Poll of the Day > Life After Geeks

(+) Yeah! (+)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

This is why best-selling comics today are selling in numbers that would have gotten them cancelled 30 years ago. The most popular network shows pull numbers that would have been abject failure in the 1990s. Look at the sales numbers for Game of the Year candidates that are near universally praised, and you'll see almost none of them ever break 10 million in sales (in a marketplace where there are hundreds of millions of consoles in the wild, and even then gamers are still only a small segment of global demographics).

Somehow I think the decline of comics is a *lot* more complex than that.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Though at this point we're getting into the problem The Simpsons has - at a certain point, people aren't watching the show because of the content of the show. The show itself has essentially become the nostalgia that is being exploited. People who watch The Simpsons today really only do so because they kind of remember that it used to be funny once. And because it's a comforting, familiar thing.

It still has amazing episodes. One of the all-time best was just a few years ago, and there were other amazing ones as well. But the real nostalgia is people putting the show's earlier seasons on a pedestal. People tend to remember the good stuff and forget everything in those seasons that kinda sucked.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

In contrast, I'd argue that, regardless of the critical popularity of Avengers: Endgame, and for all the money it pulled in (way more than "A New Hope" in 1977), vastly fewer people have ultimately seen it (or will likely ever see it). It ultimately is not - and will almost certainly never be the pop culture touchstone Star Wars/New Hope was.

On the contrary, it's probably more readily available than SW was during the first 15 or so years of SW's existence. Plus EG is a world-wide phenomenon from the get-go in a way that ANH wasn't, considering it was shown in nations that ANH wasn't at the time.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

You're absolutely out of your mind if you think the last 200 years of human history aren't qualitatively different than most of the rest of human history, though. So that's not really a valid argument.

200 years? Why not just highlight the past thousand? You're really moving the goalposts there.

Change is generally incremental, so a very long span of time is going to show a lot more. Likewise, the 1800s had substantial differences to the 1600s. Generations, though, are just drops in the bucket.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Like it or not, technology HAS changed us in a lot of ways. We're different from the humans of the prior 8000 or so years in the same way they were different from the humans of 50000 years prior, and so on.

Technically no. The developments are more than just technology and, evolutionarily speaking, we actually haven't changed as much as some people assume because factors like malnutrition can leave modern humans in a state similar to previous generations.

Even at a societal level, we tend to ascribe far more to technology than we probably should, especially since social movements helped spur on technology in the first place. Systems like capitalism led to incredible advancements whereas non-free-market systems tended to develop at a far slower pace and largely relied on other nations' achievements. As such, it might be less a matter of technology changing society than society changing technology much of the time. Technology itself certainly adapts to fit human needs, with a device's success linked to peoples' interest. Granted, everything is still interconnected and builds on everything else, which makes trying to separate one piece vs another difficult. And, of course, there are multiple causes for pretty much everything.

Likewise, a lot of world-changing technology has been under-utilized due to lack of interest (and, I suppose, expense). Space travel, which should have been a game-changer, is still only really used as a novelty. Unless there's enough collective interest, it may never develop into anything truly big.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The character of Jessica Jones (as in, the specific character canonical to her Netflix show, as opposed to just the character in general) appears in The Defenders. I am aware of this. Therefore, in my brain, Jessica Jones is inextricably linked to The Defenders. Regardless of whether or not the link is really mentioned or explored in her own show, the link is there. The Defenders, in turn, links back into the shows of the characters who are in The Defenders - meaning that Daredevil and Jessica Jones are linked even if neither of them ever mention anything from the other show, no characters of any kind cross over, no shared events occur, and the two shows are otherwise seemingly separate.

Shouldn't the possibility of other things someday existing drive you similarly insane? More importantly, how do you enjoy anything? And are you seriously a JJ fan in the first place?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And to pull all of this back around to where this started, if we lived in a universe where content was rare and I felt like I was missing a major cultural milestone or felt a void of worthwhile content in my life because of not watching it, I might deliberately behave counter to my instincts and watch the show anyway, and just try to ignore the niggling sensation in the back of my brain annoyed that I'm watching Jessica Jones without watching Daredevil, judging the show on its own merits and discounting its shared universe context.

DD certainly felt like a major cultural milestone >_>

The problem with milestones, though, is you never really know that they are one until well after the fact.

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Zeus posted...

At any rate, things like storytelling are a form of content (and even before writing was adopted, there were a tremendous amount of stories that had been passed down through oral tradition.

I'd argue that most people didn't spend multiple hours a day listening to someone tell stories, though. And even what stories were being told weren't necessarily for "entertainment" as much as many of them were meant for educational or social development purposes.

And it still wouldn't even remotely compare to the modern scale.



Zeus posted...

and illiteracy rates have been greatly embellished throughout history due to common misconceptions.

Even if embellished, it doesn't really change the fact that through most of human history, the majority of people couldn't read, and wouldn't be reading for entertainment. What literacy existed was mostly functional rather than recreational.



Zeus posted...

I imagine 80% of it is watched by no one.

Nah, except for the computer-generated content that will slowly destroy us all, I'd argue that most randos who post content mostly for their own amusement are still going to watch it themselves and show it to their friends.

I mean, I basically wrote multiple novels worth of literary content back when I actively RPed online, and it was only viewed by maybe a dozen people tops, but those people still lost "content consumption time" to reading it.

Even those minor contributions add up when scaled across the entire population.



Zeus posted...

I believe in multitasking. I post, watch something, and often have something like Pokemon Go going at the same time.

So do I (I mostly listen to podcasts while playing games or posting on PotD).

But as humans, we can only multitask so much, without essentially ignoring most of what we're multitasking (ie, if I'm listening to music, with the TV on the background, with Minecraft running, a podcast on my laptop, while reading a book, I'm only really focusing on one or two of those things at any one given time, while the rest blur into the background and effectively become white noise.

Which in way makes things worse. I'm consuming content twice as fast as possible, yet I will still never have time enough to consume all potentially worthwhile content in my lifetime.



Zeus posted...

You'd want to compare views to views, not subs to... well, you can't subscribe to tv shows afaik.

Even then he still gets more views per video on average than most successful network TV shows do today, let alone failed ones.



Zeus posted...

Only because he was on South Park. If Kevin (Probably) Saves the World was on South Park, everybody would know that, too.

The problem there is, South Park isn't even remotely the cultural phenomenon it used to be, certainly not enough to pull off what you're proposing. South Park's sort of in the same boat I mentioned earlier with Simpsons and Family Guy - it continues to exist more out of social inertia than it does out of any real value or worth.

