April 8, 2022

Virtual parties hosted by streamers cement bonds of virtual social communities, unlike performer / audience relations of podcasting

Returning to the post about streamers being (celeb-)reality TV for Gen Z, and how it's different from the podcasting format dominated by Millennials, I've noticed that the streamers host a lot of themed parties.

Several Hololive girls have had birthdays recently, and they have an entire stream whose point is, "Hey you, scrolling alone over there -- you're invited to attend my birthday party and join my other friends!" During the b-day stream, other streamers make appearances, wishing happy b-day, joking around, etc., the way that a party host hobnobs with their various higher-profile guests. At the same time, the b-day girl is still interacting with her chat.

Podcasters don't do that for their b-day, if they do anything special at all. They might reflect on getting one year older, express their views on b-day parties, etc. It has to be takes on a topic, not just fly-on-the-wall vicarious experiences as though you were there at their party.

AFAIK, only Red Scare does something sim-ish, where they give each other presents, discuss them, say thanks, and so on. But it's not simulating a party with other guests in attendance -- just the two ladies themselves. Zoomer streamers have to create the sense that their entire audience is attending one great big party for a special occasion.

Streamers also host special online parties for major holidays -- Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's (national ones like Thanksgiving are not as likely). Something you don't see in the podcast medium. Podcasters may give their takes on a topic that is related to the holiday, but it isn't simulating a party held on that holiday, with the audience vicariously experiencing that social gathering.

These virtual parties provide the glue for online communities to feel like actual *social* communities, which is distinct from the ideological fellow travelers who make up the audience of a podcast. Every social community has its special occasions that call for festive activities, where everyone joins in the carnivalesque merry-making. How can an online community hold together without some simulation of those communal bonding events?

Early in the podcasting format, a common joke was "Oh yay, now I get to feel like I have friends" while imagining yourself among a group of friends who are just shooting the breeze, riffing on jokes, and the like. And now, another common joke is "Podcasters are not your friends," i.e. they're just simulating friendship for ulterior motives.

But sometime around 2020, the podcasting format had already evolved away from parasocial friendship simulation, and became online talk radio programs, whose hosts are branded as truth-tellers, gift-of-gab interviewers, hilarious shock jocks, and other personas familiar from the heyday of talk radio over the literal radio waves, during the '90s and 2000s.

The parasocial friendship simulator model took root instead in the streaming format, which was still an immature platform in the late 2010s (basically only Twitch, which few were even aware of, outside of video game addicts).

I don't think the primary hurdle was technological, but generational, as I emphasized in that post on Gen Z being an echo of Gen X, while Millennials are an echo of Boomers. In order to feel like the hosts are your simulated social circle, they have to be laid-back and not spotlight-seeking. On the other hand, if you're looking for maximum stage presence from entertainers, you want the hosts to be spotlight-seekers who don't interact intimately with the audience.

That's why Boomers never made for good reality TV -- too attention-whoring, and too "on" in a stage performance way. Gen X is more down-to-earth and welcoming of others as social equals, not as fans bowing and worshiping the star performer. That also made Boomers better entertainers than X-ers, whether pure entertainment or info-tainment.

Zoomer content creators, and Zoomer audiences, were looking for something more like reality TV in their online consumption, which began as "hang out with me while I play video games". But they couldn't carry that out on platforms long dominated by Millennials for performing entertainment purposes, such as Twitter discourse or podcasting repository sites. Twitch was not over-colonized as a platform, nor was it colonized by the older generation, and live-streaming was perfectly suited to bringing the reality TV concept to online media.

There may be a handful of podcasts hosted on Twitch or YouTube, and a few "day in our life" reality vlog accounts who upload to podcast repository sites. But by and large, the two formats have split into their own separate platforms.

More importantly, though, they have separated who has social-sim content, and who has pure entertainment content. By this point, it makes no sense to refer to podcasts as a parasocial phenomenon -- that is just about exclusively taking place on live-streaming platforms.

Even the non-streaming platforms used by a streamer's community are dependent upon the stream itself to provide the virtual social cohesion. There would be no subreddit or discord for the fans to interact amongst themselves, outside the presence of their usual party host, if the streamer did not stream in the first place.

For that matter, the term "fan" is not very accurate for the members of a streamer's community, since the streamer is not a pure entertainer. A podcast has fans, but a stream has virtual community members. And unlike a podcast's fandom / groupies / hangers-on, they have their own demonyms -- "chumbuds" for Gura's community, "saplings" for Fauna's community, etc.

