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I'm just tossing this here because I really need to get this thought out, but it's rough. Bear with me.

Animation vs. Live Action as Mediums

Both serve their own functions and have their pros and cons. Animation gives itself to fantastic settings that are limited by the abilities of real people. Live action, on the other hand, is able to really focus on the actors visually -through their body language and micro expressions.

In film, live action vs. animation shouldn't really be a big divide since animation is simply a medium and not actually its own genre. The only problem is that popular animated films are either targeted (or specifically marketed) toward children or rated E for everyone.

In TV shows, there is a clearer divide between children's shows and adult shows. This applies both to live action and animated TV. Oddly, a handful of adult animated shows seem, or maybe simply fee, more insipid than children's animated shows! There's no deeper topics: it's just use of gross humor, crude language, and anti-humor jokes. Perhaps because children's shows are more didactic and are meant to have a message (arguable, but in the sense of should art have meaning), they can express themselves in a more understandable and meaningful manner.

Criticizing Kid's Media

Kid's media should not be absolved from criticism as an art form. Consumers (of all ages) should have the right to critique/praise accordingly. We need to bear in mind, however, that kid's media is exactly that, for kids. It is allowed (arguably) to be simpler (in themes, characterization, etc.). We can't expect complex subjects and nuanced discussions if the target audience simply cannot comprehend it.

As an aside/tangent, it does confuse me when people take children's media too seriously. No, Steven Universe is not the most problematic piece of media ever. Arguably, no piece of media is... Something, something, a moral vacuum, etc...

It also weirds me out when adults only consume cartoons and can't even watch a miniseries if it's live action. While consumption is for one's self, like... it's still a way to connect with people too. We watch media together or because of someone or to simply have "water cooler talk." IDK might be me tho But also are you really able to grow as a writer or artist or a person if you're really limiting yourself to just children's media? It really makes me think there's some sort of arrested development, but it's really not my place to judge.

Film vs. TV

Film is usually seen as more elevated. It's cinema. It's kino. It's art. Film directors and film writers are typically more well known compared to TV directors and writers; perhaps auteur theory has to do with this. But there's also studio meddling and general slop being made too.

TV is too wide, however. It can really be anywhere from the bottom of the barrel shows like reality TV or "prestige" shows like the Sopranos. There can be great directors who've done film come in to direct seasons of shows, but sometimes things can't keep the momentum even if it's good. A movie can stand on it's own, but a show can get bad fast. Though that's not to say that there aren't bloated movie franchises (you know what they are).

Suffice to say, a TV show can feel like a film. Conversely, a film cannot, or rather should not, feel like a TV show. In my opinion. There are some movies, usually tie-ins to a franchise, that feel like a long episode, and it makes me wonder was it worth it? Did a movie need to be made?

I've read the argument somewhere online (or maybe saw it on an IG reel, lol) that a TV show should feel more like a book than a film. A film is limited because of its runtime and thus needs to go through the plot structure fast; the usually singular plot point need to be resolved by the end, and characters should serve to further the plot. A TV show and book are able to focus on overarching themes and introduce characters that may not necessarily contribute anything to that theme or plot in their initial appearance. The episodes/chapters will focus on their own plot points, arising and resolving, that add more and more to the central conflict and themes and ending.

Through this, I can ask if TV even needs to look like a movie. Although TV can be "elevated" through its use of cinematography, it doesn't need to have the most "cinematic" visuals to get it a good show. I think most people agree that Better Call Saul has incredible cinematography (in addition to its plot, characters, acting, and themes). It's even better than a lot of films! But, The Wire doesn't use the most cinematic shots. If anything, The Wire feels like a visual novel, and that works great as well.

No closing thoughts. I'm rambling.

Thank you lol

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Highlighter and Bronzer: Constant Dualities in Makeup Culture

As written by a makeup user

Makeup is highly polarizing subject to the people who wear it, refuse to wear it, and resign to wear it, and speaking honestly? It can get hard to keep a singular, straight thought about it. Personally speaking at least.

A lot of the topics mentioned were usually written separately, and that’s fine. One person posting how makeup praises European features isn’t wrong! Just like another post saying how makeup fetishizes black features/trying to pass as “racially ambiguous” also isn’t wrong! These two separate camps, among the others I will touch on later, can both exist in the same realm. It’s just our job to see both sides and how either and both affect people.

I know this is far from being the first makeup-critical post nor its last, but throughout my years on this hell site, I have stumbled across numerous articles and thoughts. They are all wonderful and are written with more insight than I could ever, but this compilation is (mostly) for me.

