is "drama" a kind of ARG?

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

This is going to sound weird, but it's a thought that occurred to me today and I want to write it down before I lose it.

So, I watch a lot of youtube. I have several interests that keep me watching there pretty much daily, and one of the things I enjoy watching is drama channels. These are channels that talk about the goings on between other youtubers. I never watch the dramatis personae themselves, but I do enjoy listening to other people's commentary on them.

But today I was thinking about Gabbie Hana and Trisha Paytas and Jeffree Star and all the rest and how it seems like they're always in some form of drama or another with each other. (I'm not talking about the serious stuff here, just the interpersonal stuff)

And lots of people have pointed out that drama seems to bubble up when someone has a product to sell or when their views have dipped, and I think that's definitely part of it. But also, watching the drama is kind of like watching a reality TV show.

But today I was thinking about how fans aren't just watching the drama, they're participating in it. Liking and retweeting and commenting and flaming etc. are all things that fans do to insert themselves into the narrative and try to give the creator of their choice a "win" in whatever the situation is.

And that just kind of reminded me of computer games, specifically ARGs (alternate reality games). In those kinds of games, the real world is the platform and the network is the way the story unfolds. Kind of like how youtubers lives' are the platform and social media is the place where the story unfolds.

Both drama and ARGs require users to go to multiple locations (like sites and videos and tweets etc) to gather up all of the information. They also rely on large groups of people sharing information between themselves to get the full picture together. They're a type of collaborative storytelling with the player both watching and participating in the drama and the more they participate, the more invested they become.

I'm still obviously at an early stage with this thought, but I think it might be how people like Trisha Paytas and Gabbie Hana are still relevant so long after you assume people would be bored of them. They're masters of the ARG format, whether they know it or not.

Comments

[wolfish_willow]

Oh that's really interesting! My YouTube feed is primarily filled with movie, tv, and video game commentary or related content so I don't see a lot of that kind of thing. But if people are getting so involved in it and it's keeping these people relevant... Sounds like you can certainly make a case for it being like an ARG.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I just like watching the "pundits" give their opinions on things because they tell me who these people are and what they've done lol But yeah. I don't know why, but it really struck me today that they've got their audiences super invested in whatever happens next and it seems more like an interactive story than it does real life.

[pauraque]

I generally don't watch any Youtubers who do stuff like this, but I do watch some who have done parodies of it, staging elaborate "feuds" that are obviously not to be taken seriously. Part of the joke is clearly that it's really all a big cross-promotion designed to drive more traffic to the channels of everyone involved, and everyone knows it.

I'd never thought of it being like an ARG, though I can see how it is in a way! It also reminds me of pro wrestling, in that it's similarly based on staged rivalries between the public personas of the performers. Youtube callout videos can have a similar vibe to ringside interviews where wrestlers will talk directly into the camera as a sort of "open letter" publicly challenging/attacking their rivals.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

It definitely feels like cross promotion to me. Like, if these people really had actual issues with each other, would they really play them out on social media with several million people watching? I genuinely hope not, for their sakes.

I hadn't thought about the pro wrestling comparison, but that feels like a good fit too!

[xmarksthespotwhereistand]

That's an interesting comparison! My only knowledge of wrestling comes from GLOW, is the audience participating similarly? Do they get to influence, for example, who wins a match?

[pauraque]

I'm not familiar with GLOW so I can't compare. I'm only wrestling-fandom-adjacent -- I have a RL friend who's into it, and I've watched it with him and he's answered a lot of my questions. It's really a fascinating world, but I'm no expert on it. But from my understanding, audiences only indirectly influence the outcome in that the higher-ups who outline the stories try to figure out through crowd response, marketing research, merchandise sales, online chatter, etc. what the fans like and what they'd enjoy watching. I know there have been some high-profile instances where the promoters tried to push a particular character or storyline that the fans hated, leading to a scramble to retcon the story (e.g. repackaging a "face" performer as a "heel" character).

[jazz]

oh, interesting!! i don't usually follow much in the way of youtube drama, but there are certainly parallels in how rpf fandoms operate.

rn i'm into cdrama rps and fans very much grab at every little thing that can possibly be used to shape a narrative, some (most?) things definitely made up or over-interpreted by the fans and some things deliberately left by the actors.

and similar in kpop. today on twitter fan were talking (read: arguing) about real vs. fake relationships between group members and how much of their relationship is deliberately crafted narrative vs. genuine. (the discussion was prompted by an old reddit post where a fan of bts was questioning why shinee fans aren't uncomfortable with shinee joking about how they're coworkers before they're friends/family — i could get into the details, but i'll spare you :D). so many discussions in kpop fandom come back to how much we really know idols and how much is deliberately crafted to appeal to what fans want.

there's also the rise of 'canonical' narratives in kpop marketing, which often becomes a fascinating loop of a group releasing something, fans interpreting it, the group/company incorporating aspects of fan theories into the next release, rinse & repeat. with bts this has manifested into all kinds of wild things and it's now officially called the bangtan universe.

the example that springs to mind is when jin posted a selfie to twitter in aug 2017 of him holding a bouquet of flowers just captioned "smeraldo" — fans immediately tracked down a blog that had been posting for months as if it was a real flower shop selling this kind of (fictional) flower called smeraldo, going in depth into the history of the flower and making no mention of bts except in the source code of the site. iirc fans even saw trucks around seoul with the smeraldo flower shop logo. more details here if you're curious. i'd never thought to compare it to ARGs because i'm not that familiar with them, but it sounds similar!

