FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
1hr ago
I dislike the vast majority of discussions based around tribal politics (present company excluded)
I like to imagine that, at the best of times, we're one meta-level up, discussing the fact of tribal politics and why some topics or events acquire valence in the culture war while others don't. Whereas I assume most people asking you "are you a Democrat or a Republican?" just take it as read that their team is Good, the other team is Bad, and they want to know which team you're on.
it has to compete with writers like ARX-Han who are both more extremely online and willing to be actually edgy. I think Tulathiamutte is masterful in going right up to the limit of "safe edgy" that the uniformly-leftist literary scene will accept, and so he's able to scandalize without any unacceptable transgressions.
FtttG
3hr ago
I don't know about Fuentes in particular, but trans-identified males with far-right opinions are more common than you might think.
FtttG
5hr ago
Is he "coded as a white elite" too?
They considered him a race traitor.
FtttG
5hr ago
And it was great.
Out of curiosity – I assume you mean it was great for you? Presumably your girlfriend didn't remember it? Or did she?
I mean, yes. At the same time, the intros for 20th Century Fox, Universal, Columbia and Paramount are memorable in their own right, and people recognise them independently of any specific movie to which they are attached. If I start humming the 20th Century Fox fanfare (doo, doo-doo, dee-doo-dee-doo-dee doo, doo-doo...), I would expect most people in my vicinity to recognise it and be able to finish the melody. 20th Century Fox (among other film production companies) is a successful exercise in establishing a recognisable brand identity.
Asserting that people only go to see movies because of association with other movies/properties, and that the specific production and distribution company doesn't matter at all – well, is this how we talk about any other kind of commercial endeavour? If someone buys an iPhone and they've never owned an iPhone before, which of these more accurately describes their thought process before doing so?
- They developed a positive impression of iMacs, iPads, iPods completely independent of one another, and are buying an iPhone because it's "from the people who brought you iMacs, iPads, iPods", even though they couldn't name the specific company who made them.
- They have positive associations with Apple the company: the apple-with-a-bite-in-it logo (and its associated fonts, colour scheme etc.) essentially acts as a sort of seal of approval for any attached product.
Obviously buying a movie ticket isn't the same thing as buying a phone or a car: we put more stock in a "seal of quality" for expensive purchases than cheap ones, and I couldn't begin to tell you which production company produced some of my favourite movies. But in spite of that, when I see the 20th Century Fox intro before a movie, I expect a higher standard of quality and professionalism than I do when clicking on a YouTube video at random (in the same way that even a person who has never owned an Apple product before expects a higher standard of quality from an Apple product than the knockoff equivalent from Temu). The production and distribution companies responsible for a movie convey a nonzero amount of information to the consumer, audiences do not simply zone out before the opening credits start, and certain production and distribution companies have more cachet and status than others. A screenwriter who announced "I sold a script to 20th Century Fox" would attract more impressed looks than "I sold a script to Blumhouse", even if he sold it for the same sum.
Pretty rare to go see a movie because of a producer.
I would argue that the company which produces and/or distributes a movie acts as a sort of seal of approval: if a movie is preceded by the 20th Century Fox intro, people hold it to a higher standard than some video uploaded to YouTube. Many movies are in fact advertised based on who the production company and/or producer was, and quite a few were commercially successful:
- King Arthur was advertised as "From Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of Pirates of the Caribbean" and made $200 million on a $120 million budget.
- The Darkest Minds was advertised as being "from the producers of Stranger Things and Arrival" and made $40 million on a $35 million budget.
- Violent Night was advertised as "from the producer of Nobody and Bullet Train" and made $76 million on a $20 million budget.
- Barbarian was advertised as "From a producer of It and the executive producer of The Grudge and The Ring" and made its money back ten times over.
- M3GAN was advertised as "From James Wan, producer of Annabelle, and Blumhouse, producer of The Black Phone" and made its money back fifteen times over.
And those examples are just "from the producer of": I didn't even touch on "from the studio that brought you".
I'm not claiming that people went to see these movies purely on the basis of the producer's name recognition, or because the producer had previously produced a film they enjoyed. Obviously the usual traits that make a movie a commercial success count too: star power, a compelling hook, a memorable trailer, good reviews, positive word of mouth, star power (although I think it's telling that quite a few of those movies had no memorable stars and directors I'd never heard of). But I think you're understating the extent to which attaching the names of an established producer and production company to a film can help to get bums in seats.
FtttG
9hr ago
I spent literally hundreds of hours trying to beat the first game on Classic difficulty with Ironman enabled, and finally cracked it a few years ago, something that apparently only 2.2% of Steam players have done. (Some day I'd like to compile a nonstandard CV, featuring accomplishments that wouldn't impress any prospective employer but which I am inordinately proud of all the same.) The funny thing about XCOM is that the difficulty is very front-loaded: for the first ~20 hours you're in Early Game Hell and a single mistake can completely fuck you, but once you get past that, the endgame is a cakewalk and you can steamroll over the final boss without breaking a sweat.
