Reality: Media Reaction

On 21 Nov 2022, the meme 'broke containment on tumblr. It appears to have first been covered by The Digital Fix when Charlotte Colombo published an article at 8:08 ET. Other film news outlets, including The Daily Dot, Screenrant, Polygon, and even Insider (a respectible news outlet with big-boy business opinions) also ran news articles covering the meme's sudden surge in popularity. Below are summaries and reviews of the articles.

## Article reviews

### The Daily Dot

The article begins, "We can always trust Tumblr culture to be as ungovernable and unmarketable as possible," which is as concise a summary as has ever been written. The article is short, but it gets all its facts correct, including the timeline of events, and the general vibe of tumblr.

### The Digital Fix

The Article begins by contextualizing Scorsese's credentials as a film maker, then discusses the film keyfabe-on cast for a paragraph before explaining that it doesn't exist and providing some notable highlights about the meme's progress like it's #1 trending spot on tumblr. It quotes some tumblr user's mixed kayfabe responses, but doesn't cite those users by URL-name (it does link to their posts). It quote prokopetz to summarize the phenomenon:

> "The *Goncharov* meme isn’t so much impenetrable to outsiders as it is indistinguishable from business as usual. *Goncharov* shitposts sound exactly like how film nerds actually sound when discussing a real film which they have not seen, but do not wish to admit they have not seen, so from the uninvolved perspective nothing has changed."
>
>

It disappointingly concludes citing tumblr's response on twitter and plugging a questionably related article about movies based on true stories.

### Insider

The first detail the article includes is wrong. It states that the shoe was posted about a year ago, when on the accurate time line the shoe was posted at least two years. It also describes the situation as having "gotten out of hand," and uses negatively charged language like "phoney," "spiraling," "actual source of collective madness." Like, fuck you guy (derogatory).

To its credit the article does cite tumblr users by their URL. It also covers information which was known to this wikis' editors at the time but hadn't yet been added to the wiki yet because it wasn't seen as priority information about Goncharov: that is, that name of the film which Goncharov was originally most likely a malapropism of is Gomorrah.

### Polygon

The article opens with a convincing imagery and vibes-based summary of the kayfabe-on film, before explaining the film's not real. Polygon site tumblr users by URL, and details the timeline of events correctly, citing both the shoe post and poster (although it doesn't date the original shoe post, simply calling it "old.") The article discusses what people are doing with the Goncharov meme, that is creating art and everything else, while showcasing art posted by tumblr user shrusinchinese [shrugs in chinese], and stating that "even Lynda Carter" is participating.

It then asks "why do we care about goncharov?" and explains how and why tumblr survived it NSFW ban, and discusses the twitter situation in terms of twitter users reactivating their old tumblr accounts and are now "starting to pay attention to Tumblr’s wonderfully weird and utterly batshit [ (affectionate) ] meme ecosystem for the first time in years."

The article concludes by asking then answering the obvious: You can't watch Goncharov anywhere because it doesn't exist, but you can make a tumblr account and start gonchposting.

### Screenrant

The majority of the body of screenrant's article comprises of tweets reacting to or hopping aboard the tumblr meme. These tweets are rendered hyperlinks rather than screenshot images by the way, meaning that their majority of the article's content depends on twitters continued stability, which circa Nov 2022 is uncertain.

### New York Times

On Nov 22, The New York times published an article by Madison Malone Kircher. The article, like most others covers the basic contents of the kayfabe on film, the kayfabe off origins of the meme, and does basic research on who various key gonchposters are. The most interesting part of the article is the paratext of it's comment section which had mixed opinions about the idea. Some enjoyed it and even had kayfabe on fun insisting that they loved the movie. Others... didn't.

#### User Comments

A comment by LindaA comment by Michael GilbertResponding to the negetive comments later that day, tumblr user Almostsweetangel said:

> "NYT article abt goncharov has comments like 'what is the purpose of this film's existence these kids are just lying' motherfucker how do you think our ancestors survived. how do you think folklore formed. culture. music. art. PURPOSE????? do you think everything must be commodified? sold? weighed to be valued? **has the rot in your soul spread so far you cannot find value in anything not spoken in numbers**??? it's FUN. THAT'S WHY. THE PURPOSE IS THE ACT, THE MESSAGE IS THE MEDIUM, THE SYMBOL IS THE STORY. it brings people joy for its mere existence and that IS the point. existence is its purpose alone"
>
>

The post was immediately reblogged quoting the bolded section for emphasis. A week later, it was reblogged again by disgruntle-foreign-patriarch, who added a lord of the rings quote:

> "There was a time when Saruman would walk in my woods. But now he has a mind of *metal*, and *wheels*. He no longer cares for growing things."
>
>

1. ↑ Colombo, Charlotte. Lost Martin Scorsese movie, Goncharov, takes over the internet. The Digital Fix.
2. ↑ Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia. Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goncharov’ is the hottest film on Tumblr. It doesn’t actually exist. The Daily Dot.
3. ↑ Casio, Jerome. Tumblr Users Made Up A Fake Scorsese Movie & It's Almost Convincing. Screenrant.
4. ↑ Radulovic, Petrana. ‘Martin Scorsese’s lost film’ Goncharov (1973), explained. Polygon.
5. ↑ Cohen, Rebecca and Palmer Haasch. A deep dive into 'Goncharov (1973),' the completely made-up Martin Scorcese movie that Tumblr users are obsessed with. Insider.
6. ↑ Prokopetz. The goncharov meme isn't so much impenetrable.
7. ↑ Dogsufferage. "I FIGURED OUT WHAT IT SUPPOSED TO BE." Tumblr.
8. ↑ Kircher, Madison Malone. *The Fake Scorsese Film You Haven’t Seen. Or Have You?* New York Times.
9. ↑ Almostsweetangel. "NYT article about goncharov has comments like," post. Tumblr.