Category: Non-fiction

The Robotic Nihilism of Brand Politicing

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Its blackout tuesday, or some such rubbish – people on the internet are engaging in humiliation rituals… HOWEVER It’s not a humiliation ritual for ye olde CORPORATE BRAND. For them, it is an OPPORTUNITY. Corporate Public Relations is all about OPTIONALITY. Here is what I mean by that: You issue an opinion that signals virtue, or else expresses something the greater market approves of. Those that approve of the message will like the brand more. They may even engage in some free advertising on your behalf by sharing your social media posts Those that disagree with the opinion are not…

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Twitter, the Land of Bad Bots

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Before we start, here’s a meme for free: So, you’re an author, or perhaps consider yourself an “aspiring” author (don’t be an “aspiring” anything – read my latest book to find out why). You’ve been told social media is incredibly important, so you make a twitter account. Authors start following you. You follow them back! Some of these accounts have THOUSANDS of followers, maybe even HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. This is how you build a social media following, right? WRONG. Let me give some of you new (not aspiring) authors and creators some critical advice: Success on social media is about…

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The death cult forgets its mask

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I’m fairly certain they deleted the tweet because they realize they weren’t wearing their mask, so here is a screenshot: Murdering babies is badass you say? Something cool kids do? Too bad those uncool Spanish Christians put a stop to such a badass and admirable practice. Truly, the European man is evil for wiping such a badass cultural practice off the face of the earth. No respect for the religious beliefs of others, those wicked conquistadors. People wonder why I call it the death cult. It’s because they’re obsessed with death and promote it endlessly. If it’s not infanticide, it’s…

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Portland

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Portland is a sanctuary city with no Latinos living in it. That’s a simple statement, but it sums up everything about the city’s culture – it’s all about signaling. And it’s the kind of signaling that’s an inversion of a regular business sign. A sign in front of a fruit stand advertises that they have a certain fruit because they have that fruit want you to come in and buy that fruit. The signaling the people of Portland do is pointed towards what they lack – virtue, taste, uniqueness, and quality. Virtue signaling is always a sure sign that virtue…

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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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Steven Pinker – Immune to Reason

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Easy to see Pinker is full of shit once again. People need to work (duh) even if he doesn’t. The idea of an afterlife IMPROVES behavior – both in theory (fear of judgment of the creator) and in practice (Atheists are the biggest mass murderers in history). A life whose value is greater than a dog for reasons of marginal utility is not one that is valued. If you are an object, value of human life is a non-sequitur. First reply: Because they deserve it. What does it mean to make life safer, longer and happier to an atheist like…

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Apolitical™

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Sorry, folks, the Apolitical™ brand is just that – a brand. I get it – you don’t like the politics being forced into your favorite franchises at the expense of story, gameplay, aesthetics, and the general effect of the medium itself. I get that female Thor is lame and super-buff She-Hulk is an eyesore. I know that it’s not fun to be lectured about global warming in the middle of a space-opera game, or to be forced to play a game as an uggo who’s bent on killing your favorite franchise characters – and will succeed. I know it’s annoying…

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Why forced diversity doesn’t work

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There is a divide that the greater culture of the center/right has a hard time explaining, but an easy time recognizing: The difference between “forced diversity” and diversity which is incidental to a story. The surface definition should be pretty easy to work with: Forced diversity is the inclusion of characters in media that are members of social/ethnic/sexual groups for no discernible story reason. Obviously, a story about a transwoman struggling to fit in will include trans characters. “Forced diversity” is having a character that is trans for no reason related to the plot. It’s a character that is put…

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Maybe I don’t “get” writers

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I’m a writer. I write. Seems pretty simple, but I don’t seem to do any of the things that other writers do. I barely use Facebook, but when I do I see posts from a half-dozen writers groups that I joined at some point that instantly make me scratch my head. Posts like, “What is your Main Character’s favorite past time?” “What kind of media do you think your villain likes?” “What kind of food did you put into your fantasy story?” “What would you think about a magic system that is based on the four foodgroups?” (I made that…

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The Left Can’t Meme

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It’s an old meme at this point that the left can’t meme. I had a great discussion last week with Brian Niemeier about his book, Don’t Give Money to People Who Hate You, and in it the subject of memeology of the left came up: I mentioned a former friend that had an image of her turned into a meme, so she started trying to make her own memes of herself as some sort of gatcha. The results were as you would expect – a wall of text trying to explain something crowding out (and thus reducing the impact of)…

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