Something about how children in danger is used as a political vessel. They are the perfect innocent victim that everyone can agree needs to be protected. They are the face of famines and the victims of “gender ideology” or the “predatory gays.” How have both sides of politics used the idea of children to garner sympathy?
i like this idea, maybe paired with issues about insufficient adult care for children in schools, overfilled classrooms, and the lack of mental health & emotional support & resources provided to children by adults in their lives, you could talk about ICE and their treatment of kids, the foster care system, and the school to prison pipeline even
I think it would be interesting to cover the rise of “anti-celebrity culture” (EX: people getting fed up with celebrities during lock down, the recent block out movement, etc).
Thirding this and adding the devils advocate counterpoint of problematic faves, bc we know there are celebs people are gonna gives passes to (maybe deservingly or not).
love this, maybe tangentially discussing the public’s push for celebrities to be more politically vocal / the belief that people with substantial influential power should inherently be using that influence to discuss political matters; i.e. the push for celebs to be vocal about Palestine
I think something about Kendrick and Drake’s recent debacle would be interesting. I’ve found that many people believe that debriefing the situation is “gentrifying hip hop” but I think their debate tells us a lot about black men and anger especially in hip hop and that culture as a whole. It’s more recent too so I think a lot of people would be interested.
I would love a video essay that looks at the intersection of true crime and copaganda. It feels counterintuitive because in practice true crime can be really progressive and shine light on crimes and cases that need attention, but at the same time the internet sleuthing and armchair detective dovetails with vigilanteism in a way that feels like a divergence from that journalistic or progressive direction. We all know what copaganda is, but not many look at true crime as an example of it.
I would love to see a video about how women in horror are often consumers (eating bodies, very teeth-centric in general) as compared to mainstream horror where it's often men killing with rather phallic imagery (stabbing, etc). How horror movies like this can portray subversive feminism by centering women that just eat and consume. (this is inspired by a tumblr post I saw btw)
I’ve been interested in the idea of big media companies like amazon/ netflix/ paramount etc actively feeding the beast of capitalism whilst producing anti-capitalist shows. Perhaps a way to make us feel like we’re doing something without actually do anything? or maybe to show a misleading idea of what revolutionary action would look like?
Maybe something on the epidemic of teen girls "growing up too quickly" and how 'teen' media like Euphoria and other similar shows portray and even romanticize the idea of a broken teenager. And how media like this is used as a template for growing young people of how young adulthood is 'supposed to be'. Also maybe throw in some stuff about how from a very young age to dream of marriage and life in a nuclear family, and are taught to think that maturing quickly is some sort of honorable thing. OR something on how real historical women are being aestheticized. Examples are Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, etc. And how this idea of being a beautiful young woman or girl, who dies too young is romanticized. Also, wtf is up with like ppl dressing up as decapitated Anne Boleyn for Halloween...
This is a more recent example but I think Marylin Monroe is weirdly aestheticized and idolized to the point where the girls who worship her really don't see her as a person but rather as a mythical figure or character
•Intersections of race, misogyny, and disability. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of Black femmes with autism and/or social anxiety talking about their life experiences, and their stories have been resonating with me. It also made me question how accessible/attainable certain ideals of Black femininity are to those with disabilities
•Respectability politics in mental health circles and mainstream narratives regarding cluster b personality disorders in particular. Sparked by the videos I keep seeing about narcissistic abuse, but I think that movement and that term is part of some larger misunderstanding/divide.
•The state of the natural hair movement. I feel like ten years ago, the second (third?) natural hair movement had a fire under its ass, but now it is has dissolved into nothing but influencers. Like we got more products, but I would still be shamed if I stepped outside wearing my kinky hair as is. I was listening to “Beauty Supply” off the new Noname, and it made me think about where natural hair acceptance really is at the moment.
•Love to hear your thoughts at length on Interview with the Vampire (2022) as a Black person and vampire aficionado.
