Category: The Age of Internet

The Downfall of Telltale Games

Now, I am a few days late to this whole drama, but that has let me get a glimpse of a little extra content.

Last week, Telltale games declared that it was going to be shutting down, laying off most of its staff (who were expecting an eventual closure, but not so sudden). Official reports argue that a failed round of funding (the last backer abruptly pulled out) caused the shut down. The company is only staying open in order to finish the Minecraft: Story Mode for Netflix, then is shutting down permanently. This puts a halt to the much anticipated final season of Walking Dead and trashes the production for a Stranger Things game.

While officially, financial problems led to the closure, this development was a long time coming. Telltale games exploded onto the mainstream scene with the insanely popular first season of Walking Dead, released in 2012. Every gamer who was played that game, with streams for the first chapter popping up. As the game had promised that the endings would change based on your actions, people were trying to get the best ending possible. The first season was pretty good at making it seem like it changed based off actions, as well.

However, people quickly realized in the second season that this was not the case. Major events occurred no matter what, taking away the purpose of trying to find different outcomes. Another problem as well was the fact that the only character that remained consistent was Clementine (and later the child), while all other characters seemingly disappeared. Even the spin-off game was a dead end, with none of the characters making it into the actual game. This made it so there was too many characters to get invested in, turning people off.

This also ruined interest in Game of Thrones and Batman, two games that were reportedly good, but too long and unchanging for people to really be invested in. It only goes downhill from there, as Telltale keeps releasing more and more games, none of which had anywhere near the same popularity as the first season of Walking Dead. As a result, the company was merely digging itself into its own grave.

But, it didn’t let that on to its employees. In fact, the company had just hired people weeks before they had the massive layoff, with people even moving across the country in order to come and work. As a result, a massive class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company, as with the sudden layoff with an almost immediate cut-off of benefits, they have violated California labor laws. Some argue that in suing a bankrupt company, they are wasting their time, but it’s important to solidify that these laws apply to gaming companies, who might otherwise think they’re exempt.

The Saturation Complex of Geek Culture

I had mentioned in a post earlier that there is a prevailing idea that misconstrues how geek culture came to be. I can’t really say where this came about, although I strongly suspect that films and TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s paired with gendered conceptions surrounding geek culture are to blame. Whatever the cause, it has fueled this conception, leading to a sort of alienation complex as the geek community shifts and changes.

As a result, there is this saturated version of history, which relies on the idea that women and minorities have not been a part of geek culture until very recently (as in, within the last decade). As a result, there has developed a constant push against women and minorities joining in on geek culture, with particular “tests” placed against women in order to test if they’re “qualified” to partake in the geek community. These blockades grow increasingly pointless as geek culture continues to gain popularity, and yet for some reason persists. Perhaps I can explain why.

You see, it all starts at the source of geek culture: Science Fiction (Sci-Fi). In the saturated version of geek history, the first Sci-Fi author was Jules Vernes, best known for his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. As a result, this causes men who believe this start to think that women and other minorities have no real right to enter and write about Sci-Fi.

However, if you make one quick Google search, you’ll find that this version is incorrect. While Jules Verne was one of the earlier Sci-Fi writers, the real first Sci-Fi author was Mary Shelley, who published Frankenstein in 1818, a whopping fifty years before Jules Verne. This makes the Sci-Fi genre not a “boys only” club, but a club founded by women.

Shelley wasn’t the last female Sci-Fi author, either. Well-known ones include Octavia E. Butler, Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Suzanne Collins. Sci-Fi has never been a “boys only” club, although it is often pushed to appear that way.

Comics, by contrast, didn’t really diversify until recently. In its early days, the comic industry was very much “boys only”, mostly outright refusing to hire women and other minorities. This isn’t unusual, however; the entertainment industry as a whole was that way.  That isn’t to say that women and minorities weren’t in those realms, but it was very difficult to break in, particularly from the 1920’s-1970’s. This realm makes it a whole lot easier to promote the saturated history. Since women and other minorities were barred, it was easy to say that they didn’t belong and exist in the space. Despite the fact that the majority of comic readers in the present era greatly outweighs the “traditional” readership (white men), there is still this stigma that pushes women and minorities away.

The same goes for the video game industry. Women and minorities were mostly barred in the early days (as they were discouraged and stigmatized from getting STEM degrees in college), meaning that they couldn’t break in until more recently. This has created a frictional environment that extends beyond game development and into game playing, leading to online harassment and common claims of not being a “real gamer” to anyone that doesn’t fit the geek stereotype. To be honest, the “fake gamer” argument is ridiculous: if you play games, you’re a gamer. You don’t have to be best of the best, but if you play video games as a hobby, then you qualify.

