#this started age discourse on twitter i beg you not to do that in the replies here. she is simply 10 gum years old ok | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weaselbeaselpants · 7 months

Text

Legit Bad-take/Bad-Faith Helluvaverse critics you should not trust if you see them

Interpersonal squabbles within the critical tag are irrelevant, sorry. This here is a genuine warning against users you should keep your distance from in regards to any VivziePop drama-discourse because their names may come up and you should know what it is that crossed the line.

Starlatte/Starvader/HonestHazbinCritiques/OhGodDude and Woomycritiques/RaySquid - Serial harasser(s). Long story incoming. Starlatte was/is a Vivcritical who got involved in the fandom back in 2019/2020 when she was a minor and didn't tell anyone. Her blog on tumblr was HonestHazbinCritiques where she made some good points but also managed to find/be a part of everyone else's takes in the critical community. Her relationship with several criticalblogs turned sour when she started lashing out, talking over people, being accused of faking her age, and doing stuff like arguing with irl sexworkers abt how they should feel about Angel Dust. Whatever her age actually was at the time, she was also sending her own rewrite scripts and fanwritten episodes to Spindlehorse in order to 'fix' Hazbin. In 2021 Star returned to Tumblr under the name "Oh-God-Dude" w/o disclosing to new people who she was while also starting shit. When said new ppl found out her past and got mad at her, she proceeded to block-backtalk every one of them.

Woomycritiques (twitter handle: Raysquid) is a critical blogger who stans Star and calls everyone else in the critical community an obsessed stalker while lashing out herself. She accused others of racism (unfounded), her friends of predation just for being proship (not the 'cest and underage is good'-kind, the "I like some problematic stuff in fic-context"-kind), and heckled Dirgentlemen over how much they should hate Helluva, and more.

Regardless of if you believe Woomy and Star are the same person, which ppl do, they are both -by now- adult persons who have been asked to stop and DIDN'T, which is why people don't trust them. Star and Woom were asked to tone it down, stop making accusations and even asked by many criticals to leave and stop talking about Helluvaverse as she/they seem to have nothing good to say about it. To put that into perspective, cuz I know some HH/HB fans are gonna be reading this: the people who've self-styled themselves antis and criticals begged this person to leave cuz she had nothing nice to say and was being a nuisance. I know the stans think that's all of us anyway, so let that sink in.

LincarRox aka ToyTaker - Creep. Nasty jealous stalker freak who got kicked out of Helluvaverse servers and Aminos for saying nasty shit like how he "wants to put a baby" in Viv. No really. He took his shit and grievances to BadWebComics wiki under the name TheToyTaker while also seemingly trying to get work at Spindlehorse in order to have access to Viv directly and to 'fix' her show. He did so by faking his animation portfolio. BWW did eventually catch on and kick him out but yeah....bad. May or may not still be going under his old pseudonyms, but regardless if you see someone talking weirdly sexually abt Viv while saying they were "let go" both by SH and BWW, get out now. That's probably him.

Animation Call-Out - Bigoted shitlord. Twitter user who rags on Vivz' controversies w other people but also hates gays and BIPOCs. Admitted to submitting one of the anonymous reviews against Spindlehorse "for fun" amidst legitimate ex-employees. All of the reviews, even the ones that seem the most validating/believable should be taken with a grain of salt I believe especially since they are coming to us anonymously, but when a racist person admits to def being one of those fake reviews for "Lolz" sake, that's def when shit's hit the fan.

DoodleToons - Also bigoted creeperlooser. Altright white kid who hates BIPOC existing in anything and admits to hating Viv's stuff for their LGBTisms and 'demons'. Yes, there legit are bad-faith critics who are homophobic. Just because Viv and her crew have a way of saying that's EVERY critic of her work doesn't mean there aren't shitty people out there.

#read first paragraph #I'm not putting Lemon or Chai or whoever here just cuz u don't like em #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #call out post #call out tw #hazbin hotel critical #spindlehorse critical #critical fandom

129 notes · View notes

firesnap · 2 years

Text

Twitter having Pogtopia c!Crime discourse in 2022 makes me feel like waaaaay too many people think the angsty head canons and fics about Tommy being Wilbur's caretaker during that entire time were actually canon.

Like, Tommy definitely (particularly after the who are you go away stream) took on trying to manage how bad Wilbur was slipping, but the point is that no one realized Wilbur was slipping until Wilbur couldn't hide it anymore. If you change everything to Tommy holding Pogotpia together from the start it completely destroys the drama of the moment when Wilbur let's everything he's holding collapse. Wilbur showed up at Pogtopia with cradling a little flame of hope. Wilbur sat about building a base with Techno. Wilbur gave assignments for building the redstone and Tubbo's roles and ideas for how to make things functional. He was still trying to stay in control. Tommy was trying but had his own shit going on too (and, in true Tommy fashion, there are the moments like building the Prime path straight to their base and running off when Wilbur was begging him not to do so to remind the audience that Tommy was still a kid and still Tommy regardless of the change of situation).

