Writing 'bout media, monsters, & other rad things people don't take seriously. Sometimes making things, too! he/they 🏳️🌈
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Stay spooky🤘👻
Mani
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10 of 12 because the limit is 10
But here's a master post of Silent Hill creatures, personalized for my own brain or whatever.
A very enlightening experience to dig deep into the psyche and create things that reflect the nasty bits inside.
these Evil Customer Service scenes blame the product's users: if only you'd read all the warnings, if only you'd followed the instructions properly...
but, despite their flaws, the users were simply making normal human decisions.
so the architecture of the products' Terms and Conditions is inhuman
i don't think we should see either of these movies as arguing that the individual isn't responsible for their actions in their hyperbolic allegories - but there is something to be said about the experience of living in a world where products that cruel are just Out There for You to Buy.
yes, you suffered tremendously and caused tremendous suffering, but that's just on you, man. a world where shit this evil is just on the shelf is Just The Way It Is. it's you, in the terrified throes of your outcomes, that's being unreasonable here. i'm just a customer service guy.
ICYMI: "Like Pomni and her cohort, we find ourselves on daily digital 'adventures' that are increasingly unpleasant and obligatory."
@shirachess.bsky.social explains why The Amazing Digital Circus resonates so much with our current experiences:
this isn't a NEW narrative beat per se, but this delivery feels Of The Moment - the way a normal person in a vulnerable moment makes the understandable & tiny decision to use a "normal" product as it was marketed to them, and becomes personally responsible for disproportionate horror and suffering.
⛧𝕺𝖒𝖊𝖌𝖆 𝕭𝖑𝖆𝖈𝕶⛧
it feels very post-twitter, post-Harry-Potter, post...a lot of things, really.
OBSESSION's multiple Customer Service for the Evil Product scenes are great comedy, but they really strike a chord, especially as we contemplate, say, Pokemon Go selling our gaming data to Child Murdering Drones Inc.
thinking about how both THE SUBSTANCE and OBSESSION have their horrors start with a vulnerable person using a sinister product that just normally exists in the world.
there's a lot more to both movies, but the way each of them frames the Evil Faustian Product feels really resonant right now.
what really stands out to me about the Faustian Product in these particular movies is the scenes they have where the desperate main character calls the customer service, where a bored agent flatly rejects their pleas while reminding them of the product's terms and conditions, blaming the customer.
Mani
Mani
On the eve of a movie theater finale, Shira Chess examines The Amazing Digital Circus's place in our current moment of digital dehumanization.
