21 Comments

"For example, conservatives proclaim from the rooftops that Hollywood is “attacking their values”, promoting sexual deviancy and godlessness. I fully believe that what they’re really upset about is that movies and TV shows make their own way of life look deeply uncool."

Do you have kids? This reads as if it was written by someone without kids. This was a fun read, but I think some conclusions drawn here could use a little more real world knowledge.

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Hey I don’t have kids and that line of reasoning really resonated with me. I am curious to know how differently people with children view it

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Apr 19, 2022·edited Apr 19, 2022

The naivete of that line makes the assumption that Conservatives care more about looking uncool in the eyes of popular culture rather than a way more obvious line of reasoning, which is not letting their kids adopting Hollywood degeneracy.

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I have kids and that line resonated with me too. I suspect that part of the threat to their values that Christian conservatives are seeing is precisely that Hollywood makes them look uncool, and they’re worried that their kids will absorb that message. I mean, I’m a far-left secular Jew, and even I found myself hoping that my kids wouldn’t think that wild parties where everyone gets wasted and trashes the house, or driving while stoned, or having sex with a different partner every week was normal, and that they were weird and uncool if they didn’t do those things.

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Conservative Jews here (both political and denomination). I think there's a good segment of religious conservatives who aren't playing the status game within pop culture. Maybe looking cool is a goal within their tribe, but if they ever look cool in the eyes of Hollywood, one would have to wonder if they're straying away from their values.

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Jun 8, 2022·edited Jun 8, 2022

I'm a conservative Muslim and while my crowd is not getting the hits from liberal culture we are nervously looking at trends and wondering if our children are going to fall into a lot of this degenerate stuff. Its not even bad in the traditional bad like drinking and pre marital relationships which we view as very bad but like innovative levels of weird bad nobody was expecting.

Edit: conservative socially, otherwise I'm roughly left i think.

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I'm a conservative Christian mom, and that comment totally nailed it. Pretty much the only shows I watch are Food Network cooking competitions, and what I love best about them is the way that they often showcase Christians and other unfashionable people and treat them with respect.

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Apr 19, 2022·edited Apr 19, 2022

Great article!

For me though, the biggest mismatch between reality and TV that I had to actively acknowledge and try to unlearn wasn't mentioned, and that's the image that young people are supposed to regularly go to insane drug-fueled parties and then hook up with attractive strangers.

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Well, you are right--that is a mighty fine dog you have.

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"It’s actually a trick: The artists’ goal [is] making the audience subconsciously associate those views with a lower class."

No, it's not a trick. Cartoonist use visual shorthand to convey meaning. It's not an attempt to "trick" anyone, subconscious or consciously.

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Not that it changes the argument, but NFTs aren't made of invisible marks on a file; they're more like a special unique certificate out there somewhere with the URL of a file or the name of a video game item written on them. This is shown when e.g. NFTs attached to images fall into question when the URL they refer to goes down. What makes the NFT scene so frustrating is that you could do anything with these silly certificates, but the utilitarian concept is spoiled by celebrities paying thousands of dollars to use them to claim bad drawings of apes, or more fundamentally, URLs of to bad drawings of apes.

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Someone described them as just overly complicated hyperlinks, and now I can't stop thinking of them that way.

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Someone actually minted an NFT where the picture changes based on where you're viewing it (whoever actually bought it and viewed it from their wallet sees a poop emoji): https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

To people who don't know anything about crypto I've taken to the explanation that NFTs are receipts.

"So if I have one, what did I buy?" "Exactly."

(funnily enough, I think this framing also makes the original argument even stronger)

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Okay I am sorry yall but between a lack of ability to discern when people are joking and a lack of any knowledge about photoshop: is Jason actually jacked or did he photoshop that picture?

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As has happened here, he has to photoshop his face onto the body of less muscular men in order to prevent a medically dangerous condition known as "hyper-orgasm."

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Lol it's shopped, see how the shadow/color of skin changes right where the chain is? Plus the watermarks on the muscular man part of the image. I had the same reaction at first though 😂

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If seeking status is a defining characteristic of human behavior, do we have to put status seeking into robots to make them behave human-like?

Is status-seeking universal in all social animals?

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Seems uniquely human. I think animals will seek it for power resources or mates but humans seem to be the only species capable of seeking status for itself.

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I'm not sure I agree that the main (or even only) purpose of posting food photos on Instagram or wherever is to create envy. I think it's a cry for approval: please like the thing I posted, please tell me it's a good thing to eat, that I picked the right dish and cooked it in the right way. Tell me I'm good. Love me.

It's still concerned with status, but not in the way you're thinking of.

I don't know what implications that has for your argument, but I can speak from personal experience on this part.

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I'm still trying to decide if misstating the title of your upcoming book is a mistake or a mindfuck

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I'm wondering if the (conservative) HUAC could be seen as an effort to counter (liberal) Hollywood as the status-setting authority, and if so, will we see a new version arise fairly soon?

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