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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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TL;DR: we had to write a short focused on dialogue, so I chose to experiment a little. I decided to have a comedian having a mental breakdown on stage with no description of the audience beyond their presence.

I kind of cringe now reading it back. The narrative structure doesn’t really work when you look closer, but it was kind of fun to make. If I was better at comedic writing, it could’ve been a gem in the rough. Alas it is just rough.

Standup Breakdown

What are you doing?

Look out there!

Did you even have a plan to begin with?

Look at their eyes!

The light shined down onto him with the heat of the sun, isolating him from the rest of the pitch dark room. A waterfall of sweat poured down his back as dozens of eyes stared at him.

Okay, you haven’t completely lost them, yet. They laughed a little.

Thank fuck!

‘You know the kind of situation. Like when where you’re just sat on a train, avoiding eye contact like the plague and trying to act “normal,”’ he raised his hands up and made an over-exaggerated pair of air quotes with cross eyes, ‘When suddenly you get a message.’

Are you sure this joke will work?

Shit! What if they don’t laugh!

‘You go to open it because who doesn’t read a message immediately.’

You need to act more, you’re like a stiff wooden board.

Quick do something funny!

‘You ignore that it’s an image. What’s the worst it could be after all,’ he leaned on his stool with a giant over-exaggerated smile in style befitting Mister Bean on crack.

You’re over acting, they can sense the insincerity.

Stop acting like that!

‘I trust my best mate enough not to send anything weird.’

You still haven’t said anything really funny. They look lost.

Do something funny!

‘Stupid mistake,’ he leaned forward and pointed at the crowd, ‘never trust your best mate.’

‘Of course, I was young and foolish,’ he looked off into the distance pretending to be fantasying of a younger time whilst running his hand over his bald head.

You have the punchline, but do you have the delivery?

They’re not laughing enough!

‘After what I saw though…’ he looked over the room in shock, biting his knuckle, ‘Have you ever seen Indiana Jones and the holy grail or whatever the third one was called?’

Do they even know what that is?

They don’t know what it is!

‘Well, everyone on that train got to see a live performance of the villain’s instant aging death.’

You’ve gone off on a rant, you’re losing them.

They don’t get it!

‘Oh, you’re wondering what he sent?’

‘Do you really want to know?’ he trailed his hand over his old body and beer belly, ‘I mean, you have seen the cautionary tale in front of you, right?’

Have we said anything funny yet?

We’re not funny!

‘I look like Doctor Evil ate fat bastard and sat in a fifty yearlong food coma.’

‘I mean it’s your good looks…’ he stared into the crowd intensely pretending he couldn’t see them properly, ‘You know what… you might be alright.’

You just insulted the audience, what are they thinking?

Shit! You just insulted them!

‘Anyway back to what my best mate sent me…’

‘Okay… it’s not easy to say… he sent…’ he looked up with a face of eureka as a light behind him popped on and off, like a light bulb, ‘I know how I can tell you!’

He suddenly started awkwardly rubbing his hand over the area of his crotch and mimicked having a hard on with his hands until he just went into absurd hand gestures to explain what he meant. After a good five seconds he stopped, looking at the crowd as if he forgot they were there.

How long do we do this to keep them laughing?

It’s getting stale!

He chuckled awkwardly, ‘sorry, I got a little too into that…’

Are they still even following the story?

We’ve lost them!

‘What were we talking about again?’

‘Oh yeah!’

‘He sent a picture of his pulsating penny weenie to me whilst I was next to two strangers.’

Was that the best way to say that?

We’re a hack!

‘I’ve never seen three people gag and gasp at the same time before… it was oddly intimate.’

Did they take that last part wrong?

They think we’re a freak!

‘Yeah… I pelted off at the next stop… never did get to work that day.’

What are you doing?

Are they actually having fun?!

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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TL;DR: my class had to write a short 500 word story focusing on character. I remember scrapping a few ideas before coming to his one smuggly, thinking ‘this is so original.’

In the end, three out of the four of us who uploaded our stories wrote the same kind of theme 😂 though mine was definitely the most harshest to its character.

Determined Failure

It’s been five hours, and I haven’t got a single word written. My entire head is empty of ideas, and filled with nothing but stupidity and doubts. If you don’t know who I am already (firstly I’m surprised, my middle name is practically stupidity), my name is Erasmus ‘stupidity’ Kane. Okay, maybe it’s just Erasmus Kane. Having that middle name might actually make me slightly interesting and unique.

