Episode 621 - Live Laugh Love
Feb 6, 2023
Toxic positivity can take all sorts of forms, but I think it's most easily recognised by someone telling you to be happy about something when you just don't feel it. It's a really odd, nasty, weird feeling when a person tells you you're basically not allowed to be grumpy or even neutral, you MUST be happy. How many times have we all been told to “smile” by someone?
Topics and Show Notes
I think it's interesting when it involves pop-culture:
When you're not allowed to criticise things or dislike them. People do this with nationalism, politics, brands, products, cars, celebrities etc, but it's really telling with pop-culture. The whole “Shhh, just let people enjoy things” meme: It has a good side but also quite a big dark side as well. Being relentlessly negative and stomping all over other's enjoyment of things is a real dick move, so yes, let them enjoy the thing. The dark side of that is when people use it to shut down ALL criticism.
I've been in groups where they ban people for saying anything at all bad about certain shows or the characters in them, even as a joke. That's quite a toxic environment. For example, not only must you like every Star Wars movie and not make fun of any of them or any character, you must also like all the TV shows whether it's Lego Star Wars, Clone Wars, or even the games. Disliking any can “ruin someone else's enjoyment” so you get a ban.
Then there are the people who stomp into the middle or of a group happily dedicated to the enjoyment of criticism and use the “…let people enjoy things” line on them, not realising that they're refusing to let those people enjoy what they were into. Yes, people shouldn't be dicks about things, but people shouldn't be super “positive thinking” thought-police either, which is worse because it induces stress and pushes people out of fan communities.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Succubus - A quiet, contemplative, slightly mournful tune, delicate in piano, is suddenly swamped by a red wave of horror and chaos as the music is ripped asunder and this new sound gouges deep into your ears.
Topics and shownotes
Tantz's Toxic positivity - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/27/character-trait-toxic-positivity-toxic-acceptance-part-1/
Featured comic:
She Used To Be Fractal - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/30/featured-comic-she-used-to-be-fractal/
Featured music:
Succubus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Succubus/ - by Coydog and TheDeeMan, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 610 - Beauty!
Nov 21, 2022
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, so the saying goes but it's absolutely true. There is a layered subjectivity to it based on personal preference, the cultural standards of your community, the ethnic traits of you and your peers, prevailing global fashions in appearance, the dominant archetypes in the media and so on. All these things combine to form our personal subjective ideas of beauty. You can see this yourself if you look at paintings, statues, masks, frescoes and other artifacts that have been produced by all the diverse cultures on earth over thousands of years: there IS no standard, eternal, objective of beauty.
Episode 609 - The Cringe
Nov 14, 2022
So how do you like comedy that makes you cringe? You know that really awkward humour where you feel embarrassed for those involved and almost in physical pain for them? You feel really bad for them… It could be cruel pranks, or jokes based on lies or misunderstandings that are just carried way too far. Personally I find them hard to take. It CAN be great like in the original version of The Office, but even that was REALLY hard to watch at times. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Stick Figure Apocalypse - Relaxing, cool funk groove that cruises along dreamily, hitting turbulent waters hallway through, with a wildly discordant patch of sonic confusion, startling us out of our revere, before slipping back into the same quiet groove again and fading to silence.
Episode 605 - Myth of Freedom
Oct 17, 2022
“Freedom” is the catch cry in so much historical fiction but it's usually an anachronistic piece of nationalist fantasy. You fought for your lord, for pay, your honour, your small region, etc, not for “Scotland” (i.e. Bravehert). Even today it's generally propaganda: e.g. The Invasion of Iraq being called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and Russia's invasion of Ukraine being all about “freeing” the Russian speaking areas from “oppression”. We alter historical stories to fit with contemporary ideas about ourselves and to give us some form of foundation for our prejudices, motivations and identity. Good examples are the Arthurian legends, Gladiator, Braveheart, The Patriot, Robin Hood, The stories about Christopher Columbus, The 300, and The Woman King.
Episode 604 - Stylised reality
Oct 10, 2022
When creating fiction we always have to stylise experience in many and various ways in order to communicate with the viewer in a way that's meaningful to them because it's usually impossible to simply show them the exact reality of something and expect that same meaning to carry through.
Episode 602 - It's my turn now bitches!
Sep 26, 2022
What happens when the victim becomes the victor? Most of the time it's like the classic line from The Who “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, typically revolutions (and elections), that promise change don't really deliver, the new people use it as a chance to get revenge on their enemies, take advantage of things the same as the last guys, and do everything they can to cling to power. The true exceptions are rare and special, i.e. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet revolution.
Episode 601 - /rant
Sep 19, 2022
If something affects or disturbs you so much that you want to respond to it through a story that you write, that can be a pretty powerful form of inspiration! But it depends on how you handle it. For example, Stephan King's acclaimed novel Misery was inspired by nasty interactions he had with fans after he published a fantasy novel. This story was very well received and even turned into a popular movie. And then there are other ways to handle it…
Episode 600 - AI is bad at art
Sep 12, 2022
here's a lot of buzz about so called AI generated art at the moment using programs like Dall-E, Neural blender, Dream studio lite and so on. People use text prompts, i.e. “flying clockwork fish balloon” and the AI generates “art” based upon that. It usually does this by using actual art and photography created by real people, and visually mixing them to create a new image. Some results are much better than others.
