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I want to be absolutely clear here: there is no film called Gonacharov directed by Martin Scorcese. The thesis I want to put forward is this:

“The combination of all the posts about Goncharov constitute a form of media, which I call the Goncharov Totality. Goncharov the film does not exist in real life, but it does exist within the Goncharov Totality. To deny that Ice Pick Joe is in the the film Goncharov within the context of this piece of media would be as foolish as to deny that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father within the context of Star Wars”

A comparison is helpful here: consider H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Hound”. This is the first text which mentions the fictional book “The Necronomicon”. Of course, the Necronomicon is not actually real, but to say that The Necronomicon was written by JFK would be incorrect, as it was of course written by Abdul Alhazred. These statements are not factually true, but are instead “fictionally true”.  

What kind of media is the Goncharov Totality? I can’t point to another piece of media of the same kind as the Goncharov Totality, but it is something like a folk tale and also something like a performance. I find its unique features as a piece of media very interesting. Here are some of those features:

Goncharov is its own metalanguage: when someone argues that the relationship between Goncharov and Andrey should be interpreted in a particular manner, their commentary is a part of the Goncharov Totality. However, it also functions as a commentary on the Goncharov Totality itself! Their post makes an argument about the best way to collectively reconstruct the film Goncharov: that the film should focus on these themes or those relationships. Thus, elements of the Goncharov Totality are also able to comment on the Totality itself. In this way, it is truly the child of Tumblr: a piece of media which consists of its own criticism.

Diffuse authorship: Unlike more traditional forms of media, Goncharov is what you might call a “collective fiction”. As a piece of work, it is added to by many different authors, working independently but in dialogue with each other.

Lack of canonicity: This is mostly a result of the last point: with Goncharov there is no one definitive author who can determine what is and isn’t canon. Instead the canon is determined through a process of consensus and elaboration. For example, there are several conflicting accounts on tumblr as to which book Goncharov was adapted from, or why it has sat unreleased for so long. Unlike most media, these details may well stay unresolved, and even if they are, they will be resolved in a different manner to what is normal.

Monism: This is at odds, but not incompatible, with the lack of canonicity. Everything in the Goncharov Totality supposedly refers to the same original film, and disputes about Goncharov take on the character of disputes over matters of fact about this film. As a comparison, consider the how many fanfiction communities build up a shared lore and set of tropes around a piece of media. However, individual works of fanfiction may be contradictory, and this poses no issue because they are simply set in different universes. In the Goncharov Totality, there is no recourse to such an explanation.

The Goncharov Totality is in a sense “parasitic” on another piece of media which exists within its internal world. Consider the Necronomicon again: The book “The Hound” is not dedicated exclusively to exploring the Necronomicon. Rather, the Necronomicon is just one part of a much larger world. The Goncharov Totality on the other hand is almost entirely dedicated to exploring and reconstructing another, internal, piece of media.

Performative: The Goncharov Totality, while supposedly being a tale of a fictional film also has aspects of a performance. Engaging in the Goncharov Totality is about pretending, in a consistent and interesting way, that something false is in fact true.

Participatory: A key part of why the Goncharov Totality is engaged with is for its participatory nature. The Goncharov Totality is as much meant to be written as it is to be read, and its joy is found in the playful and inclusive aspects of its creation.

The comparison to the Necronomicon is more apt than I initially realised: other authors (e.g. August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith) mentioned the Necronomicon in their own fictional works and Lovecraft approved of this as he thought it created “a background of evil verisimilitude”. So considered more broadly, the Necronomicon might take on the same diffuse authorship and lack of canonicity exhibited by the Gonacharov Totality. But it does not have these attributes to nearly the same degree as the Goncharov Totality does.