Leftist - Blog Posts
Jokes on you Verizon, we’re anticap and we fucking hate you.
Byyyye Tumblr, by TERFs, by Fascists
(I’ll see anyone who cares on Mastodon and Pillowfort, etc. Username something along the lines of Lemming, workingonit, theresstuffoutside. Message me if yoy care, I’ll leave my blog up until the 16th)
A former staff engineer, who recently left Tumblr and asked to remain anonymous for professional reasons, tells Vox that the NSFW ban was “in the works for about six months as an official project,” adding that it was given additional resources and named “Project X” in September, shortly before it was announced to the rest of the company at an all-hands meeting. “[The NSFW ban] was going to happen anyway,” the former engineer told me. “Verizon pushed it out the door after the child pornography thing and made the deadline sooner,” but the real problem was always that Verizon couldn’t sell ads next to porn.
Porn on Tumblr is something Verizon needs to wipe out if it’s going to make any money off what it thinks is actually valuable about the platform — enormous fandom and social justice communities that, just before the Verizon acquisition, Khalaf was insisting the staff figure out how to better monetize.
On that note-
Two former Tumblr employees said they were alarmed when Khalaf chose Black Lives Matter as an example of a community that the company should focus on converting into Yahoo media consumers. One told The Verge, “Simon explicitly said that Black Lives Matter was an opportunity to [make] a ton of money.”
I undooted my heart of this post so I could redoot it for this add-on
Most of you guys are not as empathetic as you think you are
problematic? pROBLEMATIC?? i'm so FUCKING woke i lay awake at night. i'm so left-leaning that i'm doing CARTWHEELS. i'm so anti-eurocentric i keep an instrument from vietnam and rajasthan on my desk at all times in case i wanna bust it down global south style okay. i let history be decided by the losers. i do revisionist history in the OTHER FUCKING DIRECTION. i'm so fucking feminist that i simultaneously didn't notice your tits at first and noticed them immediately and was non threatening in my admiration. i'm such a fucking ally that i'm trans just to heighten my empathy for trans people. i'm so POC friendly i haven't met a white person in my entire GOD DAMN LIFE. you have no FUCKING idea what you're up against.
I have recently started to become more ecologically conscious in my everyday life - eating out less, buying less, using more of the possessions I already own, etc... - and that includes shopping for clothes in second hand shops. And I am ASTONISHED at how many well kept, good quality pieces are simply lying around at some dim lit room downtown. Honestly, I urge everyone reading this to go to the worst rated second hand shop in their area. Avoid the trendy ones, go for the ones with 70 year old witches who'll smoke a whole pack inside the store in the hour you'll spend there. The true gems lie there.
Stay yourself, stay curious.
i'm sorry but complaining about RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE being leftists? did they even fucking listen to what zack de la roche was singing? did they pay attention to a single fucking lyric?
the machine they were raging against was capitalism.
You hate that your favorite bands are exercising their free speech.
the first org sympathises with copservatives
the second org is planning a violent mass execution of everyone earning more than $500 a month
the third org is just right. sad that it don't exist.
trying to find a good leftist org is like
cult
cult
maoist cult
dsa
book club
people who think the ussr still exists
anarchist org with the most rancid polycule drama of all time
Jesus taught love and compassion. He taught forgiveness and acceptance. He taught kindness. He did not treat discrimination or hatred of any kind.
Stop saying any different.
DONT STOP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE
https://www.unrwa.org
"Also I think there's a slightly worrying tendency on the liberal 'left' (which is typically the majority in most fandom spaces) to shut down conversation and discussion in general, particularly if those conversations are uncomfortable. You see thought-terminating clichés frequently deployed in such spaces and I think it's just not helpful. Seeing posts from supposed leftists trying to convince people that it's morally wrong to even THINK about Harry Potter is pretty wild to me, tbh. I think that for a while now there's been much more of a focus among the left on idealism over materialism, to the point where material reality is totally ignored in favour of, essentially, trying to get everyone to think the correct thoughts. To me this just isn't a productive or intellectually responsible approach."
I have seen this tendency in every leftist space: no productivity whatsoever, just shaming people and policing their thoughts, completely hindering any reach beyond the likable.
What your opinion on all this talk of leaving the hp/marauder fandom because it directly/indirectly supports JKR? Do you have any desire to leave?
Well my opinion is that I can understand it completely if people choose to do so, but personally I have no desire to leave nor intention of leaving. I understand that it might bother individual people but I'm not asking anyone to look at this blog; in fact the reason I started to use this sideblog is so I could keep everything HP-related away from people who choose not to see it. While I think HP's cultural relevance today is such that it's impossible to avoid entirely, I do empathise with people who'd rather not see it. If someone wished to block me for continuing to blog about HP, I think that might be the healthiest option for everyone involved.
Anyway, I understand why this is happening and I think it's important to discuss. But that's the point. It's important to discuss, not stick our fingers in our ears.