If you couldn’t tell by my rambling, I’m a shit writer. What I know you couldn’t tell by my rambling, is that I’m a published writer with fifteen novels, three screenplays, and a hidden collection of fanfiction that’d make my parents reconsider how they raised me. Each one, shitter than the other. Yet, people eat it right up, like a vulture picking a beaten dead horse apart.

I’ve only got one piece of writing, a novella, worth reading. Surprisingly apparently the vultures primarily eat beaten dead horses, instead of something fresh with actual meat on the bone. It completely failed.

I spent years researching, redrafting, pitching, and promoting the story. It was going to be the one piece of work I could actually look at proudly. A diamond amongst a shit mountain. It said so much, It was ground-breaking, and more importantly, it carried a piece of me with it. It was my beacon to attract someone else like me. Finally, I wouldn’t have felt so alone and small. I’d have actually connected with people.

It took twenty pitches at more publishers than I dare remember. It became my life. And even the vultures wouldn’t touch it.

It was critically shat on by the five people who actually read it, and left alone to rot whilst everything else around it grew.

My life’s work wasn’t even important enough for a glance. It left me bankrupt, emotionally and financially. My bank’s balance is now as empty as me. I lost everything. My house. My computer. My motivation.

To put it in basic words, if I was the protagonist of a book (if someone thought I was even worth remembering in words), it’d be a tragedy.

And so here I am, sitting at a desk I don’t own, in an apartment I don’t own, wasting a life I wish I didn’t own. I don’t even know why I’m trying in honesty. Everyone around me told me to just give up, myself included. So why the fuck am I sitting here with a pen and paper, trying to think of something to write? What fucking good would it do me to write? I tried, I failed. They don’t want my writing, they just want murder and zombies. They don’t care about what I have to say. Why should they?

I guess, the reason I tried is because this is all I know. This is all I am. Someone trying to be someone important. Someone who isn’t alone.

That explains why I wrote so much shit. I wanted to escape, to feel loved, to feel important, to be someone worth living.

So I guess, that raises the question. Am I going to write more shit to escape or am I going to start a new life?

Where would I even start?

#story

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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TL;DR: I had to write a 100 word story from the perspective of a sweet on Halloween.

Sweet Sacrifice

The cycle has come to an end. The many faced ones are descending upon us, howling and screeching with pitches of tenebrous torment. We are but ants in the sight of a scorching sun, melting our very existence away with mischievous glee and joy. Tonight is the end of the cycle, and we are the many faced’s sweet sacrifices. Please pray we can satisfy their godly gluttony for another full cycle. Please pray that whilst they twist and tear our skin away, we can hold them back for a full cycle. pray we stave them off until the next Halloween.

#halloween #horror #story

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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TL;DR: I had to write a non-fiction story in a fiction format for university. So I chose to write about the beginning of my relationship with my partner in the style of a noir story. Mainly because the idea of my partner being the cynical leading character and myself as a dumbass failing femfatale seemed on brand and hilarious.

Noir memories

Everything was silent. Unusually silent. Sami’s room was usually a host to the sound of youtube video after youtube video accompanied by muffled giggles and the rare bursting snort of laughter. Yet it was silent as Sami laid there staring up at the ceiling beside a discarded crunchie wrapper. Their blue-green eyes stared fixedly without blinking. What could’ve stunned this shot glass of pessimism and brutal sass?

Well, that’s a long story. Perhaps if you stick around you might find out more than you even intended. For this is a story of mystery, love, and buffoonery. For this a story of the past, for that’s all memories are. They’re stories we tell ourselves that change day by day to comfort or amuse us in the present. That’s what this tale is; a story and a memory in one. It’s the truth put in a blender and shredded into a tasty and digestible story smoothie. This is the tale of how I met my partner and how both our lives were forever changed. Welcome to the noir edition of our memories.

Chapter 1: A Deadly Dumbass

It was another Wednesday afternoon. New class, New people, same shit. It was almost boringly the same, just the way they liked it. It was a simple pattern day and Sami’s Autistic brain loved a pattern. Their ADHD brain however hated it to fucking death. It needed stimuli. It needed change. It’d only been a week into this forensic course, but everything had settled quickly. They felt as though a familiarity had already formed, like a childhood home. They could recite the entire classes’ names, give you dark details on almost anyone if needed, and most importantly, they knew none of them could hurt them. It was all so easy, but still their ADHD just wished there was something new to experience, something to do.

