3 ms·

To be cynical about this: why do you expect it will increasingly be women capitalizing on women’s interests in new media (i.e. producing content with the aim of

by derefr 6y ago

To be cynical about this: why do you expect it will increasingly be women capitalizing on women’s interests in new media (i.e. producing content with the aim of amassing a large female following), rather than men? After all, this was never the case in old media; the investors/producers, directors/editors, writers, etc. of most women’s magazines, TV shows, etc. are mostly men. Why wouldn’t the boy’s club carry on?

exporectomy 6y ago
No doubt it'll be men as usual. But why not? Businesses exist to serve society, not to serve the businessmen(or women). It's the customers who matter.
lathiat 6y ago
Because with current times, the historically low cost of technology including video production and software development plus the ability to command an audience over the internet make it easier for those outside of the Boys/Hollywood/Silicon Valley/whatever club to break out and be successful than it once was.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  I think it depends a lot on who is considered to be the "producers" in the current indie media ecosystem. You can run your own streaming channel for basically nothing (maybe $200 for a decent camera, microphone, and capture card), but it takes a lot of hustle to make any money doing that, and you could easily argue that the real producers in this scenario are the PMs and executives at Twitch and YouTube, who may not be old-guard media people, but are almost certainly still a bunch of mostly older white dudes. Maybe they're not calling the shots on content in quite the same way as TV executive, but they're definitely the ones getting rich off of it, anyway.
- nitemice 6y ago
  I hope this is the case, however a lower barrier to entry also means those who could afford to clear the old barriers can come into this new space, leveraging the new technology in concert with their pots of money and make a bigger splash than any new player can afford. It wouldn't be the first time that a small creator has had their idea ripped off by someone with money, and be left in their shadow. That said, it doesn't mean that those new creators couldn't still be "successful" in such a situation. Just that someone else with more money is still making more money than them.
- firstplacelast 6y ago
  I agree with you here, but I was recently in /r/beautyguruchatter and it seems like big-time makeup influencers are increasingly men. From run-of-the-mill influencers to professional makeup artists and drag queens. I found that unexpected and very fascinating.
  - Dma54rhs 6y ago
    Quite a few of the most successful youtubers in beauty / makeup genre are men indeed.
totetsu 6y ago
If you seek out the panel discussions from any of these popular "games"(but mostly there is no game play, they are just push a button for random outcome of and chase daily challenges to accumulate X resource.. with illustrations) .. the panelists are mostly men.. what about the company hierarchy? If it's a Japanese company then there will be few women.. Maybe some women are drawing the illustrations, but they are not getting the lion share of profits..
- elliekelly 6y ago
  According to the article three quarters of the company’s ≈200 employees are women.
  - totetsu 6y ago
    I'm was talking about the industry in general
zem 6y ago
they could have been marketing to women all along, and haven't been.
- vmception 6y ago
  the correct answer the people in the article identified a market and took a risk to tackle it and have success in it, others did not. their experience in understanding the market is likely because of their background. other organizations could benefit from the same thing with inclusion that ignored pedigree, which literally means elevating people to decision making roles that have unfamiliar backgrounds and unfamiliar experience (this is in addition to underrepresented people that do have familiar backgrounds and experience), yes, the worst nightmare for some of you all. corporations are about addressing a market, not placating its employees.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Yes, that’s true: the entrepreneurs in the article took a risk. But that’s exactly why I don’t see things changing. The “old guard” in business don’t take risks. They let others de-risk ideas for them (by executing on them successfully until they find repeatable patterns for success that don’t require a “spark” of creativity), and then come in as a fast-follower with far larger pocketbooks to do the same thing, but better and more polished and at higher scale. Who wrote most early romance novels? Women. (After, that is, the medieval-era proto-examples that were written by men because only men were taught to read and write.) But, once pulp romance novels became a commodity, who was it that started founding companies like Harlequin to take advantage of the known market? Men. And now those companies, by sales volume or revenue, produce most of the romance-novel content in the world. They might employ many women writers at the bottom level (though sometimes those are men under pen names!) but most of the money is going to the men working for the publisher, the distribution chain, the bookstore corporations, etc. I don’t see anything stopping this pattern from repeating with otome games. If it hasn’t happened yet, that could just mean that the business model hasn’t yet been sufficiently de-risked for the old guard’s tastes.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  I think it's more that they've tried and failed.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
> To be cynical about this: why do you expect it will increasingly be women capitalizing on women’s interests in new media (i.e. producing content with the aim of amassing a large female following), rather than men? For context about this, the overwhelming majority of female-targeted Japanese fiction is written by females and with that I mean that I do not know of but a single example of a male auctor having published anything in the female demographic. The reverse is not true; — there are a great many highly successful male-targeted works produced by female auctors, by which I mean some of the most seminal and influential works in both action and romance. I'm not usually a gender essentialist, but there's a certain style of some Japanese media of which I often feel that without knowing for sure I can say with 95% certainty that the auctor is female, but I can never be certain of that the auctor is male. I'm also not sure as to why it would be cynical. If anything, I would feel that it would be good for marketing if it were known that a male wrote it, because it's as said a novelty and many would want to see it because of that. Perhaps you believe that, as the article suggests, this is actually some kind of new development? Be not misled by spectacular news reporting, as otome games and fiction are a very old and commercially viable market rather than some new innovation. — it is certainly not some new development that someone realized this and there are thousands of such games, novels, strips, television series, audio dramata, and whatever other medium, nigh all of them written by female auctors.
- astrange 6y ago
  > For context about this, the overwhelming majority of female-targeted Japanese fiction is written by females and with that I mean that I do not know of but a single example of a male auctor having published anything in the female demographic. I assume you don't mean Ikuhara, so I'll say that many of the things people like about Sailor Moon worldwide were invented by Ikuhara (a man) rather than the manga author, who was more into adding the things Japanese romances have that tend to offend worldwide audiences like romances with way older men. Although there's certainly other men who try writing anime for women with LGBT content, I don't know if any of the others are actually very good at it, maybe some KyoAni directors.
goatinaboat 6y ago
After all, this was never the case in old media; the investors/producers, directors/editors, writers, etc. of most women’s magazines, TV shows, etc. are mostly men. Look at any social media company. Employees most men, users mostly women (anyone who buys ads can check this for themselves). The only gender balanced social network is LinkedIn.
jfengel 6y ago
The boys' club has a hard time reaching women's interests. You tend to end up with pink versions of male products when they try. But it's easy to take over existing ones as they become successful. What tends to happen is that women start products/media that appeal to women, then as it grows, men take notice. They get brought on in management and finance roles, because they have established connections in those fields (where connections are crucial). And too often, that means importing the cultures that drove women out in the first place, in both old and new media. I hope we get more stories like this, where the women can maintain control. The article points out that they never took VC money. But it's also because they started out moderately wealthy; they were effectively their own VCs. Female-specific VCs are going to take enormous amounts of flak if they try, but it may be a route to reach whole new markets. Rather than just turning things pink and or making more dating sims.

