#DO BETTER ADVERTISING FOR THIS SHOW HBO

[feathered-serpents]

Ah Watcher moving to a streaming service. I have some DEEPLY mixed feelings on this.

On one hand, they've presented themselves as "anti-capitalist members of the leftist club" for essentially their entire careers. Going as far as to push anti-capitalist ideas front and center in MANY episodes of their shows. I absolutely understand how the audience they built by doing that is feeling betrayed by them doing a very very obvious financially motivated choice! It feels scummy! It feels like you've been lied to.

But I also understand that Watcher is a business.

Not only is Watcher a business, it is an independently run business, trying to make money solely off of YouTube advertisments, merch, and patreon. Given the production value of the stuff it makes, that's hard. Because the reality is it is INCREDIBLY hard to make money in this way, you are essentially scraping together as many pennies as you can through as many means as you can to try and keep everything afloat. That's for creators trying to support just themselves and a few members of their family. A whole company? Not sustainable. Not with what they make.

If they wanted to keep expanding, or maybe even wanted to stay afloat at all, their options were: Better monetize their content (streaming) or get bought out. And I think they COULD have gotten bought out, but we saw what happened to Rooster Teeth. Indies getting bought does NOT always end well and puts you under a lot of restrictions as you now need to appeal to your parent company, which could shut you down at any moment if you aren't proving profitable enough for them.

So... I get why Watcher did this. Do I think they approached it in the best way? Honestly, I'm not sure, they're leaving all their videos up, and they're still posting premieres to YouTube, so there won't be NO free content at all, but this will alienate a large part of their audience.

It's a complicated situation, but I don't think we should treat it as "corporate greed" on the same level as giants like Disney and HBO. It's hard to be indie in this world, and who knows if this gamble will even pay off. We're going to have to wait and see

[horizon-verizon]

I'm still on my self-imposed Tumblr writing break but I had to share this comedy gold mine where Condal tells us all about "impostor syndrome" before I'm overtaken by the urge to write an essay on it instead. I have no time to cook. Fortunately, we've been served a meal on a silver platter.

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/house-of-the-dragon-ryan-condal/

House of the Dragon, which premiered in 2022, might have continued that [Game of Thrones] trend. Instead, the show proved a return to form, offering the same Shakespearean dialogue and political intrigue that made people fall in love with Martin’s fictional universe back in 2011. The second season is just as good, if not better.

I can see that this is going to be a very fair assessment of Condal and his work.

“Every day,” Condal confesses when asked if he suffers from imposter syndrome. “For me, though, it was less the scale and scope of House of the Dragon and more its visibility that intimidated me."

😭😭😭 It's okay! He wasn't worried about whether he'd do a good job! He was just worried about how visible his ingenious work would be.

Appointed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Martin’s oeuvre, Condal has — in his own words — “played with fire” without getting burned. In the following interview, he demonstrates his mastery of Westerosi lore and explains why all history – real or imagined – ultimately amounts to propaganda.

The business major is about to tell us about historiography. The question is, does he understand historiography? Or does he think he's inventing a new concept?

Condal is a relative newcomer to television. In his previous life, he graduated from Villanova University with an accounting degree and spent eight years working in pharmaceutical advertising — quite different from working as a Hollywood showrunner, but not entirely unrelated.

Yes, we know. It's actually very related. Especially the way Condal does it. I'll also point out here that his university was a private Catholic institution. I don't feel the need to connect those dots right now.

"I also learned to compromise, adapting your writing to clients who aren’t always going to love your brilliant, avant-garde choices. That’s the talent-studio relationship, right there."

I... this tells us two things about the writing process and attitude behind it. Two things we already knew. But... it's sure telling.

"I was able to navigate challenges that some of my colleagues with filmmaking and art history degrees maybe weren’t prepped for."

In theory, nothing wrong with this^ statement. But in context...

While some criticism is valuable, too much can lead to creative paralysis. “I tend more towards the negative than the positive, so I made a conscious decision to stay away from social media when I got this job,” Condal says. If anything, he believes the healthy distance he maintains between himself and his audience has improved the show: “Audiences think they know what they want, but sometimes, they have to be given what they need instead."

I repeat my prior sentiment.

Ultimately, Condal’s own passion for Martin’s writing outweighed any doubt he had about his own. “I’m trying to make the type of show I would enjoy as a fan, which I am. And while I realize my ideal fan show will be different from someone else’s, I still think that it’s a good true north heading on my compass. Actually, I think that’s why HBO hired me in the first place.”

Oh, we know.

“It was hugely intimidating, moving to a new country [the U.K.] and working with a new but also hugely talented crew that I had to — not tell them what to do, exactly, but lead them; collaborate with them. I definitely had to earn my place, but think that — because I came in with a clear vision of what I wanted for the show — those relationships were easy to establish.”

Make it stop.

The most important part of making a successful fantasy show isn’t the sets, costumes, or special effects, but lore. Fictional places like Westeros have their own unique cultures, customs, and social institutions, all of which help create the illusion that this fantasy world is as real and complex as our own. To transfer that illusion from page to screen, the writers must know Martin’s work as thoroughly as Martin himself. “It’s not just me,” Condal says. “We are all deeply entrenched fans of George. One of our writers has worked with him for many years. If I’m a graduate in Westeros studies, she’s an archmaester,” referring to the order of academics sworn to advise and educate Westeros’ nobility.

Well that explains why they're worse than Gyldayn.

Condal: “Textual references are best done in light touches to remind people that this is a fully realized society with hundreds of years of mapped-out history to it. And you don’t need an entire scene to do that. Instead of writing, you can communicate details environmentally through props like heraldry. For the fans, these little touches tell them they are in good hands. Better yet, they know the details are there just for them, the hardcore fans. For everyone else, the casual viewers, this stuff is flying by 100 miles an hour, and they probably won’t notice it. But it’s there.”

Again, there's nothing wrong with this^ in theory. In. Theory.

“I’m definitely an architect,” says Condal, “and I think I have to be as a screenwriter, because our life is so deadline-driven. The literal definition of a playwright, W-R-I-G-H-T, is ‘one who builds plays.’ A dramatic writer is almost by necessity a structuralist, and I very much fall into that camp.”

Now wait for it... wait for it... Keep in mind these are Brinkhof's (article author) words. But wait for it.

Martin, by contrast, identifies as a gardener. While this writing style — with its many unexpected twists, turns, and deaths — helps explain what made Game of Thrones so successful, it may also have been responsible for the show’s eventual downfall. Sticking to Martin’s analogy, “gardening stories” grow like trees, their narratives branching out in an exponential number of paths, making them difficult to finish. As of today, Martin has spent more than 14 years on the next installment in the Song of Ice and Fire series, his prolonged bout of writer’s block forcing Weiss and Benioff to come up with their own ending.

No words. Now back to Condal.

