Bury Your Art scope - what constitutes a "creator"?

Bury Your Art is a very new trope, having been launched just months ago as a result of the TRS for Old Shame and Creator Backlash. The concept concerns when a creator, for whatever reason (often hatred and shame for the work), goes out of their way to bury something they've made, making it unavailable, taking it down if it gets reuploaded online, etc.

But I have a question, and I brought this up in Is this an example? a while back. What exactly is the definition of "creator" here? Is it just the actual creator of the work, or can it be someone else who worked on it, the company that distributed it, etc.? I was told in the linked thread by laserviking42 that it was specifically for creators, which led to me cutting some non-creator examples. I was also told that Executive Meddling covers companies burying something. But the description for Bury Your Art (and the name) aren't super clear about what constitutes a "creator"—the description seems to imply that it must be an actual creator, but it's a little fuzzy about it. I would further argue that restricting it to only creators might be a little too restrictive—there are plenty of examples of non-creators suppressing a work as well.

So, with Bury Your Art, what defines a "creator" for this Trivia item? And is this trope too strict, or no?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Dec 10th 2022 at 1:00:12 PM

Someone involved in the creation of the work regretting it and wanting it to go away is, to me, clearly different from executives who may never have wanted the work to exist to begin with or simply don't think it has value and use the tapes to record something else, governments or mobs who actively attempt to suppress it or hold book burnings, or a website deciding to take it down for whatever reason or simply going down and taking the work with it. I agree, though, that the new name makes this less clear than the old ones did.

Bumping this. I'm thinking of doing a wick check, and if I find enough misuse I'll argue for a rename. Does that sound good?

EDIT: I decided against it. I'm going to wait until July 2023—a full year after launch—to get a better picture.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jan 10th 2023 at 5:24:47 AM

Huge bump. Ignore my comment above—I'm thinking of wick checking this. One other question—the description and Laconic seem to say that it must be Creator Backlash that results in art being buried. But not all examples are like that. Is this definition right? And could TRS hypothetically expand it to include examples like that?

What other reasons are given?

What do you mean? If you're talking "reasons given by examples", reasons like these:

• The Legend of Zelda CD-i Remasters were taken down by the games' creator, Dopply, a few days after their release in order to avoid the possibility of legal action from Nintendo. Legal issues
• Wu-Tang Clan: Enforced as an artistic decision for Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. In response to the low royalties generated by streaming services and a perception that the platform was devaluing the artistic integrity of music, the group made exactly one copy of the album. It was then auctioned off by Paddle8, with a ban placed on any commercial releases of the material — including by the band themselves — until 2103, 88 years after its 2015 release; however, the album's owner was permitted to play the album at listening parties. The album would change hands over the years, and as of 2021 is owned by PleasrDAO, an NFT firm, with only a few tracks leaking online. Artistic decision
• The "Green de la Bean" rips, a series of eight Bait-and-Switch videos^note "An Ending - Undertale, "Coffee Break - Mother 3", "Green Hill Zone (Unused Mix) - Sonic the Hedgehog", "Ground Theme (Super Mario Bros.) - Super Smash Bros. Brawl", "KILL A - JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle", "Puzzle Room - Kirby: Planet Robobot (2nd Version)", "Trampoline Time - New Super Mario Bros.", and "Unnecessary Tension - Undertale" whose punchline was a Sensory Abuse video of a cartoon green bean, were all pulled due to their negative reception from viewers. Negative reception from viewers, and not from the creator.

Was this what you're talking about?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 24th 2023 at 5:48:14 AM

Yes, that's what I meant.

I'm unsure - "Bury Your Art" does make it sound like a particularly extreme kind of Creator Backlash that attempts to keep it out of the hands of audiences entirely, not just any creator-driven circumstance that leads to Keep Circulating the Tapes. But the third especially seems valid, because often an artist's appreciation of their own work changes in response to its public reception, and the other two are plausibly justifiable as well. It's worth suggesting to TRS, at least.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jun 24th 2023 at 11:12:26 AM

I'm definitely going to wick check this, but this is good to know. Thanks!

Alright, so I'm wick checking this, and I'm at 40/50 wicks—but I've run into a conundrum.

Does a video game corporation burying art count as the company burying the art, or the creator burying the art? And if it counts as the former, should it be counted as Bury Your Art if/when I TRS this?