The reason there is such a push back against diversity entering geek culture mostly stems from a victim complex among the “traditional” geeks. Despite the fact that geek culture has been gaining continuous popularity over the last two-three decades (exploding after the premiers of Walking Dead and Game of Thrones), the news for some reason has not hit the geek community. Or, rather, it has not processed.

The “traditional” geeks seem to be in denial about just how popular geek culture is, moaning and groaning how they are such victims and such a minority, while at the same time fighting against anyone that doesn’t fit their own characteristics and pushing them away. They like to act like they’re still the kids that get severely bullied, although just about any kid with a computer nowadays has access to video games and anime. It’s a bizarre complex that sticks out like a sore thumb.

How Fandoms Go from Fab to Drab

Fandoms, which are a subculture centered around supporting or following a certain piece of media, are everywhere in Geek culture. Just about every TV show, movie, book series, and more has a fandom, some small, some tremendously big, and many in-between. If something extremely popular is released, usually its fandom explodes for a few months, or even a few years, before mysteriously collapsing and disappearing. If you’ve ever seen this occur, then you have just witnessed a fandom going from fab to drab.

How does this occur? Fandoms have normal lifespans, with the very small ones usually dying out fairly quickly after the piece is released (known as “going dead” in fandom terminology). Medium and large ones that continue in their drab phase can live a long time-I’m talking about decades of survival (Star Wars, Star Trek, Back to the Future). This is all a part of a natural cycle.

However, Fandoms that go from fab to drab have a relatively short and volatile lifespan, which can lead to fall-backs and resurgences, all before their eventual collapse. This usually comes as a result of several factors.

The first is the development is what’s known as toxicity. Every fandom has a few bad eggs. But when there’s enough of them, all attacking people and bullying people over differing ships and opinions, then the fandom gets labelled as “toxic”, both by people outside of the fandom and the few remaining clear-headed people still in the fandom. Fandom is supposed to be about a community coming together, not tearing each other apart. This is an issue that can occur in just about any large fandom, as major groups (particularly shaped around “ships”, or couples that people root for) belittle minor groups, essentially bullying them out of the fandom.

The toxicity does not stop at people in the fandom, either. I remember the days of Superwholock (The combination fandom of Supernatural, Dr. Who, and Sherlock) when the fandom would attack any outsider that questioned them or criticized them, building up their own reputation as toxic. The same thing happened to the Undertale fandom, leading to its demise within only a year of the game being released.

Which leads me to my next point: Hatred towards the fandom. When a fandom is toxic, it not only builds up a bad reputation, but cuts its own supply off of newcomers. When people are discouraged or turned off from joining the fandom, even the largest one will eventually fall. Every fandom needs newcomers to survive; too few or none at all will kill just about any one of them (Superwholock was an interestingly unique case, but in order to explain it in full detail I would need to talk about it separately).

When fandoms are faced with these two issues, they become increasingly volatile, lashing out against others and fully consuming themselves in their toxicity, which only furthers the problem. They solidify their own fate, even if they don’t know it.

Fandoms that once start fab, welcoming all others and becoming a large fandom that bonds over a certain media, can either quickly or slowly turn drab, turning against itself and ruining itself as others watch on. It’s an interesting and prevalent cycle that normally only happens to the biggest and trendiest fandom of the time, providing a serious lesson to others about growing too big too quickly.

How I Can’t let some Books go

I read a lot of books. More so when I was younger, and had a lot more time to read around school, but that doesn’t stop me from buying potential books to read.

As a result I’ve invested my time and energy into many books, both good and bad, and even some okay. The good ones I usually keep in my room, and the bad ones usually go to the sad and lonely shelf in the middle of a hallway in my house. Trust me, there’s plenty of bad and okay books on that shelf. But hey, when you read a bunch of YA novels, you’re bound to run into many bad ones before you find a good one.

Most of the bad books I’ve read I’ve already forgotten. However, there are a few series that I just can’t let go. This might be because of the fact that among the bad series, there was a good book that I actually enjoyed. Usually this would be the first or second book, getting ruined by the third or whatever else book (In the Mortal Instruments, it was the opposite: I thought the first three books were decent enough, but liked the fifth book the most). Two series that exemplify the above for me are Hunger Games and A Court of Thorns and Roses. I thought the second books in both series were the best, but I didn’t much appreciate reading the third book, to put it politely.

