#cultural discrimination

[alwaysbewoke]

[sighed-the-snake]

At what age does it become intolerable to participate in online fandom?

At what age do you start telling people they're too old to be in a public fandom space because it skews young?

I have been online since the literal beginning of the internet. I've been in chatrooms in one form or another for my entire life, without issue, without anyone telling me I don't belong there. It has been my primary mode of socialization since I was 14. Some of the most important people in my life are people I met online.

But then I turned 40 and suddenly, my presence in a chatroom is creepy.

It wasn't creepy when I was 35 and I was the admin for a huge Discord server full of mostly teens and 20-somethings. Nobody complained when I was 35. They called me their server mom.

But 40 is apparently the limit. I tried to join a few public Discord servers last year and was politely shooed away each time because I was honest about my age.

The obvious solution would be to find spaces with people my own age, right? Except those don't really exist. If it's a fandom space, the overwhelming majority of people are going to be teens, 20-somethings, and a small population of younger 30-somethings. Those are the people who are talking about the things I also would like to talk about.

Even the people I follow here on Tumblr are mostly in their 20s.

There is not much of an online peer group for older Millennials and Gen X. I found and tried some non-fandom, general servers, and they were desolate and stale. A lot of us grew up without computers at home, barely even had computers at school, so the internet never really became a big part of our lives beyond things like Facebook, or Twitter, or discussion boards. Things you spend a few minutes looking over before bed.

But I don't want those things. Tumblr has been great, the Good Omens fandom has been amazing, but I don't want to check throughout the day if someone has replied to something I said hours or days or weeks ago, I want to talk to people, but those places are populated by an age group who tells me it's not appropriate for me to be there anymore.

It's so damn frustrating and lonely. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not doing anything wrong. I just got older.

I'm just a married gay woman with a kid in school who wants to giggle over an angel and a demon and how in love and stupid they are. I feel like it shouldn't be this hard.

[gregrulzok]

Look, I get it, Punk has a very vast culture of music and fashion and really anyone who identifies as Punk would be smart to delve into those things and at least research them, if not adopt them to a certain degree (Punk fashion especially as it's mostly based on reducing consumption and upcycling, which any self-respecting Punk should try to do)

But at the end of the day if there were two rooms full of self-identifying Punks, who'd you rather spend time with?

The ones dressed in Khakis and Button-Ups that listen to indie or pop or whatever, but would gladly break a chair over a Nazi's skull and rip Bezos' nails out one by one

Or the ones dressed in Spikes and Leather that listen to the Clash and Sex Pistols, but think trans people are pedophiles in disguise and homeless people don't deserve human rights

By using "Music Based Subculture" as the End-All-Be-All of what Punk is, you're literally holding the door wide open for a bunch of mouth-breathing capitalist republican conservative Nazi assholes who just happen to like loud music to invade our space. I don't give a flying fuck what someone wears or what they listen to cause at the end of the day it literally doesn't affect me even a tiny little bit. Their ideology and worldview, on the other hand, does.

[elexuscal]

so. June. Pride Month.

listen, i love pride month. obviously. but partly as a consequence of being Terminally Online, partly because my country's pride month is in July which means all the actual in-person events don't start for another 30 days, often my first association with it is All The Discourse Posts

which means every year i have to physically restrain myself from making in-universe Pride discourse for different fictional universes

[marzipanandminutiae]

"oh wow I'm going to miss this part of Boston so much. I've lived here for eight years! I hope moving to a different neighborhood isn't a mistake!" I think to myself, walking down tree-lined streets home from the train

"there's someone coming to see the room tonight!" says my landlady- who, if anyone's wondering, is an elderly Japanese woman. "big Black guy- kind of scary! like Existing Housemate!"

(Existing Housemate is indeed a tall, muscular Black man. he collects vintage comics and listens to Hustle CultureTM podcasts. the scariest thing he's ever done, in my experience, is leave boiling water unattended on the stove for long periods of time)

my decision to move out is strengthened five hundred-fold

[useless-catalanfacts]

A football referee expels a coach for speaking in Catalan

Sadly this doesn't make it to most news because it's not uncommon, but I will translate this to give an idea to foreigners of the situations we have to deal with.

