Austin Powers saying “Yeah, baby!”
Plus: Don't forget to check Disney+ for your homework
Welcome back to another edition of Nightcap Novelties, where we here at Night Water eschew the single-minded focus of our typical late night fare in favor of a textual variety show of links, Tweets, special guests, and International Men of Mystery.
The comic book fan to fascist pipeline
It’s election night in America—a stressful night for everyone, not least of which this French guy who bet $30 million on Trump winning tonight.
How did it get to the point where, for the third presidential election in a row, Donald Trump is the Republican nominee? In a new op-ed for the Guardian, author Alan Moore lays the blame at the feet of toxic fandom. Moore’s contention is that fandom has turned from a passionate and creative cultural force into a blight, a regressive and inherently conservative social movement that dominates society through misogynistic hate “crusades” like Gamergate and the campaigns of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Nigel Farage.
It’s hard to disagree with the sentiment—you can’t even mention Star Wars nowadays without some guy calling Rey a Mary Sue or complaining that The Last Jedi’s wokism ruined Luke Skywalker. “Is this a case of those unwilling to outgrow childhood enthusiasms, possibly because these anchor them to happier and less complex times,” Moore writes, “who now feel they should be sole arbiters of their pursuit?”
If toxic fans are not, in fact, sole arbiters of these franchises, no one seems to have told the studios. Variety reported last month that Hollywood studios have started assembling focus groups of superfans to try and identify potential backlash before it occurs. It’s partially to reduce the number of Fox News articles written about their projects and partially about creating ideal consumers, lapdogs who will happily gobble up whatever slop is being served and pay for the privilege.
“The ideal viewer is invested, but does not talk back and should be affirmational and reverent of the text they are presented with, rather than transformational and playing with the text, exploring different narratives, perspectives, situations,” writes Monia Ali in a recent piece for her newsletter, Fandom Exile, which explores this dynamic in-depth. Corporations are actively killing the type of fans Moore is so nostalgic for—the ones writing fan zines and fan fiction and engaging with the work in a positive and creative way—by overloading viewers with “content pil[ing] up like homework.”
At this point, your average viewer starts tuning out—see recent Marvel box office disappointments—leaving corporations with just the most invested, and most likely to turn toxic, fans. It’s a downward spiral from here: backlash, appease, backlash, losing core viewers all the way down.
I think these toxic fandoms can only exist when ownership of the cultural product is highly centralized—you didn’t see a mass backlash to 2021’s The Green Knight, a retelling of the 14th-century poem, for example. My solution is to take these stories away from corporations and put them in the public domain where they belong. Spider-Man, my favorite superhero, first appeared in 1962, over six decades ago. His original creators are both dead. Why is it that a corporation—one of the largest in the world—gets to own him and his stories?
If Spider-Man were in the public domain, there could be dozens of different interpretations of the character available, reflecting the idiosyncrasies of our current moment better than any blockbuster machine. There would still be backlash and hate, but it would be much harder to gain momentum—who cares if a bunch of right-wing freaks hate a random low-budget Spider-Man movie? Meanwhile, Disney would have to go and find new stories to tell, bringing new voices to the screen and reinvigorating their creative pipeline. It's hardly a silver bullet for fixing our societal woes, but it's better than whatever the fuck we're doing now.
They follow
Speaking of centralization and the rise of fascism, let’s check in on Substack, the preeminent right-wing newsletter platform.
When Substack launched their half-baked Twitter competitor, Notes, last April, I wrote that it was part of their strategy to ensure “that none of their writers ever, ever leave,” and that writers should start planning their exit strategy. (Night Water moved to Ghost from Substack back in February.)
In a piece for her new Substack newsletter User Mag, Taylor Lorenz reports on how the Notes feature has impacted writers—specifically by creating a new tier of “Followers.” These “followers” don’t receive your emails, you don’t receive their email addresses, and there’s no way to take them with you if you leave.
