The only hobbies that aren't looked down upon are things that involve creation instead of consumption or are major class signifiers really (Opera, skiing, etc).
This does not sound like what people think in general in the US. This sounds like you live in a social circle and assume their opinions as general opinion.
[1] Which, unfortunately for his hopes, turned out to just be a fashion wave in the Upper-Middle and was eventually, partially, incorporated into it—I dunno if he just let optimism get the better of him, or truly didn't recognize totally normal Bohemianism when he saw it.
I think you may be on to something. Perhaps it's because it feels worse when it is highly intelligent and otherwise reasonable people wasting their time.
And I wonder what it all means. As a species we've been at this since the first cave paintings, the earliest oral traditions. And what we're doing now with modern hyperstimulating computer-generated mediums is in that same tradition. But from a biological standpoint, what do these intellectual forms of recreation really mean for us? Is the final goal of our society to automate away all of the hard physical stuff, and then place our bodies in comfortable pods where our only stimulation is the simulated and safe? To play out stories and to experience emotions where we have minimized our vulnerability and maximized our enjoyment? "All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."
This isn't meant to be a condemnatory dystopian vision or anything. I just wonder if the ideal end state of luxury existence is to live in stories, so the mind and passions can work, but the body is satiated and at peace. So when people indulge in leisure now, is that truly "wasting their time"? Perhaps they are only capturing a fleeting glimpse of the final future of our species.
Now they have to go find some still obscure interest to invest their time in if they hope to retain their nerd status, otherwise they're just into mass culture like the rest of the lowest common denominator.
Nothing was "taken" from the nerds, except social stigma. They're still reading comics and watching anime and superhero movies, and playing D&D and video games, etc. They're still nerds even if what they love is more popular than it ever was.
Hipsters are nerds.
Oh, there is. There's a whole school of thought that is basically non-stop hand-wringing about how superheroes are displacing religion, and We Must Take Back Our Media from those Hollywood heathens and so on.
Stupid, yes. But dangerous too - book-burning season looks like it is just getting started, they already are going after Disney, and those people seem geared up for a serious push.
They aren't going after Disney because of adult infantilization, but the opposite - introducing kids to adult concepts in a particularly politically motivated way that makes them not a good source of kids entertainment in the opinion of many adults.
The comic books that Disney Marvel has produced are 98% low quality poorly written poorly drawn trash, and their movies mostly ok until now (except we seem to be getting into the girl-boss post success phase of the MCU and I expect a downturn).
The issue with Disney is their attempt to become a source of propaganda for social policies aimed towards people's kids, and their choice to be vocal about wanting to influence laws being passed the government in Florida. Their choice, but they also reap the consequences.
Do you mean female lead characters, or female leadership on the movie project itself? Or something else (or mixture of those trends?)
Apart from that, I'm not sure Disney really cares about social policies themselves one way or another. I think it's much more mercenary than that. A large part of their audience really wants to see them (and corporations in general) take a stand on certain issues, and Disney doesn't want to lose them by keeping silent. Unfortunately for Disney, a different part of their audience doesn't want to see them take a stand on issues. Or if they do, that it should be a different stand. Disney is finding out right now that it simply can't satisfy everybody.
Female leadership on movie projects isn't an issue. Female lead characters aren't an issue. I think girl-boss is a type of narrative in a film where they write unlikeable women that don't register as real people for the purpose of creating "powerful" female characters that aren't interesting or successful.
Examples - Rey/Admiral Holdo/ from Disney Star Wars, Wonder Woman 1984, Captain Marvel, the female terminator reboot, the female ghostbusters reboot, the ocean's 8 female reboot, etc etc etc
I fully expect the newest Thor movie with new female thor to be another girl-boss film, and from the trailer same thing with the upcoming Miss Marvel movie. The new Indiana Jones movie is at risk since it seems to be about Indy passing the torch to a young woman and Kathleen Kennedy is involved - we've seen her record on star wars. We'll see if any of that happens.
>Apart from that, I'm not sure Disney really cares about social policies themselves one way or another. I think it's much more mercenary than that
I disagree. The leadership and many of the creatives in Disney are the people who want to push particular political opinions on to other people.
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1508912865293619202
>Unfortunately for Disney, a different part of their audience doesn't want to see them take a stand on issues. Or if they do, that it should be a different stand. Disney is finding out right now that it simply can't satisfy everybody.
