I have half a feeling (if you can divide a feeling in such a way) that the last masterpiece in Magibon's Mu Series, that is, the last slice of truly classic Magibon-Mu, was Mu 17.
Hear me out.
I say 'masterpiece', but perhaps I should qualify that. In comparison to her earlier work, it seems somewhat subdued, almost valedictory. That wave could just as easily be a farewell as it could the royal wave of Youtube's unofficial queen. Magibon is perhaps here more graceful than ever before, but strangely self-contained, and there is an enigmatic emphasis placed on the final V salute. It feels as if Magibon is closing a chapter in a muted, but flawless fashion.
Just before Mu 17, we have what is perhaps the height of the Mu Series, the incomparable Mu 16, which somehow manages to be both entirely representative of the series, and wholly like anything else within it. In this, and other classic pieces, such as Mu 12, there is a purity of creative energy that even makes it ridiculous to use terms such as 'work' and 'piece'. "Do without doing and everything gets done," the Tao Te Ching tells us (or I think it does). In these early pieces Magibon does without doing and gives us art without art.
Mu 18 marks a turning point. After the sedate, but sad mood of Mu 17, Magibon seems full of contradictory energies. She is defensive and impish. There is a restlessness about her like that of a chrysalis. When I first saw it, I wondered whether she might be trying to deflect all the negative energy directed at her. In any case, a change seemed signalled.
Next came Mu 19, a kind of reprise of the pre-18 classics, now with something about it of fragility and ephemerality. Once we get into the 20s, we find that a previously absent self-consciousness has entered the series. Magibon never quite loses the grace that is her hallmark, but a sense of the mundane has crept into the clips that makes them resemble, in part, what the Youtube undead, pickled in their own ignorance and hatred, always thought they were – just a girl looking into a camera.
I noticed some comments in these clips along the lines of "this is getting old". The difficult-second-album syndrome seemed to have set in. However, I was never one of those who thought that Magibon should 'quit the game', or come up with some 'new gimmick'. To demand such things is to misunderstand the nature of the Mu Series entirely. Calculation, or buckling under the pressure for novelty and reinvention – such things are for mere careerists. No, it's not even that… It's just… Well, in fact, it's hard for me to put into words, but the boredom that reaches its trough in Mu 23 is essential to the honesty of the Mu Series. In allowing artistic 'failure' such as this, because there is no hurry to be or acheive anything else, Magibon makes both failure and success irrelevant. If before she was expressing the innocent zero of plenitude, now she is expressing inevitability. That is something we all struggle with. If there is such a thing as progress, then inevitability is the phase through which we are progressing. By this I mean simply the karma that takes shape with the loss of innocence and development of self-awareness. Things seem to have gone wrong, but there was no other way.
The latest in the series, Mu 24, seems evidence at least for the possibility of progression. Magibon has ascended from the trough. I am reluctant to interpret further at this stage. If there is no hurry about the Mu Series, and if success and failure are equally irrelevant to it, then, just as there is no need for Magibon ever to move out of her Mu Period, there is also no reason why she should not immediately slip back into another trough, or 'quit the game' now, or plateau at an enigmatic elfin playfulness.
Odd, bizarre and sweet all at the same time.
Yes. It’s nice to get a sane response. Thank you. I only say that because so many of the responses to these video clips are rabid.
“…responses to these video clips are rabid.”Very sad indeed that there would be bad responses when it is a child in the video. I think that is why I would never put up a video of my self, at least on YouTube. I used to post on Craigslist Rants and Raves. It is worldwide just as Opera. It was always anonymous but I actually got to know a few of the people (and their real names) and we would meet at a restaurant every month. This one lady and I were the main ones, then we met about a dozen other people at different dinners. It was fun and we would talk about everything under the sun. It was a very diverse group. I was the oldest, then the other lady, two gay guys(one of which is the most fanatical person I’ve ever met), another lady and her husband who were wiccans, a Harley’s Angel dude(who I wrote a poem about after he was killed on his motorcycle) and his girlfriend and a young mother married to an alcoholic. There were a few others who joined us at different times but I’m not too sure about them because they didn’t share of themselves much. Right after we had about six of these dinners, it got very mean, crude, rude, nasty, vile, you name it on Rants and Raves. I stopped posting altogether because I believed a couple of the people at those dinners were the ones doing the nastiness and posting horrid pictures and saying it was me or the other nice people. Very tiresome. That is why I read Opera comments for about a month before I put myself out there. The OC seems much more adult than the haters on the other site.
Well, she is actually older than she looks. (I believe she’s about 21.) But that’s no excuse to be nasty, especially as most of the people who are seem to think she’s nine years old anyway.”The OC seems much more adult than the haters on the other site.”Now you mention it, there is actually very little in the way of unpleasantness at Opera. I wonder why that is. The Internet does depress me in many ways, though. I think it largely exposes a culture of people who can’t be bothered – can’t be bothered to spell properly, to check their facts, to listen to what another person is saying, to examine their own opinions, and so on. If you mention any of this, people seem to think you’re elitist. It’s as if it’s become almost taboo to care about anything.”It was always anonymous but I actually got to know a few of the people (and their real names) and we would meet at a restaurant every month.”I’ve got to know one or two people through the Internet. Actually, more than one or two, and I think I’ve been very lucky. All have turned out to be who they claimed to be, and have been worth knowing. Sorry to hear your own experiences turned out so badly.