At this point, more people watch his videos than do the show. If anything, him being on South Park probably bumped THEIR viewership up more than it did his.

That's not even a measure of quality or worth (I certainly don't think PewDiePie is worth much of anything), but when we're talking objective awareness (and active versus passive awareness), like it or not, the numbers exist.

And like it or not, "passive awareness" definitely factors into things. For all the people who are aware that South Park exists, only a fraction of those people are currently still watching it, and deriving any meaningful awareness of its current state, as opposed to people who remember that they used to watch it 20 years ago.

Hell, a large part of why I enjoyed Stick of Truth so much compared to Fractured But Whole is because the former game mostly exploited the nostalgia of the earlier episodes of the show (which I actually watched), while the latter game leaned much more heavily into newer episodes of the show (which I stopped watching years ago).



Zeus posted...

You say that, but people are still rickrolling at weddings.

Yeah, but people also still do the YMCA at weddings. And again, both are past examples.

I'm not arguing that memes never caught on at any point. I'm arguing that as culture disperses and cultural relevance shortens, the overall likelihood of memes to go viral becomes lessened. If Rickrolling became a thing TODAY, I don't think it would even remotely spread as far, as fast, or retain relevance as long.

Rickrolling hit at a precise moment in the cultural zeitgeist that was primed for that sort of viral spread, and those conditions have since changed. And even then, people who still remember that have long since forgotten the dozens of other memes that were its contemporaries.

And even beyond all that, for all the people who absolutely know what Rickrolling is, there are still tons who have no idea. Memes will always seem more universal to people LIKE US, because we're essentially deeply invested in the culture that spawns them. Their impact will always be lessened on the greater population as a whole, simply by their nature.

I'm not saying memes can't still go viral, or that no meme can ever have long-term influence. But it's telling that I'm sitting here trying to think of major memes with a huge impact recently, and the closest I can come is Gangnam Style (which was 8 years ago). And you had to go back even farther to pull out Rickrolling.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd argue that most people didn't spend multiple hours a day listening to someone tell stories, though.

You mean at a time when stories were hours-long and that was one of the only forms of entertainment?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And it still wouldn't even remotely compare to the modern scale.

Because it wasn't recorded.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Even if embellished, it doesn't really change the fact that through most of human history, the majority of people couldn't read,

Maybe before written language was a thing, but throughout history writing has been about as important as talking so the idea that there wasn't some generally understood written form of communication is, at the very least, misguided.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Which in way makes things worse. I'm consuming content twice as fast as possible, yet I will still never have time enough to consume all potentially worthwhile content in my lifetime.

I kinda suspect the bar for "worthwhile" is far lower than it should be. At most, there are *maybe* a handful of movies in existence that everybody should watch. And there are probably a hundred novels of merit.

Even within the realm of the subjective, there aren't that many works that I feel have actually enriched my life or imagination in some meaningful way. Not all content is created equal, after all. Yes, there's so much stuff out there, but most of it is pure crap. So when the choice is between Daredevil season 1 -- perhaps the best season of any live-action superhero tv show ever produced -- and horseshit, I'm disappointed to hear that you'd rather go with horseshit.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem there is, South Park isn't even remotely the cultural phenomenon it used to be, certainly not enough to pull off what you're proposing. South Park's sort of in the same boat I mentioned earlier with Simpsons and Family Guy - it continues to exist more out of social inertia than it does out of any real value or worth.

And yet it's still vastly more of a culturally phenomenon than Pewdiepie will ever be.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

At this point, more people watch his videos than do the show.

Unlikely. I imagine you're basing it on Nielson numbers, which are generally unreliable even before you recognize most people watch shit online and you don't have Nielson for that.


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Zeus posted...

Somehow I think the decline of comics is a *lot* more complex than that.

And I'd disagree.

It's a relatively simple scenario - comics sold better when there were fewer entertainment more options, and as options increased, sales decreased. Rising prices certainly played a role (but that's also something of a chicken/egg problem, as part of why prices rose was because sales were already falling), but even people in the industry will point to things like the increase in the availability of video games and the rise of more kid's TV and the Internet as reasons why interest in comics declined.



Zeus posted...

It still has amazing episodes. One of the all-time best was just a few years ago, and there were other amazing ones as well. But the real nostalgia is people putting the show's earlier seasons on a pedestal. People tend to remember the good stuff and forget everything in those seasons that kinda sucked.

I'd disagree, if only because most of those older episodes still exist, and are still being played on TV, so the usual "your memory makes the past seem better than it was" argument is weaker, because it's very easy even for people without nostalgia to see those episodes now and better contextualize them.

As for the "best" episode being recent, I can't really argue with you, because due to the aforementioned "too much content and not enough time" factor, I stopped watching the show years ago when it stopped being interesting to me, and have zero desire to ever attempt to start watching it again on the off-chance that it's improved. Especially since almost everything I see or hear in passing suggests that it hasn't.

Though that also fails to factor in things like different tastes - there are shows people absolutely love that I despise, so I'm sure you might love plenty of the current episodes while I would absolutely hate them.



Zeus posted...

On the contrary, it's probably more readily available than SW was during the first 15 or so years of SW's existence.

I would agree.

Yet in spite of that, I will still argue that more people will have seen New Hope than will ever see Endgame, because Endgame's cultural impact and staying power is far, far less.



Zeus posted...

200 years? Why not just highlight the past thousand? You're really moving the goalposts there.

Not really. You're just misunderstanding where the goalposts always were.



Zeus posted...

Change is generally incremental, so a very long span of time is going to show a lot more.

If you're going to argue that the pace of technological development over the last 200 years or so hasn't been exponentially greater than most of human history prior to it, you're just objectively wrong.

Yes, change is incremental, technological advancement tends to be incremental (and isn't always progressively improved - sometimes mistakes are made or knowledge is lost, so backward steps occur). But the Industrial Revolution changed nearly every facet of human life in qualitative ways that has almost no parallel to any point in history other than the Agricultural Revolution (there's a reason why those two events tend to get lumped together).

The Technological Revolution (mainly the advent of computers, though on a granular level we can talk about stuff like transistors and microchips, or even extend it backwards to the primacy of electrical engineering over chemical or mechanical processes) has done/is doing much the same, though it's much harder to quantify because we're still in the middle of it. So much so that, at this point, dividing human history into segments defined by pre-agricultural/agricultural/industrial/digital gives VERY distinctly different societal conditions.

