New from Matt Baume

[olivermoss]

Watch on YouTube

So, I'd give a kidney for him to cover the Due South, The Sentinel and Highlander era and how that attracted a lot of ficcers and had varying levels of queer coding, or in DS's case actually showing at least some gay culture? (I've tried to watch DS like a dozen times and can not get into it, so I am going more off of hearsay here but I've always heard that DS deliberately showed gay culture in certain ways? If someone has a legit source on that please tweet the man ... and also send me links because I am on his Patreon)

Comments

[muccamukk]

News to me about due South, and I watched the whole show.

[olivermoss]

Could be people being creative with their use of the word 'canon', which is a rampant problem in fandom these days. IDK, I just heard that so often that I assumed it was true.

[muccamukk]

I think it's just that it was REALLY slashy and everyone including the actors knew that people were reading queer context out of it, but that was like... every '70s-'90s buddy show, so idk why people pick up on due South more than any of the others.

[olivermoss]

Did it not have canon queer minor characters? If not I am going to hit myself in the face with a pillow and remind myself to stop trusting anything fans say without verifying it myself.

[muccamukk]

It might have? I saw it when it was airing, and have rewatched bits and pieces since (mostly the first two seasons because I'm a filthy Ray V girl, and those were the less overtly shippy ones). I'm sure there were like one-episode gay characters, but that was common at the time. I'm struggling to think of a reoccurring gay character. Could just be my brain's melted though.

[mistressofmuses]

I have not watched any of this person's videos, but I've added it to my watch later list.

I love fandom history stuff. I missed out on any of those early slash fic fandoms, because I was just a little too young for them. (I was watching X-Files with my mom, and she and my dad were both pretty into Star Trek, but that was before I had a conception of fandom as a real Thing.) It wasn't until after I'd entered fandom via anime fandoms in the early 2000s that I branched back to the rest.

[olivermoss]

He doesn't typically do fandom history. He mostly does very deep dives into actual queer rep on shows, including very early examples that aren't widely known. So, I was very pleased by him ... actually having a clue unlike most videos involving fandom history. He does great work, I highly recc him.

[mistressofmuses]

That ALSO sounds like something I'd be interested in seeing videos about, so I'll definitely check him out!

[muccamukk]

Incidentally, I liked the linked video. He should do one on Babylon 5!

[olivermoss]

I hope he does! He's been covering Sci Fi stuff recently and that on and off again, production interference, stuff is very much in his wheelhouse.

[bleodswean]

This was fascinating and incredibly well-presented. I'm so glad you shared it. I will queue up more of his meta.

[olivermoss]

He's got some great deep dives in TV show history!

[delphi]

I love Matt Baume's work, and while I was a little hesitant to see him tackling something so overtly fannish (by which I mean the transformative corner of fandom), I was really happy with the end result!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I have one small quibble but overall he really had a good grasp on the topic.

[delphi]

What was the quibble?

[olivermoss]

He said shipping replaced the word slash, but I think shipping is the more general term and slash is still used. But, eh, maybe it's just because I hang out in spaces with lots of Fandom Olds. Maybe it's replaced it more than I realize.

Anyway, tiny thing considering most people can't cover fandom stuff right at all. Pretty much every YT video that covers fandom stuff makes me want to facepalm.

[delphi]

That's a fair point. I kind of have a foot in both worlds, old and new, and in some of the newer fannish spaces it really has taken over as the only term - with "slash" considered antiquated at best and problematic at worst. That said, it likewise made me pause to consider it when he brought it up, because I also hang around in many circles where the term's still the go-to.

At any rate, way better than a podcast I was listening to the other day where someone authoritatively stated that "slash" specifically meant porn.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, almost always it's clear the person talking doesn't really understand anything, and he clearly did. I was impressed. I started watching him a while back and he just keeps upping his game.