[HN Gopher] Porygon Was Innocent: An epileptic perspective on th...
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Porygon Was Innocent: An epileptic perspective on the infamous
Pokemon episode
Author : Aissen
Score : 108 points
Date : 2024-11-13 19:48 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.animefeminist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.animefeminist.com)
| outworlder wrote:
| > These include Absence Seizures, when a person stops what they
| are doing altogether, loses awareness but does not collapse or
| have visible convulsions; Myoclonic Seizures, when a person's
| limbs suddenly jerk uncontrollably but they remain conscious and
| aware; and Tonic Clonic Seizures where a person loses
| consciousness, collapses, and their whole body convulses.
|
| I've witnessed something that I've never seen described anywhere
| - a very similar thing to an 'absence seizure', but the person is
| still aware and responding but seem unable to break away from the
| empty stare even when they try.
| NeuroCoder wrote:
| There are all kinds of presentations for seizures. Ones in the
| frontal lobe are particularly hard to catch based on external
| presentation. If one is suspected of having seizures they will
| get a continuously monitored EEG where times associated where
| the seizure like state is monitored electrically. Sometimes
| it's a really weird presentation of a seizure or sometimes it's
| psychogenic. Either way it's good to have these people get some
| help I'd it keeps happening.
| _def wrote:
| This is the first time I came across this somewhere else other
| than this one person I know that has this. Fascinating.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This movie
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker
|
| is usually panned but it has a lot of great ideas in it
| including a light pulse gun that reliably causes absence
| seizures. Probably my favorite weapon from sci-fi movies
| although I have a soft spot for the zap gun out of _Battlefield
| Earth_ which must be like one of those ray guns that Hubbard
| thought people have been using to implant us with bad ideas for
| trillions of years.
|
| Just a bit ahead of its time it's like a 1984 movie that came
| out in 1981.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| That sounds like a focal aware (simple partial) seizure. There
| are other things that it could be but if you want to search,
| you could try starting with those keywords.
| aaaronic wrote:
| I thought it was common knowledge that Pikachu was the culprit.
| Aissen wrote:
| I think it is, but the article really is about giving more
| context around what happened, and how it impacted the industry.
| hinkley wrote:
| Pikachu isn't real but the writers are.
| the_af wrote:
| It's probably more the animators than the writers at fault.
| (Though not on purpose, of course).
| asynchronous wrote:
| I'm glad they bring up the techniques of ghosting and others to
| pass the Harding test, and the outcry from western audiences
| about it. Because personally, I find the diminishing of the
| animation quality really distracting during those hype scenes.
|
| I wish we could find some solution where we distribute the
| epileptic-safe versions alongside the unsafe ones and users could
| choose.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _I wish we could find some solution where we distribute the
| epileptic-safe versions alongside the unsafe ones and users
| could choose._
|
| They seem to be able to distribute uncensored & censored
| versions for some of the more risque or violent shows, as well
| as various levels of censorship for different regions. So, the
| solution is sort of already there, there's just not enough
| motivation I guess.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| I wonder what people think about that part of the article where
| the author paints people who want to see the unedited version
| of the show in a negative light. The author presents "but i am
| not epileptic" crowd as ableist and insensitive.
|
| I strongly disagree and this kind of take makes me sympathize
| with the author less than I would otherwise, subconsciously.
|
| I can simultaneously support the idea that we should make
| adjusted content for people with epilepsy, or in a more general
| sense - it is a sign of elevated society to strive to
| accommodate people with disabilities or differences, but at the
| same time resent the notion that accomplishing the above has to
| mean that asking for an unaltered experience is "wrong".
|
| I feel that putting those two demands on the opposite sides of
| the scale is "wokeism".
| the_af wrote:
| I think the author does a fine job of pointing out you don't
| know whether this scene can harm you (you can be hit by it
| while not having had a seizure before in your life), so you
| cannot make an a priori judgment on whether you can safely
| watch the scene unedited.
|
| So playing the edited scene seems like the safest choice for
| everyone...
