Camus's recent activity
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
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Comment on Grim Salvo - Walt Disney Wormdog (2022) in ~music
Camus LinkThis song really slaps, the album it's on has a really great blend of emo/metal and hiphop/rap. Found here on Spotify. As a side note, the video is really interesting too, and fits the vibe of the...This song really slaps, the album it's on has a really great blend of emo/metal and hiphop/rap. Found here on Spotify.
As a side note, the video is really interesting too, and fits the vibe of the music pretty perfectly. However, I had never watched the stop-motion movie it's from (Mad God), so I did that after seeing this video and, uh, WOW. That was.... unique. I almost want to go to ~movies and make a post about it, because I just have way too many things to say. It's incredibly gory and horrific, and probably one of the bleakest films ever made, fair warning to anyone else who might want to watch it, but as an art film and animation it's insanely impressive.
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Grim Salvo - Walt Disney Wormdog (2022)
2 votes -
Comment on Vice, decayed digital colossus, files for bankruptcy in ~news
Camus Link ParentFrom what I understand, it mainly boils down to one of two camps. Generally, almost everyone agrees that they used to do good reporting, and many people agree that they still do SOME good...- Exemplary
From what I understand, it mainly boils down to one of two camps. Generally, almost everyone agrees that they used to do good reporting, and many people agree that they still do SOME good reporting, but there are two groups of complaints about the rest of their output:
-One is that their new content is too content-farmy and clickbaity. I personally would agree with this and find it hard to argue against if you just look at their homepage. However, this is basically the same exact thing that EVERY news homepage has done, and also, if you just watch their youtube channel or read the magazine or whatever, there is very little fluff there, it's only on their online print media, which is nearly a dead art form at this point anyways.
-The other, which seems to be the more prevalent one among people who loudly decry that "Vice used to be good, now it's shit" is that the magazine has now, and has always had, an anti-establishment, leftist slant to it. Now, back in the early 2000s, this mostly manifested as them being pretty edgy and reporting on crazy, little known things that would make your mother clutch her pearls, which I think these people agreed with and liked.
Nowadays that type of thing has fallen out of favor in leftist circles though, and the focus is more on social issues like gender and race. Vice does a lot of (In my opinion) very balanced (but still from a leftist perspective) reporting on gender and race issues, especially those in the US. A lot of these videos heavily feature trans, non-binary, or minority peoples with very anti-establishment opinions and appearances (dyed hair, piercings, etc). And as you can imagine, without opening up that whole discussion, this rubs some people the wrong way. As I said, this seems to be the thing that most people who point to Vice's downfall are trying to refer to, especially if they seem slippery and avoidant about actually saying it out loud.
Personally, I think you can dislike the subject matter if you want, but I find that all of their video reporting has maintained a very consistent (even rising) level of quality over the past decade. Their print media is definitely a clickbait farm at least partially, but there is still definitely a core of very talented and passionate journalists there, who do some really important and informative reporting, which is why I still follow them.
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Comment on Vice, decayed digital colossus, files for bankruptcy in ~news
Camus Link ParentThey still occasionally do really interesting and wild pieces like they did in the old days, but yeah, I think they exhausted their backlog of them and there simply aren't that many NEW things...They still occasionally do really interesting and wild pieces like they did in the old days, but yeah, I think they exhausted their backlog of them and there simply aren't that many NEW things like that to cover.
The real issue I think though was that they took a bunch of money from investors and tried to grow way too big and fast. If they had stayed a bit smaller and more self contained, they probably would have been fine, but investors demand infinite growth and when your business model is covering weird niches there isn't really a lot of opportunity for growth in that sector, so they had to branch out to a million other, less successful things.
I hate when a cool, specific piece of media blows up and suddenly they always HAVE to become some kind of giant all-encompassing media empire. CEOs never seem to be satisfied with simple, clean success, they always need like... world domination or something.
