Is this why you only read fiction?

Don't kid yourself- there is no discussion on /a/ beyond "X character is cute" and "that episode sure is cool". If I wanted to discuss anime /a/ would be the last place I'd go.

What's inherently wrong with pop culture fandom? I don't read it myself but it seems fairly harmless.

No.

I read it because I enjoy it alot more. Especially science fiction.

I'm not all bad, but I really only read 2-3 nonfiction books a year.

I also enjoy comedic fantasy, like terry pratchett. Ice cream writing, if you will.

Not only that, but I don't understand this comic.

Why would people shy away from the unpleasant, bleaker aspects of storytelling? Shadows give things definition.

This but also make sure Thomas Pynchon's cameo from the Simpsons makes an appearance.

/a/ is a vitriolic shithole. You faggots hate it when people ask for more shows like X or Y. You're one of the most elitist boards on Veeky Forums which doesn't make sense because you're basically /mlp/, fascinating by cartoons for little girls.

Have you seen what it does to human beings? Have you seen the need to escape from reality into the echo chambers of memes? Have you seen how they subconsciously seek out conflict by purposefully finding people that don't agree with them 100% on their retarded t.v. show?

I'm into various hobbies and forms of media that escapism addicts cling to and I absolutely loathe escapism- even have some anti-escapism undertones and dialogue in my own fiction novels. A lot of people who thoroughly and unapologetically embrace escapism are incredibly emotionally stunted because they never just want to deal with things or learn from experiences.

On the contrary, a lot of the best fiction and fantasy does have darker and more realistic elements.

>the only place nice to discuss interests
I can't take this post seriously.

This, and if you want to discuss anything older that wasn't "a classic" like Bebop or Lain, you're SoL. I still think we need /ar/.

>
>What's inherently wrong with pop culture fandom?
Exactly what the OP image expresses: people avoid reality by getting over-engrossed in fantasy worlds. Obviously there are people who are able to enjoy fiction and fantasy without escapism, but a lot of fans (from my experience) get so deeply involved as a way to not have to deal with reality at all and end up refusing to mentally and emotionally mature.

Many of them create their "ideal" version of stories and characters and if the original creator or another fan puts out anything that contradicts that ideal, they act like their life has been torn apart. Like how militant people get about their Overwatch ships and the reaction to Tracer having a girlfriend, or the backlash over the latest Doctor being a woman. I also recall a story (can't source) about a Korean fan-artist being given some treat as a gift at a con only to find out there were pins or something baked in- all because she drew fanart a fan didn't like.

You don't really witness this stuff as a casual fan, but once you get into genuine "fandom" it's pretty terrible.

I rather read non-fiction related to the world than fictional stories. Every time I open any fictional book I think I could be reading something about the actual world instead and I just close it down and pick a non-fic book, mostly of history, philosophy or politics.

>pic
Oh noes! The words that are enlarged are the same!
What a catastrophy!

I will make it tomorrow when I finish work if anyone cares by then

I will care user. I will print it and stick it on my wardrobe for everyone (noone) to see

I would be proud of him

>I rather read non-fiction related to the world than fictional stories

*tips fedora

Why? I'm not trying to be edgy. I'm just genuinely more interested in non-fiction and feel like i'm wasting time reading fiction.

>implying pop-culture isn't just propaganda

>he says while wasting time on a Hawaiian yachting forum
I prefer non-fiction too but that's just a stupid thing to say.

>Have you seen what it does to human beings? Have you seen the need to escape from reality into the echo chambers of memes? Have you seen how they subconsciously seek out conflict by purposefully finding people that don't agree with them 100% on their retarded t.v. show?

With the exception of the TV show part you might aptly be describing Veeky Forums

I'm mostly reading daily news around the globe for a few hours now.

>Many of them create their "ideal" version of stories and characters and if the original creator or another fan puts out anything that contradicts that ideal, they act like their life has been torn apart. Like how militant people get about their Overwatch ships and the reaction to Tracer having a girlfriend, or the backlash over the latest Doctor being a woman. I also recall a story (can't source) about a Korean fan-artist being given some treat as a gift at a con only to find out there were pins or something baked in- all because she drew fanart a fan didn't like.

