caesarsaladinn:

caesarsaladinn:

let’s hear it for product labeling laws

both because I like knowing what’s in my food, and because I love seeing the ghosts of lawsuits all over the packages. there’s a weird intersection of marketing, ass-covering, and government health initiatives written in the fine print.

“picture enlarged to show size,” “not a low-calorie food” written on everything for some reason, “cultured dairy blend (not yogurt),” “30% less fat*” “*as compared to the average of leading potato chip brands,” “pasteurized processed American cheese” as distinct from “pasteurized processed American cheese food,” which is even less edible, “raisins are mechanically stemmed and may contain an occasional grape stem or wood piece,” “remove paper packaging before eating,” and the contortions go on and on.

a future historian could learn so much about American culture just from reading the back of a Cheerios box.

Environmental storytelling out here at the U-Haul lot

pinball

“‘Environmental storytelling’ just means skeletons on toilets, and teddy bears next to drugs and a gun”

Like ok that’s specifically the Fallout 3 aesthetic and yeah it wore thin

But consider that making the gameplay need to provide lootable items work with the artistic drive to evoke an atmosphere or narrative at all was a step forward

Compare with how before they were in tension like the classic JRPG gripe “why is the beloved chosen hero walking into your house and stealing stuff from your drawers”

Or at best disconnected, healing items in practical medicine cabinets or as non sequiturs, the arbitrary wooden item-bearing crates that inspired the 2000 “Time To Crate” metric

The “This Free Life” initiative – a public health campaign with banner ads and billboards around the theme “Not Smoking: It’s Really Gay!” – is some underrated ‘10s environmental storytelling