Dashboard Diaries is a production of Atypical Artists, hosted by Lauren Shippen (@thelaurenshippen) and Cher McAnelly (@overchers). Our theme was composed by Lauren Shippen and mixed by Brandon Grugle. Art by Shae McMullin. Transcription by Laudable.

For bonus clips, ad-free episodes, and more, become a patron at atypicalartists.co/support.

[intro music]

Lauren: Hello, Gaiman’s gay men (gender neutral), I’m Lauren Shippen, Professional Writer, who wishes that she had the kind of presence and gravitas on Tumblr that Neil Gaiman has. 

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly, Head of Entertainment at Tumblr. And Neil Gaiman re-blogger!

Lauren: And this is Dashboard Diaries, a podcast for you – the folks who are in this internet bunker with us. We talk about what’s going on in our favorite hell site, get into what we like to call “tumbl-lore,” do fandom deep dives, and share the times when we’ve gone feral over a new ship.

As you can probably guess, we’re going to be getting into Tumblr’s I think longest standing and most beloved celebrity in a little bit. But first, Cher, what has your last month on Tumblr been like?

Cher: My last month on Tumblr, both maybe surprisingly and unsurprisingly Lauren, has been pretty much exclusively Neil Gaiman related. (laughs)

Lauren: Yeah, that’s true, that’s fair.

Cher: Which honestly, very fitting for this episode. But Dead Boy Detectives came out a few weeks ago and we did a big interview with the cast and obviously it’s been one of the top shows on Tumblr since as soon as it premiered. And Neil Gaiman has been super actively re-blogging Asks about it and some of the ones from the Answer Time as well. So, overall, really big on … I feel like 85% of everything I’ve done and seen on Tumblr over the past month has been Neil Gaiman with that 15% being Bridgerton. 

Lauren: Wow.

Cher: Because you have that coming up, too.

Lauren: Oh, yes!

Cher: Very excited about it. But also the Fairy Versus Walrus has returned, or maybe never left. Because it tied in with the Dead Boy Detectives and kind of Neil Gaiman universe of it all which we will talk about. So, yeah, my last month on Tumblr was very on brand. How about you, Lauren?

Lauren: I love that. Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve also been somewhat skirting the Dead Boy Detective posts just because I haven’t actually watched it yet. It is on my list. But my partner and I just got fully sunk into Shogun and couldn’t find our way out until we finished it. We actually finished it last night. So, now we’re ready for a new show to watch together.

I did finally dive into the Shogun tag. I don’t know if you’ve watched it, Cher?

Cher: I have not yet. 

Lauren: It is remarkable. I just thought it was excellent. It was so well written and so well acted and beautiful and compelling and on top of that I’ve also been watching (by myself and not with my partner, who does want to watch Dead Boy Detectives – hence why I haven’t tackled that one yet!) … I’ve been finally watching Black Sails, which is a show that Tumblr has loved for many, many years. I think the show first premiered about ten years ago. And that I’ve been seeing on my dash for a very long time but that has been on Starz exclusively up until quite recently. And now it’s on Netflix. 

So, I have finally dove into the Black Sails sort of journey and fandom. I’m in season three and I’m greatly enjoying it. But it’s interesting because Shogun takes place sometime in the 1600s. And Black Sails takes place in the early 1700s. So, I feel like I’ve been really in a particular time period of Tumblr fandom. I’ve sort of been in that pirates and all of that kind of stuff, crappy one-shot guns and things like that. Which has just been fun. It always really makes me, I don’t know, emotional in a particular kind of way that people can get so excited about stories of people from hundreds of years ago. I don’t know, there’s just something about the way the stories connect us through the years and all of that.

Shogun is based off of a book that was written in the ‘70s. And Black Sails is a prequel to Treasure Island, which was written 100+ years ago. I forget exactly when. So, I don’t know, there’s just something about the universality of stories that’s really getting me this month.

Cher: That’s wonderful. I agree, I think it’s so fantastic that we can essentially visit these times and places both in ways that are accurate and ways that are not so historically accurate. And kind of, yeah, get to explore these worlds through so many different lenses and ways. I mean, it’s so special. And then the fact that you can go and connect about these worlds and create within these worlds with fan fic and everything, fan art and all the things that come out of it. It really is … just because time passes doesn’t mean that that story doesn’t actually end when you close the book or the book is still there and it’s still, I don’t know, there’s so much more … it’s always happening. The story is technically always happening, right? 

