#so your audience is intentionally the uninformed

[wildmelon]

when creators have unambiguous and specific tou but you really want to reupload their work and exploit casual players for your own financial gain 

[quadrantvacillation]

are there any good Choose Your Own Adventure style fanfics out there?

[feral-cockroach]

okay i saw sth on pinterest ab Lolita (the book) and it rly annoyd me so i msgd my husband about it and he had the same lack of understanding of the book and it drove me nutty so imnputtng it here aswell. copied from my messages to my husband bc i convey my thoughts better in a conversational text manner. asterisks for emphasis as opposed to italics. open to good-faith conversations if i have gotten anything wrong or if someone disagrees, i am very open to having my perspectives challenged *in good faith, and by people who have read the book or engaged with the media in some direct way*. i know the book itself can be a LOT to engage with so if you have read it, listened to it, or watched videos on it i am open to good faith discussions. if your only engagement has been one of the movies please do not engage, as the movies have taken and deeply bastardized the message of the book, as have the redesigned covers.

biases i feel necessary to mention: i am a CSA survivor. i have been abused by a paedophile. i have survived CSA. i am autistic which may affect my understanding and my own ability to engage with literacy.

it is the book written by *someone condemning paedophilia* from the *perspective of an unreliable narrator* and the *narrator* NOT the *author* is a paedophile and it was *written* to show how *easy it is* for people to be *manipulated* by paedophiles and the like and how *easy is is* to fall into the ideas of victim-blaming and how *the patriarchy* will *intentionally portray women and ESPEICALLY young girls* as *evil, seductive, creatures* and *men* as *helpless victims to young girls and women* and its *never* the *mans fault* its the *fault of the young girl*

*the author wrote it to actively condemn paedophilia and to CALL OUT paedophilia and the patriarchy and how EASY it is for people to fall into the victim-blaming mindset*

because when you take out the context of "this is why it was written, it was intentionally written so that you DO NOT trust the narrator, this is a satirization of paedophile and rape culture" , you're left with "satire is inherently an endorsement of whatever awful thing it is satirizing and sociopolitical commentary means nothing"

and then you end up in a culture of black and white thinking

which is not to say that people (namely men) havent taken the book and removed all of that context and then turned the main character into a *hero* or someone to *look up to*, but that is why keeping that context is so important . removing that context in either direction, either to condemn the author or to idolise the paedophile, leads to the general public having a completely warped understanding of a story they have not read, which leads to uninformed opinons and leads then to an even bigger lack of media literacy, which leads to an uneducated public and an uneducated public that cannot critically engage with media deemed "problematic" and cannot engage in "problematic" media within the context it was produced is a public that is easy to manipulate, easy to control, and easier still to weaponise against each other/public enemies

i dont even fucking like the book. i ve read it and its not my favourite. i dont like it it makes me deeply, deeply uncomfortable. but the whole point of it *is* to make the audience deeply uncomfortable. its supposed to make you uncomfortable because its fucking weird and its creepy and youre supposed to examine that discomfort and figure out what about it is making you uncomfortable, and then take that into your real life to engage critically with things that you previously were comfortable with , so that you can determine if these things are actually things that belong in modern society, or *are you being manipulated again, like you were by the main character of the book*

media literacy and the ability to critically engage with media is so so so so so important and people today (and i do literally mean people today - people in our generations and younger) simply refuse to, which is a different symptom of the same problem. anti intellectialism is a massive , growing and genuine problem. and the inability to engage critically and the lack of media literacy is the same thing we see when your grandma gets messages from scammers and then falls for it and wires her entire retirement fund to some guy in korea because he definitely wants to come over to the usa and marry her. she doesnt engage critically with what is presented, and she doesnt have the necessary technological literacy to understand taht people will just fucking lie and scam you online. its that, but now it is in younger generations, and it is a result of political propaganda, and again , symptom of a much bigger problem, but one that pisses me off and concerns me alot

[igb220-n10063013-blog]

Platformer Playtesting

So this is the final week before checkpoint 1 and I've done another round of playtesting sessions with my friends (sadly I was unable to attend the workshop). Two of them had very little issue navigating the space and communicated after the playtest they found the level quite easy to read in what was expected of them. Being well versed in platform games however enabled the first two testers to give me some good feedback and suggestions for further developments. Here are some combined thoughts from the two of them.

The spear mechanic being a linear projectile did not feel natural and was at times clunky to allign - I believe this would be remedied by implementing physics to the object as well as mouse aim if possible

Both users liked I had used spears as breadcrumbs in the cloud section, they also seemed to enjoy having a limited number of spears and thus needed to think about their placements

One playtester reported the cloud's movement speed was far too slow, they also noted you did not need to use a single spear in the section (whoops).

I admitedly did my chapter readings on playtesting a little late this week, but after the playtesting sessions with my two friends I realised some content from the chapter was very applicable to me. Tracy Fullerton discusses the seperation between testing with confidants (i.e friends) and with people you are less familiar with, while both testers provide the benefit of new opinions and thought process a confidant is more likely to pull some of their punches in their feedback or look at the project with a positive bias. So to remedy this I asked a friend of a friend, who isn't very experienced with games in general, to test out my game and observe them.

Uninformed Playtester

This playtesting experience was wildly different to my previous testing, and I learned a lot just by watching them play before even discussing it. While my playtester-friends moved with ease throughout the level, this friend had a sense of hesitation in all of their moves and seemed a little unsure at times. I think some of this hesitation is due to their blanket lack of video game experience, but there are aspects of my visual communication which could be improve, below are my main to indicators of this.

