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Welcome creatives! These are discussions, thoughts, case studies, interviews, and lessons about how our creativity relates to life. The host, Mr Benja, is a former video game programmer / designer for Rockstar Games, Sony Santa Monica, The 3DO Company, and others, as well as a fine artist. -- Be sure to check out the website for more.
In case you manage to live and exist in
2024, I have something to say to you.
, being resilient is a superpower.
It's a superhuman ability.
It means you're extraordinary
if you can do it properly, but
being resilient is a superpower.
And it comes with a little bit of blues,
but that's okay Because you're resilient.
Right?
Right.
This is mister Benja with
Creativity Threads Life.
We're gonna be talking about
the resilience factor here.
And, yes, it's Black History Month,
so I'm probably gonna be throwing
in more than usual black characters,
black themes, etcetera etcetera.
But I'm gonna be doing it in my sense,
uh, my my style, my sensibility, which
is the black hero, Some, um, maybe
I'll get into some black video games.
Uh, I'll do some reposting of
some content that I did before.
We'll get into all that.
It'll be a fun month.
We've already got a week out of it,
so we have a couple more weeks left.
But in the meantime, hope
you all are doing well.
Hope you all are Living and existing okay.
Out here in LA, we're just,
uh, taking on the rain.
LA is not used to having this
much rainwater dumped on it.
Colds all over the place, probably from
people, you know, playing in dirty gutter
water because they don't know any better.
Not as many accidents as I've
seen in previous rainy seasons,
but, uh, you can definitely
feel the mood is different here.
Lot of that's because of the economy
and what's going on, but basically,
basically, LA is out here trying
to be resilient in a lot of ways.
Seeing people's faces, seeing people's
attitudes, seeing people's behaviors.
That's what we're gonna talk about today.
Um, and before we continue quickly, I
have just opened up the The creative
study lounge membership area.
So for those of you looking to support
the podcast and hear more of these,
maybe get some of the uncut and, um,
remastered audio remastering, but
I cut out all the ads and some of
the some of the white space here.
And some of the issues I fix before
I post it up to the podcast channels.
And then on the podcast channels, You're
able to get the ad free version if you're
a member of the creative study lounge.
So that's how that goes.
Be sure to check it out.
I'll have the links in the description.
Anyway,
With customer service for 2 and a half
hours on some nonsense issue, And nobody
seemed to know whose fault it was, how
it happened, why it was the way it was.
And it was a problem
that needed to get fixed.
Even though I had other things I wanted
to do, I had other responsibilities
that said, let me go ahead and
finish this, Knock it out of the way.
And it was just a broken situation.
I think a lot of us are going through
these broken situations where situations
just aren't working the way they should.
Nobody can give you a straight answer.
You can't really get what you want
the way it was presented to you,
not even just getting what you want.
You can't get what was presented to you.
It seems like everything's a bit
superficial and shoddy right now.
And the more superficial and shoddy
things are, the more resilient people
have to be in order to Maintain and
go along with the whole program.
To maintain and continue along their
path, they need to be resilient.
You need to be resilient.
We need to be resilient.
So resilience is that factor that allows
you to Not necessarily stave away pain,
but it allows you to endure hardship.
It allows you to suffer the fools.
It allows you to get beat
down and get back up.
It allows you to walk through
areas where other people
wouldn't dare, it covers a lot.
In fact, because I'm being
studious studious here, I will
look up the word resilient for you
and give you a good definition.
According to the being searched, resilient
adjective, able to withstand or recover
quickly from difficult conditions, Able
to recoil or spring back into shape after
bending, stretching, or being compressed.
Alright.
Let's give him even
another definition even.
If Merriam Webster
would load, we'd get it.
Alright.
Resilient.
Characterized by resilience, such as
capable of withstanding Shock without
permanent deformation or rupture,
tending to recover from or adjust
easily to misfortune or change.
I like that last 1.
Tending to recover from or adjust
easily to misfortune or change.
By the way, if you guys are looking
for the best definition, we're gonna
plug Merriam Webster dictionary here.
I don't know what these other
services are doing, but they seem
to come with the best definitions.
Miriam Webster, you can just
send me a free dictionary,
and I'll keep plugging you.