“The advantage we have over them is that we’re dealing with a finished text, where they were working with an unfinished, living work,” Condal says. “Where the Game of Thrones team had to trim down 5,000 pages into a few dozen scripts, we’re challenged in the opposite direction, turning around 100 pages into a multi-season arc of television, and that requires a lot of invention.”

Oh? So... you do know where it's going. Which means your "inventions" should... probably lead there?

Condal treats Fire & Blood like a real-world historian might treat a manuscript from the Middle Ages. “These three writers all had personal agendas which, to me, seem to reflect one of the main themes of our show: powerful women living in an unbreakable patriarchy. The writers, particularly the priest, appear to blame the war on the squabbling between Rhaenyra and Alicent.”

No comment for now. No... comment...

House of the Dragon pretends to show the real history that Fire & Blood recorded and distorted. Some events happen the way the one of the three authors describe it, while others contain elements of all three conflicting accounts. Others still indicate that none of them got it right. As a rule, every character in the show is far more complex than the jester, maester, and priest made them out to be.

I... I... I... I... I...

“Alicent can be the stereotypical evil stepmother at times,” says Condal, “just as King Viserys, played by Paddy Considine in season 1, can come across at weak. However, the thing that in-universe historians don’t get about Viserys is that he was carrying the burden of a prophecy passed down through generations and couldn’t tell anybody about it. A lot of his supposedly weak decision-making was actually in service of this secret prophecy. We were trying to show that there was more to him, that multiple things about him could be true at the same time.”

Must... Resist... Urge... To... Write... Essay...

“We have to arrive at the same endpoint as the book,” he reminds himself. “Whoever George said becomes king must become king at the end of the war. Hopefully, though, we have a bit of latitude leading up to that, to show how history has been interpreted differently at different times by different historians. I realize I’m playing with fire, but it does excite and fascinate me — to be able to comment on how history is made, not just this fictional history, but all history. It’s all propaganda to some degree.”

😭 The clownery.

Historiographers weep.

@rhaenin-time, you must be stopped. Ryan should be , too, but you have decided to bring me in close proximity to this nonsense. I am sitting here, eating chewy ChipsAhoy, and you came in here like a wrecking ball with this news....I hate you. [read, this is a joke]

I don't think I'll be able to address every thing I want to address in this. I want to be done with this show, I have been tired since the 6th epi of the last season.

Condal is a relative newcomer to television. In his previous life, he graduated from Villanova University with an accounting degree and spent eight years working in pharmaceutical advertising — quite different from working as a Hollywood showrunner, but not entirely unrelated. [...]

I also learned to compromise, adapting your writing to clients who aren’t always going to love your brilliant, avant-garde choices. That’s the talent-studio relationship, right there. [...] Audiences think they know what they want, but sometimes, they have to be given what they need instead."

Who tf does this man think he is?!!! Yes, I needed mother-son coochie eating. I needed to have a brown girl erased for a rapist to become a family man with a sick child. I needed Cole fucking Alicent at least 3 times instead of a brown haired Targ make instrumental alliances with more people to add to his stepfather's armies in the Riverlands. I needed to see nonexistent and sterile parallels. I needed to see a black woman be burned alive when she actually died at least surrounded by family, her ignored by her husband so his later marriage to a white girl be that much more special. I needed to see a disabled man jerk it over a queen's bare feet like she's in OnlyFans and doesn't know where her next meal is. I needed to see a pretten prince jerk it over a window and barely even tell what his brother was doing later with Vhagar instead of another preteen girl bond with the most powerful dragon of the then living ones. I needed to see a woman so much more hypocritical than her book counterpart be framed as one of the wisest women to exist while she praises Jaehaerys I of all people for having a peaceful reign as if his decision to have that council have no bearing on the burgeouning war coming up right now.

He can't even properly write character ACRTION as opposed to REACTION (Seth Abramson's article on substack):

Appointed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Martin’s oeuvre, Condal has — in his own words — “played with fire” without getting burned. In the following interview, he demonstrates his mastery of Westerosi lore and explains why all history – real or imagined – ultimately amounts to propaganda.

And yet Daemon dislikes his daughter or grow impatient with her bec she doesn't have a dragon....while he only claimed one at 16 or a bit younger with Caraxes AND Targs don't actually bond with dragons in the cradle that often, actually usually doing it in preteens to teens AND Aegon I definitely had to bond later in life as well. And said that Aegon I lived/was alive when Old Valyria still existed. Allowed Criston Cole to be called Dornish both by Alicent and the fans without giving us any explanation or exploration of that identity esp when canonically he came from the Stormlander part of the Dornish Marches. "Encyclopedic" my nonexistent ballsack! He has no authority to claim that F&B is so unreliable that he can't tell truth form agenda-motivated fiction and then claim himself intelligent or "brilliant" at the same time!

"avant-garde"...yes bc it's so revoluntionary and creative to have a man lick his former home from his own mother in a "vision". As if making a woman her son's character tool wasn't something HBO already did with its female characters and perform male gaze....okay...As if he's special and different from other male writers and it not just keeping with ASoIaF adaptation tradition. It added so much to the story other than the sick eroticism of something already cleared up last season.

I definitely had to earn my place, but think that — because I came in with a clear vision of what I wanted for the show

No you didn't. If you did, you wouldn't have had a such a problem with the pacing, the numerous inconsistencies, plotholes, the [if true] possible merge of Rhaena and Nettles and many episodes would't contradict each other as if one writer disagreed and vetoed another. And you'd see why/how show!Rhaena's purpose must be kept more or less the exact same as her in the bk for the post-Dance environment. We'd have Maelor. We'd have Daeron mentioned and described much earlier, not as some sort of random ass surprise that is bound to thrown so many locals off when he does appear.

If I’m a graduate in Westeros studies, she’s an archmaester,” referring to the order of academics sworn to advise and educate Westeros’ nobility.

....what the fuck does this even mean?! There are no fucking graduates of anything in Westeros and there are no archmaesters of real life bc the set ups in education of EU medieval history vs Westeros are so different it's not even funny. there are no universities for one to even imagine there are Westerosi "graduates", and there is no way you can tell if a graduate would be more or less educated than a grandmaester, bc we don't have rules of "graduation" or gradations of maestership. the modern school system can never be properly equalized in structure or depth or habits to Westerosi maestership, the instituton.

Therefore trying to create some sort of analogy as if grads exist in Westeros by immediately using "grandmaester" for another you're aligning yourself with is just so stupid. worst part is, I know exactly what he's trying to say, but his use of this device is so wrong, that I'm mad and ure people will just take this at face value instead of see how inept this man is with literature analysis and thus creative writing. Reminds me, ironically, of his saying he's inspired by PARADISE LOST in writing S2...if you don't sit yourself down to hell, sir!

Martin, by contrast, identifies as a gardener. While this writing style — with its many unexpected twists, turns, and deaths — helps explain what made Game of Thrones so successful, it may also have been responsible for the show’s eventual downfall.

