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doshmanziari · 3 years

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Musical Offerings for the New Year || What is “Radical Music” in 2021?

Near the end of 2020, a bunch of musicians populating a chatroom, including myself, each submitted ten minutes’ worth of our work to another musician, Chimeratio, who generously compiled it all into a set totaling nearly ten hours.¹ The work didn’t need to be new; just what we thought might best represent our abilities/style(s) and/or perhaps what we were especially pleased with. The set premiered in late January. Since I have some tentative plans for reorienting Brick By Brick this year, while not overriding its emphases, I wanted to share that music with anyone who’s interested.

I compiled the four videos into a playlist, although you can also access them individually: here (1), here (2), here (3), and here (4). If you care to, and are on a computer, you can also view the accompanying chatlog and read people’s responses from when they were listening to the live broadcast.

The compulsion for this project was sparked by excited discussions over and usage of the term “digital fusion”, most helpfully propagated by Aivi Tran, designating a computer-based body of work that for years lacked the rooftop of a commonly agreed upon genre-name. While describing my music has never been a big concern, even if it’s usually felt impossible (what, for example, is this? or this? I dunno!), I’ve appreciated how the spread and application of this term has brought together people who may have felt isolated.²

As “digital fusion” gained designative traction, I witnessed the activity in the aforementioned chatroom explode over the course of a few days. Before, a day’s discussion might’ve been a few dozen messages; now, there were dozens of messages every half-minute. This had positive and negative ramifications, the negative being that conversations often proceeded at a pace of rapidity which precluded concentrated thought. Eventually, I bowed out because the rapidity exceeded my threshold for meaningful interaction; but I was glad that significant invigoration was going on.

I wanted to share this music also because it intersects with thoughts and talks I’ve been having stemming from the question, “What is ‘radical music’ in 2021?” This was stimulated by a 2014 talk given by the writer Mark Fisher, wherein he contends that, were we to play prominent “cutting edge” music from now to people twenty years ago, very nearly none of it would be aesthetically shocking, bizarre, or revelatory (think of playing house music to an audience in the early 1960s!). Fisher also observes a trend of returning to music which once was seen as the future -- as if, deprived of a shared prograde vision, imaginations turn hazily retrograde; ergo, genres such as synthwave or albums like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.

It isn’t my goal here to argue about the “end of history.” Fisher’s time-travel hypothetical, however, rings loud and true to me. Visible musical radicalism has, for at least a decade, been strictly extra-musical, in the sense of songs like “This is America” or “WAP”, where one’s response is primarily to the spectacle of the music video, the performer’s identistic markers, and/or the manner in which the lyrics intersect with (mostly US-centric) ideological hotspots. Musically, there is really nothing radical here. Any vociferous condemnations or defenses of a song like “WAP” deal in moralizing reactions to semantics or imagery: how progressive or regressive is the political aspect? how propelled or repelled are we by the word “pussy”?

It would be a mistake, and simply wrong, to assert that the only music one can enjoy escapes the parameters outlined above; and my inability to coherently categorize some of my own music hardly raises that portion to the status of radicality. But the question here pertains to what is being made, and I think that if we’re going to seriously consider the nature of truly radical music today, we do need to question if such a quality can prominently exist when our hyper-fast consumerist cycle seems to forbid not just sustained, lifelong relationships to artwork but also the local, unhurried nourishment of creative gestation. Now, in my opinion, there are good, even great, examples of radical music still being made in deep Internet-burrows, and for evidence of that I would offer some of the material contained in the linked playlists. Moreover, I’d say that this quality can exist in part because these little artistic communities are so buried.

Let me share a quote that another person shared with me recently:

For culture to shift, you need pockets of isolated humanity. Since all pockets of humanity (outside of the perpetually isolated indigenous people in remote wilderness) are connected in instantaneous fashion, independent ideas aren’t allowed to ferment on their own. When you cook a meal, you have to bring ingredients together that have had time to grow, ferment, or decompose separately. A cucumber starts out as a seed, then you mix it with the soil, water and sunlight. You can’t bring the seed, soil, water and sunlight to the kitchen from the get-go. When you throw those things in to the mixture without letting them mature, the flavor cannot stand out on its own. Same thing with art and fashion. A kid in Russia can come up with a new way to dance, gets filmed on a phone, it goes viral quickly but gets lost in the morass of all of the other multitudinous forms of dance. Sure it spread far and wide, but it gets forgotten in a week. In the past, his new art form would have been confined locally, nurtured, honed, then spread geographically, creating a distinct new cultural idiosyncrasy with a strong support base. By the time it was big enough to be presented globally, it was already a cultural phenomenon locally. This isn’t possible anymore. We’re consuming too many unripened fruits.

The main impression I have here is that radical music today will, and must be, folk music. Our common idea of folkiness might be the scrappy singer strumming a guitar, but my interpretive reference rather has to do with the idea of a music being written, first of all, for one’s self, and then shared with a small-scale community, which in turn helps the artist grow at their own pace. This transcends a dependence upon image, the primacy of acoustic instrumentation, or the signaling of sincerity versus insincerity. It is a return to the valuation of outsider art, so rare nowadays. As someone who I was recently in dialogue with wrote, “Where can you find new genuine folk music? Pretty much just with your friends, imo. Even then, the global world is so influential and seeps into any crack it can find. I think vaporwave was radical and folk for a while. Grant Forbes made that music way before the world knew about it.”

Sometimes, a lot of fuss is made over what’s seen as “gatekeeping” within certain communities. It can be, depending on the context, justifiable to question and critique this behavior. At other times, the effort of maintaining a level of exclusivity, of retaining an idiosyncratic shapeliness to the communal organism, can be a legitimate attempt to protect the personal, interpersonal, and cultural aspects from the flattening effect of monoculture. Hypothetically, I welcome the Castlevania TV series and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate having introduced new and younger demographics to Castlevania. In actuality, stuff like “wholesome sad gay himbo Alucard”, image macros, and neurotic “stan” fanfiction being what’s now first associated with the series makes me want to put as much distance as possible between my interests and those latecoming impositions.

The group-terminology David Chapman uses in his essay “Geeks, MOPs, and Sociopaths in Subculture Evolution” is kinda cringey, but some of the cultural/behavioral patterns he lays out are relevant to the topic. Give it a look. If we cross his belief that “[subcultures] are no longer the primary drivers of cultural development” with our contemporary consume-and-dispose customs, we’re left with the predicament of it’s even worth attempting to bring radical/outsider art beyond its rhizomatic habitat. This is troubling, because it would mean that artistic radicality no longer might not only refuse to but cannot encompass cultural upheaval. It would be like if dance music were invented and -- instead of progressively permeating nightlife, stimulating countercultural trends, and ultimately being adapted as the basis for pop music globally -- only were listened to via headphones by a few thousand people on their own, stimulated a group meeting once a year or two, and never affected music beyond a niche-within-a-niche. That’s a very sad picture to me.

⁂

¹ Chimeratio has also maintained an excellent blog on here dedicated to looking at videogame music written in irregular time signatures, far preceding higher-profile examinations like 8-bit Music Theory’s video on the same topic.

² For myself, creative isolation has had its uses, because it has led me down routes that are highly personalized. The isolation can be dispiriting too. Although a lot of my music is videogame-music-adjacent, almost none of it uses “authentic” technology, such as PSG synthesizers or FM synthesis; and the identification of those sounds is fairly important for recognition.

#music analysis #radicalism #digital fusion

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gwendeeagain · 4 years

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Kayano Kaede/Akari Yukimura is a character so full of wasted potential.

(Screencap taken from Manga Chapter 128)

This is probably the first manga panel that made me fall in love with Akari Yukimura. Look at her. She could have been amazing.

(If you feel like reading an essay of a textpost on the injustice she was dealt, feel free to click more.)

(I’m probably rehashing things i’ve said previously so if you know me you’ve probably read bits and pieces of this post before but I’m in a Mood and I just want to say them again.)

Kayano Kaede is a very interesting concept. However, she’s generally a forgettable character. This is because of the lack of anticipation and buildup for her character so no one really expects anything or gets attached to her, and her as an individual does not seem to hold much appeal.

Kayano’s character was poorly handled from the start, in my opinion. She was marketed as one of the main characters - the RGB trio, along with Nagisa and Karma. She was clearly slated for this role from the get go, which makes it even sadder because of the lack of groundwork and buildup there could have been. I would have preferred it if her backstory came about because of “shit, we forgot to give Kayano lines, let’s just slap tentacles on her and spin something insane out of it” because then you could explain the injustice.

(On the other hand, her two counterparts have pretty nicely-developed arcs that pretty much span the entire series but despite that, Kayano never gets the spotlight until the tail end of the narrative.)

This normally wouldn’t be a problem because many of the side characters in assclass are well-developed. Just to name a few, Sugino, Isogai, Nakamura - all not main characters, but over the course of the series we get a pretty good feel for their personality. We have fun with them and are invested in them.

Pre-reveal Kayano Kaede, on the other hand, is boring. Even if you think she isn’t, she is. The only character traits I can name off the top of my head are that she likes pudding and hates big boobs, which, what? She has possibly the longest wiki page out of everyone and yet has the least personality.

An argument for that is that Pre-reveal Kayano Kaede was an actress. She was meant to be incognito, to blend into the background until time comes to strike. So we can say she did her job well - too well, in fact, that to the audience she’s perfectly forgettable. Yeah, narrative wise, she did her job. But did it get us to like her? Not really.

By the time that Kayano gains some traction during her reveal at the tail end of the series - ergo by the time she becomes an interesting character, everyone has spent the previous 120 chapters/1 and a half seasons laughing along and liking the other characters. We have all gotten our favorites by then. Sure, Kayano still piques our interest, but there’s really no real time for everyone to get attached and have her as a “favorite” before she’s immediately overshadowed by her sister’s background story arc and the subsequent Save/Kill civil war.

I’ve seen posts where there were maybe a silhouette of a shadow of a tentacle in the background of what could have been 3 manga panels but let’s face it, this does not count as plot building or character development. It does not. There are no hints or throwaway lines you could reread and think “oooh damn”, no set-up, nothing. I don’t even think there was a callback to her being an exchange student/not being in Kunugigaoka prior to 3-E.

Kayano’s proximity to Aguri is also of issue. There’s interest drummed up about Aguri right from the start as the “mysterious woman” that Koro-sensei reminisces about. That does fill us with interest and satisfaction once the puzzle pieces connect (who doesn’t like solving a puzzle?) but there’s none of that for Kayano’s reveal. The fact that Kayano’s arc was intersped with Aguri’s admittedly more developed backstory arc also portrayed Kayano as more of a “stepping stone” to get to Aguri. To “add insult to injury”, Aguri’s just more of an interesting character than her. She’s got more personality, her character interactions with Koro-sensei and Yanagisawa/Shiro are interesting. Compared to her, Kayano’s just more forgettable.