And again, yes, there are some things that are general constants even through different periods, or elements which are more situational in one period than an overall marker of the entire period, but it's specious at best to try and argue that life in 2020 AD is exactly the same as life in 2020 BC.



Zeus posted...

evolutionarily speaking, we actually haven't changed as much as some people assume because factors like malnutrition can leave modern humans in a state similar to previous generations

At no point have I ever been arguing that modern humans are evolutionarily different from any other point in history (if anything, that's where the 50000 year benchmark I've mentioned a few times has come in - we really haven't changed all that much in 50000 years).

(If anything, this is the point where -I- should be complaining about moving goalposts.)

But regardless of our biology (and where someone falls in the nature/nurture argument), our culture as a species has absolutely changed over the course of our history, and our technology has without question radically altered aspects of our behavior. We can see this even within our lifespan (people today have behavioral quirks that would make no sense to someone from 1950, who in turn would have behaviors confusing to someone in 1800).

The pace of technological development, and the impact it has on human behavior, has absolutely accelerated in the last 200 or so years (basically using the Industrial Revolution as the turning point). Someone from 700 AD France would have a much easier time adapting to the technologically-influenced behaviors of 1400 AD France (which would be much the same) than someone from 1800 AD Boston would have adapting to the behaviors of 2000 AD Boston. For most of human history post-Agriculture, the only real cultural shifts would be regional or political. But the last 200 or so years has seen a plethora of behavioral shifts that were directly spawned by technological innovation taking place at an unprecedented pace.

There's an aphorism about how we essentially went from living in a world where the only means of reliable travel was riding a horse to putting a man on the moon in a single human lifetime. No other point in human history really encapsulate technological shifts that severe, that plentiful, and in such a short span of time (radically influential periods like the colonization of the New World or the fall of Rome come close, but even they still fall somewhat short).

It's not just the ethnocentrism of the present - I'm not saying we're the peak of human success, or that all of these shifts are for the better. But attempting to avoid ethnocentrism by arguing that there's no sociological difference between now and thousands of years ago is just as bad as ethnocentrism itself.
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Zeus posted...

Shouldn't the possibility of other things someday existing drive you similarly insane?

No, because I generally live in the moment.

And even if I lived in a state of quantum uncertainty about whether or not things will someday exist, the fact that I would thus also live in a state of quantum uncertainty about whether or not those things will be available to me means I will generally assume that, if I can access something now, I will be able to access it in the future as well.

This isn't always the case (as someone who has lived through console wars and exclusivity deals can attest), but fear of future incompatibility doesn't really demotivate me as much as current incompatibility does (and in the inverse, the potential for future compatibility doesn't motivate me as much as current compatibility does).

I really enjoyed Halo 1-3, Reach, and ODST, but 4 being somewhat weaker and 5 being an exclusive on this gen's worst console means my interest in the franchise has waned (to the point where I don't even remotely care about Halo Infinite, and probably won't even bother with it even if the next-gen Xbox winds up being the greatest console ever).

Conversely, no matter how many people praised the Uncharted games, I was never going to play Uncharted 4 on the PS4 if they hadn't come out with the Uncharted Collection (which allowed me to play Uncharted 1-3) first.

I was much more capable of just "jumping in" to an ongoing franchise when I was younger, but at this point, with so many competing options, there's just no NEED to. So even if the completionist in me who feels like I have to start at the beginning and experience the WHOLE story is only a weak motivation at best, it doesn't really have a strong motivation opposed to it forcing me to buy in anyway. There are ALWAYS other alternatives.

And keep in mind, this mostly only really applies to things where story is paramount and crossover exists. I wouldn't necessarily feel compelled to play Final Fantasy I-VI before playing Final Fantasy VII... but I absolutely WOULD feel compelled to play Final Fantasy X before playing X-2.



Zeus posted...

More importantly, how do you enjoy anything?

Because most things aren't part of an interconnected shared universe that I feel an all-or-nothing compulsion to avoid unless I can experience it all? And because there are ALWAYS alternatives?

Even with the MCU, I absolutely watched films I probably would otherwise have skipped solely because they were part of the MCU. But if the MCU came out today and I could only watch half of it, I probably wouldn't watch any of it.

Like I said, this is a big part of why I have very little interest in Phase 4 or 5. I suspect the MCU and I may be parting ways soon.



Zeus posted...

And are you seriously a JJ fan in the first place?

No - which makes it even easier for me to be dismissive of the show.

As much as I kind of like ridiculously over-the-top Luke Cage and Danny Rand in the comics, I don't have a strong attachment to Daredevil or Punisher, and Jessica Jones came along at a time when I was already out of comics, during a period I actively dislike, written by a writer I'm not entirely keen on, based on a premise I very much tend to hate (retroactively continuity).

So there's no real "OMG I LOVE THIS CHARACTER, I NEED TO SEE THE SHOW!" as a motivation pushing me to see it in spite of other negative influences.

And honestly, if modern Doctor Who can manage to make me stop watching the show in spite of the sheer amount of psychological investment I had in the franchise for more than half my life, no intellectual property can ever coast on my prior interest anyway.



Zeus posted...

DD certainly felt like a major cultural milestone >_>

Not to me - I knew more people personally in life who didn't watch it than I do people who did. And even online, you were more likely to see passionate reactions from a smaller group of people than you were a larger wave of near-universal reaction (which is closer to what you'd see from Game of Thrones)

And I'd even argue that we could question how much of a cultural touchstone GoT was, considering it never really topped 10 million views, which means at any given time the vast majority of the population never watched it (though that calls up a much more complicated discussion of exactly what cultural relevance IS and how it can be a thing at all if even the most successful things are only seen by less than 1% of 1% of the global population).

But that's the same question I tend to bring up with video games. As gamers, we'll act like "[insert X game] was the most influential and popular game ever! All gamers need to play it!" for games that sold like 4 million copies, tops. For all that people fellate the shit out of Ocarina of Time, fewer people have probably played it than have played any given Call of Duty game you can think of. None of our precious gems and cherished treasures ever have the reach of the average 2K sports game. Perspective is a funny thing when you talk about what is essentially STILL a niche cultural bubble.



Zeus posted...

The problem with milestones, though, is you never really know that they are one until well after the fact.

Yes, but with nearly every milestone, you know very soon after. It's almost unheard of for something to become a milestone years later (though it does happen - LotR became more popular in the 1960s than it ever was on release in the 1940s, and arguably became even more so when the movies came out in the 2000s).

