The bottom-up war on Thanksgiving (libtard foot soldiers, not top-down war by academia / media)

Why do libtards go out of their way to ruin Thanksgiving? Second time within just 5 years.

Part of their greater moralistic crusade to destroy family bonds, destroy American traditions, and destroy holidays as a whole -- as something sacrosanct, protected from everyday bullshit.

I don't mean ideological crap that they post online about how the Pilgrims were problematic or whatever, I mean in their IRL face-to-face interactions with their own flesh and blood on a supposedly holy holiday here.

The former is top-down by the elites in academia, media, and entertainment. I'm talking about the bottom-up process by -- usually not elites, but aspiring elites, strivers, etc. And they may well be outside of academia / media / entertainment, but they take their marching orders from those sectors' elites, as foot soldiers in the crusade.

Well, they may end up destroying family bonds, but not in the way they think -- they're just going to get written off, excluded, and ostracized by those who do value family sanctity over petty moralistic bullshit.

Because contrary to their wish-casting, normal people don't actually have to tolerate them, host them, or even interact with them on these holidays anymore. No amount of pressure from Harvard, MSNBC, or Disney is going to enforce the foot soldiers being hosted by their families, at the grassroots level all over America. They only control what happens in their top-down world (what makes the news, what's taken as true history, etc.). Instead, the foot soldiers are weeding themselves out of the kin-pool.

Technically, it's zealots who fall under this description, since the non-zealous Democrats aren't weeding themselves out, and there are a handful of psycho Republicans who antagonize their families to the breaking point / ostracization. But right here, right now, zealots are way more libtard than conservatard, at least 80-20. Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters, etc., are more jaded and cynical about politics, whereas Democrats, liberals, and Trump haters are driven by idealistic fervor.

Finally, in typical fashion, the ones trying to destroy the family bonds are always those who have received the most from the family and given the least, and go out of their way to signal their ingratitude. Normally this is tolerated because they're parasites who happen to share a high percentage of their genes with you -- but it's gotten so bad, that I don't see these types being tolerated any longer. Not in my case, that's for sure. They're not going to suck anything more out, while giving nothing back -- and waging war on the family at the same time!

My advice to those with a libtard crusader in your family (and there only needs to be one to ruin it for the whole group), get your anger out in the short-term, and then just write them off indefinitely. Tell them you aren't going to talk to them, host them, or give them anything (money, gifts, services / favors, literally anything).

I was hoping this would've died down after the psycho fever pitch of the late 2010s and 2020, but the fact that it's still going on in 2022 means these ones are probably not correctable by mundane means. Pray for them if you want, but you aren't going to change them -- they underwent a radicalization during the second half of the 2010s and 2020, and their transformation cannot be reversed.

If it was just an edgy middle-schooler posting a raised fist in the summer of 2020, I'd ignore that and wait and see what happens throughout this decade. But if they're a Millennial who imprinted on the war for wokeness, not as a youthful rebellion that may fade away, but as though it were a mature responsibility of theirs -- like a fiery 30-something preacher -- I don't see that wearing off. They weren't young, impulsive, and impressionistic -- they were in their late 20s and 30s!

To close on something more upbeat, please consider yourself lucky, and appreciate your situation, if you belong to the fortunate families that are primarily Silents, Gen X-ers, and Zoomers -- rather than Boomers and Millennials (and post-Zoomers, who are too young to be anything yet). You really don't know how good you have it, even if you were also subjected to the divorce epidemic or other family-destroying trends.

That was not unique to Silents and X-er children, but Boomers and X-er / Millennial children, too. But on top of that dysfunctional family force, the Boomer / Millennial families have a far higher concentration of zealots corroding the family for moral crusader reasons.

Sadly (to not close on something so upbeat after all), this is another huge blow to IRL and another huge boost to online / virtual interactions. You can micro-curate your social network online, excluding these persistent toxic influences that plague IRL spheres like the family. But it is what it is, you can only adapt -- by excluding the toxic ones from IRL family occasions, and depending more on normal people online (yes, they're out there, even if they put on an edgy persona).

Are Millennials / Zoomers nostalgic for GameStop, as Gen X is for Blockbuster?

I'm going to re-post a lengthy comment of mine into a standalone post, since it is a bit far from the original topic, though still of general interest. See the comments beginning here for the background -- talking about the availability, or not, of classic video games in the online-only era, when physical media no longer exists, more or less.

Part of my broader interest in contemporary archaeology, like collections of beer and soda containers left behind in hang-out spaces in the woods around suburbia, back when young people used to go there for fun (mainly in the '70s and '80s). Or carvings in sidewalk cement, or carvings on trees, and the like. Physical, tangible traces and remains of an earlier "vibe" or zeitgeist -- not just intangible memories and stories.

Corporeal (as opposed to cerebral) people of any generation could be interested in this stuff, so here it goes.

* * *

Are Millennials and Zoomers nostalgic for GameStop now? I would be. I know there was the meme stock thing, but I mean actual nostalgia for the store, the way they get misty-eyed about GameFAQs walkthroughs.

I stopped playing most new video games after the '90s, but still hit up GameStop in the 2000s to get those compilations of old games for the PS2 or GameCube -- the only reason I bought those consoles. (Used and cheap, both the games and consoles.)

Only contempo games I bought (used, cheap) were for the GBA and DS, which was still keeping 2D alive over 3D, and the drawing / illustration style alive over the photographic / cinematographic style.

I picked up the Game Boy Player adapter for the GameCube, allowing the GBA cartridges to play on a TV (without emulation of the GBA or the games -- same tech used for the GBP as the GBA). In the bargain bin for probably $5, with the disc, case, manual, everything. Now goes for well over $100, and sadly something I had to sell during a major move.

And just milling around the store, browsing, being around other people, maybe chit-chatting with the workers.

Similar to how Gen X will always wax nostalgic for the heyday of the video rental store. And like that staple of the community, the video game store had its small chains or mom & pop stores, like Play N Trade, not only the mega-corpo of GameStop.

It was obligatory to hate on GameStop if you were a gamer in the 2000s, and I imagine into the 2010s. Now looking back on it, have gamers changed their minds? Its business model sucked, they ripped you off if you sold them anything, they always tried to push pre-orders, bla bla bla -- but still, it was a staple of the community, a cultural hang-out space for like-minded people, nothing online or digital about it, but physical and tangible and *social*.

