On Overdue Housekeeping · 8:04am Jul 20th, 2020
Hey, folks. Hope everyone's doing okay and staying healthy.
Looking through my account, I don't think I've ever posted a blog entry that was heavy on commentary with respect to anything going on in the real world. After all, y'all came here for horsewords, not my opinions on anything. But, as recent events - both in the fandom and outside of it - have made clear, there are things that need to be said, and things that need to be done. (even if they are way overdue)
We are talking, of course, about extremism, nazism, and hate - and its unfortunate presence in our fandom and our public discourse. It's always been there, sadly, but has really come to a head on multiple fronts in recent weeks/months.
Many others have posted lengthy blogs about all of this, and there's not much that I can really add to their words as they stand now. (PresentPerfect rounded up some of these blogs here. You should check them out)
However, I've come to believe over the years that while I need not yell out about every thing in life, silence can sometimes be even more damaging than yelling. This, imo, is one of those times. So if I may beg everyone's pardon, I'll take this one opportunity to state my thoughts/opinions. To try and avoid writing a novel, I'll keep things bullet-point(ish).
*ahem*
1. This fandom's original sin was taking "love and tolerate" too literally. Though they were in the minority, a creepy, toxic, and in some cases blatantly racist/sexist element reared its head early on, especially as the con scene first began to blossom.
2. Unfortunately, these cretins were allowed to remain in the community. "Love and tolerate" was the mantra, and "no drama" was the slogan. Many laughed these goons off as one-off loons. Some, naively as it turned out, assumed they'd grow up or eventually come to know better. As we all now know, that was a horribly wrong assumption.
3. The "Nazi Bar theorem" is pretty simple: You allow one Nazi into a bar, they'll be back with a friend. And then they'll bring two friends, and three more, and before you know it your bar is now known as "the Nazi bar". Everyone else who is NOT a Nazi will avoid your bar or stop going because the other clients scare them. And you're afraid to kick them out because you're afraid of retribution if you do.
That same problem has hit many online communities over the years, and sadly MLP's fandom has fallen prey to it too. One creep was allowed to remain or brushed off, so another showed up. One Aryn pony poster was allowed on Derpi and then they brought in 20 of their friends to post more. And so on and so on. And now, over a decade later, every fandom from Sonic the Hedgehog to MLP to furries are stuck in a quagmire trying to root out Nazis, creeps, and bigots that have latched onto us like barnacles on a hull.
4. Derpibooru always felt sketchy to me, given some of the utterly gross tags that are on there. Their staff's recent fark ups have only cemented this view. They managed to 'both sides' Nazi propaganda multiple times in a span of days, subvert their staff not once but twice, and succeed only in driving out the good artists and handing a rhetorical victory to the Nazi loons while not actually solving any root issue anyway. (even Chuck Todd's not this bad at this) Frankly, I fully support the many artists who filed DNPs, and Derpi's staff has only themselves to blame when both their site (and the "nazi friendly" spinoff booru site) implode in a vortex of suck.
5. Item #4 could have been entirely avoided if they had taken the simple step years ago of banning nazi symbolism, full stop. But like the fandom at large, 'tolerate X', and 'just filter/ignore Y and it'll go away' set them up for this moment.
6. Since a formal site announcement hasn't been made yet, I'm withholding final judgement on the policy changes Knighty recently alluded to in his own blog post. I can accept that there can be a literary reason to write about nazis - remember that Star Trek has aired multiple time-travel episodes that put Starfleet crews into a WW2 scenario against the Germans. Schindler's List, of course, is all about the holocaust. Nazi symbols abound throughout. But context is key. None of these examples glorified or celebrated Nazism in any way. They were seen as the enemy in full clarity. Every viewer could see that.
So if someone decided to write a story where a time breakdown sends Twilight to 1942 Germany, is taken in by resistance fighters, and has to find a way to aid them in stopping a German attack and find a way to fix the timeline... I might not read it myself, but I can see how that might pass moderation. A story where Aryanne goes to a town council meeting and complains about all of the dark coated ponies moving into town? No, you can nix that one. And you can nix any images that contain said symbols, regardless of context. (sorry, Aryanne, but a cute face can't make up for the swastika on your ass)
Personally, I'd be just fine if Fimfic banned all references to nazism, period. There's plenty of places on the internet that will host that stuff. This doesn't have to be one of them. But as a starting point, at least this is a better plan that whatever crap Derpi's staff is trying. (are we sure the WH communications team isn't advising Derpi's staff?)
