numb3r_5ev3n (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2023-08-04 11:57 pm
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2023-08-04 11:57 pm
Entry tags:
Turn yourself around into the sun
I know it's been a while.
I haven't been keeping up with everyone the way I should have been. I haven't really wanted to blog here because my head has been kind of in a bad place and I haven't really wanted to air my thoughts. And then I guilt spiral because I haven't been keeping up with people the way I should be doing.
I got Baldur's Gate 3! It's cool, except that its interface seems really clunky to me after playing basically nothing but Skyrim for a decade.
Lately, I've been looking at articles like "A Decade of Music Is Lost on Your iPod. These Are The Deleted Years. Now Let Us Praise Them." And this article about how Y2K Fashion is a thing. And I realized that I've basically just been eulogizing the 2000s a lot over the past couple years, pretty much since January 2020.
There's a tumblr post that got me thinking about it again, and how we either didn't realize that a lot of the stuff and the creators we embraced was sketchy and problematic.
You can apply that same logic being used to critique Harry Potter in the above linked Tumblr post to Joss Whedon and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. "Realizing the flaws in BTVS can be like waking up from being entranced by a master vampire. Did we really just roll with the fact that Buffy, a teenager, was in relationship with an adult man, nevermind that this man was also a centuries-old vampire? Same with Spike? And she (and we) were supposed to pity and forgive him for his rape attempt? We were supposed to do the same with Xander when he was clingy and stalkery and creepy?"
Come to think of it, the least problematic love interest on the show was Riley...and people hated Riley. Hated. Him. Were actively praying for him to get killed off every week.
Looking back, it really is like "what the hell was wrong with us that we just accepted all of this as cool and normal?" And "of course Joss Whedon was actually a monster himself who was grooming teenage girls, because of fucking course he was. It was right there in the narrative."
I had a tangent I was going to go down with the rest of this post, that was going to go something like "Why did people embrace this stuff and mainline it like heroin during the 2000s, while very vocally and performatively hating on the Matrix sequels because the Wachowski Sisters had the audacity to turn their seemingly straightforward story about a heroic prophetic saviorand her lover Neo into a deconstruction of the determinism vs free will argument while also being Trans?" But that question may contain its own answer.
There was an LJ post that came out the week that Harry Potter And The Halfblood Prince dropped (all the way back in 2005, yo) about how it basically broke the fandom in half and nothing would ever be the same again. It went something like this: "It's like one of those letters you read from the 1800s where someone is talking about all of their plans for when they get back to Boston - but you know there was a plague or a war or a fire or an earthquake, and they never got back to Boston? My fellow Harry Potter fans, we're never getting back to Boston."
And now, because of everything, there are a lot of folks who never want to go "back to Boston," anyway.
Heck, I don't know if any of this even makes sense. Maybe the real issue is that we were all obsessed with escapist media because the world was getting really scary then, and that's really never stopped.
But really, how do I stop mourning the lost and squandered potential and promise of that era, both in my own life and in society at large? We didn't want it to be a Lost Decade; full of things better left forgotten, or left behind in the past where they belong. A lot of us fought very hard for it not to be, seemingly in vain.
EDIT: when I wrote this part last night, I meant it to tie all this back into the theme of the 2000s being a "lost decade." In that we kept waiting for things in the world to stop being scary and "go back to normal" like they had been during the 1990s, and they never did. Like "why am I talking about the failure of 2000s-era media creators to be decent people, like it's at fault for the 2000s being shitty in many respects?"
And the answer is that it adds to the overall feeling I have that the 2000s are basically poisoned as a decade, at least for me. And like the things that made that time bearable have now all tainted in some way. And the feeling that the future we should have been able to experience was stolen from us en masse.
But still, my feelings of nostalgia for that whole time are so incredibly strong. The impulse to try and "reclaim" things from that decade is so powerful. And then I realize that it stems from the idea that: as shitty as things were, we still had no idea how good we had it back then. Or how much worse it was going to get.