The lasting impression most people get from Kayano is her status as a love-interest to Nagisa. Pre-reveal Kayano Kaede is a bland and boring character. Post-reveal Kayano Kaede (after her brief bout of insanity) defaults back to that same boring personality, and it is explained off by saying “Kayano realized how liberating it was to be a good person and adopted her nice personality throughout the year into her new one” or something along those lines. That’s boring! Her character doesn’t seem to gain any development from that experience. There’s no character trait that we can look towards to distinguish pre-reveal Kayano from the “new Kayano”, other the fact that she now has a crush on Nagisa. That label as Nagisa’s potential love-interest goes onto be carried post-canon and to the timeskip, and that’s the lasting impression of her.

(That adds to why a lot of people don’t like her, because 1. her crush on Nagisa seems out of place, 2. Nagisa’s already shipped with a lot of people by this time, and canon disrupting that doesn’t have the best reception.)

Kayano’s character brings the narrative full circle by giving us some closure to whatever happened to the first teacher of 3-E and provides reasonable incentive for Koro-sensei to bring up his backstory. She as an individual does not hold much appeal. She doesn’t have a standalone arc like Itona or Isogai or Sugino to solidify her character as an individual. She’s just used to bridge the gap between two much more important parts of the narrative, making her seem far more insignificant in comparison.

(Speaking of Itona, I think I would have liked to see her interacting with Yanagisawa/Shiro a little bit more. It’s one of the little things they could have built up on, I think. At that point Shiro had still been a rather interesting and mysterious character - Kayano’s reveal preceded Shiro’s by a tiny bit of time. They did interact in one or two scenes with ambiguous lines if I remember correctly - but they were working together despite a mutual hatred because of a common enemy. There was a really cool dynamic that I wish we saw more of.)

Pre-canon Kayano Kaede was honestly very interesting. From what little we saw of her, we know that she had her suspicions about Yanagisawa/Shiro from the start (I think they stated her dealings with unscrupulous people in the media industry gave her experience). She swore a pledge for revenge and stuck to it for a whole year, stole chemicals and injected them into the damn back of her neck, and I’m sure she probably didn’t even fully understood what they did at the time. We also know she broke Principal Asano’s laptop right in front of him to get into 3-E, and really, who else can boast about having the guts to do that? There’s so much you could get from her character from just knowing she did these things, and in the end post-reveal her didn’t do her justice, I think.

Wow, I’ve typed a lot, HAHA. This took me longer than I expected. Kayano is mt favorite female character in assclass apart from Irina, I think. To conclude, I love her.

(Disclaimer: I haven’t read or watched canon content in a long time. I’m going off the open wiki page and my leftover memory/impressions, so if I’m interpreting something based of inaccurate information, feel free to let me know.)

#assclass #assassination classroom #kayano kaede #character analysis #akari yukimura #korosensei #gwentriestothink

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donnerpartyofone · 4 years

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reasons my i am probably too sensitive to have anything to do with other people

including other people’s drama that has absolutely nothing to do with me

i started reading this person’s new webcomic on instagram a month or two ago, and what started out as a fun little time killer that i looked forward to every day has started making me so uncomfortable that i wish i’d never heard of it. it takes place right now, in an especially embattled US city, and it’s about the dysfunctional lives of a bunch of shallow millennials, set against the backdrop of an increasingly dangerous country in an unpredictable state of revolt. it’s solidly engaging, convincingly characterized, and rendered in a unique funny animal style; i wasn’t surprised to discover that it’s going to be published soon by the most reputable publisher of this sort of thing. at first, i was impressed by it because i thought the behavior and dialog of its insecure young people was so well observed. it felt like one of the only things of its kind that i’ve read, more or less about real people living right now, that was neither a broad ugly satire, nor a pretentious drama exaggerating the specialness of its characters. the other thing i liked about it was that while it was largely about their sex lives, it didn’t seem at all sexy to me. the artist has a kind of distorted, rough-hewn visual style that i thought put some emotional distance between the overheated state of the characters, and the real consequences of their decisions. then it all got weird.

the artist stuck a really long, graphic sex scene in the middle of story that made me think...oh, maybe i AM supposed to be getting off to this? that’s weird, this all seems really bad to me, like every character is just mindlessly, selfishly bent on destruction and not doing much to make me like them, and i’d been reading along thinking “god i’m SO GLAD i’m not in my 20s anymore and i don’t have to deal with people like this--or with the pressure to act like this, as if using sex to create drama and being ‘crazy’ is the ultimate thing a person can do with their life”--and then suddenly it felt like maybe the comic was actually some kind of celebration of this lifestyle, or at the very least it’s an intensely sentimental portrait of a time of life, and of types of people, that i cannot imagine feeling sentimental about. then something else happened that made the comic even MORE uncomfortable to read, somehow: it had been gaining traction at an amazing pace, with tons of people leaving comments to the tune of “noooo don’t do it!”, the way you would yell at someone in a horror movie not to go back for the cat, as each character made the worst possible personal choice in every daily installment. the “don’t go in there!” response seemed pretty natural to me, but then the artist stepped in and made this announcement threatening to stop doing the comic altogether if the readers wouldn’t stop criticizing the characters. pretty much everyone in the comments was like “???”. many apologized if their comments were offensive, although they had no idea what they could have said that was wrong; other people, who seemed more sure that they were the ones being accused, said that they thought you were SUPPOSED to feel critical of the characters’ obviously bad decisions. that was how i felt, and at that point i was just enormously glad that i never comment on shit online or get involved in any type of community shit, especially when the artist started explaining laboriously that all of the characters represent some facet of the artist themselves and so therefore none of them are meant to be seen in a bad light at all and they’re all meant to be loved unconditionally and if you find yourself thinking mean things about the characters then you are effectively shitting all over the artist as a person. a lot of readers fell all over themselves to be supportive, and i just thought...this isn’t something you should support, though. it sucks that the artist is feeling so sensitive, but they’re about to have a book out in the world where they won’t have any ability to threaten readers who are “reading it wrong” or having incorrect thoughts about it. i mean...life is full of uncomfortable experiences and people you can’t relate to, i really don’t think we should be promoting this hopeless sanitization of all experiences in which trigger warnings used to be something that protected traumatized people from being randomly confronted with traumatic material, and now they’re used to just make sure nobody ever has to hear anything they don’t like, ever. anyone who cares about this artist should be helping them understand that they cannot control how people read their book or how they feel about each character and story in it. or failing that, they should be encouraged to just turn off instagram comments. but because of all this drama, i found myself reading all the comments obsessively--something i did when the blowup first happened, because i couldn’t find anything in there that i thought was mean or offensive, which added to my uncomfortable fascination with the whole thing--and that’s when i spotted a comment where somebody asked the artist is this was a furry comic. i wish this didn’t blow my mind, but it kind of did. i mean, it’s a book where almost all the characters are animals, and they occasionally have a bunch of raunchy sex. i think that if you’re a furry, meaning you’re interested in that sort of thing, this book is completely available for you to enjoy however you want. but this person needed the artist to FORMALLY CATEGORIZE IT as a furry comic. what the fuck is the meaning of that? it struck me as something that people in fandoms do, where they need every single thing to be labeled to death in an intensive and intractable way like it was science, the Final Word on everything in the universe, and they like *argue with each other* about whether they’re *allowed* to ship certain characters together or imagine them doing specific things, which is something you would only worry about if you thought the topic represented a literal material reality that could be adversely affected by people’s improper thoughts. i mean imagine if you felt that way about your jerkoff fantasies about fictional characters? that your horny thoughts are up for debate by hundreds of people you don’t even know? imagine feeling like that about OTHER PEOPLE’S jerkoff fantasies, like it’s worth fighting over and trying to CONTROL? like holy fucking shit you guys, STOP IT. it would even be one thing to ask the artist if THEY were a furry, which may or may not be anybody’s business, but to ask whether interpreting the comic through a furry lens is ALLOWED is like...well, actually, maybe it’s exactly in line with the artist’s recently expressed attitude, that you’re forced to think of the book in exactly the way that they personally think about it, or else you should have your reading privileges revoked. so now i’m still reading the comic, sort of compulsively, because i’m a little addicted to the soap opera of it and i’m ALSO a little addicted to the soap opera of the artist battling the readers over finding the correct orthodoxy for reading the comic--there’s a particular guy i’ve become aware of in the comics community because he is always harassing people with this mix of really caustic sarcasm and really bitter political self-righteousness, and he was surely the main person who was being “mean” to the characters, and HE’S STILL DOING IT IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, because i guess the artist would rather have problems with people than simply block them and eliminate them from the equation? but the whole entire thing is making me so uncomfortable i can hardly stand it. reading about like, dumb hot chicks with no self-control, and smug young shitheads who use the veil of progressiveness to hide or justify their predatory sexual behavior, and grownass adults who start drama with 20 year olds in order to feel relevant, AND being forced to know that the artist intends for me to embrace and adore all of this bad shit--like, people and things i left behind in real life, because it was all bad!--with ultimate love and compassion, or else they reserve the right to claim that they’re being personally attacked, has just become too much to take. it’s starting to make me feel sick. i really need to take the reigns on this thing. as much as the artist needs to forget about this control fantasy and stop being so precious about what they’re doing, i need to stop subjecting myself to something i find painful, embarrassing, and frankly creepy, if i ever wanna get back to a state where i have less to complain about.

tl;dr: stupid hipster is too sensitive to read a webcomic by a stupid hipster who is too sensitive for anyone to read their webcomic.

#NOT simon hanselmann #somebody else!#i will tell you if you chat me i just don't wanna get involved

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aktiophis · 4 years

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I’m having some half-baked thoughts so I thought it best to write them down. Specifically about the common views on Protestantism and Catholicism I’ve seen espoused in online Occult spaces, at least on Tumblr.

I don’t mean the anti-Christian crowd who claim every holiday was stolen from some Ancient monolithic Pagan society where everyone was a witch (or whatever), I mean like, people who can talk out of their mouth rather than their ass.

[I’m not going to edit this whole thing but this sort of goes from a discussion about how I feel some people don’t put adequate thought into their opinions on Christianity to a realisation that what actually annoyed me was completely unrelated to that. It wasn’t anything at all to do with an opinion as much as whether the opinion came from someone’s thought and experience or if it came from basing your opinions on what other people have said without thinking critically about it.]

