Weekend Lounge ~ Epistemic Journalism

Welcome to the weekend!

I don't know about you, but the sudden winter weather has been quite the pain to deal with. Was hoping for things to ease in a little more, however it doesn't seem like it's going to let up. We're just going straight into cold weather, it seems. What a pain.

That aside, let's get to it.

Today's topic is less about the contents of the above video in question (though not entirely) and about the great message included inside of it. Today we will discuss what truth in storytelling is supposed to amount to and how it can be used to dishonestly divert attention or focus by those who engage in it honestly. This is hard to describe so I'll try to e straightforward about it. Essentially, storytelling is truth telling, it is meant to impart reality on the audience... which is why it can be used to lie about reality instead. And there are countless examples of just that out there, especially today.

In essence, stories are powerful and are meant to present truth to both the teller and the audience, and it takes a special kind of deceiver to weaponize that against the people who are meant to be the audience. And deceiving is almost expected these days.

To sum it up: stories might not be obviously true on a surface level but they are always meant to be epistemically true. When your audience sits down to listen to you at the campfire, they are expecting a true story. If they're not it's only because they've been lied to so much they are skeptical by default. This is not how it's meant to be, but storytellers over the past century have deliberately soured the relationship with their audience due to the antisocial crowd in charge of the large industries. And now stories are seen as completely disposable and throwaway.

So what does it mean to be epistemically true and how did the subversive crowd lie about it? That is a bit complicated, but the long and short of it is that they didn't just outright lie to audiences: they told the true . . . to a point. They used the truth to wedge themselves in to present lies as truth. The way this is done is quite interesting. This process means that storytellers can focus on part of the bigger picture that is True while ignoring the whole, thereby lying by omission and manipulating those they see as beneath them. The thumbnail topic in the above video about the "Satanic Panic" is one such issue that is still bandied about today.

Before anyone rolls their eyes and starts smugly typing their expert opinion, it might be wise to ask why this is being brought up at all in today's topic. The reason is that the "Satanic Panic" is a media buzzword used to distract from the epistemic truth in order to frame a different lie as reality instead. Let's get into how that works.

For example, when one tells a story about how crazy it is to think of Dungeons and Dragons or metal records are satanic, they deliberately ignore the real issues of the time period to frame the entire thing as one large canard about the former subjects instead. This why you were taught to hear the phrase "Satanic Panic" and dismiss everything related to the subject. You won't learn who Ralph Underwager, Gary Caradori, or Marc Dutroux are, or why they matter, but still consider yourself an expert on the subject because your silly out of touch grandma took away your Pokémon cards a quarter of a century ago. You don't know what the Franklin Scandal is or why the Finders not being a one-off project is significant, but it doesn't matter because Tom Hanks was in a silly Dungeons and Dragons is Evil movie back in the 1980s. This is how an audience can be manipulated.

And it still carries on today.

This process of lying by omission is an appeal to emotion using massaged facts in order to avoid considering a larger truth. But this is only part of it. This whole mechanism prevents a sort of epistemic investigation of the larger project, a form of propaganda made to stunt thinking. In fact, it's the most effective kind of propaganda there is, because it it isn't straight out lying: it is using a piece of truth to cover the bigger picture. It is the worst kind of manipulation there is.

Let me explain further, using a similar example we still hear plenty about today. This isn't meant to be directly political, but since it involves political decisions that changed an entire industry, it's unavoidable.

Why does no one ask why Bill Clinton's Telecommunication Act of 1996 enabling Clear Channel to rise and Al Gore's wife persecuting an entire industry then lead those same people who had their careers directly harmed and industries gutted led to those same people to vote for them and enabled their destruction. How does one support those who directly harmed them without even a second thought or doubt? Where does that attitude come from? As we've seen, it did not fall out of the sky: it was constructed.

Why do supposed anti-censorship crowds today still obsess over the above "Satanic Panic" half truths while ignoring the existence of entire organizations like the ACT and people like Peggy Charren who broke the back of the animation industry in the west and eventually allowed Japan to eat their lunch? It's because they were told half a story and never investigated further, because it seemed truth enough, even though it wasn't actually so when one looks into it. The woman who gutted the animation industry and children's programming was awarded the presidential medal of freedom for doing so, and once again no anti-censorship soldier ever speaks on it.

Isn't that amazing? It really shows how effective half-truths are to outright lies, and it's why this has been the way it's been for so long. It's a winning tactic for subversives.

This is the larger point being made. These are all half truths meant to obscure a larger and more important Full Truth, and to this day there is a whole generation that consider themselves experts on all the above subjects despite not knowing half the story. This is by design. It's very diabolical when you think about how it's done. In fact, it's the sort of thing people increasingly hate journalists for today, because they only investigate half truths that look at a small piece of the picture due to being taught the larger one doesn't actually exist at all. Only their pet causes matter, not what led to said causes existing or what supporting them might lead to in the future. What are causes and consequences? They don't matter aside from the one narrow subject. After all, it's about Your Truth, not The Truth, and that makes all the difference. The Self comes before all else.

