#Though that's kinda also just how I feel about media consumption in general lol - I guess one of those is technically media production

[thysanniia]

What things are you currently/recently enjoying watching and/or reading?

ok so first of all you are my favourite human ever for asking this thank you I love you <3

BUT ANYWAY

As you may have gathered from a few of my recent posts, I'm really hyperfixated on the MonsterVerse right now! I've been concepting different rewrite ideas for it for years now, and the new Monarch show has just sent me deep, deep down the rabbit hole again. I have like so many Word documents relating to films, shows, timelines, stuff like that. Hopefully soon I'll actually sketch out some kaiju designs, that will be fun! But yeah, this hyperfixation has hooked me good, I don't think it's going away any time soon.

Aside from that though, my main media consumption has just been making my way through any yuri I can find lmfao. This has kinda been the case since autumn, I've watched various shows and also bought a couple mangas I'll read once I've finished my current book (more on that later). I've even gone into the realm of webcomics, which has somehow resulted in me building a super long list of super long webcomics I wanna read. Hopefully I can actually get through some of them lol. But yeah, overall just a lot of yuri, because I am hopelessly gay. I might actually make some threads on the ones I've watched/read.... hmmm....

The only other thing I feel I should mention is the book I'm reading, 'This Is How You Lose The Time War'. It's not very long but I'm still taking ages to get through it because I suck at reading. BUT!! holy shit it is absolutely fantastic, I first heard about it because someone tweeted about it and that went kinda viral, and holy shit they were not wrong this book is fantastic. I'll give the same advice: don't look up anything, don't even read the blurb, just get a copy of the book and read it and you will not be disappointed, it's one of the most unique and compelling pieces of literature I've ever read. And it's gay.

Anyway, that's the main stuff. There are a couple things on the side, I'm watching the Percy Jackson show although I'm a little behind on it (it's generally good I think?) and I recently watched through Chainsaw Man which is fantastic. Can't think of anything else besides those!

#thysanniasks #my posts

[neonun-au]

it's the hag anon again lol kinda in reference to the ask you just answered, while the younger generation do seem to be less cautious, i also think the values are so different. i find a lot of younger fandom people now are so, so concerned with people's reception of them. and i think i'd be like that too if i were a kid in a time when innocent mistakes are grounds for being exiled out of a community. i think the fixation on over-sanitizing their internet experience comes from the notion of "accountability" that they see so much of online, and it must be suffocating to be a kid and feeling like you don't have any room to be wrong or make mistakes. in a way, by letting people know so much about them, it's like "this is who i am & i'm letting you know right off the bat so you don't fault me for it later." whereas when i overshared in my youth it was more "i think i'm cool, maybe if i play it up people will think so, too!" i can't really say for sure since i'm not part of that generation but what i can say is it must be super difficult to be a kid on social media rn. (also can you tell i've been thinking about this A LOT lol, for the most part though, i do agree! it's really not that deep, but it is interesting to try and make sense of what seems like such a foreign way of thinking to me!)

That is a very, very good point and something I think about a lot, too! I think just the prevalence of social media in our day to day lives makes us so much more hyper aware of how people perceive us and what not. It's like something I heard once like..."the observed self can never be truly authentic" something like that idk. Like as someone who grew up in that in between generation, where my childhood was entirely free of technology apart from like...cable and I worked at a video rental store in high school lol, I cannot imagine what it is like growing up immersed in the age of social media and feeling like everything you do is in some way there for consumption.

That definitely makes a lot, a lot, a lot of sense. Like putting it all out there so people know firsthand what they're getting into. The difference in mindsets definitely is indicative of the difference in upbringing and generation.

All I can say is, a lot of it makes me exceptionally happy that I did get a childhood relatively free of social media :')) I was allowed to just exist without feeling like I was performing that existence for some invisible audience. It's much harder to just make the mistakes that most people make as a part of growing up now because everything is under a microscope.

It is such an interesting topic, too

#replies #anon #hag anon #lmaoooo

[waitingforminjae]

TaeminLive anon, p1: I can't help but feel like my words in my two last asks were kinda harsh towards TM, but it was so difficult to write without it getting too long. I think you're right that this is really hard to discuss when we don't have the full picture and don't know TM personally. I think the overall point I was trying to make in the last ask, was that I have a really hard time differentiating between TM's own actions and SM's orders. Did he himself think "Im going to do a live everyday

pt. 2-3: from now on so that my fans stop being mad that I'm going to Japan on tour" or did SM tell him to? It could be that, aside from giving some distraction from his own thoughts, Instalives also give him a false sense of control? But I do think there's some truth to your theory that TM does insta this much in order to fill in Key's spot. I just don't know whose idea it was, Taemin's or SM's. I guess my theory is that Taemin is being burdened with carrying SHINee's name on his own and that the pressure forces him to act sweet and rational 24/7 in order to always keep abusive Shawols happy, and I'm afraid that he's unable to set the boundaries he needs in order to stay happy and healthy. Sigh. :(

I don’t think you sounded harsh! I just don’t want people to think I’M coming from a mean place when I say certain things, is all!

