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- Fake movie; real fandom. Real movie; no fandom.
Fake movie; real fandom. Real movie; no fandom.
Twitter may be dying, but this newsletter will still explain tweets
Welcome Back
I had an amazing time last week doing Friendsgiving here in San Francisco, then going on a little road trip up to Lassen Volcanic National Park and Crater Lake National Park with a friend. Both parks and all of the surrounding area were absolutely beautiful, and I highly recommend visiting if you are able. Check out my Instagram for pics from the trip if you are interested. But a week off here means a lot to cover, so let's get into it.
Today’s Topic
There are now more fanfics on AO3 for Goncharov, a completely fabricated film made up by Tumblr that has never existed, than for Avatar, the 4th highest-grossing film to date.
I am in awe.
— 🌈 Hailey Piper (updates/recs) (@HaileyPiperSays)
8:41 PM • Nov 22, 2022
I promise by the end of this newsletter, this tweet will make sense. But first…
Fuck It, A Twitter Section
Advertisers continue to leave the platform. Despite what Elon tweets, Apple seems to still be advertising there, but they are rumored to be considering pulling Twitter from the App Store. Apple is probably unhappy because Twitter has not only given up on content moderation but reinstated several high-profile banned accounts, including a certain former president who used the platform to spread lies about the 2020 election that fueled the violent attack on the US Capital on January 6th, 2021. The Cheeto-in-chief has yet to tweet anything with reinstated account, likely due to his agreement with Truth Social to word vomit there a full six hours before burdening any other social platforms with his posts. The EU is also unhappy with the whole lack of content moderation situation too.
Culture Journalist, Taylor Lorenz, had a great interview with Dril. If you aren’t very online and very on Twitter, it’s hard to explain just how central Dril is to the culture there, but trust me, this is a great read.
Layoffs keep coming at Twitter, and despite the remaining engineers staying up late to teach Elon “Twitter for Dummies,” the site continues to break in weird ways around the edges. For example, the copyright strike system went down, and people started tweeting entire movies. The silver lining is that other tech companies do seem interested in hiring the talented folks who have been forced out of Twitter by the new Chief Twit.
Platform Updates
TikTok
YouTube
Pinterest (disclosure: I work at Pinterest)
Discord
Tumblr
Twitch
Hive
Culture Movers
Film & TV
Music
Creator Economy
Fake Film; Real Fandom
I’ve really been enjoying my return to Tumblr. There’s a special kind of “yes, and” collaborative humor on the site that I really enjoy. This was recently on full display with the Goncharov fandom. TL;DR - Tumblr users have invented a fake Martin Scorsese mafia film through fan art, theories, and discourse. We’ve seen other collaborative fan-created works on social recently with the Ratatouille and Brigerton musicals on TikTok, but I love the strange scope of the Goncharov phenomenon. Goncharov isn’t just adapting one piece of media to a new medium; it’s distilling the style of conversation around a genre of the movie into a meta-cultural LARP.
Lynda Carter, the new celebrity queen of Tumblr, 100% gets how to participate in this trend.
You could argue that Scorsese’s filmography is the source material here, but I haven’t seen any fake footage. The goal is not to replicate Scorsese’s style. It’s to simulate the way people POST about Scorsese films. Fandom itself is the source text. The whole thing is delightfully meta in a way that very much appeals to me.
Real Film; No Fandom
With the upcoming release of James Cameron’s Avatar 2 (wait, let me look up the actual subtitle real quick) The Way of Water, there’s an interesting parallel discourse about the impact of Avatar 1. It was a massive box office success, there’s a Disney attraction based on it, and it seems to always be available as an in-flight entertainment option, but no one really gives a shit about this movie. Do you know any Avatar fans? You know Marvel fans, and Star Wars fans, and if you are unlucky Zack Synder DC film fans, but Avatar doesn’t really have a big fandom.
This mysterious position in the culture spawned a wave of tweets then think pieces over the past few months that basically all read like, “why does this movie have no cultural impact?” And I’m here to tell you why: 3D technology.
When Avatar came out, the buzz was that “this is the first movie to use 3D well.” So a bunch of people went to see it in a theatre to experience that. The plot and characters are totally forgettable, so after the novelty of 3D tech faded, so did our interest in the film. But Hollywood sees the big box office numbers and thinks people actually liked it, reruns it on TV all the time, and is letting James Cameron make expensive sequels.
It’s really that simple. The gimmick worked, and the movie made a lot of money. But since Dances with Blue Pocahontas in Space Fern Gully doesn’t really have any original ideas or compelling characters, we all forgot about it. Except for James Cameron and the people he is paying to make the movie with him. As someone who is pro giving Sigourney Weaver checks, I can’t complain too much.
Something Sweet
Tumblr has this promoted post featured called Blaze. Unlike promoted post features on other platforms, Blaze isn’t meant for brands. It’s for Tumblr users to pay to show a post to more Tumblr users. “Hey y’all look at this!” That’s led to some very weird stuff getting more attention, but also some very cool and endearing moments.
This week while I was scrolling, I came across this Blaze post from Tumblr user @killerchickadee:
There’s something really beautiful to me about paying a few bucks to share a loved one's art with strangers. So I wanted to pass it along to you all too. Have a great weekend!