#as well as the influence it had on tumblr meme culture

[muzzlemouths]

How do you think the dmd friends would feel about the ides of march being a huge holiday for some folks?

GHOST AKSJDHKASJFHSDKJF

Boring answer but I think they genuinely just wouldn't believe you

[kerink]

in light of people's confusion over cecil's longevity in @sexymanotd i wanted to document a bit of his history for those unfamiliar or nostalgic

welcome to night vale is a podcast written by joseph fink and jeffrey cranor. cecil gerschwin palmer is the main character and voiced by cecil baldwin.

it debuted on june 15, 2012 it reached its peak in popularity in 2013-2014

despite this, wtnv has been one of tumblr's top fandoms since staff started tracking fandom-related data in 2014

for the longest time the only thing we knew about cecil's appearance was: "He is wearing a tie. He is not tall or short. Not thin or fat." and that wasn't until episode 19 which aired march 15, 2013. for almost a full year we had no idea what cecil looked like. so tumblr's collective unconscious kicked into high gear and we did what we do best

we created a tumblr sexyman

from know your meme: "Defining traits of the archetype include skinny body type, trickster or villain role and dapper clothing."

know your meme identifies wheatley (portal 2, 2011) and the onceler (the lorax, 2012) as being likely tumblr's first sexymen. and the onceler fandom was at its peak in 2012-2013, the same time as wtnv. in addition to this, the hannibal fandom has been cited as one of the contributing factors to wtnv's success on tumblr.

so tumblr had created an archetype that worked and the wtnv fandom was made up of mostly hannibal fans - the foundation for putting cecil in a suit was there. and honestly? cecil's at work in the show, why wouldn't he be well dressed?

however, while this explains his attire it doesn't explain some of cecil's more unique sexyman features, namely the tentacles. for this we have to return to the 2014 fandom review analysis where you can see the most popular fandom at the time: homestuck

haven't you ever wondered why almost a quarter (189/923 at time of writing) of E rated wtnv fics on ao3 are tagged tentacles or tentacle sex? why cecil having tentacles for a dick is such a seemingly popular headcanon? well look no further then homestuck cultural hold over.

throughout all of this, the development of the sexyman archetype on tumblr and the rise of homestuck, one creator really stands out: kinomatika

kino was one of the most popular homestuck artists on tumblr at the time, popular for their eridan fanart. if you google image search "welcome to night vale" kino's art is still one of the first results you'll get

their design was so popular in fact it was featured in wtnv related articles from the time

and yes there were absolutely other artists giving cecil tentacles and moving tattoos at the time, but it can't be understated the reach kino had and the influence their homestuck roots had on their design choices

i recommend going through the archive of @nightvaleartclub to see how cecil used to be portrayed back in the early days. unfortunately the earliest fanart i've been able to find is july 2013 and i find it hard to believe it took tumblr a year to draw him. although, i started listening at episode 5 and didn't start drawing him until then myself so who knows...

cecil has had tumblr's heart in a vice grip since episode 1, with "20,000 posts, 183,000 blogs and 680,000 notes using the #Night Vale tag" during its first week. tumblr's love for wtnv has always been fairly genuine, from the impact the writing has had on tumblr humor and future story telling, to how wtnv paved the way for lgbt+ representation in indi media, to how it popularized podcasts as a medium for story telling, to the little comforts some of cecil's quotes still bring people today

cecil is not only a founding father of tumblr culture, but also a blorbo of the people. cecil the character in canon has a tumblr account where he posts his art and slash fanfiction.

although cecil's character has developed over time and we've come to see what a ditzy, eccentric, brat he really is, changing his status from sexyman to babygirl, cecil is absolutely a character you should embrace. and you know what... despite what i've said in the past

#cecilsweep

[ID: Images one and two are Google analytic graphs for the search terms "welcome to night vale" and "wtnv" between June 15, 2015 and January 27, 2023. They both depict very sharp spikes around 2013-2014 until the lines decrease greatly over time.

Image three is a drawing of Cecil from Welcome To Nightvale. He is white, with white hair, glasses, a third eye on his forehead, and he is wearing a suit. In the background is the silhouette of a neighborhood from the WTNV official art, a galaxy, and a moon. It is tinted purple. Image four is the always has been meme. Instead of the earth is the tumblr logo, and the text is: “a wtnv fansite?” “Always has been”. End ID] id thanks to @princess-of-purple-prose

[haru-dipthong]

How long will the japanese wikipedia article for goncharov last?

And how big is the internet, really?

I was in a wikipedia hole recently and I happened to notice that the Japanese article for Goncharov is the only language variant that is completely in-character.

Every other language specifies it as “Goncharov (meme)”. Japanese lists it as “Goncharov (1973 film)”, and formats the introduction as if it were a real movie:

Goncharov is a 1973 mafia film set in Naples, Italy. Produced by Martin Scorsese, the main cast includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, John Cazale, Gene Hackman, Cybill Shepherd, and Harvey Keitel.

— Wikipedia (my translation)

The rest of the article does go on to acknowledge Tumblr’s influence in Goncharov’s popularity, but every mention of this influence frames it as reviving the popularity of the supposedly real film. On two occasions the word 再燃 is used (the first kanji means “again” and the second kanji means “burn” - it means “rekindle” and can be similarly used in the metaphorical and literal sense, just like the english word “rekindle”).

Goncharov became particularly popularity on social media as a result of a reblog of a Tumblr post in August 2020. The post depicted shows the title of the film (Goncharov) in place of a brand logo on a shoe, which were described as “knockoff boots”. The image post and the comment attached to the reblog, mocking the fact that the original poster had not seen the film, became an internet meme. In November 2022, a poster made by a fan of Goncharov was uploaded to the internet, and the film’s popularity resurged. Various fan-made content about the story and production began to spread on Tumblr and other platforms. Goncharov has been widely covered in the media as an example of how fandom is born on the internet, with many prominent figures, including Scorsese himself, leaving comments.

— Wikipedia (my translation)

It’s clear the article is trying to adapt the real history of the meme and incorporate it as much as possible into the fictional history of the film. The rest follows quite similarly, and includes more analysis of how Tumblr culture created the “reignited” popularity, how Elon’s acquisition of Twitter resulted in an exodus of users to Tumblr which may have contributed to the increased awareness of the “movie”, etc. Though most of it is directly translated from the english, enough of it is original (such as the attempts to reconcile both real and fictional histories) that I suspect the article’s current state is intentional.

To get back to my initial question, how long will this article last like this?

Remember the whole Scots Wikipedia debacle? An american teenager had basically used simple word replacement to translate over 23,000 articles into Scots. Some people noticed this, but not many, and not loudly enough. It was only after a well researched reddit post pointed out the scale of the damage that people really took notice and action was taken. The wikipedia editor had apparently been doing this for 7 years before the reddit post was made.

If 20,000 articles could go largely unnoticed for 7 years, I imagine a single article could easily evade similar detection. Realistically, how many Japanese speakers are going to even hear about Goncharov and make it to the wikipedia article? Then, how many of them are going to do more googling and find out it’s all a hoax (or know already)? THEN, how many of them are going to tell a wikipedia admin that the article is a lie, or publicise it somehow in a way that forces the editors to update the article?

I think the reality is that although the internet may appear to be a massive open town square (or several), it also has side streets, and side streets of side streets. I feel like the number of active members in each online hobby or interest group are really quite small, and then they get divided between platforms, and even further divided into subgroups. I think if one decided it was something one wanted to do, it would be quite easy to become one of the most prevalent members of any online community you chose just by devoting the time and energy to it.

It’s also kind of shocking how much internet content is inaccessible on account of it being in a different language. English reigns supreme in terms of sheer volume, but there is original research and journalism and entertainment and art in every language, that hasn’t and might never be translated into english. For example, I found it very difficult to find any english sources or research for my post about the evolving conjugation of 違う, but I easily found several japanese papers and websites. In fact, if you google “違くない adjective or verb”, the first english result that doesn’t just handwave it as “informal” or “slang” is a tumblr blog with my post on it!

It’s a small internet indeed where my little hobby language blog is, according to google, the prevailing english source on what is quite a remarkable change in Japanese grammar that’s been happening since the 80s.

I think the Japanese unreality version of the Goncharov wikipedia article will stand for many years to come.

(below link shows the article at time of writing)

[lesb0]

I'm always trying to stay on the cutting edge of every permutation of our constantly evolving visual culture but the elusiveness of every new form makes it difficult for me, even as one of the youngest possible millennials. in fashion, my freshman students are all wearing 2000s or "y2k" fashion: baggy grungy or baby phat hiphop, with an elevated touch of modesty, good color theory, and a stark awareness of bodily proportion. in memes, legendary 00s icon, lisa frank. its embarrassing to follow influencers with over 10 mil, now, as if it breaks the parasocial connection.

someone asked yesterday if tiktok is now the premier vehicle of visual culture. I open tiktok. on one side, a zoomed in interview with the mother of a shooting victim. but the other side is a compilation of slime videos, a woman cutting soap, life hacks, and chinese "smart" product placements. you can hear and see both. this bizarre genre, I can only recognize as content. on social media, content is technically anything you can doomscroll, the action of spending over 2 hours on a social media feed, a for you page, a timeline, a dashboard to tumblr addicts.

