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cimorene...Do Them in a Movie.
Even though generally 90% of everything is crap and by extension 90% of everyone is a moron, there are certain shifts in demographics, like how the likelihood of someone being female, gay, politically liberal, and able to use a computer is higher in lj fandom. Those factors occasionally reduce the quantity of stupid too, because, okay, there is plenty of stupid in fandom, but you don't really run into it as much on a day-to-day basis unless you hang out in big communities. This is a great thing about fandom. But there are hills and valleys. And there is badfic, and there are occasional kerfluffles to remind us that there is stupid everywhere, and that includes in fandom, just when we might have been starting to forget (I wasn't, or anything - that was just a hypothetical).
Any rant - or, alternatively, any calm and reasonable explanation in words of one syllable - that I could make about it today would just reiterate this rant I made a few weeks ago called Things That Guys Don't Do Unless They're Gay (Hint: There's Only One), and besides, I kind of need to save up my ranting for more serious issues once I have the stomach for it. So I'll just keep this short, and say that straight men can not only sing showtunes and wear pink and cuddle and kiss their friends - they can also go shopping.
I know it's a shocker, but most straight men who are adults don't live with their parents, and many of them don't live with female significant others, either. If they didn't buy things, they wouldn't have clothes, food, toilet paper, light fixtures, electronics, things in which to sleep, etc. Now, some of them might be billionaires, and some of them might never wipe their asses, and some of them might just sleep on the floor in their clothes and eat all their food directly from the carton and never dry off after they shower, and some of them might have mothers who made sure, at least, that they had some eating utensils and towels before they moved out. But really: most of them learn how to go to retail establishments, where they exchange money for goods and services. I promise.
And then they watch tv, and sometimes it's girly tv. If they're straight, they often do that while cuddling their girlfriends, because cuddling also isn't genetic, but the desire to feel up the people that you're sexually attracted to is.
Even though generally 90% of everything is crap and by extension 90% of everyone is a moron, there are certain shifts in demographics, like how the likelihood of someone being female, gay, politically liberal, and able to use a computer is higher in lj fandom. Those factors occasionally reduce the quantity of stupid too, because, okay, there is plenty of stupid in fandom, but you don't really run into it as much on a day-to-day basis unless you hang out in big communities. This is a great thing about fandom. But there are hills and valleys. And there is badfic, and there are occasional kerfluffles to remind us that there is stupid everywhere, and that includes in fandom, just when we might have been starting to forget (I wasn't, or anything - that was just a hypothetical).
Any rant - or, alternatively, any calm and reasonable explanation in words of one syllable - that I could make about it today would just reiterate this rant I made a few weeks ago called Things That Guys Don't Do Unless They're Gay (Hint: There's Only One), and besides, I kind of need to save up my ranting for more serious issues once I have the stomach for it. So I'll just keep this short, and say that straight men can not only sing showtunes and wear pink and cuddle and kiss their friends - they can also go shopping.
I know it's a shocker, but most straight men who are adults don't live with their parents, and many of them don't live with female significant others, either. If they didn't buy things, they wouldn't have clothes, food, toilet paper, light fixtures, electronics, things in which to sleep, etc. Now, some of them might be billionaires, and some of them might never wipe their asses, and some of them might just sleep on the floor in their clothes and eat all their food directly from the carton and never dry off after they shower, and some of them might have mothers who made sure, at least, that they had some eating utensils and towels before they moved out. But really: most of them learn how to go to retail establishments, where they exchange money for goods and services. I promise.
And then they watch tv, and sometimes it's girly tv. If they're straight, they often do that while cuddling their girlfriends, because cuddling also isn't genetic, but the desire to feel up the people that you're sexually attracted to is.
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(no subject)
Date: 19 Nov 2007 03:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Nov 2007 05:56 pm (UTC)Also, even my dad wears pink shirts.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Nov 2007 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20 Nov 2007 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Nov 2007 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20 Nov 2007 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Nov 2007 07:21 pm (UTC)Not just the gay thing or the 'real boy/not a real boy' thing, although good GODS are those chafing... but even the nerd/dork/geek thing. Saying what you mean does not make you a geek. Being literate, at all, and publically admitting to it, does not make you a geek (for pity's sake, that's fucking year *seven* stuff.) Knowing what a furry is does not make you a geek, and neither does making fun of furries. Owning a Playstation does not make you a geek. And I'm sorry, but even playing Warhammer does not make you a geek, not that it isn't a pretty good indicator... do you (generic you, not you personally) think Warhammer would survive economically if only serious hardcore geeks bought it and sometimes casually played it?
I will go as far as to say that Gerard Way is a great big nerd. *That's* fair enough, and bless him for it, I wouldn't be in this fandom if he wasn't. But sometimes it seems like people are shifting the frame to where the Panic! boys are geeky, and Gerard Way is practically Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, which, just... *no*.
I could understand if it was just people overidentifying, but it doesn't seem to be. It's the same as the gay thing, people positioned closer to the middle of the bell curve overstating every hint of difference... and I get that they're doing it because they think those differences are cool, but it's objectifying, and it's policing the boundaries, and as a geeky, lesbian, not-totally-gender-normative person, it makes me feel like that much more of a freak when I see them holding up perfectly ordinary behaviour as SO gay, or SO female, or SO geeky. (Or SO fat, btw: if I hear one more person describe Gerard Way or Spencer Smith or anyone else in bandom as fat, I'm going to scream.)
(no subject)
Date: 19 Nov 2007 09:32 pm (UTC)(And then sometimes I've already posted about it on LJ. Those are the best times.)
(no subject)
Date: 28 Jan 2008 05:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28 Jan 2008 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 29 Jan 2008 12:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28 Jan 2008 06:13 pm (UTC)This is a great discussion, thanks for the links!
(no subject)
Date: 29 Jan 2008 03:13 am (UTC)These are awesome posts.