#internet of things trends 2020

[celestialalpacaron]

Ayo, someone by the name of Curly-B-Blog is redlining art of yours from 2020 (while pretending that it's actually Sai Scribble's work), and kind of being a dick about it. just thought you should know.

You know, originally I was just gonna brush it off, but then I went back to look at my old SU art from 2020 and did so much self reflection from then till now.

I think this was around the time I was just learning how to do perspective and tried to use the perspective tool on Procreate for the first time? :0 and I remember telling Sai “Sai I have this STUPID idea, I CANT believe it this stupid joke it’s so DUMBBBB, it’s living rent free in my BRAIN I SWEAR THIS IS GONNA BE SO STUPID DCIUWHEFIUWHIRFUIW4F” and being super excited to show her the finished product. People still think Sai created the Cursed Skin Gloves comic and I think it’s hilarious wjhwnuhwijwuiw

The comic was received very well and it made LOTS of people laugh and I’m still proud of this comic to this very day! :D and tbh if it wasn’t for my obsession for Sai’s Switcheroo AU I never would have found my passion in comic work! (love you you stinky hoe @saiscribbles 🩷)

HOWEVER…. I definitely still had lots to learn! I wasn’t very good at perspective at the time I’ll admit, but I was definitely having lots of fun learning :3

And throughout the past 4 years, ALOT has happened.

I graduated from college with TWO fancy pieces of expensive papers in Visual Development in Animation and Illustration learning from Will Kim and Jeff Soto, and as a I was working with the funny voice man Cougar MacDowall as a comic/story artist and reached in total around 7 million views for my fan series FNAF Security Malware Breached (it was even #21 on the trending list around the time of my birthday 🩷 what a lovely gift), had an insane opportunity to work with Mike Geno and with the voice cast from The Amazing Digital Circus for a fan song as a background and character asset artist, Vivienne Medrano liking and sharing my silly Overlord Husk AU comics, currently on my route to getting my certificate from Aaron Blaise’s Character design program and graduating from Marc Brunet Art School, and now I am completing my first year as professional colorist and art assistant for my storyboard and comic mentor Michelle Lam, aka Mewtripled! (Also I’ll be heading out to Lightbox Expo 2024 on October 26 with Michelle and the team so if y’all ever wanna meetup hahahajaj wink wink wink wink wink)

So you can say I learned ALOT and I enjoyed every minute of what I do :D I try to be humble about my accomplishments because blah blah being humble good yes yes but this time I wanna be selfish and say HELL YEAH I DID ALL THIS!!! AND IM SO EXTREMELY PROUD OF MYSELF FIUGEIURGERGGRS

Now here’s my most recent comic page that I posted like 2 days ago without the text.

That’s pretty freakin wild to me, I can’t believe I used to draw Steven Universe art like that back in 2020 LOL LIKE GUYS I DREW THIS!! WITH!!! MY HANDS!!! IS THAT NOT INSANE!!!???

Anyways moral of the story:

Learn from everyone and everything! Yes, even then mean ones too! If you can learn to work with anyone, I promise you’ll get to where you want to be faster. People can be a little mean on the internet, but that shouldn’t stop you from being where you want to be in the future. I’m so EXTREMELY grateful for all the opportunities and to all the kind professionals who were willing to give me a chance. Seriously, I’m so graciously thankful for everything, and I hope everyone here will support me and my silly little comics I will do now and in the future!

And one more thing:

Don’t be a jerk. Be to be nice to everyone :D nothing good comes out when you’re bad to everyone.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

People on this website really trying to downplay the specific role of destiel in the events of November 5th 2020 ‘it could have been any other ship that went canon at that time and had the same effect’ no.

Nothing else is destiel.

Nothing else is 12 years and hundreds of episodes of extremely obvious and deliberate queerbaiting that was Vehemently denied by the production team. Nothing else is the ship about characters whose larger overarching plot is literally fighting against their own pre-determined narrative to attain free will. Nothing else proved in the 11th hour Just before the show ended that the meta narrative and queer reading by fans who insisted there was something there and who were constantly called crazy by the production and by other fans and by the rest of the internet were RIGHT.

The CW did market research! About whether to make it canon! In a show they always pretended was aimed primarily at middle (conservative) America!!!

The queer subtext was so Fucking Strong by the end of the show, because the writers constantly wrote themselves into corners that could Only be explained away by destiel, that they HAD to admit defeat and canonize it.

And THEN even after they made it canon, they denied it some more and tried to downplay it! But it happened! The angel is fucking gay!!!!

Destiel is THE great American queerbait and had been a staple of the culture of this site for over a decade before November 5 2020. There is a REASON it is the most popular ship on AO3. ‘The same thing would have happened if johnlock became canon or spirk or whatever else’ no it simply would not have because crucially CRUCIALLY those ships Never Became Canon! The fact that Destiel of all the popular queerbait slash ships of the past few decades somehow at long last DID, and in a way that Still refused to just let the shippers have it and allow any implication of full reciprocation and that the final two episodes and the entire cast absolutely refused to acknowledge in any way, is why the canonization of destiel is one of the wildest things to happen to fandom culture as a whole in recent memory, and you cannot theoretically remove the destiel of it all and have it be the same kind of event.

The reason november 5 happened like it did, why people started making jokes at all, is because the fandom cultural juggernaut that is destiel becoming canon is the only thing that could have possibly managed to trend above the U.S. election. BECAUSE it’s destiel.

[auckie]

I think the things that offend me most nowadays in like, smaller interpersonal interactions rather than grand, sweeping trends in culture, are when people chose to not partake in a wide set of things. Like musical close mindedness, or refusal to try different foods from different cultures. Not watching an entire subset of films bc they’re ‘french’. Avoiding reading bc you say you have adhd and it’s too hard. Like dude I get it, I’m busy. I can be picky. Everyone can. But the willful ignorance of closing yourself off to those VAST portions of the human experience, and not having curiosity and a lust to learn and explore art that was made by someone worlds apart from you either in terms of their culture, era, whatever. I dunno man it just pisses me off so bad. I think it’s arrogant. Like oh you’re comfortable in your safe little bubble huh? And you’re enforcing its barriers with the excuse that you’re autistic and have sensory issues. With music made by black people?? lol okay. It is pretty presumptuous for me to assume malicious intent but I think those prejudices are borne from either the comfort of being someone who’s wealthy and probably white not feeling the need to learn past what they think is enough, or it’s a reflection of a society that’s taught you to prioritize what it shills— popular, current (white, depending where you live ig) artists who are making streamlined, easy to digest content. Often when I meet people with these issues they’ll have one particular ‘niche’, and it tends to be like. 70s music. Victorian literature. Anime and Japanese games. But they’re still not really investing beyond the media presented. Like there’s so much more to Japanese culture than liking some cartoons put out between 2010-2020. You don’t gotta become some sorta Einstein who learns the background of every little freak in FGO yeah. But don’t you wanna aim higher? Aren’t you interested in any of the historical figures? And nothings wrong with hopping onto a trend. You read Dracula bc of that Dracula daily thing. Cool! Read more. Some people will say they’re chronically ill or disabled and can’t get outside. That’s okay. The internet is full of things you can read other than fanfiction, YouTube has a shit ton of free music. There’s Wikipedia and free articles online if you have questions about things. Yeah nobody is spending four hours a day looking at the national archives website and studying art history but it’s imbued in the things around you, and youll absorb it ambiently as you go along. you dont have to be a jack of all trades and cover every major genre of every major medium, but it never hurts to try! I really love seeing ppl ask too. Bc it can be kind of humiliating to admit to what seems like some jackass hipster that you’ve never delved into, idk, Serbian films (lol not that one). And hopefully if whoever you’re asking will give you honest good recommendations and not berate you. I’m kind of berate a straw man rn I guess. The hostile tone def doesn’t lend to an atmosphere of sharing but I cannot tell you how many times I’ve rbed anything involving specifically jazz only to see someone rb and add the stupidest comment on the post, or in the tags, or go into my inbox to be like waaah I don’t like jazz bc it’s boring and old and for pretentious hypocrites who hate neurodivergent people! Like what are you TALKING about. Fine if you don’t like it but don’t try and rationalize that as a moral standing you shit lark. And just as they’re allowed to dislike jazz I’m allowed to not really enjoy people who don’t like jazz. Or country. Nautical knots. Knit wear. Watching urbex YouTubers get their shit rocked by squatters. Korean food. Pachuco fashion and stupid ugly low riders. Bollywood films. and they don’t want to try any of those things either yknow? The next thing I’m getting into is circuit bending.

[jealousmartini]

Fun fact! In my home reality, I am an interent sensation whose been around since 2016 on youtube, known for:

My 2 hour long rambles about my personal opinions of random stuff. My first youtube video was actually of me rambling about something. This was when I intend to use my youtube account like a journal. Back in 2016 to 2018, my topics and opinions was seen as either really intriguing, strange, or pretty valid. But over 2020 and onwards, tiktok gets a hold of my videos and all of a sudden I'm a "problematic creator" lmao.

[ Fun fact! In a series I made in 2018 called "The purpose of life" I talk about law of Assumption, manifestation and the theory of there only being one way to live life correctly is the most popular series I made, and I am openly a manifester. ]

My art and animations. I am an OG animation meme artist, responsible for a load of some well known animation meme trends in the animation/artist community, my persona, Keisha (full name Keisha la keisha) is one of the most iconic, well loved and synonymous persona in the art community, on youtube if not on the Internet.

