#in my defense i am absolutely not following this discourse and i don't care about the opinions of dudebros latching onto everything

[beevean]

I don't know why so many people hate Rouge's current design so much. They say it's censorship, but in all honesty, Rouge's current design is vastly than what she originally had.

Rouge's SA2 model always looked clunky and awkward to me. Even as a person who loves big tatas, I never liked Rouge's SA2 model. Her model in that game looks like a poorly compressed human body or something.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/8/85/Rouge_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20140316203722

I think Rouge's design looks great in Heroes and everything onward. The shape of her body flows more naturally and it doesn't look like she could fall apart at any moment.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/c/c1/Rouge_heroes_32.png/revision/latest?cb=20170805174430

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/1/16/Rouge_7.png/revision/latest?cb=20200822153141

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/6/63/Riders_rouge_small.png/revision/latest?cb=20181201223435

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/a/a7/Rouge_Rivals_2.png/revision/latest?cb=20110923085344

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/b/b2/RougeRenderDreamTeam.png/revision/latest?cb=20231102022036

I love how she looks in all of these.

Rouge's body shape in SA2 felt like it was trying too hard to be sexy. Rouge's current body shape has much more shape appeal while still keeping the flirtatious vibe.

(And the same people who complain about how Rouge looks now are the same people who draw her as a hideous bat monster so I kind of automatically dismiss their takes on these things lmao)

People have a bad habit of going "CENSORSHIP" or "WOKE" when a design they like is even slightly different than before

With how they complain about Rouge's current design, you'd think that they turned her into a nun who's always covered up. In reality, it's just sonic fans doing their thing of complaining over nothing.

If Rouge had gigantic tits in her next appearance, I'd be into it. But I see no reason to complain about how she looks now. And I definitely don't see any reason to claim that her new design is an act of "wokeness" or censorship.

I haven't seen anyone complaing about the shape of her body. The issue lies entirely with her newly covered back, which is impractical because it looks like now she wears her suit over her wings. Interestingly enough, it's the same change they made to Amy in Prime.

At this point why not bring back her Heroes outfit? :P

As usual, it's not something I will lose sleep over, but it's weird, unnecessary, and doesn't fit the root "problem", if Rouge's sexiness is indeed a problem.

[a-froger-epic]

I tend to like your takes on fandom wank and associated topics, but I still do think you dropped the ball on some of the genital preference discourse, sorry. There are gay people who feel that arguing it’s only about preference is analogous to conversion therapy. Because if you argue some gay men can be attracted to certain bodies, it follows logically that all of them can, which is the same rhetoric used by conversion therapists. I know that’s not what you’re doing. But that’s why some gay people become defensive when the term genital preference is used. Preference implies homosexuality can be changed or is fluid. I also know you didn’t reblog that to start the discourse again so you can ignore this ask. I’m still a fan of you and your work generally. But I think we disagree here.

Hi, anon! First of all, thank you so much for engaging in such a friendly and reasonable manner, I am excited by real discourse like this and truly appreciate it!

I hear what you are saying, but I feel like the context of what happened back there was a little different. The whole genital preference thing came up, if I remember correctly (maybe I'm misremembering something?) because an anon who themselves said they were pansexual sent me an ask along the lines of "I don't understand how bodies can matter so much to people" and I replied with something like "yes, I'm also not bothered about the physical generally, but some people have genital preferences and others don't". Unless I'm completely misremembering, I think the genital preference thing always referred to *all people*, not specifically homosexual people.

For example, there certainly are straight people who just would not ever sleep with someone whose body is of the same sex as them, and I think that is their absolute right. I actually feel quite passionately about this because I don't think "you're transphobic if you're not sexually into this person, you bigot" is a sane line of arguing. I think it's shocking to demand of lesbians to like "girl dick" and I don't think gay guys must be into trans guys when they are really into dick. Watch, some anon is going to come along now and call me transphobic for this, but I think pressuring people into being attracted to or having sex with people they are not attracted to is horrible. End of story.

Equally, I absolutely don't think that "if some gay men can be attracted to certain bodies, it follows logically that all of them can".

