...and the poll's now closed. The presentation is on the 17th, so it'll be a little after that before I pop back in with the finished project. Thanks everybody!

Also, if you're in Orlando and want to pop in and see it live, shoot me a PM.

 

Went well, overall. Didn't record the actual event as I was starting to fatigue out from the drive down and I was more lethargic than I would have liked to have been. Still, I'm happy with the result, and think it's interesting in its own right. Thanks for help, everyone!

text+pics.

 

Will definitely be giving this a read. Glad it went well!

 

Interesting! I looked through it and had a thought. How does the 19-25 Botposting group compare to the 19-25 TFW group?

 

Not sure! The data from google forms records the responses from individual users and so can be used that way, but that's beyond both my excel knowledge and the time I had to work on this before the conference. I did email it to a friend of mind with great spreadsheet-fu with the note to not worry about it immediately as the deadline was coming anyway. There's time to mess with it now, but the sample sizes are so small that I'm not sure of the usefulness.

I would like to broaden the scope of both the questions and the groups surveyed and put together another iteration, but it'll have to wait until the summer. Back to grading papers...

 

I was just kinda curious! I noticed that the age distribution here on TFW is quite different than the age distribution on Botposting, and I was wondering what effect(s) that may have on the responses from any given age group.

 

Gave it a read. Pretty good stuff. The results aren’t surprising. For the older fans in their 30s and 40s, who grew up with only G1 and BW, they had 3 North American series spread across 16 years that all shared the same continuity and cemented the looks and personalities of the characters. It’s only natural that those people are more resistant to drastic reinterpretation of those characters.

Optimus Prime’s ultra violent tendencies in the Michael Bay movies is a perfect example of long-time fans finding fault, while newcomers, with no reference point (or too many reference points as there were already 8 different TF shows by that point in NA) found it to be standard fare for those kind of blockbuster action movies and/or just another version of that character. But really the only people that seemed to have any problem with Prime’s portrayal were mostly older fans (I know I took issue with it).

In regards to gender representation and all that- I know some people outright hate the idea of robots holding hands and not even the most incredibly well-written depiction of such things will be received well. For those that are receptive to the idea of gendered robots and relationships, I think a lot of it still comes down to how it’s handled. I’m okay with that stuff in my TF stories as long as it’s actually well-written and not a ham-fisted attempt. But then, that’s with all writing.

 

Yeah, for my own part, I wouldn't have thought to use Transformers to facilitate explorations of gender or the like, but I can understand how the concept can fit, and can also see what it means to people that want that kind of representation, so it's cool.

RE: the Bay Optimus Prime, that's actually the subject of the big presentation I gave at TFCon Baltimore back in October. There's more interplay between Optimus' actions and the audience's expectations than people realize. I really need to get everything assembled into a video and put on youtube...

As far as the generational differences between fans, it'll be interesting to see what the future holds. For those of us older than 35 (to make an arbitrary distinction), transformers overall seems like a narrow thing, but for the second-generation fans (the people that grew up with the Unicron trilogy, Bay movies, Animated, and Prime), transformers seems much broader. However, since roughly 2015 or so, transformers has become increasingly self-referential and "safe" as a brand (there's no chance we'd get something weird like Beast Hunters as the main line supported by televised media with the current strategy*), so it'll be interesting to see what the kids that are navigating the post(ish) live action movie era and netflix shows make of it when they get older, or even if that matters when everything is available simultaneously via streaming services.

*Cyberverse may be doing whatever (I honestly don't know), but it's no "Here's a Megatron that turns into a space-jet that's also a fish for some reason" level of bonkers.

 

Oh man, I’ve seen so many heated discussions about gender and sex in TFs over the years. It’s insane how often this topic comes up. I’ve learned more about gender studies from this fandom than anywhere else.

To add to that- Michael Bay was already an adult when G1 premiered, has stated he was never into Transformers and so brought an older generation’s idea of what a soldier hero should be to his portrayal of Optimus.

Yeah, Hasbro was kind to bring the beast era back, but I don’t think they’d let it stand on its own like they did back in the mid 90s. Or if they do, it’ll be something like Rescue Bots, where it’s a side story with cameos by Optimus and BB and others once in a while.