#thoughts that would be better on a videoessay

[yumkippur]

Brother, we need to talk!

You’re dazzlingly correct. You’re perhaps the most-correct anyone could be about Stan and Kyle and I love you for it.

Canon Style would be huge positive commentary on the shifting dynamic of LGBT+ acceptance in young people. Like- imagining what it’d be like to watch Stan Marsh grapple with queer identity in such an overt (and with M+T, I’m sure it’d be sympathetic) way...I can’t even describe how validating that would’ve felt to my teenage self in high school. I would’ve wept. I would’ve been inconsolable for weeks. It would’ve changed my brain chemistry in a fundamental way.

From a storytelling perspective, I get why we're calling it delusional. I just don't think it is...I mean, it's such an obvious concept and one that the writers have known that fans latched onto (there's Style fanfic as old as I am), so I'm sure they've considered doing something with it multiple times.

But, it is a risk- it's one that, weighing how much I want Stan and Kyle to kiss vs how much I’d like to keep getting South Park episodes in the future...I’d still want them to take...

Lemme explain why.

South Park is an episodic show. That’s what gives it longevity- what makes it evergreen. It’s incredibly difficult to make changes to the main characters without them becoming a serialization plot points, and putting two of the main characters in a situation that potentially develops into them dating is a massive change. 

The show’s handled serialization well because they avoid major overt changes to the main characters. They mostly just carry over background changes to background characters and sometimes make jokes about older episodes. The few characterization points that come up consistently about the main four exist more like love letters to the devoted fans that would notice them- and less like required knowledge built into the Lore of the show. When I consider the two most heavily-serialized characters: Randy and Mr. Garrison, it makes me increasingly-frustrated any time character-altering plot points get added to the main four (Tegridy Farms doesn’t exist in the South Park of my heart, and the Cartmans getting their house back was like breathing again). The thing that made season 26 so great (in my opinion) is how much it honored the episodic format that South Park needs to survive.

That’s not to say serialization would be a bad thing. Growth is what makes fans invested in characters and you only get that with serialization. But, the format of South Park as commentary on the most ridiculous, most-batshit and often-irritating aspects of society means that the plotlines that get carried through multiple episodes often develop in ways that just aren’t satisfying if you enjoy the existing dynamic of the characters and the archetypes they represent. South Park has its cake and gets to eat it too by introducing growth in cycles that maintain those archetypes while slowly incorporating new aspects that are easy to digest if someone didn’t see where that aspect originated (casual viewers don’t need to know that Tegridy Farms started as a dig against vaping or follow every step of Randy’s mid-life crisis to accept that he’s a weed farmer now). 

As much as I love Style conceptually, as a plot point, it’d be uniquely difficult to maintain without hurting the core dynamic of the show. Childhood friends going through often-adult situations is the premise of South Park, and Stan and Kyle’s relationship is the glue that holds the main four together in that regard. Everything that keeps viewers invested in the show hinges on Stan and Kyle being in each others’ lives, and any time the show’s played with splitting them up, it has to reset things because of that.

Kyle summed it up perfectly in the Post Covid Special: “You lose everything when you lose this friendship.” He isn’t just talking about himself, he’s talking about the entire show. Everything relies on their friendship.

So- we exist in an equilibrium. We’ve seen what happens when the show disrupts it in the negative and breaks Stan and Kyle up. We haven’t seen what happens if they tip them in the positive and push the characters’ friendship into romance. There’d be a totally different set of plot points that would come out of that dynamic.

The question is really- how long would the writers want to play with those plot points?

Realistically, I could see them doing it and getting a lot of really good content out of it. It’d be a fun arc and I have full-faith that Matt and Trey and the team would nail it without pulling any punches. Having feelings for your best friend and being messy and complicated about it is a huge part of a lot of the LGBT+ experience for a lot of kids.

But, again- because of the episodic format South Park needs, once they’re done with that plot, they’d need to find a way back to equilibrium or find a satisfying way to tie off the show with an ending that does keep Style together. As I’m sure people are pointing out, because Stan and Kyle are Matt and Trey’s insert characters, the latter is unlikely. That doesn’t mean the former is impossible.

