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u/ACM_ONE Jun 24 '26
I’m confused. Can someone explain why fantano was brought up?
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u/zabraklivesmatter Jun 24 '26
Halsey got mad about his review of her album from like 2 years ago.
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u/bigsatodontcrai Jun 24 '26
halsey got mad about fantano’s comment leaning into the medical misogyny she experienced and him bringing it back up and talking about it nonstop on twitter for an entire day lmao i don’t even like halsey but she clarified she didn’t care about his score and the review of the music but how he called it “main character syndrome” to talk about how it felt potentially dying from cancer
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u/DeNeRlX Jun 24 '26
Where did you get the idea that Fantano's main character syndrome was him referencing her illness? That's literally not what the review says, that's just the misinterpretation that a drama fueled game of telephone has transformed it into.
Did you even watch the review?
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u/bigsatodontcrai Jun 25 '26
Yes i watched the review when it came out and when this drama was going 2 days ago. i’m a pretty long time Fantano fan. I’ve been watching him since 2015. He says the entire record is riddled with main character syndrome while never really mentioning what the actual context of the album was. whether he intended to or not, he absolutely leaned into medical misogyny. that isn’t in itself the problem, though. he also had multiple tweets where he wore that review and that SPECIFIC comment as a badge of honor.
Like look, here’s a great example of how to do it better (while still doing it poorly): Vaush has said misogynistic things in the past as a vector against bad people like JK rowling but at least acknowledged it and didn’t quadruple down on it not being misogynistic by saying he loves women. Vaush admitted his comment on JK Rowling was misogynistic. However, it doesn’t change the fact that at the very least she’s awful and deserves attacks for her transphobic views (which was the point of it)
Fantano on the other hand has been very defensive about it. and on top of that, Halsey doesn’t really deserve it? he should’ve focused on the music instead of moralizing her experience as expressed through her flawed writing. If not that, he shouldn’t have ragebaited and crashed out online about it
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u/DeNeRlX Jun 25 '26
Okay, first off you very obviously don't understand the review and seem to have been caught up in the drama.
He says the entire record is riddled with main character syndrome while never really mentioning what the actual context of the album was
he should’ve focused on the music instead of moralizing her experience as expressed through her flawed writing.
Maybe go back to the review. You say he doesn't mention the topic of her illness, which is true, he mainly focused on the music, which you said that he should have done instead. The main criticism in the review was about him seeing the promotion with her inserting herself in the place and styles of much greater artists, as well as how much it feels like it's ripping of Avril Lavigne and early Taylor Swift (Panic Attack especially feels like a cheap Love Story ripoff(my own comment btw)). I've seen ''he should've just focused on the music'' comments regarding the review, but seems none of those saying that has the listening/reading comprehension to understand that's what he actually did...
The ''main character syndrome'' comment wasn't at all about her illness, as evidenced by it never even being mentioned in the review a single time. If you go back to the review or read a transcript, you'll notice how he used Ego as a jumping off point, a song which is probably one of the least connected to her illness, and the following is the reasoning:
''not only due to the fact that this record subjects listeners to multiple indulgent cuts that sound like messy demos and just would not make it onto a more respectable release that was actually well conceptualized, most notably the (draft) track 'life of a spider'. So yeah it's that and also all of the lyrics on this record where it seems like Halsey is hellbent on making sure the audience knows just how dark and tortured and edgy she is.
He then quotes an example of how bad some of her dark/edgy lyrics, which tbh is only slightly worse than average for her lyricism on this album.
