#Encouraging Diversity

[ginaraemitchell]

Children's Book Review | My Dog Thinks He's A Cat by Craig T. Feigh | 5-Stars | #ChildrensPictureBook #Diversity #BeingDifferent @craigtfeigh @BookBaby

My Dog Thinks He's a Cat is easy to read and perfect for young readers who love animals and humor. It will make you smile, giggle, and maybe even bark or meow! I highly recommend “My Dog Thinks He’s a Cat” to anyone who wants a good laugh and a fun lesson. And don’t forget to check out the other books by Craig T. Feigh. They are all paw-some! #ChildrensPictureBook #Diversity #BeingDifferent #Acceptance @craigtfeigh @BookBaby

Children’s Book Review | My Dog Thinks He’s A Cat by Craig T. Feigh | #ChildrensPictureBook #Diversity #BeingDifferent #Acceptance @craigtfeigh @BookBaby Book Details ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Purchase Links for My Dog Thinks He’s A Cat Paperback   BookShop/IndieBound ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My Thoughts on My Dog Thinks He’s A Cat My Dog Thinks He’s a Cat By Craig T. Feigh Illustrated by Patrick…

[jesncin]

Hi.

I recently reread your post on the racebending in CC. And while you didn't talk about Harley in that post you mentioned her case was complicated. I was just wondering why is it complicated?

If you'd rather save that answer for your analysis I completely get it, I'm just a bit curious.

Hello there! Thank you for reading my Caped Crusader mega essay on racebending, haha! I've been meaning to get to the Harley one, I'm just reading some of her comics to be more informed. I don't mind sharing my opinion so far here though since I'm sure people are curious:

While it's conceptually cool that CC gave us an Asian!Harley, it ultimately contributes to the continued erasure of Harley's Jewish identity, but this time through "diversity paint". When it comes to Harley, her entire personhood and characterization comes from Jewish culture. Not only is she full cloth inspired by her og voice actress, Arleen Sorkin (a Jewish woman), but Arleen injected Jewish and Yiddish expressions along with a played up Brooklyn accent when playing Harley, and Harley's character is based on a Jewish stock character (loud wannabe matchmaker).

I'm simplifying for brevity and will go into more detail in the essay but my takeaway here is that unlike, say, Superman who is an allegorically Jewish character- Harley is textually and canonically Jewish. If she wasn't, the character as we know her just wouldn't exist. It's not a detail for Harley to mention Hanukkah every now and then, Harley just is Jewish culture and identity.

At the end of the day, what did CC do with Asian Harley really. I'm all for changes, if you have a story to tell, but. If CC's Harley was white would it really change the story? Harley went from being this white Jewish woman informed by her culture to being an Asian woman informed by no culture. It's why I can't celebrate it as representation, it's erasing another culture all the while giving nothing to Asian representation. We could always have both an Asian and Jewish woman, but this really was the erasure of both. That's why it's complicated, from afar it looks like a Diversity Win! But up close it's erasure via respectability.

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[crownedwille]

I know the fandom is shrinking so it makes this even harder but are there active yr blogs who also contribute something to faves fest that doesn't include wilmon (besides like the two other blogs I can think of)? Or in general any blogs who post content of literally any other character? I seriously wanna know, are there Sara blogs, Felice blogs, etc? If so, I would love to follow them so in case you are and see this, please speak up

Or let me rephrase this: are there any people who are interested in including more Sara or Felice or other characters on their blog?

[moiraimyths]

Before we call anon rude because let’s see it from their perspective, imagine getting an entire feast to eat. That can be pretty hard to start with so much that’s going on, but if they start with one thing they know they’ll like (aka one character they like) that can be the start for them leaping to other characters to finish the story and the bigger story. I struggle the same way to start book series if I don’t have at least one character that drives me to read it, it’s all about what can be the hook to push them through. Sounds like the anon is neurodivergent (just a guess) so they might genuinely not see it as rude and see it as a solution to even play the game to start with.

