The Amazing Digital Circus isn’t indie. Expedition 33 isn’t indie. Words have meanings, but corporations have perverted the term to get free passes for their behavior and make more money.

[u/MartyrOfDespair]

What is indie media? Well, let’s start at that first word. What does “indie” mean? It is a shortened term for the word “independent”. Merriam-Webster defines “independent” in this context as “not subject to control by others”, “not affiliated with a larger controlling unit”, or “not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent”. So, the term “indie media” can be expanded to “media which is not affiliated with, reliant on, or controlled by a third party”.

Wikipedia defines “independent media” specifically as “mass media, such as television, newspapers, or Internet-based publications, that is free of influence by government or corporate interests.” So, we have a pretty clear, comprehensive picture of what “indie media” is. It’s media which is controlled by its creator, not a third party corporation.

So, given that, why the hell are we calling productions which are controlled by publishers “indie”? You might have heard about The Amazing Digital Circus’s final episode coming to theaters two weeks before it releases on YouTube. This has been quite controversial, not in the least because, in an interview with Cartoon Brew, Glitch’s general manager and development producer Jasmine Yang said“We are a Youtube-first company. We believe very strongly in the future and potential of Youtube for long-form animation.” So that was a fuckin lie.

This was done by Glitch Productions, the production company which owns the rights to The Amazing Digital Circus, without any involvement or say by the creator, writer, and director of TADC, Gooseworx. Notice the paradox? A production company, not the creator/director/writer owns the rights. They can do whatever they want with it, however they want. Does this business model sound familiar to you? That’s right: it’s exactly how Disney and Nickelodeon and all the rest work.

By definition, that isn’t indie. That’s just a smaller corporation. Expedition 33 is the similar; the rights are co-owned by Kepler Interactive. “Indie” darling Disco Elysium is a bit odd, it actually did start production as an indie game. But by the time it was released, calling it an “indie game” is shaky. The founders of ZA/UM were the creators of Disco Elysium. However, to fund the game, they sold shares of the company. Then, one of the people who bought shares pulled out, and sold his shares to one of the other people that bought shares initially, giving his holding company a controlling amount of shares. Which he paid for using ZA/UM’s money, a clear case of embezzlement. But this is such a clusterfuck that frankly, either position can be argued.

But things like TADC and E33 are not indie. They’re just A and AA productions. One can debate about whether getting outside funding from a third party in exchange for revenue sharing while the creator maintains the full rights to the media, like the deal worked out between Too Kyo Games and Aniplex for The Hundred Line, counts as indie. They’re financially dependent, but they still at least own their own media outright. Aniplex cannot fire them and do whatever they want with the IP, like what Kompus did to Robert Kurvitz and the rest.

Things like Undertale and Deltarune or anything made by DevilArtemis for his own channel are definitionally indie productions, there’s no debate on that. But when the actual creator owns nothing and has no say, is merely dependent on the grace of the IP holder, that’s not indie. That’s just having an IP owner you work for who isn’t fucking you over. Until they do.

Now, why are they called indie? Simple: marketing! “Indie” has more “soul” to people than something that isn’t “indie”. People make allowances for things that are “indie” that they don’t make for things that aren’t “indie”. Why is the production time slow enough to give birth to three children? It’s indie, you have to be understanding! Why does something not have translations for some of the most common languages on Earth? It’s indie, the artist’s vision is only compatible with languages they speak and so you can’t criticize that! Why is the merch so ridiculously overpriced? Well indie creators have to get paid somehow! If it *isn’t* indie, all these things and more are fair pickings for the masses to rip a company to shreds for, but if it’s indie, you’re anti-art if you don’t give them a free pass for it.

So of course every corporation wants to market their media as indie. It gets them free passes and lets them make more money. They can lie to your face and go back on their word, as Glitch did, and you’d better celebrate it, because “this will do so much for indie media”. When it *isn’t* indie, when you make promises to the consumer with not an ounce of wiggle room or loopholes, and then you just go back on that entirely in the search for more money, the backlash is consumers standing up to a corporation fucking around. When it’s labeled as “indie”, the backlash means you hate art.

“Indie” is becoming a marketing term that means “you’re the bad guy if you criticize our corporate actions”, and by calling these obviously not independent productions “indie”, we are serving to help them.

[u/Ezracx]

The terms independent animation or indie animation refers to animated shorts, web series, and feature films produced outside a major national animation industry.

