hellmouth yeah whatever

Let your voice be heard

Sarah Michelle Summer

At work today, a guy in his early 20s was struggling to understand the collective outpouring of grief at Anthony Stewart Head's passing. Not in an unpleasant way; in genuine puzzlement. It occurred to me that he's 20 years too young to have the context to understand what Buffy, and shows like it, were. He's grown up with the Internet in his pocket, with hundreds of channels available whenever he wants them, and with the ability to connect with like minded people in a shared, online, space. We didn't have that in 1996. What Buffy did was give us a safe place; a place where the neurodivergents, the gays, the bullied kids, the ones with abuse or trauma in our pasts or presents, the geeks, the outsiders...where we belonged. It was a place where people like us saw ourselves on screen, not as the butt of the joke, but as strong, capable, flawed, and wholly rounded characters. Kids just like us who stood up and fought, and who saved the bloody world. How can somebody who has grown up with algorithms tailored to give him exactly what he wants, and connect him with people who think and feel the same way he does, ever understand what that meant to us? He seemed genuinely moved when I tried to explain how shows like Buffy and Star Trek, Xena and Dr. Who gave us hope. I'm not saying it was better, it's just another one of those generational differences I'd never thought about before.

RIP Ripper

In da clerb we all fam

Buffy: Liar.