This blog entry, is just a quick flash of insight aiming to summarize my impression of some entertainment media that's been created over the last 20 years.
I aim to highlight a meme that seems to have been introduced into the public stream, and I especially allude to it in the light of the civil unrest that certain regions of the globe have incurred lately.
Remember when I use the word meme, I mean the strict definition sourced from the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology..
For now the definition from Word-Web will be enough: (biology) a cultural unit (an idea, value or pattern of behaviour) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation)
mIRC chat Now.. first in order to set the scene and illustrate this reality, I go back in history to the 90s where I first encountered online experience, having the opportunity to witness internet lifestyle and multiplayer gaming at the internet cafe that opened in my home town.
One thing that transpired upon those 6 computers available to the paying customers, was IRC chat. Black and white text and a channel, containing individuals who'd adopted an alias in order to impose their personality upon the present online audience. Who were those distinguished characters with that noted '@' symbol prefixing their names? Of course!
Channel operators! imbued with authority and rank... able to kick and ban profiles from the channel.. and so extend their aureole of sarcastic power!
Through my puerile experience of this IRC chat, I must remark something that must've been a server theme. A key catch-phrase that was printed whenever some activity transpired in the channels. Whatever the case was.. I remember it quite clearly..
something like "Existence is merely a dream". Whatever technical reason triggered this phrase is immaterial.. it was enough to know that those self-styled cyber crusaders of that generation, took it upon themselves to utter these ridiculous words which even my young mind vividly hated.
For some reason, I interpreted this phrase as the most audacious load of pseudo-intellectual waffle ever imagined.
How stupid.. As if these idiots can say that this reality is unreal.
That line.. "existence is merely a dream" - is the perfect type of nihilistic amateur-philosophical wannabe-serene & profound rubbish that inspired such media as.. the Animatrix.
The Animatrix Now I must be steady in this delivery, as not to overwhelm the audience present. The Animatrix is the greatest example of something created by a perfectly demoralized and desensitized group of minds. Something which should appeal to a generation who stomps upon instinctual emotion and the very energies of life - frivolous or sublime - that flow within the mind and body.
The Animatrix, the perfect piece of media that when consumed will deliver the 'fitting' result of having all sentience and inner disposition reduced to that of a desensitized mind that has just consumed a soporific tranquilizer.
Observe.. all the characters in the show, they purport this "don't-mess-with-me I'm cyber-punk" attitude. But much worse is the flimsy - yet forcibly persuasive - narrative of humans 'murdering' & destroying robots, in a political setting that isn't applicable to a coherent incentive.
And the result? The audience who ingest this media, being of no previous violent or hateful disposition, undergo the transformative phenomenon of being injected with hatred, suddenly boiling within their tummy region and this feeling metabolizing through their system.
Like being slammed with a blunt hammer and weighed down by some oppressive feeling, that wasn't even an issue or a repressed urge carried by the individual to begin with.
The Animatrix, amongst other contemporary media in the past, sets the standard of libertine creativity, whereby no precept of self-protection, spiritual aspirations or planetary affinity can be gained.
There is little or nothing to gain..
Whether that gain be intellectual enrichment or personal development, whatever the case may be. It's just a pathetic narrative of A.I. becoming conscious, humans being violent and the distant eventuality of a post-apocalyptic setting!
Ridiculous!!
The result? A bunch of apathetic young-folk, hammered with disillusionment. A piece of media that makes no increment towards any mental incentive, recreational byplay or daily life.
Nothing there.. just this non-specific feeling of murderous discomfort injected into the audience who resultantly have little means of discharging these ill feelings.
The very same can be said about such current shows as Game of Thrones.. and some of my mates had the nerve to say "You dig Diablo? You will dig this show!"
I can't believe Game of Thrones made it into Time Magazine!
What you're describing is not the root cause but rather an expression of the problem I think. There was some thread floating around the Internet a couple weeks or months ago that Gen Y (the "Millennials") grew up with some time in the post-Berlin Wall era of the 1990s when society was more or less optimistic, but the younger generations (Gen Z and also Gen Alpha now) since 9/11 and then the Great Recession and now the coronavirus pandemic have always had an environment of negativity for the past ~20 years.
What is in the media is a reflection of what the creators experience from their own backgrounds, and it may jive with the audience because of the shared experience from being in a society with the same historic events.
