#I feel like they do good in representing gen z culture

[whiskeyswifty]

BABEEEEEEE can we get some kelsey thoughts on chappell roan <3

Haahahaha sure, if you insist! I’d say they fall in a similar camp as my thoughts around renee rapp, which is that neither her or her music appeal to me. I will say, I like one or two songs at least, compared to RR for whom I do not enjoy a single song, but overall I’m turned off by the over the top schtick. I understand its references and context and the point it makes, don’t you worry, I’ve just grown out of the predominant use of shock value for shock value’s sake of it all, personally. (Not everything she does is that yes yes I know but she defaults to that in her music a lot) I think it’s a great technique! She’s using the exact same playbook as lady Gaga which some of you might be too young to remember and the significance of her path to stardom in the 2010s is lost on you, and that is fine. Also that is not value judgement either, as where Chappell is derivative of gaga, Gaga was derivative of Madonna, and on and on we go as all art is derivative. And I find watching her participation in taking up that mantle and carrying on that role fascinating in the grand scheme of observing pop music history as it happens in my lifetime. But because Chappell is to kids today as Gaga was to me, I’m unmoved by her currently because it is derivative and therefore not new nor interesting to me. Perhaps when she branches out into her own person, as all those who begin as derivative do, I’ll check back in. She’s just starting out and getting her bearings so she is allowed to play in the sandbox of her forebears for a while until she finds what works for her and what she wants to make her own. Particularly if she moves more into the Kate bush/good luck babe direction I will be interested in that.

Despite my no thank you bite, I am so happy she exists as a Gaga for gen z to call their own, as silly diy and campy counter programming to the polished pop landscape, just as Gaga was a Madonna for millennials in that exact way and so on. It’s important to have those figures inject that messy newness into pop music at any given time to move pop music forward, and if they grow big enough, culture forward. Even more important is that each generation has one they can call their own, and not just inherit the previous generation’s stale hand me downs. As the gagas and chappells and madonnas of the pop world play a specific role in allowing the people who are culturally othered by gender and sexuality to have someone they feel represents and plays to and thereby validates their otherness, so it’s integral that they feel their iteration reflects and understands their modern form of otherness. I’m happy she exists for those reasons and so happy that she’s expanding the minds of gen z and younger and that she can be that pivotal figure for them that I wouldn’t be who I am today without, mine being Gaga. She just does not have anything to offer currently that I’m interested in. What it all boils down to every time is (I think I’ve said this before) I’m highly allergic to potent musical theater personalities, and she’s another one, big time lmaooooo.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

A Tale of Two Hannya: Art Imitates Life

These are always kind of a trickier beast to write because by design the comparison casts a more negative light on a popular character. But they tend to be well received. Living near the path of peak totality for the big US eclipse, had me wanting to finish this one sitting in my drafts because well...we have both sun & moon themes as well as a dynamic of "upstaging" each other. Which is kinda cool. I really do think, when taken together, Kiku & Yamato give you one of the most interesting dynamics in this massive series despite the two faces almost never appearing together.

Let's step back a little though. Why? Why would our author structure so much of Luffy's story in Wano through the top two new faces for the arc? Almost splitting Luffy's story in half with mirror opposites; humble and helpful followed by flashy yet flawed. Pitting organic bonding against the spotlight. A very straightforward and earnest trans woman foiled by a deliberately inconsistent and ambiguous character falling somewhere you'd call transmasculine. Our Crane Wife and our Dragon's King's Daughter, forget the plot of One Piece for a moment...what's the reflection of our world they mirror?

As gross as it is to compare oneself to Doflamingo, I promise I'm going somewhere with this. And, to be fair I can think of a few specific people who'd make that type of comparison about me. I like to think I use my powers for good, but anyone with them would say that. Touched on it a little with the Otohime side story but over the 2010s I had my little strings in just about every corner of LGBT activism throughout a region that's now a solid gay haven in a conservative state. For the first half of that decade, it was thrust upon me because people saw how solid a representative a young, cute, well-spoken lady would be at diffusing old stereotypes. An MA in Political Science helped too.

Because it's currently Ramadan still, I'd like to share one story I feel was a high watermark and how it rippled in a way that is gonna shape my outlook here. When I noticed there was a shift. One I felt trepidation about aspects of initially and today feel vindicated seeing how Gen Z views their elders. It was Ramadan a fair few years ago now, while part of a board for something I got to know a local Muslim leader and his wife. They were used to inviting other community leaders to join them for Iftar, the fast-breaking meal. They wanted to show their young progressive members they were listening and respectfully invite someone trans, remember these are often very sex-segregated places. Even if there were some livid hardliners most of the women really liked me and you could tell it meant a lot to some of the older teen girls who really wanted to square more progressive beliefs with their faith.

Late 2010s, so if I told you there was backlash in queer circles guess who. More or less entirely people who'd fit that college radfem to transmasc mold. "I'd have gone to the women's side in solidarity and liberated those oppressed women being soo radical." "Don't you think what Rhea did was you know, kinda problematic? If I have to explain to you how it's low-key cultural appropriation I don't even..." "They only picked her because she acts like a little Barbie doll." Yes, that last one is peak feminism. They can call me wicked if they want; at least I was called to serve while they were all just rabble-rousers who decided they were the only morally pure enough ones to be local leaders. That's what this was all about, politics.

If you ask me personally about the current state of trans movements? It kinda comes down to that. Most Milennials, trans women, men, & even nonbinary folk, tend to use the community as a temporary safe haven but acceptance has come far enough it tends to stay temporary. Gender is but one aspect of our identity, the hugbox and group chats about pronouns only really feel like they're giving you something for so long. The holdout? In my experience that tends to be trans men or transmasc enbies who took a half-step before coming out in the relative privilege of radical feminist spaces offering a little space within. I don't have a whole lot of animosity towards these guys...it just feels like sometimes it becomes all of our problem when that radfem space pumped you full of a distorted vision of "male privilege" and you feel jilted you didn't get that by waking up one day and saying you are now man.

Was Eiichiro Oda going for all that? Fuck no. I was a longtime leader of a local movement, he's a cis author on the outside looking in. Better way these two make sense is more an author being aware enough (Japan had a similar trajectory over the last decade) these two serve well as standins for the extremes of what a teen today sees about this transgender community. Okama type caricatures just don't work anymore. Transmasc nearing 30 who feels like they don't even know what they want? Playing word games that feel like you never stopped and thought how they'd sound to other people? Chasing an idealized version of masculinity? It's not exactly an uncommon sentiment. It's a side-effect of finally getting that long sought visibility...scrutiny goes hand in hand.

It's a Tale of Two Hannya because it's weaving in the story of one community experiencing a Tale of Two Movements. Two movements that are at times diametrically opposed (foes). That's where the upstaging or "eclipse" aspect comes in. The way beats for one influence the other even without trying. Why Yamato's the one trying to find a place and Kiku's already dealing with average pressures of being a woman. Regardless of how you feel about that personally, you have to at least acknowledge this is the general impression teens today seem to have. Hypothetically, you could get the same effect between a more clear-cut trans man and someone kinda like Kamatari.

Ultimately, Wano is about who we are vs the roles we play. We see other places where themes of just saying you fill a role doesn't mean you are. I've said Yamato's a gentle critique of the extreme "you are what you say your are" side of trans movements. I understand why people would want to see things that way, but gender is a social phenomenon. For the record, I do think it low-key radiates dude energy to not care about shit like cannonballing tits out into the main bath, no one should have to act a certain way and all that. But it's a good pair for demonstrating where we're at in general. The emotions they evoke out of readers are a good reflection of where young men are kinda at on all this trans stuff. And both are still portrayed as cool, friendly people. But I do see where it's coming from when Oda shifts that classic immaturity element from Kiku more to Yamato.

[beardedmrbean]

I read with a mixture of sadness and relief an essay by one Melissa Persling, who by all accounts represents the average 30-something woman in America today. In the article, she laments the fact that she’s single at 38 and feels "unbelievably betrayed by feminism." 

Persling feels that way because it is that way. For decades our culture has failed women by spreading falsehood after falsehood about men, marriage, motherhood and career. It’s been a slow, daily drip of "You go, Girl!" messages, specifically designed to delete men and babies from life’s equation. And it has wreaked havoc on women’s lives. 

In an interview with Fox News, Persling explained why she wrote her article. "I wrote a lot of that article like truly scared … I really did think, like, wow, you’ve missed your opportunity. You are going to be alone. You’re not going to have a family." 

She adds, "I was constantly fed this idea that women can do everything. We don’t really need men … I do feel in many ways betrayed by that line of thinking." 

Persling then concedes that she received this message from "so many of the women" in her life. "I want to go back to some of those teachers and coaches and say, ‘What the hell did you mean by that? Because we can’t do it all. We can’t. That’s a lie!’" 

Yes, it was all a lie — and good on Persling for calling it out in such a public way. 