Btw absolutely adore the game, the complex and rich characters making them all so unique is amazing. The art is so pleasing to the eyes I love it!! I’m waiting for it all to get out at once so I don’t get too impatient. Shae however interests me the most, which routes will have the most lore for them? Will there be routes that give more lore in general based on decisions you make or do they all share the same amount? (I mean general lore not just Shae lore)

Apologies; we are not trying to accuse any asker of being rude! We are simply explaining our perspective as the developers / are trying to broadly encourage folks to dip their toes into other areas of the story outside of the main route(s) they're interested in, especially considering some routes will be made available sooner than others, and these other routes will likely contain additional scenes/lore of everyone's fave(s) regardless! We want to give each main cast member an equal amount of love (and lore) regardless of their overall popularity, so our goal is not to tut-tut anyone for having strong preferences for one character over the others, but rather to explain that you may be surprised by how much *more* you learn about your preferred characters in the other routes. That's all!

For Shae... Well, they were a foot soldier for one of the worst periods of the War. Lore wise, any other story that touches on the War will likely have content relevant to them and their experiences. ^^

[rebel-wrath]

Writing likeable strong female characters

Female characters are judged on different standards than male characters. First, does that really surprise anyone? Yeah, me neither.

Female characters are held to a different standard as male characters all the time, in different ways. Mary Sue, which originally meant "a female MC that is perfect at everything, loved by everyone, and is an obvious author insert" has now changed to mean "competent female character" but retains the original derogatory inflection.

Female characters are generally expected to be love interests, mothers, or maidens. Fantasy stories set in pseudo-medieval times are "unrealistic" if women step out of the roles many mistakenly believe they had in real life. Which is ridiculous, and not least because arguing for realism in books with magic and monsters is silly. It's more ridiculous because these notions of historic female roles are untrue.

In Medieval England there was a massive plague called The Black Death. So many men died that women had to enter the work place, both to support themselves when all the men in their lives died, and to support their community.

It's even more ridiculous because these aren't historical novels. Fantasy England may bear a superficial resemblance to Medieval England, but it's a different country in a different world with different geography, history, and culture.

Even outside of fantasy, the problem persists.

LIKEABILITY

Men like female characters who are kind, competent, and funny. Women like male characters who are hounourable, loyal, funny, good with kids, and stand up against bullies. It's like listing the qualities straight people look for in a partner.

There are characters who aren't designed to be likeable, broody anti-hero types like Frank Castle. But Frank Castle is honourable, stands up against bullies, and has a sympathetic background.

Sarah Connor is an interesting character. She starts off as a normal person, and when the first Terminator comes she's not skilled at fighting. She becomes competent but at the cost of kindness. She'll do whatever it takes to keep her son safe and alive. She's never funny, though.

In fact, most female characters in fiction aren't funny.

I'm running through my kobo here. Alana of Trebond, awesome but not funny. Kel, Protector of the Small, awesomer, but not funny. Oh, Aly Homewood - she is hilarious. She regularly smart mouths the trickster God of the Raka (Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen) so that's one for Tamora Pierce. Valkyrie Cain (Skullduggery Pleasant) fits all the above points to be likable, yet I wouldn't say I like her, especially not in the later books. Paksenarrion isn't funny, but she is likeable. Astra (Wearing the Cape) isn't funny. Sonea, not funny. Emily from The Wandering Inn is funny and empathic, but there's debate on whether she's incredibly incompetent or just acts that way to get away with stuff.

Since humour is so subjective, this probably says more about me than the characters. Here's the thing, though. Likeability is also subjective. The two characters I would class as the most likeable don't hit all three of the things on the above list.

Amaranthe (Empire's Edge, Lindsey Buroker) isn't funny, but is the most likable female character I've ever read. She's brilliant, and all she does is talk to people. Her empathy is off the charts.

Max (Chronicles of St Marys, Jodi Taylor) has brilliant empathy and humour, but no competence. That's the point, though - no one in those novels are competent. The historians go back in time to witness historic events and screw everything up. The plots wouldn't work if the characters were competent.

So I don't think a character needs to hit all three to be considered likeable, as long as she hits the other two high enough. And that's just my opinion, other people will like other things in characters, despite what sites tell you you need to do to make characters likeable.

STRENGTH

The notion of the strong female character pisses me off. Hollywood has decided that strong female characters are masculine characters, and the majority of people followed like baby ducks.

