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The newly commemorated Boston sculpture for Martin Luther King, called The Embrace, showing two sets of arms (Martin and Coretta's) in an embrace, has been receiving some bad press. Some people are even calling for it to be melted down. Now you may think that this is simply racists, laundering their hate in the outrage of aesthetic criticism, but, in actuality, much of the criticism seems to be coming from certain church-going black people who claim to see in the sculpture something of a sex act being performed. Perhaps if shown from the opposite side...
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...the sculpture may resemble something similar to the act of cunnilingus. If those somebodies were unfamiliar with what a human pelvis or human buttocks actually looks like. One black woman, a cousin of the King family, called it "masturbatory" and claims that the above looks like a woman holding an unfortunately large and apparently limber "beefy penis". One black WaPo writer accuses it of "dismemberment", and adds "Boston's Embrace statue perfectly represents how White America loves to butcher MLK." Problem is that the sculpter is actually a black man.
I suppose it depends on the angle (or libido) from which you happen to be looking at it, but I think it's an excellent piece.
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I’m with the King family. It looks like somebody hauling a giant kielbasa sausage.
So obviously it should stay up.
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Rock wrote:
I’m with the King family.
Most of the King family is actually very supportive of the sculpture. The dissent is from a cousin of Coretta Scott (Seneca Scott turns out to ba a man, not a woman, my bad) and his essay, linked above, doesn't show what would be the most mentally stable member of the family. In addition to seeing "beefy penis", he blames the entire endeavor on an "insidious" woke-ist conspiracy. (He also throws some distasteful shade at MLK, suggesting that he married Coretta for material or political reasons rather than love.)
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I'll chime in.
If it's a sculpture, it should make sense from any angle, not just the right one, in my ever–so humble but very firm opinion. Most sculptures I've ever seen, either in life or in pictures, demonstrate the understanding of this. This sculpture is truly beautiful from one angle and looks terrible from any other. That doesn't cut it for me. A portrait only needs to be good from one angle, but a statue or sculpture? I don't think it's too much to ask.
The first photo I saw was from behind, and before I even saw the description. So I didn't know what I was seeing. TBH I expected you were gonna give it a thumbs–down, JJ. My first thought was that it looked like a well–formed turd being held aloft, but assumed it was just one more piece of municipally–funded bad art. I suppose I get how someone might see a massive BBC getting a double–hand job. Or a massive bent carrot. But an ass? What kind of ass?
The second photo I saw looked to me like someone shielding their head, or someone else's head, for example from falling debris... or from billy clubs, which of course isn't too far from the mark. So maybe a monument to The Struggle.
Finally I saw it from the intended angle, and saw the photo, and then yeah, it's beautiful and a nice choice. But was it the best they could do? This man stood at the front of peaceful marches facing attack dogs, fire hoses, clubs, and constant threats to his and his family's life, just for starters. Maybe the Kings deserved a little more effort. Or maybe that money could have gone into something more substantial that actually honored his legacy, like alleviating poverty inequity and hatred.
My final impression: nice try, but try harder next time. Much harder. Or let me just shrug and accept that any publicly–funded art project, especially any that address difficult, emotionally–charged issues, prompting us to face a past we're not proud of, and challenging the American mythology of always being the hero, and even more especially at a time of growing divisions, racism and intolerance, is going to pass through so many hands, so many PR tests, so many political agendas, etc etc, that whatever comes out the other end will most likely be a sausage, and possibly a turd.
So,
a beautiful concept,
passes through so many hands,
that it becomes a colossal sausage–making process,
resulting in a big, fully–digested turd coming out the other end,
albeit one that looks nice when viewed from a certain perspective.
Seems we're ironically all on the same page with this one.
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Philistines.
I'm just saying that Seneca Scott is retarded. Look at this asshole, talking about MLK's "wadical vishion".
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Rampop II wrote:
I suppose I get how someone might see a massive BBC getting a double–hand job.
Deeply moved by this display of racial unity.