Still, it’s a super hard pill to swallow, made worse by the fact that Persling has been slammed with hateful comments, particularly from men, who insist she’s been selfish. She’s a product of her choices, they say, and, well, too bad. 

It’s not that simple. 

As a life and relationship coach, I hear regularly from women like Persling who realize they’ve been duped by the narrative that being an independent, self-sustaining woman is enough to be happy. It makes perfect sense that these women would find themselves, down the road, overcome with grief at the prospect of living life alone. And they can’t turn to the culture for help because the culture hails singlehood as the be all, end all. 

Persling was smart to recognize that being a product of divorce also put her at a disadvantage since she saw women "taking care of everything" in life. Her mother may not have specifically groomed her to be a feminist, but she absorbed the feminist message of not needing a man all the same. No one told her otherwise. 

America is now saturated with women like Persling, who acted upon the wisdom passed along to them by the people they most trusted. These women thought they did everything right, only to have it turn out all wrong. To accept that the advice they received was based on lies is a hard lesson for anyone to learn. 

The truth is, this purportedly "liberated" path women have been groomed to travel has a domino effect. Because if the goal isn’t marriage and family, what is the goal? To be satisfied with being single forever because at least you have a paycheck and no one to whom you must answer? As Persling said, "I don’t want to wake up at 60 and say, ‘Oh, well, I had a lot of fun!’" 

The problem with the narrative women have been fed is that it deleted the old way but didn’t replace it with anything new. It conveniently left out the details about how women are supposed to live their lives instead. 

I believe Persling when she said she’s "not even a feminist." That’s the thing about movements and trends: They seep into the culture to such a degree that they cease to need a name at all. You don’t even recognize it’s there, and yet it’s governing your every move. 

As Danielle Crittenden wrote in "What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us," feminism "had seeped into their minds like intravenous saline into the arm of an unconscious patient. They were feminists without knowing it." 

But now, thanks to Persling’s bravery, more women will wake up. 

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Thoughts on the Barbie movie

So I finally saw the Barbie movie! I was excited to watch it for a long time, and overall, I really liked it, although I wouldn't consider it quite perfect. Here are some thoughts upon first viewing-

First, what I liked. The set design, cinematography, and costuming were incredible; it was so fun and refreshing to see practical effects and the sort of artistry that went into this film. The characters were mostly likeable (put a pin in that), and the comedy definitely landed; I was laughing out loud multiple times, and the fourth-wall breaks were a ton of fun. While I've heard different people say different things about the feminist (or at least attempted feminist) messaging and how effective it was, I really liked the point that women didn't have to be extraordinary to be fulfilled or respected. It didn't shy away from topics like aging, emotions, or bodily changes, and I loved how older women were also uplifted in this film, as well as the messaging that patriarchy is damaging to both men and women. And I really appreciated that Barbie and Ken didn't end up together; as an ace person, that representation was really nice to see. Michael Cera as Allan was adorable, and I loved Kate McKinnon as "Weird Barbie." It was nice to see a diverse cast, and in today's climate, after the barrage of hate towards trans people in politics and society, seeing "Doctor Barbie," played by Hari Nef- a trans woman- being called "beautiful" in a big-budget mainstream film was honestly heartwarming. I was definitely crying a bit towards the end, and I'm hoping to watch the movie again sometime.

As for what I didn't like, most of it comes down to the character of Sasha. She was exasperating every time she was on screen, and was written in a grating "how do you do, fellow Gen Z's" way I couldn't stand. While it's true that activism and social justice are obviously components of Gen Z culture, Sasha felt like a caricature of this in the worst possible way. Her calling a Barbie doll "fascist" for setting "unrealistic standards for women" was especially eye-rolling, considering that actual fascism is on the rise both in the United States and around the world, and it felt belittling to the concerns that young people have been vocal about in recent years. For a character representing the "real world," she felt incredibly unrealistic and one-dimensional. However, I did like Gloria's character, and the relationship between her and Barbie.

For a film sponsored by Mattel, I wasn't expecting much in terms of anti-capitalist critique, and while it was sort of there on a surface level, I feel like the film could have gone more into how the concepts of patriarchy and capitalism intersect. They touched on it a little with the Mattel CEO claiming to care about girls and women but only because they were his target market, but I felt more could have been done there.

Some people have been saying the film focused too much on Ken, but I personally didn't mind his arc; it was mainly about how patriarchy harmed men, while Barbie's was about how it harmed women. While I feel like the Kens deserved consequences (conse-Ken-ces?) for trying to overthrow the government and enslave the Barbies, I guess you could also argue that the battle amongst themselves counted as such, as the film displayed that patriarchy is a self-destructive construct. I felt like the Barbies being brainwashed represented internalized misogyny (the "tradwife" movement came to mind), and while Gloria's speech was good and all, I would have also liked to see that concept deconstructed further.

Overall, I'd give the Barbie movie a 9 out of 10. Beautiful visuals, interesting thematic points, and a lot of fun, but I just wish it could have dug a bit deeper.

[idlingworship]

I'm Huh Jihye, a member of FUTURE/FEMME, singer-songwriter, producer, and a fan of pineapple on pizza. Ask me anything!

Hi, Reddit!

I'm Huh Jihye, a member of K-pop group FUTURE/FEMME under Culture Creative. We just made our comeback with 'Kitsch', and I'll be here to answer a few of your questions about what it's like to be a member of FUTURE/FEMME and about K-pop!

How do you keep your head high? Idols often have to deal with lots of criticism, and I can't imagine it's easy dealing with that day in and day out.

good question! i'm extremely lucky to have wonderful people around me, such as my group members, that act as my support system. i don't get hurt easily, so i like to see if it's constructive, then i'll take the criticism and work on myself. if not, then i don't care! if i'm secure in myself and believe i'm the best version of me, then it doesn't matter what others think of me. it only matters what i think of me! you're you, and i'm me!

jihye girl i love u!!! i'm such a big fan of f/f!!! can you share more about 'kitsch' and how you came up with the song? love u miss producer huh x

thank you! i feel like when i was creating it, i wanted it to be really representative of what future/femme's whole message & what we stand for, so a very carefree, youthful, 'i don't care' vibe! there are lots of references to social media platforms and what it's probably like to just be existing in the now as a gen-z. i wanted everyone who listened to be able to feel like they're a cheerful, confident main character in a high-teen movie with no worries! if you're walking down the street and listening to kitsch, you really have to become the main character!

What does a typical day for FUTURE/FEMME look like?

there really is no one typical day! even if we're preparing for a comeback, we all have different schedules and things to work on outside of it, and come together for practice after. for me, it's working in the studio 24/7!

what's your birth time queen

i'll never reveal this.

what's your favourite song you've ever written?

this is so hard to answer... but i have a special soft spot for love u twice! it's sooo personal to me, and so many of you guys have said you relate to it which makes it extra special!💖 i find it so wonderful when you make my songs yours :) it's why i also love good parts, because i want to encourage self-love!

what's your favourite taylor swift era?

off the top of my head, midnights!

what's a song you like to listen to to get your energy up?

antifragile!

top 3 must-haves in your bag? and a tmi!

probably... my phone! that's really a must-have! my headphones, and chocolate! for my tmi, i stayed up til 5am yesterday/today!

[sliding $20 note] any new music in the works...

;) forever n always

your favourite lyric you've ever written, and why?

omggg so many. probably: the bridge of impurities, 'power stronger in adversity, i'm not afraid of the overwhelming shadow, i'll have it all what i desire' good parts' 'i don't wanna blame my weakness, i'll love myself the way i am'! polaroid's entire verse 2. that's it that's the tweet

what's something you'd like to say to you 5 years ago, and you 5 years in the future?

keep going because you'll be glad you did! i hope the 26-year-old jihye will be happy, too.

thanks for all your questions & support, reddit! this has been so much fun, but unfortunately, this is all the time i have. please give lots of support to future/femme's latest comeback, 'kitsch'! 💖

[saintmeghanmarkle]

