The McElroys/their family of products are just Homestuck; a list in development:
Both have an uncomfortable affection for horses and horse adjacent motifs, often making what I like to call “pretty bad horses,” like Torsey and whatever Equiusprite was.
Both make pretty damn good music even if it’s just for jokes.
Because they both have very general appearances for characters, the fanbases have the Headcanon Duality Problem: the generic, often conventionally attractive (white, thin, but have, like, freckles for spice) headcanons that, due to being created by popular artists, gets noticed by the creator/s, and become fanon for what the characters look like – whereas the interesting headcanons get thrown to the wayside.
I feel there is a correlation between the way people draw the animalistic troll headcanons (cat feet, tails, exaggerated ears, hair) and the way people draw elves (foot long ears, colourful skin, soft-shell taakos).
Both started without much thought, pretty goofy thing that turned out to be complicated and serious.
In both, characters die without dying a lot (some can die for real but other times not, can come back).
Both generate easily adaptable mannerisms, words, and phrases that people think are cringey. Ex: McElisms (boy, goof, good good ___, any amount of MBMBaM highlights like Peepums and Torsey, candlenights, etc.) & trollspeak (more generally, the syntax of all characters, gog, buckets, fuckass, wweh – hell, even certain emojis, colours, everything – I MEAN SOMEONE LITERALLY CODED PESTERCHUM, I MEAN, GOD, I USED THAT HOMESTUCK RP SITE EVERY DAY FOR A YEAR).
Both generate hideous discourse that the creator/s can only look on at with fear and trepidation.
Gay content from straight guys (hey, pretty good actually).
Once getting into the currently popular/primary fiction (TAZ, HS) fans get into the other/secondary content (MBMBaM, the Polygon stuff, Rose Buddies, Schmanners, Trends Like These, Cool Games INC, Sawbones, Still Buffering, etc. VS. Team Special Olympics, Jailbreak, Bard Quest, Problem Sleuth, SBaHJ, Dinosaur Comics, Namco High, etc.)
Use a typically unused creative medium to make above average content (podcast, MS Paint).
Big backlog of content.
Easy cosplay if you don’t give a shit.
Something in my heart is telling me both are related to Nightvale Productions but I have genuinely no basis for this.
Both sell products on Topataco.
Their internet presence is irregular, odd, and cryptic.
Both break websites and platforms (McElroys break games and make my podcast app crash, Homestuck killed Newgrounds like 10 times, etc.)
Talented fans use their skills with writing, drawing, textiles, and music to create masterpieces based on this content that, in many ways, is almost too good for what it’s based on.
Celebrities like the content (Snoop Dog, LMM, etc.)
People keep getting tattoos of the logos and it’s frightening me
Both have content coming out in the future that has generated discourse (the White TAZ graphic novel, Hivebent).
And, most importantly:
They have the exact same fanbase.
The Venn Diagram of people that read Homestuck and people that listen to the McElroys is a circle.
Justin is literally Vriska how did they get away with this.
Please add on to this I need your support
ALRIGHT FINE a bunch of people are yelling because I called Justin McElroy Vriska so:
