“Just turn off your sense of taste and eat the lemons, peel and all, like they’re apples, all while maintaining steady eye contact with your friends and family!”
Mark the electrician has been here for five minutes and he’s already said “well that’s…weird” twice from the other room and frankly I’m afraid to ask.
It’s not good when skilled tradesman are standing in the middle of your room pinching the bridge if their nose, is it?
Mark just referred to the wiring in our bedroom as “creative” and “interesting”.
This is fine.
And now he’s taking apart the ceiling. I’m not worried, are any of you worried? I’m not, haha, it’s not like this house was previously owned by someone who would do something stupid like try to wire their house themselves…or store tins of varnish under the furnace behind a secret alcove…
Ha ha…
Ha.
Hm.
Fuck.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S NO NEUTRAL WIRES??!?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S GROUNDED INTO THE SCREWS HOLDING UP THE CEILING LIGHT???!?!!
There are a few reasons why you shouldn’t whine every time there’s a reboot of something. Let’s use the new Thundercats as an example.
1. Thundercats doesn’t deserve to die. It’s a beloved property that should have a fair attempt at reaching a new generation of kids. Don’t let a misplaced sense of ownership to something that isn’t yours in the first place ruin a show for other people. You like the original? Good. You can always go watch it. A reboot of Thundercats doesn’t mean the original never happened. Think a reboot should be more action packed and play older? They tried it in 2011 and turns out viewers didn’t want it.
Consider that the new Thundercats Roar may actually do well because…
2. …it wasn’t made for you. The tastes of today’s kids are different than ours, just like how ours was different than the generation before us. Test yourself by watching the original Thundercats. And by watching it I mean actually watching several entire episodes from start to finish. Most likely you’re going to get bored and want to change it to something else. A comedic adaptation of it could just be what revives interest in the Thundercats.
3. You already know and trust the artists. You trusted them when they helped make shows like OK KO, Motorcity, Rick and Morty, etc.. They’re bringing that passion and expertise with them to Thundercats Roar. You’d be surprised at how much a network relies on the artists’ unique voices to make their shows stand out. Just from TC Roar’s sick intro you should know that this show is bringing something to the table.
4. It’s opening doors for the things you love. Whether you like it or not, reboots like Teen Titan GO and Ben 10 are successful and kids love them. While you don’t have to love them too, you should appreciate them. It’s because of the success of shows like these that networks can have the resources to explore new original content. This is how progress is made. This is why cartoons aren’t just cat and mouse chases anymore. Who knows, maybe a network will even end up developing an original show so successful that in 10 years time trolls on the internet will hate its reboot.
5. If you’re an aspiring artist, this isn’t a good look for you. Go through your favorite artists’ twitters and tumblrs and see if they have ever said anything bad about any animated shows. You’ll find nothing, why? It’s because this is an industry of cooperation and support for your fellow artists.
A good portion of the people I follow online are artists trying to break into the industry. We see the things you say. Your rants don’t make you sound like an animation connoisseur. It makes you sound toxic and jaded about an industry you haven’t even set foot in yet. Why would a production want to commit to hiring someone they think will just be rolling their eyes at the designs the whole time?
THIS.
My response to this went a little long, so I’ll put it here…
Two things:
One: A lot of the responses I have seen to TCR weren’t so much criticism as they were knee-jerk, frothing, sarcastic hate. Much of it in the form of personal attacks against the show-runner, who is a friend of mine. Criticism is fine. Y’all don’t HAVE to like anything. Please don’t assume that people in the animation industry don’t know the difference between criticism and hate.
Two: Those aren’t “threats”, they’re reality. The animation industry is very much a community, or like it says in the post “an industry of cooperation and support for your fellow artists.” People wanna work with people who are nice, and why should anyone believe you’d be pleasant to have on a team if your first response to a new show is to say snarky things about the character designs, or reblog a ten minute rant video about how Calarts style is ruining animationblah-blah blah. Again, I can’t say it better than the post: “Your rants don’t make you sound like an animation connoisseur. It makes you sound toxic and jaded about an industry you haven’t even set foot in yet.” I have seen many young artists who want to break into the industry shoot themselves in the foot, because they think a good way to engage with industry veterans is to crap all over the work those veterans have done. It’s a bad look, and it’s usually done by people who know very little about the industry and what goes into making an animated show.
I have said it a gajillion times: nobody wants to work with a jerk. There are hundreds of talented artists out there– why would anyone choose to hire a jerk? And while criticizing a show is fine, criticizing a two-minute video about a show that isn’t out yet and you know very little about kiiiiinda makes you look like a jerk. Especially if you’re mean about it.
I really shouldn’t even be touching this discourse but I also want to add that style trends have always existed, and people shaming said style trends is almost a trend itself that follows along.
