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Joe Packer is a communications academic and became interested in how pessimism is expressed in popular culture. He co-wrote a book on the subject and we discussed it.

0:56 – Joe talks about how he got into writing about pessimism in popular culture. He references Lovecraft.

2:14 – Joe talks about the book and philosophical pessimism. The book focuses on the idea that things would be better if humans didn’t even exist.

6:31 – Joe talks about why they incorporated True Detective, Rick and Morty, and Final Fantasy VII into the book’s ideas.

12:37 – Joe talked about other works they considered including such as drone metal.

16:08 – Joe talks about their backgrounds in communications studies.

17:09 – Joe talks about the short story “I have No Mouth and I Must Scream” and how it affected him.

22:53 – Joe talks about post-apocalyptic films.

27:38 – Joe talks about the philosophies of BioShock.

28:52 – Joe is on academia.edu and Google Scholar.

Links of interest

A Feeling of Wrongness https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08235-6.html

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Joe Packer

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, fantasy, art, artist, Rick and Morty, True Detective, Lovecraft, Final Fantasy VII, Inside Out, drone metal, Get Out, BioShock, video games