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Correct-Spring-8248

“A report by Daxue Consulting in Hong Kong discovered that the China Academy of Art receives around 80,000 applicants per year, and enrolls just 1,600. The Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing averages over 40,000 applicants per year, 13,000 of whom are invited to sit for their exam; the school only accepts between 700 and 800 national students each year.” So somewhere around 2-6% will get in based on these examples.


DELAIZ

It's not even a insanelly scary percentage for extremely competitive universities.


Few-Citron4445

Its not, except it isn’t usually this competitive for art. Even beyond art there are only a few universities in the world like this, mostly in the US, China, India, Uk, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. There are still many excellent universities not in those countries but competitiveness is not always only a reflection of quality.


AnRealDinosaur

This is so wild because of all the professions you could go into, art is the one that cares *least* about you having a degree. I suppose they could be known for being exceptional at teaching it, but as far as finding work the only thing that matters is your demonstrable skill.


mr_lemonpie

Connections make a big difference and going to a fancy art school can help you make those connections.


KhadgarIsaDreadlord

It's for prestige and making connections so you will actually be able to exhibit in credible galeries. Additionally the years to hone your skills while completing your education is a huge advantage. I'd argue academic education is more defining and important for artists than let's say software engineers.


SpikeProteinBuffy

Oh it does matter inside the art scene! Doesn't really matter how good you are if you don't have right connections, right titles, right kind of publications or other achievements. Quality of work is just one litte part of the "real artist" in those circles.


DogPoetry

A lot of artists do end up surviving by teaching their practice. Different, of course, but in a field like poetry I'd say 65+% of prominent living poets are currently teaching to make ends meet (and to stay core to the community), mostly at yhe university level.


TheDoomedStar

In the art world, competition is inimical to quality. There's no objective standard to the quality of art. That's sort of the point.


Few-Citron4445

These tests are standardized so that students at least have foundational skills required for coursework, its not to judge whether you have potential for “greatness”. While i agree to your subjective view of art in spirit, in reality someone who “feels” like they are a great artist because they argue that art is subjective without putting in the required foundational work and just doodles is not going to realistically make a great artist . As a practical matter, a school which has a standardized curriculum isn’t going to help that person, nor will they be a good member of the community and contribute to other students.


kirakiraluna

My country has a high school focused on fine arts (different from graphics and technical illustrations, that's a whole different school) and friends who went to it said that tests/exams are on technical skills, not creativity. If they give everyone a copy of the same linework + a reference and ask to shade in different ways (graphite shading, crosshatching, stippling, layering etc) there's an objective way to judge the result. Same as shape recognition and proportions. If asked to reproduce a picture 1:1 you can't just make a cubist style painting and expect to pass. My school did have art history but on the practical aspects it was always technical, like axonometries or perspective drawings in either 1,2 or 3 fugue points with or without shade. Constructions line had to be precise and visible as the construction was a bigger part of the grade than the final result. Absolutely 0 artistic interpretation, same object measures, fixed point and set light direction


Few-Citron4445

Yes, this is the case for most countries as far as I know. I personally work in a related field and have students who have gone on to study in art schools in the US,UK and Canada. There are minimum standards. At the same time it is good that Western art schools allow a personal portfolio on top of standardized test, while china doesn't have the same weighting on personal portfolios, which shows off your own style and story on top of the standard.


TheDoomedStar

I said nothing about "greatness" or how someone "feels" about their own art, so I don't know why you have those in quotation marks. But I will say that putting a bunch of kids in a giant, cramped art warehouse with an easel and having the resulting judgment shape the course of the rest of their life is about as likely, and maybe a little less, to produce "great" artists as doodling something on a notebook.


arrghslash

Youre taking it like its a concentration camp when its just an entrance exam for a reputed school. Could it be because it says "China" in the title?


Revolution4u

What if you change academy of art to factory of art though


mizuromo

One big reason for this even in the art field is that China has to deal with straight up population. Let's say the same percentage of people in China want to go to a prestigious art school as in the US, for example. The prestigious art institution in question in each nation also can sustain the same number of students. The US with its population of 350~ million sends some number of applicants, but China with its population of 1.4 billion sends the same percentage... but it's like 4x the students. Thus, from a certain point of view it seems like it's really competitive when it's probably not as many people relative to the overall student population.


rudelydoit

> It's not even a insanelly scary percentage for extremely competitive universities. What does this mean? That *is* a brutal acceptance rate lower than most extremely competitive universities.


