Previously Known as "The Kramer Effect"

September 13, 2022 8:48 PM

"Flanderization is the process through which a fictional character's essential traits are exaggerated over the course of a serial work" (image) (tvtropes). IRL: The Perils of Audience Capture.
posted by MollyRealized (29 comments total)

Honestly, both Flanders and Kramer always seemed pretty exaggerated! Feels like “the Homer effect” would be a better name…
posted by Going To Maine at 9:14 PM on September 13, 2022 [9 favorites]

I found that to be an interesting article until the end where the author magically seems to think that they have been able to avoid a pitfall that, by their own writing, everyone is subject to.
posted by vernondalhart at 10:39 PM on September 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

Tobias: You know, Lindsay, as a writer, I have advised a number of other writers to explore TV Tropes where the writer remains subject to storytelling tropes, but free to explore trying to avoid common pitfalls.

Lindsay: Well, did it work for those people?

Tobias: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but… But it might work for us.
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:59 PM on September 13, 2022 [18 favorites]

I found that to be an interesting article until the end where the author magically seems to think that they have been able to avoid a pitfall that, by their own writing, everyone is subject to.

And given that the same author has also written an article that unironically uses the word 'wokeism', I strongly suspect the author does not realise they have been captured by the same forces. Nevertheless, this is a good article.

Honestly, both Flanders and Kramer always seemed pretty exaggerated!

Early Flanders was definitely more of an upstanding friendly neighbour, and the hardcore Christian intolerance came later as they needed to build stories around it.

One of the things I noticed with Parks and Recreation is that they protected some of their core characters from Flanderisation by creating new characters who were pre-Flanderised versions of the core cast - Tom had Jean-Ralphio, and April had Orin. This let them do the big obnoxious jokes while letting their more abrasive core characters play the straight role. (Even though it's dated _horribly_, Parks & Recreation is a great case study in letting a sitcom's premise significantly evolve without breaking it.)
posted by Merus at 12:18 AM on September 14, 2022 [23 favorites]

I didn't know about the story of Nicholas "Nikocado Avocado" Perry. From Wikipedia:

He says he has had manic episodes due to his poor diet, and that he takes advantage of his low moments by using clickbait to encourage views to his videos.

That seems really sad.
posted by a car full of lions at 2:30 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

Early Flanders was definitely more of an upstanding friendly neighbour, and the hardcore Christian intolerance came later as they needed to build stories around it.

I still think the Leftorium episode was one of the best Simpsons episodes ever, with some seriously tearjerking moments. I'm glad this trope got named after Ned Flanders because his early characterization was far better than what it devolved into.

(I will never not find the line "Ned, have you ever considered one of the other major religions? They're all pretty much the same" priceless, though).
posted by fortitude25 at 5:38 AM on September 14, 2022 [20 favorites]

Even though it's dated _horribly_, Parks & Recreation...

Apologies for the derail, but what?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:18 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

🔐

I knew there were limits to my desired independence, because, whether we like it or not, we all become like the people we surround ourselves with. So I surrounded myself with the people I wanted to be like. On Twitter I cultivated a reasonable, open-minded audience by posting reasonable, open-minded tweets.

🔒
posted by Ptrin at 6:31 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Parks and Rec was full of the same unfounded liberal optimism that also makes The West Wing age poorly.

P&R is built on a premise that even the most churlish, ignorant, or anti-government folks are still fundamentally good people in some way. The resurgence of fascism in the US has shown that these folks aren't misguided, but actively malicious and hateful. Rons Swanson are a liberal fabrication, a mythology of the opposition that's wholly undeserved.
posted by explosion at 6:33 AM on September 14, 2022 [28 favorites]

Even though it's dated _horribly_, Parks & Recreation...

If I had to guess, it's Parks & Rec's extremely sunny view of liberal triumphalism (and the possibility of across-the-aisle cooperation) pre-2016, and how Leslie Knope's ever-growing political aspirations functioned as a kind of a sitcom-character proxy for Hillary Clinton.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:33 AM on September 14, 2022 [5 favorites]

I’ve met a few Ron Swansons. They exist. Just sayin’.
posted by ducky l'orange at 7:07 AM on September 14, 2022 [6 favorites]

I prefer this form of Flanderization: meet Okilly Dokilly.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:17 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

I found the article about audience capture very interesting, because I can certainly see the aspects of my personality that would potentially lead me down a pretty terrible path if I ever tried to become an influencer.

I have a reputation among people who know me for being pretty funny on Facebook. And I know what kinds of things my friends find funny and react to, and I find myself looking for opportunities in real life to do and say things that will fit into that mold.

