Binging Hell of Presidents, Matt (the largest of the chapos, who should be able to eat the smaller ones) said something that resonated with me- the idea that our connection with class is so disassociated and immaterial that the only way we can express ourselves is through consumption.
I realised he was 100% right, but sadly realised I couldn't figure out alternatives. Is there any answer apart from getting off our damn iphone? (it's community connection right? But we still have to consume food and culture to do so...- or am I taking it too literally?)
Making shit with other people helps. Coming up with stories, skits, or playing games, that kind of thing. There are lots of ways to interact with people mutually along non-market lines.
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Something I just realized I find really frustrating about the world is that any kind of constructive collective undertaking is under the domain of capital, and any kind of artistic endeavour, as a hobby, tends to be individualized to a painful extreme. People don't get together and just make shit for fun any more, except maybe music. So much of our collective time is just consumption.
So Dungeons and Dragons is the only true form of socialization in this hellworld?
D&D is good, but also try:
The people I play DND with are g*mers so our sessions still involve talking about vidya consumption before and after the session
I mean, I’ll go against the grain here and say that I’m not so sure things were THAT different in the past. Like what do we think medieval peasants were all having deep philosophical conversations all the time? They still probably spent a lot of time going “oi de gout a new type of cheese down at ye olden tavrn’, tasted proper musky, comes from the land of the Danes!”
Yeah it’s just exaggerated behavior that would otherwise be normal. It’s all they talk about. I’m not expecting deep philosophical conversations, but I barely know these people who I spend several hours a week with because they never talk about their lives
Hm, that’s weird, I got to know the people in mg DND group pretty well. Hell one became my gf
Damn that sounds nice. One of them is a friend from high school which is why they’re my crew (not to mention a party that can consistently meet each week is nothing to fuck with). I learned like a year in that one of them has a kid. And another bought a house and none of us heard anything about it until it’s be done for several months. That’s a pretty stressful process that I’d expect to hear about from a friend that I see that often. It’s real weird
Idk maybe they view the game as an escape and don’t wanna talk about stressful personal stuff?
Yeah I think it’s all an escape. The other games and comics and movies and everything. Aside from me, this is their core friend group, though. Maybe they save the venting for partners or for each other in private. I will probably never know