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Putting up a warning (and maybe this warning should be more
| prominent, or some other mechanism ought to be invented if
| warnings are not effective) - is what we currently do to
| accommodate people with food allergies. Does it make sense
| to take peanut butter off the store shelves, and completely
| eradicate all nuts, dairy, and wheat out of all food
| products?
|
| Are people who want to make PB&J "ableist"?
| speerer wrote:
| In the UK, many schools do just this to defend allergic
| people against the threat that homemade lunches would
| otherwise pose.
| fossuser wrote:
| It's also odd that there seems to be a large overlap of
| autistic, disabled, queer or trans, anime fans with far left
| politics (add in the requisite bluesky/mastodon account). It
| doesn't necessarily mean anything - but that kind of union of
| disparate things always sets of some skepticism alarms for me
| around social contagion or general mental illness that makes
| me distrust the argument as presented, like there's some
| detail being left out in pursuit of some partisan goal.
|
| I also just have an allergic reaction to people calling
| others *ist at this point too, espeically when trying to
| leverage some policy against them.
| asynchronous wrote:
| I also think they're somewhat manipulating statistics to
| their benefit- they start by saying "1 in 100 people have
| epilepsy" but it's an untrue statement that 1% of people have
| the type of epilepsy that would react to this specific
| example of flashing lights between 5-25 a second.
| the_af wrote:
| > _I wish we could find some solution where we distribute the
| epileptic-safe versions alongside the unsafe ones and users
| could choose._
|
| How would the users choose though?
|
| "I want to risk an epileptic fit" vs "I don't want to risk
| one"? And if you do have a fit due to an underlying condition
| you didn't know about, and you break your back or suffer some
| injury (as the author narrates having experienced, though not
| due to Pokemon), would the broadcaster be legally at risk?
|
| It doesn't seem crazy to me to play it safe here...
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Serious question for epileptics. Are those failed LED flashing
| street lights an issue? I feel like they must be. Even to me they
| can be disorientating at night when the one flashing lamp on the
| exit ramp is the main light source.
| monetus wrote:
| While anything could push you over the edge, it seems like 5 to
| 20 hz is the bitter spot that will make someone flop around. I
| don't have tonic-clonics anymore, but the strobes still trigger
| some seizure activity in me.
|
| To your question, not too bad of an issue unless you're easily
| triggered. Their speed is kind of off, ime.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| I cant speak for epileptics, but I do suffer from
| photosensitive migraines (which the author briefly mentioned in
| the article), and in my case failing flashing LED lights are
| indeed an issue. Luckily for me it is not as instantaneous as a
| seisure, I feel it building up over many seconds, so in many
| situations I can just look away or close my eyes and it doesn't
| turn into a full blown migraine (just a kind of "hangover" in
| my head).
| _def wrote:
| I'm not epilectic but I'm always super annoyed when someone
| walks their bicycle and the led front light keeps pulsing in
| bright rapid flashes because of the dynamo
| isoprophlex wrote:
| God yes. Primo headache material. Seems so lazy too, to
| design a light that goes full blast as soon as there is
| enough voltage from the dynamo. Stick a capacitor in there
| for chrissakes!
| jandrese wrote:
| I don't see that, but I do see a fair bit of ultra-bright
| LEDs set to strobe mode because some study somewhere said
| that was the most visible to vehicles. Now I get blinded and
| dazzled by both oncoming and leading bikes.
|
| I don't know why bike headlight manufacturers are so damn
| insistent on improving safety by blinding everybody else in
| the vicinity. Why do so few bike headlights have a "low beam"
| mode? Instead its 1,000,000 lumens in a 180 degree cone
| turning night into day but burning out the retinas of
| everyone else on the trail.
