(no subject)

[haptalaon]

I'm working on relearning how to have private, pointless hobbies - it's a joy and a freedom and a freeing up of energy that I've not felt for a long time. I'm coming up with a character for my new doll ATM, and trying to make it as consciously teenage as possible, like, a real bishie fanon Draco Malfoy dark elf prince who's bisexual and sarcastic or something, the sort of thing you write when you're 13 without any shame and what I'm saying is the world could benefit a lot by relearning that sense of shamelessness and joy and self-expression. Why did we ever get to shaming Mary Sues as something negative?

Comments

[cassini]

[*intense feeeels* ]

[*hurried answer because work* looking back (and knowing i linked to some old sue/suethor bashing yesterday) its pretty hard to answer that But id hazard the guess that it was an interesting whirlpool at the intersection of a lot of social missteps, hatred both internal and external, in 'early' internet days ]

[an easy way to elevate oneself is to trample on the perceived below, and id have to defer to more experienced folks / folks with more relevant experience before i stick my foot further in my mouth buuuutt ]

[misogyny, geek social fallacies(?) and the appeal of social clout ]

[but before i go for now - Do The Thing. Have the Fun ^nωn^ ]

[haptalaon]

"an easy way to elevate oneself is to trample on the perceived below,"

A dynamic which pervades all human interactions tbh.

And oh!, gods do I miss when this was primarily expressed through bashing mary sues and rival ships instead of, like, as social justice praxis. There was something so WHOLESOME about flaming someone who dated Harry/Hermionie, compared to flaming someone for using an LGBT microidentity that's 3 months out of date

[alexseanchai]

because everything teenage girls do must be shamed, especially the parts that empower girls in and of themselves (rather than as future sex objects and as mothers-to-be), because failing to properly shame teenage girls might give them the mistaken idea that they are entitled to desires that aren't subordinate to men's and to personal power of their own

[haptalaon]

WORD and I say this as a massive fan of pop music. Why is pop music bad music? Because teenage girls like it (and also, beyond that, gay men and middle aged women).

Britney Spears. ABBA. Lady Gaga. t.A.T.u. Uptown Funk. Boney M. the Spice Girls.

These songs make you want to DANCE and FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF, that's a kind of magic.

Bonus mode: gradually talking about Beyonce in ways that imply she is not pop, because she's sophisticated and political now. Can I dance to it? Does it make me feel good? Does it fill the dance floor? It's pop, stop dissecting something perfect and DANCE.

In many ways, I think it's about the fear of feeling these men (and it is always men) have - a hope that they can remain detached and analytical and deny themselves what is really music's most profound gift to us. So I think when they hear that shimmering glissando at the beginning of Dancing Queen, and like, really the sheer power that sound has to immediately make you well up, or make a room feel suddenly like they're 17 again - they're afraid of that.

[haptalaon]

Facts about Britney Spears: Did you know that SHE came up with the sexy schoolgirl look, and SHE wanted to dance in the videos because she was a dancer.

There are some amazing interviews with the (adult, male) producers who she worked with on those first hits, where they're saying...they felt quite uncomfortable with the sexy schoolgirl dancing, and wanted to pull it back to a more chaste and less provocative place, and it was Spears who wanted to push the envelope on that, because she was a 17-year-old and...as much as ethically aware adults can feel uncertain of how to respond/police/permit/prevent this...teenagers have sexualities, and want to sexually self-express.

[annofowlshire]

This is a lesson I keep having to revisit for myself.