#make her as eurocentric and boring as possible

[thegirlfromstationsquare]

Noelani but she's played by Zendaya

Aerin is played by one of the D'Amelio sisters and Brighid is played by James Corden

[tg-headcanons]

You ever think about that whole argument (from the narrator/Ishida) that humans are just like ghouls because they eat animals to survive? So, so flawed. A LOT of people are vegetarian or vegan these days. It would have been better to make the argument that any animal's survival is dependent on the death of others, whether those 'others' are slaughtered or not. Circle of life and all that.

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS

This is one of the ways in which tokyo ghoul gets close to a nuanced philosophy, but instead falls short into a tired old cliche. It’s just inches away from getting the point, but is held back by a major issue with Ishida’s writing style: Full focus on individual responsibility

We see it with how he portrays Kaneki alone with very little focus on countless other people who contributed as the catalyst for Change. We see it with how he portrays a handful of CCG members and Ghouls as “the bad ones who are making it worse for everyone else” rather than predictable products of their world’s system. And we see it with how he frames the world in a philosophical sense. There’s far too much focus on single people and simple goals. What will Kaneki do to save the world? What will Touka do to protect kaneki? What will Hinami do to decide if she’s a good person or not? It fails to take into account the sheer immensity of outside forces. It shouldn’t be “will X character choose to do Y?” it should be “how does Z effect X character’s ability or reason to do Y?”

Think about how Hinami had to kill Kureo because otherwise she and Touka would die horrifically. Was that even a choice? Could anyone blame her for fighting for her life when it was the only way to live? Or how Nishiki ate a piece of Kimi. Was he ever in a position to turn her offer of herself down? Was there any other way for him to survive then? Or how countless ghouls hunt down innocent people to eat. How else are they supposed to get food for themselves and their families? What other way can they survive starvation when every other Avenue is purposely blocked?

But I’m every single case, the situation these characters are in are set aside in favor of framing it as decisions they made with no other factors than their own desires

Now let’s compare that to how humans interact with meat. We’ve evolved for it, we sweat, see, and even support complex brains because we eat meat. Whether we like it or not we are predators, and that has been the case since the first hominids took down prey with sticks and rocks. We’ve been doing this for ages and it’s ingrained in our biology, cultures, and day to day life. Of course throughout history people have chosen not to. Whether it be for religious reasons, not liking it, or just being uncomfortable with the thought of eating animals some people have always been vegetarian, but in recent years there’s been way more. Sometimes it’s about diets, but other times people claim that to eat meat is unethical. “How could you eat a poor animal? How can you support factory farms? That’s disgusting I’m gonna email you a link to a poorly researched paper focused solely on Eurocentric ideas of consumption and terrible comparisons to actual human suffering that will guilt you into veganism”

The thing is, eating meat isn’t inherently evil. Not to sound like a cannibal or anything but I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with eating both humans and animals given that it’s done respectfully. The problem comes when we focus on what farming is like now, that animals are mistreated, that farm workers are mistreated, that it can harm the environment, but does that make people who eat meat evil? Are they supporting this when they get dinner?

No, of course not, and to understand why we need to look at the reasons. First and foremost, it’s just good for a lot of people. Many people can’t survive on vegan/vegetarian diets, many people struggle with food and animal products are what they can eat, and often animal products are the easiest and most affordable food out there. Even in urban areas it’s hard to find food without animal products that are affordable in the long term for everyone, and that’s in the best case scenario. Look at places like Alaska, food most take for granted costs so much that no one can reasonably live only off that, and people there have lived off of animals they’ve caught for millennia before diet crazes existed. And yes, there are so many ways in which the methods of farming are unethical and harmful and those should absolutely be called out, but the responsibility lies with those profiting from it. How much evil is someone tight on cash trying to make it last until their next paycheck doing by taking their family to McDonald’s rather than getting food so much less filling for the same amount of money or more?

There’s so much complication added by factoring in society and capitalism and colonization’s effect on the local environment and what kind of life our meat animals live, but in the end, predation is natural. Animals eat animals, and humans who have benefited so much from our rise on the food change as early hominids are the only ones who take issue with it. Some people believe it really is evil and unnatural to eat animals, and they are free to believe that for themselves, but it speaks volumes about their own privilege when they turn that judgement on the people just trying to eat enough to survive. It isn’t a massive personal stake, it’s trying to survive in a world that has so many roadblocks to something as simple as a full meal

So compare that to ghouls. They steal bodies and hunt and kill because they have to. The rich may be able to outsource the carnage and keep the blood off their hands so they seem ethical, but they contribute to the deaths of humans the same way people touting that the animal farming industry is killing the world will buy animal product substitutes that harm people and the ecosystem just as much. After all, is the agave syrup that some company tore up a shitload of land in a more exploitable country to farm any less harmful because you can pretend that no people or animals were hurt? They can feel bloodless, but that doesn’t make what they do more ethical. It just lets them feel like it

As for the poor ghouls? They have to hunt. They get to play the part of ravenous monster because they don’t have the time or money to have someone else get bodies for them. Even anteiku ghouls have a little privilege by finding bodies that are already dead. Not every ghoul has a car to pick up corpses, or bodies that can walk that distance, or the knowledge to find good spots. Most hunt since the people that have died naturally are locked away because humans think of themselves as too evolved to take part in the circle of life, and would rather ghouls keep killing than let their loved ones be eaten like most animals are

In the end you’re completely right. Any animal’s survival is dependent on the deaths of others. All we as people can control is how kindly that is done. Humans with the means to can choose not to eat meat, but humans who don’t and ghouls can’t, and that does not make them evil. If humans in the TG world were willing to give the dead to the ghouls, it’s entirely possible that they wouldn’t need to hunt anymore. Meat will always be necessary, but the way they get it can be better, and that change relies solely on the system preventing them from having ethically sourced food. The fault does not lie with the individuals who need to eat

Ishida fell just short of the point in favor of the boring and nihilistic “oOoOh HuMaNs ArE tHe REAL mOnStErS” thing because it’s edgy and easy, but not correct. There’s nothing evil about having a biological need to eat meat, there’s nothing evil even for humans who don’t need to to eat meat, it’s just the circle of life. Nature is gruesome sometimes, but claiming that people are inherently evil is just edgelord bullshit. We can make the ways we get meat better if the people profiting off of it are held accountable, and ghouls can too if the people profiting off of their slaughter are held accountable.

