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Meanwhile, in Girl Genius, Agatha apparently shares a bed with Zeetha while wearing an extremely filmy nighty. In other comics this would lead me to the conclusion that Zeetha has joined Agatha's harem, but in Girl Genius the filmy nighty might just be mandatory.
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May 4, 2021 20:06
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SlothfulCobra posted:8-Bit Theater 20th Annivesary Kickstarter. Brian Clevinger is publishing a script book of the whole series with no sprites in order to not deal with any potential copyright infringement.
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May 4, 2021 20:35
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One good thing about how simple the sprites are is that you can pretty much just imagine and arrange them in your head without need for the comic itself.
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May 5, 2021 12:23
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For those of you who've been waiting till it's finished to binge it, Monster Pulse has reached its "letter to another character epilogue" final phase, so it's like just a few weeks from wrapping up now, if even.
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May 6, 2021 08:54
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Today in Questionable Content: Marigold is right.
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May 7, 2021 11:59
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I'd be shocked if that hadn't already happened to someone tbh The CIA could learn a thing or two from horned-up Internet jackals
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May 7, 2021 13:40
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I feel like Jeph would know just based on the fact that he knows so many webcomics authors. Abbadon of K6BD had a good twitter thread on the parasocial nature of online content creators and fans. Apologies if it's been posted here before. https://twitter.com/Orbitaldropkick/status/1374411689249017861 https://twitter.com/Orbitaldropkick/status/1374412591695503376 https://twitter.com/Orbitaldropkick/status/1374414553539170304
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May 7, 2021 13:51
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Phy posted:I'd be shocked if that hadn't already happened to someone tbh The sad part is they probably don't even need all those steps. A lot of the streamers who seem to make a living on parasocial relationships are not exactly shy about showing off where they live or places they go to regularly. Like if you want to go to the gym and do five squats every time somebody tips 1000 bits, do it, but be warned somebody is probably going to make the connection you're doing it at like the El Paso Gold's Gym unless you're super careful and maybe even then.
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May 7, 2021 17:25
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Just doing a house tour is enough for someone to figure out where you live and stalk you.
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May 7, 2021 17:42
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Dawgstar posted:The sad part is they probably don't even need all those steps. A lot of the streamers who seem to make a living on parasocial relationships are not exactly shy about showing off where they live or places they go to regularly. Like if you want to go to the gym and do five squats every time somebody tips 1000 bits, do it, but be warned somebody is probably going to make the connection you're doing it at like the El Paso Gold's Gym unless you're super careful and maybe even then. Yeah, it's a very weird and two-sided problem, where a very effective way for streamers to build a giant audience is to look like they're providing friendship/direct access to their life, but that also means that any fraction of their audience who handle that parasocial relationship poorly will be able to show up like this. I do think a lot of works tend to focus on the creator side of it - unsurprisingly, since by definition a work that gets popular is being created by someone on the creator side of the fan/creator dynamic. But I'd really enjoy some more works dealing with the original context of the term 'parasociality' as a strategy, a thing that is generated and maintained by particular ways of engaging with fans (and then which gets read onto other creators who are trying very hard to avoid it by fans who have come to expect that from the PewDiePies and other actively parasocial media personalities, it's extremely messy). Since it feels like a lot of works, like this QC page, take it for granted that this is just How Fans Are, or else it's presented as a failing of moral virtue by fans, rather than 'their parasocial sense of entitlement is at least partially the result and product of a particular form of social media framework, which is being fed both by the form of those sites and their use by certain content creators.'
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May 7, 2021 17:44
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I think social media content creators are annoying too but I would not go so far as to suggest that stalking victims are "asking for it"
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May 7, 2021 17:58
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It's also just that once you have a big enough audience you're gonna end up with some dipshits. And even for the non-dipshits, the sheer amount of feedback can be overwhelming even if none of them individually are anywhere close to going over the line. Like, if one time you drew a foot poorly and then you hear about for literal years it's gonna be annoying even if it's just an affectionate injoke among your fans and the vast majority of them never bring it up to you. Also, negative things tend to affect people more than positive things. Bad feedback will stick out more than it has any reasonable right to, even when overwhelmed by good feedback.
