Realism is Bad, Actually

[@zoe_bee]

Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: wren.co/start/zoebee The first 100 people who sign up will have 10 extra trees planted in their name!

[@sodiboo]

ngl that's like one of the worst "urgency offers" (?) i've heard. this does not make me want to be one of the first 100, because i'm fairly certain that >100 people will sign up, and regardless whether i am one of the first 100 or not, i know all 1000 of those trees will be planted anyways. anyways cool video tho, i loved the part with the cat

[@zoe_bee]

Counterpoint: Trees are cool.

[@MeNowDealWIthIt]

Climate Change is the responsibility of giant corporations, not individuals. The term "Carbon Footprint" was coined by marketers at BP to shift responsibility onto the individuals. Shame on you for perpetuating this. Boo.

[@freddyfungi3764]

So ultra-realism good. Normal realism bad.

[@Handles_Are_Bad.Phuk-them-off]

are the earing, chakra, solar-system, or both?

[@HelloFutureMe]

In science fiction and fantasy circles, there's been a wave of realist writers emphasising scientific/historical accuracy in worldbuilding and writing, which I think is awesome. Sword fights can be tense, castles can be cool while also being realistic. However, some cross a line when they criticise *intentionally* unrealistic things as 'bad' *because* it's not realistic. What I see most is that what people want is *immersion*, and realism is only one way to that. We can be immersed in worlds that capture us with awe, or with story beats that make sense thematically/characterologically.

[@zoe_bee]

For sure! I think making things realistic *can* certainly be a good thing. It's when that realism becomes a mask for other, less great things that it becomes a problem. (eg. imo, The Martian is Good Realism [science is cool!]; A Song of Ice and Fire is Bad Realism [SA is not cool!]) Immersion is definitely important; I think it's the miscommunication between different folks' definitions of "immersion" (since immersion is different for everyone!) that causes a lot of the problems with that word specifically.

[@Fs3i]

Well, also "unrealistic" and "plothole" are some of the easiest criticisms to make. I'm not saying plotholes should not be avoided, for example, but we tend to forgive them in great stories. If you have a vague feeling of "I don't like this," and you want a rational explanation, you'll always find a plot hole to fall back on. I think those two criticisms specifically ("unrealistic" and "has plot holes") specifically suffer from overuse because they're easy to make, and people often don't know why they like or dislike a work. (That is completely fine btw, not everyone needs to be a critic to enjoy or not enjoy things!)

[@cornupswar]

@@Fs3i Coming from a background in shooter video games, there is that consumer pursuit of realism, but it is often a superficial aesthetic when it barely changes the nature of the game. In 2018 or so, Battlefield V was released and people hated on that game for its creative liberties and interpretations of WW2. Some people who claimed the developers had a political agenda doing this made the overused joke of "blue-face-painted amputee woman kills a German kid with a katana" which, on its face, is quite absurd. But all they argued for is the superficial aesthetic, and even though the game had customization (in fact, that was what the game was emphasizing when trailers and promotional material showed these very custom characters, they took it as the default, when Battlefield has always been about the individual player having self-expression in a war. They wanted to take an arcade-y game and be immersed in realism. If they truly wanted a "realistic" experience, they should move on to other games like Post Scriptum or Arma.

[@gibbcharron3469]

Aye! What we're really interested in our media isn't realism, but verisimilitude.

[@RS-ny8my]

Hello Future Me and Zoe Bee crossover? Please and thank you.

[@kanguruster]

When computer graphics artists are creating effects for games, their goal is to make things look like a movie on film, rather than anything more "real". So we see lens flare, bokkeh, soft focus rather than something we might see with out own eyes, because we've been trained to not believe what we see. Of course, talk to a neuropsychologist about what we actually "see" and its a wonder those brain experiences end up as a mostly coherent view of the world anyway.

[@zeppie_]

What you're looking for is "cinematic"

[@AlRoderick]

They're attempting to make their thing on a screen look like other things that appear on that screen. It's interesting to see what things that are typical to game graphics that need to be discarded when those developers try to make virtual reality, because they feel wrong when they're not contained in a static rectangle with a surrounding context.

[@theMoporter]

It can feel more realistic when those cinematic techniques are used because those are how cameras (used to) work in real life. Third-person gameplay can't look like you are there yourself - unless you're a hoverfly who can rotate around other people 360° - but it can look like you're looking at a real person on a screen. First person games use those techniques quite differently, often to portray that the character has an altered perspective (like if they've been drugged or beaten up). It's worth noting that these aren't far off from the kinds of distortions that glasses can cause. Halation and bloom can pretty realistic if I haven't cleaned my glasses lol. Also, very unimportantly, graphics artists are unlikely to be responsible for these choices. The decision to include them is usually from the director/producer level and they're usually implemented by the engineers who program the lighting system, though there are exceptions.

[@devforfun5618]

and i disable every single effect before playing, they are annoying and unecessary, if i could remove then from movies i would, and many movies do remove them digitally

[@jackawaka]

yeah mainly AAA games focus around that stuff, I find that aiming for a specific art style usually helps the game stand out and also usually allows it to age better. Alice: madness returns was released in 2011 but it's style carries it so much better than the games that aimed for that "cinematic" look. I think one of the most commom "Realistic" cliches that AAA shooters use include things like simulating dirt on the camera and water on the camera despite the perspective intending to be of the character

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

On a more serious note, I find it weirdly concerning how many people equate realism with "grittiness" or danger or sexual assault and a loss of agency for women in particular. Yes, these things exist in reality but so do celebrations and parties and just normal everyday friendships. Reality CAN be depressing and painful but it can also be joyous and happy or boring and unremarkable or surprising or any number of other things. Bleakness does exist but so do many other things and realism cannot just mean depression.

[@Drstrange3000]

Thank you!

[@egrumblybus7792]

i really like when creatures have features that do appear in animals in our real world; it can be so silly

[@mrosskne]

Who equates realism with those things?

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

@@mrosskne pretty much everyone who wines for "realism" in fiction

[@mrosskne]

@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 name one.

[@noizetv4240]

Honestly read the title as "racism is bad actually". Makes me want to see the alternate universe where that Zoe video does exist.

[@zoe_bee]

It's just 5 seconds of me staring into the camera, and then finally shrugging and saying "Obviously."

[@SirBojo4]

@@zoe_bee Boe Zee "Obviously"

[@themaincharactertm]

@@zoe_bee Evil Zoe Bee be like "Racism is good actually 😈"

[@c1majesty85]

@@zoe_bee so when can we watch it?

[@lordecramox7394]

It's just Zoe staring into the camera for an hour and a half with the text 'Figure it out yourself' above her.

[@rhymeswithmoose228]

One big issue I find with the pursuit of realism is that it's often used to put down unrealistic things. The perspective that fantasy is childish, that everything should be grimdark, that the presence of fairies invalidates the artistic value of a story are all very annoying ideas that all stem from wanting realism.

[@elainelouve]

Very true! The "medieval" settings also tend to be dark, bare and ultra violent. Though medieval castles were painted with bright colors, had decorative wall paintings, lots of expensive fabrics, music, dance and singing together. And since actual medieval people were religious christians (unless they were pagans of course, but usually the "medieval" style is based on christian Central Europe), the concept of mercy was in high value, and cruelty was a sin. They also didn't kill their enemy in battle if there was a hope of taking him as a hostage and getting a load of money from his relatives. Not saying that grim stuff wouldn't have happened, because there was lots of it, but realistically people don't want to experience grim stuff 24/7 if they can choose.

[@DJMavis]

I think in part it's a reasonable reaction to an excess of unrealistic niceness. Growing up in the 80s where the A Team fought armies and it was so rare that anyone was hurt, and Disney sanitising fairy tales (and then later real stories) meant that grim was a good counter. But it only works as a balance, not when it's the prevalent medium. It's like those awful 90s parody movies but without the originals they're taking off.

[@Envy_May]

also implying that grimdark = realistic as if the real world doesn't have more colours and emotional highs

[@kuroganexy4342]

Oh, so you mean like Zack Snyder fans. I can get behind that :D

[@Junkyard_Shaman]

Also when writing people, I used to have a habit of taking things my friends actually said and did and water them down so they wouldn't be as recognizable, and the publisher told me this would make a better comic or visual novel than a book, when the characters are so strong, and I laughed to myself, that they have no idea what sort of people walk around in the streets, apparently. hah.

[@certaindeathawaits]

As a character designer, the criticism I get from my parents is always "his eyes are too big" or "their clothes are too colourful" or "where would she even buy that?". But from my fellow character designers, and for the people enjoying my art at large, I get "ooh I wonder what the story on that scar is" or "I wonder what those gloves hide" or "she looks like a businesswoman! y'know, if dwarves managed hedge funds irl".

[@xeibei4804]

Well are your character designs meant to be enjoyed by only character designers or actually normal people? Its like writing a story only for writers and not readers.

[@certaindeathawaits]

@@xeibei4804 It’s like this. If you’re watching a musical, do you question the characters constantly breaking into song to advance the narrative? No, it is simply the mode of storytelling. It’s just part of the genre. Anime fans are like musical fans. Anime fans see bright, multicoloured hair and eyes and accept it for what it is. A normal person might say “but Japanese people have black hair and brown eyes, what’s this crap?”, while an anime fan might wonder if the character’s fiery colour palette matches their magical powers. If I’m making a character design for an anime, I design for the anime fan, not for the normal person. You make the storytelling more visual than it is in reality. It’s expected a princess character will wear a crown, even though in real life, crowns are usually ceremonial.

[@mygills3050]

I think the eyes is a somewhat reasonable suggestion. since our brains are so good at facial recognition, I imagine making the eyes more proportional might make viewers empathize with characters or see them as more rounded. Or, I suppose, you could make them less proportional for the opposite effect if needed.

[@kingslayer2071]

🙄

[@m-pc5334]

@@xeibei4804 parents read fiction?? Damn that’s crazy I can’t relate

[@elainelouve]

What bugs me personally is the image people tend to have of historical times. Which makes it difficult to do stuff in a more realistic way, because so many would perceive that as unrealistic / anachronistic. Can't remember which tv series it was, but I read the makers needed to use earth tone colors for the costumes, though actual people wore vibrant, bright colors at the time, but the audiences would have thought of them as anachronistic.

[@AsronomyMoe]

Ah, yes, the Tiffany problem.

[@washipuppy]

That's a problem with a lot of dour viking / feudal king / post-GOT kinds of shows - Historically, wealthy people especially but ALL people wore colours! bright blues, vibrant yellows, greens, pinks, reds - cloth was dyed colours. Clothes had bright colours woven into the edges or was woven with patterns, Jewels looked more like costume pieces, viking men washed often - people back in ye olde times also liked the things we like, like colours and pretty things.

[@juliegolick]

Ancient Roman statues, far from being the pristine white marble we know today, were actually painted in GARISH colours. The sort of thing that we would all consider worthy of the tackiest casinos today. If you went back to Ancient Rome, the statues would have made your eyes bleed... but we can't show that today because it's not "realistic" to what people think Ancient Roman statues "should" look like.

[@elainelouve]

@@juliegolick I don't think they were that bad. The reconstructions in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford looked quite nice actually, though outlandish, since it was weird to see them painted. It's kind of like we're conditioned to seeing these marble statues as part of "our" cultural heritage, but when they're painted, it's more "wow, that's an interesting, strange looking culture they had going on there". (Roman culture was never part of my heritage, since I'm Finnish, but yet we were taught that way at school.)

[@oxey_]

Good point actually, I have never seen a movie in set in ancient Greece where temples were actually painted lol

[@gregtiwald]

"Create a monster" Ok, a landlord. "Now imagine what it sounds like" Hmm, something like "I'm not giving your security deposit back"

[@stevedomique9278]

"Your rents going up by 50% next month."

[@Nai-qk4vp]

Fuck landlords.

[@xzonia1]

Lol :)

[@mirithilrose54]

rofl 😂

[@emmettobrian1874]

That's too realistic.

[@scottn322]

Honestly, seeing the peachfuzz hairs on her face was amazing to me. It also really made me sad when actual real people on the internet lost it because of it. Umm... What? This would be like dudes realizing that women sometimes even have barely-visible hair all over their bodies, including all over their backs. People are so dumb, and need to meet more real women, or something.