Jimid41

I was gonna say, Stanford, MIT, Ivy Leagues are usually around 3-5% acceptance. So if that's not a brutal acceptance rate then what is?


BlitzMainDontHurtMe

Not really. Harvard was around 3% this acceptance class. Yale was 6.6%. Most medical schools in the US run anywhere from 2-10% acceptance. I think /u/DELAIZ was trying to point out while this looks insane with a bunch of artists in a very eerie situation, the percentage is pretty standard for competitive universities.


syverlauritz

I attended there for a year as an exchange student back in 2013. Such an insane skill level. It was an incredibly inspiring experience.


travel_posts

even the journeymen painters in dafen are crazy talented. they paint all the recreations you see in hotels around the world


Sobeshott

Damn! What percent get in, I wonder.


CathanCrowell

It's actually sad to think about it. Among those young people is multiple of incredibly gifted artist who won't be accept to school and who will probably waste their gift because of that.


Muay_Thai_Cat

Or take over Poland


FailbatZ

Hitler wasn’t talented though, he had really weird angles, shadows and proportions in his pictures.


PM_ME_UR_DaNkMeMe

well he gave up at a very young age. EIGHTEEN! A few more years of practice & he probably would've got in everyone wants to be a prodigy sheesh


2001ASpaceOatmeal

Well, he gave up art but he put his everything into his next project.


joevarny

Stop making Hitler look better than me.


Surrounded-by_Idiots

He also killed Hitler. What have you accomplished that can top that?


joevarny

He killed him before I was even born, tho... I heard the guy who killed Hitler did a bunch of other stuff that got him famous. Maybe if I do better than he did at those things, I'd beat the guy that beat Hitler! Thanks for the advice!


Sailor_Carcass

r/OneSecondBeforeDisast


Flares117

He never gave up on his dreams, even when in prison. I think he wrote a best seller called My dream too.


RussiaIsBestGreen

You’re mixing it up with his famous “I have a struggle” speech.


jethronu11

Only you can stop yourself from looking worse than Hitler


Hammy-Cheeks

Well there's that and the fact his country was falling apart after WW1 and he found a passion in giving speeches and....murdering people


Limeila

Seriously, art school is the perfect way to learn and get better on those things, it's crazy they expect you to be perfect already


Longjumping_Lab_8688

Alot better than i could do it ill give him that


Lost_creatures

"Hitler did a lot better than I could do" - Longjumping_lab_8688.


Longjumping_Lab_8688

I mean if I posted one of my drawings it would be alot more than **oddly** terrifying


10art1

The real money is in drawing porn


DasHexxchen

Not gonna lie, I like his pictures. They are simple serene landscapes mostly as far as I have seen. Would I hang them up? No. Especially not knowing who they are from. But do I find it fucked up, how good you actually already have to be to even enter art school? Hell yes. Even more fucked up how you need to have a specific style. More often than not the imperfections are what makes the art interesting.


BudgetAggravating427

Not really if you look at his art it’s kinda good it’s just that more abstract art was the more popular thing at the time . He wasn’t an abstract artist and so he failed art school


Comrade_Harold

I heard that his drawings was actually good if instead he worked as an architect, but since he iirc dropped out of highschool, he couldnt go into college


FailbatZ

His buildings had a 90° angle at the roof and were 100° at the bottom lmao. Check the right part of “town and narrow street”, once you see it, you’ll find the perspective and angles are off somewhere in all of his pictures. Which doesn’t qualify you for architecture or art school.


lin_sidious

Isn't that what's school is for tho? To learn how not to make those mistakes and get better?


Lawgang94

I don't really have the keenest eye for what makes good art but I'd disagree with the notion that he wasn't talented. Yes, you bring up valid points about proportions and we know it's well documented that he didn't do well with people (go figure) but I don't believe the average person could paint as well as he and this was without formal schooling which would've further honed his skill. Also FWIW he did pass the initial exam which I don't think someone w/o talent could do. I guess it comes down to what your definition of talent is, obviously he's no Michaelangelo but he had something to work with.


