I thought it would be fun to do a media diet thing since I track most stuff anyway. I'll of course start with a long comprehensive post that will be very difficult to follow up, but perhaps I would do future ones on a more regular basis. This will also not be comprehensive, just things I'd like to comment on.
TV
Scandal S1|2|3|4|5 - OK this is my first entry into Shondaworld. I think it's quite weird, probably not even good but I definitely see the allure. I will probably be finishing the series. It really set off ruminations on the role of media in how larger structures are perceived by folk.
Futurama S1|2|3|4|5|6 - Danny had never seen this, so I rewatched the whole thing. Classic episodes are just as great. Of the later stuff... I had honestly forgotten I'd actually seen them all. The movies and CC episodes are incredibly uneven, but there _are_ gems in there, up to the last season.
Breeders S1 - Pretty good series. Watched bc daddy Martin Freeman is very sexy.
Midnight Mass - The flaws in this series sting quite a bit, as there is such a great atmosphere, cin
... show moreI thought it would be fun to do a media diet thing since I track most stuff anyway. I'll of course start with a long comprehensive post that will be very difficult to follow up, but perhaps I would do future ones on a more regular basis. This will also not be comprehensive, just things I'd like to comment on.
TV
Scandal S1|2|3|4|5 - OK this is my first entry into Shondaworld. I think it's quite weird, probably not even good but I definitely see the allure. I will probably be finishing the series. It really set off ruminations on the role of media in how larger structures are perceived by folk.
Futurama S1|2|3|4|5|6 - Danny had never seen this, so I rewatched the whole thing. Classic episodes are just as great. Of the later stuff... I had honestly forgotten I'd actually seen them all. The movies and CC episodes are incredibly uneven, but there _are_ gems in there, up to the last season.
Breeders S1 - Pretty good series. Watched bc daddy Martin Freeman is very sexy.
Midnight Mass - The flaws in this series sting quite a bit, as there is such a great atmosphere, cinematography, soundtrack.
The New Adventures of Old Christine S1|2|3|4|5 - Didn't age GREAT but it's still fine and I laughed a lot.
Cooked with Cannabis S1 - I love kelis but leather storrs is weird. Also highlighted how scientific-sounding jargon has infiltrated the cannabis world, far ahead of non-industry-funded research.
Baking Impossible S1 - This was fun, very enjoyable. Prooobably coulda been through a bit more QA
We Are Lady Parts S1 - Absolutely Wonderful, my pick for TV of the year. Is this a musical? Music is so critical to it...
Mapleworth Murders/The Fugitive/Floored/Dismantled - LOL QUIBI
FBoy Island S1 - i feel bad about how many fboys i found hot
Dorohedoro - While I was watching it I was maybe unimpressed? but no actually I liked it a lot
Superstore S6 - First pandemic media. I think it was a good end to the series. Cried at the finale and hated it
The Lady and The Dale - what a fascinating portrait of a person
Music
Yung Baby Tate/Baby Tate - I found out about her this year, and damn she's got some bops
La Goony Chonga - It's mainly been No Quieres Lio but she is also fun
Lil Mariko - I saw her debut show in Brooklyn this year. I would simp for her, sure
Ashnikko - STUPID is an amazing track, but overall I like her style more than her jamz
grandson - I really want to see him live, Death of an Optimist was a pretty good album
Camilo - omfg he is too cute i hate it also i want to kiss his face
Orla Gartland - Such lovely songs, More Like You is going to be an all-time favorite
Brooke Candy - SEXORCISM is amazing
Duckwrth - first live show since lockdown. it made me very happy, and also i got to see duckwrth shirtless so that was transcendent
Movies:
The Gleaners and I - MY PEOPLE IN FILM I LOVE THIS
Lake Tahoe - This is the 2nd film by Fernando Eimbcke, whose 1st film Temporada de Patos is my all-time favorite film. Of course it is difficult to meet such high expectations (especially since Club Sandwich was just kinda okay)... but this was a very lovely film that I'm already remembering more fondly than when I watched.
Redes - I love old films that show the exploitation of the proletariat by default; found this one pretty compelling
Shaun of the Dead - This lived up to the hype, but I can't help but think a lot of its humor has been zapped by imitators over the years.
