Sacrificial Trash

On bad media, backlashes, and why we hate what we hate. Go to brilliant.org/... and sign up for Brilliant! The first 200 people will get 20% off the annual Premium subscription.
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[@BEEEELEEEE]

I remember reading a comment from a trans redditor about HGS that said “I’m being forced to defend a show I hate because people are trashing it for the wrong reasons.”

[@lemontea3434]

That was basically my response when people hated on it!! Like people focused on where it didn't need to be focused on 😭😭😭

[@prageruwu69]

god ikr

[@dudewhatthewhat8983]

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t hate it, I’m just saying we should hate it for the right reasons.” -some internet person who’s name I don’t remember right now, but people should probably listen to them.

[@skepticpunk_]

Yeah. People hate on it for complete bullshit reasons instead of the "real" reasons it should be criticized for, and those reasons aren't even really *that* bad. Like, this shit ain't the goddamn Foodfight! or The Room of western anime knockoffs. It's just...well below average, and that's it. It sucks, and should be mocked, but the utter deathgrip it has on some peoples' brains is fucking ridiculous.

[@sweesbees]

i know! it's frustrating especially because i don't even think it's good enough to warrant hatred! it's honestly just a void of quality that deserves nothing more than acknowledgement it exists, but people pick at it so much when there's nothing to pick at.

[@emmetharrigan5234]

I do look forward to the day when "good representation" means letting diverse media with marginalized creators totally and publicly fail without blaming it on the diversity instead of the actual structural and plot flaws

[@higher_haze]

Yes!!

[@ScorpionViper1001]

I'm desperately looking forward to the day when I can hate Disney's live-action remakes for being trash without having to rub shoulders with the same weirdos whining the half-fish girl is black now.

[@krigillustrate]

@@ScorpionViper1001 SAME!!!!!

[@NoraNoita]

If you diversity hire just for the sake of hitting checkmarks of your list, you're not actually hiring people with actual talent that will make the thing you wanna do actually good.

[@NickHa]

Agree. Diversity does not fail; we fail at diversity. If I release, say, a shitty comedy, everyone is rightfully quick to call me a shitty comedian, but no one says that *comedy itself* is shitty and that I'm shitty for trying to "force" comedy to happen. Diversity is just a _thing_ and some of it is done well and some of it is done poorly. LIKE ALL THINGS.

[@M_g_nanna]

So, I briefly worked on HGS. Just want people to know, there were execs at Crunchyroll that really couldn't have cared less about the creative team or the show itself. They really thought they were just going to cash in on underrepresented demographics. Regarding budget and time, they strangled the writers and artists.

[@KetsubanSolo]

This is both believable and depressing and I hope more people see this

[@rutabaga_rutabaga]

Why did Crunchyroll even pursue cartoons when the animation crew were given such little time and money to make them?

[@jakubmakalowski6428]

It was honestly pretty clear that was the case from that reveal trailer in the video.

[@CJWproductions]

@@rutabaga_rutabaga because their goal isn't to make art, it's to make money, and apparently *having* exclusive content is more profitable than making sure it's good It's also possible they just don't know what they're doing, but i consider this less likely

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

@@rutabaga_rutabaga The objective is for an executive producer to tick the boxes of their campaign to prove they have done their job in time for a year-end bonus or the next job. What the ticking of those boxes represent is largely immaterial as long as it's only misleading and not outright fraud.

[@sailorenthusiast]

This makes me think of how vastly different criticism of Twilight was like back when it was hip, versus now. While it’s more common now to see criticism levied against the books for romanticizing harmful relationships, the racist portrayal of Native Americans, to the whole pro-life subplot in one of the later books, a lot of the original backlash just stemmed from people not liking that a book by a female author made for girls was popular.

[@cheyennem25]

I didn't like it because I was bullied for not wanting to follow the crowd so my whole 12yo identity was subverting that standard of femininity by hating it and refusing to get my ears pierced 26 years later I'm proud of myself for standing firm (Though could have been healthier lol)

[@dukstedi]

@@cheyennem25good on you. We could use more humans like you.

[@shamanicdude8605]

I just thought it was annoying when I was a teenager because none of the girls would shut up about the sparkly vampire.It's the same with kpop bands,we got them pretty early on so I grew up hating kpop.Probably the same with a lot of south east asian dudes.

[@hopekeeley2122]

It’s like, Edward is like a painfully vanilla repressed Mormon straight guy who just so happens to sparkle in the sun, yet people were calling him queer slurs for that

[@Princess_Weekes]

I really love this. It is exhausting that people are always so mad at Black people existing and not like ... capitalism.

[@maffieduran]

Same

[@LordOfElysium]

Love seeing some of my favourite creators in each other’s comment sections!

[@mhawang8204]

Because as Sarah pointed out in the video, when hating marginalized people brings them profits, they’re more incentivized to do it and uphold the system. It’s a win-win for them.

[@wkeezz]

@@mhawang8204 I would disagree. When you look at movies with the biggest gross of money, it wasn’t because it was making fun of black people, but because people liked it more or less. Just like when you look at some of the biggest corporations in the United States, they aren’t rich because they are exclusively discriminated against black people. They got money because people give them money and legal reasons as well. If you think a company is discriminating I do suggest you sue them with the 1964 civil rights act.

[@handsoap3346]

OMG HI I LOVE YOU

[@shadyday2122]

What people should have been REALLY mad about in High Guardian spice was the fact that Crunchyroll gave them a shoestring budget only to keep the show locked away for two years, and demanded that they add violence and swearing for some reason? There's still storyboards with the violence left out and the team intended to make a kids show from the beginning.

[@theravenpirate4744]

That explains so much to me

[@lucasLSD]

An anime platform should be licensing and financing anime and nothing else.

[@krankarvolund7771]

@@lucasLSD That's an anime XD

[@prinxen1733]

*Yeah, this is massive

[@stewieismyhomeboy]

Hell, from the way Carroway described being trans, that sounds exactly like how one would describe transgenderism to a child.

[@leowilliamson1573]

My go-to example for this was always Into the Spiderverse. The director made some pro-antifa tweets, the story is about a young, black lead replacing the traditional Peter Parker with an "incompetent" white replacement in the other Peter and a competent Gwen, and it came from Sony who never had a great track record and had just released the Emoji Movie. If you go back and mine through the channels of a lot of anti-SJWs during that time, they were absolutely revving for it to be a big outrage cash-cow. Then, it comes out and it's universally regarded as the best animated movie of that year. It went from "woke garbage" to pretending it didn't exist.

[@Kris-wo4pj]

oh i remember that shit. yt kept recommending me hit pieces on how terrible it was but i refused to watch them cuz i wanted a miles morales and spider gwen movie. finally watched it after work and damn was that probably the best spider man movie in over a decade.

[@manepepe4776]

Miles sucks

[@leowilliamson1573]

Your big rebuttal to me is admitting that the right is deeply concerned about films that portray black people in a heroic spotlight and then doing the lengthy version of calling me "kiddo" lol

[@APinchofBazel]

@@CowMaster9001 False equivalency's a helluva drug. You might want to lay off it for a while.

[@thespanishinquisition4078]

Before that movie came out I was also expecting it to suck. I'm moderate left myself, but I've red a couple of the early Miles Morales comics, and just a tip, if you like the movie. DON'T READ IT. I mean seriously the comics are some hot garbage. Miles is just a blander Peter Parker, his uncle is a terrible human being that actively abuses and at one just tortures him, his parents are permanently worried about everything, his environment is given 0 effing care... It's so bad. And then Into the Spiderverse surprised me by completely rewriting EVERYTHING into something actually enjoyable to watch! Imagine that! Thanks Sony. Tho maybe not Sony. Yknow, some have argued that this was because of Marvel. You see, Miles had only 2 notable distinctions with Peter. 1-He was younger. 2-He had a quirky, nerdy, fat asian friend that knew he was spiderman and helped him. And then Marvel made a new Peter Parker who was younger and had a quirky, nerdy, fat asian friend who knew he was spiderman and helped him. So I can see how as many said, this is likely what caused Sony to say "alright! to the writing board! we need a new miles" and if that's the case, well thanks, Marvel. You ruined Peter, but you saved Miles. You weirdos. Yes, btw, I'm one of those lunatics that doesn't actually like Marvel's new spiderman... I know I'm in the minority here. Oh well, at least their Misterio was fun. Before they killed him. GOD DAMNIT MARVEL!

[@mayateeemm5728]

this made me remember when kimberley ann campbell, who is a black woman, was announced to be the dub VA for nagatoro. people were losing their shit, calling her racial slurs and saying they only hired her to please the western audience. but i never heard any criticism towards her actual performance (which is pretty good), just the fact that she of all people was chosen to play their anime waifu.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Why are (most) weebs racist?

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Also, this reminds me of the time in the brony fandom before Gen 5 was revealed. There were rumors that Twilight was going to be an earth pony, and Fluttershy and AppleJack were going to be alicorns. There were also rumors that Applejack's original voice actor would be replaced by a black woman, and several bronies were mad. I don't remember what the comments were like at the time, but I feel like a lot of their hate fell into the sacrificial trash like Sarah Z said.

[@morigaena333]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 I imagine it’s old white men that fetishize Asian women and hate black women

[@boozecruiser]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 They're easily influenced, socially unaware and desperate for approval amongst others. For right wing influencers and edgy comedians, finding them is like striking gold

[@lancerguy3667]

To add to what booze said, the right wing influencers themselves are drawn to anime because they sell Japan as this racially homogenous, conservative utopia where gay people don’t exist, everyone is the same race, and everyone… but ESPECIALLY women…knows their place. Which, uh… is kind of funny and kind of sad. A weirdly large number of western anime fans have no understanding of the culture of a country whose media they define themselves by consuming.

[@ramennoodles776]

What I hate about the very, very vocal people hating on the TLOU2 for its “wokeness”/storyline is that it drew so much attention away from a MUCH bigger issue with the game’s development-the horrific crunch that went on. Like an animator was literally HOSPITALIZED working on it, but that wasn’t the controversy people latched on to???

[@mhawang8204]

Because criticizing capitalism and terrible working conditions doesn’t give them as many clicks, duh.

[@chatterbones5614]

The strength and direction of the backlash towards TLOU2 was completely unjustified. There were issues with the game itself and MAJOR issues with the ethics behind the development, but the majority of outrage came in the form of gamergate type behaviour and actual death threats being sent to a voice actress who was uninvolved with any of the game's shit writing or development problems. It still upsets me to think about it now.

[@aesthedicks5103]

clearly the muscle woman and queer people are worth more outrage… 🙄 even before the audience knew about abby people were saying extremely abhorrent things about the clip of ellie kissing her gf, like i remember seeing comments that said “if they don’t ✂️ then i’m not buying”. absolutely foul

[@firewolfandrewb]

Honestly I just disliked the story cuz I think stories about the futility/cycles of revenge are overdone as shit (and also I disliked Abby for reasons unrelated to her body type).

[@shriyansrai7427]

What's more is that so many progressives I have seen railed on Cyberpunk for it's crunches, but not TLoU2. The lesson we are meant to take away is apparently crunch is okay if a game developer I like does it.

[@Narokkurai]

It pisses me off how liking or hating a show is treated as a moral imperative. Media can't just be "good" or "bad", it has to be "salvation" vs "damnation". Every new release by a major studio is heralded as the savior of the medium or a sign of its further downfall. It's ridiculous! They're TV shows! Some are good, some are bad, most are mediocre! I hate how a person's choice or preference of a fantasy story is treated like a political identity. You don't need to be Team HOTD or Team ROP. They're both good shows with strengths and weaknesses!

[@devforfun5618]

look at every marvel shows, they are your average tv show quality, and still better than arrow verse, but they *need* to be as good as the movies because the main characters are female

[@frozenweevil4022]

well… rop is kind of just a bad show

[@merrittanimation7721]

I think the issue is a lot of media do have various ethical failings, but then people go "well since this piece of media has x wrong with it, then it means the people who enjoy it must support that thing". And of course there's a level of people having different levels of sensitivity to things for various reasons. As a personal example, I've been getting into Dracula recently and boy does that book have issues. Is it completely bad because of its racist depiction of Eastern European minorities or is it good because it's genuinely creepy for reasons completely divorced from that? There's no problem in not wanting read the book because of the former, but assuming that's the part people enjoy is wrong. And conversely, assuming everyone who dislikes the book must some kind overdramatic harpy complaining about racism in a 120 ish year old book is also a bad way to go about it. TLDR: NUANCE! Media is complicated and don't automatically assume someone's reasoning from a single aspect.

[@keyboardstalker4784]

False. Both shows suck. People who like them are consumer brained morons with the memory of a goldfish.

[@tatehildyard5332]

@@devforfun5618 I think a lot of it too is the scale at which these things are made and exist. These are blockbuster films aka “event movies” that get a lot of money thrown into them to make them look like the biggest, most important thing ever. Companies like this want that sense of hyperbole because it drives engagement

[@eriktorgler7748]

This was an extremely nuanced and well-done take on how the outrage machine can come from a defensible place but still have horrible consequences. Nobody will ever be able to convince me that any of the live action Disney movies are good or original, but there are malicious actors using that to make themselves richer and to push their own agenda. IT is important to keep that in mind even when a show is not very good. Thank you for saying that it is still important for inclusive media to be critiqued as well, you don't get better media without pointing out that things that are bad in currently existing media and how it could be done better.

[@kingdomkey63]

I like Sarah's content a lot and I do see where she is coming from, but there is some really really huge that she is missing or just refusing to acknowledge with HGS This was the first announced "crunchyroll original " and we were told what crunchyroll themselves were spending their money on. The fact that was likely a lie and it was Warner just shoving their own disney channel Steven universe/Harry potter knock off on there really really pissed off anime fans who can very largely feel like anime is the one space they can have "older and deeper" animation content was seen as a betrayal on the part of crunchyroll. Crunchyroll while now a relative media titan, started as an anime fan priacy website, that somehow managed to convince Japan to let them legally purchase their content, and just continue doing what they did legally effectively. They were the ones who started offical online simulcast that now bring in close to a majority of the revenue for anime. So the idea of them doing a show like HGS was literally the number 1 way to piss off anime fans, and then add on to it all the bigots who hate the show because the only thing the show does well and actually cares about to get right is snapdragon

[@htenerf137]

@@kingdomkey63 I see your point but I think what Sarah is trying to show, which your comments are doing, is blaming a piece of media for problems you have with things outside of it. If Crunchyroll is putting out cheap subpar original content it’s reasonable to be pissed at them. But taking that out on the show? Not really the point. The point of the video, as I understood it, was that this was a critique of the environment around subpar shows, not HGS in specific. Like… valid criticism exists. But it’s getting drowned out.

[@Ruteekatreya]

@@kingdomkey63 This is an example of the exact bullshit Saraz was talking about. I saw this specific claim earlier but it was among different points that I considered actually important. Now that you're making the point in isolation: You did not pay them to make anime. You paid them for access to their streaming service. In an effort to help that streaming service, they chose to make anime in addition to bring over shows. That is completely normal. It doesn't matter if the show is bad, or if you don't like it, or whatever. You still have the entire rest of the streaming service. This is such an obviously bullshit argument that if it were /not/ a vector for sacrificial trash I don't know where it would start up at all.

[@lisbonmapping8425]

@@Ruteekatreya No, they didn't make anime. This isn't anime. That's why people were mad about it being a waste of money or whatever. Because the anime streaming service was spending money on non-anime stuff, which people didn't care about. People got annoyed for the same reason when Crunchyroll made that dumb live action show starring ProZD too, whatever it was called. It's not what people wanted from the site they were giving money to.

