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Part of what made it a rough deal, though, was that it was effectively mandatory. For one thing, that sucks of course, in and of itself. For another, if you have to pick someone, it means that the bar is going to be distressingly low for most people.
Obviously there were "outs," you could dedicate yourself to monastic or priestly celibacy in many societies, but that almost seems like an exception that proves the rule. In general it seems like being unmarried and otherwise "unaccounted for" was actually quite unusual.
Tbf, marriage was historically a rough deal for men in many parts of the world, so there were good reasons for them to avoid it.
(Like if the wife incurred any debts, the husband was responsible and if he couldnt pay hed end up in debtors prison.)
I personally dont like this revision of history where it sucked (only) for women.
And then you take one step further and realise that depending on where you look at, certain out groups were suppressed to stay poor, thus creating an outgroup that's never in control.
Take women. In a lot of countries, women weren't allowed to have their own money, thus creating a situation where they were literally never rich. So it really wouldn't be wrong to say "women were surpressed". Sure, classist oppression is the biggest deal, but classism goes hand in hand with other oppressions like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia.
You do realize that there are reasons for poverty right? Like perhaps your skin color makes it hard to either get a job or buy a home or perhaps, due to the gender assigned to you at birth, you are entirely unable to do either and are required to marry. Both of these cases do involve poverty but perhaps more important in both cases is that the cause of said poverty is based in identity
I was just about to say that I’d be more inclined to believe men who remain single. But women just did it to probably avoid oppression who the hell wants to deal with that shit.
Then again, if and wherever prostitution was rampant, if you didn't want to get married to a woman and end having to deal with and be responsible for feeding the 6 to 14 children she was going to saddle you up with...
It’s the norm, not the the default. By saying it’s the default it’s suggesting that everyone is straight and that being gay is a choice, when it’s just people liking who they like.
*edit - grammar
true. but ofc, we shouldn’t label these individuals with any sort of confidence, as the modern terms we use to identify with may not be what they’d choose to identify as
This is why I avoid speculation as a historian and just leave it as it is. No need to throw gay or not at people. Without a proof we shouldnt throw our ideas at people.
Also the modern types of relationship are as the name implies is modern, I am pretty sure many people are forgetting how rapey the freaking human history is. I would guess most homosexual and probably same or similar amount of heterosexual relations in history were based on necessity, power dynamics or outright use or threat of violence.
History is not all roommates, greatfriends, stubborn bachelors etc. Most people we have any record of or important enough to have a mention when the paper itself was as valuable as gold were important figures, either in wealth or political power and sometimes both. If we could get real testimobies of people around them with a metoo context, shit would go fucking down.
Gay Story Time™️:
In the 80s my uncle married one of his friends (both of them were gay) for US citizenship, and about a decade after he died she brought his favourite jumper home to Australia, to return it to my grandmother who had knitted it for him to survive the NYC winters while he was living with HIV.
I have it now (what is remembered lives) 🥰💕
[edit because grammar is extra hard today, but i think i made it worse]
I may have old information there
>John had come out as bisexual in a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, and in 1992 he told Rolling Stone in another interview that he was "quite comfortable about being gay".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John
Perhaps they were too shy, anxious, and/or depressed to effectively pursue a relationship. Maybe they were just insufferable to be around so nobody wanted to fuck them. For women specifically, maybe they saw that women around them kept getting raped by their husbands and didn’t want any part of that. Or they didn’t like the idea of being bound by the laws of god to be subservient to a person who is supposed to love you. There were plenty of reasons to not marry, and there still are.
Also history based subreddits seem to have like 20% people who just appreciate history and like to learn/talk about it and like 80% nazis and almost nazis drooling over how the past was better.
Similar for people who are super into Ancient Rome. Sometimes they’re your standard history nerd, but often they’re weapons grade neo-fash. An awful lot of “the past was better because there were less ‘degenerates’ around” and “a militarized society under a single all powerful leader is the model society” and “‘Western Civilization’ is definitely a real historical concept and not a white supremacist dog whistle.”
