The difference between “woke” and something that happens to be diverse but isn’t driven by it is the intention/quality. If ALL you can say about a book/movie/whatever is that it’s diverse, and that’s your only selling point, then it’s garbage. And regardless of whatever “message” you’re trying to get across in the medium, if you have to literally spell it out like a bad slogan, then the quality/writing for it is bad.
Warning: Rant incoming
When I watched Miss Marvel for example, the instant she says, “But it’s not the brown girls from Queens who save the world” or something, I was like wow, for real? You’re brown? This is Queens? Goodness, I must not have eyes! I must not be paying attention you know because I can SEE that this is Queens and that you are brown because you’ve already provided all the bread crumbs but you know, just in case the audience is just that dumb, let’s just spell out our intentions, shall we?
You can write about racism, bias, prejudice whatever, and do it in a way where there is quality and intention in the work. That’s not what’s happening now. If anything, as a minority myself, we should be insulted by the shallow ways Hollywood/“white people” have tried to “appease” our real world issues by simplifying them to something completely useless to us like a change in pancake syrup branding.
It’s like, the world is a playground. Every time you go to this playground, some kids have dibs on the best slides and hog up the swings. Sometimes you get bullied. And so you keep shouting for someone to change it. For years. And some day, some one literally pats your head, hands you a lollipop and goes, “There, all better now? Do you feel better now that you feel like someone cares?” But the lollipop is a distraction. It does not solve the root issue. You still can’t get to the swings or not as easily as some others, and even if you do, you don’t want access out of pity, you just want to be respected as a human being.
That’s what things like the new Little Mermaid gets wrong. Cool. Representation. But what does that representation DO to change actual lives? Same as Aunt Jemima Syrup. Nothing. And to top it off, most of the time we’re getting fed what “should” be offensive, it’s “white people” telling us what to be offended by? It’s crazy! Just read about how they want to change bird species names because whoever discovered these species had racist roots. Do you truly think that when I was on food stamps, medicaid, living paycheck to paycheck because the hipsters from the city were gentrifying our “ghetto” and making rents impossible and pushing us out, that I was thinking about the roots of bird names?!
This is where we’re at today. And everyone that falls for the gimmicks, they’re distracted by the lollipops. They’re empty gestures. These companies that pander, they don’t care about you or your issues. If they did, they’d be making a bigger and more significant impact than just, “oh look guys, our characters are diverse, aren’t you happy?”
I cannot. Is asking for quality stuff too much to ask for these days? Apparently it is. An example of diversity plus good quality? House of the Dragon. Yeah, they race swapped an entire blood line that was not canon, and at first, I hesitated but when I watched the show, holy shit, it was amazing. You didn’t even care that they race swapped this whole family. Sure, it’s still stupid because that wasn’t the original source material but dang, at least they were faithful enough to the IP that even the author himself was like, man, this show really pulled it off.
I don’t even know what to read anymore. Everything is pandering. Might be a good time to read Indie books or classics I never got into.
When I do manage to get to the editing stage, my issue is how can and will I be able to tell what needs to change and what stays.
Me and editing/revising have a problem, because I simply don’t know what the hell I am doing.
Aww, man, me and you are both dealing with our ADHD.
Geez! Time to board the struggle bus together.
Beta or alpha readers will at first help with that.
If only I had the money to get both, sadly I do not have the money for it.
Unless they have the free ones that are just as good as the priced ones, then sure.
Even moderate ones who trade a bit of reading can give you pointers.
That’s interesting to know, yet I don’t know if I can do that since I am not the person to go to for helping others in situations like that.
Aww, man, I wish I could afford something towards making my author dreams come true.
I shall get there eventually.
I have no idea what I’m doing either. I think when you edit, it’s best to try, which is hard with ADHD but try lol to focus on one aspect of editing at a time. So don’t try to re-write a second draft, correct spelling, check for loopholes etc at the same time. That’s tough for me because my natural instinct is to edit/polish up the words a bit. Like I can’t NOT edit at least once even in a first draft. The only time I don’t care is fanfiction.
I’ve found that at least on the grammar/spelling side, Gammerly has been super helpful. I have it active in my writing program. I also occasionally use Chat GPT for synonym help. Don’t put chunks of your writing there though. That’s how AI steals your stuff haha
Im not as cinsistent, but Im breaki g some of this down, too.
My nerves gets grated when I see incorrect spelling and grammar in the first draft. It irks me because the red line makes it glaring and not only that when I reread my work, by god, my rage comes by noticing the horrible spelling and other grammar issues. I hate it! LOL!
We are birds of a feather, aren’t we? LOL!
I used to have Grammarly, but I got rid of it a while ago.
So, I do need to probably get it back when I have the funds for it.
I decided to share some of my poetry on IG. Specifically, some of my darker poetry because I’m contemplating a dark poetry collection.
Here’s one of them for Wacky early peeking These are not the full poems. Just snippets.
Yeah, this is what I was doing today instead of NaNo
Bah! I need to do something writing related because my distractions are all over the place.
annoyed sigh Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day and Friday as well.
Yes, this! It’s like screaming, “Fix me now!” The worst part is when the word is correct but for some reason the document isn’t registering it and it stays red. Then I’m over here googling it like I KNOW this is a word and it is, but
Grammerly is free? Or at least whatever I’m using is. Grammerly Desktop?
“If I tell you a secret,
and I tell you to keep it…”
Syllable count matching in those two lines and rhyme despite that secret is one word, and keep it is two – chef’s kiss.
I’m so aggravated and annoyed atm
I honestly agree. I don’t have much to add to this.
The lollipops are distractions, and they’re causing people more harm than good. People are gonna get sick sooner or later from them.
Yep. I am the same way with music, to be honest. Most mainstream music is becoming blergh. I’m either looking at alternative artists or (re)discovering the classics.
Speaking of classics, another thing that irks me is modern retellings of classics. Most of them anyway. They’re just rewritten for the sake of it without any thought as to why the original was popular. They think by changing a few things, people will like it. It doesn’t work like that.