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May 7, 2021 18:25
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the holy poopacy posted:I think social media content creators are annoying too but I would not go so far as to suggest that stalking victims are "asking for it" i dont think discussing basic steps to protect yourself or the pitfalls one can fall into as someone who has to maintain a public presence is blaming anyone.
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May 7, 2021 19:39
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Under no circumstances is harassment ever justified, but there is an argument to be made that in many cases Weird Unhealthy Parasocial Engagement of one degree or another is the product you are selling and maybe this shouldn't be a thing, period, but for the capitalist dystopia we live in. But yeah Marigold is 100% right here. Captain Oblivious fucked around with this message at 20:47 on May 7, 2021 |
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May 7, 2021 20:43
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Captain Oblivious posted:Under no circumstances is harassment ever justified, but there is an argument to be made that in many cases Weird Unhealthy Parasocial Engagement of one degree or another is the product you are selling and maybe this shouldn't be a thing, period, but for the capitalist dystopia we live in. Yeah, it's this. 'Parasociality' got initially created as a term for what people like PewDiePie are doing - a performance that is extremely enthralling, because it convinces your fans that they have specific and unique access to your life, and that you are their friend. The product is fake friendship, and then people start to feel entitled because it feels like they have this relationship to the performer. A lot of artists, performers etc. have started taking steps to avoid parasociality in their performance for this reason. That's not blaming stalking victims, it's recognizing that there's an unhealthy valence there. At no point did anyone say anyone was 'asking for it' and obviously stalking is awful - you also shouldn't stalk people you do have a one to one personal relationship with, that's also bad! It's just very easy for parasociality to be discussed solely as a question of audience malfeasance, rather than a structural effect of a certain kind of performance, which was the original meaning of the term.
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May 7, 2021 22:18
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parasocial relationships absolutely and 100% existed before pewdiepie and other youtube celebrities, even just as a term. go ask jodie foster
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May 7, 2021 22:29
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tweet I stumbled up a while back that's relevant https://twitter.com/em_aytch/status/1377054888606109700?s=20
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May 7, 2021 22:34
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flatluigi posted:parasocial relationships absolutely and 100% existed before pewdiepie and other youtube celebrities, even just as a term. go ask jodie foster Yeah but previously creating and cultivating them wasn't considered a lucrative career path. There's a few examples I can think, primarily through writing, but nothing like what we have today.
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May 7, 2021 23:02
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GlyphGryph posted:Yeah but previously creating and cultivating them wasn't considered a lucrative career path. There's a few examples I can think, primarily through writing, but nothing like what we have today. Yeah, and also new media allows for really effective cultivation of parasociality, taking advantage of a known tendency of humans as social creatures. The term's from media studies, and it's about the effect of certain kinds of performance; you can argue it predated all of that, but the point is just that some people figured out or stumbled into producing media specifically aimed at cultivating it. Honestly it's a fascinating phenomenon, which gets glossed as 'fans and viewers get creepy and entitled, and occasionally dangerous' when there are structural reasons for that response beyond just 'they're stalkers, so they stalk.'
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May 7, 2021 23:12
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Apparently one of the structural effects of vlogging is it leads some people to become convinced that the vlogger is talking directly to them instead of a general audience, which is a whole other can of worms.
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May 7, 2021 23:22
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all i really want to do is make a point that nearly everyone who wants to have a career being an entertainer would rather have their fans not cross the boundaries they set for them, and I dislike talking about parasocial relationships as if they're an accepted casuality and/or intended result of existing in public like thatJoe Slowboat posted:It's just very easy for parasociality to be discussed solely as a question of audience malfeasance, rather than a structural effect of a certain kind of performance, which was the original meaning of the term. like, you're really dressing it up but you're still saying 'people shouldn't assume it's only the fan's fault, the performers brought it upon themselves for acting like that'
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May 7, 2021 23:33
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Things can get really blurry between creators who build big communities and do a lot of hanging out with their fans having back and forth conversations and some actual friendgroups who only know eachother online. I can really see how people could lose track of the difference or transpose one internet famous person's methodology for dealing with fans in their minds onto another famous internet person. And then when people are horny, they are prone to break all kinds of rules, which is unfortunate yet often inevitable. The absolute worst case scenario is when somebody goes crazy and tracks somebody down with a gun, which I think is statistically very rare, but it's very scary when you hear about it just once.
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May 7, 2021 23:59
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flatluigi posted:like, you're really dressing it up but you're still saying 'people shouldn't assume it's only the fan's fault, the performers brought it upon themselves for acting like that' You're conflating two different things. Parasociality is an effect that has been studied, that results from certain kinds of media platforms. Some people have argued it can be applied historically to other figures, like politicians and gods, but the term arose from the discussion of viewer relationships with TV figures, including talk show hosts and characters. Different media creates greater or lesser intensity of this in the average viewer, and this effect can be extremely powerful. For this reason, a lot of internet content creators are starting to take conscious action to defuse parasocial feelings in their viewers and introduce more distance between themselves and their audience. This, however, can result in a less devoted fan base, so it's understandable why people would feel obligated to take part in parasocial forms. There isn't an easy answer to that, but it's still a media form question - it's neither 'artists do it to themselves' nor 'fans are just bad people.' Stalking is an extreme behavior that would be and is disturbing even when done to someone the stalker did in fact know well in person. Anyone doing that poo poo is in fact bad people! Dr Subterfuge posted:Apparently one of the structural effects of vlogging is it leads some people to become convinced that the vlogger is talking directly to them instead of a general audience, which is a whole other can of worms. This is the same effect if I understand what I've read, it's just that normally it just hits on a subconscious level, like how it's harder to ignore someone talking on a phone than two people talking in person. Someone who gets to the point of really thinking it's just them is clearly not in a good way.
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May 8, 2021 00:55
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I think parasociality is obnoxious and generally detrimental to society as a whole, but... sorry, stalkers gonna stalk 
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May 8, 2021 01:21
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flatluigi posted:like, you're really dressing it up but you're still saying 'people shouldn't assume it's only the fan's fault, the performers brought it upon themselves for acting like that' I'm honestly confused. For parasociality, for many of these people, the parasocial relationships are very, very explicitly cultivated. That is literally the product they are selling, and they are doing so very intentionally. Many of the webcomic authors we are talking about do *not* do that, but many streamers absolutely do cultivate it with intent
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May 8, 2021 01:31
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the holy poopacy posted:I think parasociality is obnoxious and generally detrimental to society as a whole, but... sorry, stalkers gonna stalk the inevitability that someone may attempt to stalk you due to just maintaining any amount of presence online is a great reason to discuss and encourage ways for people to feel safe while maintaining their audience. i think deliberately misreading people's posts by accusing them of saying people are "asking for it" when stating that entertainment is as much about selling yourself as your skill is an uncharitable reading and is going to devolve this discussion into something unpleasant and incomprehensible.
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May 8, 2021 01:36
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...much like my posting!!!!
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May 8, 2021 01:37
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The way the internet is today, I'm not sure if it's weirder how many people are out there just being totally candid about their real names and identity, or if it's weirder how back in the day people would have huge followings under a weird internet name. I think the weirdest I've seen is Linkara, a guy who became famous under his weird fake internet name put the fake names "Ted Sage" and "Fred Gouldart" on his bad webcomic in addition to his real name because he wanted to make it look like his comic was going through weird and confusing artist shuffling like normally published superhero comics. Anyhow, Marigold is going to end up meeting LilBeef IRL and it sounds like she's going to freak the gently caress out.