That's a fair point. However, it must only describe a small minority - we shouldn't ignore the people who didn't send Hideaki Anno death threats.

>I'm mostly reading daily news around the globe for a few hours now.

How the heck is that a healthier thing to do?

What fucking health are you talking bout? I have never claimed anything about health.

The frack did he mean by this?

You're right. You didn't. I just want to understand your perspective a bit more.

I want to know what has happened and is happening around the world. Nothing else to it. The less book is detached from this the less I am interested in it.

>The less
The more, obviously. Silly me, need to take more ESLs.

As much OPs pic can be cringe or make some people rage, it's right tho.
Most people does not want unpleasant things, plus, people comes home tired of the world, tired of a shitty job... they sure don't want to get their faces into some obscure stuff. they want their football or their tv program wich you can follow even with a brain stroke.

>/a/
lolwut

This referring to normies or actual nerds/geeks? Cos I think normies are into geeky shit for a completely different reason.

Fair point. What news sources do you pay attention to? I'm UK so feel like there's not many options. I glance at Reuters in the morn and respect their to-the-point style as I can't deal with op-eds. BBC feels like it never wants to talk about anything controversial. World Service is good, though.

I love history, and though I read non-fiction about history I also enjoy reading historical fiction. Only from writers who put HUGE emphasis on historical realism though, and also include actual historical events to make the atmosphere of the book feel more real. Bernard Cornwell does a great job of this, which is why I love his work. Fictional characters, small-scale fictional events, small-scale fictional locations, but in actual parts of the world with actual historic events going on and you sort of get a first-hand perspective from it even though it was hundreds of years ago, or thousands, depending on the book.

I also pay attention to modern world events and I do watch Fox News since it's not fake news, as well as stuff like Rebel Media which also seems quite genuine, so I don't try and ignore current events. I just love learning of history, even the nitty gritty stuff.

>people avoid reality by getting over-engrossed in fantasy worlds
Nothing inherently wrong with that and it depends on the person. When I go with those types of works they feel like fast food. I do enjoy them but not on the level of not being able to tell reality from fiction. Its like saying video games make people violent and similar nonsense.

this, 100%. jews or no jews, people paid money to make flicks like pic related. cui bono?

>You're one of the most elitist boards on Veeky Forums

And thank god for that. Have you seen what happens to a board that's not elitistic?
Veeky Forums doesn't suffer from this because there's a bit of elitism by default through the fact that you need a couple of brain cells put together to enjoy reading books over movies, but for any other medium which teenagers can easily catch on like anime, cartoons, video games, movies, politics, "random", supernatural, etc. lack of elitism will open the floodgates to some of the worst shitposters and content you can imagine. There's a reason /b/, /pol/ and /v/ are notorious for how bad they are. /a/ is one of the larger boards, and its elitism allowed it to thrive for as long as it did. If you think it's bad now, it would've been dozen times worse had they welcomed newfags with open arms. (Hell it's not impenetrable even now, recently there's a lot more people going "sauce plz sauce plox wut anime is dis? " etc. and others spoonfeeding them.)

Here on Veeky Forums I'm not afraid of recommending others my favorite books or similar ones, because I know they'll end up better people once they're done reading them, and I know they'll think about and judge the books themselves. On /a/ the opposite would happen, they would end up lazy shits who don't think for themselves and will just parrot everyone else's opinion on which anime is good, so I'll tell them "lurk the fuck more".

I agree with this, ruthless fiction that feels more like reading the history of another world, and not some Peter Pan escapism where everything ends up well for the characters the reader cares about are the best.

Doews ebil waysis made mi like ninja turtles and the joker at 35. The world it's so full of division; despite the fact I instantly cuck for any leftest incursion in my small pathetic bubble...

If only I never had to struggle and fight, then I wouldn't have to run from struggle and fighting

Robbing our culture of potential contributors and defenders is harmless? You libertarians are really something else.

