#i'm so bad at tagging how do you market to your target audience

[natsu-tte-noodle]

Lounge Chronicles - 5:08 AM

(This is something I’ve been writing on and off whenever I get super hit by writer’s block--I thought it might be fun to post it in snippets here before uploading the whole thing to AO3 once it’s done :D enjoy)

Tsuzuru poured his third cup of coffee and plugged his laptop into the wall of the lounge.  Damn outlet on his side of the room for needing to be fixed.  Damn Masumi for wanting a working light in their room.  Damn humidifier, taking up the last available plug in his room when he had a paper due by the end of the day and a laptop battery in desperate need of replacing.

He could only praise the heavens that today was Sunday, and it was Summer and Winter using the practice rooms today, and his current part time job was closed for renovations.  It was a once-in-a-blue-moon day that Tsuzuru didn’t have 800 other obligations to attend to.  He was grateful to be able to completely waste it on this 8,000 word essay.

At this hour, there wasn’t a soul awake in the dorms; not even Itaru stayed up this late if there wasn’t an event with one of his absolute favorite characters, and from what Tsuzuru could gather none were currently running.  Briefly, he glanced at his phone, wondering if he should check out Pocket Kniroun for the first time in almost a year.  Ultimately, though, he decided he had to at least get started before he started falling for distractions.

For once, he had actually just woken up, opting to get up incredibly early instead of staying up incredibly late.  Of course, that didn’t mean he hadn’t stayed up pretty late anyway, hence the third cup of coffee already, but.  Small improvements.

Copy-pasting the cover page format from a previous essay for the same class, he quickly adjusted the information to fit the new assignment, typed out “INSERT TITLE HERE,” and punched the enter key until the cursor moved down to page 2.  Time to write.

…tiiiime to write.

…any day now.

Tsuzuru buried his face in his arms, muffling his groan so as to not wake anyone.

Well, he supposed it wasn’t a code red situation yet.  He still had, what.  18 hours and 46 minutes before this thing was due?  He could spare a little bit of time wasting.  Maybe a mental workout to get his brain juices working.  (He made a mental note to never say “brain juices” again.)

He opened a new word document and started drafting out a backstory for the guy who sweeps the steps in Nocturnality.

[hazbin-but-good]

another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

[tohokuu]

Anon ask time:

I'm a writer on here and im pretty notorious on getting things out late and I feel bad or it especially when it's a request.

But no one talks abt how it's just hard sometimes to be a writer on Tumblr. Like i worked my ass off to get only 500 followers and then an anon that reached out to me and asked for advice posts like three works and gained 1k followers in a month. I'm v happy for her and everything but it feels unfair sometimes. And i just want to be a big voice in the ateez fanfic community and have people recognize that im a good writer and be like you or hongism or pk but when you post something that you spent all this time on and for it to only get 10 likes is very disheartening.

And I have been revamping old works too but it still is so hard

ahhhh my love, it’s okayyyy

let’s pretend i’m letting you cuddle into my arms and i’m stroking your hair gently 🤗

now, PLS don’t compare me to caly, shes huge 😭 but that’s also like the biggest compliment ever, do not make me cry at 6 AM

the biggest thing about ANY hobby that ppl fail to realize is that it’s not supposed to be a job. it’s a hobby, you do it when you feel like it. i haven’t been able to paint in over a year, i feel like i’ve lost my artistic talent, but when i look back at my old pieces i’m like.. holy shit i drew that ??

or, DEAN ? if you know who he is, he hasn’t released music for maybe 2-4 years now ? people ask for more music but no one realizes how difficult it is to produce art. it’s difficult to put your brain together and find something satisfactory enough for your audience. writing is the same way. it’s art. it’s talent. sometimes it doesn’t flow in your head properly and it’s difficult to produce stuff.

and don’t ever feel bad for being late to a request. you’re not obligated to answer anyone. what are they gonna do ? tell their mom ? 🙄

and sometimes it is hard to gain followers. my old blog only reached around 570 followers before i just gave up and made a new blog. i had decent amount of works up there but it didn’t make much of a difference.

maybe a blog change could help ? a new environment often helps (that’s what all my friends that constantly change blogs say)

and maybe with recognition, it’s also a matter of tags. tags make a BIG difference. i changed some tags for my fics and it made my fics grow. tumblr ever only puts the first 4-5 tags to use and you gotta use the ones people will go for the most. it’s bit of a marketing situation as well

and i understand where you’re saying that it really burns you out when you work so hard on a fic and it only gets 10 likes :( that can be upsetting. but tumblr is literally a gamble, not everything will do well. many of my fics that’s i write don’t do well. my angst fics never do well and i have a couple of those. my fluff fics aren’t all that popular either.

my melanie series; even tho i worked hard and completed it, if you look at the individual works, there’s not many notes on it. and it’s not just me, it happens to every writer. i spoke to caly (hongism) a couple months back and she told me that a lot of her kinktober works didn’t get the most recognition, so really, tumblr is just a gamble

and also, notes don’t really matter when you’re doing something you love. if it soothes your heart to write, then fuck notes. i understand that notes and comments can be a motivator too, but that’s the readers job, not yours. us writers do our best to get our readers to reblog our work and leave comments, some listen and some don’t

and there’s also a target audience. most people consume the horny stuff, so other genres don’t often get the same love

i’ll be back with some business strategies later and you can drop another ask, or i’ll make a general post abt it

i’m started to get late for school now so i gtg 😭 if there’s anything else, my ask box is open