#kfam criticism

[anxiousdemifaemess]

mmmm having thoughts about kfam again. bc the show is AWFUL and so so so bigoted in so many ways- BUT. it had potential.

and when i was 20 and depressed and couldn't do the usual things i did for serotonin bc i didnt have glasses, i listened to every podcast that sounded vaguely interesting. and bc i was 20 with conservative parents and living with them, i didnt know a whole lot of the red flags- i just knew that this show was making me feel happy in a way that was really difficult otherwise.

and a year or so later, i went back to it in a better headspace, with more understanding, and i was appalled. things that were mildly uncomfortable before were now making me physically recoil, jokes i didnt understand were now in stark relief, and i was so upset.

because i had loved this show- and i hadnt noticed any of this before. sure, things had made me uncomfortable, but lots of things made me uncomfortable! my dad would say things REGULARLY that made me uncomfortable! but i now had the context of "this is uncomfortable because-" and it was awful. because i still saw the potential it had, and now i could never look at it the same way or look only at the surface of it.

kfam could have been great- there was a fascinating narrative to muck around with, an interesting setting, and ive always loved hearing a story told this way. but a story with this much bigotry baked into its bones- i cant ever interact with it the same way.

i will always want to know how this story would have gone, and what it could have been, but at this point the only reason i dont set it on the shelf of shame with harry potter is because- to my knowledge- the creators do not openly support bigoted laws and legislature and hate groups. and maybe im wrong and they do, and i will gladly put it on the shelf of shame if someone would tell me.

but i will always mourn the potential of this show, because as a storyteller i desperately wanted to see it flourish.

[lucifer-kane]

One of the things I think held King Falls back narrative (to me) is the over reliance on the fact that all the information came through calls on the radio show. I think there's a point in an audio drama where, yeah, there's this moving force like a tape recorder, or a radio show, that makes it interesting and brings people in.

But I think with kfam, especially towards the later half of the show, I think that was one of the biggest things holding things back. There was a point where information shouldn't have just been coming from on air calls and vague talk of what they did off air. With kfam I think it could have very much done well with episodes that were more narrative focused away from broadcast. People would want more personal things, but honestly doing personal things over the air wasn't as good as just having some episodes take place with just the characters themselves.

It's not a bad thing to move away from what something first started out as, and in some cases it might end up helping it out in the long run vs anything else.

[all-hail-moon-dogs]

sometimes you take a little break from your podcasts and miss a fuckton of emotional damage

[primalrageanddumbassery]

Notes app doodle I did several months ago of the most hated man in King Falls? Notes app doodle I did several months ago of the most hated man in King Falls.

This is the first time I ever drew fuckin Frickard and I’m so impressed by how snivelly he looks. Look at him, he’s the worst!!!!

ONCE AGAIN, DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT SUPPORT THE KFAM CREATORS, I JUST LIKE THE SHOW. CRITICALLY CONSUMED MEDIA IS MY FAVORITE SNACK

Likes and reblogs are appreciated, but DO NOT repost my art. If you’d like to use my art for a pfp, DM me and we can work that out. Not that I could see anyone wanting to use Frickard as a PFP, but y’know… it still stands, I guess. 💚

Greggory Schmeggory Frickard, I am in your FUCKIGN walls, you frog loving son of a Chet!

Have a GREAT day!

[realbigpodcastslut]

kfam offended so many things so offensively but the character dynamics and banter were SOOO good...... they even had a musical episode.......

You are right. That's the worst part is kfam actually had some good parts. Character dynamics? *kiss* Rev and Glory Holes? Literally so funny I love Southern Baptism bashing. Jack-In-The-Box Jesus? Fucking loved that phrase. And ep 68? Idk how two cis het men made that. It resonated a lot with a lot of people, actually.

There's actually a lot of good parts to kfam and bashing it is so good. So so so good. But we forget why it got so far and why we loved it so much. And we forget why it hurt so much and I think a lot of people look back and don't understand how they could've supported it and feel really conflicted. It's important to remember problematic media still has good parts and that critical thinking can be overshadowed by love. It's easier to love than to hate.

Kfam is a big flaming pile of dogshit covered in gold leaf. Still stinks and is still dogshit but there are some good parts. So while we shouldn't support the podcast I do think it's important to acknowledge why a lot of us fell in love.

