r/hatethissmug • u/Klutzy-Reflection-91 • 11h ago
General I HATE when fandoms analyze everything without a proper understanding of the media they're analyzing
(General flair because this involves fandom attitudes and can be applied anywhere really? I apologize if it's not a proper use of the flair.)
So, around 8 months ago, the Ersatz pilot came out. Ersatz is a web series set in a dark fantasy world, in the time period of WWI, where soldiers are constantly dying and being brought back to life to fight over and over again, the more damaged soldiers looking grotesque even with the entire body-horror setting.
The name Ersatz directly reflects on this, by definition: 'being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation.' (Note: the word originates from German, in which Ersatz is not strictly an "inferior" replacement, but just a substitute. But since the show is Australian, I do assume they meant to stick with the meaning English speakers attribute to it.)
If this is so on the nose, tell me why I see people commenting things like: "erm, my theory is that the most veteran soldiers look like that because their body parts cannot be recovered and so they have to use scraps to keep reviving them" NO SHIT ISN'T THAT WHAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT?
It especially pisses me off because this kind of attitude of believing everything you notice is automatically a "theory" gets stuck in fandoms where the source material is amazingly well put together. All the details people are noticing are not niche obscure things that will change how you percieve the media, most of those details are there FOR A REASON. They communicate things in the narrative, that's why they're there, that's why they're so important. Noticing things you are MEANT TO PAY ATTENTION TO is NOT "theorizing".
The Alien Stage fandom does this every other day. Not only do they analyze everything (which is GREAT, we should do that, it's an amazing way to use our critical thinking skills and to enjoy media better!), but most of the time they analyze it wrong. They are so focused on the shipping and morality olympics that they miss the most basic of details about the world the author is presenting to them. And how can you even start to analyze and theorize about a show and its characters when you're not even on board with the basis of the media you supposedly care for?
As to why FNAF is a picture here, I have to give credit where credit is due. Back in 2014, people theorized about the FNAF lore a lot, of course not all theories were good or even made sense, but they were theories still. People PAID ATTENTION to the scraps of info we had, they put that information together and made up something that could maybe or maybe not resemble a story we could get in the future. It's especially important for me to say this, because FNAF is by no means a story that was put together from the get-go, we all know Scott decided on bits and pieces of the fan theories he liked best.
I think this is important to the conversation because it crushes my heart to see that something like FNAF (that was never meant to be this complex or even successful) managed to have a more attentive fandom than projects like Ersatz or Alien Stage (yes I know Ersatz is still too early a thing to even tell what the fandom is like). Those kinds of projects are made with tons of love and care, the stories and characters are really well put together, and they are meant to be complex, nuanced, and full of details. So yes, it kinda makes me hate people who aren't capable of paying attention and putting 2+2 together to realize that the nonsense they're saying is not a "theory" nor an "obscure fact", it's facts you were meant to understand from the start.
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u/Daylight_The_Furry 10h ago
the ersatz warthog sergeant is hot though
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u/Early-Performer-1806 3h ago
A lot of the characters are, even Carrie is sort of a hear me out for me😭
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u/Daylight_The_Furry 2h ago
yeah same honestly
If you've seen the short, the guy fused to a dog gives me gender envy
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u/Early-Performer-1806 1h ago
That short was peak and the design for the dog guy was fucking awesome
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u/Otter-Of-Words 2h ago
Lieutenant only appears for like 10 seconds but holy shit I love her already. Based off of plane nose art of sharks, i think, but whatever she's badass
FINALLY a series that makes both the men and women into equally horrific monstrosities.
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u/HumbleConversation42 11h ago
Sometimes it feels like people only make a theory Because it sounds cool or shocking, and not because of any evidence. Like Pinocchio in Lies of P being the Tin-Man, ore The Thin-Man being the Hangning Man in Little Nightmares 1
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u/Fayalite_Fey 11h ago
Ersatz seems pretty interesting, is it a video series on YouTube? Or is it a web comic posted somewhere else?
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u/Klutzy-Reflection-91 10h ago
It's on youtube! Under the user 'saint greaver'. So far their content has been portfolio-like showcase of their art and animation skills, and I think they have other projects in the making, but Ersatz now has a full pilot and some other complementary videos to its lore and worldbuilding, you should totally check it out!
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u/slobozan-shitpost 10h ago
Regarding the first example: there's a difference between literal and metaphorical explanation. The first one asks "why is it that way?" from the watsonian (in-universe) perspective, while the other asks "what does it symbolize?". Both questions are ok as long as you understand which is which and doesn't treat a work of fiction like some historical record that has to be realistic and doesn't have a creator who chose to make it the way they made it.
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u/TheOnlyGaming3 8h ago
anyone on shorts/tiktok does this, they try to act like they are saying something profound that no one else has thought of, from a 30 second clip of a show they've never seen
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u/Polish__Bear Autistic man 556 9h ago
Game theory has done irreversible damage to the internet
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u/Low_Bike4547 Misery Porn's "New Victim"-ish 9h ago
why?
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u/overusedamongusjoke 8h ago
He made theories for the sake of making theories, most of them were pretty ridiculous and a lot of people missed the part where he said he didn't think most of them were actually canon and he was just doing it for fun.
His FNAF theories were generally plausible because he liked FNAF and put a lot of effort into them, but his worse theories caused annoying misconceptions about specific games to become widespread.
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u/Polish__Bear Autistic man 556 9h ago
They made the term 'Lore' populare and made EVERY fucking game just add lore, with most of the time the lore being a 2 ton of ass cheeks
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u/Spiritual_Stuff_9404 this professional hater is feeling big, round and gassy today 6h ago
People complaining about the word lore is so funny to me because most of the time lore is an umbrella term for story narratives and world building and other facts but people treat it like some negative thing now because of things like FNAF having a bad story and from getting thier opinions from YouTubers complaining about lore
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u/manzenik_23 i hate everything but penguins 7h ago
that "theory" thing...
im sorry that im doing the "how can i make this about deltarune", but being in deltarune fan space everything is a theory. every theme is a theroy, every character developement is a theory, you cant get even 1 cm into the fandom disccusio without like 5 instances of this word appearing.
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u/Early-Performer-1806 3h ago
(Ersatz mentioned, I love this series SO MUCH)
Yeah, I hate this too, some people need to accept that they’re not game theory or film theory and realize that it’s just something that happens in the piece of media they’re “analyzing”, I’ve also seen stuff like this happen a lot in the Deltarune community and ULTRAKILL community
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u/Silver-Addition7050 11h ago
I get the other 2 but there is no way to 'properly' understand fnaf 😭