So painting all of Pogtopia as Wilbur being cared for by Tommy from the start misses the point and looks over a huge part of why Tommy thought he'd failed to save Wilbur and save L'Manberg when it wasn't his fault or his place to do so. Like all that anger and bitterness leading into Exile, and many of the somber moments during Exile, can be traced to "how did we get to this? what did I do wrong? did I not do enough?"

Sometimes, as people, we feel guilt and anger when we're coping with grief. We feel like, despite if circumstance or age or life in general says otherwise, things would have worked out differently if we'd somehow made a better choice. It's a futile exercise of what if, and often makes us think we had more power or control in a situation than we ever did, but that's often how the mind works (and in this case makes a great story). I dunno. Sometimes these discussions really feel like they negate Tommy's agency to make choices that are both kind but not healthy.

He never should have had to care about what was happening to Wilbur. Okay. He was too young to be forced to care about something that complicated. Okay. Sure. We've covered that. It doesn't change that caring is a fundamental part of who Tommy is and why the story exists at all. Tommy never had to care about Wilbur. He had a million reasons to not. But he did. Tommy caring too much about isn't a flaw, but it was tragic. Those can coexist.

173 notes · View notes

tlkmh · 7 months

Text

Is Blogging Still Relevant in This Age of Tiktok and Instagram?

Blogging has been really popular for many years and a lot believe that it will continue to grow. Still, with the current rise of social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, it begs us to question whether blogging is still relevant in today’s generation. I for one generally prefer posting a relatable picture to convey my feelings with a one-word caption or none and instantly, my friends get it, but hey, that’s just me.

Nowadays, people are more in favour of posting their pictures, videos, or experiences through social media apps with a more visual and interactive format than your typical traditional blogging websites like WordPress and Blogspot. Time and time again, social media platform has been constantly changing their layout, services, and such to what the owner likes to call ‘accommodate’ the users. Just take a look at X (Twitter), soon after Elon Musk took over, the app just started going downhill, nonetheless, people are still using it despite the rebranding and paywall.

Posting on social networking applications is akin to blogging in certain aspects. The difference is that unless users subscribe to the app's services, they cannot write a lengthy description, and even if they do post a long caption, some people will not care to read it; instead, they will focus on the photographs, videos, or even skip it. This shows our reading habits are changing. It means that most people are unlikely to read a blog from beginning to end. This type of person prefers to scan through the site and seek the information they require, ignoring the rest of the content.

Although blogging has lost its appeal among the younger gen, there are still some people who believe that blogging gives them joy and such cases, money. Blogging has become a reliable source where people like you and I will seek advice or any niche information. But it can't be all dependable unless, of course, they have credible sources and not from Wikipedia. According to a recent survey, about 77% of online users are still reading blogs (Adavelli, 2022) which gives hope for the blogging community. For some, blogging provides both flexibility and freedom of speech. The content itself can be anything of the sort. Ranging from politics to recipes and even fandom discourse. Other than that, blogging to some, allows for a more intimate connection between the writer and the reader. Readers may interact directly with the author, forming a community based on shared interests. Therefore, blogging became a digital diary to some. Moreover, businesses are using blogging as an efficient method to market their organization or product. According to a recent poll, about 48% of companies benefit from blogging as a content marketing tool. In other words, these companies can deliver value to their consumers by maintaining a blog.

Despite a steady rise in the number of people reading blogs, with the growing popularity of social media sites such as Instagram and TikTok, people now have more swift and creative methods to share their thoughts, experiences, and creativity with their friends. The most popular method of climbing the popularity ladder these days is creating a viral video or picture, with or without clickbait headlines or thumbnails, in the hopes of reaching a specific target group, if not everyone. On TikTok, there are countless videos of people attempting to get famous. Some even predict that social networking applications will ultimately put an end to blogging. Considering that with the growing presence of influencer culture, regular blogging may appear less attractive.

So, to answer the question, is blogging relevant nowadays? My answer is yes, it is still alive even though it is not that trendy among certain groups of people. But then again, it depends on whether the blog itself is interesting or not. All that matters for a blog to be useful is for the author to offer up-to-date information that people can depend on. Bloggers would have to cross the desert to look for an eye-catching title and a compelling story that makes the reader clench their teeth and anxiously wait for the next post.

References:

Adavelli, M. (2023, July 26). 29+ Important Blogging Statistics Every Blogger Should Know in 2023. techjury. Retrieved from https://techjury.net/blog/blogging-statistics/

Schaffer, N. (2023, August 16) Is Blogging Dead? You’re Reading This, Right? Here’s Why Blogging is NOT Dead! Neal Scaffer. Retrieved from https://nealschaffer.com/is-blogging-dead/#:~:text=In%20a%20word%2C%20no.,use%20a%20variety%20of%20techniques.