And there it is, Ryan is prepping to use the ole fan excuse of "not much story left" excuse people had for D&D, and it makes sense how he would considering how F&B is considered to unreliable to adapt even the clearest events and characterizations as they are given....

[arkus-rhapsode]

Now I've been working on something involving Cartoon Network and its 30+ history and recently it really hit me just how much I had grown up with the channel, but also how much its still growing.

I had started watching in the early 2000s just before the CN City bumpers were a thing and would catch numerous reruns of shows from the 90s. In a lot of ways, Cartoon Network was my channel. Now I enjoyed Nickelodeon for stuff like Spongebob and Danny Phantom and Invader Zim and I just never had Disney Channel in our cable package so I missed out a lot of those shows. But CN... to say its got a special place in my mind palace is an understatement I remember the checkerboard and seeing Cartoon Network Studios at the end of an episode and their little animations. I was there when Miguzi was a thing as well as the alien invasion. I watched the Noods take over in real time and the transition from black and white to rainbow colors of Check it! for the network. I can even remember Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Lab showing up in the Hannah Barbera logo as I was barraged with these old times characters.

I think one of the things so captivating about this was Cartoon Network's skill at making their programs feel like a family. Like not a shared universe like Marvel or Star Wars, but rather entertainment companies having this identity of their properties able to fit together whether through shared advertising, little crossovers, Easter eggs, etc. Who remembers the "Spot the Block" campaign? I was cringing even as a child to that song. This is something companies like Nintendo does a lot or even what Nicktoons used to do. It made it feel so much bigger than just a show, but it also felt intimate. Personal. That all these characters off in their own little world could find themselves sitting down for coffee or playing catch.

However, by 2015 I had basically stopped with the network. My family opted to get rid of cable and invest in early streaming for entertainment and to be honest, I kinda just knew my time may have been up. I was a teenager almost done with high school and this channel is still primarily aimed at kids, my generation was passing.

I would hear about things through the grapevine. Stuff like Steven Universe and Teen Titans Go were kinda impossible to avoid in 2016. But for the most part what the channel did was kinda under my radar. I was perfectly content to transition into my "Anime 4 Life" adulthood. Cut to the 2020s with HBO Max, and I had the chance to catch up on some TV shows and it was fun. Going back down that rabbit hole of nostalgia and I was fine stopping there. But then this year I started working on a project which required my looking back into every Cartoon Network original show ever.

So of course that meant I had to do research into basically a whole decade after I had stopped watching. So I did some watching-We Bare Bears, Long Live the Royals, Mighty Magiswords, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Villainous, Apple & Onion, Craig of the Creek, Summer Camp Island, Victor and Valentino, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Infinity Train, etc. This is probably the part where you expect me to say something like "Everything was better in my day" or something. But like no. I was not... sad about what I was seeing but like I was really glad. There was apart of me being like I'm glad this exists. I'm glad that you can still see that Cartoon Network DNA. It's different than it was before, but like there was still that core of what made Cartoon Network so unique in children's programming. Hell I was a little jealous I couldn't view this through the eyes of a kid today and what it feels like for them.

But for what I am, a man in his mid 20s who still watches animated content, I could almost feel like there was still this link between generations in a way I don't think I've ever seen before. These two halves of a thirty year time frame able to reach out be able to still be Cartoon Cartoons.

Yes I know, people will bring up how there's "dark times" but there always has been. This network wasn't perfect. I know a lot of people like to say there was a downfall, but I gotta be honest, the network always had mixed and controversial bags. I remember people telling me Chowder and Flapjack were garbage that pandered to only loud and gross out humor fans. Yet now they're talked about as absurdist comedy classics. CN Real is considered the lowest point of the network that goes against the entire ethos of the network, but in 2010 you got the debuts of shows like Adventure Time, Generator Rex, Ben 10 Ultimate Alien, etc. The real downfall I see happening right now is in how Warner Bros Discovery the Business has treated animated projects and their horrible treatment of animators in the name of corporate greed.

But I just can't truly dismiss all the good that has come for the last decade. And Hey we're apparently getting a new Cartoon Network show next year, Iyanu: Child of Wonder, it looks good so far. It looks like something that CN City heads wouldn't mind walking around town with Grim and Samurai Jack. And the thing that got me was how I taught to myself "Im glad that if I had kids I know they're is something good for them watch and I could watch alongside them..."

I don't know the future of CN. I don't think anyone can say. But when I really think about kids dedicated networks with an emphasis on purely animation, but also creative visionary driven animated programming, I really thought about how its history is very short in the grand scheme of the world. And I was lucky to be born in the early years of it. I can't tell you, how much a smile the Crossover Nexus special made me smile. Not because it was pandering to my nostalgia of CN City, but like seeing all of these characters preserved in statues in this world, from big names like Ed Edd n Eddy and Courage to stuff that were so short lived like Sym-Bionic Titan or Megas XLR to shows people would scream to the heavens they thought were trash like Secret Mountain Fort Awesome or Problem Solverz to so projects that barely got off the ground like Firebreather. It felt like everything mattered. That this short history means something. Its worth remembering the new and the old and everything in-between.

Because it's not just memories that matter, but it's carrying on that creative spark. That vision for a Network about and for cartoons. Carrying it beyond my life time. Carrying it far into the future. I hope I'm not the only one who feels that.

Welp, sorry for this ramble post to my usual followers. I was just taking a break from my usual discussion based content to work through some feelings I was having.

[notsamsfanaccount]

i’m fucking livid over the cancellation of ofmd3.

it doesn’t even make sense for them to cancel it. ofmd broke streaming records for HBO max. it was one of the top shows of 2023 despite coming out in october. there was official merchandise and a huge advertising campaign (which i remember VERY vividly because i was sick before it came out and i was passed out on the couch for a solid week, waking up several times a day to “no, we’re on a break”).

it’s obvious what’s happening. this is what happens when writers don’t queerbait; the studios do it. they love our money and viewership, but they hate US as people. david jenkins and the rest of the team behind ofmd gave us an unashamedly queer story, and now that we’ve lined HBO’s pockets, it’s getting kicked to the curb.

the ending of season two was a “just in case” ending, which was appreciated, but i feel like everyone thought it was a given for there to be a season three. sure, season two wasn’t as good as the first one, but most of that was a pacing issue that wouldn’t have been there if HBO Max didn’t cut the budget and season length. already looks pretty sabotagey to me. not to be tinhatting about this, but that’s hella fuckin suspicious. trying to tank the ratings so they’d have an excuse to cancel the show.

but after years of sherlock levels of queerbait, we were fine with it. ofmd2 was good even with all the cuts and restrictions. of course it could’ve been better, but we all know why it wasn’t, and now we all know why we won’t have an ending.

i was scared for the finale to come out. i thought they were gonna massacre half the characters, rocky horror style. a whole “this is what happens when you’re queer” hayes code era twist. but of course that didn’t happen, the writers love us and their show too much for that. i always have seen that people like us don’t get happy endings, but for a moment, we did. and then we didn’t.