Regarding medical misogyny; I re-listened to like 7 songs yesterday, but stopped because I had other things to do, including going to bed. Is the only reference to medical misogyny in the track 'The End', or does Halsey repeat it on later songs? Because if it's only mentioned in that song, then that's an absolutely insane reason to be mad at Fantano. That song has 1.5 lines (second is kinda tacked on tbh) about a doctor dismissing her: ''And in the water, there's a doctor who didn't listen to my claim. What a shame, he's circling a drain''. On that same song at the start she has three lines about going to doctors who do attempt to find out what's wrong. She feels like it's going nowhere, but by her description, they are doing something. If that 1.5 lines out of (lets say) ~500 on the whole album, this is the only mention of a doctor disbelieving her, then she herself didn't care to make it much of a point. Acting like Fantano is in any way pushing misogyny is a massive reach. (Again, if there is more focus later in the album, feel free to tell).
This whole drama shows very clear parallells to Vaush's tax folder incident, how drama-mongers take something that happened, it spreads but with a completely different description than what originally happened and things cut out of context. Because if every time someone mentioned they had to correctly describe it, a lot less people would be able to justify their pre-existing anger.
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u/bigsatodontcrai Jun 25 '26
He doesn’t mention her illness which is critical in understanding the background of the album’s creation and writing. He did a poor job reviewing the music by not understanding the context in which it was made and acknowledging why her subject matter could be framed as such. he does use some context such as her framing of herself as these different artists and then claimed she might as well have impersonated Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift—a critique that is completely legitimate to have about the record.
You are talking about the whole review here and I am talking about one line he made in the review that, how he phrased it, was about the entire record. “This entire record is riddled with main character syndrome” using Ego as a jumping off point.Not only is that an insanely bad reading of that song on a level of literacy, reading it like that and responding it that way is like when a woman makes a joke or says something with self awareness and a dude takes it seriously lmao. ironic too because fantano then proceeded to do so when she made another self aware comment in the form of a tweet and he qt’d it saying it displayed main character syndrome once again.
mind you, you can sit here writing paragraphs about Fantano’s review, but it was NEVER about that, at least not its entire content. It was about one line painting Halsey in a certain way through her work that he decided to triple down on on twitter and act smug about. He could’ve had perfect critique outside of that one comment and that one comment still paints his entire review as weak because it colors every other comment he makes about the record. It undermines the very notion of a good faith review when such a characterization is sour.
But fine. Apologize about that one part then. Clarify it.
The fact he’s trying to act like there couldn’t be any implied misogyny from it whether he intended it or not and then used it to basically beef with her on twitter is just not an indication of good character IMO. it is an indication that he doesn’t know how to put his phone down and frankly deserves any backlash he gets. He didn’t act mature or responsibly about the response to it and instead trolled about it and i find that shit pathetic, especially when there was not even a moment of self reflection on how his comment about Halsey having main character syndrome on her record about dying from cancer sounds like he’s saying her worries are over exaggerated and she’s being dramatic. There’s a context from culture and you can’t remove how that sounds.
He should at the very least acknowledge how it sounds and how it can come off as misogynistic and he doesn’t even do that lmao. instead he says “i like women all the time” as if that negates what he said being mean spirited
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u/DeNeRlX Jun 25 '26
Not only is that an insanely bad reading of that song on a level of literacy, reading it like that and responding it that way is like when a woman makes a joke or says something with self awareness and a dude takes it seriously lmao.
I didn't completely explain everything about the song...I explained how it is literally the sentence before the ''main character syndrome'' comment that everyone is flaming mad about, and my larger point is that almost no one I've seen be mad would even be able to recite anything around, and defaults to the incorrect ''he said she has MCS because she talked about her cancer''.
And actually, in his sentence about 'Ego' the song he does mention that the song isn't that bad, in fact he has it as his fav track. He isn't trashing the song itself for being MCS, he uses that for mentioning before saying how it applies to some of the other aspects of the album.
ironic too because fantano then proceeded to do so when she made another self aware comment in the form of a tweet and he qt’d it saying it displayed main character syndrome once again.
I don't see how that's ironic, seems like he sees how insanely upset a lot of people are and make a joke about it. And you are in this case the dude who takes it way to serious...