Lauren: Oh, I love that. Yes!

Cher: You can always open to any page and that’s where you are. 

Lauren: That’s so well put.

[game show trill]

I love that so much. And that actually I think is a perfect segue into our main topic of Neil Gaiman because so many of Neil Gaiman’s most beloved stories involve immortal beings and Good Omens and Sandman give us these glimpses into the past through the lens of these characters that then we’re seeing in present day. I think that so much of his storytelling is about kind of the human experience and how it doesn’t actually really change that much over time. Right? 

People have always been people. And I think that’s what makes his writing, one of the things that makes his writing so compelling and makes him such a compelling creator. AND one of the creators who has been on Tumblr the longest! 

Cher, what is your relationship to Neil Gaiman and Tumblr? What was kind of your first awareness of him either as a creator or him on Tumblr or both?

Cher: I think I was first aware of Neil Gaiman … I’ve been aware of Neil Gaiman’s work before I was aware of Neil Gaiman, which obviously I’ve come to realize because his body of work is just so enormous. I was first aware of Neil Gaiman and his relationship with the Tumblr user base’s connection with the community, Neil on Tumblr, around the time that Good Omens came out. 

Because we did an Answer Time with Neil around Good Omens season one and then Good Omens just immediately became the biggest … it was the number one topic on Tumblr of the year in 2019 when it came out. Followed by BTS, the Kpop group, at #2 and Marvel at #3.

Lauren: Oh my god‼

(laughter)

Cher: Yeah. 

Lauren: The first season of Good Omens is six episodes. And I know that it’s a book that has had a previous fandom, but that’s crazy!?

Cher: Right!? Truly an unbelievable thing. We did a history of Good Omens post as part of our year in review in 2019 and it included some facts about Neil Gaiman on Tumblr, including that he answered over a thousand asks in 2019. I haven’t calculated exactly how many asks he’s answered since then, but I’m pretty positive it’s 1000 plus per year. 

Lauren: That’s so crazy!

Cher: It’s wild to me. Yeah, as soon as … I really can’t think of anyone else who has used Tumblr in the way that Neil has and does. He joined in June 2011 and he immediately started posting pretty heavily and has just really continued. It makes so much sense to me that his shows and films and books are as big as they are on Tumblr. Not only because of the subject matter which is just so fantastically Tumblr in every sense of the word but also because of the way that he engages directly with the community and is actually a part of the community. Users/Fans can feel like they are directly speaking to him – because they are – and he’s speaking back. 

Yeah. I also think how you said that Neil deals with so many things like some of the oldest stories. Like the gods and mythology and things. Which kind of clicked for me when I was prepping for this episode. I wrote, “Is Neil so popular on Tumblr because he’s writing fan fic about some of the oldest stories on earth?” 

Lauren: Yes, oh my god, I love that. I mean, one of the questions that he gets asked the most is about his views on fan fiction. Right? I dove deep back into his archive on Tumblr and was shocked to see that he joined in 2011. That’s crazy. And then I filtered the posts by “ask” type and it’s crazy. It’s crazy. 

Cher: I also love that he has an FAQ pinned to the top of his blog. And then he has … a user has also created an FAQ that he also deep links to. (laughs)

Lauren: Which is so … when you have to have an FAQ about the questions you receive … you know that you really reached something. This was back in 2021, so something that he answered a little bit more recently but somebody asked, “Do you consider fan fiction legitimate writing?” And he said, “I won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for an HP Lovecraft Arthur Conan Doyle Mash up Fiction. So, fan fiction better be legitimate because I’m not giving the Hugo back, or the 2005 Locust Award for Best Novelette. I’m not giving that back either.” 

I don’t know what the 2005 Locust Award was for, but yeah. I think he very much admits that a lot of what he’s doing or some of what he is doing is fan fiction. Yeah, Good Omens is the Bible and the Sandman is a bunch of different mythologies sort of wrapped up into one. Then with this whole new mythology on top of it. 

What was the first Neil Gaiman creation that you encountered as a reader/viewer?

Cher: Stardust. 

Lauren: Ohhhh, Stardust‼ I always forget about Stardust! 

Cher: I love Stardust.

Lauren: I always forget that that’ Neil, too!

Cher: Right!?

