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dueling-jesters · 2 months

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What are your thoughts on women romanticising or fetishising gay men via shipping. And when you draw the line when this happened. (Sorry for bad english)

Anyone who's been following me since I started this blog knows that I'm personally annoyed with the fetishization of gay people that has run rampant in fandom spaces for decades. Shipping on its own is completely fine, but I think it becomes something of an issue when people use it to implement harmful stereotypes or to hurt someone directly.

One way I often see is when some people will take two male characters and change their appearance and personalities to project heteropatriarchal standards upon them, essentially turning them into a stand-in for an abusive straight couple. This is, of course, an extreme example.

One related form of it is,via headcanon, the association of body type, personalities, and sexual positions (i.e., making the shorter or curvier male character more feminine, weak, and submissive). This oftentimes overlaps with fandom racism (making a darker-skinned character aggressive and abusive) and transphobia (people who have a trend of making all of their transmasculine-headcanoned characters soft, submissive bottoms exclusively paired with cis-male-headcanoned characters).

One of the most obvious indicators of someone doing this is if they are obsessed over whoever is the top and who is the bottom in a way that's one step from asking "But who really is the guy and who's the girl in the relationship?". This becomes incredibly apparent when a multishipper exclusively headcanons submissive/feminine bottoms and dominant/masculine tops, devoid of any variety or versatility. It's a telltale sign that someone may not care what gay people are actually like in reality.

This doesn't necessarily mean that top and bottom headcanons are inherently fetishizing, but rather, when there is an amalgamation of it being a fandom member's main priority in shipping alongside reinforcing heteronormative stereotypes.

I personally think it's fine for someone to be primarily focused on shipping characters in fandom. It's extremely common for lgbt+ fans to project their experiences onto characters or to otherwise feel connected to them through shipping-even if they're of a different gender/ orientation. (Cisgender, heterosexual fans can be avid shippers as well without harming gay people!) A fan lusting over a character and shipping through projection is not inherently problematic, either. Perhaps my stance is biased as I am guilty of both. There could be a grey area or situations that may seem suspicious if taken out of context.

The perpetrators of fetishization are not exclusively women, nor should they be blamed for it as a whole. Just as some gay people are homophobic, and some trans people are transphobic, there are occasionally members of our community who treat gayness and/or transness as an "othering" quality- whether they separate themselves from the rest of us in doing so, or if it's a form of internalized bigotry.

There are, of course, plenty of cisgender, heterosexual men who display a similar, dehumanizing attitude towards lesbians and bisexual women - whether through media or in-person. In its entirety, this is not a fandom-exclusive phenomenon.

Fetishizing behavior has been weaponized in harassment and abuse towards gay people. Essentially, the preconceived bigotries and assumptions one may have fuel harmful stereotypes cast upon fictional characters, which in turn reinforce one's beliefs and can result in one holding the same assumptions about actual people. I won't go into much detail, but I have personally experienced and witnessed sexual harassment from self-proclaimed allies and fellow members of the lgbt community due to fanfiction-influenced mindsets.

In many aspects, I think the fetishization of gay men in fandom runs parallel to the patriarchal gaze prevalent in similar spaces - although it can absolutely converge at times. It can definitely make someone who would otherwise participate as a fan, or even as a shipper, feel alienated.

#ace's answers #thanks for sending this ask in!#although i am curious to if there was anything specific that prompted you to ask me this?#i hope my answer makes sense! i have many thoughts on this topic but it was difficult to coalesce all of them together into a solid respons #long post #this might completely go over the heads of some...#others may be too scared to interact with this post for they know themselves very well to be crossing the line

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useless-englandfacts · 2 years

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A few years back I read that the boards of failing companies often put women and people of colour into key positions, because it was a cheap way of seeming diverse whilst maintaining the status quo idea that white dudes are best in leadership positions (because look how many companies went down after appointing a woman/person of colour as CEO! Just ignore the fact it was teetering anyway.)

And like, I'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but notice that the Tories, a notoriously racist and sexist party, have also put a fair number of women and POC into prominent roles during their various fuckdowns.

interesting...

though i would also argue the opposite for the tories? having a diverse front bench works in their favour because they can then say "racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, etc. doesn't exist because look! we have a south asian prime minister!" and that reinforces their individualist ethos. there are no systems of oppression, it's down to the individual to get one and forge their own path - with no help from the government. thatcher is the other obvious example of this mindset.

this is more tangential, but there is also a long-standing argument on the (economic) right that in order for capitalism is to truly flourish, we need to get rid of any form of discrimination. or, to put it another way, people should be able to participate in the market and consumption regardless of their race, gender, age, disability status, sexuality, or what have you.

racism, sexism, ageism, etc. acting as barriers to spending s actually bad for the expansion of unfettered capitalism. for example if a company doesn't want to be associated with the lgbt+ community, or if african americans aren't allowed in certain public spaces as was the case during jim crow, that then takes those groups out of the market and restricts capitalism - which, in the minds of most conservatives, is a bad thing.

i know the political reality of this is a lot more complicated because we're adding human beings with all their inconsistencies, biases, and bigotry into the equation, but i'm not going to sit here and write a nuanced 5000 word politics essay with footnotes. hopefully you get the idea anyway.

at any rate it will be interesting (and probably awful!) to see how the conservative party grass roots in particular respond to having a leader who is at once very right-wing but also symbolic of everything they supposedly hate about modern britain.

#asks #anonymous #Rishi Sunak

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rosalesbeausderholle · 3 years

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Controversial take but I do want to try to create/contribute to an in-between ideological space to discuss the million of debates that are formed around gender vs sex (how should we proceed legally and protect both trans rights and women's rights if/when they conflict, sports, censorship over opposite opinions on these issues, intra-lgbt fights, homophobia on both sides, etc) so that actual civil debate is possible. I obviously lean more towards one side than the other but I still can criticise my own and say how I've seen both sides of this issue get increasingly more radicalized towards more and more extreme (and even, in some cases, violent) viewpoints and how it is completely impossible to talk about any of this in a measured, compassionate, solution-oriented way because any point you make that The Enemy has made before means you're One Of Them and therefore anything you have to say is wordless. We have to move past this tribalism, we have to put in real work to actually try to improve the real, material, conditions for both women and trans people. We have to move past this mindset where a dissenting opinion is violence but the use of violent slurs and wishes of real violence (rape and death threats and suicide baiting and making fun of real life suicide statistics among others) on your ideological opponents is part of the discourse. It's all backwards and so, so, so incredibly exhausting.

I can't neither ignore the disgusting misogyny and homophobia that I've seen certain progressive activists spout for years in the supposed name of trans rights. Or how casually they wish violence on anyone who disagrees with them (needless to say that's horrible, it can even be illegal depending on what you're saying). Or the culture of fear of ostracization and retaliation that exists in progressive spaces around any debate about these positions. Because there is! People are constantly scared of saying the wrong thing!

But I, also, after many years in these spaces, on and offline can't ignore the turn towards the right that has occured in certain sectors in radical feminism, or the homophobia, racism, transphobia, ableism and even in some cases misogyny that's present in the movement (aided by how many self-described gender critical people have no idea about feminism whatsoever) I can't ignore how what started as a call for reason and rationality has also allowed for the proliferation of the very echo chambers they denounced and how many women have also been harassed by other feminists over what amounts to disagreements (where's the sisterhood?)

I also can't ignore how, after years of reading about this, I've seen so many points where agreement could actually be reached! You know what our problem is? That we word/conceptualize very similar points differently and then refuse to actually take a closer look to what the other person is saying. I'm not saying if we did that, that then we'd all be friends dancing in a circle, but it'd sure clear up a lot of misunderstandings to have clear and defined concepts to be working with, to actually know what you're arguing for/against.

I feel both super naive and like a broken record for saying this but we really need a big change, on all sides, on how these issues are discussed. Assertiveness doesn't have to turn into aggressiveness when that's undeserved and debate is good, debate is enriching, we should debate all we can about everything, especially laws! Neither of the sides are ever going to go away, so there has to be some compromise legally and socially, at some point, and compromise also has to mean being able to look at your ideological opponent in the face and seeing a person and addressing them as such.

#feminism #lgbt stuff

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freakin-edikan · 3 years

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Actually I have something to say about the proliferation of hyperspecific pride flags, labels, and identities specifically in online black communities: Stop taking random West African goddesses you think are cool and slapping -ian at the end to make the 17,693rd version of sapphic! Stop it!!!! At the risk of starting a diaspora war, kindly, cut it out.

For one, linguistically I’m sure none of these words actually make sense. -ian/an/ean, -ic/ique, and other suffixes like this are Latin. And they’re being applied to languages that are very not Latin. If the point was to avoid Greek/Latin you messed up right there on square one: trying to fuse words from a different language family into English. Because these are never languages the coiners speak or cultures they practice, this happens all. The time.

For two, idk about Y’ALL but for ME personalmente, I am averse to using labels and flags based on the practices of ethnic groups I’m not a part of. I’m not Yoruba, I’m not Akan, so I’m not gonna use labels based on Yoruba or Akan traditions.

Whether or not there is a label for black LGBT ppl that is based on a mythos I recognize, though, is beside the point. Just West Africa is a large place consisting of thousands of ethnic groups with their own histories, cultures, languages, and communities. How are you gonna take one (1) deity from one (1) religion and extrapolate it to all black people? You can’t, you shouldn’t, and idk why people on Twitter keep trying. Way to flatten an entire region of a continent before even getting to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.

To be clear, I have no issue with Black Americans taking from different aspects of different African cultures and languages, but the recent phenomenon I’ve noticed of an Internet user making a black-only version of [x] LGBT identity with a label from an African god/spirit and its own flag is not allowing these identities to form organically, based on the time period and space the people coining it occupy. It’s just an African twist on a preexisting white-dominated framework: label + horizontal-striped flag with hamfisted color meanings.

If we want to make space for ourselves in a movement dominated by whiteness, I don’t think it’s useful for us to use an individualistic framework sold to us by white capitalism. Political and organizing symbols are supposed to be uniting, easily recognizable, and easy to reproduce. They form based on community ideals and are iterative. The rainbow flag, for example, despite “technically” being a “poorly designed flag” (too many colors, they say) works because the rainbow is easily and near-universally recognizable by people, and it was iterated upon not only by Gilbert Baker, but by other LGBT community leaders, members, and organizers. Notice how there are different variants on the Rainbow flag, how it can be combined with other symbols to represent new things, how it can merge with other communities to symbolize solidarity, and how there is room for the diversity of the LGBT experience within it. That’s not something a flag *only* for black lesbians or black gay men or black bisexuals or black trans people can accomplish.

There is room to criticize the whiteness of the LGBT movement, but to section ourselves off is counterproductive, I think, because when we continually remove ourselves from these spaces, we in turn fail to challenge the white people on their racism and their antiblackness. In order for us to enact change we ought to be visible. Otherwise, they won’t even register if we left. Yes, we can mobilize the black people marginalized within the LGBT movement. No, I don’t think claiming any West African god as the patron of all black LGBT people is going to help us do that more easily.

Although, it is empowering to take African gods and affiliate them with black LGBT people under homophobic post-colonial African society. But that’s a different conversation and most of the time the people coining these terms are not living in Africa.

Nonblacks do not interact with this post.

#black lgbt #nonblacks dni

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wokestonecraft · 3 years

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so I had a free afternoon and decided to watch the “how terfs misunderstand the handmaid’s tale’ video, and I have couple of thoughts about it.

The primary argument hinges on the idea that terfs claim that TiMs would be the wives, and that terfs don’t recognize the wives as being oppressed as women, and equate them as oppressors

Now, I’m not saying that some self identified “terfs” haven’t made those arguments, but it’s not one I’ve seen before on radblr or other radfem spaces I personally frequent, and really goes against what radfem analyses. Most radfems take the position that transwom*n would be executed as gender traitors in Gilead, along with gay men and women, but some trans wom*n would likely abandon the trappings of femininity and simply go back to being gender conforming men, and transm*n would be treated like any other women, stripped of rights and consigned to second class citizens

He also justifies any threats of violence against radfems by tras, as coming from a place of understandable anger, but then says that it only furthers the terf cause since terfs can then use it as justification for their opposition of the transgender movement. But still, he places radical feminists in a place of power over TRAs, which doesn’t seem to be the case, considering the rapid speed at which sex based protections for women are being overturned in favor of gender based ones.

