I've never read Homestuck but the sociological aspect of it somehow being the point where two asteroids hit each other (autistic male internet with jokes about programming/furry fandom BPD autistic women internet) is pretty fascinating.
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i only read like 1500 pages of it but it's probably the most fandom-reactive text ive ever read. there are a number of plot beats that are presented as explicit fuck-you's to sectors of the fanbase lol
i started reading it as a crass spectacle but there is a lot more to love than you'd expect. the guy has a really strong control of character voice even if he uses it to present the most mindnumbing loredumps sometimes
when i couldnt get into it i figured id skim/trawl the wikis and tv tropes to at least get an idea of what the fuss was all about and i couldnt cos it was too much of an impenetrable mess of overwritten kudzu.
that idea of like overlapping systems upon systems, like anime star signs and types and everything, until everything is this brain-frying mess...I Do Not Like Homestuck, it seemed like everything wrong w internet writing
It's the first case I can remember of somebody getting a way, way, way, way bigger audience than they had any capacity to handle and that clearly on many levels terrified them. Half the Homestuck 'controversies' are transparent attempts at self-sabotage
Caucasiangate is probably the first thing to come to mind when I think about "media literacy" because in the original text of the comic it is quite clearly making a self-deprecating point about how paper-thin Hussie's race-blindness is but that was too nuanced for the fanbase of 17 year olds
Some guy who wanted to play forum games stumbled into an audience of fanfiction writers, confused tries to give his work Themes and Metaphors, only to find out that they really just want dolls to smoosh together in fighting/fucking poses. Defining artistic work of the 2010s
Toby Fox having almost zero internet presence and wearing disguises/using text to speech when appearing in public makes a lot of sense when you realize he worked on Homestuck during the height of its insane popularity
The guy went from being one of the most popular fandom figures on the internet to "the guy Toby Fox left in the dust" in like an instant. It was so weird to watch happen in real time.
In 2020, Hussie released a visual novel called Psycholonials, which featured main characters who were juggalos. At this time, they started going by any/all pronouns, did a photoshoot in juggalo makeup, and posted it online.
She went radio silent on all social media shortly thereafter, to this day.
born too late to be an era-defining early-internet poster, born too early to be toby fox. born right on time to be forced to make experimental storytelling for the most emotionally compromised teenagers
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She went radio silent on all social media shortly thereafter, to this day.