This Whole Arenas Gonna Be Yellow I Swear Lmao
this whole arenas gonna be yellow i swear lmao
More Posts from Imapigkid
this was the fanart btw
illumina just gifted someone in chat VIP coz they made him fanart
So I've been seeing some posts lately about racism in fandom, which offer important view points from fans of color, BUT these posts don't usually offer any kind of solution to issues theyre seeing besides banning racist fic on ao3. Its not individual fans who's responsibility it is to find solutions in the first place, we should be doing that as a community, but its got me wondering on how to still hold an anti-censorship stance when it comes to ao3 while simultaneously wanting to make fandon less racist. Blanket bans are obviously out, but peer warnings are subjective at best and would need a review team to make sure they're not being abused, and quite frankly I think a lot of racist fic comes from younger or less experienced fans who just need a few things explained and not to be dogpiled and chased out with pitchforks anyways. A warning on their fics with no explanation won't make them less racist it will just confuse them and possibly push them out if fandom. Idk there are obviously not going to be easy answers here but im not seeing much of a way forward unless I concede ground on my views of censorship, opening the door for other problematic stuff to be taken down as well. Thoughts?
Okay I just sent that message about racism ob ao3 w/o realizing u were already having conversations about it further down ur blog so feel free to ignore oops
LOL. This happens a lot, actually. It's kind of the nature of tumblr, tbh.
(Also, you can backread my horribly tagged tumblr for a good 3 years or so if you want to see endless rounds of the same arguments. I talk about this shit all the time.)
One thing I will say about peer reviews is that I think negative public bookmarks on AO3 are fine. Tagging your bookmark with "this was racist" or "they can't spell" or whatever else is fine. The bookmark is for you and for other readers, not for the author. I know some people consider negative public bookmarks to be ~mean~ and a faux pas if not outright harassment, but I disagree.
Another thing I will say is that we used to have more of a reccing culture, and I think it still exists to a degree in the biggest fandoms. That is what we need: individual human effort, but spread around. If you find a reccer whose ideas about racism and good taste you agree with, that's really much safer than some AO3-wide nonsense implemented by god knows who from god knows which country.
As an aside, no tumblr person I saw saying this, it would not be a minor thing to add yet another bit of US-centrism to AO3. That would be very bad. That's already an area AO3 struggles in, ffs.
--
The biggest thing I see in these conversations is white stupidity. It's not even fragility. It's moronicness.
Too many posts have this tone like the person is listening to some abstract notion of The POC Collective. Who are these POC? Someone you know? A random loudmouth on twitter?
Do you people not have any nonwhite friends?!
The reality is that a fuckton of nonwhite people love AO3's aggressive anti-censorship stance. Since that stance is so strong, they may not mention it much unless and until they think there's a serious threat to it. That doesn't mean nobody ever encountered a fic they hated or that nobody has advice for how to improve AO3.
A lot of people who are unhappy with AO3 are pretty anti-kink and don't seem to get why other people like Bad Things on a visceral level. There is way too much "kink is a white people thing" subtext going around. There's also an extremely persistent strain of proving the vast quantities of racism by describing all the "big black cock" fic and then pointing to fic where the nonwhite one topped and many fans disagree the fic was racist and possibly even that US black/white racial dynamics are relevant. (Go look up The Old Guard racefaking wank for a lot of how this kind of top/bottom shipwar disguised as social justice plays out and how the most vulnerable people always lose.)
The main voices are also just a few people (just like the usual loudmouths I reblog who agree with me are only a few specific people on a different side). If you want to take the temperature of how "POC" are feeling, you need to know more POC, not just the loudest people who are trying to drive traffic to their various social media influencer revenue streams.
In my experience, a lot of responses from nonwhite people who like--or at least want to use--AO3 boil down to:
"Fuck antis"
"Fuck how US-centric this all is"
"Fuck this virtue signalling bullshit"
or
"Give me a block feature so I can remove specific idiot authors from my search results and not have to see their stupid opinions anymore"
I lean on lierdumoa a lot for this (sorry, friend), but if you want a hearty dose of truth from a Real Live POC™ on this kind of topic, mosey over to her tumblr. (And yes, I've met her offline, so I can vouch for her being who she says.)
A lot of people want to paint this debate as Mean White AO3 Stans vs. Oppressed POC No One Listens To, but that's bullshit. There are all kinds of people with all kinds of stances on this. You think angry black lesbians in their 50s are pro censorship? I can tell you not a single one I've ever met has been even as they go "Fuck that J2 Haiti fic"! (But also, yes, fuck that J2 Haiti fic.)
Anyway, here's lierdumoa's: "On A03 and Fandom Racism: What Will Actually Work?"
Here are her tags for:
https://lierdumoa.tumblr.com/tagged/racism-in-fandom
https://lierdumoa.tumblr.com/tagged/fandom-racism
https://lierdumoa.tumblr.com/tagged/ao3-discourse
https://lierdumoa.tumblr.com/tagged/ao3-meta
"Listen to POC" should mean "do some exploratory research". It should mean "have social circles that aren't all white". It should never mean "blindly follow social media hot takes".
crocodiles/alligators are the superior body. reptilian, carnivorous, cool as fuck, looks like a dinosaur, what more could you ask? I wish I were one