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Aug. 21st, 2018 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rogueslayer452++ Both Crazy Rich Asians and To All The Boys I Loved Before are Asian-led, with the former being an all-Asian cast, films (on the big screen and Netflix, respectively) that have gained a lot of positive reception from audiences and critics alike. Both have succeeded in charming audiences with being adorable and hilarious romantic comedies, something that we haven't had in recent years since the genre itself has dwindled significantly in light of superhero and action films dominating the box office. It also proves once again that representation absolutely matters, and that it is successful. But it's absolutely disgusting knowing that production companies still wanted to whitewash these projects. Ugh. I'm glad the creators stood their ground and didn't give in.
There isn't much Asian representation in Western media to begin with, the Asian-American experience in particular. We need more of this kind of exposure, which hopefully will get more stories out there that focus on other aspects of different Asian cultures, without erasing/whitewashing or any of that offensive nonsense.
++ Lately, I've been watching a bunch of booktube videos. Not any one person specifically, just randomly searching things. I don't quite know how it started, I think there was a video recommendation of someone reviewing a book that I watched and I just continued going down the rabbit hole. It's very fascinating since it is a different side of YouTube that I wasn't that familiar with, since I do watch a lot of YouTubers but most of them are entertainers in some form. This is just a book community on YouTube talking about, well, books. Though it's interesting, after watching a number of different booktube videos specifically reviewing or talking about YA™ I'm realizing that it's not my preferred genre. Don't get me wrong, I've read books that have been categorized as young adult throughout the years (as seen in this brief but fantastic video discussing the evolution of young adult fiction), but the recent YA™ subgenre that has exploded in the market lately is completely different and while it's not to say that I won't read it if it captures my interest since I'm definitely not dismissing the entirety of YA as a whole, it's just not something I normally gravitate towards. My personal reading preferences tend to lean more towards horror/suspense, mystery/crime thrillers, with some science fiction and gothic literature added in.
There isn't much Asian representation in Western media to begin with, the Asian-American experience in particular. We need more of this kind of exposure, which hopefully will get more stories out there that focus on other aspects of different Asian cultures, without erasing/whitewashing or any of that offensive nonsense.
++ Lately, I've been watching a bunch of booktube videos. Not any one person specifically, just randomly searching things. I don't quite know how it started, I think there was a video recommendation of someone reviewing a book that I watched and I just continued going down the rabbit hole. It's very fascinating since it is a different side of YouTube that I wasn't that familiar with, since I do watch a lot of YouTubers but most of them are entertainers in some form. This is just a book community on YouTube talking about, well, books. Though it's interesting, after watching a number of different booktube videos specifically reviewing or talking about YA™ I'm realizing that it's not my preferred genre. Don't get me wrong, I've read books that have been categorized as young adult throughout the years (as seen in this brief but fantastic video discussing the evolution of young adult fiction), but the recent YA™ subgenre that has exploded in the market lately is completely different and while it's not to say that I won't read it if it captures my interest since I'm definitely not dismissing the entirety of YA as a whole, it's just not something I normally gravitate towards. My personal reading preferences tend to lean more towards horror/suspense, mystery/crime thrillers, with some science fiction and gothic literature added in.
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Date: 2018-08-29 05:00 am (UTC)In my opinion, fandom culture on both LJ and Tumblr are the same level of fuckery but the difference is...everyone is on Tumblr now spouting they bullshit rather than on LJ lmao.
Oh yeah, I definitely don't have rose-colored glasses concerning how fandom was on LJ, believe me. I remember all the wank and drama that occurred here on the regular over the years, and it wasn't pretty. Wherever fandom goes the wanks go with it, and Tumblr is no exception to that, despite it being in another platform which is formatted differently with how people interact with one another. It's just the same shit we've dealt with before, just dressed differently.
And you're so right about how people act over there, and it's one of my main major annoyances because everyone has to be "woke" about everything all the time, also this whole purity culture where people play morality police thinking that everything you consume in media has to be 100% progressive and pure or else it's "problematic" and if you still like said thing then you're automatically trash, and it's like? Okay, calm down children, step away from the computer and go outside for a moment. Not everything is that deep or that serious. I'm such a fandom grandma that at this point I just roll my eyes and instead focus on the things I love instead of that kind of immaturity and negative behavior.
I just wish that more YA would try to do something different, like take the same-old tired tropes and subvert/invert them, surprise the readers into going in another direction. That would make the story stand out much more than following the same bullshit time and again. And I'm sure those kinds of YA books exist, they're just lost in a sea of predictable crap.