OK. So. I am outing myself here, but I was heavily involved in the Andrew/Jesse/TSN Fandom. Casey 100% is robin-pulasky and was known on Tumblr as robin-sparkles. When Red, White & Royal Blue was announced and I saw the author pic I had the wind knocked out of me because I immediately knew who it was. They were beloved in the fandom and Carry It In My Heart was THE fanfic. I wish I hadn't deleted my Tumblr years ago because I know I had evidence on there. AH!
Wait, so if there was robin-pulasky AND robin-sparkles (great username by the name; I’m assuming it’s a HIMYM reference), does that mean Casey McQuiston is just a pen name? It makes me think that their real name is Robin, and that Casey might actually be a fake name or perhaps their middle name. Or maybe they changed their name?
I wish I was (completely) around for the Merthur era. I would’ve loved reading those long ass essays about how they’re actually secretly in love w each other 😭
The fact that The Mortal Instruments isn't also referenced as one of the most popular filed serial number books is insane to me. Cassandra Claire's impact on the Harry Potter fandom should never be understated its insane.
i mean, the mortal instruments wasn’t a fanfic that had the names changed, it was just partially based on some fanfic, so i don’t think it’s quite the same thing as filing the serial numbers off. but yeah it’s wild that people don’t talk about her days in the harry potter fandom. i really need people to know about how she got kicked off of fanfiction . net for plagiarism
I know “filing off the serial numbers” has a bad connotation but I find it kind of heart warming that there are original books that started out as fanfics. I’ve read multiple amazing works by talented writers & the idea that people who work on their craft for free could one day transition to writing a published novel inspired by a fandom they cherished is very endearing to me.
I agree! I feel the same way about how people sometimes think that fanart is inherently worse because it is derivative. It’s not better or worse on principle, there can be good or bad of either and it deserves to be evaluated on its own merit. I have read some incredible fanfiction before that I liked more than real life books
yeah! same. i've read some fanfic and commented on them they're so beautiful and/or intriguing that they could easily be a successful book with this practice applied - and they chose to put it out for free!! no compensation for all that hard work, simply because they just really loved the characters and relations.
YEAH MAN!!!!!! i’ve read fanfic with the most interesting, immersive worlds and ocs and lines that get stuck in my head over and over again bc they’re just so GREAT (and usually because they’re also heartbreaking). a fanfic author i love publishing an altered fic sounds cool
same! It's so sad that fanfic writers are seen as a bad thing just bc of some shitty stories (and I mention it here: After), in reality there are a lot of good stories and really talented people who write/wrote them.
interesting that you saw the portrayal of Jesse as pathologically introverted, awkward, inexperienced and neurotic as being antithetical to the author really liking him, because I think in the context of TSN fandom that IS a loving portrayal of him (and honestly somewhat accurate to how he presented himself on the press tour), and was why I would guess people related to him and were drawn to him and his dynamic with Andrew, who is pretty much the opposite but was so clearly fond of Jesse and good at getting him out of his shell
I mean, I guess? Idk, when I heard that's how he was portrayed I was immediately wondering if this fic was weird about Jewish people. Like I would say that the presentation of Jewish men as nerdy, socially awkward, and virginal, is very much in line with pervasive antisemitic stereotypes (think Jacob Ben Israel from Glee, a deeply antisemitic caricature). So when later in the video, Jane talked about the weird language describing Jewish people in the fic, it all came across to me as kind of fetishistic.
@@nsb144 yeah I totally get that! I do think it's a lot to do with the way he talked about himself in interviews back then, but those stereotypes were probably playing a role at some level, and obviously seem prominent in those direct mentions of his Jewishness like you said. I think it also brings up the common issue of fans feeling like, if a celeb talks about their identity in a certain way or jokes about it, that it's appropriate for them to talk about it in the same way.
To answer questions about not being able to use the Way Back Machine for Livejournal: 1) Livejournal had a pretty robust anti-bot tool so it was commonly used in fandom communities who were coming out of the closet but you didn't want your fic to show up on Google. You say "I don't want to show up on Google" and it prevented your entire blog from being cached from that point forward. This was opt-in IIRC but boy did a lot of folk opt-in. 2) Livejournal's account deletion tool was incredibly thorough. Anything you ever posted would be gone - journal posts, comments, community posts, etc. We're so used to Tumblr where reblogging means you've created a copy of a post and it'll live on in infamy regardless of whether or not the OP deactivates. I suppose this is to prevent uncountable dead posts, but that wasn't needed for Livejournal. The only way to get copies of those posts are if the author of the fic still has copies of their comment notification emails. Those emails contained the full text of the post plus the comment, even if the post was below a readmore. If the author commented on those comments, then the commenter would have the comment chain but not the full text of the post. At least then you'd be able to see the icon the author used.
wow, that's actually really interesting! it's obviously frustrating for me that I couldn't find what I was looking for, but that honestly sounds like it would've been pretty great if you were a user of the site back in the day. I imagine a lot of people writing fanfic (adults at least) would want to keep that separate from other areas of their lives, especially a few years back when fanfic was even less socially acceptable. or in the case of someone like McQuiston who goes on to get published, very nice for them that their (ALLEGED) fanfic past is well hidden
As for the meta of it all I think it's hilarious that the social network isn't considered RPF as well when it is so, aggressively real-person fiction. this is rpf rpf. I think about this all the time in regards to literally every preexisting IP and tv shows getting new writers 10 seasons in and adaptations and reboots- derivative work is taken unquestionably seriously, except for when it's strictly out of love. (& i cant stress enough how good this video is!!)
When I was in high school I loved Carry It In My Heart so much I printed out the ENTIRE THING. It's still in my drawer in my childhood home. This video was such a fun blast to the past, and I'm so happy for Casey
as someone who was in that (very niche, Very cringe) fandom and read the fic as it was published, this video has really touched me. i saw old mutuals' blogs in this. thank you for such thorough work (it was so exciting to see you piece it all together!), and for such compassion
that archive page is so powerful. it's such a relic of a bygone era of fandom that just makes me feel a little empty remembering. it's so strange that a single webpage could bring up so much nostalgia for a fandom i was never even apart of
Was thinking the same. I was never part of this Fandom bc I was too young but I remember the love of wattpad and tumblr when I was 12-16 and it makes me sad that that was such a fun and eyeopening experience that I won't feel again. Sometimes I catch myself going to wattpad to see what I used to read haha
i felt the same! i wasn't in that fandom but oh boy, if you brought a webpage of Glee fanfics i'd burst in tears just remembering my teenage years and how much i was devoted to them 🥹
thank you for being real and including the bit where you got "weird" about it. the end of this video made me feel the same way i do after every jacob geller video essay - strangely overcome and wanting to sob about the implications of some piece of media/creativity that had seemed so superficial before. i wish more fandom historians would be willing to let that much sincerity into their analysis without sacrificing the humor and irony the detachment from those years gives us. beautiful work.
YES when she's talking about the archived page I got the same vibe. Jacob geller videos always make me so emotional and by the end of this video I was thinking the same thing!!
There was a Hetalia fanfic I read like 6-7 maybe 8 years ago where Alfred/America was the son of a female president, and Arthur/England was the prince of England and they have a romance. When I heard about Red, White, and Royal Blue, I initially thought it was Hetalia fanfiction.
Well. The thing is, the structure of this video essay is sublime. It literally has plot twists and foreshadowing. When you did the callback to the robin-sparkles Urban Dictionary entry, I literally laughed out loud.
I think of robin/Casey from time to time because I followed robin sparkles during a formative time as a teen on Tumblr (they introduced me to Sufjan and influenced my music taste so much when I was 16 lol). So this video is insane to me, I felt like I was watching a video about a high school classmate - but then I had my hair blown back by the last half of your video - it was so cool to see you do detective work on my high school experience lmao. I also got emotional when you showed the masterpost on lj, because I remembered their profile picture/avatar and suddenly I felt like I had done all the research alongside you, and that I had gotten a piece of my teenagehood back lol. I didn’t write any of those comments, but that was ME. Your bog mummy was ME! lmao. Anyway, thank you for this experience lol such a good video!
I think the big thing with rpf is that like, as long as the fans do not put that on the actors, then it’s just a thing that some people enjoy thinking about. It’s when fans push the ship or content about the ship onto the real people involved that it becomes shitty; that can mess up their lives. Also the rpf writers I’ve known about over the years would be horrified at their works being shown to the real people featured in them. It does tend to be fans consuming the work who cross the line, because holding the line is what keeps the creators safe, not just the real people in their works.
me reading the chapters before watching the video like yeah, the evidence, the ad read, the alleged title of the fanfic, STENDHAL SYNDROME????? This video did not disappoint, it was actually kind of incredible. Jane you're so cool and always killing it, keep it up!!
