Weekly Thoughts 7/15/23

I went to see Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, and it rules so much! Truly a great movie. I’ve seen two of these before, so I won’t claim to be an expert on the series. I am aware that they’re just a series of excuses for Tom Cruise to do ridiculous stunts, with a plot strung between set pieces. That being the case, they strung together one amazing plot between these set pieces. I really did not expect this feet-first movie to have such a good head on its shoulders. There’s actually a lot working with and towards the themes of freedom of choice versus the forces of circumstance and the powers-that-be. Just a lot of great stuff at every level of the film. I’m going to see it again this weekend so I can put a paper ticket in my phone case.

On a related note, I am generally dissatisfied with the comparatively few ways to make friends as an adult. I am interested in taking classes somewhere, but it’s hard to consistently make time in your schedule when you work retail and, in my position, you’re required to have open availability. Outside of that, there are basically two options: Making friends at work and going to bars or clubs. I try to be open and friendly at work, but a workplace isn’t exactly ideal for socializing. There’s always a point where I can only seem to get so close to people there, and I don’t really get why. Bars and clubs are a bad fit for me. I don’t drink and can’t dance well, so there’s nothing to do there except the most terrifying thing on the planet: Walk up to strangers, alone, and try to insert myself into their conversation. I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t even know how to decide who to talk to.

It’s a problem that’s been talked about a lot over the past couple decades, most famously with that book Bowling Alone, the reduction of “third places” in American society. A third place is a place that’s not home or work, which is primarily used for recreational activities and socializing. A third place you’d want to go to, besides buying stuff. Not only has pay gone down relative to cost of living, and work has been demanding more and more of our time, and social media has been dominated by grindset and hustle culture to make you feel guilty for not monetizing every second of your time, but there’s nowhere to go if you wanted something else anyway. It’s yet another example of the surprisingly large number of problems in our lives that could be solved with people-focused city planning.

To that end, my “on that note” was not just a whiplash transition from the opening. Tom Cruise has been trying to use the Mission: Impossible franchise to save the moviegoing experience, by making movies you absolutely have to see in theatres. I think theatres could make themselves more relevant by trying to become a third place. The big piece they’re missing from that puzzle is spaces to socialize. They could include club rooms for people to discuss the movie they just watched. Going to the movies is already a kind of disconnected yet communal activity; wouldn’t it be great if there was a place for bringing that community together, while it’s still fresh on your mind? People often go to movies with other people for that reason, and you can always join in on the conversation on social media (which I’ll talk about in a minute). If you’re like me, you go to a lot of movies alone, because it rules, but you’d still like to share what you just experienced with others. It just seems like an obvious way to make theatres more important in people’s lives, if they functioned socially like a bar without the bar, where everyone immediately has something in common and there’s no social assumption that your goal is to have sex.

I think it would be a much better place for fans to get together and discuss things than social media is. Social media doesn’t have to be bad, theoretically, but the major platforms are all built around keeping people online as long as possible, mostly through outrage. In my experience, opinions online, especially on Twitter, exist to attack other people. Everyone likes things in comparison to how much they hate something else, or they only speak up to remind everyone how bad the popular thing actually is. It’s why everyone talks in that annoying, defensive way, where you have to preempt your detractors before they get in the comments and replies. It’s a really unhealthy way to discuss how you feel about a movie or show or book, and it’s actively anti-social. Being a fan is about joy and appreciation, not defending your territory and clapping back on critics. You know where there’s more of the former? In-person conversations. When you talk to people face-to-face, you recognize that they’re people, act kinder, and focus on how happy you and they are about the thing you like. Arguments are a lot less vitriolic on average, and when they get that way, everyone recognizes who’s in the wrong, rather than forming tribes and ganging up on the bullied, like what happens on social media. And disagreements are delved into so you can figure out why they exist, allowing you to learn more about the topic and who you’re talking to; they’re not flashpoints for attacking each other.

It’s why my one business idea is a comics café. There are plenty of comics shops that try to create social spaces for comics fans, but they’re still bookstores, often without the space, resources, or staff to do more than be a bookstore; it’s not fair to expect every single one to double as a clubhouse and host events. That’s where a comics café comes in. The idea I have in my head is that it would be set up like a café, with the coffee bar at one side and plenty of seating, and the walls are lined with comics trades, OGNs, and manga. You could either rent a book for a fee, or buy a drink that comes with one book rental. There could also be book sales, but not single issues; I’m not trying to make an LCS with a coffee bar. Ideally, there would be another room that I could soundproof, filled with comfy chairs, for people who want to read in peace; idk if that would be cheaper than buying a lot of noise-cancelling headphones. And I would want event space (preferably as a separate room, or somehow I’d have to convert the main floor on event night), so that I could do various events like what you’d see at a con. Basically, the goal is to make a business that serves friends drinks and snacks while they read and talk about comics and manga. At least by reputation, there’s a divide between American comics and manga fans, so it would be great to have a space to bring those sides together; we all like the same thing, after all. It would also serve as a place to introduce people to new books and, especially if we have a really good café, convert normies who come in for coffee. We could have cute, themed drinks and snacks. It would be great! Since conventions aren’t for everyone and aren’t year-round, it’s the exact sort of space that the community needs. It would complement comics shops that can’t stretch themselves and support those that do. Obviously, I’d want to be on good terms with the local comics shop and partner with them somehow.

It would be great to run a shop like that. In general, I’d like there to be more businesses along those lines. I mean, ideally, we’d also have more community centers and people running clubs through them, so that our social spaces aren’t all based on making money, but that doesn’t disqualify the business ideas. I’m fine if they’re not huge moneymakers, as long as they’re viable. All it needs is enough money to pay the bills and pay the workers fairly. Businesses getting into these kinds of socially-focused areas would in some ways be a good sign, in that it’s capitalism seeing a value and investing in the social health of the community. Since that literally can’t happen, it would be up to small businesses to step up. That’s probably what I’d do if I won the lottery.