Like, I want 1 of the nice nice hardback
ones with the Gold lettering and and
a ribbon where I can, you know, lay it
down on my favorite dictionary page.
Because that's what I need in
my life, a fancy dictionary.
Alright.
So as I said, Today was
just spent being resilient.
And I I had this thought on my
mind before, But a very specific
act of couple was it 2 weeks ago?
2 weeks ago really got to me.
And I've been thinking
about the theme ever since.
Thought about the podcast a little
bit, but then today just hit me,
so I had to record this podcast.
But this began 2 weeks ago
and got me thinking about it.
Luke Cage was actually on, uh, on the
news as a possibility for continuing
It's ending of you know, from the
Netflix series and also wrapping into
some of what's gonna be happening with
the new TV series on on Disney plus.
So that was kinda lightly in
the background in the news.
And then 2 weeks ago or so, I was doing
my thing, And somebody told me they just
stopped by while I was doing my thing
and said, Benjamin, you're resilient.
And kind of left the compliment,
if you wanna call it a compliment,
kind of left it at that.
I felt like it was 1 of
those backhanded compliments.
Right?
Like, I'm sitting here busting my
rump to do work, And you're gonna
stop and say, you're resilient.
It almost felt like being slapped
repeatedly and then someone telling you,
you have such an awesome sturdy face.
It's 1 of those kind of compliments.
Like, I didn't wanna hear this
person tell me that I was resilient.
I mean, I can put up with things.
I can get things done, but
I didn't wanna hear that.
I definitely didn't need to hear
it right then, you know, when I'm
working and I'm thinking they're not
Or they're just subpar or whatever.
I whatever.
But It really stuck with me in
a weird way because I work hard
to maintain what I'm doing.
I try to work hard to Maintain
my persona and my attitude.
And, yes, there's a heavy racial component
there, Just in general, you have a
situation, at least in this country, and
I'll say it's in other places too, where
Black people are expected to just take
stuff and accept nonsense and just be
resilient, But not in, like, a a good way.
Like, oh, you're a sucker.
You have a sturdy face for slapping.
And it really is complete bullshit.
There have been studies done on this
Where black patients in in medical
facilities, the assumption is that they
feel less pain than everybody else,
that their Their ailments aren't as
serious as everybody else's because
they're tough or they can take it.
So this isn't something that just
popped in my head right out of
the blue, but it is something that
kinda came together all at 1 point.
And since we're in Black History
Month, I decided to talk about it.
But you don't probably
don't come here for that.
You come here for the creativity aspect.
Right?
That's where Luke Cage comes in.
Because I didn't completely consider
it, although I knew it was a theme.
I've I've known it.
And his theme is resilience.
The general superpower that
Luke Cage has is being resilient
Emotionally, physically, mentally.
And let me read the definition again.
Characterized or marked by resilience,
such as capable of withstanding shock
without permanent deformation or
rupture, Tending to recover from or
just easily to misfortune or change?
I felt a little bit of Luke Cage.
In fact, I'm wearing a hoodie right now.
I don't plan on walking in any
building getting shot at, but I
do feel a bit resilient right now.
I'm happy about it.
This is 1 of those superpowers that
it feels like a It feels like a
curse and a burden to even have.
To have to need to do this.
To have to need to be this way.
If you don't know who Luke Cage is, uh,
I want a little bit of history here.
Luke Cage, um, also known as power
man, came out of the 19 seventies
blaxploitation era It was created as
a character, um, by by a few creative.
Uh, Paul Romita Senior was
was 1 of the main ones.
Um, Gabe Cage his last name, actually.
Luke came from other places, but the
last name Cage actually came from, you
know, being resilient and sturdy like
a cage as a that that's what he said.
You know, you can't
break you can't break it.
You know?
But the more obvious connotation of
cage is something you're locked into.
So we've got this character
from Harlem, Power man.
And, yes, the power man, the power in
in his name comes from Black power,
that whole blaxploitation movement.
If you don't know what blaxploitation
is, It's it was a certain period of time.
There was a lot of
blaxploitation, sexploitation.
These these properties were created
basically to make stuff for cheap
with with these cheesy headlines and
cheesy just kind of presentations
because they could get people in the
theater to see them on the cheap, where
people started realizing that, hey.
