On January 25th 2018, a Chinese-American young
adult author named AmĂŠlie Wen Zhao announced her plans to release three books as part of a
series called Blood Heir after securing a book deal with Delacorte Press. The first book was scheduled for a summer
2019 release, which was announced to resounding excitement from her fans. Fast forward a year and three days later. The book release was cancelled, AmĂŠlie released
an apology on her Twitter page, and online communities dedicated to celebrating YA were
thrown into internal discord and turmoil. So what happened? A few things. First of all, several advance copies of the
book were released. Itâs difficult to find any concrete information
on exactly how many people read the book, but several readers expressed similar concerns
with its content, which quickly disseminated to the general public. In particular, the book was criticized
for its handling of topics like oppression and slavery. In the world of Blood Heir, a group of people
with magical powers, called Affinites, are largely feared and enslaved by their non-magical counterparts. The book revolves around an Affinite princess
named Ana, who is trying to find her fatherâs killer while avoiding danger at every turn. The book takes inspiration both from Russian
and Chinese culture; according to AmĂŠlie, her writing about the Affinitesâ oppression
was a reaction both to the way she had been treated as an immigrant in America and
her own experience witnessing slavery in China. Many of the criticisms revolved around
a perceived misrepresenting of Russian culture in the book and in the idea that the book
framed slavery and oppression as âblind to skin colourâ. A lot of people felt that because the slavery in the book so closely resembled American slavery, the book
shouldnât have removed it from its historical context and placed it instead in the context
of people being oppressed for magical powers. After these criticisms started to take hold,
Amelie was also accused of screenshotting negative reviews from fans, as well as directly
lifting quotes from other fantasy novels such as Lord of the Rings and Six of Crows. The screenshotting accusation comes from a
single Twitter user who claims to have been contacted by several anonymous reviewers who
had experienced targeting by Zhao. Although many of these initial criticisms
did come from people who read the book and were unhappy with its content, they quickly
spread to a wider community of people who, self-admittedly, had not read the book and
did not intend to read it. As a result, some of the criticisms went through a sort of Twitter version of telephone; the book portrayed the death
of a character who one reviewer described as black despite the fact that the characterâs
ethnicity was ambiguous in the book, which quickly turned into a host of comments saying
that the book was bad for explicitly portraying a black character dying in such a manner. Regardless, the critical backlash, both to
Blood Heir and Amelie herself, quickly grew in volume, and on January 28th, Amelie released
a statement on Twitter apologizing for her mishandling of slavery in Blood Heir and announcing that
she would indefinitely hold off on publishing the book. The handling of Blood Heir has been framed
by many people as a symptom of wider âcancel cultureâ, an issue that has been talked
about at length by a lot of great people and a lot of less-than-great people. On one hand, a lot of the coverage of what
happened with Blood Heir has been dominated by people using the instance to decry any
criticism of racist tropes in books. A lot of people only heard about this controversy
through an article written by Jesse Singal. The story was also covered by the website
Pluralist, who regularly report on very real stories of very real incidents like people
being arrested for misgendering trans people. Where did they source that from, anyway? Ah yes, the paragon of journalism known as
The Daily Mail. You know itâs a good time when the conversation
about cancelled culture is being controlled by these people. On the other hand, the topic has indeed been
addressed by some pretty cool people, and I think it would be a mistake to assume that
a dislike of leftist âcancel cultureâ is endemic only to Peterson or Breitbart types. Most recently, an excellent YouTuber named
Angie Speaks made a video called âSocial Justice Can Be a Clout Game: Hereâs How
to Avoid Itâ, in which she talked about the current incentives in social justice communities
to behave profitably and accrue as much social capital as possible, often leading to problems
such as cults of personality and people profiting off of outrage and callouts. Iâll link it below. Angieâs video made some great points about
the current status of social justice communities and provided some great analysis as to how
we can go about becoming better. That being said, thereâs also something
to be said about the way outrage and callout culture can be disproportionately weaponized
against people who are already marginalized, in a way that just doesnât happen to more
powerful individuals. Now, this is an extremely broad subject to
discuss, and itâs also a difficult one to handle in good faith. On one hand, you donât want to imply that
people should be shielded from criticism of their actions on the basis of their identities,