Humans and ghouls are alike. Neither are bad for feeding themselves, and both can benefit a whole lot by not fighting over who is worse and instead demanding that the people in charge of their world make it better

[papenathys]

I just came across your blog and I absolutely adore it, I especially love your mood boards, I'm just trying to explore more of desi dark academia, any advice on desi dark academia activities? Also I just watched the trailer for the movie fire by deepak mehta, have you watched it? Would love to hear your thoughts on it and I think based off the trailer, the movie has a stunning desi dark academia aesthetic ^^

Thank you 💖. Yes, I have watched Fire, it's a beautiful movie, and you'll find it on my #movies tag on this blog. It's actually Deepa Mehta's best work from her Elements trilogy to me, and regardless of her offscreen persona now, we cannot deny it was a monumental film for Indian queer women and Indian feminist cinema in general (especially considering the nation-wide political backlash). I wouldn't say it's dark academia but it definitely has an aesthetic™.

For the other part of your ask, @desi-dark-academia and @chaandajaan have some really nice posts where they mention a lot of desi DA activities. I can only give you some basic advice:

go down a rabbit hole and research the history of the city/town/area where you live. you'll come across some fascinating stories for sure.

once you've researched, attempt to explore the areas you read about and chart how they have changed. For example, my father often takes us for little trips around north kolkata which is full of colonial architecture and historically significant buildings and streets. there is nothing more amazing than to locate yourself in a specific point in history.

reconnect and reconcile with the past. our idea of DA will never be one with eurocentric academia because our socio-cultural/political experience is very different. in postcolonial studies we were told that research suffers because Indians (indeed, the scholars of most formerly colonised countries) attempt to reconstruct history avoiding their colonial past instead of acknowledging it. Ig what I'm trying to say is......simply writing #decolonize on our posts wouldn't make us so and that's ok. It's ok to take time to readjust with identities when our education system won't allow us.

if you feel comfortable, start incorporating desi fashion more and more into your clothing. for example, I only got into wearing naaths, nose rings, kajal etc once I joined uni. once again, only if you want. some people don't like it and that's absolutely ok. (but also take time to figure out what might be the possible reason you feel weirded out wearing desi fashion, because trust me, there's a lot to unpack)

READ and read more. in case of Indian academia, read the "classics", tagore and naidu and anand, but also don't forget to read the works of dalit activists, muslim writers, contemporary authors, lgbtqa desi authors. you can look through my #book recs tag for some lists. read non fiction (check the lists made by @gaaaandaaaalf); once you get into the habit it will REALLY help you with higher studies and general research work. follow the pages and websites of local bookshops which often promote authors and will provide you amazing recommendations.

recognise that reconstructing the past does not mean glorifying it. you can research religious texts/historical periods without going "uwu this is grand, take me back to this era!!" india has always grappled with racism, casteism and so on. It's important to not be oblivious to these things while studying mythology/history.

don't force yourself to do stuff you don't like, simply to adhere to an aesthetic. if everyone recommends a "classic DA" film to you and you find it boring, ditch it. watch a bollywood romcom instead.

In the end, to me personally, irl DA seems very extreme, it's simply not logistically possible in the context of the home lives of most indian youths. In my spare time I listen to BTS and draw fanart of my otps for crying out loud. But sparingly if you indulge in it, it can actually help you get a lot of interesting info about your culture. hope this helped :)

[hillarykylie]

With all due respect to Lana, I’d like to politely and respectfully dissect her ig post and address the loopholes and fallacies in her arguments, in hopes to clarify why it’s inherently problematic for some, and hopefully bring people on both ends of the spectrum towards a middle ground :-) x

(in no way, shape or form, am I attempting to invalidate Lana’s struggles. Her feelings are completely valid and just like everyone else, she has every right to express herself unapologetically.)

(I do not condone any immature individuals sending her threats, but where dissenting arguments are presented on a factual basis by well-meaning fans and the general public, I’d like people to understand that not all criticism is bad or irrational. Criticism, when constructive and logically sound, can often serve as a fuel for self-improvement and advancement.)

Lana’s fundamental gist was her frustration in being unable to sing candidly about “morbid” issues in society without being censured or harped on by the media for her melancholic lyrical content.

She feels stifled and is tired of critics being critical of the way she unintentionally ‘glamorizes’ abuse and the pathologies of society, and proceeded to incorporate some of the biggest names in the music industry - many of whom were WOC. (Beyoncé, Nicki, Cardi, Doja and Kehlani), and goes on to speak of feminism and how she feels contemporary feminism doesn’t cater to her ‘aesthetic’ and singles her out.

There are so many reasons why her following arguments are deeply flawed and erroneous:

1. By name-dropping and bringing in stars in the industry who’ve been through the same level of scrutiny and castigation as her, if not worse, completely defies all logic in her paragraph and her purpose of cultivating acceptance.

Her comparison is not analogous.

These women have all bore the brunt of Hollywood and a predominantly whitewashed, chauvinistic music industry, and have undergone years of tabloid stings, scandals, controversies, to widespread denigration and misogynistic subjugation by men in the industry and the wider public.