But if only one or two books were really exceptional to me, why do I still cling onto its fandom? Well, I’m usually reminded of the series when I see fan art or something else of the sort. It gives me a sort of nostalgic feeling, and makes me want to re-read my favorite parts of the books I liked. It keeps me hooked onto the fandom, even if merely grabbing the barest shreds so I don’t get too invested in the culture again. Fandom culture has gotten pretty toxic over the years, and I don’t like to involve myself much in them anymore. Discussing their evolution will be saved for a different time, however.

As for the fan art, it’s not just any old fan art. It’s usually drawn by artists I follow, who happen to have read or currently read the same books as me. When I see their interpretation of certain scenes or characters, I am redrawn to those books, even if I haven’t touched them in over two or three years. I blame nostalgia and the familiarity of the characters. My brain recognizes the characters and clicks, triggering a sense of desire to pick up the books.

Art Credit @ Charlie Bowater

How Aggretsuko and Gudetama Took the World

Hello Kitty has long been the star of the Japanese company Sanrio, since stepping onto the scene in 1964. Since then, numerous characters have been released through the decades, with characters such as Cinnamroll, Bad Badtz-Maru, and Chococat gaining some popularity and recognition.

However, there are two Sanrio characters, both of which are two of the company’s newest characters,  have taken not only social media, but also pop culture, by storm. The first of these two is Gudetama, who’s name is derived from “gude” (the Japanese onomatopoeia for having no energy), and “tama” (taken from the Japanese word for egg, tamago), is exactly what his name prescribes: a lazy egg. Released in Japan in 2013 and internationally 2014, the egg gained almost immediate popularity among Millennials and Generation Z kids for his adorable appearance and lazy attitude. His character release was accompanied by a series of online shorts displaying his daily “adventures”, and little emotes that display his range of laziness.

Gudetama maintains popularity as a result of his cuteness, but also his lazy attitude. Young people relate to his lazy attitude, because they want to be like him, lazy and having no problems to deal with (work, school, taxes, etc.). They want to be able to just do nothing. They also like his “kawaii” nature, his simplistic design making him absolutely adorable.

The character also has a very recognizable aesthetic, adding to his popularity: orange and yellow. Two colors that might otherwise be seen as garish and non-kawaii colors are made a central part of Gudetama’s aesthetic, which works incredibly well. It makes his aesthetic unique. All his merchandise is sold in this aesthetic, with shirts, jewelry, stationery, and other items being sold in the pastel yellow and yoke orange colors. Even the plushies of him tend to center around those colors, adding all the more to his absolute essence.

The second character, Aggressive Retsuko, a.k.a Aggretsuko, is a red panda who is an assistant associate at a Japanese company. Her work is oppressive, and she vents her frustration by getting angry, drinking, and singing death metal at a Karaoke bar. She was initially released in Japan in 2016, and then abroad in 2018, paired alongside the anime series about her life. She takes a much more adult perspective than Gudetama, and gained instant popularity because of the fact that she has to deal with her terrible boss (who is an actual pig) and fake coworkers. Many people entering the corporate work force have to deal with these same issues, and only wish they could vent all their frustration in the same way.

Although I haven’t seen much of her merchandise, I know it sells. She’s too popular for it not to sell. She holds a place at anime conventions, and has become a staple for the fact that she’s so relatable. It does help that she’s also very cute.

Both of these characters deal with issues that Millenials and older Gen-Z kids can relate to, although they represent opposite perspectives. Gudetama represents the joy of being able to be endlessly lazy, with no real troubles to deal with, while Aggretsuko deals with releasing stress when faced with the worst of work conditions. It’s interesting to see how they’ve taken off in popularity, and continue to remain popular.

How Movies and Memes have made me Connect Art and Music

As I was walking through the National Museum of Art in Washington DC, I couldn’t help by hear constant genres of old music (Classical and Medieval), as I walked through the impressively European artwork. While hearing the music for so long (I spent hours in there), I was reminded of the time of when I was in other museums (in Rome, LA, San Francisco), and each time I heard music that I had subconsciously connected the artwork to.

There are only two reasons why this has occurred. The answer: movies and memes. Why these two? Well, I could argue that shows have also helped, but they gained their inspiration from movies and documentaries. Movies and documentaries often connect the old European art to classical music, Native and Polynesian art with traditional flute music, and so on and so forth. Documentaries are really to blame for this, particularly art and culture documentaries, pairing famous artworks alongside music that just gets stuck in your head.