Strong has been equated with ass kicking; we are regularly treated to badass female warriors with no empathy or personality. This is not the same with male characters. Yes, some male characters kick ass, but Mark Watney fights no one, and is seen as a strong male character for his ingenuity and his willful drive to survive. A fictionalised Gandhi who peacefully protested would be a strong male character.

For strong female characters, we are constantly advised to write our characters like Ripley. The characters in Alien were written without gender, given only surnames. Ripley became female when Sigourney Weaver was cast.

For contrast, look at Alanna of Trebond. She pretends to be male to become a knight. She absolutely is a badass, the best fighter of her generation, but one of the defining parts of her character arc is her struggle with femininity. Can she wear a dress and still be a strong fighter? Does she have to destroy part of herself to fit the mould others have put her in? She's a badass without sacrificing the female part of her character, as was done with Ripley.

But strength shouldn't mean ability to kick ass. It doesn't in Watney's case. So what is strength? Agency. Conviction. Determination. Competence. Ambition.

Conviction: the strong female character does not waffle. She knows what must be done and is confident that she's right, even when she's wrong. The confidence is the important part.

Determination: the strong female character will do what it takes to accomplish her task.

Competence: the strong female character has the ability to do what needs to be done.

Ambition: the strong female character has a goal she intends to achieve.

These all feed into and through one another, but in essence a woman with a goal, the ability to achieve said goal, the willingness to overcome obstacles that will stop her from achieving the goal, and the belief her goal is the right thing to do is well on her way to becoming a strong female character. There was only one item missing from that list.

Agency: the strong female character does not have all decisions made for her. She is not a damsel waiting to be saved. She makes her own choices, good and bad, and deals with the outcome appropriately.

The first four were characteristics of the character. The final one is a part of the plot. A female character can have conviction, determination, competence, and ambition, and it won't matter if she has no agency.

Applying all this to a non-combative woman: in The Basis of Sex the main character is a female lawyer fighting against sex discrimination. She has a goal of overturning unjust laws: she believes this is right, she has the skills to do this, and a willingness to succeed.

SEX

Female characters are received differently from male characters through sex, too. This is an attitude that affects women in real life. Women are either virgins or whores or mothers, and sometimes those roles overlap. Maintaining virginity into motherhood is saintly, but only if the woman also gives birth. Virgins who adopt children aren't seen as saints. Sometimes mothers are viewed as whores.

Stories shape society. The only thing to do here is continue to write strong, likeable female characters and put no emphasis on how much sex they do or don't have. No slut- or kink-shaming. No "only the virgin survives" in horror. No character valuation at all in anyway attached to sex.

IN PRACTICE

Noun of Noun and Adjective has five female characters in major roles. Zoey, one of the main characters, is a trans woman. Siôn is the elf bard. Lily is the group mage. Gabrielle is a bad ass warrior and traditional "strong" female. Curstaidh is a book-addicted dwarf.

Zoey loves being a woman and says that all her life she wanted to do female things. She adores what the others take for granted. She's fairly competent, but young and still learning her way. She is kind, but prone to screwing up her attempts to be kind because she is a princess and somewhat detached from reality. She can be unintentionally funny. I'll give her 2 out of 3 here and say she is likeable. Zoey has goals, though they change through the story, from transitioning, to being accepted by her father, to doing the right thing for her country, to saving the world. She believes she is right to transition, to do the right thing for her kingdom, to save the world. With her father, she hopes he will change his mind. She is determined to achieve her goals. She has agency. Zoey is a likeable strong female character and an above average warrior.

Siôn can be kind, but quite often speaks harsh truths, and is a bit arrogant as the only elf in a group of humans. She is a very good bard, and very funny. Definitely likeable, especially as the story progresses. Siôn doesn't really have a goal, she's just a woman doing a job with no overarching ambition. Without a goal, it doesn't matter if she's determined. She has no goal to believe in so no conviction. She's a likeable character but not a strong female character, but that's okay as she's a secondary character.

Lily is unintentionally funny, kind, and competent. She has a goal, and the conviction it's right and determination to achieve it. She has agency and is a likeable strong female character.

Curstaidh is unintentionally funny. She's not unkind, but she isn't really kind either. She's more of a reader than a fighter and probably shouldn't be on a quest, so she's out of her depth and not exactly competent. The grump dwarf isn't very likeable. She has a goal, and the conviction it is right, but she doesn't have the determination to overcome every obstacle. She's not a strong female character.

