Bitching #2 Sequels (humor intended)

Sequels in general, whether they are movie sequels, game sequels, new albums by the same artists, have never appealed to me that much. For one thing I love innovation, and sequels in anything just means that the first innovative idea has been carried out well enough to deserve a second attempt at it. This means that it's not something new, it's something that the artists, whether it is the director, writer, or developer, have done before, and it's not as interesting.

Given the premise that exploring new grounds is more exciting to you than reliving and rehashing every other similar thing in your life I bring you this scenario. Imagine the first time you're introduced to something new - I'll use a person in this example. When you first meet the person, it's the mystery, it's learning new things about something new that excites you. Apply this logic to mainstream media, discovering a new band/movie/game genre is exciting, but reliving that experience is quite impossible, since it's its ingenuity that was so appealing in the first place. Unless you happen to stumble upon a new genre everyday skilfully executed by the same artists, chances are you'll get bored of it.

So... By exploring new things, I make them stale, and the only way I can satiate my craving for novel ideas is by exploring... See the problem there?

Bitching #1 Exploiting media

I just watched about 10 videos on a 100-lb girl from Israel playing the drums. She was good, not that outstanding, but good enough to make a name for herself on Youtube. YES the drums are stereotypically a more masculine instrument and YES I agree that she's indeed delivering quite an under-the-belt blow to this stereotype but wouldn't the fact that she's this famous be a scathing indictment of the sexist nature of any source of visual media? Isn't the fact that a woman can become famous because she can do something, a stereotypic masculine feat, well pretty much saying that she's special, and supporting the stereotype? The only way to empower your gender whist challenging the preconception of the field is to advocate a stereotype. Your success will be in spite of the stereotype, but only because there's such a stereotype, your success is even more noteworthy. Such rare gems makes it even more stereotypic that the specific gender fails at the task.

So... by doing something alone to disprove a stereotype, you essentially only reinforce it because your accomplishment is rare... Hence... Why bother?