[@Ruteekatreya]

@@lisbonmapping8425 Doesn't fucking matter! Literally, stupid horse shit! You paid them for access to the streaming service! It does not matter if you want to try to nitpick over the definition of anime via country of origin (pop quiz: what country made the re;zero anime's later cours) The streaming service brings over anime at reasonably good prices for their role! The people they're screwing over are the translators, not the consumers!

[@Diddgery]

"If you are shown over and over again that you have to create near-perfect art [to not] have the hellfire of the internet rain down on you forever, you might just not create at all." this line strongly resonated with me as someone who wants nothing more than to be creative, but is terrified of even trying

[@neoqwerty]

Go. Do it. Do your thing. Throw it out anonymously if you must, but throw it out nonetheless. But protect your baby with your life from execs and marketing people.

[@arthurfine4284]

Laughs in "you really think you'd get famous and wealth off of posting art/writing/videos on the Internet without having to play the free market game?" In all seriousness, be creative as much as you want. If you do something very niche, chances are no one will pay attention to you, but it doesn't matter because you're happy you made the thing in the first place and if people stumble across you and like what they see, they'll give you a thumbs up and you keep going on with your life. If they don't, well they'll just ignore you.

[@JohnDoe-uf3lj]

Go for it. You don’t have the marketing dollars of Hollywood, worst case scenario is no one reads it. And if that happens, you can just have the satisfaction of saying “I made that. Good or bad, I created it and worked hard.”

[@PikaPenny17]

Hell, you dont HAVE to put it out there for others to see. You can just create for yourself.

[@glitchygear9453]

@@arthurfine4284 To contrast what you said... a lot of "breakout hit" art is targeted toward a niche, rather than toward "the mainstream". In general, "the mainstream" doesn't even count as a proper demographic; it's impossible to market to everyone, simultaneously.

[@normal6483]

I remember watching an anime KZbinr, (I think it was Mother's Basement,) talk about this show and the rest of Crunchyroll's anime line-up. They pointed out that, while High Guardian Spice was bad, compared to the rest of Crunchyroll's original anime lineup it was firmly in the middle. It wasn't as bad as the worst, is wasn't as good as the best, and yet it was absolutely the most hated. Crunchyroll had an awful lineup, so the fact that High Guardian Spice got the most backlash out of all of them was very notable.

[@Hawkatana]

Yeah, that was Geoff. He also brought to light how the CR higher-ups tried to essentially rip off the creators by both underpaying & overworking them.

[@weregretohio7728]

And it's very telling why it got the most backlash. Pretty obvious to anyone who isn't lying to themselves.

[@samt3412]

I think it was also the first Crunchyroll original to be announced, and also the only one other than the comedically awful EX-ARM to get any push from Crunchyroll regarding it's existence. Combined with the fact that it's what looks like a Disney Channel show being marketed to weebs and the weird angle in which it was marketed, I can see why it got ridiculed online

[@Hawkatana]

@@samt3412 Even so, the backlash it got was *INCREDIBLY* disproportionate compared to the mediocrity the show gave.

[@samt3412]

@@Hawkatana true

[@essayenjoyer]

You aren't allowed to be mediocre. You have to run faster, throw harder, and be be smarter just to be considered on par. Because if you aren't the "default" in their eyes, then you're already behind.

[@josteinhenrique2779]

Jeez, stop acting as if people disliking this show is some kind of personal attack at your existence.

[@essayenjoyer]

@@josteinhenrique2779 I'm sorry? What show do you think I'm talking about?? Because that's just a general statement.

[@badgirlgrid]

@@josteinhenrique2779 this response is literally the mindset of the people she’s referencing in the video

[@hegel5000]

@@josteinhenrique2779 This is actually a very common refrain and it's been around for well over 50 years. It's telling that you're so sheltered that you assume the comment is about the show and not just, you know, real life in general

[@jonathankent1517]

Women, POCs, LGBTQIA+ people all have to "earn" acceptance while cis-het white men are just entitled to acceptance. It's shit and needs to change.

[@Broeckchen]

Patricia Taxxon made such a great video about this once where she said "I also want the trash!" Basically explaining that minorities also have a right to amateurish media created by them, for them.

[@yonakana1247]

Another Patricia enjoyer in the wild :0 hey!

[@Kris-wo4pj]

long as its not spiteful/obviously made to be terrible to make minorities look bad then yes i want the bad as much as i want the good. im a triple whammy minority i want all my whammies to be represented as both good and bad but apparently both sides hate the bad since all represtention needs to be good nowadays for some odd reason.

[@egg_bun_]

That sounds amazing! I need to check that out. ❣️💕

[@zab416]

That is a great point! Trash is a normal creative growing pain and learning experience for most every creator for god's sake. Sometimes well established geniuses take a new direction and need to make trash to learn too, but that's another can of worms, I guess.

[@Broeckchen]

@@zab416 more than that, trash is sometimes genuinely lovable, fun and sparks creativity! Your Sharknados, your Birdemics, your The Room's... those are fun experiences, mainly BECAUSE they're trash! We deserve to have fun with stuff that isn't terribly highbrow, culturally valuable or even just has high production value. We deserve to enjoy the whole palette of these experiences!

[@theodorehodbor5080]

I think one thing that also tends to separate normal people from bad actors in these situations is normal people don't tend to dwell or fixate on things they *don't* like. While all these "lol SJW owned!" channels repeatedly dwell on these mid shows for literally years normal people will just see it, say it's bad, and then basically forget it exists a few weeks later. As an example of this, I deadass actually forgot HGS even existed until this video showed up in my recommendeds.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Same with Santa Inc.

[@HEHEHE_I_AM_A_SUPAHSTAR_WARRIA]

Yeah same, I genuinely don't think about the show much at all

[@mindshuffler3332]

Nerdrotics made 30 of these types of videos on the Rings of Power. 30 videos in the span of a year! At that point, it doesn't matter how bad the show is, it has successfully taken up a huge portion of your mind palace!

[@buttertoast8613]

@@mindshuffler3332omg also about Brie Larson. Like it’s been 3-4 years since captain marvel and he still shits on her for random stuff. Like the girl could sneeze and he would Write “Brie Larson has triggered melt down” it’s insane. But these same ppl will complain about how cancel culture is bad. I knew he was a bad reviewer when he acclaimed the success of Spider-Man no way home was because it defaeated the M-She-u. Like no one it’s Spider-Man he is legit the most popular marvel character for the past 20 years, it brought in 3 Spider-Man’s from the the other movies into one, over all was a solid movie.

[@eloujtimereaver4504]

And/or Autism etcetera, some people really fixate on things. I think the monetary incentive also can come into play here, if you are someone who is really passionate about something largely irrelevant, but did not mean any actual harm, but then you make something and something like the youtube algorithm and then a growing follower base begins also demanding that you focus solely on this thing, that can radicalize your content, if not you.

[@flora4026]

i’m sure others are saying this but even in the case of she-ra where the sacrificial trash ended up being actually good and most of the backlash died down, the initial eruption still likely had tons of deleterious effects on the creators involved with it. nate stevenson himself has been pretty open about how running she-ra was the most stressful job he’s ever had specifically because he felt he had to live up to an impossible standard of Goodness, and a heavily gendered standard at that, as he was still living as a woman at the time.

[@espeon871]

That's so sad for nate omg

[@mekinot]

That's the thing. Even if the outrage dies down eventually, the initial backlash is already harmful enough. My heart goes to any marginalized person who's trying to make art now.

[@charlotteodonnell8175]

I felt even worse after I watched the OG She-Ra and was like... wait... this is terrible. It can be incredibly fun, shlocky entertainment and I love the insane 80s voice acting but after watching half a dozen youtubers talking about how OG She-Ra was a cinematic masterpiece, I was so let down.

[@Kris-wo4pj]

@@charlotteodonnell8175 cuz it was made to sell toys that all looked the same. sure i would have liked to see half moon but anyone who isnt being anti "woke" or butthurt about their nostalgia not being "sexy" anymore can tell ya that OG She-Ra and He-Man are both terrible and would have never been made today since surprisingly the industry standards are a shit ton higher even for shows made to sell toys it needs to look good and have a decent plot with character progression or it will be ripped to shreds.

[@satunbreeze]

Wow I'm glad I saw your comment! I had no idea the She-Ra creator was trans!

[@byrrnitdown]

“If you are shown over and over again that you have to create near-perfect art not to have the hellfire of the internet rain down on you forever, you might just not create at all.” This is a really beautiful distillation of that feeling!

[@afellowpotato]

I'm just replying so you can see how much likes you got

[@ConclusiveConfusion]

I kind of hate the way internet platforms push the angriest, most hateful people into everyone else's feeds or dashboards. It both encourages their terrible behavior monetarily as well as incentivizing others to engage with it. Thanks for pointing this out consistently through a good portion of your work. Y'all are great.

[@joshplaysdrums2143]

completely agree!! the amount of transphobic content that shows up in my KZbin shorts feed is staggering. Despite how it's clearly at odds with the regular content I engage with and how many times I click "don't recommend me this channel" it still finds new chuds reposting the same transphobic hate garbage. Hate the algorithm

[@Lewis_McCartney]

@@joshplaysdrums2143 thank God I am not the only one who experiences this!! It's not quite as bad as it use to be for me. but the amount of transphobic """""""Jokes"""""" I use to get was absurd considering I don't like/engage with that content. The shorts algorithm in general is wack and never actually shows be the people I want.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

​@@joshplaysdrums2143 Plus YT shorts comment section is now even worse than the regular YT comment section.

[@joshplaysdrums2143]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 FOR REAL!! glad you brought this up cause I got into a fight on a YT shorts comment section about obi wan Kenobi being confirmed bisexual, all I said is its not a retcon cause he was never stated to be straight and I kid you not *hundreds* of homophobic star wars fans started fighting me lmaoooo anyway now I use KZbin vanced on android and it has an option to remove shorts which helps :)

[@jon66097]

Adam Sandler can make a movie where a non human pixellated woman is the sexual prize for one of the heroes (and it is unclear whether the woman can actually consent) and he doesn't get harassed. But Leslie Jones can make a not very good movie and have a hate campaign manufactured against her, even going as far as fake tweets being attributed to her.

[@JohnDoe-uf3lj]

I think everyone already expects Adam Sandler stuff to suck, so that goes under the radar lol. Though really, no creator deserves harassment.

[@morbidsearch]

@@JohnDoe-uf3lj Everyone expects Amy Schumer's stuff to suck, and it has the complete opposite effect.

[@ladysegagenesis]

Anti-SJWs can be hypocrites just like SJWs! They think having LGBTQ+ rep in a kid's cartoon is propaganda & forced (even though it's not sexual in the slightest) but when a straight relationship in a cartoon is forced Marinette & Adrien or Chowder & Panini for example they simply don't care!

[@RockoEstalon]

There's a meme that pops up every now and then (Mainly in spanish-speaking circles), praising Adam Sandler and his friend Rob Schneider for making "The most 'politically incorrect'" movies possible.

[@seeinred]

>Adam Sandler You mean the guy who got bodied and since then is considered one of the most dogshit creator in existence? I have no idea where are you getting "doesn't get harassed" part.

[@RemiAutor]

Actually the part where a character goes "Oh, I'm trans. Yeah. Transgender. Yep. That's what it means." is actually extremely common when you're a trans person and a cis person who doesn't realize you weren't born your gender finds an old picture of you in a dress or something when you were a small child. That conversation played out in the show extremely typically to how that conversation went between my older brother and my nephew.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

I remember watching a clip of the scene and people in the comments were complaining about it how the conversation didn't feel "adult" or "mature" enough and how "If it was a preschool show then this conversation would have made sense" or "Why is the show talking down to its audience like it's Sesame Street" or something like that.

[@TheScaredLittleScholar]

Yeah, it rubbed me the wrong way that most of that conversation was dominated by cis gender (men) people. That’s how I explain it to younger people in my community theater group when they ask me why I play male and female roles,I didn’t think it was unrealistic at all.

[@testedcatgaming7714]

That makes since

[@MayorOfEarth79]

Thank you, I'm glad someone said it. I mean it's very basic in conversation to just go "Oh yeah I'm that. For this reason." Very common.

[@espeon871]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 yeah its such a weird criticism cuz i dont need to go into depth eg, eg cuz like a sitch i was in, im non binary who sees my body as just expression so i dont do certain things other people may do, so im like yeah that's y i dont do things and that's y i identify as that to family members and curious people idn to be like all snarky abt it u know

[@quertie420]

i forget the exact wording and where i heard it, but i saw a quote or post or whatever that was like "i wish to live in a world that allows minorities to be mediocre" and that's all i could think while watching this video

[@yungmuney5903]

Patrica Taxxon?

[@quertie420]

@ferret4111 so real for this

[@kaitlyn__L]

@ferret4111relatable, I’m disabled too and I do various types of art when I can but it’s frequently all I can do to just eat enough meals in a day. Contradictory societal pressures feel especially rough when you’re disabled and already have enough on your plate from your body!

[@BluffsCastle]

There was a guy who made an 11 hour rant video on High guardian spice. He’s obsessed with it 😭

[@Live_Laugh_Loathe]

That's honestly kinda upsetting??? Imagine spending so much time dunking on a show because it's mediocre

[@sharlene3819]

reminds me of the 12 hour video that mauler, rags, and one other made about jenny nicholsons 30min video where she says she personally didnt like the joker (not that its objectively bad or anything, just that she didnt like it) and the fact that they felt the need to make a 12 hour long video about an soft spoken womens personal opinion just says so much, its so funny

[@sharlene3819]

i looked through both her youtube comment section and her twitter and for the years this has been out i havent seen a single response much less one where she was petty and taking things personally. mind giving me some direct quotes/links and showing me where these are?@@Go_away_loser

[@celisewillis]

Is this longer than the full runtime of HGS 😅

[@bumble5839]

Reminds me of a like 6 hour long video complaining about toy stpry 4 i saw, lost braincells watching an hour of it

[@ArabellaTurner]

Mother’s Basement, the trash connoisseur of anime, briefly touched on High Guardian Spice in his Crunchyroll originals video and I think he talked about it really well. He basically found it incredibly mid, maybe decent for its target audience (although still not nearly as good as other similarly themed stories), and not at all worth hate watching. He also talked about the bad trailer, absurdly tiny budget (50% of what comparable American shows would get for 1 episode for the entire show), and general un-hyped release that really only drew in the people who wanted to hate it. It already had a 1 star rating before it had been out long enough for people to fully watch it. It was nice to see someone who critiques anime as his whole thing basically say that this show really just deserved to be shrugged off and ignored the way any other mid show would be. And also that it failed is maybe a good thing (or at least not completely a bad thing) if for no other reason than to prevent American animation studios from horribly slashing budgets and underpaying their animators even more.

[@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong]

EXCUSE ME? that man is the world's #1 Trash SEMALIER, thank you

[@panconqueso9195]

As bad as these meltdown campaigns are I'm glad in the end it shows the american animation public is by far more critical and self aware than the japanese animation public. In Japan they curn out garbage lile HGS every year and they consume it passively while here if two shows look vaguely similar you instantly get angry mobs. I know idiots like to frame it around culture wars but still, it's better than what's going on in Japan.

[@BluWoolify]

I think when people say "why can't you just let gay characters be gay?" they want the 'Dumbledore is gay' where they can ignore it entirely from the series but pretend that they are tolerant of differet people, when really there aren't any differences.

[@KetsubanSolo]

For the record, I think the vast majority of people cringed at gay Dumbledore because we knew J.K. Rowling only made this after the series was over, and even when she did Fantastic Beasts it was never gonna pay off (and so far we've been correct!)