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Comment on Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - May 11 in ~news
Camus Link ParentI think this is absolutely the case. It remains to be seen however whether they are going to be able to leverage that successfully into a fixing operation (force Russia to expend troops to keep...I think this is absolutely the case. It remains to be seen however whether they are going to be able to leverage that successfully into a fixing operation (force Russia to expend troops to keep Bakhmut while the main force of the offensive attacks elsewhere) or if they plan to literally just counter attack at Bakhmut, which honestly given the state of infighting in the Russian military apparatus near Bakhmut right now, and the massive amount of fortifications Russia has built near the Zaporizhzhia axis which is arguably the most 'traditionally' effective place to attack, might not even be the worst option. Although it does seem a bit headstrong or reckless.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
Camus Link ParentSame here, LOVE Kenny Segal, especially when he collabs with Billy Woods, this album is fantasticSame here, LOVE Kenny Segal, especially when he collabs with Billy Woods, this album is fantastic
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
Camus LinkGargoyle - Uteye Nice beat with some good synths always does the trick. Medasin - Friends Love the wistful leads on this one. dialE - AOT Delightfully Groovy Javier Santiago, Danielle Wertz -...Gargoyle - Uteye
Nice beat with some good synths always does the trick.
Medasin - Friends
Love the wistful leads on this one.
dialE - AOT
Delightfully Groovy
Javier Santiago, Danielle Wertz - Gaia's Warning
Love the vocals on this one, super ethereal.
Fat Tony, Blockhead - I'm Thinking 'Bout Moving
I love this one because I've been in this situation, I think a lot of us have, being in a shitty place with shitty roommates but not wanting to move cause it's easy, then finally getting out in your own place and being relieved. Love songs like this, they're like the equivalent of a TV bottle episode and I'm all for it. -
Comment on Megathread #9 for news/updates/discussion of AI chatbots and image generators in ~tech
Camus Link ParentYeah, I really feel like we've reached the 'peak crypto' stage of articles about AI, where very few people actually know what it's doing but because it's so popular everyone CERTAINLY has opinions...Yeah, I really feel like we've reached the 'peak crypto' stage of articles about AI, where very few people actually know what it's doing but because it's so popular everyone CERTAINLY has opinions on it, both unrealistically optimistic and pessimistic.
It's gotten to that part of the culture war over it where the venture capitalists hyped it too much and now people are just sick of it, so instead of writing fluff pieces or doomering over how it'll kill us all, these media outlets start writing trite takedowns for the clicks. Just like crypto, it rarely has an actual association with the merits or demerits of the tech, just whatever their viewers want to hear.
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Comment on The age of the superhero is over in ~movies
Camus Link ParentYeah I chalk this up to late stage capitalism, everything is about chasing the newest moneymaking trend these days, it's like a bunch of wall street investors all piling on a stock, once a venture...Yeah I chalk this up to late stage capitalism, everything is about chasing the newest moneymaking trend these days, it's like a bunch of wall street investors all piling on a stock, once a venture capitalist or production exec sees their kid playing with a toy or watching a superhero movie, they fund the crap out of it until people get burnt out, and then they just move on to the next thing.
In the end it all goes back to squeezing every possible cent of value from an idea or object until you can't anymore, and then moving to the next thing. It's happened with movies, TV, games, hobbies, social media, everything. Any time we have these massive conglomerates with tons of money to burn and their only goal being profit, this is gonna happen eventually. It's just the system. Customers demand novelty, but novelty is hard and expensive, so companies trickle out truly novel content until something sticks, and then they beat that horse until it's corpse is barely identifiable as a mammal.
At this point, I've honestly stopped trying to make sense of it past that or predict it though, since these trends are inherently irrational and simply trying to chase dubious metrics like box office numbers that don't always reflect the actual quality of the product or people's actual interest in it. So we'll always end up with either getting way more than we wanted and being bored of it, or not getting enough and wondering why they didn't go further with a trend.
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Comment on 3TEETH - Merchant of the Void (feat. Mick Gordon) (2023) in ~music
Camus LinkLove me some Mick Gordon, he's absolutely the king of distorted guitars.Love me some Mick Gordon, he's absolutely the king of distorted guitars.
