The Culture War Thread

[team filler]

he said the spirits told him to do it 

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/JustmeNuy/status/1654775831397269509

And thats when he learned that he should take the car instead

[Potato]

Context?

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

We need to stop the groomers.

https://twitter.com/TheAuditPodcast/status/1654499147473383436

 

[benjipwns]

When's the American history part? Just looks like dumbass boring crafts by a low rent Sandra Lee with a shitty theme.

There's also something about the subtly off nature of that classroom shot a few seconds in that makes it look more like it's a German classroom (I know it's not the German flag, but do you think the audience for this knows that?) than the disgusting gays harming our children by accosting a whopping six of them with a way too large flag.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/deesnider/status/1654566791752962049

https://twitter.com/deesnider/status/1654870802255470594

[Potato]

How long until the messy and acrimonious divorce of the LGB from the T? Can't be long now with the rate they're alienating even their longtime allies.

[benjipwns]

I don't think they can do that, it would gut 90% of the activism or more.

[Potato]

But it would also gut 95% of the controversy and persecution too.

[benjipwns]

The only examples of the "abuse" in this profile of a different Bill Gates who claims PTSD are angry social media comments:

Arizona official targeted by election deniers now struggles with PTSD
First came the misinformation. Then the relentless criticism and violent threats. Under attack, the county official struggled to cope with his anger.

PHOENIX — Anger and resentment welled inside the local leader as he surveyed the mourners at his friend’s funeral reception last year.

Bill Gates, 51, a lifelong Republican elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, stood with his wife and a friend and ticked off the names of those gathered around them who had betrayed him, their party and their country.

Gates stewed that they had done nothing as he and other leaders in Arizona’s most populous county faced relentless criticism, violent threats and online harassment for upholding the results of the 2020 presidential election. They helped spread baseless conspiracies about the voting process that turned him and his colleagues into targets. They stood by as his family lived in fear and briefly fled their home.

Because of their actions and inactions, Gates said, his integrity had been questioned. He was labeled a traitor who should be shot or hung. One person wrote on social media that his daughters should be raped. He worried his own parents, avid Fox News viewers, might believe the lies about him.

At the reception, Gates began wildly waving his arms as he ranted. He was out of control and on the verge of disrupting the solemn gathering. His friend walked away. His wife, Pam, grabbed his arm tightly and shook him.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked. “You’ve got to stop this. Stop it!”

The fliers had also been distributed to his neighbors. He and his family suddenly felt unsafe in their own home.

One daughter asked how people with such vicious tactics knew where they lived. Another, who is Ugandan and Black, was devastated that the flier equated her father’s support of the mask mandate to slavery. His third daughter was unable to sleep that night and many more nights to come.

“That’s when everything changed,” Gates recalled.

He and his wife told the kids not to open the front door and to keep a close eye on their surroundings. Gates began fielding phone calls and texts from neighbors about suspicious cars and strangers outside of their home, including one who took photos. When far-right activists posted his personal information online that summer — and several more times over the next two years — he or his wife would rush home to ensure the girls were not alone.

Gates worried his family may not be safe in their home. He had been labeled a “traitor” and worried a mob might come for him.

“We knew we were ground zero” in Maricopa County, he recalled.

He booked a rental home for what he and his wife called a family “staycation.” But his daughters knew they were hiding out. He worried about what this traumatic experience was doing to their childhood. But he hoped the attempted coup would be a wake-up call for leaders in his party who had endorsed or even echoed Trump’s rhetoric.

In the weeks that followed, strangers attacked him and his family on social media. They checked in on each other frequently, and altered their schedules so they weren’t alone for extended periods. Gates and his wife made sure their close friends had their daughters’ phone numbers in case they needed help.

He worked the phones in search of allies. Twitter filled with an avalanche of vitriolic posts demanding his arrest. “Corrupt dirtbag pedophile supporting maggot,” one read. “You don’t speak for REAL CONSTITUENTS,” read another.

The state senate vote was planned for Feb. 8, 2021. Gates went to the state capitol to lobby lawmakers, then prepared for his arrest.

He texted his family: “I love you guys more than you can imagine. I’m sorry I have put you through all this. Just remember that it is always right to do what’s right. We will get through this. Thanks for keeping me strong and loving me through all this.”