[@farida3692]

@@KetsubanSolo i mean back in the day when it was announced i think people had low enough standards (starved for Anything) that they openly accepted it, at least from my memory, but grew critical as Dumbledore showed up in Fantastic Beasts with no indication of exploring this aspect of his identity (bc now JKR doesn’t have an excuse). seeing as JKR seems to lean terf, and possibly even right wing feminist i doubt she’ll want to “do the LGBTs any favors” by confirming dumbledore’s sexuality EDIT: i have been corrected, dumbledore does confirm his attraction to grindenwald in the third movie, which i didn’t watch bc i forgor (and as far as i’m concerned it didn’t get very good reviews either). sorry for lying😔

[@bromo8874]

THIS. I've been ripping my hair out over this for months. People claim they want "natural" diversity and "fully fleshed out characters" when what they really mean is they just want those characteristics to be practically invisible so they can pretend it's not there. Strange thing is that's the most unnatural way you could possibly represent diversity. In real life, gender/sexuality etc don't just go unnoticed. People talk about their identities because their lives are literally affected by them, hell sometimes even legally. What these people are asking for is escapism, not genuine diversity.

[@ew275x]

That or they just want stereotypes and character who don’t rock the boat or support the straight white characters.

[@idek7438]

@@farida3692 Didn't they confirm that Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald in the latest Fantastic Beasts movie? They had a few scenes about it

[@naomi.cannibal]

Ugh every time I watch one of your videos I feel like I’m a tumblr teen in 2013 again- in the best way possible. U always talk about the most interesting parts of internet and tv/ movie phenomena. Forever a stan

[@SarahZ]

Ty! Loved your industry plant video!

[@naomi.cannibal]

@@SarahZ omg truly honored!! 💕

[@glacierwolf2155]

Now that Velma is making the rounds, I believe that it's time to give this video more engagement.

[@SUNSHINE-t-m]

Velma needs its own expansion video because i feel it's a show that is aware of this trend and actually did it on purpose to drive engagement, since the content itself is actually pretty anti-sjw and so are their creators

[@temerianlillies]

@@SUNSHINE-t-m is it? I don't plan on watching it but I'd like to know how it's anti-sjw

[@rara-oh4xk]

@@temerianlillies as someone who saw the first 4 eps, there are jokes about lgbt stereotypes as well as a straight up diss to #MeToo

[@jonathanbowers8964]

@@temerianlillies Yeah. It pretty much mocks legitimate social justice concerns, much in the same way you had the "shrill feminist" character in a lot of 1990s and early 2000s comedies. It basically is a rehash of the "post racial, post feminist" edgy comedy you got from the late Bush and early Obama eras. So, Mindy Kalling's hey day which makes sense.

[@kilimenjiro3753]

I don't know if Velma counts as sacrificial trash, at least not by Sarah Z's standards: Whereas High Guardian Spice was meh enough that progressives weren't invested enough to defend it/say positive things against the onslaught of hatred, literally everyone, progressives and conservatives alike, seem to vocally hate Velma.

[@heinrichagrippa5681]

I remember being frustrated with this phenomena when Star Trek: Discovery was first airing. I found the show itself... not great and kind of disappointing. However, every reactionary jerk latched onto its flaws as an excuse to do their usual shtick and shout "Star Trek *RUINED* by woke feminist SJW leftists!!!" over and over. What made these attacks so obviously disingenuous was that they all conveniently ignored the fact that Start Trek - from its very inception - has _always_ openly and unapologetically been a leftist show. Come on, "forced diversity"? If these guys had any intellectual honesty, they'd attack the original series for its diverse cast. And that was 56 years ago! But no, that one's well-established and popular, so they have to pretend they like it despite it _also_ having all the very same things they complain about in newer series.

[@anonymousposter6461]

Seriously. Sulu, Uhara, Spock! Even from a USAmerican perspective, you have the blank slate Kirk and and the Southern-coded Bones. I'm sure it continued past that -- Picard is supposed to be French, isn't he? The whole POINT is that Starfleet is multicultural, equitable, and utopian. The state of media literacy is not very good.

[@anonymousposter6461]

@@electricfishfan This is true. I also dislike shows that only care about the diversity. TOS, like you said, keeps its characters basically interchangable, allowing anybody screentime. It also tackles serious themes (sometimes holariously incompetently, but jeez, it gives it an honest college try). I watched an episode or two of that new animated Star Trek; the one I think y'all are talking about. It was... kinda bad. It was cynical, designed for a market by committee, and kind of ugly. It wasn't very funny either. But it wasn't incompetent, just kind of embarrassing. The actual action parts grabbed me. Seems like they wanted to make Futurama again. But that's not what Star Trek is for. It's best when it's earnest, very simplified, and at least pseudo-philosophical.

[@slightlyoffensivedadjokes]

the original series literally has a moment where space abe lincoln is talking to a pair of white male and black female star fleet officers, and uses the term negro when referring to the black woman, but then apologizes for using an offensive term. then the black woman and white man look at each other confused for a moment, and then LAUGH. the fact that he apologized out of instinct when he meant no offense was so silly. the very idea of racism and slurs is so outdated, humanity has progressed so far beyond that, that the black woman didn't even know to be offended by a slur. none of that stuff matters in the future. there are no remnants of any racism, it is an unambiguously conquered problem on earth that has been completely eradicated. people are happy with who they are. but no the reason why new trek sucks is because it's woke sjw garbage and star trek has NEVER been politically progressive. where are the good ol days of the classic conservative, right winged, anti progressive star trek, huh?

[@Pinka13]

Gene Roddenberry was pretty much considered the 60s/70s equivalent of what an "SJW/a woke creator" is today (or at least the bare bones versions of either of those definitions). For example, when TOS was first airing, there were people who complained that "there were too many non-white/women characters in it" to which Gene reportedly told them to piss off. A similar incident happened with that one episode of DS9 with the lesbian kiss, I think. So the idea of people calling Star Trek "too woke" when that's *literally* the point is ridiculous. I would bet if Gene Roddenberry had created Star Trek in the modern day, angry grifters would def be calling him "woke" or an SJW.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Yep, I was thinking that through this whole thing. Especially as some of the other shows have arguably gone further in some respects in Diversity terms, but have only a fraction of the hate for it. (Plus IMO S3&4 are actually good, because the writing team wasn’t replaced midway through like they were in TNG and DSC S1&2!)

[@elderberryva9282]

I remember the High Guardian Spice hate got so ridiculous that people would post videos like the main character swinging around a sword in public, or… getting… angry at someone, and be like “wooow great job writing a likable protagonist, losers” and it was at that moment that I realized maybe. just maybe. the internet kinda sucks

[@vidoxi]

my recommendations used to be flooded with clips like that and honestly they never seemed noteworthy or that bad to me so it was really confusing and kind of annoying lol I wanted to understand what the horrible cringe thing was that everyone could see but me.

[@Thenumber1yoshi]

Except she’s conveniently leaving out the part where Crunchyroll said they were going to use people’s money to fund underpaid Japanese animators only to have lied and used it to create High Guardian Spice!

[@MasterLoki1991]

you haven't looked too hard then. there are many valid points that have issues. the animation isnt simply sub par its disgustingly low without any sort of proofing. the most noticible is wartermarks in the objects that look like they have been ripped off a the net. they have photos of lamps sitting in place, it hasnt been drawn over to set it they left a photo of the actual lamp in place. its like they half finsihed the animations.

[@elderberryva9282]

@@MasterLoki1991 i mean yea the show has actual valid issues and the videos that point exclusively those things out are equally valid. i was talking specifically about the trend of people uploading completely normal clips with some clickbaity title about how utterly horrible and unwatchable it was

[@MasterLoki1991]

​@@elderberryva9282 that's just the trend of society. people like to hate, bad news travels faster then good. if something's shit people are much faster to talk and spread it then if something is good unless its exceptinally good. i wont deny that both GB and HGS had many haters because of the women and lgbt stuff but you cant deny the shows are objectivly bad and should be fair game for criticising. HGS would have taken more flack over it because they took money from crunchy roll that was suppose to be funding good anime, if you had HGS, Tower of God, So what im a spider, and God of Highschool. take these 4 crunchy roll orignals, noting HGS was meant ot be the first, and tell me if you could kill 1 of these 4 shows to fund a 2nd season of 1 of the other 3 HGS wouldnt be on the chopping block.

[@psyche5200]

Critic: This piece of media has terrible writing! Me: Yeah! Critic: BECAUSE ITS WOKE DIVERSE SJW TRASH AND THIS IS WHY WE SHOULD BRING BACK RACISM Me:

[@ohboy-zi1yf]

When puss in boots the last wish came out and people were posting videos of modern DreamWorks being better than modern Disney and funnily enough all of those modern Disney bad parts were footage of the gay ppl and ppl of color instead of the actually bad parts abt the movies they were in 🤔

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

​@@ohboy-zi1yf Same thing happened with the ruby gillman trailer dropped. Also I find it funny how people did it completely 180 on DreamWorks after Puss in Boots 2 dropped and now act like it's the savior of Western animation, even though trolls 3 will be released soon. And same thing happened with Mario Brothers movie, people were acting like illumination was better than Pixar now just because the Mario Brothers movie looks good. And now that it finally dropped it now has mixed reception, but I still can find videos on KZbin saying that the reason why the Mario Brothers movie is doing better than Disney is because its not woke.

[@gryficowa]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 Because they didn't notice Peach

[@lupaloops4166]

​​@@Tisbillyhen you haven't seen the likes of The Critical Drinker, The Quartering, No B.S., Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit to begin with. They changed the live-action skin color of Ariel to white, because they were that mad that their character didn't "look" the part of the original film.

[@thehootinator7158]

I was looking at negative reviews of Strange World because I did not like it (Google reviews) and so many were because it was woke because of the poc and gay characters and even calling the dog missing a leg forced representation???

[@twinkiefluff8868]

I felt like the criticism towards the Pixar movie Turning Red were very similar. I’m biased since it’s honestly one of my favorites, but it was upsetting to see it generally seen as a Bad Movie when it felt like the root of the criticism was a bit more sinister than people wanted to admit. Great video as always, Sarah and Emily!

[@brycebitetti1402]

People were calling Turning Red bad? Pretty much everyone I've talked to liked it a lot, and there was even a popular meme that sprung up out of hiw bad some of the criticism surrounding it was.

[@adeptdamage3669]

It looked like shit

[@grahamkristensen9301]

@@brycebitetti1402 A lot of the criticism against Turning Red was just your typical garden variety racism, but I think the one that stood out the most was when The Mysterious Mr. Enter criticized it for not acknowledging 9/11.

[@mhawang8204]

THIS. I also thought of Turning Red when Sarah start talking about how trailers alone generated a lot of hate for “diverse media.”

[@mhawang8204]

@@grahamkristensen9301 Or that it was too specific and thus not relatable. 🤔

[@DaxDives]

“The animation isn’t as bad as Berserk 2016” yeah Emily definitely wrote that

[@afellowpotato]

I'm just replying so you can see how much likes you got

[@cynthtnyc]

Sarah and Emily, this video is REALLY GOOD, it's probably one of your best ones. I'm an artist who's queer, Autistic with ADHD and a physically disabling chronic illness... My fear of any of my creations becoming sacrificial trash is so debilitating I stopped posting my work on all my art accounts on all social medias last year... You really nailed all the reasons why becoming sacrificial trash is such a nightmare for minorities, but "not representing all of X minority perfectly" is a really big deterrent for me specially; I have so many projects started about my autistic & ADHD experience... But the thought of being invalidated, dogpiled, attacked by any one person who'd think my limited personal experience alone should represent LITERALLY EVERYONE on the autism & ADHD spectrum completely drains any desire to share my art with the world. Plus, doing the whole "post daily and go viral or die trying" schtick on top of life outside the internet COMPLETELY kills any creative drive that's not stomped out by physical exhaustion of being disabled in a society that really doesn't wanna acknowledge my existence (and when they do, it's as begrudgingly as possible and by doing less than the bare minimum I'd need to have energy for creating art). Wow, that kinda turned into a big rant, huh. Anyway, good job, you two! Thank you for speaking out about how social medias deliberately create environments in which bad faith criticism thrives unchecked and ruins marginalized folks' lives on the daily. We really need more people talking about this.

[@wtfjackaboy]

I relate to this quite a bit. I’m trans, neurodivergent and a writer. I’m in the middle of writing a book that I’m really really proud of, something that I’m working so hard on to be genuinely good and entertaining. However, I have quite a few trans/queer/poc characters, and I’m worried that this point alone will turn the book into a similar situation against HGS. People will hate it for being “woke” and will turn it into something political, and call it cringy and annoying, even though it’s not political at all. It’s a really in depth storyline that I’ve put so much effort into, but I know people will just look at it superficially as “woke bs”. It’s very disheartening and as a result I’ve completely toned down all mentions of the characters being queer, which I really didn’t want to do. Anyway, sorry for making this about me lol, I just thought you had some great points that I relate to so much as a content creator. The internet has really curated a terrible culture for minorities to share their work and their experiences, both from the woke side and the non-woke side.

[@melasnexperience]

I relate to this big time - one reason that I keep questioning if I should ever bother sharing my work is a fear of getting caught in backlash crossfire just for trying to reflect my own identity on some level (either for having it at all or "doing it wrong"). That, along with the treatment of everything people make as "content" to be quickly consumed & promptly forgotten, is a big reason why I think that the internet has been harmful to creative work & the people who make it.

[@dinodm4083]

“The animals walking alongside the stampede inadvertently become a part of the herd.” What an awesome analogy, well done Emily + Sarah.

[@afellowpotato]

I'm just replying so you can see how much likes you got

[@Maxisamo1]

"Sorry, I just came in here to cry" is my favorite line from that entire show

[@afellowpotato]

I'm just replying so you can see how much likes you got

[@honeybeeami2654]

The Owl House is another huge example, I've seen people hate and refuse to give the show a chance because of the themes and characters

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Really? Maybe I'm not part of * those * circles, but it seems like everybody seems to like TOH.

[@JumboDS64]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 ya thats cuz its actually a good show. if it were bad, then it would've become Sacrificial Trash

[@purplegalaxies2149]

I’ve seen nothing but praise for the show

[@KaedeLanyo]

I really need to give it a shot... I was hesitant to, because of the whole cancellation debacle, I legitimately thought it was going to be axed, rather than rushed to relative completion.

[@shadowldrago]

@@KaedeLanyo I honestly recommend it. The pilot and a couple of episodes in Season 1 are a LITTLE rough, it's pretty solid throughout otherwise.

[@stinkyflour5924]

As an aspiring writer, I do hope that one day I can make something okay without receiving backlash

[@clairepaffey1727]

As a fellow aspiring writer, I feel this anxiety literally all the time.

[@BetterWithBob]

Right there with you lol

[@WolfHreda]

You'll always receive backlash and unfair criticism from people who are in no way qualified to actually judge your work. Just roll with it and enjoy the unhinged 1-star reviews you'll receive. The people who want your work in their lives will appreciate it all the more.

[@Darksky1001able]

If you can tell a competent story without overly preaching your ideals and can either make it entertaining or thought provoking, youre doing a good job. But if you write a story specifically aimed at bashing a political party or intend to preach "The Message", ya fucked up. Example: You either make something like Buffy, Angel, Downfall, Hunt for the Red October, Perks of being a Wallflower, Come and See and All Quiet on the Western Front as opposed to Ghostbusters 2016, Batgirl, Captain Marvel and The Woman King.