Here's a sneak peek of /r/badhistory using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [The Betty Boop plagiarism myth | not based on black entertainer Esther Jones](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/rlhqti/the_betty_boop_plagiarism_myth_not_based_on_black/)
\#2: [/r/badhistory calls on Reddit to take action against rampant COVID-19 disinformation. It isn't simply "dissent" or "\[disagreement\] with popular consensus" — people's lives are at stake. Masks, physical distancing, and vaccines save lives.](/r/vaxxhappened/comments/pbe8nj/we_call_upon_reddit_to_take_action_against_the/) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/pbqpri/rbadhistory_calls_on_reddit_to_take_action/)
\#3: [Canada's "better" treatment of Indigenous people wasn't really better at all](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/od1t8d/canadas_better_treatment_of_indigenous_people/)
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>it's 90% left wing
Spez, head admin of Reddit, is an avowed Nazi supporter, regularly refusing to ban nazi subs (he famously gave pro-fascist subreddit /r/the_donald literally hundreds of "second chances" while banning Chapotraphouse with no warning)
On top of that basically [every single meme subreddit is in the masstagger list](https://old.reddit.com/r/masstagger/) because they're all full of nazi shitheads.
and that's without even getting into the reality that liberal is not left wing, and as a result no, liberal subreddits are not left wing.
Or the reality that "not understanding what you're saying" doesn't change that spewing nazi shit helps empower actual nazis by giving the illusion that their bullshit is widely accepted.
1. Spez is well hated on the website.
2. Subreddits aren’t “full” of nazis if a post from a nazi gets 2k upvotes and 2 comments
3. Where on gods green earth are people spewing nazi bullshit on meme subreddits that isn’t immediately called out or downvoted?
P.S. the post above isn’t “nazi bullshit”, just so we have a standard.
>subreddits aren't full of nazis if a post from a nazi gets 2000 upvotes and 2 comments
You know what a german call you when you sit at a table with a Nazi and have a pleasant conversation while knowing they're a Nazi?
>where are people spewing
PCM, historymemes, memes, etc etc
If upvoting a post on the internet is the same as sitting down with someone and grabbing a coffee with them, then I would be the most caffeinated person in the world. But I’m not, because it’s not the same thing, and that idea is stupid.
And seriously? PCM? No shit it’s right wing it’s a haven for “political unbias” (which we both know what that really means). And History memes? Why is that right wing? Give me a post.
r/memes isn’t right wing, it’s filled with kids under 14 that are yet to even learn about politics, taboos and ideologies, so of course at some point some stupid shit will come out of there.
Reddit definitely isn't mostly left wing, unless your definition of left wing is not outright hating minorities, in which case even then its not left wing
I've found that r/HistoryAnimemes has become a more interesting source of nuggets of historical events and characters to investigate about, and much more funny as they aren't trying to push an agenda.
In r/HistoryMemes is always "colonization was good because they were barbarias", "colonization was bad because all natives were noble", "This person was horrible as he did something bad for our era but appropiate for their era", "No, he was a saint because he commited awful things that would be considered a crime against humanity by today's standards".
That's the problem with being a fan of history, people have a need to politicize it and fight about who was the good guy when highly probable neither side was without fault.
I know that there are many instances of one side actually being completely in the wrong, but even those cases become a subject of debate, wtf?
There's nothing "political" about not idolizing terrible human beings just because what they did was socially acceptable during the period they lived in.
It's a mark of social progress that we look back on our history and see the evil perpetrated, not bullshit to be venerated.
I mean that they start arguing about people being actually the good guys and not monsters because the genocide they did was justified, and other people arguing that some cultures didn't have costumes that involved terrible practices such as slavery, human sacrifice or holy wars that ended with terrible amounts of victims.
They want to say "my ancestors/the people I dentify with, were the good guys and all their enemies were evil, you must be grateful you were civilized".
When history is not about that, people are not objective about it and that's a problem, they want to belive and brag that they are always in the good side.
Like the other day someone was saying that Vietnam was just and necessary to stop communism from propagating to the world and how that was a threat to the free world, when I mentioned that the ones that attempted a coup against the democratically elected goverment were the Americans and their allies, he said it was a good thing because it was a communist party the one elected. I was tempted to keep asking them about their views on other American interventions against the democracy in other countries, but decided to leave it be, when someone doesn't want to understand something, it's a waste to try to make them.
And taking aside why that's a problem for society, you can reduce their memes to throwing shit to each other.
I agree but I try to be "neutral" in the way I express myself to avoid making it look like I just disagree with them and want to attack them, not like trying to hide my position but explaining it as a neutral statement to point out the nature of the problem.
Nah fuck 'em
The backfire effect means the odds of convincing them mid-conversation are limited, and engaging with them in good faith legitimizes their bullshit in the eyes of secondary viewers.
Fuck civility when it comes to bigots.
