Episode 113: Waffle House Is a Reylo
In Episode 113, Flourish and Elizabeth look at brand social media accounts’ relationships with fandom, from direct appeals to adopting the persona of a fan. When a musical, a breakfast restaurant, or a streaming service tweets about a Star Wars ship, what exactly do the people managing these accounts hope to achieve? They also answer a listener question about private vs. public fannish spaces online—and unload their feelings about Tumblr’s new group chat feature.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license. The cover image is by Mbrickn, used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
[00:01:07]
[00:01:52] Big ol’ correction! We discuss two Percy Jackson tweets in this conversation, one of which had nothing to do with Percy Jackson and the other of which was ragging on the Percy Jackson movies…but we didn’t fact-check our memories of the tweet and there was actually just one:
We stand by everything we said in the episode with respect to social media behavior, but we should not malign the Percy Jackson Twitter person, who was totally not just posting a fannish non sequitur. 😂
[00:04:40] If you wanna know about Tumblr’s new group chat feature but don’t wanna log into Tumblr to find out about it, The Verge has you covered.
[00:06:56] “Someone whose Tumblr you’ve blocked is in this group chat.” Truly, truly it could not be messier.
[00:13:03] The conversation with the founder of 8chan that Elizabeth is referring to was on WNYC, “The Battle To Keep 8Chan Offline.”
[00:14:38] For more on the topic of public and private fandom, we recommend Episode 89 “Rukmini Pande” and Episode 91 “Casey Fiesler.”
[00:19:49] In case you missed it, Elizabeth’s most viral tweet ever:
[00:20:00] Our interstitial music is “As I Was Saying” by Lee Rosevere from Music for Podcasts 4, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:20:28] We interviewed Jackson Bird in Episode 9, “The Will It Waffle Radio Hour.”
[00:21:29] The BBC Three account first tweeted about Johnlock:
They eventually progressed to Stucky et al:
[00:39:45] We talked a lot about the measurability of stanning with Keidra Chaney in Episode 101.
[00:41:01] Netflix deleted their Reylo tweet, but don’t worry, we’ve got receipts:
[00:48:30] The particular ad Flourish is talking about isn’t easily found on YouTube, but it’s a variant on the award-winning Volkswagen commercial:
The John Slattery ad is in the same vein, but extra delightful because, y’know, it features Roger Sterling:
[00:55:20] Come see us at GeekGirlCon—here’s a list of our events!
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #113, which I have titled—I’m gonna take credit for this—“Waffle House Is a Reylo.”
FK: [laughs] Well, I mean, is Waffle House still a Reylo? I guess so, yeah.
ELM: Waffle House was a Reylo. I’m calling it, Waffle House is a—
FK: …be a Reylo. [ELM laughs] As you might have, I hope, guessed from that, our topic today is going to be brands and the way they sort of interact with and co-opt fandom.
ELM: The actual instigating tweet for that is there was a famous, was it last year I wanna say? I think it was last year.
FK: Yeah, sounds right.
ELM: And Waffle House tweeted, it was a picture of chocolate chips and syrup I wanna say.
FK: Yeah, some kind of like light colored syrup? And it was like the dark…
ELM: Blending together and…
FK: The light of the Force.
ELM: It was about, the expression was—oh, on waffles. And then it was like, do you remember what the wording was?
FK: I don’t remember the wording. It was something about Reylo and it was, it was just—but the thing was they doubled down and they just kept like tweeting about Reylo. Like with Reylos. For a long time.
ELM: Right. So I think, that was the most absurd example we could think of. But the instigating incident, it wasn’t an incident—it was a tweet that like haunted me for this episode—was a few weeks ago, so actually I saw this musical, which I enjoyed, the Percy Jackson musical, The Lighting Thief, on Broadway. The account on Twitter seems to be adopting a sort of fun brand personality, which is something that happens across Twitter, right? Like…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. You have a brand personality, a lot of people are like “Let’s go be fun!” Cool.
ELM: Right, and it’s, a lot of people find it very tiring as I do, but there’s something specific about trying to—when that brand persona is meant to be quote-unquote “in fandom,” and kind of speaking that sort of fandom language. And so this Percy Jackson account tweeted that it was like a meme comparing, when the new Star Wars trailer came out, comparing a shot from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice with the shot of Kylo Ren in the new trailer. [FK laughs] Nothing to do with Percy Jackson! And it was comparing Pride and Prejudice with Reylo.
FK: And they just didn’t have like a—there was no peg to Percy Jackson.
ELM: No. Literally no. No.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And, and I was just like, “What is going on, Flourish!?” And then that, that turned into like a good explanation of what brands—you, you work on this stuff. We can’t talk about your clients specifically but you know this space really well. You know what people are thinking.
FK: It’s true. It’s true.
ELM: And I don’t—what are people, like, what’s going on here?!
FK: [laughs] Wait wait wait, before we dive into this, we have—we have to—
ELM: No! We can’t just say like “Waffle House is a Reylo” and then be like “More on that later.” No. We have to give some kind of context. And this is the context.
FK: So that’s the context…
ELM: This is the context!
FK: And then more on that later.
ELM: Oh, all right, fine.
FK: We have this super delightful letter that we wanna read!
ELM: It’s an ask on Tumblr, I think a letter is…
FK: Oh whatever, it’s a letter. It’s an ask letter. A lask.
ELM: A short letter.
FK: [laughing] An atter.
ELM: This is, this is from Paracelsus Caspari [cas-PAR-ee]. I don’t know if that’s how you say it. Paracelsus Caspari [CAS-par-ee]?
FK: I think “Cas-PAR-ee.”
ELM: All right. Who wrote, and says: “Hi, E and F! I’m in the process of listening through your back catalog after discovering it through Gavia’s interactions on Twitter. I really enjoy your perspective on fannish properties and fandom as a whole. It’s very refreshing to hear takes that I, as a straight black cis man, would never have been able to see otherwise.
“Getting back on topic, can you elaborate your thoughts on fans quote-unquote ‘migrating’ from social media to private groups like Discord to discuss their interests? Do you feel it’s positive or negative?”
FK: Ooh.
ELM: OK. All right. First, I wanna say how excited I am to have Paracelsus Caspari as a new listener and also like I appreciate, like—I appreciate people coming from different backgrounds and checking out, you know what I mean? Like…
FK: It’s great to know that there are other people from other parts of fandom…
ELM: Delightful!
FK: …who are showing up being like “HELLO!”
ELM: So thank you, and we are excited to talk to you about stuff and curious about your perspectives on stuff too! As far as this one goes, I have some feelings.
FK: My feelings I will admit are related to Tumblr’s new group chat feature now. This, this came in before the group chat feature.
ELM: So are mine.
FK: I have more feelings [laughs] now that there’s a group chat feature!
ELM: OK. Very briefly, a few days ago from when we’re recording this, Tumblr introduced something they called group chats. I’m not sure why they called it that because a group chat is a commonly-used phrase for when you have like a, a group DM or a text thread. Right? Like, that’s, that’s what…it has a meaning.
FK: And they’re usually private, these are not private.
ELM: A group chat—
FK: You can put like 100 people on like a, on like a chat room thing…
ELM: A group chat, is there any time when the term “group chat” is not a private thing?
FK: No, I mean, I can’t think of it.
ELM: Right. So this is more like a forum.
FK: I would say it’s more like a chat room?
ELM: OK.
FK: Chat room.
ELM: Define, how are you saying the difference between a chat room and forum. Chat room you have to like, enter the room, even if you can see it from the outside, but…
FK: You sort of have to enter the room and then also when you’re in the room it’s like a sort of a live conversation more than like a forum, which tends to be a little more like longer responses, posts, you know.
ELM: And then you come to the post later, like a Reddit thread.
FK: Like a message board, right?
ELM: Right, OK.
FK: One of these is more…and this is, I think, in my experience so far, intended to be more live. Right?
ELM: Right. So, OK. The rules are, 100 people capped. You—
FK: One person is the Dictator-For-Life.
ELM: Right. So I wanna set up, I don’t know.
FK: Fansplaining group chat!
ELM: It’s the Fansplaining Tumblr chat.
FK: We’re not doing this by the way.
