#(random fandoms so it reaches target audience)

[aryshacore]

i made something stupid. rb and put in the tags (or screenshot) your results and what you think the game you got would be like.

[myfandomrealitea]

Was your Safe Spaces post discord-(or any closed forum I guess) specific, or do you think the same should go for fandom-themed blogs on tumblr? Like, if I follow someone for Doctor Who content, I'd rather they didn't put real world issues on my dash, but otoh, it's their blog and they get to decide what they post on it (preferably tagged so I can curate). I've observed that people that run themed blogs that become popular often seem to feel an obligation to use their platform for activism (or, in the case of crypto-radfems, deliberately built their platform to recruit), and it stresses tf out of me for the reasons you mentioned, but it's not like the maintags are much safer because there will be spam relating to real-world issues, or antis trying to relate fiction to real world issues.

Realistically; the same outlook can and could be applied to any social setting. Be it online, private, public, face to face, ect.

Your point about obligation in terms of platform scale is something I've also noticed and have been dabbling about raising. Mostly because you see it a lot with celebrities or public content creators who receive a large following. Its often less that they feel obligated and more than they're usually bullied into it.

For example; I follow a trans (FTM) vlogger on Instagram. His entire online presence is based around being trans and helping to educate people and support people in regards to learning about being transgender, transgender health, his personal transitional journey, ect.

He's got a modest following, nothing ridiculous but I think right now he's sitting at around 75,000 followers.

And as of late, there are random people who don't follow him and aren't at all interested in what he has to say flooding his comment section with things like:

Why didn't you mention anything about Gaza?

All these followers and no shout outs for smaller creators?

What are you doing to raise awareness for X?

All these views could've been used to raise awareness for X.

And its fucking ridiculous. People are pressuring a middle class trans man with 75,000 followers to accept responsibility for counter-responding to a literal war when there are actual celebrities and billionaires with both the actual reach and money to make a difference who simply refuse to because they won't personally benefit from it.

I used to run a really popular fandom blog here on Tumblr. For an actual fandom, not just what I do here and now. It started off small, but I eventually grew it to the point where my follow count was creeping toward 10,000. Which for Tumblr and for a fandom-specific blog was not at all insignificant.

And the moment my notes count started going up, the demands started flooding in. People expecting me to reblog their donation links, demanding I share their friend's aid post, asking why I wasn't reblogging awareness posts or donation drives, ect.

Its largely because its easier to harass accessible people over it than it is to harass someone like Kim Kardashian, but its also because again: we have such a skewed understanding of what is actually effective in terms of activism and circulation of information.

Most of it comes down to shaming people and trying to assert that they're a bad person for having the privilege and benefits of a large following but not doing anything for other people or to 'deserve' that following. They're 'a bad person' for having 75,000 people's attention and not using it to force them to be aware of X.

A good example of proper audience targeting and activism is the page We Rate Dogs.

We Rate Dogs will share awareness posts and donation drives.

About dogs.

Because their followers are there for the dogs. Their followers like dogs. They want to enjoy dog content and help dogs.

If they started sharing posts about war and death and rape, the people who are following them to see cute dog videos will simply unfollow them.

They're using their targeted platform properly.

[minggukieology]

편지- Letter ✍️

Now that the dust has settled, I found a peaceful moment in the afternoon to sit down in silence and listen to Letter while trying to unpack all my thoughts. This lengthy post will be more in the tone of my personal stance and connection with the song, omitting going into too much detail about the grammar and explaining Korean expressions but still I will try to explain how the song makes an impression with the specific language used.

My reflections:

From the beginning onwards, the song sounds very delicate, while Jimin is singing to us in the polite form and bringing up multiple themes that are characteristic for the ARMY fandom and our path with the boys over the years: the desert, the sea, the cold winter and a warm spring day... He is wishing us to be happier and for this to last forever, while promising to be there when you feel like falling and cherishing all the memories we made together.

In that way, I, as a listener, am in a headspace where I am reminiscing on our story with Jimin as an idol and all we've been through together with him (and trust me, if you have joined just recently, there has been a lot darker times)...

Though as the song progresses and as the refrain comes on, the urgency to express his emotions intensifies together with the instrumental. And this is where Jungkook's vocals come in too. Jimin with the help of Jungkook is suddenly singing in a casual (lower politiness) form as if directly trying to reach out to the person on the listening end individually, addressing every line with a higher intensity and more personally. It just feels more intimate, even more earnest and more powerful. Moreover, the lyrics and chosen words feel more targeted at an individual rather than towards a group (even the scrapped lyrics felt more like he was writing towards a single person in this section).

Whatever the reason for Jungkook's appearance in this part, it makes the emotional impact even more convincing.

....

No matter what angle you may choose, Letter is an incredibly heartfelt track packed with strong emotions. I believe it's a song for ARMY and at the same time it is a song for someone in Jimin's life that has been his lifeline and his strong heart connection to them prompted him to write these lyrics woven with thick emotions.

That being said, Jimin sharing this unique space with Jungkook to support him in his emotional expression with his hidden layered vocals and some more audible backing vocals speaks volumes. Just the fact that Jungkook is present on a track (and on the most intense and personal part of the track) where Jimin is earnestly trying to deliver a message to the listener from the depths of his heart is special, no matter how anyone subjectively wants to interpret the song and its content: Do you think they are singing directly to ARMY? Great! I'd argue having someone that shares the same love and commitment, understands what you're feeling and is able to channel the same emotions as you, and as a testament to your bond you let them contribute to your own artistic expression with theirs, is incredibly precious.

There are things that Jimin will never comment on, so I doubt we will ever find out how this song and Jungkook's feature came to be besides what we already heard. Jimin is incredibly smart in how he tailors his message and communication with the broader audience. Thus, while on the surface the public sees him dancing sensually with female dancers, a longer careful look would give you a view of the half-half makeup and other dichotomies in the choreo/concepts, specifically chosen pieces of clothing, specially crafted details in the performance sets, etc. And the same thing applies to the song Letter too. Only after listening closely, you'll get to uncover layer by layer what lies hidden in this "hidden" track. On top of that, Jungkook casually showing he learnt the chords for this song in a random live broadcast out of nowhere prior to the release of the album just shows there is more to the story than we'll be ever told.