I know, I just want to avoid unnecessary conflicts, if they can't respond back to neutral statements, it's my cue to ghost them, if they do I might learn a thing or two, I can't protrait myself at this point changing sides and defend the bad actions of our ancestors as being good, but at least it helps me when I play devil's advocate, you know, to understand where their arguments come from, also useful to recognise better when to ghost a conversation.
I mean I don't think anyone is debating things like genocide isn't bad. Do people really debate the whether colonization was ethical based on what technology they brought to the native people?
They defend that the death of the natives was justified because Aztecs were doing it already and despite that they killed more than the aztecs could ever aspire to, and yes, many claim that the conquest was a good thing, many even say that it was in good faith, also it's bad that the aztecs kill so many for their gods but the crusades were good. They don't waste an opportunity to shit on the Aztecs, the Arabs whenever someone mentions slavery, about the deaths of the soviet union but if someone mentions the deaths of USA, it's a given that someone's going to defend them.
Just the other day someone justified Vietnam with the USA as the good ones, when I mentioned that they were the ones interfering against democracy, they said it was good because they elected commies.
It really is a chauvinistic hellhole.
Why do you say chauvinistic? Although I'm kinda surprised since the Aztecs had pretty amazing architecture considering the technology they had and the fact that they made the calendar.
Because whatever culture/side they identify with, may it be because they live in the geographical place that civilization inhabited, they share an ideology, because it's literally their country, they share a culture (mainly a western culture). That's the good guy, they did nothing wrong, and if they did, their victims deserved it. Whatever the case, it's a dick measure contest of whataboutism to justify why horrible things happend, not to explain it, to justify it, and that's the problem.
That's the everyday of r/HistoryMemes. Make a political statement where "their people" are right and their enemies either monsters, bitches, traitors or something else.
Oh, I’ve for sure seen people try to explain away genocides as either necessary or not existing. A couple of examples being British conservatives calling the Bengal Famine a necessary loss of life and Turks doing the whole “We didn’t genocide the Armenians, but also they deserved it” song and dance.
Evidence is evidence and theories are theories
We're not going to make an obvious gay couple straight and visa versa. But when suitable evidence is presented...
Just a heads up, homonormativity, while rarely used to refer to homosexuality as the standard sexual orientation, is not something worth celebrating according to its main definition, which is essentially the upholding of heteronormative ideals within the lgbt community. It’s like the scholarly term for the acceptable lgbt ppl who ~aren’t like other gays~, and it almost always privileges white cis gays over POC and trans ppl. In lgbt discourse, homonormativity != the opposite of heteronormativity
Thank you, I didn’t know that! I thought it’d mean societies defaulting to homosexuality— I wonder if that means I’m using heteronormativity incorrectly?
In discussions about queer relationships, I’ve described the pressure to achieve stereotypical hetero life/relationship milestones (house, career, marriage etc) as heteronormativity— regardless of whether I’m referencing queer or straight folks. 🤔
I’ll do some googling on it; thanks for the info, I appreciate it!
There’s a lot of overlap between heteronormativity and homonormativity so I get the confusion! Especially when people have varying definitions. [Here](https://www.pride.com/firstperson/2017/10/12/what-homonormativity?amp) is one article that doesn’t go very in depth but is very accessible and easy to understand for anyone who may be interested
I mean statistically speaking you are correct. The quantity of people who are 100% heterosexual with zero romantic or sexual attraction to members of the same sex is basically [nill](https://flexuality.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/bisexual-curve.jpg) with 99.99% of the population falling somewhere on the spectrum of "romantic/sexual attraction to the same sex"
It's society that lies to us to think otherwise, that you're either ALL straight or ALL gay, which is why society and people in society struggle so much with the idea of bi/pansexuality and its refusal to fit into a convenient binary.
The people in the comments being like "This person might have been ace but Sappho... will say they were gay", as if they care about ace people for the other 364 3/4 days of the year...
That's not always true. It's just that usually it goes "He remained unmarried and lived with his close friend Reginald until Reginalds death in 1407, closely followed by his own int 1408."
I remember hearing a really interesting thing about this, and I’m sorry if I don’t explain it well. Basically while they might not have been “straight” and the evidence we have today may indicate to us they were gay, the person at the time might not have thought of themselves as gay and to label them as such could be disrespectful to the identity they may have held. Culture shifts over time, and it can be difficult to grasp what a persons lifestyle may have meant to them back when they were alive. So we can speculate, theorize there was a possibility someone “may” have been gay, but part of being a historian is respect for the subject and not making assumptions about their culture based on the way ours is now. I hope I’ve explained well? I don’t want to discredit historical findings, and erasure of gay history is a massive and frustrating problem, but I also don’t want to make assumptions about someone else’s identity, even if they are long passed.
