This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This is the popularity of ships in HP:
Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter (59398)
Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (38850)
Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy (23983)
James Potter/Lily Evans Potter (22265)
Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley (18572)
Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley (15385)
Harry Potter/Severus Snape (15320)
Regulus Black/James Potter (7394)
Hermione Granger/Severus Snape (7273)
Hermione Granger/Harry Potter (6807)
The majority is gay and I'd bet that most of the rest are very female. Men don't really conceive of Hermione/Draco relationships as being natural or plausible, let alone Hermione/Snape. Harry getting a harem of hot Slytherin girls is more plausible. Overall:
M/M (181841)
F/M (146346)
Other fandoms are considerably gayer. My Hero Academia for instance:
M/M (141877)
F/M (64209)
Marvel:
M/M (264404)
F/M (182454
Real Person fiction:
M/M (345459)
Gen (100487)
Kpop is even more homosexual than that, as you might expect. Even Minecraft somehow has 30,000 M/M stories and 7,000 F/M stories. I shudder to think of what's going on in there. I conclude that AO3 is a female dominated site, obsessed with male homosexuals.
I think a lot of those are also real person fiction, focusing on popular Minecraft streamers (such as Dream and the people he played with).
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, this is a fandom universal and has been for ages.
The most popular ship in the Star Wars fandom is Kylo Ren/Rey which is probably not surprising, everybody loves a broody bad boy. But by far second most popular is to ship Kylo Ren and Domhall Gleeson’s minor supporting villain Hux. It is many times more popular than say, Finn/Rey or Poe/Rey (that is, the female lead of the sequel trilogy and the male leads) with some 11,000 fics vs 2,000 or so for each of the latter two.
Another piece of fandom lore relates to Supernatural. The show was clearly meant to be a “guys’ show.” If you’re unfamiliar, it follows two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, who drive around the country killing monsters/ghosts/demons and sleeping with beautiful women. However the fandom it cultivated turned out to be overwhelmingly female. And for a while anyways, they overwhelmingly shipped the two brothers (‘Wincest’). The writers tried valiantly time and time again to introduce female love interests for the brothers only for each to suffer the vicious wrath of the fandom (sometimes up to harassing the actresses that played them) and be shortly written out one after the other.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link