"they are acting in accordance with their beliefs, they trust misinformation because it aligns with those beliefs, and, if you don't understand what those beliefs are, you're going to misdiagnose the problem." i feel that this is worth emphasizing.
It's kinda what makes politicians today look so -dumb- bad to me. Like why would they believe what they did initially if they're now so fit to be candidates to some of the highest positions of power!?
Like why would they fall for these beliefs in the first place if they're such brilliant people in politics? Cause typically their beliefs are crap and unrealistic
This is like that time Kendrick Lamar released Untitled Unmastered and everyone lost their minds about how, even on a collection of unfinished demo-tracks, he still absolutely killed it. I don't think I've ever experienced a UA-cam channel with such a high concentration of great content as this one. Every point that is made, even when that point is just a snippet of a larger script, is just so immaculate and intelligent. I watch every video multiple times, not because I'm bored and have nothing better to do (okay, not _entirely_ anyway), but because every video needs several views to sink in. Good stuff. Wish I was in a financial situation where supporting you on Patreon was a possibilty.
"I play DOOM for the gameplay" became a generation's "I read Playboy for the articles." I literally just took a sip and subsequently spilled my drink, that one hit the mark! :D
The Artist is Absent 1 0:01 The Artist is Absent 2 0:57 Bringing Back What’s Stolen 1 3:18 Bringing Back What’s Stolen 2 4:25 WSGT3 5:05 DOOM 5:57 Indivisible Talk 8:42 End 12:04 timestamps are for the second before the paragraph of description, best I can
Would’ve been really nice if those paragraphs flashed by a wee bit slower, it’s a pain to go back and pause the video because I missed my chance in the half second it’s on screen.
ProTip: the space bar pauses and resumes, and the left and right arrow keys move you forward or backward by 5 seconds. (This also works while a video is paused.)
in re doom: the reality is that i will probably never know the amount of damage i didn't have to undergo as a child because my mother is a computer scientist. my mother saw doom for exactly what it was, and it _fascinated_ her.
I'm glad these cut-out scenes were published in this video, because they all make a great points. Maybe don't worry that much about length of a video. The "Doom" scene was exceptionally great. It provides greater point about normalization, than the recent "Extra Credits" video. Maybe commenting on that video could be interesting topic, as it seemed kind of controversial.
Q and A at the end- Favorite Movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Favorite Book: The Motion of Light and Water by Samuel R. Delaney Favorite Game: Loom Favorite Comic: Sandman Favorite Anime: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Favorite Musical: Hedvig and the Angry Itch Favorite Poem: A Woman is Talking to Death by Judy Grande Favorite Album: A three-way tie between- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel Lincoln by They Might be Giants Onomatopoeia by Johnny Five Favorite Joke: The lemon cookie joke
A man had a tapeworm and went to the doctor. To get it removed. The doctor said "I know exactly what to do, come back next week and bring me a lemon cookie and an apple." so the man did this. He gave the apple and the lemon cookie to the doctor and he told the man to drop his pants and bend over. First he shoved the apple up the man's bottom and then waited a minute. Then he shoved the lemon cookie up his butt and then told him he was finished but to come back next week with an apple and a lemon cookie. The man did this. Once again the doctor told him to drop his pants and bend over. He inserted an apple, waited a minute, inserted a lemon cookie and then informed the man that he was finished and to come back next week with an apple and a lemon cookie. The man began looking noticeably frustrated. The next week the man, reluctantly showed up with the apple and the lemon cookie and the doctor did the exact same thing and when he was finished the man said "Hold up, this treatment is NOT working, the tapeworm is still in there and if I can be perfectly honest, I am getting pretty fucking tired of shoving apples and lemon cookies up my ass!" The doctor said "Not to worry, next week will be your final treatment, bring me an apple and a hammer." the man glared at him, obviously worried that he was going to shove that hammer up his ass. The next week rolled around and the man did what he was told once again. The doctor told him to drop his pants. He inserted the apple. waited a minute. waited another minute. during the third minute, the little tapework stuck his little head out of the man's butthole and said "Hey, where is my lemon cookie?" and before the worm could finish it's sentence proper, the doctor had smashed it's head in with the hammer. The End.
I'm really hoping for more on that Doom thread. I think there is a lot to say about the fears of normalization of violence. While that the fight against censorship is right; desensitization is a thing, and tying it to Skinner box reward structures is not the same as gory movies and the other ghosts of parents fears past. I especially appreciate the insight into the parent's POV. We saw "it's just a game" and they saw repeated horrific deaths that we weren't just watching, but *causing* and being rewarded for. Both "This doesn't have any measurably causal connection with increased violence" and "This emulates a system that encourages and rewards acts of violence," can be true.
what is always missing from the conversation (not directed at you, just felt like saying a quiet part loud) - no, video games don't _cause_ violence, but I think it's pretty well established empirically by now that they _inure_ us to violence, and thereby shape cultural and political attitudes, say, to a militaristic foreign policy, which in turn _do_ deepen dysfunction in society. after all, there is such a thing as a military-industrial complex (including a military-entertainment complex which traffics in violent media) that is a monstrous drain on social wealth, and it in turn reproduces the conditions in which vulnerable, unhinged, anomic individuals lash out at those they perceive to have been wronged by with spectacular violence.
Something I find interesting about the analysis of Doom is how well the logic can be applied to gun culture. Technically, marksmanship doesn't need an actual fire arm at all. An aerosoft gun or pellet gun acts exactly the same, and even looks the same, but almost no gun collector would ever use them as substitute. As much as people claim that guns are "just for sport" even if people don't want to act on it, part of the appeal is having one of the most lethal weapons you can possibly own. If you think otherwise, bring a BB gun to a shooting range, and see what kind of reactions you get. I think this especially sums up why the AR-15 is such a hotly debated gun especially. The argument is often made that it is no more deadly that any other semi of the same caliper, but if it were to be banned, its owners wouldn't treat any other riffle as a worthy substitute, and I this is what really scares gun control advocates about the AR-15. People both like it, and are scared of it, not just because of how deadly it is, but because it was designed specifically to look like something made to kill people.