ELM: No, absolutely not. All right. Fansplaining chat, and I’m the admin, and so you wanna apply and I get full say whether you can come in or out.
FK: Yep.
ELM: Beyond that it seems like your only power is ejection.
FK: Right.
ELM: I can’t actually moderate what you say or delete your comments…
FK: But I can kick you out.
ELM: But I can say get out.
FK: But I also can’t privately message you, I mean, maybe I can through like, I can send you messages through Tumblr and stuff, but like, not within the chat interface.
ELM: Right.
FK: It’s not like there’s an option where you can be like—and there’s also not an option for you to like put rules up or anything, which is another way it’s different from a lot of chat rooms or message boards. There’s no way for you to express, like, “Here are the community standards,” because, I guess, they’re thinking that it’s more like a group chat on your cell phone in which you stop chatting with one of your friends.
ELM: I don’t know what they’re thinking.
FK: Except it’s public!!
ELM: Right.
FK: And, and there’s people who are asking to come in, you don’t necessarily know!
ELM: Right. Anyone can see it, I found a post where someone screenshotted they tried to enter one and it said “Someone else in this group is someone you have blocked.”
FK: UGH!
ELM: “Do you still wanna come in?”
FK: MESSY!
ELM: They captioned it, like, “This is so messy!” [laughs] It’s so messy! So there’s that, and this is public to—everyone on Tumblr can see the contents of these chats. And then the messages vanish up to 24 hours.
FK: Ughhhh!
ELM: Which is additionally interesting, and I, you know, I have mixed—you know, like, I think there is a place for, I’m not opposed to the ephemerality of certain platforms, obviously it’s integral to things like Snapchat and there’s something interesting to that. But it just, so, and they’re, kinda seems centered around topics. And I understand, it’s just interesting as a Tumblr user thinking about what I would like from this platform and this isn’t it and I’m just trying to put myself in the mindset of what it might look like from someone for whom this might be it? And it’s like, if you, if you really browse tags a lot and you wish you could have a little conversation around a tag?
But for fandom, that’s not really how people interact in fandom. You like follow other people who seem to be reblogging stuff you like, and then maybe you start talking to them, you know. It’s not like, it’s not like I would just go into the chat room for my ship. Like, you know. We already are setting up—we already have these structures and they’re around people, they’re not around topics, you know what I mean?
FK: For me it actually, a lot of it makes sense except for the public part. You know? Because to me it would make sense, OK yeah, actually, if I can start group conversations with people and like hang out with them via Tumblr, people who I already know via Tumblr, sure! Like, maybe that’s actually kinda nice. Great! You know?
ELM: But that’s 100% different than what it actually is.
FK: Because—no, because it’s public. A lot of the interface stuff I’m like “OK, fine.” But then because it’s public…
ELM: You’re saying if you could actually make a group chat, which is more like Discord, you know? Or Slack, you know.
FK: Exactly.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Right, or even if it were a case where you couldn’t see the content. I mean, for me even, even if it is surrounding topics but you can’t see the content until you’ve been invited in?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know? That seems better to me. The thing, the thing that, my first response was “Wow, they really invented something that was like designed for peak drama.” Because you can have 100 people but no more, which is just enough people to spread some really terrible rumor about what happened, and also everything disappears after 24 hours, which makes it impossible to like, prove or disprove anything, cause like “Oh! I got screenshots, man!” You know, I’m just like, imagining the worst fandom wars that I’ve been part of.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And like, this—this is perfectly designed to slip in and just create those, like, primordial ooze out of which real war can…any, it just seems bad. I really don’t like that.
ELM: Hard agree! Yeah, I just, it’s, it’s a shame too because, I mean, I thought—whatever. No one has to engage with this. But I have been thinking a lot about Tumblr since their purchase by Automattic, which is the company that owns WordPress, and I’m really excited about that change in direction for them and…I don’t know.
I’ve just been feeling like, sort of like, and with all the memes around that purchase being like “We completely devalued this website and they’re gonna have to drag us away kicking and screaming,” like, kinda solidify the people who are still on there. Like, “They’re not shutting this thing that we’re all trapped on down,” you know. So it really felt like the platform has a little more stability than it might have had six months ago, just because people are like “Well, we drove this thing into the ground and we’re still here,” you know, as opposed to like “Who knows what’s going to happen,” et cetera.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And so I, I don’t necessarily think this is gonna be detrimental, but I, I just don’t—I’m just not sure what, if anyone is gonna use it beyond, you know, a short period of time.
FK: Yeah, I mean, I guess to me I feel sad? Because it’s like, I would like to have a reason to start using Tumblr again. You know what I mean, like, there are things I liked about it and I’m definitely going to—
ELM: I’ve got news, Flourish: it’s called gifsets.
FK: I would like to have a reason to start using Tumblr again beyond the reasons I already have that are obviously too weak to get me back on there, right. You know what I mean? There’s certain aspects of fandom interaction that I think I would like to do on Tumblr that I’m currently doing on Twitter, and some of those things are reflected in here, but like, in such a way that I’m never gonna use it, you know? I mean, not beyond like looking at it, not unless some kind of social norms develop that are really different from what I think is likely to happen.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: So like, I mean, and never say never. There’s been lots of other stuff that has been fundamentally broken that people have found ways to make great, so who knows, right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But, you know, yeah. I mean, I just—I really don’t want to become a person who spends more time on Reddit than Tumblr, and my life is trending that way, and…
ELM: Oh no, should we have an intervention?!
FK: Some subreddits are really well-moderated! [ELM sighs] You don’t need to have an intervention.
ELM: This is your side of fandom that we’ll just never connect on and I have come to accept that.
FK: Yeah, it’s just some of the functionality, like—not that Reddit’s functionality is that great, but I don’t know. Some of the norms about like, moderation and stuff, you know? It can be nice.
ELM: I’m not, I’m not trying to like trash Reddit, and actually I often bring them up when people are asking about, about conversations and forums and things. And that, how some subreddits are actually one of the only spaces in the big social media platforms that are modeling good behavior and setting standards, and Twitter’s not doing this, and frankly Tumblr’s not doing it, Facebook sure as hell isn’t doing it. So.
FK: Can you, can you believe that we are now like citing Reddit as a paragon of moderation? [laughing] After like—I mean if you told me this like eight years ago I would have been like “Shut your damn lyin’ mouth.”
ELM: I mean, well, I kinda can in the sense of like…maybe this is giving them too much credit, but like, I don’t know. I just listened to a conversation with the former, the founder of 8chan on, and I don’t know, I don’t wanna go too much into it, but basically it seems like you know, he’s now one of the loudest people—8chan has been taken offline, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Which 8chan was just like the extreme hateful…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Spinoff of 4chan, right, you know?
FK: Right. The place that you went when 4chan wasn’t enough of a pit for you.
ELM: 4chan was like, “No more Nazis!” And then all the Nazis were like, “OK! New place!” Right. So, and I don’t know if you’ve been following this but the guy, the founder had like a fight with this other guy and so then he left and now he’s the biggest proponent…and it was interesting because it was part of like, you know, in this interview they were like, “Are you really worried about white supremacist violence, or are you just mad at this other guy?” And he was like “Look, why can’t it be both?” And I was like, “I appreciate his honesty.” And like…
FK: Fair!
ELM: You know, whatever gets a good outcome. But it was, it was interesting to think about and I think about it too with Reddit, this kind of like, they banned certain subreddits a few years ago.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Right? And it’s just like, there’s this thing on the right where it’s all about irony, and if I can say this really offensive thing ironically, and how far can I push it. But I do think for a lot of people there actually is a line. And if you, you know, there is a cliff that people can fall over and say “Well, actually,” you know, “No. We didn’t want it to…” “Well, actually, words matter.” Right?
FK: Yeah! [laughs]
ELM: And I think that line does exist for people.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: And so yeah. Reddit, I can see how they can say—and you can go back and say “Well, you were OK with things just on the other side of the line and now you’re…” and it’s like, “Yeah, they were. Sorry, they have a line. It is what it is.” And I think we should be grateful there is one, and yeah, maybe we want the line to be a little less close to the edge of, you know. Hate speech or inciting violence or things like that. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, totally. Totally.
