If Contemporary Fiction Was Written Like Science Fiction

Just a heads up: there's a sequence with flashing lights in this video between 0:29 - 0:39.
#books #scifi
I started out writing this video thinking it would be a funny satire on sci-fi dystopias, then about halfway through realized that (*gasp!*) we might actually be living in a sci-fi dystopia, so... Yeah. Bet you didn't see that coming.
Music:
"Core" & "Self Destruct" by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

[@Oberon4278]

Waking up already wearing sunglasses is by far the most sci fi part

[@irrevenant3]

And that wasn't even in the story!

[@db44-t6b]

@@irrevenant3It's implied!

[@shadowjack239]

His vision is augmented #deusex

[@peterd9698]

Who hasn't had one of those "Hey, I don't even _own_ sunglasses" moments? Probably people who own sunglasses come to think of it.

[@karoltrzeszczkowski9567]

We no longer need sunglasses in this dystopian world with no sunlight. Why own a pair when there is no real "outside"? Some people own AR glasses but they are just a toy for douchebags addicted to dopamine so deeply, they can no longer put down their pocket computers. Maybe that's the fate we will all share eventually.

[@BadgerOfTheSea]

The calling coffee some random scifi name instead of just "coffee" is perfect scifi writing. In Warhammer 40k it is called "Recaf" and in Judge Dredd it is called "Synthi-Caff"

[@McDonaldsCalifornia]

To be fair we won't be having coffee much longer the way climate change and global conflict is going. At least not for anyone but the rich. So it makes sense for a dystopia that people would be drinking a coffee substitute. During the great depression there were various "fake coffees"

[@johannageisel5390]

Probably named differently in their worlds, because it is not real coffee anymore. Coffee plants are having a very hard time adapting to climate change, so who knows if they will still be around in large enough numbers so that the common person can afford their juices. Corporations will then start to mix water with caffeine and brown food colouring and give it a sci-fi name.

[@kated442]

Diana Wynne Jones wrote a short story about that, called Nad and Dan and Quaffy

[@cptnraptor]

​@@johannageisel5390inb4 Starbucks or Kenco or whomever stick a trademark on "Joe", the coffee free caffeine that tastes like yesterday!

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Inventing random words for everyday things is more of a fantasy trope. Science fiction often needs neologisms because, well, for example what would you call a thumb drive if the term "thumb drive" did not exist yet? (And please don't say data spike, that's just silly.)

[@ellery0909]

The sky above the port was the the color of a phone screen, in dark mode.

[@Bob-qz5yj]

The color of an Lcd set to black, the glow of the backlight leaking through clouds

[@PeterH-tu1kj]

FUNNY!

[@peanutgallery4]

Made me lol

[@lukebm5555]

A rumble shook me from my reverie as the heavens lit up like a Wikipedia page

[@OatmealTheCrazy]

Describe the sky color with exact lumens/hex code

[@ManCarryingThing]

this was just PERFECTLY done.

[@genericallyentertaining]

Means a lot coming from you, Jake. Thanks!

[@giovannaputhumana8460]

HI JAKE!

[@Trisjack20]

He never misses

[@mybloodyvacuum]

@@Trisjack20 the absolute legend

[@roshni_404]

You guys should Collab

[@bobbodaskank]

"my spinal cord smarting like a bruised tibia" is hilarious, lol "my bones hurt, reminding me of nothing so much as hurt bones"

[@Mikewee777]

#BoneHurtingJuice

[@fatitankeris6327]

​@@Mikewee777I like bone apple teeth more.

[@minestar2247]

You know what, I really love this style, it kinda makes reality more interesting, as this style of writing denormalises the average everyday things we are used to, at the same time, it makes the uninteresting plot sound way more fascinating "how is he gonna describe it next? What's gonna happen? Why does he wear sunglasses?"

[@alexjeffrey3981]

Deterritorialisation moment

[@thekiss2083]

You know it's science fiction because a friend would never call you to cancel plans. They'd wait until 3 hours before and then text saying they're not feeling good

[@sludgy5134]

Pfp tracks

[@genericallyentertaining]

Aw dang it, I guess it's not contemporary fiction after all.

[@mynamejeff3545]

Thank god I'm the other extreme: not wanting to cancel plans even though I'm obviously Not Feeling Good, making me as sociable as a dead cat once I get there

[@SOBEKCrocodileGod]

Or they’d wait til you show up to the place you were gonna meet and you send them a text asking where they are

[@metalema6]

Yes, but before doing that they'd make sure you organized everything.

