#also the show is anti-capitalist

[sleepynegress]

Guess Who Already Got a Season 3 Filmed?

UPLOAD is back. I am down for the strike, but selfishly happy this show got another season filmed. It'll drop in October. That second season was mid so I'm hoping they recapture the magic they had in season 1.

So, I said some ish in the tags, but I'm gonna make my case for why #ThisIsARec (at least season one is) here, since I never see or hear much talk about it! The show centers on a young woman named Nora (played by Prince protegee and Cameroonian actress and musician Andy Allo) who is in a capitalist future dystopia working as a low-paid customer service agent for a digital "after-life" conglomerate. So, it is one of the only shows lead by a black woman (mixed race). One of her clients is a newly dead digital "upload" of a man who may have been murdered for his freeware version of a digital afterlife (played the non-problematic member of the Amell family, Robbie). The show is a sitcom, without multi-cams or laugh tracks, created by the people who brought us Parks and Rec. It dropped in the mid-2010's but is weirdly prophetic with all the near-future markers, from masks to casual treatment of insane classicism and an inflation economy, far-beyond living wages...

There are even hints at the solar-punk solution that was well covered in Pop Culture Detective's recent video about it, centered on the Disney bomb (another one that they didn't promote but should have, Strange World another rec, btw). It's dark comedy, but somehow comforting to watch too? IDK how they did it. The leads have good chemistry ( a scene where she touches his arm has more heat than full-blown sex scenes in other media) and she actually has black family and a black BFF(!), which is like a 'there can be only one' Highlander rarity in media...They never let WOC/black women socialize in these things! Mind you, I did think her friend, Aleesha, played by Zainab Johnson leaned a little bit too much on the sassy trope, but after rewatching, I like that she round-the-way, but *still* the smartest in the room. It's just QT and charming and a lovely uplifting watch, with an underpinning of that dark laughter of recognition of how well it skewers capitalism.

And the lead couple is *chinhands* shippable. It's a very quick binge with 9 half-hour eps and one slightly longer pilot ep. You know I am super-picky with my recs. I can distinguish from my terrible but beloved media which you won't see me tag with #thisisarec.

So, even tho that second season is a rushed, mid, disappointment... #ThisIsARec

UPLOAD is on AmazonPrime

#I make zero dollars writing this stuff so...I think I'm good #also the show is anti-capitalist #and it's my brand! #dark comedy speculative sci-fi that has already proven prophetic! #upload #this is a rec #definitely something to catch up on while the strikes are on #that first season is gold #again if you wanna watch without supporting bezos google soap 2 day

[gemsofthegalaxy]

Rambly ewan-greg post incoming

I have always conceptualized Ewan as someone who hates the idea of handouts despite living off his brother's fortune, despite my personal headcanon is that he paid for Greg's university/college as that's just "setting him up for success".

Just like he would get him a lawyer.... one who was biased and not working for Greg's interests but his own.

If he really wanted to keep Greg "safe" from Logan's poison, he could have, like, given him any of the $250mil he has for him on the contingency he quit, honestly at any point. The moment he got hired, even. Enough to get him by until he got another job. Still financially/emotionally manipulative, but, telling him he has to wait until he's DEAD before he will support Greg- when Greg was basically homeless and stealing food from work and rationing plastic bags (and Marianne was aware enough to tell Ewan to make sure he was Eating at Thanksgiving if I recall correctly, so he knew, too)

And as someone who believes in basic income it's like... I don't think it would have even been a problem for Greg to not work for a while, and sitting on his ass smoking weed is less detrimental to society than being instrumental in electing a fascist. Does Greg "deserve" money for no reason? Eh. I mean on my own personal politics, I actually think so, because again I believe we ALL deserve enough money to live comfortably without selling labour and that most humans will want to work anyway. Ewan does not offer or entertain this either way.

Ewan talked about Logan stoking darkness in men's (Greg's) hearts... sir, you were right there and every bit of help you offered was extremely conditional and completely half-hearted as well.

#succession #succession spoilers #ewan roy #greg hirsch #ewan is listed as an anti-capitalist on the wiki page but eeeeehhhh #obviously if he does this the show doesnt work ! we need greg around #but like #just saying #if he wants Greg to choose to be good also its like. i feel that. but Orpheus hes hungry..