His daughters had been frantically checking their phones for an update and interpreted his text as news that the Senate had held him in contempt. One daughter collapsed in a high school hallway. Another, who had just finished an Italian class at an out-of-state college, began sobbing.

It was later, at her funeral reception, that he struggled to control his anger as people around him struck up small talk. Why, he wondered in loops that played in his mind, had they stayed silent?

Then one prominent Republican casually said he found election denialism was “all very boring.” Gates saw red. “F--- you,” he thought.

Suddenly he was ranting, and his wife was trying to pull him back from the brink.

Just the other day, a worker came to his home to fix a leaky pipe and wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat. Gates felt anger swelling in his chest.

“It was a trigger to see that hat in my house,” he said.

Gates left the room and took some deep breaths.

Do you think the media is aware when their glamorous victim profiles make the person merely look completely unhinged and delusional?

[Nintex]

We need to stop the groomers.

https://twitter.com/TheAuditPodcast/status/1654499147473383436

 

A papercraft Iron Dome

[HaughtyFrank]

https://twitter.com/RebsBrannon/status/1654977961810960384

I get why they protest but blocking the subway seems kind of dumb? Will only frustrate average citizens and it's not like anything about the subway system was at fault

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/RebsBrannon/status/1655012266679336962

[NekoFever]

How long until the messy and acrimonious divorce of the LGB from the T? Can't be long now with the rate they're alienating even their longtime allies.

In my experience it’s not uncommon for older (40+) LGB people to wish they’d fuck off and stop making them all look like nutters.

[Boredfrom]

https://twitter.com/deesnider/status/1654566791752962049
(Image removed from quote.)
https://twitter.com/deesnider/status/1654870802255470594

 

I like how also said he was not going to be alt righter, just that trans activists are spouting a bunch of nonsense.

[Potato]

Dee Snider is a living legend and much more intelligent than any of the people who have tried to cancel him over the past 40-odd years. If they think he's going to be an easier target than Joanne (TERF bitch), then they've got another thing coming.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/GPerfPBS/status/1653124682332225536

 

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/minisversion/status/1654547445760622594

 

[benjipwns]

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[james]

Interesting take.

By elevating idiotic right-wing takes, Elon might be giving the idiot pundit-class a dose of reality.

https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1655587714643656704

[D3RANG3D]

[HaughtyFrank]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1655685291015823362

[Uncle]

viral, incitive videos are the cornerstone of maintaining boycotts

like rowling boycotters who publicly burn her books

[Cauliflower Of Love]

conspiracy theory

this is part of the advertisement and they are deep undercover

[benjipwns]

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/DelusionPosting/status/1656003621928968192

[benjipwns]

What did they mean by this?

[Potato]

Culture wars can be funny too

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/DailyLoud/status/1656319487761690626

What a racist

[james]

FDA goes woke

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1656667457430626305

[benjipwns]

I WISH:

Under the final guidance issued Thursday, all prospective blood donors will answer a series of individual, risk-based questions to determine eligibility.

All prospective donors who report having a new sexual partner, more than one sexual partner in the past three months, or anal sex in the past three months, would be deferred for three months to reduce the likelihood of donations by individuals with new or recent HIV infection, FDA said.

FASCISM IS HERE

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/fedtanyl/status/1656094137383362560

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Uncle]

https://twitter.com/WomenReadWomen/status/1656155520745746433

[benjipwns]

I've felt for a while, maybe since I first saw it, that the "expectant asshole" part is maybe the least offensive part of that definition of barest essentials of femaleness.

I love that they won a Pulitzer Prize when all their writing is equally bad and simplistic.

Criticism
Andrea Long Chu of New York magazine
For book reviews that scrutinize authors as well as their works, using multiple cultural lenses to explore some of society’s most fraught topics.

IIRC there was one of the reviews making the rounds from a few months back where it didn't even understand the book's premise and it was just random paragraphs about something else.

edit: Oh, forgot Chu was the writer of this classic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/opinion/sunday/vaginoplasty-transgender-medicine.html

[Nintex]

The Pulitzer is a fucking joke. Clinton campaign fan fiction and trans nonsense. Even Sonic Team writes better stories than these people

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

(Image removed from quote.)

What did they mean by this?

I'd assume "Siri post to Twitter, hashtag insist on peace" in a swiss accent

[HaughtyFrank]

I've felt for a while, maybe since I first saw it, that the "expectant asshole" part is maybe the least offensive part of that definition of barest essentials of femaleness.