If we niche down, We can make a
little theater over here and play
play some Shaft movies, Play some
dolomite, some what was that called?
Some Jackie Brown.
That's Quentin Tarantino or later.
Or they could play these kind of,
um, you know, They could exploit the
different things that nobody talks
about, sex, violence, race, drugs.
They could just get away with all this.
It wasn't meant to be mainstream.
They finally had a distribution and
production capability well enough where
they could do it cheaply, Throw it into
some little theaters on the corner.
Your neighborhood people would get into
it and didn't need to go mainstream.
It just needed to hit all the
people that it Need to hit.
So power man, Luke Cage, comes
out of this and he's a prisoner.
So he ends up being wrongfully accused
of something, and that's your first
strike, being wrongfully accused
of something and put in prison.
Now he's got to be resilient enough to
take this, and this is a common theme.
Hey.
Something bad happened to you
too bad, you gotta take it,
and you still gotta be a hero.
So this person's in prison, And
somehow, there are different stories
that tell exactly how this happened.
It's not quite concrete in the canon.
But He's in prison, and he ends up getting
signed up to this experimentation program
that's supposed to try to recreate the
results of the Captain America program.
So Luke Cage, power man, is an experiment.
Not only is he in prison,
he's getting experimented on.
Once again, common trope.
This is something that actually happened
in history And it's something that
continues to happen in many different
ways and many different styles currently,
so something to keep a watch for.
He's experimented on.
And, you know, there's some of the
stories, as I said, there are different
versions of this, where Power man was
tricked where he where he's tricked
into taking this procedure, where he was
coerced into trying out the procedure.
Um, in 1 1 case that that it was
done, you know, by consent, but
then there was a question of,
well, what kind of consent is it?
It's like, rot in jail or become a
super soldier or try this program out.
And then there were other
there are variations on it.
Some even don't explain.
They just kinda show them in prison.
Next thing you know, you see
a kooky scientist looking over
Powerman in some sort of contraption
or or vat of liquid, whatever.
So the history there
isn't totally laid out.
But either way, all of these ideas are
a bit troubling, And it's something
black people have to deal with.
And we all we think about
a little more than often.
Being trapped in a situation, being
told you need to tough it out, And
then getting a a less than ideal
way out with the promise of fame,
riches, strength, or just power.
So that's the that's
the background for that.
Luke Cage ends up going through
this experimentation process,
ends up getting powers.
Once again, does he escape from prison?
Is he released with special instructions?
Um, most accounts say, You know,
escape or release or whatever.
Not quite sure.
But with all of his, uh, strength and
all of his speed and his healing factor.
With all of that, the number 1 thing
about him is his his resilience.
Once again, I wonder if I don't know.
It it was the seventies,
totally different mindset.
I'm not excusing any of the nonsense that
may have gone into the comics at the time.
Definitely not excusing Genndy
Tartakovsky's version of it.
That's the Powerpuff, uh, creator.
He had a version of Cage.
Over time, he's come his character's
come back up again, and it's it's
It's usually been kind of weird.
Anyway, The character exists in Harlem,
Then this is another point that continues.
Character exists in Harlem and
is basically tasked with keeping
Harlem and his neighborhood and
his area from going to hell.
There usually isn't some big
overarching theme aside from, k, man.
Can I just live?
So if you're not catching the
Black History parallels from
Luke Cage, Replay the last couple
minutes to this and think about it.
So you got this character, power
man Luke Cage, with a strange
last name used in blaxploitation.
And then he doesn't and then he ends up
being a the last point, I guess, is that
he's a hero for hire, which is fine.
Um, you know, kind of being a
a mercenary of sorts, Maybe he
doesn't have a decent enough job.
I like what the Marvel
series did with him.
It made him a construction worker,
you know, instead of being necessarily
hero, you know, saving people, their
restaurants, or from the the hell
that the neighborhood is turning into.
It's a it's a whole weird
thing that just he's saving the
neighborhood from from damnation.
And, obviously, it's a black
neighborhood, so there's always this
idea of him fighting against drug
dealers and local drug kingpins.
