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one of the major changes in media criticism online in the last half decade is that when people used to do big leftist critiques of why harry potter sucks they always had a disclaimer like "now this doesn't mean i think you're a bad person for enjoying the books." they dont really do that any more

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Lately I see way more the reverse, "the books are fun buy if you are still willing to have anything at all to do with them you are scum" Which seems like a much more productive take.

There is a style of criticism and even narrative writing that was obsessed with hedging one’s bets against bad actors on the internet. If anything else the state of the world has trained most normal people that this is a waste of everyone’s time, especially the writers.

for sure, especially combined with how like this was the millennial model for this kinda thing but as time's gone on and with manosphere style crap you see the fandom model of engagement adapted for more broad fascist projects without a Central Property and it's terrifyingly effective

makes me think about how gacha games do this SO hard. people think they aren’t addicted because they don’t spend money but they’re so swept up in the FOMO of missing dailies, pretty new characters, and being in an angry community that they

they don’t even realize they’re bored of the game/don’t like it anymore/are super addicted I’ve long had a hypothesis that after ~2 years any franchise will start to develop large amounts of fans like this and the more predatory the media is, the more vicious these fans are