#they’re basically like that one cartoon you thought was a fever dream

[quiltwork]

But to go on a weird tangent; That voices book reminds me a whole lot of internal family systems therapy.. WHICH REMINDS ME OF MY (Old??) PARTS I HAD when I was a kid/teen. That I OFTEN ASSOCIATE WITH KINS BECAUSE THAT IS THE BEST WAY I’VE FOUND TO DESCRIBE/SHOW THEM OFF, OKAY??! Don’t make this weird...

So going off of the book’s categorization of voices and the roles of internal families, I’ve summarized my parts to be:

The Queen Bee, Manager. Full of Pride and Self-Justification. Brandy Harrington from Brandy and Mr. Whiskers. This part covers up “weaknesses” of being autistic, learning disabled, domestic violence, emotional neglect, multiple family member abandonment, and child on child sexual abuse. She represents that 11 year old me who tried so hard to fit in and emulate her abusers. All she wanted was to be affirmed, valued and validated.

Same with the other “Queen” Manager lol. Another part full of Pride. This one specifically I held onto at 13 because I just could not get any real discussion going with my mom on why I questioned my sexuality, and I just felt super invalidated so I rebelled as a form of “self care”. The difference between the Queens is one wants to fit in, the other wants to stand out but still be the Best That Ever Was, hahaha. They cover up all the same so-called weaknesses still (ZIM covers up grooming abuse as well), and really just need to both know they’re valued by Jesus, so they can celebrate their strengths instead of using them as a shield.

And this is the final Queen, the Dream Queen Manager. Sawyer from Cats Don’t Dance. Basically the idealized working class woman who finds success eventually after hustling to the max. My teenage dream come true to finally reaching adulthood after the mess of childhood and coming out on Top Better than The Rest. A sort of weird euphoria fever dream of “I can’t wait for my life to start in college and career!” completely disregarding my mental health. Still needs to know she’s loved by God and it’s okay to be disabled, use her strengths instead for her community.

Foreign Exchange Boy, the Manager. Self doubt, self condemning, second guessing. Steven Universe. 15-16 year old victim wearing the disguise of a boy because she hates her body that much by now and wishes she were the opposite, a strong fat boy. This part literally ran on shame in a way that was running away from sexual traumas instead of facing them and accepting them (like all Managers do, basically). This voice reveals our human limitations. Through biblical self awareness, she can hold herself accountable as a girl without striving for the impossible. She can learn to love her body.

Good Girl Nice Girl and/or Runaway. Mihashi Ren. I see them as a mixture of both Manager and Firefighter. Normally people pleasing at the expense of herself, but ready to run somewhere else if things get out of control. This parts been around for as long as I can remember, since my preteens, actually. This part says it’s good to serve others and share in their happiness. 

Being a good kid and meeting my peers’ expectations of a nice girl who would do anything so they wouldn’t leave, and that she could absorb their identities and self esteem. Jesus taught it was good to serve without expecting anything back. You typically won’t, anyway, with the way this part likes to go about it. When she runs, she can run to God’s rest in prayer like in times’ past. He doesn’t grow weary from work that He should want breaks from us. 

The Revolutionary Manager. Dan from Dan Vs. From 16 to 17 as I was still trans, I was absolutely fed up with the world by this point that I snapped. Not that I haven’t before, many parts beg to differ... This voice Resents, Condemns and Controls Others to try to fix the broken world, so they in turn can fix themselves. Real petty stuff, but funny in a cartoon. The good thing this part means to say is it’s good to look out for your neighbor, esp if they’re on a harmful path. Jesus shows how He challenged others without forcing them to be like Him, but to forgive and trust their lives in the Father’s hands.

The Lovesick Love Interest Manager. Yuno Gasai. I didn’t know there was a character who could so accurately describe a part, and her show came out a year after this part took over, so there were no influences. At 14-15 years old, I developed love addiction for this girl and convinced her to date me so I could stave off suicidal thoughts from my emotional neglect and abandonment. She’d cheat, me being immature thinking she was too cowardly to tell them to leave her alone, I’d fight off boys at every turn.

Exalting myself to prove my worth, people pleasing her to keep her around and have an identity and self worth, and overcorrecting and fighting rivals to keep the relationship safe. All in the game of covering up the sexual abuse, grooming abuse and neglect which lead to this. Eventually when I lost her due to putting up boundaries after saying yes to too many things I didn’t truly agree to, this Manager slowly faded into the Revolutionary. Whoops. Jesus still sees and loves her in her weaknesses, she doesn’t have to earn His love because He stays anyway, and He doesn’t have favorites.

A Manager I don’t have a kin for. Mute was silent in public. Schools and everywhere else, she kept quiet to avoid ridicule and rejection. Exalts Others by fading into the background. Wishes she could make friends, but can’t out of fear. Assumes she’s in good standing and is noticed already for it, but is instead ignored or denied a personality. This voice says it’s good to listen more than quickly speak. God sees me and wants to be my friend. Nothing I do could surprise Him enough to give up on me.

We’re onto the Firefighters. This is Ghost. A couple times during toddler years, once during my preteens, Ghost’s dissociation was a mainstay at 13 onwards. Sometimes floating around causing chaos without realizing it, for me to come to and be horrified at the awkward consequences. Because of outside or inside stress, she zones out somewhere. 

She held back traumatic memories with amnesia, as well. This response is a God given pain medication and sedative, but during inopportune times, we need to dance, stomp our feet, feel textures, notice colors and food tastes to wake up. Or remember something funny or lovely from nostalgia if emotionally numb, too. 

The others I don’t have kins for. I can only describe them. Bingey feels the worlds out of control, so she overeats to calm down. I may not be able to control what the world does, but I am accountable to how much food I take in. I make our meals every 4 hours with snacks in-between. I’ve found I love cooking, and it’s okay to enjoy life’s pleasures in moderation. Daydream jumps on dissociation wagon by hanging out in the bedroom all day to go to another fantasy world. This voice shows us it’s okay to have dreams and be in awe of God’s creation. He has a hopeful future for us that we’ll love and we can worship Him for His work, instead of escaping into illusions and never going outside.

Itch is the unaware self harmer. Skin picking. Whenever stressed, here it comes. This voice reminds me that we need care. Like a toddler crying and tugging on our clothes for help and love. Gently redirect the Itch somewhere else to take care of the child underneath.

There’s Masochist. Self harmer who uses sex. Born out of shame, sexual traumas, family dynamics. Masochist loves to bully “weaknesses” like being too skinny, eating too much, having a female body, being a sexual object, being stupid. Feeds on rape fantasies by themselves or showing up to keep relationships safe when I don’t feel like being intimate with others. But in Jesus, I can love myself for my weight, sex, and disabilities because He does and He made me this way. He shows me I can be sexually pure in marriage with a godly man who loves me for me. If marriage is not destined, I’m still okay with God. 

Finally, Student is the workaholic perfect kid to deflect attention away from obvious dysfunctional family dynamics, so nothing worse happens in foster homes. Born from domestic violence, school torture and seclusion, training and brainwashing beliefs of internalized ableism and masking, and the idea from family to never tell the truth about home life. There’s nothing wrong with working, but we can’t be perfect or hide everything forever. I can work for God and tell Him the truth without fear of tragedy. 

[thecastingcircle]

By day, Jennifer Turner works in law enforcement in Vancouver. But on this particular late August weekend, she’s in Cleveland, attending JemCon, an annual gathering for devotees of the colorful Eighties cartoon Jem and the Holograms. Turner’s fandom runs deep. She grew up with a single father who supported her love for all things Jem. One Christmas, she woke up to find he had bought her every single Jem-related doll available at the time; other times, he would set an alarm and wake her up early so she could watch the show before school.

“It was such an escape, and so different from the regular narratives that you had about mom and dad,” Turner says of the cartoon, which follows the adventures of a philanthropic-minded orphan named Jerrica — proprietor of an orphanage for teenage girls, the Starlight House — who has a rock-star secret identity/alter-ego, Jem. “I think I identified a little bit with Jem losing her parents.”

