my friend's discord server has a "proof of touch grass" channel where they post pics of them doing regular activities outdoors/in public. i think many online spaces could benefit from such a thing
when i was super depressed - like struggling to eat anything barely able to get out of bed to pee depressed - my good friend asked me every day to send her a picture of me holding a leaf and a picture of a meal i was eating and it helped me significantly
(also, she was never judgey - if my meal was a single potato chip she would simply say good job eating a potato chip today <3 )
which is to say, i agree proof of touch grass is a good idea for online spaces
Oh, i remember this! No truck fucking, but also hard to explain...?
Basically, a lot of truckers feel VERY attached to their trucks, to the point where it's common for truckers to refer to them as their "first baby".
So, knowing this, this trucker's wife organised a photoshoot where her husband's "first baby" got to meet his "second baby". Kind of like those pregnancy photoshoots with dogs?
He thought it was great, and they shared it on social media trucker groups. In a turn i would not expect, a lot of other truckers got really emotional about it. Like, grown men cooing over a stranger's pregnancy photoshoot, going to their wives and asking if they can do something similar 🥺🥺🥺. All in all, strangely wholesome???
I don't think adult humans get enough cuddles and I am so serious.
You look at almost any other species of mammal and they give each other physical affection all the time, but for some reason we've decided that physical affection when you're an adult should be exclusively romantic and to want frequent physical affection from your friends or family is strange or sus or a sign you actually view them romantically, and this can't be good for us I don't think.
Of course it can, and performance art is art, but I feel like it's important to know that the art being eaten was a series of AI generated images reflecting the artist's experience of AI psychosis and commenting on the way that AI use changes the users' interactions with the world. The images were generated by someone who has been using image generation tools in their art since 2017 and who was educated as an artist using traditional techniques.
The piece that the protester ate was made by an MFA student and wasn't an attempt to "pass off" generated images themselves as art, the art was the presentation of the images and their sequence and variety (there's an element of obsessive iteration visible even in the remaining images - an empty room, the same room with different light, the same room with a smiling woman on the bed, the same woman standing in different poses, which speaks to me of someone furiously attempting to construct a comforting reality and finding the tools in your hands inadequate, but that's just my interpretation of what remains).
For the record, Nick Dwyer was the MFA student whose art was eaten. "The intersection of art and AI" is a huge theme in his work.
Like. He made a ceramic sculpture of an AI girlfriend, then generated an AI image of the sculpture and called them one and two in a series.
He made ceramic "phones" and inscribed them with cuniform and ai image hieroglyphics that he carved into the clay.
I've talked a lot about how I think that AI has a place in the creation of art and I think Dwyer's work is genuinely a perfect example of someone using AI to create art.
Again, I also think that performance art is art and eating a portion of the gallery piece is certainly an interesting statement, but I wonder if the protestor would be as outraged by the ceramic phones with AI images engraved on them. How much human touch or human intention does "slop" need before it's art, or is it fruit of the poisoned tree and must always be considered slop because AI was part of the process?
I feel it's also important to note that Granger has been released and Dwyer has said in a reddit comment that he's not interested in pressing charges or seeing the other student prosecuted for this.
my partner and i have become fixated on this stupid comment left by a conspiracy theorist on instagram and we can't stop saying it and i just know i'm gonna slip up and say it to a normal person
Two new reports from the United Nations pointed to huge milestones in renewable energy sectors.
"Fifteen years ago, solar power was nearly four times the cost of fossil fuel alternatives.
For context, 2010 was back when the iPad was first released, Instagram was launched, and “TiK ToK” by Kesha was the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Needless to say, a lot can change in 15 years — including the affordability of solar power.
According to two new United Nations reports, renewable energy has passed a “positive tipping point,” and solar power is now 41% cheaper than fossil fuels.
“The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech on July 22, as the reports were released. “We are in the dawn of a new energy era. An era where cheap, clean, abundant energy powers a world rich in economic opportunity.”
