I am bored so this is long

[ivyology]

The network is down, and there is nothing I can work on while we wait for it to be restored. I can't even access templates. I have a feeling I should think this a good thing but I'm mostly just bored.

Everyone keeps raving about Merlin but I remain skeptical, as I've never found Arthurian legend interesting at all except for in very limited Monty Python-related circumstances. It's entirely possible that I would enjoy it anyway, but I never watched FNL either because football bores me even though everyone said you didn't have to like football to watch it. I don't know. Television's appeal has been waning for me lately anyway, though I say that while still being fully committed to watching nine shows (tbf, with staggered seasons, it's never nine shows at the same time). I guess it's more accurate to say that I'm less invested in most of those shows than I used to be, with Who-verse the only exception.

I've been thinking about stories and my standards as a consumer of them, and about guilty pleasures and how I think the whole concept is silly and elitist, and the construction of identity around the things one likes and how that was something I definitely did when I was younger and is still something I do, but in a different way. I think apologizing for enjoying something, or excusing it, or disclaiming it, is pretty dumb. Still it's something I have to resist doing, because - well, I don't know. Because no matter how dumb I tell myself it is, I can't get past the part where what you like = who you are.

At the job I was at a few months ago we were talking about movies we liked and I said that these days I don't see anything without a happy ending, and this was not the prevailing opinion. It's 98% true for me, though, and I'm the same way about books and stories. I don't indiscriminately enjoy every single story with a happy ending, but happy endings - or at least not explicitly UNhappy endings - are usually a prerequisite.

Of course if you love miserable endings where the world ends and everyone dies and someone microwaves a kitten, well, I might worry a little about being alone in a room with you, but otherwise, hey, follow your zen. (Of course, years and years and years ago, when I was in Roswell fandom, I wrote a really terrible story about just that - minus the kitten - which just goes to show, people change, tastes change, nothing is fixed.) Getting worked up about the things other people enjoy seems like a really big waste of energy.

Liking Twilight ironically is TOTALLY okay though. But so is liking it with all the sincerity in the world.

Not at all ironically, I like Ian Crawford. But then if that's not an example of an opinion that is 100% correct I don't know WHAT is.

Comments

[addictedkitten.livejournal.com]

Not at all ironically, I like Ian Crawford.

RIGHT ON THE INTERNET! \o/

[ivyenglish.livejournal.com]

SOME DAY YOU SHOULD TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS RE: IAN CRAWFORD. LIKE, ON A SCALE OF ONE TO RYAN ROSS, HOW DOES HE RANK?

[vancemarr.livejournal.com]

I can't get past the part where what you like = who you are.

Throughout the course of your life, marketers have spent billions upon billions of dollars on advertising and other types of campaigns aimed specifically at convincing you that there is a direct link between what you consume and your individual identity...not to mention your worth as a human being. The messages of these campaigns are reinforced, parroted, and amplified through most of the (largely advertising-supported) media content you've consumed - sometimes intentionally and sometimes just because their creators are swimming around in the same cultural pool as the rest of us. All those years of indoctrination are hard, if not impossible, to deprogram.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my marketing job.

[ivyenglish.livejournal.com]

But how did anyone know who they were before the dawn of the advertising age?

[vancemarr.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Good question. My guess is that the average person was too busy with the crushing daily workloads pre-industial or early industrial societies to worry about such things. And to the extent that they needed help figuring out their place in the world, strong organized religion was always there to tell them exactly who and what they were.

[wovenindelibly.livejournal.com]

Merlin is exactly like SGA, but set in Arthurian times. I mean, it's SGA-quality writing and acting and everything. So if SGA-quality shows are what you enjoy, then I urge you to check out Merlin! (I got maybe 7 episodes into it and thought "eh.")

I do fact love miserable endings! \o/ I also love Ian Crawford's end - his NAKED end!

idk

Brendon always says (not uniquely, of course) that he doesn't have any guilty pleasures because he's not ashamed of liking anything he likes (cough*boys*cough) and that's the attitude I have always striven towards as well.

What are your nine shows?

[ivyenglish.livejournal.com]

Well if a personal philosophy is good enough for Brendon Urie then it's good enough for me. \o/

They are: Doctor Who, Torchwood, Dexter, The Closer, Chuck, Gossip Girl, House, The Office, and Supernatural. Torchwood really kind of breaks my happy ending rule, though. (And I'm a little weirded out to realize that so far Dexter does not. /o\)

[ladygrey.livejournal.com]

dude! this is SO MY LIT. REVIEW! you should read it, grammar errors and all. that whole thing about you are what you like, that is the way of the world, and i totally agree with the above poster about the fact that it used to be religion that was the regulating, controlling force. I LOVE THIS SHIT! i mean, i love thinking about it.

also, i'm reading this totally awesome book called PopCo that is about all this stuff, but its fiction, mostly.

see, now, how do you know i am not getting paid by the publisher of this book to tell you about it? WE ARE ALL FOR SALE. the brand called you. we are all commodities in the global, capitalist market. LJ is totally reading this thread and making note, too.

baa.

[tree]

Liking Twilight ironically is TOTALLY okay though. But so is liking it with all the sincerity in the world.

if people want to like sparkly vampires who support the chastity agenda that's fine. but people are not allowed to like the writing. it is forbidden. BECAUSE IT IS TERRIBLE. the end.