And Then There Were Rainbows by u/Apprehensive-Year513

And Then There Were Rainbows Her Late Majesty was born a little over seventy years before me. The Queen and I have different skin colors. We hail from different backgrounds. I am a dual citizen of both sides of the pond. I grew up going back and forth from the UK and the US. The stars and stripes mean just as much to me to have called her my Head of State. I would classify myself as a very young Millennial or an older Gen Z. To me, The Queen demonstrated a resilience of a previous generation. There is something to be appreciated for having a delayed or non reaction to scandal. It is a sign of utter restraint to not engage in toxic drama even when clearly provoked. Showing up to consistently do the job, shows dedication. These are values to be preserved. I observe these qualities in the new Princess of Wales, The Duchess of Edinburgh, and The Princess Royal. Same as The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Edinburgh. I am significantly younger than them. Same as Her Late Majesty; our skin colors are different. Yet, the attributes they convey are what I appreciate. This goes beyond age, race or socioeconomic status. To me, representation means more than what is only skin deep. I don’t need to see people who look like me to feel validated in my self worth. When the likes of Adjoa Andoh make ignorant comments such as calling the British Royal Family a “terribly white balcony”, what she and others like her fail to realize that there is so much more to life than the things we cannot control. That diversity goes further than skin. I don’t need to look like someone to find value in what they bring to the world. We are more than what we look like if we can stand side by side in what we have in common. The stoicism and uniformity that Her Late Majesty displayed for over seventy years knows no demographic of a person. The devotion to others she carried is not impossible for any to possess. It is heartbreaking to reconcile that the last years of the former Sovereign’s life was plagued by a never ending cycle of tawdry nonsense. Which hasn’t stopped. From the events up to losing her spouse, to the domineering attention seeking behavior at her funeral, the actions of the inflicting parties should never be forgotten. Regardless of the actions of the inflicting parties, she was diplomatic in her treatment of them. Even when they maltreated her. When their time comes, they will not have the same affection or turn out for their funerals. They will not be remembered fondly. It’s striking, really. The longest reigning Monarch commanded every room she walked into. She never had to cling to others in failed attempts to stand out. She never had to resort to parking lot publicity stunts or narcissistic fictional interviews with other grifters. Her loss has been felt worldwide. The Queen’s funeral and the new King’s coronation garnered views and visitations from world leaders. Attendance was from other cultures, countries, and colors abound. I’m at a loss for any other event which could invite such mass international appearances. To this day, the British Monarchy still means something to the world. As The Queen always will. Thank you ma’am. Shortly before her passing was announced, double rainbows were photographed outside Buckingham Palace. Another rainbow was pictured close to Westminster before the funeral. Rainbows represent hope, the beauty after the storm, and good fortune. They can also mean an image of love and friendship. In time of war, pandemic, tackiness, attacks from her own flesh and blood, Queen Elizabeth ll illustrated those exact aspects. When she was only twenty one years old, she promised that her devotion was in the service of the people. Up until her last day, she kept that promise. Profoundly. It was only fitting that the all the colors of the rainbow emerged to help send her off. post link: https://ift.tt/efbt3pc author: Apprehensive-Year513 submitted: September 10, 2023 at 06:34PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[flo-milli-shit-hoe]

MEGA ATSV SPOILERS

okay, so, im using this post to coalesce all my thoughts about this movie character by character, and no this is not proofread/edited

LAST WARNING FOR SPOILERS (also this post is just long asl)

Miles:

MY DAYS!!!! he is such a cool character. his entire struggle is about trying to fulfill others expectations and growing to find himself despite those expectations. AND GOD if that is not the teenage struggle. he doesn't want to disappoint his parents, but he also want to live up to being spiderman. AND he's still struggling with the grief of not being able to see his ppl (gwen, peter, etc) again bc they're in other dimensions.

ALSO, I love how his character represents the struggle of morality (get it? morales, morals- nvm). everyone in the world has different morals and different ideas on how to enforce right and wrong. a major point in this movie is what happens when you force your morals onto everyone else

Gwen:

ALSO ANOTHER COOL CHARACTER!!! like im still mad that she kinda betrays miles by never telling him the whole story. BUT OMG her character is such an interesting exploration of identity and trust (and also how much hurt you cause even when u think ur doing the right thing; bc girl why didnt u tell miles what was going on).

her dad unknowingly hunting her the whole time is such a cool part too. like it speaks to how parents can make their children feel unsafe with uninformed opinions and biases, aka all his comments of how dangerous spider woman is even though he doesn't know the full story (i.e. spouting homophobic things around you child not knowing they're gay; or supporting the criminalization of things like weed despite stats showing that such a petty offence is used to put undeserving ppl behind bars (btw these r just random examples))

Hobie:

ISTG I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHH!!!!! his character is such a good tribute to what a punk ACTUALLY is. especially in a time where skinheads and sharps are such a pervasive problem in the community (also fuck all the yt ppl who ruined the term skinhead, you appropriated british-jamaican culture and put it with nazis, i fucking hate you). despite all the disdain everyone held for him and his idc attitude, the one thing hobie was consistently is KIND. he barely knew miles for more than 20-mins and still helped him when shit went south bc that's what punk is meant to be. its community support, kindness, and righting the wrongs made by the establishment.

Pavitr:

I ALSO LOVE HIM TOOO!!!!! his character is so happy-go-lucky and positive (and honestly the opposite of most peters that we see). im sad we didn't get to see more of him and his universe except for setting up the plot of spot and miles being an anomaly.

Miguel:

THIS BITCH!!!! I LOVE AND HATE HIM!! he's such a well developed antagonist. esp bc he's not actually a villain, he's just another spiderman. he's such a good analysis on what happens when a person thinks that suffering is inevitable/is required to develop as a person.

AND YES WE FUCKING KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BREAK CANON! i keep seeing analyses of his character that keep asking 'well how do we rlly know what happens?' he tells you, the movie tells you, EVERYONE TELLS YOU what happens. the only reason he is the way he is, is bc he broke the canon and got punished by the narrative for it. now, this isn't to say that what he's doing is right (trading lives for one another), just that it makes sense from his perspective.

Jessica:

another adult that i kinda hate.

but i get it, she has a baby and her own home dimension to protect. but damn, this isn't the way to do it. she's another wonderful example of what happens when ppl believe that suffering is necessary (like yes, suffering happens, everyone will suffer; but the whole thing about being a hero is to prevent suffering when you can!!! not to enforce your ideal of what morality is).

both her, peter, and miguel represent one major part of the generational divide between gen x and gen z. SO MANY ppl in gen x (jessica, peter b, miguel, any other older iterations of spiderman) believe that struggle is required, and that things shouldn't improve so that future generations have to struggle like they did. but ppl in gen z (miles, gwen, hobie, pravitr) are suffering from decisions we didn't make, being tasked with fixing these problems so future generations DONT suffer like we have to.

Peter B:

my dude, you fucked up, you have to accept that before you keep trying to apologize. stop shoving your fucking baby in everyone's face

once again, a perfect example of why you can't try to enforce your morality on everyone (except he's not as clear cut as jessica and miguel bc he switched sides in the end). i think he (and gwen) knew what they were doing was wrong lowkey. but didn't understand just how cruel it was until it happened to someone (miles) they cared about personally, which is a whole commentary in and of itself. and honestly, i think he still wouldn't have realized it if miles went along with it instead of fighting to save ppl.

Mile's parents:

they act just like my caribbean father and aa mother istg

they are the best outcome of 'your parents are ppl too'. they sacrificed so much to get miles to where he is and want to make sure he doesn't waste his opportunities in life. they're the perfect example of well-meaning parents, and im SO GLADDDD that they start learning to listen to miles. im so excited to see how their relationship with miles develops in the next movie.

Gwen's dad:

a perfect example of what happens when you jump to conclusions like its the olympics.

(like most cops) he doesn't investigate the other factors to peter's death and just goes with the most obvious lead, spider-woman. which, eventually, costs him his daughter (quite literally... he fucking shoots at her). BUT, it was SOOOO refreshing to see him grow because he realized that his job was ruining his relationship with his daughter.

The spider ppl of the first movie:

(this category is like penny, noir, spider ham, etc.)

you sometimey bitches pmo. like the first movie was a wonderful example of how to fix the spiderverse w/o all the shit miguel is doing. yet, here yall are betraying miles.

i have nothing else to say

if you made it this far

SHOUT OUT TO THE WRITERS OF THIS MOVIE!!!!

ESP BC THIS CAME OUT DURING THE WGA STRIKE. YALL DESERVE ALL THE LOVE, YOUR JOB IS SO HARD. AND YOUR WORK IS SO IMPRESSIVE!!!

SHOUT OUT TO THE ANIMATORS TOOO!!!! YALL PUT SO MUCH LOVE AND CARE INTO THIS MOVIE. ITS PHYSICALLY PALPABLE HOW MUCH YALL CARED ABOUT GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT.

(though it does suck that you can't watch this movie if ur photosensitive, which def defeats the 'everyone can be spidey' thing and it's just ableist)

[cure-yo-curio]

"Homecoming"

At some point in our lives, we pondered with the thought of what life would be like if another place would be our home. Being Gen Z born, I share with my generation the search of home and our own true individual selves. For some reason, it felt like being a misfit became a trend, as if the glitch of birth mismatch becomes more intentional.

A lot of people feel like they are incompatible with their family or country for sure, and this spearheads the questioning on the notion of home. Is home really a point of place where we begin? Or is it a mission goal where we usher our soul towards?

I would like to refer to Fujii Kaze's Kaerou to help put essence in this ponder post. You see, this song reached so many people as a genuinely healing message. I would say it has a strong influence in conquering over our egoistic and hate-filled tendencies.

Every time I listen to this song, I always picture this music video in my head where a version of me wearing a kimono woke up in the middle of a forest on his quest to "free" the other versions of himself that are chained to the sufferings of the past.