[ozlices]

ty for the people following me bc of the watcher posts. this is a watcher hater club now u can all vibe here knowing we are mentally standing outside that pretentious hollywood hq building w pitchforks and torches

#mine #watcher #i literally dont think ill ever be over this and i truly do not ever want to be #bc i dont care what absolute pr BULLSHIT they pull but they do not deserve to get away with this. #they rly dont. #and tbh since i havent spoken abt it yet imo shane is the most egregious one for being involved. #how fucking DARE you build your career off being an anti-capitalist ally & spouting 'steal from the rich' #just to pull THIS SHIT as successful as you are. #you fakeass wannabe punk bitch FUCK you shane madej. #you're right. some insufferable people did also meet you. and you're WORSE than any of them for doing this #hosting a show called puppet history just to shit all over internet history & success. #FUCK YOUUUU FUUUCCKKK YOOOOUUU #TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO!!!!!!!

[cburambles]

Obsessed with the way the staff of the school let the students abuse, sabotage each other, tolerating discrimination without batting an eye.

The ruthless nature of the school is a good representation the socio-political climate of the story but also a good way to encourage those kids to engage in cutthroat manoeuvers, exploiting loopholes, scheming & deshamunisation to get what they want.

Those kids are basically groomed in becoming awful & abusive heads & high-ranked employees of corporations & pawns for their parents.

The fact the rule can be changed at the whim of Miorine's father when she finds a way to fight against his wishes or that the teachers & examiners never fully explain the rules to some students like Suletta didn't know she needed a crew to pass her exam DURING said exam or that she could retry it if she failed if it wasn't for Miorine informing her. Oof.

The concept of the duels are only for show, "to prove" to the world everyone has an equal standing here added to the chivalric image but in the end, it's all about who get to win, not matter the cost.

And of course, the most privilieged comes on top while others like Suletta despite having Aerial & Miorine as an ally or Chuchu with her House & the support of her community struggle & get stepped on. Their presence bother other students as the power & influence they have means to disturb the current status quo. Suletta's manage to influence Miorine & Guel, two people with influence in the school who will have preominents political roles in the future.

No wonder Chuchu has so much anger in her, as she represents the hopes for Earthians to be recognized on the same equal levels as spacians as well as their frustrations. For her, it's about fighting back but this place was also created by the same oppressive system. How do you win like that without sacrificing your principles? The only thing she can do is lashes out.

No wonder Suletta has a breakdown during her exam. She had an idealized vision of what her school life would be & wanted to found her own school on Mercury & she end up in this messy, awful place instead.

It makes you wonder what goes thru the mind of her mother, knowing your daughter has those dreams & carry the hopes of many mercurians as she likely knew how toxic & dangerous this environnement is. Does she wants vengeance or justice & disturb the status quo to establish a better system by using her daughter that way? It's likely that there will be a breakdown in their relationship hence Suletta learn about her true intentions for her.

I wouldn't be surprised if shit truely hit the fan because all this disregard for the abuse & the tension/competition between the students will lead to a student of an important family getting killed, which could have grave consequences moving forward.

#gundam the witch from mercury #gundam suisei no majo #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #that school need to get obliterated to space dust #Chuatury Panlunch #unless you are already on top you can't win in that environnement #you can either accept it & go full ruthless mode or dismantling it or destroy it #guel jeturk #witch from mercury is what if gundam was utena but also was squid games or any anti-capitalists media #cb's rambling #worried about chuchu too bcos she's basically the rep of trying to live in strive in that system while being discriminated in the hopes to #own the individuals perpetuating it & w/ the way she lashes out violently #but the rules are basically rigged against her potential success #so i wonder what's gonna be the breaking point for her & its consequences #also the way the only named adults are the corpo heads in this show #while it seems the staff or there's no preominent teachers #there's no one here to protect the kids beside the power their family names & corporation they bring with them

[james-stark-the-writer]

sometimes the way you people talk about Riverdale really makes me feel like you guys are anti-art lmao

