?? do gem and oli engage in shipbait/fandom pandering? i’ve seen gem a little with impulse and skizz but other than that?
(CC talk) Yeah, but they don't really seek out to pander as much as they seek out to just be funny. It is still engagement bait, especially in Gem's case, but unlike Sosig, Gem doesn't namedrop ships for the sake of referencing them for her audience to ogle at and rather 1. pokes fun where she sees fit (her saying she ships Etho and Joel, asking Etho and Bdubs to make a baby - with their horses, the Skizzpulse stuff) or 2. riles people up purposefully (she has directly admitted this) but outside of main content (her saying several flirtatious/suggestive things about Pearl on streams, eg asking who in chat liked Pearl and including herself, which also comes off more as her trying to support Pearl in seeking that engagement due to it being on Pearl's stream exclusively)
Oli is just an effortlessly funny and charming guy. To me it feels much more genuine than pandering, eg when he was taking the trivia bot quiz and went like "Are Gem and Pearl in love btw?" or when he recently was trying to seem like a cool kid who's totally in touch by proclaiming that he knew ships, to then list treebark but not even know what two people treebark consists of. Cluelesness can be feigned and sure Oli plays his character up a bunch but he's having fun with it and to me anyway he comes off very sincere which automatically makes it forgivable and enjoyable when he does it. But to be fair I'd be more lenient on Sosig too if he had musical prowess to improv songs on the spot about his own ships the way Oli does