In this MV that I imagined in my head, several places were visited as settings here. These places included my slums hometown, my prestigious high school, my next hometown where I spent time with my friends, my college before I dropped out, my current residence, as well as the main park of my country. In every place, there will be a version of me to represent my bad experiences in each place, through the showcase of different clothing and aesthetics.

I would appear as a dirty beggar in my slums hometown, an ostracized nerd in my highschool, an underestimated friend in the next hometown, a hated student in my college, a mistreated and abused child in my current residence, and a horned-version of myself wearing my country's traditional clothing covered in blood and scars.

Throughout this MV, my scenes were all about the kimono-wearing self giving those other versions of me one last hug in different approaches, but with the same empathy just to set them free and disperse into the winds of peace. It ends with me waking up to another day in Japan.

I've expressed my desire to strive for home, and I think there is a basis in saying "home is where the heart is". I love Japan, not just because of mainstream media, but because of its nature's influence, culture, and language. I feel healed whenever I do activities related to Japan. I do appreciate my birth country still with its food and language, but Japan just hits harder and closer to home and my inner child's yearnings. I never experienced the genuine feeling of family and home, but I felt a strong pull to become that parent I never get to have and build a home experience that I never get to be born with.

Homecoming is a mission of journey and introspection. You might even find your true sense of home in a foreign country. While success feels good, succeeding in homecoming is a transcendent feeling.

Nothing will beat saying the words "I'm home" in a place that you actively chose and built for yourself.

[waywardwonder]

I don’t know what flavor of movies Honor Society and Do Revenge are but I’m loving it.

[mack3030]

Me vs We: The philosophy of monetization of creator content and how it falls on the pendulum of society...

So this might seem a little bit different from my typical paywall rants in relation to the sims, but I want to get a bit philosophical today, and share with you a very interesting consceptual theory that I believe shows why platforms such as tumblr and twitter have been moving lately towards the route of monetization of content for creators. It's a bit of a read, so I'll leave it below the cut and if you want to read further in your spare time you can. It's just a bit of geekery on my part.

First, let's talk about the Pendulum Theory. This theory is shared in this amazing book, called Pendulum, written by Roy H. Williams and Michael H. Drew. To save you a smidge of time and money on it, I'll summarize the basic premise and concept of the book. The idea is that the authors looked back at human history, and found a repeating 80 year pattern that to them, represented a prendulum. On one side is "ME" and the other side is "WE". Now it is important to note a few things: First, EITHER side taken to the VERY EXTREME is bad. Second, different countries/societies can be at different "places" on this pendulum. (For example, China and the U.S are inverse of each other right now.) Third, this pendulum is often reflected most in our artistic, literary, and advertising media. {And I would argue social media, for those living in the 20th-21st centuries.} Those are the most obvious places to see this pattern play out. Fourth, this pendulum "swings back" towards the other side every fourty years. Currently, we are due to start swinging back the other direction in the US in 2023. So let's talk about what these ends of the pendulum mean, exactly: ME: [Individually-centered society] Can be summed up as "I'm not okay, you are okay." It is up to ME to change MYSELF so that the world becomes better. Emphasis on personal freedom and expression, materialism, personal goals, etc. The extreme end of this however, can lead to self-centeredness to the point of hurting others. A prime example of the "extreme end" of ME being America's "Manifest Destiny" expansion, which resulted in thousands of tribes of Native American peoples losing their native lands and being killed. Can also lead to hollow and phony people suffering from burnout as they try to chase the material and personal goals they have set for themselves. WE: [Community/Group-centered society] {USA is currently in WE, due to switch back towards ME in 2023.} Can be summed up as "I'm okay, you're NOT okay." WE can work TOGETHER to change the world for the better. Emphasis on responsibility to others beside ourselves, authenticity and transparency, and group conformity for the common good. The extreme end of WE however, can result in Witch Hunts where those who do not conform to the standards set by the group as a whole are determined to be problems. The Salem Witch Trials being a prime example of "WE" playing out, along with the rise of regimes such as Hitler and his Natzi party. Again, want to remind you all that BOTH of these are bad when taken to the very extreme. A healthy "middle" of both of these tends to be the best place for a society to be, but we rarely stay in that healthy middle for long. We normally are swinging one way or the other. I'm attaching a graphic that was attached to a review for this book that illustrates what I just spoke on.

Now how does this relate to tumblr's post+ and twitter? Easy. These companies, without realizing it, are starting to see that we are at the peak of WE right now in the US and that we will be shifting to ME very soon. "ME" culture is a prime place for content-creators and side-hustlers to blossom, and this is only compounded by the fact that "Gen Z" is a very material generation. They like their money, and nice things, and they fully embrace the side-hustle culture. {Again, like most generalizations, this doesn't apply to everyone, but does seem to show an over-arching trend.} Meanwhile, Millenials like myself are here dumbfounded because we aren't as material as this upcoming generation. It's very easy for us to be pissed off and want to protest Post+ and other forms of "monetization" of our social media, because we aren't here trying to build up a follower base for profit. We're here trying to connect to others, and for some of us, maybe be able to make a small profit while sharing our content with others we connect with. But, looking at things from this lens, it's hard to 100% blame Twitter and Tumblr for going this route. All they are trying to do is stay ahead of the eight-ball and follow the trends they are seeing. And while it make certain generations that aren't wired up that way pissed, it will certainly fit the upcoming culture shift that will occur. Sad to say for those of you who are {like me} generally pissed with the constant monetization of everything in our lives, that if this theory holds true, things will get worse from here. The only way that this can be "stopped" is if somehow, the monetization of content gets to the point that it starts trampling on the rights of individuals...leading to copyright issues and lawsuits. This is why accounts like @postplus-protest are out here trying to get Post+ stopped, is they can see this occuring with Post+, especially with how many fanworks are on tumblr. It is the same for the Sims 4 CC world. Until 3D modeling sites/creators, and EA start defending the rights to their intellectual property, we will see the paywalling and monetization of sims 4 content get worse as we swing back towards ME. The "I have a right to do things my way and express my individual choices" defense will continually be used to try to sway people to support paywalling content. Only if the people who actually are having their OWN individual rights to their content such as EA and model creators who are victims of converters speak up, will those who are on the side of "ME" be appeased. Because the individual will trump the collective every time as things swing back towards that end of the pendulum. It'll be an interesting show. That's for sure. I'm not very much looking forward to it. :/ Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. :)

[gonuclear]

y’know i love sk8 the infinity as an anime and i love the characters in it so goddamn much, but i also think that it serves as a really good representation of a whole generation, and especially the queer subgroups of that generation (as well as the intergenerational alliances queer youth + adults share).

like, you can definitely tell that reki and langa are both neurodivergent. reki screams burnt-out gifted kid that never realized they had adhd, while langa fits into the archetypal quiet kid who probably has undiagnosed autism. they reflect two groups of people in gen z who have found themselves and their communities on the internet, and have by extension bonded with each other over those shared experiences. not only that, but both boys represent the complex feelings of discovering that hey, you might just be in love with your best friend. (they also do, in my opinion, a really good job at showing the highs and lows of that in a way that never quite veers into the overly-dramatic.)

i remember in the q&a twitch stream a couple weeks ago that joe’s voice actor jonah scott said that reki and joe’s relationship had the quality of an older person in the queer community taking a younger person coming into their identity under their wing to let them know that their feelings were completely valid and nothing to be ashamed of. not only did i totally get the same feeling myself, but it really made me think about how amazing it was that they included that part of discovering your identity in your later teen years.

speaking from experience gen z is one that has been raised to, as much as they can be, be proud of who they are and how they identify, because most of the older ones were raised by parents who had to deal with boomer bigotry. and not only did most of our parents teach us that, but the internet opened up a world of connections to people like us, people who were there to tell us that everything we were feeling was okay, like joe was for reki.

(also a little aside about miya—he definitely reminds me of a lot of the younger gen z kids i’ve seen popping up on the internet lately. they tend to be hyper-involved in internet culture and have a wildly different way of interacting with their peers than older gen z-ers, despite the fact that they’re all in the same generation. they have a sense of entitlement that we don’t, since most of them have always grown up in a society with internet and advanced technology, unlike the older half of the generation.)

i think what makes sk8 such a hit, and what will probably make it a queer cultural touchstone anime like yuri on ice, is that no matter where you are in life or how you identify, you can find some part of yourself in the amazing ensemble cast. maybe you see your younger self in reki or langa, or the way you are now in joe or cherry (or even shadow), but you can find some piece of it that resonates with you. that connects you to and invests you in the story. and i think that it’s stories like this that create something beautiful and long-lasting.

[wolfstar-in-color]

Creator’s spotlight: alifeincoffeespoons

It’s September and our fourth Creator’s Spotlight is here! We are so happy to share with you today the thoughts of a wonderful creator: @alifeincoffeespoons. We’ve rec’ed her fic Sirius and Harry go to Whitecastle here and we did the description for one of her artworks here (which includes the rec of some mitski songs!!).

