Princess Ember: An Analysis of Gold Rushes, Bandwagons and Next Big Things · 11:39pm Apr 23rd, 2016
A rather insightful fellow, or a rather insightful lady, as the case may be, recently posted a thread on the forum of Rage Reviewers. -TGM- was inquiring about the viability of a new thread on Rage Reviews about "growing (also terrible) trends on fimfic."
Anyone who has observed the regrettable state of the feature box over the last week will likely be able to guess as to what bought this on.
This got me thinking (something that is not likely to work out well for anyone) about the whole topic of fadfics, bandwagons and the gold rushes that lead to them.
First, let me address the elephant in the room; it would be a real challenge not to: the thing is attired in a frilly pink tutu and waving it's collossal backside in the collective faces of all present. Here is the original post from a rather self congratulatory thread from the Princess Ember group, reproduced in its entirety:
We did it, boys
Every single story in the new-story part of the Featured box (the first seven positions) is an Ember story.
Sadly, at the time of posting, this was completely accurate. Now, if these were seven great fics, or even seven okay fics, I doubt -TGM- would have posted and I would likely not have written this blog. At least not yet.
Regrettably, they were no such thing: a couple were okayish slice of life fics, and the rest were hastily typed, low rent porn.
That has been the state of both the feature box and the What's Hot list for the last week: shitty Spike x Ember porn. Not even real ship fics, just plain old porn.
First, let us consider what exactly happened.
I'm sure all of you, my good ladies and gentlemen, watched last weeks episode. Most people agree that it was awesome; to quote FanOfMostEverything: "Dragons! Adventures! Dragons having adventures!" It bought us real world building, a Spike episode that unambiguously didn't suck, and a cool new dragon in the form of Princess, later Lord, Ember.
That last one was the problem, really. As soon as the credits rolled, the race was on: several Ember groups appeared, then the first fics featuring the hot new character and the hot new ship. Soon enough, the first such fics were appearing in the feature box, and by midweek, it was overrun with them. By next week, the week after at the latest, they will be largely gone; there is insufficient variance possible in the formula for the bandwagon to sustain itself for much longer than that.
Let us analyse the chain of events that led us to this.
First, the initial gold rush. This was triggered by two groups: the besotted and the opportunistic. The former will have thought:
"Wow. Ember was awesome, and she was so cute with Spike! I ship, and I ship hard. I'm going to write me a shipfic, and I can't wait to see all the fics that come out."
The latter:
"Wow. Ember was awesome, and I need to act quickly! If I can get one of the first fics out shipping her with Spike, I will hit the feature box for sure! Once I'm there, everyone will see my fic; I'll get loads of new followers and loads of upvotes, for hardly any work."
Hence our gold rush: there is both an eagar new audience, waiting for material to read, and a ready supply of writers (cynicism levels vary from none to absolute), eager to supply it.
Thus, we have a glut of varyingly pornographic Spike x Ember shipfics, which soon hit the feature box.
From there we have the second wave. The first viewing of the episode created a gold rush: lots of people saw it and wrote fics, with various levels of cynicism, and these fics got featured. It is at this point that we have the beginnings of a bandwagon: when one type of fic does well, there will inevitably be authors who think:
"Just look at that feature box! Two thirds of it are Spike x Ember clopfics! They look pretty easy to write: just come up with an excuse for Ember to visit ponyville, and have Spike and her bang. It'll be easy! Two or three thousand words and the job's a good'un. I'll be right in with the latest trend, there will be views, upvotes, new followers, the lot. It'll be awesome!"
And thus, poor Princess Ember got to be the 'next big thing'. The darling of every hack writer on the site: an easy to follow formula, that can be turned into a fic with a pretty high chance of success. That is the key point: bandwagons are merely a symptom; it is the formula that is key.
Princess Ember clopfics are an extreme example of a phenomena we have seen before, and it is extreme because they were born of a perfect storm:
(1) New episode everyone likes.
(2) New character everyone likes.
(3) Readily apparent ship.
(4) Easily turned into porn.
These properties facilitated the quick generation of a formula, or, if you prefer, a template: Step one: Ember visits ponyville, because [insert reason here]. Step Two: Ember forms relationship with [insert Spike, Anon or other here]. Step Three: Ember wants sex, because [insert reason here]. Step Four: Sex happens, fic ends.
Any one of the 'insert here' spots could be the selling point an author uses for his or her fic. For example:
"In my fic, [Spike] and Ember bang, because [weird dragon tradition]."
Or:
"Well, in my fic, Ember came to Ponyville because [she wanted to answer Twilight's questions], then [Anon] and Ember bang, because [Anon is exotic]."
Based on the observed evidence from this and similar fads, I propose the following:
(1) The more apparent such a formula is, and the more exposure it gets, the quicker it will take off.
(2) The more variance that is possible in the formula, the longer the bandwagon generated by the formula will last.
The Ember clopfic bandwagon will soon trundle to a halt; there simply isn't enough variance possible to sustain it, and so people will get bored of it and move on.
We have seen this before: whenever a cool new character appears in the show, this sort of thing happens. It is not just characters either; a popular fic can follow exactly the same path.