[@muntu1221]

@@Darksky1001able Yeah, this is terrible, nebulous advice from someone who either does not write anywhere near a professional level or is simply uninformed about writing on a broader scale. You're just saying things that sound like they should be correct because you think obvious sincerity is in bad taste. Batgirl never even got released, and there's a bunch of stories that are overtly preachy that are considered classics. In fact, storytelling in general began and has been maintained by preachy media. You were either unaware of the topic or simply agreed with it because it was a given in your mind. And then you named things that aren't even being preachy. For example. What is Captain Marvel being preachy about, especially as opposed to all three Captain America movies? What is Ghostbusters 2016 being preachy about? Compare these to, say, the original Star Wars trilogy.

[@Flummoxyn]

Basically the main problem with HGS was that CR seemingly accidentally sabotaged the entire production The way HGS was advertised as a pinical of diversity; the way CR made the team change directions in the legitimate middle of production to make it "more dark/serious" which caused a bunch of problems including the random blood and swearing that was thrown in there plus all the weird out of character moments tonally for the show HGS wasn't a failure because it was inherently bad; Crunchyroll put it on a path that would've railed it into the ground no matter what

[@Periwinkleaccount]

I think you should fix a spelling error by changing pinical to pinnacle. Please don’t:t get mad at me, as all I’m trying to do is help and it makes no sense to get mad, and I’m not mad either.

[@insertnamehere6227]

It wasn't really accidently more so negligent and then later actively antagonistic.

[@neoqwerty]

@@insertnamehere6227 It was marketing and execs showing what a business degree is about, really. (It's trash and business degrees is basically a certificate of being unqualified to do anything except maybe a coffee run for the interns who do coffee runs for the actual skilled people.)

[@sunspotmill1291]

I feel like Disney's Snow White remake is going to become the next "sacrificial trash." I already seen several of "those" channels like TheQuartering badmouthing its production troubles, the "dwarves" situation, the diversity, and everything about Rachel Zeiger for the wrong reasons. There are legit criticisms to be made about this particular remake compared to most Disney remakes in the past, but I'm afraid that's going to get overshadowed by bad faith criticism and other controversies.

[@purple-flowers]

As a trans fine artist and designer I think that there is an aspect beyond "I have to be better than my male and cis peers to get the same recognition." I also feel incredibly constrained in that I will never be an artist but only a trans artist. Yes, obviously my identity plays a role in my art, but it's this thing where if you list the best contemporary artists a trans person won't make the list, so you have to make a separate list of "best *trans* artists." It makes me sad that I'll only ever get recognition or attention through the context of one singular aspect of my identity.

[@kirgizikable]

Well, at least your art will be hardly pushed by corporations which wants to be seen as progressive and stuff. Just wait until June!

[@JarlBorg93]

Why do *you people* like vegans always need to tell others what Insert Popular Things you are..

[@hittingyouoverthehead]

Okay, so let me start with a small disclaimer that I'm slightly transphobic (as in I don't agree with the gender theory) so maybe you want to take this with a grain of salt. My personal beliefs aside, I'm a human being and an art lover. If you, a trans artist, want to create something that you want ME to enjoy, try not to make the work of art about being trans. You don't have to make it about something that I'm comfortable with either. Try and find the middle ground and if you do, I won't care about my prejudices. I'll defend your work as long as it doesn't say anything I disagree with because I'm an art enthusiast first and a "bigot" second. TL;DR- If you don't want to be known by the aspect of your personality that sticks out as a sore thumb, don't make your art about that aspect.

[@JarlBorg93]

@@hittingyouoverthehead Well said!

[@bettyunicorn6132]

@@hittingyouoverthehead what?

[@moshingsafely]

My favorite mental gymnastics is when people say "Look, I don't mind representation, it's just that you know they only did it to check diversity boxes and prove their cred and get clout", because apparently these folks are mindreaders. If the exact same content were produced by "purer artists" I guess it would be okay or something? BS all the way down.

[@TehCakeIzALie1]

"I don't mind diverse representation but-" Is a sure-fire sign of bigotry. It's just that they (charitably) lack the self-awareness to recognise what they are.

[@avacatherine5646]

It’s literally the “I’m not racist, but-“ argument.

[@greenmushroom2126]

Anything before "but" is bullsh**.

[@colorbar.s]

I mean in the case of the little mermaid, it is disney. I don't think they have much in mind besides more revenue, that's why those live action remakes exist to begin with. If it is genuine then I wish they'd put this energy into something actually good that isn't just another remake. I'm so tired of those.

[@davidtaylor142]

And the worst part is that there is a real argument to be made about box-checking and companies using marginalized people to pretend to be allies, but now no one can make it without being indistinguishable from weirdos

[@JLeeCline]

I think this also segues into the internet’s insistence of binaries of love it or hate. You must choose a side, and if you dislike something, it’s seen as an attack and vitriolic hatred against it. If you like something, you think it’s amazing and you support anything and everything the creator does.

[@whitefang2312]

This really opened my eyes. I'm one of those people who casually jumped on hate trains like HGS, but this video helped me realize that there might be more strings in the background I'm just not seeing. Thanks for talking about this

[@snkybrki]

​@@neutraliserjanine Thank you Neutraliser Janine, very cool.

[@taylorgabbey2371]

Revisiting this video on the heels of the "Velma" release. It's very surreal watching this phenomenon happen in real time, exactly as Sarah described, now having the language she used. From clicking on one good faith review of the show's problems and immediately having my algorithm swamped with take-down vids, to Mindy Kaling becoming the sole lightning rod of criticism in the discourse despite the main writer for the show--and ergo the one responsible for most of the worst jokes and story decisions--being a white man NOTE: Yes, I still see the show as objectively mediocre and subjectively terrible, and yes I recognize that Mindy Kaling is not an innocent victim here in terms of her involvement in the show and her comedic imprint at large. But still, zoinks

[@perrisavallon5170]

You are the FIRST person I've seen actually acknowledge that Mindy Kaling isn't even the head writer. I swear if I hear one more person call it "Mindy Kaling's self-insert power fantasy" I'm going to lose it.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

@@perrisavallon5170 a wise person once said, "The best critics are the ones who do their research."

[@alexanderklepp]

Ditto. So many people keep giving Mindy Kaling a hard time when she’s not the creator of the show. Not saying she’s entirely innocent but so many kept acting like she ran over their dog.

[@richardfarley5469]

First off- I agree with almost everything you said. But while no, Khaling wasn't the head writer, she was an executive producer and very clearly the talent the shows material was based on. I'm sorry, but too much of Velma had trademark Mindy Khaling tropes to really wave her off, she clearly contributed to the written material. Which again, isn't surprising! The actual head writer is her longtime creative partner, they've been collaborating since her office days.

[@richardfarley5469]

Sorry, but Khaling was the top billed actor for the show, the credited head writer wad a long time collaborator of hers (he was a major writing presence on sex loves of college girls and the mindy project) and she personally rpimoted the show. Plus she was the talent the show was based around. Look, I think the harassment/pushback to this show was inordinately targeted toward her, but let's not pretend this was just another gig for Mindy Khaling. And before yall start, I don't have any particularly strong feelings towards her (I've never actually met the woman) or her past content (I didn't watch sex lives or mindy project and don't care for the office)

[@Silvermoon424]

The backlash to High Guardian Spice was so overblown. I've never watched it so I can't comment on its quality, but I really doubt it would have gotten the hate that it did if it didn't involve queer characters. I remember I was watching a critique of High Guardian Spice (I like watching videos on media I've never consumed okay) that seemed pretty reasonable at first, but then the reviewer started talking about how there was a trans character and "Why did they NEED to be trans? What's the point of it? This character should have had a clearly established reason to be trans." I shut the video off right there because lmao, what??? Trans people in real life don't need a "reason" to be trans, they're just trans. Trans characters (and POC characters, and female characters, and queer characters in general) don't need a "reason" to exist. I really hate this narrative that only cishet white male characters can exist without questioning and everything else is "political."

[@Gloomdrake]

It's just ok. It makes a lot of rookie mistakes, and it's not the best thing ever, but it's nowhere near the worst thing ever. There's a salvageable show in there

[@kaykeunil]

The animation quality is for sure pretty bad like there are a lot of mistakes, some of them amateur. But that can be attributed to outsourced, probably underpaid animators trying to reach a deadline. It’s not a very good show, but it’s not the epitome of all things horrible.

[@Nightman221k]

People were determined to hate it BEFORE it even aired and the backlash to a character being trans was very telling. The scene with the teacher explaining they're trans was one that they dogpiled against when a transman explaining something like that is something the people complaining about probably have no frame of reference for. Things like that make me feel like a lot of straight people desperately an excuse to say a show shouldn't have even tried with having an LGBT character. I see it daily so always hearing the same people say "I'm okay with gay people but why does it have to be this?" Yet, they always have a problem with LGBT characters existing in any media at all makes me think they don't like LGBT people at all.

[@MsFluffyninja7]

I seen the show it's bad. The writing and the animation is bad but the hate was seriously overblown. As for the trans teacher my issue isn't the trans speech but more of its placement. The scene would have been better used later on in the series when a character who was actually questioning their gender really needed it. But they used the speech and dragged the scene the issue to me wasn't the speech it was the placement or they could've shortened it.

[@goedendag9446]

I think trans characters suffer from a Chekhov's gun type expectation that goes like: "Why do we need to know that they are trans if its not plot relevant?". I think it is a difficult thing balance because it is tokenizing to emphasize a character's minority status but at the same time it would be inaccurate and offensive to try to hide. The Kuleshov effect is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to try to figure out the connection between two shots in film. If the detail of a character being transgender is pointed out viewers will try to figure out what meaning they are supposed to take from it. The problem is that some people view the message of "trans people exist" as political and some media uses the fact that a character is trans to make a political message.

[@MathMasterism]

I remember years ago watching this short Star Wars fan film called “Bucket Heads” (look it up on KZbin, it’s pretty good), and at one point a squad of Stormtrooper is marching through a forest when a female stormtrooper shows the male stormtrooper in front of her a picture of her girlfriend and gloats about how attractive she is. The whole exchange takes no more than 10 seconds and is really just meant to fill the silence before the squad is ambushed and to give this stormtrooper a bit of character before she gets killed later in the film. However, I remember reading this one comment on the video that full of hate that it left me feeling shaken. This guy took a tiny banter line in a fan project and used it to go off on a rant about SJWs worming their ideals into all all our media. It was really concerning just how much anger this person had towards one tiny thing, and it was very clear that they didn’t even want the existence of LBGTQ people mention let alone showed in media.

[@JohnDoe-uf3lj]

I think it’s because of how cynically that type of stuff is pushed into media, that is why some people get so angry about it. Disney loves to try and bait Twitter into gushing whenever they add some gay stuff, but then are quick to edit it out or hide it. Most people assume adding that stuff is cynical and lazy. Though there are people that see it and just wanna be outraged. The left Twitter mode gets offended at dumb stuff, but there are a lot of weirdos on the other side that live to get angry at the dumbest most harmless stuff.

[@destroyerofworlds9860]

I can't imagine being like that. Not only being bigoted or prejudiced against LGBTQ people, but getting *that* upset over something that is, in the grand scheme of things, so incredibly small.

[@bewilderbeastie8899]

@@JohnDoe-uf3lj I'd rather have it be cynical and lazy than not exist at all, tbh

[@JohnDoe-uf3lj]

@@bewilderbeastie8899 if you look at smaller authors and creators, I think they’ll probably also create representation. And they probably do it better than cynical big companies. But I’m a white bread guy, so I can’t really say for certain 😂

[@bewilderbeastie8899]

@@JohnDoe-uf3lj Probably, but it also depends on what grabs you as a person. For example, I want SW to have good representation because 1. I like Star Wars, 2. it's a very large franchise that makes sense to have queer characters in and 3. children like SW and it's important for them to see themselves in it. But also... I feel like the more queer characters we have, even if it's cynical, helps to normalise our existence. We're living in a time when bad faith actors are deliberately trying to reverse all the good things queer people have gained over the last twenty-ish years. We can't let fear of backlash make it so already established media, especially long-running franchises, just go back to being white and straight.

[@susieboo22]

I feel really bad that the creator of High Guardian Spice is... probably never going to be given such a big job in his industry again, at least not for a long time. Creators bounce back from bad works all the time, but his first job right out of the gate not going well is unfortunate, and this particular work's notoriety, along with the fact that everything is 100000x harder for marginalized creators, means he's probably going to have the uphill climb from hell if he wants to create and produce a series again. And that sucks because we don't know how much of the show's issues were his fault - so many hands touch a series before it sees the light of day, and there's so much producer and studio fuckery in the industry, that it can be hard to tell where the creator's vision ends and where the executive meddling begins. And even if some of the issues were on the creator, that doesn't mean he can't improve his craft, or that he should never get another chance.

[@rolando8708]

Not 100% sure on this, but I did hear that the creator was working on another show.

[@Dojafish]

But really it was also her fault for letting this disaster to happen. The way she reacted and excuse the show was not the best .

[@purplegalaxies2149]

Idk, the creator said some nasty stuff

[@kilimenjiro3753]

@@purplegalaxies2149 I like how people just post this kind of comment with no explanation and expect us to believe them at face value, especially given the content of the video I assume you didn't even bother to watch.

[@kilimenjiro3753]

@@Dojafish let’s play “spot the person who didn’t watch the video.”

[@wehpudicabok6598]

Mad Max: Fury Road is another example of a good work with an antifeminist backlash that just got ignored when it turned out to indeed be good. It's easy to forget nowadays but there was a sizeable backlash from misogynists at the time, but it sort of vanished when they realized that, since the movie was really great, there was no potential profit in yelling about it.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Same with the lego movie 2, I remember when the trailer first dropped there was a ton of backlash from anti-feminists and anti-sjws. The backlash mostly came from a scene were the robotic girl (I forgot her name, it's been awhile since I've seen the movie) came to take Wildstyle with her. Ofc whenever The Lego Movie 2 dropped, all of these people "mysteriously" went silent and then they said that "I wonder why the Lego movie 2 bombed, it was such a good movie." "It must have been the weather." I feel like these people kind of played a role into why The Lego Movie 2 flopped, but I doubt that because the target audience probably didn't care about the sjws ruining cinema because they just want to go see funny lego man again. But yeah it is easy to forget.

[@saraperpetua1093]

uu

[@Jackdan222]

I made one of the biggest videos that cashed out on the hating High Guardian Spice phenomenon back when the trailer came out (The self insert one.) and to this day I think somewhat regret it and consider deleting it daily . I feel as though I accidentally fed into a hate machine that spiraled out of control, and while I did try to be charitable as time went on it seemed like it didn't really matter in the long run. Thanks for this video Sarah I think it covers something that's been in my mind for a bit.

[@Wince_Media]

Honestly, the fact that you are against the hate that was caused is already a step in the right direction. Maybe you could make a pinned comment on the video talking about the situation to your fans. Ultimately, it's up to you.

[@tananario]

But you aren’t going to delete it because it makes you that $weet $weet money, right? Gotta get them click$!

[@GigaDonk99]

I would delete that thing immediately tbh, it's just gonna weigh on your conscience and help the hateful dummies' keep their awful worldview. What good does it do to keep it up?

[@MajoraZ]

Hey, random question, but do you have a twitter that you still use? the one linked on your profile is down. Or another way I can reach you?

[@Jackdan222]

@@MajoraZ How come?

