#mental health culture critical

[devilsskettle]

i hate sherlock because still in the year 2021 bitches will try to tell me the difference between “psychopath” and “sociopath” based on how those words are used in sherlock as if 1) sherlock is a valid source for defining mental health terminology, 2) that terminology is still used in modern psychology to this day, 3) the way they’re defining those terms in the first place isn’t rooted in ableism and a deep-seated cultural fear of people with low empathy or personality disorders 

[oceantail-oceantail]

the statements "let teenage girls enjoy what they like!!" and "we shouldn't endorse young teenagers overwhelming themselves on social media and harassing people under the guise of social justice and activism" can and should co-exist

[thestargroove]

Dying in a Hot Tub: A Cultural Criticism

The song “Dying in a Hot Tub” by Palaye Royale reveals many wrongs in our society. In a tweet, Palaye Royale divulged how the song is about one of their best friends who is an addict. In this spirit, we recognize that the song is testament to the lifestyle their friend lives due to their current discontentment with life. 

The song begins with a narrative about visiting that friend:

You're looking skinny, you sleepy head

Well, have you gotten out of bed?

Have you gotten out of bed?

Getting concerned about my lonely friend

We first see the symptoms of depression and mental illness, in which the friend stays in bed all day and is starving themselves. In recent years due to social media platforms giving voice to virtually anyone who has a phone, the prevalence of this in today's youth has become very apparent. Many starve themselves to try to match society’s standard of beauty, in being skinny, as popularized by platforms like Instagram, where people Photoshop their pictures to adhere to this standard, instilling and promoting an unattainable ideal in the minds of the youth who view these media posts. While it is well known that people Photoshop their photos and that much of what people see on social media is fake, it does not stop users from pining for those body shapes. The body dysmorphia that results from this overrepresentation of one body type has led for many to fall into destructive habits, and to even develop mental illness. While more brands today are using different body types in advertising, you either see a typical model, tall and skinny, or someone plus sized, and often no body shape in between. This lack of representation for a whole group of people leads to a loss of confidence and unhappiness. 

When unhappiness hits, people turn towards a source of escapism, such as drugs or alcohol. The song recognizes this trend in the youth:

​​Oh, your money is getting wasted

But you're always getting wasted all the time

Getting concerned about your lonely days

You're doing some more drugs

Getting caught in your "drug phase"

Especially with the romanticization of drugs on social media, this has become a widespread problem. Things like the media coverage of the legalization of marijuana has made marijuana more popular than ever, yet the effects of marijuana on undeveloped minds is a problem. As one’s brain matures at age 25, using drugs like marijuana can have negative impacts on the unstable minds. This can also easily lead to addiction, and compromise the lives of a great portion of the youth population. This song also brings up another, often overlooked point: how the upkeep of substance addiction adds up. This spending of money furthers the problem of debt, especially in the youth, as student debt is worse than ever before, crippling the lives of many as they slave over trying to pay back these loans. This leads to a vicious cycle of unhappiness, which then causes people to turn to substances, which uses up even more money, which then they struggle to make, which then leads to further unhappiness. This can easily lead to mental unwellness and often unstable relationships, due to personal discontentment. 

As such, another effect of addiction and being mentally unwell is to isolate oneself from others. This song brings awareness to this as a potentially unhealthy behavior, as it showcases the unhappiness that comes along with self-isolation. Especially since phones and social media has led to a virtual world that if often used to interact, sometimes more than in the real world, it has become easier than ever to isolate oneself from others, and to wallow in negative feelings without a break. This further compounds things like body dysmorphia, and a proclivity towards drug use, as the youth may further use social media as a way to sit and escape from their life, like a drug, and can become addicted to being constantly stimulated by social media. This also leads to an unhealthy lifestyle, which furthers unhappiness, a detriment to society.

All these factors can lead to feelings of despair, covered by the song in:

Have you heard the news

That you're on your own?

Have you heard the news?

You got nowhere to go, go, go, go, now

In this, the narrator thinks that they are unable to do anything on their own and they think they can’t go anywhere in life. These negative feelings are then likely subsided by drug use in: 

Well, I'll fly to the moon again

Well, I'm sleeping with clothes up on my head

I'll fly to the moon again

I'm dying in a hot tub

I'm dying in a hot tub with my friends

which denotes how the drugs have led the person to start hallucinating friends, as the previous verse they talked about being alone. This is compounded especially in the next verse as the person starts hallucinating even crazier things, making their brain unable to function to take them out of their depression and hallucinations. 

