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cerastes · 4 months

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This is absolutely the Lack Of Reading Comprehension Website, but there's another issue I've noticed that I never see brought up, and it doesn't exist completely excised from lacking reading comprehension, but it's definitely it's own topic.

Tumblr's a Bad Faith Website as well. Like the above, it's not something exclusive to Tumblr, but it definitely defines it in my opinion. A lot of people want to be Right, and disagreements are seen by a bunch of people as something to "win" rather than something to "have". You'll have randos that frame their entire argument against you based on latching onto technicalities to try to prove why you are wrong rather than actually engage with your argument to try and propose something else or turn it around. As someone who was in a debate club during university, I call it "debate-poisoned people" who see arguments and conversations as a sport more than an interaction or, well, an actual conversation to be had, or in other words, that consider every argument as a debate to be had, when a lot of the time, it's not that deep fam, and also the other person never really agreed to play under your rules, because, here's the thing, a debate is a very specific kind of interaction. In a debate, bad faith interaction and trying to erase the very floor the other party is standing on is a valid tactic, it's part of the game. In a conversation or an argument, bad faith interaction and trying to erase the floor the other party is standing on gets you rightfully called a moron who cannot use inference or extrapolation to actually engage with the topic at hand. I had one such weirdo like a week or so ago, even, who used so many words to say absolutely nothing, that I thought I accidentally performed a digital necromantic ritual and had actually found myself face to face with the spirit of Jacques Lacan.

Even in more innocuous, non-hostile scenarios, this still applies: A lot of people are so, so eager to Be Correct On The Internet, that they'll reblog something with a correction or an opinion seemingly so hastily that they did not in fact read the entire post or comprehend it. This feeds into the lack of reading comprehension, but in my opinion, it does also have to do with seeing something that they believe they can correct, and immediately chomping at the bit to correct it without stopping for a second to ask themselves, "Did I read this right? Does this need correction?", and a lot of the time, it turns out, yes, you did not in fact need to correct it, you just had to read it a bit slower without letting your quickdraw hand get the best of you, cowboy. The way I consider this to be Bad Faith, even if it's not really hostile or confrontational, is the long-held belief that The Internet Is Inhabited By People Stupid Enough To Actually Think Or Say Something This Stupid.

I'll be real with you: Yeah, you've seen wild stories on the internet, plenty of them true, about how stupid people can be. No, they do not define the majority of people that aren't you. A wild, flabbergasting story about idiocy gets traction because it's funny and wild. We don't hear stories about how User A made a compelling argument that seemed stupid at first but then turned out that their rationale was incredibly sound as much, because that's not funny and wild and doesn't make us feel good about ourselves, because we'd never make such a stupid mistake. You aren't a sage wearing the floatie of wisdom in an ocean of idiots, no matter what your echo chamber and/or carefully curated internet space makes you think. You are not exempt from having to think about things, and you are not exempt from having to acknowledge people that know things you don't, people wiser than you are out there. This isn't "you are dumb as shit, actually", because I personally believe most people are smart, this is "you are being superficial and too eager to be Correct, which only works to your detriment in the long run and makes you a rather unlikable person".

It's as simple as engaging in good faith, even when you disagree or dislike the other party. Rip apart their arguments properly, instead of trying to disqualify them with cheap gotchas from the get go just because you want to own someone. Yes, sometimes people don't make sense, period, but that's absolutely not as common as people like to claim it happens. Inevitably, you'll run into someone that will actually call out your bullshit and there goes your entire argument. And in less intense settings, really, no one likes a pedant who really wants to be Correct on fucking Tumblr of all places.

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hot-take-tournament · 3 months

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Omg the reblog person is so real for that. I understand that Tumblr doesn't have an algorithm so liking doesn't functionally do anything but I get extremely anxious about reblogging so the guilt trips are really awful for me (and I assume it's the same for others with similar issues.)

Uh- bit of a tangent/rant below. For context I'm an "Audhd-er" (I think that's the term people use, it means I'm autistic and I have ADHD)

I understand most of the time they are over-exaggerating their feelings on the matter. In posts about reblogging stuff from writers and artists it's always kind of a "LIKES DO NOTHING SHOW YOUR LOVE WITH REBLOGS LIKES MEAN NOTHING"

I've always found that a bit odd. As someone with two mutuals (one of whom is rarely online) and 1 normal follower my reblogs really aren't gonna do much so I mostly reblog stuff my mutuals might like and occasionally make my own posts. (Keeping everything else private for the most part) When I get a like it always brings a warm fuzzy feeling because it means someone enjoyed my reblog or post enough to share with me that they liked it.

I've only had one post that breached containment and it was a fun weekend of checking out the blogs of people who liked it! All in all I think maybe people are just unaware of the anxieties that come with being online and the people who experience those anxieties are too anxious to really speak up about it. I mean look at me I'm chilling behind an anon mask rn (I rarely send an off anon ask lol.)

For a website dubbed by its users as the neurodivergent website, some people forget to consider that learning and working within the culture of a social media platform can be extremely stressful for many types of people, let alone an autistic person such as myself (the ADHD doesn't help either). Some of us would prefer to lurk in our private blogs, only coming out of our comfort zone when we feel ok to do so.

All in all, a reminder to reblog is perfectly fine, but please refrain from the guilt-tripping and social obligation type of thing— or at least be aware of it and try not to be offended if one of your mutuals struggles to reblog.

Now this is all my personal perspective, other people will likely have completely different experiences but I wanted to share in case people were confused on why it's an issue for some people. Thanks for reading this whole thing and I hope you have a lovely day <3

I think I get what you're saying -

For a lot of people it genuinely takes a surprising amount of guts to put themselves out there on the internet in any way, even if it's anonymously, and that includes things as simple as reblogging a post.

It's not just Tumblr either. You also see it on Reddit and Twitter, and in online games where people just want to keep to themselves and not interact with strangers. Some people just want to lurk, maybe liking or upvoting, but not commenting or reblogging, because that feels like making yourself more "visible" somehow, in a way simply liking posts doesn't.

It's difficult to put into words, but I feel it's kind of like being in a university lecture with 50+ strangers. Liking is sitting in the back quietly taking notes. Reblogging is like putting your hand up and giving an opinion when the professor asks for one.