Eurocentric Beauty Standards and Modern Black/Brownface

What do we see when we open Instagram or look up makeup artists on Youtube? Most probably the same cut and crease. The same extensive bronzer. The same cut cheekbones. The same C-shaped highlighted area. And you get the point! But what does it mean? Am I just ragging on the go-to, tried and true looks? Well yes. I hate seeing a lack of creativity, but I want to look deeper into what these artists are choosing to accentuate; what they are choosing to accentuate or hide; what they are choosing to do with their natural skin colour.

One tumblr user (that has since left this site) said, you can’t divorce beauty culture from white supremacy. And they were right. A lot of IG/YT tends still uphold whiteness as a kind of ideal! This perpetuation could be as innocent as contouring tutorials telling viewers to give themselves high cheekbones; a small, straight nose; deeper set eyes; “melon seed” jaws; etc., to an industry-wide problem like Snapchat/IG filters lightening skin tones and companies not providing a ful, broad range of foundations and concealers.

It really wasn’t until, like, what? 2017? where Fenty Beauty made a foundation line with a thorough and broad spectrum that covered almost every skin tone. And that is a travesty! What were you telling these women (and men)? “You should be going lighter than your actual skin shade”? But what’s more insidious than that is actually going out and making skin brightening products for women, especially in countries where colorism is more pronounced –like Central and South America and Asia (especially South and Southeast Asia).

The latter is not just an instance of not a lack of representation (and yes, I acknowledge that we ought to see more darker skinned actors and celebrities and so forth) but is something that can affect the livelihoods of people. Without a doubt, people treat you differently if you look a certain way. It becomes easier to navigate through society! Job prospects open up once you fit these standards, even if they are racist; one non-makeup example is how black women are expected to straighten their hair for jobs, have something like 1A to 2C hair, while other manageable hair styles that are more unique to women with 3A-4C hair (box braids, cornrows, etc.) are seen as inappropriate. But at the same time, non-black people go and appropriate these looks.

As tumblr user estoma6mp (now, luzonbleedingheart) mentioned in their (now deleted) post, what is overlining/plumping their lips and taking the styles of black women other than imitating blackness/modernized blackface? Look at Ariana Grande. The Jenners. These parties “tan” and “bronze” to achieve… I think a certain “racial ambiguity” as well as… just stealing the creative thoughts of African American (and also Latinx) women. It’s…. the coveting and commodification of “ethnic” features and styles for the sake of seeming fashionable and clout while also resting comfortably knowing that you can take off all the bronzer at the end of the day.

The Sexualization of Makeup and Children and the Infantilizing of Grown Women

The names of products and shades are undoubtedly important in creating an image and a connection in the minds of consumers. Like, what does “Killawatt” put in your mind, in my mind, other than something super bright and fluorescent like concert lights? But not all makeup will have simple names like “rose” or “peony” for lipsticks. Those don’t have enough edge. It doesn’t sell sex. But should makeup have to sell sex?

As marisatomay said in her post, makeup companies shouldn’t be naming their products after sexual terms. She goes to list names like “climax” and “super orgasm” and puns like “glow job” that may seem far fetched and almost like a strawman, but no. Those are actual names. Just look at the lip gloss selection from NARS’ site: Orgasm, Super Orgasm, First Time, Strip Tease, Triple X, are just a handful of names. There are so much more I’m not mentioning! I wouldn’t be so opposed to this naming convention if it weren’t for the fact that there are plenty of young girls who are looking to makeup as a form of expression.

Now, whether children and young teenagers should be using makeup is another point of debate. If a child wants to play with makeup and draw flowers on their face and add glitter, that’s fine! It’s all in good fun. But the moment you have girls as young as 7 or 8 becoming makeup artists, contouring, beating their faces, making themselves look like they are in their 20s, that’s where things get concerning. Like, we should let children be children and allow them creativity, but creativity with makeup is hard because the line between having fun and feeling like you need to conform to certain looks/have certain knowledge about making yourself look “beautiful” is getting more and more blurred. It’s already terrible to see elementary school children think that they need to look a certain way, wear makeup a certain way to be seen as pretty, but the makeup industry isn’t just exploiting these young girls’ insecurities. They also exploit the girls themselves. When we see brands posting closeup videos of young girls putting on lip gloss, lips parted, it evokes a certain image.

On the other hand, however, I’ve also seen makeup palettes that are very reminiscent of childhood. Saffron-Sugar wrote on her blog, that a lot of makeup also has an “unpleasantly infantilizing tone,” and I agree! Like, which makeup company hasn’t collaborated with Disney? Mermaid, unicorn, faerie, and even dessert themed products are omnipresent. This by itself isn’t that much of an issue –these are cute aesthetics, and I can get behind some of them—but it really patronizes a lot of adult women. These circumstances emphasize certain connotations with regards to (perhaps feigned) girliness.