I keep my FB page largely friends locked (there is a trivia question every weekday that I make public) and my friends largely limited to people I have met in real life for that reason. Because I can see what I will do to chase an audience that doesn't even need chasing. I can't imagine the extent to which I would contort my life if I was chasing a real audience.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:40 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

Strange Interlude's putting their finger on it - Ron Swanson was always kind of a liberal fantasy*, and you can't really keep that up over the course of the show, especially given how much they incorporated the personality of Nick Offerman, but it does have a we're-all-just-folks kind of view of politics that played decently in Obama-era America that seems deeply naive now. In a way it captured politics in America being really dumb fights over things that aren't real at every level, but it didn't envisage how bitter or how all-consuming it'd become.

But also, boy, there's some casting choices in there that hit kind of different now, between Aziz Ansari, Chris Pratt and especially Louis CK.

* I note that the writers say they met a libertarian government worker who inspired Ron.

I can't imagine the extent to which I would contort my life if I was chasing a real audience.

It would be very awkward if you did something like become one of the public-facing managers of a popular community website :p
posted by Merus at 7:48 AM on September 14, 2022 [8 favorites]

I always find this to be an interesting subject because it's totally based on the assumption that the original characterization is the correct one, and that later characterizations are the 'over the top' ones. I feel that needs to be specifically stated, because often the original characterization of side characters is limited, given the limited screen time they get.

I think that applies to 'online content creators', because everything has a learning curve and in the beginning we are often just trying to figure out the tech, find a voice, and other things on the more technical end of performance that muffle personality. They may also have a boss that needs to be pleased, which also limits personality.

In a sports metaphor, at 12, you are busy figuring out the technical aspects of catching a ball, understanding the rules, figuring out your swing, etc, so that your 'swagger' doesn't come through. By 25 you are in the Majors, you don't have to concern yourself with the rules anymore, because you have lived them, and you don't need to spend 100% of your mental energy catching a ball, because you have some muscle memory. In other words at 25 your real personality starts to come out.

So yeah, I'm not sure all these cases are people being subsumed by their online life, but rather are people freed by it to be their true selves.

I can certainly see the aspects of my personality that would potentially lead me down a pretty terrible path if I ever tried to become an influencer.

In this case, this continues to apply, because constraints are not necessarily a bad thing!
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:19 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have wondered about people's willingness to embrace toxic supporters. From the Substack:

Audience capture is a particular problem in politics, due to both phenomena being driven by popular approval. On Twitter I've watched many political influencers gradually become radicalized by their audiences, starting off moderate but following their increasingly extreme followers toward the fringes.

...One example is Louise Mensch, a once-respectable journalist and former Conservative politician who in 2016 published a story about Trump's alleged ties to Russia, which went viral.

...Another, more recent victim of audience capture is Maajid Nawaz. I've always liked Maajid, and as someone who once worked with the organization he founded, the counter terrorism think-tank Quilliam, I'm aware of how careful and considered he can be. Unfortunately, since the pandemic, he's been different. His descent began with him posting a few vague theories about the virus being a fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting public, and after his posts went viral he found himself being inundated with new "Covid-skeptic" followers, who showered him with new leads to chase.

In January, after he lost his position at the radio show LBC due to his increasingly careless theories about a secretive New World Order, he implied his firing was part of the conspiracy to silence the truth, and urged his loyal followers to subscribe to his Substack, as this was now his family’s only source of income.

posted by spamandkimchi at 8:23 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I always find this to be an interesting subject because it's totally based on the assumption that the original characterization is the correct one, and that later characterizations are the 'over the top' ones.

With Flanders, at least, that is the case. Going To Maine is wrong, Flanders in the very early seasons wasn't exaggerated at all. The point of the character is that he was the perfect Reagan/Bush-era suburbanite: well-off, well-adjusted, friendly, polite, just a good neighbor. He was a Christian and went to church because that's what a good suburban guy did then.

He was designed as the foil for Homer, which is how he was used in the early seasons. The Simpsons were originally a broken mirror version of the stereotypical suburban nuclear family and the Flanders were what they were reflecting. It was only later, as the show evolved away from that early conception of the family, that Flanders became completely defined by religion and exaggerated to the point of absurdity.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:07 AM on September 14, 2022 [11 favorites]

The point of the character is that he was the perfect Reagan/Bush-era suburbanite: well-off, well-adjusted, friendly, polite, just a good neighbor. He was a Christian and went to church because that's what a good suburban guy did then.

Yeah, but society has changed too, so it's hard to believe that suburbanites used to be moderately acrimonious (as long as everything was kept segregated and dissent kept really quiet), but that was 30 years ago. It's not the Regan/Bush years anymore, so that stereotype has changed.

