Commodification and Responsibility

[rynling]

On one hand, I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly and have been preaching it since 2016.

One the other hand, I do think that, if you have a sizeable enough platform, you have a responsibility to use it wisely.

On my third hand - and this is the hand stretching directly out of my anxiety-ridden heart - I think it's scary how social media has blown issues relating to commodification and responsibility wildly out of proportion.

Something happened this week with Noelle Stevenson. Because of the nature of Twitter, I'm not really sure what it was, but I think they made some sort of visual gag related to a noncanonical sibling of one of the She-Ra characters during a BLM charity livestream. Like, the character Bow is an archer because his name is "Bow," so maybe he has a sibling who is a farmer because his name is "Sow." This was apparently perceived as an insensitive comment about Black people working in the fields. Or something?

Regardless of their intention, Stevenson apologized immediately, publicly, and sincerely...

...and that tweet was interacted with tens of millions of times. I've muted a lot of words associated with fandom discourse, but my timeline was still filled with people making vaguetweets about being disappointed with creators they once looked up to. And that's fair, of course, but still. It took a lot of maneuvering for me to figure out what everyone was tweeting about, and I still can't be sure what actually happened. All I know for sure is that a hashtag with Noelle Stevenson's name garnered far more attention on Twitter this week than news relating to Jacob Blake.

It could be that people are responding to much deeper issues concerning hiring on the She-Ra staff and cast and representation on the show. I wouldn't know, but I think that's a reasonable assumption to make given common industry practices. Stevenson's personal Twitter feed, however, is all about supporting people of color and boosting minority voices. But again, I don't know what's going on, so I'm not in any position to judge.

All that being said, it's not easy to be perfectly polished when you're giving an impromptu public performance that hasn't been rehearsed in advance or edited afterwards, and sometimes you say dumb shit because you're nervous. I still think about very specific stupid things I said during my first year or two of teaching that never would have left my mouth if I weren't giving a live performance while stressed out and tired, and I sincerely regret them and have done my best to grow from the experience. Even people with the best of intentions fuck up sometimes, you know?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while I believe it's important for people who have a large following on social media to be held accountable for their words and actions, the fact that a poorly considered offhand comment can become a matter of public discourse on an enormous international stage is frightening.

Comments

[runicmagitek]

Also count me in on Team Do I Really Want To Be A Published Writer.

The #OwnVoices movement has great intentions (to my understanding), but I hate how you essentially need to provide a resume of Shit You've Suffered Through to prove you're "qualified" to write that thing. Or on the flip side, just because I'm not able-bodied doesn't mean I want to write about that all the fucking time. It's exhausting to live with, let alone write about it.

Also, speaking of things men do and get away with, did you see the story a while back about some guy who added actual ingredients from Breath of the Wild into his story? It looked like he barely did a basic Google search and pulled some of the first responses. That's amusing and everything, but it's also infuriating A) that he apparently just laughed it off, as did most people on Twitter and B) knowing this would be a very different scenario if a woman did this.

[rynling]

I did read about this! So you know how there are various English-language websites and social media accounts that aggregate "weird" news from Japan? There are the same sorts of Japanese-language websites and accounts focused on weird news from America, and that's where I read about John Boyne. At first I thought it was cute and wholesome, and then I got the whole story about why people like this are why the #OwnVoices movement started in the first place. Yikes.

But I hear you about not wanting to turn certain aspects of your identity into a brand. Wow, do I ever hear you.

Like, I'm extremely grateful for people who are Here! and Queer!! and Ready To Talk About It!!! I love reading essays and comics about queer identity, and obviously I like when not everyone in the stories I read is straight. At the same time, sometimes I personally just want to write about A Creepy Town With A Dark Secret, and maybe that's an analogy for queer identity I guess, but really, it's mostly just me wanting to write about A Creepy Town With A Dark Secret.

And holy shit, as someone who just had to leave a job after disclosing a disability, I think maybe people shouldn't have to disclose anything in a super public and incendiary venue.

I get the feeling that perhaps young people who don't have much exposure to operating outside of high school and college can forget this if they spend a lot of time in progressive spaces online, but the wider world is still distressingly ignorant and bigoted.