#when people started migrating from twitter i happened upon someones main here

[ravenwolfie97]

it's a weird feeling when someone you found on the internet Might be someone you've met irl before but you can't say for sure

[ailuronymy]

Thoughts on the new discourse? Warrior cats naming conventions and rank names being straight up stolen from native American people? So many people seem to be... Straight up leaving the Fandom or changing all of their fan content and it feels very performative and, people not actually thinking critically and just being scared of getting "cancelled"? I feel like your opinions on these matters are very informed and well written so I wanted to ask given that this blog main theme is, well, warrior cat naming system and that seems to be the main issue of the new discourse.

This is probably going to get long, since there's sort of a lot to say about it in order to talk about this whole thing fairly and constructively, because from what I’ve seen there’s a lot of hyperbole happening, and panicking, and disavowing this series and fandom, and so on, like you say, and also some people genuinely trying to have complex meaningful conversations about racism in xenofiction, and also probably some bad faith actors in the mix--as well as some just... stupid actors. Kind of inevitably what happens when two equally bad platforms for having nuanced discussions--i.e., twitter and tumblr--run headlong into each other, in a fandom space with a majority demographic of basically kids and highly anxious, pretty online teens. I don’t mean that as a criticism of fans or their desire to be liked by peers and “correct” about opinions, it’s just the social landscape of Warriors and I think it’s worth pointing out from the start.  

If I’m totally honest with you, if not for this ask, I wouldn’t actually be commenting on it at all, because none of this is going to impact this blog or change how I run it in any way. But since you’ve asked and frankly I do feel some responsibility to try to disentangle things a little for everyone stressed and confused at the moment, because I know a lot of people look to this blog for guidance of all sorts, I’m going to talk about what I think has happened here, and how to navigate the situation in a reasonable way. 

Quick recap for anyone blissfully unaware: from what I understand, this post (migrated over from a presumably bigger twitter thread) has got a lot of people very worried about Warriors being a racist and appropriative series, and now are trying to figure out what ethically to do about this revelation. The thing I found most interesting about this screenshotted conversation is that it makes a lot of bold claims, but misses some pretty surprising details (in my opinion). If you do look critically at what is being said, here’s a few things to notice--crucially, there are two people talking. 

Person 1 says that a lot of animal fantasy fiction + xenofiction (fiction about non-human/”other” beings, such as animals) is frequently built upon stereotypes of First Nations and Indigenous people, and/or appropriates elements of Indigenous culture and tradition as basically set dressing for “strange” and “alien” races/species etc., and this is a racist, deeply othering, and inappropriate practice. This person is right. 

I’ve spent years researching in this field specifically, so I feel pretty confident in vouching (for whatever that’s worth) that this person is absolutely right in making this point. Not only is it frequently in animal fiction/xenofiction, but it’s insidious, which means often it’s hard to notice when it’s happening--unless you know what you’re looking for, or you are personally familiar with the details or tropes that are being appropriated. Because of the nature of racism, white and other non-First Nations people don’t always recognise this trend within texts--even texts they’re creating--but it’s important for us all, and especially white people, to be more aware, because it’s not actually First Nations’ people’s responsibility to be the sole critics of this tradition of theft and misuse. Appropriation by non-Indigenous people is in fact the problem, which means non-Indigenous people learning and changing is the solution. 

Person 1 offers Warriors as a popular example of a work that has this problem. Notably, this person hasn’t given an example of how Warriors is culpable (at least in this screenshot and I haven’t found the thread itself, because the screenshot is what’s causing this conversation), only that it’s an example of a work that has these problems. And once again, this person is correct. We’ll look at that more in a moment.

Person 2 (three tweets below the first) offers, by comparison, several more specious insights. Firstly, it’s really, really not the only time anyone’s ever talked about this, academically + creatively or in the Warriors fandom specifically, and so that reveals somewhat this person’s previous engagement in the space they’re talking into re: this topic. In other words, this person doesn’t know what has already been said or what is being talked about. Secondly, this person explicitly states that they “[don’t know] much about warrior cats specifically but from what I see it just screams appropriation,” which as a statement I think says something crucial re: the critical lens this person has applied + the amount of forethought and depth of analysis of their criticism of this particular series. 

I’m not saying that using twitter to talk about your personal feelings requires you to research everything you talk about before you shoot your mouth off. However, I personally don’t go into a conversation about a topic I don’t know anything about except a cursory glance to offer bold and scathing criticisms based on what it “just screams” to me. By their own admission, this person isn’t really offering good faith, thoughtful criticism of the series, in line with Person 1′s tweet. Instead, Person 2 is talking pretty condescendingly and emphatically about--as the kids say--the vibes they get from the series, and I’m afraid that just doesn’t hold up well in this court. 

