#How is it you can recognize that they've co-opted the language of social justice and that that doesn't mean social justice is bad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teaveetamer · 8 months

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How much of the Edel backlash/discourse is rooted in fandom misogyny and how much of it is rooted in having opinions soured due to people justifying her actions and doubling down via harassment/stalking and spewing out hateful rhetoric? Cause I've seen people saying the dislike towards Edel proves that the fandom can't handle "female characters who are evil or flawed and make mistakes " when I think it's moreso "people are justifying her bad/villainous actions and saying it good actually and doubling down on it."

This is going to be two things.

First:

Was/is there probably misogyny ingrained in some parts of the fandom that don't like Edelgard? Sure.

Would they have been dicks about Edelgard and women in general regardless of anything Edelgard fans said or did? Probably, yeah, that's how shitty people work.

Was it the majority of people who didn't like/criticized Edelgard? Probably not.

Did it help anything to just blanket accuse everyone who didn't like her of being misogynists? Absolutely not.

There are absolutely valid criticisms of her writing and how some of her fans treat her, but lumping every criticism together as "misogyny" fundamentally lacks nuance and exists to shut all criticism down, valid or not. And it does so in a way that is not only designed to say "I don't agree with you", it's also meant to say "therefore you are a bad person." You're attaching a moral dimension to media critique that was not necessarily present, nor did it need to be. Most of us can recognize the coded insult there.

That's obviously going to make things more heated right off the bat. Cuz, you know, most people don't like it when you come out the gate saying "I think you're a horrible person". So the people getting shit on by Edelgard fans get annoyed and push back, which causes the fans to push back harder, on and on and on.

The second point here is where I maybe risk being controversial.

I'm going to preface this by saying this isn't necessarily something I think is good/agree it's an okay thing to do, it's just my observation from my time in the fandom and knowing how internet culture works.

Second:

You have to acknowledge to some extent that Edelgard diehards are primo troll targets.

Like okay okay, hear me out.

You know why Edelgard discourse continues to fascinate and amuse despite everything? Cuz most people don't take this shit that seriously, but they think it's hilarious to make fun of people who do. Edelgard diehards just do not know when to quit, and they've been identified by 99% of the fandom as people who are easy (and occasionally entertaining) to poke at and incite a reaction from.

Their obsession with co-opting the language of social justice just enhances that further by making them come off as incredibly oversensitive about something that actually doesn't matter that much.

It's the heady cocktail of misplaced self-righteousness, the way they're so sensitive and easily hurt/offended, the obsessive need to argue every point, and categorical refusal to stop until they are 100% agreed with. It basically makes them PRIME troll targets. It's like. God it's not even fair. Edelgard fans are like those tech support scammers and arguing with them is like being one of those youtubers that gives the scammers the run around for hours on end just to fuck with them.

And like? It perpetuates itself because where an individual might come to the realization that they're arguing with a troll and they look fucking ridiculous, the Edelgard fandom is a community that consistently reinforces reacting to every single situation about Edelgard in the most terminally online manner. I mean go on their server they pat each other on the back constantly and congratulate themselves for "sticking it to the haterz" for stalking and harassing people, not realizing that at BEST 95% of the wider community is laughing their asses off at how ridiculous they look, and at worst 95% of the wider community growing increasingly hostile toward them every passing minute because of their behavior.

I mean. I didn't exactly advertise this but last year I got some amusement out of posting Dimitri-positive meta to my main blog. Because I noticed every time I posted anything positive about Dimitri in the tag it would get a responding anti-Dimitri screed from Raxy within 2-5 business days. And I was posting those because I genuinely like Dimitri and wanted to spread positivity, but I will not lie. It was fucking hilarious. I laughed my ass off watching him get so mad over just the concept of someone saying something nice about Dimitri. It's ridiculously easy to set these people off. Every time someone they don't like breathes they feel the need to write a screed and flip out.

Which like, it's not fun to be on the receiving end of getting stalked and harassed and having screeds written about your every opinion... but yeah if I were detached from the situation I can see why it would be amusing. I mean even typing this out I find it kind of darkly amusing.

And I'm not saying everyone that dislikes Edelgard is a troll (I'm certainly not in it to poke bears and get reactions) but like? I wouldn't be surprised if there were trolls who just jumped on the discourse as soon as they realized how damn easy it is to get Edelgard diehards riled up. Think of how many 3H discourse posts have some variation on the "don't mind me, just getting some popcorn" comments.

So the discourse gets perpetuated, by some actors, purely for amusement. It doesn't just happen to Edelgard fans either, but I'd say in general they're significantly easier to bait and rattle. I mean there's literally a dozen blogs on Tumblr no one gave a shit about that managed to do it without even trying. Just by like. Existing and having opinions they didn't like.

Like, genuinely, the more I think on it the more absurd it gets. There's so little you're actually required to do in order to piss them off. It's kind of amazing.

I'd say you can see a microcosm of this every time Edelgard loses a voting gauntlet in FEH. There are dozens of characters who have lost numerous voting gauntlets, but Edelgard is usually the one that gets the most energy put toward making fun of her for losing. And you know why? Because her diehard fans extremely consistently go into a tailspin whenever it happens and people find that funny as fuck.

Chrom loses his 15th voting gauntlet, there's a meme, and everyone laughs and moves on. Edelgard loses her 5th voting gauntlet, there's a meme, and then there's a full blown meltdown in the comment section and screaming about how everyone is evil and misogynistic and queerphobic for days on end. Now not only can you make jokes about her losing, you can make jokes about the terminally online fans losing their goddamn minds over her losing.

And again I'm not saying that's a good thing or that it should happen... but I feel like emotionally mature adults should also be able to recognize when maybe they're being a little too over-invested in the internet waifu war and acknowledge when it's time to write off certain people/opinions as not worth your time to care about.

And you know, some of it is that there's actual things to talk about and controversial conversations can get heated. But there's been things to talk about in every game ever released and it only seems to hit critical mass when you combine the co-opting of social justice language to "prove" the haters wrong with the need to argue your point aggressively and endlessly despite all evidence indicating that it's probably time to give it a rest.

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