In hindsight, Turner, who sports a detailed, full-color tattoo of Jem on her right calf and ink depicting a rival bandleader named Pizzazz on her left calf, also recognizes how the show informed her feminist worldview. “Here was a heroine that owned her own business, was a humanitarian, ran an orphanage, took care of her sister. [She] had a romance, but it was never the whole point of the story. It was about her, and her career. It whisked me away.”

For many, Jem is a forgotten retro footnote. The cartoon had a relatively short lifespan — 65 episodes aired between 1985 to 1988 — and the accompanying doll line enjoyed only a brief burst of popularity. But for fans such as Turner, Jem was a life-changing phenomenon.

Thirty years after the cartoon initially went off the air, and three years after a poorly received live-action feature-film reboot, the Jem universe — or “multi-universes,” in the words of Samantha Newark, who provided the speaking voice for both Jem and Jerrica on the cartoon — remains a vibrant, creative space. Jem lives on via fan art and detailed websites dedicated to the brand. T-shirts mash upJem characters with art in the styles of Duran Duran, Queen, Mötley Crüe, Poison and the Misfits (who share a name with the Holograms’ rival band on the show). There’s also Truly Outrageous: A Jem Fan Film, a Kickstarter-funded live-action short named after a key line in the chorus of the show’s theme song, and a Spain-made short film, MisfitSized. Newark has even compiled a “Jem Drag Stars” playlist on her YouTube channel, featuring detailed makeup tutorials and drag performances themed around the characters.

That same dedication permeates “How Rock & Roll Infiltrated Saturday Morning Cartoons,” an unofficial JemCon kickoff panel discussion and Q&A. Held at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the event features appearances from three luminaries in the Jemuniverse: Newark; series creator Christy Marx; and cartoonist Keith Tucker, a storyboard artist on many of the show’s music videos.

Newark, a beaming presence with cascades of auburn hair, trills one of her character’s signature lines into the mic: “It’s showtime, Synergy!” All three speakers have an easy rapport as they share behind-the-scene tidbits from the cartoon. At one point, Marx draws gasps of wonder by revealing she once pitched a Jem episode set in the Rock Hall that never moved forward.

As the Q&A wraps up, a young woman standing against the wall raises her hand and shares that her name is Jherica —and that she is, in fact, named after Jem’s non-rock-star persona. Incredibly, Jherica Belle isn’t from Cleveland and hadn’t heard about JemCon but just happened to be in town for a work conference and decided to visit the Rock Hall, where she came upon the panel. Her close friends and family call her Jem, Belle shares later via e-mail. “No more than a handful,” she writes. “Not everyone can call me Jem. That name is special.”

Jem and the Holograms was originally created by Sunbow Productions to promote a line of rock & roll-themed dolls produced by toy giant Hasbro, whose other properties included G.I. Joe and My Little Pony. The original Jem doll line is a New Wave fever dream encompassing neon-hued clothing, shoes, accessories and musical instruments. Some toys even came packaged with actual playable cassettes featuring original songs heard in the cartoon.

The show expanded on the dolls’ backstory. After the death of her parents, an ambitious young woman named Jerrica suddenly finds herself running an orphanage and owning half of her late father’s record company, Starlight Music. Simultaneously, Jerrica discovers that her dad created a smart computer named Synergy, who informs the budding music exec that her magical, star-shaped “Jemstar Earrings” can create holograms that allow her to assume the identity of a rock star. Cue the formation of the band Jem and the Holograms, whose lineup features Jerrica’s younger sister, keyboardist Kimber and two adopted sisters: guitarist Aja and drummer Shana.

The show’s 65 episodes boast plenty of over-the-top drama and narrative cliffhangers. Jerrica’s Starlight Music CEO competition is Eric Raymond, a slimy character who constantly tries to sabotage and undermine her. Jem and the Holograms do battle both onstage and off with the Misfits, a gang of felonious (if musically talented) mean girls managed by Raymond. Jerrica also takes care of the Starlight Girls, the foster children who live at Starlight House, and navigates her relations with boyfriend Rio. In true fantasy-land fashion, Rio also falls in love with Jem, but never discovers that the two women are one and the same.

“It’s a character-driven show,” says Christy Marx. “Basically a soap opera for kids is what it was — [or] ended up being anyway.”

This cartoon drama mirrored the press-inflated real-life drama involving the toy lines. As it goes with many real-life female musicians, Jem was often pitted against another female talent: Mattel’s doll juggernaut Barbie. An October 1986 Los Angeles Times article,“Barbie Takes Up Rock ‘n’ Roll to Match Rival Jem,” detailed the emergence of Barbie and the Rockers, a line of rock-themed dolls that debuted in stores shortly before Jem did.

The competition was at least healthy. According to an August 1987 Los Angeles Times story, Jem had sold more than 3 million dolls to date, and the cartoon was drawing 2.5 million young viewers each week, “making it the third most-watched children’s program in syndication.” Unfortunately, Jem’s pop-cultural moment was short-lived: The animated series was canceled in 1988 due to the doll line’s decreasing popularity.

The ongoing fascination with Jem and the Holograms certainly has something to do with nostalgia. Yet Jem isn’t like most children’s entertainment. The show’s sophisticated story lines often involved heavy real-world issues; for example, a runaway hotline was flooded with calls after the phone number ran at the end of one episode. Plus, even minor characters have elaborate backstories, making the show feel more like an adaptation of a novel rather than a cartoon spun off from a toy line.

According to Newark, it was by design that the characters on Jem felt like three-dimensional people. “Our reads had to be very real,” she explains. “They didn’t want cartoony. They were like, ‘No, we want the kids to look up to you, like you’re their older sisters, or their friends.'”

The quality and care that went into Jem’s narratives extended to its in-episode animated videos, whose original music and lyrics also promoted thought-provoking messages. “You might dismiss [the songs] as cheesy, but they’re not,” says Ari Gold, who provided the singing voice for the character Ba Nee, an eight-year-old Vietnamese orphan who was losing her sight. “The messages are good; they’re complex; they’re messages that we still need to hear today. There’s really almost a Jem song about every situation in life.”

Gold, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, notes that their character’s signature song, “A Father Should Be,” is “about the ideal father that so many of us didn’t have.” As another example, they cite “Alone Again,” a rather serious song touching on depression and feeling self-conscious that was sung by a young character dealing with drug addiction. “I mean, this is a cartoon in the Eighties for children. This is before Oprah was talking about this stuff,” Gold says with a laugh. “It was so ahead of its time in so many ways.”

The lyrics were set to equally high-quality music, courtesy of co–composer-arranger Anne Bryant, who noted in a 2009 interview that the Holograms’ songs were orchestrated with real horns, woodwinds and strings, while the Pizzazz-led Misfits tunes had electronic elements and guitars. “[Anne Bryant] was writing pop music, but with a lot of key changes,” says Britta Phillips, who was the singing voice of Jem and is now better known as a member of the band Luna and duo Dean & Britta.

“It was all very sophisticated, and not simple vocally at all,” Phillips says. “I feel like I really learned how to sing doing that. I had a really powerful and high voice, but not a lot of nuance or flexibility or any of that until I started doing the Jem stuff. That all came from that, from working with Anne.”

The show’s smart, non-pandering approach can be traced to Marx, who is revered by fans. Stefan Spierings recalls being “extremely nervous” before he and his cousin Rob met Marx at the 2007 JemCon. “To us, it was almost like meeting Madonna,” the Netherlands native says. “She’s one of our heroes.” A cosplay fanatic named Raven, who published her first book in 2016 under the pen name Evelyn Whitney, could be seen furiously scribbling notes during one of Marx’s JemCon presentations and also considers the creator a writing role model. “I want my career to look like hers,” she says.

The respect is mutual, however. As JemCon unfolds, it’s clear that Marx, who also wrote 23 episodes, takes her role as the shepherd of Jem’s legacy quite seriously, and answers fan questions about character motivations with care and respect. The attention to detail makes sense: Marx grew up an ardent fan of comic books, and worked in TV production before becoming a writer.