It all seemed very very local to
me, which is which is fine if played
properly, but, you know, you question
the ability of work an awesome character
like that to go into bigger arenas.
Anyway, through all of this, the
character has to be resilient.
Socially with dealing with Harlem,
personally dealing with his life and the
people that he's always running into.
Him getting attacked, meaning
his family gets attacked, and
he can't just be regular alone.
So the social is Personal is familial,
and then you've got psychological issues
with The whole prison false accusation
thing, maybe in some stories on the run
from the law, breaking out from prison,
being coerced into this whole situation
or being forced into it against his will.
And then at the end of it, The
superpower is pretty much just to not
get hurt as if he's not hurt already.
So that's the backdrop for Luke
Cage, his history, his story.
Be a power man.
And, yeah, being resilient
is really a superpower.
It's what you need to to
last in today's society.
And if you've gone through something,
that means you can get somewhere.
If you've gone through something,
that means you can get somewhere.
Because trying to get anywhere
means changing What the
current patterns of life are.
And in general, the current patterns
aren't weaving together to do things
for you and to lay the path for you.
That's your job.
The universe and fate and all that,
that they will conspire with you if you
decide to go on this journey, But you're
gonna have to go through some stuff.
Whatever your creative journey is,
whatever you're trying to create, better
life, better household, better tax return,
Better physique, better relationships.
You've got to learn to take some
lessons from the power man Luke Cage.
You need the power.
That is the ability and the capacity
to make change, to make lasting
change, not just be a flash in the pan.
And maybe that's actually why
I'm doing this podcast tonight
when I said I didn't want to.
It's because I wanna flex
my resilience a little bit.
I wanna strengthen that muscle
of being able to tough it up.
Thinking back to Stories
of my mom and dad.
How they would always I don't
wanna say quietly, but they would
be reserved and a little bit more
contained than a lot of other people.
My mother came from the
streets of New Orleans.
My father from the cotton fields
of Mississippi, literally.
Well, almost literally.
He was raised, uh,
picking cotton, basically.
And the fact that I know somebody that
close to me who actually picked cotton
as a job is very, Very interesting.
So my parents have had this idea of
being resilient, and they understand it.
They get it.
We gotta get out there
and take your lumps.
And, of course, every everybody
has their own lumps to take.
This isn't just, uh, Something that
has to do with black people, but
we do have a certain experience,
so that's why I'm bringing it up.
But when things come at you, and
things will, Don't think of them
as necessarily as obstacles.
They're just the way things are.
Now I don't mean to say it with
a bad outlook that you need to,
you know, well, things just suck.
No.
No.
That's That's not the way
you should look at it.
You have a beautiful journey ahead
of you, but all this time, you've
been You've been sold this idea that
you're only going to get anywhere if
your life is soft and comfy and cushy.
Cushy is the word.
Yeah.
Let's use that word, cushy.
You wanna be cushy.
Well, you need to be like power man.
You need to be hard.
Unless you're Kirby, you can't
be you can't be cushy and win.
You need to be like Luke Cage.
So as technology increases, as
As we advance, 1 of the things
of advancement, methodologies,
ideologies, and technologies, the the
advancement of these and sociologies.
Things that may be difficult to us.
And the more this type of efficiency
and ease enters our lives, the
more it's actually sold to us.
We don't necessarily try to
keep pushing at that same level.
Very quickly, a technology or
an advancement turns into, hey.
Let's do less.
We get a phone in our hands,
And instead of saying, hey.
I can use this to communicate more
efficiently, and I'll be able to spend
less time communicating, we spend
all our time Not even communicating,
but just consuming silly data.
Not like the good data
you're getting here.
Let's make a distinction.
I will entertain you, but I no longer
consider myself an entertainer.
That used to be my life.
Now I consider myself an explorer and a
teacher of things that I've explored on.
Not even a teacher of anything good.
Just a new teacher of
things that I've explored.
I'm no longer an entertainer.
And I got to this point by by
going through things as I said.
And the realization that all these
advancements, all of these Like, I
don't have to I don't have to work to
have to have food on my on my table.
I don't have to work for that.
I mean, I have to work, go to have a job
and have to, you know, buy, sell, trade,
exchange, market brand, develop product.
I have to put in work, But it's
not really much of a thing for
me to have food in the table.