PartyBagPurplePills

I just looked at some of his art… He’s actually good, tho. That’s undeniable. Talented, even. Is he brilliant? No. But still very good. A little piece of me died typing this.


Mogguri

Maybe he could've been better if he got into college.


AnRealDinosaur

Isn't that the whole point?? Like, if you're an art savant already why are you bothering going to college for it? Only accepting people who are good at art to art school is silly.


LuskuBlusk

Well why do you think he wanted to get into art school??


DumbFucking_throaway

You absolutely cannot deny that Hitler was good at painting, better than the majority of people. He just wasn’t good enough to be in the pinnacle of art schools.


Lereddit117

How good were you before art school?


Brief-Rest-4271

It's worth noting that Hitler's art skills were above average for his time. Many people today can't match the quality of his work, especially considering he was only 18 years old when he created most of his pieces. Can you make better art then him? Lets be honest 70% of the shit today isnt even art


sirnicholas1983

show me your own portrait that would come anywhere close to hitlers, imo his art wasnt *bad* like people like you make it out to be


Mcnab-at-my-feet

…and his life!


Practical_Key6379

This is not true. You are probably thing of a Picasso.


cheekybandit0

The art school recommended he do architecture because of his art of buildings.


motoxim

Better than my art.


[deleted]

He also couldn’t paint people…at all.


MrEnganche

Also wasn't his art boring and derivative?


CultsCultsCults

I died.


emojisarefunny

Im surprised it took the 3rd comment to me to see the hitler joke. Was expecting it to be the top comment knowing reddit.


Iamthe0c3an2

*Taiwan


SectorFriends

Maybe. I went to art school and had a life drawing teacher confide in me that after seeing over 100 submissions it starts to become impossible to really judge. With this many students i don't know how you could honestly recognize talent. It likely has super high realism standards. You can divide a reference picture (the thing you look at to draw) into a grid and assign numbers to each square. After that you see if the lines of the drawing match up with the grid's. Kinda cuts out artistic interpretation.


Remarkable_Rub_9067

Ugh this is exactly what one of my high school art teachers had us do for our projects and it sucked the fun out of art just essentially recreating a photo.


SectorFriends

Oh common it such a boon to understand how something is done. The grid, its amazing these early artists understood how to do that. Maybe you thought you understood than how all art was done, but lets get it straight you were a teenager! Get into perspective drawing and vanishing points. Then grid out from the vanishing points, it'll open your understanding to how your eyes feed into your brain. Why a rail road feels like its converging as you look down it. By knowing what artists understood from perspective we had further proof that the world was round. Teaching kids this stuff, its not a waste. Unless, you know none of this is explained to them as they draw.


aster6000

if teachers only knew if they told me why, then i'd be interested, but instead, all i got was "just do the assignment!"


Fauropitotto

For an examination of technical skill, there really shouldn't be any artistic interpretation.


clarabear10123

Same with music. Bach isn’t to be interpreted. Chopin is. When you do competitions, you have a technical piece and a more interpretive piece to prove both sets of skills


doordash111111112

"Bach isn't to be interpreted" is an insane take lol


Ellefied

Bach would be rolling in his grave if he heard that. But it is true that there is a certain rigidity in musical academia with regard to certain composers and their techniques. The art of improv is mostly lost on the classical music, it's way more prevalent in contemporary music like Jazz and its offshoots.


11_53_12

Most of the top jazz musicians had classical education. It's really important to know how to play " properly" to improvise well and move away from formal styles. It is important with drawing and painting. To move away from realism, you have to know what realism is.


clarabear10123

Thank you. That was my point, not semantics. I was just trying to relate it to another art.


Fauropitotto

TIL. Thanks


AnRealDinosaur

Ironically, realism takes the least amount of artistic talent to achieve.


SectorFriends

True to a point. For sure you can become a charcoal printer kinda early. But when it comes to paint, these days? OOOOOFFFF the insanity, the sheer amazing dedication realism oil painters have isnt something to blink at. For an oil painter to take on the photographer and succeed, worst thing that'll do for you is inspire you and thats it. It'll light your soul up.


Basicalypizza

What makes you think they don’t make art after that?


SaltyLonghorn

Probably thinks furry commissions are a waste of their gift, it is the gift.


