, the in-game currency. So voila. Money is getting translated back and forth (well, money is mostly being putting in, as the company is understandably reluctant to hand out money, though I am sure plenty of player-to-player interactions exist) from a virtual space to a real one. Clearly it doesn’t have any legitimate physical worth. But we keep it up anyway, because money really is the best tool we have for measuring what other people think of us, more or less. Our value to society, supposedly. This idea too falls apart before the absurd billions made by companies that produce nothing but ways to kill us or rot out our teeth or waste our time. I don’t find Blizzard a particularly necessary company, especially since they’ve been bought out by those douchebags at Activision. I don’t consider WoW much of a contribution to society. I enjoy their drug, however, so I send them money. Rather, Visa sends them money and then breathes down my neck for me to give them money back for it. It’s a very neat system. I am not really against it. It really is a fantastic tool. I don’t really think we need to get rid of it or anything. I just want a re-evaluation of the current model of fiscal purpose. I want to see money being used in a realistic and reasonable fashion. No one needs billions of dollars. Hardly anyone needs more than a few million dollars. I expect such largesse to be matched by an equally amazing contribution to society, such as solving overpopulation or discovering a new and more efficient process for generating nutritious and plentiful food for the exploding population that hasn't been solved. Perhaps money could go to the people who successfully find a way to mediate conflict between two societies with conflicting views and conflicting homesteads. Maybe I sound a bit retarded, but I really think a Nobel Prize model of payout is vastly more effective than rewarding people who cut costs by refusing safety checks and allowing bullshit like the Deepwater oil volcano happen.
But, no, the people demand oil and cars and such, so they can set what prices they like. People demand cool movies and neat cell phones that do all sorts of stuff. People demand cosmetic surgery and 3d TVs. People demand the latest shiny crap and they’re willing to pay whatever they can to get it. Maybe what I’m asking for is not to trust the people to get money where it needs to go. Maybe I am asking for income redistribution by the government. I suppose I am asking for socialism (since communism is… you know… dead.) to take away those darn rich people’s monies and give them to the poor. Really, I just can’t help but think that there must be a better way than this. And by George, I’m an American. I demand only the best in governing practices.
My net worth is in the negative, by the way. Therefore I am an active detriment to society and everyone hates me. I would make a terrible Asian. However, I have a level 80 druid healer in WoW that is fully geared in T9 stuffs and will be getting her first t10 piece before the week is out. This is quite a feat of dedication and I am very proud of my virtual accomplishment.
Of course the difference between him and me is that I am totally hooked. I have a totally different perspective on it, I think, because I do dumb things like collect Jarritos bottle caps. I only buy them maybe three or four at a time, and most of the lids are only one point (unos puntos) so it has taken me quite a while to collect them. I still don’t have enough for the awesome our lady of Guadalupe bottle cap earrings that I want because it so perfectly iconizes the commercialization of Mexican culture into a form acceptable to the American model of capitalism. I collect them anyway, even though I only get one maybe every week on average because that is what I do. I suppose the difference is that I am paying fifteen bucks a month for the privilege of collecting virtual bottle caps. It really could be worse. I could play Magic: The Gathering Online and pay real money for packs of virtual cards. Man, that just bugs the bejeezus out of me. On the other hand, I do pay four bucks for tiny packages of art printed on worthless paper. Haha. I guess I’m just doomed to frivolously spend money on things that tangentially make me feel happy or accomplished. It’s the curse of the consumer. This might be a nice launching point for some anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist invective. Nah, I don’t really want to talk about that.
