Revisiting life is strange and its fandom is really bittersweet
I don’t think the fandom is completely dead, it’s not what it used to be and I accept that but it’s bittersweet
also I don’t wanna gatekeep anyone from discovering LiS late, I don’t believe in “true fans”- I’m glad we’re still getting fandom babies hehh, thankfully there is a lot of fan materials to be discovered
I just wanna be a sentimental fool about the life is strange fandom, I was there when the first episode came out I was as old as the characters and it was an event, a moment that can never be replicated- the barbenheimer for tumblr lesbians
We never had a game like this before, it felt tailor made for us and we went crazy
It was fun, you’d just log on tumblr and find new fanart of your favorite character or ship- inside jokes and shitposts were rampant, a couple of fan writers and artists came together and made a fan game- “Love is Strange” where Max gets to romance Chloe, Kate, Victoria, Amber (tell me I’m not the only who remembers shrektoria and Rachel eating a salad while laughing meme)
I made fanart and memes and they blew up but I lost that account
They’d call us sjw trash on YouTube and make fun of the game, we didn’t give a shit
But I think it was around before the storm where i started to lose interest and was burnt out, also I just didn’t like the direction they went with for the game I thought it was an unnecessary edition to the main story (Rachel didn’t need a complicated backstory, Elliot, too much conflict for 3 episodes) and I don’t think I was the only one cause this is where the fan art and fic updates started to slow down
Then I moved on to other things, other fandoms- shit happens.
Life is strange was just another part of my cringey teenage self who the hell cares I was cringe
But now I’m an adult, I have responsibilities and anxieties that I never knew I’d have to deal with- i went through a lot in the last 8 years sometimes I wish I was still that cringey ass teenager. This year was particularly bad, lost someone I loved
I stumbled upon old fan art on Pinterest and it reignited my love for the first game, I felt happy that I had something to take my mind off and goddamn revisiting the fandom years later is so bittersweet. I miss my old fandom mutuals, the blogs that used to update everyday were last active 5 years ago and most of the og fan artists had either rebranded or had left, one of them got hacked
Tumblr doesn’t make it easy for you to look up older posts, you have to rely on old blogs, Google or Pinterest (kinda made it my mission to archive what I can find)
There are new artists doing their own thing and I love that for them! Also people still write fanfics and update them, when I have the time I sketch out my fave characters and ships- it seems like there is a vocal community on tiktok but idk i don’t wanna go there
But it’s not what it was and I accept that, shit happens I’m glad I got to experience it during its peak and that I was left with good memories and content I can still enjoy
I’ve definitely seen shittier and deader fandoms
Before LiS and Steven universe there weren’t a lot of spaces that let you enjoy wlw ships, they were either upstaged by yaoi stuff or fetishized (deviantart) this game and its fan base helped me accept my identity as a lesbian, told me it’s not a fetish when two girls hold hands
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eras of tumblr i could give hour-long Ted Talks about
(only including eras i participated in, not what i’ve lived through second-handedly. these are what i personally remember seeing on my dash, i’m sure there’s plenty i missed. This is an ongoing list/not fixed/subject to future edits.)
2015 gravity falls
the rise of sexyman bill cipher
depravity falls and putting 12 yr old characters in violent guro situations
alex hirsch worship
billdip discourse
the diehard thirst for Gruncle Ford
“i want to fuck that dorito”
2015/16 Black Butler
SebaCiel discourse
Grelle discourse (like, i don’t even know how to elaborate, but if you were there you would remember how people were fighting over her characterization in all different directions. Which is funny because, love her or hate her, she is barely even in the show lol)
The needlessly intense sjw vs anti-sjw/ fiction doesn’t effect reality/ shipping fighting
can’t quantify this, but i swear 80% of the fans were ex-hetalia fans
Black butler 2 being either loved or hated, while book of circus was almost unanimously loved
the Scott Freeman incident...
no one giving a fuck about the female characters
Yana/Jay Michael Tatum worship
2016 Undertale
Sans undertale sexyman rise
the most raw video game soundtrack of all time
papyton
no one agrees how to draw undyne, but we all agree that she’s gay as fuck
(This is a personal anecdote, but i actually made a friend in highschool bc i drew undertale fanart on the board at latin class nd she added to it the next day, i added to it the next day and eventually we met up and it was so adorable)
“get dunked on”
2016-17 hamilton, heathers, great comet, dear evan hansen, be more chill musical theater insanity
rip tumblr user galactibun
The Hamilton craze breathing new life into the 1776 musical fandom
Most bizarre fanfic aus seen on tumblr thus far (hamilton)
The great comet Tony snubs
BMC and DEH blowing up, despite most fans only caring about the characters, totally ignoring the plot.