[ Things "Keisha la keisha" (me) is known for/things that remind everyone of keisha: ]

Quiches. It's literally in her name

Her iconic half up, half down spikey hairstyle

the colour orange, oranges, her first orange tshirt, LITERALLY anything that is orange (koi fish, pumpkins, carrots, the sun and stars literally anything)

Jerseys in any possible form (jersey themed mini dresses, jersey shirts, jersey themed jackets) and off the shoulder shirts

My iconic headphones with antennas

the numbers "06" and "20" (my birthday is 20/06/06)

red panda's (its her representative animal) bunnies (I own two bunnies named tiff and maple)

a series I'm making called "My name isn't Keisha" (click here and scroll to the bottom to understand)

Charms (mainly because my fanbase name is called charmings)

Martinis (because of my account names envious martini and jealous martini)

My art styles, known as the "Martini's artstyles"

Names the Internet refer to me as:

The Quiche tm., Quiche(a), spikey buns, literally any type of orange (Satsuma, tangerine), the manifesting martini,

My music. As i am an active artist, i am also an active music producer. Most of my music has been used for animation memes, tiktok audios, and a lot of people mistake me for a kpop artist (it's one of my most popular genres along side jersey club).

My face being clipped from my livestreams as meme reactions. You'd be suprised at THE AMOUNT of memes made from my videos there is literally a trend on tiktok called "'I don't know keisha/envious martini-' YES YOU DO." where fans will make a compilation of tiktok audios that actually originated from my videos

The meme "Are they lovers?" "Worse" because of mine and Rodrigo's very popular relationship throughout the years

Being known as "the most uncancellable creator", "Youtube's best animator"

Would you be a Charming? ((o(^∇^)o))

[aroaceleovaldez]

I've been listening to hank green explain (at various times with various contexts but most recently during a vlogbrothers video on Bree Sharp's David Duchovny) how "nothing lasts on the contemporary internet" and I wonder what that might have to do with your analysis on fandom infrastructure... like IS it even possible for BNF/public AUs/OCs/fandom events to exist at the same scale in the new internet? I also have to wonder if rr is similarly operating in this new (awful) way with the knowledge that the old books could last longer as cultural moments while the new books are kinda just... there to trend for a hot minute and then fade away into nonexistence within the fandom canon. or maybe i'm just coping bc I miss old tumblr

I absolutely do think old-style fandom is possible on the modern internet! some of the oldest pillars of fandom are from BEFORE the internet was popularized! Plus, there are still plenty of old-style fandoms that are active in those same ways!

You mention "at the same scale" and i think that's interesting because, yes, a lot of those old-style fandoms that are active are smaller. The thing is the scope of old fandom we're used to when we think of classic examples are outliers who were MASSIVE. PJO was a fandom GIANT back in the day, at least so far as book fandoms went (and still is!). The major thing that's changed is that "fandom" has become mainstream - or at least, the concept of fandom.

The thing with mainstream modern fandom is it gets conflated with general audience a lot. A lot of people trying to engage with fandom when they're new to it don't understand how it's different from just being a normal fan or audience member of a thing, and so just treat them as equivalent and this causes a lot of problems. The main one being the reliance on source material - which causes a lot of newer fandoms to die out whenever there is no new source material - comparatively to old-style fandom, which is inherently self-sustaining.

Some examples of old-style fandoms that are still plenty active are furry fandom (obviously), a decent number of anime fandoms (particularly older ones or less mainstream ones cause the communities are smaller/closer-knit, also their fandoms aren't as strictly western-leaning), and Hermitcraft/associated fandoms is one particularly that I'm in that's VERY active and old-fandom style. They're constantly engaging with material that's long over or series that have ended (Evo, older Life series, older Hermitcraft seasons, etc). They have fandom OCs/AUs/concepts that are shared, they have a TON of projects happening constantly (a recent massive one that just finished is the Hotguy Comics zine! It's an incredibly cool project). Hermitcraft fandom is pretty much the closest new* fandom to old-style fandom that I've found so far (*it is technically 11 years old but it had a recent boom during the MCYT surge in like 2020).

But yes! Old-style fandom absolutely can still exist - and does! It's just far less common because the mainstream image/concept of what fandom is that has become popularized differs from it in practicality. People are being introduced to fandom as just being equivalent to a general audience and are interacting with it as such, when it should be interacted with as a niche, very passionate community. The core of old fandom is always community.

I guess i would describe it as like, passive fandom versus active fandom? Passive fandom being the "new fandom" type format - near complete reliance on source material, usually some attitude of entitlement towards fanwork creators because theyre viewing it as another source material to passively engage with, large lack of headcanons or hcs being equated to theories, shipping is restricted almost exclusively to canon pairings (and ships/headcanons are treated more as things you want to become canon, not explorations outside of canon), etc etc. There's no community or creation happening, only a focus on consumption and maybe at best how to streamline consumption (the only sorts of hubs we see form in this type of fandom are update accounts and official social medias). Basically no proper community has formed and there is little to no engagement with the material outside of the source media. (I also have a theory that this format leads to some New Fandom behaviors that have become more commonplace comparatively to Old Fandom, such as a LOT more trying to directly interact with writers/cast/crew or reliance on them as secondary source materials during hiatus or similar - we see this now with PJO TV and a lot of people downright literally stalking the actors - and almost a refusal to make fanwork of their own. You see a lot more of "omg somebody write/draw [concept]" or trying to pitch ideas to source material writers because they only want to engage passively, not actively, or genuinely don't know how to engage actively.) Big Name Fans can absolutely exist in this sphere, but it's a completely different environment (for PJO, Velinxi is a good example of a new fandom BNF - ive found in this format of fandom, BNFs are almost exclusively fanartists, because fanart is one of the easiest fanworks to find and passively engage with. This also often results in the community being extremely entitled towards larger fanartists).

Active fandom, comparatively, is focused on community and creation. This is where you see fandom projects, engaging with the media beyond the source material, things of that nature. There is actually a structured community.

This post got long but I have more points regarding the second half of your question and my thoughts for why the new books are so. Like That. so I'm going to move that whole ramble to a second post which I will post momentarily.

[part 2 here!]

[hrtbrkrz]

SO, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN 2021 ... ?!

Well, look no further, because we have all the answers to all your questions.

In 2021, KRUSH was at the top of their game. Coming off the heels of a massively successful comeback and gearing up for one of their most iconic releases yet, the girls were simply unstoppable. But there was one member who had the biggest star power of them all that year: Kaleina Jung. Her viral solo debut in January took the industry by storm, positioning her as one of BigHit's most profitable artists and the bar for the rest of KRUSH's solo debuts. However, despite Kaleina's career success, not all was well.

Privately, she was going through it. After publicly coming out during one of KRUSH's concerts just two years prior, GGBs were split straight down the middle at how they received the news. Half of them loved it, and the other half hated it. They called for BigHit to kick her out the group, wrote letters to her, burned her merch, trended #KaleinaOut and #KRUSH_Is_3, tried to delude themselves into thinking her bisexuality "wasn't real," and even boycotted the entire group. Obviously, Kaleina saw all of it.

Driven to depression and diagnosed with anxiety disorder, she was almost placed on hiatus in early 2020. That never happened, though, as Kaleina was adamant on finishing her activities with KRUSH. As the year dragged on, however, everything just got worse for her, and it all came to a head in 2021.

So, just what happened during that fateful year? Well, ask no more. All your questions will be answered right here, right now.

( TW // HOMOPHOBIA ... lots of it + BRIEF MENTION OF HYBE )

It's June 2019. KRUSH has just finished their show in Los Angeles, a small part of their massive world tour. That night, Kaleina does something rather bold for an idol of her caliber. She comes out as bisexual in front of a crowd of thousands, pulling out a flag from inside of her pocket. Despite the love from the crowd and support from her fellow members, a small part of the internet is about to tear Kaleina to shreds.

First it started with an outcry of "disappointment," but then it escalated to the letters. These are a few written by K-GGBs in 2019. One of them reads, "I cannot support an idol who thinks engaging in this type of sin is right. Kyung-ja has betrayed her fans' trust by doing such things, and as long as she's still a member of KRUSH, I will not be pouring my time and energy into them any longer. BigHit, make the right choice and remove Kyung-ja from the team. She is poisoning the rest of the girls."

One of Kaleina's largest fansites, @/LEINAISMS, shut down following Kaleina's announcement. They returned a day later to call for Chanhee's appointment as KRUSH's new leader, promising to rebrand as a Chanhee fansite... but that never happened.

As the year closed out, the "discourse" surrounding Kaleina's sexuality began to take a toll on her. In screenshots obtained from her private Instagram stories, she expresses just how sad she is at the divide revealing her sexuality has caused. And to whoever leaked these, you kind of suck, by the way.

Screenshots of the leaked stories. There was another that reportedly read "what will my fucking company think," but that was quickly deleted and the leaker wasn't able to attain a screenshot. There was also one that read "like y'all are trending HASHTAGS to get me KICKED OUT MY GROUP," but the leaker wasn't able to attain that one, either. After these screenshots began circulating, Kaleina quickly deleted her story and deactivated her private account. It was down for nearly a year.

Koreaboo later reported that a source close to Kaleina told Dispatch that she had such frequent panic attacks that she was almost unable to complete a performance or step in front of a camera, which led to her aforementioned anxiety diagnosis. She began expressing doubts surrounding her capabilities as a leader, something she had never done before, and was "very upset" that something that she was excited to share with fans was turned into something so ugly.

This report quieted things down a bit, but in no way did it satiate KRUSH's oddly homophobic fans. In fact, they only doubled down, sharing pictures of them burning Kaleina's merch and physically cutting her out of group photos. It got to the point where her own family had to respond.

The year came to an end, and publicly, Kaleina was looking fine. Everyone knew that she wasn't, though. especially considering the month long "sort of hiatus" she was put on during Test Drive promotions back in November 2019. Throughout 2020, one of KRUSH's biggest years career wise, the Kaleina hate train never truly stopped, but since it was considered "old news," it didn't get too much attention from GGBs anymore. However, that certain subsection of "fans" didn't want their message to fall on deaf ears, and they got the perfect opportunity to be as loud as possible by Kaleina's solo debut.

A video was posted to YouTube by a now deleted user in January 2021, showing Korean fans screaming "leave," "we don't need you," and "you've committed a sin" during Kaleina's performance of "Cobra." The video went viral, garnering over two million views in the three days that it was left up. After those three days, however, the video was taken down and the user who posted it was mysteriously deleted. That same day, BigHit released a statement notifying fans that they would be taking legal action against any malicious comments or actions directed at Kaleina, and that anyone involved in the "cheering" that was seen in the video would be blacklisted from any upcoming KRUSH events, which included music show broadcasts.

