#But it’s not as simple as ‘quit watching cocomelon you dumbass’. you haven’t fixed the problem and also you were an asshole about it. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

noisytenant · 2 years ago

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I feel like just telling people “consume less childrens media/YA fiction/etc” is missing the point.

A narrow, sheltered perspective on the world and its politics is what causes stupid discourse, and the simplified world of entertainment media attracts people with this mindset.

Having any kind of media as the dominant lens through which you socialize and interact with the world will leave you sidelined from reality, whether your energy is devoted to complex literature or a tv show for toddlers.

Children’s media and their fans make for easy targets because the disproportionate scale of discourse to depth is more visible, but focusing on the kind of media as the main problem seems to me similarly detached from reality. The problem is the attitude. And telling someone who clings to any kind of media as a tenuous connection to others that they’ve wasted their time isn’t really going to change their mind.

So, like, do you actually have any intention of challenging this kind of attitude, or are you just trying to feel superior to someone else?

#indexed post #In other words: Someone isn’t acting stupid because they like children’s media.#They like children’s media because it’s easy to act stupid about.#I think that Twitter discourse corroborates my case here. A lot of Quote Retweet Ghouls are not in fandoms #They will literally just get mad about anything #And I’m talking a little pissy here but the point is that if someone is engaging in stupid discourse they’re not resigned to that #They Can Leave. They can reconnect with the world around them #And balance the things they care about in the real world with the ways they show up in stories #And sometimes they need a little push to do that. They need to know that a (more) grounded life offers many rewards.#But it’s not as simple as ‘quit watching cocomelon you dumbass’. you haven’t fixed the problem and also you were an asshole about it.#And if I wanted to convince people out of this I would start by not calling their discourse stupid because I know it matters to them.#But I can contain multitudes. So how about that.#Anyways I just think it is sad that some of the messaging is ‘think less about the thing you like because it’s stupid’#And not instead ‘think more about the other things in your life and how you can connect with them alongside your interests’

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