BahRamYou
18hr ago
I think it's one of those questions that really depends on how exactly you phrase it. Obviously in the real world there are no magic buttons, so we have to use our imaginations.
Like, is this a button that's constantly available, every single day, but once you press it there's no going back? In that case i could see a lot of men pressing it in a moment of recklessness (possibly while drunk) just like how people get bad tattoos or other questionable body modifications.
Also, does it just work superficially, or does it affect their brain, too? Will they suddenly wind up with a drastically different personality? I don't think a lot of people would want that.
Also, is there an equivalent magic button for women turning into men? Otherwise, the world might end up with a huge surplus of women, which changes the gender dynamics quite a bit.
BahRamYou
18hr ago
There used to be a lot of jobs for people liks: local music hall player, freelance graphic designer, craftsman stoneworker, small town paper writer, etc. Admittedly most of those dried up long ago, though.
BahRamYou
2d ago
For us in the US, the cost isn't necessarily the issue, it's finding a friendly doctor to write us a prescription. FDA rules us like a nanny state.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Definitely a lot of hopelessness going on. I'm a millenial, so I've heard us described as "the sad generation," an entire generation of young adults longing for the days of our youth when things were so much better. Which is weird, because all the economic stats say that we're much wealthier than ever, and there's a million new options for entertainment that we never had before, and... somehow that made everything worse? Odd.
I'd agree that e-proles and cosplay aren't just about sexuality. I meant it more like... any raw, unfiltered display of emotion. The male cosplayers I've seen at cons usually favor huge weapons and elaborate armor, which is more of a power fantasy. Then you've got the people super into historical recreation, or cute slice of life, fantasizing about some life of pure coziness. And even the more sexual anime stuff they rarely actually have sex, it's just blatantly showing off the bodies of hot women with no shame. I think it's that feeling of like "raw burst of emotion" that appeals to people who are kinda depressed and hopeless, because it at least lets them feel something. It's like taking a straight shot of cheap tequila, as opposed to sipping a fancy wine.
But also, yes, it's just a very convenient aesthetic. They can stay at home in their parents house, talking to their friends on discord, and apply some $5 hair dye or wear a $20 cat ear headset, and instantly they're part of it. No need to buy expensive concert tickets, or name-brand clothes, or a racing car, or cocaine or anything like that.
BahRamYou
5d ago
As someone not from the US I'd ask you to elaborate on this a bit. I've only seen such particular diners in movies and I can only assume that they normally make cozy third places in the terms of sociology. Is there any particular reason why they are normally open around the clock and are disappearing and are relatively expensive?
It definitely used to be a thing. I remember going to places like that as a teenager, but most of the places I remember have either shut down or are no longer open late at night. There are still some, notably IHOP and Waffle House, but they're mostly near freeways, and not somewhere I'd really like to go unless I'm driving long distances at night. Even most fast food places shut down at night (but there are some exceptions). I did see a few classic 24 hour diners in New York City, but that's NYC being different, and they were very expensive.
For why, I'm not exactly sure, but I can guess a combination of factors. It just costs a lot more to run a restaurant than it used to, because of rent and labor costs, so it's not profitable to keep a big space open with few customers. Or if it's peak dinner time, they want people to eat and leave quickly so they can turn the table over to a new customer. Especially if the "customers" are bored young people who are going to sit around for hours talking loudly and not ordering anything except maybe one soda, it's just bad business. Then, if it's in a city, you also have to worry about homeless people using it as a shelter, which is even worse for business. Maybe in the past there were more middle-class people who wanted to use it as a third space and could afford to buy a full meal there at 2am, but those kind of people would just stay home now. Something like the classic "Nighthawks" painting I just don't see, and maybe it's better that people can just stay home and go to sleep, but it is a bit sad.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Definitely a difference in the sort of crowd that would download a torrent + apply the .sub file, or pay expensive import fees, or join a club just to watch someone else's bootleg tapes, vs the current meta of endless mindless streaming on demand.