@@davidmhh9977 there is a significant portion of tht gun community that use airsoft for training and precision pellet guns for marksmanship. From a simple shooting sports perspective the tradeoffs are range and (for airsoft) accuracy. These cannot substitute beyond pistol ranges on a 1 for one basis. On the other hand, that makes ranges easier to build and maintain. But the modem American gun culture considers the ability to kill a primary feature of firearms. Either in a hunting or combat context. The vast majority practice marksmanship on the possibility that they need to kill something with a gun. Not marksmanship for it's own merits. Guns are dangerous by design. The danger is the purpose. Otherwise people would transition to other solutions as you mentioned.
@@dragonbait1 those are definitely good points. And I definitely don't want to exaggerate and say that everyone who owns a gun is secretly a sociopath. I honestly think they're pretty cool. I just find it interesting that the inherent danger is definitely a feature, and not a bug. Like the video pointed out, that really isn't any different from gaming, or even a fast car.
The segment at 5:08 about the cold reading exercise feels like a really valuable piece of game design advice. I was trying to play a (single-player) narrative game with a friend recently that failed to communicate where we should go and it was a severely frustrating experience.
I said this on Patreon earlier, when the rough cut went up, but: that last line from that segment? Puts into words why I had to nope out of watching a friend stream "Hotline Miami 2", and why I don't think I can ever play either of those games. When I tried to engage with what I was watching without being horrified, I found what happened was my laughing at the murderousness. For me, trying to process what I was seeing when Hotline Miami 2 was being played turned out to be a choice between feeling glee and distress, and I bailed because I judged that - even though I know, believe, and emphasize whenever it comes up that emotional reactions aren't _wrong_, and your character is judged in the impact you have and not the feelings you experience - being part of the audience wasn't worth it to me if it meant delighting in brutal killing.
@@Packbat I think delighting in brutal fantasy is quite a common thing. It delights us primarily because it is fantastical. Because the idea of us doing/witnessing it irl is utterly insane. And the more fantastic the brutality, the more we lean to enjoy it. You, nor many people, would be laughing if presented with gross real gore, or even just photorealistic ones in games. Don't worry, it's normal.😀
@@alalalala57 I appreciate the validation, but I wasn't asking permission to feel okay about what I felt, I was talking about a time that I didn't. It's okay to be uncomfortable, too. (Not to use one's discomfort as a cudgel, mind, but it is okay to be uncomfortable.)
Yeah, it's hardly ever worded properly, but all the concerns about normalization is the fact that no longer seeing blood and gore when it's still there is the concern. Not the fact that it's there (though i'm sure there's plenty of pearl-clutchers who do take issue with that), but the fact that one no longer sees it as a thing that matters. The normalizing of violence should never have been argued about making a person themselves violent. The issue is making them care less about violence or see violence as a less important thing. Meaning that violence happening around them is something they empathize and care less about.
These are great scenes, knowing that they didn’t make it into videos makes me wonder how hard it is to produce a video essay, I would never have thought to cut these.
I'm so happy you continue to make these essays. Your work still hits me with a higher rate of epiphanies per unit time than so much of the study I do, and I often return to solidify the lessons. Take care of yourself, and I look forward to your future output.
Whoo! A fellow sandman fan! I am still surprised at how little people seem to talk about it compared to, say, watchmen. Don't get me wrong, I love watchmen and Alan Moore. But Sandman feels so groundbreaking, yet also seems to go unnoticed by a lot of people today. Probably also makes a difference that I read it while young. Probably younger than was appropriate, but it SURE did shatter the record for 13-year old me. No other work has come even close.
One of my favorite takes from Neoreaction a Basilisk (a book I read because of Innuendo Studios) is that a core argument of fascism is that the dichotomy between sectarianism and tolerance doesn’t exist. Fascism relies on people believing that tolerance is just one more sect.
Came back to this video to pull the Doom section for a Creative Nonfiction personal anthology. I was fully prepared to copy every word down, or ask for a transcript, but lo and behold: there's already a transcript in the description. Thank you, Ian -- for that and for continuing to inspire me to be a better writer.
All your content is such a treat! I would love to see more videos on the arts, though everything you do is enjoyable: politics, video games, whatever. You have a way of breaking things down and making complex concepts easily digestible, while somehow also keeping the videos from feeling patronising or boring. Congrats on 200k! You've definitely earned it.
I'm just watching this for the first time, in September 2020, and I have two things to say: 1. You're at 294k now... 2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is *such* a good movie holy shit.
Here's to 200k more! I've been following you ever since The Artist is Absent. I'm not quite as much a lefty as you but I also really appreciate and frequently share your alt-right playbook playlist as well. Hopefully I can donate some on Patreon later once things stabilize a bit more for me. I wish youtube wasn't such utter crap as an income source for content creators :(
i can't believe you only had 200k subs, i thought you were easily approaching 1m with how good your videos are. still, congrats! hope to see you continue doing this forever!
The adventure game acting exercize bit reminds me of pretty much every RPG I've ever played where I know nothing but everyone else around me acts like I do.
Congrats on 200k subs! Your videos are so informative and well-structured. In response to some of your favorite things, I also love Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Sandman and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In addition, I would totally watch a video about one of those things if you made one. :)
Great work, man. I really love your channel, maybe one day when I’m not a poor struggling millennial that’s under the thumb of my parents I will be able to contribute to your Patreon.