Reeve, E. (2016, February 17). The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens. The New Republic. Retrieved from https://newrepublic.com/article/129002/secret-lives-tumblr-teens

Wijayarathne, M. (2023, May 20). Is Blogging Still Relevant? 5 Reasons Why the Answer is Yes! TalkBitz. Retrieved from https://talkbitz.com/is-blogging-still-relevant/#:~:text=Blogging%20is%20still%20relevant%20today,being%20an%20important%20marketing%20tool.

#MDA20009 #Week4

5 notes · View notes

1d-discourseoftheday · 3 years

Text

💙 Tues 5 Jan ‘21 💚

Is today's biggest story really a pair of socks I mean WHY NOT am I right, that may as well happen! With impeccable timing, as the fandom and the world went bananas about Ho-livia WildStyle (a drag queen name for the ages right there), the first of the limited edition TPWK socks that people ordered basically on blind faith (you fully couldn't tell what they were going to look like at all on the website, and now we know why lmao) have arrived with a bang: they seemed to come with either blue or pink hearts, but in fact it turns out you get one of two color combos, either pink and white or, uh: BLUE AND GREEN HEARTS. I'm not one to carry on about like jeans and a green shirt or what have you but this is a CHOICE, and if the antis don't have performative burnings of their evil larrie merch honestly WHAT is the POINT; the resale market of the limited edition socks is already booming though so there's always that option, if either side can bear to conduct business across the divide. My question is, did they really time it to play out this precisely on purpose? Unlikely tbh, but if that's a thing they're capable of I have some THOUGHTS about the way other Harry merch takes like 4 months to arrive...

Larrie socks aside however, the real discourse continues to be about you-know-what, with the players out there fanning the flames wildly. There's too much nonsense to bother with it all (the quoted sources in the articles directly contradicting each other's stories also makes it difficult) so let's just... *spins wheel*....okay I landed on 'tabloids say Harry's wedding speech talked about his girlfriend Olivia' here goes. Sjksdfjks WHY would you be talking about your girlfriend of three weeks in a speech for your close friends' wedding, OMG, how uncomfortable and inappropriate is that?? Imagine if any of this were real, that Harry ('I'd take my time and make sure a thing was serious before telling people about it', end quote, I mean that's ALSO a stunt quote (oh the layers) but just pointing out that it's contradictory) starts dating his co-worker who just got out of a huge relationship and is also a famous person with presumably an interest in privacy, and immediately the two of you get to work setting up a big reveal to happen right away (even in a weird fantasy world where any of this is real the possibility that JEFF AZOFF'S WEDDING had the paps present for any other reason than to do EXACTLY what they were told is flat impossible- what pap or celeb outlet can afford to be on Jeff's bad list?!) and then he casually writes her into his speech (a guy who's so anxious and shy about public speaking and what to say that he begs people to write speeches for him and practices endlessly) uh huh, sure Jan. There are so many things about this that are ludicrous, but more to the point, none of the things they're saying hold up to scrutiny any better than this. There just isn't any point in taking them that seriously though; Harry is a closeted artist and, just like the many queer artists that came before him who he repeatedly reminds us are his icons, he both lets us know all day every day in a million ways that he's queer, and also plays the industry game and winkingly gives the press their Straight Guy Harry fodder. You don't have to like it, or indeed anything at all in this world, but people do need to accept that whether they like it or not is neither the point nor anyone (including Harry)'s responsibility to respond to or do anything about.

Like I said I can't cover every detail but! I always have a little space for the absurd: today, our best entrant is the possibility that the whole wedding we saw was a sham– fans ask, was this public spectacle Jeff and Glenne's actual wedding? Listen if anyone would be up for it it would be this crew, and if they did stage it I'm sure they had a good laugh! Suspicion has been cast on Glenne's dress (allegedly an untailored 2018 off the rack number), the small guest list (wouldn't they just wait and have a huge event?), and the fact that they invited paps there at all. It would make the no explanation robe pics EVEN FUNNIER though if you imagine that was for our benefit but left totally unadressed (undressed). ANYWAY Don't Worry Darling filming is back in business and Harry was papped some more today, out for a casual not at all pap walk hike with a work associate and multiple items of his own merch (including an unreleased hoodie design.) On the topic of DWD, sometimes a different perspective can be interesting-- for example considering whether Harry is the point of all this at all? Or is he but a bit player in the real DWD publicity drama, an elaborate and very public dramatic reconciliation between Olivia and her ex husband? Either way, he's neither a clueless dupe, a helpless pawn, or anyone's 'boy toy', so please: can we rein in the hand wringing and pointless Olivia bashing a bit?