There was a lot of condescension towards radical feminists in this video, as we are dismissed as only focusing on the role of reproduction in women’s oppression, and ignoring any other factors like race, class, and sexuality, and see women as the only victims. Which raises my eyebrows, since radical feminism has a long history of overlapping with movements for the rights of people of color and for gay men and women, along with acknowledging class issues.(not that there aren’t problems with racism and classism, but it is generally acknowledged that liberation for women means ALL women, not just one class or race.)

There were the same arguments that terfs idolize women’s biological capabilities and ignore women who are infertile, intersex, or have any problems with their bodies, and obsess over our ovaries and uteruses. Again, I know that there are indeed radfems and other feminists who do focus their spirituality around ideas of the female body and creation, but this is not by any means universal from radfems, and it usually comes from a desire to act against all the shame and senses of inferiority women face around their bodies pushed on them by patriarchal religions. I’d note that the poem he cites about a woman who writes about bleeding on her period as a spiritual experience, references the oppression of women by the Catholic Church, where women are banned from the priesthood, and have long been marginalized as second to men, temptresses and “dirty,” especially when sexually active. Maybe radfems celebrate the female body, in all it’s forms, because so many of us were taught for so long that our bodies were less-than, and impure. And I also think its a misreading of what radfems aim for. We are women because we are female, but being women doesn’t define our personalities, our strengths, our limitations, or anything like that, and in an ideal world, a person’s sex wouldn’t matter in how they are raised or treated by society.

He also says that transwom*n have fought for the rights of all women, and cites Martha P. Johnson????? A self identified gay man who did drag, and was involved in LGBT activism??? Not exactly a “feminist” icon, if a cool person all around. The evidence for transwom*n fighting for the rights of “all” women remains sparse on the ground, while there are plenty of feminists from all races, countries, classes, and sexualities who have made strides on behalf of all women, from Audre Lorde to Nawal el Saadawi, Mary L. Bonauto and, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

He ultimately concludes that tras and radfems are on the same side against the patriarchy, and we should work together to defeat it. I note that it is radfems who must capitulate to the other side, that we are the foolish misguided ones who must give our movement over to “transwom*en of color” who have done so much for us. Already, the role of lesbians have slowly been erased from the history of gay rights, and now we are seeing women pushed out of feminism itself.

#also saying Margaret Atwood supports trans rights isn't a gotcha #we aren't a cult #we can agree and disagree on multiple issues #But WoLF needs to stop working with the right #its counterprodcutive #dear radblr #radblr #radfems #radfems please interact #radfems please touch #radical feminism

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elenajohansenreads · 3 years

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Books I Read in 2021

#84 - The Glittering Court, by Richelle Mead

Mount TBR: 70/100

Rating: 1/5 stars

What did I like about this? It was digestible. Having just come off a heavy, plodding, disappointing fantasy read, the easy YA tell-don't-show narrative style went down smooth like a slushie on a hot day.

And that's the best thing I can say about the whole book--it read fast and easy.

What didn't I like?

1. The fact that this touts itself as fantasy when it's not in the least bit fantastical. I don't require my fantasy to have magic or creatures or zombies or anything, but if you're going to call something "fantasy" it should at least be about fictional cultures that the author has invented. This is just England colonizing the Americas with the names changed. The only thing that could be said to be "fantasy" is that the population they're displacing in the process isn't an indigenous one, it was established by previous outcasts from their own country--though that wasn't clear to me until the first time we met them and they were white, blond, and used woad as decoration. So they're not supposed to be Native American analogues, they're supposed to be displaced Picts?

2. Either way, it's still racist and pro-colonization, because even if the Icori aren't meant to represent an indigenous people, they're still clearly Other, and constantly labeled as "savages" in order to justify taking their land, which all of our protagonists are participating in, in some form. Does it matter what color this fictional group of people is, if the narrative is parroting real history and real racism?

3. The second half of the plot feels, at best, tenuously related to the first half. The change in fortune for our protagonists that happens at the midpoint struck me as so flimsy and unbelievable that it was hard to take the rest of the book seriously, and that made it more obvious to me who the real villain was, despite whatever weak red herrings were planted along the way. Seriously--the first half of the story is The Bridgertons but the second turns into Little House on the Prairie. It's too big a genre shift to make the transition seem natural.

4. There were times when I was approaching a reasonable level of sympathy for our heroine, despite her many flaws, but every time the story had a chance to explore those flaws and perhaps let the character do some work on them...well, she just kept being headstrong and selfish and whiny, right up until the LHotP section where after a single pep talk from the hero, she's completely changed, resolved to her new station in life with a determination that seemed half-delusional and certainly out of character. She didn't work for it, so it didn't seem real.

5. I did not know, having picked up this book in isolation, that the rest of the "series" is actually the same time period from the perspective of one of the other girls, specifically the two best friends of the heroine. Now that I do know that, the giant blank spaces in this story where Mira and Tamsin constantly fall out of it without explanation--or with the pointedly obvious lampshade "it's not my business so I'm not going to ask"--make sense structurally. However, that doesn't mean I don't think it's a terrible flaw, because these holes are constant and irritating. For a while in the middle of the book, it felt like every time I turned two pages, the heroine was asking out loud, "Where's Mira?" And pretty quickly I knew that question wouldn't be answered in this book, so why keep asking?

6. I never found Cedric compelling enough a hero to justify the constant sacrifices that Adelaide made for him. I don't think he's a terrible character, and I enjoyed some of their banter and their occasional fights, but I'm also not about to add him to my book-boyfriend list, so it was hard to imagine myself, or anyone for that matter, doing as much for him as Adelaide did.

7. Religion. Woooo boy. I guess this part is the "fantasy" I was lamenting the lack of earlier, because if the accepted and heretic forms of this fictional religion are supposed to correspond to real-world counterparts, I didn't pick up on it with enough certainty to tell. But my problem is that it's suddenly a Very Big Deal that one character is a heretic, when religion had played such a small part in the story leading up to that revelation that I was mostly operating on the assumption that the main religion was socially performative, and that no one in the story was especially devout. Adelaide certainly doesn't seem to be. But since this heresy becomes central to the conflict later on, I wish it had been better established in the beginning, because (again) the second half of the book seems wildly different than the first, and this was another aspect that made it hard to take seriously.

8. Heteronormative AF. There's one token queer person who has a minor role, showing up just long enough for Adelaide to realize other women/cultures don't abide by her society's rigid norms and to feel briefly uncomfortable about it. But there's no follow-up, no depth, no opportunity for Adelaide to grow beyond what she's been taught. To some extent, I'm okay with that--not every story has room for fighting LGBT+ battles, and even more simply put, stories are allowed to be about other things. But parading just that one wlw character out for a moment, and making her a foreigner to reinforce her otherness, strikes me as a really poor choice if the story didn't actually want to fight that battle. Why bring it up at all? Especially as this is supposed to be fantasy, why couldn't the Glittering Court be an institution that provides marriage candidates to both men and women? If the candidate pool was both male and female, and so was the clientele, then many forms of queerness would be covered by it without having to dig into specifics about each character. (It doesn't directly address ace/aro people, but presumably they'd be less interested in a marriage mart anyway, on either side, and self-select out of it.) I mean, I know why, because that would mean that in the New World there would have to be women in positions of power who needed husbands (or wives, yes, but this wrinkle is about men.) And there's no shortage of men in the colonies, so that doesn't track logically the same way the actual setup does. But again, if this is supposed to be fantasy....

#booklr #book review #the glittering court #richelle mead #book photography #my photos #my reading challenges #mount tbr 2021

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rametarin · 3 years

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I didn’t want to reblog another long post, so I’ll just say my own thing here.

Gatekeeping fandom is good, ackshully.

Especially since we have a certain pattern of person, call them, “SJWs” if you want, that deliberately creep into a fandom with their values and shamelessly, deliberately, use it as a platform. They CONSCIOUSLY do this. They DELIBERATELY do this.

And then they have the audacity to see false positives and imagine dog whistles everywhere of things outside THEIR orthodoxy in the fandom being -isms, or -gnies. Accusing the people already there of being “out of date” and “toxic”, when it’s neither toxic nor uninclusive- it just isn’t rearranging itself to accommodate Intersectional Feminism or giving Intersectional Feminists voluntary control over everything from how something works to how it’s defined.

That to them is tantamount to being Nazis. And that’s kind of how you can tell they’re the same sort of daft, disingenuous fucks that wrap up socialist or ancom shit in supposed social progress. And if they could they’re reshape EVERYTHING to match their sensibilities, because their sensibilities are, “our way or you die.”

If you spend enough time peeking through academic papers and colleges you even learn there’s a thing many of them do. Which is, “Queering,” characters on purpose, to make them unpalatable or untouchable to cis/het people. That’s culturally like raising a flag on something to annex it and landgrab it.

And if you say, “hands off, this character isn’t gay?” They pivot and declare you’re just a homophobe whom is afraid of change, tell other people that and then talk in the broad bruckstroke about, “society is really so homophobic/afraid of new ideas. :c”

These people don’t even want to be part of that fandom for the sake of being in the fandom. They just want it because they want the fandom to perpetuate their values and parrot their beliefs and spread it to everybody else that wants to participate in that fandom. Do you like this popular thing? Okay, you can have popular thing, but only if you hug this Courtney Love doll and buy it and pet it and love it as part of the package deal!

And as part and parcel of the demanding to not just define the fundamentals and parameters of a fandom, they also demand to reinterpret the history of said fandom based on how out of orthodoxy to their values they find it to their own beliefs. So, was the hobby primarily done by white men in the past? Then naturally they’ll automatically paint it with a broad brush and say, “this hobby was very unwelcoming to non-whites and women in the past because of icky homophobic and misogynistic men!” Regardless of how many authors were beloved by the fandom that were female, regardless of how many women were equal fandom members before- they weren’t the Intersectional Feminist types of fans, so clearly they were “closer to the Daughters of the Confederacy than real people,” right? That’s how that works, apparently.

So yes. We had a taste of this in the 90s, but the feminists/radfems at the time weren’t trying to infiltrate the fandom and take it over to be about feminism. They were shaming boys and other girls for liking the big booby comic book girls as sexist and objectification and trying to get comic fans to abandon comics in order to pressure the companies economically into changing.

“These comics are written and drawn by MEN! MAAAAALE GAAAAAAAAAZE!!! Sexualized girls are only okay when WOMEN are drawing them and writing them for the authenticity!” And there were not many women that either liked comic books or wanted to BE in them, so they’d maintain that impossible standard to try and coerce the boys to FIND women for the sake of having a woman on staff, just to assauge their, “icky boys aren’t allowed to do this without me declaring it wrong” qualm.

And true to form for Progressives, give an inch and within a short period of time they just want more, and declare what was offered before was just to mollify or patronize them. “Oh so women can tidy up and do the low work. Why no female CEOs in the company yet? Why not Editor in Chief?”

But the way the Intersectionals do it is new. Rather than just stay outside the fandom because “yuck it offends my sensibilities, it shouldn’t exist,” they try and appropriate the fandom and then contribute rules and policies for it.

We saw this in the years leading up to Gamergate. The Subverters infiltrated video game journos, got incestuous and buddy-buddy with both Triple A industry people and independent game creators and traded favors, financial, sexual and other, for good reviews. Folks like Anita Sarkesian trying to make a name for themselves by already being insiders and getting plugged by the conspirators to LOOK like she was anything more than a plant for that cause, using other peoples video game playing footage in her critique videos, styling herself a holistic “girl gamer” and waxing poetic about “those awful neckbearded dudebros questioning my gamer cred! Tch!”

And so that romantic boogyman became a thing that they perpetuated. “The gatekeeping, woman hating, manbaby Gamer.” Where they then added in racism and male chauvinism and traditionalism and transphobia because you know you can’t just leave it at “misogynist.” Not, “in this society.”