I think that the problem lies in the fact that most people don't respect the place.
>inb4 autism
If you boil Veeky Forums or any imageboard down to it's most basic components, it's a place for the discussion of [thing]. But to the "outside world" it's a place where the "ebin memes and leetfucks" reside. So they don't come here to discuss the subject matter of the board, they come here because they want a laff or two from the greentext stories. And they think the whole site is basically /polr9kbane/+/whocaresthereareonlysevenpostsadayanyway/, so they get their training at one of the boards which have no self-moderation or a set in stone subject matter. They are also fast as fuck so you need to be "witty" (Not Witgenstein) to get a lot of (you)s, because retards need something to count, be it cookie points or likes.

True, the larger the board, the more you have to "compress" your posts and make them as noticeable (and with as much "meme potential") as possible, else they get drowned in the sea of shitposting. People are just chasing for "upvote pills", small enough to fit in a screencap, that anyone can laugh at with no context. Serious discussion generally lasts only for a couple of hours, so most people probably don't even bother.

I think we need to bring back "lurk moar" and gore, frankly.

It's very easy to laugh at people like that or call them plebs or insinuate they're weak but I can't fault people for wanting comfy, simple, shitty entertainment. That "this is us" type shit that network TV watchers offer.

I personally indulge in some capeshit comics so i can't act superior to anyone. I see it no different than network television. Episodic, generally needs to return to a status quo, and no endgame besides "hope you enjoyed, see you next week."

For some people, sad and pathetic as it may be, premier night for their show or new comic book day or getting to read a shitty genre book at the end of the day is something to look forward to.

>son, I am pride
Not everybody wants to have a nancyboy son who is low in conscientiousness, afraid to upset the raft of sensitive people.

As a matter of fact, a lack of those is why victim culture is so celebrated, and the outcome is absolutely disgusting.

Honestly, the off topic threads are pretty good when done well. (I don't mean the shitposting ones, but when you open a video game thread on /int/ or a Veeky Forums one on Veeky Forums. A thread with a subject on a board with a subject.)
Like I once had a pretty nice comic and animation technique related discussion in a /co/ bait thread on /a/
It felt pretty dramatic, since there were only two people posting there, me included, and we let the thread die, since we saged it.
But the discussion was pretty nice.

well, this is pretty stupid.
if you're life is shit and you need escapism it's totally comprehensible. but needin that because you're eeling down for the shit people write on the internet or for all the bad news the media shout it's just idiotic

Aw. Sad now.

>/a/. Its the only place nice to discuss interests
Yea. Your newfag is showing. That's why when I went there in 2007 to discuss naruto they deleted my thread? Or how any naruto thread was deleted and the posters to go to fucking gaia or /b/. If you can't discuss anime on the fucking anime board where do you do it? We used to have to use /b/ and /co/ when we could get away with it to discuss manga and anime. I hope all the users and mods that enabled that to happen from 2007 onwards gets rekt'd. Fucking fagget cunts. All you /a/utistic cunts should neck yourself.

>Naruto
You brought it on yourself Narutard.

Yes, I'm sure your father would think you're hot shit and totally not a nancyboy for talking trash anonymously on the internet

conversations can happen but it's generally if they aren't the type to draw some REEing shill or some faggot just looking to get a rise. One of the biggest de-railers is some fucker (a C in an AB conversation) taking umbrage with one piece of a post and replying without the "not the same user" preface.

Sometimes I think having /pol2/, /v2/ and other duplicate boards would help easing the onslaught of post.
Basically partitioning the boards into two, and then raising the posting time to 2 minutes or something like that.

I can only imagine what proto-nu-male disgrace raised you

I wasn't talking trash. If you interpreted that, you may the sensitive nancyboy inheritor privy to the victim culture celebration I referenced.

>equating reading fiction with pop-culure "fandom"
pleb

is this comic supposed to be satire? i mean the blonde kid is even walking like a zombie.