#the day society thought there was 'bad art' and that inherently meant it had no value and was better off not existing was the day we lost. #'oh we're so glad it's over' you don't even watch the show. #'how did they ruin such a good show?' i don't believe you have actually seen S01 bc it was actually garbage. easily the worst season. #like S01 legitimately is some of the most boring TV. #and if you like it that's fine but to say it was a good show in S01 is so wjfsjfnsbdhd #raise your standards please #anyway uh some of you just are assholes and very much anti-art with the way you talk about some stuff #art is like meant to communicate something and express a feeling and evoke an emotion. my god. #the way some of you conceptualize it as just mindless entertainment is so embarrassing and sad. #like truly i mean i'm sad for you. you're missing out on so many unparalleled art experiences if all you're looking for is 'good art' #won't get into it under here but that FriendlySpaceNinja Riverdale video is so dogshit specifically BECAUSE it embodies this exact idea #'good writing always wins' you don't get art. you flat out don't. #to conceptualize art as only being 'good' (having value) if it has 'good writing' is such a stupid and capitalist way of thinking about art #anyway that societal critique would eat away at my tag limit so i won't get into it. #james talks #riverdale #not exclusive to Riverdale by the way. also very much applies to something like twilight. #like we've already done such a cultural reevaluation of twilight but i still see so many takes on it that are like 'this shouldn't exist' #and it's very inherently anti-art. also fundamentally the idea of 'good art' is just such dogshit but like go watch the CJ the X video— #on subjectivity in art for a much more comprehensive take on that. they break it down a lot better than i can in tags. #disliking something and understanding it isn't for you isn't the same thing as saying it shouldn't exist btw. #'twilight was not my taste' and 'twilight ruined vampires' or 'twilight is toxic and should've never been written' aren't the same. #like disliking something as an artistic piece bc it doesn't do anything for you is fine! good even. that's like the whole point of art! #but the whole 'burn it down' and 'this is ruining culture and TV' takes are so insufferable and anti-art lol

[guideaus]

i swear, i never wanna hear anything abt ai again. it just goes back and forth between reactionary takes from both sides

#personal #ai girl w no hand looking sad at colored pencils vs ppl being like 'well this person with no limbs made masterpieces so can you!!' #saying all art is WORK. claiming it has soul or heart. trying to use effort as a quantifiable thing. supporting copyright laws #other shit i cant remember rn. can we focus on the being anti capitalist part of it? paying people?? #idk im sick of following artists for them to mindlessly repeat shit from bad ppl that dont care just bc they said an anti-ai thing #i understand if ur a popular artist and weirdos online would rather die than respect u. i get complaining when someone's #saved all examples of art to train a machine off of. i guess #i get theres also a difference between the artist making fanart they never show anyone and someone selling their art for income #but i feel so many of the complaints against ai dip into bad territory. esp bringing up copyright w/o understanding

[rotzaprachim]

minx is interesting. It’s interesting and it’s interested in things in a way that I find a lot of current media about feminism not to be. There’s an active interest into poking into some of the uncomfortable areas without simple conclusions when it comes to how feminism should relate to sex and the market/capitalism.

also really appreciate the unapologetic 70’s ness and the use of 70’s events, catchwords, buzz etc in a way that doesn’t always feel tee hee

#Like idk if it always comes to the Conclusions but is really interesting to see a show which is ABOUT feminism and what it actually is #With imperfect people #What does it /mean/ to make something feminist and what does it mean when that thing has to be sold #There’s a couple moments so far that are like well this would blow someone’s mind off #It’s interesting to chew on relative to Daisy jones lol #I’m not going to say it’s anti capitalist but it’s also not that type of subliminal capitalist fantasy show #That just ignores the demands of capitalism to write off a world for the people who’ve already won #Very much almost in Convo with something like the bold type or classic sex and the city for that #Like the whole second episode thing with the ads #the ads unapologetically sucking and being soooo sexist #And upper class country club goer white feminist Joyce /also/ being extremely confined mentally to sexist advertising #Like I hate the edible panties. U know what’s great? Shampoo and makeup #And Doug mentioning that if they /don’t/ advertise the cost of the magazine will go above most people’s ability to pay for it #Like. It’s a show Thinking about a lot of this #I think Joyce is so interesting because she’s both so much more radical and so much more flawed than a lot of the /girlboss/ characters out #There. She’s the rare example of an upper class white feminist that I think the narrative is aware of the class part at least #And she’s flawed and kind of mean and totally out of it #And also like. 5000% more radical than a lot of the the equivalents #Like she isn’t trying to publish Feel Empowered with Sexy Lipstick articles #She’s trying to publish articles about birth control marital rape and abortion access #And her issues often come from where the radicality of her vision is being compromised by praxis #Like that’s so interesting

