on basic human decency, or: how the fuck is this all news, again?
I don't have much to add to what my girlfriend already said, but goddamn.
I have never, ever been so ashamed to be part of a fandom, and may every single dumbfuck who performed the Nazi salute in Germany cosplay at a convention photoshoot be visited by the face of Jewish vengeance, because words fail to express how deeply NOT OKAY that is.
I mean, I was at the "Why It's Not Cool to Cosplay a Nazi" panel. I listened to one of the staffers on-panel explain, near-tears, how her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and how she only escaped the death camps because she had the same name as the girlfriend of one of the guards, so he put her on the train to a labor camp instead.
The atrocities committed by Hitler's regime are not relics of a distant past, things we should "get over" or "forget about." For god's sake, people, you wouldn't walk around an anime convention in a pointed white hood, would you? It's not about censorship, it's not about free speech, it's about recognizing that your actions have consequences, it's about basic human decency and empathy, it's about not performing hate speech. Because that's what that is, you know. Hate speech. Those cosplayers might protest that they were doing it in jest, that they don't really believe in Nazi ideology, but when I look at a bunch of people in uniform performing that salute, how the fuck am I supposed to know that? How the fuck are people not at the convention supposed to know that? It's never "just" a salute, it's never "just" a symbol. Symbols contain meaning. That's why we use them. And I doubt any of those cosplayers was in a position to repurpose that symbol, or that they were intelligent enough to understand what repurposing a symbol even is.
So yeah. Never going to a Hetalia photoshoot again. Goddamnit, this makes me reluctant to even cosplay from the series, because I hate it when a few shitlicking douchewaffles ruin the experience for the vast majority of sane and polite fans and force us to justify ourselves and our hobby when we shouldn't have to. It's exhausting, and it's draining, and I hate doing it.
Goddamnit. We should be better than this. As a fandom, as PEOPLE, we should be better than this.
.
I have never, ever been so ashamed to be part of a fandom, and may every single dumbfuck who performed the Nazi salute in Germany cosplay at a convention photoshoot be visited by the face of Jewish vengeance, because words fail to express how deeply NOT OKAY that is.
I mean, I was at the "Why It's Not Cool to Cosplay a Nazi" panel. I listened to one of the staffers on-panel explain, near-tears, how her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and how she only escaped the death camps because she had the same name as the girlfriend of one of the guards, so he put her on the train to a labor camp instead.
The atrocities committed by Hitler's regime are not relics of a distant past, things we should "get over" or "forget about." For god's sake, people, you wouldn't walk around an anime convention in a pointed white hood, would you? It's not about censorship, it's not about free speech, it's about recognizing that your actions have consequences, it's about basic human decency and empathy, it's about not performing hate speech. Because that's what that is, you know. Hate speech. Those cosplayers might protest that they were doing it in jest, that they don't really believe in Nazi ideology, but when I look at a bunch of people in uniform performing that salute, how the fuck am I supposed to know that? How the fuck are people not at the convention supposed to know that? It's never "just" a salute, it's never "just" a symbol. Symbols contain meaning. That's why we use them. And I doubt any of those cosplayers was in a position to repurpose that symbol, or that they were intelligent enough to understand what repurposing a symbol even is.
So yeah. Never going to a Hetalia photoshoot again. Goddamnit, this makes me reluctant to even cosplay from the series, because I hate it when a few shitlicking douchewaffles ruin the experience for the vast majority of sane and polite fans and force us to justify ourselves and our hobby when we shouldn't have to. It's exhausting, and it's draining, and I hate doing it.
Goddamnit. We should be better than this. As a fandom, as PEOPLE, we should be better than this.
.