For something like Daredevil, we have a pretty good idea of what its impact is now. It's not going to suddenly boom later, and realistically, for as much praise as people heaped on it at the time, most people are already forgetting it was ever a thing. When the next inevitable reboot happens you'll get some people talking about it again and potentially a new surge of new interest, but for the most part the cultural awareness will shift to the new version and the old one will fade even more.

Regardless, I don't really feel like there's a hole in my life for having missed any of the Netflix stuff. On my deathbed, I'm not going to look back at my life and regret that I never watched Jessica Jones and view my entire existence as a failure. And in the sense of being a "milestone", I can assure you I will almost certainly never have a moment in the next 20 years or so where I'm in an animated conversation with someone in the "real world" and I suddenly feel adrift because they launch into how much they loved the Netflix shows and I can't contribute because I never watched them (which is sort of what I meant by cultural milestones spurring desire to watch).

If people endlessly nattering on about Game of Thrones couldn't get me to watch the show after season 4, the fact that no one I know really talks about Daredevil/Jessica Jones at all certainly isn't going to help ITS case.
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Ironically, the only conversation I've ever had in real life involving the Netflix shows at all was once when an older couple I know who watched them asked me if Rosario Dawson's character was a real character from the comics or an original character for the show (because they knew I was a comic book geek).

And I actually knew the answer via Internet osmosis, so I didn't even have to watch the show to answer them.

Of course, the downside of that is then trying to explain the concept of "Night Nurse" to someone. While drunk. And while dressed as Dynamo from The Running Man because you're at a Halloween party.
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The three things I wished I had asked my mom before she passed away was...

1. Her homemade biscuit recipe.

2. Her homemade peach cobler recipe.

3. How do you deal with unexpected loss.

The mast one stems from the fact that her ex boyfriend started dating her sister, got her pregnant, killed her, and then himself, and left the baby with my mom.

That's some Shakespeare **** that only wisdom and experience can teach.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

And I'd disagree.

It's a relatively simple scenario - comics sold better when there were fewer entertainment more options, and as options increased, sales decreased. Rising prices certainly played a role (but that's also something of a chicken/egg problem, as part of why prices rose was because sales were already falling), but even people in the industry will point to things like the increase in the availability of video games and the rise of more kid's TV and the Internet as reasons why interest in comics declined.

So comics when from being almost universally read to being almost universally scorned today because... other media exists? >_> Is that your hypothesis there? You don't think it had anything to do with an attack on the industry? With the implementation of a comics code that made comics less interesting? There are no other cultural paradigms that might have taken hold which led people to both increasingly see it as a juvenile behavior and parents to not want their kids to read it? Problems within the industry itself? Pandering to outside groups who don't even read comics and being overly worried about looking offensive?

Well, at least you acknowledged price. I guess that's something?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd disagree, if only because most of those older episodes still exist, and are still being played on TV, so the usual "your memory makes the past seem better than it was" argument is weaker, because it's very easy even for people without nostalgia to see those episodes now and better contextualize them.

And I'd disagree with that, considering the sheer number of people who cut the cord, the re-broadcast schedule being less accessible these days especially since stations are more likely playing re-runs of other shows, and the fact that most people haven't seen those episodes in years.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As for the "best" episode being recent, I can't really argue with you, because due to the aforementioned "too much content and not enough time" factor,

In other words, because of your "scripted television and home videos of somebody napping are equal content so it's hard to figure out which one to watch" argument. =p

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Yet in spite of that, I will still argue that more people will have seen New Hope than will ever see Endgame, because Endgame's cultural impact and staying power is far, far less.

Unless you have some previously-undisclosed psychic abilities, that forward-looking statement is highly presumptious.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not really. You're just misunderstanding where the goalposts always were.

Which would be understandable given how much you've been highlighting the last few decades (or even less), prior to just suddenly expanding.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you're going to argue that the pace of technological development over the last 200 years or so hasn't been exponentially greater than most of human history prior to it, you're just objectively wrong.

Yes, change is incremental, technological advancement tends to be incremental (and isn't always progressively improved - sometimes mistakes are made or knowledge is lost, so backward steps occur). But the Industrial Revolution changed nearly every facet of human life in qualitative ways that has almost no parallel to any point in history other than the Agricultural Revolution (there's a reason why those two events tend to get lumped together).

Considering the Industrial Revolution began in the 1700s, you're going to have to move your goalposts back even further. Regardless, we're still talking increments. Virtually every technology has been refined over time and, in the cosmic scale of things, the majority of the most important innovations go back further than the past 200 years. And, more importantly, the development goes a lot further than tech especially society needed to change to enable those developments.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Someone from 700 AD France would have a much easier time adapting to the technologically-influenced behaviors of 1400 AD France (which would be much the same) than someone from 1800 AD Boston would have adapting to the behaviors of 2000 AD Boston.

Patently ridiculous, unless you were comparing peasantry to peasantry. However, if you are comparing peasantry to peasantry, then you'd have to acknowledge that some societies have only minimally changed in the past thousand years (primarily "untouched" civilizations). And the same is even true in poorer parts of developing nations. Hell, even in the US, there are places where people still rely on cisterns for water (and I'm not even talking about tribal lands)


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

And again, yes, there are some things that are general constants even through different periods, or elements which are more situational in one period than an overall marker of the entire period, but it's specious at best to try and argue that life in 2020 AD is exactly the same as life in 2020 BC.

About as specious as trying to argue that life in 2020 BC is the same as life in 6020 BC (because your little 200 years has somehow jumped to 4,000 years)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As much as I kind of like ridiculously over-the-top Luke Cage and Danny Rand in the comics, I don't have a strong attachment to Daredevil or Punisher, and Jessica Jones came along at a time when I was already out of comics, during a period I actively dislike, written by a writer I'm not entirely keen on, based on a premise I very much tend to hate (retroactively continuity).

I will admit that, prior to NF's DD, I had never given much of a shit about DD because his other appearances didn't thrill me. However, the show made me want to pick up a comic and use him in games. (And regret passing over some merch.)

In the case of IF, I used to actively dislike IF. Now I'm more ambivalent.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

So there's no real "OMG I LOVE THIS CHARACTER, I NEED TO SEE THE SHOW!" as a motivation pushing me to see it in spite of other negative influences.

On that subject, I'll admit that as much as I love Batman, I still can't bring myself to watch Beware the Batman >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not to me -

Of course not to you, you haven't seen it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And I'd even argue that we could question how much of a cultural touchstone GoT was, considering it never really topped 10 million views, which means at any given time the vast majority of the population never watched it (though that calls up a much more complicated discussion of exactly what cultural relevance IS and how it can be a thing at all if even the most successful things are only seen by less than 1% of 1% of the global population).