I dont know why itd never occurred to me that the social network would even have a fandom, let alone andrew garfield x jesse eisenberg shipping, but of course there was. why wouldnt there have been.
genuinely was very moved towards the end when you found that robin sparkles page- just because I know exactly what feeling you were trying to describe. Seeing all of the comments about the fic from fandom members made the page feel so alive, like it was still happening and we were experiencing it too, even though the moment has long passed. And it does feel like a moment of collective, innocent joy- now kind of sorrowful, just because it's gone. Like you said, those people are probably all different now. Adding in that moment from In the Mood For Love really got me lol. Over here feeling emotional over a red, white, and royal blue fanfic conspiracy video smh.
this kind of thing is always fascinating to me as a writer and someone who wrote fanfiction previously before being published with non-fanfic fiction and nonfiction and then returned to the world of fanfiction. not every fanfic writer will file the serial numbers off, but fanfiction was an avenue to experiment freely without scorn of academics and peers. if people find the work i wrote as a teenager, it's vastly different than the short stories i later wrote. the short stories are also vastly different from what the fanfics i'm writing now. people who write novels often will have written several novels before even daring to send something to an editor for publication. thanks for finding the truth on the matter, great video.
I’m glad you brought attention to how they represent Jewish people in their fic cause having read both RWRB and One Last Stop, both by McQuiston, I couldn’t help but notice how in both books there’s one Jewish character and in both books that one Jewish character comes from an incredibly elite, wealthy family and I always worried I was crazy for feeling like there was a questionable pattern there so to know that might not just be in my head is honestly a relief. Not trying to rag on them I honestly really loved both works so much I just didn’t love that particular element.
I don't usually leave comments on RUclips but I wanted to say that I love this video. Particularly the Stendhal Syndrome section and the empathy you convey in it.
Interesting tidbit about "The Secret Prince," it was an insanely popular fanfiction a decade ago. Like, second high viewed on the entirety of Ao3 in 2012 kind of popular. So Casey being influenced by the fics concept isn't too out there? It's could be a kind of "Draco in Leather Pants" moment, possibly. Like all the people writing posh bad boy fanfiction, which then spilt over into general lit, probably didn't know the popularization of those specific tropes came from a famous HP fanfiction. In the same way, I could see a majorly popular "dating a prince" fanfic influencing someone in the fandom space either directly or indirectly, because I do know that at the time (around 2010-2012) that trope started to pop up everywhere.
tsn and tsn rpf being my first fandom, this was such a trip. the bit at the end made me cry, like it was such a time and bright spot in my life. i havent read or watched rwrb, but its crazy to know that casey could be robin sparkles. i still have the ciimh pdf on my laptop. 😂 and the podfic of it too. so many memories 😭
I think Casey might have learned from CIIMH for RWRB, esp in how they leaned in to the reality of Alex and Henry’s situation a bit more. Their dad died in 2014, which very inspired that aspect of Henry’s life (I think they’ve spoken about it) so I do wonder if maybe the Andrew character could have been similar to Henry Before. I think we all take bits of what we wrote and put it in to the next thing. I’m sure they’re connected, but only in that They’re written by the same person, who is someone who is v inspired by their surrounding (same). I think it’s nice to think about their improvements, and if anything it shows that they can improve. Also according to Wikipedia, Casey was raised evangelical Christian, so they are not Jewish (they could have converted, but that takes a long time and I doubt they had in 2011). I’m Jewish and “jewnicorn” is definitely very weird, but is forgivable lol Also I didn’t realize there were people who didn’t like Rose Tyler???? 🤷🏻♀️
"Je sais pas" is actually correct colloquially (but more and more officially) following this phenomenon called jespersen's cycle where people introduce a new emphasis of negation (here pas) to double up and then slowly people remove the first one (here ne) but at this point je sais pas is almost textbook french as well so i doubt it required any research on their part lol
The colloquial slang I was aware of "Chui pas" the slightly slurred "Je suis pas" made me think "Je sais pas" would fall under the same concept. It's like in English we have "Dunno" instead of "I do not know"... Upon further research, it seems like "Chépa" is the further slang. So perhaps "Je sais pas" is closer to "I don't know". Sorry to hijack your comment!
You are such an excellent creator. I think unlike the original fanfiction, this work actually grapples with the space it occupies and finds meaning in that via the ending. A video essay like this is content created from content (in this case, content created from content about content cobbled together from a rough history), and truly how could you or I justifiably watch and love this video, as I did, if we pretend to revile any work that isn't supposedly 100% original? There's a joy in creation even if that creation is reinvention, or retelling, or a simple copy and paste. I really, really appreciate that you respect that joy.
i've seen so many fanfic readers/writers absolutely DRAG other writers for writing in 1st person. i don't really know why. i've always assumed that it was in response to the 2010s wattpad era of fic. but cringe culture is dead, and i've seen more people write in 1st person now, so yay 🎉
yeah honestly I think I might prefer first person to the whole third person limited present tense thing. feels a little more natural to me! who knows why people jumped on criticizing first person. I feel like sometimes these random writing tips will get really trendy even though they're not necessarily that helpful (like how everybody used to say you should use words other than "said" when writing dialogue lmao)
probably bc it is kind of weird to write in first person for source materials that aren't in the first person & bc the writing style ends up having to be very very in character, which is hard to write....
@@jane-mulcahy this is so interesting because admittedly, i'm one of those people who has a really hard time with first person because i come from reading, like, ao3 fic vs. wattpad fic hahah first person to me feels like someone talking directly AT me instead of me being in their head, while third person feels like watching it all unfold like a fly on the wall. first person ends up feeling very "yup, that's me, bet you're wondering how i ended up in this situation :\" most of the time, while third person is like a narrator telling me a story. but then again, i spent a decade only reading things in third person, so it really all comes down to what you're used to!
@@notstlouise I agree with this one. It is just so much harder to pull off in a way that feels honest to the media. It certainly can be done though! I've also seen some interesting multi-media fanfiction projects that play with voice and perspective more. i dewww think some source medias lend themselves to introspection and 1st person pov more than others too
i just want to say that i absolutely adored the stendhal syndrome segment of this video!!! i am heavily involved in fandom culture and read fanfic so much it’s embarrassing and probably unhealthy but the longer i’ve spent in fandom, the more i’ve come to appreciate it. yes of course there’s weirdos and silly stuff etc etc but overall i think we’re all just using fandom as a medium to escape and try to feel a bit better. when i read the comments on a fic that i love, i feel an instant connection with these people that i know nothing about and it’s so special to me. it was really cool to see someone else describe how they experienced a similar feeling 💜 great video!!!
man i cried at the standhal syndrome bit man, it gave me a rush of nostalgia from being one of those kids commenting on fics and telling authors how what they wrote got me through the day. this essay was so surprisingly thought provoking i'm so glad i clicked on it ❤
i didn't expect this to end on such a fond note for the bygone days of fandom. i think i'm about the same age as casey and the others and it makes me nostalgic for a sssslightly more innocent time online. thanks again for your videos!!
I'm so glad you did this and got to the bottom of it! Truly beautiful to watch, and as someone who discovered TSN fandom 10 years after its heyday myself, seeing you walk through those same convoluted paths with deleted livejournals and finding archived copies of fics, and reading the comments from people who surely live entirely different lives now, PAIRED WITH THAT DAMN TSN MUSIC evoked a very specific unnameable emotion I wanted to tell you: it is a true Eisenfact (lmao) that Jesse is a fan of obscure musicals (which is why I even fell down the rabbit hole to TSN in the first place, watching his interviews where he talks about Merrily We Roll Along and A New Brain). Absolutely he seems like he'd love the Fantasticks. I remember he once said his favourite musical was Floyd Collins which was (and still is) absolutely hysterical to me. What a strange person! I love that! Also I wondered if you had stumbled upon "The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Social Network Press Tour" article on The Niche Blog in your research? I think it's a great read and really gives you insight into the headspace that Robin and their audience were in
omg okay Jesse EisenKing love that for him, and yes I read that article several times! it's fantastic and gives a lot of insight into why this all happened. AND only reaffirms my belief that any good Social Network RPF would have to deal with the uglier side of it if it wants to be interesting
@@jane-mulcahy yes I so agree!!! It's such funny timing you posting this, because I literally found a copy of the DVD at Goodwill this weekend and then made my housemate watch it for the first time with me, and they were like "woah....... was that meant to be extremely homoerotic????" so then I explained the whole thing and read that article to them! So it was literally still up on my laptop when I saw this video pop up!!!
your response to finding the archived fic masterpost was so profoundly relatable. i'm in my mid thirties now, and have been a fandom participant for over two decades. the thought that these once vibrant communities are now barely even a memory, if at all, lost to a different era... whew. heavy stuff lmao.
