#metaculture

[kanralovesu]

Re:Zero and the Invasion of its Meta-culture

When the new season of Re:Zero started up I found myself in a weird position: despite undoubtedly being a fan 4 years ago when it originally aired I didn’t want more Re:Zero. I didn’t even like the original ending so while I told myself it was better “left compete”, surely I’d be scrambling for to let Rem have another chance at the man she doesn’t deserve? Knowing it was based on a Light Novel I knew their was good material not adapted, so why? How did I go from being a fan to not wanting a sequel? Well my answer came when watching Geoff Thew’s latest Re:Zero Animelee where he analyzed the fight between Subaru and Betelgeuse: I didn’t dislike Re:Zero, I disliked its Meta-culture and that Zeitgeist had supplanted any actual content of the show.

So what do I mean by that? Well for 4 years we haven’t been treated to a sequel, but many of us fans, including myself, had effectively opted in to constant bombardment of Re:Zero and its characters: memes, fanart, and more.Because we’ve been so long removed from the actual content of the show, that this is what the Re:Zero Cultural Zeitgeist, had become for me. “Rem Best Girl” “Who’s Rem?” and more toxic memes like “Felix is a trap!”. The 1000 fanarts of the Rem and Emilia in slightly different poses and variable amounts of clothing. This had become what Re:Zero was in my mind and I didn’t want more of it. It didn’t help that this was happening to Konosuba, another one of my favorite shows but one deeply similar to Re:Zero in a lot of ways (they take different genre approaches to the same subversion of isekai tropes). For Konosuba things were even worse, the character of Kazuma transforming into a symbol for hating women thinly disguised as “gender equality”, a phrase taken from a single fucking joke from the series. I’ve been in general coming to the realization lately that the meta-culture surrounding anime as a whole is half lazy and half actively harmful so when I was inexplicably thinking of Re:Zero as just its meta-culture I started to think of it as lazy and harmful. 

But here’s the thing, as Geoff Thew’s video showed me, the actual content of Re:Zero is fucking amazing. Certain aspects of it may have been corrupted but its still an enjoyable piece of media, in fact that’s almost a requirement for something having such a prevalent meta-culture. So, yeah, there’s a pretty easy solution to my problem: Rewatch Re:Zero so I can remember what its really is, because what it really is is kinda fucking cool.

[aca-ham]

Best. Feedback. Ever.

I was going to go to bed, but I saw I had an e-mail from my chair with feedback on a dissertation chapter. I opened it and saw the best sentence I have ever received (at least academically): “So far this is a strong chapter and I have no major revision recommendations.” I’m surprised my squee didn’t wake my hubby up. I have a feeling the feedback for the rest of the chapter will be similar.…

Best. Feedback. Ever.

[anthonihalibutshark]

Mirror

Superhero universe. I like making Big Bad Villains who have insane abilities. Blue guy is not my oc, but a friend’s.

[aca-glam]

Trying to find focus

I have had an idea for an article for a bit now, but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how to frame everything. Don't mind the ramble as I try to get some focus.

My main argument is that the real product of American Idol is not the artists, but their audience. Most of the people who end up as finalists in the competition are at least talented singers trying to become recording artists or artists who are trying to break into the industry. Adam is definitely the latter. Lil Rounds is an example of the former.

I just can't figure out how to go from there.

Most of it is the fact that the audience, not the judges, are the ones who decide who continues and who goes home. But so much of the results of that vote depends on who is voting. And I wasn't watching at the time, so I don't know how I would have voted. I think I would have voted for Adam because he was consistent and was doing rock, which is my preference. I probably would have also voted for Allison because she was just as awesome as Adam and she was so young to be pulling it off.

But I know part of what I need to talk about is how the show works and what it does and doesn't do for the artists. It's clear that they have freedom to do what they want, within the boundaries of budget, rights, and network television standards, which leaves them a lot of room. Also, since they're being prepared to become recording artists, working within a budget and the expectations of the audience isn't a bad thing to learn.

Outside of that, what song they choose, the arrangement, the performance, how they connect with the audiences--in studio and at home--is all up to them. Everyone on Idol knew Adam was gay, but he never said it on the show. No one pressured him to go either way with that. He's said he used some of his own wardrobe for performances. There's a lot of evidence for that, but how do I tie it into my argument? Right now I'm just thinking that it ties in because the finalists are showing the artist they are. Really, their weekly performances are like teasers for their eventual tour.

Something the tour after the show does even more. Just wating Adam's performances on the tour show us what he'll be like on a solo tour. Hmm. I hadn't thought about the live tour... He goes even more glam on the Idol tour and is more sexual and explicit as well. You can tell he was holding back a little in his performances on the show because it was network television, which he tends to do on performances for network television (AMAs not included). I may have to see if I can find clips of other contestants perfomring, epecially those cut before the top 5, to see how their tour persona differs from their TV persona.