doesn’t that make you viscerally ill? we were given a show that treats queerness as a given, not as some tragic odd-one-out character development thing, depicts relationship dynamics we never thought we’d see on tv, and celebrates all of us. we were profited off of, which is okay as long as that profit is going toward the people who made this for us, and a lot of it did. then, the executives who platformed the show to get into our untapped consumer market rip it all away. they have our stats and subscription, that’s all they wanted.

the thing is, they could’ve had more. they could’ve just let us be and profited even further off of a third season, but something about us is just too much for them. it’s sick. it’s bigoted. it’s infuriating.

this keeps happening. remember when I’m Not Okay With This got canceled on a cliffhanger? and for what? the show got great viewership, an active fanbase, and people willing to stay subscribed to netflix for another season. it wasn’t even corporate greed of not wanting to cough up the production costs. they would’ve made a whole bunch of money if it was renewed. their bigotry was stronger than their corporate greed.

they hate us that much. enough to manufacture a tragic ending. enough to not rake in more profits just to get us off of their roster. i may be a bit dramatic about this but god DAMN it sure does feel intentional.

[myfanfictiongarden]

You ever start to watch something that is advertised and praised as being “historically accurate”, even is so in many parts, but then one thing is just so insanely wrong that you sit there blank faced thinking WTH?

Well, I started watching Rome (because I’m a sucker for history and because Bruno Heller worked on it) and seven episodes in I’m mostly enjoying it, a lot of things are great, the actors, characters, sets, costumes, historic context,… but then I go check out on Wikipedia what is known about Octavian’s mother Atia- a character thats delightful to hate so far- and guess my shock when discovering she was the absolute opposite of what is presented in the show. 

Freaking why? Why change a historic character to be the complete opposite of how it was? Next you gonna tell me Mussolini had nothing to do with the Fascist movement and wanted actually to be a classical painter in Verona. Yes, this may be an extreme example, but if HBO is allowed the spread bs why shouldn’t I be too?

Wanna know what the official reasoning was? They wanted to “draw significant influences from other Roman women from the same time period, such as the infamous Clodia, and Marc Antony’s wife, Fulvia.”

Came me crazy, but why not just feature Fulvia then? She was alive and married to Marc Antony at the time the show takes place, why not have her involved? Watching the show you really wonder how Octavian and his sister achieved such noble greatness with a mother like that and then you read some facts and realise that the actual Atia would have brought up such great characters.

Here’s what they should have done:

Instead of having Servilia of the Junii (mother of the famous Brutus) as a recurring character, have Fulvia take that role more prominently and switch her “villainous” role with Atia, who now would become the quiet, well educated & mannered woman she was. Fulvia, as wife of Marc Antony, would often spend her days in Atia´s house- given that Atia is a niece of Caesar and the whole family is in favour of him. Caesar and Marc Antony may be best-buddies right now, but given that Antony is not always the brightest and the fact that Atia is also in good favour with supporters of the Republic makes it important for Fulvia to be on good terms with her. Fulvia would then be the one who would comment that Octavian reads too much and is getting too much of an “feminine aura” because of it, she would volunteer to hire Titus as a tutor for Octavian to teach what makes a “real man”. Because she would play her cards as much as she could she would try to catch Caesar’s eye on the party Atia was throwing in his hour, only to be ignored for Servillia (with whom we would see him spend the night with) and angered about that it would be Fulvia who would give in work those tasteless graffiti, wishing to cut away all outside influents from the most powerful man in Rome. In this case it would also have been Fulvia´s personal slave who would have witnessed Caesar’s seasure and seeing Octavian and Caesar “together” brought those news right back to her mistress who immediately would have tried to use that to her advantage only to be disappointed that it wasn’t like that, but suddenly inspired that- if she can’t seduce Caesar- she’ll seduce young Octavian- Caesar’s favourite & adopted son.

Meanwhile we would have still seen Marc Antony enjoy his time with other women, yet always come back to his wife because she was so cunning and ambitious- it would have played perfectly into the fact that he later fell in love with Cleopatra, for while Fulvia knew how to play the game Cleopatra knew it better. 

Fulvia would also have been the one to pursue Atia to make Octavia divorce her husband because with the politic situation it wouldn’t have been “good for the family” to be associated with him- and to that extend for her.

See? We could have gotten an ambitious, cunning, strong female character and still have it historically accurate!

[daylander1000]

HotD vs GoT (season 1) ?

I've seen many comparisons between the two and according to some critics (quite a lot of them tbh) HotD is superior or has a potential to be because... reasons. Now, while I do believe that, while comparisons are always odious they sometimes make, but this one is really weird and unjust because a lot of people are still disappointed with how GoT ended (personally, I wasn't happy with how some things played out either, especially in the last two seasons, but I am definitely not that upset four years later and actually remember the show as a whole more or less fondly) and this disappointment together with anti D&D discourse probably clouds the judgement. However, they seem to ignore that GoT had 8 seasons and was mostly well liked and praised until the last two, while HOTD has barely begun and already has many problems writing-wise imho. Will those same people, after HOTD ends (and there is no way that everyone will be satisfied with the ending) retrospectively start to hate everything they are praising right now, I wonder? I do sincerely hope that HotD will improve and that every new season will be better then the previous one, but based strictly on the first seasons (I recently rewatched GoT s1) it's GoT >> HotD.

What do you think?

I didn't like GOT. I didn't watch it properly. I tuned in to see how they did some of the bigger moments like Red Wedding and Purple Wedding, and I watched the last two seasons just for asoiaf closure, and honestly, I liked the GOT ending, more or less.

Not Dany being killed by Jon, or Arya vs Night King, or King Bran, but Dany burning the whole place down. Her arc's sort of going there in the books imo. I'm a simple woman—I'm in this for the dragons and for Drogon burning things. I wanted to see Stoneheart and Young Griff and those storylines, but I will take Drogon burning things.

I truly don't get the pretense that HOTD is better than GOT or that Codal & co are in any way better than D&D. I'm giving them less points actually because they saw how GOT unraveled and they've made zero improvements. D&D at least have an excuse—Martin promised to have the books finished when they started. They signed on to adapt, not finish asoiaf on their own strengths. It's a complicated thing that even the creator is struggling with after a decade. They tried, at least.

Codal and co are already floundering in S1. They've already lost narrative coherence. Even the characters aren't coherent. And yes, you can use a time skip to just wave a "People change" flag at all the inconsistencies but come on.

In their defence tho, "And then all the hyper-intelligent special rare sentient magic dragons killed each other in the stupidest ways ever for no real reason" is not an easy story to tell without an extreme amount of hand-waving.

I don't think F&B should exist. I think Martin should have looked it over a couple of times like "Hot six-year-old? Jumping from one dragon to another? WTF is this? This ain't it. Nope."

