#average western media

[orossii]

do people say 'yank' still or is that strictly an 18th century thing

[witchywitchy]

The fact that we, Arabic-speaking average people(aka non-journalists), have to keep up with translating Palestinian posts from Arabic to English to avoid having Western Media/Pro-Zionists mistranslate on purpose, says enough about how we all lost trust in the media. From the "there's a list" guy who was standing in front of a calendar and condemning the days of the week, to the BBC's mistranslation of a freed Palestinian hostage's interview. I will try my best to keep translating whatever I can find, and I encourage my fellow bilingual/multilingual Arabs to do the same. It's already sad enough that Palestinian journalists and even children have to use English in videos instead of their native tongue in order to get the world leaders' attention.

Please keep speaking about Palestine.

[tarotmantic]

in a constant battle against internalised racism and fatphobia i don’t get gender envy from skinny white men i don’t get gender envy from skinny white men i don’t ge-

[arabian-batboy]

So the EU just suspended all aid to Palestinians in Gaza, which is happening at the same time as the same time Israel is cutting all electricity, fuel and food from Gaza with the Israeli Defense (?) Minister calling them "human animals" while continuing their indiscriminately bombing campaign on Gaza due the Palestinians resistance groups currently retaliating against 17 years straight of Israel's illegal blockade and war crimes.

Apparently its okay to perform collective-punishment to 2 millions Palestinian civilians, half of whom are children, living in the world's most densely population are and biggest open-air prison, for the actions of a few hundreds armed fighters (who again, have the right to resist their occupation)

However, all Israeli settlers are innocent angels and you should never ever hold them accountable to any of the IDF's many crimes or Palestinians being ethnically cleansed from their homes, even though almost all Israelis have served in the IDF and all of them are literally living in stolen Palestinian homes, so statically speaking, the average Israeli settler has more blood on their hand than the average Palestinian by a large margin.

Matter of fact, Western countries should continue giving them their full unconditional support as well as more billions of dollars for free and complete impunity to continue committing even more war crimes in "self-defense," because no Israeli should be held accountable for the crime of any Israeli and while all of this is happening, you will of course continue having the bothsideism crowd crying about how "all killing is bad!" while completely ignoring how the killing is severely disproportional and that the side doing most of the killing is the occupier side with one of the strongest nuclear-power army in the world, who have the entire world on their side with absolutely no consequences whatsoever to their crimes.

So no, not all killing is bad, that's not the reality we're living in, because if "all killing is bad!" then the systematic-killing of so many occupied Palestinian civilians wouldn't be so encouraged/justified while the death of some Israeli occupiers-settlers in retaliation wouldn't be treated as the world's biggest crime against humanity.

-

Palestinians made a document that contains templates for letters to US, UK, & Canadian politicians, media outlets, and companies in relation to current events in Palestine as well as petitions & other resources. If you live in any of these countries then please select a template, edit it to your preference and send according to the instructions on the relevant page.

Here is a link to it (please share it): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-RUOHHiEtr7uoclQgWN-tCWOihnHIp5hym89aNePi_E/mobilebasic

Aside from that, please protest, support the BDS boycott and spread awareness as much as possible.

[sayruq]

Hamas propaganda is so much more effective than Israeli propaganda despite not having the support of seemingly every western news organisation. It's simple, clear, cohesive, easy to understand, and therefore believable.

For example, Hamas will film themselves handing over healthy looking hostages to the Red Cross and then interact with them right before they leave to show how friendly the captors and captives have gotten. You watch the videos and you understand everything that is being conveyed immediately.

And it worked. Even the people in my life, who aren't watching the conflict as closely as we have, have seen these images and have spoken in varying levels of surprise at how 'nice' and 'hospitable' Hamas was to the hostages. Keep in mind that these videos came out after weeks of billions of people witnessing the brutal and systemic murder of Palestinian people. The contrasting gentleness of the hostage exchange stood out greatly.

