this and that

please watch this

They’ve blown up since then. The promotional video they made at the school has more than 30 million views. They’ve been on tons of TV shows, including performances with Oginome Yoko, the original singer of the song (Dancing Hero (Eat You Up)) that they remixed for their dance. 

This dance routine was riffing off the comedian Hirano Nora and actually includes some of her comedy catch phrases in the remix. (They even got her to join them eventually!) For the uninitiated, one of the most accessible forms of comedy in modern Japanese pop culture are comedians like this who create outlandish SNL type characters and then appear on one or more shows regularly as that character. Hirano Nora’s gimmick is that she’s a woman from the height of Japan’s “bubble economy” era in the 80′s when there were tons of newly wealthy yuppies. This is why the remix is called “Bubbly Dance”. (Compare her to similar comedy character Blouson Chiemi whose gimmick is that she’s a modern, man eating career woman.)

When they meyowl pathetically for more food, it's not because they're trying to "trick" you into feeding them again. They just want to be fed, and they're smart enough to notice the correlation between certain sounds they make and the responses they get from you.

They've figured out that if they want to communicate to you that they want more food, if they make those pathetic sounds, you're more likely to behave as if you've understood what they're trying to communicate.

When your cat waits for you to look away then yoinks food off of your plate, it's not because they love crime. It's because they're social colony creatures who instinctively share food with each other and they don't understand why you're not sharing the best foods with them.

Your cats are very intelligent, social creatures who see you as their Very Strange sibling.

They've learned how to make intricate sounds just to communicate with their humans. When the sounds they make elicit the responses they want, they learn that those sounds are the most effective way to communicate their desires.

There’s no stated reason. They just pretend to not be alive. We usually can suspend our suspension of disbelief here because when it’s something like a video game or an emoji because any odd occurrences is perceived as a glitch or something similar but the actual reason why they aren’t too hung up on this kinda shitty lot in life isn’t said

They get something out of their current relationship with humans (like in toy story)

They have some specific reason to hide that they’re alive, like they die if they’re seen (like in the christmas toy)

They perceive themselves as sentient, talking creatures, but humans can’t understand them. They just see a squeaking mouse or an inanimate hot dog or whatever. 

and the last one is what most animal movies do, and it’s like, not devoid of weird implications but you can see where it mostly works.

but barnyard is the outlier here: it goes with tier one: the animals can talk and walk on two legs but just pretend that they can’t for unstated reasons. 

in the history of the barnyard world non human animals, at some point, decided to just pretend to be unable to speak. a “cow” or a “coyote” or a “hen” do not exist as we know it in the barnyard universe. the baa of the sheep is false; the ewe doesn’t understand it either. they only made up that noise to hide the fact that they speak human languages. a dog barking and running on all fours is a facade. animals naturally walk on their hind legs and made up whole postures just to appear non sentient.

and for what? what do they gain from this? they have no rights and no voice by their own choice. at one point a donkey claims the farmer is a good person because he’s vegan and a pig mentions bacon - this is not a fantasy universe devoid of death and misery and meat. do animals, in hushed whispers, remind their children not to sob in their real voice as they’re taken away? do the dogs not beg for kindness when they’re tied up and hit? do cows and chickens not cry for their life in the slaughterhouses? does a rat not scream a human scream when the trap misses their neck and only breaks their spine? Why? what is the point? They loose so much and have everything to gain.

anyways does everyone remember this really awful cat. it only appears in one scene but i can just sense the porn of it that would pop up if i googled it’s name