Baby Face - Rewatched with Danny, I liked it just as much as the first time. MUST watch the restored 2000s version that has the Nietzsche speech intact and the more ambiguous ending
The Decline of Western Civilization I & II : Dude these were great and i am so hype to watch Part III
Burnt - OMFG this is the worst food-adjacent film I've ever seen. infuriating
Born in Flames - I feel like this is the movie that the fediverse would love. Interesting to watch this with burgeoning anarchism viewpoints
The Thing About Harry - omg harry is such a dreamy pan person
Jallikattu - This is the manliest film I've ever seen and the ending is so... incredible
Paris is Burning - sigh. Perhaps it was the hype. It did not make me happy to see queer brown folk at the altar of hierarchy, wealth, power. Where is the subversion of gender? I was upset enough to hunt a little, and I was happy to find that bell hooks devoted an entire chapter to this movie in Black Looks. She expressed these same frustrations, so I'll probably direct people there.
Language Lessons - A movie with so much heart. I've roughly seen it 3x at this point, though, and perhaps the feels fade a bit.
Last and First Men - What an experience! This is best experienced in a theatre-like setting, or at least with headphones.
Spring/Synchronic - Moorhead & Benson make films that I want to love so much. They are fine.
Animas Trujano - This movie actually short-circuited my brain. I think I like it? maybe???? also Torisho Mifune being dubbed over is not even distracting really? also he's hot and plays with his chest hair a bunch xP
Books
Drug Use for Grown Ups by Carl L. Hart - Pretty good book saying things I believe. Full drug legalization is the way forward
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh - I quite enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation, so I was excited. It ended up being a bit more of a slog than I initially thought, but drastically picked up towards the end. Quite like a Hitchcock film
Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang - Anecdote-ful and kinda long tbh for what could have been maybe a long-form. But, yes, brain work is effortful and deserving of rest doi
The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann - I finished the 2nd half of this book this year. Quite dry, and not super useful in terms of shaping my environmental POV (other than the obvious metaphor in the title.)
How Late It Was How Late by James Kelman - I think i was liking this but the regional tongue was quite mentally taxing - too much so for my mood at the time.
Borne by Jeff Vandermeer - Fun, quick read. Nothing too deep... i think?
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber - This was a great intro to Graeber. I am drawn to the idea that the obsolescence of human labor due to AI isn't just futurist talk - it's been happening and because mostly upper class jobs are affected, those are the first to be subsidized by the private sector.
Normal People by Sally Rooney - Fun read, my kinda romance novel.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber - I got about 60% through this book. It's quite dry... but incredibly enlightening. Of course debt came before currency.
alcinnz
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •I've certainly faced this challenge!
Its why I started assembling: adrian.geek.nz/movies !
Movie/Shows Recommendations
adrian.geek.nzNando's Brain
in reply to alcinnz • • •@alcinnz Oh that's AWESOME! I've just bookmarked it. Can't believe doctor who is drm free!
There *should* be a website that recomends opensource, community made content. Like in general. Maybe not somewhere that hosts it, but like an index that can search and suggest stuff you might be interested in. With a decent review system.
alcinnz
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Thanks!
Regarding Doctor Who, there's nuance. BBC is extremely pro-DRM. But Big Finish Productions who make Doctor Who audiodramas with the old Doctors & Companions, do sell alltheir audiodramas DRM-free. Basically the same show, but without visuals.
Trung0246
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Andrew (Television Executive)
Unknown parent • • •newellijay.tv is up.
vod.newellijay.tv is up.
The roku app is in beta. (vanity code newLIJtv )
New Ellijay TV
vod.newellijay.tvDavid
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to David • • •@duskcomics That's a good point...
The hard part is that people are so used to mainstream media that they don't know *how* to consume anything else.
I sure wouldn't be able to circulate content like this on mainstream media. Since the system survives by co-opting and corrupting any form of counter culture willing to cooperate even a little bit.
What I can think right now is just being a sarcastic troll and bait normies with a title that'll make them think they can be cool by reading it.
David
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to David • • •On one side, yeah. But on the other... how do you make something intentionally hip and underground without turning into the most normie thing ever.
Like coca cola making ads with skateboarders, because their brand is so "radical" haha
David
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
Unknown parent • • •@trung0246
Same... kinda.
It's not a 100% replacement, but I just got used to watching "community made" content. Like webcomics, youtube channels (small to medium sized), there are several fiction podcasts and TTRPG series that are better than anything on streaming.
It's not the same, but those fulfill the same role.
Stuff that people make out of passion or a small DIY production is usually better quality as news sources, and fiction.
Nando's Brain
Unknown parent • • •@dancingindystopia oh cool, I would love suggestions.