[undeadvinyls]

NO GUYS spider punk would HATE tswift cavetown mother mother etc. stop putting that shit on character playlists for him

#saying this a a punkass myself #he'd listen to dead kennedys bad brains the clash x ray spex and other things also would have a walkman with pirated songs #either way its a red flag for me when green day is like. the heaviest thing on these playlists #(im a huge green day fan but i prefer their 90s stuff more) #GOD these ppl would shit in their pants out of fear if they looked up lyrics of dead kennedys #like. KILL THE POOR. SOUP IS GOOD FOOD. POLICE TRUCK. CALIFORNIA UBER ALLES. and these r their most popular ones #also istg if i see ppl missing the meaning of these songs ill go MAD #esp the first 2. when they r ANTI CAPITALIST and show the horrors of our society #jesus this turned into a rant abt DK lmfao #glitz speaks

[itspileofgoodthings]

there is a point at which using your persona to make money simply invalidates any sincerity you try to put into it.

#you can’t be selling your charm and be like ‘the charm IS still real’ #it’s fake at that point #this is about elyse myers #and when I say ‘can’t’ I mean can’t do it and have any integrity anymore #you CAN do it and succeed. lots of people do. #would she be charming if she wasn’t using her powers for evil? maybe. who’s to say #but she IS #and not even exciting evil. just the most sickeningly self-serving bullshit you’ve ever seen #that she insists on packaging as authenticity #anyone ANYONE with that kind of endorsement from brandings is. at root. a business person #and the more real person they try to package themselves as normal and authentic the more cynical it is #anyway …… I. ……. hate elyse so much #She can meet me in the back parking lot #she is the anti-taylor swift #she has NOTHING to offer the world but people are obsessed with her #she gets every pass in the book #while taylor showed up with her genius and her gifts and her real overflowing talent #and ALSO decided to be a straightforward capitalist about selling things because it is also part of her job #and the people want to consign her to one of the circles of hell for that #they don’t even see that elyse is doing that #actually will for real not be taking comments at this time

[skylordhorus]

maaaaan i love getting on tumblr and seeing the most depressing nihilist takes

#*deep space noises* #saying art has no power.... #like. does capitalism benefit from anti capitalist art? yes #is it fucked up that consuming well funded anti capitalist media puts money back into the system? yes #but that doesnt make the endeavour worthless?? #art may not be as powerful of a political tool but that doesnt mean it lacks it completely #art can give people a voice. represent. inspire. conserve. give strength #diverse casting in a kids show may not set off governmental change #but it will make a kid feel seen and appreciated. and that can change a lot for an individual #and if its a lot of individuals then. well. #art is like..... threads in activism. not the tapestry itself #ALSO like. propaganda?? #maybe im just being defensive and misunderstanding but it made me so sad #capitalism and other systems it upholds and vice versa fucking SUCKs. it SUCKS SHIT #but how do u live going 'well everything benefits those in some way so whats the point' #how do u engage with anything? how do u hope???

[waterberry-strawmelon]

A yes, the revolutionary leader of an anti-oppression resistance movement will start turning on other resistance groups too because he’s *gasp* an extremist!! Your politics are bullshit, Young Justice cartoon.

