Things

ROLLING BLACKOUTS

So this album leaked and it's pretty good but not super great. It's like, they realized that if they tried a lot of the same stuff they did on the last two albums, it might wear a bit old for some listeners, so they got a bit more sophisticated with their sound and such. Which is fine, but it was the old simple stuff that I loved them for. There wasn't much subtlety to "Flashlight Fight" or "The Power is On!", it was just pure excitement and really masterfully done excitement at that. Even their "slow" songs, with just the piano and such, produced a nice melancholy, nostalgic feel, but weren't being very subtle about it either. This new album seems to never really go full out in any direction, which is sort of a shame. It's growing on me, though, and I still enjoy listening to it quite a bit. A big part of excitement in music is really anticipation, too, which only grows the better you know a song.

Also I uploaded all of it to Youtube, but most of them got taken down within a day. FIGHT THE POWER.

Skrillex

So, in wanting some less subtle music, I hit up good ol' Skrillex. Now, before, when I had listened to Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, I didn't pay much attention to the title track for some dumb reason, despite the fact that everyone else was just loving it to death. Well, that mistake has been rectified, and holy cow this whole album is like, drilling into my heart. I think the vocals are a big part, something about that electronic voice. And you know what else has electronic vocals? Touhou remix music. And that awkwardly segues into the land of awkwardness:


I've been hanging around /jp/ a lot

So 4chan's becoming way more "entry level" these days, but /jp/ to me still seems like a bastion of days past. They're obsessive, socially inept and hateful. They have interests that socially unacceptable people find socially unacceptable. And they have hikikomoris and NEETs, real ones, stretches of months without leaving their rooms and years without social interaction. Fascinating people! The stories they have about losing track of what season it is, forgetting how to handwrite, losing their voice... such a fascinating plight! Some become bitter, others sad, others wholly emotional dead, and even some blissful. Their sanity is lost but sometimes loops around to distressingly lucid self-awareness.

So what are these people? They're a demographic, and a growing demographic at that, one comprised mainly of young people. Sure, they're young people with no disposable income and the cynicism of the elderly, but they still look like young people that will live a long time and buy many things. I think people need to try to market things to these people. In fact, if I can get a job at Google or Sony or whoever marketing things to NEETs, I will be happy. I mean so far they've tried moe anthropomorphs and stuff, and the niche markets know how to hit them, but try selling a hikikomori a car. Or even some cereal. Or even a web browser.

Hikikomori House

OR BETTER YET, SELL THEM A WHOOOOOLE NEWWWW LIIIIIIFE.

So I've also been hanging around /a/, which is, while much more normal now than in previous years, still pretty screwed up. Lately they've been coming up with ways for groups of them to all live together. See, that's pretty exciting, pretty adventurous. Maybe even beneficial for those involved. Ideas from just getting a bunch of apartments in one building to buying a town in New Zealand have been suggested. It almost definitely won't happen, at least in any major way, and that's reason a lot of them are so excited about it, I think. It's just a nice fantasy, and even when they think about how difficult it'll be or how much work it would be to move, and how they'd probably have to get a job or whatever, they can pretty easily just disregard that when it's still just an improbable fantasy.

Anyways, I really like the idea. I can't even describe why I do, it's just... I love the idea that these people would be happy. I really do. These are people who have finally found an online community of people like them, and their strongest wish (well, a wish maybe perhaps) is to have those people around them "afk". Basically I have two very strong visions of things I'd like to see. The first is the:

Real World Training Center

The RWTC would be a community set up sort of like a retirement home. The purpose of it would be to transition hikikomoris and NEETs and such into a more sustainable position. The biggest problem these people face is the fact that their lifestyle is not indefinitely sustainable. Usually they live off of their parents' money or savings of their own. Even with their expenses as low as a box of ramen a day, rent and internet bills, this money cannot last forever. Solving this is problematic, because this immediate issue is coupled with other issues that the hikki/NEET doesn't care to solve. Essentially, getting a job in "the real world" is coupled with tons of daunting responsibilities, ranging from hygiene to transportation to relationships, in the general mind of society, when it really doesn't have to be.

So, the RWTC would encourage figuring out a plan that doesn't step outside their comfort zone. The residents can practice socializing, trying a variety of jobs in mock settings, doing chores, all risk and stress free situations designed to give realistic examples of various aspects of real life. If they really do dislike, say, doing their own laundry or some other job, a plan could be arranged for a lifestyle that did not involve it. However, I feel like in most cases, the resident will find the task nowhere near as difficult or daunting as they had imagined and become more comfortable with taking on the responsibility.

The duration of the stay would typically be a year or so. The object would be finding things that the resident enjoys doing, figuring out what things they know to especially avoid doing, creating a network of support, be it either friends or professional therapists, and finding a way for the resident to support himself financially. But that would be all! If, at the end of the stay, these goals have been accomplished, but the kid still just wants to stay in his room as much as possible and watch anime, that's his choice! And if they decide instead to become a gym-hitting, club-touring social god, that shouldn't be viewed as any better or worse! All illusions of a social hierarchy would be thrown out here in the interest of exploring one's true passions and developing a lifestyle suited to them.

It could even be government funded! If it gets jobs for people who would otherwise hit up welfare or whatever, it would probably be a net gain to them to staff places like this. Maybe. And you might say, "Hey man, isn't there an extreme shortage of jobs? Specifically the type of jobs these uneducated and unskilled people would be qualified for?", and to you I say, screw you, I still think this is a good idea.