I really related to that last section. There is something about seeing relics of a specific moment in time, and that moment being a youthful, earnestly joyful moment, that hits different as you're aware that you're getting older, and if you kinda grew up in fandom, which I know for sure I did, its both a childhood nostalgia moment and hits you with the painful awareness of the passage of time and change. It was such a big deal for all these people, the author, the beta readers, the audience, a celebration of creative joy and community, and it was just a drop in the ocean that is fandom, this little circle of people who have long moved on from it into totally different lives. It was such intense joy for all of them, but also so brief and transient and you don't even realize this about such moments until you look back on it from the vantage point of the future. I find myself looking back on some of my old teenage fandom memories similairly, a lot of it was kinda cringy and embarrassing for me to look back on and none of the people I shared these moments with are the same people we used to be, many of them I've lost contact with, but we shared very similarly earnest, joyful creative moments that were all special to us at the time. And I don't even want to return to that time, we've all moved on, it's just a sadness that it has passed and it's over and how much everything has changed. Also for what it's worth, I looked it up and McQuiston said they grew up attending Catholic school, so, probably not Jewish. And the lines you called out did make me go very 🤨because it is the kind of stuff or injokes we make among ourselves but it reads very weirdly and questionable coming from someone totally divorced from it. But also I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here because it does seem like the kind of joke or thing you say/do when you're a young teenager and don't really know better, plus, like you said, its very much late 2000's- early 2010's internet humor at play.
the thing is... well. i never read carry it in my heart since i was never big on rpf but the tsn fandom was a good time, and this video was a pleasant reminder of that. also incredible attention to detail!
really excellent and thorough video essay that i deeply enjoyed watching over dinner and the walk back to my dorm. you presented this in such an informative and engaging way, and the genuine emotional connection and passion you have for this era/zeitgeist of internet culture really shines through, yet never undermines your critical analysis and objectivity as a journalistic reporter. this is kind of a random moment to shout-out, and it doesn’t actually have anything to do with your excellent and insightful inferences, but i found your “the thing is” segment to be very calming to listen to; you’re a wonderful orator, and it reminded me of the pleasant narrative rhythm of a podcast. random little thing to say, i know, but it was nice! definitely got a new follower :] i look forward to future videos! edit: when there were about ten minutes left in the video, someone happened to start playing the piano in our dorm living room, and so the emotional and heartfelt and cathartic climax of your video was scored by bittersweet and beautiful music coming through the wall. it was very fitting :]
I adore The Social Network as a movie so i have dipped my toes in its fanfiction but never waded into the RPF waters so thank you for the deep dive. I will say Carry It in My Heart reminds me of one of my absolute favorite Sherlock fanfics from back in the day called Perfromance in a Leading Role. That story re-imagined Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as actors who meet as leads in a film and slowly fall in love. I especially love how that fic not only told a really compelling slow burn romance but had a significant storyline that exand the hardships of being in the closet as an actor and the mental strain being closeted can have on relationships as well as the ways coming out can negatively effect your career as an actor.
Jane, I thoroughly enjoyed this deep dive into past internet culture. As a gay man who found out he was gay by falling head over heels for "that one guy", I can tell you it does happen outside of fiction. Having that realisation changed my life. I also could really relate to the Stehndahl syndrom section, having been active on the internet since the days of bulletin boards, the "captured in amber" remains of people's lives you can find on the internet archive pages feels very poignant to me as well. It can be very moving to see these glimpses into the daily lives of real people from that era perfectly captured in a moment of time. And as far as whether or not Casey may be Robin? It seems there might be enough circumstantial evidence to say "possibly", sure enough. However, the thing is, well, those speech patterns are a common Southern thing. So that particular link isn't that convincing for me, since both authors seem to be from Texas. I don't know. I loved how you went through your journalistic method, though, and I felt you were as thorough as you could have possibly been. I do think that even if you could prove a clear link between the two stories, it wouldn't matter. Who cares if Casey McQuiston honed their writing skills by writing f online fanfiction over a decade ago? We shouldn't shame an author for their early works, even if they're terribly cringy. What matters is that Casey has written a very successful novel that's been made into a very successful movie, that Ive heard almost nothing but praise for. Admittedly, the worst criticism I've heard was that it was "a piece of light fluff", but considering when she wrote it, that was definitely something we needed, and still do. Thank you, Jane, for this wonderful dive into a very interesting tangent, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I kind of love the way you described being in awe of the archived page. It was actually really beautiful way to portray your reaction and emotions, and I think we could all stand to look at harmless older internet “cringe” with more of that attitude ❤
i remember spending 30 minutes finding the pdf of ciimh, and i felt like sherlock finding a pdf of it. i've written my fair share of tsn fic, and when i found this sub-section of the fandom, i remember being entranced by robin-pulaski's story. this really brought me back to the emotions and feelings, hell i started quoting your chapter transitions bc i knew this movie so well. this made me so happy and yet it made my heart hurt so much. a wonderful wonderful video, thank you.
I’ve only watched 20minutes of the video so far but it’s got me thinking about how much subconscious knowledge you gain about fandom just being submerged in it. I’m way too young to have written or read social network fandom but it’s vaguely known that there was a fandom surrounding tsn just from old edits reappearing whenever Andrew Garfield has a renaissance. But what strikes me is that just from the way people have talked about rwrb being a modern royalty au tsn fic I could have told you it wasn’t. Not because I’ve read the book or the fan fiction but because you just know what kind of media get what kinds of super popular fandom defining fics. For an rpf ship of actors a modern royalty au as long and expansive as rwrb that’s well written and popular wouldn’t exist. The au ecosystem is something I’m personally so interested in and for reasons I’m still pondering, more niche rpf is not going to have such a specific au like modern royalty as an incredibly popular fic. It’s the sort of au people write once every other au has already been written or something your mutual is writing but never actually publishes more than a chapter 😅.
this video is SO good and so funny and also so sad 😭i definitely understand this feeling when you see something old in the internet and realize that the people involved probably don't even remember that anymore. these digital ghosts always make me feel weird, they are there but not at the same time UGH i loved this video so much you’re so smart
Im commenting again after watching the video, and i really loved the stendhal effect section. Being in awe and reverence of someone's pure passion to the point of creation, so much so that you yourself created a visual media to share your reverence and awe made me cry. Ad itll probably make someone tem years from now cry too.
The way my heart literally jumped in my chest when I saw that my favorite Degrassi content youtuber was talking about TSN fanfiction was unbelievable. I was in DEEP with the social network fandom (there are half a dozen old fanvids on my channel to confirm this, one even based on another RPF lol) and I remember reading this one! It had a big impact for sure. And the characterization of Jesse as neurotic and awkward was pretty standard across all TSN RPF. There were always a few things that were constant no matter the AU: Jesse loved cats and was anxious, Andrew had a great taste in music and was sort of too physically affectionate with everyone. The emotion that you experienced with finding the livejournal masterpost resonated with me, too. I was there so it's different, but you are right--my life is totally different now. I was active in online fandoms as a creator and consumer back then and now I'm ~too busy to have hobbies~ because I'm a mother. It's kind of wild to wonder what changes the people I knew then must have gone through in the past 13 years. Makes me sad to be SUCH a grown up now, even if I was already an adult at 20 back then.
honestly this video is a really well researched and beautifully nostalgic look into the past, i went into this expecting a corny fanfic search but left with nostalgic feelings i havent felt in years. thanks for the amazing journey!
1. i gasped when i got the notification, this is the niche content i signed up for. investigative journalism at its peak 2. for any new merlin fans that would happen to read this, you absolutely need to read the student prince, it’s mandatory material, still one of my favourite fics of all time. 3. i’ve had carry it in my heart on my phone for a while now, had been looking for an excuse to read it, so this is like perfect motivation lmao 4. if i had a nickel for video essays about an rpf fics about a mlm pairing released this week , i’d have 2 nickels etc. etc. (the other one is a rowan ellis video btw, very good, go watch it) 5. overall great video as always, you never miss. 6. unrelated but also i did happen to see the article on your blog about your wolf media research, and i assume you haven’t seen wolfblood yet, and i am just here to say, do it. like if you’re going to be a wolf media completionist and scholar, it’s definitely mandatory viewing i would say, just for how differently it does things. okay like is it also one of my favourite shows and i just want more people to talk about it, sure, but totally no ulterior motives
this is a beautifully written video. an extra meta: the journey you take us on in this video is a story in and of itself; parasocially, another layer of fiction?
at about the hour mark, I literally got chills... on a youtube video about social network rpf. You are such a talented story teller lol, what a fun ride
HELP I cannot be the same after 48:58 what is that tension this was a propaganda video to get me invested in this RPF (on a real note though this video is really good I don't know how you fit in so much interesting info in here and your whole micro-journey was just really interesting)
Oh my god this video hit deep. I was one of the people who shipped Andrew and Jesse HARD, one of those who found solace in their enigmatic friendship. You made me tear up a little at that ending. It brought back so many memories of being that awkward, nerdy, internet - obsessed kid who thought they were so cool. I'd still love to think that apart of me will always that kid. Always.
Truly one of the best video essays ive watched this year. I love how well you guide the viewer through this entire epic of an investigation. I especially liked that last section and the kind of shock of empathy you felt
something about your explanation of what finding those archived pages did to you reminds me so vividly of me, sobbing on the floor of my university archives reading a letter from mother to child, expressing her deep, caring concern over an issue she didn’t care to put in writing. it was a letter i had found completely by chance but had entranced me, and for a short while it became an obsession to both solve the mystery and purge the memory of reading this letter from my brain. eventually i had to give up, as i lost access to the archives, but you brought up those feelings for me, when i really was just expecting a simple, lighthearted video about old fanficion. thanks? i guess.
Bit late, but one thing I find really interesting about fanfics is how writers will be into the same types of ships. Like I really like spideypool and I also enjoy the Billy/Steve from Stranger Things, and a lot of the writers I'll come across have written for both ships.
It's possible that "robin-pulaski" is a Star Trek OC. TNG Season 2 had a character named Dr. Katherine Pulaski and it's totally possible that this writer made up a daughter or something.
This video was so wholesome. Thank you so much. Especially the section of contemplation after you found the master post. Arent we all too often ols people yelling at clouds, and longing to a more uncomplicated past life Thank you!
