History WebVideo / SarahZ

* AlternateSelfShipping: [[invoked]]{{Discussed|Trope}} extensively in her video about the history of [[WesternAnimation/TheLorax the Once-ler fandom]], which famously had people shipping the Once-ler with AU versions of himself. Sarah explains that this came about because, while the Once-ler was a seriously popular character on Tumblr at the time and people wanted to ship him, there was no one from the source material to ship him ''with''; Ted and Audrey are children and, as they puts it, "people weren't ''quite'' freaky enough to ship him with the Lorax yet." This, combined with the fact that the movie has the Once-ler change from a starry-eyed innocent to a greedy CorruptCorporateExecutive ''so'' quickly, it felt like two different characters, made the fandom split the character into two; the original, sweet Once-ler, and the evil version they nicknamed "the Greed-ler." Sarah then goes on to describe how this led to the creation of ''thousands'' of alternate Once-lers in the fandom, most of which bore practically no resemblance to the original character. In her analysis, Sarah suggests that part of the appeal may have been that the Once-ler was a sort of [[GatewaySeries Gateway Character]] for sympathetic, tragic, and oddly appealing villains. Most of the fans were young teens, and he appeared in a children's movie, plus he was presented as likable from the outset and was redeemed at the end, so you didn't have to feel bad or "justify" liking him. The ship then came from people wanting to explore shipping dynamics like FoeRomanceSubtext, DatingCatwoman, MindGameShip and AngelDevilShipping, but, because they were quite young, weren't familiar with media that actually contained those elements. So they did it with the Once-ler, because it was safe and familiar.

* TemptingFate: Lampshaded to hell and back in "The Supernatural Finale Aired, and Then Tumblr Exploded." In her previous video, Sarah remarked that ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' had a mega-popular ship between two men that was queerbait and never going to happen. Not even a week later, it ''did''... but in the most buckwild and weirdly homophobic way possible, and that was just the tip of the iceberg to how bizarre Destielgate was going to be. Cue her getting dozens and dozens of comments and messages saying things like, "I don't know how, but ''you did this''." Sarah also notes that her videos on [[{{Series/Sherlock}} TJLC]] and [[WesternAnimation/TheLorax the Once-ler fandom]] caused brief resurgences in both of those tags.

* EndOfAnEra: Her video on the infamous [=DashCon=] heavily involved the idea that it was, in many respects, the end of the "cringingly enthusiastic" era of Website/{{Tumblr}}, where people talked about a "Tumblr University" as an ideal situation, created maps of all the different communities, or mashed various fandoms together to create chimeras like [=SuperWhoLock=]. After Dashcon bombed out, there was a clear shift away from that. Merged fandoms died out almost completely, and the term "hellsite" being used to describe Tumblr went into fashion, with the site taking on a notably more pessimistic tone.

* [[invoked]]TrendKiller: In "The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture", she points to the Gamergate controversy of 2014 as the beginning of the end for the mainstream geek culture explosion of the late 2000s and early '10s. In her view, not only did it bring long-standing issues with misogyny and racism prevalent in geek culture to the surface and make them a dramatic fault line within various fandoms (citing the ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 reboot]] and the ''Franchise/StarWars'' sequel trilogy as examples), it also marked the moment when the tension between geek culture's historic self-image as bullied, put-upon outsiders and its new image as [[ProudToBeAGeek the cool kids of pop culture]] finally snapped, destroying the idea of there being a single, unified geek culture at all. A series of other individual controversies that followed, such as the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' Szechuan sauce debacle, the fall from grace of various big-name figures (most notably Creator/JossWhedon), and the oversaturation of MerchandiseDriven brands of middling quality like Loot Crate, [=ThinkGeek=], and Toys/FunkoPop, further took the shine off of geek culture and increasingly made it seem primarily a domain dominated by ConspicuousConsumption and [[invoked]] PanderingToTheBase, with the year 2019 serving as its death rattle even as "geeky" media itself continued to flourish.

* CanadaEh: In her Q&A, she responds to a question asking if she's Canadian by dropping "eh" and "aboot" in a stereotypical accent. The way she pronounces "about" as "aboot" naturally also fulfills the trope. While tearing apart the movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', she kept on referring to ''[[VerbalTic Soar-ry]] [[Film/SorryToBotherYou To Bother You]]'' as a better movie about a similar concept. Also, there's her name, which, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg this famous commercial]] for Molson Canadian beer pointed out, is pronounced "zed", not "zee".

