Lindsay Ellis

I found this to be one of her best videos. What with the articles on Youtubers burning out, and comments she made on her Twitter recently, the message of "Hey, this isn't any more authentic than a TV show and you shouldn't treat it as such" felt pertinent.

I do think the most effective moment was when she was discussing hostile fans and said "But lucky for me, I don't have to worry about you guys. You're the good ones."

That...that spoke to a lot of bitterness. And that, along with the rest of the video, is why I'm going to go with in that this is going to take a little while to mull over.

Edited for Grammar

Edited by AzurePaladin on Sep 11th 2018 at 12:55:33 PM

I AM one of the good ones, so no regrets.

The parasocial relationships between the creator and the consumer is a tricky one. There are so many different aspects as to why this strange relationship is a thing that one could write an essay on it, but I think on of the questions to ask oneself to contextualize is, "What do I want in my content, and what do I want from the creator?". I've been mulling around in this subject for a while now and I still don't know exactly what I want.

Not sure if you're already aware, but there are already two very well-made videos on parasocial relationship, made by Strucci Movies. The second one is nearly 2 hour long, and it goes really deep into the impacts of parasocial relationship on the fans as well as the creators.

If there's anything I despise the most about parasocial relationship, it's the He Panned It, Now He Sucks! mentality, aka "this reviewer doesn't like this particular work so they are literally the devil and should never do another review and should disappear from the Internet altogether". Because, as Lindsay puts it, this isn't seen as just "a different opinion", but rather, "betraying the audience's trust". I can't even imagine how bad this is for online creators, where dumb fans can easily have a direct line to harass them.
And guess what, I don't even need to imagine it. Here's an example of dumb Thanos's fans harassing Mikey Neumann for a well-thought out review.

I watched the first one not too long ago, but I haven't gotten the chance to watch the second one. It was how I came upon the phrase "parasocial", though I knew the gist of it before I learned the name for it.

Edited by Kakuzan on Sep 12th 2018 at 1:07:32 PM

Parasocial is one thing, the other thing people use youtube videos for is to feel validated on their opinion.

I mean, Lindsay herself said that she won't touch Shrek or Prince of Egypt even thought she has a lot to say about them because those movies are really popular with the audience she tends to attract (primarily, Millennials with nostalgic connections to both those films) and doesn't want to have to deal with the backlash she'd get for "tearing apart" someone's childhood classic.

(Well, that and you have "Religious Discussions on the Internet" as well with doing an video on POE.)

Eight Point Eight and He Panned It, Now He Sucks! attitudes are so rife on the internet and the expectation that just because you can communicate with a person via YT comments or Twitter posts means that person is always emotionally available at all time to respond to your oftentimes mean comments which they are obliged to do otherwise they are malicious censoring harpies who can't handle criticism that there's no wonder people get burnout or stress. I mean, just look at all the times Jim Sterling has been attacked, harassed and DDOS'd for expressing negative or in some cases just not glowing) views on certain games (most notoriously The Slaughtering Grounds, No Man's Sky and BOTW). That kind of shit WOULD burn a person.

And then you have the other side, the people who adore your work and lap up everything you say uncritically and just accept it as the truth because you're the one with "authority" and you sound like you know what you're talking about so you have to be objectively right. Back in the day I remember people saying that Nostalgia Critic videos "changed" their opinions on a movie and "opened their eyes to how bad it was" and then went on to attack others for liking said movie because "this movie bad, NC said so" and these days I see younger kids expressing similar opinions based on Cinema Sins (gag).

And if these people who lap up your work begin attacking others because of what you said, then the blame gets shifted to you and you get stuck with either looking like a smug elitist who hates other people's opinions or fun or at worst, condoning harassment for "shit taste" (and yes, I have seen all of this play out)

And woe betide if you criticise someone in one of your videos, because you're gonna be responsible for your idiot fans sending death threats to people because no-one on the internet has any sense of decorum or perspective.

Being a content producer is a thankless job at times.

Edited by PippingFool on Sep 21st 2018 at 12:27:06 AM

Also is it bad that I see this as a pseudosequel of her top 10 pre-youtube internet fads?

Also funny on your example - you should have used the same guy since his fanboys are one of the worst as well.

Edited by Ookamikun on Sep 16th 2018 at 2:22:20 AM

Which one? Sterling or NC?

Another It's Lit video on Facebook.

Just found out there's official Lindsay Ellis merch

what a world we live in

That "It's fine" mug perfectly matches my current state of life.

Where's the "Thanks, I hate it" t-shirt?

Hmm she hasn't made a new video for a long time. Hope she's okay.

She made a PBS video fairly recently didn't she?

Yeah she's got tons of projects going I imagine

In case anyone missed it, here's Lindsay's new "It's Lit" video embedded:

And, as if on queue, here's a video from Lindsay herself:

Sooo… could the Cheesecake Factory sue Lindsay for featuring them in a video where she's visibly yucked by their products?

Probably not, as that would usually fall under free speech?

I think that would fall under the "Parody" clause. She's quite visibly criticizing their products in the manner she specified as Fair Use.

Edited by Xeroop on Nov 30th 2018 at 1:31:24 PM

Well that and a lot is voicing opinions, which you can't sue people over. Saying the cake tastes like Freezer Burns is an opinion. Saying the cake is made of poison would actually be something you can sue over.

Dont think they'll care,mentioning them is practically free marketing for them

..... methinks she's not particularly sore about losing her 2005-2008 job to the economic crash.

Another interesting tidbit about Mattel is that the case against Forsythe wasn't the last time they've "had no-chill" over Fair Use. Just 1 year after they filed that lawsuit, they did the same thing against MCA Records over the song Barbie Girl because they were worried that it would ruin their #brand. And they lost. And the judge even said: "The parties are advised to chill."