AAAAH First of all, thanks for not joining the bandwagon of bashing on fics and its authors, it's really refreshing to see commentary from fandom people. Second, this is reawakening my love for TSN. Sadly, I wasn't into the fandom at its peak purely out of language barrier (my english was pretty rusty back then), but when I rewatched that movie around 2013 I went head first onto the ao3 tag bc good lord, the rs of Mark and Eduardo was so tormented, I loved it. All I can say is that knowing the author of RW&RB was into the TSN fandom it truly adds to my enjoyment of the story. So... yeah, thanks for this deep dive that came (apparently) out of nowhere on my recommendations. Great work!
i have not seen a fanfiction mystery video essay like this since sarah z did my immortal - thoroughly entertaining i am literally on the edge of my seat
Gotta say that I always felt that Red White Royal Blue had roots in fanfic but oh boy now that was a ride and definitely not from the fandom I was thinking 😂
watching this video was a very unexpected surprise. i expected a fun deepdive on the lore of this rumour. what i was NOT expecting was to shed tears over the idea of fandom as a community and how fleeting these experiences are! this was honestly an incredibly beautiful video and i'm sad it doesn't have more views, but i also think that those who will understand it have already found it
went through this same rabbithole last year as i became kind of obsessed with tsn and the whole dynamic of jesse and andrew, i found myself loving the works and fics of the era feeling nostalgia for something i didnt exactly lived… Well. This is an amazing video!! thank you for making it and I’ll surely share it when the rumor circulates again
i just found your channel from your other rwrb video, and a new video already dropped omggg i’m so excited!! this is truly the type of extremely niche content i love
god, what a journey this has been, like I just mindlessy clicked on this video to pass the time put a few minutes in my ass was seated and I was enraptured in this story for the full hour and eleven minutes, I was not expecting to feel kind of touched and the sweet sorrows of nostlagia by the end of this , also not expecting to learn fascinating TSN behind the scenes facts, 10/10 video essay, I'm a changed man.
I love how you went on the hero's journey here, also thank you for verbalizing my exact thoughts in the 2nd to last chapter of the video I have this habit of looking at ancient fanfictions on old forums (from like, the 2000s-2010s) and looking at the comments, it just feels like peering into a different universe
When I heard "Robin Pulaski", I thought it might've been a How I Met Your Mother reference, but then I remembered her last name was Scherbasky, which only rhymes.
As someone who's gone on multiple livejournal deepdives it always hits me how I'm connected to people who had the same love for a thing I like now decades ago through their posts. Finding a post that feels like a little niche piece of history is always so strange and it makes me wonder where they are now (like the person who made a post a few hours after the first episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia aired saying they thought the characters were gay. I keep wondering if they're still watching and know they were so right). Idk I just always love seeing other people love what I love and I get weirdly sentimental about a lot of things
Going through tumblr posts from 10+ years ago seeing people say "Mac and Dennis will be made canon next season!!!" made me realise how long fans of the show have been struggling lol. Now I join the struggle.
your note at the end about the wayback machine capturing a moment in time really hit me... i used to be very involved in fandom some years back (i was chronically online very young lol) and recently i got the urge to go back and look through some of the old fics and artists and pages i used to follow and. a lot of them are just gone. i have vivid memories of some of these artworks and writings and interactions i had with some of these users and friendships i formed and a lot of it is just gone now. all that art, even if it wasn't a masterpiece, is just gone but all the emotions and attachments i had are still here. a lot of the accounts that stuck around are dead too... scrolling through the ruins of a place i used to visit. visiting the graveyard of a friend i used to have. i wonder where they all are now.
This is an insanely great video. The editing, pacing, the different sections. Seriously brilliant archival work too. The last few sections made me think of the song/RUclips video “My Hope” by Molly Lewis, which is all about people forgetting their MySpace passwords and being unable to take down their pages. Again, amazing job with this video
this is one of my favorite videos on youtube and i have seen it at least 20 times now. it’s on at work it’s on when i clean my room it’s on when i’m trying to fall asleep
Wild how I went into this thinking it was just going to be a fun journey but came out on the other side teary eyed. I think anyone who has been involved in fandom spaces can relate to that feeling of looking back on a community that once meant everything to you with bittersweet fondness. I was a one direction/harry styles stan for over a decade of my life -- when you showed casey's tumblr blog archives, i'm at least 99.9% sure i visited her blog at one point and we were probably mutual in laws lol. There are so many memories encased within blogs that get deleted, fics that are written and abandoned. In the moment, it feels so real. You're going to love this thing forever, you're going to talk to these people forever, you're going to write and read about this subject forever. Then life goes on and you move on, but the time you spent there still lives with you. Even when it comes to the most trivial topics, that sense of community never leaves. There's something uniquely beautiful about fan culture in that way. If you're lucky you get a few tangible experiences from it (meeting up with friends online to go to concerts, etc.) but most of it exists only online, lost to time. I think the reason it affects us so much is the thought of impermanence. It's hard to picture a future beyond our current one because it doesn't exist yet. There will be bands and movies that we love that we can't conceptualize right now because they simply haven't been made yet. There are people who will be in our lives who we haven't met yet. Everything feels so permanent, but as we look back upon these little niche communities that existed and now don't anymore... we think back to our past. We think back to something we loved that we swore we would love forever, but now is just a fond memory for us. It makes us confront our everchanging lives. But hey, that feeling also makes us appreciate the 'now' even more. Gonna go give my lil fandom friends a virtual hug right now.
Haven't read this book, nor the fic, nor have been part of Amy of these fandoms, but damn, what a video. I've loved watching it. The end having you share your experience of finding the master post is what made it feel so memorable imo; as a huge fan of fics and fandom communities and interactions that was super emotional, sooo. thank you lots for including that, and doing this whole video too. subscribed 😌💜 love from Argentina!
this is probably the most inane comment i could make, but out of all things i was not expecting dario argento to be brought up in a video about whether red white & royal blue is social network rpf. the world is full of wonders and surprises. (also, great video!)
yeah lots of strange references in this one, I'm realizing. I got to see Argento speak at the BFI this year, it was awesome! I'm a Deep Red stan personally
with 7 years of french education on my belt (4 yrs elementary and 3 years high school, don’t get me wrong), from what I know, dropping ne is a regional slang thing. I’ve watched videos from france french speakers who drop ne, but i’ve also watched videos and have teachers who have grown up in french speaking parts of canada who still say ne (though whether or not its because they’re trying to teach us, is up for debate) Someone has probably already clarified that point, but I wanted to share what I knew. Great video btw! Absolutely lovely to watch instead of doing my homework, your voice is very pleasant to listen to and the amount of research put into this is hella impressive.
I just wanna say, I love your channel and your videos so much. you deserve way more subscribers. you manage to make everything you cover even more interesting with your wide range of knowledge and references, and i just love watching your content.
![MISSING: SLIM SHADY [Expanded Mourner’s Edition Trailer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xh8qgHrOO1g/mqdefault.jpg)
Writing “so that happened” after a gay kiss should be considered a hate crime
literally the most 2010s fandom moment i could possibly imagine though
THIS is real investigative journalism
+
OK. So. I am outing myself here, but I was heavily involved in the Andrew/Jesse/TSN Fandom. Casey 100% is robin-pulasky and was known on Tumblr as robin-sparkles. When Red, White & Royal Blue was announced and I saw the author pic I had the wind knocked out of me because I immediately knew who it was. They were beloved in the fandom and Carry It In My Heart was THE fanfic. I wish I hadn't deleted my Tumblr years ago because I know I had evidence on there. AH!
SAME. Their playlist for this fic changed my life when I was 16 lmao
casey mcquiston uses they/them by the way !! i'm assuming you didn't know and just wanted to correct it
@@mentallyunstable1926 thank you for the call out. I edited my post - my apologies to Casey. I didn’t know!
I guess this confirms their wild ass Urban Dictionary entry 😭😭😭
Wait, so if there was robin-pulasky AND robin-sparkles (great username by the name; I’m assuming it’s a HIMYM reference), does that mean Casey McQuiston is just a pen name? It makes me think that their real name is Robin, and that Casey might actually be a fake name or perhaps their middle name. Or maybe they changed their name?
As soon as you said “Merlin fanfic”, I felt like I was shaking off my dusty wraps and arising from my Merthur tomb I’d been sealed in since 2011
I wish I was (completely) around for the Merthur era. I would’ve loved reading those long ass essays about how they’re actually secretly in love w each other 😭
The scene in the closet at the hospital in RWRB always gave me vibes of that one super popular merthur modern AU with the Dr Merlin and Prince Arthur
Has the Merlin fandom resurrection begun?
@@katherinealvarez9216resurrection? baby we’ve been here posting on tumblr, like yeah it’s not as big as it used to be but we’re still here lmao
@@calbee.add1ct141 I'm that bear.
"I can still hear his voice."
"Stop telling people that I'm dead!"
The fact that The Mortal Instruments isn't also referenced as one of the most popular filed serial number books is insane to me. Cassandra Claire's impact on the Harry Potter fandom should never be understated its insane.
i mean, the mortal instruments wasn’t a fanfic that had the names changed, it was just partially based on some fanfic, so i don’t think it’s quite the same thing as filing the serial numbers off. but yeah it’s wild that people don’t talk about her days in the harry potter fandom. i really need people to know about how she got kicked off of fanfiction . net for plagiarism
I’d honestly love to see a full length video on that too
Lmaaaaaaooo I had no idea wth 😂
neeeed this analysis
Strange Aeons has a video about this!!