I admit I may be skirting the edges of "Fun", but this story made me laugh:
Thai masseuse in Connemara stops taking male clients due to barrage of enquiries for sex services:
THE OWNER OF a Thai massage parlour in a small village in Connemara has stopped taking male clients due to the volume of enquiries seeking sexual services and “happy endings”.
Yosita Fitzpatrick, who is from Thailand, set up Connemara Thai Massage and Wellness in Letterfrack last November, but the certified massage therapist has since been shocked by the calls and messages she has received from men.
She has reported communications from several individuals to An Garda Síochána [Ireland's police service], and has posted screenshots of some offensive messages on social media in an effort to dissuade prospective callers.
However, Fitzpatrick continues to receive offensive enquiries asking for sexual services “pretty much daily”, and announced last week that she would only be taking female clients in future.
“I am fully aware that, in the eyes of the world, the phrase ‘Thai women’ evokes unfair and negative stereotypes – portraying us merely as objects of desire,” said the mother-of-two.
“The truth is far richer. Thailand has so much to offer, and Thai women possess value that cannot be confined to narrow, outdated perceptions.
“No one has a right to harass me simply because I am a Thai woman or because I own a massage business,” she said.
“I am a therapist. I heal people. This is what I love. It is my purpose, and I do not want to walk away from it.”
(Is it my imagination, or does the above quote sound suspiciously like something generated by an LLM?)
Fitzpatrick said it was a difficult decision to stop accepting male clients, as they comprise around 40% of her clientele, and there are “many respectful men” who will miss out because of the actions of a few.
She will continue to cater for her existing male clients.
Fitzpatrick claimed that other Thai massage therapists around the country are also subjected to the same harassment, but choose not to speak publicly about it.
She announced on her social media accounts last week that she would no longer be accepting male clients, and warned callers that inappropriate enquiries would be reported to gardaí and may be shared publicly.
Remarkably, however, she continues to receive calls and messages from men seeking sexual services on a daily basis.
On the one hand, legitimate massage therapists have every right to feel offended when they are mistaken for sex workers, and Fitzpatrick was right to report these men to the police. On the other hand, it's a simple factual statement that many massage therapists do provide the requested services, and that the ones that do are disproportionately likely to be of Thai or Filipino extraction. The bolded passage above ('there are “many respectful men” who will miss out because of the actions of a few') really illustrates how symmetrical the situation is: just as perfectly respectful men suffer because a minority are badly behaved, every massage therapist who offers sexual services negatively affects the reputation of the legitimate therapists who refuse to.
More than anything, though, I can't help but laugh at the hapless would-be punters/johns. A man who DMs a massage therapist directly requesting a happy ending is just asking to get arrested. Have these people learned nothing from the Epstein files? Never put anything incriminating in writing.
FtttG
10hr ago
I finished XCOM 2: War of the Chosen last night (strongly considering playing the base game on Ironman mode). Would you say it scratches that kind of itch?
It's an example of a forced meme, in which someone tries to astroturf something into popularity rather than it becoming popular through genuine organic means. Specifically it's a reference to the film Mean Girls, in which the character Gretchen keeps using the word "fetch" in conversation (as an adjective meaning "cool") in hopes of making it catch on.
C'est
EDIT: in French, but not in Italian. Serves me right for being a know-it-all.
you'll note that she doesn't look at all like your other examples.
The funny thing is, if you look at women I've dated, "women of colour" (to use that horrible phrase) are vastly overrepresented compared to white women. Zendaya is probably a lot closer in appearance (certainly in skin tone) to the median woman I've dated than Johannson, Smulders or Portman.
Even just comparing Zendaya to other female celebrities with comparable ethnic backgrounds (one white and one black parent), I'd say that Halle Berry, Meghan Markle, Lisa Bonet and Thandiwe Newton in their prime were more attractive than Zendaya. Which is not to say I don't find Zendaya attractive. Anyway, I'm sure I've made my point.
FtttG
22hr ago
Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya, and Lisa (Blackpink) are all probably 10s by any objective standard but if you go by 99.9th percentile for an individual man's interest then at least one of those three is likely to get thrown out most of the time (see: the hate for Zendaya here).
I agree that the people calling Zendaya ugly are overdoing it: by any metric she's a pretty girl. But I'd hardly call her a 10/10. In fact, I think part of the basis of her appeal is that she has a certain girl-next-door quality that makes her seem approachable and down-to-earth: a nerdy MCU fan projecting himself onto Tom Holland could imagine himself dating Zendaya in a way he couldn't with (to pick a handful of her MCU costars) Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman or Cobie Smulders. I think any of these women (in their prime) would be considered more attractive than Zendaya by just about everyone.
