193. STFUte
I noticed last night that I’ve been holding out on my opinions a lot more recently, probably because I’ve moved and am still largely unsure of myself in Singleton. I mean, just yesterday I had two guys drive past me in a ute, beep their horn, and then make excessively stereotypical gay limp wrist gestures. Now of course – as those rather boring entries in 2006 point out – I’m not gay, and – as I said to Liam last night – I think I’ve only really ever fancied a guy once in my entire life, and that was definitely more in a vague admiring way (Liam calls it an “admiration crush”). Which is what women apparently do with other women all of the time.
Of course, I don’t mean I’ve been holding back on my opinions in this Journal/blog. Only in real life.
What irritates me about the ute incident though is... well first of all, I don’t actually understand the point of doing something like that. Even if you’re doing it to make someone else feel bad and to bully them, the irony is that you’d drive past so fast that you wouldn’t really register their reaction, and therefore would only be able to laugh at someone you imagine was offended (I, in fact, burst out laughing, and I really wish they’d driven back to confront me properly). Then again, perhaps that’s the reason for it in the first place, and it operates on a level of them insulting someone that they’re imagining, not only imagining their reaction, but imagining that they actually are whatever you just yelled out (be that gay, a nerd, or a “chelton”. Whatever that is). So that would explain it, except it’s still a dull cheap thrill. I suppose being in the company of a similarly stupid bloke might make it more worthwhile cos you’d get a cheap laugh, but getting a cheap laugh out of someone else like that – and crucially, out of someone who doesn’t even care and finds your insult hilarious – just seems incredibly pointless to me. You could laugh at many other things. Look, cows – they have funny faces. Laugh at them.
But what gets to me, now that I’m thinking back (and I didn’t really care at the time, not at all), is just the assumption in the first place, the complete misreading. I don’t mind people not liking stuff I write (books, music, suchlike) but the idea of someone getting me as a person so fundamentally wrong is disturbing. Obviously – and it’s almost pointless to even have to say this, but that’s political correctness for you – there’s nothing wrong with being gay, but my issue is that I’m not, and if they think I am, it makes me wonder if the world at large sees me as being someone completely different to what I am. Sexuality’s only a minor thing; I’m worried that they misunderstand my views on music, on film, on… well, the world, and them. I mean, those guys probably really did think I looked offended and hurt from the encounter, but I was completely the opposite, and what annoys me is that they don’t know that.
It’s like that saying that it doesn’t matter if you fuck up in front of people you don’t know, because they won’t remember. Well, likely, they won’t. But I prefer fucking up in front of people I do know, and that’s because they have a history with me and understand maybe why I fucked up, and understand my virtues and, more importantly, my flaws. My actual flaws. Whereas some guy driving past in a ute is going to completely get the wrong life picture of me. Almost subconsciously, he could be laughing about the encounter and actually constructing a history of me up until the point he insulted me.
Is that why I’m writing this blog? So that I can never be mistaken for anyone else? I don’t know, and irritatingly of course, my opinions and such change over time anyway, making that pretty void. Me in 2006 (which is as far back as my Journal stretches to) is almost an entirely different person to me in 2008. Which I probably wouldn’t even realise, had I not started writing said Journal. I don’t actually think about myself all that often – no, honest. I mean, to clarify, no more than most people – but writing this blog/Journal forces me to, because it forces me to question myself. Because if this is supposed to be some definitive exploration of who I am, and possibly in the future a post-I’m-dead remnant, then I have to really explain myself. I have to explain everything I’ve done. And I’m nowhere near explaining everything I’ve done from 2006 to 2008 anyway, so that’s not exactly going to happen.
And yet, explaining myself is now almost confined to this Journal/blog. Because in real life, of course, I don’t have the time to explain myself. “You like Human Nature?” “No, because I think –” “Oh okay, I do. How can you not like them?” “Well –” “So do you like Jet?” I mean, why ask if you don’t actually let me explain my answer? Obviously not everyone wants a debate, but – and I’m probably being deliberately anti-polite conversation here – if you ask me a question, I’m going to answer it. It’s like asking the meaning of life and expecting a one sentence answer, or even – ala Hitchhiker’s – a one word answer. Because, as Hitchhiker’s actually says, you have to understand what you’re asking before you can consider what the answer means.