Also, excuse me while I go full weeb a minute, but I feel the same way about sushi. There's levels to it. On the low end, you can buy cheap premade stuff as a snack, and that's perfectly fine, just don't expect any complex flavors. American restaurants usually oyster California rolls or some deep fried monstrosity and that's... fine... but you might as well just order fried shrimp. The better places offer simple nigiri or sashimi with nice rice, so you can really taste the subtle flavors of the fish, and a clear mild liquor like sake really does complement it well. Some fancy plates and a cool chef also helps the experience. But at some point people go to extremes where they're just wasting money on "the secret, ultimate fish" or whatever and that's just stupid. Or you get drunk salarymen snacking on sushi while also binge drinking and smoking so... that can be fun too, in its own way. But once in a while its worth making the effort to appreciate a fancy meal with more subtle flavors than typical restaurant fare.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Not an easy one. I used to use MangaRock, but it got shut down for piracy. Im not as plugged into the scene as I used to be- the big mainstream western accrptance and commercialization kinda killed off the indie scanlation volunteers. Your best bet is probably to search the list of manga that have win awards not in the shonen/shoujo category, like the general category of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogakukan_Manga_Award. Once you find something you like, you can search what else they've done- often they have more experimental works that never hit it big, but are more intellectual. Or if there's a specific genre that interests you, you can see if there's a magazine for that (eg, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Yuri_Hime for yuri manga that's actually aimed at women, instead of male fanservice). Unfortunately the rabbit hole gets pretty deep, and the really niche stuff is often print-only, not sold outside Japan.
BahRamYou
5d ago
Yeah that's fair. I'd like to point out that there is some sophisticated anime, and especially the niche manga that never gets turned into anime. But I'm well aware that's not what people are watching on Crunchyroll or Toonami.
It's a good article, and there's definitely something real there, but I hate the term "dinergoth."
For one thing, they're literally not hanging out in diners. The classic 24 hour diner doesn't exist in most locations anymore, and when it does it's too expensive for broke young people to go there casually. Also they kind of frown on people just hanging out for hours, and young people are staying at home online anyway.
Also they're not goth in any way. The glassic goth aesthetic is dark, muted colors and sad, serious emotions. This aesthetic of anime, games, and internet memes is more about bright colors and direct, intense displays of vibrant emotions. Almost the exact opposite of goth.
I would call it something like "proleanime" or "e-prole." They're not pretentious, they don't want to hide behind many layers of irony, and they're not educated enough to even understand postmodernism. They want something simple and affordable which they can enjoy, heavily based online since that's where they spend their time. Also, they want to express their sexuality free from the constraints of modern feminism, which is often "performatively" sex-positive but "practically" sex-negative for anyone who isn't gay or trans. And sure, some of them are obese or ugly because lots of people are, but some of them are traditionally attractive too (like the girls who get super into cosplay). It's a big tent of people who want to express sexuality and don't have a good venue for it in today's society! So while I'm not part of this group myself, I do support it.
Also I think maybe older people have the idea that anime is more high-brow than it is? We got this small subset of poorly translated anime films in the 90s, plus everything from Studio Ghibli, and thought it should be some high-class artistic statement because we didn't understand it. But when you watch the majority of mainstream anime with proper translations, you quickly realize how low-brow and fanservice-heavy it is. Nothing wrong with that, let people enjoy themselves, it's just a very different aesthetic than you normally expect from people who watch foreign media with subtitles.
BahRamYou
6d ago
That's hardly a small-scale question. Predicting any financial market is hard, and silver/gold (especially silver) is one of the most volatile of all! Volatility levels for both are absolutely insane right now.
My personal opinion is that gold is more or less rational now. Much higher than it was a year ago, less than it was a week ago, roughly balanced by high debt levels and falling confidence in things like bitcoin and treasury bonds. Silver I think is still overpriced (it's "the poor mans gold" for people who want to speculate but can't afford gold), so I have a small bear position against silver right now, selling calls to take advantage of its crazy volatility making options expensive. But obviously nothing is guaranteed and I could be wildly wrong.
Sure. Easy enough to say this sort of stuff when it's just hypothetical, much harder when it's a real decision that you have to make and it's permanent.
More options
Context Copy link