The subsequent verse furthers all these ideas:

Have you heard the news

That you're on your own?

I'll grab you a noose

'Cause you got nowhere to go, go, go, go, now

All these negative feelings mixed with a bad drug trip, where the hallucinations are getting too much and too real, leads to suicidal thoughts in order to escape feeling so horrible. And thus the title of the song reflects this sentiment in being called, “Dying in a Hot Tub” and perhaps relating to the imagery of self-harm in a tub in the song “Oh Ana” by Mother Mother. In “Oh Ana,” Mother Mother sings of slitting their wrists in a bathtub, to watch the blood evaporate, revealing mental illness. This is in first verse of “Oh Ana,” when Mother Mother sings:

I'll be God

I'll be God, I'll be God, I'll be God today

Hold my head under that bath and breathe away

Slit my wrists and watch that blood evaporate

Being this godly can't be good for

Ana's safety, Ana hear me

In this mantra throughout the song of “I’ll be God”, reveals the narrator’s wish to take control over their life, much like a god takes control of its creations' lives. 

Whether by inadvertently including this wish for self-control and to get better, “Dying in a Hot Tub” by Palaye Royal reveals the immense personal strength and will that must go into helping one become well once again- needing a God like effort that is truly challenging for many. And perhaps it is impossible for many, as shown by how “Dying in a Hot Tub” never directly demonstrates the narrator getting well, instead going further and further into the drug trip and deleterious thoughts. Perhaps I tried to write in a happy ending that this narrator never got- especially since the song is titled “Dying in a Hot Tub” which may reveal the death of the narrator.

All people are worthy of living happily ever after, yet with so many negative influences in society, will the youth ever make it to The End?

[kittykatinabag]

I just want to say that I do not get enough credit for having to deal with my friends' outward anxiety emissions.

Not letting it trigger my own anxiety is so incredibly exhausting.

[radicalcommonsense]

Radical Common Sense: Introduction.

Though we all may be very different, we likely have one thing in common: In one way or another 2020 has changed each and every one of us. As if these last four years hadn't already filled our brains to the brim with political jibber-jabber from the mainstream media. I think we can all agree that the news has been persistently focused on politics (more specifically allegations against President Donald Trump) and that it has been a constant noise buzzing all around us, effecting each and every one of our lives. When we turn on the radio, when we scroll through our social media feeds, when we're on the bus, or eating peacefully at a restaurant and the person behind us is talking a little too loudly. As if all of this weren't enough to endure, the pool of politics became much, much deeper for us to swim in when we were locked up in our homes for months on end.    I lost my job on March 15, 2020 when we were forced to close. I was fortunate enough to be able to continue to live comfortably with my boyfriend, but the time on my hands felt endless for the next 6 months. Like many I first went mad and began organizing every closet, cabinet, and sock drawer. I held so much pint up and nervous energy in my body that I felt like I was in a constant state of sticking a fork into an electrical socket and could burst into a series of sparks, burning to a crisp at any moment. I began dowsing myself in CBD products to try and keep my cool. I started painting, reading a ton and took an online Interior Design course???

   Once I had finally grown somewhat accustom to my new and strange life of gardening, day drinking, reading on the balcony and pretending that I was a retired old woman, that's when the riots started happening. The shutdown alone had caused even more friction to rise between both ends of the political spectrum. Conservatives voiced their objection to government overreach while Leftists called people jogging outside without a mask "grandma killers". There was certainly ignorance shown on both ends of the spectrum, but the point I'm making here is that the tension was growing with each and every day that we all were forced to stay home, leaving our means of having any income in the hands of Daddy Government.    I did my best to limit my social media intake, but even 5 minutes scrolling would reveal a whirlwind of very strong and accusatory opinions of the shutdown, Black Lives Matter, racism, systemic racism, systematic racism, another cancelled syrup bottle or comedian who wasn't politically correct in a stand up act back in 1994, white privilege, voter fraud, total Covid-19 hysteria and a whole lot of shaming those who didn't follow suit with the mainstream narrative. There were people fueling these fires and if you dared to question their motives you were on the chopping block, also embarrassingly known as Cancel Culture.