The above segment I would consider the main source of information, and one that came at the expense of the player as they became visilbly frustrated in the 6 attempts. While this section was purposed designed to prompt players to think about here they throw their spear - the intended path is not to through a spear on the right wall but instead double jump and make a platform on the higher left wall - two factors I hadn't thought of became apparent:

Given that the amount of spear ammo given to you at this point is exactly how many you require on the optimal path, making a mistake (throwing the spear on the right wall) results in having to refresh the webpage and starting the game again.

The timing window required to throw your spear on the left log wall is slim, unfamiliar players find this timing much harder than I anticipated.

After discussing why this gauntlet was so troublesome for the player I have thought of a few potential solutions:

Change the log wall on the right to a grass wall to indicate a spear should not be thrown there (improved design communication through visual telegraphs)

Increase the length of the left log wall to reduce the timing window (easier challenge once the player realised the true path)

Increase the total spear count to allow the player to create both a platform on the right and left wall (more forgiving/less punishing)

Overall I think this section was so apparent because it was asking too much of the player at an early stage. At this point no jumping throws have been required, nor has the player been intentionally mislead and tasked with thinking about a less linear solution. I think this semi-puzzle is good on its own, but so early in the level prompts players with two many new concepts at once, instead gradually introducing them one by one would be optimal.

Another and more long term solution would be to implement the functionality of picking up a spear you have already thrown, this would allow players to reattempt sequences in a less punishing manner without having to restart.

Another interesting sequence can be seen above, the player stands on the cloud as it slowly moves to the left and must create a path over the vertical wall, they may also stand at the speech bubble with a grey cloud in it to recall the cloud to the starting platform. While I did suspect the speech bubbles visual design was not the greatest (I used a premade asset since my artistic skills are beyond anything another human should have to see), I did not anticipate something.

The moving platform being a cloud relys on inherited visual communication from past platformers which often used clouds as platforms, it required an informed audience to recognise it was a platform. This uninformed playtester made the realistically reasonable assumption that you can't stand on clouds and that it was simply an aesthetic choice, and instead attempted navigate to the platform with the frog on it by throwing spears (which is impossible), because that's what the previous challenges had required. I could remedy this by changing the sprite of the cloud to something else, or more interestingly the level could feature a platforming test earlier in the level which forces a player to stand on a stationary cloud platform.

Summary

This playtest was very helpful and provided me with a lot of insight into iterative design where, if this was a real game production, I would act on any issues that came to light in testing to improve the players experience. Despite some of the hiccups in playtesting, all testers seemed to enjoy the core mechanic as well as some of the example expanding mechanics I proposed to them.

[sasslightertm-a]

seethem-dancing replied to your post: Why do you care so much about the...

The anon effectively deconstructs their own statement by implying that adhering to official, medically and legally approved classification where sexual abuse of minors is concerned somehow diminishes the severity of said abuse. On the contrary, being uninformed on those terms DOES contribute to perpetuating misinformation which predators/those who support them can use to their advantage (i.e falsely attributing the word “pedophile” to perpetrators of ephebophilia gives said perpetrators an advantage to claim they are being “falsely accused” as it would be a partial truth. Because they should be held accountable for the offense they are ACTUALLY and legally committing and/or encouraging). This site’s contingent is dangerously & profoundly uninformed on the issues it tends to weaponize to further an agenda. Simultaneously, the majority of users on here endorse harmful, insulting content produced by assorted tv networks where the creators prey on serious/sensitive topics to gain attention (precise tactic those people who intentionally confuse legal definitions employ). A person who brought up Skins as an example to defend sexualization of minors is just as misguided. Because the aforementioned show was a horrendously offensive product of an overgrown untalented white male (still remember the delightful conversations I had with that man on twitter where he name called his fans for addressing problematic issues with his writing. I avoided this particular treatment but he fired back at me in multiple tweets as well as tracked my posts on other channel making an account there & inserting himself into conversations while tracking his fans on OTHER sites too). This show promoted heavy drug & alcohol abuse among minors (claiming to be “realistic” when it’s protagonists partied more grandiosely than rock stars with million dollars budget), showcased explicit sexual scenes between underage characters bringing in legally adult doubles for those portrayed by actual minors (but if an underage actor conveniently turned 18 DURING the filming JB - the creator - would figuratively rub his hands together declaring them “legal now” & proceeding to objectify them on screen). It celebrated unhealthy life style while putting down the characters who actually tried to be decent people & respect others’ boundaries and while marketing itself as supposedly “non-judgmental” would kill off those characters violently for “not partying hard enough”. Or, alternatively, kill off one of the self destructive bunch for partying TOO hard (most of the dead characters happened to be queer, POC or ethnic minorities). The show consistently exploited the issues of anorexia, teen pregnancy, teenage death and suicide for the sake of tasteless “shocking” twists and referred to 17 y/o girls who were virgins as “useless” (because woman’s worth is apparently determined by how much sexual gratification she can provide to men or other women). None of it was pedophilia and it was still intolerable and repulsive. One doesn’t NEED to misuse a term to make a point about how problematic a certain media product is. Because attributing labels incorrectly absolves the creators/producers of actual blame and invalidates whatever point a person aspired to make.

In any case, on Riverdale while the characters may be in the age range of 15 - 17 years old, the actors portraying those characters are all adults in their early- to mid-twenties. So there is also the problem of the audience conflating in-universe with out-of-universe (i.e. the fiction on-screen vs. the behind-the-scenes reality) and hurling unfounded misinformed accusations at the directors—which also trivializes the severity of the actual issues members on this site are claiming to fight against and leaves an opening for hebephiles and ephebophiles to, as you mentioned, claim “false accusations” (not, of course, that this absolves them in any way).

