I think something very scary that is happening for the newer generation is that the invisible audience no longer exists. They’re not invisible, they’re right there, in their pocket all the time, and that is so physiologically damaging.
“he he ho ho elder millennial thinks technology is evil and Edison was a witch”
fucking no but don’t you remember in middle school when you were like “I’m horrible and everyone hates me” but you literally never had any evidence to back that up so you eventually grew out of it? Now imagine you had a little light box that people from all over the world could tell you that actually yeah they did hate you , and they could do it anonymously. Why do you think teens today are so fucking obsessed with cringe? Why do you think you haven’t seen a gen z horse girl? Like the audience isn’t invisible anymore and the kids have to perform form the second their born.
as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.
There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared.
Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually.
If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)
“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”
“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”
“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”
“Cool.”
It’s not hard.
You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.
It really boils down to three simple things:
Consent. Is the culture open to sharing this thing? (& don’t cheat by finding one person who consents while most of the culture disagrees.)
Context. If a culture is open to sharing a thing but it is a thing of great religious significance, take the time to learn what is a respectful way to treat the thing. Probably don’t use it as random decoration or sexualize it unless that’s what it’s for.
Credit. Give credit and if possible, buy from the original creators so the money goes where the credit should be.
This is really useful to me personally because I’ve definitely caught myself losing sight of what cultural appropriation actually is, and why it matters, so thank you, and everybody else pay attention too