7. Slight add-on to #6 above: if I had a magic wand right now, I'd yeet the far-right stories/groups off the site yesterday, along with the foalcon category. Creating adult material is one thing. Hell, I've done some myself. But minors are minors in any universe, any canon. Period.
*But GMP, that's a slippery slope. Ban these things today and what's to stop <x> from being banned tomorrow? This is how police states start!*
8. Objects in mirrors may be closer than they appear, but not all slopes are as slippery as you think they are. Humans invented fire, language, math, and music. We built the pyramids and the Roman Forum, painted Mona Lisa, put humans in the sky, the stars, and the moon, and invented the internet. I'm pretty confident we can manage to ban the greatest symbol of hate and violence to ever exist without immediately degenerating into a sick mash-up of Blade Runner and Half-Life 2. (Germany and Japan have been doing the ban thing pretty darn effectively since the end of the war, so it is indeed possible)
9. The "Tolerance Paradox" is at play here, both IRL and in many fandoms right now. Because we allowed #1-3 to happen unchecked, we now find ourselves having to show a kind of intolerance to try and root out the people who are actually intolerant. But it must be done, and the hatemongers' cries of "censorship! What about tolerance?" must be met with a closed door in the face. In other words, "tolerance != allowing intolerance and hate to fester".
10. Speaking of "censorship"... as others have already said, freedom of speech means the government can't arrest/punish you because of what you say. It does NOT mean that you can say/do whatever you want and suffer no consequences. To paraphrase a famous XKCD comic: When you're yelled at, boycotted, deplatformed, or shunned from a community, your rights are not being violated. It's just that everyone listening rejects what you have to say, and they're showing you the door. And 'showing you the door' is exactly what this and other fandoms are trying to do to the trash that's been left to fester for far too long.
But GMP, why does everything have to be political? Can't we just ignore it and love our horsewords?
Great quote I saw online recently: "there are no sidelines anymore".
That's absolutely correct. Now more than ever, good, sane, and well meaning people need to do just what the XKCD comic suggests: show the (literal) haters the door. Whether that's the door to the WH or the door to a fandom. Hate, sexism, bigotry, and extreme 'dank meme culture' has no place in any civilized society. We may not be able to utterly eliminate such crap from the internet, but we can damn sure make them unwelcome everywhere where decent people congregate.
Does that mean everyone needs to be on the front lines fighting? NO. That's not for everyone, and I understand that. I'm a kind of introvert myself. But even a simple like/RT, or taking a second to report nazi content when you see it on Fimfic, mlp twtitter, etc - those are all contributions to the effort. Hell, even just stating your support to the folks who do go out there every day and get in the virtual trenches is a valuable thing.
Not everyone has to get in the trenches. But standing on the side and pretending the fight isn't occurring is naive at best, and damaging to the community over time. Now, does that mean the people who insist on playing cards like 'slippery slope', 'censorship', 'free speech', etc are actually in league with the extremists? No. (at least not most of the time)
But like the Nazi Bar theorem above, if you let one nazi OC/story/pic/etc stay because 'principles' tell you to, it won't be long before you're surrounded by those images and you'll wonder how TF you got here. And all those principles won't mean squat when you finally do try to take action, because the actual nazis will just throw them right back in your face and make YOU look like the bad guy (when you never really were)
Phew. That was a lot of writing.
Summary:
-Nazis are bad in all their forms. Give them a millionth of an inch and they'll destroy anything they touch - especially internet communities
-Many fandoms, including MLP, are way late to trying to clean house on this crap. Better late than never, imo, and we need to keep it up until the trash is totally gone. And that includes forums, fimfic, art sites, conventions, etc. Ban them. Full stop.
-While not my preferred solution, I'll give Fimfic staff some time to implement the final version of whatever changes they're making around this topic and see how it goes. I hope it works, but we'll see.
-Endless ways to show support to this fight, both small and large. But no room left to stand on the sidelines. This is literally hate vs. the world. If you paid attention at all to our loving ponies, choosing a side should be pretty easy.
-While I sincerely hope that my monologue here hasn't completely soured me in everyone's eyes, I also realize this may cost me a few followers. If it does, I can live with that.
100% this, GMP.
Shoulda been done years ago. It would be so much easier now if we'd been more vigilant from the start about actively snipping these kinds of things out of the community as they come up instead of pretending that "just filter it" was any kind of real solution.
Alas, reap what you sow. We never should have let people sow bad faith arguments about "but my free speech!" and "what about love and tolerate?" and maybe this is a hard friendship lesson we still needed to learn.