It's not like I have to go Kill an
animal or plant crops and cut down
a tree, you know, for firewood.
All this is easy to me now.
So they've taken away they
in quotes, by the way.
So they've taken away our
our need to be resilient.
And over time, I think it's
kinda softened a lot of us.
What's that book, anti fragility?
Be antifragile, that whole idea and
concept, you don't wanna break easily.
And instead of seeing that as a burden,
it needs to be seen as a positive
quality that you can use and build upon.
And when other people treat it as a
slight or a backhanded compliment,
use that to your advantage.
In fact, going back to my earlier story
of how I started thinking about this
when the person I was working with just
stopped and decided to call me resilient
as a as a quote, unquote compliment.
Back to that, when that happened,
and I was called resilient, I
honestly wanted to snap on them.
Every once in a while, you gotta
snap on people, by the way.
You gotta wreck them.
And I think you're they think they
can say anything, so you just gotta
snap on them every once in a while.
But after this person called me resilient,
I didn't even wait around for the
follow-up or if there was a follow-up.
I was just like, oh, thank you.
And went about my business and made a
decision in my head that That person
doesn't see my value, my actual value.
So now I have to flex.
I have to work on them.
I have to do even more.
Not to the point where they're not
trying to make anybody envious.
But if I'm going to be resilient, I'm
gonna make it clear that you're not.
If putting up with stuff is the
price, then I'm going to get I'm
going to get paid off of that.
I'm going to tax the system.
If I can take it, I have to take it.
I'm expected to take it.
Then we're gonna raise the
bar, and it's gonna be more
difficult for you to not take it.
If you're if you're in a
corporate situation, you're at
a job, and they expect you to do
more work than everybody else.
What happens when you start doing
more work than everybody else?
You don't necessarily get more
More praise for it, not necessarily
more pay, but you can get better.
You can outshine.
You can start calling your own shots.
If you look at a lot of successful
people that have gone through
things, They took their resilient
status and decided, you know what?
I'm not going to the party.
I'm gonna stay home and study.
You know what?
I'm not going to play
play in the tournament.
I'm gonna go home and
finish my my case studies.
By tournament, I'm in a video
game tournament that was
on my mind for some reason.
So if you have this resilience and
you just happen to have it, you might
as well do something good with it.
Don't worry about them.
Don't worry about pandering.
Don't worry about what they think.
You may take note of it,
definitely acknowledge it.
You don't have to clap back at them.
I mean, I do, but you don't
have to in every case.
But you want this resilience to be known.
Like, this b s will not stop me.
And of course when that happens, as
I kind of alluded to, they're gonna
throw crap at you because they expect
you to be able to take it, that is
your opportunity to ensure that they
get some of the ricochet damage.
If it's gonna be like this, you're
all gonna feel a little bit of it.
Now why would you ever do that?
That puts you in a little
position of, wait for it, power.
If you are known as the resilient 1,
you can use that to your advantage.
If nobody can do what you can do in
any situation, Whether it's, uh, you
know, being able to fly with metal
wings, Being able to, you know,
make lightning from your fingers,
Being able to control the weather.
Whatever your power is, you can
use that to your advantage, and you
don't have to Let it be the reason
that you're taking advantage of.
You can flip it.
But part of that, once again,
is your internal resilience.
And this is this is, by the
way, uh, characteristic of
most every hero I can think of.
Not the comic book trade of being
bulletproof or whatever, but having to
exist and go through whatever nonsense,
whatever bullshit to be that hero.
Like, they aren't a hero
without that resilience, without
that force that says, no.
I'm like this and I cannot be bent.
If they are bent and they break, you
know, then it's a 12 issue comic series
of them Bending, breaking, realizing what
happened, learning, coming back, and then
conquering their old self and becoming
that new, even more resilient hero.
And that's what you gotta do
if you're gonna be the hero.
I think we're all heroes.
We've just been made to be soft.
Soft like tissue paper in the rain.
So with all the nonsense that people
throw at at me, at you, at us, At certain
figures, certain archetypes of people,
Certain classifications, you know, whether
you're part of a dominant group or not.
You can be a resilient hero, And it's
something I've had to consider lately, and
it's something that needs to be embraced.