Yet again, another Catalan speaker has been kicked out of somewhere just because they spoke in Catalan in a Catalan-speaking country. This time, it happened in a local football camp in Petra (town in Mallorca, Balearic Islands).

While reading this story, remember that Catalan is the native language of Mallorca, and is legally recognised as a co-official language.

During a local-level football match, the football coach of the team UE Petra protested to the referee that a decision wasn't right. The referee told him "we are in Spain, Mallorca is part of Spain, not Spain part of Mallorca, and you must speak to me in Spanish". The coach continued speaking Catalan, since it's the language of the place where this is happening, and the referee proceeded to expel him. This is what the referee wrote in the match's minutes:

In the half-time, the coach [...] after perceiving my communication in Spanish and being reprimanded for addressing me with the words "this is shameful", starts speaking to me in Catalan. When I ask him to talk to me in Spanish, he continues perpetuating his dialect, where I understood some lacks of respect. Since I could not make him stop, I decide to expel him.

At the end of the minutes card, the referee wrote the reason for expelling him as "for disobeying my orders".

The other witnesses in the football match explain that the referee was very rude to the coach and never asked him politely to change to Spanish, only rudely saying "in Spanish!". Later, the referee also wrote that the coach was "perpetuating his dialect", as we have seen. Using the word "dialect" for a language that has suffered persecution, illegalization and discrimination is an extremely loaded term based on bigotry, only used by the hardcore Catalanophobes who defend that Catalan (and other discriminated languages like Basque and Galician) aren't languages because they're not important or respect-worthy enough to be a language, only a "dialect" (understood as a derogatory word).

The football club UE Petra has complained that this referee is partial and "has taken decisions, as can be seen by the wording used in the minutes, influenced on a coach using his mother tongue in the place where it has been official for centuries".

Now, a few days after the game and the UE Petra publishing a statement explaining it on their social media (you can read it here), the referee has pressed charges, claiming that she has been "threatened" when it was posted on social media. 🤦

Can you imagine if this happened to a Spanish person for speaking Spanish in Madrid? Or French in Paris, or English in London? Can you imagine if doctors threw them out for speaking Spanish in Madrid, French in Paris or English in London? Or hotels, banks, petrol stations did? If policemen identified them because speaking it was seen as lack of respect? Then why do we have to accept that it's normal when it happens to us?

You can find the statement published by this coach's football team UE Petra here (in Catalan). Some sources from newspapers who reported on it: Esport3, Ara Balears, Vilaweb.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Since I keep seeing "$61 billion weight loss industry"....

This is a super old figure, folks.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2].

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] (Tell me thin privilege is socially constructed without telling me that thin privilege is socially constructed).

Also disturbing, "Multi-level marketing companies constitute a major force in the [US] weight loss market, with the top 8 firms accounting for $3.4 billion in 2020 sales. Included in this group are Medifast, Herbalife, Shaklee, BeachBody, AMWAY, USANA, Isagenix and more." [3]

By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to reach be valued at $405.4 billion [2].

-ATL

References

LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. Available here.

Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. Available here.

LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog. Available here.

[bethanydelleman]

Okay, so this is the post where I defend first cousin marriage, which is featured in Mansfield Park, Sense & Sensibility, and also comes up in Pride & Prejudice (I mean Anne de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins is a distant cousin to Elizabeth, at least 2 degrees removed, Mr. Elliot in Persuasion is another second cousin, though his line about Anne not changing her name might be the most cringy pickup line in romance history).

Firstly, 1st cousin marriage, in general is a squick NOT genetically dangerous. Yes, the Hapsburgs did happen, but they were intermarrying like crazy and within a very small dating pool. For most people, the genetic danger is equal to a woman over 35 having a baby. Negligible.

