I donât know if you like this kind of anons sending you links but I hate this post so much and you are so well spoken ... anyways, here it is goodmorningtoyouuniverse*tumblr*com/post/622086662775816192/3-part-anon-the-difference-is-that-one-is-being
Anon I will answer this this time but donât send me these wank posts next time. Whatâs the point of addressing this essay by someone whoâs delusional and hates Harry? Particularly considering the post has nine notesâŚ
Iâm not gonna post screenshots and Iâm not gonna repeat the full text. Sorry. I really would love it if this didnât get any more attention than necessary. Iâm keeping the link there in case someone absolutely needs to read it, since Iâm replying to it, because I donât wanna censor it.
Sheâs replying to an anon without posting the anon, which is a tactic very commonly used by that side of the fandom to make their attacks without actually showing the defence.
She makes the accusation of Harry benefiting commercially of being seen as âsuch a progressive activistâ which is bullshit from the word go. Harry is not doing such a thing. If you wanna look at someone who is doing such a thing, Matty Healy is right there. Harry isnât being preachy, isnât writing daily essays on activism on Twitter. Harry has barely been asked about social justice in interviews and heâs been very mild in his replies. Harry advocating for stuff, which he does, is not âtrying to benefit commerciallyâ from it. Absolutely fucking not. I want ONE example of it. Iâll wait.
But no, there isnât one. Because he DOES NOT. His fans are happy that heâs educating himself and advocating for stuff he believes in. Thatâs it. He doesnât DO anything to push that idea. He has NEVER DONE SO. She tops it off with âand youâre not actually doing anything to deserve that titleâ⌠what title? Progressive activist? Because he is 1. progressive and 2. an activist. Someone who advocates for LGBT rights, BLM, refugees, is anti-Brexit, pro feminism, etc, etc, etc, is⌠progressive. And sure, heâs not an activist in the same vein Angelina Jolie is an activist. But he is an activist nonetheless:
Considering the organisations he endorses, the petitions heâs signed, the protests heâs attended, and his general message. He is a âprogressive activistâ.
So two problems so far, she thinks heâs marketing himself as a progressive activist which he is not doing. Because he hasnât done a single thing to PUSH this image (other than fucking doing progressive activist things). And she thinks heâs NOT a progressive activist, which he is by the literal definition of it.
Letâs continue. She says that âif Justin Bieber writes sexist songs then itâs irritating at best.â No, if Justin Bieber writes sexist songs then itâs a symptom of how much he hates women, whom he has admitted to cheat on and abuse. And whom he has disrespected his entire career, not to mention the literal rape allegations.
She says about Harry: âif you wear shirts that proclaim that women are smarter but then never actually write with any women and sing songs that are sexist and reduce women to sex objectsâŚâ
Harry does, in fact, write with women. Ilsey Juber and Amy Allen would like to have a chat with Sterre. Out of 9 writers in Fine Line, 8 if we donât count Harry himself, two were women. 2/8 is a 25% ratio. Could it be better? 100%. And I do hope that Harry works on that. Itâs definitely better than the industry standard, tho. Women writers have been historically shunned in the industry.
What about Walls? Walls has 33 songwriters, 32 if we donât count Louis himself. One was a woman. Thatâs a 3% ratio. So⌠this seems a little bit hypocritical, doesnât it? But I mean, I guess Louis doesnât wear âWOMEN ARE SMARTERâ shirts so itâs okay if heâs sexist!
Also, a little - but very important - detail, Harry writes with friends. Out of the 8 collaborators in Fine Line, 4 were also part of HS1, plus Greg Kurstin and Ilsey and Amy. The eighth one is Sammy Witte who was an engineer in HS1. Tom and Mitch are two of Harryâs best friends. Jeff and Tyler are super close to him as well. This isnât the case with Louis, who hasnât even met some of the writers in Walls. I think we can be a little more lenient if we consider Harry is writing with friends (and he has a way higher ratio of women writing with him), but what excuse could Louis POSSIBLY have for having just one ( 1 ) woman in THIRTY-TWO people. None of whom are friends of him. Some of which heâs never met. Thatâs active discrimination. But he hasnât worn a Women Are Smarter shirt. So itâs okay.
