Do Try This At Home: The Sadomasochism of Screen Culture (Patreon)

There’s an undercurrent of sadomasochism in stunt and sports videos, and not in the way you’re probably thinking. When we watch them stunts and sports highlights on TV (yes, YouTube is TV), we feel inspired by the awesomeness. And we want to go out there and be and do just like the crazy daredevils, Olympians and X-Gamers on our screens.

Here’s the cruel part, though. From childhood, we’ve been admonished to NOT emulate our onscreen heroes. We are perhaps the first generation in human history that has been consistently discouraged from behaving like its idols. When Roman children were taught about Alexander the Great, it was with the expectation that they would act like him. Caesar, Napoleon, Belisarius, Pompey, Mark Anthony — these dudes read history like we read comic books, but then they lived their readings with an earnestness that we lack: they LARPed for keeps.

But it’s not like that for us. Not only are we taught not to behave like our heroes, we don’t even have proper substitute heroes that we’re encouraged to imitate instead. And I mean real imitation — emulation, process imitation, not surface imitation like you get with middle class girls trying to look and act like the Kardashians, or men trying to look rich. There’s no TV show about white collar workers constantly applying timeboxing and the Pareto principle (I’d totally binge-watch the living crap out of it if there were). Like, Ozark gets close, but no cigar.

There’s something perverse in this show-and-tell-you-not-to-do-it business, sort of like watching a mouth-watering food show and then being repeatedly warned to never try eating any of the dishes.

Of course, trying tricks without training is silly. And as a pacifist, I desire no return to a literal glorification of martial values: war is a great metaphor but a terrible lifestyle; we need more inventors, not more generals; we need more creators, not more destroyers. Having said that, being encouraged to always and only observe, to always be a bridesmaid and never a bride, is equally sick and wrong.

Fortunately, AJATT is the polar opposite of that. If you see something awesome on Japanese TV, or in a Japanese book, DO try this at home. Japanese isn’t in your blood, it’s in your behavior. Japanese isn’t in your blood, it’s in your brain. Try all the linguistic tricks you want, and never worry about breaking a bone!