Beyoncé has been in the industry for more than a decade, from her innocent Destiny Child days to her solo debut, where there was never a moment where she was spared from the media vultures, who preyed on her and slammed her for her music, to her looks, to her alleged “anti-feminist” lyrics, to her stance on Police Brutality, to her ‘glamorizing’ Jay-Z’s infidelity in Lemonade and to inconsequential things like the way she dresses her daughter, Blue.

Cardi and Nicki both, have been victims to years of media disparagement for their sexually explicit lyrical content and for proudly embracing their sexuality and their body confidence and self-love. Their music have been subject to relentless cynicism, with many arguing that their lyrics ‘promote promiscuity’ and what not.

More importantly, the fact that they’re WOC already puts them at an incredibly unfair disadvantage from the get go, as they’ve had to challenge not only misogyny, but institutional structures such as racism and xenophobia.

WOC have been known to be systematically and historically OPPRESSED by our patriarchal Eurocentric society, where andocentrism and white superiority takes precedence over everything else.

We like to think that society is becoming progressively ‘equal’, but that cannot be farther from the truth. There are always underlying race relations and power struggles at play, even if one denies it.

The reality is that it is completely out of character to compare her struggles to Women of Color, who not only face the same austerity of slander and retraction as her, but have had to deal with institutionalised discrimination and racism their whole lives.

She cannot pit herself on the same level playing field as these women for she’s not of ethnic descent, and is a fairly wealthy white cis female herself who already is privileged from the beginning.

These women Lana mentioned are and have been DOUBLY oppressed - in terms of their gender AND race, and have had to work TENFOLD as hard to even make a breakthrough in the industry, let alone set trailblazing records of topping charts - which is why their success is not only monumental, but legendary and should be commemorated.

If you’re not a person of Color, you would never understand, but you don’t get to tell people of Color what consists of racial microaggressions or undertones or not when you do not walk in the same shoes as them.

Just like there exists capitalism, racial discrimination and ostracisation has stood the test of time. POCs have never had anything easy, and have been systematically stigmatized since the dawn of civilisation.

What makes Lana, or anyone think, that people like Bey, Nicki or Cardi have never faced scrutiny for their lyrics, or are somehow precluded from criticism or hardships?

Drawing them as examples is a ridiculous analogy and reeks of white privilege. Lana cannnot compare her experiences of being “slammed” to what POC women have to go through to even be recognised or respected for their craft. Her race automatically puts her on the pedestal in life, where she doesn’t have to be affronted with the same level of systematic subjugation or suppression that the WOC have undergone.

For years, the contemporary feminized ideal was the ‘soft-spoken’ and ‘delicate’, overtly feminine white woman.

Black women have had to cope with being mislabeled as “aggressive” / “loud” for literal decades even up till this day, while the conventional, soft-spoken white woman archetype is celebrated all around the world. Today, the stereotype has been refuted thanks to the contribution of our WOC - who‘ve shown that there is femininity in being strong and charismatic.

Aforementioned, Bey’s lyrics have been dubbed as “anti-feminist” for ages, and the amount and magnitude of calumny bey received is simply, and unquestionably UNPARALLED to Lana’s.

America, the world, and feminism as a whole, have always CATERED to white women, while WOC have categorically had to bear the brunt of their unequal/restricted access to opportunities.

There’s space in feminism for Lana - she is not oppressed in any manner.

The problem doesn’t lie with these artistes, the problem lies right with patriarchy and the workings of a heavily male-dominated industry.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Women will always be scrutinised, judged and censored for whatever they do or say. Whether it be WOC or not, most women in lucrative industries have had to put up with shit from their male counterparts - it’s nothing new.

I hope this post highlights the hypocrisy in Lana’s statement in the most amicable way possible, without discrediting anyone in the process.

It is imperative that we are receptive to different viewpoints, and not class every dissent in opinion as a form of “hatred”, and not allude ourselves to ignorance.

Cheers x

[theglassbell]

Being mixed is honestly an experience I find hard to talk about, but I’m feeling some type of way so I’m going to try and talk about it now. Sorry if this isn’t the content some of y’all want to see, but it is my blog (and also I have a #personal tag if y’all wanna blacklist)

My father is black and my mother is white.

When someone asks me which “side” I identify with more, my entire brain literally has a tug of war contest. (Btw don’t ask mixed kids this, it’s isn’t funny). On the one hand, I would say white. My father was an only child and he never saw his extended family often, ergo I never saw his extended family pretty much at all. The only family I saw often was on my mother’s side, all of whom were white. I also don’t see them often anymore, but that’s because my parents moved the family from New Jersey all the way to Georgia when I was young, not because I never knew them. In Georgia, I grew up in a small, conservative, not-very-diverse town. Every friend group I’ve ever had was all white except for me (there was one girl in one group who was Mexican but that’s it). I was more influenced culturally and socially by my mother. My dad is a very “manly man” and I used to be super girly, so that’s why most of my social upbringing was from my mother who was also into girly things. My mom even had to help me with my hair. She definitely did not do 100% on that front but I give her an A for effort. And before anyone asks, yes, we could have gone to my dad’s mother - my grandmother - for help, and we did once, but she wasn’t really helpful (and that’s a whole nother story lol) and I’m not very close with her anyway. I grew up one the blandest most boring chicken, frozen veggies, and instant rice dinners known to man. I still eat those now when I come home from college. My own cooking skills are solidly in the yt people column. So basically, culturally I feel like a white person. My answer to the question above might have been “white.”