Now I'm slowing down here because
I want to think about my words.
Being resilient Doesn't mean biting your
tongue until your mouth is full of blood.
It doesn't mean Swallowing shit all day.
It doesn't mean continually
getting your teeth kicked in,
But it does mean pushing forward
regardless of the pushback you get.
It doesn't mean just tolerating nonsense.
You don't wanna just tolerate or cope.
It's 1 of the reasons
I like the word cope.
It just sounds like you're
just sitting back taking it.
You're able to feel pains, feel
pressures, and still push forward.
And not only let them know that they're
wrong for that if they're subjugating
you, to let them know that, yes.
I can do this and you can't.
Yes.
I can take this, and it makes me stronger.
And the 1 thing that will
not break is the spirit.
That's the resilient part
of it all, the spirit.
The most resilient factor you can
have in your journey is your spirit.
Go through whatever little mental
exercises, Physical expression, spiritual
awakening, work, and rebirth that you need
to do, whatever, work on that resilience.
It is something you can pattern into
yourself without being traumatized
and without just, quote, unquote,
holding it in or bottling it up.
We're not bottling up here.
We're getting a cut we're we're toughening
ourselves up, becoming antifragile.
We're tempering the steel, we're
tempering the glass so it doesn't break.
You've probably seen the the shows with
the swords getting hammered and beat until
they become a fine, flawless instrument
capable of withstanding a lot of
pressure, A lot of abuse, a lot of where.
And the hallmark isn't that they they
just took abuse and sucked it up.
The hallmark is they had something
to do, and they still did it.
They went through it.
They didn't just sit there and take it.
They went threw it and made
it to the other side, and
they're winners because of it.
I was listening to a story about Kobe
Bryant working out until 3 AM The Lakers
arena was closed and he was still there.
Now, obviously, if you're Kobe,
you can get special privileges and
stay there all night until 3 AM.
I wonder what the rental fee
on something like that is.
How much extra you get
charged for keeping it open?
I don't know.
Maybe it's like my old high school
gym where we just kinda hang out.
Just kinda hang out and, like, hey.
Lock up after.
Alright?
Just Put the chain on the door and
make sure you lock the padlock and,
uh, I don't know how easy that was.
But going through it, making
it to the other side, Kobe
Bryant That's what he did.
If you look at LeBron James I mean,
look at pictures of LeBron James toes.
Just just search search for that.
Lebron James toes.
And we're doing whatever
exercise the incorrect way
That pinky said, I'm staying.
I'm not leaving.
You can't stop me.
Who's that ugly guy at the corner?
Hey.
That's the championship toe.
That's who it is.
Uh, I joke, though.
Uh, love LeBron, but, man,
That is a that is a mark.
A lot of us have marks, so it's okay.
You know, people get together and
they discuss scars, that's why.
You either cry about your
scars, like, oh, man.
This happened to me, or you
recognize that it's a badge
and you can go through things.
It's a mindset switch here
that you move through things.
Be open to talk about it, be vulnerable
with your pain, Understand it and
embrace it and get to the other side.
That's that key right there.
Who else?
Michael Jordan, Malcolm
x, Martin Luther King.
Doesn't even have to be black history.
Just be any old body.
You'll see that resilience streak.
So next time you're watching a hero
movie, I want you to think about that,
just the whole idea of resilience.
Don't just think about it as
entertainment, some kid doing something
crazy or some, you know, magic beans.
Think about the
fundamental hero narrative.
Being in a situation, not being able
to do anything, going through trials
and tribulations, that struggle to
get to the other side, recognizing
who you are, recognizing there's a
villain to overcome, being resilient,
and getting through to the other side.
That's fundamentally it.
Stay resilient.
Take your lumps, heal, accept
them, embrace them, and keep going.
Don't be a sucker, but
you can get through this.
You can last.
I have faith in you.
You are you are the power
man of your own life.
Call yourself power woman, power girl,
power kid, Power power they, power person.
Anyway, That's it for this 1.
Uh, as I said, I didn't totally
want to do this 1, but I figured
it needed to be done anyway, and it
would give me something positive to
produce instead of just sitting around
eating red velvet cake from Vons.