[@yousefebrahim3473]

I remember going down the same rabbit hole of seeing a few clips from High Guardian Spice and laughing at the writing and voice acting until I eventually realized that it was all just an excuse for people to make bad faith claims that all content made by marginalized groups is bad and cringe and "woke", so its very nice to hear someone finally describe this absurd phenomena

[@sideways5153]

Yeah reading the comments on the first episode or two on Crunchyroll was a trip. So many unhinged people barely paying attention to the fact that there even was a show to be commenting on, just raving about “did you know on Twitter…” or “this is sexist”. These people probably really liked Princess Connect, the adaptation of Crunchyroll’s woman-collecting gacha game

[@byakuyatogami2905]

Based on the clips I've seen I kinda feel the way about it the same way I feel about the boyfriends webcomic. Kinda cringe, but the people who hate it are also over the top to the point of cringe a lot of the time and if you like it that doesn't mean anything bad about you. You can like "bad things". There's no such thing as perfect taste

[@catloaff]

@@byakuyatogami2905 Boyfriend's hatred bandwagon is even more sinister since the creator is a trans man living in a conservative religious country where trans people (or queer people in general) are heavily persecuted :/

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

@@catloaff Is it Indonesia? Because I've heard the creator is Indonesian

[@Ironsuaba]

@@sideways5153 honest question. why is princess connect relevant here?

[@Sasquatch_sightings]

This reminds me a lot of a video Rantasmo made years ago about the complaints of “forced” diversity in BioWare games, particularly Dragon Age: Inquisition because it included a gay mage, a lesbian elf, a pansexual Daddy I mean ox-man, and a bisexual (or bi-romanitc/asexual) brown woman in the main cast, not to mention plenty of queer background characters. There was another backlash when Balder’s Gate dared to have a trans NPC as one of the clerics. The complaint was “she is just an NPC, why does she have to announce her trans-ness, weh weh weh.” He pointed out that you NEVER hear shit like this when, say, Pokemon has an NPC couple called Lovey Dovey Couple or Husband and Wife who do nothing but announce their hetero-ness before attacking you with an Onix and Cloyster. Basically, queer people in nerd culture tend to not get the privilege of being boring or mediocre, and people tend to not think of “the privilege to be unremarkably boring” as an aspect of cisnormativity. They have to be big and important, but concern trolls will also bemoan them if they aren’t their perfect idea of how a queer person should be portrayed. And that ideal portrayal tends to be “easy for me, the fragile nerd boy, to ignore.”

[@adeptdamage3669]

The only good Dragon Age was Origins.

[@espeon871]

Fr fr, people just r projecting their irl biases onto the media they talk abt that its like dude r u annoyed that npcs have lines or r u unhappy that she's a marginalised person type of deal esp cuz its always the latter and barely the former. Marginalised grps cant just exist we must have a reason to and its so tiring.

[@fruitygarlic3601]

That touches on something that annoys me when people say, "I just wish they didn't have to make being [insert minority] their entire character." There are plenty of times when a character has other stuff going on, but their deviation from "normal people" is visible and those biased against that only see the deviation. In the same way a multifaceted, varied person in real life can be accused of making queerness their whole personality for mentioning a gay relationship casually, or race their whole personality for sharing one past experience of harassment. These are not at all objective measures. Anything can seem hyper-visible if its opposite is treated like the state of things by incurious people.

[@saoirsecameron]

This was really insightful, but I can’t get over the hetero Pokémon couple attacking with Onix and Cloyster 😂

[@tayl1r]

Right? "I don't want politics in games" is just a dog whistle. Metal Gear Solid spending 60 minutes monologing about the commercialisation of war: this is fine, no politics detected. A tiny trans flag in Celeste: filled diapers.

[@Abg144]

Holy cow, this has revolutionized the way I’m going about criticizing modern media. I’m realizing much of what I thought was “critical thinking” was playing into bigotry instead of actually criticizing a piece of art. Very well made video.

[@Kurvaux]

My favorite HGS video was the one where the creator brought on a trans person for their perspective, and they were like “you know, I actually liked it.” And the comments were filled with so much vitriol that they were removed from the video.

[@train4292]

Which video was that?

[@Jack_Saint_Archive]

Is it MangaKamen's Part 2 video ?

[@Vorloks]

My favorite was from Just Stop because he used another example of a well written trans character to criticize the writing and made it clear that trans people deserve icons in media as much as everyone else

[@corvidaeae]

@@Vorloks Trans people also deserve shitty mediocre characters as much as everyone else gets. Just Stop's rant on him made a lot of good points and was generally correct, but it's not actually the end of the world if we get some awkward cardboard cutouts along the way to the icons.

[@Blacknight8850]

Wait, they removed the comments or removed that part of the video?

[@mhawang8204]

1. Wow, when you edit all those Disney live-action remakes trailers together, it really shows how formulaic they are, and how the like:dislike ratio demonstrates the true nature of the “criticism.” 2. THANK YOU x3 for making this video. Nowadays I feel like I can’t express criticism about a show showcasing diverse creators because of this phenomenon. Generally I’m really disappointed in the current state of online discourse about media. Thank you for examining what’s going on with nuance and using your platform to try to shift it, even a little bit.

[@UkeFoxx]

A coworker I got trapped in a car with brought up High Guardian Spice completely unprompted and went on a rant about the “kill all men” tweet and I knew right away that was a big red flag that he was even talking about it

[@not_an_npc1045]

I need to know if this rant happened while trapped in the car

[@UkeFoxx]

@@not_an_npc1045 yes lmao I had to sit and listen to his very sobering opinions about how the cast was full of feminazis and how it would cause an uproar if the roles were reversed and that was all part of a lovely two hour convo that also included tid bits about his gun collection and the racial statistics of our state that he for some reason knew off the top of his head

[@neoqwerty]

@@UkeFoxx May that nutter get his car shat on by seagulls for his whole life, his bags of chips be the extra-airy ones, any pet he has hork up on his carpets or clothes, his drains get hair-clogged, his car trapped behind that one grandma who shouldn't have her driver's license anymore, his convenience store be out of his favorite snack, his sneeze-teases and unsatisfying yawns be many, his internet connection be bad and his youtube videos constantly stuttering and buffering, his NC17 browsing experiences have Sonic 06-grade loading, his online matchups constantly find him cheaters and aimbotters, his offline experiences visited by RNG satan, his promotions never come, and his trash cans leak garbage juice all over his house's floor. I could wish him actual harm but a life full of the most annoying shit I can think of is what he really deserves: not even hatred and scorn, just mediocrity and infuriating BS.

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

@@UkeFoxx Wait Chuds are still pretending they hate Nazis?

[@PikaPenny17]

@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 No, thats just their term for feminists, suggesting Feminists hate men as much as nazis hated Jews.

[@annalang5687]

I've started saying: "I dislike the choices the writers made with this character" or "I dislike how this character is written" instead of "I dislike this character".

[@ddragontheloud]

the fact that you have to clarify that bc of the insane bad faith ppl is kinda sad

[@Eutrofication]

This really reminds me of when Innuendo Studios did an autopsy of gamergate, and how the "fringe element" is never simply the extremists that happen to align with the movement - it's their movement, and when you criticise someone for harassment, they can disappear into the crowd and claim it's a legitimate movement. But also the crowd can deflect criticism easily by claiming you won't take them seriously because of the weird extremists in the group. It's also symbiotic. And you gotta be vigilant, so that you don't give bigots a shield.

[@Lawnie]

I agree - it maps quite well onto how Anita Sarkeesian's work was treated. From what I understand, there are legitimate criticisms people can make of her videos, but it's impossible to say anything even slightly negative about her because it just adds another snowflake to the avalanche of unwarranted hatred. When bad actors poison the well, it's impossible to work out what is valid criticism and what is veiled prejudice.

[@RanPizza]

@@Lawnie this exactly is what frustrates me so much. Gaming journalism has so many things wrong with it (the recent plagiarism scandal, game companies paying off journalists with exclusive access and merch, etc) but the disgusting treatment of women and marginalized groups has poisoned the whole discussion. I want gaming media to improve, because its a bit part of something i love and gaming has helped me express myself as a gay person. But i cant even criticize anything without getting lumped in with those crowds.

[@WhitneyDahlin]

First off Disney has a history of supporting the literal N* zis and political candidates who were pro segregation. They literally made propaganda videos for the N* z i s before world war ii. Are you really going to think that Disney cast a woman of color with only the best of intentions?! Or would it make more sense with their previously established pattern of behavior that they're doing this as a cash grab and so they can ignore any legitimate criticism of the movie by claiming it's racism instead? Wouldn't that make far more sense. Answer this have ANY of their live-action remakes actually been good? Have any of them done justice to the original they were based off of? No none of them have. And Disney is using this to pander to people of color and claim any legitimate criticism, such as the CGI looks terrible and from the trailer alone it already looks like a cheap knock off of the original, is nothing but racism. They are using this to keep people from critically panning and criticizing this live-action movie like everyone, rightfully, did with the other live remakes. And it's already happening. I commented this exact thing and got called a r ac ist on a news article comment section. I hope I'm wrong and this is the best movie to come out ever but I seriously doubt it since NONE of the remakes have even been okay much less fantastic

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

​@@Lawnie Honesty I probably wouldn't ever heard about Anita Sarkeesian if not because of people like ThunderF00t start having almost every video about her with horrible thumbnails using her for their anti-feminist and anti-SJW( now anti-woke) reactionary movement. Without it she would probably stay just another small (feminist) channel on KZbin that makes criticism and opinions about various media.

[@espeon871]

Gamergaters genuinely were terrible cuz the whole thing was launched by a hate post made by zoe's ex and then when anita dared to criticise games, she got shat on, its literally just anti intellectual movement didnt know y people took it srsly.

[@nogi2167]

HGS is one of those shows that I wish was better than it was. You could almost feel a lack of confidence in the product itself coming from the announcement trailer. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with spotlighting the diversity of the creative team and applaud them for doing so. But that’s basically ALL they talked about. I left the trailer thinking “Wow, that’s awesome that they have so many underrepresented voices creating this show…but what is this show actually about?” While I think pointing out diversity was a fantastic idea, it seemed like they lost sight of the fact that the trailer was supposed to be selling me on the -show-, not the team. As for whether or not we should be making good-faith criticism of bad or even just mediocre media if the subject is “sacrificial trash”, it’s a tough question to answer. I don’t think the answer is to just hard-pass on it. Sarah, you make a good point that chuds want to weaponize good-faith actors to silence marginalized creators, but I think telling people “maybe just skip criticizing this piece of media” also plays into the chuds’ silencing tactics. They want to silence not only the creators of the work, but creators of good-faith critique because if they can do that, then their bad-faith “criticism” will be all that is left. Just as chuds weaponize your average person to harm creators, they have also figured out how to weaponize our “side’s” concern for said creators. If you’re too afraid that making honest critique will harm the creators, then you surrender the field to the chuds. So the solution, at least on the individual level, isn’t to avoid honest critique, even if it might superficially appear to align you with dishonest actors. The solution is to create good-faith critique and promote THAT as an alternative. And we as consumers need to be savvier about who we consume. Consume critique from creators you trust and if you like it, -then share it around-. In the long run, I think it would be better for all if the “HGS is bad” topic was populated with actual analyses, made thoughtfully and honestly, rather than allowing chuds the ability to set the tone of the “HGS is bad” narrative unopposed. You don’t win a war (even a culture war) by refusing to fight, even if the road to victory might hurt. So I guess I’m saying that people should go and create and critique and discuss and hold each other up. That way, the chuds aren’t the only game in town for the “normies” to watch

[@aquilamflammeus5569]

The announcement trailer was not the start of the hate. The hate had started far before any of the diversity stuff was brought up. That's why I disagree with the idea that HGS is actually a Sacrificial Trash. Though it's really two sides of the same coin I would argue that it was more as a Diversity Shield. After the initial backlash to the art style and mismanagement of funds which was fairly extreme crunchieroll pushed heavily on the diversity behind the company and in HGS in all their promotional material. Even the creators themselves were critical of crunchieroll's marketing. This is because it allows the company to kick up a smoke screen in the form of the Sacrificial Trash campaign that hides it from legitimate criticism which gets drowned out in bigotry. In reality crunchieroll mismanaged funds, had green lit a project that anyone could have told you would not be popular with their core audience. Selected a studio that heavily underpaid their animators and continued to neglect their voice acting talents. They successfully shifted all the critical attention from themselves to the show itself. This is a common trend amongst other shows that at a surface level appear to be Sacrificial Trash where legitimate criticism gets buried by companies by switching their marketing to bait in bigotry.

[@nogi2167]

@@aquilamflammeus5569 I will admit I was unaware of any behind-the-scenes issues vis a vis underpaying staff and mismanaging funds. I can’t say for sure there was any actual intent on the part of Crunchyroll to kick up drama as a distraction, but Crunchroll’s intent or lack thereof isn’t necessarily relevant to the thesis. People weren’t directing their bigoted vitriol at Crunchyrol; it was aimed at the creative team. And while we can speculate that this was what Crunchyroll wanted, it’s gonna be tough to prove and ultimately doesn’t excuse the bad-faith attacks made at HGS. Ultimately I still stick by my original stance that we need to produce more good-faith critical content and elevate that. We need to be more dedicated to the craft of real analyses than the chuds are to their bile. It’s why I think this video kinda fell flat. Sarah does a good job of explaining the problem, but when it comes time to discuss solutions, it kinda feels like she just shrugged her shoulders and went “Guess we just have to not criticize things sometimes”. Which means that the chuds will be allowed to set the narrative unopposed because they were able to take advantage of progressive people’s concern that they might do “harm” to the targets. And that’s just not a viable strategy if you want to win a culture war.

[@TheFoolishSamurai]

I deeply second this. Being quiet and removing good faith critique causes all discourse to devolve into bad faith. It deepens a "us versus them" mentality, and boxes any actual rational criticism or support into one of two extremes. "You support this because you're X" and "you're against this because you're Y" get thrown around to silence entire, if perfectly reasonable, arguments because of bad faith that's been made to prosper. No one's allowed to trust anyone else under it

[@gearhead417]

Yeah I know a lot of people who were so conflicted about the show because they wanted to support a project like this but everything around it felt kind of gross in a weird corporates way

[@aniflowers1998]

@@aquilamflammeus5569 I'm suprised not more people mentioned that! Maybe I just heard about it becouse I'm mainly on the "anime side" of the internet, but before the trailer came out all the critic I heard about was that people where REALLY mad that crunchy role used money that they promised to use for original anime shows, and to pay animators well, to fund a show that from front to back semed to not be an anime, but a western cartoon. From there on out, things just got worse and peoples alredy sour opinion on the show just soured even more, till it turned to hate.

[@averageanimefan519]

Crunchyroll really didn't help HGS case. The reason people paid for CR was because they thought the money they were spending would go to the anime studios they wanted to support. I was one of those people. HGS was the first show they announced that they would be making and mixed in with the trailer talking about how diverse they were, it exploded into a mess. HGS became the punching bag and instead of focusing on CR's mismanagement of their funds (see how poorly they pay their translators and treat their voice actors) they blamed it all on diversity. For people who don't like minorities, this was all they needed to try and prove why adding in POC or LGBT+ characters was bad. Now so many channels on KZbin are like this. Using the same SJW faces and J.K. Simmons Spiderman lol face as they talk about how woke media went broke. And they make the same content over and over and over again while getting facts completely wrong. Most of the movies they complain about didn't flop financially despite them saying they got woke and went broke. Like the new LOTR show, regardless of your feelings was a huge success. It didn't flop. And they lose it over the most trivial things. Like when people flipped out when Dewanda Wise (a black actress) was casted in Jurassic World 3 or recently lost their shit when Gundam had two lesbian characters in the new show. Because why talk about the actual problems studios have behind the scenes when it's easier and requires less research when you complain about having a black Spiderman or Superman's son is bisexual?

