#hobbydrama

[shefightslikeagirl]

Hobby Drama: Emilie Autumn's Asylum [Part 1]

u/pillowcase-of-eels posted a link to their fandom-and-EA-history write up to the r/EmilieAutumn Reddit, and I thought it would be a fun project to share! 2 out of 7 parts have been posted to r/HobbyDrama so far.

Picture this: it's the early 2010s, somewhere in the western world. Instagram is a novelty, Harvey Weinstein runs Hollywood, almost no one on Earth leans one way or the other about RNA vaccines, and Donald Trump is that one real estate guy you vaguely remember from Home Alone 2. New player Lady Gaga is the most interesting thing to have happened to pop since Madonna, and the whole industry is attempting to catch up; Miley Cyrus is the chick who used to be on Hannah Montana; Melanie Martinez hasn't hatched yet. The time of Oddball Concept Divas is dawning just below the horizon.

You're a Bowie-loving student who skipped goth night at the club to tag along with your art school friends for a very special evening. You're a giddy sixteen-year old rocking cat ears, purple Wet 'n Wild eyeliner, a polyester petticoat, and a coffin-shaped backpack. You're an effete theater kid who sewed his own waistcoat for the occasion, but won't dare wear it to school the next day. You're a buff, bearded dude in a Venom shirt who's trying not to look too excited, since your girlfriend supposedly had to drag you here. You're a slightly bemused parent leaning against the back wall of the venue, sipping a warm half-pint, wondering if this isn't all a bit dark for a tween. ("It's called 'Victoriandustrial', mom," you've been told in the car, "and it's not dark, it's art.")

On stage is a pink-haired woman, with red porcelain-doll lips and a heart painted on her cheek. Among a set of antique consoles, twee tchotchkes, teacups and plastic rats, she pounces and twirls in glittery platform boots, tattered striped stockings, and a tightly laced crystal-studded corset that looks like it's splattered in blood. This is ostensibly a concert, but there is no live band. Where one would expect a drum kit or a bass, three bedazzled burlesque vixens act as back-up singers and dancers, with the occasional vaudeville act a fire-twirling number, a fan dance, throwing pastries and spitting tea into the audience. Lots of wholesome girl-on-girl kissing, too. The music on the backing track is a genre-bender of clanging beats and beeps, lofty orchestral strings, and the frantic hammering of a MIDI harpsichord, as the pink-haired frontlady sings of heartache and betrayal and drowning. Think if the Brontë sisters had invented industrial rock.

The audience gasps in excitement when the lady whips out a vamped-out wireless electric violin. With rockstar cool and virtuoso poise, she leans into the instrument, touches the bow to the strings, and tears out a single plaintive, impeccably distorted high note. Then her fingers go wild, and for a few seconds, everything is perfect suspended animation. Uncannily perfect, almost. Just behind you, you hear someone whisper: "Wait, is she miming it?"

[deep-hearts-core]

The Competitive Barbershop Music Explainer, and Why More of Tumblr Should Be Obsessed With It.

I've been threatening this for now almost a year, so here it is. You probably have an idea in your head of what a barbershop quartet is: maybe you’ve seen The Music Man, or possibly the Louie Zong Hatsune Miku song. But barbershop exists as a hobby these days, too, and there are parts of it that are deeply cool and nerdy. Some of you--gasp--might actually enjoy it. 

What the hell is barbershop music?

Barbershop music got its name from the Black barbershop social space out of which it evolved. In the early 20th century, groups of guys would get together and harmonize as a way to pass the time. The style later got appropriated into white culture (I’m going to come back to this, keep reading) and evolved into what most people think of when they hear the phrase “barbershop quartet”. 

Barbershop got a lot less popular after the 1960s or so, but it’s not gone! Today, it’s overseen primarily by the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly the Society and Preservation for Barbershop Quartet Singing in America, but… that’s long…), which organizes contests and codifies the “rules” of what barbershop is and how it’s different from other a cappella. Those rules are mostly music theory stuff, which I won’t go into here for fear of boring people, but if anyone is curious my askbox is open :D 

It’s not just quartets, either. There are also choruses that sing in the same four-part style, following the same music rules as the quartets, and they compete too. This is how I got involved.

Why is Tumblr supposed to enjoy this?

