The shocking reality we’re not talking about…
I have said about all I can say on the Malfoid thing, but a comment came in that I think is worth reading out loud, because it is uncomfortable and it is fair.
The viewer asked what the point is of developing original IP when the right does not have the patronage network the left has, and then asked whether any of the commentators complaining about Disney Star Wars have bothered pointing people toward alternatives like Galaxy’s Edge from WarGate.
That question turns the mirror on a lot of people, me included, and the honest answer is mostly no. They have not. And I understand why.
Over the last ten years, right of center folks got very good at one thing, which is identifying what is wrong with the culture. That built audiences. It built an entire economy around it. It may also be oversaturated at this point. There is no shortage of commentators, podcasters, YouTubers and memers naming the problem. What there is a shortage of is the step after that.
You know culture is actually changing when you are in the driver’s seat and other people are reacting to what you are doing. That has not happened. Every win stays a blip because it never turns into the next thing. Pointing at the problem is step one, and we have been standing on step one for years.
Meanwhile the imbalance is real. There are basically no consequences on the other side. A project underperforms, the people move laterally, they get another gig. Anybody in the mainstream who does not think like them operates in secrecy. I have met those writers at cons. Fist bump, I agree with you, cannot say it out loud.
So what actually fixes it. Not hoping and not another victory lap. Customers have to spend real time and money on the alternatives, which means accepting they will be rougher around the edges, because there is no mega corporation behind them. And creators have to be willing to be the first one to point at somebody else’s original work instead of treating it as a footnote before going right back to the mainstream, which is where the views are.
I had to do this myself. There was a point where I dropped my pull list completely. It was strange for a while, and then it was not.
You are not going to see a fundamentally changed cultural landscape until there are a lot more of us.
Tell me where I am wrong on this one. I actually want to know.
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