CuriousCat Archive Page 198 of 202

  1. Who's more creative in storytelling?

    A. Franz Kafka
    B. Charlie Kaufman
    C. Edgar Wright
    D. Kurt Vonnegut
    E. George Saunders

    This is a list of obsessive white dudes. I haven't read Saunders. Of the other four, I'd say Kaufman.

  2. Do you think Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Christopher Nolan are overrated?

    Spielberg: Yes, but only because he's considered the best filmmaker alive. Of the craftsmen who work in just about any genre, he's hands down the most talented.

    James Cameron: Cameron might be slightly UNDER-appreciated. He's absolutely brilliant with a camera and knows how to tell a story through action scenes in a way few directors do. He's even kind of genius with narrative structure. His weaknesses are some cornball tendencies, a lack of subtlety that is great during action beats but varying degrees of tedious during dialogue scenes, and some ham-handed politics. But, even then, his politics are usually on the right track, he's just not sophisticated enough to address subjects like environmentalism, nuclear disarmament, or colonialism in ways that don't make him look like a damn fool. Avatar is the only one of his movies that doesn't come close to living up to the hype, and it's been mostly forgotten. I don't think many people appreciate his skill.

    Nolan: Yeahhhhh, I don't think Nolan's been very good for quite some time.

  3. Is it possible to stay single till death?

    I hope so!

  4. Who are your favorite filmmakers, screenwriters & authors so far?

    Julian Schnabel hasn't made very many movies, and I hear he really embarrassed himself with Miral, but Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are two of the most gorgeous movies I've ever seen, so I keep my eye on him.

    I need to dig up more from Keiko Nobumoto, because she wrote Tokyo Godfathers and every episode of Cowboy Bebop.

    I've already professed my love of Samuel R. Delany, but I also have this weird love of Michael Pollan? He just writes nonfiction books about food, but the way he writes is so thorough and thoughtful and meticulously researched. He writes about food the way I want to write about everything.

  5. Have you read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline?

    Is it terrible? Mediocre? Just full of references and poor writing?

    My sister got me that book for Christmas several years ago. I read the first couple pages and put it down. Nothing I've heard about it makes me want to read it.

  6. How did you meet your girlfriend(s)? How can you be sure if you're officially their boyfriend?

    Sorry, I have a policy of not answering too many questions about my romantic life. If you want to know if you're somebody's boyfriend, have a conversation with them about labels.

  7. Correction: Have you seen this recent Thai film called Bad Genius and a recent Indonesian film called Marlina: The Murderer in Four Acts?

    And no I'm no time traveller... I am just some ordinary guy you've never met before (and probably never will)

    I haven't seem either of those movies.

  8. Ok so you don't know Canadian politics but what do you think of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since he has been discussed in American media quite a few times?

    My general sense is that he's not as progressive as his reputation. Granted, that's still probably more progressive than 90% of US Democrats.

  9. Besides Red Letter Media, what do you think of YourMovieSucksDOTorg (YMS) and ralphthemoviemaker on YouTube? Are they decent enough and much better compared to Red Letter Media?

    I don't know anything about either.

  10. If someone in the streets randomly asks you, "Are you gay?", how would you respond?

    The only times this has ever happened have been when guys have tried to cruise me, so I politely tell them my Kinsey number isn't high enough to work with and wish them good luck.

  11. Have you ever travelled outside your country? Which countries have you visited so far?

    Canada and Spain.

  12. If you're the 13th most pretentious person on YouTube, as stated in your Twitter bio,...

    Then who are the other 12 pretentious YouTubers?

    nice try, cop

  13. Besides The Handmaiden, is there any Korean movies that you adore?

    I dunno about "adored" but I liked The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

  14. Have you already seen this recent Thai film called Bad Genius and a recent Indonesian film called Marlina: The Murderer in Four Acts?

    "Already"? Are you a time traveler?

  15. You probably don't know much about Canadian politics but what do you think of Canada's Conservative Party and their leader Andrew Scheer?

    You are correct that I don't know much about Canadian politics.

  16. Ever heard of Jordan Peterson? What do you think of his views & opinions? Especially on Islam

    And have you seen his interview with Cathy Newman? You think he falls under the Alt-Right?

    The difference between Jordan Peterson and the Alt-Right is trivial.

  17. Do you feel the New York Times interview might have helped mainstreaming the alt-right?

    Absolutely.

  18. I’ve noticed that you’ve liked tweets discussing non-monogamy and polyamory and (since I don’t find many folks online that are open about ethical non-monogamy) I’m curious: is this a practice you incorporate into your own relationships or something that is external to your own life but you nonetheless express support for? Thanks!

    Yeah, I'm poly. I've mentioned it a few times on Twitter. I was on an episode of The Huffington Post Live with one of my partners talking open relationships several years ago, before I made video essays, so of course GamerGate dug that up when they were mad at me about Why Are You So Angry? The large majority of people talking to me about polyamory online are GGers screaming "cuck" at me, so I don't talk about it a ton.