You also have to consider why cousin marriage was a good idea. Yes, you want to maintain wealth within a family, but more than that, women are vulnerable in marriage. When divorce laws are strict, and even running away from abuse is heavily frowned upon (just see The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) it becomes very important to choose prudently. Now who should you trust not to be abusive? The man you met at six balls in heavily chaperoned settings or cousin Charles, who you've known since birth and who has always been kind to you? I'm going with Charles. And you have more allies (hopefully) in that situation. You can go to your uncle for help if something is going wrong. You have an established network.

You can see why the overly cautious and continually neglected and verbally abused Fanny Price doesn't want to chance it on the wider world! She knows Edmund about as well as a human can know another human.

Now I'm sure this didn't always work perfectly, it certainly didn't for Eliza Brandon, but I can really see the logic behind it especially in Regency England.

In most Western countries, first cousin marriage just seems weird, but it's probably because we have such large dating pools these days and much longer dating periods (usually). People don't marry in a matter of weeks, they often date for years. With the benefits of cousin marriage fairly incomprehensible, we tend to focus on the risks.

Also, we have to remember that these people were not raised being told it was wrong, it wouldn't be gross to them. In fact, in Mansfield Park the idea that it would be a real fear for Fanny to marry one of the sons comes up more than once (at the ball we are told onlookers might have thought Sir Thomas was raising Fanny as a wife for his second son). In Frankenstein, Victor's parents specifically call Elizabeth his cousin instead of sister, assumably because they shipped those two crazy kids at five years old.

Anyway, many cultures still today prefer or practice first cousin marriage. The genetic risk increase is very small (it raises from about 2% to 4%) and we now have genetic testing as well. While it may be gross to you, it is not wrong or immoral, it is a difference. I can see why women might consider it a safer and desirable option.

I'm bringing this up not just because I read way too many posts about how gross the ending of Mansfield Park is to people, but because many people alive today are married to their first cousins and if you meet one, please be civil.

[not-gray-politics]

I find it fascinating how many people can acknowledge on some level that the bmi is bad, outdated, inaccurate, wasn't made for individual use, and isn't even useful on a broader scale... but will still use terminology that comes directly from it and won't bat an eye at the fact that it's still in doctors' offices. So, just a reminder for folks who don't know:

"Obese" and "Overweight" are both terms that come directly from the BMI, and are both inaccurate and harmful.

The BMI itself was invented by a eugenicist who believed that all people should strive for the population average of his time period and only conducted research on white men. Women, poc, disabled people, and many other demographics were intentionally left out. It provides no meaningful information on the health or wellbeing of those who use it, but simply stacks them up to an outdated population average. Nothing more, nothing less. Using the terminology that comes from it is reductive and does damage to the scientific community. It has done irreversible damage to marginalized people and the culture as a whole, and is often used to dismiss the health concerns of fat patients. This can and has lead to many people's deaths and is an issue that should not be taken lightly. It has also been used to insult and dehumanize fat people for generations and could be considered a slur under those contexts. Stop using eugenicist language. Be mindful and be kind.

[alwaysbewoke]

[newspecies]

"the vast majority of legal persecution against early queers was focused on men" ARE YOU INSANE

[miyulien]

rant.

extremely unrelated post regarding Omori/pjsk or my au!

I am very annoyed by how hoyoverse ultimately refuses to incorporate any kind of melanin or dark-skinned characters in their game(s), especially in genshin, where they take cultures of other people. they take all of the food, the landscapes, the language, and the mannerisms as well as the clothing, (be it over-sexualised at times) but they don’t carry the beautiful ethnic features that the people of those cultures have.

i am aware that hoyoverse is a Chinese company, and its player base is full of Chinese and the standard is very much based on the Chinese standards (pale skin, thin legs, tall stature, straight hair etc.) however, regardless of your country’s beauty standards, you can’t take steal other country’s cultures and proceed to not use the people’s appearances as well, it’s like you say everything they’ve made is beautiful, from the landscapes, the buildings, the cultural traditions and the way they act.. but you. its genuinely so hurtful to see in for example; sumeru,

literally based off of middle-eastern and south-asians, which both of these cultures have predominantly dark-skinned people. but our cultures are being used constantly without our own ethnic features along with it.

