CuriousCat Archive Page 153 of 202

  1. Just noticed that curiouscat questiosn on twitter are now replaced with cat+pencil emojis. Not a big fan of that. Any feelings on it?

    Apparently Twitter is enforcing a strict policy that you cannot post someone else's words, so you can only forward the *answer* and not the *question* anymore. It's a silly policy that will hopefully change, but CC's hands are tied.

  2. have you seen Lindsay's Beast Question and if so Where Do You Stand

    The ethical quandary of beastiality is that animals cannot consent, which the Beast obviously can. So I vote "no."

  3. What is something you think has aged well?

    My aunt has owned her same car for 20 years by now and it still feels like it is brand new for example

    I've had the CRT television I use to play Melee for at least 18 years and it still works.

  4. Were the examples from your Ship of Theseus video based on real life events? If so, what were they?

    The Alt-Right Playbook has a strict policy of, when referencing real-world events, leaving out identifying details so that a) people can't dismiss the larger argument by nitpicking tiny details of the event in question, b) no added attention is granted to shitty people who were part of the event, and c) nobody involved gets harassed.

    So sometimes I reference specific things, sometimes I amalgamate a number of things into one example, and sometimes I make a hypothetical that is a common occurrence but doesn't refer to any specific event. And you're not going to know which is which. That is by design.

  5. What series from Smash do you want to see get an Odyssey/BOTW treatment from next

    Sanic?

  6. What do you believe are the contributing factors to so many people these days trying to judge news articles based on their headlines, rather than actually reading the articles?

    Basic metrics on social media show that your impression-to-interaction rate is about 2%, i.e. 98% of people who see link don't click it. This holds for YouTube as well, incidentally - only about 2% of people who see that a video exists actually click play on it.

    This mean that a MUCH LARGER percentage of people are going to consume whatever information is in your headline and/or thumbnail than are going to consume the actual content. We can criticize people for not clicking through, but this is just the nature of the feed - there is too much content to meaningfully interact with more than a small fraction of it.

    So, while it's valid to call people out for repeating what they gleaned from the headline when they would have gotten different information had they read the actual article, with a 2% impression rate, people writing headlines *do* have a responsibility to have highly accurate headlines. If you're saying "you only think that because you read the headline and not the article," I'm going to ask why the headline is giving me a wrong impression. Some of this is explicit clickbait - which is definitely a contributing factor - but much of it is just irresponsibility. Obviously people shouldn't speak authoritatively on a subject having only read the headline and not the article, but, if the headline is accurate, they should only be UNDER-informed, not WRONG.

    Anyway, Parker Molloy has written about how we need to reconceive headlines in the social media age. Worth a look. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/headlines-cant-handle-trumps-lies-so-its-time-rethink-them

  7. Did you ever do a Sport

    I did a soccer for a bit as a kid. not sure anyone ever passed me the ball.

  8. I agree that's a red flag, but Bernie has far fewer red flags than Warren in my opinion, and he has a long history of sticking to his guns where Warren does not. Neither are perfect, but I think Warren seems more likely to, if elected, step into the White House and summarily "forget" to act on most of her platform's policies. That, and her "I don't take big money" rhetoric is demonstrably misleading.

    I'm not angry at you and I'm not saying you should agree.

    in response to What would you say are the valid concerns about Bernie? I’m curious because it seems like I only get positive stuff rolling across my twitter feed and I’m too new to politics to have enough context.

    "I trust Sanders more than Warren" is an extremely dangerous argument.

    Never, ever, ever, ever, ever trust a politician.

  9. What would you say are the valid concerns about Bernie?

    I’m curious because it seems like I only get positive stuff rolling across my twitter feed and I’m too new to politics to have enough context.

    in response to two follow-up questions: 1. Surely you've seen the infighting between Sanders supporters and Warren supporters, both on twitter and from publications like Jacobin. Especially in the wake of the working families party endorsement of Warren. Is this something you're worried about, or is it not as big a problem as a pants-wetting liberal Warren backer might think it is? 2. On a scale from 1-10 how hard are you going to celebrate if Warren defeats Biden to become the nominee, especially after all of this time with Biden as the frontrunner?

    Bernie's "we should be willing to compromise with conservatives about abortion rights" comes to mind.

