Underneath my yellow skin

More things I hate that everyone loves (or says they do)

In my last post, I wrote about things I hated that were universally considered good things. You can read about it here. In this post, I’m gonna continue that roll because it’s my blog and I can do whatever the fuck I want!

Side Note: I have a hack for doing a list in Word Press without it automatically going into list mode–which only allows one paragraph per number and indents each point. I hate that as I like to make my lists the way I want them. There’s a way to manually make the paragraphs, but much easier is to simply do the first point in text rather than visual. Then, you can do the list however you want! You’re welcome.

5. Most popular culture. This is a category that completely befuddles me–and it runs across all pop culture. I recently joked with Ian that I reaffirmed my suspicion that I don’t like video games–I just like certain ones. I was joking, but it wasn’t a joke, exactly. I like FromSoft games and two handfuls of indie games, but other than that, I have rejected probably a hundred games that didn’t grab me for whatever reason. They range from Undertale (Toby Fox), an indie darling, to Mortal Shell (Cold Symmetry), a soulslike, to Fallout 3 (Bethesda), a Triple A game. There were games that should have absolutely been my jam, such as Dreamscaper (Afterburner Studios), Coffee Talk (Toge Productions), and Darkest Dungeons (Red Hook Studios).

Conversely, the games I like are the Dark Souls trilogy (From, natch), Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall), Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), Cozy Grove (Spry Fox), Hades (Supergiant Games), Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Edmund McMillen), and Cook, Serve, Delicious! (David Galindo). That’s not the full list, but that’s the bulk of the games that I consider in my top ten. And, yes, FromSoft takes three of those spots. The frustrating part is that I don’t know what links these games together so it’s hard to predict what I will or won’t like in the future.



With other pop culture, I’m even worse. Music: I do not like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, or The Doors. Now, you could argue that my dislike is partly patriarchy because of the overwhelming number of white dude bands/singers considered great, but Beyonce skews that a bit. Movie-wise, I have no interest in superhero movies. I don’t like either Star Wars or Star Trek. Twenty years ago, I flippantly said that I didn’t like movies, but it’s not far from the truth. The last movie I saw was nearly a year ago.

It was Knives Out, directed by Rian Johnson, and I. Hated. It. I wrote a two-post review on it on this very site. I watched it because it was a stellar ensemble cast that promised madcap action and a murder mystery. Sure, Daniel Craig as a Louisiana detective was laughable (that accent was atrocious) and I couldn’t stand the style of the movie (tons of cuts), but the cast! They were stellar! Rian Johnson! Director of the much-loved Brick (which I thought was severely overhyped and did not enjoy). Mostly, though, I love Poirot (the books) and was hoping it would be like that. What can I say? It tried to be that, but an updated version. It wasn’t. I hated it. Flat-out hated it. I think I live-tweeted it, but I don’t remember because I’ve tried to wipe the movie from my memory. I went in wanting to like it so much, but I had to force myself to watch the second half of the movie and it was so not worth it. The only good part was the excellent scene chewing by the cast, but even that was not worth it.

Interjection: I think I have to clarify by saying it’s American films specifically that I don’t like. Or English-based movies. When I watch foreign movies, I like them much better. With that, let’s move on.

I’ve given up on television, again, specifically American television. Except gentle competition shows. I HATED Seinfeld. I don’t think I can tell you how much I loathed that show. Game of Thrones? Also did not like. Same with Breaking Bad. I will say for the latter two, there are perhaps mitigating reasons for it. With GoT, the episode I happened to watch was the Red Wedding. That was perhaps not the best first episode to watch. I don’t think I would have liked it, anyway, but when the Dire Wolf was killed, I was done. As for Breaking Bad, it was the penultimate episode and I couldn’t see a reason why I should give a fuck about this amoral asshole (Walt White).

Side Note II: I will not watch anything that has only a few token PoC/queers/other minorities in it. I made this same decision about books when I was in college and it’s even more important to me now. I don’t care how good it is–if you can’t be fucked not to avert your gaze even the tiniest from the white dude standard, then I have no interest in your product. Look, I don’t like TVs and movies in general so I am not going to waste my time on this shit. It was one of my issues with Knives Out (though, to be fair, way down the list because it’s just a crap movie) and I tweeted it was ‘rich white people doing rich white people shit’.

I have come to the conclusion that my brain is just weird. I know I’m a contrarian, but I truly don’t like these things. I’m not trying to be hipster; I really am not. I went into Knives Out really wanting to like the movie, but it just poked every nerve I had. I think it’s partly when something is hyped like that it’s hard to live up to said hype. I mentioned in my review that if the game had been pitched as a B movie with a stellar cast, i wouldn’t have hated it so much. I wouldn’t have liked it, mind you, but I wouldn’t have felt as negative about it.

I know I covered some of this in the last post, but I just wanted to reiterate that it spreads across all pop culture. Let’s talk books. I couldn’t get past the first chapter of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown or the first chapter of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Or the first chapter of the first GoT books by GRRM. The first was because the prose was so bad, I couldn’t get through it. The second was because the main character was so distasteful, I couldn’t stomach it. The third was because the writing was so purple, it turned me off.

Side Note III: Most people went nuts in a positive way when it was revealed that GRRM was going to be a writer for Elden Ring (From). I, on the other hand, groaned audibly. When it turned out that he was only doing the world building and not the lore, other people were severely disappointed whereas I was relieved.

I’ve come to realize that what I like is always going to be eclectic and weird. I’m fine with it for the most part, but it gets tiring sometimes because of other people’s reactions. I don’t give a shit what other people like; I wish it were the same for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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