[@TimPortantno]

Unless it's a satellite cellphone, no satellites are involved, which made me realize how hilarious this would be in a sci-fi movie where the narrator has no idea how anything works.

[@victorkrawchuk9141]

In the US, SpaceX's Starlink will start to provide direct-to-cell service to existing T-Mobile phones when enough full-scale (non-mini) V2 satellites have been launched. Also KDDI in Japan, I forget the other countries but so far about a dozen providers have signed up. The satellites will act as backup cellphone towers when terrestrial towers are unavailable. So no more outdoor dead zones anywhere. Most existing phones will work unmodified and with current software. The V2 satellites are bigger than V1 satellites so Starship will be the enabler when it starts to reach orbit reliably. Perhaps direct-to-cell tech will be available a year from now...? What the guy said wasn't so far off the mark.

[@TimPortantno]

@@victorkrawchuk9141 It's not going from one cellphone to a satellite and then to another phone, it is still always being relayed across private networks on the ground. Maybe if they have a direct connection to another satellite provider it might make sense.

[@Minelove423]

This but with an average level of cluelessness. They know what something is, but only the basics of how it works. Like, brakes stop cars. How exactly? IDK, I don't care enough to check.

[@Splicer-lb5xb]

​@@Minelove423Hydroponics

[@KingBuilder525]

Modern cell phones don't use satellites? That would explain why communication is near-instantaneous, but how do cellphones connect if not by satellite?

[@subaru5332]

Boring Day (2024) would go on to receive mass acclaim by critics worldwide for its, “mundane prediction of events that are occurring this very second making the film both timeless and unwatchable after release day.” It would eventually spawn multiple spin-offs including: Boring Day (2025), Boring (Yester)Day, Days of Bore Yet Past and Future, and the highly anticipated ‘Day Boring’.

[@Mythraen]

"Day Boring" sounds like it's about time travel using a drill.

[@NuwandaLunaDragon]

They kinda dropped the ball with the spin off "Vore day"

[@firelight8565]

Don't forget the reboot: "The Boring Day" (2077).

[@Sityu1991]

I, for one, am excited for the upcoming spinoff franchise, 2Day 2Borious, starring Vin Electric.

[@mrmastergrimmbo]

THE RELEASE FOR BORING TOMORROW HAS BEEN ANOUNCED!!!

[@GolemCC]

I'm still stunned at how well this nailed the aesthetic. Just completely, immaculately on the nose.

[@lewismassie]

As a guy who consumes probably too much science fiction, you nailed not just the tone but also the weird random hyperdetailed descriptions of the environment. 15,000 hertz sound of the train braking? Hell yeah I'm gonna be thinking about that on the train tomorrow

[@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789]

as someone who actually has a weird obsession with identifying the frequencies of noises IRL and who once caught themselves dancing around to the polyrhythmic rattling of lose panels in a bus it actually fit my average train of thought quite well.

[@eldritchedward]

@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789 Stay weird, my dude!

[@aureole6383]

@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789dude you're awesome

[@salmonellq2981]

​@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789 I'm dying to know the name of whatever you have

[@thesysop4998]

@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789 lmao *train* of thought

[@villagerjj]

"Okay, my story has smartphones, but we cant call them smartphones" "How about a magic rock with lighting inside it?" "Good enough"

[@johannageisel5390]

I named the handheld devices in my sci-fi WIP "scrolls", because they have a flexible screen of electronic paper or foil that can be rolled up, or drawn out if you need a bigger display size. The scrolls can do all a modern tablet mated with a smartphone can do, but they have better software and AI assistants.

[@scienceface8884]

Comm-link

[@timetraveler7]

Handheld global networking information device

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Hand -held computer terminal.

[@scienceface8884]

@@davidwuhrer6704 Too long. Pocket Terminal?

[@Alex_...34565]

this sounds like late 80s cyberpunk fiction i love it

[@Yesica1993]

I know!

