(abandoned substack post)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have been very helpful (1) to a lot of people in a lot of ways. But I can\u2019t help you if you can\u2019t (or won\u2019t) fucking read. I get driven to despair sometimes watching people behave like absolute nitwits on Twitter. This is the stuff I don\u2019t tweet about, because losing your shit on Twitter about Twitter is a spiraling path to hell. Generally, if you gotta bitch about people somewhere, it\u2019s better to do it across platforms. This discourages low-effort responses, so you\u2019ll have a higher quality of average response. (Even here I betray my instincts\/values \u2013 why should you want a higher quality of response? What if you just want mindless, meaningless bullshit? That\u2019s Fine Too I\u2019m Sure but please do that bullshit far away from me. It\u2019s doubly annoying how some people can\u2019t be satisfied by playing their own game, but have to actively go out of their way to play interference in other people\u2019s games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe I should pause and check myself about why exactly I care about being helpful to people. I am aware of the problem of being an insufferable do-gooder who goes around meddling in other people\u2019s business. I don\u2019t want to do that. I simply want to reach the people who are interested in what I have to say. There are people who want to be helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to talk about genres, frames, forms\u2026 why? people don\u2019t know how to fucking read and I wish they did so I might as well fucking teach them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All creativity begins with imitation. We learn language this way, by mimicking how we\u2019re spoken to. Then there\u2019s some experimentation, remixing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is a genre? What are conventions? They are generalizations. Forms. Finite-ish games?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rigid conventions of Singapore? I wanted to educate my readers about the context that I\u2019m from.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I grew up in Singapore in the 1990s. There\u2019s a bunch of stuff about that that feels a little strange and dated to talk about in 2022. I wonder if I\u2019ve already written about it before. I\u2019ll attempt to write some things from memory. The tricky thing is all the subtle, implicit stuff that nobody really spells out for you explicitly. I\u2019m grateful to comedians like Kumar and the folks who record them. Some of the famous things that spread outside the country: we banned chewing gum, we have caning. there\u2019s a t-shirt that says we\u2019re a Fine country, lots of fines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n cash credit card condo car country club<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Minor\/irrelevant point?) a bunch of international media about Singapore is viewed through western eyes. I\u2019d be more interested in hearing what our regional neighbors think of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s an old essay from Colin and Yen, titled Paved With Good Intentions. There are several films \u2013 Singapore Dreaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colin is a lawyer who wrote a comic strip in The New Paper called Concrete Jungle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have the intrusive thought from time to time that people don\u2019t know how to read.<\/strong> I don\u2019t mean basic literacy, though some people do struggle with that. Past basic literacy you have simple logic, which people also struggle with. (A classic example: people hearing \u201cblack lives matter\u201d and interpreting an unstated only<\/em> or more<\/em> in the phrase.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n