The Hate Watchers

I've been toying with writing a post like this for a while now, trying to put together some thoughts and observations on hate-watchers without getting caught up in the outrage loops that they operate in.  I'm going to have to tread carefully here, because this kind of material can get really volatile really quickly.

So, a couple of years ago I noticed that there were Youtube channels that featured the equivalent of right-wing outrage farmers, except dedicated to fandom content.  The tactics are exactly the same as the what happened with Gamergate all those years ago - find a piece of media that is controversial or unpopular, drum up outrage, hurl misogynist/racist abuse at it, hide behind being a "fan" and "legitimate criticism" when called out, and reap the rewards of generating clicks and attention.  A couple of small content creators are able to generate vast amounts of negative ragebait videos, memes, and social media noise that has an outsized effect on the media narrative.

It's disturbing how often this stuff goes viral, and how many pieces of media have been subjected to these hate campaigns.  I've watched this happen to the MCU, "Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Lord of the Rings," Disney movies and even "True Detective" over the past few years.  It's common enough that the patterns are pretty easy to spot now - the primary individual targets are usually women, people of color, or both.  Kathleen Kennedy and Rachel Zegler have been internet punching bags for years.  The bulk of the perpetrators are usually young reprobates who get caught up in bandwagoning the latest target of derision, usually blowing minor issues or risky creative decisions wildly out of proportion.  The behavior seems to be driven by a feeling of being wronged, or being excluded, often by franchise media that's trying to appeal to a wider audience.  Bad actors will exploit existing fans' nostalgia and disappointment to create an us v. them dynamic with creators, critics, and other fans.  Any sort of creative disagreement going on behind the scenes will be seized on as an excuse to behave badly.      

Let's use one of the latest targets, "Starfeet Academy," as an example.   "Starfleet Academy" is the latest "Star Trek" series, which is going after younger viewers, and features a diverse cast.  Some of the most virulent outrage channels  latched on to the show based on marketing materials before it aired, but the outrage really kicked into gear when the first episode got mixed reactions from existing "Star Trek" fans.  A couple of unflattering screenshots of female cast members were passed around that got negative reactions from Stephen Miller and Elon Musk, and suddenly the floodgates were open.  The show was accused of being part of the "woke agenda" of performative progressivism, despite "Star Trek" having a long history of promoting onscreen diversity.  The show was accused of not respecting its fans or understanding its franchise, despite geeky "Star Trek" references and easter eggs in every episode.  The show was accused of being poorly written and bad at appealing to a young audience, which is a perfectly legitimate position to take.  Unfortunately, this was repeatedly used as an excuse for the continued harassment and mockery of the show, its creators, and the fanbase that did develop around it.

The ragebait content itself is strangely fascinating to pick apart.  The criticisms are very shallow and petty, usually based on outdated stereotyping and conservative dog whistles.  The vitriol is childish and fueled by tribalism and mob mentality.  The targets are never anything truly popular, because the ridicule might boomerang back on the perpetrators  subjecting them to the same kind of scorn.  Neither are they ever anything too obscure or mature, where any nuance  might be required.  A big giveaway that the content is coming from opportunists is that the producers won't stop engaging with the media they insist is awful, sometimes watching whole seasons of shows or obsessively following the box office stats of movies just to gather more fuel for their outrage.  Any positive content that they produce, highlighting media they purport to enjoy, tends to focus on a narrow list of the most universally popular and inoffensive shows and movies.  A couple of the most notable outrage purveyors started out as wannabe critics and culture commentators - there but for the grace of God and the Criterion Collection go I, I suppose.  

Hatewatchers are nothing new, but like so many other negative social phenomena they've been made worse by social media and the new content ecosystems.  The "Star Wars" prequels provided much of  the template for the more organized hate campaigns - picking high profile targets, turning extended roast and rant sessions into content, and nitpicking minor flaws ad nauseum.  I remember "The People v. George Lucas," and confess that I watched the original RedLetterMedia reviews with friends.  However, this didn't stop those movies from gaining their own following, and quietly becoming nostalgic Late-Millennial/Gen Z favorites, twenty years later.

There have been enough of these hate campaigns now, that it's getting easier to brush them off, especially the ones that are transparently being waged in bad faith.  However, they are annoying, distracting, and make it difficult to actually have good discussions about the media in question.  This is, of course, a reflection of how all public discourse is being affected more broadly by malicious instigators, with negative outcomes affecting everything from politics to basic social interactions. Once you recognize the common tactics, however, you can better sidestep the outrage and get back to enjoying your fandom.   

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My 2025 Youtube Playlist

I apparently skipped doing this feature in 2024, which means you're getting a bumper crop this time.

My yearly Youtube playlist is mostly made up of media ephemera that's difficult to categorize, and the only thing they really have in common is a strong musical element.  Still, I think they're worth taking a look at and writing about.  This batch contains some real obscurities, including music videos, promotional material, song numbers, and even a fanedit.  Here we go

The Disney Sunday Night Movie - "The Disney Sunday Night Movie" was an anthology series that ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988, featuring a mix of made for television movies, Disney classics, and occasional promos for other Disney projects.  This is where some real Disney obscurities like "Fuzzbucket," "Fluppy Dogs," and "Splash, Too" originally aired.  I've included the version of the opening sequence that I remember from 1986, which remains prepended to my VHS recording of "Robin Hood" in perpetuity.  

#1 Spice - So, Zohran Mamdani had a rap career in the 2010s as Young Cardamom.  No, I'm not making this up.  Here he is with Hussein Abdul Bar (HAB) on a track featured in the Disney film, "Queen of Katwe," which happened to be directed by Mamdani's mother, the great Mira Nair.  Mamdani also produced and curated the soundtrack for the film.

Handlebars - This has a good claim to being one of the most influential fanedits (fanvids? fanworks?) ever made, when you're talking about Western fandoms anyway.  Created by Flummery (Margie and Seah), "Handlebars" is a profile of the Tenth Doctor from "Doctor Who," set to "Handlebars" by Flobots.  The escalation is fantastic, and as many people have pointed out, this video was made before the Time Lord Victorious stuff happened, making it very prescient.  The video premiered at Vividcon in 2008.  

Ask DNA - Here's the opening sequence of "Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door," featuring jawdropping animation by BONES co-founder Toshihiro Kawamoto.  Kawamoto was the character designer and animation director for both the series and the movie, and is one of the key creatives responsible for the way "Cowboy Bebop" looks.  "Ask DNA" was composed by Yoko Kanno and is performed by the Seatbelts, featuring Raj Ramayya's vocals. 

Across the Universe - The Fiona Apple cover of the Beatles track was released as part of the "Pleasantville" soundtrack in 1998.  The accompanying music video was directed by Apple's then-boyfriend Paul Thomas Anderson and features an extended version of the scene from the movie where the local townsfolk destroy the local diner.  And Anderson ensures that it looks gorgeous.

Dr. Demento's 20th Anniversary - In 1994, Comedy Central aired the full Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Show, featuring all our favorite novelty songs being performed by people who I'm delighted to discover are real human beings.  There's Tiny Tim, Benny Bell, and "Weird Al" Yankovic of course.  But did you ever think you'd see a live performance of "Monster Mash" with Bobby Boris Picket or "The Purple People Eater" with Sheb Wooley?  As a Demento admirer, finding this was like unearthing buried treasure.

I'm Just Ken - This song remains one of the greatest things to have come out of the "Barbie" movie.  Here's the Christmas version with Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson.  And here's the GWAR cover.  

