tempus fugit

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.

Three questions.

a) Why are you all writing about mental illness?

b) Why are the vast majority of you getting it so so WRONG?

c) Have you people considered researching these topics before you write about them? Pretty pretty please? I mean, these resources exist. Trust me. Just go to the library. Hell, go to Google.

I really want to post a "Mental Illness: How To Do It RIGHT" kind of rant sometime soon, because if I have to read one more wangsty suicidal teen or one more horribly-done psychotic viewpoint character, I'm going to put my FOOT in someone's FACE.

I get touchy about this stuff.

*rant mode: ON*

There seems to be a disturbing consensus regarding Ashe among some FFXII fans I've talked to recently.

That consensus is, more or less, "What an emasculating bitch." I've also heard "the princess of PMS" and other equally flattering terms.

There's nothing wrong with disliking a character, obviously -- some characters just don't appeal to some people, and that's fine. But the language their dislike is couched in...well, it reeks of misogyny, honestly. And that ticks me off.

( Cut for rambly meta )

I don't know. I might be getting ridiculously oversensitive. Any thoughts from you guys?