I am curious how you'd describe Superflat in this context - I'm reading about the art movement, but I'm having a really hard time pulling out any specific aesthetic in it; so far it feels more...noisy than anything.
Cause like on one hand I'd call the Vatican thing super cringe, but it's interesting why - it's cringe in a way the BART anime mascots (BART is the train system in the Bay Area for those who dont know) are not.
And I think the reason is, well, a train having anime mascots makes perfect sense, and the gulf the mascots are trying to cross isn't that wide, so the ladder they represent fits across the gap.
Whereas the Vatican, its like someone bringing a 10 foot ladder to try crossing the Grand Canyon - of course it will be laughed at, it's woefully inadequate for bridging the chasm that actually exists.
To me, loving all this isn't childish or adolescent, its...being authentic. And what has changed, first in Japan, but now increasingly everywhere, is that being authentic no longer means you die of starvation or worse.
Go back 100 years ago, and well, you had to meld enough to at least have food. And those who couldn't...well, look at how many authors in Japan especially have their tales end with suicide - those who couldn't meld at all were likely to not survive, one way or another.
The reason I think it happened first in Japan was density - once prosperity was achieved as the country rose from the ashes of World War 2, it became that much more possible for the weirdos and eccentrics to find each other and make community. When you have a solid transit system in the biggest city on the planet, if there's only 1 of you for every 100,000 people? Well, that's still ~200-something in a single city if that city is Tokyo - and that's enough to build the beginnings of a subculture and start drawing converts.
And then the internet happened, and suddenly that became possible everywhere, to an even greater degree, with language as the only real barrier - and now even that barrier is starting to fall as machine translation becomes increasingly good.
Which is to say...to me, what we're really seeing is an awakening, as people en masse embrace their personal truths instead of giving them up in the name of being 'mature' and 'adult' and 'pragmatic'.
Also, of course, its capitalism - Japan broke first because the bubble popped there first, but now its everywhere. People arent having kids because they fuckin' can't afford it.
I am curious how you'd describe Superflat in this context - I'm reading about the art movement, but I'm having a really hard time pulling out any specific aesthetic in it; so far it feels more...noisy than anything.
Cause like on one hand I'd call the Vatican thing super cringe, but it's interesting why - it's cringe in a way the BART anime mascots (BART is the train system in the Bay Area for those who dont know) are not.
And I think the reason is, well, a train having anime mascots makes perfect sense, and the gulf the mascots are trying to cross isn't that wide, so the ladder they represent fits across the gap.
Whereas the Vatican, its like someone bringing a 10 foot ladder to try crossing the Grand Canyon - of course it will be laughed at, it's woefully inadequate for bridging the chasm that actually exists.
To me, loving all this isn't childish or adolescent, its...being authentic. And what has changed, first in Japan, but now increasingly everywhere, is that being authentic no longer means you die of starvation or worse.
Go back 100 years ago, and well, you had to meld enough to at least have food. And those who couldn't...well, look at how many authors in Japan especially have their tales end with suicide - those who couldn't meld at all were likely to not survive, one way or another.
The reason I think it happened first in Japan was density - once prosperity was achieved as the country rose from the ashes of World War 2, it became that much more possible for the weirdos and eccentrics to find each other and make community. When you have a solid transit system in the biggest city on the planet, if there's only 1 of you for every 100,000 people? Well, that's still ~200-something in a single city if that city is Tokyo - and that's enough to build the beginnings of a subculture and start drawing converts.
And then the internet happened, and suddenly that became possible everywhere, to an even greater degree, with language as the only real barrier - and now even that barrier is starting to fall as machine translation becomes increasingly good.
Which is to say...to me, what we're really seeing is an awakening, as people en masse embrace their personal truths instead of giving them up in the name of being 'mature' and 'adult' and 'pragmatic'.
Also, of course, its capitalism - Japan broke first because the bubble popped there first, but now its everywhere. People arent having kids because they fuckin' can't afford it.
The Vatican could use better PR, or maybe not!
Yeah I thought the optics were... a choice lol
That's a very diplomatic way to put it :D