#So they're giving the people what they want because giving the Phannies what they want is lucrative af

[orbitalsockets]

Is anyone else reacting to the sudden Phan Golden Age with hesitant excitement like a dumpster cat that's suspicious of a shrimp on a string or is it just me

[thinking-emoji]

Ok contrary to my expectations I actually found the Today Show interview interesting for, like, a couple of reasons???

1. Other people have said this but the interviewer opening with "together for 15 years, how do you make it work", and Dan going through the turtle metaphor and then, with the widest grin, saying "professional relationship" - was SUCH a refreshing moment imo bc it didn't feel awkward at all!!! It's such a fun middle ground - giving the fans what they want (tortoises), giving the interviewers what they want (an answer), giving himself what he wants (control of the narrative and focus on the professional aspect), giving me, sophia thinking-emoji, what I want (feeling like I'm in on a joke) thank FUCK they've gotten good at media now after 15 years.

2. What Phil said about everyone being aware of internet content and professional content creators now. That's the one thing I noticed from the start. There was a post going around here earlier about phannies interviewing them vs non-phannies, and it was kind of based on those old interviews when journalists would ask "well what does a youtuber even do", and generally being disrespectful because they either didn't understand or felt threatened by new media - and I think that is pretty much gone now. Of course the tv presenters on Australia Today Extra know who dnp are and what they've done over the years. Not knowing that would be embarrassing! We're not wasting our time with the very basics anymore. You're allowed to just say hi and promote your show without having to justify your entire career now. Finally

3. The interviewer repeatedly trying to get more speaking time from phil, and dan ALWAYS rushing in to help phil wrap his answers up - and then at the end, Phil claiming that he "yaps too much" for tiktok. That's so fucking funny bc it looks like he's just blatantly ignorant of how he comes across as the guy who talks significantly less, but it's even funnier if you realise that it's probably true? If you leave Phil alone with a camera, I think he would talk for 10 hours but occasionally sit in silence for 20 seconds at a time, and that's why dan has to step in with these fast-paced interviews before phil can think of an answer of his own. We pretend they're one person but I find it fascinating how you can see their different approaches to communication in these interviews

4. Elise posting this on bluesky of all places unironically makes me happy. I'm still not on there but it feels like a small victory over elon musk specifically lmao. I hope more twitter phannies move and then in a few months we can completely replace twitter as a source, at least within our small fandom space

Edit. 5. I knew I had forgotten something over the 20 minutes of writing this and it's of course them willingly, openly and unprompted talking about being queer and having a queer audience on a show that is not decidedly queer! It's one thing to talk to Attitude mag or to a phannie about identifying as a twink and a third or so of your audience being trans, but honestly saying this on The morning show on national tv hits, dare I say it, different

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

me, waking up drenched in sweat, violently sitting up in bed and letting out a gasp: IT'S A METAPHOR FOR BEING A YOUTUBER

idk if someone already thought of this and this is also probably the most obvious reading of it but here i go anyway: i was just walking a dog and listening to potato prints and when phil said "you've come a long way daniel" i was like "huh phil is in the teaching position in all of these just like he was for youtube" like phil just gives editing pro tips the whole time and it all parallels their story as a youtube duo.

and obviously the entertainment industry is rife (not proper usage of that word but it Feels Right so fuck you) with satanic symbolism/imagery/iconography/motifs. being an entertainer is "selling your soul to the devil" etc etc and we know dan hates being a youtuber and does feel that way. you gotta upload twice a day every day in order to be the number one art channel on youtube dot com after all. you gotta make those crafts for satan. bo burnham has a ton of lyrics/songs that i'm thinking about rn like "you used to do comedy when you felt like being funny but now you're contractually obligated so dance you fucking monkeeeey DANCE MONKEY DAAAANCE" and in "repeat stuff" which is a commentary of how mainstream pop love songs and pop stars have to be really superficial and unoriginal because they need to appeal to everyone and at one point he sucks satan off lmao and is like AHFRUEHQFWIIO I AM A VESSEL IDUSHISKA 666 KAJSDFI ILLUMINATI UIGDFSAHIO FREEMASONS. highly recommend looking at the lyrics to that song if you're into that kind of thing.

also the (very rightful) dig at phannies for the "don't cry craft" spamming like "we love all of our crafty audience that spread the message of this channel on all the other videos on the internet! everywhere! everybody enjoyed that!" is how creators who want to keep status have to address their audiences no matter how annoying or harmful they're being. thinking of the ajr line "stay out of politics, stay on the fence / stay out of all of it to keep half your fans" because like,, yeah if a creator ever expresses an opinion that declares their feelings on one side of an issue then they will lose support (smosh is a perfect example of a bunch of people never ever ever expressing an opinion if it could be considered controversial among their audience, like refusing to address the genocide happening right now and just taking their zionist member who the fans are mad at out of some videos to be like "shhhhh nothing to see here we don't know what you're talking about"), ESPECIALLY if that issue is the behaviour of their audience.

obviously the first dapc video was not made with any intended meaning, they just woke up and were like "let's be weird and freak people out" and they did that, and then adding in symbolism and making it all mean something developed with time. but i'm gonna pretend that it has always had consistent meaning because i'm neurodivergent and love overanalysing silly little media.