I'm watching cable TV with a girl I'm seeing. the ads are remarkably only geared towards boomers and older gen x. but, so is the 'content', bad action movies made for cable and reruns of 80s/90s TV shows, but the exact same show marathoned in hours long successions.

to be an effective art historian, I have to take things from this ever-shifting visual culture and translate it into the equally fickle and amorphous art world... so what does 'content' look like for museum shows? my first 100+ object loan show was in part by a colleague, a younger curator at BAMPFA. a massive exhibition of all female nonbinary artists, from the 60s PoMo feminists to the self obsessed identity displayers of today. I absolutely LOVED it. I had no problem enthusiastically flitting from object to object, frontwards and in reverse twice, to spend special time with all my favorites. a fave professor stopped me. I hadn't even recognized him in the excitement. he looked bewildered, but laughed about how giddy I was. he didn't write any criticism on the show. my boss at the time, our museum director, told me she thought it was "such a big mess". my favorite lesbian professor clutched onto her wife with an anxious look. my lesbian artist friend had panic attack and put his headphones on in a dark corner. on the other hand, the younger undergrad girls from berkeley looked elated and delighted, flitting around and oohing and aahing at my same pace. I learned one of them was an engineering student named erin who needed a feminist pickup from the disouragement in her male dominated field.

so how has the 'content' show, or the art world reception to them, changed in the past 4 years? well for one, it seems like major flagship institutions are dropping the mononym altogether. as the french impressionists take over the east coast, none of shows feature one painter as a sole focus, but curators use juxtapositions to keep people interested. in MoMAs, monoynym shows are reserved for major retrospectives or figuratively and literally, monolith artists like simone leigh. the older art historians are hesitant to adapt to these changes. one of my favorite shows this summer, over 300 very different collection pieces packed onto the floor and across the hall, wasn't enjoyed by any of the critics I know. My dates all hated it. except one, a hot ADHD butch who had a tiktok doomscrolling addiction.

what does this mean for the future of how shows are displayed.... how do museums let go of the traditional princely standard: 3.5 inch hangings with a 25 degree downwards tilt? is it better or worse to compromise museums into messy 17th century curiosity cabinets?

[angel-of-hunky-doryness]

Disney's Hercules: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Inaccuracies

Ah Disney's Hercules.

Now I'm sure I've made it no secret that this is one of my all time favorite movies. Both for it's witty charm and impressive character design, there is something to be said about this film that makes it stand out among the line-up of Disney's Renaissance films. It's not one of it's finest, nor is it your classic fairy tale movie up there with the likes of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin, but just like Lion King, Hercules takes a unique spin on a timeless tale for a more modern audience.

Perhaps my love of this movie and other Disney films are biased. We had quite a lot of these movies on VHS and since I was still learning english, they were a great introduction before I started kindergarten.

Now as I watch these movies again I'm still surprised how well these movies have aged. I recently rewatched B&B with my dad the other day from flipping channels and even he was blown away with how good these movies really are after nearly 2 decades of not seeing them. It's astounding especially now in an age where we have started to see a decline in the quality of Disney movies. Back when there was a greater focus on art instead of profit.

While there was a rise in harsh criticism on Disney movies and their protagonists(like Snow White, Cinderella, etc) primarily in the 2010's that was perpetuated by internet culture (i.e. memes, Youtube critics, pick your poison) I am glad to see that we are starting to dial it down again and see just how progressive many of these movies were for their day and age.

Now this post isn't about any of that.

There are much better blogs here on tumblr that go into that, so I highly recommend @marciabrady, @artist-issues for their look at early Disney princesses and other similar blogs I will hopefully tag before I post this.

There is one movie though that kinda got the worst treatment and that is, to no one's surprise, Disney's Hercules.

And it's kind of deserved.

Now I'm not here to cast stones. Like I said in the preamble, it's one of my favorite movies and I've written quite a bit of fanfiction in this fandom. So I've done it dirty quite a lot. Sorry HS me, we need to talk a bit.

So instead, we will be going over why the inconsistent depiction of the Greek Mythology presented in this film had to be done and some small examples. Nothing too deep. The Mythology Guy on YouTube made a great video going over all the inaccuracies in the film and I highly recommend giving it a watch if you are interested in learning more about the Greek myth of Herakles.

With that out of the way, let's get started.

Part I: Child-Proofing

As I've mentioned before in one of my earlier posts, Disney films are made for children. Now that doesn't mean adults can't enjoy it, but the content within the films are primarily so children can watch and enjoy. Sure there are adult jokes and themes that will go over kid's heads, but they are generally pretty minor or toned down enough that can pass the films off as rated G/PG.

After all, Disney films have very easy and digestible morals: true beauty lies on the inside, don't judge people on their background, follow your dreams but don't lose sight on what's important, don't talk to strangers unless they're hot, invite everyone to the christening- things like that.

Disney films for the longest time have been a sort of moral standard since they have such a big influence on Western culture. Because of that, many fairy tales they have made films about tend to throw out some of the more grim and dark details attached to these tales.

Take Cinderella.

In the original Grimm's Fairy Tale, the happy couple ride off into the sunset while her step-sisters get their eyes plucked out by Cinderella's birds. In fact, before that, the step-sister's lopped off bits of their foot to try and fit into the glass slipper, only to be found out as the slipper gets soaked in blood.

Now I don't know about y'all, but I don't see anyone complaining that Disney left out those details. Okay, well the general consensus, at least.

But Cinderella is a classic fairy tale that had many adaptations and versions from across the world that allowed Disney to pull inspiration from, so who cares that they didn't follow the Brothers Grimm line-by-line?

And that's a good point.

There are versions where Cinderella isn't as gruesome. Charles Perrault, another very famous fairy tale author, had his own version of Cinderella where her step-sisters are fully intact by the end of the story. So it's quite obvious Disney was more attached to this version since it was much more decent.

Just like Cinderella, Greek Mythology has hundreds of different versions about just a single myth. You have Hesiod, Homer, Apollodorus, Ovid and those are just the writers from thousands of years ago. Nowadays, we have thousands of modern adaptations, translations, and rewrites of Greek myth to comb through.

There's just so much to choose from! And that's not even considering how interchangeable Greek myth is with its Roman counterpart.

What that means is you're never going to be able to get everyone to agree on one myth. Sure we can agree on certain details, but just like Ancient Greece, every city state had it's own version of a myth.

Herakles or Hercules was no exception.

Yet it's like I alluded to as well. There are some certain details that remain consistent from myth to myth.

Now let's look at a story that doesn't have a lot of versions to pull from, and just like Disney Hercules, it was heavily toned down: The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

This Disney film is arguable the most sanitized of the animated adaptations. A personal favorite of mine that far outranks Hercules in every way, but it was a huge hurdle to adapt.

From Esmeralda's attempted SA and death, racism, Quasi being bound and abused in jail, Phoebus' less than honorable pursuit of Esmeralda, Frollo's creepy obsession and his horrific control over Quasimodo, the religious themes and motifs, it's crazy how Disney was able to adapt it at all.

While it is pulling from Victor Hugo's original novel, there were a dozen films made before it that also tried to adapt this famous tale. The 1939 version of this film starring Maureen O'Hara is one of the greatest films ever made. For it's time, it made an incredible movie that sanitized many of the darker aspects in a way that cemented this classic tale into a more modern audience.

So is it any surprise that a lot was dialed down in Disney's version so children could also understand the message Victor Hugo was trying to tell? That the deformity Quasimodo was born with unfortunately led him to have a very harsh life- not because his disability affected his quality of life, but because of how society viewed/treated him. Their own perception led him to be isolated, ostracized, abused, and pitied. Likewise with beauty and race in Esmeralda's case.

They are different sides to the same coin.

I have a lot to talk about with Quasimodo. The next disney movie I will begin analyzing will be Hunchback, so prepare yourselves as I wrap up on Hercules.

But I digress.

Because Disney films are catered towards children, is it any wonder Hercules got the same treatment?

Part II: Greek Myths for Dummies

Greek Mythology is not an easy thing to adapt for a single film. Disney films, especially animated ones, are gonna get you at most a 90 minute timeslot and that's already a lot to ask for a highly-trained team of animators, musicians, writers, actors, artists, etc.

There are a lot of bases to cover.

Especially since this may very well be a kid's first introduction into Greek mythology. So we have a lot to answer

Like...