It should’ve been careful what it wished for. Once in a while a wish can come true, and crush you under infinite wishes. That’s what he was, a crushing problem. He was change incarnate as he walked in. Sami never liked change, it always ended poorly. Lost things, lost loved ones, lost relationships; these are what change is to them. Change was a battlefield and Sami always seemed to be on the frontline used as fodder. Most importantly, change was trouble.

He was Trouble. A dickhead walking into a college class wearing a suit and tie. He was either really boring or a fucking smart arse. They won’t lie to themselves, he was mild intimidating. A lanky white bread boring looking fuck like that could only be trouble, especially when you’re Pan and Non-binary. They’d seen it too many times before, pretentious dickheads who thought they knew everything just cause they had a dick swinging between their legs.

Well, if he stepped out of line they’d sure as hell put him back. They could sense bullshit a mile away. It was almost as if their lip piercing was a bullshit detector and right now it was breaking its dial as he sat with the others.

The others were the other half of the class, if you couldn’t tell. The entire class was already divided into two groups, Them and the Others. They weren’t necessarily bad, just not Sami’s cup of iced tea. They were a loud lot with few regards for rules or work, they just loved what was funny and right now, it seemed like he was funny. Could’ve fooled them looking like he was attending a funeral. It was probably for the best, after all if he was preoccupied with the others, he wouldn’t be an issue for them.

The class went by and ended, like everything does. Everyone scattered, leaving as soon as possible. Reforming outside into a nice little pack, ready to go hunting in the town for food. It’d always been like this, even in school. Except now it was missing a face or two they’d rather see. One of those faces wasn’t the mug that quietly greeted them.

‘Look who we adopted!’ cried the group.

It was Trouble himself. Sami didn’t know they could sigh mentally, but at least that knowledge tickled them a little.

The walk to town was just as they’d expected. Trouble hovering in the back of the crowd silently (either incapable of giving an answer or just refusing to), the group splitting into two conversations (one on sexuality and the other on where to eat), and them standing on the fringes ready to jump in when it was best. The last thing thing they’d expected however was a text, especially from Sophie.

I miss you

Wanna meet?

Sophie is-- was Sami’s best friend. They’d known each other for most of their lives. No one knew them better than one another. They were a dynamic duo. A secondary school’s Bonnie and Clyde.

They didn’t respond. Well, they didn’t text back, but they certainly responded to the message. Their nose flared like a bull ready to charge and their eyes furrowed like a sniper taking aim. You could almost see little Generals in their head trying to find the most destructive thing to message back. They’d lost everything thanks to her, they sure as hell wanted to return the favour.

‘Where do you want to eat, Kyle?’ echoed in the background of the war room that was their mind.

They’d decided their response and it was definitely the nuclear option. After there’d be nothing left.

‘Straight’ trouble spoke with a strange sort of confidence considering the question.

Sami’s mind exited the war room and paid attention to the trainwreck in front of them.

‘You want to eat at straight?’ Sami chuckled with an embarrassing and adorably loud snort.

All thoughts of destruction came to a halt as they laughed their arse off. Perhaps Trouble wasn’t as smart or intimidating as they’d thought. They began to see that trouble almost looked like Dan and Phil’s love child, you know maybe minus the horse teeth of course. They’d always loved Dan and Phil’s videos. Maybe Trouble wasn’t as bad as they’d first considered.

They’d lost their train of thought and the venom in their spite began to dilute. It wasn’t worth it; she wasn’t worth it. All they could think about was trying to remember the name of Trouble. A name is power after all. What was it again? Lyle? Jyle? Kyle? That sounded boring enough to be right.

Kyle may have been Trouble, but there was no way someone this goofy looking and awkward could hurt them.

#storytelling #story #non-fiction #practice #wip

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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The last pages of meaning

The Meaning of life is a bible, Quran and Torah. You’re taught it growing up without choice, You’re taught to respect it, and ultimately, you always have the choice to reject it.

The Meaning of Life is a dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia. You’re taught it holds all the answers, You’re taught it’s essential, and yet, it still collects drowning dust on a neglected shelf.