So I get disappointed, and just feel a bit dejected, and move on. And thus, recently, I’ve been offering next to none of my own opinions about anything, apart from “Oh yeah, yeah!” when someone says something about something. Like, “wasn’t Captain Planet great?” (with irony, of course); “Oh yeah, yeah!”
194. Philosophisticated
A more extreme example was two nights ago, when – during the break for work – one of the girls there started talking about philosophical views and Buddhism and such. Apparently, she and her friend had spent about hours talking about these sort of things the night before, and had been wowed at the idea of the “every choice you make can spawn a parallel universe” thing. And I just sat there thinking, is that it? That’s what you spent hours talking about? I resolutely and tiredly said nothing but a few vague agreements and such, and slightly hinted that I think the parallel universe thing is a bit dodgy… but the light in her eyes started to fade out, so I quickly stopped and was diplomatic and moved on.
What I wanted to say, of course, was: what the hell would the universe care if we ate a fork with our left or our right hand one Tuesday night in 2007? Why would a new universe be spawned? Similarly, the grandfather paradox – going back in time and killing your granddad – apart from the fact that scientists believe time-travel (at least, backwards time-travel) to be impossible, the notion is ridiculous anyway. A paradox? Why would the universe suddenly bend disproportionately just because one tiny insignificant grain of sand has destroyed one other tiny insignificant grain of sand?
The problem with this view of course is that it’s depressing; it reveals how futile and pointless humanity really is. Sometimes it depresses me, in a “god, I want to be remembered” way. And yet, by and large, it actually makes me serene and peaceful. Nothing really matters, and for some reason that knowledge makes me happy rather than sad. It doesn’t make me suicidal or destructive – although it can enrage me in my darker, less confident moments – it just makes me fine with who I am, and who everyone else is. Humans think we’re so special, and we are, and yet we’re just not in the grand scheme of things.
Worse, at the end of this she said, “and global warming and how we’ve fucked things up for ourselves… ponder that.” “Ponder that” being delivered like “welcome to my world.” Ugh. Immediately a really cynical and depressing counter-argument came to mind, but I didn’t voice it because it’s crushing.
What is it? Oh, just that, well, what the hell do we care? We’re going to, what, get warmer and warmer weather over the next few years. Who is going to care? We’ll just grab fans rather than combating global warming; Christ, which is the easier option, after all? Worse still, we won’t at all die out. Even when we were basically cavemen, we survived the Ice Age. Humanity will live on, and since we know at heart that we will, we don’t care if nothing else does. And even if people do die, the absolute worst thing is, statistically and logically, it’ll be people in countries that, hey, we don’t give a shite about, not really. Not anything more than token caring, anyway.
And of course that isn’t actually my view, in the sense that I don’t agree with it at all. And yet I understand it, and that’s what makes it depressing.
In fact, to hell with it; I’ve been as bad at voicing my own opinions in this Journal/blog as much as in real life, except in a different way. I’ve simply kept my mouth shut in real life; here, I’ve talked for ages about why what I think and what everyone else thinks is okay, before plowing ahead with what I think. It’s almost weak of me. Well, I feel it is now; on the other hand, it’s strong of me to openly acknowledge that I’m hardly right about everything, and that in fact no-one is completely and utterly right about everything. But it’s also a very scared reaction for me; as if I’m afraid everyone’s going to be hurt or hate me or something. Which isn’t really something I’ve felt until now.
So. This is me, not happy. And quiet. Maybe I should just openly be a barstard and risk losing half-friends by being myself. I dunno.
195. Poll and “teh Internetz”
Back to cheery normalcy again. Actually, I’m unsure which is the more normal state, but hey, I suppose both are really.
No-one is currently online, really, and there’s not much to do there anymore (it is 12:40 at night) beyond sit around and wait for Doctor Who to air so that I can download it. Which won’t be until tomorrow anyway. Sorry, tomorrow? Today.
Isn’t it a bit sad that I only really seem to write this Journal/blog when there’s nothing going on in cyberspace, or when it’s actually down for a bit?