Personally, I will be keeping this song close to my heart and holding onto it until their military service concludes. It has become my own lifeline to my life as a fan and getting to hear Jimin and Jungkook together delivering these precious words is something I will cherish forever 🙏

[nightshadehoney]

I never watched James Somerton's shitty Killing Stalking video because I was trying to be good to myself and avoid something that I knew would make me very angry. In fact, I never watched any of his stuff because the fact that he made a video like that was enough to discount any thing he ever had to say (also I heard about the Celluloid Closet plagiarism).

But man, is the James Somerton discourse bringing a lot of Killing Stalking-related feelings back up for me. Because I'm mad; I'm still so mad. There are a suprising amount of people on social media who are saying they never watched any of his stuff except for the Killing Stalking video. I'm annoyed not just to find out that the vid had that sort of reach and influence, but also because Somerton's unmasking hasn't seemed to make people reasses the validity of the kind of thing he was saying. People are just now being like "hmm I think this guy might have Issues With Women" but that doesn't warrant any reflection on what exactly the motivation is of people who complain about women enjoying a niche webcomic? Because I don't actually believe you're concerned about the influence of some obscure piece of media when you advertise its existence to your large audience many of whom had not heard of it and would never have heard of it but for your transparent outrage porn video. It's rage bait and the target was women that are perceived as straight. A big channel has publicized the fact that they excised a section that endorsed the opinions in this video from their own because they became aware of Somerton's plagiarism and dishonesty (presumably; if it was actually because they recognized his views were coming from a sexist place I would welcome a clarification). And you know, I don't think that's a good look actually. That you needed to be told he was a bad person and couldn't idependently put together that the misogynist man was saying misogynist things.

The comic ended years ago and the fandom has gone mostly quiet, but to this day people are still the peddling the"fujoshi/stupid teenage girls who don't know what's good for them are shipping these characters because they are too braindead to realize it's not a romance; it's a horror, two things I believe are mutually exclusive. I am smarter than all of these cringe degenerates" bullshit. It's in the comments of the hbomberguy video even; one comment was such a gross misrepresentation of the series that my friend needed to talk me down from getting into a pointless youtube comments argument (bless him) because these people are officially making me lose my marbles.

This narrative is full of shit, it's demonstrably not fucking true. You can go on the artist's twitter right now and its full of her retweeting shippy fanart of that pairing readers were apparently never intended to ship.

(I don't think Koogi knows or cares about James Somerton; she just reblogs the works of fans who tag her. This made me laugh though).

Now this is all speculation because he died decades before social media existed, but I think if Nabokov was alive today his twitter would not be full of Humbert Humbert x Dolores Haze fanart. And yet, I have unironically seen people compare shipping Sangwoo and Bum in Killing Stalking with the misreading of Lolita as a precocious sexual temptress more than once.

And this isn't me saying that Killing Stalking is the disgusting"pro-sexualized abuse" comic that tumblr purity police used to characterize it as either. One of these days I'm going to go truly bonkers and end up banging pots and pans on the street corner, yelling at random innocent passerbys about how stories about romantic and sexual relationships are not required to be Hallmark movies. You can make art about the negative, dark, and troubling parts of these feelings and relationships without creating a pat morality tale. You don't need to approach media analysis like your 7th grade teacher has assigned you an essay on explaining what a novel's "message" is.

Nobody, not the author and not the fans, genuinely thinks that Sangwoo and Bum have a healthy or aspirational relationship. This hypothetical person that does not understand the relationship is toxic doesn't exist. Because girls and women, even the ones having cringey fandom fun on tiktok or whatever, are not so stupid and naive that they are unware that breaking someone's legs and locking them in a muder basement is bad. The type of concern troll rhetoric Somerton employed in his video is directed near exclusively at women interested in men and there's a reason for this. Women are not responsible for abuse that men do to them; nobody is responsible for their partner abusing them. If I never saw people spit this bullshit again it would be too soon.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

since people have been commenting in the tags on the poll for The Silmarillion to the effect that they’re “skewing the results”, I wanted to elaborate on my feelings on the “methodology” (as it were) of this blog.

in particular, taking this comment by sesamenom as a starting point:

the reblogs (even the early ones) do indicate the post reached multiple medium-to-large silm blogs, plus the original post is tagged w silmarillion. so this probably is less of a survey of general silm readership and more of an indicator that 32% (47% now) of this post's audience is the greater silm fandom.

this is obviously one of the core “problems” of running polls like this through the medium of tumblr: it will be impossible to get “accurate” / “scientific” results, because who sees the post is entirely determined by (1) who follows the specific blog (a self-selecting audience) and (2) who reblogs it and into which communities / networks. in this case (and others), it is clear from the notes that the post is circulating heavily within Tolkien fan networks on tumblr, and this is, indeed, likely to be “skewing” the results relative to the general population (whatever we take that to mean in this context).

however!

this blog and @haveyoureadthisscifibook are not intended to find information about a general population. rather, I’m interested specifically in the much narrower group of people who are habitual fantasy and/or science fiction readers. my goal is not to determine “what percentage of people have read The Lord of the Rings”, but “what percentage of fantasy readers have read The Lord of the Rings”.

for these purposes, the self-selecting nature of tumblr is actually an advantage! I can safely assume that anyone who’s choosing to follow a specialized poll blog for fantasy books identifies as a fantasy reader at least to some extent, and if they reblog a post they’re doing so because they anticipate that the book in question is or could (or should) be of interest to their followers — in other words, they do so because they expect their followers to also be fantasy readers, or at least fantasy-adjacent.

given that the poll for The Silmarillion appears to be circulating in specifically Tolkien-oriented fan networks here, it’s probably still true that the result is going to be disproportionate, but the disproportion relative to the target larger group of fantasy readers is also likely much less dramatic or significant than the disproportion relative to any general population. we’ve certainly had some amusingly misleading results in the past (notably (to me): a random recent Warhammer 40k novel getting >25% yes on the sci-fi blog; In the Hands of the Goddess getting only 40% yes vs. the rest of Song of the Lioness hovering around the 50% mark), but since I’m interested first and foremost in averages, a few individual disproportions will even out in the long run.

so. reblog away!

