right now it’s almost halfway through 2023, and 2024 is an election year in the US. I have started to see a growing proliferation of posts suggesting that there is no difference between the republican and democratic parties–the exact same kind of posts I saw an awful lot of before the last major election here. I am unfollowing folks who post or reblog these sort of posts, as I consider these posts to be fascist propaganda framed as leftist discourse, designed to suppress anti-fascist votes and voters.
I’m reading The Deviants War: The Homosexual vs The United States of America and the entire point of gay pride as a concept comes from police raids on bars, clubs, public restrooms, etc where gays were humiliated and outed in the newspapers (sometimes with their addresses!) and had careers ruined and lives upended by being associated with perversion and vice squads and all that and they responded by going “no I’m proud” and took that pride to the streets in defiance of the huge mechanism of shame that existed to oppress the gay community into obscurity and so the fact that people are now trying to apply conservative dogma to pride parades to make them “safe for children” or in other words “safe for people with oppressive conservative values” is simply insane
[Image Description: A black color block and pink color block in a vertical row with text that reads “protect queer jewish people / don’t allow antisemitism to exist in queer spaces”]
Hey, do y’all remember how Tencent said they were developing faceID AI to identify people in riots, and then they suddenly created an AI art generator to turn your selfies into anime?
Do y’all remember that time that someone discovered facial recognition cameras couldn't see through Juggalo makeup, then Facebook had a fun “see what you'd look like with Juggalo makeup” thing, and then facial recognition cameras could suddenly see through Juggalo makeup?
Do y’all remember how, on Twitter, Elon started a tirade against artists who ask for credit when their art is reposted, and he suddenly he created one of the first big art AI programs?
Do y’all remember how AI destroyed the field of translation, despite the inferiority of the machine translations, because people didn’t care about the quality of the translations? They just wanted it done for free?
Do you know how companies will see a lot of money going into a New Tech Thing (like, say, AI art apps) and will jump to try and implement that New Tech Thing into their tech? For example, how it felt like every big company and celebrity had an NFT to sell?
Just wondering.
I went back through Harry's video, focused entirely on the sources James Somerton pulled from in the hopes of creating as much of a comprehensive list as I could--though my Google-Fu is not very strong. I did however find something I thought was forever lost and that made me very happy--specifically the magazine Midlands Zone containing the column by Steven Spinks that Harry poignantly used as an illustration of gay erasure... while Somerton uses it to sound like HE is waxing remorseful about the very subject.
This is not a complete list, I'm sure. For one thing, I was only able to attempt to pull sources that Harry himself mentioned in the video. Surely there's so very much more out there. I expect there to be a great deal more internet archeology to unearth just how much writing and culture Somerton has stolen like he's the British Museum of Natural History but for gay people.
- - - - -
Alexander Avila - https://www.youtube.com/@alexander_avila Matt Baume - https://www.youtube.com/@MattBaume Khadija Mbowe - https://www.youtube.com/@KhadijaMbowe Lady Emily - https://www.youtube.com/@LadyEmilyPresents Shanspeare - https://www.youtube.com/@Shanspeare RickiHirsch - https://www.youtube.com/@RickiHirsch VerilyBitchie - https://www.youtube.com/@verilybitchie
Harry created a convenient playlist of videos by these and other people he wants to bring to everyone's attention.
Please give them your support.
- - - - -
After a great deal of searching, I found an archive of the "Midlands Zone" magazine, where you can read through past issues dating all the way back to February 2014. I have also found the issue from which Somerton took Spinks' poignant discussion of gay erasure: Overall archive Specific Issue - Pages 16-17
It will not allow you to download it, but you can read it exactly as it appeared in print form.
