domain:city-journal.org
YE_GUILTY
1d ago
Maybe not by box office receipts alone, but counting other revenue streams like merchandise, I wouldn't be surprised.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
So they bought Marvel and Lucasfilm and, over the 2010s, got a good many billions of dollars in box office returns from them both.
Did they actually get a return on Lucasfilm? I know they made a decent profit on the first few films, but Lucasfilm cost them 6 billion, IIRC, I don't know if they managed to net that much across all their SW projects.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
I mean, reliability level of "some dude on the internet" but, I can tell you I saw a mountain lion about 20 feet from me hiking in Central VA last year. It was slinking up a not-human-navigable trail on a hillside, stopped, looked at me. I looked at it. It walked away.
YE_GUILTY
1d ago
Disney is back where it started:
But we've been here before. Around the late '00s, Disney felt that it was shackled by its perception as a girl brand, and needed some boy-friendly properties. There were some that had had some success - Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars - but it wanted more. (Article 1, article 2 on marketing research in 2009 about this.)
They took a few gambles on intellectual property they already owned (or at least that wasn't too expensive) - Tron, The Lone Ranger, John Carter of Mars and so forth - but those didn't give them the wins they wanted.
So they bought Marvel and Lucasfilm and, over the 2010s, got a good many billions of dollars in box office returns from them both. But now both Marvel and Star Wars are sputtering at best, so it seems they think it's time to start up the search anew.
The obvious question is what happened to their last investments. The polite answer is that they stopped producing acceptable stories, or overexposed or overextended their franchises with TV shows and the like beyond general audiences' interest. But is that all? "To lose one strategic franchise may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness." What's to say that they won't make the same mistake again, whatever it was?
So there are less polite answers. That link leads to the /r/saltierthancrait discussion of the article (taken down now, by the looks of things. Too impolite even there!) where the poster summarizes their take on the story as "1. Buy new IP to have something for boys 2. Alienate them by pandering to girls 3. Repeat."
And even if it's so that both franchises' declines followed girl-power (or other identity-politics) pushes, that's still not a correlation that one's supposed to draw in polite company, not without a lot of throat-clearing. And true: the orthodox explanation of quality decline and overextension has much truth to it, and it's even possible to explain any alienation of target demographics as being due to such overextension: the same ambition that led Disney to want to give itself some appeal to boys also could lead it to try to make Marvel or Star Wars appeal more to girls. Maybe pure greed is the only explanatory factor needed.
Still, though, I have my doubts. I feel like there's a cultural undercurrent, much broader than just Disney, that it's a problem whenever anything is enjoyed by boys(/men) and not girls(/women). Perhaps there's an element of blank-slatism here: the belief that gender differences are all due to socialization, and in a perfect, prejudice-free world, male and female tastes would be the same.
That is: if there were any value to [something], then girls would see it. If they're not there with the boys, then either they're being kept away by something toxic or exclusionary, or there isn't any value to the thing and the boys shouldn't be having fun with it, either. Anything with predominantly male enthusiasts therefore should be either integrated or banned. (Going the other way, it seems much more easily accepted that boys are at fault for not being interested in something that girls are, for example.)
But if it's not true that, but for patriarchy, boys and girls would have the same interests, then the pursuit of this equalization can result in feeding a whole lot of interests or fields or value in general into the void. If lightsabers and starfighters appealing more to boys than to girls was not a problem that needed fixing, and Disney doesn't realize this, then they'll slide right back into this pit every time they try to escape. And if it is true, well - they'd better hope that they can somehow find fixes that work.
On point three, I completely agree that America has/had a unique "secret sauce" for getting things done. My contention is that it's part of a feedback loop.
I'm not sure if we're talking about the same secret sauce. The feedback loop idea makes sense to me if the process is: America gets things done -> this attracts people from other countries who want to get things done -> they get things done -> it attracts more people who want to get things done... but what I meant was America's culture being the infrastructure enabling things getting done. "The best and the brightest" don't enter into the picture here, honestly my view of the average IRL American's intellect has been rather dim (and I'm far from the only one)... and yet, when I witnessed their ability to coordinate when a problem arose, it was uncanny, almost like telepathy. Apparently de Tocqueville had a whole bit about that, so it's a phenomenon that's been observed for quite a while.
Under my model immigration might be a force multiplier, but not a feedback loop. You can point to me at all the wonderful goods being transported by trains and trucks, and indeed if they stop coming, my standard of living might decline, but my point is that they're driving over a bridge, which doesn't seem to be doing so well. Halting the traffic to do maintenance might not be pleasant, but far less so than exploiting the bridge to the point of collapse.