[actionyak]

if Jonny Sims ever gets as bad as KFAM or Night Vale at taking constructive criticism or audience concerns and complaints just fucking kill me

[certified--trash]

SINCE PEOPLE ARE BRINGING UP KFAM CRITICISM

The show tries so hard to prove that they are not misogynistic and yet there is not a single strong female character in the show. They TELL us all the time that the females are strong, but they never show it. Here's a few of my complaints about a few of the "strong" female characters in the show.

Agent Spears: she was incompetent, and when it mattered she wasn't capable of doing what was necessary.

Lily Wright: actually one of the strongest candidates for being a strong character. But their way of showing she's "strong" is by making her a bit of a bitch that people in both the show and the fandom don't like. And while I did think that her calling Sammy out in ep 90 was needed, she shouldn't have relied on an offer from Sammy and Ben to apply for the job.

Emily Potter: unpopular opinion...I cant stand her. From the second she was introduced she was the stereotypical soft spoken, sweet, adorable love interest and quickly delved into damsel in distress territory. And then with absolutely no character development to show a transition she was constantly referred to as a BAMF as if she always was one. Even when she punched Frickard, imo it came out of nowhere and wasn't as satisfying as it could have been if there had been some real development into bad-assery.

I love KFAM, and even with everything that's going on right now I'll keep listening whenever the hiatus ends, but the way they handle female characters is a bit of an issue

[omniscientoranges]

sorry.

[pageofcoins]

The real question is do I restart wtnv while I play seven years of catch-up with Critical Role or do I just go absolutely batshit in the wtnv tag…?

[supplimental]

Now that we're dunking on KFAM again, does anyone remember that time the slutty bisexual cop called the radio station while he and his wife were having car sex to sing a song from Hamilton? What the fuck was going on there

[lucifer-kane]

i think my tried and true method of understanding how some people are in fandom and if i want to interact with them is

-call criticism 'drama' or anything like that

-actively against criticism in any form / positivity only mindset (the two seem to coexist a lot)

-1000 extra points if this is the creator

[beingorkissingskrillex]

i wish i had friends who liked kfam bc the story is my favourite thing in the world but objectively it's bad and the creators are dogshit so i can't get anyone into it ffs

[primalrageanddumbassery]

Ancient KFAM art? Ancient KFAM art.

So the quality is ass, but it is a very small picture. SO! Red comforter feels, anyone? I did this sometime around 2021, I believe. I SWEAR I’M NOT JUST A KFAM ARTIST I REALLY REALLY PROMISE

Likes and reblogs are appreciated, but DO NOT repost my art. If you’d like to use my art for a pfp, DM me and we can work that out 💚

Say it with me, everybody- I do not support the KFAM creators, I just love the show. Consuming media critically is my favorite sport.

Hydrate, lovely. Have a good day.

[realbigpodcastslut]

[geode-to-joy]

Ok so I had time to think about the whole Kfam cancellation thing. And in the end I'm kinda conflicted. Because on one hand, Kfam was one of the podcasts that got me through the second half of my second year in Uni and started my interest in podcasts in general and maybe even writing my own eventually (definitely doing that now). Even in the start of COVID I was listening to this podcast. The music and sound design was something I greatly enjoyed too.

On the other hand, it was dealing with the "jokes" in podcast itself and how the creators, specifically Kyle, handled valid criticism on how queer/gay characters where portrayed and handled. Because we really needed a Bi character to continue the stereotype of Bi people being sexual deviants who doesn't give a fuck about consent and boundaries.

Not even going to touch the racial profiling and stereotypes. Along with the "woke" feminism and girlboss attitude with the female characters cause we'll be here all night and I don't want to deal with that right now.

My main issues was the handling of valid criticism, not the type you find in fandoms with yelling and harrassing of the creators and VAs. I'm talking about what I mentioned earlier. And I'll admit, I've been out of the fandom for a long time, as in, as soon "as I learned about the hiatus" long and moved on to better podcasts that suited my tastes (more queer rep and such) so I missed a lot and since I don't have twitter, even more.

