The Miraculous Ladybug Fandom
Okay, sorry for the long post which I purposefully did not put under a read more, because I want you all to read this. This is my own account of the fandom since late September when I first joined, and the problems that plague it today. IF YOU ARE PART OF THE MIRACULOUS LADYBUG FANDOM, PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME TO READ THIS. I would appreciate it greatly.
Sigh, this fandom has changed so much…
When I first saw gifs of Miraculous Ladybug in late September, I immediately fell in love. Back then, there were no websites where you could watch Miraculous subbed, and we were just a small group of a several hundred people who watched mlsubbing’s subbed episodes out of a Google Drive. Thomas Astruc was just as attentive and responsive to his fans as he is now; always responding to us, featuring fanart, posting some of our cosplays on Twitter. Even the nickname “Hawkdaddy” came from one of us. Yes, his current Tumblr, @miraculoushawkdaddy was named because of the relationship between him and the fans of this wonderful show.
As the months went by, we got bigger and bigger. I remember when TFOU aired new episodes daily for an entire week; every day, @mlsubbing would do their best to sub each episode and release it before the next one aired. Their chatroom had a minimum 13 people a day, peaking around 50 when the episode airs live in France. On November 8, TFOU temporarily stopped airing new episodes, and we all yelled in frustration in the first “Great Akumatization”. We were all united in those weeks. A few hundred grew to a few thousand. The fandom flourished. Fanart and fanfiction coming from every direction. Come December, mlsubbing started taking down videos of the very first subs, as was planned. Most of us accepted it; it was a symbol of our desires to support the show worldwide; after all, we wouldn’t need English subs as the English dub airs in America. When new episodes started airing again on Sundays, the mlsubbing chatroom would peak at 180 people. We loved the chaos.We loved the fandom.
We even sent Hawkdaddy cheese on his birthday.
My own love for the fandom led me to create @mlscience and @musee-de-miraculous , my biggest contributions so far to this fandom. I loved how the fandom and the show’s creators worked so closely together, kept in touch, and shared the love.
During the last few months of 2015 and the first month of 2016, I was proud to say that I was part of the nicest, most innocent, and least controversial fandom ever.
That is no longer true.
There are three issues on why:
The first major divide in the fandom occurred when news broke out that EBS South Korea would be airing the Origin Episodes earlier than France or Canada, and was mainly due to different interpretations of Hawkdaddy’s tweets regarding the issue. This caused problems and major reforms in the fandom, with the major subbing groups eventually deciding to sub the episodes under newly-created tags to prevent spoilers before the French-language airing. And then, Tele-Quebec started airing episodes before France did. The mlsubbing chatroom which once held hundreds of people now peaked at less than 30 people on Sundays. The old fandom became nonexistent.
A few weeks ago, ZAG, through Thomas Astruc, released their fan policy for Miraculous fans. This caused a gigantic uproar in the fandom, mostly because a lot of people got used to watching @miraculousubs ‘ subs on YouTube, which was deemed illegal. As mlsubbing stopped uploading the raw episodes, releasing only SRT subtitle files to respect ZAG’s intellectual property, many people flocked to watch miraculousubs’ subs on YouTube, which were more convenient and accessible. Recently, a YouTube channel that uploads raw Miraculous Ladybug episodes was taken down, and backlash came along with it. And apparently, a lot of people are completely ignoring the fan policy, and some are even actively against it; against the company that brought them the show they loved in the first place.
Earlier today, one of the fandom’s better-known artists left the fandom because of a long-standing issue: art theft. This issue is so huge, that I cannot possibly fit all instances that artists from all over the fandom complained about it in this one post before making it ridiculously long.
This is the part where I get furious, particularly at the previous two paragraphs. The fandom has turned ‘toxic’ lately. It is full of entitled people who think that they have the right to the episodes on YouTube. News flash, you don’t. ZAG has contracts with the broadcasters of this show. While yes, I admit that YouTube is a great and convenient way to view the episodes and many people simply cannot watch the show because it isn’t airing in their country yet, Miraculous Ladybug is ZAG’s property. They have the right to choose where they want to stream it and the obligation to keep their contracts with their broadcasters. There is no actual legal way to watch the episodes outside the countries where they are airing, but please do not bug Hawkdaddy about this. He does not control ZAG’s decisions, nor is he supposed to know what ZAG is doing behind the scenes. He is not the reason why videos that clearly violate the fan policy are being taken down. He might have produced the concept of Ladybug and directed the show, but he does not own the rights to the episodes. ZAG does. No argument with him is going to convince ZAG to bring them back. Do not waste your time. Do not waste HIS time. He is already doing us a gigantic favor by giving us attention, and we should thank him for it, not cause wars on Twitter because you don’t agree with the law. Watch the show illegally if you want. But understand the consequences.
Which brings us to art theft. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not take any piece of art you find on the internet and repost it without its owner’s permission. This has been said again and again for as long as I have been on this website but some people just don’t understand. Art is not a thing that can be whipped up in ten seconds and passed around without credit. It is the product of an artist’s creativity and hard work, and they deserve all the credit for anything they create. They are not just “pictures”. They define artists.
As for @peachbunni , I’m sorry that you had to leave the fandom, but I understand your reasons why. Thank you for everything you have done for us: for being a major voice against art theft, for helping me translate the MPP into Korean, for blessing us with your art. We’ll miss you, and I hope you keep interacting with us even after what has happened.
We have accomplished so much as a fandom,but as we grew larger, we inevitably gained more problems. I will continue to serve in this fandom for as long as I can, for I have experienced its blooming, its booming popularity, its problems and its decisions that it has made as a unified community.
I love the #Miraculers, but our problems cannot be tolerated.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