    What assumptions people make about what kind of poly you practice tells you a lot about them. I've never publicly stated how many partners I have, how many partners my partners have, or what genders my partners' partners are, but GG types can only conceive of me as "the guy who lets his wife fuck other dudes." (I'm also not married.)

    It is somewhat fun watching their heads explode when they say "YOU LET YOUR PARTNER SLEEP AROUND" and I say "which partner?"

  19. Do you find engineering interesting?

    I always find it interesting hearing about how things are designed and made and stufff, even though I don't often understand all of it.

    My favourite example was how in the 1970s they tryd making cars with extra wheels, but they found it just made them heavier and more expensive and more went wrong.

    Engineering is great! I'm especially fond of extremely complicated machines that do useless things.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0sMj6xQXFI

  20. This might not be your expertise, but do you have any arguments against the “affirmative action is reverse racism/sexism” rhetoric?

    I mean, the only answer necessary is "if white bosses always hired the best person for the job, they'd already have a diverse staff," but I'd be shocked if you found someone whose unconscious racism was reversed by simple logic.

  21. I meant swedes the vegetable not Swedes the Swedish people.

    I had to look this up and why the hell aren't either of you saying rutabaga?!?!

  22. Rapid fire questions:

    Can you sing?

    Do you find it offensive when cornish people call swedes turnips?

    Are you a vegetarian?

    Do you prefer 戦場ヶ原 ひたぎ or 琴吹 紬?

    Have you ever listened to Joanna Gruesome?

    I can hit notes just fine, but not many people like how nasal my voice is. It's good for covering TMBG and not much else.

    The names one predominantly white population has for another predominantly white population on a continent I don't live on isn't a big concern of mine.

    I'm vegan.

    I don't watch the anime/read the manga you are referring to.

    No.

  23. A black actor bring cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman. A black actress being cast as The Joker. Thoughts?

    Sure.

  24. With the slight fall of Telltale I've noticed that a lot of "mini-Telltale" studios and projects have been popping up. Like 1979 Revolution, Deck Nine and Life is Strange Before the Storm, The Council, Campo Santo and their games, Knee Deep, the 2015 King's Quest, Until Dawn, etc. Some of them didn't seem to do well. Do you think the dialogue driven adventure game is dead? I fear the narrative adventure game rose from the dead with The Walking Dead only to start going back into the ground again.

    I think there's a particular style of adventure game that was heavily-emulated thanks to the success of The Walking Dead, and now that style is falling out of fashion. That doesn't mean it's going to die out completely, just that it's not a fad anymore. I'm not super worried about the adventure game, now that indie development is cheap enough to do independently and there are a lot of distribution options, I think they'll probably stick around.

  25. You mentioned that you love Daria. What do you think of the show that it spun-off from, Beavis and Butthead?

    I often forget that the latter came from the former because of how different those shows are.

    Enh. I didn't watch much of the show. I got a kick out of the movie. It's smarter than people give it credit for, but not as smart as Daria.

  26. Is "Traps" a slur?

    Is this another round of Ask A Cis Dude?

    The current controversy around this word is people getting mad at Contrapoints again. (Unless there's more than one controversy at the moment.) Contra tweeted about a planned video that uses the term in the title, and there is a dose of reasonable criticism of that mixed in with the slavering pitchfork mob that follows Contra on Twitter. (Contra's own response is here: https://twitter.com/ContraPoints/status/975772706447732736)

    Contra is on-record saying that the goal of her channel is "converting normies." She uses edgelord-style rhetoric and humor as an invitation to anti-social justice folks to watch her videos and then introduce them to ideas that they would otherwise be unresponsive to. There is anecdotal evidence that this method does work on some people; I've had one person explicitly tell me that videos in Contra's style are what led them to leave GamerGate, and people like Contra have plenty of similar testimonials. I don't dispute that it can be effective.

    I still have concerns. If chan-types were the only ones who ever saw the videos, I'd have no worries, but it's YouTube. How many people see the title, suggesting the concept of "trans deception," without actually watching the video and having that idea dismantled? How many don't finish the video? How many twig to the fact that Contra is trans, or already know her work, and therefore she's probably not arguing in favor of the idea? How many people, in being exposed to this debate, reflexively assume "the truth is in the middle" and stop short of Contra's (entirely true) position? In short, is there a risk that, in addition to converting some normies, is she also spreading a harmful myth to other normies who weren't even aware of the idea? And does the number of converts outweigh the number of fresh new transphobes?

    I don't have answers to any of these questions. I'm not saying Contra is doing the wrong thing, but I don't argue in this fashion because I think it takes on a risk. And, being that there's no hard data on how big the risk OR the payoff is, I can't do a cost/benefit analysis. That said, I have no hard evidence that it causes harm, either, and I wish everyone would get off her back about it.

