🎥
I feel like it gives you clarity. For example, I just watched Dunkirk, albeit on a plane, and I thought it was awful. Just the most boring, dull, dimensionless, dialogue-less, character-less (like we know nothing about the characters or their backstory, so why even care? They're all just cheap stale tropes) movie. After we landed, I checked online to see what people actually thought of it and was absolutely blown away to see it receive such high ratings and have so many people claiming it was the best nolan movie ever - and I like a lot of nolan's stuff, so I'm not just a hater.
Anyway, I think part of it is just me getting old, but I like how the distance of not immediately consuming a piece of art can help you avoid getting swept up in the opinions of others - or I suppose it could also have the opposite effect and lead to your taste being completely tainted by the opinions of others. So the other key is to not have a good memory (conveniently a byproduct of getting older), that way you don't remember the opinions of others by the time you finally get around to watching it.
Mar 2, 2024
Related Recs
🔚
I really hate when people say “you should watch this, it’s so good”. Maybe it’s my natural oppositional defiance at play, but any time something gets hyped up, I want nothing to do with it.
So I just finished watching Challengers, and yeah. It lives up to the hype. But I’m glad I came to that conclusion in my own terms, makes it easier to see a piece of work for what it is, without the influence of too many opinions.
Jan 15, 2025
🧙
Mainstream stuff and overly hyped things can get overwhelming, sometimes really don’t work out.
HOWEVER, recently went to see Wicked the movie. I waited until everything died down, chilled out and went in my own time.
Which I would say is the best thing to do.
I watched Wicked live in theatre YEARS AGO and it was spectacular.
it’s true, the movie is incredible.
This is a lesson to sometimes give in, 100% recommend waiting until the commotion has ended, people have chilled tf out and reviews have been finalised!
Unless you like being in the crowd and chatting about it the time it’s released and being discussed worldwide - I don’t have care for that.
Jan 14, 2025
📼
There is something beautiful about figuring out these things on your own, even if it's wildly different from what the filmmaker intended
Mar 19, 2024
Top Recs from @ruffianbandwidth
🔎
I don't know how well this actually answers your initial question, I think it's more of a counterpoint to some of the stuff people have already said, but here it goes.
In the past (prior to social media or search engines) specific styles, specialized knowledge, and niche awareness actually took effort. You had to go out into the world and find a scene, be accepted, participate in it, contribute to it, and learn from others with specific knowledge within the specific sub- or counter-cultural scene. It took time, effort, and experience to craft an identity. Nowadays people cycle through various identities and trends like commodities because it takes no effort (they're sold to them by social media algorithms, influencers, brand accounts, etc.). It comes to you in your phone without you ever even having to leave the house or put in the time to discover it or participate in it (you just follow specific people or subscribe). You can be a passive observer or consumer, not an active contributor. As a result, you're not invested or tied down and committed to that core identity. You can cosplay depending on your mood or who you want to momentarily convey yourself as, because it's easy. Essentially, being a poser has become normalized. An identity is now something to be momentarily consumed and affected, rather than grown, built, and developed over time.
Granted, it's always been different in regards to "mass" culture and popular trends (both in the past and now). Those are impossible to miss and were always monopolized by specific trend setting institutions, but always by the time it gets to that point, the actual initial counter- or sub-culture that inspired it has already been coopted and has started to disintegrate under the weight and attention of mass consumption.
Feb 18, 2024
It's an action deserving of its own nickname. My cat's name is Gomez, but when he crosses his paws like this, he turns into Hodgkins Plumpersocks.
Feb 2, 2024
I feel like everything about this photo captures that unique period of time - the covid masks, the protest signs, the boarded windows, the national guard.
I look at it now and I still feel glimmers of the hope I felt in that moment, when the rigid and all encompassing oppressive and systemic ruts of society felt like they were becoming more plastic and might even come undone. However, in retrospect, I am of course also hit with the ultimate disappointment, betrayal, and futility of it all.
So in that sense, it really captures that hovering sense of disillusionment and hope that I'm perpetually caught between within my day to day life.
Mar 30, 2024