CuriousCat Archive Page 174 of 202

  1. They say money can't buy happiness, but it's better to cry inside a car than on a bike/bicycle, especially when it rains...

    Is that right?

    money can't by happiness, it can only remove stress

  2. Was there actually a chance that when you researched Reaganomics you would have found that it good? Be honest now.

    I didn't research it to find out IF it was bad, I researched to understand WHY it was bad.

  3. Do you think Trump will every spend a day inside of a prison cell?

    I imagine not, but just want to hear your thoughts.

    I don't predict the future. I would certainly like to make that happen.

  4. Hey! Might be weird to get a question like this, and even though I love your political stuff, my two favourite vids might be the one on Kenny and the other on Sonic:

    First Q:
    How do you feel about Sonic right now? Are you in a state of dissillusionment, are you (like me) still clinging on to the games you think are good or are you somewhere else entirely?

    Second Q:
    You got any more gaming video essays in the works?

    I stopped having expectations for Sonic a while ago. I am pleased when something good like Mania comes along, and that's about all the feelings I have about it anymore.

    I have two more Alt-Right Playbooks to put out before I take a break and do something less political, but I'm *planning* to do something on games then. We'll see if I'm still excited about my frontrunning idea when the time comes.

  5. “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary” who said that quote?

    my mom used to say that as she rocked me to sleep

  6. Um, how do I talk to my white friends about my experiences? I'm a Black woman who sometimes gets tired of talking to them about social issues. Usually it ends with me trying to explain to them that I think the real problems are how exploitive i think the current status quo is and capitalism in general, but they seem to just dismiss me rather than try to engage with me.

    I don't actually know, I'm afraid. All the awakenings I had around race and class came largely on my own, and in my own time. I kept reading and learning and eventually understanding things differently from how I did when I was younger. I hate to admit that some of the most impactful words I heard about race came from white allies, not because they were better phrased but because I clearly felt less threatened by them coming from white people. I was raised by pretty liberal parents, so I haven't had a lot of intensely ignorant moments with POC, but I've definitely had milder ones, and there are cases where it took me YEARS to realize I was in the wrong.

    So, I can tell you the conversations your having now are probably planting seeds that may sprout in the future when they've heard similar experiences and grown more as people, but I don't know how to make that growth happen any faster, and I can't promise it'll happen at all. So I guess it's a question of how much you're willing to put up with and for how long.

  7. What ARE your thoughts on Reaganomics, and will they find their way into a video at some point?

    Bonus Q: do you ever find yourself wanting to push out faster videos, akin to footnotes, that require less prep and come from information you've already gathered?

    in response to Hey Mr Studios. One of the most common critiques I see in your comments is that your Why Are You So Angry? series is as a broad overview that relies very heavily on strawmanning. Angry Jack is not a real person, but you do include quotes from real people tweeting shit at internet famous people a lot more in the earlier videos than you do today, and then sort of extrapolate from that. I love your content, but I became politically 'aware' (or disaware) through watching videos like Sargon's, and it's still really hard for me to shake off criticisms without getting some outside feedback. I don't know how common that is. I will listen to an argument, think "Damn that's well-reasoned", and then change my mind when I see someone else charismatically dismantle it. For that reason I willing opt out of content which doesn't seem to engender empathy or seems overly, shoutily negative. I try to educate myself but I'm just not... intelligent enough to do so? So I suppose there are two questions here. 1. How do I more adequately prepare myself to critically consume what people are saying? I can generally tell the good eggs from the bad eggs, especially by looking at their Twitter followers usually, but these are shorthands, cheats, not really evaluating their content on its own. 2. Could you tackle the 'strawman' argument I see lobbed at your videos? The reason I don't think you're strawmanning is because you go into rigorous detail, and it's really not hard to work out that the populist/alt-right YouTubers are just hate-filled assholes. But I'd be really interested to hear your more professional (no doubt) perspective. Sorry if any of this comes across as rude. Thanks for operating this service. I wish more YouTubers did.

    Reaganomics is bad, and I already know what the opening paragraph of a video about Reagan would be, but I haven't decided whether I'll actually do one.

    Bonus A: oh god yes.

  8. What do you think about Reaganomics?

    it bad

  9. Hey Mr Studios.

    One of the most common critiques I see in your comments is that your Why Are You So Angry? series is as a broad overview that relies very heavily on strawmanning.

    Angry Jack is not a real person, but you do include quotes from real people tweeting shit at internet famous people a lot more in the earlier videos than you do today, and then sort of extrapolate from that.

    I love your content, but I became politically 'aware' (or disaware) through watching videos like Sargon's, and it's still really hard for me to shake off criticisms without getting some outside feedback. I don't know how common that is. I will listen to an argument, think "Damn that's well-reasoned", and then change my mind when I see someone else charismatically dismantle it.

    For that reason I willing opt out of content which doesn't seem to engender empathy or seems overly, shoutily negative.

    I try to educate myself but I'm just not... intelligent enough to do so? So I suppose there are two questions here.

    1. How do I more adequately prepare myself to critically consume what people are saying? I can generally tell the good eggs from the bad eggs, especially by looking at their Twitter followers usually, but these are shorthands, cheats, not really evaluating their content on its own.

