marlowe1: (Maggie)


So finally found a video talking about Lindsay Ellis that wasn't some dirtbag alt-right asshole using "woke" as an insult. The kind of people who hear Lindsay Ellis' weird "well everybody is racist and it's all really complicated" response to charges of racism (she doesn't actually admit to having been racist) with "well systemic racism is bullshit you woke idiot".

This is all the fault of the one youtuber who decided to include her in his "Breadtube is eating itself" video and she's still doing the same shit - the same "well...it's complicated...but I'm the real victim here" garbage.

So here's my problem with Lindsay Ellis (if you don't watch the video) which is that she was a disaster for years on Twitter. She was always giving shit takes and going off on bullshit false equivalency. And there was always a lot of hostility comming off her feed which implied that if you disagreed you were an asshole (or a diet Nazi as she likes to say). Some of this made it into her videos but most of it didn't. I usually liked her videos. I found them informative and entertaining. Hell, I even liked Mask Off initially. But then months later when she announced that she was leaving YouTube, I had to realize it was the beginning of the end.

(I guess that's the way things go. Things that you initially convincen yourself to accept as normal plant the seed for misgivings and pretty soon everything is different).

Also I made sure to always skip her Game of Thrones videos. I got an encapsulation and they are as bad as I thought. She even named the second one "Dragon Lady Bad" which...does she realize that she's imitating MAGA assholes in their comeback to their lord and savior's critics? THere are things to criticize in Game of Thrones but when you don't realize that Daenerys has been a villain all along, you really shouldn't be a pop culture thinker. And thank G-d she never made the Prince of Egypt video she was threatening to make on Twitter (her hot take - the death of the first born is GENOCIDE and Moses is BAD actually). But really after Mask Off she stopped being the critic that I wanted to see.

But here's the thing about Masks Off. No matter how much criticism she got for using "if you squint" in relation to Asians and no matter how many people called her a racist asshole for going after Raya and the Last Dragon (a shit movie by the way) the same week that a bunch of Asian women got murdered, she had WAY MORE followers willing to attack her critics.

Ok, maybe my Twitter monitoring is not on point. But after Ellis pissed off a bunch of people, they faded away and she was left to whinge about being the villain of the day. Then she made Masks Off and weaponized her followers. Search the situtation. You'll find video after video, reddit after reddit, site after site talking about HOW BAD IT WAS that Lindsay was BULLIED (which in turn makes it ok to bully her critics) and then there is the odd article that goes "Hey White Feminist, maybe don't be so White Feminist in regards to Stephanie Myers and her racism" but mostly it's the LINDSAY DID NOTHING WRONG!!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!!

(side note I found a tumblr that went point by point over her dumb Game of Thrones videos and made a comment and one guy was so mad about it that he had to reply and tell me that "Daenerys was also a rape victim" which by inference made her decision to burn a rape victim alive in season 1 ok. Well, I guess running to defend the pretty white woman is cooked into the culture - even when it's a fictional white woman mass murderer)

But yeah - Lindsay Ellis is a woman who acts like she knows everything, can't apologize for anything and while working the constant hostility will resort to White Women Tears whenever called out on her shit.

So she's like my mom at her worst.

(I kind of have to admit that my mom wasn't that bad in her last couple decades, but I was also an adult and had figured out strategies to deal with that shit. Only these strategies are actually not healthy in normal discourse)

I should just rewatch Bojack Horseman. Somehow I don't think it will hit as hard now that I've processed a ton of child trauama.
marlowe1: (Serenity)
I met Ellis at a convention and she seemed nice. This was after the "Change the Channel" document came out and I had only read a few parts such as Ellis talking about the lack of professionalism when they filmed those terrible movies. I skimmed the rest and saw the videos. It was a very entertaining drama for a time. Years later, I realized that while I still liked many of the former CA creators, my favorite was Brad Jones of Cinema Snob who actually stayed with Doug and the gang. And got doxxed for it. It sounded like a bad time but for most of the creators and had I any talent in the way of making videos in 2008 (and the money to pay for the equipment that I would have needed at the time) I would have been begging to be a part of Channel Awesome and I would have been horrified at the way they treated the video producers with that document to this day. Maybe.

