#bc I've seen that. anon just gives ppl the sense they can say whatever they want to strangers on the internet

[llycaons]

other people have said it already and better but pivoting iwtv from a gothic drama/tragedy concerning itself with abuse, memory, racism, family, and grief centered on a black protagonist to a...musical comedy...with the white abuser as the protagonist...inspired by a famously transmisogynistic piece of media is such a bizarre and depressing and downright hostile choice.

I know a lot of people were disappointed by the s2 finale, for good reasons, and while I was mostly satisfied by it I don't have high hopes for s3, I don't WANT a lestat show, and I think the direction this show is going is such a goddamn shame. im glad to hear louis and armand are still going to be important characters but like...im concerned about them being sidelines anyway. make it a spinoff or something if you HAVE to do rockstar lestat like this is so goofy...iwtv was never a goofy or campy show. its melodrama was the romantic-era type and it's going to be so disappointing to lose that

[golbrocklovely]

I don't understand the fans that are comparing Malia to other girls from Colby's past..

sorry for not responding sooner. today was a bit crazy bc of snc's vid lol

i agree with you tenfold, anon.

i've seen some stuff recently that has just made me both annoyed but also laugh bc i just don't get the logic of some of these fans.

i make jokes often about the holy trinity of colby's love life (stas, shea, and amber) but truly that is who these fans keep comparing malia to. and i just do not get it whatsoever.

especially recently, i've seen ppl compare malia to them in terms of her body/what she's gotten done work wise. seeing fans full on say that she's fake or talk about her in a "she's lesser than" attitude makes absolutely ZERO sense to me strictly bc all three of the holy trinity of girls have had work done. they've all gotten filler, they've all done shit to their lips, they've all (most likely) had botox. and personally, i had no problems with that. do whatever you want to your body that you can afford. idc. but to say that those three girls are more worthy of colby's love bc they haven't gotten as much work done as malia….. when they definitely have…. is fucking hysterical to me.

i truly think at this point it's so obvious that anyone harping on this girl is just someone that's jealous. jealous she's dating him, jealous she's hot (with or without work done), jealous she gets to live the life these fans can't.

and not only that, it just shows how truly, deeply this fandom's misogyny runs. clearly, you have a lot of gripes about women and what they do with their body that you think taking it out on colby's gf is gonna somehow change the fact he's with her. he obviously don't give a fuck, so maybe you need to reevaluate how you view women. bc it seems that only the women you like get a pass, while the women you view as competition or inferior towards somehow deserve scrutiny bc how else are you gonna knock them down a peg?

[olderthannetfic]

Hello! I've been reading through your asks about friendships and I have a question I'm not sure how to phrase so it could get lengthy (sorry). I guess I'm gonna start by saying that my online fannish presence and my real life are completely separated. I'm not from the US and I'm not that young anymore, so this habit formed as to keep myself 'safe'. (It's seen as weird here, let's just say that.) And I keep my online presence anon as much as I can too. When you make friends online, you already click through something in common right? Fandom or show or anything and take it from there, see each other's accounts or whatever, no questions there.

Thing is, I make friends better face to face but I'm not sure how people just... tell someone about fandom stuff? Being a fan is easy-peasy, you wear some merch or meet through a fan event, whatever. What I mean is being in fandom. Shipping or writing fic or having a blog or making art. I'm so used to it being a hush-hush hobby I just can't imagine "coming out" in front of someone and telling them my username and all that. I live in a homophobic country so that adds to the fun, but even without it, I write erotica. I also write badwrong erotica so it's bit uuuh sensitive? I can't imagine telling someone that but it's a big part of my life and I don't want to close that off from someone who is supposed to be a friend but it's not the easiest topic, you see?

And i do have other hobbies and topics to connect through but I'm not gonna lie, fandom is important to me because I just love writing and looking at art and all and I don't want to make it a secret, as I said. This may sound very embarrassing but I was hoping you or anyone can share some advice? XD How do you guys approach this if you haven't met through your online profiles? Aren't you scared/shy to give out your username? Plenty of ppl's friends know they write fic but I'm not sure how they do that. I'm definitely feeling stressed about this bc of antis and doxxing and it feels stupid but I wanted to add that. It's that being vulnerable feeling but I'm tired of being ashamed of my own hobbies but I'm not sure how this stuff goes irl? Do you wait until you're closer friends? Or just rip off the band-aid? Who knows, maybe the other person is in the same boat! I hope you got a sense of what my question is? I'm sorry if this weird and thanks in advance!

