Sarah Z

Well, i couldn't find a thread dedicated to her and after watching some content from her, i think she deserves to be discussed, as she makes quite interesting analyzis of some media tropes.

For those, who don't know, Sarah Z is a Youtube content creator, who likes to make videos critiquing and analyzing film and television.

Here her latest video that she released today

Gay Fanfiction

WHAT IS (AND ISN'T) QUEERBAITING?

Why Debating Sucks (According To A Competitive Debater)

"I'm Not Like Other Girls"

Great analysis of this common phrase.

How Fans Treat Creators

Rise of The Doomer: Why So Many People Are Giving Up

This was a trip. Sarah dives into Tumblrs strange and bizarre 2010's obsession: The Onceler. Specifically 2012's The Lorax version, which is very trendy, very hipster, and dating himself.

"There's a million Oncelers and they're all dating each other."

Edited by Zanthype on May 29th 2020 at 7:19:17 AM

That was honestly one of the strangest things that I have ever seen anywhere.

I like that she pointed out this scarily popular fandom habit of people accusing you of having villainous agendas if you simply just like a villainous or morally complicated character. As if saying "I enjoy this character" means "I agree with all of their actions and would like to see them implemented in the real world."

It's such a bizarre argument, and I imagine people that actually think this way have such a shallow understanding of the media they interact with.

I also liked that she called out how referring to any character that's popular with girls and mocking them as "the new Onceler" is pretty shitty, as well as fairly blatantly sexist.

Edited by Zanthype on May 29th 2020 at 11:51:17 AM

As a guy who was both a fan of Homestuck in its prime and Undertale back when the fandom was in full swing on Tumblr, shipping different versions of the same character is nothing new. Still weird as hell, but normal-ish.

It's a bizarre argument but, speaking from someone who was on Tumblr to witness many fandoms and specifically fan wars on these things, it's more or less a counter fandom response to an era that went "X DID NOTHING WRONG" with x often being the villain or some significantly terrible individual. It was an era of excusing bad behavior as a symptom of previous abuse rather than taking responsibility and acknowledging fault.

It's partially why I still have issues playing DA 2 and I side-eye anyone who says Anders is their favorite character from Dragon Age; I was burned hard by a portion of the fandom who will go to war and defend any shitty thing that character ever did. That's where that mentality came from. It came from fans who would defend genocide for their cute twinky villain crush and attack anyone who saw them as... certainly not a little cinnamon roll like they did.

I have "Griffith did nothing wrong" flashbacks.

I think being a fan of Homestuck and Understale at its prime kinda disqualify us from judging whether something is normal or not.

But, yeah, my thought was also "that doesn't seem that weird". It actually seems sorta fun, I am glad the most interesting projects survived when interesst for the character dried up.

Yeah, the mentality of "liking a character means condoning their action" is not exclusive to people hating on them. Many fans also subscribe to it, which is why they counter with justification for why the actions aren't bad actually. It is very unclear to me if either camp is a response for the other or if both are just positively reinforcing each other. Either way it is a toxic mentality that hopefully most people grow out of.

Anyway, I am honestly surprised this phenomenon completely passe me by. First time I heard of the Lorax was Big Joel's video and I had no idea Onceler was a big fandom thing back in the day. Then again, my Tumblr presence in the time was exclusively on Homestuck liveblogs and I don't enjoy social media other wise, but, still, I was aware of the Jack Frost fans, but never heard of Onceler before.

I feel like there's a lot more going on than just being a response to kids sticking up for villains in the 2012 era. From the past several years I've been on Tumblr it seems like shipping and alleged social justice causes are the strong reasons currently.

It's been discussed in the Tumblr thread among others, but there's this really popular reaction right now to claim that a character you don't like "reminds me of my abuser" and then allege that the person that likes the character is supporting their abuse and is pro-abuser. And the character this is aimed at doesn't even have to be a villain at this point. Tony Stark is actually the one I see it with most often.

I've talked in depth about how, as a survivor that actually works with other survivors, I think this Tumblr stuff is performative, I don't think it's real and they quote the same phrases over and over as if reading from a script. And it's just so damn toxic. It's insulting to survivors, it encourages shallow readings of media, and it's often just plain excessive (particularly when people start engaging in actual illegal behavior over fiction).

And I don't really know what to do about it, honestly. Sites like Tumblr and Twitter where most of this takes place aren't moderated, they're not good formats for constructive interactions to begin with, and Tumblr offers anonymity, so young people feel emboldened to be as awful as possible.