Let's talk about something else shall we? For example! Liam's setlist, just released for the upcoming LP Show Act 4. Look at that song selection! Fireproof! Strong!! Through The Dark!! More exciting 1D faves! Plus Slow and Home With You off his EP, NICE, singles and more, it looks awesome. The Hugo Man fragrance relaunch is less exciting, featuring the dopiest possible articles full of chat about his skin care routine (oh shucks I'm just manly man, I don't have one at all... *names two products and refers to 'multiple moisturizers'*), trademark accidental candor (“I’m quite tired!”), and of course trying to describe a fragrance, always an entertaining gymnastics (“every time I spray it, it kind of takes me back to being on that rooftop in Berlin”), but also there are manly new pics of Lia.

A new song Niall co-wrote is coming out! The JC Stewart song, Break My Heart, will be out this Fri! Charlie Lightening posted pics from a year ago on the Walls music video set, featuring an intent Louis in the sun (and fashion voter underrated excellent Looks), and Louis commented on Dave Allen's post (“top man!”)-- the famous boxer is offering to help friends through lockdown by facetiming 3or 4 people a day for home workouts, damn, and also aww. That shitty Doncaster secondary school turned out some really sweet dudes, against all odds tbh. With Los Angeles experiencing some of the worst COVID surges we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic, Grammys organizers have elected to postpone the (already limited) ceremony. Originally scheduled for Jan 31 it is now TBA, tentatively for March. Harry's stalker, who menaced him in and near his London home in 2019, is being charged with violating his restraining order by attempting to contact Harry via social media, Global Fund for Women thanked Harry for donating, and HLDaily and other accounts were suspended for posting pap pics, always a risk, but one trick potato Jeff is on the job; HSD is back up and running, cause they can't have a proper stunt season without their most faithful mouthpieces. Niall continues to vote for himself on twitter threads about what to listen to in the New Year.

#1ddiscourseoftheday #everyone loves a powerful successful woman as long as she never ever visibly does anything to try to promote her interests #yes this is about extremely bad takes about Olivia Wilde and what she should or should not do #and what forms of publicity are okay and which are not for her to utilize to promote her film #you don't succeed in Hollywood by refusing to play the game!#Harry and Olivia are adult professionals doing something silly and not particularly time consuming #that has zero impact on their actual personal lives but is extremely effective for achieving their goals #it's just not that serious #hopefully he's tapping her professional relationship with John Frusciante to get Louis an intro lol #everyone freaking out about the reports that he already met her kids sjsjskaj I don't usually believe the Sun but like YES OFC HE DID #IT'S HARRY he probably had their names penciled in for tattooing by day two on set omg I'm sure they LOVE him #they'll be on his book subscription list forever now #but I do have something to say about the way people think buying Harry (or whoever's) merch or tickets or whatever #means they get a say in what that person should do because they're OWED something #and how it relates to the idea that sex workers sell their bodies rather than units of their time #both are wrong. You get what you pay for and nothing more- you get a show or a product but you don't get a controlling interest #in the case of Harry or of a sex worker part of what you purchase is the carefully crafted illusion of friendship and intimacy #but it isn't real #I realize this is terrible example to use because this fandom is virulently puritanical and anti-sex work and sex work adjacent jobs #see: 'eleanor doesn't have a job' 'beards don't work' 'get a real job' etc etc #but guess what that's THE WORST TAKE so I will continue to ignore it and act like I'm talking to people with better takes #until it's true #anyway I was personally favoring Wilde-Styles but that one's for you Amanda #long post

290 notes · View notes

segenassefa · 3 years

Text

9: Why Gatekeeping is Ok (#FufuChallenge Discourse)

African restaurants in the U.S., while not as popular as their foreign counterparts, are not far and few between in states such as a D.C., New York, and Georgia having large African communities. In recent weeks, videos of people trying variations of fufu and stew have popped up seemingly out of nowhere, unknowingly creating a “trend” called the #FufuChallenge. While some of the reactions were positive, many of these videos were quite the opposite, in which individuals with little to no home training had the absolute gall to record themselves treating the food as if it were 50 Shades of Grey – including but not limited to spitting, slapping, tossing, and other things that are considered incredibly disrespectful.

Now, fufu is native to West Africa and made from boiled and pounded cassava. Different countries have their versions of the same food, give or take a few ingredients - banku, eba, ga’at, ugali, mofongo, and cornmeal coucou (fungi, for my VI people). As disclaimer – I am an adventurous eater, and the first time I tried fufu, I was a fan. I don’t think it’s a food that’s hard to enjoy flavour-wise, but I can see how the texture may not be agreeable for everyone. Additionally, being from a culture that eats with their hands, there’s a lot of etiquette that’s instilled in at a young age– the most important being that food is not a toy. However, the recent videos have sparked a debate about Black acceptance between different members of the diaspora.