Apparently if adhering to the medical, legal, and psychiatric definitions for three different psychiatric disorders that are not to be confused with each other (not that that stops the general public) is enough to be called pedantic and potentially labeled an “apologist” on this hellsite, then hooo boy are the anon and others on this site in for a surprise in regards to a field called psychiatry and this thing called clinical research.  

[mmolosso-blog]

Week 4: Post 3 Extended 3070

Photography: Morgan Molosso

Think of science & technology as a form of public communication for propaganda. Pick one article of your choice that we have read this semester to help answer the following:

How is sports as an industry used as a political statement? – you can draw parallels to other visits we have been on

How did science & technology contribute to the propaganda?

How would your answer differ (or not) if we looked at it from a Public Sphere standpoint as opposed to a public communication standpoint?

The Olympics in 1936 was utilized as a propaganda campaign for the Nazi regime. This can be explained by analyzing how science and technology are a form of public communication.  Science and technology are certainly a major necessity when conducting a propaganda campaign.  Political statements, propaganda, and public spheres will all be discussed in the following analysis.

The sports industry is used as apolitical statement by representing a countries strength and pride through the number of wins, losses, and citizen representation. I will argue that the strength of the country is represented through the physical strength of all the athletes. By having strict workouts and diets, the athletes are representation of how the government in that country functions.  By winning a medal the strength of a country is proven through the mental resilience of the athlete and the action of the citizens supporting the athletes.  This leads me into the aspect of pride.  Pride is shown through the athletes and the fans. How much the athletes want to win and how they win is very characteristic of country pride.  By understanding that even though all countries have different governments, they all have the main goal of winning for their country.  A democratic, nationalist, and communist government are all trying to win for country even if their main goal is not strength and pride of the nation, at the Olympics they have pride for their nation.

Sports has always been utilized to entertain and build relationships.  When events are performed at a larger scale, they seem to gain more of a following which leads to public communication being utilized by companies and governments. The Nazi’s did just that at the 1936 Olympics.  It has gone down in history as the Nazi Olympics. Through the use of science and technology the message of the character of this Olympic game was spread world-wide.  TV, radio, and print were all globally available which made advertising for the Olympics a world-wide campaign.  This also allows us to realize that everyone did know about the Nazi regime before the games.  People even debated if they would attend the games because it was thought to might be supporting the Nazi’s by attending the games.  For Hitler, this Olympics was used as a propaganda stunt. He allowed this event to give his regime the opportunity to persuade the world into believing that his way worked.  Hitler has an intended public he wanted to reach and an intended message he wanted to provide.  This reminds me of the East German Doping scandal because it is a prime example of intentionally not utilizing public communication.  The doping scandal infiltrated strategic ambiguity, which led to athletes not being an intended audience for this information. The government and coaches were the only intended audiences for this message.  Brigit Boese was a young athlete who stood out to me while reading.  During her time in this scandal, “it was common for athletes to be either uninformed – which meant they were not told what they were asking – or they were sworn to secrecy” (Dimeo, Hunt & Horbury 232).  As we learned in our tour today, Dr. Pyle told us that all the German athletes during the Olympics were on synthetic speed which is basically meth.  If I had to guess, the athletes probably weren’t told about the side effects of the drugs they were provided.

From a public sphere standpoint, I would not answer differently but I would address them separately.  So first I will define both terms.  Public Sphere can be defined as an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems and through that discussion influence political action.  I would frame my position about public sphere by stating that Hitler did not allow individuals to come freely together and discuss and identify society problems during these games.  He was trying to do the exact opposite by basically theatricalizing Nazism.  He wanted the world to believe that his regime was solid, and this is just how Germany was going to be.  Hitler also picked out his team specifically based on Nazi beliefs. The last Jewish person allowed to be on the team was cut right before the games because he never intended to allow a Jewish person to represent Germany.  Public communication is not simply the opposite of private communication, but it addresses an audience with a persuasive argument, has specific but broad appeal and is a foundation of democracy. How I would frame my position from a public communication standpoint is understanding that Hitler did have a broad audience he was trying to reach but his persuasive argument was specific: the Nazi regime is working.  Obviously, this Olympics does not match the last characteristic of public communication by not being a foundation of democracy.  These games did host team USA, which lead Jesse Owens to disprove Hitler’s Arianism motto.  

Science and technology were both utilized by Hitler to ensure Nazi propaganda came across to the public the way he intended for it to. By understanding how political statements, propaganda, and public sphere all a part of the Nazi Olympics were, allows for the full understanding on how the Nazi regime was strategically persuading people.  

[gossamer-scraps]

“Quick” (uhh... in theory) draft of the things new players should know about GW2’s PvE combat system...

Buffs are very powerful and the game is balanced so those buffs are worthwhile. Offensive buffs outweigh personal damage in most cases. Defensive buffs/abilities tend to outweigh defensive gear too.

Dedicated buff+support builds + dedicated full-damage builds are mathematically stronger than everyone having some defensive stats and buffs. Difficult content thus uses organized teams and role-specific builds. Hybrids are better in easier/unorganized content.

Everything has diminishing returns. Your last few stat points, DPS, etc. are very expensive. But every last optimization adds up heavily.

Power damage scales from power, precision, and ferocity. Lots of unimportant math here, tl;dr they're roughly equal in value so don't worry too much unless you go over 100% buffed critical chance.

Exotics are dramatically better than lower tiers. Ascended is not much better than exotic. Ascended armor, especially, is never necessary or worthwhile for a newer player and anyone who says otherwise is lying or uninformed. Exotic or better for gear, sigils and runes should be obtained as soon as possible.

Trinkets contribute more stats than armor. Don't neglect them.

Condition damage is only valuable with condition application (right skills) and condition duration (near the 100% cap), otherwise it is of very little value. This is why condi and power builds are a dichotomy. Sorry hybrid builds.

Correct cheap food is a huge buff and almost as good as expensive food. Correct cheap runes are a huge buff and almost as good as expensive runes. Correct cheap sigils are a huge buff and almost as good as expensive sigils.

Some builds are optimal with damage-while-moving food; this requires one to constantly move, which can be distracting when still learning. There are alternate foods.

A player is most effective when using their strongest skills as often as possible. Every build has a skill priority from best to worst, and *some kind of* rotation that is most effective in perfect circumstances. Often this involves weapon swapping frequently. Knowing both priority and rotation lets one adapt when caught off-guard.

Control effects (daze, knockback, etc), or "CC," don't work on bosses, but reduce the blue bar below their HP. Usually this stops them from attacking and gives the party a brief 50% damage buff. Sometimes it does other important things. Knowing your skills that CC and using them at the right time is extremely valuable.

Pressing skills while others are casting can cancel the skills, negating their effects. The exact rules are complicated and undocumented, but avoid cancelling skills whenever possible. This includes autoattacks (skill 1) and is the biggest thing separating average and great players.

Additionally, some autoattacks are a chain of 3 skills. Many are better if completed; try to avoid interrupting those.

More basic skills that separate poor from average players include timing dodges well (sometimes rather than moving out of enemy attacks), being able to move and attack at the same time, staying within weapon range (your skills have a red bar below them if too far) and facing toward enemies whenever possible, and knowing the utility value of all available skills and using them when appropriate. Also...

Standing near teammates and moving predictably is extremely valuable, as all buffs and heals have limited range. Even purely ranged players should be fairly close behind their teammates.

Help me with the stuff I forgot!

Intentionally omitted: the “defensive support isn’t highly valued” mentality in the “meta”; I don’t think this is universally correct or applicable to the target audience.

[kihyunswrath]

Ok now guys sit down and read

... if you think you can handle it. This post is about Kihyun, Monsta X and kpop culture in general, and it’s going to be a long ass post. I’m going to write it partially to sort out my own thoughts so pardon me if it’s messy or way too long for your convenience. Pardon my English too, I’m not native. But I made an entire new sideblog for this particular post and possible conversations that follow because I felt my own blog wouldn’t be the right place for that. I’ve known Monsta X since their debut because I have been here from the very beginning of hallyu but I wasn’t their fan until two months ago... and now I feel like I’m ready to make a comment about them, or technically about their fans.

This post talks about Kihyun and Monsta X but it could also be addressed to ANY kpop idol and fandom ever so feel free to replace the names with the ones you find relevant to your own interests.

tl;dr: Kihyun is not going to stop losing weight because of the very nature of kpop industry, and we are partially to blame.

Kihyun has apparently been losing weight a lot recently and his fans are worried about it. Rightly so, because his weight does seem to trouble him, given the fact that he was supposedly overweight a long time ago. That for sure makes him anxious for staying fit, since he’s grown up in Korean culture, where they’re downright paranoid about your weight. The unhealthy obsession Korean culture has for skinny people is sickening to watch. After living there and befriending several Koreans I can pretty safely say this. After doing academic research about kpop culture and kpop idols as ambassadors of Korean soft power/culture and acting as the very face of South Korea, I know that kpop is a manufactured, unoriginal marketing tactic where big businesses compete against each other, good-looking bodies sell and nothing else matters. And this brings me to my point.

The thing is: when we mention our concern for Kihyun’s weight, we’re being 100% hypocrites. We’re being lame ass people trying to find balance between social justice activism and the fact that Korean marketing system AND the actual government exploits, objectifies and sexualizes idols in order to raise sales. And the truth is that you can’t find a satisfying balance. If you call yourself a feminist, SJW or whatever else activist you can think of, you can’t possibly defend kpop culture. You can’t wish Kihyun to gain more weight and still hope Monsta X continues to promote their activities the way they have done so far.  

Yeah you heard it. 

I’m a fan too. It’s a psychological fact that beautiful, hard-working people make a lasting impression. And kpop is a specifically delicious treat since it doesn’t only bring you cute and childish women (as in: easily controllable and innocent), it also brings you cute and childish men to look at. Aesthetically pleasing, boyish and androgynous men who loyally work for the government/country are deeply rooted in Korean history, since Korea has always linked beauty and intelligence to each other, and they have never appreciated hypermasculine soldiers quite like the way they appreciated smart and fashionable noblemen. So yes, they have a long history of creating obedient and stunningly beautiful male entertainers (dancers, clowns, hwarang etc.) - and they’re good at it. It works. It works so well it pleases both sexes in the audience, and that’s how it has always been. They have also had kisaengs, beautiful female entertainers, and these two groups have never been mixed together, so that’s how they are nowadays, too. Boy groups and girl groups are separate, and that increases our loyalty to them, since it creates an illusion where it seems like they are only interested in us fans. Or then they play with the idea of homoeroticism, which makes us believe they wouldn’t “betray” us and start having relationship affairs with someone outside of the group. 

Without kpop I wouldn’t know much about Korea. I wouldn’t have travelled there, I wouldn’t have lived there, I wouldn’t have started my Korean studies. I wouldn’t have Korean friends. Right now kpop interests me for mostly academic purposes, but I can sincerely admit Korea wouldn’t be my second home country if it wasn’t for kpop. It has had a great impact on me, and I for sure know it has the same effect on everybody else too. I like kpop music and I admire kpop idols and their efforts freaking much and I think they’re one of the most hard-working people on Earth. Yet I still think that kpop stands for almost all the things that are fucked up in Korean culture, and I’m ready to admit kpop is problematic as hell and we would be better without it. 