I don't think that logically follows at all. I think this is where we actually disagree. Saying that some human beings prefer certain genitals in a partner and others don't doesn't imply to me that therefore all human beings have a fluid sexuality. No, I don't think that at all. The whole point I was trying to make is that to some people the physical bodies of their sex partners matter a lot more than to others. I stand by that, because from my personal experience, it's true. I know straight people who are absolutely repulsed sexually by same sex bodies, I know gay people who are equally repulsed by opposite sex bodies, and I know gay and straight people who seem to care a lot less about it but still strictly identify as gay or straight. (At the end of the day, we also don't all universally define those labels the exact same. What gay or straight or bi means to people is individual to some degree, even though I understand concerns around where a definitive meaning should be attached to those words. This is actually quite a difficult topic, and I think there's a lot of tension currently around younger generations using labels quite liberally where older generations have fought for those labels to be recognised and decriminalised and now feel like they are losing their meaning. Whole can of worms right there.) And of course there are bi/pan/queer people to whom genitals don't matter at all.

Though the reactions from anons I got back then for what I felt was a fairly neutral "humans have different parameters of attraction" position (many of those anon messages I never published) was an entire storm of crass language calling me a disgusting homophobe so I was like, wow, there's no point even trying to argue.

[weaselbeaselpants]

"-the baseline of harm to children isn’t people like Lily Orchard. It doesn’t start at the most extreme cases and it doesn’t stay there. The safety of children is not about fandom and it’s not about you- "

Unironically preach. That's cool. Otherwise, hon- you are actively saying that the creators are predatory for making the Running with Scissors plot and you are insisting that I am a direct harm to minors for saying "valid, but also no".

If I assumed this was all fandom bizz and not something that's honestly offensive and you think truly harmful than fine- that one's on me. But I'm sorry I can't agree with your exact assessment regardless of all the feelings I have about the show.

-" Also, with twilight, the depiction is of an all but impossible age gap: Bella’s 16-18, and Edward’s 107. How many teenage girls did you know or hear about that had 107 year old boyfriends? "- um, the line is "how long have you been 17?" There's literally a robot chicken joke about how Edward has the brain of an old geezer while Bella's still a physical and mental teenager- everyone knows about this problem. It's been a problem for as long as people have known about twilight. ALSO- I was not just referring to Bella and Edward disturbing mental agegap. Did you forget about Renesme and groomer Jaccob?? If you want to issue a genuine criticism of a piece of media on moral grounds you can't just dismiss other people's criticism because you don't personally see or feel that way.

I am being defensive because you came onto my post about a ship I don't particularly like anyway and insisted to me and your own following that I am downplaying/don't care about childabuse because I don't agree exactly-completely with your assessment. You are basically telling me that you ought to agree exactly with your take away or ELSE I'M JUST AS BAD and no, no I don't. That's not fair and that's not a genuine means of holding discourse or this discussion.

-Star is 14-16, and Marco is 26-35. How many teenage girls did you know or hear about who had boyfriends in their 20s and 30s? I was related to one. I knew several. I heard of hundreds, thousands. I’m 27, my body could look like a 15 year old’s again, and I would still be 27. I have experienced 27 years of human time and life experiences, I have the power of having lived nearly 3 decades. A child does not have that. They cannot. That’s not how children work. A child can THINK they have that, the most experience they’ve ever had being a human is only as long as they’ve been alive-

That's absolutely awful.

The problem is you are literally imparting real world physics and ideas onto these cartoon characters and fictional situations - a situation which, again, I'm sorry but I don't see the show or the writers literally confirming that Marco is actually 25 or even trying to lust over him or ship Star with him as a 25 y old. In the show he returns to his own word and in his own word he's still 15. I wish the show didn't make that joke for so many reasons but I think it's it's own kind of amoral on your side to accuse the creators and myself of ever actively wanting harm on real life children or even endangering real children by simply going "eh, hate that episode", "no, Marco's still physically and even mentally probably a kid even though the show made it weird". You are being so...deadly finite about this matter. You are accusing me of something unnecessary. I'm 27 myself, hon, and I experienced all sorts of bad behavior and know muchmuch WORSE especially from my days in the brony fandom. I know people who have suffered much worse than myself and it's horrendous. Don't you dare talk to me about 'downplaying harm caused to minors' when I'm working up a think piece about how adult proshitters are calling minors "puriteens" just for existing here, and how those same proshitters don't want to face the fact that the reason tumblr banned nudity was because some users were posting cp. They were. That does not mean everyone was doing it, but it was bad and it's time we stop hiding away from that fact.

Since this isn't a matter of fandom pro or anti bs than I just got to say I am very, genuinely sorry for that.