“Miku binder Thomas Jefferson”
No one giving a fuck about “The Hamilton Mixtape”
Gatekeeping fans who didn’t read war and peace or the ron chernow biography (i don’t think anyone ever gave a shit about the BMC orginal book which is SO FUNNY)
lin manuel miranda worship
real people fanfictions of actors/shipping them (especially hamilton!)
Key Figures include: Lin Manuel Miranda, Ron Chernow, Philipa Soo, Daveed Diggs, Ben Platt, George Salazar, Barette Wilbert Weed, and Mike Faist
2016-2017 the yuri on ice, killing stalking, kaikyu yaoi trifecta
Yaoi take over
The anime fans collective salt over YOI winning anime of the year 2016
Not in this time period, but the Killing Stalking fans despising the ending en mass several years later.
Free! was also huge as the second season concluded not long before, but wasn’t receiving new updated in Realtime like the other three.
honestly? i mostly just remember people drawing some of the most beautiful fan art of the characters and not bothering to follow the plots
2015-2016 steven universe discourse peak craziness
There are no words, looking back this all feels like a fever dream
Insane fan-theories (as in- even for Tumblr, these theories were very out there)
Pink diamond character derailment
“watching steven universe is the opposite of eating pussy”
Gemosonas
fusion = sex???
“it’s over isn’t it” single-handedly inspiring some of the most beautiful fan art to come out of the show; "Stronger than you” def inspired much more fan-creations, but they were nowhere near as good imo
That terrible lily peet video that sent a tidal wave of fandom-fighting
Concrete
Nicki Minaj guest appearance
the porn avalanche predating the 2018 nsfw ban
My OG account got banned >:( (i never posted porn, tried to email support to no avail, I DID NOT DEVERVE THIS YOU NARCS)
50-50 mix of people posting lewd art and people posting links to find them as they migrated to twitter
“Female presenting nipples”
The return of the citrus scale (orange: PG/G, Lime: PG-13, Lemon: R, Grapefruit: X)
“Too Spicy for Tumblr”
Didn’t even stop the porn bots, mostly just screwed over artists and writers
IMO the peak of user v staff animosity
2020 hannibal
The small but loyal anthony hopkins defenders
Some of the most beautiful creative gore art
The moodboard to web-weaving pipeline
People being surprisingly respectful of fans who only watched the show, or who didn’t read Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs, or where otherwise not invested in the greater overall Hannibal canon.
Manipulate, mansplain, malewife
Key Figures Include: Madds Mikkelson, Hugh Dancy, Anthony Hopkins
november 5, 2020
You just had to be there man, i don’t know what to tell you.
Key Figures include: Donald Trump, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and debatably Sherlock season 5
the 2021 coquette girl blogger era
Lana del rey worship
The ungodly amount of softcore porn
Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss
Glorification of eating disorders, benzos, trailer parks, predatory men, age gap relationships, and so much more!
Teenagers blogging about Russian lit you know they never read
Waifblr
Still not sure to this day how much of this was ironic and how much wasn’t?? Or if any of this was self-aware???
Yes babe you’re so bambi, kate moss, diet coke, wellbutrin, dasha nekrosova, ballet, klonopin, trad cath, fawn, dior, sofia coppela, can you please shut the fuck up now?
key figures include: Lana del Rey, Daisy Randone, Dasha Nekrosova, Nina Sayers, Fiona Apple, Anya Taylor Joy, Sylvia Plath, Kate Moss, Kirsten Dunst (probably so many more, but this is just off the top of my head)
(bonus)
2015/16- My personal earliest memories of really getting into tumblr, and witnessing the tail-end of the Hetalia reign
2016- the end of Homestuck
2016- the epidemic of overwatch porn
2016- Does Jumin Han is gay?
2017- RWBY’s nosedive in quality from season 3 to 4, losing the majority of the fanbase
2018 Boyfriend to Death civil war (Gatobob v ElectricPuke)
2018- Detroit become Human drops and the robot-fucking gatekeeping
2018- the Game of thrones/Endgame joint disaster ending melt down
2019- Sub-par Omens
2020- the Dead by Daylight community rioting when Pyramid Head’s ass got nerfed
2020- Cyberpunk 2077 is released and is torn apart almost instantly. Looking back by my approximations post were made up of- 10% people who were actually playing the games and enjoying themselves, 20% people who were playing the game and WEREN’T having fun, 55% People who never bought/played the game who were making up crazy glitches for clout, 15% hardcore pornography of characters you’d never seen before. (I’m quite salty about this bc I worked at GameStop at this time and had people constantly talking about glitches in casual conversation and I just know most of these bitches were LYING.)
20??- don’t remember the exact dates, but phase 3 marvel was un-escapable at this time
2020/21- Succession blows up
2022 Ghost bc blows up on tiktok, the fandom already sizable on tumblr only goes up from here
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