Back to Kihyun (I’m making this so much bigger than I thought, oh my). Don’t you dare say Kihyun should not lose weight when you all are simultaneously supporting and promoting a culture where all of this is absolutely NECESSARY. Kihyun is not losing his weight because he’s being uninformed about it being detrimental to his health, he does it because he knows EXACTLY what he’s doing. And considering all the messages we and the rest of Korea are giving him, he thinks he’s also doing the right thing. And no matter how much we try to say “don’t starve yourself”, he’s going to take it as a compliment. 

Let’s face the facts. Kihyun’s been in the Starship Ent. for ages. He was a trainee for like 5-7 years before debuting so for a big part of his life, striving to be an idol is the only thing he knew and cared about. He wouldn’t be an idol now if he had any other, more important plans. Not with all the work, pain and effort he had to go through, similarly to any other idol ever. He’s apparently been overweight before and he seriously explained that he passed out for being so heavy, which doesn’t make any sense but explains the medical hysteria and fatphobia Koreans have (and please don’t say “not all Koreans”. I know that. I also know it’s part of a bigger phenomenon where almost all cultures are involved. But I think this problem with all the consequences it currently has all around the world with people wanting to look like kpop idols is so important it forces me to make generalizations). Kihyun also knows the impact of the hallyu wave. Kihyun knows his face and actions are being observed in every country of the entire world. He knows he represents Korea as the government wants it to be represented: elegant, fashionable, sexy, fresh, young, rich, healthy AND skinny. He knows that he’s good-looking, and he’s proud of that. He knows that other than his singing voice, his visual appeal is the only thing that will ever matter to people. He knows he exists just because of us fans, and the messages (intentional or unintentional) we give to him are the guidelines he follows. 

We give loud applauds to the most visually stunning performances. We scream the hardest when Wonho opens his shirt in front of us. We praise them for being so beautiful, for having muscular or skinny legs, for being tall, for having smooth skin, for having white teeth, for having sexy abs. We love their music, but we love their visually appealing music videos even more. We love their “meaningful” lyrics, but even more we love their smooth voice, their Korean that most of us don’t even understand. We call Kihyun beautiful and handsome, and the things in him that can’t be praised as something conventionally attractive, we call “cute” or “funny”, just to show him we support him no matter what, but which actually even further reinforces the idea that some parts of him are flawed.

He faces the same problems all of us women face in our daily lives multiplied, because he’s a celebrity and he’s a product of this Korean culture where men also face similar objectification. He comes from a culture where man has to have not only a good skin and muscular body, but also be tall, have a low voice, act tough (yet romantic and sweet towards women), speak clearly, have multiple talents, be hard-working and popular. Kihyun is witty and he’s smart, yet he has to face the fact that Shownu will always be considered much more masculine and sexier than him. He wears insoles because he doesn’t want to be called tiny and small. He makes jokes about his and Wonhos’ lisps because he wants to get ahead of us before he has to hear us pointing out how “cute” it sounds. He loses weight because he wants to look even better, sharper, sexier. And no matter what we tell him, he knows that the skinnier he is, the more satisfied fans he has. He knows that the only way to be successful is either be muscular or skinny, and since he has both types living and breathing right next to him, he strives for the type that seems easier for him. He DOES see how I.M is being treated, even if they’re almost exactly the same height - out of them two, Kihyun gets called “cute” and “tiny” and “sweet” much more often than I.M. I.M’s legs are “legs goals”, I.M’s voice is so “sexy”, I.M is “hot”. How often have you seen someone compliment Kihyun for something OTHER than his face or singing voice? Wonho’s legs are dripping sex, apparently, but nobody ever even mentions that Kihyun has legs. Shownu has strong and beautiful arms, but Kihyun has chubby and tiny hands. 

So what else do you think he’s going to do than lose weight? 

If he has to be tiny, if he’s receiving so-called compliments on being such a small guy, he’s going to be the fucking most awesome small guy in the whole world. If he can’t be masculine like Shownu, Wonho or Jooheon, he’s going to turn himself into the sexiest, skinniest prince there is. If he has to have a lisp, he’s going to blame Wonho for having the same problem and turn the attention away from him. He’s selling us a representation of an ideal Korean guy, and he’s most likely not only told to do that, but also willingly and very much intentionally doing it. If he has succeeded to make a career out of pure hard work and determination, why wouldn’t he have a similar determination to shape his body as perfect as possible? He’s done it before, he’s doing it TOGETHER with all the other idols and he sees no wrong in doing it. 

They all lose weight right before upcoming photoshoots, albums and comebacks. They all run from surgeries to beauty clinics to gyms to cosmetologists, just to look beyond perfect, just to serve us fans, just to reach for this unreachable ideal they see when they look at their own music videos and edited photoshoot pictures. They do hard work to set us a new standard of a perfect human being, just so that we would buy their products and everything that has their face on it: smart phones, beauty products, perfumes, moisturizers, razors, games, cars, anything.

They go to hundreds of different shows: cooking shows, sport shows, variety shows, culture shows, singing/dancing shows, competitions, charity programs and self-made reality shows just for us to see their faces nonstop. They give up all their freedom for us to follow them all night and day, and they know they’re going to get scolded if they don’t look good while doing it. And they have internalized it, they have learned to hide their faces behind masks because they genuinely think their bare faces look, if not downright awful, at least unprofessional. And considering how work-oriented and hierarchical Korean culture is, they will never really come out of this cycle - they will never question it at all. We are their main source of income, and if their managers and bosses think something pleases us, they're bombarding us with that until to the point we get bored.

