Neophilia (with CaB as an example!)

[Mobbd]

A few years ago, when I first got into Red Letter Media's film reviews on YouTube, I mentioned this discovery to a friend. "You gotta check out these film reviews," I said, "they're done by the guy who did that Phantom Menace essay and they're really funny and there's loads of them."

"Oh, they've been doing those for ages," he said.

Hmm. Well, I knew they'd been doing them for ages because they were on Episode 100 or something but I'd only just discovered them and I wanted to talk about them. But because it wasn't about NEWS, my friend effectively shut the conversation down.

A similar thing happened when I mentioned CaB to him. We'd both read the same book about the evils of social media[nb]Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments[/nb]. The obvious/glib ways to escape social media are to "go outside" or "read a book," but there's a feeling (discussed in the book) that you're throwing the baby out with the bath water if you turn your back on the social opportunities of the Web altogether: Livejournal was never terrible in the way that Facebook is. Thinking about old forums, I remembered CaB and decided to start reading and posting here. When I told my pal about it, his reaction was much the same as when I'd wanted to discuss RLM (above): "oh, that's old." Well yeah, that was the point. We were talking about a possible return to the pre-social media Web.

Maybe there is an upcoming technology that will replace social media as we know it. But I find it hard to get excited about that if there are perfectly good "old" (i.e. extant) solutions.

My friend must be a NEOPHILE - a person obsessed with newness to the point that anything perceived as not of-the-moment is thrown out.

At the risk of sounding like an old conservative curmudgeon, isn't this a problem? I'm citing conversations with my slightly twattish friend here but you can see it all over society: a widespread sense of anticipation about The Next Thing, remaking or rebooting everything, technological solutions to things that aren't a problem, apologies for being "late to the party" about something that isn't even particularly old, a general lack of interest in things that we already have until some sort of retro trend brings them "back"?

[sevendaughters]

hmm I've read stuff that my friends are slow to catch up on but I'm not a neophile, I'm just not a cunt who hates conversation!

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea I get this from friends, there's usually a little window between new and old that's the problem, that's a bit of a 2018 thing, isn't it? Yea sorry mate I'll wait till its old before bringing it up again

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Society through the generations has an increasingly unhealthy preoccupation with the past. Reboots are not new, they are the cultural equivalent of dressing up and eating sick in the hope it tastes like when you ate the original meal. We are entombed by our inability to turn the page, enticed to relive our youth over and over in crustier, less valuable ways.

Perhaps your friend is just an aloof neophile but let's hope he is a true futurist, a Buckminster Fuller type, if so, good on them.

[TrenterPercenter]

Or you friend just doesn't want to talk about the two subjects you were interested in.

Just kidding (ish). I'm not sure I'm keen on the term Neophile but I have known some people that desperately chase new things, fiercely defend new music regardless of how shit it is, they are generally completely uninventive types reliant on certain well known publications or (back in the day) DJ's as to guide their tastes, they are generally the type of people that dress themselves exactly like the mannequins in shops.

[touchingcloth]

I'm a neophobe if anything, which is a problem in itself. Social media was a burgeoning thing when I started posting on forums, so maybe I'll pick up social media in another ten or so years' time once the intervening years have done the job of sifting the wheat from the chaff. I barely listen to any music from this century, as it's easy to assume most music is shite, the difference between new and old being that the older stuff that is still popular comes with a stamp of approval of sorts that it's worth giving some of your precious time to trying out.

Tl;dr: I am a twat, yes, but I'll stick with Glenn Miller until the next tranche of approved music is released.

[checkoutgirl]

My friend must be a NEOPHILE - a person obsessed with newness to the point that anything perceived as not of-the-moment is thrown out.

Maybe he just wasn't interested in these subjects but couldn't think of a decent reason and went with they're old. What is old anyway? Food is old, does he eat food? If something came out at 9.00 this morning it could be old because it's more than 5 minutes old. What are the parameters?

If your friend doesn't like any of your conversational attempts should you really be friends? Ask how new/old exactly something has to be discussed and pick subjects from this specific time frame. If there is still no engagement maybe say the friendship isn't working out.

[Brundle-Fly]

My friend must be a NEOPHILE - a person obsessed with newness to the point that anything perceived as not of-the-moment is thrown out.

The next time your friend wants to meet up or have a chat, aren't you tempted to say, "Mate. Not right now. You're a bit last year, Soz. "

[Paul Calf]

All humans have an element of neophilia. That's how Apple keeps selling iPhones: they've exploited an evolutionary trait for profit.