I know “filing off the serial numbers” has a bad connotation but I find it kind of heart warming that there are original books that started out as fanfics. I’ve read multiple amazing works by talented writers & the idea that people who work on their craft for free could one day transition to writing a published novel inspired by a fandom they cherished is very endearing to me.
I agree! I feel the same way about how people sometimes think that fanart is inherently worse because it is derivative. It’s not better or worse on principle, there can be good or bad of either and it deserves to be evaluated on its own merit. I have read some incredible fanfiction before that I liked more than real life books
yeah! same. i've read some fanfic and commented on them they're so beautiful and/or intriguing that they could easily be a successful book with this practice applied - and they chose to put it out for free!! no compensation for all that hard work, simply because they just really loved the characters and relations.
YEAH MAN!!!!!! i’ve read fanfic with the most interesting, immersive worlds and ocs and lines that get stuck in my head over and over again bc they’re just so GREAT (and usually because they’re also heartbreaking). a fanfic author i love publishing an altered fic sounds cool
I think it also shows a level of craft and humility to know when your work has lost the main plot -- more or less -- but found something else.
same! It's so sad that fanfic writers are seen as a bad thing just bc of some shitty stories (and I mention it here: After), in reality there are a lot of good stories and really talented people who write/wrote them.
What would have “made this a lot more interesting is if it were just a little more fucked up” is so true. Iconic reading of this material.
True for RWRB too.
This movie is the most fan ficcy thing I’ve ever seen but if you gave me a thousand guesses I’d never land on it being born from TSN
yeah that's pretty much how I felt
I’m toward the end now and my mind has been blown this whole time. Thank you for going on this incredible journey and taking me with you
The thing about Jane Mulcahy is... Well. She proved that Casey McQuiston wrote Carry It in My Heart. Well.
interesting that you saw the portrayal of Jesse as pathologically introverted, awkward, inexperienced and neurotic as being antithetical to the author really liking him, because I think in the context of TSN fandom that IS a loving portrayal of him (and honestly somewhat accurate to how he presented himself on the press tour), and was why I would guess people related to him and were drawn to him and his dynamic with Andrew, who is pretty much the opposite but was so clearly fond of Jesse and good at getting him out of his shell
that's probably true!
I mean, I guess? Idk, when I heard that's how he was portrayed I was immediately wondering if this fic was weird about Jewish people. Like I would say that the presentation of Jewish men as nerdy, socially awkward, and virginal, is very much in line with pervasive antisemitic stereotypes (think Jacob Ben Israel from Glee, a deeply antisemitic caricature). So when later in the video, Jane talked about the weird language describing Jewish people in the fic, it all came across to me as kind of fetishistic.
@@nsb144 yeah I totally get that! I do think it's a lot to do with the way he talked about himself in interviews back then, but those stereotypes were probably playing a role at some level, and obviously seem prominent in those direct mentions of his Jewishness like you said. I think it also brings up the common issue of fans feeling like, if a celeb talks about their identity in a certain way or jokes about it, that it's appropriate for them to talk about it in the same way.
this is such a good point, really well made@@nsb144
@@nsb144that’s just how Jesse is you don’t have to make it a whole thinh
To answer questions about not being able to use the Way Back Machine for Livejournal: 1) Livejournal had a pretty robust anti-bot tool so it was commonly used in fandom communities who were coming out of the closet but you didn't want your fic to show up on Google. You say "I don't want to show up on Google" and it prevented your entire blog from being cached from that point forward. This was opt-in IIRC but boy did a lot of folk opt-in. 2) Livejournal's account deletion tool was incredibly thorough. Anything you ever posted would be gone - journal posts, comments, community posts, etc. We're so used to Tumblr where reblogging means you've created a copy of a post and it'll live on in infamy regardless of whether or not the OP deactivates. I suppose this is to prevent uncountable dead posts, but that wasn't needed for Livejournal. The only way to get copies of those posts are if the author of the fic still has copies of their comment notification emails. Those emails contained the full text of the post plus the comment, even if the post was below a readmore. If the author commented on those comments, then the commenter would have the comment chain but not the full text of the post. At least then you'd be able to see the icon the author used.
wow, that's actually really interesting! it's obviously frustrating for me that I couldn't find what I was looking for, but that honestly sounds like it would've been pretty great if you were a user of the site back in the day. I imagine a lot of people writing fanfic (adults at least) would want to keep that separate from other areas of their lives, especially a few years back when fanfic was even less socially acceptable. or in the case of someone like McQuiston who goes on to get published, very nice for them that their (ALLEGED) fanfic past is well hidden
As for the meta of it all I think it's hilarious that the social network isn't considered RPF as well when it is so, aggressively real-person fiction. this is rpf rpf. I think about this all the time in regards to literally every preexisting IP and tv shows getting new writers 10 seasons in and adaptations and reboots- derivative work is taken unquestionably seriously, except for when it's strictly out of love. (& i cant stress enough how good this video is!!)
same, I'm so interested in how we define fanfiction, like by definition so many famous/well regarded things are derivative works
When I was in high school I loved Carry It In My Heart so much I printed out the ENTIRE THING. It's still in my drawer in my childhood home. This video was such a fun blast to the past, and I'm so happy for Casey
😂 my sister did the same thing with a Harry Styles fic!
as someone who was in that (very niche, Very cringe) fandom and read the fic as it was published, this video has really touched me. i saw old mutuals' blogs in this. thank you for such thorough work (it was so exciting to see you piece it all together!), and for such compassion
Loll that’s so cool. I wish I was this invested in fanfiction culture. The only ones I ever read were when I was obsessed with Soul Eater
that archive page is so powerful. it's such a relic of a bygone era of fandom that just makes me feel a little empty remembering. it's so strange that a single webpage could bring up so much nostalgia for a fandom i was never even apart of
Was thinking the same. I was never part of this Fandom bc I was too young but I remember the love of wattpad and tumblr when I was 12-16 and it makes me sad that that was such a fun and eyeopening experience that I won't feel again. Sometimes I catch myself going to wattpad to see what I used to read haha
i felt the same! i wasn't in that fandom but oh boy, if you brought a webpage of Glee fanfics i'd burst in tears just remembering my teenage years and how much i was devoted to them 🥹
The Stendhal Syndrome chapter brought *me* to tears. This is art. Cinema.
thank you for being real and including the bit where you got "weird" about it. the end of this video made me feel the same way i do after every jacob geller video essay - strangely overcome and wanting to sob about the implications of some piece of media/creativity that had seemed so superficial before. i wish more fandom historians would be willing to let that much sincerity into their analysis without sacrificing the humor and irony the detachment from those years gives us. beautiful work.
YES when she's talking about the archived page I got the same vibe. Jacob geller videos always make me so emotional and by the end of this video I was thinking the same thing!!
There was a Hetalia fanfic I read like 6-7 maybe 8 years ago where Alfred/America was the son of a female president, and Arthur/England was the prince of England and they have a romance. When I heard about Red, White, and Royal Blue, I initially thought it was Hetalia fanfiction.
cursed that i remember this too
After “the thing is” part, every time the word “thing” was said, I kept expecting an excerpt from the fanfiction to flash on screen
😔 I should've thought of that!
Well. The thing is, the structure of this video essay is sublime. It literally has plot twists and foreshadowing. When you did the callback to the robin-sparkles Urban Dictionary entry, I literally laughed out loud.
I think of robin/Casey from time to time because I followed robin sparkles during a formative time as a teen on Tumblr (they introduced me to Sufjan and influenced my music taste so much when I was 16 lol). So this video is insane to me, I felt like I was watching a video about a high school classmate - but then I had my hair blown back by the last half of your video - it was so cool to see you do detective work on my high school experience lmao. I also got emotional when you showed the masterpost on lj, because I remembered their profile picture/avatar and suddenly I felt like I had done all the research alongside you, and that I had gotten a piece of my teenagehood back lol. I didn’t write any of those comments, but that was ME. Your bog mummy was ME! lmao. Anyway, thank you for this experience lol such a good video!
sufjan stevens + a profile pic of mac? dare i assume u were in the iasip fandom around 2017-2020?
not only obscure fandom origins of popular work but a heartfelt elegy for fandom past as well? this video was surprisingly touching
I think the big thing with rpf is that like, as long as the fans do not put that on the actors, then it’s just a thing that some people enjoy thinking about. It’s when fans push the ship or content about the ship onto the real people involved that it becomes shitty; that can mess up their lives. Also the rpf writers I’ve known about over the years would be horrified at their works being shown to the real people featured in them. It does tend to be fans consuming the work who cross the line, because holding the line is what keeps the creators safe, not just the real people in their works.
me reading the chapters before watching the video like yeah, the evidence, the ad read, the alleged title of the fanfic, STENDHAL SYNDROME????? This video did not disappoint, it was actually kind of incredible. Jane you're so cool and always killing it, keep it up!!
I dont know why itd never occurred to me that the social network would even have a fandom, let alone andrew garfield x jesse eisenberg shipping, but of course there was. why wouldnt there have been.