However, everything is always more complicated than that. Everyone around me saw me as black. And there was definitely that undercurrent of “you’re not one of them, you’re a cool black person” but I was still clearly in the “black” category. I used to get looks from my friends when I mentioned that I had a crush on a white dude because they subconsciously expected me to date within my race. (I should mention that these friends - the ones I keep in contact with at least - have grown and expanded their beliefs and are no longer like this) And when I looked in the mirror, I saw black. I looked at my tan skin, and my bushy eyebrows, and my thick kinky-curly hair and I saw a black girl. (And honestly I used to have a lot of internal anti blackness and tried to make myself fit Eurocentric beauty standards by getting my hair treated and straightened, but at the end of the day I still considered myself black). I still look in the mirror and see a black girl, but now I’m finally comfortable with embracing that identity.

So I had this issue where i was seen as black by myself and others, but culturally I was raised very white.

It’s such a hard line to balance. Truthfully, I’m almost 50/50 down the middle when it comes to the genetics I got from my parents. My mom is super pale, my dad is pretty dark, and I’m like.. caramel. Or like, mocha? Idk I’ve never really been into using food to reference skin color. I have features from both of their faces and my hair has my fathers texture (hence the kinky curly) but my mother’s coloring (brown with some red occasionally thrown in for fun). I’m also 100% uniquely myself. But in a society where everything and everyone has a label, idk what to do with that.

Like I said before, my white friends see me as black. All white people I come into contact with see me as black. Yes, it’s sometimes the whole “oh but you’re not like other black people” that I know comes from the lightness of my skin, which I believe is a form of colorism?(I’m sorry if I did not use that term correctly) But, picking one or the other, to them I am black.

Black people tend to see me as white. This makes sense on the basis of my cultural upbringing, but not knowing AAVE well and the different social cues just makes it harder for me to connect with black folks and engage with the culture that’s in my blood.

In an attempt to feel connected to my dads side of the family and my blackness, I got into hoodoo and ancestral veneration.

It’s still really hard though. The only family members I could talk to about hoodoo and folk traditions and such would be my dad or my grandmother. Both of them are verryyy Christian (and like I said before, I don’t have a good relationship with my grams anyway, nor do I have a good relationship with Christianity. Hello, queer here!!). But honestly, that’s how I feel about magic traditions in general. I live on stolen land. My ancestors from one side of the family were kidnapped and forced to work said stolen land (though after the civil war ended I know of an ancestor who kicked ass and owned his own farm. He’s a real g). My ancestors from the other side of the family were either immigrants that came to America in hope of a better life or slave owners. Yikes.

I feel untethered from any culture, socially and spiritually. I thought about looking into italian and Irish witchcraft, since those are the strongest lineages on my white family’s side, but I got discouraged before I even started. I’ve never been to Ireland or Italy. I don’t know either language, I barely know of any meals from those countries. Who was I kidding? And then of course I don’t know any ancestry past the end of the civil war on my black side, because they were torn from their homeland. I still feel that urge to learn about hoodoo, which was specifically created in the americas, but it’s such an intimate practice with emphasis on the handing down of knowledge, and I don’t have anyone to do that for me. I want to connect to the local land, but then I think.. it’s not my homeland. It was the homeland of indigenous peoples and my country stole it from them. Would the land even be willing to work with me? Top this all off with having no “extra” senses to converse with any spirits (including my own ancestors) that could possibly teach me something. Add a sprinkle of depression and anxiety (and it’s genetic!! Yay!!) and you get me. An idiot sandwich.

I feel so deeply for witchcraft and hoodoo and for learning about them and practicing them, but I also feel like I have no right to. I mean, hell, the deities I worship are from lands and times I have no connection to. I love them so much, but sometimes I just wonder if I should worship deities from my own cultures. And then I remember that I don’t feel enough of a connection to any culture anyway, and... it’s a vicious cycle. I don’t know what to do with myself.

- signed, a depressed mixed witch + beginner rootworker who is so fucking lost

[nurkhamis-fcnu-blog]

Is fashion still scared of people who are not traditionally ‘pretty’?

Nur Khamis explores the obstacle-filled path of unconventional models and the underrepresentation of individuals lacking Eurocentric features in the fashion industry.

It’s 2019. Fashion is slowly starting to approach diversity. We can’t be sure how genuine it is, but we must appreciate the efforts: you can now see plus-size or older models and almost all races and ethnicities. What do all these people have in common, though? They all look the same. Is the fashion industry scared to bring unconventionality to the catwalks and magazine covers?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, one might say. But science and society have the same idea of what it is: Western features. I’m talking about sculpted jawlines, oval shaped faces, symmetrical features, a slim nose. Eurocentric beauty norms are the standard, and even in the now diverse fashion industry, there’s still a hunt for those who are “lucky” enough to possess them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the new generation of models – Ashley Graham, Duckie Thot, Winnie Harlow, Halima Aden, Gigi Hadid, Iskra Lawrence. All of them strong, independent women who shine not only through their (traditionally accepted) looks, but their personalities too. Individuality is somewhat valued now – long gone are the days when the catwalk was just an army of robots - models can be themselves.

Those who made it can express themselves, but what about the ones who are struggling or criticized for doing just that, because they don’t fit into the conventional (and let’s be honest, boring) standards set by brands and modelling agencies?

Growing up, I was not considered traditionally beautiful, but rather interesting looking. This might be because, as an ethnically ambiguous person, I did not look like anyone else. Even though I am half Caucasian, the only white features I possess are my pale skin and blue eyes– I inherited my dad’s Middle Eastern looks. With a wide, square shaped face, a bigger, rather bulbous nose, bushy eyebrows, untamed, curly hair and a very unsymmetrical face, you could say I did not fit in society’s beauty norms.  The fashion industry was the least diverse place to look at – and the one I looked at the most. My features were different than everyone I’ve ever seen – it was hard to find anyone to identify with. Slim, pale, attractive models on every catwalk and magazine cover – all showing the same small noses and high, defined cheekbones that I was lacking. I wanted to be like them and I wanted to be considered beautiful – and that ruined my self-esteem as a teenager.

