#ficcourse

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Can we please not fucking turn “there is no perfect media, it’s possible & okay to enjoy a media without supporting the author and everything in it” into “xou shouldstn’t care about bigotry&etc in media”, also.

[aronarchy]

What’s your opinion on the “irredeemable media” discourse overall?

recordings of real-life people experiencing real abuse/victimization should be immediately & completely removed from existence upon request

some grayer area for i.e. recording police brutality & publishing to a large audience bc records currently needed for political reasons. but generally as rule of thumb avoid when not like that, or esp when it’s less public/more private/personal

all of the media recording sexual abuse, exploitation, and rape of actors/actresses currently still circulating/in existence, including the more popular/well-known films, especially those which their victims have fought to have taken down/no longer watched but failed, needs to be removed from existence asap. this media is irredeemable regardless of any other contexts shitty capitalists try to put them in for flimsy excuses

all abuse recordings such as those videos p*rents share showing them hitting their kids or yelling at & insulting their kids bragging about abusing them being circulated on social media need to be wiped from the internet. general abusive/exploitative imagery and other media recordings of that variety, i.e. revenge porn, CSEM, needs to be wiped too. if socmed platforms won’t do it then we find a way to do it. cops are very inefficient at doing so, of course. this media is irredeemable

get rid of abusive/exploitative imagery and other media recording other sentient beings as well. i.e. the irl nonhuman animal abuse imagery being circulated right now for some people’s enjoyment

watching vs contributing to tangible harm doesn’t necessarily correlate 1:1 all the time but would highly recommend not getting a viewing habit of abuse content of any sort. esp. seeking out without meaningfully using that to get rid of it asap. cops barely do shit and should not be “the only ones trusted to have large stashes of CSEM to view & share around” either, they exploit that. get their files burnt too. irredeemable media, should not exist.

regarding fiction which does not require the abuse/exploitation/victimization of real-life sentient beings to produce:

no feelings, or other intangible expressions, are moral/immoral. there is no ethical value or de-value for feeling enjoyment upon seeing something, or lacking a feeling of disgust upon seeing something, etc.

viewing fiction by bigots or abusers in a way which contributes to their revenue, fame, or other things which they are tangibly and on significant scale using to harm others isn’t necessarily wrong in a “you are personally causing the death of the planet by using one plastic straw” way, more like “do you really Need to be eating a sandwich at chick-fil-a right now?”

piracy is good. if you pirate personally some bigot thing that people are boycotting for good reason, barring bizarre unlikely edge cases such as “the piracy site records download counts and donates to bigots based on that” there’s not much tangible harm that can result from that. though bragging about you pirating instead of streaming, or touting your piracy in public a lot, probably isn’t the best idea either (as it often adds to the “hype” of the media and people who intend to stream it if they know it exists and start wanting to, so to speak). best to just not talk about it much, and enjoy on your own.

however, regarding fanfiction and other non-profit transformative works done for fandoms of previous media like the above, I have yet to find a good enough argument against doing fanfiction/fanart etc of the above

author is dead? no more proceeds going to fund their bigotry? go wild (within reasonable bounds ofc)

historical examples of bigoted fiction should not be wiped from existence. it is not unethical to view it. there are various reasons why one would want to, i.e. records, learning, but with a critical eye (and it’s perfectly possible to view any fiction with a critical eye, humans aren’t robots/sponges). would prefer distributors to tack on disclaimers if possible & helpful

I don’t understand people who put “people who enjoy [X] irredeemable media” on their DNIs, and those spaces where that is common tend to be extremely toxic to each other and outsiders

I obviously don’t give a single fuck about depictions of fictional abuse regardless of how “glorified” or “romanticized” or “eroticized,” do whatever, have fun, such media is great and deserves to exist and in fact should exist even more and its creators do not deserve to be harassed or have blanket condescending/demonizing assumptions projected onto them, focus your anti-abuse efforts on discourse spheres discussing actual IRL abuse ethics, + meaningful direct action against capital/the state

[gravefl0wers]

Your argument falls apart when 99.5% of an audience aren't cows, and can actively realize a show shouldn't affect their own opinions. Even if there are people that have "internalized" racism/homophobia, they are not only a small percentage, but also probably people who already have that opinion. It's honestly insulting when you assume people are that stupid or that easily influenced.