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you meant but I'd be interested in a video talking about the villainization of people with NPD and BPD among other cluster B personality disorders. I was personally troubled when I discovered the subreddit r/raisedbyborderlines which I know is for survivors of parental abuse but I found it unfair and discriminatory that they ban people who have BPD from participating in the subreddit, especially since many people who are raised/abused by a person with BPD very well may end up developing BPD themselves. I also think that antisocial personality disorder is severely misunderstood and unfairly demonized which is something that needs to be more widely discussed
Yep yep, exactly! Of course, “narcissistic abuse”, “raised by borderlines”, etc. are likely just terms created to make it easier for abuse survivors of similar situations to find and connect with each other; but then I also think something about this perpetuates the harmful ideas that (1) people with NPD or BPD are naturally better at abusing people, (2) there are diagnosis-related consistencies across all abuse cases involving people with NPD or BPD, and (3) abusers who have NPD or BPD abuse people differently than abusers who do not have NPD or BPD. There’s a lot more to be said. I only have one toe dipped into anti-psychiatry conversations right now, so I‘ve been doing much more listening than talking. But reading the stories of people who have been diagnosed with NPD or BPD and then move through life with little changing besides now having “bad person disease” in the eyes of the world has been really eye-opening regarding society’s failures to treat, understand, and integrate neurodiverse people.
I would love to see your take on amatonormativity and the ideal of the nuclear family. I think that because primarily asexual and aromantic people (and some polyamorous people!) talk about amatonormativity, a lot of allo people, if they've ever heard the term, think of it as an aspec issue and therefore dismiss it, even though the term wasn't coined in that context. The idea that everyone is incomplete without their "soulmate," the expectation that people must universally go through certain types of relationships at certain stages of their lives and the mocking of people who haven't hit whatever romantic and sexual milestones at whatever age, the expected prioritization of romantic partners over platonic friends, and the way our society financially and legally caters to couples over single people, multigenerational families, polycules, roommates, chosen family, friend groups, etc. are all examples of how amatonormativity is harmful to a wide range of people.
As somebody who experiences romantic and sexual attraction (I don't really think of myself as totally allo because I think I might be demi or something but I don't know how to label what I feel exactly), I really hate the concept of a "soulmate" specifically in a romantic context. I feel like it places undue pressure on people to find "the one" and also ever since I was little I questioned it because after my maternal grandmother died, my grandfather remarried, and to me it didn't seem like it made sense for soulmates to be a thing because then what would that make my late grandmother? It also really bothers me that there's an expectation to reach certain romantic milestones by a certain age. I never dated or even had a quick romantic thing in high school and haven't yet and sometimes it makes me question my self worth because it seems like that's something that's supposed to happen even though there isn't a logical reason to think of it that way
this! i would love to hear your thoughts on relationship anarchy, if you need anything to draw inspiration from AnRel has some really good videos about relationship anarchy and heirarchy in relationships
It's a bit out of your usual wheelhouse, but i've always found the intersection between fandom and spirituality/religion interesting. There's more obvious examples like Snapewives, but smaller or less formal things like the Jagerists or whatever Harry potter fans are up to these days. could be interesting!
the commodification of anti-capitalism would be an interesting topic i think! from "punk aesthetics" to anti capitalist shows appearing on hyper-capitalist programs like amazon or disney +. idk i've been watching a bunch of kdramas that hold anticapitalist ideologies but exist within a capitalist society, and its got me thinking
* Black motherhood, and why it really isn't celebrated as much. I know the short answer is racism, but I found it fascinating when Beyoncé was pregnant with her first, and had a photoshoot celebrating that; the response was very divded. The pictures were unarguably beautiful, yet it felt that a lot of the (white?) internet felt that pregnancy photoshoots were kinda passé, and there was nothing really special about the arguably the biggest pop star of the era being pregnant with their first child. When usually for a female celebrity, pregnancy is the biggest and the most followed event ever. Also in other media, when talking about difficulties of conceiving and involuntary childlessness, the couples presented are usually white. I know the cost of IVF plays into this, not everyone can afford fertility treatments, but there just doesn't seem to be the same amount of sympathy for black parents to be.