    As for whether or not it's a slur: regardless of how you define "slur," I don't tell trans women not to use trans slurs for the same reason I don't tell Black people not to use the n-word. But if you're not trans, maybe don't use it, because a lot of trans people don't want you to and that's reason enough.

  27. What is your stance on 'canon' in storytelling?
    I tend to take the point of view that suggests that canon can have a very negative effect when utilised as the primary storytelling technique, because at that point, the central aims go from being on theme and narrative, and instead focus on mantainance for said canon.
    I always really liked Hideo Kojima's approach to Metal Gear Solid 2; "Forget about canon and learn to appreciate subtext".

    Canon is important except when it's not.

    Canon matters in a universe with complex history like A Song of Ice and Fire. Canon is extremely insignificant in Mad Max. I think you're right that canon shouldn't be an end in and of itself, but it can often be a means to an end. Treat it as important inasmuch as that makes your plot/themes/characters richer.

  28. In the creation of the Angry Jack series did you worry about casting men into a trope? Or worry that you were using strawmen as 'Angry Jacks'?

    No and no.

  29. It seems like we finally have a mainstream realization that the business model of Facebook, Google and friends is civilization endingly dangerous.

    Where do you think social media could go from here to embrace better values? What would a social web look like that premiered productive conversation and original creativity, and had built in resilience against fascist and capitalist takeover?

    I keep thinking about what would have to happen to social media to not be evil.

    The capitalist response would be to create more competition in the market. Social media platforms can get away with horrible practices because there's no real competition between them. Maybe bust up the monopolies, get several Facebook-like sites, several Twitter-likes, several Tumblr-likes, and these sites will start adopting better practices to stay competitive with each other.

    Trouble is, nobody actually WANTS to have four different Facebooks, because the product being sold to you on Facebook is Everyone You Know All In One Place. Nobody wants Some People You Know Here, Some People You Know Over Here, A Few Stragglers Over Here. And, even if there were four Facebooks, since the sites are free you wouldn't ACTUALLY choose between them, you'd just get an account on all four, because you'd want access to all your friends. So competition is just a less efficient version of what already exists.

    This is why MySpace died and Google Plus couldn't take hold, and why Twitter and Tumblr try to be distinct enough that they don't actually compete with Facebook, they just have a Facebook account AND a Twitter account AND a Tumblr account.

    So, at that point, you can think of Facebook more like a service, which means maybe we need the socialist response, which would be to nationalize it. But there's a good argument for that being a bad idea as well, because maybe you DON'T want such an enormous platform for expression to be directly controlled by the government. For all my problems with Facebook, I don't think it'd be improved by Trump being in charge of it.

    So I don't know. My best guess is to let social media platforms stay private, and let them stay kiiiiiiind of monopolistic, but regulate the everloving hell out of them.

    I think the ideal version of social media already exists in bits and pieces across several platforms. Like, if I could get a platform with Facebook's ability to protect myself from trolls, Tumblr's comment section and social justice leanings, and MetaFilter's moderators, I'd be a happy chappy.

  30. The other night I found myself reading Encyclopedia Dramatica articles one after another, not because I found them in any way funny, but because I just found myself obsessed with this kind of aggressive nihilism, but in the process it has fucked with my brain.
    Is there still hope and positivity in the universe?

    You need to watch Steven Universe.

  31. How often do you read extra-textual materials (creator interviews, making of's etc) of media you like? Are you ever afraid of letting author intent affect your personal reading of the story too much?

    I read extra-textual materials almost as soon as I finish consuming the media. Knowing the author's intent will affect my reading, but that doesn't mean my reading will line up with theirs. The tensions between what the author meant and what the author accomplished just make a work more interesting.

  32. Why is Hbox your favorite god in melee? Do you think most the hate he gets is based off of him being a puff player or is there something more to it. Also some people say a lack of understanding of the character is why people see puff as lame, do you agree with that?

    I probably like M2K at least as much as HBox. Keep in mind, Gods are, by definition, the overdogs, so I'm almost always rooting against them unless they're up against another God.

    I think what I like about Hungrybox is that he has always been the underdog. For the longest time, he was the lowest-ranked God. People always cheered against him, people always talked shit about him, people hated him because they hate his character and people hated his character because they hated him. It became this feedback loop, where the reasons aren't important anymore, people just hate on Hungrybox because that's what Smash fans DO. So, if the only people left in bracket are Gods? My gut goes for the underdog.

    I don't really buy the narrative that people hate HBox because they hate Puff. People are always BEGGING Mango to bring his Puff back. And I don't buy that they hate the WAY he plays Puff. People say they hate ICs who wobble, and I remember how loudly everyone cheered for Chu Dat wobbling Leffen over and over again at Shine. People just decide who the villains are and make up reasons for it. I'd bet good money that most people hate Hungrybox because Mango hates Hungrybox.