Real Cats Drink Milk and Block City - Here are two of Al Jarnow's many, many animated shorts that he made for "Sesame Street" over four decades.  These two in particular are stop motion pieces from the early 1980s that are among the earliest pieces of media I ever remember seeing.  The music is by Jonathan Larson, and according to Jarnow's notes from  his website, the cat featured in "Real Cats Drink Milk" is named Banana. 

The Annotated Colbert Finale - Thank goodness for Slate for still having a copy of the closing sing-along of the final episode of "The Colbert Report" from 2014 still hanging around on their channel.  And it provides such helpful annotations too.  Yes, that's Henry Kissinger, George Lucas, and Cookie Monster among the notable celebrities who agreed to participate in one of the most bizarre sendoffs any fake late night pundit has ever received.  Whatever Colbert is cooking up for this final episode of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," he has a lot to live up to.

And finally here's They Might Be Giants, appearing on the Tonight Show With Johnny Carson in 1990 to play us out with Birdhouse in Your Soul.

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Going Woke - An Update

At the time of writing, we have a new live action version of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" that has recently premiered on Netflix.  Unlike the film adaptation from 2010, "The Last Airbender," this version has a much more diverse cast.  We can argue about the relative quality of the productions, but I already count this as a major win and a welcome sign of the times.  Part of the reason I started this blog back in 2010 was because I needed somewhere to vent about how Hollywood was handling "The Last Airbender" and other projects where Asian characters kept being cast with white actors.

And now it's 2024, and the old practice of whitewashing POC characters is firmly outdated and unacceptable.  Despite some setbacks, we are consistently seeing more representation of minority groups onscreen.  Moreover, it's common practice to cast POC actors in roles that previously went to white actors, which has sometimes caused a lot of controversy.  I've already written posts about this topic, like Who Gets To Exist in Fantasy Media?, so I won't rehash it all here.  But to sum up, I don't think that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and I strongly believe that Hollywood still needs to be mindful of inclusion and representation.  

The past few years have been very encouraging as we've watched the talent pool diversity.  These last few months have been all about Native American representation, with "Killers of the Flower Moon," "True Detective: Night Country," "Echo," and the last season of "Reservation Dogs" all making waves.  A year ago, the big push was for Asian-American talent to be recognized, with "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" and "Beef" getting lots of attention.  However, even when the attention dies down, the awareness remains.  The actors and filmmakers get more work and more opportunities.  Other projects about Asian-Americans and Native Americans and African Americans and Latinos and other minority communities get made.  Could "Joy Ride," a raunchy comedy with four Asian-American female leads, have made it to the big screen five years ago?  How about a "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" adaptation with an interracial couple, neither of them Caucasian?    

It's being proven over and over again that there is room for everybody.  And it's so much better when there is room for everybody.  You simply can't make the excuse anymore that a POC lead or a POC story won't sell, because after "Bridgerton" and "Black Panther" and "Crazy Rich Asians," and "Abbott Elementary," and "Ghosts," it's clear that they do.  You can't argue that the talent isn't there to cast POC roles correctly, because now we can point to excellent Middle Eastern leading men and South Asian leading ladies, and there are more breaking out every day.  I love that up and coming stars like Ayo Edibiri and Charles Melton aren't automatically being talked about in terms of their race or their skin color like they might have ten years ago.  I love that there's less ghettoization of media - there are plenty of shows made with specific audiences in mind, but I'm not going to be asked why I'm watching that "black" show or movie, the way I remember being asked when I was a kid.  And since "Squid Game" conquered Netflix,  American viewers finally seem more willing to explore foreign television.   

At the same time, there have been massive strides in LGBT representation over the last fifteen years.  For a point of reference, "Modern Family" started in 2009, a year before "The Last Airbender" movie.  Transgender representation in particular has made such significant leaps that cisgender actors playing transgender roles isn't really okay anymore.  It feels like we're still taking baby steps with nonbinary representation, but it's been exciting seeing that community start to make some progress too.  None of this is happening in a vacuum and all of this matters.    

Of course, the culture war rages on.  There are people who want to pretend it's still 2010, and being white, male, straight and cisgender is the default.  And there's still plenty of media to cater to their tastes.  Half of this year's Best Picture nominees hardly have any POC presence at all.  When you get past all those nicely packaged narratives about how representation matters, and look at the numbers, there's always plenty of room for improvement.

I celebrate our victories, but I believe in constant vigilance.

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"Swarm" and "The Swarm"

Don't you love it when two completely different shows are released almost at the same time, with close to the same title?

Amazon's "Swarm" is the brainchild of Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, and occasionally feels like a spinoff of "Atlanta."  It has the same mix of psychological thriller, dark satire, and existential dread found in some of their more adventurous episodes.  Our protagonist is a troubled young woman named Dre (Dominique Fishback) whose one passion is being a fan of a pop artist named Ni'jah (Nirine S. Brown).  After the death of her sister Marissa (Chloe Bailey), who the online rumor mill suspect may have killed herself over the new Ni'jah album, Dre chooses violence and embraces her terrifying dark side.

Each episode starts with a spin on the famous "Fargo" disclaimer, cautioning viewers that "Swarm" is based on real events, and any similarities to the real people involved are intentional.  Ni'Jah is clearly modeled on an iconic singer with a notoriously fervent fanbase, and many of the events we see in "Swarm" are taken from real life - or at least the rumors of what might have happened in real life.  The show probably works better if you're familiar with the drama in question, though it was fun for me to go back after watching "Swarm," and dig into the real world influences and connections.  

"Swarm" follows Dre through several years and several stages of her life, and feels like an anthology at times.  Even if you assume that Dre is an unreliable narrator, the way things unfold is too outlandish to be taken at face value, so I don't think it really works as a thriller.  However, the commentary is sharp and there are some good laughs to be had.  Also, Dominique Fishback's performance is excellent throughout.  If "Swarm" gets anything right, it's the portrayal of Dre's sad existence as an obsessed superfan, constantly attached to her phone, and using her love of Ni'Jah to compensate for other parts of her life.  The show is tragic, horrific, and sometimes a deeply uncomfortable watch.  And yet, it's so well made that I marathoned the whole thing in two sittings.     

Now, for something completely different.  "The Swarm" is an ambitious German science-fiction series that is mostly English language, featuring an international cast playing scientists from around the world.  The show is about a series of crises involving marine life, including suddenly aggressive whales, plague-spreading crabs, and boat-destroying bivalves.  A pattern emerges, pointing to a possible intelligence in the deep sea that is orchestrating these disasters as attacks on coastal populations.  Like many other science fiction series this year, the changes are hypothesized to have been triggered by climate change.  

What I like about "The Swarm," which will no doubt bore or frustrate other viewers, is that in spite of the wild premise, the show spends the majority of its time foregrounding scientists and their daily struggles.  The bizarre attacks take place in the first ten minutes or last ten minutes of each episode, and the rest of the time is devoted to checking in on various doctors and professors and researchers who are the only ones with any inkling of what might really be going on.  They discuss science, struggle to cut through bureaucratic red tape, and end up in more battles over funding and organizational politics than with any supernatural activity.  This lends a nice sense of realism to the events of the first few episodes, until everything goes off the rails into supernatural chaos for the finale. It's nice to see this kind of procedural mystery, where all the characters are fairly ordinary people, cast with lots of actors I didn't recognize, with the exception of Cecile de France and Sharon Duncan-Brewster.