However, it’s not just documentaries, as I mentioned earlier. Movies, too, sometimes only vaguely related to the artwork, can have music that can pop into my head, despite not even being in the same country (in some Roman churches, the soundtrack to Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame kept playing in my head). For some reason, my mind connects one to the other, and there’s no way to get out of it. And I’m certainly not the only one.

But where do memes come in? Well memes, the epitome of how people process pop culture and politics in the name of humor. These can take shape in the form of pictures, videos, and just about any other digital medium that you can work with. While sometimes art is used to make clever historical memes (there was a period of Washington painting memes that flooded my dash), the gifs and videos are what really get me.

Oftentimes the gifs are attached to some dumb song or another, and the videos are edited to have music in them. So rather than classy music binding itself to art in my mind, its dumb music that makes me smile or crack up. It’s dumb, but my mind seems keen on connecting my memories to the present, something I’m certain all of our brains do. Brains like to do stuff like that, especially when we get a first glance at famous works via pop culture. Sometimes it’s kind of nice, and other times it’s not.

The Effects of Adults Playing Teenagers

Just about every time a teenager is cast for a show or movie, the role of whatever teenager there is is given to an adult. While it can make things easier (not having to worry about an actual teenagers schoolwork or schedule), this can have drastic affects on actual teenage audiences, who only see teenagers portrayed a certain way. In order to analyze this, I will break this essay down into three parts: how teenagers are casted, how actual teenagers are, and the impact of the portrayals on teenagers. While the portrayal of teenagers has certainly altered in the last five years, it’s still important to understand their previous depictions in pop culture.

1. How Teenagers are Casted

As I mentioned above, teenagers are almost always portrayed by adults. Much more often now they are portrayed by young adults (18-early 20’s), but for a long period of time they were portrayed by adults in their mid-to-late 20’s (sometimes even early thirties). And these adults wouldn’t look all that much like teenagers, either. They looked like exactly what the actors were-full blown adults. Flawless skin, toned bodies, nice hair. They look like polished versions of teenagers. Even the actors now casted to the role of teenagers (who look much more like teenagers) still are polished, and very post-pubescent.

They also act in almost stereotypical ways, with a rebellious streak that is so insane that it’s practically unbelievable (at least, in terms of mine and my friends’ parents). I’m sure there are plenty of parents that don’t actually murder their children whenever they pull a stunt crazy enough to involved the police, but I’ve only seen them appear when I was already in college.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at two cases: Teen Wolf and 13 Reasons Why. Teen Wolf began airing in 2011, and 13 Reasons Why first aired in 2017. In the former show, the cast are supposed to be freshmen in high school, although the cast definitely look like they should be in college at least. The cast began the show in their early adulthood, however, were so finessed that they pass at all for young teenagers. The main group in the show consists of mostly hot young men with well-toned six-packs, which I had seen in many clips (I’ve never watched the show, leading to my surprise when I found out they were only supposed to be fourteen), and they are incredibly well-dressed.

As for the latter show, the actors look much more like teenagers. They dress more like modern teenagers, they’re supposed to be around 16 or 17, making them much more believable looking. These actors are only in their early twenties, and it shows. The athletes have typical strong figures, but everyone looks normal, and not like supermodels. There is a stark contrast in the way the characters are presented from previous shows, but the fact still remains-they are post-pubescent. They still have perfect skin and hair, still show no signs of changing. Not that they have to, but their presentation is very finessed and flawless.

2. How Actual Teenagers Are

If you’ve ever met a teenager in real life, you’d know that media portrayals of them are grossly misunderstanding. Real teenagers still practically look like children, especially as puberty seems to hit later and later nowadays. They don’t really start looking like adults until senior year, and even then it’s difficult to say they actually look like adults.

Real teenagers have acne. They are awkward, and still adjusting to their own growing bodies. Their fashion sense is still developing (if they have one at all). They get weird haircuts, they wear glasses, and they never have a six-pack. Real teenagers look almost nothing like their polished counterpart portrayed by the media. They act cringy (I’ve had my share of moments), and act in ways that they’ll grow to regret (don’t we all?). They certainly don’t go driving out to the middle of the forest to go monster hunting with their friends at two in the morning.