ELM: I don’t, I don’t know why I went down this rabbit hole. I just have a lot of feelings about social media.
FK: I mean so do I!
ELM: [laughing] You just sounded like John Mulaney! So do I! That was good. Like, going back to this question, though, this is something I think that you’ll find—you, Paracelsus, will find, I don’t know how far you’ve gotten. I would recommend our conversation with Casey Fiesler and our conversation with Rukmini Pande from, both were around the beginning of this year. If you’re going chronologically, then you haven’t gotten there yet, but I think they both in very nuanced ways talk about the pluses and minuses.
FK: Yeah, for sure.
ELM: Which is actually how he wrote it in this message, it wasn’t positives or negatives but it was plus signs and minus signs, so that’s what I should have said. [both laugh] But you know, this kind of idea of sacrificing safety on the big open social media platforms, sacrificing moderating abilities, but then in a closed space sacrificing diversity of opinion, including potentially opinions that are more progressive than your own.
FK: Right.
ELM: And the ability to kinda bury your head in the sand if you don’t wanna confront your own biases. Obviously all that is true. And I don’t really, I…I still, I have yet to see a sort of compromise of all of that. To me, I just, it just seems like there are so many of these things that actually are kinda binaries.
FK: Well, it’s also hard to say do we need a compromise or do we need to have lots of different kinds of spaces, you know? Because when you think about it, like, in your daily life, right—in your physical, like, meatspace life.
ELM: Don’t use that word, I’m a vegetarian.
FK: Meatspace! You’re made of meat! We’re all made of meat. Anyway.
ELM: Yeah, I’m the vegetarian so I should feel proud here actually.
FK: Yeah, no! Right? I don’t know why you’re being mad that I’m saying that we’re all made of meat.
ELM: Bonespace, Flourish. Bonespace.
FK: Tendonspace! Anyway, in physical life, we have different kinds of spaces in which different kinds of provocation and different kinds of interaction are OK in different ways, right? And in fact, like, one of the—I mean, one of the things that I find about now, living in a city, having lived in suburbs and having relatives who live in, you know, rural areas, some of the questions of like where you like to live have to do with who you want to have around you. How much provocation you want in your daily life, you know, versus how much you want to have like, spaces in which you can control what’s going on or in which you’re like—right?
So there’s these, these things which shape our society are some of these very questions. And I personally think it’s healthy to have a mix of different kinds of spaces, and I think most people would say that, that you know, no one wants to quote “live in a bubble,” but you also need to have some, some things. You don’t want your home to be full of people who are yelling at you about how you’re bad. But maybe it is important for you to sometimes, like, walk by a person on the street protesting something, you know, and to like, hear what they have to say. We need both! You can’t have just one.
So I think that, um, obviously that’s not a one-to-one correlation, but I think that we might—a lot of times people really do talk about this in binaristic terms but I think that our online lives are similar to our physical lives.
ELM: Yeah, I think, I think maybe the difference—I think that’s a really good point, I think one of the differences might be that it’s not, actually in my physical life when I think about these things it feels a lot more grey, you know? Like all of the spaces feel grey. When I go into the office or whatever…well, I don’t have an office right now. But when I had an office, you know, I would be exposed to certain ways of people talking and, and there were things about it I liked and things I didn’t. When I got to church.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And they frame things certain ways and I’m like “Mm, I don’t love it, but also…” You know. If I feel like they’re not being radical enough or whatever and it’s just like “Oh, forgiveness!” And I’m like “Oh, fine, whatever.” [FK laughs] I’m such a good churchgoer. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, I have the same—yeah.
ELM: You know, when you’re there and you’re like “Oh, I wish you would go a little farther!” Whatever. “You’re not going far enough!” or “You’re going too far!” in certain spaces. But most of my real life it’s like, it’s all in between, and when I think of my online life it is all—it’s very all-or-nothing. It is: am I just broadcasting or am I very quietly [whispers] talking to people. You know what I mean? Like, and it’s just, it is weird that I can’t find that sort of individual—the more in-between spaces that I do have in my daily life.
FK: That’s interesting. I mean, I kind of wonder whether those…I mean, this is, this is also like one of the benefits of having spaces like moderated forums that are sort of in-between, right? That are neither total broadcast but do have some moderation but are still like a large number of people. Versus like a group chat or a small Discord, right? Also like size of group and so on? I don’t know. I, yeah. I don’t know the answer to any of this! But it’s exciting to think about and I hope that like, you know, the internet will continue to grow and change and get to better places with some of this stuff over time.
ELM: Yes, yes I agree.
FK: [laughs] OK OK OK. All right. So, I think that that more or less covers it? Listen to back catalog, those are our thoughts, and thank you for listening, it’s a real pleasure to get a new, a new listener asking questions!
ELM: Yes, absolutely! Send us all the questions and all your thoughts. We want to hear more and really appreciate it.
FK: All right. Should we take a very quick break before we go dive into a lake of waffle syrup?
ELM: OK. I don’t know—is this cause you’re from the west coast, you call it “waffle syrup”?
FK: No no no, it’s maple syrup, I was gonna say like pancake syrup or something? I don’t know, and then I couldn’t remember what word I mean, and then I was like “Waffle House! There we go, that’s the word. Waffle syrup!”
ELM: I like how angry I got [laughs] on behalf of Canada and New England there. I was like “What’s wrong with you?!”
FK: [laughing] No no no, don’t worry, this is not like the sneakers/tennis shoes debacle.
ELM: Don’t torture me!
FK: We all call it maple syrup, I just couldn’t remember the word.
ELM: OK. Maple syrup. Yes. Yes.
FK: All right.
[Interstitial music]
FK: OK! We’re back, and it’s time to waffle.
ELM: Aw, I just got a, you know Jackson Bird’s theme song for Will It Waffle?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Jackson Bird, one of our very first guests!
FK: One of our very first guests.
ELM: Yeah!
FK: I was thinking about that too. I was like “Oh, waffles!”
ELM: [singing] Will it waffle, will it waffle? [laughs] Shout-out to Jackson!
FK: Reylo.
ELM: Not—
FK: It will apparently waffle.
ELM: Jackson, that’s not your shout-out, just “Reylo.” No. Absolutely not. All right, so here’s, here’s what I’m gonna say: All right. Here’s my observations. I do not work in this space. You work in this space. You tell me. All right. So back in the day when, maybe, 10—not 10 years ago. But as social media was really being established. You would mostly see brands…when I say brands I mean like television shows or, the object of, the account for the object of fandom, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Doing more of a broadcasting sort of, you know. “New episode!” Or whatever. “Here’s some content, here’s an interview!” Or whatever, I don’t know. “With our star!”
The time in my fannish life I noticed a shift was the rise of the BBC Three Twitter account in 2014.
FK: Yeah, I think that’s around the right time.
ELM: Yes. So this one particularly relevant to me. When I was like in the very depths, almost in Hell, that’s how deep it was, of the drama going on in the Sherlock fandom. And at that time, the BBC Three Twitter account started tweeting in a way that I would describe it, the tone was, the account itself was a fangirl. And a shipper. Not just a Johnlock shipper, but specifically a Johnlock shipper, and like, BBC Three would re-air Sherlock and they would like live-tweet it from a Johnlock shipper’s perspective. So a lot of people were like “This is proof!” And I was like “I don’t think so, I think this is BBC Three…”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: “…knowing how to get engagement.” Cause obviously it was working. And I do remember that account continued, and probably does continue, to have this fannish tone as a shipper like, you know, a Stucky shipper.
FK: Right.
ELM: This account, BBC Three, ships lots of ships.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: You know? And it was that kind of—it has always made me uncomfortable because I do think people see it as some sort of clue.
FK: Right.
ELM: In that particular context.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But it just seems like that was one of the, like, founding—that’s the model that we find many of these accounts in, including things like the freakin’ Waffle House, which has nothing fannish to even sell you, they just wanna create this persona of, you know, all these brands want to be like this fun cool relatable guy, and in these cases this is the fun cool relatable fangirl.
FK: Right.
ELM: Ugh. So go ahead. That’s, that’s my foundation. That’s where I’m coming from and I hate it. Thanks, I hate it.