A lot of us mixed race individuals experiences this – you are a combination of your parents, two people from two different places and cultures, which makes you unique. You won’t look like anyone else. And by always wishing to look like the norm, you are willing to take away from your own individuality in order to mould into an idea of what you should be. Middle Eastern and African people experience this the most – the very features that define these ethnicities are the ones feared most by the ones with real power in the fashion industry.

With a Botswana father and a mother from Kimberley, Northern Cape, Tee, 22,   an architecture student based in Newcastle, grew up in a mostly white community in Lichfield always thinking something was wrong with her. “I think I changed myself over the years to become more like the girls who were all the same because I stood out too much and never felt I was like them. I had no fashion idol to represent me or someone who looked like me. I loved art, fashion and design, but there weren’t many people I could look up to.”

Now there are. One of the biggest models right now is Slick Woods. With her eccentric looks and her I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude, Slick, 22, quickly became one of the most talked about models, and Rihanna's muse. Gaped teeth, shaved head - her beauty is harder to consume and understand – thus explaining the constant hate she got from the beginning of her career. And she’s not the only one. Every model that looks unconventional is called “ugly” at some point – Shaun Ross, the first ever male albino model, Jazzelle Zanaughtti with her shaved eyebrows and androgynous look, or Tibetan-born model Tsunaina known for her Avatar-like features. Each of them break the rules and embrace their own individuality. And that’s exactly what the fashion industry needs – people who are unconditionally themselves and don’t care if they don’t fit in.

These individuals are not only bringing attention to themselves through their looks, but their attitude as well. It’s that powerful confidence to be yourself that scares people, because not everyone is courageous enough to do it. “Most people feel uncomfortable about what makes them different because society imposes what “beautiful” is on us. It’s important to break those ideals down and challenge them” stated photographer and filmmaker, BEX DAY, for I-d magazine in 2018.

Some brands get it – and ASOS is one of them. Last year’s campaigns were a huge step in the right direction. The “Go Play” beauty campaign shows multiple individuals, of all genders, races, sexualities, experimenting with makeup and expressing themselves in the most personal and eccentric ways possible. The “My Style is Never Done” campaign, starring Jazzelle Zanaughtti, focuses on her diverse sense of style. Jazzelle dresses up in multiple looks, some weird and some polished, from a cowboy to a centaur, and she’s having fun by not caring. What do these campaigns say? For short, be yourself.

We need to move on from the idea that models represent an unattainable ideal, a beauty we all want to achieve but cannot, and rather bring them back among us as people who are supposed to represent us. Look at one of the brands that refuses to move forward – Victoria’s Secret. White, aggressively worked out models flaunt on the catwalk every year, with little to no diversity among them. The brand's Chief Marketing Officer, Ed Razek, told Vogue.com last November that the brand would not accept transgender or plus size models because “the show is a fantasy”. Honestly, I’d rather see someone cool, erratic, ‘unconventional’ wear whatever I’m thinking of buying, rather than an unhealthily thin, ‘perfect’ looking model. Why can’t girls who look like me strut on the catwalk? Girls and boys like you?

[laurietom]