[@MsOkayAwesome]

Right! I'd read a book like this 😂

[@kappamakizushi]

I immediately thought of William Gibson/Neuromancer

[@Alex_...34565]

@@kappamakizushi i thought of snow crash & blade runner

[@somerandommen]

That's because we live in a late-80s cyberpunk world... very unfortunately

[@weall1208]

It makes me feel old when I remember 2024 being a futuristic date used for near-future Sci-Fi. Edit: Since people are still replying to this and reminding me of it, here are some funny examples. Crysis was set in 2020 and as of me writing this edit we are 3 years away from the events of Deus Ex Human Revolution

[@Thuazabi]

Yeah, I share your pain. The world of the 1982 Blade Runner film included interstellar travel, synthetic humans, and flying cars. It was set in the year 2019......

[@Anaea]

dont get me fucking started on back to the future 2

[@CRT_sRGB]

Also, there would sometimes be mention of "big" events occurring in 1997, 1998 or 1999 - before the main story began.

[@ryamano]

I remember playing the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020. And also 2015 was the far future of Back to the Future, with hoverboards and shit.

[@AN474-e1o]

At least you're not old enough to remember when 1997( Escape from New York, V for Vendetta) or 2001 (2001) were futuristic dates.

[@lordpyromon]

I almost wrote a short dystopian “sci-fi” story with a big twist at the end where I was just describing the current day using sci-fi esque techno jargon but quit because I thought it would come off as pretentious. This video nailed it though!

[@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789]

better do that than the new corporate pseudopoetic "thesaurus eloquence" style of writing everyone does because they either got brainwashed by chatgpt or just got chatgpt to write everything for htem. The less you sound like AI generated trash, the better, at any cost, write a political drama in the language of passengerofshit's lyricism or something along the lines of that, do something the AI's will never be able to generate. I'd rather deal with a thousand "angsty" or "pretentious" works if I knew they arent literally an AI pretending to be angsty.

[@RoosSkywalker]

@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789I don't care what ChatGPT does or doesn't. I just write. If you like it, cool. If not, too bad. But I will look into that. What is the new corporate trend?

[@Smougda]

​@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789What do you mean by pseudopoetic, expecifically? I don't watch a single modern movie so i can't relate.

[@spaghetti5914]

naww that doesn't sound pretentious at all, hell, it's a parody, it's the exact opposite of pretentious! If you still wanna do it, please do so, that sounds like an insanely good idea

[@spaghetti5914]

​@@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789As someone into writing, I'd advise people to just express how they want their work. Many don't seem to realize that the writing style itself is a huge part of storytelling and that it can manifest in myriad ways. One doesn't have to hone just the story, but the narration too. And there's several ways one can do that. I really consider it a red flag if someone spends more time on a dictionary than their own draft. If one is not good with big words, they can just use every day speech, that's a completely valid writing style that does not affect the quality of a work. Just like how a cartoonist is as valid as an oil painter who is into hyper realism. Some people who have an interest in philology may as well go ahead and use complicated terms if it's something that comes naturally to them. Writing usually flows, just like a reader "looks at a processed tree with ink and hallucinates" as some people say, the same way the best story comes out of just letting the images in your head guide you. If one focuses too much on sounding formal, they will be limiting themselves, and that stiffness with translate into paper. It's artistic writing, not a legal paper. There's endless potential A personal opinion here, but I actually prefer people who just roll with what they have and experiment. Throw complicated sentences in the trash, and write a mess of a story. If it turns bad, it's a learning experience, if it turns good, it will be recognizable as hell. I always disliked hyper realism in painting the most as well. It just seems bland to me. You have color and you can create anything, yet you focus on something that one can just go outside and see? Of course, I can see why people may like it, the idea of capturing a beauty or something, it's just not my cup of tea. I also dislike colleen hoover's writing, not because of the contents of her books, but because the style just feels bland and soulless. Reads off like an 18 year old who has enough experience with writing to write something readable, structured and coherent, but not enough to get out of a comfort zone and make it interesting. It's like one is given flour in order to eat and they choose the plainest bread recipe. The bread is cooked well, but it's still bread. Ok, enough of my word vomit tho, I wrote too much 😭

[@DanielDanielsson]

"2024" does sound mighty futuristic though.

[@grim_diamonds7290]

Yea lol

[@chs9999]

GOD DAMNIT I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY BUT IT WAS JUST ACCURATE AND DEPRESSING and a bit inspiring for creative writing

[@SkylerLinux]

Now I need some Sci-Fi rewritten in the style of Contemporary Fiction

[@Fregorek]

You mean like the matrix?

[@SkylerLinux]

@@FregorekLike the reverse of the video

[@scienceface8884]

So... just using the in-universe common names of things without explanation of what they are, leaving the readers to intuit and deduce what this new thing is?