Gabrielle is interesting. She's the traditional badass warrior. She trained from a very young age, she has a magic sword, she's got a lot of experience. She's definitely competent. Her job is keeping everyone alive, and she takes it seriously. She's not kind, nor is she funny. Despite being written as the badass female, she hates killing and wants to retire, but she lacks conviction and determination. She has little agency. Being the badass female takes a toll on her, and she drinks too much. She isn't likeable or a strong female character and she even outright states "I'm not strong."

You can read Noun of Noun and Adjective on Tumblr here.

[siyelius]

GENSHIN?! DETROIT?! SIMARKUS?! I'm dying (in a good way)

quite the jump isn’t it 😭😭😅

[outsidethebeautybox]

Boys Need Better Representation Too

If we stop and think about it, most of the content trying to help people work through their insecurities and build confidence is catered toward women. 

Sure, there’s self-improvement content catered toward more general audiences, but when it comes to helping people celebrate the physical features they were born with, most of us prioritize women’s insecurities over male insecurities.

Whether you’re self-conscious about curly hair, dark skin, a few extra pounds or acne, there’s an encouraging artwork or inspirational video out there to remind you you’re beautiful. But once again, most of this content is by women, for women.

I’m guilty of this too.

The artists I follow (and love) who do ‘drawing insecurities’ videos are all drawing women. The fashion brands I watch videos for (and love) which feature inclusive sizing are all made for or marketing to women.

But boys have insecurities too, and they are also seriously lacking representation.

Those of us who really care about encouraging diversity-positivity and self love are pouring our hearts and souls into creating content to help women across the world realize that they are beautiful.. We make dark skinned female leads. We make drawings of beautiful plus-sized queens.

But there aren’t a whole lot of relevant dark-skinned or plus-sized guys in the media either. Or skinny superheroes. Or short male leads. The list goes on.

There are a LOT of male beauty standards that many guys still feel frustrated and depressed by being unable to fit, whether they’re “not muscular enough” or they can’t grow a beard.

In countries where colorism is an ongoing issue, it often affects boys as well as girls, and yet, when I read webcomics like “Your Smile Is a Trap” and “Love Love Fighting” (again, stories that I love) the female leads stray outside the beauty box, while the male leads still fit the cultural beauty standard.

How many Black superheroes can you think of who have TV shows currently airing? 

How many male superheroes can you think of who don’t have the quintessential square jaw and perfect hair?

I know of a few Asian romance webcomics with brown skinned female leads but I’ve not seen any with brown skinned male leads.

Part of what it means to work outside the beauty box is to prioritize people other than ourselves. We work to help more people feel seen. I spend a lot of time promoting diversity positivity for women, hispanics and members of the black diaspora, but with the world the way it is now, there is almost always some demographic or another being ignored or overlooked, and that means we need to keep widening our perspectives.

The media needs more male leads who are shorter than the female lead. We need male characters who are plus-sized or disabled or dark skinned but aren’t deemed second rate or stuck playing second fiddle to the guys who fit the beauty standard.

I’m not sure why, but working outside the beauty box actually seems to be even harder to manage with male characters than it is with female characters. I think it’s because of a subconscious global bias. We know girls are sensitive about their looks and so anyone who wants to diss a girl for not fitting the beauty standard is labeled a monster. Yet people constantly dismiss guys coldly and carelessly and they’re just expected to suck it up.

I had to cancel a comic project I was working on because the artist didn’t want to give the male lead dark skin, and I still haven’t found a new artist to work with. The project before that, the artist didn’t mind the female lead being black but was bigoted against the male lead for being Korean.

People of every ethnicity, shape, and size deserve to see themselves in the media.

Our bodies are beautiful. Individuality is beautiful, and men’s mental health and self-esteem matters every bit as much as women’s mental health and self-esteem.

Guys deserve to live in a world that accepts and loves them. They shouldn’t have to quietly deal with being bullied for their physical appearances while being expected to ‘suck it up’ or ‘be a man’ and get over it.

Beauty standards are hurtful. Period. Everyone needs to hear the words ‘you’re beautiful’ sometimes.