Israeli propaganda is chaotic, it conflicts itself, it's complicated. Look at this for example

In order to explain why the hostages were so friendly with their captors, first, it was because the hostages had Stockholm Syndrom. Naturally, social media, their second greatest enemy, was awash with people refuting the existence of such a syndrome. So, it became that the hostages were actually being held at gun point. While, there were guns present during the hostage handovers, no one was pointing them at hostages in the videos that we all have available. No one was being hostile either. Now, we have the sedative explanation which again can be easily refuted by the videos we all have access to because the hostages didnt seem particularly drowsy. So, we have hostages with Stockholm Syndrome, who had guns pointed at them, and who were sedated. That's just too much. How can Stockholm Syndrome coexist with being held at gun point in front of the Red Cross? Why would they need to threaten the hostages if they're sedated? Which explanation can the average zionist go with? Which one can a neutral party accept?

The same goes for the war propaganda. On one hand you have American officials insisting that Israel would never harm Palestinian civilians on purpose but on the other hand, you have soldiers filming themselves shooting recklessly and with wild abandon into thin air with the implication being that they're battling off screen Hamas. You also have Israel insisting that hospitals, schools and refugee camps are secret Hamas bases but all we are seeing is civilians getting murdered in protected areas. When it comes to war reports, they can't decide if they've killed 1,000 or 5,000 Hamas fighters. No wonder even Israeli commentators have given up on the promise of the complete eradication of Hamas.

The Palestinian resistance have also released war propaganda. Simple, well edited videos showing their fighters actually battling Israeli soldiers and tanks, sometimes very up close. The videos are similar despite featuring different confrontations in the battlefield over a period of time. It's easy for anyone to spot an Al Qassam or Al Quds video. It's even easier to accept their daily war reports because we've seen them back up their claims. The numbers they give are consistent with their capabilities as well as various indicators such as Israel being forced to decommission their older tanks for the war in Gaza. Would they be doing that if they weren't losing their top line tanks fast?

Many zionists have spent the past 2 months confused as to why the whole world has seemingly turned against Israel. I'd point the finger at Israel if I were them, both due to its actions in Gaza and its inability to continue fooling the world.

[pencopanko]

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are very similar (if not the same), actually

So I was scrolling down the #palestine tag for any updates and important information, and I came across this:

And I think we need to sit down and talk about this.

I am a Muslim. I live in Indonesia, a country that is predominantly Muslim and a lot of Muslims here also support the Palestinian cause. Hell, even our government supports it by not only allowing Palestinian goods enter the country without fee, but also by taking in Palestinian refugees and even acknowledging the status of Palestine as a state while not having any political ties with Israel. The topic of the Palestinian tragedy has been spoon-fed to us at schools, sermons, media, etc., so your average Indonesian Muslim would at the very least be aware of the conflict while non-Muslims would hear about it from their Muslim friends or through media.

However, there is a glaring problem. One that I keep seeing way too often for my liking.

A lot of them are antisemitic as hell. The sermons I would hear sometimes demonize Jewish people. Antisemitic statements are openly said out loud on social media. Some are even Nazi supporters who would literally go to anime cons and COSPLAY as members of the Nazi party. This is not just an Indonesian Muslim problem, no, but this is a glaring issue within the global Islamic community as a whole. Today, this sense of antisemitism is usually rooted in general hatred towards the Israeli government and its actions against the people of Palestine, but antisemitism amongst Muslims are also rooted in certain interpretations of verses from the Qur'an and Hadith mentioning Jewish people and Judaism (particularly the Bani Israil), but in a way that is more ridiculing instead of life-threatening when compared to how antisemitism looks like in the Western world.

As someone who prefers to become a "bridge" between two sides in most cases, I find this situation to be concerning, to say the least. While, yes, it is important for us Muslims to support Palestine and fight against injustice, we must not forget that not every Jewish people support the Israeli government. A lot of them are even anti-Zionists who actively condemn Israel and even disagree with the existence of Israel as a state as it goes against their teachings. A lot of them are also Holocaust survivors or their descendants, so it is harmful to think for one second that Hitler's actions and policies were justified. It's just like saying that Netanyahu is right for his decision to destroy Palestine and commit war crime after war crime towards the Palestinians.