Once upon a time, it was also obligatory to hate on GameStop and others for slapping those price stickers on the games and consoles, requiring meticulous removal. Nowadays, do Millennials and Zoomers get nostalgic for those physical traces of a bygone social-cultural era?

Like having VHS tapes that were originally from a public library, or a Blockbuster, or mom & pop video store. I have several like that, and the different types of cases, or the labels indicating who used to own it, do give them an extra level of nostalgia.

If Gen X-ers can get nostalgic for Blockbuster Video, Millennials and Zoomers can sure as hell get nostalgic for GameStop.

"Perfect" (Gura x Mumei tribute, One Direction parody)

Writing a comment about Gura and Mumei's friendship / colleague relationship got me thinking once again about -- who else? -- One Direction. Boy band anthems can easily be adapted to be about friendships and other non-romantic relationships, as long as they're close and potentially intense, especially where each of the pair complements each other, or brings out a hidden side of the other. BFFs, or partners in crime.

So I've adapted "Perfect" (original lyrics here), with two twists. One, the close relationship is a Platonic one between two girls. And two, the male voice that begins is not pining for a romance he may not ever get (although it starts off sounding that usual way), but for a role to play in the friendship of two others (without it being a love triangle).

In that way, it's more about the yearning between a fandom and their performer, as well as the Platonic yearning for close female friends between two female performers themselves. Girl-respecters and girl-likers are damn rare in the media / entertainment industry, where most girls are girl-haters (and man-haters, too -- people-haters, cynics, etc.). So when two of them find each other, it's quite the exhilaration. So fun, the boundaries start to blur -- are they performing for their audience, or for each other? Nobody loves Hololive girls more than other Hololive girls. ^_^

I could have easily written these lyrics about Gura's other bestie, Fauna, it's just that that recent comment about Mumei & Gura singing musicals together was fresh in my mind, and "Moom" rhymes perfectly with the original lyrics. Also, Gura + Mumei keeps it Platonic (if still intimate and intense), whereas Fauna's witchy sensuality... may make the lyrics sound like they're flirting with the outer boundaries of Platonic friendship, and not that there's anything wrong with that, this just isn't meant to be a shipping anthem. Hehe.

Aside from the giggly entertainment that you girls get from lurking here, I hope it also makes you appreciate your relationships more, and not take them for granted. As much as you make your audiences feel like they're entering a virtual wonderland, you're living a fairytale of your own with each other. Why do you girls have to be so damn cuuute?

* * *

I might never be your number-one fan blogger
You might never tweet me out to all your followers
And I might never be in a meet-up of the Holos
But I can be the one you use to break the ice

When I first saw Goob
In collab with Moom
I could tell that they were princesses (uwuuu)

Girls, are you so sure
Who you're streaming for?
Are you more than just actresses?

So if you like slumber parties under Minecraft moons
And if you like karaoke duet Broadway tunes
If you like to view the memes you know that you shouldn't view
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect for you

And if you like zatsu streaming with your filters down
And if you like yabai posting on your alt account
If you like to do whatever you've been teasing about
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect
So come log on now

I might never be the drive you save your art in
Or the heart-rate belt that spikes each time she logs in
But that don't mean you two can't browse into my mirror
'Cause I can be the one reflecting back your light

When I first saw Goob
In collab with Moom
I could tell that they were princesses (uwuuu)

Girls, are you so sure
Who you're streaming for?
Are you more than just actresses?

So if you like slumber parties under Minecraft moons
And if you like karaoke duet Broadway tunes
If you like to view the memes you know that you shouldn't view
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect for you

And if you like zatsu streaming with your filters down
And if you like yabai posting on your alt account
If you like to do whatever you've been teasing about
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect
So come log on now

And if you like channels clipping when you leave 'em in doubt (uwuuu)
And if you're looking for a mod who'd never ever time you out
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect

If you like slumber parties under Minecraft moons
And if you like karaoke duet Broadway tunes
If you like to view the memes you know that you shouldn't view
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect for you

And if you like zatsu streaming with your filters down
And if you like yabai posting on your alt account
If you like to do whatever you've been teasing about
Maybe you're perfect, maybe you're perfect
So come log on now

Horror conventions change with each new 15-year excitement cycle: Survey from 1915 to 2019

My discovery of the 15-year cultural excitement cycle began by detailing the dynamics of the three different phases (lasting 5 years each) -- the restless warm-up phase (energy levels at baseline, but capable of being stimulated), the manic phase (energy levels spiking), and the vulnerable phase (energy levels crashing into a refractory state).

Although these phases repeat endlessly in a cycle, we can still draw boundaries around a self-contained 15-year interval that has its own distinct zeitgeist. And these intervals begin with a restless phase and end with a vulnerable phase. The other two possible ways of drawing the intervals (beginning with a manic, or with a vulnerable) do not slice up history into recognizable and cohesive intervals. It's natural enough -- crashing into a refractory state is a natural end-point, soaring into the sky is a natural mid-point or climax, and doing warm-ups is a natural start-point.

At a higher level of dynamics, these 15-year intervals alternate between high-energy and low-energy versions, although that is not important for this post. But briefly, the high-energy cycles are those beginning in 2005, 1975, 1945, and 1915; the low-energy cycles begin in 1990, 1960, and 1930 (and 2020).

The only thing I notice about the high vs. low-energy cycles is that in the high-energy cycles, the villains tend to be invaders on the victims' wholesome supposedly safe home-turf, whereas during the low-energy cycles, they tend to be dwellers of a creepy lair into which the victims are drawn.

Something about the intense cycles makes people aware that danger can strike at home, whereas the low-key cycles make people think danger is only out there somewhere -- and therefore, home base is still safe. I think during intense cycles, people resonate more with getting out of the house to do exciting things (whether they actually do so or not), so they don't feel the need to sanctify the home. During low-key cycles, people resonate more with just relaxing at home, and need to feel that place is sacrosanct.

Let's look at how this changing of the zeitgeist plays out in the domain of horror movies. The point here is not to exhaustively list every example of the dominant genres for a given interval. We're looking at the big picture. And since the focus here is on where the boundaries between cohesive stand-alone intervals lie, I'll be using lists instead of prose to get the point across simply.