  

The disaster sequences are very well executed and look very expensive, which should draw in some genre fans.  However, I suspect that the show will move too slowly for most viewers.  We learn plenty about the personal lives of characters like biologist Dr. Sigur Johanson (Alexander Karim), who is struggling with whether or not to consult for a mining company, and a First Nations cetologist named Leon Anawak (Joshua Odick) with a rough past, but none of their stories really impact the larger plot and aren't very compelling in and of themselves.  I appreciate the more cerebral approach to the material, but it often feels like it's working at odds with the wild premise, and the talented ensemble seems to ever have enough screen time to really make a lasting impression.  "The Swarm" is an interesting series, but ultimately a dysfunctional one, and I doubt we'll see it continue past its first season.    

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Checking in on the AMV World

I was a big anime fan for much of the aughts, and like every other anime fan, I had a collection of AMVs, the fan-made music videos that paired clips from anime to popular (and not-so popular) music and other audio.  Roughly around 2007, I put a big recommendation list of about sixty AMVs on the bookmarking list del.icio.us, which has since gone totally kaput.  My AMV collection was also lost about three computers ago, despite my taking pains to save the hard drive.  So, because I've been getting nostalgic about that period of my life lately, I decided to try and recreate that list and collection with a Youtube playlist.

After a couple of days of wracking my brains, looking up information on the fan-run indexing site AMV.org (thankfully still alive and well), and following breadcrumb trails, I managed to find about 90% of the videos I remember from my old collection.  The bulk of them are available on Youtube, mostly in terrible quality to get around the copyright bots.  No matter how often they get taken down, someone always re-uploads them, and at some point it looks like Youtube just gave up and let them stay.  Only a handful of my old favorites aren't there, the most prominent being one of the most notorious and beloved AMVs of all time - Kevin Caldwell's "Engel."  It uses the Rammstein song "Engel," set to clips of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" to profile the character of Asuka Langley Sohryu.  There are masses of dead links from fans who keep posting that video, only to be thwarted by Rammstein's label.  However, at the time of writing there are still at least three versions of the "Engel" video on Youtube, using different remixes and alternate language versions of the original song.  I find this very ironic, since the "Engel" video probably did more to popularize Rammstein's music globally in the late '90s than anything they ever did officially.

That was always the secret of AMVs.  They break all kinds of copyright laws, but it's not in the best interest of anybody to enforce them, because AMVs serve as very potent free advertising.  Over the years, so many fans found new musical artists or new anime because they stumbled upon a particularly impressive AMV.  They used to be appended to fansubs in the VHS age, and were all over conventions and screenings in my college days.  They also remain one of the best examples of the creativity of fan remix cultures.  I haven't been around for the Youtube era, when some AMVs achieved meme status and racked up millions of views - see "Anime 404" - but it's nice to see that AMVs are still going strong.  I've watched a couple of newer videos, and read up on the trends and technological advances that have happened (I never thought anybody would find a good use for motion-smoothing, but they did), and it warms my heart to see the anime nerds still nerding it up. 

Most of the prominent video editors from the early 2000s are retired, including my favorites, Hsien Lee and Kevin Caldwell.  However, I was delighted to find that there are a couple of the old guard that are still active, though they've mostly crossed over into the live action vidding community.  The AMV world seems to have decentralized in the last decade, revolving less around AMV.org and the big AMV competitions, and now buzzing on Instagram and TikTok.  And of course, there have always been editors like Kestrel Sempai who remain entirely self-hosted.  A great thing about the AMV community is that it's always been so wildly diverse with an international reach.  Scanning my own recreated video collection list, there are several that use songs in German or Japanese, two are in French, and one is in Swedish.  If you're at all familiar with "Princess Tutu," you know what the Swedish one is.  

So many of the older corners of the internet have been disappearing lately, it's nice to find one that's been in pretty good shape since I left it.  While many of my favorite AMVs are only available in awful quality, their creators long ago MIA, others have been lovingly preserved.  Veteran editor Zarxrax remastered all of Kevin Caldwell's videos last year, including "Engel."  And another of the old guard, Absolute Destiny, recently published a beautifully detailed article on the origins of the AMV scene in the Journal for Transformative Works and Cultures.  

As for me, after my trip down memory lane, I don't feel the need to resubscribe to AMV.og and reassemble my AMV collection.  My nostalgia has its limits.  However, this time I'm definitely backing up copies of my list, so I don't have to do so much work the next time I want to watch a couple of old "Revolutionary Girl Utena"/Evanescence  videos.  Speaking of which, does anyone know where to find a decent copy of "Deluge"? 

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A Day At Comic-Con 2020 Online

I had some free time today, so I thought I'd take advantage of San Diego Comic-Con holding all their panels online this year. I watched five panels, all pre-recorded, roughly following the posted schedule but not exactly. These were the panels for "Star Trek," Amazon's remake of "Utopia," the "Marvel's 616" documentary series, "The New Mutants," and the 80th anniversary of Bugs Bunny. I wanted to put down a few thoughts on the experience.

First, there's no way that an online panel conducted via conferencing software is going to be able to match up to the live experience of Comic-Con. I've been watching recordings of past Comic-con panels that have ended up online for ages, and the crowd reactions have always been an integral part of the fun. Here, nobody makes any attempt to replicate them. Instead, you get a collection of celebs talking up their latest projects, usually with a couple of promo clips. A few trailers premiered, and a few exclusive clips were trotted out, but noticeably fewer than in recent years. There weren't any huge announcements that I could see, aside from the "Star Trek" panel confirming the new "Star Trek: Prodigy" Nickelodeon show.

There are clear benefits to having the panels online. I could attend multiple panels taking place at the same time. There were no lines, no space issues, and no getting your view blocked by other attendees. Because all the appearances were filmed in advance, there were no technical glitches to deal with and less time wasted on drawn-out introductions. However, this also meant no spontaneity whatsoever. There was never the possibility of people crashing each other's panels, no live Q&A mishaps, no unexpected fan interactions, and frankly far less energy and verve. Everyone's gotten used to the online panel format enough that there's no novelty there anymore. Some of the panels did try to incorporate some fan involvement, taking pre-submitted questions, and encouraging social media use. I thought it was very sweet that "New Mutants" spent a few minutes showing off some fanart.

All the panels were scheduled for an hour, but they varied wildly in actual length. The "Star Trek" panel, which actually covered presentations for three different shows, ran nearly 90 minutes and included a partial table read of the "Star Trek: Discovery" season finale. The "New Mutants" panel was just shy of 30 minutes, about the right length. The panel for Amazon's "Utopia" tried to fill a full 60 minutes, which was a bad idea because they ran very short of material. Based on the British "Utopia" mystery show, the cast had to keep answers evasive to avoid spoilers, which meant there wasn't really a lot for them to talk about. A couple of the participants were also relative newbies who clearly weren't used to doing press. The "Star Trek: Lower Decks" folks, by contrast, just let everybody loose and bleeped all the spoilers out for comic effect.

I did have something like the experience of wandering into random panels without really understanding what I was getting into. I got "Marvel's 616" mixed up with the "What If…" series, but the guests included Gillian Jacobs and Paul Scheer, who were super entertaining, and they totally sold me on the potential fun of an anthology series about the history of Marvel comics. I'm not really a Bugs Bunny fan, but I do enjoy Billy West, Leonard Maltin, and Jerry Beck. Their panel turned out to be a thinly veiled promotion of Warners putting out a new Bugs Bunny shorts collection, but it was still great to listen to a bunch of actors and animation geeks sharing their love of Bugs for an hour.

