bobateaboo

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The YouTube Blockout is still happening

Even if this is your first time hearing about it, you can still show your disapproval of the new policy by joining the blockout/boycott.

How?

Stop using YouTube. The best way to show our disapproval is by completely ignoring YouTube until they roll back this decision. There are lots of alternatives, and we are working on a masterlist. If you absolutely have to use YouTube in some capacity, I highly recommend using a front-end client like FreeTube. It gives you more privacy and doesn't have ads, but the best option is still to boycott YT entirely.

Use Google products as little as possible. I have switched over to Firefox, and there are lots of alternatives for lots of Google products. If anyone's interested in a specific list, I'll share what I find.

Sign this petition:

If you're interested, there's a Discord server for this, too, started by @gentleman-velvet. Look at their blog for more info about that.

But why are we doing this? Why should you care?

I'll let YouTube themselves explain it for me.

[Alt: A screenshot of the YouTube policies page that reads: "For all U.S. accounts, YouTube employs a dual approach by using self-declared age as well as the application of an age estimation model that uses machine learning to determine whether a user is over or under 18. Regardless of the birthday in the account, this technology enables us to deliver age-appropriate product experiences and protections, treating teens as teens and adults as adults. How it works: We use AI to interpret a variety of existing signals that help us to determine whether a user is over or under 18. These signals include the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account. When we identify a teen user, we’ll automatically apply our safeguards, including: -Disabling personalized advertising and restricting age-sensitive ad categories -Turning on digital wellbeing tools -Adding safeguards to recommendations, including limiting repetitive views of some kinds of content. Users have the option to verify that they are 18 or over by using a credit card or a government ID. We only allow users who have been inferred or verified as over 18 to view age-restricted content that may be inappropriate for younger users.]

Read that all the way through. According to YouTube, if their AI thinks you watch childish content, regardless of the birthdate you associated with your account, your account could be restricted until you provide either a government-issued photo ID or a credit card to verify your age. This is what they themselves are saying.

Personally, I don't want a private company to have images of my ID or my credit card. I feel that that is an invasion of my privacy. I fear what might happen in the case of a data breach. And Google has fairly frequent data breaches. Just search (with any other search engine) "google data breach recent" and see for yourself.

And consider adults who don't have either a government-issued photo ID or a credit card. What then? It would appear from the policies described on YouTube's website that they are just out of luck in that instance.

This could very well affect animation on YouTube. It could affect gameplay videos. It could affect anything and everything that their AI might deem "childish."

YOU SHOULD CARE

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me: uh oh! if i fail to block any more of these spells, the evil wizard will take over my mind and make me suck him off!!! i need to be careful, i can feel it working already...

the evil wizard trying to blow my head off with lightning bolts: that's not what I'm trying to do

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collapses in your arms princess style after casting the biggest evil most fucked up spell you've literally every seen

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All of these are by @mattxiv on Instagram.

Here's to all the shockingly single bachelor uncles or the two very close friends who just happened to be girls and are only living together until one of them finds a man (they lived together for forty two years).

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say grace.

Noelle’s plate: even though she’s vegetarian, there’s Christmas ham on her plate. just another example of her confirming to her family’s image.

Berdly’s plate: Monster energy drink, bag of Doritos, ice. It’s a nod to the snowgrave route, but maybe he’s just anemic…

Susie’s plate: Cinnamon and Butterscotch pie. (Toriel just couldn’t decide!) she has some chalk on the side and has been drawing on the table. Ralsei’s plate: Cake and tea. A nod to him trying it for the very first time with Susie and Kris. Kris’s plate: the soul.

All of the lightners have a star above their head resembling the save point star! Ralsei doesn’t have one. Susie looks a little uncomfortable saying grace, and she folds her arms different from everyone else. It’s not because she’s trying to be disrespectful. She’s just not used to saying grace around a table full of people given her home situation. + people pray a little different from how she’s from. Kris isn’t praying at all, instead pointing to the roaring knight above. They sit at the same table with a different understanding of the situation at hand.

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speaking of things no one talks about,

susie's eye glows red when she makes a dark fountain.

i never really paid any mind to kris' red eyes - i thought it was just a cool feature of their character. but if susie's eyes glow red here too... it seems it's more important than we thought.

it's not JUST something that happens when you make a fountain - kris' eyes glow red when they rip out the soul in chapter 1, when they jump into a dark world, and when they fight the holder of the shadow mantle. the mantle holder even says their goal in fighting kris was to see their eyes glow red. what could it mean...?

it would be really funny if it turned out determination actually WAS red after all this time.

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wanna see my favorite part of how i draw tenna

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please smile

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Pardon the writing- it was just an excuse to draw the last panel

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deteriorating

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The Owl House really is the show that encapsulates what it means to be Pro-Fiction and Anti-Censorship in a society largely influenced by puritanical Christian beliefs.

The show was made by weirdos, about weirdos, for weirdos.

The prison is literally called the Conformatorium where they lock up the wild witches, the artists, the writers, and the undesirables. If you’re not contributing to society in a way they deem meaningful they have no use for you.

Worse: If you’re actively pushing back against the status quo you’re a threat and you must be silenced. (Sounds similar to our current political climate if you ask me.)

As Luz put it -> “None of you actually did anything wrong. You’re all just a bunch of weirdos.. Like me.”

Yeah I don’t think Luz would be on the side of witch hunting people down and burning them at the stake over shipping Lunter. (Pun intended.) She probably loves enemies to lovers.

Amity is a selfshipper herself, who likes forbidden romance. She had a crush on a presumably male character despite being implied to be a lesbian. (Your fictional tastes ≠ your real life tastes.) His name is Malin Gael I believe.

Me personally? I’m a multishipper. I like exploring a lot of dynamics for the fun of it. I also just generally enjoy when someone is really enthusiastic about a niche ship. This doesn’t mean I like every ship out there though. I don’t care for Amillow, but I don’t go around saying it’s a horrible ship and no one is allowed to draw them smooching.

Alex Hirsch even said to get weirder with it and Dana Terrace is all for the literary theory “Death of the Author,” Which gives reader’s the freedom to interpret a story however they want despite the authors original intentions.

Censorship is a weapon used by those in power to target not just those in minority groups, but everyone. The less information you have on any given topic the easier it is to manipulate them.

Fiction can be commentary on real world issues but viewing something “problematic” won’t somehow make you less “pure.” Or ruin your brain. (From what I’ve seen a lot of these antis and terfs perpetuate this toxic shame cycle.)

That’s why it’s so sad seeing a large portion of the community still falling for conservative propaganda that got the show canceled in the first place.

I loved The Owl House and I miss it dearly. I made this post as a sort of love letter/rant for anyone feeling misunderstood, for anyone feeling angry or hopeless with all the chaos going on in the world right now. I see you.

Keep making art and writing the stories you want to see, go comment something nice on someone’s fanfic, reblog a nice piece of art. After all.. Us weirdos gotta stick together.