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*hums theme song*
Feb. 17th, 2012 06:00 amSo huge, huge, HUGE update on my Sims blog today. All the cast pages are done and two posts! One is an enormous picspam and the other just minor details about the game itself. I also added something in the "THE HELL IS THIS!?" page for anyone who cares. :D
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As for the actual post? Welp, it's that time again. The time to rant about gender roles. Now I'm not a feminist...or at least, I don't think I am. I'm all for rights for women and such, but I've never been a person who liked using concrete terms to describe a person, including myself. I'll use them if I have to, or if the situation is far too odd without it, but I figure in my own terms like a personal blog and such, I don't have to use it. For example, if you immediately held down CTRL + F and searched for "Brony" you will find one result, the one on this post. P: I don't use the term at all because I simply don't like such terms. Their definitions can change or be different depending on someone's opinions. An ignorant person might imagine a feminist as someone who has double standards and only wants "rights" or in their minds, "privileges" over the male sex which would be very wrong.
So this post isn't the usual "females in this fandom seem one-dimensional!" kind of jargon. Rather I'm going to discuss my friends or why I believe I have far more male friends than female. I don't think it's a coincidence. I'm pretty sure most group of friends tend to be populated by a single sex, possibly one member of the other but otherwise it's cliques of guys and cliques of girls. Obviously I'm not the best person to use an example for this, considering my track record of friends...but I can at least explain how I see it from my experience!
First off I've noticed a majority of my female friends (all of them) into MLP like the more feminine of the characters. This is obviously not surprising, being female and enjoying more feminine characters. After all, you generally like who you identify with the most and I don't have any jock friends who could like AJ or RD. I bet that's why Twilight is so popular because the majority of the periphery demographic happen to be nerds. I'm probably oversimplifying everything here, but for the sake of the rant let's continue. On the other hand, that doesn't mean every female's favourite character will be Rarity and granted there are tons of reasons to like Rarity. She does get the most quality of episodes, has a splendid voice actress, and her character is a great subversion of the shallow fashion-obsessed female seen far too much in the media. What is not to like?
...maybe I'm whining a bit here, but whenever my favourite character comes into play I have yet to find a fan who enjoys her character at least as half as much as I do, that being Pinkie Pie. Of course I don't have too many friends into MLP and most of them who do aren't major fans like I, but I know Pinkie is a pretty popular character. Is she only popular with the more immature viewers, of children or those who enjoy her humour so much that they prefer her over characters with "depth" like Rarity? Am I immature for liking her? Well, shoehorning myself or anyone else into a single category is unfair, but time and time again I keep finding ways to slot myself into a minority. Trying to find a way to share interests with existing friends is hard when your opinions of said interest are always different. The greatest thing I hate is being so enthusiastic for something only to be responded with disinterest. It's like going up to your best friend on the streets with the most tricked out car you've ever seen and their response? "Eh, I've seen better".
Well thank you for deflating all of my enthusiasm. You can discard this popped balloon into the trash now.
It isn't their fault. Changing opinions simply isn't an option, or at least isn't easy and a lot of people have gone through their lives developing their own viewpoints that it's unreasonable to always expect them to be amazed at the same things you are. Still, that feeling of sharing girly squeals over the same thing is a feeling that is hard to replace. I'm probably as aloof towards other people's interests similar to how they act to me, but it can't hurt to want, can it? The problem with thinking that I'm in the minority so much, even when I share the favourite character so many others have, is that somehow I'm still in the minority. I think I need new friends, ones with similar interests to add to my current ones. But that is a difficult feat indeed, to find new friends..so used to the current ones I have now. "I love this movie!" "That movie was okay." "This song is brilliant!" "I hate that genre." "This episode was fucking amazing!" "Low-tier episode for me." "PONIES!" "You're a freak." "That was an awesome restaurant!" "Seafood is evil." "SHE WEARS SHORTS!" "Who gives a damn about such a forgettable one-time boss?"
My so-called rant about gender-issues was just a poor disguised rant about...well, cynicism I guess. (I don't really have strong feelings about gender issues anyway, unfortunately... I think I should?) Maybe that's why I enjoy such happy characters...because they're so rare in real life? People are always so negative, cynical, pessimistic...and I want to feel joy, but my joy is always sucked away. I need a friend who also revels in joy. I've assigned so many pony names to people in Ventrilo, to actual people in real life, but I've never assigned anyone Pinkie Pie. No one is happy enough. The world sucks and is doomed. There's no point because humanity is stupid and a lost cause...why be happy when there is no reason to? Why be negative when it just makes everything worse?
I don't know. Perhaps my standards of everything is too low, perhaps I am seen as naive and innocent by many people that I don't understand how terrible the world can be and so haven't conformed to that cynical, depressed personality everyone else has. Maybe I'm in denial?
