Yeah I enjoy reading your posts, especially the shitposts
re: people disliking it when you are mean/insulting, isn't that natural?
Also while we're on the topic, I'm curious - roughly how old are you, what do you do for a living, and how did you achieve such a high level in that rare skill known as media literacy? Also, why did you change your mind on defending the game's flaws?
To keep it even, I'm <>, work as a <>, and the last question doesn't apply to me cos my media literacy level is -69 uwu (deleted original to preserve anonymity
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It's just the kind of thing that's saddening to see in practice. I imagine people don't ACTUALLY want to be swayed by their base emotions like this. Like, you don't want to befriend a malicious serial killer just because they're nice to you, and you don't want to dislike... this is a harder example to give purely for rhetorical reasons, but you don't want to fail to recognize the beggar in a street is a Buddha. Imagine a scenario where one is stuck in the middle of nowhere and you have to call for help; pleasant associates may not come while the assholish friend does. That kind of thing. In a LiL context, we don't want to like Ami because she presents herself as a super-niece and writes flowery poetry when in reality she is extremely self-centered and malicious (as also reflected by her "honest" poetry, which is thick and dark); we don't want to dislike Maya because she's vitriolic to us at the start when in reality she is the most devoted partner imaginable. There is a LOT of benefit to seeing the truth of a person / matter regardless of one has a positive or negative experience with them. This isn't to say I specifically am a great person who should be befriended, but it is kind of dispiriting to be reminded of how effective clown masks are - that social relationships can so often be reduced to a meter where "make interactions pleasant = be beloved, make interactions unpleasant = be hated," and that the people around us can be manipulated so easily. (We can also observe this in how Selebus was far more beloved here in the era when he wore that uncannily enthusiastic mask(?) in his initial Patreon posts).
For my own part, although vehemental and some others have said some fairly vicious things I don't take personal offense or hold it against them. Certainly, I would not go so far as to say that their poor reaction to exaggerated condescension means "they are not worth reading" or "their opinion is not at the baseline level of value." I do not evaluate the character of others based on how mad and insulting they are in the moment. Despite all they've said: Vehemental has an acute mind and are most likely good at Elden Ring, Bingoogus's boisterous personality is charming, Moonflare is fairly thoughtful on a variety of subjects and has interesting takes... Riolol so far has just been kind of mean but I maintain optimism as to their greater character. And of, course, there is Selebus, who I am obliging by continuing to post even as he watches, or maybe doesn't. (Also, you endorsed the progress mod! Don't laugh react to vehemental when it is DEVELOPER APPROVED to use progress mod! Maybe ban people the moment you see "hints" on the screenshots, eh? Also, smh, reading F95 on your trip, don't do that to yourself.) Anyway, there's a phrase in Brazil that goes like "fight all day, emerge as friends in the morning." Perhaps one intention here is to see if they hold a grudge for the rest of their lives. It would be VERY neat if e.g. Bingoogus remains pretty insulting after a few years. I have to imagine that like, due to the ignore, over time they would forget the details of my Sensei Quest posting, and then just vaguely remember "that guy sucks," and act based on that. Which could be cool to experience. It's all very novel. (Of course, right now I am deploying "clinical dry autistic" personality, so if that one earns as much ire as "pretentious overlord" personality, then that's fair too. Though I'm not as sympathetic to disliking long posts for being long as I am for disliking insulting and condescending posts.)
"Media literacy" is kind of a joke in the current climate so I don't want to respond seriously at risk of sounding smug or condescending which is 100% guaranteed to result in the ire of a reading audience. But in terms of getting more out of what one reads I think it is beneficial to read a lot, care a lot, and think a lot. Creation is kind of an endless cycle of old content being absorbed and new content being spat out; a familiarity with Little Busters, Higurashi, Cross Channel, and so on make many aspects of LiL more clear (if you are fond of Akira's character development then you will surely delight in Taichi's depiction in Cross Channel). If you read a lot then you will be able to tell when an author is breaking established norms, what is purposeful, what is skillful, and so on. Common patterns for specific themes etc. Selebus's own genius was birthed in part by watching like a thousand anime and a hundred VNs. You can see this in his writing style which constantly injects references to all the stuff he has read, though one needs to be extremely erudite to notice ALL of the references, from Horimiya's egg time (a joint project with Wonder Egg), to FF14 skill names like 'sacred soil' and 'hallowed ground' being deployed, and so on; the overt Subahibi nods are too surface level to be worth considering here.
Secondly is caring a lot. This means not just consuming but paying attention to what you are consuming, and being invested in getting the most out of it. "Paying attention" sounds simple on the surface but is actually much more nuanced than you may imagine. First of all, in the modern era there is always the temptation to have a stream or TV show up on a second monitor. If one gets bored there is also a temptation to skim (note the ENORMOUS number of reviews which mention holding CTRL the moment a scene is uninteresting to them). In the case of books I think barely anyone is reading books anymore (not even Selebus!) so probably not meaningful to talk about them here. But all things considered actually paying attention to what one reads is difficult. Over time one is liable to enter a kind of flow state where they just skim the surface of words without understanding them or ever pausing to think; this is how one can finish a very blatant mystery novel without ever solving the mystery, for example, or miss otherwise major details. It's good to constantly challenge oneself and make sure you are paying attention instead of skimming. Something I like to do is quiz myself on details like "what was the scene I just read about? what was that line saying?" etc, because with some intellectual honesty one may realize that even such simple questions can be surprisingly hard to answer if one was skimming in the moment. Taking the time to re-read in these cases is very valuable.