I think this is a great post about it! Here are my own (long-winded) thoughts:
Personally I fundamentally disagree with the idea that we should stop reading and discussing works written by bad people. I don't believe that's a constructive or healthy way to engage with literature. If nobody's left to discuss something as culturally relevant as HP (or LotR, or whatever) critically, then what is the point of literature in the first place? Is it pure entertainment and therefore easily discarded? Ftr I'm also firmly against banning (even socially 'banning') literature of ANY sort, for ANY reason. "You shouldn't read X because it's morally wrong" is to me ultimately a conservative belief.
Anyway: I find it pretty obvious that JKR said 'if you like my books you agree with me' PURPOSEFULLY to cause this kind of a reaction, because she knew it would cause her detractors to become hyperfocused on pointing fingers at each other and thought policing each other over a kids book rather than focusing on what's actually going on. I don't think we should be playing into it, and I don't think even JKR believes it herself-- I think it was deliberate. And tbh from what I can see it has had the exact effect she intended.
The other thing I'll say is that (and tbf I can't say for sure) but I suspect that the online HP fandom might be exaggerating its own importance a little bit. Tbh I think that even if the online (and more liberal) fandom disappeared overnight there would still be tens of thousands of kids (the target audience, after all) discovering and reading Harry Potter for themselves across the globe. Scores of parents and aunts and grandparents who know nothing about JKR buying those books for the kids in their family. And that's not counting the people who actually do agree with JKR. Yes fandom disappearing might have some small impact, but tbh I think it would be all but insignificant. It would be much more, like infinitely more, materially significant for people in fandom to donate time and/or money to trans organisations in their own countries. ((I also think what would be somewhat helpful is for fandom to take responsibility in encouraging people not to watch the HBO series. The success of the series is imo more contingent on online opinion than the books.))
There are also millions of people still using twitter, instagram, and amazon, despite the very real material damage caused by Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos, and that's a MUCH more direct cause-and-effect than simply talking about Harry Potter because using those platforms LITERALLY lines the pockets of those individuals. I will say that if you're on twitter telling people they should stop talking about Harry Potter I simply will not take you seriously loll 😂
I guess there is probably some amount of people who discovered HP through, idk, Marauders tiktok and decided to read the series, but how significant is this number? It's incredibly difficult to grow up in most countries around the world and not come across Harry Potter in some way. For good or ill I do think HP is en route to becoming a children's classic. If tumblr goes down and my blog and all the blogs I interact with on here disappear, I don't think this would change.
On the other hand, simply for posterity I do think there's some value in continuing to discuss it-- all of it, including the reality of who the author is, the cultural relevance of HP, the text itself and what this all means given its significance in our culture. And it's important to discuss it critically, honestly, and constructively. It's remarkably easy with HP to avoid giving money to the author, which is something I believe to be worthwhile, so tbh I can't bring myself to agree with 'it would be better if we stopped talking about it' in a general sense. Personally I don't think the only people left discussing it should be right wing maniacs lol-- again, for posterity if nothing else.
Also I think there's a slightly worrying tendency on the liberal 'left' (which is typically the majority in most fandom spaces) to shut down conversation and discussion in general, particularly if those conversations are uncomfortable. You see thought-terminating clichés frequently deployed in such spaces and I think it's just not helpful. Seeing posts from supposed leftists trying to convince people that it's morally wrong to even THINK about Harry Potter is pretty wild to me, tbh. I think that for a while now there's been much more of a focus among the left on idealism over materialism, to the point where material reality is totally ignored in favour of, essentially, trying to get everyone to think the correct thoughts. To me this just isn't a productive or intellectually responsible approach.
What is the material benefit of all of us simply shutting up about Harry Potter forever? How does this actually help anyone beyond yourself and your own conscience? To me it seems like ultimately a performative and virtue signalling action that is pretty meaningless when you're not doing anything else, and is particularly meaningless when you're not applying this to literally anything else in your life. Fandom isn't activism, but by extension NOT-fandom also isn't activism haha. Personally I dislike Marvel films and think they're barely-disguised propaganda for the American military-industrial complex, but I don't think it's evil for people to write their Bucky/Steve fanfiction or whatever lmao. And I certainly don't think it's wrong to discuss Marvel films, the opposite in fact, I think they should be critically discussed.
So, basically, I think it's perfectly understandable that people would want to leave the fandom. But ultimately I think that's an action you're taking for yourself, and I don't think there's much to be gained from refusing to discuss things deemed 'morally wrong.' I think to a certain extent it's natural and probably healthy to feel some guilt about it all, but also perhaps it's worth questioning why we feel such extreme guilt about this, which is really just people talking to each other about books, and not about the 486948736 other much more unambiguously destructive things we do with our time and money on a daily basis.
As long as we're willing to discuss this topic honestly and constructively, to be conscious and empathetic towards others, and to refrain from spending any money on HP-related products, I don't think it's wrong to remain in the fandom tbh. To deny HP's impact on today's literary landscape would be, imo, dishonest, so therefore somebody has to discuss it. And I'd much rather there be a variety of opinions within that discussion.