Reason #1: The competition. I’ve been on Tumblr for several years, and do you know what we love? Ranking things, picking favorites, and watching talented people do their thing. It’s actually kind of similar to Eurovision--there’s a jury and a points system, and people get mad about it every year; there’s a qualifying round and a nerve-wracking calloff; it’s even international! BHS operates in the US and Canada, and most competing groups are from here, but there are sizable scenes in the UK, Sweden, Australia, and Aotearoa, as well as smaller organizations across Western Europe and beyond. The Japanese organization held its first ever competition this year! Regional contests happen all over once or twice a year, culminating in the international competition the first week of July, where quartets and choruses battle it out to be the best of the best. People have favorite groups and try to guess where people are going to place each year. If you’re me, you can even do the Eurovision fan thing and overanalyze the running order. 

Reason #2: The talent. Listen, many of these people are incredibly talented singers. Take The Clementones from Denmark, for example, who delivered amazing Addams Family character work this year. Or Smoke Ring, the New York City-based quartet trying to singlehandedly make barbershop sexy again. I could give you so many examples of singers who can hold long notes forever and ever, but I’ll show restraint and only link two: Vocal Spectrum and Midtown. And of course I have to link this fucking amazing Hunchback of Notre Dame medley. Many singers also arrange songs specifically for their own groups. If you’re a music nerd in any way, this is for you.

Also, if you enjoy niche subcultures or #hobbydrama, there’s so much to rotate in your brain. This is part of what hooked me initially. 

But it's racist/culturally appropriated!

Well, you’re not wrong… but so are a lot of things. Bear with me for a second. I'm not going to come out and blindly defend the history and say oh there's nothing wrong with the organization we can't blame them. The organization was segregated for a long time. Women were only allowed to join as full members in 2018. The Black origins of barbershop singing were actively obscured by SPEBSQSA for decades and have only recently become well-known to most members. Hell, when the BHS went co-ed a splinter organization formed to try and keep the hobby all-male. There is bad history.

BUT. People are trying. There's a sizable contingent of young queer people who do well and become well-connected within BHS--including Smoke Ring, who I linked above. They’re causing a nonzero amount of controversy and are visibly queer and something new and unapologetic about that. More and more nonwhite people are joining and finding success competitively. Academics on the subject actively spread the history that barbershop is a Black genre, and this is increasingly common knowledge especially among young barbershoppers. The most successful barbershoppers in Aotearoa (BHNZ) are predominantly Māori and Pasifika. The BHS board, while they do not have any real understanding about how to execute this at all, does at least want to reckon with the history and is, in theory, trying. For all its many, many faults, there are good people here who are making change.

Ok fine, you've got me. Now what?

Go click on all the links in this post and then let the YouTube algorithm do its work. Also, send me asks! I can go on about this shit forever and ever.

Here are some more suggestions for you:

the chorus performance that first got me interested

Panic! at the Disco but it’s barbershop

these guys also do Spiderman! 

girls who will step on you and you will like it

the air raid warden song from that one tumblr post

air raid warden guys sing about ducks

totally not never gonna give you up. what? what are you talking about?

the first ssaa group to medal in bhs have since changed their lineup but this performance reigns eternal

And if you like to sing, see if there's a chorus (click here for SSAA only) or chapter nearby. I won't get preachy and say you'll have a great experience no matter what. Sometimes people suck; I have the luck to live in a major city on the East Coast and I can say with reasonable confidence that not everyone is going to be as chill as my people are. However, this is such a small space that everyone will be excited about a new person coming in and will likely give you a little leeway. 

I've only been doing this for a year and a half, but I can easily say that I love it and it's changed me. So, even if you scrolled to the bottom of this post rolling your eyes because I should just shut up about this already, thanks for listening. <3

[waywardvictorianconfessions]

I feel weird about r/Hobbydrama writeup and how its message feels like "Well it's mentally ill woman, how dumb & cruel were you all to expect anything from her". Well, the very least you should expect from an artist is not to be scammed. I think she's been treated way more generously than you'd think. If any other artist was in her place and had so many dramas and scams, nobody would be as forgiving. People were making fantastic excuses for her for years, some are to this day.

[taibhsearachd]

So I’ve been kind of vaguely on Reddit for a bit, mostly reading more than engaging, but… of everything Reddit’s killed lately, I’m going to miss r/HobbyDrama the most.

It was such an incredible source of incredibly weird and specific slap fights over mostly irrelevant things, and their weekly hobby scuffles posts developed such a great community, and none of it can really be replicated here on tumblr and I’m sad about it.

But anyway, if any Reddit refugees happen to be from r/HobbyDrama, you’re welcome to follow me. I mostly won’t give you your fix of drama, but I think it was the greatest of subreddits, and I think the people who populated it were kindred spirits. You are welcome here.