When Marx signed on to the Jem project, certain elements were already locked in place, including the rock-star premise and the Jem/Jerrica secret identity. Yet many other elements were in flux, right down to character names (Jem was originally known as “M”). Marx also recalls being given conflicting directions as she began to flesh out and develop Jem’s world. “They said, ‘OK, it’s a girl’s property, and it’s got to be romance and fashion and glitter and glamour,’ and all of this stuff. ‘But we’re afraid the boys might change the dial, so there’s got to be action!'” She laughs. “It was really interesting how they were trying to juggle all of this.”

Despite such seemingly divergent directives, she says working with Sunbow Productions was “a dream” and adds that Hasbro was, for the most part, “hands off. They had moments, perhaps, when they exerted a bit of control over certain stories, but not much. They really let us have a lot of creative freedom.” That helps to explain why Jem explored deeper themes than other cartoons of the time and featured such a stereotype-breaking female lead. Jem herself is a quintessentially Eighties icon, a fashion plate with a shock of pink hair and cutting-edge outfits who’s also whip smart and a total boss. Despite the tragedies Jerrica/Jem has faced, she seemingly has it all: a fun, glamorous and successful life full of romance, rock and responsibility.

The cartoon’s progressive approach toward ethnic diversity — Holograms member Aja is Asian-American and Shana is black — also resonated with fans such as Christina Santisteban, who sports pink glitter eyeshadow, a blue wig and a yellow lace dress. “There were very few other cartoons that were so diverse in its characters, and so inclusive,” she says. “Where do you get a girl band that had sisters that were of different backgrounds? It was very, very well representative of what the ideal should be, in a sense. Jem was a wonderful microcosm.”

For all of Jem’s over-the-top flash, the show also offered subtler messaging to some fans. “[The show] did have an unconscious appeal to the LGBT community, because [of] the secret identity, and being afraid of people finding out and using it against you,” says Garth Jensen, who’s known in the fan community for his seamless custom mashups of Jem cartoon songs with Eighties hits such as New Order’s “Blue Monday” or Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth.” “And just the idea that it was OK to be different — and it was OK to have that side of yourself that was fabulous, and you could bring that out. Being your true self is your ultimate goal.”

Will Edwardson, who boasts colorful, intricate tattoos of the faces of the Misfits and Holograms on his right arm, had a similar takeaway from the cartoon. As a gay teenager growing up in rural Kentucky, he turned to music for solace. “It was a comfort for me, because I was, of course, an outcast,” he says. “[I] didn’t fit in in my area. Being gay was just not the thing to be. It was pretty lonely and isolated.”

Developing an affinity for Jem and the Holograms‘ music- and glitz-filled premise was a natural next step. “I’ve always loved movies and [been] attracted to showbiz and fame,” he says. “So here’s a show of someone who has a dual identity — you have to be someone here, and you have to be someone else here — along with the music, the colors and the clothes. I just identified so much with that.”

Neither Marx nor Newark were aware of how much of an impact Jem had when it originally aired. But as Newark has started attending more conventions, and met fans, she’s seen the show’s profound, enduring effect on people.

“I have a lot of criers,” she says. “They just burst into tears. Nostalgia’s so powerful, and I realized quite a long time ago that I am custodian of something very precious, and I take it seriously. They’re, of course, like, crying and apologizing, and I’m like, ‘No, I understand.’ They’re suddenly eight years old again, or five years old, or however old they were. And the show’s just meant so much to them.”

Jenny Dumlao — a gregarious, enthusiastic New Yorker who traveled to JemCon with her two daughters, eight-year-old Aurora May and six-year-old Leilani — in particular gets extremely emotional when she talks about the ways Jem has provided her with guidance and comfort throughout her life. Born in the Philippines, she moved around frequently as a child after coming to the U.S., and fell in love with Jem early on. In fact, she and one of her best friends would play “radio” using a boombox, and pretend to be DJs talking over the Jem music cassettes — idle play which sparked a lifelong love of music and even a future foray into real-life radio DJ’ing.

“[The show] stays with you, and you experience it in so many different ways as you’re getting older,” she says, adding that she also sees now how big of an impression the show’s ethnic diversity left on her. “I was a kid that would get very excited if there was a character that was like me. And so Aja was the first favorite character. Because you’re like, ‘Oh, she’s Asian, but not only that, she’s so cool — and she’s so smart.'” A few minutes later, she becomes overcome with emotion as she talks about the power of this representation. “I don’t know, as a parent and just even back then, that’s really important to me in media, seeing yourself.”

When her daughters were old enough, Dumlao naturally introduced them to Jem and the Holograms. This introduction came at a time when she was leaving the girls’ father, as their relationship had turned toxic. “Sometimes bad things would be happening, and our safe space was in my room, in the bedroom away from stuff,” Dumlao recalls. “And we would watch [Jem].

“I didn’t think it was happening at the time, but I know based on how [the girls] would talk about the show that it was helping us in those times,” she adds. “And sometimes it was helping me too — whether at that moment I was getting inspiration, or whether I feel like I was going to a simpler time.”

Dumlao and her girls are in a much better place these days. Unsurprisingly, both Aurora May and Leilani are now mega-knowledgeable Jem fans in their own right. (During Friday night trivia, although they seem to be concentrating on coloring, they very quietly answer some difficult questions correctly.) Dumlao recognizes their Jem fandom might not always persist in the same form, but she sees how they’ve soaked up lessons from the cartoon, including the value of hard work, as well as the idea that girls can be anything and everything they want to be.

“I remember one time the girls said to me, ‘You’re like Jerrica — you work really hard, Mama,'” she recalls. “And I was like, ‘Wow. Thank you for noticing that.'”

JemCon kicks off bright and early on Saturday morning with toy designer Stefanie Eskander, who draws a rapt audience to a fascinating, photo-packed presentation covering her time working on Hasbro’s Jem doll line back in the Eighties. To the delight of everyone in the conference room, at one point she reveals her original concept art for Jem’s pet llama, Rama Llama, a fan-favorite cult item that ended up being available only as a mail-in incentive.

People furiously snap photos of a slide featuring Eskander’s drawing of the pink-hued animal, which she initially named Dolli Llama and gave accessories such as a smart bowler hat and hatbox. For a capper on the reveal, she pulls out a prototype llama figure that’s pale yellow, not shocking pink; it occupied a prominent place on her art table in the vendor room all weekend, a mini-celebrity in its own right.

Over the three-day weekend, more than 140 people from all around the world — two attendees short of the all-time JemCon attendance record — will converge on (and brighten up) this otherwise nondescript suburban Double Tree Hilton. The JemCon agenda is packed with activities, including trivia, a costume masquerade and late-night disco, panel discussions, karaoke, a charity auction, and a vendor room full of Jem ephemera for sale and display.

Loyalists devour this kind of minutiae, and have impressive knowledge of every inch of Jem’s narrative world, judging by Friday night’s competitive trivia round. (Sample: “This San Diego Comic Con-exclusive doll had issues with mold in the packaging.”) The Jem-inspired cosplaying is also truly, truly outrageous (and impressive). A willowy 17-year-old named Erica Hill — an aspiring graphic designer who “became totally obsessed” with the Jem and the Holograms cartoon via TV reruns — sports three separate outfits painstakingly constructed by her mom, Andrea, from a combination of thrift store finds and homemade flourishes. “She’s a MacGyver when it comes to birthing cosplay ideas,” Erica says proudly.

JemCon founder Liz Pemberton, who came to Jem after she started collecting the dolls in the early 2000s, launched the convention in July 2005 as a one-day event at the University of Minnesota. That initial installment drew 50 people and, from there, JemCon has happened every year since then in various cities. “Which astounds me,” Pemberton says with a laugh. Even more impressive, JemCon is still a very grassroots, DIY effort: It doesn’t have huge sponsors, and is a volunteer effort planned by a different person or group of people each year.