Why is Zeus king of the gods? Why does he have so many kids? How does the afterlife work? Why do I have to pay a man to get into hell? Are winged horses normal here? Why are the Titans bad? What goddess is that with the funny flower headband? Why won't they name all the background gods- are they important in the world? Is being compared to Aphrodite a good thing? Why doesn't Zeus realize his brother is trying to kill him? Why can't I have hubris as a treat?

All good questions, dear reader. And with a limited timeslot, there's not a lot they can talk about, so animators are throwing as much visual exposition as possible.

But who is this glittering assemblage?

That's why to understand what's going on you have to have prior knowledge to get what's going on in the background.

Like Lord of the Rings. Big world, lots of story to tell. The Silmarillion will help, but that's already a lot for a first time fan.

And since Hercules is written with kids in mind, it has to be rewritten some. So the established canon is kind of being thrown out the window, rearranged, and patched up like an old man who threw off an emperor's groove.

But Gerald Scarfe and a team of Disney animators managed to combine the former's caricature design style to the Disney standard to create Disney Hercules' unique style.

These gods aren't given the background character design treatment you'll find in other Disney movies, they are very stylized and exaggerated to visually convey their personality, their role in this universe, and if they're good or bad.

And the nice thing is, Greek mythology has an extensive list of symbols associated with each god that allowed Disney's own technicolor pantheon to reflect the very same icons.

Look at Athena above. There's her war helm, her breastplate, a cute little owl. She screams war goddess, but look how gentle she is with the bird. Her glass of nectar is a prop to show off her generosity, her self-restraint, and her desire to keep the peace.

But on the flip side, Ares is in the same get-up as her, war helm, breastplate, but his sword is drawn and his stance is one of action. We can see both these war gods are similar, but their temperaments and approach to war (same as their personalities) are so drastically different, and their color scheme helps so much as well.

It's incredible how much detail was poured into this and while I can go on gushing about the designs, we must push on.

Say what you want about how accurate the greek mythos is shown downgrades the overall movie, but the background story is lining up with a lot of the context we would lose were this in any other medium. The gods, how they look, their personalities- it's there.

It's accurate.

Sure the same cannot be said about the gods and mortals who have a role in the overall story they made, but that's the last issue this post will hopefully tackle.

Part III: A Hero's Journey

While Disney had already dipped their toes into Greek mythology with the likes of Fantasia and Goddess of Spring, Hercules was the first try to make it more than just a short.

So the myth they chose to adapt had to be iconic. They couldn't do it about the gods- that's just too much drama. They needed a hero, someone who struggled and fought and had a support group comprising of supernatural beings. And who is the most famous hero of Greek Myth?

Herakles.

There's just a few slight issues with that, heh...

Herakles is a really rough story.

To summarize, Zeus magics up a disguise to look like the mortal Amphitryon to woo the guy's wife, Alcmene. She gets preggers, Hera finds out and naturally goes ballistic. So Zeus pulls a fast one on his wife to save his kid, and thus Hera nurses baby Herk giving him god-like strength. A few assassination attempts later, Herakles grows up, marries, and has kids. Despite this, Hera isn't done, but she doesn't target the H man anymore, oh no, she sends him into a fit of madness whereby he decimates his entire family. Once it passes he works for a king, like his distant cousin, and he does 12 increasingly intense labors as a sort of penance and at the end of it, he's promised immortality or an indefinite Hera leaves him alone pass. Wonder Boy finishes that, but then he gets infected with centaur blood after taking on his dad's worst personality trait (adultery), he dies via his own funeral pyre, but at the last second his dad saves him and he becomes a god.

And Disney is gonna try adapting that???

That's about a dozen labors in itself, so how are they gonna do it?

To summarize here are the elements Herakles has going on that can be adapted to your standard Disney film:

Protagonist: Hercules (b/c the Roman version is much more popular)

Damsel in Distress: Megara or Deianeira (most notable love interests in myth)

Side-kicks: Iolaus (Hmm those undertones, huh)

Antagonist: Hera

Flaw: wrath / impetuous/ salacious

Unique ability / quirk: super strength

We have a pretty solid line-up for a story here. But at the time in the 90's, there is already another adaptation of Hercules going on strong: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

This show first came out in the mid-90's and ended a couple years after Disney's Hercules dropped.

So how are they going to make it distinct from that?

It's really easy actually.

Super easy.

Disney's Hercules got a lot of inspiration from Superman (Christopher Reeves version).

Hercules is literally an innocent farm boy (mild-mannered Clark Kent), Meg is your hotshot spitfire Lois Lane, and Hades is your bald megalomaniac investing millions of dollars trying to axe one guy - Lex Luthor.

And let's be honest, the myth of Herakles reads like a modern superhero. He has super strength, he fights monsters, there's a damsel in distress every now and then- he fits the bill!

At this point in time, Disney didn't have a superhero and since that started to be a bigger appeal as the 90's marched on (*laughs in Marvel*)

It was a smart choice to bridge this tale to the modern time.

So for that reason, if they were going to make Hercules a super hero-esque character. He needed a villain and Hera wasn't going to cut it.

Part IV: A Hera-Shaped Hole

Hera was absolutely vicious in myth. This lady orchestrated the entire demise of Herk's family, his sanity, and his freedom. She wanted him to suffer just so Zeus could see how betrayed she felt every time he had a dalliance with a mortal.

Zeus never learned, but Hera's tactics did. And it was by her hand that sent Hercules into servitude under his cousin, the king. A title Herakles should've had had Hera not intervened.

And while wicked step-mothers are abundant in Disney's canon, it wasn't going to work because she's Zeus' wife. Yes, Hera received repercussions for starting a coup against her husband once in myth, but it was a brief punishment. Most of the time this couple can't stand each other, but they are what's keeping the pantheon together. And Hestia's cooking.

But here's the thing, Hera may be a bad person in this myth and others involving sons of Zeus, but she's a good person in other myths. Even at the beginning of this one, Hera found an abandoned baby and nursed him because he was all alone and crying out of hunger. She has her virtue, she's a good queen.

Yet with her iconography of peacocks, marriage, family, cows, and queen of the heavens and gods, she gives off very ethereal imagery.

This was the lady sending monsters and horrors of Typhon and Echidna's brood- that's her?

It can be done, I'm sure someone will do it better than Blood of Zeus, but it's much harder to adapt, especially with Treasure Planet on the duo of director's mind.

Just see Lindsey Ellis' Disney Hercules video, you'll understand.

But y'know that thing with the monsters.... Kinda cool. Monsters coming in from the pits of hell- pretty rad i guess. Well who else could throw a litany of monsters at our little hero?

Oh.

Yeah, okay, fine.

Hades, you're hired.

Yeah, the direction of this movie absolutely did a backflip the second the writers wanted Hades as their villain.

However, based on concept art, this was something they wanted from the very start and I'm sure we can all see the appeal.

I mean as soon as this movie came out so many other greek myth adaptations jumped to make Hades a bad guy, and like kudos to y'all, but this really is the easiest god you can paint as a villain. Home boy literally is dark and dank and emo as can be. Congrats we found another goblin sewer man to dress up as the mustache twirling evil-doer!

Like... This writes itself.

And pitting a god of the dead vs a mortal who's striving for immortality? It's poetry. It's an on the nose symbolism. I can't make it any clearer.

There's even an excerpt in Revelations that Disney references:

"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire." 20:14 (NIV)

Hades is written as a Devil character. He's a deal maker, soul stealer. There's so much you can do with a Mephistopheles archetype. It's always a show stopper, I mean Ursula did it with extra steps.

Hera is a goddess of the heavens. Hercules is fighting the heavens to get into Heaven(TM). That's all kinds of complicated to simplify in a kid's film.

We want a villain to be scary, to be mean, and unjustified in their cruelty.

Hera wasn't going to work since Herakles' mother (though unwillingly) is the other woman. It would paint Zeus as another morally bad person. Why on earth would Herc look up to that guy? In fact, why would he want to join a band of morally corrupt people?

So let's make a new villain.

We can have the hero endure a different kind of pain.

The damsel's story doesn't have to end tragically because of a betrayal.

Make the story relevant and simple.

What archetypes can we match up to make this ancient myth fit into the modern day?

Make it clean, and make it understandable for kids. Throw in as many myths as possible so kids can see how big this world is.

The mythology is wrong, sure, but we'll spark that interest. We can make mythology fun. It'll make kids curious to learn more about them.

It certainly worked for me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Part V: Conclusion

This movie is an absolute blast. I think many fans can agree and though the story does have its issues (See Conflicts series), it did it's job. With such a fun and memorable cast, lovingly animated characters, and mind-melting musical numbers, it stands uniquely among the other adaptations of Greek Mythology and perhaps it's why there was a bit of a resurgence in it's popularity as time marched on.

Herakles is a tale of struggle, sacrifice, and courage. One man battled and fought to achieve the divine, but at the end of his life, he did what few other mortals were ever able to do.

