They Didn't Learn the Lessons From Their Own Sacred Cow

Joseph Campbell, noted mythologist and celebrated literary philosopher, is often referenced in shorthand for some of his most astute observations regarding the timeless human practice of sharing stories. One of these observations was, to paraphrase him poorly, that there are really only about a dozen basic narrative archetypes or frameworks that most stories operate off of, and the differentiation, or what makes each individual story unique unto itself, are the details situated to that framework. Architects or real estate agents would perhaps summarize it in the phrase, “This house has good bones”. How the house is filled and situated may be very different from one residence to another, but the fundamental building blocks are, at their core, chosen from a select few frameworks. Why is this so? Because those frameworks have a proven track record, a demonstrable, historical pattern of operational success.

In fictional narratives, there are generally three types of stories that you can tell. Firstly, there’s the moral/ethical story, one that has an explicit case to make in favor of some fundamental human truism, and how it should be instantiated among the culture. Secondly comes the ‘pure puffery’ tale, one that is put together almost exclusively for entertainment value, the ‘popcorn summer blockbuster’, as it were. These tales tend to have very little in the way of meaningful messages to convey, instead looking to offer some surface-level emotional gratification and churn out the ticket sales in hopes of getting the production studio ‘into the black’, as it were. And then, thirdly, there is the tale that attempts to balance both of those prior approaches, being meaningful on the one hand, usually in a more subtle and less hamfisted manner, while also being engaging and entertaining for its target demographic.

Countless ‘Old World’ faery tales have been retold and re-presented by large production outfits over the last 30 to 40 years, a LOT of them by the Walt Disney Corporation. For them in particular, you can go back even farther, all the way back to the very first feature-length animated film they produced in “Snow White”. I spoke at length about a year ago about the absolute bastardization of that tale over the centuries that it has been shared around among various cultures and clans, by everyone from the traveling Romani peoples, to the Irish travelers back in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the Germans and Austrians from whom the Romani peoples sourced the original folk tale to begin with. As for the English and the Scots, well, they ‘borrowed’ the tale from the Irish, who are only too happy, historically, to share freely of their folklore and legendarium, because they are traditionally a people who don’t mind folks borrowing legends and adapting or changing them to suit their own purposes. It’s a sort of, ‘we don’t own the lore, so why not let you do with it what you want’ approach.

Long before those stories, there were the Aesop’s fables, Greek and Roman tales from the times of the pantheistic Roman Empire that were, by and large, intended as cautionary tales for youngsters, with more ‘mature’ versions shared around amongst the adults for entertainment purposes, yet still layered with ethical or moral underpinnings throughout. It is from one of these tales that the expression ‘He or She flew too close to the sun’ stems from, referring to the tale of Icarus and his father.

Seriously, folks, get reacquainted with the fables of the ‘ancient’ world…

Believe it or not, though, there are some less age-d tales that have had relevant messages for us to impart to our young, and that are pertinent to even the eldest and middle-aged amongst us. Before they seemingly lost the plot, even the folks at the aforementioned Disney had writers, illustrators and even a small handful of executives who seemed to recognize the timeless wisdom of some of our hardest-earned lessons throughout our history as a species, or more specifically, as a culture here in the West. But some few of us in the online realms seem to be slowly but surely tapping into a few of those vital lessons, and the results, if they prove true, are going to be fascinating to watch unfold over the coming weeks and months ahead.

They View Us As Bugs Already, So It’s Perfect

It may seem almost unimaginable to anyone born after 1995, but there was a time when Pixar made films for Disney that didn’t get turned into ongoing franchises or get merchandised to hell and breakfast. In 1998, they made a film that has gone largely into the realm of Forgotten Cinema, a movie about a plucky little ant named Flik. Now, Flik is an inventive little fellow, always trying to create gadgets or gizmos in order to improve the lives of his fellow everyday worker/drone ants, usually to no avail. At best, he is viewed by his fellow colony members as a bit of a kibitz and nuisance, and at worst, a spaz who will some day bring ruination with his wild ideas and machinations. In the primary plot line of the film, this precise second scenario seems as though it has come to pass, as his latest sortie into the arena of experimentation leads to the destruction of a goodly deal of the food stores that the colony was going to be relying upon for the coming winter season, including the portion that the colony always gathers and sets aside for the tyrannical grasshoppers, led by the appropriately named Hopper. When Hopper comes by to seek out his people’s share, and is informed about the circumstances, he levies a threat of doom and terror against the ant colony, unless they rush to fix the situation and get him and his cronies their cut.

There’s a much-referenced speech that Hopper gives to his own people later on in the film, one that most folks familiar with the film will know full well that I’m about to reference. In summation, he informs his underlings that Flik and his retinue of circus bugs are, in fact, a very big problem that the grasshoppers must deal with (you can check a plot synopsis or go watch the film if you need the finer details). “Those tiny little ants outnumber us at least a hundred to one,” Hopper barks at his people. “And if they ever figure that out, gentlemen, well, there goes our entire way of life.”

