I’m really not sure what I just read. I mean, I know what I read in terms of the words - but I don’t understand what its purpose is. But I don’t necessarily think it matters…
It was thoroughly diverting, held my attention and made me wish that more people wrote pieces like this where the only real purpose is the conceit, and the subsequent journey the author takes you on.
I miss Caity's writing so much. She brought so much joy to me back in those days, and even a lot of her work at NYT was great as well. Thanks for the inspiration to try to find what she's up to now.
that's not really what bathos is though. bathos is an attempt at pathos that turns into something else less meaningful through cliche or lack of believability or other
I'm just left guessing if there's some cryptpic yet important geo-political statement hidden in a funny post about some celebrity i had never heard of until now
right! that's it, its like this nonsense numbers conspiracy theories that seem ramblings of some mentally ill person, but written in a more coherent, interestnig way that any of these (they usually are harder/cryptic to read due to its nonsense) so it ends up being an easier read as a parody than an actual conspiracy theory
I think this is one of those things that either has intrinsic purpose for you, or it doesn't. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this analysis of Shawn Mendes' cryptic lyric.
I'd consider it a satisfying little exercise in deductive reasoning / OSINT – if reasoning is worthwhile and exercises are worthwhile, then this must be as well
Excellent deduction, but somewhat rushed at the end. Almost sloppy. If Mendez is flying to meet up with a friend at a hotel, it's clearly necassary to check if there are any hotels on that island to begin with.
We can, of course, assume that if there's an airport, there's a hotel, but being a Russian territory even the most benign assumption may prove false, so it's still prudent to check.
The good news is that there is not one, but two hotels on Iturup, both with impressive ratings (even if across a dozen reviews each). With this in place, I trust, we can put the final dot to the story of finding Shawn Mendez and his views on the annexation of the Kurils.
If Where in the World is Carman Sandiego on the Apple ][ taught me anything, it's that there is always a hotel and it is the best place to check on arrival.
Sort of on-topic: The Kuril islands are a big deal in Hokkaido. I attended a protest there (by accident) a few years ago with many Japanese demonstrating for a return of the islands to Japan. It was kind of odd as an outsider because the protest clearly has no effect, and there's no chance of it ever happening outside of Russia losing a war.
He says he's only a couple hundred miles from Japan, not that the flight is a couple hundred miles. He could be in Taiwan and flying to Naha (there are evening flights on that route).
Or, more intriguingly, he could be a supporter of Okinawan independence who doesn't acknowledge Okinawa as part of Japan, in which case he might also regard Okinawa as being in the Seibu Hyojunji timezone rather than Japan Standard Time.
Oh Man. A few years back, my daughter played so much of Lost in Japan repeatedly. I thought the singer was another girl, because of the others in the playlist such as Kate Perry, and Justin Beiber.
There is a mistake in blogger's logic. Mendes never says that he is flying to Japan. He only states that he is a couple hundred of miles away from Japan. He could be flying from South Korea to Taipei.
This misses one obvious possibility; that it just happened before Okinawa was returned to Japan.
(Granted, that was a while ago, and he looks young-ish, but I don't really know anything about Shawn Mendes, so am entirely open to the possibility that he's in his 70s and doing that blood boy thing from Silicon Valley.)
So I just had a fun 5 minutes trying to talk gemini around to believing that Shawn has a position on the Kuril Islands dispute by submitting all the evidence in the article, but the llm is pretty impressively consistent and insistent that the song is figurative etc. Miss the days when it was so easy to get an LLM to argue for anything by persistence.
I'm patting myself on the back. After reading the first couple paragraphs, I went Eh? and came here to the comments. Thanks everyone for saving me the time.
I’m really not sure what I just read. I mean, I know what I read in terms of the words - but I don’t understand what its purpose is. But I don’t necessarily think it matters…
It was thoroughly diverting, held my attention and made me wish that more people wrote pieces like this where the only real purpose is the conceit, and the subsequent journey the author takes you on.
My favorite in this genre is by the Gawker legend Caity Weaver.
My 14-hour search for the end of TGI Friday’s endless appetizers: https://www.gawkerarchives.com/my-14-hour-search-for-the-end...
I miss Caity's writing so much. She brought so much joy to me back in those days, and even a lot of her work at NYT was great as well. Thanks for the inspiration to try to find what she's up to now.
I'm trying to decide if that would be worth 5 days off or not. The "not read a book" criteria is especially cruel.
that was an absolute joy of a read, thanks for sharing!
It's taking vapid pop lyrics literally for humourous effect.
You could call it bathos.
that's not really what bathos is though. bathos is an attempt at pathos that turns into something else less meaningful through cliche or lack of believability or other
I also read it fully, which i don't usually do.
I'm just left guessing if there's some cryptpic yet important geo-political statement hidden in a funny post about some celebrity i had never heard of until now
It’s a satire on how deeply some fandoms read into lyrics or “hidden messages” from artists and works of art in general
to me it reads as a well done parody on conspiracy theories.
right! that's it, its like this nonsense numbers conspiracy theories that seem ramblings of some mentally ill person, but written in a more coherent, interestnig way that any of these (they usually are harder/cryptic to read due to its nonsense) so it ends up being an easier read as a parody than an actual conspiracy theory
Not everything needs to have a purpose. The most likely explanation to me is just that inspiration happened to strike the author as he heard the song.