Look at the comments about Parks & Rec, far less time has surpassed.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:47 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

The MCU is leaning into this hardcore right now - just take a look at Thor by way of example.
posted by BigBrooklyn at 10:44 AM on September 14, 2022

It didn't take long for the Flanderseses, either; there's a scene where Homer's half-brother Herb, now a penniless bum, goes to visit the Simpsons, picks the wrong house when he arrives, and lands on the Flanders doorstep. They're stoked! They usher him inside, feed him, bathe him, give him one of Ned's suits, and offer him the master bedroom if he needs a place to sleep. And they're absolutely thrilled to do it because that's how Christ says to treat people in need.

That's the season 3 finale. The Flanders family became uber-religious fast, and even if you only include the "classic" era of seasons 1-8 or 1-10 or whatever, the super-religious Flanders family has a much, much larger footprint than the original flavor.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:10 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

The MCU is leaning into this hardcore right now - just take a look at Thor by way of example.

I don't think that that's a good example. Thor was supposed to be one of the three tentpole Avengers (besides Steve and Tony), but in his first two movies he was a pretty meh character; he more or less disappeared any time Darcy was on the screen. His evolution into a sort of bro-god character was both rapid and deliberate; in the "Assembled" featurette on Thor: Love and Thunder on D+, Taika Waititi said that his approach (in Ragnarok) was simply to make Thor more like Chris Hemsworth, and Hemmo has amazing comedic chops. Maybe that's not to everyone's liking, but the difference between Thor just sort of stomping around brandishing his hammer and glowering, and Thor being funny and warm and genuine, is incredible.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:33 AM on September 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

Interesting that the discussion here has latched more onto "Flanderization" than the article on audience capture.

I can see the phenomenon described by the author at work in ways that are much less performative than being a politician, media figure or social media personage. A friend who has fallen in with a group of what I would call "lefty Twitter trolls" has gradually taken on many aspects of their persona, eventually to such an extent that I had to point out he had been goading me into taking positions he could argue against when in fact our political views aligned by about 95%. I suppose this is all just an aspect of "you tend to become more like the people you associate with" except that it's now extended via social media to a level of abstraction and approbation is both instant and plentiful (and I would argue much more pernicious) in the form of "likes" and "retweets" and the like.
posted by slkinsey at 12:05 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: goading me into taking positions he could argue against when in fact our political views aligned by about 95%
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:53 PM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

I have a reputation among people who know me for being pretty funny on Facebook. And I know what kinds of things my friends find funny and react to,'

I came to write almost exactly the same comment Jacquilynne did. I have been conscious on Facebook of how my friends' reactions to things shapes what I post. It's low-stakes, so I watch it happen while not caring much, and I violate the unspoken rules at will. But I have felt that pressure.
posted by Well I never at 3:47 PM on September 14, 2022

unfounded liberal optimism

I see what you mean, but I’m not sure I’d prefer shows featuring characters who were actively malicious and hateful fascists.
posted by Phanx at 5:17 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

willingness to embrace toxic supporters.

There is JD Vance who might have always been an ass but hid it better in the Hillbilly Elegy days to today.

Or the slide of Howard Kunstler to a Trump fan which KMO was talking to someone about. Their version as I remember was 'he got accused of racism for his critique, his income stream talking about the relocalization over energy and resources dried up and noticed pro-Trump things paid so that's where he is now.' Finding that exact discussion didn't happen in 3 mins so no link even though the follow the money may be what KMO was told by Kunstler.

Money and shaping views has a far bigger trend which can be cited as coming from the Powell Memorandum and a podcast that covers that is The Attack Ads! podcast with his tag "Powell Movement".
posted by rough ashlar at 8:12 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah, Kunstler. He went from a somewhat curmudgeonly type who I enjoyed reading to full-on conspiracy theorist right-wing nutter. I have occasionally checked his blog over recent years, and the stuff being spewed by him and supported by his echo-chamber commentators is gobsmacking.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:20 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

...his income stream talking about the relocalization over energy and resources dried up and noticed pro-Trump things paid so that's where he is now.

To be honest, the potential income stream from catering to conservatives is very tempting. It wouldn’t be too hard to produce material far-righters would eagerly eat-up and, possibly, pay for.

The downside, of course, would being outed/discovered, and now you have a whole lot of armed, angry psychopaths, pissed-off at you.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:30 AM on September 15, 2022

It didn't take long for the Flanderseses, either; there's a scene where Homer's half-brother Herb, now a penniless bum, goes to visit the Simpsons, picks the wrong house when he arrives, and lands on the Flanders doorstep. They're stoked! They usher him inside, feed him, bathe him, give him one of Ned's suits, and offer him the master bedroom if he needs a place to sleep. And they're absolutely thrilled to do it because that's how Christ says to treat people in need.

I never understood that to be Flanderization. I understood it to refer to Ned’s change into a caricature of a right wing Fundamentalist, which took him totally out of the step with the even overly devout character he was in the early seasons.
posted by riruro at 9:51 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]