so like that tweet like "why was spamtenna written like under the hays code" got me thinking
thinking about the fact that TV shows as a format are inherently both very SFW and repressed and also heteronormative. I don't know if heteronormativity even exists in the deltarune universe but there's certainly at least a meta implication meant to invoke it from a viewer perspective surrounding tenna and we DO know sexual puritanism is a thing in the DR world and that toriel is especially a hardass about it, so tenna by his literal nature in the household he is and by his format is basically forced to repress his sense of love, sexuality and ability to say outrageous things (especially because of the parental locks). we see this change when he's immediately freed from this using swears and showing the music channel in chapter 4.
game shows are ESPECIALLY heteronormative, often with jokes about nagging wives and usually the only leniency of sex mentions is often at the detriment of women, which makes tenna's lack of mention for any of these aspects particularly standout, like a negative space of something where you'd expect to be there but there isn't. instead you get fun flourishes and flamboyant movements and a desperate desire to keep being watched.
I'm saying basically that TV is gay as hell and represses the fuck out of it, and you include the knowledge that being gay was a HUGE career ending accusation that was taken as seriously as death threats throughout the entire 20th century up until the 90s (and extending a bit into the 2000s) and it very much gives the vibe that tenna is supposed to invoke an older gay man coming into the new millennium unaware of how much the world is changing, allowing him to express himself and be himself, instead shoving it down in fear that he will no longer be relevant or watched or loved for it. you throw in that "4am shock therapy" joke and it's BLATANTLY clear yeah, this is an older repressed gay man who lived in a sexually puritan household who is afraid to fully express himself due to abandonment issues. ouch!
despite all of the jokes about haha internalized homophobia spamton, actually, spamton has no shame about his sexuality. he still can't fully express it for a couple reasons, the first being in a game that's mostly SFW and it just wouldn't be relevant, with the bulk of what we got coming from the spamton sweepstakes (business loving businessman) but also, because now in his current form, he's a spam email. an inherently heteronormative format as well.
spam emails are literally a format that falsely feigns attraction and the allure of women for the sake of scamming people, often out of desperation. it's a veneer, an obfuscation of true intent for the sake of getting money. it's especially interesting cause again spamton doesn't hide what he is—into men—and he clearly DOESN'T WANT to be a spam email. it's literally him losing the ability to speak truly as himself and having to supplant it with raunchy and deceptive ads to convey what he wants. which you could argue mirrors societal pressures where even if you're honest with yourself about being queer, you still need to play by society's rules and use the words of greater heteronormative society to get what you want. it's like it's literally injecting itself in his brain despite that not being who he is. and we are supposed to get the sense that spamton is the way he is—rendered unable to speak normally like he wants to—from whatever eldritch force contacted him on the phone. throw this in with him being the key to the weird route with the thornring and it's literally like he's been forced into heteronormativity as an eldritch force (which, again, doesn't seem to exist in the deltarune universe!) and then we as a player in the weird route are literally forcing kris (nonbinary) and noelle (likely a lesbian) into heteronormative roles that make them miserable and destructive to try to defy the very cloth of the reality of deltarune and break the game down to its barest bones.
and then we gotta remember spamton wasn't always like that. if he can be upfront while still speaking in spam injected format, he was probably more upfront and blatant about it back during the big shot era. by his very nature, he could be! he's part of the internet, a new modern age where people can freely communicate without worrying about the censors killing them. he's also an advertisement, which famously even on television could get away with overtly sexual ads that normal programming couldn't, and then you start to realize the deeper implications of spamton offering to bring tenna into the new modern era and teach him the ropes.
it ain't just about technology. spamton literally represented on a metanarrative level, to tenna, someone able to be freely himself in his orientation and who literally haunted the halls of TV world with how he asserted himself. it's something unthinkable to tenna and yet technically allowed since ads can get away with that, right? and then you got spamton offering to teach him technology and how that represents freeing tenna from obsolescence and when you connect the two it's literally like spamton brought out a side of tenna that he deeply repressed and felt shameful about and could bring him up to speed that in the new era he doesn't have to hide it. and when he lost spamton he lost that assurance that he could exist in the modern era. he lost the ability to fully be himself. it's not until the fun gang free him from the dreemurr home that he can start to feel that again. it's literally the embodiment of outrageous, open advertising meeting the repression of cable television. spamton literally loved tenna so much he was going to let him be open and free, on a metatextual level, before being robbed of that ability by the very same eldritch forces that robbed his speech and forced him to speak in the words of others with desires he doesn't want.
yeah he totally fucked that TV
toby fox is a master of subtext cause what the fuck. normally with most writers I'd think this is unintentional and just a convenient coincidence but that's never the case with toby!!! he always loves adding 15 billion layers of subtext!!! what the fuck man. just rip out my heart and stomp on it
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