Pretty much everything and anything that writes about relevant to world news. Recently I found this: ssi.armywarcollege.edu/index.cf

>The Strategic Studies Institute is the U.S. Army's institute for geostrategic and national security research and analysis. The Strategic Studies Institute conducts strategic research and analysis to support the U.S. Army War College curricula, provides direct analysis for Army and Department of Defense leadership, and serves as a bridge to the wider strategic community.

They've got alot of publications about modern geopolitics which gets me rockhard.

Honestly man, I disagree with stifling those corners of the site. I really do.

And I get the /pol/ boogeyman. I've witness the uptick in edginess. But Veeky Forums really is one of the last places to speak frankly. And politics are involved in everything. if you disagree you ARE wrong, it's like saying you don't have carcinogens in your air. Whether you accept it or not they're there.

Sure, the people who have cancer or know someone suffering will be congnisent of that fact and possibly talk about it more. Where as someone who's healthy and never met a cancer patient might say "people are crazy if they think cell phones are bouncing cancer all around."

You may not be into politics but many are. because all of us live with them. And if you're on lit you absolutely should be. No well read man should consider himself useful simply for reading words. You need apply them to the world around you.

While I get sick of things like the (((they))) meme and the like they have no where else to go. Shitposters and false flaggers are a problem but when the rest of the world is telling people to be silent just because they don't like what they have to say I feel incredibly, honestly, angry at anyone that would try to take that bastion away from them.

It makes Veeky Forums no different from the sites people always claim to dislike around here. And if you don't see a marked difference between Veeky Forums and tumblr or twitter or reddit you sincerely do not belong here. I mean that. No matter how high you think the quality of discussion you provide is. This is a place of ideas. And many are shit. But if you can't out bant a shitposter then you have no point worth bantering about.

>What's inherently wrong with pop culture fandom?

one look at twitter will show you that these people are frustrated, bewildered, anxious. despite being catered to more than ever, they are extremely unhappy and always getting worse. they're always protesting, boycotting, screaming into the void because superman did the wrong thing in a movie or whatever. it's a nightmare. there's clearly something wrong with the whole culture.

look at what the comic is saying. what he depicts as insufferable horror is simply living in society, as a human being. he imagines himself leaving this "horror" behind, transitioning instead into a pleasant world of children's cartoons. the thing to understand here, above all else, is that this escape never actually happens. it's a marketing trick. just like buying a sports car won't make a middle-aged man more virile, consuming nerd entertainment won't free you of the hardships of life and society, so that comic strip will never happen. you don't escape life just because you're watching a cartoon. the horror is crawling all over you.

the founding delusion of nerd fandom is the refusal to acknowledge this. the nerd insists on believing that the illusory escape will occur once his nerd entertainment is good enough, pure enough. maybe the next time they'll get superman right, and then i'll just dissolve as i experience total immersion into pure supermanness! no you won't. in order to justify their continued failure to enter this mythical state of escapism the nerds have to find something to blame. the superhero killed too much, or not enough. too many white actors or too few. george lucas made this, george lucas didn't make this. it will never end.

so the nerd fandom lifestyle is endlessly purchasing branded products and then endlessly complaining about them. it's a self-imposed routine of frustration and disappointment. at least a mid-life crisis ends: you buy your red ferrari, your dick fails to get any bigger, you sigh and move on. nerd fandom lasts until you die.

How does one cope with the reality we live in?

Is escapism bad?
Is there a better/healthier way to escape than fantasy (vidya/movies/tv/genre fic)?

>this is your brain on Peterson

Wonder where posting on Veeky Forums places you in the dominance hierarchy

I don't want to destroy /pol/, I just want to decrease the speed of it.
You can't destroy it without killing all the users.
/pol/ is a necessary fever.

But I don't think /pol/ is a good place to initiate users after the election. It became distanced from the rest of the site, merging with the mainstream somewhat.

On the subject of
> they have no where else to go
They have a place to go, it's called /pol/ and /b/
The falseflag shitposts are the fault of the moderation, they really should be cracking down on those and the forced memes.

I don't think reading had a good influence on me when it comes to politics, it drifted me into a really fringe place, and I think my views change depending on how I wake up.

