in a similar vein as one of my last incomprehensible rambling posts, i think the more time goes on and the more i grow as an artist, the less and less i really care about "immersion" as a factor in media
i used to occasionally see posts from devs or dataminers that pulled back the curtain a bit and showed off neat programming tricks used in newer videogames where i'd scroll down and see a bunch of comments from gamers upset that they "ruined" the experience by going and telling them this, and i always looked at those comments and thought it was so funny. "this stuff is cool as hell, why would learning it ruin anything? it's still a good game, knowing how completely mundane/unnoticable aspects of it works can't change that."
but now that i think about it more i guess i can kind of see it. as a creative i've spent so much time studying these sorts of things to understand how they work to the point where thats sort of the only thing i focus on while experiencing media even if im not doing it with the intention of studying it that way. (it's the strongest with rpgmaker games for me, i can't play them without constantly going "how did they event this part?" or "ah, i think they used this one specific plugin for this" or "oh! it's my favorite default sound effect, devil1.ogg..." anymore)
so i guess creative works were kind of "ruined" for me, just not in a bad way. rather a "i cannot look at these things in the same perspective most people do ever again" kind of way, which some people might take as a bad thing personally, but i don't, really.
big-budget AAA spectacle projects don't really do as much for me most of the time anymore, (at least in terms of like, movies and such. games less so) because i just see it and go "wow, you really would need millions of dollars and a huge dedicated team to make this, huh. since i'm broke and teamless, i can't relate to this at all."
which i guess ends up giving me the exact opposite intended effect because the more "immersive" something is, the less rough edges i can notice, it just ends up feeling more cold to me, in some ways. it doesn't necessarily mean i dislike what i'm seeing, i can LOVE a piece of big media like this and still get this effect, it just means it doesn't feel at all inspirational to me in the same way it probably would most people, including other creatives in the same fields.
i don't want to make the next spider-verse, because i can't. i don't have the money or means and i likely never will. it simply isn't possible for me to make that on my own.
(...this is the part where i put an obligatory disclaimer that everything in this post is simply me talking about the ways my own brain works, personally, just me, with no regards to how other people may feel about things. idk i just feel like if i dont say this people are going to think im trying to speak of inherent truths or am trying to sound superior and contrarion, and will try to start fights with me in the comments over it. i am just a random autistic dipshit online with weird opinions and a fondness for bad media who's writing this directly after waking up before he's had breakfast and won't bother editing it after, none of this matters, do not worry...
Anyway,)
conversely, of course, i end up gravitating much more towards rough indie projects instead.
I like being reminded, constantly, that a person made the thing i'm seeing.
Looking at a work and going "yeah this was probably made by one guy in their free time in like a week" is one of the most inspiring things i can notice from it. Because it's like....woah! I could make that! I could do it right now if i wanted to!
and i guess this sort of speaks to how media has been supposedly "ruined" for me. but in a like...matrix kind of way i guess idk i never watched it this might make no sense. homemade media just feels more Real to me in a way i don't think can ever be reversed. It feels more tangible, attainable. It's something that i can get my hands all over and make myself and understand that other people, perhaps people who are in very similar situations and lives as mine, also made it.
i dont want this to sound like im trying to say "mainstream thing = bad, obscure thing that sucks = good" i dont think any of these aspects really inherently speak to a work's quality and like i said i still do enjoy a lot of AAA media despite feeling like this, it's just a difference of this one specific aspect.
I can't look at media from the perspective of a regular viewer who's intended to feel like a part of the world that's being presented anymore, and only as another creator, distant from the creation yet still deeply invested in its inner workings.
and i think i'm happy about that.
it's fun.
...though it does make it a little weird to talk about media with other people in "normaler" circles sometimes.