So saying that we support Kihyun no matter what is a lie. Saying that we support Monsta X members for being lovely, nice people is a lie. We don’t know who they are in real life, we don’t even want to know. Instead we create a stereotyped illustration of each Monsta X member and think of that image as the truth, even when their real personalities resurface and contradicts it. Even when their personalities show complexion, change and variation, we rather stick to the image we created. That’s how it is, because that’s how the Korean marketing system wants it to be. Kpop is not about real people, it’s about hundreds of people working together (beyond company borders) to create us a vivid, flashy representation of a perfect Korean. And they’re making it into a huge (fake) competition, because competitions make more money, more fans and more excitement. 

Kpop creates anxiety, anorexia, suicides, perfectionism, unrealistic beauty standards, harmful surgeries, unhealthy competition, unhealthy working conditions and imagery of what it means to be a “real” woman or man, but it is not going to stop, because we’re not doing anything to stop it. We’re addicted, we like it too much. Stopping to support kpop is just not a realistic option, because there are millions of us, and we are easily attracted to ideas like these. So what must be done instead? 

Telling Kihyun to stop losing weight is a good start, but many other things must follow that statement. Giving Kihyun narrow, almost fanfic-like features and repeating them over and over again as the only meaningful discourse is also harmful, for reasons we might not even realize at first. Look at these four features for example:

1) I haven’t seen anything very mother-like in Kihyun’s personality ever, but if people insist on making him the “mom” of the group, you must remember that you’re simultaneously reinforcing the idea that some actions he does should be considered feminine, and thus they must be pointed out. Because he cooks and cleans and nags, that makes him a mom? Why can’t a dad do that? Or a brother? Shownu is apparently a dad because of his caring, but distant personality, and Shownu and Kihyun are shipped together just because of this tempting opposition. Perfect: small, soft and feminine Kihyun; big, tough and masculine Shownu. I also do ship people together, even though I can admit it’s often getting slightly problematic for various of reasons, but I could never ship Showki for this exact reason. Why should we emphasize these roles so much? Why must fans think of even the tiniest interaction between them two as a sign of this forced mom-dad setting? Monsta X members also joke about it occasionally, but they know each other in real life, so they can also see each other in different circumstances. Also they're trying to please us and make it easier for us to recognize them as new fans. Why do we think we get to define them both like that and thus force Kihyun to think there’s something inherently feminine (read: wrong or fetishized) in his actions and body? He's grown up in a culture that's very conservative and works for an industry that highlights the idea where masculinity and femininity are very much separate entities. He's told how a ”real” man acts and behaves every day, so I don't think he's taking the mother role as a compliment. No, much more likely it just makes him want to change himself. 

 2) Kihyun gets called short and tiny all the time, even though he's technically not. If he doesn't lie to us badly, he's 175 cm tall which is 2 cm taller than the average height of Koreans. He's not shorter than I.M, but they don't get the equal amount of comments about their heights. He doesn't have smaller hands than I.M, either. He wears insoles because Korean men in general are very self-conscious about their height, so it's not a neutral thing to him, even if it should be. Just because he's slightly shorter than the rest of the Monsta X members doesn't make him short, but even if it did, if we want to make things right, we are supposed to give more space for idols with different body types, not emasculate and fetishize those that are smaller. That's what calling him ”cute” in an environment where we all clearly prefer tallness over shortness sounds like. 

  3) Kihyun's (or Wonho's) lisp is not cute or funny. It's just a lisp. It shouldn't have connotations, it shouldn't even be noticed at all, if we were able to face it neutrally. To me it sounds beautiful, but since Monsta X members are joking about it so much, I must think they're not being comfortable with it. That might be because it's also linked to femininity, gayness and childishness. We as fans have a crucial role when we give comments about it, because it's further making him believe that it's something absolutely remarkable about him, even though that's not true. I've seen fans comment that they laugh everytime they hear Kihyun's lisp, and even if that is meant in a positive way, I don't think that's the message Kihyun gets. Laughing and cooing at his attempts to act sexy or professional or him just being himself... it can be a good humor, but it can also belittle him, especially when we are not his real friends.

4) Mentioning Kihyun's puffy, chubby and hamster-like cheeks/body/hands and saying you miss them is probably not going to make Kihyun gain more weight. It's not helping him at all. I know, having cute and soft features should be a compliment to a guy, too. I'm sure there are men who are empowered and happy to be able to identify themselves as something like that. However, it doesn’t look like Kihyun is one of those people. Even though he sometimes enjoy acting cute, more often he does not. Deduced by him refusing to do certain ”stupid” things, trying to act cool or making cringey faces often, he's the most easily embarrassed person in the group, and I think that's also giving hints of him having a certain type of masculine identity, where he doesn't like showing affection, acting silly, doing aegyo or being soft in general. We might want to encourage him to act differently, but that's his reality and possible coping mechanisms, and we don't know his background story. He's probably losing weight to look more masculine. Less cute and puffy. And since the other members just recently (in a live performance) checked his abs and deemed them not worth showing to the audience, he's still working on it. He's most likely trying to lose even more weight, since he's not actually that skinny yet. 

So. In order to make it a little bit better, we should acknowledge the fact that he's a real person, not just a bunch of attractive and less-attractive body parts he should work on (by gaining or losing weight). We should treat him like we don't know him, because we actually don't. We should respect him as a person who's gone through a lot of shit, because that's most likely true. We should be thanking him for all the effort he sees everyday to make us poor souls feel ”aesthetically pleased”. We shouldn't assume we can define the relationships between him and the other members. We should make him less like a fanfic character (unless we're making one of course) with black-and-white personality, and more like a person with a complex mind. We shouldn't be doing those memeboards with three-point-lists about Monsta X personalities for new fans. We should recognize and cherish the moments where Kihyun (or the other members) act in a way that doesn't fit into our narrative. That includes the moments where Wonho doesn't actually want to act sexy or show his body, or even talk at all. He's being quiet and reluctant in shows surprisingly often, yet some of his fans think of him as over-confident person who wants to share his body with his fans at all times.