Honestly, I think HBO just has a bunch of media people on the payroll hyping them up so they can use the emmys for free advertising. Brian Cox is up for a lead actor Emmy with a grand total of three episodes? It's not TV, just HBO living by HBO rules. If they say it's better then it's better. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[cyarsk5230]

OPINION

By Emily Baker

TV Editor

I thought The Idol couldn’t sink any lower – then I saw the ending

A gross twist and a false rape accusation sees The Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s empty psychodrama plumb new depths

July 3, 2023 1:45 pm(Updated 6:44 pm)

After clashing with her team over her album's first single, Jocelyn pushes herself to the limit on the set of her new music video, while Nikki sees potential in backup dancer Dyanne; Tedros introduces Jocelyn and Leia to Izaak and Chloe.

Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn (Photo: HBO)

You don’t have to have seen a second of The Idol to understand its vibe. Grainy images from the drama – created by the man behind Euphoria, Sam Levinson, and Abel Tesfaye, better known as popstar The Weeknd – show Lily-Rose Depp as singer Jocelyn, always scantily clad, either hanging off the arm of her Svengali, Tedros (Tesfaye, whose performance is legions below sub-par) or looking longingly, despondently, dead-eyed into the middle distance. LA sunshine, sprawling mansions, sex, grit, bodies (but only women’s bodies). You get the gist.

After five episodes, The Idol has proved itself to have little substance beyond those murky aesthetics. Between horrendously cringe sex scenes, endless dance numbers designed to show off Jocelyn’s writhing limbs and bickering between her management and record label execs (the drama’s saving grace, if it has one, along with Depp’s brilliant performance), we’ve watched Tedros manipulate Jocelyn and his troupe of wannabes for power and sex. He is the show’s villain with not one redeeming quality.

But the last in the series is, shockingly, asking us to feel sorry for Tedros. The man who beat Jocelyn with the hairbrush – her mum used to hit her with – during a bondage session, the man who was revealed to have multiple domestic violence charges against him, the man who tortured Jocelyn’s creative director with an electric dog collar. How do the “sick and twisted minds” (as advertised by the drama’s promo material) of Sam Levinson and Abel Tesfaye turn Tedros into – in Levinson’s own words – “the victim”? By making Jocelyn the bad guy, of course.

While fighting for the upper hand in her relationship with Tedros, Jocelyn becomes determined to introduce her new persona to the world; Jocelyn's team discusses her increasing involvement with Tedros and his inner circle.

Abel Tesfaye as Tedros and Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn (Photo: HBO)

A twist reveals (or rather, suggests – telling a succinct story isn’t one of The Idol’s strong points) that Jocelyn has been aware of Tedros’s machinations this whole time, using him to further her career. Pissed off after finding out that their entire relationship was engineered with the help of her backup dancer Dyanne (Blackpink’s Jennie Kim) and now that she’s got what she wants from him – a new sound, new supporting acts, her tour secured – she can discard him: “You’ve served your purpose,” she cuts. “I’m done with you.”

Jocelyn’s transformation from a sympathetic, preyed upon young woman to a scheming, calculating bitch is misogyny 101. Rejection, or even mere disinterest, is kryptonite to sexist men who, like Tedros, believe their power over women is both a God-given right and beyond reproach. It’s the main thread of thinking behind the incel subculture, a group of men who are “involuntary celibate” and blame women for their lack of intimate relationships. The mass murders carried out by some incels – including Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 others in California in 2014 – have been incited, the killers said, by being rejected by women. It’s a dangerous, harmful ideology to use as a plot point in a TV show driven by chauvinistic values.

As is the inclusion of a false rape allegation against Jocelyn’s ex-boyfriend, Rob (Karl Glusman), arranged by Tedros to get him out of her life. Fake accusations do of course happen, but they are entirely less common than the media would have us believe: only 3 to 4 per cent of rape allegations in the UK are thought to be entirely fabricated. Add it to the gross list of anti-women, misogynistic sentiment The Idol has pedalled for the past five weeks.

Character Image

Jennie Kim as Dyanne and Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn (Photo: HBO)

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While Tedros was banished from Jocelyn’s life, Vanity Fair journalist Talia (Hari Nef) published an article about him, detailing his sordid past and creepy cult leading him to lose his nightclub. Again, we’re supposed to feel sorry for the bloke, who has been tricked by a woman who played him at his own game, but – like most stories of “cancel culture” – all I can see is a man having to deal with the consequences of his own actions. If you ask me, he’s got off lightly.

Still, Tedros turns up to the stadium where Jocelyn will open her new tour. Midway through the performance (shot at LA’s SoFi stadium, using The Weeknd’s real fans at one of his shows), Jocelyn brings him out on stage, snogging him for all to see before whispering in his ear: “You’re mine forever. Now, go stand over there.” Does it make sense? Not at all! Does it make Jocelyn look just as bad as Tedros and, he, in return, the victim? You bet.

This final episode tells us everything we need to know about how The Idol sees women: manipulative and scheming, but also malleable and objects of desire. It’s a grossly oversimplified version of abuse, a vague plot point and excuse to see Lily-Rose Depp on her knees as opposed to an all-too-familiar feature of fame that deserves a needling.

There’s been no word on whether HBO has decided to renew the series, but this confusing, stupid ending certainly leaves the door open for Jocelyn and Tedros’s messy games to continue. It would be to the benefit of everyone – especially The Weeknd, whose reputation is hanging on by a thread – if this cycle of abuse came to an end.

Topics

HBOTV Opinion

[wanderingandfound]

I'm being a petty bitch.

On one hand people resorting to gofundme for things to stop them from dying like healthcare or being able to move out of a toxic (literal or metaphorical) home or needing urgent repairs for their basic survival is like, a bad sign of society. It isn't a bad use of the website. But also then it does lead to people who use it for what I think it was meant for, like funding a trip for fun, look frivolous, because ~obviously~ that money could be put to better use (stop people from dying).

On the other hand, I've heard from some game designers and other artists how they're irritated with people using Kickstarter to fund already completed projects. They say that those creators should just use preorders instead, because it undermines other artists who are asking for funding to live for the next year to create the game, rather than just manufacturing it. And while I understood that criticism I didn't wholeheartedly agree with it, but I'm not an artist.

But then fucking. The biggest names in one of the largest genres who are traditionally published and at the top of their field using kickstarter to fund their books??????? By which I'm referring to Sanderson and the graphic novel adaptation of Good Omens????????????? Like I was pettily hating on Critical Role for getting like eleven million dollars from fans and then taking that money and going to fucking Amazon with it. And on an even smaller scale the six million for the A:tLA PbtA game that's an official Nickelodeon licensed product but I don't think any of the money was given to the Bakers who designed Apocalypse World. But Sanderson and Gaiman???????

But then. Look. I am so sorry OFMD fans. I love some of you. But crowdfunding $20k for an advertising campaign for an HBO show? Come the fuck on. I know half of that was given to charity but get real.

All you guys are doing is the publishers' and production companies' work for them. All you are doing them is showing them they do not need to pay people for their labor and they can instead outsource it to fans. You are being used.