That’s not a rhetorical question, either. There’s a poll here:
Yes
No
Unsure
Arrggh I’m even including polls now. That’s how bad it is. It’s like, ever since this Journal suddenly became a blog as well (as opposed to keeping them separate; the two were merged of course out of both Liam’s “some of the Journal stuff would be great online too”, and sheer laziness on my part as writing two separate things was daunting and I’d end up privileging one over the other… as happened for a long time with my writing-DW13BTFF fetish), the internet has been leaking into its pages. I’ve started posting stuff from the net, I’ve… well. I dunno. It’s not exactly massive, but it’s a slightly worrying trend, as is my branching out into three blogs, in retrospect. Almost like I’m making this Journal a commercial thing. Editing out anything overly… you know… of course.
Oh sorry, that’s the Journal I. This is Journal mk II, or whatever other nerdy name I can use for it. I’m currently just calling it Journal II. Which is sort of like historical geekery, to use Roman numerals for the hell of it. I think lots of “creative types” are guilty of doing it, and leads me to suspect that the only reason you’d bother to learn Roman numerals in today’s climate is so that you could read episode lists.
196. Flipendo and Faggotry
Mind you, I’m not being cynical or anything there; Latin is dead, after all. Indeed, perhaps it’s not pretentious to give episodes pointless Latin titles, cos at least kids would bother to find out what they mean. Look at the number of kids who suddenly started knowing Latin terms purely so that they could ascertain the origin of spells used in Harry Potter. “Silencio!” Mind you, I’m not sure if “Flipendo!” is one of them. Surely if translated back into Latin, it’d be “generic irritatingly repetitive attack”.
Why does Harry only shout “FLIPENDO!” when you shoot off a fully-charged one anyway? Why not a smaller one? Wouldn’t he have to whisper it or something? Or is it one of those Unspoken spells (I forget the term); if so, how on earth does he know it? He’s a first year.
Why the hell am I even asking these questions?
There’s a guy on Outpost Gallifrey called Sparacus who has for ages been doing his own stories with spinoff character Ben Chatham, who is basically a misogynist tosser. The stories are strange and repetitive and dull, and I at first enjoyed watching the line by line criticisms of them unfold, but eventually found it all rather sad and disheartening. That’s the case with basically any idiot on the net now; I tend to laugh heaps at them, and then feel really sad for them. Not guilty, cos I don’t do guilt over the internet (er, mostly), just sad that that’s how they are.
Hang on, I thought I was supposed to be in a cheerful mood? Cheerful for me, perhaps. I don’t know.
197. Praise in Crime
So, ‘Partners in Crime’ (seeing as how I have watched it). I won’t bother to say much about it, cos I obviously intend to write a review one day (as in, five years in the future – two years after having finally finished ‘These Storeys’. I’m just diligence to a tee), but…
Aw, Adipose.
…actually, forget it. I’ll just copy-paste what I said on Ugmo and go from there.
And yes, I know that that’s blurring the lines between this Journal and the internet even more. I know. But keep in mind that this Journal is much longer than it would be if I was writing it on paper. Imagine how many bloody exercise books I’d have to buy every week just to keep the damn thing going, as well as pens. And I’d make mistakes and…
Hey, hey hey hey. This Journal would not be much better like that.
Okay, perhaps. Then I wouldn’t ramble on.
As if to prove the point: where was I?
Yes:
I watched it last night, so...
Far and away better than 'The Runaway Bride'; whereas 'TRB' included a car chase scene for no real reason, 'Partners in Crime' was very tightly plotted, right down to the amusing symmetry between what the Doctor and Donna were doing.
I found it interesting that 'Smith and Jones' was a rewrite of 'Rose' in a lot of ways, and this was in a lot of ways a rewrite of 'New Earth'. A female, smooth-talking, "sexy" villainess! Social comment (plastic surgery in 'NE', obesity in 'PiC'*! Aliens that are human leftovers (in a sense of the word)! And... um... well, they both have Rose! Okay, now I'm grasping at straws.
Straws! 'Smith and Jones' had a straw!
Anyway... and ala 'NE', you could pick up a bit of smugness to this. The humour was a bit overdone (more because of the music than the performers, to be honest; yes, Murray was more over the top than Tate!), but it worked; and like in Series Two, I think maybe it's a bit of an indication of some of the Doctor/companion dynamic we'll have, but hardly the tone of the actual episodes (for instance, the next episode looks quite "epic").