[TrenterPercenter]

If your friend doesn't like any of your conversational attempts should you really be friends? Ask how new/old exactly something has to be discussed and pick subjects from this specific time frame. If there is still no engagement maybe say the friendship isn't working out.

This is key here;

Imagine a friend that would only talk about new stuff, imagine a friend that would only talk about old stuff.  Friendship is a two way agreement and isn't about one person choosing every topic of discussion.

[peanutbutter]

I suppose if it's framed as "You gotta check out these film reviews" there's an implicit assumption you think the other person hasn't heard of it, which could provoke a bit of a knee-jerk "of course I've heard of that, it's pretty old (and it's easier to stop at this point than adding that I didn't like it)" response.

I tend go on a basis that there's a not unreasonable chance whoever has heard of just about anything. Occasionally it'll go wrong where it's something crazy niche and when they actually know it and want to talk about it I'll be too busy being like "oh wow! I did not think you'd know that! wow!" but it's generally more open to a response than pushing than framing it as a recommendation.

[ProvanFan]

He should present Newsround

[Mobbd]

Or you friend just doesn't want to talk about the two subjects you were interested in.

Just kidding (ish). I'm not sure I'm keen on the term Neophile but I have known some people that desperately chase new things, fiercely defend new music regardless of how shit it is, they are generally completely uninventive types reliant on certain well known publications or (back in the day) DJ's as to guide their tastes, they are generally the type of people that dress themselves exactly like the mannequins in shops.

Heh. You're probably right! But these are just examples. I just thought of a far more egregious one. We went to see a film about architecture[nb]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_(2017_film)[/nb] and he complained that it wasn't very "now," didn't have anything about Brexit or Trump or Populism (the big problems of that moment). But the film wasn't supposed to be about those things. It was about something a little more universal and permanent than the moment.

To be fair to him, he never struck me as uninventive. He had a good imagination. He just seemed to like surfing the crest of the wave in terms of culture; always looking ahead and rarely behind even if "behind" was relevant and the solution to a problem had already been solved.

If your friend doesn't like any of your conversational attempts should you really be friends? Ask how new/old exactly something has to be discussed and pick subjects from this specific time frame. If there is still no engagement maybe say the friendship isn't working out.

I'm afraid you've hit on the real issue at the core of this whole thing. That friend and I haven't spoken for about 20 months now. I'm still savoring a sort of PTSD either from the 15-year relationship itself or from the act of ending it, a recurring back-of-the-mind processing of his strange points of view and the borderline abusive things he said to me or others. Sorry about that; the thread really can continue to be about the issue of neophila.

[Mobbd]

Society through the generations has an increasingly unhealthy preoccupation with the past. Reboots are not new, they are the cultural equivalent of dressing up and eating sick in the hope it tastes like when you ate the original meal. We are entombed by our inability to turn the page, enticed to relive our youth over and over in crustier, less valuable ways.

Perhaps your friend is just an aloof neophile but let's hope he is a true futurist, a Buckminster Fuller type, if so, good on them.

I suppose the reason I mentioned reboots is that the old thing (the thing being remade) is still inherently good but, since it is also inherently old, it has apparently limited interest. Culture doesn't often say "Hey, X property is good, let's give it a nationwide re-release and put up posters to remind everyone about it or reintroduce it to a new generation"; it remakes it instead because it can sort-of pretend to be new. That's one read anyway.

[Mobbd]

He just seemed to like surfing the crest of the wave in terms of culture; always looking ahead and rarely behind even if "behind" was relevant and the solution to a problem had already been solved.

Imagine a friend that would only talk about new stuff, imagine a friend that would only talk about old stuff.

Consider this: the moment, the crest of the wave, is a generator of new culture. An exciting place to be. But there's no point having that crest, of generating new ideas, if nobody sticks around to enjoy them for longer than it takes for the crest to pass.

My objection to neophilia, I suppose, is the idea that newness is inherently valuable rather than simply the necessary mechanism to giving us stuff to enjoy in the future; and some of that stuff won't actually make it into the future because it's in one way or another not actually good enough.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Friend will only discuss new things ---> try having a conversation with someone who's not a twat.

He should present Newsround

Yeah, you used to have to be John Craven but nowadays they let anyone present it!

[Icehaven]

The sheer unfathomable volume of freely consumable culture that the internet has made available has made it both totally insane and entirely understandable to only be interested new things. Think of what you'd miss if you wrote something off because it was at least a few years old, but then on the flip side of that it can be hard to know where the hell to even start otherwise. I've spent most of the last 18 months listening to podcasts that are anything from a few weeks to nearly a decade old and there's CaB threads about some of them, and while I don't see much point contributing to them myself if the episodes I've just heard are years old and so are the relevant pages of the thread, I do still very much enjoy reading what people thought of them at the time.