    2. Could you tackle the 'strawman' argument I see lobbed at your videos? The reason I don't think you're strawmanning is because you go into rigorous detail, and it's really not hard to work out that the populist/alt-right YouTubers are just hate-filled assholes. But I'd be really interested to hear your more professional (no doubt) perspective.

    Sorry if any of this comes across as rude. Thanks for operating this service. I wish more YouTubers did.

    Well, I can answer both questions at the same time, but it may sound kind of blunt. Please understand I'm not saying this as a diss.

    If you feel even partially persuaded by the claim that my videos are strawmanning, you may be fuzzy on what "strawman" means.

    This is understandable, because a lot of debate terminology is misused by folks on the internet, most pervasively and maliciously by the Right, but out of ignorance by the whole political spectrum. (Don't get me started on how trolls misuse "cherry-picking.") In a nutshell: A strawman argument is when you attack something that is sort of loosely based on something your opponent said, but is not their actual argument. Someone criticizes you for a bigoted joke and you go on a rant about the sanctity of jokes and the need for comics to speak about sensitive topics. You are, by implication, claiming that the critic is against jokes and against discussing difficult subjects, when they are actually talking about your *specific* joke and how it fails to discuss its topic ethically.

    In other words: Using shorthand, metaphor, or allusion is not ipso facto strawmanning. To be a strawman, Angry Jack would have to be inaccurate. Over the course of the series, I showed dozens of screenshots and linked over 50 resources showing how accurate Jack was.

    People yelling "strawman" at WAYSA are really saying "show your receipts." But it's a fake plea. What was Sargon's response to my enormous list of links? "Pfft, you can't trust We Hunted the Mammoth or Jezebel." If I don't cite sources, it's strawman. If do cite sources, they're invalid. If my sources are indisputable, they will do the kinds of "two sentences in an article on a different subject counts as positive coverage of Depression Quest" hairsplitting about the applicability of the sources.

    They will do *anything* not to address my core argument: Here is a thing that's happening, there is tons of evidence that it's happening, and here is why it happens. They either have no response, or can't give a response without revealing parts of their ideology that they don't want to admit publicly, so they resort to claiming my argument is invalid on technicalities.

    Whenever I feel that multiple sides of an argument sound defensible and I can't tell what's right, I figure I must not understand the subject well enough. And, if it's important to me, I research it on my own, and stop listening to other people's takes on it until I do. This is why I spent an afternoon researching Reaganomics several years ago, and why I still don't weigh in on Israel or socialist revolutions. Sargon and his ilk depend on your ignorance around complex subjects, that you will take their word as they mislead you, either intentionally or because they haven't done the research either and don't care.

    So I'd recommend doing some homework. There's no such thing as an unbiased source, but there are sources significantly *less* biased than YouTube opinion videos.

  10. If you knew that a prominent and beloved youtube channel, one best known for movie reviews (particularly Star Wars), was run by a bigot and alt-right sympathizer, would you go public with that knowledge?

    I don't know, fam, there are a lot of variables to weigh. How damaging is this person? How much threat do they pose to you if you go public? What are the odds that going public will decrease their platform, and what are the odds that it will make them *more* destructive?

    My default is usually, yes, shine lights on people. But there are dozens and dozens of extenuating circumstances where that is dangerous or counter-productive. Maybe leak info to journalists to keep yourself protected, or post something anonymously, or find other people with similar knowledge so you have a unified front when you go public.

    There is no universal answer to this question. Your safety matters, and the impact it will have matters. I can't speak to either, so I can't give you a definitive answer.

  11. How bad are your expectations on how the world, particularly developed countries, are going to deal with the incoming irreversibility and catastrophe of climate change?

    I have no specific expectations. How we respond is not set in stone. It will depend a lot on what happens between now and then.

  12. So you're saying that Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (and the Sherlock special episode, The Abominable Bride) got way too meta that they forgot to tell a coherent story?

    Which begs the question, is it alright to be meta or not? Is it possible to use meta-fictional elements while at the same time telling a coherent story? Any examples?

    Of course it's alright to be meta. I love meta. Have you *seen* my channel? But meta alone will not make a work good. It's like having a plate of salt for dinner.

    I made an entire video on The Beginner's Guide that discusses its intense metatextuality while also having a coherent narrative and deep themes that require the meta tomfoolery but cannot be reduced to them.

  13. Do you think Bandersnatch not having a cohesive story or satisfying or deeper ending is part of it's meta-commentary?
    Like, the only time stefan makes a "good" game is when we destroy his life. Do you think this is the writers/developers of Bandersnatch saying "we couldn't make a satisfying story this way without absolutely losing it?

    No, I suspect Charlie Brooker thinks he's terribly clever.

  14. The interpretation I've heard is not so much that Fletcher wants to make people into great artists, but that he wants to use people as tools to bring great art into the world (and also that approaching art in this way is inherently psychopathic).

    in response to i know i'm super late to the party, but have you seen whiplash? i've always avoided it cus the general consensus seemed "wow that abusive asshole SURE is a genius! wowowow he's awful but wow what an ARTIST" and i'm too lazy to spend 2 hours of my life to go through that, even for pretty pictures.