and this is something Angie talks about in her video. If I were to say something shitty and people
were to call me on it, I wouldnât be doing myself or anyone else any favours by just
responding with âoh but Iâm a queer woman, why are you so desperate to attack queer women?â. No one should be immune to criticism of their
actions. On the other hand, there is a very real problem
of people who are already marginalized facing the brunt of âcalloutsâ and being âcancelledâ. Once again, this is a very broad topic, and
I were to try and address this entire structural problem, this video would be extremely long. So what Iâm going to do instead is focus
this in on one very specific place where this issue is continually reproduced, and thatâs
media. Time and time again, works that feature diverse
casts or are created by marginalized people are held to much higher standards in online
communities than other works. What I hope to do in this video is describe
what exactly the problem is, provide a couple of explanations for why this might be the
case, and finally talk about how we can move forward from here. So letâs get started. So first things first, Iâm going to get
a couple of things out of the way. In case you hadnât already figured it out,
this video is made for a specific audience and is talking about a specific problem in
one particular community. In particular, this is a criticism of how
the way we look at media can sometimes operate in left-leaning circles, made by a left-leaning
person. So just do know that this video is going to
be operating under the premise that generally speaking, having works that feature diverse
casts and creators is a good thing. If you donât agree with this and youâd
like to watch a video that argues for why these things are good so that you can better
understand my argument here, Iâve provided a couple in the description. With that said, what am I talking about here? Thereâs this trend in leftist communities
to respond very differently to certain forms of media. To be clear, I donât think anyone is consciously
acting this way. Rather, I think itâs a larger issue of how
we as a community react to âdiverseâ media as opposed to ânon-diverseâ media. Time and time again, we crucify marginalized
creators for things that powerful, non-marginalized creators would barely get any notice for. This also extends beyond the creators themselves
to the actual content of the books or movies or shows or whatever weâre talking about
today. Weâre noticeably harsher on stories that
feature LGBTQ characters or otherwise diverse casts- for example, meticulously examining
whether the same-gender relationships on She-Ra are healthy representation- than
we are on stories that feature about the same level of diversity as the Dead Poetâs Society. Unfortunately, this is especially true when
it comes to stories that are in some ways autobiographical. That intersection of marginalized creators
telling stories about their own experiences for some reason tend to be perceived particularly
harshly by critic communities. As an example of this, look at some of the
response the cartoon Steven Universe. The show heavily features gay and nonbinary
characters, and the creator, Rebecca Sugar, is bisexual and nonbinary. Sheâs stated in the past that she draws
inspiration from her own background when creating characters like Ruby and Sapphire, who are
in a same-gender relationship, or Stevonnie, who is the nonbinary fusion of two of the
main characters. If you watched my last video, you probably
already have a sense of what Iâm talking about, but thereâs a large community dedicated
solely to talking about how awful the show is, called the âSU criticalâ community. A singular search through the tag can pull
up a massive volume of results, but a large chunk of those criticisms are dedicated to
the idea that the showâs LGBTQ representation isnât done right. Itâs stereotypical, or itâs not displayed
prominently enough, or it promotes unhealthy relationships. One particular criticism is that Ruby and
Sapphire are rarely actually present on the show because for the majority of the time,
the two are fused into a singular character, Garnet, who doesnât display romantic interest
in any of the characters. As a result, many of the commenters have suggested
that Rebecca Sugar âdoesnât countâ as an LGBT creator, and many have also resorted
to calling her some pretty awful things. See Bad Media Criticism. Interestingly enough, there are numerous childrenâs
cartoons that either donât deal with these issues at all or deal with them in much worse
ways. For example, Voltron introduced its first
gay character recently, only to immediately invoke Bury Your Gays and kill his partner
in a flashback. Gravity Falls didnât feature any gay characters
at all until vaguely hinting at a single couple in the very last episode. Googling SU critical pulls up about 328 million
results. Gravity falls critical nets about 42 million. âVoltron criticalâ only yields around
500 thousand. Thatâs not to say that we shouldnât be
criticizing Steven Universe at all, or that we should make up for this discrepancy by
also calling the creators of Voltron and Gravity Falls thoroughly loathsome people or friendly
to fascism or whatever it is people are saying at this point, but it does raise the question
of why people are significantly harsher on Steven Universe for its handling of gay characters