--

This is a very good question.

Part of the answer is that the people you're observing have different offline circumstances from yours, so you're going to have more trouble replicating their experiences than some lurkers.

But that's not the whole story.

I personally do not wait to tell people. I'm not in any real danger of being physically attacked for being a weird porn writer, but even in a tolerant part of the US, lots of people are going to think my hobbies are strange. Lots of people will have double standards where indie art by women is cringe and abnormal, while equally horny, revealing, or weird art that has the seal of approval from big publishers or Hollywood is fine and normal, especially if it's by straight men, but frankly, even if it's not.

The biggest key to the emotional side of things is to be confident that your way is the right one. You're allowing this other person an opportunity to know an artist with a unique personal vision. If they're a stick-in-the-mud who hates interesting art, that's a them problem.

If you are genuinely proud of your weirdness, other people will often find it intriguing or not think to attack it as cringe.

If there's an element of physical safety or job security at risk, obviously, things are a little different. You probably can't find local people who are loud and proud about fanfiction porn specifically, but what do queer artists in your area do?

If you're somewhere where gay men are being dragged off and shot, maybe there's nobody who's out and proud, but in many homophobic countries, there are still weirdo artist subcultures that aren't ultra closeted. Where do those people hang out? How do they signal group membership? How do they keep themselves safe?

Honestly, when I meet people offline, we don't always share our actual handles. It was years before I actually knew most of my friends' AO3 accounts. What I do do is casually talk about liking fic from the very beginning. That's normal to me, so I mention it like it's normal. Liking m/m, porn, and weird kinks are all normal to me too, and I talk about them like they're nothing to be ashamed of or secretive about.

The vibe you give off does a lot to cue other people. If you're not ashamed, they will treat the topic as a non-shameful one. If they go "Gasp! You like X!" and you raise your eyebrows as though they'd said something as silly as "You find cat videos cute????" it will embarrass them. Treat that behavior like a faux pas, not like a valid attack.

[pappydaddy]

Tiktok is literally hell, most people have the worst takes for characters and completely lack common sense. Stancy is popular there bc they see two pretty people together who had history, slap a Taylor Swift song over it and call it a day. If Jancy had any screentime together we wouldn't see so many edits because people can apparently only focus on one season and disregard any other shit.

A few days ago someone commented under my anti Stancy comment that Nancy was the one who made Steve in the fan favorite character he is. Lmao yeah give all his development to his cheater ex gf who did nothing, she never begged him to change. Steve left his friends at the end of s1 bc he wanted to, granted bc he liked Nancy but still. To completely undermine his character in such a take is disgusting.

In my humble opinion Nancy never truly loved Steve, not in a way he loved her. For her he was a safety blanket, in a way he was kinda like her dad (not personality wise) but in terms of being wealthy and stable so instead of choosing Jonathan, who she always wanted she dragged Steve along for year. Steve represents the suburban life even back in s1 which she absolutely hates and Jonathan was always painted as like rebellion and adventure. I've seen tiktok comments saying oh Steve probably doesn't force her to have kids or that many, so it's fine she can live her dream and he will be a malewife. However why is that Steve is the one who has to hold back his dreams? Like yeah he wouldn't force her but that will only result in them resenting each other. It's clear he wants someone to raise those kids together with not just him alone. They just don't work so I hope the take you mentioned of him confessing to Nancy is him finally moving on he said everything he needed to let go. I'm begging at this point lol.

I still didn't like Nancy in s3, the way she treated Jonathan and their argument said more about her person than anything else. Granted both were wrong but her actions got never any repercussions, instead Jonathan was the one apologizing to her and she was like yeah now never doubt anything I say or do bc I'm never wrong. She can't own her mistakes and the show never addresses it. I like mean women but if there are never any consequences to her actions it's infuriating. Steve never got an apology from her after she cheated and still believes he's the worst bf ever but that's okay bc Nancy is our girlboss with guns.

The best outcome for those three characters would be anyone stay single. Stancy is toxic af, and Steve deserves better. Nancy deserves her career and Jonathan deserves someone who doesn't emotionally cheat as soon as he's not there.

Back to tiktok and their takes, I've seen so many people now saying if Stancy isn't endgame bc it's not going to be they kill Steve off. In fact I've seen ppl beg for it to happen and I'm sick to my stomach. Why doesn't he deserve a happy ending just bc his ex doesn't take him back. Steve dying would impact so many people, especially Dustin it would be cruel of the writers to take away Dustin's other big brother figure. And Robin losing the only person who truly understands her??? How is that fair. The fandom focuses way too much on ships than on the actual characters. I'm just saying how can you ship Stancy and claim to love Steve?

