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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   22076 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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If this premise about the link between art and trauma is accepted

I'm not sure I accept the link here. Yes, traumatic experiences through art tend to stay with you longer than abject beauty and take something from you. I still, thankfully, have not watched Funkytown, but I have seen enough on the internet that comes close. One part of getting older has been that my curiosity about exposing myself to trauma has been reduced, not increased. I don't have to do this. The only possible benefit to being exposed to things like this is that it could improve my performance under stress if I'm exposed to such things in meatspace. I won't trade the guaranteed cost of psychic damage for this potential benefit anymore. Art that relies on applying trauma, if anything, becomes diminished. It's a cheap shot to increase stickiness and earn a place in your mind that wouldn't be deserved otherwise.

The rabbit from Zootopia is hot and a little uppity. She absolutely wants and deserves to get gangbanged by a bunch of foxes. No trauma involved at all!

What's Funkytown? Or do I even want to know?

It's a video of cartel members torturing someone while the song funkytown plays in the background. Even the textual descriptions are horrific (but not long-term traumatizing IMO):

The guy's kept alive with adrenaline, and skinned/dismembered and maybe raped with something? IIRC

it's a video of a prolonged and hideous torture murder committed by agents of a drug cartel, with the song "funkytown" playing in the background.

Oh yeah, I have heard of this.

Back when I was in secondary school, some guys in my social circle spent a lot of time on BestGore. It never appealed to me, I have no interest in watching real people being actually tortured and murdered. One time I asked one of these guys "when you watch these videos, does it turn you on?" and he said "a bit".

I still have no idea if he was being honest or just trying to be shocking (he couldn't have been older than eighteen at the time). It will not surprise you that I haven't been in touch with him for over a decade.

The rabbit from Zootopia is hot and a little uppity. She absolutely wants and deserves to get gangbanged by a bunch of foxes. No trauma involved at all!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

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