And most importantly we should acknowledge that as long as we keep supporting kpop, we can't really support the idols as they are. We must accept the fact that these two things contradict each other. We can't say we're worried for their health if we simultaneously happily pay them money to help them continue living their lives like that. Kpop is beautiful, inspiring and funny, but kpop is also an utter pile of shitcrap that hurts people, and we must admit that. Kihyun losing weight is an essential part of kpop, the very core of it, and we must be able to recognize we are part of the problem, too. 

[tumblunni]

How do I write an autistic villain without demonizing autism by accident? ;-;

I’m not really sure why you’re messaging this to me. I’m really sorry but I’m not an expert on like.. political stuff about autism stereotyping, just because I’m autistic. And it depends on which country you live in, I know that america has a far more visible sort of cultural presence for stereotypes, due to the whole Autism $peaks controversies. I dont live in america and I’m not super smart or anything, so yeah this is a disclaimer that this is just my opinion and you should probably research answers given by other people too. And maybe ask people about the specific circumstances of what you’re writing, like the context of the setting of the story and what the villain is like, etc. I’d be happy to chat to you about that if you need help! (but again, im no expert, lol)

ANYWAY!

My opinion on the subject is that having an autistic villain is perfectly fine, as long as you’re not villainizing autism. Like...* Don’t make the autism the reason theyre a villain.* Don’t make people scared of them because of the autism, rather than because they’re a villain.* Don’t treat their autistic traits as scary or inherantly villainous.* Don’t make anyone insult them for their autism and act like its justified because they’re evil.

And similarly its bad form to do any of that stuff in regard to any sort of minority really. An example that always bugged me is how Excellus from Fire Emblem Awakening is scary and evil because he’s a murderous monster, yet everyone in the game constantly insults him for the fact he acts ambiguously gay/transgender/effeminate. Like, there’s way too many jokes about people finding him ‘disgusting’ because of some random thing he can’t change, like a sexuality, race or mental illness which plenty of non-evil people have too! It also lessens his impact as a villain because the characters barely even address the actual villainous things he does, and he doesnt seem to have any motive at all. They just ride on the whole ‘the audience will find him gross’ thing as a crutch and forgot to bother writing a good villain.

Oh, and your concerns are indeed valid, yo! Sometimes it is important to think about the context you created a character in, even if you didnt intentionally create any negative messages within your writing.It’s just that the case where a character will be seen as villainizing [minority trait] for being a villain... that’s kind of only in a very specific circumstance? its just that this specific circumstance is very very common in mass media nowadays.It’s ‘The Smurfette Principle’.If you only have one character of a minority in your cast, its easy for an uninformed audience to pick up messages that you’re saying ALL members of that minority are the same as them.If you only have one autistic character and he’s the villain, then you might accidentally be villainizing him. In a world where autistic characters being villainized for their autism is already very common, people could just assume you made them autistic for the same reason all those other writers did- because they think it’s ‘scary’. It feeds the stereotype even if you didn’t conciously intend it that way.

So a very very easy way to fix this problem is just to add multiple characters of a minority into your story, filling various roles from villain to hero to helpful npc. or anything you can think of!

Another good quick fix is to have your villain be autistic, but portray their autistic traits as sympathetic/relateable/a humanizing aspect of them. Not just portraying it as something neutral that doesnt make them scary, but going out of your way to add some scenes showing how they’re just like anybody else. Or even making it one of their redeeming traits!It doesn’t have to outright be something like ‘yo being autistic makes me inherantly good and childlike’, which is a stereotype all to itself, lol. But you could show them experiencing predjudice from another character, in a way that makes the audience sympathise. Honestly having a character attack them for being autistic instead of being a villain would be a good way to do this, as long as that character is actually shown as being wrong for what they’re doing. Or simply showing the villain having common autistic traits, facing common problems, doing common everyday things... that can be enough to portray autism positively. Have them shown doing this stuff outside of the situation of them being villainous. It makes them feel more human and less of an abstract symbol of evil. And because these small glimpses of normality are lightening the mood, they become seen as a positive aspect!