"Hello, this is BigHit Entertainment. It's recently come to our attention that the hate leveled against Kaleina has gotten to levels that we can no longer ignore. Since 2019, Kaleina herself has informed us that she wishes not to take legal action against malicious commenters and the individuals who spread misinformation against her. However, regarding a recent incident that occurred at KBS Music Bank, we can no longer continue to let these issues go unheeded. After discussing this with Kaleina, she has agreed to allow us to take legal action against anyone who thinks cyberbullying our artist is a good idea. Anyone who does so will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and will be required to answer to the corresponding District Court. Additionally, anyone who took part in the KBS Music Bank incident will be blacklisted from any official KRUSH activities (concerts, fan meetings, showcases, broadcasts, etc.) from here on out. We, BigHit Entertainment, and Kaleina ask you for your sincere support and understanding. Thank you."

BigHit finally issuing a statement did cause the situation to briefly die down, but the timing of this video surfacing was definitely interesting considering what would happen next. Dispatch would rear its ugly head once again, and they would release an article that would change everything. So if you thought for a second that everything was over, then you are sorely mistaken. Shit would truly hit the fan now.

February 2nd, 2021. Only a few short weeks into Kaleina's promotions for "Cobra." All is (somewhat) well in KRUSH-land for a while, until Dispatch does what they always do. The second the article read around the world hit the internet, Kaleina's dating "scandal" went down as one of the most prolific ones in K-pop history.

The article was pretty cut and dry, sharing alleged photos of Kaleina and an unknown female choreographer at a restaurant together, supposedly looking closer than regular friends or colleagues would. According to the source who witnessed it, the unspecified female in question (known as Female A in the article) was placing her hand on Kaleina's waist, kissed her on the forehead, and apparently, they also held hands (oh, the horror) and kissed. On the lips. And in the split second that Kaleina forgot to put her mask back up, the anonymous source caught a picture of her. It was basically confirmed: Kaleina had a girlfriend.

But, how did said source know that it was a choreographer specifically? Well, apparently they could "tell." Verbatim, they said that, "the other woman just had that vibe to her."

...Okay.

A couple of days later, Dispatch obtained another photo, this one being of Kaleina and the choreographer boarding a private flight to Los Angeles. Allegedly, it was for a solo schedule that Kaleina was meant to attend, but oddly enough, she was going with Female A. Seeing as she was a choreographer (apparently), this made sense from a work standpoint, but as always, netizens spun it to mean something else entirely, especially since Female A and Kaleina were literally both seen together just a few days prior. The same source as before was also the one to feed this information to Dispatch, and they'd allegedly obtained Kaleina's flight information by paying airport employees. Unfortunately.

Another couple of days later, though, the initial article was updated. This time, with another batch of leaked photos. And these ones were something else.

All the photos that were leaked. The worst part? They were taken from Kaleina's iCloud, which was reportedly hacked by the leaker in question. The fact that these were the only nine they released means that they were searching, and only God knows if they could've released more. The photos (one of which—second in the middle row—was taken by Aeri and sent to Kaleina) were grainy and looked edited to hell for some reason, and no one really knew if the other woman was who they were thinking, but some eagle-eyed GGBs were certain it was.

Just a few hours later, more photos were released. At the rate that all this was happening, make no mistake that this was the story of the week. Stans were up and down Twitter wondering what was going to happen next. One half was happy for Kaleina and wanted the breaches of her privacy to stop already, the other half wanted her head on a pike.

The photos that were leaked were more Instagram stories, one from Kaleina that was accidentally uploaded to her official Instagram account, rather than a separate account (which was another private account speculated to possibly belong to her girlfriend). The other was from Sienna Yoon's official account, dating back to early 2019.

Wait... Sienna Yoon?

Apparently, Female A's identity had been revealed.

Now, the first photo apparently dated back to late 2020, which is when a lot of people think Kaleina and Sienna began dating... and the photo definitely reinforces their suspicions. The second photo, as mentioned before, dated all the way back to early 2019. Mind you, Kaleina wasn't even publicly out yet, and at the time, she and Sienna were widely known to be close friends.

However, GGBs also knew that they tended to act closer than "close friends" should.

They would be together almost all the time, with the other members of KRUSH even outwardly joking that outside of practice, they spent the most time together. Even during practice, Sienna would heap the most attention onto Kaleina, and they would get oddly touchy with each other, even while on camera. One major thing is that Sienna would frequently call Kaleina "baby girl," which... is something Sienna herself admitted that she just does. A lot of GGBs simply chalked it up to them being really close or labeled it as something south of fanservice, but within BigHit, everyone could tell. There was tension. And if you were a GGB and particularly observant (or just insane), you could tell, too.

Following these leaks and sometime in March, Kaleina sent a series of texts to her bandmate and famed best friend, Aeri Yamamoto. In them, she expressed her (understandable) frustration towards the situation, and ended the conversation by saying that if the texts were also leaked, she wouldn't be surprised.

Surprise, surprise. The texts were leaked, revealed by none other than Koreaboo. Shortly afterwards, Kaleina was seen with a new phone outside of M Countdown, as KRUSH had just made their comeback with their fourth full album, Heartbreak's Daughter. She was serious.

Now, GGBs were calling for the leaks to stop. They were trending #LeaveKaleinaAlone and #BigHitDoSomething practically non-stop for weeks. Others were calling her a crybaby and "someone who wasn't fit for fame," and even Aeri was getting dragged into it. But even with that, Kaleina's "dating scandal" was still the one thing on everyone's minds.

By now, Sienna's name was 100% attached to the so-called "scandal." However, could anyone really verify for sure that Kaleina's girlfriend was actually her? The aforementioned Instagram story was posted two years prior, and it looked like exactly what it was: a friendly outing. Maybe Sienna and Kaleina really were just friends, and the unknown girl was someone else entirely.

But you know what would change everyone's minds?

That infamous Twitter thread.

In the thread, the user @/leinanator (who, at the time, was one of Kaleina's biggest fan accounts), known commonly as Carlie, starts off by pointing out a lot of things that GGBs were already aware of. However, she then began going into things that no one even noticed, which really sealed the deal for a lot of people. For one, back in October 2020, Sienna was seen wearing Kaleina's bisexual flag bracelet that she made in July 2019 in a choreography video posted by YGX. That was definitely interesting, considering that Kaleina never let anyone wear the bracelet, not even her own bandmates.

Other pieces of evidence from around this time period included the multiple instances where they were at the same place at around the same time, Kaleina's posts showing her at the YGX dance studio, and even a few instances where Sienna would talk about Kaleina in ways that friends would not talk about their friends.

Carlie would go on to point out some of Kaleina's lyrics, dating all the way back to September-October 2020 to as recently as January 2021, when Cobra was released. During a live in September 2020, she shared a page of her notebook, where she wrote an unfinished song about an anonymous girl, describing their first meeting. In the live, Kaleina said it was a song she wrote "on a whim," and that it could "possibly be a love song." A lot of lyrics penned by her in some of KRUSH's B-sides point to Kaleina's attraction to women, with clear, often repeated details across nearly every song.

Immediately after being posted, this thread went viral. Within the first hour, GGBs were all over it, with many posting other supposed connections and others claiming that the thread was posted in bad faith. Which... was it? Well...

Apparently, Carlie was so big that she actually kind of knew Kaleina herself. She was very vocal about knowing of Kaleina since her Produce days and attending nearly every KRUSH-related schedule since their debut, and supposedly, Kaleina actually followed her shortly after the account launched all the way back in January 2016. They were nowhere near close friends, but they were at least familiar with each other, and had been for five years at that point. Which makes that thread just a little worse.

At least Carlie didn't air out any more personal information.

But it would only get even worse from here.

A month went by with nothing but pure speculation going on and a few Koreaboo articles here and there, and throughout all of it, Kaleina was still actively promoting with KRUSH, looking as unbothered as ever in public. In May, however, Deuxmoi of all websites suddenly got involved.

On May 6th, just two days after Kaleina's 21st birthday, a blind item was sent to Deuxmoi claiming that Kaleina was definitely, 100%, no speculation needed dating Sienna. However, what proof they did have weren't surface level connections. Apparently, they knew what was going on behind the scenes. They knew Kaleina and Sienna personally.

"I've known Kaleina Jung personally for a while, and everything you guys are saying about her relationship with Sienna Yoon is true. They've been dating for nearly a year now, and they've been close since early 2018, around January at least, and a month later, that was the first public mention of Sienna as KRUSH's choreographer. I prefer not to share them here, but I do have Twitter DMs between Kaleina and I discussing her relationship with Sienna dating as far back as March 2018 and as recently as late 2020. I've also spoken to Sienna before, and she's not exactly subtle regarding her feelings towards Kaleina. They're definitely dating."

'Til this day, GGBs are still trying to figure out who was the one behind the Deuxmoi blind item. However, their prime suspect has been Carlie for years. Although nearly two months passed in between her original thread and the blind item, the fact that the anon behind the latter was (allegedly) as close to Kaleina as Carlie was... it's definitely interesting.

Right after Deuxmoi posted, Carlie tweeted that Kaleina had supposedly unfollowed her. Since then, GGBs were quick to turn against her, unfollowing her en masse and bombarding her with hate. As June began, @/leinanator disappeared. Carlie had deactivated.

The aforementioned Carlie tweet. Although no one in the fandom will truly know who was behind that blind item, Carlie's reputation's as one of Kaleina's first and biggest fan accounts has forever been tainted.

Once Deuxmoi presented this as fact, it was basically over. The hatred for Kaleina reached its peak, with antis calling for her removal, shouting the most vile things known to man at her, boycotting KRUSH, and flooding her comments with hate all over again. Twitter's searches ranged from "Kaleina leave" to "Kaleina bad leader," and it even got to the point where antis were accusing her of prioritizing her relationship over her group... again.

In June, Kaleina disabled her Instagram comments. For the next six months, it was nothing but complete radio silence.