It is interesting how, during a time of inclusivity and unification within the Black community, it is taking no more than pounded root vegetable for most of you to show your ass. I don’t feel like now is the time to remind Black Americans that some of “common” foods would be considered abhorrent to others – chitlins and pickled pig feet, we’re looking at you. Everyone is losing their mind over pounded cassava, but the idea of eating soggy cornmeal – also known as grits – is a normal phenomenon. We can also bring snack foods into this - hot pickles in a bag, Vienna sausages - but the point of this conversation is not to sit here and bash culinary history, but to make the argument clear that every culture has foods that others would find less than palatable.

In the same breath that we want to come together, fight systemic oppression, and be on some fake Marcus Garvey shit, people are referring to African food as disgusting, garbage, and even “dog food”. But you want to go back to Africa, right? Find your roots?

Have you all lost your damn minds?

Black people exist everywhere, and that inherently means that the techniques and methods of cooking we use are prevalent in a lot of other cultures. If you don’t believe me, take the time to Google Korean fried chicken and the fact that the idea of frying chicken in batter was introduced by Black soldiers stationed abroad in the 1940s and 1950s, or how gumbo and jambalaya are variants of traditional African foods, created using recipes that date back to slavery. So, there’s a chance that there are other foods across various cultures – including Black American meals - that resemble traditional African cuisine. Why don’t you drag those on social media as well?

More likely than not, before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, this is probably the food that peoples’ ancestors were eating, and by reasonable conclusion, it’d be the food that OUR ancestors were eating. Additionally, there are so many other cultures with foods that can be turned into trend, so why was the Internet’s thought process to bully African people for no reason other than for laughs on social media? No, just traditional African food? Ok, noted.

Like ENNY said, please free my people from clout. PLEASE. I’m begging at this point.

And non-Black people have not escaped scrutiny either – so if you found yourself at a protest this year or have a cheeky little “BLM” in your bio, but you still found the time to degrade African culture on your timeline, I’m going to need you to go ahead and click backspace on your bio for me really quick, because the math is not math-ing. When it comes to other ethnic groups asking for parts of their culture to be respected and kept sacred, everyone wants to be quiet and listen, but when Black – specifically African people - ask for the same respect, people struggle to do so and are left with two options, or what they think are their only options – to, A, dismantle parts of Black culture to be co-opted and renamed to be acceptable to the white gaze or, B, label these things as disgusting and left at the mercy of Twitter think piece writers and Clubhouse podcasters who have nothing better to do than talk about things that they absolutely have no knowledge on.

Lastly, a LOT of foods from other cultures that are popular in the United States are not even authentic to that culture. To stand in front of a Taco Bell, or Panda Express, or Olive Garden and tell anyone that is your idea of eating “ethnic” food is not only a lie, but the curse of nationalism and Western closed-mindedness.

If you think our friends in Mexico are sitting down at their tables each night with a Crunch Wrap Supreme and Nacho Fries, you are highly mistaken, beloved.

But, with no empathy, authentic African culture has been co-opted as a sort of internet trend in which it’s acceptable to bash damn near an entire continent for food that takes immense labour and cultural knowledge to create successfully. And then, the people who posted their negative reviews actually had to sit, order the food, set it up, film themselves eating it, decide they didn’t like it, go back and edit the video – with their disrespect front and centre – and thought they could post it on the internet free of scrutiny. Like, we (as Americans) aren’t even eating traditional foods from other cultures to BEGIN with, so why was now the time to start, and why did you all start with African food?

Answer, and quickly.

There has always been tension within the Black community between Black Americans and the African diaspora, over feelings of perceived superiority and inferiority on both sides, and in all honesty, this is an argument I don’t subscribe to - at the end of the day, systemic racism does not care what flag you have in your bio, or how long you’ve lived in America – you’re Black, plain and simple.

But West Africans were not the first people who hopped on the internet and begged people to try their food, so the unwarranted opinions are more proof that maybe sometimes, it’s ok to gatekeep. And no one is begging for these reactions either or saying that you have to like it – if you’re not a fan, just nize it and maybe just…delete the video? Outside of the topic of respect also, the Internet is forever. So those of who you unabashedly are posting disrespect on the internet, think where this video will be circulating in a year or so.

Lastly, if you think Africans are blowing the response to the “fufu challenge” out of proportion, keep that same energy next time you see white women in box braids, rocking evil eye pendants, doing intricate henna on your timeline, or trying to lecture you about aligning your chakras, since it has now been established that disrespecting peoples’ culture is no more than acceptable social media discourse.

Be blessed!