I'm not including the 2020s because cultural production has more or less ground to a halt across all domains, as our collective cohesion has come unglued. Big cultural production requires high-scale cooperation, so it is over, with only small-scale niche trends taking its place.

* * *

2005 - 2019: Torture porn, possessed / invaded home, paranormal investigation / science, found footage, reboots / vintage / retro

Key series: Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity

Notes: The found footage trend grew out of the previous cycle's focus on urban legends being real -- there was documentary physical evidence, they were not merely a fictional narrative. In this cycle, found footage served to establish paranormal activity as an entirely mundane phenomenon (explainable, engineerable by human science), rather than a supernatural one.

1990 - 2004: Postmodern, self-aware / meta-, deconstructing, fiction invades reality, urban legends

Key movies: Candyman, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, In the Mouth of Madness, The Blair Witch Project, The Ring

Key series: Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend

Notes: Slashers and serial killers were still the main villain type, only now they had taken on a legendary status of their own, after saturating the market during the previous cycle. Basic Instinct took these trends into the adjacent genre of erotic thrillers.

1975 - 1989: Slashers / serial killers (human, animal, alien, cyborg, machine, supernatural)

Key movies: Alien, The Thing, Christine, The Terminator, Predator

Key series: Jaws, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's Play

Notes: This genre reflected the reality of serial killers during the height of the rising-crime wave, and is distinct from mass-murderers. Unlike similar movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which take place within a single small location like a house, the slasher is a hunter who stalks prey across a wide range of territory, relentlessly. The Child's Play series segues into the self-aware / "fiction invades reality" zeitgeist of the 1990-2004 cycle, since an icon of pop culture and advertising is the conduit through which a serial killer stalks targets in the real world.

1960 - 1974: Cursed / haunted / killer-occupied house (often Gothic)

Key movies: Psycho, The Haunting, Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead, The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Key series: Edgar Allan Poe by Corman, Hammer horror

Notes: The main difference with slashers is these are set in a single location, which is the killer's own lair, whether the victims wander haplessly there or are abducted. The slasher killer stalks a range of territory, invading the victims' familiar home-turf.

1945 - 1959: Sci-fi crossovers, creature features (aliens, robots, mutant animals, beasts)

Key movies: The Thing from Another World, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, Tarantula!

Notes: Creatures generally invade the wholesome home-turf of the victims, rather than unwitting victims wandering or being abducted off to the monster's lair. Few horror movies were made, of any genre, immediately post-WWII, so these are all from the '50s. Faustian bargain -- advances in science & tech alert monsters to our presence, which they home in on. Or sci/tech creates these monsters from harmless beings. Similar to the "dangers of culture" theme in the '90-'04 cycle, only there it was the arts (fictional narratives), not sci/tech, that spawned the monsters.

1930 - 1944: Monsters dwelling in a Gothic lair

Key series: Universal classic monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Mummy, Wolf Man)

Key movies: King Kong, Cat People

Notes: In contrast to the creature features of the '50s, the classic monster movies generally focus more on the lair of the monster, which unwitting victims are drawn into. The lair is typically Gothic, borrowing from the Expressionist trend of creating unsettling environments. Only now, it is a lair where much of the action takes place, instead of a hide-out while the monster is not terrorizing its victims out there on their home-turf.

1915 - 1929: Expressionist, Old World folk / fairytales

Key movies: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem: How He Came into the World, Nosferatu, Haxan, Phantom of the Opera

Notes: Most innovation in the early film industry was technical and visual, not narrative, so these drew heavily on existing traditions for their story. Generally the menace invades the comfy home-turf of the victims.

Today's bug of the day report

It was one of those autumn yardwork days today, the first big one after the oppressive heat & humidity of summer are safely in the past.

Little blister between my thumb and forefinger -- check. Scratches on my forearm -- check. Inhaling enough dirt to leave some on the tissue after blowing my nose -- check.

(Yeah, I wore leather gloves most of the time, and long sleeves, but it gets warm enough to have to take them off, and that's when they get ya. I'll never wear a mask outdoors ever again after the covid hysteria.)

Cleaning out the small toolshed after a season's worth of soil and leaves have blown under the door, I knew Gawr "the Nose" Gura would've absolutely died to be there, sniffer to the ground like an animal, from all the wonderful earthy aromas wafting on the crisp fall wind.

Is there "terroir" for toolshed aroma-scapes? "Mmmmm, this must be a Midwestern 2022, one of the few summers they didn't suffer from a tropical rainforest heat wave..."

Anyway, toward the end of several hours, I was squatting down picking up weeds. Does touching weeds count as touching grass? While pulling up handful after handful, I saw something just lying there on top of the dirt -- a bumblebee. Well, the exoskeleton of one, anyway, lying face-up.

He must've been a good bumblebee -- helping pollinate flowers, not terrorizing the nice creatures like wasps do. I wonder if he got killed in the line of duty, so to speak. But it might've been old age / natural causes, since he wasn't partly devoured or anything like that. It was just his time.

What else was I supposed to do but give him a proper burial? I was already next to a bunch of soil, might as well dig him a little final resting place. I tamped the dirt down on top of his admittedly shallow grave. Then for a grave marker, I found a stone about 3 inches long and set that into the dirt on top, along with six smaller stones about 1 inch long, three on each side of the big one. A proper insect memorial.

I said a little prayer for him in Jesus' name, and made sure the area around it was all cleared away of debris. Swept all the dirt off the bricks and stones, etc.

That way, when archaeologists discover the site in 10,000 years, they'll know he was a good bee, and well appreciated by the people who knew him (if only too late). We don't just throw bees in the yard waste dumpster, y'know? We're more noble savage than that.

RIP bumblebee, you lived a good life, and you won't be forgotten.

"Shark Loli" (Gawr Gura tribute, B-52's parody)

Apropos of nothing in particular, just thought of the sharky princess when hearing this carnivalesque club classic. I kept the tone of the original (lyrics here) -- campy, surreal, party hearty, and the kaleidoscope menagerie at the end. I'm adapting the shorter version.

The original is about getting sucked into a dangerous yet fascinating ocean environment while out at a beach dance party, and this adaptation is about the dangerous yet fascinating virtual environment that we can get sucked into while channel-surfing vtuber streams.

