itsnotmymind | Media Consumption 10/4/2024

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I am currently reading The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-city Neighborhood, by David Simon and Edward Burns. Yes, the guys who did The Wire before The Wire. This book is nonfiction. The book is very good, although - there is a lot of detail. Human memory doesn't usually work like that. It makes me wonder if bits were made up - and how the writers handled it when they were presented with contradicting stories.

I'm watching The Boy and the Heron. Not as weird as Ponyo, but still pretty weird.

I'm also continually rewatching the scene between L and Light in the rain in the 25th episode of Death Note.

I'm making my way up to the present day in the You're Wrong About podcast. I don't think it's as good as it was before Michael Hobbes left, but I am still enjoying it. The episode I'm listening to now is on Balloonfest ‘86, an event I had never heard of before.

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From:

author_by_night

I'll be honest, I've soured on You're Wrong about since listening to their episode on Dissociative Identity Disorder, which they called Multiple Personality Disorder. It hasn't been called that in decades and they seemed to take it as a "fad disorder", rather than discussing what it actually is. For a podcast about misinformation, it was very disappointing. I did enjoy their Dungeons and Dragons episode, though I'm not sure if I ever finished it. I think that one's very recent. There's also one about Go Ask Alice which is quite good.

. This book is nonfiction. The book is very good, although - there is a lot of detail. Human memory doesn't usually work like that. It makes me wonder if bits were made up - and how the writers handled it when they were presented with contradicting stories.

I haven't read this book, so I can't comment on it at all. However, I will say that sometimes you do wonder what's been fabricated. "On October 5th, 1984, my mom was wearing her purple dress when my dad came home from work. They immediately started arguing about taxes, which turned into a bigger argument about Ronald Reagan. I turned off The Cosby Show and went to bed." Maybe the author has an eidetic memory and/or was a very perceptive six year old, but I still find it a little suspect. My guess would be that the author filled in what was likely, given the time and what they remember about their family. (Mom hated Reagan, Dad loved Reagan, Author loved The Cosby Show.)

That said, I took a few nonfiction writing courses in college, and we were indeed told we could make some generalizations, or fill in what we knew as adults.

...my point is, I do think embellishment is a thing. Because you're right, human memory doesn't work like that. I remember things from the past, but while I do have one or two random memories I "shouldn't" have that have been corroborated, most of them aren't so neatly contained.

Edited Date: 2024-10-05 02:16 pm (UTC)

From:

itsnotmymind

I've heard the one about Go Ask Alice, but not D&D or DID yet. I thought the Go Ask Alice one was pretty good, though not one of my favorites.

Did any of the nonfiction writing courses you took tell you how to handle it when you had people saying contradictory things?

From:

author_by_night

That's a good question! No, I don't think they did go over that. I think we would have been told to go somewhere in the middle or use our best judgment.

You're right about contradictions, though. I've had so many conversations where it'll be like: "You were ten, and it was Christmas." "No, I was fifteen, and it was Easter." People conflate memories as well as creating false ones.

From:

lokifan

I can see that with the Multiple Personality Disorder episode, but my read on it was that they didn't use the term DID precisely because they weren't actually discussing DID as it exists, but people's previous understanding of MPD and what they thought it was then. More clarity on that would've helped, but for me that made sense, especially as part of the focus the podcast often has on the 80s-90s, the Satanic Panic, and books that changed the conversation around disorders or traumas. But like I say I do see why it bothered you!

From:

author_by_night

Hey, I appreciate your perspective! Yeah, that's a very good point. You might be right that that's exactly why they didn't use the accurate term, even if more clarity would have helped. They were focused more on what people did call MPD, which really isn't what DID truly is. Especially as you point out, the focus is often on 80s-90s moral panics and conspiracy theories.