than arguably worse works that are at about the same level of popularity. On another instance, a Mexican-American young adult author
named Erika Sanchez wrote a novel called I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,
about a Mexican-American teenager who had to cope with the death of her sister and experiencing
depression while growing up. Sheâs explicitly stated in interviews that
she drew on her own experiences both living with depression and living as a Mexican-American
woman. After her book came out, Erika faced a lot
of negative response from Twitter and Goodreads users who felt that she was promoting incorrect
stereotypes about either depression or the experience of Latina teenagers. In particular, some people felt that because
they found the main character of the book unlikable, the book therefore served as harmful
representation of Mexican-American girls. Erika even had to comment on the situation,
expressing her frustration with this perspective. Erikaâs own identity certainly shouldnât
absolve her of any criticism of her book, and thatâs not to say people who felt the
book portrayed harmful stereotypes about depression or the experience of Mexican-American people
were in the wrong or that their criticisms shouldnât be listened to. But that being said, with regards to calling
certain works âstereotypicalâ I think there should at least be some consideration
for context when it comes to stories where authors are drawing on their own experiences. If your own personal experience with coming out or
dealing with depression or anything else happens to match a series of already popular narratives and you
choose to write about it, treating you as indistinguishable from an author who based
their story on popular stereotypes can lead to a lot of missing nuance. And even if you donât think an authorâs
own experiences should factor into how we perceive their art in any way at all, thereâs
still something to be said about how marginalized creators often end up experiencing a harsher
level of criticism than other creators. And thatâs where the iffy part of these
discussions comes in, and why itâs so easy for them to be co-opted by people acting in
bad faith. Of course we should criticize works that poorly
handle sensitive subjects; nothing should be immune to criticism by virtue of the identity
of its creators. These discussions can really easily be warped
into 1, people responding to all criticism with things like âthat episode of Sherlock
canât be queerbaiting because it was written by a gay man!â and 2, people ignoring all
nuance regarding how marginalized creators tend to face disproportionately more criticism
than other creators and saying things like, âoh, so youâre saying we shouldnât criticize
Steven Universe because the creator is Jewish, or bi, or nonbinary? Thatâs just meaningless identity politics.â At the same time, though, when diverse works
get exponentially more criticism and vitriol directed towards them, this can become a contributor
to the harassment of marginalized creators, and to a culture where these mostly indie
creators are terrified to put their work out there for fear that theyâll fuck up in some
small way and be crucified in a way that would never happen to Chadley Millionaire McWhiteDude. And ultimately, I think that leads to worse
outcomes in terms of getting diverse works out into the world. I personally have seen some of my trans artist
friends say theyâre scared to write stories about their own experiences for fear that
those stories will be viewed as promoting stereotypes. That means in the long run that we end up
getting fewer of these stories out there, which means that the people controlling the
most popular narratives about (for example) trans people are not trans. Because trans creators can get bullied and
scared into silence in leftist media communities in ways that cis creators with more money
and bigger platforms never would. And like, letâs be real. These stories are a lot more likely to be
harmful or stereotypical than stories that are autobiographical. This is not good. So what could be causing this? So if youâve been watching a lot of video
essays lately, youâve probably heard the term âparasocial relationshipâ come up. If you havenât, the term essentially refers
to a one-sided relationship where one party invests a lot of their time and energy, while
the other person isnât even aware that such a relationship is happening. Itâs always been a thing to a certain extent;
think, people so in love with band members that they dedicate all their time and energy to following
them around the world. But, of course, itâs grown with social media
because so much of being a presence on social media is about perceived authenticity. People like watching makeup tutorials where
the makeup artist casually chats with the camera, because it kinda feels like sheâs
your friend and sheâs just talking to you. And I think if you feel like youâre close
with someone, and you devote a lot of time and energy into that one-sided relationship,
you're going to feel a lot more let down by them if they do eventually do or say something harmful. Not to mention, if you feel like you know someone, you're probably also going to feel more justified
and more able to actively call them out for it in a way that youâre less likely to do
if you feel distant from the person. If my best friend tweeted something sexist,