That sounds like a purpose.
I think this is one of those things that either has intrinsic purpose for you, or it doesn't. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this analysis of Shawn Mendes' cryptic lyric.
I'd consider it a satisfying little exercise in deductive reasoning / OSINT – if reasoning is worthwhile and exercises are worthwhile, then this must be as well
By the way, if you liked this post, this taking-silly-things-way-to-seriously is the comedic wheelhouse of Nathan Fielder.
It’s the brain ticking itself.
Excellent deduction, but somewhat rushed at the end. Almost sloppy. If Mendez is flying to meet up with a friend at a hotel, it's clearly necassary to check if there are any hotels on that island to begin with.
We can, of course, assume that if there's an airport, there's a hotel, but being a Russian territory even the most benign assumption may prove false, so it's still prudent to check.
The good news is that there is not one, but two hotels on Iturup, both with impressive ratings (even if across a dozen reviews each). With this in place, I trust, we can put the final dot to the story of finding Shawn Mendez and his views on the annexation of the Kurils.
I think patio11 would do this part well. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/two-americas-one-bank...
If Where in the World is Carman Sandiego on the Apple ][ taught me anything, it's that there is always a hotel and it is the best place to check on arrival.
Sort of on-topic: The Kuril islands are a big deal in Hokkaido. I attended a protest there (by accident) a few years ago with many Japanese demonstrating for a return of the islands to Japan. It was kind of odd as an outsider because the protest clearly has no effect, and there's no chance of it ever happening outside of Russia losing a war.
He says he's only a couple hundred miles from Japan, not that the flight is a couple hundred miles. He could be in Taiwan and flying to Naha (there are evening flights on that route).
Or, more intriguingly, he could be a supporter of Okinawan independence who doesn't acknowledge Okinawa as part of Japan, in which case he might also regard Okinawa as being in the Seibu Hyojunji timezone rather than Japan Standard Time.
This… this is impressive dedication to a gag blog post. Enjoyed the read.
Oh Man. A few years back, my daughter played so much of Lost in Japan repeatedly. I thought the singer was another girl, because of the others in the playlist such as Kate Perry, and Justin Beiber.
FYI, Justin Bieber is not a girl.
I see you italicized Bieber, this is surely not a coincidence, because nothing is ever a coincidence.
Because GP misspelled the name as “Beiber”.
That's exactly the kind of thing they'd want you to believe!!
Who? The Beliebers or the non-Beliebers?
I think it would be the Beleibers.
Amazon Prime disagrees with you.
https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Justin-Beiber-The-Next-Cha...
This is hilarious, I need to find more blog posts like this.
The article suspiciously leaves out whether there’s a hotel on Iturup Island, on which the whole argument hinges.
Quick Google Maps reveales there indeed is one.
What a relief!
According to Genius, some fans believe the lyrics to reference when he toured in the Philippines and flew to Japan after. https://genius.com/14147648
The timing of the song being released in 2018 lines up.
This reminded me of "Where is Ja?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-ddYhXAZc
I think of the line "I want some answers that Ja Rule might not have right now" pretty often.
And thus was born a new game, one that combined knowledge of history, politics, and pop trivia.
There is a mistake in blogger's logic. Mendes never says that he is flying to Japan. He only states that he is a couple hundred of miles away from Japan. He could be flying from South Korea to Taipei.
"we'd be in the same timezone" certainly does not imply that he's not currently in that timezone
What a journey. Bravo, I am surely convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.
Reading this felt very similar to watching “Pitch Perfect 237” (Anna Kendrick 9/11 conspiracy) https://youtube.com/watch?v=MiC9X_MoE1M
A significant amount of context is missing if you're not aware of Room 237: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_237
A documentary about the various conspiracy theories developed around The Shining. The music in the YT video is from the documentary.
Precisely the type of thing I immensely enjoy reading on a holiday!
This is also an exercise in deductive reasoning, which I recently read, somewhere here on Hacker News, is a good skill to exercise.
https://youtu.be/1NBfZcNU4O0
It’s sad that LLMs seem unable to produce that kind of brilliant deductive reasoning.
I disagree. It'll be sad the day they can do so. This kind of brilliant but absurd joke is still a refuge from the AI slop onslaught.
But just how seriously should we take Shawn Mendes' stand on the Kuril islands? How big of a hit was _Lost in Japan_?
This misses one obvious possibility; that it just happened before Okinawa was returned to Japan.
(Granted, that was a while ago, and he looks young-ish, but I don't really know anything about Shawn Mendes, so am entirely open to the possibility that he's in his 70s and doing that blood boy thing from Silicon Valley.)
Man this is so dumb I love it Unfortunately the song is stuck in my head again...
lovely
So I just had a fun 5 minutes trying to talk gemini around to believing that Shawn has a position on the Kuril Islands dispute by submitting all the evidence in the article, but the llm is pretty impressively consistent and insistent that the song is figurative etc. Miss the days when it was so easy to get an LLM to argue for anything by persistence.
I'm patting myself on the back. After reading the first couple paragraphs, I went Eh? and came here to the comments. Thanks everyone for saving me the time.
Saving you the time of reading a fantastic article? I think not.
We have to invite Shawn Mendes to read this post.
Shades of "Shia Laboeuf"