Trope Talk: Those Dang Phones

Hey, have you noticed how many newer stories are giving the protagonists tools for always-on easy-access instant communication? Have you rewatched an older bit of sci-fi and questioned why the characters haven't been using the comms tech they DO have to stay in touch? Are you a writer who's noticed YOU'VE been giving your characters cell-phone equivalents without even thinking about it? Well, I hope you're prepared for a half-hour-long descent into madness as I unpack the history of telecommunication, both fictional and real, and try to convince you that I haven't spent the last two months losing my mind!
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[@OverlySarcasticProductions]

hey lovelies ❤ instead of telling me your headcanons for why that one interesting case of authorial-blindness-induced plothole I'm having so much fun analyzing actually makes perfect sense as long as you pretend something that didn't happen onscreen and was never discussed actually did happen, please refer to 15:51 and also internalize the distinction between watsonian and doylist explanations for things (A QUICK EDIT: hey guys so I consumed the sacred spice of Arrakis and it showed me a mystic vision that said that "butlerian jihad" thing you keep talking about was actually only written out in any detail in the 2000s by frank herbert's son decades after he died and also decades after the cell phone was invented, making it the exact opposite of a refutation of my point about dune not inventing phones. sorry to disappoint but I'm a space chosen one now or something and my mystic visions are always correct. thanks for making me google dune sequels though, that worm centaur guy was pretty cool) ok love you bye 😘 -R

[@fucin]

love you too red 😳

[@falconJB]

Frank Herbert did think of it, it was critical to the society before the Butlerian Jihad, we know this because he wrote it down for us to read. This isn't just 'us' coming up with retroactive justifications. The in-universe reason for why the Great Houses rose to power is they exploited the chaos from the destruction of the communications networks during the Butlerian Jihad. Prior to the Great Revolt the galaxy was dependent on near instantaneous communication from anywhere to anywhere, the destruction of that ability is what leads to the feudalistic society we see in Dune.

[@MAMAJUGO]

In Frank Herbert's defense, sending a text while on drugs is hard

[@BLACKIR0NTARKUS]

Is this the hand of the author? I take bite :)

[@magnumsmth]

Replying to this comment for visibility read because internet if you want to know more about how phones and the Internet changed normalcy

[@peterhammes8321]

The reason Leia couldn't just email the death star plans to Obi-Wan is that the Jedi code forbids attachments.

[@kjj26k]

_omfg_

[@wolvenarmor9452]

HOW does this only have 35 likes this is gold

[@SaucerheadTharp]

I see what you did there.gif

[@theycallmejodamo]

I hate you so much right now 🤣🤣🤣

[@everythingiscool6228]

My parents are looking at me funny now because I burst out laughing reading this.

[@OsmSkylandersCheats]

I'm reminded of the quote "A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."

[@KatriceMetaluna]

By this reckoning no sci-fi that speculated on the emergence of artificial intelligence was all that good.

[@GreasyOaf]

​@@KatriceMetalunaIRobot would like a word with you

[@Vassilinia]

You guys should be UMM AKSHUALLY-ing the OP, not Katrice. They are just saying the quote from the person OP is quoting is flawed.

[@zenphir9051]

@@Vassilinia But why though? OP isn’t the person they’re disagreeing with.

[@seriousmaran9414]

Do you think there was no traffic jams involving horse drawn wagons? Not only predictable but inevitable. Just most people never considered the issue.

[@Agent719]

I'm reminded of a scene I wrote in a modern fantasy sort of setting where a guy is sneaking around and his phone rings, so he rushes to shut it up before it gives him away, and then a minute later he gets a magic message directly into his brain from his Sister asking, "Why aren't you answering your phone?"

[@clawcakes2]

THIS IS SO FUNNY I LOVE IT

[@voltronimusprime3833]

Is this story available to read somewhere? Because it sounds hilarious.

[@soulgalaxywolf1024]

Then the brother replies: "why didn't you do this first? I'm trying not to get noticed here!" 😂🤣

[@samakiraroyjanssen6326]

“I’m trying to not get captured here!” “Oh, sorry. I’ll call you back later, k?” “Just use magical head voice!”

[@thefrozenwarrior2159]

I need to read this.

[@elisibethjames7488]

In my D&D group, we had a warlock who was psychically linked to his patron. He abused this mercilessly to ask for advice so often that eventually I made hold music for the DM to play when the warlock was out of contact with his patron

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

You could justify it with the Patron being exasperated with the mortal.

[@MrBe-stFakesVids]

me (wizard) watching cleric's pray for stuff when if I have a question, I just cast contact other plane to facetime god.

[@tekbox7909]

Why do you think the patron makes hold music? If he really couldn't be reached there would be no music

[@tastyhaze2058]

​@@tekbox7909Because DnD is a made-up game about wizards and dragons that is oftentimes quite silly? And having hold music would be really funny?

[@yraco1232]

​@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb Yeah this is a pretty common one in games I've been a part of. In theory a warlock, cleric, paladin, druid, and potentially other classes can be connected to a god or patron or other higher power but that doesn't always mean said higher being is going to listen every time. They may be sick of their mortal calling them every five seconds and start only occasionally responding, and/or simply don't care enough much about mortal problems to actually respond or give aid/advice frequently.

[@bdletoast09]

One of my all time favorite moment in Critical Role's history is that time when Jester realized she could use the Sending Spell to annoy random people she met or heard off. The look of absolute horror on Matt's face as he realized what this spell can do in the wrong hands... ...and then, 50 episodes or so later, he weaponized it as his big bad was harassing Caleb with sending.

[@frantisekvrana3902]

In my D&D campaign, I specifically gave the royal family earrings that stop mental effects (and give resistance to Psychic damage), from spells of lower level than five from non-trusted sources. This includes sending spell. The king needs to be protected both from compulsions and from telepathic harassment. You see, a king is famous enough to for anybody in the kingdom to be _familiar_ with him, and really doesn't want every lv5+ spellcaster with Sending being able to backseat-rule.

[@justinalicea1590]

​@@frantisekvrana3902 So you have the royal post office to shift through the physical mail of the king, and then the king just has "block all" on for mental mail.

[@reubenoakley5887]

"Hi, I'm looking for a Mister Jass, first name Hugh"

[@Gilleban]

"Are you pooping?" or any other time Jester decided that, to be worth a Sending, she had to use ALL 25 words.

[@halocrafter300]

“This is possibly my father you guys, I have to sound cool.” … “Hi Dad!”

[@middlemuse]

I work with middle schoolers, and I had to explain what a phone book was to one of them. When I told her it was a book filled with everyone’s phone number, her eyes got big and she went, “That’s creepy.” This feels like a real world example of your argument here.

[@jackalope2302]

😂

[@lemmetalkaboutthis]

I was explaining a programm to a newby and told him to "just click the floppy-disk icon to quick-save", and he just looked me dead in the eye and went "what the hell is a floppy-disk?" And it struck me - most younger folk only know the save-progress-icon as this weird square or rectangle with some plates and lines on it that is just kinda used everywhere, and have no idea that it's actually an image of a floppy-disk in a sort of homage

[@k-techpl7222]

​@@lemmetalkaboutthis I find the fact people don't know what a floppy disk even though I was born in the XXI century. Have they not had a stash of old items? Have they not watched media older than they are? Is that just, not normal?

[@GuiSmith]

@@k-techpl7222 I dunno. I was born in 1999 and had classmates who didn’t know what floppy disks were besides having been told “don’t touch that” as kids. They were mostly storing stuff like old office programs and photos for the really old computers their parents had. Meanwhile, I did know what they were because my dad had an old CAD program he ran a few times in front of me off some. However, I’ve also always seen save icons as “looks like a hard drive”, and floppy discs are frankly just a thinner, portable, delicate hard drive.

[@lemmetalkaboutthis]

@@k-techpl7222 I mean, I was born 97, and never used them, but I was told what they were at least. Also still used video tape for a while there and other bit outdated stuff since we couldn't afford a bunch of new stuff

[@Epicmonk117]

I find it so funny how this Trope Talk started as “how the march of real-world communications technology influences communication in fiction” and ended with “Red gives us the play-by-play of how a simple innocuous addition to her own long-running story gave her an existential crisis.”

[@blue-raptor4017]

Oh to be a writer that has a existential crisis over the smallest thing… totally never happens, not at all -

[@chocobear4078]

@@blue-raptor4017 are you okay?

[@blue-raptor4017]

@@chocobear4078 oh yeah I’m fine, just a joke

[@liimlsan3]

To be fair, as someone who also read a lot of Elfquest, we are not the first to have tech and lore break our plots. (Terrifyingly, one of the initials in my username is an Elfquest Spirit Name I used for myself, and then forgot that's what it started as.)

[@GippyHappy]

I think it’s hilarious in sci-fi, even modern sci-fi, there’s this insistence on face to face communication no matter how impractical (holograms, picture phones) rather than simpler voice communication. And while I understand the reason is aesthetic for the sake of the visuals, it makes me laugh because IRL most people hate FaceTime and video calls unless there’s a specific reason like to see someone’s baby or better explain to your grandma how to set up her TV.

[@nagillim7915]

Yep. Like there's always that one person on the Teams meeting who insists everyone has to turn their cameras on because it's more social and 90% of the people in the meeting either groan or make an excuse why they can't come on camera at that moment... or both.

[@ravensblade]

Well it's the same reason as to why characters in fantasy don't wear helmets in battle.

[@TwentySeventhLetter]

It's an interesting parallel to the development of communication technology and culture to see the newfound value of privacy in an information-overloaded world

[@emcaco]

I get the need for faces to be seen in movies...but some movies set in modern times are so creative and fun with their talking-on-the-phone visual mosaics or montages. I'd love to see some of that brought into scifi

[@zenvariety9383]

It depends on on preferences. I prefer texting over talking on a phone and video chat and speaking to someone face to face. I mainly hate talking on phones due to people mistaking me for a woman even though I'm a biological man.

[@prop-a-gent]

This isn't a trope talk. This is a half-hour documentary about the evolution of communication tech and the way creators use of communication in their works evolved alongside it. I'm not mad. Nor disappointed. Frankly, I'm just impressed. This is amazing.

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

By the way, things like wireless telephones functional anywhere like they are today require satellites. Funny thing is, on most alien planets, this wouldn't be an option in science fiction.

[@keng4244]

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 Unless whatever spaceship those characters came in either retained those capabilities while in orbit, or dropped off something in orbit prior to making their way down to the planet. It's something work keeping in mind during our own real life space exploration going forward.

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

@@keng4244 This is a terrible video. Not only does she forget this concept of satellites being necessary for telecommunications, she also forgets that no rational, intelligent player of D&D would waste a slot, especially an upper level slot of spells for simply harassing a NPC. If they did, most GM's would send a few encounters their way, depleting their spellcasting immediately, and then ask them if they ever want to blow spell slots on useless harassment. I sure as heck would!