    You can read it that way, but it doesn't change the fact that the movie's ending argues that his abuse *works*, which is what I take major issue with. Fletcher may tell himself that he's just treating people this way to produce great art, but, in real life, he's just a dickhead abusing his authority, and it's fucked up to imply it would turn anyone into a better musician.

  15. I've noticed you watch a lot of movies. Do you watch TV as well? What do you think of the "Golden Age of TV"?

    I don't watch a lot of TV, no. If a movie is mediocre, whatever, it's over in 2 hours. I hate the feeling of a show being mediocre but still kinda wondering what happens next, and either giving up on any sense of closure or just watching episode after episode of something I don't like very much. So I tend not to watch a show unless I think I'll really, really like it.

  16. I'm a liberal who has seen all of your work. What's your main reasons capitalism is bad + do you have any resources that make your arguments?

    I can't summarize what's wrong with capitalism within Curious Cat's character limit, but I gave my resources here: https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/754354635

  17. The same applies to Aronofsky's Black Swan?

    in response to i know i'm super late to the party, but have you seen whiplash? i've always avoided it cus the general consensus seemed "wow that abusive asshole SURE is a genius! wowowow he's awful but wow what an ARTIST" and i'm too lazy to spend 2 hours of my life to go through that, even for pretty pictures.

    Enh, no. Similar drives, but a) Portman's character is the primary driver of her suffering, moreso than her mom or the director, b) both mom and director are horrified rather than respectful by what she becomes in the process, and c) the self-destruction in the name of artistic perfection is actively engaged with.

    It's a movie that descends into horror. There is nothing aspirational about Black Swan.

  18. what do you personally think of the auteur theory? Is it compulsory for anyone interested in creating content or making films develop some sort of style/personality?

    Auteur theory never argued developing a unique style was compulsory, it just put labels on people who did.

    At this point, auteur theory has been elevated, rejected, defended, and deconstructed to the degree that I just don't care anymore.

  19. i know i'm super late to the party, but have you seen whiplash? i've always avoided it cus the general consensus seemed "wow that abusive asshole SURE is a genius! wowowow he's awful but wow what an ARTIST" and i'm too lazy to spend 2 hours of my life to go through that, even for pretty pictures.

    Yeah, I've seen it, and I kind of really like it? But I have *so many* problems with it.

    It is, ultimately, arguing that the person abusing you just wants you to be your best self, and if you finally become what he wants you to be you'll earn his respect, and it will indeed turn you into the artist you want to be. Which is a load of horseshit. I've heard some people argue that this is not a happy ending - that becoming the artist you want to be by this method is going to ruin your life. But that interpretation still depends on accepting that Fletcher's motive is to make people great artists and that this works at all. So it's horseshit either way.

    Still a compulsively watchable movie with incredible direction, though.

  20. Well that *payoff* was necessary to show that vengeance is meaningless as you can see what happened to the character Woo-jin Lee in the end

    in response to why not the WHOLE movie of 2003?

    That doesn't actually answer the question.

    Also, like... a decades-long plot to kidnap a man and then manipulate him into falling in love with and fucking his own daughter because he caught you fucking your sister one time, and when he finds out he cuts off his tongue and uses magic to erase his memory, is THE ONLY WAY to show that vengeance is meaningless?

    Really?

  21. You reckon that's the reason why Park Chan Wook decided to make The Handmaiden?

    Because he felt bad in a way on how the female character was wrote?

    in response to why not the WHOLE movie of 2003?

    He is on record as saying he was shitty about women in his movies and had a kind of awakening. I dunno if that's *why* he made The Handmaiden, but it's likely the kind of thinking that drew him to the story.

  22. why not the WHOLE movie of 2003?

    in response to Oldboy (2003) or Oldboy (2013)?

    Did *you* enjoy that payoff?

  23. Assuming for a moment in 2020 trump will be defeating and the democrats keep majority in the house, what would be the long lasting damage from the trump years?

    Trump has staffed tons of judges, not just to the Supreme Court, because Republicans held the seats vacant during the Obama years. I think it's more judges than any President in history. Those will long outlive his Presidency.

  24. Oldboy (2003) or Oldboy (2013)?

    I didn't watch 2013 and only liked the first half of 2003.

  25. Why is enjoying immoral media wrong? Like... As long as no one is being hurt by the consumption of the media, and no immoral groups benefit financially or otherwise.

    in response to You said progressives should understand everything is problematic + draw a line somewhere + recognise if other peoples lines are different. What's wrong with not personally having a line as to what I'll tolerate if I respect other people's?

    This conversation started with me saying it's OK to enjoy problematic media, I'm just saying, if there is nothing that crosses a line for you, don't be surprised if people give you the side eye.

  26. All faves are problematic but some faves are less problematic than others wouldn't you agree? For example, a movie made with Marxists-Leninist ideals isn't going to be as problematic as a movie made with Nazi ideals of racial purity.

    Can you tell me your fav that is the least problematic please?

    in response to Favorite movie that you know is problematic? Scott Pilgrim vs. the World just plain makes me happy, and I find it endlessly re-watchable, but I've definitely become a whole lot more aware of the more insensitive elements (Patel's dance sequence and Roxy, among other things).

    Fury Road.

