#insert you are not immune to propaganda Garfield

[marchthorn]

Tumblr propaganda works. One of the people I follow is posting a lot about trigun and now I want to read it and watch it...

[slugass]

how to call out anti-autistic ableism:

USE A FUCKING BRAINLET, THE VISUAL VERSION OF CALLING SOMEONE THE FUCKING R-SLUR, SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO MOCK DISABILITY, BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL, TO REPRESENT THE BIGOT, BECAUSE IT COULD NEVER BE NON-(MENTALLY) DISABLED PEOPLE DOING THE BIGOTRY MOST OF THE TIME, RIGHT???

I’M SURE THAT WON’T MAKE YOU LOOK HYPOCRITICAL AND ABLEIST AT ALL.

[ravenkings]

one important lesson of the last few years that i think we should all have learned by this point is that no one side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on conspiracy theories or the potential to develop conspiracy theories

[pythagoreanwhump]

Okay but we also need to have a conversation about how whumpers are very much NOT immune to stupid puritanical takes on fictional harm, and believing that we are just because we like reading about violence only makes the problem worse

being a whumper i am immune to stupid puritanical takes on fictional harm. "we need to talk about the violence-" HELL YEAH WE DO BROTHER IT WAS MY FAVORITE PART UP HIGH

[shsl-heck]

So fun to see the way that tumblr users will say things like "this is the trans website! Fuck terfs!" Then those same people will reblog a post nit even 5 minutes later with 20k notes that basically just says "idk anyone else think [Insert anything a trans woman has ever done] is kinda weird and predatory? :/ It harms the most vulnerable group! Cis men!"

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[rjalker]

"OMG, it's a kids series, why are you criticizing the bigotry in it? That's so cringey!

"Who cares if a show aimed at little kids is teaching them that it's romantic for boys to sexually harass and assault girls?

"Who cares that this kids book series with over 60 entries is defending slavery and genocide??

"Who cares if there's victim blaming and rape apologism in just the second book??

"Who cares if [insert children's series] is teaching kids horrible, cruel, bigoted ideas that they will absorb and reproduce in real life?

"Who cares that the media we show to kids plays a massive role in shaping our society?

"It's just a kids series! Stop criticizing the blatant bigoted propaganda being fed to kids by conservatives who want little kids to think that being abused by their partner is the height of romance!!!"

[ID: The Garfield "you are not immune to propaganda" meme, with Garfield the orange cat's head smiling on a blue background, with the text now reading, "Children are especially susceptible to propaganda.". End ID.]

[thequeeranachronism]

It seems to me that a good chunk of leftists want to replace policing and prison systems with mob violence. It’s very telling that a lot of their jokes are about guillotines, gulags, and firing squads. Also in how they talk about some glorious violent revolution.

It’s apparent in how someone only has to disagree with one widely held belief in far leftist circles to be harassed and chased out. Sometimes the harassment is incredibly violent in nature with death threats and doxxing. People will not stop and become obsessed spreading vile lies about them.

Of course this is usually what happens to minorities in leftism while white cis men get off easy. Far leftists want you to ignore the misogynists, rapists, transphobia, homophobia, racists, antisemitism etc. in their own movements.

Hell members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation are such huge bloggers on here. The PSL has cult like practices and known abusers (sexual and other abuse) in positions of power. I’ve seen too many people say that the far left isn’t radicalized but I’d say that if you go far enough it’s got a lot of similarities to the far right.

(Insert the, You are not immune to propaganda Garfield meme here)

[so0ppa]

on the topic of sci . i'd love to see more art of her!! i love the uniform (?) u gave her ... the light teal and black/red colours work so well together imo ... i'd love to hear more of her backstory and stuff too ... along with taisto's :D

anon you sure are lucky i have so much art of sci because she's existed way before <tl> and she's my favourite forever

ALSO YES i love her outfit i put so much thought into colours with her!! (and alot of the other characters as well tbh but it's most obvious w/sci. her clothesg r always colder colours vs the accents she chooses :3c) yeaghh art under cut (will explain some stuff along the way bcz i love yapping teehee)

i made her in like dec 20 2022. so she's almost 2 years old woah.. ofc initially she was sort of a self-insert oc and her name was mad scientist (to go along with the twaeu "just the names of their trope" naming convention) also i was v indecisive with her pronouns iirc so i went back and forth all the time lol.

plot and character was kinda ehh all over the place. it doesnt matter much now but basically her deal was "stuck between having to choose bio 'family' n found family both of which suck" and also neglected/lack of stable parental figure(s), abandonment issues and other angst that wasnt important and i barely explored atp.

