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jessequinones · 5 months

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Magically Changing Your POC pt3

Before you read, this is the third time I created an article talking about this, though I can't seem to find the original articles here, you can find a link to the first one within the next paragraph. If you read pt 2 on Tumblr some of this might sound familiar because I basically re-wrote that for my own website but I added a lot more so that's why I'm calling this pt3)

So, I would like to take another look into this trope because I’ve received a lot of different kinds of comments on it from different platforms and first of all, thank you to everyone who commented on the previous article, you're making me analyse this trope a bit deeper and I hope this will answer a few of your questions. If this is the first you’re reading this article you may find the previous one here: https://justwritingwithjesse.blogspot.com/2024/04/writing-advice-magically-changing-your.html There are three main questions which appeared in the previous article. “Is the trope considered racist if only the main character transforms?”

“Brother Bear and The Emperor New Groove shouldn’t fall under the same category as your other examples because everyone in those stories is POC.”

“Transformation stories have been done for several years throughout different cultures.”

That’s a lot to go through but I hope this article will clarify a few things and if not, please keep leaving those comments.

Before I begin, I want to tackle part of the “Transformation stories have been done throughout the years and by several cultures.”

Nearly any story you can think of has already been told, nearly every trope has been around for years, and nothing is new if you look behind you. However, it’s still new for a lot of people living today.

I’m fully aware this trope has been done throughout history, but when I talk about it, I’m mainly gonna focus on Disney stories because one, they’re stories just as much as any other and two, they have the broadest appeal and millions of people see them across the world. In 2023 Moana was the most streamed movie on Disney+ for the United States of America and that movie came out in 2016 so don’t hit me with the “No one is watching these movies” bit. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/dwayne-johnson-teases-moana-2-at-cinemacon-this-is-what-he-has-said-about-disney-film/articleshow/109235284.cms?from=mdr

In 2023 Disney earned 88 billion dollars and for the sake of this article, they’re the largest storytelling company: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/revenue#:~:text=Disney%20revenue%20for%20the%20twelve,a%2022.7%25%20increase%20from%202021.

When I talk about tropes, I try to bring in examples of movies which most of the general public has seen (which is Disney). I know they don’t have the best writing or storytelling, but they’re the standard, which means they’re a good place to look at said tropes and figure out why these tropes are still around, and how they’re being used.

So, now that we know I’m fully aware of the history, let’s stay focused on the modern age of storytelling and let’s begin with the rest of the article.

Is the trope considered racist if only the main character transforms? Princess and the Frog, Soul, Brother Bear, The Emperor's New Groove, Coco, only had the main character transform and not the rest of the cast so is this trope considered racist? This trope has less to do with the rest of the cast transforming and more about the number of times it pops up in the first place by non-white writers.

Tangent: People of colour can tell their own story with their own culture however they want. This trope wouldn’t apply to them. It only applies to white people who write a POC story as it seems to be a common occurrence where they tend to make a person of colour transform against their will. This trope also won’t apply to a white person creating a story about another white person who transforms against their will because that wouldn't be a part of the magically changing your POC trope. Before you say, “What if a person of colour writes a story where the white person gets transformed against their will?” Again, this trope doesn’t apply. Not to mention white people can find stories about themselves where they don’t change very easily. The trope can't be “Magically Changing Your POC” when the main character is white, it’ll just be a transformation trope at that point.

Sorry about that tangent, moving on.

Disney has been telling stories for 83 years (when it comes to their animated movies) and both times when someone in the black community could see themselves for who they are, (in the animation side of things) the main character doesn’t stay as themselves and that’s the problem with this trope.

One could argue there have been two movies featuring Native Americans, Pocahontas and Brother Bear, in which only Brother Bear is a movie about transformation and while that’s true. Pocahontas is just...really...bad. Talking about everything that movie does wrong would require another post all on its own and I would rather not speak over the countless Native Americans who already complained about said movie. In fact, Brother Bear only exist because it was a response to Pocahontas as a way for Disney to say they could write a better Native American story. (Though they’ll never admit it.)