Oh god I really hope you are able to make a full video on violence in video games one day... I love playing and watching video games, and I've always been sensitive to bloody/gory scenes/images, but over the years I've become so sensitive to violence and gore that even seeing it show up in games for a moment makes me feel sometimes viscerally sick and afraid. It's gotten to the point where I avoid playing/watching most games unless I know they are safe for me so I don't have to put myself at risk mentally/emotionally. I worried for a long time that this was an issue with me alone, but talking about it at times made me notice this being the case in some other people too... albeit a lot of them probably have lesser reactions than I do because I don't know how much of my increased sensitivity is related to trauma or not. Anyway, I've always felt ashamed to admit this because for so many years I recall everyone trying to convince each other that video game violence is 100% cool and okay, and so I didn't want to be mocked or treated as outcast... But still, I just feel like there is a noticeable and harmful amount of games where violence is a key component in gameplay where it doesn't have to be, and knowing the connection that certain games/films have with the military industrial complex... I worry sometimes. More for myself than anyone else though. Because it doesn't feel great to have to debate with myself whether I'm just too "overly-sensitive" or "ridiculous" when I find myself getting triggered over cartoon violence or crying over cartoon monsters getting gruesomely decapitated... Like, it's as if I just cannot detach myself from the idea that a lot of those creatures aren't inherently deserving to die or be harmed, at least not in my mind... And I just can't stop myself from empathizing with the characters (including inhuman/animal ones) so it inevitably makes my skin crawl to watch creatures be torn to shreds etc. even if it is in a fictional world. I'd much rather escape the already scary and graphic life I live, as a disabled traumatized and marginalized individual, by playing games where the world I escape to isn't a battleground where I must fight or suffer the consequences. I hope people who find my comment silly can be gentle with your responses or just ignore this... I'm really anxious about posting this but I just... I hoped to find some kindness or understanding or solidarity, or really just to get it out there I guess. Anyway, I guess my point is.. I would really like to see more nuanced discussions when it comes to violence in games, from more people in general. I just hope to come across something that makes me think deeper about all of it, beyond the toxic jeers I've grown used to of "just get over it", and being told that I'm inherently broken for ever having found gore in games uncomfortable... I hope that makes sense. Thank you.
Crap. I didn't read the title screens, just listened to the audio, and after that doom clip I was like "oh damn, this sounds so interesting, I really wanna get context to that! How come I haven't seen this video? Let me rewind and see where it comes fro- oh. Oh no"
I'm the opposite, I always say the thing I've most recently watched/played/listened to is my favourite. I have to circumvent my feelings and use logic to remember the things that I know I've enjoyed every time I've experienced them. And then every time I go back to them, they're so much better than I remembered them being
re: what media makes your top three and how it's all stuff you encounted before you turned 20 Interesting! Apparently what happens to me, though I do still find my mind is blown from time to time as I coast towards my mid-30s is, I don't really have favourites anymore. Now when a teenager asks me what music I listen to, I'm like, oh yeah I remember that question. How meaningful it used to be. As a nerd my identity was all about being knowledgeable, so of course I'd always say "a bit of everything", which was obnoxious but looking back charitably what I meant to convey was that I was willing to give anything a listen. That's the kind of person I wanted people to see me as. (And it wasn't untrue, but I sure was a showoff about it.) Yeah, so I guess in my experience "what's your favourite" questions were rarely if ever intended to discover new art on someone's trusted recommendation. It was more about placing them, figuring them out. Back when that shit seriously _mattered_ Maybe that's why all your favourite things now are from before your 20s: because you stopped keeping score after that? I know I did
@12:59 "Loom" l knew there was a reason I liked your sensibilities. X3 This entire video, and all 200k subs, was worth it just for the line: "people vote for their beliefs, not their self interests." srsly. Killed it, man... here's to the 500k sub video! X3
Your channel is the only one I've ever watched that cuts out the first ~half second of audio of every sentence. It's so bizzare, I'm not sure if it's the chromecast or sound system but I don't have the issue on my desktop or phone Great video, though!
"the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya" wait what Anyway you deserve even more subscribers than 200K in my opinion! Still, congratulations, and I'm still as excited to see more content from you.
I personally do vote in my self-interest (I work with the public sector (as a PhD student) therefore I support the party of the public sector, the Labour Party), but then again that's because of my belief that if you don't vote in your self-interest that makes you a hypocrite (thinks the likes of Russell Brand)...
on doom, as someone who's parents have always allowed me to play & watch whatever i choose too, the fact that blood, sex, and all sorts of other shocking things are filtered out almost completely does worry me somethings. i'm not sure if they made the right choice, or if this was an inevitable part of growing up in the contemporary society. (i live in the us)
Still remember when I first was introduced to the existence of your YT channel . You where a guest on a certain podcast that has done several "vulgarity for charity" event's (Cognitive Dissonance) .
I'm very interested about that Doom video! It reminds me of the "I watch ecchi for the plot" that many people, including me at some point, use to explain why they watch those animes.
The Doom section resonated with me a LOT. I have a vivid memory of playing Bioshock 2 beside my mom, who was appalled by everything she was looking at. I tried to explain that it wasn't *about* the guns and the lunatics, that on the emotional level those were just conduits that got me immersed in the abstract sense, but it didn't help. My argument never felt right to me and I think I've realized why that is. Why should I defend a game for asking me not to think about it? 95% of my interactions were shooting things, and I defended it by saying "well its not about the shooting." That feels cheap to me. Unfocused. I was doing the mental legwork for the game! Ignoring the violence so I could think about the atmosphere, the story, the ways its themes responded to the first game. But could Bioshock 2 have not kept me immersed in all those things without asking me to ignore the principle mechanic? Why are mechanics ALWAYS metaphors, why can't I be asked to seriously engage with what I'm literally doing? When mechanics aren't just loosely delivered metaphors -- techniques meant to push me forward and help my understanding of the tone and pacing -- they're usually in one of two types of games. Walking simulators (or some adventure games) where it's accepted the protagonist is literally doing everything the player is doing, or games about lunatic space marines, like Halo or Doom, where the fact that I'm single handedly slaughtering armies is part of the story. I wish Bioshock 2 could have found its own niche. Somewhere in the middle.
Imo a good solution: Invite skeptics to "Play it." - the best way to communicate what an experience is about, is to share it and let people discover what they like about it for themselves. I remember watching my brother play counterstrike (back in the 90s). Having been raised a Christian "good girl" I was appalled by the terrorism/violence aspects of it, and argued with him "How can you play this?". I figured he only played it due to peer pressure. He had a lan party with his friends one day, and asked me to try it. It only took one round to realize what it's really about, "chess with guns", and how much fun it is. One more round, and the Christian "good girl" was hunting counter-terrorists for knife kills lol
Congrats. I would like to comment on the Thor bit. He DOES have an arc and a very important message. He comes to realise, and in doing so so does the audience, that even though he has nihilistic levels of depression and he has let himself go and put on a few pounds that he still has value. That even with these burdens and even if he or those around him can't see it, he is indeed still worthy. But I guess you can just go with a cigar is just a cigar and it's all just a drunken fat bit but hey art like reality is subjective and I chose to live in the later world. I didn't even touch on the the message that a god who has seemingly everything going for him is susceptible to debilitating mental illness. A rose is a rose is a rose, I suppose.
@@Packbat welp,I feel silly. Thanks. I was wondering how he couldn't have missed something like that. My bad. I'm gonna leave it because it kinda fits the theme: message given vs message received. Let others learn from my errors.
I honestly wouldn't even care if the video was cohesive or was building up to a central thesis. Hell, you could just throw your arms up at the end and say fuck it, I don't know what all of this means. I just really want to see that DOOM video
in case you intend to still do a QandA : How much of the dynamics you discribe in f.e. the alt right playbook do you think is specific to the USA and how much do you think is more universal than that?
Hey Ian, I have been watching some of you videos for quite a while now and, as a conservative, I would like to provide a respectful commentary on your work from the point of view of a conservative. I hope that this will provide productive discorse across the political spectrum. If you are ok with this, or against it, please let me know. Thanks. Btw, the reason why I'm commenting on this video is because it's your most recent. Also congradulations for 200K subs!
I think calling Lindsay Ellis Lefttube is kinda iffy. I'd say she's more Lefttube-adjacent. Yeah, her politics are left of center and even critical of capitalism, but her content isn't leftist per se. More importantly, her content is overwhelmingly focused on literary critique and heavily focused specifically on film. Is she doing that through a left-of-center lens? Absolutely. Is her channel about politics? Only in so much as you cannot formulate or express an idea without an ideology and any given individual's personal ideology is necessarily at least somewhat political. Contrast this with Philosophy Tube or H. Bomberguy where politics is a dominant theme in the former and THE dominant theme in the latter case. Yes, Harris also talks a lot about video games and not every Philosophy Tube video is sufficiently tied to current events to be part of the active political discourse, but both are decidedly leftist and decidedly political. And while I certainly consider Ollie and Harris to be very much core members of Lefttube, neither of their channels are as explicitly political and explicitly leftist as e.g. Contrapoints (anti-capitalism), 3 arrows (anti-fascism), Mexie, Angie Speaks, Peter Coffin, Bad Mouse, Thought Slime (various strains of socialist) and of course loads of others. Where is Ian in all of this? I'd put Innuendo Studios right next to H. Bomberguy on the "how political?" spectrum. Despite significant differences in tone and approach (I adore them both, for the record) they have a similar balance of pop culture and politics, entertaining and informing and blending the two very skillfully. That said, while there's no doubt in my mind that Harris is a socialist, I'm not sure that's how Ian identifies.
@@erikjohnson6423 : Considering most of her current videos have a political aspect to it, and that we can often see her in the comments of other leftist channel, I think she qualifies.
I did say adjacent. It is also a very valid point that the communities around the actual channels are just as important to the Lefttube phenomenon as the creators. I'd still say that Ian's work is most directly comparable to Harris's
Congrats Ian!
I always love it when two creators I love turn out to watch each others' content!
@@kathrynelrod5570 real recognize real
It’s confirmed, game makers toolkit is breadtube
Oh hi mark!
nice
"they are acting in accordance with their beliefs, they trust misinformation because it aligns with those beliefs, and, if you don't understand what those beliefs are, you're going to misdiagnose the problem."
i feel that this is worth emphasizing.
It's kinda what makes politicians today look so -dumb- bad to me. Like why would they believe what they did initially if they're now so fit to be candidates to some of the highest positions of power!?
Like why would they fall for these beliefs in the first place if they're such brilliant people in politics? Cause typically their beliefs are crap and unrealistic
This is like that time Kendrick Lamar released Untitled Unmastered and everyone lost their minds about how, even on a collection of unfinished demo-tracks, he still absolutely killed it.
I don't think I've ever experienced a UA-cam channel with such a high concentration of great content as this one. Every point that is made, even when that point is just a snippet of a larger script, is just so immaculate and intelligent. I watch every video multiple times, not because I'm bored and have nothing better to do (okay, not _entirely_ anyway), but because every video needs several views to sink in.
Good stuff. Wish I was in a financial situation where supporting you on Patreon was a possibilty.
"I play DOOM for the gameplay" became a generation's "I read Playboy for the articles."
I literally just took a sip and subsequently spilled my drink, that one hit the mark! :D
The Artist is Absent 1 0:01
The Artist is Absent 2 0:57
Bringing Back What’s Stolen 1 3:18
Bringing Back What’s Stolen 2 4:25
WSGT3 5:05
DOOM 5:57
Indivisible Talk 8:42
End 12:04
timestamps are for the second before the paragraph of description, best I can
Thank you sooooo much
You are an American hero sir. Too few left in this world I must admit. Thank you 💕
Topper Harley Ma'am. Or Mx. But you're welcome - I've seen a lot of people in UA-cam comments do this, and I thought this video could use it.
Would’ve been really nice if those paragraphs flashed by a wee bit slower, it’s a pain to go back and pause the video because I missed my chance in the half second it’s on screen.
(on Tumblr for better linking: packbat.tumblr.com/post/186494271180/innuendostudios-we-hit-200k-subscribers-holy )
AlexArtsHere Totally agree, even though I knew it was coming by the 3rd one, I still missed every subsequent one 😂
That’s why I liked the consistent rhythm. I missed in the first time but caught on later on.
ProTip: the space bar pauses and resumes, and the left and right arrow keys move you forward or backward by 5 seconds. (This also works while a video is paused.)
Chickenator X
Pro Tip Pro Tip: The period and comma will move exactly one frame forward or back.
in re doom: the reality is that i will probably never know the amount of damage i didn't have to undergo as a child because my mother is a computer scientist. my mother saw doom for exactly what it was, and it _fascinated_ her.
"nobody even mentions the mouthfeel!"
M O U T H F E E L
Contra would be proud...
I feel that needs explained a tad.
Why is No one Talking about the Mouthfeel
@Mark Donald Since when is the rainbow flag associated with communists? You seem confused, Mark.
I'm glad these cut-out scenes were published in this video, because they all make a great points. Maybe don't worry that much about length of a video.
The "Doom" scene was exceptionally great. It provides greater point about normalization, than the recent "Extra Credits" video. Maybe commenting on that video could be interesting topic, as it seemed kind of controversial.
What extra credits video
@@lordmew5, the one with "normalizing" in the title. The one with 1/14.5 ratio of like/dislike.
@@user-jp7tw3sd3x is that on this channel?
@@lordmew5 It is on the "Extra Credits" channel.
@@user-jp7tw3sd3x thank you I didn't know that was a thing
Q and A at the end-
Favorite Movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Favorite Book: The Motion of Light and Water by Samuel R. Delaney
Favorite Game: Loom
Favorite Comic: Sandman
Favorite Anime: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Favorite Musical: Hedvig and the Angry Itch
Favorite Poem: A Woman is Talking to Death by Judy Grande
Favorite Album: A three-way tie between-
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
Lincoln by They Might be Giants
Onomatopoeia by Johnny Five
Favorite Joke: The lemon cookie joke
what is the lemon cookie joke?
Holy shit he likes Haruhi, absolutely BASED
belugaval14
I wish I knew
Neutral Milk Hotel. What a nerd. A valid nerd but a nerd nevertheless.
A man had a tapeworm and went to the doctor.
To get it removed. The doctor said "I know exactly what to do, come back next week and bring me a lemon cookie and an apple." so the man did this. He gave the apple and the lemon cookie to the doctor and he told the man to drop his pants and bend over. First he shoved the apple up the man's bottom and then waited a minute. Then he shoved the lemon cookie up his butt and then told him he was finished but to come back next week with an apple and a lemon cookie. The man did this. Once again the doctor told him to drop his pants and bend over. He inserted an apple, waited a minute, inserted a lemon cookie and then informed the man that he was finished and to come back next week with an apple and a lemon cookie. The man began looking noticeably frustrated. The next week the man, reluctantly showed up with the apple and the lemon cookie and the doctor did the exact same thing and when he was finished the man said "Hold up, this treatment is NOT working, the tapeworm is still in there and if I can be perfectly honest, I am getting pretty fucking tired of shoving apples and lemon cookies up my ass!" The doctor said "Not to worry, next week will be your final treatment, bring me an apple and a hammer." the man glared at him, obviously worried that he was going to shove that hammer up his ass. The next week rolled around and the man did what he was told once again. The doctor told him to drop his pants. He inserted the apple. waited a minute. waited another minute. during the third minute, the little tapework stuck his little head out of the man's butthole and said "Hey, where is my lemon cookie?" and before the worm could finish it's sentence proper, the doctor had smashed it's head in with the hammer. The End.
I'm really hoping for more on that Doom thread. I think there is a lot to say about the fears of normalization of violence. While that the fight against censorship is right; desensitization is a thing, and tying it to Skinner box reward structures is not the same as gory movies and the other ghosts of parents fears past. I especially appreciate the insight into the parent's POV. We saw "it's just a game" and they saw repeated horrific deaths that we weren't just watching, but *causing* and being rewarded for.
Both "This doesn't have any measurably causal connection with increased violence" and "This emulates a system that encourages and rewards acts of violence," can be true.
what is always missing from the conversation (not directed at you, just felt like saying a quiet part loud) - no, video games don't _cause_ violence, but I think it's pretty well established empirically by now that they _inure_ us to violence, and thereby shape cultural and political attitudes, say, to a militaristic foreign policy, which in turn _do_ deepen dysfunction in society. after all, there is such a thing as a military-industrial complex (including a military-entertainment complex which traffics in violent media) that is a monstrous drain on social wealth, and it in turn reproduces the conditions in which vulnerable, unhinged, anomic individuals lash out at those they perceive to have been wronged by with spectacular violence.
Grow a skin, dude.
Something I find interesting about the analysis of Doom is how well the logic can be applied to gun culture. Technically, marksmanship doesn't need an actual fire arm at all. An aerosoft gun or pellet gun acts exactly the same, and even looks the same, but almost no gun collector would ever use them as substitute. As much as people claim that guns are "just for sport" even if people don't want to act on it, part of the appeal is having one of the most lethal weapons you can possibly own. If you think otherwise, bring a BB gun to a shooting range, and see what kind of reactions you get.
I think this especially sums up why the AR-15 is such a hotly debated gun especially. The argument is often made that it is no more deadly that any other semi of the same caliper, but if it were to be banned, its owners wouldn't treat any other riffle as a worthy substitute, and I this is what really scares gun control advocates about the AR-15. People both like it, and are scared of it, not just because of how deadly it is, but because it was designed specifically to look like something made to kill people.
@@davidmhh9977 there is a significant portion of tht gun community that use airsoft for training and precision pellet guns for marksmanship. From a simple shooting sports perspective the tradeoffs are range and (for airsoft) accuracy. These cannot substitute beyond pistol ranges on a 1 for one basis. On the other hand, that makes ranges easier to build and maintain.
But the modem American gun culture considers the ability to kill a primary feature of firearms. Either in a hunting or combat context. The vast majority practice marksmanship on the possibility that they need to kill something with a gun. Not marksmanship for it's own merits.
Guns are dangerous by design. The danger is the purpose. Otherwise people would transition to other solutions as you mentioned.
@@dragonbait1 those are definitely good points. And I definitely don't want to exaggerate and say that everyone who owns a gun is secretly a sociopath. I honestly think they're pretty cool. I just find it interesting that the inherent danger is definitely a feature, and not a bug. Like the video pointed out, that really isn't any different from gaming, or even a fast car.
200k group, and I'm just as glad to be a part of it now as I was when I came aboard. You do good work, Ian.
The segment at 5:08 about the cold reading exercise feels like a really valuable piece of game design advice. I was trying to play a (single-player) narrative game with a friend recently that failed to communicate where we should go and it was a severely frustrating experience.
Wow the doom segment is Great! You should canibalize it.