Sienna has been mentioned at least a thousand times so far, but who is she? Well, if you're an idol or at least a well-versed K-pop fan, there's a good chance that you know who she is.

Sienna Yoon (also known as Yoon Seo-yeon) was born on March 4th, 1996 in Seoul, South Korea. Although born in Korea, she was raised in San Antonio and New York City. As a child, she was placed in dance lessons by her parents in order for her to find some sort of hobby. When she entered middle school, Sienna became interested in K-pop, getting into groups such as Baby V.O.X and Wonder Girls. In 2009, she moved back to Korea with her mother, looking to join a training academy. A few months after she did, though, she was scouted by JYP Entertainment.

Sienna trained at JYP for a year and was placed into Miss A's lineup due to her dance skills. What's insane is that she actually ended up debuting with the group, but shortly after the release of "Good-bye Baby," Sienna went on hiatus due to an injury. That hiatus soon turned into her permanently leaving Miss A, and she would pretty much disappear for the rest of 2011. However, in 2012, it was revealed that she had joined CSJ Entertainment's subsidiary, Verse Creative, and was preparing for her re-debut in another girl group.

In May 2012, Sienna debuted again in the 5-member group Queen. The group's debut single, "Dancing Queen," (off of their debut EP of the same name) did well in Korea, replacing their labelmate DI-VERSE's recent single at number one on the charts for a few weeks. For a few years, Queen was almost comparable to DI-VERSE in popularity and were viewed as the former's "big sisters," (despite being their juniors) and as the group's main dancer (plus she was a former Miss A member), Sienna was among the most popular members.

However, as DI-VERSE began to vastly eclipse Queen in popularity, the group was gradually forgotten by the public. Their second to last comeback, released in late 2014, was their worst performing release. In 2015, it was announced by Verse Creative that Queen would be disbanding after releasing their final album in 2015. In April 2015, they officially disbanded. Ironically, their last release was one of their most successful.

Now, what happened to Sienna, you ask? Well, in 2016, she interestingly re-signed to JYP Entertainment. She kickstarted her highly anticipated solo debut with the single "Like that," off of her debut album, SEOYEON.

Sienna's debut did immensely well, selling over 16,000 copies within its first week and topping every chart in Korea. For the next two years, she would have pretty consistent comebacks, would start acting, and she even became somewhat of an influencer with the launch of her personal YouTube channel, SiSiSeo. However, in early 2018, it was announced that Sienna had terminated her contract with JYP and had effectively retired from music, preferring to focus on her career as a dancer. Sienna became one of the first talents signed to YGX, and she soon established her own dance team, KillaQueen. Over the next six years, Sienna became a renowned choreographer, working with artists such as Itzy, BLACKPINK, Somi, Aespa, Sunmi, NewJeans, her former labelmates DI-VERSE... and of course, KRUSH.

More recently, Sienna has choreographed dances for Katseye, BABYMONSTER, and MEOVV. In February 2023, she became one of The Black Label's creative directors, and was appointed as one of the creative directors for MEOVV in 2024.

Eventually, YGX folded in 2024, but with such a stacked roster and her years of experience, Sienna remained under The Black Label and dedicated most of her time to her dance group, and she established her own dance studio, Killa Studios. In 2023, she and KillaQueen competed on Street Woman Fighter 2, ending up in third place by the end of the show. Everyone already knew Sienna before, but everyone really knew her now.

And all of this made her dating "scandal" with Kaleina even crazier.

Throughout all of this, Kaleina is still promoting with KRUSH. She refuses to go on hiatus, but it's kind of clear that she doesn't want to interact with a lot of GGBs right now. During award show season, she's clearly fidgety and uncomfortable, a clear contrast in comparison to 2019 and prior. On stage, though, she's as "Kaleina" as ever. She gives some of her best performances of the year, but that's because that's her job. She kind of has to perform well.

Netizens are petitioning for Kaleina and even KRUSH as a whole to be blacklisted if she isn't removed from the group. They're sending letter after letter to broadcast stations, and reportedly (according to Dispatch), said stations are emailing BigHit and asking them to place Kaleina on hiatus until the entire thing blows over. Obviously, their suggestions go unheeded, and Kaleina remains with KRUSH for the rest of the year.

You're probably wondering: where was Sienna in all of this? Well, after getting dragged through the mud herself, she stopped posting earlier in the year, shortly after the situation escalated. She disabled her own Instagram comments, which was seen as some sort of "admission," but everyone already kind of... knew, and I would disable my comments too if I had a bunch of homophobes and freaks harassing me and my girlfriend and constantly trying to pry into our private lives.

However, in November, Sienna would finally break her silence in her first post in seven months. A rather lengthy statement, it read:

"Hi, everyone. Long time no see, right? First off, I want to apologize for being gone for so long. As you all probably know, it's been a tumultuous last couple of months. Although I would like to go into detail about how all of this has affected me, the purpose of this letter to you all is not to highlight me. Over the last few months, I've seen many of you wonder where I've been and why I haven't been publicly defending Kaleina. For one (and I have gotten permission to say this), she had advised me not to come out and say anything, as she feared that the harassment she'd been receiving would be directed at me. Recently, though, since she's turned off her comments and has been limiting her time online, she's allowed me to speak for her in a way. As of now, Kaleina is okay for the most part. She's been focusing mostly on promoting with the rest of KRUSH, since the girls are currently on tour, as many of you might know. However, her anxiety has also worsened since this year began, and it's become harder and harder for her to complete performances. Clearly, this is because of the relentless malice that's been directed at her over the last two years. To whoever's been participating in the hate train leveled against her, I kindly ask you to stop. Calling for her removal from KRUSH and harassing her because she is trying to be her authentic self gets you nowhere. It will not get you a better job, nor will it make you feel like a better person. Like her family, her members, and the staff at BigHit, I've seen the toll this has taken on Kaleina. It's not cute, so please, cut it out. As for me, I'm fine. I won't go into detail on my mental state since I'm clearly not the one in the public eye in comparison to Kaleina, but what I will say is that this situation has made me significantly unhappier and much more stressed out. It has also affected Kaleina and I's friendship in ways that are distressing to the both of us. I wish that I could wake up tomorrow and all of this will be over, but unfortunately, nothing's ever that easy. I want to end this very, very long letter by saying that I love you, my aegi-deul, so much. Even though I wont be posting as often for a multitude of reasons, that doesn't mean I suddenly hate any of you. Like the past few months, I just need to take a bit more time away. Plus, you can still find me on YGX's channel, so don't worry too much. This has gotten incredibly long, so I'll end it here. Like I said, I love you so much, and once again, please find it in your heart to give Kaleina some grace and leave her be. It'll be better for all of us. And to Kaleina, even though I can call you and say this, just know that I will always be here for you. Goodbye for now. - S <3"

Notably, Sienna's comments were no longer disabled, but limited, and back then, a lot of people were wondering what made her "change her mind." But that's not what's important right now. In response to Sienna's statement, GGBs got "#ThankYouSienna" to the top of the trending page, along with "#WeLoveYouKaleina." In a staggering display of love that Kaleina hadn't felt since 2019, the latter would trend practically nonstop for the next few months, and it really did look like things were actually starting to simmer down this time.

So 2021 drew to a close, and in came 2022. At the start of January, Kaleina suddenly re-enabled her comments, although like Sienna, not just anyone was allowed to camp under her Instagram. But, some progress was better than no progress.

And then, it happened.

On January 12th, 2022, BigHit released the statement that shook the industry to its core. In the big year of 2022, saying that something like this was "unprecedented" was honestly sad, but it really was. This was truly a first.

"Hello, this is BigHit Music. After careful deliberation and extensive communication with our artist, Kaleina, she has allowed us to publicly confirm her relationship with Sienna Yoon. After getting to know each other after the last few years, Kaleina and Ms. Yoon have been seeing each other romantically for a while now. We will not disclose much else on our artist's personal life, and we kindly ask you to not try and find out yourselves. Any breaches of privacy will be considered criminal, and you will be prosecuted as such. We, BigHit Music, and Kaleina sincerely ask you for your utmost respect, kindness, and understanding going forward. Thank you."

Needless to say, the reactions to this were insane. Tweet after tweet, news article after news article... this was at the forefront of every K-pop stan's mind for weeks. It had taken over Twitter timelines like the bubonic plague. But, surprisingly, unlike 2019, reactions were a lot more... tame.

Now, people were praising Kaleina and Sienna for being so open about their relationship, lauding Kaleina's choice to go public. One of the industry's biggest stars acknowledging her relationship? Crazy. Said star acknowledging her same sex relationship? Batshit.

A week later, Kaleina would take to Weverse with a statement of her own. For the first time in nearly a year, she had broken her silence. It was cause for celebration.

