#doing a deep dive into this man has me parasocial | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

with-the-flickers-of-light · 1 year

Text

Ok, so.

[deep breath]

Since this is a Taylor Swift fan blog (even if it's one with zero (0) followers), it feels important to address my thoughts on the Matty Healy situationship.

Warning, this is going to be a post critical of the relationship. I absolutely do not believe that being a fan means that I have to support all of Swift's decisions. Also, content warning for swearing, light discussion of exploitative/abusive pornography, anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and just general shittiness.

If you want anything tagged or fact-checked, please let me know!

Before diving in, my general thoughts on celebrity relationships:

As a general rule, I don't believe in speculating about celebrities' relationships. I am only really looking into Healy now since the publicization of the Swift/Healy relationship seems to be quite intentional at this point. And while I don't believe in holding women to a higher standard than men, or in erasing their professional achievements to gossip about their personal lives, I also believe that we as consumers get to choose who we support. Professionals are entitled to privacy, yes, but "privacy" is not a free pass to ignore moral wrongs.

For me, my basic stance is that I understand "The Man", but that many of the behaviors discussed therein should not be appropriate for anyone, whether a man or not. So no, this isn't about me being a misogynist and overriding Swift's professional achievements with gossip about her love life. This is about me pointing out that no one is free from accountability -- whether or not the media holds you accountable, somebody will.

I do believe the rich and famous have at least some responsibility to do good in the world. You have privilege, you have a platform. Hell, the world could refuse to ever give you another cent and you'd probably remain better-off for the rest of your life than most people. And especially if you choose to cultivate parasocial relationships with your fans, you have to realize that making shitty choices will feel like personal betrayals to them. As a celebrity, you know that your public decisions will be held under scrutiny and that they will impact the general population, because you hold influence.

And finally, on the nature of romantic relationships: I identify as aromantic-asexual, so I will be the first to admit that I do not understand all the urges that go into dubiously intelligent relationships. Nonetheless, I hold that while attraction may be involuntary, a relationship is a choice. (There are, of course, cases of abuse where the "relationship" is really not a choice on one side, but based on all we've seen I do not think Swift/Healy is one of them.)

That said, we arrive at the issue of Healy.

Healy is not the kind of person I am interested in supporting, financially or otherwise. I'm not going to list off all his crap -- it's well-known enough to be on Wikipedia at this point. (Which I hear is in a bit of an editing war? Never a good sign, y'all.) This post is about my response, because you can find the facts elsewhere (and you've probably already read them elsewhere).

If he was middle-of-the-road questionable -- like, if all he did was eat raw meat -- it could be excused. Whatever, I'm not going to ever be a fan of that, but I'm also not going to give a damn aside from doing a double-take at the headline and then sighing.

The licking fingers and kissing fans thing... that's. A, uh. It's a choice. That's the point where I'm kind of like... what? But sure, I guess you could argue that it's a morally gray area, because it's weird, and dubiously consensual, but I dunno, fans could be into that or something? Definitely not something I'm into, but pending further investigation on the case, I could bring myself to just roll my eyes at another trashbag.

And then we get into his recent, shitty statements. "It was just a joke/ironic/satire" is a bullshit excuse and in the year 2023, we all know it. If you're a celebrity who has a PR team, I sure as hell know that you know it. I am willing to forgive misguided jokes if they were from a bygone era and the offender has since apologized for the harm they caused.

Hell, maybe I could bring myself to accept the "ironic Nazi salute"; sure, maybe he was trying to bring awareness to Trump/Kanye-gate by drawing that parallel. I could convince myself that he really was acting in good faith, because there is a maybe possibly potentially decent outcome he could've been angling at.

To be clear, I don't believe it. I think we all know to not do the Nazi salute, even in satire.

But even if I did, well.

I am not willing to forgive Healy "joking" about masturbating to exploitative pornography of black women in the year 2023, without even an apology (to the best of my knowledge). I'm not going to speculate on whether or not he really was joking, but whether it was a fact or a joke, it's fucking disgusting. Whether it's a stage personality, a joke, an ironic comment, or satire, if it's you causing harm, then it's shitty. At best, it's ignorant and reckless; at worst, it's... I don't even know what to say. And again, in the year 2023, it's not hard to tell what could be harmful in said "joke" about porn, so I don't put much stock in the "ignorant" column.

