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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: September 28th, 2023

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  • This is such a weird take. There is 20 years of content on youtube and not just like, unboxing videos or AI generated kid stuff or whatever. Theres family recordings and DIY vids for literally everything, to college courses from like, Yale and Harvard, to vocational videos I use for my job. All of the videos that radicalized me into an Ancom on are youtube. Every song ever recorded, including rare songs like second hand accounts of slave field hymns. Old, obscure movies, especially where the copyright holder doesnt give a fuck, are available for free. Small indie projects, like small groups producing shorts, and small bands making their own music, are on youtube. And yes, millions of hours of people playing video games, or sports high lights, or wrestling high lights, or video essays or whatever, are all on youtube.

    The world is the way it is. Do I wish the web was more diversified? I do. Do I wish Alphabet didnt have us over a barrel like this? Of course. But youtube is almost a utility at this point; its like saying dont use the roads bro, eventually they will listen to us and put in light rail tracks. I would love for that to happen but you gotta get to work in the mean time.






  • Kind of. The housing prices are rock bottom. there is also a sense of community that is utterly lacking in the airless suburbs. Seriously, there are some subs in places like Novi or Farmington that were built in the 80s and are completely lacking in sidewalks. Compared to that, some neighborhoods in Detroit have affordable homes, neighbors, and urban prairie. Seriously, Ive been to farms on land left to seed.

    Also, there is a wave of gentrification coming through… Mostly on the riverfront and along the Cass Corridor into Midtown. The Illitches and the Rocket Mortgage guy have both invested enormous quantities into fixing up that zone, and at least before the pandemic, there was really a sense that a recovery had begun. A lot of white people have been drawn to the area and a lot of old industrial or commercial have been redone into luxury apartments. And honestly, the corner of Jefferson and Woodward on a summer weekend is insanely nice these days.

    I want to point out that there are still rough scrabble areas in Detroit, like Brightmoor. But down by Hart Plaza? Wayne State? The Fox? You’ll be fine.


  • I guess it depends. My relationships never lasted terribly long, but I was kind of a slut in my 20s. I deleted all my socials during the pandemic. So in the spirit of the question, 5 years. At first I needed some time alone, but then it just kind of happened. I’m open to the idea, but loneliness is preferable to the casino that dating apps became. I’m in my 30s, single friends of friends are thin on the ground. I don’t even know where 30 year olds meet each other. I wish the library was open late. I do enjoy the single life. I sleep in every morning. I spend my money how I wish. But people don’t realize how touch starved you get. No sex won’t kill you, but no intimacy might. Its why dudes can’t distinguish between friendly and sexual contact; they get none of it, especially after their mom dies. I don’t know. A girlfriend would be nice.





  • I’m too young to remember Jackomania. In my politically moderate (by US standards) upbringing, he was the subject of many deeply racist, transphobic jokes, all juxtaposed with the child molestation thing. I dont really have any other memory of him, aside from the simpsons episode of him (made at the height of Jackomaia).

    That all being said, any expectations I have were set by Talking Simpsons, and the fact that that is the only episode not on Disney+. The episode was very much made at Jackson’s insistence. He had an unhealthy obsession with Bart Simpson, and the episode itself was made with his intention to lure more boys in. It was very much selling the fantasy of being plucked from obscurity by Jackson-as-sexless-music-elf, and you, a little boy, could stay up all night writing the next pop hit. A few of his victims even cited the episode, and one detail that stuck with me was that Jackson would invite boys over with their sisters, as cover.

    Jackson had a deeply traumatic upbringing in the public eye, and I cant imagine the fame or racism went down easy, especially when that venom was all he knew. But there is no doubt in my mind that he did molest little boys.






  • I read Lyra’s Oxford but there were more?

    Also, you talk about “themes and world building not paining the church in a good light”, and I am just here to say, that’s a hell of an understatement. The primary mythic fantasy war is about a guy going to war with God. Capitol ‘G’ god the father God. In the end,

    spoiler

    “God” is revealed to the a senile old angel. He also lied about creating anything; he just spawned from the dust first. The war in heaven was really about if they should let him die, or maintain the illusion.

    I believe I read somewhere Philip Pullman intended to create the anti Narnia.