The Chapo Trap House podcast tried to make "gray wolves" catch on as the name for their fans, but fans (of any entertainment product) don't deserve their own demonym -- they don't live anywhere in particular, don't interact with a regular community in particular. They just show up to the same performance space hosted by the same entertainers on a regular basis. The closest IRL thing would be a "scene" based on some nightclub or close network of them, still derived from entertainers and their fans.

So you could describe an online scene, with a catch-all term like "the dirtbag left," in the same way you could refer to hippies, punks, metalheads, or emos / scene kids.

But a community is always specific, and it has a specific name to identify who is on the inside vs. the outside -- this town, not that town. This group of residents, places, and institutions, not some other residents, places, and institutions.

One final observation on large special events, and the two formats -- going on tour. Big podcasters go on a literal IRL tour to perform for their fans, such as Chapo or Pod Save America. Even the Red Scare ladies have embarked on a few small-scale IRL events over the years. This is what entertainers do for fans.

But streamers, no matter how big, could never go on tour. It's totally beside the point, since they're not performing entertainers, and their community is not an adoring fandom. They're in the social-sim business, like a reality TV cast. No one would go to an IRL tour of the Real Housewives cast, but they would attend an IRL tour of a band or stand-up comic.

That's not to say there's zero overlap -- Gura is a skilled singer, and could grow a fandom for her musical performances, while the Red Scare ladies recorded a "hang out at the zoo with us" episode. But for the most part, streamers don't tour, and podcasters don't host virtual parties.

25 comments:

  1. I still think @shamshi_adad would make a great streamer, however niche her community would be.

    Hang out with me while I browse antique shops in Zagreb.

    Study-buddy session for dead Semitic languages.

    My dad mansplains Soviet consumer tech.

    '60s African pop dance parties.

    Central Asian meal cooking.

    Music / dance, and cooking, are two of the most popular trends on Twitch. The cooking streams are not meant as tutorials, or to display culinary prowess as a performer before an adoring audience. It's just, "hang out with me while I prepare this meal".

    If that were your niche, you wouldn't attract male viewers looking for a gf simulator. You'd have a decent female audience, and the guys don't care if you have a bf or husband. The platform is for friendship sims, not relationship sims.

    The streaming format could use some more quirked-up personalities who don't fit into the take-meister Millennial formats.

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  2. Having said that, a Millennial like @groyper from Gab would make a great streamer too. He already hosts the Tea Tunes virtual party.

    Hang out with me while I prepare coffee (7:45:23)

    Join me on my nature hike / Bug of the Day inspo

    Drum & Bass dance party

    Enya / New Age karaoke

    Vegan cooking for non-libtards

    '90s RPGs on original hardware

    Triggering Boomers by not crediting their photos

    ...the possibilities are endless.

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  3. "Meme drawing stream" would be another neat idea. There's already a popular drawing / visual art genre, which several of the Hololive girls take part in. This would just add the dimension of incorporating humor into the drawing, as the whole process evolves.

    Wouldn't be too interesting if the meme were stamped out of a template, but would definitely work if the person were using a digital sketch tablet.

    Like Bob Ross -- the Joy of Meme-ing. His show was not just a tutorial, and not just a display / critique of the final result. It was like karaoke rather than recorded music, experiencing the entire creative process, more or less uninterrupted -- happy little accidents and all.

    And of course he was a Silent, not a Boomer, and so more like Gen X and Zoomers. A relatable host of a social event, not a performer on stage before an audience of fans.

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  4. Do you think that virtual parties will end up replacing real-life parties? Will online parties eliminate the need for in-person partying?

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  5. AT in full hysterics over Turchin. really don't get why she can't see what's obviously true

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  6. Virtual parties are already replacing IRL parties. It's not about convenience, or IRL partying no longer being "necessary" -- people just don't want to interact IRL anymore. In highly artificial bubbles like a college campus, probably some IRL partying will continue, but not like in the pre-social media days.

    As for Turchin, don't mind anyone on Twitter about academic topics. It's one great big talk radio station, with hosts / talking heads / etc. It's part of the media, not academia. You just have to accept the platform, and its accounts, for what they are.

    I enjoy the Aimee show, even if she's wrong about elite overproduction.

    I did see the ClickingSeason guy saying that no one understands Turchin's model, whether they're pro or con -- then proceeds to show he hasn't read him either. Just another talking head / reacting avi / shooting-the-bull talk show host. Again, you either like their show or not, but don't rely on them for academic stuff.