I am not saying your intentions are wrong or any of your criticism is invalid - good lord, they're valid - I am saying you are being needlessly accusatory and harmful on your own front and there's no need for it. This conversation is spiraling out of control publicly and done waiting for one or the other to reply.

Reply to me on messenger on your own time or don't reply at all.

As someone who doesn't care for Star and Marco or Starco at all, it speaks volumes to me that the fanbase and critics still treat the shipping problem like that was the main problem with Star vs the Forces of Evil.

It wasn't. SVTFOE's biggest problem will always be that it's finale was WAAAAAAAY to rushed, not which horny teenaged characters decided they were dating now in their status quo. You can tell it was rushed because even the romantic subplot seen in the end was butchered.

[mintacle]

I am so going to regret making this post. But I've been thinking about this for weeks, and if for nothing else but my peace of mind, I have to say this.

Let's talk about fandom. Specifically the batfandom, and very specifically the meta-fandom issue of batcest.

Before you unfollow me I would like to state that nothing of the content on my blog will change. I still personally don't ship batcest and don't post mature stuff. I just want to make a post in defense of neutrality. And I know that at least one of my followers is a victim of incest themselves, if you are reading this, this post is not about you. Your case is inherently different and I really understand and you really don't have to read this. But if you identify as anti-batcest, this is for you. And please read this, seriously please. I am asking you as someone who was in a sect, never take the right from yourself to read opposing views. They will not corrupt you. Have that faith in yourself and trust yourself to read things that oppose your views.

That having been said, let's start. I think there is a troubling trend for people to condemn other fans on the basis of whether they ship members of the batfam together or not. And I don't think it's wrong for people to say that it's weird bc it's incest. You are so allowed to have your own opinion and no one can take that from you. But the issue has become very polarized. I don't see people who casually say that they don't really like batcest. There is this push to filter and cancel everything on this basis alone. And the reason I think this is troubling is because it is opposition without discourse. If you really think that shipping batcest is morally aprehensive, then think about WHY. Really, really think about it. Who is getting hurt here? What problems is this creating? Why do you feel so strongly about this?

I think there is a massive effect of in-grouping causing this extreme opposition. It is hard to remain neutral when you see such a big number of other blogs proudly going on about how wrong shipping batcest is. And this is again coming from someone who was in a sect. That's a bit scary to me. You want to fit in, not be condemned as well, so you add your voice to the mix and say that batcest is horrible, repulsive. And the people who ship it are too.

But the thing you are raging against? This issue? It's not real. And I'm not talking about whether it really is incest or not, again, I don't personally care. I'm talking about how this is such a small problem with absolutely no real life implications. There's a lot of things that are wrong in this world, and I believe you that you have been hurt, but I don't think that this cause you've been fighting is one of those harmful things in the world. I think there is a reason why you are angry, why you are lashing out. I think there's a reason you are looking for someone to take the role of a predator you can attack in big numbers, anonymously, online. But batcest is always tagged, and always a place that intentionally discourages minors from engaging. That's not adult arrogance, that is adults trying to protect you. That is adults making safespaces for themselves. And that's not predatory behaviour.

One thing that I sometimes see within the batcest community which bothers me, is how I get this feeling some people do fetishize gay relationships and can't treat men having close and intimate relationships without it being romantic or sexual. But this is by no means a problem that was created or that is a defining trait of batcest, that's just a general problem of shipping culture. And this is not even something that is overly prevalent in the batcest community. A large number of fandoms are way worse in this regard.

I probably won't be talking about this again and I am worried that I'll lose followers just for this and I'm hoping to be proved wrong about that. If you follow me and feel in any way strongly about this post, please message me privately instead of reblogging to publically drag me. My private chat is open for that and I do genuinely care about all of my followers, feel welcome to message me.

