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WaveofShadow
Canada31494 Posts
I'm not bored enough to read through an entire dissertation on stupidity, but just interested enough to be interested. I think when you linked it in Skype I flicked through it for a Minute and it just came across as a huge joke/insane rambling to me, which is much less interesting. If you could somehow show me this proof of yours... | ||
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Gahlo
United States35156 Posts
On September 18 2017 05:45 nafta wrote: Reminds me of high school literature class. Death of the author is a hell of a drug. Sometimes the curtains are just blue, people. | ||
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nafta
Bulgaria18893 Posts
On September 18 2017 05:51 GhandiEAGLE wrote: https://www.ascarnooneelsecansee.com/intro People are welcome to debate the article if they've read all of it. But it's kind of long, and I realize most people won't find this as fascinating as I do, so... We must've had pretty different high school literature class experiences. Or is something totally over my head? People reading too much into things and calling opinions facts. The writing style reminds me of the time I was reading up on Eminem exposing the illuminati. It's Monday for me. | ||
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
On September 18 2017 07:06 nafta wrote: People reading too much into things and calling opinions facts. The writing style reminds me of the time I was reading up on Eminem exposing the illuminati. It's Monday for me. + Show Spoiler + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrY0g6GhQsk I've read that theory in a lot of different places, and I'm pretty well acquainted with it. What that was was just someone who set out to prove something before researching it, and proceeded to cherry pick and ignore many many things Eminem did, and infer things he meant from things he never said. This happens occasionally in the article, but the reality is that every single production of CRJ's is looked at, practically every verse she's ever written. It's not cherry picking, because cherry picking doesn't rely on "literally every single thing fits this pattern" as an argument. How could it; that wouldn't make sense.The most convincing part of Max's argument, however, is the sheer volume of evidence compared to almost complete absence of non-evidence. Secondly, unlike most of these other ridiculous theories, he only does what I would consider "reaching" more than, say, twice. There is very little inference, because the lyrics are right there. He's not ascribing abstract descriptions to an unknown entity, or implying emotions out of vague wording (except for, again, maybe twice). He's looking at what the words literally say, and the actual topics of the songs. There is no symbolism to interpret here. In Eminem's "Not Afraid", Illuminati believers point to his "not being afraid to take a stand" as an example of him not being afraid of truthing the Illuminati, but the Illuminati is never stated, and they ignore the entire rest of the song talking about his overcoming very explicit drug addiction. CRJ is never so vague. It's always a dude that she is in love with, he never ever reciprocates, and she is never in a happy relationship. Outside of this, there are three or four peripheral things that are included. Some of these include: the relationship is secretive, the relationship has ended, she is never empowered in a single song, she never gets OVER a breakup, she never sings about being betrayed by said boy, she always wants the guy. This all forms a very specific picture of a relationship. She often repeats the same words and phrases to convey the exact same idea. In the end, it may be reasonable that this all paints the picture of a single real relationship she has had, because she doesn't explicitly state that these are all the same relationship. But that all her songs collectively can't be shown to have been two different relationships, despite incredibly specific language and fifteen years worth of making songs about nothing but this type of relationship is, at the very least, fascinating on a popculture level (though, again, not viable proof, as claiming this is all one relationship is absence of evidence, not evidence of absence). But whether or not this is a creation of a character from her that she has been tightly managing since she was 17 or a representation of some capacity of trauma in her life, there is no inference involved in fitting all of her songs into a very specific pattern. A common reaction to this is that you can do this for any other generic pop artist, but you can't. Not to this VERY specific level of detail. Not even close. Let's take average everyday bland popstar Taylor Swift, who specifically avoids singing songs with any serious levels of depth or variety to it (note that this is also from the essay, I'm not writing this part myself). Her most recent album is 1989. There are, to be sure a ton of songs about boys. Off the top of my head, there are no successful relationships in her album. So far, so good. But once you start looking at her songs, there are distinct differences. Outside of musical structure (which, it's pop music, it's pretty much all the same), there is no obvious pattern. There is plenty of sense of longing and escapism in songs like Wildest Dreams and Out of the Woods, but that can be directly contrasted by songs like Blank Space/ Welcome to New York and Bad Blood, for starters are even explicitly not about boys, but about empowerment and freedom, and have almost no connection to other songs. So even in a generic, bland album setting, there are plenty of different topics discussed, and countless moods and ideas portrayed. Alternatively, look a little deeper, at someone