Just something that’s been on my mind. Tumblr has this specific way of handling communities. These are just the ones that come by on my dash, I’m sure there are plenty more examples.
First they start out nice, tolerant, willing to listen and learn.
But they quickly become too nice and tolerant. Rather than simply accepting group X, they begin to overglorify them. They make them into something more special than people outside of group X, and coupled with their compulsive need to belong and feel special, desire to be a part of it too.
In comes the appropriation. If they can’t be a part of it, they’ll make themselves a part of it, one way or another. And is someone in group X not acting the way their fantasy version of them acts? Call them out on it!
They become so fanatical that they begin to talk over, or drive out the original people of group X.
And then finally they manage to become so hateful, their initial tolerance has turned into cold, terrifying intolerance. Calling gay/trans men privileged over white straight cis women, telling transsexual people to die, purposefully triggering people they dislike into panic attacks, defending Muslims to the point of calling the attack on Charlie Hebdo justified. And sending death threats to anyone who dares to disagree.
Being excluded from a group or community because you don’t belong there is not oppression.
It simply means that group does not describe or fit you as an individual.
If you can’t accept that, you have far deeper issues than your imagined ‘oppression’.
Inb4 tons of hate messages and death threats.
I think there needs to be one about disability and mental illness. Diagnosis privilege is a thing? Accusations of gatekeeping? Non-disabled people policing disabled people about “ableist” language often whilst calling them retards on anon?
Ha! This is actually a really neat little diagram of how Tumblr as a whole “thinks”.
The SJW side of Tumblr in a few images.
The only part not explained is the "We are advocates for human rights. What? Them? No, they aren’t human"
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO TUMBLR.
THIS IS HOW IT ALL WENT WRONG.
I am so sure I am going to have people unfollow me for this, but this dangerously worrying tendency is something that has really been scaring me for a while now, so I really need to support this post.
Of course, all generalization is imperfect, so there are certainly many cases where this model doesn’t apply, but from what I have seen in the past 20 months? A large part of tumblr is on this exact slippery slope and it’s toxic, frightening and destructive for all intelligent discourse on this website.
You know when some Gamergate douchebag calls someone else a “SJW” out of spite?
This is why they think that’s an insult.
I haven’t actively used tumblr in over a year and I’m only reblogging this now because it is the exact reason why I left and will remain hesitant to fully return.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
