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The Discourse - Blog Posts
speaking as a fan of both, why do steven universe fans talk about it like it’s miraculous ladybug. steven universe was actually good
I miss when I would get Tumblr asks that actually said things and weren't just digital panhandling scams.
One thing that's interesting about Dr. Phil is that his show is a spin-off of Oprah and one thing I've discovered, that's interesting, is that it's virtually impossible to find footage from Oprah's show. Go looking and you'll find it hard to find uncut clips of even well-liked famous moments; instead they're all intercut with commentary on the event. Interviews watched by tens of millions of people now exist only in twenty seconds of clips interspersed with talking heads telling us how to feel about it. Over 4,5000 episodes, almost all of it vaulted
Remember Oprah platforming anti-vaxxers and all kinds of alt-med scams and literary hoaxes? Uh, no you don't, prove it. She doesn't even let people see uncut footage of the Good Moments of her show (since she seems to be deeply embarrassed by literally all of it?) so of course she's burying any Bad Moments.
In conclusion the Rainbow Parties segment is one of the few full clips you'll find online intact, somehow. Enjoy.
Let's say there's an online community of people who all have Whatever Syndrome. They talk about all the difficulties and frustrations and issues etc related to Whatever Syndrome. They share advice, they vent, sometimes they just chat and enjoy talking to people who can relate to them properly. Sometimes they make fun relatable observational comedy-style memes about common Whatever Syndrome experiences.
Some of the experiences they make memes about will probably overlap to some extent with the experiences of people who are not on the WS spectrum at all. Let's stipulate (made-up, obviously meaningless numbers incoming) that 10% of the memes they make appeal to a non-WS audience in this way, but 90% are highly specific to the WS niche and won't really be appreciated by outsiders.
In this scenario, the 10% of universally relatable memes will, because they are universally relatable, likely spread far beyond the core WS community. The 90% of niche ones will not (why would they?). From the perspective of someone without WS who doesn't engage with the WS community directly, this will look like 100% of all WS memes seeming to be about things that are just universal human experiences being described as WS-specific experiences for no particular reason. This person might begin to suspect that WS is just a trendy diagnosis that arbitrarily groups completely normal personality traits as a medical issue and that the whole thing is maybe kind of fake. This person is not being unreasonable given the information they have, but for reasons that are hopefully obvious the information they have is very skewed.
On the other hand! If this sort of thing distorts the public perception of what WS is about strongly enough, some people are going to latch onto the relatable memes about it, relate to them (because they're relatable), and wonder if maybe that means they themselves might have WS. This person might do a bit of googling and discover that, in addition to all the relatable stuff they relate to, there are other symptoms that they don't really identify with as much... but then, no one really seems to talk about those things very often, you mostly see people talking about [relatable stuff] when WS comes up, so the latter must be like, the main part, right? So (they think) it can't be too important if the other stuff doesn't apply to me.
[also the whole medical establishment is nightmarishly hard to access and a lot of doctors suck and make diagnoses based on random whims and prejudices, blah blah blah you know all this, the point is that the most obvious solution to "how do I confirm whether I do or don't have a specific medical thing?" is often not reliable.]
Well now, given all of the above... stuff might get confusing huh!
Okay, okay, (you might say), that's all well and good as a toy model of things that might be underlying the discourse you're alluding to, but to what extent is this dynamic actually responsible for what's actually happening? Aha! I have no clue whatsoever, sorry. I'm just the ideas guy.
I agree that the phrase "being normal about [group]" can be used to mean "behaving like a typical person (which is good) with respect to [group]", which I dislike. In fact, while writing the above reply, I was thinking of another common usage of the phrase as meaning "having the correct opinions about [group]", which bothers me even more.
If "normal" is being used to mean "correct, popular among people I respect, typical, admirable, common sense", that is a bad way to use words, because it conflates concepts which are important to distinguish.
However, in this particular context, "normal" can also be read as "everyday, chill, neutral, default, forgettable", which does not strike me as a pernicious usage. If you read it this way, then "being normal about [group]" points at an important aspect of tolerating and respecting the group in question.
This concept of "capable of neutral, casual interactions" is particularly useful when assessing a potential friend (or someone you might invite to a groupchat, or someone whose party you might attend, etc.). In that circumstance, it's usually less relevant what their political beliefs are, how much they know about [group], or how much they care about the welfare of [group] -- what you want to know is whether they can treat you like any other person in the friend group. It is awkward and uncomfortable when the prospective acquaintance has very strong positive feelings about your demographic group, or when they are very concerned about interacting with you respectfully, even though those things are probably good in an abstract sense.
To inquire about this by asking "are they normal about [group]?" is suboptimal because of the ambiguity with other meanings of "being normal about", but it is a way to express something that needs to be expressed, and as such I am sympathetic to it.
Hate how people talk about “being normal” about something. That only applies to like, being weirdly obsessed with something unusual. You can tell me to please be normal about riding a train, or watching an Anne Hathaway movie. Things that I KNOW I’m weird about.
If you’re using it to describe whether someone is a bigot or not, it’s completely incoherent. Bigotry is normal to bigots. When I hear someone say “I’m normal about X group” I don’t assume that means they share my beliefs. I assume that means they’re uncritical about their own.
Is there something I’m missing here??
I don't consider "normal" a desirable or praiseworthy state, so the usage of the word to (ironically) describe unusual obsession tends to rub me the wrong way.
That said, I do think that the application of the term to a person's feelings about minorities is pointing at something real. Having strong and unusual emotions about people you interact with on the basis of their demographics is generally awkward, counterproductive, and destructive of empathy and solidarity, even if the emotions are positive.
Personally, I notice that when I have negative aliefs or inclinations related to a demographic group, they prevent me from perceiving that group as "normal" and "just people" -- I feel like I should "balance it out" with positive evaluations of the group, and end up thinking about whether I am being bigoted more than actually interacting with them as a person.
If you decide how to act towards someone based primarily on their demographics, that is the same mistake as bigots make, even if you treat members of othered minorities unusually well instead of unusually poorly. "Being normal about" a group can mean treating members of that group like normal people and interacting with them without having an unusually strong emotional reaction to their membership in a given demographic.
Hate how people talk about “being normal” about something. That only applies to like, being weirdly obsessed with something unusual. You can tell me to please be normal about riding a train, or watching an Anne Hathaway movie. Things that I KNOW I’m weird about.
If you’re using it to describe whether someone is a bigot or not, it’s completely incoherent. Bigotry is normal to bigots. When I hear someone say “I’m normal about X group” I don’t assume that means they share my beliefs. I assume that means they’re uncritical about their own.
Is there something I’m missing here??