sigh. well, let's see if i actually have the energy to write this post.
i wasn't even expecting to make any journal entries this month, but i suppose it was a bit presumptuous my energy for my very first art fight would maintain the entire month. especially with how grueling last week's shift at work was. i'm hoping i'll at least have the energy to finish the attack i've started, but if not i'll just make it a normal drawing afterwards as it's for my spouse anyway.
the world is just so exhausting, so crushing, and many things contribute to this feeling, not the least of which that people still, still, are posting about how evil Harry Potter is and how nobody should be allowed to interact with it ever again.
i'm so damn tired of hearing about Harry Potter, man.
it's been five years now and there's only been two total instances i've heard about that wretched series that wasn't from people screaming about how evil it is. maybe it would die faster if you people stop talking about it.
but it's also the constant reminder i'm still never safe, that my head only remains off the guillotine for Problematic Media Consumers because things i like aren't currently in the spotlight of Badness. people i thought were friends have shown me clearly they're poised to pounce on me the moment i show signs of liking the Wrong Things again. it's so fucking tiresome. i already struggle so much with trying to convince myself people aren't merely tolerating me and aren't just waiting for the right time to gut me and remove me from their life but man, it's so damn hard when people keep reinforcing it.
like why are we expected to condemn any interaction with Harry Potter even from pirated things that give the vile creator zero income, but not. but not. the new BlueSky social media platform? not the Brave browser? not fucking Disney, as i've mentioned before? not Five Night's at Freddy's?
oh but Silver, what have they done wrong?! surely nothing as evil as that J.K.R. demon!
well let's find out.
- BlueSky's creator is not only very chummy with Elon Musk, as far as i'm aware, the platform was made explicitly as a new social media presence for his neo-nazi and other white supremacist buddies. it was literally meant as a platform for hate and is owned by a person sympathetic to those views.
but Silver! there's a thriving presence of various minorities there! yes, that's true, but why is that different than giving attention and advertiser $$$ to him instead of Rowling? isn't even the very act of giving this shit attention the very same as being a transphobe yourself? - Brave, as i have detailed in other parts of my site, is not only a crypto-friendly platform, Chromium-based browser in which you as the user are the product disguised under lies of being "privacy-respecting" (because what privacy platform partners with ad networks to actively show people ads???) but its CEO is the former CEO of Mozilla for a grand total of 11 days before his generous and continuing donations to anti-gay activism groups came to light. but surely that's different, right? since nobody's called for anyone's head on a pike even for using Brave, much less praising it as incessantly as i've seen? surely this guy's money is somehow different than Rowling's?
- god, where to even start with Disney. i'm sure people will want to sweep Disney's own donations to queerphobic hate groups under the rug since they're currently in a legal battle with Florida governor DeSantis, but i'm still shocked and appalled people seem think that makes Disney the "good guy." their monetary contributions to homophobes are somehow fine and dandy? their surpression of queer works made in their studios? their legal funding for "don't say gay" type bills is okay? christ.
- Five Nights at Freddy's creator i've seen multiple times now explicitly saying the exact same things Rowling does with regards to how he spends the funds he gets from that intellectual property: he regularly donates a generous portion of it to homophobic hate groups. he is out about this. he is clear. he is open in his support for wishing to exterminate us. and yet... and yet. people still either like this series or see it as a quirky scary thing for older kids and young adults. this must be different somehow, the murder robot animal money is very different and cleaner than the wizard school book money. or something.
and i know how people will react to this. i can even hear it now. but Silver! i didn't know!!!
and yes, that's ultimately fine; i'm not trying to say i expect people to have omniscience. it's one thing to know, and now that you know you are empowered by that knowledge. i don't even have any expectation of people to condemn these things, though i certainly don't want to hear them praised to me at all either.
what i want is for people to realize that their stance on Harry Potter vs. all the other things that fall into the exact same spot Harry Potter does is highly hypocritical. that if you're going to "end transphobia/homophobia" through individual consumerism (lol) you need to be pressuring people to get rid of all of these things and not just the one it's convenient for you to hate.
but i know people will balk at this and try to claim i'm either making things up or some other excuse that means they don't have to examine their own interests past Harry Potter, because that would require admitting they deserve the same exclusion and shunning they've demanded and enacted on other people. that their witch hunt was entirely made up of witches itself who deserved just as much the damnation they inflicted on others.
this is why i don't trust people i see doing this, and why i am eternally tired when even people who seem otherwise to be level-headed and accept that individual consumerism and online bullying aren't meaningful activism will revert to screaming animalistic rage whenever the words "Harry Potter" appear onscreen somewhere. you cannot build a meaningful community or movement like this, with not only people constantly paranoid and eager to police others lest their own sins transgressions be revealed. but also that this mindset encourages people to not investigate their own interests for flaws or think critically about the things they personally like because nobody wants to be shamed and shunned and if you simply aren't aware of the flaws of your interests you can ignorantly interact with them indefinitely.
i'm tired of seeing this. i know what it is whenever i see it. the people who scream about Blizzard games always mysteriously silent about the literal crimes the companies that make their beloved games, because hey it's Blizzard hating time and as long as we're all swept up in a frenzy riding this wave maybe nobody will notice the company that makes my games also works their employees to the bone and covers up sexual abuse and spends large sums on fucking NFTs. attacking the people playing a specific game is surely the exact same kind of activism as pressuring the entire industry to suffer consequences for their crimes, yes? yes?? please???
sigh. i haven't told anyone explictly about this journal, so i'm not even sure if anyone reads it, though my expectation is if anyone does they'll have read the words "Harry Potter" and immediately turned their brain off to whip themselves into a frothing rage about how i as a trans person hate trans people or some equally inane bullshit. i don't expect anyone will want to actually read and contemplate my actual words because then they might have to be accountable for their actions, that maybe they harmed people and didn't do nearly as much "good" as they thought they were doing, that maybe they only taught people to hide their "bad" interests made by a specific queerphobe while intentionally ignoring the queerphobia of many powerful other queerphobes.
and i don't even trust people to use critical thinking, so let me make this clear yet again: i do not like Harry Potter. i do not want to hear about Harry Potter or anything Rowling has made ever again. i do not believe and am not saying that Harry Potter should never be criticized or Rowling's transphobia pointed out.
what i am saying is to stop treating it as the one and only source of transphobia by the rich elite in our world right now. if your line of action is name, shame, and exclude, then you're going to have to eventually get rid of everyone including yourself. personally i would really prefer to see people take action against transphobia in the way of pressuring the actual governments of our countries to codify and strengthen legal protections for queers everywhere, and take a stance on Harry Potter and its ilk more like "don't talk to me about Harry Potter at all, pirate her shit if you're going to interact with it, and condemn Rowling and her TERF friends." change your terms as you see fit, or don't. i'm nobody's boss. just stop throwing people to the wolves for the same "sins" you commit yourself.
i suppose i'm venting this here since i don't expect other people, even people i like and wish i could trust to talk about this with, to listen to what i'm actually saying at all. i'd like to hope if someone i know does read this entry and would like to discuss this more in a non-screaming rage kind of way, they would, i could really use a sign that there are people out there who won't throw me under the bus. but i'm really not going to hold my breath for it...
oh well.
man. this shit is so exhausting. i really hope i get some of my energy back, i really want to be drawing, but can't force myself either. forcing myself only ever makes me burn out faster and for longer, so as soon as i stop feeling Drawing Urges i need to step back and be nice to myself for a bit until i feel artistic again. may have to take a break from social media entirely again if people can't stop being hypocrites and assholes.