Most teenagers don’t actively rebel against their parents. There are some, who take advantage of parents who don’t quite know how to discipline their children, but for the most part, most adhere to their parents’ rules. At least, most of the ones I knew, anyhow. No one was able to just do whatever they wanted.

3. The Impact of the Media

During my time, some people tried their best to look nice, but for the most part, people just wore whatever they really wanted. But we were still affected by the way we were portrayed in the media. A distorted view of how we imagine teenagers evolved, with a subconscious pressure to look just like our favorite characters. We begin to try and style ourselves to certain categories, almost stereotyping ourselves into different groups (the “cool” kids, the nerds, the athletes, and everyone in-between). Although it was subtle in my high school, it still existed in other, smaller schools.

More recently, however, I see more and more teenagers trying to look like adults. This is both due in part to media portrayals, and also to the rise of Instagram models and other social media pressures. Teenagers want to stop looking like teenagers, and instead want to skip to adulthood. This was a problem during my times in high school, but I notice that it’s becoming more apparent, especially with the rapid change in appearance that teenagers put on their social media. They try to hide their teenage identity in any way they can, promoting an “older” appearance, and turning away from things that made being a teenager fun. Kids are trying to grow up too quickly, and media portrayals of teenagers only encourage this goal.

Youtubers Becoming Authors: The Self-Help Trend

In the last five years, there have been a number of Youtubers releasing books, some fictional (like Joey Graceffa’s Dystopian trilogy), and others non-fictional (like Shane Dawson, Miranda Sings, Tyler Oakley, and so many others). Youtubers, using their influence, often write books of “self-help”, or a series of essays, or something similar to memoirs. They provide advice, despite the fact that they are only in their mid-to-late twenties. It’s a bizarre case, one that I have been feeling the need to unpack for a long time.

Now, while John Green is technically the first youtuber to release a book, he was an author first, so I will just skip him.

The first youtubers to publish a book after gaining their popularity were Blaire and Elle Fowler, publishing the fiction book Beneath the Glitter, in 2012. From then on, Youtubers began publishing their non-fiction books, with books such as I Hate Myself and In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World gaining quite a bit of traction. Most of these centered around Youtubers’ tales of their childhood, functioning as a pseudo-memoir despite the fact that most of the authors were in their early-to-mid twenties.

It wasn’t until 2014 that the first actual “help” books came out from a Youtuber, with Hannah Hart’s My Drunk Kitchen: a Guide to Eating, Drinking and Going with Your Gut. It’s help aspect comes from the fact that this is a recipe book, although within the next three years tons of “self-help” books came out.

Now, while I have no qualms with things such as recipe books and fictional novels, the memoirs and self-help books kind of get to me. And it’s not like it’s business or fashion advice, either (Michelle Phan published Make-up: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success- Online and Off in 2014, which offers both business and fashion advice, as well as maintaining a healthy attitude), but rather actual life advice. This isn’t to say that someone who isn’t in their twenties can’t give life advice. It just seems odd that someone who is in their twenties are offering advice books to their audience-most of which are in their early or mid teens.

To me it’s difficult to imagine my teen-self or any of my friends following the advice of someone who, quite often, never got their degree in college, and made their career in a  very competitive environment. It also seems weird to read a memoir about someone who hasn’t even made it to their thirties, yet. Most people don’t write memoirs until they’re almost in their fifties, or even later. It’s usually after they have lived quite a bit. That isn’t to say that a lot hasn’t happened to a young person, but most Youtubers’ memoirs are quite mundane. They have childhoods that may be tough, but are often not unusual.

Of course, some of these Youtubers can provide some insight that their younger audiences can relate to. Things such as mental illness, eating disorders, being a part of the LGBT spectrum, and other such hardships may connect to people who are stuck in similar positions. The only problem is that the writers are so young themselves, still growing and learning, that what they write in one book won’t be how they feel ten years down the line.

Perhaps rather than sticking to full on life advice, they should stick to subcategories that they excel in for now. There are so many ways that you can provide advice to young people without it being how to live. There are also many ways to write personal anecdotes without writing full memoirs. It’s better not to rush into things so young, despite our tendency to do so.

The Controversial Author of a Beloved Series

The Harry Potter books and movies have been loved and cherished for around two decades. It was a series that was recognizable to millions of people, to the point so that some of the advertising for Deathly Hallows Part Two didn’t even name the title of the movie. It has also led to the opening of Harry Potter World in both Universal Studios locations (Orlando, Los Angeles), with hundreds of thousands flocking to partake in some of the magic. The Harry Potter series was classified as the hallmark of an entire generation.