FK: OK. Yeah. So, yeah. OK. So a few things. One of these things is, I think that you’re right from a fandom perspective about the BBC Three Twitter, I think that from a like, social media perspective people are more likely to say, like, Arby’s or maybe Denny’s or something like that. Because there were some food brands at one point—not in 2014 necessarily, but who were like…
ELM: I would definitely say, yeah, Arby’s and Denny’s as the arbiters of, especially on Tumblr, the arbiters of like the cool brand, the cool person running the brand account, like, “Oh wow, Arby’s, Arby’s Twitter, you’re deep, man,” that kind of thing.
FK: So like, so like, and I mean obviously there have been lots of other brands that have done this. They don’t all go down this sort of fandom direction, right? Some of them are like very memelordy, other ones are like…God, what’s that, there’s one that’s like, you know, “Smash the state.”
ELM: Is Arby’s the one that’s really nihilistic?
FK: I don’t remember. They all blur together.
ELM: I hate that I know this.
FK: Right, OK. But the point is that at a certain point, people—OK. So like, when you think about like people having, like, a brand on social media. And I’m not sure, I’m not a historian of this stuff, but this is like the impression I’ve gotten, because I’ve been tracking this for the past 10+ years, right? You’ve got brands on social media, and social media is intended for interaction. So you need to interact and you sound like a fuckin’ doofus, pardon my French, if you’re like interacting in serious brand voice at all times. Right? You need to be able to, like, respond to people, maybe not always like “Hello, sir! Thank you for your input.” Right? Like, I think that this is a pretty reasonable thing for someone to think.
ELM: OK.
FK: As a first step, right? All right. So that’s your first step.
ELM: All right.
FK: That’s your first step. It’s like the road to Hell, paved with good intentions.
ELM: OK.
FK: And so then you get people who are doing this and they’re like “OK, we’re gonna do that.” And then someone goes “OK why don’t we—if people are interacting through talking in X way or Y way,” right, “why don’t we just do that too?” Right? “Why don’t we take part in the conversation, create a persona, and engage in that way,” and now that too I don’t think is great, that’s the “shut up, brand” kind of interaction.
ELM: Sure.
FK: However, I think that you can see pretty easily how you go from “We want to respond to consumers not like robots but like there’s a real person here,” to “maybe we should actually try and have a persona be our brand.” And then you go from that and you see that when you push it further, you go to like memelord place or nihilistic place, you get attention from that. OK. So that’s, that’s how you sort of get sucked down that way. Because I will remind you that generally speaking, on social media, people who run those accounts are sending like a report on what happened on social media—first of all they’re tweeting a lot, right?
ELM: Yes.
FK: They’re posting a ton. So you have to have stuff all the time and sometime it’s not very good and it doesn’t matter because cadence matters more than whether it’s good or not, right?
ELM: Sure.
FK: And, they’re going to ultimately—everything they do is just going to be sent up the chain to someone who looks at a one-page sheet and wants to see all the numbers going up.
ELM: Right.
FK: Right?
ELM: Oh, side note, while we’re talking about this, this person is not an intern!
FK: No, they are not an intern! These are people who are probably underpaid, but they are definitely not interns and they are professionals.
ELM: Yes! So, fight the good fight, anyone, any time anyone says “Well, some intern’s gettin’ fired today…”
FK: It is not an intern.
ELM: This is a job that people have. They are professionals.
FK: Right.
ELM: Nothing wrong with interns. I’m not hating on interns. But like…
FK: No, but this is not something you give to an intern. The intern might be permitted to write some copy which will then be edited by at least four or five people before it goes out.
ELM: And approved!
FK: And approved!
ELM: Yeah! Also this goes—can I just say this goes for publications as well?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Unless it’s like a really small, you know, a tiny publication or something.
FK: Right.
ELM: But like, an intern is not writing the tweets at the New York Times. Like…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: Please, please.
FK: Now it’s possible, it’s not gonna be an intern ever writing it. You might have a, you’re gonna have a real person writing replies. Right? Like, that’s gonna be something that’s not necessarily completely approved, right.
ELM: Sure.
FK: Depends on what it is, right. Different, different accounts have higher or lower tolerances for this. So like, one of the reasons you have a lot of really stiff terrible movie accounts that really ought to be better, right? When you’re like “Why are you so stiff and horrible? You out of anyone should have license to be interactive and engaging with your fans,” right?
ELM: Right right right.
FK: Well, it’s because a lot of movie studios have things set up such that their agencies have to write all the tweets they’re ever gonna…twop?
ELM: [laughs] Nope.
FK: I don’t know. Lost that one! Anyway, they have their agencies write this list of all the tweets they’re ever gonna post and submit them and get those approved, which includes replies. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah.
FK: That’s changing a little bit now, which is probably why we’re seeing such an uptick in the “ugh, brand” thing, because now people are like, instead of having to get like your internet language completely approved by everyone sometimes people are allowed to respond with a meme or whatever a little more, because this is becoming more normal. So there’s a process.
Anyway, point being though you get to this point where now you’re seeing numbers go up, right? And people are approving it and you’ve got someone who doesn’t know what these internet things are, but they see that they’re getting more traction and more attention and maybe press and they’re like “Clearly you’re doin’ something right,” right.
So then, then think about like, a brand like—no offense to Percy Jackson, but like, Percy Jackson. Which is a musical which has a limited space in which it can, like, compete, right? It’s trying to get Percy Jackson fans but Percy Jackson fans are like, spread out all over, it’s been a long time, the movies kind of sucked and people didn’t like them. I shouldn’t say that, I haven’t actually seen them, but I know that the author hates them and fans didn’t like them.
ELM: How many movies were there?
FK: I think there was one and people didn’t like it?
ELM: Oh. [laughs]
FK: I don’t know. The purported movie series. I don’t know much about this, all I know is that it’s a famous case where the author hated it, right.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: So whether they were good or not it sort of doesn’t matter [laughs] because the fandom rejected them, right? So, OK. So like, they’re sort of starting from the bottom in a certain way—not at the bottom because they’re a Broadway show, but they sort of don’t have a lot that they can really do to spark new attention. Right?
Particularly not if they can’t get, like, the people. Like, Hamilton could do it cause you could get everyone—cause Lin-Manuel Miranda wants to get everyone to sing and stuff, right? But if you don’t have that kind of buy-in, what are you gonna do, how are you gonna fill up this time?
ELM: Sure.
FK: And so then you start building a persona, and then you go “Oh, well, Percy Jackson, it was kinda fannish, what are those people into now? Star Wars probably. Holy shit Reylo. Reylos will come and show up for anything that you post,” which is true. “Great.” And that’s, that’s the mindset, because the person who’s running that account really just needs their numbers to go up, would be my guess.
ELM: So, is the logic of this, this sort of “throw as much to the wall and see, like, the one…”
FK: Absolutely because the thing is that like, everyone forgets a bad tweet, right? Unless it’s epically bad, in which case it gets you numbers because it’s epically bad.
ELM: It’s called getting ratioed, Flourish.
FK: [laughs] Yeah yeah yeah, right, but I mean, all I’m saying is that like, you know, if you get ratioed and everyone hates it and you’re a brand, you’re probably gonna have articles written about it. Which may not be your ideal state, but it’s at least attention.
ELM: Oh God, it’s so cynical. Yeah. I mean, right. It’s this idea of like, if you can attract a lot of attention and build up good will for the Percy Jackson account, but a small small small fraction of those people might actually be people who want, also would like to see that musical.
FK: Right, absolutely. But on the other hand…
ELM: It’s more than zero.
FK: Exactly. And, and—
ELM: Casting a giant net and trying to catch a couple of the right kind of fish.
FK: Exactly, exactly. And there’s really, to some extent there’s not much you can do if you’re not, if you don’t have like ad spend and so on to like, attract the right people, and you don’t already have interest. That’s why people do this.
ELM: I mean…I obviously don’t work in this space so I don’t want to just say it’s easier than it is. But in this particular example, there’s really, musical theater fandom right now? That itself is so robust. And maybe the thing is like, well, if your musical isn’t Be More Chill or Dear Evan Hansen or one of these other ones, you know? The ones that are real like, teen theater fandom faves.
FK: Right.