I am not a big fan of American culture. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I hate American culture. I hate the culture of competition. I hate the idea that in order to get anywhere I am supposed to stab my brother in the eye and step on the backs of everyone else. It’s just dumb. I hate the concept that we must be vigilant for every other nation or obscure terrorist cell is out to steal our freedoms. This constant war, this constant masculinity wears on me. It really does. I dunno, I guess it’s just cause I am lazy. I don’t want to compete. Too hard. Maybe I don’t think I will do a great job. Maybe it’s my lack of self-esteem that keeps me from going out there and batting all comers off with my huge dick. Maybe I am just too much of a pussy to appreciate the eternal struggle that is America. I just don’t accept the popularity of sports. They reinforce the constant conflict that America is in. I should be contributing to the conflict. I need to be fighting. I need to be throwing my money at American produced products and supporting our soldiers in times of war and peace and so on and so forth. I need to do it, because America is always at the edge of the precipice of disaster. We’re always about to collapse forever. We need to be. If we weren’t so busy trying to prop up America from its perceived dangers, we might become complacent and learn to forget the meaning of America, the purpose of a national boundary. We might lose pride in being American. We might figure out that our borders are just invisible lines that mean nothing to anyone outside of the government. We might forget that we’re better and different than everyone else because we have more guns. Heaven forbid we might lay down those guns and forget that we have enemies and remember that first and foremost, we are brothers and sisters. We might remember that all of us are human and this is to be celebrated.
No, I’m pretty much an idiot. We Americans love peace. We would gladly share our peace with everyone, but they don’t want it, the ingrates. That is why we have to go over there and enforce peace. It is our job to keep the peace, by shooting anyone who disagrees with us. Peace in the majority, friend.
I keep telling people that money doesn’t exist. I will keep telling them this and I will shout it at them until I am blue in the face, because so many people live their lives focused on money. Their existence depends on it. Their very self-worth is attached to the cash they make. In an Asian or other traditionalist cultures, your very worth to your family is how much money you make. I can’t tell you how messed up this is. It’s worship. It’s a distorted sort of secular worship, but it’s still worship all the same. We pray at the altar of mammon, and the douchebags up in Wall Street who generate money from thin air are our priests. We watch crap like Jim Cramer’s Mad Money because we need someone to interpret the market for us. He’s a modern diviner, coming down from the mount to tell us to buy, sell, or hold. It’s absurd. I don’t care about money. I am a jerk for this, I suppose, but really it has long lost its original point and become a farcical tool of social demarcation. It’s no different from pretty much every society since we discovered crop rotation. At least one family gets really lucky and really rich and dictates the activities of everyone else because they seem more valuable than anyone else. It really hasn’t changed. I am so dull. Look at me complaining about the same thing people have complained about for thousands of years.
The problem is that our competitive nation is tied to its money. We need to be more financially active. We need more guns and more peril, we need to be leaning on the red button at any given time. Why? So we can justify our money. Money as it is today is essentially based on the idea that the American government won’t fail. That’s about it. Money has even less meaning than when it was tied to shiny bricks of metal. It’s laughable. Money has exactly as much value as we believe it has. Maybe more appropriate, money has exactly as much value as we can be convinced it has. Money in the real world has literally no more value than money in WoW. They even translate. About 1k gold is $2 according to gold-sellers. Maybe a better analogy is EVE online. You can convert about $15 into an in-game item that lets you play for another month. This item is worth about 300 million Isk, the in-game currency. So voila. Money is getting translated back and forth (well, money is mostly being putting in, as the company is understandably reluctant to hand out money, though I am sure plenty of player-to-player interactions exist) from a virtual space to a real one. Clearly it doesn’t have any legitimate physical worth. But we keep it up anyway, because money really is the best tool we have for measuring what other people think of us, more or less. Our value to society, supposedly. This idea too falls apart before the absurd billions made by companies that produce nothing but ways to kill us or rot out our teeth or waste our time. I don’t find Blizzard a particularly necessary company, especially since they’ve been bought out by those douchebags at Activision. I don’t consider WoW much of a contribution to society. I enjoy their drug, however, so I send them money. Rather, Visa sends them money and then breathes down my neck for me to give them money back for it. It’s a very neat system. I am not really against it. It really is a fantastic tool. I don’t really think we need to get rid of it or anything. I just want a re-evaluation of the current model of fiscal purpose. I want to see money being used in a realistic and reasonable fashion. No one needs billions of dollars. Hardly anyone needs more than a few million dollars. I expect such largesse to be matched by an equally amazing contribution to society, such as solving overpopulation or discovering a new and more efficient process for generating nutritious and plentiful food for the exploding population that hasn't been solved. Perhaps money could go to the people who successfully find a way to mediate conflict between two societies with conflicting views and conflicting homesteads. Maybe I sound a bit retarded, but I really think a Nobel Prize model of payout is vastly more effective than rewarding people who cut costs by refusing safety checks and allowing bullshit like the Deepwater oil volcano happen.
