My only problem with 59 shades is that the author doesn't know shit about the bdsm community and probably never ever did one single scene. 🙄🤌

I was pleasantly surprised to see the Hannibal fandom mentioned in this video. I myself only watched the show this year despite knowing about it pretty much ever since it came out. I feel like I keep seeing the show mentioned all the time ever since I watched it. It's also quite popular on Tiktok and I keep wondering if that's related to the popularity of dark romance. After all, Hannibal has often been described as a gothic romance. To be fair, the show has also gotten attention this year because of panels that the actors have done after a long time. But I still wonder if the current popularity of dark themes in fiction plays a role in the show trending on Tiktok. The concept of the feminized fandom is also interesting with Hannibal because the fandom has been and still is composed of mostly young women. And I find that the fandom is mostly able to critically consume this very complex tv show with complicated characters, while also having fun and doing all the usual silly stuff that fandoms do. I find it interesting that such a show is so dear to young women (myself included) and has garnered a very unproblematic fandom. Also, on the topic of fanfiction, I've read a lot of fic in my time and I have to say that Hannibal fandom has probably the most beautifully written and complex fanfictions I've ever read. Somewhat unrelated but something I rarely see mentioned is how important fanfiction has been for young non-native English speakers to develop their English reading skills when interesting literature in the language might not be readily available. English is my second language and the first real English language fiction I read out of my own volition was fanfiction that I started reading when I was 12.

Great video! I actually wrote a short research paper during my freshman year of college a couple years ago about the negative and positive effects of reading fanfiction at a young age. We had to identify our target audience, and I said people who watch Mina Le. I can send it to you if you're interested. It got second place in our school's writing competition!

based mina le!!! i was so worried you were going to go in the morality police direction. i feel like this pearl-clutching has helped pave the way for censorship and facing fascism on a global scale we really cannot afford to do it. there's a world of difference between literary and feminist criticism, and a movement calling for books/genres/authors to disappear. people are either too cowardly or too stupid to walk the argument to its implicit conclusion but the purity wank conversation always implicitly suggests some higher authority should intervene. literally censorship. i love that you said people have to be allowed to publish the books in order for us to criticise them! so true <3

As someone who got into gothic foction at the same age as I was reading twilight and who reads dark romance and published omegaverse, very little fazes me. And yet I couldn't deal with it ends with us. I got it the year of its debut because Coleen won the goodreads award for romance, and it was both so flippant on its darkness yet also so boring I skipped most of the body, read the last chapter and called it done. It has the vibe that Coleen wanted to use the dark and tabboo themes to add drama without really thinking them as dark and tabboo so she didn't think she had any weight behind it. She treats them so flippantly it feels confusing rather than tense. And verity is a joke of a thriller, Nora Roberts does thriller romances better, pinky promise.

These books are NOT dark romance

I love Lana del Rey so much and honestly no about the cool girl monologue all the time. But I really didn’t know it was associated with the female stuff it makes me sad tbh because I honestly thought I was being myself but I guess not and not directly interacting with the fem cel type stuff

i like to read books with dark themes but never when they are romanticize. I love books which analyses dark themes and characters but not necessarily in a graphic way - more like a character study then anything else. Never in the romance genre - i just do not like romance in general because the way the male characters are written and how the relationship is always more in the physical level and not really on the emotional one - aka they develop way too fast for my liking. edit; i wanna add there are books which are doing dark themes "beautifully" and give them so much justice and nuance for example; my dark vanessa . the difference is these books are not easy to read which is in my opinion should be the point of dark theme books

we all know josh o'connor said his favourite movie is ratatouille because finally he can see himself, literally, in a main character

We need escapism in our lives

Being a girl is the epitome of 'Do i want to be WITH him or BE him?'

They’ve already bastardized the books. Let Ben save Cressida. I want to see him introduce her to mushroom tea and other eccentric things.

As a librarian, my main problem with dark romance is not the violence but the sexism lots of dark romance books I encountered show. I have romances, soft and hard, at my library and I try to avoid the one that are openly sexist to their female characters. The sexism (internal misogynie most of the time) seems more recurrent in the dark romance genre.