For those piecing their playlists together, the infectious danceability, ominous bass-line, the minor key, and surreal lyrics all make this one a must-play for Halloween.

Pronunciation guide: in place of the repeated "sca-do-ba-da", something more like "uwu-ba-ba" (not written below to save space).

* * *

We were in the art tags
His password fell through the screen
Someone clicked in and dragged it up --
It was a shark loli!

Shark loli
Shark loli

We were at the stream
Every avi had matching crowns
Someone pulled down the watermark
And then out tumbled a shark
It wasn't a shark --
It was a shark loli!

Shark loli
Shark loli
Shark loli
Shark loli

Trollin' in the scrollin'
She flipped the script
Lots of struggle
Lots of juggle
He couldn't believe the chants --
There was a ban on pants!
Shark shark
Shark loli

Down, down

Loli shark
Loli shark

Let's LOL!

Boys speakin' Simlish
Girls scorin' Tetris
Everybody's LOL-in'
Everybody's chummin'

Hypin' up our oshi
Giftin' subs
Holdin' the line
Holdin' dubs

Fire up your caps lock
Fire up your stunlock
Pass the ban-evader

Here comes the neko maid (nyaa, nyaa)
There goes the wolf maid (awooo)
In hops the bunny-girl (peko, peko)
There's not-a-chicken-girl (ki kiri kiii)
Chased by a rat-girl (burrruh)
Here comes nature mommy (uuuuuu)
Beware the pirate dommy (ahoooy)
There goes the civ owl (ohai, ohai)
Here comes the fallen angel! (yabaiii)

Shark loli
Shark loli
Shark loli
Shark loli

Minecraft collab streams to keep Halloween traditions alive when IRL is dead

This post is mainly for the Holo honeys (Minecraft maniac Fauna especially!), but anyone can read through to appreciate how streamers and vtubers are in a unique position to keep Halloween traditions alive, in a world where they are dead IRL. The streamers themselves can feel free to skip the next section if they only want the suggestions for how to re-create Halloween within Minecraft. I'm including the next section to make some larger observations about what's going on.

* * *

Partly, the streamers would be carrying on the entertainment tradition of "the Halloween-themed special," where such traditions are re-enacted by the cast. This is not possible with podcasts or other formats of commentary, since those do not involve characters performing a narrative. TV, movies, video games, and other narrative formats are all dead by now, so it falls upon the newer and thriving formats like streaming and vtubing to play those roles.

But they would also be simulating the traditions, within a virtual realm rather than IRL. Such as going trick-or-treating in Minecraft. And that is not possible within other narrative formats, which are not based on the concept of simulation or virtuality.

Vtubers have already figured out how to simulate several activities that are friendly to Halloween, such as the TV show / movie watchalong, which simulates watching a scary movie with your friends. They also play scary video games together online, which simulates two levels of reality -- hanging out with friends IRL to play a scary game (such as during a sleepover), but the game itself is a simulation of, say, exploring a haunted house and running from ghosts.

Below are some ideas on how to simulate experiences that are unique to Halloween, using the best escapist real-life simulator -- Minecraft.

The date would be near Halloween, ideally Halloween night itself. No one goes to Halloween parties anymore, as I've detailed for over a decade on this blog. Millennials, who were victims of helicopter parenting, cannot tolerate anything carnivalesque, i.e. inverting the ordinary order of things for a special festive occasion. So they could not stomach going out to party on October 31 -- because that could very well be a week night, and they ordinarily don't party on week nights. Duh, that's the whole appeal!

Sometime around 2010, as they were getting into their college and post-college years, they all felt the same queasiness about partying on a school night, yet still wanted to go out for a Halloween-adjacent party. What would keep them in their snug familiar cocooning routine? Partying on a Saturday. And ever since then, Halloween parties have been celebrated instead on The Saturday Before Halloween (while there's still some energy for it, not after it's already passed).

But that's IRL. Online, there are no week nights vs. weekend nights, since no special places are closed vs. open on those days. It's hilarious to see terminally online people still pretending to have a thriving IRL social life by not posting on Friday or Saturday night -- don't want your internet followers to think you're a NERD. Online, there is no such special segment of the week. Not because "every day feels like the weekend," but because "even the weekends still feel like the work week" with nothing special, high-energy, or festive to make them stand out. If anything, online weekends feel *slower* than week days.

Unless, of course, you're on a streaming site. Activities like "going out for karaoke" are far more likely on Friday or Saturday than other days, and are far more likely at night than the afternoon or morning. Even on week days, most streams are at their best during the evening, taking over the practice of primetime TV, as opposed to boring daytime TV.

So there is a typical night when a festive stream would take place -- Friday or Saturday, as usual for IRL, back when it still existed. This also makes it possible to subvert that norm temporarily, by doing something festive on a week night. Streamers already do that for Christmas and New Year's Eve, but even IRL those are still celebrated on their real dates. The challenge is to seize back Halloween as a carnivalesque holiday that typically falls on a week night.

* * *

Here's how the night's activities would be structured, in very loose terms -- to allow for the most spontaneous, unscripted action. In the section below, I'll spell out some specifics to guide you along the way, so you don't have to make up everything as you go along, and to provide some motivation, if you've never done these things before (or it's been awhile).

First, a preliminary gathering, to start building some excitement.

Going out trick-or-treating at other people's homes.

An optional prank to play on someone's home.

A campfire storytelling session (personal or fictional events).

Finally, the trip home, where you work out the rest of your energy, and tuck in for the night, in sleepover party fashion.

* * *

I'm imagining the standard SNOT line-up of Gura, Fauna, Mumei, and Kronii, although whoever else enjoys Minecraft social outings could join as well (Irys and Bae?). Not a huge number, though, it needs to feel intimate.

Start at Gura's haunted house -- this will get some more mileage out of the project, and it was already designed with Halloween spookiness in mind. Now the "abandoned" nature of the project only adds to the eerie-ness -- kind of like hanging out in a ruined building, only this one never got completed. "Some say a mysterious such-and-such came over the building team before they could get to work on the interior. If only they had known that this house was built on cursed land..." Get something positive out of a sidelined project! (And no, we don't really care if Gura ever finishes it inside, we're not autistic completionists ourselves.)