ELM: But there have been a bunch of examples in recent years of shows that have literally come to Broadway for this, because of this very organic, very earnest fan interest. And this is kind of a top-down sort of, you know, those are like expert fishermen who, you know what I mean? They’re fostering this very specific fishing technique, and this is a very top-down, “We’re gonna throw the biggest net possible and try to catch,” you can’t convince me there’s a connection…
FK: But do you know that they’re not doing that too?
ELM: In addition?
FK: Yeah! I mean, how—
ELM: I don’t know that! You think they’re also doing that?
FK: Have you looked at their whole thing? Because it totally would make sense to me that they would have strategy that includes trying to attract people—like, cause, right, a balanced…I’m gonna sound like a weirdo here, but it seems to me, in my experience, that a balanced strategy is one that includes appealing to your base, right, the people who are there all the time, and then trying to reach out to people who you have a strong sense are related, and then having a few of these things that are like, “How can we reach beyond this?” You know. “How can we get attention in a space that we wouldn’t normally get attention?” So I’m not saying, maybe all they do are tweets like the Reylo tweet, but…
ELM: Oh yeah, I have no idea. I’m not, I don’t wanna malign the Percy Jackson social media team.
FK: I would say having one of these tweets to me is like, it’s more…it may be mockable, you know, it may be totally a non sequitur, but to me it seems like a…it seems like you could be a quite smart social media person and still choose to gamble on like, “Hey you know, I bet this will get some traction in a space full of people, some of whom probably read Percy Jackson once, and why not, right, it’s one tweet.”
ELM: Right.
FK: “It costs me nothing. Everyone’s gonna forget about it tomorrow,” except for us, you and me, I mean.
ELM: Clearly immortalizing it in a podcast episode.
FK: We’re immortalizing it. But most people are gonna forget it, you know?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: So, that said I think that that’s quite different than the like, Waffle House is a Reylo brand persona taking that on, right.
ELM: Right. Well…not necessarily. I mean I think Percy Jackson Lightning Thief musical Twitter account is a Reylo also, from the way that the tweet was presented.
FK: But that’s one, what I’m saying is that one of these is a single tweet, and the other thing is…
ELM: Do you also know the Percy Jackson…
FK: No, you’re right, I don’t know but I’m just saying…
ELM: …strategy? They might be a Reylo!
FK: Maybe it is, maybe it is a Reylo. But, let’s just pretend it’s not for a minute, because I do think that there are accounts that will do like one post like that, and then there’s other accounts like the Waffle House account or the BBC Three account which are like “We’re putting on a persona.”
ELM: Right. This is a person and that person ships these things. OK. So, how do you feel about this as a Reylo?
FK: [laughs] I mean, I don’t, I don’t…
ELM: Do you feel used?
FK: No.
ELM: Do you feel pandered to?
FK: A little.
ELM: Does it cheapen your love?
FK: No.
ELM: Of that forbidden romance?
FK: Honestly I feel so cynical about everything to do with social media anyway that like, there’s just no way that I can even muster up a feeling about this, particularly.
ELM: So my…I don’t feel good about this. But I read it entirely as pandering, and I read people who respond positively to tweets like this as, I, I feel, I judge them. I’m sorry to say, just me personally, I’ll be like “Wow, really. You get joy out of this?” Like, you know? I don’t know if, if all of a sudden Waffle House started shipping my ship, I would not feel validated! I would feel embarrassed.
FK: That’s funny. See I mean I guess my attitude towards it, what I’d say is it’s not feeling validated, because I don’t need Waffle House or anyone else to validate my ship. But sometimes people…
ELM: [laughing] Just take that quote right outta context!
FK: But, but, but, sometimes—sometimes brands post things that I find funny! I don’t know what to say, you know? I’m not gonna be like “what a great brand,” but sometimes I’ll be like “OK, haha,” you know, “like!” Fine! Like, I’m, I’m happy if brands want to make comments about my ship. 90% of the time I’m probably gonna find them beneath notice, 7% of the time I’m gonna find them deeply annoying, and the remaining time I will find them enjoyable! And that’s fine.
ELM: 3% of the time.
FK: I don’t care! 3% of the time, you know?
ELM: I, we are on different pages.
FK: That’s fine.
ELM: Maybe if I was a Reylo and like…American breakfast restaurants were, you know.
FK: But also, OK, to be fair at that point it also felt like such an absurdity, do you know what I mean?
ELM: I enjoyed that tweet a lot, because it was just the like…
FK: Complete absurdity.
ELM: What are we doing?!
FK: Right? I mean, like…I’m just saying, there’s not no joy to be found in this.
ELM: I can’t. [both laughing] Yeah, but that was more, that was more like, I enjoyed that in an artistic sense. In like a kind of a, the grand, grand joke of society sort of way.
FK: Yes! I think that’s, isn’t that what you think about most of the internet?!
ELM: But that’s not how I think about my ship! Not to put, not to be, over-intellectualize shipping or make it serious, but I have sincere feelings about my ships, you know?
FK: I do too! I don’t relate them to what, like, brands say on the internet, and I do think that it’s a little distressing when people really do. You know? I do think that that’s quite distressing, and it’s a thing people do.
ELM: Yeah, it’s just, it’s…I do think with the Reylo stuff and I feel like you’re seeing it a little more K-pop too, because people are just like, sheer numbers and how can we capitalize on this by…
FK: Yes.
ELM: …mentioning them. Oh! Side note, I just walked by my closest bus shelter. Is it a bus shelter if it’s just a little stop with a top on it? Is that a shelter?
FK: Yeah, that’s a shelter. There’s a top!
ELM: Yeah, my closest bus stop. Yeah! It’s got a top! I guess it’s a shelter! It’s true, I’ve stood in there in inclement weather. It’s got, you know how the bus shelters they’ll have this big ad on one side?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: It’s BTS!
FK: Whoa!
ELM: Inviting me to Seoul!
FK: Whoa! You gonna go to Seoul?
ELM: As like, Korea’s official tourism ambassadors or something. And it’s just their smiling faces.
FK: I wanna go to Seoul.
ELM: In a little circle around, yeah! So it’s reached the, my little corner of Brooklyn. In very mainstream capacity.
FK: Right, so when things get really big. But I think also, like…
ELM: That’s not pandering, that’s just straight-up advertising. That was like…
FK: No no, but I mean, I do think that there’s something to connect these two, right…
ELM: Oh OK!
FK: Which is to say that whenever something culturally becomes large, right, people jump on, and I don’t think that…I mean obviously the BBC Three Twitter account knows something about fandom, but I think a lot of times people propose doing stuff and they don’t really know what it means to people. They just know it’s big.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And I think that that’s something that is really important to keep in mind, or, or occasionally one person knows what it means and everyone else doesn’t. I mean, it’s not an intern but someone really does slip things in sometimes, right? Or—it’s just like, the assumption that everyone has the fandom context I think is one of the problems. Because like, that’s not it. That’s not it!
ELM: Wait, who are you saying assumes…
FK: People who get really—who really embrace it and like take it seriously and find validation from, you know? From being mentioned.
ELM: You’re saying people in fandom.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Is it a “senpai noticed us” sort of thing? It’s not even senpai, though. It’s like “the Waffle House noticed us.” Is that the attitude?
FK: I think sometimes, and I think sometimes it’s also like, “Team so-and-so,” right? “We’ve got this on our team and that on our team and the other on our team,” right? And like, I mean, not to say that I’ve never been in that headspace. Like, sure. Sometimes when I really felt passionate about my ship and was like “That other ship sucks and I hate it,” I’ve been in that headspace. I’m not saying that it’s like, you know. I’m not saying I’m too good for this. [laughs] But I do think that it’s like, not great! It’s not a headspace I think we should be in.
ELM: Yeah, it’s funny to me too. I have noticed this particularly doing The Rec Center, how often people in fandom assume that the things in their fandom are like, widely known.
FK: Yeah. Right?
ELM: You know? I remember, I particularly notice this, not to—I was just gonna be like “Not to name names” but I am going to name names. I’ve particularly noticed this with Supernatural in reference to The Rec Center.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Where like, I don’t know anything about Supernatural. I mean I know as much as I do doing this, like, this job. Which is probably more than my parents know about Supernatural, or your, or like, my friends from college…maybe they know more. So I know something, and I actually read two books about Supernatural, so I guess I, that’s fine. But I haven’t seen it.
