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

[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!