It's true that only reblogging actually contributes anything functionally, but there are plenty of people, especially neurodivergent people, who might struggle with that kind of thing, but still want to show some appreciation, or just save it as a bookmark.

So, I think that's partly why that kind of guilt-tripping or threatening reblog bait can be so stressful. Tumblr is a comfort app for a lot of people, who just want to curate their own little private space. Reblog baits are like someone banging on your door, telling you that you're actively doing something wrong by keeping to yourself, and (in the case of "I'll block/unfollow you if you like/read but don't reblog" baits) people will hate you for doing it.

It also implicitly takes away the sense of control you have over your own personal online space. Ideally, you should be able to do whatever you want with your own blog - no one should dictate your own online experience. So, if you just want to reblog things you like or want to share, at whatever pace you feel comfortable with, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that.

But reblog baits seem to suggest that you shouldn't have that control, and there are certain things that you have no choice but to put on your blog, and it has to be right now. And I feel that sense of having control suddenly snatched away from you without warning could also be a major source of anxiety for a lot of people who see Tumblr as a source of comfort.

With all that in mind, while I do believe that it's not quite this simple, considering artists and writers, and especially those who rely on commissions, do need exposure from reblogs, I also feel it's difficult to blame people for finding very aggressive reblog baits stressful, especially when you're suddenly blindsided with them.

At least, those are just my initial thoughts based on what you said, but absolutely let me know if you disagree with any of this or feel I misrepresented what you meant <3

#asks #not a poll #hot take reblog bait

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paperlovesadness · 11 months

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I'm sitting outside in the sun in wet jeans - following advice on how to stretch denim to better fit you - making breathing room for myself and my thighs who are hated by jean sizing everywhere - and I'm getting sappy about Tumblr and fangirling and this community of lovely, unapologetically excited people I've met here.

This is something not many will probably read (long posts can be tough, I get it) - it just kind of all spilled I guess? Incoherently but with passion. So why not set it free when it's already here.

You see - I can't help but credit Tumblr as this huge part of my inner child healing journey. And particularly the girlhood part of it all.

Subconsciously & even consciously I've felt so so ashamed of these "girly" sides of me all my life. Especially in their "prime time" of my tween and teen years. I'd love things secretly - or at most - talk about them only after loudly labelling them as "guilty pleasures" (quite a terrible concept) or acting like it's all done with a tinge of self-aware irony.

But being a hopeless romantic; loving your favorite characters with your whole being; squealing over your favorite music and the musicians who make it; talking about your favorite songs and lyrics and photos; drawing, editing, making fanart of things that make your heart sore; sharing your fantasies and dreams; crying about quotes and big ideas; writing stories - those are all such beautiful things.

I've immersed myself back in the worlds of blogging and fanfiction and musical fangirling and... In many ways I haven't felt this good since I was a kid - still untouched by society and it's shaming of the endless supply of passion I had in me towards the things I loved.

And fangirls are a force. Fangirls are what made the music industry what it is. They're who discovered the Beatles and Leonard Cohen and Frank Sinatra and David Bowie - amongst so many others - and when they did the hard work - only then was it all taken over and appropriated by men who claimed only they can "truly and objectively" appreciate it.

It's girls - bright, unapologetically excited, passionate girls who care for pretty things and things with a soul and things with a story, with romantic connotations - girls who love to curate aesthetically pleasing landscapes and spaces around themselves - it's those girls who contributed hugely to an actual analogue photography and vinyl pressing revival & re-popularization.

I'm in my late twenties. I've only recently let myself pierce my ears and start wearing makeup sometimes. And care openly about my appearance and fashion choices. It's very much still all queer coded and slightly gender-mixed. Because that's me. But caring about these things has always been categorized as a "girl thing" = therefore = shameful, shallow, not something to be proud of.

I'm continuously curing my incredibly hurtful and internally misogynistic complex of "not being like other girls". There are still biases and automatic-judgements I'm fighting on the daily. But it's become so much clearer and easier to do so.

Im more ways than one I want to be exactly like other girls. I want to grab the hands of all the fangirls around this site and dance with them in a circle and tell them they look great whatever they choose to look like and I want to sit down in a meadow and make flower crowns together and squeal over our favorite things.

And to be clear I'm not saying be girly. I'm saying embrace you inner girlhood.

And that could be so many things. Just... Never be ashamed of the parts of it that society deems shallow and embarrassing or worthless.

And just... Thank you for being girlies with me 💗

(girlies & girls as usual used as more of a state of my mind and being; not a strictly gendered term. This applies in all, most or many ways to queer people & of course non-binary and trans experiences).

#thoughts thrown into the tumblr void #kind of like an actual blog post #sorry if it's incoherent or maybe relies too heavily on stereotypes in some ways? I've tried to find better words #when we do inevitably function in such a categorized society - and I hope the divide weakens and ceases to exist entirely one day #in the meantime we still exist here - with these linguistic and actual imposed divides and sometimes we need to heal within them too #I'm making less and less sense aren't I #anyway - maybe this resonates with someone - maybe it doesn't. Maybe you read it - maybe you don't. I think I just needed to say it #this is maybe the best way I could. Eh - words can be such a trap fkr thoughts and inner workings -#but we still love them with their limited waya of helpings is express; don't we. It's the best we've got #/#my posts #thoughts #blog stuff #fangirls #&#girlhood

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northern-passage · 1 year

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everytime youre on my tl, you’re seemingly fighting for your life or ranting

so just wanted to say hoping you take care cause great heavens

i don't really know what to say to this but yeah i am aware of the state of this blog - unfortunately it's all but devolved into a space where im just dealing with constant harassment so it's not very elegant or fun at the moment. i do my best to ignore it and i feel embarrassed every time i have to respond to stuff on here like that but it's about the only interaction i get currently and it's just frustrating and exhausting. despite how it may seem i actually try to avoid directly talking about it or publishing certain asks because again it's extremely embarrassing and this is a game dev blog where i would love to just talk about my game, but i know i struggle with handling it and it can be obvious if/when i'm having a difficult time and i'm overwhelmed. as much as i try to keep this blog more "professional" i know my frustration and anger is still very apparent in some of my posts; sometimes i feel like i want to be transparent about it and that's usually when i do make those posts addressing certain things wanting to bring attention to it and the community. but i also know that it can be just as frustrating seeing it second hand through my blog, especially when you are just here for game content, and i don't blame people for being annoyed about it.