   We all know what it is, but I am afraid to think of how many of us have actually experienced it. I certainly did when I shared a video of a BLM event happening in Chicago. This video was particularly alarming because the crowd of "peaceful" protestors were so extremely organized in their attack. I felt overwhelmed with fear watching as they took their giant "Black Lives Matter" sign made of pvc pipe, that stretched across what looked like 6 lanes of highway, hid behind it, changed into all black clothing and then proceeded to use it as a shield as they grew closer to their target. Once they were close enough, the pvc pipe was pulled apart to reveal that it had been constructed from pieces of pipe that they had sharpened to a nice and lethal point. They then began to throw these sharpened pieces of pvc pipe, along with frozen water bottles, frozen cans, rocks and explosive devises at police officers who appeared to be standing back, allowing the protest to happen without interference prior to this attack. So much so that most of them were even unarmed, not expecting violence to prevail on either side. (Feel free to watch the video to see for yourself.)

   This certainly wasn't the first video I'd seen where "peaceful" protestors were being destructive or even gruesomely violent, but it was the first that made this movement look like a well organized militia, inspired by an organization which I believe has a Marxists, or communist agenda. When I shared my fears about this, calling the movement "violent" I received quite a lot of hate from the friends I'd somehow collected on Facebook over the last 10 years. They urged people not to support my creative endeavors. People took screenshots of the post and shared it on their other social accounts (completely out of context as the video was of course removed) in attempts to reach an even bigger audience. I received direct messages from total strangers who called me racists, among other things. I had already been “cancelled” by some close friends prior to this for going to the beach on the day it re-opened in Daytona and posting about it with a caption that suggested it was safe to be outside. This idea seemed to really devastate some people and they made sure to let me know it as they called me the following names: Laughably f*cking stupid, Karen, Privileged, Nazi, uninformed, insensitive, stupid b*tchh, flat-earther, ignorant f*cking b*tch, racist, a “Trumper” and the ever popular white privileged b*tch. These are just some of the insults that I can remember off the top of my head. 

   My message here is not meant to invoke pity, or rage, or anything in between, but it is necessary for me to give you some back story as to what led me to my obsession to understand something very few people care about today, the Truth. I knew that the ideas I was hearing, coming from the mouths of the majority were wrong, but I wanted to understand why and I wanted to be prepared to defend myself, since it had been made abundantly clear to me that, that was going to be necessary. So, I delved even DEEPER into politics, government, American history and the criminal justice system. I am happy to say that this thirst for knowledge led me back into school, where I'm finally finishing up my associates degree (and getting straight A's). But I digress. Time went on and I calmed my little hummingbird heart over the dramatic smearing of my name (which had previously been widely accepted due to my Leftist blabbering of things I didn't really understand) and I continued to quietly read and research.    I dared to peer my head back into the land of Social Mania and posted yet again on Facebook. This time I felt I had something to say that was rather mild on the offensive scale... that proved to be incorrect. A friend of mine had shared a video with me of a fallen soldier whom he'd fought beside in Iraq. They had grown close and the video showed as they draped his casket with the American flag. The message he sent attached to the video said "this is why I'll always stand for the flag." I found his message really touching and shared the video along with what he had said (of course not mentioning his name out of respect). Later that day I received a message from a previous co-worker that was quite belligerent and sloppy, but somewhere in his (I'm assuming drunken) rage he asked the question: "Have you been radicalized or something?"

   We are living in a world where the narrative has completely shifted. It is no longer radical to preach about the wonders of what Communism "could" be. It is no longer radical to loot, riot, burn down churches, kill police officers and even innocent child bystanders so long as it is under the guise of social justice. It is not radical to want to uproot your countries entire political system in order to replace it with a "better", socialist/communist one that has proven to not only fail but ruin/end the lives of millions. It is now radical to suggest that we should honor our flag, those who fought for our freedom and to simply lift ourselves up to stand for the American flag.

   It is now racist to celebrate the 4th of July, insensitive to celebrate Thanksgiving, homophobic to practice Christianity and don't even think about subjectively acknowledging the accomplishments of Christopher Columbus. In fact, don't dare to celebrate the intellect of any of our founding fathers. It is now radical to be proud to be an American. It is radical to support a free-market economy. It is radical to defend straight white men against any and all accusations as they are the "obvious" oppressors of all. People will gasp if you question the effects of Drag Queen Story Hour and you're  likely just "uneducated" if you don't understand why the nuclear family is outdated.      