Gamers protesting and demanding that game journalist magazines state their relationships to the creators for full disclosure got them retaliating asymmetrically, though. The FBI investigated all those, “threatening and trolling social media messages” that supposedly got Zoe Quinn and Sarkesian to leave their houses, “for fear of an attack,” and they got nothing. A few of them were caught doxxing themselves on purpose on 4chan. Quinn herself being part of the SomethingAwful’s Crash Override forums, where they’d do shit like this to troll and harass people for fun. They KNOW how to false flag and make it look like a bunch of angry dudebros did it.

Statistically the number of harassing egg names was far lower than the messages either girl received that was NOT harassment or threats, merely replies they didn’t agree with or didn’t appreciate. And yet they still ran around screaming about “all those misogynistic dudebro gamers” that were “harassing and doxing them.” And that boogyman became the party line. That Gaming and Gamers were full of toxic, misogynistic, racist manbabies SOooOoOooOO intimidated by, “women finally in what they feel are THEIR spaces,” that they’d try to run them out.

That’s how they interpreted it and that’s how the history books they write will repeat it.

They try and make a great big public show about “entering this toxic space” to flip it and civilize it, but what they’re really trying to do is officially own it. As a fandom, as a space and as a culture. And that entails being able to say what goes, what’s acceptable and what’s not, and set the tone and culture for that space. Meaning, to be able to gatekeep the product.

Rather than just decry the product, they decide they’re just going to mutate the product by slow assimilation, until the product doesn’t even resemble the original product anymore. They do this shit with comic books, videogames, and now they’re working on doing it to beloeved novels and their fandoms. It’s like forcibly marrying them to terrible people, so you can never have a fandom WITHOUT those people in your space trying to insist their interpretations of things are original canon, ever again.

And the sickest part is, these people DO NOT stop at fiction. That’s why this shit is called Cultural Marxism. Because it’s not much different from the way communists and socialist guerillas act and operate when it comes to land, resources and industry. They take over public spaces and forums and use a combination of instittional corruption, terrorism and violence and vandalism in order to destroy or silence competition.

They’ve even infiltrated the Linux community and taken over most of that, via Linus Torvalds’ daughter. You can’t have ANYTHING around these people, because they just sit and wait and conspire to come in and make even a simple community mural to revolve around whatever social issue and specifically their philosophy’s take on it being THE only valid take on it that everybody else must now interact with, good or bad, but they can’t ignore it anymore.

This is, also, partially why they hate it when fandoms are gatekept by singularly powerful individuals. Like say, authors of their own works. They don’t like singular owners of enterprise and property, because it prevents the mob from taking them and then dictating TO the creator, “this is the PEOPLES property now. WE decide, as the most powerful clique, what is true and real with it and what isn’t.”

Because like what happened with Frank Oz of Jim Henson Studios. An activist gay writer declared that Bert and Ernie’s relationship was “canon gay,” because he wrote them as canon gay lovers. There was a great big information cascade as all these affiliated journo companies published articles about how “happy they were to see Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop as representing LGBT people in public!”

Frank Oz spoke up, set the record straight, “These characters were made by me and a friend and were meant to depict a platonic male-male relationship. They aren’t gay but I’m glad you could identify with them.”

That poor old man caught so much shit. They called him a homophobe, said he was, “stealing Bert and Ernie from them,” that he should just shut up and “let people have this.”

No. Fucking no. These people are fucking conspirators, believe wholly in dominating and taking shit over by moving their people into a thing until they have the warm bodies and the institutional authority to crowd out oppositional voices, then have the audacity to SCREEEAAAAAAM bloody murder about the dangers of anybody else organizing to contest them because, “The Nazis are gathering to attack us poor innocent minorities!!” Counting on the ignorance and unsuspecting nature of people to not know such a thing is fake or the totality of the situation.

That’s why they’ll keep this shit on the downlow and call anybody that accuses them of doing shit like this a liar or a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. Demanding evidence, in bad faith, knowing there’s little to no way to PROVE any of this UNTIL they’ve done it, and then declaring you to be invalid since you can’t prove the conspiracy.

Because if you can’t prove it with evidence, they’ll simply say you’re a Nazi trying to smear “good people.”

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theritualofourexistence · 3 years

Text

Clarity in the Cancellation Crusade

After posting multi-paragraph comments on a couple different things that have popped up in my feed recently, it seemed like I should probably just sit down and write this out.

“Cancel culture.” Crazy shit, right?

The recent onslaught of cancellations includes Mr. Potato Head, Pepe Le Pew, a handful of Disney movies (Peter Pan, Dumbo, The Aristocats), and *audible gasp* Dr. Seuss. The Muppets also got a newfangled Disney+ content warning, though I’ve seen significantly fewer headlines about that.

The thing that inevitably happens when the news media decides to publish a headline about a children’s toy or book being “canceled” is a veritable parade of social media complaints about how sensitive people have become. I saw this particular post over 10 times in the period of a couple hours one day last week…

The question I’ve been asking recently when I see posts like that is this: “Who do you think cancel culture is?”

Because “cancel culture” isn’t real. In the majority of the cases currently making headlines, the choice to remove a character from a movie or stop publishing a book has been made by the company responsible for that character or book… and that is very much a normal thing companies can choose to do.

No one I’ve posed the above question to has overtly mentioned “Libtards,” but it’s certainly implied. People who haven’t read a Dr. Seuss book in 20 years are now suddenly all up in arms (literally?) because “the Liberals” are coming for “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.”

The Liberals are not coming for Dr. Seuss. They do not care about a potato toy. Also, nothing is happening to the Cat in the Hat. I repeat: NOTHING is happening to the Cat in the Hat.

The choices to stop publishing that book and to market a vegetable toy in a less gendered way were made by the companies responsible for producing those products… not the Liberal “cancel culture” ghoul. In fact, it’s really, really hard to find public outcry about any of the things that have been recently “canceled.” There was a single NYT article that recently discussed the problematic nature of the Pepe Le Pew cartoons… that said, Warner Bros hasn’t aired that show in decades and it is not clear whether that article had anything to do with the skunk’s scene being removed from the new Space Jam movie.

Even growing up I remember things like political correctness needlessly becoming a partisan issue. When we fall into that media trap, all we’re doing is watering the plant of an already poisonous and ineffective two-party system. Be bigger than that temptation. Push back against media intended to further divide Americans. If something stinks, it’s probably rotten. Sure, there are certain topics that fall under the umbrella of political correctness that sound alarm bells for censorship issues… but didn’t everyone’s mom tell them that if they didn’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all?

Again, though, the most important thing to remember about this recent wave of “canceling” is that censorship concerns are moot. A person who owns a thing is legally allowed to do all the censoring they want. It’s not the government that has decided to stop publishing 6 books written by Dr. Seuss… if it were, we could have the censorship conversation. These changes aren’t happening because there is a Democrat in the White House. They’re happening because the company who makes these products, has for whatever reason, decided to take a different approach.

In the case of the Dr. Seuss books, Dr. Seuss Enterprises re-evaluated their choice to publish 6 books based on racist themes and images. I have only heard of two of those six. The image below is, in my opinion, objectively problematic:

The fact that a major company behind such a well-known name has seen that something is problematic and has decided to stop publishing the books containing overt racist images is awesome. It sets a great example that we can all learn from. Humans have an amazing capacity to learn… that’s one of the only reasons we are in charge here on Earth. If we fall on ice once, we are often more careful on ice the next time. When we see that something is racially problematic, it’s a good thing if we can take action to get that thing out of rotation. More on that later.

Fundamentally, what is happening right now in Media Land is gross sensationalism.

“Cancel culture” isn’t real. Should people face consequences if they say or do racist things? Yes. We should all agree on that. Should we stop publishing books that perpetuate racist stereotypes? Yes. There are plenty of non-racist books that provide an education about racial differences without the added (exceedingly inappropriate) zing of Asian characters being painted yellow and African characters being given monkey features.

If you’re not convinced that some of Dr. Seuss’s material is racially problematic, I encourage you to pop on over to Google to check out the series of ads he did for FLIT in the 1930s. Yes, it was the 1930s. In the last 90 years, we’ve learned that images like that are not okay… let’s use that knowledge to let old racist graphics die.

Still can’t accept that “cancel culture” isn’t real? Still feeling like there’s something in the air now that is different and worse than before?

Okay, then, let’s consider it further.

Things have been “canceled” by people for millennia… this isn’t new. Being all for cancel culture when Colin Kaepernick kneels for the anthem (a perfectly legal form of peaceful protest considered respectful by many veterans) but opposing cancel culture when it’s threatening to eliminate an obviously racist thing is not exactly a moral stance. Burning your Nikes in the street but then turning around and spending $400 on a copy of “If I Ran the Zoo” on eBay after Dr. Seuss’s own family has pulled it from publication due to racist imagery is… silly.

The same people who seem to be so vocal about “cancel culture” now are part of the same communities who tried to cancel plenty of things in my lifetime. Things like trick-or-treating, Harry Potter, school dances, books and movies with LGBT+ characters and themes…

History absolutely bubbles over with things that have been canceled… often for good reason! Some examples that come to mind:

DDT

the Catholic Church (see the 16th century Protestant Reformation)

doing our everyday poopin’ in outdoor holes

polio

hoop skirts

phrenology (new science cancels old science like every damn day)

Ford Pintos (not to mention cars without seatbelts)

telegrams and rotary phones (replaced by easier and better ways to communicate)

lead paint

asbestos

Four Loco

Y’all remember when we all did the ice bucket challenge to cancel Alzheimer’s?

Learning that something is problematic and moving past it is LEARNING… not cancel culture. Learning and growth are good things. We all benefit from them.

Another thing worth commenting on from that Cat in the Hat post that circulated in my Facebook feed: why do we consistently demonize sensitivity? Racism feels like something we should all be sensitive about. If being sensitive about something results in meaningful change and a less hateful country, isn’t that… good? Why do so many Americans seem to place so much value on their “freedom” to hurt others?

And don’t get me started on comparing this stuff to Cardi B. It boggles my mind that that’s happening at all. Why is there suddenly so much outcry about one song that features female genitals in a literal ocean of songs that feature male genitals. I grew up knowing every word to songs about sex well before I even knew what sex was. Your kids are only desperate to listen to WAP because they know it makes you squeamish. And take a second to think about why it makes you squeamish. Genitals are human and scientific and we literally all have them. If you have more of a problem with WAP than with any of the other 10,000 songs about dicks and sex, you need to spend some time examining why that is.

Here’s another post I’ve seen bouncing around the social media feeds:

Something about this is just plain hilarious to me. Like what are racism and rape culture if not THE REALEST issues? This country’s problem with systemic racism runs so, so deep and is reflected very plainly in centuries of cold, hard numbers. It’s not that I *think* systemic racism is a problem. The data very clearly shows that regardless of what white people think about race in this country, systemic racism absolutely IS a problem. Racism and rape culture, arguably at the root of the most recent canceling spree, are not just real issues, they’re real American issues. They’re cultural issues. And solving cultural issues is not easy. We know that these issues have been passed down through the generations so maybe changing children’s toys and books and shows isn’t such a bad thing to try. There is SO much work to do to address racism and rape culture in the United States, but small steps are still progress.

If choosing to stop airing a show that blatantly perpetuates rape culture means one less young person is stalked or assaulted or raped, that’s worth it, no? What if that one young person who doesn’t become a victim is your daughter?

If choosing to stop publishing a book with racist themes and images leads to even one kid understanding more about the nuance of race in America and the breath-taking extent of white privilege, that’s worth it too.

Would I rather the media spend time and money to bring American attention to bigger issues associated with this nation’s racism and rape culture? 100%. There are ENORMOUS fish to fry. Dr. Seuss is not an enormous fish. Potato head toys are not enormous fish. Pepe Le Pew is not an enormous fish. They’re not even big fish. They’re small. They’re tiny fish. They’re anchovies. But frying some fish is better than frying no fish.

