Long post/ramble: I caught up on THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS and went to see the finale compilation feature film yesterday afternoon.
I'm glad I am not really involved in the "fandom" or discourse or whatever. When I get all opinionated about a work that's a big deal right about now, I like to keep that part of me tucked away online, where I get to spew thoughts and not have to really argue w/ a ton of people about meaningless nonsense... Or keep it between me and some pals of mine...
I watched the show, enjoyed it, adored things about it and had issues with other things, and had a good time at the movies checking out such a cool show with a distinct visual style on the big screen. I'm at an age now where it's like, I think something is COOL, and it's like... Yeah!
Whatever criticisms I have of the show aside, I think the most important thing here is that we have a full-on animated series written, directed, and created by a trans woman. Like, Gooseworx is an auteur. This is her show, her vision, the way she saw fit. No matter how it turned out, it exists in a world where that doesn't often happen. And it became this giant phenomenon, to the point where a movie - which was composed of the last two episodes and some additional stuff - did pretty darn good at the box office for what it is. Good for her.
Which makes whatever the hell happened over these past few weeks or so even more frustrating, to me. I really dislike the idea of thinking YOU yourself own a work that you had NO part in, other than viewing and maybe even buying stuff for. Fans and viewers no doubt help something like this, criticism is good and healthy and should open conversations that open minds... But there's a fine line I think.
What we see online, whether it's this show or any other huge thing (i.e. STAR WARS), treads into nasty "the customer is always right" territory. And given that Gooseworx has/had a social media presence, it started to negatively affect her and the show itself. Criticism is always welcome, but when it becomes this, it should be ignored. This isn't like readers circa 1890-something getting really upset over the death of Sherlock Holmes, prompting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to keep writing stories about the character, nor even what Sonic was going to look like in the live-action film. I'm talking about the utter meltdowns people have, and such a sense of entitlement, how they use social media to harass the creators... When they could've just said, "It went a direction I didn't care for" or "I wish they could've done this instead". Depart the train and maybe say why you ultimately didn't like the ride, don't run up to the cab to scream like a banshee at the locomotive driver. I mean unless that driver is throttling the train full-speed towards a broken bridge over a gorge, like... Don't.
As a creator myself, I'm pretty much ready to abandon most of my socials by the time one of my books gets out. The last thing I'd want to do is deal with a bunch of mouthbreathers who think they should write MY personal stories for me because they have their own ideas of what's what. Especially people who have never created something of their own, or haven't indulged in much media beyond their few favorite things. Funny how the best REAL critics don't do that shit, and just write their reviews and talk about the things they engage in. Like, who the hell are you to tell a creator what to do? This is, of course, nothing new. It has been a problem for years... And when something gets big, inevitably there will be some very online members of the fanbase ("fandom", ewww) who will act like this. Who will form weird parasocial relationships with things they consume more so than healthily check out... They are what we call... A vocal minority. Social media is their megaphone, as they are protected behind a computer screen when squabbling like an annoying bird.
My history with this show? I saw the first episode a few months after it first got uploaded to YouTube, and liked it a lot. Then I checked out the second episode way later than it was uploaded. I have bad executive dysfunction, that's part of the reason why it took me an eternity. I liked the second episode as well, so much so that I even drew some of the characters. Then, with the movie on its way out, I figured... Other films I have on my list can wait, I gotta go see this, support a trans animation creator during Pride, plus everyone everywhere is going to spoil it anyways. And it was 100 degrees and humid yesterday, so, an excuse to sit in a cool air-conditioned room! Watching the show, largely untainted by much of the discourse and then seeing this movie in a theater that only had three other people in it (a family, at that), was fun. Whatever I didn't like about it, it's like... Okay, so what. This is Gooseworx's show, not mine. If something's not for me, I just admit that. If there are things I see as flaws, I acknowledge them w/o being some tool who thinks they're better than the creator. I try to speak more out of observation than putting something down. I'm far away from the ranty person I was in my mid-20s.
Another thing is... Gooseworx may be a trans woman, but her show - a rarity as is - isn't meant to be some grand document that speaks to EVERYBODY. Whenever a marginalized creator gets something out there, there's this weird insistence that it has to be the ultimate thing. That it speaks for the whole group and has to align with every single person's experiences... That's utterly impossible! Here's an example... When BARBIE came out, there was some discourse about how it was poor feminism or wasn't adequate in its feminism, and it's like... One single movie, written and directed by a white American woman no less, is not going to encapsulate everything about girlhood and womanhood! All the different voices within the group make up an entire experience, one single document can't just sum it ALL up. That's not how any of this works. Likewise, Gooseworx's show is not going to speak to everyone. Whether it's queer people or neurodivergent people or both. It was never going to be the Correctest of Correct Documents on the subjects. That it speaks to as much people as it does, that's great. A chunk of it aligned with my feelings and experiences, too. Even if it really didn't, I still liked being told that story. If I wasn't autistic and non-binary, I still could've liked it anyhow. That's just how solid storytelling works.
Speaking of being autistic and non-binary, yeah, what I make is also not at all meant to be THE document on what it's like to be autistic and/or queer. It's not The Bible for those two things! I'm just making a silly messy comic about an enby woman being a weirdo with aliens on another planet, very much a "characters exist" or "slice of life" story. It mirrors MY experiences as an autistic and non-binary person, which isn't everyone else's. I'm just ONE person. And it barely gets any hits, and maybe that's for the better. If I had a bunch of people reading it, a good chunk of them wanting to come after me for a storytelling decision I made? Nah, maybe it's better that it's only me and a few of my supportive pals.
And then when one of my books get out, the only thing I would want is to just keep making more, and that maybe someone else out there happens to enjoy what it is I made.
More people of marginalized groups creating lots of things at once is a good goal. Several different experiences across several different stories, it's realistic and ideal. Not ONE BIG THING that sums up everyone's experiences... Not only is that unrealistic, but do we really want that?