I know, I thought it was crazy but then I rewatched the movie while editing and was like 'oh yeah this is pretty blatantly, intentionally homoerotic'
two pretty white boys talk in media = fandom + shipping
i mean there was every right for there to be
you are definetly my new favorite video essayist your sense of humor, charisma, writing, and super HARD HITTING JOURNALISM are unmatched
genuinely was very moved towards the end when you found that robin sparkles page- just because I know exactly what feeling you were trying to describe. Seeing all of the comments about the fic from fandom members made the page feel so alive, like it was still happening and we were experiencing it too, even though the moment has long passed. And it does feel like a moment of collective, innocent joy- now kind of sorrowful, just because it's gone. Like you said, those people are probably all different now. Adding in that moment from In the Mood For Love really got me lol. Over here feeling emotional over a red, white, and royal blue fanfic conspiracy video smh.
this kind of thing is always fascinating to me as a writer and someone who wrote fanfiction previously before being published with non-fanfic fiction and nonfiction and then returned to the world of fanfiction. not every fanfic writer will file the serial numbers off, but fanfiction was an avenue to experiment freely without scorn of academics and peers. if people find the work i wrote as a teenager, it's vastly different than the short stories i later wrote. the short stories are also vastly different from what the fanfics i'm writing now. people who write novels often will have written several novels before even daring to send something to an editor for publication. thanks for finding the truth on the matter, great video.
I’m glad you brought attention to how they represent Jewish people in their fic cause having read both RWRB and One Last Stop, both by McQuiston, I couldn’t help but notice how in both books there’s one Jewish character and in both books that one Jewish character comes from an incredibly elite, wealthy family and I always worried I was crazy for feeling like there was a questionable pattern there so to know that might not just be in my head is honestly a relief. Not trying to rag on them I honestly really loved both works so much I just didn’t love that particular element.
I don't usually leave comments on RUclips but I wanted to say that I love this video. Particularly the Stendhal Syndrome section and the empathy you convey in it.
Interesting tidbit about "The Secret Prince," it was an insanely popular fanfiction a decade ago. Like, second high viewed on the entirety of Ao3 in 2012 kind of popular. So Casey being influenced by the fics concept isn't too out there? It's could be a kind of "Draco in Leather Pants" moment, possibly. Like all the people writing posh bad boy fanfiction, which then spilt over into general lit, probably didn't know the popularization of those specific tropes came from a famous HP fanfiction. In the same way, I could see a majorly popular "dating a prince" fanfic influencing someone in the fandom space either directly or indirectly, because I do know that at the time (around 2010-2012) that trope started to pop up everywhere.
tsn and tsn rpf being my first fandom, this was such a trip. the bit at the end made me cry, like it was such a time and bright spot in my life. i havent read or watched rwrb, but its crazy to know that casey could be robin sparkles. i still have the ciimh pdf on my laptop. 😂 and the podfic of it too. so many memories 😭
Robin Pulaski might actually be a play on Robin Sparkles and Dr. Pulaski from Star Trek the Next Gen.
"Blast! Undone by Urban Dictionary. No matter! This isn't over! We'll meet again! You'll see Mulcahy! You'll *aaallll* seeee!"
- Casey, probably.
I think Casey might have learned from CIIMH for RWRB, esp in how they leaned in to the reality of Alex and Henry’s situation a bit more. Their dad died in 2014, which very inspired that aspect of Henry’s life (I think they’ve spoken about it) so I do wonder if maybe the Andrew character could have been similar to Henry Before. I think we all take bits of what we wrote and put it in to the next thing. I’m sure they’re connected, but only in that They’re written by the same person, who is someone who is v inspired by their surrounding (same). I think it’s nice to think about their improvements, and if anything it shows that they can improve.
Also according to Wikipedia, Casey was raised evangelical Christian, so they are not Jewish (they could have converted, but that takes a long time and I doubt they had in 2011). I’m Jewish and “jewnicorn” is definitely very weird, but is forgivable lol
Also I didn’t realize there were people who didn’t like Rose Tyler???? 🤷🏻♀️
"Je sais pas" is actually correct colloquially (but more and more officially) following this phenomenon called jespersen's cycle where people introduce a new emphasis of negation (here pas) to double up and then slowly people remove the first one (here ne) but at this point je sais pas is almost textbook french as well so i doubt it required any research on their part lol
The colloquial slang I was aware of "Chui pas" the slightly slurred "Je suis pas" made me think "Je sais pas" would fall under the same concept. It's like in English we have "Dunno" instead of "I do not know"... Upon further research, it seems like "Chépa" is the further slang. So perhaps "Je sais pas" is closer to "I don't know". Sorry to hijack your comment!
You are such an excellent creator. I think unlike the original fanfiction, this work actually grapples with the space it occupies and finds meaning in that via the ending. A video essay like this is content created from content (in this case, content created from content about content cobbled together from a rough history), and truly how could you or I justifiably watch and love this video, as I did, if we pretend to revile any work that isn't supposedly 100% original? There's a joy in creation even if that creation is reinvention, or retelling, or a simple copy and paste. I really, really appreciate that you respect that joy.
The hot about burning musical cds from the library onto the family desktop really hit home lmao
You are such a thoughtful video essayist and when I say I am STOKED to watch this, I mean it 🎉
sorry I featured your comment and gave it a Scottish accent 😔
i've seen so many fanfic readers/writers absolutely DRAG other writers for writing in 1st person. i don't really know why. i've always assumed that it was in response to the 2010s wattpad era of fic. but cringe culture is dead, and i've seen more people write in 1st person now, so yay 🎉
yeah honestly I think I might prefer first person to the whole third person limited present tense thing. feels a little more natural to me! who knows why people jumped on criticizing first person. I feel like sometimes these random writing tips will get really trendy even though they're not necessarily that helpful (like how everybody used to say you should use words other than "said" when writing dialogue lmao)
probably bc it is kind of weird to write in first person for source materials that aren't in the first person & bc the writing style ends up having to be very very in character, which is hard to write....
A lot of the time, first person isnt written well so its hard for me to read@@jane-mulcahy
@@jane-mulcahy this is so interesting because admittedly, i'm one of those people who has a really hard time with first person because i come from reading, like, ao3 fic vs. wattpad fic hahah first person to me feels like someone talking directly AT me instead of me being in their head, while third person feels like watching it all unfold like a fly on the wall. first person ends up feeling very "yup, that's me, bet you're wondering how i ended up in this situation :\" most of the time, while third person is like a narrator telling me a story. but then again, i spent a decade only reading things in third person, so it really all comes down to what you're used to!
@@notstlouise I agree with this one. It is just so much harder to pull off in a way that feels honest to the media. It certainly can be done though! I've also seen some interesting multi-media fanfiction projects that play with voice and perspective more. i dewww think some source medias lend themselves to introspection and 1st person pov more than others too
ive literally never heard about it being social network related before and im unsure as to if this video will destroy or improve rwrb for me
i just want to say that i absolutely adored the stendhal syndrome segment of this video!!! i am heavily involved in fandom culture and read fanfic so much it’s embarrassing and probably unhealthy but the longer i’ve spent in fandom, the more i’ve come to appreciate it. yes of course there’s weirdos and silly stuff etc etc but overall i think we’re all just using fandom as a medium to escape and try to feel a bit better. when i read the comments on a fic that i love, i feel an instant connection with these people that i know nothing about and it’s so special to me. it was really cool to see someone else describe how they experienced a similar feeling 💜 great video!!!
man i cried at the standhal syndrome bit man, it gave me a rush of nostalgia from being one of those kids commenting on fics and telling authors how what they wrote got me through the day. this essay was so surprisingly thought provoking i'm so glad i clicked on it ❤
i didn't expect this to end on such a fond note for the bygone days of fandom. i think i'm about the same age as casey and the others and it makes me nostalgic for a sssslightly more innocent time online. thanks again for your videos!!
I'm so glad you did this and got to the bottom of it! Truly beautiful to watch, and as someone who discovered TSN fandom 10 years after its heyday myself, seeing you walk through those same convoluted paths with deleted livejournals and finding archived copies of fics, and reading the comments from people who surely live entirely different lives now, PAIRED WITH THAT DAMN TSN MUSIC evoked a very specific unnameable emotion
I wanted to tell you: it is a true Eisenfact (lmao) that Jesse is a fan of obscure musicals (which is why I even fell down the rabbit hole to TSN in the first place, watching his interviews where he talks about Merrily We Roll Along and A New Brain). Absolutely he seems like he'd love the Fantasticks. I remember he once said his favourite musical was Floyd Collins which was (and still is) absolutely hysterical to me. What a strange person! I love that!
Also I wondered if you had stumbled upon "The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Social Network Press Tour" article on The Niche Blog in your research? I think it's a great read and really gives you insight into the headspace that Robin and their audience were in
omg okay Jesse EisenKing love that for him, and yes I read that article several times! it's fantastic and gives a lot of insight into why this all happened. AND only reaffirms my belief that any good Social Network RPF would have to deal with the uglier side of it if it wants to be interesting
@@jane-mulcahy yes I so agree!!! It's such funny timing you posting this, because I literally found a copy of the DVD at Goodwill this weekend and then made my housemate watch it for the first time with me, and they were like "woah....... was that meant to be extremely homoerotic????" so then I explained the whole thing and read that article to them! So it was literally still up on my laptop when I saw this video pop up!!!
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your response to finding the archived fic masterpost was so profoundly relatable. i'm in my mid thirties now, and have been a fandom participant for over two decades. the thought that these once vibrant communities are now barely even a memory, if at all, lost to a different era... whew. heavy stuff lmao.