They changed showrunners. When I head that it all became clear

dear god

having read books where the MMC switches FMC's birth control pills makes twilight sound tame and normal 😭

I agree. I think they should have been in a later season for Colin to grow more and for us to see their relationship develop into a proper friendship (which it never came across to me as it was not honest, transparent and genuine so to see them become more like equals would have gripped me) and to have let it be a slow burn so when their season came it could have been better paced. I liked the book better

just wanted to say that you ATE on this thumbnail, you look divine

where are ur eyebrows

Hannibal was so good

💘💘💘

The point about people not having the critical analysis skills to understand other people’s critical analysis is SO true (I say this as someone on their third English literature degree…)

Okay, so I’m gonna tell a very strange/funny fact that maybe will inspire for more research on this theme. I love reading dark romances, it really is a form of escapism. But if someone is looking for dark romances at some point they find themselves reading mangas/manhwas. And this is a bifurcation point😆. So you find yourself reading a dark romance about a gay couple ( yaoi, for those, who know😉) with lot of “smut” pictures, so it’s definitely 18+. And I realised one of the reasons I enjoy it is that there are only men mostly, and abuse is also between men. It’s like women are safe in that kind of fiction. And it makes me feel comfort.

Dark themes can be cathartic. It's an exploratory way to try and understand bad things that exist in the world because they are multifaceted, rooted in societal norms, and involve many people indirectly (often with whom have good intentions, or messed up beliefs systems because of their own life experiences).

I think a smaller factor to romcoms not feeling the same is that a lot of older romcoms have plots that are driven by somewhat problematic situations. There are some pointed out in the video like _Sleepless in Seattle_ where Meg Ryan's character comes across as a creep. There are others like _She's All That_ or _10 Things I Hate About You_ or _How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days_ that all rely on the main characters doing some messed up things. We can re-watch those movies and not really mind the problematic aspects under the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and also by writing them off as being products of their time, but that doesn't really work for newer movies. I don't think those same kinds of romcoms would be met with as much grace by audiences today as is given to older ones. But it's harder to get your characters in situations when you're limited by what is morally right. On top of that, some actors might not be willing to play characters like that anymore, even if by the end they change and display growth for fear of it marring their image, although this could be a reach on my part. I'm not saying it's a bad thing that we are now holding our media and the morality of it to a higher standard -- in fact, I think it's important, but I think there are some writers and filmmakers that don't know how to strike the balance between an interesting, quirky story like the ones from older romcoms and the representation of actually healthy relationships which people would like to see more of in newer romcoms. P.S: My favourite romcoms are Set It Up (a more recent movie!) and 27 Dresses

as a guy i've never seen a tik tok that mentioned colleen hoover (not to my recollection at least), the only place i've seen her and her wokrs discusses is screenshots of tweets on my insta explore page

Can anyone clarify "Walden Cosplat" for me? It has piqued my interest but can't find context. timestamp: 24:52

As a Lutheran I'm perfectly happy my denomination is too plain and iconoclastic to make for a shitty TikTok trend. You keep the chronically online weirdos and pervs I guess in the end we're in this together.

I feel like an add onto this could be the dark romance of webtoons, especially in BLs. That has been a peak interest of mine since better understanding dark romance fiction.

If anyone wants to read something that's dark adult themed but actually WORSE than Colleen Hoover...... Take a crack at 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade lol "highbrow art" and made me want to throw up with every single turn of the page. I get it, he's being almost satirical and pointing out the hypocrisy of French religious aristocracy having secret perverted lives behind closed doors. It's still THE MOST DISGUSTING book I've ever read and can put Colleen to shame for romanticising dark behaviour.

I'm a practicing Catholic & I greatly appreciated this video and the conversation you started. I might even bring this up in my confirmation class next time I'm teaching! Since i've been a devout catholic, i've always heard about something called "the trascendentals" -- Truth, Goodness, & Beauty, so the Church is sort of purposefully extravagant as an homage to the beauty of God. I think many non-religious even feel moved by the art and beauty of the Church, so it makes sense fashion will copy it. I think you hit the nail on the head when you shared it comes down to sincerity -- there's a difference between imitating and respecting art, and downright eroticizing & defaming it. anyways, I really appreciated the discord and info you brought - you did your research! And thanks for sharing your own history, that can be a vulnerable moment especially as someone who's online as you are. Got a new subscriber! ◡̈ p.s. i really hope everyone knows not to go to a depop girly for proper confession -- that alone makes me want to detox from the internet😭

26:24 omg I always make male characters for role playing games! They are rich, deeply-scripted characters. But it also let me be more like my gender flux self.

the flower crown trend reminds me of what we do with bows

Omg Laci Green!! I miss her so much!