This is my second idea:

Reverse Harem Manga about /a/ Living in a Mansion

So I actually DREAMED THIS. How's that for, uh, weird. It was the night right after I had started reading about the whole /a/ mansion thing. I've given it some thought since then, and although the potential for some pretty funny hijinks is obvious, the potential for some ridiculously zany hijinks reveals itself after some analysis!!

I think the format works best as a "reverse harem" story. First I should define what I think a harem story is, 'cause to be honest the only show I watched that qualifies is like... Ore no Imouto? Sort of??? And Ranma I guess?!? Clannad counts I guess too. I still think I get the concept, though. Basically, you have a male protagonist who ends up in a situation with a bunch of girls. Sometimes all the girls are part of the same group, other times there's a variety, like one's the neighbour, one's the classmate, one's the uh, I dunno, there must be more than two. The driving plot of the show is "which one will he choose", and most episodes are either the "whole gang" getting up to some activity or focusing on one of the girls. This seems tremendously easy to write.

So the viewer typically identifies with the protagonist and then has a favorite of the girls that he wants the protagonist to end up with. He wants to see more of that character, and by that process, he ends up addicted to the show. Note that he becomes more obsessed with the character than he would of had the character not been "in jeopardy" of not being chosen. It's compelling stuff! You end up pitting the fandoms of the characters against each other, release some merchandise that they can buy to show their devotion, milk it as long as possible and then roll around in a big pile of cash screaming like a gleeful idiot.

The challenge is mainly making likable "haremettes", as you should try to make the main character as bland as possible so the viewers can more easily relate to them. Making interesting characters that the viewer falls in love with might seem hard, but with five or so chances, you're bound to get one that someone likes. The reverse harem makes this harder. In a reverse harem (where the protagonist is a female and the harem is made of eligible men that she must choose from) that's marketed towards men, as this one would be, all the viewers pine for the same girl and then identify with one of the male suitors. Since you're hoping all your viewers like her, designing the girl is very difficult. And even the men are tricky, as attempting to create a character someone can relate to becomes harder and harder as you add more personality. The slightest detail askew breaks the illusion and the relationship with the viewer is lost. That isn't even getting into the impossibility of marketing it.

But putting all that aside, if you just look at the actual story potential, it could be a lot of fun. The setup is this: five stereotypes from /a/ have purchased a nice house! But it's going sorta haywire, as it probably would in real life: the place is a mess, everyone mainly ignores or hates each other, etc, etc. To remedy this, they start seeking new applicants that might improve the house's dynamic. Enter: the girl. She improves their lives! They improve hers? They learn skills! Have fun! Bond! Romantically??? But with who??

So the girl is typical cheery moe personality (think Poplar from Working!!), and she's moving so she can start a job at a cafe (moe!) and sees the application flier. She reads about them online, where they have obviously have an taste examination set up. Since she totally wants to live in the mansion advertised, she looks into the shows mentioned, but for a lack of time, only watches the moeblob stuff. And she loves it, obviously, 'cause who doesn't, and she's good to go!

And she shows up and she's mortified by the disgusting environment and such but being so chipper and such she tries to make the best of it. She meets all the residents, and then the wackiness never stops! It would be sort of standard fifty:fifty split between episodes involving some crazy household task like WHAT IF THEY ALL TRIED TO MAKE A CRAZY CAKE?? HAHA! and episodes featuring a specific love interest. And then there'd also be stuff sort of related to the main romantic subplot, like maybe they all get paranoid that she's dating some guy from work??

Anyways I thought up ideas for the five characters and a bunch of episode premises but I dunno actually writing it down it's like, not even funny generic like "what if something was wacky but we acted like it was generic" but just straight up generic. And laughing at it ironically won't change the fact that that's boring, yo. So I dunno less confident in the quality of all of this. I don't think I'd even watch it, really. I mean I do watch K-On!! and Ore no Imouto and all that crap but I wouldn't watch a Slice of Life moeblob show where male characters outnumbered the female ones, I think. Just seems weird! No wait ALL OF THIS WOULD SEEM WEIRD TO ANYONE BESIDES ME. ME AND... THE BEST PLACES ON THE INTERNET!

Tiers of the Internet

Places will score on categories of:
obsessiveness/expertise/intelligence/activity

But these have like, hidden weights and stuff?

Holy cow this will take awhile, there's like... dozens of websites out there. OK just gonna do the 4chan boards that I know pretty well first. Maybe later I'll do subreddits and such?

Basement Tier

/tg/ - 9/10/8/8
/jp/ - 10/9/7/7

Top Tier

/ah screw it it's late I'm going to bed, also I swear I did this already in some spreadsheet somewhere. It's probably out of date though. And I think my categories are a bit off. And I'd like to do writeups to explain stuff too. Argh. Plus it all pretty much boils down to smaller communities = better content.

AND I'M STILL COMING UP WITH A POST ABOUT HAMLET, AND A POST ABOUT KANYE WEST, AND A BETTER 2010 LIST. AND THE SONG OF THE DAY IS "SCARY MONSTERS AND NICE SPRITES (ZEDD REMIX)", YOU CAN YOUTUBE IT YOURSELF I'M STILL MAD AT THOSE CURS FOR DELETING ALL MY (THE GO! TEAM'S) MUSIC UPLOADS.