[@mrosskne]

Fictional characters should be attractive, not realistic.

[@SharienGaming]

@@mrosskne are you saying real women are not attractive?

[@mrosskne]

@@SharienGaming Most aren't, just as just real men aren't attractive. Quality, by its very definition, is rare.

[@konyvnyelv.]

​@@mrosskne characters model our concept of beauty. Change them and people will change too

[@mrosskne]

@@konyvnyelv. Why should we change people?

[@mirinewman]

Zoe: I want you to imagine a monster Me, a sound designer: uhhhhhhhhh Zoe: Now, I want you to imagine what it sounds like Me: *revs chainsaw*

[@OlTimeyChara]

Fujimoto is that you?

[@irenafarm]

Your chainsaw matched my wyvern

[@zackwalker1789]

Funnily enough, reality can at times actually seem less realistic to the viewer than something that's made up. For example, in Hacksaw Ridge they cut out some stuff that actually happened, because test viewers thought it wasn't believable that he would crawl off a stretcher to help someone on the battlefield

[@cyrus9203]

Ah, yes, the most unrealistic thing: human kindness.

[@jacksmith-vs4ct]

@@cyrus9203 in America yeah seems like it sometimes lol

[@Envy_May]

i take more issue with "realism" that just entails playing to people's expectations than something ACTUALLY real, we need more of _that_ if anything

[@barramaccannes6374]

Oh kinda like in the movie Death of Stalin the real life Zhukov had so many medals that the director decided to cut back on the number he put on Jason Issac because he thought that people would think he had done it for comic effect.

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

I remember watching real car crashes on youtube and I had a friend that commented that they didn't look real because of extreme and brutal they where. In the movies they often want a controlled experience to get the exact shot they want and often don't emulate all of the smoke, flips and parts that fly everywhere because it will get in the way of the actors or what they want the person too see.

[@Matt-sl1wg]

I think when most people say they want "realism" that they really mean that they want things to be "believable."

[@metalsludge8205]

which only makes "realism" a more worthless metric, when you consider that suspension of disbelief varies drastically between individuals

[@mjdragonmaster6559]

I find a lot of people value verisimilitude very deeply, but a lot of people also don't know that verisimilitude is a word so the default to realism to explain what they mean.

[@Matt-sl1wg]

@@mjdragonmaster6559 I knew that verisimilitude is a word, but had no idea what it means until looking it up just now. Thanks for that!

[@salmonsalm3876]

​@@metalsludge8205 your not real

[@jonaskoelker]

> ["realism" = believable] I was just gonna say: I think most people implicitly use 'realism' to mean "conforms to my mental models of the (real world) universe", which is basically the same thing as saying "believable (by me)".

[@kylebrown5492]

For how human's talk, my professor in a scriptwriting class I was in had everyone eavesdrop on conversations and write it down exactly how it was spoken, and to then write a script with that as the dialogue on to be allowed to change it in the second script, but keeping the same idea of what people were saying. It went from a 3 page script of "um"s and ramblings, to a 1 page script being a lot more readable and filmable. Ever since then I've focused on how and what people say, and it is very interesting... albeit not efficient for storytelling at all and horrific dialogue. Especially for someone like me who enjoys rambling on for 20 minutes and forgetting the main point I was heading towards.

[@elainelouve]

That sounds like a great excercise!:) I'm currently reading a novel where there's a lot of dialogue just explaining some political circumstances. It's supposed to be a detective story with I guess adventure and stuff (I'm about on page 140), so it really feels extra slow to read when I'm expecting a pageturner. And the characters come off as one dimensional, lacking personality, since all they talk about is serious business and info dump.

[@YTDariuS-my6dg]

One time in class, our homeroom teach, a guy who also had us in a bunch of other classes, asked us to also make some scripts. Since a part of us was then supposed to play those out, he told us to focus on getting rid of all those "um"s and "uh"s and to make sure not to repeat words, like constantly saying "literally" and "like" and such. Since then, I periodically notice these things in myself and others, and I forever curse Bin (his actual frickin name) for casting this shitty tear zero spell on me.

[@DezMarivette]

THAT is a cool exercise! Thank you for sharing and thank your professor for giving the homework!

[@BrightBlueJim]

This just demonstrates the desire for efficiency in stories. Stories are like dreams. They get to the point. You don't dream about taking a piss, unless there is something consequential about that piss, because pissing is mostly boring. It takes 30 seconds to a minute to take a complete piss, but who has TIME for that?

[@trashaimgamer7822]

@@BrightBlueJim Most of my dreams consist of me trying to find a toilett.

[@grantmonsma3569]

I think that the general perception of "realism" vs "fantasy" falls into the same logical trap as "media for adults" vs "media for children". Whether or not it's actually an accurate assessment, we often think of fantastical stories as having the edges filed off - an escape from reality free of all the unpleasantness that does exist in the real world. But this means that what is considered "realistic" in media is not actually defined as "imitating reality" but rather as "anti-fantasy", defining realism as the set of elements *excluded* from "unrealistic" fantasy stories, and thus focusing intensely on all the vile stuff that's usually excluded from more escapist fantasies. As a reactionary style to something perceived as unrealistically sanitized, gritty, grimdark "realism" is left with all edges and filth and grossly overshoots its nominal target of capturing a more realistic world of storytelling. It's much the same for children's entertainment vs adult's entertainment - even the phrase "adult entertainment" seems to inherently imply sexual content - not as "entertainment aimed at adults" as the base definition of the words suggests, but rather "entertainment inappropriate for children". Optimism, kindness, and even platonic social interaction are perceived as "immature" because these things are often so integral to childrens' media; and pessimism, cruelty, and romantic or sexual relationships are inherently seen as flags of a "mature" work, if only because those are things *not* often represented in "immature" media. It seems to me that a lot of media touted as "realistic" or "mature" is often outrageously unrealistic and juvenile specifically because those works are so desperate to not be perceived as being escapist or childish. It's the writing equivalent of a teenager deciding "I'm not a kid anymore" and throwing away their toys and chasing after sex/drugs/whatever else seems "adult". Their behavior is arguably *much less mature than before* because of their insistence on rejecting everything potentially in the sphere they're trying to disassociate from.

[@harrisonpeterson3733]

Looking at you, Game of Thrones!

[@XZeroDragoonX]

1000% agree with this

[@Amaling]

I haven’t seen the show past some clips, but that sounds almost exactly like what Euphoria is?

[@caiawlodarski5339]

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

[@grantmonsma3569]

@@caiawlodarski5339 I love that C.S. Lewis quote.

[@DOOPEE451]

As one Tumblr user once said, "I don't want my media to be realistic, I want my media to be convincing."

[@elixir478]

Zoe: "I want you to imagine a monster" My brain with aphantasia: "No, I don't think I will"

[@HauptSin]

Fellow aphantasiac here! When people tell me to "imagine X" I automatically default to something closer to "conceptualize X." For this exercise, my answer was Psionic Mecha-Dolphin. It goes "whirrrr crunch eeeee-ee-eee"

[@helgenlane]

"Okay, what kind of environment does it occupy? How does it breathe or eat? Should it be dangerous, scary or cute?.." 10 hours later "So, it probably sounds like 'brrloop' or something, I don't know"

[@thecstineman]

Now imagine not having aphantasia

[@MrTalithan]

@@thecstineman *self-destructs*

[@thecstineman]

@@MrTalithan imagine self destructing doe

[@cookiemocher388]

This reminds me of how in the making of the 2019 Lion King movie, when attempting to make the story realistic, they winded up making it worse, but even when they tried to add as much realism as possible they still made a tone of exceptions, like with how Mufasa sat at the top of pride rock with Simba, and the fact that lions aren't a monarchy in real life

[@z-beeblebrox]

That's a shame since everyone should know by now that lions engage in a parliamentary republic

[@stroud9208]

Or that they removed Rafiki's stick because "mandrils don't just carry sticks around in real life" but then established near the end that he has one stashed away in his tree, with the reason being "hE hAd To HAve thE stICk fOr THe FIghT"

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

lol i don't think Lion King is a good example. That movie was not made because Disney felt like a 90s movie needed a remake and realistic CGI was the way to do it. They did it for money to sell it to foreign markets

[@MabinogiChristianJ]

@@pleasedontwatchthese9593 The director (of the remake) still had a vision of making the film "realistic". YourMovieSucks just released a 2hour long Part 1 of a review of it(which I think is the reason it's come up here) with some pretty thorough research, and there's an undeniable trend of him talking about all the ways he tried to make the film feel "real" and "like a documentary".

[@t_ylr]

@@MabinogiChristianJ There's something about that style of 1/2 CGI and 1/2 real filming that teeters right on the edge of the uncanny valley. It's technically more realistic, but less immersive than the original, at least for me.

[@rosalinaposalina]

"So go make art. And have fun with it." I honestly cant express how much this little phrase means to me, recently all my work has been for assignments and grades which means it has to be specially crafted to be right or good in the eyes of my professional art teachers, and its not the same as realism in the sense of film or games but realism is the whole point of our arts classes as of right now that sorta drove away that childlike urge to just create, whether or not it was realistic or true to life or accurate to the standard of some teacher so all of that to say I'm gonna go make art, and I'm going to have fun with it

[@Sandvichman.]

same man i used to like english writing was cool until i had to follow a very specific formula to craft arguments about things i didn't know or care about

[@TitaniusAnglesmith]

Going to study your passion never ends well

[@TenderNoodle]

I’m very thankful to be a realism artist, otherwise idk what I would do when forced to make art that isn’t even close to what I want to do

[@djprincegrandmasteryrjdalo2905]

@@TitaniusAnglesmith As much as I like your Futurama reference in your profile picture I highly disagree with you… And you’re also completely wrong…

[@TitaniusAnglesmith]

@@djprincegrandmasteryrjdalo2905 I mean it's a personal experience, but I've never met anyone who still enjoys their dream carreer after 20 years.

[@ancalyme]

You know, I am actually genuinely mildly upset that the female dwarves don't have beards for representation reasons. Facial hair on women is taboo.

[@CraftyVegan]

Same. It might actually remove the stigma of facial hair on people with PCOS and on trans women. And even some of the hairier ethnicities… like my very mixed ethnic background where when I don’t shave I can pass for Sasquatch… Hairy women are quite realistic

[@juleswoodbury58]

Are you perhaps familiar with the works of the late Terry Pratchett?

[@virz4432]

Nobody wants to see that. Let's be honest.

[@ancalyme]

@@virz4432 i want to see that and a bunch of LotR fans too if others don't want to see it, it's exactly why it needs to be there. especially considering you're defending wanting to "fix" canon to fit someone's sensibilities

[@CraftyVegan]

@@virz4432 based on this entire set of comments, clearly people **do** want to see it. You’re not everyone my dude. There are (shockingly, I know) people who exist that don’t share your mindset. (Edited for grammar)

[@redalchemy7322]

To me the criticism "That's not realistic" is a person trying to say "There is something about this that I don't believe". The art of telling fiction is the art of telling lies. If you tell a bad lie, people will try to pick apart your logic and become wary because illusion is broken. However, if you tell someone a good lie they want to believe and will go to great lengths to justify it for you.

[@AcidifiedMammoth]

As a person who heavily is attracted to realism group, when we say that, usually its one of two cases: 1. There are internal inconsistencies/plotholes that break the story's own set of laws. 2. There is an implied connection to the physics of our own world, and if that connection is severed ( e.g. Ordinary man punches three buff dudes and they all fall/fly away like ragdolls.) I love unrealistic movies equally as much as realistic ones, depending on how it's pulled off. For example, Assassins Creed has the Animus, another typical science fiction plot device to explore history. It has modified versions of said history and so the player knows it's not meant to be taken 100% serious. Compare that to something like the new Vikings show (not the one that ended 2 yrs ago) which has the black female Jarl - that is used as a method to show diversity but in the wrong form - the actual diversity b/w Scandinavians and other groups like Italians, Normans, etc. There they pretend like it was normal which it wasnt so people dislike it. If someone presents me with a plot I know to be historically or physically unrealistic but they are upfront about it would not cause so much trouble.

