also everyone treating squid game like the latest fandom of the week and making aus and trendy videos and shipping and all that is absolutely missing the point. beyond salvation
it feels to me to be equivalent to making anime boy aus of an orwell novel or some shit like that like the only reason this is happening is because it’s a modern show on netflix that’s popular and gets clicks and no one who consumes media knows how to behave. no one in their right mind would be acting like this otherwise
At this point I just don't think a lot of fandom genuinely knows how to engage with a work. I really don't.
Like, they know how to imagine two characters fucking, and they know how to imagine the characters in a coffee shop, and they know how to make cute Cinema Sins style jokes about it.
But they don't seem to know how to meet the work where it actually lives and listen to what the work's actually saying. And trying to guide people that direction has just resulted in me being called a snob a whole bunch.
I don't know what to do about it, to be honest with you.
It is fascinating to me to read these notes. Apparently for an awful lot of people now, “I’m a fan of a piece of media” literally only means “I ship characters and write AUs” and not “I enjoy examining what the media did and I like talking with other people about it.” It’s almost like the word “fandom” itself has come to mean “I immediately remix the contents of everything into a romance.” Like literally, a lot of people here seem to think that’s what “I’m a fan of this” means. It’s so bizarre to me as a fandom old - most people used to at least spend time enjoying the actual content of a story before immediately making it something else (and usually quite a lot of time.)
No wonder people seem to see “hey maybe actually engage with the contents of this show?” as snobbery if their actual definition of fandom is “I enjoy this by immediately making it something very different.” I wonder how we got here.
I feel like this is a pointless opinion to have because the creators of the show literally also "missed the point" and made official merch which is honestly pretty capitalistic too. So frankly if the creators aren't even taking it this seriously... why demand consumers to? At the end of the day it's a show made for entertainment purposes and I think it's totally possible to understand the deeper meaning of media while also engaging in it lightheartedly if you want to. There's nothing wrong if you just want to engage in something at face value.