But I was able to picked up on stuff from looking around on here, and never have I've seen a fandom with such a lack of presence on tumblr as this one. Which was kinda of a red flag looking back 😂. Cause even baby started this year podcasts had a bigger presence on here than Kfam. The second one was the Discord server. The unofficial Official Kfam discord server. Had the biggest "Be well King Falls :)" vibe I've ever seen. Made Ba sing se look like just a peaceful city. Everything had to be "uwu positive 🥺" all the time! Singing praises to the creators (specifically Kyle) and a "no negative space 😤😤 " policy. Unless it was to talk about people rightfully complaining about the show.

Ever wanted to actually feel the presence of the "Big brother" atmosphere? It was this server. Kyle was everywhere. After a conversation about a simple question about why there was a voice change for Emily and being linked to a post about it minutes later, I dipped from the discord for a while. I did not feel comfortable in that fabricated "found family" vibe going on in there. Only to find out about the cancellation of the podcast by the server nuking itself today. On sammiversary, the most important day in the podcast and fandom. What a horrid way to treat your fans.

So today was wild.

I just mostly feel bad about the fans who wanted the show to come back and be better and get the conclusion for the plot and see their favs live happily in the end. And for the cast and crew who went through so much for their fans and tried to give us and themselves the best performances that they could. So I wish that they get their recognition and move onto to better pasture and job opportunities in the podcast realm. And not work for a creator who would purposely screw them over and use them as free therapist for their problems.

Just wishing the best for the cast and crew.

[orchidbreezefc]

OKAY COOL I WAS ON THE FENCE ABOUT POSTING MY OWN EXPERIENCES IN THE KFAM DISCORD BECAUSE A POST ABOUT People Being Mean To Sage Specifically SEEMED KIND OF MASTURBATORY OR SELF-PITYING OR WHATEVER BUT IF WE REALLY ARE GOING TO STILL BE OUT HERE PUSHING THE This Server Is A Lovely Familial Community And Dissenters Are The Problem NARRATIVE EVEN NOW? HELL NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

obviously this is hard to be objective about. this stuff is a lot less concrete than my first post, a lot more based on vibes i got, which, yknow, is why it’s not in my first post. but if anyone identifies with this, if anyone sees their own experiences in this discord reflected in mine, then it’s going to be worth the worry i’m reading too much into things, or others thinking the same of me. if i can help anyone who felt like THEY were mistreated there and weren’t sure if they were reading too much into things, then. it’s worth it. especially since the M.O. in there was ‘everything’s fine and if not we’re going to MAKE IT FINE by silencing anyone who disagrees’.

a lot of talk has been done about the censorship (word used loosely, first amendment protects from the government not from the mods etc, definitely a specific suppression of dissenting ideas though) the mods have been doing--once more i suggest @kfam-tea for receipts and screenshots. not something i feel great about, but not something i have personal experience with, so i won't speak to it. see also my first post about my interactions with the creators. it touches on the dogpiling, which i'll go into more depth on in this post. you can find it [link: here].

so. the first thing in the official discord that tipped me off about the hivemind samethink phenomenon is that the whole place is distinctly frosty on the subject of samben. that’s a post all its own, one that follows through to numbers on ao3 and whatever, but i’m not here to make a ship manifesto. suffice it to say i got attached to the ship upon listening, inhaled the (suspiciously small) ao3 tag, and was stopped in my tracks at the discord server where any implication of such ship inclinations were met with silence and pointed changes of subject.

distinctly weird. distinctly unusual fandom behavior, that i couldnt even hint around shipping the two men whose incredibly profound relationship is literally the crux of the show, who have exchanged ‘i love you’s, one of whom is confirmed gay--all other romantic entanglements aside, because when have those stopped shippers? that was weird. i realize that's maybe a bit tinfoil hat of me. it could have been the goldfish-bowl big-brother-is-watching vibe from having creators in there, except, as i said, it carries to other sites.

anyway, much more concrete was when i spoke out about my thoughts on ben’s actions in ep68. again, enough there for another post, so tl;dr: he was doing his best, he’s a good guy and a good friend, but his actions DIRECTLY outed sammy to the WHOLE town, without allowing sammy to say the words himself. it was an accident, yes, but it had tangible, harmful consequences, and even accidental harm warrants apology. it should at least be... acknowledged. at some point. by the show OR the fandom. it's a disservice to ben himself to never get the chance to own up to it.

