I've never understood the appeal of streamers, but at least most streamers play video games and I can see where there might be somee meager entertainment value in that. But political streamers must be an especially cursed strain. What, you're going to spend the minutes of the only life you'll ever have watching some asshole live react to a clip from CNN? And then drama streamers must be even worse. You're going to watch some guy talk about how a different streamer is leaving her also streamer husband because he cheated with a different streamer and spent their life savings on crypto? Why?

Granted, Hasan's probably the best we could hope for from politics streamers, I just take issue with the entire form. I feel the same way about 24 hour news channels and daytime television.

I hate this guy so much. Made a few admittedly pretty good movies in the '90s, but the rest of his films are terrible, and he's been lauded as some sort of Film God ever since. I mean, I'll always watch a new Tarantino movie because I know it'll be decently fun to watch (and be mad at) and all his films are technically very well made and typically are full of good actors giving entertaining performances (of weak material). So I guess credits due where credits due.

But his post-'90s work all feels so self-indulgent, so masturbatory. Clearly Quentin Tarantino also believes himself to be a genius, with very important ideas on film. Any time I hear this guy say anything he comes off as so smug and self-congratulatory and you can feel that attitude throughout every moment of his work. Add on the racism and zionism and he's just a vile man who I wish would go away.

But I can see where he'd get this read about Joker 2. It's certainly the way chuds took it. Don't think I agree, though. I feel like if anything this movie was like "all you dumbasses intentionally misconstrued the first movie as some sort of ode to toxic masculinity, so I'll make the same point as last time but more clearly."

This is neither here nor there, but I somehow listened to this review podcast thing of Joker 2, I think it ended up on my twitter feed or something, and it was just three libs who didn't like the movie, but I got the feeling they didn't like it because the character of Joker was seized by chuds as an icon and they couldn't articulate that. Anyway, one of their only cogent reasons for hating the movie was "Lady Gaga's Harley gets used and tossed aside by a narcissist." And I just wanted to ask them if they saw the same movie I did. How did they want it to end? With Arthur taking up Harley's offer to full personify the Joker and live out the rest of his life as some kind of blood-crazed monster?

They also complained that the musical numbers didn't blow them away. Which I guess is fair, but I also feel like that's not totally engaging with the movie on its terms. The musical numbers are the hallucinations of a deranged spree murderer who can only sometimes tell fantasy from reality. Complaining that they aren't incredible is a bit like complaining that Arthur's stand-up in Joker wasn't funny. But, I don't know, maybe I'm giving the movie too much credit there.

To all social reformers this poster, who is held in good standing except for those times badposts were made, doth say this: I am a loyal subject of the Good King Gaben, most venerable and wise and just, whose reign shall be eternal. No darkness can enter into these bountiful lands so long as those who hold fast to the King remain faithful.

:imagine-dragons:

I've been hearing libs (and chuds too) say this for nearly a decade now and I'm sick of it. Trump doesn't control the military, if he tried to go rogue he'd just get arrested. Or just ignored. How many of the corporate interests that make up much of the ruling class today would benefit from a civil war? They've got a fairly sweet deal going on. I could see the Fed gov fall apart domestically, lose it's ability to respond to disasters, and see state govs also abandon that responsibility, slowly leading to warlordism breaking out, but that's really got very little to do with Donald Trump.

this is just a repeat of "We can push Biden to the left". What good did that do?

What do you mean? That worked. I mean, sure, I'll grant you that Biden didn't make any sort of push to bring about policies that help working class people, but he did pose on that UAW picket line. That's the most progressive thing an American president has done since FDR. That's progress, and like any progress it's slow. Gradual. I expect that, at this rate, in forty years we might get a president that will be willing to say out loud that it ought to be illegal to extrajudicially kill homeless people.

All the digital movies I own are ones I purchased on blu-ray that came with a digital code. I'd do it that way with all media if I could. But the sheer convenience of digital is undeniable.

edit: though, to be clear, I do think pirating is good and completely victimless in the vast majority of cases.

I spoke to a conservative family member the other day who said they didn't like Walz because "he's a total socialist." I know words like socialist don't have much meaning to most Americans, but what the hell is that supposed to mean?

I asked that, in nicer terms, but didn't get a meaningful response. I called Walz a moderate, and said that he hasn't even called for any New Deal style programs to be added to the democratic platform, much less socialism.

Think they made Walz turn down his rhetoric because they want to run a center-right campaign to attract would-be Republican voters that are put off by Trump? If that's right it's got to be one of the worst electoral strategies, maybe ever.

I'm not plugged into popular culture, especially around music. I don't follow any contemporary artists, and I only know the names of a small handful of the biggest artists. Not for any conceited reason, I'm just weird when it comes to music. I mostly like movie soundtracks, I don't know why. And some Post-Rock stuff. But sometimes I randomly hear a real song and enjoy it.

All this to say I really like her song "Girl, So Confusing." Which I only know about because of this edit of the movie Amadeus using the song (after the style of this edit of the movie Barry Lyndon using the song "a lot" by 21 Savage). I only know who Charli is because of the whole Brat thing, and until I saw this edit I don't think I'd ever heard any of her music before.

Though I hate the only other song of hers I've ever heard, "Girl, So Confusing" ft. Lorde. Which is a little funny because one of the only albums of contemporary music that I own is Pure Heroin by Lorde.

I fucking go to open up my iTunes program on my fucking Windows PC because I wanted to watch a movie I own digitally, and I get a fucking message alerting me that iTunes for PC has split into three programs. Old iTunes now only has audiobooks and podcasts. Apple music is self-explanatory. And then there's Apple TV+ for the rest.

Goddamn that's irritating. And on the one hand, sure, iTunes for PC has always been a very poorly made program and it's clear to me that they intentionally designed it to be as slow as possible because why would they release a functional program for their main competitor's OS. So I guess, assuming the new programs work better than the old one that's some improvement. But why's it gotta be three separate things? Why can't it be one centralized thing? Hey Tim Cook, if you're inexplicably reading this, even though this decision was probably made far beneath your desk, fuck you. Also fuck Microsoft because it's probably their fault too. And fuck me.

I just assumed, I think based on some clip I saw of them years ago, that they were a stoner couple who got high and giggled nonsense into a mic for two hours as a podcast. Bizarre to learn that the guy hosted a different podcast with Hasan and the lady was an IDF soldier (I think I heard that somewhere?).

I mean so many Internet personalities are political non-entities, who’ve based their entire personality around like video games or weed or Disneyland, so I’m always surprised to learn when one of them turns out to have any political opinions at all.

Not only should you cut off all family ties, you should cut out all ties with anyone. Except Hexbear. You have us, what are those other people even for? We'll be your friends, we'll be your family. When one of us succeeds all of us prosper. And when one of us suffers a setback all of us weather the blow.

All we ask in return, and it's really no big deal, is that you tithe 10% of your annual income to Hexbear and also be prepared to die or kill for us if we ask that of you. No big thing. We can even hook you up with an s/o from within the community. Do you like chatbots? The government can't tell you to not marry a chatbot.