Since I'm not planning to attend another Comic-Con any time soon, I'd appreciate something like this being available in the future. It's not remotely close to anything like being there, but most of the panels were pretty fun to leave on all day, and I'm looking forward to a few other things on the lineup.

The best thing I saw today was definitely Marina Sirtis roasting Patrick Stewart during the "Star Trek: Picard" panel. I think she may be turning into our new Carrie Fisher.
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On the "Star Wars IX" Trailer and Hype

The ninth American Star Wars Celebration event happened over the weekend, a fan convention devoted to all things "Star Wars," which Lucasfilm often uses to promote the franchise.  It usually comes around these days whenever Lucasfilm has new projects to hype, and boy did they have some doozies this year. In addition to the new video game "Jedi: Fallen Order," and the new Disney Plus series, "The Mandalorian," Friday's panel was the first place where you could see the teaser trailer for the latest "Star Wars" film, where the title was finally announced: "Rise of Skywalker."

I find it a little bewildering that we're at the point where simply announcing the title of an upcoming franchise film like "Avengers: Endgame" or "Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker" can be a hypable moment, and a dropping a teaser trailer can be an event on the same level as one of those Apple product launches that Steve Jobs was famous for.  Instead of Steve Jobs, however, Disney went and recruited Stephen Colbert to be their panel emcee, who happily worked up the crowd of convention-goers before bringing all the creative talent on stage to promote the new film. The public may have cooled on the "Star Wars" franchise over the last two years, but Disney certainly isn't treating it that way.

I have to marvel at the lengths Disney and Lucasfilm went to for this event, getting a room full of hardcore nerds together to watch the teaser premiere, flying out all the talent for appearances, and even putting Ian McDiarmid onstage afterwards to shout "Roll it again!" and push the reactions even further.  If you didn't have the $50-60 dollars for a convention ticket, you could watch the whole panel being streamed live if you wanted - I found a recording on Youtube over the weekend. It all paid off for Lucasfilm, though. The internet was buzzing madly about "Star Wars" all Friday afternoon, and there was a ton of speculation about what the title could mean and what we could expect from the new film in December.  

As for the trailer itself, well, personally I find it a little worrying.  The marketing is following the lead of "The Force Awakens," emphasizing the return of familiar faces from the first "Star Wars" trilogy again.  This time around Lando Calrissian and Emperor Palpatine are back. The ruins of the second Death Star show up. A new droid pal for BB-8 shows up.  There' s more heavy breathing. More running. More lightsabers. Frankly, the whole thing feels like it's backtracking what "The Last Jedi" did to break away from formula.  Sure, this is just marketing and Disney is just trying to put out images that are going to invite the most speculation, but it doesn't bode well. Personally, I am going to be very disappointed if Abrams walks back the revelation about Rey's parents in "The Last Jedi."

I'm actually more curious about "The Mandalorian," the Disney Plus series which is being handled by Jon Favreau and will star Pedro Pascal as the title character.  I like that it takes place in the gap between "Return of the Jedi" and "The Force Awakens," and features no familiar characters whatsoever. And speaking of Disney Plus, a similar splashy kickoff event was used to promote the service at Disney's Investor Day event, which happened to take place the day before Celebration.  This was a much more serious affair, however, presented by Disney CEO Bob Iger and attended mainly by Wall Street figures. However, its aim was also to drum up the hype, as Disney Plus will launch in November.

  

We can look forward to future events like this in the next few months - convention season is just around the corner.  Disney will probably use San Diego Comic-Con and its own D23 Expo in August to make some more big announcements. 2020's two new Marvel movies technically haven't been officially announced yet.  There are also two original PIXAR movies on next year's schedule, one of which we know absolutely nothing about. Now that the FOX merger has been completed, Disney can be a lot less hush-hush about its plans.  Or maybe the new status quo is turning any announcement into a big hypable moment.

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My Parasocial Relationships

I was happy to learn the term "parasocial relationship" this year. It's defined as a one-sided relationship, found between an audience member and a media figure or organization. I finally have a name for the kind of emotional attachment that I've felt off and on for various actors, presenters, and other talent glimpsed through the screen throughout my life. Like everyone else, I've had the occasional crushes on movie stars, the feelings of dismay when a popular TV show gets cancelled, and the urge to roll my eyes at the antics of celebrities. Oh Kanye, not again.

I've always been an introvert and used to rely on parasocial relationships more than was probably healthy. I suspect a lot of people do when they're young, isolated, and going through transitional phases in their lives. In those situations it's nice to have any kind of friendly constant, be it a late night talk show host who makes you laugh, or a movie critic who likes the same cheesy movies that you do. These relationships can have very positive effects sometimes. Kids of the '70s and '80s knew they could rely on Mr. Rogers to tell them "I like you just the way you are." And of course, these relationships can also turn sour, resulting in stalkers and restraining orders.

It's odd to think of parasocial relationships being as important to some people as real world ones, but they involve very real emotions and can sometimes go on for long periods of time. I realized recently that I had been listening to some of my favorite movie podcasts for over a decade - specifically, since "The Dark Knight" came out. Over the years I've listed to some of the hosts talk about getting married, having kids, changing jobs, losing pets, and going through bad times. I feel like I've gotten to know them, even though I've never met them in person. And that's by design. The more engaged you are with a piece of media, the more likely you are to become a regular consumer of it.

In the Youtube era, parasocial relationships can be very intense. Some content producers will livestream for hours a day, share their personal lives to an uncomfortable degree, and make direct appeals to their audience constantly. Authenticity is a major selling point, and Youtube talent blur the lines between reality and fiction as a matter of course. Youtuber burnout has gotten a lot of press recently, as we've seen the ill effects of inexperienced, unsupported talent trying to maintain public facades and being "on" practically 24/7. It's been fascinating to see the negative impact of parasocial relationships on the people on the other side of our screens.

At the same time, there's also a corresponding negative impact on the viewers of this kind of media. Though social media stars present themselves as authentic, their facades are still manufactured. This can create unrealistic expectations that influence a viewer's self-image and self-esteem. There's also been some evidence that parasocial relationships can help to normalize voyeuristic behavior and skew viewers' real world interactions. There have always been fans who get carried away and have unreasonable expectations, but the amount of access they have to their favorite stars these days is far greater, and can encourage their worst impulses.

There's also the interesting wrinkle of relationships that start out as normal and then become parasocial. I've realized that many of the people I follow on Facebook fall into this category. I have several old schoolmates and ex-coworkers who I haven't talked to in years, but who share the details of their lives online regularly, so I feel like I'm still caught up with them. Sometimes it takes a minute or two for me to remember that I'm looking at carefully curated content that may not reflect reality at all. I found an old friend online recently, who had moved to Boston and excelled in academia. Is she really as happy as she looks in her faculty profile picture?

Finally we come to my own online persona, Miss Media Junkie, who as far as I know is not in any danger of attracting any kind of significant following - and I have no desire to cultivate one. Still, I've always worried about whether the things I post may be misleading or mean or simply reveal too much. From my experiences in various fandoms, I know that people can get attached to the strangest things, and take offense to the most minor faux pas. And when you're online, you can be in parasocial relationships and be affected by them, and never even know it.
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The Fanfiction Media Era

"Write original stories," they said. "Come up with your own characters and stop wasting time scribbling that fanfiction," they said.  Well, it turns out that if you want to make it as a writer in Hollywood, you had better learn to write for existing characters and universes, and some familiarity with fanfiction can be helpful.  