I'm so scared for s5 bc after what they did in vol2 I don't trust them. I love Steve sm as you can probably tell lol, he's like top3 of fictional boyfriends for me and him potentially not getting a happy end or dying for his toxic ex is making me ill. I just want him to live, find a girl or guy whatever to have his big family in the future. He deserves it sm, like I know the show doesn't address his trauma, physical or emotional, but he gave so much for this group and to just die it's not fair.

Obx anon

Ps I'm so sorry for not checking in more regularly life is crazy lol, I hope you're doing good ❤️

ugh, i know! tik tok is pretty bad sometimes, though not quite as bad as twitter yet. they claim that general flaws are toxic, but yet, they are supporting/shipping stancy? make it make sense.

nancy and jonathan's fight in season 3 kinda shows how privileged nancy has been all her life compared to jonathan. she jumped head first into this hunch because she wasn't scared of getting fired. she never once considered how much work jonathan had to put in just to get that job and he wasn't going to lose it over a hunch because that could ruin jonathan's future. they were both at fault in a way, so they both should have recognized their roles. this is exactly what i mean when i say the writers seem to want us to hate nancy because they do shit like what happened in season 4 and what is listed above.

i want nancy to grow as a character and i think that can only be done by her being single and exploring herself. and, whatever they do, not have stancy get back together. their dynamic in season 4 literally made me almost physically sick. hopefully, that was just a repercussion of the upside-down being stuck in 1983 and season 5 will not have this horrible content.

and, back to tik tok, they were all just saying that if steve was killed off they wouldn't watch it anymore? like make up your mind, please?

and, to your last point, that's okay lovely! i love how you back me up with really good points when i post rants like this! and don't i know life is crazy! but i'm surviving and keeping afloat, how about you?

[iantojack]

is it too late to send unpopular opinions? i've seen people say they don't like vanity as a couple coz it feels like ness isn't a 'strong enough character' to be with charity, but that's exactly how i feel about rbron. like, rbert can just about pull off panto villain, but when he's not doing that he's a complete non-entity. aaron always has a lot of story potential + nuance, but rbert feels like he floats around in the background even when he's front + centre. i think that'll end them next yr.

never too late!!!i agree! robert is either in full on panto villain mode like u say and when hes like that hes unsympathetic to the general audience and it causes conflict for him and aaron cos hes normally doing Shady Shit like drugging ppl or threatening to harm children or hiring hitmen etc etc so aaron doesnt wanna be with someone doing shit like that. and when hes not hes just.... dull. they dont and shouldnt give him character focused emotional sl’s bc he just doesnt have the acting ability for them. since his last villainous storyline he has done.. literally nothing. he just pushes seb round the village in his pram. what r u gonna do with him?? hes just gonna go back to being villainous at some point and that will be the end of robron and probably the end of robert

but ya people shouting about how the best couples r the ones where both characters are Iconic or whatever the fuck are always the ones who ship the gross couples e.g. robron, coira. i mean some of them keep saying charity would be better with cain lmaO SURE if u want her to be miserable for the rest of her life sure. balance is important and more often than not the #Iconic characters are either incredibly morally grey or have traumatic lives and i dont see why they have to go together to AMPLIFY the misery. sorry but my idea of a good nice ship is definitely not one where theyre breaking up every 5 minutes and hitting each other and threatening to shoot each other. id take “boring” vanessa over that any day of the week!!! 

and i mean, smack bang in the middle of charitys literal historical sexual abuse storyline i was reading posts talking about how “boring” charity is since shes been with vanessa, how she lost her spark and all this absolute shit. and its like ??!?!?!?!? shes in COURT talking about her childhood ABUSE what do u want her to be fucking doing??? shooting herself up w horse tranquiliser?? that storyline was planned LONG before vanessa and the character development was obviously planned with it. yeah shes probably not gonna go back to how she was 10 years ago but shes still charity!!! shes still gobbing off and winding people up and im sure she’ll have typical charity scheming storylines coming up. give her a chance mayhaps??

ANYWAY that was far too long and probably made no sense whatsoever but ya ur right anon

[pumpkinpaix]

okay a follow-up--first, @tonyglowheart made a point in the notes that I meant to add and then completely forgot because my brain fried itself which is to say, yes, I have constructed a bit of a false analogy here to make my point. gong/shou are literary tropes not (stereo)types, which distinguishes them from terms like bear/twink. i hope the reason i made the analogy still makes sense though.

second, some replies that got a little long that i'm gonna put under a cut.

