How do you document real life when real life's getting more like fiction each day?

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Homedramastuck

sharkpuncher:

Ok so weirdly I reblogged a post earlier with this text but then I made it private temporarily to make sure I wanted to post it in case it was like feather-ruffle-central, but now I can’t figure out how to get it back.

So below is the original text as I pasted it in a doc while I was working on it, lol.

It’s in regards to the recent drama over that person that did the Homestuck HD aka Homeimprovementstuck sprite art, as well as kind of just an overall criticism on the way things have been going lately with mob mentality.

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Ok, I’m going to post something about this. And it might (maybe even will?) bring me drama, but it’s an underlying issue that no one is really addressing except in the middle of drama, and it’s getting lost in the turmoil.

First off, I want to state very clearly: I am not directly blaming Rachel for this recent drama or any drama in particular. I am, however, pointing out something that has been bothering me lately about the homestuck fandom and what I have now deemed “The Hussie Brigade” of super-aggressive-fans who think they are acting on behalf of the fandom and the way that her and other’s actions influence them. The fandom treats her (and obviously Andrew Hussie, but thanks to his extremely limited presence on various social networking sites, Rachel has become his proxy, both due to the fans and her own actions) as a quasi-celebrity. Because of this, her words (as well as other individuals that the fans have deemed the “inner circle” of homestuck) carry far more weight than they should in matters like this.
Case in point. People were already kind of griping about the “Improvement Sprites”, but then it landed on Rachel’s tumblr and she chimed in with how tacky it was to suggest that you could improve another person’s art, etc, without really investigating the issue herself (for instance the fact that the whole “Homeimprovementstuck” thing was a joke tag suggested by another fan). Suddenly it morphed into an attack with “Even Hussie’s girlfriend hates this” behind it and sad to say, practically carte blanche in their (the random already aggressive fans) minds to attack freely on behalf of Homestuck.  Now at some point it would seem someone realized their error, it seems like everyone then turned around back on one of the people who riled everyone up to begin with (homestuckfandumb) and left the sprite creator (tentativeundertaker) alone, which is good in a sense, but not good overall since all it was doing was redirecting the hate, and it’s really driving home the current mob mentality of the homestuck fandom.

The point I am trying to make is this. Certain BNF people (and people like an author’s SO who I don’t even know what category to put into other than creator-by-proxy) need to at least accept the weight that their words can carry. This whole “oh, I’m not a celebrity, I’m just a person, I can’t control strangers, I have the right to say whatever I want on my blog” thing just does not cut it anymore, especially considering this extremely chaotic element that the huge homestuck fandom has lately. Especially when, with a few well chosen words, the same BNFs might even be able to reign in the same chaos they have helped unleash; instead they just delete/edit their offending posts and attempt to walk away from the matter and let it “resolve itself” so that they are not part of the drama. It’s akin to seeing a beehive in your neighbor’s backyard with some kids poking sticks at it, throwing a rock across the fence at it and then ducking back inside and slamming the door and casually talking to your roommate about all the screams and buzzing outside and what is up with that anyway those crazy bees in your neighbor’s backyard. Yes, you can’t reason with a swarm of angry bees, but you could have also not thrown the rock in the first place even if there were already kids poking the beehive who might have pissed off the bees on their own anyway.
Plus, it is extremely obvious at least in Rachel’s case that she knows she is able to rile up the fans with just a few words, because she’s done it a handful of times already when it suited her interests (ie Homestuck IP rights, another blogger causing her trouble, etc). I can think of at least 3 recent incidents that immediately escalated due to her participation, whether justified or not.

Let me just bring it around to a real life example, which while a lot different and fairly OT, still relates in a way. There has been a lot of recent drama about the Tosh rape joke incident, and both sides are polarized on how they feel about it (ie totally unacceptable, I hope he never gets work again, etc vs. omg you people are way too sensitive stupid women it’s tosh and he was joking that’s the way he is). All of that aside, I was talking to a friend about it and she brought up a fairly good point that I can agree with.
There are always people out there who are just looking for an excuse to do something, even if it’s a flimsy justification. You see it all the time, oh it’s ok for me to steal that because, it’s ok if I lied because, they totally deserved that because… When Tosh stood up and said something along the lines of “It would be funny if you were raped by 5 guys right now” about that girl in front of a roomful of people, regardless of his exact phrasing (since it’s been requoted and paraphrased and no one has reproduced the exact line at any point), regardless of the fact that it should have been obvious that it was a joke and he wasn’t seriously suggesting that she be raped right there, there could conceivably have been someone(s) there who took or could take that as an easy justification. Yeah, maybe they’re stupid, maybe that’s just them trying to shift the blame, yeah there’s crazy people who will say the newspaper or a song on the radio told them to do something, etc. The point is that as a celebrity, Tosh should not say something as direct as that, that in essence is in favor of something like that, regardless of how he intended it to be perceived.
Because someone who was already looking for an excuse to do it now has one, essentially at their suggestion.

No, that doesn’t mean that famous people (or in this case fandom-famous people like Homestuck BNFs) should live in fear of how each of their words will be interpreted and/or quit the internet, but at the same time they should definitely weigh their words carefully when making potentially inflammatory statements, and if a situation arises where their words are directly involved with a bad situation’s escalation, should either make attempts to counter the negative effect their words have had, or accept partial responsibility if they choose not to.
No more of this rock, beehive, walk away shrugging behavior. Please.

My moirail speaks the truth.

Notes

  1. winkonthings reblogged this from snowchildhero
  2. snowchildhero reblogged this from somaperies and added:
    Yeah, I do agree that the Tosh thing is a VERY different issue that I am not touching with a ten foot pole on tumblr....
  3. shewpthewewp reblogged this from shinjaninja
  4. somaperies reblogged this from snowchildhero and added:
    I agree with almost all of this aside from the Tosh commentary thing as a comparison, which is a big can of worms in...
  5. shinjaninja reblogged this from snowchildhero
  6. agirlwithhairlikethis reblogged this from snowchildhero
  7. reaper462 reblogged this from snowchildhero
  8. studiokitsu reblogged this from sharkpuncher
  9. sharkpuncher posted this

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