Dan Olson / Folding Ideas

I mean, that is what the documentary tries to set out to do, it just fails rather spectacularly at it. Some claims could be argued one way or another - gold mining does by its very nature provide jobs, sure - but there are some eye-poppingly absurd claims like that "oh well but having access to the gold helped end the slavery or borderline slavery conditions! ... of the South African gold mines." or the perhaps true but still in poor taste framing of boxing day tsunami's aftermath not being as bad because Aceh had access to gold to help fund recovery.

Making a gold documentary is still leagues easier than, as mentioned, a pro-smoking or pro-asbestos documentary; if only because those two latter things do active harm whereas gold in and of itself does not. Rather it's the process of acquiring gold where all the harm tends to lie. But you can't really talk about gold, or push the narrative that "actually gold mining good!" without talking about the mining processes itself, hence this obviously stilted attempt.

The Aceh thing is just like...

"Gold is good because these people could sell their family heirlooms and most precious belongings in order to not starve to death!" It's like those "this kid is helping their mom with her cancer bills by selling lemonade" things. It's not that heartwarming or inspirational, it just points to Indonesia's government not being willing to put any effort into helping those people.

Dan released on patreon a video about all his cameras and mikes and other gear. Bit of a followup on the call out he did to James Somerton about the man buying expensive cameras and then begging his fans for more money. Dan covers the cameras he bought over the years, why he used them, why he stopped using them, the good purchases, the bad purchases, the thoughts behind the purchases.

In a related post he expands on that twitter thread, saying that while most viewers understood correctly, his problem wasnt with James having expensive cameras, or the types of camera James bought, but rather the circumstances under which James bought those cameras. He also talks about his own vulnerability to "gear acquisition syndrome".

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 21st 2024 at 1:10:34 PM

I was surprised by how entertaining that video was; but hearing him explain his motivations for buying certain equipment and whether he ended up liking it or not was pretty fascinating.

Also, like Dan himself clarified, he was never angry with James about buying expensive equipment - people are free to do as they please - but the fact that he did so while at the same time publicly lamenting that his patreon numbers had fallen off and that he pretty much said that he didn't know if he was going to be able to continue making content if he didn't get more support, is pretty scummy.

GAS can get pretty rough, especially in the camera sphere. It's like hi-tech, even more expensive LEGO.

He talks about how much he's spent on a lot of gear. Video stuff ain't cheap.

oof, yeah, GAS affects anything with shiny toys and new stuff. another common thing affected by GAS is BDSM; there's always new things to try, or expensive gear to get. Hence Olson's joke in one of his 50 Shades vids about how if they used something other than fuzzy handcuffs to do a skit about it, that was likely personal gear.

I'm getting into still photography and shiny lenses I can't actually afford are something I keep seeing in ad algorithms and such and if I had more money I totally would succumb to GAS.

Dan posted on patreon a video "Reminiscing from the floor about Gary V's beautiful mind" where he lays on the floor and reminisces about NFT enthousiast Gary Vaynerchuck posting about how NF Ts were gonna replace the QR code on airplane tickets, menus, invoices, etc... because he doesnt understand how anything works, including NF Ts and QR codes.

He notes the post has been haunting him for 2 years because of how stupid it is.

Edited by Ghilz on Feb 20th 2024 at 4:50:13 AM

Okay, that's a strange framing device, but I guess the subject matter is something I'd love to watch, considering that I've been exposed to Gary Vee (not least because of his hare-brained "restaurant").

Dan's laying on the floor with a drill by his head talking about a post that haunted him for two years.

The video has a strong "Dan was doing renovations and the intrusive thoughts got to him so he made a video"

I mean, by his own admission this tweet that Gary V made has been living pretty much rent-free in his head off-and-on for the two years since Gary tweeted it into existence. It fits the mood.

So, Dan uploaded a video that is for now a Patrons only one, and he's not sure that the video will ever be publicly available. Why? Because it's a video about his responses to James Somerton's latest apology video.

He's obviously struggling with whether or not it's right to widely release what boils down to essentially another hit piece on the guy; that being said I honestly think that the breakdown of the claims that Dan does, as well as his level headed approach to all of it are right on the money.

Granted, it's his choice ultimately whether to release it to the public. I sincerely hope he does, not because I want to see James get piled on more, but because I think it serves as a very useful counterpoint to that apology video.

I love how he tears down James' weird claims about his dad, his "memory issues" and his employment problems.

Can't say I'm interested in YouTuber drama

Dan posting on patreon a video about the worst AVGN episode in his opinion

In the comments talking about how he was tempted to discuss Doug Walker's newest and worstest video yet, but seeing as it's such a bad video, he thinks we wont be spoiled on content for that any time soon.

So, which episode did he think was the worst?

Easy Answer is Life of Black Tiger coz the episode is unwatcheable (he's tried several time and cannot last through the 18 minutes lenght)

Secret personal answer is Hong Kong 97, because much like Doug Walker's the Wall, AVGN as a medium is not equipped to understand or explore the context both historical and political of the game, and fails to engage with it.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 5th 2024 at 7:31:23 AM

I'm gonna disagree with Hong Kong 97. Even if you don't know much about the end of British Hong Kong and the Deng Xiaoping regime, the game is still a mess of horrible soundtrack, terrible gameplay, and offensive imagery.

What is there to engage with in Hong Kong 97? It's a shitpost of a game transparently trying to be as stupid, annoying, and offensive as possible. A lesson on the last century of Chinese history might be interesting, but it's not really going to deepen your understanding of the game because the game was shallow to begin with.

I'm gonna disagree with Hong Kong 97. Even if you don't know much about the end of British Hong Kong and the Deng Xiaoping regime, the game is still a mess of horrible soundtrack, terrible gameplay, and offensive imagery.

As Dan points out, that's the point. The offensive images are meant to be offensive. It's terrible gameplay, because it's meant to. Those criticism fail to engage with the product. It's like saying a mario game contains jumping.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 5th 2024 at 9:16:48 AM

Okay, so what should AVGN have said?

From the sounds of it, he probably just shouldn't have bothered reviewing it. Or if people were pushing for it, explained that it wouldn't be a good fit because it's a protest game.

Granted, those were his calls to make. Dan himself admits that there's plenty of people that like the Hong Kong 97 review. He personally doesn't for his own subjective reasons that he stated.

Honestly, I'm one of the people who liked that AVGN episode, so I'll probably just skip this video.

I kinda doubt that Dan will put it up for public viewing. Unless you're a patron of his. Either way it's also not a long video, like not even ten minutes. He's not doing anything in depth, just shooting the shit.