I would probably feel a lot more personally hurt by that and be a lot more likely to actively
respond to it with something like âhey, not coolâ than if some random celebrity tweeted it. Of course, these relationships are a lot more
likely to form when the other person feels accessible to you, right? Itâs easier for me to feel like I have a
personal relationship with like Travis McElroy, who makes good morning tweets to his followers
and asks for food recommendations all the time than for me to feel like Taylor Swift
is my friend. I mean we all wish we were Tahani, but. So this first explanation Iâve seen for
why these overly high standards tend to happen is that weâre simply more likely to direct
excessive negative comments towards people who feel accessible to us. So who is most likely to feel accessible? Whoâs most likely to make you feel like
you could have a personal relationship with them? Well, for one thing, probably not someone
whoâs built up an aura of unapproachability. So probably someone who communicates primarily
via channels like social media, which we all use, rather than someone who mostly engages
with us through television appearances or press releases. Thereâs also something real about people
who run their own social media accounts rather than a rep running it for them. That could mean frequently replying to fans
as well. All of those things are probably a lot easier
for you to do if you have several thousand, but not several million, followers. Someone whoâs extremely rich is also probably
less likely to feel personally relatable to a mainstream audience. So in that way, that kind of authenticity and
approachability tends to be negatively correlated to your fame levels. When you get very very famous and very very rich, it becomes a lot harder for you to maintain authenticity, which is why you hear a lot of complaints about makeup YouTubers, saying, "oh, I really liked her before she got famous." Itâs just a
lot easier to feel like you could be friends with a creator, if theyâre not incredibly
megafamous and regularly engage with the same people you do. So then you have to think about, what kind of person is the most likely to
get to that level where theyâre incredibly successful and have millions of followers
on social media? Probably the people more likely to get book
deals or get jobs with major TV networks or get hired as video game developers. This group generally doesnât tend to include
large numbers of women, people of colour, disabled people, or other marginalized groups. What that means is that according to this
explanation, we donât criticize extremely famous people at the top nearly as much because
we donât feel as personally invested in doing so. We donât feel as personally connected to
them, or as if theyâre as personally connected to us. And those extremely famous people at the top
tend to be old white guys. Conversely, weâre a lot more active in engaging
with people who are active in engaging with us. That often means indie creators with smaller
platforms and more engagement with fans, who are more likely to not be old white guys. And because weâre probably more likely to tweet directly
at these creators to give our opinions to them, when fans become disappointed, this
can often take the form of abject toxicity. Mix that with a form of selection bias- the
fact that âwokeâ crowds are probably more likely to be interested in consuming diverse
books or TV shows or other forms of media in the first place- and itâs easy to see
how this could create a recipe for more negative comments being directed towards creators who
try and donât get it perfectly than creators who donât try at all. So thatâs one explanation, and it does make
a certain kind of sense. Of course, this canât be the only reason
this is happening. Yes, itâs easier to form parasocial relationships
with creators who have less clout and fame, and people with less clout and fame are also
more likely to be marginalized in some way, but assuming that thatâs the only reason
is kind of a copout, isnât it? This way we donât have to examine any discrepancies
in the way we treat creators who are women, or people of colour, or LGBT, etc. The correlation between the way these creators
are treated and their lived experiences is purely accidental. But in reality, this isnât the case. I mean, we also see diverse works being held
to higher standards when it comes to creators who are extremely popular. For example, Lin-Manuel Miranda is very very
rich and famous. Sure, he makes good morning and good night
tweets that could make you feel like you have a relationship with him, but itâs
less likely that heâs going to personally respond to your tweet than someone less famous
but not visibly marginalized, like a McElroy or Flula. So yes, the presence of parasocial relationships
is very likely part of why this media gets held to higher standards, but it canât be
the only reason. So why else might this be a problem? This is something a lot of people donât
like to admit, but there can be sort of a primal thrill associated with callouts. Thereâs something oddly satisfying in sharing
information about someone whoâs done something wrong and seeing that they got fired from
their job or had their book deal cancelled. And thereâs that hit of dopamine associated
with putting that information out into the public sphere and having people listen to