@yunljun said: jfc this whole ask is a disaster. isn’t yaoi/danmei/bl mostly consumed by straight women? so a lot of those terms are already not representative of the actual gay community. this is why real gay representation matters and not just bl stuff. and also why we shouldn’t label movies featuring gay couples, made by gay people, as yaoi/danmei/bl…which i’ve seen so many ppl do in online spaces

adding to above, when i say gay representation, i specifically mean for asians. bc i see too many gay asians being fetishized as bl and i think it’s important to keep these things separate

I think you may have missed the point of this post. the idea that BL is largely consumed and created by straight women is one of the main rhetorical points that anti-fujoshi use in their arguments and it's incredibly invalidating and pretty misogynist. you can read about it in the post i linked giving a rundown about fujoshi discourse. you do not know the sexuality of the people consuming or creating danmei. i am not a straight woman, for example. here is a post by someone who also isn't a straight woman about self-identifying as fudanshi and enjoying BL media. whether you like it or not, BL spaces ARE queer spaces--if you don't vibe with them that's fine, but to say that this doesn't count as "real" rep does a disservice to the many, many queer people who relate to these stories. "straight woman who fetishizes gay men" is a strawman at this point. are there problems with BL as a genre? yes. are asians hugely sexualized and fetishized by non-asians? yeah (ask me how i know 8)). could we use more diverse rep pretty much always? yes. but that's not what I'm talking about in this ask anyways. my problem with the ask was the reductive and casually racist nature of the way it was framed and the lack of thought put into the context of the question.

@steinozean said: Thank you for pointing out how even within anons own culture things can be different. It’s exhausting seeing what ppl deem as universal gay experiences in western countries is often just the white cis experience and it wasn’t until mdzs in late 2018 i actually met other western ppl who also went “hey i can actually better connect with this cn gay novel than with the usual gay rep in western media.”

And I’m sure a lot of the appeal of c-media now comes from it being a not-white pov. I’m european, not white but no matter if it’s us or european media (that’s making up most of what was easily accessible for the longest time) it’s always been a whether very white and/or very us-centric pov so none of it felt like good representation of my own queer experience either.

that's a huge mood. I don't think my own queer experience is particularly odd or noteworthy, but I honestly haven't read/seen a lot (any?) stories that reflect it. I don't relate to like 75% of the way people talk about queerness on tumblr, and I've never felt very comfortable at pride here in the US, even though I go. my parents are immigrants, and there's a part of me that wonders about what's considered "my" queer history, whatever that's supposed to mean, and what "my" queer stories might look like. maybe i can find it in danmei/BL whatever.

at the same time, i know that a lot of the appeal of BL stories to me has to do with the release of pressure to identify with and think about my own body and position as a woman (?) in relation to others, and thus somewhat a release from having to consider the realities of misogyny that exist in gendered power dynamics. cmedia is a bonus because I ALSO don't have to think about my race, which I have to say, is also a huge relief. i feel like these aren't mutually exclusive reasons to enjoy and identify with a genre and I think that's pretty cool.

It was only when starting MDZS that I came across the terms “seme” and “uke.” To me these categories seemed too rigid and simplistic compared to actual gay dynamics I have observed. I wanted to ask whether such categorisation is truly reflected in the way gay Chinese people behave or is it just a stereotype?

okay so -- there’s a lot to unpack here. I’ve been sitting on this ask for months at this point but let’s give it a shot. to forewarn you, I found this ask really upsetting for a number of reasons, and I am. really kind of at the end of my patience with this fandom, so this is going to be harsh. please bear with me if you are in a space to do so.

so. seme and uke are japanese terms that come with their own genre conventions and such, even though they roughly mean top and bottom. you can read a little bit about it here under the “seme and uke” section on the yaoi wikipedia page.

the equivalent chinese terms are 攻 (gong1) and 受 (shou4). you might notice that the hanzi/kanji used are the same as seme and uke because i’m fairly sure the chinese terms were derived from the japanese ones. there’s a lot of cultural crossover in ACGN (anime, comics, games, novels) fandoms.

the use of seme/uke vs gong/shou does matter when it comes to anglophone spaces. because one of the facets of anti-asian racism in anglophone spaces is the way that people treat all (east) asians as interchangeable, the choice of which language to use for which media is important, even if the terms are linguistically equivalent.