Before, animation professionals were less accesible online so a lot of this style trend hate would instead just get directed at artists in online communities. Once upon a time on deviantart kids liked drawing sparkledogs and suddenly began getting harassed because it was “not realistic” was the justification. Before the current cartoon style trend people would draw off anime then that became cringey because anime wasn’t “a real style”. When tumblr first started to become more popular, artists got shit for drawing what was called ‘tumblr noses’ where they just tinted a nose red.
All of these trends were completely HARMLESS and as a result of the fact that a lot of artists form COMMUNITIES and LEARN FROM AND INSPIRE EACH OTHER, but as soon as that happened, another group would come up and make them feel ashamed for these things until suddenly it was popular to trash artists that drew X way because it was bad for -insert reason that tries to justify bullying behavior by pretending it isn’t-.
And with the animation itself, style trends are a bit different in how they form because what networks want, marketing, and so on plays a role. If you look back on any era of animation, cartoons around similar time periods followed similar styles because those styles were shown to be what worked and what was appealing. A lot of artists who work on those shows also have to adopt those styles to continue getting work. Heck, even the current style trend is going to eventually fizzle out and be replaced by a new one, and cue the cycle restarting.
I think the worst part about this “calarts style” backlash and even referring to the style as such is
1. It perpetuates an idea that drawing a certain way is wrong or ‘cringey’ (hello cringe culture).
2. It ENCOURAGES bullying of young artists or artists who may simply like the style or want to draw in it and encourages the notion that they should feel ashamed for drawing in a style they enjoy (Things that affected me with previous style trend hate growing up as an artist on the internet).
3. “Calarts style” was a term used by John K himself the creepy pedophile and it’s gross it gained so much traction (I’m on mobile so I can’t link easily but there’s posts and people on twitter talking about this)
4. The industry style trend has nothing to do with calarts. A lot of people use this to fuel harassing innocent young artists who go to calarts probably because they are misinformed about how the college program actually works and want to believe calarts kids are all rich and spoiled and more privileged (not really) to take out their frustrations on them. Which is fucked up. Hate to break it to you, but minus maybe a few students who did bad things, harassing or hating on the students at that school for mostly false online rumors is immature and bordering bullying behavior once again. Also go watch some calarts films, you’ll realize the artists all are hardworking and draw in such creatively varied ways and have their own voices.
5. Literally all of this is bullying when you take it out on other people or pressure others to feel bad about liking or using a flippin’ art style. And you’re not just giving professionals a rough time for no reason, you’re also indirectly hurting the young kids that’ll go online and be inspired by these styles to learn they are ‘cringey’.
Like you’re totally welcome to not like a certain style or have critiques about shows and how they could have done things better. Heck, I have a list of shows I don’t like for xyz reasons and I’ve voiced those opinions before but I guess the difference is since I’ve worked in the industry, I am fortunate to have the knowledge that these things are a result of several factors and rarely can be put on a single person to blame and sometimes production has to go a certain way or can’t go a certain way, which results in things happening the way they do. Sometimes the network wants specific things, etc. So I just hold my opinions separately from the show team and don’t blame or bother them for it, which is how things were before the internet made professionals so accessible.
So the point is as long as you’re not giving artists (professional or not) a hard time for things that ultimately are harmless when voicing your feelings, then you’re fine.
Okay I got a lot of hate mail just for saying people shouldn’t be jerks (someone actually messaged me to call me ugly????). At the risk of getting more hate, I’m going to reply to some things people have been saying.
It all starts by me reblogging these lovely additions above to my post which give great insight and further perspective on the damage trigger-happy hate does to the industry.
Now onto my actual response…
lol guys I never said you’d get blacklisted. Jumping to conclusions is how we got here in the first place. We even got people sending death threats to artists they THINK work on Thundercats Roar.
All I’m saying is it reflects bad on you if you make a name for yourself of making outlandish assumptions about a shows you haven’t even seen yet. There no reason to dismiss the show completely entirely based on just a teaser of the intro theme. It comes off as closed-mindedness. It’s fair for an artistic industry to not want that.
Too many dense-ass people out here saying they’re not trying to break in the industry so they don’t need to “grovel to the corporations”. You don’t need to be an aspiring artist in order to be a human being to other artists.
I’ve been working since 2003, most of what I’ve worked on has been reboots. There hasn’t been a single one where the majority didn’t end up liking it after they watched it. Teen titans, Ben Ten, Avengers: EMH, Spider-Man, Batman Brave and the Bold, Transformers Animated, etc. etc. I’m just an old lady seeing this all play out again and again, the main difference is almost everyone is on social media now and it’s easier to voice opinions.
It’s ok to not like the thing. It’s ok to let others not like the thing. It’s not ok to be threatening and demeaning, I work at WB and I’m friends with the security guards here, and I wince everytime someone “jokes” about coming to a studio and being violent, over a cartoon for kids.
WB makes animated direct to videos (DTVs) for their adult fans. Maybe they’ll make one of those for Thundercats someday, who knows?
Shows where kids are the main audience, those are the easiest to sell, and they help fund other projects at their respective studios. We need these to do well.
The industry is going through new changes lately, with Netflix and other streaming services adding to the competition. No one knows what will be happening with cable in the future.