I said this on Patreon earlier, when the rough cut went up, but: that last line from that segment? Puts into words why I had to nope out of watching a friend stream "Hotline Miami 2", and why I don't think I can ever play either of those games.
When I tried to engage with what I was watching without being horrified, I found what happened was my laughing at the murderousness. For me, trying to process what I was seeing when Hotline Miami 2 was being played turned out to be a choice between feeling glee and distress, and I bailed because I judged that - even though I know, believe, and emphasize whenever it comes up that emotional reactions aren't _wrong_, and your character is judged in the impact you have and not the feelings you experience - being part of the audience wasn't worth it to me if it meant delighting in brutal killing.
@@Packbat I think delighting in brutal fantasy is quite a common thing. It delights us primarily because it is fantastical. Because the idea of us doing/witnessing it irl is utterly insane. And the more fantastic the brutality, the more we lean to enjoy it. You, nor many people, would be laughing if presented with gross real gore, or even just photorealistic ones in games.
Don't worry, it's normal.😀
@@alalalala57 I appreciate the validation, but I wasn't asking permission to feel okay about what I felt, I was talking about a time that I didn't. It's okay to be uncomfortable, too.
(Not to use one's discomfort as a cudgel, mind, but it is okay to be uncomfortable.)
I'm glad to be part of the 200k. I wish for 200k more. Thanks for all your work!
tfw even your outtakes make great points
3:19 has a wonderful Contrapoints reference.
that doom clip was really insightful, especially that last line. i really hope you'll come back to it eventually in one way or another.
Yeah, it's hardly ever worded properly, but all the concerns about normalization is the fact that no longer seeing blood and gore when it's still there is the concern. Not the fact that it's there (though i'm sure there's plenty of pearl-clutchers who do take issue with that), but the fact that one no longer sees it as a thing that matters.
The normalizing of violence should never have been argued about making a person themselves violent. The issue is making them care less about violence or see violence as a less important thing. Meaning that violence happening around them is something they empathize and care less about.
These are great scenes, knowing that they didn’t make it into videos makes me wonder how hard it is to produce a video essay, I would never have thought to cut these.
I'm so happy you continue to make these essays. Your work still hits me with a higher rate of epiphanies per unit time than so much of the study I do, and I often return to solidify the lessons. Take care of yourself, and I look forward to your future output.
You keep making stuff, I'll keep sharing it with everyone I know. Appreciate your perspective and insightful commentary.
"Deliver exposition because thor doesn't haves an arc"
Lol.
Whoo! A fellow sandman fan! I am still surprised at how little people seem to talk about it compared to, say, watchmen. Don't get me wrong, I love watchmen and Alan Moore. But Sandman feels so groundbreaking, yet also seems to go unnoticed by a lot of people today.
Probably also makes a difference that I read it while young. Probably younger than was appropriate, but it SURE did shatter the record for 13-year old me. No other work has come even close.
One of my favorite takes from Neoreaction a Basilisk (a book I read because of Innuendo Studios) is that a core argument of fascism is that the dichotomy between sectarianism and tolerance doesn’t exist. Fascism relies on people believing that tolerance is just one more sect.
Came back to this video to pull the Doom section for a Creative Nonfiction personal anthology. I was fully prepared to copy every word down, or ask for a transcript, but lo and behold: there's already a transcript in the description. Thank you, Ian -- for that and for continuing to inspire me to be a better writer.
Congratulations, and thank you for all the amazing videos.
All your content is such a treat! I would love to see more videos on the arts, though everything you do is enjoyable: politics, video games, whatever. You have a way of breaking things down and making complex concepts easily digestible, while somehow also keeping the videos from feeling patronising or boring. Congrats on 200k! You've definitely earned it.
Congrats, Ian!
Congratulations on 200k! Your content is amazing, and you seriously deserve it. Also, TWO VIDEOS IN A MONTH? WHAT?!
The words you wrote on DOOM really resonate with me, especially trying to talk to other people about what it feels like to stop seeing the blood.
I LOVE YOU MY MAN AND YOU DESERVE EVERY SUB
Excellent, Keep doing what you do. We need you in these times.
Hey! Nice job getting 200k! By chance I was just re-watching some of your stuff today, then this popped up.
Rewatching 👍
I'm just watching this for the first time, in September 2020, and I have two things to say:
1. You're at 294k now...
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is *such* a good movie holy shit.
Congratulations! Keep up the good work!
Here's to 200k more! I've been following you ever since The Artist is Absent. I'm not quite as much a lefty as you but I also really appreciate and frequently share your alt-right playbook playlist as well.
Hopefully I can donate some on Patreon later once things stabilize a bit more for me. I wish youtube wasn't such utter crap as an income source for content creators :(
Congrats on 200k subs and here's to 200k more!
I've never heard anyone talk about the lemon cookie joke before.... I thought it was something my dad made up
Your dad told it to me.
I still can’t believe this channel isn’t bigger. We’re all here in an impassioned fashion! Congrats on 200K, Ian! Here’s to more growth. 💜
i can't believe you only had 200k subs, i thought you were easily approaching 1m with how good your videos are.
still, congrats! hope to see you continue doing this forever!
No breadtuber has a mill. Yet.
Congrats on your 200k subs!!
Congrats my dude, well earned and well deserved. Keep on killin' the game.
The adventure game acting exercize bit reminds me of pretty much every RPG I've ever played where I know nothing but everyone else around me acts like I do.
Congrats on 200k subs! Your videos are so informative and well-structured. In response to some of your favorite things, I also love Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Sandman and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In addition, I would totally watch a video about one of those things if you made one. :)
Thanks! And here's to the next 200k!
Great work, man. I really love your channel, maybe one day when I’m not a poor struggling millennial that’s under the thumb of my parents I will be able to contribute to your Patreon.