As per the sexist lyrics⌠Harry hasnât written any. The only questionable lyric is the skirt mention in Only Angel. But this is so blown out of proportion by these people that itâs comical at this point. Yeah, he says âcouldnât take you home to mother in a skirt that shortâ but he also says âbut I think thatâs what I like about itââŚ. heâs not judging her clothing. Heâs not slut shaming her. Heâs not asking her to change. He literally says he likes it. I do think this is a lyric that he couldâve done without, but itâs not the sexism these people think it is. I wouldnât take my boyfriend (or girlfriend) home to my parents wearing certain clothes. I would ask them to try and dress for meeting the parents.
I know the other lyrics they question and itâs soâŚÂ âsuch a pretty face on a pretty neckâ because calling women pretty is sexist, I guess? âSheâs a good girl/she feels so goodâ because having sex with women is sexist, I guess? And somehow they also think Woman is sexist because⌠he canât be jealous of an exâŚ??? I guess?? Even though he admits his jealousy is irrational and he calls himself selfish.
Harry writes sexist lyrics? Nope. He has never. Not ONCE. And they have to scrap the bottom of the barrel to find anything to question.
Now, Louis⌠hoooo boy. Midnight Memories in ITS ENTIRETY is sexist as fuck. 90% of the songs Louis wrote for that album are ROTTEN. Itâs rape culture of âyou say no but your eyes say yesâ or âyou say no but itâs a little white lieâ or âsay whatever you want but donât say no.â Itâs gross. Vomit-inducing. And Louis still advocates for those songs. A line of a song is literally âI wanna be with every girl I meetââŚ. childâŚ.
And he didnât stop at Midnight Memories. He left us a sexist bundle of dread in every album after that. Steal My Girl⌠itâs⌠right there in the title. âFind another one cause she belongs to meâ I wanna BARF. What?! And Love You Goodbye? Saying sheâs wearing clothes to provoke him when she breaks up with him and because sheâs wearing those clothes âwonât you give it to me one last timeââŚ. This one isnât as blatantly sexist as the others, but itâs definitely ten times more sexist than anything Harry has ever written.
Then she comes for Harryâs unfortunate wording in the The Guardian interview. Which⌠it just shows you sheâs just ready to pounce and just wants an excuse to say heâs problematic, because you can perfectly understand what he meant if you read it and analyse what he does with his platform. He said heâs looking for what to put all his weight behind. He didnât say he has nothing to say about social causes and that he wontât support anything until he finds the perfect thing (which is how she described it).
Before this interview Harry had advocated for gun control, pronounced himself anti Brexit (and even attended a Labour Congress meeting against Brexit), donated to several refugee organisations, supported BLM, pronounced himself a feminist, and advocated for environmentalism. Did he himself forget what heâs already advocating for? Or is he maybe saying that he hasnât found the ONE CAUSE to make his life cause. Which is⌠noble. The fact that heâs searching for one. Because most people, particularly most celebrities, do not give a fuck and have no intentions of ever putting their whole weight behind anything. If he wants to take his time to research what the best use of THE WHOLE WEIGHT of his platform and name is, then good for him. Good for him for not being a white knight (ahem, Matty Healy). I do wish he had expressed himself better, but that doesnât erase everything heâs done or change reality.
âIf your image is built on being wokeâŚâ she says about Harry. Itâs not. So anything that comes after it is bullshit.
âMaybe start by actually writing with qu*er/poc/women songwriters,â she says. He has⌠he is literally LGBT himself. He has written with people of colour. He has written with women. Heâs only written with eight other people, yet all those groups are represented. The manâs backing band is 70% women (and he had a woman of colour until he had to fire Clare). Literally ALL his opening acts are women, people of colour or LGBT. No white cishet men in sight! There were women in his backing vocals in his album, women playing instruments. I donât know ethnicities because most of them are anonymous but you can literally check the names. She says he âsurrounds himself with white men onlyâ but sheâs either lying or hasnât actually done her research because she is 100% wrong. âDonât surround yourself with the Azoffs and Jenners only,â Jesus Christ theyâre so fucking obsessed with Jeff and Kendall.
