I didn't wanna get involved because god damn that was a massive thread, but it does get me thinking: does fictional media have any influence in the things that people do?
I say yes, if only because the left has been programmed through the Long March through both fictional and nonfictional media, hundreds of shows, etc, and the impact of fictional media on people should be quite obvious, considering we boycott shows for being woke and whatnot, but I guess what I’m trying to ask is how much of an influence is it, and is it worth regulating, why or why not?
I know people on both aspects of that whole loli debate, I know people who like lolis that have had to report people to the cops for pedo shit, and I know a loli lover who admitted to “guiding” someone through their transition, so I can’t say that I really have my own opinion on it tbh, I just think that the issue is gonna come up at some point because if society ever does come back to normal, we’re gonna have to deal with “the people who were trying to enduce my child into transitioning watch these weird Japanese cartoons and the weird Japanese cartoons have depictions of young kids in sexual situations”.
/u/Steampunk_Moustache actually brought up something that I honestly never thought about, and well, maybe they can explain it better here than in that chaotic mess of a thread. What exactly makes art so different? Like it was mentioned several times that anime characters look nothing like actual people (which very much depends on the anime and is not a universal thing), but imo, a human is still a human, so does that matter that much? Like I can go on Twitter or Insta and go searching for a few hundred cosplay girls that either naturally have anime girl bodies or got work done for it, but is it just the literal art styles you’re talking about? I’m gonna stop rambling and let this thread be the thread, as I wanna see this discussion.
When your fetish gets past your browsing history and becomes part of your identity or something people you don't have sex with know about you, it is clear that you're fucked up mentally. People these days have ever thinning walls in their mind separating fiction from reality.
The loli debate usually goes that bad IF it's not approached directly. I have noticed on a post I did in the past, an Archcast I watched discussing it and even here that if you address it directly, it does keep out the bad faith ones that just scream pedo at you than trying to discuss the topic.
Now on your first point, does fictional media affect people, yes. It can be inspirational, a form or escapism but more importantly it can be used to explore real life issues with the safety net of being fictional. If the material relates to you on a personal level it can be a form of catharsis for the individual which they can easily disengage from if it begins to be distressing by falling back on it being fictional. An example of this is the Rebuild of Evangelion films as it can easily be taken as giant robots fighting monsters but if you've ever suffered from depression, the themes and story REALLY connects to you. Both elements of the right and left cannot understand this safety net which is why fictional content gets attacked from both sides of the political spectrum.
This is why the left's involvement in fiction is so destructive, they are removing the safety net fictional content had to make it 'more relatable to them'. Without it, their version of fiction becomes nothing more than an infomercial on 'why the left is right'. As for regulation, it should not be regulated and it's dangerous to allow any government to do so. It's self regulated thanks to the markets as we see currently, western fiction that is ideologically contaminated is losing consumers while Asian, mostly Japanese fiction is becoming more an more popular. The market itself age gates it's content because why would it want to give kids adult material they can't fully understand when they can give them age appropriate content they'll want to tell their parents to buy merchandise of.
Porn is not art.
Keep degeneracy out of the public sphere.
Kids do not belong in sexual situations, even in fiction, because the idea grosses anyone who isn't a specifically awful kind of degenerate.
AI is going to make these questions irrelevant - very soon perverts will have access to infinite filth limited only by their own imagination, all without needing to access a networked system.
Video games are not art.
Keep violence out of the public sphere.
Kids do not belong in violent situations, even in fiction, because the idea grosses anyone who isn't a specifically awful kind of degenerate.
Aw shit, here we go again. Look, I don't like porn, but it's pretty hard to detach it from speech/art/expression, which all are and should be protected. Drawn art is an especially easy example, since it's even more fictional. If I draw a sexy woman in clothes, is that fine? Not degenerate? Art? Now, if I draw her without clothes? Porn? Degenerate? Not art? And what if I do it in a classical style, like older masterpieces? Porn/degenerate/art? Where's the line? "You'll know it when you see it?" Okay, now say I draw this sexy woman with smaller tits? With clothes, without clothes? Porn/degenerate/art/you know the deal? The line, where it is?
Also, speaking of degeneracy laws, how is that any different than hate speech laws? "I believe in free speech, but this thing I don't like should be outlawed." No. Free speech exists to defend "bad" speech. Deal with it.
Plenty of shit grosses out normal people, and should. Plenty of that is also still protected, and should be. "It's gross" is nonsense rational and, honestly, something you see a lot more from the modern left. It can be gross, and still be legal, and deserving of protection.
Porn is art. For better or worse.
Porn is not art. Porn is maximum exploitation of aesthetics intended to get someone off, and you can rhapsodize all you want on the question but nobody has trouble telling it apart from art.
Is the depiction of the sexy woman (with or without clothing) intended to express some type of thought or is the final point of the piece to titillate? Faye in Cowboy Bebop = not porn. Game of Thrones = not porn. Porn parodies = porn. Etc.