It seems like a near-universal thing at this point despite having the significant disadvantage of being on HBO. Sure, not everybody's seen it, but it's extremely ingrained within pop culture and -- especially at the moment -- you see tons of random references (including one that kinda came out of nowhere in Harley Quinn recently)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If people endlessly nattering on about Game of Thrones couldn't get me to watch the show after season 4, the fact that no one I know really talks about Daredevil/Jessica Jones at all certainly isn't going to help ITS case.

Sounds like I need to create a secret society whose sole intention is to play up the NFMCU Daredevil to you until you finally cave and witness its brilliance.

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RIP Ian Holm, who had proper nerd cred.

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Finally watched Fantastic Four (2015), which is up on D+ despite the fact the new Spidey movies aren't (probably because the rights to the Fantastic Four reverted to Disney and Sony sold whatever they had?). It's a movie I really didn't care about beforehand where the reviews also came in awful but, since it was on D+, I figured I'd watch it anyway.

It was... well, weird. Besides dialing back the ages, having some wonky casting, and once again giving us a powered Doom, the plot structure veered pretty sharpy from other superhero films. They spend an enormous amount of time on the set-up, we have a smaller amount of time with them acclimating to how they're changed, and then in the last quarter we actually have some new conflict. That and they couldn't give Ben pants. Why wouldn't they give the poor guy pants?

idk, I wouldn't have hated to see a sequel but it was a lackluster film and the franchise will be better off in Disney/Marvel's hands, although I'm not that keen on *another* reboot. The only consolation is maybe we can *finally* get a good live-action Doctor Doom (and, of course, I think I heard the Marvel film will feature Mole Man as the villain so it won't just be the FF vs Doom for the third (or technically fourth) time. And hopefully the next phase will culminate in Galactus or a Secret Wars type deal.

Speaking of D+, it's getting Hamilton in July. I've listed to the OBC countless times and I saw a recording of a performance, but I'm still pretty hyped.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

RIP Ian Holm, who had proper nerd cred.

tbh, when I saw the news, I didn't recognize the name but the photo was recognizable. As mentioned in the other Ian Holm topic, he's been in a *lot* of movies I've watched. I was pretty surprised. Dude had one hell of a career.

Some of his notable "Oh, that was him?" roles include:
-Simon, a rival arms dealer in Lord of War
-The doctor from The Madness of King George (been forever since I saw that)
-One of Napoleon's hench-pigs in Animal Farm

He was apparently even in The Aviator. (And the Fifth Element.)

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He was in Hamlet

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Zeus posted...

-Simon, a rival arms dealer in Lord of War

Lord of War is one of my favorite movies ever, and I probably thought of that one before any other.

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Yeah, I absolutely loved Lord of War so that one stuck out to me immediately. The intro and outro are incredible.

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Oh, and I just read the synopsis/summary for Fantastic Four on D+ which lists Doom in the second of its two sentences, setting him up as the film's threat when he barely appears. Really terribly structured film.

I'm also mildly tempted to give another chance to 2006's Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, which I remember being lousy from what I watched of it (and my boss at the time mentioning his disappointment)

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Doctor Sleep

I made the mistake of listening to the audio book before seeing the movie. The book actually managed to touch my feelings when I was in a hell of a depression.

The last about third of the movie can eat my entire phallus.

Fake Nicholson tho

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CyborgSage00x0 posted...

RIP Ian Holm, who had proper nerd cred.

Agreed. He was in several of my favorite movies, most notably Alien and The Fifth Element (and, of course, LOTR).

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Fake Nicholson tho

Not sure right now if this is serious or not. (Some people seem to really hate it actually.) But I mean I didn't hate that, true.

My problem isn't even just that it's different, it's that it felt to me like a generic movie ending and completely opposite of the book.

Iirc Dan fully did expect to die. But he didn't. He actually had a complete 'redemption arc' that wasn't some cliched self sacrifice thing. His dad even had a 'redemption arc' of sorts. They killed off Abra's dad and Billy for no reason in the movie too, other than an overdone feel punch/drama thing.

The book had layers of hope of a better tommorow to me, that no one is too far gone. The movie ending felt like a typical YA novel. The young super powerful girl takes the mantle. Down to it ending with Danny's/Dan's (using both names because she was for him as a kid and an adult I think) biggest external force personal nemesis. In the end, Dan's journey didn't feel as impactful or important to me, he just ended up feeling like fodder to show how special and important Abra is.

Yeah my GF said the ending was very different but I felt it kinda worked for the movie. The original movie was very different from the book as well.

I thought the visual effects (particularly the camera work in the MIND BATTLE scenes) were really good

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Yeah my GF said the ending was very different but I felt it kinda worked for the movie. The original movie was very different from the book as well.

I thought the visual effects (particularly the camera work in the MIND BATTLE scenes) were really good

I mean that's fair, to each their own. I think it's a typical movie ending, and I'd have been okay with it probably if I didn't know the book beforehand.

The visual effects were sick af. I'll definitely agree with you about them.

Idk the book was really personal to me, and the ending felt a little soulless compared. But that's just like my opinion, man.

I definitely like seeing people enjoy it. What do I get out of not enjoying it?

The weird thing is that The Dark Tower series got me through being homeless, but I didn't hate the movie. Probably because I didn't have expectations of it being anything like the books. I mean, it's a whole ass series. Tf were they thinking making one movie tbh? Idris Elba actually did a fair job as Roland imo, and Matthew McConaughey did a good Man in Black/Randal Flagg (especially thinking about the bar story and everything he did there). That was about all I could ask for.

Considering the clustermess that The Dark Tower movie is, it's a wonder I actually kinda like it. Brains are weird, idk.

I can totally see how the movie ending was pretty Hollywood. But I did feel that it worked with the way the story was told. Honestly a lot of Stephen King books have disappointing endings lol.

While I liked all of the homages to the original movie, I did feel like they went overboard with it by the end. Like every camera shot was saying "Hey guys, member?".

I'll post some opinions about the Dark Tower movie later (not all bad lol)

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Zeus posted...

Oh, and I just read the synopsis/summary for Fantastic Four on D+ which lists Doom in the second of its two sentences, setting him up as the film's threat when he barely appears. Really terribly structured film.

I'm also mildly tempted to give another chance to 2006's Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, which I remember being lousy from what I watched of it (and my boss at the time mentioning his disappointment)

Hopefully MCU reboots it.
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Zeus posted...

