I like emoji, and I enjoyed using them for a while. But since it's become politicized by the manufactured outrage industry, I just stick to my old-school 1980's emoticons.
Nobody ever got fake offended by :)
Nobody ever got fake offended by :)
I'd venture that you aren't very active on Twitter?
The whole point is not that people are upset over 'inequities being addressed' - it's that they do not necessarily feel that their are true inequities.
The choice of your words kind of indicates the bias in perspective, not that it's wrong, but those words might be 'talking past the other' in the issue.
From the article: 'a picture of a yellow person was still interpreted as white'. Well, so what? Is that really an 'inequity'? Who was perceiving it, why, and does it actually matter? Maybe it does, but there's a good chance that it does not.
A 'yellow man in work outfit' - this is gendered, surely, but we live in a gendered world. Is it sexist? Possibly but probably not. We could put a woman, surely, but then what about non-binaries? Intersex? Transgender?
It's probably worthwhile to have the discussion - but I'm afraid this discussion will not end. Case and point, a Guardian article I read recently demanding an end to the notion that 'family is two people with 1+ children'. Reasonable. So then how do we integrated this into emojis?
The line has to be drawn, and wherever we draw it, it's going to be a little bit arbitrary and exclude some.
We're all a little special and irrespective how how normative we may be in one context, we're not in another and that's that. (Saying this is a waspy male who's been an immigrant/minority in a few places including where I live now).
We see portrayals of people every day - it doesn't mean that these portrayals are politicized or represent anything.
FYI - the article refers to kind of a reduced concern among pop culture, which I think is partly what I'm getting at - this venture is getting a little pointless to most people, even 'allies'.
We can be nice and reasonable people and still move on without being in a permanent culture war.
We can also be nice and reasonable people without constantly accusing each other of trying to incite a culture war.
My comment is reinforced by the linked article which mentions a number of these instances, like the Atlantic reporter who didn't like the dumpling emoji.
For those who do not agree with those changes, it becomes pretty important to actually be vocal about it, otherwise the "outraged" will assume that you are totally on board with their views. And since they are very quick to try to marginalize you by avoiding a healthy debate and quickly associating you with the worse of humanity, the easiest (and sometimes only) way to "win" is just to show that no, you are no nazi for believing $OPINION, because a lots of people believe that if you ask them.
So by all means be vocal about your opionions wether you are outraged and want to see society change, or you aren't and find some views blown out of proportion. This is the only way to actually measure if the majority of the population wants stuff to change. And that's how democracy works - which everyone should respect.
I don't think the majority of the population has views worthy of "the moral highground". Most of humanity isn't very nice; just look at the world. We're mostly riding inertial culture from the past and evolutionary optimizations which we mutate only slightly as time passes.
I also think they should be pressured toward more enlightened worldviews because those worldviews are still better whether or not they have majority subscription.
>And since they are very quick to try to marginalize you by avoiding a healthy debate and quickly associating you with the worse of humanity
Yep. It's sad. This causes a lot of cognitive dissonance and alienation. I think a major reason for it is that the literal nazis, today, are rarely blunt. They use dog whistling, memes, and implication that gives plausible deniability and a way to elide accusations or deplatforming. A heuristic, then, that many people grab to adapt to that is assuming the meta of what someone seems to be saying. This is pretty sound (never accepts a nazi) but not at all complete (rejects many non-nazis).
>So by all means be vocal about your opionions wether you are outraged and want to see society change, or you aren't and find some views blown out of proportion. This is the only way to actually measure if the majority of the population wants stuff to change. And that's how democracy works - which everyone should respect.
I think you'd be wrong to assume that everyone has equal expression in society. Just look at the nazis, for example. So our measuring technique is dysfunctional.
I also think that, even if that wasn't the case, this isn't the best way to reach positive social change.
I think the majority of the world is very sexist, for example, and therefore don't want meaningful societal changes that level the sexual playing field (a clever, diplomatic way to put this is a philosophical objection, like "we should have equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome"). Does that mean that maintaining the sexist status quo is the best moral thing to do? I don't think so. And that's for positive change; what if the majority votes for negative change? I can't respect that just because the majority wills it any more than the nazis respect the mainstream's censure of their ideology.