[omgitsemilyward]

hey, yours is one of the best/most reasonable reactions I've seen to the interview. the harsh judgement on his new relationship/ pregnancy was very upsetting for me to read, as if they were a betrayal to what people knew him as? I wish more people grasped we don't know these people. we don't know why they make the decisions they do. the whole thing had me thinking on the 'parasocial' relationships people form with celebs really.

anyway, I'm just so glad he got help when he needed it most, and that it seems like he has very good friends who care about him. I hope he continues to be well. your post on it gave me a good opportunity to sort my feelings over it :)

Hi there - thanks for this message. I’ve already gotten some interesting messages about this and I like this one best and so I’m going to use this as an opportunity to share my (relatively) meaningless thoughts on all this, and this is probably going to be the only post I make about this so… here we go

I’ve purposefully not been making posts about this stuff for a number of reasons, but primarily because I think a lot of people have presumed to know exactly what happened between him, his wife, and Olivia based on a feeble timeline that people have tried to piece together based on random entertainment press reports and stuff. I think there is an incredible amount of information we simply don’t know because we do not know any of them personally, and so I’ve never felt very comfortable saying anything about it. I’m definitely not saying anyone is in the right or in the wrong here either bc, once again, how can we say when we don’t know almost anything?

plus - who am I to even have an opinion on these people I don’t know? I should probably just leave this post right here, because that’s really my entire thesis with this.

(but I, like the person who sent me this nice message, kinda want to use this as an opportunity to share my thoughts and feelings)

I think a lot of us (myself definitely included - anyone who has followed me for a long time knows this) put him and Anna on a pedestal based on all we knew about them, which was very, very little. So as soon as there was the smallest amount of information that things weren’t as perfect as they seemed, people took it almost personally - that they didn’t match the image they had latched onto -, and then made a lot of assumptions and a lot of judgment about what happened; again, based on the tiniest amount of information. Plus, I do think the internet amplifies these things in a weird way that does away with a lot of nuance and goes to straight to classifying things as a binary: “this person is a perfect cinnamon roll who can do nothing wrong” or “this person is absolute garbage trash” - the thing we all forget though, is that human beings do not exist on some moral binary for the most part.

(Also here I am, talking about this on the internet…. anyways)

I spent a lot of my years on this specific website being uncomfortably attached to John and Anna and their relationship, and it’s not something I’m particularly proud of. I don’t say I completely regret being such a huge fan of his, hers, theirs (for one thing, it kinda got me my job, but that’s another story for another time), but looking back on it I wish I had not been so invested in the relationship of people I didn’t know. It was really weird and without my own personal life experience, I might have also immediately jumped to a lot of judgment about why or how their relationship ended. But between now and then I’ve grown a lot as a person and I know that people, especially public figures, often live much more complicated lives than what they present to the world. And people get divorced allllll the fucking time for allllll sorts of reasons.

Maybe it’s the child of many divorces in me, but I’ve been honestly pretty shocked by how little grace people are giving them. Maybe it’s also the fact that I’ve been such a big fan of each of these people (including Olivia) for so much of my life that I’m quick to be defensive (? Idk if that’s the right word) of all of them before anything.

At the end of the day, I guess I’m just disappointed that there is even “discourse” about this to begin with - not surprised by any means, but just disappointed. And disappointed about how quick people have been to judge, or how people are try to equate this to things that are not at all equivalent.

the most important thing to me out of all of this is that John is on a path to recovery. I’ve dealt with some addiction stuff with some of my family that I’m not going to get into on here but it is hard and at times a little terrifying and I’m just so relieved that he seems to have a really good support system. That’s the thing I’ve been most concerned about since the news broke that he relapsed and was going into rehab - I’m grateful that he was able to get help because not everyone does or not everyone will before it becomes too late to do so.

[wenellyb]

I think... it's good to know that people think a heterosexual couple is likely to be canon from just one interaction while also be aware of the misogyny and racism from people who come after the woman in the fanon heterosexual relationship, as well the racism and the homophobia that comes with shipping. The racism and homophobia from people who do ship interracial and homosexual couples while also be misogynistic to the woman in the fanon/canon heterosexual relationship. As well as the racism and homophobia from people who don't ship interracial and homosexual couples.

That's the summary I have with SamBucky and all the things surrounding SamBucky. Honestly, they're so phenomenal that there's so much against them too... but even with that against them, there's also love for them so... I'm sticking to loving them.

Hi Anon!!! I'm trying to follow what you wrote and I think I understood what you're saying, and if I misunderstood any part, let me know.

In my opinion, you're right and absolutely right you'll find racism and misogyny in many MCU fandoms especially when it comes to M/M ships and female characters who are potential love interests, and also sometimes homophobia for people who are trying to argue against M/M ships and it's not always easy to navigate.

It goes from the usual "why does everything have to be gay" to.... some stuff I won't re-write. But I have seen some nasty stuff on Twitter and people think it's ok, because they're criticizing a ship.