So I’ll be the first one to say it.

You’re beautiful.

[percahliaweek]

Hi all,

Perc'ahlia week has been in the works for a few months now, pending official announcement in the next week or two! The event will welcome fans of show and stream both and try to be mindful of spoilers for newer fans. 

We hope you'll find yourselves inspired by the prompt list - thank you for your patience! 

[orange-coloredsky-archive]

nick valentine entered that synth body, saw the half naked plastic man covered in face paint sitting across from him and instantly aged the silicone of his new face by like 40 years

[halleycomets]

me about my new hobby/sport

[catto-ohno]

Quick ramble in the tags (not the fun kind)

[batsplat]

how has the motogp fan community grown/changed since you became a follower? can i get your thoughts on more fans coming in especially from f1? or on liberty media taking over? what are we hoping/bracing ourselves for?

honestly, I'm not the best person to answer the first question, because I've really not engaged all that much with the motogp fan community over the years... motogp isn't a massive thing in either the country I'm from or the country in which I currently reside, and I've only very rarely come across people irl who have any sort of interest in it. it's really just been through reddit, other forums, comments under blog posts on popular motogp sites, that sort of thing. I don't think reddit is a bad way to follow the sport - you've got all the hot topics but also stuff that's a little... broader than you'd get say on tumblr, about the more technical side or folks talking about less-discussed riders from the past, anecdotes from older fans, that sort of thing. it's also free and easy to not click on any post about sepang 2015, though admittedly there have been times where all these sites were quasi-unusable (hey ho argentina 2018). but I don't really feel like that community has massively changed, apart from maybe becoming a bit bigger and just having... more posts in general? you definitely get shifting opinions over time, sometimes it's a bit of a hive mind in terms of which riders are flavour of the month... so for instance bez was a lot more well-liked twelve months ago. but that kind of thing is common across all sports-oriented subreddits in my experience

I have checked in with the twitter fandom a few times in recent years just to see if, you know, it exists, and sure there's a few journalists and commentators it's worth keeping up with, but beyond that? there is a kernel of motogp-flavoured stan twt but a) many of them are primarily f1 fans, and b) their way of engaging with the sport is so alien to me that I generally take one look and then very much look away. as for the tumblr fandom, I can't speak to that at all though I'm sure others on here could tell you a lot more. I realised this bit of tumblr existed by complete accident at the start of the year. never even crossed my mind that this is a sport that would have an actual fandom on tumblr, god knows sports I follow I would consider a lot more mainstream barely do

as for new fans from f1... you know, what can you do, really. it's a good thing if the sport's fanbase as a whole becomes younger and more diverse, even if personally I am not a dorna shareholder and don't really care all that much about 'growing the sport'. new fans will bring their own biases and preconceptions and mostly not care about the bits of the sport that I care about... but that's how it's supposed to be, no? get them invested in the new riders, find all these young acosta and aldeguer and alonso fans to liven up the sport in the future. at a certain point you just have to learn not to care about what the wider fandom thinks about a lot of things. I have seen countless wildly inaccurate takes on this sport for years - which, yes, often there are howlers from newer fans who are clearly missing a lot of context, but also older fans can be flat out wrong about plenty of stuff. new fans migrating from f1 or whatever will create what... well, it's essentially fanon lol, based on how other fans introduce them to the sport as well as to certain historical events. but, you know, that already exists on here, and there's plenty of popular interpretations of these riders and past events and the current landscape of the sport that I personally strongly disagree with or are just... not true. plus ça change. stop worrying about a foreign takeover and just be careful to curate your space, imo - you can avoid most of the truly annoying stuff if you exercise self-control

generally speaking, I imagine more fans in a space like tumblr will lead to more polarisation and fragmentation in a way you can't quite afford in the same way in a smaller community. more drama, more controversy with more people who can potentially set it off and more people inclined to drag it out. corners that are based increasingly around specific riders or specific sets of riders. there's always upsides and downsides to that kind of thing in any fan space... you get more stuff created by fans, more art and fic and fanvids and essays about two decade old rivalries (funnily enough I'm not massively expecting an uptick in that particular market). more fans for riders who don't currently get a lot of attention. you do also get more discourse and more controversy... hopefully the most conflict-happy new fans stick to twitter. but at the end of the day, everyone starts out as the fan others want to gatekeep against, and it's not like you can actually stop them from joining, so. whatever. also, who knows if the sport really will actually 'take off'. I follow a sport for which a netflix show was announced and a lot of people were expecting something along the lines of the drive to survive-effect. so much posting and think pieces a dozen about whether the new fans would have the wrong opinions on all manner of hot topic issue. in the end, the show flopped and we got fuck all new fans, so that was a massive waste of everyone's time lol. motogp has itself been through something similar with the ill-fated prime show where they bungled the release... you never really know