[@derektom14]

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 It sounds like you've never met Jester Lavorre/Laura Bailey. Players often have downtime in which they don't have to use their spells for combat, so using them for sending is better than doing nothing. Just because you would have the universe reorient itself to punish a player for creative use of a spell doesn't mean "most" DMs would, I wouldn't and nor would the ones I've played with.

[@alexanderglass2057]

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 man you are sad. You’re the guy who requires everyone to min max, for them not to lose their character, because there wasn’t enough conflict for you. You’re lacking the idea of social conflict, and emotional conflict. Work on using those instead of combat.

[@Greil9]

That "Why did Han need to go look for Luke instead of calling him" at least is an easy one. Luke was caught in a snowstorm and those tend to disrupt signals heavily.

[@rmsgrey]

Also, "he hasn't checked in" presumably includes not answering his pager...

[@krissybaglin9206]

It's also radio silence too. Plus. If the empire intercepted a long range transmission then it would have busted the whole fucking opperation when they realised 'fuck wait these plans suggest that the design has a key structural weakness they can easily exploit, we should triple security, place a couple frigates there, and not engage the rebels with out being prepared for this specific eventuality. The point wasn't JUST getting the plans, it was also keeping them away from the empire

[@wesleyjarboe9571]

His lightsaber was on the ground, out of his reach, when he woke up with his feet frozen to the ceiling. Presumably the rest of his equipment, including his communicator, was likewise scattered around the cave. He just wasn't able to find it before he left the cave. Jedi have a strong link with their lightsabers, which explains why he was able to find that, even though he wasn't a fullly trained Jedi yet. The fact that he wasn't fully trained explains why he wasn't able to find the rest of his equipment.

[@JohnSmith-bn5mi]

I also like to think the reason they didn't send a call directly to "Old Ben" was because the Empire could monitor communications through normal means, and Obi-Wan had been noncommunicable for years so he didn't ave a secure line.

[@Demogarose]

@@JohnSmith-bn5mi Retroactive explanation for what the writers never even considered, as Red points out in the video. The fact that it has to BE rationalized is part of what Red was addressing here. Just because we can make it make sense, doesn't mean it was written that way on purpose.

[@jh-ne4sy]

Thing that happened to my group in D&D when using an ally’s sending stone: Player: “Are you okay? Where are you at?” Lich holding the ally hostage: “Wrong number (23 words worth of laughter)”

[@spritemon98]

That's brilliant

[@d.n5287]

Lich: "Your Mother's."

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Oh we had plenty of fun and antics with those friggin' things... Re-skinned for a "flashing visual" and "Loudly Audible" message notification, so when the thief got a message in the midst of a stealth-check... um... it was bound NOT to go well for him... The team "assassin" (ranger) didn't appreciate them much either... NOTHING more distracting than brightly colored lights and "something like a series of short bursts from a fire-bell" at an inopportune moment... Artifacts and Magic Items found in ANCIENT ruins can be SOOOOoooo damnably much fun! ;o)

[@arcticbanana66]

My group had an incident where we were sneaking into a lakeside town held by an enemy force. We defeated a patrol, and then heard a noise from the squad leader's pocket. It was a sending stone and they were asking why he hadn't reported in yet. I replied "Sorry, there was a magic miscast, but it's fine, we're fine, everything's fine, here, now, thank you. How are you?" Naturally we then had to play out the whole exchange. I'd never been awarded double Inspiration before.

[@cyanrosespirit]

One of my parties had a PC and DMPC (we had a few that rotated through the party) with Sending Stones. Made sense as they were an Artificer and his great-great-granddaughter, a (homebrew) Gadgeteer Rogue. They were flavoured as hot pink Hello Kitty flip phones. (The artificer was an undead who had lived thousands of years ago when the world was high-tech; basically our world but with fantasy races. He often made references to missing videos games, or countries that no longer existed).

[@SakuraMoonflower]

"Dearest Martha, it has been TWO AGONIZING HOURS since I last parted from your DMs." When I tell your, I LAUGHED HARD. XD

[@Banana_Zach]

WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME

[@TheJH1015]

I love how Rick Riordan treated this trope in his Percy Jackson and the Olympians universe. The heroes can't use normal cellphones without EXTREME risk because the enemies can trace those to them very accurately. The gods and demigods DO have their own communication thing called 'Iris messages'... but it has quite a couple of prerequisites for it to work. You need: 1) golden Drachmas to pay for the connection through an offering; 2) water and light available in such a way that you can create a rainbow (because Iris is personified as a rainbow) to *create* the connection in the first place; 3) The goddess Iris being active and doing her job as normal and *not being captured or incapacitated.* This means that a lot of the time, the heroes will have an issue creating a connection based on points 1 and 2, and there's this constant tension that everyone hopes that Hermes-be-blessed Iris is fine and doing her job, to the point that when sending an Iris message *works,* it's basically a massive sigh of relief.

[@falquicao8331]

The loss of Iris messages for most of TOA was one of the most anxiety-inducing aspect of the Triumvirate in my opinion.

[@notlurking2128]

It also made me think of the delightful scene where the dyslexic ADHD demigods who want to read just have like, stacks of CD audiobooks and CD players everywhere

[@alongfortheride1016]

If I remember correctly, Iris also had to be in a good mood at the time- or not be pissed at whomever was making the connection.

[@brianroberts783]

Hey, you stole my comment! Edited: By that I mean my idea for a comment, not an actual comment I had made.

[@The_Darke_Lorde]

Percy's essentially summed it up as being more effective than a multimedia ad campaign and a firework display at revealing their location

[@LoganKearsley]

There was definitely a weird transitional period where TV writers hadn't figured out that everyone has cellphones yet, and kept writing contemporary idiot plots where people don't bother using those dang phones!

[@legomaniac213]

For a famous (and stupid) example: the plot of New Moon would have been resolved in 5 minutes if Edward had even tried to text Bella to see if she was still alive.

[@Anastas1786]

Yeah. Unless there's a sudden, major change that simply _cannot_ be overlooked by anyone with a pulse, it tends to take about 15 to 20 years for current trends and tech to make it to TV and movies.

[@rmsgrey]

@@Anastas1786 The obvious explanation for this is that people making decisions about content for TV and movies are in their 30s and 40s, while the people adopting current trends and tech are in their teens and 20s, so it takes that long for things to change from being newfangled nonsense the kids are doing to natural and normal things everyone has done practically forever.

[@mewmeister8650]

@@rmsgrey That really isn't true anymore. Most of the current workforce have grown up in a world with constant technological advancements and are fairly used to the changing times.

[@MereMeerkat]

I remember a lot of clumsy plot points trying to handwave the fact that they even exist. Oh, you did think of calling the cops, but there's no cell service...IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES? I would honestly have preferred the character to have straight up forgotten their phone.

[@boshwa20]

Red: "I'm not here" Literally everyone: *gasp*

[@starmaker75]

She was in the walls…SHE IN THE GODDAMN WALLS!!

[@odd-ysseusdoesstuff6347]

@@starmaker75 And they were roommates!

[@zainmudassir2964]

Red is everywhere and nowhere. An unsolvable paradox

[@furrystarcat]

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

[@Healermain15]

Ceci n'est pas une Rouge

[@abadidea5984]

Funny story about Sending Stones: I once ran Waterdeep Dragon Heist, a low-level D&D adventure module, for my friends and as a joke I decided that the city watchmen would each carry Sending Stones like they were cops with radios. It occurred to me that the more I played into this bit, the more the city watchmen actually became a competent police force that was REALLY difficult to deal with. Any given watchman could radio their dispatch officer, who would then put out an APB to every watchman in the district and suddenly a simple robbery would turn into a GTA-style massive chase scene. They could even deploy Griffin riders with their own Sending Stones like they were police choppers to keep track of quickly fleeing suspects no matter where they ran to.

[@SkyPerson]

That’s sounds like it would’ve been a lot of fun Hope your players weren’t frustrated by it

[@abadidea5984]

@@SkyPerson they loved it! Guardsmen becoming a credible threat meant they had to get more creative with their heists!

[@thomasgroves3611]

Reminds me of the "KNIGHTS" parody scene in Shrek 2: "We have a madman on a white brnco heading into the forest."

[@nkuckel]

Reminds me of the exchange from Firefly: Wash- "That sounds like something out of science fiction." Zoe- "We live in a spaceship dear." Wash- "So?"

[@claremiller9979]

Like the opposite of when I do something relatively simple that was impossible when I was a kid, like paying a bunch of bills or booking a doctor's appointment from my phone in bed "Because we live in the future, dear"

[@michaeldaniels642]

Context for anyone who sees this comment and doesn't recognize the quotes, the characters had just discovered another character on the ship was a psychic

[@ferhog7705]

I remember when Sarah Z was asking on twitter for examples of bad self aware writing to use in her video on nerd culture, someone used this quote as an example since a spaceship would of course be completely normal to the characters and the line only makes sense from the audience's perspective. I haven't seen Firefly myself so I don't know if it's better in context.

[@michaeldaniels642]

@@ferhog7705 the characters just discovered that another character was psychic. It is better in context.

[@coreblaster6809]

​@@ferhog7705 If someone said "that sounds like something out of science fiction" while they were using a computer or we were in an airplane, I would definitely point that out

[@leonardrodriguez1501]

We don't even realize how powerful communication is because it's so natural to us. The fact that cell phones have to be routinely written out of horror movies is a big one I think. The ability to call someone and say "help" has to be accounted for otherwise the tension rings hollow.

[@Rynamony]

On the other hand, I think we're missing on the potential of a character being in a horrible, scary situation, while able to freely communicate with their loved ones, and the loved ones being able to know exactly what's happened and still being unable to help. I once read a short story about this concept, where a girl ends in a parallel universe filled with monsters and such, but her phone still works to call home. The main character is actually the sister of the one who dissapeared, who is thus aware of everything her sister's going through but can't do anything other than provide moral support. The story ends when the phone's battery runs out and the girl's never heard of again.

[@leonardrodriguez1501]

@@Rynamony sounds creepy and amazing. Such a powerful tool creates so many good story telling opportunities. Just the idea of not having it can shake us to our core anyone. Like that story. Phone died, so what hope is there left.

[@Duiker36]

@@Rynamony Holy shit that would fuck me up. It's brilliant and I never want to hear this premise again.

[@dextro_whatever]

Yep were not in the world of “oh no the phone lines been cut” anymore. I’ve seen this explored in some recent stuff tho. Horror set in rural areas sometimes takes advantage of the fact that even in the US some places have bad/no cell service. Most recently there have been films in which the phone/internet/video call is the creepy thing. And I’ve heard it suggested that the next step in horror will be deepfakes and stolen-identity horror, which could do some super interesting stuff with the concept of interpersonal and parasocial relationships and how they’ve changed because of the internet and cell phones. So I think we’ve almost moved past cell phones being written out of horror movies, but it needs to become a part of films in the way it’s a part of normal peoples lives I think.