While the fandom for Harry Potter seems to be thriving, I can’t help but wonder how much this is done out of pure nostalgia, especially as more negative light turns to the series’ author, J.K. Rowling. As time goes on, I notice that former die-hard fanatics are noticing more issues with the series, particularly with the actual lack of originality that the magic world in the series has. But contrasting from these fans-turned critics are the ones that are still die-hard, constantly taking every house quiz, referencing the series when they can, and even getting permanent tattoos of famous symbols. It’s an interesting mix that I increasingly notice is coming at odds with one another.

In order to analyze why I notice some people being pushed away, we’d have to first look at the history of negative light placed on the author. You see, this all started after the release of Halfblood Prince (the book, of course), in which J.K. Rowling announced that Dumbledore, the father figure to Harry Potter, was actually gay. This came at a celebration of diversity initially, although there were some that questioned the fact that Dumbledore never revealed anything about his sexuality (no reference, no actions, nothing) in either the books or the films. Over time, this move turned purely to criticism, calling the author out for making a cheap shot of queerbaiting, especially with the lack of interaction between Dumbledore and his supposed “lover” in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2.

J.K. Rowling only put more bad attention on herself by claiming diversity in the books after the fact, despite never referencing those characters in her series. This gained more negative attention and criticism, although a meme has arisen around her after-the-fact claims, with people claiming ridiculous things to mock her attempts.

Now, you may think “well, she wrote the books in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, she’s from England, so it would make sense that she’d only write about white people”. There’s a few issues with that logic. She had written the books with only white people, which, if you just left it at that, is fine. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that most of the characters are white, and all of them are straight. Most mainstream series and books from that period were like that (especially European books, although they do have a level of diversity that they seem to ignore). If she had just acknowledged that fact, there wouldn’t have been any controversy. But to try and say that you had diversity, while not putting in the effort to display that diversity, or re-editing the books to show real difference, is just weak. It reads as cowardice and band wagoning, which would turn people away.

Another issue, which came up earlier this year, is that J.K. Rowling has been following and liking the posts of TERFs. What is a TERF? A TERF, or Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, is someone that focuses on promoting the equality of “biological” females, claiming that trans-males are traitors and trans-females are women-haters. They claim to be feminist, but are really not, and they are rejected by most of the feminist community, leading them to call discrimination and brainwashing. Their tweets are very difficult not to tell, and J.K. Rowling liked and retweeted several from a known TERF, which were targeted against trans-females. This caused some outrage, but not nearly as much as it should have. In fact, it has almost been completely forgotten, quickly hidden with news of a new interactive Harry Potter game. But it left its mark on me.

Where do I sit on this issue? Well, I was never able to finish the original series, despite the fact that my sister had read all seven books 4 times. I saw the movies, but was never all that invested. But the controversy has made me quite put off from investing my time and money in any of J.K. Rowling’s works or films.

The Fun of “Geek” Makeup

Despite the fact that Geek culture has been in the mainstream for nearly a decade, it was only recently that I discovered Geek-inspired makeup. Maybe this is due to the fact that I didn’t like makeup all the much until around two years ago, but it was still strange that I had never heard of it. I’ve been to cons, I’ve involved myself in many fandoms, how did I not hear about it?

Well, this is excluding the main-stream geek culture collections. Of course I’ve seen Star Wars themed lines, and also Hunger Games collections from Cover Girl and L’Oreal. And of course I’ve seen the Disney-inspired makeup. But I had never seen stores purely devoted to producing Geek-inspired makeup.

I had only discovered the makeup by chance, stumbling upon Shiro Cosmetics as I was looking for cruelty-free makeup. Looking into their site, I found they had a series of collections based off of popular media and memes, having collections centered around Game of Thrones, Into the Unknown, and Avengers, particularly eye shadows. They have cute little drawings that they come with on top, and lots of funny designs. And the reviews seem to like them.

The discovery of this site led me to start looking around for other Geeky makeup, and I was able to find quite a bit of collections. I found Geek Chic, Espionage Cosmetics, Nerdastic, and Black Pheonix Alchemy Lab, all of which had many items based around pop culture. It was astonishing, especially with the fact that the most of the colors looked so pretty. And most of them were cruelty-free.

The makeup usually has fun names, with fun designs, although if you’re looking for eyeshadow, don’t expect to many pressed palettes. Most of them are loose powder, with a few pressed palettes, which can be a little off-putting for some.