But years later and we discover that Alison Pregler changed her story several times and that Linkara's main complaint was that they wouldn't let him use the CA studios for his terrible movie and that the guy who was grooming teenagers still waited until they were legal before starting up with them (which is still disgusting behavior but not something you can publicly fire someone for. Else Justin Roiland would have taken his shit in the eyeballs writing and gone away by season 3 when problems first popped up because of...check notes...women in the writer's room).

So the whole Channel Awesome drama sounds more like a dysfunctional work environment than anything. And I've called out dysfunctional work environments so respect. But also "holy shit you guys went through hell" became "well yeah that sucks but all jobs suck". I enjoyed some of the new drama videos, but they got old. Linkara is a mess but the people who are obsessed with Linkara are mostly rightwing trolls. Beyond the "Hey, his ex-girlfriend is related to an asshole I used to know in college" I really had no interest in bullshit about woke mobs and videos going "No, Ancient Aliens is totally not racist guys." or videos going after Linkara for hating on Frank Miller or those really bad 90s artists like Liefield. No real desire to hear about how Frank Miller is against the "woke mob" and seriously, I could live the rest of my life without hearing or seeing "woke" as an insult (so please G-d, take out DeSantis sooner than later)

And then another video comes out about how breadtubers are eating each other. It is a popular topic for the YouTube videos I watch. And I skimmed it because leftists fighting leftists is not exactly a concern. Emma Goldman left the new USSR with stories about Trotsky murdering strikers. That's the only kind of leftists canceling leftists story I care about.

But this video got to Lindsay Ellis and holy fuck she's still whining about the "woke mob" and how it was ONLY ONE TWEET. (with a side note about how Raya and Last Airbender were both multi-million dollar properties because BOO!!! Capitalism!!!) But it wasn't only one tweet. It was a lot of tweets. That tweet was the one that got her in trouble enough to leave Twitter, but I was on Twitter. I followed her. She was painfully unfunny, always angry and exhausting. I might have stopped following her when she wouldn't stop about the last season of Game of Thrones. While I don't expect everyone to agree with my take (Daenerys was a monster from season 1 when she murdered a rape victim and the final season made perfect sense) I do not want to see the condescending take that only Lindsay Ellis is correct when it comes to Sansa being a bitch and Danerys' actions in King's Landing making no sense (which you would have to ignore three season of her advisors telling her not to burn everyone alive and her reluctantly agreeing).

But her video on Game of Thrones was the first one that I just skipped. It used to come up in my algorithm all the time and every time I would skip it. I never got past the Robert Moses part.

I did watch Mask Off.

I enjoyed Mask Off because I was still a fan and how dare that "woke mob" go after her for JUST ONE TWEET and a lot of other stuEf WHICH THEY HAD TO DIG UP!!!!

The thing is she never actually admitted to any wrong doing. She never indicated that she was even curious as to why people were upset. She just kept defending herself. And then she kept defending herself for other stuff. And two hours later, she got a lot of praise from her fans.

Now that I see her again still whining about "getting canceled" and hawking her mediocre science fiction books I realize that I fell for a bad faith game. The "Pity ME! I'm a woman getting attacked by people and I'm hyperventilating over here and about to cry and the big bad WOKE MOB is ATTACKING ME. Won't someone think of MEEEE!!!"

It's so much easier to spot when Anne Rice claims that a "lynch mob" is coming after Paula Deen for saying the N word. Amazing how much the term "lynch mob" is invoked by the people who would be smiling for pictures around a real lynching. But Lindsay is complaining about the "woke mob". So that's totally different.

Woke isn't just a new N-word for people who prefer dog whistles, right?

