something that i find interesting about independent animation nowadays is that if you don't have studio/streamer backing, you have to release your work yourself on the internet, but you have to do it for free on the internet because virtually nobody is going to be willing to accept a paywall just for one original show, so what you have to do in order to make any money off of it is make all of your money from merchandising, but then this means that you show must be merchandisable and have very toyetic character designs that translate easily to plushies and whatnot, but then you also need to cater your show to people who are disproportionately inclined to buy merchandise like that in the first place so that your sales can be enough to sustain you, which means that even if you want to communicate complex or difficult ideas in your work, your independent animation project must attract (at least on a first impression) and retain viewers who are both very consumerist and very capable of rabid passion, which unfortunately has a single-circle shaped venn diagram with a lot of the most toxic fandom tendencies known to man, and this explains a lot of things about independent animation and its fandoms nowadays I think