THEN around february this year. i started thinking "wow my incredibly headcanoned and basically unrecognizable version of prime* and this oc, sci, are kind of perfect for each other" and shit snowballed from there.

(*who's taisto now if it wasn't. obvious.)

shit clicked way more for me a bit later on!! but this was basically perfect.

ok and then i made <tl> and put them in as sort of side plot but not really? sci is way less prevalent (which i realised only recently to great regret but also im a bit happy shes not plot relevant since it means i can spoil more /j) but taisto is p important so i wont talk about him that much other than we hate him and he sucks and i love him as a character i wouldn't have him any other way :)

ok so in tags for my answer to the last ask i mentioned sci's got a lot of sensitive subjects going on w/her and alot of that is because she's vulnerablee as hell. intellectually this girl is soo smart and strong but her emotional regulation skills are fuucked. partly due to having to grow up way quick (as i mentioned. the parental neglect lol) !! and yeah alot of sci/taisto touches on manipulation etc..

its p personal to me since again. sci's whole "feeling older even when ur not" and . abandonment issues. are basically whole sale projected fjdhfd. and alot of the time i, fucked upedly, think "damn id be easy to manipulate," n apart of me is always pushing back on that (both because kind of effed up thought and, well, "no i wouldnt since im thinking that smh smh") but also like. garfield you are not immune to propaganda meme. and so yea its a whole exploration of stupid feelings as most art is lol.

[cynifer]

I can’t believe that there are seriously people who, whether it’s due to shipping goggles or the bibros fantasy, not only interact w the show/fandom/creators in bad faith (i.e. w a specific agenda)… but truly did “watch the show wrong” to the extent of the person who asked Jensen That q at the con. And i rlly hate the saying “watched the show wrong” mostly due to how it’s used to invalidate or belittle fans based purely off of their headcanons but like… the level to which you must be deluded to seriously ask Jensen that question?? Oh boy.

I mean literally her question doesn’t even make sense if u actually watched the show. how do you watch the show and walk away with that question. Idgi. Like not at all. it’s shipping/fanon goggles reaching levels of delulu that should be studied by scientists.

Sorry if all this doesn’t make any sense lol it just rlly baffles me. Like the confidence and superiority these fans (bibros, cesties, jared stans, etc) tend to have over everyone else in the fandom and the way they accuse others as not understanding the show or not actually liking it for what it is when that’s literally them!!!!!!!! It’s not ONLY them who do that but omg they are so oblivious about it and sooo fucking hypocritical like *insert the Garfield “you are not immune to propaganda meme here*. every section of the fandom has headcanons and fanon etc its just natural but they are literally the ones who go around acting like their bad faith shipping goggle misinterpretation is canon when it’s just not.

To ask Jensen a question like that to his (and misha’s) face with ur wholeee fucking chest is a massive red flag on the tip of the iceberg for a significant (and very vocal) part of the fandom.

it’s just so bizarre to ask that question like I can’t stop thinking about what the fan fucking expected from asking that like I can only assume they didn’t realize how batshit it was and were expecting agreement/validation from Jensen but… expecting him to agree in anyway is the ‘glaring red flag that this fan and those like them have a total misunderstanding of the show’ im talking about….

Lol sorry u can ignore this I just can’t stop thinking about how bizarre it is 😭😭😭

Oh, you make perfect sense to me, non.

And I get the part about watching the show wrong. I don't like saying that about people either, especially since they love saying it about us.

But I have noticed that many Cas antis have admitted to fast-forwarding through his scenes or just totally tuning them out. In which case, 1. they are watching the show wrong if they want to also talk intelligently about it, and 2. they have no idea about the dynamics between Cas and Sam, never mind Cas and Dean.

