pouët.net

nice fastdemo!

SO APARENTLY SOLIDARITY ISN'T THAT CARD GAME THAT COMES WHICH EACH WINDOWS INSTALLATION.

soundtrack! <3 can't wait to see the proper visuals with it. :)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Kicks serious ass. Some of the most fiendishly clever lyric writing of anything EVER on the demoscene in here... not a syllable out of place, and no hint that the message has had to be compromised to make it fit.

what gasman said.

and massive props for "making a demo about it".

KICK ASS SOUNDTRACK AND LYRICS.

Looking forward to the "real deal", which I've already seen glimpses of, while darya (and chunna remotely) were working their asses off during the party to finish it.
Unfortunately they couldn't make it in time, but they persistently continued to work to at least bring this preview of it.
And I'm so happy about this, because I can now listen to THIS FUCKING BANGER OF A TRACK on repeat! <3

Yes!

(ironically the demo is in its current form already 10x better then all the recent hardy 4ks)

What gasman said.

well! I must say the visuals/track don't quite get there for me in terms of taste/a bit of quality (sounds like this might be remedied by a final version if I interpret v3nom's comments correctly?), but hot damn, the message and lyrics are indeed brilliant, very well written/expressed. Also:..... :D

F#CK YEAH!!!

200%!!!!

what gasman and dipswitch said. and the soundtrack’s a fucking banger <3

word.

came for Valhalla EQ, was disappointed

RULEZ :)

Feel dizzy now. Nice track!

Fantastisch ! Guitars & Message rule :-)

Incredible execution on the track, you absolutely nailed it! If this ever gets played live, I'm pumping my fist in the air. Legendary.

Great song indeed, and nice accompanying visuals.

what gasman said.

Track is an absolute blast!

:-O

Logged in specifically to give this a thumbs up, because I hardly look at this site anymore. But this is AWESOME so it's well deserved.

This is great

I like the energie and message, looking forward to the final version.

Liked the track a lot. Would have loved to see the finished visuals.

I also think that Underground Conference was the perfect place to release this, pretty much building a bridge between the "speech and art is free" kind of views that appear to make up the majority of UC's participants and those who believe it's the scene's job to provide safe spaces.

I also think that "make a demo about it" once again has proven to be far more effective than ranting and raving on toxic demoscene communication channels.

I am having a bit of a hard time understanding the message, though. And I feel that some of what appears to be demanded here is rather the job of a professional therapist and/or neurologist, and nothing the scene is to provide in full.

But nevertheless: A good point was made by doing a demo, presenting it outside of the authors on bubble, therefore reaching sceners who probably could not have been reached without it.

So: Well done, Kevin.

You rok.

Loud applause!

Even with the "quick made filler" graphics, this kicks serious butt. Can't wait until the real demo!

thumb up for the SOAD vibe in the music

seriously

Message was announced and there. Good!
Track kicks FUCKING ass.
also GFX motivational thumb: They are unfinished and I look forward to the final version :)
Also sorry that I was too awkward to properly high-five you at the party. x) it's never good to be undecided about anything.

message

Guitars and growling ain't my thing. The Sprechgesang rap and messaging is my thing though, thumbed

Well done on all aspects. Love the message, the lyrics and the track.

!

Well done Kevin.

OK.

brill in multiple ways... Gasman said it well up there ^ of particular note are the lyrics which are >really< very impressive :)

Vocals are always welcomed, and these ones kick ass, with energetic visuals !

I find it hard to buy into the narrative of marginalization here. The people involved in making this aren't oppressed underdogs - they're winners of multiple compos, organizers of major demo parties, skilled creators, lauded recipients of awards and frequent collaborators with peers in what would 25 years ago have been called "the elite". They're continually making their voices heard as much as anyone else and are, when doing so, backed up not only by numerous people with massive scene clout but also by society at large. This is the establishment pushing establishment views packaged as if they were subversive or contrarian: preponderance as punk.

Ironically, the lyrics seems to make the point that equality and solidarity means total, unquestioning acceptance of the authors as the sole judges and jurors in every case of linguistic minutiae, however misconstrued. If that's indeed the intention, I'm unsure what makes it different from oppression.