While I said makeup can sexualize minors and expose them to unwarranted sexual tension, makeup can also sexualize that same young, innocent image in women. It’s the idea of recapturing girlhood and innocence and purity. It’s sickening because it kinda adds this “barely legal” culture –where men wait for girls to turn 18 as if legality is the only thing that differentiates a girl from a woman. And this is disgusting.

Empowerment and Societal Coercion and the Industry that Doesn’t Care

I’m glad to be living in a time and a world where I can speak my thoughts openly and find ways to be myself, but… I think it’s also this individualism that gives us all an overinflated sense of self. It’s difficult to openly criticize our behavior, our actions, as consumers and as people in a capitalistic society because so many of us do take these as personal attacks. As if we were exempt from reflecting on ourselves and have free reign to perpetuate harmful ideology and phenomena.

So…. It was, like, 2012? 2013? Where we got all these “eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man!!” and “blind them with your highlighter!” comments and posts. The idea, if I recall everything correctly, was that… a lot of girls, a lot of women, were emphasizing that they weren’t wearing makeup for anyone else other than themselves. And I think that is a wonder idea. It’s nice that you can make a hobby out of this, but I also know that there are plenty of others who are less than enthused about makeup.

I don’t hate on the women in the above scenario, totally don’t! But they can’t go around yelling how something (especially makeup) is a choice when to many others it isn’t. Plenty of women feel like they need to wear makeup in order to better navigate through society. As a personal anecdote, I know that I have been treated far better as a person the moment I “glowed up” and tried to coordinate outfits better/put on makeup in a more conventionally attractive manner/adhering to certain beauty standards. I know that in some service jobs such as waiting tables, the number of tips a waiter gets can be determined by her makeup. And let’s not even go into mental health professionals and their patients wearing makeup! It’s unrealistic the amount of time women has to spend on our appearances just to be treated like “normal.”

And the thing is, the makeup industry doesn’t care if you’re either woman! These million-dollar companies, founded on the institutional control of how women look and behave, are getting money from both camps. Advertisement will be sprinkled with buzzwords such as “empowering” and “girl boss” but those are empty words when all they want is to bank on these trends and women’s wants and/or insecurities.

 And here’s the part where I struggle to conclude all my thoughts. Like my previous post about art commissions and business, this is nothing more than a rehash of what people before me have said: I just wanted to compile everything in a more accessible post for myself, rather than scroll through my makeup tag on my main blog. But I guess I need to have some form of closure for anybody who has actually stuck around to get here (and thank you for doing so!).

All of the circumstances mentioned are… quite separate from each other all things considered, but they are all part of a larger, more foreboding culture that makes women feel like they need to look a certain way (even if they think they are being unique and creative). Indeed, makeup is a form of expression and creativity for a lot of women, but to just blindly act without any insight on what you are consuming, what you are doing, and why you are doing it, is honestly irresponsible. Like any other part of culture, a part of media (especially social), we need to see who is benefiting from our actions and who is getting hurt.

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Topics I want to write about eventually once I’m more lucid/have the time:

Highlighter and Bronzer: Constant Dualities in Makeup Culture

The Film World's Food Fight

Video Game Star Killed the Video Star...?

Putting Your Money (and Food) Where Your Mouth Is -Boycotting Based on Apparent Values

I'm Not Like Other Girls Who Say I'm Not Like Other Girls - Internalized Misogyny and Competition on Two Fronts

More to come, but there are the ones I’m more hard pressed about.

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The Market Landscape of Commissions, or How Artists Do Not Really Understand Economics and Business

A think piece by an art hobbyist with a BS in Business Administration (Marketing Concentration)

I’ll start off by saying that I won’t blame anyone for not knowing the basics of economics or business and how it can apply to something like art –especially fanart commissions. Often, people don’t realize that there is always a business take on these things.

Commission prices are a point of debate for everyone, from artists themselves and to the people buying the art, and it’s honestly ridiculous. I’ll fucking say it: it’s not too much of a wide scale problem if someone under charges themselves. That is not your fucking market.

I used to be one of those people who are like “CHANGE YOUR PRICES!! CHARGE MORE FOR YOUR LABOR!!” but now I realize that maybe they don’t have to if they know what they are doing. And if it’s not out of their own volition, it most probably isn’t their own fault.

Basic Economics

I’ll assume that you learned economics in your high school (and college as part of your general education), but if you didn’t, don’t worry. I’ll give you the quick rundown.

Supply and demand have an inverse relationship. As the price increases, quantity supplied increases while quantity demanded decreases, and vice versa. There are exceptions to this case, but that is another topic for another day.

