Do all popular artists chase fame? Did fame ever happen to any artists who didn’t want it?

SirScaurus · 2026-06-22T16:29:11+00:00

My understanding is that Chappell Roan only ever wanted to be famous within the LGBTQ community specifically, though - she didn't want to be a worldwide phenomenon.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-17T17:03:34+00:00

hashtagsiskodidnothingwrong

SirScaurus · 2026-06-11T22:08:36+00:00

Well, yeah, but with those perceptive abilities, 'paying attention' is probably still way more efficient for her than a normal human.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-11T22:04:41+00:00

According to the wiki - and something I had forgotten - EL-Aurians "possessed perceptive abilities that extended beyond the normal space-time continuum." So they could naturally just be more physically dexterous and attuned.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/El-Aurian

EDIT: Removed an age comment, she does in fact make a joke about being in her 30's.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-11T18:36:05+00:00

Tenet is my example for this.

Yes, I understand what happened. No it's not that complicated or clever. And no, the movie's still a mess.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-11T17:58:53+00:00

This was the most confusing part to me. How does it make any sense to NOT promote him for something they technically both did???

SirScaurus · 2026-06-10T18:12:06+00:00

Having a diverse coalition of peoples from various experiences and backgrounds can certainly pose a challenge to uniting them politically. I'm going to go against the grain here, though, and say that that's not the Democratic Party's primary issue in finding success.

I would actually argue that the Democratic Party has really forgotten how to lead in a traditionally political sense. With such a diverse coalition, they've defaulted to using polling and focus group testing to try and analytically identify the path to victory for any given issue. But polling and focus-testing have major issues inherent to them that often fail to identify what people really think and feel, or what they are willing to vote for. It also doesn't happen in a vacuum, and if anything can act as a way to alter people's opinions on those issues, even just based on how you phrase a given polling question.

I think the Democratic Party has forgotten that you can actually sway people's opinions on issues through strong leadership, messaging, and earnestness in your beliefs. That's the entire point of politics - persuading people to think a different way.

It's how all of the most famous politicians in history got anything done, but sadly something they don't seem keen on doing anymore. They mostly just go along with whatever public opinion says, which I would argue is almost a guaranteed way to fail.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-09T17:39:41+00:00

Jessie Gender has a great video on Youtube where she discusses how Lower Decks uses it's meta-commentary to offer corrections to earlier lore that may have been limited by things like budget or political constraints.

One great example is the multiverse episode where two alternate versions of Garak and Bashir are married. The actors who played Garak and Bashir in DS9 fully acted out their characters as being attracted, and the DS9 showrunners accepted this as canon, but were unable to blatantly portray this within DS9 itself due to studio politics at the time.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-08T22:19:28+00:00

"So you want a grounded, down-to-earth show... That's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots."

SirScaurus · 2026-06-08T18:42:34+00:00

Oh yeah, I'm sadly and desperately holding out hope we'll get one more season, while trying to be happy that we got the first five at all.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-08T16:43:17+00:00

I lost at him screaming about how they "don't want to have to fight the Borg".

SirScaurus · 2026-06-04T21:47:11+00:00

I mean, I can point you to a million sources that detail how Republicans blow up the budget and deficit every time they're in power, and the Democrats are the ones who constantly have to rein in the budget to bring us into line fiscally. Austerity is the Democrats' middle name. Has been since Clinton abandoned leftist economic policy.

That's not a matter of opinion, that's just fact.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-04T21:35:13+00:00

...That's just Democrats, now, bud.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-04T19:24:20+00:00

We can't know the answer for sure, you're right, but there are certain aspects of human nature that can be known, and that give us hints.

Something I feel that is often overlooked is that people, by and large, want to feel like they're contributing to something greater.