[@chloepainter4064]

I want a modern gas light. That film is so good. I imagine it where she’s got an iPhone and stuff but is so thoroughly psychologically isolated from any support she either doesn’t even think to use it to call for help, or communicates all the time, but never honestly about her situation, so her Allie’s don’t even know she needs help.

[@Blizzic]

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

[@gutsmasterson2488]

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that video. Every now and again when I’m bored, I will try to stop myself in reality and examine how things are the way they are.

[@bingobango8168]

​@@gutsmasterson2488what video is it ?

[@reubenoakley5887]

That would be like a human saying "what is weather?"

[@MedicineStorm]

This video made me aware of the water I was in, and it blew my mind.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

​@@reubenoakley5887 nah it's more like "hey there how's the radio?" "Wtf is a radio?"

[@The_Viscount]

The photo of the Lunar lander descending that Michael Collins took was the first photo to include every human who was alive or had been alive to that point...except for one: him. It's amazing and bittersweet to realize that Collins took a photo of all of humanity, and couldn't be in it because he had to hold the camera.

[@aayushkothekar]

But it doesn't include all ofhumanity as almost half are behind the earth not seen in the camera

[@The_Viscount]

@@aayushkothekar arguably, it does. They're still in the frame even if obscured. Its a poetic and philisophical statement I'm making. Not a literal one.

[@intellectually_lazy]

right, that was the 3rd guy from genesis?

[@intellectually_lazy]

@@The_Viscount oh darnit! i gotta undermine my joke because now i wanna argue for real: no one was in that picture, just earth and space. zoom in all you want, you won't see any earth people in that pic, ever

[@ikebirchum6591]

He should've taken a selfie

[@silvermagpie1071]

Can't wait for when we're all telepathically connected, and reading stories where people don't have a constant perfect mental connection are archaic and maybe even horror

[@Technodreamer]

Reminiscent of the Martian hivemind from "A Miracle of Science"!

[@jordanloux3883]

I recommend the Old Man's War series then. It'll give you a taste of what that's like, both the good, and the very bad

[@dylandarnell3657]

@@Technodreamer Hey, a fellow MoS fan in the wild!

[@jwatrous4473]

I wouldn't mind being able to speak telepathically, but I want to break that connection when I want to be alone. Gotta charge those social batteries.

[@stephanc6138]

there a story from an anime. Kino Travels (or something) where that has been done. not a good idea ...

[@cookieman5112]

Red is basically a cool aunt with a bunch of interesting stories and we are all her nephews and nieces that she is telling these storys to.

[@silverjohn6037]

Speak for yourself youngun'. Some of us she's the hip young niece that's keeping us up to date with the cool new stuff;).

[@cookieman5112]

@@silverjohn6037 that's also a viable option for the older meat puppets among us.

[@danielkubicek1323]

Oh God, I'm an old meat puppet now. Next thing I know I'm gonna blink and everyone will be sending texts to eachother using brain implants and talking about how weird it was that we all had cars when teleportation was just so simple.

[@hydractal]

​@@danielkubicek1323 The future is now old man

[@danielkubicek1323]

@Hydrαngea 🌠 and according to the time I read that comment, the future was four minutes ago. Probably five by now. Or even six. Oh well, the future wasn't all that exciting, fun while it lasted I guess. 😁

[@TemujinG]

Back in the 80s when portable phones were the size of briefcases, my dad got one and was instantly hooked. We were about to go to some family gathering, and mom and I were just about to open the door to the garage where dad was waiting. The phone rang. Mom grumbled, but decided she'd better answer it. It was dad, calling from the car asking us to hurry up. My parents laughed about that for a long time.

[@Vinemaple]

I'm assuming that back in the 80s, your dad was doing it as a joke. Not the way people do it without the slightest irony these days. I'm always late to appointments these days, too, because I don't use a cell phone, and as I head out the door to go to my appointment, my landline rings, and it's the place I'm going to, calling to confirm my appointment.

[@intellectually_lazy]

@@Vinemaple nice, me too. i haven't had a cell phone for a year, and i only got my house phone and wifi back on 4 months ago. people can't wrap their heads around it, lol

[@Vinemaple]

@@intellectually_lazy Although saying, "I'm sorry, I don't have a cell phone. At all" generally gets me cheerful and well-reasoned workarounds, I have never gotten the exasperated, "Well, why NOT?!" (that I always expect) from anyone.

[@ASquared544]

Ya know it just occurred to me that since Aurora’s version of a phone is a wind elemental messenger bird, she could just make the excuse for why it doesn’t work be “it was too windy and it got blown to smithereens”

[@Excelsior1937]

Red needs to see this

[@LineOfThy]

or maybe some sort of magical message-bird shooting machine that runs off a lacrima

[@ashlingemberstone3913]

@@LineOfThythe amount of “bop-“ sound affects would be amazing

[@ThinWhiteAxe]

_when you text your friend and they don't text back_ A communications disruption could mean only one thing: Invasion.

[@MereMeerkat]

"Or they didn't pay the phone bill!"

[@Gloomdrake]

​@@MereMeerkat "INVASION!"

[@zephyrerazortail5478]

Then my friend must be invaded every 2 seconds XD

[@glasscardproductions4736]

​​@@MereMeerkat, then they've been invaded by their telephone company!

[@evanlogan3595]

@@glasscardproductions4736 Comstar Sends It's Regard!

[@HOSER922]

I realized how bad of an idea video phones actually are when I was sitting on the toilet one time, and my father just happened at that moment to discover Facetime, and attempted to videocall me SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW.

[@Archgeek0]

The truest expression of terror. Solution, text back, not now, _poopin!_

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

We were warned about this in 'Spaceballs' in 1987.

[@HOSER922]

@Daniel Wilson It took me the whole seven attempts to manage that text. Reject call, open text messages, reject call, type a few letters, reject call, etc. I think my exact text was, "I'm shitting. Stop." He didn't even need anything. Just saw it was a thing and wanted to try it out. You'd think he'd get the hint, but boomers be boomin.

[@omppusolttu5799]

@@HOSER922 I mean you could've just pointed the camera away from you and said "I'm shitting" before closing the call, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

[@jonskowitz]

"How many times have I told you to never call this wall! This is an unlisted wall!"

[@hello2judas807]

“Oz doesn’t have a telecommunications network, it’s just a panopticon” That’s a terrifying way to put it, but I get it.

[@davidegaruti2582]

Having two panopticon tecnically allows you to communicate

[@Kikalenew42]

@@davidegaruti2582 Mutually assured communication

[@incanusolorin2607]

@@davidegaruti2582 How?

[@tbotalpha8133]

@@incanusolorin2607 You can just look at each other's locations, and either talk out loud (if the device has sound), or write things down and hold them up to the air for the other person to see.

[@sinisternorimaki]

​​​@@davidegaruti2582 How the heck do you connect two panopticons, they're circular buildings!

[@Vinemaple]

In 1953, Ray Bradbury published a short story called "The Murderer," in which people's radio wristwatches and personal background music are recognizable as cell phones and unlimited streaming music. Especially since the people in this future act in ways that were strange when the story was published, but are extremely relatable today: they panic when loved ones stop checking in every 2 minutes, they're unable to strike up conversations with strangers when they can't use their radio wristwatches to ignore their neighbors, and they spend most of their days drifting around in blissful musical bubbles, serenely self-satisfied and disinterested in anyone else's problems. The amount he got right in that story is frankly incredible. And, of course, in the same year, his novel _Fahrenheit 451_ introduced the Seashell, which was nothing less than a noise-canceling, radio-receiving earbud... as well as on-demand, personally-tailored television on increasingly massive screens. I will say, however, that as someone who chooses not to use a cellphone, I'm treated far better than Bradbury's stories predicted.

[@TheApoke]

This made me think about how everyone in the later seasons of stranger things has walkie talkies. Like everyone has one and they basically act as cell phones

[@iantaakalla8180]

Similarly, Metal Gear Solid 3’s use of walkie talkie’s that somehow perfectly replace the Codec

[@LiterallyCensoredDaily]

Or a more "old school" example, the fact that the C.B. radios in practically every car in Hazzard County become a plot point for almost every episode of "The Dukes Of Hazzard".

[@Vinemaple]

Ooh, nice catch, they didn't, even in the aughties, VHF radio is very different from cellular tech.

[@RickReasonnz]

Good point. The writers are probably so used to writing around the fact that most of their contemporary characters all have phones. Go watch most any show set after 2010. Dollars to donuts they'll use cell phones in some way.

[@E-C-H-0]

I didn’t expect to have the entirety of how I socialize completely torn apart in the first few seconds of this video. It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one

[@Broomer52]

I tend to shy away from socialization. I’m mostly a lurker both irl and on the internet. I’m not sure if it’s a result of this or my hearing is really good but I just tune into what other people are saying and I’ve gotten really good at extrapolating information. Which makes talking to people harder because I’m several steps ahead in the conversation because I assume everyone is on the same page as me. Theirs this fan song I remember hearing for Bruno that i resonated really well with “everything is way too loud, the roar of the whispers in every crowd, I’m sick of all the noise right now! Can someone please just turn it down?”

[@itspienoon7883]

​@@Broomer52 you mean Encanto? That song was fan made by KZbinr OR3O, written in the perspective of one of the characters in movie, Dolores

[@gaithorn]

My personal "normalcy eureka moment" came a few years ago when I was relating a story from my time in high school to my wife, and commented that I should have just looked something up on my smartphone. Before realizing that I was talking about an event in 1988. And I was angry at myself not for having forgotten they were not a thing back then, but that I should have miraculously had one to fix the problem, because it made no sense to not fix it that way.

[@agar322]

To me it was in 2017 when my mom asked me to get something she had forgotten in the trunk of her car, so I went down to the garage, opened the trunk, then seeing there were a lot of stuff there, I realized I had forgotten to ask her what the item was. So I sent her a message, she told me, then I sent a picture as confirmation I got the right one, she confirmed it, then on my way back up in the elevator I thought "Isn't this amazing? Just a few years ago I'd have to go aaaall the way back up to ask her, then I'd have to get back down, get the thing and pray I got the right one, else I'd need to go back to switch it with the right thing. But now, just a message and a picture and it's done."

[@vincentkazella5811]

It’s like when covid happened and every show came up with an excuse to have the main characters stay in their homes

[@intellectually_lazy]

ja, like 2 or 3 years later

[@J-manli]

@@intellectually_lazy Fictional media tends to be delayed 2 to even 10 years later from the real life events that inspired them.

[@matt0044]

Doctor Who: Flux merely got crazy with VFX and body doubles.

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

Can you give examples?

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

Are there any examples?@@intellectually_lazy

[@higginjoe7741]

In 1999, the Pokémon anime had super-advanced video call technology that required what was basically a monitor fused with a phone booth. In 2023, we frequently keep video call technology in close proximity to our butts, and that will never cease to amaze me.