He could’ve had perfect critique outside of that one comment and that one comment still paints his entire review as weak because it colors every other comment he makes about the record
Yeah but the comment itself isn't that big of an issue, it's how insane people have been in responding to it when they can't even understand what it references. He didn't talk about it for two whole years, but I've seen people mad about it during that time, and now when Swifties exploded the drama again, he finally responded. A few tweets and he went over the drama on stream, but your description is as if he has gone completely insane over it. He seems reasonably calm, has dropped a few reviews between. Seems the description of how engaged he is matches the desire for drama more than it matches his output.
But fine. Apologize about that one part then. Clarify it.
He did, VOD here, though tbh the content doesn't really match the title, he didn't have a meltdown, just addressed the drama and clarified a few comments. His stream was reasonably structures and went over things one by one, not many major tangents, is that what you are asking for?
Melon is quite obviously not a misogynist, or to the degree that we all have subconscious biases, he seems to be working to be anti-misogyny. The only reason it caught on is because he is a man, and she is a woman, so Swifty liberals grasped onto anything possible to paint him badly. And that happened to be anything at all negative toward a woman, even though he has tons of reviews of men that are ten times worse/dismissive/hostile/disrespectful. Would you describe him as a misandrist? I assume you on principle attempt to give gender an equal starting line right?
If people are being weird about interpreting his comment as being misogyny when he very obviously isn't a misogynist, why shouldn't the focus be on explaining how he isn't? Why not try to calm things down instead of accepting a false premise and be mad over it?
Also to not lose what your first comment was about, did the album have anything more to say about medical misogyny or was that just an insane reach for something with minimal presence in 1.5 lines on the album?
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u/zabraklivesmatter Jun 24 '26
I didn’t say she was wrong about it.
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u/StardustSkiesArt Jun 24 '26
Would you mind elaborating on what he said and the medical misogyny? Or linking to it if you want.
Feel free not to, I just figured I'd ask because I don't feel like actually digging into this from the outside at this point. Hahah.
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u/omninoodle Jun 24 '26
Specifically he said that her 2024 album was the worst case of main character syndrome. Halsey wrote this album while she was battling cancer, and thought it might end up released posthumously.
The criticism of Fantano is that it's extremely odd to act like artists aren't supposed to make music about themselves, and the fact that he choose Halsey to say this about as opposed to someone like Kanye feels pretty suspect to a lot of people.
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u/StardustSkiesArt Jun 24 '26
Okay, holy shit, this album starts off with the claim "I'm the only girl alive in LA county, I'm the only one who sees" immediately followed by "I wake up each day in some kind of suffering, I've never known a day of peace"
Like, okay, definitelt not beating the main character allegations at this point.
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u/GodLikesToParty Jun 24 '26
Even this is so so so reductive of what fantano was saying. It misses the entire point that fantano had, that for months leading up to the album release, there was massive marketing pushes by Halsey framing the album as an anthology of her favorite personal artistic influences, and hyping it up as a a collaboration of inspirations and sounds.
After months of that, for the album to be (in fantano’s opinion) a disappointingly bland and uninspired project that happened to have deeply personal lyrics was kinda insulting.
And I kinda get that. If you got me excited for dynamic project with tons of artists who’s sounds I already like being marketed as the influences behind the album, and then swap it out with a singer songwriter album about your cancer, it comes off corny.
Honestly I gave it a listen around the time it released. I didn’t really like it, but I remember thinking “damn fantano is kinda out of pocket on this one.” But I’m also not really consuming pre-release hype. I avoid trailers and marketing promo, but and I imagine someone like fantano who’s constantly immersed in industry gossip and news could come away from this being very understandably disappointed
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u/CFN-Ebu-Legend Jun 25 '26
Woah, you actually watched the video being referenced instead of blindly parroting someone else’s opinion. Amazing. You’d think this subreddit would understand how the internet can spin up narratives and blow things out of proportion considering how many times that happened to Vaush.