So now that there’s Person 1 (i.e., very reasonable, important, interesting criticism) and Person 2 (i.e., impassioned but completely vibes-based opinion from someone who hasn’t read the books) separated, we can see there’s actually several things happening in this brief snapshot, and some of them aren’t super congruent with each other. 

Person 1 didn’t say “don’t read bad books,” or that you’re a bad person for being a fan of stories that are guilty of this. They suggested people should recognise the ways xenofiction uses Indigenous people and their culture inappropriately and often for profit. My understanding of this tweet is someone offering an insight that might not have occurred to many people, but that is valuable and important to consider going forward in how they view, engage with, and create xenofiction media.

Person 2 uses high modality, evocative language that appeals to the emotions. That’s not a criticism of this person: they’re allowed to talk in whatever tone they want, and to express their personal feelings and opinions. However, rhetorically, this person is using this specific language--consciously or subconsciously--to incense their audience--i.e., you. Are you feeling called to action? What action do you feel called to when you rea their words, despite the fact their claims are not based in their own actual analysis of or engagement with the text? It’s, by their own admission, not analysis at all. Everything they evoke is purely in the name of “not good” vibes. 

Earlier I mentioned that Person 1 is correct that Warriors is absolutely guilty of appropriation of First Nations and Indigenous people and culture. I also mentioned that they didn’t specify how. That’s because I think the most egregious example is in fact the tribe, which in many ways plays into the exact kind of stereotyping and appropriation of First Nations Americans that Person 1 mentions, and not the clans, contrary to Person 2′s suggestion. For instance, in addition to the very loaded name of “tribe”, there’s a lot of racist tropes present in how that group of cats is introduced and how the clan cats interact with them, as well as the more North American-inspired scenery of their home. It’s very blatant as far as racism in this series. 

When it comes to the clans themselves, though, I think it’s muddier and harder to draw clear distinctions of what is directly appropriative, what is coincidentally and superficially reminiscent, and what is not related at all. Part of this difficulty in drawing hard lines comes from the fact that, on a personal level, it actually doesn’t matter: if a First Nations person reads a story and feel it is appropriative or inappropriate, it’s not actually anyone’s place to “correct” them on their reading of the text. Our experiences are unique and informed by our perspectives and values, and no group of people are a monolith, which means within community, there will always be disagreement and differenting points of view. There is no one single truth or opinion, which means that First Nations people even in the same family might have very different feelings about the same text and very different perspectives on how respectful, or not, it might be. 

I’m saying this because something that gets said very often when conversations of racism and similar oppressive systems present/perpetuated in texts comes up, people frequently say: “listen to x voices.” It is excellent advice. However, the less pithy but equally valuable follow-up advice is: “listen to the voices of many people of x group, gather information and perspective, and then ultimately use your own judgement to make an informed opinion for yourself.” It means that you are responsible for you. The insight you can gain by listening to people who know topics and experiences far better than you do is truly invaluable, but if your approach to the world is simply to parrot the first voice, or loudest voice, or angriest voice you come across, you will not really learn anything or be able to develop your own understanding and you certainly won’t be making well-informed judgements. 

In other words, one incomplete tweet thread from two people who are each bringing quite different topics and modes of conversation (or perhaps gripes, in Person 2′s case) to the table is not really enough to go off re: making a decision to leave a fandom, in my opinion. In fact, I think in responding to anything difficult, complex, or problematic (which doesn’t mean what popular adage bandies it about to mean) by trying to distance yourself, or cleanse of it, will ultimately harm you and will not do you any good as a person. It is better, in my opinion, to enter into complex relationships with the world and media and other people in an informed, aware way and with a willingness to learn and sometimes to make mistakes and be wrong, rather than shy away from potential conflict or fear that interacting with a text will somehow taint you or define your morality in absolutes. 

So. Does Warriors have racist and appropriative elements, tropes, and issues in the series? Yes, of course it does, it’s a book-packaged series produced by corporation HarperCollins and written by a handful of white British women and their myriad ghostwriters. Racism is just one part of the picture. The books are frequently also ableist, sexist, and homophobic (or heteronormative, depending how you want to slice it, I guess), just to name some of the most evident problems. 

But does the presence of these issues mean it’s contaminated and shouldn’t be touched? Personally, I don’t think so. Given the nature of existing the world, it’s not possible to find perfect media that is free of any kind of bias, prejudice, or even just ideas or topics or concepts that are challenging or uncomfortable. I think it’s more meaningful to choose to engage with these elements, discuss them, criticise them, learn from them, and acknowledge also that imperfection is the ultimate destiny of all of us, especially creators.

I’m not saying that as a pass, like, “oh enjoy your media willy-nilly, nothing matters, do what you want, think about no-one else ever because we’re all flawed beings,” but rather that it’s important not to look away from the problems in the things we enjoy, rather than cut off all contact and enjoyment when we realise the problems. That doesn’t mean you have to only criticise and always be talking about how bad a thing you like is either, publicly admonishing yourself or the text, because that’s also not a constructive way to engage with media. 

