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I cannot recommend Bluey enough. It’s made me, a 40 year old father of one, ugly cry. And I’m not one to cry from watching a show. If you hate Cocomelon like m

I cannot recommend Bluey enough. It’s made me, a 40 year old father of one, ugly cry. And I’m not one to cry from watching a show. If you hate Cocomelon like me, you’ll love Bluey. It’s like the polar opposite of it.

pfannkuchen 2y ago
Can you help me understand why you feel that a show inducing ugly crying is desirable?
- danielvaughn 2y ago
  Is this a serious question?
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    Completely serious. I understand it's very ingrained in our culture at this point that this is a thing people do. But, if I decontextualize enough mentally, it starts to feel quite strange: manipulating one's brain into having a negative emotional reaction.
    - dymk 2y ago
      That’s where the confusion is; it’s not a negative reaction. It’s an intense emotional reaction, sure, but not inherently negative or bad.
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      You’re not being well understood here, but I do this too, and have done — with everything — all my life. The answer is ultimately that if you deconstruct and logically analyse any particular human activity it either ruins the fun and/or makes you realise how primitive and dark most forms of entertainment are. People like being emotional, for whatever reason. I like the explanation that says it’s about learning, though. Learning somehow feels intrinsically good.
    - n4r9 2y ago
      It might help to compare it with going to the gym or for a run. In some sense this produces an immediate negative reaction: our muscles get sore and stiff, and we get out of breath. But we still do it perhaps because we feel better afterwards, or because it helps our long term physical health. Likewise, deliberately experiencing sad (or otherwise) emotional states has both short term and long term positive outcomes. In the short term we feel a sense of catharsis, and perhaps reassured that our feelings are relatable. In the long term we feel more in touch and less overwhelmed by our emotions.
    - arolihas 2y ago
      It's not negative to be moved to tears. And it's not manipulative to watch a tv show. I don't think you're decontextualizing as much as you're trying to adopt some alien contrarian viewpoint.
- javier123454321 2y ago
  Usually creative work and the arts are judged by their ability to move something inside of us to which you can say that crying is a proxy for that. It's effectively saying it's good art.
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    Right, that's a bit circular though. It isn't a law of nature that humans should do anything that is considered "good art". Why do we want to synthetically manipulate our brains into an emotional reaction, especially in the case of a negative emotion?
    - mdeeks 2y ago
      Because it is a form of learning. Also ugly crying is not always a negative reaction. It's empathy which is important to our survival (and also wonderful).
    - squigz 2y ago
      All emotional reactions are "manipulated" - we choose to expose ourselves to situations wherein we might feel emotional reactions of various sorts. Why is art, "negative" reactions or not, any different? As another commenter points out, it's a good way of learning - about yourself, how you feel, about other perspectives. It's also, hopefully, a chance to grow - reflect on your past, your mistakes, how you've treated others.
    - toofy 2y ago
      there are many things in life which cause crying which are not negative. crying is absolutely not limited to “a negative emotion.” if you’re struggling to imagine a crying situation that isn’t negative, i would heavily encourage you to indulge in more art.
    - beowulfey 2y ago
      I understand your question, and it is hard to describe. Our brains are pattern generators, and it "feels good" to resonate with patterns we've already experienced. Neural circuits create patterns by strengthening connections upon our experience. This is particularly true as we get older and our brains become less plastic. Lesser used patterns become harder to access as they are no longer reinforced as frequently. However, this feels less good for our brains, and we value novelty. So in the same way that riding a bike after a long time is much harder than it is to ride one when you use it every day, you can generalize this to something like emotions. It is bad to only experience one type of feeling all the time, and variety is good. Having a controlled, relatable medium lead you to experience a less commonly-felt emotion feels good. I don't know if I can explain why--maybe we have mechanisms in our brain for encouraging this novelty--but this is likely why we seek out these emotional experiences.
- frankgrimesjr 2y ago
  The appeal is in the strong emotions which it induces. The crying is a side effect of this, not the appealing factor in itself.
- aredox 2y ago
  Better to point you to the vast corpus out there rather than try to rehash it: https://www.britannica.com/art/catharsis-criticism https://www.britannica.com/art/catharsis-criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1965_num_43_1_2556 https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1965_num_43_1_2556
- croisillon 2y ago
  there is this quote from Sans Famille (Nobody's Boy) by Hector Malot : Moi j’aime qu’on me parle doucement, ça me donne envie de pleurer ; et quand j’ai envie de pleurer ça me rend tout heureux. C’est bête, n’est-ce pas ? Which Deepl translates as: I like to be spoken to softly, it makes me want to cry; and when I want to cry it makes me all happy. Silly, isn't it?
- DanHulton 2y ago
  It's cathartic. Plus, it's not JUST about the crying. I'm order to get to the point where the tears are actually falling, you have to go through all the build up that makes you care very deeply about the characters and situation. When that works well enough to get you to cry over a cartoon? It's fucking MAGICAL. =)
MisterTea 2y ago
This is the second time I see the phrase "ugly crying" here. Never heard that one before.
- floren 2y ago
  For whatever reason, "Bluey made me ugly cry" is a very minor meme among parents on the Internet. I've seen it elsewhere too.
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    I find it disappointing that a pretty common emotional state for a person is labelled ugly. Its negative so I'd rather people not use it.
    - floren 2y ago
      It just means that you cry so hard your face is all twisted up and you go red and and your mouth is hanging open and there's snot dripping out of your nose, as opposed to simply shedding a couple tears. It's not really disparaging.
      - euroderf 2y ago
        Thank you for being the person that got around to actually describing/defining it !

