#rable

I watched Steven Zapatas’ video this morning and then went through the comments (didn’t scroll much but they were pretty interesting to read). I don’t have anything to contribute but what describes my POV in this matter was CosmicSpectrum’s comment, and I want to expand on it with my own experience here (continuing from my twitter thread).

I’ve had a conversation with my friend about “you should play this game, you’d love it”. God I know i would. I’ve made lists of books, games, series, comics, anime I should watch, read, listen, breathe and I’d love. Or not. But those lists are everywhere, twitter bookmarks, myanimelist, in my notes, in my notebooks, post it notes, post-it-notes on my mac that are waiting to be categorised; artist recommendations, instagram profiles, music albums, all the stuff I should at some point be aware of.

I know I would. But it wasn’t a coincidence I spent 150+hrs of gameplay in DeathStranding before even finishing the main story.

Now wait, what does this anything have to do with AI art? On the matter that it’s sucking us dry to make stuff, nothing. On the new constant stream of content that both sucks us dry to produce things faster, it does. It’s all about making content, making more money (no, artists won’t be making more money, people who already have money will), getting things done faster. I am not as eloquent or knowledgable/ updated to add more than what I know to this subject, but the point I am trying to make by poorly writing this to get it off my chest is, nothing can replace our time making/ interacting with what we love.

Our time is our highest-in-value currency. I don’t play game after game, read book after book, finish drawing after drawing to reach a quota (in my defence I’ve tried it in my teens and it was cool but I don’t remember 3/4 of the anime/ games i’ve watched/played and i was depressed). I am appalled by this constant stream of content, I’ve always been and I always make circles around it because everyone moves on so fast and we can’t talk about what’s not hot if we want to be relevant before society or the algorithm punishes us for it. (Society because people move on to the next big thing and who remains to brainrot with, or sometimes even being judged for not being up-to-date with what’s hot right now, the algorithm because it’s the algorithm and if it’s not mainstream, you’re not making them companies any $$).

I want to boil in things I love. I play one game a year if I am lucky, I am living with it, it’s part of me. I’ve read and re-read one piece of fiction and I can’t stop loving it every time. My library is so tiny, it’s wonderful. Things I can carry with me every year to the next one, others remain in the past but they stayed long enough to be remembered (or not). Replaying. Remembering. Moving on or staying with what I love, I make this choice for myself and it’s such a relief, finally.

I wish I could encourage someone to do the same, if that’s up to how they’d like to live. Draw the things they love, write about them, talk about them without the fear of being irrelevant. The lifespan of media (art, music, series, comics, movies you name it) has drastically shortened online and it’s very visible and sad. Our attention to things breaks easier, chasing what’s new instead of truly learning about something interesting. But we are human, and I hope we realise that sooner. We cannot *live* anything faster. That’s just getting distracted, the same lie with “multitasking” (grind culture GTFO).

Value your time. We’ve been fed that end-results matter, but that’s because we choose to ignore and devalue the process.

But it wasn’t a coincidence I spent 150+hrs of gameplay in DeathStranding before even finishing the main story. 

So there are things I just won’t get to be aware of on a personal lvl (living them/ playing them/ reading them) and that’s fine. Those *opens hands and points at all the things I have to show you* are the things I know and make me happy. The things I remember and think of fondly. They are not necessarily what make me as a person, but they surely are things I love and made part of my life in whichever way I chose or happened to be.

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