#I’m just waiting for them to say that all extremists are the same; the classic ‘Youre just as bad as your oppressors!!’ pile of dogshit #This is in reference to ep 18 #The first one in raquel’s arc #Like. Ma’alefa’ak isn’t even in character!! From what we’ve seen earlier in s4 he genuinely is interested in ending #the systemic oppression of white martians. and I frankly disagree that it makes sense for him to actually have just been interested in #nothing more than granting himself domineering leadership #which is what this alliance with darkseid seems to suggest? That all he cares about is personal power? #I really don’t think he would turn in other resistance group members #but even if I’m wrong and it IS somehow in character #Then that character is just absolutely disgusting from a meta standpoint #All writing is produced within a larger context. #The larger context here is real life ‘extremist’ left wing political movements; specifically anti-racist (and to an extent anti-capitalist) #ones. and for a bunch of white middle class writers to be writing this shit? makes me sick to my stomach #it’s the MCU problem of making your hero protagonist (yknow. the one who’s usually the one you’re meant to root for and usually supposed to #be some marker of morality in the show so u know when the antagonists are right vs wrong—it all depends on when they agree or disagree with #the protags.) ‘agree with your fight but not your methods’ and inexplicably make these extremist activists/leaders do morally reprehensible #bullshit alongside the good stuff #so you can be like ‘oh yeah this person was totally right about the racism but like. they also bombed a hospital full of dying children so #I cant support them 😔🥰’ #cuz believe it or not that shit seeps into real life!!! This literally results in a hesitancy to trust real life antiracist movements #and things like that #UGHHHHHH anyway I’m tired #YJ #young justice #young justice cartoon #yj cartoon #Yj s4 #yj season 4 #mine #just some thoughts

[edgybutnotveryedgy]

You know, i actually do think it would be fun to work on a show with a toyline and stuff. Like i don't see why you can't have an interesting story while still being an over glorified commercial. Like by all means i would want to work on more mature shows with deeper more complex stories as well, but i also don't see why one of the toy selling shows can't have good stories too.

If anything, I'd say that pushing the narrative that those shows are nothing but cheap capitalist garbage is for one invalidating to the artists who both design the toys and characters, as well as i feel like it keeps up the idea that media for children isn't worth investing much time and effort. Idk why not have fun making goofy shows with dolls and action figures that kids can watch with said dolls and action figures. There's just something so fun about the idea of kids being able to watch a show and then make up their own stories for the show with their toys.

I know that i did that when i was a kid, with shows like kids next door, avatar: the last air bender, teen titans, phineas and ferb, adventure time, etc. I didn't even have toys for those shows, but i know if i did, i would have had the best time playing out scenarios i came up with for those shows (there was a lot). Tbh if i ever have kids, i especially love the idea of being able to make a show and ask them what they think should happen and having fun with that.

Like idk. There's something that is so kid friendly about having shows like this. Unfortunately we live in a world where it's not always about the kids though, but about the money, and as a result i do feel like that can taint how said shows are produced. In general i think we need more Lauren Faust's and Man of Action's making childrens media and less money grubbing scumbags

#rambles #idk im very pro imagination ok? #sometimes toys are a great outlet for imagination #if we're gonna be pro let teenagers write out their own self insert fantasies which i fully support and endorse #then lets let kids have their cheap toys to play out their own fantasies for the shows they like #just let kids of all ages express themselves #i guess im writinthis out more for myself though #ive generally had not the best outlook on shows made to sell toys #i remember hating ben 10 because of all its comnercialism #and for what? #literally why was i so anti capitalist as a child #its seriously funny #i also despised patriotism for reasons beyond my comprehension #my parents litterally never said anything that would make me hate capitalism or america #i was just born pro socialist i guess 😂 #ok but the america thing is seriously so funny #what was my beef #maybe in my past life i was a soldier who fought against america #or maybe i was living somewhere in a communist country #and then god thought it would be funny to put me in the antithesis of everything i believed and fought for #i dont even believe in reincarnation lol

[tiptoze]

VIZ Media just put a bunch of official, complete anime on YouTube for free

Exactly what it says on the tin. Here's the link to the official article from Viz. There are ads* ofc but to be able to watch these for free in HD is a pretty big deal.