[amavaria]

This might not be as easy to answer at this point in your career, but i won’t know until i ask.

From the time you were drawing to learn and maybe experiment, to current day, when you’ve gathered enough of a following that you can take on drawing as an avenue for making paid work, how have you balanced creation of both original content of your own as well as fan-art, outside of commission work? And how did you approach the balance of drawing what you want and drawing stuff that would probably gather more interest?

I’ve wrestled with both my want to actually draw stuff that i genuinely want to, while at the same time tailoring it in a manner that attempts to appeal to some kind of audience, over the last… 5 years? The latter criteria has been VERY tricky (and frustrating) for me, to the point that in hindsight, i definitely overworked myself over it, and i’ve felt averse to just admitting to myself that content that is TOO original/ personalized being almost all of my output, is probably going to keep me stuck where i am, no matter what.

Hiii, I'll answer this in sections to make it easier so here we go!

How to balance working on commissions Vs personal work and fanart?

The key here is to treat commissions like any regular job (Like an office job but without annoying coworkers!) I work monday-friday and maintain a schedule and set deadlines to follow.

Some people don't work well under pressure but in my case it pushes me to take action. Knowing I promised a client progress or a finished work by a certain date gets me going no matter how burned out I'm feeling. Also keeping a public queue helps this as well as it motivates me to visible update everyone on what I'm doing.

Discipline is very needed, not because you're your own boss means it's easier. People are paying you their hard earned money and it's your responsibility to deliver quality work for them in the promised time.

It's not just drawing, it's social media management, self promoting, bank account checks, regular updates and keeping a good streak of happy customer to spread the word for you!

I draw personal work on my free time on weekends. And sometimes in between when I get particularly itchy about an idea. But I always prioritise commission and I will always make sure to have at least reached my daily goal of work before I start goofing around drawing blorbo art.

It's taken years of adulting, to finally find a rhythm I'm comfortable with, where I can work and still keep my fandom self well fed. So do not despair, I felt helpless at 21 trying to sell a $5 commission but now I'm making $100+ with one single purchase!

TLDR: Treat commissions like a job separate of your hobby. Take weekends free, use your time responsibly 👍👍

How to build an audience

I don't know lol. It sort of happened to me. My main target was always furries (I am a furry) On my first 3 years of 'career' I never reached over 400 followers on my most popular social media, but my income was steady since a random streamer decided that I'd be her artist for everything, so I was able to survive more or less.

On the side I was working on my own OCs which I was lucky enough for randos to find appealing enough to warrant a follow! (Alois here getting pretty popular).

Parted ways with the streamer after hoarding me for 2 years and started drawing fanart which brought followers to me in waves. I'd get into a super obscure fandom (Solatorobo for example) draw a ton of stuff for it, bringing a wave of new followers thirsty of content and then stay because they like furries too.

And rinse and repeat and I got hundreds of people perceiving me (thank you) and even more people eager to commission me (thank you harder)

Important to note: People on different socials have different interests. Example: Twitter has been very friendly with original content but flops certain fanarts. Tumblr hypes up fan content a lot more enthusiastically but original content doesn't get very far.

TLDR: mostly takes good rng, but having a loud social media presence and a steady amount of new content to keep interest is a step on the right direction.

Last... What about burnout and frustration? What do you do?

TAKE A BREAK! TOUCH GRASS, separate yourself from the screen and breathe a moment. Then you come back and join Artfight.

Artfight is freedom! It's a chance to freely experiment with any character that catches your eye. You can try things that you wouldn't do during commissions, a different brush, different layer modes, angles, poses, etc. AND put enough effort on it that would make the receiver very happy 💖 and by posting this experimental work on socials, it got a lot of attention. Most did really great, a few flopped too, but it was overall extremely positive.

Without noticing, you find new paths, new techniques, you realize you can draw better and faster, and when you come back to work when the month is over, it shows!

TLDR: Take a break, then experiment!! You'll improve and find your path. This works different for everyone, but I'm sharing what has helped me.

[minsarasarahair]

You know because of Fendai (danmei), I kinda understand now the side of Vesper Noir fans who became haters lol

As someone who came from seiyuu fandom, I don't really care what characters they are playing as long as they are selling the same talent/skills so its understandable its easier for me to accept it. I do experienced my fave artists becoming disbanded or disappearing out of nowhere so I'm a little jaded already. I also have friends who gone indie and left corporate because its not for them so. As long as they are happy and not doing anything evil, I don't care what path they should take.

Cheng Ping and Vesper Noir have this masculine nonchalant straight public image as celebrity. Both have the talents or skills needed to reach higher and become popular. But both of them have bad background record that they are hot-tempered. In Cheng Ping's case, he tried to defend someone or righteous to point out what's wrong hence he provoke influential veteran artists. He also have a background that he swear a lot as livestreamer before he became an actor so transitioning from that is hard. He's just being himself as livestreamer but as actor, he need to sell an image that's not him. As for Vesper, I'll not say who is his PL but let's just say his content is for mature audience. He swear like a sailor and make dirty jokes about himself but never targeted it to his audience so I say he's still decent compare to others. He might be a lawbreaker but definitely not a bad guy.

Their difference is Cheng Ping decided to eat his pride and behave because Li Boxi(his secret boyfriend) did sacrifice his make up career to salvage Cheng Ping's public image. Li Boxi is outed as gay man since day 1 and claimed he's harassing the straight actor even if its not true. Their conversation is like "But I'm really gay for you! I'm never straight! Why we need to lie??!! I'm not afraid to tell them now!!" but Li Boxi is like "That's not the issue. Its because you're selling a straight masculine image in the first place. Your fans will feel betrayed and the opportunities you work hard for will be overshadowed by criticisms just because you didn't tell them your sexual orientation since day 1. It will question your genuity. Its not your fault and its not their fault. Its just part of the job. In entertainment industry, your image is your everything. That's why popular actors will do any underhanded tactics to protect their image." In Vesper's case, Magni literally joined him and leave the company together lol They are probably like "You know what? Let's just leave together. We don't deserve the stress this company gave us. Corporate life is not for us."