As Muslims, we also need to remember that Jewish people (the Yahudi) are considered ahli kitab, i.e. People Of The Book along with Christians (the Nasrani). The Islam I have come to know and love has no mentions of Allah allowing us to persecute them or anyone collectively for the actions of a few. While, yes, there are disagreements with our respective teachings I do not see that as an excuse to even use antisemitic slurs against Jewish people during a pro-Palestine rally, let alone support a man who was known for his acts of cruelty toward the Jewish community in WW2. They are still our siblings/cousins in faith, after all. Unless they have done active harm like stealing homes from civilians or celebrating the destruction of Palestine or supporting the Israeli government and the IOF or are members of the IOF, no Jewish people (and Christians, for that matter) must be harmed in our fight against Zionism.

Contemporary antisemitism is similar to (if not straight up being the exact same thing as) contemporary Islamophobia, if you think about it; due to the actions of a select few that has caused severe harm towards innocent people, an entire community has been a target of hate. Even when you have tried to call out the ones supporting such cruelties, you are still getting bombarded by hate speech. It's doubly worse if you're also simultaneously part of a marginalized group like BIPOC, LGBTQ+, etc. as you also get attacked on multiple sides. This is where we all need to self-reflect, practice empathy, and unlearn all of the antisemitism and unjustified hatred that we were exposed to.

So, do call out Zionism and Nazism when you see it. Call out the US government for funding this atrocity and others before it that had ALSO triggered the rise of Islamophobia. Call your reps. Go to the streets. Punch a fascist if you feel so inclined. Support your local businesses instead of pro-Israel companies.

But not at the cost of our Jewish siblings. Not at the cost of innocent Jewish people who may also be your allies. If you do that, you are no different from a MAGA cap-wearing, gun-tooting, slur-yelling Islamophobe.

That is all for now, may your watermelons taste fresh and sweet.

🍉

Salam Semangka, Penco

[yourtongzhihazel]

the PRC, USSR, and all of former and current socialism wishes they could have propaganda apparatuses as effective and globe spanning as the united states and its walking dogs. If you've ever spent a day in front of CCTV, like I did as a kid, you will find that they do not lie about world events and they will report just about anything from regional wars to trade shows in African/Latin american countries. Of course, there is a bias. In CCTV or People's Daily, the news is largely catered for a Chinese audience with proletarian class nature. On the other hand, western media has such a grasp on their respective political-economies that they have become arbiters of truth in every possible way and in our modern day and age, they are so entrenched that they can simply run any lie or omission they want and it will be instantly taken as fact. It won't matter if they are wrong, or lied, or omitted important details, or entire events. At the end of the day, they served their purpose of planting a seed in the minds of average westerners justifying the next imperialist attack in service of the bourgeoisie.

This well-oiled propaganda machine is extremely well hidden to yankees and westerners who are not looking out specifically for it, and indeed, the vast majority are not taught to look into it at all. For example, the west can manufacture utterly absurd lies about the DPRK from "anonymous sources" and "defectors" and because you simultaneously cannot verify the veracity of these sources and cannot resist the social capital of western media inside western DOTBs thus the default position is to agree, believe, and submit. For me, this illusion was broken when the gaze of bourgeois media turned on China. They were reporting events and actions which I knew for a fact were false from both living there and having family living there who contact me regularly. Yet, despite this, westerners were eating it up unconditionally. There's not another experience more surreal than this.

[rongzhi]

how do you deal with the sinophobia? I'm Chinese diaspora and I've been so down lately, it feels like it's everywhere. I'm exhausted from having to push back online and counter some of the really unhinged and false ones.

Genuinely, and this may not be the answer you are looking for, but I just don't pay attention to it really.