The largest issue with the 20th century was exactly this obsession with fragments at the expense of the whole. Investigation for the cause of half truths, not epistemic ones, and this lack of care for the whole is what lead to the alienated culture we live in today, and the loss of a high trust society and shared language and customs. We are currently living in the late stages of this way of thinking, and still repeating old half truths constantly to keep us locked there.

How do we get out of this? There isn't an easy answer to that. Much of this is simply decay and entropy not being fought against. Much like the so-called "Quiet Revolution" in Quebec, it's just a fancy name for moral laziness and lack of care for the wider picture. Unless decay is actively fought against and reversed, the state of things will not get better, and everyone knows it. Whether they accept this Full Truth or not is another story. However, it will change. Much like how the younger generations now think the status quo from the past quarter century is lame.

Here are some examples of this happening right now:

Whether you agree with the language or specific examples in the above is not quite the point. It's more that the younger generations are not as satisfied with half truths as ours were taught to believe wholeheartedly since the 20th century established its new reality as default. The younger generations know something is wrong on a deeper level and that the answer is to not shut up and do what those in charge say to do. Whether that is due to generations of broken promises and dead end thinking is to be seen, but the status quo will not continue on this way.

They want to keep digging for a better truth than the ones they were told to accept. This is going to lead to something quite different than the 20th century we've left behind.

If anything, this should all be an encouraging sign. Whatever we think is coming is probably not what is actually on the way, but it hardly matters since Truth always eventually wins in the end. Half truths and lies eventually fall away to the mists of time even if we don't care to discover them for ourselves. It just Is.

And after that? Well, that's when the real building begins.

Until then, keep your chin up and eyes forward. December is almost here and so is the cold pushing in. Let's get through it same as we always do, and see what lies ahead.

Have yourself a good week and I'll see you soon!

What happened in 1995? Learn it in Y Signal!

Weekend Lounge ~ Why Films Don't Look like Films

Welcome to the weekend!

It's a bit late this week, but at least today's post is here. November is (thankfully) almost over, and with it this bizarre year.

I thought I would use the moment to state that the problem I was dealing with behind the scenes for the last month seems to be resolved. There is no longer a larger issue threatening me. That said, it will still lead to another related decision on my end, so the nonsense I went through wasn't all for naught. I apologize for the vagueness, but it's because of how convoluted this entire thing has been. I'll try to explain it later. Regardless, I want to thank everyone for their support and their prayers throughout all of this. It truly means a lot to me.

That said, let's get to today's topic! We have other things to talk about here at the Wasteland beyond personal nonsense. That being: aesthetic. We've talked a bit about this topic before, but never using examples from a medium in decline itself.

A lot has been said about the above video on what is missing from films today. You've probably seen it yourself. However, it's pretty undeniable that despite having more tech and more money to throw at movies than we did in the past, they do not look any better than they did half a century ago. In some cases they actually look substantially worse than what came before. There is a certain something missing from them that only ever seems to be captured in independent fare if they're recaptured at all, for the most part. It's a loss of the connection to reality.

That important connection has been lost sight of.

This chestnut has been getting a lot of use recently.

When we talk about "reality" in regards to art, we are speaking of more than whatever loose definition of "realism" we've been increasingly obsessed with since the 2000s. It's not quite the same thing, and I think that gets lost in a lot of these discussions.

This isn't referring to real world locations (or even sets, as one of the examples in the video shows) but in the strange lack of care about reality itself. Cinema is a visual art that requires more than "looking good" to be actually good. It requires immersing the audience into the presented world and the lives of the character, as if we are there with them living out the story alongside our lead. This is because we are. Their reality is just like ours in the way that matters: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings, are all as important to them as they are to us.

Cinema as a medium requires the audience to experience them all tangibly through the screen. It's different from a book that is entirely through the imagination: in a movie the audience is a passive visitor to the world. Therefore the world should be as inviting to the viewer as possible, and all the heavy lifting is on those behind the scenes. It is why cinema has always required the biggest investment to get into.

 

All of this is to say that art is reality, not fiction. At least, not in a certain sense. The story comes from the imagination regardless of how factual the events might be in the end, and it is the job of the artist to convey it to their audience using all the senses they can. It's a shared experience, a way for us all to experience reality together from a new angle we might not have considered before. That is the magic of art and the wonder that comes from the Unknown. This is not missing (or even rare) today, but it is missing from the mainstream due to the remnants of the monoculture steering itself into an iceberg. If you don't look for it, you won't find it.

To be honest, this tangible relation to the world is the reason the controversial Avatar movies do so well. It is not for the story or the characters, but in the visuals and how the films easily inject the audience into this alien world they would not otherwise not be able to see. These movies make money purely for this, and the people behind them should get credit for knowing how to achieve this feeling even without having real life locations or sets on hand. The people behind them understand the the injection into the world is paramount above all else, and it clearly works.

Granted it comes at a high price (a cost that is probably not to be paid by the majority of other filmmakers), but it is still entirely used in trying to connect the audience to the world. They know what they're doing, and they do it better than any of the big dogs in Hollywood right now.

