After replaying TLoU2 twice since this, it's hilarious that Joel being the best part of season 2 is still such a devastating denunciation disguised as this heaping praise. Thankfully nobodys thought of this forsaken show since this episode

Anyway, care to extend this to season 2 in retrospect? no?

The US aiding and abetting genocide (when they're not directly bombing children themselves) is an issue IN AND OF ITSELF that does not need even the breath it takes to point out the infinite capitalist hypocrisies of "funding"/taxes that have already been wasted. But it's a language we understand 😮‍💨

He who fans the husks from the wheat by hand, and who shall gather every kernel from the floor, and shall gather them all into his barn; but the chaff he shall bathe with fire unquenchable.

When all people knew and thought in their hearts of John (lest he were Christ, God forbid!) John answered, and said to all men: I can wash you in water; but one stronger than I comes after me, who I am not worthy to unbind the lace of his shoes; he shall bathe you in the Holy Ghost and fire

And publicans came to be baptized; and they said to him, Master, what shall we do?

And he said to them, Do ye nothing more, than that that is ordained to you.

The vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, the vanity of vanities

for a man shall go into the house of his everlastingness, and wailers shall go about in the street ... before that a silveren rope be broken, and a golden lace run against, and a water pot be all-broken on the well, and a wheel be broken together on the cistern; and dust turn again into his earth

and they shall rise at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of song shall wax deaf. And high things shall dread, and shall be afeared in the way; and an almond tree shall flower, a locust shall be made fat, and capers shall be destroyed;

The best thing about games are not the mastery aspect -- if you want to play D&D because you love power and control/the celebrity/status of being a DM/GM, you're going against the openness and infinity of the actual game, community etc. There's something there. Temporarily embarrassed game masters.

"Focusing on the game-like aspect of musical (or, I would say, all, artistic) projects, or building them in to define and extend the parameters of those projects (ie personal realities, ways of being), makes fans feel deeply connected to their idols and to each other" makes it seem pro-idolatry tho

Still, I love seeing public discourse like Ann's here, which makes me feel less insane: "... discernment should happen at the level of individual works, though with a constant eye toward how those works are shaped by the economic systems that support or hinder their makers."

Capitalism only hinders

This inevitably leads fans towards the "correct takes", towards gatekeeping, while Swift can weaponize the lay-understanding of "death of the author" and "separating the art form the artist" to screen criticisms of extremely parasocial fans who go past understanding themselves towards obsession

After all, as the blog post Ann references, "Taylor Swift: The Master of Gamification" by substack.com/@cammieloves... , fans are becoming more proscriptive in their interpretive modes "under the direction of a master"

I think Ann's view that the "attention-deficit century requires a multi-media frame to keep people engaged" is as accurate as it is needlessly derogatory if we are disdainful of the way Swifties "engage with [her music] as a way of better understanding their own lives" -- don't hate the players, etc