a (potentially short) retrospective on dialup duo and fandom culture.
Note! This is my observations. Not meaning to target anyone here. Also this is not going to be profound. I am a tumblr user not an English major ….
Hello fellow generation loss enjoyers, fandom lovers, whatever we are. Genlosers of all kind. I am here right now to discuss a frankly heated topic in the very small fandom that we share, and drop some two cents on the matter!
Again, remember, this is my observations and opinions. people can do how they please, however I’ve taken some problem to some aspects of the shipping itself. Particularly in the dialup field (since that is the main aspect of the shipping here!!)
What I’ve noticed as fandom activity rises yet again due to oasis is a rise in this newer shipping culture. Now, dialup has always existed, however not under that name, or at a much smaller scale. It was a boss x employee yearning coworking HR nightmare. This was also before founder really had an existing design as well so we were just making shit up!!!!
anyhow, with that out of the way: dialup took a turn crucially with The founders game and all of that madness: the coded messages, the game in itself with the reveal of a solid design for founder along with more factoids on hetch. For example: more about his “dying” during the show, how the founder thought about it, you know. It’s the perfect potential for shipping.
Now also at this time, I have never been on twitter, so I have no clue whatsoever what was happening in the fandom over there, but it eventually leaked into the tumblr side and also the official discord (which i was not active in at all; present, yes, but had barely interacted in the conversations going on). A lot of people shipped/found the dynamic to be interesting at that time, and i can agree with that. It’s an incredibly fascinating and unique concept of two people in this scenario—Hetch, who is a gross bootlicking filmmaker and star who wants to impress the founder constantly, who in this sense is this overlord of the generations, the worlds he’s trying to reach and the ones he’s yet to create.
My main problem with this ship in a fandom sense is that there is no nuance to the dynamic. I think this can go for a lot of things in the genloss fandom in general, including any character breakdowns and analysis, however it is especially an issue i see with dialup. There are a lot of sides of the fanon—founder and hetch absolutely hate each other VS they are actually in so much love let them have a healthy life together. There is no problem with either of these sides, might i add! You are allowed to write whatever you want, draw whatever you want, hell, i’ve drawn them in very romantic scenarios before. I just think that when it comes to discussing them in seriousness, it can get lost in translation a bit. if anything, it is quite unhealthy for them to prosper realistically, and we can and SHOULD take that in discussion i think.
I also believe that there should be less harassment over people’s opinions, but maybe thats another long post for another time. I agree we should let people have fun, but also remember there are nuances in this ship that are crucial to the ship, and without them, we lose all characteristics of the original characters.