For example, last year we had Would It Matter If I Was. This quickly became popular, and stayed for some time in the feature box. This fic was rapidly turned into a formula: [Insert character here] is secretly a changeling. [Insert character here] talks to [insert second character here] about changelings. [Insert response here].
This one persisted for about a month: only so many variations of the conversation could be made, and only so many characters could be put in the place of Fluttershy and Twilight.
The most famous, and enduring, of these bandwagons is LoHAV, and it's descendant, Displaced. That particular bandwagon has long since transmuted into a self perpetuating zombie (or sub-genre, as some prefer) for a very simple reason: the key insert here is [crossover character of your choice]. This is critical for two reasons:
(1) There is a near endless supply of different characters from different media to insert here, thus allowing any number of authors to write their own variations.
(2) This provides a simple route to crossovers, which are eternally popular with the inexperienced, readers and writers alike.
With an endless supply of possible variants, and an endless supply of new readers and writers, Displaced is going nowhere.
I suspect some of you, my good ladies and gentlemen, will ask: "A British Gentleman, you crotchety old git, if most of these things burn themselves out in a couple of weeks, then who cares? Wait the buggers out."
We should care, and this is why: Every time this happens, it perpetuates a cycle: the next time there is a cool new character, people will think:
Wow, he / she was cool. I remember when Ember was a thing, if it's anything like that, there will be a ton of fics in the feature box. I better get going."
These fads are a proven, if cheap, way of getting in the feature box, with the attendant new followers and easy upvotes that come with a featured fic. And the more it keeps working, the more people will do it. There will be people who look at this happening and think: "I missed out this time, but I will be part of the next big thing."
Further, how many good authors are now likely to write a genuinely awesome Ember fic, much less a ship fic? These guys will not want to be associated with the hastily typed porn that has flooded the site, and so any of the cool things they may have done are, for the time being at least, likely dead in the water.
As I have said before, Princess Ember wasn't the first time this has happened.
It sure as hell won't be the last.
Thanks. As someone who hasn't watched the most recent episode, I was wondering why the feature box was filled with clop stories of a character who has only appeared for a single episode.
This is unfortunately all true.
Not to mention the milking of said fics by a single individual who may choose to post three separate could-be-chapters-of-their-own-right stories just over or under 4,000 words each.
It's saddening, to say the least.
And people will eat it right up.
3891806
Therin lies the ultimate problem with this: people eat it up, and that means other people want to be the guy who posted three chapters of the same story as standalone fics and had all of them featured at once.
Which means they will be itching at their keyboards for the 'next big thing'. The next 'Ember', be it character or fic, will only trigger this same cascade of events again, with all the people who saw the success of Mr or Miss Three fics featured chomping at the bit to get that for themselves. And so on to the next fad, and so on again.
It is a sad consequence of how FIMFiction deals with featuring fics.
It's always weird to see myself quoted outside the context of my own stuff. You'd think I was important or something.
In any case, yeah, this has made it more awkward to plan more serious stories around Ember, at least for a while. Can't say I have any such plans at the moment, but the character does now carry a bit of a stigma. Fortunately that stigma's half-life should be about as brief as the trend that spawned it.
In all, a very good look at how this phenomenon occurs and why it matters. Thank you for it, ABG.
While I agree with most of what you said, If I had an idea for a fic I wanted to write I wouldn't give a damn how popular one of the main characters might be in the feature box at the moment.
Of course that's just me.
Well when you think about it shouldn't be a surprise. Hell knowing the next episode will have Starlight Glimmer and Trixie, I bet people are already at their typewriters waiting.
Good analysis. And while I'm sure this will be no surprise to anyone who knows me, I hate this sort of calculating response on the part of writers around here. Write something because you had an idea and you want to make it good, not because you want to cash in on a new character and surf the wave of readers desperate to consume every story about said character.
I think, though, that the self-congratulatory smugness of "We did it!" may actually be worse than that. Don't break your arms patting yourselves on the back, dinguses. Flooding the "market" of new stories with shoddy wares is nothing to be proud of, nor is encouraging other fans of a new character to upvote specific fics, either subtly or openly. (I mean, come on -- how it could be a coincidence that all seven slots were full? There had to have been a campaign going on, especially with that post crowing about the feat.)
3892313
Idea: write a more or less 3-4k words long generic sex scene between Trixie, Starlight, and Twilight, wait till the episode, update the scene quickly with some references to it and post. Then observe all those fools wondering how the hell you wrote so many words so fast
3892979 DAMMIT!!!! *deletes shoddy clop fic.*
3891855
I went with that quote because it summed up the episode so eloquently; though I do apologise for not asking your permission
3891950
It's not that Ember fics are popular, so much as they are popular for bad reasons: almost all of her fics have been porn. That said, you are right: a lot of authors might think: "Fuck it, I'll show the hacks how it's done." I suppose we will have to see.
3892313
I doubt any of these guys are reading this blog, but for please, don't give them any ideas! Still, I wouldn't be surprised if exactly this has happened.