    Elites have been over-produced countless times throughout history. It's not recent or modern, it's not about SCALE, and it's not about education per se. The elite stratum of peers shot up like crazy, relative to total population size, during the late Middle Ages, as things were heading toward the collapse of the late 1300s and early 1400s.

    Then it recovered, and there were under-produced numbers of elites. Then it swelled up again, and by the mid-1600s the enrollments at Oxford had spiked exponentially. That coincided with the English Civil War.

    Then after they killed each other off, things cooled down for awhile again (the Glorious Revolution and most of the 1700s).

    I already put together a post about Turchin & Nefedov's book Secular Cycles, which succinctly puts the entire model together, and provides numerous historical case studies. But no one will read it from Twitter, b/c that's "homework" and they're in the 24-hour take-cycle business, with talk radio shows.

    I'm not upset at that aspect of Twitter anymore -- some platform or other was bound to become the new media, or overflow container for aspiring media people. Naturally that won't include an academic or scholarly focus, it's infotainment.

    What I can't stand is how the shadow-university, or the alt-university, or the alt-academic publishing aspect of the blogosphere has totally collapsed. It did not migrate to another platform. Substack is an appendix of Twitter, whose writers have their primary online residence on Twitter. It's not a blogging platform.

    Whoever is still interested in the academic stuff can still read the handful of Gothic loners like me, living among the ruins of the blogosphere. But I can only do so many basic-overview posts -- I'd rather contribute new insights within the framework, modify it in light of new case studies, etc. Something I've been doing for 10 years now, w.r.t. Turchin's models.

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  7. Aimee, nothing to worry about re being in your 30s (or later, your 40s). Your tiny sing-song voice, 5'2 stature, skinny queen figure, and hyperactive personality, mean you'll never strike men as middle-aged, menopausal, etc.

    I think you're going to become like my Italian professor from college. Although probably in her early 50s, she was a petite skinny hummingbird, who was clearly a hottie in her prime, and wore chic but understated clothes. From Perugia, a bona fide Med.

    I had a big fat crush on her, as an undergrad -- probably the only time I've heavily crushed on an older woman. Even confessed my feelings to her!

    You will never want for suitors, and it's only the bitter jealous unlovable haters who bring up you being in your 30s, as though you didn't sound like a teen -- just with more wise and measured words expressed through that songbird voice. Hehe.

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  8. What is the social scene like on university campuses these days?

    Is it any fun? Lots of spontaneity, wildness, socialization, and debauchery? Or is it lame like everywhere else (because everyone is online all the time) these days?

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  9. Kiara hosted an Easter egg painting stream, the first example I know of where a streamer hosted an Easter-themed party on Easter itself, to give viewers the simulation of taking part in the holiday's activities.

    A podcast might address topics related to Easter, but not simulate the activities of the holiday.

    Streamers always do a holiday-sim for Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's, but so far, only Kiara has done it for Easter.

    "Why not take part in Easter egg painting IRL?" Because most people live in rootless "communities" and come from dysfunctional families, where they don't hate each other but don't stay close IRL. The most they can hope for is the simulation of taking part in such activities, especially since their parents are helicopter parents and won't let them interact with others their age.

    You can call it a cope, but it's one of those necessary copes, determined by the system we live under, not by self-delusion.

    If Marx were around today, he would say, sympathetically, that social-sim is the opiate of the masses, the soul of our soulless conditions, etc.

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  10. We're not quite to the empathy boxes and Mercerism of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But that's where this is all going, as IRL society continues disintegrating. And Dick was portraying that practice sympathetically -- what else are people supposed to do?

    The negative portrayal was of Buster Friendly, the Jon Stewart / Ironic Dirtbag Left talk-show host (robot) who kept deriding Mercerism, in that typical "it's only comedy" form of demoralizing propaganda.

    So far, viewers' empathy is directed toward resonating with good vibes in the streamer-verse. But before too long -- maybe when the Zoomers are in their 40s and going through their midlife crisis -- they'll start wanting to identify with someone's suffering, too (and not in the whiny woke Millennial way, but a sympathetic, humanistic way).

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  11. Actually, watching Fauna labor to climb uphill in Getting Over It is a bit like Mercerism, where the viewers are plugging their minds into her Sisyphean struggle, feeling her pain as the harsh & indifferent environment / universe thwarts her attempts to advance upwards.

    The repeated slides backwards, the missed attempts to hook onto a ledge, without actually being bad at the game, does feel like she's being unjustly persecuted by a bunch of nebulous haters. The haters know she's good, that's why they're trying to keep her down!

