something ive been thinking about in terms of the wide fandomisation of ntbts is the danger of misrepresenting it & downplaying some of its aspects to people who might see fanworks and think it's something they should get into. & this is definitely something im guilty of too cos i do reblog art and analysis that leans towards the more tender & censored elements of ntb, but we have to remember that on the surface level and the first encounter with the material it is edgy white guy internet humour, a good third of the webseries relies on racism for its jokes, and the vice show & movie are not 'innocent' in comparison. [& the fact that the movie won best original song for a scene that is, putting it lightly, an extremely racist caricature is emblematic of the issue, ie how ingrained the racism is in the art itself and the industry its supported by]. at other levels, ntbts is a really fun work of art that carries a lot of interesting points on art and creativity, and friendship and homosociality, and the experience of having lots of media based interests, an enthusiasm for films and TV and video games that obviously a lot of the fanbase can relate to. but even at its core, the stimulating and sweet and even the intoxicating and intriguingly unhealthy aspects like the codependency and the inherent ways matt and jay hurt and manipulate each other, those all stand side by side with the fact that this is white canadian media property created almost exclusively by men, imbued so deeply with the casual sexism and racism that comes with that. and unfortunately those are also aspects that a lot of the fanbase can relate to, many of us being young white people on the internet who do engage with or at the very least surrounded by that kind of bigoted humour. anyway. my point is that the fandom's choice to regularly either ignore those aspects or even woobify them as just another trait of "our problematic boys" is actually much more malicious than we may realise, considering there is a proportion of the fandom that is NOT white and have very many reasonable complaints and criticisms of both the franchise and the creators, matt johnson being the most outspoken and at the forefront of it. and i genuinely believe there is a merit to this being a topic of conversation as readily discussed and critiqued as any other aspect, like the homoeroticism, like the autism. it's all equally prevalent in the material. i am for sure complicit in everything ive just pointed out, too, but it shouldn't hurt to bring this kind of thing further to the forefront of the analysis that happens online. don't sacrifice important criticisms and critical engagement with something as a whole just so you can get along with enjoying it "in peace."
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