Lauren: It’s so great. 

Cher: One of my favorite movies, honestly … When did it come out? It came out pre-

Lauren: 2007?

Cher: Okay, it came out the year that Tumblr launched. 

Lauren: Ohhh. I think it came out in 2007. 

Cher: Yeah, you’re right. It did come out in 2007. July 29, 2007. So, it came out five months after Tumblr launched. Wow.

Lauren: That’s incredible. Wow. A match made in heaven.

Cher: Right. Truly. What a year for the internet.

Lauren: What a year.

Cher: What a year for Neil. What a year for us. 

Lauren: Seriously. Seriously.

Cher: What about you? What was your first piece of Neil … what’s the word I’m looking for? Not discography … He is also a DJ. 

(laughter)

Repertoire. What’s your favorite piece? Is that the right word?

Lauren: Yeah, I think so!

Cher: Yeah, okay.

Lauren: I was a very big reader as a child. I really enjoyed fantasy, science fiction, all stuff like that. And so mostly for my birthdays from relatives I would get books. And for my 12th birthday I believe I was gifted Coraline. And I don’t know what edition it was. I don’t know when the book was first published. But the cover of it … I’ll see if I can dig up the original cover that I had … was a very Edward Gory kind of style cover. Just a little creepy. 

I read the book and it absolutely fucking terrified me. I was so, so scared after reading it that I kid you not, I hid it behind the other books on my bookshelf so that I didn’t have to see it. I think it says a lot that I didn’t get rid of the book, right? Because it’s like I enjoyed the book but I was so scared of it. And then I remember seeing a quote from Neil Gaiman years and years later that … I’m going to very badly paraphrase. I’ll see if I can find the original thing and then post it. Basically him saying Coraline is my strangest book because it delights children and terrifies adults. 

I think that I was just at the wrong age to be reading it. I think I was a little bit too old where all of a sudden I understood the deeper themes of the book. And that was really, really scary to me. (laughs)

Cher: You know what, you’re so right! I haven’t heard that quote before and it’s just so accurate. 

Lauren: Right!? Have you read it?

Cher: I have not read it, I’ve seen it. And was so deeply terrified by the film. 

Lauren: I have yet to see the movie because I was too scared to! (laughs)

Cher: The mom with the button eyes … I am right now like uhhhh. [crosstalk 00:14:31] sleep paralysis demon. Oh my gosh! I looked it up … the book came out in 2002.

Lauren: Okay. So, yeah, I turned 12 in 2003 so yeah, I would have been … if you look up the book, if you just Google “Coraline book” the first Google image is the cover. And it’s Coraline holding a candle and it’s just a very eerie painting of a girl. Right? It’s creepy.

I really do want to see the film. I actually live in Seattle and there’s a museum of pop culture here, the MO POP. And it does a bunch of cool exhibits. It did an exhibit on the studio that did Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings and all of those stop motion movies. And so they had a bunch of the models and sets from Coraline. It’s just exceptional craft. Right? Just absolutely stunning. 

Cher: Did Tim Burton do Coraline?

Lauren: I don’t know … I can’t remember. 

Cher: Because Coraline makes me think of James and the Giant Peach. 

Lauren: Totally.

Cher: Which is not Tim …

Lauren: Henry Selick.

Cher: Which makes so much sense because Henry Selick did James and the Giant Peach.

Lauren: Right. And Nightmare Before Christmas, right?

Cher: Yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. Which … why did I put Tim Burton? I mean, it makes sense. 

Lauren: Now, I mean, a lot of people think that Tim Burton directed Nightmare Before Christmas and I … did he write it? Was he a producer? What is Tim Burton’s connection to Nightmare Before Christmas?

Cher: Just vibes.

Lauren: Story vibe. Yeah, yeah, he did the story for it. Just vibes. So, yeah that was my first encounter with Neil Gaiman. But then-

Cher: Terrifying entry into the world …

Lauren: Terrifying. And I just didn’t read any of his stuff then for years because it was scarring. And if Neil Gaiman happens to hear this, I don’t know how he ever would, I mean that as a compliment. (laughs) It was very effective. Same way the first time I read The Shining when I was like 20. I was like, wow, this is really good and I can’t read any Stephen King for at least three years. Because it was so scary. 

Cher: Yep. 