And, yeah, uh, speaking
of being resilient, we're
We're in a weird time now.
A lot of things are going on.
So as I like to do, I wanna I like to do
the news and updates at the end of this
Instead of putting it at the beginning, I
think at the beginning, myself included,
uh, I wanna get to the the meat of it.
I wanna get to the actual
podcast And discussion, and I'll
leave the news stuff for later.
A lot of people like to prep
with the news because it's a
way to get people in on live.
Like, if you're going live, people
are just talking, getting ready.
But in this era, you can where
you can go back and pick the shows
that you want to pick, And you
can search for different episodes.
I figure it makes more sense to put
this kind of stuff at the end all my
news and updates, and then just just be
able to get straight into the podcast
or the topic at hand right off the bat.
So in case you're wondering if why do
it that way, that's a little bit of
creative behind the scenes for you.
Try it yourself.
Let me know what you think.
Alright.
So what has been going on lately?
Uh, I think there was some Elon Musk news.
Ah, screw that.
I don't I don't wanna talk about that.
Alright.
Threads.
If you know this podcast is
called Creativity Threads Life.
It was, um, it was actually inspired by
the idea of threads from the threads app.
So I got on that, was happy with
it, quickly got to a thousand
followers, Was happy about that.
Just started building a community and
a connection with a lot of people.
So I wanted to call this
creativity threads life.
And what's interesting about
what's happening now is Threads has
decided that they're going to be
pulling not not even pulling away.
They are definitely not going to
be focusing on politics and will be
marginalizing politics into its own little
subcategory of the threads universe.
Almost said metaverse, but
maybe I should say metaverse.
Yeah.
So throughout the threads metaverse,
Politics will be pushed to the side, and
it will be kept in its own little lane.
There are people that want to talk
politics and want to search for politics
and want to have these discussions about
political subjects, but Mosseri very
clearly made it known on on, um, Instagram
and threads, that threads would not
be the place for political discourse.
They're not making a situation where
politics is going to be a focus.
In fact, they're going to deter
Conversations away from politics.
So if you're in there talking
politics, your your posts aren't
going to be shown to a lot of
people who aren't talking politics.
You only catch political discussions
if you're actively looking for
and talking about politics.
Otherwise, You'll just see sunshine
and rainbows all across threads.
That's the idea.
Apparently, they learned their lesson
from the news, The government and
everybody else with opinions that
wants to talk about the news and
journalism on x, Competing platform.
Uh, this is a good move
for them to be not x.
They're anti x.
So this is MSNBC if x were Fox News.
That's the way I see it.
Interesting move by them.
Well, we'll see how it turns out.
If you don't like politics and you
like talking a lot of yap online,
you may wanna head over to threads.
I'm on there.
Next up, uh, Shannon Sharp.
Shannon Sharp and Club
Shay Shay is getting messy.
Shannon Sharp has this show, and
what's happened to it lately is that
it's become a place where people just
sound off and start dropping gossip
and Almost rage baiting, I'd say, or
just this it's getting a little messy.
And I wouldn't say it was there
before Katt Williams because it
was there a little bit, but when
Katt Williams showed up, it really
just sparked off in a big way.
So now Monique has shown up after
Katt Williams, another comedian,
and just started going off as well.
So what you're ending up with is
basically 2 hours and 55 minutes
of comedians or people airing their
dirty laundry on this man show.
Is he gonna lean into that?
I'm not sure where what it means
for him, but those 2 shows, Katt
Williams and Monique, have both just
blown up big numbers on social media.
Uh, and I don't like people talking
messy on Instagram or threads, whatever.
It gets us this very gossipy kind of
world, and I think that's what people
are into now or not even into, but
it's just what we're responding to.
So, Hopefully, we'll fight back
against that discourse a little
bit, and, hopefully, we can keep
that off of this podcast or any
channels that I'm working through.
So we'll see.
Also, um, T Pain has been on the
Apple Vision ProTrain lately.
T Pain artist, winner of the masked
singer, and Classic auto tune
artist who can actually sing but
a lot of people don't realize he
can actually sing, that t pain.
He's really taken a liking
to The Apple Vision Pro.
And the reason I think this is
interesting is that the Apple Vision
Pro has been looking for that certain
catch in terms of popular media.
