#but not this day!

[donnerpartyofone]

Does anybody remember several years ago, while the MCU supremacy was still on the rise, when people briefly complained that Marvel movies were either imitating or actively ripping off fan fiction? Like obviously there were development executives who figured out that fandom was happening, and that fan-created content offered an easy reference guide for what kind of thing would best separate fools from their money, and some fans were reasonably annoyed by being exploited and condescended to like that? I guess whatever outrage popped up then was defused by the pleasure the target demo felt when they saw approximations of their own work brought to big-budget life by no less than the Disney corporation (and to a lesser degree the US military-industrial complex for which it stans). Too bad though, because now the fans who fed the success of the MCU and neo-Star Wars stuff have to deal with the irony of Disney attacking them for copyright infringement--not that that stops any of those people from continuously defending their abuser whenever anyone suggests that it's just a greedy corporation that chews up its underpaid employees to churn out formulaic garbage whose main purposes are securing subscription fees, and templating the production of overpriced merchandise.

But uh anyway, the reason I'm thinking about this now is because of corporate ads I see that utilize actual fan art. It's so crazy what they choose! Recently there was an ad for some Marvel thing that I first assumed was just some tween's blazed post for their little webcomic or whatever; the graphic was really crude and nothing about it stood out, so I was stunned when I finally looked at it long enough to notice that it was a piece of fan art that had been commissioned or acquired to promote some new Marvel show. Now I'm seeing that Teen Wolf ad every four or five posts, and I had that same experience where I went from thinking it was just some random crappy fan art, to realizing that it was crappy fan art offered to me by MTV to get me to watch a professionally-produced television series based on a successful existing property movie based on a TV series based on a popular film (JFC!). The art tells you absolutely nothing; it's just two generic white guys standing stiffly in front of a jeep. There's no style or flair, and it's like...well I remember being at the age when I drew like that, like I was competent enough to draw proportional bodies, but I had a hard time with things like fists, upturned faces, differentiating one character's features from another, and just getting a figure to look like it was standing naturally. So there's this kind of rigorous boringness to the image, and if it weren't for the corporate logos, I'd never have guessed that it wasn't JUST a cruddy no-reason drawing of two anonymous guys. The kind of thing somebody drew just to practice drawing clothes, or cars, or whatever. Not much going on. (Shouldn't there at least be a werewolf or something??)

What I mean to say is that it's interesting what a dysfunctional relationship large scale entertainment companies have with the fans they rely on. Like, the corporations know enough to take their cues from fan content, so we get movies and shows that are patterned on shit from AO3 and we get ads featuring actual low level fan art...but that seems to suggest that the companies think that fans are more interested in fan content than they are in the source material. Is this actually true? Maybe! I'm an outside observer, so I really have no idea if the average fandom member actually prefers awkward drawings and jerkoff prose written by 12 year olds (or people who write like them), to whatever professional comics/movies/shows that stuff is based on. They might genuinely prefer the former by now, or they might just not see any difference anymore. But the choice of fan art for these Tumblr ads is really shocking to me. It's like the marketing people decided it was a good idea to pander to fandoms by using their own content against them, but then they were too afraid to use anything with real personality, and they definitely weren't going to use anything really homemade-looking. So, they just went with something that wasn't too good, and wasn't too bad, either. The graphics chosen don't look remotely as good as some of the stuff that turns up regularly on Tumblr Radar, and are also not as interesting as the truly raw, perverted children's fan art that circulates here all the time. Personally, I think they should go with the latter, and start buying up seriously primitive kid drawings and disgusting fetish art and all that real deal fandom shit that makes fandom so repulsive to the rest of us. If corporations wanna pull that "we're just like you" trick by feeding fan content back to the fans, they should really lean in. Get all that popular rapey, incest-y, queer baiting, mpreg weirdness into the ads and just watch the money roll in.

All that said, I do feel concerned about corporations making a product out of fandom to be sold back to the fandom itself--and assuming that we're ALL potential fans and stans--because I think it identifies a mistake being made re: what professional production should look like. And I don't mean to suggest that "outsiders" don't make great art or write interesting stories ("outsider art" is a suspicious label anyway but you know what I mean); any time something truly inspired and original emerges, it doesn't matter where it comes from. But as a consumer, when I'm asked to pay full price for something, I expect it to be made with a greater level of talent and sophistication than what it takes for a young amateur to get a lot of notes on Tumblr (or wherever) from other young people exactly like themselves. Like I remember being a kid and drawing loving portraits of Fox Mulder, Over and Over and Over Again...but if I spent my precious allowance on the latest X-Files comic and found that the inside looked just like my sketchbooks, I would have felt pretty disappointed. If those comics were advertised using that type of art, I would have felt sad and confused about why a comic based on my favorite popular TV show was no better than what I make for myself in my school notebooks. And it would have been fair for me to feel personally ripped off, too, considering the fact that I made that kind of art for free, and now I was paying some entertainment company to sell it back to me.