In Jensen's case yesterday, I feel like his irritation came more from knowing the person asking the question was trying to set him up to insult Cas (and, by association, Misha) and forget watching the SHOW wrong; people like her have observed JENSEN wrong and completely ignore the things he has said and done, especially recently, in regard to his feeling s about both Misha AND Cas.

[finelinens1994]

Saw someone saying, oh i can't be a fascist nor use their rethoric because im *insert marginalized group* and i just stared at the tweet thinking "buddy i don't think that's how it works" the worst part is that i took a look through their bio and they were very young, i fear for these kids being raised on twt censorship and fear the "freaks" propaganda disguised as leftism

no seriously omggggg THEY JUST DON'T KNOW!!! they think that anyone who isn't white-anglo-saxon-protestant and supports trump or whatever is being paid to do it, and wasn't just appealed to with the right kind of propaganda and shit. like ok we need to display the garfield "you are not immune to propaganda" pic in times square for all of eternity methinks perhaps garf would help

[kiunlo]

Context: these were tags taken from the notes of this post.

I need people to start realising that racist people and evil people are not "insane" or "delusional" or "mentally ill". They are simply evil and racist. I know it may seem fucked up and horrible to think that other people truly believe in white supremacist rhetoric without something being "wrong" with their brain, especially if you're knowledgeable of the systems that perpetrate such violence and how it all comes together to oppress those that are vulnerable within our society, but to claim that all evil, racist, bigoted and homophobic people are all mentally ill or "delusional" or "insane" is fucking absurd and pushes aside the very real fact that completely sane people can be manipulated into believing something that is hateful and untrue. It's called propaganda, and it works extremely well on ALL types of people, YES INCLUDING YOU THE PERSON READING THIS RIGHT NOW. (Insert "You are not immune to propaganda" garfield image here).

This way of thinking also pushes forward the idea that hate and violence is only ever caused by mental illness or people who are "insane", when it's usually not the case. Very normal and sane people who have been brought up in an INHERENTLY RACIST society are the ones that cause such violence and hate to occur and be perpetuated, and thus the cycle continues. It also makes the assumption that if YOU are sane or not mentally ill or don't experience delusions, then you will never fall for something as stupid as racist or antisemetic propaganda. And yet, the tags above clearly show that this person, who I believe to be a sane, normal person, has fallen for the good ol' ableist rhetoric embedded in our society. Because you live in a society that is ableist and bigoted, and those ideas are seared into your fucking brain when you were a child, and in order to NOT be racist or ableist or homophobic or whatever, you have to ACTIVELY make changes in your life and to the way you think in order better yourself as a person.

What I'm saying is that no amount of being "sane" and "normal" and "not delusional" and "neurotypical" is going to stop you from believing in racist bullshit and perpetuating that hate and violence onto others around you. The only thing that believing that sort of shit is going to do is trick you into thinking you have no more personal work to do on yourself and that you're not capable of being racist or ableist or homophobic (which is clearly not true given that this person is harbouring at least some amount of ableist ideas and thoughts).

[only-book-lovers-left-alive]

This was reblogged by someone with TERFs dni in their bio. Say it with me, folks! There is no gender binary that will get you anywhere good, anywhere quick. Inserts you are not immune to propaganda Garfield here.

[ihrtmichael]

in regards to last reblog:

the reason the evil amaya and starboy love interest shit spread like wildfire is because the people screaming the loudest about them didn't genuinely give two shits about the movie!!!!!!!!!!!

they didn't own the art book let alone actually read the damn thing! they just nabbed the photos from an actual fan's post, made up their own bullshit based on the short paragraphs, and because people have a weird hate boner for anything disney it just popped off and people ran with it. i could go more in depth about how as much as yall pretend yall actually don't give two fucks about artists and the creative process but that's a whole other post.

and maybe this is a silly conclusion to draw pero like if you can easily believe misinformation about a wee disney movie i'm a bit nervous what other misinformation you can run with just as quickly.... like.... it's an election year mamitas! sure one day it's starboy, but whose to say the next day it won't be something more serious like masking, vaccines, fraud, etc? these things can quickly snowball! (insert garfield you aren't immune to propaganda meme)

just something to think about.