like Adele, who has notoriety for singing only about breakups. Even within that, you get contrasts like Turning Tables, a song that is totally depressed, but a successful "getting over it" due to the hope of finding another relationship, and Rumor Has It, an upbeat, snarky empowerment of commentary on the merits of not needing a relationship or a man. These songs have directly conflicting ideologies, tone, and stories, and perhaps only Turning Tables nears the amount of specificity CRJ can have about her "thing". These tracks are right next to each other! From one of the most vanilla artists currently in the mainstream! Finally, since Holyflare mentioned concept albums, lets look at one; Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Kendrick Lamar's second LP and one of my favorite albums of all time. He tells, in varying levels of metaphor, an overarching story of his time growing up in Compton, and how traumatic experiences shaped who he is today. Almost every song addresses, in some way, the hopelessness of living in Compton, from the violence to the indulgence of alcoholism. But even though it's a "concept album", Kendrick tackles many many different concepts. Each song is another brushstroke of a different color to end up with the final, beautiful painting. Backseat Freestyle shows the ignorance of glorifying drugs and violence. Good Kid paints hopelessness for the situation. Sing About Me/Dying of thirst portrays Kendrick's redemption through his discovery of the Lord. Compton features his glorious return to his birthplace as a successful rap artist who has grown but will not forget his roots. There are many songs on the album, and almost all of them take a different approach, appeal to a different emotion lyrically, and try to discuss different things. Kendrick Lamar would be like CRJ if instead of doing that, he had four (!!) different albums all describing various non-conflicting facets of a police shakedown he experienced. While Kendrick could be singing about multiple incidents he's had with the police, they would always leave him with the exact same emotions, to the point where it wouldn't matter whether or not in his head they were different, because, for all intents and purposed, they are the same. There would be no recognizable difference between these police shakedowns. Obviously, nobody does that. Except CRJ. That's the level of specific CRJ gets when you look at her lyrics. It's so much narrower than a story or a concept album. It is three moments in her life that occurred sequentially, repeated over and over again endlessly or until she stops making music. And more than half the time, her beats never correspond with the despondency her lyrics very explicitly portray. Again, there is little to no inference on what her lyrics say; CRJ does not speak in metaphors. She states very literally what happens. Even the songs she covers fit this very specific thing. Her Christmas song cover was Last Christmas, which fits perfectly into her exceedingly narrow scope of subject matter. We have no idea what her motives for doing this are. Any attempt at a guess is, as I said, inference. But not knowing why something is happening is not the same as it not happening. And when you write over 50 songs about the exact same thing, you do it on purpose. Nothing like that has ever been done with any degree of success, over this period of time. And nobody notices it. It's treated as a conspiracy theory. This isn't flat-earthing. Flat-earthing has to contend with scientific theories and equations. The only argument that this pattern isn't occurring in CRJ's songs is one claiming that I am cherry-picking or inferring. But at some point, there would have to be a single song that would stump me. There isn't. This specific pattern fits everything. To bring it back to Nafta's high school literature comparison, this is like saying that Holden's red hunting cap in Catcher in the Rye is present in practically every chapter of the book. There is grounds for debate as to why this is the case; perhaps Salinger really likes describing hats. Perhaps Salinger is using it as a metaphor for innocence. Maybe it's something else entirely. But there can be almost no debate that the hat isn't mentioned. The hat is there, that's a fact. Carly Rae Jepsen's songs fit a pattern more specific than any other artists by a wide margin, to a greater degree than any other artists by a wide margin. And I find that [i]fascinating[i/], if just from a cultural perspective. TL;DR, Wave, CRJ keeps repeating, in every song she's ever written, one part of a brief doomed up/down secret sexual romance with platonic male friend ultimately ending in his rejection of her. Occasionally, the secret is portrayed as a result of the man already having a girlfriend. It is never portrayed as anything else, with the once exception being Call Me Maybe, where the dude ends up being gay instead of having a girlfriend. Only one time is a female that is not the rejector's girlfriend mentioned ever. And that one time that a woman outside of that relationship is mentioned, it's just a narrative device using CRJ's friend to illustrate an instance in which her love for Boy is not being reciprocated. On September 18 2017 07:02 WaveofShadow wrote: If you could somehow show me this proof of yours... That is a hard thing to do, because the strongest point of the evidence is the sheer volume of it. The proof would be finding a song that CRJ has made in the last FIFTEEN years that doesn't fit the pattern. | ||
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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
