Whenever I see people discoursing online about how all fiction must model good behavior and explicitly state that any bad behavior depicted is wrong, lest someone in the audience mistake it for “glorifying,” all I can think of is that line from Arrested Development where Buster, in his mid-30s, objects to something by saying “that’s not the way mother is raising me”
Like yeah maybe YA books and kids’ cartoons have a responsibility to demonstrate the difference between Right and Wrong, since the audience is, like, actual children, but if you’re consuming literally anything more advanced than Disney XD’s Ducktales, you should absolutely be expected to bring your own moral framework from home and not need your media to spoon-feed morality to you
if you see a show about a a man manufacturing and selling methamphetamine while abusing his wife and murdering people and you can’t tell whether the author intends for you to think his actions are right or wrong? That might be more your problem than the text’s. You might just, at that point, be an idiot.
[banging on the notes of this post with a broomstick from below] yo shut the fuck up in there
“stories dont need conflict” girl anything can be a conflict if ur story is about chickens going on adventures the conflict is the fucking fence they gotta hop over. if ur story is about making a lovely cup of tea the conflict can be turning on the stove. like u literally cannot write a story without conflict
ALSO i hate mfers who say this shit and then go “thats why i like ghibli movies cuz theyve got no conflict” OH YOU MEAN HOWLS MOVING CASTLE, NAUSICAA, PRINCESS MONONOKEY CASTLE IN THE SKY ETC THAT ARE ALL ABOUT THE HORRORS OF WAR
even the ones that arent about the horrors of war. in kiki’s delivery service kiki growing up and learning to trust people and accept help is the central conflict of the story!! my neighbour totoro’s central conflict is how the girls are dealing with their mom being sick and the responsibility they feel this puts on them!! i could go on!!
every now and then you meet like, a “mild” anti who isn’t sending death threats or anything, they’ve just absorbed some anti viewpoints like “this rape fic is Good because I Personally am comfortable with the sex level” and “this other rape fic is Bad because I Personally felt like it said ‘cock’ too many times.” but the longer you talk to them the more vicious they get, until it literally comes down to:
survivor: i found this rape fic comforting and cathartic because it showed me that i’m not alone. anti: well this fic shows survivors having dirty kinks and enjoying sex after rape or even DURING rape!! and that makes ME, not a survivor, SO uncomfortable. you guys should just be sex repulsed instead. survivor: well…we’re not… anti: blocked
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it’s more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It’s performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.
This is ultimately why propaganda is going to work on you. Because you never learned how to think for yourself and the actual ideology behind things. You simply rely on group think and the bare minimum explanations to tell you what’s good and bad.
Sawthis article linked on twitter yesterday and…. yeah. YEAH.
Saying “this niche, properly tagged, warned, and rated piece of fiction could theoretically hurt someone” is not a good argument. This properly labeled cookie with the allergen information at the bottom that contains gluten could theoretically harm me very badly, but only if I consume it. Tags are like nutrition labels, and warnings are like allergy information. If you know you have an allergy to something, the logic is to stay away from it. It is the same with fiction. I’m not running through stores yelling at people to take all the products with gluten off the shelves just because it could hurt me. Instead I ignore it and go to the gluten free section and find cookies that are right for me. And if running through a grocery store yelling sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Stop doing the same with fiction.
this is the best way i’ve seen this put!!
And just like with food, what might be harmful for one person to consume could be quite *beneficial* for others. One man’s trigger is another man’s catharsis.
AND if you lack the maturity/self control/awareness to stop yourself from eating things that could potentially harm you, you either 1) are too young to be making your own food choices and should be supervised by a parent/other adult who is supposed to be responsible for you (and the store clerk who put the food on the shelf is NOT) or 2) need to take accountability for your own actions, because if you deliberately consumed something you knew could hurt you as a fully autonomous adult, then you really have no one to blame but yourself.
I am bad with spicy-hot food. I don’t like the way it makes my mouth feel, or the things it does to my digestion. However, some people like the way it makes their mouth feel, and it doesn’t do anything to their digestion (or it does things they also don’t mind). Attempting to ban all spicy-hot foods ever when, by and large, they’re already clearly labeled, would make me a huge jerk!
Someone attempting to sneak spicy stuff into my food or to trick me into eating spicy food would make them a huge jerk. Someone not labeling spicy food they plan to share, or otherwise warning people who don’t like spice about the heat level, would also make them a huge jerk.
Likewise, if you love spicy food and pack a nice, spicy lunch for yourself, have it clearly labeled as yours, and then someone who can’t stand spicy food steals your lunch and eats it themself, they have no basis to complain that you’re “poisoning” them. If you’re either the thief or HR in this situation, I am side-eying the hell out of you.
daily reminder that ‘porn addiction’ is a myth perpetuated by far right evangelical groups.
As long as your porn consumption is not interfering with your work or social life, it’s considered normal.
Actual psychology research shows that people who identify as ‘porn addicts’ don’t actually consume more porn than average. What do they have in common? They were raised to view sex as shameful.
It’s also commonly used as a way to avoid taking responsibility. The number of men I’ve seen saying “porn MADE me misogynistic, porn MADE me dehumanize women, porn MADE me see women as objects, porn MADE me sexually harass women.”
On the flip side, I’ve also seen women blaming porn for the same reason. Instead of. You know. Misogynistic, dehumanizing abusers.
Porn is often used as the scapegoat for a lot of problems in our world, I’ve often thought it’s the equivalent of people saying video games causes mass shootings and a rise in violence.
There’s also a good bit of evidence and studies saying an availability to porn (as well as prostitution) has shown a link to decreased sexual violence.
i’m just glad these kinds of myths only exist among far right evangelicals like could you imagine how pathetic it would be if leftists thought certain kinds of porn could taint your mind making you inevitably become some sort of awful abuser? but surely nobody would believe such a thing and ostracize people for that kind of stuff while also regularly spreading around posts like this lol