As usual, here you have one of our favorite quotes of the interview, and under the cut you can read the full interview!

“Remus and Sirius understand each other on a level that few other characters in the series do. They have so many shared experiences and so much history, and there’s so many different ways to write them as a result. They are also foils, but somehow also a matched pair — they move in sync so easily.”

alifeincoffeespoons prompt: “It’s a rare sunny day when Remus sees Sirius, for the first time in three years, and he has to resist the urge to call emergency services immediately and announce that he needs to be hospitalized on account of a broken heart.”

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself

A: My Tumblr username is alifeincoffeespoons (inspired by Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”) and I go by spellingmynamewrong on AO3. I’d probably be considered part of Gen Z, and I’m Asian-American, which inspires a lot of my work. I usually create works of writing, though I also dabble in fanart occasionally. I’m a fan of both modern and canon divergent AUs; I’ll write canon compliant content occasionally but not very often, given how tragic canon is. 

Q:How did you start creating in the fandom? What did you wish to bring into the fandom?

A: I started writing back in middle school, and I’ve been reading and writing fanworks on-and-off since then. My first work of fanfiction was for Harry Potter too, although I didn’t start writing for Wolfstar until later on. I want to write works that make people think more deeply about — and even critique — the existing world of Harry Potter. There are a lot of deeply problematic aspects of the original work, as we all know, and I think we have an obligation as creators to call them out and demonstrate why they are so problematic.

Q: What things about Sirius/Remus as characters or in their relationship inspire you to create around them?

A: Remus and Sirius understand each other on a level that few other characters in the series do. They have so many shared experiences and so much history, and there’s so many different ways to write them as a result. They are also foils, but somehow also a matched pair — they move in sync so easily.

Q: What things would you like to highlight about the Wolfstar fandom and your experience in it?

A: It’s such an expansive fandom! That’s one thing that’s dawned on me over time — it has so, so much history, and so many individuals are or have been involved in it. 

Q: What type of content do you wish you saw more in the fandom?

A: I’d love to see more content that deals with the historical circumstances of the wider world around them — I’m a big sucker for historical fiction and real-world context. If we’re going for a particular sort of story, I’d love to see more superhero AUs. Also, a Good Omens AU. I saw fanart for it once and it’s never left my mind. There are so, so many possibilities there. 

Q: What is your favourite wolfstar fan content (fic/fanart/gifset/etc) and how does it inspire you?

A: This is so hard to choose! Let’s go with some tropes instead — I love fix-it fics, and I also find canon divergent AUs very interesting, particularly ones that involve giving Harry a better life. I’m also a big fan of Modern AUs, though. I also love humor — whether that be a full-on humor fic or just one with humor interspersed lovingly throughout.

Q: Which of your own identities inform your creative processes? How has that process been for you?

A: My Asian-American identity likely informs my creative process the most. There are so few Asian characters represented in media still, particularly fan-created content, and I’d like to see that changed. What I usually do is incorporate small details that can feel universal but also give readers an insight into a particular culture — usually through food or similarly common experiences. It comes fairly naturally, actually, since I often write about Asian or Asian-American characters in my original fiction as well.

Q: What advice do you have for other content creators with diverse backgrounds in the fandom? What would you say to people that might feel they don’t have the “right” experience to participate in the creation of content related to Wolfstar?

A: If you’re comfortable, definitely share your experiences — we always need more diverse voices in fandom. I don’t think there’s any particular history or characteristic you need to be an active participant in Wolfstar fandom. 

Q: How could we build a more diverse fandom?

A: Firstly, by seeking out and supporting content that features characters with diverse backgrounds. Secondly, by calling out rhetoric that marginalizes diverse creators. Thirdly, by doing our best to do better ourselves.

Q: What’s your favorite thing to modify in Sirius’s or Remus’s characterizations to bring new perspectives to them?

A: I’ve often written Sirius as Asian, mostly because I think it truly does add another layer to his characterization. I’ve explained some of my reasoning behind that in this Tumblr post I wrote eons ago. I often also write Remus as Jewish — I saw this headcanon a long time ago and it’s stuck with me since. My characterizations of them are always shifting, though, and I’m sure they will continue to over time.

Q: What does diversity mean to you? What does that encompass in fannish spaces?

A: Diversity doesn’t just mean including a POC in your work or an LGBTQ character; it means giving them meaningful, non-stereotypical narratives and characterization. In fan spaces, that means supporting creators from diverse backgrounds and works featuring well-written, diverse characters. It also means, as a creator, doing research on the cultural backgrounds of characters you are writing about, particularly if you do not belong to that culture yourself.

Q: Is there a resource you would recommend for fans to read when it comes to learning about diversity?

A: If you’re interested in learning more about Asian-American culture and diversity in particular through literature, two memoirs I read recently and enjoyed were Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H-Mart. I think they give insight into the Asian-American experience and are also incredibly moving. There are lots of resources for writing out there, on Tumblr, Reddit, and elsewhere. Also, sensitivity readers, if you are a writer, are critical. 

Q: Is there a project/organization that you want to hype?

A: Given what’s been happening in Texas and in countless other states across the U.S. — horrific attacks on bodily autonomy and the right to choose — please donate to Planned Parenthood.

Q: Any cause that you want fans to know about so that they can support it?

A: Rental assistance — the Supreme Court recently struck down Biden’s eviction moratorium. If anyone you know is at risk of being evicted, please direct them to local and state rental assistance programs (a tool to search for them: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-housing-assistance/renter-protections/find-help-with-rent-and-utilities/).

Q: Leave us with a quote or work of art that always inspires you.

A: Whenever I need to write, I’ll put on a Phoebe Bridgers song if it’s a sad section I’m writing, and if it’s a relatively happier section, I’ll put on a NIKI song. Other artists that inspire me: Mitski, Lorde, Lucy Dacus, Taylor Swift, Lily Allen, and Lizzo.

[saturatedcoffee]

How Archive Sunday turned 5,000 TikTok followers into $1 million in revenue… in one year

Nothing has made me feel the big 3–0 looming on my horizon more than being a millennial on TikTok. Like more than the 100 million people who downloaded the app at the start of quarantine, it was something I used to pass the time. It was what all the kids were doing, and I was in strong denial about the fact that I was no longer one of them with my skinny jeans and side part―which TikTok has shown me are signs that I am now, certifiably, Old.

What I expected was videos of lip-syncing and dancing―like the app’s precursor, Musical.ly. But what I found was a collection of content creators making videos about my very specific and very niche interests and using that as a marketing tool for their small businesses.

I found a lot of small businesses on TikTok to satiate my quarantine-induced shopaholic tendencies. Like custom joycons for my Nintendo Switch, Japanese anime stickers for my laptop, and cute gear for my battlestation (otherwise known as my home office). What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t alone-the pandemic had kickstarted an explosion of growth for small businesses on apps and websites like TikTok.

And one of those businesses is right here in Salt Lake City-in fact, right across the street from my very own apartment.

Just because there’s a pandemic doesn’t mean you can’t do business

When I was downloading TikTok at the start of the pandemic, Sasha Sloan was starting her business. “I was just kind of stuck at home in quarantine,” she says. “I was still in school, but I couldn’t go to campus. I couldn’t get a job. And like everybody else, I was just on TikTok all the time.”

What started as a way to make some money and kill some time in quarantine quickly became an overnight sensation.

Her business was simple: buying old Star Wars T-shirts from the thrift store, bleach dying them, and reselling them on Etsy. Coming from a family who had made their living off of recycled fashion, like her siblings’ company Uptown Cheapskate or her mother’s company Kid to Kid, it was an easy model to follow, but one she did all on her own.

With only 5,000 TikTok followers and 50 bleach-dyed Star Wars T-shirts, Sloan put up a video showcasing her product and went to bed. When she woke up the next day, her entire Etsy collection had sold out. “That was the first moment that I was like, hold on, do we have something special here? And then I did it again.”

For the first two months, that’s how it went. Waking up at 6:00 AM, buying shirts, bleaching them, photographing them, and then listing them. “I couldn’t do it fast enough,” she says.

Sloan launched her business, Archive Sunday, with bleach-dyed T-shirts on TikTok on July 7th, 2020. By August, she’d launched her second product: collage walls. One hundred days in, the business hit $100,000 in sales. By the five-month mark, Sloan’s account reached one million followers. Now the business is projected to make a million dollars in sales in 2021.

Pictured: Sasha Sloan with the Archive Sunday collage kit, Athena. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

A new social media for a new way of marketing

What makes Sloan’s business unique is that it goes beyond traditional methods because the products she sells draw on existing fanbases, like Star Wars and Harry Potter. In fact, I discovered her months ago because she posted a video from my own favorite fandom, Sailor Moon.

“The [TikTok] algorithm sorted me very quickly into fandom. Star Wars, Harry Potter, all that kind of stuff. And I was just watching and seeing how easy it is to go viral,” says Sloan. She’s right. It is easy to go viral on TikTok, especially if you know what you’re doing.

