i went on youtube today and i saw a video analysis of "rise of the brave tangled dragons" fandon. here's the link. if you weren't in the tumblr-pinterest-sphere of the early 2010s and you dont know whatafuk im talkin about, i'll give you a qrd. it was this bigass crossover fandom between the movies rise of the guardians, brave, tangled, and how to train ur dragon. thats ur qrd. onto the main point i was gonna talk about
although it may be hard to believe, given..... a lot of things about this website...... i was part of the tumblr-pinterest-sphere in the early 2010s, because i had a dear friend who lived down the street from me, she was 3 years older than me and we would hang out and go on pinterest to look at tumblr reposts and disney princess fanart. You know, like the hipster disney edits with rapunzel, or the "pocket princesses" blog, or general tumblr-adajecent stuff. if you know what im talking about you know what im talking about, but if you dont, watch the video i linked and it'll give u an idea of what it was like. modern aus n shit, hogwarts aus, you know the drill. anyway so i would go to my buddy's house and look at pinterest with her; she was totally one of those "ya dystopian john green joey graceffa hunger games" kinda gals that you dont see anymore, god i loved her so much. she moved away and i still miss her ;_; FUCK i keep getting off topic. we were in the pinterest-sphere is what im tryna say here.
so anyway we'd be scrollan and browsan, and we'd find shit related to "rise of the brave tangled dragons" and we were both like wtf is this???? not in a "omg so cringe" kinda way, but more like a "fascinating" kind of way. my buddy was pretty neutral on it, but i kind of became obsessed with it. no, i wasnt in the fandom. i was in the "observing the rotbtg fandom" fandom, members: me. i just didnt get it. i just didnt get why all these people were so interested in seeing interactions between these movies........ i just didnt get it!!!!!!!! i was 8, 9, 10 at the time, i dont fucking remember, so maybe it was just me being a stupid kid struggling to understand things far beyond me. i think part of the reason for my fascination was because uhh i was a little girl and i liekd disney princesses!!!!!! but on the other hand, i just didnt get it!!!!!!!! but i was so fascinated by it. at this point, maybe someone'll be like "bro u were in the fandom fandom", but i never like, looked at jelsa edits on youtube or read hogwarts au fanfiction or looked at elemental-powers fanart. but like, i kind of was. it was weird. you would see that shit all over pinterest, and i'm assuming tumblr (i didnt have tumblr at the time so idk), and idk i look back on it fondly because i miss 2014, but also because it was kinda everywhere. and when frozen came out, it became integrated into rotbtg, becoming "rise of the brave tangled frozen dragons". this is off-topic but the movie "frozen" is older than gay marriage in the united states..... food for thought. so when frozen came out and integrated itself, i'd hear let it go on the radio and think "oough rotbtfd", cementing itself into my brain.
this aint the longest longpost but i'd figure i had enough to say (even if was disjointed) to warrant longposting. i mean i really cant say nothin that wasnt already said in the video, so go watch the video. its a good analysis of where the fandom came from (answering the question that had me so obsessed in the first place), and also the evolution and growth of the fandom. it's also a reminder of tumblr-pinterest-sphere culture. i hate to say it because i know "doujin-adjacent" internet culture kind of died around 2012 (which is a longpost for another day), but i am a little nostalgic for those 2013-2016 tumblr/pinterest days. fuck, i'll say it. rotbtg was the closest the western hemisphere got to a large-scale doujin culture. no... that might be mlp, which was also fucking gigantic those years, but my point still stands, sort of. mlp had a reputation, and i mean rotbtg probably did too, but much less so. i say this because it was just a bunch of people doing shit because they thought it was cool. there was no monetization, as far as i know, and it was just... idk. maybe i'm grasping at straws by calling it "doujin culture", or im just being a stupid weeaboo calling it "doujin" instead of the basic "fandom", i dont know. so actually, no, im wrong. rotbtd wasn't the closest to large-scale doujin culture. it was just a bigass fandom. i would love to study the people who were actively in the fandom. so fascinating!
OH FUCK i mentioned "doujin-adjacent internet culture" died in 2012, i will write about that later but its because of the monetization and corporatization of the internet!!!! stay tuned for that, even though i know everyone else on neocities has written about that, i dont care!! its a neocities rite of passage at this point LOL!!!!!!!