So comics when from being almost universally read to being almost universally scorned today because... other media exists? >_> Is that your hypothesis there?

Yes.

Though I'd disagree that they're "universally scorned", if only because that implies negativity. Whereas I'd argue that the modern attitude towards comics is more one of apathy more than anything else.



Zeus posted...

You don't think it had anything to do with an attack on the industry?

Not even remotely.

(and since you're not specifying WHAT attack you mean, I can only infer from your context that you mean the 1950s "Seduction of the Innocent" situation, which is going to be what most of my counter-stance is going to be based on)



Zeus posted...

With the implementation of a comics code that made comics less interesting?

Not even remotely. And this ties into the above - you're literally ignoring decades worth of context to argue a point that's objectively wrong.

The entirety of Marvel's history exists post-implementation of the Code. Some of the most popular boom periods of comic history took place after the Code. Most of the critically praised and popular stories came during the period when the Code applied. Almost the entirety of the current comic-book movie boom is based on a fanbase that only exists from the post-Code era.

And even if we accepted the (wrong) premise that the Code somehow handicapped the entire comic industry, the fact that the Code hasn't been implemented in any way for the last decade - and was pretty much defunct even for the 2-3 decades before that - sort of undercuts the idea. Marvel was already starting to find ways around it or ignored it outright (in the context of lines like Epic) in the late 70s, and dropped it entirely in 2000. Companies like Dark Horse, Image, Valiant, IDW, and Dynamite have never used it.

It's hard to even argue that the Code seriously crippled comics in the 50s. Did it hurt EC? Absolutely. But the popularity of "super hero" comics had already started to decline before the Code (and companies shifted their publishing to more popular and profitable horror comics, true crime comics, Western comics, romance comics, and later, sci-fi comics). The Code mostly only really impacted the horror and true crime genres, some of which simply shifted to "magazine comics" (to which the Code didn't apply). Which is why you got things like EC focusing on Mad magazine (and Marvel doing Tomb of Dracula, Conan, and similar titles as magazine releases in the 70s). The most popular comics of the era (like Archie and romance comics being relatively top of the heap) continued more or less completely unaffected.

Meanwhile, the birth of Marvel and the rebirth of DC in the Silver Age were both firmly within the bounds of the Code (and took place as the outgrowth - at least in Marvel's case - of the sci-fi/horror comics of the late 50s, which were ALSO Code-approved). And in spite of the names, the Silver Age (and later, the Bronze Age) was arguably more profitable and creatively productive than the Golden Age ever was. Nearly EVERYTHING we know about major comic characters or storylines today comes from the Silver Age (even characters like Superman, Batman, or Captain America that predate it were mostly redefined by it, and our modern perception of them is of their Silver Age or later versions, not their Golden Age originals).

What you're arguing is on par with saying the implementation of the Hays Code killed Hollywood.

The overall impact of the Comics Code has always been somewhat overstated (and the majority of its influence really only lasted for the first 10-15 years or so). And if anything, the collapse of the comic industry started after the Code was effectively insignificant.



Zeus posted...

There are no other cultural paradigms that might have taken hold which led people to both increasingly see it as a juvenile behavior and parents to not want their kids to read it?

As to the first part, I'm essentially arguing that the rise of different cultural paradigms IS the reason for the decline of comic sales - namely, the paradigms of other media. In a world where 24-hour a day kid's programming on TV/streaming services, video games, and things like YouTube videos aimed directly at kids (and hopefully curated via a parental app of some kind) exist and are easy and convenient alternatives, interest in reading comics wanes.

Why read comics about Spider-Man when I can watch about 3-4 different cartoons or a half-dozen movies based on him at any given time whenever I choose?

As to the second part, no. You're assuming that the only possible audience for comics is children (which wasn't even true at the height of the industry), or that parents are actively prohibiting children from reading them while kids actively want to, which I've seen zero evidence of, ever. This is the 2020s, not the 1950s. I don't think that case has been true for longer than most PotDers have actually been alive. It's more the case that kids don't care, so parents don't care.
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Zeus posted...

Problems within the industry itself?

See, now this is a complicated point. Though it's definitely worth noting that a lot of problems within the industry are themselves symptoms of the decline rather than causes of it.

For instance, part of youth apathy is due to a lack of availability of physical copies of comics (ie, where do you buy them)? But this is partly because comic stores in general have been bleeding out for the last few decades (declining comic sales mean stores can't afford to stay open), and partly because print media in general is declining (so "newsstand sales" die off as newsstands cease to be a thing). In some sense this becomes a vicious circle (lower sales => fewer places selling comics => lower sales => fewer places selling comics => etc), but this isn't the whole answer. Because comics are still available in multiple places (the book section of grocery stores and places like Wal-Mart, in places like Barnes & Noble, via digital distribution), yet sales continue to decline. And the cycle wouldn't necessarily have started in the first place if sales had remained steady, which in turn would have keep comic specialty shops alive - it was the falling sales that started the downward slide, not the reverse.

Most of the commonly cited "this is the thing that drove fans away from comics" moments were mostly prompted by publishers panicking over lost revenue. Prices started rising dramatically once there was a perception that casual fans were gone (meaning they needed to milk more out of hardcore fans). A reliance on overpushing successful characters to boost sales over a willingness to cultivate new ones is rooted in fear, because you can't afford the risk of failure (and loss of more fans). But all of that started because sales were already falling.

Which brings us to...



Zeus posted...

Pandering to outside groups who don't even read comics and being overly worried about looking offensive?

This is actually a symptom more than a cause (and ties into the above).

Essentially, the publishers pander because they're desperate to cultivate new fans. Their traditional fanbase continues to bleed out, so they're looking for fans in places they wouldn't necessarily have looked before. The hope is that by pandering to female readers or ethnic audiences, they can increase their numbers in those demographics, and this isn't necessarily a terrible idea. The problem is that their desperation combined with their ineptitude mostly leaves them pandering in ways that are ineffectual at best and borderline offensive at worst, so ultimately they don't cultivate new fans at all, and they accelerate the loss of fans they already have.

But that behavior is spurred by the fact that they're already fucked. They weren't perfectly fine, then started pandering, and suddenly can't figure out why everything's gone to shit. The pandering is just the latest in a long line of panicked attempts to bail out a sinking boat when you aren't able to figure out how to patch the holes.