Congrats bro!!!
you're an amazing content creator
I love your work
Oh god I really hope you are able to make a full video on violence in video games one day... I love playing and watching video games, and I've always been sensitive to bloody/gory scenes/images, but over the years I've become so sensitive to violence and gore that even seeing it show up in games for a moment makes me feel sometimes viscerally sick and afraid. It's gotten to the point where I avoid playing/watching most games unless I know they are safe for me so I don't have to put myself at risk mentally/emotionally. I worried for a long time that this was an issue with me alone, but talking about it at times made me notice this being the case in some other people too... albeit a lot of them probably have lesser reactions than I do because I don't know how much of my increased sensitivity is related to trauma or not. Anyway, I've always felt ashamed to admit this because for so many years I recall everyone trying to convince each other that video game violence is 100% cool and okay, and so I didn't want to be mocked or treated as outcast... But still, I just feel like there is a noticeable and harmful amount of games where violence is a key component in gameplay where it doesn't have to be, and knowing the connection that certain games/films have with the military industrial complex... I worry sometimes. More for myself than anyone else though. Because it doesn't feel great to have to debate with myself whether I'm just too "overly-sensitive" or "ridiculous" when I find myself getting triggered over cartoon violence or crying over cartoon monsters getting gruesomely decapitated... Like, it's as if I just cannot detach myself from the idea that a lot of those creatures aren't inherently deserving to die or be harmed, at least not in my mind... And I just can't stop myself from empathizing with the characters (including inhuman/animal ones) so it inevitably makes my skin crawl to watch creatures be torn to shreds etc. even if it is in a fictional world. I'd much rather escape the already scary and graphic life I live, as a disabled traumatized and marginalized individual, by playing games where the world I escape to isn't a battleground where I must fight or suffer the consequences.
I hope people who find my comment silly can be gentle with your responses or just ignore this... I'm really anxious about posting this but I just... I hoped to find some kindness or understanding or solidarity, or really just to get it out there I guess.
Anyway, I guess my point is.. I would really like to see more nuanced discussions when it comes to violence in games, from more people in general. I just hope to come across something that makes me think deeper about all of it, beyond the toxic jeers I've grown used to of "just get over it", and being told that I'm inherently broken for ever having found gore in games uncomfortable...
I hope that makes sense. Thank you.
Witnessed.
I have an idea for a video about violent media, but it's probably a long way off still.
Congrats!
Proud of you, man. I've been around since the Melee video. Congrats on 202K, here's to 202K more.
Congratulations, Ian.
You like NMH. That’s awesome :) Congratulations on 200k
Thank you for the upload from @notlukemorris on Twitter.
Crap. I didn't read the title screens, just listened to the audio, and after that doom clip I was like "oh damn, this sounds so interesting, I really wanna get context to that! How come I haven't seen this video? Let me rewind and see where it comes fro- oh. Oh no"
usually i’m not a fan of fast flashes of text but in this case the audio and rhythm really helped make it not as tedious! nice editing!
That Doom video sounds amazing!
Hope to see ALLLLLL of it somewhere somewhen!
I don't watch a ton of movies or television, but there are a few games I think are worth checking out. VA-11 Hall-A and OneShot, specifically!
notification squaaaad!
CAN'T BELIEVE HOW STRANGE IT IS TO BE ANYTHING AT ALL!!
Hey, I just learned a new joke! Thia channel is a treasure trove, I tell ya
congrats dude I love your work and I think it's some of the most important stuff I've seen on youtube these days
I'm the opposite, I always say the thing I've most recently watched/played/listened to is my favourite. I have to circumvent my feelings and use logic to remember the things that I know I've enjoyed every time I've experienced them. And then every time I go back to them, they're so much better than I remembered them being
Yes. One of my favorite youtubers is a fan of my favorite band. Fuck yeah
re: what media makes your top three and how it's all stuff you encounted before you turned 20
Interesting! Apparently what happens to me, though I do still find my mind is blown from time to time as I coast towards my mid-30s is, I don't really have favourites anymore. Now when a teenager asks me what music I listen to, I'm like, oh yeah I remember that question. How meaningful it used to be. As a nerd my identity was all about being knowledgeable, so of course I'd always say "a bit of everything", which was obnoxious but looking back charitably what I meant to convey was that I was willing to give anything a listen. That's the kind of person I wanted people to see me as. (And it wasn't untrue, but I sure was a showoff about it.)
Yeah, so I guess in my experience "what's your favourite" questions were rarely if ever intended to discover new art on someone's trusted recommendation. It was more about placing them, figuring them out. Back when that shit seriously _mattered_
Maybe that's why all your favourite things now are from before your 20s: because you stopped keeping score after that? I know I did
Loom is such a wonderful little game, and was the first adventure game that I really *understood*
@12:59 "Loom" l knew there was a reason I liked your sensibilities. X3
This entire video, and all 200k subs, was worth it just for the line: "people vote for their beliefs, not their self interests." srsly.
Killed it, man... here's to the 500k sub video! X3
Jesus. Every video from you leaves me thinking...
I knew you were the kind of dude that had ITAOTS as the GOAT.
NMH & TMBG, my man got taste
Your channel is the only one I've ever watched that cuts out the first ~half second of audio of every sentence. It's so bizzare, I'm not sure if it's the chromecast or sound system but I don't have the issue on my desktop or phone
Great video, though!
your avengers take made me scream
"the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya" wait what
Anyway you deserve even more subscribers than 200K in my opinion! Still, congratulations, and I'm still as excited to see more content from you.
The original breadtuber
Congratulations, Ian. Your videos are poignant and break down reactionary ideology in an incredibly fundamental and digestible way.
That DOOM video sounds really interesting
I personally do vote in my self-interest (I work with the public sector (as a PhD student) therefore I support the party of the public sector, the Labour Party), but then again that's because of my belief that if you don't vote in your self-interest that makes you a hypocrite (thinks the likes of Russell Brand)...
I didn't know I wanted this content from the cutting room floor
hell yeah, haruhi suzumiya is the best. now i love you even more
on doom, as someone who's parents have always allowed me to play & watch whatever i choose too, the fact that blood, sex, and all sorts of other shocking things are filtered out almost completely does worry me somethings. i'm not sure if they made the right choice, or if this was an inevitable part of growing up in the contemporary society. (i live in the us)
was here at 70k B)
Still remember when I first was introduced to the existence of your YT channel . You where a guest on a certain podcast that has done several "vulgarity for charity" event's (Cognitive Dissonance) .