    All that said, the Puff matchup can be really difficult to watch, depending on the other player. The Melee scene is so geared around space animals, people don't have much appreciation for floaties. Usually when we see a floaty in tournament, they're playing against a fast faller. And, honestly, it's not that fun to watch Puff against another floaty: the combos are short, the games are slow, and you see a lot more time-outs. And most of what people want to watch space animals do is get aggressive, but Hungrybox eats rushdown Foxes for breakfast. A lot of people don't like defensive space animals, and a lot of spacies don't like playing defensively.

    Look, different strokes for different folks, you know? I hate spacies, and when a Puff goes up against someone who knows how to handle her, there is a kind of nailbiting tension that just doesn't exist in the spacie ditto. If that's not your thing, that's fine, but I would always rather watch that than a spacie ditto.

  33. What do you think of Family Guy and Rick and Morty?

    I don't like lumping Rick and Morty in with, like, Family Guy and South Park, because Rick and Morty is at least CLEVER, but I don't like any of them.

  34. what is a a piece of media you used to love but now cant stand any more if you have any,

    South Park.

    Specifically the episode where they go to Afghanistan.

  35. Hey, I just want to thank you for your video on The Beginner's Guide! The topics you covered there are directly related to what I'm studying in college, and it's helping me a lot

  36. Did you dealt with harassment over your gamergate video?

    It seems that no one that dears to touch that subject comes out unscathed.

    By the way, yours and Dan Olson's video on the subject are the absolute best when in comes to dissecting that whole movement.

    I've actually gotten more harassment for The Alt-Right Playbook than for Why Are You So Angry?, but in both cases it's been pretty small compared to what a lot of women and people of color have gotten. It's why I'm a little skeptical when cishet white dudes say they don't want to weigh in. Not that anyone should have to deal with any of it, and not that I haven't been sincerely worried at times, but the risks for us are just so, so much smaller.

  37. Do you think genital preference is transphobic?

    No one thinks genital preference is transphobic.

    Repeatedly declaring "I only date women with vaginas" IS transphobic in the same way that declaring "I only date white people" is racist.

    But whenever someone points that out, TERFs insist that trans folks are trying to "force" people to have sex with them.

  38. Favorite Nuclear Throne weapon?

    Auto-crossbow with homing bolts.

    (Maybe the ultra shotgun.)

  39. What has been your favorite project you’ve ever done for your channel? And in general, do you prefer doing the more political or media/culture related content?

    Discussed my fav videos here: https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/289375904

    Political stuff is pretty grueling. There's a reason why my videos about antifeminist gamers was followed by a love letter to Smash, why my video about trauma and child abuse was followed by a dissection on interactive narrative, and why the first cycle of Alt-Right Playbook videos was followed with a video about the first game I ever loved.

    I could never be happy with the channel if I shied away from politics. But talking politics is hard, emotionally draining, and makes people yell at me. If I didn't mix it up with fun things I'd lose it.

  40. From your Story Beat on Bastion I assume you kinda liked the game. Have you played Transistor or Pyre? Did you like it?

    I've played a tiny bit of Transistor, haven't gotten to Pyre yet.

    Thing is, I actually don't think Bastion's gameplay is very interesting. That's fine, the gameplay mostly serves as stuff to keep your hands busy while you experience the narrative, themes, and world design. The narrative, themes, and worldbuilding of Transistor are a lot more convoluted, and the mechanics are deeper and more obtuse, so it's a game you have to invest a lot more effort in up front before it starts yielding results, and I haven't gotten over the hump with it. (See also: why I haven't gotten past the first hour of else Heart.Break() despite multiple attempts.)

  41. If you didn’t play Falcon in Melee, who would you play?

    I also play some Sheik, Marth, and Mario.

  42. How come liberals will talk a big game about sexual assault/rape when it comes to Hollywood/the presidency but have absolutely nothing to say when it comes to Rotherham or Cologne?

    If you're asking why Americans are more aware of sexual misconduct in America than in the UK and Germany, I think you've answered your own question.

    And if you think I haven't picked up on your subtextual question - "why doesn't the left get mad about sexual assault when immigrants do it" - progressive movements in both those countries not only condemned the sexual assault but also condemned the racist argument that these assaults were the fault of immigration, which I KINDA SUSPECT you're hinting is why the left doesn't talk about it. Don't pretend that because we don't accept a racist framing of the problem means we haven't addressed the problem at all, and also don't pretend that the people blaming immigrants have any solution to sexual assault or child trafficking other than closing the borders to refugees. Every meaningful attempt to combat sexual assault comes from the left.

    Is this a thing now? Asking people in the States to comment on scandals in Europe in the hopes that, because they're unfamiliar with the issue, they'll accidentally bolster your racist argument? That's not a good look.

  43. After watching your talk at Indivisible Somerville and thinking back to your "Why are you so angry?" series I have a question.