Begin by sharing memories of your own experiences with Halloween -- the IRL traditions like trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins, baking cookies, decorating your house, going to school in costumes, etc. Maybe some gabbing about pop culture Halloween specials, too, but mainly the IRL part. The main point is to unlock and activate these memories, indulge in some nostalgia, and get hyped up for when you go out -- but you have to build up some excitement first, so you're as crazy and chaotic as you can be once you head out the door.

I was thinking of some kind of opening spooky activity like using a Ouija board, but that would be hard to simulate in Minecraft. The point there is everyone's hands are on the heart-piece as it moves, and no one feels totally in control of its movement. Maybe you could have a quick convo about whether you believe in Ouija boards, Tarot cards, and other things -- this will set off an interesting dynamic between the rational skeptics like Fauna and the "I want to believe" ones like... Gura? Bae? We don't know who stands where, so it will be interesting to see this unfold.

As for in-game costumes, you could stick with the pumpkin mask, just make sure everyone already has one. You'll have to do whatever tricks to undo the narrowed vision, though (3rd-person POV, or removing the menu bar at the bottom, IIRC). I don't know anything about Minecraft skins, but those would work as well -- a simple skeleton, for example. And not everyone would have to have their own unique costume -- the point is to dress differently, and spookier, than you normally would.

The trick-or-treating would take place away from home, like the JP or ID servers. This creates more of a field trip feeling -- and back in the '80s, when trick-or-treating was at its peak, we used to venture *all over* the place, often places we never normally got around to, instead of just a few streets right around our home.

No parental supervision! Not that your managers play Minecraft with you anyway, but this is important. We never went out with our parents in the good ol' days, that only began with the helicopter parents of Millennials. It's the kids' own special time, and there are plenty of grown-ups around anyway -- the hosts at each of the homes you visit.

The girls on the JP or ID side who participate would have to show up for, say, a one-hour window when this portion of the stream takes place. For the rest of the hour, they simply have a zatsu with their chat, or whatever else. But they have to stay in the home for the appointed time, so that when you show up, they're there to open the door, give you something, and appreciate you paying them a visit. You don't have to have a long convo with them, it's a fairly quick and informal scenario.

Some might throw you some berries or emeralds, while the ones playing a trick on you might throw some raw chicken or whatever.

Others can participate without being logged in for the appointed time -- they can leave a chest out in front of their home, with a sign next to it that says "Take one" or whatever creative message they want. ("Please take only one -- the spirits are watching you / or suffer the curse / etc.") The chest can have tricks or treats inside to choose from.

This may be the majority of homes you visit, if the time slot is hard to make. But that's fine -- it's still venturing outside your home base, visiting one home at a time, until you've wandered all over the place, picking up tricks and treats along the way, and making those social-emotional connections with the other people in your community, some of whom you rarely meet! We didn't just go to our best friends' homes while trick-or-treating, we might not have recognized their faces at all. Outside the routine!

Whether they're at home, or setting up a "take one" chest outside, they can decorate their home with jack-o'-lanterns, spider webs, etc. A few things, nothing huge if they don't want to. In fact, if a lot of the girls don't log in often, one or two people from their server could put up decorations in front of their homes for them, if they have some free time. So it's not just a few homes on the "street" that are decorated.

After that, optionally, you can play a prank on someone's home, akin to throwing eggs or "wrapping" their trees with toiletpaper. The rambunctious rule-bending side of Halloween. One idea I had is to wrap someone's entire home in a giant jack-o-lantern. Find a home that's small, and build a simple rectangular box around it.

The materials would be orange wool or whatever, and one wall would have some black wool or coal blocks to make the eyes and mouth. Triangle eyes, with the curly number 3-shaped smile, as a smug prankster signature. No green needed for a stem on top -- it wouldn't be visible from the ground level, so don't bother. Just a simple box. With 4 or 5 people there, it would get built pretty quickly, and would be a nice little bit of teamwork.

This would also simulate carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns together, at the same time.

Ideally, find someone's home who logs in somewhat often, so they could get surprised by your work, and have a chuckle. "Those ornery kids..."

Next event, finding a spooky spot outdoors to hang out and tell scary stories. I'm thinking the top of Fauna's lighthouse, since it's not right in the middle of a bunch of residences, it's Gothic with the vines growing up it, and the light at the top could stand in for a campfire. Plus, fear of heights getting activated, easy view of the night sky, etc.

On the trip over to it, you can chit-chat about your trick-or-treat haul, the exhilaration of pranking someone's home, etc. But once you reach the storytelling spot, you sit or stand around in a circle -- not wandering all over the place, but staying intimately close. Then you can go around the circle telling scary stories -- these could be from your own personal experiences, something that happened to someone you know, or a friend of a friend, urban legends, etc.

If one of you likes getting into storytelling mode, you could prepare a story to tell the others, in dramatic fashion, where you're narrating and they're listening, not a back-and-forth convo. But if you're not a storyteller, or don't want to practice it, don't worry about this. You wouldn't have to make up your own story, it could be reciting some popular urban legends (the hook on the car door, the kidney heist, etc.).

For maximum impact, this narration should take place after an initial round of informal storytelling among the group. "Well, if you thought *that* was frightening," the segue opens, "have I got a tale for you..." The others' curiosity is piqued, so they focus their attention on the narrator, who tells the story. After it's told, they discuss amongst themselves, then eventually go back to the informal round-robin of personal and conversational sharing of experiences.

When the chatting energy has dwindled down, a quick trip back to the home base (Fauna's home is nearby and has lots of beds), where you work out what remains of your energy, maybe pretend to savor some of your treats, go to bed in-game like a sleepover, and end the stream with a "Happy Halloween!" to the audience.

Grunge vocal harmonies: Alice in Chains as the final egalitarian all-American sound

To stay on the topic of grunge for a bit, let's return to the economic context of vocal harmonies in popular music, as detailed in previous posts and comments (here, here, and here). Namely, they are an aesthetic expression of an egalitarian economic zeitgeist, rather than a hyper-competitive zeitgeist. The reason is simple: if you want to stand out from the others in a group, that's easier when the climate favors me-first behavior, whereas one that favors collective well-being will corral a would-be lead into sharing status with the other members.