#cms #blog post 9 #fufuchallenge #tik tok #twitter #instagram #africa

1 note · View note

kitty-bandit · 4 years

Note

So, I’m writing a book and my main character and her girlfriend have an age gap of four years and they started dating when my main character was seventeen. I’m worried that no one will want to publish it because of this or that I’ll be judged for writing something like this

Anon… I’m here to tell you that 100% without a doubt you are FINE. A four year age gap? That is literally NOTHING. You have nothing to worry about.

I’m actually a bit horrified that you have such a skewed view of what is and isn’t acceptable in literature. I can only blame antis and this new round of purity culture online (twitter and tumblr specifically).

Let me put it this way. If Lolita is still on the shelves of every fucking library and bookstore in the world, you can write your book where a 17 yo and a 21 yo date. Seriously. I challenge you to read something that isn’t Young Adult Lit or fanfiction–hell, even watch a movie? I could name hundreds of romances where there’s an age gap of 5+ years and it ain’t a problem.

Even my absolute favorite book series, The Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling, has the main characters with a ridiculously large age gap. (I think Alec started at 16 or 17 in the books? To Seregil’s 50-something? But again, he doesn’t look 50, or even act 50? due to Aurenfaie aging differently than humans. But again, NOT THE POINT.)

THIS is one of the MANY reasons why I’m against purity culture, purity policing, and antis. Their harmful rhetoric is stifling creativity, causing artists and writers to literally LEAVE online spaces due to harassment and bullshit like what you’re afraid of. They parrot radfems and SWERFs and conservative beliefs, putting a gay hat on it and try to force people to do what THEY want.

Well, I’ll tell you a little secret, Anon. Fuck them.

Their bullshit, while harmful, is not rooted in the real world. I challenge you to ask people OUTSIDE of the internet (and, please, choose someone who isn’t already embroiled in fandom discourse) about your idea for a book. I’m talking parents, teachers, librarians. Tell them your plot, your characters, the age gap, and ask them if they like it or if they see anything wrong with it? I can guarantee not one damn person will see a problem with the age gap. Not one.

I’m BEGGING you, Anon. Don’t let antis ruin your creativity. Don’t let them stifle you. Don’t let them dictate what you can and can’t create. They don’t know shit.

#personal #reply #anon

6 notes · View notes

halseyhazzard · 3 years

Text

The Definitive Answer for Everybody, Forever

Halsey Hazzard, October 2018

from a writing class on pop culture criticism

I don’t remember signing up for Quora. I know I must have, at some point, agreed to sign in with Facebook and hand over access to my inbox, because sure enough, I’ve gotten hundreds of emails from them, offering answers to questions I never asked — at least, not of Quora. Anything I’ve Googled, however, seems to be fair game. Apparently my friends are in on it too — nearly everyone I know with a Facebook has “followed me on Quora.” I’ve asked several friends if they knew what this Quora thing was. And time and again, I’ve heard back, “Oh, I get emails from them sometimes…”

According to its website, Quora “is a place to gain and share knowledge. It's a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers.” Wikipedia is more revealing: Quora was co-founded by former Facebook employees Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever in June 2009. When asked why they chose the name, Cheever stated, "I associate it with 'quorum' or public congregation.” Quora continues the legacy of other public congregations such as Ask.com/AskJeeves, Yahoo Answers, and Answers.com, ask-and-answer sites that facilitate public sharing of both information and opinions on topics running the gamut from relationship advice to Russian Revolution trivia. Many of these sites allow for anonymous accounts and anonymous commenting. No expertise or authority is needed. The line between opinion and information ceases to exist, and anyone is able to sway the discourse without any authority or accountability.

Quora seems to do away with this problem, replacing pseudonymous online handles with a person’s real name and face. You can’t falsify credentials when the truth is a Google search away. Yet, crucially, on Quora, everyone can be an expert. The authority of authenticity is granted to anyone who has nothing to lose in being googled. Opinions are thus validated and reinscribed as knowledge. This may not be a problem, if we take Quora at its word: “Quora brings together people from different worlds to answer the same question, in the same place — and to learn from each other. We want Quora to be the place to voice your opinion because Quora is where the debate is happening. We want the Quora answer to be the definitive answer for everybody forever.”

Here Quora presents itself as little more than a neutral platform for the facilitation of public discussion and advancement of public knowledge. Quora has no ideology, no dog in the fight it facilitates. Its logo? A nondescript red serif Q against a white background. Its Twitter bio? “A place to share knowledge and better understand the world.” The only accounts it follows are those of its employees (and the actor Rainn Wilson, who “could literally spend all day reading @Quora” and whose web-content brand for the entrepreneurial brags “we make stuff that matters” — stuff that seemingly consists of bland, feel good YouTube videos). Its tweets are overwhelmingly links to highly-rated questions. Yet it is in these questions that one finds the chink in Quora’s armor of objectivity. Between questions like “Is rigor mortis reversible?” and “What happens when a hurricane hits an active volcano?” we start to get a sense of Quora’s base: the kind of people who care about “why @yishan resigned as @reddit's CEO?” and “How do successful entrepreneurs balance work and family life?”

