#social media critical

[durgeapologist]

alr to the anons who are back to flooding my inbox now with requests that i commit, or that i shoud joint commit with with a certain someone who has been dealing with antisemitic, transphobic, and misogynistic comments the past few weeks, or any of the other HORRENDOUS and VILE things that have been sent to my inbox about what we should be doing together, ALL BECAUSE I DEFENDED HER AND COMMENTED POSITIVITY ON HER POSTS:

i do NOT know her. we are mutals!!! very recent mutuals. that is it!!! i saw negativity being spread like it was spread to the op of the original ai post, to me, and to so many others, and so i decided to say something positive!!!!!

let me just say this:

you guys are the most putrid, musty, bottom feeding, neonazi, pathetic FILTH to walk this fucking earth. you spread a rhetoric that is so fucking harmful and disastrous to any hope of a forward-moving society. this goes beyond fandom or ai accusations or ANYTHING ALONG THOSE LINES.

you have been caught relentlessly harassing anyone and everyone who defended the initial ai callout post, both here on tumblr AND on twitter/x. the fact that y'all have set up shop over on x IS TELLING ENOUGH, but double that with the fact you KEEP COMING BACK HERE, AND KEEP SENDING ATROCIOUS ANON MESSAGES (again, you fucking cowards) IS EVEN MORE TELLING.

i don't know what's worse: dragging someone like her into all of this because she simply tried to spread awareness OR going after anyone who is now being supportive and positive to her!!! i'd wager dragging her into the mess in the first place is pretty fucking terrible.

now, i do not know if others are receiving the same kind of messages, or if this is simply the same group of WRETCHED, PUSTULE-BRAINED SIMPLETONS coming BACK to my blog to spread their neonazi ideology, but either way, the people (or person!!!) leaving these asks are nothing more than bootlicking, worm-brained sacks of decaying carcasses who LITERALLY HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH THEIR TIME.

i know EXACTLY the group that is leaving these messages. i know EXACTLY why your lives are so fucking empty, and miserable, and rancid that you only get joy from spreading neonazi HATESPEECH and telling other people to kill themselves. i know you all lay awake at night, crying over a fucking PIXELATED CHARACTER WHO WILL NEVER LOVE YOU BACK, sniveling like little bitches because your favorite AI SLOP got taken down.

AND TO THE AUTHOR OF THAT FUCKING FIC: YOU ARE ALLOWING THESE ASSHOLES TO DEFEND YOU AND YOUR NAME USING DEATH THREATS AND THE MOST ABHORRENT HATESPEECH KNOWN TO THE MODERN WORLD. YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN THEM BC I SEE YOU STILL INTERACT WITH THESE FUCKERS. YOU. ARE. NO. BETTER.

so for now: my anon asks are being turned off. not because iM sAd oR sCaReD but because if you have something to fucking say to me, say it with your whole fucking chest. otherwise: go fuck yourself with the thorniest, worst-cast dildos you can fucking find. SMOOCHES.

[apatheticlexicographer]

the genre of instagram reels (presumably also tiktoks but i don't go there) that are just — a clip of the account owner glancing around like 🫢😒🙄😏 for a few seconds, overlaid by a title caption that never progresses to anything, and then the actual content is in the description — are so comical to me. but also so sad.

like... that could have been a text post. that literally WAS a text post, just one that's awkward to read and has a clickbait title card. people DO NOT WANT to just share information through videos and spoken words, but text based social media rn is all either –Bad –niche –your parents are there –also trying to be tiktok (or some combination of the above).

literally THE PEOPLE YEARN FOR THE TEXTPOSTS!!! THEY ARE SO STARVED OF TEXTPOSTS THAT THEY HAVE TO MACGYVER THEM AROUND THE VIDEO-BASED SYSTEMS IN THE JANKIEST WAY POSSIBLE, bc the time constraints of content that loops after a certain time put a physical cap on how much information can be shared in a single post, even if the 'video' is just 5 pixels visible behind a wall of text bubbles.

it's!!! so goofy!!! and even when the content of a video IS spoken out in the video itself, sooo many people (like me bitch) just read the cc. whenever i see a video with speech and no captions there are people in the comments asking about it. like if ur here to post written words and i'm here to read written words then WHAT are we doing with this facetious video nonsense. just type it to me babygirl, i have adequate reading comprehension

[rockpapercynic]

The internet is flooded with AI-generated photos and they're getting harder to spot.