[mabstoryteller]

Oh wow, I didn't know it went that far with K-pop groups! It's absolutely fascinating how far marketing has gone, from a story of "you absolutely need this and here's why" to just jumping into our love for stories and outright making up universes around their brands! We saw that shift in other commercials also, like the Gillette "short film". Beyond the message of it, maybe one of the things people got mad about was the fact that a full story was now selling them a product and not just a simple commercial explaining what the product was and why it was useful. I study literature, and I've been studying storytelling specifically for a little while, and people who understand how important stories are in our lives understands what every major branches in power need to tell, from politics to, as seen here, marketing.

I am both scared and fascinated by this whole shift.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I'm also amazed by this level of marketing in Kpop. Like, I knew it was intense, but I didn't know it was this intense.

It all feeds into what really feels like the gamification of fandom. There's this very passionate group of people who all love their thing (whatever it is) so much and so brands and groups and shows and movies can use that love to market themselves through popularity contests and fan campaigns to "save" shows that for all we know were never really on the chopping block.

fascinating! depressing, but fascinating XD

[pauraque]

This is really interesting and I had no idea about it. Thanks for sharing!

[mabstoryteller]

Oh god you're right! I followed a lot of Youtube drama for a while (until I realized in made me angry most of the time so I stopped) and I think I can add to that that maybe the reason I got angry at these things is that I wasn't playing the game but merely observing it, and I'm very bad at watching games happening XD But also because, as you say, from a storytelling perspective, I personally hate stories that repeat themselves over and over and over just so the series can keep selling something and get people coming back. So I think you do have a point here. If people interact with these more like a game, then they certainly feel less bothered by the repetition of plot (as the plot is not what's important there but the detective skills that people have in putting the story together). And each new drama is a sequel to the previous drama like a sequel to the game. Do you think any types of gossips play along that same line too? Except that, before, the game would have been more between a few people and now it expanded online? I would like to add also that I absolutely don't know how to feel if this is an actual conscious thought from them besides the "it doesn't matter how they talk about me as long as they do". I mean. The power of these people if they are fully aware that this is what they're doing!!!

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

yeah, I've been trying not to think that this is conscious, and I certainly doubt it's conscious to the degree that I'm suggesting in my initial post or you in this reply

but at the same time... 😬

I think you hit the nail on the head with the observer versus player part, too. I don't know these people and I don't watch them and I'll often skip videos about them even though I like the creator making the videos about them. I too get bored when it feels like I'm just a hamster in a wheel going round and round.

[touchingaheart]

From the other side, it's pretty how much drama and/or commentary channels keep afloat, too! It's pretty rare that a YTber come up with the 'initial story' (I can only think of Keemstar and DAngelloWallace off the top of my head, big and small yikes respectively) but for the most part they do bounce off each other, generating that thrumming web of interest snatching them lil flies who happened to catch a thumbnail. Unless you're explicitly following a creator, and maybe still rare even then, you generally wouldn't glance at a YT drama video unless it's got views, and views are created when similar videos already exist.


So I'm not saying the drama channels are IN in on it but I'm also not NOT saying that xD

Jefree Starr tho, is a whole 'nother beast on his own. I'll never forget that time when he not really but kinda maybe pretty much definitely faked a 2.3MIL robbery ahshskasj something like that to promote a shade or whatever, and the ones who went viral were actual news outlets instead of drama channels. The world never ceases to amaze me.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

oh, they for sure benefit from it! remember dramaggeddon 1? it was about 3 influencers flipping off another influencer and it dragged on forever. that was my introduction to drama commentary channels because I heard someone reference it and I didn't have any idea what was going on. from that outside perspective, it really did seem like a nothing story that they were all fanning the flames on to get views

and yeah, that JS thing with the concealers was insane XD

[mistressofmuses]

I haven't ever followed YT drama so extensively, though I totally still get that *eyes emoji* response when I hear some serious drama went down, lol.

But I never really thought about it like that - the way that fans are encouraged to participate (like you said, to help their fave/side "win") really does move it into some other territory. It's not "just" drama being passively observed, and it's participatory in a way beyond just "I'm a fan of this person." It DOES strike me as kind of ARG-ish when it turns into a kind of scavenger hunt to dig up timestamps and who said what when on which social media site... Interesting.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

yeah, I'm still at the larval stages of this particular thought but it really feels like "influencer culture" and the oft-referenced parasocial relationships really rely on this kind of fannish behaviour.

I think this also leads to the kind of behaviour where fans start thinking RPF and RPS ships are real or looking for signs in "canon" that the stories are fact. And it probably also leads to the behaviour of showing the fics to the people in question which is SO WRONG WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT OMG

[mistressofmuses]

The way that pseudo-celebrities like YT stars build up fandom, including manufactured drama, and sides, and encouraging fans to play a role in it... it does sort of lead to the breakdown of that divide between "real person" and "fictional character."
Like, yes, there's an element of "playing a role," and pretty much every social media personality does that to some degree or another (even when their "authenticity" is part of the appeal.) But as that dividing line between real and fake is worn down (like it is with an ARG), that COULD make it feel more like shipping characters than actual people, while the encouragement for fans to directly engage in some way makes it feel appropriate to share that kind of thing.

That's also kind of a messy tangle of loosly related thought-spaghetti, but I definitely think there's something to it.

[osteophage]

For what it's worth, Kevin Veale's got a book applying this comparison to mass online harassment.