Lauren: I think I sort of became aware of him as a person sort of through Tumblr and then read American Gods and just absolutely loved that book. Still love that book. And yeah, now here we are and I’m a big fan.

Cher: And great show as well. I also need to read all of Neil Gaiman’s books. I love every single show and film that comes out. 

Lauren: Same. Yeah, I need to do a deeper dive into the discography. (laughs)

Cher: Of Neil’s discography, as we say is remixes of originals, of some of the oldest stories and lore in the world, which is your favorite? Which one stands out the most for you?

Lauren: Ooh, I mean, I do love the Bible fan fic. I have to say. I do love the good immortal beings. But okay, so yeah, Neil’s wonderful art aside, we could just talk about that forever. I do want to talk specifically about Neil on Tumblr because we sort of refer to him as uncle Neil between the two of us. I think other people do as well. He is sort of … I would say, him, Linda Carter, and Will Wheaton are sort of the celebrities that get Tumblr. They participate … in jokes, they re-blog things, they’re not just there. Neil isn’t just answering Asks on his Tumblr. He’s also re-blogging things. Right? He’s also engaging with the eco system.

Yes, as somebody who is sort of behind the scenes on Tumblr, what’s your view on that? What’s your insight on that? Is it sort of lightning in the bottle, only these three people have been able to achieve it? Have you ever seen … you don’t have to name names … but seen someone attempt to try and understand Tumblr and not be able to because they’re not from that world? What’s your view on all of that?

Cher: I mean, I’ve definitely … I wouldn’t say it’s lightning in a bottle. But I think, yes, he absolutely gets it and understands Tumblr and his fans and the audience and the community and how to engage with the community in a really authentic way. But I also think that what he is … the reason that what he is doing on Tumblr is so special is because he’s engaging with the community … meeting everyone at the same level. 

I feel like very much Neil Gaiman’s Tumblr presence is kind of like you’re at a cocktail party or some kind of event and people are coming up and chatting with him and asking questions and he’s engaging as well. It feels very much like, yeah, he’s re-blogging stuff and not just posts that pertain to him or his work but also he’s fully involved in the memes. Every year he re-blogs “Neil banging out the tunes” on April 13th. He doesn’t just answer Asks about his titles either.

One of my favorite Asks that I saw recently was, “Neil, when you type “wait” does your phone auto complete “guess and see?” And he was like, “Let me try … yes it does.” So, those little things. 

Lauren: That’s awesome.

Cher: I think the reason he has such a special connection with the Tumblr audience is because he is just having … he’s just here with us having a conversation. And it feels very … yes, obviously we know that him being on Tumblr increases the engagement and communities around his work, of course. But that doesn’t feel like why he’s here. He seems to be on Tumblr because he loves engaging with the community. He is passionate about the work that he does. And he wants to connect with people who feel the same way. And I think that is kind of what feels special – meeting the community where they are and being just authentic and passionate about it. And not too polished or promotional in any sense.

Lauren: Yes. I totally agree. I think it’s something that kind of continues to astound me. The fact that he’s been on the platform for 13 years and has only become more prolific as a creator and more famous and more well known as his things get adapted into these very successful TV shows. I think that this is something I think about a lot as a creator who is also on Tumblr and loves engaging with Tumblr fandom. Both the fandom’s that I’m in and the fandom’s for the things that I make. And how hard it can be to strike a balance of being involved and engaged with your community and the community of people who are excited about the thing that you’re excited about but also not run rough shot over what Tumblr is first and foremost, which is a fan space. Right?

I think that is what makes Tumblr unique from other places. Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, all of those places like you can engage with fandom there but when you engage with a celebrity there all of the celebrities are there and so it’s very much this formal thing. Whereas I think when celebrities are on Tumblr it’s a little bit like you’ve come into our house and so you have to behave as a guest in our house. And I think Neil just does a beautiful job of that. Right? He understands that even as much as he is a fan of things, too, that on his public Tumblr who knows, maybe he’s got a private Tumblr that he fans all over about other things, but he is different from the average Tumblr user, right? 

I feel like he understands and takes that responsibility seriously. Because I do think it’s a responsibility to not intrude upon the space where fans are enjoying their thing without sort of your prying creator god eyes, right? 

Cher: 100%. I think he does that in such a good way because of those boundaries that he sets about fan fic, for example. He doesn’t read or look at fan fic. For a very valid reason. He said that of course because I am always, it’s a legal issue, I am always writing, I can’t … I just legally can’t look at it. But I think that’s a great thing. 