[@gutsmasterson2488]

Generation five was when they realized that video call technology was achievable thanks to the C-Gear. Generation six introduced to the players search system. Generation seven was a cyber Plaza. Then Rotom started taking over UI features and now here we are.

[@Xx_Oleander_xX]

@@gutsmasterson2488 I remember the X-transceiver being a selling point for pkmn BW! I own one of the official guides for the game and there are a few pages that are just "Look your ds has video call now! Isn't that nifty? You can even sharpie your friends face and put stickers everywhere!"

[@gutsmasterson2488]

@@Xx_Oleander_xX I think by that point, I switched to Bulbapedia because it was cheaper than buying strategy guides.

[@Xx_Oleander_xX]

@@gutsmasterson2488 thats fair. I had the guide because I didn't have a tablet or computer at the time and using google on an ipod kinda sucked

[@nerdygamergeek4291]

@@gutsmasterson2488 It's also worth noting that before Generation V, the pokedex in each game was designed to look like the most recent nintendo handheld: gen 1-2 were game boy, gen 3 was gba, gen 4 was ds. The gen 5 pokedex was based on the ipod, which was still hot new technology in 2009 when Black and White were being made. Then in gen 6 it was a holographic smartphone, and since then the pokedex has been essentially just an app in your personal Rotomified smartphone or tablet.

[@dudewhatthewhat8983]

Did red just make a half hour long video about “those dang phones”? You never stop amazing me red. Edit: i made this comment as soon as the video came out, cause I was genuinely shocked a trope talk about phones could be so long. Now where I have watched it fully, this might be my favourite Trope talk, red has made this far. She really took something I never thought to question, and then threw my way of looking at the world and fiction for a loop. It was so much better then I expected, and that says A LOT, cause OSP always have super high quality, in my opinion. This just blew me back in a way I was not expecting at all, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

[@odd-ysseusdoesstuff6347]

Yes, she just did XDXD

[@christ7271]

...and she got 14,000 views in less than 30 minutes

[@gustykraken]

my god she's become my grandmother

[@daviddaugherty2816]

I was at lunch when I noticed and had 20 minutes before I had to get back to work. I thought, "Oh, a new Trope Talk, I have time for that." I did not have time for that.

[@MyPisceanNature]

@@daviddaugherty2816 Psh, there is ALWAYS time for that!

[@JacksonJinn]

It's a rather pointed thing when the new D&D movie uses sending stones not just several times per day, but four different stones linked to each other simultaneously like they're straight up walkie talkies.

[@rmsgrey]

They do at least put a time limit on the duration. I'd class that under "you can research new spells" rather than "casually ignoring official usage limits on an existing item"

[@obiwanobiwan13]

"Speaking as someone with a large Jewish family I can say from firsthand experience that in this culture arguing is considered to be extremely healthy and necessary about anything and everything all the time." *THANK. YOU.*

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

You need therapy.

[@thatkidwiththehoodie]

@@BrunoMaricFromZagrebI think it’s an exaggeration lmao, but friends who know much more about Judaism than I do, I’ve gathered that enthusiastic debate is, in fact, a Thing in Jewish culture.

[@LineOfThy]

and people think you guys are actually lizard people who control the world from the shadows. actually now that I think about it-

[@siyacer]

Judaism moment

[@ViviBuchlaw]

Where does she say this? I missed it 😭

[@Pravaification]

I'm 39. In high school (late 90s) our teachers kept telling us, "One day, very soon, every classroom will have computers in them!" We waited and waited, and finally computers were installed in our school... the year after we graduated (womp womp). In college (early to mid 2000s), my friends and I all assumed we would lose touch after graduation because that's just how life goes, and when this new thing called "MySpace" showed up, it was like a revelation. Suddenly we were able to easily message each other, share pictures, life updates, etc. despite being scattered across the country. Of course this would eventually give way to Facebook, texting, etc. I only bring this up because I find it fascinating to see how different age groups adopted and adapted to the Communcation Age we now live in.

[@dj_koen1265]

It allows people to stay in touch more which can definitely be a good thing

[@Bluecho4]

Technically, the teachers were right in ways they could never imagine. Every classroom does have computers in them now. One for every student, in every student's pocket, plus the teacher.

[@SterbiusMcGurbius]

I'm 29 and we only had like 2 80s computers in each classroom. We were told soon we would all get laptops. The year after graduation they got laptops (womp womp).

[@tristfall1]

Yeah I'm 37, and so the jump to cell phones happened for my groups right in college. I knew all my college friend's phone numbers, I knew all my high school friend's parent's home phone numbers. I can still just pick up my cell and call the kid that showed up to a club trip I ran randomly junior year of college. But if I were to try to get ahold of the girl I dated for a month my Junior year of High school, I'd barely know where to begin. Track her parent's down if they're still living at their old house, the white pages?

[@IsaacSher]

I'm 48. My parents were very early adaptors of computers (TRS-80 Model 1 with cassette tape drive!) and I learned how to type on those using extremely primitive word processing software. I would routinely type up grade school book reports on my computer and print them off, and some of my teachers at the time freaked out about this and would forbid me from doing so on the justification that it was "cheating" for me to hand in a printed copy rather than a handwritten one.

[@phoenixfilms6460]

I just realised that I made up a whole dream dimension in order for my characters to communicate with one another. And I didn't even notice how weird it is that this feels more natural to me than them just not being able to talk to each other...

[@devforfun5618]

tell me they can use avatars on this alternate dimension and other people can walk into their chat looking like kermit the frog

[@peggedyourdad9560]

@@devforfun5618 So, VRChat then?

[@cyrwynelius8221]

Alright, alright, you got me. I had the same vein of an idea for my story, a very necessary and vital idea that allows for developments otherwise impossible but damn. The idea of that not being connection not being there at all feels really strange cause the two characters would almost be in two completely different stories. Also really cool to find someone else who had this kind of idea for communication. (Not incredibly rare in fiction depending on the type of dream communication I suppose, but still.)

[@TheMimiSard]

Not the most uncommon idea, but hey! I am reading a fanfic series that has something like that, but restricted to soulmates.

[@jjohansen86]

"In the more depressing cases, losing contact with your old friends." Or, for some of us, being able to ignore that high school ever happened was a big win.

[@amethyst_cat9532]

Nowadays it looks more like deleting ton of your phone contacts as soon as you graduate. I did that about an hour after my high graduation ceremony and it felt so freeing

[@CraftingGummi]

I once had to write a series of missed calls from one character to another over the course of weeks, and it was heartbreaking. The increasing desperation of the voicemails, the desire to just see them again, to know he's still alive, it hurt. Just imagining getting into an awful argument with your best friend and they just vanish for weeks straight, no messages, no response, nothing. I had to actually imagine my best friend disappearing so I could write it, and I almost started crying.

[@Cliffviewnightradiodj]

I’d love to read it

[@JaelinBezel]

Would you like a hug?

[@Vinemaple]

The amount of access, demanded by some of the "friends" I've had, has been extremely disturbing. Once I was able to tell someone "I'm not your boyfriend, you can't demand at-will access to me like you can your live-in boyfriend," and she realized what she was doing and quit, even apologizing... she went back to being a wonderful friend after that. Most of that type of "friend," however, ended up deciding I was cold, distant, and not interested in them, because I considered my response before replying, and didn't always reply within a week. But if you have a healthy, functional, and very close friendship with someone, yeah, that might be upsetting.

[@intellectually_lazy]

-this is bojack, btw... horseman

[@naolucillerandom5280]

​​​@@Vinemaple yeah, no, if we're not close and you just vanish for a week I'd too would just assume you're not interested. Might be a generational thing.

[@WhatIWantToListenTo]

This all makes me think of Dr. Stone and how he purposefully made a communication device as their "secret weapon" due to instant communication being the most crucial aspect of winning a war. Like man, he GOT IT

[@WickedKnightAlbel]

That isn't a deep concept to grasp nor is the author clever for pointing it out

[@WhatIWantToListenTo]

@@WickedKnightAlbel does it have to be deep or clever to be a good application? No. Glad you shared your opinion that no one asked for.

[@Desdemona-XI]

It is a very smart move, and highlights that the author has considered the video topic. But that makes sense, his entire plot is modern tech in the hands of primitive people. However it is definitely telling that telecommunications is a focal point because even in modern warfare soldiers dont maintain the same form of constant communication we see in spy movies and the like, mostly due to expenses and coverage concerns and due to needing to prevent the communication channels being cluttered with unnecessary communication

[@carso1500]

@@Desdemona-XI even then mantaining comunication is esential, a big reason why ukraine was able to keep Rusia in check in this recent war was because they are able to keep comunications open thanks to starlink a completly new telecomunications technology that has proven to be extremly resistant to jamming were all other telecomunications providers were taken down in the first few days of the war Comunication is esential

[@andreaslinder8978]

Never underestimate the power of communication. In Dr. Stone, which already has a theme of examining the things we created and marveling at how incredibly useful they are (its core opinion being that SCIENCE IS FUCKING AWESOME), Senku's immediate reaction to being informed that the antagonist plans to descend on his village with an army and wipe it out is to proclaim that he will fight back by creating the most powerful weapon in history: cellphones. A) He is completely serious; B) he manages to build phones with stuff barely out of the stone age; and C) they are absolutely crucial in the following conflict. Notably, said antagonist (who is also from our time and pretty smart) discovers one of the phones by accident and FREAKS OUT because he understands the power it represents and that he is now at a disadvantage despite holding almost all the cards.

[@RasmusVJS]

Ah, yes! Can't wait for the anime to release the next season!

[@spritemon98]

The stone wars was my favorite arc

[@spritemon98]

@@RasmusVJS new world is already airing!!!

[@RasmusVJS]

@@spritemon98 What!

[@spritemon98]

@@RasmusVJS YES

[@elizaripper]

Wait, Red is not here?! Someone fix the fourth wall! I can’t handle this parasocial interaction being called out!😭

[@Phantom86d]

We're Writers! The fourth wall is so fragile it never lasts! It's a paper door!

[@freakjob7018]

Red in most videos: here are examples from media that demonstrate tropes. Red here: borrowing Blue's hat for a history lesson. ❤

[@TrinityCore60]

Not gonna lie, I love this approach.

[@KelsieJG__they-them]

You could definitely make an entire trope talk on modern horror movies' tactics for getting around the "everybody has a cell phone" problem.

[@thomasffrench3639]

They best solution is that their phone dropped or they forgot where they left it. It would be really funny.

[@baydiac]

I remember setting up a horror universe in the year 198X. Not out of a love for the 80's, I'm more a 60s-70s aesthetic type, but because I wanted as close to modern life as possible without cellphones or the internet. Pretty sure that's why there's a fixation on period pieces in the horror genre. A big ol' dusty book having the spooky lore is "better" than wikipedia on your iphone. But really it's because isolation is terrifying especially to generations that take constant connection for granted. You get some of the most effective psychological horror in modern audiences when your protagonist can't dial 911 on the highway. Also any modern killer worth their salt will know to target cellphones ASAP. Whether by stealing them or smashing them with a hammer, otherwise the killer has no common sense.