FtttG
1d ago
The baby-rapist is a canard invented
A convicted baby-rapist was murdered in a UK prison just four months ago, where he was serving a sentence for the attempted rape of multiple babies. Not "ten days shy of their eighteenth birthday", not even young teenagers: literal, unironic babies.
On 19 December 2012, Watkins was charged at Cardiff magistrates court with conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a one-year-old girl... His victims included a baby boy.
Baby-rapists exist. Perhaps they only represent a small minority of all people convicted of statutory rape, but it's not open for discussion that they do exist. They are not a "canard" or a blood libel designed to shame otherwise well-behaved ephebophiles and pederasts.
FtttG
1d ago
Dying to understand the significance of the three question marks.
I am an adult in a committed relationship now.
So am I. The spreadsheet stays.😁
do they even pay attention to the Oscar’s?
They don't now, but this is a fairly recent phenomenon. I'm old enough to remember people being outraged when The Dark Knight didn't receive a Best Picture nomination, a decision which was so controversial that it was the primary impetus for increasing the number of nominees from 5 to 10. In absolute terms, the best ratings the Oscars ever received was in 1998, when 57 million Americans (i.e. 20% of the country) tuned in. For comparison, in the same year the Seinfeld season finale saw 76 million viewers (27% of the country) tune in. Until very recently the Oscars were just as much as part of the Zeitgeist as any major sports tournament and would make for just as reliable water-cooler conversation.
Separately from the Oscars thing, The Weinstein Company produced some of the highest-grossing films of the twenty-first century, meaning millions of people would have seen the name "Weinstein" immediately before watching a film they enjoyed. That's bound to create name recognition and positive mental associations.
If you showed a picture even less would’ve been able to tell you who that was.
A noisy metric. People who work behind the camera are bound to be less facially recognisable than people who work in front of it, but that doesn't mean they aren't famous. A lot of people couldn't identify Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Alfred Hitchcock, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Peter Jackson etc. from their photos, but don't tell me these men aren't famous.
you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).
No, I am also opposed to discrimination on that basis.
Earlier you said:
To the best of my understanding, the pro-trans faction proposed to divide sex from gender, such that all social distinctions would fall under the latter category
What exactly is the difference between "discrimination" and "social distinction"?
I can't help but notice how parochial your dire warning is. If I'm reading you correctly, it's something like this. If we acknowledge people's sex and use that information to make predictions about how they will behave, this sets a precedent that it's legitimate to discriminate on the basis of people's inherent traits which they cannot control. People will hence begin discriminating on the basis of race more openly than they already do. Eventually, well-behaved blacks who are being discriminated against on the basis of something they cannot control will get so fed up with this that they will start rioting.
(Darkly reminiscent of the old joke about critics of Islam, but that's neither here nor there.)
I note that this dire warning is only applicable in societies which contain a critical mass of black men. In Ireland, they represent about 0.65% of the population. So do I have your blessing to carry on assuming that male people are more likely to be violent and aggressive than female people, and taking proactive steps to avoid being a victim of male violence on that basis?
Subsequently, the same logic was extended to sex/gender
Was it, though? Are you implying that I'm some kind of weird outlier because I think it's legitimate to preferentially hire a female babysitter over a male? I actually think I'm the normal one in this regard: you're the first person I've encountered who (claims he) would choose whether to hire a male or female babysitter by flipping a coin. It's trans activists demanding that we abolish sex segregation and the rest of society pushing back. Contrary to your implication that "anti-trans activists" are the weirdo minority, I think the overwhelming majority of people are actually in favour of sex segregation in certain key areas (e.g. sports, changing rooms, women's prisons, hospital wards). So if you're claiming that we as a society collectively agreed that discrimination on the basis of race was wrong and by extension that discrimination on the basis of sex was wrong (in the sense of "acknowledging that male people are responsible for a disproportionate amount of sex crimes"), then I think the latter half of that claim is simply ahistorical. I think it is exactly as difficult for a would-be male babysitter to get a job now as it would be seventy years ago.
If Alan rapes Barb with his penis, and he wears a condom, Barb is unlikely to be impregnated or contract a social disease; he is nevertheless prosecuted no less vigorously.
I'm not suggesting that rape which does not lead to impregnation or STI transmission is more criminal than that which does not. I'm saying that these are the two main reasons that rape (in the "forcible penetration with a penis, without protection" sense) is seen as especially heinous compared to other kinds of sexual assault.
Even Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein weren't celebrities
To echo @FiveHourMarathon: other than Harvey Weinstein, the only single individuals more frequently thanked in Oscar acceptance speeches were Steven Spielberg and God. If that's not a celebrity, I don't know what is.
Well, I stand corrected.
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