My wife and I watch The Babish Culinary Universe together and had a conversation about that episode when we watched it. It’s hearsay, but she says she’s heard about other influencers who have signed sponsorship deals that don’t necessarily specify what products they’re promoting and lead them to showing off things that might upset their communities. Sounds plausible. Not an excuse, however. I don’t know what it takes to break a sponsorship deal like that, and I don’t know what kind of legal damage it can do. I’m curious to find out what happens a few months from now when the channel is unshackled from the deal and maybe gets to speak out more.
But it was disappointing. I know that word has been used frequently to describe feelings about that situation, and to some extent it feels inaccurate in its severity. I’m disappointed, but I’m also more than disappointed.
He can still talk about his stance on LGBTQ+ issues without specifically talking about the sponsor. Quietly taking the money doesn’t sit well with me, i wish him well but there’s other creators more deserving of my attention.
Also he’s done a few HP themed videos, after the author’s shitty views came to light, so all together it doesn’t look good to me. I won’t dissuade anyone from watching his stuff, just explaining why I’m not as an ally of trans folks.
Unless you have knowledge of her having some mental illness which was at such a degree which would preclude her being responsible for her actions you’re just speculating on the mental health of others. Which is somewhat frowned upon in the TOS.
She’s never exhibited or been diagnosed with a mental illness to my knowledge. Which makes her both competent and responsible for her actions. Particularly when harming others. At scale.
This. Kenji is a great example. They are supposedly friends and have collaborated several times. It really wouldn’t take much for Adam to make this somewhat right, even if he has a legal agreement that keeps him from speaking out directly against JKR or the stupid game.
One of the things that makes the situation with Rowling so complex though is that in a way she is weaponizing her own oppression against other women now that she has found herself in a powerful position.
Whether you mean to make that argument or not that is the argument Rowling herself has made and that’s how she’s currently using it: her bigotry is defensible because men rape.
This argument has legs as a justification with people because A LOT of women have ptsd from a violent or abusive encounter with a man. Common as dirt.
That being said even if she has PTSD her unwillingness to have it treated and to deal with her own trauma without encouraging genocide is still a choice.
So while it’s easy to just assume people are getting angry and being stupid because they think you’re making excuses… that is currently a “justification” being given online and in the media by Rowling herself… which is then being used to excuse her campaign against transness. That’s relevant context really.
Truth be told, I’m more invested in watching the Anime/Arcade with Alvin episodes than whatever Andrew is working on. But I’m supportive of anyone dropping the channel and voicing their reason why. This comes across as explicit support of bigoted Rowling continuing to make money and tacit support of her dangerous views.
Out of curiosity I looked up the video on the channel again. It’s one of his Basics videos, meaning it didn’t even get explicitly linked with HP to the average viewer scrolling by. I was wondering how that franchise didn’t even cross my mind when I loaded the video up, and that’s why. Makes me think that, for whatever reason he had to endorse the sponsorship, it was definitely thought out in how it was presented. You don’t get to where he is without developing some savviness, but how he’s employed it is angering. And I’m pretty sure in the spaces where they have the ability to do so, the comments about the video are heavily moderated.
Yeah, fucking so sorry to be angry about people who are using genocidal language about my fellow human beings… I should really be nicer to Joanne. After all, both sides are bad, here, right? /s
Apparently, we should only care about the mental health of bigots, and not of the targets of such…
I don’t understand why this is so difficult for people…
It’s heartbreaking that this is how she decided to use her platform right now. Why ever she’s doing it (and I’m gonna go with the most obvious explanation, that she believes in what she’s saying) she’s causing a shit load of real damage to real people.
It just shows how deeply ingrained bias against mental illness is in our society, that it gets used as an insult so often. People don’t even see just how wrong it is to stigmatize mental illness in their rush to insult others, even people who definitely deserve it, despite no actual diagnosis.
ETA: And I am guilty of it, too, when my good sense fails to keep up with my anger.
What always strikes me living here in the UK, is how much of the anti-trans rhetoric sounds like the anti-gay rhetoric from 30+ years ago being recycled. Sometimes it’s the exact same talking points (I’m sure I remember hysteria about gays in toilets from when I was a kid), but usually it’s just the tone, the way they say it, and the kind of bigots saying it, just seem to be really similar.
(In better news, yesterday at a family dinner, my middle bro found out that intersex people exist, and that sex/gender are a lot more complicated than ‘X chromosome = girl, Y = boy’. It blew his mind slightly, and little by little we make the world a better place).
Considering the LGBA in the UK is mostly straight people, and the few gay and lesbian members mutually hate each other (they all hate bi/pansexual people, partly because most of them told the LGBA to fuck off), I think they know, but also think that the hate won’t happen to them, just like it didn’t happen to Ernst Röhm.
Spoiler: It did happen to Ernst Röhm on the Night of Long Knives in 1934.