There is no possible good outcome from a "joke" like that, which means there is no possible positive spin for me to try to play. There is no reason to be that shitty.

The evidence is clear and simple, and it leads to the conclusion that supporting Healy is not something I can be at all interested in or tolerant of.

What about the good things he's said?

Well, let's keep this short and sweet: human decency is not a transaction. Good actions don't cancel out bad actions, except for when the good action is a fucking good apology that genuinely seeks to make reparations for the bad action.

Okay, but why should Swift take responsibility for that?

Straight up, whether or not Swift is a "feminist" is irrelevant to this conversation -- this is the standard I apply to people regardless of what beliefs they claim (although it would come with an extra helping of hypocrisy if you do want to claim to support women and POC). What's relevant is that she has chosen to publicly and positively associate herself with a known piece of shit. And being in a relationship with Healy is tacitly supporting his views. There is no way she -- a self-proclaimed "mastermind", a "calculated/smart businesswoman" -- doesn't know this.

There is no professional benefit to associating with Healy, either. The David O'Russell movie could be hand-waved with "it was a professional opportunity". Where the Crawdads Sing could be reasoned away as "separating art from artist". But her dating life is 100% a personal choice. The only benefit to dating Healy is dating Healy. There's no other opportunity here, just the chance to spend time with and tacitly support a dirtbag.

(I know that she knows that "they're nice to me" does not magically make a shitty man a good person. You know how I know that? Because that's what she said during Scooter-gate. So there are no excuses here.)

She is a grown woman fully capable of cognitively processing the consequences of publicly supporting Healy. I don't care what she says in "Don't Blame Me", I am blaming her, because it's her own damn choice. She is making the choice, consciously and with no other benefits, to publicly take the side of someone known for racist and sexist behaviors.

And that's something that we can absolutely hold her accountable for.

Because at this point, supporting Swift is also tacitly affirming Healy's problematic behavior.

So how does this situation resolve?

There are 3 parties in this situation: Swift, Healy, and the fanbase. At least one of us has to step up and do better.

Swift could wake up, realize just how bad this is, and do better.

Healy could have an epiphany where he realizes just how bad his actions have been, and make a concerted effort to do better and make reparations.

We as a fanbase could walk away, because we are unwilling to tolerate the bullshit.

At this point, it seems kind of unlikely that wither Swift or Healy are going to change for the better. That leaves it up to us.

And now for the tricky part: deciding what to do as a fan.

Blech. It's easy enough to come to the conclusion that Swift's recent behavior has been unpalatable. It's harder to figure out what to do about that.

As fans, I know that there are a lot of emotions involved. There's the parasocial relationship that you want to hang onto; there's the importance her music may have played for you personally; there's basic appreciation for the technical construction of her work. And I know there's definitely the undying hope that maybe this is all a misunderstanding and maybe she really is better than this.

Either way, to me, there are 3 steps to getting clean from supporting problematic artists:

Stop public support. There's a time for silence, and there's a time to fucking speak now. Stop wearing merchandise, or repurpose it. Don't keep running a stan account as if nothing has happened.

Stop active financial support. Don't put money into her. Don't buy albums, merchandise, or concert tickets.

Stop passive financial support. That's streaming on Spotify, things where you might not be paying, but she's still getting money.

And then the final step is severing emotional connections. Stop singing her music for fun; stop listening to already-purchased music. I don't include this in the 3-step process because in my opinion, it's not a prerequisite to cut out a problematic artist's art to stop supporting the problematic artist (unless that art is reflective of their shittiness). What you choose to do in private without any interaction with the artist is your own business. It impacts no one but you if you continue listening to your existing downloads of Swift's music.

With all that in mind, for now, I'm not deactivating this blog. I'm going to let my queue finish itself off. And then I'm probably going to write a few reflections on some of her more questionable lyrics, because I do think there are some... interesting things in there that deserve to be discussed.

When all's said and done, though, this blog is probably going to go into indefinite hiatus, because I'm not interested in running a hate-blog, nor am I willing to continue running a fan-blog.

So. Yeah. That's where I'm at.