i do think some of the discussions i've had on this blog previously have been interesting and really positive, so i don't necessarily regret it completely. this isn't a personal blog, but neither is it "professional" by any means (it's tumblr lmfao) and i'm not trying to be - i like having it as a way to be more personable and have nice interactions with readers and other authors, it's been invaluable irt receiving good feedback, but i also like having good faith discussions with the community and talking about various things that are important to me. so... i don't know what i'm trying to say here; basically, i am aware of how i come across, and it is something i know i need to be better about, especially on a blog that is meant to be focused on my work. but i also don't feel the need to completely compromise myself or my opinions for this community's approval, either - and to be clear, i'm under no delusion that i am better than anyone else for this; this is just how i've personally chosen to curate my space, for better or worse.

i do appreciate the nice messages i have received recently, i don't publish a lot of those either simply because it makes me feel uncomfortable to respond to them publicly... but i am grateful for them. with an update coming very soon i am hopeful that this blog will see more positive interaction and i'm excited to share it with all of you again. thank you for all the kind words, thank you for supporting me even through these rough patches, and i really do mean it when i say i appreciate it all very much.

#sorry im in my feelings this morning and im sure i'll regret posting this in like 10 minutes #it's cathartic to write it all out at the moment tho #but. yeah im sorry i'm just going through a lot and i know it's spilling over onto this blog #i locked the blog previously when something similar was happening but i don't want to do that again #so. i will just continue to be annoying on tumblr dot come. thanks for tolerating me #and uhhhh update coming soon. lmfao #ask #anonymous

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sinelanguage · 2 months

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and for the museum of the day i was Considerably more excited for: the National Museum of Modern Art!! splitting this into two parts for my sanity, main exhibit first

one thing that impressed me about this museum was the overall presentation of descriptions used. a lot of art museums will present some information and context to the piece, but the national museum specifically tried to encourage people to read the text (metaphorically) and engage in Thoughts. it was pretty neat to look at a piece then see what specific emphasize the museum curator wanted to put on something.

For example, Nakanishi Natsuyuki’s piece Compact Object was described like this:

Fish bones, a rubber ball, a clock, seashells, hair.. this egg-shaped object seems to be packed with the contents of a garbage can. Or is it a time capsule, capturing a fleeting moment during a certain era? Nakanishi staged performances by bringing these clusters of everyday objects into public spaces, such as in the streets and on trains. His intent seems to have been to carry a microcosm of the world in his hands rather than to produce a sculpture that sits on a pedestal.

which, imo, does a decent job at explaining the intent but also promoting people to think about the intent going into objects on a level a bit further than just “here’s what this means.” this was pretty consistent in the museum’s presentation, which I really appreciated.

The other thing I thought was incredibly funny was this fucking. diary entry they had on display. keep in mind i was dead on my feet in this museum writing down notes to post to my tumblr blog and then read kishida ryusei’s diary from 1923:

Woke up around 10 o clock with a slight headache. Not surprising since i was up unttl three last night talking with Senge [Motomaro] and others, and that's why I overslept. Took a bath after breakfast. Got on the 1:49 pm train to Tokyo and then a taxi to Shintomiza. The play was about to start. My seat was excellent. Sendai Hagi is a famous kabuki play, but it was the first time I had actually seen it. The scenes performed were: the Bamboo Room, Cooking Rice, Under the Floor, The Showdown, The Scar. All of these were fascinating. I's not often these days that l immerse myself as deeply in kabuki as I did this time.

me, two museums in, feeling a profound kinship with this artist from a century ago writing a diary entry about his hang over but going to tokyo for three plays. as i write notes in my phone about art. incredible.

For actual pieces though there were quite a few:

Kayama Mayazo, Waves in Spring and Autumn thought this piece had a lot of really neat spins on some classic imagery (mountains, seasonal trees, waves/water). I especially liked the details of the waves breaking— the waves themselves were this even, looping/fluid lines but the edges were crashing with noisy scribbles

Komaki Gentaro, Bricks and a Squirrel: this is one of those “can’t explain myself”. the bricks had a very weird wood grain pattern, paired with a squirrel in this frightening black orb, completely surrounded. sometimes ur just a squirrel in an orb

Nomiyama Gyoji, The Withered: i like organic things in weird, inorganic messes. this was like, a rat king but with branches, and it was confusing to look at. enjoyed it a lot.

Kodama Yasue, ambient light - sakura: this is exactly what it says on the tin but for what it is it works really well. it’s just the impression of looking up at Sakura blossoms through sunlight, and man is it effective at it. I think in person this works better just for the size and detail of it- it captures the feeling of looking up through foliage very well and was very pretty to boot

Takanashi Yutaka, Hongo: Mansada Parlor, 6-17-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku from Machi imo all of takanashi’s photos had this very lived in quality to them, like a photo taken of a place that feels deeply familiar and like home. The collection overall has these deep colors and contrasts with mundane settings and a large amount of visual objects/interest, so it made the feel of the piece really nice (photos here)

overall: really solid, probably doesn’t beat the contemporary art museum but that’s just because my taste is what it is. for an art museum though, i really appreciated the approach and curation

#personal #sineposting

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constellaris-a · 1 year

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i feel the need to kinda stress this to people as of late, because i know there are some people who go about blocking others if they haven’t heard anything from them in like, a week.

as someone on the autism spectrum, with social anxiety, borderline personality disorder and chronic fatigue, keeping up regular social interactions is extremely difficult. more often than not i am fighting with myself just to say hello on any given day, i have so many people to try and keep up with, so many things that need my attention outside of tumblr, outside of the internet as a whole. it feels ... kind of unfair to demand people give you the time of day when you don’t know what’s going on with them at every given moment.

you can be friends with someone, write with someone, without needing to hear from them all the time. on one hand, please don’t misunderstand - everyone has their comfort with things and i’m all for people curating their own spaces to feel content. i’m not here trying to tell people how they should run things or demanding people change their own rules. that isn’t the point in the slightest. i guess more than anything, i just kind of wanted to put forth that, at least in my eyes, putting time gated requirements to remain mutuals or writing partners feels ... well it doesn’t feel right. that’s kind of all i guess.