    The viewers also empathize with her good feelings when / if she does triumph, like last night when she finished in under 5 minutes (a longtime goal of hers). It's not merely a cult of "misery loves company". And again, it's crucial that the bad feelings be something worth empathizing with, like a martyr being persecuted, not just someone who is going through a bad day or who is acting bratty and whiny.

    Similar vibe when Gura struggles to show her skills, but gets unjustly piled on by the crowd of frenemy viewers when she invites them to play Mario Kart with her. I really can't believe how bitter and jealous they are of her. If she sucked at the game, they would probably just simp for her out of pity, but since she's good, they pile on and try to drag her down. A normal person like me in the audience empathizes with the unjust persecution, while the goblins empathize with the persecutors.

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  12. The strongest I felt Mercerism via stream watching, though, was during the Among Us mania of 2020 / early '21. Pokimane and Wolfabelle were the most unjustly persecuted by the other haters / frenemies who they played with, and that's probably why I still check in on their streams nearly two years later, and long after that game's craze has faded. I cannot un-connect from the two whose streams made them into unjustly persecuted martyrs. I never clicked that much with the others in their lobbies, or who I tuned into randomly during quarantine.

    Both of them had a series of traits that made the others pile on: 1) female (and attractive), 2) good at the game, 3) fun-loving vibe toward others, 4) determination rather than backing down when pushed. Jealous haters prefer persecuting females, since they're easier to wear down than guys (still true if the persecutors are female as well). They chose good players to target because they themselves weren't that good at the game. They couldn't stand the broad well-liked appeal of their targets, because they themselves are not very likeable. And they couldn't stand the fact that their targets wouldn't just crumple and fold like obedient slaves, but stuck up for themselves -- the audacity!

    The other players in the lobby would yeet her out the airlock on the flimsiest of pretenses, at the earliest possible occasion, whether she was or was not an impostor. When she was a crewmate, the impostors would kill her off as fast as possible, often in the most blatant way that got them immediately uncovered and thrown out themselves. But they just couldn't control their seething bitter jealous hatred of the good ones.

    And if she somehow made it to a late stage of a game as a crewmate, the other crewmates would rarely have any faith in her, despite her having an airtight logical argument and proof of where she had been / where the actual impostor had been. So many times her so-called fellow crewmates threw the entire game, in the most face-palm way imaginable, just because they couldn't bring themselves to trust a good one. Undone by their own bitter jealous hater-ism.

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  13. The worst offender was Hafu, who was so mediocre she never stood a chance when playing in someone else's lobby. But in the lobby that she hosted as a big account, where she could bully her underlings around, she was the anti-christ against Wolfabelle, and the other cowards fell in line behind their demon queen. Such bitter jealous haters! -- it's getting my blood pumping again just thinking about it!

    At times it got so bad Wolfabelle began crying, and Pokimane got just as upset, at one point changing her display name in the game to "nokill1st". It wasn't just the fact of getting killed early, or getting voted off. Shit happens to everyone now and then. It was the total betrayal by the others, including their own so-called crewmates, never having the others' trust despite being good and trustworthy, always hunted down first, made fun of, and being mocked if they objected to their persecution.

    They were disturbed by what bitter jealous witch-hunting haters the others were acting like, and there are few stronger ways for viewers to empathize with someone, besides their being unjustly persecuted by a witch-hunting mob.

    I don't really resonate with their gaming content in the meantime (shooters for Pokimane, GTA roleplay for Wolfabelle), but nothing could make me un-empathize with their virtual martyrdom during the Among Us mania -- which in many ways mirrored the IRL riots burning down innocent people's lives across the country that same year, and toxic leftoid cancel culture in general.

    And they're not even right-wingers (Pokimane, or an urban black neighborhood in Minneapolis)! But bitter jealous haters will come after the handful of good ones from their own side, as they seek to utterly dissolve anything decent and wholesome and beautiful from this world before they finally blow it all up. Canceling this culture, with no survivors.

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  14. How can you not empathize with their martyrdom, and with all the other viewers who are plugging into the same virtual experience? Pokimane already had a huge audience, but I think that's why Wolfabelle exploded in popularity afterward -- not just for being good at a popular game, but because her martyrdom created an intense bond between her and the viewers, and among the viewers themselves, as a community.

    They were not already "her" viewers, they were made into a large fandom centered on her channel, as casual onlookers witnessed her martyrdom and were moved by her determination to not back down before the wicked mob. Jesus, I'm gonna get choked up myself -- and it was just a stupid video game played over some dumb online platform!

    But as the internet turns into an empathy box, these aspects of Mercerism are going to define it more and more, showing how prescient Philip K. Dick was.