Tate... funnily enough, I was less convinced by some of her serious acting than her comic acting. But only, only, in the scene where she wistfully remembers the Doctor whilst talking to Mott, which I thought was, well, unconvincing. Other than that - and since the later scene about "the next day was just the same as before" made up for that really well - I had no actual problems with her at all. Indeed, some of the interplay was really quite fun in a way that the Doctor/Rose relationship wasn't (at least the Doctor/Donna one actually has fairly witty lines and hilarious slapstick; the Doctor/Rose relationship was based on in-jokes and mindless smugness and superiority). I'm enjoying this TARDIS crew, and Tate's obviously setting into her game in a way that Tennant is. Keep in mind that I thought Tennant had to iron out some of his silliness from Series Two, I'm far more impressed with him now, and in fact, even though he was playing to the same tone in 'PiC', he was much more relaxed and confident in what he was doing. And thus it was better acted.
*Mind you, it's definitely social comment, not social discussion. It doesn't exactly enlighten us or provoke our thoughts on the subject of obesity, just raises the fact that it's there. But then, so did the Slitheen episodes!
Fun. Well-written, well-acted, but not going to blow your mind or anything (though points are awarded for not actually doing a "aliens take over" plot, and god, I loved the Adipose). But the word that really comes to mind is just... fun. It was fun. And I liked it.
Bring on the next lot!
That should be “settling into her game”.
So yes, a remarkably positive review from me, even if I did highlight some flaws.
198. “Right, so you’re talking out of your –” “Arc, not.”
As I think I said, the Mott thing is not going to be really that happy a plot arc. He doesn’t look too happy in his other glimpses in the trailers of course, but him seeing the Doctor and Donna is probably going to, erm, not be such a great thing for him. UNIT on the case! Or something similar.
By the way, further speculation on the web (yes, I KNOW!) concerning the deaths of Tosh and Owen in Torchwood (arrghhh I was genuinely saddened by that episode); from some evidence I’m yet to see (set report, probably), there’s speculation that the two characters will be replaced by Mickey and Martha respectively. I hadn’t even considered Mickey, but he is a techie. And of course, fun though Martha is, Mickey would be just swell. I can tolerate even Rose coming back and snogging the Doctor for ten minutes in close-up if it means Mickey comes onto Torchwood.
Because – oh bugger, I may look like a strange git here – I’m more intrigued about where Torchwood is going at the moment than Doctor Who. That’s mainly my fault, because of the [arrogant] assertion I have that I’ve seen most of where Series Four is going, whereas Torchwood Series Three isn’t just a blank slate, it’s a slate with two of its corners removed.
...for that to work, the slate would have to have five sides. And... oh to hell with it. I don’t even know what a slate actually is.
199. And Today’s List is:
Non-Horror-Movie Scenes that Scare the Shite out of Me
Not in any particular order, just in the order of me thinking of them;
1. Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharoah
Fuuuuck me. I don’t know what it is about this dream sequence of Tintin’s, whether it be the imagery or the music. Suffice to say, for a show that could understandably be classed “mostly neutral and inoffensive”, this scene really does scare the absolute crap out of me.
2. Othello
The Christopher Eccleston remade one. I’ve only seen this on Youtube, but Jago’s (Eccleston’s) rant about Othello – “You stupid patronising ape” – is so well-acted and funny that it’s also scary. The direction is great too.
3. Doctor Who: ‘Dalek’
Doctor Who is about the scares, right? Apparently, yes. So it follows that I’d have to put a scary moment from it in this list. But it’s not the Dalek that frightens me in the confrontation. It’s the Doctor, and again this is down to Christopher Eccleston, who mixes sarcastic humour with complete racist hatred.
4. 28 Days Later
Oh alright, I lied; but I’d like to choose a scene that isn’t a horror scene. Sure, the horror stuff is gruesome and – due to the speed of the Infected – quite scary, but 28 Weeks Later actually does that better. It’s the “I promised them women” scene that scares the absolute crap out of me. And, I’ve just realised, it’s Eccleston, again.
5. Trainspotting
For the entire film up until this scene I’m about to say, Robert Carlyle’s brilliant character Begbie is a hilariously nasty barstard, and even though he “glasses a lassie” in the face, he’s overtly comic. And then he slashes Spud’s hand open, and suddenly he’s real and he’s terrifying.