KIND OF AN OFFTOPIC TANGEANT SORRYJust my personal experience as an autistic kid experiencing this story... I personally headcanoned Cyrus from pokemon as autistic. Not because he’s ‘scary and emotionless’, but because his backstory was relateable to me as an autistic person. It’s said that his parents were emotionally abusive, and that he had nobody to turn to because everyone thought he was ‘a creepy kid’. And he was able to find solace by obsessing over repairing machines in his bedroom, and apparantly has trouble understanding people because they can’t be fixed as easily. Stuff like maths and science are kind of a stereotypical Special Interest for autistic children to be given in fiction, I guess because it makes you seem more intelligent when you obsess about that instead of video games, norse mythology, or collecting tiny novelty spoons from around the world XD (Yeah i was a weird kid.)So yeah sorry I went a little offtopic there, but the point is that it might have been by accident instead of intention but that villain has a lot of traits that read as autistic. And when i first played Diamond and Pearl I actually disliked him a lot because of that, I felt like they were villainizing someone who seemed relateable and potentially redeemable. I mean, he seemed pretty depressed too! Give that man some therapy! But when I played Platinum and got to learn his backstory I started to feel like the writers actually did want us to feel sympathetic to him, because of how all those ‘scary’ traits were presented so sympathetically. Like.. the backstory isn’t that he became evil because he was an autistic kid who did creepy things like obsess about machinery and suck at social contact. No, he became a villain because he was abused by his parents, him being ‘weird’ is just intended to make it clear here that he didnt deserve it. It makes him pitiable, it makes him relateable, it makes you feel so much more frustrated that nobody listened to him and saved him from that hell, and nobody even seems to remember him fondly, just because he was ‘weird’. And hell, even his ‘emotion is evil’ philosophy seems very relateable to me as an autistic child. It seems like he learned to seclude himself to avoid angering his parents. That’s the impression I got from his final scene in Platinum, where he finally acts angry at you for beating him, then gets angry at himself for expressing emotion and forces himself to go back to how he usually talks. I get a bit pissed off whenever I see fans of the series claim he actually IS emotionless, lol! This scene made it clear to me that this is just a guy who WISHES he was emotionless, somehow seeing it as the only way to be free of pain. Someone who struggles to deal with his own emotions, or feels like he’s disgusting when he expresses them. And this is VERY relateable specifically to an autistic kid who suffered from an abusive parent! “Quiet Hands” is a kind of common concept that autistic kids might experience, that’s the name for a popular ‘parenting technique’ that really fucks people up. Focusing on making your kid never ‘act autistic’, rather than actually helping them understand things. ‘Quiet Hands’ is specifically about slapping or smacking your kid whenever they show stimming behaviour. (Hand flapping being a common way this symptom can manifest.) We’re taught never to be too loud, and to always always have to restrain ourselves to avoid embarassing our parents. We have to try and learn how to act like ‘normal people’ and become scared of harmless parts of our own brain just because theyre ‘embarassing’, leading to even worse emotional problems as an adult. i mean seriously how is it logical to tell a kid who has troubles with social interaction that they shouldnt even practise it?? Plus its a huge mess to teach these kids to do way more emotional labour than neurotypical kids are expected to do, and then treat them like they’re below average intelligence for not being able to do twice as much as everyone else...

ANYWAY! That’s a thinG! Sorry I went rambling off there about how a particular fictional character touched my heart, lol!I just kinda wish he could be canonically autistic, or if I had similar canonically autistic characters to relate to, instead. So i think having more autistic villains can’t be bad, we’re so badly in need of more autistic characters in general! And villains have a unique perspective of being able to hit our emotions the hardest. I think its easier to cry over someone who has a sad backstory of how they became evil, compared to anything else!So yeah what I was trying to say before I went offtopic is that if the backstory is ‘became evil because autism’, then people will complain. But if the backstory is ‘became evil because someone mistreated them because autism’ then that’s a good way to make people sympathise with autism. Aaaaand I’m bad at explaining this, because autism XD Well, i mean, my personal symptoms and lack of diagnosis til I was an adult means that I’m still working on learning how to communicate correctly, I don’t mean every autistic person writes terrible tl;dr advice posts that degrade into pokemon XDOh man i feel embarassed now, you asked me such a polite question and I didnt know how to answer it very well...I just hope maybe I inspired you to go out and do more research, rather than putting you off with my nonsense!

[happymediacreatorstudent-blog]

Part II: Risks and Rewards

The media can bring news from all over the world to you. This keeps you informed of world events, but some media is good and some are bad. An example of good media is when areas of disaster are reported internationally such as Japan earthquake and tsunami, Haiti earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I still remember being encouraged to donate my hair for the oil clean up. These disasters capture the world's attention and call for action to immediately help the affected population. In the book, "The News about the News" defines bad journalism/ media as “failing to report important news, or reporting news shallowly, inaccurately or unfairly - can leave people dangerously uninformed.” The media can produce good or bad news intentionally or carelessly. Good media is intentional and is produced with care. Bad media can be produced intentionally (“fake news”), unintentionally (miss information), carelessly (not credible), and carefully (mislead).

“Fake news” has been talked about a lot lately. Especially by our president Donald Trump. A definition of “fake news” from the site PolitiFact is “fake news is made-up stuff, masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread online to large audiences willing to believe the fictions and spread the word.” This is a definition I find true; especially after the 2016 election, since there was so much “fake news” on trusted media sites like Facebook. Bias news is reported with an opinion that can persuade rather than inform. Sloppy news is news that been poorly reported on in term of lack of information and/or unchecked sources. Mistaken news is news that misinterprets the information. It could be wrong in idea, judgment, or even just misunderstood by readers.

Media credibility has been an issue for a long time. It matters because we have to trust a news source to give us accurate information. Small or large errors in the information provided can lead to issues in trust and will impact the perception of the audience of how the information is presented. For example, when news reports use quotes and present them out of context. It changes the meaning of the quote. When truth conditions are met without opinion or bias in a writers coverage, it means it is objective. Objective truth is free of mistaken beliefs about values. Credibility has two components: Trust and expertise. Credibility and objectivity are both based on trust. The media is supposed to be trustworthy. The whole point of journalism is to report facts of who?, what?, where?, when?, and how? without bias and beliefs from the media coverage.

Being uninformed means you don't have the knowledge to make an educated decision, and can even be more susceptible to persuasion. People who are misinformed are dangerous. Misinformation can influence your perception. This is why common in politics. In the book “Mediactive” by Dan Gilmore, Dan says democrats use lies for political gain. I think that misinformation was distributed largely and rapidly during the 2016 election and that is how Trump (and not Bernie Sanders) became president. By the end of the election, the American people hated both candidates.

Everyone should become more media active as both a creator and a consumer. Being more involved in the media will mean you are better informed about various topics and will be able to make educated decisions. It is better for society if more people stay informed about the media (news) because it makes our country smarter. You will even be more educated to reach your own conclusions. Personally, I used to be uninformed in the media, but since I have had to follow a news source in my social media class. I feel informed about certain topics I was always curious about, and can now discuss these topics with others.