| outworlder wrote:
| > Unlike with "Electric Soldier Porygon" the movie continued to
| be shown unedited in American cinemas throughout its entire run.
| Since the movie failed to pass the Harding Test, an alternative
| cut had to be shown in the UK, Ireland, and Japan. This meant
| that for at least two months of its theatrical run, Pixar had a
| safe cut they could show to English speaking American audiences
| and yet still chose to have the unsafe version in US cinemas.
|
| Exhibit A - companies will only ever do anything if they are
| forced to, even if what they are doing is harmful and compliance
| is relatively easy.
| meltyness wrote:
| An optimistic take is that the organization was simply too
| incompetent to identify and assess the financial risk of
| injuring someone.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Okay strong "forbidden fruit" vibes here; I had the strongest
| compulsion to look up that scene on youtube. It's _very_
| unpleasant to watch, at least to me. No wonder this gave people
| seizures.
| Jaxan wrote:
| It's crazy: full frames with a solid blue and red alternating.
| To me also very unpleasant, but an effect I haven't seen
| before.
| MrLeap wrote:
| I've recently noticed reminiscent effects in Arcane. They
| have some vfx that quickly alternate between yellow and
| magenta or yellow and blue. Not full frame.
|
| I think they look rather striking. It's a shame that kind of
| thing is a danger to some.
| the_af wrote:
| Very uncomfortable to watch indeed.
|
| I wonder how the animators themselves could stand it.
| layer8 wrote:
| I had to look it up as well (I had already tried many years
| ago, but back then it wasn't on YouTube yet) and I actually
| like it a lot artistically. There should be a way to safeguard
| people whom it causes issues for, while still allowing others
| to enjoy it.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Link for the lazy: https://youtu.be/B4wSFjR9TMQ
|
| I didn't find it that bad, but over time I've found that I
| think I keep my screen's brightness a little lower than most
| people, because I don't find light themes to be blinding.
| anotherhue wrote:
| Gee this seems like an actual useful feature to build into smart
| TVs.
| GaggiX wrote:
| I was thinking about the same thing, also as an accessibility
| feature for your phone or software for your PC (I imagine this
| last one already exists).
| mbrubeck wrote:
| Apple's "Dim flashing lights" accessibility option is built
| into tvOS, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
| bitwize wrote:
| The NES Classic is somehow able to detect rapidly flashing
| screens in its built-in games and temporally blur them as an
| anti-seizure measure. Nintendo certainly learned its lesson
| from the Pokemon incident.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| That's a better solution than putting warnings in front of
| every game.
| recursive wrote:
| The cookie banners of the 90s
| GaggiX wrote:
| For more context:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Senshi_Porygon
|
| The Wikipedia article also has the scene that you can watch at
| your own risk.
| neilv wrote:
| > _I have seen many fans, in the face of being told the reason
| for these changes, say that it doesn't matter because they aren't
| personally epileptic. This is, as you might understand,
| incredibly personally frustrating, and yes, very ableist. In
| saying this, these fans claim that disabled people do not have a
| right to feel safe when watching their favorite series, and that
| their wellbeing doesn't matter in comparison to a few brighter
| shots of teenagers using their magic powers to punch each other._
|
| As a person who's never had a seizure, and who doesn't want to
| find out the hard way that I'm vulnerable, nor have anyone
| vulnerable be harmed, I get angry at filmmakers who throw in
| rapid strobe light scenes.
|
| (Secondarily, it even happens in non-action movies, so you can
| get the sudden strobe lighting when you're just watching a movie
| at night, in a dimmed living room, to wind down from the day
| before bed.)
|
| It's often a nightclub scene, but most recently it was a fight
| scene with gratuitous strobe light.
|
| The strobing is usually a surprise, as evidenced by the startled
| note to my initial curse word.
|
| An engineer solution would be to make a software filter that
| operates on video playback in real time.
|
| A lawyer solution would be to wait for someone's family to be
| devastated, then sue the perpetrator so hard that US companies
| start caring.
