Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii i dont know if this account is still active but i just stumbled upon this podcast randomly and i was thinking abotu picking it up but then i found this blog . I dont mind that it never finished, but based on the few posts I skimmed it doesnt sound like getting into this podcast is worth it at all. do you think king falls am is any bit enjoyable at this point?
Hi, yes this blog is still active (horrifyingly might I add). But you just asked the most loaded question.
Now, I answered that in my post here. That was around January 2021 and while I updated at the bottom some of it stands and some of it has shifted a bit.
Obviously, it's up to you because it's not that easy. Sure there were a lot of shitty things, but after hundreds of audio dramas, it's still my favorite. But it's also unfinished, had some problematic creators, problematic themes (racism, homophobia, a horrifying about of holocaust jokes, etc), and was overall a shitshow. I also have a more complex con: there's a current lack of community. The show ended in 2020 and it's now 2023. There are a few active users (including me) but most people have moved on. You don't need a community to love a piece of media but it was definitely a big draw for most people. Even I have very fond memories of staying up until 3:00 am to catch the latest episode and blogging about it. Oh and the memes and the fanart. It made everything feel alive. And that's gone. Even the website's gone.
TDLR: If I had to really sum it up, I'd say to steer away from this podcast unless you're super curious and willing to get your heart broken.
-RBPS
PS: If you can't load links because Tumblr mobile sucks (I've had this issue for over a year now) and want to find the post go to @realbigpodcastslut and search "Should You Listen to King Falls AM" or something similar.
ive never listened to kfam but all the postmortems brought about by its cancellation are probably more entertaining for me than the show ever could be lmao
OH SHIT YALL ARE WE PUBLICALLY TALKING ABOUT THE SHIT THE KFAM CREATORS PULL? IS THAT A THING WE’RE TALKING ABOUT NOW? I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR THIS YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
first: im not going to go into issues i have with the show itself. yall heard the helen keller episode and the walt storyline/the character voice a white dude used for him same as i did--my input won’t be necessary there i think. i also recommend the blog @kfam-tea, thank you for your service, for being an archive for creator-based shit, the current snafu and their history, etc.
this is about my personal experiences with the creators. there’s plenty of behavior by the FANDOM that i don’t appreciate, especially in the official discord--where it’s specifically encouraged and cultivated--and maybe i’ll indulge myself with that in a separate post, but this i think will be more relevant to more folks’ interests and the current climate.
so. remember ep90, “if you’re hungry and you know it”? it’s the one where maggie calls in to apply and gets treated like shit by our protagonists for 15 minutes. comments are made about her breasts. they try to dissuade her from applying for the job posting they’ve been advertising because chet would sexually harass her and rather than address that they’d rather just.... warn off every female applicant? maggie through the conversation is trying to make amends for her wrongs (i.e. high school drama and attacking a guy who sexually harassed her so badly for years she quit her job) and talk about her efforts at recovery, and she is mocked, both in the way she is written and in the way sammy and ben talk to and about her.
it was bad. it was very sexist and bad, and nothing was said about it for a month (7/15-8/15), at which point ep92, “words: greater than pen, greater than sword” aired, which contained lily tearing sammy to shreds over it. ben wasn’t there, which was interesting, because it did create a dynamic where our resident socially aware lesbian (who solely bears the burden of educating people when they are being shitheads and is richly rewarded by being widely regarded as an unlikeable bitch by the fandom and many of the characters) rightfully confronts and gets an apology from a gay man for being half of an extremely misogynist shutdown of a woman. meanwhile, his hetero counterpart and unassailable purehearted fandom darling is not yelled at for his misogyny, and gets to have this Very Important Lesson relegated to him offscreen later. i mean, presumably? i’m pretty sure we never hear whether that actually happens.
still, it was a pretty thorough discussion of how gross that conversation had been, and it was addressed and apologized for in the show itself by the characters (or one of them), which was more than i expected. it regained some lost trust. it was clear to me that the kfam team had received the same sort of outcry from the fandom that i had seen in more private servers, and these were their amends. i decided to tweet at them applauding the effort. this is how that worked out:
[ID: a tweet by me that reads: “@ KingFallsAM hey.... today's episode was good. this was a good way to respond to fan criticism and the apology is appreciated. thanks.”