Another similarity is I find it interesting Vesper's PL mentioned Magni's PL before they even met in Holostars. They don't know each other yet but Vesper PL is neutral about him and still find Magni's PL funny/skilled. Fendai has similar scene. Cheng Ping is reacting live to random short videos during his livestream before he became an actor and he came across at Li Boxi's makeup tutorial video. His chat criticized Li Boxi's crossdresser look and Cheng Ping got annoyed so he start lashing out to his chat saying "His looks is not your f*cking business! If you can't respect a person, get the f*ck out of my stream! I don't need you here!" Cheng Ping is quite neutral about Li Boxi in the past so he forgot that incident quickly.

By the way, MagNoir will have an offcollab karaoke this weekend in their new persona! I'm very excited LOL If you know, you know.

[alarrytale]

Have you ever heard the expression extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof? Cause your claims about contracts and fake babies are very extraordinary yet the only kind of proof you have is ,they looked at each other‘ ‚louis didn’t flinch when Harry reached for something‘. Do you think any judge would side with you?

Hi, anon!

Do you really think that two gay pop stars from a boyband, who is closeted because their target audience loves them for their heterosexuality, is that extraordinary? When we take a look at how many gay men's been a part of a boyband, and who've come out, there's a good deal of them? So it's actually fairly common and not extraordinary at all? It's something that still happens.

Our claim that H and L are gay and a couple isn't extraordinary at all. What is unusual though is that the closeting has failed, because they struggle to hide it and lie about it, and a good part of the fandom is vocal about knowing they are closeted. To combat that, because it threatens the bottom line, it takes extraordinary measures. Like a fake baby.

Also H and L looking at each other isn't the only proof we have. I don't even count that as proof. The burden of proof is however on our side. The judge would side with larries. A random on the street without preconcieved notions or knowledge of the subject would side with larries. I'd make them a PowerPoint or something lol.

[tidal-chaos]

i have no idea if this will reach the target audience but...

for any introject whose source characters eye color was ambiguous in canon, either intentionally or otherwise, what color did you get introjected with? was it a seemingly random color? was it a color your& headmate(s) headcanoned your source to have? was it a color with significance to you(&)? or did your& brain short circuit and decide to give you an entirely non-canon and entirely bonkers set of eyes?

mine was the last one. my source character is notorious in the fandom for never having their eyes consistently described, as in, they would be blue on one page and then called yellow two pages later. so clearly i would have rainbow eyes that look like theyre melting on my face. obviously. (/lh /s)

[justanotherpurplebutterfly]

All in all I'd say you figured it out pretty well. There's a proper link and relevant tags, that's the most important things if you want a post on here to get found. You have a name and profile pic, so people won't think you're a bot.

Tumblr is very community based. When you follow a person, everything they put on their blog will show up on your dashboard. Every post you like, you can reblog with the looping arrows icon below the post. Reblogging means you put it on your own blog (not in a stealing kind of way, but in a passing-your-phone-to-your-friend-to-show-them-a-funny-meme kind of way).

I suggest searching a few tags you're into and reblogging the posts you like. You can add text to your reblog like I'm doing here, or just reblog it without text. You can also follow blogs that posted the stuff you like so you can see it if they post more. If people like what you put on your blog, they'll follow you and you can reach a bigger audience.

I see you blazed this post (a.k.a. paid money to put it on people's dashboard, even though they dont follow you or the tags of the post). Nothing really wrong with that, though it may be a bit costly and some people might find it annoying. Plus, blazing is random so you may not reach your target audience.

TL;DR: great start on the post! Try connecting with some people, block anyone and anything you don't like seeing (doesn't have to be malicious, I blocked dozens of fandom roleplay blogs bc that's just not my interest) and you'll do just fine here. Lmk if you have any questions.

never been on tumblr before, came here to promote my fic, but I‘m so lost on this app 🫠

if anyone is willing to help me, I‘ll sell my soul to you #lol

anyway, here‘s a link to my fic:

hope you enjoy! (tell me how you like it!)

[pancakeke]

been thinking about this for a while and the volume of posts I've seen decrying the act of liking art without reblogging it vs the literal 0 (zero) number of posts I've seen explaining how to find art by:

utilizing the individual characteristics of Tumblr's site wide search/tag systems

using tumblr's content filtering system to declutter search/tag results (to hide gifs, manga caps, edits, etc)

listing common shorthand terms used within fandoms for characters/ships/etc that can be used to target specific reaults

disabling endless scrolling and editing search/tag page urls to do deep dives into tags (if this still works? I haven't done it in a while)

using tumblr's tag following system along with the "your tags" tab to keep up with new posts

creating your own quick link reference (using a text editor, spreadsheet, or notepad doc formatted with html and saved as a .html file) to catalog various favorite search/tag pages so you can have them all a click away for regular checking

(above is nice for making favorite artist directories too)

creating an "artist dashboard" via the blog sub tab (follow the artist, enable notifications from them, then go to tumblr settings and disable push notifications. you'll get all the artist's posts in a tab but wont be annoyed by notifs)

looking up title/character names in other languages (using both english alphabet spellings and ones from non-english alphabets)

identifying an artist's unique art tag to see all their art (btw it should also be stressed by tye community that artists should use unique art tags if they're mixed OC/non-OC blogs so people can easily find their original art)

understanding the quirks between searching a term on an artist's blog and clicking a tag on one of their posts (the blog search is fucked and often extremely non-chronological, but if you search something on a blog, get a result that has the term tagged, then click that tag, you'll be directed to a chronological view using the tag)

also honorable mention for artists and not art enthusiasts: encouraging artists to use good tags and understand how tumblr's tag system works (AND THEN KEEP UP TO DATE ON THIS. it has changed so many times...)

makes me feel like this shit is purely registers as a personal numbers game to them. like, no thought is being put into how people operate or how to enable their potential audience. they just want reblog count go up. now.

also for real, helping people with the desire to find art and the initiative to go out of their way to get to your content seems like a better way to get reblogs than trying to shame disinterested people whose only regard for your work was a fleeting moment of attention as they just happened to pass it on their dashboard.

sure there is merit to people sharing a work but it is the most random, non-targeted method of reaching someone. Acting as if it's helpful (or even possible) to force a casual audience to change their desires and behavior is bizarre.