#⋞ australian ramblings ⊳ ritsu speaks ⋟#;;tbd

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papirouge · 2 years

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@ your previous anon: please stay away from social media. I’ve done that too as a girl who is not attractive I have some injuries and scars and stuff that I won’t get into here. The world especially men online are particularly cruel to us that aren’t models.. and that makes the idea of dating terrifying and avoided. You can curate your media social accounts (if you have to have some) to what you like. Like I like to bake and I’m learning to sew. Seeing that content helps much more. It helps to remember too that you don’t have to get married or be in a relationship if you don’t want to. It’s a weird paradox I’ve seen when girls decide to leave dating altogether so they’re shamed for it. But then we’re also shamed for dating because we’re not enough either. then we’re threatened to settle with a guy that doesn’t even like you or else he’ll just date some younger girl. Makes no sense to me. Like just go date her? but whatever. They make it seem like older single women are a threat to society like how single men are. But I’ve never heard of a single older woman shooting up a public space or stabbing multiple people. They just keep to themselves. It’s double hard I know if you have parents that want grandchildren to hurry up and marry. I have that lol.. but I think those parents aren’t really aware of how dark dating has gotten. A lot of men just aren’t nice or like women in general. Yet they’re told to get one like we’re some item to pick up at the store. To sum up - delete social media if you can. Reddit isn’t a place for women honestly. If you can’t delete all accounts, block any content that you don’t want to see. Your mental health matters

I totally believe that humans were meant to be as much scrutinized as we currently do. Whether this is in the form of self voyeurism (selfies) or comparing ourselves to other's physical appearance. The fact that people are showing more their body than they ever did before doesn't help. I am sure how ancestors weren't fixating over scars or pimples or keeping their hair silky or whatever narcissist crap is getting shoved onto us.

I already said the reason so many people felt so insecure and hollow was because they didn't entertain an actual hobby. And when I say hobby, I'm talking about doing something of your hands. Whether it's gardening, doing ceramics, textile creation, illustration.... I'm a firmly believer that humans were meant to create & learn, not consume. Today most people come back to their house and watch stupid shows on Netflix. A whole agenda set of value and "culture" is getting shoved into their heads. Teenagers didn't start to starve themselves, have reckless sex or lookup porn stars out of a vaccum... People don't have room were they can express themselves.

So yes, curating your media does help A LOT. I never had a TV ever since I left my family home, don't have Netflix or music service subscription. I make my own music playlist on YouTube and practice my crafts (fashion & illustration) whenever I have free time. I don't have personal social media beside Tumblr (I have an Instagram account for my brand but I refuse to have the app on my phone). I also unfollowed/stop visiting websites making me anxious or with toxic communities (even on discord I left a bunch of toxic servers - I only kept a japanese language and pro life group). Result? I don't compare myself to other anymore (mental health improved). Creation is the best medicine against feeelings of inadequacy or FOMO. And the only fields I'm comparing myself to other it's for work (other artists) not aren't immutable traits about myself that I cannot change, which is precisely what breeds so much anxiety and desperation ; you can improve your craft, but you can hardly change your body structure, social status or 'personality'....

Women not killing people or shooting up places for whatever reason is yet another proof that the "women are more emotional then men" is a myth no rooted into reality imo. It's just pure gaslighting lol Not too long ago I've seen a post debunking the claim that women did actually have less car accidents than men and that the saying that women couldn't drive wasn't rooted on objective reality lol Once again, men project their own shortcomings onto other.

#i love when anons do support each other lol #i also have another one that I've yet to answer to I hope she's going to see this ask #I've got the best anons!!🤍🤍#answered

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relacks · 2 years

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Ode to Tumblr.com: brain vomit

First of all I want to thank you - whoever you may be - for reading this. Including my future self. Patrice, you found it valuable to take the time to tippity-type your silly little thoughts onto this weird ass website. To make statements into what seems like the void. To use this as an outlet of expression when all other forms of expression seem too daunting right now.

I’m very grateful for Tumblr and what it’s become, whatever that is. It’s not Instagram, or Twitter, where I would feel the need to self-censor or curate my content as much as possible. (Not that I haven’t tried to achieve a certain aesthetic here.) I don’t really post on those platforms because I feel like people care too much there. Family members, old classmates, new colleagues, that one woman I talked to on Tinder briefly. Do we care here? I sure fucking hope not.

I mean, I care enough to come back, and continue coming back for over a decade of my life. And this wasn’t always the way I used Tumblr.

Disclaimer: I’m gonna be all over the place because I’m now listening to Esperanza Spalding and she might bring about thoughts and evoke feelings I’ve been needing to express for a long time. Anyway ...

I think the fact that I can look at my archive and see how my growth has informed what I shared and posted is a really beautiful thing. From the things I wanted to have and people I wanted to be with or look like. Feelings that I’ve had about the world and myself. And how that’s changed over time.

It is a live record of my ascent out of adolescence. Being able to see what I valued. Seeing myself leave a place of self depreciation, and begin to grow a sense of self acceptance, and then self love. I can visually see when I began to devalue conventional, white beauty standards and embrace who I am and what I look like, and appreciate the beauty of others in this way. I can see where my desires became less superficial and object-oriented.

Ya know, I could keep track of these things and write all of these silly little thoughts in a journal, but first, my hand hurts after like, two pages of writing. And second, there’s a weird release I get when I hit the post button. This piece-of-shit blog is my journal, but a journal that those in my life who know about my blog - or fellow weirdos also on this site - can experience with me. It’s the beauty of being on a public platform that hardly anyone (I know, at least) uses anymore. There’s a sense of intimacy I feel, and that I hope you feel, while you’re reading my brain vomit. (:

All-in-all, I’m loving being able to reflect on what 13-year-old Patrice was feeling, 16-year-old Patrice, 20-year-old Patrice. I’m 24 now, and as long as I don’t end up relacks-deactivated452347567823645, I’ll continue sharing things that I relate to, things that bring me peace, things that make me feel connected to the world. But not so connected that I’m overwhelmed. That’s what Twitter’s for and I’m trying to wean off that shit.

If you see me on here, actively reblogging cute pictures and typing my silly little thoughts with #brainvomit (despite how dark they may get), I’m doing OK. I’m thinking. I’m taking the time to think, and reflect, and breathe, and express. And to have a place to do and share all of this comfortably makes me feel incredibly grateful. Thank you for giving me the space to gush, Tumblr. And thank you reader - including my future self - for taking the time to read.