Oh sure, franchise films have been around forever, and sequels and reboots are nothing new.  However, over the past couple of years some of our media is starting to look an awful lot like the stuff that I remember posting and reading on Livejournal in the mid-aughts. Exhibit A is Disney's "Descendants" franchise, the wildly popular series of live-action TV movies about the offspring of various Disney characters.  They go to high school with each other, date each other, have their spats, and, of course, regularly break out into song. The main character is a purple-haired girl named Mal, the daughter of Maleficent, and there's been endless speculation as to who Mal's father is. For the record, speculating over Maleficent's love life is something that I, a hardcore Disney nerd, find absolutely hilarious.  But as a kid, I would have been all over that.

Also, consider that the "Descendants" version of Maleficent, played by Kristin Chenoweth, is the fourth version of the character that currently exists in an entirely separate universe from the others.  There's the original 1959 animated version who still pops up in video games and Disney theme park extravaganzas. There's the live action theatrical film version, played by Angelina Jolie, who appeared in the 2014 "Maleficent," and will return in the sequel coming in 2020.  Then there's the Maleficent who appears in "Once Upon a Time," played by Kristin Bauer van Straten. That version also has a daughter, named Lily. And who's the father? Zorro, the 19th century Spanish Californian vigilante, because the "Once Upon a Time" universe is just that nutty.  

A few years ago, I wrote a bit about transmedia, the practice of storytelling over multiple platforms, and the challenges associated with keeping storytelling elements consistent over different types of media aimed at different consumers.  What we're seeing Disney do with some of its older IP is to take the opposite strategy, and embrace the idea of multiple versions and multiple takes coexisting. It's the fanfiction mindset of customizing stories to your own particular needs, or in this case the needs of different audiences.  "Descendants" is made for 7-12 year olds, and needs Maleficent to be a traditional villain. "Maleficent" is aimed a bit older and more sophisticated, at viewers who can appreciate Maleficent as a complicated, subversive anti-hero.

And why not, in a media age where there are so many different versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson running around, James Bond and Doctor Who swap faces every few years, and Marvel movie crossovers are considered massive cultural events?  The beauty of the Disney strategy is that it's mining from a decades-old library of characters that only it holds the rights to. This helps to keep a 60 year-old character like Maleficent alive in the public eye and exploit the nostalgia of everyone who grew up with her.  Other studios that have tried this have had less success, because of skimpier libraries of children's content, and the public becoming less familiar with public domain characters. Sure, we all know who King Arthur is, but there's not that one iconic pop culture version of him that sticks out in everyone's memory.  Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, and the the Little Mermaid don't have this problem.

The irony is that Disney's embrace of the fanfiction mindset means that fanfiction authors are potentially on rockier legal ground.  One of the arguments for letting fan authors have their fun is that they tend to write the kinds of stories that the IP holders didn't really do - subversive reexaminations, crazy crossovers, and silly sequels about all the characters having kids who pair up and have their own adventures.  Well, times have changed. I don't think Disney's army of lawyers is going to go as far as sending out C&D letters to twelve year-old "Descendants" fanfiction enthusiasts writing about Mal joining the Avengers, but it feels like we're inching in that direction.

Or maybe Disney will just scout them for new writing talent.

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Podcasts Ahoy! 2018 Edition

It's time once again to look in on what's going on in the podcast world.  Below are a couple of new and new-to-me offerings that I've started following this year.  There aren't too many this time around, but I'll have room to check out more soon, as several of the previously featured podcasts have ended or gone on indefinite hiatus.  The most painful of these to lose has been "TV Avalanche," which ended a few months ago with Alan Sepinwall's move to "Rolling Stone," but I'm hopeful that he'll pop up somewhere with a new show eventually.  

The Director's Cut - a DGA Podcast - The Directors Guild of America presents a series of interviews with directors on their latest films, conducted by other directors.  It's a fun conceit that has yielded some great pairings like Kevin Smith interviewing Werner Herzog and Christopher Nolan interviewing Edgar Wright. The inaugural episode had Martin Scorsese interviewing Steven Spielberg about "Bridge of Spies."  The interviews are usually very short, about thirty minutes apiece, but offer a great glimpse into the filmmaking process. The bigger names usually come around during awards season, but there are interesting titles featured throughout the year.

Unspooled - Paul Scheer of "How Did This Get Made" and Amy Nicholson of "The Canon" have joined forces to watch the AFI Top 100 films together (2007 edition).  This is a nice way to revisit the classics I haven't watched in a long while. There are a lot of these classic film podcasts around, but it helps when you've got a seasoned actor and a seasoned film critic with good connections running the show.  Each episode features lively commentary, some listener participation, and interesting interviews with relevant guests. For instance, they couldn't get any of the creative talent from "Citizen Kane" for the show, but they did manage to find the guy who owns the film camera it was shot with and got him to come talk about the cinematography.  My favorite bit is their habit of finding "Simpsons" references for each film. My only regret is that this is only going to be a 100 episode podcast - well, maybe longer if they decide to expand to some of the other AFI lists.

Sammy Ain't Seen S---  The Double Toasted guys have rolled out a couple of shows in recent years that I hadn't gotten around to checking out until recently.  "Sammy Ain't Seen S---" is a spinoff from another show, following film school grad Sammy González (aka the Mexcellence) and co-hosts as he catches up on nostalgic favorites that he's managed to avoid watching until now.  This is essentially the more lowbrow and low culture version of "Unspooled," but often it's just as entertaining. Listening to Sammy try to wrap his head around old '80s and '90s blockbusters, many of which have aged badly, is a lot of fun.  And when he finds a new favorite, it's great hearing his analysis from a totally fresh perspective. I have to wonder how a guy who loves films and went to film school missed out on so many of these titles - and how has he STILL not seen "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial"?    

Toast to Toast - The other Double Toasted podcast I've been catching up with is "Toast to Toast," hosted by Will Vale.  There have been several different co-hosts, but Ian Butcher is the most regular one. This is a tough program to categorize, but it's a more casual discussion show that centers around current media and culture, occasionally wandering off to talk about other topics.   There was an episode devoted to the fall of Toys 'R' Us, for example, and another on the role of critics and Rotten Tomatoes. Double Toasted has several varieties of these discussion shows, but I like this one because it's usually more focused on the topic at hand, and there's less of the rambling drinking stories you tend to get with some of the site's other personalities.

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What's Film Twitter?

Readers of the blog know that I quit Twitter a while back, after using my account to do little more than post updates for this blog. I never got the hang of using it to have real conversations with other people, though I found it a good way to keep up with various film critics and filmmakers. That was five years ago, which is practically ancient times the way the internet works. I think I may want to give Twitter another try sometime soon.

Over the past few years I've been hearing repeated references to "Film Twitter," which refers to the community of film critics, film academics, and various cinephiles who are active on Twitter. It's a big, shapeless, moveable feast of film discussion that you need to keep up with if you want to stay current on what's going on in film circles. This includes the discussion of films, film news, interviews, reviews, opinion and reaction pieces, and good, old fashioned gossip. I, not having time to read all the tweets generated by the handful of film critics I used to follow, let alone the dozens and dozens of film professionals that make up Film Twitter, have no hope of actually participating in any of these conversations. Still, it looks like it would be awfully fun to follow along.

