BTS: The Shame

The Shame

The video above deals with internalization of stigma. Below you can find some context about internalized stigma as well as the relation to the story, the approach I have taken in this prototype and what I would have done differently with more time.

Context

In this section I will first give some information on what internalized stigma is and then how it relates to the story.

Internalized Stigma

Internalized stigma refers to a stigmatized person that comes to believe that the stigma is deserved. People who internalize stigma may come to hold the same negative perceptions toward themselves, which can lead to feelings of shame and a lack of self-worth.

Note that the internalization of shame and negative feelings associated with being stigmatized is identified as a separate construct to other forms of self-stigma, such as perceived or enacted stigma.

Enacted stigma refers to overt acts of discrimination and humiliation directed at a person because of their stigmatized status, which captures the interpersonal aspect of stigma.

In contrast, perceived stigma and internalized stigma captures the intrapersonal aspect of stigma. Perceived stigma refers to the subjective awareness of social stigma.

Sources:

Cama et al., "Internalized Stigma Among People Who Inject Drugs", 2016.

Chi et al., "Vicious Circle of Perceived Stigma, Enacted Stigma and Depressive Symptoms among Children affected by HIV/AIDS in China", 2014.

Relation to the story

This video plays in context of the second act of the story. At this part in the story, the addiction of the protagonist has progressed from alcohol use to cocaine and then to opioids. Through use of these drugs, various health problems occur and the family intervenes to send her to a detox center. In the detox center, the staff has no knowledge over the drugs she previously took, she receives inadequate treatment of her side effects and feels overall alienated.

Released from the detox center with no after care plan, she soon turns to heroin as it is a cheaper drug. In the story, the protagonist then describes the feeling of taking heroin for the first time but also the shame that she felt for using the drug. When her father died, she did not dare to go to the funeral, due to the guilt she internalized. Of the latter part, you can find an excerpt below:

After the 3 hours outside of the detox center I started using again to deal with the withdrawal effects. Around the of age 23, I started using heroin because it was cheaper.
I remember the euphoria, the bliss, the pure exhilaration I was feeling the first time I took it. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to be fully immersed in the ecstasy of this single moment. A symphony of joy cascaded through my body and the world around me seemed to fade into the background, including all the trauma that has built up in my life.

But I also remember the large feelings of shame that came with each small bag of dope. I would often think about how I was the new failure in my family. Another junky, another castaway, another rotten branch in our family tree. Shame and guilt kept me isolated from family and friends for a long time. Shame was a reason I did not reach out for help.

When my father passed away, I did not dare to come to the funeral.
Too large was the feeling of shame.
Too large was the sensation of disappointment, of being a mistake.

I did not want to bring my family further sorrow by showing them the wrack that their daughter has become, the failure that their sister has become, the deadbeat their aunt has become.

That day, I remember feeling scared and ashamed that my dad was watching me from heaven while he had already lived in torture with my sister’s addiction.

My thoughts became a tumultuous storm, and each negative emotion churned in the tempest. Self-doubt, self-loathing, and guilt joined forces to drown any glimmer of hope that dares to surface. Time seemed distorted in this deep depression; days stretched into eternity, while moments of genuine joy slipped through my fingers like sand. I yearned to find purpose and meaning again, but the pursuit seems futile. It was like trying to grasp sunlight in my hands—beautiful, but unattainable.

As I sank deeper into the abyss, I stopped seeing the light and I realized that my will for existing has faded. I could not take it anymore …

Approach

Initially, I started out this prototype with the goal in mind to learn more about typography techniques in TouchDesigner. I looked up various tutorials by PPPANIK such as this one and created some patches as you can see below:

In the video I used another track by Lorn (“Inertia”) as a prototype, however I wanted to make my own music for this as well. Based on a discussion I had with one of my external experts, Rik Nieuwdorp, I had the idea to use a vocoder for the song. A vocoder synthesizes the human voice and pitches it to one or multiple notes. Here you can find an example of Jacob Collier playing Hide and Seek on the vocoder.

The use of the vocoder in the context of this project symbolizes that many people (many voices), from all kinds of backgrounds, experience stigma. Additionally, often vocoders add some distortion to the voice. Here, this distortion reflects the internalized stigma, the distorted perception of oneself.

To create a vocoder sound, I used VocalSynth2 in Ableton. I created a song that is structured in 3 parts, with an intro, a main part and an outro. Both the intro and outro contain only the vocoder. In the main part I re-used the layered drum samples that I created in the “Whole a new world” prototype. Additionally I added a bassline for which I created another patch in Vital as I couldn't find the exact sound I was looking for online. Similar to “A whole new world” I added a lot of saturation and tape delay to most of the instruments to create more analog warmth.

As you have already noted, the video above contains none of the typography I was talking about earlier. When I tried to combine the vocoder song with the typography patches I made, I found it very hard to make interesting animations for the intro and outro part.

A few days earlier at that time, a new tutorial of Elekktronaut was released, in which he uses lens distortion in TouchDesigner to create abstract visuals. When watching the tutorial, I was surprised how versatile this technique was. I decided to completely ditch the typography patch I made earlier and got to work implementing the lens distortion technique of the tutorial.

I then created 3 different parts, one for each of the different parts in the song.

If I had more time

Besides better mixing and more clean recordings of the vocoder, I would also maybe change up the last part of the song. Specifically, instead of using the vocoder, I would use a clean vocal to make the symbolism of isolation more clearer, as well as to show how the stigma distorts the perception of oneself and dehumanizes people that use drugs, which is reflected in the contrast between the distorted vocoder and the clean the vocal.