  11. Why her when

    A. She played herself into not supporting Bernie.

    B. She voted for Trump's bloated military budget

    C. She says she will take big money in the general election

    And so many more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZbJQx5fpcw

    in response to two follow-up questions: 1. Surely you've seen the infighting between Sanders supporters and Warren supporters, both on twitter and from publications like Jacobin. Especially in the wake of the working families party endorsement of Warren. Is this something you're worried about, or is it not as big a problem as a pants-wetting liberal Warren backer might think it is? 2. On a scale from 1-10 how hard are you going to celebrate if Warren defeats Biden to become the nominee, especially after all of this time with Biden as the frontrunner?

    goddammit, do you not see you are exactly what I was talking about?

    this is not a thing you do when you want to actually talk to someone

    this is a thing you do when you want to yell at a stranger for having the Wrong Opinion

    this is why we can't have a fucking real conversation about politics

  12. two follow-up questions:
    1. Surely you've seen the infighting between Sanders supporters and Warren supporters, both on twitter and from publications like Jacobin. Especially in the wake of the working families party endorsement of Warren. Is this something you're worried about, or is it not as big a problem as a pants-wetting liberal Warren backer might think it is?

    2. On a scale from 1-10 how hard are you going to celebrate if Warren defeats Biden to become the nominee, especially after all of this time with Biden as the frontrunner?

    in response to I apologize if you've been asked this already, but what's your take on Elizabeth Warren right now?

    1. yes, of course I'm aware, and it's extremely difficult to talk about because there are some valid concerns about Warren that get blown out of proportion by Sanders stans, and I can't seem to talk about the concerns without giving air to the exaggerations and I can't talk about the exaggerations without appearing to reject the valid concerns, so I've mostly endeavored to shut up until I've done some comprehensive research. I will say that valid concerns about Sanders sure do get swept under the rug.

    2. if it happened today, 10. but Warren may disappoint me between now and then. she's currently showing the best odds of defeating Biden, seeing as she's shown consistent improvement in the polls while his lead has been shaky at times.

  13. I apologize if you've been asked this already, but what's your take on Elizabeth Warren right now?

    I would like to sit down at some point and do a comprehensive compare/contrast between Warren, Sanders, and Harris, and try to separate the policy differences from the gut feelings.

    Having note done that comprehensive research, Warren is, currently, my top pick. I feel Sanders is stronger than her on economic policies while she is stronger than him on social issues, but the gulf between them is wider on social.

    Do not take this as gospel.

  14. Thoughts on Super Meat Boy?

    it was good

  15. I bet that you were NOT the Ian the group was thinking of (and won, when it was discovered that they confused you for Ian hislop over the course of a drunken evening, a fellow who also deals in innuendo, and has made enemies on the right by being a guide to how they work funnily enough) sorry for the lateness of this reply though! As you might guess it wasn't a strong night for memory retention.

    in response to Are you really that guy who hates memes? To settle a bar bet.

    I was gonna give you whatever answer let you win the bet, but you borked your own self on that one.

  16. uh.... Please....sir?

    in response to ... Please?

    sit on it pozzi

  17. Given your comment earlier about how kink shouldn't be as taboo, I thought you'd find this interesting! -rdl

    https://www.out.com/fashion/2019/9/28/alan-crocetti-chastity-cages-paris-fashion-week

    <3

  18. favorite and least favorite cuss

    faves change on the regular but I'm lately fond of shitballs

    least favorite is probably one of the sexist ones

  19. Just a correction to this, The 100 Companies that are referred to as such are universally Fossil Fuel companies, as that's what the initial source, (Carbon Majors Report 2018, I think) was explicitly looking at. So while some consumption changes that might be required, we already have the technology to decarbonize the majority of the consumer side of those sectors, so in the absence of the powerful economic weight that those corporations have to keep widespread rollout of renewable energy and electric vehicles minimized, consumer habits of the type you're describing would be of negligible impact.

    in response to Best internet meme about capitalism and climate issues? https://www.instagram.com/p/B243ma3Ba2w/?igshid=859m9lhj0m6e

    Can you expand on this at all? What would decarbonizing entail? Do these fossil fuel companies simply provide fuel, or do they provide electricity and plastics as well? Is decarbonizing a public works project? What kind of budget would we require to completely decarbonize these sectors?

    Happy to look at links rather than make you answer all my questions on the spot! It just sounds like "decarbonizing is nbd" is a big statement.