I hope Generation Z picks up those Y2K fashions and runs with them. I hope they rediscover Gorillaz and Franz Ferdinand and Robbie Williams and all the other stuff that was on my 2005-era ipod (along with stuff from decades before that like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Depeche Mode.) I hope they manage to reclaim some of the things we've lost, or never had the chance to experience the way we should have been able to.
Current Mood:
I haven't been keeping up with everyone the way I should have been. I haven't really wanted to blog here because my head has been kind of in a bad place and I haven't really wanted to air my thoughts. And then I guilt spiral because I haven't been keeping up with people the way I should be doing.
I got Baldur's Gate 3! It's cool, except that its interface seems really clunky to me after playing basically nothing but Skyrim for a decade.
Lately, I've been looking at articles like "A Decade of Music Is Lost on Your iPod. These Are The Deleted Years. Now Let Us Praise Them." And this article about how Y2K Fashion is a thing. And I realized that I've basically just been eulogizing the 2000s a lot over the past couple years, pretty much since January 2020.
There's a tumblr post that got me thinking about it again, and how we either didn't realize that a lot of the stuff and the creators we embraced was sketchy and problematic.
You can apply that same logic being used to critique Harry Potter in the above linked Tumblr post to Joss Whedon and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. "Realizing the flaws in BTVS can be like waking up from being entranced by a master vampire. Did we really just roll with the fact that Buffy, a teenager, was in relationship with an adult man, nevermind that this man was also a centuries-old vampire? Same with Spike? And she (and we) were supposed to pity and forgive him for his rape attempt? We were supposed to do the same with Xander when he was clingy and stalkery and creepy?"
Come to think of it, the least problematic love interest on the show was Riley...and people hated Riley. Hated. Him. Were actively praying for him to get killed off every week.
Looking back, it really is like "what the hell was wrong with us that we just accepted all of this as cool and normal?" And "of course Joss Whedon was actually a monster himself who was grooming teenage girls, because of fucking course he was. It was right there in the narrative."
I had a tangent I was going to go down with the rest of this post, that was going to go something like "Why did people embrace this stuff and mainline it like heroin during the 2000s, while very vocally and performatively hating on the Matrix sequels because the Wachowski Sisters had the audacity to turn their seemingly straightforward story about a heroic prophetic savior
There was an LJ post that came out the week that Harry Potter And The Halfblood Prince dropped (all the way back in 2005, yo) about how it basically broke the fandom in half and nothing would ever be the same again. It went something like this: "It's like one of those letters you read from the 1800s where someone is talking about all of their plans for when they get back to Boston - but you know there was a plague or a war or a fire or an earthquake, and they never got back to Boston? My fellow Harry Potter fans, we're never getting back to Boston."
And now, because of everything, there are a lot of folks who never want to go "back to Boston," anyway.
Heck, I don't know if any of this even makes sense. Maybe the real issue is that we were all obsessed with escapist media because the world was getting really scary then, and that's really never stopped.
But really, how do I stop mourning the lost and squandered potential and promise of that era, both in my own life and in society at large? We didn't want it to be a Lost Decade; full of things better left forgotten, or left behind in the past where they belong. A lot of us fought very hard for it not to be, seemingly in vain.
EDIT: when I wrote this part last night, I meant it to tie all this back into the theme of the 2000s being a "lost decade." In that we kept waiting for things in the world to stop being scary and "go back to normal" like they had been during the 1990s, and they never did. Like "why am I talking about the failure of 2000s-era media creators to be decent people, like it's at fault for the 2000s being shitty in many respects?"
And the answer is that it adds to the overall feeling I have that the 2000s are basically poisoned as a decade, at least for me. And like the things that made that time bearable have now all tainted in some way. And the feeling that the future we should have been able to experience was stolen from us en masse.
But still, my feelings of nostalgia for that whole time are so incredibly strong. The impulse to try and "reclaim" things from that decade is so powerful. And then I realize that it stems from the idea that: as shitty as things were, we still had no idea how good we had it back then. Or how much worse it was going to get.