Especially as I have gotten older I have much more affinity for Catholicism and how it relates to my Irish ancestry (after all, my Mother’s side only converted a few generations back and they are descended from one of the oldest Irish clans, to my knowledge). Being raised Protestant in Northern Ireland I suppose that might hold a bit more weight than elsewhere but that’s really neither here nor there as far as this is concerned. Due to a number of reasons, not the least of which being Occultism and the rich traditions Catholicism has gotten itself tangled up in over time, I have personally come to favour Catholicism’s viewpoint more than The Protestant ones I was raised in, namely Anglican, which personally feels about as legitimately spiritual as it’s founding was a legitimate reason to or a Church to be formed. That, and I do enjoy a good statue.

This all being said, I do feel like it has become somewhat of a popular attitude to say that Protestantism is objectively worse than Catholicism. I’m not going to say I don’t prefer it, but like so many other things I feel like only half the people I’ve seen espouse the view have thought about it. It also feels reductive to paint with so broad a brush, and I feel like Tumblr especially is at risk of someone reading an offhanded joke about it and then like, erecting a whole psychological monument to the Great and Universal Truth that Protestantism is Objectively Bad, because one of the blogs everyone is idolising at that time said it.

And I suppose the lack of nuance is part of the issue. Catholicism itself isn’t really a monolithic religion, because there are so many regional variations that have sprung up. Protestantism itself is arguably even more nebulous, because now not only do you have geographical variations, but there is no one Protestant Church Hierarchy in the first place. It’s an Umbrella term for any number of denominations, and none of them necessarily agree with each other. As I’ve said, I don’t particularly like any of them, but I feel like when people talk about Protestantism in this context they mean something very specific.

This is sort of the second thing I wanted to say, which regards the very US-centric attitude on this site. It is what it is, idc, but it’s still part of it so I’m bringing it up. Protestantism, as far as I can tell, means specifically Baptists from the Bible belt and other denominations prevalent in the US, and specifically the experience of them in an American cultural lens. I think I personally have known about a dozen Baptists in my entire life (I largely try and ignore and avoid them because they have been universally annoying), and just in general the proportions of the denominations is really quite different in America to Ireland, and I’m sure to many other places.

I’m sort of starting to lose my train of thought over this so I’ll try and sum it up here; What I mean by all of this is that although I personally agree with what seems to be a general preference among occultists for at the least certain ideas from Catholicism over Protestantism (if there is one at all), I think that like a lot of things on Tumblr, these opinions are transferred from the people who have the experience and nuance and have thought about the topic, to the people who haven’t, maybe never will, and who need to for lack of a better word ‘meditate’ on things rather than simply mirroring whatever seems to be gaining traction in the online cultures they frequent.

Having written all this, I realise It isn’t actually this topic specifically that annoys me, especially given that quite a bit of the magic I have worked is pulled from a historically Catholic framework. I don’t really care either way what people think about any sect of Christianity, and in retrospect this feels like a silly example to have fixated on but I’ve written it now so it’s getting posted. I don’t belong to either and I have significant issues with many of the spiritual ideas let alone the institutional corruptions and toxic cultures rampant in both. What this was really about was the tendency on Tumblr for people to just be a mirror of whatever they happen to be exposed to. If you don’t mull over and digest things yourself, you will never be like the people you idolise. As knowledgeable or as wise as someone else might seem, even if it’s through the lens of a blog, if you act as a mirror to them in an attempt to be like them or to gain their level of wisdom or power or secret knowledge etc., at the end of the day they will have flesh and blood and substance and your practice/depth will end at the foil of your mirror, and when the other person leaves it will reflect nothing. A puddle can reflect the whole of the sky and still not have enough water to drown a rat.

So yeah I basically wrote this whole thing only to realise I’m just irritated how people think that mimicry and blindly following things is at all a way to make headway in the occult when the entire history of this practice is centred around Deep knowledge and a search for the unknown and divine.

#yeah idk either #is this a tag?#i think so #This is just a completely random rant so like #dont read into it too much lol #just needed to dump some brainwords somewhere

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tlbodine · 4 years

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Why Isn’t “Mass Shooter” a Modern Horror Monster?

Horror reflects the anxieties of the culture that produces it. In the 1950s, we got monster movies about radiation-mutated creatures and invaders from beyond the stars, mirroring our Cold War Science fears.

In the 1970s, as “Women’s Liberation” and birth control went mainstream, we see an influx of horrors settled on childbirth and children and family dysfunction.

And as the 70s bled into the 80s, while real-world serial killers were leaving behind trails of victims, the masked psycho was dominating the field with countless slashers.

But now -- throughout the 2010s -- mass shootings loom large our our collective American consciousness. Hardly a week goes by without hearing of one somewhere, and they inspire fear and terror. Yet we haven’t seen them show up to dominate horror media in the way serial killers do -- what’s up with that?

Horror-media discussion about gun violence under the cut!

Before we get started, a caveat: There is media about school shootings. It’s just not usually horror. Most, as you can see from IMDB, is family drama: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls070532039/

And none of them are really particularly mainstream, not in the way we associate with slasher films.

So what’s the difference? Why is a killer with an axe more compelling as a film monster than a killer with a gun?

Some hypotheses:

Primacy: Because mass shootings are frequently in the news/public discussion, it’s always “too soon” - the real-life horror is too horrifying for entertainment. Sounds good on paper, but why isn’t that true for slashers? Those movies were popular when serial killers were at their most active.

Politics: Perhaps political motives are influencing the market. Since gun control is a contentious topic, maybe some powers are motivated toward censorship. But wouldn’t that also censor the family drama type movies? Why would it focus on horror especially?

Logistics: It’s just really hard to make a good horror movie about a mass shooting. Guns kill people pretty quickly and indiscriminately, so you lose the mounting suspense and intimacy of a killer with a knife and other similar horror/slasher conventions.

This last point, I think, bears some further consideration. The more I think on it, the more it seems that the things that make gun violence especially horrifying in real life are also things that make it very hard to put in a horror story:

Mass shootings happen, obviously, in mass. Most horror formulas require characters to be isolated and picked off one by one.

Guns kill people in ways that are impersonal and swift. If you’re killing a stadium of people with an automatic weapon, it’ll take just a few minutes. You can’t stretch that out into a long, lingering torture sequence or whatever.

Gun violence is indiscriminate. Wherever a crowd gathers, a shooter can start killing people. There’s no space for, say, the “horror rules” re: jock, slut, virgin, etc. because morality doesn’t play into it.

A killer methodically making his way through a sorority house, killing its members one by one lends itself more naturally to suspenseful storytelling than a gunman opening fire on a crowd. A killer leaving clues and taunting detectives lends its own narrative structure.

In that regard, it’s pretty obvious: We cannot make a slasher-style film or a torture-porn film about a gunman. It just won’t work.

But perhaps we’re looking at it all wrong. What if we viewed the mass shooter not as a serial killer, but as a force of nature? The disaster movie genre has ample cross-over with horror, and the general formula would work well for a mass shooter:

Introduction to a wide cast of characters as they maneuver into a vulnerable position

The disaster hits, and we move between individuals affected by the calamity, watching their initial reactions

In the ensuing chaos, characters attempt to escape further danger

The danger passed (for now?) some characters manage to survive, now irrevocably changed

Whether the disaster in question is an earthquake, a sharknado, or a school shooting, that formula should work. The key to success lies in the pacing and the large cast, allowing you to stretch out a relatively brief event into a detailed and tense narrative.

So why haven’t we seen that? Outside of, like, one made-for-TV movie I recall watching in the 90s, this presumably straightforward premise hasn’t gained much traction.

The Making of Monsters: Signs and Signifiers

Perhaps the real reason we haven’t seen a lot of horror stories about mass shootings is because there is already so much mythology and symbolism tied to these sorts of narratives, and that symbolism is at odds with the creation of movie monsters.

Guns carry a tremendous amount of cultural significance and baggage, at least in the United States. It’s why they’re so politically contentious. And when something is already heavily laden with symbolic meaning, it’s hard to turn that symbolism into something else in a way that will stick.

Point #1: Guns are a great equalizer. Unlike a knife or sword, skill doesn’t matter all that much when it comes to killing somebody with a gun. You don’t have to be strong or fast or have a ton of training. You just have to point it and pull the trigger -- if you do that enough times, and at a big enough target, you’ll probably hit something. This means that anyone can kill someone with a gun: a skinny nerd, a young child, a petite woman. Guns are the thing that give you, the underdog, a way to compete against them, the big strong enemy.

This leads to Point #2: Good Guys With Guns(tm). As absolutely anyone who has been on the internet for five minutes after Any Sort Of Bad Event will tell you, Bad Things can be stopped by Good Guys With Guns(tm). And while you can debate the merits of armed civilians protecting a group from harm against an active shooter, it’s impossible to deny that, historically, good guys have been armed. Police, military, armed militias, frontiersmen, etc. carry weapons. Which means that “guy with a gun” does not immediately translate, visually or thematically, as “threat” in the same way as wielding a butcher knife in a non-culinary context. A guy with a gun could, at a glance, be a good guy. A guy with a big knife is obviously a villain. Similarly, the Good Guys With Guns(tm) bleeds over into the horror genre. What would the zombie apocalypse be without headshots? How many horror franchises could have been cut short if someone had just shot the killer?

Finally, Point #3: Guns in media have special powers. Gun mythology in film and television is well-developed, with its own set of tropes and expectations. In movies, pointing a gun at someone will automatically make that person comply with whatever you ask them to do -- we even have vernacular about this, “nobody put a gun to your head” -- as if the gun were somehow more powerful than a simple threat and could in fact control behavior. Often, people who are shot in television politely fall over and die quietly; it’s a civilized end, without all of the screaming and thrashing (never mind where they’re shot or what that would would do in real life). And there are so many types of gun. We have a whole video game genre dedicated to it -- collecting guns, learning their various abilities, applying them situationally to achieve various goals. With so many established tropes, writing anything with new tropes and rules runs the risk of generating confusion, disbelief and even hostility in an audience.

So, with all of that in mind, it starts to become clear:

Writing a horror story about gun violence is difficult because guns carry so much mythic significance, and it’s impossible to write about them metaphorically while keeping it clear what that metaphor is.

If I write a story about an atomic-powered lizard who destroys a Japanese town with radiation, it’s easy enough to see that it’s a metaphor for nuclear warfare. But there is no similarly straightforward metaphor for gun violence readily apparent.

But it’s tougher even than that -- because guns themselves aren’t the only thing to have been mythologized.

The Myth of the Lone Gunman

Remember: Guns are the great equalizer.

This knowledge sits in the foundation of storytelling, not just in the fiction we make up but in the way we build narratives around mass shootings in the real world. There are certain tacit assumptions we make about gunmen that may or may not be accurate.

We have a certain narrative framework in place to explain school shootings, for example: The awkward, isolated young man who is bullied until he finally snaps and goes on a killing rampage.

Never mind that this narrative is not wholly supported by facts. It may be true in some cases, but certainly not all. And yet, go back up to that list of mass shooter movies on IMDB and look again at what the majority of them have in common.