[wizardsdeservecats]

is there like a /r/hobbydrama equivalent on tumblr? I'm addicted and need my weekly fandom drama

[ur-friendly-marketable-brand]

I spent a lot of my night shifts reading hobby drama posts. And I am rather sad that people will not share the latest scoop in their niche hobby or jobs because some CEO thought user retention was out of fashion.

[bebe-benzenheimer]

remark: Twilight was always horribly written and racist and sexist and the fact that its main demographic was teenage girls should not make it exempt from criticism, and places like /rhobbydrama should stop whitewashing it.

hobbydrama mods:

[heydis-hotlight]

well this isnt very hot or sexy

[lynmarswarcraft]

“The Sha of Anger dies, as it has done every 15 minutes for the past 10 years.”

Saving the link to this r/HobbyDrama post, as it’s amusing and a solid write-up of the 10 year saga of the Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent and its loot table issues, newly revisited with the introduction of Dracthyr Evokers in Dragonflight.

[cassierobinsons]

i know s11 cas languishing in bed watching nothing but jenny jones was about him being so depressed he was rendered incapable of enjoying anything but the trashiest of television but have we considered he's just messy and loves drama? Like have considered that he's autistic and his special interest is other people's business?

[lonelyroommp3]

i do genuinely believe that if you sincerely say "i never listen to [broad genre of music]" you have essentially given me permission to disregard any thoughts, opinions, or hot takes you might otherwise have about music. disliking a specific subgenre is different you know like if someone says to me "i specifically don't like industrial techno" i will think to myself okay, to even know what that is you've probably got a decent idea what you're talking about, you've clearly listened to enough of it to differentiate it from other similar styles that you like more, and you've also got the maturity and presence of mind not to write off the whole genre of techno or edm because you don't like one specific subgenre. you might possibly be an obnoxious hipster depending on how you go on to back up your opinion but at least you know ball. on the other hand if you go "i will NEVER willingly listen to a country song" i immediately know your knowledge of at least one whole massive genre is based on reductive and sweeping stereotypes and assumptions, and you're not even open minded enough to consider that there might be exceptions to this rule you've imposed upon yourself. and at that point why on earth would i want to bother listening to anything else you have to say on the matter

[waywardvictorianconfessions]

Does anyone else feel a little guilty after reading the HobbyDrama write up? Were we too hard on her?

[monstroso]

🔥 curious about what the train hot takes are

I just realized I'm a bad person to ask about hot takes because I don't spend enough time talking to other members of most communities to know what is and isn't controversial, so this might be lukewarm at best but I will say: the more I look into certain restoration projects the less I like how much gets obfuscated in the locomotive restoration world. Which is to say, I don't think anyone who goes into restoring a locomotive goes in with bad intentions, but I sense a constant need to present nothing but the best possible version of the project at all times and it ends up meaning that bad news gets delayed and the donors get nothing but radio silence until it's too late and there's no hope of saving the project.

To me, it feels like a culture thing. The guys doing the restoration work want to continue to work on their baby and don't want to seem like they're asking too much or trying to tackle the impossible, but the truth is that bad news is better than no news, and people should be allowed the opportunity to have a realistic version of the hurdles involved, even if it means it's going to cost more or owning up to having made a mistake.

I'm being vague on purpose because I don't want to point fingers and say "I think this project is being mishandled" because the truth is, I don't know if it's being mishandled! There's not enough information to come to any kind of conclusion!

I think a lot of train guys would respond to this by saying 'Well, if you're so worried about it you should get involved directly.' which is the dream for sure, but I'm not really able to pick up my whole life and move to fucking Pottstown to work on the T1, as much as I'd like to! (And this is not to say the T1 Trust is a bad operation, I actually think they're the gold standard that other newbuild and restoration projects should try to emulate, this is just an example.) Realistically, the most people my age and skill level are able to do is donate, but we want to donate intelligently and we want to feel involved even if we can't be physically.

Like I said, part of it is maintaining a certain public image, the other part of it (I think) is cliquey subculture drama bullshit that happens in every hobby, and I think will eventually be the death of these kinds of projects if more isn't done to keep interest in them alive. 🔥

[brie-draws]

A little OC ref of sorts... Not really I’m just showing off a new OC and his jackets. His name is Atsuji and hes a streamer and an author and a menace. Is deeply in love with a fan who’s never talked to him privately. Wears jackets that correspond with his mood.

Extra pixel

[diamondnokouzai]

hi this is joe bidens mom he killed himself. what did you think of him how would you rate him out of 10.

[bebe-benzenheimer]

holy schlamoly can't anybody on hobbydrama talk like normal people