The Meaning of Life is the Versailles Treaty, Mein Kampf, and Karl Marx’s Manifesto. You’re taught of its affect on other people, you’re taught of it but not to read it, and inevitably, a trench fight will always break out over it.

The Meaning of Life isn’t written. It can’t be read. It can’t be understood. Yet, we pretend to be Meaningfully literate, When we’re all fucking Meaninglessly illiterate.

#poetry

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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The Meaning of Meaning

What is the meaning of meaning? I mean, we all know what life is, So maybe a mean hard stare at meaning would give us meaning?

It’s something we trip over everyday, something we mean to put to the side out of our way, yet the Meaning of life always sends us down the existential stairs, like an ill-meaning mean foot.

How do we define meaning when meaning defines we? Do we paint it? Sing it? Or equate it? Does the M in E=MC2 mean Meaning?

It’s just a question I’ve been meaning to ask. A mean meaningful meme that resides with pride in my mind. After all, what if the Meaning of Life is in the Meaning, not the life?

Or is that just a meaningless mess?

#poetry

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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#poetry

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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This one’s actually a sneak peak. So shhh I never showed you anything if anyone asks. This is the first page to a short called: ‘Doctor Omega’ in the anthonolgy Monster Mash up.

I made this just before the United State kickstart fiasco, in November or September 2019. It’ll be released in the end of 2020 or possibly 2021 in volume 2.

Art by the awesome Saleha Chowdhury!

I’m mostly just posting this because I saw the images while making the United State post, and it made me giddy and excited.

#comics #comic #art #wip

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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The United State

This one is honestly painful to discuss. The premise for this mini comic series was to focus on three characters facing the biggest issues in their lives. It was going to be a three part series originally in planning. The backdrop for their existential crisis was a post apocalyptic dystopia that hated vampires with a passion. Imagine the war on terror and the Islamphobia that’s created, then imagine vampires instead of terrorism. One character was a vampire hunter, another a vampire child, and the last a human turned a vampire.

It was a story that spawned out of a basic one shot focused on the vampire hunter (called Nightstalker 76) I did with the fantastic artist: Manuel Mez. After the one shot was declined by the intended anthology publisher (or maybe the anthology went down under, it’s hard to remember now), we were so fixated on the world, we excitedly start developing the series.

I spent an entire year writing the first series. It was 265 comic pages long with a story bible filled with our crazy ideas probably bringing it to a 350 page collection of documents. I wrote it alongside a part time job and education to fund the project and also to progress as a 17 year old probably should, even if they had dreams of writing comics. Then manuel drew the first 60 pages plus the cover and concept art in a year alongside a work schedule that honestly sounded like torture. The man is not only a great artist, but somehow can live a machinesque life style.

In the end, it cost nearly £2,000 to develop two issues. Most of that is down to me not being an efficient planner and a mishap with a colourist which crippled our budget and forced us to remain black and white, both for printing costs and because rehiring another colourist was out of the question.

In the end despite all the hard work involved by both me and manuel, it failed on Kickstarter. It failed to reach a target of £1,000 for the first issue. If memory serves, it didn’t even reach a £100 despite my best efforts to promote it on Instagram and comic Facebook groups. It completely crashed and burned.

Even looking back at it now, I still have no idea how I mishandled it so poorly. I can see the issues in my approach, but I can’t put my finger on what caused the major failure. I’ve seen other products of similar quality or even worse quality succeed way better. My artist once pointed one comic out that looked like something a primary school student would draw achieving £500 on Kickstarter. Not to be mean, but mostly to reassure me the project wouldn’t completely fail if we did it. I was hesitant about releasing it due to everything going on with brexit and how I thought it’d affect backers investing in projects on Kickstarter in the UK.

I think the major draw backs I have to take from this project before moving on is complicated. I couldn’t summarise all the lessons or even generalise them. It’s all just a complicated goop of insecurities and honestly heartache. I invested 2-3 years of my life working on this project and yet I couldn’t even essentially give it away for a price bordering on free. This was the last comic project I worked on. I haven’t made a comic, barring a few scripts I tried to make a little while back, since the end of 2019.

But everyone falls, so they don’t define us. It’s our rises that do. Our ability to get back up after we’ve been knocked, and go back preparing for another fall. And another. And another. Until we can go back and do what we set our hearts on without falling on our arses. It’s how we learn.