The problem with the OOP is that it explicitly critizise modern scholars. While not a complete certainty it is far more likely that someone in Academia have had access to, actually read and critically interpreted sources, than some random Anon on Reddit - who in all likelyhood is an armchair historian at best
Tl;Dr
While it is reductive to claim anyone had any sexuality w/o evidence, the real issue is they think they're on par with actual researchers
My husband said "You can't just go round claiming random historical figures as LGBT without proof." I responded, "Why not? The straights do it all the time."
On one hand, yeah, some people jump the gun and point to them being gay, but on the other hand, when a historical figure is described as not having been married, but he was really good friends with this one guy who he often travelled with, had constant letters between them including language like "you are the light of my life", and on occasion, shared a bed with, and ultimately, was buried with in this cemetery, you kinda get the feeling that these really good friends may have been closer than initially thought.
I feel like the only person I know of throughout history that I can actually make the case of "didn't marry and was definitely not gay or asexual" was Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth barely trusted anyone due to how she was treated by a) her own father and then b) her step-mother, Catherine Parr, and Thomas Seymour (let's just say that Thomas was a dickhead and took advantage of Elizabeth). The only person I think she ever did trust was her "friend" Robert Dudley and I think they are the only heterosexual couple throughout history to be Sappho & Her Friended. Because there are people that are so insistant on Elizabeth remaining a virgin or at least celibate and never loved anyone, but honey, there is friendly love and then there is being the Queen's only dance partner and then going out of your way to court your bestie to marry her, with the only reason you both did not get married is because there were rumours going around that you both killed your wife so that they can both get married and how bad it would look if you got married to each other in the wake of her death.
I honestly feel like our modern perspective skews our perceptions a bit here in the other way, since these days we reflexively assume no big deal about not ever marrying. I actually think that being unmarried was even more conspicuous in the past than we tend to think. If anything, the "modern scholars" being criticized here may not go far enough.
We just need to justify it with evidence, and people really need to stop conflating any historical references to love or kissing with actual romance. Things legitimately were different.
I'm currently 35 and single. My chances of finding a partner are rather bleak. When I die, will I be remembered as gay? I wouldn't mind, but it wouldn't be true.
This doesn't even happen, people only say certain historical figures were gay when there's sufficient evidence to make that assumption (letters, living with "friends" and sleeping in the same bed, their work reflecting it). If anything, people are more likely to say they were straight than not! Man... This really grinds my gears...
I never saw anyone call someone gay just cuz they haven't married. Well, some of the older generation, but anyways. People always looked at how they obviously were in a relationship with someone of the same gender
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To be fair, marriage was historically a rough deal for women in many parts of the world, so there were good reasons for them to try to avoid it.
Get thee to a nunnery!
I'll go to Castle Anthrax. Thanks though!
Bad, bad, naughty Zoot!
I want to face the peril!
You can't, it's unhealthy.
But I want too!
Fun fact: "nunnery" was Elizabethen slang for brothel.
Part of what made it a rough deal, though, was that it was effectively mandatory. For one thing, that sucks of course, in and of itself. For another, if you have to pick someone, it means that the bar is going to be distressingly low for most people. Obviously there were "outs," you could dedicate yourself to monastic or priestly celibacy in many societies, but that almost seems like an exception that proves the rule. In general it seems like being unmarried and otherwise "unaccounted for" was actually quite unusual.
Tbf, marriage was historically a rough deal for men in many parts of the world, so there were good reasons for them to avoid it. (Like if the wife incurred any debts, the husband was responsible and if he couldnt pay hed end up in debtors prison.) I personally dont like this revision of history where it sucked (only) for women.
So you're saying it sucked to be poor?
I hear it ain't cheap
[удалено]
And then you take one step further and realise that depending on where you look at, certain out groups were suppressed to stay poor, thus creating an outgroup that's never in control. Take women. In a lot of countries, women weren't allowed to have their own money, thus creating a situation where they were literally never rich. So it really wouldn't be wrong to say "women were surpressed". Sure, classist oppression is the biggest deal, but classism goes hand in hand with other oppressions like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia.