This economic climate, and its aesthetic expression, lasted from roughly 1920 to 1980, the so-called Great Compression, when inequality was steadily falling, and norms were collectivist (no matter if that was under Stalin, FDR, or Franco).

However, just because 1980 marked the start of the neoliberal, individualist Reagan era, doesn't mean the egalitarian ethic disappeared everywhere overnight, nor that vocal harmonies totally and instantly vanished either. The best-known example in pop is Wilson Phillips from the early '90s, well into the Reagan / Bush era.

But just a few years later, during the Clinton years, and even more of-the-'90s in their style, came one of the most popular grunge bands, Alice in Chains. Unlike other bands of their scene, and of modern rock as a whole, their songs made heavy use of harmonizing vocals between lead singer Layne Staley and the lead guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell (and perhaps one of them overdubbed, to make three voices).

The multiple voices and the intricacies of the harmonizing come through better with a mellow acoustic arrangement, without loud angry distorted electric guitars. Here is "Down in a Hole" from their MTV Unplugged performance of 1996 (originally released in '92):



As far as I'm aware, they were the last major group to rely so consistently on vocal harmonies, especially involving two different people -- that's the whole point of the egalitarian climate. Overdubbing your own voice, to make two or more of your own lines, is perfectly compatible with a me-first norm. Sharing the spotlight with another person is only possible when there's a stronger social pressure to do so.

There's also a geographic angle here, which is that grunge was not only from the West -- where American ethnogenesis has always been most intense, during its westward frontier expansion -- it was mostly not from California (aside from SoCal band Stone Temple Pilots). It was from the Pacific Northwest, which no one had heard much of before.

Most of the other harmonizing bands like the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, and their kids Wilson Phillips, were from California. Earlier girl groups were from the Midwest (Andrews Sisters, McGuire Sisters, and the Chordettes). Only the Everly Brothers (Tennessee) and Simon & Garfunkel (New York) were from back East.

So, the Next Big Thing in music hailing from the cultural center of the nation, out West, was hardly new -- but not this specific region of the West. Why not California, where the record studios are mostly located as well? By this point, neoliberal yuppie-ism was starting to thoroughly infect California -- and yuppies don't want to share credit and fame.

But there was still a pocket of the informal, egalitarian, "Hey man, we're all Americans here" spirit up in the Northwest. That was one of the few regions to vote against Bush in the landslide 1988 election -- not California, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Vermont, all of which voted Republican (for the last time). Rather, Oregon and Washington, the Lutheran Triangle of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and West Virginia alone in Appalachia.

Jerry Cantrell thinks of himself as half Yankee and half Redneck. In fact, during that same Unplugged concert, he led a brief impromptu rendition of the Hee Haw staple "Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me". Part of the broader trend of multiculturalism in the '90s, including across various white cultures -- in this case, the rural / country / hillbilly culture. No different from every sub-culture wearing bib overalls in the '90s. That's probably also the root of the grunge / post-grunge vowel growl -- including a nod to the Southern drawl, while still making it a new distinctive out-West sound.

Several decades later, the whole Pacific Northwest has been yuppie-fied, led by the tech sector. But back then, it was not like that at all. It had a few large booming cities like most other states, not towers of ill-gotten wealth and inequality, which only began in earnest with the Dot-Com Bubble, slightly after the heyday of grunge.

That whole scene was also one of the last times when working-class people could become cultural stars, whereas now it's mainly the children of investment bankers who dominate the entertainment industry. Back then, ordinary people with enough talent could create their own music -- they only needed the studios to record it, and promote / distribute it.

Now, with the whole process being more of a committee-managed machine, the performers are more a series of slots that individuals can be plugged into -- or unplugged from, when they lose favor with the machine. So someone's daughter doesn't need to have a whole band behind her -- she'll collaborate with other pro songwriters, lyricists, and sessions musicians. And when the machine is through with her, that's it, she's on her own and fades into obscurity.

Taking on the system, however, requires a huge amount of social cohesion -- the same small group of outsiders, the band, need to stick together and work out their problems in order to maintain the integrity and bargaining power of their collective unit, rather than be split up and fending for themselves as they fight for individual slots within the machine. No team spirit, no team behavior -- and they get crushed by the collective power of the culture cartel.

As economic norms have shifted even further into me-first yuppie-ism (however rebranded for Millennials and Zoomers -- "get that bag"), and as a cocooning rather than outgoing mood took over the social sphere during the '90s and after, bands disappeared. Everyone became a solo artist and free agent, plugged into and dependent upon the machine.

But back in the '90s, this disappearance was just beginning, so although it was noticeable, it was not total. There were still plenty of highly popular rock bands, and rap *groups*.

By now, though, if you want to be in a band, you won't be creating your own music, but playing covers. Participating in your own band is about more than finding the right number of individuals with musical talent -- they have to collaborate, get along socially, work out problems, etc., on an ongoing basis. That was already a tall order back in the good ol' days, when fights and creative differences were standard -- but typically got resolved, at least enough to make another album (and the loser of those fights didn't automatically take their ball and go home alone).

Today's young people have imprinted on a climate of hyper-competitive economic norms, and helicopter parent-induced cocooning away from their peers during their critical developmental years (which is why they're still socially anxious in their 20s).

It is time to start accepting that American ethnogenesis is complete, and very little new will be created going forward. However, that just means we're going to switch from expecting new stuff all the time, to performing the classics and standards of our culture. And that's not bad, it's just the next natural phase of the cycle. Nobody who goes to church these days is composing their own music -- they're performing what was created by other people, during an earlier era of ongoing ethnogenesis and cultural dynamism, hundreds of years ago.

On the bright side for today's young people, and all future generations, they have an infinite treasure trove to choose from, in order to showcase their talent for playing music in a group, and harmonizing their vocals -- from the Chordettes, to the Bee Gees, to Alice in Chains.

"Weird" aesthetics over the decades: From unifying youth rebellion against authority, to anti-social warring against peers, as imperial collapse sets in

Although I like the '90s the least among decades I'm familiar with, they were still formative for me, and they're currently undergoing a revival (along with y2k), so I might as well chime in on some of the key features of that decade, and how they're different or similar to today's.

