Your Fave Is Problematic Politics - by Ozy Brennan

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When I was a young social justice warrior, in the halcyon days of the 2010s, we were very concerned about which things were problematic. The tumblr Your Fave Is Problematic attained a level of fame entirely out of proportion to its meager number of posts, because it epitomized the mindset. Each post listed off a number of bad things a celebrity did, from raping people to making transphobic jokes to wearing tasteless costumes to putting a jewel on the middle of their forehead (“culturally appropriating the bindi”) to noticing that some gay men have lots of sexual partners. By presenting a list of bad things, Your Fave is Problematic decontextualized people’s actions. Rape is much worse than putting a jewel in the middle of your forehead, even if you believe South Asians have trademarked the concept of forehead jewelry. But if you put them all in a list, they wound up all feeling the same. Assault is bad, putting misogynistic screeds in your rap songs is bad, being an older drag queen wh

I. When I was a young social justice warrior, in the halcyon days of the 2010s, we were very concerned about which things were problematic. The tumblr Your Fave Is Problematic attained a level of fame entirely out of proportion to its meager number of posts, because it epitomized the mindset. Each post listed off a number of bad things a celebrity did, from raping people to making transphobic jokes to wearing tasteless costumes to putting a jewel on the middle of their forehead (“culturally appropriating the bindi”) to noticing that some gay men have lots of sexual partners. By presenting…

Your Fave Is Problematic Politics - by Ozy Brennan

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