    Where would angry Jack be now/ do you still use angry Jack as a metaphor?

    The actual Angry Jack presumably grew up and hopefully chilled out by now.

    The metaphorical Angry Jack? Yeah, when I talk about people who are not necessarily in the Alt-Right but are susceptible to their rhetoric, or are well on their way to joining the Alt-Right, that's pretty much Angry Jack. I said at the end of Why Are You So Angry that the next reactionary hate mob posing as a reform movement would try to recruit Angry Jack, and that's exactly what's happening; there is a straight line between GamerGate and the Alt-Right.

    The original idea for The Alt-Right Playbook was something like "Angry Jack Tactics," and it was intended to be a follow-up to WAYSA. Then the election happened and I realized I needed to update my reference points. I don't use Angry Jack as a central metaphor in The Alt-Right Playbook because I want it to be accessible to people who haven't seen WAYSA and I don't want to explain the metaphor again. But it's still apt.

  44. In the presentation you give in what seem like for Indivisible Somervile, you mention on technique to talk to try to persuade or show them of "your side is to start with truth the truth." I wondering if you could give an example what you meant by that.

    I give an example in the presentation when I talk about how an Alt-Right Playbook episode is structured, but if you want something more concrete, read The Debunking Handbook: https://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Debunking_Handbook.pdf

    It's pretty short and has a few examples of how to debunk using the fact-first structure instead of the rebuttal structure.

  46. The trend lately for a lot of adventure games is to go episodic instead of one complete game. What's your take on the different approaches?

    The short version is that I'm pretty sure it's popular because it lets companies use the profits from the first episode/season passes to pay for the later episodes, which means they don't need as much money up front. In that sense, I'd say, hey, whatever gets the game made.

    I think it's a format that can work OK narratively. Having each chapter have an arc of its own but also contribute to an overarching plot can pay off if you do it well. At their best, Telltale has made good use of it.

    Honestly, the only episodic game I've played where I didn't just wait until all the episodes were released before playing is Kentucky Route Zero, so for most games I can't say how it feels different if you play the episodes as they come out. With KR0, there are such long breaks between episodes that I think playing all five in a row (whenever Act V comes out) is going to be a VERY different experience. Playing an Act when you only half remember the previous one gives the game a folkloric feeling, where these feels like characters you've always known but can't put your finger which adventures they did or didn't have. I don't think that's what most episodic games feel like, though.

  47. Can Christianity be used to promote progressive mentality?

    You're asking the wrong person.

  48. I really liked your "thoughts on..." posts on your tumblr. Is there anything you played recently or are playing in the moment that could justify another one? I recall you posting about Iconoclasts on twitter, for instance, and I would love to see a more detailed opinion!

    "Thoughts On..." mostly began as a way for me to talk about each of the adventure games from my old Who Shot Guybrush Threepwood video, and then I started doing write-ups of other adventure games I had opinions about. I'm afraid I haven't played any adventure games recently that I've wanted to write up.

    I have considered writing something that summarizes what - I THINK - the lore of Iconoclasts is, because it's taken me a couple of playthroughs and a bunch of digging through subreddits to get my head around it. (Also I disagree with a couple popular interpretations about the planet and the starworm.)

    I've also recently played Celeste - or, I guess, I'm still playing it because I just unlocked the C-sides - and finished Mario Odyssey. I don't really have a "take" on either one, though. You can pretty much assume that, if I have something worth saying, sooner or later I will say it.

  49. So ever since my parents found out I'm liberal, I've noticed them being really passive-aggressive with me. They'll demand I read their conservative newsletters, insult liberal musicians and others while within earshot of me, and generally be a pain in my neck. And any time I resist or try to argue with them, they accuse me of being "disrespectful" and threaten to kick me out of the house. What should I do?

    This is another case where I don't think I'm qualified to give life advice, so, again, here's what I'd be thinking in your position.

    The scenario I would want is the one where my parents accept me even if our beliefs differ. Obviously the ideal would be if they actually came around to my point of view, or at least closer to it. But if we can stay a loving family and simply tolerate our differences, OK. So I'd be asking, is that possible? Can my family shift their position at least enough that they can let me believe what I believe without conflict? If so, I'd work to make that happen.

    If that's not something that I can pull off - and I'd have to know when to accept that it won't happen - then I have to choose between having a comfortable relationship with my family and sticking to my guns. I can either keep my mouth shut about my beliefs, smile and nod when political conversations come up, and give them whatever their definition of "respect" is. Or I can say that my beliefs are part of who I am and accept that living my beliefs will cause conflict with my family. Either explicitly or implicitly, this is giving my family an ultimatum: accept me for what I believe or give up on having a happy relationship with me. If kicking me out of the house is a serious threat, this runs the risk of making it happen.