This annoyance and suspicion that I've been wrong about someone had me googling. My work is light this week. I have ADHD which is weird because it involves obsession. And I found an article from last June where she was AGAIN complaining about getting canceled. I mean that was the point of the article "Lindsay Ellis reflects on being canceled" but it was all about how she was at a video maker convention and how she got negative feedback, but she's totlly OVER IT now and there's a daughter that she popped out so she's totally mature these days guys.

Also she really wishes she could come back to video making because she wants to make an entire video about how Prince of Egypt sucks.

Oh and it's the same complaint. THis was a Mask Off point in the video where she said that she was sorry to Jews for getting too critical of the death of the first born scene. That was followed by her saying she owed MovieBob an apology for being dismissive.

But those tweets where she's giving the most obvious and dumb take are still up there. She's going on tweet after tweet about hwo G-d commits genocide and it's framed as a good thing. And when the fact that Egyptian society started out killing children in the beginning of the movie, her fans turn to this "well two wrongs don't make a right". And I don't want to be that guy, but come on, that is such a superficial take on the story. The POINT of the death of the first born is that every revolution, no matter how righteous, no matter how beneficial in the long run comes with the death of innocents. But Lindsay Ellis would prefer to have the G-d is all puppies and daisies perspective and she's offended by anything that has any moral ambiguity or tragedy.

Didn't have an interest in reading her books before now. Have even less interest now.

But the big issue is that no matter how many people went after Lindsay Ellis for "just that one tweet", they are nothing compared to her millions of fans who are eager to go to the fences for her. Weaponized white women tears is what we are talking about. Go on and try to find blogs or tumblrs or even tweets that are critical of Lindsay Ellis. Google Lindsay Ellis bully, Lindsay Ellis racist, Lindsay Ellis bad take, Lindsay Ellis problematic.

You know what you're going to get? Maybe TWO critical articles about how she did wrong. There's an indigenous blogger who did not appreciate her Pocahantas take and REALLY didn't like her purposeful ignorance of the racism in the Twilight series in that "Sorry Stephanie Myers" video. But the rest of the entries will be support. Lots and lots of support. Just blog after tweet after blog where the person writes about the horrors of WOKE MOB and how they were really bad to go after Saint Lindsay Ellis for joking about Harriet Tubman slash fiction or making a joke about Zack Snyder's mother hating him days after his daughter committed suicide (there's even a Tumblr post where legitimate criticism of Lindsay Ellis is met with "you're a Zack Snyder fan" and then a self-righteous annoucement about getting blocked for that bad faith argument).

The weird thing is the fact that after I say "MAsk Off" I was still a Lindsay Ellis fan but the ice was cracking where you couldn't see it. So when she posted another video I didn't rush to see it. What I met with eagerness was avoided. Then when she made the annoucement that youtube was over for her, I didn't care. I was actually relieved. I got a lot of leftist videos decrying the woke mob because of course I did, but I had moved on.

Now do I like 2-3 hour video essays? Not sure.

But this feels like when I stopped watching Glee or stopped reading Piers Anthony. At the time I thought that I was just finding different interests. Only later on something reminded me of Glee or Piers Anthony and I realized that I hated both Glee and Piers Anthony.

Lindsay Ellis is not as bad as either Glee or Piers Anthony. But I've moved on from the point in my life when I would ever want to hear from her again.

I guess looking up the articles about her was a way to confirm that to myself.

So fuck, maybe it's like when I was done with Christianity once and for all. I went to a lot of evangelical websites in hopes of talking myself out of it, but I had decided to become Jewish. And guess what, that's the opposite of Christianity.

And Prince of Egypt rocks.
marlowe1: (Default)
Contrapoints and Lindsay Ellis are great. They make long ass videos about social justice issues with some film criticism thrown in and I can watch them from beginning to end without pause. Except for the Game of Thrones one. I get it. Everyone (but me) hates how Game of Thrones ended. I don't need Lindsay Ellis explaining it in the context of Robert Moses. However, I can't really stay subscribed to Storied, Ellis' PBS show because even though Ellis is still ok in small doses, she's not nearly as entertaining. Those videos are too slick and polished.

