Think

 “Of the powers, the only vote that matters

Silence means security, silence means approval” - Michael stipe 

In the last week few days I’ve been told, that by pointing out awful racist things that awful racist people are saying I’m just “feeding the Trolls” “ shining light on them just gives them power”

First of all a problem never goes away by ignoring it. The theory of not confronting them is right in the fact that you’re bringing a BB gun to a battleship fight. No matter how eloquent you are, no matter how correct or well stated you’re not gonna change one of these monsters minds let alone a whole global herd of them.

But I think they’re missing the point. The couple (see eight) people I’ve encountered This weekend. 

It’s not about fighting them it’s about taking up for the people that are being discriminated against. It’s easy for me as a White 40 something-year-old person to think not defending hatred in fandom Isn’t important.. because it’s not aimed at me. 

Buuuut..

…. Imagine you’re a purple person. A 8 or 10-year-old purple person

One day suddenly a famous cartoon character is remade into a purple person. At the same time a new show featuring fictional race from a fictional land happens to hire some purple people to play the parts of the fictional race.

You’re excited about this even if you don’t necessarily realize it because you’ve gone your entire purple life looking at blonde haired blue-eyed Caucasian heroes.

Red Sonja

Superman

Lois Lane

Captain America 

Emmanuelle

The spirit

Fantômette

The bride of Frankenstein

Luke Skywalker

Han Solo

 The Scooby gang

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

13 of 14 Doctor Who

All Caucasian not a purple person in the bunch. Sure sprinkle a few throughout pop culture‘s history but its one in 100 (and I’m lowballing that figure before 1970) And ones that aren’t a white faced stereotype of water purple person should be is even harder to find. 

Now it’s 2022, and there is a slow trickle. Slowly you’re starting to see more and more purple people on your television and in your comic books.

But people on the Internet are saying

“ it’s wrong to have purple mermaids”

“ there are no such thing as purple elves”

It doesn’t take a very smart person or a very old child to figure out there isn’t any rules about the color of fictional races and what The torch bearing Internet monsters are really angry at is that they’re the same color as you. Media has been there mirror forever and they wanted to stay that way. 

How would you feel if a portion of society was super vocal that the color you are is the wrong color. 

Every time I’m on a podcast or this blog or any Apple crate I can stand on  at all and I blast some hateful no good jerk on the Internet.. i’m not having a argument with THEM. There is no argument racism is wrong end of discussion.

But if one person out there that’s feeling alone or feels like they don’t have anyone out there in the darkness taking up for them… if I can stop that person from feeling bad for even a few minutes before their Internet experience is congested with people telling them characters shouldn’t look like them. 

I mean let’s not even talk about the fact that every historical epic made till almost the mid-80s were populated with people who were either pretending to be a certain race or just pretending that everyone always has always been Caucasian.

There are a lot of stupid people on the Internet and fighting with them individually is a mental suicide mission. And while I agree they are stupid a lot of stupid people saying a lot of stupid things can still be hurtful.

I don’t claim to understand how it feels to be told that you’re heroes can never look like you. 

THAT you don’t deserve Superman or Han Solo.

” what about Zorro… what about Black Panther?”

I Can’t really imagine what it feels like to have 90% of my television experience not looking like me moreover the American entertainment industry making a whole lot of people that by their storyline or historical home should’ve looked a lot more likely than they want to admit.

So before you tell anyone I don’t see color or not to engage or mention Internet hate or trolls… and I’m only writing this because seven or eight people have in the last week… 

Just remember you will never know in your lifetime what it feels like to not be represented in your fandom. And while it’s way better than it was when I was growing up it’s still very uneven population.

Think about that little purple kid… try and imagine what it feels like to have people angry that someone looks like you.. to every time you go on YouTube or Facebook there’s an army of people shouting their characters shouldn’t be the same sexual preference as you or gender identity as you.. Think about how shitty you feel by people just saying your color is the wrong color. 

It’s great that you don’t see color but by not seeing color you’re totally disregarding the struggle of someone whose entire day… Entire lifetime is impacted on a moment to moment basis by their color… by the sexual preference by the type of genitals they have underneath Where their bathing suit covers.

Not seeing color not acknowledging someone’s sexual preference isn’t a good thing at least not while they are struggling because of it. There’s a difference between not judging or punishing them for and not acknowledging it.

So any opportunity I get I’m gonna call out the stupidity the hatred I started this blog because I wanted to shine a light on the elements of fandom that people claim aren’t a problem. If me pointing out their hypocrisy and hate makes one person feel better it’s totally worth it. And if it annoys someone who doesn’t think there’s a problem you can keep ignoring me like you’re ignoring the problem. 

“ it’s only the Internet”

If that’s what you think you don’t understand that Internet is essentially television of this generation. More than that it’s socializing it’s essentially everything. Maybe me heading towards 50 can ignore it fine because it wasn’t there my whole life I understood what it was like without it but for a whole generation of people the World Wide Web is the world. As the Internet grows bigger the world gets smaller. Monsters that were contains to cross burning in fields and schoolyard bully now have a blast radius that equals a extinction level event five times over. Worse over there he able to insidiously pretend that their hatred is not aimed at any race color creed but at a fictional historical accuracy that was brought by a heterosexual white male dominant creatator base. So as a small child who doesn’t look like these characters you’re still getting the mental kick but then being told “you’re just collateral damage of the real problem”

The real problem being the ethnicity of fake people. 

Sure you don’t think these people these Internet dummies are a problem but again you were never one time told that” it’s wrong that 99% of the avengers justice league in the original Star Wars look like you. ” so it’s easy to ignore because you don’t know how it feels.

I may just be one dude holding a candle in a hurricane but I don’t think it’s a waste of time ever to tell somebody that they’re not alone. Remind somebody that not every other “Fan” hates them.

Wasn’t always a good dude are used to say a lot of awful things to try to be funny or edgy under the pretense of “ it’s just a joke” but I woke up one day and put myself in the shoes of that purple eight-year-old girl… Of the woman that was trying to listen to a horror podcast while the holes were ignoring any relevancy of the character except how she looked.

The Chinese person that I imitated their accent for a laugh. 

It’s shitty

I was a shitty

True some still pretty shitty

But I try to be better. 

And while I’d be alive to say I really understand how it feels I’m being honest when I say if I can help anyone not feel bad at all I’ll do all I can to make that happen.

I am doing my best to be the best me and hopefully you are too



Dr. Trollhunter

https://youtu.be/vWOpBwwpVfA