Gotta go Quick, so says Sonic the Spreadable Hedgehog

Photo retrieved from BRICK 101 with Some Rights Reserved

I'm so sorry for having written that as the title of this blog post.

I Ramble here, so Skip this Section

Sonic the Hedgehog, the movie, has just recently been released on Valentine's Day, 2020. So like a day ago from the writing of this post.

Paramount Pictures and SEGA Gaming Co.

I know that I seem like I'm a big hot-shot blog writer (I will not call myself a blogger, so help me Todd), but unfortunately I didn't get to see Sonic the Hedgehog early so that I could prepare this post. I had to see it with the rest of the filth.

But being the professional I am, I spent my own 20 dollars (that's right I got some snacks too), just so I could talk about this movie for you, the people. It's not bad, but not the best either.

Sonic is Spreadable!

...

get your mind out of the gutter.

Only until recently has media been perceived by experts and amateurs alike as having a similar pattern to viruses, when it comes to spreading itself from host to host, or viewer to viewer.

Such thinking makes the average viewer seem passive and oblivious to how they "contaminate" others with whom they come into contact. While to an extent this metaphor is somewhat true, in their book, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green argue that there is a better model for how to interpret and create popular media.

The Name of the Game is Spreadability, not Virality.

You see, while we may oftentimes experience media passively (such as when you binge a good show on Netflix), when choosing what to watch or what to recommend, we are actually quite active (such as when you spend hours trying to choose what to binge on Netflix).

You fear what the other person might think if you recommend a piece of media that they might not like, but at the same time, you desperately want to be the person to show them the piece of media that they will love, because then they'll finally respect you and you can be best friends or whatever.

Much like Sonic and what's his face... Cyclops. You know who I mean.

Retrieved from the arrtist succo via Pixabay

Being "Spreadable" means that  a piece of media's targeted audience is just that much more likely to not only enjoy what is being produced, but if they are likely to distribute it to their friends on and off social media. This is typically done by ensuring that the piece of media in question is enjoyable for that particular group, or for many groups, or by pouring tons of money into a large advertising campaign. Ideally, you can do all three.

Sometimes, it's even as simple as making your piece of media easy to share. If the share button is just a few pixels to the side, the one person in the friend group who is responsible for keeping the rest up to date may just remember that they have the capacity to share, and that it might be a good idea to share your piece of media.

people really love that blue boy

Sonic has always been incredibly spreadable. Anybody who is even remotely interested in videogames as a concept is aware of the large community of artists who draw Sonic fan-art online. Much of it is revolved around impregnated or gender-swapped  versions of our "classic" characters. This is often seen as the handiwork of the sexually frustrated and the perverted. Legitimacy of this claim notwithstanding, it exists and it is legion.

I won't bother including some of the more overt examples of this community in my post, but when the popularity of this community becomes itself a subject of parody, that's when you know that there has to be some deep human desire that Sonic, that blue boy, somehow satisfies.

Matthew DeLeon

When even ordinary people (like you, person that I've shared the link to this blog with [you know who you are]) decide to follow an Instagram account dedicated to posting seemingly random photos of Sonic everyday for no particular reason, the metaphor of a media as a virus just falls apart. This is no longer passive. We are actively "contaminating" ourselves, and Sonic is our drug.

But despite how successful the spreadability of your piece of media has been in the past, there may still be some doubts as to whether your newest iteration will be as spreadable as previous iterations were. Sometimes, your piece of media needs to become attached to an interesting side-story that provides a little extra sensationalism to get a few more tickets sold...

I am of course talking about the Sonic Redesign.

Can you Spot the Difference??

Newsweek.com and Andrew Whalen, courtesy of Paramount Pictures and SEGA Games Co.

Okay, okay, I get it. Old news am I right?

The new one (left) is considerably more cute and less horrifying than that crusty old one (right). But remember that old maxim, "Any publicity is good publicity?" This is that in action, but also without the consequences of having to be bad.

There is a large community of nerds out there who watch reboots and adaptations of their favorite media, which seemed to be the audience demographic on which this movie was trying to capitalize (as well as any recently birthed humans called children, whose souls can be bought now for future use). There is also a large community of hipster-y nerds (and jaded old people) that like to watch media ironically, specifically because it is no good, and they derive pleasure from watching the big wigs fail. This process also financially supports the big wigs, but I digress.

Everyone thought that this movie was going to be bad when the first trailer popped up, and the fanbase of angry nerds retaliated by complaining a lot. Bloggers (I can call other people bloggers just fine, so maybe it's just a weird pride thing)  fueled the fire and even "reputable" news sources (depending on your definition) started to get into the action.

This led to the studio itself changing the design of the main character at the last possible second, which effectively "saved" the movie. Unfortunately, the company responsible for the change has had to shut down one of its branches in order to afford the redesign. Such is the price of appeasing the fanbase.

Had this been a marketing strategy and not a costly mistake, it would have been a brilliant strategic move on the part of the studio to get as many viewers as possible for their movie. Had it been a marketing decision however, it may not have been entirely ethical or effective if the truth ever came out, so maybe I should just shut up.

Regardless, the box office figures have benefited from this fiasco.

Final Thoughts

I only realize now that I didn't have to go out and see this movie in order to write this particular blog post, but I'm still glad that I did. I haven't been following the story surrounding the production and then revision of the the Sonic the Hedgehog movie all that closely, but I have been following it.

Perhaps it is my generational bias, perhaps it is my friends' mutual interest in Sonic, or perhaps it is my own history of playing videogames that made me interested in seeing this movie. I can tell you with absolute certainty that I was not expecting to be thoroughly enjoy this movie like I typically hope for with a lot of the other movies that I watch.

Primarily, I was most excited to talk about this movie with my friends.

And that's the key. This story did not need to be told, because it does not have that much to say. We tend to think of movies and television as needing to have messages that an individual audience member can either learn from or can reject, but sometimes that is not the case. Sometimes, media can exist as a part of a dialogue both in conversation with, and providing subject for, multiple members of an audience.

No one should watch this movie alone, unless if they are a child and simply want something sensational at which to laugh. The movie itself is not inherently valuable, and yet its existence within the societal landscape provides value to the individual that watches it via the relationships and opinions that the individual can support, either through the expected hatred of, or surprised fondness for, the movie.

In that way, the movie, which heavily supports the theme that in order to be happy one cannot be entirely without friends or (adopted) family, succeeds at transmitting a message to its audience! Just because it does not accomplish this within the canon of the story, but only does so within the context of the society that allowed for its production, does not mean that the movie was a failure. 

Rather, Sonic the Hedgehog can and deserves to be hailed as the supreme meta-textual example of the effect and importance of spreadability as it is currently understood.

...

Wow, I did not expect to write that sentence when I first began this blog.