Friday open thread: thought-provoking links

[dolorosa_12]

I'll return to people's suggested prompts in future Friday open threads, but for now I've got a prompt of my own. This one's pretty straightforward: what is something you've read recently online that made you think, that resonated with you, or that taught you something interesting.

A couple of requests: please, nothing to do with the ongoing US election shitshow (I've driven myself into a frenzy of sleepless panic worrying about the situation in specific states, and I really need to focus on something else), and if possible I would prefer whatever you share here to be written text rather than podcasts or videos. If you prefer to share videos/podcasts, that's fine, but be aware that it's extremely unlikely I'll watch/listen to them — I find them an extremely inefficient way to absorb information and if there's not a written transcript, I generally avoid them as a medium.



My link is this blog post: The Uncanny Valley of Culture. On the surface, it's about two pieces of media — an Australian film, and an Australian game, neither of which I've seen/played — but what it's really about is the kind of critical obliviousness which occurs when critics come from a hegemonic culture:

[W]hat we really truly need is for tastemakers and critics (particularly American ones) to put more effort into leading the way in championing narratives from other cultures, and to drop the assumptions that all English-speaking countries exist in a kind of bland monoculture: tastemakers’ horizons must be broadened, for everyone’s sake.

I found it very persuasive.

Comments

[eglantiere]

i've been really intrigued by this article, banality of empathy, about, mmm... i don't know. representation in written word and kinds thereof? it's kinda hard to summarize, but it was a very thought-provoking one. and the short story it describes in the end is just amazing (and hitting hard).

[gingicat]

Aside from library books, fanfic, and news, I started reading webcomics again. eftychia reminded me of a favorite when she used it for her Quote of the Day, and I went and caught up with it.

http://freefall.purrsia.com/default.htm

[kore]

I realized nearly every single thing I have read recently is related to politics or covid. Unhealthy!

I really enjoyed this article about Seattle's poetry-only bookshop which is still making it even without walk-ins: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/against-all-odds-open-books-poetry-bookstore-has-transitioned-into-digital-bookselling-wallingford-poetry-store-coronavirus/

Their website is also really neat: https://open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com/

[kore]

Oh, and the Seattle silent reading party is neat! It reminded me of college, with everyone just reading quietly together in the library, no laptops, very little talking.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/04/22/43484065/the-silent-reading-party-is-tonight

https://www.thestranger.com/events/43382472/the-stranger-presents-silent-reading-party

https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-reading-party/Content?oid=3845017

Actual working link for the virtual event version https://everout.com/stranger-seattle/events/virtual-silent-reading-party/e24154/

[dhampyresa]

Thank you for the link! tastemakers’ horizons must be broadened, for everyone’s sake. YES THANK YOU

All I can offer at present are the "How to think when you draw" art tutorials. I'm slowly making my way through the paper version and they are very thought-provoking! Though possibly not if drawing's isn't your thing lol.

[naye]

I have been reading way too much about the US shitshow, especially if we include QAnon under that umbrella.

But! Here's a piece that taught me a lot of things I did not know about Falun Gong - none of it good: https://medium.com/@Ben_D_Hurley/-10677166298b (tl;dr: it gets dark. Their medical beliefs are such that their members die rather than get cancer treatment and such - it's super depressing. They're also possibly funded by Western powers playing them out against the Chinese Communist Party.)

I actually went and checked a couple of other sources after reading it just to see if I could verify any of the author's statements and - yup. I sure could. So that taught me a lot about how complicated it gets when an individual or group is persecuted by unjust forces and you want to sympathize with them, but you don't have the whole story.