i understand the stress around rpf and how it can affect a real relationship, but i also think people have to take into consideration how bunch of friends as a channel functions and the way the duo pairings play into that rather than jumping to conclusions and creating discourse around it. the channel is meant to present as a show of sorts that’s whole entire schtick is revolving around four core personalities getting into silly and random antics but that requires structure and certain dynamics to function correctly.
what i’m saying is that yes we don’t get popiso together a lot as a pairing but i don’t think its because of the shipping, rather i mostly think its because coy and anthony’s characters in bunch of friends are the ones who “get stuff done” while hanbon and will (who are also never paired together btw) are the whimsical and spontaneous ones, so it doesn’t make sense for either pair to be together during typical videos — they need balance in their dynamics for the structure of the channel and the expectations of the viewers to be maintained, every spontaneous character has their serious counterpart to keep them focused on the task more or less.
and the few times we see this broken is when there is an important task to be done or when the video isn’t their typical style for example in the driving till we run out of gas video we get willbon and popiso paired at the very end because there is an Actual problem that needs to be solved and it requires the two “serious” characters to work together to get them out of the situation with coy staying near the car (for safety of the car + bc of his prank leaving him unable to wander) and anthony going to get the gas. while will and hanbon get to complete the spontaneous side quest that they set up at the start of the video. as for atypical videos i think we can all agree that the jonas brothers video was a VERY different type of video than the others on their channel, it has a completely different atmosphere and the reason why is because they had to figure out s way to compliment the dynamics that were sorted out in the random decision, its a much calmer video lol.
i just think instead of jumping to the worst conclusions and fearmongering about rpf when we’re a pretty small community as it is just causes more harm and brings more attention to everything rather than thinking about the practical explanations of why popiso — and willbon lest we forget AGAIN that they do not get paired together either — don’t get one on one screen time together the same way willcoy, hanpo, coy & hanbon, and anthwill do.
in general the worst thing that can be done in an rpf space is make the rpf the main topic of discussion, its how it gets spread around faster and actually becomes an issue that the creators have to address. its important to be mindful of how much discourse is too much and understand that you can’t control everybody but making it a huge issue just makes it worse for everyone else involved whether they enjoy rpf or not — not to mention its really up to the creators if they want to address it or not, they have the power to shut it down or allow it and they also have the power to ignore it and in that case its our job to be vigilant and respectful.
okay thats my tedtalk as someone who has been in rpf spaces most of my life ❤️