  27. You said progressives should understand everything is problematic + draw a line somewhere + recognise if other peoples lines are different. What's wrong with not personally having a line as to what I'll tolerate if I respect other people's?

    Where you draw your line is an expression of your morals.

    If you never draw a line, one might suspect you don't have morals.

  28. Did you hear cuphead is on mac you should try it.

    enh

  29. Favorite movie that you know is problematic?
    Scott Pilgrim vs. the World just plain makes me happy, and I find it endlessly re-watchable, but I've definitely become a whole lot more aware of the more insensitive elements (Patel's dance sequence and Roxy, among other things).

    All faves are problematic. Brick is one of my favorite movies, but the plot hinges on a woman in the fridge. I adore Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but it makes light of abuse and has a bunch of gay panic jokes and does some disservice to it's female lead in the last act. I've already commented on Fury Road's soft ableism and overwhelming whiteness.

    We live in imperfect times and we make imperfect movies. So long as you don't ignore a movie's failings, it's OK to love it in spite of them.

  30. Americans would consider it more racist to call Obama mixed than calling him black, right?

    I mean, it would super depend on context. Obama *is* mixed, and many Americans have talked about that in calm and ethical ways. If people were to call him mixed as a way of denying that he is Black, that would be screwed up, and that's probably the only reason Fox News would ever do it.

  31. This goes to some issues of gender, but not of fictional ones: do you think the "punch Nazis" advice includes female Nazis? Like, the advice is not to hit women, and to an extent it's a useful mechanism in place, and to another it's just another reflection of how unbalanced society is

    But I'm just curious on where you land on men punching female Nazis

    There are a lot more female antifascists than they are female Nazis, so we can just have women punch women and men and women punch men and we won't have any shortage of fists.

  32. What did you think of it?

    in response to Have you seen this movie Upgrade starring Logan Marshall Green?

    It was quite good!

    I mean, it does a lot of tropey bullshit that action movies do, like fridging the girlfriend early and having a trite twist at the end, and I can't say it did much interesting worldbuilding with its sci-fi premise. But, purely on the basis of craft, it was really well done. Found a novel way to shoot action and the lighting was really pretty.

  33. Have you seen this movie Upgrade starring Logan Marshall Green?

    yes, I used some clips from it for the Fury Road series

  34. Is there anything that's uniquely evil about Trump? From what I can see all his politics is just what past Repub Presidents did. Even the "emboldens far-right/white nationalist domestic terrorists" aspect isn't new, that spiked under Bush, too.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBJIkp7qIg

  35. I feel like this was already asked but... who are the 12 people more pretentious than you, then?

    yeah, it's been asked a bunch, don't cops have better ways to spend their time?

  36. Why shouldn't you? Politics is very global today, you have a global audience, and there are interesting things to talk about outside the us.

    in response to which countries you feel you can weigh in on beside the US?

    A country's politics are huge and complex and it takes a lot of study to speak with confidence. I've lived in the US for 35 years and been studying conservatism for the past two, and there are still enormous gaps in my knowledge base. I question what of substance I could possibly add to the discourse around a country I've barely researched and never lived in, especially when there are tons of smart people already doing that commentary.

    Please understand, I have a large-ish platform, which confers some responsibility on me. The fact that I don't weigh in on global politics doesn't mean I don't have opinions on it, it's that speaking out of ignorance is a lot more damaging when you have 140,000 subscribers than when you're just talking with friends at the New Year's party. If I haven't researched an area of politics, I'm not going to talk about it, because I don't want to misinform my audience.

  37. Another anon asker made this question and I thought it was a fun one. If you were a fighting game character what would your move set and playstyle be like? Your choice whether it’s a traditional fighter like SF or a platform fighter like Smash.

    Lion from Virtua Fighter

  38. I just started making videos and I'm feeling my confidence as a writer waning a little bit. I'm just going to power through it and write the damn thing, but what is your writing process like? Do you ever hit the wall of creative self-loathing? How do you handle that?

    Yes, I do often hit that wall and despise everything I spent an entire day writing, but I have a couple superpowers that it sounds like a lot of writers don't have:

    1) when it comes together, I genuinely like my own writing
    2) even when I don't feel like a good writer, I know I'm a good editor

    So I can usually power through a shitty draft and trust that I can whip it into shape on revision, because I'm good at fixing what's broken. And I know that, when I'm done tinkering with it, I will probably be proud of the result.

    Being able to power through the shitty draft and trust it'll be good when I'm done with it is a skill I took a looooooooong time to cultivate. I spent a lot of my 20s hating those shitty drafts so much that I couldn't finish them, and therefore couldn't revise them. I also had the general problem in my 20s of just not knowing what to say, and over-focusing on finding unique ways to say trite things. Both of those just got better as I got older. The more I read and thought about stuff, the more ideas I had that I genuinely wanted to express, and the excitement about the idea is what pulled me through the shitty draft.

    So if your problem is just hating the prose, power through. Writing is noncommittal, nothing you put down can't be changed. If you need it, read Anne Lamott on first drafts: https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%20Drafts.pdf

    If your problem is that you're not as excited about the *subject* as you'd like to be, the only solution is to keep reading, keep thinking, keep growing as a human, and maybe show your work-in-progress to someone you trust who can ask you deep and difficult questions about what you're trying to say. That kind of critique is hard to get through, but it almost always makes you a better writer.