The thing is $20k is fucking nothing to HBO. But it could be a lot to independent artists or charity. I'm not saying you must always spend your money in the most moral of ways. I am not saying that you can never be frivolous or treat yourself. But if you are actively campaigning for a billion dollar company you are doing something wrong in my opinion.

[walkonpooh]

The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt vol. 1 - Al Feldstein Review

So I've always wanted to read the Tales from the Crypt comics, having loved the TV show growing up. So if you don't know Tales from the Crypt, published in the late 1940s and early 1950s by comic book publisher EC Comics is a hugely important comic book in comic history. The super hero fad had sort of come and gone in post World War II and comics about the American frontier, noir-ish detective comics and because of EC Comics, horror comics became popular comics. Because of their content though, the comics started to be criticised by parents, schoolteachers and clergymen and as a result, what was known as the Comics Code was put into place.

The Comics Code Authority was formed in a congressional hearing in 1954 and while there was no law requiring its use, advertisers and retailers used its reassurance to stock the books. There were the guidelines to get the stamp of Comics Code, per wikipedia: "Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals. If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity. Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority. Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation. In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds. Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited. Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gunplay, physical agony, the gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated. No comic magazine shall use the words "horror" or "terror" in its title. All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted. All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated. Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or shall be published only where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue and in no case shall evil be presented alluringly, nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader. Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited. Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden. Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure. Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable. Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at nor portrayed. Rape scenes, as well as sexual abnormalities, are unacceptable. Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested. Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden. Nudity with meretricious purpose and salacious postures shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product; clothed figures shall never be presented in such a way as to be offensive or contrary to good taste or morals." So, with these in mind and the dwindling sales since retailers would not stock their books, Tales from the Crypt was cancelled. It was eventually revived as a movie and then more importantly, a TV show on HBO in the 1990s, which is mainly what I've been familiar with and love. These comics aren't anything groundbreaking reading this in 2023, but they're hugely important if you're any sort of horror fan. I think they do get better as the series ages, but mainly the plots follow a formula; someone does something wrong, morally or legally and is punished for it in various methods. The Crypt Keeper here is an old man, not the boney-puppet of the TV show voiced wonderfully by John Kassir, but there is a charm to this whole thing if you can place yourself back in that time period. It's wild that these comics caused such an uproar, because by modern day standards these stories are fairly tame, content you would have found in the 1990s in teen books like the Fear Street series by R.L. Stine. Anyway, I do recommend these comics with that frame of mind, if you can buy into it, they're a quick enjoyable read, though nothing you haven't seen before.

4/5

[blueiight]

Idk how you market something on a service no one has, netflix gets huge hit after hit cause they have massive subs and they can just make you watch their next show by putting it on your homepage. Same with HBO they just advertise their next big show while you're watching succesion/house of the dragon. Disney+ shows can advertise on ABC, ESPN and other Disney owned properties. I'll bet AMC advertised heavily when Better Call Saul was airing but like unfortunately these shows do NOT have the same target demo and the people who would be interested in IWTV are unlikely to have cable anymore. I think at one point Hulu had the rights and it would've been a bigger success there for sure cause they can cross pollenate with FX and lot of people get the Disney/Hulu bundle.

hulu had the rights at some point but they were intending to start with the vampire lestat & skip interview entirely so win some lose some🤷🏾

[roskvawinther]

This is also a large part of what happened with Rooster Teeth, who after 21 years was completely shut down by Warner Bros this year.

They were doing super well, by like 2018 or so they talked about having like 450 employees, they were working out of huge film studios, they were making tons of new shows. But al of issues happened, that drew away people watching.

Controversies, yearly. First a member of their gaming youtube channel Achievement Hunter leaves due to massive amounts of racist comments she was getting and the bosses just telling her to suck it up. Then they get a ton of Glassdoor reviews about mistreatment of animation staff. Then another AH member leaves because of the same racist comments that higher ups told her to just get used to. Then a member of AH is outed as a literal rapist. Then a trans member leaves after 10 years, going public about homophobic and transphobic treatment from coworkers, lack of payment for years of work, overworking, all sorts of awful shit. An animator talked about being bullied severely by members of the on screen talent who had become higher up department heads purely because they'd been at the company since it was at like 20 people.

Lack in quality! Everything just saw a huge dip in quality. Their flagship show Red vs Blue was taken over by someone who had never written or directed a story driven show before, a highly hyped up animated series was essentially a flash animated kids cartoon due to the head of animation funneling all the funding into his pet project mech anime starring Michael B Jordan and David Tennant that ended up being a boring spectacle with nothing to say. Lets plays turned into nothing but scream fests as they tried to fill every second with forced jokes. Fans had been talking about the dip in quality for years, but the people making everything brushed it off and told the fans to stop being "armchair ceo's". Not only this, the website also kept getting worse, as they kept implementing updates no one liked.

Rising prices. The "FIRST" program, originally called the Sponsor program, was their long running highly successful subscription service, where you paid monthly or yearly, and got to use the website without ads, watch videos without ads, and got a TON of exclusive content which free members didnt get. This worked amazingly for a long time, until they started raising the price, every year or so since like 2016, they'd raise the price of the membership by like 1-5 dollars, which really ads up after 8 years. They also started taking shows that had been free before, and putting them on HBO Max. So Genlock and other shows were now exclusively streamed on HBO, so not even first members could watch them, the people actually funding the company.

Copious amounts of ads. A good 10 minutes of every hour of content was dedicated to ads. HelloTushy, Audible, Manscaped, Dollar Shave Club, MVMT Watches, Better Help, every single silicon valley start up scam was given more and more time on every single show and podcast they made, and for a loooooong time, you couldn't get out of watching these ads, as they didn't make first member versions of their podcasts or videos without the ad reads.

All of this really added up. At some point, a majority of the fanbase that had been in the millions, who resulted in every new minecraft letsplay or whatever having over a million views on youtube in 24 hours since release, all left. Suddenly the same types of videos couldn't breach 30,000 views in a MONTH.

The entire fanbase just went "Okay, I've supported these creators for 20 years now. I've paid a monthly subscription for over a decade. Do I really want another depressing scandal, another subscription price hike, another shitty game show with 15 minutes of advertisements in the one hour it runs, or do I just delete my account, unsubscribe, delete the app, and find something else to spend my little free time on?"

And unsurprisingly, everyone left, and Warner Bros shut them down 6 months ago.

Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.

Keep reading

[danielsiegelalonso]

The All Weaving Thread: How Music Influences Everything in Media | Daniel Siegel Alonso

Music in media is like audio umami, the perfect seasoning in a recipe. It has the ability to enhance flavor and provide depth. Daniel Siegel Alonso examines how music is indispensable in enchanting consumers, from the memorable jingles of television commercials to the emotionally charged earworms in viral videos. Its influence is ubiquitous, transforming ordinary content into unforgettable experiences, evoking emotions, and molding cultural trends. 