This recent reflection was sparked by Mumei singing "Basket Case" during her recent karaoke stream, instead of the 2000s emo era Green Day songs that are more popular nowadays. (Unless Zoomers get back into the '90s for real, and not just in clothing styles?)

Green Day has had one of the saddest trajectories of any musical group, regarding their role in the overall zeitgeist -- from purely (counter-)cultural actors back in the apathetic '90s, to the stirrings of the red state / blue state culture wars of the W. Bush 2000s, to full blown politicized witch-hunting of the woke 2010s and 2020.

Punk proved itself to be the most authoritarian-loving genre, with not only Green Day but the Offspring, the Dead Milkmen, Rage Against (now, For) the Machine, and worst of all the Dead Kennedys outright fangirling on Twitter with the CIA's anti-Trump electoral pointman McMullin. The common theme was that the half-or-more of the country that doesn't support your political program -- bailing out Wall Street, waging war against Cold War boogeymen, and mandating worthless vaccines for a bad flu -- are literal Nazis who must be concentration-camped in order to preserve freedom.

The only punk to pass this test with flying colors is Avril Lavigne, who never once posted anything political during the crucible of 2020 and after -- BLM, Antifa, boo Trump, vaccines, masks, etc. The princess of much-derided "mall punk" aced the test of anti-authoritarianism, while the critical darlings all failed pathetically. Score another W for all things mall-related.

As punk and "alt" culture in general became more authoritarian, its symbols went fully mainstream, to the point where you can walk into any drugstore and pick up hair dye in rainbow colors, Millennials are obligated to have tattoos, and marijuana is sold openly in every strip center around the country.

* * *

But enough about the recent past, which is all still fairly fresh in everyone's minds. The point here is to contrast how different the non-polarized '90s were. Hardly anyone had weird hair colors, tattoos and piercings other than in the ears were hard to find, and there were "3 strikes and you're out" laws about drugs and related crimes.

Now, someone who wasn't there might think that the relative normie-ness of the '90s meant that the alt culture was ignored, shunned, or suppressed by the majority of young people. But in fact they were fully accepted, even elevated at times. Just because you were a preppie or jock didn't mean you didn't have alt friends, didn't listen to gangsta rap or grunge, and never smoked a joint. Youth culture had its diverse sub-cultures, but they were all aware of each other and more or less friendly toward each other -- in their common struggle against The Man, The Powers That Be, The System, etc.

And far from that anti-authority sentiment being a vague vibe, it was explicit. White suburban alterna kids used to openly shout, "What smells like bacon?!" when the police were nearby. Preps didn't want to get hassled by The Man for smoking pot, joyriding, or whatever other mischief they were getting into. And being anti-police goes back even further among African-Americans. All this came together in the scene from Airheads -- where a metal band hijacks a radio station in order to play their demo tape for exposure -- in which the metalheads begin chanting, ROD-NEY KING! ROD-NEY KING! in order to get the crowd to swarm the bumbling cops.

This anti-authority attitude was not limited to local police, while praising the feds as witch-hunters against political enemies, as has become the norm over the past 5 years. Black leaders openly began talking about the role of the FBI in the MLK assassination, and the CIA for introducing crack into the ghettos. It was also the heyday for what the Deep State would brand as "conspiracy theories" among white people, too -- blaming the CIA for the JFK assassination (famously in the blockbuster Oliver Stone movie), the X-Files, the origins of Alex Jones, and so on and so forth.

* * *

To outwardly express these shared interests against authority, they adopted core elements of each other's aesthetics and style. Alterna kids flirted with dreadlocks (Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes, Dexter Holland of the Offspring), wore baggy jeans (including from Afrocentric brands like Cross Colors), and even if they were anti-sports, still sought out Charlotte Hornets gear by Starter. The preppy girls wore Doc Martens shoes. All white people adopted some degree of black slang.

The gangsta rap kids had as many drawers of plaid flannel as the grunge kids, and were bigger consumers of Tommy Hilfiger and Polo than even the preps. The '90s were the heyday of both the wigger and the... bleppy? Blunge? They weren't "Oreos" -- those were black kids trying to act WASP-y and yuppie in general, not just adopt the plaid flannels or Polo logo shirts from white kids.

The two counter-cultural camps -- alternative and gansta rap -- shared the pot leaf as a symbol (on hats, shirts, scrawled onto their textbook covers, etc., even if they never smoked a joint in their lives). In fact, they bought their counter-cultural clothing from the same store in the mall -- Spencer's.

Although I've never done any drugs, that didn't stop me from buying and occasionally wearing a black hat with a white skull in front, which had a vivid green pot leaf on its forehead. You couldn't buy that stuff at Abercrombie, Marshall's, or Walmart -- you had to go to Spencer's. That was before white counter-culture split off from black counter-culture and re-camped in the Hot Topic store, during the 2000s.

But back in the '90s, multiculturalism was the rule -- not only across races, but within white sub-cultures, like alterna and preppy, or alterna and country. The lineup for Woodstock '99 was heavy on the alterna sub-cultures within whites, but it also had George Clinton & the P-Funk All-Stars, James Brown, DMX, and Ice Cube. Not to mention multiple bands in the popular black-white fusion genre of rap-metal. Along with Willie Nelson, Creed, Sheryl Crow, and the Dave Matthews Band for normie / conservative-coded white audiences.

The shared interests against authority, and their cultural expression, came together in the censorship of music -- mainly by putting the sales-killing "Parental Advisory" label on the album cover. That effort was spearheaded by the non-partisan PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) back in the '80s, but continued into the '90s. And whereas the leader of the crusade, Democrat Tipper Gore, had earlier been the wife of a Senator, she was now the Second Lady.

There were also local measures across the nation to suppress counter-cultural symbols in public schools -- the pot leaf, the Charles Manson t-shirt popularized by Guns N' Roses frontman Axel Rose, piercings other than in the ear, and wild hair colors. But I'll cover those in a separate post, looking back on my own experience as a purple-haired 8th-grader in '95.

For now, suffice it to say that the role of those symbols was to unify the youth culture against the grown-up authorities. They were unifiers because they were already shared across a broad range of youth sub-cultures, and because the authorities were targeting their expression no matter who was displaying them. So it really was youth rebellion vs. power-tripping authorities.

