I did not like Donnie Darko until I rewatched the movie with the directors commentary. It felt like reading the Clif Notes after struggling to understand an obtuse old book in English class. I don’t think it’s a good thing per se that the movie’s plot struggles to stand on its own, but my appreciation for what was attempted really went up a lot after getting the supplemental material.
Regardless how you feel about “woke Hollywood injecting forced diversity into films,” it’s really helped the issue of telling all the good-looking white people apart.
This is how I’ve come to view anime. You can tell the age of an anime fan by whether they’re enamored by the latest hit series or they sigh and go “this is just a remake of [old series from the 90s/00s].” I don’t give a shit how well made a series is; if the premise is “been there done that” without an original take or twist, or a tired and worn trope gets trotted out (looking at you, every fucking series that includes a scene where a female character comments enviously on another female character’s large breasts, yes Frieren that means you), then I’m insta-jaded on the series. At a certain point you realize anime relies heavily on its perpetual fandom refresh, with new fans replacing the ones who “aged out.” For me, I knew it had gotten bad when I was struggling to enjoy Cyberpunk because I felt like I had heard all the voices before in previous series.
What would you consider a “bad movie,” because I wouldn’t consider a “tight plot” one of their shared features. Spectacle: absolutely, humor: frequently, tight plot: if only.
Millennials grew up in the 90s, possibly one of the “best” decades in modern history: good economy, closest we’ve gotten to “world peace,” comparative political stability and “quiet” (the biggest scandal in US politics was Monica Lewinsky), and problems existed but generally seemed to be getting better with time not worse. The 90s were an optimistic time, especially considering the snowballing disaster of a 21st century that followed.
Edit: also advancements in science and technology were bright and exciting, without the constant existential dread of “what calamity have we unleashed this time?” The biggest tech/science-advancement ethical debate I remember was about cloning people, which is a genuine sci-fi-esque moral quandary but ended up being generally moot in reality.
Nobody actually enjoys watching Citizen Kane. It’s the Wuthering Heights of the movie world: you get to feel pretentious and cultured for having checked it off your bucket list, but the actual experience was a total slog and you’re probably never going to re-watch/read it ever again.
The Mario movie was incredibly mediocre, despite its high production value. I’m talking MCU-levels of truckloads of money spent with shockingly little to show for it.
This mostly relates to stuff you disagree with (politically, etc):
It’s really easy on the Internet to live in a bubble, surrounded by others and material you like and agree with. This is especially true when it comes to the political right or left. Posting/viewing material from the “other side” serves three purposes: 1) it’s different from what your Internet crowd posts and therefore novel and interesting, 2) it’s something to gawk at, and 3) it keeps your crowd up to date on what the opposition is doing and thinking, which is important if you want to debate/defeat/win them over.
Example: you’re on the left and a “look what the right is memeing” sub/community starts posting a lot of trad-wife material. You have now been 1) introduced to a new concept (and thereby upgraded your Internet cred with new slang), 2) provided with novel material to yourselves meme about and make fun of (in this example, Ben Shapiro’s sister’s oversized titties), and 3) inoculated to the concept so when your 19-year-old cousin starts whining at Thanksgiving about how all the women at college are sluts and why can’t he find himself a good traditional wife you can give his manosphere-brainwashed ass a thorough smackdown thanks to some sweet rhetoric you picked up from the snarky comments section of aforementioned posts, instead of weakly stammering something about equal partnerships (or worse yet, not understanding the nuance behind wanting a “traditional wife” and thinking this is a perfectly normal expectation for dating in the 21st century that totally won’t lead down the path of inceldom).
There is another, 4th reason: self-reflection. Sometimes, during a blue super-moon lunar eclipse, you see content that’s from the other side that makes you wonder, “are we the baddies?” Or perhaps, “okay maybe they have a point there.” Or at the very least, “yeah I can see where maybe we’re not at our absolute best on this particular aspect of this specific issue.” At least, it would be nice if that ever happened, right?
Part of your problem is that half the folks posting to those subs have no idea what “moe” means either. Folks, it’s not supposed to be a catch-all term for sexy anime women!
Everyone has their own definition of moe, and I’m far from an expert because it’s not my thing, but my understanding (based on how the word was used in the US and in Japan during the 2010s anyway) is this: It’s kinda like the protecc meme… Something that is moe is usually cute, small, maybe a bit defenseless or derpy. It’s something that causes a feeling of “I love and want to protect this cute little thing”… Like how you might feel about a puppy, especially if the puppy is doing something cute and derpy like a heckin’ protecc (in normal people speak: something that’s adorable because it’s not especially exceptional but it feels exceptional when the cute little thing does it, like a puppy that thinks he’s protecting his mama when he barks at a butterfly and then looks pleased with himself when it flutters away, which causes you the viewer to say “d’aw aren’t you just the best little guard dog, yes you are!”). Except puppies are not usually considered moe as moe has a sexual connotation because it’s an otaku thing so of course it does. In other words it’s a term with a pretty strong loli vibe (up until very recently I had never seen it used in reference to anything but girls or maybe women with girlish traits, or girl-like creatures, like monster-musume). Moe got especially big around the time K-On came out, and for a while that series was heralded as the ultimate moe anime: cute girls doing cute things. It’s kinda like the daughter version of “waifu.” And some people do use the term in a more innocent, non-sexual way, but then there’s the hentai doujinshi and body pillow crowd that taint the entire concept (as with all things anime).
Therefore it’s really fucking confusing to see these “moe” communities filled with adult-presenting anime characters sporting G-cups and “fuck me” eyes. Maybe some moe communities use the term correctly, again it’s not my thing so I don’t go searching for it, but the ones I’ve stumbled across in the deep recesses of all sure don’t seem to fit the bill. Am I just old and out of touch with how the kids use their Japanese-derived slang nowadays? Did the normies start altering the use of otaku terms after anime became mainstream? Eh, maybe. But for at least a solid decade moe had a specific, albeit poorly defined, meaning.
Edit: I generally agree with loppy’s comment, in that what they describe is a technically more correct and authentic way to use the term “moe.” However it’s a situation akin to how most people use “decimate” to mean “obliterate,” even though it technically means “to reduce by 1/10th.” IMO what I describe is how most/nearly all (Western) otaku and weebs would describe/use moe, while loppy’s over in the corner going “actually…” In other words, what I’ve described is the “normie otaku” definition, and loppy’s is the “otaku of otaku” definition. So I guess that means that I’d still consider my answer “correct” because it’s the more common definition, even though it’s technically wrong.
A psych PhD I know once said of their fellow grad students: “most of them could have saved a lot of time and money if they’d just gone to therapy instead.”
Boris Kingma from Maastricht University Medical Center decided to take a closer look. He found that women have significantly lower metabolic rates than men and need their offices 3°C (5.4F) warmer.
That’s a huge discrepancy! Obviously not something you can chalk up to individual factors like exercise rates or medical disorders.
Women are biologically more susceptible to getting cold than men are (or conversely, men are more susceptible to getting hot than women are). Also most people in America need more cardio; it’s not a gender thing.