Hello everyone. I have been kept busy with the Snacking
Otaku (and other reasons), hence the lack of posts this year. I have not
abandoned this blog. It’s just I had to prioritise other things.
The reason for writing this post is this.
Back in 2018 I had the idea of making a dictionary of memes.
Soon afterward I bought an external hard drive and began collecting research
material. It has been neglected a bit, but I was expecting this project to be a
dip-in dip-out thing anyway. Originally, I planned to make it a book, but
recently I had a thought. Maybe I should publish this dictionary as a blog, in
the similar style to the Snacking Otaku. As of now, no entry is complete let,
so don’t expect anything any time soon. In fact, I was thinking of making it an
online depository for notes. But this incompleteness gave me another idea. What
if I made two versions of the dictionary? A “fixed” official one (written by
me) and a wiki version people can contribute. And if someone adds something
interesting it gets added to the official one.
This is all for off into the future … if you want me to do
so. That is why I’m posting this. I want your opinions on this project.
But I want to address something about this project. This
project explores ALL ASPECTS of culture. Not just the obvious stuff, like
music, literature and paintings. I’m exploring everything – architecture,
fashion, graffiti, linguistics, gardening, product design, baking, knitting,
sport, pornography etc.
That last example touches something I need to address about
this project. It will involve subjects that are taboo. The kind of things most
people are embarrassed or ashamed to acknowledge happens in their culture. But
you can’t have a full picture of a culture without exploring these subjects.
Its like writing about 18th century Europe and only talking about
royalty and aristocrats. It’s a nice cultured story, but it leaves out a lot of
information to build context, such as how dependent they were on servants or
how some made their fortunes through African slaves.
Talking about taboos is tricky. Not only because of their artificially-created
nature, but also the fact that taboos are not a fixed constant through space
and time. This is something many “lazy thinkers” don’t seem to know or realise.
A society’s moral compass can change and is shaped by the unique history of a
tribe. In other words, what can be seen as “fine” in one culture can be a taboo
in another and vice versa. For example, how much skin exposure is okay on a
female. Today (ignoring COVID for a moment) the sight of a woman in a bikini
almost won’t shock anyone on Miami. In Dubai, however, she’ll be likely to be
arrested for indecency. However, back in 1920, the woman in Miami will also be
arrested for the same reason.
Let me put what I’m saying another way. What you think is
“taboo” or “offensive” is not the same everywhere and everywhen. You can’t
judge the past with the present day’s moral compass. The fact that they were
people who made fortunes on trading slaves in the past should be an indicator
of this fact.
In fact, what is considered “offensive” can vary from person
to person. For these reasons, when I considered making this dictionary a
printed book, I thought it should come with a free black marker pen so people
can censor their own individual copies. It’ll cost a fortune to make different
edited editions for various territories.
If this dictionary does go online, I have to print this
disclaimer at the top.
This dictionary will contain things that are not suitable
for children and things some will find “offensive.” This dictionary is
committed to explore all aspects of culture to build a complete picture of the
world. None of this dictionary’s example content originates from the main author,
so if you do find something here offensive, blame the thing’s original creator
for having such bad taste to begin with, not the creator of this dictionary,
who just put it there as an example form history.
Of course, the actual number of “offensive” things would
probably only make up, at most, 1% of the content of the final dictionary.
Although a lot happened in the 20th century, that only covers a tiny
fraction of all of human history, even if you exclude the Stone Age. So, that disclaimer
is just a precaution … like a face mask. There’s always going to be that 0.1%
that’ll genuinely find it sick … while an extra 1% find it a cause worth making
a fuss about – even if it doesn’t affect them at all.
What do you think?
Should I peruse the online idea?