There's evidence that added diversity CAN succeed - if the diversity character is well-written and interesting in its own right, and not just pandering for the sake of pandering. Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel succeeded both critically and saleswise in ways that Carol Danvers Captain Marvel didn't. Miles Morales has been relatively well-received. Spider-Gwen was almost immediately popular even with existing fans. Even earlier attempts to diversify like Jaime Reyes were fairly well-received (though Jaime likely would have been even better received if they didn't kill off Ted Kord to steal the existing name/legacy rather than simply launch him as a new character of his own).

The biggest backlash mainly seems to be when they pull stuff like they did with Thor, where they shoehorned in a female Thor in a very poorly-written fashion, then threw SJW tantrums when anyone complained (because that is obviously the best possible way to win fans over).

But again, this is less editors or writers trying to push an agenda and losing fans because of it, it's much more a case of them desperately trying to throw things at the wall and hope some of it will stick. SJWs on Twitter and Tumblr are a very vocal minority, so there can be a perception that they have buying power and should be appealed to - the problem is that they almost never put their money where their mouth is, and catering to them is more likely to create future criticism from them more than it will increased sales (they very much embody the "eat their own" mentality). If comic sales were healthy in the first place, there would be no perception of a need to pander to them at all.
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Bought the Doug TenNapel Bigfoot Bill stuff on Indiegogo. Missed out on Earthworm Jim one awhile back because of no money. Waiting for him to rerelease it.
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When did being a man mean that anytime that a woman rejects you that instead of moving on, learning and growing from the experience, and trying again, with knowledge and experience, so that your can meet the right person; morph into, "All women are trash, and F those B's."

In the context of gaming this hate culture has bled into review bombs of The Last of Us 2. "Oh Ellie, a fictional character has a sexual preference that isn't mainstream." How the hell does that effect you at all? More importantly how does it make you so angry that you trash a game you haven't played, and no possible way you could have finished before it was released?

Has our male ego come to this? I'm ranting because it's just so dumb, and makes me hate humanity even more.

Hell, we ruined staying at home in the digital age. We literally couldn't sit on our couches, play video games, watch television, order any food under the sun, and enjoy the a.c. in the summer. We couldn't even do that, and now we hate fiction characters because they digital reject you.

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

There was a time when I would have laughed at you for suggesting that cats are better than people, but man... screw humanity, and give me more cats and dogs. I like my cats more than people. I come home and Beerus jumps on me, gives me head rubs, and is happy to see me. I didn't bring him anything, I didn't feed him extra food. He's just happy I'm there. He's happy I exist. Batman is the same for my wife. Then I get on the internet, and sadness and anger.

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We're still making progress Wave, is all I can really say. Yeah, the whole TLoU2 thing is ugly, but at the same time I don't recall people losing their shit over DQ11's Sylvando being an openly, flamboyantly gay character. Maybe it's different with TLoU2 because with the lockdowns, a great many people are just losing their damned minds in general. Maybe TLoU2 hits a different demographic. Maybe with so many people out of work shitty people just have more energy to devote to being shitty.

It's hard to say. There's no real baseline for this crazy timeline to use as a comparison. With everything else going on out there, there's a lot of fear and uncertainty. Fear leads to anger, etc.

We just keep moving and do our best to stay sane in an insane world.

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TLoU2 might actually be different because is written differently in more ways that I care to write about. With DQXI, it's shrugged off because Sylvando is another flamboyant character that is to be expected, doubly so since he works as a performer. I think the complaint, at least for some people, is less to do with homosexuality in general, and how seemingly violent, stupid, and out of nowhere one scene is that has led to a three-piece meme.

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Entity13 posted...

and how seemingly violent, stupid, and out of nowhere one scene is that has led to a three-piece meme.

This is what "stunning and brave" gets us...

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The Wave Master posted...

There was a time when I would have laughed at you for suggesting that cats are better than people, but man... screw humanity, and give me more cats and dogs. I like my cats more than people. I come home and Beerus jumps on me, gives me head rubs, and is happy to see me. I didn't bring him anything, I didn't feed him extra food. He's just happy I'm there. He's happy I exist. Batman is the same for my wife. Then I get on the internet, and sadness and anger.

Welcome to the cat side, we have kitty snugs.

Woke up with 2 myself. (Lilith on my chest and Magic beside me.)

Bleh, disgusting cat people.

Dogs or nothing! ~sets fire to topic~ Purge the unclean!
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PO's jealous because his super villainy isn't adorable or endearing like cats. =^.^=

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Entity13 posted...

I think the complaint, at least for some people, is less to do with homosexuality in general, and how seemingly violent, stupid, and out of nowhere one scene is that has led to a three-piece meme.

I'm sure that's the case /sarcasm

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Entity13 posted...

PO's jealous because his super villainy isn't adorable or endearing like cats. =^.^=

I mean the fact that they're amazing predators and absolute murder machines (overall, I've seen some with zero hunt drive) and are still so adorable is actually kind of amazing/interesting.

I like both cats and dogs. The difference is, I've seldom met a cat I didn't like (unless it's the psycho kin that attacks the hell out of you), whereas there's plenty of dogs that are annoying, even when(or because of them) trying to act cute.

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Reviewing something before finishing it isn't anything new. With the exception of maybe movies.
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I think the problem a lot ofnpeiple have with The Last of Us 2 is...Thefact that the game is very violent, and you have to kill every thing, including dogs.

From what I understand as I haven't had a chance to play the game myself, because my nieces jacked my copy of TLOU 2, the violence serves a point, but i won't know until I finish the game.

In the meantime I'm playing Breath of Fire III on my Playstation Vita. Until they finish the game I'm playing it and having a good time.

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The Wave Master posted...

I think the problem a lot ofnpeiple have with The Last of Us 2 is...Thefact that the game is very violent, and you have to kill every thing, including dogs.

From what I understand as I haven't had a chance to play the game myself, because my nieces jacked my copy of TLOU 2, the violence serves a point, but i won't know until I finish the game.

In the meantime I'm playing Breath of Fire III on my Playstation Vita. Until they finish the game I'm playing it and having a good time.

I have heard complaints basically saying it's the equivalent of moral jerking off while cramming it full of violence at the same time. IDK, I didn't play the first so not playing the second tbh.

The first one never interested me enough to pick it up, story-wise or in terms of gameplay, so I had no intent on getting the second game. From what I understand, the main complaint is people don't like HOW things were written, like as though they hired on a talentless hack with a holier than though attitude. After Googling, I'm not finding that a certain attention seeker and fitting shoe actually had anything to do with the game's development, so... I dunno what to tell you, other than the fact that I've seen the two scenes (sex scene and ending) and can't bring myself to care about the subject of TLoU2 any further.


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Entity13 posted...

