The desire for recognition

I had some very good sandwiches and salads during my visit to London; the rest was mixed (even the ethnic food, which I thought would be safe).

Poor Idaho. Such a beautiful state with such ugly people.

I think it depends on what you’re looking for in a restaurant experience. Having lived in Japan and being a second-language speaker of Japanese, I will sometimes seek out Japanese restaurants specifically so that I can chat with the wait staff or workers behind the bar and temporarily soothe the feeling of missing a place dear to my heart. I’ve had some great conversations with restaurant owners and employees who seem genuinely eager to talk with me about their old home as well as my experiences in the country. Also there is a lot of bad, inauthentic Japanese food out there, and usually if the restaurant is mostly staffed by Japanese folks they can provide the genuine article (or at least help you steer clear of Americanized dishes).

So for me this comic rings painfully true, but I’m a rather specific edge case. Generally I don’t care who made the food, as long as it’s good and authentic (I have been to plenty of restaurants where the staff were the same ethnicity as the restaurant, but the food itself sure wasn’t!)

Are you me? I would do this because I didn’t have anywhere else to practice Japanese outside of class. The first Japanese restaurant I went to the experience was great; the waitress was first or second gen and seemed tickled that this random white girl was trying to communicate with her in broken Japanese. The second place I went the waitress replied with embarrassment that she was Korean. I didn’t try again after that.

Hey, at least Las Vegas was willing to throw itself on the pyre before a “real” city got conned into building their own loop system. (Yes I know other cities are looking into building loops themselves, but they’re all tourist traps like Orlando and New Orleans, not actual metropolises.)

I would consider the new title somewhat sensationalist, or perhaps somewhat misleading. Based on the new title, I expected a movie about Southern culture in general, and got something about a rather specific aspect of a specific town. Granted, the content of the documentary does extrapolate out to other places in the south that celebrate the plantation/antebellum/“Gone with the Wind” aesthetic, however I thought the doc would get more into, say, Southern hospitality in general and the resulting illusion that Southern culture is kind and welcoming. I also think the new title implies a more directed, mission-based film–like an investigation or expose–whereas the actual product is more subtle.

However the title isn’t a total lie; the documentary lives somewhere adjacent to the assumptions I list above. I can understand why they (whoever “they” is) changed the original title, which is neither catchy nor that descriptive (I would have been unlikely to click a random video simply titled “Natchez”). However I think they could have come up with something a bit less click-baity and more accurate to the content. Regardless, it’s a good documentary, and despite my misled expectations, I enjoyed the watch.

Best foods to give crows

What a fun coincidence!

Lol, no idea whatsoever. Also it took me way too long to figure out this was four shots of the same building, not four different castles.

Did you happen to see my post in c/ShermanPosting yesterday? ;)

Copy-pasting my comment from that post:

I initially clicked on the video “Exposing the Myth of Southern Charm” because I was intrigued by the somewhat click-baity title, but mostly because it was posted on a PBS Youtube channel and this seemed like a (relatively) spicy take for PBS.

I was graced with a beautifully subtle look at the historic slave plantation town of Natchez, Mississippi, and the tourism industry that has popped up around their many antebellum homes. It tells of an overdue reckoning in a community that lovingly preserves and displays their history (and profits from it) while simultaneously desiring to move on from its darker elements. Yet there is nuance as well; we learn of Natchez’s history of progressive politics post-civil war, and the various ways that many residents are working to keep the “offensive” elements of history from getting swept under the rug. There is no narration; the film allows interviewees to speak for themselves, sometimes to their own detriment (with the help of some clever editing).

Apparently the documentary was originally given the more neutral title of Natchez and was produced with some support from PBS but not directly for them. The director and producer also did an AMA on reddit recently that’s worth a read. The movie went on to win a bunch of awards, including best documentary at Tribeca.

It’s currently available for free on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHAauml9rV4

Article is from a month ago

“Rave Ramsey” makes him sound too cool

Sixteen Tons (1946), timeless lyrics.

Well there were a lot more bugs and a lot fewer wildfires, for starters.

The mod issue is a combination of things. There definitely are power mods and power-tripping mods here (see: yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com), although I’d believe the theory that many mods here intentionally try to have a light touch. I think the bigger issue is inactive/awol mods, and insufficient mods (many? most? smaller communities only have one mod: the person who created the community, who may/may not still be around). Also there are mods who welcome most any activity in their community, because otherwise they’d be dead.

I’ve complained about this in “mildly infuriating” before, numerous times, and based on response it seems that a critical mass of folks agree with me. However as long as the mods are inactive and don’t remove irrelevant posts, the problem isn’t going to get resolved. (I try to downvote the really bad offenders, but since most people browse all or subscriptions rather than in the community itself, they’re probably not comparing the content against the community all that closely, so the upvotes for content always outweigh the downvotes for context).

I don’t think things are bad enough for niche communities to make the switch. For instance, I check out the Critical Role Reddit subreddit semi-frequently, and it seems quite healthy, rather like how Reddit used to feel. By comparison, Lemmy does have a CR community and it gets posts from some dedicated users, but the comment section is always quiet (which is unfortunate, because interacting with other fans in the comments is kinda the whole point).

It really takes an organized move, where the subreddit community as a whole decides to switch over. The numbers just aren’t here for most niche interests to survive organically.

Not to be a cynic, but I’m not sure how relevant data from two years ago (survey conducted spring 2024) actually is, given the fast-placed nature of AI development/adoption.

Why is the meme colorblind?