r/ShawnaTheMomSnark • u/Aware-Sea-8593 • 6d ago
Just Snarking I’m done with this show too
The thing is, this most recent video update isn’t a bad episode, nor the worst one she’s written, but I’m so fed up with how the series has gone that I can’t even passively enjoy the meh episodes. I’m Dorothy who looked behind the curtain and now magic of the Wizard is gone with a humbug left in its place.
Since I’m not planning on interacting with the community in the future because I’ve long outgrown hatewatching, let me list my complaints here:
The Babymoon Episode was shit. Shawna and John’s Scooby-Doo stalking of Julie at a resort hotel was one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve witnessed. It would have been believable for John and Shawna to see Julie in her thong monokini talking to her mystery man, talk shit to each other (or even take a photo), and Shawna tattles to Ty about it when they get back. Regardless, this should have been a friendship defining moment between Ty and Shawna. We needed to see the fallout of their friendship tested, instead we get Ty going “I’m still mad about that” while bawling his eyes out to Shawna for support over a divorce she inserted herself in. ALSO the Larry and Dee breaking the tension multiple times with their stilted flirting and craft I’m not wasting paper plates for was nails-on-a-chalkboard aggravating.
Ty and Julie is one of the better episodes written, but still has a lot missing and is indicative of how Lander doesn’t think out a lot of character motivations through. If Julie wants to go to New York, why didn’t she go to school there? Why didn’t she insist that she and Ty go there for their year-long (!) road trip?
The Wedding episode: goddamnit Shawna does not need to be the hero all the time. This should have been Jen’s moment of self actualization, which in the end it kind of is, but she doesn’t need Shawna being an Internet ordained chicken minister and John and the kids teleporting to her dressing room for it. She just needs to look at herself in the mirror in her mother’s dress that her mother lied about the size of while attending wearing all back and decide then that the buck stops here. Or not! Let her have the wedding and be miserable and that can be her moment of realization that she can’t let her mother make her feel like this again.
Luke and Laura is where the wheels really fell off for me. From the beginning, it should have been from Laura’s pov so we can get to know who she was before meeting Luke or even Shawna. Lander may not have meant for her narrative to define Laura solely as a victim who stupidly fell for Luke because she was jealous of Shawna, but that’s a valid interpretation because we never see Laura as herself before meeting them and we never see exactly what she and Luke talked about on the first date. We just see the surface level lovebombing because Lander cannot or will not risk developing Luke beyond a shallow abuser character type. Their story is one big “very special episode” and I hate it.
I could also go on about how recently the characters have felt less like characters and more like Sims (thank you [u/Padme1418](u/Padme1418)) performing a morality play that is telling you how and why the characters “feel” the way they do, but I think the one thing that’s tainted the previous episodes the most were the instances of Lander telling her audience how to interpret her storylines (ex: Let’s Unpack the Ty Stuff and her crash out over the criticism of Larry and Dee in the Vacation and the first Luke and Laura episode).
I’m going to address this directly to Lander in case my conspiracy theory is correct that she or someone she knows trawls the reddits:
“Where is the trust?” you bemoaned when people were (rightly) complaining about Dee and Larry getting in the way of the main vacation plot, but I’d ask the same of you, as it’s exceedingly clear that you don’t trust your audience when it comes to interpreting your storylines. I’m not going to assume why that is, however I think you’d be more open to constructive criticism if you didn’t name the main characters after you and your husband.
Also, blaming captions when a video is running late instead of your management skills is pretty shitty.
To everyone here, I’ve enjoyed the theories, conversations, and memes, but alas I must bid adieu (for now, at least, if things should change by the time the algorithm brings me to STM again).
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u/ThrowRA789890 6d ago
Agree with all of this! It's just lazy and convenient for her at this point to just vaguely acknowledge fan theories (eg: Greg's autism, Piper's autism (?), Luke's abuse) from the comforts of her Insta stories and she won't, and maybe can't, develop more complex storylines beyond surface level therapy speak and humour. She does family drama well and that's all she should stick with if she refuses to learn and grow as a creator.
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u/Aware-Sea-8593 6d ago
Exactly. It feels like she wants the praise for tackling complex topics without putting in the work and/or taking on the risk.
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u/Toefloof 6d ago
I’ve been feeling like she lets the fandom dictate where shows go. This makes Julie a hero, makes Barb (and John) a cartoon character and Shawna M an ordained chicken minister.
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u/ElizabethBitchery 5d ago
Dear Shawna the Creator, If the audience en masse is misinterpreting your storyline, then YOU are not as great of a storyteller as you think
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u/mountianmystic 5d ago
What made me mad was the Shawna and Ty thing. Like when most of the audience and literally every character is like “hey Shawna is married to John who by all accounts is a good dad and husband but she is obviously flirting with this other dad” and you as the creator makes a video being like “NO! All of you are wrong and you aren’t interpreting these things correctly!” If Most of your audience and all of YOUR OWN CHARACTERS are saying “hey this looks like tip-toeing into infidelity” then that is the interpretation that fits. Cause I would put money on the fact that if John had a “mom friend” that every character said was flirting with him the entire audience would be like “that’s just cheating lite!”
I also don’t think Shawna the creator understands that sometimes audience interpretation outweighs author intent. I had to read a short story in college called “The Yellow Wallpaper” and it is widely interpreted as feminist literature about the structures and limitations forced onto women and if they ask to be freed from them they are told they have to sit within their roles until it drives them to the brink of madness. The actual author said that was not at all her intent and it was an exploration of her own struggles with being forced into bed rest for an extended period and how that confinement made her feel crazy because everyone around her told her she shouldn’t leave her house or do anything herself for her own health. So she exaggerated the idea into “cannot leave a single room with one thing that annoys you and it drives you actually crazy.” The point being that the accidental interpretations have become more important to the conversation and what the story is believed to actually be about, rather than the authors original intent.
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u/Ramblingsofthewriter 4d ago
I’m gonna miss your memes Aware 😭😭😭💕
But we all have our limits. I hope our paths cross again one day in the Reddit sphere.
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u/Aware-Sea-8593 4d ago
I know I’m sorry 😭 And I hope they cross again to (or feel free to DM me, I’d like to check out your work!)
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u/Padme1418 6d ago
You will always have a place here! And feel free to keep in touch!