But, no, the people demand oil and cars and such, so they can set what prices they like. People demand cool movies and neat cell phones that do all sorts of stuff. People demand cosmetic surgery and 3d TVs. People demand the latest shiny crap and they’re willing to pay whatever they can to get it. Maybe what I’m asking for is not to trust the people to get money where it needs to go. Maybe I am asking for income redistribution by the government. I suppose I am asking for socialism (since communism is… you know… dead.) to take away those darn rich people’s monies and give them to the poor. Really, I just can’t help but think that there must be a better way than this. And by George, I’m an American. I demand only the best in governing practices.
My net worth is in the negative, by the way. Therefore I am an active detriment to society and everyone hates me. I would make a terrible Asian. However, I have a level 80 druid healer in WoW that is fully geared in T9 stuffs and will be getting her first t10 piece before the week is out. This is quite a feat of dedication and I am very proud of my virtual accomplishment.
A whirlwind of activity.
I am going to update my blog with everything I have written on Facebook. I hope this works out okay, because I added pictures and stuff to some of them.
EDIT: it worked out okay. welcome to a much more fleshed out blog.
EDIT: it worked out okay. welcome to a much more fleshed out blog.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Some Whiny Bullshit
I.
Me.
Again.
Let’s talk about something else for once. Yeah. Let’s talk about. Hmm. Let’s talk about grades. I think I already talked about this, but not fully. Nope. Okay here we go.
I—fuck. I did it again. Well, dick it, You’re getting my ego whether you or I like it or not. I was in the 99th percentile for reading comprehension in first grade. I was reading at a high school level in third grade. Then I kinda quit any intense legitimate reading (I read comics, lots of Doonesbury and Dilbert and Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side) for a few years and pursued videogames. Then I lost all my videogames and got back to reading. I didn’t read the lord of the rings until I was thirteen and the movies were already two thirds of the way done. I thought the book was pretty dreadful, Tolkien was a fantastic world envisioner, but a dreadful writer. I will fisticuffs anyone who disagrees. Anyway, by that point I was going through about 3-4 novels a week because I had shit-all else to do at RICA or at home. I am not actually all that well-read, though, because I read the books that interested me, and that was pretty much comics and fantasy novels.
Anyway, I am a very good reader. I’ve got great reading comprehension, as competitive testing against other average students will show. I took an IQ test once because my therapist requested it and psychiatric professionals ejaculate all over that sort of thing. I got a score that was reasonably high but not shared with me for fear of blowing up my ego and letting me trumpet it around and feel superior to everyone. Or something. Ironic, given that that was pretty much the exact opposite of my behavior in tenth grade. I heard the number anyway cause the home ec lady (an amazing excommunicated catholic with one eye after a classmate had jammed a pencil into one of them when she was young. Also she was like seven feet tall. Not even kidding) was telling me off for something and was all like “how can someone with an IQ of 132 be so dumb yada yada yada” and I was all like “how do you know what my IQ is,” playing it all smooth, acting like I knew all along. Anyway my point is by some objective measurement, I’m really smart.