[@jonskowitz]

Breaking down near remote, spooky cabins in the woods is always an option

[@Agent719]

"Why aren't they picking up?!" Smash cut to the phone buzzing away between some couch cushions.

[@Milkquake]

This would make such a good Halloween trope video!!

[@torren4966]

"In 25 words or less where exactly are you and how flammable is it" made me laugh out loud, it captures the essence of the average D&D session so perfectly! Edit: nevermind, "I need you to remember the voice you ad-libbed for scrungly the goblin. NOW" does an even better job LOL

[@lilypaddington1797]

I thought this was gonna be a video about how boomer writers often equate cellphones to "everything wrong with the kids these days," but this is just as fascinating.

[@emanuelrojas2]

Ditto

[@tarniabook3076]

I love how The Owl House not only had flying phones which are basically crows and scrolls which act as cell phones, but also a freaking social media parodying Instagram. Plus the flying microphones, cristal balls as computer or tv screens and gemstones as walkie talkies. It's a weird world building sometimes and I love it.

[@J-manli]

Bit of a tangent, but seeing Owl House's use to magic-fueled technology really makes me annoyed about Harry Potter's world building and its utter refusal to use tech or even innovate. Using the slowest birds to send hand written letters in a country commonly covered in clouds when instant teleportation exists just baffles me.

[@raidev_]

it makes the scenes of them not understanding human objects kinda weird in retrospect tho

[@tarniabook3076]

@@raidev_ I mean, I'd be a bit confused if I didn't know what a cristal ball was and it would take me some time to figure out it's a "round TV".

[@PlantaWho]

​@@J-manli funny you say that. Because that's exactly what Brennan Lee Mulligan said in a podcast with Matt Mercer. It's borderline animal abuse

[@J-manli]

@@PlantaWho I was indeed referencing Mulligan. I did have qualms with HP’s world building as I got older, Mulligan just gave me a succinct example to showcase it.

[@beeaggro2593]

What's funny is that I'm a teacher for students who come from...basically backwater villages in Central America to the US, so I always have had an interesting perspective with this. To put it broadly. My own little backwater village in Nicaragua had an Internet cafe. Most of my students have had experience with technology and picked it up faster than reading. Like reading period. It's crazy how intrinsically adaptable people are and how that surfaces

[@GuiSmith]

Nowadays, we have quality testing and accessibility features everywhere to help with that. Maybe a little too well sometimes, but generally it’s really effective.

[@JeantheSecond]

Well, children and the youth. It’s hit and miss with older adults. My mom and aunt were very resistant to change, while my dad I were far more adaptable.

[@Thisisreallystupid]

During the time of 3rd Edition AD&D, there was a thing called "The Tippyverse". The idea of the Tippyverse was to create a setting where *Magic* created a Star Trek-like post-scarcity society. Most of it revolved around overutilization of the "Magical Trap" mechanic. In 3rd Edition, the rules were codified on how Magical Traps were created, so Players could have their characters create them. Just like other magic items, it took time, money and XP to make a magical trap. It also took knowledge of the spell you wanted to put in the trap. Then someone realized that, if you could put "Fireball" in a trap that would automatically reset... you could create a small, metal box that would explode with a fireball every time your fireproof minion opened it. And if said minion was small enough, or invisible enough, they could sneak into an enemy army or city and just keep setting off fireballs until they got bored and your enemy got dead. Then someone realized that... if you could put "Fireball" in a trap that would automatically reset... you could create boxes that would cast the spell "Create Food & Water" every time you opened them, and nobody would ever go hungry. Or you could create a little box that would cast "Sending" every time you opened the lid and you would have Star Trek Communicators. Hallucinatory Terrain "Traps" would enable creative people to make little "movies" for people to watch on demand. The Polymorph Any Object spell can literally turn mice into giant cows (since giant cows exist, thanks to giants existing) *permanently* if you don't like the "Create Food & Water" trap option. With a sufficient number of high-level Wizards & Clerics (like, half a dozen maybe?), a country in a 3rd Edition AD&D setting can have a ridiculously high standard of living.

[@kindredspirit9703]

That's awesome! I'd love to see what kind of conflicts would happen in a world with such bounty.

[@noukan42]

I to this day claim that the Tippyverse is my favourite D&D setting.

[@SimonClarkstone]

Engineers abusing D&D mechanics is entertaining.

[@MurderousEagle]

It should be noted that most of the time the Tippyverse is a mageocratic dystopia.

[@WarlordM]

Eberron

[@symulacrum8664]

I did not expect to come here and see the majesty of Laura Bailey deconstructing Matt’s sanity 25 words at a time but I’m glad for it

[@danieloceansmith3156]

The second I saw critical role my first thought of Laura’s messages was “…. You pooping?”

[@Fragmentsinfractals488]

I am... catching the MADNESS!

[@Stray7]

And of course, the current campaign of Critical Role has the widespread failure of Sending spells as a major plot point -- precisely *because* of how much Laura Baily relied on Sending once her character got high enough level to cast it.

[@nightstar6179]

"HEY PLANK KING"

[@joshuahillerup4290]

There was an interesting period in the late 90s to early 2000s with shows like the X Files and Buffy where the writers had a lot of trouble writing plots that weren't ruined by the characters having cellphones

[@ianesgrecia8568]

I love how she acknologes that the bad guy having instant comunication was a thing WAAAAAY before theactual instant comunication

[@simonbas6]

I remember reading about Michael Collins, he said of being the loneliest man in the universe that it was nice after having spent so long with 2 other people in a confined space. Introverts of the world understand, the loneliest man ever was just happy to have some god damn peace and quiet

[@MrTmac9k]

He was also hella busy with observations and riding herd single-handed on a spacecraft designed to be operated by three. But yeah, you definitely get the sense that he enjoyed the quiet when you read his memoir. He wasn't lonely, he was satisfied.

[@caseykafka5009]

the irish nationalist?

[@MrTmac9k]

@@caseykafka5009 No, the astronaut.

[@firstnamelastname5449]

@@caseykafka5009 Apollo 11 astronaut that stayed on the command module while Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin were on the moon

[@enider]

@@caseykafka5009 I was real confused into I understood it was another Michael Collins

[@marethyuthefirstshinigami162]

Honestly, I think Dune's complete rejection of "thinking machines" does give some leeway in terms of ignoring the likely technological advancements such a large span of time would imply

[@Anverse-14]

Feeling as it'll be an era that'll be quickly changed once the era has become too chaotic to sustain its old technological norms.

[@kingsadvisor18]

I can see that perfectly. Technician: invents what is essentially a 1993 cell phone His supervisor: has a Vietnam flashback about that one time humanity was almost wiped out because of rudimentary AI and proceeds to smash it to bits

[@jakman2179]

Given modern tech coming out recently, I take the additional reason as to why they use in person communication over telecommunications is because one could fake a message via some kind of Deep-fake tech. Not as dangerous when you have Mentants instead of Computers, but still a possible reason to add to the pile.

[@jsteckle4897]

Was coming to say this but you said it perfectly

[@Blizzic]

Thank you.

[@lolli_popples]

Bro I’m in a one on one D&Dish campaign that’s in a modern setting. My DM has run it with a few friends; and so they expected me to use my character’s literal SUPERPOWERS to solve problems. What they did not expect was me to call the cops any time anything suspicious happened, then join a local news station, document all of the crime I saw, and then report the villains to the government. It is now a very DIFFERENT campaign, to say the least.

[@AmarisFrede]

well played!

[@TheNorthlander]

Bruh turned it from Dresten Files to X-Files. 💀

[@bonefetcherbrimley7740]

Tell me more.

[@lolli_popples]

@@bonefetcherbrimley7740 Uh well currently the main villain organization still has no clue who’s been leaking info to the news because I’ve never shown my face to them lol.

[@bonefetcherbrimley7740]

Nice!@@lolli_popples

[@thejohnhopkinscompany9599]

As someone who is extremely nervous about giving out their contact information and is stressed out by social media, I'm not sure I've ever gotten used to instantly being in contact with anyone but my family. I'm also sh*t at answering emails and texts so that probably contributes too.

[@devforfun5618]

lets be friends and then never talk because we dont know if the other person is busy and we dont want to be annoying ?

[@MultiNaruto900]

​@@devforfun5618 No need to throw a nuke in a classroom 💀

[@lazarus8018]

​@@devforfun5618 This speaks to me.

[@thejohnhopkinscompany9599]

@@devforfun5618 It's more that I forget to message someone for so long that I just assume they've stopped liking me in all that time.

[@SirSomeguy]

Oh my god! Someone else finally understands me!

[@Crandlefist]

Most viewers: "Haha yeah it sure is silly how often people could resolve communication problems with easy access to phones." Also most viewers: *Gets anxiety about sending a text message reply and doesn't respond for several months.*

[@ldbboosha]

Back off!

[@Crandlefist]

@@ldbboosha How about this: Same viewers: "So many problems would be solved without incident if the protagonist just called somebody!" Also same viewers: "A call from an unknown number I didn't expect? No way in hell am I picking that up, probably a spam call." RIP to the protagonist who had to steal somebody else's phone I guess. If you're going to make an argument about how modern communications tech trivializes problems in past stories, and leave out all the friction present in modern communications tech to make that point which would recomplicate the same problems, then you are making a different set of invisible assumptions.

[@inserisciunnome]

@@Crandlefist i ALWAYS answer unknown numbers in the Hope that it'll be like that One meme about an unknown Number actually beeing a phone call from Stalin himself. Never happened so far, but im holding on to my Hope.

[@festethephule7553]

@@inserisciunnome Why Stalin?

[@helenanilsson5666]

@@Crandlefist God, I have a colleague like that. She offered to be my reference for a job I was applying to and then she didn't answer when the recruiter called because her gut reaction was "unfamiliar number must be spam"

[@StudioNama]

"The Invisibility of Normalcy" sounds like a whole-ass college course for film media majors and I would be SO DOWN for more!

[@Companion92]

That was a important part of my ethnology classes in university

[@The.Mountain.Flower]

Fun fact about the Star Wars examples: both are later explained by the story. In A New Hope, the Death Star plans have to be physically transported bc the Empire can too easily intercept the plans being sent through communication technology, and in The Empire Strikes Back, the snowstorm is explicitly blocking their comms, which is why they have to physically search for Luke.

[@darthrizi7340]

Also the way Obi-Wan lived as a desert hermit he may not have even had a space phone.

[@MrSaturnMusic]

I was thinking about that too The plans weren't "emailed" as we know today, where the recipient(s) gets effectively a new copy, and the original still exists, it's more like actual mail, the empire was mailing it and the rebels stole their letter, if they turned around and mailed it again the empire would pretty easily just steal it back It's a pretty interesting thought though

[@Naoto-kun1085]

That's still a perfect example of what Red is talking about because in modern times the idea of a snow storm blocking a phone signal is incomprehensible with our current technology, but Lucas never would have thought of that in the 80s! Even if there's an explanation for those things it's clear it was written with the current technology in mind

[@usuallydead]

​@@Naoto-kun1085 Also, I'm betting the Rebellion could have used something like a VPN or Tor to avoid governmental snooping.