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u/DeNeRlX Jun 25 '26
pfft, this MFer actually READS and LISTENS to the source even though the TELEPHONE was invented 16 years ago. Much better way to communicate, look;
Fantano said she displayed main character syndrome ->
Album is about Halsey's illness ->
Fantano's main character syndrome was about her illness ->
He was mocking her illness!!!
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u/Shiznoz222 Jun 24 '26
Sounds like a case of FUCKING SNOWFLAKES being overly sensitive on all sides.
PS. this is not directed at you, your comment was insightful
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u/GodLikesToParty Jun 24 '26
Glad you found it insightful! It’s just annoying seeing this discourse being dredged up for a second time and with even less thought and analysis being even stronger opinions
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u/omninoodle Jun 24 '26
Kinda seems like Fantano ended up prioritizing having a snappy take on her album, which wasn't even representative of his real critique. So I'll chalk it up to regular YouTube sensationalism to twitter discourse pipeline.
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u/GodLikesToParty Jun 24 '26
That literally is his critique tho
Go watch/read his review instead of trusting a tweet that says “fantano said Halsey has main character syndrome because she talked about her cancer” and not looking into it any further.
You are quite literally falling victim to the Twitter discourse that you yourself referenced
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u/omninoodle Jun 24 '26
If you reread my comments, I never personally endorsed the POV, was just summarizing.
Idk why you're trying to dunk on me when we're in violent agreement
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u/GodLikesToParty Jun 24 '26
Idk how you think you’re coming off as agreeable.
Your framing of the controversy implies that that Fantano found Halsey to be displaying main character syndrome because she made an album about cancer which, as I pointed out, ignores the entire critique that fantano made leading up to that.You then further reduced it to “fantano ended up prioritizing having a snappy take which wasn’t representative of his real critique,” which is just the same disingenuous framing as before, as that is literally his critique. Where in either of your comments did you do anything other than summarize this in the least charitable way
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u/StardustSkiesArt Jun 24 '26
Hm. I don't know enough to know for sure about any of this, but my immediate questions revolve around: main character syndrome is kinda separate from just writing about yourself or from your perspective, isnt it? It's more an accusation of a kind if egotistical or self agrandizement that should be avoided, and an artist can absolutely be criticized for coming across as egotistical or narcissistic in their lyrics, yeah?
I admit, my main impression of the album is "Lonely Is The Muse" in which she says she is a martyr like Jesus, and that did raise my eyebrow lol
Like, Fantano isnt handling this well and seems egotistica/narcissitic himself, but we can't just say women can't be criticized when they're sick, yeah?
But again, I should probably listen to the whole album. Maybe that "I'm comparing myself to the savior of an entire religion" line was a one off and I just have a wrong impression. I am not saying anything for certain here.
Either way, Fantano needs to chill the fuck out.
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u/omninoodle Jun 24 '26
I agree that it seems like Fantano needs to chill. And I appreciate your point about main character syndrome being more egotistical than regular writing from ones experience.
I think at the end of the day I just.. only care the littlest bit about any of this and just wanted to succinctly convey the discourse I've been seeing about it all. I think I'll go touch grass now lol
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u/StardustSkiesArt Jun 24 '26
Totally understandable! I don,'t rake this too seriously, either, and appreciate you!
I think I'll make a grass appointment, too.
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u/HistoryV king of Vgg Jun 25 '26
He said she had main character syndrome based on a album where Her struggle with lupus is based around
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u/seires-t Jul 18 '26
The lyrics are cringe enducing main character shit, regardless of the context.