[louehvolution]

I don't understand their marketing plan and what demographics they want to target other than relying on fans. BTM is being added to pop playlists despite Louis posing as an indie artist. They had months before the new era to try to change his image a little bit and they didn't do anything, he remains isolated in the industry. Sorry if I'm wrong but I haven't seen artists like Dmas, Sam Fender or The Snuts talk about BTM. It's very clear that the indie niche doesn't see or treat him as an equal.

Yeah, anon, I kept hoping they would do something to start turning things around before a single—not the festival in 2021 or him in the studio for months or his impressive tour around the world reached outside the fandom bubble. One might argue it was better to wait for there to be new music to link to his name, but then, what are they doing now? It has all been essentially the same as in the past.

A couple good press interviews are only going to take you so far. If radio play is a problem—and it obviously is in the UK, why aren’t other avenues not being explored and why miss a chance to perform at The One Show, which had a nice interview? Then there was Lorraine: useless if not detrimental. And then? Nothing for days when it hasn’t been two weeks since the song was released. Even Louis’ accounts—active throughout tour, are dead? No end of tour post or about his biggest show to date, which he even mentioned in interviews? It doesn’t make sense.

The thing with Louis is that it goes beyond artistic erasure where people need to hear his music—and you can’t wait and hope for them to be inspired to check him out—there is an embedded negative bias to counter, belittlement that goes back to XF; years of disrespect, casual and expected. BMG should have made certain TodayFM played his song in full after granting them an interview, for instance. They shouldn’t allow two thirds of an interview to be about 1D and Freddie. They better keep that harrie DJ who is hosting one of the listening parties in check. If they don’t protect him, what’s the point?

There is a lot to overcome. It won’t change in a day, but it requires work—it won’t change with the same promo or even less.

I think with a good strategy you can target and reach different demographics simultaneously. With his background and the associations to his name, an ‘indie’ label is always going to be hard, but what you can’t do is undermine what progress is made in that direction with e.g. NME and AltPress with tabloid personality ‘promo’ that is damaging for any artist.

Listening parties for fans in random cities in the US will not expand his audience or keep his current fanbase engaged either. An international singer doing a meet and greet at a coffee shop? I still remember the Q102 Jingle Ball where he was the entertainment for the pre show instead of having him perform—Niall was headlining the actual show…

I hope to be wrong and there be much more good and beneficial promo to come. But UK has definitely been… bad.

To be fair, The Snuts did include his song in their playlist; Johnny from DMAs at least went to one of the shows and their account tweeted about it. Sam Fender would not be caught dead with him—but also for people who claim that Louis as an ‘indie’ artist wouldn’t do or get this or that: Sam celebrates charting, gets played on radio, has attended award shows and walked red carpets, etc.

[chispnlove]

JATP Season 2 Renewal Chances with Data

As someone who grew up during the High School Musical Era, I really connected to JATP. I think it is the first real show that we have received that is reminiscent of older Disney that can reach a new audience and explore deep themes. As with everyone else in this fandom, I am wondering if we are going to get a season 2?

The accounting and information systems business major in me decided to do a data analysis that may be of interest to Netflix and help inform the fandom when deciding to renew the series for a 2nd season or not. Netflix is a data driven company so these data points may important to note for them. I do not have access to Netflix streaming numbers (they keep these numbers confidential), but I do have access to data from Spotify, music charts, Netflix's Youtube, and Netflix's Instagram. (Note: All data represents numbers gathered as of 11/14/2020).

Instagram:

Let's start with an analysis of likes and views JATP posts receive on Netflix's general Instagram and Netflix's Family Instagram account. This analysis was completed by pulling a total of 20 random JATP posts (10 from the general account and 10 from the family account) and then pulling a total of 20 random posts about other shows (10 from the general account and 10 from the family account). I excluded outliers with a million views which I will note separately since they will skew the data. I pulled the like/view numbers from these posts and averaged those numbers for the four samples.

The breakdown:

-Netflix General Instagram JATP averaged 384,755 hits per post

-Netflix General Instagram Other Shows averaged 323,552 hits per post

-Netflix Family Instagram JATP averaged 57,710 hits per post

-Netflix Family Instagram other shows averaged 16,967 hits per post

-JATP trailer had 2,426,094 views on Netflix's general Instagram compared to 3.1 million views on the Blackpink documentary trailer and 1.46 million views on the Emily in Paris Trailer.

-Unsaid Emily has 2.21 million views on Netflix's general Instagram

Conclusion: JATP averages more hits on Instagram than Netflix's other shows on both its family and general accounts. This shows it is reaching its target audience families and reaching other audiences with the higher average on the general account. Most Instagram users are in the key demographic range for shows of 18-29 years old.

YouTube:

Most JATP content including the music videos from the show are posted on the Netflix Futures account. The JATP music videos are the highest viewed live action content on the Netflix Futures account. The other most popular videos are all animated content such as Over the Moon and Larva Island. This tells me that if Netflix wants to expand into family friendly live action series they should renew JATP.

The breakdown of views for the music videos are:

-"Edge of Great" 7.9 million views

-"Stand Tall" 6.8 million views

-"Bright" 5.5 million views

-"Wake Up" 5.3 million views

-"Finally Free" 4.8 million views

(Note: These music videos had varying upload dates, but all have been uploaded for at least a month. These videos getting this high amount of views in about a month or so is an accomplishment within itself. "Edge of Great" made the top 10 videos on this account in that same time frame).

