Conversation

Aug 18, 2020

i would love to hear more thoughts and analysis on this "badbrains" meme style, where people depict themselves as separate from their brains and their brains are depicted as antagonistic twitter.com/manicomplex/st

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Kaj Sotala

@xuenay

Aug 18, 2020

I'm not sure that the medicalization angle is quite it, or it might be a right description for some mindsets behind the meme but not the subset that I largely associate with it.

Kaj Sotala

@xuenay

Aug 18, 2020

I associate it more with... a relaxed, somewhat self-deprecating but ultimately compassionate attitude about how everyone acts in ways that go against their best interests? "This is dumb, but we all act similarly dumb, so let (s)he with the perfect brain cast the first stone."

Kaj Sotala

@xuenay

Aug 18, 2020

Like normalizing those kinds of behaviors and signaling that they're not something to be ashamed of, with the brain acting as a symbol for them being a part of our shared humanity (since everyone has a brain and thus can't not have those behaviors), or something like that.

Kaj Sotala

@xuenay

Aug 18, 2020

I guess part of my impression is that these memes often laugh at the behavior, and good-natured (as opposed to mocking) laughter at something generally acts as a signal of "there's a norm being violated but the violation is a benign one". (see citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo )

QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID

)

@QiaochuYuan

Replying to

@xuenay

what i’m curious about: what would these memes have looked like 1000 years ago, when people conceived of themselves in different terms that probably had less to do with brains? is there even a historical record of people describing being plagued by unwelcome thoughts etc?

7:39 PM · Aug 18, 2020Twitter for iPad

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