It also helps in that case that the world in that movie was meant to be a highly detailed alien world different from our own. Were it used to simply recreate Earth, audiences would be puzzled and asking themselves why not just use real location shots? Why is reality being deliberately obfuscated? At that point the tangible connection to reality is lost and the viewer knows its a movie meant to invoke emotions and feelings in them and they will detach subconsciously, or even consciously. The obvious end stage of producing content for mass consumption instead of art meant to invoke and engage. It's just passive consuming, and that's all it'll ever amount to being.

Thankfully there are plenty of others that have not abandoned or forgotten that important rule of engaging the audience. In fact, the ones who do it the best today are typically those with the lowest budgets and means to get their story across.

It's not really any different for cinema as it is for other forms right now, however the higher barrier to entry (the cost) is probably going to see them shrink in number in relation to other forms of art in the near future. That said, when it comes back, and it almost certainly will some day, creators will have learned most everything Hollywood has forgotten.

Much like NewPub taking over from OldPub's failures, there are new generations of creators willing to step up, just like always. When they do they will be a force to be reckoned with. It's just going to be a while before it happens on a wider scale.

Until then, keep digging! You'll never know what gems you'll find out there. And believe you me, there are plenty.

Have a good week and I will see you next time!

Check out my story "Void Railway", currently in Cirsova #22! What lies waiting in the void of space to threaten our heroic enforcers as they guide a merchant to safety on the closest planet? The answer might surprise you!

Weekend Lounge ~ Tumbling Down

Welcome to the weekend!

Hope you're all doing well. I haven't had a lot of time to do what I usually do recently due to a (rather serious) real life situation currently going on, so I apologize ahead of time. Things will probably be light around here until the end of the year until it is dealt with. Hopefully I can explain the situation all in the future better than this, but it is what it is right now.

So instead lets talk about other things.

Today I just wanted to highlight this video from David V Stewart as a bit of a companion to his recent one about NewPub's Content Flood and discovery problem. This time the subject is about how OldPub is using the aforementioned conveyor belt production techniques to pump out soulless product while charging a premium for it at the same time. In essence, any problem you might have with NewPub remains far worse in the old system. This isn't newly discovered information, but it is rare that you get such a clear example of it thrown in your face.

This event continues the trend of mass-produced product pumped out into the void for easy profit and to be instantly forgotten. The Content Mill era is still alive and strong.

We're still in the grifting stage of collapse where most people involved in it are merely looking for the quickest way to wring the audience dry before the system totally falls apart under the strain. OldPub, being so much worse off than any of us even realize, has been in this stage so long that the project referenced in the above video would have been shocking as little as a decade ago is now considered par for the course and not surprising at all. In fact now you will even get consumers defending this practice because Rules Were Followed (that no one agreed with). Any excuse for OldPub's behavior is just another sign of accepting decline.

The fact of the matter is that someone wanted a quick buck for less effort and they were willing to excuse obvious fraud to the audience in order to continue the grift. It was either that or they were simply unaware and unwilling to look into any of this because they just don't care. Regardless of what it is, the end result is the same. It is contempt for the audience.

While one could say this is good for NewPub and independent creators, in actuality is probably not good for anyone. Those disgusted who walk away will probably just never come back, and those who accept it will just encourage further decline. At this point, it feels more like the two separate systems have nothing to do with each other and what one does with not affect the other in any appreciable way. Whether you consider that bad or good is up to you, but it definitely seems to be the case that they no longer influence the other at all anymore.

This decay of OldPub has gotten to the point where, if you can slough through similar projects to the above cropping up all over, you are more likely to find something worth your time by avoiding the older industries. This is because, as the video shows, these companies don't really care what gets produced in any capacity. They only care if it's cheap and if they make big bank on whatever is tossed out with minimal effort. Such a mindset will not produce anything great. It can't.

This has been an increasing problem for decades and it's not going to stop anytime soon. There is a reason the older industries are fading. All this is to say it's why NewPub should not be looking to repeat the same errors as the dead industry we are watching break down before us. Pumping out product should not be a goal, not even if the product is "good" because art isn't product in the first place. It can be sold as one, but that is not the core of what it is and treating it like that has not made anything better. This is not a highfalutin way of referring just to "good" art either. No, all art is valuable beyond its monetary value and how much is exchanged to access it.

You can disagree with that assessment, but this old way of thinking about entertainment as disposable and replaceable is the exact reason those ancient industries are dying. They did not decide to randomly produce bad material--they realized their job was to pump out maximum product for maximum return and for minimal cost and effort. When this is the core of what you do, it's only natural that the thing itself was eventually going to be the last thing considered.

And lo and behold, that's exactly where we are. Turning NewPub and all the newer alternative spaces cropping up into this same state will eventually lead to the same result. There is no pause feature on Mr. Bones' Wild Ride. We already know all this.

Entropy doesn't take a day off. If you fight for the same failing processes and systems that lead us here, just in an "indie" coating, you will still end up in the same place you started in. And what good does that do anyone? Why would we want this to happen again?

Why wouldn't we want an alternative industry to actually be an alternative?