Note that they are all Japanese dub, English sub. (The subtitles are not YouTube captions but part of the video itself, for whomever it may concern)

Here's the current list w/ links to the official playlists:

Death Note (All 37 episodes)

Hunter x Hunter (Seasons 1-3, 148 episodes)

Inuyasha (COMPLETE SERIES W/ ALL THE MOVIES)

Mr. Osomatsu (Seasons 1 & 2, 50 episodes)

Naruto (Seasons 1-8, 220 episodes)

Sailor Moon (COMPLETE SERIES)

Handful of other movies, 4 of them are Inuyasha that's already been stated above but includes TIGER & BUNNY, K Missing Kings, Accel World, etc.

I hope this helps someone who's been wanting to watch one these shows! I know most people don't get news from Viz so I didn't want this to just go quietly under the radar because this is actually p nice to have in a world where you either have to pay for or pirate everything. I really hope they add more titles in the future!

*Also, they say ads but I use Firefox w/ uBlock and all the other anti-capitalist goodies and I've watched the first SM episode and gotten no ads so this may actually be an avoidable thing for a lot of us so like,,, go watch some free anime luv lmao

EDIT: I have been informed that this is not available in counties outside of America. Which isn't surprising but is disappointing. If someone w/ a VPN wants to let me know if they can work around this lmk and I'll update here.

EDIT 2: Quote from an Anon:

"Windscribe VPN on my phone worked for watching Viz media's anime uploads! I'm sure there's better and less limited free options but that's the one I found with a quick search to try it out. Haven't tried it on a laptop though so can't comment on it's viability there."

Tysm for letting me know Anon!!

EDIT 3: Via @eunbinppap

#one of protonvpn's free options is the us

#death note #hunter x hunter #hxh #inuyasha #mr osomatsu #naruto #sailor moon #tiger and bunny #accel world #anime #I'd tag this w/ viz but i dont want them to know u can get around the ads #oops

[civildisorderstream]

2023, The Year of Self-Sabotage

Has anyone noticed the trend businesses have been on in 2023? There's a LOT of self-sabotage going on in the business world. Throughout my life, and everyone else has their own observations too, once in a while you see a company make a boneheaded decision about their product or service. And once in a while you'll see a decision get made that is bad, but maybe it at least has some justification (even to an anti-capitalist goober like myself). But this year has been nonsensical moves of greed or product/service sabotage that make no sense for longevity or harm what's in the best interest of the consumer.

Activision-Blizzard: The Overwatch debacle, and Diablo Immortal's scummy practices.

Netflix: The account sharing debacle.

Twitter: Maximum divorced loser Elon Musk destroying its functionality and branding and we still call it Twitter.

Reddit: Inspired by Musk's stupidity, the API tools debacle. Shame on the Reddit communities for not knowing how to strike btw (you don't put a time limit on it).

Hollywood: Pulling shows and films from streaming services to declare them as failed products and somehow get a tax write-off for it.

Also Hollywood: Willing to take quarterly losses greater than the annual cost to meet the demands of two striking unions put together.

Unity: Announced in the past day that it will charge developers a fee for installations because greed.

Titan Submersible: "Safety is for losers" says billionaire who proceeds to use his shoddy tech to do a murder-suicide.

Starbucks: Breaking ALL of the labor laws to try and stop unionization. Admittedly a reach to be on this list but the situation (like all the others) is ongoing and can compound.

Embracer: A massive corporate company that bought a bunch of smaller companies. Thought a 2 billion dollar deal with the Saudi government was a sure thing, so they spent 2 billion dollars on stuff. Deal falls through, so they start closing companies they acquired.

That's just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. These aren't business decisions done for the sake of consumers. These are all decisions done to spite consumers or the workers who produce the products and services.

People try to remember years as being the "year of" something. And it's a thing I do too. For me, 2023 is the year of corporate self-sabotage.

#activision blizzard #elon musk #unity #embracer #politics #reddit #capitalism #twitter

[hummingbird-hunter]

The thing is, I have nothing against socialism or communism as a political ideology; trust me, I'm as anti-capitalist as they come. The leftism is really not the problem here.

The problem is when in their leftism, people – Americans, really, and western Europeans – use the ussr as this sort of goal, this complete antithesis to the modern capitalist society, this almost-utopian place to live. They use hammer and sickle symbol, the ussr anthem; sometimes, as a joke, sometimes, not so much.