I hope Generation Z picks up those Y2K fashions and runs with them. I hope they rediscover Gorillaz and Franz Ferdinand and Robbie Williams and all the other stuff that was on my 2005-era ipod (along with stuff from decades before that like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Depeche Mode.) I hope they manage to reclaim some of the things we've lost, or never had the chance to experience the way we should have been able to.
Current Mood:
no subject
But... decade no lose. Past --> future. Potential always squander. That why potential, not real! Life nature. All kid = potential president, most kid NO president.
People = lotus, yes? Grow nasty place, make beautiful flower. I read 50+ Piers Anthony! Embarass yes. Regret no! Nasty dirt, but I still make good flower. Why shame flower? Good flower!
I read lose music, I go, NO BACKUP??? Always backup! Always always.
Only lose what refuse learn. You learn 2000s? Then no lose.
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Build still. Keep flower do.
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I've been waxing nostalgic lately as well. Lots of 80s and 90s playlists for me. I never really got on the Buffy wagon, though I did watch Willow's Dark Willow arc. Mainly because I found Dark Willow hot.
It sucks when we find out the creator of something we love turns out to be a fucking monster, and we look further back into their work and are like "oh fuck. it was right there." What can I say? We get caught up in the story. The moment. The shiny.
Then there's the whole "shoulda/coulda/woulda" mind fuck. The 90s had so much potential, but the rug got pulled out from under us. I had opportunities in my romantic life I squandered due to being a young punk with a neurological disorder.
Speaking of communication, I absolutely suck about posting here. Sometimes I feel like I'm just shouting into the void, but mainly I think " WTF seriously wants to read my bullshit?" I work, I go home, I play video games, I barely sleep, I get up in the morning, I do it again. Some days I feel like I'm just kinda hanging out until I die.
It's good to see you posting. I want to say I'll be better about posting here, but my executive dysfunction may have other plans.
no subject
SAME.
Speaking of communication, I absolutely suck about posting here. Sometimes I feel like I'm just shouting into the void, but mainly I think " WTF seriously wants to read my bullshit?" I work, I go home, I play video games, I barely sleep, I get up in the morning, I do it again. Some days I feel like I'm just kinda hanging out until I die.
Also same. :( I don't know if it's just the pressure of having to work through a pandemic and an apocalypse, but I feel like an NPC. I feel like my life is just a series repetitive tasks that I perform over and over and over again. When do I get to live my life?
Still, let's hang in there. I still want to believe that things can get better.
no subject
You know the Mister Rogers "look for the helpers" post? It does for human beings what I do for trying to find myself good things to look at about life, because life is always a mixed bag of beauty and terror and dread and fun. We, the traumatized, have to actively look for the good stuff, because our brains are less sensitive to that than to the bad stuff. And if we're only looking for the basketball, we never see the gorilla.
So go looking for good news, set reminders to look for good parts of your day until your brain gets better at seeing them, look back at BtVS and think something like: that show caused so many conversations that helped me connect with people, even though the writer/director was a bad person. This tumblrina attitude we've been taught of "if something is even vaguely problematic, that means nothing about it can be appreciated" is a problem. It's not realistic, and it demeans the human spirit by enforcing a judgmental attitude on us about ourselves and everyone around us. It calls for us to abandon our worth because of our mistakes, ignorance, or confusion.
We are more than the mistakes we have made, though. We survivors of trauma have got to stop buying into that self-destructive practice of judgment and start looking past the problems to see if someone is redeemable, if a media franchise can at least be engaged with critically, with open eyes about flawed hot takes and whether the problems are out of ignorance or to support predatory habits. We've got to forgive ourselves and each other for being imperfect creatures living in a fucked up world. It's the work of a lifetime.
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And to this day, it's really, really hard for me to look back and not judge myself. Because from a distance, so much of what I did or did not do does look like it was due to awful moral failings. And that's hard for me to live with now.
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Do I blame you or myself for having those "weakness = moral failure" type of thinking habits? Nah. But just because they're understandable in our environment doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to learn about and then break the ones that you still have, including the "everything I have believed is my fault" view of the self. We humans are creatures of context, and you didn't control the culture and context in which you were brought up any more than i did.