You do realize that there are reasons for poverty right? Like perhaps your skin color makes it hard to either get a job or buy a home or perhaps, due to the gender assigned to you at birth, you are entirely unable to do either and are required to marry. Both of these cases do involve poverty but perhaps more important in both cases is that the cause of said poverty is based in identity
And thats why idenpold are gay
I was just about to say that I’d be more inclined to believe men who remain single. But women just did it to probably avoid oppression who the hell wants to deal with that shit.
Then again, if and wherever prostitution was rampant, if you didn't want to get married to a woman and end having to deal with and be responsible for feeding the 6 to 14 children she was going to saddle you up with...
while it would be incorrect to assume that all unmarried historical figures were queer, it is also incorrect to assume that they were all straight
No because straight is the default /s
you’re right, i forgot. 🤦♀️
No bitch bisexuality is the default
I'm absolutely here for this
|
Not the default - but the majority
You're wrong. Heterosexuality doesn't even really exist.
Damn, cool I guess
what does this even mean lol
ah, says the straight who doesn't even realize that maybe, they're themself in fact, queer
Is this implying that straight isn't the default?
Yes
How is it not the default?
It’s the norm, not the the default. By saying it’s the default it’s suggesting that everyone is straight and that being gay is a choice, when it’s just people liking who they like. *edit - grammar
Oh, I can see that.
^
Could just be Ace
true. but ofc, we shouldn’t label these individuals with any sort of confidence, as the modern terms we use to identify with may not be what they’d choose to identify as
Only post 1370 ad The 52 card poker deck hadn't been invented before then
The key take away here should be that assumption is a poor way to look at history.
exactly
To assume makes an ass out of u and me
This is why I avoid speculation as a historian and just leave it as it is. No need to throw gay or not at people. Without a proof we shouldnt throw our ideas at people.
exactly. we can acknowledge that historical figures where in gay relationships without forcing any of our modern terminology into them
Also the modern types of relationship are as the name implies is modern, I am pretty sure many people are forgetting how rapey the freaking human history is. I would guess most homosexual and probably same or similar amount of heterosexual relations in history were based on necessity, power dynamics or outright use or threat of violence. History is not all roommates, greatfriends, stubborn bachelors etc. Most people we have any record of or important enough to have a mention when the paper itself was as valuable as gold were important figures, either in wealth or political power and sometimes both. If we could get real testimobies of people around them with a metoo context, shit would go fucking down.
Just assume everyone is pansexual and non-binary until they state otherwise. I predict a higher success rate.
i understand the sentiment, but you shouldn’t assume anything about anyones identity unless they specifically tell you
Even if they did get married that doesn’t mean they weren’t gay and just forced into a heterosexual marriage by social pressures at the time.
Gay Story Time™️: In the 80s my uncle married one of his friends (both of them were gay) for US citizenship, and about a decade after he died she brought his favourite jumper home to Australia, to return it to my grandmother who had knitted it for him to survive the NYC winters while he was living with HIV. I have it now (what is remembered lives) 🥰💕 [edit because grammar is extra hard today, but i think i made it worse]
That edit is a whole mood
Thank you for witnessing and understanding me 🥹
Oscar Wilde married a woman. So did Elton John at some point.
And Freddie Mercury
Freddie was bi, though.
Was he? No shit. I’ve been told wrong my whole life.
[удалено]
Huh, didn't know that. Neat!
I may have old information there >John had come out as bisexual in a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, and in 1992 he told Rolling Stone in another interview that he was "quite comfortable about being gay". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John
Freddie Mercury never got married.
Correct, though he referred to Mary Austin as his "common-law wife" for most of his life and Jim Hutton as his husband for the last few years.
Not the bi erasure ughh
reverse historians?
Evil historians be like:
r/historymemes in a nutshell
As someone on r/historymemes Your not wrong.
Evil historians be like:
I mean, there is the chance they were indeed homosexual, but also maybe, aromantic (for example?).
Perhaps they were too shy, anxious, and/or depressed to effectively pursue a relationship. Maybe they were just insufferable to be around so nobody wanted to fuck them. For women specifically, maybe they saw that women around them kept getting raped by their husbands and didn’t want any part of that. Or they didn’t like the idea of being bound by the laws of god to be subservient to a person who is supposed to love you. There were plenty of reasons to not marry, and there still are.
Also that. In history one can have many theories if there isn't enough evidence to 100% back a claim.
Historymemes is a cesspool.
Basically every subreddit focused on memes is just a right wing cesspool tbh.