They have a couple options: 

Kyle does not return Stan’s feelings and they never get together (agree. stupid idea. send them to the contraptions)

They try dating, suck at it, and break up (also bad and unrealistic. the way they get along as friends, they’d get along as a couple with fun and realistic challenges- plus, breaking them up after an overall bad relationship would probably result in people taking sides on whose fault their breakup was which is never a good idea for the creators’ enjoyment of writing these characters. best not to vilify your own self-inserts to the most-involved factions of your fandom.)

They try dating, are good together, but break up anyway with a mutual desire to be friends instead (at least for now).

Three is a really good option, and I’d kill to see it. Not only nailing the representation LGBT+ kids crave, but also doing it in a way that emphasizes the boys’ friendship without making it subordinate to a romantic dynamic. I could see a lot of ways the characters could decide that they would rather be friends while leaving it open and obvious that the feelings are still there. Maybe they decide they're not mature enough to be in a serious relationship like that yet, maybe they don't like the change in how everyone treats hanging out with them when they're a couple, maybe they feel an added pressure to be romantic with each other that neither of them enjoys or knows how to avoid. There are tons of good reasons friends might like each other but not want to date. Putting Stan and Kyle's relationship in that category resets the episodic format for the show to continue in its status quo with the added benefit of leaving the characters open for shipping fans to play with the ideas about how they might get together in the future. Plus- I don’t think this dynamic’s been done a lot in media, especially not with a same-sex couple, so it’d be groundbreaking to see it with the main characters of South Park.

So yeah- I know we're all counting it out as unlikely. But I really think they should take the risk!

in terms of the actual show stan is a representation of the average-relatable-all-american-boy coming of age and dealing with the world, which is why he most frequently deals with complicated realities centered around growing up (You’re Getting Old comes to mind.) he’s the viewer insert which does require that he be very “default” in his social identity (straight, white, cis, etc) HOWEVER. awareness toward one’s potential queerness is becoming more and more normalized in young people AND there is one very specific, harrowing experience that a staggering number of queer kids have growing up which would warrant an exploration of it in-series if they were to hypothetically deal with such a phenomenon where . im sorry im rambling My point is it would not be outside the realm of possibility for stan’s character or for the show’s themes if stan were to cope with a devastating and seemingly-one-sided crush on his best friend. just really highlight the #experience. i’m not delusional enough to think style will ever be canon but by god i’d be so fascinated to see how they’d handle it

[neurotypical-karen]

Having thoughts about The Boys that makes me want to become a videoessayist because the run-on paragraphs upon paragraphs of opinions I have about this show would make for an absolutely deranged post

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Just a small thing that you can definitely ignore if you want and I know this might be bad to say or even selfish but I just.. miss the old Schlatt? not the one who's now doing this content and making hurtful jokes just for money. because every day I'm losing more and more hope that off camera, he's a genuine person?

Or I just want him to improve and become better? I don't know, I know I might be selfish for being like that and I do recognise that parasocial relationships do exist and he is merely a stranger to me but I just want him to become better and to be better. curse me and my heart where I just want the best for everyone, even if I don't know them. c': I think I miss the old Schlatt - because I feel like even this persona he has is not doing him any good?

This might be a thought but you know when you look at someone and you can just see or feel that their mindset is affecting them - especially when it's affecting them negatively? I noticed that with him. Again, I know I'm a mere stranger and I don't know anything about him but even with strangers you can notice this? When he was on a break from that sort of content while he was moving, on the update "I'm Back" video he had a better energy? But when he started to embrace that persona again, his energy is just becoming worse and worse. the only times his energy was better again was when he had the moments with Jambo?

I don't know. I'm just going on a ramble at this point but I just wish he became better?

This is the exact reason I still watch the guy! I completely get where you're coming from, and it can be hard to have these sorts of conversations without speculating about what goes on 'behind the scenes' (something we know Schlatt is uncomfortable with and is possibly one of the reasons he puts on such a contrary persona).