From what I understand, the main complaint is people don't like HOW things were written, like as though they hired on a talentless hack with a holier than though attitude

That's ridiculous TBH

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We do need to talk about how cats are superior to dogs. I don't have to interrupt my gaming, movie r television watching, or just relaxing to take the dog out for his or her bathroom break.

I just clean the liter box every other day, and boom, no issues. Cats also don't bark and annoy you while sleeping. My cats don't make a noise at all while we are sleeping. Plus the cats don't eat my food or beg for my food while I'm eating.

Finally, after watching every episode of Forensic Files ever; the dog hair DNA has convicted the criminal at least 5 times when no other evidence was available. Again cats, once, and they had to invent a whole new DNA technique.

Now before you say that dogs are loyal and protect the home, I say a shotgun and an alarm system, which decreased your insurance cost, do the same thing.

Overall, it is clear that cats are betyer than dogs.

P.S. cats kill and eat bugs and insects in your house.

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One of my two cats likes to sit behind my head on top of my computer chair as I type on this laptop ... or, at least, she used to do that, but she got a little too fat, so now I have to chase her around the apartment and get her to exercise more.

As far as as geek activities go, I am almost done with the D&D cartoon, so I have also started on Challenge of the Go-Bots and M.A.S.K. The M.A.S.K. DVD set is ... of dubious origin, and the video quality sucks, but I still enjoy the show. Go-Bots is better than I remember, and the remaster helps.

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One of my cats is a total asshole and a troublemaker and annoys me when I'm trying to sleep all the time soooo

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The Wave Master posted...

We do need to talk about how cats are superior to dogs.

We don't, because your premise is flawed and morally wrong.

Dogs are "Man's Best Friend", cats are "Nature's Four-Legged Assholes", this is science. The fact that the Internet has such a massive hard-on for cats is just more proof of the downfall of modern society.
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Ferrets are better than cats but not as good as dogs

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I'm definitely crazy cat man and I wouldn't say either is objectively superior. Just subjectively, depending on the person.

Dogs don't like me or don't like me as much as cats do. Unless you think a decent chance of me being mauled is superior, dogs are not superior in my case.

Other people don't gel with cats, so cats aren't superior for their situation.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Though I'd disagree that they're "universally scorned", if only because that implies negativity. Whereas I'd argue that the modern attitude towards comics is more one of apathy more than anything else.

It's viewed as a juvenile/deviant hobby where it was once very mainstream. And there are negative connotations associated with the hobby.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

(and since you're not specifying WHAT attack you mean, I can only infer from your context that you mean the 1950s "Seduction of the Innocent" situation, which is going to be what most of my counter-stance is going to be based on)

It was certainly a rallying cry for parents' groups and "concerned citizens"

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's hard to even argue that the Code seriously crippled comics in the 50s. Did it hurt EC? Absolutely. But the popularity of "super hero" comics had already started to decline before the Code (and companies shifted their publishing to more popular and profitable horror comics, true crime comics, Western comics, romance comics, and later, sci-fi comics). The Code mostly only really impacted the horror and true crime genres, some of which simply shifted to "magazine comics" (to which the Code didn't apply). Which is why you got things like EC focusing on Mad magazine (and Marvel doing Tomb of Dracula, Conan, and similar titles as magazine releases in the 70s). The most popular comics of the era (like Archie and romance comics being relatively top of the heap) continued more or less completely unaffected.

And before you had the code, you already had the backlash. And the death of horror comics and other adult-themed comics represented a cultural watershed that ultimately stigmatized comics on the whole. It wasn't just one thing that reduced American comics to their current state.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The overall impact of the Comics Code has always been somewhat overstated (and the majority of its influence really only lasted for the first 10-15 years or so). And if anything, the collapse of the comic industry started after the Code was effectively insignificant.

...because adherence to the code's concepts had done its damage where cultural appreciation was concerned.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As to the first part, I'm essentially arguing that the rise of different cultural paradigms IS the reason for the decline of comic sales - namely, the paradigms of other media. In a world where 24-hour a day kid's programming on TV/streaming services, video games, and things like YouTube videos aimed directly at kids (and hopefully curated via a parental app of some kind) exist and are easy and convenient alternatives, interest in reading comics wanes.

You mean you're using the same verbiage to describe different things, particularly solely attributing the failure to external factors rather than acknowledging comics' role in comics' decline (or more specifically, challenges to the industry itself rather than competition with external media... although later on you had the issues with the inmates running the asylum (as well as other people being put into place who have no business being there), leading to countless terrible choices... as well as the collectibles boom&bust)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As to the second part, no. You're assuming that the only possible audience for comics is children (which wasn't even true at the height of the industry), or that parents are actively prohibiting children from reading them while kids actively want to, which I've seen zero evidence of, ever. This is the 2020s, not the 1950s. I don't think that case has been true for longer than most PotDers have actually been alive. It's more the case that kids don't care, so parents don't care.

No, I've repeatedly pointed out that at the height of the industry, it was absurdly well-read across many age groups. However, the backlash, censorship, and comics code doomed it to a predominantly-juvenile pastime. And even after the direct pressures toned down, the stigma remained.


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Watched a pretty neat Transformers line origin video. It covered some stuff I knew to some extent, while going over some additional factoids (like an alternate cartoon that never hit development)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnXeUb9YmA

I've seen a bunch of his other Transformers videos, usually focusing on specific bots. It's kinda neat stuff. At some point or another, I might go on another Transformers kick.

The Wave Master posted...

When did being a man mean that anytime that a woman rejects you that instead of moving on, learning and growing from the experience, and trying again, with knowledge and experience, so that your can meet the right person; morph into, "All women are trash, and F those B's."

Because people should just get over things that upset them? If humans were capable of readily overcoming emotion, they wouldn't have much in the way of emotion in the first place. As for men AND women not taking rejection well, that dates back to the beginning of humankind.

The Wave Master posted...

"Oh Ellie, a fictional character has a sexual preference that isn't mainstream."

What IS her preference at this point? I thought they'd written her gay because her VA & namesake is gay. When you say "not mainstream," I'm suddenly thinking you mean something really fringe.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Bleh, disgusting cat people.

Dogs or nothing! ~sets fire to topic~ Purge the unclean!

Cat people rule and dog people drool!

By the way, cats have an easier time escaping burning structures than dogs.

The Wave Master posted...

We do need to talk about how cats are superior to dogs.

Do we, though? It feels that we can just hold that truth to be self-evident.

Although we could get into why cat owners are morally superior to dog owners =p

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Male dogs pee on everything.
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