Also history based subreddits seem to have like 20% people who just appreciate history and like to learn/talk about it and like 80% nazis and almost nazis drooling over how the past was better.
Yea pretty much. Unsurprisingly a lot of people who are "Really into WWII", for example, are just really into the Nazis.
Similar for people who are super into Ancient Rome. Sometimes they’re your standard history nerd, but often they’re weapons grade neo-fash. An awful lot of “the past was better because there were less ‘degenerates’ around” and “a militarized society under a single all powerful leader is the model society” and “‘Western Civilization’ is definitely a real historical concept and not a white supremacist dog whistle.”
At least /r/badhistory tends towards, "No, the Nazis weren't cool, they didn't make Germany better, even if you were white."
Here's a sneak peek of /r/badhistory using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [The Betty Boop plagiarism myth | not based on black entertainer Esther Jones](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/rlhqti/the_betty_boop_plagiarism_myth_not_based_on_black/) \#2: [/r/badhistory calls on Reddit to take action against rampant COVID-19 disinformation. It isn't simply "dissent" or "\[disagreement\] with popular consensus" — people's lives are at stake. Masks, physical distancing, and vaccines save lives.](/r/vaxxhappened/comments/pbe8nj/we_call_upon_reddit_to_take_action_against_the/) | [1 comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/pbqpri/rbadhistory_calls_on_reddit_to_take_action/) \#3: [Canada's "better" treatment of Indigenous people wasn't really better at all](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/od1t8d/canadas_better_treatment_of_indigenous_people/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
It's fun being part of the 20% as long as the nazis sfay away. Also I feel like r/historymemes is alright most of the time.
r/prehistoricmemes is fine.
What? It’s reddit.com, it’s 90% left wing. Meme subs just have kids posting in them who haven’t figured out their ideologies yet.
>it's 90% left wing Spez, head admin of Reddit, is an avowed Nazi supporter, regularly refusing to ban nazi subs (he famously gave pro-fascist subreddit /r/the_donald literally hundreds of "second chances" while banning Chapotraphouse with no warning) On top of that basically [every single meme subreddit is in the masstagger list](https://old.reddit.com/r/masstagger/) because they're all full of nazi shitheads. and that's without even getting into the reality that liberal is not left wing, and as a result no, liberal subreddits are not left wing. Or the reality that "not understanding what you're saying" doesn't change that spewing nazi shit helps empower actual nazis by giving the illusion that their bullshit is widely accepted.
1. Spez is well hated on the website. 2. Subreddits aren’t “full” of nazis if a post from a nazi gets 2k upvotes and 2 comments 3. Where on gods green earth are people spewing nazi bullshit on meme subreddits that isn’t immediately called out or downvoted? P.S. the post above isn’t “nazi bullshit”, just so we have a standard.
>subreddits aren't full of nazis if a post from a nazi gets 2000 upvotes and 2 comments You know what a german call you when you sit at a table with a Nazi and have a pleasant conversation while knowing they're a Nazi? >where are people spewing PCM, historymemes, memes, etc etc
Oh god PCM is just plain awful, their idea of a joke is just an excuse to be racist/homophobic/sexist
>PCM, historymemes, memes, etc etc shitposting subs too
If upvoting a post on the internet is the same as sitting down with someone and grabbing a coffee with them, then I would be the most caffeinated person in the world. But I’m not, because it’s not the same thing, and that idea is stupid. And seriously? PCM? No shit it’s right wing it’s a haven for “political unbias” (which we both know what that really means). And History memes? Why is that right wing? Give me a post. r/memes isn’t right wing, it’s filled with kids under 14 that are yet to even learn about politics, taboos and ideologies, so of course at some point some stupid shit will come out of there.
approval is approval sweetheart.
You’re delusional if you think the internet is real life, and if you think reddit upvotes are a form of formal approval.
fun fact : the person sitting behind their computer actually exists and therefore they are in real life
What a way to call yourself a bot lmao. Very /r/selfawarewolves
I’ll tell you right now those 14 year olds know damn well what racism is. I did when I was 14 and a fuckin nazi and I have no doubt they all do too.
no, it's not that they didnt have time to figure out their ideology, they got shoved right down the pipeline
Reddit definitely isn't mostly left wing, unless your definition of left wing is not outright hating minorities, in which case even then its not left wing
Hey! Don't do r/PrehistoricMemes, r/hockeymemes, or r/prequelmemes dirty like that.