Canceling Pepe Le Pew is not hurting anyone. Warner Brothers owns Pepe Le Pew. Warner Brothers owns nearly everything; they are not hurting for money. And canceling Pepe certainly isn’t hurting American kids. There are plenty of other kids’ shows to watch that are significantly less problematic. Just because you watched Pepe Le Pew and went on to be a properly respectful adult doesn’t mean there aren’t other kids out there who did internalize a harmful disrespect for consent. No, Pepe Le Pew probably isn’t single-handedly responsible for anyone’s decision to stalk or rape anyone else. But could a show reinforce the groundwork that ultimately leads a kid down a path where he is unable or unwilling to respect the boundaries of others? I mean, it’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard this week.

Canceling six total Dr. Seuss books that are already pretty obscure is not hurting anyone.

Changing the name of an already genderless potato toy to reflect that genderless-ness is not hurting anyone.

A brief recap: racism and rape culture are very real, very American issues.

If the decision to stop doing a thing doesn’t hurt anyone and may even save someone some hurt, why does that decision bother you?

Also, in all your frantic Facebook posting, make sure you are differentiating between “cancel culture” and consequences. When the media tosses around the phrase “cancel culture” it has this tone of finality that is, plainly, not realistic. Fads and trends move so quickly in the internet age that the idea that a group of people could “cancel” something permanently is just not possible. People who do or say racist things, though, should face consequences. People who do or say transphobic or homophobic things should face consequences. Consequences are one of the only ways we learn to do better. And again, that’s not my opinion, it’s science.

One of the consequences that can have the most impact is, you guessed it, losing money! In this capitalist hellscape, money talks. Boycotting and choosing how we spend our money are some of the most engaging ways to combat racist and homophobic garbage. When you have your temper tantrum because the company who owns a book with overtly racist imagery decides to stop publishing that book, that speaks volumes about your priorities. If you respond to that company’s decision by buying the book in question on eBay for $400, that speaks even louder volumes. What are you doing? WHY are you doing it? I’m guessing you don’t even know, and you should probably spend some time thinking about it before you flush away a chunk of your stimmy on a freaking RACIST KIDS’ BOOK.

All actions have consequences. All of our choices never affect just us. How we vote affects other people. How we spend our money affects other people. Spending our money on things that are problematic perpetuates the problem… whether it be racism, rape culture, homophobia, or transphobia… or so many other things this country desperately needs to address.

It’s human to not like change. Change is going to happen, though, regardless of whether or not we’re comfortable with it. In the information age, we have a remarkable opportunity to steer that change. Leaving behind racist relics is change, so it may be inherently uncomfortable. But change that moves our country away from racism and rape culture is GOOD change.

I am begging you. Use critical thinking… if you’re seeing a headline about something being canceled, look up WHY. Some of these headlines are absolute bunk… they’re shared just to get people all riled up and create American division. However, just like we *should* cancel lead paint, a children’s book with overtly racist images shouldn’t be published anymore and it’s weird if you disagree with that. Disagreeing with that decision, as silly as it may seem, perpetuates racism. I know how triggered y’all can get when someone suggests you might be perpetuating racism, but it is what it is. Do your research. Don’t spend your money on racist garbage. Be better.

I feel like this post is me just barking the exact same thing in different ways, but I also feel like there is so much more I could say.

I’ll leave you with this:

What will it take for Americans to weigh the threats of racism and homophobia the same way we weight the threat of lead paint? If it’s a matter of costing lives, well, the numbers speak for themselves.

#cancel culture #cancellation #racism #rape culture #the muppets #pepe le pew #dr. seuss #seuss #consequences #change #mr. potato head #potato head #cancel culture isn't real

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howelljenkins · 4 years

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do you have any advice for ppl in majority white fandoms trying to...just enjoy it??? im in a few and normally everything is fine but recently when somebody points out something like whitewashing a character they get shut down and he rest of her popular blogs/ppl just, ignore it. they act like it's not a important conversation or try to stray away. and it's INFURIATING bc these ppl have had week long discourse abt whether a character had CHEST HAIR!!! part 1

but for some reason they can't talk abt how valid accusations of whitewashing may be? this paired with the fact that I recently found out the author has been called out for writing a book that was super racist towards asians and biracial ppl and NOBODY had ever mentioned it before AND that none of the popular bloggers said anything abt blm all through june bc "their blogs were safe spaces" and they didn't talk abt "political stuff" on there. part 2 im SO sorry this was such a long ask but I've just seen how well u manage to handle things like his in the pjo fandom with the help of other fans of color and i just was wondering if u could give any advice bc i... Have No Idea how to handle this. part 3, the end

it’s frustrating and it’s infuriating and at times it makes me want to rip my hair out. I know what you mean and it burns me up inside seeing the same people who reblog a cute little blm graphic focus for weeks at a time on discourse about insignificant details completely ignore actual legitimate issues.

I think the best advice I could give you is to become friends with your block and unfollow buttons. Sometimes, the coolest, funniest, smartest bloggers on your dash could be the same ones refusing to acknowledge issues or actively contributing to them. It sucks, but taking them off your dash is the first step to actively improving your online experience. Even if it’s a relatively small transgression on their part, it usually points to a bigger issue and you’ll probably be reminded of it every time you see them on your dash. It will suck and you will feel mean but at the end of the day it is YOUR dash and you shouldn’t feel stressed whenever you log on. Make boundaries and stick to them.

Another bit of advice I’d give (that was also echoed by most of black pjo discord when I asked if they had anything to add lol) is to find your people. Follow bloggers of color, form connections with like minded people. Not only does this help with feeling isolated, it also gives you a good place to vent because they probably go through the same thing. One good way to do this is to form discord groups (for example: black fandom discord, poc fandom discord, lgbt fandom discord, etc.).

and don’t feel like you have to hold yourself back! If you want to speak up or call someone/something out, do it. I rant on here all the time and so many things that I think are just me things tend to resonate and spread, and eventually they start to actually sink in to the overall fandom. A few years ago, people didn’t blink twice at white washed art, but it’s a lot better now that people have spoken up on it. HOWEVER, do not feel like you have to speak on everything and be a spokesperson because that is exhausting. but if you feel like you have something to say, say it.

I’m not going to lie to you though. Sometimes the negativity is so pervasive that you have to leave. I recently took like a break from tumblr and genuinely considered not coming back or just restarting my blog. I came back and decided to stay after doing a mass unfollow, but were it not for the people I interact with and enjoy seeing on my dash, I would’ve been long gone. If you unfollow and you block and you do everything you can and your dash still feels like a punch in the face, think about cutting your losses. take a break from tumblr and see how it feels. gauge whether you actually enjoy being online or if it’s become something that drains you now.

most important of all never ever ever let someone who is not affected by racism/sexism/homophobia/colorism/etc gaslight you or tell you you’re being overdramatic. ever. it is almost always to preserve their own comfort rather than to actually help you. trust your gut!! more often than not, it’s right.

#answered #anonymous #faq #*

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juliabohemian · 4 years

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Why FACTS do not seem to matter to the United States

Just a few commonly held misconceptions that interfere with people’s ability to appreciate facts:

1. You only have value if you are productive.

This completely disregards children, the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill. It suggests that anyone who isn’t productive is a drain on the system, and therefore expendable. This is a product of capitalism, which benefits profit over quality of life.

This is also why people feel guilty for just relaxing. Like it’s not okay to just take some time to decompress. We’ve turned productivity into a fetish. Being busy is considered some kind of accomplishment and even used as a measurement of someone’s social or professional prowess.

2. Your accomplishments don’t count unless you suffered for them.

This is a concept perpetuated by the rich, in order to justify the mistreatment of those who keep them rich. It is a product of the Christian-based romanticization of suffering as an inevitability of life. It discourages believers from questioning those who keep them poor, or from trying to change their own circumstances. If you aren’t sure what I mean, Google Joel Osteen.

Suffering IS a part of life. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be.

Thoughts and prayers.

3. Anything you need in life has to be earned.

This is also a product of capitalism. Basically, the notion is that you’re entitled to nothing. Not even a roof over your head or food to eat. It doesn’t matter whether you need it to survive. If you don’t have the cash to pay for it, your life is expendable.

4. If you work really hard, you can achieve anything.

This particular concept was first conceived during the early days of colonialism. But it really took off after WW2 when, due to the economic rebound, it was actually possible for someone to survive off of minimum wage. People who experienced those conditions firsthand are extremely unlikely to believe that the same isn’t possible for everyone, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. If you just pull up those darn bootstraps, you can make it happen!

This belief also completely disregards the ways in which systemic racism and bias against other marginalized groups separates them from the resources they need to succeed.

4. If you are poor or homeless, it’s probably your fault somehow.

The purpose behind this is to relieve us of any responsibility to care for those around us who are struggling. When we see a homeless person, we have an immediate reaction. Whether it is guilt about what we have, or guilt because we have no intention of giving them cash, or guilt because we know we are in no position to help them. People relieve that discomfort by falling back on the belief that the homeless and the poor are irresponsible, lazy, stubborn, mentally ill, or on drugs. That way it is okay not to care about them. It’s okay to vote against programs that might benefit them.

5. If we just stop enabling the poor, they will stop being poor.

This is based on the misconception that people are poor by choice. The belief is that if we remove programs that are helping poor people, the poor will stop being so stubborn and quit being poor.

It completely disregards the actual reasons why people are poor.

This same concept also applies to LGBT, the disabled and the mentally ill. As there is also a widely held misconception that these things are all the result of personal choice and therefore, can be altered at will. Taking away the rights of these groups will magically force them to conform to the norm (straight/Christian/Caucasian).

6. Poor people/immigrants/people of color don’t “care” about education.

This is like paying someone with Monopoly money and then getting mad at them for not spending it. It might look, on the surface, like it has value. But it doesn’t.

If your personal experience with public education is that it does not lead, in any way, to upward social mobility, it is unreasonable to expect you to value it. If you want members of marginalized groups to place more value on education, then you need to make it more useful for them. The burden is on us, as educators, to do that. Not on the students and their families.

7. Whiteness = Normalcy

This belief is even held by those who might think of themselves as being liberal, but who use such unfortunate terms as colorblindness. “I’m color blind!” they will say, proudly. Which, on the surface, might seem like a good thing. But it isn’t, because it completely robs any non-Caucasian of their identity, suggesting that their goal should be to blend in with us instead.

Fans of colorblindness are “fine” with black people, as long as those black people straighten their hair and abandon their ghetto vernacular.

Further evidence of this belief is seen through all of the white people who love to watch NFL football, but got their panties in a bunch when Colin Kaepernick dared to protest against police brutality when his sole purpose for existing was to entertain them. How dare he ruin their enjoyment of football by bringing something to their attention that they’d rather ignore. It’s perfectly okay for black people to occupy certain spaces, as long as they serve a purpose for white people while they are there. They second they use that space to try and benefit their own people, they are cancelled.

Sadly, many people of color actually subscribe to this notion (or more like surrender to it) which is basically a form of Stockholm Syndrome. Most likely because they have subconsciously come to the conclusion that if you cannot beat someone, you might as well join them. And you really can’t blame them for doing whatever they have to do to survive.

8. Policemen can do whatever they want because they are heroes.

I hate the word hero. A person can be heroic. They can do heroic things. A person cannot BE a hero. Because it suggests that they are defined by their title, as opposed to their beliefs or actions. And that’s not how reality works. People have free will and are therefore not bound by their titles.

This notion of cops being heroes has always been around in the United States, but it really took off after 9-11. It was a dark time and we were desperate to feel safe. So, we put our faith in the first responders. And there were plenty of fireman and cops who did great things during that event. But suddenly, after 9-11, ANYONE in a uniform was a hero. It didn’t matter what they did or why. Their title and uniform were all the qualifications they needed to be considered a hero in the eyes of the people.

Unfortunately, that shift encouraged a wave of completely new people to become cops. Most of whom should not even have access to firearms, let alone a free pass to do whatever they want, without any sort of legal accountability. They saw becoming a cop as an opportunity to fight back against anything that they interpreted as a threat to their perception of what America should be.

The second thing that contributed to the elevation of cops to hero status was the invention of smartphones. In the early days of smartphones, many people genuinely believed that having video evidence of law enforcement, brutally beating unarmed people of color would make some kind of difference. Bizarrely, it has had the opposite effect.