that being said, it is quite likely that if the liberty media purchase goes through, they will do a pretty good job of attracting new fans. they've broadly done a good job with f1 - and it's not like they can really be blamed for most of the problems with the actual racing. it wouldn't be a bad thing to get new races in the states, as long as they're good ones (my problem with the newer races certainly isn't location but is with some of the rather drab circuit layouts) - and if f1 is anything to go by, I doubt we're going to lose any of the series' gems. quite frankly, if we need to cut a few european circuits, not wanting to name any names but I do have a bit of a shortlist. further calendar bloating is a worry, but for various reasons it's not going to happen in the short- to medium-term. and unlike in f1 there's less enthusiasm at the prospect on the part of the actual teams (also, crucially, the tyre supplier). obviously street circuits aren't going to happen. hopefully, some aspects of the way the sport is presented to audiences will be improved - from the actual television product, to what footage is released to fans, to how much we see of riders further down the field, and so on. hopefully, the sport will become more accessible to more fans in terms of viewing options... but yeah, how riders lower down the field are treated is I think the main thing I'd like to see change. hey, maybe we'll finally have access to more on-board cameras. maybe they'll finally show us the controversial and presumably interesting incidents happening outside of the top ten in any given race. my main worry just from a selfish perspective is any change to the videopass product (unless they'd like to make it a wee bit cheaper). I'm just about willing to shell out the amount I currently do given I heavily make use of the archives and think it's a fantastic resource, but for instance in f1 there's geo-restrictions to the kind of f1.tv you have access to... there's always the slight concern what new tv deals might change. still, this is all pretty minor stuff, and really I don't expect liberty media to be either able or willing to come in and make radical changes to how the sport currently works. concerns about ticket prices and fan experiences are also reasonable, though as someone who hasn't had the money/opportunity to visit any races myself, I really can't bring a lot to the table to that discussion beyond 'I hope it doesn't become prohibitively expensive'

of course, there's some things I very much want to see retained, for instance I'd hate it if liberty pushes for riders to speak english more often. also, we need to petition them to bring back the press conference table. overall, though... some of the changes will probably be bad, a lot of them will hopefully be good. change is necessary and motogp needs to finally adapt to a post-rossi world. it's unhealthy for a sport to continue to rely on the second hand glow from a man who retired years ago, to pray that the fans he created are somehow going to continue to care if you don't give them a reason to. rossi revolutionalised the sport, but eventually you need a new revolution. anecdotally and according to various podcasts, there's finally been a shift this year away from just crowds of yellow at all these circuits... which is categorically a good thing. above all, you need fans to care about the current product, make them fans of the current racing, the current riders, while also providing them opportunity to get interested and emotionally invested in the history of the sport. a lot of them will ignore that history... but eventually, that's how the cycle goes with everything. you don't get much discussion of, say, doohan these days on tumblr, and time will creep up on all these riders. you see it on here with how many newer fans say they went back to watch races starting from 2013 - because they care about the marquez era and are less interested (if at all) in either rossi's golden years or the alien era. which is how it should be... you cannot expect new fans to care about over twenty years of racing when they're just getting started (if they ever will). all you can do as a sport is hook them with whatever they're willing to be hooked with, and gently nudge them wherever they're willing to be gently nudged to. and if the end product of all that change is something that's more palpable to the masses but less suited to your personal tastes... well, you can always watch the old stuff

[josies-not-suicidal-now]

there are people out there who don't know what girlcock looks like, they're not even aware of girlcum, how empty must their lives be without an appreciation for the diversity of penises in the world

[h0useofw0lves]

the assumption that because you like mcr you should also like all other similar bands is wild to me ngl

[herawell]

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