it's a small thing, but even just saying gong/shou instead of seme/uke in this ask would have softened the blow a little. all of this information is easily obtained with a quick google search of "seme and uke" and "chinese version of seme and uke" and a little bit of analytical thinking. before you ask a random stranger on the internet to dispense cultural information, please do the minimum of research on your own.

with regards to the actual question:

I know this ask is old so maybe a lot has changed for you anon, but regarding this ask specifically, I’m going to ask you to think very hard about what you’re asking, who you're asking, and why you're asking it next time. for a start, I am not a gay chinese man. i have been very clear that I am abc, and i live and grew up in the states. That's not equivalent to "a chinese person who happens to be fluent in english". we are very culturally distinct, and there is absolutely no way that my background gives me any inherently privileged insight into the lives and culture of gay chinese men in china. why are you asking me to speak for them? why are you asking me to tell you about them? gay chinese men behave like individual humans. i am not your convenient tour guide into all things chinese just because I speak english. moreover, please remember that your experience, like mine, is limited. whatever observed "actual gay dynamics" you're talking about are a product of your specific position, location, age, culture etc. and it would be absurd to extrapolate your observations to generalize how all gay people interact with one another even in your specific culture.

I will be very honest: the tone of this ask evokes purity wank bait because of the wider context of the question. there has been a Lot of discourse surrounding the “roles” in danmei in anglophone fandom that essentially boils down to fujoshi discourse redux, which often has a lot of racist underpinnings and comes from an extremely white, western, misogynist, and identity politics-heavy perspective. i put links and such about fujoshi discourse in this ask if you aren't familiar, but I want you to understand that, regardless of your intent, my initial impression of this question (because of the context of these discussions) was uncomfortably close to "I'm better than those oppressive, uneducated straight chinese women who unrealistically fetishize gay men, right?" I am choosing to believe that this wasn't what you meant, but. to draw an analogy: would you ask me this question about twinks and bears in US gay culture? would you ask me if those labels/roles/categories were representative of the way US gay men behaved? what about top/bottom? if not, then why are you asking me about chinese gay men as if they're a different species?

if you can understand that top/bottom or bear/twink are not representative categorizations (though there are, of course, people who happily fall into them, self-identify as them, label themselves as such etc), why are you holding gong/shou to a higher standard?

I get that we're all in different places re: our cultural knowledge, but just. look, if you're coming to me with a question like this, the least you could do me is the courtesy of ten minutes of googling before you hit me with a racist microaggression right out the gate on a sensitive topic. As I said, I don't think you meant harm, but please try to be more aware in the future, okay?

(please do not dogpile anon in the notes, it's not constructive, thanks)

if you are curious about the lives of queer folk in china, there is plenty of interesting information out there in english as well. here's an article to get you started.

[imanes]

do you think that "influencers" and celebs should speak out about "political issues"? (putting it in brackets bc. it's clearly an understatement n not accurate but idk how to word it) re: palestine? cause i've seen a lot of people be like "yeah they shouldn't talk about it if they're not educated or if they're just doing it for the trend" (even tho at this point its been so all over social media that ppl cant use the "im not educated enough" excuse anymore) n all and i guess it's a fair point and all but also? idk when i'm on social media and i see ppl talking about what's happening in palestine, and then i scroll down and see ppl be like omg new haul uwu! vlog with my friends! and thats just so???? idk. idk what to think bc on the other hand ofc performative activism is bad ykw? (like....re: blm ppl just posting a black square on their ig....) but i don't know what to think about it and i would love to hear your thoughts!!!

inchresting question to which i have no concrete answer to provide (except a lot of ramblings) because it is a thorny subject related to the ubiquity of digital society and the social weight we give to a certain class of people who frame their existence as something that could represent us but actually doesn't at all. and everybody and their mother - including me - has an opinion on it but at the end of the day it's just an opinion, not an empirical fact to be presented, and not even one i think about a lot bc it isn't a primary concern of mine on a day to day basis. so i'm like not looking for a debate with some random tumblr user (not talking about u anon, but talking about whoever might care too much about my inconsequential opinion) bc this is a question i'm answering, not a question i'm asking so to anyone tempted to "well according to the encyclopedia of pfppspfpsp" me, make ur own post!

