logging off tumblr for a bit
because i just saw a take about how posting “censored porn” online with the uncensored version “behind a paywall” makes you an advertiser who’s profiting from christofascist censorship
from the context I THINK the poster was talking about artists who draw naked or sexual art, not about sex workers posting their photos
and either way, I can see the point– none of us like seeing ads or any posts that encourage us to go somewhere and pay money. And yeah it kinda inevitably makes society’s growing censorship into part of one’s business model. which is not great, but
but… what exactly do they think the alternative is
whenever anyone tries to make money doing something independent and people don’t like it, they usually say something like, “get a real job like the rest of us have to”
even if
in theory
they claim to be in favor of abolishing the capitalist “work-as-an-exploited-employee-for-a-boss-who-makes-a-dollar-and-pays-you-a-dime” method of making a living
but you can’t be against that, and also be against promoting your own work as an independent worker of any kind
or at least, if you are against both those things, you still have to acknowledge that at least one of them will HAVE to go on existing, for a while, until we somehow manage to get universal basic income and universal healthcare for everyone
smh
for what it’s worth, this is also somewhat how I feel about all the complaining about gen-z censored slang like “unal!ve”
“they’re just complying willingly with the corporate overlords. and the sites they’re on don’t even ban you for saying that stuff! they just de-monetize you”
okay yeah? and if that’s how you’re trying to make a living, then that’s…. at least an understandable reason?
“they should get real jobs!” ….like the ones you rant about and call fascist capitalist wage slavery?
….where, notably, you also get in trouble (sometimes to the point of being fired– i.e. “de-monetized”) if you talk too openly about controversial topics on the job?
like. yes obviously these things are both corporate hellscapes. but… what difference exactly are we seeing here
As much as current tiktok slang annoys me, I do find it hard to break down to actual valid objections
At least, not valid objections that blame the kids who use it.
“it’s euphemisms, it’s not saying the actual thing” practically every word for death and sex began a euphemism, even the words “death” and “sex.” and no word is the actual thing. Where do you want us to draw the line
“it’s cringe” yeah, all slang made old people cringe when it first came out. your lists of old-fashioned euphemisms that you prefer are only preferable to you because they aren’t new.
“it’s complying with censorship” tell me 1 way of making a living that doesn’t require you to comply with censorship.
Yeah the world’s fucked but can we not blame the victims
more than that, i think it’s important to really anaoyse whether or not something is really a problem. unalive and grape are stupid, and largely evolved from a weird mysticism around the algorithm ™, which is managed by tech companies–but it’s worth noting i’ve never seen any data that shows algorithmic censorship of kill or rape (unless palestinians are involved, after the us purchase).
it caught on because the kids kinda like it. it’s silly it’s light-hearted, it functions as a shibboleth to signal your part in the in-group. it’s fine. reacting negatively to that is reactionary. culture changes and comes and goes in waves, and it’s fine.
regarding op, though, you gotta ignore or block the annoying people. if anything, having them around is bad for business. it’s the lesbian bar drama thing.
i’m not sure “look i escaped wage slavery, i’m petit bourgeois now, you should be happy for me” is the beeeest rhetorical strategy for these types though lol
Lol, I don’t think anyone’s claiming that there’s much difference at this point between wage slavery and petit bourgeois. That is, if we’re defining petit bourgeois as people who “own their own business,” in any sense of the term. (Which in today’s economy seems to mean mostly “being at the mercy of some corporate platform and its algorithm,” whether that’s Etsy, Patreon, OnlyFans, YouTube, Tiktok, any book self-publishing site, or freakin’ Doordash.)
From what I can see, the people living like that (unless of course they’re trying to sell you the lifestyle, in some sort of pyramid scheme) tend to make a big ranty deal of how much they’re at the mercy of that algorithm, and how much it censors and restricts what they can do.
(While the people working for a wage may be trying to get into the self-employed lifestyle, because it seems marginally less hellish than regular employment, but they tend to find out how near-impossible it is to replace even one day a week of normal income with that. Exceptions are very very rare and lucky.)
And yeah, true, the words themselves aren’t any worse than the rest of slang, in the great scheme of things. Whether or not they really impact the ability to make a self-employed income on any platform. They’re not any more cringey than any other new slang, or any more censorious or euphemistic than earlier words for the same stuff.
I do agree blocking the annoying people is the best move. It’s… got its limitations, though. I mean , if I blocked everyone who ever reblogged a post I find annoying, I’d be cutting out pretty much everyone.
And so I’d been trying to maintain a policy of just blocking the OPs of the annoying posts… but it turns out that doesn’t always stop those posts from showing up on my dash anyway.
(For instance, I blocked that person who made the post with the Disney Mambo Number 5 video that always autoplays on my dash whenever you reblog it. That damn thing still shows up in your reblogs, lol. And it still autoplays.)
(Sooooo. I think I might have to abandon “block the annoying posters” in favor of “just log off when I start seeing stuff that annoys me.” Probably the healthier choice, in general.)