As I said, there’s a lot to say here, and believe it or not, this is honestly the shortest version I could manage. There’s always more to say and plenty I haven’t talked about, but pretty much tl;dr: 

I don’t find Person 2′s commentary particularly compelling, personally, because I think it’s a little broad and a little specious in its conclusions and evidence, and I also suspect that this person is speaking more from their feelings than from a genuine desire to educate or meaningfully criticise, unlike Person 1. That’s not to say Warriors isn’t frequently racist and guilty of the issues Person 1 is discussing, because it is, but I don’t think this tweet thread is a great source of insight into the ongoing history of this problem in xenofiction, or Warriors specifically, on its own. I would recommend exploring further afield to learn more from a variety of sources and form your own opinions. I hope this helps. 

[life2strange]

It’s never too late to make the big bucks.

“I want to be a superhero” was a line you’d probably expect coming from young children, but as the case with a large portion of society I didn’t really grow out of my superhero phase and here I was 22 years old still lining up at comic book stores waiting to get a new Batman comic. Today’s social society being receptive to anything that is a result of mainstream media production is said to be acceptable in social circles, such as if Marvel came out with a ‘Spiderman’ movie, it would be acceptable to go see it regardless of your Age or gender as it’s a ‘popular narrative’ providing content to the masses and is easily accessible. I feel if one tends to go further into this narrative like I did with superhero’s and try to get their means of entertainment through more unconventional means like comic books, video games, and animated cartoons, would lead people to have a negative perception about being overly attached or interested in content that might not be regarded as acceptable by mainstream media at this particular point in time. I do however feel like this is becoming more lax and people are becoming more acceptable of ‘geek’ or ‘nerd culture’ as the rise in popularity of ‘Marvel’ and ‘DC’ movies has led to superhero’s and superhero culture being a more common topic of conversation in society and the rise in mainstream actors playing superhero roles such as Robert Downy Junior Playing ‘Iron Man’ and Ben Affleck playing ‘Batman’ tends to help audiences feel more at ease and accept superhero’s as being more common place as acceptable medium in story telling. Boothe talks about the ‘Spime’ of a fandom which is ‘the lifecycle of an object from initial design through physical substantiation to final digital trace. It changes the ‘object’ from a purely physical entity into a lifecycle of technological transformation, and uses time as another dimension upon which an object can be measured’. Booth, P. (2105). Fandoms like Batman which started off with the comics in 1940 and has amassed success over a wide stream of media platforms such as comics, graphic novels, television shows, movies, video games and now even virtual reality immersion technology that allows you to become ‘Batman’. Transmedia therefore allows the franchise to develop a larger following across the world and allows people to find out information regarding the fandom at the touch of a button. This would have led Batman to develop a large fan following across many countries and fans of many generations that come together to enjoy it no matter the means how the do so. The spime of Batman helps it remain relevant across time and helps retain its popularity. I remember getting my first glimpse of Batman from my father showing me an old Batman movie staring George Clooney. My father exposed me to a fragment of the fandom thus including me in the ‘spimatic wave’ associated with the Batman fandom. When the voice actor who played batman for a little over ten years went to twitter to put up an idea to bring back the classic animated show for a reunion episode I was up in arms for the idea. He and the other members from the cast of the show used the crowdfunding website Kickstarter to try and obtain financial means from their most loyal fanbase in order to provide funding to create the content that would-be tailor made to the fanbase paying every dollar to make it happen. The success of the Kickstarter campaign is dependant on successfully utilizing the fan nostalgia and acknowledging the presence of a group of like minded people forming the batman fandom and supporting the project at multiple nodes in the production process. With such experiences I can add ground to Boothe’s views that Fandoms by applying certain theories of the Spime towards fandom through the appropriate mode of crowdfunding would lead to a more emotional and effective process of media creation.” Fandom is traditionally participation after-the-fact; the Spime allows us to see fandom as generative of meaning throughout the entire participatory process” Booth, P. (2105).