Moving on, remember when I said I felt like the reason why this trope exists is because white writers don’t know how to write a person of colour so they transform the main character to make it “easier”? Out of those two movies (using Soul and Princess and the Frog as reference), there were six writers in total; only one had a black writer, and he wasn’t even the lead writer for said movie. (I’ll let you guess which movie he was a part of.)

Coco isn’t a Hispanic story in the sense it wasn’t created by Hispanic people who knew the culture. (Don’t even try to debate this.) The people at Pixar said it themselves, they only came up with the idea of Coco after going to...Florida...and discovering a skeleton mariachi band...

[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/coco-how-pixar-brought-day-dead-story-life-1065932/]

The original idea for the film came to Unkrich, 50, during a 2011 family vacation while visiting the Mexico pavilion at Disney’s Epcot theme park in Florida. “I was riding this boat and we passed a mariachi skeleton band, and that was my trigger moment,” he recalls. “I started to think about the potential of telling a story set against the culture of Mexico. I had never seen a full story told against Dia de los Muertos.” - December 12th 2017

Now, there are two things about this quote which stick out, first of all, Unkrick (who’s white if you haven’t guessed) came about the idea for a MEXICAN HOLIDAY STORY while in THE UNITED STATES and secondly, he did admit he came up with this idea before “Book of Life” so I’ll give him a pass on never seeing a story set in Dia de los Muertos.

Those are three stories where the main writer is white, creating a story featuring POC characters and they all transformed at some point in the story against their will. (I’m not gonna go over every single writer for every single movie I mentioned, you get the picture.)

I’ve also gotten the argument that The Little Mermaid is a transformation story and while that's true. It’s about a mermaid transforming into a human, not a human being transformed against their will. Also Aerial chose to be transformed, she signed the contract. Last I checked Tiana didn’t choose to be a frog. I’ve also seen the argument that the Beast in Beauty and the Beast is a transformation story and all I have to say is no…it’s not. The story is about Belle, yes the Beast does get transformed into a beast at the start of the movie, against his will, but it’s not his story. It’s Belle’s, it’s a love story. The Beast is also a white person, so once more, it’s not a part of the magically changing your POC trope. (Before I hear anyone say The Princess and The Frog is also a love story, the main conflict of that movie is both characters trying to not be frogs anymore. The romance is kind of a side plot.)

Going back to “Is the trope racist if only the main character does it?”

As I said before this trope has less to do with just the main character, or the rest of the cast all joining in on the fun and more so with the amount of times it has appeared. However, if we’re just sticking with the only main characters section, those are the ones we’re supposed to relate with and it’s hard to relate to someone if the majority of the movie they’re a frog, or a bear, or a literal dead guy in the case of Soul.

Side characters improve a story, but the story isn’t about them, it’s about the hero against an obstacle. (Most often times a villain). When comparing stories, talking about them and the impact they leave, unless it’s needed, no one cares about the side characters. Having gay LGBTQIA+ characters in your story is great, and the LGBTQIA+ community might enjoy them if they're done well, but the LGBTQIA+ community would still want a story where they’re the hero, not just the supporting cast. In fact, going back to the black-and-white style of television. During the Wild West days, it was a trope where the white cowboy always had a funny Hispanic sidekick and who got the girl? The white cowboy. So yeah, communities who only see themselves as supporting roles, even if they enjoy those characters will often want a story where they're the hero for a change. This is why Zoro is such a good Hispanic cowboy movie because the main character is Hispanic and not a sidekick. (Also fun fact, the voice actor for Puss in Boots is in fact, Zorro.)

Getting back on track, if every time you could see a story where the main character represents you and your culture but they never stay human, it can kind of feel dehumanising...Which it is. The main character doesn’t stay human...which is dehumanising.

Don’t forget, that people of colour have been compared to animals their entire lives. While I don’t think any of these writers who wrote those transformation stories did it because of racism. It’s such a common trope that it should at least be considered before writing your transformation story.

