- What's up, you guys?
I'm coming at you today
from a smoky cloud of wildfire filth.
My lungs are burning.
My eyes, they're going out.
Life is literally the This is fine meme,
complete with the dog.
So normally I'm kind of triggered by outrage cycles online
because I feel like I lose hard one brain cells,
but this time it caught my eye.
The internet is in a fit of rage about Netflix's "Cuties".
Since its release Netflix cancellations
have spiked by eight-fold.
It all started a few weeks ago
with a provocative promo poster
that Netflix's marketing department has since
apologized for and changed.
And now that the film has been released,
there is a scene circulating around
on social media from the film.
Unless you have 400 gallons of eye bleach on hand,
I would suggest not just going and watching these clips.
I did, and I'm uncomfortable now. Help me.
But after some deliberation,
I decided to watch it for a few reasons.
One is that this is a topic that I really care about.
I was in a documentary about it.
I've been talking about it on YouTube
since before it was cool
to talk about it (laughs) on YouTube.
Oh man, I'm going full hipster today,
even got the flannel.
And most importantly, when it comes to
talking about it online, I didn't think
it was right for me to form an opinion about something,
especially not a strong opinion
without actually seeing the full context.
Social media really encourages us
to just ignore context, right?
People just read the headlines now,
we watch 30 second clips, and then we form
very strong opinions based on
these tiny snippets of information.
This type of black and white, oversimplified thinking
is without a doubt melting our brains.
So I wondered, could that be the case here?
I grit my teeth, accepted my inner turmoil
and went ahead and watched it.
I was shook you guys.
I was really, really surprised.
I was so surprised that I wanted to talk about it.
For starters, it has a very different tone
than I was expecting.
It's very somber.
It's a coming of age story about a group of girls.
And one particular girl, the lead, Amy,
her home life is turbulent.
Her dad is marrying a second wife.
And so the story kind of follows these parallel storylines
of Amy in her girlhood and her mother in womanhood.
It has a really powerful message about the stunted futures
and the impossible choices that women in some cultures face.
Think most women who watch this will see echoes
of their own experience in Amy's.
So that said, what about those dance scenes?
A couple of thoughts here.
First I realized when I watched the film
that I had seen a doctored version of the scenes on Twitter.
The version that I saw was doctored to be
more closeups and more panning than is in the actual film,
which actually like really upsets me
because I'm usually so critical about digital media.
And I just took it at face value,
but even so the scenes themselves do cross the line,
but not for the reasons that I've been hearing.
I wasn't upset with the way that the girls were dancing
because in context, it is very clear
that they are copying verbatim what they're seeing
on YouTube and Instagram.
They're doing it to feel a sense of agency
over their bodies, but also to get likes
and attention and validation
that they're not getting at home.
Also important to the storyline is that the girls
are slut shamed for dancing this way.
So it's really a commentary on the vicious cycle
that some girls can get caught in as they figure out
how to navigate their sexuality in a world
that has a lot of sexual imagery.
My bone to pick with this film, my outrage
is more about how it was filmed.
There is literally no reason why there should be
any closeups or any body pants at all
in those dance scenes, not even one.
And it's really disappointing
that they filmed the scenes this way,
because it really cheapens what is otherwise
a powerful film.
I shouldn't feel uncomfortable because of how
the camera is portraying these young girls.
I should feel uncomfortable
because these characters in the story
feel like they need to sexualize themselves to feel love.
And that's why it feels creepy.
Now, some people and media outlets have argued
that this whole hubbub about "Cuties"
is just performative outrage,
that it's a sort of moral panic.
I would agree the internet is facilitating
some moral panics, but this particular criticism,
in my opinion, has substance to it.
Of course, people should have context
before they get really worked up about something.
But I also don't blame people for not wanting the context
because of the subject matter.
So that dynamic makes this outrage cycle
a little bit different, I think, than other outrage cycles.
So that's my not quite hot, but perhaps lukewarm take,
if you do want to watch it, just fast forward
the dance scenes.
It's not that much of the movie.
And if you do watch it, I'd love to know
what you guys think.
All right, I've got a few other stories
that are a little bit less depressing
to put on your radar this week.
How much would Facebook have to pay you
to deactivate your account?
In a couple of weeks at the end of September,
Facebook is going to be paying 400,000 people
to deactivate their accounts until the US election.
It's a part of a large scale study that they're doing
to understand the impact that social media has
on our voting behavior.
Facebook says to continue to amplify
all that is good for democracy on social media,
we need more objective dispassionate,
empirically grounded research.
I'm into that, dude.
As I've talked about in past episodes,
Facebook has come under all sorts of fire,
for their complicated relationship with democracy.
So this is a really exciting project
for them to be taking on and I can't wait
to see the results next year.
P.S. Facebook, if you wanna pay me a lot of money
to deactivate my account, you know where to find me,
literally because you have all my data.
Space nerds are rejoicing this week
because there might be life on Venus.
Earlier this week, researchers announced
that they had found trace fingerprints
of phosphene in Venus's clouds.
As far as they know, which could always be wrong,
phosphene is only produced by humans and microbes.
This is interesting.
Venus has been called Earth's twin planet for some time now.
And that's because our planets are almost the same size,
the same weight and have the same composition-ish.
We're also neighbors.
Of course, Venus is also different in a lot of ways.
Namely, it is a fiery pit of hell.
The surface is 900 degrees.
That's 465 Celsius for you superior metric people.
Scientists at NASA have even said that it's possible
Venus was the first planet to host life, not Earth,
which I guess would mean that it's us on Earth,
who are the aliens all along.
Last up for you today, there is a new tool
that is helping us to analyze our dreams.
A team of researchers, wrote an algorithm
that is sorting through 24,000 dreams in a public database.
So basically this algorithm works
by analyzing the language in the dreams
to create a sort of web of connecting concepts
and ideas in each dream.
Then it spits out a bunch of scores,
like how positive or negative the dream was,
the aggression of certain characters,
or even how unusual the dream is.
This could be especially cool because researchers
may now be able to kind of compare
the dreams of different groups and get some insights,
old and young, men and women,
and even, dreams of people
with certain psychiatric disorders.
The scientists say they hope this tool
will eventually give us further insight
into our own subconscious minds.
Honestly, I'm not sure
if I wanna know what's in there. (laughs)
All right guys, that's all I have for you today.
Please like, and ring the bell,
if you haven't already.
Yes, I am an annoying YouTuber.
Please stay safe from the fires and hurricanes
and whatever else the apocalypse
may be throwing at you this week.
Thanks for watching guys.
I'll see you next time.
(bright music ends)