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Has social justice become a problem in the Steven Universe fandom?

posted 9 years ago by retro4
11 replies | jump to latest

I think you all probably heard by now about zammii070, a deviantart artist who attempted suicide because she was harassed by SU fans over her "skinner" depiction of Rose. And if you haven't here couple Youtube videos which talks about story. v

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deVVU2K0Eo0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGlIAxbMJus

You can also visit her deviantart page. v

http://zamii070.deviantart.com/

Considering the amount of hate and harassment that resulted in someone attempting suicide it just seems some self-reflection is necessary. I know some of you may SU fans have a right to freedom of speech and shouldn't be held responsible. Even though I agree that the fans have right to say how they feel (no matter how stupid it is) but freedom of speech should be grounded certain standards. To harass someone over something this trivial should give someone with shred of common decency some pause. This internet mob mentality is bad enough but when you ideology on top of it makes the problem ten times worse. Which leads me to address 'social justice', an ideological phenomena that is spreading like a virus. It makes wonder whether fans of Steven Universe even like the show for the right reasons or if they only endorse the show because it punches an agenda. Maybe the SJWs should weeded out so that fans can truly appericate the show for what it is rather the show being used as ideological propaganda.

[–] Deadpool_vs_theLeprecorn 9 years ago

This is the first I've heard of it.

Has social justice become a problem in the Steven Universe fandom?

I honestly don't know. This site is the only place where I talk to other fans of the show, and they all seem pretty nice here. But all fandoms have their bad apples, it's best to just ignore them.

Personally, if I was in her shoes, I would start trolling the haters. Release images of an even skinnier Rose and then laugh at how these people blow up. You can't stop negative comments, so you might as well laugh at them.

[–] Lacey_10 9 years ago

That actually has been happening. In fact, I think race-bent and weight-bent SU art has become more popular since this whole controversy started. My favorite is a badly drawn picture of Garnet with a short blonde bob haircut. It reminded me of the singer Sia lol.

[–] loui_b452 9 years ago

There's a difference between Social Justice Warriors and Social Justice Terrorists.

SJWs do their best to promote and inspire progress. They argue in favor of equality and stand up to those who are trying to oppress others.

SJT complain for the sake of complaining. They look for any possible flaw and blow it out of proportion.

SJTs attacked this girl. True SJWs defended her right to have her own views.

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[–] Lacey_10 9 years ago

Ah yes, the "true" argument. You know that's a fallacy, right?

Those "SJTs" probably think they are the ones who are the "True SJWs".

[–] loui_b452 9 years ago

Those "SJTs" probably think they are the ones who are the "True SJWs".

Yes. Therein lies the problem. There needs to be a distinction between those who promote equality and those who just love being offended by any little thing. It's one thing to bring attention to offensive stereotypes in a show guilty of perpetuating them. It's a completely different animal to bully/threaten a content creator for something as petty as "I THINK THERE SHOULD BE MORE TRANS CHARACTERS IN YOUR SHOW!! I'M TRIGGERED!!!."

On one side, we have the rational individuals who understand that not everything should be taken so seriously and likewise not every battle is worth losing heads over. On the other, we have people who will go so far as to make threatening calls to someone's place of work because they were kinda offended by a random comment on a random site on a random day where a random trending topic on twitter had them triggered (this has happened, by the way. People like that have gotten others fired because they were offended by their My Little Pony fan art).

THIS is the difference between a social justice warrior and social justice terrorist. One is getting it right. The other is making it very difficult for the other to be taken seriously. There's a similar issue amongst feminists and feminazi. One fights for the equality of ALL genders (female, male and everything in between). The other hates men for God's knows why. Regardless, the end result is no one takes either side seriously...

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[–] Lacey_10 9 years ago

If you let the fans of a show ruin it for you, then you weren't a fan of the show to begin with.

But yeah, the SJW fans are nuts. But then again, they ruin everything.

[–] T-eschberger 9 years ago

It's irrational, but these f--kers have turned me off to watching the show. I've been meaning to get into forever, but then I read about this and it boils my blood so much I just want ignore the show completely because it'll remind me of the pure and unjustified hatred spewed at a girl for drawing pictures.

[–] Hemorrhage911 9 years ago

What do you expect? With a creator going out of her way to make her characters "sexless/genderless" - you attract SJWs. That topic is an easy way for SJWs to get off and show faux-outrage.

It comes with the territory, just block it out and watch the show.

[–] Salimyter 9 years ago

Wow, some people need to get a life. The art is good and I've seen much thinner versions of Rose drawn.

I do sympathize with the artist, although, as someone else said I probably would've just trolled the haters further by drawing a truly 'skinny' version of her or maybe a 'fat' Pearl. :P

[–] Listenupfives 9 years ago

Radicalists are a problem in just about every social/political movement; you don't decry the movement as a whole based on the actions of the extremists.

What happened to this girl is horrible, and I don't condone the actions of anyone involved, but every time a dialogue is made around this incident it always feels like we are unsure of how to dissect it. At the end of the day, a girl took to self-harm due to the actions of over-zealous fans who were unable to be mature about her art.

What we need to do now as a fandom is acknowledge this and take the necessary steps to ensure nothing like this ever happens again, because we can't control how people will interact with the property and we need to accept that our attempts to make criticism known are not synonymous with influencing and/or enacting change (and furthermore that when we make criticism, we are doing it for the right reasons). We need to create some distance between ourselves and our love of the show, because if we don't then we end up with things like this (and the Keystone Motel incident) and ultimately what that creates is the inability of the show to be taken seriously and to develop as an ongoing production. Our goal as a fandom should be to create the right kind of dialogue for this show, not this because we should be better than this.

And I think we can be, and that starts with recognising we are no better than any fandom that has come before us or will come after us.

[–] loui_b452 9 years ago

I agree with literally everything Anti_Stereotype_Girl wrote.

Let's not depreciate the image of the fandom and the movement of social justice just because a bunch of radicals lost their heads. Rather, let's support those who are getting it right. It's so easy to judge a group by its louder idiots. How about we try our best to drown them out with supportive discussion for both the fandom and what is or is not offensive.

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