“The sun is rising on a clean energy age. Just follow the money,” Guterres said frankly, pointing to the figures in the reports which found that green energy outpaced fossil fuel investments by $800 billion in 2024 alone.
Last year is evidence of a decade-long trend towards renewable energy — despite federal attempts to slash it under Trump’s second presidency.
“The year 2015 marked a turning point in global climate governance, with the adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement at COP21,” One report, titled “Seizing the moment of opportunity” said, in reference to the promise 195 countries pledged to hold the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
“The cost of utility-scale solar PV has fallen by 80–90% each decade since 1960, whereas the costs of fossil fuels are highly volatile and show no long-term decrease,” it continued.
“New solar PV has been undercutting new coal- and gas-fired power plants in most of the world for six years, and the gap in their average lifetime electricity generation costs continues to widen in favour of solar. Meanwhile, global manufacturing capacity of renewable energy technologies is outstripping demand: Announced solar PV and battery projects can already cover the global deployment needs of the tripling renewable capacity by 2030 goal.”
For example, the report noted, electric vehicles are up from 500,000 to 17 million since 2015.
Other astounding figures from the UN reports stated a 74% growth in electricity generated globally from wind, solar, and other green sources — just in the last year.
And 92.5% of all new electricity capacity added to the grid worldwide came from renewables in the same time frame.
“Countries that cling to fossil fuels are not protecting their economies, they are sabotaging them,” Guterres said in his speech, pointing to countries like China, India, and the United States, which still rely heavily on coal, oil, and natural gas.
“[They’re] driving up costs, undermining competitiveness, locking in stranded assets.”
Guterres’ impassioned speech came to a head as he said that there is security in renewable energy.
“There are no price spikes for sunlight,” he said. “No embargoes on wind.”
“This is not inevitable. We have the tools, the instruments, the capacity to change course,” Guterres said. “There are reasons to be hopeful.”"
I think Markiplier is one of the few major social media personalities who actually deserves his audience. Seeing him crying over the overwhelming support for Iron Lung, a project he personally poured heart, and soul, and love into is just such a nice change from the "Mr Beast-ification" that seems to have taken over a large chunk of the internet. He's said before he has more money than he knows what to do with and I'm so, so glad that he's putting it to good use.
Since Markiplier is the husband of an Atiny and has sung Ateez during one of his videos before, I'm just gonna drop this here and say:
This man made a whole-ass movie based on an indie horror game, brought in the original creator of the game to assist in script writing, brought in the original video game soundtrack composer to create the movie score, funded the project by himself, brought in his own crew he's worked with on all his previous large-scale filming projects, and built a goddamn render farm in his own bathroom because he edited the entire movie by himself and needed custom cooling after his AC blew up.
On top of that, he also halted production while the SAG-AFTRA strike was going on to show support, turned down a role in 'Five Nights at Freddy's' so he could keep working on this project, and broke the world record for most fake blood ever used on a movie set, beating out 'Evil Dead' which used 190,000 liters - and he even got so much of it into his eye that it got him sent to the hospital during the shooting of this first teaser:
And now, as someone who's been a fan of this guy for over a decade, I can tell you he really, really doesn't know how to half-ass shit, which is why I know this movie will be fucking incredible, and now that tickets are finally on sale with the release of the final trailer, I better be seeing them selling out like crazy so we can get international screenings, because I DIDN'T WAIT TWO WHOLE FUCKING YEARS FOR THIS, JUST SO I CAN'T WATCH IT IN A GODDAMN THEATER!
I also think choosing the line "I just wanna live... is that so wrong? Why doesn't anybody else want that?" is a really gut-wrenching way to end a horror movie trailer and says a lot about where this movie's focus will lie - fear, isolation, a desperate need for survival, and honestly, that's the direction I was really hoping this would go in.
First off I want to say that I'm so proud of Mark, of Amy, of the whole crew, but especially Mark because holy fuck was that amazing. I was so immersed and caught up in the world and I knew I was going to be because he's an amazing storyteller but holy fuck he knocked it out of the park.
