(via: https://anilist.co/activity/948327334)I don’t know if this is the type of take to make people stand up violently and knock over a pot of tea–but I don't think you need a philosophy degree to get Serial Experiments Lain. It certainly presents itself as a sport in the noetic olympics–but I think people can get caught up in parsing every single unique proper noun and high concept throughline either literally or philosophically on their first watch of a series. I feel like this is a mistake of art analysis where you miss the forest for the trees. I do think that a work like Lain getting people to research higher education topics is awesome, like that’s kinda what videos like this are for, right? But I do think to get people to seek out these topics and incite them to work on solving this DANG RIDDLE, they need to become invested in doing so. Therefore, if an audience wants to understand a cerebral, obtuse work they have to get it first. And how do you do that…
vibes?
This is a really hard thing to do; it requires a refined craft of whatever medium you are working in - with Lain it’s the audiovisual medium of anime. Like, how do you convey that the home-life of Lain is uncomfortable and isolating? Through unsettling buzzing in the air, a close up of Lain’s mom’s gross lips and gross chewing. EW. There is no sane reason for Lain’s dad to be laughing like that. After a traumatic incident she comes home to a dark, empty house with no one to emotionally rely on since her fake family has clocked out of the factory for the day. I wonder how much they get paid for this; I could really use anything in this wealth inequality created recession.
We can uniquely understand symbols and use intuition to feel the truth and emotions of a situation. I think most people have the ability to do this, they just need the right frame of mind to apply this. Like when we see an animated character crying we understand that they are sad even if we don’t necessarily know why or even how crying works. Why can’t we apply this to say, a room filled with grayed out characters juxtaposed against one character in color? Or shadows being painted with dark but potent colors? Doesn’t it make it feel like something is leaking through into this world? A lot of this surreal imagery feels like it’s meant to be a painting; something you feel by LOOKING at. Like this dude makes me feel powerful.
What do you feel when you think of BEARS? Like, dang, they are cute but also… I want to stay the heck away from them. Lain, a more reserved girl wears thick bear pajamas that act as a hazmat suit against her family. Actually quite a few of her outfits have bears on them when she is in meek mode.
This is how I personally have tried to get Serial Experiments Lain–through looking at Lain, the character. She can be a bit of a conundrum herself; her personality pretty early on almost seems… inconsistent? It moves on this pendulum; spiteful against chattering train passengers; meek and stuttery with classmates; ‘ay Lain, didn’t I see you at the club last night?’; then cordial and chatty with classmates before going back to nonverbal mode and secretive. Snip snap snip snap. But this inconsistency in itself can give us a way to peek into her psyche. And you find that her personality having different sides is something a part of her, but there seems to be some element about her identity that is off on its own and beyond her control…
Lots of people observed around the time Lain came out that the internet is the closest thing we have to interfacing with the collective consciousness, and that has especially come true over time the way we input our thoughts impulsively into the ether. All of these thoughts feel connected on the internet, so oftentimes when an idea is injected into the internet it can proliferate like a virus and infect the viewpoints of many people. A recent example of this is the Princess Zelda casting for the live action Zelda movie. Somewhere along the way, someone goes ‘Hey doesn't Hunter Schafer kind of look like she’d be a good Zelda’ and suddenly it’s everywhere. People are having debates over whether she should or shouldn’t be cast like it’s this real thing that is supposedly happening. Then when reality hits and she’s not cast as Zelda, a lot of the response to it was that it wasn’t Hunter Schafer. As someone looking from the outside in–this looks insane to me, like people forgot that this casting was made up. Like people’s reality has been distorted by this idea taking over. You can see this sort of thing being taken advantage of by the rich and alt-right to spread fascist ideologies.
And that is what Lain examines: the line between the collective consciousness and reality becoming blurred, all this flow of information and misinformation and interpretations becoming manifest and overflowing to a point of incomprehension. Lain’s sister goes dial-up mode because she becomes stuck in that limbo of wired and reality. What can happen to someone’s identity because of this? Someone who’s personality already flips back and forth depending on where she is. Like, say you inject an idea that she was in a club making a scene or that she spread a secret of a close friend that only that friend should know. Suddenly that idea is spreading through the collective consciousness of everyone; that idea clinging to their consciousness whether it is true or not, whether they believe it or not because the internet is basically a direct pipeline to your brain. If you aren’t prudent with how you consume the internet, you won’t have a filter to differentiate between reality and the fake.