[@adora_was_taken]

⁠​⁠@@Naoto-kun1085 no they actually say that in the movie, funnily enough

[@rayn0577]

Felt the need to point out that Artoo didn’t just carry the message Leia made for Obi-Wan, he also carried the Death Star schematics revealing the fatal design flaw. We see Leia physically insert the disc into Artoo’s chassis, and he physically carries it through the Death Star itself and into the rebel base.

[@jeffeppenbach]

And they used the Coms on the Deathstar to, you know, talk to one another.

[@johannpotgieter9029]

Plus C3PO used a comlink to communicate with Han on the Death Star, and Luke had a comlink with him on Hoth. Also the Emperor's holo-call with Vader in ESB.

[@HeadCannon19]

And in Rogue One they sent a signal containing the plans to Leia's ship, but then in A New Hope (which takes place right after but was made 39 years earlier) they never send the signal to another location, and instead they have to physically transport the disk that, according to Rogue One, wasn't even the original. I mean it does make sense because the ending of Rogue One combined with the beginning of A New Hope shows how hectic it was as they were under attack and were barely able to keep one disk with the plans out of the Empire's hands, but in hindsight it definitely seems like there were easier ways for them to do it

[@kingbeauregard]

And arguably the point was to smuggle the plans out so that nobody would know they'd left the ship. And they had to go to someone who was living as a hermit.

[@bevanurielpetersen6255]

Honestly, its interesting how messaging and information transfer became retroactively added to the universe of SW so naturally that the big plot for a New Hope became reinforced perfectly. We know from the prequel Trilogy that information and data can be transfered over large distances so it begged the question why didn't Leia just send the plans to the Rebels. But through New Media such as Andor and Books, it became clear that any long range messaging was being processed through the Empire, any messages sent would result in the Empire knowing of any subversive information that is being transferred between groups and people. Now we know that they could not have sent the Death Star plans to Rebel sites without it being tracked or just outright blocked. When you're the Rebels trying to take down the Highest Power, Communication becomes so much harder just to make sure that the Empire doesn't catch on figure out your movement. So them physically having to transfer the plans actually fits perfectly into the Star Wars universe without breaking suspension of belief. So for those people who keep on saying why didn't they just email the plans, you can do that if you also want the Empire on your front door like the FBI shouting 'Open Up!', before bringing an end to the Rebel operations.

[@basilgray5640]

Probably my favorite example of this in fiction has to be the den den mushi or “transponder snails” from One Piece. They’re literally just snails. Telepathic snails that are capable of perfectly mimicking human speech that people use to communicate with each other. God I love One Piece.

[@emiliocorvalan3322]

What I love most about it is that it's actually a network of snail-based technology. some are phones with different communication ranges other speakers others are used to wiretap other cameras others to counter the wiretap and others to basically activate nuclear bombs

[@jimihendrix23456]

Not to mention live-streaming video! But the best part is when they mimic the appearance/expressions of the people on the other side.

[@sabertoothkim]

Didn't those start out as basically landline telephones, and then the author introduced handheld versions partway through the story? ...Dang it, now I need to try and figure out when he introduced those and how far along cellphone tech was then.

[@alexsere3061]

@@sabertoothkim that is such a great example of what red talks about because one piece is so old you literally see the changes over time

[@anna-flora999]

​@@emiliocorvalan3322 to be fair, the nuke triggering ones are basically just very specific telephone ones that just say "this is the island I'm on, fuck it up"

[@harukahanazona3311]

If I'm to understand: O.S.P's Red was in the middle of writing a story and had a writer's existential crisis realizing how hard she made it to write classic plot points by giving the characters an extremely effective magic communication network... And now this video explaining how normalcy can put an unintentional blind spot in a work exists. I am thankful for every minute I'm subscribed to this channel 😭

[@SuperiorPosterior]

11:02 There is one author's saving throw that I appreciate to explain R2D2's needing to carry the plans, and that's simply because the Empire controls the phones. The rebels _couldn't_ just beam the plans to Yavin IV without allowing the Empire to their secret base's location. As for the "you're our only hope" message, that was a message recorded with R2's bodycam, not onto any kind of Internet equivalent.

[@carolinemcgovern4488]

Honestly, this makes sense to me. It's fair enough that they wouldn't want to risk that/

[@annabellakue9664]

I didn't ask for an existential crisis first thing in the morning, but Red addressing the weirdness that is parasocial interactions is something I do come here for so I think the universe is having its Callout Fridays.

[@wavetactics13]

Oh, that young millennial segment hit me right in the childhood feels. I just hit 30 last year and my first memory of a phone was the corded wall hanger type my mom would stretch across the kitchen while talking to my aunt. During high school just before touch screens really took off, I remember how some of my classmates would memorize the buttons on their phones just to be able to text in class.

[@TheKeyser94]

How things have change, in Thursday I got to the mall, and there were four people, a family talking with each other, with their smartphones, but not actually speaking with each other.

[@thegaspatthegateway]

i like them curly cords, great fidget toy, we're truly missing out

[@daniel_rossy_explica]

For context, I'm 36. My grandmother used to have a corded phone when she lived in the house we live on (long story) and now, by my mother insistance, we have a wireless (but still landline) phone. I keep telling her that when I moved out I wouldn't have one (nor cable TV). My younger sister did moved out of the house and she doesn't even consider having one (or, again, cable TV).

[@michaeldaniels642]

33 and same

[@k.5425]

Memories the buttons on their phones? I don't get it

[@cybermadness2503]

When Red started talking about her Aurora comic, how she was easily making a communication spell without thinking, it was like she was calling herself out and I honestly thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen! 😂

[@bluesbest1]

The whole video, I was wondering when she'd bring up the little messenger birds. Wasn't expecting it to be the bedrock of the entire script. At least she has "You need Air Magic to be able to send them" as an excuse.

[@colewest7096]

Falling or calling?

[@devforfun5618]

i fixed that problem in my story before it even came up, the magic system has the usual 4 elements, then a friend suggested adding technology and i came up with the idea of the 5th element metal being wiped because they used it to make electronics, now only a few relics exist

[@QuantumWaltz]

I was writing an expansion/conclusion to a Dwarf Fortress run that I particularly enjoyed at one point and gave my characters rapid long-distance communication. I only gave it to the leaders of the different parties, because all of the leadership of this faction were necromancers. I made them carry around small dead animals, specifically birds for comms but I also used a mouse and a snake as opportunistic workings that were a surveillance cam and a static signpost respectively. When they needed to communicate, one of the necros would have to terrify himself with existential thoughts (the only way necromancers will raise the dead in DF is if they feel threatened) and bring the bird back to life. He'd ask the bird for permission to use its eyes and speak from its mouth, because these were Good Necromancers who didn't like unthinking thralls, and send it on its way. Basically just Homing Pigeons+, as the communication was two-way and instant only after the bird arrived, so there was still the transit time and the necros had to consider speed (a swallow, in the story) versus durability (an actual pigeon) when preparing the connection. I think I can forgive myself this "I need communications to get everybody in the right place at the right time for this denouement and make sure my narrator can see what's happening in the climax when he's not in the room - the purpose of Surveillance Mouse."

[@measlyfurball37]

I remember my dad pausing movies and going "Look kids, that's a pager/fax/phone line, that's what we used in the ancient times" and we'd all roll our eyes, pretending that we had totally known what those things were.

[@safetinspector2]

Frank Herbert didn’t predict a lot of stuff, but he most cleverly gave himself a pass by having a universe where highly advanced computers were forbidden, and the functions of such were performed by spice addicts of the Mentat and spacers guild. So he still wins the most timeless space opera award

[@samy7693]

There are also a few more details that affect communication. The Fremen in particular are secretive and trying not to be detected by space-faring superpowers, nor even reveal how numerous they are. And because the Dune universe has faster than light travel, there's nothing odd about positing that no message could travel faster than their fastest mode of personal travel. Many of the in-person messages in the story are also high level diplomatic communications that cannot be left to more convenient (but more falsifiable, blockable, or less confirmable) methods of communication.

[@tuckernutter]

And no one, most certainly not his son or some c tier sci fi writer, Co wrote/shat on any further expansion of Dune.... right....?

[@argr4sh]

I do agree with this, but what I did find funny, and very telling of when he wrote it. Is that in God emperor of Dune, which was written in the 80s, he did Suddenly include a computer with a messenger application.

[@safetinspector2]

@@argr4sh I didn’t care for anything past that first trilogy, but obvs Frank did. :-)

[@felipedaiber2991]

also most of the story happens on Arrakis that has magnetic moons and electrstatically charged sandstorms wich fuck up electronics even more so than they already are in the rest of the Dune universe

[@kingskelett6265]

31:25 First of all, that drawing and Red's rant about her realizing things when working on her own comic was hilarious. Second of all, *What do you mean she has a comic?! How have I missed that until this point?!*

[@TyphinHoofbun]

I was reading the comic for a while, then randomly discovered the channel, and made it about 2/3s through the backlog of Trope Talks before I realized *why* the doddle-figure art style was hauntingly familiar. And only because she explicitly plugged the comic. "Wait, Red draws Aurora? I thought the artist was called... Red... They're the SAME Red?!" Mind fully blown.

[@javi7636]

It's quite good, check it out! Red linked to it in the description.

[@SimonClarkstone]

She mentions it on most episodes of the OSP podcast.

[@JaimeNyx15]

This might be Red's best video essay to date. Which is wild, because she absolutely kicks ass at video essays. It's both crazy and intuitive to me that our conceptions of communication and, more broadly, normalcy across fiction influence our worldbuilding and dreams of the future, and the implications on fiction are enormous. Everything we write and create is subject to the time and context in which it was created, so in a way the author can *never* die because their sense of normal imposes rules on the fundamental fabric of their worlds, and yet they also *have* to die if the work is to be adapted into later forms and contexts and still seem normal and coherent to the audience. Freaking fascinating.

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

Not really. Sigh. She conveniently forgets that cellphones as we know them require the use of satellite technology, and so science fiction has a huge problem with communicating to people a planet away from orbit. Unless you have tons of satellites to use every time you visit a new planet, you can't communicate.

[@alexanderglass2057]

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 or hear me out if they are using some sort of radio or a signal that is not radio paste that can penetrate planetary bodies so you don’t need to have a satellite bouncing around to the other side. Your sense of normalcy is talking and you don’t even realize it.

[@JaimeNyx15]

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 Cell phones use cell towers, my dude. There are specific phones set up to use satellite signals (ie "satellite phones") but most people don't use those. As for interplanetary communication, we are able to send messages across space using electromagnetic waves and have done so since the 60s. There's latency the further away you go since the speed of light is limited, but I've seen sci-fi authors tackle that in a wide variety of ways. It's not an unaddressed problem. More importantly, even if that nitpick was well founded, it still doesn't address Red's larger point about technology and context affecting a given author's ability to envision the future, so I don't really know why you brought that up here.