[@emilyj672]

Emily J 1 second ago Yeah. People need to actually start holding the companies accountable for actual problems and not just because there’s gay people or black people on their movie. Like when it was revealed how poorly Disney treated their VFX artists. None of those grifting channels talked about it. They instead complained about black people being in LOTR. They’re the reason I don’t take movie reviews seriously anymore.

[@tacoman422]

Unfortunately it's harder to put a face to a lot of the bigger issues like mismanaging money, mistreating workers, etc. and a lot easier to drum up hate for a single person deemed to be at fault for a series or even a single a creative decision they don't like. Doubly so if they're a woman, person of color, or someone who "has blue hair and pronouns" as some would put it. Meanwhile the terrible money people sit comfortably behind the scenes. Or if it's one of those public "rockstar" money people who's kind of transparently terrible (Trump, Musk, etc.) they always seem to have their own cult of personality eager to fight back against even the slightest criticism.

[@elvingearmasterirma7241]

Yea. From my understanding the show was absolutely wrecked by cruncyroll. Just ruined. And ohhh that animation. Ouch

[@flockinify]

People lost their shit with the new Gundam show? It was literally just Utena with mechs.

[@ConerdFrederickson]

Honestly, the initial trailer for HGS is incredibly confusing to me. If I saw the trailer and was just told that this was a trailer designed to be shown to the anime community I would honestly assume that it was specifically created to make them angry and hate the show. I'm a fan of the anime too, but of all the things I'd say the "anime community" is know for, hating western animation is like #1 of that list followed closely by being at least somewhat reactionary, especially around misogyny, and having an anxiety about western "woke" values ruining their cartoons. I can't imagine that the people behind CR, one of the biggest anime related companies in the west, didn't know this about their own fan base. How could they have thought that this trailer was going to be anything but rage bate without being completely and entirely, 110% out of touch with their own customers? I don't usually have issues finding corporate types to be out of touch but this is stretching it, which makes is seem like they did it on purpose to use the backlash to distract from other issues they have.

[@serfuzzypushover1160]

I'm a bit too young to be into ghostbusters as a media so every time the remake is brought up i can only think about the "im an adult virgin" vine

[@leftoblique]

Thank you for doing this video. Seeing this phenomenon happening in realtime to multiple media properties I actually enjoyed has made me just not want to engage critically with anything that's receiving this kind of hate storm.

[@fntthesmth423]

I think Mother's Basement's coverage of High Guardian Spice was the best one I've seen, since he couched it in an analysis of the Crunchyroll Originals brand as a whole and made it really clear that this was just an artifiical hate brigade. Plus he pointed out that Onyx Equinox was made by the same team and kicks incredible amounts of ass! That show actually could use those trigger warnings in front of each episode given the copious amounts of blood and guts on the screen

[@rutabaga_rutabaga]

I was surprised to see him here too, he was pretty fair with it.

[@jabe8821]

One of the biggest reasons in regards to the hate High Guardian Spice got it was first original content crunchyroll produced and people saw as the misuse of funds despite crunchyroll actually funding original anime afterwards which a lot of people love to ignore occured.

[@evanellis9178]

Is is a review that actually focuses on the plot and writing or just 20 minutes of a neckbeard ranting about le evil sjw boogeyman

[@peanutkix]

@@evanellis9178 Mother's Basement is decently left leaning, and iirc his video was very fair and was more focused on Crunchyroll's mismanagement of their whole original animation brand.

[@MayorOfEarth79]

@@jabe8821 Meanwhile when Crunchyroll makes something like Anime Crimes Division which is specifically designed to cater to otaku, they'll eat up that shit with a spoon.

[@Twinleaftea]

as a person who wants to create and tell stories - it really hit home when you mentioned that people in minority groups feel as though they have to be perfect in fear of being dragged on and I do feel that way, to the point where i even get anxious about posting artwork of my own LGBTQ characters despite my tiny following. I always feel like I need to be able to be perfect at everything and it's exhausting. thank you for this video ive been a fan for a long time and this video has put into words how ive been feeling - thank you again

[@aesthedicks5103]

i always felt like the standards for queer/diverse media was always held higher than ones made by and for predominantly straight/white audiences, like if a queer character/couple isn’t perfectly written then people start saying it’s “pandering” “sjw propaganda” “forced representation” or whatever. like marginalized groups NEED a good enough reason to be included or else we’re trying to force an agenda. it bothers me so much!

[@KetsubanSolo]

Honestly I think the best advice I can think of is "let the work speak for itself." Focus on making the world be full of stuff you want to see in it and show that you're passionate about making it work, then show it off with minimal context or explanation to see if it draws people in, respond to positive feedback, ignore negative ones (although quietly note if they say anything that you can address), and then put it out! Responding to toxic people just makes things worse. Remember, the end goal is you want to get people to check your stuff out. They aren't going to if they see you taking hardline stances on unrelated topics and getting into arguments with people. For example: I remember once I got some slur-filled criticisms of the game I'm working on right now on first release, and I basically just didn't give the dude the time of day but noted some of the actual feedback that might help improve the game (ie: "Why did you disable running in houses that's f***ing r*******" -> me enabling running in houses and slightly changing layouts so they were easier to navigate if running). Basically the best advice I can give is don't feed toxic people, shout out people that give you positive feedback, and just use both to make the best possible thing you can.

[@ffiordhn]

It's happening again with Velma, and curiously enough the artstyle is even kinda similar if you think about it.

[@ffiordhn]

@Ichigo Hanamura Oh I don't doubt it! Frankly, I haven't had the stomach to watch it aside from the very few clips on KZbin. I meant it more on the whole "show featuring diversity gets trashed for being woke even though that's the least of its problems" etc

[@frogwhisperer2067]

“Wile E. Coyote dropping an anvil on himself is promoting violence against coyotes” You laugh but I’ve literally seen people “call out” Roadroadrunner & Coyote and Tom & Jerry for “demonising predators”

[@merrittanimation7721]

“Bugs Bunny demonizes hunters”

[@spicedch4i]

zootopia universe discourse

[@x-fun3149]

@@spicedch4i 💀

[@ididntknowtheyhadwifiinhell]

elmer fudd/daffy duck demonizes speech impediments discourse when?

[@ValkyrieTiara]

...but Jerry is the bigger asshole at LEAST half the time. Tom will just be taking a nap in front of the fire or something and Jerry just walks up and drives a 2x4 with a nail in it up his butt or some shit.

[@truecenter9159]

I think it’s also important to approach dogpiled media with the mindset that you know you have heard something about it, as Sarah did. Often times, our instinct as human beings is to trust other’s judgements of value off-hand to save ourselves time. Even in the case we don’t believe someone, it’s easy to go consume something primed with the mindset that it will be the opposite of what was described. However, most people hear about media through others and that almost always comes with a judgement of the media’s value. If you hear criticism it’s important to be aware that very few people actually know much about what makes stories and art work, and even if they do it’s often subjective whether you like it or not. I find this important to note, as it’s how many alt-right pipelines start out. A criticism of something that’s genuinely valid, but slowly growing to things you haven’t encountered and telling you what to think of those. Then, once you do encounter what was mentioned, in this case good representation, you are ready to dislike it.

[@TimothyCollins]

Maybe we all need to step back and spend less time watching media discussing media. Reviews are a long standing thing and when done well worthwhile. But at some point... they become less good. When entire series are created just to basically say "I don't like this thing"... it's not helpful. I was thinking about this as I watched Sarah's video here : Redlettermedia's reaction to GhostBusters 2016. They didn't like it and the Half in the Bag episode explained their reasoning perfectly well. But then they did a second video about how they didn't like it. and then a third. At some point I have to wonder - they did not spend that much time saying how they hated a movie when it wasn't a gender flipped ghostbusters. They also did not spend that amount of time saying how they hated the more recent one. So at some point I have to suggest... perhaps that is a sign of something deeper than just dislike of the movie.

[@Miriam_J_]

@@TimothyCollins Actually, RLM would agree with you. They've recently talked about how they regret their part in not only Ghost Busters 2016, but also in accidentally making "Mary Sue" more prevalent to dismiss women characters in media "critism". In their recent Prey video, they have a section speaking about how the main character is wrongfully being labeled as a Mary Sue and how that tends to happen to any woman in entertainment. They even talk about how hard everyone was to Last Jedi for very weird reasons. So idk, I think they got caught up in the noise and heavily regret it now.

[@TimothyCollins]

@@Miriam_J_ I really like their stuff so I doubt they did anything on purpose.

[@timothymclean]

I've heard more than a few artists say something to the effect that people are usually good at judging the quality of art, and usually bad at understanding why they dis/liked it.

[@FelisImpurrator]

On the flipside, I think as critics, the idea that you're just not allowed to dislike something without "being part of" some existing troll campaign is just... incorrect. Legitimate criticism is legitimate criticism, and illegitimate criticism is illegitimate criticism, based on merit or lack thereof. Guilt by association is fundamentally fallacious, and adopting that idea would just end up replacing one irrational bias with another. In the end, the actual way to not contribute to bigotry is to not make bigoted arguments, and to substantiate the real criticisms you might actually have about a piece of media. It sounds a bit 4Head, but it is that simple in the end - if the criticism comes with a nuanced, in-depth argument about how the writing is actually bad and isn't full of dogwhistles about race or gender, then it's a sound criticism and stands on its own. Just not participating in a mob and forming an independent opinion shouldn't be automatically dragged down; people choose to be part of groups or apart from them. They're not part of a group automatically just because they're expressing an opinion. It is a good, responsible move to explicitly call out the existence of hate mobs and publicly discourage participation in them and their underlying bigotry if you're doing such a thing though. That's the actual standard I think creators should maintain. Also, "starts out reasonable and turns into an angry mob" is literally how Gamergate happened... partly because, rather than openly disavowing trolls and condemning hate as a unified front, people shied away and dropped the label, ceding a ton of ground to the alt-right, OR just didn't actively work together to call attention to the fact that the alt-righters were hijacking the movement. I was there when it started and saw the inadequate response.

[@t3tsuyaguy1]

This whole backlash against Halle Bailey's casting is so disappointing to me. I've been using her casting as an example of _actual_ diversity for years. She wasn't race swapped for the sake of diversity. Halle Bailey was cast because she's perfect for the role of Ariel. I remember when she was announced. There was a big swell of "Yay! this is the diversity we need!" from the folks you would expect to hear that from. I noted that the director actually objected to this. He found it frustrating and spoke to the idea that it's actually insulting. To praise the hiring of Halle Bailey, "because we need diversity" dismisses the idea that she's actually qualified. He said that he never set out to cast a person of color, that all he did was not exclude people of color from auditioning. I absolutely loved this, because I've said for years that black women don't need special treatment, they just need artificial barriers removed. That's exactly what happened here. I've been looking forward to her performance ever since, and I found the small snippet of it we got in the trailer thrilling. I'm still looking forward to watching the film, but I think it's just sad that the same, almost scripted fight is playing out, when THIS, casting the best person for the job instead of ignoring them because they are "the wrong color", is exactly what we need more of.

[@FanOfKOTOKO]

I wasn't planning on going to watch it anyways since none of the live-action remakes really excited me but NGL the whole discussion about it makes me less interested. There's the whole argument over diversity or best person for a whole or even preserving the aesthetic but iunno all the pre-hype for everything (diversity politics or not) kills a lot of the interest for me.

[@dracocrusher]

I'm honestly way more cynical about things... I mean, nothing against Halle Bailey at all, she's a good actor, but Disney has been pretty consistent about going out of their way to stir the pot with their remakes, if you get what I mean. Off the top of my head, there's "Gay Lefou", Will Smith as Genie, they removed "Be Prepared" and then put it back in, they cast a black person as the Blue Fairy, and the whole Witch character in Mulan. I feel like you can probably write a lot of this off as them trying to just change things or 'fix' things they saw as issues in the originals, but it feels pretty obvious what they're doing. Whenever they make a big change like this is sparks controversy, right? And that means free publicity, because the more angry white reactionary guys are screaming about your movie the more people know your movie actually exists. It's free publicity, right? I feel like the idea that this is a coincidence is kind-of selling the people whose job it is to deal with publicity and advertisements way too short. Of course, that doesn't mean there's not legit casting process and stuff or that people are being dishonest or 'forced into these choices' or anything. I think the studio just realized that when they make big changes, these films make way more money. And I think the higher-ups are more than willing to basically nudge directors or people in casting in that direction, but not TOO far to keep from actually alienating normies. Like Lefou can be gay and have all the articles and stuff that generates extreme reactions, but he can't be TOO gay, got to restrict it to him just dancing with a guy or maybe having a line with a bit of innuendo to is. I think that makes sense, right? Which works well for Disney... but it also means every time one of these films comes any 'woke' element that was changed very quickly becomes associated with the quality of the film, which tends to be pretty low overall. And that's.... probably not amazing overall, but also any representation is better than no representation. So take from that what you will, I guess?

[@t3tsuyaguy1]

@@dracocrusher In this case the director spoke to this, back when her casting was announced. He wasn't responding to criticism. He was objecting to the celebration.

[@dracocrusher]

@@t3tsuyaguy1 Sure, but also there's been tons of criticism. The goal isn't to do things that are 'bad', it's to get extreme emotions out of people, including backlash, to drive up publicity. I'm sure this sounds conspiratorial, but it's happened so much that I'd genuinely be shocked if they didn't know how people would react to this or that it'll drive up sales, even if it's just in a "this will probably get people talking" type of way. For example, with Pinocchio, they released three promo images at the same time. One revealing Geppetto, one revealing Pinocchio, and one revealing the black Blue Fairy. The post showing the Blue Fairy got substantially more engagement than the others, even more than the reveal of the main character of the film. A lot of it was just racist conservatives/reactionaries being bad at a black person existing and the arguments with them, but it ultimately doesn't matter because any engagement is free advertisement for the film itself. I don't doubt they picked Halley Berry for her talent, but ALSO I find it really hard to think this was a truly colorblind casting process. There was probably a definite influence to scout or push for a person of color simply because Disney knows it'll give them tons of free publicity for their otherwise fairly lackluster remakes, and I think that is worth acknowledging. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, I mean representation is representation, but it is what it is.

[@kordeliiius9821]

I agree, and while I’m happy for Halle, I don’t like how this message is being used to hype up another run-of-the-mill live action disney remake. Black girls deserve so much better than that

[@submortimer]

The best part about this episode is that part where Emily made Sarah say "It's Zeddin time!" and then Zed all over the arguments against High Guardian Spice.

[@byulharangforlife]

I csnt

[@ainorey882]

This joke is forced

[@sumthinorother9615]

Zetta Beam!

[@MathMasterism]

As someone who was in the anime community when High Guardian Spice was announced, I want to add another factor toward why the backlash was so strong. During that time the anime community was experiencing a a high level of what I call “Pirate Crusaders”. Basically a bunch of people that pirate their anime felt the need to justify not only why it was okay for them to not pay for anime but also how they were morally justified in doing so. A big part of this was making anime streaming platforms like Crunchyroll and the late Funimation look as bad as possible, since they could argue that not paying for Japanese cartoons was actually encouraging CR to improve their platform. So when High Guardian Spice was announced. A narrative quickly emerged that CR was taking money away from animation studios to fund some cartoon show no one asked for. This was despite there being no evidence that CR was slowing down their simulcasting schedule. Also this implies that CR isn’t aloud to invest its profits into anything that isn't subbing or dubbing anime, which is just spiteful thinking. So in summary, another reason for the backlash around High Guardian Spice was because “if High Guardian Spice is bad, then CR is bad, and if CR is bad then I have no choice but pirate my anime. See guys, I don’t pirate because I don’t want to pay for something, I do it because I don’t want to support bad business.”