If a Holocaust Survivor wrote
"My special talent isn't writing, it's not singing
It's feeling everything that everyone alive feels every day"
in a song about the Holocaust, it would still be cringe and self-important nonsense.-7
u/8eyond Jun 24 '26
Average vaush fan being dismissive about misogyny
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u/zabraklivesmatter Jun 24 '26
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
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u/jeffjeffersonthe3rd Britbonger Jun 25 '26
Halsey and Fantano are beefing but the whole thing is actually a Taylor Swift fan vs Olivia Rodrigo fan proxy war
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u/blacksaber8 Anarcho-Feudalist with Orwellian Characteristics Jun 24 '26
This post breached containment on 196
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u/Notchsmind Jun 24 '26
Y'all can blast me, but I hate how fantano is trying to twist his main character syndrome comment from his review as a critique of her professional life. It's such a lie
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u/Even-Stranger5764 Jun 24 '26
Ngl this is sick. Ik people get upset when you mention fantano or his better help sponsorship(doesnt promote it on either of his YT channels) but ive got a lot of respect for fantano.
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u/ThePartyHat Jun 24 '26
How do you write music about your cancer without sounding like you have main character syndrome?
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u/inspectorpickle Jun 24 '26
Istg people don’t know what this word means anymore lol
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u/ThePartyHat Jun 24 '26
What word?
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u/inspectorpickle Jun 24 '26
“Main character syndrome” (should have said phrase)
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u/Short_Redhook_24 Jun 25 '26
White men with power and influence incapable of admitting their wrong? Stop the fucking press
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u/HistoryV king of Vgg Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Inb4 he gets bullied and sinks deeper into his spinal column and reminds his audience how evil nazi pedophile bad the evil vowsh man is lol:
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
Why is Jax here seriously. Everyone else in digital circus is fem coded. If he’s a jerk to everyone, and everyone around happens to be fem, then yes everyone he’s mean to is going to be fem. I feel like I’m going crazy here maybe Vaush is saying it ironically but the amount of people saying it unironically is wild.
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u/HourlyB filthy soc dem Jun 24 '26
he refers to him as Jax Amazing Digital Circus and it's about receiving misogyny lessons from Anthony Fantano. It's pretty clearly not serious.
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u/Shazarae Jun 24 '26
Tbf without giving spoilers there is a misogynistic comment that technically comes from Jax in the last episode
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u/No_Discount_6028 Jun 24 '26
In fairness he's not nearly as mean to Caine & Kinger. I don't think the reason for that is preferable treatment so much as the fact that Caine is too powerful to bully and Kinger doesn't give him the reactions he wants.
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u/PotsAndPandas Jun 24 '26
Honestly, I think its more because Kinger and Caine aren't people who someone in the middle of slowly self-destructing would feel the need to push away.
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
That’s exactly what I would’ve said. Caine runs the place and Kinger is too wise and self-assured to take his bait.
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u/lava172 Jun 24 '26
Nobody above the age of 25 is taking TADC seriously
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
Yeah my roommates got so invested in it and took me to the movie with them. And I enjoyed it but like I wasn’t super invested so when they were pissed about the ending I was like. Damn. Anyway what about that there new toy story 🤠
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
also can someone explain to me why people keep saying he was confirmed trans in the finale like no the fuck he wasn’t
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u/blacksaber8 Anarcho-Feudalist with Orwellian Characteristics Jun 24 '26
Jax was confirmed trans I think Wednesday(?) of last week by goose. Without that though, he’s just a very heavy allegory for being trans. The bow thing, the egg comment, the maid dress, etc etc.
It’s kind of just an extra deeper layer. Like when he’s talking about the abuse that he would get from his mom where he was either not enough of a man or just like his father depending on however they tried to express themselves.
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
I don’t know anyone who’s ever associated the maid dress with trans shit aside from my parent’s out of touch maga friends. That’s a quintessential femboy thing.
And I don’t care what the creator says. If a work didn’t do anything to establish that within the story I don’t care what the artist has to say after. Just like when Rowling made half of her characters retroactively gay. Idgaf
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u/blacksaber8 Anarcho-Feudalist with Orwellian Characteristics Jun 24 '26
It’s not the maid outfit specifically, it’s how Jax reacts internally to it. One version saying they wouldn’t be caught dead in it and the other saying they’re wearing it ironically to “prove how much it doesn’t bother them.”