* CanadaEh: In her Q&A, she responds to a question asking if she's Canadian by dropping "eh" and "aboot" in a stereotypical accent. The way she pronounces "about" as "aboot" naturally also fulfills the trope. While tearing apart the movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' she kept on referring to ''[[VerbalTic Soar-ry]] [[Film/SorryToBotherYou To Bother You]]'' as a better movie about a similar concept.

* GenreKiller: [[invoked]]
** In "The Rise and Fall of Teen Dystopias", she stated that, while the disappointing ends to the ''[[Literature/TheHungerGames Hunger Games]]'' and ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'' film series killed the young adult dystopian genre, the rise of the UsefulNotes/BlackLivesMatterMovement in the mid-late 2010s and the election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump as United States President in 2016 nailed the genre's coffin shut and ensured that it wouldn't receive the sorts of [[PopularityPolynomial ten-years-later nostalgic reappraisals]] that ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' did. Amidst the political climate of the late 2010s, the simplistic morality and heroic savior protagonists of many YA dystopias increasingly did not ring true to the experiences of young people engaged in activism, for whom such books became relics of a simpler, more innocent time. The genre was soon displaced on the one hand by social issue novels like ''Literature/TheHateUGive'' that more directly commented on real-world problems without cloaking them in the metaphor of a dystopian future, and on the other by YA fantasy series like ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'' that offered similar exotic worlds and romance without the ham-fisted social commentary.
** In "The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture", she points to the Gamergate controversy of 2014 as the beginning of the end for the mainstream geek culture explosion of the late 2000s and early '10s. In her view, not only did it bring long-standing issues with misogyny and racism prevalent in geek culture to the surface and make them a dramatic fault line within various fandoms (citing the ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 reboot]] and the ''Franchise/StarWars'' sequel trilogy as examples), it also marked the moment when the tension between geek culture's historic self-image as bullied, put-upon outsiders and its new image as [[ProudToBeAGeek the cool kids of pop culture]] finally snapped, destroying the idea of there being a single, unified geek culture at all. A series of other individual controversies that followed, such as the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' Szechuan sauce debacle, the fall from grace of various big-name figures (most notably Creator/JossWhedon), and the oversaturation of MerchandiseDriven brands of middling quality like Loot Crate, [=ThinkGeek=], and Toys/FunkoPop, further took the shine off of geek culture and increasingly made it seem primarily a domain dominated by ConspicuousConsumption and [[invoked]] PanderingToTheBase, with the year 2019 serving as its death rattle even as "geeky" media itself continued to flourish.

* LiteralMetaphor: In "That Time the Sherlock Fandom Invented a Character", she explains that the criticisms of ''Homestuck''[='=]s trans content were written entirely by Emily (herself a trans woman), and she is essentially "a vessel for Emily" in that part of the video. To drive the point home, they open this segment with a part where she moves her mouth but it's Emily's voice that comes out.

* LiteralMetaphor: In "That Time the Sherlock Fandom Invented a Character", she explains that the criticisms of ''Homestuck''[='=]s trans content were written entirely by Emily (herself a trans woman), and she is essentially "a vessel for Emily" in that part of the video. To drive the point home, they open this segment with a part where they moves her mouth but it's Emily's voice that comes out.

* GilliganCut: Done quite hilariously in "The 'Author' of ''My Immortal'' Emailed Me, and Then It Got Worse", where Sarah briefly speculates that a forum goer from Wiki/ThisVeryWiki might be yet another one of Toby's {{sock puppet}}s, but then gives a few reasons why they think it's ''probably'' not true and that the account is legit. Cut ''immediately'' to Sarah nine hours later, saying that nope, that account is ''absolutely'' Toby and she has the proof, having noticed a clue during editing and then done some digging to confirm it.

* ShoutOut: In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg&t=1932s "Is Fanfiction Art? (It’s Complicated)"]] she uses [[WebVideo/BillWurtz bill wurtz]]'s WebVideo/HistoryOfTheEntireWorldIGuess as one Website/YouTube video she would consider art.

* MisaimedFandom: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg&t=1932s "Is Fanfiction Art? (It’s Complicated)"]]. Sara points out how some people criticize [[Literature/TheGreatGatsby The Great Gatsby]]'s characters for being rich and morally awful, which she states was the entire point of the novel.

* ShoutOut: In [["Is Fanfiction Art? (It’s Complicated)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg&t=1932s]] she uses [[bill wurtz WebVideo/BillWurtz]]'s WebVideo/HistoryOfTheEntireWorldIGuess as one Website/YouTube video she would consider art.

* ShoutOut: In [[“Is Fanfiction Art? (It’s Complicated)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg&t=1932s]] she uses [[bill wurtz WebVideo/BillWurtz]]’s WebVideo/HistoryOfTheEntireWorldIGuess as one Website/YouTube video she would consider art.