    There are way too many factors in that decision for there to be one right answer. Families are complicated. I'd have to weigh how much joy my family brings me in other areas, how cut off from my community I'd be without them, whether I have someplace else to live if I get kicked out, whether my family is helping me pay for school, how painful it would be not to talk to them anymore, et cetera.

    All that and more is why I can't tell you what to do. There's really no wrong answer, you just have to decide what makes sense for you. Good luck. <3

  50. In my state, candidates in most political parties are chosen by delegate before being put on the primary ballot. Since I live in a conservative area, I have been a member of the Republican party despite disagreeing on many issues. Problem is, I was nominated to be one of these delegates (without little opportunity to express my views). Now I feel a pull from both directions: be a good delegate and vote in a way that those in my area would want me to, but also to lean towards helping the most moderate views win out. Are there ways I can keep both me and those I am representing happy?

    I don't think I'm qualified to give this kind of life advice, so I can only say what I'd be thinking in your position.

    This is something I thought about a lot when Obama was first elected and his inauguration speech made a lot of promises to Republicans that he'd be their President, too. That promise usually means the politician will give Republicans what they want. I think we need to draw a distinction between giving people what they want and making them happy.

    Giving Republicans what they want on, say, environmental issues means being lax on regulations that keep big businesses from polluting the air and water. However much that's what their party asks for, most Republican voters will be happier people with clean air and pure water. It's not like Obama can only clean the air and water the Democrats breathe and drink, so ignoring what Republicans want means making EVERYONE happier and healthier.

    Republicans may want tighter border control, but no amount of immigration reform will make them happy because the fear of foreigners isn't rational. Give them more border guards, they'll want a border wall; give them a border wall, they'll want you to make it taller. Republicans may want you to slash taxes for the wealthy to stimulate the economy, but the economy won't actually grow unless you RAISE taxes on the wealthy and let the government invest. Republicans may say they want privatized healthcare, but I'm pretty sure they would be happier if affordable healthcare let them live longer and didn't bankrupt them in the process.

    If you want to make people happy, give them what will actually make their lives better.

    If what you're asking for is a scenario where you do what you feel is right and no one gets mad at you? No, I don't think you get to have both. Welcome to being a politician.

  51. Have you played 'A tale of two brothers'?
    It's a great coop story experience I'd love to know your take on, - I really loved your videos on Bastion & The beginners guide. (Found your channel thru SIO) also 10/10 Gamer Gate series. Peace

    Hey thanks! Haven't played Brothers, it never came out on a console I own and my only PC is old and crappy.

  53. Would you ever consider making a video similar to #ianlivetweetshisresearch, meaning more targeted to an audience with some background and experience in your area? Do you know of any creators who do anything close to what you do, maybe not with the same topics but with a similar critical approach? Not to siphon away your patreon $, just to sustain a lazy ass like me who doesn't wanna read any more high faultin' books.
    thanks I love you

    I don't personally know of anyone who synopsizes complex texts, though I'm sure those folks exist. I'm a bit loathe to turn #IanLivetweetsHisResearch into a video series because I'd give away too much of the stuff I'm going to use in future videos.

  54. What are your thoughts on what makes a given adventure game puzzle 'good', both in isolation and in the context of its placement in relation to the entire game?

    If I'm being honest, I feel the best adventure game puzzles CAN'T be considered in isolation. I can't deny that a few of my favorites work pretty well as standalone sequences (breaking into Todd's junkyard in Full Throttle or the Mysts o' Tyme Marshe in Escape from Monkey Island (aka the only good puzzle in EMI)). But, like, the fire marble puzzle in Riven only works BECAUSE of how it deepens your understanding of the entire game world; the briefcase handoff in The Last Express works BECAUSE of how it manages narrative tension that has been built up for the entire game. I feel like being inseparable from the larger narrative is part of what makes an adventure game puzzle good. This is kind of why games like The 7th Guest or Machinarium may charm me, but never satisfy me, because their puzzle and their plots are two wholly unrelated things that just exist in the same world.

    In a recent episode of Game Maker's Toolkit, Mark broke down what he thinks makes a good puzzle, and an older episode broke down what he thinks makes a good adventure game. And I think both those videos are good, but I think the best puzzles are harder to fit into conventions. But that makes it hard to say what makes one good, because puzzles are good for different reasons in different contexts.

    Something I say in the first episode of Who Shot Guybrush Threepwood is that adventure games, if we're speaking very simplistically, are about puzzles and plots. I will say that my favorite type of adventure game is about puzzles AS plots. When a puzzle isn't just a thing you have to do the get more story, but the puzzle itself is a plot beat, a thing that advances the story, or develops a character, or teases out a theme. THAT'S the good stuff. Too often the plot is what happens in cutscenes and the puzzles are just things that happen while the plot is on pause. Even when those puzzles are good, they're busywork. Give me something integrated.