Being a media and communications student, my passion has always been to get involved in the journalism stream and eventually turn that into a career in sports writing. Basketball in particular had always been an area of interest for me and the opportunity to try and work in a career related to my passion was too hard to pass on and therefore I had been looking into what it took to become a sports writer in todays world. New means of media has led to the evolution of transmission of news and information regarding a player or a team in the National Basketball Association and writers have been quick to adapt. While most of the main story pieces that provide in depth analysis and detail regarding a situation, team or player are done via websites such as ESPN, Bleacher Report and Yahoo Sports, applications have also been developed so access on various devices becomes easier as migration to accessible devices had been a key goal of sports media to become commonplace among new technology. Breaking news on the other hand needs to be reported at a moment’s notice to the public which has led to the large-scale use of Twitter as a platform amongst sports media content creators. Twitter as a platform allows instant transmission of ‘viral sports news’ such as an immediate player trade between teams, a sudden injury or altercation or even a player spotted in public. It allows the content to be received and reacted to at the touch of a button. Live-tweeting updates during games has become popular via twitter and writers would tweet from arenas thereby relaying tiny details they pick up from team personnel, player huddles, in arena altercations that might not be seen or heard on TV. This unique information available almost instantaneously allows these content creators to have an advantage over traditional media broadcasts in terms of specificity of information they would be providing.  Lets take the example of ESPN’s senior sports writer Arash Markazi, Markazi has been providing quality content through his stories and coverage of Los Angeles based sports teams for over a decade and had built a rapport amongst avid sports fans as being a reputable source of information. When the twitter revolution happening in the sports coverage world. Markazi began posting snippets of interesting information along with his regular stories on twitter, these included some off the court content that sports fan started to get accustomed to. He once posted a video on his twitter of a then unknown blonde girl doing a ‘dougie’ which was the popular dance move of the year live at a basketball game and as you would expect the video quickly turned viral and led to media companies picking up the video and then fame and fortune hit. That blonde girl is now married to World series winner Justin Verlander and is named Kate Upton who became internet famous which further led to her mainstream popularity in the past couple of years all due to this little snippet on twitter by a sports writer. The power of media in whatever form is astounding. As a social media content creator in this scenario Markazi exercised his power over his followers by sharing content that was good enough to be mass distributed leading to it going viral and therefore creating a buzz over information that if created and distributed by someone without such a platform or standing might not have stood out. In Wasike’s study he talks about the usage of twitter by social media editors in order to entertain a particular audience, he describes Twitter as a form of media that is built for personalization of people’s messages since it allows individuals to create a list of loyal and committed followers who share a common interest in a certain social media editor. Therefore, leading to Social media editors reciprocating and accepting this connection by tweeting information relating about their personal life, humorous content, memes, in-transit activities, etc. Finally, most of the Social Media Editors would go ahead and specifically start to use personalized themes in their Twitter bio sections to gain a sense of identity amongst the clutter. Apart from providing personal information such as native home town, spouses and hobbies, it was common to encounter phrases such as; music junkie, foodie, hobby enthusiast and other quirky titles that would lead to the audience being able to relate to the editor and make them seem almost like a regular everyday person thus helping them garner that nativity amongst their audience. (Wasike, B. (2013).)

A long time ago in a land far far away, a lazy teenager who shared a name and a birthday with me once thought of a plan to get rich quick with minimal effort along with him friends and scoured the internet in hopes of figuring out how to achieve this masterful plan. After google highest paid internet jobs and doing diligent research we wound up on Felix Kjellberg who goes by the internet nickname of pewdiepie who annuals earns 12 million dollars a year by creating videos on YouTube that amass millions of viewers every day. Now what did ‘Pewdiepie’ do you may ask, does he create his own music or do stand up comedy or tell stories, well no its not what one might assume. He garners millions of dollars every year playing video games from home and people are inherently very interested to see someone else play a video game, sounds easy enough right? Wrong again, after going through a lot of his videos we figured out that it takes a special someone to be able to obtain such an audience and maintain it over a period of years. People log on everyday to see this man play games of different genres while using a webcam to show his reactions to various thing that happen within the game. Suspense and intensity during horror games, humor and quick-witted jokes during funny scenarios and all out just an uncensored commentary is what Felix delivers during his gameplay segments that turned from a hobby to more income than most corporate millionaires. The world is changing, and people like to be entertained without really putting in much effort and Felix allows them to enjoy videogames that they really might not have enjoyed quite as much with his unique style and humor and thus game me my idea for internet millions. Till today my total YouTube earnings amount to 12 dollars and 27 cents as compared to Felix making 12 million in 2016. He wins …. for Now. Aggire and Young refer to user generated content in there work where it is said even though the historical novelty of the active behaviour of an audience is unpredictable at the least, and the use of of participation terms with respect to  activities that pertain to the audience usually are open for interpretation, the ineractive possibilities offered by new forms of media are what is seen as interesting here, These are usually  facilitators of interaction amongst users in the onlie world that have endless possibilities with the content. (Astigarraga, I., Pavon, A., & Zuberogoitia, A. (2016)).

 References

Astigarraga, I., Pavon, A., & Zuberogoitia, A. (2016). Active audience?: Interaction of young people with television and online video content. Communication and Society, 29(3), 133-147.

Booth, P. (2105). Crowdfunding: A spimatic application of digital fandom. New Media and Society, 17(2), 149-166.

Wasike, B. (2013). Framing news in 140 Characters: How social media editors frame the news and interact with audiences via Twitter. Global Media Journal - Canadian Edition, 6(1), 5-23.