Nevertheless, it's a great tune and the at times exceptionally clever rhymes are delivered with precision.

@grip It was only 12 months ago, maybe even less, that people were saying "who the hell are these SJWs with no scene background, coming out of nowhere to tell us how to run the scene" - about the exact same people. So if they don't have scene credentials, their opinion is invalid... if they do, their opinion is also invalid. Clever.

In any case: speaking out for other people besides yourself is a thing. Darya and Chunna are clearly not going to be driven out of the scene by sexist bullshit at this point... now let's keep it that way for the next 1000 female sceners.

@gasman Well, I'm not those people and it's fairly simple to prove them wrong. I see production and organizer credits going several years, even decades back, with plenty of compo winners and even a Meteoriks award. I think that amounts to very accomplished credentials and hard-earned, respectable positions within the scene. This makes it hard for me to accept the authors as somehow struggling to make the big leagues; they're already there.

thumb to grip

that means the "up" one.

grip: it's not a matter of not making the big leagues, it's a matter of that the scene should not be requiring a scener to be randomly sexually harassed on their way there just because they don't have a penis.

and really, if you can't agree that no one should be randomly sexually harassed doing something they like doing (ie, go to a demoparty and make a demo) you have some lack of empathy problem going on with yourself right there.

@psenough I'm of the opinion that nobody should ever be sexually harassed (or indeed harassed at all) while doing anything, even things they don't like - such as working. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of society and sceners agree with this and from what I've seen in E.G. recent Pouët BBS threads the scene - in this case party organizers and chat moderators - have dealt with known offenders accordingly. Although my empathy is perfectly fine I don't have to employ it in this case, having suffered through several similar experiences myself - some of them on demo parties.

I wrote a critique of the overall sentiment of the demo, such as I interpreted it. There's a conflict, yes, but I have a hard time accepting how it's framed and, more importantly, what seems to be the suggested solution. I think the point you make in your first reply is a fair one; my initial interpretation of the demo is that the authors feel held back by allegedly prevailing social mechanisms. Other than that, the replies have so far focused either on something someone else has said, or something I've supposedly said but clearly haven't.

Ok fine, I'll bite. Let's reply to what you said directly. Because the fun part here is that _you_ are the one making one wishy washy strawman argument after the next, and haven't managed to address anything that's actually _in_ the demo at all.



Two logical fallacies in this:

1. Nobody claimed it was punk. There's a lot of guitars in the soundtrack, yes, and the point is presented in a rather loud way, but this doesn't make it "contrarian", it just means that there's something that according to the authors really needs saying, and after all the bullshit that has been going on on this very site in the last weeks alone, I'd wholeheartedly agree.

2. You're conflating "establishment" with societal consensus. You're right in that punk goes against established power structures, but that doesn't mean that punks start murdering people left and right because, actually, they kinda agree with the "establishment" that this is a bad thing to do (billionaires notwithstanding of course). Of course you could construe an argument now that what I call consensus is in fact brainwashing by a small leftist elite that's operating above even the for the most part conservative and right wing governments in the western world, but then please excuse me in advance for laughing about the stupid far right conspiracy theory that this would be.



I know you said "seems [sic] to" to get yourself out of any accountability in that regard, but in reality there's exactly nothing in the lyrics or demo that would suggest anything about "linguistic minutiae", as you wrote so eloquently, probably because the actual meaning of this - "you can't say anything anymore" - is again a far right fantasy, as is trying to frame the left as authoritarian ("total, unquestioning"). That's the biggest strawman right there. You're literally just dumping a bunch of talking points in here that have nothing to to with the content of the demo whatsoever. And in fact, it even contradicts what you've said earlier - if they're just pushing already established views, how is it possible to become "the sole judges and jurors" of those views?



And I have a hard time believing that what you seem to think is the framing and suggested solution is anything more than projection on your part, but if you're intersted in actually discussing it without resorting to vague generalisms, feel free to elaborate.

afaict the only solution advocated for in the demo was for the scene to have more solidarity, so i really don't understand what you're talking about here.