Film Twitter is only one of many different Twitter communities. There's Politics Twitter, Music Twitter, Sports Twitter, and of course the endless amusement of Fast Food Twitter. When I hear mention of Film Twitter, it's usually through one of the participants, referencing prior or ongoing conversations. The concept of Film Twitter has been around since at least 2015, and has been steadily becoming more and more visible. First reactions to films are often gauged from tweets after early screenings, and major film festivals like Cannes are often accompanied by a flurry of increased activity. Last year there was a push to amplify more female voices. Some have tried to prognosticate box office returns and award season favorites based on Film Twitter trends - which are usually doomed to failure, of course, because the critics almost never reflect popular sentiment. Hype, however, can sometimes be generated or amplified there.

Lately I've started hearing Film Twitter referred to by some as a sort of monolithic entity, usually by those who are critical of the participants. There's a certain breed of film enthusiast who just loves writing off the perceived critical establishment as a bunch of pretentious phonies. Film Twitter provides a handy aggregate, so now it's regularly being accused of all sorts of things, like being smug, or being mean, or overreacting. This says more about the bellyachers than it does about the Film Twitter community, but I think it's also a sign of how Film Twitter is quietly growing in influence. For certain online critics, participation almost feels obligatory. And that's slightly worrisome, especially if you don't think that 140 character tweets are really the best format to be conveying nuanced opinions about cinema with.

Film Twitter remains fairly removed from the mainstream and has a certain degree of exclusivity because the major discussions often require that you have access to media at the time that it's released, or even earlier in the case of films playing the festival circuit or making the rounds via screeners. Right now, this definitely isn't the case for me and won't be for the foreseeable future. I watch nearly everything after it hits the second window viewing options - namely VOD and home media. By that point, everyone's moved on to other topics. I've gotten very used to catching up on film discussions months after they've happened, usually through articles and podcasts.

But even though I'm not a part of Film Twitter, I'm very, very comforted to know that it exists. After seeing so many of the old film discussion message boards on various sites shut down in recent years, and failing to find any good replacements, I'm happy to know that there is a forum for nerdy, critical film discussion out there on the internet. Nobody is going to shut down Twitter in a hurry. And that the film nerds are out there, somewhere, just waiting to geek out over the latest marvel blockbuster or Hirokazu Koreeda joint with.
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Goodbye to the Rotten Tomatoes Forum

I spent a couple of weeks toying with the idea of writing up a post on the changes that happened over at the AV Club last year, where the website was redesigned to become part of the Gawker network, and the comments were migrated over to a new platform called Kinja, throwing the site's community into predictable chaos. Cue another mass exodus of disgruntled media fans who felt they had been evicted from their turf. They went off and founded a new site called The Avocado (https://the-avocado.org) to continue their discussion activities in peace. And they brought the Disquis commenting platform with them, which I find kinda hilarious.

But then I went and checked in on the Rotten Tomatoes discussion forums, another review site adjacent media fan community, and discovered that their forums had been deleted by Rotten Tomatoes at some point in November, 2017. And my heart promptly sank through the floor. While I read the AV Club discussions occasionally and enjoyed them, I never really participated. Rotten Tomatoes, or RT, was different. These were the forums I had visited daily for several years between 2003 and 2010, where I knew many of the regular posters by name, and where I participated frequently. This was my online home during the years I really became a film geek.

I didn't post nearly as much as some, but I did count myself as an active member of the RT community. I was one of the forum's resident animation obsessives, and wrote up several lengthy, multi-post lists of favorite movies and shows. Others used similar formats for retrospectives, marathons, and analysis pieces on a myriad of different geeky media subjects. It was a tradition that when you hit a new post count milestone (10 thousand, 20 thousand), you wrote up a new feature. And then there were the debates, the tournaments, the polls and the contests, the most famous of which was a weekly Photoshop challenge. The long-running in-joke involving Vin Diesel in a ridiculous action pose from "The Chronicles of Riddick" is the only reason I still remember that movie fondly. The tone on RT was informal and people frequently went off topic, even though there was a dedicated "Off Topic" forum. TV, sports, and wrestling threads were common. Sure, there were trolls and creeps, but also some of the most knowledgeable and creative and bored film nerds on the internet, who just wanted to hang out and talk and write about movies.

And it's all gone. Totally, irretrievably gone. Hundreds of thousands of posts, and all that geeky fan content have been lost to the electronic ether. I spent some time with Google and the Wayback Machine sneaking peeks at the old forums, from before the 2014 redesign that drove some members away for good. But long before that, the RT forums had been neglected for several years by the Rotten Tomatoes leadership, and were often buggy and temperamental. They weren't even linked to from the front page after the 2010 Flixter acquisition, when a few experiments in social networking features meant rearranging a lot of the original site's architecture. The forum's heyday was really in the early 2000s, when fandom discussion migrated out of Usenet and into message boards and forums.

I miss being part of that community. We were mostly anonymous, but the core group of users were prolific and friendly enough that you could get to know people on the forum. The number of active posters was only a few dozen, the moderators were very involved, and it was the era before the bots and 4Chan kids really started gumming up the works. There was a lot of passion, but little ego. Ongoing conversation threads could stretch out over months and years. Everyone just seemed happy to have a listening ear. You weren't always going to get a lot of responses on posts about an unpopular show or movie, but you certainly wouldn't get a hard time about it either. I didn't even mind most of the trolls so much, since the ones that stuck around usually just wanted to talk about cartoons or "Star Wars."

Of course it couldn't last. My own activity on the forums started to peter out after 2010, when I started spending less time online. I could tell that the community was also growing restless. Social media was started to siphon away some users, and the remaining ones felt increasingly insular. The site's technological bugs kept getting worse and most of the main review site's users didn't even know the forums existed anymore. I found other corners of fandom to spend time in, and tried my hand at blogging independently. I kept an eye out for other movie forums I might replace RT with, but never found anything remotely close. And every time I went back to RT, the users were fewer and fewer, the conversations slower, and the updates more infrequent.

There's no going back. Some of the RT posters seem to have gone to The Corrierino to regroup. The IMDB boards are being recreated on MovieChat. Letterboxd has emerged as the social network of choice for movie fans, and there are plenty of dedicated spaces on Reddit and Tumblr and all the rest for whatever movie or show you could name. But for a community as weird and wonderful as the one I knew on Rotten Tomatoes? Still not a lot of good options.

Bye RT. You'll be missed.

Love, Vienna
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"Game of Thrones" and Spoiler Culture

Despite the title of this post, no spoilers lie ahead.

Once I finished this latest season of "Game of Thrones," months later than everyone else as usual, I set about catching up with the fandom. I read reviews, listened to recap podcasts, and went back over fan discussions of various episodes so I could see the reactions and speculation. Usually there's some chatter about leaked spoilers and set reports, but this time around it was very different. Apparently at some point last year, well before the season started, somebody involved with the production leaked a scene-by-scene breakdown of all the episodes.

Now, "Game of Thrones" has always been a fandom where a viewer has to watch out for spoilers, because a good chunk of the fans read the George R.R. Martin books, and discussion of the adaptation choices has always been very lively. I knew about the Red Wedding years before it happened, for instance. This situation is something very different. I tracked down a copy of the spoilers myself and found a list of bare bones plot points, essentially. They had no possible function except as spoilers, and it turned out that they were very accurate ones. Only one or two of the described scenes didn't turn up in the final version of the show, possibly because they were being saved for next year or because the writers had changed their minds about a particular development.