The algorithm sorts users into social circles that share interests — or liked hashtags. When a video is uploaded, the algorithm shows it to a small subset of people. And when they like that video, it shares it with users who may have similar interests. And if they like it, it creates a positive feedback loop that, if it happens enough times, causes the video to go viral. Unlike platforms like Twitter or Facebook, you don’t have to be following the video creator to find their content.

And though it sounds lucky, Sloan says her success was about more than luck, “Everything that’s happened on TikTok is not by accident. I am very strategic, very calculating in what I post,” she explains. “That’s something that I think is the most common and frustrating misconception to me is that I am a blonde girl. I’m a pageant girl. I know how to do my makeup. And I will get the critique that everything I have only came to me because of the way I look. And I just hate it, because I don’t think people realize I’ve been working in the social media world and studying algorithms since I was about 18.”

Pictured: Sasha Sloan in her signature collection, The Burrow, inspired by Harry Potter. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

Sloan has worked in social media since she ran the verified social accounts for her family’s businesses as a teenager. Recently, she even ran social media for John Huntsman’s campaign for governor as part of her capstone internship, managing million-dollar ad spends. And in her experience, she can confirm that marketing on TikTok is very different from Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest.

“[TikTok] has created this liberation in social media where, number one, you can make whatever you want because you’re speaking to an audience that really gets you and has your same interests. And number two, it is a meritocracy. On Instagram, celebrities are often the most-followed and your followers decide how much [your content] gets liked. Whereas on TikTok, the algorithm does not care if you have a million followers or if you have ten. The only question is, is this a good piece of content?”

Creative advertising for a creative generation

TikTok is changing the game―and it’s changing the way we sell products. It’s not about paid advertising, because you can scroll right past the ads. You can’t target an ad to Gen Z the same way you can target a Boomer on Facebook. And according to Wallaroo Media, 60 percent of TikTok users belong to Gen Z, who’ve spent their whole lives on social media and are able to tell what’s an ad and what’s actual content. So if you want a TikTok user to watch your ad, you have to make it content they want to watch.

So Sloan has skipped the commercial. “I’ve never spent a dollar on marketing,” she says. “We just make these creative projects and people want to support them. They want to support the outfits. They want to look like our characters. And so we’re almost using fictional characters as influencers in a way.”

The creative projects and fictional characters she’s talking about tie back into her Noble House of Black series, which is a fan-created, live-action series of TikTok videos about three sisters from Harry Potter: Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa Black (played by Sloan herself). The series tells the story of these sisters in a visual form of fan fiction, wearing Archive Sunday’s clothes and using their accessories which, if fans like enough, they can follow through Sloan’s TikTok profile to the Archive Sunday store.

Pictured: Sasha Sloan as Narcissa Black in the Tiktok Harry Potter fan series The Noble House of Black. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

What makes the series so engaging is that they’re featuring characters the very large and very vocal Harry Potter fandom is already familiar with. But while these characters exist in the Harry Potter franchise, much of their story is left untold. Which leaves it to the interpretation of fanon — a collection of concepts and ideas that are used in most fan fiction, but don’t really exist in the real story’s canon. And that’s where the Noble House of Black steps in to fill in the story.

“We are representing the aesthetic of fandom, which is not exactly the same thing as representing the original piece of art or work,” explains Sloan, who is very careful to circumnavigate her business around copyright issues. “We’re not copying and pasting the original piece of art. We’re using that art as a launching pad and an expansionary work to create something [new].”

A new kind of business for a new kind of nerd

The business of fandom, and namely fan fiction, is growing. Comic conventions like Salt Lake’s FanX grow bigger every year. The most well-recognized fan fiction website, Archive of our Own (AO3), even celebrated their 7 millionth fan fiction upload in 2020. Fan culture is a booming and underserved market, which has exploded even further with the stay-at-home orders of the 2020 pandemic. And Archive Sunday is capitalizing on it.

The untapped market of grown fans, particularly young women, is what Sloan attributes to her success. “I wanted to create a brand for that girl who is a millennial or a Gen Z or who loves their fandom stuff, is confident, put together, and is still a cool, popular, fun person that you’d want to hang out with.” For the girl that shops at Target, who wants the $200 merch from Disneyland but can only afford the sale at Hot Topic. For the fan who wants to rep their Hogwarts house while also being office-appropriate.

Pictured: The Black sisters from the Tiktok Harry Potter fan series, The Noble House of Black, with the actresses wearing signature Archive Sunday clothing pieces. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

And Sloan is using her platform not only for marketing but as a tool for empowerment. “Generally in society, women are made fun of for their interests,” she says. “And I think that a lot of young women, in particular, need and desire the ability to look up to other women that have the same interest and are completely confident and passionate about it.”

And as a grown fan myself, I wholeheartedly agree with her. According to a census survey of 10,005 AO3 users, 80 percent of fan fiction readers and creators identified as female, with less than five percent identifying as male. But how many of these women hide behind online aliases and compartmentalize their fandoms from their real lives?

The answer to that question remains unseen, but Sloan is taking the steps to embrace her nerdiness as the girl who reads too much―and turning that into not only a business, but a positive role model for young women.

“When people message me to tell me why they follow me, it’s usually young women who [say], ‘I’m getting bullied in school and everyone thinks that I’m weird. I like all this stuff. I’m so passionate about my books and things. And I don’t really see any representation for that.”

So she’s filling the gap. Embracing her inner geek and using that to connect with other fans, she’s been able to build a business practically overnight. There’s a market here that’s ripe for the picking and desperate for content. Like Sloan, you don’t need to spend a dime on marketing. You just need to be a little creative and jump in the game while it’s still hot.

...

Originally published at https://www.utahbusiness.com on April 27, 2021. Follow me on Medium!

[shiredded]

A white animation student’s take on Soul and POC cartoons

This got long but there’s lots of pretty pictures to go with it.

Hi, I’m Shire and I’m as white as a ripped-off Pegasus prancing on a stolen van. Feel free to add to my post, especially if you are poc. The next generation of animators needs your voice now more than ever.

My opinion doesn’t matter as much here because I’m not part of the people being represented. 

But I am part of the people to whom this film is marketed, and as the market, I think I should be Very Aware of what media does to me. 

And as the future of animation, I need to do something with what I know.

I am very white. I have blue eyes and long blond hair. I’ve seen countless protagonists, love interests, moms, and daughters that look like me. If I saw an animated character that looks like me turn into a creature for the majority of a movie, I would cheer. Bring it on! I have plenty of other representation that tells me I’m great just the way I am, and I don’t need to change to be likable. 

The moment Soul’s premise was released, many people of color expressed mistrust and disappointment on social media. Let me catch you up on the plot according to the new (march 2020) trailer. (It’s one of those dumb modern trailers that tells you the entire plot of the movie including the climax; so I recommend only watching half of it)

Our protagonist, Joe Gardner, has a rich (not in the monetary sense) and beautiful life. He has dreams! He wants to join a jazz band! So far his life looks, to me, comforting, amazing, heartfelt, and real. I’m excited to learn about his family and his music. 

Some Whoknowswhat happens, and he enters a dimension where everyone, himself included, is represented by glowing, blue, vaguely humanoid creatures. They’re adorable! But they sure as heck aren’t brown. The most common response seems to be dread at the idea of the brown human protagonist spending the majority of his screen time as a not-brown, not-human creature. 

The latest trailer definitely makes that look pretty darn true. He does spend most of the narrative - chronologically - as a blob. 

but

That isn’t the same as his screen time. 

From the look of the trailer, Joe and his not-yet-born-but-already-tired-of-life soul companion tour Joe’s story in all of its brown-skinned, human-shaped, life-loving glory. The movie is about life, not about magic beans that sing and dance about burping (though I won’t be surprised if that happens too.)

Basically! My conclusion is “it’s not as bad as it looked at first, and it looks like a wonderful story.”

but

That doesn’t mean it’s ok. 

Yes, Soul is probably going to be a really important and heartfelt story about life, the goods, the bads, the dreams, and the bonds. That story uses a fun medium to view that life; using bright, candy-bowl colors and a made-up world to draw kids in with their parents trailing behind. 

It’s a great story and there’s no reason to not create a black man for the lead role. There’s no reason not to give this story to people of color. It’s not a white story. This is great!

Except...

we’ve kind of

done this

a lot

The Book of Life and Coco also trade in their brown-skinned cast for a no-skinned cast, but I don’t know enough about Mexican culture to say those are bad and I haven't picked up on much pushback to those. There’s more nuance there, I think. 

I cut the above pics together to show how the entire ensemble changes along with the protagonist. We can lose entire casts of poc. Emperor's New Groove keeps its cast as mostly human so at least we have Pacha

And while the animals they interact with might be poc-coded, there’s nothing very special or affirming about “animals of color.” 

So, Soul.

Are we looking at the same thing here?

