owen cyclops Profile picture
Mar 18, 2024 10 tweets 5 min read Read on X
of course this will be bad, but i feel the need to comment specifically on why, pre-emptively.

although it reads like the 'to be fair, you have to have a very high IQ' rick and morty post, its easy to misunderstand king of the hill.

its not a sitcom, or a comedy.

[...]
theres a joke online that "KOTH is a slice of life anime". this intuits something true about the show. the inspiration for king of the hill was 'do the right thing' by spike lee, specifically the way in which that film depicts daily life in a specific neighborhood and place:
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its filed as a comedy because it happens to be funny, but its not "a comedy" like the simpsons.

this misunderstanding about its nature extended even to the network that aired it. early in its launch FOX tied it into nascar cross promotions. i believe this is an image from one: Image
on the surface, this makes sense. this is like the simpsons, but about texas. so people that watch nascar will like it.

but, they really didnt. because thats not what it is. as stupid as it sounds, its actually just an artistic depiction of a place and time: Image
likewise, its not really a sitcom either.

if you watch the early seasons, lots of things happen that never reset or get resolved. for example, buckley dies (and returns as an angel) (swedenborg moment btw). after that, he's just dead. theres a lot of things like that. Image
this was so antithetical to the nature of a sitcom and network TV programming that the network asked them to stop doing stuff like this, because it got too confusing when they re-aired the episodes out of order.

so, it became a sitcom. but thats also not what it is, internally. Image
part of why the show is interesting is because it could really only be made at that time. i was working with a guy once, and he asked me about shows i like, so i mentioned KOTH, and he said

i just don't get it. is it supposed to be funny?

thats the point. yes, but incidentally Image
sidenote: i drew this many years ago and then was mentioned by name on a two hour long king of the hill podcast (check my credentials) Image
i enjoy posting
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not making any strictly political assertions about the shows conclusions but may drop some relevant lore if it comes up

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More from @owenbroadcast

Jul 9
a long time ago i was reading this on the subway. old guy taps me. i take my headphones off. he says, "whats that book?". i say "its... a history of magic". he says, "does he say magic comes from God?". i said "uh... yeah, actually". he says "good." then just stood there quietly Image
this happened at the utica avenue subway station in crown heights which i frequented for some time. a few other interesting things happened there. once another guy started talking to me. he was black, and told me he had been privately studying with a rabbi for like a decade

...
apparently he was privately studying history and judaism with a rabbi, alone, and the rabbi had selected him for this process. i asked a lot of questions and the guy did not seem insane, and seemed to know some things that validated his story, but, i could not make sense of it.
Read 10 tweets
Jul 6
the movie ‘jesus camp’ is the movie i’ve watched the most in my life. in a way, that makes it my favorite movie. at this point, i’ve probably seen it hundreds of times. there are times working at my desk where i’d put it on every day. admittedly, bizarre behavior. so, why?

[…] Image
if youre unfamiliar, the film documents a bunch of kids who are taken to an evangelical / charismatic summer camp. it’s meant to portray them as somewhat extreme: a small window into this dark undercurrent of american religious life, where kids are … brainwashed, basically. Image
i think this movie has followed me around for most of my life because ive seen it from every perspective. initially, i was teenager atheist who had the perspective of the film: that this was all basically evil

later i turned my back on that perspective entirely, and saw it again Image
Read 7 tweets
Jul 5
one of my favorite stories about america is from a guy who moved to west virginia to be a pastor. someone organized a garbage truck route to come through an extremely rural neighborhood, at a time when this cost some money. a nominal fee was passed over to the residents.

[…]
it was a trivial amount of money, but the residents there were so incensed that someone would do this without asking them and then stick them with the bill that they stopped doing anything at all with their trash, and just threw it outside until the plan was called off.

[…]
later, this pastor, who was there for this, wanted to pave the road leading up to their also extremely rural church. wanting to avoid any conflict, he called a meeting and laid out his plan: a truck will come, and dump gravel along the now dirt road, at minimal cost.

[…]
Read 5 tweets
Jun 26
you hear stories like, person retires then dies very soon after. sometimes this is presented as loss of purpose, or tragic coincidence. my personal theory is the body never takes time “off” to heal so too much “backlog” builds up, then it hits all at once the second you slow down
this also explains the phenomenon of someone taking time off or going on vacation or finally taking a weekend and suddenly getting sick. seems like the universe playing a joke on you. “i never get sick, and im sick now, on my time off”. well, yeah, exactly. not a coincidence.
if a guy has a crazy huge presentation at his job, his mind can tell his body to push getting sick off until after it - or, someone in a situation where they “can’t” get sick usually won’t (this also happens often, once you notice it). apparently people can do this for decades.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 6
the integration of AI and childhood education will progress unhindered unless there is a compelling, easily explainable, and intuitive reason for it to be hindered. below is an extreme example - a fully AI school, but this will be integrated into normal schools.

unless... [...]
unless there is a competing model that fully bars its integration. right now it's very easy for us to be online and laugh about this or dismiss it as openly ridiculous, but as the tech advances and becomes normalized, this will not not be enough to stop it. there's no "reason".
concerns about glitches in the tech will eventually dissipate or be confined or solved somehow, and you're going to left standing there while every classroom or school district has an AI component that has replaced some level of normal education.

so, what's the competition?
Read 20 tweets
May 29
most people have no idea how psychoactive alkaloids work. why would they? i love coffee. look at this chart: if you drink coffee, after 500 minutes, the caffeine is still there. many people experience this feeling as anxiety. theyd never connect it to a cup of coffee 10 hours ago Image
ingesting substances can be modeled with an attack, decay, sustain, release model. each of these phases feels different. this is true for everything from psychedelics to caffeine. my contention is that many people experience the sustain and release period here as ambient stress: Image
they drink coffee. the attack period is what they want, thats good. the decay is fine. the sustain is way longer than they think. they “forget” about the coffee, but are “coming down” off it for hours. they look for an explanation for this feeling and never make the connection. Image
Read 5 tweets

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