i am so jhfbvdahfkiufadkhlj right now so if anyone has more theories or things to add lmk and thank you for coming to my ted talk

[arthousephil]

like ok i actually want to expand on this. a lot of their branding was based on relatability, their lives/personalities, (obv they play games but its not at all about the games). so there was this dichotomy of their brands being about them as people yet the one major part of their lives that they were trying to hide (their relationship/sexualities) became arguably the major part of their brand/popularity. So it's like how much did they feel the need to perform aspects of their relationship (eg fanservice/"giving the ppl what they want") through little crumbs left edited in in order to keep the audience interested. Do/did they feel like we had that power over them, that they needed to act in a certain way or we'd get bored? Because they are very obviously aware of what the audience goes crazy for ("omg theyre touching!" jokes). I think that's why their scripted stuff feels weird sometimes because they are writing stuff in that they're like the phannies will love this, whereas dnpgames they genuinely just act like that LOL. That's why im sooo curious about the tone TIT will take? But on another vein its also sooo funny because at the end of the day we are all the losers who are obsessed with them and pay for their boogie ass lifestyle and all they have to do is be a little gay on camera, so they have a lot of power over us and profit very nicely as well lol. and especially in this era they definitely do so much on purpose to laugh at us because they are so much more secure in themselves as individuals and together. so it's funny to them now to toy with us in a way it wasn't when they were closeted. anyway extremely weird fanbase creator dynamic we've cultivated over time #symbiosis. its like watching porn but the kink is romance and longterm commitment

they are playing mind games with us... who holds the power... that is the eternal question/moral dilema of the Dan and Phil Brand imo...

[gaykey]

It really shows the maturity of shawols 😌 I remember years ago there was a pretty big "secret" in the Dan & Phil fandom that literally almost everyone knew about because so many people talked about it in a very unsubtle way, and some even shared it like some hot gossip and "proof" of whatever they believed. I found out by accident and I wasn't even a phannie...

I'm just going to take as much as they're willing to give. I follow Kwonho and I think that's okay because he's clearly posting stuff for shawols, but I'm not going to follow any other idols' friends who are just living their lives.

again, not all shawols

like, if it got out, i'm sure there'd be a whole bunch of people that would gladly spread it unfortunately

some ppl just nasty like that

every fandom had those ppl

but, yeah, i'd say for the most part, shawols are more mature, simply because a lot of us are older than a lot of the popular fandoms around now

and yeah, kwonho i believe, clearly has permission from taemin to post what he does about tae & kkoongie

i feel like the posts would have stopped a long time ago if not

and mmmhmm yep

we have no right to know anything about their personal lives that they don't want us to

they give us more than enough, so there's not need to go overly digging into anything more

they let us know what they want

[dramaphan]

I know you do! So basically, this classmate of mine started dating one of our teachers (not a hot young one, middle aged and ugly as fuck but hey, whatever floated her boat). Now that kind of relationship is illegal here (because pupils are dependent on their teachers and teachers could abuse intimate relationships) so they had to wait until after graduation until they made it public (he had already lived with another ~previous~ student before, so that didn't surprise anyone, but also she did one of her finals in a class that he taught and got highest marks, so people were a little mad).

ANYWAY shortly after, girlie got knocked up. He did marry her, good on him! But I wanted to know a little more so in true phannie fashion, I did a little research on the interwebs and... found a cringy oldschool fucking mommy forum.. where she asked... what to call her baby. She was already set on a double name (is that what they're called in english? You know. Like Mary Kate). She just wasn't sure about the order of the names. And those two names she had picked out where the WORST FUCKING NAMES you could give a child. It was awful. They were weirdly similar to each other. I don't wanna run the risk of doxxing her and myself so I won't tell you the exact names, but think of her post as something very close to "Bingus Dingus or Dingus Bingus? Which one do you gals think is cuter? I like Bingus Dingus but my hubby likes Dingus Bingus and we can't decide 🥰"

Anyway now that's all I think about when I hear Young Mothers On The Internet

Personally I’m just hoping they went with Bingus Dingus

[dramaphan]

this might be a little too mean but why would anyone want to buy stuff from danandphilshop right now i'm sorry. it's all stuff from 2018 and shipping is still pricey as hell. i'm wasn't even a phannie during that era so i don't have any of the stuff on sale rn and i'm still like?? no thank you?? i just think there would be much more people looking to buy stuff from there if they released new merch, old phannies probably already have most of what's on sale right now and nobody is interested in interactive introverts four years (??) after it happened. not to mention phannies sell out EVERYTHING OUT SO QUICKLY, i barely got to get anything during phil's sale and that was a huge loss of money for him because being a phillie i would've 100% bought everything in his shop if given that chance but stuff sold out in under two days. oh and let's not even get started on how difficult it is to buy merch if you're not in the us or uk, which is fucking ridiculous.

sorry if this is rude, i guess you could consider it constructive criticism if dnp ever see this. they're kind of wasting an opportunity right now by trying to sell merch thats barely relevant and doesn't have anything to do with recent videos or their current brand but that's probably just me and my judgmental ass

Every once in a while they just desperately try to get rid of all that old merch but they can’t even give it the fuck away. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants a phansplosion phone case or a goddamn tatinof t shirt. Please for the absolute love of god just donate it somewhere!!! Society has progressed beyond the need for danandphilshop to exist. I don’t know how we got here.