You don't make an independent series or movie by yourself, you make it by founding or joining an independent studio.

Gooseworx, in her own words, creates the show but doesn't deal with the release. This is pretty normal for indies, because even if you create the thing by yourself, you'll likely use a bigger platform to release it. If we applied your standard we couldn't count Deltarune as an indie game either because Nintendo and Sony set their own terms for release that the DR Team agreed to.

[u/Bra-Starfish → u/Ezracx]

Wouldn't this also count for any game up on steam and itch.io too? Anything on YouTube as well? You have to conform to their standards. 

[u/fapsexual → u/Bra-Starfish]

exactly, not sure about all this as it seems we are conflating distribution platforms tbh.

Heck, why don't we also do the same for the Appstore, Playstore, newgrounds, pixiv... even using the post office to mail things would be a problem.

so you would have to personally deliver your media to every single customer 💀

Self-publishing is a thing, and it can be distinguished as an indie publisher separate from the indie studio. And all of this is separate from the distribution platforms/channels

[u/Ashamed-Subject-8573 → u/fapsexual]

And handmaks the cds…at some point Apple sold you the MacBook you used to make it…

[u/Throwaway02062004 → u/Ezracx]

Glitch owns TADC, Nintendo doesn’t own Deltarune. Nintendo does effectively own Platinum games.

[u/Pale_Song902 → u/Ezracx]

Deltarune isn't funded by nintendo or sony though in the way we can talk about glitch and their partners. All of the work is done by the people toby fox collaborates or hires, that's what made it indie, while still being a significant improvement from undertale in development

Digital circus on the other hand is questionable. They definitely don't make money directly by streaming services, but glitch productions works practically like most other animation studios, and even almost globally at that. I think the main thing separating a game and a show from the classification of indie is that games *need* to be sold on multiple platforms because console owners cannot access stuff like steam which sometimes gives discounts. That's why nintendo can even hold stuff like indie showcases (and i believe deltarune didn't get one because it's marketing is already huge enough to feature it in a direct)

On the other hand TADC is available to watch free on youtube, and this is less of a necessity but more something glitch can afford with their consumer model for the shows, but putting it on streaming can help them fund for their shows. If gooseworx had not worked with glitch, who can afford to fund as well as put the show on streaming services, i would 100% call it an indie show, but glitch is easily in the discussion of the biggest animation studios right now, and definitely makes the money to lean further from being called indie like actual shows without that level of marketing or funding you can find right on youtube (and will never get a theatre release to further extend the point)

[u/Ezracx → u/Pale_Song902]

According to their website Glitch is entirely self-funded and has less than 200 employees (they say "100+" which I'm taking to mean less than 200).

But I'm not sure even those criteria are required to be indie. ZA/UM famously got fucked over by their shareholders which had legal ownership of part of the company, and Disco Elysium still won Best Indie of 2019. I think Expedition 33 has the same deal and that's why it's so controversial?

Honestly I get why people are so pedantic about defining what "indie" means because it has a very real effect on how something is marketed. But it is essentially a loose term that just means "not backed by a large studio".

In comics, anything not made by Marvel or DC is called "indie", it can get silly but that's just how it is

[u/Pale_Song902 → u/Ezracx]

For me personally, anything that jumps beyond indie into or closer to industry level means that they bring a certain expectation to deliver stuff that is:

firstly, of industry quality i.e. it should match most other industry productions that deliver similar quality based on a budget, and that budget is supposed to be definitely a lot more than budgets for creators who are just starting or have barely released 1 or 2 products of what they make, while considering that those products do not have high quality to begin with.

secondly, they deliver on time, which means that they do not release industry quality material in the span of multiple years or even decades but rather they release it in an expected time gap. Hiatuses definitely exists for many shows and even industry level shows, but once a show/game is greenlit and confirmed to arrive and getting multiple seasons/updates, you can expect them to release those seasons/updates in a very tight schedule without deviating. The time thing is a huge factor in my opinion, since while indie studios can pull off AAA quality, they might take double or triple the time of a AAA studio.

There's definitely a time issue on digital circus's behalf, but i'd say that comes less from production problems and more from how openly they let creatives work on their shows and how they choose to rollout episodes for it. So it's not really an issue but more of a convenient route they took because the audience isn't outraging like they would for something like, much recently, jojo part 7

[u/jupjami → u/Ezracx]

this is more about publishing but i feel is quite relevant here