I think it’s always hard to tell what’s the company and what’s the group’s idea in kpop, but I think it’s especially hard with SHINee bc their entire brand is built around their honesty. Taemin is incredibly good at “faking” sincerity, and so it’s hard to know when he’s “faking” and not. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s what makes him (and SHINee) seem ~elevated~ above other groups--they always seem sincere. It’s an incredible gift.

But I don’t know whose idea the instalives were. I tend to believe that SM doesn’t so much give their artists incredibly detailed instructions or role sheets or scripts, but instead relies on their common sense and training to get through PR/Promo things, just like I think that they don’t force the relationships between their artists, but rather capitalize on the ones that exist naturally (i.e. Taemin and Kai being best friends). So, I think it’s possible that SM might have said, “Hey, use this to interact “personally” with your fans”. Obviously it’s going to be monitored, and I bet on that particular day they asked him to go live to appease the Korean fans. Taemin has also been doing this forever now. He can survive without to much control. They trust him. So even though he probably has to clear it with his managers first, they’re likely his idea. But maybe not. It’s impossible to know, unfortunately.

“Could it be that...Instalives give him a false sense of control?” I really hadn’t thought of that before!!! I’m still thinking through this idea in relation to Taemin specifically, but I think in general that is an extremely valid take on why people do lives!! Social media is all about your control over your own self and image, after all.

Taemin isn’t someone I had thought of as having control issues. The question I would ask is, if the lives are rooted in control, then what, exactly, is he trying to control? I’m not sure. I honestly can’t quite see it, but I do know that when I read that sentence my instincts went “YES!!!!!” Which means that I think you might be on to something, but I can’t quite get the pieces together in my head yet. But I do think it would be hard to have a controlling personality and be a kpop idol without straight up having a breakdown, because you can’t really be in control. But at the same time, going live could give you a sense of control bc there’s nothing the company can do in a live moment. So, I don’t know.

(An aside, but I think out of everyone in SHINee, Jonghyun and Key are most likely to have like, legitimate control issues. But that could just be because they seem to have very particular personalities.)

(I have to preface this next bit by saying that, basically, in my opinion there is no such thing as “ethical consumption” of media, and also that I straight up despise both Hollywood and the Korean Entertainment system. So I am biased on this, just like everything else I say!)

In my opinion, kpop itself is built around relationships with boundaries that are fundamentally unhealthy. As long as Taemin is a kpop artist, he is practically incapable of establishing truly healthy boundaries. And, honestly, the extreme cynic in me wants to argue that he’s incapable of it bc he’s been groomed by SM from such a young age. But I try not to let that part of me win ever, so. I’m going to chose to not believe that.

The thing abt Taemin’s instalives, that I literally was just able to put words to now, is that they kind of remind me of how my roommate interacts with her parents. We’re both going to college 12 hours away from home, so we’re really only home for the major holidays. But her parent’s call her randomly all the time, have some ten-minute random casual conversation, and then hang up. Taemin’s lives have a similar energy. It’s like a friend face-timing you. But he is not our friend. I saw somewhere on Twitter yesterday where someone said, like, “kpop is centered around the idol as the product, more so than the music they make”. I think that’s true. A really brutal reading of Taemin’s lives would be that they’re really just another way of him and his team marketing him.

(As another aside, SHINee’s awareness of themselves as a product is extremely fascinating, and one of my favorite things about them. Key, especially. But that’s another conversation lol)

But mostly I think it does boil down to Taemin having to adjust the way he interacts with fans bc he is the only active member rn. There’s no one else to save him from any holes he might dig himself into, or to take up the space. And I think that’s really what it’s all about.

#taemin anon #i hope this makes sense I really just ramble when answering these lol #and fill free to send as many asks as u want no matter how long!! #opinions/thoughts aren't always easy to express shortly!! #the asks and the answers #taemin #lee taemin #p: taemin #*feel not fill #my southern accent jumped out in my writing there lol