thimbronion: So evidently Miami Beach has been taken over by people vacationing using their stimmy checks and unemployment.
asciilifeform: thimbronion: how didja find out with what they paid ?
thimbronion: asciilifeform: Rumor from local uber driver.
asciilifeform: a.
thimbronion: Miami climate is pretty much intolerable btw.
thimbronion: eternal Maryland Summer fwics
thimbronion: I still don't quite understand the descriptions of various places as instances of Miami found in the logs. Not quite sure what is charactaristic about it.
thimbronion: Perhaps the idea place to blow drug money?
thimbronion: Or the kind of place that results from the spending of drug money?
billymg: thimbronion: i always understood Miami as an aesthetic, created by and marketed around the world by usg.hollywood. mansions, luxury condos, sports cars, bimbos at nightclubs
billymg: and with sleight of hand, sold not as "this is how the elite lives" but as "this is how average successful american lives"
billymg: think of the beginning of GTA IV. if you're not played, it's where niko's cousin is telling him about how great life is in america. the women, the cars, etc. niko comes to finally meet him and discovers he's living in a run down apartment next to train tracks in brooklyn
billymg: and you don't get the idea that his cousin was even lying, but that in his own head, even believed it somehow. that he was living in Miami america, despite living in poverty
billymg: so the propaganda works in different ways depending on the audience. for poor foreigners, bait to come to the US. for poor residents, something they can fantasize themselves being, simply by association
billymg: and for people who come across some money somehow, an instruction manual for how to blow it all quickly, in the least effective way
billymg: if you've* not played
asciilifeform: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/alethepedia/2021-06-06#1002848 << another famous example: film 'home alone'
snsabot: Logged on 2021-06-06 19:15:23 billymg: think of the beginning of GTA IV. if you're not played, it's where niko's cousin is telling him about how great life is in america. the women, the cars, etc. niko comes to finally meet him and discovers he's living in a run down apartment next to train tracks in brooklyn
billymg: asciilifeform: i think i started noticing it in movies in my late teen years / early 20s. as a kid always thought "oh, yeah, that's normal middle class just like me" -- then later, "hey wait a minute, that's a reallyyyy big yard, and what zip code is this supposed to be?"
asciilifeform: aaha. iirc the house in 'home alone' was already worth coupla $mil at the time of the filming.
billymg: asciilifeform: wasn't even referring to that movie specifically, just all of them
asciilifeform: (yet presented as 'middle class'; or where the father of the protagonist buys tickets to fr for his + friend's entire family.. )
asciilifeform: billymg: right, simply this one is perhaps most discussed example in orcistan (where folx very muchly aware of the fraud)
asciilifeform: in 1990s folx went overseas, but pretended over phone to have 'made it'. by now many came back; and many others have went and seen for selves what 'america'(tm)(r)(c) actually looks like