  20. Do you consider Joe Biden to be "a threat"? The mood I'm picking up from social media seems to indicate that his "friendly uncle" brand has overstayed its welcome and most people have acknowledged him as a creep (of course, that didn't stop Trump from becoming president, so...)

    The fact that he's a creep should disqualify him from office. Even if he wasn't a creep, he'd still be a terrible direction for the Dems right now.

    We need someone who's going to actually reverse the direction Trump has taken our country, not someone who's sole criterion for being President is "at least I'm not Trump." Biden is a centrist who is not going to fix the economy Trump is ruining, is not going to repair the damage to the environment Trump has accelerated, is not going to restore the good will Trump has expunged overseas, is not going to redistribute the wealth Trump let the 1% amass, is not going to fight for the healthcare Trump has tried to take from us, is not going to defend the Latin Americans and Muslims Trump has prosecuted. And things have gotten so bad in so many areas a swing back to the center will only set us up for another 4-8 years of limp-wristed kowtowing to Republicans in Congress followed by another reactionary President.

    We need to elect an actual fucking progressive.

  21. If Disney gave some black creators license to the Dumbo Crows to reinvent them into whatever they liked would that be cool or gross

    my white opinion is not valuable on this

  23. would you be comfortable with someone writing fanfiction about you?

    I don't know, but this question is certainly uncomfortable

  24. Thank you, Ian. I take it that means you got the email I sent? Good. <3 -rdl

    in response to (continued) during the events that first question described I believe we did mention both you and h-bomb but it still pisses me off that this person went out of their way to tell you two about it, because neither of you have really said much about kink in your videos or online spaces (and the one time I can think of where you did mention it you immediately told the audience to mind their own business in regard to your relationship to it) and telling somebody that they're liked by a "group of dommes" has the potential to really make someone deeply uncomfortable and, as a "pro Domme" I am very adamantly against forcing people into situations where they have to confront kink without their express consent. -rdl

    yes! sorry i forgot to respond. D:

  25. do you feel compelled to keep the first line of your twitter bio the same since you used it as a bit in a video?

    hmm. maybe? I haven't thought of changing it because I think it's funny, and was already in the bio long before I used it in a video.

  26. (continued) during the events that first question described I believe we did mention both you and h-bomb but it still pisses me off that this person went out of their way to tell you two about it, because neither of you have really said much about kink in your videos or online spaces (and the one time I can think of where you did mention it you immediately told the audience to mind their own business in regard to your relationship to it) and telling somebody that they're liked by a "group of dommes" has the potential to really make someone deeply uncomfortable and, as a "pro Domme" I am very adamantly against forcing people into situations where they have to confront kink without their express consent. -rdl

    in response to what's the weirdest email you've ever received in the course of your youtube career?

    This is just me talking about my own preferences and not being prescriptive, but I feel the stories shared were benign enough that even someone with no relationship to kink could be tickled hearing about it. And I don't feel like bdsm should be so taboo that anyone not in the scene can't even hear about it. An anecdote does not require much more engagement than "haha, that's funny."

    But I do appreciate your emphasis on consent, it's an admirable quality in a Random Domme Lady.

  28. I know everybody's already done one of these but I'd really like to see you take down 50 shades

    no

  29. Have you ever read Junji Ito? If so, what’s your take on his stuff.

    I've read that one with the holes.

    He seems cool, I might read Uzumaki one day. Haven't sought it out because I don't generally do horror.

  31. who is your favorite lefttuber?

    Innuendo Studios

  32. What Smash character franchise should be rebooted soonest and who would your dream developer be for it

    let Konjak make a Daisy game

  33. I’ve seen the problem with dishonesty about this stuff in microcosm recently.

    AOC’s statement about the world ending in 12 years has been circulated to a ridiculous extent by the right as an example of how dumb the concept of climate change is. It has put me at an immediate disadvantage in discussions because I have to admit that it is an exaggeration.

    If we are dishonest at all, people will take immediate advantage of it.

    in response to I'd argue that when the fate of our species and civilization is on the line, anything is fair game if it works

    Exactly.

  34. First original game idea you tried to make

    I guess the first was a tiny 3-level jam game I made called Grey. It was a platformer that was had only black and white pixels, so white objects could only be seen in front of black backgrounds and vice versa. So pushing buttons to move objects and make platforms visible, that kinda thing. It was a little janky - if you tried to go back to a room you'd been in, it would trigger the "next room" function, so you could basically skip to the end by going backwards. But it wasn't bad for a first attempt at Game Maker.