Lauren: Oh, absolutely.

Cher: The same thing with so much fan art and fan work is he encourages- I will have to double check but I believe he encourages fan art to be sent to him and he shares fan art very extensively. I think that, again, is not … some users or fans are posting their work not because they want the creator to see it. And they often would really, really rather that not happen. And I think, yeah, he has a special connection and understanding with the community and understanding of that. He’s very understanding of the fact that there is a lot of content on platform about the work that he’s created that the creators might not want him to see. And I think he strikes that balance really well. As you said, that is what is so special. A lot of the time users are saying, “Hey, did you know it’s the 13th? Are you ready to band out the tunes?” That kind of stuff. He often responds a lot to kind of the … not direction of but kind of prompts from the community. I would say.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cher: He reads the room. 

Lauren: That’s exactly it. He reads the room. That’s a very, very good way of putting it. I mean, I think I have modeled a lot of my … I’ve mentioned this plenty of times on this show before but I have my actual Tumblr that I spend most of my time scrolling on that has been carefully curated over a decade that I’ve got 90 followers on there and they’re all mutual’s basically. But then I’ve got my actual public facing Tumblr. And I think I’ve modeled a lot of my behavior on there off of Neil. I’ve learned a lot about how to be a creator on the internet from him because it’s like, yeah, I can’t … now I can look at fan fiction for the Bright Sessions if I wanted to, but I haven’t yet because I’m done with that story. But I can’t look at fan fiction but I want people to write it. And I want people to send me fan art, right? Because that I can look at and it’s fine. And also I always make sure that people know if you don’t want me to re-blog something just put in the tags, “Lauren, don’t look at this.” Right? Because I also know … part of why I have a very secret Tumblr that is just me and my mutual’s is because I am in the entertainment industry and I do work with a lot of people who are in or have made my favorite things. And sort of back in 2018/2019 as I was starting to get more of these jobs I just sort of shut down … because I used to do a YouTube channel about Tumblr and that Tumblr used to be … but I literally soft blocked everybody except for my mutual’s. And then just nuked the URL and that kind of stuff because I don’t want the creators of my favorite things to be seeing what I’m talking about, because I might have to work with them. 

That’s also I think something that I imagine Neil Gaiman doesn’t have to worry about because he’s Neil Gaiman, right? And so he can kind of do whatever he wants. But also whenever I’m engaging with I’m fandom’s I’m a part of on Tumblr I sort of have to think, “Is this a fandom that I would be likely to end up working with people involved?” That’s why I re-blog so much 911 stuff. because the chances of me ever encountering any of the people involved with that show are like really small, just given the genre that it is and its TV and all that kind of stuff. So, it feels safe to sort of be a fan in that space. I’ve gone completely off topic here but it is something that whenever I’m thinking about Neil Gaiman on Tumblr I’m always thinking about my own behavior on the platform.

Cher: I also think that one of the reasons Neil gets Tumblr so much is because he really is himself a Tumblr user whose stories have escaped containment. He was writing before Tumblr existed. But I feel like if Neil was a teenager just starting out when Tumblr also launched and he was also just starting his writing work I feel like a lot of it would have been posted on Tumblr.

Lauren: Yeah, that’s a really good point. That’s a very good point. I wonder, what do you think the odds are that Neil also has an AO3 that no one knows about? 

Cher: I would say that the odds are yes. And I’m not saying this because I know it. I don’t know for sure, but I know for sure. 

Lauren: Right, yeah. 

Cher: He does. Yeah.

Lauren: He does.

Cher: We can’t officially say that he does. We don’t know that for sure. But come on … yeah. What do you think? Yeah. Oh yeah. (laughs) I would so love to know what he’s writing on there.

Lauren: I know! Or reading, right? 

Cher: Oh my god. I think another reason that he connects so well with the Tumblr community is because he genuinely wants to be on platform. He wants to be on Tumblr. He wants to be answering these Asks and sharing and re-blogging and just participating in the community. We just know that he wants to be here and answering these Asks and it feels authentic because he’s like, yeah, I want to see if my auto complete says “wait and see.” 

Lauren: The idea that you can just sort of be on a platform, being yourself, and enjoying things and that drives people to your art is such a … Tumblr truly is the only place on the internet that that exists anymore in my opinion.