In art, you can lower or raise your prices to attract or deter customers –like any other business. It’s not uncommon for some artists to have “commission sales” if they haven’t had commissions open for a while or because of a special holiday. Those are valid reasons to drop your prices momentarily. But, on the flipside, if you are having too much on your plate, just raise your prices incrementally to weed out the people who don’t want to pay those prices. And honestly, if you already have your audience, those people wouldn’t care what the price is if they buy it from you. That is customer loyalty. Cherish them.

Target Markets

Target markets, or target audiences, are the people you are trying to sell to. Sure, you can try to appeal to general audiences, but it really is easier to find your niche and work it. There are plenty of reasons why individuals, and even companies that aren’t conglomerates, would do this.

This is my personal observation, but I think people just assume that the art world is monolithic. That it’s an identical landscape throughout, and it’s not! Like, the overall online art community is, indeed, highly saturated, but you can build your own Blue Water Strategy. There are people who do specific fandoms, specific art styles, specific mediums, and so forth. Sure, there may be intersection, but knowing your quality, your knowledge, and what you are willing to draw, you are making your own brand and market.

I’ll fucking say this too: someone who charges $10 chibis are not taking customers away from the person that does $100-200 portraits.

That artist that does $10 chibis has done their thinking! They thought “I could pump these out pretty fast. I know I can charge more, but maybe I’d get less customers in the long run. If I maintain my price, I can have a steady flow of customers without overworking myself!” And that is understandable! Same with the artist who charges $100-200. They specifically go for the customers who are willing to save money and wait for something they deem worth it.

Not to mention, you can also have tiered commissions based on complexity.

The Fault of the Smaller Artists?

A lot of times, people go and complain like, “Wahh!! These young artists are undercharging, and it makes it harder for us bigger artists to compete!” And honestly? Fuck right off with that.

They are charging what they think their art is worth and it does suck that they aren’t giving themselves the fair wages that they deserve, but whose fault is it? Most certainly not theirs. And while I’m not trying to pit artists against one another, bigger name artists could help by paving the way for smaller artists to follow.

No doubt that these artists with larger followings charge more for their commissions, but there are also some that don’t. I’d say “fine, whatever,” but it’s that kind of behavior that makes it difficult for smaller artists to get some elbow room and find ways to garner more respect. If a famous artist is charging pennies for their work, how can a smaller artist compete with that?

But it’s neither the larger nor the smaller artist’s fault. The real problem lies in the entitlement of the consumer.

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Let’s be real. When someone tell a small-time artist to raise their prices, are they really going to help them? Chances are that they won’t. They just tell them “hey, you should charge a working wage for your art” and then fuck right off and do nothing else –don’t signal boost, don’t even commission them, etc. And that really hurts them if they lose customers. That’s honestly on them.

I think these people just want to feel good about themselves, like they’re being helpful and that they know more about the art world than the actual artists, and maybe they do have some good insights! But, ya know, not really… This really comes from a place of, I guess, just thinking that you know universal experiences, which are not a thing… (see my point about the art landscape). Then again, there is also the problem of consumers who don’t see things from the artist perspective.

I can say with certainty that there are a lot of customers who think that custom made art should be easily accessible. That it should be cheap and en masse. They don’t seem to think that one can save up for a commission. I know I do for that one artist I appreciate!! If they understand that someone is willing to pay more for a bespoke suit, then they should extend the same sentiment to art. Art is a luxury, people!!

I guess this may go into the territory of “what gives art value?” and/or “who assigns value to certain artists over other artists?” –my father likes Rembrandt but doesn’t see the appeal of another famous Dutch artist, Van Gogh. But this takes the cake of “another topic for another day.”

Alright, so what about all this? Is there anything we should take away from this? I honestly don’t know. This was mostly just me going off and I didn’t really think I would get so far as to make a conclusion, but I guess I ought to now.

I think… ultimately… the art world, especially in online fandom spaces, is a hot mess. It is a weird environment and is a highly saturated market, aforementioned, and if you are competing directly, it’s a hellscape. Either you play price wars and go in as the lowest bidder, or you charge your fair prices, your luxury prices, your whatever, and back it up with your skill. It’s terrible!!

I do believe that artists should charge more for their work, but not just new, smaller artists. I want this to happen for all artists. And I will still tell artists that they should charge more, but only if they can. Art/content creation is such a weird thing…. Does my advice make sense? Yes. But everything else I’ve been saying about not raising prices also makes sense. There are too many options, all of which have their values, but what works best for one artist won’t work for the next.

When it comes to commissions and prices, we all just have to go back to the drawing board.

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I guess this is where I dump my thoughts about art, fashion, media, culture, society, and life now?

*claps hands* Let’s get this bread