On the other hand, a lot shippers especially in the MCU fandom refuse to acknowedge that there is a racism problem in the fandom because then, they would have to admit that maybe they have a racism problem too or have some prejudice.

Like, why do you think you make gifsets of all MCU4 characters and then conviniently forget to include the Black character who is the lead of the show? Or always think about how Steve left Bucky, but never think about Sam, who didn't even know Steve was leaving. Or why they can see that Bucly needs to be take care of sometimes, but never think about Sam does too? Or why Black Widow and Captain Marvel are praised by feminists as groundbreaking in the superhero world but they never talk about Black Panther, that had 3 female superheroes and one Queen (More female characters than any MCU movies before that, but apparently it only counts when it's White men) Maybe there's some self - exploration to be done there, before you start getting defensive and denying everything. (I hope that you understood that this is a general you lol, not you anon😉).

So yeah, a lot of racism, but getting defensive is easier than acknowlzdging the problem

But you're right too that some anti M/M shipping rhetoric use arguments that are bordering on homophobia and even plain right homophobic sometimes.

However, HOWEVER, what you are saying is only true in theory, but in practice it isn't completely true. From what I have observed a lot of the shippers who talk about homophobia, or queer representation when it comes to shipping...are really quiet when some topics arise.

Exhibit A: "Shipping is about representation"

There is a CANON gay character in the Eternals movies and I have yet to see posts about him. I have seen some of course, but the number of them is absolutely disheartening. Empty emptiness. And Phastos has a husdand and they have a child!!! I hope I am wrong and that once the movie comes out he will be getting lots and lots of support... But I have close to no faith in the fandom.

I don't want to hear any arguments about how he is a side character when White Male side characters have always been popular on this webiste. And have had support, gifsets, and metas written about them even when they had one minute screentime.

Exhibit B: The whole discourse surrounding what happened with that Interview with Anthony Mackie

I read the interview way before I even read the transcript or listen to the audio, so to me Anthony was talking about Sambucky in the interview.

And even then, I said that the conversation shouldn't be about the shipping because he is an actor, he just plays the script he is given and isn't involved in the writing or anything... So blaming him for "not shipping" Sambucky was nonsensical and irrelevant. And saying he was "homophobic" for not seeing them as romantic, was completely ridiculous.

For me, the problematic part of Anthony's interview was the part where he talked about how two male friends couldn't go to the bar anymore without people thinking they're together and I don't like it when people talk that way because there are homophobic undertones to it, because why is it a problem if people think you are gay? But a lot of Straight Cis men talk like that, and although I thought this should be discussed, I didn't think it deserved qo much outrage and hatred towards him.

So imagine my surprise when I when through Tumblr posts and Twitter only to find out that most people who were calling him homophobic were calling him that because he said he didn't ship Sambucky.... So here we are, with people calling out an actor because he said the two characters were friends and they literally didn't care about any part of the interview except the part about the ship.

A lot of people were not interested in any conversation about homophobia that didn't revolve around whether or not Anthony shipped Sambucky... Why do I think that? Because they were only talking in terms of Sambucky,(as if Anthony had any say in the writing) .The moment the transcripts were available and it was made clear that he wasn't talking about Sambucky, discussions stopped.

This is how I see the people who were hating on Anthony btw:

And to be clear, I'm not saying people who say they ship characters because there is a lack of representation are lying or anything, no they're not, because the Queer MCU fans really care about representation and some compensate the lack with shipping, but there is also part of the fandom that says it but doesn't believe it, this is just my observation from the few fandoms I have been in. I won't pretend I know how it is for all the other fandoms.

Anyway, thank you for writing this to me. As long as you are aware of what's going on in the fandom and not trying to deny it. As you said, continue shipping Sambucky in peace😉!

As long as people don't put their heads in the sand and acknowledge that a lot of Tumblr fandoms have a tendecy to minimize M/F ships in favor of M/M ships, treat the female characters horrribly and also getting defensive whenever the topic of racism is brought up, instead of just listening.

[clockworkspider]

I don't have a clear answer to help my friends, but I do find myself victim to Twitter Brain at times, and I have certain principles for myself to stop that part of me. I hope by acting the way I do, I can provide an example for my online friends on how to engage.

1. Always give people the benefit of doubt.

If people I know said something problematic/hurtful, assume they just didn't realize the implication of what they said because no one ever told them. If I am their friend or someone they respect, I'm in the best position to gently correct them.