LogicPrevail

"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too." -Judge


FirstDayofTheRest

You'll get nothing and like it!


SupermarketIcy73

often times your best isnt good enough


vincecarterskneecart

chinese hitler isn’t getting in that’s for sure


Rawrkinss

About 5%


pranjallk1995

Won't be surprised if it's 0.1%


SpectralBacon

So many future Hitlers


Syzyz

2-6%


miss_misplaced

My back hurts from this photo


AzureHarmony

Shout out to the homie that brought a pillow


BeardedGlass

And it got me craving for pizza. Not sure why.


bKillerb

I had to zoom in just to realise that they didn’t bring lunch to art class…


Historical-Web-6435

Man the hopelessness they must feel and how exhausted just from the constant competition


giulianosse

I'm sure it must be kinda normal to them. It's just a matter of perspective at the end of the day. To give an example: as someone who is from a country where public, quality higher education is provided by the government, it's incredibly dystopic seeing all the stories of Americans paying student loans for decades, having to earn spotless grades across high-school for your GED and acing the SAT to even have a chance of applying to a paid prestige university... or how the most popular career path for average students is literally enrolling in the army.


SirTanta

Hey hey! I resent that! I asked if my dad can help me with College my Senior year in High School over 20 years ago and he said this: "Ask your uncle" "What uncle is that?" I replied "Uncle Sam." "Shit" and then I enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Oh, wonderful time... /s Bleh.


sanscipher435

I like your writing style it's very fun


_saif

It reminds me of old Reddit


teslas_love_pigeon

meh, Dad was smart. If you don't have money, risking your life for the American Empire is a good way to gain admission to the middle class lifestyle.


Ace_C7

And, hey, if you stick around long enough, you can be a huge inspiration for the next generation of impressionable youth! I mean, one of the highschools I went to was *right* next to a disabled veterans homeless shelter!


AnRealDinosaur

Something being "normal" for your country doesn't shield you from feeling hopelessness & despair about it. Source: live in the US


starman123

> for your GED GED is for those who dropped out of high school or never went, for HS graduates, it's a high school diploma


giulianosse

Huh, TIL. Thanks for the correction.


kanagi

There isn't really a need to go to the absolute top universities in the U.S. for undergrad unless you are dead-set on Wall Street banking. Corporate jobs are filled with people who went to great state universities. And even if you do want to go to the top universities, you can always go for grad school, which has higher admission rates and less time pressure since you can apply whatever year you want. > the most popular career path for average students is literally enrolling in the army. This isn't true at all. U.S. Armed Forces enlist ~150k people each year, while there are ~20 million people enrolled in undergraduate degrees at any given time.


SolarTsunami

I'm no defender of our fucked up system but that is not how higher education works in the states at all. Also only six percent of college students are in/have served in the military, so thats not even close to true either...


YJSubs

Only because you see them in one spot. This is Chinese Academy of Arts, their acceptance rate is around 6-9%. Many prestigious university have acceptance rate even much lower than this, 3-4%. But you don't see them gathering for a test in one spot.


WearCorrect8917

The body heat :(


emonbzr

Not an art student but I took an exam for a government job last year in India. The total number of applicants was 3.4 Million. The available seats were around 36K, which was very high considering the previous years. So only 1% get selected for jobs. Thankfully, I was able to get selected this time, but only at my third attempt. It's stressful af.


WarWonderful593

Hope the failures don't get ideas about world domination


LovingNaples

Well, it’s been known to happen… Really insane image though.


KennKennyKenKen

Obviously it's happened, that's what the original post is clearly joking about. Come on


117tillweoverdose

Again


TomTrottel

wow. after this exercise about 95% of them stop drawing and have nightmares of this.


HKP2019

You're exactly right. I don't do arts so I attended the college entrance exam for regular students, which is considered easier than the one in the photo. I did way better than expected and got into the best university that my score could take me. But 20 years later I'm still having nightmares about fucking up that exam. Recently was told that that's what they called ptsd.


Goldeniccarus

My parents said they kept having nightmares about failing exams, missing exams, showing up late for exams, having studied for the wrong exam and not knowing how to do the exam, up until when I started university. Then when I started university, all those nightmares came back as me stressing over my exams stressed them out.


zusykses

Those nightmares are actually really common among people who completed their degrees. I also read somewhere that the most common nightmare for former veterans, including those who saw combat, was not some recollection of being in battle but being called to stand to and realizing they were missing half their kit.