[@kbarteaux9807]

oh dang

[@darlalathan6143]

Exactly. When people complain a movie or TV show is unrealistic, they mean it's a "camp classic," due to hammy actors, poor special effects, such as a UFO made of a hub cap with X-mas lights or a superhero with a non-canon beer belly flying in front of a rear projected city, while hanging from visible wires.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

A breed. A good work of fiction has a sense of holistic authenticity to it even if it doesn't correspond directly to our experience of material reality in our real lives. Once that holistic unity is broken people will flock to its flaws like vultures. It may not be fair, but it's just how it is

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

I agree with you. Outside of personal taste its exceptions that the world sets up. No one questions in a animated movie why someone can get flatten and poof back to normal shape in 2 seconds. But if you did that in a live action drama people would think its not realistic, or as you put it well "not believable".

[@PurpleRevolutionMusic]

"Real Life doesn't have clear villains", and yet, landlords exist.

[@Pakewl]

At 15:55, the "You would fall quickly" is actually a good illustration of the point of the video, because you wouldn't. In games, the falling speed is generally increased, because a realistic speed would feel to slow, especially in third person games. Falling in real life feels quick and brutal, and normal speed just doesn't sell it with visuals and sounds alone.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Fun fact: apparently, the floaty moon gravity of Super Mario Odyssey is closest to actual Earth gravity and stuff out of all videogames. That is how unrealistic real life is.

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

In some games, like Mario and other platformers, gravity is increased. But in others, like Half-Life 2 and other more “realistic” games, gravity is actually greatly decreased.

[@MegaTang1234]

I don't understand the "history isn't a very engaging story" argument. I love hearing historians debate how something actually happened or trying to understand why it happened. I love history because it doesn't have good guys and bad guys, just people, and their beliefs. there are so many events from actual history that are so awesome or unbelievable that some creators when adapting them have to tone down what actually happened or they risk breaking the audience's suspense of disbelief. I don't need a story to have a 3 act structure, because history never stops. that almost every event can be interpreted a million ways.

[@koloraider]

I for one agree strongly with this, real history can be just as if not more interesting than fiction, not to mention that pretty much all stories are based on history of some sort. The argument comes from people who have only ever read about history in text books or been forced to learn history for grades. You can't expect everyone to like history or much less care about it, it's just the world we live in now, out with the old in with the new.

[@patrickbuckley7259]

Yeah, that's a weird take. A better argument is, if you just want to tell a story about history, you should be writing a historical dramatization or historical fiction, not a fantasy story. History is interesting enough as it is, it does not NEED dragons. That being said, I don't even necessarily like that. As I think blending elements from real history with fantastic stories often results in more authentic and nuanced works. I think the big issue comes from people mixing up Historicity , Popular Conception (Like everyone seeming to believe the middle ages where all dull mucky tones and the sky itself was always gloomy and overcast, a time of scientific ignorance and superstition unrivaled in history), and Verisimilitude. As all three can be what people are referring to. More often than not the term realism is abused by being used in place of the latter two. While the first historicity is often considered objectively good 100% of the time, which can be a really bad thing when writing a fictional story. We need to have the freedom to pick and choose historical or scientific details for our works... Though admittedly I think their are some ways in which we could gain a lot by looking at historicity (Historical Martial Arts Mainly), while some have gone way to far into historicity to the point of it negatively impacting their stories (Game of Thrones is a good political thriller but a TERRIBLE fantasy story).

[@myself2noone]

This tells me you probably don't read a lot of real history. It's mostly boring crap about who payed taxes when. Your getting the cliff notes and acting like it's exciting, but it's really not.

[@gothicfan52]

@@myself2noone What the fuck is 'real history'? Exciting things happened in the past and they're history it's not more complicated than that

[@slothrop9345]

@@myself2noone You're not reading a lot of real history if you're reducing all of it to just "who paid taxes when". Like, do the "Cliff Notes" just make up all the stuff about all the politics, wars, cultures, uprisings, civilisations, discoveries and all the thousands of others things that happened, sometimes as a result of "who paid taxes when"?

[@sydneygorelick7484]

The whole video I was saying, "we don't like realism, we like *believability!"* I think believability sums up a lot of these concepts really well. Mirroring experience or reality isn't really what stories do, they mirror how we think or feel about experiences or about reality, ie what we end up believing about reality. The point about dialogue not equalling real speech you brought up is a good example: sure, that's not how people talk, but it goes through patterns of back and forth, and evokes emotion in a way that feels like how conversations feel, but only after you've had them and are reflecting on what was said later. So, it's all emotional evokation, even if the emotion is sometimes "having a conversation at a diner," and it's all idealized reality, because memory condenses reality and distills stories to organize complex information. We don't want it to be real, we want it to convince us it's real, we want it to FEEL real, to let us suspend disbelief and become immersed and buy into what the story is telling us. As writers and artists, "believability" is a much more useful and achievable goal than "realism," too, since it more accurately sums up what makes people say "that's realistic:" they BELIEVE it's realistic--the art is believable.

[@crumzy8]

at a house party a (tragically) long time ago, i met someone who worked in visual effects. i was stunned to hear that most of her work was on nature documentaries, editing out moustaches on penguins, or tracker beacons off of the animals, or evidence of humans like garbage or telephone poles out of shots

[@thomaszloi9444]

I worked in salon where people were printing their newborn babies albums. I needed to edit all photographs so babies would look pretty to our eyes without any dirt on mouth, milk prints, bad skin, redness on cheeks and etc. And wondered why people want artificial memories

[@Danielle-zq7kb]

I hadn’t seen one of my husband’s nieces since she was 10 and all her photos are face-tuned, so I did not recognize her when I saw her in person!

[@appa609]

Penguins have moustaches?

[@fairsaa7975]

@@appa609 Only the upper class ones

[@palmabolp]

Wait, what the hell do you mean by penguins have moustaches?

[@downsjmmyjones101]

Realism=Intuitive Whenever I see peoole talk about realism, they're actually talking about how easily it could be believed that something could be true.

[@emmettobrian1874]

I agree. It then raises the question, what's intuitive? My experience is concrete ideas, things you can easily hold onto in your head, are intuitive. If I say "a sword," you might not know what type of sword, but you have a discrete concept in your head that feels intuitive.

[@downsjmmyjones101]

@@emmettobrian1874 Maybe? During the promotion for the release of the game For Honor, a character is seen using their sword by holding the blade and striking with the crossguard. It's an actual technique used in medieval times called half-swording, but it's really unintuitive because 95% of the time, a sword is being wielded by the handle.

[@emmettobrian1874]

@@downsjmmyjones101 in that case, the issue is (I think) that holding the blade of a sword goes against a "rule" fixed solidly in most people's head. Blade is sharp. Don't touch! So even though half swording, grabbing your opponent's blade and murder strikes are historical techniques, they go against this very salient rule that you don't touch a blade. It's one of those things that evidence "realistic" isn't about what is real. It's about "solid" ideas that people use to predict what's about to happen. Ideas that are quantifiable to the one experiencing the narrative.

[@zenithquasar9623]

Nah, I disagree. If you can make a story that involves magic feel realistic, then your definition falls apart.

[@downsjmmyjones101]

@@zenithquasar9623 How does it make my definition fall apart?

[@petitblanc7343]

I saw a quote somewhere that put it nicely "I don't want it to be realistic, I want it to be convincing". Replace the word "realistic" in any scenario you mentioned with "convincing" and it makes a lot more sense meaning-wise. But the complaints come from a different place. I would suggest that you can add a 1:1 ratio of men to women and an even ratio of races in a Battlefield game's character editor and nobody would give it a second's thought. The precondition is that you do not use it in marketing *at all*, just have it there, as a feature, since if it's heavily marketed it would feel like an ideology is being pushed, which many will interpret as propaganda. Then the originally blank slate becomes stained and if you are on a side you have to decide if you're on the same side. The alternative is 'rule of cool', like in Assassin's Creed. If the amputee woman were so damn cool, intrinsically, not subjectively, nobody would care, hell, she might even become a popular mascot. People would say "it's dumb, but I like it", the trick is trying to figure out how to do that, what would a female member of the Expendibles look like? It's far easier to market sexy than cool (See: Quiet from Metal Gear), hence gaming in it's current state.

[@LauraLovesHugs]

you're extremely wrong about the character selection. these people who complain about these things are just racists and misogynists. they don't actually care for the quality of the game or the realism, they just don't want people of color to exist and don't want women to be able to exist on equal footing with them. any amount of representation of people who are not like them is seen as an affront, even if 95% of the cast is cishet white men.

[@strayiggytv]

I know this an old comment but it has such a glaring flaw I have to point it out. 1. The idea that you have to essentially hide female and minorities in games and movies by obfuscating them until the last second is completely pathetic. Essentially youre saying white guy gamers are whiney little children and the only way to get them to eat their vegetables is to hide them in a steak so they don't know until they take a bite. Now I agree with that take, white male gamers are little babies but if you use that strategy and spring it on them at the last second those little babies are unstable enough and violent enough to harm you when they feel tricked. They already send death threats to women at any opportunity. 2. You can't make a character from a marginalized group "cool enough" for these bigots while also giving that character any agency at all. Like these people only tolerate female characters if they either specifically trigger nostalgia for them or if they exist through the male gaze. That's it. Same with minorities. If theres a black character he better be the sidekick or if he's the main character he better be "where he belongs" submitting to their preconceived notions of what black people are like. You cannot "black excellence' your character out of racism.

[@zebedeesummers4413]

I agree with a lot of what you said. I do find it weird how hard she went on how women look in games as though they don't almost always do the same thing to men. Almost all fighting game characters either looks sickly, insanely attractive or completely unhuman. A lot of games historically did this in part to make low-res images still make people instantly see them as masculine, feminine, gross, powerful or weak. Most top down games have people with weirdly large heads and shoulder while making women ridiculously well-endowed for the same reasons. I might just not completely understand but other than older games lacking female playable characters I don't understand the understanding that all that many games are anti-feminine. I'm an okay looking dude but I don't need to be represented (even though games with self insert main characters have me in them.) I'd much rather more attractive and interesting looking characters be on screen. The Alloy thing was really weird to me, she looked stupidly attractive in both images either way. I do think do to make-up being more acceptable(and expected) on woman than men has distorted what people expect women to look like more than men. I also believe people spending more and more time consuming media where we only see the top 10% or so most attractive people most of the time also helps people forget what average really is. I don't love rating people but if the vast majority of people you see are in good lighting, on screen and attractive you are seeing 7+ looking people and a few 1s and 2s shown as the evil characters. You will be both biased even more against less cute people but also think 6s are below average let alone a 5 or 4. As someone who likes video games way too much and plan to have it as a life long hobby I don't care what race, gender or culture the characters I'm playing as or against as long as they are interesting and on occasion attractive. I'd expect that is the norm. Graphics need to compete with other games graphics that have outstanding gameplay nothing more. Not sure why I felt compelled to post this...maybe to be proven wrong or see again in a year and sit in disappointment.

[@valhatan3907]

​@@zebedeesummers4413well, looking for personal attractiveness is natural. I'm also like if my game has _ikemen_ in it (⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠) (Ikemen refer to certain ideal of handsome man in Japan media) Like what op said, it's easier to market something sexy. It pay good money. Hence why the portrayal of avarage looking and the "non-conventional" people is just a few. Like what you said, we served attractiveness by the media to the point forgot how avarage person look. I think that's why when a character showed without the usual attractiveness, some cant accept it. Because they're not familiar with it. That's not what they're usually served.

[@alethearia]

As someone who is a big history nerd. "Getting everything accurate" definitely falls under "the little details of the character(s)'s lives. Like, how do they get dressed durring the day. Given that how do their clothes look? Is there bust support? Is that part of the design? If there's a belt, where does it naturally sit and is there intention in it? Like is this person trying to be fashionable? Little things like that really boost the story for me. And to add to that, little animations that are included in a videogame that demonstrate care - even if it's just the indication of a motion - really bumps the production quality of a game.

[@writingwofl5836]

Why would the author put extra details when it doesn't contribute to character, plot, mood pace etc. The thing about history is that we almost know nothing about it. But maybe you are referring to fictional histories. I dont have a problem with your habit, just sayin.

