Category: Analysis

The Process of Deplatforming

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Having been around, carefully observing the process of “deplatforming” (that is, banning) of so-called “right wing” personalities on social media, I’ve noticed a few patterns. I’ve noticed that the platforms, YouTube in particular, operate in a series of steps, with the final collision of banning across all platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) happening last. Let’s take a look: Phase 1: Shadowban In this step, the offender is identified either manually (that is, by a person) or through new elements added to the algorithms and filters, and is essentially cut off from the normal organic boosts that a social media account will…

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How Short Fiction Died (and how it can come back)

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If you want the deep read, check it out on JD Cowan’s blog: https://wastelandandsky.blogspot.com/2020/07/what-are-friends-for.html The ultra-short summation is this: Science fiction short fiction didn’t lose popularity like wearing bellbottoms, it was destroyed through the actions of a small clique of contemptuous busy-bodies who took over the scifi magazines and shifted their subject matter away from what was popular towards what they wished to be popular. The result, of course, was a loss in popularity over time, but process repeated multiple times, until brands which were important in the 1930s are worn like skin suits by people who hate what was…

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Color: The Key to Impact and Emotion

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Time for something different – some tips on choosing the right colors for art, ad copy, and things like book covers. Let’s start with some examples of great fantasy art by Kerem Beyit: Kerem’s proficiencies are many, but one of the reasons his art has such a vivid “pop” and stands out so much is his use of color, specifically limited color range centered on two different (but rarely complementary) colors. Rather than attempting to go for some “realistic” approach to color representation, he distills things down to a few charged areas. The result is really eye catching. Notice in…

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The Greatness of the Hobbit

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I’m not talking about the movie, which was so far from the greatness of the book it deserves its own dissertation, I’m talking by the original work by JRR Tolkien, originally published way back in 1937. This book was a landmark for fantasy in a whole host of ways, and many of those ways are not at all obvious to those of us who have inherited the literary landscape of Tolkien. None of those new and original things would have mattered, however, if it hadn’t been a great yarn. Let’s talk about a few big ideas: The main characters are…

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On Reviews and the Indie Movement – An Optimate Memo

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I haven’t done much in the way of book reviews, either here or on my YouTube channel, but I’m reconsidering how I approach this. First, take a look at this blog post by Alexandru Constantin, regarding where he has settled on book reviews: There are few things I want to cover here related to all this, before I get to prescriptions: Tradpub may be a facade, but it is one that normal folks think is real – and perception matters What is the point of a book review? Is there any point to negativity? The “political right” doesn’t think strategically…

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The (Game) Song Remains the Same

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A good thread to kick things off: Games are first, and foremost about their gameplay, NOT their story. Story in games can be great. You can tell stories in unique and interesting ways that other mediums just can’t do. However, gameplay is a prerequisite for a gaming experience to be… well, game. I never finished The Last of Us because its gameplay was, quite frankly, too boring. It also looked boring. The story started off with a good hook in the form of tragedy, but then became a slog. There was very little game at the macro level, and none…

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A Culture In Need of ENJOYABLE Books

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Talking with some other #pulprev friends today, one of the best points brought up about stories in video games is that players often focus on the story because they don’t read. I’ve made this point numerous times regarding video games and stories within them – if your goal is to tell a tight story, a game is not a very good medium. Gameplay is the art that is unique to games; this doesn’t mean you SHOULDN’T tell a story with a game, it just means that if your primary goal is a traditional, highly constructed story, you are better off…

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Aesthetics MATTER

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I’ve been travelling lately, so I’ve missed some on-point commentary by my contemporaries. Alexander, who I’ve had on NewPub Talk before, nails it once again: Within that article is one things that I’ve been trying to hammer for years: Aesthetics Matter. Aesthetics are powerful. Aesthetics have meaning. They aren’t just arbitrary window dressing, as some post-modern critics would have you believe. My YouTube subs often take exception to my heavy weighing of Aesthetics as a category when I review movies and games, but I often feel like I give them too little weight. Good aesthetic presentation can save a sub-par…

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The Diversity War never Ends

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It doesn’t matter how much you shut out men. It doesn’t matter how concentrated alternative lifestyle adherents are in your industry. They will always call for more. You are in an eternal state of sin for the color of your skin. Take note of this. Not only are the goalposts shifting, there were never any goalposts to begin with; or rather, the goals are different than what they say they are and aren’t actually on the field. The point of pretending there are goalposts is to get you to play the game they want you to play. If your industry…

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Beauty in Art is the Reverence of God

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I’ll try to give my broadest, most robust theory behind beauty in art: Beauty in art is the iteration of God’s creation. Yes, this is Platonic. When a painter paints a portrait of a beautiful woman, he is iterating God’s creation directly. If he is painting a woman that is born of his own imagination, he is painting an iteration of the concept of female beauty, which is revealed through God’s creation. This extends to music. Beautiful music is a display of the perfect mathematics that underly God’s creation – an ordering of pitches over time according to mathematical relationships.…

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