Television Commercials: The Jingle Jungle

Siegel Alonso begins by considering the television commercial. Music is the secret weapon in advertising and marketing, where attention spans can be shorter than the length of a cat video on TikTok. With its catchy melody and simple lyrics, the classic jingle is a masterclass in auditory branding. Do you remember 1971's "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke"? That was more than just a tune; it was a cultural touchstone. 

Today, in modern advertising, music's role transcends nostalgic jingles. Brands now curate full-fledged soundtracks to build an emotional narrative. Take Apple's commercials, for example. They often spotlight indie artists whose songs capture the essence of innovation and simplicity. These choices aren't random; they align with the brand's identity and leave a lasting impression. 

Music Videos: The Visual Symphony

Music videos are the perfect union of audio and visual storytelling and have revolutionized how people consume music. These clips are not merely promotional tools but are art forms. At its peak, music videos were cultural events. Nobody took advantage of the medium better than Madonna. Think of her "Justify My Love" video—a short film that was so subversive that MTV banned it. (Ever the businesswoman, The Material Girl decided to make the controversial video available commercially as a video single, marking the first time a musician released a single in this format in the United States.)

Daniel Siegel Alonso fast forwards to the current age of social media, with channels like YouTube and TikTok breathing new life into the music video. Artists can now connect directly with their audience, bypassing cautious publicists and conservative record company executives. This democratization has led to a surge in creativity. Think about Childish Gambino's cinematic "This is America." The music video sparked widespread discussion and analysis with its in-your-face imagery and complex themes. It wasn't just a song but a statement. 

Social Media: The Viral Soundtrack

Music is the magical ingredient in social media that can instantly catapult content into viral fame. Platforms like TikTok have turned short, catchy music clips into a global phenomenon. A 15-second snippet can lead to myriad dance challenges, lip-sync clips, and memes, propelling relatively obscure singers to stardom overnight. 

Daniel Siegel Alonso uses Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" as a key example. With its genre-blending sound, the song became a sensation largely thanks to TikTok. Users created countless videos featuring the song, and the track's infectious energy spread like wildfire. The result was a record-breaking run on the Billboard Hot 100—and a Grammy win!

Even Instagram's Stories and Reels leverage songs to enrich their user experience. Whether it's a tearjerker ballad emphasizing heartfelt memories or an aggressive track fueling a workout video, music layers in emotional content that words and images can't achieve.

The Emotional Manipulator

Music's influence in media lies in its power to manipulate emotions—the invisible puppeteer tugs at the heartstrings, stirring nostalgia, joy, sadness, or excitement. Filmmakers and content creators understand this well. Imagine watching a horror flick without a creepy soundtrack. 

In television shows, music often acts as an additional character on screen. Netflix's "Stranger Things" and HBO's "Game of Thrones" have iconic soundtracks that are instantly recognizable and have even revitalized musicians' careers (think Kate Bush and her iconic song "Running Up That Hill"). These scores aren't just background fodder; they are crucial to storytelling by creating tension and enhancing dramatic moments. 

Cultural Shaper

Beyond its emotional impact, music in media also serves as a cultural shaper. It impacts everything from fashion to language and even social movements. Consider MTV's influence and reach at its height in the 1980s and 1990s. The cable channel didn't just air music videos; it created superstars and defined an era, influencing everything from hairdos to political views. 

While MTV may not be the behemoth it once was, social media platforms continue the tradition today. Viral music trends can spark global discussions. For instance, the Black Lives Matter movement saw numerous musicians penning powerful anthems that became rallying cries, shared widely on social media. In this context, music transcends entertainment; it's a vehicle for evolution.

Conclusion

In the grand tapestry of media, Daniel Siegel Alonso asserts that music is the thread that weaves everything together. It turns commercials into cultural icons, music videos into visual feasts, and social media content into viral sensations. Its power to elicit emotion, contribute to culture, and tell unique stories makes it an invaluable tool for creators. 

If there are stories to tell and products to sell, music will remain at the heart of media, striking the right chords and leaving an unforgettable mark on our collective psyche. Ultimately, it's not just about the notes and melodies; it's about the feelings and memories they arouse, making music the unsung hero in the ever-changing media landscape.

[cyarskj52]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0282rcVGfJc3oxiHpfepE3NVhYEJ5mmjtzXGkf4RxoE6CopRMtQ2F9GQLRFatfCj7ml&id=26423400230&mibextid=ncKXMAHOMELATESTCULTUREENTERTAINMENTBEAUTY/STYLEAWARDS SEASON 2023

TELEVISION

Can The Weeknd Rebound From The Idol’s Failure?

The ‘Earned It’ singer’s HBO drama is ending early after airing only five episodes.

By

Stephanie Holland

Published55 minutes ago

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Our long national nightmare is finally over.

After five episodes, an avalanche of criticism, and countless tweets wondering “What the hell am I watching?,” Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye’s HBO drama, The Idol, is ending. Though the series was originally supposed to be six episodes long, this Sunday’s fifth episode, “Jocelyn Forever” is being called the season finale. Sources are saying that it was always supposed to be five episodes, according to TV Line. That may be true, but it’s hard not to think that the relentless scrutiny the series was under didn’t play a role in its early exit.

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The Idol stars Lily-Rose Depp as embattled pop star Jocelyn, who finds herself wrapped up in a cult with mysterious club owner Tedros, played by Tesfaye. On the surface, that sounds like a somewhat interesting premise, but the series has totally failed in its execution of anything remotely resembling an entertaining TV show. The dialogue is jaw-droppingly bad, while nothing in the story seems to make any kind of sense.

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Honestly, this is probably one of those shows that never should have been made in the first place. It had a weird, uncomfortable vibe around it right from the start. Once it underwent multiple creative changes, with cast and crew exiting the project and Sam Levinson (Euphoria) taking over as director, that should’ve signaled to everyone involved that this project was dead in the water.

Then, before its premiere, stories began to circulate about the explicit, bordering on exploitative, sexual aspects of Depp’s character. Once the series actually hit the air, the reaction didn’t get much better, as reviews ranged from loathing it, to straight-up ignoring it. It currently stands at 24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. After the second episode featured a particularly cringeyscene, where Tedros directs Jocelyn through a series of sexual poses and situations, viewers seemed completely done with this nonsense. While Tesfaye says they were trying to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, it just came off as gratuitous and gross.

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The Weeknd is one of the most uniquely creative artists in the industry. He probably already has 10 wildly different projects lined up and is ready for the next challenge. I hope he learns from this experience and realizes that it’s great to push the envelope, but he also has to learn that those shocking, jaw-dropping moments have to be earned. And when the audience is telling you something is deeply uncomfortable and has crossed a line they won’t follow you over, it’s OK to listen to them. He also needs to know that as an artist your credibility will only buy you one, maybe two, of these high-profile failures. We encourage our favorites to take risks, but be smart about it.Start

Sent from my iPhone

[t-eyla]

“streaming services are untrustworthy now”

THEY ALWAYS HAVE BEEN

THEY. ALWAYS. HAVE. BEEN.