Fortunately, it looks as if most creators in the NewPub and adjoining spaces are a lot more ambitious than those in OldPub are now, and more creative in how they use their tools and ideas. But that does not mean we shouldn't keep on our toes that we don't fall into the same traps as the above. It's very easy when one loses sight of what this is all for.

That last thing we want is the same disaster to befall us again.

Anyway, that's all for this week. Thank you for all your support this year. It's been a strange one, and it's still about to get stranger (for me, at least). I'll try to get more interesting topics in the future, but for now that is it for now. 

Have yourself a good November and I'll see you soon!

In case you missed it, my story Void Railway is in Cirsova #22! I hope you like space cops in a space railway battling invisible monsters in the dark as the crushing abyss warps around them! Because that's what it's about!

Weekend Lounge ~ Choose Your Future

Welcome to the weekend! We made it to November!

I hope you're all doing well as we stumble into the colder months of the year. Now that we're heading towards the end of this very, very, very, strange year, we can finally talk about a bit more of a generalized subject not relating to said weirdness. Today, we're talking about what we really want in a story: what we really want out of art and entertainment.

Blog favorite YouTube channel, The Second Story, has been on quite the streak for some time now, digging into not just the writing industry, but also the tropes and ideas that have let it spin out into the gutter over time into what it is today. No one agree it's in a good spot now, but we also don't agree on how to fix what's wrong. So it is nice to see a place offering a real analysis that goes beyond catchphrases and cliches into one that bigger issues might be. However, this analysis is not for nothing or even really click-baiting, but in actual real attempting to steer discussion on topics no one was considering before: ones that need discussing.

Today's video subject is no different. In fact, it has more to do with a lot of The Discourse today than we might think at first.

The question of heroism in this video centers on what exactly a hero is. Mainly, it centers on how what a hero is and how it depends on the health of the very populace said stories are made for (as well as who is writing them). Whether the audience wants to read about white hats succeeding and protagonists to look up to, or whether they want to look down at the hero to give themselves a boost in their own life, all depends on the era and the times the stories are written in. In other words, "Anti-heroes" in a sense don't really exist: it's all perspective of the times and those living in them.

Stories are not propaganda, despite what some will say. Stories are a window into the times they are written, showing what the people thought and believed, and how they behaved. What they are is a time capsule of an era and place that cannot be replicated (hence why revival movements never stay still too long) or explained otherwise without context. When you read a book you are looking into a world beyond just the plot and the characters. You are connecting with a whole other space beyond even that. This is what makes writing (and all art, honestly) so fascinating.

There is more to life and art than repeating mottos for the mob of your betters in order to nod together over and be tossed approving glances. We always need to aim for more than that bare minimum. But the times we live don't want their artists to aim high. They want them to fall in line with entropy and slowly fade away.

Writing aims high. The industry? Not so much . . .

Not to say any of this is new. Of course it isn't, there is plenty of bad art and entertainment out there, and there is much that come across as horribly dated simply for being filled with copy-pasted buzzwords, tropes, and acceptable topics of the time period it was writing. What is missing is that such art was looked down upon even at the time. All the more reason not to do it today. It didn't work then, it won't work now.

However, there did used to be alternative scenes and industries. Those have all gone away, but there is still a nostalgia for them. It has given us the illusion of more choice in a sense (as far as the mainstream goes, it was objectively better in selection and variety before), but when one looks into what the gatekeepers were trying to do it back then shows the decay over time into what it is today. We just didn't see it at the time because most of us were young or not plugged in.

It's one of the reasons so much 1980s and 1990s era art has remained so popular, even with younger generations not alive for it: people are desperate to see into a more exciting world, and the one we have now is simply not adventurous, ambitious, or hopeful. The audience want it to be but the industry will not provide that to them. Their inability to live in the present or look to the future means the only place left to dive into is the past. The loss of a monoculture and that a shared wider understanding of reality is still desired, and I'm sorry to say that they cannot get that in modern art regardless of how good it is. You can still get attention saying Lord of the Rings sucks; you won't get any saying King Leper is amazing. They want to feel part of a larger conversation before anything else, including engaging in art. That's just the way it goes.

When this era is looked back on in the future it is almost certainly going to be one of confusion, like a minefield that has expended all its explosives. Why is there so much good art that was barely touched on while crusty corporate swill that expired decades previously got all the cultural discussion will certainly be a big topic. That is due to the lack of cultural cohesion of these times, and it cannot be avoided. However, it will certainly not stay this way forever. It never does.

The 2020s are half over and we still have not quite gotten a defined identity or style to set us apart, and without a monoculture we probably will not, but what we can still do is seek Truth above all and find connections that way. Through the desire for more and higher places we can come together in a more natural way, a way that can allow true flourishing in the arts. This post- Cultural Ground Zero era will probably be defined as a Dark Age of some kind, where treasures will have to be unearthed long after the fact. As it is now, it's merely a mess that cannot be cleaned up.