I love that they won a Pulitzer Prize when all their writing is equally bad and simplistic.

Criticism
Andrea Long Chu of New York magazine
For book reviews that scrutinize authors as well as their works, using multiple cultural lenses to explore some of society’s most fraught topics.

IIRC there was one of the reviews making the rounds from a few months back where it didn't even understand the book's premise and it was just random paragraphs about something else.

edit: Oh, forgot Chu was the writer of this classic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/opinion/sunday/vaginoplasty-transgender-medicine.html
(Image removed from quote.)

I think what they're trying to do is to redefine femaleness, completely away from gender and sex just declare it as submissiveness and I really don't get what the goal there is.

https://twitter.com/MattyBoySwag143/status/1656328806544596993

https://twitter.com/MattyBoySwag143/status/1656329155733082114

[benjipwns]

I think what they're trying to do is to redefine femaleness, completely away from gender and sex just declare it as submissiveness and I really don't get what the goal there is.

Look, lots of academics are really stupid.

Unfortunately rather than keeping them in academia where they can't harm anyone we've spent about a century of listening to academics who said academics should be given unchecked power. The constant and manifest failure of this just convinced academics that the problem was the wrong academics were given power. Meanwhile some nihilists stared into the abyss of the rational conclusions about and obvious results of power and decided that the problem was how everything but language is meaningless and therefore controlling language gave you power. Not a single one stopped to ask how language wasn't also meaningless by their standards and also therefore not something an elite can control either. (They is why they hate sarcasm btw.) At no point in any of this did (or has) anyone question whether trying to assume absolute power was in itself immoral. Of course a narcissistic "intellectual" "elite" that thinks anything it doesn't know is simple to understand everything about never questions that they should rule over the unwashed. Are you seriously going to question Plato's divine science? They have filthy souls, of course they can't see God's plan about what femaleness is and will remain ignorant of His Discourses unless they're forced by those who do Hear.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/JoelWGibbonsV/status/1656783995529560083

[benjipwns]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[HaughtyFrank]

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1657120970086273047

 

[chronovore]

To be fair, I'd also invited Charlize to come fuck me up.

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1657111076893347856

[Cauliflower Of Love]

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1657120970086273047

 

theron fucking megyn


yes

[Cauliflower Of Love]

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1657111076893347856

It's a way to show they can't bleed.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

omg why did i just write that

[Uncle]

is this a menopause joke

[chronovore]

It's more like a man-opause joke.

[HaughtyFrank]

Found this article interesting

https://twitter.com/thenation/status/1657387470915268609

Not because it actually makes great arguments but because it never talks about the one thing you'd think that matters, do trans athletes retain an advantage or not? Instead it's entirely focused on culture and white supremacy for some reason, trying to find any other reason than fairness for why anyone would be against trans athletes in the women's division.

It's weird how it seems impossible to just have a normal debate about this

[chronovore]

There was a tweet a ways back that inadvertantly proved to me that trans-women should be allowed to compete. The poster originally meant to demonstrate how "manly" the transitioned M2F athlete had become, but instead the pictures clearly showed just how much physical change had been wrought on her. A remarkable difference.

[benjipwns]

Found this article interesting

swimming’s history is decidedly anti-Black. According to a 2021 USA Swimming report, of its 331,206 year-round athletes, 35.5 percent (117,423) identified as white, while only 1 percent (3,440) identified themselves as Black or African American and 2.4 percent (7,933) said they were Hispanic or Latinx (21 percent did not respond to the ethnicity question at all). “I would say the sport has shifted marginally over time but it traditionally is a very white, very elite sport,” says Schuyler Bailar, the first openly trans athlete on a men’s team in the NCAA and founder of Lanechanger.com. “I experienced swimming as an outsider in many ways. Many of my friends were white—my whole team was white.”

Throughout much of the 20th century, public pools were sites of segregation and racial violence. Not only were Black Americans and other people of color prevented from having access to pools, but swimming as a sport was seen as perfect for showing off whiteness and promoting traditional ideas of femininity.

“The sheer white, middle-classness of the sport of swimming [impacted] how it reproduced white, heteronormative, ‘traditional’ American values,” says Matthew Hodler, assistant professor of sports media and communication at the University of Rhode Island and a former swimmer. “It was one of the sports middle-class white women were allowed to participate in earlier on because it shaped the ‘right’ kind of body for women. It was considered a ‘clean’ sport—they could be graceful in the water. It is bound up in these traditional femininities.”