the official kfam account quote tweeted this to respond: “This was an intended storyline, we don’t course correct. We have ALWAYS had imperfect characters that learn and grow and will continue to. Also... we only saw one tweet even mention it. But thanks?“
a fellow fan, whose username and icon have been redacted, replied to the official kfam account’s response with: “I feel like there’s a less sarcastic way to respond to this tweet. I’m a diehard fan, however I saw quite a bit of criticism about thesexism[sic] in the recent episodes. I too was under the impression that it was a course correction, regardless I am glad that there is character growth“]
so. that was a cool thing. like, i do owe that other fan my life and will show up for them in their hour of need for being the only one to publically stick up for me despite being a stranger, but that sure was a quote tweet that a multi-thousand-followers account used to dunk on my under-100-followers account for trying to pay them a compliment!
i mean, really. the passive-aggressive ‘but thanks?’ at the end? and them saying not that they didnt course correct in this case where followup (a month later) was planned, but that they don’t course-correct, as in they never do that--was a clear statement of ‘we don’t accept fan criticism or feedback on writing OR representation and take it into account, ever’. hey kfam, pro tip: when you say 'thanks for accepting our apology i guess' it really sounds like you didnt feel like you needed to apologize in the first place. which is a pretty bold attitude to take about an episode where a character apologizes for being sexist.
like no wonder you only saw one tweet about it if that’s the attitude you present toward criticism (and, as @kfam-tea‘s blog thoroughly proves, it is and has been, consistently). i know the risk of backlash is definitely why i hadn’t said anything about 90 in public up to that point. but yeah, 'nobody told us that episode was disgusting in our samebrain discord server that contains the literal creators who have a history of backlash, so can you really say there was fan criticism at all? maybe it was just in your head. after all, if we did something wrong with the intention to correct it a month later, did we really do anything wrong in the first place? checkmate'
tl;dr im not surprised by the new developments. my hearts go out to the MINORS, who are specifically cultivated as an audience by the sfw policy of the official server, who were publically chewed out by the grown ass author on twitter for requesting tags, warnings, or really any sort of discretion or consideration at all on nsfw content.
p.s.: here’s something kyle said on the discord in response to a conversation in which i criticized ben’s behavior during an episode (i.e. said he should apologize and take responsibility for a hurtful thing he did even though he did it by accident, or at least have it acknowledged in the show or the fandom that he did a hurtful thing--another post, perhaps) and the rest of the discord dogpiled me until i cried and shut down and stopped defending myself or speaking at all because i couldn’t deal with inviting any more argument:
[ID: a discord message from kyle that reads: “Thank you all for talking about this maturely and with your words. I’ve personally never seen that heard[sic???] of this scene with that POV attached but that’s the beautiful thing about this show and shows like it, is[sic] that we all kinda copy & paste ourselves on these characters and situations at times. Everybody’s opinions on the situation is[sic] valid with their own personal context of the scene.” two people have reacted with blue heart emojis.]
how magnanimous, kyle. wouldn’t have described the preceding argument as civil even if i did understand how anyone could possibly do anything on a discord text channel that didn’t qualify as using their words, but thanks? somebody literally DM’d me to ask if i was okay because without having ever talked to me one-on-one before they could tell i was deeply distraught by the end, but i’m glad you got to be the benevolent author and shake hands with both sides for a swift shutdown of dissent well executed. /s
I wish there was a support group for people that had to deal with the drama. I remember how KFAM and their discord mods turned us against each other... there's a lot of people I miss, and I want to forgive them, since we were the victims of the same manipulation and trauma. But it's hard, you know? They made us lose trust in each other so easily, Kyle (and Trent) just kept fanning those flames over and over again. It's hard to see the point when what brought us together also tore us apart.
Honestly, that's a great idea! Especially since they didn't just tear down the discord community, but Reddit and others. I don't doubt that a lot of people are craving that sense of community back. Since I'm one of the few blogs that still does KFAM stuff, I created a KFAM Support Group discord server here: https://discord.gg/dedg9tg7nu
It's pretty bare-bones for now, as I don't exactly have a ton of time to mod a server rn. But for now, I'd like to build a small community and try to undo a bit of the pain they caused (even if it isn't my responsibility). Any fan of the show is welcome to join, except Kyle Brown.