My Favorite Games of 2016

My gaming backlog is something impressive, as I typically buy a few more than I can play in any given year, and then those extras build up. The result is that I rarely play any game in its year of release unless it's a part of a favorite series, and even then, depending on how busy I am, a much anticipated game might get postponed. But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care. Maybe that's the same for you? These are the nine games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2016, in the order I played them. Virtue's Last Reward * I enjoyed 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors for the Nintendo DS, so I intended to pick up the sequel, but took a while due to a bugged 3DS version (now patched) and not having a Vita at the time. Virtue's Last Reward is quite simply the strongest entry in the Zero Escape series. Science, pseudo-science, multiple universes, time travel, non-linear gameplay, and an incredible cast of characters made this a joy to play. I was up at 3am with tears in my eyes (on a work night!) because I had to see a particularly bittersweet sequence through. Fair warning there is a lot of reading, and the gameplay is all making choices and escape room mechanics, but if that's even remotely your bag it's worth playing. It'll mean more if you play 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors first, but the good news is that both games are coming to Steam in a remastered edition. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest I was looking forward to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, and despite the child problems I blogged about, I enjoyed it. It was refreshing to have a game so focused on family and divided loyalties. I really liked the moral gray area that Corrin and her siblings occupied and as mentioned in my RPG Talk entry, I like that the final confrontation features Corrin standing together with her siblings rather than Corrin plus love interest and motley band of heroes. Familial relationships are usually set behind the romantic ones in games, so having family placed before everything else makes this unique. Zero Time Dilemma Zero Time Dilemma had a hell of a lot of hype to live up to, and at the end of the day I don't think it's going to be anyone's favorite out of the Zero Escape series, but it's still an enjoyable game. It keeps a lot of the same mechanics from Virtue's Last Reward, but suffers from a less satisfying mastermind than the other two. There's also a plot twist that people tend to either love or hate. But that said, it does a decent job of wrapping up the series, the escape rooms are still fun, and offers a lot of emotional rewards for fans of the previous two. Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth This is the best otome game I've played to date. I would have liked to include it in my top three games of the year, and it was a narrow miss. Otome games are usually given lackluster, passive protagonists to serve as the female player insert, but not Cardia. That girl is amazing, whether she's piloting an airship, busting herself out of confinement, or being a supportive girlfriend, because why can't one person do all of that. The boyfriends are more interesting than average, with only one route that really bored me. If there's any fault to this game I'd say it's locking Lupin's route behind everyone else's and making it so clearly the "real" route. Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls Ultra Despair Girls is a little strange in that I don't think it's a particular good game, though I still finished it. It's a third person shooter, which is a strange genre jump for what had been a visual novel series. I only played it when I did because the Danganronpa 3 anime had Monaca, who originated in this game. The story isn't bad, it asks good questions and even clears up some others (like where did Junko Enoshima get all those crazy robots), but I'm not a shooter fan and I can't imagine the overlap between visual novels, shooters, and Danganronpa is enough to justify this game's existence. If you suck at shooters though, there's no story penalty for playing on easy. You can still see the whole thing. Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice I still haven't posted my VN Talk for this, but the sixth entry in the Ace Attorney series was a bumpy ride. It was good, but it wasn't great, and I think this is mostly due to character bloat. Dual Destinies had three lawyer protagonists so by golly Spirit of Justice has to too, even when the game can't quite figure out what to do with them. Unlike Dual Destinies, where the story honestly belongs to all of them, when it comes down to it, Spirit of Justice is really about Apollo, but the writing tries to showcase everyone, including several supporting characters, which results in a lack of focus. But if you like Apollo, this is the game to play as he has his best moments. This War of Mine * I waffled a lot on whether to buy This War of Mine because the vertical cut-away view of the buildings made me think of old platformers I was terrible at, but This War of Mine needs very little in the way of reflexes. I bought it for the for miserable experience of surviving as a civilian in an urban warzone and I was not disappointed. There's no tutorial, but the basics can be picked up by point and click, which feels oddly immersive, as the characters you're tasked with caring for have no idea how they're going to make ends meet either. Chances are, a first playthrough is going to be unsuccessful. People will die along the way, and you'll feel awful, which is the point. You get to put down the game and go home whereas the people who really lived this life could not. It was a sobering realization. (This War of Mine was inspired by the real world Siege of Sarajevo.) The Room This was a purchase based on a friend's recommendation because we both like escape rooms. While you're not escaping anything in The Room, the type of puzzle solving is familiar to anyone who has done escape rooms, and it's a affordable fix that can be done in an afternoon or two. The story is minimal and the atmosphere creepy, though it's manageable for those who scare easily (with one possible exception during the ending, but you've solved everything by then). I'm skipping the sequel because I react poorly to jump scares, even the ones that are so mild that most people wouldn't even consider them jump scares. Civilization V * When Civilization VI came out, I realized I wanted to play a Civ game again, but rather than getting the latest and greatest at full price, I decided to pick up Civilization V during a Steam sale, which netted me the base game and all the expansions and DLC for under $14. This turned out to be $14 well spent as I've now logged an embarrassing amount of hours on it. It's a lot of strategy and management to bring my chosen civilization to victory, but fun since the AI leaders of other civilizations have their own personalities. I had a really good tussle with Caesar in my Carthage campaign, which felt appropriate. My only complaint is that Europe feels over-represented in the number of civilizations available. There are multiple options for a continent like Africa, with Carthage, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Songhai, and Zulu available, which show that the game designers did put effort into avoiding a Eurocentric world, but it feels like it's not enough when 15 of the 43 civilizations are European (17 if one counts Byzantium and Ottoman, which I'm not since they're partially in the mideast), making them slightly more than a third of what's available. As I did with my book roundup, the three games I tagged with an asterisk (*) were my favorites of the year and definitely worth playing. I'd also like to mention the four games I replayed this year since it's rare that I replay anything, and four is unprecedented. Fire Emblem: Awakening (second time) Dragon Age II (third time) Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (third time) Danganronpa 2: Good-bye Despair (second time) The Danganronpa games were mostly because of the anime and wanting to relive the experience, but Fire Emblem: Awakening and Dragon Age II were purely unprompted, with the former having happened before the release of Fire Emblem Fates.

Mirrored from: The Rat’s Den

[sophiayacoub-blog]

How is consumption made possible: how do brands make use of western conceptions of the exotic other to sell notions of authenticity?

Commenting on how ideas of authenticity and counter culture are used in advertisement to further a brand’s value, Jacqueline Botterill states that: “While authenticity once served as an antidote to mass society, today advertisers use it to soothe their young audiences’ anxiety that authenticity is no longer possible” (Botterill, 2007, 106). Further to this, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter argue that the west is in perpetual rejection of conformity as a result of the experiences of trauma due to the Second World War and the totalitarianism of nationalist socialism, and that this is shown in the way people consume for their own individuality- and supposed nonconformity projects. (Heath, Potter, 2006, 327) Thus experiences of constraint and lack of meaning as well as organic spontaneity are common, and to look for authentic alternatives to mass society become frequent practice.

In this essay I will explore the idea that counter culture, and that which is deemed outside the norm, inevitably becomes subsumed by the capitalist market through advertisement and branding, and that this search for individuality and alternative might even be what drives the consumer market, especially in terms of fashion and lifestyle products. I argue that the search for authenticity has a way of not only being hijacked by the market (whilst at the same time playing an important part in it) but also that members of dominant cultures use conceptions of the ‘other’ in their individual identity projects. I will look at how tropes of marginalized groups are used to make products seem authentic and desirable.

Concepts such as otherness and authenticity is often used in the discourses of marketing; being aware of authentic social markers and products, often taken from those outside of the Eurocentric norm and to be able to mimic them (to a level that is fairly easy to understand) is viewed as a form of social and cultural capital. (Bourdieu, 1986) Cultural capital allows for the dominant social classes, races, ethnicities, genders and sexualities to further their quest for image building signifiers of cultural intermediation and taste making. This can be linked to a form of cultural appropriation, where traits of culturally marginalized groups are used mainly for the identity projects of the white, heterosexual, middle class, to express a level of social awareness, ‘worldliness’ and individuality whenever deemed suitable by these dominant groups. This is problematic, as groups of marginalized people only are seen to inhabit aspirational qualities and ascribed social value in cultural contexts when they become valuable for the consumer market and by dominant fractions of consumers. 