This is problematic because, from a mythic perspective, people who are bullied and then stand up to their oppressors are heroes.

In Carrie, when Carrie White destroys the school after being humiliated on prom night, we’re on her side. It feels good to watch her kill all those people who were awful to her. It feels just and righteous and imminently satisfying.

When Spartacus leads a slave revolt, we cheer. When Daenerys Targaryen kills all the masters and uses their heads as mile-markers, we feel triumphant. When Arthur Fleck shoots the smug talk-show host on live television, we think, Well, he had it coming.

Oh, sure. We pay lip service to being horrified. And these dark heroes might die at the end, receiving some karmic retribution for the price of their revenge. But can you say, truthfully, that you have ever once watched a story about an underdog killing his bullies and felt sorriest for the bullies?

So: This is the problem with our cultural narrative about the school shooter. Purposely or not, it puts the shooter in the role of hero.

And not only is that irresponsible, it’s just downright inaccurate.

When Stephen Paddock opened fire on a concert and killed 58 people, he was not firing back at his oppressors.

When Omar Mateen shot up a night club in Florida, he wasn’t getting revenge against his bullies.

When Adam Lanza slaughtered 26 people at an elementary school -- 20 of them young children -- he obviously was not giving his victims what they deserved.

In the real world, mass shooters might be motivated by political ideology and a desire to promote fear -- ie, terrorism. They might be unhappy with some aspect of their lives and decide to “punch down” at a vulnerable group in the worst possible way. They might be looking to become the heroes of certain media narratives, to secure some kind of fame or notoriety. They might want to kill themselves in a way that hurts a lot of other people at the same time. There are lots of reasons why people might commit mass murder.

But the important thing is that the victims are, overwhelmingly, not bullies and oppressors. They are people. Just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because mass shootings aren’t really about personal vendettas; they’re about mowing down a bunch of strangers in a few minutes at an impersonal long range.

So here’s my final thought on the topic: We SHOULD tell horror stories about mass shootings.

It’s a topic that’s timely, and it’s a scenario that’s frightening. There’s no reason not to tell these stories. But to make it work -- on a logistic and socially responsible basis -- we need to change our treatment.

Going back to the “disaster movie” idea: It’s time to treat mass shooters in fiction as forces of nature, as oblivious and blindly destructive as a hurricane. It’s time to center the focus on the victims. Never mind the killer and what led him to this moment. Let’s take a minute to think about the people caught in that situation -- the people who fear for their lives, who try to help one another, who fight or flee or hide once the first shot is fired. Let’s write about the moments of humanity shared by two strangers crouched behind something while shots fire all around them. Let’s write about the horror of having your perfectly normal, mundane day suddenly and irrevocably shattered by a stranger with a gun.

There is horror there, real horror, that can be mined and cultivated and turned to art. And it seems to me that embracing that, and shifting the cultural narrative away from valorizing the lone gunman, would be good for art and society.

Are you ready to tell that story?

I am.

#horror #horror media #horror movies #how to write horror #horror stories #gun violence #mass shootings #trigger warnings #long post #Deep dive #horror analysis

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echodrops · 5 years

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Fanon vs. Canon Shigaraki

Belatedly:

This post gained a lot more traction than expected, so quick edit: the “canon” discussed below is only my personal interpretation of canon, and this post is definitely not intended to be a guide for characterizing Shigaraki in every fanfic! Please don’t use this meta to criticize anyone else’s writing, as that was not my intention. Everyone should feel free to create what they enjoy!

Look y’all, I ain’t one to judge, but I love canon-based fics and sometimes the massive gap between Shigaraki in fanon and Shigaraki in BNHA’s canon just has me going whaaa???

I mean, like...

Fanon Shigaraki: Abhors all human contact. Lurks in his bedroom 24/7. Never speaks to others except to bitch them out. A vampire who will combust upon setting foot outside his lair.

Canon Shigaraki: Seen alone in his bedroom a grand total of one (1) time in the series; the only other time his room is shown, the rest of the entire League is squeezed in there too. Never out of contact with his followers except Dabi who is the real antisocial bitch here. Longest he’s ever been drawn spending time by himself without another major character to keep him company? Two pages. Gets mad... GOES TO THE MALL.

Fanon Shigaraki: Vocabulary consists of 80% “I’ll kill you” and 20% “Fuck off.” 1000% RAGE ALL DAY ERRYDAY. Has no concept of a good mood. Wouldn’t know how to smile if he tried. Either one step from a temper tantrum or one step from murder, there is NO IN BETWEEN BUT THERE IS FREQUENT OVERLAP.

Canon Shigaraki: Demonstrates the development of remarkable restraint, even when Bakugou damages precious “Father”...

Constantly comments on other people’s bad manners all right, this one might be a little hypocritical, but at least we know he knows what proper manners are... Is referred to on multiple occasions as being pleased with the League members’ work, implying they’ve seen him actively happy... Compliments people (even heroes) when they impress him... The second most likely villain to say “Thanks” (behind only Toga)...

Master of both the goofy grin:

And the soft smile:

Fanon Shigaraki: Can’t insult his comrades often enough. Say something nice about another human being? Hard pass. Friends? Quote: “I would rather die.” Only suffers the League because he’s forced to have allies to defeat the heroes; zero emotional attachment to his comrades unless he’s written as sleeping with Dabi and even then half the time this is still true. Would not give a fuck if half of them died except for how it would inconvenience him.

Canon Shigaraki: Is he still manipulating the League members to use their strength to further his own agenda? Oh for sure. BUT AT LEAST HE’S DOING IT POLITELY.

Since the formation of the core “League,” he frequently talks positively about his comrades, even when they’re not around to hear it:

Knows his allies well enough that he can send them out without instructions and still trust that they will act in exactly the League’s best interests:

Expresses concern for the other members’ well-being:

And has zero hesitation about throwing himself into potentially deadly situations to protect the rest of the League:

Fanon Shigaraki: An innocent, traumatized angel who had no choice but to become evil; he definitely wouldn’t be this way if he knew better! Sometimes written as a weakling who needs to be defended from anyone, everyone, the world, and especially All For One. Feeble waif, constantly on the edge of wasting away. Might cry himself to sleep at night. Never Been Touched/Don’t-Touch-Me-I-am-the-NIGHT™.

Canon Shigaraki: Craves violence like candy...

Close combat quirk means he’s always up in other people’s business... Personal space bubbles are for the weak.

Easily capable of controlling the bickering and assuaging the concerns of his team members...

An unmitigated badass who carries on whole conversations while bleeding out from bullet wounds to every limb...

And jumps from speeding vehicles without a moment’s pause. There was literally no reason for him to be on the roof of the truck EXCEPT for it looking badass. This boy is just Extra AF and I won’t hear any arguments to the contrary.

EDIT to add one more because this is also bugging me:

Fanon Shigaraki: Absolutely the worst at adapting to new scenarios. Violently rejects any form of change. Has a comfort zone the size of a wasabi pea and only ever comes out of that comfort zone kicking and screaming, dragged by another major character. Every ounce of character growth will take twelve chapters and a dramatic mental breakdown to overcome.

Canon Shigaraki: (Deliberately) Tied with Midoriya for being the most adaptive character in the series.

Never tries the same strategy twice...

Learns from, consumes, and grows by flexibly incorporating the plans and attitudes of other villains...

Actively and intentionally changes entire facets of his own behavior to further his agenda...

And to motivate his allies... From:

To:

What MAKES Shigaraki so terrifying and effective as a villain is that he is so flexible and capable of change. He demonstrates the ability to admit and learn from his mistakes, to build new plans on the fly, to gain deeper understanding of how other people work (and can be manipulated) and to quickly and easily put everything he learns into action to forward his goals. He’s fascinating in his ability to simply pick up or discard new attitudes to suit his own ends, and his actions continuously call into question what aspects of Shigaraki’s personality/behavior are genuine and which are merely a construct he’s built up deliberately to further his own and All For One’s dreams.

Shigaraki Tomura is incredible at adapting to challenges, can blend in exactly when, where, and as much as he needs to, and is significantly more open to change than virtually any other villain we’ve seen so far in the series.

But I feel like it’s rare to see this side of him in fandom portrayals?

Sure, Shigaraki is still violent, unhinged, quick-tempered, and definitely keeping things secret from the rest of the League to use them to his benefit... But uhhhh...

He’s also become a ferocious defender to his men. His actively antisocial behavior (always exaggerated) has become increasingly reduced in the story--Tomura is virtually always seen in the company of others (contrast Twice and Spinner, who we’re deliberately shown spending time alone, and Dabi, who appears to frequently work without the rest of the League). Shigaraki exhibits a reasonable gamut of emotions, including many of which are not “Go die,” and he shows a positive and grateful attitude towards his comrades (might be fake, but still at least he’s bothering to fake it, unlike Chisaki). He’s also been shown to be a great actor, both in serious scenes and in silly ones, such as his doofy reaction to Uraraka...

In terms of leadership, Tomura has advanced to the point that he’s the one promoting group solidarity, allows and wants others to think of the League as close-knit, and knows his comrades well enough to rely on them in meaningful situations. We’re led to believe he was earnest in his attempts to recruit Bakugou, that Toga has seen him happy on at least a few occasions, and that he’s okay with bringing the rest of the League into what likely qualifies as his home (something none of the other League members have ever done, at least that we’ve seen).

Furthermore, every confrontation he’s been in in the manga can only lead readers to the conclusion that Shigaraki is an absolute beast on the battlefield, easily the League’s strongest and most dangerous player, and more likely to be protecting the other League members than being protected...

So like, I ain’t out here about to criticize anyone else’s portrayals of Shigaraki in their own works, and this isn’t intended to be a guide on how to write or not write Shigaraki in fics, but I do find myself wishing his characterization in fanworks showed the same evolution as his character in the actual story.

Why write level 1 Tomura behavior when my boy is out here grinding his way to 99???

Send me your Shigaraki fic recs fam, I’m dying...

#shigaraki tomura #league of villains #canon vs fanon #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #I guess #I PROCRASTINATED GRADING MY SECOND TO LAST SET OF FINALS TO POST THIS #because I have a mighty craving #and I can't find a single fic that really seems to scratch it DDDD;#I love one (1) crusty prince #but I don't love the woobified or overly hateful versions of him that seem to keep cropping up #I KNOW EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO THEIR OPINION #DON'T @ ME #and actually I've joked about a lot of OOC Tomura protrayals in my own posts #so it's not like I don't see the appeal #but sometimes I get tired of 90% of Tomura's dialogue being how much he hates everyone else

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otp-armada · 4 years

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A Time Capsule

I’ve been lurking across several fandoms spanning a decade now, since my days of reading “Bones” fanfics on fanfiction.net. Before any inkling of Ao3’s existence. Maybe longer, my memory is murky at times.