You want to own your media. The music you love, the TV you love, the shows you love, the fic and podcasts and fanworks and books you love, DOWNLOAD THEM. I don’t care if you pirate or buy them (though the smaller the creator, the more I’d suggest you buy, or at least donate to them through whatever means available), but if you want to be sure that you’ll always have access, you need to physically own this stuff. Yes, even if it’s all digital.

The thing that streaming services offer is called SVOD. That means “subscription video on demand”. You’re subscribing to a provider, and you do not get a choice what the selection of content is this provider offers. Think of them like a TV channel. You can watch what’s on at any given time, but there is no guarantee that what you’ve seen will ever be shown again.

Back in the day, people started to use VHS to record television content and keep it. Tons and tons of academic writing has been produced on how much changed when people could finally OWN THEIR MEDIA. Do not give that up. Make sure you have this stuff. Turn off your wifi and mobile data and figure out how much media you’ve still got access to. If there’s something you’re dearly missing, go and make it accessible to you offline right now.

Here’s what happened at HBO Max (as far as I understand): they spent money on the merger with Discovery, and then figured out that they’d acquired shows, or now had shows in their catalogue, that they didn’t expect to make money off of, because the shows either didn’t fit their brand or their desired target audience or whatever else stupid reason they had. There’s this tax thing you can do where you can declare an expense a loss, essentially, if you can be sure that you won’t be making money off of whatever you acquired with that money. If it’s declared a loss, you don’t pay taxes on it. Now that they’ve declared the money they spent on these shows a loss, they cannot be found out to be making money off of them. This is why those shows are getting purged. And because nobody ever produced any physical media of these shows, or offered them for paid download where you got to keep the files, they’re just GONE. (And this is why art and capitalism don’t mix, sigh.)

This will happen again. We’ve got so many streaming services now that the smaller ones are starting to get bought by the bigger ones. A streaming platform isn’t a particularly profitable business, and since we have a few big names bouncing around the market, these big names are each going to have to develop their own specific brand in order to be unique enough to warrant a subscription (if they haven’t yet). So we’ve got mergers in an industry that’s struggling to stay out of the red and whose big players are desperately trying to develop individual, distinct profiles. Shows that don’t fit into this silo structure will be dropped and purged. Just like it used to be on TV, anything that doesn’t bring in subscribers (i.e. that doesn’t have broad mass appeal) will not find a place anymore.

Streaming is still better than traditional TV. At least they’re now trying to appeal to the people watching rather than advertisers, and there’s more leeway in regards to the kind of content that can be run. But the creativity is going to narrow. So any show that you love, anything that is exactly the kind of thing that you’ve wanted to see for years but that never got made because it doesn’t have “mass appeal” -- download it. Make sure you own it any way possible. They can take it away at any moment, and they will, because money beats art when you’re running your creative industries for profit.

[auratale]

The biggest argument I used to see to all this (but don't seem to see after the SAG-AFTRA strikes now) was "well, what about the artists? They gotta pay them!"

1. The artists have already been paid, they don't get any revenue from sales made on the shelves.

2. The studios and companies that are commissioned for these projects are paid by the distributors and are given a budget, they control the budget and thus the pay that ends up to those artists.

3. That said, where do the distributors get their money? Sponsors, ads, and merch, lots and lots of merchandise. This is generated not by sales of the art distributed, but by the virality of the product.

4. These disturbing companies (Disney, HBO, Paramount) already have an extraordinary amount of money, which they could easily double, triple, or even octuple the budget and pay to the artists and it wouldn't even hurt these companies in the least bit.

5. Why should I spend money towards a company that isn't even going to support its starving artists? My money can go to better things.

6. Studios have to bid for projects anyway to be greenlit for them, which means the smaller studios may never get a second show again and will close down. The system itself is shitty. The major studios that do get these projects are ones that already have a lot of power and money and likely put their budget towards the executives and producers FAR more than the stunt artists, make up artists, or ESPECIALLY the animators and writers.

Piracy is something frowned upon by rich people because that's less money that THEY make. Rich people don't need MORE, artists DO.

So go out there and pirate! Make your favorite shows known! Make it go viral! Get it greenlit for a second season by getting advertisers interested in what everyone else is interested it.

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

[limmastyles]

Now I’m not sure if the contract ending was the reason of the split or because of the fact that Olivia was just getting herself into way too much mess but it was perfect timing. Harry and Jeff and his entire team realize that how bad Olivia was for business. So either the contract ended and they dropped her or when things started to get messy hair and his team distance themselves from her and then left her to dry. It was the right thing to do. She was really starting to affect his reputation and I think it Harry’s team finally saw the light. The second the movie came out on HBO and the last concert of the LA residency was done, the last show in the US to cut her loose. Go to South America Start fresh and an actually be able to enjoy the tour. He doesn’t look heartbroken, he looks perfectly fine and the concert last night in Mexico shout that. There is something so much layer about him and he looks much happier and much better and it’s because she’s not around anymore and he doesn’t have to worry about her. For anyone who thought that this was a real relationship and Harry was heartbroken the concert last night should show you that the narrative is false. He’s perfectly fine. Olivia try to go out and have a brave face but she’s pissed off. We all know the only reason why she gets invited to these events was because of her relationship with her. We all know she only got invited to the governor’s fault because of hairy. The second hairy broke up with her her meal ticket was gone. We won’t see her at important events for a while. And if you think don’t worry darling is going to get invited for anything important you are sadly mistaken. Costuming, set design, and maybe Florence Pugh and the cinematography but other than that it’s done. There are so many better films I have come out and will be coming out so she’s fucked and she has no one to blame in the situation but herself. If she focussed more on making that movie great then try to convince the entire world of Harry styles wanna date a girl like her then she wouldn’t be in the situation that she was in before. The only reason why she got all the things that she has got it was because of hairy. Not because she’s talented, not because she’s a good Director, and not because she’s relevant but because of the guy she had to fake date to get all of those things. Harry made her relevant, take Harry out of the equation she’s not relevant anymore. We have been saying this for months and she hasn’t been listening because I know for a fact that she has been looking at all the blogs and seeing what people have been saying about her. Her 15 minutes of fame are up and by this time next year we won’t even care. The people who have so been supporting her won’t care about her anymore, and she’ll feedback into obscurity. This was a short term fix to making her relevant. She was thinking short term goals not long term ones and that’s what fucked her over. She could have really done something with this stunt, really been successful in restarting her career and she fucked it over for herself.

If she had listened to our words while watching our blogs, she would have been able to do something right and save herself. But she's too narcissistic and selfish to listen to anyone. (it's funny that a bunch of PR blogs know more about PR, promotion and advertising than she and her team lol) Anyway, it's all her fault, she ruined everything by herself, although I'm sure she was warned