ironic detachment with homestuck enjoyment

this is kinda me and i hate it so much

its like. i still engage with the fandom! i like homestuck, kind of, i make and help people make fanworks, the whole shebang. it's just that it sucks so fucking much i just can't. i want people to read and experience it because i think its probably good and i remember it being so when i first read it but like

the longer im in the fandom the more i start being like. y'know maybe the epilogues are bad. maybe everything after the ending is. i don't trust act 6 anymore. is act 5 even good? i was never too keen on act 4, what about act 1? do i even like the comic anymore??

and it's like. youre so right the IDEAS that the comic presents are very good the ideas the fandom presents are also good sometimes but my love for it is just kind of. fading away and id consider myself more of a sburb fan than a homestuck fan at this point

I have a few different ideas about this.

First off, we could talk about how Homestuck itself looks at irony and apply that to the irony of former/satellite fans. The average person who doesn't like Homestuck... just doesn't engage with Homestuck. There's something in there that the self-proclaimed non-fans want but they don't want people to know they want it. But the mask of irony is the smallest possible amount of distance you can put between yourself and something else.

To comment on jakemorph's post, the worst part about people complaining that Act 6 is too meta is that the meta stuff happens long before Act 6. WV is initially a reader surrogate who gets thrust into being a part of Homestuck. John visits mspaintadventures.com in Act 1. But because the author didn't sit down and explain it to another character, it's ignored. Now if somebody took grievance with author avatars sitting down and explaining things to in-universe characters, I could concede that take. I could also argue that writing in general can be described as an author sitting down and explaining things.

Elaborating on my use of "satellite fans." A group worth separating to discuss more in-depth would be the capital f Fandom. We typically use the word fandom to describe fans of a piece of media and the surrounding culture. However, there is a Fandom culture all to itself that spans across multiple interests. Characters sanded down into both bland and highly specific archetypes for fanfic. The same standards and criticisms levied onto wildly different pieces of media. I strongly disagree with the notion that Hussie holds contempt for Homestuck readers. But her disdain for Fandom is loud and visible.

late to this thread but I think its a double whammy of the "perceived as cringe" thing you were talking about, and also just something that is unfortunately very normal for fanbases. I mean, you really only have to look as far as the main subreddit for star wars to see how many people will insist that not only are they true fans of star wars, but that what makes them a true fan is they won't accept the new movies and shows with increased diversity and decent enough plotlines garbage disney produces, and that if you like mando post season 1/the last jedi/the acolyte/etc you're probably a contrarian and a shill.

To an extent I feel like there is also like a strange tendency online for people to become fans of things with a lot of death and blood in it and to make it cutesy? I just remember back in like 2019-2020 there was a big crossover of homestuck/danganronpa fans who would fixate on some of the most violent characters in it and go "this is my baby who would never hurt anyone and I don't know why the author did this to them" so like idk

A) older 'fans' liked it as a teen and were cringey teens and were thus cringey homestuck teen fans and are incapable of separating them being cringe with the comic itself being cringe. they can just barely remember some things were objectively cool though. so many people i know fall into this category.

B) Jake summed up nicely but people that feel like Homestuck is Officially seen as "problematic" and thus they struggle to defend it, and feel like now they're saddled with something that makes them a cross-fandom pariah now.

C) and the second half of people who only liked an earlier part of Homestuck that isn't the Latest and thus Most Important part of the comic anymore. They don't recognize the story they liked anymore, and didn't realize they were supposed to be growing alongside it. Kinda classic fandom reactionaries.

D) this think that every character detail/decision that happens that they dislike or think is "mean" is to spite them, personally. like people become fans of the idea of a single character more than anything and if they are unhappy or an asshole or imperfect then it's character assassination or trying to make them look bad.

E) they think every new "meta" aspect is Andrew Hussie judging them, personally.

i love this thread

thank you thread friends for creating such a good thread

RE: JakeMorph

yeah. yeah. right on the money. i dont even have much to add to that. thats just It.

>>"some people dont like the majority of homestuck, or hiveswap, or beyond canon, but they like the FEELING that they had when they DID enjoy it. alternatively, they like the POTENTIAL that it may have had before it switched into a direction they did not expect or enjoy. and this enjoyment of a Feeling or an Idea is what keeps them the fandom- not engaging with most of what homestuck actually is, but this esoteric idea of it that isnt actually real."

But is it truly not real just because it's tethered to the past?
Homestuck isn't flawless. You can't expect people to ignore the problematic parts of it, and some feel silence is a form of sanction of said parts. Hence why publicly decrying it became the "cool and proper" thing to do.
I feel completely dismissing Homestuck is throwing the baby out with the bathwater though, but I do recognize not everyone will agree.