I’ve never made a splash in any fandom, so to speak. I’ve always been content to stand shrouded in anonymity, residing on the edges of fandom, never an active participant. Perfectly at peace to never have a voice. Never brave enough to want to be heard. It has only been in the last few years that I discovered Tumblr and felt comfortable enough in taking advantage of its anon feature to interact mostly with The 100/Bellarke crowd, “conversing” with one user in particular. In the instances I chose to speak, there was safety in knowing my words never had an identity attached. A safety that lent itself to sending anon asks a fairly common activity until I wrote one recently sharing a remnant of my “The 100” viewing experience. The warm response from the users who read it left me smiling for the rest of the day. Their reply took a direction I didn’t expect. They encouraged me to take credit for my words under my username, which of course, I didn’t have, not being a Tumblr user.

I was flattered by the response, bolstering me to continue the line of conversation with another ask and was met with reiterated sentiments.

In the wise words of one of those awesome people,

“I was the ultimate lurker for a long, long time. I had a Tumblr account for four years before I ever made a single post, and even then I had to be talked into it. And you know what? When I finally starting “talking,” it was so freeing! Even if no one else was listening, even if I was speaking into the void, I was no longer dependent on anyone else to share my thoughts and opinions. I could do that myself.”

I took the compliment but waived the advice. Tumblr is made of communities built upon sharing and I have always been unto myself an island. It goes against my shy, introverted nature to take part in a community. I have no business pretending I have a place there. None at all.

And yet, despite my misgivings, the idea wouldn’t leave me as I believed it would. I started to genuinely ponder the merits of creating a blog.

There are strong reasons to support the affirmative.

First, the utilitarian benefits. In the absence of a blog, I turned to alternative methods of archiving appealing posts. If by some miracle, the item count of my browser reading list hasn’t yet ascended to the thousands mark, it most assuredly rests in the hundreds. My camera roll queue has indubitably reached the thousands count, currently sitting pretty at 3,300. I shudder to think of the sheer number of my bookmarks. One hundred and eighty notes on my phone. The final frontier has been broken, at last, habitually inundating my laptop with screenshots. Long has it been overdue to clean house.

Second, I find writing to be a herculean undertaking I enjoy in the moments it doesn’t drive me to the brink. A slow-going process, but when I’m able to appreciate the fruits of my labor, marvel at the polished product, I often feel quite proud. Writing is a skill I’ve lost touch with over years of disuse but found incrementally returning while expressing my opinions via Tumblr asks. Like any skill, it can be honed with time and practice. Transferring my streams of consciousness onto written medium challenges me to think critically, ask myself if my POV genuinely holds true or falls apart, requiring further reflection. If nothing else, it’s a good way to process thoughts and emotions. I find it easier than and therefore preferable to oral communication. I am a perpetual editor, always amending my statements which can’t really be done as effectively in speech.

Third, if there was ever a time to join the Tumblr fandom I’ve found a home in for the last three years, why not in time for the show’s last ride? The night I signed up for Tumblr coincided the first day of “The 100” cast and crew filming their 100th and poetically final episode. Around the same space of time, we got a release date and the nostalgic goodbyes of a few cast members rolled in. I know when Bellarke crosses the last threshold, I’d want it plastered all over my dash and I’d be able to make it happen.

But where there are pros, the cons inevitably follow.

Do I really need a further distraction from my responsibilities, spending additional hours and expending more energy I should not spare online? The too easy potential for more hours behind a screen when prone to headaches and horrid habits of not regulating my eating and sleeping schedules? The answer is a clear and resounding “No.” Would maintaining a blog be harmful to my mental and emotional health? Remaining anonymous has historically done a fine job of insulating me from general rebuke, which has mitigated the risk of reproach at least. No corner of the internet can be designated as a safe space. I knew I would in all likelihood have to work diligently to curate and be responsible for my experience, leading me to doubt how the effort could possibly be worth it. How could it be worth feeling exposed, self-conscious? Constantly second-guessing myself, debating whether or not my thoughts are best kept within the privacy of my mind to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes? Combating the periodic skepticism that my thoughts possess value worth writing?

There was always the lingering possibility I was overthinking the decision to my detriment, as is my norm. After all, it seemed silly and dramatic to regard one obscure little blog in a sea of hundreds of millions of social media users as momentous. But I know myself better than that. It is a really fucking big deal for me.

I vacillated between both sides of the argument for days before deciding not to follow through with the venture.

And then one night, a single stray observation ran through my mind. One observation became another, became another and before I knew it, I had formed the grounds for an entire meta post. It didn’t end there. More ideas filtered through. I expanded on those ideas. More traction gained. Another meta formed. More jumping off previous points. Before long, I had mentally written the foundations for four metas. And I was so excited and proud of forming these connections to this puzzle without even trying that I wanted to share it. I sat down to write them in my trusty Notes, outlining, trying to jot the main points down before they fizzled away from memory. I saw how long-winded these spiels had gotten sans the full writeup, subsequently rationalizing…well, not blowing up someone’s inbox is just good manners, isn’t it? And terribly inefficient to boot. More to the point, it seemed a disservice to myself to censor my rumination to fit the small confines of a Tumblr ask box.

The part of me that wanted to push forward envisioned what the future of my blogging efforts may look like. That part knows that this blog is for me and only me. What makes me laugh, what makes me cry. Smile. Rage. Flail. Think. Whatever the hell I want. I get to say what I want, however, I want. It’s incredibly nerve-wracking. It’s also exciting, thrilling, and yes, freeing. The notion of carving out a tiny space for me to fill to the endless brim with whatever brings me joy makes me…really damn happy. It’s not an easy feat to accept and harder to retain. I should be ok, so long as I never forget that I get to be in control of what happens here. It’s within my right to block anyone I don’t want to engage or associate with. It’s my full right to not care what anyone else has to say if I don’t want to. Block out anything negative I don’t want to endure with only a few clicks. If I decide I want to walk away, permanently or otherwise, for any reason, it’s within my right to do that too. It’s comforting.

There was a time when I “knew” I would never sign up for an Ao3 account until one of my favorite authors withdrew the majority of her stories from public consumption. I “knew” I was never going to post commentary until I did. I “knew” my username would never be seen by anyone aside from me, never to be affiliated with my commentary until it was.

I did. Each and every time I thought I would never, I did. I broke my own barriers with patience and some courage. Maybe the most intimidating aspect of something new is simply the beginning. I said earlier that I’ve been an island for nearly as long as I can remember. It’s still true, I don’t expect overnight results. It’s probably going to be true for a long time. Perhaps forever. But maybe it’s all the more reason why I should take this step toward peeking out of my self-imposed shell. Do what scares you, or whatever it is they say.

I wish I could say it was enough to reverse my earlier verdict.

Nope, I had to agonize some more.

What can I say? Fear is a damn powerful inhibitor.

Lo and behold, as if the universe took pity on me, I got the chance to communicate directly with the same awesome lady whom I quoted above and she kindly offered some more merciful wisdom to a truly maddeningly indecisive individual:

“When you create a blog, you are STILL anonymous. You have a username, yes, but it doesn’t lead back to you unless you want it to. You still have your personal privacy. Tumblr isn’t Facebook. If you want to disclose personal information, you can, but you certainly don’t have to.

And second, your blog is for you, not for anyone else. It’s for you to express your own opinions. Or create gifs or other visuals. Or just repost what other people create. You can be on every day, or just once a week. It’s also a great way to save stuff you might want to look at again. And then… and then… when brilliance suddenly hits you, you have somewhere to let it hang out! 😁”

It was much I had already considered, but it helped immeasurably to have my reasoning reaffirmed from an external source I respect. I logged into Tumblr for the first time the very same night.

After much deliberation, an uncharacteristic burst of bravery and a grueling four hours I owe to technological ineptitude, I have, tentatively and cautiously, opted to give this Tumblr thing a go.

With luck, a day will never arrive when I dust this preamble off for a much-needed pep talk. Instead, it is my hope that one day, this memo-to-me will stand as proof that I don’t always need to be afraid of the unknown. Not all endeavors have to be as frightening as they may appear. And if I can apply this attitude to all else suppressing my personal growth, I might just be peachy someday.

Bearing this in mind…

…here we go.

#about me #personal

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horrorhousereview · 5 years

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Carrie Franchise

Carrie, the heart warming tale of a high school girl who sets the world on fire with her mind. I knew little else about the original film, nor that it had a sequel and been remade twice. While the original movie proved to be better than I'd have imagined, attempts to recapture the essence of the 1976 version have sadly fallen flat.

1. Carrie (1976)

When I sat down to the original Carrie, my expectations were moderate. I knew that the movie was famous, and that the protagonist could set things on fire with her mind, but really nothing else. It sounded interesting but not earth shattering. I had no idea the wild ride the movie was about to take me on.

The opening scene, in classic seventies style, was a soft core porn in a high school girls locker room as they showered. The porn gave me whiplash when Carrie suddenly got her first period, and instead of handling it like a normal person screamed for help and grasped onto her teammates with bloody hands in a panic. The girls teased her in a sequence that can only make sense in movies, not real life, shouting for her to "plug it up" and pelting her with tampons and pads as she screamed and cried in a corner. Apparently, Carrie had literally never heard about how periods work before. This is attributed to her crazy, fundamentalist mother, but I would also like to raise questions about the state of sex ed. in schools in the seventies. I wasn't expecting much, but did they really not even go over reproductive organs for five minutes? Incredible.

The bulk of the movie is a slow burn wherein we follow Carrie, a girl who is relentlessly bullied by her peers. Not only that, but she is actually a little weird, due to her fundamentalist Christian mother who abuses her at home. Her mother says such gems as that Carrie wouldn't have gotten her period if she hadn't had sex, and that it was God's punishment. She then proceeded to lock her in a closet for several hours, telling Carrie to pray. Carrie's mother makes all of their clothes, and doesn't allow electric lights in the household, just to give the very briefest depiction of how weird it is there.

Through the movie we see that the gym teacher, and then a few others actually try to do right by Carrie. A boy asks her to the prom. They try to turn Carrie's sad life around.

Meanwhile, the head bitch of the school plots revenge on Carrie, whom she blames for her own teenaged angst. She's a terrible person.

Right in the last stretch of movie, Carrie wins the title of prom queen. Her dreams are coming true. Then the head bitch douses her in pigs blood, and a few people laugh, and Carrie totally snaps and kills everyone with her mind, including those who had tried to do right. She goes home, and her mother who believed she was possessed by the devil tries to kill her, but Carrie in turn kills her mother. The sole survivor of the night continues to have nightmares of Carrie attacking her from the grave, and it isn't clear to me whether that's delusion caused by trauma or whether Carrie continued to haunt even her from the beyond.