6. Pokemon Ruby
The eerie creepiness that descends, with that ever-so-slight music, when there’s too much sunlight. I know, that sounds so lame, but I wasn’t petrified, just sucked in and creeped out. And then when Groudon marched up to me... *shudder*. And then of course the battle started and it got as mundane as ever, but for a moment, I believed in it.
7. Mr Vampire
I found this both hilarious and petrifying as a kid; so I used to laugh and joke about the scenes during the day, and cower in my bedsheets at night. God knows how I managed to actually stumble upon this film anyway, since it’s a cult classic, but I’m glad I did.
8. Kate Ashby
Nick Ashby makes me shudder a lot, but he’s at his worst in the disturbing episode where Kate eats a midnight snack and he wakes up and knifes her to death before packaging her remains in the fridge. It’s actually the bit beforehand, where he wakes up and his eyes narrow, that is scary, in a hilarious way.
9. Elmo 3dmm film thing
Honest, this is scary. Some child made a 3dmm film of Elmo’s World, and yet, as only a child can make it, it’s unintentionally creepy and freaked me out horribly when I saw it.
And I’ve just been informed by Liam that it was called Elmo Goes to Karate, by Karmacat.
10. The Simpsons
I find it odd that some Simpsons episodes manage to be a triumph of creepy atmosphere – ala ‘The Raven’. It’s usually the Halloween ones – but the parody of The Shining is something else. You’d think a parody wouldn’t be scary, and mostly, it’s not. But the “No beer and no TV make Homer go crazy” scene is executed SO well, and so differently to The Shining, that it’s actually creepy too.
11. Metal Gear Solid 2
Colonel Campbell starts blabbing to Raiden about a consciousness beyond his understanding. I had no idea what he was talking about, yet the creepiness of the imagery that came up in my mind, and the music itself, really did make me shiver. To this day, I don’t care if the ending doesn’t make sense; it fucking got me worked up.
200. It’s 1:29am...
...and I’m not even remotely tired.
Bad Things 1#: I now have a Facebook.
Bad Things 4#: I’m suddenly addicted to playing online Doom 2 games with Rob and Liam.
Bad Things 5#: After my very-long-ago entry about “masturbating properly”, I hadn’t done that again – until recently, where I’ve done it twice, sitting at this very desk, looking at this very computer. Bugger.
Bad Things 6#: I’ve been watching more “shlock” horror films. A Nightmare on Elm Street, House of Wax (the new one, obviously), I Know What You Did Last Summer...
201. Horror-ble (puns)
Oh, a point about those three films. All of them – yes, all of them – shite from a great height over Friday the 13th, which has to be still the most unimaginative and hackneyed and generally competent (and I use that word in a bad way) horror film I’ve ever seen. There could be worse, but then again, House of Wax was meant to be shite and it wasn’t.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is better automatically because it’s about nightmares; and thus, an element of the imaginary and surreal can enter the story. Some of the images in the film are just stonkingly brilliant (not that I’ll spoil them). Of course, the actual thematic depth of “dreams” is rather dull, but hardly the reason to watch it in the first place. And whilst the way that she “defeats” Freddy seems obvious, it’s difficult to think of another way she could have that would make sense – particularly in such a fairly normal movie.
Oh, and Jonny Depp > Kevin Bacon. And I really think you could link, six degrees-wise, more things to Depp than Bacon.
I just wrote “sex”, then. The squee-girls will be happy.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is better because... first of all, the score is more impressive (though hardly brilliant; Nightmare had a better score, despite its overt 80s trappings), but the acting is definitely more impressive too. The plot is nicely twisty-turny in a way that Friday the 13th isn’t (oh, it’s Jason’s mum! Not only is that dull, but the fucking back cover of the DVD spoiled that), though not brilliant. It’s fairly good all round. Comparatively.
House of Wax is... oh hell. How do I say this? Okay – it was the best of the three. No, honest. Forget Paris Hilton (which the film largely does anyway). Forget the annoying sexuality on display (which is, to be fair, no worse than that of Friday the 13th – though Friday the 13th probably gets away with it retrospectively purely because people watch Scream and suddenly think watching films with bland postmodern eyes is a brilliant and revolutionary idea. Hey, guess what – people knew that the conventions of the horror genre were shite before Scream came along). It’s a triumph of memorable imagery, this one, and unlike Nightmare’s imagery – which is obviously more free-flowing, due to the vague dream-like nature of it – it’s all based around wax. That sounds dull and claustrophobic, but really, it’s anything but. It means that the film can stand as a separate entity. God help me, but it works. And best of all, although it’s pretty obvious right from the first few scenes which two of the kids will end up sticking around for the end, but that betrays the fact that the two leads are fairly engaging, particularly the male lead. Probably because he’s a dickhead and not a hero, actually. And not a sexually stimulant dickhead either, just a dickhead. Albeit a rather likeable one.