Take for example trends such as wearing bindis, Native American headdress and colourful, “tribal”-patterned scarves and other ornaments; brands such as Urban Outfitters and Topshop co-opt these cultural signifiers in order to offer mainstream consumers a way into ‘unexplored realms’ of expression. So when a white middle class american grows bored of the mundane everyday, comfortable life, they might put on an American headdress and go to a festival in the Nevada desert without consideration of the anti-colonial struggles for land rights and identity of the Native American people. Similarly, white British people will put on ‘Bollywood’ themed parties without consideration of the Imperial British colonial remnants in India and the rest of the world today. (Hook, 1995)

In his groundbreaking postcolonial work, Edward Said coined the term Orientalism, which refers to the exotifying depicting that European and American writers created about the colonised other. He argues that the way the ‘orient’ has been constructed by the west is mainly in Eurocentric terms that exotify the other. (Said, 1977) This becomes relevant in terms of consumer culture as these sorts of narratives of the exotic makes consumption of the ‘other’ possible. Contemporary consumers look to brands for contributions towards identity projects. Authenticity becomes a marker of how well a brand constitutes a cultural resource for these identity projects. (Holt, 2002) Brands thus aim to fufil the desire for authenticity by offering consumers objects and artifacts such as clothes, accessories and home decor that allow for access to the world in new and supposedly creative ways that contribute towards individual cultural, and social capital projects. This can be juxtaposed with earlier, modern marketing that mainly constituted of ‘culture-making’ rather than ‘culture-imitation’. Holt writes that:

“The postmodern branding paradigm is premised upon the idea that brands will be more valuable if they are offered not as cultural blueprints but as cultural resources, as useful ingredients to produce the self as one chooses.” (Holt, 2002, 83) Here Holt describes how contemporary marketing and branding offers consumers access to cultural resources to produce the self, or the image of the self, as opposed to earlier marketing which would have focused on offering culture in itself.

bell hooks provides further analysis on the topic of cultural appropriation in the contexts of “consuming the other” where she refers to the colonial discourses surrounding cultural co-option in terms of the longing for exotic “otherness” and the wish to consume tropes of those deemed ‘other’. She writes “Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes a spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture” (hooks, 1992, 366). hooks argues that using race and ethnicity for commercial and consumption purposes allows members of dominant classes, races, genders and sexualities to reassert their power over the ‘other’ by using the cultural markers of those who have been colonialized by the imperialist nations in the west.

Similarly, Crockett describes how ‘blackness’, or traits of black and urban culture, is used in advertisement by ‘idealizing and essentializing blackness’ as a form of ‘consuming others’ strategy in marketing (Crockett, 2008, 255). He describes that blackness is exotified and commodified by marketing companies in an array of ways to make brands seem to be in contestation of the mainstream consumer market, and to give access to a sense of worldliness and experience to its consumers. Jacqueline Botterill gives an example of this in a European Levi’s commercial, myths of black and urban culture is used:

“A young black, but not too black, man walks down a city street dressed in baggy jeans, tee shirt, leather jacket and baseball cap. He walks by a black bouncer dressed in a suit, protecting the entrance to a club. [...] The bouncer provides the perfect, silent, authoritarian foil against which the young man’s authenticity is expressed. Street wise, the young man begins his patter by pointing out he is aware he cannot enter the club because of his inappropriate dress, but goes on to defend his style, thereby challenging the social convention that prevents his entry. [...] Authenticity is encoded by depicting a tension between work, formality and rules, versus play, rejection and creativity.” (Botterill, 2007, 118)

Here Botterill is describing the type of othering that allows those who fit the norm to access novelty ways of consumption. In the example, a black man in urban clothing is contrasted with another black man, only that the latter is deemed “inauthentic” because he has succumbed to performing that which is presumably coded as “white”. Here we come back to the idea of cultural identity production in the practices of commodification and consumption of the ‘other’; Individuals of often marginalized groups, who have less access to work, education and other material necessities in underprivileged urban areas in Europe and North America are made to seem as rebellious heroes in reaction to the modern western society. They are romanticized and made examples of authentic individuals free from the mainstream all for the pleasure of the neo-colonialist consumption culture. (Botterrill, 2007, 111) But these authentic/romanticized narratives about certain marginalized groups is only temporary, because the consumer market changes rapidly and something is only seen as ‘cool’ by advertising companies as long as it hasn’t been done yet because there is a constant need to reinvent the brand and what is offered to the consumer. (Heath, Potter).

Similarities can be drawn about the commodification of LGBTQ+ culture. Lesbian women’s lives are fetishized in fashion advertisements such as in a Christian Dior as from the year 2000, where two half naked young girls, oiled up and dressed in a little bit of denim are portrayed in objectifying sexual poses insinuating strong attraction to one another. The photo could be perceived as an intimate meeting between two lesbian women but are clearly aimed at the straight, male gaze for the consumption of mainly straight people. This strips lesbian women of their own agency to define what lesbian existence means as it becomes sold for the patriarchal mass market. Similarly, gay men’s lives are often used in advertisement to make brands seem attractive and progressive and at the same time Gay men are depicted in TV-series and films such as Sex and the city and Glee as the stereotypical gay best friend, always there to make the straight girl chose the right dress and tell her she’s pretty. This type of representation has been used in marketing by for example apple: In one apple advertisement, workers who can be said to carry some social signifiers associated with the LGBTQ+ community and their families and friends, are depicted taking part in the San Francisco pride festival. The atmosphere of the advertisement is very bright and cheerful and later on an upbeat song by Coldplay starts playing, accompanying a big crowd of apple workers marching through the streets of San Francisco with pride flags in their hands, waving and cheering. The advertisement finishes in the slogan “inclusion inspires innovation”. This is a clear example of something so subversive as gay pride being appropriated by the mass market for branding purposes. The ending slogan can be interpreted as slightly naive and maybe even a bit thoughtless of Apple because it may as well be read as apple admitting that non-normative sexualities only are valuable if they can contribute to the ‘innovation’ of the company. Of course Apple profits from this type of pinkwashing, in contemporary western culture, where allegiance to the LGBTQ society is seen as progressive. This can surely be described as commodification of ‘otherness’ in terms of the gender, sexualities and sexual practices that are showcased and that are viewed as outside of the norm.

