Interesting how sadness in the environment has to aestheticized to be made socially acceptable to experience (goth/emo culture, minor chords in music, wabi sabi, beautiful graveyards). We don’t like banal sadness like empty airport terminals late night with no services open
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Gothic music is about existential angst and misanthropic cynicism/nihilism than it is about sadness. It’s more like impotent rage.
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burial aestheticizes that particular banal sadness (he has a track named "in mcdonalds": youtube.com/watch?v=nI6nfA)
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I do though.
And so do people who make movies, I feel. We are making progress on the "what counts as properly aestheticized sadness" front. Lonely tube stations, people rushing by... a profusion of livable metaphors.
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I think the aestheticism helps with sharing the experience or provides a gathering point for it. Cherry blossom viewing in Japan is another example. Empty airport terminals are socially acceptable, but not glorified.
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Most high-profile attempts at encapsulating that banality have been produced by too narrow a group for it to catch on as a wider socially acceptable mode (hence the need for aestheticization & ironic remove toward them). I suspect that the group of producers is broadening, though
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the banal can be comforting. at least I sometimes find it so. malls and other workplaces after hours. battlefields.
places aren't inherently sad.
projecting our sadness upon an environment isn't the only option. we choose which stories (and their feelings) to attach to a site.
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If we did, they wouldn’t be empty and the services would be open
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