by derefr 6y ago

exporectomy 6y ago

No doubt it'll be men as usual. But why not? Businesses exist to serve society, not to serve the businessmen(or women). It's the customers who matter.

lathiat 6y ago

Because with current times, the historically low cost of technology including video production and software development plus the ability to command an audience over the internet make it easier for those outside of the Boys/Hollywood/Silicon Valley/whatever club to break out and be successful than it once was.

mikepurvis 6y ago
I think it depends a lot on who is considered to be the "producers" in the current indie media ecosystem. You can run your own streaming channel for basically nothing (maybe $200 for a decent camera, microphone, and capture card), but it takes a lot of hustle to make any money doing that, and you could easily argue that the real producers in this scenario are the PMs and executives at Twitch and YouTube, who may not be old-guard media people, but are almost certainly still a bunch of mostly older white dudes. Maybe they're not calling the shots on content in quite the same way as TV executive, but they're definitely the ones getting rich off of it, anyway.
nitemice 6y ago
I hope this is the case, however a lower barrier to entry also means those who could afford to clear the old barriers can come into this new space, leveraging the new technology in concert with their pots of money and make a bigger splash than any new player can afford. It wouldn't be the first time that a small creator has had their idea ripped off by someone with money, and be left in their shadow. That said, it doesn't mean that those new creators couldn't still be "successful" in such a situation. Just that someone else with more money is still making more money than them.
firstplacelast 6y ago
I agree with you here, but I was recently in /r/beautyguruchatter and it seems like big-time makeup influencers are increasingly men. From run-of-the-mill influencers to professional makeup artists and drag queens. I found that unexpected and very fascinating.
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  Quite a few of the most successful youtubers in beauty / makeup genre are men indeed.

totetsu 6y ago

If you seek out the panel discussions from any of these popular "games"(but mostly there is no game play, they are just push a button for random outcome of and chase daily challenges to accumulate X resource.. with illustrations) .. the panelists are mostly men.. what about the company hierarchy? If it's a Japanese company then there will be few women.. Maybe some women are drawing the illustrations, but they are not getting the lion share of profits..