Cher: And he’s been … I looked back on fandom and he’s been one of the top 20 celebrities of the week every single week. I think he drops off maybe … there’s a week or two a year that he wasn’t, that he dropped off for a week or two for whatever reason. But since we’ve been tracking this. So, he has consistently on Tumblr been one of the top 20 most talked about people.

Lauren: That’s wild.

Cher: Actually, since he joined the platform. 

Lauren: That’s crazy.

Cher: I honestly just think it’s because he’s continued the conversation. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the way that he has the conversation, right? His answers are often very … either they’re incredibly thoughtful musings on writing or they’re very pithy short answers. And to that end, I’ve got a little quiz for you. Which is I’m going to read to you three Asks that Neil answered on his Tumblr and you have to tell me which is the fake question reply. 

Cher: Okay. 

Lauren: First, someone asked, “Are you coin operated?” And he answered, “I’m afraid not.” 

Someone asked, “Does Aziraphale cry, ‘Holy water?’” And he answered, “Yes.”

And someone asked, “How do you take your coffee?” And he answered, “Orally.” 

Cher: I’m sorry-

Lauren: One of these things …

Cher: It’s two truths and a lie? 

Lauren: Yeah, basically two truths and one … one of these question answer combos.

Cher: Two Neil’s and a No?

Lauren: Two Neil’s and a No. Exactly. 

Cher: This is a great … GAME ON. Okay. Sorry. God, that is hard. That is really challenging because any one of them can be … I feel like orally is going to be my guess. Is the one that he didn’t-

Lauren: For the lie? 

Cher: Yeah. I’m wrong, huh? 

[buzzer]

Lauren: So, yeah. 

Cher: Yeah, no, you ARE wrong. (laughs)

Lauren: You are wrong. And I will say, I did kind of … this was sort of a trick question. I was looking through all of his Asks and I was like, I don’t know that I can come up with anything more outlandish than this particular Ask. And so technically all of the Asks are real. The one that was a lie is when someone asked, “Does Aziraphale cry, ‘Holy water?’” He responded, “No.” 

Cher: Hmm.

Lauren: So, Aziraphale does not cry “Holy water.” Though I do like that idea that he does. (laughter) But yeah, no, when someone asked back in 2011 – when I say I went into his archives, I mean, I went into his archives. 

Cher: Oh my gosh. 

Lauren: So, on October 26, 2011 a now deactivated blog asked, “How do you take your coffee?” And he responded, “Orally.” 

Cher: Incredible. See, again …

Lauren: And somehow this only has 594 notes and that is going to change when we re-blog it. 

(laughter)

Cher: 100%. It contains multitudes. 

Lauren: Truly. So, speaking of diving back deep into archives … let’s round out our discussion this week with our Dashboard Confessionals. Cher, what do you have from your archives today?

[guitar riff]

Cher: I have a fun little post that I re-blogged from Handjob in 2016 but the post was originally from user @grolley and …

Lauren: But you personally re-blogged it.

Cher: I personally re-blogged it from Handjob, yeah. So, just to clarify … And it’s a re-blog chain. The first post says, “What did Tumblr look like back in the ‘90s?” And then @Grolley re-blogged, and it’s a gif set of like very clip art looking dancing letters that say, “T-U-B-R” and then someone else @GothTIA re-blogged and says, “This says tuber.” And @Grolley re-blogged again and said, “It was the ‘90s.” So, that’s … (laughs)

Lauren: I’m literally crying laughing right now. The moment I opened this I lost it. This is so good. 

Cher: What a journey. (laughs)

Lauren: What. A. Journey. Oh my god. I love this post.

Cher: What about you, Lauren? What do you have for us this week?

Lauren: I brought two because one of them doesn’t really work as far as I can tell because one of them is a re-blog from 2015. It is a Vine. And the embedded Vine video I think maybe doesn’t work anymore because Vine does no longer exist. It is a little golden retriever puppy in someone’s lap and he’s drumming the drum break of Can You Feel It In The Air Tonight. And it’s very, very good. I’m going to try and find it on YouTube and just post it in a re-blog of this post because unfortunately I cannot get the video to play. So, that was one of them because I love it very much.

Cher: Oh my gosh. I definitely would love to see that. I miss Vine every day.

Lauren: Oh, every day. Every day.