On September 18 2017 08:54 GhandiEAGLE wrote: TL;DR, Wave, CRJ keeps repeating, in every song she's ever written, one part of a brief doomed up/down secret sexual romance with platonic male friend ultimately ending in his rejection of her. Occasionally, the secret is portrayed as a result of the man already having a girlfriend. It is never portrayed as anything else, with the once exception being Call Me Maybe, where the dude ends up being gay instead of having a girlfriend. Only one time is a female that is not the rejector's girlfriend mentioned ever. And that one time that a woman outside of that relationship is mentioned, it's just a narrative device using CRJ's friend to illustrate an instance in which her love for Boy is not being reciprocated. So... what? All that says is that she has no other ideas for songs and that every single set of lyrics is saying the same thing in different ways. And that makes her... brilliant? I don't actually understand what you're trying to say. | ||
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
On September 18 2017 09:06 Requizen wrote: So... what? All that says is that she has no other ideas for songs and that every single set of lyrics is saying the same thing in different ways. And that makes her... brilliant? I don't actually understand what you're trying to say. I didn't say it makes her brilliant. The TL;DR doesnt cover everything I wrote, but mostly what I took from it is that I find it fascinating that not only someone with her level of success can do this, but that also nobody, even her fans, seem to notice. Is it wrong that I find something without precedent, on one of the biggest stages in America, and be deeply fascinated by it? Most of the words I wrote up there were to illustrate that I wasn't imagining what was fascinating me so much, because people are (justifiably) skeptical. This has practically no implications on anything except as the basis of a character study of a specific artist, which is the sort of thing I find unapologetically interesting | ||
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Dandel Ion
Austria17960 Posts
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
On September 18 2017 09:37 Dandel Ion wrote: but who gives a shit I do! People post what they think is interesting. I couldn't give two shits about the endless MTG posts, doesn't mean they're not worth posting. | ||
yamato77
11589 Posts
And not only that, but that the public has been gleefully unaware this entire time and doesn't actually listen to the lyrics or analyze the content of the music they consume. Profound statements, Ghandi. Truly revolutionary. | ||
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
On September 18 2017 09:46 yamato77 wrote: So what you're saying is, a one-note pop star has gotten an undeserved amount of success and attention despite only being able to write about a single subject matter. And not only that, but that the public has been gleefully unaware this entire time and doesn't actually listen to the lyrics or analyze the content of the music they consume. Profound statements, Ghandi. Truly revolutionary. I recognize you're being somewhat facetious, but in reality I don't think the man most well-positioned to comment on critical analysis of content is the man who tries to convince me that Life is Strange is a triumph of writing. + Show Spoiler + :^) | ||
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killerdog
Denmark6522 Posts
On September 18 2017 09:46 yamato77 wrote: And not only that, but that the public has been gleefully unaware this entire time and doesn't actually listen to the lyrics or analyze the content of the music they consume. This is well known to be the best way of consuming pop music kpop represent | ||
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Gahlo
United States35156 Posts
On September 18 2017 10:00 GhandiEAGLE wrote: I recognize you're being somewhat facetious, but in reality I don't think the man most well-positioned to comment on critical analysis of content is the man who tries to convince me that Life is Strange is a triumph of writing. + Show Spoiler + :^) Boy did LiS ever go off a cliff at the end. Ouph. | ||
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yamato77
11589 Posts
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Gahlo
United States35156 Posts
On September 18 2017 10:56 yamato77 wrote: I stand by my statement that Life is Strange is a worthwhile experience, and I also think the ending is one of the better parts of it. The ending is literally the worst part of it, imo. | ||
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AlterKot
Poland7525 Posts
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yamato77
11589 Posts
On September 18 2017 11:02 AlterKot wrote: I really like LiS but I don't know what makes a triumph of writing Ghandi is putting words in my mouth there, I never said that In the blog I wrote about it I quite literally pointed to the dialogue writing as one of its major flaws | ||
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
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Gahlo
United States35156 Posts
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Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
On September 18 2017 10:56 yamato77 wrote: I stand by my statement that Life is Strange is a worthwhile experience, and I also think the ending is one of the better parts of it. I can't play games with multiple endings because then I get mad and/or just look up the endings so I make sure I get the one I like. It did look cool though | ||
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Gahlo
United States35156 Posts
On September 18 2017 12:08 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote: I can't play games with multiple endings because then I get mad and/or just look up the endings so I make sure I get the one I like. It did look cool though The game only has 1 non-retarded ending. | ||
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