[@alethearia]

@@writingwofl5836 1. We actually know quite a bit about historical clothing. Not everything, mind, but a lot. Just ask any dress historian. 2. In a work of fiction, clothing can instantly tell you a ton about a character without even interacting with them. So... yeah. Clothing 100% develops character. Our relationship with our clothing is complex and varried and shouldn't be ignored. Does this mean you need to describe every button? No. But a character's attention to their clothing being noted does elevate a story for me personally. 3. I was referring to visual mediums like video games, film, and tv. I understand the constraints of tv and film and budgets. But video game character designers really should pay more attention to clothing construction and physics. And I say this as someone who majored in game art.

[@writingwofl5836]

@@alethearia I agree that clothing details can add alot to the character and can elevate the story, like for example a feminine character wearing a pink dress.

[@alethearia]

@@writingwofl5836 right? And we make a lot of assumptions about a character because of their clothing. And that alone allows an author to confront stereotypes. Like you said, character in a pink dress... but they're in law school. Now you have El Woods from Legally Blonde. Or like I was watching The Nevers and there's a whole conversation about how the MC LOVES wearing fancy dresses and corsets and all that... and it adds sooooo much depth to the character when you finally learn her backstory.

[@writingwofl5836]

@@alethearia Yes, but havent watchd the film nor the show, btw my first comment was about a problem in books, but wich is less apparent or bad in other mediums like film or games, wich I know little about, except for the elements that are present in both, like the story or dialogue.

[@jfrancis6191]

I find it extraordinarily interesting that Amazon is so proud of itself for having black characters in The Lord of the Rings while at the same time an actual black hero, Christian Smalls, is at war with the company.

[@Bustermachine]

Corporations are shiboleth entities made up of different departments, and all of them have skewed risk/rewards structures. The people who create the shows, aren't the ones who promote them, and the people who handle Amazon's legal actions aren't part of either of those prior groups. It's easy for a human to be a hypocrite. It's even easier for a corporate entity. And that's not a good thing.

[@zebedeesummers4413]

Amazon is like 15 companies at least

[@pretendsushi2929]

I got a glitch in the first assassins creed game where I would just land on the hay bail and die. And I just realized watching this video, well, at least it's realistic

[@alatusedits]

Lmao

[@iaintaylor7390]

I would love to see the American Monomyth dissected. I can’t say I thought about it in any great detail, but lately I have been noticing a lot of fiction involves the assumption of an unambiguously good status quo being threatened; a harmful assumption when left to be believed to be representative of reality, when for many people it simply is not, and often disproportionately so.

[@51monw]

I've also seen some arguments that Hollywood is out to make billionaires look good. I'm not sure if this fits in the monomyth or is exploiting it. Certainly a lot of billionaires sneaking in, or possibly our billionaires are starting to look like those in the movies (age is when billionaires start to look younger without surgery?).

[@choosecarefully408]

It'll never be done right. Culturally, there's way, _WAY_ too much denial involved. How many examples to include? For instance, from 2018 through 2019, no less a governing body than the U.S. Congress itself REMINDED US​ that peddling one's influence for a quid pro quo while in office was a conflict of interest SO CRIMINAL, it's even illegal for a president to commit it. *Reminded* us. Reminded. So right there, you have people in government and MSM themselves telling us that lobbying is not only happening, but that it is 100% illegal. So you can't blame this on propaganda, foreign interference or fake news. It's literally only denial for the sake of continuing worship of your structures of governance as God. & absolutely *_NO_*_ ONE_ in the U.S.A. will stop denying this. Which *should be **_THE_** #1 reason it **_IS_** the sole focus of* the discussion. I mean, she chose to promote Wren, a service that says "okay, we'll allow corporations to keep ravaging the only planet we live on, & we'll promote these ineffective measures that don't stop the problem." We _KNOW_ this wouldn't exist if it wasn't for lobbying which _IS_ illegal & we could therefore stop, now. Legally. Instead, y'all pretend that you can't. 😵‍💫

[@victoriajankowski1197]

@@choosecarefully408 I think your over simplifying, with the Wren thing, while there are most defiantly people who will contribute feel vindicated and carry on, but some segment of the population might respond to the donations to Wren as keystone behavior, getting curios about ways to perpetuate more change, in the process and learning more and pushing for bigger changes. So in the end you have people doing what they where already doing but funding good programs, and others deep diving and learning about issues like Gov programs and societal behaviors etc.. Not everyone can start from the end of the marathon, some need tiny steps to even get started.

[@mookinbabysealfurmittens]

@@victoriajankowski1197 Nice response! Just like I remind myself as I'm relearning how to survive: "Small steps, Sparks." (From "Contact", a film which still has a place in my heart.) ...Though I do agree with the notion that such a video would be a monumental task, nigh impossible to encapsulate in a single video essay. People have certainly chipped away at it, but that's the best can be done, all things considered, and not for nothing. A series could be nice, but it sure would be long...

[@mookinbabysealfurmittens]

@@choosecarefully408 Lobbying _is_ legal. Certain forms of it, the lines of which have been twisted so much that it's... actually not a _surprise,_ I guess, in the neoliberal "paradise" of end-stage capitalism. "Vote with your dollar" _is_ true, but its proponents refuse to accept that it means the capital-C Capitalists get to sway the vote with corporate funding and _lobbying._ Oh, and why are Senators and Congressmen allowed to trade stocks despite the obvious conflict of interest? Idk, probably unrelated to 6 [almost 7] of the 8 of the latter being millionaires... >_> I'm not disagreeing with you at all on lobbying, btw, rather adding to that. It's such a frustrating and disheartening situation. And that brings me to Wren... That top reply is bang on. I'd also like to add "climate exhaustion" to the list they gave: many people want to help, but feel like there's nothing they can do to "make a _real_ difference", or that they generally don't matter, often feeling completely powerless. Maybe some of them, too, might feel empowered again, and join others in pushing beyond just their own carbon footprint and _doing_ something about the actual biggest sources of pollution. That is, shipping & manufacturing on the large scale, and the companies making excessive packaging and breaking emissions rules, and avoiding said companies' products whilst writing their representatives about it, and hey, we're back to stuff that individuals can do. :)

[@strawberriesandcandy]

As a romance novel writer, I sometimes get angry letters from men who say my male characters behave unrealistically and are giving their wives “illusions” about men that they as partners can’t possibly live up to. They’re not upset about the physical attributes or even the wealth of my characters. They’re upset because my male characters are good communicators, are considerate, are thoughtful and remember details about my heroines, are respectful and willing to listen, and go out of their way to please their partners in bed. I usually respond with, just because you’re a bad partner doesn’t mean it’s unrealistic to be a good partner. Sometimes fiction might not be realistic to someone’s situation, but it can open up a door to show them that there are different experiences out there, and they deserve better.

[@XeroShifter]

Boring is the romance novel which consists of two characters who are both flawed and so have to spend years becoming better people so that they can form a functioning and healthy relationship. Such a novel doesn't provide the escapism which the readers of romance novels seek. I think that few people in that audience would even bother to consider such a novel. In stories we like to oversimplify problems, and then provide tidy solutions much as the American monomyth. Unfortunately our society hasn't done a good job of teaching people how to better themselves and manage a healthy relationship. Its not unreasonable to want a healthy and good relationship but it is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect it to be that way if you and your partner haven't put in any leg work. As an example of a similar phenomenon in the pen and paper RPG space there is a thing called the Mercer Effect: where players watch extremely popular web series Critical Role, and then expect their own games to imitate what they've seen on the screen. Players then go into playing the game with unrealistic and unreasonable expectations of how the game will go, because their DM isn't Matt Mercer, a comedian, voice actor, and someone who makes their living off of doing nothing but creating entertaining content. Further, the players themselves aren't up to the level of the rest of the cast which is also loaded with professional comedians and voice actors. Critical Role, romance novels, and porn all set up some with unrealistic and unreasonable expectations of reality but I wouldn't put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the creators. I would say that the majority of the blame falls upon those who form these expectations based upon the media they consume. Its ok to wish for your situation to be better, but expecting it to be better just because you know that it can isn't healthy. Knowing that something can be better isn't enough to make it better. There is work that must be put in. Should you find yourself in a relationship where your partner refuses to grow but you are improving yourself, then yes, you deserve better. But I question if that's really the case for the relationships of the people reaching out to you. Life is rarely ever that simple. As an example of things not always being as simple as we like to think of them: In cases of IPV (intimate partner violence) in 49.7% of cases, the IPV is actually reciprocal, meaning that both partners were violent to each other, rather than it being one sided, and reciprocal IPV was associated with greater injury than nonreciprocal regardless of the sex or gender of the perpetrator. - Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships with Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence, Daniel J. Whitaker, Tadesse Haileyesus, Monical Swahn, and Linda S. Saltzman. 2007 The point of all of this is really just to say that its really dismissive to assume that all good partners have a specific behavior set, and that the women involved in these relationships are the kind of people that you can be a good partner to. There are certainly different experiences out there, but telling someone who is not a princess to go seek a prince because they deserve it is a recipe for unhappiness, disappointment, and disaster.

[@darianstarfrog]

I am such a man.. we exist

[@fumomofumosarum5893]

ah. just like woman who complain to artists about fictional female characters with "exaggerated" body shapes. I mean yes, woman with such bodies may not the standard, but they DO exist. : p ( I wouldn't give them such a rude answer tho )

[@darlalathan6143]

You mean they don't mind rich, handsome men, but they think sensitive ones are unrealistic.

[@RollingCalf]

Lol it's just that wealthy fit men have too many options to be communicative.

[@ReReNotMe]

My biggest realism pet peeve is by far bad CPR in media. Please, for something that can save lives irl and takes 15 minutes to learn, teach your actors or whoever how to perform high quality CPR, especially if it's in a medical setting. It's also just really funny to see bad CPR in a serious scene

[@vemto9643]

As a doctor, you have my vote

[@zebedeesummers4413]

It is also quite a social good to have people often seeing real CPR. In some scenes people should also have their ribs broken...

[@jackmerrill8424]

100% that’s on the writing and directing. I can’t imagine a single actor being like yeah I did two pumps, that’s about all I can manage

[@thejuiceking2219]

0/10, not enough broken ribs

[@RexxyRobin]

An extra note on realistic graphics in games. They take a ton of time, money and ressources that could've been invested in things that made the product way more engaging. Not saying that the graphics or physics in games like Skyrim or Crysis weren't nice, but it is funny how other games like Minecraft or Stardew Valley can just keep up with them popularity wise when they were originally made by ONE person.

[@rogerroger9952]

Skyrim graphics? You mean the ones where a horse is a mountain goat, and people regularly start swimming through the air?

[@UnfortunatelyTheHunger]

@@rogerroger9952 That's another thing: realistic graphics age like milk. In terms of graphical fidelity, Skyrim was considered the absolute apex during release, but that was a decade ago. Since then, not only has GPU power consistently continued to increase (in spite of the crypto parasites), there has been enough time for people to notice all the errors that were either ignored or undetected when it came out

[@coalgolem4697]

I think it depends on the game tho like Minecraft and Stardew work because the game itself is Designed to be simple and fun Skyrim/Crysis/Red Dead work because the realistic graphics work to pull you into the game and make you feel like part of the world Not saying ones better than the other, but I don't think the game designers could have prioritized making the games "more engaging" over graphics, because, for those games, graphical fidelity's is a large part of that engagement.

[@RexxyRobin]

@@coalgolem4697 That is true. I also really love Eastshade for it's looks. But I find it dissapointing/ misguided when a dev team puts hundreds of hours into creating more detail for trees in an RPG but forget to craft a story or balance combat skills :D

[@RouxAroo666]

@@rogerroger9952 Do... Do you understand what graphics are? That's AI and physics, not graphics, both of which are worse in Skyrim because they put so much effort into the graphics.

[@ferretappreciator]

Realism is cool, but media is hyper-saturated with hyper-realist depictions of daily events that the hyper-real becomes the typical. I mean, even that concept alone is interesting as hell, but the fact that it's happening is scary

[@mjangelvortex]

This I can agree to. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong about realism in art. But it can be overwhelming when that sort of thing becomes oversaturated. And it is also disappointing when other art forms are looked down upon for not being realistic enough. Different art styles and art forms can coexist and I wish more people knew that.