   In summary, do not practice critical thinking and especially not Common Sense. Just repeat after the mainstream media and you might be spared from exposing your truly "radical" ideas about traditional American values and your love of oppressive straight white men. 

   I will continue to write about these topics as well as covering current events from the perspective of someone who is dedicated to understanding the Truth, how we can connect what we’re seeing today to human History & to earn a better understanding of human behavior. I do not intend to use this as a platform to rant vigorously about my own personal feelings. Rather to defend what I believe to be Common Sense values. 

[kernsing]

Talking about a recent trend in pro-Jedi rhetoric:

I actually don’t really understand how the “culture vs. organization” distinction matters re asking the Jedi to change their practices. That is, I don’t understand why there’s a salient difference between asking a culture and asking an organization to change a bad practice. A few points bouncing around in my head:

It shouldn’t matter if a practice is beloved by a group of people if it also hurts people.

The corollary: if a practice does no harm, but is beloved by disparate individuals instead of a group of people, it should still be defended as stringently as harmless cultural practices.

The mechanism of forced assimilation is bad because it is borne out of a desire to destroy differences, and so often targets practices that are totally fine. Targeting e.g. languages is always crossing the line.

Change should come from within because it’s more effective that way and it is less likely to target harmless cultural practices. Outsiders who criticize a culture (or an organization!) should let insiders or former insiders take the lead if the practice only harms insiders.

When outsiders criticize a culture/organization, they should take special care to make sure they are applying a principle equally to all groups of people, instead of targeting a specific group out of prejudice.

I think pro-Jedi arguments should focus on the fact that Jedi cultural practices aren’t harmful: i.e., that in canon, the Jedi are not shown to kidnap babies against the wishes of parents, adopt children into unstable environments, repress emotions, cut off contact with outsiders, forbid members from practicing their birth cultures, force people to stay Jedi if they do not want to, or shun people who leave the Order. (And also note that it’s fine to headcanon these things, so long as you don’t dictate that everyone must headcanon these things.)

I also think it’s fine to criticize arguments that hold the Jedi up to higher standards than, say, the Mandalorians, who also raise their children to be warriors. Or arguments that criticize the Jedi for the clone army, if they also do not criticize the Senate in harsher terms.

[innko]

Cynthia Cruz, The Body 

[brooke-the-poet]

I want to make an analysis/commentary at this point,  on"Elisabeth the musical" where Death/Der Tod is a central character. I want to make it clear: "Elisabeth" is an anti-romanticism.

A critical response to the majority romantic narrative placed on her life and of the culture of death, according to the playwright Michael Kunze.

It portrays the trauma (domestic terrorism) she experienced and the effects it had on her life. Death appears as a response to that trauma.

Furukawa Yuta's Der Tod, makes this point even clearer than other actors have in the past focussing on portraying Elisabeth's suppressed emotions, showing what she cannot.

To further complicate the narrative, the being Death has its own goals. Elisabeth is not in control of this being and its interests are very one sided. Its involvement in her life are in the form of what appear to be episodes of complex trauma. (C-PTSD/PTSD)

Appearing only in the palace, when she is in distress:

Injury resulting in near death experience

Marriage, when her relatives are criticising her in earshot.

Loss of dignity and freedom  

Emotional Betrayal

Loss of her parental rights

House arrest

Death of her children

Infidelity of partner

Disease (stds) Death informs her of this.

Political demands

She is trapped deep within her mind, by a demand or tragedy where she must remain stoic in the face of circumstances. The colder she becomes outwardly, the more emotional Death grows. (Yuta's interpretation)

She wants release, but not to die. Death is terrifying, and its presence even in its seductive lure, ironically wills her to live. Resisting It provides the only control she has in her life.Like most mental illness and other states of being, she cannot change this.

This being is living through her and alongside her,mirroring what is underneath her mask.

This is partly inspired by activist Sara Harvey (Agony Autie) and her late night conversations about trauma.

On a very personal level I relate to Elisabeth as she's presented in this story; someone who desires freedom from demands and oppressive social rules,especially those historically placed on women.

Death and suicide ideation and trauma are heavily romanticised. Women's distress and trauma is often gaslit this way through many mediums and narratives. It's important to analyse those narratives.