If something they say seems just a bit... iffy, then ask for clarification first before jumping to any conclusions, there could be context I don't know about. (Someone I follow genuinely tagged their art as fascism because they're trying to type fauvism and made a typo and never noticed.)

This applies especially to Twitter, where people often respond to the latest drama without including the original post, so things they say end up sounding completely unhinged.

Giving people the benefit of doubt help remove some of the "everyone's an enemy" victim mentality.

2. Don't provoke people or shut people down.

Internet debates tend to focus on provoking your opponent or shutting them down. Both of which are good at gaining support, but not actually good at changing people's minds.

Why would I argue with people on social media? To be right or to change someone's mind? If I'm just making myself look correct to people who already agree with me, then I'm not contributing any value to the discourse. If I can make the opposition even briefly consider a new perspective, my input is way more valuable.

Provoking people often means making broad assumptions about your target to burn them. Challenge them to a fight. Generally, provocative statements have "all X are Y", namecalling, strawman arguments, and false equivocation. (If you do X, then you're a racist.)

People are not open to new ideas when they're defensive. Using provocative statements is counter-productive.

Shutting people down involves shutting down further conversations by delivering a sick burn. Or invoking something so controversial no one dares argue against you. A good argument can shoot down all opposition (not everything is debatable and some things are just correct and some things just wrong), but if the goal of the argument is to humiliate your opponent, then you already lost them. They won't be open to any ideas you've said because you've offended them in the same breath.

State your point and let it sink in, don't drill it in with some sick burns or a mic drop statement. Give the opposition time to reconsider.

3. Phrase things in a neutral/non-aggressive tone

This goes along with the previous point. Statements that get the most engagement on social media are the ones that provoke or shut people down. They depend a lot on pathos, appealing to emotions rather than reason. This isn't inherently wrong, but I've learnt to be careful with it. Because I've seen/made absolute bullshit sound correct by using the right words.

Even if I'm really angry or really smug, I will read over what I wrote and strip away aggressive/passionate/provocative language. I don't want people to agree with me because I delivered it in "the right tone". If I'm using phrases that have become a discourse stock phrase in the community ("you are valid"), I'm taking it out. If I'm using a heavy word (traumatized) when something lighter (annoyed) is actually more accurate, then I'm gonna use the lighter one.

This may sound passive-aggressive, because a fuck you is a fuck you no matter how politely worded, but the process forces me to re-evaluate my own stance. Am I trying to change someone's mind, or am I trying to humiliate them? This process also forces me to actually parse through what the opposition is saying. Are they actually saying what I thought they're saying or did I just knee-jerked because I saw a phrase they said and it reminded me of 20 different posts I've seen in the past?

--line break--

I find, in general, if I approach in good faith, it's easier to confront my friends about their social media posts right there in context. Because generally people are willing to shut down or pick a fight with strangers, but they're not as willing to do that with friends they actually respect/talk to.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Losing friends to twitter brain?

I’ve noticed a weird pattern. In the last months a couple of people that I know in real life became increasingly unpleasant on social media. Every single post sounded like it was directed at racists/terfs/antivaxers etc even though they had zero followers like that. Every interaction no matter how carefully worded, resulted in getting shouted at as if you were part of their big ‘the enemy’ group. (I think I’m going to call this specific kind of hypervigilant constant hostility ‘twitter brain’, though I’ve seen it everywhere).

Since I wanted to maintain a real life connection to these people, I tried explaining to them why this was so unpleasant and why I wanted to unfollow them on social media for now. Most seemed surprisingly understanding of that, but for some reason they all said something along the lines of “it’s so sad that social media drives people apart like this”. And when I tried to explain to them that social media may have created this dynamic but it was still their behavior as shaped by social media that was driving me away, I just hit a wall. They were aware of the evils of social media, but they were completely incapable of seeing their own behavior as a product of that.

So now I’m thinking about how to get beyond this. It’s clear that the last two years have been incredibly stressful for everyone and that most people have been on social media way more than is good for them, and as a result they have increasingly conceptualizing the world as consisting entirely of ‘people who 100% agree with me’ and ‘racist antivax terfs’. Social media will do that to you if you let it.