"Two of your examples Brother Bear and The Emperor New Groove shouldn’t fall under the same category as your other examples because everyone in those stories is POC" The same thing could be said about Coco, however, the amount of POC in the story doesn’t change because this trope is more about the writers.

When I went to see who wrote those two movies I wasn’t expecting a list this long.

Tab Murphy, Lorne Cameron, David Hoselton Steve Bencich Ron J. Friedman, Stephen J. Anderson, Stevie Wermers, Kevin Deters, Woody Woodman, Thom Enriquez, Kevin Harkey, Broose Johnson, John Norton, John Puglisi, Tim Hodge, Tom LaBaff, Ray Shenusay, Brian Pimental, Jim Story, Don Dougherty, Don Hall, Samuel Levine, Aurian Redson, Chris Williams, Jeff Hand, Sam J. Levine, Roger Allers.

None of those are repeating names mind you and they're all for Brother Bear.

I’m not gonna be digging through each name, and discover who’s Native American because of the top five people who made Brother Bear, (CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner 2003). The two directors, Arron Blaise and Robert Walker, along with top writer I’d assume, Tab Murphy, are all white. (I at least didn’t find anything to suggest they were Native Americans.)

The Emperor's New Groove also has a lot of writers mind you, just not as bad as Brother Bear.

The trope about magically changing your POC isn’t really about the story, but who’s writing it, and even in stories where everyone is a person of colour. White people will still tend to force a transformation trope.

“Most good stories are about transformation. A character is changed or transformed by the course of events in a story. We thought it was a great metaphor to have Kenai transformed physically and then by the end of the film transformed emotionally as well.” - Chuck Williams 2021 (https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/in-their-own-words-the-directors-of-brother-bear/)

Nothing is wrong with this kind of thinking, but if you’re Native American, and you want to watch a Disney animated movie about your culture, you can either pick Pocahontas or go with a guy who doesn’t stay as a human at the end of the story. If you’re white you can choose Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, The Black Cauldron, Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Wreck it Ralph, Tangled, Frozen. Etc.

I know I missed some but that’s the point. When it comes to representation, there’s a lot white people can choose from and please don’t get me started with “Some of these movies the main character is ___”. I know. Despite, Snow White being German, white people (mainly talking about the United States) can relate to her easier than they can with Pocahontas or Tiana. However, if you’re a person of colour, it’s gonna be harder to connect with anyone who doesn’t have your own skin tone. (I said harder, not impossible.)

This is why I and other people of colour talk about this trope. We just want to see stories where we can stay human throughout the entirety of it without changing. We know those stories are out there, but for the sake of this article, Disney is the largest storyteller in the world. Whenever it releases a new story, everyone from around the world is watching. We would like to be the hero and not an animal. We don’t want to be dehumanised.

"Transformation stories have been done throughout the years and by several cultures" I’ve already touched on this briefly at the beginning so I won’t spend too much time on it here. I know this, you know this, everyone knows this. The problem with this line of thinking is that it's not what we’re talking about. We know this trope has been done before but in our current age, we don’t want to see it, at least not as often as it has been appearing.

Do you know how many LGBTQIA+ stories there are? Thousands, maybe even millions if you look hard enough. Do you know how many LGBTQIA+ stories that are mainstream? That almost everyone has either seen or at least knows about? Very...very...few.

Not everyone can find stories about themselves, not everyone knows where to look. Like I said before, Disney is the biggest storyteller in the world, it’s a very safe bet people have seen a Disney movie. People of colour would like more stories where they aren’t getting transformed midway through because it’s a recurring pattern if you haven’t guessed already. It seems to be a reoccurring pattern with white people who are in charge of said story if you haven’t guessed.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the number of POC stories overshadowed the number of times they get transformed but as of right now, that’s not the case. In fact, there are more stories (In the Disney lineup) where the main characters are animals instead of a POC staying as a human throughout the entire story. Don’t you think that’s a bit of a problem?