|
| A social media mob solution would be to downvote punish movies
| that did this, then go through the credits, and downvote all the
| other properties in which those people are involved.
|
| A human solution would be for people to be more considerate and
| responsible.
| Vecr wrote:
| What do you mean by downvote? Has Reddit become real life?
| Given what people get away with for art a simple warning at the
| start is probably all that you need.
| neilv wrote:
| Downvote, loosely, such as on social media sites/apps that
| have up/down votes, and with minimal stars on interfaces that
| use those. I don't know a good term or phrase for it.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Entertainment is becoming more and more "in your face" harmful
| as technology evolves.
|
| From night-clubs that move high-power lasers around blinding
| people, concerts with sound-walls that people have to use ear
| protectors to get close, events with closed-loop air-
| conditioning that poison (and contaminate, but the trend on
| that is unclear) people by not taking enough outside air, to
| whoever invented that safer fireworks can be used close to
| people. And yeah, the strobo and UV lights.
|
| Governments aren't rushing to fix optional activities, so yeah,
| expect all of those to get worse.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Wait, how do closed-loop air conditioners poison anyone?
|
| And who is using high powered lasers to blind people in
| clubs? And when hasn't getting too close to music required
| hearing protection? Even a flute is over 90 dB.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > And when hasn't getting too close to music required
| hearing protection? Even a flute is over 90 dB.
|
| Not that it's impossible for a symphony to play so loudly
| that one needs ear protection but that the giant speakers
| on the concert stage are engineered and tuned to output
| sound that's as loud as possible such that everyone within
| a certain distance of them is likely to suffer hearing loss
| without protection from such damage.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The mechanics of the human optical system are absolutely wild,
| and the abstraction many have of "the eye just gathers pixels and
| sends them to the brain to interpret" is just wrong.
|
| One of the most fascinating things to me about virtual reality
| was the discovery that we can mitigate VR nausea by giving people
| temporary "tunnel vision" when they are repositioned in space
| without their bodies being moved in the real world. For a
| significant percentage of users, it's the motion in the
| peripheral vision that leads to the gross dissociative-body
| nausea, and simply cutting off that stimulus helps significantly.
| And for other people, it doesn't!
| crooked-v wrote:
| Distill that down further and you get iPhone motion sickness
| protection, where just having dots overlaid on the phone screen
| that move based on the accelerometer noticeably help reduce
| nausea (or at least they sure do in my case).
| taylorbuley wrote:
| An interesting viewpoint. And from it, a good example of how
| failure can be positive -- even when it hurts.
| hinkley wrote:
| I really resent the use of "unsuitable for some viewers" in story
| arcs. Is someone with epilepsy just supposed to watch the rest of
| the series with a hole in the middle of the story? Why even do
| that. Tell the writers to fuck right off and try again.
| chriskanan wrote:
| I don't understand why in the current era we don't have videos
| just post-processed by the media player / TV. That seems like it
| would increase accessibility while not irritating folks who do
| not have epilepsy.
|
| I tried to search to see if something like a plugin existed for
| VLC, and I didn't find anything. Seems like it should be solvable
| at least if the media can be parsed ahead of time or with some
| delay for a live feed.
| MBCook wrote:
| I've wondered about that too.
|
| My immediate suspicion is liability fear. If you add that
| feature, even if it helps a tons of people, someone will sure
| you when it doesn't help them/their family member.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I'd just market it as a comfort feature rather than a safety
| one. I don't have epilepsy but I also don't particularly
| _like_ strobing flashing screen effects, especially in older
| games. Having an option to turn them off increases my
| enjoyment, even if it doesn 't really affect my safety.
| xahrepap wrote:
| Similarly, I would love if videos/blurays/streams/etc had a way
| to adjust volumes separate from each other. So many movies have
| such loud music and quiet dialog. So I'm constantly adjusting
| the volume between different scenes.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The software to do this doesn't exist. We have some software to
| assess the "epilepsy-safety" of a given piece of media, but
| it's proprietary and afaik not realtime.
