@Sathu Welcome aboard!
mermaid blood wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:37 am
@sathu, thanks! it's always good to get insider perspective.
i need to see some actual sources and language analysis as to why people think he's not serious about an 8 year long interest. aside from just the exchange in the Louise collab video, which
to ignore the whole scene, body language and interaction in favour of just the words is taking dan waaaaay too much on face value for the context. it isn't picking apart behaviour and then categorising it, either. this isn't people analysing cat whiskers and onesies. it's literally dan saying 'i was a furry till 3am' at 18 years old, and then repeating those kinds of statements up until the present, many times saying directly "because i'm a furry", "i've been slowly trying to tell the internet that i'm a furry for a while now, with little hints", "it's surely one small essential part of it (his truth)".
I don't think language analysis (which kind?) or body language can help us much in this matter. It's the nature of humor and especially irony to state exactly the opposite of what you mean. And I think he's ironically trying to convey the image that he is a furry. Dan has done this with other things too, and sometimes it is immediately understood that he meant something in jest... and sometimes I feel we get into situations like this where people see things differently. I don't dispute your direct quotes of him. He literally did say "because i'm a furry". There's plenty of other occasions where his literal statements are not understood as such though. The context around the furry references and my understanding of who Dan is as a person, and how he likes to use humor, makes me feel pretty sure that when it comes to the furry jokes, they are just jokes.
We all interpret the things he says in our own way and none of us, I think, take him serious all the time. You do this too when you say you reject the "i"m joking" comment in Louise's video. On the basis of body language (which i don't interpret the same way), you interpret his behavior and reject his literal statement, and even offer some imo far reaching but unproven assumptions about his psychological state and his intent that you feel explains his behavior.
mermaid blood wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:37 am
people wanting definitive statements - he's given it. why should he have to qualify on top of that that he's 'not joking'? it isn't how human behaviour works. we don't walk around communicating like that. 'mmm i can't wait to eat some chocolate later' - i can deduce that person enjoys eating chocolate, i don't need them to tell me 'i like chocolate, and no, i'm not kidding.' but when you bring social taboos into it, it magnifies but also gets muddier
I agree that when it comes to daily real life conversation we don't ask anyone to qualify if a statement like "i can't wait to eat a chocolate bar" is meant jokingly.
Unless in the particular cases ofc where there
is ambiguity, like when a friend you have known for years and has expressed his dislike for chocolate, you order some sort of surprise desert in bar by chance you get a tray of chocolate bars. Then you
would perhaps ask your friend to qualify that statement, because it could be a joke.
I just wanted to bring this up to make the imo crucial point that context defines everything when it comes to language (hence why haven't yet developed chat bots that quite manage to convince us they are human...).
The context that I think is always relevant when talking about Dan and Phil is that they are primarily entertainers, constantly selecting what they exactly what want to talk to with their audience. Their videos, and also their body language is always partly "acted" if only in the sense that they are always aware they are filming something (and editing it later) that will be seen by their massive audience. They always have the opportunity to (consciously) adapt their behavior and body language to make stuff
appear a certain way. The goal is often to entertain the audience and i think themes like joking around about fursonna's are to be understood in that sense. It's their way, much like the sometimes over the top fanservice stuff, to engage and have fun with/poke fun at the viewers and themselves. It informs and shapes their content and it's why a lot of people watch them.
mermaid blood wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:37 am
his pattern over the years is to joke about something till it's no longer a joke, and he perhaps doesn't feel the need to provide that safety net from judgement for himself any longer. we've seen that's it not linear, and the the fear in this pattern has reared up again just recently. regarding what @alittledizzy said, I'm not sure it's not paying attention so much as a social blindspot. the discourse on this seems to bring in a lot of personal statements like,
'i mean, he could be, i don't care if he is, i just don't think he is' - which is pretty similar language surrounding judging someone's same-sex attraction. yet, it is a type of thinking that is very rarely applied to things that are widely accepted. why? i have to deduce that ignoring a body of evidence that has a logical thread through it, over such a very long period of time, happens because the topic is either unfamiliar or undesirable to the people analyzing it.
I think that explaining all his jokes as a pattern he does to provide that safety net from judgment is really tricky point of departure. How can you even know this? On what basis do you decide he's making just a joke and when do you know it's for some deeper emotional reason? The reason why much of what we debate about them is blanketed by phrases like "I mean he could be" or "I think/ I feel" is because (imo at least
) we
don't usually have a lot of clarity about the situation. We're often talking about possible complex emotions and motivations without knowing any of these people personally, without knowing that much about them, and through the lens of them being professional youtubers and we being their audience, with our own experiences and expectations. The things that are widely accepted don't attract much discussion because they are sort of banal or don't really have much taboo around them, so I think it's logical we talk about these issues differently. Their is a logic thread and a body of evidence for him
pretending to identify as a furry, and i think Dan likes to make jokes about social taboos while at the same time sending the message to people who genuinely identify as furry that this social taboo is not something that should be taken really seriously and stop you from doing the things you like to do as a furry. I think his jokes are often attempts to make light of a certain issue and not reflective of deep seated personal motivations.
mermaid blood wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:37 am
not blaming people for their responses to dan btw, just highlighting how tricky it is when his self-protective behaviour is repeated and then enforced by an audience
. ironically his fear of people taking him seriously but not having a positive reaction, has aligned himself in their eyes with not being serious to such a point that he could be seen as mocking the very things he himself embodies. on many of his identities, not just this one.
That's kind of the question right? Does he fear people taking him seriously, and on what issues? Does he embody the same things for everybody? Does he really have all these genuine identities some people think he has? I think those are all open questions and we're just speculating with the little pieces we have. The way i read Dan, he's always been very cheeky and ambiguous about lots of things, and his default stance is irony. That applies I feel to issues where he might be searching himself (his sexual identity) but also to the perceptions that fans have of him -and he loves to make light of himself but also people who project things on him that aren't there. All while trying to stay diplomatique
The only major thing where I think he's trying to be reasonably straightforward about is his depression talk, but even in those 'serious' video's he's sure to add a good amount of jokes to keep things entertaining enough.
(what, no llama emoji?)
Dan I've got down for a red panda or cat (he's rather feline imo) but I'm not quite sure about Phil (especially if you take his scalie preference seriously - now those I don't really understand the draw to!)
- I went to that bar last week (on an admittedly awful blind date)!!! Oh fuck me, I really really do not like the idea of running into Dan and Phil in the wild and that chance goes up by so much if we live in the same area, which increasing evidence suggests that we do! I am not okay :dead2: 
