Black Mirror Season 4: A Compromised Philosophy
by Wholesome Rage | 7 February 2018
Credit where it’s due to Nerdwriter for pointing this out so succinctly, but the beauty of Black Mirror has always been that it doesn’t deliver catharsis.
His video explained it better, but it appears to have been removed from the internet. In short, Black Mirror is a tragedy that intentionally subverts the point of tragedy to make you feel super messed up, instead of the kind of emotional relief you would otherwise get.
Characters have flaws. They are punished for them. But the punishment does not fit the crime, and the punishment is not an inevitability of the flaw.
Tragedy also works best when we, the audience, have more information than the characters, and we can see them make decisions based on their incomplete information that we know will end horribly.
Ultimately, they make you say; “If only”. To know how things could have gone a different way.
WARNING: NOTHIN’ BUT SPOILERS AHEAD.
Thinking about the unthinkable: Analyzing escapist media
by Scarlet Roarke | 10 January 2018
I care way more about genre fiction than literary fiction and I care way more about pulp entertainment than highbrow storytelling. And the specific reason I care is that I know which of the two is ultimately going to reach people, and it’s usually not the highbrow one.
Why? Because we turn to pulp when we want to escape. And when we escape, we are vulnerable.
Let’s begin with a simple admission: escapism is something we all need from time to time. It takes different forms for different people. What I use as an escape is not what others use, and vice versa. But we all feel the need to escape. And that’s nothing to feel ashamed of.
The history of the Manhattan Project in 4,000 words and one footnote
by Wholesome Rage | 4 January 2018
When the bomb dropped in 1945, it’s important to realize what technologies had been revolutionary in the lifetimes of the minds behind the Manhattan project.
Automobiles — they were only just starting to be called ‘cars’ — aeroplanes, radio, film and television… in so short a time, people found that they were in the most enlightened period of human history. The world around them was moving so fast. Oppenheimer had been born less than a year after the Wright Brothers took off over Kitty Hawk, but he was only fifteen when he saw the first transantlantic flight.[1]
And yet.
And yet they had experienced two world wars in their lifetimes.
| Category | # |
|---|---|
| Writing Advice | 24 |
| Gaming | 4 |
| History | 4 |
| Media | 20 |
| Guest Article | 7 |
| Economics | 18 |
| Politics | 30 |
| Audio | 4 |
| Fiction | 1 |
| Mental Health | 2 |