Thanks for your reply. I'll certainly try to clarify my standpoint and I hope you'll find the time to read and not necessarily agree but at least better understand where I'm coming from.


I said that's how it's framed and packaged, which makes me think that's the desired association. I think the ressentiment you describe also fits very well with punk.


It's in any establishment's (as in "ruling class") interest to shape and maintain a societal consensus beneficial to their class interests. If the ruling class is functioning well, this is typically achieved by keeping most ideas from popular consensus and using them as a base for pushing their own agenda. If the resulting narrative is mostly coherent, the parts that benefit the establishment in reproducing as a class will typically be tolerated by the people. If not, there will be various kinds of popular unrest which, if the establishment can't close ranks due to infighting, will often lead to some kind of upheaval. I think what we're seeing in large parts of the west right now (and particularly in the US) is an elite fighting to push their agenda on a weakening popular base, as evidenced by various mass movements of unrest and what is usually called "populism" slicing through the traditional political left-right spectrum; BLM riots, Gilets Jaunes, storming the Capitol etc.

That's what I mean by pushing establishment views: A large chunk of it is something that the vast majority will accept as common sense. Then there's the other part, the sprinkle on top, which I feel is right now taking on far too large proportions: the "linguistic minutiae", if you will - or "woke", as it's commonly called. The basis for this may once have started as popular movements but it has long since been co-opted by the ruling class as a useful tool for social control, gatekeeping and - importantly - resolving conflicts within the upper societal strata.


It can be tempting to depict these conflicts as traditional political left/right skirmishes, a "culture war" between E.G. liberalism and conservatism, but the ruling class is mostly in cahoots: it doesn't matter if it's Biden or Bezos, Merkel or Zuckerberg, Bush or Gates - their interests are mostly aligned. The Swedish, feminist, Social Democratic government that puts gender studies directives in pretty much every regulatory document they produce? Yup, ultimately serving the same class interests and opening the door even wider for crony capitalism and further ideological gatekeeping.

I personally subscribe to the analysis that the conflict is mostly material: it's a fight for shrinking economic resources, especially jobs among the upper middle and upper classes with no direct connection to the productive economy. In this scenario, an ever more complex way of not only expressing yourself but also (maliciously) interpreting other interlocutors is an extremely useful tool for doing away with your competition, because there's no inherent logic or ideological robustness to the claims made and the rules can change overnight (cf "Wuhan lab leak theory is racist" vs. "There might be something to the Wuhan lab leak theory").

As such, this type of reasoning is also useful to other parts of the establishment. There's a reason why companies like BlackRock and Amazon - big megacorps with no interest other than maximizing profit - are so fond of adapting this. It's not only great for disposing of in-company critics and staff, it also serves as an excellent way of justifying whatever the hell they feel like doing to push legislation in their favor and exploit workers or natural resources: just frame it in a way that makes the critics look bigoted.

(An aside: In the long run, this can even serve to lock people out of what the ruling class are well underway to establishing as basic infrastructure: If you say something not in line with the currently pushed "consensus", a resulting ban from all Google services might be financially devastating. That's pretty damn authoritarian and not a single law needs to be changed or vote cast - left or right.)

The problem is that this mode of operating is contagious because it's so effective, which means it permeates society on all levels and shows up in places where it doesn't necessarily have any material class interests to serve - such as on the scene.

Now then, with all of this in mind, let's get to the demo. I will pick a few quotes that specifically formed my interpretation.

"I'm not an accessory, your views are outdated/Not a stupid little piece of someone I have dated"
"Be yourself, ask for help, there is space for everyone/What a claim, what a shame, what a joke that's overdone"

This is something that for me evokes a notion of someone actively being withheld knowledge and space, hence "struggling to make the big leagues" as I put it. I think the authors have plenty of heavy merits that would be very hard, if not impossible, to achieve if there was widespread oppression of this kind: gatekeeping oppressors usually don't upvote.