It’s no secret by now that this is an emerging pattern in animation. But not all poc-starring animated films have this same problem. We have Moana! With deuteragonists (basically co-protagonists) of color, heck yeah.

 Aladdin... Pocahontas... The respect those films have for their depicted culture is... an essay for another time. Mulan fits here too. the titular characters’ costars are either white, or blue, and/or straight up animals. But hey, they don’t turn into animals, and neither do the supporting cast/love interests.

Dreamworks’ Home (2015) is also worth mentioning as a poc-led film where the  deuteragonist is kind of a purple blob. But the thing I like a lot about Home is that it’s A Nice Story, where there’s no reason for the protagonist to not be poc, so she is poc. Spiderverse has a black lead with a white (or masked, or animal) supporting cast. But, spiderverse also has Miles’ dad, mom, uncle, and Penny Parker.

I’d like to see more of that.

And less of this

if you’re still having trouble seeing why this is a big deal, let’s try a little what-if scenario. 

This goes out to my fellow white girls (including LGBTA white girls, we are not immune to propaganda racism)

imagine for a second you live in a world where animation is dominated to the point of almost total saturation by protagonist after protagonist who are boys/men. You do get the occasional woman-led film, but maybe pretend that 30 to 40 percent of those films are like

(We’re pretending for a second that Queen Eleanor was the protagonist, because I couldn’t think of any animated movies where the white lady protagonist turns into and stays an animal for the majority of the film)

Or, white boys and men, how would you feel if your most popular and marketable representation was this?

Speaking of gender representation, binary trans and especially nonbinary trans people are hard pressed to find representation of who they are without the added twist of Lizard tails or horns and the hand-waving explanation of “this species doesn’t do gender” But again, that’s a different essay.

Let’s look at what we do have. In reality, we (white people) have so much representation that having a fun twist where we spend most of the movie seeing that person in glimpses between colorful, glittering felt characters that reflect our inner selves is ok. 

Wait, that aesthetic sounds kind of familiar...

But I digress. Inside Out was a successful and honestly helpful and important movie.  I have no doubt in my mind that Soul will meet and surpass it in quality and and in message. 

There is nothing wrong with turning your protagonist of color into an animal or blob for most of their own movie. 

But it’s part of a larger pattern, and that pattern tells people of color that their skin would be more fun if it was blue, or hairy, or slimy, or something. It’s fine to have films like that because heck yeah it would be fun to be a llama. But it’s also fun to not be a llama. It’s fun to be a human. It’s fun to be yourself. I don’t think children of color are told that enough. 

At least, not by mainstream studios. (The Breadwinner, produced by Cartoon Saloon)

It’s not like all these mainstream poc movies are the result of racist white producers who want us to equate people of color with animals. In fact, most of those movies these days have people of color very high up, as directors, writers, or at the very least, a pool of consultants of color.

These movies aren’t evil. They aren’t even that intrinsically racist (Pocahontas can go take a hike and rethink its life, but we knew that.) It’s that we need more than just the shape-shifting narratives of our non-white protagonists. 

It’s not like there isn’t an enormous pool of ideas, talent, visions and scripts already written and waiting to be produced. There is.

But they somehow don’t make it past the head executives, way above any creative team, who make the decisions, aiming not for top-of-the-line stories, but for the Bottom line of sales.

When Disney acquired Pixar, their main takeover was in the merchandising department. The main target for their merchandise are, honestly, white children.

So is it much of a surprise

that they are more often greenlighting things palatable for as many “discerning” mothers as possible?

I saw just as many Tiana dolls as frog toys on the front page of google, so don’t worry too much about The Princess And The Frog. Kids love her. But I didn’t find any human figures of Kenai from Brother Bear, except for dolls wearing a bear suit. 

So. What do I think of Soul? 

I think it’s going to be beautiful. I think it’s going to be a great movie.

But I also think people of color deserve more. 

Let’s take one more look at the top people who went into making this movie.

Of the six people listed here, five are white. Kemp Powers, one of the screenplay writers, is black. 

It’s cool to see women reaching power within the animation industry, but this post isn’t about us.

We need to replace the top execs and get more projects greenlit that send the message that african, asian, latinix, middle eastern, and every other non-white ethnicity is perfect and relatable as the humans they were meant to be. 

Disney is big enough that they can - and therefore should - take risks and produce movies that aren’t as “marketable” simply because art needs to be made. People need to be loved.

Come on, millennials and Gen Z. We can do better.

We Will do better.

TLDR: A lot of mainstream animation turns its protagonists of color into animals or other creatures. I (white) don’t think that’s a bad thing, except for the fact that we don’t get enough poc movies that AREN’T weird. Support Soul; it’s not going to be as bad as you think. It’s probably gonna be really good. Let’s make more good movies about people of color that stay PEOPLE of color.

[natsunoomoi]

About AAPI Stuff

So like I haven't posted anything about this on here or on most of my social media like anywhere. It's not that I don't care, but it's more that I agree with all the call outs and stuff that's been happening and I'm annoyed that it didn't happen sooner. As an older millennial Asian I cannot begin to express how proud and happy I am to see younger Gen Z Asians taking up the helm and calling out the Hollywood bullshit and the various microaggressions that we've all endured for who really knows how long. But at the same time I am frustrated af that so many of my peers and fellow millennials turned a blind eye and waited to voice similar opinions until NOW. Like I literally had a lot of these pro-Asian views and also questioned the status quo in the same way, but a lot of my peers back in the day would just smile and nod and not do anything about it. Kind of like keep your head down and don't rock the boat or even were blind or willfully ignorant to the shit that was happening and just eating up the scraps that White Hollywood fed us or their dumb excuses. I'm happy, but frustrated that more from my generation didn't stand up and do it sooner.

To a lot of my friends who would listen to me, I feel like I probably influenced them in a lot of positive ways to be mindful of it. I am grateful and happy that I had them because otherwise I probably would feel lonely and isolated. But most of those friends were not fellow East Asians let alone in AAPI. It's just kind of annoying and frustrating to see some friends jump on speaking out about AAPI hate now when we were in uni 10 years ago I brought up about how similar things were f-ed up then and they just shrugged and didn't care that it was happening.

I remember once getting into a heated discussion with an acquaintance about Memoirs of a Geisha. I wasn't saying it wasn't okay for her to like it. You can like whatever you want, but the story and the film especially is very problematic. That person tried to defend it by saying that the author like talked to an actual geisha and based the story on her life and while that's true, that geisha also distanced herself from the book and said that he like screwed up his telling of the geisha world and misrepresents her life. The author admits also that he made up basically a prettied up fantasy, which is just a nice way to say he culturally appropriated a story to fit his idea of what Asian culture/Japanese culture is like instead of what it's ACTUALLY like. There's other things like how she was valued and viewed as unique for her blue eyes and like, there are some villages in China with blue eyed people. But like they were historically shunned. And like, he chose to give an Asian person a Western trait to make her "valuable". That is some messed up shit.

But like also, about the film specifically, the main three women in the story are all played by Chinese women. Because Japanese, Chinese, same difference right? That's some kind of fucked up right there. I pointed it out and that person I was discussing with said that the studio "couldn't find a Japanese person who could speak English" and that was the reason why they cast three Chinese women. That is some actual bullshit. A large Japanese American population in Los Angeles and they couldn't find a single aspiring actress of Japanese descent to play one of the roles? I understand wanting to put big names on the poster to attract people, so maybe we can't get rid of Michelle Yeoh or Zhang Ziyi, but Jesus Christ we were not in the pocket of China's film market yet, why Gong Li and not a Japanese person? Plus with all the half Japanese actresses or talent all over Japanese media in Japan, they really couldn't find one that could speak English? I call bullshit and I think they didn't even try. I brought this stuff up and people were blind or willfully ignorant or basically a twinkie and just trying to fit in at the expense of our proper representation. I swear it was so frustrating at the time to get people to understand, hey this is fucked up and we shouldn't stand for it. Imagine if I got this person or most of my other friends to listen and we got a movement going and we spread the word. Would all the hate we got in the wake of the pandemic have happened?

And that, therein, is my frustration. The stuff coming out about all the microaggressions and like the stupid excuses and everything are things I have said to people before, but I was largely ignored. Maybe I could have tried harder, but if people want to willfully be apathetic and let stuff happen there isn't much I can do. I am really frustrated and disappointed by my generation, but I'm glad the younger gen is picking it up.