[@planetofthegapes]

Read William Gibson's "Blue Ant" trilogy: Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History. They're all set "now" but written in Gibson's cyberpunk prose style.

[@robmarney]

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is sci-fi written in the style of high fantasy

[@pokepoke1889]

What a dystopian nightmare I would hate to be born in such a horrible time

[@Wut78]

well boy do i got news for you

[@Low_commotion]

Wish I could be born 50 years later

[@casulskrrub6423]

​@@Low_commotion 2074? GOOOD MORNING NIGHT CITY

[@Low_commotion]

@@casulskrrub6423 Cyberpunk's timeline already diverged pretty sharply by this point so I think I'm good lmao 😂

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Back in 1984, the alternative to this timeline was nuclear winter.

[@gaffgarion7049]

I think it just goes to show that whether a world or detail is interesting is dependent on it being noticed. To anyone living in these scenarios its just mundane and therefore unnoticed.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Charlie Stross said something to that effect. The future is never futuristic. The future is built from parts of the past, and by the time the future becomes the present, it has become mundane, no matter how fantastic it seemed. There a lots of times in history when something that seened impossible and far-fetch became normal practically over night. My favourite example is November 1989, and how Crimson Tide came out in 1996. Especially ironic how Calvin&Hobbs on the 31st of December 1990 said that nothing ever changes from year to year. Ray Kurzweil said that with technology changing ever more rapidly, we wouod soon be living in a state of constabt culture shock (which he called "future shock") because the world would change beyond recognition during each day. But there is ample evidence that people don't even notice thise changes unless they are looking for them. Contemporary Cyberpunk these days is more about the past than the future because most people are still not caught up to the present.

[@minerman60101]

The first few minutes of the Futurama episode "I Dated a Robot" covered this idea too

[@valentinmitterbauer4196]

@@davidwuhrer6704 I'm months late, but i have to tell you that i indeed did experience technological culture shocks. For example, i did not know wireless computer mice existed up until 2015. I was a teen. It's a marginal one, tbh, but it is still memorable, because i did not grow up sheltered, but upper middle class in an industrial country and i thought of myself as rather educated. Another one: A person older than me witnessed a culture shock about something old-fashioned (printed TV-guides), in complete awe that there were still people using this. For me, who was younger, witnessing his culture shock caused a culture shock itself, realising how different his life might be compared to my own. From the tales of my grandfather, the introduction of the tractor was a big and long culture shock for his community (older farmers kept rejecting the technology, fearing that the machines will condense the soil with their weight) and a prisoner of war who returned from the USA (did you know that the USA used prisoners o WWII as forced labourers back home, btw?) was laughed at when he described the harvesting combines that he had seen there, people thought that's tall tale.

[@disnonn]

Reminds me of how I read Pattern Recognition from Gibson and after the first quarter realized the book wasn't sci-fi.

[@genericallyentertaining]

Pattern Recognition is a great example of this! (Except it's, you know, well-written.)

[@disnonn]

@@genericallyentertaining Yeah, when I read it the first time I was 14, and was thoroughly disappointed. I also read it in German then. A few years later, in the original and with me more matured I was simply blown away.

[@noseo_narug]

@@genericallyentertaining Alternatively, there's Agency, which is basically this video but actually worse writing.

[@Toliman.]

That's a blast from the past. I bought Pattern Recognition purely from the fascinating cover, totally unseen/unreviewed because of the author's reputation, then proceeded to struggle to read more than 3 pages at a time and leaving it on a shelf for a year. I finally figured I had to get over it, read the book and it was ... not that bad. But it was like drinking coffee at 5am. Terse. Obscure. Bitter. awful. And then it wasn't. IDK. It was just difficult to switch into the mood/pretense of the setting or get comfortable with the setting. There's another series that has this anodyne/pretentious writing, something about a singularity. Either Stross or Kurzweil or another author. I'll remember it eventually. Every second sentence was obtuse/terse for effect.

[@disnonn]

@@Toliman. Might be less about the book but about your outlook. I feel Gibson connects best to people with a certain amount of cynicism when all's said and done, and Pattern Recognition is very, very Gibson in that regard. To me his brilliance is writing cynical dystopia without sounding condemning or all too hopeless in the end.

[@abx_yenway]

This really highlights how the most compelling stories about the future are really saying something about the present.

