11 - On the Topic of Creative Entropy (1)

I stumble backwards in shock, shaking my head, still reeling from Alex's revelation. "Every … form of human creation … ever …" (By the way, in the process of performing this one bit, I also trip over myself, and crack my head on the floor, giving myself a concussion, but let's skip over all that. Alex: "Damn, dude. You okay?" Me: "Yeah, I miscalculated. I thought I was going to fall on the bed." Alex: "… You did that on purpose??")

"Yes, Odd-kun," says Alex. "Don't you see? Isekai is just the natural progression of creative entropy in the domain of storytelling. Standardization of video games comes from the refinement and evolution, and applying what has demonstrably worked before. Weapon selection wheels. Left stick click to run. Triggers to aim and fire. Camera control with the right stick. … There's no reason to ever stray from these norms. They work so well, reduce so much end-user friction that there's no reason to ever move away from these. They're the end-state of their respective forms. Maximum creative entropy."

"I mean—those are good, aren't they? It'd be weird to go back to right bumper to aim, and shoot with a face button."

"See, here's the deal—creative entropy isn't necessarily a good, or bad, thing. It just is. Of course features are going to move toward their optimal state. If there's no reason to change, it won't. It'll always tend toward the most efficient, or user-friendly state. … But that's also exactly what bothers you about isekai, isn't it? If we can tell stories with a pre-made template that's good enough for most consumers—familiar enough, safe enough, easy enough to re-use again and again while still attracting an acceptable number of sales, clicks, views, reads, engagement—then why bother straying from that?"

I cross my arms, deep in thought.

After a while, Alex suggests, "How about this. Why don't we see all the various ways in which creative entropy has taken effect over several domains?"

"Uh, sure, I guess. How do we do that? Do you have like, P*werP*int slides or something? …"

"Ha! Not quite," says Alex. He points a finger to the ceiling, and shouts, "Go go gadget … SYNOPTIC HEADERS!"

"… 'Synoptic what'? What the hell are you talking ab—"

Creative Entropy Exhibit #1 - Cellular Phones

"—holy shit!" I scream, as the bold text crashes through our room and slides into frame, narrowly avoiding me.

Alex does a kind of S*per S*ntai pose and boldly declares, "Creative Entropy Exhibit Number One: Cellular Phones!"

"Dude, that almost hit me. I was this close to being a pink splatter on bold text."

Alex, ignoring me: "Do you remember what cell phones were like before the iPh*ne? Do you remember how much sheer variety you had in designs and form factors? Every manufacturer was doing their own thing. You had flip phones, you had slide-out keyboards, you had cool-as-hell swivel hinges. It was the Wild West! Everything was so creative and weird. What do phones look like now? Non-descript, featureless rectangles. The iPh*ne was an absolute force of creative entropy that wiped out all novel phone designs from every single phone maker. Why? Because they don't need to be anything else. In fact, any deviation from being a featureless rectangle is in every measurable metric a downgrade. It's the perfect form already. … I mean, even within the bounds of the featureless rectangle, creative entropy is still doing its thing. Can you say, goodbye 3.5mm jack!?"

"Goodbye, three-point-five millimeter jack."

"So although the slab-of-glass form is perfect and optimal—well, it's not very interesting, innit?"

"'Innit'?"

"We're not going to have retro-nostalgic video essays in twenty years about the external design choices of the latest flagship models this year. Not the way we do now, with deep dives about weird-ass shit like the N*kia N-G*ge."

"Uh-huh …"

"Remember what I said about the heat death of the universe? Maximum entropy—where nothing interesting can ever happen again."

Creative Entropy Exhibit #2 - Anime Fan Subs

"(You know, people really don't seem to like prose broken up by random bold text.)"

"(I mean—they can just skip 'em. As in, just don't read them. Like, close your eyes, homie. Just walk away from the screen.)"

"A-anyway …" I stare at the new bold text that crashed through our room. "F-fan subs!? We can't talk about that!"

Alex turns to where I imagine a camera to be. "Folks, remember to always support the creators properly! Piracy is a crime!"

"Never mind that Crunch—er … DynamiteRoll started out as a piracy site."

Alex shakes his head, does the V*nce McM*hon 'cut the feed' gesture, sans the tearing-up. "Yikes, dawg—we really, really, really can't talk about that. … Anyway, fansubs used to be a serious creative effort. I mean, we laugh at the meme stuff like keikaku douri, but for a lot of shows there was some serious craft going on. Remember opening and ending theme karaoke singalongs? Fansubbers syncing up each syllable to the beat? Some of them had some seriously sophisticated effects, like each syllable disappearing in a cloud of sparkles. And the really impressive ones managed to do this in soft subtitles! Not hard-coded!