  35. I'd argue that when the fate of our species and civilization is on the line, anything is fair game if it works

    in response to True, but framing it simplistically as "a bunch of corporations" who need to change, rather than the public, is a framing that a lot of people are going to be a lot more receptive to, particularly those who are opposed to climate change because they want to think "the libs want to take our straws." If we instead tell them, "we don't want to take *your* straws, we want to take the straws of the elite," then that takes away the framing in which *they* feel threatened and feel framed as responsible and "being punished" by having their stuff taken away, and gives them something they might be able to more easily get behind-- "it's not your fault, we don't want to take your stuff, it's THIS group's fault, we want to take THEIR stuff, and we want your help fighting them"

    I'm going to be really blunt about this:

    If you depend on the large majority of people trying to fix the problem not understanding what the problem is, they're not going to fix it properly.

    We are dealing with one of the hugest dilemma's humanity has ever faced, and we're going to need as many people as humanly possible working to the best of their abilities on it. People who don't understand the problem are going to make things worse. Messaging that relies on ignorance of the problem is the most easily hijacked by bad actors. People who understand the issue are harder to lie to. The Right will always profit off of ignorance; we cannot outplay them on that, it's their home turf. We CAN outplay them with information.

    One of the Left's greatest strengths is that both facts and morality are on our side and people keep telling me we should give them up.

  36. Are you really that guy who hates memes?
    To settle a bar bet.

    which way did you bet?

  37. True, but framing it simplistically as "a bunch of corporations" who need to change, rather than the public, is a framing that a lot of people are going to be a lot more receptive to, particularly those who are opposed to climate change because they want to think "the libs want to take our straws." If we instead tell them, "we don't want to take *your* straws, we want to take the straws of the elite," then that takes away the framing in which *they* feel threatened and feel framed as responsible and "being punished" by having their stuff taken away, and gives them something they might be able to more easily get behind-- "it's not your fault, we don't want to take your stuff, it's THIS group's fault, we want to take THEIR stuff, and we want your help fighting them"

    in response to but, the thing is our personal habits are dictated by those 100 corporations, so like...

    maybe trying to misrepresent our way into fixing the climate is a bad long-term strategy

  38. The "100 companies" framing is a direct counter to the idea that individual action alone is the only driver of the market (and therefore those 100 companies actions) is the point.
    Stopping those 100 companies will have large scale effects sure, but personal actions won't, that is why you would do it! This is also a part of the brand new philosophytube in fact (that the idea of 'personal responsibility' can end with harm being caused but with no clear agency or intent on the part of anyone, and that collective harm is possible in a way you can't attribute to an individual)

    in response to but, the thing is our personal habits are dictated by those 100 corporations, so like...

    no shit

  39. So both sides... all sides should do their job to stop the rot, isn't that right?

    in response to but, the thing is our personal habits are dictated by those 100 corporations, so like...

    Kind of. More like "we'll need to force the corporations to do their part," but, yeah, everyone is going to carry that weight. Nothing gets better without corporate reform, but that's going to affect us all.

  40. so who exactly fills the criteria of "politician"? I can understand thinking an actor probably isn't qualified, but say like... a truck driver, for instance?

    https://twitter.com/joshua4congress

    If he's qualified, then who else is? Do they need experience? Political science education? A bare minimum understanding of how government and civics work?

    If he isn't qualified, then...

    idk, I'm not trying to like, catch you out or whatever, I'm just genuinely curious, especially since it seems like a lot of people's attitude is, "if Trump can be president, then now the bar's been lowered so much that *anyone* can run for office and possibly win"

    in response to Would you vote Keanu Reeves for President?

    I don't fuckin know, dude. I'm glad people with no political experience are running for Congress; I love AOC like every young lefty. I generally feel like the more experience you have working in politics the better I'm going to feel about being President. That is not a hard and fast rule - if someone seems to know their shit and have good policies, I'm not going to hold that line.

    Seeing as we started by talking about Keanu Reeves, this is all pretty moot.

  41. if there was an afterlife, would capitalism ruin it?

    that's a big if

  42. what's the weirdest email you've ever received in the course of your youtube career?

    Definitely the one where a pro domme said that she had to throw some Alt-Right subs out of her dungeon because all the dommes were fans of my work. And then I mentioned this on Curious Cat and multiple people claimed to have seen similar things in different cities.

    It was weird, and amazing.