“I just wanted to get people together to look at our [doll] shoes and fashions,” says Pemberton, a thoughtful speaker who wears her silver-gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. “That it has grown into this much more comprehensive [thing], and that it has become such a welcoming place for such a diverse lot of people, continues to amaze me and makes me very happy.”

In Cleveland, every JemCon attendee has a different story to tell about how they came to Jem or why the franchise is meaningful to them. There’s Ankur Malhotra and TJ Schuessler, who started dating after they met at JemCon; Ilana Pernica, who has fiery red hair and cat-eye glasses and stresses with great urgency that she is the biggest fan of the Stingers, a fictional band introduced later in the series; and first-time attendee Becky Scott, who first loved Jem after hearing cassettes of the music.

Many fans have traveled great distances to JemCon or have parlayed their fandom into a career. Italy native Davide Quatraro learned English from watching the cartoon and now works in the dubbing industry; in fact, he even translated the Jem and the Hologramsmovie into Italian. “It was a huge thing,” he says, “when you can have your greatest passion turn into a job.”

As a kid, Rachel Pankiw — host and organizer of the Cleveland JemCon — was first drawn to Jem and the Holograms by the bright, eye-catching packaging of a VHS tape. But once she watched the cartoon, she saw her own life reflected in the story lines. “I really related to this whole story of the Starlight Girls, and the whole thing with kids not getting attention or getting left out,” she said, adding that her parents were divorced when she was small, and her dad wasn’t around much.

Independent of one another, and without prompting, multiple people express that JemCon feels like a family, which would be a cliché if it didn’t feel so absolutely true. This inclusivity isn’t just lip service, confirms Will Edwardson’s husband, Steve. “I’ve made a lot of good friends here,” he says. “With him being the collector and the one into Jem — and me being a supporter — they’ve made me feel very welcome.” In fact, the soft-spoken Southerners decided to get married in a surprise ceremony at the 2010 JemCon in New Hampshire, since same-sex marriage was then still outlawed in their home state of Tennessee. “We talked about it, and we said, ‘What other place to get married than at JemCon?'” Steve says.

Pemberton gets choked up while mentioning the Edwardsons’ JemCon marriage, and that Malhotra and Schuessler also connected romantically there. “Their lives have changed,” she says. “You don’t go into a convention going, ‘I’m going to change people’s lives.'” She laughs. “Just the way you don’t write a cartoon going, ‘I’m going to change people’s lives.'”

Certainly those attending JemCon represent a cross-section of the most dedicated Jem and the Holograms fans. Pemberton realizes that, in the greater scheme of pop-culture fandom, the brand’s impact is small. When she attended the official 2010 Barbie convention to promote JemCon — while dressed as the Misfits band member Pizzazz, bright green wig and all — “nobody recognized me,” she says, save for one man she knew from the Jem message board. But an interesting twist, Pemberton recalls that there were dancers dressed as Barbie and the Rockers at the convention who “made some joke about Jem and Jerrica, some little insult kind of joke.” She laughs as she adds, “And I’m like, ‘Mattel certainly knows who Jem is still!'”

That Jem and the Holograms hasn’t been given more of a modern second chance is curious. Nostalgia for Eighties cartoons shows no signs of abating, judging by the popularity of modern iterations of My Little Pony and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a buzzed-about new Netflix reboot, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Unfortunately, the cartoon’s polarizing reemergence into pop culture has something to do with it: The 2015 Jem and the Holograms movie was lambasted by critics (it has a 20-percent-fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating) and earned an anemic $2.3 million worldwide at the box office.

Perhaps because the show remains a cultural underdog, fans are intensely loyal to the franchise and its principals. Newark has parlayed her time with Jem into a musical career, and records danceable synth pop in the vein of Kylie Minogue or early Lady Gaga, while Britta Phillips too has Jem fans come see her live. “The confidence it gave me later in life, hearing that people were still so into [Jem], has given me confidence as a musician, in my singing,” she says. “It took me a long time to make a solo album, but I made one a couple of years ago, and the Jem fans were so supportive of that even though it sounds nothing like Jem.”

Unsurprisingly, JemCon attendees also have very detailed opinions over why the 2015 Jem movie does (and doesn’t) succeed. “Christy Marx wasn’t given the opportunity to write the movie,” says Katie Brandt, who’s attending JemCon with her younger sister, Colleen O’Leary. “That’s why it didn’t work; that’s why it fell apart.” This isn’t an assertion out of left field: Even producer Jason Blum apparently admitted in June that the movie should have had Marx involved.

Still, Marx did make a cameo in the film, portraying Lindsey Pierce, a Rolling Stone reporter, and received a warm welcome on the set — to the extent that when she asked to change some of her lines, she was given a green light with no hesitation. Marx is also extremely complimentary toward the actresses in the movie, even as she too expresses wishes that she had been involved with the writing.

“I think that the essence of Jem got lost, and we lost a great opportunity to genuinely reboot Jem,” she says. “I’ve had so many ideas over the years — of ways to reboot Jem, to bring it back, to rejuvenate it—and yet could never get any traction to do that. And so I think it’s just a shame that opportunity didn’t get pursued.”

“I think there’s a lot that can be done to update it, but keep it true to its essence,” she adds. “So I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen. I kind of doubt it at this point. “

Still, Jem is staying alive in pop culture. In recent years, Integrity Toys launched a high-end Jem and the Holograms doll collection. There’s a special edition, Jem-themed Manic Panic hair dye that glows under black light, while Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken has featured Jem in multiple episodes, once envisioning the character as a pop star who’s fallen on hard times since her Eighties heyday, another time as a foul-mouthed sexpot. (For an even raunchier take on the show and characters, there’s also a mega-NSFW fan parody on YouTube dubbed “Jiz and the Mammograms.”) The original Jem cartoon is finding a new audience as well, in the form of a comprehensive DVD release and, in recent years, syndicated reruns on the Hub (later Discovery Family) and Netflix.

One of the most groundbreaking extensions of the Jem and the Holograms legacy is the IDW Publishing comic book series produced between 2015 and 2017 written by Kelly Thompson. The comics feature characters with body diversity — a particular strength of artist Sophie Campbell, who drew many of IDW’s Jem issues, Thompson says — and expand the backstories of some Jem regulars; for example, Holograms keyboardist Kimber and Misfits keytarist Stormer are openly gay. Later in the series, the comic also introduced a musician named Blaze who is a transgender woman.

“I was interested primarily in drawing out the spirit of the original, which was incredibly diverse for its time, and making sure we continued that tradition by modernizing it and making it even more diverse,” Thompson says.

At JemCon, the Saturday evening festivities especially embody Jem’s spirit of diversity, and playful music and fashion. The impressive costume contest possesses both an abundance of inside jokes and attention to detail. Cherise “Tootie” Sims, who’s cosplaying as Jem’s boyfriend, Rio — specifically as he is in an episode where he kicks a plant in frustration — draws raucous laughter as she mimes kicking a tiny manicured fake plant with exaggerated anger. A veteran JemCon attendee named Jacques, who’s dressed as Jerrica’s late father, Emmett Benton, sports a lab coat and carries a working, light-up prototype of supercomputer Synergy.

With a giant smile on her face, Raven sweeps around the room wearing a floor-length cloak over a black miniskirt and yellow print leggings; she’s portraying a character dressed like an oracle, as seen in the beloved episode “Midsummer Night’s Madness.” Pittsburgh resident Danna Kurela glides gracefully in a costume handmade on her embroidery machine: a shiny gold dress with a fur-trimmed collar based on the Integrity doll line’s Glitter ‘n Gold Jem. The eventual winners are Dumlao — who draws laughter as she does ballet moves around the floor while dressed as Synergy, complete with purple body paint and a silver jumpsuit — and her girls, cosplaying as Jem and Jerrica.

