thistlearts

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Moral purity and imaginative resistance as influencing factors in fandom 'anti' attitudes

Jessica Black et al.'s 2019 experiment on the correlation between enjoying dark/villainous characters, personal morality and purity beliefs, and imaginative resistance is so interesting when applying it to anti culture and fandom.

They created a Dark Character Scale where participants self-selected how strongly in agreement or disagreement they were with a series of statements about dark or villainous fictional characters. Some of these questions were the following:

"I enjoy films and books that feature main characters that choose morally questionable actions."

"I can often understand where the bad guys in fiction are coming from."

"My favourite fictional characters are morally ambiguous and often do horrible things."

They then utilised the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al. 2011) to see what participants considered important when deciding on whether something is morally right or wrong, for example:

Whether or not someone suffers emotionally

Whether or not someone did something disgusting*

Whether or not someone was cruel

Whether or not someone was denied [their] rights

Whether or not someone acted in a way God would approve of*

as well as how strongly participants agreed or disagreed with statements such as:

Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue

People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed*

It can never be right to kill a human being

I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural*

Respect for authority is something all children need to learn.

One of the final scales participants used was the Black & Barnes (2017) Imaginative Resistance Scale. This is basically used to gauge how resistant the reader is to enjoying or consuming fictional content that contains characters, situations, or worldbuilding that they personally find morally disagreeable. They had to select how strongly they agreed/disagreed with questions like:

Reading books where bad things are depicted as morally acceptable makes me feel dirty

I just can't go along with a story when it violates my beliefs about morality

At times it feels like the author of a book is asking me to endorse actions that I know are wrong

Some things just shouldn't be done, even within a book

I sometimes cannot go along with a story when the "good" characters do morally reprehensible things

Sympathising with immoral characters makes me feel immoral myself.

Unsurprisingly, analysis of the data revealed that there was a strong correlation between disliking or not enjoying dark fictional characters or villains and having a higher purity morality score and more imaginative resistance.

They performed this test in three studies done on three completely different demographics - the first being mostly liberal women from social media sites, the second being mostly younger conservative college undergrads, and the third being adults split 50/50 in gender recruited from MTurk. All three studies showed that having stronger imaginative resistance and higher purity morality scores is directly linked to a lower score on the DCS - meaning that they would like or enjoy dark fictional characters and their actions less.

This tracks pretty well with what can be seen in the emerging anti culture within fandom:

Self-identified 'antis' are likely to agree strongly with the statements from the Imaginative Resistance Scale, and are more likely to score highly on the questions in Moral Foundations Questionnaire that are specifically demarcated as being concerned with purity (marked above with an asterisk *). This means that they are also, according to these studies, much more likely to disagree with dark fictional characters and their actions.

There is also a very interesting point in one of the discussions areas where Black et al. state "It is worth reiterating that the participants in Study 2 tended to be more conservative, and therefore potentially more likely to have greater concerns about moral purity" which tracks with what people in fandom have been saying about antis parroting conservative/puritan talking points and arguments.

What I find the most interesting is the following statement:

"However, moral purity and imaginative resistance are consistently positively correlated, both in the current studies and in prior research ... and are both likely to reflect a fear of moral contagion that would discourage people from identifying with and liking [dark fictional characters]."

This, when applied to antis, suggests that antis may harbor the subconscious belief that enjoying dark fictional content, and therefore being a 'proshipper', is literally psychically contagious. They may view this as some kind of moral disease which is spreading and infecting fandom, which could explain why they are so vehemently against it - fear. This is the puritan Moral Panic all over again.

Black et al. also discuss theories of fictional engagement and parasocial relationships/identification, and whether these studies is relevant to "when and for whom fictional engagement could have the potential to negatively affect real world attitudes or behaviour".

Jessica Black and Jennifer Barnes often publish articles together and have some incredibly interesting reading of morality and fiction that I'd be interested to see applied to fandom and anti culture in an academic setting. Perhaps some people in the field like Samantha Aburime (@rainystudios) are already looking into it - and I'm hoping I can do the same in my studies.

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gahan + text posts

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Don't think I should be drawing something I've only watched once but👍👍👍 (remembering nothing + having to find references is a pain)

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I haven't been very active in fandom due to personal reasons, but I'm still with TDJ in my heart and soul and I plan to return with more art. This drama is amazing. Both emotionally, and visually. It's an incredible source of inspiration to me. It has incredible storytelling, character development, and homoeroticism. It's a masterpiece in all possible ways. From cinematography to an incredible soundtrack. It's top quality. I think this fandom will last much more than a couple of years.

Everytime I meet my friends, they will be surprised that the TDJ fandom has lasted so long. And to think it is able to do so with just one season, 16 episodes, and nothing more after that.

They will ask me why? And I thought that I will pass the question on to the rest of you.

Why?

We are still here even though the drama finished airing after 2021. And I still see fics being written on AO3 as well.

#the devil judge #kang yohan x kim gaon #lawful husbands #gahan #yohan x gaon

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New story with a cover art by me is out there!

#illustration #digital art #book cover #book cover artist #trans mc #trans representation #m/m romance #achillean #indie books #vampire romance

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the thing about gay bdsm dynamics is they will make explicit what is implicit in normative cisheterosexual dynamics and then those complicit in cisheterosexuality will act all scandalized about seeing themselves in the funhouse mirror

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I can cook. It's somewhat my hobby. Because all the artsy stuff is my everyday job, and I was looking for a hobby. So I ended up cooking restaurant-quality meals from time to time. When I feel like it. And mostly for somebody else because I like them. But I hate cooking daily, tbh. Definitely wouldn't starve, though.

I'm curious. Reblog this if you know how to cook

I don’t even care if it’s macaroni, ramen or those little bowls you stick in the microwave. Please, I need reassurance that most of the population on tumblr WOULDN’T STARVE TO DEATH if their parents couldn’t fix them food or they couldn’t go out to eat. 

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They are forever in my heart.

Erik turns and gives Xavier a warm smile.

X-Men (2000) | Dark Phoenix (2019)

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It had SUCH strong BDSM vibe that I can't see it any other way. I wish purity culture allowed me to post my art that includes what I think about this ship openly.

My favourite genre of gay people is "They didn't have bdsm sex onscreen but, bdsm elements are always lurking in the corner and haunting the narrative through thinly veiled visual metaphorical implication."

#mature #The Devil Judge #Gahan #Kang Yo Han #Kim Ga On #maturesexy #suggestive #18+ only

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I'm so excited and happy that so much of the fandom community has learned that things like consent and aftercare are very important when having sex. Now, if we could just learn that you only have to include these things in your fictional porn if you find them hot, we'd really be on to something.

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I can't put into words how much I want to have energy and time again to make NSFW art and post it on Patreon. And also some snippets here. I want to draw hot gay men ravaging each other again.

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I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

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After 1,5 years of bureaucratic struggle we finally got all legal stuff finalised

It feels surreal we’re considered extremists in our home country as well as my husband’s book is banned

Our new life is now here in the quiet old European town

That was a hell of a ride. Wow.

Life didn’t prepare me to actually having to flee a nazi regime. I mean… in real life.

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Here's a new cover art I did for a short Achillean vampire novella

#illustration #digital art #book cover artist #book cover #mlm art #mlm books #achillean #art