Gifs and ethnicity / "digital blackface", etc.

I mean the fact that there are white ppl in this thread falling over themselves to determine why it isn't problematic shows that some of us haven't learnt very much....?

:D

Thank God they have you to teach them and correct them when they’re wrong.
 
Anyway I think gifs are great. Multiculturalism is great. I don't think white people should only post gifs of white people.

It's all about intent. Obviously if a white person uses a gif of a POC as a way to demean them that's definitely not on.

I think emojis are a separate conversation.
 
I need to get more background on this RaspberrySwirl situation.

tumblr_olqo02svJo1qdth1ho1_400.gifv
 
Anyway I think gifs are great. Multiculturalism is great. I don't think white people should only post gifs of white people.

It's all about intent. Obviously if a white person uses a gif of a POC as a way to demean them that's definitely not on.

I think emojis are a separate conversation.

Sis, I loves you, but I don't think we can or should reduce stuff to 'white people should only...' This is about asking us to question how we use gifs and how often those gifs are of black people. I don't think it's anything more than that. If someone basically post nothing but black people in their gifs, maybe that's a problem?
 
Sis, I loves you, but I don't think we can or should reduce stuff to 'white people should only...' This is about asking us to question how we use gifs and how often those gifs are of black people. I don't think it's anything more than that. If someone basically post nothing but black people in their gifs, maybe that's a problem?
I was responding directly to Dub's internal monologue in the first post though, asking himself if he should only post gifs of white people.

As I said I think conversation around this is great but I don't think divisive language or thinking in general is. Because then you run the risk of disengaging well intentioned people.
 
I was responding directly to Dub's internal monologue in the first post though, asking himself if he should only post gifs of white people.

As I said I think conversation around this is great but I don't think divisive language or thinking in general is. Because then you run the risk of disengaging well intentioned people.

Yeah, I hear you. ❤️ My reservation with that is though, who gets to decide what is divisive? Even that is so often a bad faith label for a good faith conversation when a party is uncomfortable with self-examination.
 
There's just always this knee jerk response to any kind of discourse 'oh so we can't do this now' that is quite gammony tbh

But in this case it is an apt reaction. Not every ”gammony” response is wrong ... and your response is just as much of a knee jerk ditto as the above.
 
I think you'd be surprised at how often we (I'm talking v broadly) unconsciously choose gifs of black people to express our emotions, making some black people feel like they're once again reduced to entertainment/spectacle.
I think that Moopy is using very little gifs in general, probably less than anywhere else, so my understanding is that the issue is not about Moopy banning them at all as someone said, but more of a debate on a theoretical level as to whether gifs could be used with ill intentions associated with racial representation stereotypes.

Possibly yes, still i think that the most common cognitive process upon encountering a gif basically is a) do i identify the emotion b) do i think its relatable to whats been said and funny c) enjoy the gif or not.
 
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I think you'd be surprised at how often we (I'm talking v broadly) unconsciously choose gifs of black people to express our emotions, making some black people feel like they're once again reduced to entertainment/spectacle.

What a bleak and depressing way of interpreting things.
 
I have probably used them, but I have actually thought about this before. I suspect that I unconsciously used fewer since as a result.

Is it making fun of brown people or just simply using a relatable facial emotion, because we're all human?

Is a white person using only white people gifs, also a bit... racist?

I have no idea, I'm just thinking out loud.
I started mixing up using emoticons, so I didn't use exclusively white ones, because I also wondered if that was a bit racist.

But I'm a member of a Facebook group called Race Talk and this was discussed there, and the consensus very much was that white people should only use white emoticons.

I'd recommend the group to anyone who is interested in discussions like this.
 
(Also thank FUCK the guy in that gif was white. Not sure what I would have done otherwise)
 
But if that's how the concerned feel, does it make it invalid just because it seems depressing to the non-concerned?

No, the concerned is free to feel whatever they feel, but that doesn’t automatically make what they feel valid and applicable to everyone else.
 
It’s not bad per se because there is no intent to offend. But just consider that you haven’t thought about it deeply because you’re a white person and western technology has historically had ‘white’ defaults and we are shaped by that. It’s good to understand why.

Again, completely different to gifs.
This is true.

I guess I'm saying that I understand totally the need for it and get people using those that align with their skin tone, but am wondering if it's okay for a white person to reply with a different skin toned emoji for a smiley face once in a while.

But yes, different conversation.
 
This is a very interesting topic. As a big gif user and lover I don’t actually ever think about what race the person in my gifs are and just seek out what ones I find fit best to the subject matter, and personally find the funniest.
 
I do usually always go for female gifs, and am now also thinking am I dumbing down my own sex? Us girls just usually always have the best material Gif wise but am I also making a spectacle of my own gender and making females the butt of jokes by posting them?
 