#taylor swift (critical)#matty healy (critical)#oh my god why was the suggested tag healy x reader slkjfddsf #swift/healy (critical)#essay (ish)#personal #not proofread #why am i like this

16 notes · View notes

moonlightandmarble · 1 year

Text

My review of "Le temps de te dire adieu"

As this was unavailable in English I had to order it as it was in French and slowly translate.

Despite my clumsy grasp of French, Gaëlle has a beautiful way of writing out her heart and expressing her pain, her sorrow, her anger and the tenderness she felt towards Gaspard and the powerful love she has for their son. This isn't a exploitative money-grab tell all book that often is produced after the death of someone well-known, you can feel her love in this. And while she expresses understandable frustration with the press and insensitive fans (seriously who the hell harasses someone's mom while she's tending to her sons grave or takes selfies in front of it?????), at the center of her expression is always respect for the discrete life that Gaspard lived and the love that they shared for their son.

The story of their first meeting made me smile and I am keeping "do you believe in ghosts" as a conversation starter in my pocket, and what Gaëlle shares about their son makes me want to protect him with my whole life.

May Gaspard's memory be a blessing, and may Gaëlle and the rest of his family find some peace in the wake of his passing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seriously this is not a tawdry book but it's a deep and heart felt dive into grief. So many people, especially in the fandom, treated Gaëlle like shit for no fucking reason outside of what I can only assume is toxic jealousy brewed by a unhealthy parasocial relationship with a man who valued his privacy and hated social media. And damn if people's behavior didn't prove him right for how he felt afterwards.

I somehow managed to get through most of the book without bawling but the parts with Orso reacting to his father's death brought me very close. But it was when Gaëlle disclosed that thanks to Gaspard's organs being donated, 6 people are now able to live, that I finally lost it and sobbed. I signed up to donate myself ages ago but it really was such a good reminder of how important it is. And the idea that he gets to live through them and his son and Gaëlle's memories is just, beautiful.

But fans please, be respectful when visiting his grave. And uh, don't leave plastic flowers.

#death #gaspard ulliel #if anything happens to Orso i will kill everyone in this room #him smooshing their faces together to make them kiss after they broke up #like u go little man

9 notes · View notes

wandapinkay · 3 months

Note

HIIIII it's friendly anon back again!! ヾ(ゝω・)ノ

the pleasure is all mine, i assure you! :D i was a bit apprehensive to drop in your inbox at first - since i'm not well-versed in self-shipping culture and ask culture on this site is tragically dead - but i got a cool new parasocial friendship out of it and i discovered a new and exciting way to consume media and enjoy characters, so i'm glad that i did!! \^o^/ it took me a long time to realize it, but i truly think self-shipping was the last piece of the puzzle that i was missing in my previous hyperfixations. so what if that man is fictional, what do you mean he can't be mine??

in other news, i've already gotten four of my friends to watch steins;gate and i also recently convinced my sister and her husband to give it a try! i have rewatched the entire show three times alone this month, i am fully insane 🙏

WAITTTT THOSE CATBOY EDITS ARE SO CUTE ACTUALLY 🥺🥺i'm so impressed with how authentic they look, how did you capture the steins;gate style so well?? the second one on particular looks so real, suddenly i'm convinced daru was a catboy the whole time and i just never noticed lol

MAD respect for that 200-unit daru pic collection btw, i've been deep-diving in the darkest corners of the internet for fanart of okabe and i have found some amazing comics featuring daru that made me think of you ( ¯ ³¯)♡! on that note, i've also seen some very sweet drawings of daru with baby suzuha which, out of curiosity, made me wonder what your thoughts on them are together as father and daughter! i adore them honestly, but i'm curious to know if you feel differently about them since you self-ship with daru! i've seen a couple selfshippers in another fandom i frequent who have drawn fankids with their f/o's before and that got me wondering since suzuha is a unique case :)

ASDFJAKSFKSF YES THAT WAS THE NAME OF THE VN idk why i called it that, i think someone else called it that in a reddit post-

nevertheless, my point stands. i cannot even begin to express my disappointment that we didn't get to see daru OR okabe in a maid outfit. heck, we didn't even get to see daru in his penguin suit (though the fact that he was really popular in it made me cackle)! i mean it when i say that if the devs hadn't been cowards and gave us frilly daru and okabe, i would not have looked even twice at the girls. the men yearn for the frills!!! \o/

wahhhh you really are so nice, i appreciate you a bunch :) :) and wow, i thought for sure you'd been part of the community for longer than a year, you seem so comfortable here! was it easy for you to get settled in the community? you've been so nice, but i'm a bit scared to dip my toes in the self-shipping tag if you have any advice👉👈 (thank you again for being so kind and accommodating!! ^^;)

