How Tumblr-style Social Justice is Like Pornography
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- Category: Cake Recipes
- Published on Thursday, 20 September 2012 16:44
- Written by Lara Landis
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Tumblr and AVEN compete to become the largest Asexual community on the Internet. AVEN has a real-world presence. Tumblr has a large user base. Many Tumblr users who participate in Asexual discussions also belong to the microblogging platform’s social justice community. A conflict between AVEN’s research coordinator and a Tumblr blogger resulted in Andrew Hinderliter being removed as a writer for the Asexual Agenda group blog earlier this month. The actions that led up to the removal occurred behind the scenes. It sparked a larger debate about the place of Tumblr-style social justice within the Asexual community.
“I am very much not sold on the idea of Tumblr-style social justice. I feel that puts me in the majority of the Asexual community,” wrote Hinderliter on the Asexual Explorations blog. He commented that many people who engage in the style of activism believe that only members of an oppressed group should comment on issues faced by that group.
Asexual Agenda commenters were just as divided on what social justice meant as are many of the people who claim to be part of the community. Few people seem to agree on what this phrase means. People who come from a Catholic background will often associate with the church’s charity and relief efforts. Many people who do not have this background associate it with the pursuit of social and economic equality.
These ideas provide a good working definition, but anyone who has spent any time on Tumblr knows that neither of these definitions describe what takes place on the social networking site. It is hard to describe exactly what social justice means for the use of this website, but the social justice blogs have something in common with the adult entertainment industry. Outside observers may not be able to define social justice or pornography, but people know what they are when they see them.
The biggest problem with many Tumblr social justice blogs is that little common sense is applied to any of their positions. The authors do not take the time to determine if their ideas have any validity in the real world. The number of teenagers and college students will use the site makes it an ideal gathering place for people who have not had to have your ideas tested outside of an academic setting. Many of the people expressing some of the more interesting ideas will change their position in a few years.
The Tumblr social justice community needs a way to monitor its ideas. People have reacted to some of the stranger ideas that the popular web site has produced. A person finds themself appearing on one of these reactionary blogs more than a single time should evaluate his ideas. Many of these bloggers simply assume that other people cannot understand their brilliant positions. They pay no attention to criticism even if it is valid.
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not that i dispute your words, but i'd like to see this real world presences somewhere outside the united states
Eh. Regular meetups in Germany in at least five different cities? Also: info booths at a handful of Prides over here.The same goes, as far as I know, for Britain, whose PT also managed to organize the WorldPride Asexual Conference.
France also has regular meetups.
And that's what I remember without consulting the bookmarks.