Not only that clearly shows that they know absolutely nothing about the ussr – it's also spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not, which is especially insidious now, when russia is literally committing a genocide.

The ussr wasn't a socialist utopia where everyone is equal. It was a totalitarian dictatorship, responsible for colonisation and genocide of multiple people and cultures. Just like the russian Empire before it. Just like modern russia continues to do now.

For many Eastern European and Central Asian people, hammer and sickle is not just a symbol of a political ideology. It's the symbol, under which people were starved to death, imprisoned or executed for daring to write in their own language; in which cultures were erased, people – forcefully assimilated, stripped of their own national identity.

It's the propaganda of being "the same people, the same nation" that russians love to use; that westerners love to believe, for the sole reason of the oppressed daring to look similar to the oppressor; for the sole reason of Americans being unable to look past their own history and realize oppression comes in many shapes and forms.

By using the ussr symbols in your political movement, you're denying the atrocities commited under that symbol and spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not.

It's not "progressive" to wave around a hate symbol.

Do your research.

#leftism #communism #socialism #ussr #russian invasion of ukraine #russia is a terrorist state #ukraine

[communistkenobi]

I’ve been thinking a lot about fandom recently, both as someone who has engaged with it regularly for over a decade on various platforms and also as someone who has increasingly become disenchanted with those spaces. Not only because of pervasive issues of (especially anti-Black) racism, misogyny, transphobia/homophobia, and the like, but the particular way those things take shape within fandom.

At the most basic level I think fandom has a fundamental methodological problem with the way it approaches texts, be they shows, books, movies, etc. What I mean is that people almost invariably approach fandom at the level of character, often at the level of ship - your primary way of viewing a text is filtered through favourite characters and favourite relationships, as opposed to, say, favourite scenes, favourite themes, favourite conflicts.

This is reinforced through the architecture of dominant platforms that host fan content, particularly AO3 - there are separate categories for fandom, character and ship, and everything else is lumped together in “Additional Tags.” You cannot, for example, filter for fics on AO3 by the category of “critical perspective” or “thematic exploration”. There is no dedicated space for fan authors to declare their analytical perspective on the text they are writing about. If an author declares these things, they do so individually, they must go out of their way to do so, because there are no dedicated or universally agreed-upon tags to indicate those things, and if your fanfiction has a lot of tags, that announcement of criticality gets mushed together in a sea of other tags, sharing the same space with tags like “fluff and angst” or “porn without plot.” Perhaps one of the few tags closest to approaching this is the tag “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” which doesn’t indicate perspective or theme but rather that there is, broadly, some kind of “problematic content” contained therein - often of a sexual nature, frequently as a warning about “bad” ships.

Now this is not an inherent problem, as in, it is not inherently incorrect to approach a text and primarily derive pleasure from it by focusing on a given character or relationship. And I think a lot of mainstream media encourages (even requires) audiences to engage with their stories at these character- and ship-levels. The political economy of the production of art (one which is capitalistic, one that seeks to generate comfort, titillation, controversy, nostalgia, or shock for the purposes of drawing in viewership, one that increasingly pursues social media metrics of “engagement” and “impressions”, one that allows for the Netflix model of making two-season shows before cancelling them, as well as a whole host of other things) enforces a particular narrative orthodoxy, one that heavily focuses on the individual interiority of specific characters, one that is deeply concerned with the maintenance of white bourgeois middle class values of property ownership, the nuclear family, normative heterosexual sexuality and gender, settler-colonial ideas about community and environment, etc. If you do not care about the familial drama surrounding Shauna cheating on her husband in Yellowjackets, for example, because you think the institution of monogamous marriage and the nuclear family is stupid and violent and heternormative, then you will have a difficult time engaging with the show in general. We exist within a deeply normative (and frequently reactionary) media environment that encourages us to approach art in a particular way, one that privileges the individual over other narrative components (settings, themes, conflicts, ideas, political and moral perspectives, structure, tone, etc).