[@GeorgeKaslov]

I don't think we can get a better confirmation that we live in a cyberpunk dystopia already

[@cleitondecarvalho431]

I agree.

[@morbidgirl6808]

I'd say we are in pre-cyberpunk world. We will definitely get there in the near future.

[@EnzoDiscoveryMoonLight23]

I feel like the “the world has gone to shit” is a mindset thing

[@adon155]

i think you can make anything sound dystopian if you write like this

[@d3nza482]

@@morbidgirl6808 Clearly you're unaware of inequity of distribution of the future across varying populations. There's this Canadian-American guy called Bill Gibson who had some words about that.

[@elejelly3986]

The simple details of the main character struggling to shut his alarm off just gets me.

[@BarokaiRein]

I've heard equally ridiculous ways to explain what an escalator is about 100 times. It's either an inside joke among scifi writers, or they don't know that the cool motion device they just described is literally just an escalator.

[@projectorates]

DIDNT REALIZED THIS WAS IN MALAYSIA, bravo!

[@agentjohn4313]

I often think about how we basically live in a sci-fy setting from the POV of the 1980's

[@eileengarfield]

halfway absorbed into the amazing commentary i was not expecting to read rapidKL on the train and see sunway velocity mall and my mind immediately went hey… that looks familiar 😭😭 insane what a change of narrative flow and odd camera angles here and there can do for setting the scene, loved it!! much love from malaysia

[@DestructorN7]

I've read so much Gibson and have cyberpunk genre so stuck in my brain that I unironically process reality like this video

[@scienceface8884]

Same. It's like a game I play when I'm otherwise bored.

[@greatestaxolotl4933]

yeah i listen to a lot of shakesphere and victorian (weirdly not a lot of 1700s, just the centuries after and before lol) and my internal monologue gets all funky bc of it.

[@DeathnoteBB]

The Tetris effect is weird

[@sylve2474]

This was hella good,,, I love it,,, got the vibes and inclusion of those randomly specific details down to a science,,, like, I was sold from the start,, but specifically mentioning the helicopter was just the cherry on top, brought it all together so perfectly

[@Aaron067]

"rinse with a few hundred mls of dihydrogen oxide" This video is absolute perfection, shut down the site, no other video can think to achieve such literary and cinematic prowess.

[@M4Dbrat]

I can do better than that... Dihydrogen MONOoxide!

[@LinguaPhiliax]

@@M4Dbrat Isn't that toxic if inhaled though?

[@emanyzal9813]

@@LinguaPhiliax Yeah if you get it in your lungs, it's this little known phenomenon scientists call "drowning"

[@davidwuhrer6704]

There was a petition to ban the dangerous chemical dihydrogenmonoxide. Not only is it lethal when inhaled, and in gasseous form can cause potentially lethal burns. It is also the main component in acid rain. And it can short out electronics, destroying them beyond repair. Plus, it is habit-forming. People who had inhested it previousky were literally unable to live without it. Which leads to morally questionable behaviour: Assassins were known to have ingested this chemical compound up to 24 hours before commiting their nefarious attacks. Even more problematic is that the chemical has also leaked into groundwater, and has been found even in the blood of newborns. Clearky, something needed to be done. But the petition was rejected by parliament. At least there is still hope that hydroxylic acid will get banned.

[@nevbarnes1034]

@@M4DbratI prefer hydrogen hydroxyl. Or hydroxylic acid.

[@nickmonks9563]

The pixelbox flashed "Gentertainment" on his vidscreen, but Case knew it was Gibson. Pounding back the last swirl of draft Kirin, he cursed like a pinbot at the old 'cades. "God damn it, Molly. I told you not to give him my number." But it was too late. He knocked over his glass as he scooped up his console, and moved toward the door, staring up over the slender towers of Night City at the poison sky. Well done, sir. Well done.

[@afz902k]

The corrosion floating idly about hadn't seemed this thick since the viral scare, they say carbon capture's gonna take care of it. Beg to differ. 🕶

[@Samtastic-rl8et]

This actually kinda reminds me of the narration in Fight Club at points. It's definitely got that very 90s 'describing the monotony of day to day urban life' thing down to a tee

[@hallidayoawoaw]

Yep. I also though of fight club but was mostly thinking of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy.

[@Drekromancer]

This is brilliant and tonally compelling. Wonderful work!