"Arguments are easy made while others are still bruising" - We decide when and what to argue!
"A safe space for our self worth is what you now owe to me" - A safe space in current discourse usually means something vastly more ideologically complex than freedom from harassment.
"You don't get to call it drama when we're calling out the shit" - We are the sole judges and jurors. Don't question us!

On the whole, I think that completely valid and very important complaints about harassment are gradually mixed up and thinned out with similar complaints against people with no malicious intent but who just haven't learned the finer nuances of a discourse designed to be fraught with peril. Speaking of equality and solidarity, such knowledge is, with my rant above in mind, often a good indicator of social class - also by design.

I've witnessed this method here and on Discord (which I then promptly left) and I think the self-appointed arbiters are doing a bad job at discerning one type of behavior from the other. The end result is the type of gatekeeping that may be useful (though destructive) when trying to eliminate the competition for a sweet spot on E.G. an NGO or University board, but something I feel is decidedly detrimental to the cohesion of the scene, where I'm not sure exactly what purpose it might serve.

So I've got good and bad news for you.
The good news: Yes, I found the time to read what you've written and I can say that I've now got a pretty clear and unambiguous understanding where you are coming from.
The bad news: This probably didn't at all work as you intended.

So please forgive me if I won't reply to any of the parts that can only be described as years of uncritical ingestion of Joe Rogan podcasts, and stay focused on the demo itself, or rather its exegesis.

Let's start with what's arguably the central point of this:



Your interpretation is: "We decide when and what to argue!". Can I please ask (rhetorically), how the heck you are arriving at this? Aren't you the person that just hours ago said, "the replies have so far focused either on something someone else has said, or something I've supposedly said but clearly haven't."? And suddenly you're the expert at discerning the Hidden Political Meaning Behind Everything - which, even if there hypothetically were a kernel of truth to it, literally falls into the "someone else said it" category?

If we just take this sentence at face value, there's nothing imperative or nominative about this. Instead it's purely descriptive. And herein lies the crux of the matter, and why you're so hell bent on arguing against it: In its essence, it describes you.

It pains me to have to explain the "still bruising" part but let's just remember that less than a week before this demo was released, the person who sexually assaulted one of the creators went public here on Pouet whining about how it was no big deal. So that one's pretty much obvious.

On to "Arguments are easy made". Now take a long, hard look at yourself, and realize you're the person who not only tries to politicise a piece of art that is at its core deeply personal to its creators, but who has the sheer audacity to try to derail any discussion about it and move the goalposts to fucking Mars by replying to it with page after page of, pardon my French, tired, pseudo-intellectual, centrist drivel.

And look how nobody made even the slightest attempt at keeping you from doing so. This is the second funniest thing about it: By posting here you pretty much invalidated your own point completely. But I mean, that's as expected as it is boring, because you already know that the whole "trying to control the conversation" spiel is completely made up. For you it's just a game.

But the funniest part is still to come. See, full disclosure here - I helped a bit with the demo, and I've got pretty much the whole inside scoop on the lyrics, which experiences informed them and what the actual intent behind them is. And I must apologize - when I said that line was descriptive, that was kind of a lie. What the line actually was, was predictive.

Yes, it anticipated the discussion that would ensue, and was specifically designed to call out the likes of you who would inevitably, compulsively try to detract from the actual topic and in the process completely expose themselves publicly.

And you fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.

But you know what, let's quickly go through your other attempts at interpretation...



Your interpretation: "A safe space in current discourse usually means something vastly more ideologically complex than freedom from harassment.". Yeah, uh, see above. You're just projecting again. The exact choice of words was admittedly slightly provocative, but you made the mistake of omitting the "for our self worth" part from your "analysis", and would you know even a small part of the countless stories women in the demoscene have about having their skills and contributions routinely dismissed, _regardless of their track record or "standing"_, the actual meaning of this line would've been clear as day. Instead, naah, you went for "something something politics" again. Well done.