So, 2020 you can go fuck yourself with a roll of sandpaper, I’m getting back and making comics again. My new year’s resolution for 2019 was to be publish a comic, I didn’t achieve that and I don’t think I will this year, but you know what I’m still gonna have a fuck ton of fun making comics.

#comic #comics #life lessons #wip #failed wip #art

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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Unfortunately I couldn’t find the original files for this comic, so they’re presented in a poor quality.

Artist: Lokesh Khodke

Edited and letterer: Ken Reynolds

Published: Sliced Quarterly anthology

Check out sliced online for free on their website!

I think this was probably my most technically correct script written while at sliced. Looking back, I cringe a lot at the scripts I wrote. I mean, a lot. But this one, I’m still relatively happy with. Maybe I did something right or maybe I just haven’t improved enough since to see the glaring flaws. But the general idea was to utilise horizational panels to build tension and flesh out the character in only four pages. I loved trying to characterise someone in a limited space and this was my proudest attempt.

Originally the script had the main character and the world as being humans, but Lokesh brought in the animal aspect. Something I wasn’t keen on to begin with, but now, after reflection, I am entirely satisfied with it. I love the dog eat dog world metaphor it creates plus the noiresque style adds an f-ton of ambience.

If I had to rewrite this, I’d probably take away the coming death aspect. At the time it felt like the character was ultimately triumphing and persevering through the worst adversity, but now I kind of wish he had the possibility of a happy ending. A reward for soldiering on crisis after crisis. Whether that’d add more to the piece, I’m not sure. But after this cluster Fuck of a year (2020), I think I generally am just swerving towards happier endings lately.

#comic #comics #tragedy #noir #art

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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Title: Abnormality

Art by: Rosa Devine

Edited by: Ken Reynolds

Published in: Sliced Quarterly Anthology

Check out Sliced online for free!

I remember this script came in a few different formats. At first it was a lot less focused and generally just focused on outcasts produced by normality in general until an artist gave me the tip of trying to focus the piece on a specific aspect of society. That artist didn’t unfortunately pick up the piece, but I’m glad as hell Rosa did. She made my 2-dimensional script into something emotive and real.

I think the part of making this script I found the funnest was making the real life version of that paper. I took an old doodle page I made in college where I tried to make a formula for time dilation that joined both gravity and speed, and just went to ham on it. The equations probably didn’t work, but they sure as well were fun to make and looked pretty too.

I kind of wish I could go back and rewrite it to make it longer and focus on the abnormal character more. I tried to condense it to a minimum of two pages, but I just love the characterisation side too much. If I was to redo it, I’d probably show off the setting a bit more but in a montage style to try and reinforce the prisonesque/factoryesque qualities then slowly introduce the character trying to learn in an environment not meant for learning. It’d be laid out like a tense horror scene where the teacher starts getting gradually closer without the abnormals knowledge.

#comic #anthology #school #art

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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Is social media corrupting politics?

Marshall McLuhan (2008) was famous for saying medium’s were extensions of us, so by this logic social media is an extension and collaboration of all our minds. Hence, social media is possibly the best representation of a democracy speaking broadly and figuratively. However, some have used this new medium as a political weapon to gain more power and corrupt Democracy by using Behavioural Targetting advertising to manipulate the voting public. Social media is a tool and it is being used in sinister ways to gain more political power than we would’ve previously let politicians get away with.

Democracy is a fragile concept. It comes in different forms and its incredible hard to maintain honestly. It requires those in charge to follow unwritten and written rules, it needs some form of gatekeeping to reduce extremist views (whilst not entirely censoring them), and it requires trust. So the question is, how has social media affected democracy across the world? Well, like the emergence of the printing press, the radio, and the television, it has a political affect. Every newly emerging medium does as it opens up a new battleground for political ideologies. One needs to look no further than the Kennedy v Nixon debate (History.com, 2019) in the 1960s, and the different responses of the audience depending on whether they observed the debate via radio or television. Those who listened to the debate on radio generally believed Nixon won, whereas those who saw the opponents believe Kennedy won (mostly due to Nixon refusing to wear makeup and appearing sweaty).