The thing that keeps tripping me up are the judges. I know that I need to address their role in the show, but I'm not sure how they fit into the whole forming an audience argument. One week they loved Matt G and he ended up in the bottom 3, and I agreed with them that he shouldn't have been there. The next week they critiqued him across the board and he was safe. The judges' opinions and critiqes are a part of the show, but their influence on the audience is something I can't figure out how to address. Maybe I can try to find people's online posts from that time about the judges' feedback.

Or maybe that's the angle. That while the judges give feedback, it doesn't necessarily affect the audience's opinion of the contestants. While Adam rarely got negative feedback, he was only in the bottom 3 once, and that was after praise from the judges.

My other problem is that what started this was my understanding of the theory metaculture. Maybe I need to start with that part first and then build everything else off it. American Idol is a great text to analyze using metaculture, from what it does for the contestants to its relationship to the audience. And as I type this I realize that's a good approach to this.

Now if I could just do this for my dissertation!

[pantopia]

The cure for our healing is a unified field.

Well, to me the solution for Pandemia is ... Pantopia.

Let me explain this. It means to stop creating artificiality on the top of our existing (artificial)isms. This has been the "Babel" state of our forefathers. And start going the opposite direction. Find the exit to the foundamentals; the foundation of reality. Which is the truth.

In order to realise the truth, we need to investigate not the fastest way for immediate profit or the fastest way for bigger profit but the true nature of reality. And reinterpret growth. We must extend our thinking beyond simplistic arithmetic operations.

In reality, everything is connected with everything else via its neighbours.

There are layers within necessity assigned to "freedom", "free will", the territory of creativity and expression. Our Future is evolutionary because it is not just self-regulated, by the obsessive compulsiveness of raw animal instincts and the nemesis of balance in form of necessity. In the way Nature works. Nature obeys the natural laws. The human nature extends to laws of consciousness and spiritual laws. Nature is at its best when it's left alone. But our freedom, our creativity, our future, related to consciousness and awareness, is based on intelligence, ethics, morality, opinions, beliefs, habits, culture, etc.

This cyclically gives birth to a chance for new, higher layers of reality and life, which are our responsibility to take good care of and to experiment with, into the well-balanced and harmonious way of freedom, creativity or expression of love.

This means that life's quality depends and relies on you and me.

I understand two key terms that suffice to induce our next awakening: the evolution of our connection and our communication. True connection is related to true listening. And the next level of communication includes the other through true listening in the equation of honest self-expression.

This applies to all space around us. That means to everything including its space.

This is a shared space between You and Me. You and him. You and her. You and this or that. Later on between Us and Them, etc.

This is the reason why everything requires healing including its space: our bodies require healing, our relationships, our families, our communities, our societies, our organizations... From our organisms to our organizations, it is the space between us and the time that is growing in that space that requires healing. The healing we need is to transform our gaps and our walls, and the space between us will be transformed. If our connections are transformed, time will 'fractally' heal all wounds.

Tear down these walls! Make more bridges!

WE NEED TO EXERCISE TRUE LISTENING

We need to seek first for understanding each others needs. And then act (if we can). But to be quite and really listen to the other, sets the other free. To open up, to speak up and to step up.

That is already a great service.

We don't need to do necessarily something else, other than listening to the other or inviting the other for listening sessions. Without judgement and without taking the responsibility for the other's state. But to offer an open space again, the true connection, is transformative. This is done by simply practising listening, instead of analysing and judging each others positions.

When we have created again the space of course we can do the talking, expressing honestly our desires, our needs and our intentions. Simply the Truth.

This would heal the space between us. And the healing space will heal our time, the chronic illness, pain, suffering etc.

The source of everything is been already stated as the Universe, but A healed state is our destination. This unified field is what I simply call Pantopia.

[pantopia]

create yourself, create your life, create your world

We can write a new paradigm about this pandemic and the next ones. We must, if we hope to survive in a future that is periodically undermined by cases. In this new story, the unpredictable, the accidental, the “bad”, the “other” - and the neighbour’s goat - will gradually pass into the background, and the nature of our relationship with each other and with the whole environment will star. Instead of being the passive victims of invaders, imports, large investment groups and members of alliances against “others” we can emerge as creators of our destiny who can build Pantopia in the post-Pandora era.

[krolikowskiart]

On the Entropia exhibition opening at MetaCulture, Kyiv, Ukraine, where we presented our installation Iconography of Radioactivity (2016). Ph.: socl:e

[rel-ativity]

Live without dead time

“all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together.”

“a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning”

“Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.”