As an adult horror fan, I'm part of a community (whether I like it or not!) that produces tons of fan content, and also lots of deeply homemade cinema. Some of it is made with real ingenuity, but like, that makes up a predictably tiny minority of what's out there. Once in a while I see a new-to-me title for rent on a major streaming platform, and after I've paid a normal-movie amount of money to satisfy my optimistic curiosity about it, and I find out that it's just, you know, a no-budget ripoff of EVIL DEAD shot on an iPhone in somebody's mom's basement...then I feel pissed off. And I have a right to feel pissed off! Context is important, and part of the context of a movie is where it is offered, and how much you pay to see it. Like, the world has a seemingly endless supply of shot-on-video movies about vampires starring suburban douchebags in wraparound shades and vinyl clothes from Hot Topic, drooling and slurring around mouthfuls of plastic fangs...and don't get me wrong, those guys have a right to make those things, but if I accidentally paid $20 to see one of them in a theater that was otherwise showing what I will shamelessly call Real Movies, I'd be mad. And more to the point, if I had shed the blood sweat & tears required to make a Real Movie myself, which is an almost miraculous feat even for something that comes out bad, and I saw my title on a marquis next to one of those mall goth camcorder movies, I'd probably feel like I failed somehow.

I'm thinking of something I saw recently about a new author who debuted on the NYT best-seller list, who had been plucked from fan fiction obscurity by the business minds at a mainstream publisher. Obviously the execs realized what kind of traffic fan fiction did online and figured they could just skin and repackage that shit as an original romance novel--and they were right. There was nothing apparently special about the book except that the author enjoyed some preexisting fandom community recognition, and the book fit with preexisting fic formulae. The article that described this event included a writer's statement that was itself incredibly primitive, basically saying (inarticulately) that they felt like they had no idea what they were doing but their editor was really helpful in hammering their raw, amateurish writing into something recognizable as a book you'd see in a real, normal bookstore. And like, you can really imagine what happened there, when you read that. And I don't think that should be happening.

I'm sure that for some people, writing and drawing fan content is a great gateway to perfecting a craft, along with formal education, studying lots of different kinds of art and reading lots of different kinds of writing besides the one thing that's your favorite, suffering regular rejection letters and painful criticism, seeking mentorship with experienced pros, gaining your own professional experience, and just plain old making sacrifices and putting in the hours. And that's fine. But, I just don't think publishing houses and production studios with even a modicum of reach and power should put a cap on quality at "rando who gets a lot of traction on deviant art dot com". Call me elitist all you want, I don't think we should put grownup price tags on shit kids make for free to amuse each other. I don't think we should suggest to creators and producers of all kinds that nobody has to try any harder than that. And we shouldn't suggest, by proxy, that audiences don't deserve any better than that, either.

#i swear to god i will stop complaining about this someday #but not this day!

[oh-look-car-horns]

IM NOT READYYYYYY

#boop #boop o meter #april fools day #april fools

[oh-munda-kukkad-kamaal-da]

Reblog if its ok to spam you with boops

#boop #april fool's day

[notamamiboye]

Happy April Fools 2024

#notamamiboye #boop #april fool's day #the boop brothers #bop #bonk #bap

[phosphorus-noodles]

Reblog to let your followers know that they’re safe from jumpscares/screamers/etc from you on April 1st but they are NOT safe from getting boop’d like an idiot amen

#:3c #pho.posts #april fools #boop #april fools day #1k #5k #10k #20k #50k #75k #these numbers mean Nothing to me anymore...

[mandycantdecide]

#seems like a good deal to me #boop #boopometer #april fools day

[theriverbeyond]

Ideal work schedule:

I show up and am given a list of cognitively engaging but achievable tasks

I complete the list

I leave immedietly

#guy who is getting out of work at 1pm!!!! 📢 #tomorrow is my last day but u have loved this job. i love to leave. #trb.txt #i* have

[antlerlad]

happy tdov my loves. don't let anyone else define your transness for you.

help trans women evacuate gaza

#tdov #trans day of visibility #tdov 2024 #comic #nonbinary #i havent done a little comic in a while. feels good

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

#international women's day #twitter #meme #memes #tweets #tweet #funny #lol #humor

[bookwyrminspiration]

god I would be UNSTOPPABLE if I was capable of consistently initiating tasks. just you wait. you'll be waiting a while but just you wait

#executive dysfunction #shitpost #every day I get stuck in waiting mode for SO LONG and SO MANY TIMES #that one time I tried adhd meds it fixed it but then I. was like no I am going to be scared and not continue taking it <3 #and also. I simply did not like the psychologist and did not want to have to go back #so. rawdogging the world <3 #man if I could start a task right now...then you'd see...then you'd all see....

[ubercharge]

op is posting from tamriel. or perhaps the lands between

#kite.img #reddit #r/shittyfoodporn #i give reddit a peek every other day or so and sometimes it floors #100k

[teaboot]

When I was a kid one of my moms would call her period "moon time" or "her monthlies" or shit like that and my other mom straight up stealthed it, but when I'm a dad I think I'm gonna go straight down the middle and call it Werewolf Week. Like sorry kids, dad can't roughouse right now, it's Werewolf Week

#Plus my sense of smell always goes crazy like a couple days prior #So #I feel like I could really lean into the mythos #They'll get the talk of course but Werewolf Week sounds way cooler than Lady Time or whatever the fuck

[joeyclaire]

#chit chats #charlie day shrine

[lizkreates]

Mad with boop power! I felt inspired.

#april fools #april fool's day #boop #please know I'm a trigun blog but I enjoy the sillies occasionally #my art

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

#EDIT: Added a great resource for ESL and African languages that weren't found elsewhere #I do NOT recommend memrise and will talk about it another day but #langblr #duolingo #duo #language learning #language learning apps #mandarinblr #resource #reference

[gayforcarstairsgirls]

#staff need to realise that one little change to layout ruins my day #and that when i snooze tumblr live i mean that i want it GONE #tumblr live