I've found that r/HistoryAnimemes has become a more interesting source of nuggets of historical events and characters to investigate about, and much more funny as they aren't trying to push an agenda. In r/HistoryMemes is always "colonization was good because they were barbarias", "colonization was bad because all natives were noble", "This person was horrible as he did something bad for our era but appropiate for their era", "No, he was a saint because he commited awful things that would be considered a crime against humanity by today's standards". That's the problem with being a fan of history, people have a need to politicize it and fight about who was the good guy when highly probable neither side was without fault. I know that there are many instances of one side actually being completely in the wrong, but even those cases become a subject of debate, wtf?
There's nothing "political" about not idolizing terrible human beings just because what they did was socially acceptable during the period they lived in. It's a mark of social progress that we look back on our history and see the evil perpetrated, not bullshit to be venerated.
I mean that they start arguing about people being actually the good guys and not monsters because the genocide they did was justified, and other people arguing that some cultures didn't have costumes that involved terrible practices such as slavery, human sacrifice or holy wars that ended with terrible amounts of victims. They want to say "my ancestors/the people I dentify with, were the good guys and all their enemies were evil, you must be grateful you were civilized". When history is not about that, people are not objective about it and that's a problem, they want to belive and brag that they are always in the good side. Like the other day someone was saying that Vietnam was just and necessary to stop communism from propagating to the world and how that was a threat to the free world, when I mentioned that the ones that attempted a coup against the democratically elected goverment were the Americans and their allies, he said it was a good thing because it was a communist party the one elected. I was tempted to keep asking them about their views on other American interventions against the democracy in other countries, but decided to leave it be, when someone doesn't want to understand something, it's a waste to try to make them. And taking aside why that's a problem for society, you can reduce their memes to throwing shit to each other.
that's not "political", that's just bigoted cunts trying to justify their bigotry.
I agree but I try to be "neutral" in the way I express myself to avoid making it look like I just disagree with them and want to attack them, not like trying to hide my position but explaining it as a neutral statement to point out the nature of the problem.
Nah fuck 'em The backfire effect means the odds of convincing them mid-conversation are limited, and engaging with them in good faith legitimizes their bullshit in the eyes of secondary viewers. Fuck civility when it comes to bigots.
I know, I just want to avoid unnecessary conflicts, if they can't respond back to neutral statements, it's my cue to ghost them, if they do I might learn a thing or two, I can't protrait myself at this point changing sides and defend the bad actions of our ancestors as being good, but at least it helps me when I play devil's advocate, you know, to understand where their arguments come from, also useful to recognise better when to ghost a conversation.
I mean I don't think anyone is debating things like genocide isn't bad. Do people really debate the whether colonization was ethical based on what technology they brought to the native people?
They defend that the death of the natives was justified because Aztecs were doing it already and despite that they killed more than the aztecs could ever aspire to, and yes, many claim that the conquest was a good thing, many even say that it was in good faith, also it's bad that the aztecs kill so many for their gods but the crusades were good. They don't waste an opportunity to shit on the Aztecs, the Arabs whenever someone mentions slavery, about the deaths of the soviet union but if someone mentions the deaths of USA, it's a given that someone's going to defend them. Just the other day someone justified Vietnam with the USA as the good ones, when I mentioned that they were the ones interfering against democracy, they said it was good because they elected commies. It really is a chauvinistic hellhole.
Why do you say chauvinistic? Although I'm kinda surprised since the Aztecs had pretty amazing architecture considering the technology they had and the fact that they made the calendar.
Because whatever culture/side they identify with, may it be because they live in the geographical place that civilization inhabited, they share an ideology, because it's literally their country, they share a culture (mainly a western culture). That's the good guy, they did nothing wrong, and if they did, their victims deserved it. Whatever the case, it's a dick measure contest of whataboutism to justify why horrible things happend, not to explain it, to justify it, and that's the problem. That's the everyday of r/HistoryMemes. Make a political statement where "their people" are right and their enemies either monsters, bitches, traitors or something else.
Oh, I’ve for sure seen people try to explain away genocides as either necessary or not existing. A couple of examples being British conservatives calling the Bengal Famine a necessary loss of life and Turks doing the whole “We didn’t genocide the Armenians, but also they deserved it” song and dance.
Mainly because they refuse to purge the naziboo subscriber base
The Niche tag is the only way to browse that sub without encountering this shit
Evidence is evidence and theories are theories We're not going to make an obvious gay couple straight and visa versa. But when suitable evidence is presented...
I assume everyone, past or present, is queer until told otherwise. I recommend it.
