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Once Upon a Dream
Feb. 25th, 2026 05:59 amI think I clicked on this lady's YouTube link because I'd never seen a Sleeping Beauty hairstyle in real life before. It really looks like she stepped out of a '50s Disney movie with those double bangs. Ironically, she spends much of this video, and many others on her channel, deploring the regressive tastes of readers to-day.
I found myself thinking about how the internet causes people to lose a sense of proportion. It's a common criticism of studio executives now that they rely too much on the loudest opinions on X to Reddit to make decisions for content. I think it's very likely something like this that's to blame for the more tedious content injected into Marvel and Star Wars media. But I think this line of thinking likely leads to social engineering initiatives in many industries and bureaucracies. It's the eternal problem of people wanting what they want versus what a small percentage of the educated populace believes they ought to want.
It's strange from the beginning to hear someone complain about the trends in fiction when I routinely see articles like this one lamenting the decline of reading for pleasure. While YA (Young Adult) is apparently the leading genre in fiction now, it's worth remembering that it's the leading genre in an artform that's on the decline overall. It's not hard to see a correlation between this decline with the atrophying of humanities departments in schools when this decline in interest also correlates to a disparity in economic status. The YouTuber, "Plant Based Bride", is evidently a Socialist or Communist given how she repeatedly lays blame on the machinations of capitalism, a not uncommon perspective for young people who've gone through higher education in the west these days. But given that it is her own demographic that is driving sales of these books with values she deems regressive, since it seems roughly 80% of YA readers are actually adults, I'm more inclined to think people are choosing their fiction with eyes wide open.
One of my favourite lines from an Edgar Allan Poe story is from "The Black Cat" wherein the murderous narrator says:
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
People naturally resent being told how to think or behave by people who are unable to convey a sense that they actually believe in the morals they're trying to enforce. People naturally dislike hypocrisy and will often behave in a contrary manner even if it is ultimately detrimental to themselves. That, in a nutshell, is how Trump was elected. People were so disillusioned by the status quo that they chose the candidate who represented the biggest middle finger rather than one who possessed the will and acumen commensurate with effective improvement to governing institutions.
And it's why people choose to read those naughty books they've been told they shouldn't. But telling, or implying, people ought to be ashamed of themselves for their natural desires is liable to force that contrariness outside the ultimately harmless boundaries of art and into the real world. Maybe this also leads to people getting Disney hairstyles in real life. Not that I'm judging.
I found myself thinking about how the internet causes people to lose a sense of proportion. It's a common criticism of studio executives now that they rely too much on the loudest opinions on X to Reddit to make decisions for content. I think it's very likely something like this that's to blame for the more tedious content injected into Marvel and Star Wars media. But I think this line of thinking likely leads to social engineering initiatives in many industries and bureaucracies. It's the eternal problem of people wanting what they want versus what a small percentage of the educated populace believes they ought to want.
It's strange from the beginning to hear someone complain about the trends in fiction when I routinely see articles like this one lamenting the decline of reading for pleasure. While YA (Young Adult) is apparently the leading genre in fiction now, it's worth remembering that it's the leading genre in an artform that's on the decline overall. It's not hard to see a correlation between this decline with the atrophying of humanities departments in schools when this decline in interest also correlates to a disparity in economic status. The YouTuber, "Plant Based Bride", is evidently a Socialist or Communist given how she repeatedly lays blame on the machinations of capitalism, a not uncommon perspective for young people who've gone through higher education in the west these days. But given that it is her own demographic that is driving sales of these books with values she deems regressive, since it seems roughly 80% of YA readers are actually adults, I'm more inclined to think people are choosing their fiction with eyes wide open.
One of my favourite lines from an Edgar Allan Poe story is from "The Black Cat" wherein the murderous narrator says:
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
People naturally resent being told how to think or behave by people who are unable to convey a sense that they actually believe in the morals they're trying to enforce. People naturally dislike hypocrisy and will often behave in a contrary manner even if it is ultimately detrimental to themselves. That, in a nutshell, is how Trump was elected. People were so disillusioned by the status quo that they chose the candidate who represented the biggest middle finger rather than one who possessed the will and acumen commensurate with effective improvement to governing institutions.
And it's why people choose to read those naughty books they've been told they shouldn't. But telling, or implying, people ought to be ashamed of themselves for their natural desires is liable to force that contrariness outside the ultimately harmless boundaries of art and into the real world. Maybe this also leads to people getting Disney hairstyles in real life. Not that I'm judging.