My inner media studies freak was having a grand ol' time with everything. No spoilers (those are under the cut) but the whole build and release of tension as the story unfolds??? Masterful. I was worried (a lil bit) about how he'd flesh out the lore because obv the characters in the movie don't need the lore dumps from the computer the way the player does in the game but he knocked it out of the park. There were so many little touches that made it feel so human and real and grounded even in an ocean of blood. I loved the way he took the plot of the game (or lack thereof) and made it a full movie.
ALSO the effects? In. Sane. Some made me a lil nauseous, I will admit, but oh my god were they incredible. There's one moment (or a series of moments) in particular where I literally had the 'oh no my mortal eyes are not meant to witness this' (which was the point) but they were done SO WELL
All in all? 10/10. So glad I saw it in theaters, especially after hearing Mark talk about how much work he and the team put in to making it ready for theatrical release.
SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT I REPEAT SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT PROCEED WITH CAUTION YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED REACHING CRUISING DEPTH IN 2 MINUTES
okay first off simon's little notes? on the map? adorable. i love how HUMAN simon is through the whole thing, asking names, giving the engine a little pat-pat when it turns back on, UGH i love him protect him get him the fuck OUT of there
the rivalry/hostility between the coi and eden was also really well done. i wasn't sure how much mark was gonna use/lean into that but i LOVED having simon be from eden and there for the filament station disaster--him finding the note from the previous convict? calling him 'brother' when he heard the recording of the note you find in the game???? the pendant he wore on his arm and how it was the thing keeping him TETHERED for better or for worse??????? oh my god it was so fucking good. the way that filament station haunts the narrative, the questions/reveals we get about simon's life, his own ghosts and regrets, the questions about life and death...
the shots. oh my fucking god the shots. those shots in the beginning where the porthole is almost like a halo for simon??? the part where he's begging for the voices over the radio to be real and he moves so his shoulder blocks the indicator light so we can't see if it's on or not??? the dutch angle when the first drop of blood hits his hand to immediately signify something's wrong??? the shot of ava looking through the blood with her damaged eye and it perfectly parallels the massive eye looming out of the blood later in the movie???? the CRACK in the porthole looking like a tree and the pendant from eden cracking in the same way??? again i knew they were gonna be on it but holy FUCK were they on it.
and simon was smart. thank god simon was smart. he drew the map when he didn't have it--which i didn't even realize the map wasn't the complete one you see in game until he started drawing the rest of it!!! he used the binder to hold the lever forwards so he could keep moving. he used the camera as a source of light. he spat on the indicator to make it light up. at no point was i like NO YOU IDIOT and that's what makes horror SCARY.
i also loved how the movie paralleled the game in interesting ways!!! simon goes down once, gets pulled back up, goes down again to get more info, mirroring how there was a massive lore update to the game that included the computer on the ship and all the logs and entries about the worldbuilding. the part where the tether snapped and he got dropped into the weird cave was at the farthest node where normally you get the jumpscare and it's game over. the wibbly wobbly node being the blood portal to the blood dimension where the blood god stares into simon's soul and they recognize each other because we're all just blood--sorry.
and then the science!!! yeah every time you use the camera it's raditation--and GOD that picture in the space ship is terrifying--and so simon's slowly being irradiated over the course of the movie so who knows what's really happening. the hallucinations, the voices, the contaminated human blood. the black box log from the sm8 was HAUNTING. and the blood taking on such a life of its own with rather...disarming consequences, yes that ending sequence will haunt me too.
the whole debate between what's worth life and what isn't. simon so determined to live for so so long and you as a viewer go back and forth with him the whole time and he just wants to live and then the ENDING where he straps the life jacket to the black box and it's bigger than me and THIS POOR MAN. mark's an incredible actor and goddamn does this movie showcase it.
this movie is so goddamn good. it's good as a video game adaptation, it's good as an idie horror film, it's good as a markiplier story. it's truly so so so good and my entire hat off to mark for working so hard to make it a reality.
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