Guestbook

What do you make of popular entertainment leaning towards darkness and violence? Is it just because exploiting our primal brains sells well, or is it also an attempt at shaping society? Regarding anime, I've read an interview with a director who said there was a lot of foreign capital demanding these kinds of works during the 2000s at Madhouse. I think that's still happening and at more studios. ~~Anonymous 2024-10-20(Sun)02:02:26 No.421

I think that people enjoy violence because they want to feel nice that it's "not them", a morbid interest that I can't share. However it's not an attempt to reshape society: Thomas Hobbes once said that the natural state of man is of a war of all against all, and if you take a minute to look under the foliage you'll notice that it's absolute darkness and senseless violence that shape nature. The missing factor, is, of course, sex, but it's not hard to see that sexual depictions in media are a bit more controlled. If you can't easily appeal to one primal instinct, you'll have to appeal to the other. While you could make the argument that at least some sexual content is life-positive and not abusive, violent media is brutish without exception, promoting and fetishizing the absolute worst part of our existence: the suffering that comes with being made of meat. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2024-10-20(Sun)10:48:03 No.422

I wanted to add that I do enjoy some violent things like Doom, but the violence is so cartoonish that I don't think it really matters. Besides, they're demons. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2024-10-20(Sun)12:20:05 No.423