Well said!
5316244
To that point, one thing that I think went kind of under the radar about the ending seasons of G4 was that not *every* villain was reformed. Sombra was disintegrated anime-style, and the trio of Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy were sentenced to a infinite sentence as a statue. Which to me drives home the subtle point that friendship is magic, but even it can't fix everyone.
đź’Ż
Well said! Truth be told, I've been keeping my own feelings on all this bottled up just because I didn't realize how deep the problem goes.
But you're right; there's no sidelines anymore.
5316248
It wasn't even that subtle! It was an entire season arc!
"Reformation" is not a handwave laser to the tits.
Luna had the part of her that was crazy and powerful enough to bring about nighttime eternal by the Elements. But it wasn't until the Nightmare Night, CMC dream, and the Tantabus episodes that she realized/learned that she wasn't Nightmare Moon. That she was loved and had value and could leave behind her past.
Discord wasn't "reformed" in an instant either. Fluttershy took a chance on him and he realized that he actually valued her and her friendship.
STARLIGHT oh my fracking God. She chose. She took Twilight on her offer and took the first step. She's subsequently over seasons shown stumbling and face planting repeatedly but constantly tries to better herself as a person.
The changelings realized that love shared is love multiplied, and it's better than coveting and hoarding.
Discord took the form of Grogar and sent the trio on a series of extreme team building exercises. They came close to an epiphany but rejected it. They were offered a chance to redeem themselves and grow but were unrepentant in their evil. They weren't not given chances to reform or no effort was made to reform them.
Tirek is Equestria's local variant of Satan. The betrayer. He sold literally everyone who ever trusted him down the river for his own gain of power.
Chrysalis was offered a chance multiple times but rejected them all. Once by Starlight no less.
Cozy Glow spent an entire term at the School and was STILL fucking evil! It's indeterminate when she actually enrolled but a few episodes into the season with Non-Compete Clause we were already at nine months of the school being open! She was literally enrolled at the school where friendship as a concept is broken down to a science and taught and she was still fucking evil!
The message is clear. If someone is bad you give them a chance. If they won't change, remove them from your life.
5316257
I've been doing my best to fight this in MLP fandom for 9 years, and furry fandom for 14 or so. There never were any sidelines.
I'm only of the mind that I dislike Nazi's but also people who blindly label people as Nazi's because internet disagreement.
What knighty decided was a good middle-ground to the issue despite the heat they're getting due to not picking a side.
5316279
I agree the word is thrown around too much as a way to completely ignore opposing viewpoints, but it's hard to see any other reason why someone would defend actual nazis.
Not picking a side was the best idea they could do. It's a good middle ground.
There's a plant called the tree of heaven or Ailanthus. Native to Asia, it's a horribly invasive species pretty much everywhere else in the world.
I was recently at a friend's house (against all common sense, admittedly), where I'd plucked every Ailanthus sprout I could find last year, after he moved in. They were back, some of them a good five feet high already. See, Ailanthus is really good at spreading itself via a network of subterranean roots. They send up shoots and start growing for quite some distance from the initiating tree. Pick the shoots, and they just break off at the root, leaving the suckers to create more later. We've actually tried poisoning the larger trees in my yard, and I don't think it worked. For sure, I can go out back and probably find a dozen new shoots in the grass, pick them, mulch them, and the come back in a week to find more.
I think about Ailanthus trees a lot these days.
You're darn right, since some of us have essential jobs or complicated personal lives... or both. I've been lending advice and moral support to the good guys, but that's all I have time for, and I've privately been worried that people will say it's not enough.
Agreed. Card-carrying members of the Alt-Right are actually very few in number, but there are some who get the impression that there's one behind every blade of grass. Don't be taken in, because the good guys outnumber the bad guys by a wide margin.
5316383
There is a term often misattributed to Lenin, the "Useful Idiot". which means, roughly, "a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically used by the cause's leaders". The so-called "free speech absolutists", those who engage in and defend edgelord humour, those who espouse the "both sides are the same" attitude, those who insist that "fighting Nazis makes you a Nazi", and the "Middle Ground" fallacy proponents, are perhaps themselves not Nazis or any other flavour of fascist white supremacist; but from the perspective of Nazis, such people are very much "useful idiots", as they are still doing the work of supporting and spreading Nazi propaganda.
Not much to add aside from
The ideology is toxic and the more power it gets the clearer it becomes to those it deems less that they are not welcome, no matter what the people "ironically" subscribing to it think.
Daaaaaamn, GrandMoff tellin' it how it is.