"Hello everyone. Kaleina here. I know, I've been sort of 'gone' for a long time. I apologize for that. It's been one terrible year, but I don't need to tell you all that for you to know. Anyways, a week ago, my company announced my relationship with Seoyeon. I've seen the reactions, and I thank God that most of them have been positive. I'll admit, During the conversations with BigHit, I was terrified. There were multiple times where I almost backed out, mainly because of the reactions I witnessed following our Los Angeles concert three years ago. But then, I realized something. The reason I came out in 2019 was because I didn't want to have to hide. People like me have been told our entire lives that our identities are things to be ashamed of. That we 'don't have to make it a big deal.' But that's exactly why we have to make it a 'big deal,' especially since I'm an idol. I don't want to put on a mask or live in a lie simply because I'm a celebrity. I want to live my authentic self to the best of my ability. I came out back then because I didn't care what others thought of me. Why should I care now? Of course, some of the reactions I saw back then nearly scared me back into submission. There was a reason I went on my brief hiatus back during our promos for Test Drive, and there's a reason why I didn't bring it up as often afterwards. But, now, since I'm three years older, I'm choosing to focus on the people that support and appreciate me. My teammates, my friends, my family, and of course, my girlfriend. If you don't like me, that's fine. But all I ask is that you respect me. But if you can't do that either, then you don't have to force yourself to support my group. One thing's for certain, though. I won't leave KRUSH because a few of our so-called fans refuse to accept me for me. I won't desert the girls I've trained for years with, I won't pretend to be someone I'm not, and I won't break up with Seoyeon. There's no changing my mind. To the GGBs who have supported me nonstop for three years, I can't even begin to express how thankful I am. You have made me feel so loved, even on days where I felt like the entire world was against me. You fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself. You tried your hardest to shield me from the hate, and for that, I am eternally grateful. I love you all so, so much. To my teammates, my family, and my friends, thank you for standing by me. Thank you for validating my identity and constantly reassuring me that what I did wasn't a mistake. Thank you for being there when I needed you and being my shoulder to cry on when this leader couldn't take it anymore. Everyone goes through tough times, but you put your struggles aside to help me get through mine. I'm crying all over again just thinking about it. And finally, to Seoyeon. To my wonderful girlfriend who I love so dearly. These last few years with you have been some of my best, even though I cried more often than I would've liked. Even though all of this made us go through a pretty rough patch, you've stood by me every step of the way, and you were there when I wanted nothing more than to just disappear. You're the greatest girlfriend I could've ever asked for, and now, you're still here while I'm staring millions in the face and telling them that I don't care anymore. You've gotten me to this point. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I can say it a million times, to be honest. This is getting very long and very corny, so I just want to say thank you again. You all's boundless love for me has gotten me through this mess. Don't worry, a happier, stronger Kaleina will be back soon. Happy new year, by the way. Once again, thank you and I love you. Bye for now. <3 (And, because I know you're curious, Seoyeon and I have been dating since August 2020. You all can calm down now.)"

Immediately following her statement, Kaleina took to Instagram, and surprisingly, with her comments turned back on. She would post what is probably the cutest picture ever to her story, but what was even cuter? Sienna would respond.

Sienna responded to Kaleina's story just four minutes later, pretty much softlaunching their relationship to the world. Eagle-eyed GGBs took to noticing that the picture Sienna took was from some sort of vacation, most likely the one that Kaleina mentioned a year prior. And if you looked even closer, their new profile pictures were from the same vacation.

In the days following this, antis were quick to "push back," still petitioning for Kaleina's removal from KRUSH and still saying she was prioritizing her relationship over her group. They even started protesting outside HYBE's building. However, these protests were quickly shut down, and the Twitter thinkpieces were either ignored, criticized to hell, or reported.

Antis would try to keep going, spamming hate all down Kaleina's Instagram comments and trending "#KaleinaYouBetrayedUs" for days on end. What they failed to realize is that it wasn't 2019 anymore, and with KRUSH's much larger fanbase, all of that mess was quickly drowned out by much more positive comments/trends. Even into February, "#KaleinaWeLoveYou" and "#KRUSH_Is_4" occupied the first two spots on the trending page, and her comment sections from her Twitter posts to her Instagram to her Weverse updates were spammed with red hearts. It all came to a head during a live where GGBs spammed "we love you Kaleina" and those same red hearts all down the chat. The sheer outpouring of love brought Kaleina to tears.

By February, BigHit kicked the lawsuits up a notch. The accounts that been organizing protests, camping under Kaleina's posts, or just being straight up homophobic on Twitter dot com were all hit with a lawsuit of their own, and within the next few days, they were all gone. If it wasn't clear that BigHit was serious, it was clear now. Eventually, the 3-year-long hate train finally slowed to a stop.

In July, right after the release of Juicy, Kaleina and Sienna were seen outside of Music Core holding hands. Surprisingly, the fans there were all for it, and one of them even asked them to kiss. They didn't do that (unfortunately), but it was a far cry from the mess that was 2021.

And as for those antis? Well, no one really hears from them anymore. Guess it's hard to hate on someone who refuses to respond.

So, where are we at now? Well, aside from Kaleina and Sienna's sudden breakup during the Bad News era and the former's very brief relationship with a certain someone (which is a whole other can of worms), they've never been better.

In 2023, right after they got back together, Kaleina began showing up on Sienna's YouTube channel a lot more often. That same year, she was a guest on Street Woman Fighter 2. By early 2024, Koreaboo reported that the two had bought an apartment together in Hannam, and were living with Sienna's two cats and Kaleina's dog, Kyung-ah. And just last month, they launched their very own YouTube channel together, SeoKyung. There, they look like the blissful, homey couple they've always wanted to be, rather than two celebrities that just finished going through hell. Needless to say, it was a welcome surprise for Sienna and Kaleina's fans alike.

Moral of the story? Well, being a hateful freak isn't cute. If you spend most of your time screaming and crying because someone else is living their life, you should probably go find a hobby.

I can't believe this still needs to be said (and I hope Sienna proposes).

[lostcauses-noregrets]

By Rafael Motamayor, New York Times, Nov. 5, 2023

On Saturday, the final episode of the anime adaptation of Hajime Isayama’s “Attack on Titan” premiered on Crunchyroll and Hulu, ending an epic tale that started back in 2013.

Like the manga, which ran from 2009 to 2021, the anime was an instant hit, becoming one of the defining shows of the modern anime era, with spinoffs, live-action and video game adaptations, and even a comic book crossover with Marvel’s “Spider-Man” and “Avengers” titles.

Since the fourth and final season started airing in 2020, “Attack on Titan” has been one of the most popular shows on the internet — episodes have routinely trended on social media, streaming servers have occasionally crashed, the opening theme song became a rare anime song to hit the U.S. Billboard charts. Parrot Analytics said it was the most “in-demand” show in the world in 2021, a metric based on analysis of streaming, social media, search and other online behaviors. The manga has continued to be popular as well, selling over 120 million copies worldwide, and several of the published volumes have charted on the New York Times graphic novels and manga best-seller list.

What started as a thrilling yet relatively simple tale of a young boy seeking revenge against the giant humanoid monsters that ate his mother quickly evolved into a thought-provoking war epic. The tonal shift in “Attack on Titan” also came with one of the biggest heel-turns in modern anime, with the protagonist, Eren Jaeger, devolving into a radicalized monster threatening worldwide genocide.

Since the manga ended in 2021, there has been plenty of speculation and debate over Eren’s antagonistic turn and what the story’s ending means. Ahead of the release of the final episode, the manga creator Hajime Isayama, speaking through an interpreter, David Higbee, talks about the restrictive nature of writing and the story’s dark ending. These are edited excerpts from the interview.

The manga ended a couple of years ago, and the anime is just finishing now. How do you feel about the story coming to an end?

For this anime to be made and for that to go beyond the borders of Japan and to reach a worldwide audience is something that’s been a very happy occurrence for me. In a sense, “Attack on Titan” has connected me to the world, and that’s something that I’m very glad happened.

How much of the ending from the manga did you have in mind when you first began writing “Attack on Titan”? And how much did it change along the way?

That was pretty much there from the beginning, the story that starts with the victim who then goes through this story and becomes the aggressor. That is something I had in mind right from the get-go. Along the way, certain aspects of the story didn’t go as expected, and I adapted and fleshed out certain aspects. But I would say the ending of the story didn’t change much

There’s a much-talked-about scene where Armin, who is struggling with Eren’s turn into a mass murderer, seems to thank him for his actions. Can you talk about the meaning behind that conversation?

My thinking there wasn’t really that Armin was trying to push Eren away for the sake of justice or whatnot. It was more that he wanted to, in a sense, take joint responsibility. He wanted to become an accomplice. In order to become an accomplice, Armin had to make sure that he used very strong wording so that he could take those sins upon himself. And so that was the intent behind it.

You have a scene where Eren apologizes to a kid for the carnage he’s going to commit and says he was disappointed in the world he saw beyond the walls. What does that say about his motivation?

I think that refers to the fact that Eren was dreaming of going to this world outside of the walls where there was nobody and there was nothing. There was an excitement about this world that was just empty, a clean slate. I don’t really know whether that’s a good or a bad thing, and I don’t really know why that was the ideal that I set up for Eren as a part of this story. But what I can say is that, when he does get across the wall at that point, he says he sees that the world is really not that different from what’s within the walls in the world that he already knows. I believe that’s probably the disappointment that I’m referring to in that specific scene.

Eren says in the final episode of the anime that he had no choice but to follow the future that he saw, that he was powerless against the powers of the Founding Titan. Armin even asks if he’s really free. Was he telling the truth or do you see this as him telling an excuse?

So the truth is the situation with Eren actually overlaps in a certain sense with my own story with this manga. When I first started this series, I was worried that it would probably be canceled. It was a work that no one knew about. But I had already started the story with the ending in mind. And the story ended up being read and watched by an incredible number of people, and it led to me being given a huge power that I didn’t quite feel comfortable with.

It would have been nice if I could have changed the ending. Writing manga is supposed to be freeing. But if I was completely free, then I should have been able to change the ending. I could have changed it and said I wanted to go in a different direction. But the fact is that I was tied down to what I had originally envisioned when I was young. And so, manga became a very restrictive art form for me, similar to how the massive powers that Eren acquired ended up restricting him.

You have been involved in the anime production for a little while, supervising the adaptation’s storyboards, and have been known for asking for changes to the story in the adaptation. Did you personally ask for anything for the final episode?

Yes. Absolutely. I checked the script, but the main thing was the storyboards. There were different things I suggested. When it comes down to it, it’s really the role of the production to make those decisions. But I wanted to at least give my input so that they could take those into account when they were making the final decisions.

The manga ends with you showing the future of Paradis and sort of the cycle of war continuing. Is there no end to the conflict and the cycle you present in the story?

I guess there could have been an ending where it was a happy ending and the war ended and everything was fine and dandy. I guess that could have been possible. At the same time, the end of fighting and the end of contention itself kind of seems hokey. It kind of seems like it’s not even believable. It’s just not plausible in the world we’re living in right now. And so, sadly, I had to give up on that kind of happy ending.

[New York Times, 5 November 2023]

[spacebunniezzz]

The scene community is toxic and I'm so tired of it. The amount of negativity and mean girl energy I see from folks (especially those around my age range) is very disheartening and disappointing.