I've found a phrase that I think adequately sums this up...shipping with a drop of "performative wokeness." i.e. people that use very real and very serious social justice issues to try and "prove" that their feelings towards a fictional character and its fans are "right."

Edited by Zanthype on May 30th 2020 at 5:19:27 AM

Sarah's video about "Not Like Other Girls" pairs really well with Lindsay Ellis' video on the reactions people had towards Twilight. Particularly Lindsay's point about how it's not surprising that girls want to distance themselves from being "like other girls", when girls and the media they consume is often subject to so much mockery and disdain. And Lindsay's video is a pretty good companion piece to Dan Olson's Fifty Shades video, where he goes over the difference between legitimate complaints about how the series portrays sex vs people just looking to shit on "mommy porn" and essentially mock women for having a sex drive.

Sarah takes a deep dive into Ark Music Factory, the company behind Rebecca Black's "Friday", and their predatory behaviour. Particularly how, after Rebecca went viral and received massive amounts of hate, the company went from churning out generic but serviceable pop to intentionally bad and contriversial lyrics while fully expecting it's stars (some as young as eleven) to take the backlash and even death threats.

Edited by Zanthype on Jun 1st 2020 at 8:42:52 AM

x3

The 'x reminds me of my abuser' issue is a swing in the opposite direction of the Anders from Dragon Age issue I experienced years ago. If they remind you of your abuser, that sounds like a personal complaint and not one to raise against the work inherently. Abusers have all kinds of character and personality traits that they share with others that aren't directly died to being an abuser. I mean, if their behavior of being an abuser reminds you of your abuser (as in, it's a narrative point that they're being abusive) that... also sounds like the writing is working? Just maybe that work isn't for you if its too much.

Ironically, the Anders issue was the reverse. Anders is a character from Dragon Age who... does a very very bad thing at the end to kill a bunch of people and instigate a war. The lead writer also has stated that he is supposed to be allegorical for bi polar disorder. This... kinda leaves a bad taste. On top of that, he also more or less gaslights you into being complicit into his literal terrorist attack that kills hundreds if not thousands. This... kinda seems like a shitty awful thing to do.

But there were those who would stand by him no matter what because he's 'Pro-Mental Health' and 'You must hate gay/bisexual men' or 'You either stand with anders or your pro-slavery'. That last one is ironic considering he is the sole advocate for selling another character back into slavery. No critical or more complicated view could be taken. I'm an LGBT man and my family has issues with bi polar disorder specifically and I hate this character because of how shitty he is on both fronts. I don't even inherently mind the idea of either, if the narrative just handled them better or even seemed aware of them.

But, nope, you're homophobic abelist trash if you don't like this one kinda problematic character.

If I had to guess, I'd imagine that the two sides probably swing between each other every couple of years and depending on what the popular fandom appeal thing is; One year its 'Villains are just missunderstood and we don't understand them and unreliable narrators' or 'You are literally a nazi if you even remotely like this character AT ALL' the next.

I just wish we didn't swing between them and just had... more critical commentary on them? That Villains can be missunderstood and empathetic... but also are complete monsters. Or that we can see that a character is gay and struggles with mental health... but isn't great representation for either demographic no matter how pretty the face.

How can anyone who stands against Anders is "pro-slavery", considering that Anders idolizes Tevinter Imperium and flat out approves if you brainwash and sell out Fenris into slavery?

So I watched the Onceler video again and I think I get why that fandom is considered so particularly strange.

Every fandom has people that engage in 'weird' shipping habits and some amount of agreed upon fanon, but Oncelers were sort of defined by it. Like that was the entire point of the fandom. And as Sarah pointed out, Onceler fans weren't really fans of Doctor Seuss or even The Lorax and its other characters, they were just there for that one specific character and the story lines that fans created for him.

I can't think of any other fandom that just completely disregards its canon universe and other works by the creator to such a large degree.

They didn't even engage in the cross fandom shipping that seemed so popular at the time with movies like Brave, Frozen, Tangled, Rise of the Guardians, and the Dragons movies. That was huge back then (still is to some extent) and its insularity was.... strange, to say the least. I hadn't even seen the movie at the time and was under the impression that the movie had added in some characters to make it way more dramatic than it was.

Only thing I can think of that's comparable is the Sans fans who build entire AU settings to have more of him where he's the exclusive character.

And even those tended to include the other characters from Undertale, because while their fanbases were small compared to the monolith that was the funny skeleton man, they still existed. Can't say the same for the Lorax fandom.

Dashcon! I remember hearing second-hand accounts back when it happened, but the details somehow make things worse