[@fink7968]

You could remove the word hyper from that sentence entirely and it would have the same meaning and be easier. Hyper realism isn't what you're talking about, it's a specific effect of adding realism into a non realistic art form to create a juxtaposition, some famous examples in SpongeBob.

[@Swordsman1425]

I came up with a phrase that describes how I feel about realism in media... "Never sacrifice 'fun' or 'enjoyment' on the altar of 'realism.'"

[@pisscvre69]

and this is why i love rwby, rule of cool runs that show especially first 3 seasons

[@NayrAnur]

​@@pisscvre69Time To Say Goodbye is still my favorite opening.

[@arlequinelunaire418]

Was personally hoping the genre of Magical Realism would be mentioned, since it has a very opposite approach to how realism is normally defined, as it's all about emotional accuracy over technical accuracy and taking the saying 'Reality is stranger than fiction' and running with it

[@dayalaskar]

As someone who really like books written by Gabriel Garcia Marques, I second this!

[@gamemultiplier1750]

It reminds me of the discussion around Encanto. People say that the magic isn't the most unrealistic thing in the movie. It's the antagonist of the movie apologizing and attempting to atone for their mistakes.

[@keepingitkianatural]

Oh that would have been good. I kinda get why she didn't mention it but it would have been a great aside.

[@DrShak2009]

I definitely would love to see a video about sincerity. I wish more media was unafraid of embracing the weirdness of their settings. (that was an awkward sentence) From my own experience, I also wish people in general were less worried about being "cringe"; life is more enjoyable when you aren't afraid to have fun and be weird. As far as realism goes, I think you nailed it down here. For me, if I had to some it up in one word, that word would be "believable".

[@werelemur1138]

Like the goat says, I am cringe but I am free. I'd also love a video on sincerity.

[@Anja_Pearson]

I totally agree! Actually, there's a pretty cool video by a KZbinr called Fads about that subject! You might enjoy it :) m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHi1iYqrhdCJn9U

[@spinejackel]

i’ve heard a handful of people on the internet say they don’t like when characters in recent media talk like they’re trying to get an A in therapy in casual conversation because that’s not how people talk in real life,… but then i, therapy greorg, who has no joke been seeing behavioral and emotional therapists since i was six and do talk casually about behavior and emotion enters the conversation…

[@zebedeesummers4413]

right but what percent of the people do you talk to speach the same? I don't intend to falsify your statement, only mention that having a few characters speak like this is quite reasonable... just not all.

[@jamesrasmussen9281]

"Time-traveling assassins are objectively cool" is probably the truest and most concrete statement of this essay. Surely we can all agree.

[@robinrehlinghaus1944]

I disagree, it’s unrealistic

[@Vox_Popul1]

Nah

[@lancearnedo7837]

​@@robinrehlinghaus1944so things are only cool to you if they're realistic?

[@robinrehlinghaus1944]

@@lancearnedo7837 If they're believable

[@mapuggs]

@@robinrehlinghaus1944 be quiet

[@eloisedodds5909]

RE: fear of sincerity. Yes. Please. It’s the biggest thing I hate about the writing in recent mass media fiction.

[@TubezThe1]

Honestly, I think a lot of people when they say realistic, what they really think to me is grounded. Like The Owl House from Disney channel, that's show despite using a lot of fantasy tropes and taking place in what is more or less a Disney hellscape, is incredibly grounded when it comes to experiences that the characters go through. Too often when a lot of people talk about realism, they often just mean bad things happen to people. They always refer to things like death or anger or "grittiness", which in my opinion, is less realistic and more cynical and pessimistic. Reality is not uniformly terrible, if we look for history, yes we see a lot of bad shit happen, but we also see people constantly fighting for the better and actually making the world better. So for the people that want to say something being historically accurate, things actually getting better over time is historically accurate. Things like optimism and friendship and camaraderie among people, those are all real things. But more often than not, people equated with just childish thinking, like the idea of people being happy in real life is somehow unrealistic. People constantly make jokes about the power of friendship, but the reality is the power of friendship is more realistic than half the shit that they talk about. The power of friendship is literally people believing in you and you in turn believing in yourself even more. It's not a magic power-up, it's community, connection, positivity. Honestly speaking, and I don't mean to call anybody out, it feels like a lot of the people that think this way, are people that are miserable in their own lives to the point where they can't imagine anybody else possibly being happy. Like if you can't imagine yourself being happy, how can you possibly imagine that for other people?

[@coolcosmic4351]

Theirs a lot of truth to what you basically said.

[@girlwithaguitar24]

And this is why I love Pokemon. A world in which 10 year olds feel safe enough to roam the wilderness, healthcare is free, physical living beings can be sent through the internet and there's almost 1000 creatures to choose from...it just makes me happy, It's not realistic, and if it was, I'd argue it'd make the game worse (looking at you Legends: Arceus). The best ones are fantasies that let me just imagine myself as a cute Poke Girl battling others with my Pokemon who are also my friends. That might sound cheesy, but like, life sucks and its nice to have my media be an escape rather than an extension of reality.

[@Wow-cr2ll]

Monster Hunter comes to mind. Sure, it's a game where you can fight a fire breathing T-Rex with an impossibly large sword that's somehow also an exploding ax while accompanied by a pun loving cat. But somehow, it still feels grounded. It's hard to explain, but there's an ecology to the games that makes it feel "natural." These aren't evil creatures that need to be destroyed, they're animals doing animal things, same as you. Monster Hunter is about harmony with nature in the same way Pokemon is about friendship. Certain gameplay elements muddy the message a bit, but the message is still easy to see. That is, until Paul Anderson came along, saw some screenshots, and was like "Oh, a game about humans VS monsters? Making a movie out of this will be easy! We should make the dragon much bigger though."

[@sonario6489]

What's wrong with Legends Arceus? Games can still have their bits of realism from our universe.

[@turkeygod6665]

could never get into pokemon cause of that ngl. Always felt too safe.

[@autumnwolverton4154]

Interestingly, when I started watching this video, Pokemon came to mind for an entirely different reason. My mind jumped to viewing the series through the lens of psychological realism, in particular the relationship between humans and Pokemon, and how that relationship is characterized throughout the series. Now, the way Pokemon are portrayed varies from game to game and media to media. Sometimes they're just wild animals, but most adaptations portray them with some degree of sapience, with a few adaptations like the Mystery Dungeon games even depicting them as capable of building their own civilizations. Which becomes a bit messy when you consider the fact that, in most adaptations, Pokemon are owned by humans and treated as property. Most adaptations are content to just kinda ignore this weirdness, so as not to detract from the fantasy of befriending cute magical creatures and being the very best like no one ever was. But when the series does address it, things get even weirder, because the games kind of have to come down on the side that owning Pokemon is okay, so as to not turn players off from that fantasy. Which leads to some rather... Interesting attempts at justifying the whole mess. Sun and Moon draw parallels between trainer/Pokemon relationships and parent/child relationships and compare bad Trainers to abusive parents, which is probably the least bad way I've seen it addressed so far. It's still not 100% apt, because parents generally raise their children with the understanding that they will one day grow up to become the parents' equals, whereas trainers are assumed to keep their Pokemon subservient in perpetuity. But it's still quite a bit better than the justification used by Black and White, and more recently by Legends: Arceus, which is that... Pokemon just really love being enslaved! They love their trainers and making their trainers happy! Sure, some trainers might be cruel to their Pokemon, but that doesn't mean the system itself is bad, it just means that trainers need to be nice to their Pokemon slaves! The reason a video about "realism" in fiction sent me down this train of thought is that BW and PLA's arguments could, by the "internal consistency" metric, be considered realistic. Pokemon are not human, so it makes sense within the universe that they might have feelings and desires very different from the ones humans in their situation would have. But those feelings and desires are also unrealistic in another way, which is that they're not a reflection of the feelings and desires of anyone in the real world. But... There are certain beliefs and ideologies in the real world that would really like you to think that that is realistic, aren't there? How many times throughout history has prejudice or inequality been justified by saying that the disadvantaged party is somehow naturally inclined towards servitude or poverty? It's not actually realistic, but aren't there a lot of people who are going to believe that it is? And isn't that narrative just validating their harmful way of viewing the world? It's just as Zoe describes, using "realistic" elements as a justification for perpetuating a lot of really bad shit. Uh, that was... Way longer than it probably should've been. So, uh, yeah, I definitely agree that the fantasy of the Pokemon series is really fun. I still really enjoy the games and I'm glad you do too. (Check out Pokemon Reborn if you haven't already! It's real good!) But, intentionally or not, it still reflects certain real-world beliefs, and those beliefs might get in the way of some people being able to use the games as escapism.

[@A.S._Trunks]

@@autumnwolverton4154 Superpowered creatures are apparently slaves of humans 🙄.

[@frankwest5388]

One part of the “realism” criticism that I don’t like in fantasy stories, is when they try to introduce specific real life physics into magic. Don’t misunderstand, vague logic is perfectly fine and to be expected, but so many try to go down to a micro atomic level to explain why something should or shouldn’t work. It’s awful

[@bloop6111]

Yeah that’s such a buzzkill. I get it if people want to dissect things out of speculative interest, as long as it’s all in good fun. But if it’s used as a criticism of the story that’s just unnecessary haha. Some people want to write a fantasy story without getting a physics degree first, sue us xD

[@frankwest5388]

@@bloop6111 I see it in stories themselves, especially the Isekai genre. And it breaks immersion, because once you introduce real life physics are a major factor, everything that goes against real life physics becomes basically a plot hole. In other words, magic in fantasy is now a plot hole, because it cannot coexist with realistic physics.

[@shadowbane92]

I think that's very much a case of personal taste, though. I know I'm probably in the minority in this regard, as opposed to your likely majority opinion, however I like when stories try to integrate magic and physics. I mean, obviously there has to be some small, "unrealistic" point where suspension of disbelief takes over, but sometimes it can be nice to have a more in depth explanation for magic than "mana is like, in the air, dude". Something as simple as "we're asking you to suspend your disbelief and accept there's an area of the human brain that allows us to control mana", which then leads into "we use a technological framework to control that part of the brain to allows computers to assist in casting magic". Or something like "mana is a separate law of nature that interacts with physics, but only to a point". In this example, mana allows magicians to do certain unrealistic things, but not others; such as drawing heat out of an area to create a flame, or drawing moisture out of an object to dry it out. Normally, physics says that those can't happen without an outside impetus, such as a flammable gas in the former case, or the sun's evaporative effects in the latter. But if we introduce magic as that outside impetus, we get a magic system that works within physics: a magician can't conjure a meteor out of thin air, but could use magic to pull a chunk of rock from the ground and heat it to searing temperature. Now, all of this isn't to say that every system needs to be like that, and criticising one for not being like the other is also wrong, but I think there's enough interest from both ends that each should have it's own space to be explored. I hate to do what you explicitly asked me not to, but at the risk of misunderstanding, I hope I've understood your last line correctly. I think works of fiction should be free to explain their own magic system down to the micro atomic level, if they so choose, but I agree that criticising a work because it does or does not do so is indeed awful. TL;DR: I both agree with and disagree with you. Maybe. Probably. I think.

[@frankwest5388]

@@shadowbane92 having some level of real life physics isn’t a problem, it can even improve the world building and magic system. The problem comes from when the story doesn’t adhere to their own rules or introduce them in a way that limits the readers imagination. Because if deeper quantumphysics get introduced as a rule, the author can’t do anything that would go against that rule, which is pretty difficult to do, because nothing in physics exists in a vacuum. But if you keep it more surface level, like saying that you can’t do something if you don’t have the energy for it or that one can’t create something but must transform it from something with the same components, it stays plausible and fun.

[@catfan913]

do you find very many of those? do you mind giving either examples or recs?