I DID, I SAID THE LINE!! WHERE IS MY PRIZE

your message has been delivered and summarily ignored except for the kiss which he accepted with dignity :3

to sign off, i am blowing both you and daru a pair of friendly kisses! i wish you both a very good night AND OH MAN I ALMOST FORGOT IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY IN TWO DAYS??? in that case, i wish you both a good night AND a wonderful valentine's day if you have any plans!!

thank you again for reading!! i will most assuredly be back if i am still welcome! (ᴗ͈ ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ.ﾟ

OMG HI ONCE AGAIN!! SO SORRY IF I TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER YOUR ASK, I WAS BUSYY 😭 Still so happy for the fact you're enjoying your new hobbie, I think everyone should try selfshipping at least once in their lives.. and woAHH amazing steins;gate propaganda you've done there! Wish I could do that to most of my friends but some have already seen it ages ago and some aren't just interested so I just kinda gave up HFH ALSO HOOOLY and I thought finishing the series in like,, 2 months was mental but you got me there I'm honest /lh I SERIOUSLY DON'T KNOW HOW I DID IT?? I just kinda went with it by using a small brush with no pressure and blurring out everything a little bit so it matched the og pic's quality I suppose?? I'm happy you think they seem legit, I did my job well then ; u ; <3 OMG THAT'S SO SWEET OF YOU THOUGHH 🥺🥺 now you got me curious on which ones you're referring to waa.. ALSO UMM.. ABOUT SUZUHA- I had a few concepts for how my relationship with Daru would work in-universe.. so I made a couple of them: one is the "good" ending I guess, while another is just "angst™"

.. yeah, can you tell I felt awful while coming up with the second one? GDGSFGFSD IT'S FINE THOUGH, I'M OK NOW But this is besides the point; I actually really love Suzuha's character and I prefer her over the other girls.. and my favorite dynamic is hers with Daru and Yuki (ironically).. seeing Daru being a dad melts my heart because sometimes I wish I had a father figure as sweet as he is aaa I prefer to see myself with Daru than project myself onto Yuki though, because I'd treat him differently than he does sometimes if I gotta be honest Still, hope you like the silly ideas- WAIT,, UH?? DARU HAS A PENGUIN SUIT?? I NEED TO SEE IT SO BADD 😭😭 Also fr, why can't they just satisfy the boy's fans for once,, I feel like they're leaving us out on purpose at this point- /j

Btw, for the selfship community part, I didn't really do much! I just started to post my artwork in the tag and started following and interacting with some peeps, although rarely because I'm still akward about it, but the people in it are so nice!! In my opinion, it's worth a shot!

Also thank you so much!! I hope you had a great Valentine's day with Okabe as well, sending you kisses as well! I posted a fanart that is kinda vday themed but nothing selfshippy unfortunately, but me and Daru would have probably chilled at home, exchanging eachother chocolates and stuff like that! Idk, I'm not a very "outside" person but if we had in plan to go somewhere like the May Queen to get something together, I wouldn't have minded either!

Of course you're welcome to come back, it's always a pleasure! Since I don't get asks often, it brightens up my day to see something in my inbox once in a while, so thank you still for feeling comfy enough to come back! Have a great day/night! 💕💕

#wanda's replies #wandapinkay's ask #steins;gate #daru #itaru hashida #suzuha #suzuha amane #yuki #yuki amane #selfship #selfshipping #selfshipping community #okabe #okabe rintaro #super hacking my heart 💻💖

1 note · View note

sdaurio · 4 months

Text

2/5

Unlike most of our recent readings and viewings, Perfect Blue doesn't really have any war themes. Perfect Blue is about what it is like to be an idol in Japan, what it is like to work in Japan, and it has themes of feminism as well.