What a wild ride. I didn't see the ending coming at all, and the shock and chaos of it very much reminded me of Friday the 13th, and The Birds. To add to that, I'm still not certain who the true villain of the movie is. Carrie? Her mother? Her terrible classmates? All of them? None? And did Carrie's mother create her through the abuse, or was Carrie truly possessed by the devil the entire time? Her retribution, after all, was more than a bit excessive.

I enjoyed Carrie far more than I had expected to.

Final rating? 8/10

2. The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

When I started Carrie 2, I was curious how they'd go about a sequel. Carrie had died at the end of the first film. Would this be a sort of prequel to her life? Would she be a ghost? Would they find a way to resurrect her, as they did Jason Voorhees so many times? In fact, it was none of these. The story follows Rachel, Carrie's half sister. Apparently their father has a telekinesis gene that was passed on to both of them, because that makes sense.

We start the movie when Rachel is a little girl. She has a religious nutter mother, just like Carrie, who is trying to banish the devil from her, because she can move things with her mind. The mother gets taken away to a psych ward and is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Is she schizophrenic? Or justified? Perhaps both.

Rachel lives with terrible foster parents, and like Carrie is unpopular. Unlike in Carrie, however, the school atmosphere is completely unrealistic. There's absolute chaos, someone running around with a supersoaker, another guy filming girls' boobs. The cheerleaders are practicing on the school lawn before school starts. I'm always astounded by how unrealistic high school is depicted in some movies and shows, considering that the writers probably attended one.

Also unlike Carrie, Rachel isn't the single social pariah of the entire school. She's just one of many unpopular students, and even has an unpopular best friend. The friend sleeps with a jock (the eldest son from Home Improvement, weirdly), and then when he casts her aside she kills herself by jumping off the roof. This, I guess, is the catalyst for Rachel's telekinesis to start spiraling out of control.

One of the teachers at the school is the sole survivor from the Carrie incident twenty years ago. She wants to help Rachel before it's too late, but that never gains any traction. She also wants to sue Home Improvement boy for statutory rape, and while he and his friends are thoroughly disgusting that felt like a bit of a stretch to me. As a result, the jocks rally against Rachel, all except for Good Jock. Rachel and Good Jock start dating, and Good Jock temporarily friend-divorces the other jocks.

The story culminates in Rachel thinking that Good Jock used her due to the influence of his friends, and she has her Carrie moment where she tries to set everyone and everything on fire. Until this point the echoes of Carrie in Carrie 2 were stupid but boring. The carbon copy ending pushed the film into the realm of terrible.

In addition to the same end scene, they even had the original Carrie mother's voice repeating "they're all going to laugh at you" in the background of Rachel's mind, just as from the original Carrie ending. Why? How? What was it supposed to imply? As if that didn't ruin the scene enough, there was a hilariously bad performance of violent acts -- such as mentally flung CDs acting as shurikens. And Rachel's heart tattoo began to beat, and the barbed wire of it spread to mark her entire body. Again, why? How?

I finished this movie wondering why they'd bothered to make it at all, and also wondering how they failed so spectacularly in capturing whatever magic it was that had made Carrie so fantastic, while simultaneously copying as much from the original movie as possible.

Final rating: 3/10

3. Carrie (2002 made for TV film)

Like all good movies, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would do a remake of Carrie. I was skeptical of the 2002 made for TV movie, but I wanted so much for it to offer something unique. Some remakes actually do have artistic vision behind them. Unfortunately, it was as terrible as one might expect.

The main point to the remake, so far as I can tell, was to update Carrie to take place in a more modern setting. But what exactly was unrelatable about the 1976 film? The lack of sex education is the only real flaw so far as I could tell, and to be fair, the 2002 film does address it. Carrie opts out of sex ed. with a religious exemption. But she also lives in the world of the internet, and uses the web to research her secret powers instead of the library. Yet even with apparently websites helping her to learn them, no one else knows about telekinesis or believes what happened in the end. The modern setting, in my opinion, only built more plot holes rather than filling them in.

In Carrie 2002, the method of story telling is also different. We start off at a police station, after the main events of the film, as detectives interview students and teachers and try to piece together what had happened. I'm not sure what the point of the investigative narrative is, and in fact it threw me. In my experience, the point of having such a perspective is so that each time we're actually inside of the movie, the events we see are only told from the limited point of view of whoever is being interviewed. But that isn't so in Carrie 2002, because we frequently have perspectives from Carrie, who isn't interviewed at all, nor is she seen from the perspective of any of the interviewees. As such, the investigative angle is a weakness, not a strength.

Like Carrie 2, Carrie 2002 features a somewhat unbelievable vision of high school. Every detail, to me at least, is not quite sold. In fact, "not quite" is the theme of the movie, as every key aspect of the original film seems diminished.

Carrie's mother is abusive, but not very. She's religious, but not nearly as much so. The girls at Carrie's school are mean to her, but only to a point. The head orchestrator of Carrie's torments is almost shy in comparison to her original counterpart, and has to be goaded on by the advice of her sociopathic boyfriend. It's quite the departure from the sociopathic girl of the original movie with the whipped boyfriend following in tow.

The gym teacher does care, but she doesn't care nearly as much. The kind boy who takes Carrie to prom seems nice enough, but mostly seems to take Carrie because of his girlfriend's wishes. In the original, there was at least some foreshadowing of his kindness when he spoke up for her slightly in class.

Even the final scene of the movie felt lesser. At points it almost felt goofy, and like Carrie 2, Carrie 2002's final scene felt over the top. She kept going well after the school was destroyed, and proclaimed not to have remembered what happened when she reached home. While Original Carrie seemed to be in shock, Remake Carrie seemed to instead be purely evil, all nuance lost. Rather than the knife battle with the mother, the mother tried to drown her, and Carrie's over-the-top powers manifested again in an ability to visualize and control the mother's heartbeat in her chest.

The coup de grace as far as terrible decisions in the remake is that Carrie actually lived in the end. Sue, the girl who'd gone out of her way to help Carrie get a date to prom, showed up for some reason at Carrie's house after the massacre, and found her drowned but resuscitated her. She helped Carrie escape to a new life in Florida and didn't tell the truth to the cops. Why? I have no earthly idea. I suppose that she felt sorry for Carrie, but with the luke-warm mother and the brick-to-the-face storytelling, this film failed to manifest any of the conflicting feelings in me as the original. A final shot of Carrie shows that she's still haunted by visions of her mother and of the head mean girl, but they seem to be PTSD with no possibility of a haunting. It's a sad, pale shadow of the Carrie-haunting of Sue at the end of the original.

In the end, I'm not really sure why they felt a need to remake Carrie in 2002. Or if they really felt they must, then I fail to see the artistic vision. In any good remake, there should be some element offered that is uniquely its own. In this case, the writers failed to deliver.

Final rating? 3/10

4. Carrie (2013)

Once again, they decided to remake Carrie. Would it be as creative as the original? Unfortunately not. Instead, they made many of the same mistakes that they had in 2002.

Like the 2002 movie, Carrie 2013 is set in modern times. They give the students the internet and cell phones to make things seem more current, then randomly put Carrie in pool volley ball because somehow that's more relatable than the volleyball of the original movie. Throughout this adventure I've wondered why they've felt the need to change the sport, and am always curious to see which one it will be next. First volley ball, then softball, now the pool.

The first major misstep of this film, right off the bat, is that Carrie is incredibly conventionally attractive. No one can beat the sort of awkward and strange look of the original actress, although the casting in 2002 wasn't too bad. But in 2013, for some reason we get a completely normal, or even above average looking girl who can have no makeover on prom night, as she already looks amazing. Not only is the aesthetic off, but she fails to deliver the awkward mannerisms that go hand in hand with the character of Carrie.

Next, we come to the iconic opening scene, which as in the 2002 remake remained mostly intact. However, in Carrie 2002 the only truly redeemable thing was that Carrie's lack of sexual education had been explained by a religious exemption. For some reason, in 2013, we no longer have any excuse or idea how she has no idea what a period is. In the modern day setting, this is all the more difficult to swallow.

The writers seemed to want to correct a few of the 2002 mistakes: the head bad girl was more cacklingly evil, the good jock was once again good in his own right and had a little foreshadowing. But they kept some of the mistakes as well -- the bad girl's boyfriend being a criminal, and most notably Carrie's overpowered telekinesis. In 2013, it's probably more overt than ever before, as Carrie deliberately practices floating books around her, though perhaps it's not as spectacular as the random meteorites striking inexplicably in either Carrie 2 or 2002, I can't remember which.

Much like in its 2002 predecessor, Carrie 2013's mother has been reduced. She's not nearly so abusive as the original 1976 mother, instead turning much of her abuse inward, as she's seen slapping herself, and banging her head against a wall. She's also not as extreme in her rejection of electricity as in 1976. All of this -- the more pathetic mother, the stronger Carrie, serve to lose all the nuance of the original film. I'm not left thinking that everyone -- the school bullies, Carrie, and her mother -- are terrible. Instead, it read a bit like a '90s slasher film in the end scene, as Carrie spread her arms into the air like a caricature of a witch while she mentally flung things to and fro. Gone was the echo of the mother's voice in her head, and instead it was a rather boring scene, with none of the detached horror that I've come to associate with Carrie.

In fact, when Carrie arrived home after the devastation, she was visibly upset, bursting into tears and calling for her mother. That's a far cry from the original Carrie that had arrived at her home in a kind of stupor, washing herself methodically as if in shock or perhaps still possessed.

One improvement over the 2002 film was that they did kill Carrie as in the original. But one misstep? They still needed Sue Snell to make a final appearance in the final destruction. To what purpose? So that Carrie could tell her with preternatural ability, that she was pregnant. Why add this to Carrie's powers? Why have this scene at all? And instead of Carrie simply haunting Sue's thoughts as in the 1976 original, now she seems to be possibly, somehow, haunting Sue's baby. It's a ridiculous decision and I have no idea why they made it.

Final rating? 2/10

#horror #movie #review

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 5 years

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Brie Larson and Captain Marvel Are Very Different People (Thank Fuck)

WARNING: I’m about to insult one of your favourite celebrities EVEN WHILE COMPLIMENTING A MOVIE THEY’RE IN. Because I’m on fire, today, that’s fucking why.

