Blaugust #2: Everything You Like is Bad (and you should feel bad)

Today’s Blaugust prompt is from the blog Azerothian Life:

What is some popular piece of content/media that seems to be universally loved that you have never been able to understand?

I think it takes a very small person to judge what someone else likes. Everyone is different, and this difference, this diversity, is part of what makes us special. This whole social media phenomenon is so transformative because it allows people to connect in ways impossible in any other era of human history.

But in this post, I am that small person.

Twitch

I just read a story this morning about some twitcher ranking up a million views in a couple hours because he insisted some other twitcher had a boyfriend. This other twitcher apparently has a channel where she films herself reacting to videos, and she also plays a shooter. I had no idea who any of these people are. I just don’t get how people can sit down at their computers and just watch other people play games — or just watch other people watch other people play games. And then send them money. I don’t get it.

Twitch is owned by Amazon.com, which is mostly owned by Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world. When you watch, or create content for Twitch, you are giving this guy more money. Here’s a visualization as to just how much money he has. Take a look. I am serious.

Disney

I don’t hate Disney. I’ve been to Disneyland — twice. I sub to Disney Plus. Growing up, we had a lot of Disney movies on VHS and the kids would watch and watch them. I’ve read Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I’ve read Terry Brooks’ Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold!. I’ve read the Reddit posts from Disney park cast members who almost always tell stories about how much they loved working there. I don’t hate any of that.

I hate what Disney has become. Here’s a partial list of the properties that are now Disney:

  • Lucasfilms (Star Wars, etc.)
  • The Muppets
  • Pixar
  • Marvel
  • 21st Century Fox (I guess they did change their name?)
  • Miramax Films

What they’ve done with these things, once they acquired them, is to package these things and focus test these things so that they have the widest possible appeal. Back when movie theaters were something you could go to, Disney controlled a large portion of what you could see in those theaters. If someone could manage to break themselves away from sitting passively in front of their computer watching someone else play a game on Twitch, they could sit in front of another screen and passively watch some polished entertainment designed to make them happy and content.

I am not immune. I am not better than this.

Facebook

I found out through Facebook that my uncle hates me and that several of my cousins hold views I find abhorrent. I dearly love my sisters, but I just couldn’t deal with the soul destroying website that just made me feel like crap every time I logged into it. I got tired of blocking family members and just decided that maybe I didn’t need to know quite that much about people.

I removed the apps from my phone, blocked Facebook’s trackers in my browsers, and only bring down the barriers and log on through an incognito window once every couple of months just to see if my sisters are okay.

Facebook, btw, tracks everything you do online, if you don’t block it. Even if you aren’t logged in. Even if you aren’t even a member. It tracks everything you do. The company where I work has trackers embedded in its software. I’ve looked for the place in our code where we call them and have not found it, but looking at the network traffic, it is calling home to Facebook somewhere.

Facebook knows everything about you. It knows everything about me. You can find out what it knows about you by following that link. I had to remove tracking code from that link. This stuff is pervasive.

That’s it. I’m done.

Okay, writing about Facebook made me angry all over again. If you like it, and other manufactured experiences designed to keep you passive and spending, more power to you. I do the same things.

4 thoughts on “Blaugust #2: Everything You Like is Bad (and you should feel bad)”

  1. Tipa’s not pulling any more punches!! Great post.

    For me, Twitch is less about watching someone play a game and more about the personality the streamer. I watch Twitch streams of those I find entertaining or informative. There’s a WoW streamer I like because he talks about the mechanics of healing and why he’s making the choices he makes while heling a raid. The drama-side of Twitch is 100% ridiculous.

    Disney: 100% yes.

    Facebook is only about Groups at this point. I have a few (well, like 25) Groups I’m in for different interests and I enjoy interacting with those. I agree the personal portion of FB is useless and actually damaging to relationships. My father and brother-in-law have been in so many FB arguments that lead to terrible family gatherings ive lost count.

  2. 1000000% behind you about Facebook and Twitch. As for Disney, I didn’t realize just how many companies they’ve acquired over the years… It’s a little unsettling for some of these items on the list that I wasn’t aware of.

  3. While I understand that the concept of Twitch can be quite “alien” (not the right word but I’ll go with that for now) to people, I’d like to clarify:
    1. “Twitchers” is not a thing. Never heard of that word and I hope I don’t hear about it again. 馃榾
    2. Drama Twitch is stupid. There are a lot of toxic places on Twitch but not all places are like that.
    3. The non-toxic places are usually community-driven. It’s less about the game but more about the streamer’s personality and the community/the people you talk to or spend time with. A great example for that would be XilentFlex or itsTwiggie. Both are fantastical streamers that I watch a lot. I don’t usually care about the gameplay too much but rather have it running in the background or am chatting with people and with the streamer.

    Watching other people’s reactions to something or their gameplay can sound weird – afterall “you could play it yourself” – but most people cannot actually play games themselves. They don’t have the time or money for it, don’t have the consoles or have other priorities. If you are interested in the gameplay but don’t want to spend 60 bucks on Death Stranding, then it’s natural to rather watch a Let’s Play or a stream instead.

    But as you already pointed out, Drama Twitch and RL-streamers and a lot of the huge streamers are ridiculous and a lot of times, you cannot actually chat with others or the streamer due to the chat just going too fast with too many messages rolling in every second, which is why I stray away from those places. Due to that sheer amount of messages, a lot of it gets through without getting noticed – and among it toxicity, hate speech, discrimination, harassment and more… so generally that side of Twitch sucks. :c But it’s just one side of Twitch.

    Lovely post overall! Like your views and how you express them 馃檪 Looking forward to reading more ^-^

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