Crushed by the Shoulders of Giants

September 27,2022

This is a blog picking apart the changes that late-stage capitalist vultures have made to the things I like. This is part catharsis, part Pepe Silvia, and part soapbox. I want to identify the shitty things that happen in media as a result of people just not giving a damn about the things they’re working on. I want to track shrink-flation in our media. I want to lay it out and see if I’m insane, or depressed, or if everything does in fact suck. I’m 29, it’s a toss up.

And just to put it out there at the top, I’m not pining for the old days. We only remember the good things, but there was a lot of shit too. And Danny the Street has been my favorite superhero for over a decade, trans rights is human rights, punch a nazi, ACAB, Abolitionist Feminism is the tits, all that good stuff. Just warning you at the door.

Anyway,

Hi, I’m a slow reader.

I take my time mulling over things as I read them in my head with funny little voices. It’s more entertaining that way, I think, and as a consequence I get to hear stuff read out loud, but in my head.

Sometimes I read through things, and I think, “how did nobody catch this?” Sometimes I read something that makes no sense, and it will be a needle in my back until I serendipitously find the source of the error through some misunderstanding of the piece’s source material.

In a world where media corporations far outlast the hard-working folk that built their reputation, we have a rotten game of telephone down the years. It was said somewhat recently that all Big Two comics that come out these days are now technically fan-fiction, because all of the people working on the comics were informed by consumption of said comics and related media when they were kids. That kind of thing may not be as transparent in other forms of media, but it is nonetheless the reality in some long-running videogame franchises, a stable of long-running shows and movie franchises, a certain card game, and a certain “World’s most expensive tabletop roleplaying game”.

I think in most cases the perception of fanfiction being the mainstay of Big Two from now on is innocent enough. After all, who else would write/read that stuff? However, I think that in the more heavily-monetized media formats, the problem of changing creative hands is more malignant, and I think that malignancy has two specific avenues:

They ripped Pikachu’s Face off and are mugging you while they wear it.

The Idea that any persisting company is contiguous in its abilities, talent pool, team strength, intentions, values, etc. is a complete farce. If you see something being made now that got made when you were a kid, those are not the same people. Corporations like WotC and Disney have a rotating door of applicants, and those people are hired guns, here to make a product and then get the hell out of a hostile work environment with something on their resume. The corporation doesn’t learn from their mistakes in the long term, because people aren’t typically there long enough to maintain that knowledge or affect lasting change (unless they really screw up).

The corporation bought the “rights” to your favorite IP. In terms of an ability to make a good game or construct a cohesive narrative, that means nothing. What it means is they bought a right to advertise theirs as “official”, which in practical terms, means theirs costs more, though surely better alternatives exist under a different brand name, or given for free as “fan content”. What a meaningless distinction. Why would anyone pay attention to a madman who paid a million dollars to stand on a soapbox? Why would they listen to them? Why would they give them their money? Makes no sense to me, but people tell me the extended universe is non-canon, and to supplant that I’m supposed to watch these new movies. That’s like ripping my leg off and telling me to subscribe to your “peg box” service.

Error has propagated to the point where the unrelated people who bought the game license don't care to check past work for shoddiness, and long-time fans treat typos as gospel. It's like the two groups live in two completely separate spheres. This is wrong. A lot of the stuff that companies are trying to shove down our throats were originally made in a time before the internet and a time before … well we don’t have equality, but surely they used to print more heinous shit than they do now. This is only to say that a lot of these franchises started out as independent ventures, and some of that shows. I think a lot of the charm that brought in geeks originally to stuff like this is the unbridled creativity without the polish of professionalism, the straight dope, and what seemed to stem from that is complex and fiddly and weird, and by gum that’s where you get things like deep lore*. Today, it turns out, it’s easier to attract new (inherently initially casual) audiences by shaving off all the fiddly bits, making “a new streamlined approach” or whatever. But that’s not how we got here is it? Hell no.

I will admit, some of the edges that were filed off were some heinous shit. Now, obviously, I don’t expect that problematic things were eliminated for any other reason than profit-incentives and maintaining a wide audience. As evidence, some of that stuff truly needed to go, and some of it was just, well, universally despicable things a villain does to make you hate them, but might make some people uncomfortable due to personal trauma. Personally, I have an exsanguination phobia. I fainted watching What We Do in The Shadows, but I wouldn’t ask that they change a single thing for my enjoyment. I think the line on this is hard to draw, and is probably why the baby often gets thrown out with the bathwater, but my main concern is they’re IN A BATH HOUSE. Again, they know we like the convoluted stories steeped in a pedigree of lengthy history, so why do I so often see them remove context entirely instead of recontextualizing themes for a modern generation?

The frustrating thing is what I see in the long time fans who don’t get point #1. I see a company who is a poor steward of its lore, or its game, and I see long-time fans that will take a bullet to the chest (or wallet) for them because it’s the thing they love. But the people who made the thing you love, the people who loved making it, are gone. These fans are bowing to a crown that was bought in the back of Spencer’s. And they’ll defend the quality of everything until it gets retconned again, it’s the weirdest shit. I can’t complain about the old stuff until the new stuff re-writes it, and then I can’t complain about the new stuff. “This product wasn’t made for you” they say. Well it wasn’t made for any of us long-time fans, we're a statistical minority of the overall market they’re looking to cash in on. They don’t seem to get that the priority of the company is not to continue to expand upon the IP you love, it’s to use an entrenched zeitgeist, this recognition, to manipulate a grass-roots advertisement campaign and ensure a profit stream. So, popularity is the death of a thing, I guess.

*I swear, before 2017 I hadn’t heard the word “lore” spoken out loud. Who the hell made lore a buzzword? It’s like companies realized that people get hooked on epics, and so they wanted to flip that to customer retention, so everything has to have “lore” now in an effort to engage with an audience. “Lore” isn’t fabricated on the spot, it’s the old stuff. The stuff that doesn’t make it to the top of the wiki page. The stuff that has to be explained properly by someone who was there. You can’t start up a business and say you have lore when you’ve been open for less than 3 years, and sell some inane shit like perfume or burgers.