Lorenz reports that, for some newer Substackers, “followers” represent between 30 and 50% of their total audience, with many of these followers not understanding their own second-class readership. “I had to explain they needed to actually subscribe to receive my newsletter in their inbox,” Lorenz writes of a recent customer service interaction with a follower.
Substack argues that if you’re going to build a social media following, you might as well do it on the platform that wants to get you subscribers. Someone is going to own your followers—might as well be us! But with Notes debuting at the same time as the rise of decentralized platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, where you have a lot more control over your following, their view seems particularly obsolete. Compare it to Ghost’s ongoing project to build an open publishing network over ActivityPub, the same protocol that powers Mastodon. Hell, even Meta is following through on their promise to federate their Twitter competitor Threads.
A year and a half ago, I wrote that “everything Substack has done in the past year, both big and small, has only served to commodify writers and strengthen the Substack brand, and it would be foolish not to expect that trend to continue towards the logical endpoint.” It was true then, and it’s true now—if you think Substack has your best interests as a writer in mind, you are mistaken.
A good Tweet
Looking forward to seeing reviews from @roma.beershot any day now.
A Supernatural late night vibe
Mignon Fogarty is a podcast legend—she’s hosted Grammar Girl, a short-form weekly podcast full of writing tips and fascinating stories that “feed your love of the English language,” since 2006.
This week, Mignon’s sharing her late night vibe around the water cooler:
“After dinner, I’ve been texting to encourage people to vote.
I know we all hate getting those text messages. I do too. But this year, the election is so important, I’ve decided to just trust organizers and do what they say they need—and they say texting works. Also, reputable texters immediately remove you from the list when you reply STOP, but unfortunately, there are also a lot of scammers out there right now.
I’ve been surprised by some of the responses. At one point, I was inviting people to a debate watch-party, and a man replied that they’d love to come but would be out of town, and I was like, ‘Sir, we’re going to switch from talking about politics to talking about personal safety. Do not tell strangers you are going to be out of town!’
Next, I usually spend an hour boxing in Supernatural in my Meta Quest 3.
It all began when I demoed the Apple Vision Pro. It was stunning, but also stunningly expensive. I became obsessed, but couldn’t justify the cost. I valued everything in ‘Vision Pros.’ Getting our house painted? Sigh. That’s three Vision Pros.
Eventually, I decided to try the much less expensive Meta Quest 3, certain I would probably return it. But instead, I loved it. I still occasionally comment that the graphics would look better in the Vision Pro, but I adore the VR experience. I stand amid gorgeous scenery, punching balls that fly at me to the beat of my favorite songs. I’ve never had so much fun exercising, and I’ve never exercised so much. I just convinced my dad to get one too.
Finally, after showering (because I’m dripping with sweat after Supernatural), my husband and I settle into bed with an audiobook.”
Mignon, may all your nights be valued in terms of Apple Vision Pros.
Make sure you subscribe to Grammar Girl on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tonight’s extra special musical guest
I was doing some research on ESPN’s Jock Jams compilation albums for my community radio show when I came across this beautiful megamix featuring Austin Powers:
This is so incredibly 1999—it’s not even opening a time capsule, it’s watching a time capsule explode and create a temporal rift. I just hope they find a way to incorporate it into Austin Powers 4.
Lofi Animal Crossing beats to sleep/relax to
Need something to calm you down after that absolute banger of a megamix? May I suggest Nintendo’s new music streaming service?
Available exclusively for Nintendo Switch Online customers, Nintendo Music features a smattering of tracks from popular Switch titles, Wii channels, and… Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, somehow the only Game Boy Advance offering.
Relatively slim pickings for now, but it does have an amazing featuring that allows you to extend background tracks to up to 60 minutes long. That makes it super easy to build all-night playlists of Animal Crossing: New Horizons lofi beats to lull you to sleep. Just make sure you don’t accidentally mix in “Guardian Battle” from Breath of the Wild.
