New Look

Welcome to the new look!

The Accidentally Awesome blog has become The Curious Conscience.

Like the tagline says, this blog will continue to have reviews, essays, comics, and other assorted pop-culture based nonsense but with a more focused eye towards cultural awareness.

I chose the new name because curiosity is the basis of my existence. Accidentally Awesome was named for my experimental nature and similarly this blog's new version draws on those same themes. Just as with the things I create myself, I believe that being curious about art and entertainment requires a certain level of social consciousness: art doesn't exist in a vacuum. The power structures that exist play a huge role on what makes it into our TVs, theaters, and radios. Paying attention to that doesn't mean stuff still can't be fun, it just helps to understand our world better.

If you have ever read any of the pieces on this blog you might already be aware that I engage with culture through a specific lens. Caring about things like race and gender and how they are presented isn't something I strive to do- it naturally affects my enjoyment of the entertainment I consume. So this is a natural extension of how I already write and think. Besides that, it makes it more personal. Anyone can tell you if a movie is good, but they won't always tell you if it might hurt the way you look at your friends, family, and neighbors like I will.

With this new format I hope to welcome a new contributor in the upcoming couple of weeks, someone who has extensive experience in topics that influence our culture. She has a lot to say and has a real gift for punching upwards so her inclusion should be fun and refreshing. 

I hope that you enjoy the new format. The new pieces that are coming together are going to be fun and interesting and I hope everyone will stick around to see it come to fruition!

Internet Hell

Last week, someone who I care about very much betrayed me on Facebook (and no, I will not name names).  They posted onto my wall in front of everyone (well not everyone, friends only- got that security down tight) a meme so horrible, so lazy, so treacly, that I may never be able to look at this person the same way again. That's right, it was a Minions meme.

What possesses otherwise sane and rational people to pass these garbage memes along like the digital herpes that that they are? I suspect it's the same reason "likes" flow like a raging river and "unlikes" are equally tossed about with an easy callousness on Facebook. And that reason is that people are dumb.

No, the reason is that most people don't think too hard about the images that whiz past them while scrolling about. It's just so easy to click an impulsive "like" and "share" as one wastes time on Facebook. As a consequence of this casualness there is a body of work allowed to fester and grow there, a lazy and incompetent collection of memes so outrageously bad and inept that pity is bypassed and only scorn must remain. These images, and other nonsense from around the web, make up what I can only call:

INTERNET HELL

And make no mistake, we're all burning in it all the time. Let's see some examples, shall we?

If your friend loves you more than your lover that might be a problem.

 Now this is not the meme that was posted to my wall (the one I received was worse in some ways) but this one has floated down my newsfeed MORE THAN ONCE. It has several hallmarks of an awful meme. First, children's cartoon images aimed at adults. Second, random schmaltzy (often nonsensical) text combined with images that have nothing to do with the text. And third, poor spelling and grammar (not so much an issue here, though it has no punctuation).

And finally, the issue that truly pisses me off: images that have been modified by people who have no idea how Photoshop or Illustrator or, hell, Ms-paint work. This Minions meme appears to have been modified at some point possibly (the two font styles, the poor spacing, color vs. black text) but it has held up fairly well ("well" being used subjectively here). Here is a better example of the modification issue:

Is this funny? I don't know. I've seen this posted by multiple people. I think the joke has to do with how strippers exist? Regardless, notice how the text is blurry. This image has been saved (most likely as a jpeg, a file type that can degrade over time) and resaved and reposted many times it appears. It possibly has been crudely placed on different colored backgrounds to appear as though it's a new meme, possibly for multiple people to try and claim ownership of it. And this blurry, badly aligned mess is the aftermath.

But as bad as these are . . . I have worse. It has become a sick obsession for me to collect these. As I post them here I will purge them from my computer's files, thus cleansing my hard drive and my soul.

As a final thought, I would like again to point out that every time Grandma posts a Snoopy meme about how much she loves her grandkids it's not time to pull out the pitchforks and torches. It's way too easy too absentmindedly engage with bad stuff out there- a click here, a click there and suddenly your friends are hiding your feed. So let's remember- don't blame those who repost, for they know no what they do. Blame the people who are creating these memes.

For it is they who must be stopped.

Social Tedium Part Two: No Follower Boogaloo

Social media can be scary and challenging but most of all, it can be baffling. What actually can compel someone to click through to unfollow someone on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr when I can barely muster the energy to click "like" on stuff?

Come with me on my this semi-regular journey where I try to deduce the whens and whys of people dumping me like a hot sack of garbage.

This week's episode: "That seems about right."

Introducing . . .

Shhhhhhhhhhhh . . . this isn't an official launch.

BUT. You can now find my work for sale at AccidentallyAwesomeArt.com. Woooo! Fancy!

Because of this blogs are going to be done differently here now. This blog is going more personal while my business' site blog will be more about my products and art stuff. It will be more visual, and this blog will be more about the written word from now on.

Guess What?

I moved. :)

New updates coming soon!

Moving to a New State: A Handy Checklist

Look What They've Done to my Blog, Ma

Well. It has been a long time since I last posted and longer still since I posted new art and such. Even then, my last post came off a bit more dour than I intended (though that was my mood at the time).

I'm still not ready to reveal what is going on in my life yet but I guess I should point out that it's really really good and exciting stuff, stuff that is going to change my life 100%. However, huge life changes bring a lot of stress and that stress can be overwhelming sometimes.

So what does this mean for you, person who is reading this blog? Well it means that things will continue to be sporadic for the next few weeks. It also means that for the time being the Accidentally Awesome Etsy shop has been put on hiatus (mostly because my art room is currently being used as a staging area). 

But it also means that sometime in October this blog is going to, before it goes back to art and comics and stuff, become an adventure-logue that hopefully will be fun, funny, and exciting for me to write and for you all to read about.

Why am I playing this so close to the vest? Well I have a specific way I want to do things and announcing to the world ahead of time what my plans are would go directly against that. It's similar to another fantasy I have wherein if I ever get pregnant I think it would be funny to not tell anyone till the baby arrives and then be all casual like "oh, this ol' thing, yeah no big deal". I don't know why, but that amuses me greatly. So it's kind of like that (I am a crank).\

I hope to have my Etsy shop back up and running by early November. If you want some origami ornaments before then or have any other questions about the shop you can still see stuff for sale on the Facebook page and also feel free to email me at misstwosense@gmail.com.

Thanks for the patience and I hope everyone out there reading this is 1/24000 as excited as I am because that would still be pretty darn excited.

Also, I've finished MASH and am halfway through The Gilmore Girls so I have to start writing about TV again soon because otherwise my husband will divorce me. ;)

-H