Videos featuring the cast also get a large number of views on Netflix Futures. -Best Friend's Challenge - 744K

-My First - 736 K

-Behind the Band: Episode 1 - 612K (which was released two weeks ago)

This fact shows me that JATP has a fanbase that is willing to engage with all content surrounding the show. This can be lacking with other shows and allows it to have a fanbase that tells their friends about the show. This can be noted by the fact that their seems to be more and more reaction videos of JATP popping up on YouTube. People are requesting these show commentary creators to do JATP which raises general awareness and interest. Even though, JATP has been released for 2 months already.

I have more analysis regarding JATP data numbers even featuring data point comparisons to HSMTMTS if interested!

[jyndor]

I’m rewatching the Puppetmaster for ~research~ and ugh.This is such a good episode but I cannot stand the treatment of Hama and also Katara’s special bending ability. And I’m gonna talk about it because I can’t help myself. But I also want to offer a solution maybe something that the writers could have done instead. Granted I’m a white US American so while I am about to talk about imperialism, anti-indigenous racism and racialized misogyny, I am coming from a position of privilege here and ymmv. It’s important that we as fans (especially white fans) acknowledge the things that our favorite stories can do better so that we can make our fandoms safer for everyone.

And btw fans of color have been talking about this so I definitely am going to be quoting some phenomenal bits of critique I have read on here. Also you should follow @shewhotellsstories and @visibilityofcolor for anti-racist fandom commentary.

I am also going to talk about grooming, so just be aware if that is a trigger for you.

I. Hama as a Campfire Horror Story Monster

The episode starts out with the Gaang camping in a creepy forest telling ghost stories to each other. Set to spooky music, Katara tells a story about something that happened to Kya, a friend named Nini (likely) dying in a snowstorm and then haunting her family’s home as a ghost. Immediately after, Toph hears people screaming under the ground - and then Hama finds them and invites them to her inn.

Every so often, Hama says something spooky with the spooky music playing. Katara immediately takes to Hama, but the others (especially Sokka) find her pretty unnerving. Katara says she reminds her of Gran Gran before Sokka starts snooping around and finds a bunch of puppets and a comb from the Southern Water Tribe. It’s the standard horror movie fakeout.

Every so often we get an artfully placed hint about Hama’s agenda - pulling water out of thin air, showing Katara that “plants - and all living things” are made of water. And oh yeah, she makes herself ice claws. Cool skill, but in the context of the episode, a little more unnerving.

The “moon monster” that Old Man Ding mentions, the alleged Moon spirit, turns out to be Hama (of course) and the tension builds to a peak as the Gaang rush to save Katara from the “dark puppetmaster” that has imprisoned the villagers.

Meanwhile Hama and Katara stand under the full moon washed in spooky cool lighting with an ominous breeze around them. You see Hama practically transform into a monster in a way sort of reminiscent to a werewolf - her fingers become claw-like, her veins pop out. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s a coincidence that as she reveals her true agenda, she becomes less human in appearance. Which... okay I’ll get to that later.

While I can’t say that Katara fits the Final Girl trope very well, I do think it’s interesting to note that horror movies often do feature women as heroes who defeat the monster/killer/whatever and usually the Final Girl is used to allow audiences to experience the full horror of the villain, which absolutely is how Katara is used here. Yes, her friends come to help, but she saves everyone in the end (my queen).

So here’s why that’s bullshit.

Framing Hama as a horror story monster make sense when you don’t think about the Implications of framing the indigenous woman POW living surrounded by people who have benefited from Fire Nation imperialism. It does - it’s a common trope: the reclusive witch who first seems kindly to some lost/wandering children before revealing her true intention - to use them for her own purposes. Yeah, I know they’re playing on Hansel and Gretel. But yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit on that too - drawing on a c*nnabalistic witch for inspiration when you’re writing an indigenous woman character is probably not the way to go.

II. Hama the Puppetmaster* and Groomer

A puppet master is obviously a puppeteer, and Hama has puppets (creepy though they may be). But in terms of the underlying meaning, she’s a chessmaster, an Emperor Palpatine/Dick Cheney kind of master manipulator who works mostly through other people. What most people would consider a psychopath (in layman’s terms). When her friendly mask falls, she is terrifying.

She is cold, calculating, manipulative as fuck - she isolates Katara almost immediately. Hama uses Katara’s desire to connect with her culture to groom her to become a weapon. It’s actually such a good example of grooming that it has to be purposeful:

Targeting a victim - Hama hears that Katara and Sokka are from the SWT. She also hears Katara tell a story about Kya. To Hama, a waterbender from her own culture is a hell of a target.

Gaining trust - Hama reaches out to Katara in particular, is especially kind to her, gives her individual attention that the others don’t get. She prepares a SWT feast for them and tells the Gaang about her heritage when they go snooping.

Filling a need - so once Hama has given Katara reason to trust her about waterbending, she promises Katara to pass on SWT waterbending heritage that only Hama knows. She fills a unique need of Katara’s.

Isolation - From then on out, we don’t see Katara with the rest of the Gaang until the end of the episode. Hama seems like a normal teacher but she does start to drop little hints, pushing Katara very gently to see how she will react to her real agenda and desensitizing Katara to what would otherwise seem unacceptable coming from someone else who hasn’t established that unique trust. “You’ve got to keep an open mind, Katara.”

So this would be the point at which Hama would make sexual contact but this is metaphorical so that obviously doesn’t happen. What does happen is Hama pushes Katara’s limits. She makes her pretty uncomfortable with the idea of killing the fire lilies for water, but when Hama appeals to their shared history of marginalization she gets over it.

Maintaining control: Hama makes her final move, which is obviously bloodbending, and reveals her true agenda - and when Katara refuses to manipulative living beings’ blood, Hama violates her bodily agency. And not only this, but she pushes Katara into bloodbending when she victimizes the Gaang, fully realizing her control. 

Hama sees it as a victory, and telling Katara breaks down at the end in one of the most emotional scenes in the show. She feels like so many of us have felt at some point: violated, betrayed by someone we trusted. And then they never really deal with that.

I actually think that’s the point of The Puppetmaster, especially given ATLA being a show for children. I think it’s supposed to be a metaphor for csa.