Imagine Dorothy reaching OZ and seeing with her own eyes that there is a guy behind the curtain with a microphone and choosing to continue believing in the wizard anyway. That’s how many right wing Americans have reacted to seeing evidence of police brutality. It only strengthened their faith in law enforcement.

Every time another person of color is murdered at the hand of police, someone will inevitably offer an excuse or explanation on their behalf. The victim had a criminal history. The victim reached for a weapon. The victim was acting suspiciously. Policemen have hard jobs. Policemen are under stress. Really ANYTHING to avoid coming to the conclusion that a police officer did a bad thing, on purpose. Because that would never happen, right? People are bound by their titles. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Really, unless we actively seek to determine the source of these misconceptions (public school curriculum, news media, fictional media etc.) so we can dismantle them, we will forever be quoting facts to a people who care not for logic, and who will cling desperately to their bias until they take their last breath.

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woman-loving · 4 years

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Transforming “Queer” into “Kvar”

Selection from "Queer Beograd Collective: Beyond Single-Issue Activism in Serbia and the Post-Yugoslav Space," by Bojan Bilić and Irene Dioli, in Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia, ed. Bojan Bilić and Sanja Kajinić, 2016

Serbian LGBT activism has a relatively short history given that homosexuality was decriminalised in 1994. Soon after this routine revision of the penal code, which came as a surprise to the LGBT “community”,[5] the first gay and lesbian organisation Arkadija, operating from the early 1990s, was officially registered in July 1994. As the activist “scene” slowly differentiated, lesbian activists separated from Arkadija in 1995 to form a specifically lesbian non-governmental organisation, Labris (Mlađenović, this volume; Hura, this volume). It was this group that, inebriated by the ephemeral enthusiasm that followed the fall of Slobodan Milošević’s oligarchic regime in October 2000, misread the apparent “opening” of the political field and decided to stage the first Pride March in June 2001. The Pride—a feeling presumably “reserved” for other kinds of belonging in highly patriarchal environments—encountered an explosion of hooligan resistance and ended with around forty seriously injured activists (Bilić, 2016; Bilić & Kajinić, this volume). The then-Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić said in the wake of the event:

“I think that it is too early for a country that has been isolated for so long and under a patriarchal repressive culture to endure such a tolerance test. I am, of course, a supporter of tolerance in every sense and everyone is entitled to express their difference as long as they do not harm anyone else, and in this case there can be no harm because someone has different sexual affinities. That is the highest level of tolerance and I am afraid that we still need a certain period of time to reach it.” (B92, 2001, online)

The first attempt to stage a Pride March started the pairing of LGBT-oriented street protests with overtly homophobic aggression and inaugurated a chain of activist actions and immediate nationalist reactions sustained by the Serbian Orthodox Church. After the 2001 Pride, which became known within activist circles as the “massacre parade”, there was no initiative for Pride organisation in the following two years. In 2004, when the activists thought that the time was ripe for another attempt, they realised that they still could not count on political/state support and were yet again faced with homophobic threats, eventually cancelling the manifestation. In the words of Dušan Maljković (2013, online), a long-term LGBT activist from Belgrade:

“Forms of activism are often a local copy & paste of Western ones, which is very problematic because it implies a failure to consider the local context. This is the case, for example, of Pride parades, which many believe should be carried out like in the West at all costs, rather than reflect on how they might be reinvented to be made more effective.”

Queer Beograd Collective appeared in this context as a group of activists who decided to establish a safe haven in which the fluidity and richness of sexuality could be expressed and celebrated. A hamster with wings riding a bicycle was chosen as a logo because, as the activists stated (personal communication with Irene Dioli, 2009), “forming a queer collective in Belgrade was about as likely as finding a hamster with wings riding a bicycle”. They started condemning homophobic violence, which they perceived as a symbiosis of war,[6] clericalism, nationalism, militarism, and machismo that became deeply ingrained in the way in which politics was done by Serbian officials.[7] Accounting for the appearance of the Collective in their first Manifesto, issued in May 2005 as a “programmatic” statement of their first festival, the group members said:

“[…] the state and citizens are still ignorant toward problems of the LGBT population and all the others who are different. […] human rights are abused on a daily basis.

That is why this year we had a new concept—we refused to spend time on worries about violence that might happen and hiring private security or police. We wanted to build exciting cooperation between people on an international and local level, to have fun, and to promote queer politics. In this context to be queer means to refuse social rules and to constantly re-question supposed norms of patriarchal tradition. To create space beyond the rigid boxes of LGBT or straight sexuality, allowing each other the ‘privilege’ of self definition. To present a radical politics that sees the interconnectedness of all forms of oppression.” (Queer Beograd Collective, 2004)

The first “manifesto” introduced the concept of queer in its English original and announced that the initiative would attempt to offer a “holistic” approach to the frequent abuse of human rights by showing how various forms of discrimination stem from the same patriarchal nucleus. Over five days of the first festival, Do It Yourself, which took place in an abandoned building and gathered participants from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom, there were numerous art exhibitions, film screenings, performances, concerts, and workshops as well as a self-defence training. This event, which can be considered the start of grassroots queer activism in Belgrade, ended with a street party in the centre of the city, symbolically marking an attempt by the activists to, at least temporarily, claim a public space without provoking violent reactions (Dioli, 2011a).

However, after the initial enthusiasm to put an end to the incessant lamentations about Serbia’s backwardness and exclusion from the world, it became clear that the physical safety achieved through the use of the term queer did not come without a price. The activists and their sympathisers continued to grapple with the concept, some of them believing that the lack of violence and a sense of empowerment produced by the first festival could become possible because “queer” masked their sexual identities, which needed a more explicit politicisation.[8] At the “Queer Beograd Party & Politics” roundtable, organised within the second festival that took place in December 2005 and which lasted for three days, one of the participants said:

“I would like to describe a bit why I predominantly don’t identify or name myself queer, but rather lesbian. […] For me, using this term—which more or less has an Anglo-American connotation—is very questionable. […] There are these western paradigms which are most commonly translated, not just translated but sometimes copy/pasted to other regions, but not the other way around. This is also often the case with the term queer. It is very questionable, what we do with this translating of the concepts.” (transcribed by Irene Dioli, see Dioli, 2011a)

Thus, in the wake of the first festival, activists understood that “queer” did not really feel at home in the Serbian sociopolitical context. Although it could serve as a “folding screen” that would for a little bit of time keep hooligans “in check”, the concept was not widely known either within the Serbian LGBT “community”, which was supposed to be addressed by and take part in the Queer Beograd Collective festivals. Bearing this in mind, Jet Moon, a performer and one of the group’s founders, said in December 2005:

“After our first festival in Beograd, we realised it’s not enough to try and stage a queer DIY festival in Serbia, because for a start no one knows what queer is! On the one hand this is useful because the fascists and homophobes don’t come to attack us, on the other it means we don’t make contact with the community of people we want to play with. We don’t want to make a new kind of closet, but we use the word queer for a reason, for us it means more than the right to freedom of sexual expression.” (Moon, Party & Politics Roundtable, transcribed by Irene Dioli, see Dioli 2011a)

The second festival, self-financed like its predecessor a few months earlier, brought yet another series of performances, movie screenings, parties, and theoretical discussions on gender, sexuality, politics, and art. It was organised and attended by activists and artists from the former Yugoslav states and their guests from the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States. In contrast to the first event, which was supposed to acknowledge the presence of those who tend to be left out of the heteronormative paradigm, the second one was devoted to a closer engagement with the creative political potential of the concept of queerness in the Serbian/post-Yugoslav context. As a result of these discussions, the third Queer Beograd festival, which took place in October 2006, rounded the evolutionary trajectory of the concept of queer within the initiatives of this activist group by substituting it with the Serbo-Croatian word kvar, meaning malfunction. Thus, the “manifesto” of the third festival read:

“In Serbian there is no word that means queer, no way to say what we mean about queer being more than LGBT equality. For us queer means radical, inclusive, connecting to all kinds of politics and being creative about how we live in this world. So our new festival is called “Kvar”, a technical term literally translating to mean “a malfunction in a machine”, because in this world of capitalism, nationalism, racism, militarism, sexism, and homophobia, we want to celebrate ourselves as a malfunction in this machine. We dare to resist conformity and go against what is accepted to create something about living and justice, not false productivity, war, and money. We are happy to present to you “Kvar—the malfunction”, a festival celebrating diversity and freedom of sexual expression, celebrating everyone who fights against the system.” (Queer Beograd Collective, 2006)

Dioli (2011b) notes how the translation of queer as kvar preceded the publication of Judith Halberstam’s book The Queer Art of Failure, which questions conventional notions of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society. The choice of the word kvar, thus, becomes particularly relevant in the context of the so-called “queer asynchrony” and “temporal disjunction” that Mizielińska and Kulpa (2011) use to explain the relationship between Western and Eastern queer activisms. Although departing with a noble goal of “de-centring” Western sexualities, they stick to a Western point of reference that inevitably portrays Eastern European countries as lagging behind their Western “models” (Takács, 2013 ). With this in mind, “the Serbian queer movement may almost seem to have anticipated the times. This may help dismantle some stereotypes of ‘Eastern’ LGBT and queer movements running after ‘Western’ thought and conquests in a linear trajectory of development” (Dioli, 2011b , online). By opting for the word kvar, which, while being phonetically similar to the word queer, encapsulates the essence of their politics, the Belgrade Queer Collective activists showed how a foreign concept can be appropriated in the local context. “The local subjects found a brilliant synthesis on the linguistic as well as semantic level, and thus fully ‘localised’ the original term” (Dioli, 2011a , p. 164).

#lgbtq history #lgbt history #serbia #queer #queer beograd collective #Bojan Bilic

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aahsoka · 4 years

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So having been on tiktok for a bit I wanna talk a little about it.

What I like

It’s actually rather entertaining to scroll through up to 30 second videos one after the other. Sometimes the humor falls flat or it’s not your taste, but the algorithim is quite good at recommending the kind of content you will like.

I joined right when there was a big trend going around about sharing your culture, and soon after a Blackout trend where non-Black creators stopped posting for a day & spread/supported videos by Black creators. So I ended up with a fairly diverse fyp or “for you page”. It also quickly gathered that I am bisexual, so I get plenty of lgbt+ content. There’s some art mixed in there, some cosplay, some historical costuming/seamstresses, lots of avatar jokes lately, musical theatre content, fashion, girls in bikinis on rollerskates (in outer space), commentary on political issues, body positivity, all the kinds of stuff I like. To get a feed that caters to your interests you just have to watch & like videos you’re interested in & eventually it gets a feel for what you’ll watch and what you won’t.

Theres a trend where people say which ‘side’ of tiktok they’re on and I get ‘science side of tumblr’ flashbacks but I’ve mostly avoided the “straight” and conservative sides of tiktok. I would be considered a part of “woke”, “alt” (as in alternative) and lgbt+ tiktok (there are separate ones for each letter of the acronym). Possibly also “theatre” and “cosplay” tiktok. These categories are nebulous and you’re usually part of multiple communities; its just as arbitray as ‘science side of tumblr’ was.

The format reminds me of snapchat a little, and I love to talk to myself on video & post dumb thirst traps for my friends (none of which I’m attracted to so idk what my goal is there) and make stupid jokes. So this app is kinda perfect for my attention seeking side & hyperactive tendencies. Its very easy to consume on a short attention span, though not as easy as vine was.

Being in quarantine, its a way for a lot of people to engage in hobbies that involve community. Cosplay is pretty popular, as its a fun way to show off a costume & dress up & have fun without having to attend a convention. I enjoy the way lip synced audios can be used to emulate the character someone is dressed as; that’s something you couldn’t really do unless you were really good at impressions. Its a nice succinct way to show the process of creating a cosplay as well.

Those who enjoy theatre, but cannot perform in shows at this time, are able to create mini-monologues & sketches as well as sing parts of their favorite songs. Its an avenue through which to perform without putting anyone at risk of the virus. It’s also an easy way to show off your talents without having to go through the audition process & actually get cast in a show as a prominent enough role that someone will notice it.