Once the contest is over, the musical portion of the night kicks into high gear. Jem-themed musical karaoke goes longer than it’s supposed to, simply because everyone is having so much fun belting out the songs from the show, although Dumlao (under her DJ name, Jenny Doom) eventually packs the dance floor by spinning an all-killer mix of tunes: Prince, the B-52s, Madonna, Cardi B, Sugarhill Gang. The time ticks away toward midnight, and JemCon has been going full steam for nearly 15 hours.

Plans are already in motion for the next JemCon, which will take place in September 2019, in Buffalo, New York. An agenda and guest list are still being worked out, but it’s safe to say many in attendance in Cleveland are already looking forward to next year.

“I meet so many little kids now,” Newark says. “Some of them come in full cosplay, like a little tiny Pizzazz or a little Jem. I always wondered if [the cartoon] would translate, because it was set in the Eighties, but they don’t care. They love the whole thing: the color, the music, the sparkle, the glamour. [There are] new little Jem boys and Jem girls running around. It’s so cool.”

“The characters, the stories, the emotional elements of it, the fashion, the music,” Marx adds, “I mean, it all came together in a perfect storm, and became this amazing phenomenon that’s called Jem.”

[arsonsara]

The One They Left Behind (Nuclear Throne Fanfiction)

I.D.P.D Mission #19-21-9-3-9-4-5 13-9-19-19-9-15-14, Log #1:

This is the first time they're sending me in alone. I would say i'm scared but, frankly I asked for it. Litterally. This shouldn't be too difficult of a mission. Just take out the target, and return back home. They say it's a creature that's extreemly volitiale, made out of pure radiation and is a huge threat to our very way of life. I don't know much about these Mutants other than what i've heard in passing but they say this one is a Class 5 Threat. Which must mean it's high priority. They nicknamed this one Horror, after what it could possibly do if it ended up here at home base. I think it's pretty obvious how much damage a being made of pure radiation could bring, especially with how high risk things are now with the rift we opened up. A lot of people said that creating that machine was worth it, that travelling to other dimensions could mean so much in the way of science. In my opinion they were just asking for this to happen. Who am I to complain though, what's done is done. I just need to remember to delete the last few sentences of this log. If I come back to home base after this mission is done and the first log they see has me shitting on one of our main areas of expertise, that's just a one way ticket to getting demoted. Like hell I want to be in the Grunt Squadron again.

Log #2:

As i'm writing this, i'm in my own personal I.D.P.D Vehicle made for one man trips to other dimensions. Lot less spacey than the Vans but, than again I doubt they'd waste an entier Van on one guy. Still, I can dream I suppose. R kept on telling me that if I wanted she could come along too but even if I wanted her to come along, the orders were already given and with how much of a ruckus she's been causing already I doubt the Captain is willing to put up with her. I don't get why they always act like R is some moron. If she has the training and capability to use the Portal Strike Equipment and not die she should pretty much be running the show at this point. Plus as stupid as it sounds, she takes her job less seriously than most. I swear all I hear back at home base from the Shielder Squadron is how much they can't wait to kill a mutant. I swear half of the Shielder Squadron got their positions because they just wanted to get away with murder. R just got the job because she wants to protect what she cares about and...that's commendable in an I.D.P.D Member. Serve and protect. You're not some goddamned maniac with a gun shooting at anything that moves, you're doing this to protect the Earth from radioactive threats. I mean with how dangerous these mutants are god knows what they'll do if they end up here. Just because you have the power to kill them doesn't mean you should just go full bezerker. Seriously sometimes I wonder if Shielders know how to aim a gun with how much they spread their bullets. If a Shielder ever tried to use my gear they'd probably end up shooting themself in the face. I guess it's a good thing this is a solo-mission, huh? Nobody's around to see me shit talk. Still, I hope R will be okay back at base. She worries for me a lot, especially since she seems to really care about me. She told me that people like us need to stick together. That we could be the future of the I.D.P.D and actually not have to fight anymore. I wonder if that'll ever happen.

Log #3:

I've finally landed. The Frozen City. Crazy to think this place was once bustling with people just like us, and now it's litterally and metaphorically a nuclear winter. I'm going to make a station on one of the nearby skyscrapers that were left abandoned long ago. Most of the hostile creatures in this land tend to stay outside, leaving the interior buildings completely empty. These things almost seem to patrol the outside, looking for something. What that is i'm not sure. They are robots afterall so it's no surprise that their actions seem predetirmed. How these things run on radiation i'll never understand. Maybe that's how this universe got so fucked in the first place. Too many eager scientists ready to see the effects of radiation in the modern world, and soon enough it blew up in their faces. Litterally.

Log #4:

Camp has officially been set up. I was able to drive the I.D.P.D Car into the garage of one of the buildings. This place is huge, was probably used for parking seeing as a city probably doesn't have many open parking spaces. But now that everyone is gone I can just drive this baby into the deepest parts of the place and just be here for as long as I need to be. I was given the basics to survive, rations, munitions, hell they even let me take one of those small TV's that people take on camping trips and stuff. It'll keep me preocupied for when nothing is going on, but I doubt that'll be the case in a place like this. I doubt that anyone of those robotic freaks would want to sit down to watch some cartoons. Either way it's kind of surreal to be in a place like this. A cold, dark, empty parking garage in a city filled with robots ready to kill without a second thought. Guess the I.D.P.D didn't want to put that down on the job description. Either way, I better get to sleep to find Horror.

Log #5-15:

[REDACTED]

Log #16:

[LIVE LOG RECORDING]

I found it...it's in my sights right now. God it really lives up to it's name doesn't it...how something like that exists i'll never know...Stand still you freak...

{A gunshot is fired, and off in the distance a distorted, loud noise can be heard, followed by distorted growls and moans}

What the fuck?! What the hell was that?! Did it just desentegrate the shot with...oh fuck it sees me!

{Multiple gunshots are fired, and the distorted noises get louder and louder. Soon enough, Hunter is pinned to the ground and all that can be heard are his screams and the sound of something charging. The log cuts off prematurely.}

Log #17:

[LIVE LOG RECORDING]

{Deep, heavy breaths for at least a few munites before Hunter begins to speak}

I lived...I don't know how the fuck I did it but i'm alive...and i'm not going back after that thing. The only way I survived was because the Blast Armor was able to deflect some of the damage that thing did with...whatever it was. It was almost like a compression blast of radiation. I don't know if it's in my system yet. I hope I can get back to base before it comprimises anything...

{More breathing}

Mission Failed...I.D.P.D Member #8-21-14-20-5-18's Solo Mission has been compromised...requesting backup...

Log #18-23:

[REDACTED]

Log #24:

They aren't coming. They left me here. I've been requesting a rescue team for days and i've not gotten a response. I didn't want to believe it...but they left me here. They knew I failed and they fucking left me here to die...worst part is I just might. The radiation is affecting my physical state. I feel like it's slowly eating away at me. I can barely stand up anymore...what the hell did that thing do to me?...I'm going to try and obtain some radiation samples. See if I can somehow stop this so I can at least find an I.D.P.D Squadron out on a reconnosance mission or something and not die here...but even if I do find one they might just shoot me on sight...but I don't want to die. I don't want to die.

Log #24-45:

[REDACTED]

Log #46:

I need more. I'm going through withdrawls and I need more. These fuckers are hiding it from me. I know it. Those metallic bastards want me to starve out here. But It's in them. I know it is. I've seen their bright green blood. It's in them. I need it. I'll tear them apart from the inside if I need to. I need it. I won't die like this. I won't die. I won't die. I won't let myself die. I'll kill them all before they can kill me.

Log #47-55:

[REDACTED]

Log #56:

Sometimes I still call them. Someone has to hear my calls for help. But nobody ever responds. I always hope that R picks up on the other end and tells me that she's coming to rescue me. Sometimes I have fever dreams and in between the madness I see her face in this cold wasteland, holding her hand out to pull me out of this insanity. It's in my brain. I'm loosing my grip. I can't tell what's real anymore. Sometimes my vision blurs and all I see are targets...targets with it inside them. It's inside them. It's inside all of them and I need it! I NEED IT!...I...I just don't want to die. [NAME REDACTED] Please help me. Please. Please respond, I don't want to die like this! I don't want to die! I want to leave and have this sickness cured because sometimes I forget where I am!...I don't want to die...