Then the question becomes in how one can form a defined identity to connect with audiences in this era without having any shared Truth or traits beyond surface level. It is not impossible, nothing is, but how can we even begin looking for the answers? The preview of what this will look like is reflected in the above video's discussion on anti-heroes. So much of what shapes us is dependent on the era and also shared understanding of who we are. That doesn't go away even if there is no wider culture to connect us together. As can be seen by the way we behave even in these times of atomization, we still desire that safety net. We always will.

So without such a thing being enforced from the top down or without those old peer groups that don't really exist or care about each other anymore, where would it then be formed today? Where would it even come from, and is there a way out?

There is, but it's not an easy or satisfying answer. In fact, it's kind of a cliche one to suggest, not that we'll hold that against it. Sometimes the truth is really that obvious.

Standards like this benefit no one.

There is something to be said about not worrying too hard about the outside world when writing or creating. After all, there is not much you can change or effect, so why worry about it? All you can do is what you can do, and not much else.

This is true. What you can do is limited, and you should never forget that. We all have things we want to do, and ambitions above us, however we need to remember we're a part of this, not above or beyond it. We're not Futurians: we don't have to mutate and die.

However, we still live in this world. We are still affected by it, we still react to it, we try to understand it, and we try to see where it's all going. All of that is unavoidable when creating art, even if the piece is deliberately ignoring all those questions in order to reject the discussion. This isn't political, social, or religious: it's just how art itself works. Art is all those things, and none of them, at once. To pick the process apart further is how you get propaganda, and how you lose audiences. All we want is to find a way this all comes together in a way that makes sense relative to the era we live in.

This isn't a call to tell anyone how to create, because that makes no sense. Part of what makes art so great is seeing how others approach certain subjects and ideas with their own angle or thoughts on the subject. Anyone who insists on rules around the creative process itself, or on what can and cannot be addressed in the creation, does not care about art itself.

Despite that, we also aren't in the 20th century anymore. It must be repeated until it finally sinks in. Wholesale rehashing of ideas and tropes from over a quarter of a century ago in an attempt to ignore the way things are now only works if you have something to add to the conversation of the world we live in. This is why old IPs are dying: their time and place has passed and their relevance cannot be replicated, especially when the creators themselves are either gone or uninterested in anything beyond their checkbook. There is nothing there anymore, and no matter who gives their "interpretation" of said properties to make them "relevant" to today, it can't change that reality. Those days are gone, and they cannot be replicated or relived. We have to find new paths.

But you already know that. We all know that. The path now is in choosing what future we will have next. What kind of hero are we going to be? What will we see as the anti-hero in this new era? Exciting times are ahead of us, and we still have yet to finally reach them.

It'll only happen when we finally choose a future worth having. That is going to happen sooner than we might think, but it's not something we should ever stop aiming for regardless of the end result. We're always going to want more. Hopefully this time it's the right kind of more we decide to aim for. We're about due!

The 2026 lineup for Cirsova as been announced, and I will be a part of it with my story Infinite Alley! Come see the full lineup here!

Happy Halloween!

Hey, everybody! Not much to say today except to wish you all a happy Halloween and All Saints Day!

Cannon Cruisers put out a special Halloween episode like we do every year. Aside from that, keep warm and dry and I'll see you again in November for more weekend posts.

Have a good one!

For seasonal reads, check out Mistcreek Tales!

Weekend Lounge ~ The Big Shift

Welcome to the weekend!

We've talked about the future of the publishing industry and how it's changed so much over even just the last few years. But while we go on and on about death of OldPub (and yes, it's done and finished) we also do not seem to have much of a plan for what NewPub's future will be. Not that one can "plan" a future for a large burgeoning industry like this, but more that there isn't many ideas been discussed about what should happen.

The above video by David V. Stewart is not one of complaining of the market itself, there is little to be done about the state of something you can't change, but more about the realities of how things currently are and the modern mentalities that prevent us from improving our station in any significant way. The truth might be that "indie" owns the publishing world right now, but it is a mess for discoverability and there is no real way to connect with a larger audience due to the sheer amount of Content being produced in lieu of actual stories.

As mentioned many times before, NewPub, as it is right now, is not the savior of reading or writing in the modern age, which is what it needs to be. The industry is currently a pit of rehashing late 20th century cliches and stereotypes into a void and getting as much return as those trying to reach audiences on any level other than those engaging in pure surface pandering. There is no real way for a writer, good or bad, to sift through the noise and reach a wider audience.

And the biggest problem is that the noise is getting louder and drowning out everything else while the base audience remains the same size, or continually shrinks.

One can argue and scream about AI until they are blue in the face but the side of the argument not discussed is its ability to flood the market with Content. This deluge of Content overwhelms and crowds out everything else to pander to the lowest common denominator. It takes away any sense of true selection and turns NewPub itself into a battle of who can advertise their Content better to a narrow audience instead of being about creating art to connect to a wider audience. It more or less turns the industry into a cynical cash grab, and the worst part is that the cash is barely there to begin with. It is not giving the audience more choice, it is telling them there is only limited Product that can be generated and that they would better use their time finding some other space where wringing dollars out of a half-interested customer base isn't so paramount.

