#media criticism
A good rule to live by is that if you hate some piece of media, you should care less about it, devote less energy to it, and spend less time thinking about it than the people who like it. This isn’t even a “don’t criticize” or “positive vibes only” thing, it’s more of an “if you talk about hating it more than the fans talk about liking it, the net result is that you’re the one keeping attention fixed on it”
“A lot of people online vocally hate the development in the show and have made a million posts calling on people to stop watching it, and also they watch every episode and comment on the new developments they’re enraged by” is a great way to get the show to keep doing developments like that (look how much engagement it nets!) and also, especially if the outrage is for legitimate social reasons, an EXCELLENT way to ensure that all the creeps online see your objections and suddenly take an interest in supporting it, where they wouldn’t have before.
“A lot of people online realized they hate the show now, so they just sorta stopped watching and stopped talking about it” usually ends up causing the show to fall out of public favor and get cancelled
we need 2 normalize characters who dgaf about romance
sorry im literally so tired of everyone being shipped with someone can a guy not just chill
i want 2 say this isnt just about aro characters. im aro i love aro characters i love ace characters but this also is about allo characters. its normal and healthy and fine for alloromantic people to not be in romantic relationships and i wish media reflected that
the way people talk about Koreans on Tik Tok genuinely makes me want to throw up
I think that we should rlly talk about how people speak when it comes to Koreans and how we r literally treated like a whole sexuality n non-human. ppl say shit like “I want a Korean partner!” just as casually as someone says “I want a goth gf” n it’s gross. n it’s not just “preference” or whatever y’all wanna excuse it as, it’s real-time objectification n fetishization. u get these whities who go through partners like night n day, then u look at all the photos they post w their s/o’s n every single one of them is Korean (maybe Japanese too if they feel like “branching out”). there r bitches literally fighting over who started liking Koreans first and arguing that “people only like Koreans now because squid game made it trendy” like are y’all hearing yourselves. n it’s particularly bad on tik tok, but I’ve seen it on tumblr too w ur stupid white ppl shops that have clothing items named “Cute Korean girl sweater”, ur stupid “Korean-themed blogs” (whatever tf that means), n all the kpop stannies who write reader inserts about sleeping w their favs, like wtf is wrong w y’all.
God, so much this. It pisses me off to no end that video games are entertainment only for the wealthy nowadays.
no offense but male protagonists whose strength comes from empathy, compassion and humanity will always be more interesting than snarky assholes who punch everything and treat everyone around them like shit
I think the people who say “You don’t need to be critical of every piece of media you consume” fundamentally misunderstand what we mean by “critical”.
When we say “be critical of the media you consume” we don’t mean “be negative” as in, find every flaw and pick it apart CinemaSins style.
We mean “examine it”. Like, look at what you are consuming, and in many cases, enjoying, and ask yourself why you are enjoying it. Ask yourself who made it. Ask yourself if you are the target audience. Ask yourself if you are being represented by the characters you see. Ask yourself if the author has biases or political leanings they are trying to include in the story.
Just, ask yourself questions. The answers don’t have to be negative. That’s not what being critical means.
I think the people who say “You don’t need to be critical of every piece of media you consume” fundamentally misunderstand what we mean by “critical”.
When we say “be critical of the media you consume” we don’t mean “be negative” as in, find every flaw and pick it apart CinemaSins style.
We mean “examine it”. Like, look at what you are consuming, and in many cases, enjoying, and ask yourself why you are enjoying it. Ask yourself who made it. Ask yourself if you are the target audience. Ask yourself if you are being represented by the characters you see. Ask yourself if the author has biases or political leanings they are trying to include in the story.
Just, ask yourself questions. The answers don’t have to be negative. That’s not what being critical means.
@catsareneato You used critically wrong my dude The definition is literally “expressing adverse/disapproving comments/judgements” I agree you don’t need to find flaws in everything you watch, but the word you used is incorrect.
*mists you with a waterbottle* NO. BAD.
That is exactly the point of my original post. There are TWO DEFINITIONS of “critical” and you are mixing it up with the OTHERone.
When I am referring to “being critical of media” I am exactly referring to using objective judgement to make informed opinions about analysis.Not seeking to be negative or disapproving.
“queerbaiting in real life” you mean exploring self expression regardless of the outcome bc it’s good for you and not owing it to people to come out???
queerbaiting is a marketing technique real people aren’t products or your fictional blorbos even the mega celebrities are owed privacy jesus christ
You Are Not Immune To Propaganda
Another free cross-stitch pattern I made based on the meme image.(hopefully it’s still legible once tumblr resizes it. If not, watch this space for the PDF version) it should work out to about 15x11 inches on 14 count aida cloth. I really like this meme because I’m a big proponent of critically thinking about the media that we consume, and it serves as an amusing reminder to employ a critical lens!
Also I wanted to let you all know that my Etsy is currently closed, but I hope to re-start my listings once I can go to the post office again. Stay safe, friends!