It’s a convenient format for discourse and educational videos. Nice, short, easily digestible tidbits that stay in your mind. This extremely catchy song, for example: “Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime, and white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime. And all of those stupid stats you keep using are operating off a small sample size. So, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up”.

As well as other videos where people take the time to explain historical events, satirize racist arguments to demonstrate why they are wrong, talk about prevalent tropes in movies, teach a few signs in ASL, share facts about their culture, etc, etc. I have found there are quite a lot of people there from unique and fairly unknown cultures and backgrounds- and this is a place where they’re able to share their culture & existence with people all over the world. There are a thousand different viewpoints. Their videos are doing far more for diverse representation than any other platform, I’d argue, as everyone is extremely visible on the app. (‘Their’ as in the creators, not the app itself).

I also have enjoyed coming across new artists on the app. It’s really fun to watch the process they go through, as most art videos deal with the whole creation of a piece. It’s inspiring. I have also come across a painter who’s work I’m in love with, and a woman who makes and sells the CUTEST ceramic mugs, and I need to purchase some stuff from them both.

Now onto the bad:

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have much in the way of a filtering or warning system. I talked about that tiktok of the kids coming across human remains? That was just on people’s fyp. Just popped up. No warning. No reason for it to still be up. Traumatizing.

You can click on a video and say ‘not interested’ (I do this to literally every video I get where some girl is thirsting after kylo ren 🤮..... like I want the star wars videos just not THOSE videos). However, it doesn’t seem to know exactly why you weren’t interested, because I still get those videos from time to time. There’s no content filter where I can blacklist the kylo ren or any other hashtag.

There’s some very shitty content. There are racist conservatives. Misogynistic teen white boys. Really weird thirst traps. Videos where people lip sync to something with a straight face and tag it with #acting. Harmful body image trends. I thankfully stay very clear of this, but this kind of content makes me worry for the minors on the app. The one’s who don’t have enough of a concept of self yet to realize they don’t need to be able to do the newest pointless beauty trend to be beautiful, to realize it’s ok for them to be gay, to realize how predatory some adults can be, etc etc.

It is extremely easy to come across minors on the app who don’t look like teens. One time I went to a girl’s page and it said she was FIFTEEN. I’m usually good at guessing ages but something about this app messes that up. I wish there was a way to separate people under 18 and adults. Where I don’t have minor’s thirst traps popping up on my fyp. Where pedophiles don’t get a chance to curate that fyp intentionally. If anyone reading this has kids, I highly recommend they make their tiktok private or only viewable to friends.

Just like any site, there are plenty of bigots. Lots of racist comments. Plenty of transphobia. Any hatred you’ve seen elsewhere, of course it exists on tiktok. I have actually zero clue if you can report people & if it works. Most people seem to send a video commentary to their haters or duet a video of a racist pointing out their racism. I’ve heard of creators blocking people, however. I remember a tiktok of a Black woman who’s video somehow went fairly viral in Poland and now she gets a lot of racist comments from this large group of random racisf Polish followers she has and its extremely time consuming to block them all, as there’s no mass block feature.

The rumors about what works with the algorithm and doesn’t abound. I’ve heard well lit videos get more views. Many people suspect they have been shadowbanned for speaking out about current events. TikTok will remove the audio from videos sometimes if they deem it controversial enough. Most of us know they were criticized recently for intentionally keeping Black creator’s videos from being seen (a catalyst for the Blackout, actually). Or you may also recall when it was criticized for widely removing lgbt+ content. Those creators are fighting to be seen the same amount as straight cis white creators are allowed to be seen with no effort.

The effects some trends could have on teen girls. So many of them are already so uncomfortable in their own skin simply because of societal standards, but the absolutely meaningless challenges people come up with on tiktok make it so much worse. One trend was based around whether your finger touched your lips when you put it in your nose. Or if you could get your clasped hands around the back of your legs and over your butt (if they get passed, you have a flat ass, if they get stuck, its big). These completely arbitrary signifiers of the things you need to have in order to be pretty, are far more ridiculous that anything I have seen yet in my life. I worry about little girls taking these ideas to heart. There is a very kind body positive community on the app & I hope more people can find that.

There’s also that thing where they steal your data. Like most apps. But apparently they got a lot more invasive than usual, so I would look into it before making an account; if you want to do that.

I think the apps users can be great & its a pretty intuitive set up. It certainly deserves its popularity solely as a creative form of social media. That being said, its owners are so so insidious & do the worst things. Just like all other social media, its controlled by the worst kind of people. Who can never figure out how to effectively get rid of nazis or keep kids safe from adult content.

These are my less serious gripes with the app:

1) Lip syncing

When people lip sync and don’t do any kind of skit, joke, etc, just look as if they’re saying what someone else said; I hate that. I have to go back and find the original tiktok so I can like it instead. You literally did nothing interesting by ripping off someones audio and moving your lips along to it. So many people on this app are creative and so many others lack any semblance of creativity.

Also people are too easily impressed by lip syncing to kinda-fast songs. I lip synced to like....10 seconds of the devil went down to georgia and two people praised my lip syncing abilities. Like, I can also sing and talk fast, out loud, isn’t that more impressive? more skillful? The fiddle playing in that song is impressive, not the fact I can lip sync ‘the devil went down to georgia, he was lookin for a soul to steal, he was in a bind, cause he was way behind.’ Have you ever seen someone play Johnny’s fiddle solo????? It’s insane!!!

Rather than see someone lip sync to the verse in Stressed Out 2x faster than normal (which is, extremely simple and the song was overplayed and ingrained into our collective consciousness) and go WOW what about someone.....doing the verse out loud. You can litterally just mouth random words and look like you’re saying the right ones. It’s driving me crazy lmao. I’m set to become a God of tiktok because I have a repertoire of fast songs and rap verses memorized. It’s not even an uncommon skill to speak or sing quickly, people literally make rap music for a living! Listen to it maybe.

2) “Acting”

I am begging you to stop making me sit through those horrible POVs. I cannot take another girl not quite fake crying towards the camera as she lip syncs the words from a song that apply to the random situation she decided she was in. I cannot take another boy who thinks its sexy to stare into a camera and smirk in every single situation he creates.

Back to lip syncing, making facial expressions along to words isn’t really acting. Try saying the words out loud perhaps? The inflection you use with your lines is a pretty big part of acting. Like you can lip sync all you want, just stop tagging it with #acting.

3) Comedic timing, or lack thereof

You don’t need the entire intro to sit there looking at the camera waiting until the first line starts and you can lip sync to the part that’s the joke. You could cut off at least 15 seconds. Brevity is the soul of wit.

When your joke involves both reading text on screen and listening to the song for the punchline, if it isn’t done prefectly, its so difficult to follow. I can’t read a paragraph in 5 seconds. Paraphrase.

4) self deprecating artist audio

the audio thats like ‘this wont get views’ ‘I suck’ ‘you probably won’t see this anyway’ LOVE YOURSELF

It sucks when people dont enagage with your art but it sucks worse when your value in yourself and you art is based solely on receiving that validation. Please find a healthy medium.

Also you’re asking for pity, and you don’t want that. You want people who genuinely love your art for what it is.

5) editing videos is really hard how do you make such cool & smooth transitions????

please help me I don’t understand

Finally

here’s my account if you’re interested

#this long ass opinion article no one asked for #tiktok #social media #jordan talks #long post /

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the-lulu-one · 4 years

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Your Life Matters

The way my personality works is that, unfortunately, I care too much; I care to a fault. I love everyone; black, white, tanned, rainbow coloured… It doesn’t matter to me if you have translucent flesh and come from outer space. I don’t care what your skin looks like and I don’t care where you originate from. I don’t care if you’re human, animal or plant. All living things are equally important in their own way.

There are millions of people who feel the same way as I do. Unfortunately, they are the ones who go noticed because we are too busy focusing our attention on those who make the most noise. We allow the squeaky wheel to capture our attention and manipulate our emotions.

The problem with caring to excess is that these emotions can easily override my sense of what is actually real, which means I end up suffering for no reason. Additionally, as a result of failing to examine my own mental and emotional processes, I put myself at risk of being blindly led to fulfill the selfish agendas of those who really couldn’t give a shit about me (or anyone else, for that matter).

I found the antidote to my excessive care in the practice of an equal amount of reason and logic. I study the facts and then some... I examine statistics before I can allow myself to form an opinion on anything. It is necessary, and the only way to function as a “normal” person in today’s world where we are constantly inundated with information (not all of which is factual, and much of which is based on people’s egos and the desperate need to appear like a moral human being.) It is called people pleasing. Therein lies the danger of following the crowd – people’s motivations are hidden, even to themselves. The result is not good.

If this movement is not about an innocent man being murdered by a corrupt cop, but rather, a black man being murdered by a white man. If this is about the police brutality and the justice system being fundamentally racist. If every single member of these institutions (including blacks, women and those who identify as LGBT) are racist. Then why are black people attacking everybody, without consideration or mercy? Worse yet, why are we actively encouraging it?

Why are we saying it’s okay to behave like criminals, like crazy people? Why is it totally acceptable to destroy all businesses (including the mum and pop stores that are barely surviving as it is)? Why are we saying it’s okay for people to post stolen items on social media, knowing they have ruined the lives of families and children who simply do not deserve such injustice? What about those guys? And what does it have to do with police brutality and racism?

Why are we encouraging people to leave bricks outside protest areas, knowing full well they will be used for destruction? Some people are just a-holes and like to sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch people hurt one another. That is how they get their kicks and it’s sickening. They have no investment in the cause and could not care less about racism. They don’t care that black people are losing their lives in these protests (17 and counting…) and that they helped contribute to such a tragic turn of events. They sleep perfectly well at night, while families grieve. Why has death become the answer to death?

Let’s imagine something for a moment. Let’s imagine that the statistics which show that white people get it just as bad as black people are in fact correct. (The sources that support this statement are incredible if you wish to venture outside the echo chamber.) Not only would this mean the system is hurting everybody, regardless of skin colour, it also means that all those white victims of police brutality and justice system unfairness died in vain. (If we hate white people so much, that fact alone should suffice for cause of celebration. Because racism is not okay. Unless it’s towards white people, yes?)

Getting back to my point, if just as many white folks are suffering at the hands of authority as black folks, then the problem truly is about police brutality and corruption of the justice system. Can we at least agree on this point? This is our enemy, not each other. This is what we should be fighting against. But we are not doing that. We are making all white people our enemy, which is so pointless and absurd that it does my head in. Yes, racism exists in the world. Yes, there are ignorant people walking among us. This cannot be helped. People are racist and ignorant all over the world, not just white folk areas.

In fact, what seems obvious to me is is that white people are the ones who are learning faster than the rest of the world that racism is simply not okay. Clearly, otherwise our little hearts wouldn’t be so hurt and we wouldn’t be fighting so hard. We simply wouldn’t care. White people fought to help end slavery. Does anyone remember this? It was called the American Civil War. It is behind us now. Why can’t we accept this glorious achievement in history? Racism and slavery is still practiced in other parts of the world, such as Africa and the Middle East. Why aren’t we focusing our efforts on this little problem? There are open air slave markets in Libya. That stuff should have ended in the Roman times, but it hasn’t. Nobody bats an eye though.

Why? Because facts require the effort of research and once we reach the Truth, it is really uncomfortable to share it with others. Per chance we might appear “racist”. And right now, all white people are shoved in the same category of racist. We really, truly cannot escape the label, and we dare not try, because we are too nice. And too scared. So we just let it continue and take it from every angle, even if we know ourselves to be loving and kind people. Name calling is the only way some people can make their point and it is something that’s very much on-trend these days. That and hating yourself for being white.

Because self-hatred isn’t the number one most damaging thing to mankind or anything, and we don’t struggle enough with it, as it is. There aren’t enough self-help books published to help us out of such a toxic mentality. Yes, more guilt and shame is what we need, even if we weren’t personally involved in the enslavement of black folks and even if zero people in our bloodline were involved in such a hideous way of life.

Let’s just hate ourselves for being white in the name of “solving” racism, because that makes heaps of sense. Let’s not communicate or brainstorm actual ides for it, because that’s uncomfortable. Let’s just self-flagellate till the end of time, to prove what wonderful, caring human beings we are, and how much we love everyone, clearly, because we hate ourselves. No. Just no.

