With Ellis (and contrapoints, funny she should be mentioned) it’s a case of many small things over time without pause or apology - of something said, people commenting ‘uh not sure about that one’ and then nothing happening until pressure builds
So I mentioned schoolboy homophobia - that was from a post when .gay domains were being released and she posted a screen cap of open URLs like Benshapirois.gay and a few other notable homophobes with the caption ‘why haven’t these been snapped up’
It’s a small thing, trivial to get worked up about, right? Just a ‘you dropped your gay card lmao’ level of poor taste joke that you post in Discord, someone eventually goes ‘this could be read as a homophobic joke chief’ and you go ‘yeah you right, sorry’ and delete
Except when something like that happens every few months in a small and marginalised community from someone who says they’re your ally it grates on you
I remember how back in 2013, one of my RP guildmates in GW2 roleplayed a modern Earth human isekai’d into Tyria.
Surprisingly, he did it well and in way that didn’t feel like wish fulfillment. Basically, his character tried to fit in and didn’t loudly divulge his backstory to every stranger.
Yeah, except I feel like when you’re in the marginalised community yourself, you can usually tell when it’s homophobic or not, since several of our jokes are sort of flipped homophobic ones, reappropriating harmful ones and taking back words. Queer as a word for example.
I’m willing to give someone like Contrapoints more leeway for perhaps more nuanced takes that should eventually come up for discussion as well, rather than completely unabashed neutering of any sort of discussion when just as much, we as well can step over the lines way too often.
I think in those cases, instead of pushing bad faith onto Contra (or Lindsay), thinking a little more on what was being said and what you interpreted could be a better move.
‘i was thrown in gay jail : (’ when you get banned on forums for no reason could be read as a homophobic joke too, but i wouldn’t say it is (especially knowing when ppl who say that are also lgbtq+)
I’m bringing her up because she’s also topical, like Stonetower also mentioned. But many of those ‘omg she’s so problematic!!’ takes from her videos are often just been… satirical and it was also clear it was satirical?
Remembering that technically every mag’har orc is an isekai. Not quite as drastic as earth->azeroth, but still.
I wouldn’t ever recommend an isekai’d character to others as an idea, but I do think that very occasionally they can bring out some interesting moods/concepts by being a total fish out of water, which gives the opening for them to interrogate both other characters and the setting from inside RP rather than out of it.
Contrapoints got most of her flak from having Buck Angel, a Jowling TERFling Rowling level of harmful bigot, voice over lines on one of her videos - particularly bad because as a transmedicalist (someone who believes you require dysphoria and hormone transition to be considered trans), Buck represents some of the most absolute vile abuse that other trans people often face. When a rando transphobe misgenders you, you can sometimes brush it off - when it’s another trans person telling you to commit sudoku because people like him have radicalised them, that bites really deep.
She, as far as I understand, has never apologised for sharing her platform with Angel, and many other comments she has made since then have built on that implication that perhaps she aligns more with Buck - comments that marginalise non-binary or xenogender folks who cannot fit into a gender binary like a trans woman (or man, in Buck’s case) can.
That’s the big controversial stuff that I can remember, anyway - the rest is just dunking on her for being an incredibly basic white woman
Yeah I believe she also addressed that in a video (might’ve been the one Kaitylinn linked), but I’d also say that she didn’t really share her platform, Buck was not given a platform. He simply voiced a line. And it was because of her own history growing up and Buck being the only (? - might misremember) big name who she could look up to.
I don’t think she aligns with his views at all, and I’ve not seen any marginalisation* happening either. Pretty sure she’s not done so at all, see earlier posts for satire to make a point - if she puts on a character to parody a right wing bigot trying to make a point so she can counter that, I don’t think that’s marginalising enbies (or any minority).
* - as far as I can remember from her videos, though people dunking on some of her tweets are also hyperbolically absurd and misunderstanding what’s been said, and lowkey smells of transphobia and misogyny itself, similar to:
Again, you might (correctly) say that these are pretty normal boomer-tier things to say and there can be some tension between binary trans people who want to pass and nonbinary/xenogender people who cannot pass if they wanted to and offer benefit of the doubt - but Natalie in particular is a YouTuber who focuses on discussions of queer theory and politics. This is literally her job to know better - and when you platform a transmed on top of saying things like this, which transmed people have as talking points on a regular basis, there starts to be less and less doubt to give the benefit of
(And I believe she addressed that it was a mistake anyway - don’t know if I’d really want to say that as a business or w/e because don’t know if the voice overs were transactional, but w/e - in the end it was a mistake and she knows that)
See, I don’t know if I’m starting to become a boomer myself, because the last two tweets are… not really problematic? Moreso as a statement of fact, and all three seem to be in a larger discussion ripped out of context.
I think Natalie is dissecting those thoughts through her videos, which IMO helps the boomer generation much better in understanding nonbinary/xenogender people (or other topics) by presenting points typically made by the boomer generation and then answering them as well.
Especially the last tweet, I feel like is actually not bad at all - because she acknowledges that there is a gap in understanding and she wants to understand it. And the follow-up video (I think Pronouns?) dissected that nuance well, iirc. Might have to rewatch the 20-mins video before being 100% sure though.
As for the second life jabs, I think they’re largely directed at the people who pursue their own fantasies in bubbles devoid of criticism which has been an ulcer in AD’s bowels for years. It’s just the latest term to sneer at the behaviour.
It just isn’t helpful when it’s used to dismiss all of stormwind or whatever but I happily did that to Silvermoon so…
This is a lot of the trouble - because things are contained within particular tweets and 30-90 minute videos it becomes a nightmare to untangle ‘I do not like The Vibes’ and as mentioned when I don’t like someone’s views I stop following them and call it a day.
Anyway, this was a very long-winded way to get around to ‘there are legitimate criticisms here from the marginalised people involved, but people need to remember that people with a [relatively] high profile are going to receive a ton of attention so make sure you are not contributing to a pile-on’
Without getting into a Whole Thing, as a nonbinary dude who presents pretty masculine and will be clocked as a man most of the time hearing someone imply that because I can’t pass (how could I when my gender identity is best described as ‘a confused possum, screaming’) my account of gender is “pretty weak” sucks. It’s a nagging concern that bothers me and a lot of other trans people that comes from internalised transphobia and getting that concern needled by another trans person hurts.
The problem with the final one is; sure, that person may be presenting as male while wanting to have she/her pronouns, but she may not be able to present the way she wants for fear of being ostrisized by her family and has nowhere else to go.
From; somebody who had a homophobic dad and could never come out to him, let alone dress how I’d want to present.
Basically; if somebody tells your their pronouns regardless of how they are presenting, just use them.
I have never understood why using peoples preffered pronouns is such a big deal to some people. But then again same people worry more about whats in a strangers pants than anything else.
