Season 1: lots of tracks that were only played once, bunch of Hawaiian/surf guitar tracks. They played mostly APM tracks with the occasional original composition tracks.
Seasons 2-3: some of the iconic tracks like Comic Walk, Toomfoolery, Wooden Bear, Sponge Monger, Earl's Revenge, as well as Wakefield/Carr stings etc. were introduced. A lot of good musical numbers as well.
Seasons 4-5: Some new tracks from the composers, a more balanced amount of APM/original tracks played. Last seasons with really great music editing.
Seasons 6-8: No offense to Nick Carr, but he started to become lazier in music editing here. Unfitting music choices especially in title card sequences. And the music somehow become a little childish. At least there's some decent new tracks.
Seasons 9-present: Carr is slowly getting better but he still need to not overuse same tracks. Season 9 was still late post-movie like, but eventually when post sequel progresses the APM/original tracks become close to being balanced again. And the new tracks are almost as memorable as early seasons tracks.
When did you think Nick Carr had the best music editing in SpongeBob's whole run?
Nick Carr recently wrote a series of small articles about Mark Zuckerberg's newest pet project/monster. If you're curious, you can read the other two here and here, but this is the one that seems most relevant to this sub's interests.
If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, just scroll down and skim the passages I've bolded. The long and short of it is that venture capitalist and early Facebook investor Marc Andreessen thinks the world of Ready Player One is the one we ought to be building, and is pretty much openly declaring "you will live in the pod, you will eat the bugs, you will wear the headset, and you will be grateful."
Bonus appearance by gamification exponent/moron Jane McGonical.
…
In describing the metaverse, Zuckerberg has stressed the anodyne. There will be virtual surfing, virtual fencing, virtual poker nights. We’ll be able to see and smile at our colleagues even while working alone in our homes. We’ll be able to fly over cities and through buildings. David Attenborough will stop by for the odd chat. Andreessen’s vision is far darker and far more radical, eschatological even. He believes the metaverse is where the vast majority of humanity will end up, and should end up. If the metaverse Zuckerberg presents for public consumption seems like a tricked-out open-world videogame, Andreessen’s metaverse comes off as a cross between an amusement park and a concentration camp.
But I should let him explain it. When Soldo asks, “Are we TOO connected these days?,” Andreessen responds:
Your question is a great example of what I call Reality Privilege. … A small percent of people live in a real-world environment that is rich, even overflowing, with glorious substance, beautiful settings, plentiful stimulation, and many fascinating people to talk to, and to work with, and to date. These are also \all* of the people who get to ask probing questions like yours. Everyone else, the vast majority of humanity, lacks Reality Privilege — their online world is, or will be, immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment around them in the quote-unquote real world.*
The Reality Privileged, of course, call this conclusion dystopian, and demand that we prioritize improvements in reality over improvements in virtuality. To which I say: reality has had 5,000 years to get good, and is clearly still woefully lacking for most people; I don’t think we should wait another 5,000 years to see if it eventually closes the gap. We should build — and we are building — online worlds that make life and work and love wonderful for everyone, no matter what level of reality deprivation they find themselves in.
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In Andreessen’s view, society is condemned, by natural law, to radical inequality. In a world where material goods are scarce and human will and talent unequally distributed, society will always be divided into two groups: a small elite who lead rich lives and the masses who live impoverished ones. A few eat cake; the rest get, at best, crumbs. The entire history of civilization — Andreessen’s “5,000 years” — bears this out. Any attempt, political or economic, to overcome society’s natural bias toward extreme inequality is futile. It’s just magical thinking. The only way out, the only solution, is to overturn natural law, to escape the quote-unquote real world. That was never possible — until now. Computers have given us the chance to invent a new world of virtual abundance, where history’s have-nots can experience a simulation of the “glorious substance” that history’s haves have always enjoyed. With the metaverse, civilization is at last liberated from nature and its constraints.
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McGonical holds out hope that reality can be “fixed” (by making it more gamelike), but Andreessen would dismiss that as just another example of magical thinking. What you really want to do is speed up the out-of-reality migration — and don’t look back.
Andreessen is not actually suggesting that the metaverse will close the economic gap between haves and have-nots, it’s important to note. At a material level, there’s every reason to believe that the gap will widen as the metaverse grows. It’s the Reality Privileged, or at least its Big Tech wing, who are, as Andreessen emphasizes, building the metaverse. They will also be the ones who own it and profit from it. Andreessen may expect the Reality Deprived to see the metaverse as a gift bestowed upon them by the Reality Privileged, a cosmic act of noblesse oblige, but it’s self-interest that motivates him, Zuckerberg, and the other world-builders.
Not only would the metaverse expand their wealth, it would also get the Reality Deprived out of their hair. With the have-nots spending more and more of their time experiencing a simulation of glorious substance through their VR headsets, the haves would have the actual glorious substance all the more to themselves. The beaches would be emptier, the streets cleaner. Best of all, the haves would be able to shed all responsibility, and guilt, for the problems of the real world. When Andreessen argues that we should no longer bother to “prioritize improvements in reality,” he’s letting himself off the hook. Let them eat virtual cake.
…
The paradox of Andreessen’s metaverse is that, despite its immateriality, it’s essentially materialist. Andreessen can’t imagine people aspiring to anything more than having the things and the experiences that money can buy. If the peasants are given a simulation of the worldly pleasures of the rich, their lives will suddenly become “wonderful.” They won’t actually own anything, but their existence will be “immeasurably richer and more fulfilling.”
When we take up residence in the metaverse, we’ll all be living the dream. It won’t be our dream, though. It will be the dream of Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg.
[I find myself wondering how this differs, really, from Moldbug’s “virtual option” to the “dire problem.”]