* {{Corpsing}}:
** However hard she tries and even having scripted the segment in advance, she ''cannot'' keep a straight face when it comes to talking about [[WesternAnimation/TheLorax Once-ler]] fans [[ScrewYourself shipping him with himself]].
** She's laughing with incredulity when she describes how [=DashCon=] offered to compensate those who donated with an extra hour in the ball pit (which was not a timed event).

* MadonnaWhoreComplex: In "The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture", Sara discusses how women in male-dominated fandoms either had to "aggressively sexualize" themselves in order to gain a little bit of acceptance, or work hard to desexualize themselves to differentiate themselves from those "fake geek girls".

* AlternateAesopInterpretation: [[invoked]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o52zD-aGqjA In her own video essay]] on the movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', Sarah finds that many of the problems of the world of 2505 could be blamed less on human stupidity and more on huge corporations like Brawndo manipulating and corrupting a complacent society through buying out entire government agencies and using their wealth and power to get their way at the expense of the public good until everything is falling apart and no one is really benefitting anymore, not even the people supposedly in charge (who themselves have become just as incompetent as the rest of the populace).

* AlternateAesopInterpretaton: [[invoked]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o52zD-aGqjA In her own video essay]] on the movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', Sarah finds that many of the problems of the world of 2505 could be blamed less on human stupidity and more on huge corporations like Brawndo manipulating and corrupting a complacent society through buying out entire government agencies and using their wealth and power to get their way at the expense of the public good until everything is falling apart and no one is really benefitting anymore, not even the people supposedly in charge (who themselves have become just as incompetent as the rest of the populace).

* FranchiseOriginalSin[[invoked]]: As pointed out in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjov-gt6YCw "Why Friday Was Made"]], ARK Music Factory originally made pretensions towards being a legitimate record company as opposed to a [[VanityPublishing vanity label]], recording pop songs that, while not great, were more or less acceptable... until "Music/{{Friday}}" by Music/RebeccaBlack, the worst song they ever recorded, became a smash hit in 2011 on the strength of BileFascination. From that point forward, ARK tried to make lightning strike twice with songs that were designed to be SoBadItsGood by copying the "Friday" formula, to diminishing returns that culminated in the label folding in 2013. Moreover, Sarah also argues that the impact of "Friday" reached beyond just music, marking a negative turning point for internet culture as a whole. The massive controversy that swirled around the song demonstrated that anger and outrage could be very effective drivers of conversation and engagement, creating a template for later companies, celebrities, and influencers that engaged in publicity stunts designed to court controversy in order to build brand awareness.

[[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK-GxvzttTnNhq3JPYpXhqg Sarah Z]] (pronounced "Sarah Zed", not "Sarah Zee") is a Canadian video essayist. From back in May 2018, she started out covering topics like films and television before later focusing more on social and artistic issues, such as the concept of authorial intent, "fast-food twitter", {{Website/Tumblr}} history, and other aspects of Internet culture.

She has been compared to other so-called "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BreadTube BreadTube]]" video essayists like [[WebVideo/HBomberguy H.Bomberguy]] and [[WebVideo/FoldingIdeas Folding Ideas]].

* AlternateSelfShipping: [[invoked]]{{Discussed|Trope}} extensively in her video about the history of [[WesternAnimation/TheLorax the Once-ler fandom]], which famously had people shipping the Once-ler with AU versions of himself. Sarah explains that this came about because, while the Once-ler was a seriously popular character on Tumblr at the time and people wanted to ship him, there was no one from the source material to ship him ''with''; Ted and Audrey are children and, as she puts it, "people weren't ''quite'' freaky enough to ship him with the Lorax yet." This, combined with the fact that the movie has the Once-ler change from a starry-eyed innocent to a greedy CorruptCorporateExecutive ''so'' quickly, it felt like two different characters, made the fandom split the character into two; the original, sweet Once-ler, and the evil version they nicknamed "the Greed-ler." Sarah then goes on to describe how this led to the creation of ''thousands'' of alternate Once-lers in the fandom, most of which bore practically no resemblance to the original character. In her analysis, Sarah suggests that part of the appeal may have been that the Once-ler was a sort of [[GatewaySeries Gateway Character]] for sympathetic, tragic, and oddly appealing villains. Most of the fans were young teens, and he appeared in a children's movie, plus he was presented as likable from the outset and was redeemed at the end, so you didn't have to feel bad or "justify" liking him. The ship then came from people wanting to explore shipping dynamics like FoeRomanceSubtext, DatingCatwoman, MindGameShip and AngelDevilShipping, but, because they were quite young, weren't familiar with media that actually contained those elements. So they did it with the Once-ler, because it was safe and familiar.