[@noizepusher7594]

This is actually a more nuanced argument than I expected! I thought you were just gonna go down the route of “I don’t want CR to spend their funds in a way that I don’t like” but you actually went into the context of it all. I’ll be sure to save this comment for future use!

[@junjunjamore7735]

They tried this with Encanto also, and Spiderverse before those got popular.

[@Hipe2124]

Yep. I saw this on reddit mostly

[@1080TJ]

I've been waiting for someone to talk about this phenomenon! It's going on right now with the movie Bros, a gay romcom starring Billy Eichner. The moment I saw the trailer at the theater a few months ago I knew it would happen. I didn't think it looked very good, none of the jokes landed for me (although I am a straight guy tbf) and I'm not a big romcom fan. So even though I go to the movies almost every week and like to support original midbudget studio movies as much as possible, I decided it probably wasn't my thing, although I might check it out on streaming eventually because reviews and reactions from people who have actually seen it are mostly positive. But based on the marketing and Billy Eichner playing up the capital-G gay aspect of the film (not to mention Eichner saying really guilt trippy things like "anyone who isn't a homophobic weirdo should see Bros"), I guessed that two things would happen regardless of reviews: 1. The movie would probably flop do to a mix of actual homophobia, bad trailers, and romcoms generally not being a theatrically viable genre anymore. 2. People who are simply homophobic would use its failure as an excuse to attack the LGBT cast and crew and justify their shitty beliefs by going "See? Nobody wants woke movies!" Well, the movie just came out and didn't do well. Go to Billy Eichner's Twitter mentions if you're wondering if the second part came true.

[@gemstone108]

Bros was really really good. I wish it had come out in May or June perhaps, no idea why it didn’t 🤔

[@Nightman221k]

I'm gay and love gay romance media, but the marketing kind of confused me with the trailer since I didn't know it was a romantic story and the name of the film being BROS made it seem like a buddy comedy. I do hate the way the film is getting dogpiled with hate though. If it's not a movie for you and you know it, why be determined to see it fail? Like people who haven't seen it are happy it's doing bad, why? Cause it's a movie about gay people? I feel like a lot of youtubers thrive on hating something specifically for views.

[@Planag7]

Honestly I'm not seeing a lot of discussion on it outside of the gay media and most of it has to do with the reaction and why it's not appealing to straight people. Coming from my perspective of somebody who saw it twice in theaters this weekend and tried to convince my stepdad to see it, the reasoning he didn't want to see it was simply that not so much of the game romance oh no it was everything else that they added on to it. The raunchiness for the raunchiness sake cuz there are raunchy romantic comedies but this was so in your face. Don't know about poppers? Only interested in monogamy? Fuck that here it is. Also, no pretty boys. Just boring, "good looking" white cis guys

[@alliew31]

@@Planag7 Yeah I’m not straight but I won’t probably see it since I didn’t find the trailer funny and the major emphasis on sex didn’t appeal to me. It’s a niche audience so it would have probably been a flop anyway but the hate isn’t justified

[@protips__]

I was surprised they thought they would sell enough tickets to warrant a theatrical release regardless of obvious right-wing backlash. It’s hard enough to put anything on screen that isn’t cape shit or a known IP and make your money back, let alone a gay rom com. I don’t know if (and how) it made money but “Fire Island”, a gay rom com released in early summer, was very popular and a great film but it was only a Hulu release.

[@aegeon5650]

The term “forced diversity” literally means nothing. Like what does it mean to have non forced diversity? Traits about your character like their race gender and sexuality are always conscious decisions on the part of the writer. And writers should be allowed to explore how those things will have an effect on their identity given the story they’re trying to tell. The people who complain about diversity being “forced” are literally just upset because seeing people who are different from them represented in media makes them uncomfortable. Diversity can never be a focal point, it always has to be an accessory. And once it becomes a focal point that’s when people take issue with it.

[@Hipe2124]

This absolutely. Anyone that says woke or forced diversity is nit worth listening to.

[@Toberumono]

I think that it might also be an unfortunate overlap of terms? Like, forced diversity in the context described is a load of BS, but that fundamentally assumes a lack of outside factors. However, it is also very much in vogue for corporations to try to sell themselves as being progressive, especially when they aren’t. I think that forced tokenism might be better? Like, say that you are a company working on a show with a highly detailed genealogy and decide to cast two black people and then put them on a backdrop of a flood of white people and crow about diversity. It’s great that they’re willing to hire a black actor, but maybe they could have hired more of them? It just leaves you with this feeling that you’re watching somebody being exploited in a creepier way than normal. Basically, I’m saying that Amazon sucks and they should have cast their LotR thing like Hamilton. And maybe we shouldn’t reward tokenism? Idk. Maybe I’m just too cynical.

[@aegeon5650]

@@Toberumono I definitely agree with this. Corporate influence on art can frequently lead to tokenism. Big companies wanna have minority hires be a selling point of their content but they don’t actually want to put in any work to make the characters fleshed out or interesting. They produce diverse media for the sake of boosting ratings and not for the sake of telling a good story. Which makes it all the more frustrating when the bulk of the backlash is directed at the actors and creators, and not the producers or company itself.

[@seventeenseventythirteen7465]

"Forced diversity is when too many gays, black, or females exist in one place at a time. It is serious issue that bring down many movie and video games. Spend more time on righting, not on make all character disabled black trans woman." This is the brain of someone who uses the term "forced diversity" in a non ironic way.

[@oscarwind4266]

As a dude who used to be on the other side of the fence before morbid curiosity led me to some works that changed my mind: I really can't explain it. Like I can go on all day about how much I adore the Owl House, its more diverse elements included but I really can't say how it doesn't work as well in something like Riverdale or Ghostbusters 2016. I think it may be like comedy or dialoge, you can't explain why something is funny or unfunny but you feel it when you see it.

[@pitalovr]

“i watched one, and then like an algorithmic hydra, ten would take its place” is such a good way to describe youtube i love it

[@rruhland]

Okay I know that Emily was writing that section because there was both a Dragon Ball and a Berserk reference.

[@jonathanlgill]

I'd bet money The Last Of Us 2 was also an Emily segment.

[@mhawang8204]

Thank you. I was looking for this comment. 😂 It’d be really funny if Emily sneaks in a Dragon Ball reference in every script.

[@300IQPrower]

Mediocrity is inoffensive until someone finds a way to turn it into a dogwhistle. From Ghostbusters to HGS to that [relatively] recent Call of Duty with the female sniper. It's in every kind of media where people will eat up mediocre content until it challenges their narrow worldviews instead of pandering to them, at which point it immediately becomes offensively terrible for "completely objective" reasons. HGS is just one of several pieces of media that I always check a commentary channel's backlog for to see if any red flags pop up.

[@lainescifres1492]

Great video! The original She-Ra backlash makes me think…like why do these adult men want a teenage girl to be hypersexualized?

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

I blame anime and high school movies

[@thedolphinqueen6474]

They're incels.

[@josteinhenrique2779]

She-ra was ALWAYS an adult woman, not a teenager. Oh, and she never dated a psycho villain who served in the army of a tyranical warlord.

[@TheStarBot]

@@josteinhenrique2779she was a teenager in the first season

[@DautFromX]

Because teenage girls are sexy and men are biologically hotwired to like them, next question.

[@ZombieTreder]

It's comforting to know that the KZbinrs I watch fall into the exact same algorithm-backed rabbit holes as I do, lol.

[@DautFromX]

You 're not in some shadowy land, this is how normal people view your weird woke bs.

[@amywhite8343]

A non-binary friend of mine recommended HGS to me because they really loved it and connected to Snapdragon's story and so I went into the show having heard nothing but positive things about it. I had a fantastic time and genuinely loved it. Of course it has flaws, but I really loved many of the characters (Slime Boy is so good!) and I thought the story was sweet. It was only after I'd seen it that I found all the backlash online. The way people go into a show can have a big effect on how they view it - if you go in expecting it to be terrible you'll find every single bad thing about it, and if you go in expecting it to be good it's easy to find good things too. Media doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable, and when people dogpile on shows with representation just because they aren't paragons of perfect writing but let standard mediocre 'straight white male' dominated shows slide with the same bad writing problems it just sucks. It sucks that every show with LGBT+ rep (or any minority rep) seems to get treated like it has to be perfect just to deserve to exist but we deserve to have trash shows too

[@testedcatgaming7714]

I kinda want to see High Guardian Spice but I'm a bit scared that I'd actually enjoy it, and I don't want online people to start hating me for that. Also, I don't own crunchyroll.

[@satansenpai383]

This!!! I loved Snapdragon so much, and I thought the show was charming and funny

[@espeon871]

Ikr i actually like it its comfy and slow; its not the best but if crunchyroll legit funded it and let them do whatever and had a better writing team it wldve been really nice and cute

[@espeon871]

@@testedcatgaming7714 its fine to like stuff who cares abt what people think? I mean its ur life at the end of the day so long ypure not harming people like what u like man

[@aquilamflammeus5569]

The problem was more that it was pitched to the wrong audience. Most crunchieroll viewers were never going to like it, plus since its creation had justified price increases it didn't have to be ok it had to live up to what they expected from a show.

[@Utopia_2489]

You make a lot of compelling points

[@melasnexperience]

Yeah, that was my take-away. It had potential, and the designs & cast diversity were great. But the writing & acting needed some help.

[@nat9377]

I love love love love your content. Thank you so much for educating me on this stuff. I totally heard about Guardian and Spice being some terrible sjw show without any nuance. My brain I think internalizes this internet culture and starts to believe this "woke" media often being bad representation and I used to get frustrated because it made me think that diverse creators were representing me and other marginalized people in the wrong way and that they are part of the reason why there might be more stigma towards minorities. But this is exactly like if I were to try being "one of the good ones" like I thought I could be a decade ago. It was absolutely foolish. I admire that they gave this a shot and I honestly would like to learn more about the trans character because it looked like she had a really cool ark. Very often we are part of this like huge web of systems with only one perspective of the whole. Media analysis like this helps me understand so much about the internet and myself. Its very interesting how a trailer and marketing can spell doom for an upcoming series and the people who worked on it, before the thing even comes out. A lot of decisions are out of creators hands, and that's very scary because it could lead to what happened with Guardian and Spice

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

Yes it gives kinda bad vibes to when even progressive creators criticise works like this, people need to stop pretending like all these bad shows are written by committee and not diverse artists in their own right that mean well.

[@fraserking4747]

I entirely forgot HGS existed, tbh. Didn’t realise it apparently warranted enough scrutiny for some guy to make his entire KZbin identity centred around hating it lol. Very insightful as always, Sarah!

[@tinodethuong]

I'm a little late to the party but as a regular watcher of guardian hq it's honestly impressive how much he cares so much that he's willing to invest so much time into not only creating critique videos but also the abridged series for a show that's hate fizzled out so long ago.

[@erikdaniels0n]

I’m a Marvel fan, specifically an MCU fan, and I have been loving She-Hulk for what it is: a light, sitcom-y installment in the universe. I’m having a blast with it, but I also understand while it may not be for everyone. That being said, I think it’s my first real experience of genuinely liking something that’s considered “sacrificial trash”, and the backlash is honestly draining

[@Nightman221k]

I think She-Hulk is a fun show too. Jen is a character I find easy to root for (Tatiana Maslany is an actress I tend to really enjoy) and it's weird seeing people hate the show for being more low-stakes when it's kind of the point. The hate for it is so overblown.

[@erikdaniels0n]

@@Nightman221k honestly, I think Tatiana’s performance as Jen is what makes the show work. Not entirely surprised, as she was also the main reason Orphan Black worked as well as it does. In order for the show to work, Jen has to come across as likable, and Tatiana has likability for days

[@Nightman221k]

@@erikdaniels0n The most recent phase of the MCU gets flack for so much, but I actually really like that they're giving some more earthy protagonists with vulnerability on a personal level. I loved Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel, the only negative I had about that series was it had the worst villains in any Marvel series and the finale was kind of a sharp turn into too-silly in tone clashing with the earlier parts. I really enjoyed Kate Bishop, Yelena, and Wanda (till Doctor Strange 2 wrecked it). So having more character focused things is nice. Seeing Jen become someone who is self-assured is actually kind of heartwarming.

[@raphaelmarquez9650]

Been seeing leftists who hate the new She-Hulk show both for its bad VFX and how tired they are with the Joss Whedon humor the MCU has brought upon.

[@poodlemuffin]

All I want from the MCU is a fun and goofy Squirrel Girl series, but after the She-Hulk backlash, it seems even less likely that will ever happen.

[@cs6465]

Once again Sarah concisely and intelligently explains something that has been bothering me but I couldn’t put into words

[@that_nao]

watching this as a ‘victim’ of the trash sacrifice (thank you netflix’s cowboy bebop lol) is simultaneously cathartic and very anxiety inducing lol

[@greendoritoman2464]

god as a fan of the original cowboy bebop who wasn't all that into the remake the backlash to the remake was one of the strangest and surreal experiences in my life. I remember a youtube comment whinging about making faye's costume less sexualised for practical reasons and there was a reply with a good amount of likes going "It's because bolsheviks cannot create they can only destroy." It's at this point where you really start to question whether people really cared for the sanctity of the original property itself (not that it's a justification) or really just wanted another outlet to vomit their culture war bullshit, and whether their outrage is attached to any kind of logic, or just reality in general I'm really sorry to hear about all the harassment the team faced before and during the remake's release. hope that you're doing well and that you've managed to escape the internet hate mob. best of luck to you and your writing career in the future.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

@@greendoritoman2464 Why are most weebs rac1st, sex1st, h0mophob1c, tr4nsphob1c, and other hateful things?

[@GeneralBolas]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 "Most weebs" aren't. Just the loudest. It doesn't take that many people to make a cacophony. That being said, "most weebs" are disinterested in doing anything about those very loud "weebs". They may be saying stuff, but at least they're *our* people. Not those other people.

[@greendoritoman2464]

@@GeneralBolas also it's highly likely that the people peddling most of the outrage likely never were into cowboy bebop or anime in general and are just using it as a justification to start shit

[@adeptdamage3669]

It was awful tho.

[@Atkaska]

I'll always enjoy moments where Emily makes poor Sarah read any lines about anime

[@merrittanimation7721]

I imagine Emily making a grin like that one panel of Guts from Berserk as Sarah suffers

[@samt3412]

@@merrittanimation7721 Sarah making the Agni from Fire Punch face as she sees the script

[@huxleyable]

There's a rifle just out of frame...

[@nunyabiz6532]

Is Lady Emily (LE) a Pseudonym for Lindsay Ellis? Or am I out of the loop on Sarah Z lore lol

[@samt3412]

@@nunyabiz6532 Lady Emily is another person entirely with a small KZbin channel. I think she made a video about Demo Reel or something

[@darthchalupa2485]

Some of Sarah Z's videos give me a new way of looking at media consumption & criticism. Others leave me with a melancholy feeling of how complex and awful the world/ internet can be. This one sits comfortably in between those categories

[@MageLufaine]

I'm so glad you mentioned the fact that if HGS had been made by a Japanese studio then it would have probably just either been generally liked or at worst considered "mediocre" because I was literally thinking that when you went over the show's premise.

[@aquilamflammeus5569]

I mean that was literally the largest criticism it initially received. That they had paid for anime and we're getting a western cartoon.

[@supersayan1962]

Almost like people pay crunchyroll to support the anime industry and not western shows

[@gamsougher3574]

"does anyone still care about the calarts thing? i don't know. i haven't heard it in a while but that might just mean i hang out in the right circles" REAL

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

I remember some people still bringing up the calarts BS back when the teaser trailer for both Luca and Turning Red came out. I remember one comment on the Turning Red teaser trailer that said "How does Mei breathe without a neck?" "I NEED ANSWERS!" And then I replied with, "Calm down son, it's just a drawing."