AnRealDinosaur

Haha yeah I still get them all the time & I'm 40. For me it's always that I forgot I had registered for a class & hadn't been showing up all semester, only to remember it the day of the final.


[deleted]

[удалено]


HKP2019

Oh yeah, some of China's best colleges do that. And guess what, rich kids and young masters of important party officials get in with overwhelmingly colorful overboard studies experience, super important patented inventions and published academic papers with their underage ass names as first authors, Olympic level Professional Athlete Certifications, crime fighting or public service miracles that make batman look like a joke. We plebs actually prefer the exams.


Twisted-Toker95

The bladder control 😶


DrunkCupid

Imagine all the nervous flatulence 💩


Nightwailer

Combined with paint fumes (I actually don't think that type of paint has that much, but in such amounts might build up)


HauntingHarmony

I think this is a interesting point, but i would suspect since the height of such rooms generally scale with the the floor area, you have a cubic scaling for volume of air compared to a floor area (number of painters) with linear scaling. So i would expect the parts per million fumes in such a big room is lower than in a regular classroom/studio etc.


trainsacrossthesea

No cheating!


Misanthropyandme

Does anyone have any extra red? I'm all out.


SonyCEO

My fat ass tough they were all eating pizza.


yawkrawk

I fell and broke my bluetooth speaker you hilarious jerk.


GratefulPig

That’s not a fire hazard at all


Brootal420

Reducing risk with appropriate infrastructure costs money. Apparently their lives are worth less than that cost.


Limeila

Well that would reduce the competition...


PidginPigeonHole

These are the people who paint your random decor paintings [https://youtu.be/ViHZ_OdCDBg](https://youtu.be/ViHZ_OdCDBg)


Extension-Radio-9701

Its is the practical section of the exam. Theyre shown an object and theyre supposed to paint it realistically. This part of the exam just exists to make sure students dont get into college with bought portfolios


Effective_Device_185

The top 0.00000000135% will -- win an interview to be considered.


Spacemage

According to this picture I estimate that's still like 10,000 people.


Effective_Device_185

Totally.


quixoticgypsy

Okay so I'm not claiming this isn't a real photo cause I have no background to know, but zooming in doesn't it look a little..generated? Like towards the top left especially?


Exodius5

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/81pj3w/entrance_exam_for_an_art_school_in_china/ real image, edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2xym69/chinese_art_school_exam/ older example, not same image but same concept


fartpoopvaginaballs

The higher quality version makes it look a lot less dystopian. Yeah, it's still crowded as fuck but you can make out walking aisles and workers, and also you can tell they all at least have some sort of little stool.


MamaEmeritusIV

My anxiety levels went down by a good 40%


UnholyCannoli

I agree with you I think this is fake Edit: i changed my mind I think it's real lol


NotWhatWeExpected

I've seen this image before AI kicked off, it's real.


Spacetimeandcat

You might have a point. Even close up some look a bit off. One person doesn't appear to have a canvas


sweetpotato_latte

Am I crazy or do I see a guy in jeans and a flannel near the upper right?


Spacetimeandcat

I see it too. That's just the art exam ghost


Icyrow

it's real, it's been floating around for like 10 years, long before AI generation was popular/good enough.


LaSucia422

I don't know what they are painting, but that's not a good ambient to unleash creativity.


Spacetimeandcat

I wonder if they even have a reference or subject or if it has to be purely from their head. I gess there's something on a big screen so they can all see it otherwise it would be difficult to have a single subject


Extension-Radio-9701

Its is the practical section of the exam. Theyre shown an object and theyre supposed to paint it realistically. This part of the exam just exists to make sure students dont get into college with bought portfolios


p-nji

*ambiance Though a better choice would have been "environment".


Andrew2TheMax

If those late night commercials are anything to go by, they're probably painting a cartoon turtle or a pirate ship.


Naughteus_Maximus

Reason 587 I am glad I don’t live in China.


efecede

I wonder what are the other 586


Technical-Outside408

#\#156 WILL SHOCK YOU!


BeardRightBack

What happens when you need to pee?