the only time I ever see a character with my skin tone in sumeru, is the enemies we have to fight. the disrespect that is, to know your skin tone just isn’t good enough, not marketable enough, so they won’t make you a real character.

the idea that everything we’ve created, things we’ve worked years on, traditions that have been kept and maintained as well as shared over the centuries, is practically perfect and beautiful in hoyo’s eyes.. but, us? we’re not marketable enough, our looks aren’t good enough. the idea of having melanin is jarring nowadays, seeing characters with some sort of “imperfections” like “dark skin” is disgusting. why must we cast away the beauties of others appearance, the way they look in general, but we proceed to be overjoyed at their creations yet not the creators themselves.

it is genuinely super annoying to see how little dark skinned characters there are in genshin, and hsr, I’m not even talking about just adding diversity just to appease others, I’m talking about adding dark skinned characters and just making them normal people, without simply adding melanin just to make others shut up. why can u make every single light skinned character normal, and human, yet you can’t do the same with dark skinned characters? sumeru, natlan are based off of countries/regions that are filled with beautiful different skin tones, and hair types that don’t fit the Chinese beauty standards.

and it’s fine, beauty standards are present everywhere, but it shouldn’t be an issue to not make everything fit your country’s beauty standards, especially when you are profiting off of another country’s culture. also, can we talk about how there is literally barely any proper significance dark skin characters have in their storylines? there is barely any kind of importance that dark skinned characters have in events or even the main storyline, they appear once or twice during the quests but barely matter afterwards? they are constantly shunned and cast to the side, as if hoyoverse is ashamed of including any kind of diversity…? you can take everyone’s cultural backgrounds and their own ethnicity’s creations, but you can’t take their ethnicity’s appearance too? is it so hard to make a character with curly hair, or wavy hair for that matter.. or even make them black? is it hard to have afros, or braids, or make styles other then just exaggerated stereotypical anime straight hair?

I know it is to get profit, and that these characters wouldn’t do as well from what hoyoverse sees..

but, so many people are longing for these types of appearances, so many people want these representations, for dark skinned characters to be seen in media without simply having to be stereotypical or just added for basic diversity, just.. to be normal, like any other light skinned characters are.

It’s like me taking Chinese culture, the beautiful views, the buildings, the food, the mannerisms, and the traditions.. but not their ethnic features. people would be complaining over it and be totally pissed off, but why do we brush off the issue when it’s regarding dark skinned people not getting representation when their literal culture is constantly used in different games, like genshin, but the people themselves aren’t included?

i am not stating that light skinned people aren’t beautiful, in fact they are stunning, everyone is regardless of their melanin or lack thereof, I believe everyone’s features are beautiful, from dark skin, to tanned, to light, or pale. straight hair, wavy hair, curly hair, or coily hair, or even mixes. everyone is beautiful, and that is the truth, they all have features that make them stunning. but it’s just that the representations are so minimal in terms of dark skinned people, that is why I’m making this post.

as u can see, the literal pyro archon has not a shade of melanin, like what? none of the archons have melanin, not a single one of them? literal archons based off of regions that have predominantly dark skinned people, are all pale? huh??

i love hoyo games very much, and I love the stories but i just have noticed a total disregard and practical disrespect of dark skinned people who have stated that they want more representation seeing as hoyo uses their own culture but not their appearances, its just depressing to see what your ancestors have created, the hard work it took for you to maintain your culture, only for a huge company to swoon in and take that culture, and market it, but change your appearances to better fit their idea of ‘attractive’. As if you aren’t good enough, you aren’t marketable whatsoever.

they can easily incorporate inazuma accurately, which is based off of Japanese culture, they can use their ethnic features, and the way that they look, they can use the culture, the food, the traditions and events and the mannerisms and clothing, but they can also use their features? what’s the difference between Hispanic culture, and Japanese culture? why is it easy to use Japanese features but not Hispanic? it’s no coincidence.