Log #56-307:

[REDACTED]

Log #308:

GUNTHER AND ME FOUND ANOTHER TARGET TODAY. HE WAS BIG, GOLD AND FULL OF RADS. HE TRIED TO FIGHT BACK BUT GUNTHER WOULDN'T LET HIM. HE DIED AND IT WAS ALL MINE. HIS BRIGHT GREEN BLOOD OOZED ONTO THE SNOW AND I TOOK IT. I NEED IT! ME AND GUNTHER NEED IT! I CAN'T JUST LEAVE GUNTHER BEHIND LIKE THAT! HE NEEDS ME! SOMETIMES GUNTHER TELLS ME HE'S AFRAID TO DIE. BUT I ALWAYS TELL HIM THAT THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR. HE'S WITH ME! I CAME AND RESCUED HIM! HE ALWAYS CALLS ME WHENEVER I PUT HIM DOWN, SAYING I NEED TO 'RESCUE' HIM. POOR THING! HE'S LIKE A BABY! BUT THAT'S OK! I'M HERE TO PROTECT HIM LIKE I ALWAYS DO! I LOVE GUNTHER! AND HE LOVES ME! HE KILLS AND I EAT! I EAT AND HE KILLS! KILLS KILLS KILLS! KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS KILLS!

Log #309-412:

[REDACTED]

Log #413:

I FOUND ANOTHER TARGET TODAY. IT'S SICKLY BLUE. I HATE BLUE! I HATE BLUE! IF I COULD I'D TEAR OFF MY OWN SKIN BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH I HATE, HATE, HATE BLUE! I SAW IT OUT IN THE FROZEN WASTES. IT DEYSTROYED SO MUCH. IT KILLED SO MANY THINGS. IT TOOK SO MANY RADS...THOSE ARE MINE. THOSE ARE MINE! THEY'RE MINE! I NEED THEM! I NEED THEM!!! I'M GOING TO TEAR THAT BLUE BEAST APART! I LOOK AT THAT BLUE AND ALL I CAN FEEL IS HATE! HATE! HATE! IT NEEDS TO BE KILLED! IT NEEDS TO BE RAVAGED! IT NEEDS TO BE SHOT! A MONSTER LIKE THAT CANNOT EXIST IN MY WORLD!!! IT DESERVES TO DIE!!!

Log #414:

[LIVE LOG RECORDING]

[A jetpack can be heard, after a few minutes of that a loud slam can be heard followed by maniacal laughter]

H: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

{Shots are being fired in random directions, all that can be heard is gunfire and loud explosions. After a few minutes of the strife, there is silence.}

H: WHY ARE YOU HIDING?! GUNTHER AND ME ARE GONNA FIND YOU EITHER WAY!!! THIS IS OUR HOME! YOU DON'T BELOND IN OUR HOME!!!

{Another person can be heard, shouting in the distance}

R: Hunter, it's me! Stop shooting, i'm here to save you!

H: LIES, LIES, LIES!!! I DON'T NEED TO BE SAVED! COME OUT ALREADY, I'M TIRED OF WAITING!!!

R: Hunter!!! Stop! It's [NAME REDACTED]!!! You have to remember me!

H: I'M DONE TALKING!!! IT'S TIME TO START SHOOTING!!!

{More Gunfire, within the strife a loud series of explosions is heard and Hunter's armor is severely damaged.}

H: N-NO! NO MORE!! I GIVE!!! I GIVE!!!

{A siren is heard, and a loud vehicle crashes into the distance and shouting is heard.}

H: HELP!!! HELP ME!!!

I.D.P.D Squadron #13-21-18-4-5-18: Shoot the fucker! NOW!!!

{Multiple gunshots, peircing through the armor of Hunter and causes him to start bleeding out}

R: NO!!!

{More gunfire, followed by another set of explosions and the death of I.D.P.D Squadron #13-21-18-4-5-18 at the hands of The Rogue. The Rogue than begins to walk towards Target: Hunter, Class 5 Threat}

R: Oh god...oh god, Hunter please tell me you're still alive. I tried so hard to come find you, you can't die on me!

{Rustling can be heard as Target: Hunter tries to reach for it's weapon. It does so and begins to shoot in vein at The Rogue.}

H: DON'T TOUCH ME! DIE! DIE!!! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!

{The Rogue fires back, piercing through Target: Hunter's Jetpack and causing a volitiale reaction, blowing him up and killing him instantly.}

{Target: Hunter, eliminated. The Rogue still lives. Find her, retrieve the Portal Strike and kill her. She is classified as a Class 6 Threat. Kill her at all costs.}

[real-faker]

Ack sorry about sending another pitch question (I know you said something about people sending those) but you mentioned you pitched a show twice, and since I'm a creeper, I read the tags and you said the pitch wasn't how we'd think they'd be; how were they, then, out of curiosity? If I ever pitch a show, in your position, what should I expect? What exactly happened? Sorry for asking all these questions; you've been my inspiration for a while and I hope I can pitch my own show someday!! Thank you

Oh no, that’s fine!  I don’t mind telling my experience with it, and I’ve even given pitching tips before, but this post is about the extent of my knowledge.  (You can also just search my blog for “pitch”, ‘cause I’ve reblogged stuff from other people that actually KNOW what they’re talking about, haha)  I just don’t want people under the impression that I’m super experienced with it, or that I’ve ever pitched to a big deal network or producer.  I absolutely haven’t.  I have exactly 2 pitching experiences.  The first one was a few years ago at an event in Nashville called “Film-Com”, which is an annual trade show/expo event for financing and distributing filmmaking projects.  Basically you get a booth, and you set up in this convention center with all these other aspiring creators (filmmakers, documentary people, a few video game/new media folks, all sorts), and they’ve invited a WHOLE SWATH of producers and industry professionals to come mull around the show floor with you so you can make connections and get your product out there EAT FREE MEALS and then idk, maybe fuckin’ walk around a bit and look at your dumb shitty projects if they fuckin’ feel like it but they probably wont, so what ends up happening is all the creators just walk around and look at each others’ shit, which for me—being the only animator there—means that a bunch of other jack-knobs who have some vague idea for a shitty cartoon end up giving me THEIR card so that maybe in the future I can work on THEIR dumbfuck ideas.ANYWAY, to get to the point, they selected certain projects and scheduled them to actually go up and pitch in front of a whole room full of producers.  This happened over the course of the whole day, so I suspect the reason none of the producers were walking around interacting with people is ‘cause they were stuck in a room all day hearing 30 different suck-ass pitches and when it was all said and done they were probably exhausted.  I was scheduled as the last pitch of the day.  I enter the room and wait patiently; the person before me is running about 10 minutes over their allotted time.  I scan the room… everyone is MISERABLE.  They’re anxious, they’re uninterested, they’re sighing… the main guy who’s sort of monitoring the whole thing is pinching his brow and trying his best to keep up the pretense of politeness in telling the current pitcher to wrap it up.  NONE of these people want to be here anymore.  It seems like everyone’s spent the whole day “warming ‘em up” for me, but now they’re all sweaty and miserable, so I can either go up there and give another mediocre pitch, OR I can go up there and try my goddamn hardest to make them laugh. 

I go up on stage, just IMMEDIATELY force myself to get over any fears I have, and I pitch W2H.  I screen a short mock trailer I made (no way I’d force them to sit through that whole fucking thing), and it’s sort of like a fever dream, because I can see all of the life returning to their faces, they’re WAY into it, I’m doing fucking GREAT somehow, despite literally zero experience… and when it was all said and done, it became abundantly clear that even though they all LOVED it, not a single one of them could help me.  None of them were animation producers.  None of them KNEW animation producers.  One guy suggested I go into comics, because “comics get turned into film and tv shows all the time”.  I just had the PERFECT fucking pitch, and I pitched to people who couldn’t fucking help me.  As I was leaving, many of them came up to me and actually thanked me for sending them off for the day on a good note.  There was a big dinner at like, the fucking Governers’ mansion or something that night, and again, some of them were coming up to me and thanking me, wishing me the best and all that.  I guess if nothing else, I learned what I’m capable of.