I really related to that last section. There is something about seeing relics of a specific moment in time, and that moment being a youthful, earnestly joyful moment, that hits different as you're aware that you're getting older, and if you kinda grew up in fandom, which I know for sure I did, its both a childhood nostalgia moment and hits you with the painful awareness of the passage of time and change. It was such a big deal for all these people, the author, the beta readers, the audience, a celebration of creative joy and community, and it was just a drop in the ocean that is fandom, this little circle of people who have long moved on from it into totally different lives. It was such intense joy for all of them, but also so brief and transient and you don't even realize this about such moments until you look back on it from the vantage point of the future. I find myself looking back on some of my old teenage fandom memories similairly, a lot of it was kinda cringy and embarrassing for me to look back on and none of the people I shared these moments with are the same people we used to be, many of them I've lost contact with, but we shared very similarly earnest, joyful creative moments that were all special to us at the time. And I don't even want to return to that time, we've all moved on, it's just a sadness that it has passed and it's over and how much everything has changed.
Also for what it's worth, I looked it up and McQuiston said they grew up attending Catholic school, so, probably not Jewish. And the lines you called out did make me go very 🤨because it is the kind of stuff or injokes we make among ourselves but it reads very weirdly and questionable coming from someone totally divorced from it. But also I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here because it does seem like the kind of joke or thing you say/do when you're a young teenager and don't really know better, plus, like you said, its very much late 2000's- early 2010's internet humor at play.
the thing is... well. i never read carry it in my heart since i was never big on rpf but the tsn fandom was a good time, and this video was a pleasant reminder of that. also incredible attention to detail!
THE WONG KAR WAI PULL ? ? ?
really excellent and thorough video essay that i deeply enjoyed watching over dinner and the walk back to my dorm. you presented this in such an informative and engaging way, and the genuine emotional connection and passion you have for this era/zeitgeist of internet culture really shines through, yet never undermines your critical analysis and objectivity as a journalistic reporter. this is kind of a random moment to shout-out, and it doesn’t actually have anything to do with your excellent and insightful inferences, but i found your “the thing is” segment to be very calming to listen to; you’re a wonderful orator, and it reminded me of the pleasant narrative rhythm of a podcast. random little thing to say, i know, but it was nice! definitely got a new follower :] i look forward to future videos!
edit: when there were about ten minutes left in the video, someone happened to start playing the piano in our dorm living room, and so the emotional and heartfelt and cathartic climax of your video was scored by bittersweet and beautiful music coming through the wall. it was very fitting :]
hey why is that skeleton in the back slaying so damn hard
just a little memento mori for the girls and the gays
@@jane-mulcahy and we’re blessed for it
I adore The Social Network as a movie so i have dipped my toes in its fanfiction but never waded into the RPF waters so thank you for the deep dive.
I will say Carry It in My Heart reminds me of one of my absolute favorite Sherlock fanfics from back in the day called Perfromance in a Leading Role. That story re-imagined Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as actors who meet as leads in a film and slowly fall in love. I especially love how that fic not only told a really compelling slow burn romance but had a significant storyline that exand the hardships of being in the closet as an actor and the mental strain being closeted can have on relationships as well as the ways coming out can negatively effect your career as an actor.
Jane, I thoroughly enjoyed this deep dive into past internet culture.
As a gay man who found out he was gay by falling head over heels for "that one guy", I can tell you it does happen outside of fiction.
Having that realisation changed my life.
I also could really relate to the Stehndahl syndrom section, having been active on the internet since the days of bulletin boards, the "captured in amber" remains of people's lives you can find on the internet archive pages feels very poignant to me as well.
It can be very moving to see these glimpses into the daily lives of real people from that era perfectly captured in a moment of time.
And as far as whether or not Casey may be Robin?
It seems there might be enough circumstantial evidence to say "possibly", sure enough.
However, the thing is, well, those speech patterns are a common Southern thing. So that particular link isn't that convincing for me, since both authors seem to be from Texas.
I don't know.
I loved how you went through your journalistic method, though, and I felt you were as thorough as you could have possibly been.
I do think that even if you could prove a clear link between the two stories, it wouldn't matter.
Who cares if Casey McQuiston honed their writing skills by writing f online fanfiction over a decade ago? We shouldn't shame an author for their early works, even if they're terribly cringy.
What matters is that Casey has written a very successful novel that's been made into a very successful movie, that Ive heard almost nothing but praise for.
Admittedly, the worst criticism I've heard was that it was "a piece of light fluff", but considering when she wrote it, that was definitely something we needed, and still do.
Thank you, Jane, for this wonderful dive into a very interesting tangent, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I kind of love the way you described being in awe of the archived page. It was actually really beautiful way to portray your reaction and emotions, and I think we could all stand to look at harmless older internet “cringe” with more of that attitude ❤
i remember spending 30 minutes finding the pdf of ciimh, and i felt like sherlock finding a pdf of it. i've written my fair share of tsn fic, and when i found this sub-section of the fandom, i remember being entranced by robin-pulaski's story. this really brought me back to the emotions and feelings, hell i started quoting your chapter transitions bc i knew this movie so well. this made me so happy and yet it made my heart hurt so much. a wonderful wonderful video, thank you.
THEW ENDING ON HAND COVERS BRUISE. YOU GENIUS
As someone who also considers myself a fanfic historian, this was such a treat,, thanks bestie
I’ve only watched 20minutes of the video so far but it’s got me thinking about how much subconscious knowledge you gain about fandom just being submerged in it. I’m way too young to have written or read social network fandom but it’s vaguely known that there was a fandom surrounding tsn just from old edits reappearing whenever Andrew Garfield has a renaissance. But what strikes me is that just from the way people have talked about rwrb being a modern royalty au tsn fic I could have told you it wasn’t. Not because I’ve read the book or the fan fiction but because you just know what kind of media get what kinds of super popular fandom defining fics.
For an rpf ship of actors a modern royalty au as long and expansive as rwrb that’s well written and popular wouldn’t exist. The au ecosystem is something I’m personally so interested in and for reasons I’m still pondering, more niche rpf is not going to have such a specific au like modern royalty as an incredibly popular fic. It’s the sort of au people write once every other au has already been written or something your mutual is writing but never actually publishes more than a chapter 😅.
this video is SO good and so funny and also so sad 😭i definitely understand this feeling when you see something old in the internet and realize that the people involved probably don't even remember that anymore. these digital ghosts always make me feel weird, they are there but not at the same time UGH i loved this video so much you’re so smart
Im commenting again after watching the video, and i really loved the stendhal effect section. Being in awe and reverence of someone's pure passion to the point of creation, so much so that you yourself created a visual media to share your reverence and awe made me cry. Ad itll probably make someone tem years from now cry too.
The way my heart literally jumped in my chest when I saw that my favorite Degrassi content youtuber was talking about TSN fanfiction was unbelievable. I was in DEEP with the social network fandom (there are half a dozen old fanvids on my channel to confirm this, one even based on another RPF lol) and I remember reading this one! It had a big impact for sure. And the characterization of Jesse as neurotic and awkward was pretty standard across all TSN RPF. There were always a few things that were constant no matter the AU: Jesse loved cats and was anxious, Andrew had a great taste in music and was sort of too physically affectionate with everyone.
The emotion that you experienced with finding the livejournal masterpost resonated with me, too. I was there so it's different, but you are right--my life is totally different now. I was active in online fandoms as a creator and consumer back then and now I'm ~too busy to have hobbies~ because I'm a mother. It's kind of wild to wonder what changes the people I knew then must have gone through in the past 13 years. Makes me sad to be SUCH a grown up now, even if I was already an adult at 20 back then.
honestly this video is a really well researched and beautifully nostalgic look into the past, i went into this expecting a corny fanfic search but left with nostalgic feelings i havent felt in years. thanks for the amazing journey!
1. i gasped when i got the notification, this is the niche content i signed up for. investigative journalism at its peak
2. for any new merlin fans that would happen to read this, you absolutely need to read the student prince, it’s mandatory material, still one of my favourite fics of all time.
3. i’ve had carry it in my heart on my phone for a while now, had been looking for an excuse to read it, so this is like perfect motivation lmao
4. if i had a nickel for video essays about an rpf fics about a mlm pairing released this week , i’d have 2 nickels etc. etc. (the other one is a rowan ellis video btw, very good, go watch it)
5. overall great video as always, you never miss.
6. unrelated but also i did happen to see the article on your blog about your wolf media research, and i assume you haven’t seen wolfblood yet, and i am just here to say, do it. like if you’re going to be a wolf media completionist and scholar, it’s definitely mandatory viewing i would say, just for how differently it does things. okay like is it also one of my favourite shows and i just want more people to talk about it, sure, but totally no ulterior motives
this is a beautifully written video. an extra meta: the journey you take us on in this video is a story in and of itself; parasocially, another layer of fiction?
at about the hour mark, I literally got chills... on a youtube video about social network rpf. You are such a talented story teller lol, what a fun ride
HELP I cannot be the same after 48:58 what is that tension this was a propaganda video to get me invested in this RPF (on a real note though this video is really good I don't know how you fit in so much interesting info in here and your whole micro-journey was just really interesting)
Oh my god this video hit deep. I was one of the people who shipped Andrew and Jesse HARD, one of those who found solace in their enigmatic friendship. You made me tear up a little at that ending. It brought back so many memories of being that awkward, nerdy, internet - obsessed kid who thought they were so cool. I'd still love to think that apart of me will always that kid. Always.