Cher: Every day. 

Lauren: And then the other one is also from 2015. And it’s just a little memory of my own I guess journey on Tumblr. It’s just a screenshot from an NPR article about Ask Me Another. And it’s a quote from Jeffrey Kraner talking about one of his favorite descriptions of the show Welcome To Nightvale. And it just says, “It’s like if Stephen King and Neil Gaiman started a game of the SIMS and then just left it running forever.” 

I chose this post for a couple of reasons. A) the Neil Gaiman mention, right? Perfect. But then also just I think that’s a great description of Welcome to Nightvale. And 2015, later that year, I started the Bright Sessions. I found Welcome to Nightvale on Tumblr. And so this was already when I was deep in my Welcome to Nightvale fandom. That’s the reason I started in podcasting in the first place. So, it was just a nice little origin moment for me of like, oh, my whole career in life began here on this platform by finding a podcast. And that’s lovely.

Cher: Oh my gosh. What a full circle moment. Oh my god. I love that. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Cher: That has me in my feels, Lauren.

Lauren: Oh!? Perfect transition. Thank you, Cher. What does have you in your feels this month?

Let’s go over to our Feels Corner.

[gentle music]

Cher: Heading on over to our Feel s Corner. I am feeling very emotional about the new season of Bridgerton, which will be out when …

Lauren: Have you seen it?

Cher: I have. I have seen part of it.

Lauren: Ohhhh. JEALOUS!

Cher: But I’m so excited because I’m doing an interview with the cast tomorrow and the show is just … I love the new season. I think it’s great. So, back further into my feels. I have re-watched Derry Girls and Derry Girls is one of my favorite shows. Oh my gosh. It’s so good. And I’ve been feeling just a lot of feels about that. And then also the new season of Hacks. Hacks is back. One of my favorite shows and this new season is so good. I cried during the first two episodes because they were just so great. And so that’s all the things that have me in my feels at the moment. I’m feeling a lot, Lauren. How about you?

Lauren: I love it. I mean, Hacks was going to be one of mine as well. Because the portrait of a creative marriage that it shows is just … creative marriages just really get me, right? It is a unique relationship that is not romantic, not platonic, but a secret third thing, right? It is that. And I think that Hacks just does such a wonderful, wonderful job of displaying that.

And then as I said, Shogun. I really … it was really funny, actually … after we finished, sitting on the couch with my partner, and this is a perfect example of the two people that we are. He started reading all about that particular era in historical Japan and the historical accuracy in the show. And I was like, “What does Tumblr have to say about Shogun?” 

(laughter)

Cher: The two people in any relationship. 

Lauren: Exactly. And he was like, “Do you think it’s a show that Tumblr would be into?” And I was like, “Oh yeah.” It’s got a hot old man at the center. 

Cher: Check!

Lauren: Which Tumblr loves. It’s got a doomed romance. Which is so piney and just horribly heartbreaking. And then there’s this one character, [inaudible 00:37:55] the hot old man, is Toranaga who is the main kind of like guy aspiring to be the Shogun basically. And he’s just a very, very attractive 60 something year old man. 

And then there’s this one character Yabushige who I was like, “Tumblr is going to go nuts over this poor little meow-meow.” He starts as a terrible villain and he has this really interesting arc. And lo and behold, I pop into Tumblr and what’s the first three posts I see? People lusting over the hot old man. People posting about Yabushige’s arc. And then this doomed romance. And I was like, I know Tumblr SO WELL.

(laughter) 

And those things have me in my feels, too. Yabushige especially. I just think the actor has done such a phenomenal job. So, yeah. Shogun as well as Hacks. 

Cher: I love watching a show and picking out what Tumblr is going to specifically fixate over, or latch onto. Because it’s never the main … okay, often it can be the main ship, like Good Omens and Deadboy Detectives and a lot of shows we’re talking about. It’s often, yes, the main thing. But it is also often a secret third thing. 

Lauren: Yes! Exactly. 

And with that, I’m Lauren Shippen, and you can find me at TheLaurenShippen.Tumblr.com.

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly and you can find me at OverChers.Tumblr.com. 

This has been Dashboard Diaries. And … 

[outtro music]

Lauren: May your anons always be loving.

Cher: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cher: And your ships always canon.

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cher: And the answers you seek always in the re-blogs.

Lauren: Thanks for scrolling with us!