Why do you think it’s easier and more common (for white writers and directors) to write a story about talking dogs than it is to have a POC stay themselves for the entirety of the story? I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure out of all of Disney's history, only two people of colour got to direct a Disney animated movie. They’re, Carlos López Estrada and Charise Castro Smith. Carlos helped with Raya and The Last Dragon while Charise helped with Encanto and I’m pretty sure both of them were only co-directors.

You can argue all you like that the trope isn’t racist or that I’m stretching with this article but until there are more POC stories where the main character stays human throughout the whole story, and those stories surpass the number of talking animals. Then yes, I and other people of colour will keep saying the trope where a POC gets transformed against their will, by a white writer might be doing it because of racism (subconsciously) because it’s easier to write a story about talking animals than it is for a white person to write a story about someone being a person of colour.

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mamun258 · 8 months

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Is Swipe mode really dead?

In 1995, match.com, a website that helped users find partners, was established. Registering an account, uploading information, and making HE Tuber connections through the website were like the first generation of Internet matchmakers. With the rise of the mobile Internet, Tinder was launched in 2013. It adopted Swipe's product design and gave more initiative to users. Users take a look at the information and photos, swipe left or right, choose each other, chat for a while, and then go out on a date. This model gradually became the first choice of users for a long time.

How Americans meet their partners｜Image source: X

The Internet and mobile Internet have indeed changed people’s habits of finding dates. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of Americans who meet their partners online has skyrocketed. In a survey spanning 70 years and with a sample size of 6,519, The proportion through online channels has increased to more than 70% year by year, while all other methods have declined. Just as industrialization and urbanization have broken the mate selection methods such as "well-matched" and "parents' orders", the Internet has also changed the long-lasting mate selection model that relied on social relationships and circles. Tinder is one of the most representative products. .

The benefits of using Dating App to choose a mate are obvious, it is wide selection, simple and efficient. However, the disadvantages, especially models like Tinder that only look at photos and simple information to make decisions, are superficial and superficial, and the matching efficiency is actually lower than the "traditional model". But the vast number of choices given by dating apps like Tinder are enough to mask the problem for a long time.

A friend of the author is a heavy user of Dating App. He even set a goal for himself. He must meet 1-2 girls every day to be considered qualified. He made a rough calculation. In mid-2023, he frequently used multiple dating apps for half a year. In total, he "selected" about 200 people of the opposite sex through this method, and only 20-30 people could be added to his personal contact information. , and less than 10 of them dated offline. Compared with the time and energy he put in, the efficiency of using Dating App to find a partner is not high.

American adults’ confidence in finding a long-term partner on Dating Apps, Note: Data release date is 2023.2, survey date is 2022.7 | Image source: Pew Research Center

In fact, this is basically the case among the wider user group. According to a Pew survey on the use of Dating Apps by American adults, only 21% of the respondents are confident that they will find love through Dating Apps, and most of them The interviewees all thought it was impossible or unsure.

Attitudes of various user groups towards Dating Apps｜Image source: Pew Research Center

In terms of attitudes towards Dating Apps, only 53% of users believe that the experience of using Dating Apps is positive, and the proportion of men is higher. Regarding paid users specifically, only 58% made positive comments, which is 5% higher than the overall data and almost the same as the data for the male user group. Considering that male users are significantly more willing to pay (male: 54%, female: 29%), paying for Dating App does not significantly increase the experience.

That said, due to a variety of factors, people are indeed starting to look for dates online more, but the overall experience is not great.

For example, Dating App is designed to help users date, and uses a large number of choices to make up for the pain point of inaccurate matching. However, if you need to pay for a product, you need a card, so the payment point setting of Dating App is generally based on "controlling the quantity". Generally, Dating Apps with Swipe as the core will limit the number of right swipes that users can make, and they must pay to unlock unlimited right swipes. They also impose restrictions on inaccurate matching, so many users must pay before they can meet their date.