  43. but, the thing is our personal habits are dictated by those 100 corporations, so like...

    in response to Best internet meme about capitalism and climate issues? https://www.instagram.com/p/B243ma3Ba2w/?igshid=859m9lhj0m6e

    yes, but doing without the conveniences those corporations provide is going to be a huge shift for us

    like, it's necessary, but this framing where a bunch of corporations change their behaviors instead of the public is nonsense. dealing with climate change is going to change our lives drastically. we need to be prepared for that.

  44. That's what's also happened to "virtue signalling", which is too bad, because there are certain cases where it absolutely is appropriate *coughGlinnercough*.

    in response to Would you say a character being a mary sue is ever a valid criticism?

    Don't even get me started on how we can't talk about cancel culture anymore because shitty comics ruined it.

  45. Best internet meme about capitalism and climate issues?

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B243ma3Ba2w/?igshid=859m9lhj0m6e

    Enh. People have pointed out that "we don't need to change our personal habits, these 100 corporations do" is a false dichotomy: those 100 corporations are causing that much pollution in the process of selling products, i.e. to change their habits they would probably stop producing things like plastic straws. There's no version of dealing with climate change where our habits of consumption don't change drastically.

    So I agree with the point this meme is making but can't give it the title of Best Meme because it doesn't acknowledge that nuance.

  46. Would you vote Keanu Reeves for President?

    I would rather we vote for politicians.

  47. Wait, the game where you can sniff a fourteen-year-old girl's panties?

    in response to What's your take on Hideo Kojima overall?

    I played the Sega CD version which took out the nudity and panty-sniffing.

    Also I'm not saying it was good.

  48. What's your take on Hideo Kojima overall?

    in response to what's your take on death stranding?

    The only Kojima game I've played is Snatcher.

  49. the trailers? music? etc

    in response to what's your take on death stranding?

    I liked when it looked like a bunch of bugfuck nonsense and the more it starts to look like a real game the less interested I am.

  51. what's your take on death stranding?

    I don't know why everyone needs to have a take on Death Stranding before it comes out.

  52. Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of not researching or anything, it's more that I myself feel I don't spend enough time reading up on and looking into the subjects of my own videos because I feel under constant pressure to get the next one out as fast as I can, and I was wondering if this was a feeling someone could relate to.

    I guess the question I *should* be asking is something more like "how can I make more time for researching, like you do"

    in response to Do you ever worry that you are spending too much time making videos about the things you already know and not enough time learning about new things?

    Um. I slip a lot of deadlines. So... that's one way.

  53. I've seen this sentiment regurgitate by well-meaning liberals quite a few times, and it's *incredibly* frustrating. I don't suppose you have any arguments to convince them otherwise?

    in response to Sometimes right-wingers say stuff like 'if you try to deplatform/silence them it will make people seek them out' and sometimes right-wingers say 'just ignore them'. In your opinion in what kind of situations would deplatforming/silencing be the best option and when will Streisand effect occur?

    Link 'em to Casey's Scary Terry thread: https://twitter.com/CaseyExplosion/status/954379360970125313

  54. Do you think that you would like more to live in a big house with a small garden or do you think that you would like more to live in a small house with a big garden?

    the second one

  55. Would you say a character being a mary sue is ever a valid criticism?

    In a vacuum, sure, but the term is kind of ruined by years of bad faith use. People should probably find different ways of saying "this character is perfect to the point of being unrealistic." Which, of course, isn't always a problem.

  56. One way I've been trying to compensate for YouTube not promoting my channel is by spending a good chunk of time on twitter, twitch, discord and other platforms interacting with and/or replying to folks with larger sub counts than myself, in the hopes of building notoriety, such that people might see my name on twitter or reddit or wherever replying to some other breadtuber and then maybe later see a video I made and be like "oh hey, I remember this person from that one time they said a funny thing in response to x breadtuber, let's see what else they get up to"

    in response to Hi! In a similar situation here, but with my platform (online journalism) I try my best to platform and give additional time to writers from diverse backgrounds, members of vulnerable groups, to offset systemic baggage in a tiny way. Do you ever do this? Again, internet journalism is more portable than video essays so understand if not!

    Good luck!

  57. Do you ever worry that you are spending too much time making videos about the things you already know and not enough time learning about new things?

    If I already knew everything I put in my videos they would come out a lot faster. One reason I make videos is to compel myself to learn about a subject before talking about it. I am researching constantly. I don't know what gave you the idea I wasn't.