More vomit to come. 💓

#brainvomit

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fozmeadows · 3 years

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race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.

#race #racism #c-drama #fandom #fan wank #fandom wank #microaggresions #culture #the untamed #bronies #whiteness #ficwriting #fanwriting #cultural bias #discourse

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neon-junkie · 3 years

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Hey everyone,

This will be my final post addressing the fandom conflict that has quite frankly gotten out of hand. Although it’s very likely this post will be picked apart, no matter how well intended it is, I will no longer be addressing, interacting, or responding to any further accusations made against me. Of course, if people have questions from a genuine place of interest, I will be happy to clarify anything for you, either via DM’s or non-anon asks. I will not be answering anonymous asks on this, as I do not want anything else posted on this topic.

As a side note: For anyone tempted to wade into the debate, I sincerely ask you not to get involved. Do not make yourself a target, do not feel you need to ‘pick a side’, and please do not think you have an obligation to reason with either side. It seems to be well past the point of that, so please find people you get along with in this fandom and curate a space for yourself away from all this conflict.

Warning: This post will contain uncensored slurs, mentions of racism, paedophilia, transphobia, LGBTQ+ phobia, death threats, threats of violence, targeted harassment, and abusive language.

To start off, I want to apologise to everyone who has somehow gotten drawn into this mess by either defending me, following me, or interacting with my content. This whole situation with me began well over a year ago when I wrote a crack-smut fic featuring Javier/Micah, posted back in August 2019. A crack fic is defined as “a work of fan fiction that is absurd, surprising or ridiculous, often intentionally.” It was inspired by a camp interaction between Micah and Javier, and like many other fanfiction writers, I decided to write smut about it. The fic was titled ‘Dirty Fucking Greaser’, and if that shocks you, I’m sure you can imagine how shocked I was to be informed afterwards that ‘Greaser’ was in fact a very serious 19th century slur for a Mexican individual. My first encounter with this word as insult was via RDR2, where it was used like a very casual insult. My only prior knowledge of this term was in regards to the greasers youth subculture, so the severity was lost on me. This obviously does not excuse my ignorance, and I should have researched the term better, but this is just again to apologize for that oversight, the insensitivity, and to highlight that my use of this term was not meant maliciously. Following this being pointed out, I proceeded to make 3 separate apology posts [Unfortunately I can only find the third one: HERE], renamed the fic, and added slur warnings in both the tags and the fic description. When I continued to receive complaints and increasingly aggressive abuse (which included being told my apologies weren’t good enough and I should delete my account and even kill myself), I attempted to delete the fic and mistakenly abandoned it instead. I contacted AO3 to see if it could be removed, but they said there was nothing they could do. I contacted their DMCA takedown team, who also said they couldn't remove it. Please note that all this happened 7-8 months ago, and has been dragged on for almost a year.

So, from this one unfortunate incident, I’ve been branded a racist, and someone who attacks POC, when all I have done is tried to defend myself and correct my past mistakes. I could have done this more gracefully in the past, but frankly when you’re suddenly the target of unrelenting callout posts and nasty anons, it’s very hard to be open to criticism of this sort, but this is what I’m trying to move past.

Over the course of the year, this one mistake has spiralled, and the crusade against me has somehow coincided with moral conflicts over certain characters and ships. This has devolved into dehumanizing abuse, witch hunts, death threats, doxxing, anon hate, and much more unpleasant behaviour.

I have been in fandom for a very long time, and at the heart of all fandom circles is the fear of censorship and subsequent purges, so the ‘ship and let ship’ mentality was more or less the pinnacle of fandom philosophy. And yes, this can be problematic in some contexts. People have their right to be uncomfortable with content, have a right to be offended by content, but that is not content meant for you. This argument has devolved into ‘what material is morally right to engage with’ and that is a mentality in which fandom will not survive, because for every person who is telling me I’m an awful person for writing about Micah, there are three other people telling me how much they appreciate me making that content. For every fic in which I characterize Javier and Flaco a certain way, some people are made uncomfortable by it and others tell me they enjoy it. And this isn’t just white people, but POC too, which makes it very difficult to know whether I am genuinely in the right or the wrong, especially when it comes to the concept of ‘fetishization’ which I have been made aware I need to educate myself on. I intend to do so, but I disagree with the common accusation that finding non-white men romantically and sexually attractive is inherently fetishistic and makes me racist. It’s pushing a catch-22; don’t find POC sexually attractive? Racist. Find POC sexually attractive? Racist.

I am always willing to be (politely) approached about anything my readers may be concerned about, but if it’s something I’ve specifically tagged for (such as themes, scenarios, etc.) I’m afraid you consented to reading it and with that I cannot help you. You are just as responsible for curating your space and what you see/read just as much as I am responsible for tagging it appropriately.

On the topic of racism, I want to bring up my prior use of ‘white racism’ which has obviously been a point of contention among both white and people of colour. The (literal) black vs white concept of racism is incredibly American-centric, and as someone from Europe, which has a history of oppression against white cultures and those of people of colour, it feels inaccurate. However, this has recently been discussed with me and I came to the realization that while growing up, especially in the UK, ‘xenophobia’ and ‘racism’ were marketed as one and the same. So, with this little revelation in mind, I will no longer be using ‘white racism’ (Or ‘reverse racism’) to identify the abuse I have been receiving, but will instead call it by what it really is; dehumanizing, debasing, xenophobic, puritanical.

Very briefly, I will also touch on the NewAustin situation, which has also been dredged into this. I did not ‘chase a POC from tumblr’. NA was a minor who for some reason was on my 18+ blog and took issue with me, likely from the ongoing discourse regarding my fic and initial mistake, as well as my interest in Micah. They were subsequently harassed into deleting their account by anonymous hate following various conflicts with other users for their support of me or their ships in general. I have never encouraged my followers to target anyone, and have always asked to be blocked and blacklisted by those who do not like me or my content. When NewAustin messaged me following the deletion of their blog, I was admittedly indifferent to the point of being unkind, and accused them of sending the hate themselves. This was based on the anon hate being racially-driven without there being any prior knowledge or publication that NA was a person of colour. This aside, I should have at the time, whether I believed it was my followers or not, condemned this behaviour. Regardless of the issues I’ve had with these people, it is never ever ok to send hate to anyone, no matter the motivation behind it, and that should have been stated at the time.