All of which culminates in priming fans to engage with art at these levels and these levels alone, even when that scope is deeply inappropriate. A standout example I recently encountered was browsing the fandom tags on tumblr for the movie Prey - a movie that recontextualises the original Predator film by setting it in colonial America to make the argument that the horrific violence of white colonists and imperial soldiers is identical to the violence we see the Predator do to human beings. It is a movie that makes the argument that, despite this alien monster running around killing people, the villains of the franchise are these occupying soldiers and settlers, an alien force who themselves have just as little regard for (indigenous) human life.

And when browsing the tags on tumblr, what I found was dozens upon dozens of horny posts about how hot the predator monster was. Certainly there were discussion of the film’s narrative, and these posts got a good amount of notes, but the tags were heavily dominated with a focus on the Predator itself. People were engaging with this film not as a solid action movie with interesting and compelling anti-colonial themes, but as a way to be horny about a creature that is, ironically, a stand-in for white settler indifference to (and perpetuation of) indigenous suffering. And if this is your takeaway from an extremely straightforward film with a very clear message, this is not merely a failure to comprehend the content of a text, this is something beyond it - a problem that I think is due in part to the methodological problem of approaching all texts as vessels for bourgeois interiority, individual but ultimately interchangeable expressions of sexuality, perhaps best-expressed by the term “roving slash fandom,” a phenomenon wherein fans will move from one fandom to the next in search of two (usually white, usually skinny) guys to draw and write porn of, uncaring of any of the surrounding context of the stories they are embedded in, and consequently dominating a large sector of fandom discussion.

This even gets expressed in the primary ideological battleground of fandom itself, the ridiculous partitioning of all fan conflict into “pro-“ and “anti-“ shipping compartments. Your stance on engagement with fandom itself historically was (and still is) always first filtered through one of these two labels, describing your fundamental perspective on all texts you engage with. And both of these two labels are only concerned with shipping, as if all disagreements about art can only be interpreted through the lens of what characters you think are acceptable to draw or write having sex. Nowhere in this binary is space to describe any other perspective you might take, what approaches you think are valuable when interacting with art, what themes or stories you think are worth exploring. It’s not just that the pro/anti divide is juvenile and overly-simplistic, it is a declaration that all fan conflict must be read through the lens of shipping and shipping only - the implication being that any objections raised, and criticisms offered, is ultimately just bitching about ships you don’t like.

Which, again, I think is a fundamental error of methodology. It leaves no space for people to discuss the political and moral content of a work, the themes of a piece of art, the thorny issues of representation not just as expressed through individual characters but entire worlds, narratives, settings, and themes. You are always hopelessly stuck in the quagmire of “shipping discourse,” and even rejecting that framework will inevitably get you labelled as either pro- or anti-ship anyway - and you will almost invariably be labelled an “anti” if you express any kind of distaste for the bigoted behaviour of fans or the content of the text itself, again reinforcing the idea that this is all just pointless whining online about icky ships you personally hate.

And this issue is best perhaps epitomised by reader insert fanfiction, circumventing any need for you to project onto a character by literally inserting yourself into fiction, primarily in order to write/read about a character you want to fuck. This then intersects in particularly disgusting ways with real world politics, such as reader insert fics about Pedro Pascal going with you to BLM protests. Even if this is (incredibly over-generously) interpreted as a very poor attempt at being “progressive,” it still demonstrates that many (white) fans are often incapable of thinking about anything outside of a character-centric perspective, quite literally centring themselves in the process, and consequently they think it’s totally appropriate to do things like that. The fact that this is also frequently a racist lens is not coincidental, because again, a chronic focus on (fictional) individuality prohibits any structural perspective from entering the discussion, which necessarily excludes a coherent or useful perspective on systemic issues, where people come to the conclusion that the topic of police brutality is little more than a fun stage to enact whatever romantic shenanigans you want to get up to with a hot guy.

I will stress, again, that it is not a moral sin to have a favourite character, nor is it bad to enjoy reading about two guys having sex in fanfiction. I enjoy and do those things, I engage with fandom often through a character-centric lens (see my url) - because it’s fun! But I think that this being the dominant mode of engagement inherently excludes and marginalises all other approaches, and creates a fandom space where the most valuable way to talk about media is to discuss which two characters you most enjoy imagining fucking each other

#media #effortpost #fandom discussion