Not saying you should block everything out and don't even watch the news or anything, but I feel like it's important to understand that there is always going to be sinophobia and racism, and that trying to fight it is going to take way more out of you than it is to the people perpetuating it. As people like to say, it's important to curate your online space and choose your battles.

I think, also, that it's really easy to get down if you get too hung up on the unhinged takes/people. Trying to push back on the extreme is like running headlong into a brick wall—you won't make much of a dent, and you'll give yourself a headache. I'd say that if you do want to keep tackling sinophobia, try doing so where there is a greater chance of changing minds. If the average Westerner gets fed a steady diet of fearmongering and distorted headlines when it comes to China, and on top of that, they don't have much exposure to Chinese people and culture, then the best way to rectify that is to expose them to Chinese people and culture via relatable media that you would also enjoy dedicating your time to (music, dramas, douyins (me lol), etc), and sprinkle in educational tidbits where you can. Get people interested in actually learning something rather than stubbornly arguing talking points, in other words.

**If this an ask about sinophobia in fandom, even western cfandom, I am sorry, those guys suck, but again, choose your battles. I would also quit twitter, if people are still using that.

[diet-comet-soda]

I don't think anyone will be surprised when I say this, but there's a fundamental problem with western "adult" animation and that really sucks. To summarize the obvious: nearly every animated show not "made for kids" is limited to one very specific ~type~ of show (you know the one). And sure, some people like this style of show, but the potential left untapped is infuriating.

What I want from adult animation is shows like The Owl House, but taken further, without the limitations that networks put these shows through to make them "suitable for younger audiences". I don't even think they need to necessarily be completely inappropriate for younger viewers, they just need to prioritize their adult audience more and not get bogged down by "think of the children!!" rhetoric.

Animation targetted at older audiences doesn't all have to be like Family Guy. Even the more well-liked adult shows such as Harley Quinn don't stray nearly far enough off the established model to really meet the potential of the medium. Sometimes I want a sincere story without bathroom humour or gratuitous gore or hypersexualization. Sometimes I want to watch something that doesn't even really have "adult" content, but that's still designed for older audiences first and foremost, instead of held in a creative chokehold by brands like Disney to make sure it's colourful and light-hearted enough for little Timmy.

Maybe what I want would more accurately be called "Young Adult" or "Teen" animation, but I feel like those labels would undervalue these shows to the average viewer, similalry to how "YA" vs. "Adult" novels are treated. Just look at what Infinity Train was able to do when it was allowed to go places "kids'" shows usually aren't allowed to! Look at the beta concepts and imagine what The Owl House could have been if it wasn't on Disney Channel!

Of course, I love what we got with toh and how far they've taken this story, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But there are admittedly a lot of weird moments and character/lore inconsistencies in the show, especially in season 1, where you can really feel Disney's enforced quota of "haha silly cartoon hijinks" messing with things. And I try to ignore them, but I often look at that one Bat Queen concept art and I get this sense of longing for a world where these shows can exist without having to toe the line of conforming to being "kids" shows.

Really my main point is that no one is hitting this specific niche like serialized non-"adult" cartoons are. But these types of shows have no stable space carved out for them in western media. The only place where they can even exist is on kids television networks, where their content is heavily policed and limited. And being trapped on these networks causes the general public to often lump them in with every other cartoon, dismissing them all as "for kids", no matter how different the story-telling style and intended audiences are. And if any of these networks one day decide that serialized cartoons no longer fit their brand, then we lose like half of the shows we have, out of an already measly selection.

Western animation has so much diverse potential, and yet all we get is the same genre of shows with that horribly bland and low-budget artstyle that makes everything just looks like Family Guy. Why does it have to be this way?

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

I'm always fascinated when someone at the club rants about "how they just invented T'au to cash on them anime weebs", completly oblivious to the time and culture of their creation. So T'au came out first in 2001, and were obviously conceptualized some years prior, which puts them into the late 90s in their original design. This is slowly hitting "the majority of the populance has no relevant internet access whatsoever" levels of "barbaric analog ages".

