Last night I saw the netflix special "Inside," by Bo Burnham. I was expecting a fun comedy ride with a few jokes and songs. What I got was a somber, cynical, and dark chastisement of modern online culture as it relates to how it interacts with the real world. It totally blindsided me, so I'm using this journal to sort through my thoughts a bit.
Burnham effectively used this lock-down isolation and depression of the modern world to create a video essay, and the thesis was basically this: the world is in such a terrible state today that it would be egotistical and borderline irresponsible to believe that jokes would solve anything. He sets this out straight away in one of the first songs, and the tone is immediately sardonic and quite bitter that anyone could think comedy really has a place in trying to "heal the world." What follows are a series of scathing songs and monologues that act as an indictment against comedy being used in any way other than to point out the deeply rooted problems, corruption, and hypocrisy of the world. While I absolutely agree that this is one of the main uses for comedy, I disagree that levity has become useless.
That's where his thesis fails. He has fallen so deeply into despair that he no longer holds out hope that comedy would be able to uplift anyone's spirit. Comedy is one of the strongest tools humans have to combat the evils of the world around us, and if done right, telling jokes can defuse even the worst of situations, stripping them of their emotional power over us. You can and should make jokes at everything, maybe not all the time, but nothing should be off the table. To say that an entire era has arrived that should no longer include comedy for the sake of making others happy... that is a depressive trap. It's also an outlook that I think could spread. In fact, I felt it when I watched this show. It was like this man had remotely inflicted an emotional wound on me. That's why I think this should not be listed under "stand up comedy." It would probably be more accurate to label it as "art house performance" or something similar. Make no mistake, people should watch it, but they should be prepared for what's about to happen, even before hitting that 'play' button. Maybe that was intentional. He knows everyone was waiting for him to return to comedy, and while he *did* give a bit of warning at the start, it was in no way enough to represent what was about to happen. Maybe that was part of the point: to lower the viewers' guard, and then make us all feel as hopeless and broken as he felt while making it.
As for the artist himself, he absolutely poured all of his heart and soul into this work, completely unfiltered and unflinching, but it seems that instead of finding a truth of the world, he ultimately just ended up sinking deeper into darkness, seemingly to the point of giving up entirely. I hope I'm wrong, and he was just working through his emotions, getting it all out of his system. I hope he didn't end up ruining himself by diving too deep. Toward the end he straight up stated, "YOU try telling jokes without an audience laughing," and I think maybe he touched on something. He's been bringing joy to his audience for a while now, and maybe it's time that his audience return the favor. While comedy will not heal the world, it can sure as Hell lighten the mood, and I think he probably needs it.
Or maybe not. Maybe I just fell for a convincing performance. Is that too cynical? Then let me rephrase it. Maybe he knew that people needed to realize they are not alone in being negatively effected by the current string of world problems, and that it can take it's toll on anyone, even the jesters of the world. Or maybe it was a combination of all of those reasons, that one and those listed above. Dunno.
Undertale
I managed to avoid most of the hype surrounding this game until I was able to finish playing it. So I'll try not to give it any more, since I tend to find that hype ruins almost everything. I will say this about it though: I haven't played an RPG completely through to the end in a long time, probably in about half a decade. In fact, I haven't finished very many video games at all in recent years. There just hasn't been anything that caught my attention and compelled me to continue until the end, with the exception of the Dark/Demon's Soul series.
That being said, I finished Undertale, and I did it without feeling like it was a chore. It reminded me of the reason I enjoyed RPGs back in the day (NES, SNES, PSX), and I'm so glad of that. Simply put, it made me smile, genuinely and truly. If you are reading this now, and are a fan of the old style RPGs, then I recommend it, assuming you have not yet played it.
R.I.P. Toren Smith
Today I learned that Toren Smith died on March 4th of this year. By all accounts he was a wonderful human being. In addition to this, he also founded a translation/publishing company called "Studio Prometheus". It was the first to provide translations of Japanese manga for the English speaking reader. This was back when publishers were unwilling to take a chance on investing the time and money on an unknown product like foreign comic books. Studio Prometheus proved that there was a market for those books. I'm not talking about the crap manga that mostly gets dumped out today. These were the golden titles from back in the late 1980's and through to the end of the 1990's.
The more well known translated titles are Akira, Appleseed, Outlanders, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Venus Wars, and Blade of the Immortal, but there are dozens more. The English speaking world wouldn't have these stories, and possibly wouldn't have any sort of manga at all if his company had not opened the door for the stuff outside of Japan. He also wrote the English comic version of The Dirty Pair, which was a fun romp through ridiculousness that I recommend to those who enjoy that sort of thing.