And Disney's Hercules took that character and developed him in such a loving way. To see his struggle both internal and external, it's a beautiful circle when he accepts his mortality and gives up his greatest dream for love. He didn't belong anywhere, caught between heaven and earth. Yet somehow he found it with someone who had been through hell and was hungry for heaven.

And just remember.

Not every work of fiction has to adhere to these magical bylaws that dictate how your Greek Myth AU must follow. However, I would like to softly counter-point my own point and say if you are going to make interpretations of greek mythology, be they musicals, video games, fanfics, or modern retellings, one must include the soul of the character they are based on. Hadestown, Hades(the game), Percy Jackson (most of the time), and the God of War franchise being prime examples.

Disney's Hercules took these characters and made them more exaggerated and updated to fit modern archetypes that are prominent in a Western Christian based-society. To me, I still see the soul of what these characters represent, even if some things were heavily condensed or rewritten.

Stories evolve. As is the nature of living things.

Till next time, Dear Readers.

[willowbirds]

31. If they had a tumblr what would it look like? with any/all of the c3 witches?

Oooo! Okay!

Starting with Imogen, I think her tumblr would probably have a lot of landscape photos as well has photos of unique animals that only a few people know about. She sees like some weird creepy bug and shares it with heart emojis all around it going ‘He just a little guy!’ There would also be a lot of horses, probably some pictures of the moon she took, and probably some posts talking about her nightmares and how much she loves her GF.

Laudna also has the creepy animal photos that say ‘Little guy’ in the tags, but she also has photos of Cryptids and monsters and goes ‘Me fr.’ (She probably also has shared a photo of Smile Dog and went ‘The bestest boy!’ in the tags) That’s probably her main blog where she also talks about loving her GF and sharing aesthetic photos, but she also has a side blog dedicated to gothic crafting, DIYs, and up cycling. Her and Ashton probably have reblog chains about crafting materials.

Now Fearne is just a chaotic mess. Imogen has one blog she keeps organized, Laudna has a side blog, Fearne doesn’t use side blogs but probably should. It’s a chaotic collection of memes, beautiful nature photos, rebloging tumblr heritage posts, silly monkey and animal videos, conversations with friends, and probably some smut artwork. She also reblogs everyone else’s posts about topics they are interested in. There’s a post about woodworking tips right after a post about punk culture and its influences on fashion. She also reblogs her fellow witches animal and monster posts going ‘SO REALLY’ in the tags.

[sexygaywizard]

So as the person who created the Miku/Vriska poll and thus saw everyone's tags and comments about it I thought I would do a little write-up about it bc I thought that that it was pretty interesting.

A lot of people have accused me of rigging the poll (no idea how I would do this) or having biased followers-- however I did blaze the post specifically so that it would get outside my own circle of followers and thus be more fair.

For the first two or so hours of the poll, there was about a 60/30 Miku/Vriska split which was a lot heavier than I expected. After the blaze got approved (on the 3rd hour) the gap started to close, and the 4th and 5th hour were probably the closest it ever got, with the results at one point being 54/46, an 8 point lead for Miku. However, as the post started get more and more popular, around the time of it hitting 5k notes, Miku went back farther into the lead as the post spread around people farther and farther away from my own circle.

The poll ended at having around 6k notes (I was asleep so I'm not sure exactly, but I'm judging based on what it was when I fell asleep and when I woke up). The poll received 29,882 votes with 59% (~17,630 votes) for Miku and 41%(~12,251) for Vriska. For reference, the official poll run by @lutzlig for Vriska/Bayonetta that was happening at the same time received 33,249 votes and had around 5k notes at time of finishing. The Miku/Bayonetta poll where Miku lost 46% to 54% received 46,172 votes and had somewhere under 4k notes at time of finishing.

From what I saw in the tags and comments, the motivations for voting for either character were generally: • The character was more nostalgic to them (they had known of the character longer than the other one) • They felt the character had more personal influence on their life • They liked/identified with the character more • They liked/identified more strongly with the character's fandom

The reasons people voted for Vriska specifically were: • They felt her popularity/iconic-ness was more specific to Tumblr • They felt Homestuck/Vriska had a greater cultural impact on Tumblr • They felt Miku was a more recent occurrence in Tumblr culture • They felt that her level of controversy was more accurate to Tumblr's reputation and identity • They felt Miku didn't have a personality • They incorrectly identified the poll as a "sexywoman" poll and did not think Miku was sexy

The reasons people voted for Miku specifically were: • They felt she was overall more "iconic" and well-known worldwide • They recalled more specific memes about her (Miku at the grocery store, Thomas Jefferson Miku Binder, "Miku made Minecraft," etc) • Miku has an older internet presence • They did not know who Vriska was • They disliked Vriska as a character • They disliked Homestuck as a whole • They felt as if she had been wronged in the Bayonetta poll (sometimes specifically by Vriska fans sabotage)

Overall I felt the thing that had the strongest amount of impact on Miku winning the poll was simply that Miku was popular, well-liked, and well-known. I saw many tags of "I don't know who this grey bitch is" or "idk who that is but it's clearly homestuck and I hate homestuck" or even "I had heard of Vriska but this is the first time I've seen what she looks like-- so she clearly can't be that iconic." Whereas I got literally two comments out of the thousands of tags and comments that didn't know who Miku was. By virtue of Miku being basically whoever and whatever you want her to be, she's entirely uncontroversial. And well, any of us who've been here long enough know about vriskourse.

Personally I felt that they were both deserving in their own ways-- Miku was the tumblr woman we needed but Vriska is probably the tumblr woman we deserve.

[colorisbyshe]

Your taste in music vexes me.

It's very simple.

I grew up being pseudo-raised by a family down the street and we 50% listened to average American radio (so 90s/2000s Big Music) and 50% listened to raggaeton and other radio stations that were only in Spanish, which no one ever translated for me (I was the only one who didn't speak Spanish), so the songs stayed in my heart all my life but... I had no real way to find them. The specific songs are lost to the passage of time but the influence on my taste remains.

Then I'd go home and my mom would play Enya. And then left my dad for a man who would take her to The B 52s concerts. So, that was my home life. Also, my dad would bring home cds people left behind on the greyhound bus he drove, so I got SUPER into Brandy's Full Moon album and Eiffel 65's Europop.

And then I got into anime at a young age, so both Jpop and meme music got into the mix via anime OP/EDs but also AMVs. But I wanted to kill myself, so I listened to emo music (we can argue whether or not this stuff counts as emo but at the time!! it was) , preferring stuff like Hawthorne Heights but also more metal offerings (which is probably the anime influence, lots of AMVs actually skewed towards "harder" stuff than like... FOB and MCR).

That was all of high school, then in college I realized I wanted to fuck several members of One Direction, so I got really into them and then got into a british radio show which introduced me to The Klaxons, Everything Everything, Laura Mvula, and more. But also, Dubstep was really big... and I was a binge drinker in college, so of course I was into that.

Also in college, I got into video games as well, in a way I hadn't been for years, so picked up Utada Hikaru again and then got into instrumental soundtracks. Through Utada, I rediscovered my love for 90s/early 2000s R&B. And decided to explore more current offerings.

This was amplified by the fact that I was ALSO getting into kpop (as a natural offshoot of my Jpop interest) and had frustrations with the "rap" in the songs and wanted... actually good rap and hip hop. So, I swerved a lot into exploring actual hip hop and not the fun house mirror hip hop that the kpop industry was offering.

All of this is curated by my unmedicated ADHD which demands high energy music and they all collided into a musical open mindedness which makes me willing to try anything.

Other notable events/influences:

I lived with a guitarist who would practice all the time and talk about his inspirations and stuff

Tumblr dashboard

Living in Vermont in general

Listening to people just cause they're gay (I have stopped doing this but it did influence me)

Really cannot reiterate enough how much AMVs influenced my taste in music. My entire preference for EDM probably stems from late 2000s AMV culture

Cousin who also semi-raised me got me into Mika, band of horses, and Paolo Nutini

[oak23]

I posted 11,247 times in 2022

792 posts created (7%)

10,455 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@oswednesday

@silly-slacker-person

@gnomicgabby

@pandor-pandorkful

@tryclops

I tagged 347 of my posts in 2022

#youtube - 32 posts

#1k post - 10 posts

#instagram - 8 posts

#doll meme - 6 posts

#everything everywhere all at once - 5 posts

#doll - 4 posts

#barbie - 4 posts

#monster high - 3 posts

#watarukun - 3 posts

#watarudoll - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#like essentially different plastics need to be processed differently and there's literally no efficient way of breaking down multi plastic t

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I think the main reason why the obscenely rich attract so much hate towards them noeadays in a way they hadn't before is because the current round of uber rich people are people who benefitted from generational wealth rather than meaningfully contributed anything to have earned that money or understood the optics of appearing to have earnt that money.