And when someone like t Pain
starts wearing the Apple Vision
Pro talking about they're not going
anywhere without wearing it, It's
they want to do concerts within it.
They're really pumping it up.
Once you start getting somebody
doing this just because they like the
thing that much, That's what really
makes people look up and take notice.
In fact, I wasn't really checking
for it as much because I didn't
see too much talk about it.
But seeing somebody as excited as
T Pain on it, it's pretty exciting.
Don't know what that means in the future.
He did sort of a A
three-dimensional concert.
I don't know how he distributed it
exactly, but concerts in 3 d if you
know me, I posted about Fortnite a
long Time ago having the concerts in
in virtual virtual reality, that's
that's a whole another level of awesome.
And with a platform like The
Apple Vision Pro, you could
easily charge people for that.
And think about the experience you
could get with that, with VR people
Going backstage with your favorite,
you know, your favorite artist after a
concert, during a concert, you're talking
to the band members and bandmates.
That could really be kind of crazy.
So that's definitely something
to keep a lookout for.
What else we got?
Also, If you've seen pictures or
screenshots or videos of Disney
characters beating the hell out
of each other, Uh, you weren't
you weren't, uh, hallucinating.
Um, for some reason, people have
taken MK modding to the next level
and have really just Decided to go
all in with modding Mortal Kombat and
putting Disney characters in there.
Obviously, Disney's been worried
about their image lately.
They've been merging with Hulu, and
it's they've got this weird Outlook now.
And in the middle of all of
this, I think this is part of
the reason why it went viral.
These people made a a Mortal Kombat
mod That actually works fairly well.
You know, you've got the characters
doing all the crazy attacks like,
you know, you've got the frozen
characters doing sub zeros moves.
You've got, you know, um,
Kung Lao with this hat.
There's that 1, uh, oh gosh.
What's her name?
Movie that just came out, she's
got kind of the coolie hat.
It looks like a coolie hat of sorts.
Yeah.
They've got her doing the Kung Lao moves.
So you got these different
Disney characters breaking
necks, snapping spines, you know,
Smashing teeth into the ground.
Very, very violent graphic stuff.
Just went bonkers online.
1 of those weird, interesting
things that tells you what
society's Thinking about right now.
And it's funny.
Let's see.
And, uh, your boy Pharrell, Super
producer, musician, and fashionista.
Not even a fashionista.
Fashion mogul now is head of
LVMH design for the time being.
That Pharrell is making a Lego movie.
So the Neptune producer, uh, has
this movie coming out called Piece by
Piece, and it's being done with Legos.
So We always talk about being
creative and doing something, you
know, creative, current, unique
that gets people's attention.
A biopig done in Lego would do that.
So shout out to Pharrell for
having the creative foresight
to make this thing happen, And
I am looking for more like that.
That's, uh, that's just an interesting way
to go about things, and it's 1 of those 1
of those things you're going to be able to
talk about years from now where it's like,
hey, you see the the Pharrell Biopic?
Oh, you mean the Lego 1?
Yeah, that 1.
0, it's pretty cool.
So creativity at its finest.
If you're still doing boring stuff, try to
do something not boring, like, for real.
And I think that's it for the
parts I'm gonna cover today.
Um, I'll leave the rest
of the news for later.
As I said, I'm trying to keep these
things at about an hour long, so this
one's been going about 56 minutes.
And so that's going to do it for this 1.
Shout out to everybody who came through
the chat Shabby, Shah, DJ Bigman.
Uh, Margaret came through.
Thanks to Liberty.
Thanks to Landon.
Who else was here?
Thanks to Pete.
Pete, always good seeing
you, , and we'll probably talk
about wrestling again later, Pete.
And shout out to Ashley
Curates Life passing through.
Good to see you here.
Anyway, that's gonna do it for this
episode of 3 Creativity threads life.
My name is mister Benja.
I'm here with you, I say most nights of
the week, but this week is gonna test my
resilience to see if I can do that with
all the nonsense that's been going on.
But, yes, here most nights of
the week, you can catch the
podcast on the podcast streams.
Alright.
That's gonna do it for this 1.
Thank you all for joining.
Peace.