Why did we ever stop wearing 18th century clothing
to wear 19th century clothing you Georgian rake
The vampires are fighting
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@autisticraptor
Why did we ever stop wearing 18th century clothing
to wear 19th century clothing you Georgian rake
The vampires are fighting
can’t stop picking my lip :o)
Once you stop trying to entertain this imaginary audience and start living for yourself things should get a bit better
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_audience
this is a developmental stage of adolescents
do you think that social media is keeping larger numbers of us in a state of arrested development?
this is rhetorical – since clearly a lot of people find this sentiment relateable
the truly painful fact is that the internet provides an opportunity to craft a “personal fable” for everyone; it is now both highly personal and highly anonymized. you are a brand in a sea of brands.
adolescents are self-conscious because of an “imaginary audience,” something that was, in the 1960s, a false concept. but today, if you use social media regularly, you actually do have an audience. what is the effect of this? probably drags the brain more into self-conscious ego-centrism; makes people more susceptible to trends; maybe this is what makes “internet discourse” so vile, because it’s so terribly egocentric + responsive to its own audience.
unfortunately there’s no way to undo what’s already been done. the cat’s out of the box, the porridge has been stirred, the universe tends towards entropy. it will be interesting to see how these machines shape our brains, and how future generations might resist the lure of audiences and fables
This relates to my discussion on living a ‘symbolic’ life as opposed to a ‘naturalistic’ one. The symbolic life is a somewhat trance-like state where the individual is hyper-focussed on some form of interior ‘identity’ and seeks to accumulate symbols in their life that validate that identity in order to generate meaning and narrative sense/structure in a life that, if lived ‘authentically’, would feel deeply confusing. The identity is very much ‘real’ in the sense that any identity is real, but the symbolic identity generates incredibly powerful feelings that allow it to be a perfect substitute for living in the natural world - to feel ‘more real than real’. People, places and activities are not ‘good’ in their own right but rather because they fulfil symbolic meaning, and without the symbols life can feel genuinely hollow and meaningless.
This state is sought after due to a desire to escape from trauma, but it is fueled by a powerful cultural lexicon of ‘aesthetics’ which are easily accessible due to internet access and a childhood of heavy media consumption. Nostalgia is a form of symbolic life, where millenials are buying super mario merch not because their current selves actually feel any genuine fondness for the characters or even play the games, but rather because they wish to hold onto that symbolic child-like state.
A symptom of the symbolic life can be a form of arrested development already - like age-regressors and otherwise emotionally immature people who cling to nostalgic symbols. But nothing is more fuel to the symbolic fire than the imagined audience - something that the youth is being primed into having due it no longer being imagined but now being literal. It must be said here that the symbolic life is deeply performative (and consumer-based) as much as it is deeply personal. It’s much more easy to live your symbolic life when you can get everyone else to play along (as long as they’re not privvy to how much they’re being used as pawns), and the easiest way to do that is via performance which is via consumption. And in a social structure where everyone is trying on ‘aesthetics’ to fit in and documenting that publicly, the social pressure piles on and we’re all collectively encouraging each other that living symbolically is the only way to live. So it’s a double whammy - the imagined audience that sustain the legitimacy of your symbolic life are now also the literal people who are directly encouraging you that your symbolic life is the true version of you!
I also want a make a note that a perfect priming tool for a symbolic life is spending a lot of the time interacting with ‘the world’ through a screen, thereby increasing its legitimacy and decreasing the legitimacy of the naturalistic world. I’ve started to notice that if I re-evaluate my laptop and phone as nothing more than big fancy books, their influence starts to slip away somewhat, and touching the fabric of my bedsheets has a different emotional quality, in a sort of emotional version of re-focussing my eyes.
What we have is a world where people are encouraged to think that ‘real life’ is via the screen and everything else we do is just sort of flavour; our physical bodies only making sense in the context that we use them to type messages to other people. And in some sense, yes, the ‘whole world’ is available through the screen, in frankly a dizzying capacity - I can learn a whole lot more and interact with a whole lot more of people via my digital life, but it’s important to remember that the human experience is primarily tactile before anything else. Our words and our big thinky brains are only part of the picture, and the majority of the time the people I’m speaking to online are not friends who care about me as a flawed individual but rather a literal audience. It is only the people in my natural life who will be able to love me in much more physical terms - body language, hugs, gentle touches of affection.
There was a post I saw a while back by someone commenting on ASMR and how online videos have gotten a lot more ‘sensory’ and I believe that the phenomenon of these videos also relates to how we’re using symbolic sensory stimuli to substitute real tactile feeling.
I do not think all is lost, although I am very nervous about our children being primed for living a symbolic life judged by an imaginary audience. It’s much easier to break away from the symbolic life when you can remember the ‘before times’, and I’m fortunate that in my teens I have many fond memories of merely existing in my room, seeing the light come in through the curtains, and being otherwise wholly ‘present’ in the moment. Mindfulness is indeed a great way to break the trance, but if you don’t believe it’s worth it - after all, what’s the point of doing things if other people can’t see them? - then it’s much, much harder to break the spell.
🚂 Choo choo 🚂
🎄Chrismas shop reminder!🎄
Besties if you want something from my shop in time for Christmas I strongly suggest ordering this week! Cos it takes me a while to get through all the orders, and the post is slow and can take up to 3 weeks this time of year xxx
https://emilyscartoons.myshopify.com/
My adaptation of the God of Arepo short story, which was originally up at ShortBox Comics Fair for charity. You can get a copy of the DRM-free ebook here for free - and I'd encourage you to donate to Mighty Writers or The Ministry of Stories in exchange.
Again it's an honour to be drawing one of my favourite short stories ever. Thank you so much for the original authors for creating this story; and for everyone who bought a copy and donated to the above non-profits.
I said I'd learn French if France gave us douze point thinking it would never happen but.. Mmm
DUCK
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Star Trek: Voyager - Someone To Watch Over Me
Snow Dragon by jellycat (medium) x
bros!
a bunch of sharks remembering that they left the oven on at home
timelapse video:
Atlantis: The Lost Empire 2001, dir. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies
Fully aware I probably already made this exact post at some point...
...but GOD. Look at them. Just the way Ava lays on Sara and then after a moment closes her eyes.
Like she's trying to just take in the sound of her voice, breathe her in, feel Sara's cheek against her forehead, or just finally rest without the constant heartache of not having her.
I know it cuts right to them going to find the team, but I have to imagine that was hours later, after they'd just laid quietly, taken a shower to get the grime off Sara's face and stood under the hot water together until it got cold.