Just a thread I'd thought of, to talk about an interesting pop culture phenom from this year... I'm grandpa age (at least here where age of parents are pretty low, like 19 - 25 common) and none of my siblings nor friends have young children... but this K-pop Demon Hunters tsunami of a phenom from summer, is defo interesting to watch. Love the movie, love the messages, love the focus on Korean culture, love the music, love the principals (EJAE? OMG what a ballistic trajectory her life's taken into the mainstream, as well with the rest of her HUNTR/X singing and voice-acting cast -- which are mostly Korean, w/ even a female Korean-Canadian director w/ 20 yrs in the business). And love the global response, which has been wild... But since focus is on interviews w/ the Wicked: For Good cast these days... did a bit of fun digging as I always do, into birthdates to see what their Chinese zodiac readings are (I don't make important decisions w/ it, just a hobby, as a lot of celebs do conform to this 5K-yo system. So the two main stars on set (#1 and #2), are Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, and Ariana Grande as Glinda. Cynthia was born 08 Jan 1987 -- so her birth animal year is the Tiger. However, since she were born literally days before the lunar New Year, which is the Rabbit... she's a cusp baby, a mixture of both (the year supposedly begins to change towards the new year's animal, first day of September). Such Tiger-Rabbits are formidable leaders, since they possess the strength and boldness of the Tiger without its rashness and rancor... and the Rabbit's judiciousness, sensitivity, and sense of balance, w/o its over-arching need for self-preservation. Ari were born a Summer baby, 26 Jun 1993 -- Year of the Rooster. Females born under this sign tend two ways -- the songbird, or the hen. She possesses both traits, along with the Rooster's talons when threatened. But it's safe to say her strength / superpower is in her creative and vocal work... and the protective, concilliatory, nurturing mature side of her had to develop into her 30s to bloom enough to be seen (that's showbiz for you). I really like Ari in her 30s... not as much prior. So we have a songbird and a tiger, in the news cycle again. Which only now, is overtaking K-pop Demon Hunters in the daily zeitgeist... which features rather prominently, a Tiger with a bird (magpie) as its companion. Not a 1:1 match of course -- I wouldn't dare compare Cynthia or Elphaba to Derpy the mystical blue Korean folk-art-inspired, well derpy tiger, nor Glinda to Sussy the sassy Magpie. But it's just weird how both these animals happen, in 2025, to be connected to the hottest pop-culture properties -- historic, really... Again, not attaching more meaning to this than cool coincidence... but delighted yet another set of celebs have interesting readings in the Chinese traditional belief system
Another coincidence... Had been thinking this years now... but the collective's been thinking it too: what the heck's going on with flow of time since covid...? I mean, barring the obvious poseurs and socio- / psychopaths... the collective's got a lot of smart people in it, esp vs. Me. So shouldn't be surprised Reddit has threads talking about such... but what did surprise me justifiably, was the specificity. "Months feel like years..." Yep. I have some theories... this Zoomer generation, witnessing and both creating and perceiving the present pop-culture zeitgeist, may be exp'g what we oldies have known a while now: time seems to flow more slowly as you age. In my time of 20-ism, when there was only the first buds of an internet, pagers were our smartphones, motorcycles had no traction control or ABS but your effing hands and feet, and cars only had one airbag (two if you were bougey)... time probably flowed at the same rate 20-ists now are feeling as decel -- because we weren't raised w/ high-speed internet always being there and people around the world oversharing in your pocket. 2025 in many ways, feels a zenith of some kind... where a lot of the accel from past years seems caught up and bound in creeping anti-brinksmanship. Can't cite specific examples now (between clients) but if any year felt this way since covid, 2025's been its poster child. "Feels like a roller coaster -- super-fast, then super-slow..." Seems just the other day Zoomers were still kids, HS kids -- Millennials were the adults. Now of course they're having families... and sharing exps on s/m. Thing is... what exps prepared Me to be dad-aged, vs. this kid? Are they different? Oh yeah, lots... by not the least which, is the global nature of s/m globally, my generation wasn't foundationally influenced by. The world shrinks when you have snap access to any number of information resources, which then reduces the sensory exp of tediously looking things up, in books or periodicals (I have deep history in periodicals, and most of the stats I can rattle off, came from this time geeking out on magazines). But that's all been made obsolete by the smartphone, and dangerous by malicious s/m. So could be this connection to that world, but having to shoulder the universal, organic task of parenthood (or grieving, or sickness / convalescence) that causes this rift in perception. "Things just seem of another timeline or universe..." Welcome to post-AI 'reality'... I've always been pessimistic re: human beings picking hard work to keep the world safe and just for everyone... vs. lazy, cynical kneecapping each other and leaving responsibility for the consequences to those still clinging to integrity... for fun and profit. The interpretation 'another timeline / universe'... assumes the thinker to consider a past time or place the standard... but in truth it's just a vacillation about things that could've been done, that weren't... without any mention of their own part in insuring this outcome. It's not great to embody that pessimistic worldview, as doing that does indeed insure its creation, at least in your life. But it's been a while now the Greatest Generation's finally passed on, the generation which founded many of the best things here and worldwide, we now take for granted. Don't think it's a coincidence, the 25y -- almost 2 generations -- since they began to age out of decision-making, or just influencing younger gens in charge with their stories and votes... have been a shiteshow of corruption, megalomania, and profiteering. Because it's not that the sociopaths have gone away... but our apathy to them, our saccharine acceptance of avoidance as virtuous... that's let them get stronger and stronger. Just wait 30 yrs when I'm gone, to lift (rich billionaire club) civilisation to Mars to escape poisoning and mass famine, please. And mind you, those will be the survivors... and survivors get to write the official versions of history, probably as victims