[@Athmarr]

I thought I wanted realism, until i watched a show recently where the dialogue was so close to reality it triggered my social anxiety and hated it. Actually I want to watch really fake things please lol

[@agrainofsun]

While I agree with all the points you've made, I disagree with your conclusion. Sure, as a baseline, art can be about "feeling real", or "feeling right", but I think it's reductive to have a standard of intent to judge art with. Art is about whatever we want it to be. It can be about things that are completely detached from reality or verisimilitude, and there would be value in that. We can also want to make art be as close to actual reality as possible, and there would also be value in that. The problem, as you said, comes from art that tries to "feel real" but tells you it's trying to "be real", cultivating all of those false biases, from the least to the most harmful. We believe media is realistic when it confirms our biases, and studios don't question that, because it makes money. But the solution is not necessarily "giving up" on the realism and just trying to "feel real": that would justify all the biased crap (after all, misogynistic worlds feel real to a misogynist). When a piece of media says it's being realistic, it's making a statement about what it believes to be close to reality. And I think that's good. We need realistic media, media about stuttering people, about noisy gun silencers, about stories without 3 act structures, about horrifying wars, about individual disempowerment, about boring lives. We need realistic media to shatter our biases about reality. That's the beauty in italian neorealism, in Kieslowski's dekalog, in Joyce's Ulysses. It's nice when media embraces it's unrealism, and strives for verisimilitude. And it's also nice when it tries as hard as it can to be realistic. It should just try harder :)

[@elainelouve]

Well said!

[@mjangelvortex]

Thank you. The two things can very well coexist. My mother and I are both artists. While her art was usually drawn to look more realistic, I prefer going with a more simplified and cartoony way of drawing. Both aren't less artistic or "wrong" as the other, just different. I respect the amount of time, effort, and passion artists like her make into making something that looks "realistic" just like how I wish people did the same for the animation industry.

[@FleshRebellion]

"We believe media is realistic when it confirms our biases, and studios don't question that, because it makes money." -- conciseness in perfection. **slow clap**

[@agrainofsun]

@@FleshRebellion much obliged :)

[@patrickdaly1088]

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story" -Mark Twain Great vid!

[@MattiasPilhede]

This was a really good video! I think the word "relatable" is something that comes to mind when people describe what they want, but are unsure how to describe it. Something that has been on my mind lately with art and drawing is trying to make "good" art. Which is very difficult, because "good" is very subjective, and for a long time I wanted to make art that was "good" but failed at it. Something that comes to mind is, spending months on a painting posting it online, and very few seem to like it. Then drawing a sketch or doodle, posting it online, and it's much more popular. I think there is something there where the artist gets caught up with ideas of what art should be, and how to impress other artists. And then in something quick like a doodle, the artist forgets about all that and taps into what is relatable to everyone. Trying to make "relatable" art instead of "good" art has been way more fun.

[@histhoryk2648]

"Authentic" - it has to be believable

[@worthasandwich]

When you said the "fear of sincerity" my heart sank, that was the phrasing I had been looking for to discribe a feeling.

[@Titleknown]

Just a little bit in, but as a fan of artforms such as cartooning and tokusatsu that get denigrated (And thusly, starved of funding to reach their full potential) in the States due to percieved lack of realism, I always appreciate these sorts of takedowns of realism-as-king.

[@karakurie]

Bro, I'm with you on Tokusatsu! In Japan most tokusatsu shows come on in the morning for preschool kids and once they're older (like elementary, junior high, high school) they think tokusatsu are for babies but like...I just talked for an hour to a CEO about how we cried while watching Kamen Rider and Ultraman. There were a lot of really good episodes about how to deal with stress, loss, feeling isolated, etc etc that ring much more true with adults rather than children.

[@jdellabeat6245]

I'm with you on Tokusatsu. I love that shit still and will always.

[@Specsp421]

Same goes for mecha anime, people write it off as unrealistic from the get go. Of fucking course it’s unrealistic, why do you expect realism from a genre about giant robots fighting in space?

[@FlatOnHisFace]

"If our characters were realistic, they would be boring as fuck!" - Zoe Bee I dunno. I keep watching you and a bunch of other KZbinrs for entertainment.

[@Bustermachine]

To be fair, a KZbinr typically is 'playing themselves' on Camera. This isn't to say they're 'faking it'. But they're usually reading largely from a polished script that was created after doing copious research, and have the luxury of edits and reshoots.

[@LifeInJambles]

@@Bustermachine Basically what I was gonna say. While they may be able to ramble about the topics they talk about at parties, because generally the more popular ones have a well-fleshed-out ideology and understanding of their material, these scripts and productions that might last half an hour but take weeks to produce and hours to edit. A lot of effort to present a polished product that seems realistic... but it's not actual reality. To be clear, I'm perfectly fine without the realism. I love the work and creativity put into these productions, and I don't have to believe this is just off-top to enjoy it. I personally don't much care for realism in my media in general. I think the effort to make games more "photorealistic" has greatly stifled artistic expression and interesting gameplay, although a lot of that has to do more with the commodification of entertainment than specifically the photorealism. Honestly a lot of really excellent games barely require a graphics card, and not only does that end up meaning they have to be enjoyable, but it makes them more accessible.

[@deathstramy7272]

@@Bustermachine there are youtubers who base their whole career off of their personality like say critikal most twitch streamers etc which i think is a better example personally i think this is probably a fad thatll get less interesting later on but the internet has made people crave a more genuine type of content

[@NertoFurity]

but she explained exactly that at the end of the video

[@Zarathinius]

KZbinrs aren’t real

[@purplestardust0]

This is actually why I love the Kingdom Hearts series so much. It's not realistic at all but it's completely emotionally sincere about itself. It's just a game where the magic of friendship and connections between hearts can save the world.

[@eainen]

here is a perhaps depressing reason, but I really enjoy what most people would perceive as "boring" real life analogues in stories and characters precisely because I have missed on so much in my actual life. so I'd say my love for "realistic" characters that are often boring everyday people is rooted in that

[@isolate6509]

Thanks for saying that, I draw realistically, and what u said made me feel better :)

[@Arlae_Nova]

I just want to say that when you say: "we don't go to art to just see the worst parts of the world reflected back to us", I'd say that that is a very subjective statement. I love looking at the world in all it's aspects, good or bad. The bad things can sometimes be what actually make the good parts better, and the good parts can make the bad parts worth it. I'd say the same about your whole grittiness argument. I don't want just positive art, I want all kinds of art: beautiful art, ugly art, thoughtful art, effortless art. I want to see the bad sometimes. I want to see the evil, the wretched, the foul..

[@TerranPersoid725]

Sounds like you’re channeling Bennet Foddy there almost 😅

[@tmbocelot]

The quality writing of your videos are so above and beyond 99% of the videos on this site

[@bntagkas]

tarantino dialogue sounds like a highly opinionated internal monologue that happens in your head, in real life so if feels real because of that i think

[@nateyerruedinger-quispe2362]

As a military service member, you really put into words what bothers me so much about "gritty," "realistic" portrayals of war and the military. Ironically, at least some of these horrific portrayals of war were meant to make a statement about the brutality and futility of it, but often seem to accomplish the opposite, by glamorizing war and violence and lionizing those who participate in it, not to mention the way they desensitize us to the horror of war. They also, ironically, contribute to a false perception of what war and military service is like. By and large, military life bears far more closely resembles Gomer Pyle, USMC or McHale's Navy than it does to Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, though the former are too lighthearted and do not adequately acknowledge the sheer tragedy of war. In my opinion, the best and in many ways most accurate depiction of the military ever brought to the screen was M*A*S*H. No other media portrayal I have ever seen has more successfully captured the experience of military service, striking an excellent balance by depicting the atrocity of war without glorifying it or desensitizing us to it, and showing the true heroism of the Soldier, which is not in the ability to kill, to cause pain and suffering to others, but rather in the ability to endure, and the perhaps even rarer ability, through it all, to preserve their humanity in the face of gross inhumanity.

[@HopDances]

Me crying with my slice of life manga after Zoe says no one wants to read stories about ordinary people.

[@Skallva]

For real. Superheroes fighting supervillains of the week is boring, give me a bunch of normal people slowly going through their normal lives instead.

[@dustinm2717]

Honestly, i find the more peaceful kinds of shows where not a lot really happens and it just goes through the more mundane or less energetic aspects of life to be more enjoyable than high action or drama shows shows that have a melancholic and/or peaceful mood and feature the more mundane are just great and often under appreciated honestly

[@Zestrayswede]

Slice of Life is like the definition of "ordinary people doing ordinary things viewed through an extraordinary lens"

[@Drstrange3000]

Yeah, I don't fully agree with that statement. Maybe 5 years ago I would agree, but I am gravitating more towards the mundane and regular life of ordinary people. I kind of roll my eyes at yet another prodigy or more "success stories" where everything conveniently happens and ending with a cliche lesson. One reason I enjoy games like Yakuza Like a Dragon. It follows average people with slice of life moments while also having the action and drama of a blockbuster. Made me connect more with the story, world, and characters.

[@Nai-qk4vp]

@@Skallva Any good Josei you know? Josei has a disproportionatelly low readership compared to Shonen, Seinen and Shojo.

[@captaintomato5433]

I think my complaint for you is, in this video, that there is an inherent antagonism towards the gritty and dark. Whilst I think that the modern trend of dismissing some very genuinely good and more innocent work is a toxic one, I think it would be just as toxic to try to dismiss works with violence, darkness, and grittiness as worth less somehow. I'm not sure if this was intended on your part, but that was the vibe I got. Spoilers for Parasite, the Korean movie. In Parasite, the story revolves around a family of poor people in the South Korean system who attempts to, and at the end of the story fails, to ascend the steps of the social pyramid. The story also stars a rather shocking scene of violence including two towards a woman. The violence is visceral, the impact is shocking, and it remains one of my favorite films ever. The situation itself may be fantastical, but it speaks to the social inequality inside of Korean society. It is also a reminder that humanity hasn't moved past violence, barbarism, darkness, and all of the other horrible things we do to each other. Violence mostly affecting men is a 'safe' (and mostly fantastical) state that Western, mostly white, people occupying the higher end of the social pyramid. For victims of poverty, of gang conflicts and the violence of the police, the violence spares no one. Whilst most victims of violent crimes like murder or assault continue to be men, a saddening large number of women are also victimized. That is not even to speak of those who suffer indirectly, like the victim's mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends. The situation is even worse for wars. For victims of war by the likes of the US, for those who were bombed in the 20th century in Vietnam, the civilians stepping on landmines in Laos, the countless families who are murdered by drone strikes, they are well aware that the violence of an apathetic military giant doesn't spare woman or children. Whilst these things continued to persist, I think that it is important for art to cover these subjects and to remind those in wealthy nations, especially in the Anglophonic west, that this is still a part of the world in the modern era. We should not shy away for showing these things in our art. Silliness, fun, and lightheartedness shouldn't be demeaned, but neither should grittiness and violence. I think that the world is large enough for both kinds of stories.

[@fish_birb]

I think a better criticism against the "dark and gritty" is the fact that some people (mostly adults) prefer to have their stories to be "dark and gritty" in order to be "realistic". It's very much a tool more than a standard, and when used correctly, it can emphasize what an artist intends the message would be, with one perfect example you correctly pointed out being Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite. I think it's kinda similar towards my view on video game gore - I always scoff at gamers who _loves_ gore no matter how it is implemented, while I myself prefer to have gore in games to be intrinsic towards the game's narrative, i.e. to show the pointlessness and violence of wars and so on. I believe Jacob Geller's "Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda" perfectly encapsulates the criticism against the "dark and gritty" notion of an adult's understanding of media. As we grow up, we develop the tendency to see anything "dark and gritty" to be the maturing of our minds, while we constantly forget about the positive, lighthearted things that we need to embrace and strive for. As he eventually said in the video, "Being 'messed up' is not a theme. Darkness is not a narrative. Violence on its own is not mature." So the "dark and gritty" MUST serve the narrative, instead of the opposite.

[@kassemir]

The point about "the fear of sincerity" is spot on and a trend I've noticed creeping in more and more recently. And, something I've had a hard time putting in to words myself. I've seen it a lot in comedies where the writers will undercut a dramatic moment, almost like they're afraid of letting the viewer sit with genuine emotion for too long. I watched some of the show Superstore after I got my Covid shot, and needed something simple to watch while getting past the first few days of mild symptoms. I remember there was a scene where an undocumented worker had to decide to break up with his partner because trusting him with this secret was too risky for him. It was a pretty good scene, and then boom, another character came out of left field and punched him in the face. Like they were afraid to have an actual genuine moment. And, I hated it, so much. Couldn't help but compare it to the scene from the UK Office where David Brent gets fired. And they actually allow the moment some silence, to breath.