In the long run, it ends up being a combination of raw numbers superiority and ingenuity on the part of Flik, incorporating the skills and abilities of his newfound non-ant friends, that results in the colony being able to fend off Hopper and his crew, which delivers a couple of wonderful and wholesome messages in its own right. For starters, it imparts the importance of working as a team toward a common goal, to repel bullies from taking what does not rightfully belong to them. Secondly, it portrays the utility of having an unconventional thinker or two in your community, even if they sometimes cause hiccups in the normal, day-to-day operations of your neighborhood or grouping. But perhaps the biggest lesson of all to take away from this film is one that seems to have gone clear under the radar for the very sort of people who operate the company that this movie was made by:

You cannot perpetually abuse the people who make your entire way of life possible.

Behold, Your Kingdom of Ashes…

The folks at Twitch and YouTube are ignoring every one of the lessons that I mentioned in the last paragraph of that previous passage to their own peril. In just the last few days, we have seen massive performers like Asmondgold and Tectone push down the garden walls of Twitch in order to multi-stream to platforms outside of the Beast of Bezos, seeing scads of viewers pile in that might never have considered watching them before due to their disdain for that platform. The Dr. Robotnik-on-steroids-and-steak look-alike even exclaimed on his first multi-stream that he was earning approximately eight times the revenue via Kick as he would see with comparable numbers of viewers on Twitch, a revelation that probably made some accountant at Twitch develop a nose bleed.

The uneven enforcement measures taken against certain streamers on either platform has been a problem for some time now, though this has been exacerbated recently on YouTube thanks to half a dozen critics of Alyssa Mercante getting demonetized, doxxed or completely booted from that service, and on Twitch by that platform’s continuous favoritism shown to Hamas I mean Hasan Piker, a fellow who deepthroats Islamic terrorist organizations so shamelessly that they might well toss him from a rooftop if he went overseas for being so obviously gay for them.

Allahu akbar, motherfucker, hope you sprout some wings!

And this is without even mentioning the fact that this champagne socialist doesn’t seem to see the irony in he, a silver-spooned multimillionaire, causing reefs of advertisers to flee the platform, thus reducing the available funds to be distributed to his ‘comrades’, the proletariat streamers who don’t command the same audience numbers that he does….

Anyhow, the big name platforms of YouTube and Twitch are much like Hopper, you see. For time out of mind, they have been the only game in town, relying on the ants, the streamers, to provide them with their food (the viewers and their dollars, given by way of membership subscriptions, Super Chats, etcetera). They’ve gotten fat and comfy sitting back on their laurels, setting the rules and parameters by which the ants must go about their business and provide for them.

There’s just one problem, though. Unlike in that charming little film, it isn’t just one Flik who has suddenly decided to look for an outside solution to the colony’s dilemma. Scores of streamers are looking at alternatives for hosting their videos and streams, platforms like Elon Musk’s X, or Kick, or Rumble, or Bitchute, or Odysee. A couple of these platforms used to have exclusivity controls in place, either by lack of development limitations, or by purposeful design (Kick in particular used to not allow people to multi-stream and earn anything on Kick, but they’ve since changed their tune and allowed a smaller percentage, but still offer something to streamers who don’t go solo on their service). The power is no longer in the hands of Hopper and his friends.

The ants have figured out that they outnumber the grasshoppers, and the grasshoppers don’t appear to have a game plan to deal with that revelation.

It’s Roundabout, But It Works

I recognize that in the metaphor I’ve laid out that we, the viewers, are little more than sustenance for the platforms (grasshoppers) and streamers (ants), and that might not be a pleasant visual to get lodged in one’s head, but it’s fitting. After all, the streamers depend on us to sustain them, and so too do the platforms themselves. There’s a dual economy going on here with all of these services, one of money and attention, and there’s only so much of either resource that any one of us can afford to give over at any given time. It’s a very roundabout analogy to make, but it works.

And I would posit that it works on the level of the larger services, too, the ones predicated on streaming television and film services and the production companies that feed their material into said services for customers to subscribe to. But that’s a different examination for a different day, really. All I’ll say in that regard for now is this, directed right at Disney: the very people who have, for generations, been telling their children how wonderful your stories are? The ones who have gotten married, had kids, and want to introduce them to the wonder that you folks used to be capable of making? Yeah, maybe they aren’t the folks you should be spending all of your time demonizing and telling that your new works ‘aren’t for them’, because between seeing the very evident proof of that at every turn, on top of having it screamed from the mountaintop by your starlets and actors and executives, they’re going to start taking you at your word, and avoiding your products like they carry plague.

Learn the lesson, or be like Hopper.