Geek-inspired makeup really started blowing up around 2015, as bigger companies began pushing out lines for the new Star Wars (Force Awakens), inadvertently boosting smaller makeup companies that based their whole existence around Geek culture. While still being considered “underground” and definitely “artisan”, Geek makeup has found its place and audience, and will only continue to grow as more people discover them.

Legends of the Weeaboo

I’ve already spoken about Koreaboos before. The people who want to be Korean, marry a Korean, want to be just like a Kpop idol or Kdrama star. They reject their own culture in the name of adopting Korean culture (or rather, what they think Korean culture is like).

The weeaboo is almost like this. Actually, they are the forefather to this. The weeaboo, rather than being centered around Korean pop culture, is centered around Japan. The weeaboo rejects their own culture in order to adopt what they believe is Japanese culture, proclaiming it as superior to everything else. They base their idea of Japanese culture off of anime and manga, imagining it as some perfect society that is more advanced than any other culture, and that it has had no bad history or political issues.

The weeaboo began to form around the 1990’s, when the West had access to popular anime and manga. Young generations now had access to watching anime, influencing an entire generation, causing some to go a little overboard and become weeaboos.

Except, at the time, they weren’t called weeaboos. Until the mid-2000’s, weeaboos were called “wapanese”, meaning white Japanese (despite people of all races having the potential to be a weeaboo). The old name was mostly given on online forums, with sites such as Reddit and 4chan coining the terms.

However, in the mid-2000’s, some 4chan moderators decided that they were sick of the term. They banned the term wapanese, causing users to scour the internet for another name. This is how they found the term weeaboo. The term came originally from an obscure comic, which is in no way connected to the actual group of people. However, it was a word that also didn’t have a meaning of its own, and was thus made what it is today.

Weeaboos are still going strong, although they now have to compete with koreaboos, causing an ironic and hypocritical battle between the two groups. They are both disgusted with one another, but can’t seem to relate the traits of the other groups back to themselves. It’s kind of weird, but amusing to watch.

The Emo Phase: People Still go Through One?

I grew up during the height of the Emo genre. Bands like My Chemical Romance, Evanescence, and the early days of Panic! At the Disco and Fall Out Boy were all hot on the scene, providing plenty of fuel to the Emo genre. Almost everyone had an emo phase; I even had a mild one. Dressing in all black, getting piercings all over and dying your hair funky colors was totally in. It was cool when I was a preteen.

But with the dawn of the 2010’s came the fall of the Emo genre. Rock, especially the hardcore rock, had fallen out of fashion in mainstream music, along with the Emo fashion. The era of the hipster was coming in.

I had thought the era of having an Emo Phase was long gone. But then my friend showed me a video of an Emo makeup tutorial from 2018. This greatly surprised me. There were still people going through Emo Phases in 2018? I had thought the closest people got was punk. I haven’t even seen a goth kid in ten years. So to see that there were still Emo kids was greatly surprising.

The thing is, I don’t even know how the Emo kids survive. I remember Emo phases being greatly tied to the music, but those are out of fashion. My Chemical Romance and Evanescence are disbanded, and Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco have greatly changed their style. When Emo culture was a part of mainstream pop culture, it was easy to find and adopt that culture.

But I don’t find it anywhere, anymore. Not in the music, not in the fashion, not even in the hair. It simply doesn’t exist anymore. You can’t even really find videos online anymore about it, which leads me to wonder how it continues. It’s rather bizarre that the trend still continues on.

The “Anime Phase”

My friends and I all had one. Some of them still haven’t gotten out of it. It’s that period of time where most, if not all of what you watch is Anime, and you join fandoms centered around your favorite ones. It’s a normal part of nerd development, it seems.

For those of you who seem confused by this “Anime Phase”, let me put it into perspective: imagine you had a show or TV genre that you were absolutely obsessed with. You could have been obsessed with it for weeks, months, even years, but it was the center of your attention in terms of being a fan. They’re one in the same. But rather than having it be an American or British TV show/genre, it’s Japanese.

This phase rose out of the Anime Craze of the 1990’s. It came as a result of kids having greater exposure and access to watching Anime, allowing for the phase to blossom. Kids are going through a period of wanting to watch nothing but Anime, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The Anime Phase can range anywhere from casual (like mine) to all-consuming. I was one of the ones who would watch Anime casually, but wasn’t too far into it. I could watch other shows, and watching Anime didn’t take up my entire day. But there are others, including people I knew, who would spend their day only watching Anime. These are usually the ones that don’t ever leave the Anime Phase, although there are occasions when they do.