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Comment on How culture made Japanese internet design "weird" in ~humanities
Camus Link ParentAbsolutely, but I would say that only further proves my point about it not being about the wider East Asian culture but more about the culture of those specific companies.Absolutely, but I would say that only further proves my point about it not being about the wider East Asian culture but more about the culture of those specific companies.
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Comment on Araya - Echo [Huna Edit] (2022) in ~music
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Comment on How culture made Japanese internet design "weird" in ~humanities
Camus LinkWhile the idea of the video is super interesting, I'm not sure I totally buy into the idea that differences in cultural psychology in the USERs are the main reason, I think it's more likely that...While the idea of the video is super interesting, I'm not sure I totally buy into the idea that differences in cultural psychology in the USERs are the main reason, I think it's more likely that the companies simply have a different design culture that is more averse to change than their western counterparts, and lots and lots of people in the comments are saying similar things. China made tiktok for instance, which is basically the most oversimplified you can possibly make a user interface. Just because a bunch of eastern internet media conglomerates are stuck in the past doesn't mean that easterners as a whole don't also enjoy a streamlined experience.
That said, I think another part of it could also be the extremely up-it's-own-ass webdesign culture in the west oversimplifying TOO hard because they need to justify their overemployment and because they overestimate the importance of focus groups vs what the actual population of their users want. Many websites these days seem to be making stupid design decisions simply to chase trends or money, and it's possible that the larger/older eastern corps simply don't put as much emphasis on that kind of thing, preferring to keep things consistent and not mess with a good thing.
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Comment on Araya - Echo [Huna Edit] (2022) in ~music
Camus LinkFound in better quality on Spotify here (the bass drum really benefits from it): Spotify This is one of those edits/remixes that completely transforms the original work IMO. The OG song can be...Found in better quality on Spotify here (the bass drum really benefits from it): Spotify
This is one of those edits/remixes that completely transforms the original work IMO. The OG song can be found here and is absolutely nothing like this song: Youtube Spotify
As an aside, this song is obviously drawing some inspiration in it's style of beat and instruments from a different genre, but I can't place it. Anyone happen to know? It sounds kind of Caribbean or African to me but I can't figure out what specific genre it would be, I just know I've heard it before in other music.
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Araya - Echo [Huna Edit] (2022)
1 vote -
Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
Camus LinkFriend of mine who's into Drill/Grime in the UK was showing me these two 'sends' (diss tracks basically) between Stormzy and Wiley, two pretty huge OGs in the scene, and while reading up on the...Friend of mine who's into Drill/Grime in the UK was showing me these two 'sends' (diss tracks basically) between Stormzy and Wiley, two pretty huge OGs in the scene, and while reading up on the beef between them makes my head spin cause it's so complicated (most of it seems incredibly petty as well haha), both tracks go pretty hard:
Eediyat Skengman 2 - Wiley
Stormzy - Disappointed -
Comment on jev. - LONRWRLD freestyle (2023) in ~music
Camus Link ParentYeah it's kind of wild to me how quickly he's blowing up, the quality is great though so not entirely surprising, definitely keeping an eye on his output. Didn't know he was an immigrant and a...Yeah it's kind of wild to me how quickly he's blowing up, the quality is great though so not entirely surprising, definitely keeping an eye on his output. Didn't know he was an immigrant and a student though, that's even more impressive. Dude is going places for sure.
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Comment on jev. - LONRWRLD freestyle (2023) in ~music
Camus LinkBeen following this dude since he dropped his first album last year, he's for sure going places and his flow is great, fully expect to see him in some headlines in a few years. His album (the...Been following this dude since he dropped his first album last year, he's for sure going places and his flow is great, fully expect to see him in some headlines in a few years. His album (the color grey) also slaps and is a lot heavier on some tracks compared to this more 90s/2000s sound.
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jev. - LONRWRLD freestyle (2023)
4 votes
Denzel Curry did a live set of his latest album at Electric Lady in NYC with the same jazz band he did his TinyDesk concert with. I'm absolutely loving it.
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Youtube