  58. Sometimes right-wingers say stuff like 'if you try to deplatform/silence them it will make people seek them out' and sometimes right-wingers say 'just ignore them'. In your opinion in what kind of situations would deplatforming/silencing be the best option and when will Streisand effect occur?

    Right-wingers saying "don't do this to us, it won't work" is a pretty good indication that it will.

  59. In the world of George Orwell's 1984, do you think The Party would do anything about climate change?

    The world of 1984 is one where industry has flatlined and consumption is severely limited by the war. I also get the sense the population is sparser, possibly also because of the war. So, no, they don't have to do anything, because the nature of their fascism kind of incidentally deals with climate change.

  60. Should we expect anything, idk, noteworthy coming from Nancy Pelosi's impeachment inquiry? I feel like this will just be the Mueller report again, with a lot of buzz and result in nothing of consequence.

    The fact that it's happening at all matters, regardless of what comes out of it. I feel like there's a lot of ways things could turn out and a lot of people making confident predictions before things have begun. So I'm taking a "let's see where this goes" attitude and trying not to have expectations one way or the other.

  62. In the video about the origins of conservatism you mention a sentence that sort of seems to work like a basis for conservative thought: “Humans are innately unequal and society flourishes when power is doled out to the deserving.”

    Do you think there’s a similar way of summarizing the basis of democratic thought? Something like “All humans deserve the same treatment/opportunities/power in their society?”

    "power derives from the consent of the governed" is pretty succinct

  63. You've said in the past that you are opposed to libertarianism. Does this only extend to right wing libertarian ideologies, like the free market and anarcho-capitalism, or does this mean that you are also opposed to left-wing libertarian ideologies such as anarchism?

    I don't know enough about the nuances of anarchism and left-libertarianism to answer. I know that, generally, when we say "libertarian" we are referring to the strain of conservatism that I think is garbage. I consider (most) anarchists my allies.

  64. Just out of interest, what's your read of the ending of Eternal Sunshine? A chance to make it work, or doomed to make the same mistakes all over again?

    in response to can you imagine eternal sunshine of the spotless mind as a different or similar film if it was written and directed by david lynch, instead of being directed by michel gondry and written by charlie kaufman? * both these guys owe their careers, directing style and writing influences to David Lynch and the style (especially charlie's) is apparent if you compare mulholland drive and eternal sunshine/being john malkovich, when it's about stuff related inside someone's head

    To me, the ending is a radical acceptance of heartbreak. Joel and Clem don't know if it's going to work out, and have every reason to believe it won't, and decide to try anyway, even knowing how devastated they were last time. Like, it's not even "maybe it won't happen this time" but "even if it does, it's worth it."

    So, yeah. They don't know and neither do I and I think that's the point.

  65. Hi! In a similar situation here, but with my platform (online journalism) I try my best to platform and give additional time to writers from diverse backgrounds, members of vulnerable groups, to offset systemic baggage in a tiny way. Do you ever do this? Again, internet journalism is more portable than video essays so understand if not!

    in response to do you ever get curiouscats from other YouTubers or content creators trying to plug their work? If so, how do you feel about people trying to do that?

    Yeah, wherever I can, I do. There was a video a while back where someone did a rundown of dozens and dozens of up-and-coming BreadTubers with small sub counts, with special emphasis on women and people of color, and I told my Twitter audience to stop whatever they were doing and watch it immediately. It's still hard to find these folks in the first place, since The Algorithm doesn't really promote smaller channels, but when I come across it or someone sends it to me, I make extra effort to engage with it if it's someone less privileged than me.

  66. I think a person with a moderately succesful leftist youtube channel said in a video that one of the ways they built their channel's audience was by following people on twitter that they thought would like their content.

    Do you think this could be a good way for people to build a following on twitter and maybe support their artistic endeavors? I've been quite hesitant to follow a lot of people but I'm thinking of making a specifically creative account for this purpose. What do you think?

    Twitter's a big place, and most of the people you follow won't notice that you've followed them. But if you want to be up on what they're doing, yeah, it's good to follow people you respect. And, hey, if you have some positive interactions with them they make take note of you. Just... don't force it, you know?

  67. Do you think there is value in “find and replace” allegories?

    What I mean is stories like District 9 or Maus that are very obviously based on real events with some fantasy element added. Where District 9 is apartheid but aliens and Maus is the holocaust but mice.

