Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram • Hacker News Board

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#61

Post by TallGuyShort » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #44

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

I don't think it's just the visual element. I mean Scarface looks pretty terrible by the end of the movie, and people idolize him. I suspect it's more that stories are now told purely for short-term entertainment value. We don't focus on the substance of the story or the moral, we focus on the kind of clips that end up in a trailer. You see similar trends in popular literature too.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#62

Post by burkaman » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

ysavir wrote: post #56

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

Interestingly, American Psycho isn't on that list. Nor should it be. It's easy to come up with a few theories as to what sets it apart, but I would love to see a proper analysis of how it tackles the subject matter without glorifying the lifestyle unnecessarily--and what other films should learn from it if they aim to accomplish the same

Aside from Patrick Bateman committing gratuitous murders on screen, the major difference is that he hates his life and he never looks like he's having fun.

Jordan Belfort might be doing terrible things (although not as bad as serial murder), but he looks and acts like he loves every minute of it. Bateman doesn't.

You could also compare The Hangover and Leaving Las Vegas. One makes a drug-filled weekend in Vegas look sort of fun, and one does not.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#63

Post by optimuspaul » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #5

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

Fight Club gets a lot of retroactive flak now that people know how they were "supposed" to read it. The book was a dramatization of the way young men feel about life. If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie, and not suddenly turn into old men while watching the movie. The movie is entirely showing the fantasy from the "vapid" perspect…

I think the problem with Fight Club could be that the movie changed the ending just enough that the message was lost. In the book is was more obvious what the message was.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#64

Post by Nexxxeh » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #5

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

Fight Club gets a lot of retroactive flak now that people know how they were "supposed" to read it. The book was a dramatization of the way young men feel about life. If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie, and not suddenly turn into old men while watching the movie. The movie is entirely showing the fantasy from the "vapid" perspect…

Wasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#65

Post by justicezyx » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

Hollywood dont want people to be model citizen, otherwise they would want to consume recreation that has nothing to do with their business:

hiking

hanging out with friends families

reading

learning

whatever that is not being mind-washing by the popular entertainment

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#66

Post by bayological » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

vwcx wrote: post #46

I was hoping, based on the title, that this was going to address the exploding popularity of people starting IG accounts for their huskies and then claiming the animals are part-wolf. This is a real phenomenon with (albeit smaller) consequences.

LOL

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#67

Post by Pica_soO » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #44

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

Such movies should not show the person until the very end, just a series of shorts of the victims lifes becoming worser by one phone call. Absence of moral should be depicted as the absence of a person and decency it is.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#68

Post by Apocryphon » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #61

smacktoward wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

I don't think it's just the visual element. I mean Scarface looks pretty terrible by the end of the movie, and people idolize him. I suspect it's more that stories are now told purely for short-term entertainment value. We don't focus on the substance of the story or the moral, we focus on the kind of clips that end up in a trailer. You see similar trends in popular literature too.

His house still looks nice, though.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#69

Post by the_af » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #50

simonsarris wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always perplexed me. With Mad Men and Breaking Bad too, people idolized the main characters, which is interesting not only because they are bad people but because they are deeply unhappy, too. There's something extremely surface-level about people's takeaways from film characters. They want a certain level of panache that the characters can muster, but they ignore that even the characters themselves are miserabl…

Were Draper and White unhappy because of their actions in the shows, or where they already unhappy and their actions in the show were them making the best of it? They both had a tragic backstory (child abuse, cancer) before the show started. Maybe other hurting people identify: Better to be a drug kingpin than just waste away into nothingness.

At least in the case of Breaking Bad, you can sort of believe Walter White at the start of the show is "making the best of a bad situation" but then he indeed "breaks bad" and turns into a genuinely bad and selfish character. He is terrible to Jesse, he lets innocent people die.

Something similar happens with Vic Mackey in The Shield: he starts as a morally grey antihero (if you forget he's a cop killer, of course) but gradually turns into something else. He's selfish, murderous and in the end doesn't really put his friends first, contrary to what he claims. He's a fascinating character, but not someone we should root for! (But we still do!)

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#70

Post by Apocryphon » Thu, May 03, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

Nexxxeh wrote: post #64

gowld wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fight Club gets a lot of retroactive flak now that people know how they were "supposed" to read it. The book was a dramatization of the way young men feel about life. If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie, and not suddenly turn into old men while watching the movie. The movie is entirely showing the fantasy from the "vapid" perspect…

Wasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?

Yes, but capitalism is more than capable of repackaging those subversive themes to push product.