I think this recent video from Strange Aeons on the tumblr mogai community is relevant to a lot of the discussions on labels I’ve seen here recently. It’s a 30 minute video, so I’ll summarize the key takeaways:
- Most of the ‘genz and their infinite genders’ discourse is referring to a group of teenagers on tumblr called the mogai community.
- The mogai community liked to create lots of labels. Most of these labels would never see any use and they were never really meant to, because it was mostly a sort of linguistic game for bored teenagers.
- Sometimes the mogai community were abrasive assholes because they were literal children.
- The anti-sjw era of shitty internet discourse often centered around pretending that this community was more widespread and serious than it actually was.
It is silly to pretend that an entire generation is summed up by the internet posts of a small group of teenagers. Millenials, especially, should know better, because y’all got the same shit from boomers with the participation trophy stereotype.
Just treat people with basic human dignity and respect. Peace, y’all.
In defense of the tumblr gender… everything. I didn’t really know that trans people existed until the “discourse”. To be fair, I was a pretty sheltered kid, but like… I had no idea it was even an option. At the time I did think it was “stupid” and had a short anti-sjw phase spurred on by r/TumblrInAction, but at the end of the day I became aware that trans people existed mostly because of kids on the internet and their genders. So thanks tumblr.
The same happened for me, the “anti-sjw” shit was my first introduction to gender expression and the idea of it made me uncomfortable and hostile.
Surprise surprise, I came out as trans some years later. Who woulda thought that queerphobia is usually spurred on by heavily closeted queers :p
Yeah, my experience was essentially the same: self loathing turned outwards. I wonder just how many trans folk are former transphobes…