    My general policy about allegory and metaphor when it comes to deeply political and/or racialized issues, as it is with Maus and District 9, is that the allegory is justified if and only if it adds something to the narrative. In a film like Avatar, the "aliens as natives" metaphor doesn't add anything; in fact, portraying the difference between whites and Native Americans as a literal gulf between species is insulting (and of course whites are represented by the humans), the mishmash of cultures and vague spiritualism plays into a bunch of Noble Savage stereotypes, and Sully becoming the head Na'vi in a matter of months is some awful White Savior bullshit. What the allegory is trying to communicate would have been communicated better in a movie with actual Native Americans, and using a metaphor softens the message to make it more palatable to a presumed white audience.

    Maus, on the other hand, uses its metaphor to make commentary on the different groups involved in the war. The Jewish population are mice, the Germans are cats, and that's a blunt metaphor. But also the Polish collaborators are pigs and the Americans dogs. This makes explicit what their relationships are to the Nazis. It also softly rejects the Nazi framing that Jewish and German people are different races by portraying each culture as a different animal - Jewish mice are different from German cats, but no more than the Germans are different from American dogs.

    District 9 is a bit more muddled. There isn't really a 1-to-1 allegory for what happens to Wikus, but it at least explores some notions of privilege, and how, should one's privilege leave them, they will do almost anything to get it back; that, unlike in Avatar, being marginalized fucking sucks. I don't think it entirely escapes the shittiness of portraying the disadvantaged as literally inhuman, but it at least says SOMETHING with the metaphor.

    Allegory is useful when it reveals something that is hard to talk about in literal terms. But it's often used just because directors like aliens and want to get points for grafting a clumsy metaphor onto them.

  68. Why?

    in response to Why is your taste in movies so bad?

    it's a mild insult pretending to be a question

    the only reason to write it is you want to get some animosity of your chest

    I hope op enjoyed it because that's the only thing it was meant to accomplish

  69. can you imagine eternal sunshine of the spotless mind as a different or similar film if it was written and directed by david lynch, instead of being directed by michel gondry and written by charlie kaufman?

    * both these guys owe their careers, directing style and writing influences to David Lynch and the style (especially charlie's) is apparent if you compare mulholland drive and eternal sunshine/being john malkovich, when it's about stuff related inside someone's head

    I would probably hate it then.

    I find I like artists who are influenced by Lynch a lot more than I like Lynch.

  70. Why is your taste in movies so bad?

    I hope it felt real good writing this question.

  71. did you hear about proud boy failson Zac Staggs, who turned up to a climate strike protest in black bloc kit by himself and got outed by teens?
    Anyway did you ever consider an alt-right playbook about false flags/infiltration/sockpuppeting of the left done by alt-right folk trying to start a fight on their terms?

    I talk about one type of infiltration in the next video, but I don't have plans to address the subject at large. Though I probably should.

  72. do you ever get curiouscats from other YouTubers or content creators trying to plug their work? If so, how do you feel about people trying to do that?

    I get tweets and sometimes emails, but not CC's.

    I'm never quite sure how to feel in those moments. I know what it's like to be starting out, and I don't judge anyone for requesting a plug; we all gotta hustle. At the same time, it's someone asking, in essence, "do a colleague a solid," and... I don't know them. It feels weird to be instrumentalized. And I don't know their work, I don't know their politics; there are a lot of shitheads on YouTube, and some of them like me, so it's not unreasonable that one might ask me for a favor. And I have a responsibility to my audience not to plug someone's work if it's bigoted or ignorant. Like, my recommendation is only valuable because people trust me. So do I watch a decent chunk of someone's stuff to see if I wanna recommend them? That's a lot of effort to do a favor to someone I don't know, especially when video essays keep getting longer and longer.

    I usually end up wishing them luck and say I'll see if I have time, and that I'll plug them if I like what I see. I've taken the time here and there and shared what I've enjoyed, but I can't keep on top of all of it and the moment it feels like watching other people's videos has become part of my job I give up.

  73. Why do you evoke such a sense of nostalgia in me? I am straight, white, male, and cis, but I'm having nostalgia pulled from a.. lefty? Anyway you have a comforting voice, Mr. Danskin!

    I probably sound like your dad.

  74. Is eating pussy a form of ethical consumption under capitalism?

    Most cunnilingus is not a capitalist exchange.

Anon commented:
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