- - - - -
Tinker Bells and Evil Queens By Sean Griffin
The Celluloid Closet By Vito Russo Wikipedia article about the book Wikipedia article about the documentary My weak google-fu could not find where you can access the book or documentary. Check your local municipal or university library for book or documentary, or if you know a good source for one or both, please reblog with it added
Camp and the Gay Sensibility By Jack Babuscio
The Groundbreaking Queerness of Disney's Mulan By Jes Tom Personal site with links to social media accounts
Why Rebel Without a Cause was a milestone for gay rights By Peter Howell
Why "The Craft" is still the best Halloween coming out movie By Andrew Park
Opinion: From facehuggers to phallic tails, is 'Alien' one of the queerest films ever? By Dani Leever
Women and Queerness in Horror: Jennifer's Body By Zoe Fortier
[Pride 2019] We Have Such Sights to Show You: Hellraiser and the Spectrum of Queerness By Alejandra Gonzalez
Revealing the Hellbound Heart of Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' By Colin Arason
Queering James Cameron's Aliens (1986) By Bart Bishop
Demeter and Persephone in space: transformation, femininity, and myth in the 'Alien' films By David Greven
Fears of a millennial masculinity: Scream's queer killers By David Greven (Scholarly site, unable to access original work, offers a way to request a full copy of the text in PDF)
Queer Subtext in Stephen King's It - Part 1: 'Reddie' Character Analysis By Rachel Brands Rachel is the very unfortunate lady who found out she was being stolen from because she supported Somerton through Patreon and saw one of his videos early with her writing--lacking any form of citation or credit
How 'It: Chapter Two' Leaves Richie Tozier Behind By Joelle Monique
When Horror Becomes Strength: Queer Armor in Stephen King's 'IT' By Alex London
Why Queer People Love Witchcraft By Amanda Kohr
'The Favourite' Queers The Past And The Present By Giorgi Plys-Garzotto
(Wuko) Crush (Mako x Wu) By MoonFlower on YouTube
5 Terrible Movies With Awesome Hidden Meanings By J.F. Sargent
The Radicalization of Sexuality: The Queer Casae of Jeffrey Dahmer By Ian Barnard
Netflix's 'Dahmer' backlash highlights ethical issues in the platform's obsession with true crime By Shivani Dubey
The Possible Disturbing Dissonance Between Hajime Isayama's Beliefs and Attack on Titan's Themes Original Article by "Seldom Musings" (Author has made all posts not related to Attack On Titan private and has retired from the blog)
Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan? By Gita Jackson
- - - - -
Darren Elliott-Smith Michaela Barton David Church Claire Sisco King Amanda Howell Jessica Roy
- - - - -
Telos announced and cancelled a film likely based on this book: The Final Girl Support Group - By Grady Hendrix
- - - - -
I refrained from including certain sources.
First off only focusing on Somerton's work.
Secondly not including anything that might be visible enough to not require amplifying their voice (I cannot speak for all of those I have found links to, but journalism is frequently a thankless job).
Thirdly any source that is of a nature that is antithetical to the very existence of the queer community, such as the right-leaning source that didn't make it into Somerton's video, but Harry was able to identify as a source he had considered using.
If you feel I have missed a mentioned source--or you know of a source from material that was not covered in Harry's video--please do not hesitate to reblog with added details.
- - - - -
We understand. You found paradise on Tumblr, you had a good blog, you made a good following. Cringe culture protected you and there were bandwagons of ironic memes. And you didn’t need a fandom like us. But, now you come to us and you say - “Once-ler Fandom, come back to keep out Twitter users.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call us A Fandom Where People Had Legit Fun And Weren’t Harming Anyone. Instead, you come into our tags on the ten year anniversary that Gentleman Onceler was to be married, and you ask us How Bad Can It Be.
When y’all talk about the AIDS epidemic and Reagan, please do not leave out black people. Like for real, there’s several popular posts that circulate around this site about the epidemic in the 80’s and none of them mention black people at all, which is really upsetting to me. Black communities were ravaged by aids in the 80’s just like gay communities were. They suffered along side each other. While Reagan celebrated the deaths of gay people, he was also celebrating the deaths of black people. AIDS was killing off the “welfare queens” that Reagan and other republicans were constantly harping on about. AIDS killing black people meant less dependency on the social programs that they loathed and wanted to get rid of. It was another thing that helped them keep us from gaining power while the CIA brought crack into our communities to weaken us. And till this day, black people are contracting HIV and AIDS at the highest rates.
Please stop leaving out black people when talking about AIDS and Reagan’s response to it.
Matt Walsh is just openly talking about killing trans people and our doctors and trump is campaigning on jailing us and banning transition and no cis people seem to give a shit
10000 tumblr sexymen are worth one tumblr weirdgirl. sorry
REblog if you are Asexual, support Asexuals, or spend most of your time actually thinking about Superheroes.
The first official step towards banning any and all LGBTQ+ art and literature has been taken.
This is what hypersexualizing queer topics was always leading towards. Expect this to be the signal flare that gets some state legislature barreling forward to enact this exact measure, solely so the bill can be struck down, challenged legally, then taken all the way to SCOTUS.
...
Repeating what I said on Twitter: This is a good time to remind people that just being LGBTQ in this moment in time can be considered an outright radical act, so anything less than going all-in on the life you want to lead is fucking pointless.
Put another way, if you're putting actual time and energy into respectability shit right now, do everyone *and* yourself a huge favor, and stop wasting your time.
You can't fucking negotiate with Christian Terrorists.