So I’m smart, right? I must do real good in school, where smarts count. Haha, no. I squeaked by every grade except ninth. In ninth I had straight A's and I was on the honor roll because I was living at rica and I had to do my homework or I couldn’t go do the activity and had to sit in my fairly bare room with nothing to do but feel badly about my decisions. So I did my homework. It’s a pretty shocking twist from 6th grade, where I got a 28% in math despite showing up every day and the only class I did good in was English, because quite frankly I was horrified of the teacher, Ms. Beadle, who might have been crazy. Got an 83% in that class. The kicker too is that I took geometry in ninth grade like all the good students who took algebra in eighth and I got me an A. So what is my point? Clearly grades are not correlated with smarts. I have buckets of that. I try my best to give it away. Nope, grades are about effort.
Now this is probably pretty obvious and not all that thrilling to all of those neat folks I know who spend a bunch of their time studying for all their tests and who do all their homework. I really think you guys are neat, and I appreciate that you have the passion and interest enough in your classes to do that sort of thing. I don’t. I really don’t do any homework. This last semester was a bit of a marvel in that I did quite as much as I did. Part of it was because I really liked the classes, part of it was because the homework was largely short quizzes I took on the internet once a week. Nothing too difficult, but I still did them the night before class. Cause I am a lazy motherfucker. I am as shortsighted as the day is long, too. If I had any real sense of consequence to my actions, I probably wouldn’t have done such a shitty job the semester before last. I also probably would have gone to the final for that bullshit music class, even though it was a bullshit class full of the most bullshitty bullshit any government spent $78 plus the $100 books and CDs on. But I need the grade. I need that letter that demonstrates the effort I put into the class. It doesn’t matter that the class was nothing but open book tests and rushed powerpoints being delivered by a person who I could barely hear, let alone comprehend. It doesn’t matter if the tacked on assignments were tacked on, like a “group presentation” that consisted of me listening to a series of people presenting the life history of lil’wayne and Johnny Cash. It most certain-buttfucking-ly does not mean that a damned person in that room learned a damn thing about music. No, it just means I put enough effort, flipped enough pages, knew where to find the right answers at to demonstrate that I did well in that class. I probably failed.
And I don’t give a fuck.
Thank god not every class is like that, otherwise I would have quit and taken to whoring myself on the street or ended up dead on the train tracks next to the transit center so I could be as big an inconvenience as possible. I would have died holding an extra bucket of blood or two just for good measure. What a story it would have been. “Young man, 18, dies while crossing train tracks with buckets of blood. Suicide has been ruled out for sheer unlikelihood.”
No, some classes have been sane. I really liked Polysci with Dr. Shumaker. Although she has an undeniably dour expression on her face that almost always makes me cringe and feel guilty when she looks at me, she is actually a funny and interesting person. Total shocker. I loved her class. No homework, just participation and tests. I spent all year listening to Professor Hasten lecture people who were doing poorly in her class that big kids college was gonna be nothing but a lecture delivered by a guy who doesn’t know your name and then exams. Seriously that is the best news I have had all year. I hate high school kiddie bullcrap. I hate the fact that I am in “college” and I still get assignments to make presentations and fucking posters. God. Damn. It. I am an adult, for fucks sake, and adult who is spending his government’s money and his own future money to learn things and instead I am being told to make posters about the things I have learned. Christ on a stick this shit is ridiculous. And most people don’t care. For most people it’s just more of the same. They went through all of their schooling doing this stuff back when the concept of doing a poster had a purpose: to keep kids from getting bored doing the same thing over and over. Now they’re adults and they take it for granted that instructors will go out of their way not to bore them. I love Professor Hasten to death, I think she’s a great teacher and a fascinating woman, but even I sat through some lectures that were essentially her repeating herself. Yes, it was boring, no I didn’t wave my hand around and demand that I be given something to color with. I’m a fucking adult. Doing boring things is what we’re supposed to do. We spend all our childhood being surrounded by glitz and glamor and epic struggles against fate and all sorts of things and then we grow up and realize that no, you’re going to spend a lot of your life doing pretty much the same things again and again. You get up in the morning, brush your teeth, go to work, and come home. You do whatever it is that you like to do and then you go to sleep. For the next 60 years. Yeah, it sucks, but that’s what all of you business majors are aiming for. So why does this college feel the need to pull the wool over our eyes and pretend that the future is full of all sorts of neat posters and powerpoints and awesome field trips and all sorts of things. If college is so “career-oriented” why does it spend all of its time teaching me how to do things that I probably won’t ever do in a career?
