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OP has the thread muted. I'm going along with this anyway.
Dear anti-shippers, stop conflating government sponsored mass media / propaganda to the likes of niche fan content.
https://twitter.com/cosmoteIIurianz/status/1298672653658517504
Dear anti-shippers, stop conflating government sponsored mass media / propaganda to the likes of niche fan content.
https://twitter.com/cosmoteIIurianz/status/1298672653658517504
Let's begin on something that needs to be made very clear. None of this is true in the way it is being presented. You can *know* your history without understanding how we got thay history. And that is okay, because I'm going to spell it out.
1. State sponsored propaganda + mega-corporate media have a bigger impact on us because they are directly intermingled with the social systems that are used to both oppress and influence us. 10k slash fic on AO3 does not hold that same power to influence on that great of a scale.
There is a reason it doesn't. It is not necessarily because of the audience it reaches, though that is a big part of it.
a) fan content is not supposed to be a reliable source of information as it is usually made up
b) fan content is not ingrained in your daily intersctive life
a) fan content is not supposed to be a reliable source of information as it is usually made up
b) fan content is not ingrained in your daily intersctive life
Propaganda works as well as it does because it cannot be just written off as false or fiction, if that was the case it would not work. It holds certain credible bias to it and appeals to the uneducated and frustrated parts of your mental awareness. It is made to influence you.
Example: The government wants to get rid of immigrants. Your city is known to love them. The government hires local news stations to tell you that the countries these people are coming from are the reason why you get cancer. Suddenly, immigration sounds a bit risky. More?
Suddenly, there is hysteria. "Certain countries can't bring in cancer!" local folk may say, but your news stations won't stop talking about how these countries are littered with power plants that seep radiation, and you hear the human body can hold said radiation for weeks even.
So, is this a lie? Sure. If you look at science. But the point here is that we have taken a fact and removed it from it's point of correctness. We have added bias. We used that biased to pry on a fear most people have, and we used the media to feed into that fear. Propaganda.
So what this has to do with racism? Racism is a systemic system of oppressive value. It is ingrained in society centuries upon each other folded. The invention of media only helped feed a fear, not create it. These mindsets are not fictional. They *are* based on something.
This is a lukewarm piece without the right facts.
1. The concept of the "mammy" was not made up by media. She was a real figure. Mammies referred to house slaves who breastfeed the babies of white plantation-owning women, rearing the children to free white women of stress.
1. The concept of the "mammy" was not made up by media. She was a real figure. Mammies referred to house slaves who breastfeed the babies of white plantation-owning women, rearing the children to free white women of stress.
2. Aunt Jemima is a direct reference to how Black individuals in the early stages of media production were only given roles in which we were either slaves, or Black faced entertainment. /This/ is where the mammy enters stage left into the media. She is now a caricature for fun.
3. Uncle Ben is reference to "Uncle", which was submissive older Black slave men. "Boy" was the equivalent for younger Black men. This is where we get "Uncle Tom" from, who the Black community refers to as "The Coon", as his imagery rose to fame in Jim Crow minstrel shows.
4. These stereotypes during the time in which they were made affected the outcome for Black Americans very little. During a time where a lynch mob was waiting for you if you even breathed in their direction, a white man in Black face wasn't youre sole reason for being pryed on.
5. The idea that the "Birth of a Nation" revived the KKK is whitewashed history in itself, as the notion of this implies the KKK ever left, when in reality, their numbers were scattered. BOAN did not revive them, it simply was a call to action.
Remember and never forget, Birth of a Nation was promoted by the current government at the time. It was toted not as fiction, but as fact. Remember many KKK members were apart of the government. The move was a state sponsored OK to launch nation wide genocide on Black lives.
The idea here is, beyond all of these examples, these were calls to action. They were racist imagery meant to keep White Americans acting our their racism and never stopping. That is not the same as reading a book and misunderstanding the premise. The issue will alwsys be intent.
You cannot say "fiction affects reality" and then use examples that are not fiction. Let alone examples that have nothing to do with fandom. You being influenced by something because you are *uneducated* is not the same as being fed something false as if it is *matter of fact*.
A slash fanfiction on AO3 will have a label, making it clear it is a work of fiction. From the get go you need to understand that one of more themes in that work is simply untrue. It is not made to educate. It is not made to be a 1:1 depiction of reality. It does not have to be.
You cannot compare the government inspiring you to be violent against others with biased information to something that is first and foremost labeled as something that is not real. They are not compareble on any level.
When we say fiction is not a 1:1 affect on reality, we mean that your preconceived idea of reality will not change by a poem that crossed you online. It does not mean that biased information to vulnerable people cannot influence them. You are influenced because you are unaware.
So yes, to everyone who wants to apply "fiction affects reality" to the likes of real world social issues, understand you cannot. Because not only are they not fiction, but if none of our arguments include the real world, yours shouldnt either.
End.
End.