This is why NewPub has had the growing pains it has had, and why it hasn't reached its potential. It is not the readers who caused this but a large segment of authors who merely wish to have their names on products and rehash their version on half a century old genre tropes to the void. There is no direction, no goal, and no cooperation, to anything bigger. All any onlooker will see is chaos and vapidity. Neither will grow any sort of scene, and that's why there hasn't been the audience explosion there should have been.

Of course one can't ever build a scene based on quality alone. Quality isn't as subjective as we like to think, but taste very much is, and the truth is that there is no real uniform taste in the wider culture anymore. Yes, this is mostly due to the destruction of the monoculture, but even alternative scenes once used to thrive when they had a unifying element to them. Simply put: there is still a whole alternative ecosystem missing. Everything is just as blown apart and atomized as audiences are from the mainstream industries.

Before the age of mass media it was much easier to have universal themes and connection with each other, but in the age where everyone's fetishes, preferences, and hyper specific niches almost become personality traits in themselves, there is little reason to find anything outside of our narrow worlds, especially less of one when the ultimate goal is Content Consuming. Even more so when you can automatically generate your own personal Content instead. Why would you go looking for any outside yourself at that point? As we can see from how things are, the audience doesn't see any reason to patronize creators when they can have the bare minimum for nothing.

There is a lot of doom and gloom in just about every artistic circle these days due to how much more fractured, unsteady, and broken, everything is. No one can really get a foothold unless they want to pump out algorithm defined Content into the ether, which is how we've been trained to treat entertainment and art our entire lives. But we also all know that this exact mentality is what led to this current state no one enjoys. It can't continue, and in order for it to stop we need to find other ways, and until we do it's only going to get worse and worse.

And it already is doing just that. We have not reached the bottom.

Just because OldPub is worse (as the above video shows), it does not mean it is okay for NewPub to kick back and rest as that implosion happens. It's really not going to do anything but chase even more readers away from the hobby at a time where we've already been hemorrhaging them for decades now. We need to grow, but we don't seem to want to do anything in order to actually do that. OldPub doesn't think its readers matter, but why do so many NewPub also think this same destructive way? Where are the conversations happening about this topic?

This throwaway style of thinking about art has made everything feel disposable and pointless. There is nothing being built on, only a race to the bottom whether it be in production itself or in a drive for artistic merit. What happened to striving for more? Not only just as artists or audiences, but as people? When do we stop living by moldy tropes and jangling keys and start looking for connection and meaning once more? When do we stop treating life as a beltline factory? The 20th century is dead. I keep saying it because we seem to not want that reality to sink in.

There is no individual or wider callout here. I am just as guilty of thinking this way about the world. It is only when witnessing the destruction of things I loved that I could take stock and realize not only how temporary they truly were but also what really mattered beyond the surface level. And yes, even the "trashiest" piece of entertainment can still house a spark of life in it that can affect anyone who comes across it. All the more reason to make it mean something in the greater scheme of things.

The video from the Second Story above shows how even plot structure and general story mechanics, even when Done Well, can be sued to peddle pure trash into the mind and soul. It isn't just a matter of Content, but intent. Why does your story exist? What does it exist to do? What is it for? While leisure and entertainment is a fine enough reason, it still has to give something edifying to the readers beyond checkbox lists, otherwise it's just clutter. Said clutter is what we need less of to truly set NewPub apart from the rotting old system, and that is absolutely not currently happening. In fact, it is the exact opposite that is going on.

NewPub or OldPub, the overall issue is that while everything has changed much on the surface and in the wider world, the biggest thing that hasn't is our mentality towards both creating and taking in entertainment and art really hasn't. We still want to replicate the exact tropes and styles from when we were kids without adding anything to them or giving new context. We just want to rehash into the void while expecting others to lap it all up. Even when replicating dead OldPub trends that were floated by mass media manipulation and friends in high places decades ago is now no longer selling because they were never actually popular to begin with. The entire framework we grew up under was fake and we still have yet to let that sink in, never mind affect what we make. The frame shift is a lot more jarring than we want to accept.

This fractured state of everything makes finding a universal touchstone even more difficult, and that's without even getting into quality at all. Everyone now has their own island and reaching them in the first is an overwhelmingly Herculean ask that no writer has ever had to worry about before. Art needs to connect, but finding common ground to connect today is a problem without even considering art at all. And using crusty formulas and AI models to pump Content out does not address this deep societal problem. In fact, that only makes it worse.

For example, think about what creating entertainment for a general audience entails today versus yesterday. No, I am not talking about vague mass media consumer demographics, I mean such as old family sitcoms or classic cartoons used to be able to reach. They were things meant not for kids or one group, but for everyone in the family to enjoy together. Can such an audience even be imagined today when making something? Even if it does exist, how would one even begin to approach them with their art? Can we even imagine spending time with our real life neighbor, never mind a stranger producing a piece of art for us? Those are the real questions.