All I can do at this point is acknowledged and apologize for my past mistakes, and try to improve myself going forward.

It is not my place to dictate the morals of the character/ship-aspect of this argument, and I am not interested in waging a war of opinion. This post is simply to clarify how I am involved in this, and why I am so viscerally targeted. You can draw your own conclusions, but I am no longer interested in this endless back and forth.

To my mutuals/followers, I stand by my request to not interact and to block and move on, as this is what I’ll be doing too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope it makes things from my perspective a little clearer.

-RAT <3

EDIT: Just after this post was made, the fic in question was finally removed. I had to go through a DMCA take down, which can take months, since I originally abandoned the fic, thinking that meant delete. I explain this in more detail above. Said fic is gone, and has been gone since this post has been around.

#the tea #apology #long post

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wolfstar-in-color · 3 years

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June Creator Spotlight: BigBlackDog

Hello, colorful cuties, and welcome to our first creator spotlight!!

Each month, we will highlight a different creator in our lovely fandom who features diverse characterizations. We will invite you to get to know them better through questions and answers, Fandom Discourse(tm), and a featured prompt created by our guest!!!

For our first spotlight, we are more than pleased to highlight the incredible work of bigblackdog!!! See a little snippet of this wonderful interview below, along with bigblackdog’s prompt! Look below the cut for our complete interview. Don’t forget to share and interact with this post, and if you have anyone you’d like to recommend for a spotlight, shoot us an ask! You can find our first guest’s Tumblr here.

“I've experienced ups and downs in the wolfstar fandom. It often feels like the wolfstar fandom is willing to engage in discussion about every political issue but race. And the few people who are trying to talk about race consistently encounter this silence.”

bigblackdog’s prompt: I want to see more latino characters who are not impoverished or criminalized. Give me a joyful latino/e remus!

Hello, I'm bigblackdog! I'm almost 30, and I've been active in fandom on various platforms for about seven years now. I'm latina/e and live in the u.s. with a small white dog.

Q: How did you start creating in the fandom? What did you wish to bring into the fandom?

A: Like a lot of fans I started with self insert fic as a middle schooler. Sometimes the practice of self-insert gets ragged on in fandom, as if you're not doing real character work, but I think it's really cool. And if you're an under represented identity in the traditional western canon of literature, self insert is a radical practice. Making space for yourself in a story that refuses or ignores your identities is a radical act. And that's what i want to bring to fandom-- disruption and self care.

Q: What things about s/r as characters or in their relationship inspire you to create around them?

A: Wolfstar was the first queer ship I was introduced to. I wasn't someone who arrived in fandom with my own robust queer reading skills, I needed other queers to hold my hand and introduce me to queer ships and how to find them and build them. My interest in r/s was simply a clinging to queerness I wasn't finding in other places. I really think it could have been any characters, as long as they were queer.

Q: What things would you like to highlight about the Wolfstar fandom and your experience in it?

A: I've experienced ups and downs in the wolfstar fandom. It often feels like the wolfstar fandom is willing to engage in discussion about every political issue but race. And the few people who are trying to talk about race consistently encounter this silence. It's hard not to feel bitter. But i've also met some amazing people and overall feel that fans really are trying their best to be welcoming and inclusive.

Q: What type of content do you wish you saw more in the fandom?

A: I want to see more discourse that aims at amplifying underrepresented voices like wolfstar-in-color. I want to see more fans of color joyfully and irreverently writing themselves into the magical world!

Q: What is your favourite wolfstar fancontent (fic/fanart/gifset/etc) and how does it inspire you?

A: I love dontthinkonithermione's rp. Not only does she do an amazing nerdy know it all Hermione, she envisions Black characters in every corner of the hp world. Have you seen her Hogwarts p.e. professor rps? i love the space she creates for herself, and the joy she does it with.

Q: Which of your own identities inform your creative processes? How has that process been for you?

A: I started out in fandom really trying to feel out the nooks and crannies of being queer. As i've spent more time in fandom and become more confident in my queerness I've started looking closer at some of my other identities-- Latina, mixed, adhd-- and how i can squeeze them into the hp world. For a long time it was hard, especially with being Latine and mixed, to envision how that identity could belong in a 90s British boarding school in the Scottish wilderness. I also really struggled with the feeling that i would get "diversity" wrong. I’ve also struggled with feeling like I have to write diversity because i'm an underrepresented voice. Brown people are often pressured to do the work of educating white people about racism and in fandom spaces that often means pressure to write the reality of racism instead of the fantasy that white writers get to play with. And sometimes i just want to write a pwp without worrying about the revolution, you know? But i really love fandom for its refusal to play by the rules of capitalism and canon, eventually i started to feel like putting more of myself into my writing was another rule i could break.

Q: What advice do you have for other content creators with diverse backgrounds in the fandom? What would you say to people that might feel they don’t have the “right” history/experience/characteristics to participate in the creation of content related to Wolfstar?

First, there's a lot of content on tumblr that aims to silence your voice, learn how to recognize the difference between cancel culture and encouragement. Sometimes content that seems well meaning still presents writing diversity as a list of black and white rules (and virtue signaling) instead of encouragement for underrepresented voices to share their own messy experience. Set those rules gently aside. Second, fandom is built on the idea that the author isn't the only person who gets to play. we all get to play. It doesn't always feel like we were invited, but the great thing about fandom is there is no barrier to entry, no prior experience or publishing hoops to jump through. This is our playground too. If canon is dead then why can't our stories be brown and queer and neurodivergent? Third, find your people. i've found that having just one other person to talk about race with has made the whole space feel more welcoming.

Q: How could we build a more diverse fandom?

A: We have to stop prioritizing white and cis male voices. We recognize that policing irl is a problem inextricable from whiteness and maleness, but we don't see that fandom policing online is also a problem deeply embedded in whiteness and maleness. White and cis male people frequently use their discomfort with difficult topics to change the subject from a critical discussion to one that prioritizes their white and/or male feelings. The same thing happens online when personal discomfort is used to cancel or undermine content that's challenging to a white or male voice. White and cis male voices are used to having their needs met above others. And we still cater to that in fandom spaces when we privilege 'fetishization' discourse over racial discourse. When we lift up bipoc and women/trans/nb voices and the issues they're concerned with we'll make fandom a more welcoming place for underrepresented voices.