Must we talk about politics all the time?
I just don't care 8 out of 10 times.
>And politics are involved in everything
After maybe 3 layers of connection dots.
If I talk about a book, I don't want to hear about the paper lobby's latest shenanigans to ban E-readers or something like that.
Politics might be involved in everything, but they aren't everything, and that is why some people don't like or care about /pol/ and its users.

>all fiction is escapism
kys

>better/healthier
Depends on who you're asking. Some people think grown men watching sports is pathetic. The millions of men watching sports think men who don't watch sports are pathetic.

And both sides are sincere.

Is reading "healthier" than watching? Some will say one is active the other is passive but generally the people who say watching something is a passive activity wouldn't change their mind even if told brain scans disagree with that notion.

>le everything is political maymay
fucking pomo
and cellphones don't cause cancer you imbecile surely you can't be one of those vaccinations cause autism people?

Pop culture is consumerist culture

>loyalty ton one's country is literally as bad as Nazism now
Our globalist overlords are going too far.

a human is a creature that lives in a community ("polis"). all interactions between those creatures are therefore "political". to escape politics you would have to leave society and live among the animals. good job confusing the foundations of human civilization with "postmodernism".

decreasing the speed of it will kill it, the cooldown has decimated story times on /co/ to the point its almost all shill threads.

Raise it to two minutes and people will be posting on other boards even more often.

The above also works for a response to:
>They have a place to go, it's called /pol/ and /b/
Cross-board shit posting I think is where we should focus since I've addressed changed to /pol/ possibly leading to more cross-boarding.

>I don't think reading had a good influence on me when it comes to politics, it drifted me into a really fringe place, and I think my views change depending on how I wake up.

That's a problem of your own and in no way representative of what Veeky Forums or Veeky Forums should be. Just because your views are fluid doesn't mean someone isn't just as valid in their staunch views, no matter how opposed you happen to be on that day.

>Must we talk about politics all the time?
>I just don't care 8 out of 10 times.
Again, that's on you not anyone else. If topic can lead there then the conversation should go there.

if you're in a thread about a book and user makes a comment about not being able to buy it physically because it isn't being printed and then a second user lements the changes of ereaders and such then your example would be perfectly fitting.

The problem arises in a situation like that when two people aren't trying to have a /pol/ conversation but are then called /pol/ by someone like you who could have just ignored them.

At that point it becomes a political conversation about politics in society. Always.

it's never the /pol/ tinted comment that starts the REEing. Its someone telling another person to go back to /pol/ that then draws a response of "okay you leftist faggot" or "okay drumpfkins BTFO". which are both shitposts. but from someone who thinks they're in the right for calling out /pol/. So they feel justified and then things derail.

I didn't mean to imply cellphones cause cancer but rather that that's a conversation someone like that would have. This right here is a perfect example of what I have just described. Someone commenting on something that had nothing to do with the crux of a post in order to derail.

this.

>there's nothing outside of interacting with others without living among animals
what the fuck

if you're implying that you can exercise your humanity without other people around because of your rich and deep inner life then i'm afraid i have to tell you your rich and deep inner life is a laughable delusion. animals can dream too.

Do you even know what "politics" is in the /pol/ sense?

Tell me what politics is in the /pol/ sense. You clearly disagree with me. Define the terms then so we can continue.

>And politics are involved in everything. if you disagree you ARE wrong, it's like saying you don't have carcinogens in your air. Whether you accept it or not they're there.
>Sure, the people who have cancer or know someone suffering will be congnisent of that fact and possibly talk about it more. Where as someone who's healthy and never met a cancer patient might say "people are crazy if they think cell phones are bouncing cancer all around."
great job BSing some shit then changing what you said.
Discussing politics - and I define politics as achieving and exercising positions of governance, not whatever purist definition you're concocting - is pointless because it doesn't concern an average man on the street. The whole point of democracy is that everybody is selfish and votes in their interest so that the interest of the majority can be realized. To discuss politics as you Americans seem so inclined to do is pointless because it's not about voting the person that's "best for the country" but best for you. Politics is a private thing and to flaunt it is virtue signaling and is crass and deplorable.