Maybe don't retcon your characters to have animal genitalia for edgy shock value, among other things, if you don't want that to happen...

if your appreciation of something is founded in a nostalgic obsession with only part of that thing, then, no, I don't think it's unfair to say that appreciation is "not real".

my real opinion is that there's kind of a middleground between these last two posts, but I'm going to ignore all of that and just focus on specifically the animal genitalia comment.

how is it a retcon? there's no evidence as to non animal genitalia existing beforehand. there's no textual proof that anyone in homestuck actually has genitalia at all. you can hate the dog penis without making up reasons why it sucks

i for one think it's pretty cool B) woohoo furries yay waow

I think of myself as being pretty firmly in the camp that the Jade reveal we're talking about could have been handled better, but following dreamingdead's own logic about babies and bathwater I don't think that means THERE'S NO WORLD WHERE THIS IS AN APPROPRIATE DEVELOPMENT, EVER. it's just a matter of tact and approach. (speaking of middlegrounds.)

i've been thinking about this lately and i honestly do not think, as a concept, it's such a crazy followup to something that was already in the comic: John and Jade's "GHOST BUTT" conversation (p. 5295). the conversation never goes anywhere explicit with it, but John's hand gesture makes it clear what he's thinking, and Jade's discomfort with the whole topic shows that the story is cognisant of the subtleties of sexually maturing as a half-human half-ghost thing. combined with other stuff, like John's comment that Jade is "not really the weird kind [of furry] that people on the internet like to have sex with in their imagination" (p. 4338), it's not hard to frame this as a sensible avenue through which to explore Jade's emergence into adulthood. I just wish it didn't come with what felt like a lot of bashing Jade as a character, particularly in a way that paints her as an annoying bitch for getting in the way of the Really Important Parts of the story (i.e. Davekat yaoi)

and thats the thing isnt it! if people are ONLY ever discussing the negative aspects, the problematic aspects, the aspects they dont like... how much of it do you actually like, then? if you think it just sucks overall, what is the actual tangible purpose of sticking around with a piece of media that lost its luster to you (checks watch) more than half a decade ago? most post-canon enjoyers DO have critiques of the media (ie jakemorph's mention of the way jade was HANDLED rather than the plot point being bad at all, which i agree with), because thats a normal thing to have about the media you like. if thats all a fan talks about, though, and they never have anything good to say or anything enjoyable to engage with in reference to homestuck media, genuinely actually asking why stick around? whats the point, for them as a reader, anymore? especially when theres the option of Consuming Other Media that does those things they liked "better"?

re: jakemorph again, reiterating this
if your appreciation of something is founded in a nostalgic obsession with only part of that thing, then, no, I don't think it's unfair to say that appreciation is "not real".

I agree with the general consensus that Act 6 was where the comic's enjoy-ability/quality took a nosedive, BUT: If you enjoy act 6, more power to you! I'm not going to be the fun police. I also ended up liking the epilogues despite fully expecting to not like them based on everything I knew about them going in.

I think a lot of the "detachment", though, has to do with the HS "fandom" which is... infamous, to say the least? Even without getting into "toxic fandom" discourse, it's certainly a space that's noticeably different. I heard someone describe it as "A place that operates by its own rules; You go in, you come out different." That can naturally lead to feelings of detachment.

I think this post is talking about two types of fans and treating them as one. There's the ironic homestuck enjoyers, and theres the nostalgic homestuck enjoyers, and i don't think they're exactly the same. The nostalgia!enjoyers don't necessarily enjoy homestuck ironically, a bunch of my favourite fanworks are written by people who either dislike what happened after cascade, or what happened after game over. And those fanworks are written most sincerely and both continued to be written after homestuck ended, because they did genuinely like the earlier parts of homestuck. Usually, they really like the characters and just ignore everything that happens after the point where The Story stopped being quote unquote Nice to them. Which makes them particularly annoying if you're talking character or story analysis, but it doesnt make their enjoyment ironic.

I have still hope that the ironic!enjoyers will turn around after a few years. It happened to twilight too, it used to have this huge antifandom, but during the lockdown people suddenly started enjoying it sincerely again (back when the "effervescent" meme became huge). I get why you'd be an antifan, the fandom used to be extremely loud & annoying (a lot of conventions have gotten a lot more strict about their rules bc baby homestucks Did Not Know How To Behave) and it has a lot of things that you can pull out of context to point and laugh at (or possibly point and yell problematic at if that's more to your taste). Thinking your old interests are Bad And Cringe is part of growing up, and I really hope the antifans read the entire comic + epilogues + hs2 + beyond canon again and realise that all of it is a lot better and more cohesive than they remember (and that psycholonials isnt personally out to Get You)

prefacing this: i love homestuck. i think hussie writes characters incredibly well, i adore her work with the weird structural game meta in sburb, i even quite like the epilogues!

i do find myself falling into the ironic performance of homestuck distaste. i think a lot of the time people tend not to give each other the grace to believe they are capable of nuanced, complex thought unless they outright start off with it. every time i mention i like homestuck to someone who knows more than just the base "its an old webcomic that was really popular" i ALWAYS find myself having to follow it up with "i mean its definitely got its flaws and... etc etc."