3892556
The Princess Ember group has been a bit of a pain in the backside this week. It's been junk posts two or three times a day. I haven't seen serious campaigning on it, though, but then, it's hardly the only Ember group. I will persist with it, because once the initial excitement has gone it should settle down and just be a normal group; the same thing happened with the MarbleMac group last year.
We'll see how things go.
3894567
It's fine. You can quote me to your hearts content, so long as you cite the source and keep it in context.
3894567
Displaced, for example), and porn.
True. Of course that seems to be the feature box in general. Quickly written stories about the newest popular character, copycats of whatever fad is out there, (Would It Matter, Twilight Does X, and
Now I've got nothing against porn, in fact I like a well written story with porn, although finding such a thing is nearly as hard as finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, but dear god is there a lot of porn in the mature version of the feature box.
The big problem is that it seems pretty easy to 'cheat' your way onto the feature box if you know what you're doing. But outside of having some group of people dedicated to reading every story that's posted and discussing which ones actually deserve being on there, an idea which is ludicrous due to the huge amount of stories being posted all the time, I don't see a way to improve it. Sure we could just be rid of it entirely, but I'll admit that there are a handful of stories that I've really enjoyed that I wouldn't have found if not for the feature box.
And while I can certainly see how stuff like that might discourage some writers, I have to admit I don't care. As I said if I have an idea and motivation (which has been sadly in short supply as of late) then I'm going to write a story. I write because I enjoy it, because I want to share my ideas with others. I post in hopes that others will enjoy my writing as well. In the end that's all I care about, and while I would prefer my ideas to be somewhat unique, if it is one among many, than so be it.
Besides it quality that counts, outside of those stories that start a trend or those that are infamously bad, the majority of these flavor of the week stories... no one's going to remember them in a few months time. But if you write a good story. One that connects with people. One that makes them feel for the characters, for their hopes and fears, for their trials and errors. It can be one among a thousand, but that one will be remembered when the others are long forgotten.
A very nice, analytical breakdown, British. Exactly as I've come to expect from you.
I do appear to have not followed you yet. I shall correct post-haste.
3896492
My thanks for the compliments and the follow.
Shame is for the weak, am I right or am I right?
Anyway, you can bet your socks that nobody with any amount of self-respect is willing to write Ember at this point in time. Maybe the chance to ship her with Assblaster McHoofenstein (the double-alicorn Princess of Butt Kicking) will once more come by, but that day is far, far into the future.
I think my least favorite part of this cycle isn't that the authors without shame all pile on, but that the readers actively enable the crap that gets pumped out like raw sewage into the Hudson River. They don't care in the least that no effort has gone into the work so that it might be released before other authors' stories, instead blindly grabbing at the shallow depictions of their new favorite characters. Their support makes critics look like jealous fuddy-duddies who just didn't have the foresight to take advantage of the trend themselves. It's like watching a herd of cows stampede off of a cliff that overlooks a village filled with people who really like hamburger. They get free beef, and the people whose houses are crushed by falling bovines are looked at as whiny little babies who can't stop complaining to appreciate the rotting, splattered gifts all around them.
3897956
I loved that simile at the end
I'm going to have to remember that one...
3897981
It just goes to show ya that everything's a metaphor if you add enough dead cows.
Sorry I didn't respond sooner! Just got to this.
Alas, that's true. Bookish Delight once pointed out that the good post-episode fics, for the most part, don't show up until a week or so later. It isn't just because the writer just thought of it; it's because the writer thought about it, and teased it, and wrote it and fixed it up, and looked around for good cover art, if there was any, and then waited for permission from the artist. Swear on Camembert was published nine days after Pinkie Pride aired, mostly because I waited on the artist.
The real hell ensued, though, when I submitted it to Equestria Daily. At that time, EQD was backed up with fanfics in a queue maybe two or three months long. Mine sat in the submission queue--and sat, and sat, and sat. Meanwhile, the sub-genre of CheesePie funeral fic came about. It seems now to have died itself, but at the time, it was so hackneyed that I started calling it "Pinkie Dies, Cheese Cries: Details at Eleven." And almost all of them were dreadful. I lived in dread of the EQD pre-readers finding my fic and saying, "pfft. It's another one of those stupid CheesePie funeral fics. Well, no need to look at this one!"
Then, midway through this anguish, EQD changed its entire system, and it went to the back of the queue.
And I screamed.
It was eventually accepted, but lesson learned: I don't submit to EQD anymore. At all. I put in Miss Lonelyheart because it had already gotten a good review from Seattle's Angels and its acceptance at EQD wasn't that big of a deal either way, but mostly, I just don't bother.
The one thing in favor of the sluggish submission box is that it's much, much harder just to jump on a bandwagon. Bandwagon fics just won't make it through.
Curiously, I waited for the flood of Quibble Pants fics in the wake of S6E13--and they just didn't happen. We got two or three fics of middling quality and then, boom--nothing else. I don't know whether to be sorry about that or not, as he might have be fun to read or write about.
Anyway, I know it's hard, but good writers should not be dissuaded by bandwagon fics. People will still take a look at them, and then, if they're good, will appreciate them, too.