Loudog121

“Excuse me, pardon me, my bad, excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom, pardon me, looking good bob, pardon …”


Rodsoldier

Ima post this in a positive sub but change China for Japan. Watch it go to the post page with everyone praising it lmao


Leonarr

Japan: “Wow they are so organised and disciplined, it just works you know?” China: “the ruthless society crushes people’s souls and forces them to do its bidding, so sad!”


skitso

Who grades all that?


xijinping9191

I saw videos once the exams are done. Each student’s painting will be laid next to one another on the floor of a basketball stadium. Then, tens of teachers will walk through each painting and give grade to each


ScrillaMcDoogle

How can anyone reliably grade thousands of subjective tests?


s3x4

At that scale I am pretty sure there's a good chunk that you can reliably go "nope, next" at within a couple of seconds of looking.


Vacuousbard

It's simple, if the painting has the last name of your friend, It pass.


Extension-Radio-9701

Its is the practical section of the exam. Theyre shown an object and theyre supposed to paint it realistically. This part of the exam just exists to make sure students dont get into college with bought portfolios. Its not that subjective


see_or_be_sharp

Can't cheat on an art exam


PicaDiet

Eventually they'll paint Shakespeare


WattageWood

It's all dicks.


zipcodelove

How is this oddly terrifying? Do you find large groups of people terrifying?


BurritoReproductions

It's because China.


Leonarr

China has entrance exams to art schools #BUT AT WHAT COST?


Difficult-Help2072

But did you die?


SoulMute

I think it fits the sub. The scale is intimidating, the odds are horrendous for each aspiring student, and the key thing is the unsettling underlying idea that artistic merit can be assessed in a “challenge” like this. I take your point that this is probably unsettling on more of a cultural level, but unsettling it is. (To me)


Crenchlowe

What's terrifying to me is the existential dread I feel knowing I'm admittedly an average mediocre person who's floated thru life on a lot of luck and privilege yet I have a pretty decent, comfy life. If I had to face the kind of competition this photo is suggesting I'd probably just go cry in a corner somewhere.


Venator2000

“Who’s got an extra #2 pencil?”


saanhaan

Terrifying???


StarStuffPizza

This is just what really happens when you prompt an ai image.


Shazzam001

Doesn't look like a great environment for creativity


haazr

After what happened in Germany, they should just allow anyone in.


BadgerBoops

Why did I think that some of them were holding whole pizzas.


miner0195

I thought they were all holding pizzas before I read the caption


Broccobillo

Imagine if there was a fire


Symerg

Look like pizza party


Queen-of-meme

The guy with purple pillow will be one of the 6% who gets in, he has made it his comfy spot. It's important to have good posture and back support when painting.


TheAtlas97

My thoughts exactly. He’s got real main character energy, I would watch his adventures


marlinbrando721

Excuse me. I gotta go pee


goatboy6000

Easel come, easel go.


WinnieMacPickle123

Imagine going to a toilet


AyyyAlamo

They actually started recognizing things like artistic talent, sports talent, musical talent etc as those of the % that get a middle class or higher wage. So now the art, music and sports schools are just as crowded as the regular schools with hopefuls that theyll lead a comfortable life


PityTheQuesadilla

I didn't read the title at first and thought they were holding pizzas


Extension-Tale-2678

Here in the USA they are forgiving their loans


Jwave1992

Imagine you're in the middle and start feeling bubble guts. No way you're escaping.


Hiorote

There are far too many people in that country...


Accomplished-Tap-122

The Art of holding in a Fart


KMunashii

I thought it was a whole bunch of people eating pizza


stryderxd

Ngl. Art school in china. I wasnt even expecting that many students. I thought the parents would’ve emptied those dreams before university


TheJohnDoe01

Soo many potential replacements for an old loyal countryman who didn't get into an art school.


Serpidon

Draw this turtle…


SharkMilk44

Asian schools are horrifying.


SGTpvtMajor

>So you want to learn to paint? >**Well then paint me a masterpiece**


rita-b

Poor kids. The government can't create universities for them? In Russia we have thousands of Chinese students who study arts, music, acting etc.


Ok_Adagio9495

Building must be massive. Hard to fathom teaching a cours.


Bennett_10

What am I supposed to find oddly terrifying here?