Disney thought there was nothing anyone could do about it - since they're a private company and they can do what they want. They forgot the government they were picking a fight with also had the ability to take back privileges disney had that allowed them to be their own government in their district.
They don't need to satisfy everyone, but they want to be political activists with a direct line to your kids eyes and ears in your home. Disney is a platform for their politics.
The Star Wars sequel movies were all written and directed by white men but something something girlboss ruined it for you.
It just seems to me you have some ideological grudge that has little to do with the movies.
This is a very strange statement. Movies are media. Ideology has a lot to do with media.
I'm not saying that's how all movies are made, it's not. But for a massive global mega corp like Disney I don't think that a particular political or social ideology is the driving force behind the content. If leadership thought that different content would make them more money, they'd find people willing to make that content.
Taking Disney as an example, if they actually wanted to push an ideology-- let's say one that's in line with their statements against HB 1557, then they wouldn't be running tours in Egypt or other countries that have anti-LGBT laws, or at least would be making similar condemnations of them. [1]
They say & do-- or don't say & do-- whatever they think will keep the money flowing. If they can't avoid being drawn into a social or political issue, they'll say whatever they think will best mitigate the damage of being involved. It's little different than the significant rise of greenwashing over the last couple of decades. That's as much of a social & political statement as well, but I don't actually believe the company means it.
[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/disney-expanding-operat...
I'm not so sure about that. They faced backlash over their attempt to mostly stay out of the issue with Florida's HB 1557 bill. That initial reaction tells me they (leadership) probably didn't want any part of it. That had its own backlash & so they tried to appease their critics, but I still think their initial reaction was as "honest" a response as we would get from a massive global corporation.
I'm curious what you consider likeable or registering as real. As compared to, say, Batman.
What is wrong with this? Plenty of private corporations lobby the government.
Frightening, but not at all surprising.
Once they became intentionally political they entered the political arena.
And they're free to talk and also free to catch the consequences of their speech - isn't that what I keep hearing?
That's the culture-warrior's way of saying, "we're cancelling Disney because they protested that we were cancelling gay people."
> Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
That's not cancelling gay people at large. That's preventing the schools from talking to third-graders or younger (8 years old or younger) about these things and letting their parents do it if they choose.
You might disagree with the bill, but Disney is taking a political stance, and does not deserve to have special political privileges if they take any form of political stance, regardless on what the political stance is.
Wait, who said this? Corporations lobby the government all the time. They absolutely have political stances. Sometimes these stances are transparently about making them money, and sometimes they're (ostensibly) not, but it would deny reality to claim that they shouldn't have political stances. Maybe you feel that they shouldn't, but it's tilting at windmills.
This is beside the point of whether they should have "special political privileges". Maybe no corporation should have "special political privileges". But in a world where they do, it's strange to confer them conditional on what has never been the case (companies not taking political positions).
edit:
"The Florida bill never even mentions the word 'gay'."
That statement does not make you sound very serious. The bill obviously involves -- at a deep level -- the concept of "gay" whether or not it uses that particular word.
If one cannot talk about why Joe has two mommies and no daddies, or why Jane's mom should now be called dad (necessary consequences of the "don't say gay" bill - and very much intended by the bigots behind the bill and behind those bigots who support the bill), then one is _erasing_ gay people from society.
My 62-year-old brother-in-law tells me that knew he was gay (but didn’t have a word for it) from about 6 years old. He still had to go through a bunch of figuring out what that meant, but if society hadn’t been stuck where it was when he was 6, he may have saved himself a lot of pain growing up.
As a side note: I have an 8-year-old son. I tried to explain a bit about this sort of thing, but just explaining about how adults are attracted to each other is something he is simply not ready to understand. Trying to explain sex to him at this point would just be confusing.
The problem is that some parents do not think that it is ok that someone has two dads, and really want to go back to the days when "those people" would be socially shamed and that shaming was supported by what is taught in school. And the governor of Florida, and his compatriots in that states legislative body agree with them (or are at least willing to play this for political points).
I happen to think that we should accept people's choices about who they think are family (there are extremes on this, and I am less certain about my stance the farther you go). And to some degree our laws and the court's interpretation of that have solidified that as the law of the land. Once we are there, pretty much the only thing that schools can reasonably do is to teach these "new" forms of family as normal. Yes that is against what some parents want, but if they want their kids not to be exposed to this then they better be taking care of their kids education themselves (homeschool or paying for private schools).