FK: Yeah, despite all this knowledge about it you’ve never seen it and you don’t know a lot of things about it.
ELM: Oh, I, I truly know nothing! Or almost nothing, about the conversations within the fandom about, what people argue about.
FK: Right.
ELM: And multiple times I’ve had people being like “Oh, I guess you’re on that side.” And I’ll be like, “I don’t even know who that character is! Is that the brother or the angel?” I know their names! I don’t, obviously this is like massive fandom, so that’s why I may have seen this a little more in Supernatural than in other ones, just because it is like one of the largest fandoms, right, so just more people.
FK: And long-running, so. Yeah. But.
ELM: It’s just so funny to me cause it’s just like, “I, I didn’t know there were sides! No!” But I definitely think you see some of that too, and especially with the Reylo stuff it’s like “Oh! Another point for us!” You know, in some sort of war that’s happening, and it’s like…it’s the stanification of shipping, right? You know, the sort of—this is something that’s measurable. Support for my ship is measurable.
FK: Right. Right. And I mean, to be fair I don’t think that it’s right to put that entirely on…like in the case of Reylos, there is genuinely also people who have many arguments about why they dislike Reylo that don’t have to do purely with stanification, do you know what I mean, that aren’t just like “Team X versus Team Y,” which I think has exacerbated this situation. Cause it’s not just like Team X or Team Y, it’s like…
ELM: Right. But every single brand tweet about Reylo is not part of the, it’s not…
FK: No! They don’t know!
ELM: …engaging with the discourse.
FK: They have no idea! Right! A brand tweet about Reylo, they have no idea that there was any question about like, quote, “Reylo vs. Finnpoe” or whatever else, you know? They’ve never heard of Finnpoe. They don’t know what that is. Almost always.
ELM: It is funny.
FK: Not all of them, I know for a fact that some of them know what it is, but mostly…
ELM: They just know about Reylo! [laughs]
FK: They just know about Reylo! That’s it. They know that it’s a term, they know a lot of people like it, that’s it! They know that. That’s what they know. You know?
ELM: [laughing] Ohh.
FK: Just stop thinking that people know things. They might know things, but if you think that they don’t you’re probably right.
ELM: Yeah. The one that sent me over the edge was the Netflix account invoking Reylo.
FK: I don’t remember this, tell me.
ELM: [sighs] All right, you ready?
FK: I’m ready.
ELM: It was NX, the NX account, which is I think the sci-fi? So Netflix has all these, like, essentially like Twitter verticals, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: So there’s like Strong Black Lead, and there’s, I don’t know what, the romance one. Is there a romance one?
FK: I don’t remember.
ELM: Oh, all right. Whatever. Then there’s this one NX which is their sci-fi one. And in September, whoever ran that account tweeted “Listen, I can be worried about rising sea levels and the problematic nature of Reylo shipping at the same time. I contain multitudes.”
FK: Oh, I do remember this one.
ELM: And my comment was, “You know I argue as loudly as anyone that fandom is not, and to some extent has never been, a walled garden, but there are some days when I really miss the days,” I said “days” twice, I’m sorry, “when brands and creators knew zero fandom words rather than, like, six.”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Truly.
FK: I would say in that case probably they do know, like, they—that, again, yeah. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. [laughs] Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring, Netflix.
ELM: Absolutely. There’s two, it could go either way with this one. This person, especially if it’s someone who’s running the sci-fi account for Netflix, might be someone who actually is in fandom. That said, it might be someone who’s from a very anti-shipping side of fandom also, right?
FK: And if they are in fandom I think that’s pretty irresponsible to tweet, frankly, you know?
ELM: Well, I’m thinking more of like the huge parts of fandom that have nothing to do with shipping and yet see us.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, no no no I know, I know.
ELM: But it’s just like, yeah! And that’s like, to put a discoursey tweet like that—and a vague discoursey tweet about, about a ship, or shipping in general, on a major brand account? It’s just like I don’t, you know like, it feels cheap, first of all. Cause I’m not sure what, it’s just a cheap hit. It’s not like this account has actually engaged in any discussions about any fandom, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: It just feels like it’s just, just exactly what you’re saying. Just courting engagement. And you know, possibly…I don’t know. It just feels, I just can’t envision this sort of pattern going on for years and years on end. It makes me feel very sad.
FK: Yeah, I think the thing that makes me feel sad about it is that it’s like, in this particular case—particularly that one—it’s like, look, I think that it’s fair to say, without taking any sides in this, that they’re, like, lightly touching on something that is a very serious argument, you know?
ELM: Sure.
FK: That has caused, like, a lot of pain in a lot of people, having like a lot going on that’s not just…it’s not just internet flame war haha, you know what I mean? Not to say that it’s like, you know, rising sea levels, but it’s not just internet flame war haha.
ELM: Right.
FK: And I find that frustrating because it’s sort of the, one of the things about having a brand that has a voice is that that voice can choose to be internetty in a way that just chases engagement, or it can choose to have like actual perspectives on the world.
ELM: You don’t think that this has a perspective on the world?
FK: I mean, I think that its perspective on the world, if I am the nicest to it, is “Haha, look at those people fighting.” Because I can’t imagine someone who genuinely, like, if their perspective is genuinely that Reylo is problematic? That’s not like, a real…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: You know what I mean? That’s not how you would actually, like…
ELM: Right.
FK: …in good faith, attempt to interact with that. So the best thing I can say is that they knew what they were doing and they think that all this is funny ha-ha internet flame war.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And the worst I can say is they just heard some words and had no idea what they were pokin’.
ELM: They put “Reylo” in quotes, if that helps give you any indication.
FK: Right! So like, I mean, so, so all I’m saying is that I think—I’m not against brands having quote “voices.” I think that’s kind of necessary if they’re going to be interacting on social media. But I am against brands stepping into things that they don’t understand at all in ways that are like, just going for engagement.
ELM: Right. It’s, it has me thinking, we’ve talked at length about the actual shows’ accounts and things like that, you know, kind of stepping into this stuff for engagement. You know, like, “Oh, this is like…” And, and essentially sometimes social media accounts engaging in queerbaiting, literally. Right?
FK: Right.
ELM: Even more than the show does. By being like, “Oh, we like these two!” You know? And it’s like, the show never even went, you know, never even explicitly said like, “We ship it too just like you,” you know.
This is so, like—it’s not like the next logical step. It’s like a pivot or like a side-by-side thing happening. Because there’s just no reason.
FK: It’s side-by-side, yeah, it’s not the same thing.
ELM: You know, there’s no reason for Netflix’s sci-fi account to be tweeting about Reylo, you know, beyond just hitting a hot-button topic. It’s not actually related to any of their content. In fact, they do not have Star Wars, you know? It’s not as if the Disney+ account is weighing in about Star Wars discourse, you know, which would be something different.
FK: Yeah, and also, it’s different than—you know, it’s not as though brands have never engaged with, like, franchises, right? Brands engage with franchises all the time. There’s tie-ins of all sorts, you know, whatever, a car brand, like—what, Audi in Twilight, or whatever it was? And like…Volvo? It was Volvo, not Audi, sorry. Shows how much I know. And then also the other way, right. It’s not like Happy Meal toys aren’t a thing. But in all of those cases, fandom can build on them, but it’s like a very different kind of engagement too, and it’s more thoughtful, but like also less important. Right? You know what I mean, like there’s nothing really—
ELM: Wait wait wait. Car company tie-ins with movie franchises is more thoughtful?
FK: Well, I think so because I think it’s more—
ELM: What?!
FK: —thoughtful than not knowing anything. No genuinely, like, here’s what I’m going to say: there’s a lot of people who have done a lot of thinking about, like, what the film is that they want their brand to be associated with.
ELM: OK.
FK: I’m not saying that it’s like, I’m not saying that this is like, rocket science.
ELM: It’s not, it’s not artistically deep. It’s just…
FK: No, I’m not saying any of that, I’m just saying there’s a lot of thought put into it, you know?
ELM: Absolutely. Product placement is tried and true.
FK: Right.
