Right… Where Are We Going?

I saw a video the other day that funnily enough I don't think I finished it cause I had to do house work BUT the video was about how gen z are a generation that barely has any hobbies. Be it because they have no time or even the money to fund such a hobby. And some of them may even say that their hobbies are watching TV or going on TikTok.

Those are not hobbies lol. So I wanna know (gen z or not, you can tell me in the tags your generation if you so desire) if you have any hobbies. And no, watching tv, YouTube, TikTok, IG reels are not hobbies. Hobbies are something you create, some examples could be: crochet, painting, drawing, foam art, knitting, embroidery, journaling, scrapbooking, etc.

Also maybe reading isn't something you create except when you're writing it. But I consider it a hobby, so yes AO3 readers, you have a hobby. Be it fanfiction or just books, that's a hobby, cause you're going into a whole new world there and the only way to read is by writing, which is a hobby. I see it that way.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

A few weeks ago, I saw Jurassic Park for the first time, and there is a scene in there I think every aspiring filmwriter should be forced to watch and dissect. You may be thinking it's a Big Moment, like the timing on getting the power back on, or whatsisface IT guy shutting down the system to go steal embryos. You may think it's the kids and whatsisface who kinda looks like but isn't Harrison Ford* seeing the brontosauruses for the first time. Or the moment the first T-rex crashes the fence. But it's not any of those.

No, it's when Ellie finds Hammond in the dining room and he's eating whatever was supposed to be served for dessert and he's like "it was melting. I didn't want it to go to waste."

Because there is so much humanity in that line. It's not some big, grand theme statement. But I guarantee each and every one of us has been in a situation where life is going to hell in a handbasket for whatever reason, and we sit down and we may not be crying outwardly but we're screaming inside, and we wash the dishes. Or fold the laundry. Or eat the leftover Chinese so it won't be thrown away. We have exactly one point of control over one tiny little thing that seems (and often is) absolutely futile, and fuck it all, we need that control. Just for a moment. Just to feel something that isn't black screaming despair.

Hammond's guests and grandchildren are in grave danger. There is nothing he can do about it. Ellie's fiance is one of those guests. There's nothing she can do about it. They're in a severe thunderstorm in a place with mostly dirt roads in the middle of the night and all of the power is out and there are animals that dwarf skyscrapers outside. They. Can. Do. Nothing.

So they sit down and they eat the ice cream.

And then when Ellie says "it is good," Hammond just very quietly says "spared no expense."

His entire dream is in ruins. I know in the book he's more morally dubious, but in the movie I think he really genuinely believed he was doing something that could be wonderful and got stars in his eyes. In this moment he's grieving the potential loss of his grandchildren. The knowledge that even if (if!!) they survive, they will likely never see him the same way again--nor will his children. He's grieving because his beautiful dream has killed multiple people and he's realized he created a nightmare. He's grieving because he's in a hell of his own making and there's nothing he can do about any of this.

The animatronics are amazing, the CGI is top-notch (especially for its era), the story is solid, the cinematography is ace, but the moment that made that movie to me was that scene in the dining room lit only by the lightning, where two terrified human beings eat a dessert they almost certainly aren't really tasting, and say "it was melting" and "it is good" because if either of them says what they're really thinking, even breathes so much as a "do you think--", they will both scream until they go insane.

We've none of us faced dinosaurs run amok but we've all of us eaten the ice cream. And I think every prospective filmwriter out there, and a whole lot of shitty execs who wouldn't know a real emotion if it danced naked in front of a neon sign, need to see that scene and be forced to really sit with it.

I think movies would be the better for it.

Nothing actually important happens here. You could cut this scene entirely, and it wouldn't affect the audience's understanding of events. While there's some wonderful character exposition on the part of Dr. Hammond, it doesn't really tell us anything we don't know.

Their stories: Amazing grammar, soaring vocabulary, beautiful imagery and prose which flows like a river.

A guide for crochet patterns:

And one for embroidery:

I don't knit, but I'm sure someone has a comparable guide somewhere. I know crochet and knitting seems like more of a problem- the crochet "patterns" make vastly different items than what's pictured, and you can find some of those on r/CraftedbyAI because some people do follow those "patterns" to make a point.

Cross-stitch and embroidery seem like they'd be easier to fake, right? Like, cross-stitch patterns are basically pixel art, so what's the harm?

The cross-stich often has dozens or hundreds of colours and they change every single pixel, which is basically impossible for a human to reproduce. It's just not a pattern, dammit.

The embroidered ones break my heart, though:

Wherein someone is making a lovely embroidered piece but they end up dissatisfied with their work because it doesn't look as impossibly plush and bright as the fake.

It makes people who are new to these crafts feel like they're not doing it right, or gives them insane expectations, and it can drive people away from the craft.

I know of several cross-stitch pattern shops on Etsy that have closed because it's just not worth the investment when they're competing with AI-generated nonsense that can charge pennies because it doesn't take any time or effort to make.

Most (if not all) AI-generated images that feature knitted objects possess at least one of these traits:

-Rows (or even entire components of the project) splitting or merging in ways that make no sense. This sweater looks impressive until you try to make sense of that lump near the left shoulder or whatever is going on with the collar. You can even see one row splitting into two near the bottom for seemingly no reason at all.

-Impossible stitches. Those lumpy squares (?) in between Mario's eyes are not real stitches. Neither are the stitches that fade seamlessly into tufts of material on the lion's mane.

-Impossibly huge projects. This elephant is almost twice as tall as the person next to it, and you'll realize that the stitches are actually massive when you take the time to think about how you could make it yourself. If you look closely, you'll also see a fifth leg on the elephant!

-The overall "vibe" of the image is glossy, shiny, plastic-y, or smooth to a degree that is almost unnerving. Yarn comes in lots of different colors and textures, but what's depicted in the image below is a bit too vivid and perfect to be real. Excessive blurring/out-of-focus areas on the project itself can also be signs of AI use.