Fuck I wouldn’t care, but it’s my dollar. I go to college to learn, not to put effort into stuff. The effort is already in the dollar I gave you. General education requirements are already pretty bullshit. It ought to be my business if I want to be a well-rounded person or just take every history class I can get my hands on and fuck all the rest. Again, I wouldn’t care, but colleges are so expensive and profit driven these days. I am fortunate to go to such a cheap college, so maybe I should appreciate the cheap education I get. We’re even green, too. We just blew a whole wad of cash on building a fancy new theater arts center and putting in solar panels over the parking lot. Isn’t that great? So great we have a 50 inch plasma tv in the 2400 building telling us just how much electricity we’re saving! And it’s on 24/7! Way to go, Laspo.
Ugh, I just hate this place. I am only here because I didn’t apply to anything else in senior year of high school. I didn’t really want to go to college; I just wanted to be dead, mostly. People will tell me “quit and get a job and come back to college after a few years” as if that were actually feasible. As the job market continues to upgrade even its most unskilled labor into degree requiring positions, getting by without a degree continues to become less feasible. There’s a good reason for that, and it is money.
Money and immigrants, probably. The people who go to college are the people who can afford to or who have the guts to go into debt for it. Already right there that excludes most of the poor, the so-called “working” class that make up pretty much half of America. So great. Keep that riff-raff out of the proper jobs. The poor have no manners and no taste. I know because I watched the king of queens reruns for a really long time. So here we have an excellent system of social stratification. Keep the riff-raff and the people unwilling to play the debt game here in America at the bottom by reserving all of the nicely paying jobs for people who get degrees irrelevant to the positions they are working in, and ignore the probability that simply working in these positions should provide one with all of the skills necessary to effectively work in that position in due time. It’s a barrier to social mobility, and only a fairly recent one at that. Used to be if you wanted to be a bigwig in a company, one either worked their way up from the bottom or knew somebody that knows somebody. Nowadays one first goes to college and then works their way to the middle or so and stays there or else they know somebody that knows somebody and get to the top. The reason presented, the ostensible purpose of this system is to identify the people who would put in enough effort to complete college and thus hire only those who are capable of putting effort into things. What a load of it. Poor people work fantastically harder than I ever have. For every strung-out couch surfing meth addict there is a harried single mother working two jobs and all sorts of people in between. And that’s primarily blue collar work. Undesirable work. Stuff that isn’t ritzy in the least. The middle and upper class get white collar jobs, easy desk work, stuff that is not nearly as physically demanding. What effort is it exactly?
Globalization plays a role here. Immigrants from countries with conservative cultures such as Pakistan, India, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea have flooded in for essentially the same reason people always flock to America. Money. Of course they bring their culture with them, and of course they adapt it to American traditions. Financial success is a matter of great concern for the families coming here, given their reason for emigration. In America, that success is inexorably linked to becoming a person in great demand, such as a doctor, or a lawyer or an engineer. So families pressure their children to become successful doctors, lawyers, or engineers, because to the people of these traditional cultures, children are not independent beings, but carriers of the family legacy and products to be exploited for the family wealth. This is a wholly un-American point of view, but one that has been embraced in a very American fashion as a great source of wealth for colleges. These families will invest huge amounts of money into their children, as they assume them to be presumptive nest eggs. Many are, as that is the culture they are brought up into. They grow up being treated kingly and then they fulfill their end of the bargain and score top marks, earn the best grades, get the best degrees. Colleges and high schools pick up on this, and try to get as many hard-working Asians as they can into their schools so it looks like they’re a top-notch organization worth being funded by the government, when really they just happen to have tapped into a culture that values responsibility to the family over responsibility to the self. These kids aren’t “smart.” They’re certainly not smarter than me. They’re just hard working because they know their families will disown them if they don’t work hard.
