Random observation

[oloriel]

When I look at some of the political/social discussions on Tumblr, I'm actually happy that LJ is going out of fashion. (Although of course these debates take place on LJ, too -- but you have to join the respective communities, or friend the right people, to get in on them. And the actual heat is elsewhere. On Tumblr, everything is everywhere all

Comments

[meril]

I've had some really good social justice conversations with friends from LJ. But I need to note that they were mostly one-on-one, with people who know each other, and we're all around the same age (and weren't teenagers to begin with) so there was very little assumption of bad faith.

It's a bit different in RL offline activism (although at least in the US there's always this tendency in leftist politics for eating your own) because, well, offline. You know the people you're working with and there's a shared goal. Too lazy for that stuff now too, that's what college is for.

(Tumblr just makes me wish these kids' parents would just make them GO OUTSIDE and stop spending their entire day on the computer. Or maybe I just ran with a bit more of a politically-aware and prone to discussion crowd, both left and right, in high school.)

[oloriel]

Yes, these discussions can be excellent. But they can be fruitless if they always revolve around the same interpretation of something, among the same people. Or if they're involving nothing but pure theory -- reality isn't that pure, and things that look awful on a scale made up of pure theory may, in the face of reality, actually be the best possible compromise

[indy1776]

Yes, to all of this. It's why I usually don't reblog political stuff; I would like my personal fandom spaces to be non-SJ-oriented. (Note I'm not saying those conversations shouldn't happen, but more that it seems that SJ has taken over some rather large aspects of some fandoms, and it's tiring. Especially because I get the feeling that some people are just doing it to follow the crowd. Fandom is supposed to be fun, isn't it?)

There's actually one person on Tumblr, the person I would call my oldest friend save that we don't talk anymore. I stopped reading her Tumblr after I got one-- and I never followed her because I didn't want the polemic "whites are evil and racist!!!!" all over my dash. (She's white.) I randomly checked her Tumblr yesterday to find a note that basically said, "I'm not tagging any of the political stuff so you can't block it because it's important and you need to see it." I nearly PMed her and said, "That's entirely the reason I'm not following you. Some people come here so they don't see it and can get a break

[fallingtowers]

THIS

[flower_star]

I totally understand. I'm not on tumblr but what I've seen of that stuff on other sites (Mark Reads/Watches, e.g., and to a lesser extent Fandom Secrets), it's incredibly offputting. The tone employed in these discussions is very nasty, too, which doesn't help at all, and if you point that out, you're shouted down with "tone argument!!!". Though it's probably childish, it frequently makes me not care any more at all or even disagree with them even if they have a good point buried waaaay down deep (probably similar to how a few vegan friends I have posting about how meat eaters are horrible people make me crave steak - yes, I know that's very mature of me).

A friend of mine recently posted something in the same vein: It is more useful to the world that I am cheerful, live creatively, and am responsible for myself. That's my decision, too - it's not useful to the world that I go around in a rage all the time. I'm picking my battles, and the SJ stuff is one I definitely don't want to engage in

[heartofoshun]

I personally blame the heat for me getting In Trouble on Tumblr! But actually you summed it up nicely:

I respect people's struggle, but sometimes I feel that in everyone's attempts to make everything better, the only result is an environment where everybody has to watch every word they say lest they be considered sexist (in any direction), racist, abilist*, culturally appropriating, apologistic or whatever. I am not saying that fighting against these attitudes in their actual incarnations isn't worthy.Tumblr is a mine field in a way because of how these issues are raised, shortcuts, assumptions of shared vocabulary, which do not necessarily exist. My biggest fights around respect or social justice in fandom in the past were the old anti-slash vs. semi-religious, puritanical interpretations of Law and Customs Among the Eldar. One learned to work around even those