* Why black characters can't be the main characters - this is sort of adjacent to your latest video, but it is interesting that on the surface, people are open to black characters in stories, films and games, but never as main characters. See the current kerfuffle over the latest Assassin's Creed game with a black main character. Never mind that he is a figure of historical fact. The Magical Negro and Sassy Black Girl Friend are well-studied tropes that seemingly are the only ones available in an ensemble cast that isn't specifically about a black story. And even if it is made up story in a made up setting, have to work in black chattel slavery in there at some point (looking at you, Bridgerton).
I would love to see a video on the whole 'Man vs Bear' thing (would u rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man?). As someone who's not on TikTok, hearing the discourse second-hand through friends and Instagram memes has been... horrifying? I mean, women are sharing details of SA by men to illustrate their choice of the bear, and men are responding by hoping they get brutally attacked. Where's holding your friends accountable, or checking your own feelings of entitlement to women's bodies? Moments like this remind me of how shallow the progress of #MeToo was (*the viral #MeToo movement, not the actual social work by Tarana Burke). Idk, have just been thinking A LOT lately about the internet's reproduction and reinforcement around narratives of gendered violence -- like the Depp v Heard case. Absolutely hate being a woman online right now - why is patriarchy winning the internet?
how empathy has changed over time through media? it somehow feels that simultaneously people care so much about each other and at the same not at all if that makes sense??? esp within fandom and pop culture
expanding on that notion you finished on in your latest video essay, how casting black actors is used to pretend that progress is happening, and maybe looking into the stories of black actors who have played roles for companies and regret them, or generally like... who is doing it the most? even expanding to like disabled casting used to make people seem accessable when they aren't, and pinkwashing too. cause in the uk the royal family is really casting a lot of black people in its marketing. and the v&a was founded as a museum open to the public, but sort of to teach them how to be respectful to the upper classes and aquire expensive taste to fund them. also theres a mosaic in the museum called opus criminales and its beautiful and it was made by women prisoners and we will never know their names and it was like wow how woke is this but like... the museum makes no effort to say who these women were. anyway i went off on one but yeah!
Maybe something on the monetisation of knowledge/how learning basic/important things now has some sort of cost attached to it? (Ads before a video on how to do the heimlich, important news articles being locked behind a paywall, how common questions are now at the bottom of the page after 17 different ads, etc.) Idk, I think it could be interesting to do a deep dive in the corporatisation of learning things.
Either that, or maybe something on subscription culture? Could be interesting to do a comparison of the recent Watcher debacle with College Humour and now Critical Role, and how youtube is becoming less of a viable platform, but subscription services are now absolutely everywhere. Could also raise questions of whether the audience are the people watching, or the advertisers/video platforms bottom line.
Alternatively, perhaps something on how 'there is no ethical consumption under capitalism' has become twisted from an acknowledgment and encouragement to do better, to an excuse to use/consume whatever without having to feel guilty. Particularly with the boycotts going on.
I'd really like to hear about the fact that news is locked behind a paywall, I feel like that goes against the purpose of journalism.
I also would enjoy a video about the whole "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" argument and I agree that it's really applicable to the current boycotts, especially with companies like Starbucks. I lose a week off my life every time somebody tells me that they still buy Starbucks or get Mcdonalds because "it doesn't matter" when targeted boycotts are actually very effective and things like Starbucks are super easy to boycott. If your stupid overpriced latte matters more to you than genocide then you are a deplorable human being
Something about how children in danger is used as a political vessel. They are the perfect innocent victim that everyone can agree needs to be protected. They are the face of famines and the victims of “gender ideology” or the “predatory gays.” How have both sides of politics used the idea of children to garner sympathy?
i like this idea, maybe paired with issues about insufficient adult care for children in schools, overfilled classrooms, and the lack of mental health & emotional support & resources provided to children by adults in their lives, you could talk about ICE and their treatment of kids, the foster care system, and the school to prison pipeline even
I think it would be interesting to cover the rise of “anti-celebrity culture” (EX: people getting fed up with celebrities during lock down, the recent block out movement, etc).