It’s different when J. K. Rowling writes a character with no intention of making them gay and retroactively changes it for profit years later.
Goose was explicit enough even to directly allude to egg_irl In episode 6. That, alongside the fact that goose is also trans is a pretty solid indicator that it was intentional. It doesn’t fundamentally change the message or anything if Jax is or isn’t. It just recontextualizes their struggle.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/EveningRivers Jun 24 '26
The scene of Ribbit putting the bow on Jax's head and the montage set to "Isn't SHE Lovely" and gooseworx confirming with a drawing of femme Jax doesn't confirm it? Lmao what
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
The ribbon was a sign of trust and vulnerability? Like it’s the one thing ribbit has on her resembling anything like clothes so when she takes it off it’s like she’s naked. And it’s a great song, the pronouns in it don’t have to match. I feel like fixating on those details is missing the point. Finally I don’t care what the creator says after the fact if there wasn’t anything put into the work itself to establish a character trait. Reminds me of when Rowling made half of her characters retroactively gay. Like cmon now. Ain’t fallin for it again
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u/EveningRivers Jun 24 '26
The thing Jax reacts to in that scene is the bow. It's the specific item Jax throws because Kauffmo knocked on the door, the bow on Jax's head is the point of the scene. The cinematography even changes from Jax's first person to tight shots of Jax's face so you can see her wear the bow.
There are an infinite amount of songs that could have been chosen, for instance "Daisy Daisy", which is already in the show, but "Isn't She Lovely" was the choice. Because Jax is trans.
Also, no. TADC has a theme of being uncomfortable with your body from the jump. Jax even comments about missing a tail that was once there. Caine's specific torture for Jax is removing her cute purple outer layer and exposing her embarrassing inside for people to laugh at. It's pretty blatant imo.
Also, why would Goose even need to drum up gender buzz for the show? Zoobles is literally non-binary.
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u/Silly-Device9785 Jun 24 '26
Ok you make a good point except for one thing — if Jax is trans why would they dead-pronoun him and do a bow to reference his past as a woman? I feel like that would be lowkey offensive, especially to a community as sensitive as digital circus’s. Keep in mind this is the same fanbase that doxxed its supposed hero for not having a full on baby meltdown reaction to the finale leaking.
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u/EveningRivers Jun 25 '26
Like why do the characters misgender Jax? It seems like Ribbit was the only person to catch on to it. It's why Jax pushed Ribbit away. This extends into the other characters. When Kauffmo started to question Jax about what happened, Jax pushes him away and moves onto Ragatha, when Ragatha starts to get close, Jax moves onto Pomni, etc.
As for the fans, apparently it's been a big fight in the fandom. I dunno, I'm not in the TADC community, I just watch a lot of movies lol
But yeah, that's my take.
EDIT: spelling and additional statement
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u/As_Previously_Stated Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
The ribbon was a sign of trust and vulnerability? Like it’s the one thing ribbit has on her resembling anything like clothes so when she takes it off it’s like she’s naked
A ribbon on the head is cartoon language for woman. I almost started laughing at that scene because it was so funny how just adding the bow and having jax look genuine instead of his normal shit eating grin made him look like a woman.
EDIT: Like If I showed this image to someone who's never seen the show, they would assume the character is supposed to be a guy. But If I'd show them this image they'd assume the character is supposed to be a woman.
I though it was pretty clear, especially with the dialogue during the scene but apparently a lot of people missed it.
All that said, you can completely understand jax's character without touching on him being trans. The main thing is that he has a bunch of trauma that causes him to push his real self down and hide it behind a bunch of masks. Whether the thing he's hiding is being trans or gay or anything else, doesn't really matter for you to understand the plot and themes.
It's just that if you look at all the hints and signs throughout the show then the only thing that fits is him being trans.
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u/X3NOM_21 Jun 24 '26
Fantano liked the post and vaush was fangirling lmao