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ranboo5 · 2 years ago

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The take that Technoblade is the sort to open up reconciliation attempts by demanding an apology?

Again there's just like... there's no source for this. Like Techno HAS interacted neutrally or positively w/ people who have wronged him. And he's been . Neutral or positive to them. He won't demand an apology because he . Okay like and this is gonna blow some ppl's minds but

The thing w/ Techno is that he correctly does not actually think Atoning For Past Actions is what matters. Like when he interacts w/ people and brings up how he's been wronged it is either as a joke to try and smooth over or a passing comment to show he remembers and has Not had it smoothed over yet (also tbh as potential to smoothover). Like we see this inhow he reconciles with Ranboo if anything like he doesn't directly apologize ? and he doesn't . Need to?? bc the only apology that rlly matters here is changed behavior (and ofc this is partially informed by the beef they did have and such and he has apologized to ppl notably Tubbo before) like . The thing w/ boreal is that addressing past behavior is important not in terms of Showing Atonement but in terms of showing . Improvement. Like all three of boreal have had moments to other characters of like "well you seem to be chill now irt the things we had beef over before so our beef is over :D" and with Technoblade especially this is to a fault ("Do I trust him? Does it matter...?" <- Killling Me Would Be Easier.)

Relatedly when has Techno demanded anything . CTechnoblade could not demand pickles on his sandwich. Like “I’m a person” doesn’t even count he’s not demanding anything there he’s just making a point o hh my god my cTechno my cheese danish my sweet piggy I’m literally tucking him into bed

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piranhakarma · 4 years ago

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Bon Appétit is Back

Bon Appétit is back.

As someone who was once an avid consumer of their content, it feels strange to know that new videos are being produced by the test kitchen crew once more. Granted, the test kitchen crew looks completely different now. Condé Nast and Bon Appétit, in a move that really shouldn’t have surprised anyone, have avoided addressing the issues raised about equal pay and treatment based on work and work experience. Instead they decided to hire a new diverse cast with no word on whether these new hires will be paid fairly for their work and experience or whether the cast will be given more control over how their recipes and cultures are presented on screen. As far as I know, only three of the former test kitchen members will be returning to the video platform, as the rest have elected to leave the video arm of the company, and in some cases, have cut ties with the publication altogether. The lack of substantive action on the company’s part and the general abandonment of the platform by its former stars led me to ignore the channel’s activity at first. Why should I seek out and give views to something I knew was going to make me deeply uncomfortable and potentially upset, even if only to dislike the video and pick it apart?

And then someone I followed posted a link to a video Jack Saint made reacting to the new videos and morbid curiosity got the best of me.

I think when the news of the inequitable pay broke, many of us already had a sense of what was going to happen, especially given the radio silence from Bon Appétit in the weeks during which they went through their “internal discussions”. However, knowing the corporate formula for dealing with scandals like this didn’t quite prepare me for how jarring it would be to see it applied to people and a channel I once felt I knew well. There was a video that was clearly aimed at “addressing” the controversy where the new POC hires all spoke about the work that needed to be done and that they were going to do to improve representation. The video seemed like it wanted to come off as authentic and communicative, but the avoidance of the actual wage and experience gap issue and the carefully chosen corporate words they were using just made it stick out even more than a clearly professional, corporate video would have. It was clear that the people on screen were not using their own words. The other videos made me uncomfortable in another way, Chris Morocco’s in particular. It was such a quick return to the earlier form that, as Jack said in his video, it felt like there was a dead body in the room and they were all resolutely ignoring it.

Troublingly, or maybe predictably, the new videos still got a decent number of views. The first video got dislike bombed, but the like/dislike ratio on Chris’ return video was a lot more manageable. The corporate smoothover seems like it has worked to an extent. BA may not get back quite the same audience it had before, but enough people know of them that they aren’t starting from scratch. It is also possible that people who are unaware of later revelations in the falling apart of the original test kitchen crew will be less aware of the sketchy things the remaining old members of the test kitchen allegedly did, and therefore may actually want to support those who stayed by watching the videos. From an admittedly cursory glance at their new content’s numbers, the videos with the old members seem to be doing better than the ones with the new members. It feels wrong. I would have thought this whole affair would have really exposed how constructed the ‘authenticity’ of the test kitchen videos is, but maybe it’s still not something everyone sees.

This brings me around to the other side of things: Rick and Sohla. In a weird way, the timing of their shows coming out and the new opportunities in their lives becoming visible to us has added to my feeling that the test kitchen is back. Granted, their new shows are very different in style and substance than Bon Appétit’s videos were. Rick’s Sweet Heat feels like he’s getting to work more on his own cultural terms and it seems like he’s really happy in Mexico. Similarly, Stump Sohla on the Babish Cinematic Universe has been an opportunity for us to see so much more of Sohla’s terrifying culinary skill and her wacky inventive ideas than we were even aware of. I, like many people I’ve seen commenting and responding to these shows, am thrilled to see both of them get the chance to spread their wings and be featured in ways that they were not allowed to be at Bon Appétit. All that being said, there is a voice at the back of my head telling me to be wary. I know that the dynamics Sohla and Rick have with Food52 and the BCU are likely very different from those they had with Condé Nast. At BA, the company held the power with the marketing and the branding of the test kitchen, and it was the promise of the casual but also informative atmosphere combined with genuinely nice personalities that brought people to the videos, even when they were not familiar with the featured creators. With their new shows Sohla and Rick are more valuable in themselves, and therefore are likely to have more bargaining power behind the scenes. That being said, it is still possible that they are not quite free to make what they like. There still may be decisions being made about the sort of content people want to see from them and how that content is presented where they are being made to compromise rather than being able to fully express themselves and their cultures. I’m trying to keep my eye out for any warning signs this time around (i.e. things that felt off to me in the Bon Appétit videos that I brushed under the rug). So far I worry that maybe Sohla is being made to/there is some pressure on Sohla to really show off on the BCU without as much room for her to be chill and make everyday food. The pressure may also be self-inflicted as she may feel a need to prove herself/express the extent to which she’s been trammeled in by her previous jobs. On Rick’s side of things, I worry that he might be culturally pigeonholed, like how Priya was the Indian (tm) person on the Bon Appétit channel. All we can do for now though, is wait and see, and hope that our judgements of authenticity behind the camera and the food industry will carry us through to a better understanding of our content and how it is made.

Well. With all this happening, here’s hoping. Here’s hoping that Bon Appétit’s schemes fall apart a bit more and that their video views trickle of instead of building up. Here’s also hoping that Sohla and Rick’s shows both do fantastically well (ideally better than anything coming out of BA but maybe that’s too much to ask). And finally, here’s hope for the other members of the test kitchen that I have yet to see around, like Priya and Gaby. I hope they find fulfilling and well-paying work where their abilities and perspectives are respected, and if we’re lucky, may we’ll get to see them on the camera again sometime.

#bon appetit #sohla el waylly #rick martinez #chris morocco #brad leone #andy baraghani #food52 #babish culinary universe #youtube #food

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