As you might have noticed, we all have to live through a pretentiously-titled and idiotic ‘Culture War’ because dumb people from every corner of the political spectrum have decided that liminal, cultural space is limited like actual physical territory and therefore every single scrap of IP needs to be fought for. For the record, this fighting is usually at the cost of the gentle nerd villagers who live there and would rather not see their cultural settlements bombed to dust by dueling factions of slobbering fuckwits. On the one hand, you’ve got your rightwing neocon bastard-holes who think that there’s a conspiracy of ‘Cultural Marxists’ out to ruin culture by SJW-ing it up a notch- which is stupid, because I’m a Marxist and I can promise you none of us asked for Ghostbusters 2016 either. Nobody fucking did. Anyhoo, on the other hand there’s a bunch of quasi-liberal representation hipsters who lack the imagination to create original IP and so keep colonising other peoples’ with cheap and lazy gender-swaps and other ill-advised ‘reimaginings’. As some of you might have figured out, I like to think of myself as broadly impartial war correspondent in this idiotic struggle for western culture’s fractured zeitgeist. Impartial, of course, in the sense that I wish everyone involved would fall down a gigantic fucking well never to be seen again.

Anyway, the latest battle in the culture war (a term I have only used twice and already fucking loathe) really does plumb fresh new depths of the Great Grey Idiotsea. As some of the more astute of you may have noticed, Captain Marvel has caused a bit of a skirmish, despite being fundamentally inoffensive. I mean, it’s made by Disney (who are evil on a corporate level), but what isn’t nowadays? As a piece of media in its own right, it’s basically fine. It’s not a lazy hipster reboot of something that was already done better; it’s not displacing any of the existing pieces of media in its genre; it’s just a superhero film that happens to star An Woman. The fact that it’s in any way controversial is mad, mad, mad, mad. I’m as pissed off as anyone about the way something that should be good (i.e. improved representation) has been used to co-opt geek spaces into the mainstream, but this isn’t even that. So yeah- shocking people who haven’t paid sufficient attention to the nuances of my opinions on this, I’m actually on Captain Marvel’s side on this one, at least nominally. It’s insane that this mid-tier, fairly-true-to-recent-source-material comic book movie has pissed off so many people.

Of course, there were always going to be a few people who hated the film just for existing, but they might not have gained so much traction if it wasn’t for the fact that Brie Larson (the actress playing the titular Captain Marvel) literally cannot keep her fucking gob shut for five minutes at a stretch. During a press conference, she was basically supposed to talk about how the film was going to be screened for (and reviewed by) different types of critic from different genders and ethnic background so that reviews weren’t weighted as much in favour of older white male film critics as usual. That’s fair enough. Unfortunately, because Brie is Brie (and what can you expect of someone who’s named after cheese), what she actually said was “I don’t care what some 40-year old white guy thinks” and other such deliberately antagonistic phrasing, designed seemingly to alienate every member of the critical press NOT in a Larson-approved demographic. Naturally enough, a bunch of nerds on the internet felt this was an attack on them and kicked off against the film...

... Which gives me the opportunity to address an important point. Specifically: Brie Larson is NOT Captain Marvel. She is not the character, nor is she representative of the vast, complicated, interconnected multiplicity of production teams behind it. She’s just one actress. Her on-screen role is major; her actually-being-allowed-to-make-important-decisions-role is probably pretty negligible. That doesn’t mean she’s not a chippy jerkoff who needs to learn to either Engage Brain Before Opening Mouth or (failing that) Not Open Mouth At All. It just means that you shouldn’t judge the film on her (admittedly antagonistic and irritating) antics when she isn’t reading from a script.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: while intelligent, thoughtful actors and actresses do exist (I just started dating one) most Big Names are either dumb, or simply terrible people. Chris Pratt is a big game hunter, apparently- he spends his free time killing innocent animals with a gun ‘cause he’s a prick. Michael Fassbender beat his wife. Allison Mack cheerfully joined a sex slavery cult. Let’s be frank, here. As much as I’m grateful that the acting profession exists (without it, movies wouldn’t happen), the most well-known people in it aren’t, as a rule, normal, functional human beings. To be an actor or actress on that level, you kind of have to be a needy egomaniac who doesn’t mind being gawped at by strangers for your entire professional life.

So, Brie Larson is a tool and her professional I’m-Not-a-Tool Mask slipped off for a minute when she erroneously thought the Real Her might be acceptable for public consumption. You know what? It doesn’t fucking matter. She doesn’t have to be the type of person you’d want to spend more than two minutes alone in an elevator with- she just needs to be good at acting, which she mostly is. Captain Marvel looks like a good movie, so if it’s your sort of thing, go see it and just try to forget that Captain Marvel is, of necessity, played by a real human who happens to be a dipstick. There are lots of truly terrible media products swimming around, waiting to have your ire and mine sprayed at them. Save your rage for those.

And if you are going to buoycott Captain Marvel, maybe consider doing so because Disney (who own Marvel Studios) exploits the workers who make its merch to the extent that they’ve actually been known to use sweatshop slave labour. ‘Cause that’s still a thing everyone ignores, regardless of which side of the fucking “culture war” they claim to be on.

#Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer

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sciencespies · 4 years

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The Bottom Line About Bidets

https://sciencespies.com/nature/the-bottom-line-about-bidets/

The Bottom Line About Bidets

When I was a kid, I didn’t get in trouble for much. But one old habit of mine used to drive my dad up the wall: I really, really overdid it with the toilet paper.

It didn’t matter how thick or plush the product was. A few measly squares of dry, processed tree pulp were simply never enough to make me feel clean. So I tried to compensate for quality with quantity, wiping my bum with wad after wad of TP—something my strict father considered abominably wasteful.

To be fair, my dad grew up in rural Taiwan in the 1940s, when most defecation was done in pits, not toilets, and one’s cleanliness depended heavily on the selection of leaves and sticks within arm’s reach. Even after he immigrated to the United States in his 20s, the rural frugality stuck. Toilet paper was, and still is, a luxury—a fact that’s been heavily underscored by recent spates of panicked TP hoarding, spurred by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

I couldn’t have known it at the time, but a single device might have been enough to solve both my father’s and my washroom woes—the same one that’s now flying off digital shelves nationwide: the bidet. These squirty little doodads, which cleanse the nether regions with a gentle jet of water, are touted by many as sanitizing superheroes, with powers vastly superior to those of toilet paper. In Japan, home of a popular electronic toilet called the Toto Washlet, bidets appear in about 80 percent of households; since 1975, Italian law has mandated their presence in every home. Historically slow to take in American markets, the devices may now be gaining some ground: Sales of bidet attachments like Tushy have soared since the start of the pandemic. Thanks to the new coronavirus, 2020 might just be the United States’ Year of the Bidet.

But pleasing as the devices may be to some, they’re not for everyone—and a lot of what ends up touching any given tush comes down to personal preference. What’s more, scientific studies on bidets are somewhat scarce; even clinicians who recommend their use do so mostly on the basis of anecdotal data. “This isn’t evidence-based medicine, that’s for sure,” says Madhulika Varma, chief of colorectal surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.

A brief history of the bidet

Though today’s bidets are often billed as tech-savvy trappings, the earliest iterations of the devices actually predate the appearance of modern, rolled-up toilet paper (an idea patented by Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, in 1891), with roots in 17th-century or early 18th-century France.

Accordingly, the first bidet was agonizingly simple—little more than a souped up, sprayless wash basin over which one squatted as if straddling a horse (hence the name bidet, an homage to a small, stocky breed of horse), to rinse off their dirtied derrières. After gaining traction among the rich, the indulgent accessory trickled down to the working class, surviving several redesigns and the switch to indoor plumbing, which morphed them into miniature sinks. By World War II, bidets had spilled across international borders, finding their way into homes across swaths of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America, where they sat alongside toilets like faucet-fillable sidecars. As models advanced further, some acquired nozzles that could apply a light spritz of water to the nether regions.

La Toilette intime ou la Rose effeuillée by Louis-Léopold Boilly, showing an 18th century bidet in use

(Wikimedia Commons)

Through it all, the United States remained a staunchly unwetted island of desert-dry bums. Part of the issue was space. Standalone bidets were seen as an unwieldy and unwelcome addition to already-cramped American bathrooms. Eventually, technological advancements allowed bidets to hybridize with toilets, in some cases collapsing the two into a single “smart” commode, while other models retrofitted standard toilets with bidet-capable seats or attachments. But still, the United States’ reluctance to adopt the splashy gadgets endured.

Rampant stigmatization of bidets didn’t help. Many early 20th-century Americans may have viewed bidets as symbols of French indecency, linking them to taboo topics like menstruation and prostitution, Maria Teresa Hart wrote in the Atlantic in 2018. That association may have been partly born out of the devices’ presence in brothels, where women may have deployed them as an (ineffective) form of birth control. Though these stereotypes have largely faded in the decades since, the cultural inertia clung to stateside commodes.

What’s best for our butts

Bidets might seem bizarre—but in many ways, they’re right in line with hygienic practices already deeply ingrained in our society.

“The idea of cleaning yourself with water is, intuitively, more logical,” says Cindy Kin, a colorectal surgeon at Stanford University Medical Center. Water, after all, is the standard-issue treatment for doing away with bodily grime under most other circumstances.

Byron Vaughn, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, puts it more bluntly. As a friend once told him, “If you pick up a piece of [poop] with your hands, you wouldn’t just wipe it off—you’d wash it.”

But while the wet-trumps-dry argument makes logical sense, no one has yet done a scientific study to back up the idea that bidets are hygienically better than toilet paper.

Then again, “It kind of doesn’t matter,” Kin says. “If you don’t get every bit of bacteria, or a microscopic amount of stool, off your skin, it’s fine. Nothing bad will happen.” Bidets or no, most of our not-completely-immaculate butts are doing just fine, and have been for many millennia.

A modern standalone bidet, installed next to a toilet.

(Lazienka / Wikimedia Commons)

Still, bidets can really come in handy for those with sensitive undersides, says Susan Wong, a nurse and colorectal disorders specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. People with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, for instance, tend to have more frequent or painful bowel movements, and may find that a cooling jet of water brings them some relief—or at least spares them from the constant chafe of dry toilet paper. Bidet users can then dry off by simply dabbing the area with a towel, or even a carefully aimed blow dryer on a low-temperature setting. “It’s a great way to avoid irritation,” Wong says. One small study even suggests that bidets may even prompt some muscle relaxation, though most people seeking that sort of comfort might be better off opting for a sitz bath or a long soak in a tub of warm water.

Bidets could also be a boon for people with physical disabilities, muscle weakness or other conditions that hinder their ability to clean off with toilet paper alone, Vaughn says. One study suggests the devices improved the “toileting experience” for a group of nursing home residents.

Then there’s the unrepentant super-wipers, a la miniature me. Patients who “wipe obsessively” with toilet paper because they’re chasing an ever-elusive sense of clean may be at risk of giving themselves pruritus ani—fancy clinical speak for itchy butthole, Kin says. “Once you get into that cycle of skin irritation, it’s hard to get out of it.” Switching over to a bidet might bring these people’s bums some much-needed relief.