elliekelly 6y ago
According to the article three quarters of the company’s ≈200 employees are women.
- totetsu 6y ago
  I'm was talking about the industry in general

zem 6y ago

they could have been marketing to women all along, and haven't been.

vmception 6y ago
the correct answer the people in the article identified a market and took a risk to tackle it and have success in it, others did not. their experience in understanding the market is likely because of their background. other organizations could benefit from the same thing with inclusion that ignored pedigree, which literally means elevating people to decision making roles that have unfamiliar backgrounds and unfamiliar experience (this is in addition to underrepresented people that do have familiar backgrounds and experience), yes, the worst nightmare for some of you all. corporations are about addressing a market, not placating its employees.
- derefr 6y ago
  Yes, that’s true: the entrepreneurs in the article took a risk. But that’s exactly why I don’t see things changing. The “old guard” in business don’t take risks. They let others de-risk ideas for them (by executing on them successfully until they find repeatable patterns for success that don’t require a “spark” of creativity), and then come in as a fast-follower with far larger pocketbooks to do the same thing, but better and more polished and at higher scale. Who wrote most early romance novels? Women. (After, that is, the medieval-era proto-examples that were written by men because only men were taught to read and write.) But, once pulp romance novels became a commodity, who was it that started founding companies like Harlequin to take advantage of the known market? Men. And now those companies, by sales volume or revenue, produce most of the romance-novel content in the world. They might employ many women writers at the bottom level (though sometimes those are men under pen names!) but most of the money is going to the men working for the publisher, the distribution chain, the bookstore corporations, etc. I don’t see anything stopping this pattern from repeating with otome games. If it hasn’t happened yet, that could just mean that the business model hasn’t yet been sufficiently de-risked for the old guard’s tastes.
im3w1l 6y ago
I think it's more that they've tried and failed.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

> To be cynical about this: why do you expect it will increasingly be women capitalizing on women’s interests in new media (i.e. producing content with the aim of amassing a large female following), rather than men? For context about this, the overwhelming majority of female-targeted Japanese fiction is written by females and with that I mean that I do not know of but a single example of a male auctor having published anything in the female demographic. The reverse is not true; — there are a great many highly successful male-targeted works produced by female auctors, by which I mean some of the most seminal and influential works in both action and romance. I'm not usually a gender essentialist, but there's a certain style of some Japanese media of which I often feel that without knowing for sure I can say with 95% certainty that the auctor is female, but I can never be certain of that the auctor is male. I'm also not sure as to why it would be cynical. If anything, I would feel that it would be good for marketing if it were known that a male wrote it, because it's as said a novelty and many would want to see it because of that. Perhaps you believe that, as the article suggests, this is actually some kind of new development? Be not misled by spectacular news reporting, as otome games and fiction are a very old and commercially viable market rather than some new innovation. — it is certainly not some new development that someone realized this and there are thousands of such games, novels, strips, television series, audio dramata, and whatever other medium, nigh all of them written by female auctors.

astrange 6y ago
> For context about this, the overwhelming majority of female-targeted Japanese fiction is written by females and with that I mean that I do not know of but a single example of a male auctor having published anything in the female demographic. I assume you don't mean Ikuhara, so I'll say that many of the things people like about Sailor Moon worldwide were invented by Ikuhara (a man) rather than the manga author, who was more into adding the things Japanese romances have that tend to offend worldwide audiences like romances with way older men. Although there's certainly other men who try writing anime for women with LGBT content, I don't know if any of the others are actually very good at it, maybe some KyoAni directors.

goatinaboat 6y ago

After all, this was never the case in old media; the investors/producers, directors/editors, writers, etc. of most women’s magazines, TV shows, etc. are mostly men. Look at any social media company. Employees most men, users mostly women (anyone who buys ads can check this for themselves). The only gender balanced social network is LinkedIn.

jfengel 6y ago

The boys' club has a hard time reaching women's interests. You tend to end up with pink versions of male products when they try. But it's easy to take over existing ones as they become successful. What tends to happen is that women start products/media that appeal to women, then as it grows, men take notice. They get brought on in management and finance roles, because they have established connections in those fields (where connections are crucial). And too often, that means importing the cultures that drove women out in the first place, in both old and new media. I hope we get more stories like this, where the women can maintain control. The article points out that they never took VC money. But it's also because they started out moderately wealthy; they were effectively their own VCs. Female-specific VCs are going to take enormous amounts of flak if they try, but it may be a route to reach whole new markets. Rather than just turning things pink and or making more dating sims.