Also she followed up a video on Stephen King (fairly insightful) with a video on Anne Rice (FUCK YOU).

And I know that this is because she's friends with Maven of the Eventide - whose name I should know. Hell, I was on a panel with her at Convergence. And I like Maven. Hell, she even mentioned my book on her show. But as much as I like Maven as a person, I find her youtube channel rather annoying for two major reasons. First, she's way too enamored with Anne Rice. It's a vampire channel so that should be expected. I would argue that it's worse because of all the vampire media in the world, she had to focus on fucking Anne Rice. Woman only wrote one decent book and two kind of ok books in her life. It's almost as bad as the channel Comics Explained where he doesn't explain comics so much as gives recaps of old stories. Actually the equivalent would be a channel on Comic Books that PRIMARILY talks about the X-Men, the 90s run.

The second reason is that damn voice she uses. She talks normal in real life. In the videos she uses Sexy Baby trying to sound Spooky voice.

Moving on to other former Channel Awesome producers, there's Folding Ideas. At one point I liked Folding Ideas. Actually most of these entries are things I once liked. Folding Ideas rarely comes up in the algorithm anymore but when he does it's always a fucking miserable time. Granted, the last time I watched him he was doing a voiceover concerning the movie Contagion with the main picture being him on a couch.

But the thing is that they are always like that. He's always looking just fucking miserable in front of a white screen. Sometimes he's drinking and I don't think it's one of those affected "oh look at me, I'm doing the fun drinking schtick". No it's that total alcoholic composing a suicide note in his head drinking. The one time he seemed ok was when he did a post-movie response to THe Book of Henry where he just jabbered about all the WTF moments in that movie. Then he went and did a serious video on the movie. And it was fucking brutal.

Seriously, insights about how that one scene in Rent is confusing because it seems to make Roger the Bad Guy for not wanting to do heroin are so not worth the effort of watching Folding Ideas being miserable.

Patrick H Williams is like Folding Ideas without the didactic bullshit. The one issue with Patrick is the fact that he's too in love with the skits. I think that he is sad because he was never in Channel Awesome so he didn't have to do those fucking skits that you sometimes see in Channel Awesome producers if you go back far enough.

Speaking of annoying, Musical Hell finally made me realize why I hate the channel. It's basically CinemaSins but for musicals. That isn't just the way that the narrator goes "Sin 1: the Opening Number" but there's a lack of insight into the musicals she's talking about. She complained about a Canon movie "Mack the Knife" (Three Penny Opera adaptation on the cheap) starting with a version of the song that isn't peppy like Bobby Darin, as if she doesn't know that the fucking song is supposed to be grim and nasty because it's Kurt Weil. For the most part, the rest of her criticisms are often just "well that's weird" or "well ok then" as if that's all she needs to say.

I like Kurt Smallwood because he refuses to do sponsorships in the normal youtube way. In fact, he mocks the hell out of the usual sponsors, including Audible and SurfShark. I appreciate that a great deal. I like other channels, but I'm really not enamored with these youtube content creators like Dominic Noble or Ryan Hollinger stopping to do a 1950s television type sponsorship.

Especially bothered with the fact that Ryan Hollinger keeps taking money from "Manscaping". I come to the channel to see a Scottish dude talk about the themes of horror movies. I don't want him to turn around and tell me to shave my balls.

There are others but those are the ones I'm thinking about at the moment.

Of course, there are others. This fucking Covid-19 Pandemic has stuck us all inside watching television for an entire year now. I think we all have about 30 more youtube channels on our subscription list than before (and at least a dozen that we took off). Hell, those React channels have become the only way to come close to hanging out with friends and watching shows.

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marlowe1: (Default)
Tim Lieder

December 2023

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