this was an unacceptable take. i tried breaching this topic and making my case twice, and got THOROUGHLY dogpiled both times. a dozen fans crawled out of the woodwork to argue heatedly, sometimes getting quite aggressive, sometimes toeing the line of outright hostility toward me personally. definitely some downright rude messages. not once did anybody speak up to defend my right to put forward my dissenting opinion, let alone SUPPORT my argument, god forbid. ben’s were the actions of a good friend, i was told. outing someone to their whole town without giving them the chance to say it on their own terms didn't qualify as harm at all, i was told, on account of ben's heart being in the right place.

still, the opinions being argued matter less than the attitudes and behaviors. people don't have to agree with me about that ep, i don't care. i do care about being given the right to, as a single person on my own, have space to make an argument without being shouted down by a dozen people. i do care about how it fit into a greater pattern of forbidding any criticism of the show, and ben in particular, who is a good friend and therefore all of his actions are good and harmless, who is our resident heterosexual unassailable paragon of purity. which might explain the samben problem--sammy/ron[/jack] was perfectly fine, even popular, but there was never a whisper of shipping ben with anyone but emily. they're Official. theyre The Perfect Couple. don't you dare challenge that (and for the most part, i didn’t dare. i quickly learned not to).

my [link: previous post] details kyle's response to these fun events, where he specifically went out of the way to follow me being shouted into silence (a result of me being driven to literal tears and shutting down rather than invite more argument) with a warm congratulations to everybody for their conduct in this discussion. because that's the kind of conversation kyle wants to specifically and explicitly praise and encourage, i guess.

anyway. this contributed to the growing sense over my time in the discord that people held a certain distaste for me but didn’t want to say anything direct. instead they talked around me, ignored me, immediately changed the subject from my messages, the whole while bestowing constant glowing compliments on each other and endlessly repeating saccharine sentiments about what a nice family type community they were, how grateful they were for the discord being such a positive space. i suppose that’s an easy impression to get when negativity is ruthlessly suppressed (and apparently outright censored nowadays) and instead of insults or, god forbid, communication with people with whom folks might take issue, they just (more or less) silently stonewall and cold shoulder them.

again, i could be misreading cues, being egocentric or tinfoil hat by reading this pattern into how i in particular was treated. either way, the fact that i was given the fandom friday shout out the week after KFAM live was definitely... strange. fishy, even. i was already mostly out the door at that point, had been for weeks--it was actually in my last few days speaking there period. i felt strangely guilty that they would dedicate a day to me when i didn’t like being there much and hardly spoke any longer. one thing’s for sure: my congratulations were fewer and more impersonal, perfunctory, and/or generic than other fans got (i kept a screenshot). i still have no idea what to make of that one, but there you have it.

p.s.: since vagues are in vogue now apparently, i might as well mention the person who's been accused of being A Problem In The Discord For A While Now, among nastier things, which definitely is not an effort to justify kyle's passive aggressive response to their untagged post which used the phrase 'death of the author', or kyle subsequently crying on twitter about death threats because apparently he couldn't be bothered to google a basic literary analysis term and thought if he was vague enough nobody would look into what was actually said. i guess he was right, if the hundreds of asspats and outcries against The Evils Of Podcast Fan Meanies were any indication.

i digress. i just wanted to testify that the fan in question was one of maybe three or four people on the server who consistently treated me nicely and acted like they liked me. and that another fan who claimed to be uncomfortable around death-of-the-author-person was the person who came the closest to being outright nasty to me when i expressed a critical opinion. make of that what you will i guess!

p.p.s.: if i never say anything more about this whole thing or the creators’ part in it, i do want to say for the record: noah james is fully exempt from all of this and remains absolutely wonderful and a whole treasure. like dont pedestalize male creators and assume them incapable of wrongdoing etc etc but i had an hour long midnight denny’s breakfast sitting across from him and he was nothing short of an angel the whole time. sweetest guy i’ve ever met. he hasn’t breathed a word about any of this drama. he may not even know it’s going on because he’s too busy being the most beautiful and talented man in america or something. i love you noah