"Being invested in getting the most out of something" is abstract so allow me to explain that as well. It benefits us, not the author, to try to maximize value from media. We want to enjoy everything as much as possible. An investment in this goes a long way to fully understanding media as one looks at something from every possible angle to maximize enjoyment. Wittgenstein wrote it like this:
Take the question: "How should poetry be read? What is the correct way of reading it?" If you are talking about blank verse the right way of reading it might be stressing it correctly - you discuss how far you should stress the rhythm and how far you should hide it. A man says it ought to be read *this* way and reads it out to you. You say: "Oh yes. Now it makes sense." There are cases of poetry which should almost be scanned - where the metre is as clear as crystal - others where the metre is entirely in the background. I had an experience with the 18th century poet Klopstock. I found that the way to read him was to stress his metre abnormally. Klopstock put (meter symbols) in front of his poems. When I read his poems in this new way, I said: "Ah-ha, now I know why he did this." What had happened? I had read this kind of stuff and had been moderately bored, but when I read it in this particular way, intensely, I smiled, said: "This is grand," etc. But I might not have said anything. The important fact was that I read it again and again. When I read these poems I made gestures and facial expressions which were what would be called gestures of approval. But the important thing was that I read the poems entirely differently, more intensely, and said to others: "Look ! This is how they should be read." Aesthetic adjectives played hardly any role.
I think most will encounter something which "moderately bores them" or is otherwise unpleasant and stop there. Case closed, right? But It is beneficial FOR OUR OWN SAKE to keep re-reading the poem, looking at it from different angles, rereading it, and so on, until eventually we can smile and declare "This is grand!" There is a goldmine of value to be extracted from media that slips us by if we are not paying attention and invested in finding it. We all know the sorrow of sharing some amazing media with someone who completely writes it off over something comparatively small, like, let's say sharing LiL with someone who drops it near the start because they got bored of affection grinding. This is a totally fair experience to have and a fair reason for dropping it, but think of all the fucking gold they're missing, right? It would be to their own benefit to keep moving the poem about to look for more value. And yes I'm using LiL as an example there for dramatic irony. Essentially, you generally want to look at media from every angle to find the best angle, not stop at the first angle you see. (I think posters like Moonflare are interesting in how they stare VERY intently at a single angle, deriving much meaning from it, but are inflexible when it comes to looking for another angle.)
BTW, a symptom of caring about media is being invested in the process of creation; if you find yourself looking up the storyboard artists of an anime, or the scriptwriters of movies, etc, you are on the write track. Through understanding the process of creation and who is creating our understanding and appreciation for media grows. As for myself, I have written several unpublished, private books just to better understand the mind of an author. It is for this reason I can give sympathetic smiles when people repeatedly ask Selebus "why didn't you make X character do Y?" and he can only say "I can't!". Although this is no grand conclusion, it does not take much experience or awareness of the process of creation to determine that authors end up having characters branch out in their head like independent beings who speak and act on their own as we simply narrate the result. To "just have a character do X" would be a violation of their autonomy most authors would strive to avoid; the questions here likely are unaware that it is precisely stories where authors treat characters like dolls to play which they would end up disliking for their shallowness. P.S. that allegory was deployed purposefully.
Finally, is thinking a lot. This sounds pretentious on the face of it so I will allow a moment to pause and sneer. Ok, moving on. The most important thing of all is to never stop thinking. Philosophy comes from the Greek words philos (love) and sophia (wisdom), meaning "a love for wisdom." It is through a love for wisdom (in some senses: a devotion to finding the truth) that we are encouraged to never stop thinking. We can say in many cases philosophy is merely continuing to think about questions we asked as children before discarding: what is a man, what does it mean to live, why are we here, etc. The key is to never stop thinking. This applies to media as well. There is forever a temptation to write something off as soon as we reach a conclusion, satisfied with the answer we have found - "ah, this boss is really hard and I keep dying, it must be unfair. case closed." or "Ah, this poem was dull on a first read, it must suck. case closed" Etc. Shallow thinking so often lets us reach immediate, but incorrect, conclusions, and we want not to be fooled by them. One's media comprehension will be greatly diminished if one always accepts easy answers.
Anyway, that's a lot of scattered thoughts, but perhaps some might be useful. In the end trying to engage with media on this level is only important for those who devote themselves to media; as for myself, it's my job (partially) but also I don't do anything all day but read books and F95 so there's not much else to do but try to do it as faithfully as I can. Goethe stated that it was the eternal feminine that draws us up high, but I would posit that media itself draws us up high if we allow it.
