InsaneJournal

Current mood:

infuriated

AmazonFail, and why it's important.
By now, I think everyone's heard of Amazon's rather spectacular fail.

My initial anger has subsided somewhat. Somewhat. I am calm enough to actually make this post instead of sitting in front of my computer sputtering in outrage. Do I think there's a culture of homophobia at Amazon? Not necessarily. Dear Author offers a plausible hypothesis, as does Making Light, though I have a caveat about their post -- they are correct in that Amazon likely did not intend to alienate a significant portion of their customer base with this policy (though they certainly have by now), and that they likely initiated it in an attempt not to offend anyone -- but their definition of offensive ended up reflecting some really ugly truths about the way our culture sees things. Intentional? Maybe not, but they fucked up bigtime, and I want to see big old apology before I'm liable to give them any kind of benefit of the doubt here. (Also, this quote: "“GAY CONTENT IS ADULT??!! RAPE SURVIVOR CONTENT IS ADULT?!!?? HOW DARE YOU AMAZON RARARGH INTERNET RAGE!” responded the masses. " Yeah. Way to portray this as some kind of herdlike mass hysteria. Way to de-legitimize the hurt and anger people are feeling here. Seriously, did Making Light learn nothing from Racefail?)

Do I think this is yet another fucking example of a culture of homophobia at work in the larger sphere, in which I and others who identify as queer constantly find ourselves relegated to the periphery and told that our experiences and voices aren't relevant to the culture as a whole?

Hell fucking yes.

So no, I won't be buying from Amazon for a good long while. As a consumer, I have the right to buy from a company who fucking respects me.

Thus: Amazon Rank. Because making a big fuss about this is how we expose the deep and persistent ugliness at the heart of Amazonfail, something that goes beyond one company's policy.

I was going to tack a meme or something onto the end of this post, but no, I'm letting it stand as it is.