Proportion of users who experience negative emotions due to receiving too many or too few messages｜Image source: Pew Research Center

Therefore, on the user side, there will be two factors that cause fatigue in dating apps as summarized by Hinge CEO. Either they receive too many messages and it is difficult to make decisions, or they receive too few messages and they become anxious. Pew data shows that 54% of female users and 25% of male users feel overwhelmed because they receive too many messages, while 40% of women and 64% of men feel anxious because of too few messages.

Proportion of people who have experienced emotional fatigue or burnout due to using dating apps｜Image source: Healthy Framework

And this is just the beginning . Whether it is unlocking the right swipe restriction, Super Like or directly seeing who likes you, paying for Dating App can actually only improve the "matching" link, the subsequent initial reply, online chat, and offline dating. , every step in this long chain may end in vain.

From matching, to mutual understanding, to offline, in this long chain, Dating App still has unresolved problems. In addition, after more than ten years of development, it is difficult for new product forms to emerge, and the number of users that the App can expand is endless. More and more, and some users are even starting to flee. It’s no wonder that as soon as AI came out, products such as the former Tinder CEO and Bumble were gearing up.

But what we want to talk about today is a more interesting phenomenon. Users have begun to "vote with their feet" and engage in dating without doing their job.

3. Category No. 1 are here to grab business?

In early December, an app that had nothing to do with dating was updated. However, the media and users said that a "new Dating App" was about to be born.

Report by the British Daily Mail (top), X users’ comments on the news (bottom) | Image source: Daily Mail, X

On December 6, fitness app Strava launched private chat and group chat (Direct Messenger) functions between users. The British Daily Mail bluntly stated that this new feature can "enhance users' love lives." Many users on social media also said that Strava with the DM function is already comparable to Dating App.

Image source: Sensor Tower

Strava is a social fitness tracking app that originally focused on running and cycling, but has now expanded to more than 30 sports. Users can record and share their own motion trajectories and other data in the App. They can also see the motion data of other users and interact under the motion data shared by users. It can be regarded as a sports app with certain social attributes. Although domestic users are not familiar with it, as early as 2020, this App was the most profitable fitness app in the world, no one. Currently, there are more than 3 million DAU worldwide, and there are more than 500,000 in the United States alone.

However, when the author collected information on social media and search engines, I found that before DM existed, many users had already met their dating partners through Strava's comment area, and many of them eventually got married. According to users on the Reddit forum, there are three major benefits to using Strava to meet dates.

Firstly, Strava users love sports and their overall life status is relatively positive; secondly, the theme of sports can provide many topics for both parties; thirdly, it can avoid awkward first dates, as long as you make an appointment with a sports team on the App, you can meet naturally . The probability of actually getting together is much higher than meeting someone on a dating app. Shared interests become the cornerstone of a high success rate.

Image source:X

Just a few days before Strava launched the new feature, the Wall Street Journal also published an article about four couples who used non-dating apps such as Duolingo, Strava, and Yelp to fall in love and eventually get married, and thus proposed a The trend is that more users prefer interest-based dating methods.

One example is that Ciesielski, an event manager living in Washington, USA, and Amanda, a writer living in the Philippines, were learning Chinese on Duolingo at the same time and saw each other on the leaderboard. After a while, Ciesielski began encouraging Amanda to keep going after she completed her daily "streak," and they exchanged contact information and began dating online. This story also has a fairy tale ending. The two finally survived the epidemic and got rid of the restrictions of distance and came together. Duolingo, who was cued, also forwarded it on the official tweet and replied "Please add matchmaker to my resume."

Although both Strava and Duolingo are not specialized dating apps, the No. 1 app in the two vertical categories provides interactive functions under the premise of a large user base, and is obviously used flexibly by users. The current situation of Dating Apps, their enthusiasm to embrace AI, and the recent emergence of new AI-based Dating Apps on the market, such as Yourmove.ai, Rizz, Iris, Aimm, Teaser, etc., all show that the dating pattern has been stable for many years. There may be something new in the dating market.

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