Donât let tumblr brainwash you
Tumblr can be a wonderful place if youâre interested in arts, music, fandoms, or social justice. But it can also be very toxic sometimes, so please be careful and remember :
- You donât like something? Blacklist it. Simple as that. Donât 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 donât think that all women are your allies and all men your enemies. Also, if youâre a feminist, youâve got to call out misogynistic/sexist women (even when theyâre POC) on their crap when you can.
- Fighting for equality between races is also a great thing. But donât 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 didnât do anything to you personally. Just because a POC say something, doesnât mean itâs right. <- This does not excuse racist white people though.
- White women donât own feminism. But Black women donât either. Actually, no one âinventedâ 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 didnât 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 doesnât mean youâll 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 donât 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 canât ask people to be sad because they donât struggle as much as you in life.
Let me elaborate a bit on this point.
You donât 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 canât 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 canât ask people to do that.
Would you randomly come up to strangers in the street and tell them : âHow dare you be happy ? My brother just died, killed by a car ! How come youâre not crying because of it ? You were sad when your best friend died ! You donât care about me ! How dare you try to feel good and happy ?â No you wouldnât. So why is it okay to do this on tumblr ? It isnât.
You donât make people feel guilty for not being sad about everything that happen on the planet.
- Also, you donât 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 donât blame a whole country for the way their media treat an event. Because spoiler : they donât 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 countryâs people feel guilty/passive-aggressively complain about how over-covered other events are, youâre just a jerk. Youâre not helping anyone, and you just want an excuse to spread hate. You donât make a candle shine brighter by spitting on the others.
- You donât help minorities by hating a majority. And that is true whether you belong to this minority or not. Seriously, donât. Not only is it a dick move, youâll only hurt your own cause.
- Celebrities donât have to care about social justice if they donât want to. That doesnât mean that you should excuse them if they do something really gross, but other than that you canât expect them to fight for other people/to be educated on social justice. Also, donât idealize them : youâll 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 canât ask anything from anyone. Â 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 : donât 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 doesnât mean the concept of genderbending itself is wrong.
- You donât tell people what they can ship or not. You find a ship really gross ? Blacklist it/politely ask people to tag it if they donât. But people can ship whatever they want, and if you think youâre 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. Iâll repeat it : as long as you donât shove it in other peopleâs face and youâre aware of the (potentially unhealthy) dynamics of a ship, there is nothing wrong with any ship. Itâs fiction, people. If you canât understand this, you are the one who donât separate fiction and reality correctly.
tl;dr : Fighting for a better world is a good thing. But if you only fight through hate, you donât actually care about making a better world, you just want to spread hate. No one should feel bad about themselves for things they canât control.
You donât show solidarity towards people who struggle by hating people who donât.
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
titsay
romaincrisis
2087
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