This anti-censorship attitude meant to unify all of youth culture against the overbearing authorities, while still being non-partisan and indeed remarking on the political apathy of young people, was best expressed in the grunge anthem "Pretend We're Dead" by L7 from '92. (In the woke era, you'd have to add "all-female band", but that wasn't a rare thing before wokeness killed off the spirit of cooperation, including among women themselves.)

I didn't hear it at the time, but the jangly tambourine adds a nice Sixties counter-cultural touch, without being hamfisted or "boo Nixon" about it. Probably absorbed through the non-political Paisley Underground scene of the '80s, in their native SoCal area, which bore fuller fruit with fellow '90s icons Mazzy Star.

* * *

After over 200 years of rising, our empire's social cohesion (asabiya) had already hit a state of plateau by the 1980s and '90s, although it had not yet started its shallow decline, as it did during the blue state / red state culture wars of the 2000s, let alone the complete and total meltdown by the woke nadir of 2014-'20.

In the cultural domain of society, this breakdown manifested in the creative crowd -- whether the actual creators, their funders, their distributors / platformers, or the diehard consumers, or the commentators -- severing bonds with everyone who was not 100% identical to themselves. Obviously that unglued the whites from all non-white groups, since the creative crowd is overwhelmingly white. But it's not a racial thing, and pointing to 2000s emo and Hot Topic as a "whites-only" space is retardedly missing the bigger picture -- the creative crowd was severing itself from all other white cultures, like the preppies and normies and country fans.

Indeed, this dissolving of social bonds is so intense that even the alternative sub-cultures keep fragmenting into smaller groups, even though 100% of them are on the Democrat / liberal side of the political divide. They can't help but corrode the cohesion that would otherwise hold them together into a semi-big tent.

And as the creative crowd have abandoned their fight against overbearing authority, and turned on their fellow citizens instead, the overt and Deep State at the highest levels have come out in favor of them, and they in favor of it. Neither the FBI nor the local school principal will suppress a woketard student from sporting green hair, a lip piercing, pot leaf on their hat, etc.

Both the woketards and the authorities have discovered a common interest -- suppressing the unruly rabble during a crisis of legitimacy for the central authorities and elites in general, especially after the 2008 depression from which we have never recovered. The woketards because they feel they're superior to normies, who must be humiliated for their heretical culture. And the Deep State as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy against a would-be organized populace.

The central theme of anarchy has been re-branded for this new alliance, exemplified by the Black Bloc of the early 2000s anti-globalization movement being re-worked into a woketard paramilitary of the Deep State, now branded as Antifa. Whereas before it meant anti-authoritarian, now it means dissolving all social-cultural bonds for the woketards (to purify the culture of heresy), and preventing higher-level organization among the rabble in the eyes of the central state's security apparatus. Chaos, confusion, every man for himself, pure and total social breakdown -- not the put-upon banding together against The Powers That Be. In the new configuration, organization and teamwork = fascism, hence if you're anti-fascist, you're committed to dissolving every social unit in society.

And yes, that includes their own political team's units -- not the bizarre notion from right-wingers that the Dems or libtards or the Deep State have a well-oiled machine dominating a fractured GOP / conservatard enemy. The Democrats could not even produce enough cohesion to nominate Biden and Harris legitimately in 2020 -- the party leaders shut down the primary when it was clear nobody wanted Biden and would stay mired in a Bernie vs. not-Bernie civil war through the convention, like their 2016 convention on steroids (when Bernie representatives were boo-ing their "fellow" Dems from the convention floor!).

Every institution in the American Empire is coming apart at the seams, even the libtard ones. Hollywood can't make new movies, TV series, or music anymore. The video game industry can't do anything more than what they did 10 years ago, as Minecraft and GTA V are the most popular "new" games. The premier streaming platform, Twitch, is currently melting down from within. The general public does not believe the media, nor "peer-reviewed research" from the universities. The finance sector is collapsing again, with double-digit inflation on top of the problems of 2008.

Sure, there's an oasis here or there in every institution, but the overall trend is one of anti-social greed rotting them out from the inside, until they ultimately collapse. This is the opposite world of the Mid-20th Century, when people trusted the news & "studies," when the military could still win a world war, the FBI could coup a sitting president from the shadows with no one the wiser, when cultural production was still flourishing, when our manufacturing was first in the world, and when we didn't have rolling finance collapses with double-digit inflation and 0% interest rates and infinite money-printing.

*That* was the world of well-oiled machines -- here and now, we are in unrestrained breakdown and chaos, on all sides at once.

* * *

Contrary to clueless right-wingers who say that the creative crowd were always this bad, or always had this goal in mind, or are only now taking the mask off, this is in fact a 180-degree corruption of who they were in the '90s. And they themselves are openly embarrassed and ashamed of who they were back then, confessing their sins, promising to atone and "do better", and in all other ways disowning their previous selves. That's the opposite of celebrating their '90s selves as the tip of the spear, Trojan Horse, initial seed, Patient Zero, cuckoo's egg, long march through the institutions, or whatever other dum-dum metaphors the right-wing cultural commentators use to describe it.

Nor can we lazily say that they're the same as who they were back then because "the '90s led to the 2010s" -- sure, and so did the '50s, and the 1770s. We've gone through various phases of having little cohesion, rising, plateau-ing, then declining, yet to reach a new minimum. As far as cultural cohesion goes, the '90s were in a qualitatively different phase of this multi-century cycle. It was the multicultural consolidation of all our empire's earlier conquests, as well as unifying the sub-cultures within the imperial natives. The End of History -- no further left to go, unless history turns out to be non-linear...

Anyone likening the multicultural Nineties to the woke 2010s is from outer space -- they're totally out-of-touch with America, at least, and might as well be foreigners.

Next up: my 8th-grade battle for purple hair -- waged not against my normie peers (or even my parents), but against the literal authorities of the school. And other episodes involving my friends wearing the Charles Manson shirt, etc. I'll also elaborate on some other themes that I didn't get to chance to here, like individual vs. collective identity.

Millennials and Zoomers won't believe it, but that's because only Gen X and Boomers remember the reality of the '90s. Millennials and Zoomers retroactively insert way too much of the their own formative years in the 2000s and 2010s, back into the '90s or '80s, when it was not only absent, but often the polar opposite of the environment they imprinted on.