Stranger Things season 1: beneath the superficial image of “peace and prosperity” in 1980s small-town America, there was the painful legacy of countless atrocities committed by the American government in the name of ‘freedom.’
Stranger Things season 4: evil Russians (not Soviets) have sent our All-American Hero to the gulags which apparently still exist in the 1980s and it’s up to us to save him 🇺🇸🦅🫡
There’s probably a term that already exists for this but if there isn’t I’m gonna call it ‘Rambofication’ in honor of its probably most well known instance: Rambo First Blood was about a soldier, John Rambo (that’s his actual name I’m not doing a bit), returning home from the Vietnam war, so traumatized by war that he brought the war home with him to a small town, unable to adapt to life without strict military discipline and hierarchy. Subsequent Rambo movies were about how John Rambo was the only supersoldier tough enough and patriotic enough to kill faceless hordes of dastardly foreign commies.
Ergo, ‘Rambofication’ is the process of a series starting with a relatively nuanced or subversive narrative before its sequels become a shallow embrace of the very narrative it originally subverted. It happens surprisingly often!
literally so important to have friends where you can be like “can i be insane for a second” and then you get to be insane. and they still like you afterwards
i was in the grocery store and saw an onion on the ground and picked it up, absently saying “poor little guy.” behind me a teenage girl started laughing and then stopped and went “aww. i’m sorry for laughing. that’s nice actually.” and the cycle of cruelty is broken for another generation as a young person realizes that it is not embarrassing to have empathy for another thing that was once living, because certainly to be a lone white onion rolling on the ground in a supermarket would be terrifying to anyone
[Image ID: Tumblr tags from spaceFuneral reading: #this reminds me of how these two teenage girls apparently come into my work often and i didnt recognize them but they recognized me #and they were like “ do you just have a collection of mystical cat shirts” #and i was like oh god im about to be bullied by teenagers #and i was like haha yeah! #and said that one person gifted me one and then suddenly i was collecting them #and they were like “i love that i love your vibes” #and “thank you for sharing your lore” #and i was like god damn………. peace and love on planet earth /End ID]
tired: “treat people like NPCs” as in disregard their humanity and interiority
wired: “treat people like NPCs” as in talk to them and learn their lore to feel more embedded in the world around you
this current wave of mid 2010s nostalgia is so laughable. yeah dude we need to retvrn to the days when closer by the chainsmokers was the biggest song in the world and we were all drinking “unicorn flavored” milkshakes