If you wanted to make something for a kid audience, for instance, how would you go about it? Decades of bad standards from unelected busybodies like Peggy Charren combined with Christian Inc corporate approved standards have warped expectations of what a child can even take in. While we could agree that swearing or sexual content is off the table, what happens when we disagree what swearing or sexual content even consists of in the first place? Because this is the current state of things and you can find no shortage of arguments over this exact topic. You could always pick your own standards to operate off of, but then that also runs the risk of not reaching much of anyone and stranding yourself on an island. This is a serious problem with how things currently are.

How does this bridge get built? It probably involves going back to basics and finding common ground again. This isn't a negotiable, it's necessary for even beginning to connect again.

As the above video shows, stories and art have a defined purpose and until we even begin to agree on that again, nothing will improve. The people in charge of the dying old industries all look down on their entire audience (no, not just those they politically disagree with, even their fellow travelers) and the ones in new industries are using those failed old advertising methods to reach those disillusioned by those industries in the first place.

This is the true reason all these burgeoning alternative industries aren't growing as they should: they have yet to become true alternatives. They will not be able to do that until the old ways and mentalities are finally thrown away, and, unfortunately, we've made little progress in doing that. Until we do, the hard audience cap will not be removed.

All these moving parts we're building have to come together to form a new system: a mechanism to produce art and entertainment better than the failing ones behind us. The old industries broke down because they were always going to end eventually. The only reason anything is even operating still is because of the men who built these systems long ago being much more skilled than those of us left today. However, no one can patch this leaky ship, and everyone knows it. Time is running out to be build true alternatives, and we aren't doing a great job of that.

The question then becomes a game of chicken wondering who is going to make the first real move to build. It won't be those in charge of the old systems: they're too busy being in the looting stage of the decline. They're going to wring every dollar they can on the way out. This is why even humoring their attempts at milking dead IP is a terrible idea, ironic or not. It will not encourage anything positive except to delay what is inevitable. Everything ends eventually, and we can't stop the tide forever.

However, it isn't just about accepting that reality, it is also about building a proper escape shelter when it does, and we have not done that. Until we do, we deserve to be where we are and, unfortunately, it is the audience that will continue to pay for it. We don't want to connect with them and so they don't want to connect with us, and on and on this goes. At some point we have to do Something Else before we lose these forms and hobbies we purportedly love so much.

The divisiveness also won't last forever. Whatever solves that problem, I can't say, but it will have to happen. When it does we need to have something better built than what came before, something meant to last and not run by those who desire nothing more than bottom of the barrel "Content" to fill narrow gaps in their schedule. We're human beings: we both need and desire something more than that.

And soon enough, we're going to fix that problem. We just have to address it in the first place. Only then can the big shift finally happen. Until then, we remain in this neutral state, waiting. What else can we do?

That's all for this week. Have yourself a good end of October and I'll see you on Halloween!

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Weekend Lounge ~ The Pop Corpse

Welcome to the weekend!

We're halfway through October and close to spooky season. That said, some topics are a bit spooky without even really trying, especially when talking about the entertainment landscape. For anyone who is paying attention, they know how bad things truly are.

For a bit of a change, today we're going to dive back into the pop cult world, but not for criticism or easy shots at it, but more to point out that there isn't really anything left to talk about. Years ago, I mentioned that Pop Culture was dead, a topic that took people by surprise and which I still stand by, and nothing has changed on that front t change my opinion.

In fact, it's considerably worse than it was when I wrote that post eight years ago.

All the crusty corpos can do now is recycle IP, hope for a few minutes in the current fickle meme cycle, and then wait for the audience to inevitably forget everything they had just consumed mere moments earlier. Nothing sticks anymore. 

Consider the original versions of Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 4 were huge in the gaming scene for years after their initial release, and in Current Year the remakes were forgotten in mere months for the next IP cash grab. It doesn't even matter if the product well made anymore, the audience no longer cares or has any investment. The normal audience has moved on from caring, and those remaining are doing so hoping for a few minutes of potential watercooler talk (or whatever they call it on social media these days) before moving on to whatever they are told is the next thing to care about. We all know this is how it works now, even if we can't express it.

It's dead.

This isn't even a shot at the consumers, this is just how it objectively is now. A consuming content checklist is all anyone aspires to be a part of, not a scene or part of a wider connected cultural landscape. The above video shows us that this is where the pop cult has lead to, much as we said it would years back, and it will not get better. The only solution is finally putting this entire mindset out to pasture. Pop culture is dead, and we need to stop pretending it's not. Perhaps it was always dead to begin with. Regardless, there's nothing there now.

Those old, ancient IPs are now novelties, they have no greater meaning to the wider audience except as cheap references to long dead days, and jangling keys to distract their attention from reality for a few hours. There is no higher meaning, no daring ideas, and nothing vital in any of them except safe messaging for a sick society currently eating itself. These rickety properties are tired and need of eternal rest. Nothing lasts forever, especially not all this corporate IP.

What we're currently looking at is a near-future of isolated pockets of artists, entertainers, and creators, all working together to find shared ground and connection with each other and audiences they might not have expected. This won't be the permanent state of things, it never is, but it is the way it will have to be before said audiences are able to find those they can trust again who will not decay the way the mainstream has. We're going to be here for a while to come.