Though of course, I’d still rather stay at the House of Wax than the Paris Hilton.
Oh-ho, what a joke, eh?
One thing about the three films though; they all have basically the same ending, though hilariously, only one sticks in mind for me. A Nightmare on Elm Street says, “You can’t kill Freddy!” I Know What You Did Last Summer says, “I still know and I’m back to kill you!” Yet House of Wax simply says, “Hey, you know that guy? Well – *explains plot point*” The amusing thing about the ending is that although it explains away a supposed plot discrepancy, it doesn’t actually feel threatening or promise danger for the heroes after the film ends. If it’s meant to, of course, it fails dismally, but I liked thinking of it as being a hilariously silly ending of just a rather normal and harmless bloke grinning gormlessly at them.
Mind you, the score for this one was the least memorable. Ah well. Can’t have ‘em all.
I’ve also watched Rosemary’s Baby, but that’s so far apart that it’s barely even worth mentioning in the same breath (or... big fat wad of text, I suppose). Spoilers, by the way; what I thought was brilliant about the film was the way that there was only one horror scene, but even funnier, the ending is almost parody. Rosemary finds her mutilated baby, and... starts to warm to the situation. And a Japanese guy takes snapshots, and the family beams. It’s like going to a Christening when the baby’s Satan and thinking it a lovely day out. It’s utterly, utterly bizarre.
Oh, and the jazz score is excellent. Best score of the four horror films I’ve mentioned.
I don’t think I actually like the film much, to be honest; but objectively, it’s brilliant. It’s hilariously strange in its own way, and I’m not even saying that in a “I’m above it and making fun of it” way.
Graggh, I’ve been watching far too much horror recently, haven’t I? I’m thriving on bad films. In fact, I was almost disappointed that House of Wax wasn’t the turkey it was made out to be.
Almost disappointed because, of course, there was the enjoyment of knowing that the people who put down the movie simply because Hilton is in it really are idiotic prats. It’s like assuming that Eragon is better than Lord of the Rings simply because John Malkovich and Robert Carlyle are overtly better actors than Viggo Mortenson and Orlando Bloom.
202. (edited out, but here’s some profanity...)
... But really, “fuck” is such a useful word; it can be used for just about anything without sounding ridiculously. Fuck. Fucking. Fucker. Fuck-up. Fucked. Fucked up. Fucks. Fuck that. Fuck me (said as a measure of surprise, not as if the speaker is Linda Blair). As I noted regarding The Exorcist, “cunt” doesn’t work on the same level; “cunting” just sounds like a bizarre water sport. Birth water, perhaps.
Also, of course, I don’t say “cunt” that often (except, ironically, in a) talking about The Exorcist, b) acting in Free Quay st, and c) er, describing Eustace Scrubb); mainly because “fuck” is pretty universal, whilst “cunt” is, if you investigate it closely, quite misogynist to assume that a vagina is the worst thing ever. A symbol of the worst thing ever, at any rate.
Mind you, that’s not my own conclusion; I hadn’t even registered this until Mum pointed it out. Which means either she’s oversensitive, or I’m naive, or girls notice it more obviously because it’s seemingly aimed at them. I’ve no doubt that in some quarters it is, but I doubt everyone who says “cunt” is genuinely thinking of women, let alone vaginas, when they say it.
That’s not me excusing the word – I wouldn’t anyway – that’s just me explaining it, maybe.
203. LULZ
Speaking of language fuckups, Coralie asked me over the phone today, “What’s your ETA?” Having just caught up with some more common usages of internet-speak (I knew IMO was “in my opinion”, but only just recently realised that IIRC is “If I remember correctly”), I wondered how the heck she knew that it meant “edited to add”, and also wondered how the heck that coherently made any sense in context or in the sentence. Mind you, it’s internet speak; making sense is hardly its greatest concern, as a language.