With that, I'd also like to direct your attention to the film, The Departed. It is basically a remake of a *brilliant* Chinese film which launched a super popular series. It has a few original bits, but a large part of the contribution of shots and the writing comes from the original CHINESE FILM that they remade. It was a big hit in the US cuz it's good, but it's good because it's a remake of an already AMAZING CHINESE FILM. The filming is near shot for shot and there's some original stuff in a change of setting and focus to Boston, but all the good things about the film are from the Chinese film. Yet Scorsese gets praised and accolades for basically copying the work of Asian film makers and not well because a number of people had criticism over how it was adapted to America. But the bigger thing is that these accolades are more deserved by the original Asian film staff. This is only a remake and the good things about it are from Infernal Affairs. I have been fucking livid over this for years that the Chinese cast and film makers were DENIED their due recognition. The awards that The Departed won actually rightfully belong to the Chinese. SHOW. CHINESE FILMS. DIRECTLY TO PEOPLE. DON'T REMAKE THEM. I fucking hate this movie just in principle of what it represents and how it literally STOLE from Asian representation. I'm probably shouting into the void here, but please for the love of God, I hope one day people recognize this and remove the rewards from this film which are undeserved.

[allthislove]

I wanna come back to the affirmative action thing, because I’ve been thinking about it for a while and the shit bothers me, okay?

Racial intelligence is a myth. Positive or negative, this is not a real thing. I’m going to talk about the Model Minority Myth and bit here, and also how Black people, especially Black Americans, are seen as inherently stupider than other people.

On one end of the spectrum, you have Asian people, who do well academically. People talk about them like they’re inherently better at school, or smarter than other people.

On the other end, you have Black people, who are thought of as bad students, stupid, incapable of succeeding in school without the assistance of affirmative action.

Neither point makes much sense, because they ask the person listening to imagine that neither Black nor Asian students have individuality. They can’t succeed or fail because of their own merits, but that their success or failure is because of some thing encoded into their DNA. 

In reality, this is socialization. Before I get into this, I wanted to remind the world that Black women are the most educated demographic in America, today, and so what I’m about to talk about is (thankfully) changing, but let’s take a look at what factors help create both of these myths. 

Asian families, especially immigrant families, tend to push education. It’s almost a virtue. Getting good grades became important for some Asian immigrants because they wanted their children to have their best chance. Immigration is hard. Many immigrants (not just Asian immigrants) come here and have to completely start over. Degrees they earned in their home countries sometimes become useless, here, especially if they’re not fluent in English. They often came to this country and had to initially work very menial, hard labor or dirty task jobs that Americans didn’t want. So, they pushed for their children to do well academically, so that they could become something better when they grew up. 

So, right from the start, Asian parents are pushing for their kids to do extremely well in school.

What happened to Black kids, then? People never seem to tell the full story, here, but when I thought about it, it was obvious. I’m working on a play, right now, about Black people in the American South around the time of the first World War. The main character is a young Black woman who “finished” school at the 8th grade level because there wasn’t a school that taught Black people after that in her area. This wasn’t just some random thing I made up for my play. This is the situation that Black people lived in for a very long time, after Emancipation. While some HBCUs were being founded (thought many of them were initially just seminaries or agricultural schools) many parts of the country just didn’t have places where Black people could learn after a certain point. Couple that with a country that really doesn’t give a crap if Black people get good educations and education just never really became the most important thing, for us. 

Black people valued a lot. We valued our stories. We valued our culture, which we built ourselves because most of our original cultures were stolen from us. We valued music. But, we never got a chance to be socialized to value education, because education was not available to us. And then when it was, it was often subpar.

So, right away, you have two completely different situations. One group, largely immigrants who have everything to lose and access to education; education being one of the main reasons to even come here. One group, brought here on slave ships, enslaved, freed, and then kept from good education for decades, if not an actual century. 

The other factor in Asian academic excellence is that, especially at the college level, you have the top students coming to the US specifically to study at American universities. So, already, you’re skewing the numbers.

Anyway. So, Black people weren’t socialized to treat education with the reverence that many immigrant families do. So, once we started to get better access to education by the mid 1960s, most Black people just didn’t find it to be a virtuous thing to have good grades. Good or bad grades are just a thing. Don’t get me wrong. Black parents still get happy when their kids get an A, and upset when their kids get an F. But it was never treated as this all-encompassing thing. It just is what it is. 

Couple that with, you know... a lot of socioeconomic factors that a lot of Black people still live in, and grades and scores just aren’t that important. 

The thing is, that is shifting. A lot. Like, almost the sharpest course correction Black Americans could have. As I mentioned before, Black women are the most educated demographic in America, now. Why did this happen? I’m not exactly sure. A lot of people credit the emergence of images of Black success on TV in the 80s with shows like The Cosby Show and A Different World with sparking this shift. More Black kids saw that it was possible and therefore more Black kids went to college. The thing, though, is that that’s still mostly Millennials and Gen-Z. Meaning barely 1 generation of Black people have started to become more educated. Which also means, like... we haven’t had the time to see what the impact of this is going to be.

The Model Minority Myth for Asians is decades old. Black people even being able to go to PWIs is shorter than the Model Minority Myth. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is... Black people aren’t more educated because education went easier on us than other people. We’re more educated because we’re capable, and we never were not capable. 

Again, affirmative action makes sure you’re not overlooked because of your race. It doesn’t magically create a spot for you just because you’re Black, and especially not because you’re Black in spite of you being undeserving. And the other thing Affirmative Action doesn’t do is change your grades. If a Black student earned a 4.0, they earned the same 4.0 as and Asian student with a 4.0. Black students succeed or fail on their own merit, not because they’re Black. 

And as for poverty... poverty is incredibly difficult to escape, no matter your race. I’m not the best person to speak on Black poverty, because I’m not poor and I grew up comfortably middle class with two college educated and professional parents, so yeah, but I can say that because I grew up like that, it was far easier for me to go to any 4 year college and earn any degree I wanted than it will be for some poor kid living in the projects with a single parent with a GED. I’m not sure why people act like Black poor people are an example of why Black people are inherently bad or stupid. First of all, you can be incredibly good and incredibly smart and still live in the projects and be poor. Second of all, the existence of bad people in the Black race doesn’t mean that all or even most Black people are bad. Third of all, nobody is stupid, and if they seem “stupid” to you, something else is going on. A lack of education. A cognitive disability. Something. “Stupid”, like “crazy”, is a dismissive, and often ableist, word, and basically means nothing. 

And since I brought up the Model Minority Myth, I think I should mention that it’s also very harmful to Asian people, especially students. One, it’s dehumanizing, and makes people hold Asian people to impossible standards that obviously every Asian person can’t meet. And two, it misses the experiences of Asian people who didn’t come here for academic reasons, many of whom don’t have the same “education as a virtue” thing that many specifically East Asian or Indian immigrants have. Like, people who came here as refugees instead of exchange students. Many of those people find that they get left behind by the myth, teachers offer them less help because they’re Asian and are supposed to be “smarter than everyone else”, and they end up falling into a sort of gap. Many of them drop out, and the cycle of poverty continues. And I guess a third, big problem is that it makes colleges and universities judge Asian applicants more harshly and hold them to a higher standard than everyone else, which means that unless you’re a high flying Asian overachiever, you might have a harder time getting into college than your white or Black friends. 

So, anyway, what I’m saying is that assigning a certain intelligence level to someone based on their race is bad and like... America really has a big problem with race and we need to fix it.

Also, we need to do better, as a whole, about understanding why we have the misconceptions that we have. It’s really frustrating, for me, to constantly feel like I have to prove I’m not stupid to strangers because they all assume I am because I’m Black. Or at least less intelligent than they are. And to have to defend my two degrees constantly because old Duck Dynasty looking white guys think I didn’t earn them because of affirmative action. To have to constantly explain that a Black person’s A is the same A as anyone else in the class, because, while teachers do sometimes grade on a curve, it’s not given racially. And that if you answer a question correctly, it’s correct. And if you solve an equation correctly, you solved it correctly. And that the answer doesn’t change for Black people, and that the work isn’t easier. 

And I think people know that it doesn’t make sense, because when you think about it logically, it doesn’t make sense that one group of people is inherently stupid or that another is inherently smart. We understand individuals. We know lots of people, each of us. We know someone who isn’t bright at all, we know someone who is incredibly smart, we know some people like this who are the same race as each other, and even the same race as us. We know they’re different because they’re individual people, and that they don’t represent our entire race. So, why, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, can we not... as a society... yet understand that race effects our conditions, but does not dictate the type of person we are in the slightest?? Good, bad, smart, pretty, not smart, ugly, short, tall, funny, boring, brave, scared, energetic, whatever the hell... THESE ARE TRAITS THAT MAKE UP INDIVIDUALS, NOT RACES. Race is a lie we tell ourselves to explain why certain people share certain physically features and/or geography. Nothing more. We have built entire societies around this lie, and like... I’m not naive enough to think that race will no longer be a factor any time soon. Some people are far too hung up on their racism for us to truly move on as a society. But I also know that, for us to begin the process of moving on from it, we have to be honest about how it has shaped our society and stop this thing of blaming people for the conditions the society forced on them and how it affected them through the generations. 

This was a lot, and I’m not sure if it’s clear, but yeah. All of this shit is more complicated than you want it to be, and people don’t fit neatly into little stereotype boxes. You have to get that shit out of your head and learn to both see individuals AND understand how history shapes our present reality.