you. Thereâs not only that emotional incentive
to be at the top, to be the one calling the shots and getting people to listen to you
when it comes to who we cancel today, but also a very real practical incentive. Once again, Angie Speaks provided some really
great analysis in her video as to why this can be the case, but to oversimplify the matter:
we live in a capitalist system where weâre incentivized to accumulate money and power
to survive and thrive in this world. We want as much clout as possible, and a lot
of the actions that are profitable also rely on us calling other people out, or refusing to
acknowledge our own faults, or using victimhood as a siphon for social capital. The existence of callouts isnât always a
bad thing. There are places where we can take those feelings
and use them for good; for example, deplatforming fascists so that theyâre less able to hurt
other people. But once again, when weâre taking that energy
that could be used productively and instead doing our darndest to âcancelâ people
who are genuinely making an effort and are dealing with marginalization themselves, we
have to ask who weâre really helping. And unfortunately, the goal here is rarely actually
to help people, but is instead to make ourselves look as good as possible and become the person
in our communities with the most powerful voice. I think oftentimes, these mass callout movements
against specific figures are started by opportunists who are incentivized by that system to go
after creators who are probably not going to have a lot of mainstream support backing
them. And we are unfortunately all influenced by
societal biases; leftist spaces arenât immune from subconsciously promoting stereotypes
about trans women being more predatory than cis women, or about people of colour being
inherently more aggressive. When you have the deadly combination of opportunistic
people trying to gain clout from attacking an easy target and the fact that weâre already
primed to think negative things about marginalized people, we do tend to see a trend towards
the least privileged people facing the brunt of online harassment. That doesnât necessarily mean anyone is
sitting around rubbing their hands together and thinking âah yes, today weâre going to attack
14 year old Millie Bobby Brown for saying the romance in YOU was cute instead of attacking
an actual abuserâ, but it ends up being the consequence nevertheless. Itâs also worth mentioning that the type
of criticism these people get is often steeped in these harmful stereotypes. For example, when Rebecca Sugar was accused
of pretending to be queer to deflect criticism of Steven Universe, itâs worth mentioning
that thatâs a very popular sentiment directed both towards nonbinary people and towards
bisexual women. Even though the people engaging in those callouts
probably werenât consciously thinking of this, these biases can still present themselves
in really unfortunate ways, and can absolutely affect who we choose to call out and who we
donât. That doesnât mean everyone involved in those
movements is a terrible opportunist. Itâs very easy to get misled, especially
if you genuinely want to do the right thing and let people know if a work of media has
problems associated with it. But even when people arenât intentionally
involving themselves in the process, itâs sadly very easy to get wrapped up in the sort
of perverse glee associated with âcancellingâ someone. And when weâre all subject to subconscious
biases in some sense, itâs very possible that the callouts weâre most likely to pick
up on and share are the callouts that reaffirm those biases. Once again, this isnât always a conscious
process. I remember a couple years ago someone I knew
online, who is a trans girl, received a callout of her own for liking anime characters and
using 4chan arrows. In particular, this girl- who was 17 at the
time- was called a pedophile for owning merchandise of the anime character Nico Yazawa, who is
also 17. The post was shared around 3500 times. Admittedly, some of those shares were defending
her, and while I doubt that every single person sharing the post to call her out was thinking
âah yes, I knew it. Trans women ARE predatoryâ, the post itself
definitely included rhetoric promoting harmful stereotypes about trans women. And again, this leaves us in such a tough
position. Because people who are marginalized are absolutely
capable of doing bad things or creating bad media. See: my earlier example about Sherlock. One of the lead writers is a gay man, but
the show still definitely contains multiple instances of queerbaiting. What happens when someone IS predatory or
DOES mishandle important subjects in the media they create? We canât simply lose all nuance the other
way around and say âwe canât criticize this person because they have this identity
and we donât want to be problematicâ. So how do we know when criticisms are legitimate
or when weâre applying them correctly? How do we go about fixing this whole issue
in a way thatâs productive and doesnât simply lead to more people getting hurt? This is just such a difficult issue to look at. Again, itâs so easy for this issue to be
co-opted by the same opportunists I talked about earlier, and none of us are immune to
subconscious bias or propaganda. I mean, I myself have faced criticism for
the same idea. When my Bad Media Criticism video came out,