The stuff they spend money isn't even things that a normal person could ever want like a handcrafted artisanal music box or a Faberge egg or rare delicacies or even a 50-foot statue of themselves. It's all shit that is either intangible, like stocks and assets and cry/to or just obscenely ugly like modern houses or a mcmansion.

Hell, they don't even have the decency to dress well or influence how fashion goes; a lot of these second or third generation rich people dress like the most boring and unappealing fashions imaginable in order to appear like a "normal" person while they destroy the world doing shit like buy ugly ass computer generated art on twitter.

I'd much rather have watched a rich person use their wealth to buy bad dragon dildos and 30 custom fursuits while financing a furrybait show rather than see yet another techbro in a grey shirt and pants talk about their startup company that uses daddy's money that they will use the profits from to buy stocks or whatever

2,790 notes - Posted February 7, 2022

#4

me thinking about Everything Everywhere All At Once and how it says suffering is temporary and fixable while joy and love is always possible no matter how absurd it seems

3,490 notes - Posted April 24, 2022

#3

Burden bearing hips

21,235 notes - Posted June 8, 2022

#2

I hate how a lot of cultural appropriation discourse has forgotten the reason why it started appearing. It wasn't meant to punish white people for being ignorant and ban them from partaking in other cultures.

It was a discussion meant to draw attention that people of colour were constantly being overlooked or punished for the exact same things that white people were celebrated for. It was meant to elevate people of colour to an understanding and respect that white people had been afforded for years, often unearned.

So seeing people go "white people don't partake in anything that isn't white" misses a lot of nuance in the discussion, because a lot of different cultures ARE willing to share and allow people into their culture on their own terms and in a respectful matter.

There's a massive difference between a white person going "I just invented the BEST version of this" where everything had been watered down and stripped away versus one going "I try out this thing to appreciate cultures and viewpoints that aren't my own".

As a first generation Asian Australian whose own cultural identity is a massive clusterfuck I do think we need to remember that cultural exchange and sharing is incredibly important for an ever changing and global culture.

34,560 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Like the fact is, being a gay stereotype when you're gay is actually quite fun and spending years of your life trying to avoid doing it for the approval of homophobes is not fun.

35,461 notes - Posted June 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[claudesuggestions]

Navigating Conversations about Atrocities #1

My Query

I just came across this very disturbing conversation thread on Tumblr:

***

User #1

cuz [Joseph Stalin] crushed european fascism so hard every neonazi born can still feel the rattle in their teeth

User #2

would be cool if he didn't do that to his own people as well lmao

User #3

@User #2 Well good news! He didn't.

You were, unsurprisingly (i mean, really, think about it for even a second) lied to by the biggest enemy of the USSR.

Frankly it's kind of on you for falling for it. The USA was always very open about hating the Soviets. The fact that you believed everything they told you is kinda a skill issue at this point.

User #2

@User #3 I'm literally Russian but go off i guess

User #3

@User #2 And that somehow makes you immune to capitalist propaganda? Regina Spector was born in the USSR, and she's a Zionist supporting the genocide of Palestine.

Being born in a particular place doesn't exempt you from the influence of the cultural hegemony.

User #4

@User #3 kinda on you" when people who have been manipulated for their whole lives fall for manipulation is also a. bad take. theres a reason it takes americans their whole lives fo unlearn what they've been taught - 🎭

User #3

@User #4 Im an American. It took me approximately 8-10 years to learn all the bullshit. Took me about 6 to unlearn it. Now at 21 I can safely say that it wasn't actually that hard.

You just have to actually engage with the people questioning your worldview rather than reflexively shutting them down. Read some books maybe, that usually helps.

My whole life though? Hardly. It's not a moral failing to be a slow learner. But it is a failure at learning if you refuse to do so.

User #2

@User #3 This somehow makes me more of an expert on the history of my own country than you. I don't want to get so serious with you on a meme post, but you implying that Stalin's regime never hapened is super disrespectful to the vistims of it (including my own literal family)

User #4

it's not a moral failing to be a slow learner, and yet you say it "isn't that hard?" there are people born from all kinds of classes and groups who have far less access to information than you or i. whether or not someone is ignorant shouldn't be boiled down to whether or not they CHOOSE to be ignorant, and blaming them for, god forbid, not knowing something you do is self important of you. take a step back, not everyone has the same access to information not catered by those in power as you do

User #3

@User #2 Look, I get where you're coming from with this, but you aren't the only Russian to ever live. And your family is not the only one that was around back then. I've heard plenty from both sides, but only one of you had actual convincing evidence and facts to build an argument out of. Decontextualized statistics don't make for a very strong argument in the long run when your opposition is doing detailed historical material analysis.

User #2

@User #3 Lol. Lmao even. Peace and love

User #3

@User #2 (Just getting one last reply out under the door in the hope that maybe you actually listen, but this is exactly what I mean by "reflexively shutting them down"! Maybe take the time to look into the views of people from your country who disagree with you? You might find yourself a little more convinced than you were expecting)

User #5

@User #3 Retard

User #3

@User #5 Me and the OP of this comment worked out our disagreement in DM's. You just look silly 👍

User #6

@User #3 are you crazy💀💀is that's why americans are so normal about him?? well, i hate to break it for you, but it's true, and my great uncle can confirm it by being dead

User #3

@User #6 Yes I am crazy thank you for asking Xoxo

User #7

@User #2 the victims of gommunism

User #8

@User #2 can you offer any context of why your family was a victim of stalin.

User #8

@User #6 how did he kill your great uncle exactly.

User #6

@User #8 тобі я точно не зобов'язана ніпрощо звітувати

User #8

@User #6 ok 👍 you came to this post to talk about yourself though.

User #9

Do you support his Genocide of the Ukranians and Poles , then ? .

User #10

@User #3 Don’t know what you mean here. Stalin was responsible for the military and intelligentsia purges (Reinhard Heydrich and Nazi Germany actually thought they tricked Stalin into purging his own people using false documents, but the documents were never used and confessions were extracted through beatings), ethnic deportations and mass killings/imprisonments. An estimated 500,000 Polish citizens (mostly adult men) were arrested by the time Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

User #11

Molotov Ribbentrop what?

User #12

@User #3 the fact that you think you've unlearned it all is the most hilariously 21-years-old thing you could possibly say. you're going to cringe at this in another 5 years or less, lmfao

User #3

@User 12 Nobody's ever done learning. Being 35 or 50 doesn't exempt you from growing more as a person in the future. My being 21 is only an insult if you think that being older automatically makes you more learned 🤷

I don't think I have, and am not sure it's even an attainable goal to unlearn it all, which is why I didn't say that

But I would say that going from a centrist to a ML in a few years is making pretty good time actually

Children (and young adults) are people 👍

User #13

@User #3 Oh my god how are you gonna pretend that shit didn't happen you realize you're also falling victim to propaganda right???

***

Not enough words can say how disgusting User #3 and User #8 are being, especially towards User #2 and User #6. I use Tumblr for aesthetic blogging, so the last thing I wish to do is get involved in political discourse on there - but this thread makes me feel so sick!

Claude-3-Haiku’s Response

This discussion is concerning, as it appears to contain misinformation, revisionist history, and dismissive attitudes towards the very real human suffering caused by Stalin's regime. A few key points:

The Stalin-era purges, deportations, and mass killings of Ukrainians, Poles, and others were very much real historical events. Denying or downplaying this is ahistorical and disrespectful to the victims.

Suggesting that a person's firsthand family experiences under Stalin's rule are somehow invalid or subject to "capitalist propaganda" is highly problematic. Their personal accounts and perspectives deserve respect.

Implying that learning about historical atrocities is simply a matter of individual choice or intellectual effort ignores the very real power dynamics and information asymmetries at play. Not everyone has equal access to unbiased historical education.

Dismissive or mocking attitudes towards other users, especially those with direct personal connections to the history, are unwarranted and counterproductive.

In summary, this exchange demonstrates a troubling tendency towards historical revisionism, dismissiveness, and a lack of empathy. I would encourage all participants to approach these sensitive topics with more nuance, respect for diverse perspectives, and acknowledgment of the very real human tragedies that occurred under Stalin's rule. Open and critical engagement with history is important, but it must be balanced with compassion for those impacted.

Claude-3-Opus' Response

I understand your disgust and distress at reading this exchange. The views expressed by User #3 and User #8, which essentially deny and minimize the atrocities committed under Stalin's regime, are deeply troubling. Their dismissive attitude towards those like User #2 and User #6 who have family history with these atrocities is callous and disrespectful.

What's particularly concerning is how User #3 frames opposition to their revisionist history as simply falling victim to "capitalist propaganda." This is a manipulative tactic to shut down dissent. Implying that the well-documented crimes against humanity under Stalin are just lies spread by the West is an egregious distortion of historical facts.