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May 8, 2021 01:38
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fun hater posted:the inevitability that someone may attempt to stalk you due to just maintaining any amount of presence online is a great reason to discuss and encourage ways for people to feel safe while maintaining their audience. i think deliberately misreading people's posts by accusing them of saying people are "asking for it" when stating that entertainment is as much about selling yourself as your skill is an uncharitable reading and is going to devolve this discussion into something unpleasant and incomprehensible. these discussions tend to be fraught as there is an exceedingly fine line between discussing risk mitigation strategies and suggesting that victims share blame with their attackers I feel that saying that "actually it's not the perpetrators' fault, there are structural causes that the victims deliberately create and exploit" is sprinting across that line and dancing in the endzone
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May 8, 2021 02:24
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the holy poopacy posted:these discussions tend to be fraught as there is an exceedingly fine line between discussing risk mitigation strategies and suggesting that victims share blame with their attackers it is unfair to mischaracterize what people are saying; there is no fault being cast by discussing a subject that requires nuance. e: lol and im aware freaks use "nuance" as a get out of jail free card to talk about lovely things horribly but you're gonna have to trust me on this one
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May 8, 2021 02:31
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I know I had a bad case of the parasocials when I was younger and I feel a lot better about myself these days by trying not to be Like That.
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May 8, 2021 02:37
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the holy poopacy posted:these discussions tend to be fraught as there is an exceedingly fine line between discussing risk mitigation strategies and suggesting that victims share blame with their attackers You'll notice I'm not excusing stalking. I'm saying there's a distinction between 'parasocial feelings' and 'stalking' and parasociality is in fact a term originating in media studies for a particular formal effect, which, again, is something that has been capitalized on by some creators and actively worked against by others.
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May 8, 2021 04:12
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the holy poopacy posted:these discussions tend to be fraught as there is an exceedingly fine line between discussing risk mitigation strategies and suggesting that victims share blame with their attackers Only if you believe in completely unfettered free will, which is psychologically ridiculous. You are more likely to take on the dominant faith of your culture. You are more likely to form your ideas on the structures of friendships, marriages, etc due to the dominant rhetoric of your culture. It is not assured, but it is more probable. No one is an island. Similarly, vtubers, vlogging, etc. are a form of engagement that encourages and relies upon the phenomenon of parasociality. That is the product! You are the product. There is no getting away from that, only mitigating its effects. It's a leap to assume the person who needs to be mitigating those effects is the vtuber themselves however. That is not at all implied by this. Captain Oblivious fucked around with this message at 04:24 on May 8, 2021 |
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May 8, 2021 04:21
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Parasocial relationships to things are also completely inevitable. Humans form social bonds with things compulsively, and the things in question don't need to form the bonds back. We love stuffed animals, we name our cars, and we imagine conversations with people we've never met. As people have mentioned, parasocial relationships have been around forever - our current understanding of them is just heightened and made necessary by the sheer volume of media engagement, often direct creator engagement, we encounter on the modern internet. Example that springs to mind: in the 90s reissue of The Stand, Stephen King writes in the prologue that he still receives letters from people asking how the characters of this book he wrote in the 70s are doing, what their lives are like after the end of the story, exactly as if they're friends that the letter-writers want to catch up with. I personally think the discussion around them has flattened a bit, as these things tend to do when the discourse on them occurs through Twitter, which flattens everything. It's good to be aware of unhealthy forms of attachment, and for fans and creators to understand boundaries, but it's also impossible to actually remove the tendency to form parasocial bonds from the human experience. It's probably better to talk about understanding this tendency and working to ameliorate its harmful manifestations, rather than just using "parasocial" as a snarl word, because I'm pretty sure it's not something you can just cut out of the human animal.