some people didnât like the fact that I spent a decent chunk of time talking about
Lily Orchardâs Steven Universe video instead of focusing on another creator. Even though my criticisms of her arguments
had nothing to do with the fact that sheâs transgender, many people were saying it still
wasnât fair that on a large scale, Lily had to deal with more criticism than her counterparts. I honestly hadnât thought of it that way
before, and after
hearing multiple conflicting opinions from people I respect, Iâm still not sure
what to think. Do we just not criticize creators at all when
they fuck up on the basis that theyâre marginalized? Something about that seems condescending. If I said something wrong and people refused
to engage with what I said on the basis of my identities, Iâd probably be pretty offended. Not to mention, this can put more people in
a position where they can be hurt. Or should we just keep doing what weâre
doing but apply that same level of criticism to non-diverse works? Maybe. But that can ignore the fact that, like I
said earlier, a lot of the criticism directed towards marginalized creators is often steeped
in harmful stereotypes. We should still be doing a degree of introspection
to prevent this from happening. But overall, I think a good starting point
for change is to remove this presumption of ill intent when weâre criticizing media. I mean, I think that would be a good thing
to do in general, but in this specific case, this could look like maybe not assuming every
writer is familiar with harmful tropes and educating them about it in a productive way
instead of gleefully trying to tear them down. Especially creators who are just starting
out and donât have massive piles of money and ghostwriters to fall back on. That also means not leaving one-star reviews
on Goodreads for a book that hasnât come out yet and you havenât read because you
heard some thirdhand information that one of the characters was homophobic and missed
the part where that character is a villain who youâre supposed to hate. Finally, that means doing everything we can
to remove our own subconscious biases. Once again, no one is ever going to be perfect,
but we can still try and do our best to minimize the harm we do to others on a large scale. That can mean surrounding ourselves with people
whose struggles we havenât personally experienced, and being willing to accept when we make a
mistake. And when we do stop and find ourselves being
excessively harsher towards marginalized creators than we are towards other creators, itâs
worth stopping, taking notice of that, and asking ourselves if thatâs the best possible
use of our energy. That doesnât mean never criticizing media
made by marginalized people, or silencing criticisms from people who feel like a work
of fiction has hurt them in some way. But simply by being aware of when and where
we direct things like a presumption of ill intent, we can at least start to unpack the
issue of differing standards in media criticism. This isnât perfect and it isnât a one-stop
complete solution to these issues. The truth is, itâs a really complex problem
thatâs steeped in a ton of societal biases and complex interconnected issues. But even being aware of the issue and asking
ourselves if weâre devoting our energy in ways that are actively productive or actively
destructive can at least be a starting point. There are a lot of double standards present
in the way we look at media, and this can often manifest itself in us being unduly harsh
towards creators who are not perfect, but are making an effort. This is doubly present when it comes to creators
who are already marginalized, for a variety of reasons. On one hand, we do tend to feel as though
we have a closer personal relationship with small indie creators, which can lead to us
feeling even more betrayed when those creators let us down in some ways. But thereâs also something very real to
be said about how our own subconscious biases can play in to who we choose to criticize,
and why. The consequences of this can be really harmful
for aspiring creators, and can create a culture of fear. When people are scared to tell their own stories
for fear that those stories might be âstereotypicalâ in some way and that theyâll be harassed
to an extent that other creators would never be, people can be deterred from telling those
stories. Ultimately, that means that we get fewer really
great, well-written diverse works out there, even if those works do have a few problems, because people become so afraid of potential
backlash that they donât put their works out there. And thatâs not good for anyone. The solution isnât to stop criticizing harmful
works, but instead to start being aware of our own subconscious biases and double standards. We need to start thinking about who we assume
has malicious intent and who we assume just made a mistake. And we need to start thinking about how weâre
creating and upholding systems that reward people for publicly harassing creators. This isnât a problem that weâre going
to fix overnight, but at the very least creating this awareness can serve as a starting point. Snappy exit line.
Just going by that image and what I know of the respective fanbases, I think the captions are swapped... will watch and report back.
Edit: Definitely not what I thought it was going to be! Very intriguing.
What a time to be alive!