Don’t let tumblr brainwash you
Tumblr can be a wonderful place if you’re interested in arts, music, fandoms, or social justice. But it can also be very toxic sometimes, so please be careful and remember :
- You don’t like something? Blacklist it. Simple as that. Don’t be the kind of people who send anon hate, or that simply keeps complaining. People will have different opinions, and like different things. So just blacklist it. Unfollow people if their blog makes you feel bad.
- Fighting for equality between genders is great. But don’t think that all women are your allies and all men your enemies. Also, if you’re a feminist, you’ve got to call out misogynistic/sexist women (even when they’re POC) on their crap when you can.
- Fighting for equality between races is also a great thing. But don’t fall into the perpetual victimization of POC that tumblr loves. Being a POC does not give you a free pass to be a jerk to white people who didn’t do anything to you personally. Just because a POC say something, doesn’t mean it’s right. <- This does not excuse racist white people though.
- White women don’t own feminism. But Black women don’t either. Actually, no one “invented” feminism. Women (and some men too) of all races, throughout all ages, have been questioning relationships between men and women. White/Asian/South American… women didn’t wait for Black women (or for any other women) to become feminists and to theorize it. <- This does not excuse racist white feminist though.
- Being in a minority does not allow you to be a jerk, be it to other minorities, or to men/white/cis/straight people. No. Not under any circumstances.
- Never feel bad just because you belong to a majority.
- Hating people just because they belong to a majority does make you a bad person. Not only does it help no one, your hatred will only consume yourself. There is a difference between discussing privileges and injustices in your society (which is a good thing) and deciding that men/white/straight/cis people are not sad enough and should feel bad about themselves for this sole reason.
- POC are not perfect angels. Even today, slavery and colonization are still a thing (though unofficial) in several POC countries. Also, reverse racism in America does not exist, but discrimination against white people does in some non-white countries. Sorry to break it to you, but being white doesn’t mean you’ll never face racism. White people are not imperialist by nature, and POC are certainly not generous, open-minded victims by nature. <- This does not excuse racism in white countries.
- You don’t tell people what they should be emotionally invested in or not, and especially not in the name of social justice. People will care about what they want. You can’t ask people to be sad because they don’t struggle as much as you in life.
Let me elaborate a bit on this point.
You don’t tell people how to feel. You can only expect people to be respectful (be it of your grief, of your struggles), because everyone deserve respect and everyone should be respectful. However : you can’t expect people to be sad and emotionally invested in everything. It is wrong, unhealthy, and just plain impossible. I repeat it : it is not possible to care about everything. You will only crumble under the misery of this world. And you can’t ask people to do that.
Would you randomly come up to strangers in the street and tell them : “How dare you be happy ? My brother just died, killed by a car ! How come you’re not crying because of it ? You were sad when your best friend died ! You don’t care about me ! How dare you try to feel good and happy ?” No you wouldn’t. So why is it okay to do this on tumblr ? It isn’t.
You don’t make people feel guilty for not being sad about everything that happen on the planet.
- Also, you don’t make people feel guilty for being more emotionally invested in events that happen close to them/to people like them.
- People are only responsible for what they do personally. You don’t blame a whole country for the way their media treat an event. Because spoiler : they don’t control it. If you feel like an event is not covered enough, fine, talk about it. But if to do so you try to make this country’s people feel guilty/passive-aggressively complain about how over-covered other events are, you’re just a jerk. You’re not helping anyone, and you just want an excuse to spread hate. You don’t make a candle shine brighter by spitting on the others.
- You don’t help minorities by hating a majority. And that is true whether you belong to this minority or not. Seriously, don’t. Not only is it a dick move, you’ll only hurt your own cause.
- Celebrities don’t have to care about social justice if they don’t want to. That doesn’t mean that you should excuse them if they do something really gross, but other than that you can’t expect them to fight for other people/to be educated on social justice. Also, don’t idealize them : you’ll only be disappointed.
- Actually, no one has to care about social justice issues. Everyone should learn to respect other people, in order to not cause more suffering in the world, true. But other than respect, you can’t ask anything from anyone. People should only fight for social justice if they want to. Caring about yourself/people like you first does not make you a bad person. <- This does not mean you can be a sexist/homophobic/racist jerk, though.
- One of the most important thing : don’t rely on tumblr to tell you what to think, what to like, etc. Even the most educated and moderate blogs sometimes make mistakes.
Also, two more things more fandom related :
- There is nothing inherently wrong or transphobic with genderbending/rule 63/whatever you want to call it, as it is something totally different from transexuel/non-binary/genderqueer headcanons, and as one does not prevent the other from existing. Sure, the treatment of genderbent character can be badly done (see for instance the hypersexualization of some bent-to-female characters), but it is not frequent and it doesn’t mean the concept of genderbending itself is wrong.
- You don’t tell people what they can ship or not. You find a ship really gross ? Blacklist it/politely ask people to tag it if they don’t. But people can ship whatever they want, and if you think you’re some godly instance that can decide what ship are problematic or not, you are mistaken. There is nothing wrong with any ship (as long as they are aware that the ship is unhealthy, if this is the case). People know the difference between reality and fiction. I’ll repeat it : as long as you don’t shove it in other people’s face and you’re aware of the (potentially unhealthy) dynamics of a ship, there is nothing wrong with any ship. It’s fiction, people. If you can’t understand this, you are the one who don’t separate fiction and reality correctly.
tl;dr : Fighting for a better world is a good thing. But if you only fight through hate, you don’t actually care about making a better world, you just want to spread hate. No one should feel bad about themselves for things they can’t control.
You don’t show solidarity towards people who struggle by hating people who don’t.
^THIS people. THIS.
This should be the official guide for tumblr