It's one thing to be familiar with a piece of source material that's being adapted into another medium. It's quite another to simply have a plot synopsis of everything that's going to happen. I don't understand the appeal of the latter, but apparently there's ravenous demand in the "Game of Thrones" fandom for these details. Nobody would have leaked the synopsis if there wasn't. Along with the breakdown that turned out to be real, I found several others with erroneous speculation about what was going to happen this season. More fascinating were people piecing together information from set reports and media coverage to figure out which characters were going to appear in which locations, and in what combinations.

HBO has been very proactive about stopping early leaks of the completed episodes, and scripts are subject to all kinds of security measures, but how do you prevent something like these latest spoilers? I suppose that the saving grace is that there was no way to confirm the synopsis was real until the new episodes were actually released. And I should note that there were enough eyebrow-raising developments in the last season of "Game of Thrones" that the leaks were suspected of being fakes for a good long while. Without that confirmation, the spoilers wouldn't be considered newsworthy, so there was little danger of a spoilerphobe like me accidentally stumbling across them.

Still, there is a lingering risk. There are always those internet pests who love posting spoilers everywhere, and once the leaks were confirmed at the start of the season, they would have surely been emboldened to go on another rampage. I think what really disturbs me most about this situation is that somebody close enough to the production to have all this information is knowingly enabling this kind of behavior. At the time of writing, the leaker remains anonymous, so there's a good possibility that what happens in the final season of "Game of Thrones" may also wind up leaked well in advance. And this time around, more people may pay attention - willingly or unwillingly.

And if "Game of Thrones," one of the most lucrative and high profile productions isn't safe, what is? I cringe at the thought of "Star Wars" or "Avengers" spoilers floating around out there, especially as those film series are approaching some pretty significant climaxes. For those viewers who like their spoilers, and can somehow enjoy a piece of media in spite of knowing all the surprises in advance, I suppose there's nothing really wrong with that. However, the spoiler culture that they've allowed to flourish is getting out of hand.

I'm grateful now that I've detached myself a bit from the current entertainment media, because the distance provides some insulation from these kinds of spoilers. However, this is also a reminder that I have to be more vigilant than ever to enjoy my media the way I want to.

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The Great Movie Easter Egg Hunt

When I was watching "Spider-man: Homecoming," I was struck by how many little cameos, in-jokes, references, and homages were packed into the film, from the old 1960s cartoon theme song making an appearance during the opening credits, to former Spider-man candidate Donald Glover in a minor role, to the AI of Peter's Spider-man suit being voiced by Jennifer Connelly, who in real life is married to Paul Bettany, who voices JARVIS, the AI of the Iron Man suit.  

These were just the Easter Eggs that I caught myself.  When I went online after the movie, I found a staggering list of additional ones.  Apparently every thug that Spidey runs into during the film is a version of some future supervillain.  The school principal is a descendant of one of the Howling Commandos from the first "Captain America" film, which you'd only know if you managed to catch a glimpse of a photo in his office.  Even the license plates on some of the cars are issue numbers from the "Spider-man" comic book.  And then there's the incredibly obscure "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" reference.

Now, these Easter Eggs in "Spider-man: Homecoming" were handled well, and weren't distracting.  If you didn't happen to catch them, it didn't have much impact on your enjoyment of the rest of the film.  However, there have been many instances lately of Easter Egg heavy films handling these elements badly.  For instance, I think this is a big reason why the "Ghostbusters" reboot was such a clunker.  It felt like every five minutes, the movie had to stop dead in its tracks to acknowledge another famous face dropping in for a cameo, or to not-so-subtly point out another reference to the original film.  Or then you had the "Beauty and the Beast" remake, which seemed terrified to do anything differently than the animated version.   

I can't really blame the writers though.  Frequently, these Easter Eggs generate some of the most discussion about a film.  Watchers of remakes and reboots often are anticipating homages, and there's been a sort of gamification of the viewing experience, as filmmakers are now actively encouraging audience members to pore over every scene in search of the more obscure ones.  In PIXAR movies, we know to be on the lookout for the Pizza Planet truck, A113, and references to other PIXAR films.  Quentin Tarantino films frequently use the same brands, and many of the characters are distantly related to one another.  Fans have spent untold hours figuring out ways to connect disparate films together into vast cinematic universes, often based on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The internet culture around many big movies and television shows is a big reason for the greater scrutiny of media minutiae.  Fans love trivia and sharing trivia, and for a certain segment of them, the more obscure the better.  I noticed a few years ago that trailers were being taken apart frame by frame practically the minute they were released.  It's common now to find Youtube videos and articles detailing the specifics in exhaustive detail.  Filmmakers are responding in kind with more challenging Easter Eggs because they know that the fans are willing to go that extra mile to find them.  The creators of "Westworld" found out last year that even the tiniest clues, like a slightly different logo in a certain scene, could spill the beans on their big twist weeks in advance.  

Mostly, I don't think there's any harm to the greater proliferation of Easter Eggs when they're done well.  Both the filmmakers and the audience members seem to enjoy them.  The trouble comes when the writers lean too hard on the nostalgia, and get too attached to certain elements, leading to some reboots feeling like going down a checklist of all the good stuff from the original.  The reason the "Spider-man: Homecoming" references worked so well was because most of them were practically invisible.  Even if you didn't know that the two student newscasters were based on journalist characters from the comic book, they still worked fine as comic relief.

Personally, I'm not the kind of fan that goes looking for Easter Eggs, but it is fun to spot them when I do.  

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On Being a Terrible Fan

I used to be a media fan, meaning that I spent a good amount of time and attention on engaging with particular pieces of media.  I went through distinct phases of being a Disney fan, a "Star Wars" fan, an "X-files" fan, a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fan, and an anime obsessive.  I bought merchandise, read tie-in books, was actively engaged in the online fan communities, and even went to a convention or two.  And it was a lot of fun.

And now, as a thirty-something adult, it's hard to think of any movie or television franchise that I could count myself a fan of in that sense.  Oh sure, I still spend ridiculous amounts of time consuming media, but there are so many shows that I'm trying to keep up with, and so many movies, I don't devote much time to any one of them anymore.  I barely rewatch any media, to the point where I realized recently that I haven't seen a rerun of any show in at least five years (more on that in another post).  I don't bother buying any media, unless it's a gift for someone else.  The only media-themed merchandise I've purchased recently have been Disney toys for various younger relatives.  I had the oddest moment of disconnect when a friend sent me a couple pieces of "Firefly" paraphernalia as a Christmas present.  How long ago was it that I was a "Firefly" fan?    

I've always tangled with this issue to some extent.  When I was younger, I used to call myself "panfannish" because I dabbled in a lot of different fandoms instead of devoting the majority of my time to one particular franchise, the way that a lot of other fans did.  I was also a consummate nerd even among nerds.  As an anime fan, I was rarely into the most popular shows like "Naruto," but older series or the oddball, artsy shows that were aimed at more niche audiences.  And while I did like fanworks, I much preferred discussing and analyzing media.  And that could be difficult, depending on the fandom, when discussions among fans in many communities often got derailed by shipping wars or behind-the-scenes drama.  What I had the least interest in were toys, collectibles, clothing  or really anything announcing to the world at large that I was a fan.  I did try cosplay once - and that was enough to decide it wasn't for me.       

