Notices by dschorno (dschorno@refactorcamp.org)

I made an essay about formats and art that I'm pretty proud of (first longform piece since I took the ribbonfarm writing course).

Check it out! https://reading.supply/@dschorno/the-form-of-formats-aru5G4

@nindokag I think that class is a very important piece of this: how west coast/hollywood high class doesn't line up with east coast high class (and caricature-izing those differences).

@vgr I'm excited for it!

@vgr Meme culture is very central. My brother's school, recognizing this, had both "Meme day" (where my brother made fun of a kid who dressed as harambe—tragically normie), and a contest set up to make memes about consent (my brother made several hundred entries and they chose the very first and normie-est one he made)

@vgr so @machado mentioned an affinity for noise, but what I'm seeing here is icons (particularily ones that have a quality of ironic lameness (family guy) or are new (thanos/will smith genie/ new sonic)), Combination/Juxtaposition, and recursion.

there is certainly a retreat to private spaces, but what they are up to within those private discords are not relaxing. It's like a peekaboo effect—you explore the weird and bring back gems to the private space.

@vgr slang for Gen z

my teenaged brother's twitter account is my favorite: https://twitter.com/beta_mayo

@machado do you have an example of what you mean by the second one? (I'm not quite seeing it)

so I like domestic cozy but it doesn't account for a lot of Gen Z culture. like the punchline of this video is some serious zoomer shit: https://youtu.be/PH_-nCZuTWI

it has to do with like, controlled exposure to weirdness:

@BruceJia just because something doesn't leave anything behind doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful.

@BruceJia there's something to be said for communicating plainly

Specifics are overrides to our default assumptions, and apply to the models we use to make predictions about the world (fictional world or in "real" contexts like "the world of fashion" or "the cutthroat business world"), and about people/animals/things (aka stereotypes)

Scenes exist within the context of our normal reality, so they inherit all of the rules of that reality. The "Specifics" of the scene override those rules. AKA "in the world of this scene, it is normal for people to walk backwards".

"Character" is also defined by specifics. This Man -> is a policeman -> who lives alone with his dog -> who studies coding at night. This is true of Character in general: "A Bike" vs "a rusty red children's bike from the 50s with a banana seat and training wheels"

The world created in the scene is created by consensus of the players. "yes, and" does not literally mean that you have to say yes to things, only that you adopt the specifics the other player has introduced into the rules of the world you've created together

Improv theater is basically a game of games. While there's a variant called "game improv" thats explicitly just games (like "Who's line is it anyway"), scene based improv is structured within "formats", which sets up rules for the "players" to "play" within, and players are constantly on the lookout for the "game of the scene" which is basically the process of finding a set of rules/patterns within the scene and then testing/amplifying/exploring those boundaries.

@tasshin @ye @coyotespike I noticed that on your site! Maybe just a little biased 😂

Does anyone have any tips on how to transition to freelance work / "free agency"?

@vgr I am rereading impro after having taken a 101 improv course and thats a big thing thats jumping out at me: I assumed I wouldn't have a problem making myself look foolish/exposing myself, but in reality that's my biggest flaw. Like when someone sets me up to play a child, I'll block as much as i can get away with and won't do the "child voice" because I know I'll look stupid. Improv in general is all about setting you up to look dumb, but repeated exposure will hopefully help me embrace it

anyone got an opinion on the Forte Labs "Building a Second Brain" course? I'm trying to justify forking over the $500

So I read Ian Chengs Emmisary's Guide to Worlding and this technique of using Johnstone-style "masks" to embody different aspects of the worldbuilding process strikes me as similar to some ideas in this "psychonaut field manual" my brother sent me awhile ago: https://orig00.deviantart.net/dca9/f/2018/094/8/e/the_psychonaut_field_manual_fourth_pdf_edition_by_bluefluke-d8rjuxc.pdf (yes it's a deviantart link 😅). It's sortof like a spiritually agnostic guide to occult/"magick" techniques.