Seconding. I’m behind anti-celebrity discourse I.e. “digital guillotine” on tiktok especially following the met gala
Thirding this and adding the devils advocate counterpoint of problematic faves, bc we know there are celebs people are gonna gives passes to (maybe deservingly or not).
love this, maybe tangentially discussing the public’s push for celebrities to be more politically vocal / the belief that people with substantial influential power should inherently be using that influence to discuss political matters; i.e. the push for celebs to be vocal about Palestine
I think something about Kendrick and Drake’s recent debacle would be interesting. I’ve found that many people believe that debriefing the situation is “gentrifying hip hop” but I think their debate tells us a lot about black men and anger especially in hip hop and that culture as a whole. It’s more recent too so I think a lot of people would be interested.
this could be good esp if you talk about how media blows up pop culture events to cover up genocide and civil unrest
I would love a video essay that looks at the intersection of true crime and copaganda. It feels counterintuitive because in practice true crime can be really progressive and shine light on crimes and cases that need attention, but at the same time the internet sleuthing and armchair detective dovetails with vigilanteism in a way that feels like a divergence from that journalistic or progressive direction. We all know what copaganda is, but not many look at true crime as an example of it.
I would love to see a video about how women in horror are often consumers (eating bodies, very teeth-centric in general) as compared to mainstream horror where it's often men killing with rather phallic imagery (stabbing, etc). How horror movies like this can portray subversive feminism by centering women that just eat and consume. (this is inspired by a tumblr post I saw btw)
Can I have the link of that post please ? I’m very interested into it !
same here!
Here it is on Pinterest! https://pin.it/78Nzp6cxN
I’ve been interested in the idea of big media companies like amazon/ netflix/ paramount etc actively feeding the beast of capitalism whilst producing anti-capitalist shows. Perhaps a way to make us feel like we’re doing something without actually do anything? or maybe to show a misleading idea of what revolutionary action would look like?
this!!! barbie and joan is awful are great examples
Maybe something on the epidemic of teen girls "growing up too quickly" and how 'teen' media like Euphoria and other similar shows portray and even romanticize the idea of a broken teenager. And how media like this is used as a template for growing young people of how young adulthood is 'supposed to be'. Also maybe throw in some stuff about how from a very young age to dream of marriage and life in a nuclear family, and are taught to think that maturing quickly is some sort of honorable thing. OR something on how real historical women are being aestheticized. Examples are Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, etc. And how this idea of being a beautiful young woman or girl, who dies too young is romanticized. Also, wtf is up with like ppl dressing up as decapitated Anne Boleyn for Halloween...
This is a more recent example but I think Marylin Monroe is weirdly aestheticized and idolized to the point where the girls who worship her really don't see her as a person but rather as a mythical figure or character
yes! I totally agree
•Intersections of race, misogyny, and disability. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of Black femmes with autism and/or social anxiety talking about their life experiences, and their stories have been resonating with me. It also made me question how accessible/attainable certain ideals of Black femininity are to those with disabilities
•Respectability politics in mental health circles and mainstream narratives regarding cluster b personality disorders in particular. Sparked by the videos I keep seeing about narcissistic abuse, but I think that movement and that term is part of some larger misunderstanding/divide.
•The state of the natural hair movement. I feel like ten years ago, the second (third?) natural hair movement had a fire under its ass, but now it is has dissolved into nothing but influencers. Like we got more products, but I would still be shamed if I stepped outside wearing my kinky hair as is. I was listening to “Beauty Supply” off the new Noname, and it made me think about where natural hair acceptance really is at the moment.
•Love to hear your thoughts at length on Interview with the Vampire (2022) as a Black person and vampire aficionado.
