#Poptimism

[cowhandlikeme]

Alexander Avila continues to slay with his video essays! (You may recognize the name as one of the many people James Somerton plagiarized.) This one is titled, "This Video Isn't Just About Taylor Swift. It's About You." It is 2:27:36.

[fanboy-feminist]

This Woman Got An Honorary Doctorate In Fine Arts From N.Y.U….

[draculas-tits]

the modern era of poptimist pedagogy is based upon teaching people not to critique, not to analyze, not to understand truthfully the content that they consume and enjoy, and to interpret valid media critiques as personal attacks and valid analysis as "pretentious" intellectualism

[genderkoolaid]

currently watching alexander avila's new video essay. its really good! i think he's done a very good job at balancing acknowledgement of artists' accomplishments and struggles with criticism of their privileges and how they fit into larger social systems. its very interesting + i highly recommend it especially if you have any interest in analysis of the music industry and pop culture

[erotomanicpixiedreamgirl]

marina needs to spiral and become miserable again for the sake of her music

[whiskeyswifty]

like i was just listening to a podcast where a grown ass man was like "i don't like any taylor swift music but Blank Space... now that's a song god damnit." he came to this revelation in 2023. like this is what i'm saying Blank Space is THEEEE song it is the equalizer, it is the BEST and MOST pop song she's ever written!! it's undeniable even by those who hate her and is that not the greatest marker for how amazing a song is?? and how she made that song when she was feeling particularly petty towards her haters as the entire song is a fuck you to people who called her crazy and clingy. and she said she wanted to make the song so good that it would get stuck in their heads. and it DID!!! and she WON!!! brings haters to their knees even to this DAY!! Blank Space song of all time!!!!

[windowsandfeelings]

I slept terribly on Sunday and Monday nights and then last night I slept better except that I had weird and unsettling dreams, the last of which woke me up crying 5 minutes before my alarm went off. Ugh!

[rainbow-arrow]

spotify really told me i listened to 183 artists this year but only four genres. what the fuck

[maingh0st]

What kind of music you like to listen to?

mostly indie folk & alt rock! but a mix of lots of genres

[pettybourgeoiz]

✰Bourgeoiz Music Discovery✰

[ravenkings]

and are the “people who sit around drinking wine while listening to music saying that movies are art” and the “cynics” in the room with us now?

[holdoncallfailed]

there are things to criticize beyoncé for wrt her wealth especially but if you can’t recognize the difference between lemonade as a visual album and a fucking avengers movie then you are willfully ignorant and not actually that perceptive of artfulness or quality when it comes to media and you’re certainly not the critical thinker you pretend to be.

[moonsappho]

sending this video into the brains of swifties everywhere

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[allurared]

one thing i do kinda hate about this wave of pseudointellectual movies that are about Art™ in some capacity is this tendency to constantly take a jab at critics, like, making it a plot point and everything, because if we're being honest WHEN was the last time professional critics were an actual cultural force? the 90s?? the early aughts at best???

in which capacity are critics actual threats to art in our cultural moment?? nobody gives a shit about critics!! most people hate them on principle!!!!!

[breezytealy]

With all the chat I decided to watch a "what-if" for the first time in years and - okay, this is god tier I'm sure but still - I'm amazed?

NO NO NO serious you need to watch even the first five min, just the quality of it - what the absolute hell this is amazing? Some voice acting, there's simple movement on the screen, music, FOLEY, like???? Maybe I'm old and clearly don't watch enough Youtube and this is all very easily doable with three clicks of a mouse but waaa?

To be honest, as much as I've snarfsnarfsnarfed at some premises, judging this as fanfiction is a little unfair as the rules for writing and for audio/visual media are very different, never mind for a different concept entirely. They are telling a story for sure, but so are fan comics and we hold them to their own standard. It's a what-if fanwork, and people more familiar with them than I will be able to judge them within their own context.

I get why writers/readers (including me) don't like them though. I've been flicking through and a lot of them/most ""suffer"" from "tell" not showing by their nature, the "dialogue" can be all over the place in characterisation as it's an account rather than true dialogue, and they feel like "everyone is logical all the time" (outside of the premise), maybe to appease nit-pickers. By that I mean there's a lot of "aha since X and Y then Z" like a theory video, which is pleasing when it falls that way but a no-no to signpost in fic. Given it's a narrated account, the omniscience and far narrative distance makes the story very flat because the author appears to be "in the way", again a writing no-no (unless you're being very deliberate). In some cases very literally as the narrator appears on screen like the video above.

Judging from script alone this feels like a first draft or a detailed outline, or those "can you write my story please" messages lol. But the surrounding execution? Wow. Awesome! And I know in the best ones the writing would have been edited to suit the media. Even on some of the seemingly lower production ones I'm pumped for folks.

But I don't believe working with a fic-writer (i.e. do this audio-visual work with an existing fic to the letter) would work for the same audience. The audience these attract must enjoy the account delivery and the theory video-ness of it? And that's why this is cool because it's yet another way people can create and engage with stories facilitated through new tech. This is a different kind of accessible, one the people who send those "write my fic for me" messages can try for themselves using the very outline they've sent over without having to be as familiar with writing. And it's so cool that more and more people can communicate the stories that they want to, because stories connect us as people.

Yeah, I think there's an argument that reducing stories to seeming outlines takes away from writing, visual and audio literacy (the use of metaphor, colour, panelling, shot framing etc), but honestly I'd want to hear from fans of what-ifs to find out what literacy might be being lost (if any) before opining further.

On a personal note, I love different- and multi-media fan works as a concept even if I don't enjoy certain types. For me, the more immersive the better. And if I could do a decent masculine voice and knew video editing I'd be trying this kind of thing out myself. Maybe not a what-if, but something haha!