Truly one of the best video essays ive watched this year. I love how well you guide the viewer through this entire epic of an investigation. I especially liked that last section and the kind of shock of empathy you felt
there was nothing that could have prepared me for getting to the sponsor mark and then looking at how much time there was left.
something about your explanation of what finding those archived pages did to you reminds me so vividly of me, sobbing on the floor of my university archives reading a letter from mother to child, expressing her deep, caring concern over an issue she didn’t care to put in writing. it was a letter i had found completely by chance but had entranced me, and for a short while it became an obsession to both solve the mystery and purge the memory of reading this letter from my brain. eventually i had to give up, as i lost access to the archives, but you brought up those feelings for me, when i really was just expecting a simple, lighthearted video about old fanficion. thanks? i guess.
god i just know i will never be able to read a casey novel again without seeing "well." and "the thing is" pop out at me at every instance
Bit late, but one thing I find really interesting about fanfics is how writers will be into the same types of ships. Like I really like spideypool and I also enjoy the Billy/Steve from Stranger Things, and a lot of the writers I'll come across have written for both ships.
It's possible that "robin-pulaski" is a Star Trek OC. TNG Season 2 had a character named Dr. Katherine Pulaski and it's totally possible that this writer made up a daughter or something.
This video was so wholesome. Thank you so much. Especially the section of contemplation after you found the master post. Arent we all too often ols people yelling at clouds, and longing to a more uncomplicated past life
Thank you!
AAAAH First of all, thanks for not joining the bandwagon of bashing on fics and its authors, it's really refreshing to see commentary from fandom people.
Second, this is reawakening my love for TSN. Sadly, I wasn't into the fandom at its peak purely out of language barrier (my english was pretty rusty back then), but when I rewatched that movie around 2013 I went head first onto the ao3 tag bc good lord, the rs of Mark and Eduardo was so tormented, I loved it. All I can say is that knowing the author of RW&RB was into the TSN fandom it truly adds to my enjoyment of the story.
So... yeah, thanks for this deep dive that came (apparently) out of nowhere on my recommendations. Great work!
i have not seen a fanfiction mystery video essay like this since sarah z did my immortal - thoroughly entertaining i am literally on the edge of my seat
Gotta say that I always felt that Red White Royal Blue had roots in fanfic but oh boy now that was a ride and definitely not from the fandom I was thinking 😂
watching this video was a very unexpected surprise. i expected a fun deepdive on the lore of this rumour. what i was NOT expecting was to shed tears over the idea of fandom as a community and how fleeting these experiences are!
this was honestly an incredibly beautiful video and i'm sad it doesn't have more views, but i also think that those who will understand it have already found it
NOT ARMIE HAMMER ☠️☠️☠️☠️ I lost my shit every time the Justin Timberlake picture floated into frame 😭🤌
went through this same rabbithole last year as i became kind of obsessed with tsn and the whole dynamic of jesse and andrew, i found myself loving the works and fics of the era feeling nostalgia for something i didnt exactly lived… Well. This is an amazing video!! thank you for making it and I’ll surely share it when the rumor circulates again
i just found your channel from your other rwrb video, and a new video already dropped omggg i’m so excited!! this is truly the type of extremely niche content i love
god, what a journey this has been, like I just mindlessy clicked on this video to pass the time put a few minutes in my ass was seated and I was enraptured in this story for the full hour and eleven minutes, I was not expecting to feel kind of touched and the sweet sorrows of nostlagia by the end of this , also not expecting to learn fascinating TSN behind the scenes facts, 10/10 video essay, I'm a changed man.
Well. The thing is, i definitely teared up at the conclusion of this page. Thanks for taking such a thoughtful look at this!
You made me cry with the In the Mood for Love quote 😭
I love how you went on the hero's journey here, also thank you for verbalizing my exact thoughts in the 2nd to last chapter of the video
I have this habit of looking at ancient fanfictions on old forums (from like, the 2000s-2010s) and looking at the comments, it just feels like peering into a different universe
When I heard "Robin Pulaski", I thought it might've been a How I Met Your Mother reference, but then I remembered her last name was Scherbasky, which only rhymes.
As someone who's gone on multiple livejournal deepdives it always hits me how I'm connected to people who had the same love for a thing I like now decades ago through their posts. Finding a post that feels like a little niche piece of history is always so strange and it makes me wonder where they are now (like the person who made a post a few hours after the first episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia aired saying they thought the characters were gay. I keep wondering if they're still watching and know they were so right). Idk I just always love seeing other people love what I love and I get weirdly sentimental about a lot of things
Going through tumblr posts from 10+ years ago seeing people say "Mac and Dennis will be made canon next season!!!" made me realise how long fans of the show have been struggling lol. Now I join the struggle.
the jaw dropping twist with the urban dictionary profile… this was well worth an hour of my time. thank you for your service
your note at the end about the wayback machine capturing a moment in time really hit me... i used to be very involved in fandom some years back (i was chronically online very young lol) and recently i got the urge to go back and look through some of the old fics and artists and pages i used to follow and. a lot of them are just gone. i have vivid memories of some of these artworks and writings and interactions i had with some of these users and friendships i formed and a lot of it is just gone now. all that art, even if it wasn't a masterpiece, is just gone but all the emotions and attachments i had are still here. a lot of the accounts that stuck around are dead too... scrolling through the ruins of a place i used to visit. visiting the graveyard of a friend i used to have. i wonder where they all are now.
This is an insanely great video. The editing, pacing, the different sections. Seriously brilliant archival work too.
The last few sections made me think of the song/RUclips video “My Hope” by Molly Lewis, which is all about people forgetting their MySpace passwords and being unable to take down their pages. Again, amazing job with this video
I wasn't expecting this video to go where it ended up going, but i am happy I clicked on it on my suggested videos page. 😌
the thing about this video is, well. its exactly the hard hitting journalism we needed 🙏 tysm for this, love your videos
this is one of my favorite videos on youtube and i have seen it at least 20 times now. it’s on at work it’s on when i clean my room it’s on when i’m trying to fall asleep
Wild how I went into this thinking it was just going to be a fun journey but came out on the other side teary eyed.
I think anyone who has been involved in fandom spaces can relate to that feeling of looking back on a community that once meant everything to you with bittersweet fondness. I was a one direction/harry styles stan for over a decade of my life -- when you showed casey's tumblr blog archives, i'm at least 99.9% sure i visited her blog at one point and we were probably mutual in laws lol. There are so many memories encased within blogs that get deleted, fics that are written and abandoned. In the moment, it feels so real. You're going to love this thing forever, you're going to talk to these people forever, you're going to write and read about this subject forever. Then life goes on and you move on, but the time you spent there still lives with you. Even when it comes to the most trivial topics, that sense of community never leaves. There's something uniquely beautiful about fan culture in that way. If you're lucky you get a few tangible experiences from it (meeting up with friends online to go to concerts, etc.) but most of it exists only online, lost to time.
I think the reason it affects us so much is the thought of impermanence. It's hard to picture a future beyond our current one because it doesn't exist yet. There will be bands and movies that we love that we can't conceptualize right now because they simply haven't been made yet. There are people who will be in our lives who we haven't met yet. Everything feels so permanent, but as we look back upon these little niche communities that existed and now don't anymore... we think back to our past. We think back to something we loved that we swore we would love forever, but now is just a fond memory for us. It makes us confront our everchanging lives. But hey, that feeling also makes us appreciate the 'now' even more. Gonna go give my lil fandom friends a virtual hug right now.
Haven't read this book, nor the fic, nor have been part of Amy of these fandoms, but damn, what a video. I've loved watching it. The end having you share your experience of finding the master post is what made it feel so memorable imo; as a huge fan of fics and fandom communities and interactions that was super emotional, sooo. thank you lots for including that, and doing this whole video too. subscribed 😌💜 love from Argentina!
this is probably the most inane comment i could make, but out of all things i was not expecting dario argento to be brought up in a video about whether red white & royal blue is social network rpf. the world is full of wonders and surprises.
(also, great video!)
yeah lots of strange references in this one, I'm realizing. I got to see Argento speak at the BFI this year, it was awesome! I'm a Deep Red stan personally
with 7 years of french education on my belt (4 yrs elementary and 3 years high school, don’t get me wrong), from what I know, dropping ne is a regional slang thing. I’ve watched videos from france french speakers who drop ne, but i’ve also watched videos and have teachers who have grown up in french speaking parts of canada who still say ne (though whether or not its because they’re trying to teach us, is up for debate)
Someone has probably already clarified that point, but I wanted to share what I knew.
Great video btw! Absolutely lovely to watch instead of doing my homework, your voice is very pleasant to listen to and the amount of research put into this is hella impressive.
This ending segment is absolutely why I love you. You are just amazing, very good, 10/10
as a person who has been incredibly invested in both of these fandoms (and used to follow casey on tumblr) this video is like christmas to me
i saw this video on my homepage and saw it by you and immediately seated myself for some hard as nails, heavy hitting cultural journalism
SUCH a good video was not expecting to be genuinely moved you did it again jane
I just wanna say, I love your channel and your videos so much. you deserve way more subscribers. you manage to make everything you cover even more interesting with your wide range of knowledge and references, and i just love watching your content.
agreed!