i started getting really involved in online fandom culture in 2020; prior to that i didn't really use social media & ... touched grass, i guess. the way that DNIs were fucking embedded in the fabric of online interaction, with specific clauses for media enjoyment... i think it really left its mark. and i understand why someone outside the fandom, especially POC, may jump to distrust with people who present themselves as fans of the webcomic, and i really just don't think there's anything that can be done about that. you see the same thing with fans of hazbin hotel or steven universe or... well, less with attack on titan, i suppose, but

apologies in advance for how much i'm going to meander. i do think that there's some truth to the fact that a lot of people do not critically engage with media. shit, anyone who's read the epilogues and has a different opinion than just "they suck" has OBSERVED THIS FOR THEMSELVES. but online interaction is so shallow and banal that i think people immediately jump to the idea that anyone who doesnt follow up their enjoyment of a piece of media with an essay on its flaws is uncritically absorbing the media in its entirety, no matter what.

sometimes it's a valid safeguard, like with fans of a certain massively popular wizard franchise, since the issues with the media or the author are so glaring that they are a central part of the media in its modern context. but in most cases it really isn't, and i feel like homestuck falls in that second category. as much as i have trouble getting on with other homestuck fans, i've never met someone who ISN'T critical of the webcomic after talking with them for more than a single conversation.

i think a lot of folks who aren't involved with the fandom anymore don't realise how painfully self aware everyone in it is, and anyone in the fandom wants to be "one of the good homestuck fans" to people outside of it. i'm not innocent of this mentality.

it's just a fucking shame that being a homestuck fan is tied in with heaps of controversy and distrust. i know where it comes from and i get it but it sucks.

(obviously a lot of it also just comes from it "being cringe" but within modern day online spaces that doesnt matter as much)

i feel like a big part of this is that some people who are either young or never read the comic know to hate homestuck before they even know who john egbert is, like they have to prove they dont actually like it to people whose opinions on the comic dont matter

>>if your appreciation of something is founded in a nostalgic obsession with only part of that thing, then, no, I don't think it's unfair to say that appreciation is "not real".
Then anyone who liked something that came to exist in the past and wasn't 100% on board with the direction it took has fake appreciation then?
That just sounds like gatekeeping.

Re: Why follow a work that you don't like.

I wouldn't know, I don't do that. I also don't try to downplay the flaws or the shitty fandom history. It's there, it will be discussed, and trying to stop it just extends the life of the discourse.

But, you know how ragebait works, right? Same essential principle. Not saying all detraction falls in this camp, but it's definitely part of the relationship some have with the work. People by nature zero in on the negatives of anything far more readily than the positives, unless they train themselves out of it.
Have you ever watched terrible movies just to mock them with friends? or even done drinking games tied to the writing? That's another way to enjoy a creative work, even if it's not the healthiest.

>>how is it a retcon? there's no evidence as to non animal genitalia existing beforehand. there's no textual proof that anyone in homestuck actually has genitalia at all. you can hate the dog penis without making up reasons why it sucks
Regardless of how you feel about it, it makes the work significantly harder to discuss and even recommend in casual conversation or to new people, and doing so risks "validating" stereotypes of the fandom in people's minds. And IMO it was a deliberate test of how much the fandom would endure re:writing while still being willing to openly admit they like the work. Not unlike a hazing.

I can't blame people who have issues with it or paint them as "negative" for pointing out something fucked up is fucked up. I didn't choose the direction it took so why do I need to defend it? You're also not obligated to dislike something because a loud cluster of people online do so. It works both ways.

I think the idea that any story beat, including the state of Jade's genitals, is some attempt at hazing is a little incredible and illustrative of the strange mindset the 'nostalgia fans' identified in this thread have.

It's not enough that you just think a development fits poorly in the story, it has to be some underhanded jab to wound every Homestuck fan's ego?

RE: dreamingdead
i think also equating how easy it is to talk about a work with its quality is like. kinda goofy tbh. homestuck is not hard to explain, and neither are its sequels or spinoffs. and even if it was hard to explain, the content in the epilogues is honestly pretty par for the course of homestuck itself, really. mindfang is a canonical rapist and writes her own fanfic about it, in homestuck 1. jane goes on a brainwashed rant about procreating a bajillion babies with jake against his will, in homestuck 1. incest genetic slurry, in homestuck 1. in the first twenty pages the main character has to resist you, the reader, convincing him to shit on his desk, in homestuck 1. etc etc. weird "shock value" plot points have always been there. would you explain homestuck 1 by bringing those up, or by giving a general summary? same with post canon. would you really explain it by getting into the nitty gritty details, or just saying "its a work of fiction about being a work of fiction, its very meta, it does some weird stuff with the format"? homestuck is weird. whether its good or bad is up to opinion, clearly, but like. point of the thread is that its valid to critique/dislike/engage with it mostly negatively, but its weird when 75% of the fandom does that and makes attempts to drown out the people who like the work in the spaces that are dedicated to the work. such as an entire massive unofficial discord dedicated to shitting on every update as it comes out. thats just kind of weird. (you in particular are not doing that, to be clear)

Are we just using "gatekeeping" to mean whatever we want, now? Is thinking that words and concepts have meaning somehow gatekeeping those words and concepts? Come on now.

Time moves forward. If you are stuck in the past you are failing to appreciate the present and you will miss the future when it comes. I'm not stopping anyone from being stuck in the past if that's really what they want to do. I'm just calling things how they are