I collected media for a little while, during the DVD era, but found that I rarely went back into my little collection to watch anything after a certain point.  I was too busy taking Criterions home from the library, ten at a time, or trying figure out which streaming service was worth a subscription.  A few months ago, I packed all of the DVDs away to make room for a new scanner, and I don't think that they'll be back out any time soon.  To an outsider observer, there's almost no indication that I'm as well-versed in media as I am.  There are only a few framed movie poster prints on my walls, mostly tucked out of the way.  Among my friends, the close ones know that I'm a nerd, but there are only two or three who I discuss media with actively - the ones who are far bigger fans of various media than I am.  And that's enough for me.    

So I am, by most measures, an absolutely terrible fan.  I don't spend money on my favorite franchises beyond a movie ticket or rental fee.  I don't buy the merchandise, go to the events, or support fanworks.  And lately, I don't watch the specific films and shows I like often enough to really obsess over their fine details.  I only know the quotes and the memes once they become big in the popular culture.  I can still rattle off a bunch of my favorite quotes from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," but I couldn't do the same for "Orphan Black" or "Rick and Morty."  It's a little ironic that right around the time we started seeing media fandom become more mainstream is when I started checking out of it.  I think I'll always be a media obsessive, but I don't fit the definition of a media fan.             

Frankly, I don't particularly want to be a fan anymore.  I just want to watch and enjoy the media.

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An Eulogy for the IMDB Message Boards

Well, there goes another one. I had mixed feelings about the IMDB message boards being shut down. They functioned terribly, were poorly managed, and attracted the worst sort of trolls. However, they were unique, and some of the interactions and information there simply could not be found anywhere else on the internet.

Everybody uses the IMDB site, so everyone has run across the message boards at some point, I expect. I stayed away from the general discussion forums , because there were plenty like it, but I did occasionally post on some of the message boards that were attached to the specific IMDB pages. Every single IMDB page had one, every minor actor with only one credit, every short film, and every last movie and television show, no matter how minor. That meant that if anyone was looking for information about some obscurity, those message boards were often the first place that people looked.

By default, IMDB pages were often the most high profile spot to discuss any piece of media or the associated talent. Occasionally, they were the only spot. If I had a question about some forgotten TV movie from the 1980s, at least I could post it somewhere that other people who'd seen the same movie might actually be looking. For the most obscure titles, posters were forever helping other posters track down ways to watch. Over the years I ran across a few small, but dedicated communities that existed around the boards for old movies stars or certain cult films. In a few special cases, the talent connected to a particular piece of media might even show up to interact with fans. Sometimes the conversations would go back decades, since the IMDB boards were never deleted.

Well, that's not quite true. I found out around five years ago that most of the individual boards did have a limit to how many posts they could display, and the oldest ones were automatically deleted. During the "Avatar: the Last Airbender" casting debacle, I posted a lot to the film's IMDB board debating other posters. I must have posted dozens of times, but none of those posts showed up on the board after a few years, or even in my own posting history. They were all deleted to make room for newer postings, while some of my much older posts to more obscure boards remained. All of the boards with higher volumes of traffic had this problem.

Then again, the more popular an IMDB message board was, the worse it tended to be for any useful discussion. Moderation was essentially nonexistent, and the level of discourse depended entirely on the users, who tend to be younger and less discerning. Spammers and trolls often ran rampant. And then, of course, there was the extremely basic nested design of the boards, which often made more complex interactions difficult. I only visited the IMDB boards rarely as a result, when there were no other good alternatives, or when I was curious about the more popular reaction to a particular piece of media.

The speculation on the boards for upcoming projects was always fun. Back when a live action "The Last Unicorn" project was in the works, its IMDB board was always a good place to catch up on the latest rumors. You had to dig through a lot of casting wishlists and wild speculation to find the real information, but there really wasn't any place better for news. The project was small, and not being tracked by anyone but the most ardent fans. Eventually, plans for "The Last Unicorn" movie collapsed completely, revealed to be a pipe dream. But it was fun while it lasted.

There's not much left on the IMDB site that someone else on the internet isn't doing better in some way. Those tiny, obscure message boards, however, where one of the few unique features that it had left. Some kind souls tried to preserve what they could before the system was shut down, but nobody is offering any real comparable alternative. You'd need to build an entire new media database to do that. There are a couple of places that might have the structure in place to handle it - Icheckmovies, for instance - but you could never get the same kind of participation again without IMDB's clout.

And my search for another movie forum to call home continues.

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Keeping Up With the Conversation

Time for a little self-reflection.  Skip this post if you're not interested in the latest Missmediajunkie "state of the blog" installment.

It's been about a year and a half since my massive life change, and I had to significantly reduce my consumption of media.  The impact actually hasn't been as severe as I was expecting, and I've been able to keep up with pretty much everything I consider a priority by cutting back on TV and classics.  With new movies, I just have to wait until they hit VOD/DVD since theater trips are going to remain rare events for me for the foreseeable future.  More importantly, I'm finding it very easy to keep up with the critical conversations around media, through some interesting avenues.

In the past, I'd rush to see a new movie during the first week it was in theaters so I could talk about it with friends and enjoy the media blitz surrounding its release.  When I saw "Inception," for instance, I got to follow various debates and interpretations for weeks on my favorite film sites, read various reaction articles, and watch how it performed form week to week at the box office.  "Inception" was one of the big hits of the summer of 2010 and widely embraced in the popular culture.  There were already jokes and references being made to it within days its premiere.  And all the hype and buzz helped to keep my interest in the film high, and fuel my own enjoyment of it.  If I'd had to wait until the following December, when "Inception" was released on home media, to see the film, I would have missed being part of the wonderful fuss, right?

Well, yes, but it turns out this can be mitigated in a lot of ways.  I couldn't manage a trip for my most anticipated film of the summer: PIXAR's "Inside Out."  So I carefully avoided every article and discussion thread about the movie (still ended up getting spoiled for a few things), and waited until November when it hit VOD.  Like "Inception," this turned out to be one of those films I really, really wanted to see people's reactions to.  So I hit the internet and started digging.  All the podcasts and online reviews for "Inside Out" were waiting for me.  Dozens of interviews, opinion pieces, and supplementary materials were there too.  I didn't have to wait for fans to start creating fanart.  It's everywhere and it's fantastic.  And I'm so glad that reaction videos have become a thing, because after watching a few of them, it felt like it had only been a few days since opening weekend.  Now I'm wondering whether there would be any interest in a website that helps to facilitate this sort of thing.

The one thing I can't replicate, sadly, is being able to participate in those early, breathless discussion threads online through various forums and message boards.  It's still fun to read over them and follow along the timeline of the box office speculation, but it's not the same.  However, I've found that it is a lot easier to have conversations about "Inside Out" with people in real life now, because there's been more time for people to see it.  Only the rabid die-hards like Yours Truly really prioritize the movie theater experience, after all.  Mostly, normal people wait and see movies when it's convenient for them.  Normal people don't follow the Oscar race and treat the winners as recommendations.  Normal people don't have a list of the 75 movies they have left to see for 2015 (which is probably going to be over 100 movies if we're being honest with ourselves).  Alas, I'm never going to be a normal person where movies are concerned.

But that's okay. I can compromise and I can be patient.  I know that by far the most important thing about movie fandom is the movies themselves, and it's been a great year.  I actually have a solid top ten list already based on what I've seen so far, and that hasn't happened in a while.  The fall and holiday season look promising too - heck, my boss just told everybody to go and see "The Martian."  I've gotta keep my priorities straight though.  "Star Wars" and "Spectre" are first in line.

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