Q: What’s your favourite thing to modify in Sirius’s or Remus’s characterizations to bring new perspectives to them?

A: It really depends on the story i'm writing and what issue i'm trying to figure out. Sometimes i need Sirius to be Adhd to come to terms with my brain, sometimes i need two brown boys to fall in love and be happy against all odds.

Q: What does diversity mean to you? What does that encompass in fannish spaces?

A: This is a hard question! I tend to think of diversity as those voices that are disenfranchised or pushed to the margins. And fannish spaces have all the same hierarchies and blind spots as other spaces. In fannish spaces there's the idea that you can curate your experience to some extent, but for marginalized voices, at least in my experience, no matter how much you curate the marginalization is still there.

Q: What are your ideas about the notions of culture and ethnicity? How do you relate to those notions?

A: There was a time in my life where relating to my ethnicity was largely a process of recognizing larger systems of oppression and how they worked against my various identities. And for a while it was a really helpful way to frame my experiences. Now I feel a little less attached to ethnicity as like, a monolithic concept threaded through my whole life and more attached to the small things that I enjoy about my ethnicity and culture-- making a really good pot of beans, for example.

Q: Leave us with a quote or work of art that always inspires you.

A: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." Audre Lorde

#creator spotlight #bigblackdog #bigblackdogfic #wolfstar #fandom #diversity

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themonkeycabal · 3 years

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Actually, I appreciate your eschewing the panic response? For whatever sentiment is attached to the upcoming (voluntary) changes, this site in particular has been through multiple evolutions and iterations, and we're still here. Thanks for rejecting the negativity.

Thanks. I'll level with you, I could have been more proactive myself in my response to this. I lost my temper today after umpteenth 'let's all shit on tumblr' post, and I probably should have cooled off and come up with something more constructive. But, MAN!, the entitlement. Phew. Gets me right up the nose.

So, here’s what a more rational me will say:

There are always valid concerns about fandom works being on the knife edge of copyright law. Having these discussions periodically is good and healthy and it's how we pass on the knowledge of the things that came before. Talk to tumblr if you're concerned. Help come up with a system to protect fandom and fandom works, making them freely available and enjoyable by all and not obliterated by Disney. And also help original artists expand their home on tumblr to make this a viable platform to share works from artists of all stripes. Patreon and ko-fi are not really great platforms for showing off, but tumblr can be. So, why not see how this works before condemning it out of hand?

I honestly think that's what tumblr is trying to do -- they're trying to build this as much more artist friendly and attractive. And also, not a giant money hole. Tumblr doesn't owe you anything and it doesn't owe you pouring their money down the drain just so you can post your memes in peace. There has to be an understanding. It's not evil corporatism to want to pay the server bills.

Tumblr is not perfect, but instead of a temper tantrum and threats to boycott, why not ... talk to them? The kneejerk anger and hostility to anything they do is very old and not helpful. Honestly, what's to stop them going "fuck it" and pulling the plug? They're trying to make this the home of fandom online because that's the niche fans have set for it, this is very much a fandom space, so how to make that viable? That's what we're all in the middle of here on tumblr now; everybody trying to figure out what the future is for this place.

I know it's de rigueur to make fun of tumblr, but I like it here. It's WAY better than any other social media hellhole. Like WAY better. If you curate your experience here, it's a downright happy place.

Like what you like, love what you love, create what you create, and let's just gently nudge tumblr when it starts to wander into the brambles and maybe this site will last longer than another minute.

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aegialia · 3 years

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self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill.

for good:

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby.

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting.

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends.

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me.

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness.

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories.

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me.

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

#gloomth and circumstance #this is definitely not required reading!#i just felt like rambling for a very long time about my feelings and my blog #w bonus blog trivia at the bottom that amuses me and probably no one else

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duhragonball · 3 years

Text

Disinterpretation

I finally finished the Sarah Z video about “pro vs. anti”. It’s pretty long, and I ended up watching it in chunks over several days, but I think it’s worth watching, especially if you’re sort of partially connected to online fandom, but not enough to be aware of all the lingo.

As I expected, the whole thing was vague and confusing because the people involved in the conflict made it vague and confusing. In theory, the full terms would be “pro-shipping” and “anti-shipping”, but it seems like it’s more about particular kinds of ships that could be considered controversial. But that’s a slippery slope, and apparently the whole conflict mutated into both sides deciding that every hypothetical relationship between fictional characters is either equally valid or equally dangerous.

Long story short, it’s just purity culture, which was what everyone on Tumblr was calling it around 2012. But now, if you’re a sane person who genuinely asks: “Who gives a fuck about Voltron?”, these people will jump your ass and accuse you of being on the side of their enemies. “Children have died over the importance of Lotor/Hagger! Your callous indifference proves that you yourself must have murdered children!”

I think what Sarah Z really hit upon in this video was that media consumption has become so ingrained in our culture that people feel like it has to go hand-in-hand with our morality. That is, it’s not enough for me to watch Star Trek, I have to justify Star Trek as evidence that I’m a good person. Maybe this is where the expression “guilty pleasure” comes from. Conversely, it’s not enough for me to not watch Dr. Who, I have to somehow convince everyone that Dr. Who was invented by the devil.

I’m pretty sure the Reylo ship has a lot to do with this, since it’s kind of understood to be a dark, problematic concept, and fans either embrace its flaws or recoil in horror because of them. Star Wars itself is a dumb story about space wizards, so people try to give the debate more weight by linking it to freedom of self expression and/or enabling real world harm. Suddenly it’s not enough to just think two actors would look cute making out instead of fighting. Now it’s this battlefield for the soul of civilization or something.

I grew up in the 80′s, when “concerned parents” and grifters would accuse the Smurfs and metal bands of promoting satanism and witchcraft. I used to hear stories of teens going out into the woods in the middle of the night to do occult stuff, and all I could ever think about was: “Why would anyone bother wandering out in the woods in the middle of the night?” Which is why “concerned parents” turned their attention to things that were closer to home, like Saturday morning cartoons. It had nothing to do with the content; it was just about finding a safe, accessible target for their hysteria. Some people want to go on a crusade without leaving the house, so they pick a fight with Papa Smurf instead of confronting the real evils in the world. Even as a kid, I knew this was a con, because I’d watched the show for myself and knew it was too saccharine to be threat to anyone.

