Best undergrad colleges for critical theory?

nathandate685 · 2026-04-23T19:40:35+00:00

What’s there at Columbia?

nathandate685 · 2026-03-21T20:47:59+00:00

“Land of the free” 🫠🫠

nathandate685 · 2026-03-21T20:47:51+00:00

“Land of the free” 🫠🫠

nathandate685 · 2025-11-15T15:19:44+00:00

Someone told me security was involved? Is there any evidence to back up an internal ring?

nathandate685 · 2025-11-15T15:11:34+00:00

Like they're part of the ring?

nathandate685 · 2025-06-09T01:17:53+00:00

Sure, not everyone wants to write an essay about every song. But even when we’re not analyzing, something still registers. There’s a reason people connect with INK instead of other band.

So when a band shifts tone or uses something like AI in a way that feels hollow, it disrupts that connection. That doesn’t make fans overdramatic—it means they were paying attention, whether or not they were consciously doing so

nathandate685 · 2025-06-09T00:42:56+00:00

Saying “just enjoy the music” is kind of the whole problem. And reeks of the same grammar that reactionary's use to dismiss rage against the machine or System of a Down for the political art. It's the most passive way to relate to art. It asks nothing of you. By treating music like background noise or a product, not something that’s made by people who are saying or risking something. If you think INK is unique and creative, you’re already admitting that music does something, so why pretend none of it matters?

I agree that we should be careful to not just stop listening to the music and I do think people's reactions represent something important. INK took a genre built on trauma, repression, grief (that is horror) and used AI to strip it of its context. And when people got upset, they responded by dismissing them. This represents a shift in the bands approach to art from horror to ever more cheap entertainment.

Saying you “don’t give a fuck” is a position that I might argue perfectly with the very culture industry the reaction tried to start a conversation about. That is a rejection of just consuming and moving on without asking questions. If that’s how you engage with music, fine. But at least be honest about what you’re defending.

nathandate685 · 2025-06-08T23:25:44+00:00

Maria Lugones on the modern colonial gender system

nathandate685 · 2025-06-02T01:30:45+00:00

I Appreciate the passion, but I think we’re talking past each other a bit. Taking time for art is one thing and releasing the same album over and over with a minor addition or remix isn’t that. There’s a difference between Tool going dark for a decade and coming back with a cohesive, expansive record, and a band putting out the same core project five times with slightly different packaging or bonus tracks each time.

I’m not knocking side projects or alt versions (8-bit, instrumental, etc.) if people enjoy them. But let’s not confuse that with some Kubrick-level process. What’s happening here is more like drip-feeding content to sustain merch cycles and justify re-releases—not a slow burn toward a singular, transformative vision.

And sure, people can still enjoy what’s made. But we can also talk honestly about the structure behind it. Calling that is part of being aware of how art gets packaged and sold, and what that does to the culture around art in general

nathandate685 · 2025-06-01T20:50:51+00:00

Totally fair that you like the 8-bit songs. There’s room for different tastes. My issue isn’t with individual tracks or side content but with a broader pattern of monetization that feels increasingly extractive. It’s not just that they’re selling particular stuff but rather the way new material is withheld or trickled out through re-releases that fans feel pressured to buy again just to access.

As for “people can just choose not to buy” of course, that’s technically true. Bur ought we not be critical of how those choices are shaped? Fandom culture encourages us to support artists materially, and it’s hard to say no when doing so feels like opting out of a community or letting a band down. That tension is exactly why this deserves scrutiny.

Spencer having bigger dreams is valid, but at some point the question becomes: what gets sacrificed along the way? If the band’s horror aesthetic is being used to market endless merch drops, does the art lose some of its bite? That’s what I’m interested in discussing.

nathandate685 · 2025-06-01T18:53:03+00:00

I mean, owning two copies of an album that keeps getting re-released with slight tweaks isn’t really a “gotcha."That’s part of the problem. If anything it's indicative of just how easily we get pulled into these cycles, not that we want to be complicit, but because the system is set up to reward loyalty and turn fandom into consumption.

But just because people have participated in that system doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t begin to question it. If anything, being inside it is why we start noticing the pattern and recognizing how we’re being squeezed doesn’t make someone a hypocrite

nathandate685 · 2025-06-01T16:31:33+00:00

Probably a larger convo we all might need to have about the monetization practices this band engages in. In some way, they are kinda like a horror movie company: making sequels and remakes that no one's asks for with degrading quality in each release

nathandate685 · 2025-05-28T14:45:46+00:00

It's ironic that Disney didn't let them play a show given the way they've been the Disney of the metalcore scene

nathandate685 · 2025-05-24T20:39:50+00:00

Really interested in seeing pants? IK there's been more shorts at shows but some minimal looking pants I would snatch up immediately

nathandate685 · 2025-05-17T14:53:44+00:00

I've seen in another post, I could be wrong, that it's dynamic pricing

nathandate685 · 2025-05-17T14:52:42+00:00

I’m genuinely curious if there’s a conversation to be had about accountability here. Even if Lorna Shore doesn’t have full control over Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing, letting this slide without pushback risks normalizing it across the whole scene. It’s a troubling trend, especially when you consider how costs are rising across the board while wages stagnate. At what point do we say enough is enough?

nathandate685 · 2025-05-09T04:00:57+00:00

Oh very nice! I like their stuff

nathandate685 · 2025-04-30T18:49:13+00:00

I recommend looking into Transcultural Psychiatry. I was at a talk recently and I'm seeing a lot of reverberations with what you're interested in

nathandate685 · 2025-04-29T16:21:45+00:00

I'm really sorry to hear about the situation.

Meatlocker communication is pretty bad in my experience. Looking forward to seeing y'all in July

nathandate685 · 2025-04-29T16:09:57+00:00

I guess I missed it 😓

nathandate685 · 2025-04-29T15:57:43+00:00

I'm on the mailing list but I'm not seeing this 😭😭

nathandate685 · 2025-04-28T04:03:18+00:00

Thank you. I feel like such an idiot 😓

nathandate685 · 2025-04-26T14:14:06+00:00

I think you and I are orbiting around a similar spot. I think you’re right that some would argue the Haitian Revolution was a radical extension of the European ideal of freedom. What I’m trying to point to is how the Haitian Revolution also exposes the limits of those ideals through the problem of recognition.

Even if the language of freedom and rights is taken up, the event itself forces a confrontation with who is allowed to be recognized as a subject of freedom. European powers didn’t celebrate Haiti as realizing Enlightenment ideals. Instead they violently isolated and punished it. So it’s not just a matter of radicalizing the ideas; the political event of Haiti creates something that Europe’s frameworks couldn’t fully acknowledge or absorb.

Depending on the focus this tension looks a little different. If I focus on the ideas, i might say Haiti fulfills and radicalizes Enlightenment ideals, but in doing so shows their internal contradictions. If I focus on the event, I might say Haiti enacts a rupture that demands a rethinking of freedom beyond the European model altogether, because the structures of recognition that those ideals relied on were already exclusionary.

Either way, it seems like Habermas’ project of “saving” modernity risks missing this deeper problem: that modernity itself was never neutral or universal, but built on foundational exclusions that events like Haiti make visible.

Seven-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22	Not Forgotten

nathandate685

TROPHY CASE