[@hotelmario510]

Honestly science fiction led me to believe that in the future we'd be spending a lot of time explaining in first-person or third-person limited narrative the basic technologies and systems of our world over morning breakfast. Instead it's just a lot of looking at my phone, worrying about nuclear war, worrying about the environment, and worrying that I have cancer. So basically the 1980s but with smartphones.

[@racheldeschaine]

This is the most accurate thing I've ever seen. I never realized how effing weird scifi characters describe their worlds lmao

[@samfranck2119]

On the one end of the spectrum of writing style, there's Hemingway and Carver. On the other end there's ... this.

[@Mythraen]

I assume this spectrum is, like, flowery to gritty? I hope it's not a quality spectrum, because this is quite good, if a bit overdramatic.

[@samfranck2119]

@Mythraen You haven't hoped in vain :) In my book, "quality" in literature is quite a subjective concept. I meant: Small number of modifiers (minimalism) vs. a lot of modifiers. So basically "The man was reading" vs. "The scrawny middle-aged man standing casually, in all his shabby glory, his moustache untrimmed and his dirty shirt yellow with transmission fluid, close by the entrance of the gargantuan headquartes of the foreign bureau was perusing a large tome of some sickly greenish color, and, indeed, was so engrossed in it that he didn't notice me approaching until I stood right in front of him, close enough to breath into his chubby sweaty face.“

[@perverse_ince]

@@samfranck2119 I dunno, this just feels like bad writing vs good writing again. Latter one reminds me a bit Delicious Tacos

[@samfranck2119]

@@perverse_ince I'm a bit confused: What does your “this“ refer to? Could you perhaps explain? To perhaps clarify my position a bit more: Personally, I don't think Cicero-inspired syntax is any better or worse than Seneca-inspired syntax. In my fiction, I tend to write very long winding sentences myself in my native German. In fact, long detailed sentences are very much the norm in German literature. They often are considered “run-on sentences“ in English, however, and deemed bad. But why should they? Both short and gritty sentences and long elaborated sentences can be gorgeous when handled well.

[@perverse_ince]

@@samfranck2119 "This" refers to your comment or rather the examples in your comment. Ich würde nicht zustimmen das es im Deutschen nicht als Problem angesehen wird. Meine Lehrer sagten immer man solle "Bandwurmsätze" vermeiden, ich war, und bin natürlich anderer Meinung. Ich würde sagen das generell längere Sätze besser klingen, aber die Besten tendieren dazu kurz zu sein.

[@ninjacat230]

1:05 written just like someone that doesn't actually understand the emergent technology their story is about

[@Evan345gdf]

I like how the line at the end contextualizes the scenario in the context of the mundane snapping us out of the sci world being described. That really is a boring day

[@videowilliams]

I thought I recognised Kuala Lumpur in the recently risen skyline you revealed at 1:35, and then the "KL" on the train you rode confirmed it! An appropriately hi-tech Asian location for a young American expat to feel alienated in. I liked the cyberpunk cynicism of all this, and the fact the day turned out to be completely circular. Not bad at all for something shot on a phone (I think).

[@NeostormXLMAX]

Wait hes in malaysia?

[@MALICEM12]

"Ya best start believin' Cyberpunk dystopias, you're in one!"

[@WhenYouveGoneGuru]

Yo now I want to see sci-fi written as if it was contemporary literary fiction.

[@mrmunchkin2181]

This is bloody gold. Keep up the fantastic work.

[@lextorcreeper4474]

Aint no way. You were on Indonesia? Thats my homeland! Noticed it from the sign at 2:56

[@altu8590]

I'd honestly love to read something like this

[@Sunbeargirl-]

The way I knew you were in SE Asia by the view from your balcony window! 😂 The "RapidKL" and Bahasa billboard confirmed it for me. Malaysia is the best!

[@chrisprosser5055]

This was a really great description of a really boring day 😂

[@atlanteum]

2088: Bruce Sterling Willis stars in "Boring Day Hard", followed by the hit sequels, "Boring Day Hard 2: Day Harder" and "Bore Free or Live Harder." In other news... your writing for this video was outstanding and the cinematography matched beautifully. Excellent work, here -

[@Xob_Driesestig]

You've blatantly plagiarized my inner monologue. You will be hearing from my lawyers!