It’s all a game, like everything else. I wish I had been born into an earlier time when colleges were reserved solely for the rich not through monetary exclusion, but simply because the poor didn’t need a college degree and often found it an effeminate and unnecessary privilege. The only people in college were the people who either cared about this stuff or were too lazy for a “real” job and preferred to read books and tell people what they thought about things instead of contributing anything worthwhile to society. I asked what kind of effort modern college demonstrates. The answer is probably something close to “how much bullshit will you put up with?”
Me.
Again.
Let’s talk about something else for once. Yeah. Let’s talk about. Hmm. Let’s talk about grades. I think I already talked about this, but not fully. Nope. Okay here we go.
I—fuck. I did it again. Well, dick it, You’re getting my ego whether you or I like it or not. I was in the 99th percentile for reading comprehension in first grade. I was reading at a high school level in third grade. Then I kinda quit any intense legitimate reading (I read comics, lots of Doonesbury and Dilbert and Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side) for a few years and pursued videogames. Then I lost all my videogames and got back to reading. I didn’t read the lord of the rings until I was thirteen and the movies were already two thirds of the way done. I thought the book was pretty dreadful, Tolkien was a fantastic world envisioner, but a dreadful writer. I will fisticuffs anyone who disagrees. Anyway, by that point I was going through about 3-4 novels a week because I had shit-all else to do at RICA or at home. I am not actually all that well-read, though, because I read the books that interested me, and that was pretty much comics and fantasy novels.
Anyway, I am a very good reader. I’ve got great reading comprehension, as competitive testing against other average students will show. I took an IQ test once because my therapist requested it and psychiatric professionals ejaculate all over that sort of thing. I got a score that was reasonably high but not shared with me for fear of blowing up my ego and letting me trumpet it around and feel superior to everyone. Or something. Ironic, given that that was pretty much the exact opposite of my behavior in tenth grade. I heard the number anyway cause the home ec lady (an amazing excommunicated catholic with one eye after a classmate had jammed a pencil into one of them when she was young. Also she was like seven feet tall. Not even kidding) was telling me off for something and was all like “how can someone with an IQ of 132 be so dumb yada yada yada” and I was all like “how do you know what my IQ is,” playing it all smooth, acting like I knew all along. Anyway my point is by some objective measurement, I’m really smart.
So I’m smart, right? I must do real good in school, where smarts count. Haha, no. I squeaked by every grade except ninth. In ninth I had straight A's and I was on the honor roll because I was living at rica and I had to do my homework or I couldn’t go do the activity and had to sit in my fairly bare room with nothing to do but feel badly about my decisions. So I did my homework. It’s a pretty shocking twist from 6th grade, where I got a 28% in math despite showing up every day and the only class I did good in was English, because quite frankly I was horrified of the teacher, Ms. Beadle, who might have been crazy. Got an 83% in that class. The kicker too is that I took geometry in ninth grade like all the good students who took algebra in eighth and I got me an A. So what is my point? Clearly grades are not correlated with smarts. I have buckets of that. I try my best to give it away. Nope, grades are about effort.
