{"id":6242,"date":"2014-01-15T04:09:38","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T04:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steampunkopera.wordpress.com\/?p=6242"},"modified":"2014-01-15T04:09:38","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T04:09:38","slug":"the-uncanny-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/the-uncanny-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uncanny Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

So a friend I’m currently visiting has a deep, mortal fear of ventriloquist dummies and clowns. These are not actually uncommon things that freak people out, and furthermore, there is actually a theory about this. It is called the Uncanny Valley.<\/p>\n

\"uncanny<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0uncanny valley<\/b>\u00a0is a hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion\u00a0among some human observers.<\/p>\n

Animators have long had to straddle this tricky nether region where something goes from really cute and cool to utterly creepy, back to cool.<\/p>\n

We list a number of pictures to illustrate this concept agreed upon (more or less) by an incompetent commitee of intoxicated people.<\/p>\n

Oompa Loompas. (although we had one abstention citing they are actually a huge sexual turn on):<\/p>\n

\"oompa<\/a><\/p>\n

Ventriliquist Dummies<\/p>\n

\"ventriliquist<\/a><\/p>\n

Baby Laugh A Lot. This is apparently a real commercial from the 70s:<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=44e-Y08_B-0]<\/p>\n

Baby Secret:<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3SlqsLto-xA]<\/p>\n

Clowns. Like Pennywise, the clown from IT:<\/p>\n

\"pennywise<\/a><\/p>\n

and THIS:<\/p>\n

\"clown<\/a><\/p>\n

Lady Elaine Fairchild from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood (because come on, that was one creepy damn puppet)<\/p>\n

\"Lady<\/a><\/p>\n

Polar express. Look, i know this is an awesome movie, but admit it, those characters are OFF and it’s kind of creepy:<\/p>\n

\"polat<\/a><\/p>\n

Guy Fawkes masks. Which i\u00a0believe\u00a0is purposeful.<\/p>\n

\"Guy<\/a><\/p>\n

Dancing baby. Isn’t thism, like, the first viral video of the internet?<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-5x5OXfe9KY]<\/p>\n

Live grinch<\/p>\n

\"Live<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dark Crystal:<\/p>\n

\"dark<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Jackson. Post black.<\/p>\n

\"michael<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

And a Michael Jackson marionette basically seals the deal<\/p>\n

\n

\"michael<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This video shows excellent examples. I will state that i don;t think the uneasiness is because of some basic fear of death, i think it’s a primal mistrust of something, like a predator, attempting to mimic your species but not quite\u00a0achieving\u00a0it. Or someone pretending to be your mommy or a trusted adult but who is not.<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CNdAIPoh8a4]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So a friend I’m currently visiting has a deep, mortal fear of ventriloquist dummies and clowns. These are not actually uncommon things that freak people out, and furthermore, there is actually a theory about this. It is called the Uncanny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","clearfix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}