Calling one another racist should not mean anything anymore because it’s become such a common go-to insult, but unfortunately it still has an effect on our fragile sense of identity. Feeling triggered? Name call. Losing a debate? Name call. Here’s the thing: name calling is not an argument. It is what little children do in the playground because they haven’t yet developed their emotional intelligence. It is not what adults do.

We cannot continue to make emotional noises with out mouth holes and call it an argument. But because tribe mentality is part of our human nature, it’s easy to worry about what people think because nobody wants to be rejected and cast aside at the end of the day. It just isn’t a good feeling. But here’s another thing: we should not fear insults, because it is just sticks and stones. Our fear should center around conforming to illusion and bad ideas instead.

Here is yet another uncomfortable truth: racism is not about skin colour. I should know, I had white Australians as well as Indigenous Australians tell me to “go back to my own country” when I arrived as a newcomer. (I hate the word “immigrant” so I deliberately use “newcomer” instead.) They showed me how intolerant they were of those who didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t fit in with the Australian culture. Regardless of me clearly feeling scared and alone, and trying my best to assimilate to a foreign environment.

* Which is more than I can say for some cultures who refuse to assimilate and want literally everybody to work around their value system by using their “cultural beliefs” as an excuse to get away with horrific behaviour, such as domestic violence against children and the “traditional” practice of repression of women. This is unacceptable behaviour and nobody should stand for it. But we do, because we don’t want to appear racist. At the end of the day, we should be protecting women and children, no matter what.

But getting back to my story, what I was shown by whites and non-whites alike was that I was not welcome because I was different. It was that simple. A brutal lesson. Unfair. And had absolutely nothing to do with my porcelain complexion. It had everything to do with a fear of “other” and an incredible ignorance and laziness of mind to boot.

The looting, theft and violence of the Black Lives movement needs to find a different angle, because it is not about justice anymore. One cannot receive justice through violent acts. One cannot force justice onto society by inflicting pain on the innocent. Therefore, I truly believe that what is happening here is a long-waited for excuse to behave badly and get away with it. And we are all for it, cheering on the protesters and handing them bricks. (Feeling triggered? Name call.) The truth sucks, I know. I almost want to name call myself. But we need to look at this issue clearly with both heart and mind, and not just heart.

It makes me wonder what hope we have as a society when even health professionals are actively putting people at risk by saying “it’s okay to protest in these times”, knowing that social distancing rules will be broken and many people’s lives are at great risk. These professionals are directly going against their Duty of Care for their patients and the code of ethics initially agreed upon when they started their doctoring, or whatever it is they think they’re doing.

The idea of putting my life in the hands of doctors now terrifies me, because they too are not immune to pushing their agendas onto people, and they too are scared of looking like they don’t support the movement and are therefore racist (because that makes soo much sense!) If we cannot trust our own health care experts to stop encouraging us to protest at any cost then who can we trust? https://funnyjunk.com/Only+protestors+will+be+getting+sick/jqdmMwd/)

Some of us support the destruction going on around us, not because we are bad people. But because we are sick to our stomachs that racism actually exists and we are letting our emotions run away with us, hoping it will make a difference. What we actually need to do is step back and look at the bigger picture from a bird’s eye perspective and consider all angles.

However, those of us who love a riot (until it affects us personally, of course) should review our value systems and what we pass down to our children, who are the future. As well as check that we’re not actually psychopaths. That would be a good start. This is what freedom of speech looks and sounds like. If such a thing truly exists (as it claims to do) then I should be allowed to have my say, like everyone else and not be crucified for it. I value freedom of speech. I need freedom of speech. I will hear everyone out, no matter what their point of view, as we are all learning how to properly human in this fucked up world. I will never stop people from expressing themselves. Ultimately, I will check all the facts but come to my own conclusion. As it should be. If I am wrong in the way I am perceiving this movement, I welcome the challenge of my ideas. I don’t mind civilised and honest debate as long as it is not a screaming contest and based on actual facts. I want to learn as much as I can about the world and the human condition, and I will never stop exploring. However I do reject name calling and unnecessary put downs in the name of “being offended”. Because, newsflash! Everybody is offended right now. I am offended, you are offended, the entire world is offended. That doesn’t mean we have to walk on eggshells around one another until the end of time. Please, can we not do that anymore?

In fact, there is great danger in submitting to that sort of game, as Steven Fry would agree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJKXJNM3W-c&feature=youtu.be

* For some comedic relief after such a heavy topic, here is Steve Hughes’ video on being offended too. It’s much more light hearted but ultimately makes the same point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMoDt3nSHs

I am a human being, like everyone else, and I want to live in a better world. I want future generations to have a better planet in which to thrive. This requires me to speak my mind and I expect the same courtesy returned. We are not monkeys anymore; we have evolved from that. Let’s leave the past in the past and invest our energies on further growth and evolution. Let’s communicate. Let’s debate. Most importantly, let’s invest our very souls in the Truth, by allowing the antidote to our vulnerable sense of empathy to be introspection, hard research and the civilised sharing of ideas. It is the only way forward.

May it be so.

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theywontlistenunlessyoutry-blog · 4 years

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Y’all Ain’t Woke (and Neither Am I)

Okay so, I’m not sure how to start this because I know that this is a subject that requires tact. Lots of tact. Tact that a lot of people on this website don’t have, but whatever. That’s not the point of this, not all of it anyway.

The point here is.

Y’all ain’t woke.

Every day I come on this website and I see nothing but mudslinging. Some of it is well deserved and some of it is not. That is again, not the point here. The point here is hypocrisy.

There’s a lot of it. From a lot of people. It’s part of the reason why I’m not giving any specifics onto my identity (I made this blog specifically for this and I may never use it again honestly), because the people on this website will find some way to invalidate me for it. I’m not saying this as a person of a specific identity. No gender. No sexuality. No race. Though I acknowledge that the person I am behind this screen will influence my writings no matter what, I will also try to acknowledge my specific bias’ as a type away at this on my tiny ass phone screen in a valiant attempt to get my opinion out into a great sea of voices.

I am here to acknowledge something that a lot of people on this website don’t seem to have.

Common human decency and understanding.

Now you may argue, “hey aren’t you making some pretty broad assumptions?!” and, “isn’t saying something like that rude?!” Except perhaps with more explicit language. It is the internet. I will not judge you for using the fuck word. I will however judge you for using other words if you so choose to use them, and I’m sure some of you will. But back to the point.

Every day I come onto this site and I see hate spewed from every corner. Not from everyone, no, but from many. Some of this hate is valid and rational, as sometimes the world hurts you and you need a place to vent. A place to be yourself where no one knows who you really are behind the screen (except the FBI, but they don’t count). It is a comfort in a world that is out to deride you. Oppress you. Kill you, even.

Yes, the internet is a comfort.

Yet, so many people can not grasp that on the internet you are not alone.

On the internet you are connected to millions of people, all with vastly different life experiences. Different morals and values. Different world views. Many treat the internet like some alien dimension when in reality the internet is the closest reflection to the human subconscious that we have ever known.

And that is frightening.

There are hate groups at every corner, unchallenged by the rules of an uncaring and prejudiced algorithm made and maintained by people who could give less than two shits about you.

There are cults, out to snare vulnerable minds.

There are stalkers, rapist, abusers, law enforcement, corporations.

There are people out there and they are out to get you, and that is frightening. We are a frightened race for we cannot even trust the very people who had sworn to protect us in some way. Parents, teachers, cops. All have harmed you in some way, intentionally or unintentionally.

We live in a world built upon the backs of oppressed and enslaved people. Not just in America but all across the world, in every government system, in many forms, is a sickness. The sickness is wealth. The sickness it apathy. Perhaps the sickness is even privilege.

Ah yes, privilege.

It is a word that people on this site use to hide. Yes, even me.

We use privilege to invalidate, just as we try and invalidate the existence of privilege.

No, I am not just talking about the existence of white privilege, which most certainly exists though some may doubt it.

To all those who deny, let me tell you this.

One, privilege does not make you a bad person.

Two, almost everyone has privilege.

Yes, you heard me right, almost everyone has privilege.

Despite what some will have you believe, White Privilege is not the only privilege that exists.

Straight Privilege.

Cis Privilege.

Wealth Privilege.

Able Bodied Privilege.

Religious Privilege.

Education Privilege.

Hell, the privilege to even be able to access the internet in the first place.

All of these privileges exist and you have at least one of them. Having a privilege does not mean you’re a bad person, because no one asks to be handed these privileges at birth.

Many people do not even realize they have privilege, because that is how the system is formed. It is formed in such a way that those that have turn their backs on those that have not. That they ignore the plights of others because they do not see that they exist. That they lack empathy for those that are different and therefore turn on them because that is what society taught you to do.

We are all guilty of this.

No, it does not matter if you are Black or Asian, or Indigenous, or White, or any other race or ethnicity. Just as it does not matter if you lack a limb, or if your brain does not process information in the way that is considered standard, or if your body works without trouble.

Everyone has a bias against someone and it shows, yes, even on this website which supposedly teaches tolerance.

Let me assure you it does not.

I come onto here and all I see is hate.

Now, let me preface this with saying that you do not have to love those who have hurt you. Those who took their ignorance a step to far and left a mark on you that you feel will never heal. Those that leave a thousand little scratch marks on your soul every day until you can’t stand it anymore. Those that took your act of pent up suffering as an overreaction and needless anger and never once considered the source.

You do not have to love those that hurt you.

You just need to understand.

People on this website will take one look at you and invalidate your experience because you are white, or a cis man, or straight. Just as the outside world will take one look at you and invalidate your experience because you are black, or a trans woman, or gay, or any other marginalized community.

We do this and call it progressiveness. We do this and call it rebelling against our oppressors. We do this and assume we have the moral high ground because we love one kind of person while scorning the other.

We scorn our fellow humans, people who suffer just as we do in our own lives, if perhaps in different ways, because of the benefits a cruel society born on bloodshed dictated we have at birth.

This is not a movement towards the future, but a movement towards vengeance.

A movement that turns those who could be allies into monsters because they cannot understand the exact suffering you have gone through.

But that is unfair and close-minded.

No one can understand the exact life you have lived, not even those who fall into the same categories as you. No straight white able-bodied cis man’s story is the same, just as no gay black disabled trans woman’s story is the same.

But we can empathize.

We can empathize, should empathize, hold out hope that someone will empathize with our suffering.

I see wishes for empathy. I see people calling out for it. I see people perfectly capable of it.

Yet I see no empathy.

But, perhaps that is a generalization.

Not all people are like that.

Not all people.

Hmm.

Now doesn’t that sound familiar.

You hear it all the time don’t you.

“Not All Men!” or “Not All White People!”

It is a loud cry. It grates on you, because for years the kind of person who says this has been the same person who saw all women as sexualized meat sacks. Who saw Black people as thugs. Who saw Muslims as terrorists. Who saw Latin@ people as gangsters.

Or did they.

You see, here on this very website we look to the people who say these things as lesser. Incels, entitled White folx, White Feminists(not to be confused with White people who are feminists, of course). Yes, we use these words to deride people who have oppressed us, who have invalidated and hurts us over the years. Perhaps it is understandable in some cases (or always in the case of Nazis and White Supremacists), but that is not the point.

We say these things and then console ourselves with knowing that it is not oppression, for these people have been the oppressors for years. Our vitriolic words hold no power over them because of the institution which has deemed us lesser.

“It can’t be racism, the person who said it was Black!”

“It can’t be ableism, they’re in a wheelchair!”

“It can’t be biphobia, she’s a lesbian!”

But it is, and always has been.

You see, despite all the powers that we lack from the government, we all have one power which can be used to hurt others.

Our words.

Words are the gateway to belief, to rhetoric, to ideologies.

You may not believe that someone is hearing you because of your place in society, but I assure you that people are listening. That people are internalizing the things you have said in some way or another. Even if that person is just you.