However, these new mediums never truly changed democracy, just the tactics of communications. Before the radio and television, the only way to hear a debate would’ve been to attend or read about it afterwards, but with these new mediums came a new easier way for a larger amount of people to access them. Hence, I would suggest these new mediums only brought politics to the centre stage. However, many have admittedly disagreed with my statement, for example Neil Postman (1987) was fervently against televisions influence on politics; believing that it made politics more like show business. However, I would argue politics and thus democracy has always been about showman ship. In fact, every form of government is riddled with showman ship. Mussolini famously marched into Italy with a mob of blackshirt wearing followers before becoming a Prime Minister (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2019). Even now, Britain still uses old customs of showmanship left from an era of monarchy, I mean look all the proceedings of the house of commons or how we present the royal family. They’re nearly nonsensical in our era and yet we still continue to use customs, such as slamming the doors of the commons in the face of the Black Rod, mostly for effect (Parliament, 2020). All a new medium does, at least in my opinion, is highlight this showmanship and the undemocratic actions our leaders, elected ministers/senators, and the establishment make.

For example, in ‘How Democracies Die’, Levitsky and Ziblatt (2019) note that Trump isn’t the first undemocratic, extremist presidential candidate to enter politics, in fact it’s quite opposite. They cite dozens of examples of potential presidential candidates who openly dismissed democratic behaviours. For example, Henry Ford, famously known for Ford cars, ran for office in the 1920s. He was famously beloved by the public despite his open anti-Semitic and anti-democratic comments. He however failed to take office not because of the people, but because of the electoral college before it’s gatekeeping measures were relaxed in the subsequent decades. However, it wasn’t newly emerging mediums that allowed for these candidates to get relatively close to the presidential elections, it was us. It was the support of voters.

However, I will say social media has presented a new medium to persuade people. A medium that has greater potential for persuasion than previous mediums. Social media may not have directly corrupted democracy, but it has presented the potential for great and unethical persuasion.

Look no further than Brexit for an example. It was a political movement soaked in racism and hate. It used imagery reminiscent of Nazi propaganda (Stewart and Mason, 2016) and you need look no further than the staggering 500% increase in race crimes (Payton, 2016) after the referendum results. It overspent its legal budget (breaking electoral law) (BBC, 2018), it riled the public to the point of murder (Cobain, Parveen, and Taylor, 2016), pushed incorrect facts that directly lied to the voters (Keegan, 2019), belittled specialists (Mance, 2016), and even at times accused the political system of being rigged (Doyle, 2019).

Brexit isn’t the result of social media, it actually began before the 2000s shortly after a speech by Margaret Thatcher accusing the EU of wanting to become a ‘superstate’ which lead to founding of two groups solely designed to separate the UK from the EU. However, social media was a weapon in their bid to win the public. It used behavioural targetting advertising (Risso, 2017), funded social media activists (BBC, 2018), and speculatively had Russian involvement most likely in the form of social media bots (however the documents on this rumour is still yet to be released despite them being given to the PM, who was a key member in the Brexit movement, in october 2019) (Read, 2020). If social media wasn’t present, to fully explore the question, they still would’ve used the same tactics, however they wouldn’t have been able to reach as many people or sinisterly target those who are ill informed via algorithms.

My point being yet again, social media doesn’t corrupt democracy, people corrupt democracy. There are countless cases of democracy being corrupted throughout history before the invention of social media. Adolf Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Nixon to an extent in America, and chavez in Venezula are but the most known examples of successes in corrupting democracy in history, not mentioning the dozens of attempts internationally in the past.

Going back to British politics, right now our democracy has never been so vulnerable, and it’s not because of social media. Admittedly, the party responsible invested a lot more in social media budget wise than previously seen (Blair, 2019), but in the end the corruption of democracy doesn’t lie in social media. It lies in those power and, to an extent, the voting public. Currently the conservatives have banned certain news outlets from important meetings (Mason, 2020), threatened to cut founding from the BBC after criticism (Belblum, 2019), merged the PM’s and Exchequer’s political advisors (essentially taking control of the treasury and being able to spend money on projects without major scrutiny) (Economist, 2020 and TLDR News, 2020), they still refuse to release the previously mentioned Russian documents, used language that condoned violence and incited violence against opposition ministers (BBC News, 2019), and even attempted to prorogued parliament for an extended time (that was found unlawful by the supreme court) to prevent anti-hard-brexit legislation (Murphy, 2019). There are dozens of examples currently that suggest our government is moving further and further from democracy than ever. It checks every behaviour provided in ‘How Democracy Dies’ (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2019), where they provided a list of common behaviours of undemocratic leaders and political parties have taken when corrupting democracies previously in history.

