I keep seeing stuff in the AA fandom talking about how like, some takes are surface level and I do just want to say that while deep interesting analytical takes are excellent and I enjoy them greatly and love applying interesting frameworks to my silly lawyer game. I think the basic takes are also good and ok too. I think presuming every single post an from AA fan on tumblr dot com has to have an academic level of analysis because the text can absolutely facilitate that is maybe a little extreme.

Like media analysis has frameworks and lenses that you can switch out and apply to get new and interesting results and it's ok if that's something you don't always have on when posting because if you do default to one frame work always, you risk missing all the interesting stuff you can get from the other frameworks. But that means you have to be consciously applying them, so its ok if sometimes you also are not doing that. Having the ability to do that is a valuable skill that will enrich your life and media consumption but also its ok if sometimes you just want to not think that deep for a post and say something surface level. Just because you do one doesn't mean you aren't capable of doing the other. This isn't an academic setting, sometimes a post can just be a thought you have.

I want the more academic stuff, fuck I was just looking at a thing talking about hegalian dialectics in AA, a thing I've been internally screaming about the existence of but feel woefully under qualified to discuss so hadn't and I'm so glad to see someone more knowledge than me put words to it. But I think we shouldn't expect it of everyone.

Plus while complex media analysis is wonderful and I eat it up, it's not something everyone is trained in to the extent others are. I like to think I'm better at it that a lot of people I know irl and have had a decent amount of study into it but don't forget that this is something people can and do dedicate their lives to and not everyone in fandom is going to be one of those people.

Idk I just think it's unfair to expect everyone in fandom to have every post have an academic level of rigour. If someone just wants to say "Hey so those von karma siblings, pretty fucked up what happened to them huh," then I think that's OK too. It's different if they're actively misinterpreting the text by leaving shit out (eg ignoring the themes of AA4 to think Phoenix is genuinely uncaring) but I just think it's ok if a post isn't that deep. People are doing this for fun and we can't expect everyone to be functioning at max brain power for every damn post.

Stuff gets popular randomly. One of my most popular posts was a shitpost scene I wrote at like 3am because I thought it was funny. Some of my posts I put a ton of thought and effort and analysis into get no traction. It just depends on random factors like timing or which mutuals find it good enough to reblog. It's the nature of the way social media is. This isn't a meritocracy. Just because someone's brain fart gets popular doesn't mean its the only analysis they're capable of