*woke up and edited, damn this was unreadable
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you meant but I'd be interested in a video talking about the villainization of people with NPD and BPD among other cluster B personality disorders. I was personally troubled when I discovered the subreddit r/raisedbyborderlines which I know is for survivors of parental abuse but I found it unfair and discriminatory that they ban people who have BPD from participating in the subreddit, especially since many people who are raised/abused by a person with BPD very well may end up developing BPD themselves. I also think that antisocial personality disorder is severely misunderstood and unfairly demonized which is something that needs to be more widely discussed
Yep yep, exactly! Of course, “narcissistic abuse”, “raised by borderlines”, etc. are likely just terms created to make it easier for abuse survivors of similar situations to find and connect with each other; but then I also think something about this perpetuates the harmful ideas that (1) people with NPD or BPD are naturally better at abusing people, (2) there are diagnosis-related consistencies across all abuse cases involving people with NPD or BPD, and (3) abusers who have NPD or BPD abuse people differently than abusers who do not have NPD or BPD. There’s a lot more to be said. I only have one toe dipped into anti-psychiatry conversations right now, so I‘ve been doing much more listening than talking. But reading the stories of people who have been diagnosed with NPD or BPD and then move through life with little changing besides now having “bad person disease” in the eyes of the world has been really eye-opening regarding society’s failures to treat, understand, and integrate neurodiverse people.
I would love to see your take on amatonormativity and the ideal of the nuclear family. I think that because primarily asexual and aromantic people (and some polyamorous people!) talk about amatonormativity, a lot of allo people, if they've ever heard the term, think of it as an aspec issue and therefore dismiss it, even though the term wasn't coined in that context. The idea that everyone is incomplete without their "soulmate," the expectation that people must universally go through certain types of relationships at certain stages of their lives and the mocking of people who haven't hit whatever romantic and sexual milestones at whatever age, the expected prioritization of romantic partners over platonic friends, and the way our society financially and legally caters to couples over single people, multigenerational families, polycules, roommates, chosen family, friend groups, etc. are all examples of how amatonormativity is harmful to a wide range of people.
As somebody who experiences romantic and sexual attraction (I don't really think of myself as totally allo because I think I might be demi or something but I don't know how to label what I feel exactly), I really hate the concept of a "soulmate" specifically in a romantic context. I feel like it places undue pressure on people to find "the one" and also ever since I was little I questioned it because after my maternal grandmother died, my grandfather remarried, and to me it didn't seem like it made sense for soulmates to be a thing because then what would that make my late grandmother? It also really bothers me that there's an expectation to reach certain romantic milestones by a certain age. I never dated or even had a quick romantic thing in high school and haven't yet and sometimes it makes me question my self worth because it seems like that's something that's supposed to happen even though there isn't a logical reason to think of it that way
this! i would love to hear your thoughts on relationship anarchy, if you need anything to draw inspiration from AnRel has some really good videos about relationship anarchy and heirarchy in relationships
I'm very invested in aspec conversations and this would be a wonderful topic
It's a bit out of your usual wheelhouse, but i've always found the intersection between fandom and spirituality/religion interesting. There's more obvious examples like Snapewives, but smaller or less formal things like the Jagerists or whatever Harry potter fans are up to these days. could be interesting!
the commodification of anti-capitalism would be an interesting topic i think! from "punk aesthetics" to anti capitalist shows appearing on hyper-capitalist programs like amazon or disney +. idk i've been watching a bunch of kdramas that hold anticapitalist ideologies but exist within a capitalist society, and its got me thinking
Two topics I'd like to see covered:
* Black motherhood, and why it really isn't celebrated as much. I know the short answer is racism, but I found it fascinating when Beyoncé was pregnant with her first, and had a photoshoot celebrating that; the response was very divded. The pictures were unarguably beautiful, yet it felt that a lot of the (white?) internet felt that pregnancy photoshoots were kinda passé, and there was nothing really special about the arguably the biggest pop star of the era being pregnant with their first child. When usually for a female celebrity, pregnancy is the biggest and the most followed event ever. Also in other media, when talking about difficulties of conceiving and involuntary childlessness, the couples presented are usually white. I know the cost of IVF plays into this, not everyone can afford fertility treatments, but there just doesn't seem to be the same amount of sympathy for black parents to be.