I never think of races, racism and all that stuff, forget about emojis, I press any randomly and I never think if it's paler or not, I doubt any of my friends do either. Sometimes I don't even understand why the smallest things or comments online are seen as racist, I guess it's the intention more than anything else. I find some people online a bit obsessed about it, talking about it all the time, but I understand they have a complete different reality than mine, and I can't even imagine what they go through. That probably makes me sound like an ignorant, and maybe I am in some subjects given my culture. Some people here talk about (Catholic) religion all the time and I don't understand how that can be so important in their lives and it has to determine everything they do. I don't get it and I really don't want to.
 
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Does it depend on why you are sharing the GIF? If the reason you enjoy the GIF and want to share it is fundamentally because of its relation to black culture then perhaps it isn’t appropriate to share it. If the ethnicity isn’t relevant then perhaps it is OK. I am struggling to think of an example of what that would be. The other day I shared a GIF of Hyacinth Bucket going overboard - I enjoy that because of the farce of the situation - would it be problematic if Hyacinth was black, I am not so sure, whereas I don’t think I would feel comfortable sharing a GIF of a ‘sassy’ reaction of a woman of colour.

A thin end of the wedge example, granted.
 
No. I think that article is utterly ludicrous actually. Who apart from sociopaths would spend more than 5-10 seconds thought on a gif they used? The argument for racism is there and I can just about understand why black people would be offended…IF the gif was used in a racist way. Which is easy to spot, like the Twitter thread posted on here and those tags that happened last year.

There’s so many other things out there to really get angry about it. Cultural appropriation (THAT is a thing no matter how much white people say it isn’t), bleaching, darkening, artists like Iggy Azealea. I could go on and on. Leave GIFS alone.

justin timberlake GIF
 
I think you'd be surprised at how often we (I'm talking v broadly) unconsciously choose gifs of black people to express our emotions, making some black people feel like they're once again reduced to entertainment/spectacle.
I totally understand where you’re coming from. But to me this is so down the list of priorities.

I might care about this when people stop being racist to my face if that makes sense. I’m not about to start analysing gif use. I’m angry enough.
 
As usual I’m terrified of stepping into threads like this, especially after the last 12 hours, but I would say to those thinking we should just get rid of GIFs… that absolutely wouldn’t change things, because people would just go back to their text memes that were posted before, Whitney quotes and whatnot.

GIF use is (in the cases in question) just borrowing someone else’s reaction to express your own in a more widely understood way. If it wasn’t through pictures it would be through text, and WHOSE reaction you are choosing is the point of this thread, isn’t it?
 
I wonder if other forums do what we do though. Moopy is a majority white male forum, whose main interests (broadly speaking from the forums) have a heavy focus on female singers, Housewives and Drag Race, which include a lot of female and/or POC people. Is it to be expected that the GIFs would include them more?

if Haven allowed GIFs (I’m assuming they don’t), or some boring straight forum did, would their GIFs look the same?
 
I think this is a really interesting discussion, and I reserve the right to evolve and change my thoughts over the next few months/years from what I think RIGHT NOW:

Emojis: Within my friendship group at least it's absolutely an unwritten rule that you either use the colour of your skintone or the yellow default colour. I'm sure my black friends would absolutely classify a white person using a black skintone emoji a micro-agression, and would probably get even more annoyed that they are having to spend their time on pointing out WHY when it's really such an unnecessary discussion to spend your day having.

Gifs: I think it's all about context and frequency. I think white people sharing perfectly pitched gifs of black Housewives like Nene or Pheadra is perfectly fine if it makes sense in the discussion online. If you're a white gay that ONLY posts Nene Leake gifs, and uses them as a substitute for a personality, or to reinforce the stereotype of a sassy black woman (even under the banner of appreciation) I think it's a problem. (Using Housewives as an example here as they are one of the biggest sources of gifs both online, and on moopy).
I haven't noticed it really at all on moopy, but I do lurk on popjustice and I HAVE noticed there a lot of reaction gifs of often overweight, probably poor, black women shared as normality which really doesn't sit right with me. THAT SAID I don't know what ethnicity or gender the posters of that forum are, and I may just be assuming it's predominantly white gay men incorrectly.

Something in a similar vein that happened recently is that I attended a drag night. VERY EXCITING first drag show in 18 months or whatever etc etc, and one of the queens - a skinny white queen - did a lip sync to a live version of Whitney's All The Man That I Need and performed it straight as a full-on attempt at taking the crowd to church.
It felt...odd. I was with two black friends who also agreed it felt off to see a white queen attempt to perform as a gospel singer. We didn't really know what to make of it, and my black friends were more annoyed that they'd been confronted with having to have an opinion on it on their first night out in aeons.
I generally have no issue with white queens performing to black artists at all btw - Rihanna, Nicki, Beyonce are all drag staples. It was more a white queen mimicking what is so specifically a traditional black role that didn't really sit well. I don't know the answer as to if it was right or wrong, I just know it didn't feel right and if we were thinking it I'm sure others in the room felt that same also.
 

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