This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
On one hand, I feel like I properly advertised the post as being about something unimportant and small scale. On the other, I also want to reject the attitude that individuals are categorically unimportant and worthless. The artist is a literally-who, but in the grand scheme of things, so is Blizzard corporation, or whoever. The idea that we must receive some kind of permission from above in the form of enough funding, enough recognition, enough attention, before we think, comment, and care, to me, is wrong. We should not let our minds be beholden to the collective in that way. I think we can produce fruitful thought by observing individuals who are not authorized by the blob to have millions of dollars or millions of eyes on them or dozens of published articles written on them.
I think that the issue is that the more niche you go, the sillier it seems to try and have a big hullabaloo.
To use an example from the other side. A while back feminists were up in arms on Tumblr about this picture, depicting a well-endowed, tan bimbo transforming into a more modestly endowed nerd. They said it was racist, sexist, etc.
But it was just a niche bit of fetish art, made by a niche fetish artist, that had accidentally escaped containment and reached a far larger audience than it was ever intended for. There was no larger political message in it, and the only artistic purpose was to help a small subset of fetishists get off to a debimbofication/nerdification image. I'm not even saying that that is beyond criticism or critique, but almost none of the feminist critique was coming from a well-informed place where anything they said was anything more than initial knee jerk reactions to seeing something they had no context for.
I agree with you, that people should be allowed to comment on, criticize and pay attention to small creators. There's no "you must be this big to ride", but I still think there is a discretion that is good to exercise when dealing with a strange tempest in a teapot.
As far as I can tell, this was not fetish art, and there are normal looking girls on tiktok insisting that they think they look like that. So it's a bit more normie/mainstream than your example, even if it's ultimately inconsequential.
Bit of a "lurk more" moment, I'm afraid!
It's a reversal of a older fetish meme. The original has the nerd pick up the book, turn into the bimbo. Bimbofication. Neither it, nor she, is that deep.
The reversed form ("Nerdification"? "Debimbofication"?) is perhaps making a statement (rah! Rah! Books!), but it's also a remix of the original fetish art consisting of just reversing the order of the frames.
And now there are lots of other remixes too -- they're separate people and dating!
It's true that you're not supposed to get off to either version, exactly, but the remix is 100% fetish art by volume, sssooo.
Edit: I think I have failed at reading comprehension; you didn't mean the (de-)bimbofication comic, but the original post's doki doki redraw. I'll leave my error, but apologize for my illiteracy!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link