All day, everyday all I see is constant gatekeeping and rudeness towards new folks and what gets me is the fact that some of these scene content creators will go on to talk about how toxic the scene is while THEY are the toxic ones and it's pretty sad because some of these folks put out some really good educational content about the subculture but I cannot for the life of me stand the constant "I'm better than you" mentality and the scene purists who complain when folks don't look exactly how they want them too. It is always complaining, always negative.

And I am sick and tired of the word poser being thrown around and I'm tired of people complaining about trend hoppers, I get why these things are an issue but why should i care? I'm 23 and I am confident in who I am so why should I worry about what someone else is doing? And I feel that way about others too, it's better to focus on your progress than worry about others.

Maybe the scene community is less toxic in other areas of the internet but on tiktok, the toxicity is EVERYWHERE. The arguments I have seen are the same arguments I saw years ago and I'm tired of it and I'd understand if people left the community because of that. I understand why people would rather stick to aesthetics than being a part of a community when folks are constantly negative and being rude to them for not fitting into their mold. Sometimes I feel like even if someone makes a slight change to their style, they still get berated because they don't look "scene" enough.

I don't care about kids who dress "scenecore" or people who dress in 2020 alt fashion because I know that the bullying those kids get probably would have happened to me growing up as well and although the scene subculture as a whole is my special interest, even I don't take it as seriously as some others. I'm tired of alternative subcultures bullying kids in other alternative subcultures like we all weren't bullied for similar reasons and I'm tired of how people are so against progress as well when that is great for the community and can help others build community with more people.

People will go on about building community but it is very clear to me that these folks do not want that and instead would rather complain about others.

There is a lot more things that I could say on how I feel but this whole rant really doesn't need to be incredibly long.

If someone does not know how to diy, recommend them good diy content creators or recommend them diys they can do.

Recommend new folks music without shaming their tastes in music.

Recommend them small businesses.

Be kind and be patient to folks because we all have to start somewhere and listen to others when they tell you things instead of automatically assuming the person is a poser or trend hopping and try not to be narrow minded, we don't know other people's lives and we could definitely be a lot kinder to others.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Angela Yang at NBC News:

There’s the manosphere and the Zynternet and the salt right. And then there are the Barstool conservatives and the dudebros. These are the terms that have emerged in recent years to describe a sensibility that has taken hold online, culminating with its ascension as arguably the mainstream social media aesthetic of 2024: traditionally masculine, increasingly conservative-leaning and disapproving of (or at least uninterested in) “woke” culture.

It was a year in which podcaster Joe Rogan became a central part of the presidential election, and the biggest meme centered around a then-anonymous young woman’s off-the-cuff sex joke that turned her into a social media personality. One of the internet’s biggest platforms, X, removed many of its guardrails as its owner, Elon Musk, fully embraced Donald Trump’s run for president. And one of the most popular products this year — the nicotine-packed Zyn pouch — became the addiction of choice for many of America’s young men. And it was a year of masculinity punctuated by Trump’s election win. Jess Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media technology at the University of Alabama, said this year’s renewed cultural focus on traditional masculinity is reminiscent of the reactionary shift that occurred after Trump’s 2016 election. Though his 2024 victory injected renewed vigor into these sentiments, she said these spaces have been burgeoning for years.

“There’s Barstool Sports, there’s Joe Rogan, but then I also think about things like tradwives and homesteading and even the ‘I’m just a girl’ jokes and trends that are funny,” Maddox said. “But all of these things are in service of kind of the same project, which is emboldening traditional masculinity.” These trends are the latest turn in a gender war that traces back decades but has become more recognized amid rising political polarization. And while many of them have few if any direct links with one another, they share a common cultural outlook. Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor of digital platforms and media ethics at the University of Oregon, said that as a reactionary wave of internet users reject what they perceive as a dominant left-leaning culture, many in these spaces have united behind the push to return to traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity, among other anti-“woke” ideas.

“It’s a politics that isn’t really a politics. Like, it’s not exactly partisan, and it’s not exactly taking strong policy stances on particular kinds of issues,” Phillips said. “It is just this vague sense that liberals are irritating.” Tradwives, as Maddox noted, are not new to social media but had a banner year as these gender wars continued to play out online. This type of content — in which women perform a 1950s-era housewife lifestyle, often demonstrating subservience to their husbands — has surged in popularity: Two of the biggest influencers in the genre, Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, gained millions of followers on social media this year, according to Social Blade. Additionally, President Joe Biden’s 35-point lead over Trump with young women in 2020 shrunk to a 24-point lead for Harris, according to NBC News exit polls, with some experts suggesting tradwife content helped bolster Trump.

Conservative essayist Normie Macdonald attributes much of this to a cultural pushback against the “boss girl era” that some women have grown disillusioned with. Macdonald, who asked to be identified only by his Substack display name because his critics have tried to expose his personal information before, describes himself as a classical conservative who is deeply Christian and believes in the “model American nuclear family” with multiple children and a man as the head of the household. But too many people in the right wing today, he said, have been radicalized by the “manosphere,” a network of online spaces that promote rigid notions of masculinity and espouse misogynistic stereotypes about women.

[...] X, formerly Twitter, for example, has increasingly turned into a hotbed of misogynistic harassment amid a surge in right-wing content, leading droves of liberal and left-leaning users who once regarded Twitter as the internet’s town square to leave X for alternative text-based apps like Bluesky and Threads. This happened in part because of Musk’s takeover, which has included a pullback on moderation alongside his vociferous critiques of the “woke mind virus.” Musk’s own evolution here — from eccentric billionaire embraced by some liberals to a close Trump adviser — mirrors how some other figures who once regarded themselves as anti-establishment have now found themselves at the pinnacle of the mainstream. A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment. 

Rogan, whose podcast became one of the hottest topics of the election, is now so universally regarded as a standard bearer of modern media that it’s spurred debates among some on the left about how to replicate his formula of success. His show remains the most popular podcast in the United States, according to data from Edison Research. His rising success has also coincided with a growing embrace of Trump. Rogan, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during the 2020 primaries, was one of many podcast hosts considered bro-friendly who were given a shoutout at Trump’s election night celebration.

A spokesperson for Rogan did not respond to a request for comment. Podcasting, in particular, has played an important role in the changing power dynamics of internet culture. [...] Other unlikely figures have emerged as stars in this world. Haliey Welch became one of the year’s most viral internet personalities after her raunchy “hawk tuah” joke about oral sex spread across social media.

2024 was the year that conservative-leaning and masculinist online spaces took off, ranging from Joe Rogan to the Manosphere to the tradwife trend.

[crazylittlejester]

something something i think maybe a lot of people struggle with feeling empty and like nothing matters because every day on social media we have fake things thrown in our faces mixed in with the blunt reality of how humanity fails each other. and by fake things I don’t mean unrealistic bodies or skin care products claiming to fix a problem that some company invented JUST for you to buy their product (not that those aren’t also issues), I mean nothing is authentic or original anymore. Clothing, fabric, and toy qualities are declining, people are trying to create new trends to be popular but they don’t stick around long enough to mean anything and and I think young people trying to express and find themselves struggle to do so because everyone is trying to be everyone as fast as they can and if you’re behind on a ‘trend’ you’re cringe and you’re bullied. spaces and styles and media that used to be safe for the “weird kids” are now used as fast fashion trends and if you still like those things or dress that way when the trend is over it’s back to being made fun of for you. creativity is dying, children are being shoved into molds that aren’t even solidified themselves because they change every week when a new trend pops up. “this week we’re being alt, but it’s not really alt. oh this week we’re wearing beige, you’re still alt? why would you dress like that thats so 2020 of you.” you used to be able to hear kids playing outside but you can’t really anymore, and now if you do hear them they’re speaking to each other through internet terms because that’s how they’ve learned to communicate and express themselves because we have allowed the world to destroy itself to the point that online spaces might be the only places these kids feel safe, because it certainly isn’t schools. “kids are on their phones too much these days” look at the world thats left for them? i think people feel empty because nothing is real, even the online fandom experience has started to feel like it’s something that’s being sold to you through ads, and hopeless because how could you not feel that way when you open up tiktok and it’s full of how kids are scared of having their phones locked away at school not because they’ll lose a snap streak but because they’re terrified they won’t have the chance to say good bye to their parents? its so hard to look at the world and see whatever light and goodness remains something something everything feels so fucking fake all the time what if i just want to eat a polly pocket dress and choke and die on it like its 2008 and the world still has color?

[max1461]

Thought for a moment in the 2010s that we were entering a new serious era (e.g. 1920s, 30s, 40s), but it seems that we're instead in an increasingly tacky era (50s, 60s, 70s). Like look at the change in YouTube. Well you all are textheads you don't do video, I know that. But like. In 2017 there was ContraPoints. Agree or disagree with her opinions, what she was doing was conceptually and aesthetically serious. Even her early, low-production-value stuff. She was talking about incels and other internet shit, but the internet is part of the real world, that's fine. In fact that's what gave me hope for another serious era, people were finally talking about internet stuff the way 1920s German intellectuals or whatever talked about the cultural trends of their day. Maybe because Contra has half a philosophy PhD and was explicitly influenced by those German intellectuals.

Another example from a totally disjoint cultural niche was Digi a.k.a. Trixie a.k.a. Ygg Studios or whatever they go by now. Drunk, smelly, and unkempt—yes. Or at least so went the persona. Talking seriously about anime—also yes. When they claimed they were the only good anime reviewer on the internet it made a lot of people mad. But they were right!

There were thinkers, we had thinkers. My generation, or roughly my generation, had thinkers. To be clear, when I include Contra here I'm not including all of her ilk, I'm not including the leftist-theory-regurgitators and so on. But Contra herself was a thinker! Digi was a thinker! We had thinkers.

But that era is over now, on YouTube at least. I go on there and it's all algorithmic drivel. I look for anime content and as I've explained it's all about #hype and #epic and how the new season of whatever #hits different and other empty meaningless bullshit. No analysis, no thought, fundementally unserious bullshit. Tacky! It's tacky! The the YouTube thumbnail O-face is fucking 70s-ass fake wood paneling tacky bullshit!

