Tag: this

olennawhitewyne:

prismatic-bell:

reddishadow:

exac:

“this character did a problematic thing-” its a story helen, commonly including things like conflict and drama

The thing an astonishing amount of people keep ignoring is framing. It’s not enough that a character Did A Bad, how does the piece of media present that action?

There’s a world of difference between:
a) this character Did A Bad and That’s Bad
b) this character Did A Bad and the creators don’t seem to be aware of this so it’s Just A Thing That Happens
c)

this character Did A Bad and That’s Great, people who think Doing A Bad is Bad are Wrong.

Like, both Atlas Shrugged and Bioshock are about a guy who’s sick of people and their “rules” and “caring about people other than yourself”, and decides to build his own paradise hidden away from the world where he doesn’t have to kowtow to any of that tedious ~morality~ other people seem to have for some reason. In this kind of reductive mindset, both must be equally hashtag problematic.

In Atlas Shrugged, the book is so keen to trip over itself in glorifying the mindset behind the story that it literally stops dead for sixty solid pages of the author giving up what little pretence of actual narrative the story has to just pasting The Objectivist Manifesto into the mouth of one of the book’s many, many empty mouthpieces. The guy is so right, he’s a genius and could revolutionise the world if only those pesky normies with their ~ethics~ would just get the fuck out of his way and let him do whatever he wants.

In Bioshock, the guy’s glorious monument to self-interest falls apart into a hellish dystopia only a few years after being constructed because, shocker (heh), gathering an entire city’s worth of amoral “rational free thinkers" would result in everybody turning on each other and their unchecked scientific experiments turning everyone into barely-human monsters. Because safety laws and the bounds of ethics are for squares!

One of these is an unabashed advertising tool for the ideology behind it, one of these is a satire of that same ideology by presenting a realistic prediction of how the original set-up of an objectivist “paradise” hidden from the world would actually play out anywhere on Earth that isn’t inside Ayn Rand’s head.

Framing, my lovelies. It’s very important, far more important, in fact, than the immensely shallow surface-level reading of “in media A character B did thing C and thing C is bad therefore everyone who so much as thinks about liking media A is literally worse than Satan”.

Then again, actually engaging with media on any level beyond the immediate surface isn’t conducive to holier-than-thou Hot Takes so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@lordhellebore

Don’t forget type d) this Character Did A Bad and the creators might leave some clues but overall expect you to figure out for yourselves that it’s A Bad because they figure their audiences are adults who can think critically. Unfortunately, a lot of Online people are not, literally or just psychologically, adults, and mistake this for type b) or c).

discouroborose:

leproblematique:

theroguefeminist:

delistylehardcore:

it rly is weird how theres this culture in progressive spaces where like you can be as mean, as CRUEL even, as you want as long as youre not being explicitly bigoted towards any marginalized group of people and still be seen as a really good person with good morals who nobody is allowed to have beef with bc theyve never done anything racist or homophobic

this culture enables actual abuse. ive seen progressives engage in gaslighting, guilt-tripping, stalking, harassment, witch hunts, death threats, rape threats, and suicide baiting. these abusers are protected by the idea that marginalized people cannot be abusive and that any criticism of the behavior is  “problematic” or tone-policing. the behavior likely emerged as a reaction to tone-policing, respectability politics and moderate liberalism, swinging the pendulum to the opposite extreme of aggressive callout culture and groupthink. i also think many progressives are marginalized + disempowered in mainstream society and cope by replicating the same patterns of abuse in a microcosm where they have clout

Addendum: you can also be horribly bigoted toward other marginalized people, so long as you use the ‘correct’ language and attack a marginalized group that is already a popular target of lateral / intra-community aggression (or, as I like to call it ‘I’m too chickenshit to do anything that requires effort or sacrifice, so my activism is screaming at other marginalized people and blaming them for all my issues’).

This is very visible on Tumblr, with a rotating cadre of people (bisexuals, pansexuals, ace/aro people, nonbinary people, intersex people, trans people who don’t subscribe to transmedicalist stances) being the revolving Targets du Jour for some truly vicious hate and smear campaigns, by individuals *who should know better* (but don’t, because they enjoy the thrill of soft, easily reachable targets upon which to vent the rage caused by non-marginalized society). Fundamentally, this is what happens when one’s activism revolves around seeking VENGEANCE (and a completely misplaced one at that!) rather than justice.

Good post but I wanna add another example: people are literally allowed and even encouraged to be as mean-spirited and cruel towards people who exhibit autistic traits, so long as they never actually use the word “autistic.”

gaymilesedgeworth:

some of y’all are like convinced that enjoying media is a race to see who can problematize something the fastest…..some of y’all just plain find gratification in feeling like you’re the most cynical and angry about any piece of well-liked media and no offense but how do you live that way

euryale-dreams:

I’m seeing a lot of posts cross my dash recommending that people replace Microsoft Office with OpenOffice in light of Microsoft’s new terms of service.

OpenOffice is abandonware that hasn’t seen an update in seven years!

Please do not install it. Instead install LibreOffice which is the exact same software plus seven years of updates.

What happened was Oracle acquired OpenOffice when they bought Sun Microsystems but didn’t really have any interest in maintaining it so they abandoned it. Because OpenOffice was an open source project the community was able to just pick it up and continue development. However, because Oracle never gave up the ‘OpenOffice’ trademark the community project could not use the name ‘OpenOffice.’

You can still download OpenOffice but it is no longer being maintained. If you want the up-to-date branch you should be installing LibreOffice. It is the same software.

Install LibreOffice.

newvagabond:

My most controversial post was one where I said, “just because you’re angry doesn’t mean it’s okay to be cruel.”

And sooo many super hardcore “internet activist” types were so mad about it. They argued that they are allowed to be cruel to people because of the hurt they’ve experienced, because of their anger at the world. (And accused me of being neurotypical, and having a perfect life, wtf?)

And I’m like… okay. But. Punishing people for your hurt and anger is something someone does when they start to become abusive. Or when they decide to punish the place that fired or expelled them by buying a gun.

Are you really trying to say it’s okay to punish people with cruelty when you’re angry? Sorry, but I still disagree.