Definitely, though the Swifties in general have a pretty good lock on it--I remember when palm trees in her instagram posts were supposedly signaling an album title or something? Or it was a countdown? I've lost track of the amount of connected dots that amounted to nothing.
'Drillable' is an interesting way of putting it, because with this kind of 'investigative analysis' you can keep drilling down without ever reaching the 'core' — instead you just keep going through an endless surface layer of paratext, fanlore, cosmetic trivia, &c. (If it were still the blessed '90s I'd start talking about fractals now.)
100% -- and what Jenkins pointed out that I think it very relevant is that crowdsourced answers/theories will always be more advanced than what a writer's room with industry limitations can come up with, which means that even if you get to "the core" it probably won't be satisfying; also why there's so much disappointment with mystery box shows.
I know this is a bit of a silly reaction, but something that really clicked for me reading this is, "oh, *that's* why Geoguessr is so popular - because it gamifies the way people already interact with media."
Smash Bros has developed something like this. People have really latched on to the director, Masahiro Sakurai, like he's part of the game itself. Character you don't like is in, it's biased Sakurai adding the characters he likes who are totally unworthy. Character you like isn't a fighter, Sakurai excluded them as a direct insult to them and that's the only reason. No room for a game director making decisions based on game design apparently.
If a character is included in a way that isn't being a fighter, that's deemed an insult worse than full on exclusion. People were seriously arguing a character with two separate boss fights in story mode and an entire stage featuring them as a prominent part is the victim of bias against them because they're not playable. Gee I'd love some of that hatred for my favorites.
The apex of this was when people used a chair in the background of one video and claimed it was a teaser for the next character. It wasn't, and people were genuinely confused by the fact that a chair was simply a chair.
Love hearing about this stuff from fandom corners I'm not overly familiar with--thank you for sharing! It's wild how these dynamics really are replicated across the board.
I blame Swifties for a lot of this tbh. And she's only encouraged them by actually breadcrumbing them with esoteric hints as to who her songs were about and refusing to address anything directly.
Also TIL the NYT published a Gaylor article last year omg
She's definitely been an early adopter of that--and there's no way to claim she/TSHQ doesn't know what her fans are speculating about, considering their heavy Tumblr presence. The siloing of fandom groups has really made it easy for HQs to play into it.
Sometimes I'll randomly remember that they published it and have to stare into space for a good 5 minutes.
The pro wrestling community is definitely rife with this; sometimes it feels like the forensic nature of analyzing egos, motivations, competition etc is more of a focus that the matches themselves. Sometimes it definitely feels like that's all "switched off" when a good match happens, and we're forcibly ripped back into taking the match at face value, which is an interesting indicator of the quality of the match.
I love this. The idea of "paratext" is deeply resonant; as it seems that received opinion on certain cultural objects from the past carries much more weight than the output of the objects themselves, viewed (or heard) in isolation.
It explains a lot to me. Thank you again for bringing it up.
Love this. The Gaylor fans come to mind.
Definitely, though the Swifties in general have a pretty good lock on it--I remember when palm trees in her instagram posts were supposedly signaling an album title or something? Or it was a countdown? I've lost track of the amount of connected dots that amounted to nothing.
'Drillable' is an interesting way of putting it, because with this kind of 'investigative analysis' you can keep drilling down without ever reaching the 'core' — instead you just keep going through an endless surface layer of paratext, fanlore, cosmetic trivia, &c. (If it were still the blessed '90s I'd start talking about fractals now.)
100% -- and what Jenkins pointed out that I think it very relevant is that crowdsourced answers/theories will always be more advanced than what a writer's room with industry limitations can come up with, which means that even if you get to "the core" it probably won't be satisfying; also why there's so much disappointment with mystery box shows.
I know this is a bit of a silly reaction, but something that really clicked for me reading this is, "oh, *that's* why Geoguessr is so popular - because it gamifies the way people already interact with media."
Smash Bros has developed something like this. People have really latched on to the director, Masahiro Sakurai, like he's part of the game itself. Character you don't like is in, it's biased Sakurai adding the characters he likes who are totally unworthy. Character you like isn't a fighter, Sakurai excluded them as a direct insult to them and that's the only reason. No room for a game director making decisions based on game design apparently.
If a character is included in a way that isn't being a fighter, that's deemed an insult worse than full on exclusion. People were seriously arguing a character with two separate boss fights in story mode and an entire stage featuring them as a prominent part is the victim of bias against them because they're not playable. Gee I'd love some of that hatred for my favorites.
The apex of this was when people used a chair in the background of one video and claimed it was a teaser for the next character. It wasn't, and people were genuinely confused by the fact that a chair was simply a chair.
Love hearing about this stuff from fandom corners I'm not overly familiar with--thank you for sharing! It's wild how these dynamics really are replicated across the board.
I blame Swifties for a lot of this tbh. And she's only encouraged them by actually breadcrumbing them with esoteric hints as to who her songs were about and refusing to address anything directly.
Also TIL the NYT published a Gaylor article last year omg
She's definitely been an early adopter of that--and there's no way to claim she/TSHQ doesn't know what her fans are speculating about, considering their heavy Tumblr presence. The siloing of fandom groups has really made it easy for HQs to play into it.
Sometimes I'll randomly remember that they published it and have to stare into space for a good 5 minutes.
The pro wrestling community is definitely rife with this; sometimes it feels like the forensic nature of analyzing egos, motivations, competition etc is more of a focus that the matches themselves. Sometimes it definitely feels like that's all "switched off" when a good match happens, and we're forcibly ripped back into taking the match at face value, which is an interesting indicator of the quality of the match.
I love this. The idea of "paratext" is deeply resonant; as it seems that received opinion on certain cultural objects from the past carries much more weight than the output of the objects themselves, viewed (or heard) in isolation.
It explains a lot to me. Thank you again for bringing it up.