If you want to show that your feedback model is more accurate than my base infrastructure model, you'd need to show how immigrants are feeding back into, and maintaining that culture of getting things done, because it's not obvious to me at all. Sure, they can integrate and assimilate, but even in the optimistic "magical dirt" model, first-generation immigrants are usually written off, and it's their children who are expected to integrate. Personally I'm not so optimistic, and I think it's a process that needs to be promoted actively, or else the native culture will become gradually diluted. On top of that, "assimilation" has become a bit of a dirty word to begin with, making it all the harder.
I visited Guangzhou about 10 years ago and saw the opposite problem. Their immigrant population comes largely from very poor areas in Africa. They're treated like second-class citizens, are watched constantly, and frankly, fit Trump’s language about immigrants more than the hard-working people in America.
Doesn't that throw a bit of a wrench in your argument? Of all the countries in the world, China seems to have the best chance for potentially overtaking America,
lagrangian
1d ago
I enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks for posting. I don't think it fits better in any other thread. All the sentences to me are "welp, probably time to kill myself." It's fascinating that they try that hard to tweak the sentences those little bits.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
Actual dream I had, virtually exactly as I had it. The only thing I left out was I vaguely remember an abstract third person who also went in with me, who was a nondescript "friend" who got lost even faster than my wife? But my dream seemed to forget he even existed, so I left him out of my telling.
GBRK
1d ago
Trad pub has a much higher risk of failure, but if you pick the right lottery numbers it massively magnifies your success. That's why even the most popular selfpublished works eventually get aquired and sent down the traditional route-- because they know they'll benefit from the investment of institutional resources.
If I wanted side-hustle money, selfpub would be better. But I'm aiming, however foolishly, for quit-your-job money, which is a much higher bar since I'm already well renumerated. To that end, I'd much rather have 10 trunk books or flops trying to pen a bestseller than 10 books that get a modest audience but require a permanent time commitment for marketing, events, merch, kickstarter, etcetera. I'm not interested in the fate of all selfpublishing authors I know in my local writer's groups. Death or glory. Nothing else.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
The issue here is that it's not aggravated assault. New Jersey, like most other states, defines serious bodily injury as
"Serious bodily injury" means bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ
While the injuries in the above case were serious by any casual definition, they don't meet the high bar required to upgrade the charge.
TIRM
1d ago
Very roughly: If there is an opportunity to give black people a majority black district, then it is required to do so. The American south has lots of black people. Some of whom packed into gerrymandered districts giving them black congressional representatives. This is “good” gerrymandering required by law.
A_Wee_Hearts_Toll
1d ago
Self publishing is much more profitable:
My old publisher pays me 10% royalties on net profit of books sold, which ends up being more like 5% of the sale price. Leanpub is paying 80% on sticker price as royalties. One copy of LfP sold nets me about as much as 15 copies of Practical TLA+.
Primaprimaprima
I am trying so hard not to say the MBTI type of everyone I reply to
1d ago
Right, there's the classic "I don't know who the woman was, but I can tell you that she wasn't my mother!"
But my dreams (insofar as I can remember them anyway) are rarely even complex enough to have much of a "telling". I was walking down a street in my neighborhood. Bam that's it that's the dream. Rather uninteresting! (I suppose even that little bit is still a "telling" though.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
It's typically the telling as much as the content itself that provides insight n Freudian dream analysis.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
There's your issue, you should have taken me replying under Corvus' response as endoraement of his explanation.
Tiber727
1d ago
What's interesting to me is the latter argument. Putting political advantage aside, an ideal district would be not competitive in the slightest. The reason being that districts exist to serve the needs of the local, and a politician with 100% of the vote is perfectly representing everyone in the district rather than half.
Throwaway05
1d ago
If something has changed in the modern era, I would argue that it stems from the welfare state.
I am amenable to data that shows otherwise, but it seems to be that in ye olde days you came to America assimilated and depending on who and where you were you might be prevented from doing so by disgruntled locals.
Today the (hispanic at least) immigrants make no effort and seem to have no interest in assimilation. Even outside of Texas and California you see signs in Spanish everywhere, official governmental communication in Spanish and so on.
This is a huge difference in character of immigration with respect to previous waves of it.
kky
1d ago
No, it could certainly be vote manipulation of some sort (I think Singapore did it effectively by importing a lot of Chinese), but it’s not gerrymandering. That term is fairly precisely about redistricting.
Tiber727
1d ago
That does not compute. Protesting is by definition controversial - if it weren't, it's not a protest, it's at most solidarity march.