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  15. Similar dynamics behind the growth of Aimee Terese's fren zone, which was forged by her virtual martyrdom in the hell-year of 2020. Attractive female, good at what she does, likeable and well-liked, does not back down before bullies. And also not a right-winger, but a Bernie babe seeking to prevent the leftoid freaks from tanking his chances with a general electorate.

    She may not have wanted to play that role, as though it were a mere brand-building exercise. But during trying times, roles choose you. How could you not empathize with the target of a sick unjust witch hunt? -- and with your fellow spectators who are all witnessing and feeling the same empathy toward the same martyr during the same witch hunt?

    Posting on Twitter is not quite as sensorily immersive as live-streaming, but it is still like a 24/7 talk radio show, always on, content always flowing, big-ish accounts that lots of people are plugged into, narratives / plot / drama unfolding, etc.

    Just as much as the role of martyr chose her, I couldn't help but channel her as a muse. 'Member this one, Aimee? For the Twitter martyr girl:

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2020/07/aimee-terese-memorial-song-marina.html

    She could totally re-brand as a basic-Becky lifetyle / fitness account with no resemblance to her posting of 2019-'20 (anti-woke left), and I would not be able to un-connect from the bond forged during her martyrdom. Nor could any of the others who bonded over the same events.

    Talk about shared trauma...

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  16. I managed to channel Anna Khachiyan as a muse better than the bitter jealous haters that make up most of the Red Scare subreddit ever could.

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2020/08/song-about-anna-khachiyan-vs-leftoids.html

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2019/10/anna-khachiyan-and-mediterranean.html

    I'm re-posting those to emphasize that this kind of posting is not a come-on, contrary to the bitter jealous haters' landing-with-a-thud jokes about "all online platforms are also a dating app" or "she's not gonna fuck u bro". That's just confession by projection, as a special fren would say. They're the ones who are so desperate they treat posting like flirting, and strike out with / get ignored by girls constantly.

    That song has nothing to do with a romantic or sexual tone, and is written in her own voice, not as an admirer or hers, or whatever. If you're an empathetic person, it's not that hard to do. But haters could never.

    And the post about her looks is objective and analytical, although certainly a combination of facial type and personality that I find fascinating. Haters can't feel curiosity and fascination, though, any more than the androids in Philip K. Dick's dystopia can -- and they're seethingly jealous of those fully-human people who can. They feel provoked by the fully-human into dragging down the empathy-based communion that only they can experience.

    At most the NPC haters can feel horniness, as some kind of procreative drive that even androids would want to fulfill, to replicate. But they can't sublimate that drive, so they don't get any kind of process involving sublimation, whether creative or scholarly (discovering the link between a facial type and personality / behavioral type).

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  17. Their inability to empathize also extends to the preferences of others, even in the areas of life that they do understand. Like that I and many others have opposite sexual preferences as them. I'm hetero, they're gay. I'm male, they're female. Or I'm as assman, they're a boobman. Boobmen, being stunted in childhood ("mommy milkies"), are less empathetic than assmen. So they can't understand us, the way we can understand them.

    It never occurs to ask whether someone even has tastes that incline them toward being horny over someone else. What if I were gay? That would undo their flatlining jokes about "she's not gonna fuck u bro". Or what if I'm an assman, and prefer voluptuous girls? There goes their dumb cope as well.

    Nothing against Anna, of course, she has a stunning and alluring face -- the whole point of that post -- and is obviously good-looking. But if I were going to sacrifice my cred by horny-posting on my blog, it would be for some thicc-booty cutie from TikTok, whereas other guys would thirst after a buxom skinny queen like Anna.

    And unlike the closet-sex-pest NPCs, who have likely slid into her DMs or something similar, I never have. I'm posting about her to the public, for public interest. If I wanted her, or any other girl online, I'd contact her privately at some point.

    Then there are the Puritanical types who synch up with the jealous-hater-bots on this issue, viewing any creative channeling of a muse as a thinly veiled attempt to get in her pants, spoil her purity, etc. Although seemingly more conservative, it's still an empathy void, boiling everything down to crude material motives, as though fully-human people are not curious, moved, inspired, etc. by things they have no interest in pursuing as fuck-holes. It's just as predictable, robotic, and tiresome.

    Fortunately, Anna, Aimee, Gura, and women like them understand all this, not being robots themselves. That's why at least the first two lurk here (and maybe the third). Like, "is this guy for real? He must be real, no robot could post like this." Who's curiously fascinated by who? :) Bitter haters are just jealous that they can't experience fully-human emotions or relationships like friendship, or muse-hood, whether online or IRL.