  39. which countries you feel you can weigh in on beside the US?

    Why do I need to?

  40. Is politics ACTUALLY meant to be about reaching out to people and treating them as real human beings with desires, fears & longings & NOT as a tool for exploitation & manipulation to springboard to places to you want to get?

    Politics is how people operate within large systems. It is not innately humanitarian nor innately selfish. What behavior you're most likely to get depends on what the system incentivizes.

  41. Are you okay tho with silly hypotheticals/question that are somewhat tangentially related to your work? Like “which Mad Max character is the best one to interview if you could interview one for your feminist and tropes vid?”

    Sure, fine.

    I would interview Toast.

  42. I'm living in a blue state and my representatives actually put up what I think is decent resistance to the Trump administration, and fall in line with most of my beliefs. What do you think I should be focusing on now, given that I'm reasonably certain they'll win reelection?

    Pick an area of politics you don't know much about but think is important and study it. A good politician is someone you want on the other end of a negotiation table; we still have to be the ones negotiating, so, while they're in office, find something that matters and bring it to the table.

    Or put it on YouTube, that's what I do.

  43. What are some questions you're tired of getting?

    I am not fond of this format: "What is your opinion on [highly contentious political situation in a country whose continent I have never set foot on and which I've never alluded to having studied]?"

    The worse version: "Let's say, hypothetically, that [convoluted metaphor that is clearly alluding to a contentious political situation, probably on a continent I have never set foot on and which I've never alluded to having studied, that the author does not want to describe outright in the hopes that I will answer if I think it's purely hypothetical], what would you think about that?"

    Even worse: "Here is a single article about [seemingly simple subject that is actually a contentious political situation on a continent I have never set foot on and which I've never alluded to having studied], wouldn't you like to weigh in on it with no further context?"

    I can't tell how many of these are folks just wanting me to talk about stuff with zero awareness that I don't *actually* know ALL THE POLITICS, and how many are folks baiting me into saying something hypocritical and yelling "GOTCHA!" because I was a bad lefty, and/or wanting to take my comments out of context and get other lefties mad at me.

    In short: I don't know enough about Israel, the Middle East, China, Malaysia, Turkey, Rwanda, Sudan, Brazil, or Venezuela to weigh in on their political struggles, and, if you ask, I'm going to suspect it's a trap.

  44. Hi, there.

    I've been poor all of my life. I'm 52 now, and I qualified as a mental health nurse about 10 years ago, so I'm now earning around £32k a year, and I couldn't be happier with my life.

    I'm a Labour voter through and through, but one issue I always find rubbing me the wrong way is benefits. Especially when it comes to households with more than four children (currently benefits in the UK are capped at 2).

    I've read some data that these caps harm BME families more than white families, but I've spent a lot of time poor — the vast majority of my life. And I know from experience that many, many, many people receiving benefits ARE lazy, and they use those benefits on smartphones, on televisions, rather than clothing their kids.

    I am not saying they all do. But my experience is that that is fair portion of the people.

    Where do you land on this?

    What is your proposed alternative?

  45. Is flirting cheating?

    Depends on the boundaries and expectations of your relationship, which, if you're asking me, you maybe haven't discussed enough with your partner.

  47. What's with contrapoints and being uncomfortable with her older videos, exactly? I keep seeing this referenced but have no idea what anyone's talking about.

    She transitioned. In her old videos she presents as male.

  48. Different anon, is this anon asking about this:

    https://www.malaymail.com/s/1710854/a-rise-in-pro-monarchy-vigilantism-follows-agongs-resignation

    in response to Okay, What if you do have a King/Queen above the President and they step down from their throne to pass it down to their heir... How are u with pro monarchy vigilantism, people who would relentlessly dox anyone trying to say anything anti against the royals?

    Ah.

    This is far enough outside my field that I'm not gonna wade into it.

  49. As the person most able to give a balanced evaluation, do you agree with the assertion that 4Chan is the birthplace of memes, and that most other places just steal from it? I find the relationship between meme culture and what is now de facto an alt-right forum intruiging.

    4chan is definitely a meme factory, but, while a lot of memes blow up when they get to 4chan, it doesn't birth as many as it takes credit for. Tons of stuff comes from other places, and a lot never even makes it to 4chan. Twitter and Tumblr (RIP) are responsible for a lot of the weirder and more wholesome stuff.

  50. What's the furthest along a project has been for you (closest to completion) before you've scrapped it? What was it (if willing to say) and why did you scrap it?

    I know a lot of YouTube creators have spoken about the pain of investing a lot of time and energy into something only for something similar to come out very close to when theirs is finished.

    I've scrapped some very far-along projects in school, I think, but I tend to be pretty good at stepping away from something that isn't working early in the process these days. The furthest along I've ever been on a video essay was this DOOM video that I spent a really long time scripting but abandoned very early in the edit. I talk a bit about it here: https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/694559931

    I was working on the first episodes of The Alt-Right Playbook when Contrapoints' video How To Recognize A Fascist came out and I was so stressed that it was going to make my work redundant that I couldn't bring myself to watch it for weeks. I think I finally watched it close to the release of the videos, when I knew it was too late to change anything, and was relieved to see that it didn't say all the same stuff as me and might actually make a good companion piece. I've been lucky that a lot of my takes are *mine* enough, or at least my approach is, that I don't see a lot of other folks saying the same stuff as me, because when it happens it is stressful as fuuuuuuuuuck.