Women swimmers were sexualized from the very beginning of the sport. In the 1920s, during the period following the First World War when women were really first allowed to participate more broadly in sporting events, women swimmers became some of the first athletes to be treated as heterosexual sex objects, as photos of them in their swimsuits could be printed in newspapers under the guise of covering women’s sports.

However, their experience with competing against athletes who were using performance-enhancing drugs was not the only trauma that swimmers of that generation suffered. Swimming had (and still has) a rampant sexual abuse problem. Before turning her attention to targeting transgender women and girls, Hogshead-Makar had been public about her sexual assault history and had nobly dedicated herself to rooting out sexual abuse from the sport. She is a Title IX lawyer who used her expertise to found Champion Women, a legal advocacy group for female athletes, and to advocate for stricter protections for girls in sports. Diana Nyad, another well-known swimmer, has also been public about her sexual assault and has recently come out against transgender inclusion in the sport.

USAS has more white women on staff than white men, according to their website. It is probably telling, considering USAS’s discriminatory policies and culture, that they co-opted white, cis women as “diversity,” when it is often that very demographic that contributes to exclusionary sporting culture. (According to the website, the majority of people of color on staff work in DEI and community engagement positions).

The Women’s Sport Policy Working Group held a meeting in January 2022 that included “heavy hitters” within US swimming circles, according to a Sports Illustrated story by Robert Sanchez. Among them: former Olympic swimmers, current and former NCAA champions, and various coaches, parents, and USAS board members. Journalists were forbidden from naming any of the 250 attendees or attributing any quotes to them.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thomas found herself scrutinized in a particularly poisonous way. Her figure became the focus of obsessive, transphobic scrutiny, her every muscle denounced as an affront to “real” womanhood. (It’s worth noting that other muscular women who swim, like Katie Ledecky, are not subject to the same kinds of relentless critique.)

[close]

[Potato]

Holy shit that article is basically, "How can I approach a widespread issue facing this global sport and make it all about my own nation's unique racial issues?"

[benjipwns]

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ And The MCU’s Tradition of Villainous Progressives

Guardians's celebration of found family may feel like a show of support for queer people—particularly in the wake of Disney's battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But this is a movie that wants to sell tickets to everyone

The truth is less defiant, though. Guardians of the Galaxy carefully avoids explicit queer themes even as it nods in their general direction. It also continues the MCU’s tradition of villainous progressives—utopian dreamers who want to change the world for the better, and end up just slaughtering people.

The film doesn’t show that Disney is determined to advance progressive goals. It shows mostly that Disney would rather avoid controversy and wants to sell tickets to everyone—even Ron.

The MCU also has often distanced itself from progressive causes by making its villains thinly disguised progressives-gone-wrong. Thanos in Infinity War and End Game wants to eliminate half of the people in the universe as part of a misguided environmentalism; he thinks catastrophic population decline will leave more resources for all. Both Black Panther films frame White colonialist nations, like the United States, as the villains, to some degree. But then our Wakandan heroes spend most of the films fighting other people of color who want to retaliate against white supremacy too harshly.

The High Evolutionary is in that villainous tradition of twisted radicalism. He’s Black and disfigured, and claims to want to perfect society, a la Communist and utopian medlars. But his lust for perfection leads him to genocidal lengths, as he incinerates and exterminates all his sentient projects that don’t quite work out. His surgical experiments are treated with particular disgust, and there’s an uncomfortable resonance with the current moral panic targeting trans medical care.

Gunn knows how to take a stand, if he wants. But Guardians does not. It’s carefully balanced and carefully distanced so that it can appeal to marginalized people looking for heroes without actually standing by them or naming any oppressors. When the Guardians get into a big group hug at the end of the film, it’s supposed to evoke love and solidarity. But it might better be characterized as the unity of capital, determined to offend no one and turn no one’s dollars away. Disney may be suing DeSantis, and they may well win. But they want his fanbase to come to the movies too, and so they give them a villain they can comfortably mock, and heroes who are carefully not queer.

[Uncle]

villainous progressives—utopian dreamers who want to change the world for the better, and end up just slaughtering people.