So imagine where GW sits in the late 90s - its a small studio somewhere in England barely coming to touch with the first elements of the internet, with the most dominant medium being television which... is not really about "exotic" shows from the other end of the world? Those get ported over when they have proven to be a hit in their own country mostly.

And without the internet as we know it today, the anime community just... did not exist. You have to understand that the whole concept of online anime culture centred around piracy, fansubs, fanart, and the creation of the term "weeabo" was a mid-to-late 00s thing, and it took almost another decade before "weeb" was somewhat reclaimed and no longer an online-slur.

There was a whole generation that grew up with (often horribly localized) japanese shows on TV (Pokemon, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon) which came over with some delay to their release in Japan. By the time this generation came to congregate into online spaces and form any sort of fan-identity and culture, the T'au and their battlesuits had already been a design over a decade old.

"But wait isn't Gundam from the 70s"? Yes, that is totally correct. However, this is the one glaring mistake people make: you cannot compare modern day media content circulation around the globe to the analog ages. Those of us who remember these barbaric analog times know how it was: you just did not know stuff existed. If it was not in the newspaper or on the telly, it might as well not exist unless you knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy.

Sure, the Internet was slowly becoming a thing that found widespread use, but it would still take a while - not to mention the technical limitations. No streaming episodes. You start the download (if you can find someone who hosted the file of a series you had to know even existed first) somewhere around lunch, to hopefully get something to watch in the afternoon. Oh and also that blocked the household's phone-line and if the download cancelled for whatever reason then it was back to square one. Under such conditions, the online community we know today could simply not exist, as the alternative was importing stuff from the other end of the world for quite the money, or hoping a really shoddy localized VCR-tape ended up at your Blockbuster-equivalent.

Of course there was anime before that time, even those regarded absolute classics in the west, but those mostly achieved that rank over here in retrospective. When in the late 00s people wanted to watch stuff and had the ability to do so they shared what was considered "the classics" first (shared to the best of their ability with one episode cut into 5 parts on youtube with sometimes very questionable subtitles).

So even if we assume there was someone at GW in the 90s who was a total "proto-weeb" and Gudam-fan, there was literally no reason to "make knock-off Gundams" because the miniscule western wargaming audience SIMPLY DID NOT KNOW THE STUFF.

You can't make a marketing ploy to reference something your average consumers have never heard off. If anything, the creation of the T'au as a robotic-centred faction was inevitable: they needed a design that could hold their own in the setting, but Necrons hogged the full-robot niche, Imperials were weird cyborgs, Orks the "madman-scrap-tech", and Nids the "biotech". The only thing left here was "not full robot but also very clean and efficient" - and just like that, the Battlesuits and Drones were born.

It was only in later years when the Internet had come into full swing where they decided to go full-suit with releases such as the Riptide, but if we talk about the OG design of T'au and the first decade? Nothing to do with anime or "fishing for weebs". The fish would not be coming to that spot for almost a decade, and it would take a bit more before their numbers were plentyful enough to make it worth casting a line out.

[adz]

A few thoughts on the student protests for Palestine in the USA (and elsewhere) - I am seeing some leftists worrying that coverage of these protests will draw attention away from the genocide. Attention on news & social media is not zero-sum, and there's an increasing dearth of up-to-date info on Palestine as the average person's attention has waned. Western media is naturally inclined to devote more coverage to domestic issues, and taking up as much of this as possible with news related to the genocide can only be a good thing. Local protests against colleges or other organizations doing business with weapons manufacturers etc. also aids the larger story of international support, for which I've seen nothing but joy from Palestinian citizens and journalists.

The USA student protest movement is also a fertile place for building solidarity regarding other issues like labor and for future movements. More action = more experience = stronger coalitions. Many of the groups coordinating support for these protests were formed to fight local police brutality, queer discrimination, or union busting. The current protests are gathering greater attention because of the skills and relationships these groups already have in place. If these protests had zero effect on the universities divesting from Israeli companies, they'd still be useful for radicalizing and strengthening groups on campus and for sending a message of support to the people of Palestine.