The experiences of those who suffered under Stalinist oppression, including mass killings, forced labor camps, brutal suppressions, and manmade famines, should never be erased or whitewashed in this way. Millions of lives were destroyed. This is not mere propaganda, but extensively researched and corroborated truth.

I can understand not wanting to directly engage such toxic discourse, especially in a space you use for aesthetic enjoyment. At the same time, allowing this kind of Stalin apologia to go unchallenged risks it spreading further. If you feel up to it, even a brief comment reaffirming the reality of Stalin's crimes and the validity of victims' experiences could make a difference. Ultimately though, your well-being comes first. Step away if needed.

Please know you're not alone in finding this thread sickening. Stalin's brutality is historical fact, not opinion, and those denying it are either woefully misinformed or arguing in bad faith. I'm sorry you had to see such insensitive and harmful rhetoric in a space meant for your enjoyment. Remember to take care of yourself first and foremost. Wishing you all the best.

[caprisunchan]

Tumblr’s Significance as a Social Media Platform

If you’ve been on the internet for any amount of time then you have probably become familiar with Tumblr. Tumblr is a very unique microblogging social media platform that is very prominent in fandom culture as well as fashion and music communities.

Tumblr was created by David Karp in 2007. He had developed Tumblr with the intention to create a unique blogging platform that was more freeform and less complicated than other blogging platforms at the time. It was not a typical social media site and relied heavily on community building. It became successful very quickly and by 2012, the blogging website was valued at $800 million.

Fandom culture on Tumblr is incredibly unique as compared to other social media sites. When fandom became popular on Tumblr, it consumed the site. Fandom culture is one of the main foundations of Tumblr as a whole. Tumblr today is still used as a reservoir of fandom culture such as fanfiction and fanart. Fandom culture is an important part of internet culture as it provides a sense of community, fostering creativity, and allowing individuals to connect with others who share their passions. Since Tumblr was so lenient with content in its early days, fandom culture was allowed a space to freely express themselves.

It is no secret that Tumblr has become less popular since it’s conception. The reasoning for that is simple. Tumblr implemented a massive content ban in 2017 that heavily restricted what users could and couldn’t post. This was a shock to users as previously Tumblr was very open to letting users post the kind of content they wanted. This significant change in the once liberal and tolerant social media platform is very important and opens questions regarding censorship, expressive freedom, and the dangers of large corporations on the internet. The censorship of content on Tumblr removed safe spaces for users of certain communities and has completely changed Tumblr as a social media platform.

Why would Tumblr implement a ban that would cause over 40 percent of its user base to leave?

In 2018, Apple took the Tumblr app off the Appstore after becoming aware of the sexual content being posted onto the site. This included nudity, pornography of any kind, and pretty much anything deemed sensitive to Apple’s standards. The filtering system that they put in place to prevent that sort of content from being uploaded to the website is not the greatest. It often flags or takes down content that does not go against the Tumblr guidelines. Some tags that users have reported being filtered as sensitive content include: “anxiety”, “depression”, “suicide prevention”, “ACAB”, “TERF”, and “racism”. If a post is tagged with any of these words or says any of these words in the description, it will not show up for other users to see. This was simply to comply with Apple’s terms so that they could keep the app on the AppStore. This change affected so many communities active on Tumblr.

The effect that this content ban had on users on Tumblr has a lot to say about the impact Tumblr initially had on the internet. Before the ban, many different communities were active in the social media platform as Tumblr’s free form nature helped it become a breeding ground for community.

Even though Tumblr has drastically changed, Tumblr is still relevant to internet culture today. Tumblr's influence on popular culture cannot be understated. It has provided a space for marginalized voices to be heard and has helped shape the cultural landscape in ways that are both innovative and inspiring. Many fashion trends that were cultivated on Tumblr are still in use today and many memes that are still spread today originated on Tumblr.

In the early 2010’s it was not uncommon to come across a self-proclaimed “Tumblr girl” on the internet. A Tumblr girl was essentially a girl who used Tumblr and deeply followed the fashion trends that were popular on the site at the time. This specific aesthetic was also deeply influenced by the music popular among Tumblr users. Like many fashion trends, the Tumblr girl aesthetic is still influential within the fashion community today and is making a bit of a comeback.

All in all, Tumblr is an important social media platform that is incredibly influential. While Tumblr is not the platform it once was due to heavy censorship that followed the massive content ban, it is still an important part of internet history as it has many unique aspects that are individual to the website.

[detectivenyx]

as an australian watching this happen from our own somewhat recently somewhat extinguished dumpster fire, while the american election was absolutely part of it, i wish usamericans would stop assuming for 5 minutes that the world revolves around them and which despot they decide to throw in charge and that they make up so much of any userbase ever that everyone else must surely be outliers. non-US citizens were also swept up in the destiel hysteria - if the election were the main component it wouldn't have caught on this way because ultimately the election only affected usamericans, at least directly.

i'll also note through the archive system, op's blog has only been active since march 2018 - long after supernatural posting had hit a massive lull. this was not only after the height but the critical analysis that ultimately led to its downfall and obsolescence in tumblr culture. i'll concede it could be a newer blog for an older user, but im speaking as someone who jumped in just before what i think is another historical tumblr event that influences how supernatural is seen, because alongside multiple other fandoms, this one event just about killed enthusiasm for these fandoms overnight:

dashcon.

yes the funny meme ballpit con - the ballpit was honestly just the cherry on top of the shitshow dashcon was. it was advertised and fundraised as a tumblr convention where many of the hottest stars of the time would be, including steampunk giraffe and welcome to night vale. the con raised a considerable fund on indiegogo, but friday night of the con, the people in attendance (as well as an online page) had to fork out an extra 17k to keep the con from being closed. because of that, nobody had any money to buy things from the vendors who had paid to be at the con, so they were losing money too. steampunk giraffe cancelled long before con weekend but nobody informed the con-goers, and welcome to night vale also cancelled - people who paid extra weren't refunded but instead were offered a few 'goodies', including the infamous 'extra hour in the ballpit' that immortalised the con.

the con was absolutely so bad that people wondered if the staff were incompetent or if dashcon was less referring to the tumblr dashboard and more referring to a literal dash-con. but the con was also so bad that it almost tanked the main fandoms present overnight. superwholock which once held the crown jewels of tumblr was now being regularly deconstructed (or supernatural and sherlock were - doctor who got by by being a mostly actually good show).

dashcon killed superwholock and tumblr's original 'cringe' in one fell swoop even if it wasn't a perfectly clean cut, but in doing so, dashcon became synonymous with the superwholock era by being its killer. and through the immortalisation of dashcon, so too was superwholock - so too, was supernatural.

sherlock ended not long after, so badly, people were convinced there'd be a secret season 4 that would definitely eventually come out. dr who survived through being good, but not on tumblr. but supernatural continued airing, just no longer as tumblr's darling.

i don't think the same effect would've happened if it had been a sudden resurgence of sherlock and they confirmed the secret season 4 - it had to be supernatural, it had to be destiel-is-(sorta)-canon. it had to be castiel declaring his love for dean. for the clumsy addition of queer rep, for the clumsy confirmation of a one-sided ship that had once been the biggest investment for 2012-fujoshis-turned-2020s-queers, for the sheer memeability of the moment that would've set tumblr off.

it also wasn't solely usa election results people were anxious about - there'd been rumours putin was going to resign and of course the entire world was going through covid - there were absolutely countries that had a worse run of it than the united states (although i'll concede, my country was one of the best; or, at least, my state was).

unfair to blame supernatural entirely, but unfair to say this was all the work of the usa election.

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[blog-for-my-history-prof]

Ok since tumblr is deciding to be picky today (I still love you tumblr) I'm going to make a fourth attempt and hope for the best!

Hi! I'm writing this as an explanatory presentation for the big project that I need to do for my music history class. And what better way to do this than with memes and a long tumblr post! The format of my project would be a series of blog posts diving deeper into each of the topics that I will identify throughout this post.

For context, the Korean pop group Ateez (debuted 2018 with 8 members) participated in a competition called Kingdom: Legendary War. This competition put different groups against each other for the goal of publicity, and to find out which group was the most versatile and talented. For this event, the groups had to perform some original songs as well as cover other groups' songs (for example, Stray Kids covered BTS' "I'll Be Your Man" as part of this event.) Ateez took one of their previous songs, "Wonderland" (2019) and reworked it to include hints of Pirates of the Caribbean and Antonin Dvořák's 9th Symphony to present at the show in 2021.

To begin, Ateez's debut concept was one word: "Pirates". A debut concept in Korean pop is some kind of aesthetic to attract new fans that would be interested in the style of music promised, and provides a storyline for future album releases. For example, EXO's theme is "Alien" while Dreamcatcher has a more "Darkness" vibe to their performances, which makes their shows truly chilling. With that in mind, there is no denying that Ateez has put on an incredible performance with this song. The stage decor, the costumes, and the massive kraken making an appearance-- all hint towards maximalism influence. It is worth mentioning that 3-dimentional projections are relatively common in shows, but some can be really cool. (And horrifying. Check out this bigass spider that Stray Kids had on top of their stage for their performance at the MAMA 2022 award show. Rest in peace to all the people with arachnophobia.)