In most cases, those who have an Anime Phase never stop watching anime. I can tell you that most of my friends still watch certain anime (mostly to most popular ones), although I find myself unable to sit down and watch one. The last one I saw was three years ago, and although some anime are enticing, I just can’t sit for that long watching. I’ve developed kind of a strange relationship with anime, probably because of overly casual nature of my Anime Phase.

The Anime Phase has been going strong for over twenty years. It’ll be interesting to see how long it continues for, especially with the rise of other popular phases.

Social Media Bandwagon: The Case of Alex Jones

Within the last few days, Spotify, Facebook, Youtube, and Apple all made the move to ban Alex Jones, the runner of the conspiracy theory podcast known as Infowars. Apple was the first to make the move, with two days later the other three platforms following suit. This came as a result of months of complaining from general populace, who wanted Alex Jones banned for promoting false information and dangerous lies. And while this is a step in the right direction, it comes in a way that seems cowardly.

But let’s start at the beginning. Why did people want Infowars banned? Initially seen as a funny meme in the beginning, the podcast was quickly recognized as dangerous, spreading misinformation and promoting distrust in real media, arguing that the conspiracy theories presented are actually true. This grew dangerous under the age of “Fake News”, causing people to follow him and believe him, further dividing people over what is actually happening in the country.

This caused people to start pushing to get him off of mainstream social media platforms. People were tired of Alex Jones and his podcast, and wanted him to stop having open access to unsuspecting audiences. People even cited that he was breaking terms of service on multiple platforms in order to try and get him off the normal way, but none of the social media platforms did anything. Despite constant protest and pushing to get him off, not a single platform did anything.

That was, until Apple finally decided to cut his app off, and to stop streaming his podcast on Apple Music. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the other three platforms “found’ that Jones was in fact breaking Terms of Service. Now he’s only on Twitter, saying that the other platforms banned him out of cowardice. The real case is, however, that no one wanted to do anything unless someone else did it first.

Think about it. As good a move as it is, why did it take so long for the platforms to act? Then, when Apple finally banned Jones, why did they move so quickly? Because they’re jumping on the bandwagon.

The thing is, companies don’t really care, unless it will hurt their own public image. So when a big company like Apple moves, of course Facebook (who recently took a major hit over selling information and causing a company to make bot accounts), would want to jump at the opportunity to make themselves look better. And of course Youtube and Spotify would want to as well, in order to prevent losing public face. It does make them look kind of weak.

But at least they did something good. I can’t hate on them too hard, because it wasn’t like they banned someone people actually liked. But it does kind of look sad when companies jump on a bandwagon to keep people on their platform.

How “Daddy” got Popular in all the Wrong Ways

It was a mere six years ago when the term “daddy”, which holds it’s place as a part of the Daddy/Little Girl/Boy kink, broke the scene into mainstream Internet media. Once a niche kink that was relatively unknown, the Daddy/Little Girl/Boy kink became widely known, with much criticism following it. The term “daddy” especially gained criticism, while at the same time becoming a meme within social media. Now it is a permanent fixture, although for many it has ruined the original pure meaning of the term.

But first: what is the Daddy/Little Girl/Boy kink? The kink consists of two consenting partners, in which one, the “Daddy” is the dominating male, and the other, the “Little Girl/Boy”, is the submissive type. It is kind of like age play (where one person pretends to be much younger), except more mature, with the submissive figure playing the “cutesy little kitten” type. The submissive will even address the dominant as “Daddy” in a sexual way, trying to get their attention and be used for sexual acts. There are not that many people in this kink, although within recent years it has gained more traction.

When the term “Daddy” broke onto the scene, it permanently changed how many teens and young adults saw the term. People started to use it in a mock sexual and comedic manner, although it’s innocent beginning for most was tarnished. Even I’ve been affected, and every time I hear the word used in a non-mocking manner makes me uncomfortable.

A few years ago, however, the backlash finally arose against the use of “daddy” in a sexual manner. People wanted its innocent meaning to be at the forefront again, and for its use in a sexual manner to sink back out of existence. Anyone who tried to argue in defense of the kink was shot down by the masses, and it was pushed down.

Going into the modern era, the term is much less common, but still tainted. It is still used as a joke, which keeps it’s dirty meaning from fully fading among young adults, although it doesn’t seem to be presenting itself to younger teens, anymore. But it will be a long time before it’s finally gone.