I struggle with complex trauma daily and in the past suicide ideation. I know what it is to feel captive to trauma and your environment. The rush and chaos of flashbacks and emotions and the loss of control it brings. When I started this account it was to help me process and control these feelings through my interests. At this point in time, my motivation is my love of sharing and expressing, and of Yuta too.

[addressingsophism]

Bullying and Culture: A Personal View

I remember being bullied very harshly in school. It was only a few people, but I was attacked everyday. I was told it was because I was "weird". No one ever explained what that meant. I think it was an excuse. I started being bullied in elementary school because I was the first foster child that anyone had seen. It was the adults at first. Rich adults and teachers that had clawed their way into the wealthy areas and school system were scared and prejudiced towards foster children, often touting stereotypes at me. The kids learned to bully from watching the teachers and parents. The kids had to justify what the adults were doing after all. Better to be in the side of power and so on. From that point I avoided arrogant personality types, which often projected their feelings onto me. They often tried to deal with their secret inferiority complexes by declaring someone else was even more inferior, and then they'd attack them, verbally, physically or socially. So I avoided those people, but I ended up socially isolated because they'd seek me out when they either felt at their most low or high. I rarely retaliated, but the disturbances caused by people seeking me out and attacking me lead to routine victim blaming by adults and on Lookers. To pass the time I studied world cultures, creative thinking and critical thinking, which confused my peers and the adults around me, since most of them were radical traditionalists and close-minded. They were obsessed with creating and maintaining over-simplistic worldviews based on stereotype-assessment and attribution. This resulted in me being slandered out of their confusion. That itself resulted in people trying to change me (to be more like them) or encouraging others to mistreat me or reject me socially. Social interference was common. Bullying was also common in my family, but the victims often went back and forth between lodging concerns and praising abusers. They always had their excuses, but they (the excuse) were transparent to anyone with a brain. Some had issues with me because I questioned authority and tradition. Some had issues with me because I questioned culture and localized "normalcy". Some had issues with me because I reacted to bullying instead of being a passive victim. Groups often engaged in group bullying and group victim-blaming in order to assert their group dominance. It was a game of "stop using logic and obey our culture and demands or we will bully you and lie about you". False accusations were common forms of punishments by groups that sought to punish outsiders. They also did it to flex their power and status. It became a vicious cycle were my peers and the authorities around me became obsessed status, reputation, status and rationalization.

You had to walk on eggshells much of the time.

They'd attack anyone that didn't comply with their demands for attention and direction. They'd call people that resisted "crazy" or they'd claim people lacked self awareness, but only if their analysis of how much social support they had dictated they could get away with it (meaning those that thought they were popular would attempt to bully those they thought were less popular). New people were radically quizzed about how many people they knew, what they believed and how strong their relationships were. Not one person in my entire youth ever discussed logic, and neither did the adults. They all valued social status over logic. They even tried to pervert formal logic by saying people each had their own form of logic and objective formal logic didn't exist. They all rejected reading books that contradicted their ego-assembled philosophies.

They were the center of their own universe and their exposure to beliefs in condescending and exaggerated stereotypes not only influenced but controlled their entire worldview, thinking and interactions with others. To question their confirmation bias or ego was akin to madness in their eyes. Everything must be kept simple, and they could never admit to error because the risk of losing face was deemed catastrophic.

They also rejected cosmopolitan-multiculturalism and scientific thinking. There was just this obsession with people judging themselves and others by social acceptability instead of on ethics, merit, strength and intelligence. Instead adherence to beliefs were substitutes for all of those virtues. And so bullying was built around that whole framework. To this day I still look at my peers with disappointment, as most of them are still obsessed with status and fear being judged as an outsider... while promoting adherence to narrow culture instead logic, science and cosmopolitan concepts. So many were guilty of bullying and you can clearly see their current psychological framework is built on making sure that is never exposed and that their statuses are secured.

The foundations of comparative-identity are also seen occasionally, per when they throw judgments into the world based on condescending stereotypes; these are often directed at the least advantaged in society... the homeless, children, the abused, animals, those struggling with substance abuse issues, etc.

I'm sick of keeping these secrets because that just seems to encourage the cycle. People say it's wrong and unsightly to speak about real world issues. I don't think it is. I'm not going to be shamed or bullied into silence. The world has a bully culture problem and it needs to be outed and corrected.