[Mobbd]

The sheer unfathomable volume of freely consumable culture that the internet has made available has made it both totally insane and entirely understandable to only be interested new things. Think of what you'd miss if you wrote something off because it was at least a few years old, but then on the flip side of that it can be hard to know where the hell to even start otherwise. I've spent most of the last 18 months listening to podcasts that are anything from a few weeks to nearly a decade old and there's CaB threads about some of them, and while I don't see much point contributing to them myself if the episodes I've just heard are years old and so are the relevant pages of the thread, I do still very much enjoy reading what people thought of them at the time.

Darn right. That's what I'm talking about. Those pods are evergreen. There is no reason we can't still talk about them. I like the CaB threads of the time too; and the "X Reassessed" ones that happen. Brilliant. I don't see the value in not digging into extant stuff.

[Mobbd]

What is old anyway? Food is old, does he eat food?

Funny you should mention food. He genuinely looked for new ways to do food. We used to joke about his possible "orthorexia" and how he'd be ever refining his diet based on nutritional science, new fads, and the interface between food and art. I am not kidding.

I used to find all of this entertaining and even admirable. We both came from working- /lower middle-class backgrounds and putting distance between ourselves and some of the more tabloidy mindsets in which we'd been raised was a mutual interest. We could do better, was the idea. We would not be reactionaries or philistines. I went down a sort-of Liberal/social progressive path while he seems (to me) to be trapped in this weird place where nothing is ever still.

That's probably why we stopped talking. We'd been travelling from the same point of departure but on different trajectories. He eventually came to speak for a moment with which my arrived-at values are not compatible. Originally from a place of open curiosity, he now has a lot of time for the alt-right, something I watched accumulate in him over a decade. He became a lot less fun to be around, became a bit of a pill, then a bit troll-like, then relentlessly troll-like, and eventually simply unpleasant to know. (The shutting down of conversations that didn't immediately interest him was just one of the little foibles he began to develop). Evidently, I'm still fucked-off by all this almost two years later and working my way through some sort of grief/loss about it. Ah well! Burp!

[Dex Sawash]

<adds thread bump reminder to 2023 calendar>

Fake edit from 2023- George White  got here first

Real edit- thought it said necrophile fucksake

[checkoutgirl]

of course I've heard of that, it's pretty old

Good point, maybe they mean they've seen it, experienced it and are now finished with it and have moved on to something else. Like if someone asked me if I've ever heard of Angry Video Game Nerd.

With Red Letter Media, I personally have watched scores of their videos but I'm getting to the point where I want to slap Mike Stokastakas whatever. I like Jay and Rich but Mike is starting to grate a bit. Maybe this guy meant something like that. Even if he did he seems unable to express it to everyone's benefit, which is a problem in itself.

I have mates who I wouldn't dream of bringing up RLM or anything like that because I assume they've never heard of it.

[Mobbd]

Good point, maybe they mean they've seen it, experienced it and are now finished with it and have moved on to something else. Like if someone asked me if I've ever heard of Angry Video Game Nerd.

I have mates who I wouldn't dream of bringing up RLM or anything like that because I assume they've never heard of it.

But either way there's a conversation, isn't there? Starting with either: "I've never heard of that, what is it?" or "I hate that thing, it's so stupid." When you see somebody regularly, you bring to the table whatever you've been reading/watching/listening to, right?

Edit: or, "Oh, I remember that, what are they up to these days? / whatever happened to that?" I dunno, I wouldn't shut down a conversation about Angry Video Game Nerd. I mean, why can't we reopen something? It still exists.

[checkoutgirl]

it remakes it instead because it can sort-of pretend to be new

It remakes it because recognition of a character etc makes a film less risky and studios are extremely risk averse and getting moreso by the day. Hence Fast and Furious 9 and Marvel films and TV shows to beat the band.

[idunnosomename]

Corpse fuckers leave thread disappointed

[TrenterPercenter]

Heh. You're probably right! But these are just examples. I just thought of a far more egregious one. We went to see a film about architecture[nb]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_(2017_film)[/nb] and he complained that it wasn't very "now," didn't have anything about Brexit or Trump or Populism (the big problems of that moment). But the film wasn't supposed to be about those things. It was about something a little more universal and permanent than the moment.

No I'm am in agreement with you now.  Commiserations on your friend being a bell end.

"Buildings aren't very now are they?" ffs