On Forbidden Knowledge: The Big Other and Social Censorship

This makes cosmic horror an interesting genre – what we are looking for in it is something that we tend not to think of as anywhere near desirable: we are looking for someone to assure us that an individual person’s life doesn’t matter. This is not simply a way of understanding cosmic horror, but a way of using cosmic horror as a lens through which to read other events.

CommentaryCameron SummersOctober 26, 2022Cosmic Horror, Carcosa Shit, A Lush and Seething Hell, The Laundry Files, H.P. Lovecraft, A People's History of the United States, Mutant Epistemologies, The Shape of Water, COINTELPRO, Phillip K. Dick, Thomas Ligotti, China Miéville, Libidinal Economy, John Hornor JacobsComment

Thresholds: Initiation Rituals in Modern American Culture

Call it the participation trophy problem, after those little totems of insecurity that older people like to bring up – forgetting that they’re the ones who spent money on those trophies and no one my age cares about any of the participation trophies they received: because if everyone got one, that means that they don’t matter. We don’t feel that we earned them, we feel that none of them actually signify anything, and so praise is fake.

Analysis, Written by: CameronCameron SummersAugust 18, 2021America, Rituals, Initiations, Dry Cleaning, Menstruation, Prom, High School, Community, Donald Glover, Graduation, King of the Hill, memoir, Carcosa ShitComment