Sorry, discourse. Internet speak is technically a discourse because it’s played out in a certain location between, stereotypically, certain types of people. Not a separate language. And no, I don’t believe that it’s “destroying language”, anymore than I believe a doctor should be offended if he sees “cock” scribbled on the wall in graffiti on the grounds that “penis” is a more accurate medical term.
Besides, despite my mostly-despising attitude towards net-speak, it’s worth noting that, comparatively, there’s little difference between football players yelling “kick it to me!” and “I’m open!” and other things that look mundane and stupid on paper, and nerds typing “PWNED!” and “Im frag u” in the middle of a deathmatch. It’s the same sort of situation, just with discourses at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, stereotypically too.
Ooh, I bet the jocks would love to hear how they’re more like nerds than normal people.
Whatever “normal people” actually means, of course.
But that’s a point, isn’t it? I’m trained to laugh at “bling people” who stand around all day saying “fuck” every second word in every sentence (hey, I’m contradicting what I said earlier, it seems! Actually, I’m not...) and making stupid hand gestures and acting all cool and chatting up girls with boring lines like, “Hey baby, whatcha doin’?” I’m also trained to laugh at “nerds” who sit around all day saying “LOL” every second word in every sentence and making stupid emoticons and acting all deliberately-nerdy and chatting up girls (online) with boring lines like, “Hey, it’s a girl! LOL! SEXY!” Really, they’re worlds apart, but the worlds in question are almost parallel, and are eerily similar. And there’s much similarity between checking the latest N2O in your pimped up ride and checking the latest upgrade on your RPG character.
The reason I’m not contradicting myself? Because my argument centres around the fact that the word “fuck” can be used rather creatively, to express many different things. With such people as I caricatured before, it becomes just a useless, completely meaningless word that’s just here to look cool, but becomes such second nature that it’s almost like their breathing is making “fuck” noises and it’s just a regular bodily function. Similarly, on MSN, a well-placed “haha” can completely show whether you’re joking or find something someone said funny or are being sarcastic or such, whereas saying “lol” all the time implies that you constantly laugh as if, well, you’re breathing laughter!
204. Revenge of the Nerds
So here’s a question; will nerd films ever kick off in the same way that sports films did? The recent semi-success (i.e. all gamers know about it, but I doubt the general public does) of the Donkey Kong-based film about an underdog beating some guy with a really high score seems to point that this is a trend that will continue. Sport films have been thriving on privileging the underdog for years, sometimes quite seriously (Clash of the Titans) and sometimes with deliberate stupidity (Waterboy, where the main character almost is a nerd). Sport films have, as far as I’m aware, gone from that quite-serious side to the “imagine someone ridiculous being really good!” side that both parodies and goes for the heart-warming approach; even She’s the Man had an element of that, for chrissake’s.
Whereas, having gone from Revenge of the Nerds, suddenly nerds are being treated in a more serious light. Napoleon Dynamite, for instance (though he’s not technically a nerd; he’s just socially inept and freaky. But then again, his brother is a nerd, and completely unexpectedly, he ends up having quite a happy and fulfilling relationship online. It’s played for laughs, yes, but it’s not anti-nerd, which made me jolt with surprise when watching the film. Man, Napoleon Dynamite is both hideously overrated by its fans and hideously underrated by its detractors. All for the wrong reasons...). The interesting thing about this Donkey Kong film isn’t that it’s about a nerd succeeding; it’s about a nerd succeeding against another nerd. Both of them are into the same thing, and yet one’s more overtly a superior condescending villain, and one’s the underdog that the audience is there to root for. Contrived thought it may be (I don’t know, I haven’t actually seen it), it’s still interesting that we have two different sets of nerds here. Indeed, the villain is almost glamorous. This film doesn’t rely on displacement-of-nerds for its laughs or its heart; it relies on a nerd winning in his favourite, nerdy pastime, over someone more nerdy, without being played for laughs, and with a deliberate sense of warmth and heart to it. And I bet you anything that the audience will care. It’s the start of a reverse trend of the nerds/jocks divide, and frankly it’s bizarre; I’m now expecting to see a film where a really cool jock suddenly finds himself thrown into a Starcraft contest and finds it fulfilling and rewarding despite the mocking “LOLZ” of his teammates.