 

the best villains in fiction are always heroes of their own story, doing what they think is right and being dead wrong about it

cackling selfish morons who have no plan beyond "seize power" are completely played out and one dimensional

also by that definition you could include all kinds of villains, religious extremists who think they can save the most souls by converting society by force, and forge a utopia based on christian ideals...is that really a "villainous progressive?"

couldn't you say some of these Marvel character types are practically extremists of that sort, even if they don't mention religion?



isn't the idea of a "villainous progressive" an admission that progressivism can go too far, rather than just claiming that if it's not well-considered and results in negative outcomes (like half of all life being slaughtered), then it isn't really progressive to begin with?

[benjipwns]

I think you're confused. Progressives believe that progress should happen so therefore it does perfectly. (Unless thwarted by fascists.) Suggesting that progress might not happen even though the person intended it to is a fascist lie intended to undermine progress and suppress marginalized people.

Good people don't do bad things, that's what makes them good people. They intend good and therefore only do good. If they did bad things they would be bad people, not good people. This is pretty simple proven science and I'm not surprised a fascist conservative like yourself is trying to muddy the waters just like James Gunn, well known open Twitter user, is with his latest anti-queer capitalist propaganda.

[benjipwns]

The MCU also has often distanced itself from progressive causes by making its villains thinly disguised progressives-gone-wrong. Thanos in Infinity War and End Game wants to eliminate half of the people in the universe as part of a misguided environmentalism; he thinks catastrophic population decline will leave more resources for all. Both Black Panther films frame White colonialist nations, like the United States, as the villains, to some degree. But then our Wakandan heroes spend most of the films fighting other people of color who want to retaliate against white supremacy too harshly.

The High Evolutionary is in that villainous tradition of twisted radicalism. He’s Black and disfigured, and claims to want to perfect society, a la Communist and utopian medlars. But his lust for perfection leads him to genocidal lengths, as he incinerates and exterminates all his sentient projects that don’t quite work out. His surgical experiments are treated with particular disgust, and there’s an uncomfortable resonance with the current moral panic targeting trans medical care.

It also continues the MCU’s tradition of villainous progressives—utopian dreamers who want to change the world for the better, and end up just slaughtering people.

the best villains in fiction are always heroes of their own story, doing what they think is right and being dead wrong about it

cackling selfish morons who have no plan beyond "seize power" are completely played out and one dimensional

When asked by Rachel Lindsay of Extra about the character, Gunn referred to the High Evolutionary as the "cruelest MCU villain" to date the franchise has ever seen due to how he negatively impacts on the lives of Rocket and his fellow subject friends,[28] while Iwuji made sure along with Gunn to avoid giving the Evolutionary, at least intentionally, any sympathy unlike previous villains like Thanos or Killmonger, focusing under Gunn's orders on commenting in the character's single mindedness, narcissistic and zealous personality like the "most horrific" figures in history have been shown to be.[29]

[Potato]

It's almost like Gunn and Disney are pulling this from some sort of real-would inspiration or something. Surely progressives have never accidentally made things worse for millions of people, right?

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1657619501565845505

Lmao

[Polident Hive]

They should’ve kept Thanos’s motivation as simping for Death, a big breasted skeleton lady, and erasing half of all life for her was his incel opus. Right after he created a female version of himself to make Death jealous or something. Now that would’ve been progressive.

[benjipwns]

That was maybe the most nerd infuriating part of that whole "was Thanos right?" horseshit wankery. Really, we need to have more contempt for "Marvel fans" and self-proclaimed nerds in general praising how they scraped out the entire thematic core of the Infinity Gauntlet (and Thanos personally) for objectively stupid Malthusianism and low level Star Trek tier time travel nonsense. One of the saving graces of Snyder getting fired was he wasn't able to use lame ass time travel in a story with reality shaping powers like he also planned.

Then all these dummies tried to talk us into their multiverse horseshit as the next great storytelling frontier and how much "fun" we're supposed to be having with a multiverse where everyone alive had a traumatic five year time separation and each new "adventure" is about escalating existential cosmic horrors none of the writers have solutions for. Something which everyone completely ignores until somebody steps slightly out of formula in a non-superficial way and our "fans" tut-tut them for making things "too bleak" and "losing the fun and heroics" as Gunn is currently getting.

And then there's the unrelenting inconsistent reality of these "shared universes" that exist only as the main characters (of the moment) move through them. And while I'm on it another thing is how...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]