  51. Are you willing to say what your next project is?

    Do you share WIP research and discussions with Patrons?

    I keep what I'm working on very close to the chest, because there's always a chance I decide not to finish it or get excited about something else and shuffle the schedule of what's next, and, even if I do finish the project, the more I talk about it in advance the more people get ideas of what it's going to be and then are evaluating the finished project against their expectations. I prefer to just show up and say "here it is" when it's done.

    In broad strokes, the plan is to continue working on The Alt-Right Playbook this year, take a break now and again to do stuff on other subjects, try to talk about games a bit more this year because I miss game videos, and work steadily on a big project that will hopefully come out next year. Patrons get slightly more clues than that, but not much; occasionally I'll share details of scrapped ideas with them, maybe even a script or outline, if it's well and truly dead, which I wouldn't do publicly. So there's that.

  52. Have you ever written any fiction?

    I don't know why, but when I find a content creator I really enjoy, my first thought is generally to wonder if they've written any stories, but I haven't seen you mention writing in any intimate or personal capacity outside of the broad strokes of what you're critiquing.

    Only a little, and the only things I ever completed were extremely short stories that were never read outside of friends or writing classes. I am working on a narrative project right now that I'm hoping to have finished by next year at the latest, and it will be the longest work of fiction I've ever completed!

  53. Okay,

    What if you do have a King/Queen above the President and they step down from their throne to pass it down to their heir...

    How are u with pro monarchy vigilantism, people who would relentlessly dox anyone trying to say anything anti against the royals?

    in response to What do you think of pro-monarchy vigilantism? Its like how would you feel if you insulted your President online and have people be angry at you and they dox you, find all your personal information & current job, sending in an anonymous letter to your company that urges you to get suspended or possibly fired from your job for saying such a thing online... How would you feel? Is it right?

    This is a weird hypothetical. Can you tell me what you're getting at? It feels like you're trying to set up a parallel to something that actually exists.

  54. to piggyback off this question...

    do you think that trying to educate the average person is actually worthwhile? one of Contra's original critiques of the Left (from an earlier video, which I know she has some conflicted feelings recommending) is the tendency to say, "It's not my job to educate you".

    asking you — someone who leverages information and education as how they make their living — is a different matter from whether one is 'obligated' to talk to people. I think a lot of it is lost; I will never try to educate someone on their Facebook feed, but I would have no problem having a heart-to-heart with someone I was close with who fosters some problematic views (most commonly, it's "are trans people mentally ill?").

    in response to Hey. This question may seem like it's using you as a leftist advice columnist, but bear with me! So there's a friend of mine who is openly pretty obsessed with a girl he went on a date once. Over and over again we (my friends and I) have emphasised how uncomfortable it is. She has long moved on, and probably forgotten he even exists, but he continues to think about her a lot. To an extent he isn't in control of those thoughts, but he doesn't seem to want to get rid of them. He's quite self-aware about the whole thing. Since bringing up how uncomfortable it makes us, we've taken to just, like, ridiculing him for it. Do you think that ridiculing and tearing him down for this is a valid strategy, or do you think it's cruel? He hasn't contacted her, doesn't follow her or anything, but he brings her up at least every few days (at MINIMUM), and when he's drunk it gets much worse. Still, he hasn't reached out to her or become invasive to her life. So, yeah: do you think social alienation and trying just to instil a fear that If You Say These Things, You Are Going To Be Laughed At is valid, or do you think it's not ideal? The next step up is just to remove him from our social group, but aside from his thoughts, I can't really see a reason to actually do that. My friends don't either.

    We have a problem with conflating what is appropriate to do in public and in politics with what is appropriate in our personal relationships. We also conflate what is *good* with what is *obligatory*.

    Trying to convert someone on the Far Right as a stranger on the internet is often a waste of time, and the Far Right knows this, and they will ask you to educate them as a way of draining your time and energy. If you have a platform that allows you to speak to a lot of people at once, and you can do this in a style that shares information unidirectionally rather than getting bogged down in "debates," you can reach some people. I would hesitate to call this one's "job," but it can be helpful and effective if you go about it the right ways. It can also be destructive if you go about it wrong.

    But there is an entirely different set of tools you must employ if you are trying to change the mind of a person you have an actual relationship with. If you have some mutual trust and respect, you can speak to their core beliefs much more effectively than you can in public or on a unidirectional platform. But this is a lot - like, *a lot* - of emotional labor, so, again, I hesitate to say it's one's "job," but, if you have the mana for it, it is a good thing to do that can have a positive effect.

    To keep it in context, however, I think we over-focus on converting people from the Right rather than empowering people on the Left, so it is perfectly defensible to put your energy into fighting voter suppression rather than trying to change minds on YouTube.