i hate to break it to you but people are easily influenced

let me introduce you to a phenomenon called behavioral contagion

( source )

you know how, if you’re in a room of sick people, you can trick yourself into feeling sick as well? turns out there’s a social and behavioral word for that too! it’s called behavioral contagion, and it occurs when someone witnesses someone else performing an act or saying something, and the action becomes “contagious”. this means the person watching may take the same steps to perform the act or may say the same kinds of things

take the death of the late robin williams, for example—when he committed suicide, many “copycat” suicides took place shortly thereafter by people who saw robin williams’ struggle and related (the same thing happened to kurt cobain in the 90s)

( source )

and i brought it up to the other anon, but propaganda is a thing that works and influences a lot of people. advertisements work the same way. they wouldn’t exist if people weren’t affected by them. humans are easily influenced i don’t know what to tell you

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Ah, fuck it. Repost.

There are abusers in every community.

There are abusers in every community you’re in.

All ideas get used for grooming.

As well as a lot of other things. Literally everything can and does get used for grooming.

No community is special or uniquely dangerous in that regard.

Pro-fiction community is not special and uniquely dangerous in that regard.

Kink community is not special and uniquely dangerous in that regard.

Para communities are not special and uniquely dangerous in that regard.

[Plaintext: Para communities are not special and uniquely dangerous in that regard]

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

To be honest I feel like “it’s okay to enjoy this Problematic Media if xou hast a hyperfixation on/special interest in it” is worse than “it’s not okay to enjoy this Problematic Media in absolutely any case”

Saying things like oh xou canst just drop a hyperfixation/SpIn is absolutely ableist!!! But this ^ just feels so wrong. “Don’t worry, I only enjoy it because I Have A Condition and Can’t Help It!”

Can we please just go back to “enjoying a media does not mean supporting the author and everything in it”

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Ship discourse centrist voice: Writing or reading about an adult character raping another adult character does not make you practically a rapist. Writing or reading about an adult character raping a child character, however, does.

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Antishipper voice: I trivialize all nonsexual violence and trauma so when people make art about sexual violence and trauma I assume they trivialize it

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, and someone with a "DNI if you eroticize any kind of abuse" why is there no sexual abuse warning on their fic about sexual abuse

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, and someone who thinks shipping abuse is immoral/unethical — their opinion on a canonical abusive dynamic or that one AU ship of theirs or

[gravefl0wers]

Though it is the responsibility of the viewer to separate fiction from reality, right? How is that the show or the viewer's fault?

you’re right in that it’s the responsibility of the audience to think critically about what kind of media they’re consuming, but it’s also the responsibility of the creator to make content that isn’t discriminatory or harmful in the first place

not everyone is conscious and aware of what they consume in media, which gives creators with hurtful/discriminatory views a platform for content that can alter the way people view the discriminated parties. and separating fiction from reality isn’t always a conscious thing; if you consume media unaware and uninformed, you can subconsciously pick up on the harmful messages without even realizing, hence the usage of phrases like internalized racism, internalized homophobia, and other internalized oppression.

unless content creators begin to pivot away from hurtful and discriminatory content, change will not be made, and unless the audience begins being more conscious about the types of media they consume, creators will continue to make these kinds of things. it’s a vicious cycle that can’t always be solved by one or two people saying “this show is bad” which is why it’s just as important for the audience to take care in the media they endorse as it is for creators to create more ethical content.

[gravefl0wers]

tv shows don’t affect real life dumbass

there have been many many studies, ted talks, experiments and the like that prove otherwise ( x , x , x , x , and i’ve got plenty more if you’re not convinced )

i’m just curious how do you think propaganda and hidden messages in tv work?

literally don’t fuck with me on this i wrote a presentation and essay on how fiction affects reality and presented it during my school’s senior exhibition less than a year ago

[gravefl0wers]

what’s wrong it’s with hazbin? it’s set in hell the characters are shitty on purpose

arguing about the content itself is a moot point (and the phrasing of the question suggests you want a surface level argument which i won’t give) so i’ll skip to the important stuff

when i first heard about it i thought h-zbin h-tel was interesting and a little edgy but cool. then, i started to see how it was affecting other people who watched it and read many-a response to how the show treated its characters, and realized it was a flawed piece of media that i personally couldn’t interact with in good conscience

i’m not gonna police what shows you watch, what games you play, or what general media you consume but be aware that the content you interact with affects how you act towards yourself and others, and can even warp how you see the world around you

think critically about the media you consume. sometimes it takes a little bit of digging to see from others’ perspective, but before getting defensive about something you enjoy, ask yourself why these concerns might be brought up in the first place