"… So what the hell happened with fansubs, you ask? Well, streaming came along. And along with streaming, came official subs. (And you'd think so-called professionals would provide the best translations possible, but … Well. Let's not get into that here.) And what's the point of having fansubs, when there's already a … well, I don't wanna use the word 'good', but 'workable' translation available? Creative Entropy has claimed another victim. Now with official subs, they just rip them from the streaming sites, and that's that. No sparkly karaoke subs, no meticulously re-created title card translation. Did you know most of the video codec pack advancements were driven by the anime scene? It needed to keep up with the sophisticated methods needed to render a lot of the soft subs. All that creativity is gone now."

"Damn. It's just Horrible, what happened to Subs."

"And again—entropy rules. Nothing interesting can happen. Plain white subs that work 'well' enough for the consumer. … That's all you get. Forget karaoke, most of the time you don't even get theme song subs anymore. You'll notice a big part of creative entropy is that people allow it to happen. They don't need the best product. Quality doesn't really matter. It just has to be Good. Enough."

Creative Entropy Exhibit #3 - Game Engines

Alex: "Next victim—Oh, wait. Shit. Dude, are we doing the stage direction thing again?"

Me: "'Again'?"

Alex: "Alright, well … Whatever. People seem to really hate this, as well."

Me: "Personally? I'm all for it. It reminds me of a Yo*T*be comment section, which is the only way I can consume any sort of textual content these days."

Nobody:

Nobody at all:

Alex: "A-Anyway … The next exhibit is game engines. I dunno, this one's kinda self-explanatory. I mean, it's kinda like the control scheme thing anyway, so we can kinda gloss over it. Games used to use their own dedicated engines, which gave them very distinct 'game-feels'. They felt different to play. They had their own weird quirks. These days, even AAA games are just using Unr*al for everything. The worst offenders of these are when they remake old, beloved games in Unr*al. ***** **** 2 or ***** **** ***** 3 come to mind."

Me: "Do you really expect readers to untangle that mess of asterisks?"

Alex: "I'll give 'em a hint. They're both K*n*mi properties. … Two of the most unique games of their generation with regard to atmosphere and visuals—remade in Unr*al. And it wouldn't as bad if you couldn't just tell right off the bat that they're using it. The character models, the lighting, the big-ass, disproportional heads—it's all very tell-tale. But why wouldn't companies use it? It speeds up development time. Devs already know how to use it across the industry. But the result is Creative Entropy. Tendency toward sameness. All games look and feel the same."

Creative Entropy Exhibit #4 - Mobile Games

Alex: "Alright you know what? This example is actually kinda weak. Because it's not like mobile games were really all that great to begin with. Honestly, I really could give two shits about mobile gaming."

Me: "Then why even bring it up …"

Alex, ignoring me: "But anyway, it's very simple. Mobile games have all become gacha. The actual gameplay of any of these games is secondary to the real game. The meta of saving for premium currency, planning out your rolls for upcoming banners, seeing how much you can save for pity. Or—do you even go for pity, or just say fuck it and see how much luck you have? Yes, yes, everyone knows it's a slot machine. But slot machines are fun, man. Gambling is fun as hell and incredibly based, so how could any real gameplay compare? There's no thrill like gambling. … So why would mobile games ever be anything else?"

Me: "Yes … Yes, I get it now … I kept asking the goddess in the first chapter, why this fad doesn't go away. I realize now, that's the wrong question. The proper question is, why would it ever move away from isekai? There's no friction for the author—pre-made worlds, pre-cooked templates—and that goes both ways. It applies to the reader as well—they know what they're getting into with each one. No need to make mental effort in picking up a new world, new character types."

Alex: "Correct. Creative Entropy. And just like all the other examples—well, the whole landscape is flat. Featureless. Barren. It's just not interesting. … And what's worse, the entropy actually accelerates with metrics. These days, companies can track the exact moment in a show you stop watching. They can track which moments get rewound the most. Which shows get the most engagement, the most discussion. We're no longer writing according to any author's true vision—we're just data-chasing. … What's that phrase that gets tossed around so often lately? 'Late-stage capitalism'? … Well—you can think of isekai as 'late-stage storytelling'. With the way things are going, we'll all be reading Nar*u-kei isekai for the rest of time. … 'If you want a picture of the future, imagine Truck-kun's tires driving over a self-insert's face—forever'. (… With opening and ending songs both sung by YOAS*B*. For every single show.)"

"You're right. You're totally right," I say, with a manic fervor growing in my eyes. "I see it now. Progress is the 'route' [sic] of all evil! What we need is revolution! Take it all down to zero!!! Okay, I'll start by heading to H*me Dep*t, and stocking up on fresh bags of—"

"Okay, slow your roll there, Ted. Remember what I said, about creative entropy not being good or bad by nature. It just is. There's no real stopping it, as long as readers continue to prove that they'll put up with the absolute minimum acceptable quality. There's no reason to move away from isekai, as long as they can keep flipping that page. Or keep clicking on 'next episode'. Or 'next chapter'."

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