* DeathOfTheAuthor: [[invoked]] Discussed extensively in her video on Creator/JKRowling and authorial intent. She finds it inherently hypocritical that Rowling has been supportive of fan fiction and different interpretations of characters, but has been quick to resort of WordOfGod to debunk theories she doesn't like (like responding "no" to a fan asking if Sirius was gay).

** She argues something similar about the Once-Ler himself, noting that the character has a lot of traits associated with appealing villains (a sympathetic backstory that leads to a redemption, a cool design that gets played for fanservice a few times, and the mere fact that he's a VillainProtagonist) but is still made very approachable by the narrative. She notes that this was mostly the result of bad writing trying way too hard to make him sympathetic to the point of undermining the message, but that it did work, because it made him an easy introduction to the "sympathetic villain" archetype for a mostly tweenaged audience.

* GilliganCut: Done quite hilariously in "The 'Author' of ''My Immortal'' Emailed Me, and Then It Got Worse", where Sarah briefly speculates that a forum goer from Wiki/ThisVeryWiki might be yet another one of Toby's {{sock puppet}}s, but then gives a few reasons why she thinks it's ''probably'' not true and that the account is legit. Cut ''immediately'' to Sarah nine hours later, saying that nope, that account is ''absolutely'' Toby and she has the proof, having noticed a clue during editing and then done some digging to confirm it.

* HanlonsRazor: Oddly inverted in her video on ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', where she makes the argument that the film is too willing to dismiss instances of genuine malice as simple idiocy, and has no broad thesis for why its society became dominated by uneducated louts other than "stupid people are just like that." She claims that in real life, societal dysfunction is often the result of people who ''do'' know that what they're doing is wrong, and simply don't care. Well-educated and logical people are capable of making incredibly selfish decisions, and stupid people can often have bad intentions. She contrasts this with ''Film/SorryToBotherYou'', where CEO Steve Lift is portrayed as a pretentious, hedonistic moron, but this doesn't prevent him from being shown as evil.

* HereWeGoAgain: In her video about the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' finale, she notes that a lot of the theories about Dean originally reciprocating Castiel's love confession and/or reuniting with him before [[invoked]] ExecutiveMeddling made the writers change it sounds ''very'' similar to the Johnlock Conspiracy, and sincerely hopes that it doesn't get as out of hand and genuinely harmful as TJLC could.

* INeedAFreakingDrink: She starts her "Homestuck Sent Me A Legal Threat, And Then It Got Worse" video with a clip of her making a cotton candy Faygo and vodka cocktail. With a ''lot'' of vodka.

* JustJokingJustification: She says that a frequent defence of ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'''s bad-faith criticism was that it was merely Doug Walker playing a character, and the opinions were those of a character for comedy. This defence is broken when she shows that The Nostalgia Critic's opinions would show up in Doug Walker's out-of-character reviews as well.

* LiteralMetaphor: In "That Time the Sherlock Fandom Invented a Character", she explains that the criticisms of ''Homestuck''[='=]s trans content were written entirely by Emily (herself a trans woman), and she is essentially "a vessel for Emily" in that part of the video. To drive the point home, she opens this segment with a part where she moves her mouth but it's Emily's voice that comes out.

* MainstreamObscurity: [[invoked]]Her video on ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' brings up the fact that, though the film is incredibly widely discussed and its name is essentially shorthand for "our society is getting stupider", actual knowledge of the film's events, characters, jokes, and social commentary beyond the premise is very thin on the ground. She particularly notes that conservatives often reference the film, ignoring that the film was mostly meant to mock Bush-era redneck conservatism and the "idiots" portrayed in the film are mostly [[LowerClassLout stereotypical trailer trash]].

* SequelEpisode: "Does JK Rowling's Transphobia Ruin Harry Potter?" is one to her previous video "JK Rowling and Authorial Intent". The video is technically a response to Rowling's well-known bouts of transphobic behavior on Twitter getting worse and resulting in her releasing a manifesto online she nicknamed "TERF Wars", and subsequently makes another analysis about Authorial Intent and Death of the Author of how Rowling's views has influenced her writing and just saying "Hatsune Miku wrote Harry Potter" may make people forget that. The video makes multiple references to the previous video, which also referenced the behavior of fans towards Rowling's troublesome tweeting.

