taylor lorenz is literally human chitzonius

"my job is to react to the reaction videos people post reacting to videos they watch of cultural phenomena"

ladies and gentlemen when the tributary off the river's tributary ceases to flow it turns green and putrid

chitzonius is a different name for evil in chassidic philosophy and kabbalah, lit. 'externality', the demonic/concealing/oppositional forces that can only be created through the recontextualization outward of the Divine Beneficence

one classic metaphor is how the dogs beneath the king's table eat well despite no one ever intending to feed them

they're parasitical on intended goodness, deriving their life force by technicality

"well we're going to have art, which is good, so automatically there will be people who comment on it, and then people who comment on that"

you don't want to be receiving your vitality on technicality from the backwater of a backwater, what does that make you...

notice how if the original art is meant to evoke a certain feeling too directly it's more rightly considered kitsch, because it caters too much to chitzonius

even with real art, the chitzonius reaction shot is much more easily digestible - it's speaking to you just as you are!

and the reaction TO THAT, even better! Realities pre-processed and ready to consume telling me exactly what I know already and encouraging me to remain exactly as I am, all within reach...

all hope of difficult-to-digest truth that can train and expand our capacities is lost, and we convince ourselves the only way someone like us can live is by being a bottom feeder. we NEED those intermediaries, need those structures between us and things themselves

and thus you get plato's cave and moral compromise and echo chambers and human beings used essentially as batteries, like in the matrix. spiritual batteries. your being is recontextualized to point to the necessity for externality and intermediary

it's all bad news

in life we should be seeking the thing itself and accepting no substitutes

the temporary satisfaction of prepackaged globules of vitality makes for a very sad existence...