MrBeast. I've never seen a MrBeast video but I hate him for what he represents. I used to watch this channel called Wranglerstar, he made videos about different types of axes and forest fire fighting equipment and various other stuff. "Modern homesteading" I believe was the tagline. And it was always evident that he was a far-right guy but who gives a shit, his videos where good. Serious videos about interesting topics, that a fucking normal guy might watch. Well around 2020 he basically started flooding his channel with covid conspiracy bullshit and "the Chinese are going to attack us any day!" bullshit and other unserious crap. And I had to stop watching. How could I find any of that compelling? It's vapid nonsense.

And I don't know if it's a shift in the algorithm or people becoming more savvy to the algorithm or what, but all of YouTube is like this now. Vapid clickbait empty meaningless bullshit for another tacky commercialized bullshit era.

And you know, I felt like it might just be localized to YouTube for a while, but I started to look around, and it just feels like everything is like this. Backsliding to the tacky times. God I hate tackiness. I hate unseriousness. I'm having a little meltdown. At least SMW kaizo hacks are having a renaissance. People are doing serious shit in that space, serious shit that is also not anachronistic, you know, it's kept up with the modern world. It addresses modern concerns (fun to play hard Mario). But it's serious. People are serious. One of the few serious things happening in my orbit.

Even in science it feels like people aren't serious anymore. You know, standard Sabine Hossenfelder complaint about particle physics. But I don't really know enough about that to say. Get the vibe that biology is still serious these days.

To be clear, everything I'm saying here is pure vibes. I'm just saying shit. I'm just saying shit that I feel. But I'll be deeply disappointed if I have to live my youth in another tacky era, god damn it. Even the 80s seem like they were better than this.

[anarchotahdigism]

I know i say "wear a mask and riot" and "fuck a peaceful protest" but I'd had a nice long post about how digital work and advocacy is praxis (or can be) on my old account. Right now, COVID is spreading and killing thousands of people in the US alone and nearly all """radicals""""" and """""leftists"""" are philosophically no different than the fascists they claim to oppose because they are so thoroughly wedded to eugenics that they refuse to wear and enforce masking. COVID causes long COVID in 10-30% of cases so the so-called US alone may well be a majority disabled nation now due to rampant eugenics forcing the spread of COVID. Long COVID is a rotting death and makes everything an order of magnitude more difficult if you still are able to do the things you were prior. Repeated COVID infections means you're guaranteed to be immunocompromised permanently and disabled in other ways you'll likely find out the hard way. With 40% of cases being asymptomatic and most only showing severe symptoms after 2-3 infections, and many starting to drop dead after 3 to 5 infections, many people accrue damage from and spread COVID without realizing it until it is far, far too late. As a result, it's guaranteed that the ableists have disabled and killed people. They've kept disabled people like me who are high risk out of radical spaces & communities. They've abandoned solidarity for everyone but the abled, ableist middle class while focusing most of their efforts on electoralism, despite the clear and constant failures of such actions. The BLM Rebellion of 2020-2021 had significant---albeit broadly temporary--impacts on electoral politics, society, and communities because it was a constant and ongoing rebellion that was also much more disability inclusive than prior leftist movement moments. For the first time, people recognized the need for remote actions & support because while masking was at the high water mark, more abled people understood that a lot of us disabled could not and would not risk COVID but we had had skills vital to the project. Things disabled people were absolutely critical for during the BLM Rebellion: police scanner observation and transcription, evacuation coordination, event & route planning, translation services, postering, graphics art & design, self defense seminars, radio nets, mutual aid fundraising, mutual aid distribution, bail fund coordination, zine writing, mask & test distributions, contact tracing (remember this??!??!), car brigades, organizing medical supplies, teaching first aid skills, and countless other roles often organized & performed remotely. For every fighter, there are at least a dozen support roles and with some thought and effort, those roles can be aided or done digitally. Posting on its own can be praxis in that it shares information, knowledge, tactics, demonstrates that there are other radicals out there willing to do what they can, normalizes radicalism, and in some cases, regimes pay close attention to internet support.

During the height of the Jina Amini rebellion in 2022, the Iranian regime tried to cut the internet repeatedly to stifle information out of and into Iran to hinder protest coordination and outrage. It also paid extremely close attention to when the rebellion was trending and refrained from reprisals until the mass attention of the internet citizenry turned away. Posting literally helped save lives by forcing the regime to wait, buying people time to organize, prepare, and act accordingly in Iran and internationally. Personally, I will always remember and be grateful for the Palestinians who turned out across the world, but especially in occupied Palestine, for Iranians. Iran is not the only regime that will wait until posts slacken and attention wanes before massacring people. If you are disabled, if you have arrest risks, if for any reasons you don't want to be involved in a radical riot, but you want to support those who can and do, there is so much you can do year round but especially things kick off!! Any skills, resources, knowledge, or support you can organize or contribute is valuable! eSims for Gaza right now are monumental in ensuring Gazans can coordinate information, requests, record Israeli occupation war crimes & apartheid cruelty, and many disabled graphics designers are offering their services in exchange for esim donations. It's been incredible to see.

The people who are against digital activism are ableist and racist and ignorant as hell beyond that. You can make an impact and even save and change lives while homebound. Begging genociders to stop profitable genocides has never and will never work. Riots & boycotts work because they directly confront and attack power and if those actions are supported by communities, they can continue for quite some time, as we saw with the BLM uprising. Regimes do not fall because people ask regime leaders to please stop committing atrocities; they fall when the people are able to bring to bear the sum of their hopes and wrath and bring the fight to those who have been oppressing them. That requires inclusive community & an outright rejection of the regime and its systems of cooptation & recuperation.

If a revolution or movement isn't inclusive, if it excludes the disabled, the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, it's not a revolution or movement, it's just another genocidal regime change.

[fanhackers]

Vidding’s Grandchildren? Edits, corecore, and other video feels

Thinking about the descendants of vidding, since I was quoted in this recent article on fan edits, “Why Do Fan-Made Trailers Rule the Internet?” by Cat Zhang. The edits of the article, like the fanvids of old, are scenes from television shows and movies set to music.  But while these edits are typically much shorter and more feels-focused than vids, they seem to me clearly a descendant of the form. In my book, Vidding: A History (2018), I talk about the ways in which YouTube and the algorithms of the internet were already affecting the aesthetics of vids back in the 2010s (spoiler alert: they’ve became shorter & more intense) and we can clearly see this trend in the 2020s now that fans are firmly on short-form platforms like Insta and Tiktok.  The edits in Zhang’s article are all about the feels, and a sub-class of edits, corecore (as explained in this Mashable article by Chance Townsend, “Explaining corecore: How TikTok’s newest trend may be a genuine Gen-Z art form”) is often used to express chaotic or overwhelmed feels.  Townsend says that what makes corecore so interesting is that “one’s feelings that couldn't be expressed through words are instead presented through images. Whether that emotion is happiness, a fear of the future, or the excitement of falling in love, corecore edits, through the use of multimedia, speak to our common experience.”  The idea of expressing emotion by the artistic act of combining disparate clips with music–well, it sounds like vidding, but at the same time it seems a long way away, too. That said, a work like this hip-hop based edit of The Bear, made by an artist at the X/Twitter account “black boy cinematic universe,” seems to be doing the kind of reparative fannish media work vis a vis race that older vids did for gender and sexuality. Zhang quotes the artist as saying: “There’s an energy to the show where it’s being carried by the people of color. So in my edit, I want to make sure there’s a song that represents that.”  That’s a very similar (and familiar) vibe: that urge to make the thing that will Get. It. Right.

–Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer

[waistdoll]

I am new to jirai kei, but I just wanted to know some tips and other things I should be educated on in the subculture 🩷 I just don't want to come off as ignorant because Im new 🫶 so do you have any tips or things I should know? ⁠♡

TW: harmful behavior, s*x work, mentions of self-h*rm, i will try to talk about the differences, the stereotypes and the reason behind them, having the "jirai kei" as a main subject.

୨ৎ if you want to know more about the girly kei style you can ask me too!! like brand recommendations, tips on buying from japan, japanese clothes size, makeup, etc.

but please, keep in mind that:

• jirai kei 地雷系 (lifestyle) and dark girly kei (style that some of the jirai girls use) are two separated things and you can be jirai without using the style and you can use girly kei without identifying as jirai.

tl;dr: the western / social media vision of jirai is totally wrong. jirai kei in Japan isn't a style at all; jirai kei is a lifestyle that is seen as "unhealthy".

the term jirai kei came from “地雷系”. translates to “landmine-type”, not the literal meaning as “landmine”, is a japanese slang for "trigger" "red flag" “地雷を踏んだ”, meaning “i stepped on a landmine”. in reference to a person, a “landmine” is someone that’s so easily triggered over minor things that they keep exploding on others with abusive behavior, so you need to be as careful as if you were walking around a minefield.

this meaning has been around for about a decade, primarily used in dating advice articles about how to recognise “red flags” in a partner.

"but OP, it isn't a style?"

in those dating stereotypes, even the most arbitrary traits were considered red flags and wearing dark alternative fashion is already enough to have someone considered a potential landmine, the style in question is called dark girly kei. (style used by many jirai kei girls)

around 2020, jirai kei didn’t have any associations with any particular fashions or interests, but when a popular japanese makeup vlogger started a “psycho girlfriend” dress-up challenge and called the final look a landmine-type cosplay. she contributed to the stereotype that the landmine-types were often fans of dark girly fashion, every influencer was getting in on the trend, and cosplaying as a landmine-type psycho girlfriend, generally also tagging with “yandere”, then a lot of influencers did the challenge and lots of girlykei brands started to use the "jirai kei" terminology to sell more.