[@z_man1900]

This is genuinely how I see my world, the Neuromancer dialogue just makes it more stylish know what I mean

[@ThomasBaxter]

This is really well done. The prose is _very_ Gibson-esque

[@lndozois]

I grew up on this stuff and dang did you nail it!

[@Clash_In_Saff]

Superb. Nice vocal fry, didn't think you'd have it in you ( apologies but i learned the term vocal fry yesterday and cant stop slipping it into my daily life)

[@genericallyentertaining]

And now I've learned it, too! Cool term.

[@AlkisGD]

@@genericallyentertaining - "Next to me on the train a couple of highschoolers are recounting the day's highlights, the vocal fry in their voices reminiscent of a dot matrix printer. Another anachronism ..."

[@GL-GildedLining]

I love this. Thank you for making it, and making it _well._

[@duncanholloway6123]

Keep the story going. This needs to be a series.

[@MedlifeCrisis]

I bought some sandals in that mall! Having KL as the backdrop made this even more Neuromancer, perfect

[@amirhamza8924]

Genuinely the best thing I've seen this week holy heck

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

it's like listening to Norman Bateman's usual internal monologue, but he's hyperaware of all the tech around him and he's hovering somewhere between amazed and horrified all the time. I'd read a series written like this

[@igloosnowbal]

this is pretty accurate tbh buried under six feet of loam sounds weirdly cool

[@teodorapetkovic]

Dude this is sooooo good. My jaw is on the floor, excellent writing!!!

[@RngGm]

So thats how you can get so many words for essays

[@CharlieNorth]

This is great. I was a child of 90s reading books like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, dreaming of life in the next century. Your video was a great reminder that I am, indeed, living in my future. It just needed narration like yours to actually feel like it. Warmest wishes. 👍

[@brandonmack111]

This was amazing. I could seriously listen to an entire book of you just describing an average life like this.

[@italucenaz]

I really like how much effort and time you took to write and record all that, good job man

[@genericallyentertaining]

Thanks for watching!

[@Joraf-the-Tall]

This is unironically entertaining! Some of your best content! More please!

[@izzynobre]

This is incredible. Great touch with the music, too

[@LithiumGhost]

You tried just to write an ironic video, but accidentally created something beautiful

[@drdca8263]

Are those two things in conflict? Is it ironic for a work intended as irony, to be beautiful? I think something can be aesthetically excellent in achieving its ironic purpose.

[@Bested123]

This is such a nice commentary on the monotony and insignificance of everyday life. Very intriguing

[@uvbe]

I loved it. I know the idea was to make fun of cyberpunk writing, but instead it kind of instilled a sense of wonder into the mundane things of everyday life for me. Great video! 🖤

[@GothicCrow-dk8li]

*Takes off glasses* My God. He's encapsulated what it is to be alive today. In a way that strikes resonance with my soul. Not another mindless dopamine hit of another mindless clickbait video Dr. Skinner would be proud of. No. This... this is art. This... is... *content.*

[@Hyrumwolf]

This works so well because do actually live in a cyberpunk dystopia

[@davidwuhrer6704]

When it was written, it was not a dystopia yet. It was optimistic. And slightly satirical.

[@MiriamMillen]

The tone and pacing of your voice were perfection. A little bit Sci-Fi, a little bit Film Noir. You made the everyday sound like the first chapter in a dystopian mystery novel, lol. Thank you.

[@evilmurlock]

I have the same alarm, gives me a heart attack

[@extraordinarytv5451]

Not only is everything written this way something that sound dystopian, but we do also live in a cyberpunk dystopia.

[@koboldmartian4063]

At 2:18 you can see him holding the decent size rig he used to film this 😂

[@animalobsessed1]

Thank you for ruining my immersion in this otherwise perfect movie

[@xela402]

​@@animalobsessed1 2:15 look at the glasses

[@animalobsessed1]

@@xela402noooooooooooo

[@Perhapsawiseman]

This is why everyone should keep a journal! It helps you memory and your life is a story in the making!

[@HyuugaC0bicat]

this was actually quite a fun skit to watch, do another one to appease our consensual hallucinations : D

[@customercareskeleton]

This is genuinely fantastic. You probably don't intend making more, but if you write a book, I'll check it out.

[@LoudWaffle]

This could be a great book lol, written completely straight-faced but immensely funny.

[@jopearson6321]

I actually really enjoy the delivery and the fact that its present day doesn't feel weird at all. Maybe the Noir stream-of-consciousness style is what I'm really into all this time.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

I'm into the technical details of the machine underpinng everyday life that are sadly ignored by most people. They whisper of possibilties, while reminding us how dependent we are on each other.