Japan has a serious issue of parasocial relationships between idols and fans. As seen in Perfect Blue, there are fans who are willing to go as far as it takes to "protect" their idol, "be with" their idol, and spend every waking moment dedicated to their idol. Me-Mania, the man who has an obsession with Mima, fully believes he has a real relationship with Mima which allows him to have any say in her life. For example, when Mima decides to become an actress, Me-Mania becomes extremely upset and demands her to return working as an idol to maintain his "perfect image" of her. As seen throughout the rest of the film, Me-Mania is extremely concerned about Mima's innocence, so the thought of her becoming an actress and losing that innocence is hard on him.

There is also another example where Me-Mania took matters into his own hands by personally fighting a heckler while Mima was performing. These are not actions a typical fan would do for their idol, making it clear that Me-Mania is unwell and has developed a parasocial relationship with Mima over a long period of time. These types of events happen in real life when fans become too attached to their idols. A video went viral recently of a woman crying and screaming about her male host (from a host club) because she spent all of her money on him yet he still didn't even know who she was.

This film also shows what its like to be taken advantage of at work in Japan, because they have such a strict conforming culture and its considered best to "put the needs of others before yourself". This is made especially clear in the rape scene. Mima doesn't want to risk her career as an actress by turning down this role or risk the success of the production they were making. Mima initially has little hesitation about the scene, saying it won't be too bad because it's just acting. However, behind the scenes we see businessmen being sinister about this scene, saying they just want to break her and tear down her walls. This is also seen when a photographer convinces Mima to do nude photos. I feel that these are clear examples of how Japan's social standard of "put others needs before yourself" can quickly be taken advantage of, especially if you are a woman.

Mima's mental health rapidly declines after these events. She begins hallucinating, believing the events in her life were just another scene in Double Bind, and has dreams about Me-Mania due to her paranoia of him stalking her. This movie is a deep dive into the reality of an idol's life that often goes unnoticed.

0 notes

sonoda-oomers · 3 years

Text

found a pretty well made deep dive by youtuber cordwit documenting the whole thing surrounding dream (which i’ve been waiting for forever to untangle the confusion) and i really enjoyed it. honestly while i’ve come to dislike dream himself for the stuff he did, as the video describes the situation around him is kinda terrifying

ironically after watching i checked out cordwit’s channel and saw that he associates with a young youtuber known by me as someone d’angelo wallace called out for pandering to antisemites and then revealed to be antiblack as recent as december 2019 so i just kinda sat there not knowing what to think

i guess pobody’s nerfect just 2 weeks ago i unlocked my account at risk of outing myself to a potential employer to attempt to talk some sense to this british man who makes minecraft videos (that i watch if that wasnt clear) because he brought up the potential of getting into nft himself and mishandling the negative reaction people had to it

like this kind of thing is hard to navigate, you can make so many tweets denouncing parasocial relationships until someone you believed to be decent slips up and you realize you’ve formed a parasocial relationship yourself. like with how social media has intergrated itself into people’s subconscious parasocial relationships are inevitable. of course there are clear lines that should not be crossed. but in the grey areas at what point does it become unforgiveable? what should you do with your parasocial relationships that is “right”?

when i sent my long ass thread to the british youtuber explaining why so many people find themselves completely unable to consider nft in a positive light and how climate change will literally kill my home country, i mostly didn’t expect it to do anything. up to this point there’s no proof that it has done anything. i would be lying if i said i didn’t expect anything to come out of it, i poured my heart into the tweets i sent. the parasocial relationship i didn’t even realize i had with this person and his colleagues led me to trying my best to change his mind and direct him away from something harmful. should i just have dropped all the goodwill i think he brought to the lives of his viewers over the years? was i a fool for saying so many things that are never guaranteed to be heard? or was i just overstepping boundaries, nothing more nothing less? i don’t know, i just did my best, and i still don’t know if i could’ve done better

all the twitter takes i’ve read and all the commentary videos i’ve watched... the thoughts of other people take up so much of my brain, sometimes to the point where i’m not sure where my own self lies. it can feel incredibly lonely living in a world so interconnected, especially now where so many things feel like a stack of oddly placed objects tethering over a cliff and you want to do Something about it. is the thought that i can do Something by using my voice just an illusion created by other people’s thoughts that did do Something to change my life? i don’t even know what the fuck

#spud.txt #introspudtion

1 note · View note