Obscenity has NEVER been constitutionally protected speech. Anywhere, ever. This idea that distributing hardcore porn is somehow a free speech issue is just something our increasingly softheaded culture has invented over the last few decades.
A more complex question is when does IG modeling become softcore porn and why we allow kids to access that.
What about something like the webcomic Oglaf? Some of it strikes me as pure porn/degeneracy, but some of it is also clever, genre-savy fantasy humor. I think it straddles the line a bit, and I’m sure it’s not the only thing that does.
I’m not unwilling to hear a “porn should be banned” argument, but I think you’re implying there are never examples that are hard to categorize as free of merit beyond titillation, and that just isn’t true.
The nudity and sex in Olgaf is often completely incidental to the structure of the comic. It's porn. I'll give you it is a very weird mashup of porn and funny jokes that could only be born in the webcomic era (the porn is like visual Tourette's, it would be much better without), but that's what it is. Same thing with infamous porn anime like Demonbane.
I think it's harder to characterize something like Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac, but in the end, despite the explicit depiction of sex, that falls under art as it is clearly using the sex as a means to communicate something. I don't think it's very valuable but it is art nonetheless.
I mean, if you're already mentally ill and unable to distinguish reality from fiction, sure. However, if you've made the effort to touch grass at some point in your life, chances are you're able to understand the painting Saturn Devouring His Son is just that. A painting.
If you're so fucking worried about the effects that media have on someones development, here's an idea: be a fucking parent and make sure your child grows up with the desire to understand art beyond the surface level. But that requires doing more than handing your child a fucking tablet to stare into for several hours of the day.
Also, some of the people here are no better than the people they mock. Of course, when you point this out, they're quick to give excuses (not reasons, but excuses) why it's totally different.
What was most interesting to me wasnt the topic itself, but rather the environment it arose in. This topic has been a point of friction among the non-leftisfs for some time and I imagine it'll continue to be so.
It doesn't help that we're more united by virtue of being against something, namely the wokeists; than being for any one particular thing. I've seen others on dissident spaces toss about the term positive vision" and I suppose that's as good enough a phrase as any. One visible conflict is between the Christians and neo-pagans(?). Another between the classical liberals and post-liberals. Still another between the terfs and everyone else. Still more elude my memory right now.
The in-fighting on the wokeist sides is amusing to watch but we're not free from it either and we have much less room for it. They have the capital, organizational robustness, and elite support to have their interfactional spats while still achieving their broad coalitional goals.
Perhaps such fraying is inevitable but I would like to see our coalition, such as it is, not split apart at such an early juncture.
Yup, my feelings exactly. I wasn't even going to mention the word, but you already did so...the "loli" debate always gets people on both sides worked up big time, everyone is calling everyone a pedo, and it gets weirder and less pleasant from there. Didn't feel like getting involved this time.
As to your question...to some extent? I think it mostly depends on the person, though. There are people who will be influenced big time by anything that can touch them, and there are people who won't really be influenced by things much at all. So, the more widespread or mainstream something is, the more people it's going to affect. So in that sense, sure, there's some concern. But I think the bigger concern is the people who get affected, as they likely would have been affected by something else anyway.
It's just like with blaming guns, video games, religion, etc. The issue always comes down to that person. No one has shot up a school because of guns or video games or religion, even if they themselves say so. With rounding, 100% of the people who play violent video games never kill anyone, for example. You could play shooters for eight hours a day for weeks (wouldn't recommend, though) and, well, you'd probably get pretty fucking loopy. But you're not going to go out and kill a bunch of people...unless you were already very twisted to begin with.
So, it's really complicated? Does media influence people? Absolutely. It wouldn't even exist if it didn't; the whole point is to have an impact on you to some extent. But it's generally only going to influence people to an unhealthy degree who were already unhealthy.
At least that's my take.
To be clear: accusing someone of being a pedo because they object to illustrations of child pornography is 100% retarded.
The only reason people are doing this (which I don’t agree with but I get why because of that) is because of the whole “reset the clock” thing where a bunch of male feminists and anti-loli people got caught being predators.
I'm for free speech. But:
OUT OF SHADOWS: how the mainstream media & Hollywood manipulate & control the masses by spreading propaganda throughout their content.
https://www.outofshadows.org/
The INFOWAR for your mind is real. When consuming media, be aware of the underlying message and world view being communicated. When you are aware and able to spot it, you retain control.
I don't come on here for one day and I miss the biggest thread in months.
Just be terminally online like all the cool kids.
I was surprised by how polarized the issue is around here. If I make an anti-porn comment around here (and I have before), I would mostly receive upvotes, but if I make an anti-loli comment, exactly 50% of the people lose their shit.
Only if parents fail to instil the ability to differentiate between fiction, reality, depiction and endorsement.