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How the internet works

Published on January 29, 2012Leave a comment

How do things like this get made?

Nyan cat is like most things on the Internet. It is a confluence of various parts, gathered and assembled that somehow make up an magical whole.

First there was the song Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya that features vocaloid Htsune Miku.

Then there was a remix of the song using a voice synthesizer with the Momone Momo voice that added the nyan lyrics.

A gif of a cat with a pop tart body somehow popped up because a guy was taking drawing requests online and people kept asking for drawings of cats and pop tarts so he just drew one drawing that contained both. He called it Pop Tart Cat.

How it all got added together is the magical part. The gif got mashed up with the song and uploaded to YouTube titled “nyan cat” and we are left with the pinnacle of 21st century culture, Nyan Cat. A “crowdsourced” work of art with no definite purpose or meaning combining disparate elements harvested from the Internet.

Explains so much about the twentyfirst century so far, doesn’t it? It’s silly, it’s dumb, but an endless source of creativity nonetheless and certainly more fun and harmless than what socalled responsible people were up to in the real world…

Who knows where the time goes

Published on January 27, 20126 Comments

Memo to self: do not listen to maudlin Sandy Denny songs when already feeling a bit blue. This and Meet on the Ledge can always get me.

I never really rated Fairport Convention, or Richard Thompson or any of the other English folk rock acts until recently. Too quiet, too earnest, too embarassing to like if you’re not an aging baby boomer. All prejudices I had to rid myself off before I could get to appreciate these sort of artists. I’m glad I did, even if it hurts sometimes listening to these songs.

And then there’s the time you spend your Sunday like this

Published on January 22, 2012Leave a comment

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Bonus: dubtrot.

Oh gods I understand it now

Published on January 16, 20121 Comment

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

Published on January 13, 2012Leave a comment

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!