[@PatersonTheAlien]

This makes me think of the time I went to Utah on a hiking trip, and being from the northwest coast, had never in my life seen deserts and those beautiful red rocks. when I took pictures of some of the amazing views I ended up adding a filter to the photos. the filter brightened up the reds and oranges and brought more contrast with the blue sky because it was more "accurate" to what my eyes were seeing, even though if I held the photo up to the view side by side it was more vivid than "actual" reality.

[@LimeyLassen]

This is an important point, the human eye is still the best camera. That's not just memory bias, I mean that your eyes can see more gradients of color and light and dark than any expensive camera can. You have to use editing software to bring photos close to what you actually saw.

[@TheRapturerocks]

This kind of echoes what I've often thought about so-called literary fiction versus genre fiction. While I think genre fiction is definitely getting a lot of analysis from academics these days, the literary novel is a product of a time and place. It is its own form of storytelling with its own conventions. It shouldn't be used as a cudgel against genre fiction. We have been telling absurd and bizarre stories for as long as we can trace storytelling. It demonstrates a lack of imagination when some critics believe that fantasy/sci-fi/etc. have less to tell us about the human experience because they don't resemble our lives as literally. Lots of academics have pointed out that superhero stories are close to modern myths, and yet many will not engage with them critically simply because they are superhero stories. I'm glad to see signs that this obsession that literature must accurately reflect our lives in order to be taken seriously is waning.

[@talideon]

It's in part because said critics lack imagination. It's kind of interesting though: "literary" fiction is a rather new phenomenon, while what's branded as "genre" fiction has been the default for most of human history and has been how we've communicated lessons about the human experience from one generation to the next.

[@UnfortunatelyTheHunger]

I can't help but wonder if at least a few of these critics dismiss superhero stories precisely *because* they're modern myths. After all, we're (supposedly) way past the age of gods, neck deep in an age where everyone is an übermensch; no need to make stories about extraordinary characters to set morality for you, when we're all already extraordinary individuals who set morality for ourselves

[@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502]

@@talideon I'd go so far as to say that any distinction between literary amd genre fiction (outside of simply describing how other people use the terms) is completely arbitrary and elitist.

[@drts6955]

Look there's nothing wrong with liking genre fiction. I definitely do. But there's a reason people go from genre fiction to literary fiction as they grow up and not in the other direction: it's more creative, challenging, vibrant and more deeply engages with its themes and characters. To suggest the distinction is relative or culturally determined is absurd

[@pallingtontheshrike6374]

@@drts6955 1984, brave new world, fahrenheit 451, and the number of other dystopian novels, they were all genre fiction at the time. Flat screen TVS [let alone the near VR 'parlor' the book describes] didn't fucking exist when F451 was written, they were using box TVs. 'Big Brother' was not only nonexistent but also far from feasible on multiple levels when 1984 was writtin in, what, the 50s? now, we see too late that we've basically traced half the footsteps from the big names, and that it's not at all unfeasible we will trace the other half. what exactly is the difference pray tell?

[@juleswoodbury58]

Fiction is good when it *feels* real. Even if a work of art is surreal, fantastic or abstract as a consumer you want the disruption of reality to feel real

[@tbotalpha8133]

...And this entire video is a dissection of precisely how vague and useless your exact sentiment is.

[@TheMillenotti]

I just want devs to stop with the overdone walking animations. If I stop pressing the button, stop. I don't want the animations to make my character take 2 more steps just to make it look better. I have some serious fear of ledges in games because I can't trust that the walking animation will correlate with what I'm pressing and that it won't walk me into the abyss.

[@mekannatarry1929]

You hit the nail on the head; when the push for "realism" comes at the cost of how the game feels to play, and even how thegane plays in general...dial it back.

[@AlRoderick]

This is an interesting problem in game animation particularly. Basic animation principles call for anticipation and follow through, but games need to respond immediately to unpredictable player input, not easy to do

[@TheNugettinage]

If you refer to how RDR 2 does walking animations, I highly disagree. The weight of character movement is a part of the core of why I enjoy the game. If you attempt to play it like you would any other third person game, like for instance Dark Souls or Gears of War or whatever, then it will feel awkward and unresponsive, but if you take it as it is and play with the system, it gives a sense of weight to your movement and navigation in the world that few games attain. That really goes for most of the very slow and deliberate systems in the game; Noah Caldwell-Gervais said it well in his video in that every action you take *is a choice*, which converts the impact of the action from a simple looting to something else. It's definitely not for everyone and it's definitely a very different experience it goes for than many other games, but I have to state that RDR 2 is one of if not the best game I've ever played (for reference, others that come to mind in my top 10 would be Beginner's Guide, Metal Gear Solid, Enter the Gungeon, Night in the Woods, Battlefield Bad Company 2).

[@userequaltoNull]

Well, I think that helps with immersion. Would *you* sprint full-tilt anywhere *near* a real-life cliff? I wouldn't. I move slowly and purposefully, and if the game makes me do that inside of it, I'm just all the more immersed.

[@sonario6489]

@@userequaltoNull Agreed. Irl, I don't just go running full sprint unless I'm sure there's an open strech. We need more realism like that.

[@GaiaGoddessOfTheEarth]

Amazing video! Watched the full premiere and commenting for engagement! edit: You mentioned how gunshots not bursting eardrums were an accepted break from realism and I think that when shows subvert what we commonly overlook it can create a really interesting effect. A show called Archer does exactly that where gunshots have meaning and the characters (and often times the viewer) will be temporarily deaf from a gunshot in an enclosed space or next to someone's head. It's an interesting detail that is almost akin to a 4th wall break with how it makes you think about media because somehow being more realistic makes you realise it's a TV show purely because it's a commonly accepted thing to ignore.

[@zoe_bee]

Thank you!

[@dominiccasts]

On the video game side, Half-Life 2 did the same thing with explosive barrels almost 20 years ago (with the tinnitus whine and everything), and IIRC I've only seen anything even remotely similar in some Naughty Dog stuff, at least when it comes to the more mainstream games.

[@idk-bv3iw]

Mawp!

[@dawnmoore9122]

That's why a lot of people say like "realistic representation" and "realistic sibling relationships". "Realism" can mean just about anything but sometimes you want people to acknowledge that the world is less white than creators make it out to be and sometimes you want siblings that get on each other's nerves on purpose. I could take or leave fall damage in games.

[@firegirl1452]

I think believability is way more important than realism. If I'm immersed, and the movie/show I'm watching has done a good job in setting up the world, then it doesn't matter how 'realistic' it is, I'll still have a good time

[@TheManWithTheFlan]

The whole bit about how people mean different things when they say "realism" is part of why I wish more people knew the word "verisimilitude"

[@emmettobrian1874]

That's kind of a circular definition though. Verisimilitude means "it feels real." We end up in the same place.

[@TheManWithTheFlan]

@@emmettobrian1874 IMO it's important to clearly distinguish between "feels real" and "resembles reality" and that's a distinction that a lot of people fail to make.

[@emmettobrian1874]

@@TheManWithTheFlan except when you're looking for the quality that makes the experience feel real. Again, it becomes subjective and not well defined. In my experience the quality is that of a discrete thought, easily held in the mind. Another way of saying it is a "concrete" thought, something that anchors ideas.

[@vxicepickxv]

I would prefer to see it as a simulacrum of reality, rather than being real.

[@emmettobrian1874]

@@vxicepickxv but how does one create that simulacrum? What is it that makes someone say "yes that's realistic"

[@jacksonfurlong3757]

When people say they want realism, what they usually mean is they just want immersion.

[@zebedeesummers4413]

Or at least believability to the degree that they aren't brought out of the media they intend to consume.

[@periodicgaming5159]

That affordable housing joke made me burst out in laughter. Wonderful writing!

[@ThatDangDad]

Zoe, this video rules. It's super fun and interesting and has a great How Then Shall We Live to put a bow on it. Also, neither here nor there, but your discussion of the CSI Effect reminded me of several times in law enforcement, I would respond to something like a vandalism and the person would point out the brick that went through the window and tell me "I didn't touch it in case you wanted to get DNA off of it." And I would always thank them and "take the rock for processing" (throw it into the lake at the park later that night).

[@crazydragy4233]

Reminds me of when we got robbed during the night as we slept and my mother said to not touch anything as to not mess up the evidence. Had to tell her the dissapoiting reality xd

[@superplaylists1616]

People have said that, the Lotr universe is based on european folklore, and that's why everyone is white. It's like reading a story about chinese or japanese characters. You don't expect to see anyone that's black or even white, unless that matter is the heart of the story in the first place. Therefore people have raised that, such an inclusion, without properly addressing, in-universe, how out of place it is, was made for profit or pandering. Because story-wise, the dwarves are supposed to be a white race. As a parallel, think of Attack On Titan. All the characters are white, because they're supposed to lean towards european and asian descents. However, when a black character is inserted into the story, the characters in the world are confused and curious. It is treated as a novelty because it is, and in turn is much more natural and acceptable. That's why I agree with this point. That doesn't mean there should never be a black character in lotr... I think. It just means that it has to be handled properly.

[@ElperDIDO26]

I love how this vid's conclusion lines up extremely well with a phenomenon that we observe in biology, supernormal stimuli. This phenomenon occurs when an individual is exposed to an stimulus that is already something they instinctively react to but amped up to 11. An example would be when a parasitic bird that leaves its children to the care of other species, the baby bird that is hatched cries in almost the same way as the real bird, but louder and faster, this makes the foster parent want to feed the parasite more than its own children! We humans prefer things that go over what is normal...something supernormal :D Great vid as always, i would love to see the other video ideas you shared!

[@namangoy]

Yesssss I did a lot of game design and game dev as well as CS at uni and it was so annoying how many stereotypical tech bros thought graphical realism was the end-all-be-all for art. It was really really interesting to see the demographic divides on it, and my current hypothesis is that the more power you have irl due to the social groups you're a part of, the more likely you are to like "realism", as more marginalized communities are more likely to specifically want to escape from our current reality

[@zoe_bee]

Exactly! I think this is why Bridgerton is so popular. Not really "realistic" to the era, but it's great escapism. It's really nice.

[@StillGamingTM]

Hum interesting hypothesis

[@emmettobrian1874]

To push back on that hypothesis, I have almost no power in my social groups and I still prefer realism. I suggest having the groups you're in test themselves on the Gregorc thinking styles and see where they fall. I think you'll find a strong correlation.

[@pallingtontheshrike6374]

where are all of these cringe techbros from? the techies i know don't mind stylistic or even super-low-res pixel stuff if that was the direction the game or video wanted to take

[@userequaltoNull]

Yeah, the average CS/game design has basically zero power in their daily lives. Most of them are socially awkward, undesireable, and borderline Autistic (I should know, I was friends with them).

[@thefisherking2268]

As a creative fiction writer, I care less about seeing a show or book try to be as realistic as possible, because that’s the choice of the author, but when people try to force realism onto my works when I don’t want them too. Obviously criticism is important for any creative work, but forcing unwanted realism onto someone and their work under the guise of ‘criticism’ gets REALLY exhausting after awhile

[@David050298]

I love Read Dead Redemption 2. Particularly because of how unwavering it is in its pursuit of realism. Even if, to some, it creates obscene levels of friction between the player and the game. I adore that friction though. It scratches an itch. Admittedly I’m a niche player, I once played the game for a few hours as a hiking simulator. Excited for this video though, as I do think realism is overdone, and do tend to prefer non realism.

[@willk4802]

rdr2 is an interesting example because they did ‘realism’ in the sense that your character actually has to harvest/process materials, maintain equipment etc. i wish they pushed it a little further, though, like how building a campfire happens automatically & you can build a fire in any weather etc. i think it would be a little more consistent with that feeling if the same energy were applied to more of the mechanics

[@welfarecrusader6855]

Kingdom Come: Deliverance makes for a nice hiking sim too.

[@John-996]

RDR2 and Kingdom Come are fantastic for that reason along with many other reasons. RDR2 has good mix of feeling cinematic While also feeling Like A wild West Sim.

[@John-996]

@@willk4802 Yeah There is a good mod for that. There should be a hardcore mode like What Kingdom come had. Issue is people always bitch about realism but RDR2 and Kingdom Come really stand out along other open world games.