|
| There was a bounty to make an open-source replacement, but I've
| lost my link. I've still got the WCAG info sheet, though:
| https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/three-flashes-or...
| if anyone wants to have a go. (I'd suggest making a standalone
| application, plus something that works with GStreamer.)
| dalbin wrote:
| There is a feature called "Dim Flashing Lights" available on
| iOS, and the algorithm with multiple implementations is on
| Github : https://github.com/apple/VideoFlashingReduction
| devnullbrain wrote:
| That pushes the onus onto the disabled person to avoid places
| and rooms with TVs that haven't had the setting enabled,
| repeatedly asking the same questions and revealing their health
| history to feel safe in public.
| ompogUe wrote:
| On the other side of the coin: have a kid with epilepsy. After
| learning about possible effects of K448/Mozart's sonata in D
| Major, we keep a copy of it on all our phones, and it does seem
| to relax him when he is having a seizure.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95922-7
|
| Always thought it was funny that the only other song they had
| found (up until 2021) with a similar audio signature was from
| "Yanni Live at the Acropolis"
|
| Also, I found and watched the porygon episode in the last year,
| and it's certainly pretty intense.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| > I have seen many fans, in the face of being told the reason for
| these changes, say that it doesn't matter because they aren't
| personally epileptic. This is, as you might understand,
| incredibly personally frustrating, and yes, very ableist. In
| saying this, these fans claim that disabled people do not have a
| right to feel safe when watching their favorite series, and that
| their wellbeing doesn't matter in comparison to a few brighter
| shots of teenagers using their magic powers to punch each other.
|
| I don't get it. Why is it bad wanting to see the unsafe version
| for yourself?
|
| > Over 2500 fans signed a change.org petition asking Crunchyroll
| to take down this edited, safe, version of the series and instead
| upload an unedited version that was true to the original vision--
| even if it had the potential to cause seizures.
|
| That's not how I read the petition in question. People are asking
| to get access to the original that they know exist. I can't find
| a paragraph that demands deletion of the edited safe version.
|
| >> As fans, we implore Crunchyroll to try to acquire an uncut
| version of the simulcast as we are paying good money each month
| for the services they provide.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| This is a giant liability issue for any company.
|
| If you want the raw version, I'm sure it's out there...
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > I don't get it. Why is it bad wanting to see the unsafe
| version for yourself?
|
| Of course, it isn't bad in itself. In full context, however, it
| looks a lot more like "lobbying a site to cater to your needs
| rather than the needs of others".
|
| The truth is somewhere between the two perspectives, and good
| faith is required to see this. I suspect that your frustration
| is due not seeing how others lack this good faith.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Reading from the petition:
|
| > This petition may be pointless and may not affect the outcome
| of this season, but if not that, hopefully it can affect
| Crunchyrolls future simulcasts from suffering the same fate as
| Jujutsu Kaisen is right now.
|
| I'm not a CR customer, have they ever offered multiple versions
| of their synchronized on air series ?
|
| I'd assume it would only be a single chosen version, with
| perhaps an alternative days or months after airing, but from an
| effort and financial perspective I wouldn't expect it.
|
| At no point does the petition ask for separate versions (it
| argues the dimmed version make them nauseous), it's a commenter
| that surfaces the option, so I see TFA's point standing.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Is it possible to program a look ahead filter that detects too
| much sudden change across a window of frames and blanks it or
| somehow stifles it?
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| It seems to be something of an urban legend that the original
| Pokemon seizure clip was subsequently _rebroadcasted_ by Japanese
| news stations in the immediate aftermath of the first broadcast,
| thus increasing the number of impacted viewers. I can 't find any
| source backing that claim, though, in the Wikipedia article.
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