When people are like “omg you LIKE (insert media)??? So you’re just OKAY with the undertones of misogyny/homophobia/racism/ableism/transphobia/classism/etc present in it?” It’s just like… No, I’m not? Because I’m fully critical of all the media I engage with, including media I like or even love? I don’t watch the shows I like with my brain turned off, and I can like aspects of a piece of media and still be willing to say “they were completely in the wrong for how they handled (X issue)”.
If you come at me with this attitude, though, I’m gonna have to assume you’re just projecting onto me because if YOU like a piece of media YOU ignore or deny or excuse everything genuinely bigoted or otherwise harmful about it. Just because you think like this doesn’t mean everyone else does, btw.
Some of y’all really need to realize that ALL media is “problematic” to a degree because no media is made in a vacuum and all media that exists is made under a society in which patriarchy, racism, ableism, etc are still deeply engrained. You should be critical of ALL the media you consume, instead of trying to separate all existing media into a deeply unhelpful binary of “problematic” or “unproblematic”.
Queen Coke Francis talks about the history of the Hays Code and the wave of puritannical thinking towards media seen among young people these days, sometimes under the guise of social progressivism.
Yes, u heard me right. Even though my post probably won't be noticed, I'll still try my luck! Send me ur oc or character from any fandom, or anything else! But there are a few rules:
Yes! Sona, oc x canon, yumeship, selfship, canon x canon, crackship, furry, antro, any ocs, YouTubers, Vtubers, artist, anime, actors (voice or cinema), gore, angst, characters from Analog Horror, Edgy Lost Media (aka "Problematic Media"), plus-size ocs/characters, any race ocs/characters, etc.
No! NSFW, pedo, politics, hateful art, shota/loli, fetishism, any LGBT+phobic, any sexualization of children, incest
You know, it really pisses me off when people tell me that I can't like a song/game/story anymore because the artist/dev/author is problematic.
Yes, I understand the issue and it's severely impacted my relationship with the media, but at the end of the day, I still feel connected to it, be it through nostalgia or something else. I can't sever those ties, they're just with me forever.
"Just a find a better artist/game/story"
I DID! GUESS WHAT? THOSE TIES ARE STILL THERE! THEY'RE NOT GOING AWAY!
"But the song/game/story is still problematic"
And what if I relate to that? What if I relate to those problematic themes? What if I use those problematic themes to cope with issues I experience in the real world?
NOTICE: This is not me baselessly shooing away kids from mature fandoms. number one, obviously i have zero authority over what other people do online, and two? i've been that kid. DDLC loving middle schooler to psychological horror loving adult pipeline lol.
Alright now with the notice out of the way, i gotta tell ya that this topic has been flying around in my head for a few days now and i feel like people might just benefit from this ramble.
TRIGGER WARNING: Opinion (nerd emoji)!!!
Minors, especially when not mature enough, (and by that i mean not old enough rather than "responsible" or "not childish") should kindly stay away from mature media's fandoms. IN MY OPINION.
And my current best example is NSO! (Needy Streamer Overload)
-> more yapping under the cut! <-
If you're unfamiliar, NSO is an anime-style interactive visual novel-type game with psychological horror, sexual content, and otherwise mature content, like how mental health is portrayed and how drugs and generally addictions are handled, etc. The main character's a cute anime girl, so... yeah.
This is the main character kangel - hopefully you're getting the idea!
There are the kids who like her purely because she's cute. They (might) argue that it sucks that she's from this game because this game, nso, is "problematic". which... is an immature and arguably ableist view. (media portraying mental health issues DO NOT MEAN problematic media!) Or they might argue that it sucks because SHE'S problematic. They miss that THIS is the entire point of the game. "larping as an nso fan", if you will. And I HATE the way they use live action roleplay as "poser".
Needy Streamer Overload has CLEAR WARNINGS for its contents, FYI.
Another example I can give you is Killing Stalking, the manhwa.
Specifically, the fandom back in 2020-2021.
One side said, "It's a cute uwu yaoi!"
The other side said, "It's problematic, and you're a creep for reading it!"
Flash news: both sides were wrong.
If you eat the dove, YOU EAT IT WILLINGLY. Consuming media with problematic/illegal themes won't make you problematic or make you do illegal things. Fiction affects reality, TRUE, but it also depends on how you, as a consumer, take it.
Clearly, that sort of thought process and claims tell me that whoever says it lacks the maturity and media literacy to handle mature media. And when they lack this maturity and media literacy, they should not attempt to talk over fans who DO have that maturity and media literacy.
It's, of course, not gonna happen, but I do hope some individuals realize that some pieces of media are just simply better consumed when you're old enough to properly digest and understand them, including having the media literacy to do so, and not simply throwing words like "problematic" around.
Well, that's all from me. lmk what u think and feel free to start a RESPECTFUL conversation down in this post's comments.