And... okay.

Undoubtedly it is important to send these messages to kids. And yes, people usually are victimized by those closest to them, by those in their own communities. But not indigenous women. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but according to the National Congress of American Indians, Native American women  and girls are more likely to be sexually assaulted by non-NA men. 57% of cases are perpetrated by white men. Not the people in their communities.

Choosing to tell this story with an indigenous woman POW (who very likely would have been victimized herself lbr) is a choice that I find really aggravating. When writers tell stories with a Point, it is incredibly important for those writers to understand the implications of what they are saying about the characters who they are using to make that point.

Like I’m not saying don’t make that point, or don’t use Katara (who would in real life be at a higher risk of sexual violence than the others) to make it, but why make the perpetrator someone who is statistically unlikely to be Katara’s abuser? I’m not sure I have a good answer to that question. My guess is, like with making Hama animalistic and about as unsympathetic as it gets, the writers just had blinders on about the cultural implications of what they were saying.

Not even considering the whole victimizing-the-“innocents”-of-the-Fire-Nation-town plot, Hama’s not a good person. This is probably because she was driven mad by the need for revenge, which, eurgh okay, but still it’s very apparent that she is not interested in winning over Katara’s support directly or honestly.

* also the antisemitic history of this trope hmm.

III. Hama and The Victims of Genocide Victimizing Oppressors #NotAllFireNation

Okay. So this is the part that I think annoys me the most because it’s so bad. Like, imagine for a minute that you’re a white guy and you’re gonna tell a story about a victim of genocide who is completely divorced from her culture and homeland, and furthermore is an escaped prisoner of war who has radicalized in prison - okay it just hit me, I know what they MIGHT have been going for, like maybe some kind of anti-Gitmo statement? But that didn’t happen. People who were stolen away from Iraq and imprisoned illegally in Guantanamo Bay, and who were released after being detained illegally, haven’t really shown any real radicalization. They’re pissed at the US for victimizing them, but like that seems pretty fair considering so many of them did nothing wrong.

That’s been the US government’s excuse for not releasing innocent people who were detained illegally. The idea that prisoners of war radicalized in Gitmo so they can’t be released because they’ll attack the US is propaganda. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, but that’s where it comes from.

Considering the time period ATLA was written, considering how much of it was inspired by the US wars of aggression and imperialism, considering how political ATLA is (and why it was so popular during its initial run - during the years that Bush lost a ton of popularity) I think if that’s what they were thinking about, that’s not great.

But for all of Avatar’s good messaging on imperialism and war, it’s still written from a white US American mindset. Well surely I’m not responsible, surely you shouldn’t imprison and abuse me, a random white girl in the States. It’s my government, which I cannot control because of two-party politics or some shit.

So first off, that’s shitty because oppression is often about systems, not individuals. Sure we need to always consider the individual experiences of people who are victimized, but the people who are benefiting from imperialism? Me? Fuck if I care if someone in El Salvador or Iraq or Chile or idk any of the countries we have meddled in, let alone from a marginalized community in the United States, hates white US Americans for what our government has done - and that’s even silly because white US citizens support our government. Like we think the institutions are sound, although sometimes we don’t support the guy in charge. We think the cops are going to help us, even though that isn’t really the case.

Why frame it about what she’s doing to the Fire Nation civilians at all? Why make Hama the villain? I don’t think they wanted her to be unsympathetic, I mean they tell her story and I don’t think anyone would conclude that it doesn’t justify her desire for revenge, but why tell this story through a victim of genocide?

Recently I saw a post by @sunkin-akh where they point out that Hama basically quotes Malcolm X:

I was literally just watching the Hama episode again and I just noticed for the first time that while forcing Katara to bloodbend she says that they must fight back against the Fire Nation (and she used this exact phrase) “by any means necessary”, which is Frantz Fanon’s phrase popularized by Malcolm X during the Civil Rights Movement (iirc). They directly compared Black liberation to Hama’s evil acts and it disgusted me.

The full context:

Hama: The choice [to use bloodbending] is not yours. The power exists. And it’s your duty to use the gifts you’ve been given to win this war. Katara, they tried to wipe us out, our entire culture, your mother.

Katara: I know.

Hama: Then you should understand what I’m talking about. We’re the last waterbenders of the Southern Tribe, we have to fight these people whenever we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary.

I find that so appalling because it is framing resistance, specifically anti-racist resistance, as barbaric and monstrous. And given the way that Hama is portrayed at this point, about as inhuman as anyone in ATLA, that is extra gross.

Finally, after Katara defeats Hama, she is lead away by the authorities in CHAINS.

So now the FN cops are the good authorities who we’re gonna trust a SWT waterbender with? I mean she’s a villain so we’re probably not supposed to feel bad for her, like yeah sure the FN is usually bad but she’s a criminal so it’s okay that they take a POW back into custody.

No, no, no.

I know I am reading into this far more than the writers intended - but that’s kind of the point of critically engaging with media. Because shockingly writers don’t always question their choices - they are people and have implicit biases just like all of us. When those writers come from a privileged culture that has colonized the culture they are using as “inspiration” for their story, they need to be extra mindful of how they represent those people.

IV: How To Write Hama

Well, I’m not gonna talk over indigenous fans on this one on specifics, and you should read this rewrite by @kispesan​  but my thoughts generally are:

lose the horror framing it’s just not right for this context and this character

don’t frame Malcolm X as a villain because that’s nasty and racist

have Katara learn to use bloodbending in ways that she is comfortable with (and not just like once in one episode where she’s extra vengeful and the hero of the show doesn’t approve of her actions JFC) and don’t make the dark-skinned girl the only character whose special bending skill is dubious (I know she also has healing but still)

bring Hama home

have indigenous people in the writers room

Anyway, I’ve gone on wayyy too long. Let me know if I am speaking out of turn please if you feel that I am. and I’m sure I had other thoughts but if you want to read some other good pieces of Hama meta, I’ve listed some below:

post and another post by @marsreds​

this post and this post by @visibilityofcolor​

this post by @shewhotellsstories​

anyway katara is a queen and should have been allowed to heal, and hama never should have been irredeemable because if you can make iroh redeemable, if the show was going to redeem AZULA, you can make hama redeemable.