So I once tried to make a Big Bang writing event for the podcast and took to twitter to drum up excitement for the event since I knew a lot of fans were on twitter and a few posts in Kyle responded with a gif of someone shaking their heads and making a "cut that out" motion with their hands. I replied asking if he thought this event wasnt a good idea and he responded with *another* gif of someone emphatically nodding. It was crushing. I just wanted to engage with other fans in a writing event, i never tagged the creators or anything like that. It was honestly soul crushing
Dear anon,
I'm very sorry for the very late response. I am also very sorry you had such a poor experience with Kyle. I know many people would have loved a Big Bang and probably joined (including me). I don't understand why Kyle disapproved, but I know he did have issues with people "using" his works. I'm rusty on the past details, but this fits with Kyle's personality. Hopefully, you have moved on and understand that Kyle was what led to the downfall of KFAM. Thank you for sharing!
I atopped listening to kfam a while back because I really didn't like how they were treating Emily, but seeing Kyle complaining about the pandemic affecting the podcast is really just funny to me. I mean, a pot of podcasts are still in production or, at the very least, trying to get back into it. Like, Palimpsest just started s4 and night vale kept going through the whole thing (though I believe that's because they already don't use a atudio).
You’re absolutely correct! So many podcasts managed to get around the pandemic, especially since the audio medium is much more forgiving in not having many people in close contact. I know this pandemic has really taken away a lot of creativity and motivation too, so I understand those that haven’t been able to work on creative outlets, but I think Kyle was using it as an excuse.
KFAM was already on rocky ground, with Phase 2 not being as good as Phase 1, the plot moving slower, and the cracks starting to show in full. Not to mention, this was before the pandemic and to blame that on the pandemic is ridiculous. Then, KFAM’s problematic nature started to be dug up and criticized more, Kyle being hostile to people that criticized people online, and “creative” differences between Eric and Kyle.
(This is unsupported but I think Eric talked to Kyle about the criticism and wanted to push the podcast in a more progressive way in response. Eric never was involved in drama over criticism and Kyle always shoves his ego first, so of course there were differences. That might’ve been the last straw. Again, this is speculation).
I was the person who wrote the “womp womp” scathing review on the subreddit. I knew Kyle was full of crap when he commented on my post essentially like “all of you are fucking entitled assholes expecting us to produce content in a pandemic???” even tho my post and all the comments weren’t even about the hiatus but the decline in quality which happened way before the pandemic lmaooo. I’m LIVING for the fact that he admitted he was the problem preventing kfam from returning. It was so obvious as a first time listener with no fandom history that he was the dead weight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That post! I remember seeing that post and wanting to finally archive it but got very busy with school. Luckily, I found @ronbegleyformayor has a post on it.
But you are an icon! Sorry Kyle had to be suck a dick about it, as you had valid criticism and him (and some fans) were overly aggressive. It’s just another piece of evidence showing Kyle is a dick. -RBPS
Ok I didn't know this blog existed until tonight, and didn't know anything about the creators other than vague "they're kind of dicks" but now I'm curious. Do any of the creators actually seem like good people? Like if they go on to make more stuff who's worth following.
I don’t specifically follow the creators too closely for obvious reasons, but I have reason to believe Eric Kimelton (co-creator) is actually a genuine person that tried to improve the podcast. I could be wrong, but he’s never been in any of the drama and his tweet about KFAM ending is sort of sweet. He is currently working on the podcast Improv On Tape with with other people (post about it here).
Two other’s stick out and that is Noah James and Cameron Chambers. There was “drama” with Noah and the WTNV “shade tweet” where he just thanked the fans for supporting them. I also follow some of Cameron’s work on TikTok and he’s just a music creator that makes amazing music.
As for more minor characters and actors, I don’t know. I doubt they are as “dickish” as Kyle but can’t truly say as I’m not too invested in everyone’s lives hahaha.