ELM: That’s as old as…
FK: Right, exactly, and then also when you think about things like, whatever. Like a Happy Meal toy. That too is something that’s like, OK. The point is, it’s synergistic, right. “Oh, kids want to go see Star Wars!”
ELM: You’re so biz.
FK: “And they want to collect this! It’ll be great, everyone wins, it’s advertising for the movie and it’s also like a gift for the kid that brings them to get the Happy Meal.” And, then fans come and collect those, and that turns into a thing sometimes too, but the point is to get the kids.
ELM: Right.
FK: And it’s also like, much lower stakes, right? Not to say that collecting is not a big deal for some people, but like—it’s really different than engaging in, like, a massive like extremely hotly debated internet argument about…
ELM: Right, well, they might film the, like, car crossover commercial with like, you know, some lightsabers and then there’s the car or whatever and you’re like “Oh, capitalism.” Right? But they’re not gonna show like Kylo Ren and Rey like, smoldering at each other in the car. You know? It’s never gonna go near controversial topics in that way. It’s the most basic stripped-down, it’s literally meant to connect your brain and be like, I don’t know. Acura. Star Wars. Right? Like, those two things that I like, you know?
FK: The current, the current one is I think an Amazon commercial maybe? Where there’s like a, like for a connected home, where there’s like a kid like, he was attempting to use the Force, and their parents use their cell phone to turn the washer on when the kid’s like trying to do it with the Force?
ELM: That’s actually quite clever.
FK: It’s very clever. There’s another one with a magic wand and it actually has Roger Sterling, that actor in it.
ELM: Thank you for only using Mad Men references with me.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, no no no. It’s like she—this is not, it’s not related to a particular property that I can remember. She has a magic wand and she like attempts to change the color of the light, and the color changes every time she goes “abracadabra,” and Roger Sterling’s in the back like clicking the button to change the color of the light every time.
ELM: Good ol’ Roger.
FK: It’s really cute. I can’t think of him as anything but Roger Sterling. I literally looked at that commercial and I was like, “It’s Roger Sterling changing the light for a small child!” [laughs]
ELM: Well he in fact, I first knew him as Will’s older brother on Will & Grace.
FK: Wow.
ELM: That Grace sleeps with. Spoiler!
FK: Ah! I’ve been spoiled!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Anyway OK. We’re a little bit aside. All I was trying to say by bringing any of this in is to say that I do feel like this is materially different, although it—it’s not, but it’s not unrelated, it’s still like a brand trying to associate itself with a thing that they think that their consumers like, you know?
ELM: Yeah, but that stuff is all a lot more measurable. This is so amorphous. And I mean I know that you say that people are bringing the, the one-sheeter to the, and saying “Look, our numbers are up,” but I don’t know. I am curious to know how, how much evidence there is that this kind of, kind of cheap engagement actually leads to sustained loyalty or interest in spending money on your, on your network. Or your, your streaming service, or whatever, whoever’s doing this. Or your waffles.
FK: Well, what I would say is that it’s, it’s not necessarily about that engagement, it’s about getting the existence of your product in front of people. So it’s not about that engagement. To tweet about—
ELM: Really, Netflix? Netflix thinks that no one knows about Netflix?
FK: Uh, I would say that Netflix thinks that if you follow them because you thought that that was a funny tweet, or you find out that they have that account, that you didn’t know about that account before cause you’d never seen it, but it comes into your feed because they tweeted that, then maybe you follow that account because you actually are interested in science fiction…
ELM: And then you’re more loyal to the other…
FK: …and then they can use that to message you about, right? It’s like an audience-building thing. It’s not about that thing.
ELM: I mean they literally are, they’re trying to advertise content that they’re creating too, it’s not like, yeah.
FK: Exactly! They say, that’s, I mean, it’s sensible in a certain sense. That tweet is gonna get shared a lot, because of controversy, and then some people will go “Oh, I didn’t know that Netflix had a Twitter account that they message you about—”
ELM: Sci-fi.
FK: “—their new stuff on—”
ELM: Yeah, sure.
FK: “—in sci-fi, and I watch sci-fi,” and they’re gonna follow, and then they are relevant to that, right. Similarly, like, it’s not that—it’s not the engagement on the Reylo tweet on Percy Jackson that’s gonna be what they want. What they want is they want the Reylo who read Percy Jackson 10 years ago to see that tweet and go “Oh, holy shit, there’s a Percy Jackson musical, cool,” right?
ELM: Right, right. I mean it’s the same thing we were talking about earlier, with a big net and hoping to catch a couple of fish.
FK: Right, and again, I mean like, you just have to know that that is the strategy for that. And presumably they’re doing other things that aren’t that. If that’s the only thing they’re doing then I would not recommend that, it doesn’t seem like a great strategy, you know?
ELM: Right right.
FK: But then also again, this gets back to the sometimes fandom sees only one thing, right? Neither of us went and looked at the other stuff that the Percy Jackson Twitter account was doing, we were just like—
ELM: Oh, I looked at it a little bit.
FK: Oh, did you? OK. Was it all like this?
ELM: There was, there was… [laughs] The one I immediately saw after was them making fun of the movies.
FK: Oh. Yeah. Well, but that’s actually, that’s, that’s speaking to their base, right?
ELM: That’s like on brand!
FK: That’s straight up! That’s straight up speaking to their base!
ELM: I was like “Whoa, what’s going on here?!” I thought it was funny, actually.
FK: Yeah, so this is actually a perfect example, right? Where they’re, you know, one of the things is making fun of the movies because they know that Percy Jackson fans…
ELM: Or the movie or whatever, I don’t know if there’s more than one movie.
FK: …didn’t like it, and then this is casting the wider net. So.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But again, that’s like, the thing that crosses your dash is not necessarily the only thing that’s happening or the only thing on the strategy. I’m not trying to like call you out for this, but I think a lot of people in fandom, when they engage with one of these wide-net tweets, aren’t even thinking past “They said a thing about my ship!” You know?
ELM: Why would you be calling me out? It’s not my ship.
FK: No. I just meant, eh. Eh!
ELM: It’s your ship. Your ship!
FK: It is my ship. Yeah, but I mean, and it’s easy to get into that feeling, cause it’s like “There’s my ship! Someone’s talking about it! There’s 10 bajillion people commenting on this bad tweet about my ship!” You know.
ELM: Well, that was a pro-Reylo tweet.
FK: No that one was, the Netflix one was…not…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I don’t know, you know what I mean. Whatever. And some, someone hates the pro-Reylo tweet, right? They’re appealing to anti-Reylos just as much as to Reylos for this, because they’re gonna get your hate clicks, right?
ELM: Right. Right. Yeah.
FK: So.
ELM: Well, where does that leave fans?
FK: I would say? Everyone get more cynical. Put on your cynic hat with me. Come join me in cynic-land.
ELM: Aw, that sucks though!
FK: All, you know what, all I say has—as the instantiation of Diogenes right now, you know what I say to brands? I say “Caesar, could you move out of the way, cause you’re in my light.”
ELM: Wow.
FK: That’s how I think that we should all be about this. [ELM laughs] Ancient Greek style.
ELM: I won’t, I don’t know if this is gonna have the full effect, people can’t see the, like, the positioning of your body and your hand movements. Yeah, good blocking.
FK: I’m really, you know, I’m trying to, yeah yeah. I’m trying to get ancient oratory, you know.
ELM: Mm-hmm. Yep.
FK: I mean no, but that genuinely is my recommendation, because I think that if you take the good things—you can genuinely take the good things and leave the bad things with some of this stuff, and that’s what I’d recommend. Cause these things, like, the forces that are shaping this stuff are not gonna change, you know?
ELM: Well, I’m curious what’s gonna happen after the next movie, when they can’t use Reylos anymore.
FK: Well that’s true.
ELM: I think they’re gonna—
FK: They’ll have to use someone else. I think it’s gonna be BTS.
ELM: Not that the ship will stop existing, but like, I think they may know, will they know actually? That it’s…
FK: I don’t know what’s gonna happen, let’s not talk about it, but at the point that Reylo stops being something that you can use for this, they’re definitely moving on to K-pop.
ELM: Yeah but a ship? What’s gonna be the next ship.
FK: Oh, I don’t know. Hard to say.