I think it's better to teach *how* to find, then making a catalogue of suggestions. Those can get dated some day, it'll run out and people will just go back to what they are used to.
If people learns how to find what they like on the other hand... it's harder to do. But teach a man how to fish and all that.
Nando's Brain
Unknown parent • • •Andrew (Television Executive)
in reply to Andrew (Television Executive) • • •Andrew (Television Executive)
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Sure. Drop this link in to your search box.
vod.newellijay.tv/videos/watch…
eSports 2600 - From the Makerspace TV Club
New Ellijay TVNando's Brain
in reply to Andrew (Television Executive) • • •@ajroach42 AWESOME, yeah it works!
I'm thinking about starting a peertube channel soon. And dabbling with other fediverse platforms like the instagram equivalent.
When I get a good understanding of this new way to consume media. I want to try and make a bunch of collabs with this.
Andrew (Television Executive)
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Pixelfed still had a ways to go the last time I looked at it, but it showed promise.
I wish you luck.
Nando's Brain
in reply to Andrew (Television Executive) • • •Jason
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to Jason • • •Jason
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Woozle Hypertwin
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •We also need, like, Guidebook for Fighting Off Relatives and Friends Who Absolutely Insist We Need to Watch This Latest Corporate Franchise Piece Because It's the Greatest Ever, because we always seems to have a huge backlog of corporate franchise stuff to watch.
We pirate all of it (so at least they're not getting any more money from us), and it's actually all pretty good (especially compared to what was available in the 1970s-1990s), but still -- I want to shift more eyeballs to good indy work, wherever possible.
Nando's Brain
in reply to Woozle Hypertwin • • •@woozle I don't have an outline for it yet (just though about it in this afternoon) but I'm certain that a section about peer pressure will be necessary...
And short...
"Just say you'll watch it later, you'll put in the backlog blackhole, or outright say you are not interested if you really do not care.
Peer pressure only work if you care about being pressured. You can choose to be absolutely indifferent to it. And talk about anything else in conversations."
Bears Shouting
Unknown parent • • •Yeah haha
I saw one person say they’d rather play sims 4 than sims 2 just because of the graphics. Complain about the money. But some people do just want pretty game. Haha
It is what it is.
Plus I find keeping ones nose out of game media increases my enjoyment of games. Not sure what people think of the game and don’t know much about it, but my favourite games were all ones I never saw coming.
"Author" Sam S. Darger
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to "Author" Sam S. Darger • • •@AuthorSSD Yeah and I like this aspect. I love writing and drawing and the format works really well for what I want to do.
(Less drawing than a comic, more drawing than a book.)
I can't really call it a zine though because the vast majority of ppl don't know what a zine is.
So I just call it a minibook, or light novel for fiction.
"Author" Sam S. Darger
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •So really just an underground, entirely indie anthology with a variety of work in it! There's definitely gotta be SOME kind of appeal for that, especially in smaller art scenes or art scenes too local for outsiders to otherwise come in.
I imagine a catalog variant of a zine could also work for artists and makers working with traditional mediums, who have art/stock to sell, etc.
I've thought about doing something similar myself, I just don't know many other artists.
Nando's Brain
in reply to "Author" Sam S. Darger • • •@AuthorSSD the idea is to be more of a guide on how to find stuff yourself. Teach a man how to fish and all.
But with a bit of planning I might be able to host a catalogue of indie stuff that people can contribute on my website.
This can be a cool side-side project. To work on.
I can just put a big chunky QR code directing to it on the Zine eventually.
A curse
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to A curse • • •@hexvoid Well, you can follow me and I'll probably post about it whenever I have an outline to check if anyone wants to make a lil collab.
But I've been thinking about making a small discord channel where I and other creators can share or propose creative projects that people can volunteer to collab. May it be comics, zines and e.t.c.
It'll start small, and this can be my first project there.
Lex Tenebris
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •The inevitable and obvious problem is that a manual to abandon corporate media that was a zine would itself be indie stuff that nobody checked out.
A far better solution is to simply expand your circle of association and continue to talk about things you enjoy and why you enjoy them. And a link to where they can consume them.
Otherwise – why would normal people have a reason to care?
Nando's Brain
in reply to Lex Tenebris • • •@LexTenebris Yeah, that's the main point I've been thinking about.
Maybe I could make this like a zine on alternatives for people who are already kind of burnt out of traditional media.
But then it comes back to the point of how are the target audience going to reach this .
