One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".
Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.
That's the TL;DR version of this post.
ANYWAY here is the long version
Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".
One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.
Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.
It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.
This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.
People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.
I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.
Anyway if you want to read more:
- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info
-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos
-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.
-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa
- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.
-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge
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ohmygod I was going to post some of my art and i get all ready to do a massive doodle dump AND THEN THE QUALITY IS SOOOO BADDD
I didnt know my resolution on clip studio had to be so HIGH in order to get decent quality 😭
anyways im just gonna put this zukka drawing here…even tho its like 420hp 💀
HELPP ITS SOO BAD IM CAKCLINF
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Just a reminder that relating to characters is perfectly normal! There’s a reason human beings have been endlessly telling stories for thousands of years, and why a lot of those stories are still told today.
In fact, there’s even a thing called Cinema Therapy where professional therapists work through movie plots and character arcs with their patients to help them process their real life trauma.
This is why representation of all kinds is so essential in storytelling! Whether it’s representation of race, culture, gender identity, sexuality, or forms of trauma, seeing ourselves in characters is a powerful way to heal and explore our psyche.
Don’t pay attention to anyone who is childish enough to mock you for being protective over characters that make you feel seen and understood! Be loud and proud about stories and characters that you love! 😁
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its always surreal to me to see people praise s2 of centaurworld. s2 was so spectacularly bombastic and aimless and it ended in this awkward forgettable fizzle.
i feel like a dick saying it b/c i really do love the show lmao. or, at least half of it lmao (/stares at tnwk). gf and i've been thinking about rewatching it just to write out our thoughts on why s2 was such a poor follow-up to s1 - from the tone to the setup to all the worldbuilding the narrative had to offer in between the (far more) memorable songs of s1. idk. it's sad because cw really had the bones of a cult classic, but idek if you can call it that.
ive seen a few posts commenting on its lack of popularity, and i feel like it certainly deserves more, b/c i do feel like it's a novel idea made w/ love, but the shift btwn s1 and s2 wasnt just in the plot. there was a full-on *fracture* in the quality and direction and i'm still scratching my head over it. more than i should be, probably. but, it's just a bummer.
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I'm going to try to be as kind as I can with this.
so ok I've been seeing this more often than usual recently but please try to be normal when reblogging stuff especially creative works. avoid putting hateful tags on reblogs because the original poster sees that.
you wouldn't want a random person saying "#wow I hate this character but---" on your works, right? (and that is not the compliment you want it to be btw.)
and stop seeking content on this site just to shit on it. go make a post about it instead of reblogging something to put mean tags on. someone worked hard on that, don't be a dick.
don't spout community on this site while being the cancer that causes creators to stop sharing their works.
please be normal. ok ily bye.
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ok, ok, ok, i feel SO happy that Bowuigi has blew up and has more recognition that only gives for more material that i needed and for which i was hungry for a while
BUT on the other hand now we have to face the consequences of the fact the ship has become so popular that more haters will come than usual because clearly they'll never be lacking in these cases yk
anyway i don't care about boring ppl throwing shit at the ship rn since i'll just meal very well for a good while with this big ass stuff that i didn't deserve but i got it anyway and i feel blessed for that, thank u ppl who ship Bowuigi and welcome new shippers wooo 👽💐
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