Smile, Smile, Smile, you better be in episode 18.
----
As for the actual post? Welp, it's that time again. The time to rant about gender roles. Now I'm not a feminist...or at least, I don't think I am. I'm all for rights for women and such, but I've never been a person who liked using concrete terms to describe a person, including myself. I'll use them if I have to, or if the situation is far too odd without it, but I figure in my own terms like a personal blog and such, I don't have to use it. For example, if you immediately held down CTRL + F and searched for "Brony" you will find one result, the one on this post. P: I don't use the term at all because I simply don't like such terms. Their definitions can change or be different depending on someone's opinions. An ignorant person might imagine a feminist as someone who has double standards and only wants "rights" or in their minds, "privileges" over the male sex which would be very wrong.
So this post isn't the usual "females in this fandom seem one-dimensional!" kind of jargon. Rather I'm going to discuss my friends or why I believe I have far more male friends than female. I don't think it's a coincidence. I'm pretty sure most group of friends tend to be populated by a single sex, possibly one member of the other but otherwise it's cliques of guys and cliques of girls. Obviously I'm not the best person to use an example for this, considering my track record of friends...but I can at least explain how I see it from my experience!
First off I've noticed a majority of my female friends (all of them) into MLP like the more feminine of the characters. This is obviously not surprising, being female and enjoying more feminine characters. After all, you generally like who you identify with the most and I don't have any jock friends who could like AJ or RD. I bet that's why Twilight is so popular because the majority of the periphery demographic happen to be nerds. I'm probably oversimplifying everything here, but for the sake of the rant let's continue. On the other hand, that doesn't mean every female's favourite character will be Rarity and granted there are tons of reasons to like Rarity. She does get the most quality of episodes, has a splendid voice actress, and her character is a great subversion of the shallow fashion-obsessed female seen far too much in the media. What is not to like?
...maybe I'm whining a bit here, but whenever my favourite character comes into play I have yet to find a fan who enjoys her character at least as half as much as I do, that being Pinkie Pie. Of course I don't have too many friends into MLP and most of them who do aren't major fans like I, but I know Pinkie is a pretty popular character. Is she only popular with the more immature viewers, of children or those who enjoy her humour so much that they prefer her over characters with "depth" like Rarity? Am I immature for liking her? Well, shoehorning myself or anyone else into a single category is unfair, but time and time again I keep finding ways to slot myself into a minority. Trying to find a way to share interests with existing friends is hard when your opinions of said interest are always different. The greatest thing I hate is being so enthusiastic for something only to be responded with disinterest. It's like going up to your best friend on the streets with the most tricked out car you've ever seen and their response? "Eh, I've seen better".
Well thank you for deflating all of my enthusiasm. You can discard this popped balloon into the trash now.
It isn't their fault. Changing opinions simply isn't an option, or at least isn't easy and a lot of people have gone through their lives developing their own viewpoints that it's unreasonable to always expect them to be amazed at the same things you are. Still, that feeling of sharing girly squeals over the same thing is a feeling that is hard to replace. I'm probably as aloof towards other people's interests similar to how they act to me, but it can't hurt to want, can it? The problem with thinking that I'm in the minority so much, even when I share the favourite character so many others have, is that somehow I'm still in the minority. I think I need new friends, ones with similar interests to add to my current ones. But that is a difficult feat indeed, to find new friends..so used to the current ones I have now. "I love this movie!" "That movie was okay." "This song is brilliant!" "I hate that genre." "This episode was fucking amazing!" "Low-tier episode for me." "PONIES!" "You're a freak." "That was an awesome restaurant!" "Seafood is evil." "SHE WEARS SHORTS!" "Who gives a damn about such a forgettable one-time boss?"
My so-called rant about gender-issues was just a poor disguised rant about...well, cynicism I guess. (I don't really have strong feelings about gender issues anyway, unfortunately... I think I should?) Maybe that's why I enjoy such happy characters...because they're so rare in real life? People are always so negative, cynical, pessimistic...and I want to feel joy, but my joy is always sucked away. I need a friend who also revels in joy. I've assigned so many pony names to people in Ventrilo, to actual people in real life, but I've never assigned anyone Pinkie Pie. No one is happy enough. The world sucks and is doomed. There's no point because humanity is stupid and a lost cause...why be happy when there is no reason to? Why be negative when it just makes everything worse?
I don't know. Perhaps my standards of everything is too low, perhaps I am seen as naive and innocent by many people that I don't understand how terrible the world can be and so haven't conformed to that cynical, depressed personality everyone else has. Maybe I'm in denial?
Smile, Smile, Smile, you better be in episode 18.
