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Feb. 14th, 2025 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavi think there's something really interesting going on now with the cultural zeltigest that's terrified of imperfection and AI landing right in the middle of that.
why i say the former: the masses of media-oriented people are afraid of not showing their manicured selves on social media. afraid of showing imperfection in ideology, whether not saying the right thing or crafting a PR statement wrong and getting bombed/dogpiled. they're afraid of being overweight, of being Bad, the wrong kind of whatever identity. afraid of "freaks". they're afraid of drawing art that's not gonna produce maximum clicks. afraid of AAA games and movies without bombshell leads (whom i can't tell apart anymore lol). afraid of visible unglamorous age. lots of anxiety. lots of people regressing back into their notion of what is perfect to them. disney is a perfect flagship of this being 'nostalgia perfected'.
(i say "they" not to create a us/them division where it's unwarranted but i do believe there's a critical mass of people who are afraid of these things whether consciously or not.)
and it's easy to slide into subconciously even if you fight a little - i think the algorithim-ized world these days plays a smaller but critical part of this whole thesis where there's much less friction to subsume in the slop rather than having experiences with each other and media randomized.
and AI. absolutely fascinating.
like a genie, AI-generation has given this afraid-of-imperfection-critical-mass their wish granted that they get all the perfection they want in certian sectors of media; right now 2D images and text, with video emerging. here's a tool that can create a perfect engagement-bait image version of yourself. supposedly perfect resume with all the right keywords. perfect algorithim-optimized media or style. ""perfect"" inoffensive digital roleplay company in character.ai instead of sloppy humans. etc etc.
i really think that's going to accelerate a cultural pendulum back to quietly appreciating imperfection once when a critical mass of these people get tired or bored or more cynically, when there's no more growth to be strip-mined in "perfection" media pools. (absolutely bizarre but relevant sub-tangent: it's my pet theory why i think old man yaoi has gotten hot out of nowhere lol. just the "right" amount of imperfection.)
fellas, you're looking for dignity to fill the soul, not perfection.
why i say the former: the masses of media-oriented people are afraid of not showing their manicured selves on social media. afraid of showing imperfection in ideology, whether not saying the right thing or crafting a PR statement wrong and getting bombed/dogpiled. they're afraid of being overweight, of being Bad, the wrong kind of whatever identity. afraid of "freaks". they're afraid of drawing art that's not gonna produce maximum clicks. afraid of AAA games and movies without bombshell leads (whom i can't tell apart anymore lol). afraid of visible unglamorous age. lots of anxiety. lots of people regressing back into their notion of what is perfect to them. disney is a perfect flagship of this being 'nostalgia perfected'.
(i say "they" not to create a us/them division where it's unwarranted but i do believe there's a critical mass of people who are afraid of these things whether consciously or not.)
and it's easy to slide into subconciously even if you fight a little - i think the algorithim-ized world these days plays a smaller but critical part of this whole thesis where there's much less friction to subsume in the slop rather than having experiences with each other and media randomized.
and AI. absolutely fascinating.
like a genie, AI-generation has given this afraid-of-imperfection-critical-mass their wish granted that they get all the perfection they want in certian sectors of media; right now 2D images and text, with video emerging. here's a tool that can create a perfect engagement-bait image version of yourself. supposedly perfect resume with all the right keywords. perfect algorithim-optimized media or style. ""perfect"" inoffensive digital roleplay company in character.ai instead of sloppy humans. etc etc.
i really think that's going to accelerate a cultural pendulum back to quietly appreciating imperfection once when a critical mass of these people get tired or bored or more cynically, when there's no more growth to be strip-mined in "perfection" media pools. (absolutely bizarre but relevant sub-tangent: it's my pet theory why i think old man yaoi has gotten hot out of nowhere lol. just the "right" amount of imperfection.)
fellas, you're looking for dignity to fill the soul, not perfection.
