#(talking abt fan interpretations way more than creators btw)

[risetherivermoon]

people like to demonize children in media way too much these days,

[cryptvokeeper]

Oh hey been a hot minute since I had dsmp-adjacent thoughts but let’s talk abt that

These aren’t gonna be positive btw (I wouldn’t call them negative either, but they’re pretty up front about creators’ shortcomings so if that ain’t your deal ignore this)

but like, my dearly beloved was telling me abt the most recent shit show over on Twitter and I ended up with thoughts abt enjoying content separate from the creator, art separate from the artist and all that, and how that really works in this case. Because like ive expressed this idea before, that streamers and youtubers and whatever are primarily selling you their personalities, or at the very least the personality theyre putting on camera. Their ‘affect’, their ‘persona’, whatever you wanna call it, that’s the product, that’s what the audience comes to see.

And so like, how does that interact with the narrative? Like for me, in order to not get too deeply invested, i always reminded myself that I was only here for the story not the people making it. But also the people making it are the story. Like obviously they’re all playing characters, but those characters are dramatized versions of themselves. At the very least they all started out as the creator’s persona. And it made me think about how a lot of the traits that the creators were criticized for are things that made the characters so enjoyable. Like, good characters have flaws that the audience find appealing in some way, so when the fictionalized characters show the same or exaggerated behaviors of the creators, it becomes more palatable.

Like, some of the things people criticize Tommy for are the fact that’s he’s loud or annoying, that he’s irresponsible or impulsive, that he’s ignorant or stubborn. As a creator this lands him in situations where his mouth moves faster than his brain and he says things that may be insensitive or worse than he meant it. But as a character, these are things that make him endearing. like, loud obnoxious immature boy who refuses to change the way he thinks and believes in the power of friendship describes most shonen protagonists. it’s a fairly common and well liked character type.

or for another example, Dream is often criticized for being really irresponsible with the amount of influence he has and a tendency to lash out. This manifests irl with shit like him taking criticism poorly and doubling down, or getting into arguments with much less Influential people and his fans dogpiling them. as a creator that’s not a great look, but in fiction the concept of someone with an incredible amount of power who can’t handle being questioned, comes off as manipulative or disingenuous, and tends to react to opposition in ways that just make things worse is the basis for a great villain.

and I dunno, I just think it’s really interesting to think about. The way you can never fully seperate art from the artist, but that doesn’t always manifest in the ways we think. The way we interpret behaviors in characters versus the way they’re interpreted in people. The idealization of both creators and characters, and how the enjoyment/defense of a character may flow back into defense of the creator, or Vice versa of enjoying a creator influencing the reading of the character. and just how much is character and how much is creator.

And it comes back to the question I always have about dream smp stuff which is, how much of it is intentional? How self aware are these creators Of their flaws and how much of that goes into their storytelling/characterization? If it is intentional, is that better of worse? That they seem to be aware of their flaws as people yet continue to end up in situations that demonstrate those exact flaws? Then again, nobody’s perfect and considering the volume of content they create, the proportion of really and fuck ups isnt huge, just exacerbated by social media’s tendency towards outrage. but on the other hand, is that a fair excuse when their audiences are as big as they are and as young as they tend to be?

I don’t fuckin know, I just think it’s fun to think about.