Oh, I know. I was deliberately stating it in a way to show the absurdity. My impression of progressives is that if you asked them what the median person believes on X, Y, and Z issues, they would describe a progressive. They think their belief system is so normal that they see themselves less as attempting to move the needle and more trying to keep the needle from moving away from them. Or at least they think that the culture is aligned with them and they only need to get the government to recognize it. That doesn't mean it's true. It's just an observation about many members of a group that I believe I'm seeing.
From there I am saying that there's a sort of discrepancy - the right frames the last 20 years as if the left sat in a war room and planned out a list of slow, coordinated encroachments meant to erode the status of any right-leaning beliefs. The left acts as if they were going about their normal daily routine, dealing with the occasional asshole as one does, and then the assholes came back with a mob.
My model is that the left is an uncoordinated mob that isn't even really paying attention to all those other encroachments because journalism, left or right, mostly focuses on whatever bad thing the other side did. Everyone has a point where they will try to completely shun someone else. Finding out that someone supports pedophilia is an easy example. The progressive left has calibrated their "cut all contact with someone" threshold to be extremely low.
Only now, finally, the right starts to wake up and wonder "oh, they are trying to crush us, maybe we should push back?" And then we hear the complaints "how undignified, you are fighting back, people would think you are the same! They will reject you for stooping so low as to fight back! You should just roll over and take it, then you'd have all our sympathies - everybody loves losers!"
That's one way to frame it.
The left and the right have fought for public support since the beginning of democracy. I might disagree with the rules of war the left plays by, but the right, collectively speaking, were not passive bystanders minding their own business either. "We didn't start the fire" after all. The problem is, in real life there are laws that allow anyone to use the public square. When it comes to both businesses and the internet, every part of it belongs to somebody, and with that comes the ability to remove someone for any reason. They're nowhere near as culturally dominant, but there are certainly places that ban left-leaning opinions. If you'd like to change that, well that's certainly an opinion but it's one at odds with the libertarian beliefs many on this forum claim to possess.
Let me ask you this - how can an outside observer tell the difference between someone "pushed to their limit" and someone who never had principles in the first place? Surely the left would tell a similar story about how they were all for free expression until the mean old right wouldn't leave them alone. I'm obviously biased, but many on the right seem positively giddy about all the things they want to accomplish. And they only clues I have on what they would consider "too far" are the things they've already done and now tell me are completely reasonable.
Throwaway05
1d ago
My guess is that under the hood this was a political grenade and everyone deemed this the easiest way to defuse it without causing other problems. The reality of the law was likely subordinate to getting out as clean as possible.
So we get this - and move on.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
1d ago
I was under the impression that the presence of mountain lions in the Eastern US was indeed rare but also pretty much an open secret these days. Two people that I've known from that neck of the woods have separately shared with me that they saw mountain lions in various parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and they were trustworthy folks. When I did a little digging I ran straight into the whole, "they just have a large range," cope, which, while true, doesn't exactly satisfy when the sightings are still too numerous and much too far away from their known habitats.
I guess my sense of US sentencing practices has been skewed by reading too many cases that feature offenders with voluminous criminal histories. Still, in New Jersey, aggravated sexual assault (sexual penetration (of any orifice) during the commission of aggravated assault (purposeful infliction of significant bodily injury)) carries a sentence of 10–20 years—a bit harsher than the 0–20 years that Pennsylvania prescribes for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse (deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion).
DoctorMonarch
♬We're so happy that we live in 1800's Alabama 'cause it's sunny and there is no crime!♬
1d ago
Unfortunately not a cryptid, but there have been regular legends regarding a large, navigable underground river. https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Underground_river
A recently established local whiskey distillery is named Dread River after it.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1d ago
Am I harsh? I have some sympathy for unhappy romanceless males. Can you have sympathy for a woman?
Nope, sorry; never even heard of this dude
Unironically, you might enjoy him. And seriously, read something besides manga.
Supah_Schmendrick
1d ago
Should minorities be guaranteed representation, even if they are geographically spread out?
No. They're not special; they're either Americans just like the rest of us, or they can go found their own country (with or without blackjack and hookers according to their national custom). Creating specialized ethnic ghettoes is empire shit (Ottoman millets, Soviet ethnic republics), and that's precisely what America was founded not to be. I know we're probably too far gone for this to be a meaningful position, but a man can dream.
Bonus quotation:
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.
But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as anyone else. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.
The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.
Teddy Roosevelt; Address to the Knights of Columbus, New York City. October 12, 1915
...that's eerie. I feel like this detail does actually enhance the narrative, and somehow the fact that you chose to leave it out of your initial telling actually further enhances it.
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