[@EvanC881]

I think "emotionally accurate" is a really useful concept to come out of this video. I agree that I would like more sincerity in art. CJ the X has a great video on Rick and Morty that touches on this.

[@debbiehf05]

I like your video, but I have to say I do disagree with your point about Battlefield 5. I wasn't upset that there was a woman in the game, but I was upset that she just felt like a lazy addition. Women never officially served in the British Army frontlines during WW2 and no soldier would be allowed to serve if they needed a prosthetic. There are *thousands* of interesting, rich and powerful stories of women during the war but yet they chose to ignore the real brave women's stories and just make one up. I would have LOVED to see a campaign mission where we play as a Po-2 pilot on the Eastern front, showing a story of how the women were given the worst planes, sent out on the worst missions and yet ended up being so feared by the Germans they were named "The Night Witches". That is real history and that could have easily been the best and most loved campaign.

[@kilumbata]

I'm getting the feeling that "realistic" mostly means "fits within my worldview", which feels nice because it means our believes can go unchallenged for another few hours of entertainment. Does that mean that people criticizing art for being unrealistic just don't ever want to be challenged? No, for some it's that but it might also be a question of expectations. If you want a relaxing experience where you can just focus on the entertainment without having to think it can be jarring/disappointing/draining when the artwork forces you to put in the work of questioning your believes.

[@bloop6111]

I think this hits the nail on the head. People want to see their views reflected back to them. And when expectations are subverted, we want it to still reflect our world views, but in ways that aren’t often shown on screen. Subverted expectations aren’t jarring, but conflicting ideologies that the film seems to be condoning, that tends to remove the viewer’s immersion, because now they can’t “trust” the narrative, and they will be skeptical of everything going forward.

[@gabe_s_videos]

Already looking forward to this. I, too, have never liked when entertainment tried to be hyper-real or hyper literal. It's like the uncanny valley: the more "realistic" you try to make it, the more obvious that it is that it's artificial.

[@M_M_ODonnell]

In a way that's almost similar but backwards, you have entertainment conflating "realism" with hyperrealism (in the academic sense, at least), where it's fake but such a familiar form of fake that the departure from literal realism is perceived as more "real" than actual realism would (or "realism" when it comes to imaginary things where there's no "real" in the first place). I'm generally happier with something like what I've seen called "naturalism" in some contexts, where it's about making it "feel right." Like the balrog's roar, or dialogue written to feel like "realistic" dialogue rather than transcribing how people actually talk.

[@TheGallicWitch]

I was so incredibly excited at the intro because I'm a professional sound designer, and I worked as a foley artist too (sorry if it's spelled wrong, English isn't my native language and that's not how we call it in my country). The way it was introduced to me when I was in school (I graduated from a cinema school, majoring in sound engineering and sound design) was "has anyone in the room not seen Star Wars?" so I raised my hand, cause I hadn't, and a couple others did the same. Then the teacher said "do you know what a lightsaber sounds like?". We said we had a vague idea but never actually listened to one. "Then how would you go about creating the sound of lightsaber, knowing you've never heard one before? That's the job of a sound designer." And legend goes that the sound engineer who worked on Star Wars and invented the light saber noise is also the man who coined the term sound designer. Anyway sorry for the ramble but I love this job, it's literlly my dream, so I was almost giddy to hear you talk about it

[@Ronxer12]

Aside from the content (which is amazing and well thought out), I have to say that the structure of this was wonderful. Immediately with an ACTUAL introduction where I have expectations of what is going to happen, a *realistic* essay! Then you mentioned you went to graduate school and it made full sense. Research is more fun than people think, like diving into a really weird rabbit hole. Such a 10/10 video.

[@jacobd1984]

This one sounds interesting, excited to hear it. I read/watch mostly speculative fiction, so by “realism” I generally mean, I want the characters to behave in ways that are believable for THEIR world; and by “realistic” dialogue, I mean how people speak….once you’ve streamlined out the pauses, uncertainty, meandering, repetition, etc, to make it more entertaining. So not so much how people actually speak as how they could speak. There are exceptions when realistic dialogue is actually better for entertaining, but that’s more niche.

[@Kuronosa]

Oh god...In high school, I took a class on forensic science, and whenever the teacher wasn't feeling good, we would watch CSI episodes and tear them apart with everything they did WRONG.

[@zebedeesummers4413]

I love that

[@Deadflower019]

Movies and video games that earn my respect are ones with subtle "realistic" details. Like if your character firing a gun is wearing ear and eye protection. I don't care how minute the detail is, that stuff makes me giddy.

[@towards_the_flame]

I feel as if the most terrifying creatures are either ones that look like a normal animal and sound horrifying, or look horrifying and sound like a normal animal.

[@DJKokaKola]

See: annihilation

[@skellymom]

@@xzonia1 The sounds from that bear was fucking creepy.

[@vxicepickxv]

Or they take the normal sound of an animal and play it backwards. See the Eva units from Neon Genesis Evangelion, with their backwards camel screams.

[@bloop6111]

@@DJKokaKola exactly what I thought of when I read this comment

[@Drstrange3000]

Trico from The Last Guardian both terrified me and charmed me. They did a great job with its design and characteristics.

[@colfraserholser]

"grittiness didn't take off til the 2000's" the 70s: am I a joke to you?

[@CapAnson12345]

A story or setting needs to be internally consistent, but not necessarily accurate to our perception of reality.

[@TheReaderOnTheWall]

This really made me think of Miyasaki's films. Though Studio Ghibli's movies are full of fantastical elements, they feel really realistic, mostly because they convey a ton of life, they feel full, purposeful. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6vMaJ1_j9CGbJo

[@marocat4749]

Becau it deals with a lot social commentary.

[@sweatyeti]

I agree! I appreciate all the tiny details the films include which have no narrative purpose but help to breathe life into the scene; small, quirky moments that remind us there's life, activity, and nature at work in the environment surrounding the character(s). Also, it's *Miya-Z-aki, btw

[@Envy_May]

i think a big part of it is they put just as much care and detail into the mundane, real things as they do into the fantastical - i feel much more immersed in a world full of unnatural creatures and sorcery if i also experience what it's like to sleep and eat and everything

[@Envy_May]

oh oh oh and to add onto that, they don't represent everything exactly as it is in real life, their principle seems to be to represent things the way they _feel_ rather than the way they necessarily are

[@zenithquasar9623]

I think the emotions they evoke are real and personal, we perceive them as being "realistic". Maybe realism is just relatable.

[@davidkonevky7372]

I'm not even a lotr fan, but I distinctly remember when the controversy of the black female dwarf came and I did not hear a single complain about the beard, it was all about the dwarf being black. They excused themselves with "lore innacuracy" yet now I learn that they didn't even talk about an even more important detail that would have probably been a more positive criticism instead of showing their internalized racism 😂

[@DigitalVanquish]

There were some complaints about the beard - I voiced some - but widely, you're right. More took issue with her skin and hairstyle. Within the lore, Dwarves' skin tone isn't actually described. Which I take to mean that neither Bilbo or Frodo thought it of note - implying that they look like Hobbits, as the books come from their accounts.

[@juicedgoose]

As a non lotr fan you wouldn't have seen the majority of the complaints about that show. Really the ones going on about race or gender weren't the majority, but they are the ones who get noticed and talked about. Most people were just sad about the stunningly bad writing and lack of love for the books.

[@kevinmcnamara8001]

I don't know if I would have used that example from Age of Ultron. In that clip, Clint is trying to calm down and focus Wanda on their current situation, so a wise crack, to kind of break through the scary and life threatening situation that they are both in does fit in a way, and doesn't disrupt the narrative. I think a better example is in one of the first scenes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where Kylo Ren is first introduced and is actually really menacing, but Poe kind of breaks the immersion with a joke about who gets to talk first.

[@adjoint_functor]

“Gritiness” imo was only mentioned because 2010s Oscar-nominated movies were praised as “realistic” the more gritty they were (and the lower the camera crew made the saturation). This led to subtle disasters like Les Mis, and monstrous disasters like Cats. Can you tell I watch Sideways and Lindsay Ellis.

[@haileygiabiconi8830]

@Sophie no 😭😭😭

[@philpaine3068]

In the 1951 science fiction film The Thing from Another World, director Christian Nyby and producer Howard Hawks made a very effective use of realism. The basic plot concept (an alien monster) and exotic setting (near the north pole) were rendered much more powerful by contrasting it with the natural-sounding dialogue, including overlapping conversations, vernacular phrases, interruptions and incomplete phrases. It was actually very difficult to get the actors do this convincingly, but they pulled it off, and the results were brilliant.

[@TimothyRE99]

Looking at the issues and limitations of typicality and plausibility, I personally tend to look for more of a "if I was such-and-such character, would the things that they did or that happened make sense." I know that I'm not a superhero, and that superheroes aren't going to act like me or do things that are plausible to real life, but so long as they don't do things that are implausible to the conceits of "the superhero" or their own background? We're good. With the soap opera example, I don't personally like soap operas, but they work within the conceits of a soap opera if they show rich people acting like said rich people are actually established to act.

[@theMoporter]

Without getting into the definitions others gave, my definition was that realism was when a work or aspect of a work closely resembles reality, which is quite vague, but as you later point out, it's a vaguely defined word. I really disagree with the argument that realistic characters are uncommon because most people aren't warriors or chosen ones or...orphans. That's kind of inherently flawed if you think about it for a second. Literally hundreds of millions of people are orphaned as children. This is a common problem in media analysis, I've noticed - the idea that because the reader is not familiar with character traits, that them existing unrealistic. Sometimes that's for a pretty obviously bigoted reason (e.g. "why aren't there any white characters in this school setting?" or "it's so unrealistic that all the main characters are friends and they're all LGBTQ+") - clearly not what I'm talking about - and sometimes it's because a group is SO marginalised that their stories are only ever told by non-marginalised people who place them in fantastical scenarios. The abuse that Harry Potter experiences in first book of his series is not that far off from reality to the point of being pretty relatable, but the fact that he bears essentially no trauma over the first decade of his life - like, you'd think he'd be triggered by load footsteps on stairways or have any abandonment issues? - betrays that Queen TERF was writing these traits with very little insight to what an orphaned, abused child experiences. A pattern she repeated with essentially every character. I also disagree that we only like stories with unrealistically succinct character arcs and challenges. I really don't think the Bell Jar would still be remembered if the basically average story of a depressed woman having a bit of a breakdown and getting a bit better bored people, and it's so close to reality that it's sometimes called a roman á clef. Plath's prose and emotional insight is the selling point, not any unrealistic aspect of the book. For a very different example, Welcome To The NHK! is a novel/manga/anime with a less realistic set-up (a girl in the park offers to save the main character from his mental illness). Then, completely ignores a traditional act structure, going for several mini-arcs with self-contained arcs but no real conclusion, and it becomes clear that the story only has this premise because characters are narrativising their regular, realistic struggles. Sometimes people get a new lease on life, sometimes they drift off, and while there is a climax at the end, it still ends ambiguously with the main characters starting their emotional recovery. That story was so successful that it was adapted multiple times and the author sadly admitted the money would probably mean he'd never have to face his own agoraphobia. So yeah I really think those aren't great rebuttals lol

[@darby2314]

A great example of unrealism creating a real feeling. In the ghost hunting video game Phasmaphobia. When you enter the building where the ghost resides. The external ambient noises drop away and become muted, and you are met by an oppressive silence. Only it isn't silence. There is a bombardment of infrasound static. A deep rumbling static that puts you on edge. The sound makes you feel like you are about to be attacked. The whole time you wander in the building you are set and ready for a jump scare. This also enclhances the scare reaction by creating a sense of relief when it happens. Finally the attack has arrived.

[@MouseTC]

I'm definitely interested in further breakdowns on the American Monomyth and Squeecore!

[@2ArtistsEXPlain]

I really appreciate this video! As an art teacher, I'm always trying to move students away from seeing realism as the ultimate goal in art making. Realism is a choice that artists can make (and yes, drawing from observation is a fundamental skill), but to strive for realism for it's own sake is kind of... dull? Uninspired? Certainly uncreative!

[@Garrettmoron]

Dan Houser disagrees throughly.

[@hypershadix1]

Putting realism in videogames is like putting raisins in a “chocolate chip” cookie. You can only tell it’s there once you sink your teeth in it