I've been thinking about a lot attention and intention this month. At what points does my attention wane, what captures my attention delibrately, how can I hold my attention and focus on a task. What activities do I intentionally seek out or get distracted by? I've been trying to ween more and more off of social media and my phone all today (trying to use less than 30 minutes a day instead of 2 hours which is my current average) and with Youtube, I've been trying to watch videos I'm actively intrigured about such as more video essays and creative video projects. For this month I wanted to share my recent favorite internet things. Most of these are Youtube videos, but some are essays I've read from folks I look up to and random webpages I've stumbled upon on neocities. These are in the general order of when I experienced them in the month of February. I hope you enjoy!
1) Adastra: The Best Furry Visual Novel Made Me Come Out as Gay and Now You Have to Hear About It
If you told me a year ago I would watch a 3+ hour video essay about an 18+ gay furry visual novel I would have said "no way I don't have the attention span for that." And yet here I was watching Boring Keith's brillent breakdown of the narrative structure and tragic story of Adastra. How it moved him into coming out and finally being his most authentic self. I'm not a furry (from the soul searching I've done regarding it), but I appreciated his insights and thoughts surrounding his experiences with this piece of media and I highly recommend watching this if you're even vaguely interested in story telling (and also if you're gay). You can watch it here.
2) The Legend of TUNIC: Obscurity, Nostalgia, and Copyright
For context, I devoured Tunic during December and early January and loved every moment of it. Upon finishing as much as I could, I was surprised at the lack of video essays surrounding it. It felt like there were dozens and dozens of theories, which I didn't care for too much. I wanted think pieces of it in general. Of the experience of playing it. This video came up in my recommended and I'm so greatful it did. The video essayist really did scratch that itch I was having in regards to thoughtful Tunic related explorations. You can watch it here.
Forewarning that Patricia Taxxxon is going to take up the next three entries whoops.
3) The Autistic Horror of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (season 1)
I do not remember how I landed on Patricia Taxxon's channel but I am so greatful I did. This trans puppy girl musician clearly articulated out in the beginning of this video the most important part of the big analysis video essays a lot of Youtubers miss when evaluating media, which is how the art made them feel and why. An exploration into one's own humanity again art someone else creates. I did not personally relate to her experiences of growing up autistic and experiencing the cruelity of ABA, but I could relate to that feeling of helplessness/horror similar experiences could instill into folks when very young. All the while calling attention to which specific aspects or scenes in the series resonated with her. If you liked DHMIS, then I recommend giving this a watch and seeing it in a whole new light. You can watch it here.
4) On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People
For someone who's not a furry I sure do what a lot of deep introspective furry video essays. I was really taken by the categorizing furry art by the properties of the symbolic, sensory, and autistic. I revisit parts of this occassionally and can't stop thinking about it. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is up for debate, but you can watch it for yourself here.
5) "I'll Be" by Patricia Taxxxon
When I say I've been listening to this song on repeat I am not joking. My inital big draw was CJ The X being featured, but the more I listened to it, the more I was charmed by the lyrics and feel of the song itself. "Bocce" on the Agnes & Hilda album "I'll Be" comes off of comes at a close second. You listen to it here.
6) "2 LITTLE 2 LATE" by CROSSING RAIN
I clicked on this thinking it wouldn't be that good a la Heart2Heart's 2011 "hit" Facebook Official from 2011. I was surprised to find that this song was actually really well made and the choreo was pretty impressive. CROSSING RAIN is a Hawaiian based boy group with 5 members represented by PONO Entertainment. I'll be looking forward to what new music they put out. You can watch the music video here.
7) Those aren’t “Tweets”, Those Are Your Thoughts
As I hone aspects of the internet I connect myself to, I am finding myself drawn towards patreon content of the few folks I follow, one being CJ the X. They recently launched a new website where you can listen to his music, watch his Youtube videos, and also read his essays. I had long deleted twitter, but this essay also inspires me to finally sever Instagram from my life as well. You can read it here.
8) DNI
When going down a rabbit hole on neocities, I stumbled upon kiophen's website. In it of itself, it looks super cool, but when clicking through they're different links they had a page dedicated to different lines from various online folks' dni (do not interact) lists. It was fascinating to see what people online put and also felt a bit stressful to imagine folks existing in such a way online. I've had lots of conversations regarding this with those close to me about DNI and what it means for the wider culture of the internet and community. Maybe I'll write more on it in another blog post, but you can read through the very long list of DNIs for yourself here.
8) Hog
In the same day I found kiophen's website I also found Quig's hog website. I don't wanna spoil too much about the site since it's more fun experiencing for yourself, but I will say I enjoyed the hide and seek with Venus page the most, which you can experience here.