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May 8, 2021 05:14
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It's weird we all gotta use our names. You should get to have a e-puppet
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May 8, 2021 06:22
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FunkyAl posted:It's weird we all gotta use our names. You should get to have a e-puppet Agreed Genuinely the movement from "don't trust strangers online, use a handle" to "you need to promote your personal brand by plastering your name and face all over your social media presence" has been a mostly really negative thing, I feel like.
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May 8, 2021 06:39
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Android Blues posted:Agreed Interestingly it's happened alongside the rise of VTubers, which (usually) are mostly if not fully fictionalized versions of oneself or another character outright. The extra layer of anonymity is even one of the reasons having such a persona appeals to some of the people with them, from what I hear.
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May 8, 2021 07:20
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Roland Jones posted:Interestingly it's happened alongside the rise of VTubers, which (usually) are mostly if not fully fictionalized versions of oneself or another character outright. The extra layer of anonymity is even one of the reasons having such a persona appeals to some of the people with them, from what I hear. I'm genuinely hopeful that the layer of fictionalization there will make parasociality with vtubers less intense than with real-name streamers. No idea if that's how it works, but, I feel like 'treating an e-puppet like a character you like maybe too much' is probably less likely to lead to that delusive parasociality that causes problems than 'treating a streamer like an actual friend.' People get parasocial about Stephen King characters, but they don't tend to actually go Misery on him. I definitely agree that the pressure to open one's life to fans and followers in order to get ahead (by riding that parasocial bond) has been really toxic. It's been a structure of the industry that pushed people into being more a focus of intense parasociality.
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May 8, 2021 07:42
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Joe Slowboat posted:I'm genuinely hopeful that the layer of fictionalization there will make parasociality with vtubers less intense than with real-name streamers. No idea if that's how it works, but, I feel like 'treating an e-puppet like a character you like maybe too much' is probably less likely to lead to that delusive parasociality that causes problems than 'treating a streamer like an actual friend.' People get parasocial about Stephen King characters, but they don't tend to actually go Misery on him. Funnily enough (and this is a bit of a digression) he wrote Misery as a Richard Bachman book before the Bachman pseudonym was discovered by the press, during an era where he was feeling increasingly stifled by the expectations of readers and his presence in the public eye, and much of it is a sort of imaginative allegory for King's contentious feelings about his relationship with his audience. The protagonist of Misery (who is a clear stand-in for King, an author so frustrated by the weight of his own fame and the genre niche his fanbase expects him to write in that he can barely stand it) comes up with the name Constant Reader for the villain Annie Wilkes, and to this day King addresses all his forewords, affectionately, to the Constant Reader. During the course of the book Annie is a nightmarish tormentor who has a delusional sense of entitlement to his attention and his time, but she also keeps him working, sparks his creativity, and keeps him honest when he tries to take shortcuts in the plot or writes something that doesn't ring true. I dunno. Semi-relevant to the discussion but I think it's interesting to point out an instance of a creator grappling with their feelings on fan entitlement in a well-known work way before the internet. I think a lot of what's changed is the scale at which this kind of thing can happen: it used to be multi-millionaire bestselling authors, rock stars, and presidents who had fanbases of sufficient scale to get weird about it, and that was pretty much it. Now thanks to the broadening occasioned by the internet, it's anyone who makes something that a thousand or so people can get intensely into.
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May 8, 2021 12:56
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Roland Jones posted:Interestingly it's happened alongside the rise of VTubers, which (usually) are mostly if not fully fictionalized versions of oneself or another character outright. The extra layer of anonymity is even one of the reasons having such a persona appeals to some of the people with them, from what I hear. It has been fascinating to watch. I'm an Old so you couldn't pay me to sit in a Twitch stream of several thousand people spamming emotes but it's impressive how people like Mori Calliope go at it with different hashtags for fan art, fandom name, all that sort of thing. There's another that even uses a TTS thing in her streams which is yet another layer of safety.
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May 8, 2021 13:26
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