like, this isn't even about whether AI is good or bad or whether you should work for an AI company or not, all of those are complex questions with nuanced and contextual answers. but you should, under no circumstances, work for *this* AI company.
There are words to describe "person who puts themselves on a pedestal, naturally more morally good than others" and none of them are the word they're using.
Do you know what someone really in tune with other people's feelings and emotions would discover? That there's an awful lot of people around them just as good at it who don't call themselves "empaths" just because they care and pay attention to how others are feeling.
Whenever anyone has a bio or, worse, describes themselves in person as an "empath" about a dozen red flags start immediately flying like it's the finale of Les Mis.
Exactly this. It's true from media to politics to community spaces. There is *no* appeasing people whose entire grift is built off farming outrage. Their tower is only propped up by never, ever, being sufficiently appeased or placated. Any attempt is doomed to do nothing but harm.
The thing about this piece that drives me up the WALL with this piece is how studios are spending so much time and money on "oh well how do we not anger the rabid mob, what's safe" when the answer is NOTHING will stop them, you just have to make what you make and protect the people who make it
Here's a radical fucking idea; instead of catering to fanbases who don't want to be challenged in a new medium, MAKE NEW FUCKING THINGS. Put money into marketing those new things and create new IP. Hollywood did this for DECADES. variety.com/2024/tv/news...
The threat of toxic fandoms — from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to Bridgerton and Game of Thrones — has become an intractable headache for almost every studio.
What happened to Perez Hilton? One of the early icons of whipping up harassment campaigns against celebrities just because he felt like it? Celebrities began to push back and by 2020 he was reduced to crying and begging Charli D'Amelio to get him back onto Tiktok. Now he's a nobody.
But it needs to be made more obvious that in the modern world, we're no longer in the 90s/00s, there is no real power imbalance between creative celebrities and reactionary grifter celebrities. Both are public figures. Only one side of the equation is pulling their punches.
This is, of course, *incredibly* hard to pull off and not something people can just get away with by playing their hand at it. One way it can go badly wrong is by simply fuelling the fire of "they don't respect the fans!" It needs to be targetted, in a way many think is in some way unfair.
You see this work on indie projects and with more in-tune and self-confident celebrities: they will when pushed retaliate by belittling the source that is whipping up a crowd against them. The crowd moves because they look up to the creator who sent them. If they're laughing instead? It's over.