“Well, she is actually older than she looks. (I believe she’s about 21.)”I am surprised (although I shouldn’t be) because I thought her to be around 12. Every Asian I have ever known has looked many years younger than they really are. Most are very petite and thin and have a much better diet. If I would stick to just rice, fish and vegetables, I know I’d look and feel better. They don’t seem to wrinkle as much either and that may be due to diet as well, or maybe heredity, not sure. My new daughter-in-law (officially, as of yesterday) is in her late twenties but could easily pass for 16. Last year, when my son took me to her country of Vietnam to meet her and her family, I looked like an amazon compared to all of the women my age. There were not many cars in the city we visited and everyone who didn’t have a motorbike or bicycle, walked……everywhere……something else that would make me feel and look better. “Sorry to hear your own experiences turned out so badly”I don’t regret meeting all these people, even the ones I suspect were the internet culprits. It just made me more aware. Still, at my age of 60, I tend to be naive and think everyone is nice and that they care what you say.
“I am surprised (although I shouldn’t be) because I thought her to be around 12. Every Asian I have ever known has looked many years younger than they really are. Most are very petite and thin and have a much better diet. If I would stick to just rice, fish and vegetables, I know I’d look and feel better. They don’t seem to wrinkle as much either and that may be due to diet as well, or maybe heredity, not sure.”Magibon also seems to give the impression that she’s Asian, but she is, in fact, American, and – I believe I’m right in saying – has no Asian blood. Some facts about Magibon:http://home.arcor.de/firithfenion/http://home.arcor.de/firithfenion/faq.html#Q4This is my favourite bit:Magi has a deep respect of every living creature.
In this video you can see that Magi even respects the live of a little slug. Other people would step on this slug, kill it and laugh. She is even worried about a little slug and says: “please take care”.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oA_tIuW_IU“My new daughter-in-law (officially, as of yesterday) is in her late twenties but could easily pass for 16. Last year, when my son took me to her country of Vietnam to meet her and her family, I looked like an amazon compared to all of the women my age. There were not many cars in the city we visited and everyone who didn’t have a motorbike or bicycle, walked……everywhere……something else that would make me feel and look better.”Congratulations on the addition to your family. I’d like to go to Vietnam someday, too. Who knows if or when…
It is interesting to see the misconceptions that arise from her videos: that she is prepubescent, Asian, very petite, etc. With her little girl voice, she truly has that appearance. Many men in America fantasize about young, prepubescent Asian girls. It matters not that she has a love of nature. It is also interesting and maybe a little disturbing to me that now an interview is in Japanese PlayBoy with pictures of her (clothed). In the other videos, she appears older and much taller than I expected. She appears as a tiny little girl in her own videos. Maybe it’s my maternal instincts, I’m not sure, but I wonder where this is going. I’m thinking the ones most interested in watching her are men with less than fatherly instincts. I’m not saying this to you. Her sweetness draws a person in and makes one curious about her. Once she has everyone’s interest, her next step was an interview in Playboy?Now I am wondering if she is just very naive, or if she realizes she is pandering to the prurient interests of men. I am also wondering if she has an agent who is behind this and maybe she really is as naive as she seems?Or, maybe this is another misconception and my maternal instincts are taking over and I am being suspicious.
I guess it is my maternal instincts then because I have two daughters (three counting my new daughter in law) and would worry about their safety and the men and their thinking. That is why I wondered if she had an agent. Of course, you can’t stop people from thinking but I would hope she isn’t too naive and is careful. Hopefully, she can keep turning a blind eye to the negativity, if she reads it at all. I could not….turn a blind eye that is……which is why I left the other site. I hope no one from that site ever sees her videos. They would be brutal and vile, mostly vile. Sometimes I still go there to read the idiotness…….why I am not sure……maybe just to remind myself why I left.
Well, I imagine that, however naive she may or may not be, she is at least very aware of the sexual meaning that many people read into her videos. A large proportion of the comments are of a sexual nature. Also from the FAQ page, there is the following, which I think is a very succint summing up of the reasons why people both love and hate Magibon:Q: Why does she have haters at all?
A: It is hard to understand how a cute girl that is always friendly and never violent to anyone can have haters, but it is a fact that she has some haters. These haters are mean and jealous people who can not stand the fact that Magi is very popular and gets more and more supporters and friends every day.
Some of her haters are obscene and violent. Obscene and violent people hate Magi because she is pure, friendly and innocent.