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  18. My most trad trait is being a girl-liker, not a girl-hater. Left-wing girls are always shocked to discover how nice and respectful the right / trad guys are toward them, on an interpersonal level, whereas leftist / progressive guys disguise a seething bitter hatred of girls beneath a veneer of male feminist allyship.

    Sex pests are overwhelmingly left-wing, as the Me Too era displayed. All of those fake news stories about conservative frat bros gang-raping a girl, were pure fabrication. But the guys who work in left-wing institutions like media & entertainment or higher ed, had shitloads of dirt on them, whether criminal or not.

    They're just contemptible scum, all the more so because their sex-pestery reeks of desperation -- the only way they could get a girl to agree to touch them, or even talk to them, is to use their leverage in a left-wing industry that they have seniority within. Pathetic.

    Left-wing women themselves look down on women, and that includes the anti-woke left like the Red Scare ladies or Aimee Terese. It seems like an edgy branding -- "We're left-wing, but misogynist" -- but that's totally on-brand for anybody on the left. I say that while still liking the anti-woke left, I just bristle every time I hear that stuff (especially the co-opting of the phrase "dumb bitch").

    The LGBT agenda has basically sliced off the L, and it's been primarily about the G during the 2010s, and the T during the 2020s, both of whom are notorious misogynists. Last time L's were primary was the '90s.

    Guys who cross-dress in order to beat up women inside a boxing ring, or wipe them out in a swimming competition, could not be more textbook-case girl-haters. No right-wing guy is trying to make a civil rights crusade out of his so-called right to beat the shit out of women for fun. Insane.

    The only girl-haters on the right are the anti-trad ones, the libertarians (culturally / socially progressive, economic Darwinists). They're the ones who've been fuming about "those bitches will leave you broke in divorce court, so don't bother looking for a wife, or you're a sucker / cuck" for decades now. Normie Republican voters like women, want to get married, don't hate their mother, and did not come *this close* to becoming a serial killer just cuz some girl rejected them.

    Progs are the ones defending the sexual degradation of women through private behaviors like "kink" (all of which center on the guy degrading the girl, from anal to BDSM to worse), or mass-produced porn, deriding the non-female-degrading forms of sex as "vanilla".

    Right-wingers pretend to look down on women, left-wingers pretend to look up to them.

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  19. The whole "feminist left vs. misogynist right" thing has nothing to do with how you treat others interpersonally. Although it's a cliche by now that the left are the real racists regarding interpersonal assumptions and behaviors, it's no less true. And the left are also the real misogynists, interpersonally.

    But which party you vote for has little to do with who treats you well interpersonally, but rather who signs your paycheck and otherwise advances your material interests.

    The sectors of society that women can do well in, use the Democrats as their political vehicle. The sectors that women are not going to do well in, use the Republicans.

    The left / Democrats "support" women in a career sense only. The sectors that belong to their coalition -- media, entertainment, higher ed, finance -- can give women jobs. The right / Republicans "do not support" women in a career sense only. The military, agriculture, energy extraction, manufacturing, are not sectors where women are going to thrive.

    That's why lesbians vote for the misogynist, lesbian-erasing party -- it's the one whose sectors give them jobs. Also why blacks vote for the racist party -- they don't care if libs have far more condescending / negative associations with blacks, as long as that party will make sure they get jobs and material support.

    Politics is not about who makes you feel seen, heard, and valued, but about who puts a roof over your head and food on the table. That's where right-wingers are so embarrassingly clueless, as though reviewing these very obvious facts about who's racist and misogynist is going to cause long-term mass defections of women and blacks to the GOP.

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  20. But women do still need to feel seen, heard, and valued. They just can't rely on the guys from their side of the partisan spectrum to meet those needs. In a less polarized time, there would have been trad guys and girl-likers on the left. Since the insane polarization of the last several decades, though, most of those guys have leaned right.

    This is similar to the phenomenon of some girls having three separate guys playing the roles of a sugar daddy, a fuckboy, and a bff. The left / Democrats are the sugar daddy for most women looking for jobs.

    But unlike the interpersonal level, the political sugar daddy doesn't get her sex, but her vote. Well, some girls will go forward with laying down on the casting couch for their media / entertainment / higher ed boss, but not even the typical left-wing women will submit to that level of degradation.

    Nor do they usually stoop the depths of letting a leftoid girl-hating loser fuck them. More likely they'll just go untouched for awhile, then find a right-leaning girl-lover to give it to them. Hence their fantasies about flings with cops, firemen, and the like.