On July 30 2020 04:19 Descent wrote: some time in the post-Berlin Wall era of the 1990s when society was more or less optimistic, but the younger generations (Gen Z and also Gen Alpha now) since 9/11 and then the Great Recession and now the coronavirus pandemic have always had an environment of negativity for the past ~20 years.
What is in the media is a reflection of what the creators experience from their own backgrounds, and it may jive with the audience because of the shared experience from being in a society with the same historic events.
the 1990 recession was pretty bad.
Generally speaking, in NA since 1973 real quality of life improvements have been 0. A small exception to that .. in Canada from 1993 to 2003 under Jean Chretien as PM and Mike Harris as Premier of its highest GDP province.. Canada experienced a substantial improvement in quality of life. Other than that.. since 1973... things have stayed pretty much the same throughout NA.
Ronald Reagan effectively foretold the quagmire NA has been in since 1973.
yes.. that's the word, 'Quality of Life'. and it's literally applicable to real life and our daily byplay.
Lately.. I've made it my business to try define this word 'Libertine'. A libertarian is someone who tries to remove upper authority.. so they can become their own priest, their own psychiatrist and their own politician. If there is a clichè global agenda.. unquestionably it's to establish Economic Liberty.
That system where rich households and wealthy individuals rule the world. In other words the level of government bureaucracy would be transferred into the hands of enlightened progressive thinkers.. CEOs and executives, journalists and lawyers who by right of name own key industries and companies.
The people - I submit - feel equal to the task for the reason that they've become intoxicated and mesmerized with currently existing technology.. And if you have a reputation, backed with the aureole of wealth & prestige, you can apparently sway a huge audience just with a few key strokes on a computer interface. But this word liberty has become associated with an overwhelming rich lifestyle of unsober pleasure and lurid byplay. I believe heavily that it's evidenced in the quality of life, and hence the media the secular world is urged to consume. Game of thrones! What is this useless dwarf who thinks he's important with his unsmiling face, his alcoholic proclivities and sensual vice!??
And all the other depraved characters that set the most obscene standard of kingly virtue for the audience to laud as heroic??
I saw recently on Fox news - and this be relating to those high profile tech CEOs who were cross-examined to see if they were going to abuse their power to sway the US elections - this one reporter said the liberal party controls 3 of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
Academia, Entertainment and Journalism. the 4th would be the online networks we use to communicate and share stuff..
Is this an exaggeration?
No.. science, history and health conforms to their hysterical and stringent style of delivery. You can talk about inanimate matter and speculate unto the rigidity of the atom, so long as you conform to the spineless criteria of being a diddering Big Bang Character. You dare not question the official narrative of history and speculate unto eldritch technologies hinted at during previous wars and global episodes. Journalism? You will be a good journalist when you contribute incrementally to the hysteria and one-sided delivery seen daily.
But science.. especially there, that division of thought is where these liberal people - I say liberty when we talk about Wielders of Personal Freedom - cannot afford to stray from their narrative. If science ever introduces something like.. a non-earth race that resembles the Protoss.. Or suggests that man must conform to a higher entity or transcendental standard, it would rob them of all their prestige and power.
science must convince the audience that bling lifestyle and 50 shades of grey affluence is the resultant purpose of every individual man and lady on the planet.. This standard model of personal 21st century freedom..
What is the opposition to this? conservative values? How do you uphold conservative values when your only inspiration is Hank Hill from King of the Hill?
These values I believe should start with the word.. self-protective.. Self-protective values, however feeble it sounds.
On July 30 2020 04:19 Descent wrote: some time in the post-Berlin Wall era of the 1990s when society was more or less optimistic, but the younger generations (Gen Z and also Gen Alpha now) since 9/11 and then the Great Recession and now the coronavirus pandemic have always had an environment of negativity for the past ~20 years.
What is in the media is a reflection of what the creators experience from their own backgrounds, and it may jive with the audience because of the shared experience from being in a society with the same historic events.
the 1990 recession was pretty bad.
Generally speaking, in NA since 1973 real quality of life improvements have been 0. A small exception to that .. in Canada from 1993 to 2003 under Jean Chretien as PM and Mike Harris as Premier of its highest GDP province.. Canada experienced a substantial improvement in quality of life. Other than that.. since 1973... things have stayed pretty much the same throughout NA.
EPT