[@NioFiota]

just gonna drop a thank you here because holy crap i'm so overwhelmed by a huge portion of the internet that's so bigoted against works of art just because it tried to diverse or critique things people don't want to hear.

[@emmamacfarlane8137]

I've been calling this the Last Jedi effect personally and I am so thankful someone's started putting this into words.

[@joshsobchak9902]

I think Last Jedi had the opposite problem. People blamed the reactions to Last Jedi for Rise of Skywalker's quality and further stagnation in Star Wars, but I blame that more on Abrams and the state of Disney. Even in Last Jedi itself, I noticed Rian Johnson wanted to go far but he wasn't allowed to go too far because it was a multimillion dollar tentpole.

[@12me91]

@@joshsobchak9902 yeah tlj was bad because Disney fucked it.

[@notNajimi]

@@joshsobchak9902 I don’t see why there can’t be a synthesis of these views. Disney wanting to protect their wallet rather than stick to their guns, put abrams back in the directors chair after the reaction to rian johnson’s film was so mixed

[@ryenguy]

i don't think TLJ was good but i also undestand star wars has seriously the most unhinged fanbase i've ever seen. i dont know if anyone remembers when the prequels came out, but the child actor casted as anakin became the fore front of harrassment when the backlash started to bubble up into the community. nobody knows how to enjoy or dislike a piece of media normally, i guess.

[@icedragon769]

No, The Last Jedi is a totally different phenomenon. TLJ is a genuinely good movie, the best addition to Star Wars since Empire Strikes Back, that was attacked by geek culture because it actually told a story instead of just being a slideshow of nostalgia bait which apparently all that anybody want to see in movies anymore.

[@RagAndGrinderMan]

I'm so glad someone big is finally talking about this. I've noticed this in all the user review sections of media websites. They are overrun by bigots with too much free time but they all parrot the EXACT same complaint about something that isn't focused on bigotry. It will always suck how organized the online right wingers will be.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

@Random Username What does RTJ stand for?

[@chrisr1091]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 Run the Jewels, it’s a rap group.

[@Killallmangahaters]

if they have the same complaints about the show in a technical sense then that's likely a highly objective issue the show has and its not "parroting"

[@IcaroMendonca]

I'm kinda surprised you didn't so much as mention Twilight. It was not the exact same as the things mentioned here, but the reason it was openly reviled by everyone ar the time, including me, was because it DARED to be a successful book and movie franchise targeted towards teen girls. Then again, there is a Lindsey Ellis video about that already.

[@SarahZ]

I already did a video on Twilight where I talk about this! :)

[@DautFromX]

No it wasn't, there's loads of thing marketed at teen girls. It was cheesy and an easy target. Like Justin Bieber or Funko Pop collectors. Drop the victim complex, it's very tireseome.

[@samkathryn4825]

3:00 As one of the few people who seems to genuinely enjoy the remakes, I have to say that a huge turning point from “why do these exist apart from capitalism and lack of creativity at Disney” to “actively hated” was The Lion King. It came out right after Aladdin and destroyed any remaining goodwill towards Disney and few still believed there was any artistic motivation behind their decisions with these films. Mulan bombed the shreds of lingering hope into oblivion. The pessimistic side of me thinks that Disney may have hired Hailey Bailey to use her as a scapegoat if this project-like the others, especially recently-are poorly received. I am still looking forward to the film, but I have little hope the future remakes will be good or will be well-received.

[@LaneMaxfield]

I agree. Back when the little mermaid was announced, I actually thought Halle Bailey was a casting choice that showed some creative potential: she had a great voice and a persona that mixed playful adventurous mischief with a kind of gentle innocence. You could use that to make a take on The Little Mermaid that was true to the spirit of the original but also had something new to offer, like Lily James' take on Cinderella. But that would require writers, directors and producers that actually gave a shit. After The Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan and Dumbo, I have lost faith. I think the group that is hard to measure in these cases is the apathetic but not vitriolic. I won't watch the remake, drop a like on the trailer or leave nice comments, because I don't care, and I'm also not mean. I have better uses of my time than to ruin some poor actress's day because she got cast in a shallow cash grabbing bit of forgettable nothing. I'm also not going to burn two hours of my life half heartedly trying something I know will be disappointing. I won't be made into a Disney nostalgia puppet. I'll go watch something that gave a shit, like Mike Flanagan's new miniseries.

[@alliew31]

Yeah if people don’t like this one they can blame it on racism which is there but there’s also less people who think these remakes are fun than there used to be

[@Nuvizzle]

I don't think Disney cares how well the films are received critically at all. The fact of the matter is even the most critically panned of them like Aladdin or The Lion King are still generally well liked by the viewing public, which is why people keep going to see them and audience scores remain high. Ironically Mulan was one of the more positively received of their recent remakes by critics but audiences didn't like it (at least in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if it was received better in China considering many of the core changes made to the film were obviously catering towards a Chinese audience).

[@chengarqordath]

@@Nuvizzle Disney's top concern with their movies is always going to be profitability. Critical and audience perception only really matter in how they impact the work's ability to make money.

[@brycebitetti1402]

@@Nuvizzle The funny thing is that Chinese fans _hated_ the remake. I've seen videos on it (one KZbin pretty much made her career off of her take), and I've had first hand accounts from Chinese friends that thought it sucked.

[@ItsTheFizz]

One thing I've noticed about Sacrificial Trash Hate is that there's always this aire of envy... like "WHY NO PAY ME TO MAKE TRASH?!"

[@paulsmart4672]

I think this "trash" as much as it doesn't meet the standards the internet sets for it, probably takes quite a bit more time and effort to create than most people realize.

[@motherdessicant]

It's from the same vein of "That's not art, I could have made that." "Ok make something." "Nah I don't want to."

[@ladyhoratia1709]

This is a great video which explains so much backlash to such mediocre media. like most recently She-Hulk, Rings of Power, the Obi Wan Kenobi show and many more. many of these are just mediocre fine shows which aren't trash, as you point out, but they certainly aren't the best the medium can offer, and yet they get so heavily lambasted by the internet that you get the idea that it is the absolute worst thing in existence

[@Jachra]

This is how I feel about the Last Jedi - I genuinely didn't like it, but I'm worried about all the right-wing racists and anti-feminists who lost it over it.

[@vickie_g]

Thank you for articulating the reason for which I stopped engaging with online media criticism. It happened subconsciously and I've never really thought about it till now.

[@dragonfire7965]

I got and agreed with the frustration about how Crunchyroll was handling its money with regard to High Gaurdian Spice but the backlash was so focused on the creators and not the platform. I watched a lot of it cause I thought these would be fun characters to redesign, and don’t get me wrong, like Sarah said it wasn’t very good for a lot of genuine reasons but it started becoming clear that the criticism was extremely overblown and I feel genuinely so bad for the show creators. I liked my redesigns and I had originally thought they would be alright since I saw the creators reblogged a redesign that was much less kind towards the show on Twitter, but I didn’t end up posting anything because I didn’t want to feed into the hate towards it. Also a lot of people were saying Carroway was like grooming a kid who just doesn’t like male stereotypes/gender roles as opposed to not liking being a man which…. I didn’t really see much. Like yeah maybe that could’ve been made clearer but I think it’s pretty obvious that Snapdragon wants to be a girl and that Carroway is just saying that’s an option. Seems more like ppl projecting their perception of trans people as grooming gender nonconforming kids into transitioning onto the show characters.

[@espeon871]

Even the creator had to like go off for a while its so terrible its just a harmless mismanaged show w potential to see people harass the creators of a legit harmless show is so sad tf

[@MajoraZ]

Something not often discussed is that HGS had a sister show, Onyx Equinox, and THAT is the best I've ever seen Indigenous Mesoamerican (Aztec, Maya, etc) history and culture handled by a major commercial production, speaking as somebody who does writeups/helps history & archeology channels on the topic. I'll get back to how OE fits into the discourse with HGS and why I think it didn't get the same criticism (despite also having LGBT themes/creators), but I since it does such good job with the cultural influences and most Mesoamerican media mishandles it, I want to focus on that first: At a very basic level, firstly, it features multiple real cultures and their specific cities, architectural, clothing; and acknowledges the differences between them as distinct cultures. Where a lot of other media only features Mesoamerica in the context of European colonization, and as a monolithic "native" culture, Onyx instead EXCLUSIVELY features Indigenous civilizations and cultures, and is very clear about political and cultural differences between them, and draws those differences and traits from actual historical realities: There are cities, towns, and characters that are variously Aztec, Maya, Totonac, Zapotec, etc. Not only do the layouts of each city, like Uxmal, Danibaan/Monte Alban, Tenochtitlan, etc match their real life ones, but even the specific art motifs and architectural accents of the buildings match local styles, and the clothing of their inhabitants do too: A lot of women in random background scenes at Danibaan for example wear Quechquemitl, a garment that in prehispanic times was limited, ceremonial contexts EXCEPT for by the cultures of Oaxaca like the Zapotec, where it was indeed more widely worn! Even the music themes for characters use Nahuatl/Aztec, Yucatec and Kiche Maya, and Zapoteca lyrics as appropriate, and while the show does have the anachronistic presence of Aztec people and cities, it otherwise has specific sites as would be accurate for the Late Classic/Early Postclassic period, between 700 and 1000AD. Likewise, it's depiction of basic aspects of society, domestic life, cities, etc is all accurate: you have metates, backstrap looms, wheeled ceramic toys; temples and palaces are actually shown with paint and relief (as opposed to worn and grey), and it shows the suburbs that would have radiated out around the monumental city centers, when such suburbs are rarely depicted in media or in artistic reconstructions. So it's accurate and authentic. But it goes way beyond that, as the actual narrative themes of the show and it's use of visual symbolism tie into Mesoamerican philosophy and culture, too: As an example, a fictional conceit of the show is that there are magical gateways to the underworld the protagonists have to close. The design of these gates is based on Maya and epi-olmec iconography of caves, mirrors, and pools of water, because these were all things actually linked to underworld entrances in Mesoamerican cultures. The first appearance of such a gate in episode 1 even occurs beneath a cenote (a literal cave filled with pools of water), where the protagonist Izel attempts to take their own life (metaphorically passing into the underworld, and indeed they get tainted by underworld energy in the process) and is then rescued by an agent of the god Tezcatlipoca, who is heavily tied to, you guessed it, Mirrors, while continuing to be haunted by visions of loved one's he's lost while trapped in the cenote's caverns. Izel's character arc likewise ties into major themes from Aztec philosophy and ethics: A key part of the Aztec worldview is that life and death were not just at odds, but also complementary: Creation myths had the gods sacrificing themselves or giving their blood or effort to create the world and humanity, which was cyclically created and destroyed (of course a plot point in the show). Sacrifice in those societies was repaying that debt and continuing the cosmic cycle of consumption, death, destruction, and birth, life, and creation. As such, the inherent transience of life and it's beauty is a common theme in Aztec poetry, and in their ethics and moral adages, there's a recognition that life is inherently tricky, painful, and filled with hardship, but what one must do is accept this and do their best to live a self-sacrificing life (sometimes literally) to help others. At the end of episode 1, Izel is in total rejection and denial of basically every concept I just explained, not caring about the rest of humanity and leaving them to their fate, and his arc is very much about getting past that state of mind. So, if people want a show with a very underutilized setting and that handles a underepresented set of cultures extremely well (and that has great background art, visual design, and music irrespective of all of that, though I will say the animation can be iffy and the pacing in the first half can be too), I highly recommend it. As I implied before, it also DOES have LGBT characters (including MLM stuff, which isn't as common in animated media as sapphic stuff) and is made by a Mexican LGBT woman. With all that said, to return to how Onyx plays into the discourse with HGS: I come from very anime and gaming heavy online circles: In those spaces, while the criticism that HGS often did explicitly come from a reactionary, "Anti-woke" angle, whining about cal-arts style, etc; a lot of it was also predicated on more ostensibly valid criticism that Crunchyroll shouldn't be spending funds it gets on original animation projects when animators in Japan are infamously underpaid and overworked, and CR brands itself as a way for anime fans to give back to animators when a lot of the anime-consuming community relies on illegitimate methods to view shows.... however, the fact that Onyx largely escaped any such criticism despite being just as culpable as an original animated project by Crunchyroll, I think, lends credence to the idea that even if there WERE people seriously concerned about the funding stuff, that most of the flak the show got was indeed powered and spread by regressive reactionary outrage, as Sarah points out. Regardless of how much people want to blame the outrage on culture wars or concerns about funding and where money goes in the Japanese anime industry and western ventures profiting off of it; Onyx ended up being COMPLETELY overshadowed by High Guardian Spice's controversy: Almost nobody has heard of Onyx or realizes that there was another project being made by a lot of the same staff alongside it (HGS's content warning makes more sense when you watch Onyx, which does have more explicit violence, sexual content, etc), to the point where I wonder if from a purely viewership perspective, HGS actually may have gotten more viewers then it otherwise would have without the controversy (not that that would justify or excuse it). In any case, I hope people found this insightful and check Onyx out. I really cannot overstate how well it handles it's setting, and as a huge Mesoamerican history and archeology nerd, I never expected I'd get anything as well done in my lifetime, and I'd lose it if we got a second season!

[@Kyman102]

I'm glad to see this, as Onyx Equinox does indeed rock hardcore.

[@DetectiveOlivaw]

I think part of the reason Onyx got less “outrage” or “controversy” despite having LGBT content from an LGBT minority creator… well, it’s because it has lots of blood and cool shit in it. Like High Guardian Spice looks like a cheaper Steven Universe and Onyx looks like if Mike Mignola did a Mesoamerican Berserk on a budget. The outrage machine tends to sputter if the content matches up aesthetically with stuff they already like or think is cool.

[@ayior]

Ill admit I didnt make it through your whole comment but damn that sounds great I love seeing cultures I don't know much about (Though I am following channels on those cultures now) ill check it out~

[@AfutureV]

I think you are overthinking it because you have an already existing predisposition to dislike HGS critics. The reason why Onyx escaped the flack HGS received is because it came after. I honestly can not understand why people are so quick to paint critics as evil people instead of going for the most rational and human explanation.

[@MajoraZ]

@@AfutureV I mean, as I implied in my comment, I hang out in a lot of communities were the main places HGS got flak in: I think it's naive to act like general kneejerk reactionism to culture war stuff wasn't a huge factor. I went out of my way to throw critics of the show a bone by pointing out the valid argument about CR's use of funds, but as I noted, it is telling that OE escaped the same criticism. Yes, part of it is likely that the criticism HGS was SO massive that it completely overshadowed OE and a lot of people didn't even realize OE existed as a result, but to your point, OE DID come out before HGS: HGS got announced and advertised first, but OE actually released a year before HGS, so there was absolutely room and time for critics to latch onto OE if they saw it as worth doing, but they didn't.

[@EldritchKitty]

Sometimes I wonder is media companies sometimes try to generate this kind of backlash on purpose in order to manufacture the backlash for mediocre works. If it becomes a political stance whether or not someone likes an average piece of media, then more people watch and engage with it (whether hate watching or not); thus a work that would have died in obscurity otherwise suddenly at least lets the distributor break even.

[@becauseimafan]

Oh! Kind of related: if you haven't already seen it, Sarah Z has a video about the song "Friday" and why it was made, it's totally what your comment says in the first sentence! It's an older video of hers, but a goodie! *Why "Friday" Was Made*

[@becauseimafan]

Found it! *Why "Friday" Was Made* kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpvSp2CdqZuMedk