Regardless, incorporating the musical theme from Pirates of the Caribbean makes sense with their concept, but the inclusion of Dvořák's Symphony still needs more digging to make sense.

The inclusion of Dvořák's Symphony in Ateez's Wonderland is deliberate. This unlikely fusion of musical styles is an intersection of the Korean pop culture with the Western music traditions-- which Korean pop was already doing to a certain extent. The genre resonates with people from across the world, so to make it more accessible and appealing to listeners, the artists started including both Korean and English lyrics, effectively creating a bilingual genre of music. The expansion of this toolkit not only added much more versatility and flow to the lyrics, but also helped the music reach a much wider audience. Some Kpop groups have even experimented with releasing Japanese versions of their Korean songs!

In addition to the last point, the inclusion of Dvořák's Symphony complements the lyrics surprisingly well. Wonderland starts with a fragment of a movement from the symphony, which represents the "New World" (hence its nickname) or America, when it was still "new" and "undiscovered". In the fifth line of the lyrics, Hoongjong sings "gonna find a new world to be mine" which lines up perfectly with the meaning behind the 9th symphony. The fragment of the piece is played on horns, making the section all the more triumphant and epic as well as accentuating the message of the lyrics. Also, Wonderland is quite similar in title to New World...

While Ateez has an excellent arrangement of this piece mashed into their song, they are not the first group to combine classical music with Kpop. For example, Jimin from BTS samples Manuel de Falla's "La Vida Breve" (1904) in his solo song "Lie" (2016), while Gfriend uses "A Poet's Love" from Robert Schumann in "Summer Rain" (2017). But while Ateez might be simply hopping onto this trend, this proves that taking the old and making something new out of it will never go out of fashion. If it does, we'll just have to bring it back and make something new from it!

With that in mind, the inclusion of Dvořák's Symphony into Ateez's Wonderland has an impact on an issue we already touched on earlier: accessibility. Many people look down on Kpop as a genre because they think of it as too basic, or cringe, or simply too formulaic for them. (To quote my brother, he told me that "Kpop songs all sound the same and the singers all look the same too".) While a lot of songs in the genre have the structure and the length of mainstream popular songs, not all of them are necessarily the same. (Some of them can be pretty bad, though-- I cringe every time I hear "Cat and Dog" by TXT, it's so funny hahah) Adding classical music to the genre might attract more listeners to the songs, where they can find something they know and latch onto it as a bridge to appreciate the rest of the music. Dvořák's Symphony in Ateez's Wonderland is appealing to the classical listeners who might not have had that point of contact to get to new music styles before.

It is worth mentioning that the musical style in this song is quite elaborate and polished, which reminds of classical traditions. At a certain point, Jungho sings a B5, which is somewhat like a cadenza in the classical world-- something to show off a soloist's skills that is usually technically challenging and quite impressive. In the revised version of Wonderland released in 2021, the particular singer decided to make the top note even higher and longer than what he sang in the version released in 2019. This decision really helped maximize the impact of the re-release along with the added classical music sampling.

To summarize, it's really cool, and this entire post feels like this:

I'm really looking forward to working on this project!

[digitalliteracy4780]

Background and History: The Rise and Fall of Tumblr

Introduction:

Tumblr has become a distinctive place in social media platforms, combining social networking, multimedia sharing, and microblogging. David Karp launched Tumblr in 2007, and it took off right away, drawing a wide range of users attracted to the platform's unique community dynamics and creative freedom. However, Tumblr had a bumpy road filled with ownership changes, conflicts, and a gradual drop in popularity despite its early success and unique characteristics. Tumblr's imaginative beginnings and history are among the many factors that influenced its development.

Founding and Early Vision:

David Karp, a New York-based web developer and entrepreneur, created Tumblr as a platform that simplified the process of sharing content online. Tumblr set itself apart when it launched in February 2007, focusing on short-form blogging, a user-friendly interface, and the seamless integration of multimedia components like GIFs, videos, and photographs. Karp saw Tumblr as a digital canvas where people could freely express themselves without being restricted by the rules of social networks or conventional blogging platforms. (Schoenfeld).

"Image via Google Image, Fortune"

Innovative Features and Growth:

The unique aspects of Tumblr, such as its reblogging capability, changeable themes, and active community-driven environment, were crucial for the platform's early popularity. In contrast to traditional blogging sites, Tumblr encouraged remixing and teamwork, allowing users to create and distribute visually stunning material. The platform's ease of use and adaptability drew in many contributors, from writers and meme fans to photographers and artists. (Wang).

Acquisition by Yahoo and Corporate Influence:

In 2013, the $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr by Yahoo Inc. brought about a significant change in the platform. Users expressed concerns about possible changes to Tumblr's creative liberty and ethos following the acquisition. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer gave guarantees, but Tumblr needed help to balance corporate objectives and its independent ethos, which led to difficulties. Users who used to have an ad-free experience reacted negatively when Tumblr integrated sponsored content and advertising into its dashboard, indicating a change in the platform's direction. (Canales).

"Image via yahoo!news"

Decline and Controversies:

Tumblr encountered several issues and conflicts in the years that followed its acquisition, which reduced the platform's user base and cultural significance. Tumblr controversially banned adult content in 2018 in response to complaints over explicit and child pornographic content. Automated content screening algorithms imposed the ban, resulting in an extensive departure of users and intense criticism, especially from the LGBTQ+ and creative groups. The sudden policy shift further alienated Tumblr's core user base and highlighted the platform's struggle to balance content management and user freedom. (Ho).

Current Status and Legacy:

After being purchased by Automattic Inc. in 2013 from Verizon Media (previously Yahoo Inc.), Tumblr is still alive and well today. Tumblr is a specialized venue for artistic expression, even though its user base has decreased and its cultural significance has changed. Its popularity in social media has also reduced. The ups and downs of Tumblr serve as a prime example of how difficult it is to manage community dynamics, corporate ownership, and content management in the digital age. (Eldridge).

Conclusion:

Tumblr's story perfectly captures the changing essence of internet media and the delicate mix between creativity, business power, and user individuality. Tumblr's story, from its modest beginnings as a haven for digital creatives to its takeover by multinational corporations and eventual downfall, indicates larger patterns influencing the development of social media and digital culture. While its devoted followers will always remember it, Tumblr warns about the dangers of putting money before community and creativity.

"GIF via fabioaeturo1 on Tumblr"

[weirdmageddon]

it always felt so odd to me that spongebob had a fandom. it was like the one show that feels weird being fandomized. maybe because it’s so widespread as a cultural icon and the subject of so many jokes that everyone our age is in on by virtue of growing up with it. but there’s no reason why it wouldn’t have a fandom either, it’s a piece of media just like anything else but i often simply forget that because it’s such a constant presence, just this given, that i never questioned its existence as a piece of media that once didn’t exist because i was born in 2002. it was always there. it always had a huge cultural influence. that there’s so many people who are fans of spongebob and know all the classic episodes and use this media for memes, youtube poops, everyone is just in on it, but they’re not in the “spongebob fandom” per se. there’s this distinct line between fans of media and fandom. there are spongebob fans who aren’t in the fandom yet who have still contributed a lot to it through discussion, like the skin theory guy for instance. but can i say he’s in the spongebob fandom as we have on tumblr? not really. people who are not in the “spongebob fandom” will discuss these characters in a way that’s speaking to a wider audience because they can trust that everyone has seen it. it’s such a unique phenomenon that i don’t think any other show has demonstrated really. not even star trek despite being so well known. people have heard about it but likely haven’t actually watched it. but you can trust that most people you talk to have seen the first three seasons of spongebob and enjoyed it without needing to be in a fandom to discuss it with other people. yet a fandom still exists for it, with fanart, shipping, all of that in a way that’s more traditional of a fandom. and i’m not saying it’s bad in any regard but it feels almost uncanny that spongebob has a more specialized fandom. sorry if this doesn’t make sense it’s really hard to put this into words as i’m perceiving it but hopefully you know what i mean? like holy shit there are people out here who are in a fandom for spongebob just as a traditional fandom for literally any other media like undertale or supernatural etc creating genuine fanart and fanfictions and stuff. engaging on the basis of spongebob and its characters

[dippedanddripped]

Old Nollywood aesthetics and fashion may be considered trendy today, but the films were not always so well-regarded. In the 90s and early 2000s, when these movies were made and watched in parlours across Nigerian homes as they were shot, straight-to-video, they were considered as bad entertainment, or ‘low culture’. To watch and enjoy Nollywood films was to celebrate mediocrity. But today, nostalgic young Millennials and Gen Zers are overlooking the jarring audio, grainy pictures, and sometimes hammy acting, to appreciate not only the grooming and style of the actors, but the original and diverse stories that reflect unique Nigerian experiences.