I don’t like complaining in general, especially abt this, but honestly I have just seen this happen so much during the updates that I really got tired of cultures being used and praised, but the people themselves aren’t worthy of the same thing because they don’t fit the ‘beauty standard’

at the end of the day, you can do what you want, but if you are going to use a country’s culture, and profit off of it, the least you could do is also include their ethnic features instead of appeasing to your country’s beauty standards constantly.

hoyoverse is a multi-billion dollar company, it really isn’t that hard to include other ethnicites beautiful melanin and natural ethnic traits that they have, like greek noses, flat noses, upturned noses, small lips, big lips, big eyes and small eyes. thick eyelashes, long eyelashes, mixed skin tones, freckles and more, it’s just features that carry beauty, the mesmerising history of a culture to them. it isn’t that hard to include it, if you are willing to steal a culture, and call that culture perfect, except the people that created that culture.

do better, hoyoverse.

[transgynemisia-archive]

This is a response to a thread about a trans man who said he was chased from his home after being raped and threatened by a trans woman.

He's dismissed as a potential liar by this baeddel because he is "tme" and so is probably making things up to try to destroy trans women

The thread in question:

[useless-catalanfacts]

A new rule to increment discrimination

Context:

Public healthcare is one of the places where the most Catalanophobic interactions are reported. In 4 years, more than 100 Catalan speakers have reported that they have been denied healthcare or otherwise discriminated against for speaking Catalan, or were unable to access any healthcare in Catalan in a Catalan-speaking territory.

From disabled people who only speak Catalan being refused any medical attention unless they speak Spanish (which they don't know how to speak), to a man calling the ambulance but the healthcare worker who answers the phone spends the time scolding the caller for not speaking Spanish instead of calling for the urgently-needed ambulance, to many, many, many, many, many, many doctors telling patients "either you speak in Spanish or you leave", and many others given choices that link their language to shame: "would you rather speak Catalan or your son get cured?", "do you want to speak Catalan or do you want a vaccine appointment?", or being told "[derrogatory/infantilizing word for "woman"], you're making me waste time" for seeking medical attention as a Catalan-speaker.

Lack of access to healthcare is a systemic problem for Catalan people, who are often forced to use Spanish if we want medical treatment in our own country.

People should have the right to access public services (that they pay for with their own tax money) in the language of the country. Can you imagine an English speaker in England not being able to see any doctor or nurse who can attend them in English? Or in French in France, or German in Germany? It doesn't happen because speakers of the dominant language have the State on their side, but Catalan speakers have the Spanish (and French, in the case of Northern Catalonia) Government actively working against us.

And, more than anywhere else, in a moment of great vulnerability like the medical setting, it's very important that patients can speak their own language and not have to worry about translating concepts, they need to have the confidence to speak clearly on what happens to them and be focused on the issue, not on word choice or accent of this second language. Even less be worried about possibly facing discrimination for it.

The new rule:

The new Government of the Valencian Country (a coalition of the right-wing party PP and the fascist party Vox, both Spanish supremacist parties who make the hatred against Catalan/Valencian one of their main campaign points) has announced yet another way to increment that discrimination.

Until now, to decide who to hire for public jobs, there was a system of points, where each kind of certificate and qualification gave you some points. Speaking the local language (Valencian/Catalan) was already not a requisite —legally creating the situation where doctors and nurses can not know any of the language spoken in the place where they work. But, until now, speaking the local language at least gave some extra points.

Now, this new Spanish supremacist regional government has decided that knowing Valencian in the Valencian Country to work in a job with public interaction is worth less than speaking any language of an independent EU state. This means that you get more points for speaking, for example, Latvian, Swedish, Maltese, Slovak or Lithuanian, than for speaking the language of the place where you will be working and where you will be talking to people.

My full respect for speakers of all these languages, but (as an example) a hypothetical Estonian speaker who you might never even encounter in a Valencian town should not be worth more than the very real Valencian speakers that you will surely encounter working in the Valencian Country.

This rule is another step to legally protect systemic discrimination and to make it continue in the future.

Note: Valencian and Catalan are two names for the same language. They're being used interchangeably.