* Why black characters can't be the main characters - this is sort of adjacent to your latest video, but it is interesting that on the surface, people are open to black characters in stories, films and games, but never as main characters. See the current kerfuffle over the latest Assassin's Creed game with a black main character. Never mind that he is a figure of historical fact. The Magical Negro and Sassy Black Girl Friend are well-studied tropes that seemingly are the only ones available in an ensemble cast that isn't specifically about a black story. And even if it is made up story in a made up setting, have to work in black chattel slavery in there at some point (looking at you, Bridgerton).
I would love to see a video on the whole 'Man vs Bear' thing (would u rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man?). As someone who's not on TikTok, hearing the discourse second-hand through friends and Instagram memes has been... horrifying? I mean, women are sharing details of SA by men to illustrate their choice of the bear, and men are responding by hoping they get brutally attacked. Where's holding your friends accountable, or checking your own feelings of entitlement to women's bodies? Moments like this remind me of how shallow the progress of #MeToo was (*the viral #MeToo movement, not the actual social work by Tarana Burke). Idk, have just been thinking A LOT lately about the internet's reproduction and reinforcement around narratives of gendered violence -- like the Depp v Heard case. Absolutely hate being a woman online right now - why is patriarchy winning the internet?
YES. I've seen many videos on this but none quite as in depth as I want. I would love to hear their opinions on this debate.
how empathy has changed over time through media? it somehow feels that simultaneously people care so much about each other and at the same not at all if that makes sense??? esp within fandom and pop culture
expanding on that notion you finished on in your latest video essay, how casting black actors is used to pretend that progress is happening, and maybe looking into the stories of black actors who have played roles for companies and regret them, or generally like... who is doing it the most? even expanding to like disabled casting used to make people seem accessable when they aren't, and pinkwashing too. cause in the uk the royal family is really casting a lot of black people in its marketing. and the v&a was founded as a museum open to the public, but sort of to teach them how to be respectful to the upper classes and aquire expensive taste to fund them. also theres a mosaic in the museum called opus criminales and its beautiful and it was made by women prisoners and we will never know their names and it was like wow how woke is this but like... the museum makes no effort to say who these women were. anyway i went off on one but yeah!
Maybe something on the monetisation of knowledge/how learning basic/important things now has some sort of cost attached to it? (Ads before a video on how to do the heimlich, important news articles being locked behind a paywall, how common questions are now at the bottom of the page after 17 different ads, etc.) Idk, I think it could be interesting to do a deep dive in the corporatisation of learning things.
Either that, or maybe something on subscription culture? Could be interesting to do a comparison of the recent Watcher debacle with College Humour and now Critical Role, and how youtube is becoming less of a viable platform, but subscription services are now absolutely everywhere. Could also raise questions of whether the audience are the people watching, or the advertisers/video platforms bottom line.
Alternatively, perhaps something on how 'there is no ethical consumption under capitalism' has become twisted from an acknowledgment and encouragement to do better, to an excuse to use/consume whatever without having to feel guilty. Particularly with the boycotts going on.
I'd really like to hear about the fact that news is locked behind a paywall, I feel like that goes against the purpose of journalism.
I also would enjoy a video about the whole "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" argument and I agree that it's really applicable to the current boycotts, especially with companies like Starbucks. I lose a week off my life every time somebody tells me that they still buy Starbucks or get Mcdonalds because "it doesn't matter" when targeted boycotts are actually very effective and things like Starbucks are super easy to boycott. If your stupid overpriced latte matters more to you than genocide then you are a deplorable human being