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What a time to be alive.
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Rock wrote:
What a time to be alive.
This made me laugh a lot.
But then again, I laughed for about twenty minutes yesterday over a video of a panda falling into a ditch, so the bar might be low.
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Rock wrote:
What a time to be alive.
I thought it was a pretty funny joke. "Hey, where's everybody going?" When the punchline is the rejection of an offensive joke, I don't understand the offense. It's almost as if the offended are the bots, relying on the algorithm to detect certain key words rather than appreciating the context.
All in all, what a meta fucking mess.
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Rampop II wrote:
Gee, thanks, Pop.
I should probably explain.
I took this screengrab from my Roku Youtube app because I thought it was amusing (and strange) that in its infinite wisdom the Youtube algorithm felt that my steady diet of Johnny Carson shows, Vinyl Community clips and 70s film commentaries required pushing the power of Christ to the top of my recommeds to compel me to watch more content relevant to the 21st century or something. Anyway, I guess that guy's real (I didn't bother to actually watch the clip), and real scary, and how easy is it to get Youtube to run your bullshit uploads as "ads" anyway?
Some of the other strange "ads" I've gotten on my recommends feed recently had titles like "How to stop catastrophizing", "10 signs of a social-avoidance personality disorder" and "It's OK to Give Up".
I'm starting to take it personally.
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Personally I'm amazed my algorithms haven't got me making bathtub meth by now. It's almost like my computer doesn't even know me.
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crumbsroom wrote:
It's almost like my computer doesn't even know me.
Ideally that would be the case. I don't use an identifiable Youtube account for anything else. But I've gotten lazy in my age, and rather than plugging my HDMI cable into the back of my TV every time I want to watch something on Youtube on the big screen, I started just using the app instead. I could always clear the history every now and again but, I admit, I have found the results to be a little fascinating. I definitely feel as if it's actively trying to trigger some kind of mental illness.
Seriously though. How does any clip with barely 800 views make it to the top of anyone's feed? Something's amiss.
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The most unnerving thing I ever found with the notion of your computers listening was a few years ago I had a friend over to my place, and she was talking about some obscure philosopher I'd never heard of. Just talking. Then the next day while at work, my work computer began recommending me articles on that exact same philosopher.
So....was my computer listening to that conversation, and then cognizant enough to know I also logged onto a completely different computer, which it then sent this information to?
Like, maybe coincidence... but I still didn't like it.
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Perhaps a new candidate for the annals of contemporary "outsider art", this is a neat little scoop of ditties from some poor soul named Justin Mohn.
Mohn has been in the news this week after he uploaded a video to Youtube where he displayed the severed head of his father in a plastic bag and launched into a tirade against immigrants and minorities, the globalist bankers and the US government (his father was a federal employee). Apparently previous videos involved his attempts at forming a local militia to combat these culprits.
35:05 is a particular delight.
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Squid Game actor Oh Young-soo convicted of sexual misconduct
In an alternate timeline, the Onion would be apologizing for publishing such Sinophobic satire.
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Wait a second, how the hell did a rocking chair get into that shark's mouth in the first place?
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Rampop II wrote:
Welp, I guess we got confirmation on this phenomenon, and it's not just me and my feed.
YouTube's algorithm more likely to recommend users right-wing and religious content, research finds
YouTube has a pattern of recommending right-leaning and Christian videos, even to users who haven’t previously interacted with that kind of content, according to a recent study of the platform’s suggestions to users.
In one investigation, the most frequently recommended news channel for both child and adult accounts interested in “male lifestyle guru” content was Fox News, even though neither account had watched Fox News during the persona-building stage. Instead, the accounts watched Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and searched for the term “alpha male.”
“This suggests that YouTube associated male lifestyle videos and creators with conservative topics,” the study said.