Stupid people hate her because of her silence in her Nothing-series. These silent videos work like some paintings of modern art or a Rorschach inkblot test. An inkblot test shows nothing but an inkblot, but it is also a kind of mirror of the soul of the people who are watching it. So, if a person is interested in UFO-Stories he will probably see a spaceship in this inkblot, while another one is interested in geography and he can see the shape of an island or continent. People who have no creativity or intelligence can see nothing but an inkblot.
Exactly the same happens with Magis silent-videos. Intelligent and creative people can enjoy her videos because they find a lot of intelligence and creativity in them. Stupid people can see nothing but “a girl that stares into a camera”. This makes them angry and sometime turns them into Magi-haters because Magis videos remind them of their own lack of creativity and unability to understand demanding things.
Therefore stupid and uneducated people call her videos stupid and obscene people call her videos obscene while intelligent people really enjoy her videos. But I feel to defend her videos by saying that there is no sexual element to them would be mistaken. I don’t mean that they are meant to be primarily erotic. I simply mean that everyone has a sexuality, and sexuality plays a vital role in creativity. Sexuality, for instance, is fully apparent in the following, but I doubt many people would refer to it as ‘erotica’:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx3EmspoDpII think the attitude that polarises sexuality along the lines of virgin/whore does a lot of damage. Personally speaking, therefore, I don’t see any problem with her giving an interview to Pureiboi Shukan, even if she did pose naked, which, of course, she didn’t. I would see that as her choice. As to where it’s leading, well, I would be interested to know what she herself thinks of that. I think there is a certain enigma about her. The outpouring of hate that she receives from the intellectually challenged and emotionally stunted around the world is relentless, but she just goes on posting her sweet little videos and has the composure and grace not to make any outbursts of the kind that you’re likely to find on this blog. I also think that if she were one-dimensional, there wouldn’t be such an air of enigma about her. Perhaps the expression of something like ‘innocence’ is fascinating, but no one is purely innocent. I think what is interesting about her is that she can express an authentic sense of innocence while at the same time having the depth that comes from ambiguity. Because human beings are not just ‘innocent’ or ‘depraved’. I noticed a comment under the Playboy montage video from another hydrophobia carrier saying something like, “See, she has appeared in Playboy! It’s true!” as if this is final proof that she is a corrupt fake. But there is nothing at all hidden about her appearance in that magazine. Why should there be? Perhaps her wholeness in being able to deal with that magazine was also the wholeness that allowed her to keep her clothes on.
Justin Isis writes:
“Many men in America fantasize about young, prepubescent Asian girls.”Craig explains it all while rhymin’ and dimin’:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl0TzL-MbNghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThAnmCEDu8
Justin Isis writes:
“Many men in America fantasize about young, prepubescent Asian girls.”Craig explains it all while rhymin’ and dimin’ (intense love of Berryz):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl0TzL-MbNghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThAnmCEDu8
there are many lessons to be learned from this blog post. thanks for sharing these out here for all to see and you even allow anonymous users to comment (not me on my opera space). i’ve gone through several emotions in watching and reviewing, and reading these comments. that is only human emotions kicking in — i do believe.may the light outway the dark hole of critisim we all as creative people endure, especially when we post on the internet! life is fuller because of critisim and praise. my wish is for the praises to outnumber the critics (haters) and the artists to outnumber the un-talented! deborah.
“Craig explains it all while rhymin’ and dimin’ (intense love of Berryz)”Do you think he’ll be sending that along to Ray Mescallado’s project?”Of course, you can’t stop people from thinking but I would hope she isn’t too naive and is careful.”I imagine she must get recognised now. Also, I think I’m right in saying she still works at a normal job, and presumably her co-workers know that she’s Magibon, unless she has some sort of Superman/Clark Kent thing going on. Internet fame must be a strange thing, since it’s very often fame without the fortune. Anyway, yes, I hope things are not too stressful for her. “there are many lessons to be learned from this blog post. thanks for sharing these out here for all to see and you even allow anonymous users to comment (not me on my opera space).”Thank you for reading. Although it’s true that I do technically allow anonymous posters, most of those posting ‘anonymously’ on my blog are people I know (or at least regular readers) who just aren’t signed up with Opera. And that’s why I allow ‘anonymous’ posting. I do, however, prefer it if people give a name, and, if they have one, a blog or website reference. I don’t even mind completely anonymous posters, as long as they have something intelligent to say. In the case of Magibon, it seems that many or most of the commenters on her videos have nothing intelligent to say. If I were her, I think I might have disabled the comment function on the videos long ago. It’s admirable that she hasn’t.
you are correct about people who are not members of opera space wanting to comment on my blog spot. they are my friends on other internet sites, they all know me and how to get in touch with me anywhere else other than opera. i have regular viewers who send me emails and the like (some critics also), but i haven’t the popularity not the talents this person has — this is my hobby not my job. my critics offer constructive critisim, too bad other people can’t (maybe they are not educated enough to offer anything more than slander?). thanks for your time and consideration. deborah.