[lettucedloophole]

i've thought about going on t before, as an average liberal then as a terf and now as a trans inclusive radical feminist. and with these three perspectives, i have no idea of what to make of any personal decision like that anymore.

it was pretty easy as a liberal. do what makes you happy, "no critical thoughts, just vibes" and all. as a terf, it's very strictly no, sometimes to the point of matyrdom. if you find yourself with dysphoria, knowing transition would help you, you are supposed to run in the opposite direction and just try to embrace yourself harder until it goes away, nevermind gender being a part of you. it's dishonest in a more insidious method than liberalism, in my opinion anyway, as it posits itself as the correct subversion of liberalism when it's really a spin off of conservative thought. of course, you can't get too prescriptive (i am not using this word in the conventional sense. perhaps in no correct sense) with ideas-- someone having a certain opinion is one thing, but why do they have it? their life experience or disposition, ignorance, propaganda? and what do they plan to do about it? but in the case of terfism's Transgender Bad opinion, the formulation of it is very similar, if not almost identical to typical conservatives, which is odd given the demographic of terfs generally being variously marginalized women, but that just proves the efficacy of propaganda leveraged in the culture war against the minority (trans people as of now, of course)-- no one is immune. *insert garfield here.*

between and or outside of brain empty and transphobic martyrdom, there is the increasingly complex scope of radical feminism and other theory on gender, sexuality. increasingly complex to Me, at least, as i think it is correct, and correct things are the hardest to grasp. i take one step forward and fourteen back the more i learn about this stuff. i was so certain before, but good theory breaks down your reality into parts and pieces to bring cohesion to a machine as a whole. society.

terf thought = being trans isn't like being gay or being a gnc wo/man, being gay and/or a gnc wo/man is natural and innate and not harmful and being trans is a social imposition of patriarchy. but upon digging deeper... sex is a social construct. and if sex is a social construct? sexuality is a social construct. nothing is innate, at least, we could never really say as that would be to push society's assumptions on Unsociety. thus, gender, sexuality, transness, all become quite similar– there is at least purpose in the social construction of sex that's blatantly evident, thank you simone de beauvoir; patriarchy. however, personal gender, conformity and nonconformity, is hopelessly skewed by the human spectrum of being, and coping. terf thought = transness is artificial as it is a defilement of the authentic self, but what is the authentic self? being against bodily modification is one thing, but this concept of authenticity-- it is assumed gay and gnc people have this authenticity that trans people lack. they're Just Like That. but, why are people gay? why are people gnc? when these questions are asked, homophobia & misogyny is assumed, because (much like the question of "why are people trans?") they are often asked in search of justification for someone else's existence. i will say the most crude samples aloud; you're gay because you were sexually assaulted as a kid, you're gnc because you're too insecure to be a real man, you're gnc because you feel too ugly to embrace femininity and thus, hate yourself enough to resort to masculinity. and the answer we come up with to these questions is, no. there are of course many gay and gnc people who don't feel an inkling of this. but, what about those who do? i will use myself as an example: i used to be more feminine as a child, but i got fat and depressed and put less effort into my appearance, less vibrancy, ending up at androgynous. now i am that or masc-y, and i feel disgusting in feminine clothes likely because of this insecurity. i am bi because patriarchy = brainwashed into being submissively attracted to men. i cannot rid myself of this part of me and i hate it, and along with the social reality of patriarchy, this is more than enough reason to force myself out of internalized homophobia. so, taking these two things into account, my gender nonconformity and sexuality are essentially inseparable from patriarchy-- does this make them inauthentic? unhealthy? how many other gnc & gay people feel similarly? if it was the majority, or a lot, would you then say it's not genuine or healthy for them to be gay?

and here lies the problem, because the exact same things are said about trans people by (usually) transphobes; you're trans because you're traumatized from sexual assault or internalized misogyny / patriarchy. but holding onto the label of man and woman so strongly as gnc (cis, to clarify) people, is also informed by patriarchy, these labels are made up and, dare i say, meaningless.