Now this is probably pretty obvious and not all that thrilling to all of those neat folks I know who spend a bunch of their time studying for all their tests and who do all their homework. I really think you guys are neat, and I appreciate that you have the passion and interest enough in your classes to do that sort of thing. I don’t. I really don’t do any homework. This last semester was a bit of a marvel in that I did quite as much as I did. Part of it was because I really liked the classes, part of it was because the homework was largely short quizzes I took on the internet once a week. Nothing too difficult, but I still did them the night before class. Cause I am a lazy motherfucker. I am as shortsighted as the day is long, too. If I had any real sense of consequence to my actions, I probably wouldn’t have done such a shitty job the semester before last. I also probably would have gone to the final for that bullshit music class, even though it was a bullshit class full of the most bullshitty bullshit any government spent $78 plus the $100 books and CDs on. But I need the grade. I need that letter that demonstrates the effort I put into the class. It doesn’t matter that the class was nothing but open book tests and rushed powerpoints being delivered by a person who I could barely hear, let alone comprehend. It doesn’t matter if the tacked on assignments were tacked on, like a “group presentation” that consisted of me listening to a series of people presenting the life history of lil’wayne and Johnny Cash. It most certain-buttfucking-ly does not mean that a damned person in that room learned a damn thing about music. No, it just means I put enough effort, flipped enough pages, knew where to find the right answers at to demonstrate that I did well in that class. I probably failed.
And I don’t give a fuck.
Thank god not every class is like that, otherwise I would have quit and taken to whoring myself on the street or ended up dead on the train tracks next to the transit center so I could be as big an inconvenience as possible. I would have died holding an extra bucket of blood or two just for good measure. What a story it would have been. “Young man, 18, dies while crossing train tracks with buckets of blood. Suicide has been ruled out for sheer unlikelihood.”
No, some classes have been sane. I really liked Polysci with Dr. Shumaker. Although she has an undeniably dour expression on her face that almost always makes me cringe and feel guilty when she looks at me, she is actually a funny and interesting person. Total shocker. I loved her class. No homework, just participation and tests. I spent all year listening to Professor Hasten lecture people who were doing poorly in her class that big kids college was gonna be nothing but a lecture delivered by a guy who doesn’t know your name and then exams. Seriously that is the best news I have had all year. I hate high school kiddie bullcrap. I hate the fact that I am in “college” and I still get assignments to make presentations and fucking posters. God. Damn. It. I am an adult, for fucks sake, and adult who is spending his government’s money and his own future money to learn things and instead I am being told to make posters about the things I have learned. Christ on a stick this shit is ridiculous. And most people don’t care. For most people it’s just more of the same. They went through all of their schooling doing this stuff back when the concept of doing a poster had a purpose: to keep kids from getting bored doing the same thing over and over. Now they’re adults and they take it for granted that instructors will go out of their way not to bore them. I love Professor Hasten to death, I think she’s a great teacher and a fascinating woman, but even I sat through some lectures that were essentially her repeating herself. Yes, it was boring, no I didn’t wave my hand around and demand that I be given something to color with. I’m a fucking adult. Doing boring things is what we’re supposed to do. We spend all our childhood being surrounded by glitz and glamor and epic struggles against fate and all sorts of things and then we grow up and realize that no, you’re going to spend a lot of your life doing pretty much the same things again and again. You get up in the morning, brush your teeth, go to work, and come home. You do whatever it is that you like to do and then you go to sleep. For the next 60 years. Yeah, it sucks, but that’s what all of you business majors are aiming for. So why does this college feel the need to pull the wool over our eyes and pretend that the future is full of all sorts of neat posters and powerpoints and awesome field trips and all sorts of things. If college is so “career-oriented” why does it spend all of its time teaching me how to do things that I probably won’t ever do in a career?
Fuck I wouldn’t care, but it’s my dollar. I go to college to learn, not to put effort into stuff. The effort is already in the dollar I gave you. General education requirements are already pretty bullshit. It ought to be my business if I want to be a well-rounded person or just take every history class I can get my hands on and fuck all the rest. Again, I wouldn’t care, but colleges are so expensive and profit driven these days. I am fortunate to go to such a cheap college, so maybe I should appreciate the cheap education I get. We’re even green, too. We just blew a whole wad of cash on building a fancy new theater arts center and putting in solar panels over the parking lot. Isn’t that great? So great we have a 50 inch plasma tv in the 2400 building telling us just how much electricity we’re saving! And it’s on 24/7! Way to go, Laspo.