The pro/anti folks have tried to disguise this with a lot of terminology. I wondered why they seemed to reluctant to use the full terms “pro-shipper” and “anti-shipper”, and it’s probably a couple of things. First, the word “shipper” is basically an admission that this is pointless bullshit that doesn’t matter, and they’d like to avoid that connotation. Second, they seem to have decided that this goes beyond shipping itself, into practically anything else they want it to involve. It’s all part of the con, which is to make you believe that it’s “us vs. them”, and you can be part of “us” by curating specific attitudes about Steven Universe.

Seriously, “about Steven Universe” is such an incredible punchline. You can make anything funnier by adding those three words to the end of a sentence. “Do not interact if you blog about Steven Universe.” “Hey, what’s up, YouTube, this is SSJ3RyokoLover69, and this is going to be kind of a serious video about Steven Universe.” “Mrs. Johnson, the results of your biopsy are in, and I have some bad news about Steven Universe.” It’s a fucking kids show. “Oh no, all the characters look like the characters in all the other kids shows!” Yeah, that’s because it’s a kids show. Marvin looks like Garfield, this isn’t new.

The common denominator here seems to be that both sides try to wrap themselves in the flag of vulnerable groups: impressionable minors, trauma survivors, harassment victims, etc. The “pros” want to protect those people so that they can feel free to explore weird subject matter on their own terms, and the “antis” want to protect the same people from being exposed to weird subject matter that they might not want to see. It’s all about establishing a moral high ground. Back in the day, it was called “sanctimony”.

But people get roped into this, because at their core, people want approval, and this stupid conflict offers them a sense of community. As long as you support the cause, whatever it may be, you’ll have this online friend network that appears to support anything you do. But if you deviate from their norm, you’ll be cast out. Does this sound familiar?

To use a more familiar example, I still sometimes find people clamoring about Gochi vs. Vegebul. I’ve never understood this, because both ships were canon, and I never saw much direct evidence of a war between them, but people would still talk about how crazy the Vegebul shippers were, and how crazy the Gochi shippers were, and it was like some huge thing going on just over the hills. It’s the same idea, since the idea that you could like both or neither never seems to occur to anyone involved. I never gave a shit, because I used to see the same dumb agendas in the Harry Potter fandom.

Okay, so let me take you back. It’s 2005 through 2011, and I’m hateblogging all seven Harry Potter novels, because fuck you, that’s why. The funny thing I encountered was that occasionally fans seemed to want to pretend like my bashing of certain characters was proving them right somehow. They were like “See? He hates Ron Weasley too! That proves that Seamus Finnegan is the coolest guy ever.” The Slytherin stans would do this all the time, because I would constantly take the piss out of the Gryffindor characters for being self-important dopes. I think they just liked hearing it from an outside perspective. But I had to keep reminding them all that I hated all of them. Every character from Harry Potter sucks ass. Voldemort was my favorite, but only because he was the one guy who wanted to kill all of the others. But he sucks too because he failed.

And the shippers were the same way. I’d say something shitty about Ron, because Ron sucks, and some smartass Joss Whedon fan would be like “Yes! Boost the signal! That is why Harry/Hermione is the best ship!” And I’d be like “No, Harry and Hermione suck at least as bad as Ron does. They’re all terrible and I hate them.” I really do think there was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with Harry Potter books, where everyone secretly knows they suck, but the fans sort of latch on to one or two characters and go like “Well, he’s not as shitty as the rest.” Like finding spaghetti in the trash and picking out the meatball with the least amount of lint on it. Then you’d go and start a flamewar with some other starving person over whether your meatball is shittier than theirs. This is what people mean when they say to read another book.

Anyway, the big thing I picked up from Sarah Z’s video is “disinterpretation”, a term coined by MSNBC columnis Zeeshan Aleem. The Twitter thread is worth a read, but the short version is that he once remarked that a Julia Louis-Dreyfus routine wasn’t very good, and someone got mad at him for insinuating that women are incapable of being funny. They just took his dissatisfaction with one performance by one comedian as being a universal condemnation of women comedians in general. And this sort of thing is all over the internet. Everyone sees what they want to see and then they take it as permission to overreact.

I ran into this myself a while back, because someone saw who I interacted with on Twitter and decided that they’re all bad guys and if I have any interaction with them, then that makes me a bad guy too. At the time I tried to play it cool, but the more I think about it, the more it ticks me off. And over the course of that conversation, it was said that I don’t talk about myself much, and that’s kind of funny, because all I ever do on social media is write long-ass blog posts like this one. I don’t expect anyone to memorize them, or even read them all the way through, but when I write all this stuff and someone goes out of their way to say they don’t know anything about me, the message is that they just didn’t pay attention to what I was saying, and they didn’t bother to try.

So I’m a little jaded from that, because I got called out for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even do or say, and apparently that’s just a thing that happens. People will reject you for completely arbitrary reasons, not because of anything you actually said or did, and you’re left thinking you made some terrible mistake. Except, no, I’ve seen it happen to other people, people a lore more conscientious than I am, and if they can’t satisfy the bullshit purity standards, then I never stood a chance. If the game is rigged so I can’t win, then I’m not going to play.

And it’s that same condition that probably draws people into these online holy wars, because if you declare yourself for the pro or anti side, at least then you’ll have a posse backing you up. Only they don’t support you, they support your willingness to support them. Once your commitment to their agenda wavers, even in the slightest, they will turn against you.

Sarah Z suggests that both sides of the war drop the pro and anti terms, since they lost all meaning long ago. But that just invites a new set of useless terms to perpetuate the same cycle. Her more useful advice is for fandom people to broaden their horizons. She got a lot of flak for tweeting “Go outside” once, but the ironic thing is that it’s sound advice. I had lunch with my mom yesterday and it was just nice getting away from things for a while. People need to do that more often, and unfortunately it feels like it’s harder to do than ever before.

But “go outside” isn’t just a literal thing. It can mean going beyond your usual haunts, reading the same books, watching the same shows, rehashing the same conversations. I think the reason this stuff always revolves around “shipping” is because there seems to be this deep-seated compulsion to pair fictional characters off like this, and for a lot of folks it’s the only way they can consume a story, so they do. And they do it lot, and there’s a lot of them, and they do it the same way every time, and lo and behold the same old conflicts start up. So maybe “go outside” should mean “go outside of that cycle once in a while.” Just a thought.

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