cake as an icing vector
in this blog post I'm going to talk about my thoughts regarding two events that happened within 48 hours of each other, and why I think they're both symptoms of a bigger, similar if not the same issue.
these two events:
Gooseworx, the mind behind the massively successful indie webseries The Amazing Digital Circus, was placidly discussing on a livestream the current story of TADC, and offhandedly mentioned that- at least right now- Pomni and Jax are the "main characters" of the show. They effectively withdrew from the internet after putting their foot down about the virulent entitlement that fans take as permission to treat them like shit. There's no depths they can sink to in their abuse because they consider it punching up.
The newest, and previously assumed final chapter of multi-part video game series Poppy Playtime, came out and famous letsplayer Markiplier completely lost his cool by the time got to the last quarter. His criticisms devolved into pointing out a clash of in-game kayfabe with what buttons you have to press(an in-game computer screen saying "press any key to continue", then the interaction button you'd use the entire game showing below) how things kept coming in the "rule of threes"(having to pull two levers to get a result in the third) how a chase scene was difficult to complete(it wasn't a quick-time event instructing you directly what you had to press to continue, instead hoping you'd use the skills you'd just spent 30 minutes learning to perform), and increasingly more unhinged non-issues until he screamed out loud about it on-stream. He said the game was so bad, he's not bothering with any more of them. Fans either agreed with him, or said he wasn't thinking clearly and it was affecting his gameplay.
I think the similarity between these cases is one of fan entitlement to their expectations. It feels like it comes from the same oozing crack that "the customer is always right" came from, doesn't it?
let's discuss 2 first because it's fresher in my mind.
I think a sort of strange lootbox-like dopamine addiction has to be at blame here. Players do not want to think or solve puzzles, they don't want to go "hmm." and figure out a room, they want to unlock the next lore nugget. They want to open that lore lootbox and get some new context or twist. And at a certain point, everything that stands in the way of that plot progression becomes chaff, filler that is getting in your way. Instead of planning your gameplay around things you've noticed as a part of mastering gameplay, they become burdens. One of the criticisms Markiplier had was how long it took to switch between tools in the game, especially during a moment of pressure. If you just calmly did so like always, you'd discover you had the time to do it- the game was actually simulating that pressure with heart-pumping music, sound effects, you being on a speeding train at the time. You've been switching between tools the entire game- the time it takes to do this shouldn't be new. So reacting with frustration to a purposefully crafted moment of narrative stress and tension- it was the big "final battle", after all- was a problem with the game mechanics and not a fun exciting stressful game event? Did you act this way when you had to switch weapons in the middle of playing LOZ: BOTW?
to further the BOTW allegory- was switching to your bow and drawing an arrow and firing it too goddamn tedious in the moment and so having to do this to hit the monster in the eyeball was getting annoying? Instead of accepting it as part of the game and factoring it into your gameplay strategy, it's now just time-wasting- just like the boss itself- of getting the treasure it drops. Getting angry and yelling that you have to do all this annoying bullshit like levelling up or drinking a stamina potion or thinking about how to take this boss down was just getting in the way of the next plot advancement!!
Players don't get angry because they can't choose their tetris block and it being random is stupid gameplay and annoying. This starts sounding like a star trek nerd in 1994 who demands explanations for why a background character isn't on screen when they were in the room a moment ago and roll their eyes at the sloppy editing, instead of accepting that maybe they'd just left the damn room. Or like a 5 year old who just wants to scrape the icing off their cake and hates that there's cake to begin with, they just want the damn icing. The cake just becomes an icing vector that's getting in the way.
I think there comes a time where you need to admit that you actually don't like playing the game. You don't want to play the game, or learn its mechanics or think or soak in the diegetic aspects of the universe its in. I'm reminded of Portal, when it came out, and I can't stop thinking about the reactions to that game, as opposed to the reactions to these games. Back then, you were invited to "think with portals!" and the mental burden of learning to use these portals, thinking in a way that allowed you to make quick decisions using your portal gun was the best part of the game. You'd master it by doing puzzles that required it, thinking carefully, and then later on during moments of simulated pressure you'd be able to take what you've learned and do it on the fly! Now you're thinking with grab pac- er, portal guns!
And this says nothing of the plot and narrative related issues. Were there a few plot holes hastily patched up with things that felt a bit tacky, especially to leave the ending open for another game where there wasn't originally one? yes! I propose instead meeting media where it is instead of demanding it be something else, like judging a fish for being a shitty flier. Maybe the hair girl looks and moves with sharp, snappy, clicky movements to emulate a doll being poorly animated in stop-motion, instead of some sort of failure on the animators' part. Do we know that for sure? Maybe not, but what if we just gave it that benefit of the doubt for something that's likely?
and about part 1.
there's sooo much I could say about this, that goes back years. I'm an animator as you probably know so seeing how the internet responds to the media we create has never NOT been a part of my career. I don't think it's nostalgia goggles to see how social media decontextualizes things so quickly that discussions about animated things have gotten worse because there's never any real foundation, whatever exists is this nebulous "people are saying..." instead of a forum thread everyone's caught up on the same. Instead of forum posts, or even website blogs, now with twitter and other microblogging platforms the space between a show's creator and its fandom is tissue paper thin. Now, all interactions are like a celebrity(creators, artists, voice actors, etc) being thrown right in the center of a roiling con floor of screaming fans without security or protection: anyone can say anything or hurl their drink on you or try to kiss you or whatever and there's nothing you can do.
every single reason why a celebrity- even if they're normal and down to earth- might have a security detail becomes really obvious when you see how fandoms treat their accessible celebrities, every tweet they post has a comments section full of people replying directly to them like a mob of fans ran into a cafe seeing the celebrity drinking a coffee inside. Celebrities like this don't get security detail out of an aggrandized sense of self-importance that they must be protected from the disgusting peasants, they don't do it to stroke their egos, they do it because of fan entitlement and total lack of respect for boundaries.
There is no security detail for celebrities in fandom beyond what they manually do for themselves, ie, removing themselves from the convention. Closing their replies is taken in the same offense as when a celebrity bows their head and quietly runs into the back of a car which speeds off. How dare they? how fucking dare they think they're that important to need to do that??
.... so to again go into why these two events are unfortunately two sides of a coin: fans believe they're owed something by creators when creators make things for the fans. I wish I knew how to better explain how that is not the same thing and how becoming frustrated with having to navigate around something you consume from someone else is is not their fault. But also, as a creator myself, I do want the people consuming what I produce to like it, because that's a part of my goal. You can safely assume the creators of what you consume also want that. Is there a balance we can strike where we can enjoy something but trust that the creator wants to do their best in creating it?
a long time ago, with books and games and TV, the gap between you as a consumer and the producers of that media was like an ocean. There was never a chance they'd see your fanart or hear your opinions, which were created for yourself and your fellow fans, not to maybe change the minds of the people making that media. Maybe it was better then and we should return to that.