I'm very interested about that Doom video! It reminds me of the "I watch ecchi for the plot" that many people, including me at some point, use to explain why they watch those animes.
The Doom section resonated with me a LOT.
I have a vivid memory of playing Bioshock 2 beside my mom, who was appalled by everything she was looking at. I tried to explain that it wasn't *about* the guns and the lunatics, that on the emotional level those were just conduits that got me immersed in the abstract sense, but it didn't help. My argument never felt right to me and I think I've realized why that is.
Why should I defend a game for asking me not to think about it?
95% of my interactions were shooting things, and I defended it by saying "well its not about the shooting." That feels cheap to me. Unfocused. I was doing the mental legwork for the game! Ignoring the violence so I could think about the atmosphere, the story, the ways its themes responded to the first game. But could Bioshock 2 have not kept me immersed in all those things without asking me to ignore the principle mechanic? Why are mechanics ALWAYS metaphors, why can't I be asked to seriously engage with what I'm literally doing?
When mechanics aren't just loosely delivered metaphors -- techniques meant to push me forward and help my understanding of the tone and pacing -- they're usually in one of two types of games. Walking simulators (or some adventure games) where it's accepted the protagonist is literally doing everything the player is doing, or games about lunatic space marines, like Halo or Doom, where the fact that I'm single handedly slaughtering armies is part of the story. I wish Bioshock 2 could have found its own niche. Somewhere in the middle.
Imo a good solution: Invite skeptics to "Play it." - the best way to communicate what an experience is about, is to share it and let people discover what they like about it for themselves. I remember watching my brother play counterstrike (back in the 90s). Having been raised a Christian "good girl" I was appalled by the terrorism/violence aspects of it, and argued with him "How can you play this?". I figured he only played it due to peer pressure. He had a lan party with his friends one day, and asked me to try it. It only took one round to realize what it's really about, "chess with guns", and how much fun it is. One more round, and the Christian "good girl" was hunting counter-terrorists for knife kills lol
Congrats. I would like to comment on the Thor bit. He DOES have an arc and a very important message. He comes to realise, and in doing so so does the audience, that even though he has nihilistic levels of depression and he has let himself go and put on a few pounds that he still has value. That even with these burdens and even if he or those around him can't see it, he is indeed still worthy. But I guess you can just go with a cigar is just a cigar and it's all just a drunken fat bit but hey art like reality is subjective and I chose to live in the later world. I didn't even touch on the the message that a god who has seemingly everything going for him is susceptible to debilitating mental illness. A rose is a rose is a rose, I suppose.
I believe the segment was specifically about Avengers 1, not the Avengers line of movies.
@@Packbat welp,I feel silly. Thanks. I was wondering how he couldn't have missed something like that. My bad. I'm gonna leave it because it kinda fits the theme: message given vs message received. Let others learn from my errors.
Now he says "it seemed like a lot of effort to follow it with "just play an adventure game and you'll understand," but I already bought 2!
I honestly wouldn't even care if the video was cohesive or was building up to a central thesis. Hell, you could just throw your arms up at the end and say fuck it, I don't know what all of this means. I just really want to see that DOOM video
in case you intend to still do a QandA :
How much of the dynamics you discribe in f.e. the alt right playbook do you think is specific to the USA and how much do you think is more universal than that?
The one about the actors and only one script sounds like a fun game, a bit like Chinese whispers on stage
Chex Quest is dope
Yay!!!
Hey Ian, I have been watching some of you videos for quite a while now and, as a conservative, I would like to provide a respectful commentary on your work from the point of view of a conservative. I hope that this will provide productive discorse across the political spectrum. If you are ok with this, or against it, please let me know. Thanks.
Btw, the reason why I'm commenting on this video is because it's your most recent. Also congradulations for 200K subs!
Actor's Worst Nightmare; improv game
I loved Doom: Need Deep in the Dead. Great game, I was surprised how damaging it was for some.
That was fun.
The first one and that Doom outtake, why were those ever removed!?
I never took you for a fellow TMBG fan
But I've used their music in two videos already...
Innuendo Studios how did I miss that?!?!?
Soo.... When is that Loom video coming ey?
Well, you deserve it. You're certainly the most articulate and "in-depth" of current left-tube. Save maybe for Lindsay Ellis.
Him, contra points, and thoughtslime are my fav lefttube channels. Love shaun and 3 arrows too
Save maybe? Always save Lindsay!
I think calling Lindsay Ellis Lefttube is kinda iffy. I'd say she's more Lefttube-adjacent. Yeah, her politics are left of center and even critical of capitalism, but her content isn't leftist per se. More importantly, her content is overwhelmingly focused on literary critique and heavily focused specifically on film. Is she doing that through a left-of-center lens? Absolutely. Is her channel about politics? Only in so much as you cannot formulate or express an idea without an ideology and any given individual's personal ideology is necessarily at least somewhat political. Contrast this with Philosophy Tube or H. Bomberguy where politics is a dominant theme in the former and THE dominant theme in the latter case. Yes, Harris also talks a lot about video games and not every Philosophy Tube video is sufficiently tied to current events to be part of the active political discourse, but both are decidedly leftist and decidedly political. And while I certainly consider Ollie and Harris to be very much core members of Lefttube, neither of their channels are as explicitly political and explicitly leftist as e.g. Contrapoints (anti-capitalism), 3 arrows (anti-fascism), Mexie, Angie Speaks, Peter Coffin, Bad Mouse, Thought Slime (various strains of socialist) and of course loads of others.
Where is Ian in all of this? I'd put Innuendo Studios right next to H. Bomberguy on the "how political?" spectrum. Despite significant differences in tone and approach (I adore them both, for the record) they have a similar balance of pop culture and politics, entertaining and informing and blending the two very skillfully. That said, while there's no doubt in my mind that Harris is a socialist, I'm not sure that's how Ian identifies.
@@erikjohnson6423 : Considering most of her current videos have a political aspect to it, and that we can often see her in the comments of other leftist channel, I think she qualifies.
I did say adjacent. It is also a very valid point that the communities around the actual channels are just as important to the Lefttube phenomenon as the creators. I'd still say that Ian's work is most directly comparable to Harris's