In Kozinet’s ethnographical study of the festival and social project ‘burning man’, he notes that the dominant ethos of the counter culture project, which springs from a neo-anarchist group, is about contesting the values of the market economy, and creating new discourses and modes of interaction by for example using gift economy and by having a ban on logotypes (Kozinets, 2002). Kozinets recalls one of his interviews:

“I interviewed Crucifix George while he was masking out the brand name of his van with duct tape. After identifying myself and gaining permission to videotape him, I asked if he was simply following the rules, or whether he really believed in them.

‘I really believe in them. You can see all this shit [advertising and brand names] all the time, anyway. [...] There's so much creative energy here that you don't need the stuff, the symbols that are imprinted on your brain on a day-to-day basis by marketing people who come out of schools such as the one that you go to. Okay? You can create a whole fucking world like this if people were open” (Kozinets, 2002, 25).

It is clear that Crucifix George is tired of the rationality and conformity of mass society and that he is looking for alternative ways of existing, be it only temporary, for one week in August. Even though it can be argued that Burning man constitutes of some anti-market traits and that it is an attempt at community building in separation from the market, it is clear that because it is only a week long event, it is more of a temporary experience (although it might a powerful one which may evoke some anti-market values in its participants), rather than a rigid attempt at creating true counter cultural modes of being. Kozinets remarks that mainly middle- and upperclass, white people attend the event and so it potentially comes under the category of consumer culture which is driven by a conquest for the same types of individual culture projects as have been mentioned earlier on in this essay. Kozinets even mentions that workers from silicone valley are sent by their companies to get “Inspired” and to network with members of the creative industries at the festival. There are similar events to burning man in Europe that focus on new ways of contesting the mass market values, such as Fusion Festival in Germany and Boom Festival in Portugal.

In The Rebel Sell, Heath and Potter argue, drawing on Frank (1998), that the idea of mainstream culture and counter culture is a false dichotomy. They argue that rather, all consumption culture is driven by that same search for individuality, ‘coolness’ and rebellion against the conformist, orthodox system. In their description of counter movements, they use examples such as 80’s punkers and the hippies of the 60’s and 70’s (Heath, Potter, 2006). I would argue that they are right; If we presume that the idea of counter culture has all to do with standing out and being an individual then there is no distinction between consumer and counter culture. The consumer market and the branding of products is targeted towards the masses, which is logical as that is where profit can be made by companies who act on that rationale. When counter cultures are based on wearing and consuming that which is deemed outside the norm, or showcasing individuality and subversiveness in terms of appearance and image, there can be no counteraction to the consumer culture, especially considering the othering of minority groups and the rampant colonialization of cultures that aren’t dominant in mass society. Bell Hooks describes how the dominant cultural elites always have longed for the exotic experience that will bring them back to a romanticized and constructed idea of what primeval community means. She describes this as imperialist nostalgia for primitivism (Hooks, 1992, 369).

In conclusion, I would argue that it is evident that lifestyle brands use conceptions of the ‘other’ to sell products by appealing to dominant groups of the mass market longing for the exotified, romanticized, authentic, lifestyles that are depicted as in contestation of the rationalized, modern society. Brands do this by for example marketing co-opted cultural markers such as ethnic clothing and through the pinkwashing and use of those sexual practices, which are made ‘other’, and by appealing to consumer’s identity projects in search for distinction and individuality and longing for freedom from capitalist modes of existence. It is clear that counter culture is sold as individualized lifestyle projects and subsequently that the concept of counter culture needs to be reimagined in terms that are including for all and that don’t exclude and exploit marginalized groups for the pleasure of dominant fractions of society.

Bibliography:

Boden, S. J Williams, S. (2002) Consumption and emotion: The romantic ethic revisited. Sociology - The Journal of the British Sociological Association, 36 (3)

Botterill, J. (2007). Cowboys, Outlaws and Artists: The rhetoric of authenticity and contemporary jeans and sneaker advertisements. Journal of Consumer Culture.

Boyle, D. (2004). Authenticity: Brands, fake, spin and the lust for real life. Harper Perennial; New Ed edition.

David, C. (2008) Marketing blackness: How advertisers use race to sell products. Journal of Consumer Culture, Jul 2008; vol. 8: pp. 245-268 – how hip hop becomes mainstream

Frank, T. (1997) The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Guinon, C. (2004) On being authentic. Routledge.

Commercial Cultures in Global Capitalism SO240-15 Student ID 1317747

Heath, J. Potter, A. (2006) The Rebel Sell: How the counterculture became consumer culture. Harper Collins Publishers Canada.

Holt, D. (2002) Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of consumer research.

Hooks, B. (1992) “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance”. Black Looks: race and representation. Boston, MA, South End Press.

Said, Edward. (1994) Orientalism. New York: Vintage Advertisements mentioned:

Dior 2000:

http://media3.popsugar- assets.com/files/2011/03/09/5/166/1668379/df9408a6fd704919_4d770e458b7 0.jpg http://fashionindustryarchive.com/Campaigns/Dior-Campaign-SS-2000-Gisele- Bundchen-and-Rhea-Durham-by-Nick-Knight/PHOTOS/Thumbs/Dior-Campaign- SS-2000-Gisele-Bundchen-and-Rhea-Durham-by-Nick-Knight-051641.jpg http://s50.radikal.ru/i128/0907/b9/47d2986e55f8.jpg

Apple :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdjAX5A-6qE