pfannkuchen 2y ago

Can you help me understand why you feel that a show inducing ugly crying is desirable?

danielvaughn 2y ago
Is this a serious question?
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Completely serious. I understand it's very ingrained in our culture at this point that this is a thing people do. But, if I decontextualize enough mentally, it starts to feel quite strange: manipulating one's brain into having a negative emotional reaction.
  - dymk 2y ago
    That’s where the confusion is; it’s not a negative reaction. It’s an intense emotional reaction, sure, but not inherently negative or bad.
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    You’re not being well understood here, but I do this too, and have done — with everything — all my life. The answer is ultimately that if you deconstruct and logically analyse any particular human activity it either ruins the fun and/or makes you realise how primitive and dark most forms of entertainment are. People like being emotional, for whatever reason. I like the explanation that says it’s about learning, though. Learning somehow feels intrinsically good.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    It might help to compare it with going to the gym or for a run. In some sense this produces an immediate negative reaction: our muscles get sore and stiff, and we get out of breath. But we still do it perhaps because we feel better afterwards, or because it helps our long term physical health. Likewise, deliberately experiencing sad (or otherwise) emotional states has both short term and long term positive outcomes. In the short term we feel a sense of catharsis, and perhaps reassured that our feelings are relatable. In the long term we feel more in touch and less overwhelmed by our emotions.
  - arolihas 2y ago
    It's not negative to be moved to tears. And it's not manipulative to watch a tv show. I don't think you're decontextualizing as much as you're trying to adopt some alien contrarian viewpoint.
javier123454321 2y ago
Usually creative work and the arts are judged by their ability to move something inside of us to which you can say that crying is a proxy for that. It's effectively saying it's good art.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Right, that's a bit circular though. It isn't a law of nature that humans should do anything that is considered "good art". Why do we want to synthetically manipulate our brains into an emotional reaction, especially in the case of a negative emotion?
  - mdeeks 2y ago
    Because it is a form of learning. Also ugly crying is not always a negative reaction. It's empathy which is important to our survival (and also wonderful).
  - squigz 2y ago
    All emotional reactions are "manipulated" - we choose to expose ourselves to situations wherein we might feel emotional reactions of various sorts. Why is art, "negative" reactions or not, any different? As another commenter points out, it's a good way of learning - about yourself, how you feel, about other perspectives. It's also, hopefully, a chance to grow - reflect on your past, your mistakes, how you've treated others.
  - toofy 2y ago
    there are many things in life which cause crying which are not negative. crying is absolutely not limited to “a negative emotion.” if you’re struggling to imagine a crying situation that isn’t negative, i would heavily encourage you to indulge in more art.
  - beowulfey 2y ago
    I understand your question, and it is hard to describe. Our brains are pattern generators, and it "feels good" to resonate with patterns we've already experienced. Neural circuits create patterns by strengthening connections upon our experience. This is particularly true as we get older and our brains become less plastic. Lesser used patterns become harder to access as they are no longer reinforced as frequently. However, this feels less good for our brains, and we value novelty. So in the same way that riding a bike after a long time is much harder than it is to ride one when you use it every day, you can generalize this to something like emotions. It is bad to only experience one type of feeling all the time, and variety is good. Having a controlled, relatable medium lead you to experience a less commonly-felt emotion feels good. I don't know if I can explain why--maybe we have mechanisms in our brain for encouraging this novelty--but this is likely why we seek out these emotional experiences.
frankgrimesjr 2y ago
The appeal is in the strong emotions which it induces. The crying is a side effect of this, not the appealing factor in itself.
aredox 2y ago
Better to point you to the vast corpus out there rather than try to rehash it: https://www.britannica.com/art/catharsis-criticism https://www.britannica.com/art/catharsis-criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1965_num_43_1_2556 https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1965_num_43_1_2556
croisillon 2y ago
there is this quote from Sans Famille (Nobody's Boy) by Hector Malot : Moi j’aime qu’on me parle doucement, ça me donne envie de pleurer ; et quand j’ai envie de pleurer ça me rend tout heureux. C’est bête, n’est-ce pas ? Which Deepl translates as: I like to be spoken to softly, it makes me want to cry; and when I want to cry it makes me all happy. Silly, isn't it?
DanHulton 2y ago
It's cathartic. Plus, it's not JUST about the crying. I'm order to get to the point where the tears are actually falling, you have to go through all the build up that makes you care very deeply about the characters and situation. When that works well enough to get you to cry over a cartoon? It's fucking MAGICAL. =)

MisterTea 2y ago

This is the second time I see the phrase "ugly crying" here. Never heard that one before.

floren 2y ago
For whatever reason, "Bluey made me ugly cry" is a very minor meme among parents on the Internet. I've seen it elsewhere too.
- MisterTea 2y ago
  I find it disappointing that a pretty common emotional state for a person is labelled ugly. Its negative so I'd rather people not use it.
  - floren 2y ago
    It just means that you cry so hard your face is all twisted up and you go red and and your mouth is hanging open and there's snot dripping out of your nose, as opposed to simply shedding a couple tears. It's not really disparaging.
    - euroderf 2y ago
      Thank you for being the person that got around to actually describing/defining it !