[@jopearson6321]

@@davidwuhrer6704 ngl, I read this in the noir voice and pictured it with cyberpunk cinematography

[@LighthoofDryden]

“Serving of caf gets me out the door” so 2024

[@mikemcaulay9507]

That. Was. Awesome. Serious flashbacks to my youth devouring “futuristic” novels. You absolutely nailed it.

[@danksheev66]

and people think we don't already live in the cyperpunk society.....

[@Delmworks]

There’s not enough cyber not enough punk but we got the dystopia down pat

[@Shrek_es_mi_pastor]

Dystopias tend to be based on the present really

[@Justin-ui5ti]

We can call it that. But just go to North Korea. The tone will change quite a bit.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

​​@@Justin-ui5tiRead any North Korean science fiction lately?

[@Justin-ui5ti]

@@davidwuhrer6704 Don’t need to read any, just living there and you’ll know a dystopian society which throws teens in jail for listening to Kpop.

[@Khoukharev]

This is perfect Organic transistors in my head went to overclock.

[@Denkersis]

To be fair, we do live in an early cyberpunk dystopia

[@tweeters211]

Holy fuck. That was gold. You’ve earned a sub in just three minutes and forty two seconds.

[@nagyba]

This is why I love cyberpunk storrytelling. It almost never does this.

[@SussySerbo]

I love this! You got the classic dystopian YA novel patter down perfectly. I've never heard day-to-day life sound more like it was written via committee.

[@chowyee5049]

Wait, are those just stock footage or are you actually in Malaysia?

[@farkbett699]

Channel bio says he lives in the US

[@genericallyentertaining]

No stock footage here; I am actually in Malaysia. But just passing through for a few weeks.

[@chowyee5049]

@@genericallyentertaining Nice! Also, thanks for cementing KL as a contemporary Sci Fi city. I'll be referring to the LRT tracks as the "Gordian networks of the city's underground wormholes" from now on🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.

[@earthboundisawsome]

Damn, this is a really good way of combining how people used to write about the later 21st century, with how it actually feels being here. I haven't been drawn in by a writing piece like this in a while. Well done

[@bearmandev]

This is why modern cyberpunk feels weird to me. We're in the cyberpunk setting _now._ Minus cyborgs, we are what they were writing about.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Cyborgs have been a thing since 1956. The paper that coined the term "cyborg" (sponsored by NASA) explicitly says so, mentioning pace makers. (Those are cyber-electric implants that make people more resilient and keep them from dying. Sounds like science fiction, right?)

[@lar4agames576]

And we don't have cyborgs only because it is stupid and useless idea.

[@bearmandev]

@@lar4agames576 Just wait. Something being a stupid and useless idea hasn't stopped us yet.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

@@lar4agames576 Except we have had cyborgs since before the word even existed. Anyone with a pacemaker is a cyborg. Anyone with an electric hearing aid is a cyborg. And you should look at the prostheses they make with 3D printing nowadays.

[@АлексейМомот-щ7о]

​@@davidwuhrer6704 but why everything is boring and not in cool neon light

[@Valla686]

This was surprisingly engaging to listen to. Wish more stories were written like this.

[@hallorette5059]

You do an excellent job of explaining exactly why they write this way. It all seems impossibly cool.

[@NegInfinity]

You know, this is beautiful. This sort of writing shows everyday things we are used to from outside, alien perspective. It reminds us that our boring world was, once upon the time, someone's science fiction.

[@WarDog793]

Very clever! As a SF fan, I appreciate the style imposed upon everyday life. Kudos!

[@miquelaragones7774]

This is insightful! Most science fiction is narrated by the inhabitants of the world as if their situation was special or hyper-technified ---when they probably would've already normalized their technologies and given them colloquial and usual terms.

[@bluestrife28]

H.G. Wells would be so proud of you. This was his thing back then, writing so far ahead people’s minds were blown. That’s good sci-fi!

[@vincent_hall]

That was pretty good! Had to slow down to let me catch up. You made today sound very high tech. Well... You're not wrong.

[@jamoladdintadjimov5319]

I love when writers use language like that. Using and the beauty of the language to say the simple things. I wish I could do that.

[@jaybanzia]

This was very Gibson of you and now I have no choice but to follow for more.