The internet has really fucked my brain, because the first thing that comes up in my head is an old meme of The Orange One (back when he hadn't been president yet, and so was funny instead of scary) saying "CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA" (sorry)
AFTER that -- Disney's Mulan, and all the orientalist aesthetics that come with it (sorry²)
And AFTER that -- Years of internet discourse trying to convince me that a growth in Chinese international power would be worse than the US holding that position alone, which I find EXTREMELY hard to believe as a third world citizen whose home nation has been fucked in the butthole by the Americans like seven different times in lived memory (NOT sorry)
Then AFTER that -- The stories told by my one friend who lived there for a few months. To be honest they made China seem like a pretty cool place to live in. Or at the very least, a fun experience as an exchange student.
And AFTER all that -- Bootleg video games. They are interesting!
If you are unfortunate enough to live in the favelas (aka: Very very poor in a big city), you'll be under their thrall.
But the little secret is that.... They end up being not that different from the government. They have their own 'laws', and if you follow them, you'll be left alone. Their protection rackets become like taxes, except instead of going to jail for not paying, you'll get tortured -- And you might even benefit from them in a way.
A friend of mine tells a story about doing social work in a favela, and how after years of neglect from the government resulting in kids from the place not getting vaccinated, the local crimelord bought the vaccines with his own money and had his own paralell vaccination campaign for everyone that was properly paying their protection money. Hopefully you won't catch a stray bullet when the illegal liege lord of your neighbourhood-fiefdom is at war with the police or another neighbourhood-fiefdom's illegal lord for the umpteenth time that year.
If you are not in the favela....
... Well.... If you buy weed from a dealer or borrow money from illegal lenders and don't pay your bills, they'll probably abduct you and break your legs.
If you do none of those things... You might get pickpocketed or mugged, but that is honestly the extent of interactions that I, a rich boy from the third world, have had with the criminal factions of my country. Muggings. Being threatened and told to hand over my phone (which I did, I'm not stupid). Having a gameboy swiped from my bag while at an anime con.
I don't think "kidnapped and tortured by the government" is a thing we've done much of since the US stopped funding our far right dictatorship in the 80s (and the military immediately fucked off and 'let democracy take its course' when the funding dried up).
.... Let us not speak of what our criminal factions get up to though.
Copypasting an intentionally hingeless rant I sent in a group-chat some years back:
I do not care for the ocean... But most of the ocean is just sorta THERE. They're ugly and freaky but they just do their thing because they are brainless. Someitmes literally. The Man-o-War has giant building-sized tentacles because it LITERALLY does not have a brain, and so compensates by being a living fishing net. You gonna hate on a creature that doesn't even know it exists? Like sure, do that, but it's like being angry at a rock.
Dolphins though? Dolphins are different. Dolphins have tasted of the fruit of knowledge, on the same day humans, corvids, rats, and elephants ate the fruit and were cast out of paradise, the Dolphins crawled out of the sea, climbed the tree with their little flippers, and gorged themselves on those forbidden fruits.
Dolphins have complete knowledge of good and evil. AND THEY HAVE CHOSEN EVIL.
Dolphins hunt for sport and leave their kills to rot.
Dolphins use live blowfish as dolphin weed.
Dolphins rape animals, not limited to other dolphins, but interspecies rape too.
AND dolphins get all sorts of special treatment from idiot humans who think that because they are squeaky and can jump through hoops, they must be like doggos from the ocean. In reality they are the spawn of Satan upon this world.
Communities almost wholly moderated by an automod bot, that is extremely strict about nonsense, and where 99% of posts are strictly forbidden.
"ALL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE IN THE MEGATHREAD!!!!!!!!1111111111one" and then you peep the megathread, it's months-full of unanswered questions because no actual community member READS the fucking megathread, and then the excuse is "BECAUZ WE WANT QUALITY CONTENT!!!!!!" and you check the sub itself and the "quality content" is one post every 3 months by the powermod that has the power to override the bot.
This was the most annoying thing about Reddit and made getting conversations going nearly impossible. PLEASE do not bring that over.
I'm good. I mean, there's a hell portal right next to a certain town in the countryside, but even the demons of this world are more "asshole characters and weird animals" than actual-ACTUAL-demons. Plus they seem to have completely handled issues of poverty and such by taming all of nature with magic, even if they still use money and have jobs. Less 'socialism' and more 'post-scarcity society, but with magic instead of tech'.
.... I'm talking about Equestria from Gen 4 My Little Pony by the way.
....... Then again ponies are like SUUUUPER racist, so if I end up there as a human, I think I'd be experimented on.
That's great for you but I fucked up my hearing by listening to Linking Park on maximum volume in the cheapest Chinese earbuds a third world teenager's allowance could buy circa 2006.
.... And getting stuff from YouTube takes 3% less effort.
That part I didn't know but it doesn't surprise me either.
Still, "Disney wanted to kill off their traditional animation department" might explain why every movie since has been CGI/Live Action. -- It does NOT explain why every movie since has been so metalinguistic and self-satirising. THAT can be laid at Dreamworks' feet entirely, with the influence of Shrek et. al. on the cultural zeitgeist.
As an animation nerd I gotta mention Shrek. As a parody of "Disney princess movies" it killed the entire genre dead.
The only time Disney tried to play the tropes somewhat straight again was the Princess and the Frog, and THAT was a major flop (though racism probably also played a part in that).
Since then Disney only made remakes or titles like Frozen that spend 70% of their runtime mugging at themselves and poking fun at their own tropes (... While still circling back to them anyway and failing to make any point or commentary)
On a less "this made a major cultural impact" note and more of a "this personally completely altered my entire sense of humour and replaced the original in my heart" -- SnapCube's Realtime Fandub Games Sonic Adventure 2
Oh oh ohohoh! Just remembered JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Very much a manga that was poking fun at contemporaries like Fist of the North Star... And while it didn't outlive or outdo them per se, it definitely gained a life of its own, continuing to this day and actually being quite influential in its own right.
Count Regal Inkwell @ VinesNFluff @pawb.social Posts 45Comments 1,274Joined 2 yr. ago