Anyway, the central question has always been "what should Americans be doing to support Palestinians & end the genocide?" And I think students leveraging their positions to sever relationships between their universities and the groups causing the genocide is a great step in addition to all the other work being done: protesting the USA government, divesting from Israeli + American weapons manufacturers (like Elbit & Lockheed Martin) and the American businesses working with them (Google & Amazon have a lucrative cloud computing contract with Israel, Microsoft works with their Ministry of Defense), donating eSims so Gazans have internet access, etc etc

Lastly, the making fun of the protestors for being privileged or how they react to being brutalized (e.g. yelling about being a professor)? You know this is not useful. C'mon guys. We share a common goal.

[bfpnola]

Trans Reads is an ambitious project created by and for transgender people to openly access writing related to our communities. We believe education should be free and writing shouldn’t be behind a paywall. Transreads.org provides the opportunity to access, discuss, and distribute texts for free.

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Trans Reads was formed through the work, consulting, and creativity of an anonymous group of trans people of various genders and races around the U.S. involved in organizing, academia, and trans liberation efforts. Trans Reads was launched in 2019 following increasing violence against trans people alongside the lack of accessible resources for trans people to learn about our own community.

There is a serious barrier for most trans people accessing content from our community. Trans people on average have less disposable income, time to read and purchase literature, and knowledge of the available texts. We created Trans Reads to address this problem directly. We offer the largest collection of free trans texts on the internet.

Get Involved:

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Trans Reads is dedicated to the memory of Leslie and all those who feel alone. Most individuals don’t have institutional access and cannot afford to pay for texts. Transreads.org allows visitors to effortlessly read texts by, for, or related to trans people online for free as PDFs. Trans Reads is the space where anyone can easily discuss, add, or download trans content.

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[qqueenofhades]

Is it normal that I’m legitimately so scared of saying pretty morally tame things like “I don’t want to talk about genocide because it makes me severely uncomfortable” or in general expressing my political opinion.

Like i’m not even kidding when I say that all my drafts are just my possibly offensive (probably not) political takes i’m just so scared of everyone leaving me it’s not even funny.

Anyway i also think that if you talk about Palestine but not Ukraine you are a victim of Russian Propaganda™️

I’m sorry I don’t know why i did this have a nice day ok baiiiiiii

Here's the thing. You and every other average social media user should not have to masquerade as a sudden in-depth expert on every single social, political, humanitarian, etc. crisis that we are dealing with in this wretchedly miserable excuse for a timeline. It should not be a baseline expectation on you that when you log onto your little social media in your little average life, you have to come up with The Correct Opinions on everything and if you don't, you're "perpetrating oppression" by not vigorously spreading misinformation, instead of simply admitting that you don't know what to do, you as an average citizen are not in a position of making this change and therefore don't actually have to spend every waking minute obsessing about it, and that maybe, just maybe, you'd like to spend more time informing yourself until and/or IF you decide you want to talk about it. This is the same as the Instagram Activists (TM) who traumatize themselves to the point of PTSD by constantly consuming torture and/or war porn and/or graphic content about murdered children because they "don't have the right to look away." Actually, you do. You are able to make choices to control your personal social media use and to set boundaries as to what you do and do not want to do and/or see, rather than insisting that the only moral choice is to literally mentally destroy yourself with all the weight of human suffering in the world and then expected to act as a de facto expert on all of it, on pain of being Cancelled. This is a stupid, irrational, unhealthy, and generally idiotic expectation. You should not have to take part in it. Nobody should.