/pol/ is about the current events and current legislation mostly, sometimes about social changes. It's essentially a board about the political news of today in the most basic sense. (Most certainly not the philosophical definition you gave) (The most basic sense being a few proles arguing in a bar over some shit they heard)
It's not a political science board, it's a new iteration of the old news board.

le epic "look where you are xd" meme

Veeky Forums has quadrupled in popularity since 2014. Millionaires, phds, mds, chads, writers, musicians, politicians, etc all post here. Some of them have probably called you a gigantic faggot

>I spend every single second of my life interacting with others thus everything is political. there are absolutely no moments in life when I'm alone.
think for a second and listen to what you're saying you fucking mongoloid

i think he's saying that there are essential things to "being a human being" that involve interacting with other people.

i guess even indirectly, when dealing with human-made media, you can't escape culture or "society" and doing so fully (ie living in the wild), makes you less than human.

That doesn't mean humans are reducible to
"politics" but just that human-to-human interactions are essential

Human-to-Human interactions isn't 100 percent politics.

And all I wanted to say was that not everything is political, and it is a result of postmodernism i.e. critical theory that people would think so. Have a look at this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

The amount of triggered tumblrinas that invaded this board is off the charts.

whoops, I didn't read the upper post where the guy i was defending claimed that. I agree with your statements

What is the Sokal have anything to do with this? If anything it's an indictment of academia only, not the nature of politics.

Excellent post, user, and why I still come to Veeky Forums

I read fiction to help me create fiction which I can then sell to people who mindlessly consume it and then pay my bills.

Critical theorists don't know what they're talking about when they say everything is political, hence a physicist can BS some shit about quantum physics being political.

imagine being alive

i'm saying incredibly basic things that you intentionally misunderstand so you can wallow in your intellectual degeneracy.

so what if you're temporarily "alone"? you don't exit society when you go take a shit. who built the toilet? who's maintaining the flow of water to your house so the shit can be flushed away? who's paying for all this? okay, go shit in a forest then. surprise, all the forests are somebody's property now, by shitting there you're engaging in a social act with either a private owner or the state. you literally cannot evacuate your bowels without making it a political act. you're never actually "alone".

again, this is really, really basic shit you're hopefully only pretending to misunderstand.

>science depends on funding, which largely depends on donors or government grants.

The scientist just trying to conduct an experiment may think they are removed from politics in their lab while experimenting but they are not.

The lab was paid for, the materials, the workers, they all are provided by someone who could cover the cost. Whether it be a person, an organization or a gorvernment the backers have an agenda. They hire one person instead of someone else for a reason. And the reason likely isn't "most skilled, better resume" because it's generally going to be a push in that regard.

Any who attempts to compartmentalize the reality of society is inherently flawed in their thinking. We as people are connected to the world in which we live at an inseparable level. Some discount it with degrees of separation but thats just being reductionist.

a point to clarify:

That doesn't mean the scientist can't operate efficiently or properly. It doesn't mean the findings are always false.

What it means is that you have to make sure you're not ignoring faults and ignoring criticism simply because of the source. If their backer is telling them its all good but fellow scientists are raising concerns you can't just say "well so-and-so told me what I'm doing is fine".

it's akin to accepting bias and accounting for it.

>again, this is really, really basic shit you're hopefully only pretending to misunderstand.
this is a good thread. And while contentious I think there actually is a good conversation being had here. Interesting at the least. But I think user actually believes what I quoted there. I don't think he's pretending.

It's a very major difference that I think is at the center of much of our societal differences.

>hurr durr the politics of scientific research is the same as the science itself
There is no Planck came up with quantum mechanics am I right? Nono his parents gave birth to him so they actually invented it. Oh no no it's actually his ancestors. Nah it's actually the Big Bang. Everything is just one big blob of politics! Even the 95.1% of the universe that we don't even know about, that must be politics right? I mean our humanity taints everything right? What are forms right? Haha guys!

Pretty much. I like to pick up my copy of Blood Meridian every time I get called a fag on Veeky Forums.