    And yet it's not only their bodies who they look to the right to treat them well. If they want their mind, spirit, personality, and unique personhood treated well, that's going to come from a trad rather than prog guy too.

    Vote for the left, sleep and make friends with the right, is how most girls are going to start splitting up the roles for men in these polarized times.

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  21. All of this is to explain why I'm one of the few who are doing these kinds of things for these girls. Writing tribute songs, whether sincere, humorous, or somewhat spicy. Doing character analysis, or just reviewing what they're up to, for my readers.

    I know they basically appreciate it, and don't find it sex-pest-y (which would include sliding into the DMs, or making sexualized songs / fan-art, etc.).

    ...I think they can also tell a hot guy is behind it, too, and appreciate that aspect as well. There are so few hot guys on the internet, and few who face-doxx, especially if that is not the entirety of their brand (IG model, or something).

    Like, a plain-looking or ugly or semi-attractive guy might not feel as confident in making such a bold unsolicited tribute to an online girl. Whereas the guys who girls follow around in public, don't fear rejection, and will have lower inhibitions about offering a public tribute.

    I think that also reassures their potential wariness about is he just trying to get into my pants. He could be getting into anyone's pants, and IRL rather than settling for masturbation material online (AKA exchanging nudes). So that can't be what he's up to. Does he really just think I'm cool and worth drawing attention to? Awww, he's gonna make me blush!

    And I'm not a gatekeeper, it's not like millions are reading this blog, and I'm expecting something back in return for massive exposure. These girls have more fans than I do, and paying fans at that.

    That goes back to the sugar daddy vs. fuckboy / bff division. Whether a fan is giving them $5 per month, or making it rain with 100 gifted subs, that's still a sugar daddy role. I'm not giving them money (not out of stinginess, it's just not my role). What I give has more time, effort, and affection going into it, so they take it to heart more than just money. I don't want to compromise that labor of love by sliding them a $5 bill at the same time.

    That's how they feel seen, heard, and valued. It could be smaller-scale comments of gratitude, affection, etc., from their fandom. It doesn't have to be entire songs crafted just for them. As long as it's not playing the sugar daddy role.

    But certainly the impact is more, well, impactful when it's a whole song or even a single verse and chorus, than random replies.

    I could never stop liking girls, and since I can't press my body against another body online, that only leaves the bff and tribute-payer role for me to play in the virtual realm. The only hard part is finding girls worth paying tribute to, but they really stand out, and you notice their breath-of-fresh-air qualities right away.

    Luv u gurls 4vr...

    (PS, I pay tribute to guys or male-only crowds, too, like the original groypers. But there are more inspiring girls than guys on social media / entertainment.)

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  22. The ideological stuff is just rationalizing the sectoral patronage stuff. "Oh, you support women? Then what do you think their place in society is, huh????"

    Leftoids "believe" women should be career-women because left-wing sectors can provide women with jobs. If their sectors could not provide women with jobs, like the right-wing sectors, then they would "think" a woman's place is outside the career world, i.e. domestic. It has nothing to do with thoughts, beliefs, or philosophy. It's just, whose sectors provide women with jobs or not, and dressing that up as a moral / ideological battle.

    To the extent that views or feelings enter into the left-right divide, it's the left that hates and derides femininity and female nature. It's considered an edgy sub-culture on the Tumblr-derived left to be into cottagecore -- AKA, being feminine, dainty, domestic, cooking / cleaning, and not whoring your holes around to leftoid loser girl-haters.

    100% of the woke 2010s moral crusade against Manic Pixie Dream Girls was waged by the left. Right-wingers and moderates find them irresistibly charming. So do a fair amount of left-leaning guys, but they can't speak up, for fear of witch-hunting accusations about perpetuating reactionary stereotypes re: which female tropes are desirable, bla bla bla. Sad.

    Libtards won't even allow anyone to praise or pay tribute to femininity or feminine archetypes. "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison -- couldn't happen today. It would have to be "Catty Girlboss" -- blech. That gives me the idea to write a bunch of those old '60s and '70s lovestruck anthems, about today's feminine figures online. Hehe.

    I'll never let the girl-haters keep me down. A lot of those girls still want the attention, validation, and reassurance of their desirability and charm. But they can't hear it, even vicariously through pop culture. The last time there were songs addressing a girl by name were the 2000s -- "Hey There, Delilah" and the others. Another casualty of the supposedly pro-women woke 2010s. Now girls all feel unnoticed, unloved, and unappreciated -- ain't wokeness grand?!