Ugh, I just hate this place. I am only here because I didn’t apply to anything else in senior year of high school. I didn’t really want to go to college; I just wanted to be dead, mostly. People will tell me “quit and get a job and come back to college after a few years” as if that were actually feasible. As the job market continues to upgrade even its most unskilled labor into degree requiring positions, getting by without a degree continues to become less feasible. There’s a good reason for that, and it is money.
Money and immigrants, probably. The people who go to college are the people who can afford to or who have the guts to go into debt for it. Already right there that excludes most of the poor, the so-called “working” class that make up pretty much half of America. So great. Keep that riff-raff out of the proper jobs. The poor have no manners and no taste. I know because I watched the king of queens reruns for a really long time. So here we have an excellent system of social stratification. Keep the riff-raff and the people unwilling to play the debt game here in America at the bottom by reserving all of the nicely paying jobs for people who get degrees irrelevant to the positions they are working in, and ignore the probability that simply working in these positions should provide one with all of the skills necessary to effectively work in that position in due time. It’s a barrier to social mobility, and only a fairly recent one at that. Used to be if you wanted to be a bigwig in a company, one either worked their way up from the bottom or knew somebody that knows somebody. Nowadays one first goes to college and then works their way to the middle or so and stays there or else they know somebody that knows somebody and get to the top. The reason presented, the ostensible purpose of this system is to identify the people who would put in enough effort to complete college and thus hire only those who are capable of putting effort into things. What a load of it. Poor people work fantastically harder than I ever have. For every strung-out couch surfing meth addict there is a harried single mother working two jobs and all sorts of people in between. And that’s primarily blue collar work. Undesirable work. Stuff that isn’t ritzy in the least. The middle and upper class get white collar jobs, easy desk work, stuff that is not nearly as physically demanding. What effort is it exactly?
Globalization plays a role here. Immigrants from countries with conservative cultures such as Pakistan, India, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea have flooded in for essentially the same reason people always flock to America. Money. Of course they bring their culture with them, and of course they adapt it to American traditions. Financial success is a matter of great concern for the families coming here, given their reason for emigration. In America, that success is inexorably linked to becoming a person in great demand, such as a doctor, or a lawyer or an engineer. So families pressure their children to become successful doctors, lawyers, or engineers, because to the people of these traditional cultures, children are not independent beings, but carriers of the family legacy and products to be exploited for the family wealth. This is a wholly un-American point of view, but one that has been embraced in a very American fashion as a great source of wealth for colleges. These families will invest huge amounts of money into their children, as they assume them to be presumptive nest eggs. Many are, as that is the culture they are brought up into. They grow up being treated kingly and then they fulfill their end of the bargain and score top marks, earn the best grades, get the best degrees. Colleges and high schools pick up on this, and try to get as many hard-working Asians as they can into their schools so it looks like they’re a top-notch organization worth being funded by the government, when really they just happen to have tapped into a culture that values responsibility to the family over responsibility to the self. These kids aren’t “smart.” They’re certainly not smarter than me. They’re just hard working because they know their families will disown them if they don’t work hard.
It’s all a game, like everything else. I wish I had been born into an earlier time when colleges were reserved solely for the rich not through monetary exclusion, but simply because the poor didn’t need a college degree and often found it an effeminate and unnecessary privilege. The only people in college were the people who either cared about this stuff or were too lazy for a “real” job and preferred to read books and tell people what they thought about things instead of contributing anything worthwhile to society. I asked what kind of effort modern college demonstrates. The answer is probably something close to “how much bullshit will you put up with?”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)