* SympathyForTheDevil: "Devil" is a bit strong, but at the end of "The 'Author' of Fanfic/MyImmortal Emailed Me, And Then It Got Worse," she outright says she doesn't have any positive feelings about Toby/Todd, seeing him as an immature pathological liar... but she also admits she feels genuinely sorry for him, noting that his behavior just screams "cry for help" and someone who is obviously very lonely. She even notes that a lot of his non-TrollFic works (like at least some of the poetry) seem very genuine and like a kid trying to work through his feelings with creativity, and had he stuck to ''that'' instead of hiding behind irony and sock puppets, he'd probably be a much better adjusted and happier person now.

** In her ''Dear Evan Hansen'' video, she says that it's impossible to make a grounded musical, just like how you can't make a subdued opera or a good video game music cover band.
** In "The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture", Sarah claims that ''Series/YoungSheldon'' is a murder mystery where Sheldon solves a new case every week. She then says “None of you can prove me wrong on that because nobody has ever watched ''Young Sheldon''.”

* UnfortunateImplications:[[invoked]] A large section of her video on ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' involves the film's treatment of intelligence as an unchangeable and generalized trait steeped mostly in genetics, and it crediting the ultimate downfall of society to "stupid people outbred smart people"--noting that said claims are, essentially, eugenics.
* UnnecessaryMakeover[[invoked]]: She touches on this trope and applying it to real people in "How Fans Treat Creators", and how fans can sometimes feel ownership over a person's image the same way they might over a fictional character's. In her view, this is over-stepping a boundary, as a person has the right to do whatever they want with their own appearances - relating a message she once got from a subscriber who didn't like her haircut (at thirteen no less!).

* WatchedItForTheRepresentation: [[invoked]] Invoked and discussed in "Tumblr's $6000 Scam: The Story of All Or Nothing". She explains that when she was coming to understand her own bisexuality, she would sometimes watch movies or shows just because they had two women in a relationship because she wanted so badly to see people like her, so she understands the impulse to recommend things based on representation. However, she further says that a) this isn't always helpful, because it leaves out what something's about and whether it's actually good, and b) it's a bad way to ''write''. In her opinion, one of the biggest problems of the failed All or Nothing series was that they never came up with a real plot--"an asexual and a pansexual live together" works fine as a viral Tumblr post, but not as a whole show. By contrast, the successful series (yes, there was one) was about the transition from high school to college, FriendVersusLover tensions, and debate club, with the character's sexualities as part of their arcs rather than the whole point of the show.

* VisualPun: In her video "I'm Not Like Other Girls", she regularly switches between {{Tomboy}}ish clothes (casual sweater, hair tied back) or GirlyGirl (pink sweater, fuzzy bathrobe, long blonde wig) to better make her point about girls being pigeonholed into one role or the other.

* {{Hypocrite}}: In a FreezeFrameBonus in "Homestuck Sent Me A Legal Threat, And Then It Got Worse", Andrew Hussie alleges a former artist sexualized an underage character. Sarah doesn't comment on whether or not she believes it to be true (there doesn't seem to be any evidence either way), but she does note in a caption that this is rather rich coming from someone who called a fifteen-year-old character "Yiffy".[[note:]]..."yiff" is the term for [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furry]] porn, referencing the character being part-dog.[[/note]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: In a FreezeFrameBonus in "Homestuck Sent Me A Legal Threat, And Then It Got Worse", Andrew Hussie alleges a former artist sexualized an underage character. Sarah doesn't comment on whether or not she believes it to be true (there doesn't seem to be any evidence either way), but she does note in a caption that this is rather rich coming from someone who called a fifteen-year-old character "Yiffy".[[labelnote:For those who don't know...]]..."yiff" is the term for [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furry]] porn, referencing the character being part-dog.[[/labelnote]]

** In "The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture", she points to the Gamergate controversy of 2014 as the beginning of the end for the mainstream geek culture explosion of the late 2000s and early '10s, arguing that it not only brought long-standing issues with misogyny and racism prevalent in geek culture to the surface and made them a dramatic fault line within various fandoms (citing the ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' and ''Franchise/StarWars'' reboots as examples), it also marked the moment when the tension between geek culture's historic self-image as bullied, put-upon outsiders and its new image as [[ProudToBeAGeek the cool kids of pop culture]] finally snapped, destroying the idea of there being a single, unified geek culture at all. A series of other individual controversies that followed, such as the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' Szechuan sauce debacle, the fall from grace of various big-name figures (most notably Creator/JossWhedon), and the oversaturation of MerchandiseDriven brands like [=ThinkGeek=] and Toys/FunkoPop, further took the shine off of geek culture and increasingly made it seem primarily a domain dominated by ConspicuousConsumption and [[invoked]] PanderingToTheBase, with the year 2019 serving as its death rattle even as "geeky" media itself continued to flourish.