Most of the time AI is used for click-farming, but lately images have been used in fake news stories and product scams.

Most important: THINK CRITICALLY. AI will eventually get too good to make obvious mistakes. Being media literate means checking not just if an image is real, but if the source is trustworthy.

If you're not sure, don't share! You might be spreading misinformation.

[prokopetz]

If I had a nickel for every time I've said something mildly critical of TV Tropes' framework of media analysis and subsequently had a self-identified "Troper" come at me super aggressively for that in a way that clearly communicates they think that label makes them hot shit, and when I creeped their Tumblr out of morbid curiosity it was just completely full of reblogged South Park yaoi, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[rebe-draws]

Dorian x Orym 💙💕 Critical Role fan-art

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Hot take: I actually think men and women are meant to work together and complement each other and not like,,, dislike each other and be divisive.

[whereserpentswalk]

Just saw a "feminist" video essay (by someone who just happens to only talk about feminism in relation to cishet white able bodied women) say that the Hays Code was good for women because it "prevented them from sexualizing women by preventing onscreen depictions of sex". Never before has a video said something that made me vocalize my disgust of it's takes, but this did it.

I didn't think I would have to say this but if you defend the Hays code you are horrible and not in any way progressive. And if you don't know what it is please look it up because it's probably the most important piece of history when it comes to all media analysis in the western world.

[brielarsonsource]

BRIE LARSON before the 29th Annual Critics Choice Awards on January 14, 2024 via Nina Park's Instagram

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[worfs-glorious-hair]

And I mean it iterally.

I did some good old crafting with hot glue and fake flowers and mushrooms and moss yesterday and it made me very happy.

Just crafting as in creating something pretty to look at that wasn’t there before without the need of being perfect to the seam or line.

I am coming from (SFX) makeup and cosplay, both communities that are very vocal about “perfection” in its craft, used materials and creating a lot of pressure to only post what is completely polished into such (expected) “perfection”. (While of course the reality is not that everyone but me achieves such perfection but social media doesn’t help to dismantle the illusion that everyone only does big and splendid projects and has all the work spaces and the money to achieve such “perfect” results (both things that I lack).)

So it was healing to do just something that brings me joy and is pretty to look at and made from hotglue (and no fancy expensive glue) and enjoying the results.

Sometimes you just gotta hotglue your life back together

[towards-toramunda]

(I’m gonna need you all to pinky promise me that if like… Orym or Dorian die or something else happens where they can’t end the campaign in a relationship you don’t start harassing the cast for queer baiting again! Like please pinky promise me with a cherry on top that you won’t have a vile harassment campaign over a ship again please I’m begging)

[f1-stuff]

Beyond The Grid // Chasing Championships in Ferrari Red

[TC] "You've been with Carlos now for four years. What will you miss about him?" [CL] "I think just Carlos, the person. I think we get on very, very well. Unfortunately, with the world as it is now, everything is over-analyzed, over-criticized. But the reality of things is that we always had a really good relationship. Yes, there's been many moments where, inside the helmet, I hated him and he hated me because we didn't view the situation in the same way. But everything was fixed after a discussion between us two... We had a lot of memorable moments that I will...yeah, remember forever."