Beyond that, though, little evidence exists that bidets bring about health benefits on their own. Hemorrhoids, fistulas, fissures and cancer—none of these conditions can trace their origins to the flecks of germs or poop on our bums, Kin says. In this realm, there’s “certainly no data to suggest bidets have benefits over toilet paper.��

Varma also points out that dropping hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a fancy new bathroom appliance isn’t necessary to introduce water into this particular bathroom routine: Something similar can be accomplished with a drugstore peri bottle, or even a water bottle with a pop-up top. Both of these options are also transportable.

Many patients can even make do with what they’ve already got at home, including tubs, sitz baths or even handheld shower attachments, says Marjun Duldulao, a colorectal surgeon at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. “There’s really no advantage to using a bidet compared to these other techniques.”

Bidets can bring some increased comfort—but people should be wary of pressure and temperature settings that could agitate sensitive bums.

( Karl Tapales / Getty Images)

Bidets also aren’t perfect—and wielded improperly, they can cause their own woes. Several models come equipped with pressure and temperature settings that could cause serious damage. Over the years, a smattering of bidet-related injuries, from burns to rectal prolapse and anal fissures, have surfaced, often linked to overuse. Even pruritis ani can (re)appear when the anus is too frequently washed. “You just need sensible cleaning and hygiene,” Duldulao says. “You don’t need a power-washing.”

And, just like any other appliance, bidets must be kept clean—especially considering the bits of anatomy they most often contact. A handful of studies have found bacteria lurking on the nozzles of electronic toilets, particularly those in public spaces. Under extreme circumstances, bidet use could even perturb the community of beneficial microbes found in the vagina, though studies haven’t consistently born this out.

“There are some very good products out there,” Duldulao says. “But a tool is a tool. It’s only as good as the person who’s using it.”

Making a splash

Toilet paper will always have one thing going for it: convenience. “There’s a reason we all use it,” Varma says. “It can be done anywhere. It’s easy, it’s simple.”

Part of the tradeoff for this, of course, is quite a bit of waste. The product of a laborious process that involves the pulping of millions of trees and billions of gallons of water, toilet paper isn’t exactly environmentally friendly, says Wong. It can also clog pipes (though not as badly as so-called “flushable” wipes), creating headaches for homeowners. These issues wouldn’t totally evaporate with a switch to bidets—most people would still want something to dab themselves dry—but washing in lieu of at least some wiping could make a difference.

And yet, the United States stands firm on toilet paper. Kin estimates that less than 10 percent of her patients use bidets; those numbers might budge slightly given current pandemic purchasing habits, but probably not by much.

“I ask my patients, can you consider this electronic toilet seat?” Wong says. “They all turn their noses up to it.”

People just aren’t fans of change—and sometimes, that’s just kind of a bummer.

#Nature

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onlinemarketinghelp · 4 years

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Coronavirus Stimulus Checks: What To Expect https://ift.tt/33GoLYs

Congress is gearing up to send out stimulus checks to Americans across the country to combat the recession being created by the coronavirus pandemic. With stores, restaurants, and more being closed, and most other Americans forced to work from home, the country is gearing up for a recession or depression that is hasn't seen in almost a century.

With lessons learned from the Depression and Great Recession, one of the biggest ways to stimulate the economy and keep American's financially safe is to simply give them cash to spend - to pay rent, buy food, and take care of their families.

Let's look at the history of stimulus checks, and give you an idea of what to expect, how to prepare, and what you should seriously consider spending your stimulus check on given what we've learned from history.

Note: Currently, the stimulus checks are a proposal. We will update this page with all the information when it passes Congress (which should happen this week).

Quick Navigation

The 2020 Covid-19 Stimulus Checks

Other 2020 Stimulus Programs

Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)

Student Loan Relief

History Of Stimulus Checks

How To Get A 2020 Stimulus Check

Best Ways To Use Your Check

Beware Of Scams

2020 Stimulus Check FAQs

The 2020 Covid-19 Stimulus Checks

Right now, the stimulus checks are just a proposal, but here's what they are proposing as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The baseline of the proposal is adults would get $1,200 each and children $500 each. The benefit would start to phase out at a rate of $5 for every additional $100 in income.

The benefit phaseout starts at:

$75,000 in adjusted gross income for singles

$112,500 for heads of household

$150,000 for married couples filing jointly

Completely phase out at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples (with no children)

The current bill as written requires you to have filed a 2019 tax return, and it would send the benefit checks to the address listed on the tax return. See below for updating your information with the IRS.

Note: This may not be a one-time check. There are many proposals to make this a monthly check, but as of now, none of those have gained traction.

Other 2020 Stimulus Programs

Beyond the direct checks to individuals and families, there are a variety of other programs that are providing tax credits and loans to individuals and small businesses.

We will update this section as programs emerge.

Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)

The biggest stimulus program right now is the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which expanded paid leave and sick leave for millions of Americans. It also has tax breaks to help small businesses provide these expanded benefits.

The biggest component of the FFCRA is the emergency paid leave. You can qualify for leave if you meet any of the following six requirements:

You are subject to a federal, state, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19.

You are quarantined at the direction of a health authority or healthcare provider to prevent spread of COVID-19.

You are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and is seeking a diagnosis.

You are caring for another person who is subject to #1 or #2 above.

You are caring for a child or another person due to closure of a school or other facility due to COVID-19.

You are experiencing similar conditions that have been specified by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Full-time employees can get up to 80 hours of paid leave, which would be covered by the US Government (so it's not a monetary burden to your employer).

The amount of the benefit is determined by which reasons you qualify for. If you qualify due to reasons #1, #2, or #3, you will receive the greater of: your rate of pay, Federal minimum wage, or your local minimum wage. The maximum benefit is $511 per day, or a total of $5,110.

If you qualify due to reasons #4, #5, or $6, the amount is 2/3's the rate above, with a maximum benefit of $200 per day, or a total of $2,000.

These are other benefits as well, check out this guide for more.

Student Loan Relief

The Department of Education has issued a lot of special options for families with student loan debt during this crisis.

Some of the key highlights include a student loan interest freeze, the ability to defer payments for at least 60 days with no penalty, and more.

We have a full guide to it here: Coronavirus student loan relief programs.

History Of Stimulus Checks

Stimulus checks aren't a new idea. In fact, in the last 20 years, the United States has given out stimulus checks three times. They've been used as a tool to combat major recessions in the United States.

Here are some past examples:

2001: Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 provided $300 for single filer taxpayers and $600 for joint filers.

2008: Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 provided $300 to $600 per person, $1,200 for married couples, and $300 per child.

2009: Economic Recovery Payment of 2009 provided $250 for beneficiaries of select retirement programs, including Social Security, Veterans Affairs, and Railroad Retirement.

How To Get A 2020 Stimulus Check

The Department of Treasury will hopefully start sending out checks to qualified households as soon as possible. They typically use the IRS records to send out checks to families.

In past stimulus checks, you were have had to file a previous year's tax return. It appears that may be a part of the plan this year. Current proposals require a 2019 tax year return to have been filed. If you haven't filed your taxes yet, don't delay and get started now.

In 2008, it took two months to start distributing the stimulus checks after the law was signed. President Trump is pushing to have that start much sooner this year.

How Does The IRS or Treasury Know My Address?

Checks will start using information from tax returns. The IRS has an "Update My Information" tool that allows you to provide your updated address to make sure your check isn't delayed.

Here is the tool: IRS Update My Information Tool.

How Will The IRS Send My Money

Direct Deposit is the best way to get your stimulus check because it will be the fastest. The Treasury Department will use your tax return information to process a direct deposit (just like your tax return).

If you need a paper check, it typically adds 2-3 weeks to the process for the Treasury Department to print and mail your check.

Best Ways To Use Your Check

One of the biggest questions I get is how to use your stimulus check to do the most good. This is a tough question because it varies so much from person to person, and family to family.

However, here's an order of operations to consider for the best ways to use your stimulus check.

First - Get A Bank Account

If you don't have your own checking account, you need one now. Yes, you can receive a paper check and use a check-cashing service, but that's a waste of your own money.

Check out this list of the best free checking accounts and set yourself up for success right now. If you've been denied a bank account in the past, here's a list of second-chance checking accounts that will let you open an account.

Essentials

Obviously, if you're struggling, you have to take care of yourself first. Food, housing, medical supplies, children's essentials. Take care of yourself and your family. That's the biggest reason these checks are being issued - so Americans can take care of themselves in this time of crisis.

Eliminate Debt

Chances are this crisis is going to last a substantial amount of time. One of the biggest things that hurts most household budgets is debt. If you have debt, like credit cards or student loans, it could make sense to apply the payment to your debts.

If you have student loans, there are other coronavirus relief programs for student loans, and it might not make sense to put it towards your student loan debt.

Save For The Future

Most of us have upcoming expenses we may not be able to avoid. This could be a tax bill (property taxes or other - and remember the IRS moved the tax deadlines this year), or something else.

Plus, we're going into a big period of uncertainty, and job losses are spiking. You need to protect yourself and your family, and cash is king.

If You Don't Need The Money, Donate It

If you are financially prepared, consider donating your stimulus check to an organization that can use the money. Since fundraisers are basically non-existent right now, and charities everywhere are seeing increased demand, anything you can do will help.

Beware Of Scams

With everything, if money is involved, there is a scammer out there trying to take it from you. We see this every year with tax refunds - those robocalls pretending to be the IRS and getting you to pay them. We're undoubtedly going to see it with the stimulus checks as well.

If anyone calls you about the stimulus checks, it's 100% a scam. The government doesn't call people. They send letters and mail. That's how you'll be contacted.

Second, the government doesn't need your personal details! They have all your information already. If you need to update your information - use the IRS website we provided above.

Finally, you never have to pay anyone anything to receive a check. This is your money, you don't need to pay for it.

2020 Stimulus Check FAQs

Okay, that was a lot of information. Here are some basic FAQs about everything.

How much will my stimulus check be?

The baseline of the proposal is adults would get $1,200 each and children $500 each. The benefit would start to phase out at a rate of $5 for every additional $100 in income.

How quickly will I receive my stimulus check?

Based on history, likely about 2 months after the government passes the law. However, they are working to make it much faster this time.

How does the government know where to send the check?

The government will send it to the address on your tax return. You must have filed a 2019 tax return in order to get a stimulus check.

What if I need to update my information?

The IRS has an "Update My Information" tool where you can submit your updated address and information so that you don't miss anything from the IRS, or miss your stimulus check.

Is this a one-time check or an ongoing check?

Currently, it's set to be a one-time check. However, there are multiple proposals to make it ongoing.

How do I know if I qualify for a stimulus check?

You must file a 2019 tax return, and meet the income requirements of the program. Currently, the checks completely phase out at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples (with no children).

Can I use my check for student loan debt?

Yes, you can, but it might not be the best way to use your check right now given that student loan interest is frozen. You might consider paying off other debts if your essentials are taken care of.

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