But for now cartoon cable channels will be making shows that kids will watch, and most of their young viewers aren’t online to even know the internet is fighting over a cat cartoon.
It’ll be ok, action cartoons will be back, it runs in cycles, and let the kids have their fun.
Like, you want janitors and McDonald fast food workers and cleaners.
You just don’t want them to make a liveable wage and have healthcare and be treated like proper human beings.
People who work in an air conditioned office all day sincerely do believe that those jobs are both less important and not as exhausting.
a job being ‘exhausting’ doesn’t make it important, janitors and fast food workers are paid less bc their job doesn’t take any real skill – like basically anyone can do it
not everyone can be a lawyer or a doctor or run a successful business, those people worked hard and learned new skills and gained useful knowledge so their end job would pay more and not be physically exhausting
stop shitting on people who earned a good life because you aren’t being given one for free
ugh
I work in a hospital. It’s also the worst flu season in recent years in my hospital. You know whose job is one of the most crucial for EVERYONE, doctors and medical staff included? Janitors. Go ahead and try to have a safe working environment, ESPECIALLY in the medical field, without them.
Tell me, do you know how to best create a medically safe work environment? Because I sure as fuck don’t, but the janitors do, and they know this while being on their feet and performing manually exhausting tasks for 8+ hours straight surrounded by caustic chemicals.
Same goes for fast food workers. Do you have any idea how much knowledge and physical work goes into working in a kitchen? Wanna tell me you put out grease fires, what temperatures different foods are stored in, and how to keep a safe working environment for both customers and workers in a job surrounded by hot oil, ovens and chemicals? Not to mention, again, being on your feet for 8+ hours in a hot kitchen being yelled at by customers constantly.
I promise you that these people do a more difficult and oftentimes more important job than a large portion of office jobs I’ve been in.
Fun fact: In my neck of the woods, hospital janitorial staff union wanted a pay raise. Their workers were struggling. The hospitals laughed at them, so they went on full strike.
The hospitals were in crisis mode within an HOUR.
Surgical rooms were not being cleaned, toilets and patient rooms were not cleaned, garbage was not picked up, instruments that get reused were not being cleaned (i.e. scalpels, patient beds), laundry wasn’t done, floors were not clean, biohazard waste wasn’t collected.
The hospitals folded the next day and the union got EVERYTHING they asked for.
Now, you may not work in a hospital @purest-rain but wherever you do work, just imagine what might happen if… suddenly no one cleaned. No one picks up the trash in that fancy office. No one vacuums or sweeps, or cleans anything. Nothing. Not the toilets, not the offices. It might take a little longer, but pretty soon, those fancy law-offices look pretty gross, don’t they? Especially the bathrooms. I’ve cleaned bathrooms, I know exactly how disgusting people are when they use a toilet they don’t have to clean.
Stop shitting on low-wage workers just because you don’t understand how important their job actually is. You cannot simultaneously demand a service, while dehumanizing the person who provides you with it, and demanding they not be compensated fairly.
You cannot simultaneously demand a service, while dehumanizing the person who provides you with it, and demanding they not be compensated fairly.
bruh, all your very thought out arguments aside….
EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A FCKING LIVABLE WAGE the fuck is wrong with people.
p.s. a janitor or a garbage man is honestly more important than a lawyer or a CEO, fuck off.
Okay some of you have very good points but let’s take a minute to remember that minimum wage jobs are not meant to be a livable wage. They are meant to be supplemental income for retirees and young people looking for some extra cash.
Unfortunately, many people with families are having to rely on these jobs as their main source of income. Our system is flawed. I will admit that. But there is no reason that a fast food worker should make more than a person who went to school and is working in the skilled labor market.
Yes, those jobs are necessary, but they are meant for people looking for supplemental income. retirees and teenagers can flip burgers. Adults supporting families need to get better jobs. And don’t try to say how can they get better jobs if they can’t afford school. You can get an entry level job that is willing to train you and/or pay for your school. It’s possible. For example, many accounting firms aren’t necessarily looking for people with accounting degrees. They are looking for people who can do math, that they can train to do the accounting the way that their business wants it done, not people who think they know everything because they got a degree. I HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN.
While we’re at it, I’ll explain how the awful President Trump is helping these people. He has created so many jobs that employers are now reporting that they aren’t getting enough applicants to fill their positions. This means that employers will take less skilled/educated people and they will take the time to train/educate them.
If you work at McDonalds and want more money, go out and find a better job.
It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country- President FDR Source: “Franklin D. Roosevelt: Statement on N.I.R.A. – June 16, 1933.” The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14673
May ask how did the President actually make the jobs? I mean sure if he passed a law, but congress also made the law. Why should he be the one to get all the credit? Do you have a source to back that claim up so I may loom into it?
Why can’t workers pettiton to have a better lively hood guarnetted by law to protect the rights of workers by law? It also should not be a one and done deal, it ought to be looked into as time progress forward.
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