SEL is the sight and sound of someone struggling with their identity and how it assimilates with reality. The push and pull of Lain trying to take control of it. Lain’s persona seems to be disconnected from her control; like the legend of Lain of the Wired has no clear beginning. The Lain created at the cluuuuuuUUUUUuuub was a creation by Taro, a part of the Knights. This is part of the grand conspiracy plot, but I find it interesting that Taro explicitly says how much he likes that Lain; how the wild Lain is the one he wants to date. Like he is projecting an idea of a girl he wants onto Lain.
When we see confident abrasive Lain, it’s usually in hostile situations. Like the shooter, or dealing with the Men in Black, or confronting Taro. Like it’s almost a trauma response to recede into a persona that can handle this better. Taro says that people’s personality on the Wired is different than in real life; which is absolutely true in real life with the internet. Lain’s default personality in the real world is also a response to others. She definitely cares about how she is perceived. Like how when the idea of her spreading Arisu’s secret proliferates, she feels everyone’s eyes on her. It feels like her reality is burning around her. When she laments herself disappearing, she is crying over how she tried to control other’s perspective of her. She tried to blend in, tried not to upset anyone… and all for nothing.
She wants to control people’s perspective of her, which is fighting against an idea of Lain that seems to be molded by the collective consciousness (and the Knights/Eri). To the point that even her trusting best friend Arisu is disillusioned and obviously discomforted through the imagery of an impish Lain breaching the privacy of her room–a fake but convincingly real Lain spreading rumors of her and a teacher.
Lack of control is something Lain takes issue with. Like kids being manipulated by some sort of memetic contagion that makes them PRAISE JESUS. She is disturbed by the experimentation of children, humanity’s most easily manipulated. Therefore, she does something about this disturbing lack of control she seems to have. She manipulates the collective consciousness… except for one person–Arisu and her memories.
Arisu is perhaps Lain’s only true friend in the show. She seems to be the only one who perceives Lain. Whenever this group of three friends flock to Lain it seems to be to perpetuate some rumor about her that Lain actually doesn’t have a relation to. But it’s always Alice who takes Lain at her word or lack of. She believes the Lain she knows compared to the rumors about her. By looking Lain in the face, she is always able to look at her with empathy; deciding to trust her or worry about her.
There is this talk of needing to transcend our corporeal form; that the mind is separate from the body. That the higher reality of the Wired is more valuable and real than reality. But it is in reality that Lain can feel Arisu’s heartbeat. Lain being given a body was the most important thing that has happened to her. The physical body is what allows us to remain attached to reality. Our bodies are where our sense of self belongs, what allows us to love and perceive beauty and the scope of human emotion. We can only love one another when we are separate from one another as two distinct beings. Humans need a delicate balance of isolation and connection to truly thrive as yourself. Like think of all the people who are on social media for most of their day–they are the most callous and superficial people ever. They don’t have an actual sense of perspective.
Like when Taro kisses her, it’s after he has been confronted with the ACTUAL personalities of Lain. Not the wild party animal Lain.
Maybe a bit of a sidebar, but I don’t think internet relationships are invaluable. Some of my best friends I have met through the internet and/or maintain my connection with through the internet. But I think the internet is a place of more superficial and indirect connection if not used correctly. I use the internet to call people, text them, watch movies together, play games together–to actually grow experiences. Like, Twitter mutuals that you have never done any of those things with and your relation to each other is just reading posts online, sharing them, maybe replying and is sort of maintained through the fact you share a love for One Piece or something–I don’t think that is actual connection, personally.
When Lain says her last line: they can see each other at any time… I don’t feel like she’s talking about the Wired. I feel like she means something more profound and incorporeal than… even the collective consciousness or unconscious. Like because they were able to truly connect, to feel her heartbeat and open up and understand each other… they will stay connected, no matter what. There is a difference in being able to send information through wires and being able to express yourself and be understood. That is what creates a connection that always lasts, not pixels but being able to look at or listen to a person and feel them as what they are.