In another experiment, researchers created two accounts interested in mommy vloggers — mothers who make video diaries about parenting — that they trained to have different political biases. One of the accounts watched Fox News, and the other watched MSNBC. Despite having watched their respective channels for equal amounts of time, the right-leaning account was later more frequently recommended Fox News than the left-leaning account was recommended MSNBC.
“These results suggest that right-leaning news content is more frequently recommended than left-leaning,” the study said. Both accounts were also recommended videos by an anti-vaccine influencer.
Videos with religious themes — primarily Christianity — were also recommended to all the accounts, even though none of them had watched religious content during the persona-building stage. The accounts interested in mommy vloggers, for example, were shown videos with Bible verses.
The researchers also found that YouTube recommended videos including sexually explicit content to the child account and videos featuring influencer Andrew Tate, who has been charged with human trafficking and rape (allegations that he has denied) in Romania, even though he is banned from the platform.
Although my browser is set to wipe my browser history, including Youtube, after every session, I use a Youtube app on my TV which I decided to use as a guinea pig for studying the algorithm and it's provided a number of interesting and alarming results, including that creepy religious ad placed right at the top of my "recommended" feed. In addition to getting a whole lot of religious ads, I get recommends constantly for the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson and other alt-right videas, despite the fact that my political viewing is overwhelmingly progressive. I would think that since I watch every new episode of Bernie Sanders' podcast, that might be a helpful clue. Also, the ads shown before and during clips are also overwhelmingly conservative, with stuff like Prager U, Judicial Watch, Daily Wire and practically exclusive ads for Republican political candidates. I also get weird stuff like ads for discrete pistol holsters and at least one brand of coffee tied to a white supremacists.
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Jinnistan wrote:
Rampop II wrote:
Welp, I guess we got confirmation on this phenomenon, and it's not just me and my feed.
YouTube's algorithm more likely to recommend users right-wing and religious content, research findsYouTube has a pattern of recommending right-leaning and Christian videos, even to users who haven’t previously interacted with that kind of content, according to a recent study of the platform’s suggestions to users.
In one investigation, the most frequently recommended news channel for both child and adult accounts interested in “male lifestyle guru” content was Fox News, even though neither account had watched Fox News during the persona-building stage. Instead, the accounts watched Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and searched for the term “alpha male.”
“This suggests that YouTube associated male lifestyle videos and creators with conservative topics,” the study said.
In another experiment, researchers created two accounts interested in mommy vloggers — mothers who make video diaries about parenting — that they trained to have different political biases. One of the accounts watched Fox News, and the other watched MSNBC. Despite having watched their respective channels for equal amounts of time, the right-leaning account was later more frequently recommended Fox News than the left-leaning account was recommended MSNBC.
“These results suggest that right-leaning news content is more frequently recommended than left-leaning,” the study said. Both accounts were also recommended videos by an anti-vaccine influencer.
Videos with religious themes — primarily Christianity — were also recommended to all the accounts, even though none of them had watched religious content during the persona-building stage. The accounts interested in mommy vloggers, for example, were shown videos with Bible verses.
The researchers also found that YouTube recommended videos including sexually explicit content to the child account and videos featuring influencer Andrew Tate, who has been charged with human trafficking and rape (allegations that he has denied) in Romania, even though he is banned from the platform.Although my browser is set to wipe my browser history, including Youtube, after every session, I use a Youtube app on my TV which I decided to use as a guinea pig for studying the algorithm and it's provided a number of interesting and alarming results, including that creepy religious ad placed right at the top of my "recommended" feed. In addition to getting a whole lot of religious ads, I get recommends constantly for the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson and other alt-right videas, despite the fact that my political viewing is overwhelmingly progressive. I would think that since I watch every new episode of Bernie Sanders' podcast, that might be a helpful clue. Also, the ads shown before and during clips are also overwhelmingly conservative, with stuff like Prager U, Judicial Watch, Daily Wire and practically exclusive ads for Republican political candidates. I also get weird stuff like ads for discrete pistol holsters and at least one brand of coffee tied to a white supremacists.
That coffee must have zest appeal.