#cw school shooting mention
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the “dangers of fiction influencing reality” with linked scientific findings and stuff and I appreciate the effort to back things up with psychological studies rather than, like, memes, but I’m just letting y'all know… that was literally the argument Tipper Gore used when she went after Prince music for fear it would turn her daughter into a stripper. That’s the exact argument that was used against Rockstar when they were accused of ‘making’ kids shoot up schools. These crusades against media have time and time again failed with their only positive results usually just being more prevalently available warnings for mature content. And their negative repurcussions have been far greater, such as an increased stigma against black music and parents banning their children from playing any video games. (Blocking people off from experiencing multiple genres based on racial bias and excluding access to an entire artform.) I’m not saying that there’s not stuff to be concerned about/critique. I’m just saying that if you’re going the “fiction is dangerous!” route it has historically been proven to be a lost cause.
Let’s not forget that gangsta rap was one of the things people like Tipper were after too.
I.e.: artistic expression by black men who were, sure, sometimes being vulgar for the hell of it (like white rockers weren’t?!) but who were also often talking about social issues and injustices too
You can’t kill the vulgarity without killing the important part too.
Your pesticide kills both.