[aleck-le-mec]

It's wild to me how some able-bodied people only think of disabled culture as a concept and they haven't ever actually experienced it. To me the biggest tell that somebody has never experienced disabled culture is their lack of knowledge about something I call Societal Manufactured Disability Theory.

This theory posits that an aspect of disability is manufactured by societal norms, stigmas and labeling.

People with disabilities like myself will tell you that people do treat you differently based solely upon the fact that you are disabled. When my hand writing is too messy to read do to Dysgraphia people assume I'm not trying hard enough to be neat, and if I'm lazy enough to slack with hand writing I must always be lazy. When I tell people I have Dyslexia they think I'm less intelligent, unable to read or incapable of understanding the written word. When I tell people I have a connective tissue disorder which is an invisible disability they think I'm a liar, scheming to take resources away from "real disabled people".

The societal norm here in America is to push forward, laziness is not an option we see it repeatedly in the rhetoric surrounding young people. News sources constantly talking about how "no one wants to work these days" or "young people are taking everything for granted".

There is a huge stigma around having Dyslexia that most people don't notice. In American society where we have a 79% literacy rate it is expected that you can read, so when you can't or you have trouble people think you have a lower IQ. Dyslexia can be genetic so I'm actually a fourth generation Dyslexic from my dad's side with all of them men being the ones to pass it down. My dad has always said that my great grandfather had no support for his Dyslexia, nobody cared and in fact the term Dyslexia was only coined in 1887. When my dad went to school they attempted to alleviate some of the symptoms of Dyslexia by making him watch his hands as he crawled on the floor, believing that the root of the problem was in a lack of eye coordination. To this day I and many other Dyslexics will avoid talking about our diagnosis because of the stigma behind it. I have had many experiences in my life where as soon as people learn that I am Dyslexic they assume that I can't spell anything or that they need to read everything to me. That's what stigma does, it makes people hide away just so they can live in peace and be respected.

It is extremely common for people with invisible disabilities to be labeled as liars, this is mostly due to a lack of education and representation. The general public's idea of disability is limited, but the truth is that disability is one of the most dynamic aspects of human beings. Invisible and dynamic disabilities make up the majority of disabilities; in fact, 1 out of every 3 Americans is in fact disabled. When people see me, a young, healthy-looking man, they never think I'm disabled. If I tell them I am, they may think I am lying. People generally do not like liars, and having such a label attached to your name can be detrimental to your social integration.

You can see that none of those setbacks I mentioned are symptoms of my disabilities. The perceived deviance, stigma, and labeling are not things you'll find on a medical report. However, they do harm me socially and potentially medically when it comes to stigma; these things disable me. Thus, part of my struggle as a disabled person is manufactured by society itself, in the norms we hold and the way we treat others.

I have come to that conclusion repeatedly, as have almost every other disabled person. It's a conclusion that is often reached in the community as a whole. However, it is in able-bodied culture where these stigmas, labels, and perceived attacks originate. So, if someone is completely averse to accepting the Societal Manufactured Disability Theory, it suggests that they have probably never fully been a part of any aspect of disability culture.

[sparkling-pink-lemonade]

Tell me you don't support mental health without telling me you don't support mental health.

Tw: anti bullshit, pedojacketing

Messages sorted by newest first, sorry!

Also there's the blatant misinterpreting of "fantasizing = wanting it to do that thing". Fantasizing just means imagining a scenerio. I'm talking about slasher films existing due to a fanasized depiction of serial killings, and teens who make fan art of Jeff the Killer with their self insert. Every single mafia AU where the citizen falls in love with the mob boss. Every house party scene where the protagonist first tries hard drugs, or gets irresponsibly black out drunk and has a wild night.

Anyways, I once talked with my licensed psychologist about paraphilic disorders, she asked me what I thought the treatment for those illnesses are. And she said that the official treatment for it was talking about it with a support system, and desensitization through creating and indulging in writing and art. So that the thoughts become less distressing and less intense.

Imagining something =/= wanting it.

Edit: if you saw OP's username where I forgot to block it out, no you didn't