However, I should note that the usage of Behavioural targeting is definitely sinister. It shouldn’t be forgotten, in fact quite the opposite. It should be illegal considering it is a manipulation of the public via dataaccumulated by social media companies. Algorithms that collect information on our habits now have an incredible power over, constructing unseen and personalised echo chambers. Not only does social media do this though, all of the internet is guilty of this. Why do you think every website incessantly demands you accept cookies upon entering them? They’re collecting information on your browsing habits to ensure adverts are tailored to your tastes and as well other features being tailored personally.

‘Billions of people have come to entrust the google search algorithm with one of the most important tasks of all: searching for relevant and trustworthy information We no longer search for information. Instead, we google. And as we increasingly rely on google for answers, so our ability to search for ourselves diminishes. Already today, ‘truth’ is defined by the top results of the google search.’ (Harari, 2019)

Which is why, when the Brexit movement used the tactic of behavioural targeting advertising, it should’ve been illegal. Essentially an algorithm is an equation for how to manipulate a person, especially in regards of politics.

Does a key section of voters fervently care about the NHS? Target them with the infamous slogan of 350 million pounds invested in NHS weekly. Does your audience regularly read anti-immigration articles from the sun? Target them with the Nazi inspired propaganda developed by UKIP. Does your target read/watch rebellious or anti-establishment articles/watch? Merely mention superstate and you’re golden.

Essentially what the Brexit movement did was manipulate the masses with false promises tailored to each individual. Whether they voted or not in the past, the algorithm would change its style to best suit that person. All this algorithm has done is target transgressive ideals, insecurity, and ignorance. Whilst there were dozens of people who were well informed on the subject and still voted leave, we can’t ignore the fact they used an algorithm to sway the public so easily on a complicated subject matter and accidentally incited illegal action from their followers. My point is, if a more transgressive party had that power, even to a lesser extent, isn’t that incredibly dangerous? Imagine if the Nazis had this power and employed it across Europe who already had a growing rate of Nazi parties at the time. Imagine if Stalin had that power, it would’ve actually had create a domino affect across Europe.

My overall point being, social media isn’t responsible for the corruption of democracy, just as a gun isn’t responsible for shooting someone. It’s a weapon, its the user’s fault.

References:

Mcluhan, Fiore, and Agel. (2008). The Medium is the Massage. London: Penguin.

History.com Editors. (2019). The Kennedy-Nixon Debates. Available: Mcluhan, Fiore, and Agel.

(2008). The Medium is the Massage. London: Penguin.. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Parliament.uk. (2020). Black Rod. Available: https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and- lords/principal/black-rod/. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Levitsky and Ziblatt (2019). How Democracies Die. London: Penguin.

Stewart and Mason. (2016). Nigel Farage's anti-migrant poster reported to police. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

payton. (2016). Racist hate crimes increase five-fold in week after Brexit vote. Available: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/racism-hate-crimes-increase-brexit-eu-referendum-a7113091.html. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

BBC. (2018). Brexit: Vote Leave broke electoral law, says Electoral Commission. Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44856992. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Cobain, Parveen, and Taylor. (2016). The slow-burning hatred that led Thomas Mair to murder Jo Cox. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2016/nov/23/thomas-mair-slow-burning-hatred-led-to-jo-cox-murder. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Keegan. (2019). A victory won by Brexit lies does not make those lies true. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/15/victory-brexit-lies-does-not-make-them-true-govern-one-nation. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Mance. (2016). Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove. Available: https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Doyle. (2019). Labour's second Brexit referendum will be RIGGED, claims Boris Johnson in public letter blasting Jeremy Corbyn for pledging to give votes to millions of EU citizens. Available: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7761875/Labours-second-Brexit-referendum-RIGGED-claims-Boris-Johnson.html. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Risso. (2017). Harvesting Your Soul? Cambridge Analytica and Brexit. Available: http://www.adwmainz.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Brexit-Symposium_Online-Version.pdf#page=75. Last accessed 02/04/2020.

Postman (1987). Amusing ourselves to death. London: Methuen Publishing Ltd.

