I'm a huge fan of managing expectations - especially when I see how wildly out-of-whack expectations are getting. That should be a good enough precursor to where this entire blog post is going, so brace yourself.
A week ago, The Record of Stan Frederick was featured on the YouTube channel Night Mind, which is a massive deal for me. Thanks to his video dissecting and commenting on the first eight released episodes of the reboot, I've received over 2,000 subscribers on Stan's channel in under three days. That is phenomenal, and I owe all of that exposure to the kindness of Night Mind's Nick Nocturne, who saw a lot of potential in my little series.
The video mostly covers the self-awareness of the series in relation to some Slenderverse tropes and cliches, which is pretty cool. Some of those things I tried to keep very deep-seeded so that they were not in the forefront, but seeing the depth that went into this was so interesting and exciting for me, especially as a Night Mind fan. The title of the video - "Stan Frederick - Paranormal Investigations & Webseries Parody Done Right" - is the thing that makes me nervous here, and it's something that I felt the need to address based on the simple notion that, these two titled aspects are supposed to be gimmicks.
Let me stress that, I'm not absolutely bothered by the focus on self-awareness as a selling point for the series... It just isn't. Stan Frederick is primarily story first and anything else second. As a matter of fact, there aren't as many meta events as alluded to in the video, but that just becomes a matter of interpretation versus creative vision, and I'm not here to tell anyone where they should find value in something. I'm making this post to help manage expectations on what they can expect going forward.
There's an in-canon reason for Stan Frederick to be so well-versed in the Slenderverse, and it's simple: He's a veteran. He's seen this stuff, he's familiar with a lot of the facets of this world. But it's not meant to be played in a joking light every time; it's meant to inform this world. Because while I know that people believe the Slenderverse is played out or can't produce any new material, the entire point of my creating this series (you know, a new Slenderman series in 2016, which is supposed to be unfathomable, correct?) was to push back on that notion by providing something that is absolutely in line with the tropes and Slenderverse formula and is still at the very least engaging and interesting on a ***story level***.
I very much hoped that Stan Frederick wouldn't get typecast as "Slenderverse Parody" because this series absolutely is not that primarily (or at all), and is supposed to be doing something else entirely. The more comments I've gotten implying that "Stan Frederick is an amazing comedy series" or that a viewer "couldn't stop laughing" at a part that was absolutely not intended to be comedic, the more I realize I've really missed my mark here. Perhaps I'm not as decent a writer as I thought, or perhaps the flood of creative interpretation is something I am able to manage much less than I previously considered; but regardless of all of this, there are points to be made so that the 2,000+ new viewers expecting parody to be the focus of this series (as was advertised in the Night Vision video) aren't disappointed with the final product. So here's my blanket statement on the issue, and you guys can get back to speculating and enjoying what I've made for what you want it to be, not what I dictate it to be.
The Record of Stan Frederick will always be a story and character series, first and foremost. If you are here solely for "trope-roasting" or believe that Stan Frederick is some kind of subgenre-saving piece of web fiction, then by all means stick around, because there is some more stuff that might satisfy your interest in something like that. We are doing small, new things within the world that this all makes sense in, but within a contained story and manageable means of production. To put things simply, if you are here for a Slenderman series, you're invited to stay. Because while it does new things, it is still a Slenderman series. That is the point I'm making, and I invite anyone and everyone to stick around if you subscribe to that idea.
I've seen some great new potential series popping up recently, and even some of the bigger boys starting to update again (lookin' at you, Rosner), so I stand on the notion that this stuff is nowhere near played out, and as long as people have ideas, they should be encouraged to make them. There is originality to be found in the familiar (after all, nothing is original anymore, and everything draws inspiration from something), and I'm certain there are endless new places to go in the Slenderverse based on that point of view alone.
This is absolutely not intended as a negative hit on Nick Nocturne or Night Mind in general. As a matter of fact, his coverage of my series was pretty much completely on point, and his words were so kind and sincere about what I was doing with my series that I can't help but feel elated that such a thing even exists. This post is just for those that understand that, as a Creator - and more pretentiously, as an "artist" - this is an incredibly important thing to me, and the last thing I want is for someone to get the wrong idea of where things are going, only to be disappointed. I'm not saying "I am going to outright spoil things because you are not correctly guessing them"; I'm saying that, I owe it to you to be honest with what I am trying to generally do, and you are free to stick around and see/theorize more based on how you feel about that generality.
Thanks again to everyone for watching Stan Frederick. I'm confident it'll achieve something. Not quite sure what that is yet, but we haven't reached that bridge; in the meantime, enjoy the dirt road with me until we get there!