Alternatively, there was the suggestion of making something like an indie catalogue.
Which is a bit far from the original idea, but can also help if it is accessible enough.
Lex Tenebris
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •At this point, it you are just talking about curation. And while curation is extremely useful, it still necessitates asking the question of why you should bother if you don't know who is going to read it?
Or, more succinctly, if you don't know who the real audience is going to be you can't actually reasonably design the publication.
Step one: imagine who the intended audience is and how you would have a conversation with them.
Nando's Brain
in reply to Lex Tenebris • • •@LexTenebris while I have the Design skills I really am very newbish on the marketing side of everything.
The target audience would be people who are interested in finding indie, underground content. But don't know how to find it. So I would be offering a sort of starting point.
Lex Tenebris
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Don't think of it is marketing. That is the failure mode of a lot of designers; they imagine that this is something different than what they have been doing their whole life.
It's not.
Imagine telling people who don't necessarily know you yet about things you really like and getting them enthusiastic. Like your favorite art markers or brushes.
Where did the people you want to talk to spend their time?
Nando's Brain
in reply to Lex Tenebris • • •@LexTenebris People I would like to talk about stuff I'm passionate about... Well it would be people slightly nerdy but not too much.
Like people who are in shallow waters online and I'd love to show where the good stuff is.
Ppl like that would probably be using netflix or trad social media. Probably on Twitter or Reddit.
Lex Tenebris
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Then that's where you need to go. And you need to put the information together you would like to communicate in a relatively straightforward way that they are willing to check out.
Reddit posts might work combined with the relatively straightforward blogging solution; write.as would be just fine since it federates and has RSS.
The secret is being willing to go where the audience is.
Nando's Brain
in reply to Lex Tenebris • • •@LexTenebris this is actually really good advice. It's really hard for me to think in marketing terms since it's not how my brain works.
It would be great to find a """marketing""" guide for creatives.
Lex Tenebris
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •The Marketing Guide for Creatives is very simple:
Pretend that the people you want to talk to are human beings and proceed appropriately.
That's it. It also explains why so much of modern advertising fails to land in a solid and meaningful way. The people currently in marketing don't like or appreciate the people who have money in the audience.
Nando's Brain
Unknown parent • • •@greypilgrim I don't specifically know much about movies. But I've got the hang of finding several indie series on youtube.
For some stuff I'll probably have to find and ask other über hipsters that got tired to traditional media haha.
One thing tip I can give right now is to just look into stuff not made in hollywood. So webseries or international movies. Like stuff made in eastern europe, asia, and south america. Those TEND to be much less corporate.
👁️🫧⤴️
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to 👁️🫧⤴️ • • •@BlinkPopShift lol, ok. Not necessarily on topic but I use playlists to focus.
I gotchu homie. No percussion? I try some sweet flutes and a dark ambience music.
That being said, for most people the beat is what helps you to focus. Since your mind will focus on the rhythm and not on four other things.
youtube.com/watch?v=I81QN7Dzgf…
youtube.com/watch?v=FW_aqEl8kZ…
youtube.com/watch?v=f1tYe3TkhT…
Peruvian Flute music for relaxing - Somewhere in Peru
YouTube👁️🫧⤴️
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
in reply to 👁️🫧⤴️ • • •I GOT YOU HOMIE.MP4
YouTube👁️🫧⤴️
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •Nando's Brain
Unknown parent • • •@greypilgrim about helping, since I've though about it like... A couple of hours ago, I don't know yet.
But I've saved your post and when I'm done with my current project I'll try to open source and look for people to share what needs to be done.
Since it's not really a "product" and I'll be sharing it for free. ppl tend to be very supportive.
eviloatmeal
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •For many, a big part is the social aspect. Being able to relate to the media that your friends and family consume. I would guess the problem is not so much the logistics of finding indie stuff, but more how will you get along with the people who consume the corporate shit.
When my friends are playing a Blizzard game, I have to sit out. When my friends are talking about capeshit, I have to sit out. It gets exhausting if you disconnect from everything they relate to.
Nando's Brain
in reply to eviloatmeal • • •@eviloatmeal Yeah, I don't think it's even feasable to try and disconnect from all corporate stuff. It's not 100% escapable.
Still, participation can be a choice. You can decide on what you'll participate if you have other options.
When you feel like it's all you can find you turn into a sort of prisioner. And the corpo ppl knows that they can do anything and you won't leave.
Sam Santala
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •mondra
in reply to Nando's Brain • • •