This. This right here is the moment where I decided I really liked where you're going with this.
5316321
there IS no middle ground all nazi's are bad period
there is no defending this crap taking no side is the same as taking the side o fa nazi
all it takes for evil to win is a good person to do nothing you turning a blind eye to the evils nazi's preach just gives them power
5316547
Oh yeah I agree that is no middle ground just it's best to let KNightly do what he can and stay calm.
Pretty much agree with everything you've said. We know what nazism is, and we know what he caused, much less understand why so many countries frown upon it greatly and ban its imagery entirely. Foalcon though I think is just as worse and I'm shocked that was around as much as it was. Anybody who supports that stuff or actually participates in it definitely should be banned,
I get the issue people might have with freedom of speech and all that jazz, and you still need to place importance on that as well. It's one thing to make sure nazis aren't on the site and ban them, its another thing entirely I think to ban somebody for making an off hand dark joke regarding nazis or Hitler or something. So while I am 100% in agreement for dangerous extremist views like nazism be banned from the fandom entirely, I hope that some people don't try to take it too far, watching so many on sites like twitter get accusations thrown at them and exploding as a result is worrying.
You're heart is in the right place, and I think most of this site all thinks relatively universally about this thing, me included. It's good to see.
What about the far left groups? They can be just as bad as the far right.
Well, it's gained you one here, so thank you for standing up.
5316312
I wouldn't defend an actual nazi, but I would defend someone being named called and bullied into the term.
I did not expect that to be such a bad thing.
Well said, very well said indeed!
When people say that they wish things didn't have to be political, I sympathize—but the sad fact is, it was always political. Aryanne was never just a 'joke', and allowing Nazi shit into this fandom—a supposedly apolitical decision—has always had a political impact. A thoroughly negative one, as we're collectively realizing now.
Good post, Moff!
5316449
Very true. That said, I believe it is strategically advantageous to reason with such people, rather than blame them... however tempting that may be.
Why do I say this?
Because for years I've studied military history, and have observed the following: A neutral person or nation may see reason and join our side later, but if we attack or insult that neutral person or nation, they will certainly become our enemies now.
The classic example is that of the U.S. in World War II. It was neutral for quite some time, because war was unpopular with its voters. Then Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Axis, and the rest is history. The same can certainly happen here, on a smaller scale.
And of course, the people who want freedom are the first to go whenever the Alt-Right take over an Internet space (or anywhere else, no doubt). Such people may be more willing to listen once they realize this.
I understand if this idea seems distasteful. But I say it because you clearly want the Alt-Right gone from this fandom as much as I do, and I believe it is part of a winning strategy. We'll kick them out yet.
I keep having to have conversations about this with my two youngest sons, 15 and 17, because they are growing up in this time of false narrative and compromise with madmen without any previous experience that could inform them of how dire things really are. Negotiation and tolerance SEEM like really good ideas, and typically they are, but we need to remember one thing:
Nazis are bad.
It doesn't matter who is a Nazi. It doesn't matter if it's your neighbor, or your best friend, or your grandmother -- the Nazi ideal, the very thing that they stand for and seek to forward, is the belief that they are superior and that others, be it races or political opponents, are inferior.
There are times for reconciliation. There are times for kindness and love and second chances.
The moment you place a swastika on yourself, or that you think "Hey maybe they weren't so bad", is the moment you've lost your chance at getting any kindness, love, second chances, or reconciliation.
There is no room for bargaining, nor the mantra of there being "very fine people" on both sides. As we used to say on the farm, "If you roll in shit, you're going to stink like shit." Ultimately, tolerance is the testbed for a resurgence of these extremist ideals, and we cannot be caught up in "what-aboutism" when dealing with them. "What about the alt-left", "what about insert other straw man", it's all distraction tactics to take away from the fact that if you are ignoring this Nazi problem and letting it slide, you are tacitly endorsing it.
Unfortunately, saying nothing against evil is the same as supporting it, as much as it may hurt to hear that. It's easy to convince ourselves that remaining silent is the best thing we can do.
You're wrong. Silence is what they want. Never be silent against Nazis and their ilk. Bullies thrive on your desire to avoid conflict. Never let them have their way, never be silent. Chase Nazis out of everything, and relegate them to where they belong: in the sad, terrible pages of our history books.
Sorry this was long, but everyone has to do their part to stamp this out. Thank you for saying something, GMP, and I hope we all can reclaim this and every fandom from Nazi or Nazi-like scum.
Was just linked this blog. Fantastic job!
5332180
Thank you!