#it’s honestly a wake up call that even though I feel well-educated on antisemitism and examples of harmful media
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Hi, after your last post I wanted to let you know some of the new aspects of your story reminded me of a few antisemitic tropes and wanted to let you know in case you weren't aware. Here are excerpts from wikipedia's articles on antisemitic tropes and blood libel:
"Reptilian conspiracies, prominent in ufology theories, have also been linked to anti-semitism,[59][116] as "a very old trope with disturbing links to anti-immigrant and antisemitic hostilities dating to the 19th century."[117] Conspiracy author David Icke suggests numerous Jewish political figures are reptilian shapeshifters and "the Jewish Rothschild family is part of a bloodline of reptilian humanoids that secretly control the world".[118] Critics contend these theories to be antisemitic, although he denies animosity towards Jewish people.[117] Other far-right ufologists speculate that the Jewish race originated from genetic engineering by malevolent extraterrestrials engaged in interstellar conflict with Anunnaki or Pleiadians.[119]"
"Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation)[1][2] is an antisemitic canard[3][4][5] which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals."
There's no ill intent behind this ask I only want to bring this to your attention. Phrases like "the elites", secret groups pulling strings behind the scenes and controlling the economy, experimenting/killing innocents to acquire eternal youth are all parts widespread antisemitic tropes/conspiracy theories and I hope you understand my concern seeing them in your story.
Hi! Thank you so much for sending me this, genuinely. I definitely am aware of those tropes and how harmful they are, but I seriously didn’t realize I was playing into them with my own story.
For a little context, this was my perspective on those plot decisions:
Partly, I wanted to play into the idea that corporations control society and often one parent company will own a lot of smaller companies across industries. With Nancy Landgraab’s character specifically, I see her as representative of the extremes of capitalist rhetoric - aging is vilified, you must constantly be bettering yourself/optimizing yourself, etc. I acknowledge now that phrasing like “eternal youth” doesn’t necessarily have the connotation that I’ve intended.
Another big focus of my story is integrating my original characters with the premade characters of the Sims universe - linking all these characters from different Sims worlds was my way of establishing a connection that will allow me to pull in new characters later in the story, hence the “secret society” that spans across the whole world.
HOWEVER all of that being said, my intentions are only as good as the way they’re being received. I can totally understand the connections you made to all of the tropes you referenced, and I’m now thinking through ways that I can adjust my story to be framed differently. If the original Anon or anyone reading this who feels similarly has thoughts or ideas that they’d like to share, please send them my way! There’s also definitely the possibility that the plot I’ve thought out is too reliant on these harmful tropes, and it may be worth evaluating whether I should be telling this story at all.
#thank you again for reaching out to me in such a respectful way!#it’s honestly a wake up call that even though I feel well-educated on antisemitism and examples of harmful media#I certainly still have a lot to learn#I also hope the last bit doesn’t sound too much like ‘tell me how to fix this’#because I don’t expect that at all! I just feel like a collaborative discussion of how it could be better would be helpful#both for me and other readers/writers#ok that’s all I have to say right now - I will let you all know if I decide to rewrite the post or just redirect the story going forward#for now I’ve turned off reblogs on the most recent post just in case
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