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

@@JaimeNyx15 Tell me, do you think cell towers would be present on an alien planet that you just visited with a spaceship? Would cellphones function at all without satellites or cell towers? Think. And that's just voice or text, we haven't even gotten around to video calls for the most part. There are some in use, but only rarely.

[@JaimeNyx15]

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 I think you're getting too caught up in the specific denotative definition of a cell phone here. Obviously if you're visiting another world or traversing a magic-infused fantasy world, you wouldn't be using cell phones specifically; you'd be using some sci-fi "communicator" or a fantastical "sending stone". But that doesn't have any bearing on the discussion. The point is that our access to instantaneous communication today *through* cell phones, the Internet, and other technology create expectations for that kind of instantaneous communication in our fiction, even in speculative and fantastical works.

[@tamllinn]

32:45 The notion of “catch something in the mirror (of fiction) that’s shifted without our noticing” threw this whole essay into the realm of horror in a way it probably wasn’t intended.

[@Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

Red: "I'm having an existential crisis and now you will, too." Audience: "Wait, wha- aaaaaaaaah! What is life? What is normalcy! What was normalcy! Aaaaaaaa-" By the way, I;m still waiting for my covert communication device that vibrates the bones of my inner ear that also somehow allow me to see Master Miller's sunglasses.

[@justinjacobs1501]

I have a pair of headphones that rest on the jawbone right in front of my ears and use that as the transfer medium. They are pretty great for driving as they don't block out any outside noise.

[@universal_hyssoap]

​@Justin Jacobs yeah same, also when you turn them up loud on a song with a bassy kick drum it vibrates your head and feels nice

[@perchy22]

Enh, "What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly". Many of us already know in our bones/bone-analogs that normalcy is relative

[@jon9828]

Bone anchored hearing aids exist. Some of them can hook up to a modern phone via bluetooth. See also, cochlear implants.

[@bartleby116]

So, a tangential point came up when I was talking to one of my best friends. I mentioned how, yeah, if I die, you probably won't hear about it ever. We both live pretty isolated from our families and each other. That made her very uncomfortable. Beyond actively not wanting a friend to die, she's so used to knowing everything about me and that if I were hit by a bus or something, she'd lose that. It's a very weird paradigm when the end results of being ghosted or someone dying are functionally the same.

[@CrazyFarseer]

Oof. That’s a kind of good point… although, neither of you know enough about each other to call either the other person’s family or workplace?

[@CrazyFarseer]

​@Peters6221 It is morbid, but it's also like disaster preparation, I guess. You hope you'll never need it, but if you do, you'll be glad you prepared. Statistically it has to have happened a few times out there, but no doubt we just... never hear about it :(

[@andresmartinezramos7513]

​@Peters6221 I've already received a couple messages from the phones of dead colleages. My guess is that the family chose every (or quite a few, I knew but a friend of mine found out through the text) contact and mass messaged everyone privately and not by group chat.

[@spyone4828]

My brother recently died unexpectedly (he was 61). He was very active on Discord, but I don't know which of the servers he was a member of he was active on, and I don't know which of his "friends" were people he actually spoke with. Eventually I used his account to send a brief message about his death to anyone he had sent or received a private message from in the past year, and hoped the news would propagate out from there. Not only are we in constant touch with our friends in ways that decades ago were unimaginable, we have close friends who don't know our real name or where we are.

[@Firesgone]

@@CrazyFarseer Are those really normal things to share? I would never do more than mention what I do loosely for work, and if you're hearing anything about my family it's only going to be lightly touched on. Or because my sister is in the room/in game with us/hijacker my discord while I'm on the toilet.

[@magistermercury]

21:23 "Who wants to hear me loudly eat this pudding" had me uncontrollably cackling like Vincent Price in Thriller for several minutes.

[@shreya...007]

My mom always says that most older movies wouldn't work in a cell phone world cause all the problems could be easily solved by communication. So this was extremely interesting

[@JaelinBezel]

My first DnD character’s overarching goal as a character was to find his sister, who thought he was dead, which is why I actively avoided giving him that one spell that gives you the exact location of a blood relative, yet it never occurred to me that he could just use Sending to call her up, and as a cleric, he absolutely could cast Sending. I don’t even have the excuse that the communication we’re used to now wasn’t common then because this was only two years ago!

[@ethanstyant9704]

Well DnD is typically mediaeval type fantasy so he can't exactly be expected to know every spell that's possible ever unless they had access to some academic literature which common folk don't tend to have so most people don't know about it. But also "hey if you're looking for your sister I could cast Sending" Cast what now? "Sending, it locates a blood relative" You're fucking kidding me

[@samueldimmock694]

You do have the excuse that people sometimes don't think about obvious solutions to their problems. Using that excuse in fiction is generally frowned upon, but in this case I think it works.

[@Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

In defense of Star Wars, the OT and Prequels mostly used those comlinks (aka cell phones) for short range communication. Long range communication over hundreds or miles or to other planets required more powerful hologram devices that were connected to ships or stationary communication hubs. Those films also went to the effort of pointing out when the standard methods of communication didn't work. On Hoth for example, the heavy snow blocked the signal. That's why R2 couldn't locate Luke after a snowstorm started, C-3PO said as much. The range is also limited, the Rebels couldn't pin-point Han and Luke's position until they flew close by. That also happens in the Prequels. Qui-Gon and I can communicate with each other on our comlinks bur not with the Jedi on another planet. Bad guys also use jamming tech to justify why long range communication doesn't work. Even long range communication tech is limited, in Episode II I'm too far away from Coruscant so I have to contact Anakin who's on a closer planet. So I think the way those films used communication made perfect sense. It wasn't as efficiant and convenient as cell phones and when the normal methods of communication didn't work, there was a reason (jamming, intercepting, distance, etc) why it didn't work. Even R2 needing to deliver the Death Star plans made sense. The Empire were surely intercepting or jamming communications so the plans had to physically be transferred. As to why they didn't transmit the plans when they got to a stronger long range communication device (like a ship or a hub) I think it made sense that either the file size was too bug or they didn't know the channel to communicate with the Rebels who surely had private channels none of the characters would know about.

[@lt.swampfox7339]

When you started to use "I" in your comment, it made pause and go "hold on, what?". Then I checked your profile name 😂

[@samg3457]

Agreed. Re: ANH If they broadcast the death star plans, how do they know the rebels are listening on that frequency? How do they know they got the message. How do they know they got the entire message intact? A rebel base that is running dark can't exactly be sending checksums!

[@Sturm01]

​@@lt.swampfox7339same here

[@metarcee2483]

Also, Leia has to send the droids in person because Obi-wan is living off the grid in order to remain safe.

[@phastinemoon]

In other words - comlinks aren’t phones, they’re walkie-talkie radios

[@friskybitzboi]

My favorite thing with Critical Role is that Matt thought he had avoided the party having easy communication in C2 because they didn’t have the earrings Vox Machina had but then he ended up with a couple players who had Message and of course Jester who abused Sending to the highest degree

[@owloko1349]

I feel like this is a big moment for Red, going further than explaining tropes and actually starting to theorize about them

[@vero-kd8vg]

God the part about Sending being a pain in the ass for DMs is so real. I'll never forget that time I wrote an entire mystery surrounding the disappearance of the party wizard's family after the BBEG targeted them as revenge for the party's actions... and then as soon as the party found out about it the wizard said "alright, I'll send a sending to my dad and ask him how he and my family are doing and where they all are right now". I ended up asking the player if he couldn't cast the spell on the next session after I thought of a good reason why his character's dad wouldn't just tell him everything lol, and thankfully he was understanding. Our table ended up agreeing not to use long distance communication spells when they get too game breaking.

[@GeneralPenemonto]

I know that feeling, but I could never make a deal with my group. Not because they wouldn't agree, but because I would feel like it cheapens the game. Its like finding some equipment or ability in a PC game and not using it because it makes the game super easy. Like yeah, but if I don't use it I feel like I'm not doing what the game is telling me to do, not playing the game as intended. So I usually homebrew a way of WHY sending is a bit more limited. Usually its "The person receiving the sending has to know the sender too". Meaning they can speak with family but they cannot speak to a random merchant they bought a potion from. The merchant wouldn't remember them!

[@jon9828]

Line the cells the captives are in with lead. Easy. Why lead typically blocks magic scrying and stuff in DND i do not know. I'm guessing it might be because it blocks certain types of radiation irl? ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[@erikbihari3625]

Red:-"I'm frequently encouraging parasocial relationships."? Man! I'm so glad, to have found this channel, because this woman, is pure gold. Anyone else agrees or I'm just blowing hot air?

[@chukyuniqul]

Couldn't tell ya, but I hope hot air gave his consent.

[@erikbihari3625]

​@@chukyuniqul. Seriously, my only nitpick is streams are so busy no one can get a good word in!

[@KarnodAldhorn]

She super slaps. I learned about emotional intelligence and people from watching her stuff.

[@flibberfrogman5508]

I think you, might just, be overdoing it, with the, commas.

[@erikbihari3625]

@@flibberfrogman5508. If you say so.

[@Zander2212]

The opening remark about normalcy brings to mind one of the many great quotes from Firefly. "Psychic though? That sounds like something out of science fiction." "You live on a spaceship dear." "Yeah, so?" Edit: 29:37 "Or, to save on postage..."

[@videoket]

Red better have like 3 doctorates with the level of research she does for these videos. I’m impressed!

[@monkeyking9863]

in modern horror movies i love to find the "no cell phone" moment which justifies why they cant just call the cops or help

[@junjunjamore7735]

The cops thing is always "Nobody will believe us." Isn't it?

[@monkeyking9863]

@@junjunjamore7735 depends on the killer, a super natural threat like Fredy sure the cops wont believe but a standard human murderer they would

[@berengustav7714]

@@monkeyking9863 Some real life murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer kept getting away because the police didn't believe them,sometimes polic act so incomptent they feel like Red shirts or stormtroopers.

[@MadameTamma]

@@monkeyking9863 There's a lot of reasons why the cops wouldn't come. The horror movie 'Barbarian' has a human killer and not even one who could cover their tracks well but the cops didn't help for a lot of reasons. A.) It was a slum where the cops didn't take any violence in the area seriously. B.) The area was a known junkie hang out so they assumed the protagonist was just having a bad trip. C.) The killing didn't happen on the protagonists property, no one had a key to get in, there was no warrant, and no one was answering the door. D.) The protagonist calling for help had no ID on her to verify who she was because she lost it escaping the killer. E.) They assumed she was homeless because of her torn up clothes. F.) They were just shitty cops who didn't want to deal with it

[@pirateyarn6331]

Red -- this is brilliant on so many levels. I spend a lot of my day job explaining to senior leaders in my company that their unconscious world view (created back when they were kids) is dependent on a world that no longer exists. I think I'm going to make them all watch this.