  55. What do you think about the seemingly sudden embracement and turn to the Enlightment and tradition from so called classic liberals and the right? Is this signaling to a rise in facism as some are begining to speculate?

    Hmm, can you be more specific? I feel like the Democrats' hard-on for The Enlightenment is pretty longstanding, but maybe we're thinking about different things.

  56. Feel free to plead the fifth or be vague on this one since personally I don't like talking about my own creative projects until I know I can actually finish them. But what kinda games were you planning on making when Innuendo Studios becomes a game studio? I imagine adventure games.

    Yeah, mostly adventure games or... narrative experiences that area heavily informed by adventure games. There are a couple ideas that kind of hybridize adventure games with other genres, a few ideas for smaller narrative experiments, and at least one traditional point & click.

    Someday.

  57. I really enjoyed your video on the Handmaiden! Can we expect more videos of that sort in the future, or was it a one off?

    My final semester in college, I took a class called The Female Gaze in Film, where we read a ton of feminist film theory and watched a bunch of movies that subverted the male gaze. And early rough cut of the Handmaiden video was my final project, applying what we'd studied that semester to a film of my choosing.

    There's some other work I did for that class that I want to turn into videos down the line, and a bunch of other stuff about movies kicking around in my head that I haven't figured out what to do with yet. So, yeah, more film theory videos will probably pop up in the future.

  58. Hi! Love your videos and you make a lot of things I don't normally think about really fascinating. That being said, the adventure game thing was completely lost on me until your latest video and now I'm very curious. For someone with very limited experience (I played maybe two episodes of the walking dead?) where would you suggest someone start with regards to adventure games? Also, is anyone else talking about them online that you find interesting?

    Oooh, this is the kind of question I like!

    I think Full Throttle is a great place to start. It's tight, it's got a great plot, and it's got some of Tim Schafer's best puzzles (and at least two of his worst, whaddya gonna do). Just a really satisfying experience.

    If you think you might be more into the first-person lonely exploration flavor, might as well go back to Myst, if for no other reason than it's a stepping stone to Riven.

    And if you want something a bit more contemporary, I cannot stop recommending Tales from the Borderlands. It's the same Telltale format as The Walking Dead, but bright and colorful and VERY FUNNY.

    (I made an Adventure Game Masterpost on my Tumblr, if you wanna peruse more favorites: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/130815436242/adventure-game-masterpost)

    People I like who write about adventure games are Emily Short (https://emshort.blog/), Andrew Plotkin (http://blog.zarfhome.com/), and Clara Fernandez-Vara (https://vagrantcursor.wordpress.com/academic-work/), but, like, these are DEEP CUT interactive fiction nerds. They're writing for audiences that are pretty deeply immersed in adventure games, and often talk in academic or really esoteric language. I don't know that there are many people talking about adventure games from a generalist perspective, which I guess is why I do it myself sometimes.

  59. Why?

    STAY OUTTA THE INFIELD!!!

  60. It's fixed now, not sure what happened before. I saw your comment about playing Smash.

    I remember at my school we would play Smash every lunchtime, but we had to ban one kid from playing because he would always get angry if he lost.

    In retrospect that might've been a bit harsh, but I don't know what else we could've done.

    Do you have thoughts on the morality of that?

    I'm not sure whether or not a kid gets to play Smash at lunchtime is really a question of morality.

    If kids can't yet regulate their anger, sometimes you gotta get them away from the things that make them angry. The work they need to do to play games without raging are somewhat outside the scope of a single lunch break, you know?

  62. thoughts on speed racer (2008)?

    ain't seen it

    you should read this article by Adam Atomic comparing it with Vanquish, though: http://bit.ly/2DA6yNN

  63. Is your account okay? I can't see any of the answers on your page, only the questions.

    Looks normal on my end.

  64. Do you know your videos are really neat and there should be more of them?

    I'm working on it.

  65. What was the most recent thing which made you laugh?

    You kind of had to be there, but my girlfriend beat me many times over in Melee this morning, but right before I left we decided to play one game of my Captain Falcon vs. her Young Link on Hyrule Temple, which is our traditional last game, and after her being up a stock on me pretty much the entire game I landed a knee on her at high percent from the middle of the stage and she paused and executed a No Contest half a second before flying into the right blastzone rather than see herself lose a game neither of us thought I would win.

    Surprising reversals in Smash are the cause of a lot of belly laughs for both of us.

  66. HEY WHY DONT YOU HAVE A FURSONA? HBomberguy has one, Shaun technically has one, and Im fairly certain Dan Olson has one. Why dont you?

    Some of us are born furs. Some of us become furs.

    Some of us have furriness thrust upon us. Apparently.

  67. Hi! Do you like this dating site?
    I think a saw your photo there.
    P.S. I like you, please answer to me!

    which dating site and which way did you swipe

  68. You have a really good ability to visualize your points in your videos. I especially liked the bar you used for identifying the alt-right. I don't have a question as much as I wanna hear your thoughts on how you visualize your ideas.

