Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Bonus: dubtrot.
video
Oh gods I understand it now
Bronies? A positive development to see so many (young) men embrace a cartoon supposed to be watched by five year old girls, or somewhat creepy? MetaFilter is conflicted.
But I do get it. Having watched some episodes/extracts now, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic does have all the elements that make a cartoon a cult hit for adults: clever writing, strong but not cliched characters, everything just that much better than it needed to be for a cartoon designed to sell toys. Put that together with people old enough to remember the first My Littel Pony and be nostalgic for it and it’s no wonder it does well with an adult audience too. It’s just a surprise that many in that audience are men. After all, weren’t men supposed to reject anything that didn’t star some alpha male, yet here they are voluntarily watching a show with female characters and only a couple of token males. And that has to be a good thing, hasn’t it?
Even if I have my doubts about seeing something meant for little girls taken over by grown men, no matter how benign this takeover is.
And yet…
Alan Moore visits the Occupy movement
With bonus appearance of Frank Miller. A surprisingly good Channel Four news item on Moore, V for Vendetta and the way in which V’s Guy Fawkes mask has inspired and informed the Occupy movement. I love Alan Moore because he’s such a sensible, decent chap, no ego whatsoever.
David Lloyd meanwhile, who designed the mask all those years ago, is quietly chuffed everytime he sees it on the news:
How do you feel when you see a V mask or the V graffito at a protest or on a blog?
DL: Happy that a symbol of resistance to tyranny in fiction is being used as a symbol of resistance to any perceived tyranny in real life. The image of Che Guevara – another bearded guerrilla fighter, though in reality – has been used similarly as a badge of resistance to perceived injustices, and V’s just joined the club. Badges and symbols are useful as instant communication devices, though in the case of V, it seems to me that the communication isn’t quite as instant as with figures such as Che because, despite the movie, V For Vendetta, and its trappings, is not well-known to the general public. But then, any puzzlement shown by anyone in ignorance can always be allayed by their investigations of the source of the images – and then, who knows, they might become beneficially educated by the experience!
Clever, clever corvid
Luckily for humanity, our potential new sapient overlords turned out to be more interested in clowning around than taking over the world. Found via MeFi
(The funniest thing Sandra ever saw a young jackdaw do was land on a very, very hot and steep slate roof in the middle of summer, then glide down to the ground going ow ow ow in jackdawsian as he burned his claws…)
No humans were harmed
Proof positive that Japan doesn’t have a monopoly on weird shit comes from this Indian (?) commercial. Via Vuijlsteke.