i really can't emphasize how heartbreaking it is that the recent harassment campaign against @/90-ghost (among others; see: 1, 2, 3) has led to well-meaning people telling others not to listen to him. he is one of the most visible survivors of the genocide here on tumblr. his entire journey of escape is so well documented! and yet, it only took a few people confidently pointing fingers to create an entire witch hunt accusing him and other palestinians of being disreputable scammers and liars.
i can't help but feel like the reason why people were SO eager to believe those accusations, is because it was uncomfortable to see posts from palestinians every day asking for our time, attention, money, and support; so when someone presented the perfect excuse to ignore all those posts and asks while also taking the high ground, people just LEAPED onto it. they wanted to believe it, because it would be more comfortable.
honestly, i understand feeling overwhelmed by bad news, by the number of asks and messages in your inbox, and so on and so forth. i understand needing to set boundaries for yourself so you don't get burned out. i think this is really when you have to have a set of principles to fall back on, even when you're tired, uncomfortable, angry, and/or sad. so here's the one i suggest, which has been working for me best: don't make your discomfort with this situation into someone else's problem, and for god's sake don't make it a public problem.
if you hate seeing fundraiser posts or news about gaza, i can't emphasize this enough, JUST MOVE ON. KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND SCROLL PAST! all you have to do is absolutely nothing. which is what you were doing anyway, so it shouldn't be hard. if you don't have the heart to read, or reblog, or share, or donate, or support in other ways, at the very least, don't obstruct the efforts of people who ARE trying to make a difference. this is, quite literally, the least you can do.
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Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.
That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.
That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.
That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.
That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.
That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.
That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.
None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.
I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.
If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.
Celebrate fan work!
To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.
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I see so many people starting to use Threads as a way to escape Twitter and yes, it's owned by Facebook's CEO and giving Facebook the monopoly of social media is bad but I think we should also talk about the fact that, you know, Threads isn't avalibe in the EU for privacy reasons????? That should be concerning to EVERYONE
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Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?
You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?
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