#wintersmitth

[eleonorpiteira]

Hello! Did i buy this book i know nothing about when i saw your art on the cover? Well, no, i put it on wishlist and a friend got it for me.

Here, a translation of A Fate Inked jn Blood in Ukrainian!

And yes, i knew it's your art even before i checked

Yesssss love to see it! Thank you so much for sharing!! ❤❤

[salsedine]

I love!!! The new icon so much!!

Yess I love it too! 🥹💙 It's a detail from this beautiful beautiful illustration by @greypetrel

A very generous gift!

[cardassiangoodreads]

That "cinema is bad BC bourgeois" was so funny. Haven't seen in a while e person who so willingly misinterpreted given information for own agenda.

Okay, okay, let's back up a bit because there's a legitimate argument that that person is appropriating to be an insufferable tool:

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer created the idea of the "culture industry" to point out how a lot of popular culture is mass-produced in such a way to induce people into passivity. That sounds like a conspiracy, but like a lot of theory, they mean it in a more general, cultural-forces kind of way, and in a sense it's kind of a modern, capitalist update of the concept of "bread and circuses."

You can read Wikipedia's summary of it here. Adorno and Horkheimer's conception of it has a lot of problems, especially in how it essentially became an excuse for snobbery about how the era's version of "high art" was more elevated than "popular art." Adorno was particularly interested in music and saw jazz as emblematic of the "culture industry" whereas classical music (and particularly modernist music) was elevated above that. The irony was that Western classical music had proved a really effective instrument of propaganda by the Nazis and other fascists (albeit modernist music was less so, and the Nazis banned it, but plenty of those composers still aligned with fascism). Meanwhile, the Nazis hated jazz for being music they associated with black people and Jews. A lot of what caused Adorno to dismiss jazz as overly simplistic and therefore, more apt to get people to take leave of their senses, was really just him applying a very Western-classical framework about what is "great" and "complex" in music to a style that developed around completely different music theory. (For a deeper explanation of that, see this extremely well-researched video about music theory and racism/imperialism.)

But I think that you can disagree with Adorno-Horkheimer's examples and agree with the broader principle that the forces of industry that are aligned with power aren't particularly interested in actually critiquing power. And so art that is made by industry is always going to be at least somewhat limited in how far it goes, and far more interested in entertaining you, which might mean it ends up as a distraction from what is going on in the world. I find it most valuable in pointing out why a lot of arguments about the "progressiveness" of something like the MCU are pointless, because even in their attempts at that, there is always a firm line they hit because they are a mass corporation that has connections to the US military and so they're never going to show certain aspects of American society in an overly negative light. I find it useful not so much for condemning all "popular art" (which is a much more problematic and looser line now than it was in Adorno and Horkheimer's time, and rightfully so) but specific kinds that are heavily corporatized, but also for keeping in mind that art in general always has an ideology to it, being "apolitical" is itself a political statement, and to be critical of the media you consume no matter where it originates. And not to act like just consuming media that has XYZ representation or other token gestures is itself the same as political activism, which is something a lot of the fandom Internet could use. Adorno would certainly have Words for people convincing themselves that arguing about shipping and headcanons is "activism."

So in that sense, there is a connection to the idea that a lot of dumb discourse defending adults who exclusively consume children's or other unchallenging media, that valorizes exclusively reading coffeeshop AUs as "self-care," is itself doing the work of the worst of capitalism. It's people letting mass produced products lull them into inaction and then treating that inaction as a "radical act." I think you can draw a line from the root of the argument being made here, to like, the cross-Internet rage from comic book movie fans when Martin Scorsese pointed out why he doesn't see them as "cinema." There was something deeply depressing about how people had let mass-production basically dictate their fantasies to them.