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  23. Gawr Gawr Gawr,
    Gawr Gawr Guranne,
    Gawr Gawr Gawr,
    Gawr Gawr Guranne

    Gawr Guranne
    Undo my ban
    Gawr Guranne
    You got me 'tarding and a-trolling
    'Tarding and a-tweeting
    Gawr Guranne

    Gawr Gawr,
    Gawr Gawr Guranne

    * * *

    Just a little off-the-cuff riff until I can write some full-length songs.

    Her open support for cottagecore, dainty / feminine / frilly styles, cooking & cleaning, and other Just Girly Things is such a breath of fresh air -- not just for guys, but her fellow girls who are keeping their femininity in-the-closet, for fear of a woketard goblin brigading their account about not being a steel-nerved girlboss who commands an army of slaves rather than do her own domestic work.

    You are not alone, sharky, and your girly presence is very broadly appreciated. :)

    BTW, the creator of Just Girly Things on Tumblr eventually came out as a lesbian, so the leftoid attack on that Tumblr account and its imitators is yet another example of woketards waging a moral crusade against lesbians, whether they are aware of it consciously or not.

    But we've got a #SafeSpace for girl-likers here, always.

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  24. Oh yeah, there's definitely a shark lurking in the moat around this ruined blogosphere castle. Namedropping "Just Girly Things" during the impromptu podcast on tonight's stream, asking "What if someone blogs about it?" the other night (Zoomers don't know what a blog is, let alone use "blog" as a verb), etc...

    I think I started noticing her occasionally reflecting content / topics / phrases when I had just used them, during the Powerwash Simulator stream. Was that around the time someone tipped you off to this blog? Maybe it was that song "You're Uwu-ful" in particular? Hehe.

    I didn't even intend to use that as chum, to lure the sharky princess over here. It was about streamers and stream-watchers in general, although based on your channel in part. I just write whatever, and whoever finds it, finds it. If I wanted to get it in front of someone's eyes, I'd post it in the most visible place, like if Hololive has a subreddit, or join Twitter in order to @ her, etc.

    But I find that too clingy and coming on too strong. If they find it, they find it. If they like it, they like it. Glad you found it, and glad you liked it. :)

    I wrote another one about the para-romantic attachment between a fan and their favorite streamer a little while ago, that you might like, parodying "Teenage Dirtbag":

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2021/09/z-gen-degen-parody-of-wheatus-teenage.html

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  25. Why my attention to someone reflecting back topics or phrases? I'd rather not have to keep my eyes peeled for such things, but that's the only way to tell if they're lurking nowadays.

    I know it's not deliberate, it's just that when you read someone's stuff for awhile, certain topics or phrases get lodged in the back of your brain, and they involuntarily come out when you make your own content.

    E.g., Aimee recently used the phrase "radlibs," which has been out of usage for over a year now. But I just linked to a song about her from 2020, and that post's intro text has the phrase "radlibs" in it. So she was lurking the comments here, re-read that 2020 post, that term lodged in her brain, and it came out later that day.

    In the old days, I would get a clear sign, like Anna or Aimee pasting an html link to my blog in their tweets.

    But these days, nobody leaves links within any form of content, unless it's to an appendage site -- like if someone on Twitter links to an article written by someone whose primary online residence is also on Twitter. Twitter people will only scratch each other's backs.

    It's not personal, it's just brand-building, as their brands are so tied up in the specific platform they spend most of their time on. Building a link to someone wholly outside their platform would deliver few brand synergies -- none of the Twitter readers would know who the linked-to person was, perhaps even what the outside platform as a whole was.

    And the outsider can't boost the Twitter person's metrics, since they can't retweet / quote-tweet them on twitter.com, as they're outside the platform entirely.

    Back when it was Web 2.0 and mainly Gen X, we linked to all sorts of various people and sources. It wasn't a hyper-competitive brand-building exercise, or forming citation cartels of mutual back-scratchers. But with social media, and Millennials, it's all about brand-building.

    So I don't take personal offense that Anna and Aimee don't link anymore -- *nobody* links here anymore, and it's not just this one beyond-Twitter site, it's *every* such site, if the writer isn't primarily on Twitter.

    Nowadays, everything is behind-the-scenes / backchannel / group chat / etc. Screenshots, links within a DM that isn't publicly visible, talking on privated / locked accounts, and so on. So I know the word is still getting around, I just can't trace it specifically like I could when people left html links in public spaces.

    Just another aspect of how fake & gay social media is, but it is what it is, and there's no changing it back to the Gen X Web 2.0 ecumenical practice.

    ReplyDelete

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