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Happy funny friday, folks.

You wanna know what the problem with icebergs is? Other than when they sunk that boat or whatever. That was very problematic, but it’s been 113 years so I can at least pretend to forgive and forget.

Icebergs are used in a lot of metaphors, analogies, etc. because they pretty perfectly encapsulate the idea of there being more below the surface than what you know. Don't judge a book by its cover and all that. Consider the first time you meet someone and get a very brief glimpse into their life… Can you really say that you know them? DO NOT answer that if your name is Holden Caulfield or Sandra Petronio (R.I.P.).

Icebergs are also very prevalent in memes exploring niche / underground concepts within a community. Backwards Long-Jump is at the top of the SM64 iceberg, and parallel universes are at the bottom. You can find hundreds of hour long videos of YouTubers droning on about some glitches or trivia you’ve never heard of. Fun to watch, but in my opinion it’s not really what icebergs are about.

Icebergs as metaphors work best IMO when there’s a very direct binary attached to them. Above water is one thing that’s visible or otherwise well-known, and below water is something invisible or unknown. One that works well is Surface Culture, or the elements of culture that can be seen (clothes, traditions, dance) vs. Deep Culture, the parts which can’t be seen (attitudes, concepts, values).

The most important part of the iceberg is the distinction between what's above and what's below. For these videos, most people make a gradient of the most well-known to the most obscure things. But that’s just not how icebergs work and it pisses me off. Ah, I’m probably putting more thought into this than anyone who's ever slapped PNGs and text on a JPEG and talked about it for 40+ minutes. Wait a second...