In the meantime, take one last look at the pop cult wasteland and remember how mighty it once was, before taking what is necessary to moving on to fertile grounds. There is nothing left here, and we need to start admitting it. The dead is to buried.

Whatever awaits ahead is not this, and there is nothing ahead like what we are leaving behind us. And there is nothing wrong with that.

We just need to be able to finally accept the way things are. The old world is dead, the old corpo IPs are done, and none of it is ever coming back. Clinging to it while not saving anything, or making the cultural landscape grow or become any better, is just lying to yourself about where we are and where we're going. We simply aren't there anymore.

And that's all there is to say about it. There isn't anything left but corpses in that old graveyard, and the only purpose of corpses is to bury them, remembering who they once were, and moving on.

So let's finally do that. We need better ways.

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Weekend Lounge ~ What Happened to Writers?

Welcome to the weekend!

We made it to October and the weather finally shifting to something seasonal, so let's really get into something eerie for the spooky season. Once again, we're going to go into today's creative climate, a horror unto itself.

Much has been said and written about how terrible the education system has been for fostering creativity and imagination, but in the end it's still not enough for the simple reason that it's frankly not good enough. We are all hungry for more.

This isn't just about the US, either, but a worldwide phenomenon of machinery designed to turn both the individual and the collective into a machine meant to churn out whatever the top of the chain desires. This mentality has turned all mainstream entertainment into pure swill bailed together by tired 20th century tropes and franchises meant to educate the ignorant masses into worldviews and behaviors that might have felt fresh 100 years ago but are clearly outdated today. We've gone over that before, so there's no sense rehashing it. Artificiality has always been valued over creativity.

As the above video shows, the system itself is not designed to stir the imagination, no matter how many TV shows or movies you see or remember that told you how important "Creativity" was, in the end it was never about that. It was only ever pretty words meant to boost the ego and coax all potential creatives to follow the same path to deliver the same Content. And looking at the modern climate today, it feels like a joke from a '90s animated sitcom. That is because it is.

And that was made in the '90s. Nothing has improved since then, but clearly it was an issue even back then. In Current Year, the film industry now is on its last legs.

So how do we create a system that incentivizes creativity over slop? Humanity over artificialness? Excitement over formula? How do we overhaul the 20th century machinery that has ground to a stop here in the 21st?

Many complain about how the AI explosion fosters an environment of lowest common denominator storytelling to churn out product, but the truth of the matter is the industry has been incentivizing it themselves over decades now. The above video from the '90s highlights the mentality as it already existed back then, and it's much worse today.

The problem has always been the artificialness has been baked into the education artists receive themselves. One cannot explore outside the socially acceptable ideologies of today. One  cannot look beyond the genres the mainstream has decided are all that is, even as their stores empty and their sales crater. One cannot experiment because safety is incentivized and mass produced to blot out anything else coming up.

As the below thread shows, the issue with artificiality is not the lowering of the bar, that is already on the floor and has been for decades. The problem has always been that the education system has always desired it end there. Blaming AI for it is missing the forest for the trees. The system was always going to lead here, and it is the root of all this.

From this X thread

The biggest problem with all of this is that there is no easy solution. There is no switch one can flip to making everything better. In order to even begin to fix if requires an honest reflection and reassessment of a lot of bad ideas that have come since the industrial revolution kicked into high gear and became a religion for materialists. We simply aren't there anymore, no one thinks that way or believes it, and yet we float on rehashing it to diminishing returns. Now there are no returns at all.

We know the education system does not produce creative people. It also does not produce writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, or critics. Yes, people go into these schools and come out in those professions, but next to none are actually made into those things from what they learn. Kids are instead turned into automatons and widgets for the crumbling machine, meant fulfill roles no audience wants and job positions that are quickly fading away. It is detached from reality, and we all know it.

So why are we still operating in this way?

As I said, blaming AI at this juncture is stopping well short of the problem. Even if it went away tomorrow, it wouldn't stop how the audience has been trained to Consume Content and expect beltline product pumped out indefinitely. That isn't going away. All this AI stuff is simply doing exactly what those in charge want. (Which is why they are already using it without saying anything at all, and audiences will eventually accept it. Anything to keep the flood of Product going forever.)

The only way out is reorienting of systems and thought processes. The 20th century is done, as been said countless times, so why are we still clinging to it? What advantage do we have clinging to dying systems and ideas that have proven to be dead ends?

We don't train creatives. Arguments could be made that we never have, but we certainly do not do it today. We have Content Creators, not artists or creatives. All we want is nothing and everything at the same time, and that is why we have no need to educate or train anyone. And that is how you get today's dead culture. Nothing is being made: it's being produced.

We require a re-enchantment of the world, a detachment of cynicism, subversion, and emptiness. The only way to get that is to admit where we are now was a mistake and won't lead anywhere else. We have to move on.

Let's not worry too much about a dead past, but work to build a living future. It's going to happen eventually so there's no sense wasting time. We can start today.

Mistcreek Tales is an anthology of re-enchantment in an artificial world. The weird, action, romance, and horrors await inside. Check it out today!