I mean, this is one of the most unambiguous lines in the whole text - it references a very specific pattern that occurs a lot especially here on Pouet: Someone calls out some shitty thing that happened, and suddenly people that have nothing to do with the whole thing swoop in from the side and complain about "drama" - as if the problem wasn't the shitty thing that happened, but people talking about it. Let's just say that this behaviour is... unnecessary at best, and while this line pretty much tells those people to shove their "valuable contributions" into their collective assholes, what you make of it - "We are the sole judges and jurors. Don't question us!" - is again just you trying to push your overbearing political agenda onto something that is clearly referencing a specific problem within the scene.

And so on, and so on. Everything you said was reading something into the text that's clearly not there, and, uh, thanks for the insight into all the unrelated stuff that's going on in your mind I guess, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the discussion thread of a demoscene production, not a random dump of incoherent political leanings, so it'd be nice if you kept it at that. Thank you.

I've read the "no big deal" thread you reference, I find it appalling and I don't doubt there's more of that kind of behavior. I know experiences like that are harrowing lead to ressentiment, because I have my own experiences with violence and physical sexual harassment. It's inexcusable.

And yes, I think a lot about politics, because I believe it plays a very large part in shaping human interactions, both big and small. From abolition of slavery to same sex marriage to two people arguing about the right amount of tip at a restaurant, it all comes down to politics - even certain specific problems on the scene. If that means I took the bait offered, then so be it: I still think this demo has a decidedly political dimension. I provided a framework for my reasoning. You disagree with it, fine.


I've seen several examples here and on other scene fora that I would describe precisely the other way around. There's a pattern of people swooping in to take turns in making the most malicious interpretations possible of something written or created with no ill intent, resulting in a predictably defensive response and the ensuing swift conclusion that yes, this person is a terrible human being after all.


It's completely true that the scene is outspoken, often more so than other venues of discourse. I think that's a good thing and I'd like it to stay that way. Certainly without sexual harassment but also with plenty of space and help and without labeling someone because of their gender, or something as mundane as their inability to express themselves according to an ever more intricate set of rules - rules that are, in my view, very much shaped by politics.

However, let me assure you this isn't "made up" or "a game" to me. You're free to think I'm a raving lunatic who's wrong about exactly everything, but my intention is sincere. I'm not here to troll or post flamebait or derail something for shits and giggles, as the expression goes. Discussions like these take a lot of time and energy for me and I wouldn't spend it if I didn't think these things mattered.


Some Peter Turchin, some Mark Blyth, some others, but I believe it's mostly Karl Marx. You probably don't care though and I'm not going to address all of your points either, because I think it'd be hard to unlock our positions. I guess my way of processing and understanding the world differs too much from yours.

At least the last sentence is a thing that we can agree on. So I'm going to assume your intentions are sincere, spare us both the energy that goes into these long comments, and only highlight one specific statement of yours:



Ok, first: Whataboutism. But that's not the point.

The point is that this again, this time probably unintended, describes yourself. Because from your opening statement on ("narrative of marginalization") you made it very clear that _you_ were not going to assume the slightest bit of sincerity, and in fact went for making the most malicious interpretation possible of the text. There's not a single example you stated where you didn't deliberately and explicitly twist the meaning of the words, or even created a malicious interpretation of them out of thin air or, granted, out of "patterns" you think you've seen elsewhere (which sound an awful lot like stuff you haven't actually _seen_ but rather kept being told about btw).

So, regardless of political stance, (and yes, this is a thing I'm also occasionally struggling with): How about next time you live up to your own standards.

Sincerely,

This is a good point. I'm usually very rigid in my views and it's always easier to find flaws in other people's reasoning than your own. I'm also very stubborn; I'm sure we could argue semantics for days on end and I would still see worrying political connotations in this that I'd associate to various exchanges I've witnessed first hand (some of them involving you).

However, I've argued the principle of charity elsewhere on Pouët and yes, I may have failed to apply it here. We've both referenced a forum thread and I just checked back on it. It's somehow even more fucked up now than when I first looked at it some time ago. Strong feelings erase nuance and if this demo was a post in that thread I think I'd rather have cheered it on and left the detailed analysis for another day.

a very nice demo

You don't see demos that contain soundtrack not just obeying the typical scene tropes very often nor do they contain lyrics. Well done! And yea, message <3333