And that good-evil binary, with a clear and militant-feeling answer on how to fight it (just be really angry at the evil people all the time) provides comfort, it provides validation, it provides an answer to how to act in a frightening world. And anything that challenges that also challenges your self esteem, challenges your knowledge that you are one of the good guys, challenges the idea that you can tell safe from unsafe, makes the ground under your feet feel unsteady again. It’s no surprise that people lash out.

But honestly, losing people to twitter-brain looks a lot like losing people to the far-right. The constant anger, the strict good-evil binary, the self-isolation by pushing away of friends with slightly different perspectives, the idea that only lashing out is the appropriately militant response to evil… that’s very familiar. The final outcome is probably significantly less harmful, at worst some will be recruited into the kind of call-out culture that mobs and harasses people over tiny mistakes, but none of them are going to end up planning a mass shooting. Most don’t even seem to graduate to that level of internet villain at all and just gradually damage their mental health and social life. 

Still, this shit is concerning. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get people out of there are so far my main answer has been ‘don’t engage online, only talk to people offline’. For a lot of people like this their hypervigilant hostility switches on the moment they get on social media and switches off or is in sleeper mode when they’re not. It’s been surprisingly possible to maintain friendships with most of these people after unfollowing them on social media and gentle, slow, real life conversations have been by most effective tool so far in talking to people about what I was seeing happening to them. But I’m not sure if that’s effective enough, ‘cause I can talk to them offline for an hour but the rest of the week they’ll be online again for hours per night getting pulled back into this stuff, and the stress and unsafety that motivates this behavior is still there. So.. yeah.. no clear answers on this one yet. 

[sapropel]

sorry if you've been asked this but i read your faq and was just genuinely curious why you don't agree with the tumblrs identity thingy (stating pronouns/gender/sometimes sexuality/etc in bio). you don't have to answer at all or if you do you don't have to go into detail in just curious if/why these things are potentially problematic. (also sorry if you've answered this !)

I'm always happy to talk about this. First off, I support putting pronouns in bios. Second, it's not even that I don't support putting identities in bios, it's just that sometimes they can get in the way and be a bit much. IIRC, if you go into feministingforchange's blog, she has a massive bio that lists every single one of her privileges. That's excessive to me.I'm also not even really against identity-based discourse as a whole, because I think it's necessary, but I think sometimes lived experience-based discourse is more appropriate. Let me explain why a bit.Because tumblr is a beacon/platform for marginalized people, yada yada, identities are now important. Oftentimes in the discourse, people will weaponize their identities and avoid using actual arguments. Just yesterday I got a DM saying "I'm a trans lesbian and aces are LGBT." No support. No evidence. No sources. Just "I'm a trans lesbian." The implication that she has more say than I do or is "more LGBT" is a bit odd but the sentiment isn't uncommon. And this happens all the time in arguments.I think the most important part of it is that identities are not monolithic. You have stupid, myopic people of every identity under the sun. People within identities will disagree with each other. So, if I follow tumblr's rule of blindly trusting people of a certain identity (about issues within their identity), I have multiple sources of conflicting information.This isn't to say that I shouldn't be listening to people within that identity. I absolutely ABSOLUTELY should. It's necessary. But I need to do it while understanding biases and thinking critically, reading articles, getting multiple viewpoints, and thinking about real-world impact. For example: a while back I got an anon message saying that I was anti-Semitic because my blog is based around goblins, which have been used as anti-Semitic caricatures. A few Jewish people agreed, and a few came to my defense. So who am I supposed to believe? You have to go with reasoning, evidence, and good argument. Think about the biases: would someone be biased for/against me in the argument? In this case, I'm an ace discourse blog, so inclusionists are going to look for as many reasons as possible to hate me. Then, yesterday, I got another anon message. It claimed to be from the original sender, and they admitted they were making a joke and that they didn't think I was anti-Semitic. But it had already caught on, and I was already labelled as anti-Semitic. So. Be careful who you believe.It's also easy to obfuscate real impact and actual power during identity-based discourse because, again, identities are not monolithic, and most people don't have the same experiences. Though this applies to a lot of discourse, I'm going to talk about it in terms of TERFs: Once you strip away the identities man/woman, male/female that TERFs are stuck on, and you look at actual power dynamics without respect to identity, it becomes much easier to show that trans women hold no power over cis women.Identities are used a lot not only to obscure power dynamics but also to distance oneself from privilege, esp. wrt ableism. I've seen people use mental illness to excuse homophobia and racism so often on this website. But that's another conversation.Does that cover it? -Mod Grimes