Likewise, I think that this is a large part of why people are so scared to voice any opinion that goes against the Prevailing Groupthink: they are afraid of losing friends, of having nasty bad-faith internet trolls say mean things about them, being accused of being a "bad person," or otherwise being guilt-tripped, shamed, and blamed for not centering their entire existence around something that they cannot actually do anything about. Once again, people think the only way you can be Known to Oppose Something Problematic (tm) is if you post on social media about it all the time. Forget whatever you might be doing offline, in your real life, or otherwise; it "doesn't count" if you don't make a big virtuous display of your Rightthink, or you will be viciously harassed. Now, look, I am old and/or tired enough that I don't give a shit what stupid internet users say about me, but I can tell you that I sure did when I was younger, it was incredibly painful to be on the end of those kinds of attacks, and it's (again!) not something you should just have to expect as a baseline level of gaslighting and harassment. As I have said. This is Tumblr. It is a stupid blue website mostly for fandom and/or three in-jokes. This is not a platform where we are expected To Do Social Justice all the time, nor should it be. As for Elon Musk's Twitter: yeah. No.

Also: yes, if you do spend all your waking moments obsessing over Palestine, but say nothing whatsoever about Ukraine and/or openly support Russia, you are in fact very much a victim of Russian Propaganda and you 100% support genocide when it's done by an "anti-western" state that you support for that reason alone. You only care because you can use the cause to make yourself look morally superior, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with opposing genocide on a basic, universal, or fundamental level. The end.

(I hope you have a nice day too. The anger in this is not directed at you. I support everything you've said here and hope that you're able to set healthy boundaries and protect yourself.)

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Mr. Blizzard

Debut: Super Mario 64

Who ordered the Funny Snowman? Not you, because this is a blog and not a restaurant, silly! You are just so silly. But between you and me, I am a fan of Funny Snowman, so I will humor you!

Mr. Blizzard is one of the first snowmen to appear in the Mario series, and the one who would become the most iconic and recurring. This is something he should be proud of, since Super Mario 64 has a bunch of snowmen in it! But one of them based his whole identity around missing his head, and the other one is an entire location. Gimmicks that make them memorable, sure, but not very versatile for future use!

Mr. Blizzard's design really notably uses billboarding, the graphical trick where a sprite will always face the camera, giving flat circles the appearance of spheres in a slightly blurry 3D world. Snowmen are SO orbs! Some of the most orbs guys I can think of! It was a very good decision. Mr. Blizzard is honestly slightly unconventional compared to other cartoon snowmen, with no nose- nay, nary a carrot- and a simple line mouth, rather than the typical "series of dots" mouth that we know and love. Instead, it has a blank, autism creature face, with its eyes and mouth seemingly made of the same material! Mouth made of eye, or eyes made of mouth? You won't know until you kiss him on the lips!

Nowadays, Mr. Blizzard uses a new design, which I also like a lot! This time he has a scraggly mouth because he is, as I assume he would say, "not too sure about this one, guys". He now has snow buttons on his torso, revealing that he was previously NAKED down there, and he also wears a bucket as a hat! That's one of those things that's so common in Japanese media, but in Western media it's always a top hat. So funny how one cartoon snowman had such influence on media! The average snowman-builder is much more likely to own a plastic bucket than a top hat!

Mr. Blizzard's main Thing is his single arm, adorned with a cute little mitten, which he uses to throw snowballs. Do you think that's like throwing his own flesh? I don't think so. If clothing buttons and igloos can also be made of snow, I think snow is just the building block of a snowman's world. But still, imagine some cattle throwing delicious meatballs at each other. Messed up! How would they even do that with hooves? Would they use their tongues like slingshots? What was I talking about? Where am I?

Oh yes! I am in "Snow World". Mr. Blizzard is a recurring enemy snowman, but Mario's world is also full of morally neutral living snowman, who DO have carrot noses, thank goodness. These snomonculuses are obstacles on snowy Mario Kart courses, but it's kind of rude to refer to them as that. Is a pedestrian an obstacle to a driver? Suffer, vehicles, as I wield my high level spell called "right of way"!

In Mario Kart Tour, these entities are exclusively referred to as Snowpeople! Gender? They hardly snow 'er!