#learn how to engage with media that doesn't center you or fuck off

[roguelibrarian]

"I want more YA stories where the adults are the ones saving the world so that the kids don't have to." Adult fiction what you want is adult fiction and at least half the shelf space in your nearest bookstore and local library is dedicated to it.

[captaindoubled]

Me, the person that spent the last years at college studying and researching evaluation conditioning in the media and how it affects people's feelings towards different races irl: Even though media is getting better, folks are still falling into harmful tropes that only harm the message they are trying to get across and it helping.

I love Akande in overwatch but he is still a hulking black villain and that only reinforces the black hulking stereotype. Evaluative condition g is quick and instant and on a subconscious level for the most part so when folks look at him, they make connections with the racist stereotype of a big black man even if his character is far from it.

Dream Daddy has trans representation but has had their name tacked on to transphobic gamers and regardless of their involvement, that association is there. Gay men will be played as a joke because viewers of these gamers will be primed to think of gay men as a joke and not nuisanced people.

VLD relies so heavily on character tropes that genuine moments of character growth are lost because viewers are only going to see them through those tropes. Example- Characters like Hunk have moments where he shines through as an individual in the show are lost because the viewers have already been told multiple times that he's a fat food guy coward and because this trope is old and connections are strong in people's head that this trope is easily recognizable, moments where he's brave, math clever and just kind are overshadowed even if those moments are even with his food moments.

Steven Universe is another show that I had a lot of hope for but ultimately i had to step back from entirely because they constantly did nothing about their anti black biases and continued to demonize or other black coded characters within the show. Black woman characters being mules for the feelings of other characters, even when they were given moments to deal with those problems were turned to moments to lift up another character in the end (When Pearl used Garnet to fuse to feel powerful but only ended up being a character development moment for Pearl when that story arch should have centered around Garnet carrying the burden of the team). The creators have refused to do better with the POC coded gems or POC characters in the town and have mostly focused on white coded or thin characters. This is an example of people trying to be progressive so much so that they don't stop to check themselves or allow themselves to be criticized which is a shame. It's hard to see the progress in media when half the time it's one step forward two steps back.

Also me, but an optimistic person who just wants to have a good time and have faith in folks: I still enjoy the characters of Overwatch and other actually diverse big name pieces of media and even with its flaws it's a step in the right direction. The flaws will help them learn and if it doesn't, the spite will fuel other people to do better with their own IPs. I've seen plenty of folk get on their grind from bad media just as much as good media. And within the full context of the story, Akande is more than just a big black man and if fans and folks don't see the humanity in him, that's their problem. It is the job of the creators to do what they can to not promote harmful stereotypes but if fans can not see humanity in black characters than there is little that can be done.

Example- Lució is a good man, a musician and a hero to his people but people either Demonize his character by saying his a criminal for stealing from an oppressive force or dehumanizing him because he's one of the shortest characters on canon and because they don't see him as a "threatening" black man, they find ways to make him even less threatening, almost infant like as a counter stereotype which is just as harmful to black people.

I will bring up Dream Daddy again because other than small moments that are iffy, the game is actually very tame and very well made and not the fetish fuel that the fans have made it out to be. Most of the dates are just friends hanging out and only on the third date do you lock in a romantic interaction. Some of those last dates don't even become romantic until the last minute. Even Joseph's story which doesn't have a "good ending" is balanced for in the fact that not every gay has to have a good end when the majority of them in the story do. Only positive stuff doesn't make people see gay men as complex human people and the idea that just because it's a dating sim, huh can't always get what you want is nice and treats him like a human man with his own issues and not just fan fuel. I can see this being a stepping stone for folks to take the dating sim genre more seriously because both them and visual novels are easier to program and create than fps,third person games, or side scroller and so more indie folks can create bigger and better representation without being tacked on to the Game Grumps.

VLD has been an odd show from the jump and has done a lot better than previous versions of the show. It's far more diverse and the stereotypes are annoying but not as bad as they were in the past. I prefer to watch the show outside of the fandom and I don't interact with the fans because again, it becomes a situation where the fans own biases have soiled the entire experience and made the show something that it isn't. It could be better but nothing is perfect and I'll critique it because that's my job as a viewer but I'm still proud of the work it's done so far even if it's not super good all the time.

Also also me, an exhausted person: Just do better. Both shows and fans. People make these shows and pieces of media and people aren't perfect. It's both the job of the creator to do better and to apologize when implicit biases, which are very hard to change unless you actively go out of the way to fix them and recondition yourself, are present in characters or they just fuck up on something.

But it's also the job of the fans to educate themselves on what's right and how to interact with folk. This isn't a reasonably, be nice thing. It's a, maybe don't send really weird messages to folks about your ship unless the creator has made it know that they like to engage in that talk. Even if you are angry, actually say what's wrong with sources instead of working off hear-say. If you don't know what's wrong with a show, ask and do your own research or only form your opinions from folks that actually did the research and not a random post with literally no sources but lots of outrage. Also accept that sometimes your opinion on stuff is wrong. Cis women who only interact with a show for the gay ships are fundamentally wrong?? And annoying and you hounding a creators for gay content is actually very gross when you can support shows when canon can characters.

BUT as fans you do have a right to critique a show for stuff going on and creators have to have thicker skin when it comes to critique. They have every choice to listen to it or ignore it but fans have every right to critique the media. It's how things change. Again, a point back to Steven Universe. Both with the fans and the creators didn't want anything bad said about the show. Just because it was progressive for one group, doesn't mean it's progressive for other folk.

There were good moments that children and adults needed to hear but nothing is perfect and if a show can't be critiqued nothing will get better and the deeper in your craw you get about a problem, folks tend to double down on them (I have a theory that racist/sexist/ist thoughts and actions tend to get worst when you tell folks to stop because they can be learned through conditioning and so go through a thing called an extinction burst ((an extinction burst is when you try and stop a trained behavior by not reinforcing it any longer the thing doing the behavior does it a lot more out of frustration because they aren't frying their treat anymore)) so they do racist shit more because they aren't getting rewarded for their behavior) the worst you'll get.

The rise of social media and creators wanting to connect with the fans have created a situation where folks have easy access to one another and there is a lack or respect for folks space. This was a problem with Bryke and members of the ATLA crew entering in spaces meant for the fans and being upset with how overwhelming the close interactions were and got defensive about critique of any kind. This is a problem with folks on the VLD fandom holding pieces of media hostage to get what they want, ignoring the real world consequences of those actions. The closeness allows for direct responses with problems but also the same way texts are, people expect and answer immediately when people behind contracts and are representing their content and everyone who's worked on it has to put the message out fast but same time it has to follow rules probably set out by their company. Both sides just need to do better.