[vad-hander]

Hey! I just read your latest post and let me tell you that your blog is one of my favourites in here. Now if one thing my time in Tumblr taught me is that your likes number is kind of a random thing. Tumblr hashtags are a pain in the ass and sometimes they malfunction and don't show your work. However, what you can do to fix that is to reblog your stories often to reach your targeted audience. Most popular blogs reblog many many times their stories so don't hesitate to do it too. Reblog even hourly if possible for the first 2 days after you post , no one is gonna judge you for that trust me.

Your stories' appearance is fine there's nothing that needs to be changed. Your writing and story building is also great. I don't know about other kpop fandoms but in regards to the got7 fandom in Tumblr I'd advise you to post as often as you can, different stories as well at the same time. The more the merrier since there is currently a shortage of got7 writers in here due to the groups hiatus. Currently @got7writerscollective and @got7creators accept submissions so if you wanna give it a try I think it would help you reach the got7 writing fandom , you definitely have the skills to be accepted as a member. GOT7 will come back soon from what I hear so you'll soon have a bigger audience in here

I see you write about NCT as well , I don't know a lot about them but I guess the same applies about their Tumblr fandom as well. So write about different fandoms as well, post your stories as often as you can and reblog them often too. It's helpful to reach many different target groups at once.

Btw I'm not a writer here, I'm just an active reader for years but I hope my ask helps you a little. Feel free to reach out if you need any advice or second opinion about anything. Please don't get discouraged your work is great!

Hi! Thank you so much for writing this and for saying such kind words. I really appreciate your help 💖

[knightotoc]

The Rise and Fall of Baby Yoda

Ever since baby Yoda united all the factions of SW fans, I wondered how long the peace and happiness would last. It was just such a good fucking reveal: the first ever unquestionably badass SW protagonist on this gritty TV show for grownups has to kill a man, and that man is...a baby Yoda. It's a twist on the level of "I am your father," except instead of Vader challenging a hero's sense of compassion, baby Yoda challenges a villain's sense of indifference. The audience of ESB realizes that the world is worse than they thought it was, and the audience of Mando realizes the world is better. In either case, it got a lot more complicated in a really appealing way, 'cuz now our guy has to get along with his enemy instead of just killing him.

And just like Vader's, baby Yoda's setup was always doomed to surpass its payoff. People generally agree that ESB is better than RotJ (I like RotJ more because I love bears and Ian McDiarmid, but I know ESB is better). And Mando's basically been sitting on the plot ever since episode 3, which is fine, if tiresome, 'cuz they're never gonna reach that initial high again.

It was remarkable to have something so neutral, so universally lovable: a baby, an alien without any of the politics of humanity, a fun little mystery they can indefinitely hold off on answering. But even with such absurdly agreeable content, we still wanna fight each other. And I'm afraid the peace is finally over (and good riddance!).

Here's a record of the various baby Yoda discourses I've observed in his first year of life.

"He's ugly." The first criticisms were from the flabbergasted haters, their eyes dazzled but their hearts undeclared. The fight was not on their side, and most of them soon changed their minds, worn down by the bigness of his eyes and the opinion of Werner Herzog. The remnants of this camp have largely exited the conversation and live on only in memes and stories.

"He's a corporate ploy." Following these weirdos, the smarties and the cynics got their hands on their opinion pieces. Disney+ is a menace and deserves every criticism it gets, pinging off its mighty armor like righteous pebbles. If baby Yoda stands for anything in the real world, it can't be anything good. Look at him, cooing and blinking, draining $7 a month from the pockets of the poor. He is there to distract from, even justify the rampant censorship and selfishness of his platform. Of course they are right, but this is the kind of thing we compartmentalize.

"Where's the merch?!" The most baffling problem of baby Yoda's young life was the utter lack of official merchandise during the 2019 holiday season -- and the more sinister accompanying problem of Disney's random lawsuits against fanmade stuff. Why the hell weren't they ready to sell him? We were desperate! Remember the drama of the immediately-sold-out fancy animatronic? This problem has been largely solved -- you can buy him at Target now -- but, for a while, it was really weird.

"He's not cool anymore." My favorite criticism of the little guy is "Baby Yoda is to millenials what minions are to Boomers." (I think Emma Benshoff on Twitter came up with this joke, though it has been repeated in a lot of places.) Nothing burns like Gen Z burns. The teens are too smart for this. Even without any storytelling baggage, baby Yoda's popularity weighs him down on its own. But this is the kind of outsider observation that doesn't really affect the fans themselves. If I thought I was cool, I wouldn't be writing this (and you wouldn't be reading it).

"Gina blocked me." While baby Yoda himself has been, until recently, blameless, his co-stars are human beings. Gina Carano, it turns out, is a hateful and transphobic conspiracy theorist, while Pedro Pascal is an antifa messenger, an advocate for immigrants, and an utter fucking delight. So good people are mad at her and bad people are mad at him. This rift is ongoing, with no word from the cowards on high as to how this will resolve. While this doesn't involve the baby directly, it is certainly an Event.

She blocked me!😎

And finally, #6, the egg thing. In the latest episode, baby Yoda mischievously eats some eggs from a nice frog lady. Many people had a bad reaction to this, and have expressed disgust at baby Yoda's actions, anger at Mando's lack of disciple, and disappointment in its comedic framing. Many other people took offense to their reactions, while others found them amusing and have delighted in the absurdity of baby Yoda, of all people, getting canceled. The battle lines drawn seem gendered and quite mean.

The egg discourse makes me sad -- not because the era of fandom peace is over, but because I think the boys are going to win this one. Male writers and directors will not learn to care about women's feelings, because how can you complain about baby Yoda? That's silly!

I am all for dark humor (it's my favorite thing about Star Wars), but the sexist history of this franchise doesn't offer it much protection from accusations of punching down. Try to be a little more sensitive, guys; everybody is watching.