ELM: Cause it’s hard with K-pop cause there’s such a variety of ships within. Permutations. You know?
FK: Yeah, no no no. It is, I don’t know what the answer is to that.
ELM: Aren’t you glad they didn’t learn about this before Larry kind of faded from the zeitgeist?
FK: Um, some, some, there was a little bit of attempt but yes, I am glad. I’m glad.
ELM: You know what I mean though. I feel like if Larry had happened three years later…
FK: If it were right now.
ELM: Like the height of Larry, not to say that Larries don’t exist any more because obviously they do.
FK: No but it’s not, it’s, it’s down from the fervor.
ELM: You really like zeitgeisty ships.
FK: Don’t know what to say. [ELM snorts] No, this has only started happening recently. I didn’t have any zeitgeisty ships until like…
ELM: Love it.
FK: I don’t know what. It’s probably your influence.
ELM: My ships are not zeitgeisty!
FK: I know but it’s just like, you’re suckin’ all the not-zeitgeisty out of me. [ELM laughs] That’s how that works. OK. OK OK. I don’t know what else there is to say about this. It is what it is.
ELM: Yeah, all right, great. This is a nice cynical episode. Love it.
FK: #LoveIt. OK. Shall we do wrapping-up stuff?
ELM: Yeah, we should. So first of all, very very soon…
FK: GeekGirlCon!
ELM: Yes. In, when this comes out it’ll be just a few days later. If you listen to this more than a week after it comes out, you missed it! So it’s November 16 and 17, that’s a Saturday and a Sunday. At 11:30 on Saturday we are doing a fandom stats panel.
FK: Yep!
ELM: With a bunch of other people including friend of the pod, DestinationToast.
FK: Toasty!
ELM: And at 10:00 on Sunday we are doing our first live episode!
FK: Yeah!
ELM: So for everyone who can’t come, you actually get to come kind of!
FK: Yeah, you definitely do! So that’s very exciting.
ELM: We’ll see how that goes!
FK: And, thank you to everybody who supports us, because this is the first time that we’re like, doin’ a live episode and, and you know, the only reason that we’ve gotten this far in the podcast, that we’ve made it, you know, we’ve made so many episodes and we’ve been able to do so much, that we’ve been able to go to Comic-Con and that we’re gonna get to go to GeekGirlCon is because of the support of all of our listeners in a wide variety of ways. So the most…
ELM: What are those ways? [both laugh]
FK: The most, uh, forefronted way is to support us on Patreon. “Forefronted,” is that even a word?
ELM: Do you know, do you know who supports the Patreon? Reylos. Come on, Reylos.
FK: Oh no.
ELM: It’s like the syrup and the chocolate mixing.
FK: OK OK OK.
ELM: Patreon.com/fansplaining. [laughing]
FK: Yeah, and there’s lots of exciting rewards. Very soon, we’re gonna be coming out with a new special episode to reward $3-a-month Patrons and up, which is going to be about His Dark Materials. And I’m really excited about this.
ELM: Have you watched, have you started watching it yet?
FK: Nope.
ELM: Oh. It’s just such a good sweater.
FK: Ahh, don’t tell me!
ELM: I’m gonna spend a half a, people are gonna want some sort of like substantive—we’re gonna talk about the books and the first few episodes of the adaptation.
FK: The adaptation, yeah.
ELM: But I’m, I’m maybe gonna spend 85 to 90% of my words on James MacAvoy wearing a sweater.
FK: Great. OK!
ELM: Just sayin’.
FK: That’s fine. I permit this. Anyway.
ELM: Thanks!
FK: In addition to that, we’ve also got for $5-a-month Patrons we’ve got little Fansplaining pins and a lot of people have received theirs. They’re super exciting. They’re super cute.
ELM: Has anyone not received theirs?
FK: Not that I know of. Well, yes. Actually, one person, who I have tried to contact, it got sent back to me.
ELM: Oh no!
FK: And I have tried to contact them in several ways and I will try and contact them continuously, because I have not heard back from them. So there’s one person whose, whose pin got kicked back to me. If that’s you…
ELM: If you’re on the run…
FK: Tell me.
ELM: …and you still want your pin, we’ll set up a P.O. box somewhere for you.
FK: But so far they’re the only one that I’ve gotten kicked back to me. So I presume that everyone else has received theirs, because I have seen lots of people who have them and have heard from no one who hasn’t.
ELM: Great, so if you are—but if you are a $5 or a $10 Patron and you haven’t gotten it…
FK: Tell us. Yep. And, there’s other ways that you can support us too that are not Patreon. You can tweet about us, you can post about us on whatever social platform of choice you have, you can rate us and review us on iTunes or whatever podcatcher you use, that really helps bring in new people. You can, you know, tell your friends! Which is cheesy-sounding, but it’s a really good way to, you know, bring more people into this conversation. And, you can write in or leave us a voicemail to ask questions, give comments, and we read a lot of that on the air. Or play voice mails. So the number to call if you want to leave us a voicemail is 1-401-526-FANS. And you can always be anonymous, just if it’s a voicemail don’t give us your name, if it’s an email just tell us that you don’t want us to say who you are, or use a burner email I guess? I don’t know. You don’t need to be that sneaky, it’s fine.
ELM: Email is fansplaining at gmail, and we’re fansplaining on all those social media accounts. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, where our asker today left a message. And you can do the same! Our ask box is open.
FK: And anon is on.
ELM: Anon is on, please be kind. And we are not starting a Tumblr group chat, I’m sorry to say.
FK: No, goodbye.
ELM: Absolutely not.
FK: All right.
ELM: So I think that’s all the business. I think we should go get ready to fly to Seattle. I don’t know why I’m saying that cause I’m literally going to pack the morning of like I always do.
FK: [laughs] I know you will and you’re gonna text me 500 times about what you should bring and I’m gonna be like “Really? Again, Elizabeth?”
ELM: Uh, not for this. The problem is with Comic-Con I have a lot of questions…
FK: Nope nope nope. We’re not… [laughing]
ELM: Because it’s, when the weather, you know, I can wear, you know, all sorts of things, but it’s Seattle so it’s gonna be a little chilly and a little moody. So I think that really sets an aesthetic tone.
FK: All right. OK. You know what?
ELM: Don’t you worry. Don’t you worry.
FK: Goodbye, Elizabeth.
ELM: Bet you can’t wait to see what I’m gonna wear!
FK: Goodbye.
ELM: Bye!
[Outro music]
ELM & FK: Fansplaining is brought to you by all of our Patrons, but especially Alaine Sepulveda, Amanda, Amelia Harvey, Anne Jamison, Bluella, Boxish, Bradlea Raga-Barone, Bryan Shields, Carl with a C, Carrie Clarady, Chelsee Bergen, Christopher Dwyer, CJ Hoke, Clare Muston, Cynthia, Desiree Longoria, Diana Williams, Dr. Mary C. Crowell, Earlgreytea68, Elasmo, Fabrisse, Felar, Froggy, Georgie Carroll, Goodwin, Gwen O’Brien, Heart of the Sunrise, Heidi Tandy, Helena, Jackie C., Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jay Bushman, Jennifer Brady, Jennifer Doherty, Jennifer Lackey, Jennifer McKernan, Josh Stenger, Jules Chatelain, Julianna, JungleJelly, Karen, Katherine Lynn, Kathleen Parham, Kitty McGarry, Kristen P., Lizzy Johnstone, Lori Morimoto, Lucas Medeiros, Maria Temming, Maria Mercer, Mark Williams, Matt Hills, Meghan McCusker, Menlo Steve, Meredith Rose, Michael Andersen, Molly Kernan, Naomi Jacobs, Nozlee, Paracelsus Caspari, Poppy Carpenter, Rachel Bernatowicz, Sam Markham, Sara, Secret Fandom Stories, Sekrit, Simini, Stephanie Burt, StHoltzmann, Tara Stuart, Veritasera, Willa, and in honor of One Direction, and BTS, and Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, and Captain James McGraw Flint Hamilton.
Our intro music is “Awel,” by stefsax. Our interstitial music is by Lee Rosevere. Both are used under a Creative Commons “BY” license. Check the show notes for more details. The opinions expressed in this podcast are not our clients’, or our employers’, or anyone’s except our own.