    Also, what tools do you use for these visuals?

    I still use Flash CS5 for the drawings and a Wacom tablet. Old school.

    As for how I work out the visuals... I don't... know... how I do it...?

    So, OK, sometimes I'll have some visual ideas in my head before I write the script, so I'll write for the images I intend to make. But most of the time I figure it out after. I'll write a script, record some temp narration, edit the audio, and put the sound file in the Premiere timeline, and then just play it beginning to end, making notes. By this time I have a sense of the rhythms of my speech and what constitutes a complete thought that needs to be visualized, and I'll just write a note for each of those beats. Depending on the video, I'd guess about half of the visual ideas come to me while I'm making the notes.

    The rest of it is just opening up Flash and starting at the top of the list. How do I visualize this beat? Now how do I visualize THIS beat? Now THIS beat. Etc.

    As I go through, I make notes on any parts of the script that should be cut or changed based on the drawings I make; a lot of the time there are some things I no longer need to say because the image does the legwork for me, or there's a particular visual idea I have that I'd need a small rewrite to fit in. Once I have a rough cut I do the final narration, and, bang, we have a video.

    But, like, how did I learn to visualize stuff? I have no idea. I may just be one of those visual thinkers who thinks in pictures, or it may be that I consume and analyze a lot of visual media and picked up a sense of what works and what doesn't. Whatever it is, it's not a fully conscious process.

  69. You get a lot criticism so I'm wondering why you don't just disable the like-dislike ratio? I think the people who are right-leaning will look at the number of dislikes, people will automatically think you're being unfair and make hate comments without watching the video; so how come you don't disable the likes/dislikes?

    So the only reason I haven't disabled comments on my political videos is because word is viewership goes way down without comments. This is either because assholes love to hear themselves talk or because YouTube's algorithms bury anything that doesn't generate "engagement;" if it's true at all I'm guessing it's a mix of both.

    I haven't disabled the like/dislike ratio because I assume it's the same deal.

  70. ian your comments section is like usually 100% awful and terrible. why cant they just be ok with you wanting to do political videos?

    why you reading the comments?

    don't do that.

  71. I've heard about spoken Danish not making much sense to Swedish and Norwegian people.

    To British people, Danish people speaking English sound like they're from the north of England.

    (albeit with a mildly Canadian tone, no doubt resulting from exposure to American film, music, and TV)

    This makes sense, as the north was where most of the Norse settlements in England were.

    Swedish and Norwegian people sound a bit more Germanic in terms of pronunciation, but nowhere near as much as Dutch or German people do.

    Dutch people can also sometimes sound very American. Far more than other place's speakers do in English.

    In terms of written language an English speaker can usually start deciphering dutch sentences pretty quickly.

    I might need a guide to look up one or two words where English uses a French word a sentence, and I find dutch pronouns confusing.

    But otherwise dutch syntax and grammar is very similar to the dialects spoken in south west England.

    I tend to find that for me, with a recieved pronunciation (formal)/estuary (informal) London dialect that "putting on" an American accent is very difficult.

    For example, most American dialects do not say any vowel sound in "bird", so they pronounce it as brd.

    Doing this in a sentence is completely unnatural to me.

    I've heard that german speakers can often find London accents incomprehensible.

    For example, heater would often be pronounced ee-uh.

    Actually, I can see why anyone would find that incomprehensible when I write that out.

    Since h-dropping is very common in British english, french people tend not to sound so strange speaking English once they've had time to practice.

    But I get the impression americans find it harder to get used to.

    none of this is a question but I'm answering anyway because it was interesting

  72. How much of other languages can you understand?

    I am English, and if I look at something written in French or Italian I can usually tell what it is about, but not what it actually says about that thing.

    In contrast Dutch initially looks like nonsense to me, but after looking at a sentence for a minute or so I can usually decipher it.

    But I was not taught foreign languages in school at all other than some arbitary fragments of french like:

    "Je ne parle pas francais"

    and

    "Qu'est-ce qu'un poulet?"

    So essentially I have no foreign language skills.

    I took Spanish in high school, so I can at least parse the grammar of most Romance languages. When I was younger I could recall most of the common nouns in Spanish, and there are enough cognates with Portuguese, French, and Italian that I could maybe get the gist of things. My vocab has gone down the toilet from disuse, though, so I dunno. Germanic languages have more cognates with English, but the syntax is way more confusing, so I don't think I'd do too well in Eastern Europe, either.

    In short, I am a useless monoglot.

  73. have you ever drank doctor pepper?

    Yes

  74. did you freaking SEE THAT NEW NINTENDO DIRECT how'd you react!

    I've only seen the Smash trailer. I don't know how to feel because I don't know whether it's a new Smash or a port of Smash 4. I like the memes, though.

  75. Is Kirby socialist??

    probs

Anon commented:
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