i guess we can start with "should influencers/celebrities/people who are famous by virtue of being well-known even exist and should we lend weight to their words?" the answer to that may vary from person to person but social media accounts with a very large following can indeed turn tides with regard to socio-political crises, such as demonstrated by bella hadid who single-handedly educated a whole generation of south-korean netizens through her posts on palestine so we can see the good effects of that. now obviously bella hadid is personally concerned by the ethnic cleansing of palestine and has a lot more at stake than say rihanna with her all lives matter bullshit statement (someone said "saudi dick must be potent" but i think it has more to do with her contract with puma who is actually on the BDS list) or even jameela jamil who has a terminal case of "everything must be about me always".

people can say whatever they want about what well-known ppl are allowed to speak about or not but i'll just remind that these "influencers" and whatnot are people and they're bound to want to talk about stuff, especially when it is relevant or when prompted by their own following, because literally everybody with an account on a social media platform expresses their opinions about smt at one point or another in time. that includes random ppl on facebook commenting under news with their stale hot takes. famous ppl or "influencers" are no different.

I'll also say that "influence" only goes so far so I'm not *particulary* concerned with whatever whoever that i don't take seriously says. let me take the queen of talking out of her ass jameela jamil as a case study for this. people who agreed with her bizarre and narcissistic takes are already bound to agree with her because people flock to opinions that are similar to theirs. in my opinion that is not influence, that is attracting similar weirdos in your sphere and consequently creating impenetrable echo chambers of idiocy. did her stale ass take become a "consensus" amongst the indecisive? i don't know for sure bc i haven't run a survey but my assumption is that people who have critical thinking skills were rightfully put off by her rancid take and called her out publicly for it, providing sources and information, which i think is visible enough for anyone 2 look through. and people who like her talk and think out of their asses were like "wow preach i've been saying!" so they are themselves inconsequential.

so in my opinion it is less about influencing - because at this point i think someone can be influenced by a single person into buying a product but your fave singer is not going to make you buy into their ideology just because they released one lukewarm-at-best statement - and more about signaling where you stand. when viola davis and idris elba (amongst many others) stated that they stood by palestine, they made it clear that they stood against apartheid and ethnic cleansing and people who already agreed on these basic principles saluted their stance. do i believe they changed anybody's mind? not really, that is the job of well-informed people such as activists disseminating information and other people sharing the info. do i think that mark ruffalo lost all credibility with his flip-flopping? absolutely, and it doesn't reflect back on palestine, it reflects badly on HIM. we're in an era where people are bombarded with so much information from all sides that one person saying something is a drop in a bucket no matter how famous they are. this is also why we say that israhell lost the PR war. we were and are too loud 2 be ignored now and a few celebrities showcasing how inane they are doesn't change anything. the famous-ppl-market is too saturated for their opinion to matter a whoooole lot. support is appreciated but not hailed as the second-coming jesus u know what i mean?

to address ur final point about finding it weird that some people flat-out ignore some stuff while you are neck-deep into it, I think it's an understandable situation to find yourself in and as subhi taha said, it just looks tacky. i think it should be your cue to just unfollow whoever doesn't align with your interest content-wise. i unfollowed a loooot of people lately because of that like I really didn't give a fuck about Michelle phan's cryptocurrency peddling (which was already yikes on principle) in the midst of real-time live-stream decolonisation and liberation struggles against apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and at this point I don't think I can go back to caring about using social media for frivolous things (except cats and memes account bc they bring me joy) and following bigger accounts that are trying 2 sell me some shit, because I've changed in the past weeks, one could say I've become more "radical" (lol) and I'm ready to sustain an online space that caters to my concerns and abandon all content that I indeed find tacky in between two posts that talk about some serious shit. it's not to say I'll never post a pic of the sunset on Instagram again or that I don't consume content that has literally nothing to do with informing myself and disseminating information on decolonisation and anti-capitalism (I literally watch study vlogs from med students to unwind lol), or that "everybody should use their account in this specific way because it's the only one that is valid" (it's not and i don't care what other ppl do) but u are obviously dissatisfied with ur feed for valid reasons and while some ppl may not share your opinion it doesn't mean that you shouldn't take steps to make ur user experience less jarring.

it's again just an *opinion*, not a to-do list or smt that i'd ever want 2 present as a "fact", at the end of the day everybody curates their online spaces the way they want to and if you find your current configuration to be distasteful, that's understandable. and everybody is entitled to believe that celebrities/influencers/glorified sellers of products and lifestyles and disorders talking or not talking about certain things can be harmful or beneficial, as there are arguments and examples for and against it and i am personally not interested in participating the debate even tho i wrote a long ass text about it akjdlkfjgd I'm sorry about this u might be regretting ever asking me this question. hope i made sense!