The first response to the question “What is Quora? Why do I have an account?” (a question which in itself speaks volumes) confirms this suspicion. Quora user Sharon Newell (whose profile reveals no expertise beyond “Lived in Chile” and “Speaks French” and who nonetheless has answered questions on schizophrenia, astrophysics, and the meaning of the name Gyanender), who writes “Initially, it was mostly being used by people familiar with the Silicon Valley scene… Today, Quora is actually an awesome hangout. Anyone can ask a question and people answer.” Looking at its popular topics, however, it appears that the majority of active users remain white collar entrepreneurial and tech professionals. (A slightly deeper Google search reveals that this response comes verbatim from an article, geared toward entrepreneurs interested in maximizing their Search Engine Optimization, called “What is Quora and Why Should You Care?”)

The next answerer is blunter about this “awesome hangout”: “like all companies, it's for the owners to make money.” Not only is Quora populated by Silicon Valley techies and their ilk, but it is subtly part and parcel of the same competitive culture that makes the tech industry tick. Quora’s “Writing Sessions” — highly moderated live chats modelled after Reddit’s poplar “AMAs” — have been “bringing home the bacon by luring in...celebrities’ audiences. The average sessions get 2 to 4 million views. Feminist leader Gloria Steinem saw 5.5 million views. Venture capital genius Chamath Palihapitiya grabbed 7.5 million.” Anyone fluent in the culture of Quora would be far from shocked that Palihapitiya could draw such a crowd. The fact that Quora has such a culture is directly at odds with its mission statement, and begs the question: when a “public” discussion is comprised of middle class tech professionals, when all voices in the room subscribe to the same vague neoliberal libertarianism, what knowledge is being generated? Will access to information ever be democratic while the pursuit of knowledge is so closely tied to capitalist competition? With such deep roots in tech entrepreneurship and venture capitalism, how could the discourse generated by Quora ever do anything but legitimize the conditions that made it possible?

Legitimize it does. Quora may not yet have the mass appeal that it no doubt aspires to, but nonetheless remains an often-seen but little remarked-upon presence in the minds and mailboxes of millions. For many like myself, it is Facebook that opens these floodgates. Facebook, which for 1.47 billion people is a largely unquestioned part of daily life. Like Quora, Facebook has no stated ideology, yet is inextricably bound with the cult of the entrepreneur, embodied all-too-perfectly in its creator Mark Zuckerberg. He has no publicly identifiable political affiliation. His status as “entrepreneur,” as “businessman,” protects him from significant public scrutiny, and Facebook membership continues to rise despite the increasingly abundant evidence that something isn’t right, that Facebook might be more than just a neutral network. When 1/5th of the world is held in the thrall of constant content and commentary, “Quora” may be understood as the essence of the public commons in the digital age: tacit acceptance of the ideological apparatus of neoliberal capitalism codified as opinion, calcified as knowledge.

These existential concerns don’t seem to bother the vast majority of Quora users. A lone asker, however, seems disturbed: “What is Quora, and why do I want it? How do I get out of it and Quora out of my life?” Repeat questions are not allowed, so we don’t know how many might share their concerns. What we do know is that the answerers don’t seem to understand why the asker is upset. They offer solutions, instruct the asker how to deactivate their account, unaware that Quora is more than a question-and-answer site. One response has stuck with me: “It will be difficult to completely eliminate Quora from your life, because it will show up in many google search results. That is not a bad thing, though. Quora has answers.”

#h: assignment #h: 2018 #quora #facebook #criticism #social media #dystopia #capitalism

1 note · View note

literateape · 6 years

Text

American Online and the Dial-Up Generation

By Mike Vinopal

I'm about to turn thirty-five and I belong to the last generation that knew a time before the internet. I belong to the Dial-Up generation. I remember American Online and the sound of the dial tone that preceded a series of fax machine sounds. An electronic cacophony that felt like a symphony back then. I remember crossing my fingers for a successful connection, the "You've Got Mail" refrain, and the excitement it would bring. We would wait hours for a picture or video to download and it was exhilarating! It was the internet! The information superhighway! Cyberspace!

Dial-up was like the Ford Model T. Innovative for its time. Perhaps clunky and cumbersome looking back, but a wonder nonetheless. Dial-up was the snowball that never stopped growing. Broadband's father. Wifi's grandmother.