So if you ever enjoyed any of those stories, then you may want to look him up on Wikipedia and read a little more about who he was. There was a bit of him in every story he translated. If you've never read those stories or maybe never even heard of them before, then please trust me when I say that you're missing out. They're some of the best comics to ever grace the page for American audiences.
Not the last day on Earth
One of the more annoying aspects of this whole thing, from my perspective, is how so many people refuse to actually look at what the Mayans said was actually going to happen. Some people just want to throw themselves into a panic and shout that the world is coming to an end. Many others are just waiting for the 21st to come and go, so they can mock the doomsayers when the world still exists the next day. One is a worry wart and the other is a bully. I don't know which is worse.
The Mayans knew the world would still be here, but that it would change, and not in a cataclysmic way either. This would supposedly be the start of a drastic shift in the methods and patterns of thinking, to something better than what we currently have. Only the start of that change, mind you. Maybe that is true and maybe it isn't, but I think it's interesting and hopeful to consider. I'm hoping it's true, even though I doubt it is. The world sucks as it stands now, and we can only dream there will be a real opportunity to improve how others treat each another. Maybe that's all it is, is a dream.
Have any of you ever seen the movie "Pontypool"? There's a wonderful line there that fits the occasion perfectly. "It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of the day." It's on netflix instant watch, if you have that, and I recommend it. A unique slant on horror movies.
So party down people. This is as good an excuse as any. I'll converse with you after the smoke clears. My lover tonight will be a mason jug filled with West Virginia moonshine. I'll treat her/him right. Be sure you do the same to yours.
There is an ancient and immense force of Evil sweeping across the land like an unstoppable storm. It's goal is the strategic focal point of the Mystical Castle, from which is reflected the overarching sentiment that rains down to effect the rest of the entire kingdom. The castle's only protection is the Princess with the ability to generate enough love to ward off the evil storm, but she is weakening. An adventure quest is undertaken to restore the lost artifact that can save the kingdom. The adventurers succeed and the darkness is banished from the world through the power of light and love. All wounds are healed and everything is set right, as the weather calms and the people rejoice. This is a victory for the whole of the kingdom as the goodness of that shining city spreads across the land.
Yes, this was a variation on the plot of just about every RPG from the super nintendo/sega genesis era. Honestly though, I really enjoyed the MLP version of it. There's just something about the stereotypical fantasy story that gets me. Maybe it's that everything is cut and dry. Evil is just what it seems, good is where you know it will be, and there's no morally ambiguous bullshit to cloud things over. Sometimes it is best to have things be pure and simple.
Something else I noticed was how the ponies of the Crystal Empire saved themselves. There was no Celestia coming in to ward off the darkness, nor were there any Elements of Harmony to be pulled from some book. The power to overthrow a tyrant is were it will ALWAYS be: within the hearts of the people of the nation. They just need the proper tools to focus their will against the tyrant, and in this case it was a mystical crystal relic.
A note on King Sombra: I liked him. He served his purpose without having a lot of convoluted baggage to go with him. He was an elemental storm of horror, a character that doesn't really need to even be a character, but more of a dark force of nature, an abstract idea of corruption. An thing like that doesn't need dialog. It doesn't need a motivation or a personality or even a face, and sometimes not even a name. No one knows why it's doing what it's doing, they just know a whole lot of BAD is gonna happen if it succeeds. In the case of the MLP episode, that evil force does actually have a face, and even a physical form with some sparse words to go with it. I've heard people saying how they disliked him because his characterization was too shallow. For this particular character there doesn't need to be any depth to it. The audience doesn't need to know what he's thinking or why he is the way he is. We know he is a bad guy who wants to enslave ponies and turn the Crystal Empire into his dark kingdom. Why? Because he's a power hungry asshole. There's something to be said for such purely one sided characters. We aren't supposed to empathize with them or feel bad in the slightest when they don't get redeemed.
So that is my take on the season three opener to My Little Pony. There were plenty of other little things sprinkled through out, the Luna Midnight Book being the most obvious. Yes, I think we're going to see Twilight become Luna's new "faithful student" pretty soon, and yes, I think it's going to ultimately be in preparation for Twilight becoming the next alicorn. They've been hinting at that since season one. Perhaps she will even replace one of the princesses, or maybe there will be a new kingdom for her to rule over. We shall see.