The second pitch was an ACTUAL disaster.  When I’d first graduated I thought I could pitch W2H to Frederator, ‘cause it seemed like a good fit.  They told me (understandably) that they couldn’t reverse-engineer a show from something I’d already produced, and also that it was inappropriate (despite having a show at the time called “SuperFuckers”, but whatever; language and subject matter are different things).  Later on I got an email from them, saying that someone in their office was familiar with my work, and they invited me to come pitch them something that wasn’t W2H.  They also said that I was free to swing by their office any time, even “just to hang out”, and that if I had any questions “whether it be pitching or where to get the best burgers in Burbank”, to hit them up.  How friendly!  How perfect!  I was JUST about to move out to L.A., so I started working on this idea tentatively called “Gayliens”.  I swung by their office once, you know, just to pop in, like they said; thought I’d make myself known or whatever.  They looked at me like I was nuts.  They still invited me in and we chatted for a bit about the history of early Disney studios, but when they asked why I was there, and I reminded them about the email they’d sent, they seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.  I told them I was working on a pitch for them and that I’d be in touch so we could schedule something.  When I finally finished putting my pitch together, I went in for a meeting with them.  It was just 2 folks, we were in like a board meeting-type room (which I imagine is probably standard).  They made some small talk with me first, which I’m sure was an attempt to loosen us all up a bit and set the mood, but all of their questions really caught me off guard.  (I guess they asked where I was working, and when I told them I didn’t have a studio job, they asked how I was making money, and I’m sure it wasn’t meant to put me in an awkward position, but people asking me how I make money literally ALWAYS puts me in an awkward position, because my income sources are scattered and weird.  Try explaining how youtube ad revenue works to your social services worker, it’s a blast.) SO okay, I let myself get tripped up a bit.  I go on with the pitch; they don’t really want me to pitch the concept, they just have me show them my storyboards and read through the whole thing.  They’re DEAD silent the whole time.  I can’t get a read on them at all.  When it’s over, they ask me some more questions that trip me up.  Some of them are 100% my fault; they asked for a title, and I wasn’t ready to say “Oh, it’s tentatively called GAYLIENS,” out loud to people who I couldn’t get a read from.  

It’s all kind of a blur, but the few topics of discussion I remember them bringing up were that “the storyboards look almost TOO good”, like it was TOO polished or well-developed (which is sort of a backhanded compliment I guess???), because see, “when they made Adventure Time… blah blah blah it just started off as this loose idea, and once they were a season or so into it, they started expanding on the universe and developing the characters a little bit more…” — AS IF ANYONE doesn’t understand why AT got so popular???  You don’t have to TELL ME, I WAS WATCHING IT, I FUCKING KNOW.  No one gave a shit about AT until they got Rebecca Sugar and all these talented writers working on it a couple seasons in, and doing all this character-heavy shit.  I tried to present them with something that had all that character shit baked into it already, ‘cause I knew they were gonna’ use AT as an example.  But it seemed like they’re not looking for something that’s already developed with it’s own voice or sensibility, they’re looking for a vague idea that they can mold into something as they go.  

They also told me–and I still can’t get over this–that they’re looking for “”””””characters that people will want to cosplay as””””””, which is funny to me for a plethora of reasons; namely that they have no way of knowing that PEOPLE DO COSPLAY AS MY CHARACTERS, but also that I spent half of my time in college working on ridiculous magical girl Adventure Time crossover group cosplays (don’t fuckin’ laugh) like trust me I’m ALARMINGLY familiar with cosplay, and ALSO, that looking for a new property with the guidelines that it should be “the next big thing that some fucking nerds will dress up as at comic con” just seems like such an out-of-touch-but-trying-to-be-hip, capitalize-on your-fandom-doing-all-the-legwork-for-you, fucking executive thing to say.  I know I sound like a whiny art school kid saying that but my animation instructor was so anti-establishment, and I carry a lot of that with me still, and something about that statement–insignificant as it may be–kind of epitomizes how I feel about the industry?  It’s a hard thing to explain. I walked out of that pitch with my mind feeling like TV static.  My friends were waiting for me next door at a bakery and they were super excited, asking me how it went, and I was just like “I mean… BAD, for sure, but I don’t know where to even start.”  Hahaha.  I don’t know.  It just seems like everyone wants to play gatekeeper I guess.  They want This Thing™, but it can’t be too This Thing™.  They want the thing to have A Fandom™, but they don’t really understand fandom ‘cause they don’t participate in fandom.  They want Your Idea™ but they want to make it Their Idea™.  I don’t know.  I’m just angry and bitter and that’s my experience with pitching.  Admittedly some of what went wrong in these pitches was my fault, or there were circumstances beyond my control, and regardless of how that pitch went, I don’t actually dislike Frederator (I’m on their youtube network), and Fred Seibert has actually done a ton of iconic shit.I don’t think I’ve ever AIRED MY GRIEVANCES in such great detail before, but there you have it.  If you want some tips on pitching, you can check out the links I provided at the beginning of the post; there’s tons of people out there who actually know their shit too, and they’d probably give more proactive advice.  I don’t know if this helps at all, but hopefully you can glean something from it!  That’s just my limited experience with it.  Haha.  Good luck!  

[dirtyprojectors]

“that’s a lifestyle” video

the animated video for “that’s a lifestyle” is out today. the director, kitty faingold, and i discussed bringing the song to life as a series of ethereal animated sketches, cronus the greek god, the visual metaphor of broken statues as a vanishing empire and much more . - dave 

i feel like i haven’t seen animation like this … maybe ever, definitely since i saw bill plympton’s cartoons when i was a kid!   what is your process — how do you make it look like that?

Basically, this animation was hand drawn with an HB pencil onto white paper and then photographed and put onto a timeline on a computer. I drew between six and eight drawings a second, which is not a lot and is why it looks jumpy and choppy - if you want a sleek look you need to draw more per second. But I’ve always liked lo brow & lo fi stuff, where you can see the artist’s hand at work and feel the human presence behind the piece. I like it when things look like they were made with the intense passion of a very dedicated amateur, it denotes enthusiasm, effort, aspiration, dreams. It’s flawed and personable and relatable. Maybe my taste is influenced by having lived in Latin America with it’s magical realism and it’s poetry of the mundane.

what’s the story you’re trying to tell in the video — and how does it relate to the story it seems like i’m trying to tell ?  

The story is that we, the audience, are a spectral being hovering above a lake in front of a strange house that has infinite rooms. We float in through a window and decide to take a quick disembodied tour of the house that’s inhabited by a group of enchanted statues which some strange electric life force has animated for all eternity. They are the eerie marble remnants of an extinct civilisation, long annihilated, the silent survivors of a by-gone atomic end time. Like dancing shadows burnt into a wall by a nuclear blast. It’s tragic but also strangely optimistic - something survived, perhaps at the end of the world, human consciousness liberated of its material constraints, spread at light speed throughout the universe, and fuzzy bundles of memory, thought and emotion seeped into inert matter in distant galaxies and parallel universes, creating the world portrayed in this animation.

The video is an imagined outcome of the story that’s sung in the song, which as I interpret it, is about a society at the cusp of destruction, looking out from itself into its past and its future and wondering will we survive? or will the monster eat its young til they’re gone.

do you hate it when people ask you questions like that, because you have this feeling of like, ‘uhhhh, hopefully the work articulates the thing in a way that words cannot — that’s why it’s an animation and not a piece of prose; why are you asking me to bastardize & diminish what i’m doing??’ or do you feel like words / discourse provide a different and useful lens?