except, they're obviously NOT meaningless. these categories OOZE importance for people everywhere, they're what relegate half of the population, and terfs agree with this too as they hold on so strongly to being women and sisterhood. so, why is it only artificial when trans people acknowledge a very real system, and find a way to fit themselves into it?

essentially, all of gender and sexuality is a choice. you can choose to be gnc, you can choose to be gay, and you can choose to be trans. i know this, as i have in some sense chosen to be gnc and gay (by being a bi woman who doesn't date men, though i don't literally identify as gay) but it just boggles the fucking mind because of the essentialism that's applied to these categories. and yes, this essentialism is often applied to protect these groups, but it is also what forms the very oppression of these groups, which is why it doesn't fucking work.

obligatory disclaimer as that was a Touchy subject, saying you could choose to be gay, trans, gnc also doesn't mean conversion therapy works or is right, because there's the simple matter of what you want to be. sure, you could materially be straight, gay people fake this all the time. but it's not fulfilling. dare i say, it's inauthentic...

so the force of want is authentic, as innate is not real and therefore, not authentic. self-actualization may be authentic, and it's separate from want at least in that it can't be hollow.

but this begs so many more questions. for example, as a radical feminist, you're anti-kink. however, if we disregard root in patriarchy as a sign that an action is, well. bad, anti-feminist. then does kink become okay? (i don't think so because i am aggressively sex-negative and thus i will consider things like, lack of self-actualization in this action, material harm and danger, the collective submission of women never being a neutral as opposed to an evil. but, it is an interesting thought.)

so, back to t. i want to go on t, i think i would like the changes for the most part, but would it self-actualise me? is feeling obligated to stick it through as a weird little woman remnants of terf brainworms, or can it be a lifestyle choice without subconsciously damning people who live differently? do i, in some personal way, feel obligated to transition?

i am perpetually confused. i got some interesting advice today, "understand what you need to understand," i don't think it meant much to the person saying it, but to me? i wonder if i need to understand an experience through living it to be happy, or if i can learn from the sidelines. either way, i won't do anything rash, as i must find the correct choice to satisfy the ethics demon that screams at me in my head to live an "authentic" life. whatever that means

you learn upon unterfening how cisgender (gnc or otherwise) identification can be rather restrictive as compared to the subversion that terfs sell it as, but i am interested now in thinking of what ways transgender reality is subversive in patriarchal society. i don't know if i'll have many thoughts on this, but the biggest one i've come up with so far is the wedge it shoots between the idea of sex/gender being innate. though some people manage to make it sound otherwise, it is anti-essentialist at its core. i'm interested in seeing this whole picture of the cis and trans subversiveness and typicality comparisons, as i feel getting this done should even the scales for them in my brain, theoretically speaking. all gender oppressed people have their own strengths and subversions-- you learn that they don't need to be identical to be meaningful. allyship isn't a zero-sum game.

[beatificent]

Um, no, the point of ads isn’t necessarily to get you to instantly click the link on first sight. It’s to create an association: this could be with its context i.e. your favorite YouTuber, or simply with the product is advertises and the reason you would buy it.

While your first thought upon hearing some podcaster go on about NordVPN or HelloFresh might be annoyance, they may make you aware of the existence of the service or the need for a product in the first place. From there, if you are the intended consumer (i.e. the type of person who needs a meal delivery service) then advertising serves to keep a specific brand in your mind.

Even if you think NordVPN is annoying as shit based on their ads, if you need a VPN, the first brand you think of will probably be NordVPN, and the mild annoyance you feel is insignificant compared to the fact that you think of them first.

Part of why advertising is such a huge industry these days is because so much of it no longer simply demonstrates the features of a product or service, but competes with other products for the space in your brand where it will pop up first. The fact that people think that they are “refusing to engage” and winning when even mockery serves the purpose of the ads demonstrates their effectiveness, that people are blind to how marketing and sponsorships and product placements work on them in the first place and think their emotional engagement is a sign of resistance instead of subliminal acceptance.

Yeah, insert Garfield “You are not immune to propaganda” here. You cannot delude yourself into thinking that you are some independent free thinker who the multi-billion dollar advertising industry didn’t account for. Doing so only makes you more susceptible to any advertisement more clever than an infomercial.