"why would someone call themselves jirai knowing that it means "psycho woman" in other words?? wouldn't it be romanticizing?"

popularly, there's a lot of people who call themselves jirai kei knowing about the difference of jirai & girlykei because of their mental conditions, i, myself use jirai kei to feel a little better about my mental state and to connect to other people who struggle the same as me, even if they stopped calling themselves jirai they wouldn't stop their unhealthy behavior, they're not mentally ill because of jirai, they're jirai because of their mental illness. the spaces for real mentally fucked people in the internet are so few, these people that are called "psycho bitches" exist and they shouldn't feel bad about being like this, they are the people who most struggle with all of it and it's their business if they want to call themselves it. telling people to not use the jirai kei term will not stop them to engage on harmful behavior, at the end those people are still mentally ill and have more problems than the terminology they use. might be thinking the "jirai antis" are some sort of saviors or something like that, if you really want to help those people don't blame it in the community and style they've found themselves.

all jirais don't have the same behavior even if all of them have a fucked mental state, some of them might be posting self-harm for validation, some are obsessed with their s/o, some doing sex work for attention, some of us has violent thoughts and bpd, some of us are just neurodivergent, or have depression, etc, is a form of venting/expression, and venting ≠ encouraging someone.

some info:

• the term hadn't changed its meaning, please don't act like it's some sort of "feminist movement" or even empowering.

• part the association of girly kei with harmful behavior is related to "toyoko kaiwai" (トー横キッズ) who's around Kabukicho, many of the members have been wearing various dark j-fashion styles before the "psycho girlfriend dress-up challenge" became a trend. they're credited as the reason for why those styles are associated with the landmine stereotype to begin with. they're been connected to under*ge pr*stitution, dr*g ab*se, public self-h*rm, murd*r and theft.

they are around age 9-24, (firstly known as toyoko kids, but like, there's a lot of adults in this) they're often privileged children who were convinced to get away from home by bad influences. and many members have died or been hospitalized as a result. for more info search the Japanese spelling on any japanese news site, or their signature hashtags on social media:

#/toho横界隈

#/トー横界隈

#トー横

recently, their former leader “Howl”, died by suicide while waiting in custody for a trial, (<- click for more info) -> (also here) for convincing minors to run away from home in order to “work” for him and dress in a way he finds attractive.

all these minors he "convinced" are victims, you can use the style without agreeing with this behavior and be jirai without agreeing with this, they're all manipulated children and it isn't their fault.

[trans-corvo]

Youtube Video Essayists part 2

I made one of these lists years ago, so if you're wondering why big names like hbomberguy and Kat Blaque aren't here, that's why.

Science and Tech

Miniminuteman - Archaeologist and science educator whose content focuses on archaeological mysteries and debunking pseduoarcheaology. Videos average about 20 minutes to an hour and a half.

Adam Something - Most of his videos focus on urbanism and transport (it's more interesting than it sounds, I promise), but he also occasionally covers politics and culture. His bread and butter is tearing apart impractical billionaire passion projects (hyperloop, the cybertruck, Munger Hall). Big fan of trains. Average video playtime is 10 to 20 minutes.

Petal Palmer - A pre-med student and cancer patient who covers true stories of medical oddities and malpractice. Some of my favourites are on the Tylenol murders, the woman who froze alive (and survived unscathed), and fraudulent cancer awareness orgs. Videos run from 10 minutes to an hour and a half.

Politics and Culture

Caelan Conrad - Their channel mainly covers gay and trans rights, with a focus on debunking right-wing narratives and commentators. Videos average 30 minutes to an hour and a half.

Fundie Fridays - Started as a channel where Jen did her makeup and talked about various figures and sects of Christian fundamentalism, has since grown to include her husband and to cover politics. Very respectful in her tone, and very funny. I'd recommend their videos on the Miracle Mineral Solution (bleach), Eugene Scott, Duck Dynasty, and Gwen Shamblin Lara. Their early videos are only around 10 to 20 minutes, but these days they run as long as an hour and a half.

Khadija Mbowe - Honestly, her channel could fit under any of these categories. Her content varies wildly, but is always engaging and thought provoking. I'd recommend her videos on meritocracy in health and weightloss, Poor Things and engaging with 'problematic' material, and Barbie and white feminism. Videos average 20 to 40 minutes

F.D Signifier - Very well researched and presented commentary on politics, media, and black manhood. I'd recommend his videos on Eminem and white rappers, what makes men desirable, white men and edge lord movies, and how black athletes are exploited. Videos average 40 minutes to an hour and a half.

Foreign Man in a Foreign Land - Commentary on race and Caribbean culture. I'd recommend his videos on racism in gaming, tourism as the new slavery, and Elizabeth II and english colonialism. Videos average 20 minutes to an hour.

Arts and Entertainment

Broey Deschanel - Channel focuses on film and film criticism. I'd highly recommend her videos on the problems with method acting, feeling cynical about Barbie, and the 'death' of cinema. Videos average about 20 to 50 minutes and have a high production value.

Jane Mulcahy - Film and tv analysis, with a focus on media aimed towards female audiences. Lighthearted but thoughtful. I'd recommend her videos on the Red White and Royal Blue movie, Lifetime 'Daddy' movies, and the 'psycho biddy' genre. Videos average 20 minutes to an hour.

Verily Bitchie - Examining movies and tv through a queer and feminist lense, along with occasional videos on culture on politics. I'd recommend her feminist critique of Doctor Who, a look at bisexual representation on TV, and her video on trial by tiktok. Videos average 10 minutes to an hour and a half.

Coldcrashpictures - Pretty standard long-form film analysis. I'd recommend his videos on the current state of Hollywood, Freaks (1932) and old school horror, the 2020 dumpster fire watchlist, and cinematic masculinity. Videos average 20 minutes to an hour.

Internet Culture

WURLD - Commentary on internet trends and culture. More lighthearted and off the cuff in her presentation. Best videos include Is Booktok Ruining Reading?, the obsession with reusable cups, and hustle culture is a nightmare. Videos run from 15 to 45 minutes.

Gabi Bell - A lot of variation in her content, ranging from internet culture, to (bad) movies, to (bad) tv. I'd recommend her videos on tiktok drama and fake verification. Videos average 10 to 50 minutes.

Tiffany Ferg - Content focused on internet analysis. I'd recommend her videos on concert culture, learned helplessness and tech illiteracy, and 'body trends' and plastic surgery. Videos average from 20 to 40 minutes.

Salem Tovar - Nuanced commentary on internet culture. I'd recommend her videos on gen Z's aesthetic obsession, millennial parenting problems, and filming strangers in public. Videos average from 30 minutes to an hour and a half.

Ro Ramdin - Probably the funniest person on this list, I can't recommend her enough. Videos are thoughtful well edited. I'd recommend her videos on Hogwarts Legacy and financially supporting JK Rowling, the NFT island, the metaverse, and XQC. Videos average 20 to 40 minutes.

Also, misc. video essays: 2010s Pop Feminism: A Painful Look Back, We Need to Talk about TikTok's Obsession with Face Reading and its Dark History, Transphobia: The Far Right and Liberalism, You're Wrong about Modern Art, Who is Killing Cinema? - A Murder Mystery, Transition Regret & the Fascism of Endings, I Debunked Every "Body Language Expert" on Youtube, These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us, How Conservatives Created (and Cancelled) Gender.

[hevexns-realm]

Boys Fashion headcanons in my ✨AU with no name✨

Sonic: Y2K inspired style, may not be exactly how it is back in the day, but it’s pretty damn close! Tank tops, baggy jeans, Air Forces, and sometimes brings a boom box with him. For the more feminine style, arm and leg warmers, multiple belts and jelly bracelets, and yes, a fur hat. However, it’s synthetic and the only one he owns. It’s actually a gift from amy!

Shadow: he’s usually going to be wearing some kind of biker-esque style. Leather boots, slightly baggy Jeans, fluffy leather coat, etc. However, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t wear other styles outside of missions. Particularly more gothic attire, and even a few good drag queen looks too! (Headcannon I saw on here and I’m running with it-)

Silver: hm.. I honestly say the soft boy aesthetic from 2020-2021 would suit him when he’s not on missions! Soft sweatshirts, a good pair of white slacks, and maybe some white sneakers too! Add a cute satchel and we’re good to go! ^^

Knuckles: same as sonic, but just the masculine parts. Baggy jeans, tank top or short sleeved shirts, and some of his tribe’s jewelry and other accessories to match with the outfit!

Tails: I’d say the steampunk look would suit him best, after all, he’s a mechanic and an engineer! It makes sense why he’d prefer something like steampunk! (Simplified or not is up to you!)

Mephiles: My personal favorite of these headcanons so far. Anything Princey and gothic? He will give it a try! However, goth academia and goth ouji seem to be his favorites! Lots of intricate and beautiful lace, black slacks, masculine corsets, and a cute black and purple parasol to match! (I’ve had this headcanon for a hot minute!)

Scourge: We all know that he has this punk-like style with the leather jacket and sunglasses, but I wanna add onto it! Baggy jeans with sewn on decals from his adventures, a few tattoos, and usually no shirt, to show off his scar. However, if the place does require a shirt, he just either zips up his jacket or wears a white T-shirt.. he probably won’t be happy about it though! ^^||

Nazo: hm.. this is actually a tough one, as I didn’t really think about his general wardrobe. However, I feel like he’d have something for just about every occasion. Something simple and year-round like button up shirts and slacks or dark jeans. Because you can do a lot of styling with those alone, like add on a waistcoat and a suit jacket over the shoulders, and some simple, yet classy gold jewelry!

Seelkadoom: Now, you think that it’d be easy to give seelkadoom a hybrid style between shadow and sonic! Well, you’re half right. While that’s his base style of leather jackets and boots mixed with some jeans, the man fluctuates his style like his customers do with alcohol at the casino he works at! Not to mention work dress codes as well!

King (my OC): he’s kind of the same as nazo, but instead of more quiet luxury, he’s wearing more brand names. Like gucci T-shirts, Louis Vuitton jackets with their LV logo on it, Nike sweatpants, etc. He also sometimes wear those cheap looking $200+ cosplays you see on the internet. He mainly does this to get girls’ attention, but yeah. He’s basically all about being on trends and finding things to turn into trends, whether the others like it or not.

Girls will be next, sound off your headcanoned styles in the comments/reblogs! 🖤