skykiii
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2018
We all have the things we think make everything suck. Being woke, bloated budgets, corporations not taking risks, your parents just not understanding, that Dick Dastardly never did Stop the Pigeon, so on and so forth.
And all of those are valid complaints, but I feel like they're surface-scratching and mask deeper issues. Sometimes they feel like something people latch onto because they're easy to point out.
But they ain't what ruins things for me.
For me the big recurring problem is "Everything feels so similar."
Not even just new media--even in retro circles there is this problem.
Let me start with that, actually: One problem I have with retro gaming discussion is what I call the "Genesis is Just Sonic" issue, where anyone talking about the Sega Genesis inevitably just spergs about Sonic, unless you specifically seek out people who are actually aware of the non-Sonic games. A similar thing happens on other platforms. And it creates a feedback loop that affects modern output: How many "Sega Genesis throwbacks" are just Sonic clones? How many SNES throwbacks are just Mario clones or generic RPGs?
In anime, I find it hard to appreciate 80s anime the same way I do 80s cartoons, because it feels like every eighties anime I hear about is a super robot show and they all run together after awhile. But of course Japan in the eighties wasn't dominated by mecha, its just that modern anime fans are obsessed with the genre. (To be honest I don't spend much time in circles for eighties western cartoons at all, since I tend to know them more than most other people anyway).
But this problem goes into the modern day as well, and I think the rise of streaming has added to it.
Nowadays visibility is often a problem, and a lot of times I don't know how I would have ever heard of a show without a friend showing it to me. One of my favorite modern anime is The Apothecary Diaries and I literally did not know it existed until a friend brought it up at a meetup.
Why? Because modern distribution gives you no way to learn. There's no magazines you can read for info (and don't fucking tell me sites like TV Tropes--which name shows in a boring, uninformative list and then go on to describe shows in a way that make them sound as unappealing as possible--are the modern equivalent) nor are we in an age where you can pick the DVD case off the shelf and read it. Often you have to just click the first episode and go for it completely blind.
This next part may be a "me" thing but I also find having this instant access is harmful, because I'm constantly feeling like I could be doing anything else, constantly tempted to click off and watch something else.
Anyway, I often find the result is you end up finding stuff that is similar to stuff you already like, or else if its different it's "sold" to you in a way that makes it sound like the most unappealing shit. I especially hate descriptions that are nothing but collections of genres and buzzwords. Here's an idea: tell me what the fucking story is about... though preferably describe it in a way that doesn't sound shit or give a misleading idea, which is another recurring issue.
Like if someone had told me Apothecary Diaries was "basically House M.D. but set in Ancient China and House is a Chinese girl," I would have watched it. In fact what got me into it was that friend saying it was a medical mystery show, something I don't recall any of the descriptions mentioning.
Anyway, just saying.
Feel free to add your own lecture about a common problem that often gets buried under more popular talking points.
And all of those are valid complaints, but I feel like they're surface-scratching and mask deeper issues. Sometimes they feel like something people latch onto because they're easy to point out.
But they ain't what ruins things for me.
For me the big recurring problem is "Everything feels so similar."
Not even just new media--even in retro circles there is this problem.
Let me start with that, actually: One problem I have with retro gaming discussion is what I call the "Genesis is Just Sonic" issue, where anyone talking about the Sega Genesis inevitably just spergs about Sonic, unless you specifically seek out people who are actually aware of the non-Sonic games. A similar thing happens on other platforms. And it creates a feedback loop that affects modern output: How many "Sega Genesis throwbacks" are just Sonic clones? How many SNES throwbacks are just Mario clones or generic RPGs?
In anime, I find it hard to appreciate 80s anime the same way I do 80s cartoons, because it feels like every eighties anime I hear about is a super robot show and they all run together after awhile. But of course Japan in the eighties wasn't dominated by mecha, its just that modern anime fans are obsessed with the genre. (To be honest I don't spend much time in circles for eighties western cartoons at all, since I tend to know them more than most other people anyway).
But this problem goes into the modern day as well, and I think the rise of streaming has added to it.
Nowadays visibility is often a problem, and a lot of times I don't know how I would have ever heard of a show without a friend showing it to me. One of my favorite modern anime is The Apothecary Diaries and I literally did not know it existed until a friend brought it up at a meetup.
Why? Because modern distribution gives you no way to learn. There's no magazines you can read for info (and don't fucking tell me sites like TV Tropes--which name shows in a boring, uninformative list and then go on to describe shows in a way that make them sound as unappealing as possible--are the modern equivalent) nor are we in an age where you can pick the DVD case off the shelf and read it. Often you have to just click the first episode and go for it completely blind.
This next part may be a "me" thing but I also find having this instant access is harmful, because I'm constantly feeling like I could be doing anything else, constantly tempted to click off and watch something else.
Anyway, I often find the result is you end up finding stuff that is similar to stuff you already like, or else if its different it's "sold" to you in a way that makes it sound like the most unappealing shit. I especially hate descriptions that are nothing but collections of genres and buzzwords. Here's an idea: tell me what the fucking story is about... though preferably describe it in a way that doesn't sound shit or give a misleading idea, which is another recurring issue.
Like if someone had told me Apothecary Diaries was "basically House M.D. but set in Ancient China and House is a Chinese girl," I would have watched it. In fact what got me into it was that friend saying it was a medical mystery show, something I don't recall any of the descriptions mentioning.
Anyway, just saying.
Feel free to add your own lecture about a common problem that often gets buried under more popular talking points.