Every time someone says “I Hate Men,” or “I Hate Straight People,” or “I Hate White People,” it is internalized and it hurts someone. Perhaps yourself, perhaps some lost soul looking for someone to hate, perhaps someone who falls under that wide umbrella and lacks self-esteem.

You may not have meant all of that specific demographic but someone will take it that way. You can clarify all you want, but the way you say things has power. Just as the way you ignore things does.

Intentionally or unintentionally, we are hardwired to internalize propaganda. That is why so many POC, or LGBT+, or disabled people get pushed out of inclusive spaces, spoken over. We have been hardwired to believe their words are less important by a society we are all suffering under, and everyday we must work to rewire ourselves to disbelieve that rhetoric.

Everyone must work for it.

Even me.

Even you.

Do not believe that you cannot be racist just because you are not White. You grew up in a society that valued whiteness over colour. That valued pale beauty over the deeper shades and tones that are just as beautiful.

Do not believe that you cannot be ableist just because you are in a wheelchair. Society has taught you to not value yourself or others who lack parts of their bodies or have their brain work a different way.

Do not believe that you cannot be sexist because you are a woman. One only needs to look at those called TERFs and Radfems to see the rampant transphobia that plagues them.

Do not believe that you cannot be prejudiced against someone else just because someone else is prejudiced against you.

Suffering is part of the human experience.

It simply manifests in different ways.

So many on here want a better, brighter future, and yet cannot envision one that does not come at the cost of someone else’s comfort and safety.

That is not progressiveness.

That is prejudice.

That is hate.

In order to have a better future, we must not pull someone else down to pull ourselves up. That future it not better it is oppression in a different form, it is vengeance for your hurts.

In order to have a better future you must separate those that have hurt you from the system that perpetuates their hate.

You do not have to forgive them.

You do not have to stop being angry or scared.

But you must look past them.

We cannot generalize your suffering and place them on the shoulders of other people. Just as we cannot speak over those suffering an experience that you have not, and then turn around and believe it does not exist. We must acknowledge and accept each other’s existence, but deny and dismantle hateful rhetoric and no matter who it is leveled towards.

We claim the future is together, and yet invalidate those that we perceive as having suffered less when in reality they have likely suffered in a different form.

We cannot dismantle the system that divides us apart, we cannot go alone and afraid of those who do not look or think or act like us. We must go together. If we do not then we will only be torn apart by those that wish to oppress us.

We must look inside ourselves and confront the monster that has grown inside of us. The monster of hate and division that causes us to look at our fellow human and deem them lesser for things out of our control.

We must overcome the bias that society has taught us.

We must be angry, but not at those who have not harmed you, but at the system which has poised our privileges at each other’s throats.

We must go forth but with awareness and acceptance of each other’s existence and suffering.

No one is alone on this planet.

No one is alone on this website.

Someone will hear you, but will what they hear help?

Or will it divide us further?

Only the future will tell, and I hope that future is a bright one.

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gayagendaofficial · 5 years

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Wait, what’s gay lingo? Like, what does twink, bear, etc. mean?

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Before I get into actually defining these terms, I’d like to write about a few things:

So this is probably in reference to this post I made. Not to explain the joke to death, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. I wanted to make fun of how people who aren’t mlm think they know what mlm terms like “twink” and “bear” mean and how they blatantly use them incorrectly everywhere, because they think they’re funny (bc gay men are a joke, right? //sarcasm), or because it makes them look “woke”. It’s an idea I had for the longest time when I saw something a str8 woman wrote about Zac Efron being a twink, in the present. Like yes, Zac Efron was a twink, past tense, but he is absolutely not a twink anymore (if you can even call a str8 man a twink). And she also implied that being a twink is something you can’t outgrow, which is laughable, because it’s kind of a meme among gay men that being a twink is something you grow out of whether you like it or not.

This mostly seems to be a problem among cishet women, since cishet men tend to be too concerned with their “masculinity” to touch gay culture. But since this is tumblr and virtually none of you are cishet, a lot of the times I’ve seen people misuse these terms on this site were LGBT+ people who weren’t themselves mlm. In those cases, the reasons seem more that these people are just misinformed, and they use these terms because mlm use these terms, and we share a community. Part of it comes from the fact that wlw might see the terms “twink” and “bear” as analogous to “femme” and “butch” respectively, which is not true in the slightest (Butch and femme are their own complex thing. What they actually have in common with twink and bear is that few outside their communities actually know what they mean lol). Another reason might be that other LGBT people see mlm using these terms sarcastically and think they’re being used in earnest; if an actual gay man calls a bodybuilder a twink, he’s probably being sarcastic, and also probably trying to insult him (which is a whole can of worms I’ll open up in a bit).

I’m gonna try to define what “twink”, “bear”, and a couple of other terms actually mean, as well as give a little bit of context to how they’re used and controversy surrounding these identities within gay spaces, partially based on my experience as a gay man and partially based on casual research. I’m just one gay man, and I’m not an expert in queer studies or anything, so take from that what you will. I hope this will be useful to mlm who are just discovering their identities and exploring their sexuality/gender, who are new to the community, and I also hope to inform our siblings elsewhere in the LGBT community. This info could also be useful to cishet allies, although please be mindful of your intentions in using these terms.

Anywho, lets get to the definitions:

A twink is a young, smooth, slim mlm. The definition here is generally seen as being pretty strict on those 3 criteria, although “twink” is sometimes used for older mlm who are skinny and don’t have much body hair. Those last two criteria are the most important, because there are other categories for mlm that fit one of the criteria; an otter is essentially twink + bodyhair, and there’s a whole host of other words for other body types.

The definition of “bear” is a little more flexible than “twink”, although it generally comes down to the inverses of those same 3 criteria. The most important of these is the bodyhair requirement; any definition you find of bear includes something about being hairy. Almost as important as bodyhair is body type, although “bear” covers a slightly larger range than twink in that regard. Usually, “bear” indicates that someone is large or plus-sized, although it can also sometimes be used to describe someone who is muscular in the sense that they are beefy (if you can see a 6 pack, he’s probably not a bear). It’s also sometimes associated with being slightly older, but that’s not nearly as important, and “bear” can refer to any age. The term “cub” refers to mlm with the same body type as a bear, but who are smooth and young.

Now, let’s get into some misconceptions/controversies surrounding these terms. The first of these is that twink and bear are the only two options, and that all mlm fall into one of these two categories, or that other terms are simply variations on those two main terms. This misconception is really only one held by people who aren’t mlm themselves (or are, but are only just learning the terminology). These terms are extremely specific, and the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of mlm don’t fit into either of these categories. And that’s ok! There are a ton of other words mlm use to describe themselves. I’ve already mentioned “otter” and “cub”; there’s also “jock”, which refers to muscular mlm; “wolf”, which also refers to muscular mlm, but specifically hairy ones (with a bit of overlap with the “beefier bears” I mentioned earlier); the relatively new term “twunk” which you may know from this video as “a combination twink and hunk”; and many many more. In addition, all of these categories are really just physical descriptions of your body, and don’t have any bearing on anything else. You don’t need to fit into any of them.

That being said, there are a number of stereotypes associated with these terms, and it is important to address them.

Our next misconception is one that’s as common among mlm as as it is among everyone else: that twinks are by definition fem, and bears are by definition masc. “Masc” and “fem”, short for masculine and feminine respectively, come with their own host of problems, and that is a can of worms that I am not going to open up right now. This post is long enough as it is. If you want the sparknotes version of the controversy surrounding the masc-fem dichotomy, it basically boils down to misogyny, transphobia, and internalized homophobia. But back to twinks and bears: I would like to assume that it’s obvious that your body type or bodyhair has absolutely no impact on your personal presentation of gender. There are plenty of fem bears and masc twinks. But unfortunately, most people don’t seem to get this. And this super important, because the gendered way we think of these terms affects everything else I’ll be talking about in the remainder of this post.

My next point, which is really and observation based on my experience in the gay community, is that bear as a term seems to be much less… loaded. However, being a twink myself, there might be a gap in my personal experience, so any bears feel free to correct me. However, from what I’ve seen, “bear” isn’t really used as an insult in the way “twink” is. Which is a bit of a miracle, considering how prevalent fat-shaming is in the gay community. From what I’ve seen, bear isn’t a term that’s forced on you, it’s a term that bears choose for themselves, almost always in a positive way. It’s a term associated with body positivity, and bear communities seem to be much less toxic than the gay community as a whole. Even when it’s used to describe someone else, it’s always a neutral statement of fact. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used as an insult, or even sarcastically. The worst I’ve seen of it is that it’s used as a porn category, which contributes to the fetishization of fat people; but then again, twink and jock are also porn categories, so it would be weird for bear not to be. This isn’t to suggest that bears are treated better than anyone else in the gay community, if anything they’re treated worse; just that the word “bear” itself has neutral to positive connotations. (Again, any bears correct me on this if you’ve seen it used negatively!)

Twink, on the other hand, is absolutely used as an insult, and frequently. And while this may sometimes be harmless, more often than not it’s really problematic. If you’re plus-sized and you use twink as an insult in the same vein that Nicki Minaj said “fuck the skinny bitches”, that’s completely fine. Twinks are seen as being desirable (if they behave a certain way; more on that later), so effectively it’s punching up instead of punching down. However, a good 95% of the time that “twink” is used as an insult, it really comes from one of the many stereotypes that all essentially boil down to the idea that twinks are fem. And the idea that being fem is inherently bad and insult worthy is, once again, rooted in misogyny, transphobia, and internalized homophobia.

This association between twinks and femininity also has a lot of scary implications on the beauty standards twinks are held to. I’ve noticed that twinks fill a niche in the gay community that is similar to the role cis women are supposed to fill in western culture as large, and that we’re only seen as sexually valuable if we perform the same behaviors and meet the same beauty standards that are typically reserved for women. We’re bottoms by default, submissive both in and out of the bedroom (yes I actually am a sub bottom, but that’s beside the point). We’re supposed to maintain a completely smooth, hairless appearance; a shaved ass is the bare minimum of hygiene. I once met a guy on grindr who demanded that I be completely hairless everywhere beneath my eyelashes, and while that’s a bit extreme, he was by no means an outlier. Just today I talked to a guy who wanted me hairless between my neck and knees. We’re often seen as vapid and stupid, and infantilization of twinks is rampant (some guys put way too much emphasis on the young part of the definition). And, to cap it all off, there’s the racism! Who’d’a thunk that all forms of oppression are connected? (sarcasm). Twinks can of course be any race, but the ones you’ll see men on grindr going after the most are white or light-skinned Asian twinks. Combine that with stereotypes of Black, Latino, and Middle Eastern men as dominant and aggressive, and you have a whole slew of white supremacist ideas painted over with a thin coat of gay porn. (mlm of color who’d like to add or correct me on anything, please do so!)

I’ll end this already long post with a comparatively brief discussion on who these terms apply to. Basically, if you’re an mlm and you fit the definition of “twink” or “bear”, congratulations! You’re a twink/bear! “Can bi men use these terms?” Of course! “What about trans men?” Are you attracted to men and male-aligned people? Then of course! That last one might be controversial to some cis gays, and to that I say fuck right off. However, it does get a bit muddier with trans women and transfem nonbinary people and the word twink. Trans women are absolutely not mlm, but many of them have been a part of mlm communities for a long time, often before they even realized they were trans, and some may be reluctant to give up the word twink (I haven’t seen this for bear, although again, lmk if you’ve seen evidence to the contrary). And on top of that, a lot of cis men looking to have sex with trans women conflate trans women and cis twinks. Because remember what I said about twinks filling the niche of women? It’s often a niche they share with trans women, except trans women have it even worse, because they are actually women. My two cents is, if a trans woman wants to refer to herself as a twink, she’s more than welcome to. Just don’t go around calling trans women “twinks” unless they specifically say you can; it’s a gendered term, you are misgendering them, and, once again, you can fuck right off. (trans women also please comment if you want!)

Well, anon, I bet you weren’t expecting a post this long. At least I hope y’all learned something! Be gay do crimes!

#mlm #twink #bear #gay #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbt+#lgbtq+#gay culture #ask #anon #sfw #long post #transphobia //#misogyny //#racism //#fatphobia //

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