I agree that his content has taken a downturn lately. But I don't think it's the fault of the persona, I think it's the fault of him misusing the persona. Of course he can do whatever he wants, I don't really care cause if he decides he wants to keep being a bastard then that's his problem and I'll stop watching cause that content isn't for me. However, I have some ideas about why the more recent videos have been 'worse':

His heart isn't in it. Jackbox games are fun and all but they aren't the kind of content Schlatt likes to make. In my opinion. His old channel had videoessays, but he's said before that they don't make enough money for him to keep doing that. I think he likes the little slice of life videos more because they're easy and because they're fun. I think the Wii videos were great, well-structured and good examples of well-done satire, but I feel he got a bit bored of it so he tried jackbox, which just isn't the same.

The satire doesn't work with jackbox videos. In the Wii videos it's just him and the game and some props. He plays his character and clearly makes fun of the kind of person he's portraying, or he just makes fun of himself, which is cool too lol. For example in the Wii fishing video, he plays the character of a misogynistic guy who loves fishing and hates his wife. Then proceeds to be terrible at the game and get angry to the point of making himself look like a fool. That's why we laugh! We laugh at the dumbass he's portraying. And obviously this is the same for most of the bits he does. The classic one being the gay Catholic patriot. The unexpected clash of traits makes it funny. With the jackbox vids you don't really get that. It's him and some friends. And yeah, they make fun of themselves and each other, but it has the unwanted side effect of being easy to turn into something that starts to make fun of other people, such as minorities or victims of tragedy, which isn't okay.

Mans is just trying to get a rise out of people. We all know this. The last video was purposefully offensive to try to scare the dream stans away. Which was dumb, and he shouldn't have done it, but I get why he did it. With everything that's happened recently, I'm sure Schlatt doesn't want to be associated with that sort of fanbase. Unfortunately, he went the wrong way about scaring them off.

Moving, the entire thing with lunch club and cmc, getting a cat, and Connor moving in, all while making near-weekly videos, two podcasts, and being on streams. That's a lot to think about, which is probably another reason for the lazier content and falling back on 'easy' jokes that often turn out offensive.

What I'm saying is that I feel he's in a rut. He hit a dead end, tried to fix things, then fell off and made a shitty video as an attempt for controversy. If I'm right, then I feel that he's gonna take a bit of a break (he's already taken a pretty long break if you look at how long it's been since the last video on his main channel) and come back when he's actually ready to do some better content.

The video was bad, and I get why people don't feel comfortable watching him anymore. I've made my peace with it and I'm hoping for some better content soon. But not too soon!

Lots of his friends have spoken about the whole thing, and the general consensus is that yeah, it was bad. I think Connor talked about him and Schlatt seeing a kid watching The Video and Schlatt having this 'oh shit' moment? I might be wrong, if anyone has a link to the clip or stream where Connor talks about this lmk. But regardless, I think mans is taking a break and sorting himself out. There are also rumours he might stream soon but idk idk.

I feel that off-camera he's a completely different person. Minx said she sees it that way, Ty also said he's very respectful and chill off-camera. So I don't think he's a bad person (I don't think he's racist or anti-Semetic, he fucked up but I highly doubt he believes that shit irl and I think claiming that he does is just performative and kinda weird. I understand microagressions are also very bad and can be used by racists/be racist but on their own they do not make you a racist especially if it's poor taste jokes that went too far etc).

You're right though, he definitely wanted to make money. That didn't really work out for him though (if you look at the stats on The Video, it performed terribly) so I doubt it's a mistake he would make again.

For now, if you want to see better content that (I think) reflects Schlatt in a better light (aka he's still doing a bit but he's much more chill and less of a bastard about it) I recommend the chuckle sandwich podcast and sleep deprived podcast. He's on OTK streams a lot too but that sorta thing isn't really for me.

Also stan connoreatspants bringing us Jambo content all the time. 🙌

Idk if that was helpful, but it's more a gesture of solidarity since I agree with and feel everything you're saying. Of course, this is all speculation, please don't spread this as fact because I don't know Schlatt any better than you do. He's just a comfort CC and guy I think is kinda neat when he's not doing dumb shit.

Sorry for the long post. Also, you can disregard the shit I said about racism if you want cause I'm not qualified to talk about it really. There are good points for calling someone a racist for jokes like the ones in the video, but I feel like the rest of the factors should be looked at too since this is a complicated situation. Again, just my opinion, please no hate. If you have a complaint DM me or send an ask. I'm open to hearing other povs.

Have a nice day !