But:

a) the people who do this still have the free choice not to do it, as plenty of us regularly choose not to do this, or at least to not ONLY consume that kind of stuff

b) in fact, it's key to understanding what he's saying to acknowledge that you have that agency. The culture industry wants you to believe you don't. The article that I linked about not blaming all of your personal problems on "capitalism" makes it clear that a lot of the things that are framed as political, "radical" action online are really about giving yourself excuses for doing nothing.

c) Obviously just the fact that I'm comparing this to the Roman-era "bread and circuses" (panem et circenses) makes it clear that this is not something unique to or originally created by capitalism, though capitalism obviously does it particularly well and is perhaps a lot more intentional about it.

d) Adorno himself was a huge fan of what he considered "good" art who definitely was not condemning all art appreciation

e) I also just think it's deeply important when discussing any sort of communist theory to keep in mind that the vast majority of Tumblr users, in the way that this theory uses the term, would qualify as part of the bourgeoisie. A lot of people wrongly think bourgeoisie means like CEOs but it actually refers to the middle class. We'd at least be petit-bourgeoisie. And so I think that's important for framing arguments about what the bourgeoisie is "doing" to you. People who are writing multi-paragraph discourse posts justifying their obsession with Bluey as a childless adult are not capitalism's primary victims, and certainly were not in the way these theorists of yesteryear were thinking about them. And that's all the more reason why I'm not a fan of letting these people dismiss every problem in their relatively-privileged lives as "augh, capitalism!"

I think that theorists like Adorno and Horkheimer would find it an example of just how particularly insidious and successful the culture industry would be that people are now framing inaction, a specific refusal to improve their lives or stand up against the oppressive forces within them, as actually being radical anti-capitalist behavior! Believing you can't do anything but sit down and either suffer or numb the pain with nonsense is what the oppressors want from you (which is why a lot of dystopian fiction from Brave New World to The Hunger Games depicts mind-numbing entertainment distractions as their own opiate of the masses). Owning your agency is key to your eventual liberation. You are not just another cog in the machine. You deserve more out of life than the alienation that comes from a life of nothing but meaningless work+meaningless distractions from it, and you can work to claim that for yourself if you want it. And the kind of mentality that is going to help you do that is one that is going to require a life of the mind, and a curiosity about both understanding the levers of power and the lives of those worse off than you, that will not be sated by corporate products for young children.

[perenial]

I've been long enough on Tumblr to see Neil go from "they are just friends Im not going to change anything from what Terry and I wrote as an act of respect to my dead friend" to "they are canonically gay, Terry said so, I saw it in a dream"

neil opening his inbox every day since 1990:

[baggnshield]

Love your header gif so so much ❤️

thank you! it was so fun to make, and i love that any future shows can be tacked on because it's actually a very small gif size rn!

[hurrempilled]

There will come a poet whose weapon is His word

He will slay you with His tongue, oh-lei, oh-lai, oh, Lord

Oh-lei, oh-lai, oh-lei, oh, Lord, he will slay you with His tongue, oh-lei, oh-lai, oh, Lord

I've seen this one so many times in reposted Tiktoks. I'm a big fan of the whimsy of it all.

[noirandchocolate]

Incredible take that Discworld is copaganda. Like. Sure. If we had anywhere on Earth a police system that wasn't geared to hurt humans we could talk about copaganda. As such we can just enjoy Sam's adventures at becoming a better human and actually doing what's best for the city.

Yeah it was...absolutely weird and made me wonder if the person who sent me that actually did read any of the books or if they just saw that they are about a fantasy police force and thought 'book about cops? but acab! so book is evil.' When...if you HAVE read the books you know that the main character agrees that acab including himself and tries his damndest to STOP ac from being b (also including himself). In real, meaningful and lasting ways, if he can manage it. Sometimes he messes that up and sometimes he does things he shouldn't! But these are definitely not books lionizing police as arbiters of justice who are better than everyone else and should be trusted irl, etc. If anything, they’re ‘propaganda’ about all the ways cops can suck and how they should try harder not to!

[hussyknee]

Did they.... Really say.... Machine guns.... Protect minorities.... What--

They really said "RIP to y'all but my Good Guy With A Gun is different".