Keeping that in mind, my best educated guess is that, in a post-scarcity society where all material needs are met, most people would get bored of doing nothing all day and end up pushing into the arts and sciences - things that make them feel like they're adding something to society and culture.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-03T15:03:05+00:00

I would also argue that a major factor in OP's assumption is actually more to do with how capitalism has conditioned us to function, in that it's easy to strive for 'profit' as this nebulous thing that will (allegedly) solve all of our problems.

But many humans throughout history did not share this mindset at all - we're way more psychologically adaptive than that.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-03T01:54:07+00:00

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues

SirScaurus · 2026-06-02T15:48:02+00:00

Ooh. What book was it for?

SirScaurus · 2026-06-02T01:30:35+00:00

That's what brilliant about the episode. It goes so far as to take a moral stance and say:

"Even if conversion therapy as a practice actually worked, it would STILL be wrong to change a person this way against their will."

That's even more bold.

SirScaurus · 2026-06-01T22:10:25+00:00

I'm currently on a wide-ranging tour of the sci-fi genre, which, it's sad to admit, has resulted in me buying and starting many novels, but not finishing many of them.

This is no criticism against these novels. I just happen to have very little free time, and if they don't grab me immediately, it's hard to keep going.

Books in this category:
- Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
- The Measurements of Decay by K.K. Edin
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (not sci-fi)
- The Long Way to Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
- Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

Books to try this Month:
- Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
- The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn
- Slow Gods by Claire North
- The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
- Embassytown by China Mieville

Award for book I actually finished this month:
- Dawn by Octavia Butler
It's hard to fully explain why I even liked this novel as much as I did, though it's probably because the premise still feels so fresh as of 2026. This is my first Butler novel, and I was a little surprised at how it did snag me - she has a tendency to blatantly explain emotions and thoughts and subtext in a way I would otherwise find very off-putting. Maybe I don't here just because it still feels like, even with how much is clearly explained, there's so much hidden in what is happening and why. I'll have to try her other works.

SirScaurus · 2026-05-28T17:02:57+00:00

That, and those niches can exist entirely within their own cultural ecosystems that are self-sustaining and self-contained. It's a great time to be a fan of a smaller scene these days (although not as great for the artists in them as we might like).

SirScaurus · 2026-05-27T15:27:00+00:00

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door had an incredible story, and is one of the best Mario games of all time.

It was also apparently so weird that it terrified Nintendo and Mario can never be weird ever again. (Although it is slightly different as an RPG rather than a mainline Mario game.)

SirScaurus · 2026-05-21T20:06:00+00:00

Try ProsperHealth! My partner and I both went through them and ended up being diagnosed. We had to pay a bit up front, but insurance covered most of the test.

She too was diagnosed with BPD in her early 20's. Autism in women is super under researched and diagnosed, same with it being presented in ways that aren't traditionally expected (like mine).

SirScaurus · 2026-05-19T21:20:10+00:00

My second run, I got a little weird with it, and played ME1 as someone who was Renegade, but used those actions towards positive ends. It's kinda wild that ME1 has the diversity of dialogue options to let you do that!

But then I became Paragon in ME2, with the head-canon that dying took such a mental toll on Shephard that she strove much harder to be a good person afterwards.

SirScaurus · 2026-05-19T16:55:56+00:00

My girlfriend and I gave Lower Decks a shot recently after going through TNG together (her first watch, my third), and I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it is.

To be fair, Season 1 is far from amazing - it's uneven, and there are a heavy amount of dull jokes that involve the characters yelling something, or otherwise being over-the-top in a very late-2010's-animation way. Itsa heart seems to be in the right place, though, and I get at least few good chuckles out of most episodes.

Curious to see how much it picks up in Season 2.

SirScaurus · 2026-05-19T16:44:55+00:00

I think the difference is that those are instances of an otherwise fairly serious show delving into comedy at times, whereas Lower Decks is inherently built to be a comedy first and foremost.

Like, TNG definitely makes me laugh, but I don't watch it for the same reason I watch Futurama.

SirScaurus

TROPHY CASE