I was asked a pretty good question about one of the many watch-along events found on the Fediverse & lesser social networks, #Monsterdon. I've been
attending it for a while & I have some thoughts about it.
Post by @Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis@dice.camp
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If the above no longer loads because of link rot, it's @Alexander_Anotherskip_Davis@dice.camp asking me about how I engage with Monsterdon
While I was thinking on an answer, it got a reply. That's the opposite of bad, it's good. Asynchronous networks and diverse answers are virtues of
decentralized networks, IMGO. It's a good, solid, factual answer, as well. Incredibly helpful to a new viewer.
Post by @klu9@ohai.social
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But. It's nothing like what I would have said. The excellent resources shared by @klu9@ohai.social in their response? I almost never visit those.
I know that they exist, I've only referred to them in order to remember what I watched, when. They're entirely orthogonal to my answer of how I
#Monsterdon. So this blog is my attempt to answer for myself how I #Monsterdon, in case someone wanted a less factual & more subjective context
for watch-alongs in general insofar as they're like the ones which I enjoy.
So let's break down these questions I was asked.
- How to know what's upcoming?
- How to know when it's upcoming?
- Some tips to interact w/ the vibe?
Before I answer them, let me be clear: I have NOTHING to do w/ hosting the #Monsterdon watch-along, I only ever participate as a viewer. So I have a
perhaps niche xp of the phenomena. I'm not what I'd consider core #Monsterdon personnel; I don't make bingo cards, cocktail recipes, movie nominations or
perform administrative tasks or provide support to the effort. I'm just a voyeur; I like to watch. So these are my outsider-insider answers
1: there's a poll! It's distributed by @Tawaret@timeloop.cafe using the #MonsterdonAlert hashtag. Tangentially, this is a pattern I like, when a hashtag has
auxilliary hashtags to supplement the core hashtag. It'll look something like this example.
Post by @Taweret@timeloop.cafe
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I've no idea how the nominees are chosen, I trust to the curation behind the hosting of this event. I only rarely research any of the options & almost never
cast a vote, even if I do research. Why? Because I literally do not care what film we watch. For me it's about the experience of talking about what I'm seeing with
other people who are suffering the same fate, for me. But, if a person does care, watch #MonsterdonAlert, vote in the polls, lobby blocs of fedizens to vote
with you or piss them off so they vote against your favorite. It's a meta-game which I'm not in to; that doesn't make it a bad game.
2: this is another use of the #MonsterdonAlert hashtag. There are notifications days & hours before the watch-along which reveal the poll winner, point at
places the movie can be seen in the likely event one doesn't have their own copy on hand, and provide auxilliary resources, such as the film's page from
DoesTheDogDie, critical responses, connections to other works, bingo cards, cocktails, &m. Yet again, I don't really pay attention to any of that.
What generally happens is that somewhere around Sunday afternoon localtime, I look at my Mastodon timeline & someone I follow will have Boosted someone
talking about #Monsterdon or they have Tooted about it & that'll remind me that it's Sunday, it's #Monsterdon day, & I have something to look forward to.
I guess one could call this Just In Time Awareness.
3: This is where I bore readers with trivial details. I have watched #Monsterdon a couple of different ways & my preferred way has become laptop + televison
based, the magical two-screen engagement which advertisers have & will continue to kill people to attain. That is, I put the movie up on a bigger screen
to run autonomously. Usually I'm watching someone else's stream; sometimes I happen to have a given cult classic lying around the lair. Then I use the laptop
in Mastodon's multi-column view. I've got one column for notifications using my name, one column pinning #Monsterdon so I can see what other people are
saying, one column pinning Local feed, so that I can comparatively easy find the thread I've been posting to & if the feature is exceedingly dull to the
point that I haven't much to say, I'll bring up my Home timeline just to feel something.
People who've had occasion to watch a bad movie with me in person can attest that the only real difference between what I post when watching #Monsterdon
and what I say when watching a #Monsterdon-grade movie is that I generally don't say as much out loud because I don't want to ruin the terrible
movie watching experience by talking over it. I have no such compunction when it's in text & opt-in. If you don't like me making fun of the film, don't
read it. I and my friends were doing this kind of sarcastic commentary well before we ever heard of MST3k. That's not to say that the riffing is unique,
only that we were already doing it when it became monetizable.
Which brings me to what I actually consider one of the most important points I can make about #Monsterdon & fediverse watch-alongs in general:
being 'on time' is a myth. There is no 'on time' for these viewings. You can't be 'late' to watch #Monsterdon, thanks to the ability to watch the
movies on one's own time. The only thing missing from being there before the film starts is that some riffs by the audience later in the feature
will lack context but guess what. Even if you watched every second of that film, you still might lack the context for the riff. So don't get hung
up on punctuality. That's some midwest bullshit. You're only late to the party if the party has already shut down or moved on.
I won't dispute that each watch-along has their own vibe/tone/flavor and some I like more than others. #Monsterdon has been consistently good to me
each time I've tried but that's not going to be everyone's experience. The ways that I like to interact w/ the #Monsterdon community while a film
is running involves my trying to think of what I might call 'the next joke'. When the movie shows us something remarkable (in the sense of being worth
saying something about), almost everyone watching will think to say something about it. Many of them won't actually toot it. Some will. The thing
which I want to toot is: what's the next joke a person could tell after the obvious toot? That's not to disrespect many of the witty, wonderful &
hilarious #Monsterdon viewers. They're a solid pack of jokers. But I have stretch goals for myself.
I'm also mindful of my language & the language (visually, as well as audio) of the film. I try not to punch down, I try not to use gross terms &
I try to speak up when there's some ... period-indicative racism. THat's not because I'm a good person; it's just because I have to be more inventive
if I don't let myself use standard insults. This can be pretty challenging in some films, because sometimes the whole thing was a racist error of
judgment by an entire production team of cinematic professionals and that just makes me sad. Very old films and very new films tend to make this
easier on me.
When I can't think of something funny to say, I'll look over at the #Monsterdon hashtag and Boost someone who found a funny thing to say or I'll Reply
to someone to let them know that I saw their truly awful rancid post of a joke and, as a terrible person, enjoyed it very much.
I should say something here about hashtag discipline. Some users will get quite agitated if they see a Toot from a #Monsterdon thread which has neither
a Monsterdon Content Wraper (summary field) or a #Monsterdon hashtag and my advice there is to Block those busybodies on sight. I strive to always put
#Monsterdon on my #Monsterdon related Toots but I'm only human (at best) and so sometimes I forget to care. It's my position that no one is required
to tag their #Monsterdon related Toots with the hashtag #Monsterdon but it is a courtesy to people who hate fun to do so, to allow them to hide the
sight of fun from their soured vision.
As for the core of the experience, the films, themself? My guidance is to take them for what they are and were: people trying very hard to tell us
a story which we would talk about after we saw and heard it. Sometimes they were too ambitious for their skills or their budgets. Sometimes they're
just bad at things. And sometimes, often without realizing it, they provide moments of sublimely sophisticated cinematic moments. That's what I'm looking
for. The moments where I can tell that someone who understood their job well enough did a bang up job of using their trained skills and their innate
talents to convey a moment. A place, a time, a feeling. I like films. Even bad films can have good in them.