[@magnumsmth]

What does your company do?

[@SimonWolfie]

That almost doesn't matter, most higher ups in any company will be running off of the idea that the world they trained to work in no longer exists.

[@ldbboosha]

They'll get bored before the 10 minute mark

[@dementen]

An absolute testament to Red's writing skill is the fact that she can make an audience listen to Sneaky Snitch for over half an hour just by talking about fictional mobile phones.

[@endurancegal93]

One of my favorite things about fictional video calling in general, is it they always assume that both parties are framed nicely, well-lit, and there's nothing embarrassing going on in the background.

[@jennifersalt3194]

I’m middle aged and when I was growing up, there was a lot of speculation about the 20th century. I still have times when I’m just amazed that I’m *walking around in the 20th century.* Most of our predictions didn’t come true, but there’s so much that we didn’t predict that’s absolutely awesome. Most of the awesomeness stems from the changes Red mentions in the video. This was a succinct and entertaining look at recent history. Thanks.

[@aelechdeepestflame4347]

Hate to be that guy, but you do mean the 21st century, right? I don’t know why they do that, but they do. Century is whatever year you’re in plus 1.

[@Broomer52]

I remember some engineers and scientists on several occasions saying we could absolutely have flying cars today if we wanted but we don’t because no one could be trusted with them.

[@devforfun5618]

@@Broomer52 if by flying cars you mean small air planes it is true, but not levitating vehicles like we see in movies, they are based on anti gravity technology that probably will never exist, anyway cars in general are bad, we need more trains

[@gguy3600]

​​@Aelech Deepestflame It's because the years 1AD to 100AD is the first century to occur in the AD period. Everything else just counts forwards from there. 1-100, 1st. 100-200, 2nd. 200-300, 3rd. 300-400, 4th 400-500, 5th. 500-600, 6th. 600-700, 7th. 700-800, 8th. 800-900, 9th. 900-1000, 10th. 1000-1100, 11th. 1100-1200, 12th. 1200-1300, 13th. 1300-1400, 14th. 1400-1500, 15th. 1500-1600, 16th. 1600-1700, 17th. 1700-1800, 18th. 1800-1900, 19th. 1900-2000, 20th. 2000-2100, 21st. Sorry for the big wall of dates, but visualising it like this was the best way I could think of to explain this point.

[@Broomer52]

@@devforfun5618 obviously not anti-gravity technology.

[@timecrayon]

I think this is also the reason for the massive 80s resurgence in fiction. Of course nostalgia also plays a huge part in it, but 80s and 90s story telling is just so convenient. None of the protagonists have a cell phone, but they might have a walkie talkie. Most houses have a landline (at least from what I've seen in US settings) so communicating is still relatively easy if everyone is where they're supposed to be. The 80s and 90s are in this sort of sweet spot of "we can reach each other without delay if it's important" and "how will we let anyone know we're in danger in the middle of nowhere?"

[@dairallan]

The Duffers have said as much in interviews around Stranger Things season 1 and this has been a thing as early as Blair Witch Project where the creators doing publicity stated they set it 5 years in the past to avoid the consequences of cellphones.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Now a day where is the nowhere?

[@anthonyhernandez4266]

​@@danieladamczyk4024 wow that's a good point. The desert? Deep in a forest. Really far under ground?

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@anthonyhernandez4266 In desert, satelite will find you. In forest too. So ground, deep sea or space.

[@Theology.101]

Something thats neat over time is that the 90s/Bantum era star wars Legends had everyone using Comms that are relatively large and tied down, but by Legacy of the Force (In the 2000s) everyone and their mom started using Datapada as if that was always the case

[@legostarwarsfan1662]

Handheld planetary-range comms do appear as early as the Thrawn trilogy, and a new hope featured droid callers that functioned as phones, but I definitely agree that interplanetary communications were typically not possible from hand devices until later works.

[@louiseswanson8345]

Another thing I think is interesting about this might not be so much, "he didn't think of it" but that the idea of little brick that lets me always talk to anyone anywhere is one of those things that if I saw it in fiction without living now I'd call it a hack. It'd be such a deus ex machina piece of machinery that would be insane. Almost as crazy as using that exact same tiny box to ask for pizza and having it delivered to your house.

[@carolinemcgovern4488]

Honestly, you're right. Half of the stuff we use our phones for would be a Deus Ex Machina in fiction.

[@nitrocharge2404]

I do like how characters being out of communication can create tension and conflict, and I'd like to see it more in modern stories, but it does feel like a logical step to have characters in constant communication in fiction nowadays

[@mikemudrow]

It just takes some extra steps to accomplish, like how Brandon Sanderson uses Aluminum to interrupt (among other things) magical communication.

[@ThePockyJocky]

As someone who physically can't bring my phone into work, I get this feeling of phantom vibrations that wack me out every single time they happen.

[@EffinChat]

I think it's telling that a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction with "smarter" plots are basically retelling the canon plots but with a lot of the problems being trivialised by the presence of the magic mirrors and patronus message charm

[@liamwhite3522]

Although it is canon to the series that the wizards are so dismissive of muggle inventions that they don't know what phones are.

[@katydid5088]

They could also use Floo calls. I'm not saying that the use of Floo or mirrors or patronus would be impossible especially because short form communication via flying memo airplanes is a thing. In a smaller community I can see little kids using something like that with their friends for fun or overdoing it on the Floo network. For wealthier households mirrors take the place of a basic phone. No need for a patronus, it's just connectivity via the means they have available. Unless you're dirt poor, getting somewhere via Floo seems far more convenient than the Knight bus, even if you have to have a place with a chimney and I've completely avoided apparition. It's etiquette not to pop INTO people's homes, but you can imagine how people could misuse it. Just because somethings "polite" doesn't mean everyone will care.

[@Ronin11111111]

The Ascendance of a Bookworm series has an interesting application of of telecommunications technology, the way the magic in general is used and affects the world is super interesting and deep. For communication they have magic tools that function as two-way voicemail (kinda like sending), they record a voice message, turn into a bird, fly unimpeded by physical barriers straight to the adressed person, repeat the message loudly 3 times and finally wait for a response and return when given one. The interesting thing about it to me is how non-private it is and background noise in the message is an important thing sometimes, as well as embarassing messages being heard by several people.

[@himesilva]

Ive been thinking about this a lot lately; I freaking HATE the fact that people can just reach us at any time. Now if your boss wants you in for a shift and you dont pick up, you might get it trouble. Back in the day they just had to deal with it. I kinda want that back

[@octo448]

On the flipside if you're sick and can't come in, now you just send a text or make a call and your boss can't really argue that they never got the message. Back in the day if you called in, the boss just wouldn't pick up on days they didn't feel like scrambling for cover and you're left with the dilemma of forcing yourself to go in so you don't get written up or keep calling and hope someone picks up before your shift starts. You're not wrong though, I still feel like the modern situation works out better for the boss. (As so many things do. QQ)

[@ajdynon]

I recently heard that (here in Australia) some groups are pushing to give workers the right to ignore calls from their employers outside their work hours.

[@sinisternorimaki]

​@@ajdynon You guys don't have it already?

[@Strideo1]

​@@sinisternorimaki Of course you do. You could also just lie and say you got up early and went hiking, fishing, or whatever and you were in an area with no reception when they called.

[@uwesca6263]

​@@ajdynon you guys have to be reachable on a phone 24/7? There could be a myriad of reasons you dont answer the call and all of them are non of your companys business. Sure if you have it in your contract because you are one of the few people who know all the passworts or have all the keys than i can understand why some sort of mutual agrement might happen. But even than i would find it harsh if thats the standard case for everyone.

[@utej.k.bemsel4777]

By writing a fanfiction about a man from the 19. Century visiting a woman of the the 21. and her revisiting him, i had to rethink all things. What things they can use, what they know, what words they use and how they feel about. It is a real interesting experiment and tought me to look at things that are now totally normal for us at a different way.

[@Moonsong227]

I'm doing the inverse currently, writing a character with modern linguistics in a setting with its OWN linguistics and VERY FAR from earth lol. It makes you think

[@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606]

Hey, red! Trope talk suggestion for you; "The incident" or "Noodle incidents" are a literary tool of a trope that gives more literary weight (funniness, scaryness, impact on the audience) to an event or noun than a description would, mostly by context and the reader's imagination. Named Noodle Incidents because of a short series of Calvin and Hobbes comics wherein everyone at school gives the eternally frustrated 6-year-old grief about something he did in the past that is now known only as "The noodle incident." It is hinted at vaguely many times, but the writer ultimately leaves it up to your imagination; which is a strength because whatever the audience dreams up will be way more literarily impactful (in this case funny) than anything he could write down. And that's not even the only time that comic uses a noodle incident, see, there's this kids book calvin always wants read called "Hampster Hewwy and the Gooey Kablooey" and Now I'm ranting. Point is; by leaving the event, place, person or item, open to interpretation, it has more literary weight than the creator could have possibly written. The Legendary Super Saiyan may have looked a lot cooler in your head than just goku+blonde+power. Another instance this trope is used is in an S.C.P. story wherein a certain slime MUST NEVER come into contact with a human corpse. Why? That's classified. A foundation researcher files the suggestion to test the slime on a human corpse because it's never listed what happens, only that it is a V E R Y bad idea, and the researcher is curious. He gets demoted and heavily scolded by an O-5, who states "Just don't." That one of the 0-5's, who have seen untold horrible horrible things, REALLY doesb't want this to happen, forces the reader to come up with something even the 0-5's fear, and is therefore even more terrifying than anything the writer could have written down. A "Noodle Incident" or "The Incident" is a rare trope that involves telling the audience that something exists or happened, but not telling them what it was, in order to give the plot point more narrative weight than a description would give it, partly because of the imaginations of the audience. It is a great trope that I think you should cover.

[@GuiSmith]

This is a threading the needle situation. I’d love to hear what Red has to say on this subject. You have to give enough information for it not to feel like lip service, but not so much it breaks the illusion of seriousness.

[@timothygreener1062]

ahhh, like the jockstrap incident

[@Nijht]

​@@timothygreener1062 Only this time we don't have Ginyu around to dig the holes.

[@justinsinke2088]

Honestly, a "Noodle Incident" is so niche and tightly defined that I honestly don't think it could really be that well elaborated into an entire Trope Talk; namely because it's just a specific kind of gag, more often than not for laughs. If anything I'd find it more likely used as a corollary trope to something with a bit broader use, like "running gags" or something. How it can be used is fairly shallow, because by its nature, it's a vague allusion that doesn't normally apply the the ongoing narrative because it's simply referencing a past event that's never elaborated on. I mean, in this one comment alone, you've pretty much said most of what can be said about the trope for the most part. How's read supposed to talk about it for 15 minutes?

[@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606]

@@timothygreener1062 Exactly.