[2486034]

also: actual kids and teens getting into fandon and stanning is bad. like its inherently bad especially for their mental health and person and im sorta surprised this hasnt been brought up?? like theres so many better things to do instead of blindly worshipping mediocre celebrities and media yall

[irreverentsincerity]

It's all politics

It's all politics #politics #mentalhealth #critique #culture

  Everything is political. You choose what ideas you’re exposed to, what food you eat, what clothes you buy, what rules you break. Of course, most of us are not thinking about the labour conditions in the factory are clothes are made or the carbon footprint of the food we eat when we buy them, but that doesn’t mean that goes away. Choosing not to think is still a choice.

But that’s not new…

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

welcome new followers! here's some info to get started

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Hi! You can call me Gaudy or Gaud (pronounced 'god,' which is a complete coincidence I am not responsible for, these things just seem to happen to me). I'm they/them.

this blog has a huge archive of shitposts, bizarre facts & random positivity, enjoy! There are almost 45 thousand original posts & articles here, if you are looking for the mental & emotional equivalent of being swallowed by quicksand and simultaneously engulfed by a rock slide <3

here are some old favorites to get you started: The Dollar Post, The Nickel Post, Twitter vs Tumblr, Boy’s Night, Make This Creepy, and some various random others etcetera, no wait here have some more!!! wait i lied here’s more

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[liberatingreality]

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Contemplating how insidious it is that communal/intergenerational living is so heavily frowned upon in Western society. 

The idea that you MUST financially and emotionally support yourself in order to be a fulfilled adult benefits the housing market and megacorporations (who benefit from marketing to smaller familial units and avoiding conflict of interest in their workers) more than it will ever benefit you. 

The rhetoric that your twenties are “supposed” horrible, lonely time and that it’s normal to be miserable and isolated in your twenties is completely false. Though moods fluctuate and periods of difficulty are normal, I refuse to believe that we evolved to be consistently unhappy for any long period in our lives. If you are consistently unhappy, there’s a reason for it, whether it’s environmental or neurochemical.

The idea that “everyone’s unhappy when they’re young” is another notion that benefits the school system (which wants students to prioritize standardized tests over their mental and emotional health) and the corporations (which want people to prioritize their work over their mental and emotional health). Question why you are indoctrinated to believe you should accept unhappiness.

What really brought this line of thinking into focus for me was the pandemic. Now, I’m twenty-three, a grad student getting my second Masters degree, and an educator. I also happily live with my family, and have no plans to move away.

This used to really frustrate some people I know, who had based their idea of selfhood on independence (which is okay!). But since the pandemic, their protestations have slowly but surely died down, as it brought into focus the very reason why bigger social units can be necessary to maintain mental and emotional health in difficult times. 

The pandemic brought me and my family so much closer together as we leaned on one another and depended on one another, and I sincerely doubt I could get through it without them (at least, not with my emotional well-being intact).

I also don’t think I should need to justify wanting to prioritize my parents, siblings, and close friends. Our culture encourages us to prioritize romantic relationships; the only adult cohabitation that is encouraged is between significant others. But it is unfair to expect one person to be your sole means of emotional support, both to them and to you. It is similarly unfair to expect everyone to WANT a romantic relationship to begin with. 

To be clear: not everyone has a good family or support system, and some people are happier alone. That’s perfectly okay! But I think we also need to accept that the alternative is true: many people NEED a support system, and they shouldn’t be shamed for it. We shouldn’t be shamed for wanting to live with family, for prioritizing family, or for living communally (for example, people who live with friends or roommates).

Most of all, I believe we could benefit from being more critical of what society tells us is good for us. Always ask yourself, “who does this ideology benefit?” Much of the time, it’s not you. And much of the time, someone who is not you is making money from it.

Don’t be ashamed to choose the kind of life or lifestyle that makes you happy, and though a healthy degree of discomfort can accompany growth, prolonged misery should not.

[itsmoonpeaches]

TW: mentions of racism

Why POC leave fandoms, an essay that for some f**king reason needs to be written

There is one thing that a person thinks of when entering a fandom: "What can I do in order to consume more content related to this piece of media that I enjoy?"

A fandom, at its core, is a community of people from all walks of life that happen to adore the same thing. First and foremost, there is pure, unadulterated excitement. What comes next depends on who you are and what you consume, and unfortunately, depends on what kind of people are in a particular fandom.