I was in high school in the late nineties and watched America Online go by the wayside. Cellphone popularity soared. Started saving peoples' numbers. Didn't have to commit them to memory anymore. Not too much dialing-up these days. Some of those cellphones started having cameras and eventually a rudimentary form of the internet too. Texting started happening more as I started college, so phones started having keyboards and more internet. Then phones were iPods all of the sudden. Before I even got on the iPod train, they were sort of obsolete. Then there was MySpace and Napster, followed by many more of their ilk. The world was changing fast and the snowball grew.

I've watched Smartphones become a universal component of everyday life in most developed countries around the world. Limitless information at your finger tips, pocket-sized and all mixed together. The wonderful and the shitty. The kids born in the last 10 years will never know a world without Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, Hulu...it makes your head spin! They will never go to a Blockbuster Video. They watch and read news reports where tweets are regularly included. Facebook statuses are submitted as legal evidence in the modern age. They are reading and spreading both information and misinformation in vaster quantities than ever and the snowball continues to grow, as does the shadow it casts.

So it begs the question, should etiquette and how we conduct ourselves on social media be discussed?

Internet culture has grown well beyond its teens now and I think we'd be better off as a society if we could all talk about some general rules of etiquette, much like what is expected at a dinner table. Most of us engage in social media at this point, so we shouldn't be surprised when inevitably while engaging in what passes as socialization these days, that we would encounter differences in opinion. However, it is rare when discussing polarizing issues in that forum that common decency or respectful discourse are displayed, where as in person, you'd most likely get both. Mostly because the majority of people don't want to look like an asshole.

And yes, this makes us petty and cowardly. We are a click culture where, as Don Hall so aptly puts it, the "Rage Profiteers" are able to manipulate the masses with misinformation and distraction. And so we argue amongst ourselves in cyberspace and we get nowhere.

We are back to writing on cave walls. Our emojis and status updates are modern hieroglyphics. We are surely growing backwards and forwards at the same time while technology advances and our socializations regress.

This stuff will be on the Internet forever. A digital time capsule for future generations filled with cat videos and memes. Endless selfies and ducklips. Could be worse. Tweet fights and hate-filled comment wars. Yeah, that's worse. So we must ask ourselves, "What do we want our legacy to be?"

I know social media is here to stay and that people will continue to quite literally live their lives inside these forums, but let's all agree, if we're going to continue to make this virtual world the main place where most modern socialization takes place, let's do it with some manners and some grace.

Because social media isn't all bad. It's easy to demonize it and scapegoat the medium for all of the world's problems. And sometimes we need reminded of the beauty and potential of such powerful, all-consuming technology, like I was at the October installment of Literate Ape's monthly artistic debate series, BUGHOUSE!

To give you some background:

Bughouse Square (from “bughouse,” slang for mental health facility) was the popular name of Chicago’s Washington Square Park, where orators (“soapboxers”) held forth on warm-weather evenings from the 1910s through the mid-1960s. In its heyday during the 1920s and 1930s, poets, religionists, and cranks addressed the crowds, but the mainstays were soapboxers from the revolutionary left. In today’s almost absurd partisanship and polarization, Don Hall and David Himmel believe Chicago is the place to reintroduce the concept of a true dialectic in opposing views and BUGHOUSE! is just that.

At the time I saw the performance, I was working on the first drafts of this piece you're now reading. Annalise Raziq and Joe Janes were debating the question, "Has social media made us more narcissistic?" and Joe's piece really struck a cord with me and what I was writing about so I've included some of my favorite quotes here.

"We are writing our biographies in real time. And when we die we've left a way to be remembered that's better than a tombstone. I can visit my father, my uncle, and live through their pictures and read their words, their own words. I get to be with them as they were."

"Facebook is just another way we cave people write on walls."

"We share our lives on Facebook. Was there some other thing we're supposed to be doing on this planet while we're here?"

No, I guess there isn't, Joe.

And that snowball keeps growing. So again, we must ask ourselves, "What do we want our legacy to be?"

Listen to Joe Janes' performance referenced in the article above in full, as well as the rest of the performances from that night here.

Subscribe to the podcast and catch the next BUGHOUSE! Monday 12-7-17 at Haymarket Pub & Brewery. Get full event details here.

0 notes

theliterateape · 6 years

Text

American Online and the Dial-Up Generation

By Mike Vinopal

So it begs the question, should etiquette and how we conduct ourselves on social media be discussed?

To give you some background:

"Facebook is just another way we cave people write on walls."

"We share our lives on Facebook. Was there some other thing we're supposed to be doing on this planet while we're here?"

No, I guess there isn't, Joe.

And that snowball keeps growing. So again, we must ask ourselves, "What do we want our legacy to be?"

Listen to Joe Janes' performance referenced in the article above in full, as well as the rest of the performances from that night here.

Subscribe to the podcast and catch the next BUGHOUSE! Monday 12-7-17 at Haymarket Pub & Brewery. Get full event details here.

0 notes