Blair. (2019). General Election 2019: Just How Much Are The Conservatives, Labour And Liberal Democrats Spending On Facebook?.Available: https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/a30182266/general-election-spending-facebook/. Last accessed 03/04/2020.

Mason. (2020). No 10 reporter ban: MPs across house raise concerns. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/04/no-10-reporter-ban-civil-service-chief-must-investigate-says-starmer. Last accessed 03/04/2020.

Gelblum. (2019). BBC and Channel 4 in Tory crosshairs for coverage that was not favourable enough. Available: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/media/bbc-and-channel-4-in-tory-crosshairs-for-coverage-that-was-not-favourable-enough/15/12/. Last accessed 03/04/2020.

The Economist. (2020). Rishi Sunak is Britain’s new chancellor of the exchequer - Boris Johnson consolidates his power. Available: https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/02/15/rishi-sunak-is-britains-new-chancellor-of-the-exchequer. Last accessed 03/04/2020.

TLDR News. (2020). Johnson's 'Power Grab': The Cabinet Reshuffle Explained - TLDR News. [Online Video]. 14 February 2020. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opAF2zzJ5n8. [Accessed: 3 April 2020].

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Murphy. (2019). Then and now: what senior Tories say about proroguing parliament. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/29/then-and-now-what-senior-tories-say-about-proroguing-parliament. Last accessed 03/04/2020.

Harari (2019). 21 Lessons for the 21st century. London: Vintage. Pg 68.

#politics #conservatives #labour #social media #essay

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platy-sloth-portreeo · 4 years

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Dada the Absurdist

Once there was a boy or at least they thought it was a boy until they turned into a girl. Then a mix. Then a blob of white goo in anthropomorphic shape. So I guess more accurately, once there was a baby Dada. Born to a confused widowed mother, they were raised in secrecy. Hidden from the world to protect them... or maybe the world was hidden from them to protect it, they never quite knew. They had always been a curious thing, but that question didn’t arise until it was too late. Their mother had passed at an early age, working as a serf to a cruel lord.

They’d spend the rest of their young life in similar conditions. In darkness and hidden from the world, except now it was in the dungeon of a keep instead of their comfy messy room. It hadn’t taken long for the lord to discover them you see, they were just a child after all. Confused and scared. So when their house had been given to the next serf family, it only took a mere second to hear the cries of hunger and loneliness of Dada.

This was where it all began though. If birth had brought us Dada, then this imprisonment had eventually brought us Dada the Absurdist. An anarchist dramatis figure of death and freedom. The assassin of lords and the purveyor of unguilty pleasures.

This was where they met their first and only love. The daughter of the lord. A kind loving figure in a world of rats, chains, and dripping brickwork. She’d come by every night reading them tales of heroics, tragedy, and comedy. It was all they had. The only delight to look forward to after each day of gut wrenching hunger and humiliation.

But taking their mother was seemingly not enough for this lord. No, he had not grown any less crueler or benign in his old age. He yet again took the one person Dada loved. The one person who gave him hope. Their sweet beloved and their soon to be child.

Dada had never been a vengeful person, but after that day there was no Dada, only Dada the Absurdist. That day they slew their first of many lords, freeing all the serfs and distributing the stolen capital accrued through torture and torment. They didn’t really care about the people of their village. They couldn’t have, they didn’t know them. No, no, they did this with but only the hope that that lord could see how his mighty kingdom had fell in one day to absurdity.

Ah, he was only used once in one short DMed by my partner, but he’s still one of my favourites. A changeling bard of the college of swords who practiced in Dadaist art form. I just loved trying to think of weird ways to incorporate his spell components. Like eating a tart with a feather in it for hideous laughter or having a glow stick rave to summon hypnotic patterns.

Of course, I introduced him as a frail old prospector type dude who’d gummed a man to death. We’d all had to think of a reason we were in prison, so I made Dada an assassin who took pleasure in pretending to be someone else and play out the role till he got bored or another job popped up. The last job he did was assassinating a lord nearby by pretending to be his wife for a month before killing him. I always imagined he thought up the most theatrical and ironic death, spending that month plotting an elaborate Wille coyote style plot.

My only DM breaking moments (I usually break DMs according to my partner) was at the end where I just continually prevented the big bad dragon from having a turn.

#dndcharacter #changeling #dnd ocs #dnd

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