    The Left fixates too much on unified tactics. "You're saying we should do [X], so we should stop doing [Y]?" No, do [X] AND [Y] if both work! Or, rather, YOU do [Y] and I'LL do [X] and maybe we can collaborate if our work overlaps. This thinking that any valid process must become the new rule and be applied in all contexts is that Values-Neutral Governance thing I keep banging on about. Flexibility of method is crucial if we want to get anywhere.

  55. Do you like a happy ending or an ambiguous ending in a story?

    ambiguous isn't necessarily unhappy

    I like endings that suit the work, be they happy, sad, or ambivalent

  56. Hey. This question may seem like it's using you as a leftist advice columnist, but bear with me!

    So there's a friend of mine who is openly pretty obsessed with a girl he went on a date once. Over and over again we (my friends and I) have emphasised how uncomfortable it is. She has long moved on, and probably forgotten he even exists, but he continues to think about her a lot. To an extent he isn't in control of those thoughts, but he doesn't seem to want to get rid of them. He's quite self-aware about the whole thing.

    Since bringing up how uncomfortable it makes us, we've taken to just, like, ridiculing him for it. Do you think that ridiculing and tearing him down for this is a valid strategy, or do you think it's cruel?

    He hasn't contacted her, doesn't follow her or anything, but he brings her up at least every few days (at MINIMUM), and when he's drunk it gets much worse. Still, he hasn't reached out to her or become invasive to her life.

    So, yeah: do you think social alienation and trying just to instil a fear that If You Say These Things, You Are Going To Be Laughed At is valid, or do you think it's not ideal?

    The next step up is just to remove him from our social group, but aside from his thoughts, I can't really see a reason to actually do that. My friends don't either.

    If I'm being blunt, I would say that ridicule and alienation are valid and necessary tools, but moreso from society at large than from one's circle of friends. At minimum, if you're going to ridicule bad behavior you should also be encouraging better behavior, but, if you really are his friends, you should be doing the harder work of having heart-to-hearts about where this fixation is coming from, unpacking his relationship to women, and helping him move on. Or, at the very least, encouraging him to do that unpacking with SOMEONE. Why this girl? Will it happen again whenever he gets over her? What itch in himself is this fixation scratching? What are his views on women that this feels OK to him? What is going on with him that this one date was so special?

    You need to simultaneously judge the behavior and hold empathy for the person, because that's something strangers can't do.

    Now, if you don't have the kind of relationship where those heart-to-hearts can happen, or if you do but they don't lead to anything, maybe put removing him from your friend group back on the table. But this may be the behavior of a very unhappy person, and, if his friends won't help him work through that shit, who will?

  57. What do you think of pro-monarchy vigilantism? Its like how would you feel if you insulted your President online and have people be angry at you and they dox you, find all your personal information & current job, sending in an anonymous letter to your company that urges you to get suspended or possibly fired from your job for saying such a thing online...

    How would you feel? Is it right?

    I don't see what that has to do with monarchy?

  58. do you think your patreon vs kickstarter video still stands? i'm considering a crowdfund and starting to see what are the options. Do you have opinions on drip?

    I haven't been keeping up on crowdfunding, so I dunno how things have changed. I think the fundamentals are still true. Beyond that, I can't say.

    I don't know much about Drip.

  59. At this point, my main question about your YouTube work is: "Mr. Skimps"??

    that's DOCTOR skimps to you

  60. This sounds really stupid, but I noticed you use a lot more "big words" than most other video essayists. By that, I mean you make a lot of references to seemingly obscure academic concepts and you use words like "elision" and "tautology" that I never hear outside of an academic context. Is that an intentional choice of branding/content or just how you talk about stuff?

    Fwiw, I find it refreshing. Simplified stuff like how hbomb presents topics are very useful, but I enjoy seeing someone be a little more academic. I just wish you'd have an appendix on some videos so I don't have to look up a dozen academic papers to understand your arguments.

    Ha, not only is that how I talk, I actually reign it in for the videos!

    There's a lot of classism built into jargon and words with lots of syllables, but I also feel like consciously removing large words from my language is, like, underestimating the intelligence of my audience, so it's a balancing act. I try to only use uncommon terminology when it adds something to the argument - like it's actually more precise than a more common alternative - and when its meaning can be deduced from context, but I'm sure I throw in more than necessary out of habit. (Like... did I have to say "deduce" just now?) I also try to remember that my videos exist on the internet where it is trivially easy to google the definition of any word, so until you're having to pause and google a word multiple times in a video, I try not to sweat it too much.

    Trust me, real academic writing is way, WAAAAAAAY more impenetrable than my stuff. Any time I'm actually relying on academia, I am consciously putting it in plainer language, because I think jargon is bad writing. And I usually post links to papers in the show notes if they're relevant.

  61. Which movie has more layers of metaphor, do you think, Annihilation or Inception?

    Inception has themes, but not much in the way of metaphor. It's a very literal movie.

  62. When you get questions asking your opinion on controversies or works that you don't know about, do they usually spur you to look into those things or do you stick with what you're already researching?

    Sorta related: do you make an effort to keep up with all the controversies about social issues or do you ignore them at this point?

    Honestly, if someone says "have you seen [X]" and nothing else, I've stopped even saying "no," I just delete them. If someone actually describes the thing they want me to weigh in on, and it sounds interesting, I might check it out. But I already have so much to read and watch that it just kinda goes on the pile.