Haha! both I guess, most things that I make feel like they come from a place in my mind that doesn’t understand or speak a verbal language, and others are created in harmony with a more intellectually stimulated region of the mind, something with a narrative, a reference to some historical thing, for example. Words themselves can have power that goes beyond the literal meaning and melts into something more emotional. But I do often feel that contemporary art can be overly wordy and rationalised; when you explain or justify what you’ve created with a lengthy text, the piece looses elasticity and ossifies into a concrete message, or as Susan Sontag says “a sensibility is ineffable… a sensibility which can be crammed into the mold of a system.. has hardened into an idea.” I like this way of thinking about art as sensibility.

Also, when a piece of art or music has a precise explanation, it sort of becomes redundant, it’s just an illustration to accompany that other thing you’re saying. In art, I think, if words are used at all it should be to infuse the work with another layer of poetry, mystery and psychic life.

in this video, did you think much abt correlating image & sound — ie having the visual gestures harmonize with the movements of the music? (i think they go together super well…)

Yes, I wanted the images to resonate with and respond to the sound. On a macro scale, I wanted them to inhabit the same world, to belong together, so the look and feel of the images is enhanced by the sound of the song and vice versa. On a micro scale, the cuts are based on the rhythm of the song, and there are different moments in the story and particular characters and happenings that also relate to the specific moments or moods in the song.

when you’re working in this way, you’re the writer, director, artist and editor.  does it feel natural and seamless to be in all these different roles, or do the imperatives of one role sometimes come into conflict with another ?  like, does the draftsperson in you occasionally want to take things in a direction that the director simply can’t allow?  if so, how do you resolve these conflicts?

That’s an interesting way of looking at it and very true; yes, I definitely had multiple voices in my mind whispering different things throughout the whole process - as an artist you are constantly engaged in an internal dialogue with many different elements of yourself and even with a fictional “other” that pretends to be an outside audience, so it’s challenging work. But this way of working does feel natural to me, I like being in control of as many aspects of my work as possible, so it doesn’t feel like a conflict that needs to be resolved, rather a conversation that’s had.

do you think there’s something special abt using old-school labor/time-intensive practices, even when there are readily available software/digital shortcuts ?  like, maybe you value the specific unique feel to the finished work, or maybe you just get something you get from the process itself (eg meditative zen state that comes out of doing the rote repetition by hand?)  

Yes, there is definitely something special about labour intensive work and, in this case, using analog rather than digital methods. On one hand, repetition as you say, let’s the mind wander into a meditative state which in a hyper stimulated world feels healthy and grounding. On the other, when you’re working purely in a digital realm you feel a sort of underlying existentialist horror as you are essentially one dimension removed from your work, or else you get a sense of plastic claustrophobia and you just need to run outside and roll around in some prickly grass or something! after a while of being on the computer you desperately need to feel the real material world around you, to feel phenomenologically “in” your body - to embody your reality. I think there is such a thing as a digital malaise akin to cabin fever. So I really enjoyed getting back to paper and pencil.

why roman / greek statuary?  in general, where does your imagery come from?  has it changed much over time, or from project to project, or do you find that there are leitmotifs and vibes that you return to consistently?  

That was mainly based on the imagery that came to mind from the lyrics; words about an empire, a senator, a decaying civilization, violence, power, greed etc. Also when the song talks about a monster eating its children, I thought of Cronus the Greek God. I associate these things with the ancient classical world, and the marble skeleton of it that we have inherited. Also, surrealist works of art, for example by De Chirico, often feature statues and in particular greek/roman ones; there is evidently something about them that resonates with the subconscious mind, they are a meaningful symbol to us, they have a dreamlike and strange quality to them. This video was conjured up mainly by a stream of consciousness, which is a surrealist method for creating images. To the second question I would say both, each project is different as I am a pretty eclectic person and the world is full of new inspirations, but there is a river bed under the passing currents that doesn’t change much, a soil made up of a certain composition of minerals which, in my particular case, has surrealist foundations and an interest in myth, symbolism and the occult, and drawing eyes, people in trances, odd faces and strange places.

w the greek/roman statuary, do you feel like there’s some parallel you’re drawing to an idea of the vast, broken, vanishing empire — and the West today ?   or maybe in general do u feel like that’s part of the operative fascination that vaporwave has with that imagery?  

I definitely think that a broken statue is a clear visual metaphor for a vanishing empire, which might be why it populates the allegorical world of surrealism and vapourware as its digital extension- maybe for the last hundred years we’ve all felt on some subconscious plane a pending apocalypse, the world that we’ve created on the brink of an extinction level event. It makes sense, after the world wars, the cold war, the atomic/nuclear threats, climate threats, financial threats, etc. everything has seemed to be in a constant state of mortal danger for the past century! even our food is supposedly poisoning us, our clothes, bodies, water, air itself, everything is menacing and threatening and hostile, so it’s little wonder our art would express this sense of doom.  

one of the things im kinda thinking out loud abt in the song is this question of, ‘in our insanely interconnected world, is it actually possible to draw our actions into congruence with our beliefs?  what would that mean?  and what does it mean if/when we can’t?’   sometimes it feels like the chains of production, ownership, causality etc are so deeply enmeshed that it’s impossible to chase down the global implications of our choices as consumers & citizens with any kind of confidence or accuracy … and that makes us feel powerless in the face of hideous injustices … like we’re all frogs in a pot of water slowly rising to a boil.  so in the song, even though i don’t have a resolution or conveniently optimistic way of thinking about it, i hope there’s a value in articulating the feeling anyway.  my question is, do you feel like art has a responsibility to be political?  or do you feel like art is inherently political — and there might be something more human / empathetic / mysterious when art is fluid enough to evade the reduction into easy sloganeering ?  for me it’s a question right now, because i’ve often landed in the latter camp, but this song woke up like this .. .

Yeah, it’s a tricky subject, politics and art. I guess that, in my opinion, your only responsibility as an artist is to give your audience your best and most genuine work, whatever that may be. The content of the work will vary hugely from artist to artist. There are many important things in the world, important parts of the experience of being, that don’t include politics at all, and perhaps are even antagonistic to it, so I don’t think that art has to be political. Sometimes it feels gratuitous and disingenuous when an artist injects some politics into their work or their discourse just because it’s in vogue. Lots of artists don’t have a clue about politics, they inhabit a parallel world of emotions, fairytales and daydreams! They might be an outsider, a rebel, or a romantic for example. Others are very passionate about being the voice of their own society, and are deeply entrenched in their cultural surroundings and make of their political ideas their body of work, in the hopes that their message might challenge certain prejudices or else that the audience will identify with the ideas and find expression for their own political thoughts. I don’t think one approach is more valid or moral than the other, as long as it’s genuine. However, on the other hand, anybody that has a visible social platform and access to a certain level of impact could be a useful tool to raise awareness for a number of social causes, but that’s something different.    

how long did this video take you ?

Nearly a month! In fact I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Max Mannone who helped me sooooo much to make it in such a short time! he took all the photographs and digitised most of it, as well as giving me creative input. It’s super important to bounce off of someone you respect when you are working alone, because it’s such a self centred process that you can lose all perspective and start to drown in yourself!

do you like to revise a lot, or is it a first-thought-best-thought headspace ?

With a stream of consciousness type method definitely first-thought-best-thought although as I said above, bouncing off somebody else throughout the process is also good.

what kind of music do u like to listen to when you draw?

Well, for this video I listened to a lot of Dirty Projectors :-) I love this song, and instead of growing tired of it which can happen with repetition I grew to like it more and more! it’s definitely alive. I also have lots of synth stuff on my playlist like New Wave songs and Italo disco music. Probably because I came into the world during the eighties so it kind of feels like home. I actually listen to a lot of podcasts when I draw & animate, I like finding undiscovered youtube channels about weird topics particularly about magic, myths and the fascinating shadowy world of the occult which are all sources of inspiration.  

thanks so much for this, kitty!!  i love the animation a lot, and best of luck with future projects!

Thank you Dave! It was a real pleasure to work on this project, I love the song and hope the video did it justice :-) I'll look forward to hearing the new album!