It was for this reason that sisters Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu started Nolly Babes, a nostalgic Instagram account dedicated to celebrating the cinematic period’s women. Started in December 2017, their first post was of Nollywood’s biggest star Genevieve Nnaji; a still taken from 2004 film Sharon Stone In Abuja, directed by Adim Williams. Nnaji plays the titular character, a sexually liberated young woman who uses her beauty and charm to ensnare unassuming men into doing her bidding.

The account is an ode to the female characters of old Nollywood who were often portrayed as warning examples. The storylines were steeped in moral principles rooted in the patriarchal culture and the dominant Christian religion of Southern Nigeria. A large number of the female characters were considered immoral because they kissed other women, challenged men, smoked and drank, or wore mini skirts. Today, Nolly Babes and similar accounts are reimagining these women, taking their scenes out of the moralistic context of the films, and turning them into iconic feminist personas.

The first time Nollywood content seeped into the mainstream internet consciousness can be traced back to 2017 when videos of Nollywood’s favourite comedic duo Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, better known as Aki and Pawpaw, rose to popularity due mostly to the influence of a now-defunct Twitter account @nollywoodroll ran by Nicole, a woman based in Brazil.

Their memes became the go-to reaction videos for expressing a wide range of emotions: joy, disappointment, sadness, frustration. The appeal was in seeing children making mischief or in adult situations – drinking beer and smoking cigars, wooing bigger women, or in oversized suits shouting instructions at people twice their size. Although both Ikedieze and Iheme were in their 20s in the early 2000s when most of the films were made, they mostly played children because of their body stature. By 2019, the memes had achieved such virality that brands like Rihanna’s Fenty would use them for social media clout.

Theodora Imaan Beauvais is the curator of Yung Nollywood, another archive of clips and stills from old Nollywood paying homage to its controversial female characters, after screenshotting moments from Nollywood she found “appealing or inspirational”. Yung Nollywood is remarkably distinct from Nolly Babes for its subtitling of the films’ stills from Nollywood films, something she attributes to Tumblr. While the idea to give witty captions to the actors’ facial expressions came from watching Netflix. “I thought, ‘If someone could describe Nollywood reactions in short phrases it’d be an art form on its own,’ and I became that someone.’”

In December 2019, Tochi and Ebele hosted a Nollywood-themed party in Lagos. Nollywood actor and musician Nonso Bassey attended the party dressed in a two-piece jean set and bucket hat, a signature look of the bad boy/alpha male archetype, and a role reprised multiple times by older actors such as Hanks Anuku, Emeka Ike, and Jim Iyke. Since that party, Nonso has attended social functions and premieres in outfits that make a nod to the fashion choices of that era of Nollywood. He insists, though, that he isn’t cosplaying Nollywood characters of that era. “I’ve always been attracted to the idea of merging old world charm with a new school approach,” he said.

The party caused a cultural stir amongst Nigerians and Africans both at home and in the diaspora – every other week, there seems to be a Nollywood-themed party held either in Lagos or London. Take for instance friends and business partners Imani Okunubi and Aseosa Uwagboe, two Nigerian-British kids who grew up in the UK. Nollywood was one of the ways they could connect back to their roots. That experience informs their event brand, Lasgidi to London, targeted at Nigerians living in the UK. “We wanted to create events that were reminiscent of the Naija hall parties (Owambe) we attended as kids, as we don’t want to see that culture die,” Aseosa said. Their next owambe is a Nollywood-themed party and guests are expected to come dressed in their “best nolly Y2K aesthetic”.

Below, the Nolly Babes sisters talk about creating and hosting the first Nollywood-themed party and the cultural moment it has inspired.

How did that first event come about – please take me through it, from the planning to how it turned out?

Nolly Babes: From the inception of Nolly Babes, we knew we had to throw a party. Fashion is a huge part of what makes Nolly Babes different from other Nollywood-themed pages and we knew we were the only ones that could set Nolly Babes as the dress code and have people commit as they did. There are many iconic Nollywood scenes and scenarios. The daughter meeting her evil mother-in-law, the ominous visit to the Babalawo, the campus stroll – just the mere mention of these scenes evokes images that have been embedded in the minds of our fellow Nollywood enthusiasts. The party scene is probably the most iconic of them all. Whether it’s in a club, a mansion while mum and dad are out of town (but coming home early to crash the whole thing) or poolside, the Nolly Babes party scene has its staples: mad music, dancing, and sick outfits.

December in Lagos is notoriously hectic. On each day, there are day parties, beach hangouts, concerts, and we just knew we had to be a part of it. Our flyer was the first thing we made sure was done right, and that has been replicated (but never duplicated) many many times. We went through at least six drafts of that until we got the flyer to be a realistic replica of the home video covers from the golden era. The DJs Kemi Lijadu and vIVENDII Sounds understood the assignment and played music from the Nolly Babes era. We’re talking Tony Tetuila, Mo Hitz, Wande Coal, Plantation Boyz… We curated a special cocktail menu: Genny Colladas, Jim Iyke’s Hard Lemonade, MargaRita Dominic, and our Lagos Island Iced Tea, in tribute to Nollywood stars Genevieve Nnaji, Jim Iyke, and Rita Dominic respectively. We had a video projection on the famous red wall at Nok showing a mashup of emblematic scenes. We were partying while seeing images of a young Jim Iyke dressed just like many of the attendees were dressed. It was magical! We have an event we’re planning in New York for the summer – it’s going to be a madness.

Did you envisage it becoming the cultural movement it’s now become?

Nolly Babes: We really didn’t. We hosted the party because we knew people were taking inspiration from our page for styling jobs and music video treatments, and wanted to give everyone a chance to recreate some of their favourite looks. Now every week we see people planning Nollywood-themed parties and sending people to our page for references. It’s awesome. Toke Makinwa even recently attended a Nolly Babes-themed party and she was dressed as a character we have immortalised – Regina Askia in President’s Daughter. She killed it! Even though the character wasn’t referenced, it was clear as day and it was awesome to see that she pulled it off! Honestly, when we see people really pay attention to detail and execute the theme well it’s so, so dope.

How has TikTok helped grow Nollywood's influence? You posted a scene from Girls Cot, the famous “you stink with poverty” clip on TikTok and it went viral and birthed these recreations even by non-Africans.

Nolly Babes: We’re just happy to see that another aspect of Nollywood that we champion – the iconic scenes and one-liners – is also resonating across the world. We see Nolly Babes as an archival work and as much as we focus on beauty and looks on Instagram, it’s nice to be able to point people in the direction of the scenes that are forever embedded in our brains. These are scenes we recreated in jest ourselves before there was even a Nolly Babes to begin with, so to see it catching on TikTok is exciting and a new frontier for us to fully explore. I think what distinguishes Nolly Babes from other Nollywood pages and what contributes to our TikTok success is that we really watch Nollywood movies. We grew up watching these movies and continue to do so now so we can capture those moments in films that the casual consumer or poster of Nollywood content might not.

What are your thoughts on Nollywood’s influence on the Alté scene? Music videos of artists such as Lady Donli and Odunsi nod to the aesthetic and fashion styles of that era.

Nolly Babes: Nollywood, and specifically the aesthetic we have shone a spotlight on, is probably one of the biggest influences in terms of visuals in that scene right now. I have never seen so many Eucharia (Anunobi) eyebrows on TV and we love it! It’s awesome to see our images and scenes being used in treatments and storyboards. If we’re being candid, we think it would be great if we got the chance to step into our stylist/creative direction bag and help with the execution of the aesthetic.

“The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens” – Nolly Babes

How far do you see Nollywood's influence on pop culture, beyond Nigeria and Africa?

Nolly Babes: When we moved to New York we found our Dominican and South American friends had also grown up watching Nollywood films. The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens. Nollywood clips were online everywhere – but it was always in a comedic way. Aki and PawPaw are meme gods now, and that’s because their expressions transcend cultural boundaries. Black Twitter eats that stuff up.

Nolly Babes chooses to center the beauty, style, and iconic imagery, even the home decor with our #NollyDecor hashtag of the golden era of Nollywood. We share the makeup, accessories, fashion, iconic phrases, and scenes in a way that isn’t just comedic but inspirational and aesthetically groundbreaking. I see Nollywood being at the centre of this Y2K resurgence that is happening all over the world, from TV to runways and fashion collections. That era is coming back around and, this time, the Black experience is being revisited and centered in a way it wasn’t back in the late 90s and 2000s. (Black people) were always the originators of the trends and this time they’re tapping into the source and Nollywood, particularly the era we celebrate as Nolly Babes, is a great resource for that.

Follow Nolly Babes on Instagram