    I have a few questions saved, some over a year old now, where people link me to videos or articles and asking my thoughts on them, and I haven't gotten around to watching/reading them. Some seem promising, but it's a mix of being busy and it feeling like an obligation. I suppose I'll either get around to them or delete them someday.

  63. Hey there.

    I try to keep my nose out of US politics, because I find it very exhausting. There's just so many people involved that it's unrelenting. I think that's fine. I don't live in the US.

    But something that absolutely staggers me is that the US populace isn't just, like, rioting because they don't have a lack of free healthcare. I live in the UK, and you probably know about the NHS, and protests break out whenever austerity rears its head. Any political party which outright communicated a desire to do away with the NHS would pretty quickly disappear.

    What's up with the lethargy of the US population?

    It's what we've known our whole lives. I think I was in my twenties when it properly sank in that this wasn't the way most of the developed world operated. It just seemed normal.

    It also became the norm in a time when the middle class was booming and private insurance was pretty affordable, so it probably seemed a nuisance at worst, but not a big deal for most of the voting population. (Obviously, if you die of a preventable illness, you stop voting.)

  64. I'm planning to write something one day,

    So is reading any of Robert McKee's stuff (eg. Story & Dialogue) a good starting point? If not, why?

    If so, why?

    If you have trouble thinking of plots, or if you have a plot but you feel it's kind of slack and lacking in drama, Robert McKee can be very useful. He's largely responsible for the way Hollywood over-emphasizes the three-act structure, and that really needs to stop, but it *is* a valid and useful structure. Just take all his stuff about how it is the immortal essence of story that has existed through all recorded time with a heaping spoonful of salt.

    I would recommend Story Hospital if you're looking for something a bit less totalizing: https://storyhospital.com/

  65. Do you have any thoughts on the filmography of Quentin Tarantino? Or, do you know of any black writers who have talked about how his films depict POC?

    I am black, but unfortunately melanin doesn't produce Hot Takes naturally. I wish it did! lol

    I know Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spike Lee have both weighed in on him. They didn't have flattering things to say.

  66. "seemingly out of fear that centrism is the only way to win elections"
    Do you believe this is actually the reason? Am I being too pessimistic in believing they're just right wingers who only pay lip service to leftism in order to maintain their own power in the two party system?

    in response to What should be the goals for progressives in Washington, on YouTube, and for you going into 2019?

    The Democratic Party, in practice, spans a very wide political spectrum. There are Democrats who are borderline Leftists and there are Democrats who are further right than the average Republican. I'm not in the business of determining what a politician's core beliefs are - they are strangers I will probably never meet and who have a million incentives not to be nakedly honest with me. But, generally, with political rhetoric it's safe to assume that how Democrats behave at least *roughly* correlates to how they believe, if for no other reason than because people who genuinely believe Democratic rhetoric will be able to sell it on a campaign trail better than people who are just paying lip service.

    I've had enough conversations with liberals who are *not* politicians to know that the belief that you only win elections with centrism is very often sincere. Why shouldn't a person who believes this run for office? Most people left-of-center believe, as a default, that egalitarianism and tolerance are good things. Most politicians have a vested interest in the system continuing as it is, and in the country not moving *too* far left. I think some Democrats believe primarily in the egalitarianism, and some believe in the conservative power structure but pretend not to, but rather a lot are somewhere in between, and the rhetoric of centrism is how they rationalize away the tensions between the two.

    "We have to move to the center on the campaign trail in order to accomplish progressive things once we're in office" is what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night, basically.

  67. What inspired your anti-capitalist stance? Any resources you can recommend?

    It's been a gradual process of just learning new things bit by bit and having my position evolve. Probably my first real entry point was Orwell's essays on democratic socialism. You can check out a bunch of his essays for free here: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html

  68. How are two rich white guys already perfectly accommodated by the system supposed to know anything about what people want to vote for?

    Political rhetoric is about *how* you communicate a message, not what the message is. Not saying it's a good thing, but the Left assumes all you need is the right policy and that's why they keep losing.

  69. Did you see this? Thoughts?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_jPAd0L3IA

    Setting aside that any effort to frame politics as a great game between respectful opponents, or to make Karl Rove palatable, is deeply suspect, I am intrigued. I'm curious what they will say and how it will square with my research.

  70. Would you be willing to say whether you broke piracy laws in putting together BBWS? Or did you own all of the films you showed clips from?

    oh you're DEFINITELY a cop

  71. Is it possible to love?

    watch my videos and you will know true love

  73. You commented earlier that Bill Clinton should be in Jail. Why? Any other U.S. Presidents that should be in jail?

    I don't remember saying that, though it sounds like a thing I might say. Clinton has a number of damning sexual assault allegations against him.

    "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."
    - Chomsky

  74. storytelling through multiple perspectives or surreal metafiction?

    yes

  75. I don't know if you have a take on this, but what is your opinion about the "Ellie" situation with the Overwatch community? How do you feel about the harassment given to the player? How do you feel about a player creating an alternate account posing as a woman for the purposes of a "social experiment"? What do you think is the right response to an action like this?

    I don't know anything about it, sorry.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: