ok this is the best thing i’ve ever ever ever seen everyone watch immediately
I had to look this up; the kid’s name is Olly Pearson, and he’s from Wales! He is 11 (!) years old and was on Britain’s Got Talent this year. (He finished fourth.) He’s on YouTube as Guitar Olly.
The lead singer is Mickey Callisto (he took his stage last name from one of the moons of Jupiter), who was also on BGT. (He made it to the semi-finals.) He’s from Sunderland in the UK.
The trio in the window are DDKN, a group from France. I can’t add fun facts here because duckduckgo gave me nothing. Rude honestly.
The flashmob video on youtube is mostly the same as the tiktok but it’s still fun to watch bigger.
“Fantasy authors don’t know how long a thousand years is!!!!!! Knock a zewo off the end!!!!!!!111!!!1” Did you know that it’s never too late to learn whimsy and joy
And it’s doubly ridiculous when people apply it to Lord of the Rings. Sure, a lot of fantasy does it for the Vibes – which is a perfectly valid reason to do it that does not invite any criticism actually – but in LotR there is a specific reason why Gondor has existed for four thousand years and hasn’t had an industrial revolution and it’s because Tolkien was extremely aware of and actively making a point about the large scale ecological harm brought about by large scale industry and technological progress for the sake of progress. Most of Tolkien’s cultures are in a position where they could have kickstarted an industrial revolution whenever, but never did because they value trees and rivers and nature and natural beauty more than the small advantages granted by wide-scale production. And they did keep developing and advancing in some ways. Gondor canonically has a cure for cancer. Like Gondor’s medical science is so much more advanced than IRL medical science. They didn’t stop developing, they just developed differently and with different values. You know who’s having an industrial revolution? Saruman. Discussion questions: what do we think Professor Tolkien’s opinion on the industrial revolution is? Do we think that most of his cultures not having had one was perhaps an intentional choice driven by one of the core themes of his work? Are we going to examine at all our own preconceived notions that an industrial revolution is some kind of inevitable natural occurence, like puberty but for society?
Stop making Hannibal furry headcanons unless it’s this bird
It’s apparently only ONE population of this species that does this. Everyone else hunts and caches normally. The other falcons probably talk shit about this fucked up torture family.
Ooooh that’s even more fascinating. That means it’s a learned behavior they TAUGHT one another.
Something I don’t understand about ridiculously wealthy people is like
Numbers go up forever. But quality is finite
So at a certain point, whenever you buy- something designed by the greatest minds, crafted by the best craftsmen, out of the finest materials sourced from the most ethical producers and wrapped in the finest packaging, everyone from the top down paid a generous wage
Even in THAT SPECIFIC scenario. If everything is valued correctly and everyone gets what they want out of the deal and nobody at any point gets unreasonably greedy
You’re still gonna hit a ceiling. You’re still gonna reach a finite number
So at a certain point, when the quality can get no higher, any price you pay beyond that. Is just bragging rights. It’s just the price of the label. It’s money for the privilege of advertising for the brand
It all loops around, and the RICH PERSON BUYING IT is GIVING THE LABEL MONEY to WORK FOR THEM
The label ITSELF is benefitting from being shown off by this classy elite celebrity to other people in their social circle
So like. The consumer, at a certain price point, will fork over more money than I make in a year- and FIGHT to do so- for the ability to… do work? To do work. To advertise and raise stock value
Not to GAIN money. Just to like. Have something. And inflate its value
It’s insane but it’s. It’s working
And anyone one of us who buys something with a visible brand name on it is doing it too
Wild shit
Did you know that major design houses actually lose money on runways and fashion shows? They do. They LOSE MONEY making insanely complex and bizarre and ornate shit. And they do it so that people keep associating their name with class and style and celebrity and exclusivity.
You’ve SEEN gucci clothing. It’s fucking ugly. You KNOW it’s ugly. Never in my life have I seen anyone actually WEAR the shit they put out. But there’s a couple hundred wannabe-gangstas in my city who will pay through the nose for a $500 belt buckle that cost $5 to produce in the same sweatshop that makes the Walmart brands except THIS one has the gucci name on it to prove their low-level dime bag sales make them a high roller like one of the big boys.
You notice how many well-off guys will brag about their Rolex watch, even though we all have phones and almost goddamn nobody USES a watch anymore?
You notice how it’s considered trashy to have a fake Prada bag, fake Balenciaga shoes? Here’s a fun secret: a lot of knockoffs are made in the same factory out of the same materials. The factory still has the pattern and the scrap leather and the expertise, so why not make a little extra cash selling them at a slight discount?
Experts can’t tell them apart because they’re the same thing. But labels hate it because it undercuts their market and letting low-class people walk around with high-class labels lowers their street cred, their exclusivity, their branded image as an elite, exclusive luxury
It’s not Functional. It was never meant to be Functional. It’s Branding. It’s Conceptual Art. It’s an Investment Portfolio. It’s Stocks and Marketing and Insider Trading and Warfare and Imperialism. It’s insane
It’s a perfect perpetual motion machine made out of exploitation and waste and class warfare and genuine artistic expression and bored wealthy idiots and people who want to feel important and I’m. Equal parts admiring and furious about it
Did you know that the fashion industry is the second largest world pollutor behind Oil?
Did you know that
I’m losing my mind
Holy fuck
Someday you’re gonna find me living in a dumpster off Saks Fifth Avenue like a less chill modern Diogenes running around in a papier-mâché loincloth gripping respectable well-to-do citizens by the lapels and screaming “You KNOW you’re being conned! You KNOW you’re part of the machine! Don’t you want to be MORE? You are a wild, glorious animal forced to jump through hoops in the circus. Aren’t you FUCKING ANGRY?” and that’s how you’ll know I’ve finally snapped
Instead of doing NanoWriMo I will be doing something where I try to aim for writing an actual average of 400 words a day for the month of November in memory of Terry Pratchett, who as far as I know never thought telling a computer to write a book for you is a good way to hone your skills as a writer.
I LOVE THIS. THIS is the spirit of NaNoWriMo: to invent a challenge to make you write.
If I may add some ideas:
The 666 challenge: Writing six pages a day in a month (no matter how shitty) because Stephen King writes 6 pages a day. Equating it with the devil is to explain why it’s shit sometimes.
The 420 challenge: Get high. Write 420 words a day.
THE OTHER 51 challenge: Write 51 words a day because, yes, Hamilton wrote 51 essays in six months, but that bitch was crazy, and you can write 51 words without feeling like you’re running out of time.
The Fibonacci challenge: Try to write as many words a day as required to meet the Fibonacci sequence. So, 100 on day one. 200 on day two. 300 on day three. Etcetera. If you don’t hit the number in the sequence, you can respond “DO I LOOK LIKE A MATHIMATICIAN TO YOU”
If you wanna NaNo your heart out at 1667 a day, absolutely do that. Enjoy it! But if start talking now if you’re looking for a group who will join you and not try to fuck AI up its server-hole.
I would like to gently advise any Tumblr users to absolutely the fuck not try to attempt that “Fibonacci challenge,” because it means that your goal for the month of November would be to write 134,692,200 words.
The era of ‘male game devs who resisted for years before realizing female main character = i get to look at a woman’s butt for 40+ hours" has been such a pandora’s box for gaming.
on the one hand you get Nier Automata, where you get to look fabulous in your six inch heels while absolutely destroying for 40+ hours and also the game treats you like a person (which is only mildly funny, with you being a robot) and if you see this butt you know its the most majestic curb stomping butt in the universe
on the other, you get Marvel Rivals where the aesthetic seems to often be “this woman is now going to bend improbably so both her butt cheeks are in the camera AT ALL TIMES hi i’m a very tired very oversexed game developer who is about to get laid off but by god will i be ogling this woman’s ass in her vacuum sealed swimming costume’
and then you have Bayonetta. Which looked at both approaches and said, 'yes.’ But also she bends angels over saw horses and wrecks them with their own spears, so you know what, I’ll allow it.