[shyjusticewarrior]

A part of me dies every time someone puts Joker Jr in their joker trauma slide shows instead of Duke's parents

[justaboutsnapped]

tumblr whites who haven’t listened to a lick of rap before not like us talking about a hugely influential black rapper who weaves politically poignant narratives about his own lived experience as a black person in america, systematic racism, etc: haha he’s so quirky he’s so petty he’s like a trickster god an old god a fae god oooooh he’s a dragon slayer get it cause drake-

[vspin]

people need to accept that Bioware = Corporate AAA Studio

This is not the early 2000's creative uwu game studio we all remember. They are a large, stale corporate entity.

Not everything is EA's fault.

[distant--shadow]

When Imogen wakes it is with an ache in her neck

a drop into reality unusually cushioned

a hand combing through her hair

and she can’t help the smile that breaks when she meets Laudna’s watchful eyes peering down at her, flushes shortly after.

“Sorry, did I fall asleep?”

Laudna smiles back at her, halts the hand playing with her hair.

“You did.”

An unspoken mutual agreement allows the moment to stretch in silence ��

that or time is still fucky from Imogen only just waking up. It gives her enough of it to contemplate.

The sun must be high, the atmosphere muggy and the fauna all bustling as if it were a market day and the critters had stalls to set up and produce to bring home for their litters in the burrows. She feels the layer of sweat on her skin wherever the sun directly touches it, smells in waves where it heats the floor and diffuses the groundcover as if it were potpourri-

Above her, backlit - Laudna’s wearing a halo. The giant leaves of the giant trees are so high above them that the scale almost looks normal, the light breaking between the canopy in beams, sparkling in places where it catches insect wings and pollen, silhouetting edges of wiry strands of hair that act as though curtains on a canopy bed, all giving cover from the storm (should it come). It all feels so hazy, could be the vision starting to turn to grains of sand in her eyes like before a migraine but it’s also unusually clear, her head weightless despite the aching neck – funny what a handful of hours of good sleep can do.

The unspoken mutual agreement is ended.

“Did you rest well?” what did you dream about?

“I did, yeah...”

Unintentional, excusable really - waking with her defences down.

Wouldn’t be outta the ordinary to share.

“…dreamt we were back at Oddrún’s, was nice-” she withholds the details, just to save a little face. Exposes it anyhow, when she finds herself inadvertently taking the hand that had stilled in her hair, holding her palm up above her head with Laudna's lying flat on top of it “-then the roof caved in again and the place got swarmed with birds.”

“Birds?”

Imogen's thumb traces the knife-edge of the long nail on Laudna’s.

“Birds.” Imogen confirms, distracted, half-awake, giddy. The word already sounds funny; thrown back and forth between them. She chuckles at how her lips form around the repetition of it, says it again in Marquesian to see if it feels as abstract- that causes Laudna to quirk her brow from behind the fan of their fingers. “All different kinds, real cute and stuff, mostly. Place got furnished in feathers, was pretty chaotic - parakeets nestin’ in the cups and saucers and kingfishers in the rafters…” Laudna exhales a single syllable of a choral chuckle and Imogen has never felt so relaxed. “There was a kinda shady lookin’ big one standin’ on one leg in the corner by the hearth though, kept squawkin’.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, think it was a shoebill. You ever seen one of those?”

“You know, I’m not sure. I wonder if there was any significance…”

Their fingers interlace, under Laudna's initiative. Imogen stares at the long nails now reaching to her wrist like plates of fine ebony gauntlets.

“I could try draw it for y’all, but I don’t think it’d help…” comes out audibly distracted, the points of Laudna's talons gently making contact with Imogen's scarred skin-

“Allow me to get my notebook~” Laudna enthusiastically sings – nearly cutting Imogen, their hands separating - and Imogen is left staring at the empty space that was occupied by the shape that the two of them made, wonders if there is a word for that, like ‘bird’ - each hand a wing of some amalgamation, dream chimera, released between palms.

Probably a word she doesn’t have the language for.

(passage and illustration from @picturesofthegoneworlds ' intertwined)