Dobes Zone

      Yayyyyy! Murders!  I generally do not like sharing openly about my interest in true crime stories and history- I don't want people to get the wrong idea, nor do I want to attract the wrong kind of audience to myself. That's because I feel like there's a handful of distinct outcomes for people who get deeply invested in learning about the material, and it ties into some serious issues we're experiencing in the digital age.  If you're like me, your curiosity leads you to learn about how much of violent crime is connected to inherent societal injustice. Serial killers get to prey on people largely due to police incompetence and the fact that they often choose victims that "won't be missed". Victims are in impoverished areas, they're sex workers, drug addicts, gay, trans, people of color, Native Americans, homeless, etc (and any combination and intersection of these things). There's a term for this- The Less Dead, because they're not view

         Patricia Piccinini's sculpture "Young Family"      There's something I really resent about "weird" media going viral, mostly in that it loses context or becomes harder to find information about- such as original creator, or even the original unaltered video/piece itself. Rumors spread, urban legends even crop up about the content. It's interesting as a cultural phenomena but it's also kind of maddening. I especially dislike when something becomes permanently attached to a streamer, YouTube critic, or an influencer, moreso than the original creator. I also dislike the trend of YouTube videos "explaining" any media, including viral art projects. There's this ever-expanding economy of clickbait that self perpetuates and thrives on further decontextualization of everything, which has happened in part due to YouTube's own algorithms and the ongoing struggle that video creators have to be seen and get paid for their work. The tre