When I say "what kind of people", I don't mean demographics. I mean the kind of people that are either decent or not.

You might be surprised that I'm implying that there are indecent people in fandom. You might be thinking, "Media now is so much more diverse than it was years ago!" And thus you might additionally be thinking, "Since it's so diverse now that means fandoms attract diverse people! We're so inclusive now and so accepting. Everyone is decent."

Well, if you are one of those people, I envy you.

It's correct that media is more diverse and that more diverse people are active in fandoms, or at least are more open about being a minority in the general population. What might be hiding underneath all that? Racism.

Repeat after me: Just because a piece of media is diverse doesn't mean that its fandom is inclusive.

POC are being more represented now than they were in recent years, but there is a constant exodus of POC from the very fandoms they helped to cultivate.

Their cultures and practices are being white-washed, twisted to fit the benefit of fanfic authors or fan artists, and terribly misunderstood. POC characters are written or drawn in such a way that their identity as POC is eclipsed by the fact that they are suddenly someone they never were. And while it's OK to not know everything about ethnic groups and other minority groups, it isn't OK to ignore what they say when they point out that you are wrong in their portrayal.

Not everyone will be right about everything. Not everyone has the resources or the patience to research things, but there is something so wrong about pushing POC to the side and telling them that their views on their own cultures shouldn't be taken into consideration because it might not be part of the content creator's original plan. This is even more messed up when the original piece of media that the content was created for was either heavily researched or created by POC for POC.

That's not even the last of it. How POC react in fandom to media versus the rest of fandom is different and often criticized.

Take the storylines in media for example. (Spoilers I guess.) For this I'll highlight two:

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Fire Nation takes control of parts of other nations, perpetuating a war for 100 years. They try to wipe out other kinds of benders that aren't firebenders, and try to colonize. - POC often see the Fire Nation for what it is. That being a colonizer nation. They recognize the effects of cultural genocide, i.e. near-total genocide of the Air Nomads and the near-genocide of the waterbending culture of the Southern Water Tribe. Meanwhile, POC have been criticized and bashed for pointing out the Fire Nation's flaws, and for not loving the enemy nation the best.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - Sam refuses to become Captain America at first and takes a whole journey to finally end up in a place where he realizes he can be. - POC, especially BIPOC, point out the significance of Sam's journey. He realizes the trust and enormity of Captain America's shield. He refuses it not necessarily because he doesn't think he's worthy, but because he doesn't feel right. He believes America isn't ready for a black Captain America, and that maybe, they don't deserve it yet. POC are criticized because they see this story and empathize with Sam. Meanwhile, the rest of the fandom hops on Bucky's side and claims that Sam had no right to do what he did because it wouldn't be what Steve wanted and Bucky understood this etc. while refusing to understand that Sam's reasons were because of the backlash and racism he thought he could face. (By the way, it was explained explicitly in the show that Bucky understood later on why Sam couldn't do it at first.)

This all ultimately leads to things like gaslighting, blatant name calling, and you know, actual f**king racism.

"You don't know what colonialism is," a fan might say to a POC fan in the same fandom. "You just don't get that XYZ character has a lot of mental health issues," another fan might say to a POC.

This leads to tone policing.

A POC might say something in a conversation like, "You're being racist and disrespectful. Stop it." But others in the same conversation might say things like, "I think we all just need to be nice. Can everyone calm down?"

All these things are a part of a complicated problem, a problem that is being ignored, just like POC are.

POC leave fandoms because of all of the above. They leave because no one listens to them, and even when they are listened to, they are threatened in a DM. They are tired and angry and hurt.

POC are afraid to speak out because when they do, they are sent triggering pictures in their inbox, asked to leave, told to hurt themselves, told to direct their frustrations with a racist individual elsewhere and not where everyone can see.

Just like everyone else, POC enter a fandom because they want an escape from real life. Yet, they are being confronted with issues that they already face on a daily basis in their real lives, and in many cases in a worse form.

POC stop wanting to speak out. Allies sometimes want to stop too. Why? Because it becomes dangerous.

It becomes a vicious circle. People say that there are no POC in fandoms. POC try to join fandoms, get harassed out, and then people repeat that there are no POC in fandoms. They want content from POC, input from POC...and then this happens again and again.

What exactly does a fandom want? Diversity? Because it sure doesn't feel like it.