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A good rule to live by is that if you hate some piece of media, you should care less about it, devote less energy to it, and spend less time thinking about it than the people who like it. This isn’t even a “don’t criticize” or “positive vibes only” thing, it’s more of an “if you talk about hating it more than the fans talk about liking it, the net result is that you’re the one keeping attention fixed on it”
“A lot of people online vocally hate the development in the show and have made a million posts calling on people to stop watching it, and also they watch every episode and comment on the new developments they’re enraged by” is a great way to get the show to keep doing developments like that (look how much engagement it nets!) and also, especially if the outrage is for legitimate social reasons, an EXCELLENT way to ensure that all the creeps online see your objections and suddenly take an interest in supporting it, where they wouldn’t have before.
“A lot of people online realized they hate the show now, so they just sorta stopped watching and stopped talking about it” usually ends up causing the show to fall out of public favor and get cancelled
smallwelshmonastery-deactivated:
Thinking about the time I was in a class and the lecturer was talking about how you can read the spiral motif in ‘Vertigo’ as being a metaphorical representation of male fear of the vagina, bc it’s this mysterious uncanny vortex that never ends and into which you could vanish entirely, and she stopped and said “Although my problem with that has always been - I mean, the vagina ends. It does end.” And we were all just nodding sagely like “It doesend.”
Everything is Problematic!
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To read my notes about the cartoon, check out the original patreon post!
Transcript:
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has five panels, with the same two characters – a young woman wearing glasses and a pink scarf, and another young woman wearing a long yellow jacket. In the first two panels, the two are sitting around an apartment, on a couch.
Panel 1
Scarf woman is reading a comic book, and speaks enthusiastically to Jacket woman, who looks unconvinced.
SCARF: Have you read this comic? It’s really awesome.
JACKET: I heard the creator was arrested for beating his girlfriend.
Panel 2
Scarf tosses the comic over her shoulder. Jacket looks a bit angry as she talks, waving a hand in the air.
SCARF: Screw comics, then. We’ll just browse the internet.
JACKET: Yeah! We can google how the workers who make our devices are horribly abused.
Panel 3
Scarf tries again, but Jacket rejects the idea again, standing up with her arms crossed, turning her back on Jacket.
SCARF: Let’s watch an old movie. Something made before the internet.
JACKET: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Bertolucci… Lots of directors abused their actresses back then. Just like today.
Panel 4
The two characters, after a quick back and forth, both yell to the sky (or ceiling) in abject frustration.
SCARF: Music?
JACKET: R. Kelly.
SCARF: Disney?
JACKET: Are you joking?
BOTH: AAAGH! EVERYTHING IS PROBLEMATIC!
Panel 5
The two characters are now out in a beautiful, sprawling park, with trees and rolling hills, sitting on a hillside. Scarf is smiling and leaning back; Jacket has her arms crossed on her knees and still looks crabby.
SCARF: Isn’t it great out here, enjoying clean, unproblematic nature?
JACKET: Stolen land.
Post link
filmmakers and audiences and critics alike all need to start suspending their disbelief again
‘this doesn’t make sense’ so?????
from @/elytrians
hey folks, I’m gonna introduce you to two very important fandom terms and they are watsonian anddoylist
they come (obviously) from the sherlock holmes fandom, and they are two different ways of explaining something in a story. say I’m a fan and I notice that, in the original books, watson’s war wound is sometimes in his leg and sometimes in his shoulder. the watsonian explanation is how watson (that is, a person within the story) might explain it; the doylist explanation is how sir arthur conan doyle (a person in real life) would have explained it.
sherlock explains the migrating war wound by making the shoulder wound real and the limp psychosomatic. the guy ritchie films explain it by having the leg wound sustained in battle before the events of the film and the shoulder wound happen onscreen. the doylist explanation, of course, is that acd forgot where the wound was.
this is very important when we’re discussing stuff like headcanons and word-of-god. I see this when people offer watsonian explanations for something, and then a doylist will say something like “it’s just because the author wrote it that way,” and I see it when a person is criticizing bad writing/storytelling (for example, the fact that quiet in metal gear solid v is running around the whole game in a bikini and ripped tights) and someone comes back with “but there’s an in-story reason why that happens!” (that reason being she breathes through her skin).
there’s nothing wrong with either explanation, and really I think you need both to understand and analyze a text. a person coming up with a watsonian explanation has likely not forgotten that the author had real-life reasons for writing something that way, and a person with a doylist interpretation is likely not ignoring the in-universe justification for that thing.
but it’s very difficult (and imo often useless, though there are exceptions) to try to argue one kind of explanation with the other kind. wetblanketing someone’s headcanon with “or it could just be bad writing” is obnoxious; dismissing someone’s criticism with “but have you considered this in-universe explanation” is ignoring the point of the criticism. understanding where someone is coming from is important when making an argument; acting like your argument is better because you’re being doylist when they’re being watsonian or vice versa is not.
it’s been 5 million years but this thing still gets notes with like “can someone explain this to me in a shorter, easier way” so here it is:
watsonian: the enchantress cursed the eleven-year-old prince from beauty and the beast and all of his servants because fairies don’t understand why humans would think that’s insane and unfair. I am using in-universe evidence to explain why the character might think or act a certain way, as if belle and the prince and the enchantress are real people.
doylist: the writers didn’t realize that the prince would have been eleven when he was cursed until it was too late to change it, and the servants are also cursed because talking furniture is funny and allows for unique character design. I am explaining this plot point based on an outside knowledge of how writing works and how writers think.