In biology we were forced to watch this documentary based off a girl who had a super disease that was not able to be cured through antibiotics because it became resistant to that and it’s scarred me

I think this may contribute to your point, but as a child & adolescent counselor at a mental health hospital, Gen Z seems to be more honest about there interests as opposed to my millennial peers. “Old” generations have ALWAYS been critical of younger generations.

I love how you mispronouce Hoover's name, I choose to believe that its intentional.

Be conscientious: go vegan.

No, I came here for the fashion AND the rant on Samantha. She’s a queen I miss her

The way I gasped when you said "step siblings" and we're still in the intro

I like collecting pieces based of experience of feeling. I have tour merch and merch from bookstores. I also have random band merch i bought second hand just because the art was cool or just because it was soft. I like the uptick in merch wearing, my main grievance is the pricing. I like seeing people build their image with things they care about. I had a really long conversation with someone just because they had a Monet's bridge tote bag from a museum. I wish everyone could do this without having to drop insane amounts of money on what is just free advertising.

This has literally happened in Europe for decades.

I love how you highlight that there’s literary value in reading something you don’t agree with!!!

I beta read fan fictions (I’m 22) and honestly, as a fanfic consumer for well over 10years, ao3 being my bed time stories, the stories I beta read are definitely not made for an audience aged 13. It’s insane when I see my own comments on the chapters, that my brain is able to get so much out of a single scene, especially relating to a characters story and personality, all because I read stories that people publish for free for fun. I like the freedom creators have; you get to pick and chose what to read and what NOT to read with actual tags. I’m also not an English ENL, but fanfics are the reason why I chose English literature, culture and media as my BA (currently writing my thesis) lol (also the omegaverse is only my fav if it’s tagged with angst, like overthrowing the Ω-oppressive government, etc. (and like,,, fated mates/soulmate trope…)) empowering the oppressed ☹️

To me they solidified the idea that Eloise's desire to not marry is due more to the fact that she wants to rebel from her family's values and nothing more: she hates the whole ordeal of being presented to society and searching for a husband, which is fair, but it really doesn't go much further than her own interest. All the things that the screenwriter could have done to give her more depth were brushed off this season in favour of her argument with Penelope: her interest in social activism lasted one episode , she's not sensible to other women's unfair situations, she doesn't care about the fact that being a spinster implies being tied to her family for the rest of her life with no future prospects of growth for herself and her brief relationship with the guy in the print shop led to nothing. And now she's going with Francesca basically only because there's no plot point for her to fulfill anymore. Her character is wasted potential.

LA CHIMERA FINALLY TALKED ABOUT!!!!!

one thing i realized as an 8 year old and now 14 is that after i watched Loltia ate the age of 12 i started to realize Lana Del Ray created her base around older men X younger girls depressed cigarette skinny helpless girl trope, Now ik im gonna get attacked but i hate her sm, The way she normalizing the whole Loltia thing is weird, AND CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW PEOPLE ACTUALLY DRESS UP AS LOTTIE!? and the audio is always lana, Not saying its her fault but she has influenced so MANYYY young girls into this trope, Thats the only issue! Also i love tumblr- but the Lana "Manipulator" Trope shit PISSES ME OFF!! They called it an aesthetic and started to send me death threats- SOOO The whole tumblr thing I GET IT LMAO

On a totally unrelated note, Mina, you absolutely HAVE to watch Like Water For Chocolate. You'll absolutely adore it.

This was so thoughtful, thank you for your point of view

I go back and reread Percy Jackson whenever I’m feeling super depressed and hopeless. It’s funny and silly and the characters are familiar and safe. That being said the themes of Percy Jackson are a lot more nuanced than what a lot of these critics who likely haven’t read it know. It’s about a neurodivergent teen who is trying to stand up to those who believe a harmful traditional old world system is better while also having to admit that the current system is also flawed. The characters are diverse and have a lot of different traits you don’t always see in fiction. Like annabeth being a girl but also having a lot of pride and ego and having to grow with these traits. A character I don’t see discussed often enough is hazel, I’d never before seen a black girl character who is depicted as sweet and gentle. She’s emotionally intelligent and wise but isn’t weak and defenseless.