'you are not immune to propaganda' is true but sometimes the way people deploy this particular soundbite reveals a complete unwillingness to attribute any agency or ideology to people who espouse some pretty heinous bigotry.

like there was a post going around recently talking about people whose parents became increasingly radicalized by fox news and it had one of those tumblr style comments on it along the lines of "REMEMBER! THIS COULD BE YOU! You are not immune to propaganda either. STAY VIGILANT" and the implication here is always that right wing radicalization is something that somehow happens to otherwise pleasant people without their consent or knowledge. But perhaps some of you guys just need to grapple with the fact that your parents might be more bigoted and reactionary than you want to believe.

nobody is immune to bad information ecosystems or groupthink or poor science or anything else that makes radicalization possible, but i do think the idea that anyone is just a bad news pipeline away from supporting white supremacy does a lot to let white supremacists off the hook. it's the same kind of line of thought that gets people to talk about how bad things in fiction shouldn't be 'romanticized'. its a kind of worldview that operates under the implicit belief that a human being is a vessel being uncritically filled with whatever you pour into it and does nothing to grapple with what the actual appeal of these far right talking points is to the sort of otherwise ""normal"" seeming people that can be sold on them.

vodun day, 2020 benin. julio sacristan

Each scar, every drop of blood I will feel forever, but now it's my moment in the sun.

My favourite part of writing professional emails is sending them and immediately running over to my "sent" folder to check I did in fact write "Yeah, I can make a 3 PM meeting" and not "I think you're a big stupid piece of shit and I fucked your wife" somehow

November 2023 — January 2025

Honestly I tried to get into Dora the explora but like media is supposed to be escapism for me and she keeps like asking me like wheres this wheres that and tbh its actually really stressful. Im not dealing with that

been stewing on an analytical approach to fiction which I call "is this book afraid of me?" and in order to answer this question you determine how hard the book is trying to make sure you don't come after the writer on twitter

the fucked-up part is that I specifically notice this in like, BIPOC or queer romances because their authors a) are more likely to be harassed online b) tend to care about writing inclusive and intersectional books more, both of which are totally valid reasons, but unfortunately a book that is scared to be misunderstood is also scared to challenge the reader or allow for too much nuance or grey areas or character flaws and I am sorry to say that it often makes for less compelling stories because it means shying away from ambiguities and complexities in an effort to reassure me, the reader, that everyone here is a Good Person engaging in Healthy Behaviours and Relationships

Artem Rohovyi (Ukrainian, 1988) - Symphony of Branches

gouache on paper