Harry befriended Kendall seven years ago. Move on. Heâs not friends with the Kardashians or the other Jenners. Heâs friends with Kendall. One ( 1 ) Jenner. And he sees her twice a year. Jeff is his manager. What the hell is the problem? He has a lot of friends who are LGBT, poc, of all nationalities, all religions. Iâm not gonna name them because that reeks of tokenism and I donât wanna fall into that. Itâs very easy to just fucking GoogleâŚ.
You know who surrounds himself with white men only? LOUIS FUCKING TOMLINSON. His entire backing band is white cishet men. His supporting act is white cishet men. He has NO FEMALE FRIENDS. He has NEVER HAD A FEMALE FRIEND. His friends are 90% white and 100% cishet men. Thereâs one friend who isnât white (and heâs a misogynist and homophobe, Nizam Kabir).
Then she adds a condescending paragraph about BLM with âitâs good that he went to the protest because I remember the disaster with the stickerâ ??? What? What the hell is she talking about? Nobody said anything about the sticker (the BLM one in his guitar, I presume). Not anything negative, at least. Itâs literally her imagination. What did happen was that Harry took his time to properly support BLM because he was scared of being seen as a white saviour/white knight, but thatâs it⌠heâs been openly and loudly supportive of BLM since 2018, which you can absolutely not say about Louis fucking Tomlinson.
In fact, before this brief encounter of a week Louis had with BLM (which has now 100% stopped, while Harry continues to advocate for the cause, put his name out there to support it, educate himself, etc, plus, you know, all the stuff he did before), the one encounter Louis had with race issues was him being fucking racist. Saying the n word, being super mild when his sister said the n word, talking down about âurban musicâ (a million times).
I actually proper hate this entire message which is why Iâm asking you guys to never ask me to reply to one of these again. I can. I can rip her entire nonsense to shreds, as Iâm proving right now (and itâs not because of some quality I possess but because sheâs wrong and ridiculous). But I donât WANT TO. Because I hate the current climate of âmy fave is better than yoursâ or âmy fave is more woke than yoursâ and weaponising social causes that are actually hurting millions of people around the world, which I am part of (sheâs a white European woman - she wouldnât get it).
I love what Harry does because I feel represented in it. I feel like he sees me and supports me. I feel connected in the sense that weâre both learning and doing our best to help. Weâre both hurting by whatâs happening. I feel seen. I feel supported. And Iâm pretty sure thatâs the case for most (if not all?) of his fans. I donât need to qualify and quantify and put a scale of what he did versus what Taylor Swift or Shawn Mendes did because I donât give a fuck. I donât support Harry BECAUSE heâs âa progressive activistâ (and I doubt anyone does). Itâs simply a nice bonus. I love that he makes me feel this way and I donât think Iâd be this dedicated to him if he wasnât this way, but itâs not why I buy his merch, go to his concerts, or stream his music. And to have a competition of whose fave is a better advocate or more âproblematicâ is trivialising the causes.
So there, I replied once, I wonât do it again. And if she wants to continue making this into a stan war, then you know right there who actually cares and who doesnât.
To close this, she ends her post saying that Louis isnât ALLOWED to be outspoken or support causes. Heâs almost thirty and worth 50 million dollars. Heâs under no binding contracts that could dictate what he has to do. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. He CHOOSES not to. And like I said, you donât have to require that from an artist to support them, but to make a conspiracy theory and give this super privileged white, cishet, christian, European, ADULT, millionaire MAN false oppression is simply insulting for all of us who are actually oppressed.
Sterre, youâre clearly trying to morph Louis Tomlinson into Harry Styles and erase who Harry Styles really is⌠Piece of advice, if you want to stan Harry Styles, just stan Harry Styles.
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