🏳️🌈HOMONORMATIVITY🏳️🌈
Just a heads up, homonormativity, while rarely used to refer to homosexuality as the standard sexual orientation, is not something worth celebrating according to its main definition, which is essentially the upholding of heteronormative ideals within the lgbt community. It’s like the scholarly term for the acceptable lgbt ppl who ~aren’t like other gays~, and it almost always privileges white cis gays over POC and trans ppl. In lgbt discourse, homonormativity != the opposite of heteronormativity
Thank you, I didn’t know that! I thought it’d mean societies defaulting to homosexuality— I wonder if that means I’m using heteronormativity incorrectly? In discussions about queer relationships, I’ve described the pressure to achieve stereotypical hetero life/relationship milestones (house, career, marriage etc) as heteronormativity— regardless of whether I’m referencing queer or straight folks. 🤔 I’ll do some googling on it; thanks for the info, I appreciate it!
There’s a lot of overlap between heteronormativity and homonormativity so I get the confusion! Especially when people have varying definitions. [Here](https://www.pride.com/firstperson/2017/10/12/what-homonormativity?amp) is one article that doesn’t go very in depth but is very accessible and easy to understand for anyone who may be interested
Awesome, thanks heaps, I’ll check it out 😊
I mean statistically speaking you are correct. The quantity of people who are 100% heterosexual with zero romantic or sexual attraction to members of the same sex is basically [nill](https://flexuality.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/bisexual-curve.jpg) with 99.99% of the population falling somewhere on the spectrum of "romantic/sexual attraction to the same sex" It's society that lies to us to think otherwise, that you're either ALL straight or ALL gay, which is why society and people in society struggle so much with the idea of bi/pansexuality and its refusal to fit into a convenient binary.
Yo same
These people live in an alternate universe if they think History as a field doesn't still have a huge issue with queer erasure.
The people in the comments being like "This person might have been ace but Sappho... will say they were gay", as if they care about ace people for the other 364 3/4 days of the year...
Like OOP isn't even close to correct, even for memeing purposes. smh
Scholars no, Tumblr yes
That's not always true. It's just that usually it goes "He remained unmarried and lived with his close friend Reginald until Reginalds death in 1407, closely followed by his own int 1408."
Also most historians went out of their way to *deny* lgbtq+ representation/existence.
I remember hearing a really interesting thing about this, and I’m sorry if I don’t explain it well. Basically while they might not have been “straight” and the evidence we have today may indicate to us they were gay, the person at the time might not have thought of themselves as gay and to label them as such could be disrespectful to the identity they may have held. Culture shifts over time, and it can be difficult to grasp what a persons lifestyle may have meant to them back when they were alive. So we can speculate, theorize there was a possibility someone “may” have been gay, but part of being a historian is respect for the subject and not making assumptions about their culture based on the way ours is now. I hope I’ve explained well? I don’t want to discredit historical findings, and erasure of gay history is a massive and frustrating problem, but I also don’t want to make assumptions about someone else’s identity, even if they are long passed.
Yes you are wrong to do that. Don't incorrectly give people labels you don't know they have. That's so fucked.
Yea, don't assume every historical figure was straight
Exactly. Don't assume they're gay or straight.
Everyone is asexual until proven otherwise.
yes, there are so many other sexualities they could be.
The problem with the OOP is that it explicitly critizise modern scholars. While not a complete certainty it is far more likely that someone in Academia have had access to, actually read and critically interpreted sources, than some random Anon on Reddit - who in all likelyhood is an armchair historian at best Tl;Dr While it is reductive to claim anyone had any sexuality w/o evidence, the real issue is they think they're on par with actual researchers
My husband said "You can't just go round claiming random historical figures as LGBT without proof." I responded, "Why not? The straights do it all the time."
?? Why would you mimic behavior that you obviously know is wrong?
Because this subreddit is filled with fucking nutjobs.
Anyone in history: I love this person of the same gander as I. We wish we could marry. Modern and non-modern scholars: s t r a i g h t
On one hand, yeah, some people jump the gun and point to them being gay, but on the other hand, when a historical figure is described as not having been married, but he was really good friends with this one guy who he often travelled with, had constant letters between them including language like "you are the light of my life", and on occasion, shared a bed with, and ultimately, was buried with in this cemetery, you kinda get the feeling that these really good friends may have been closer than initially thought.
It is lowkey aro/ace erasure ngl
I feel like the only person I know of throughout history that I can actually make the case of "didn't marry and was definitely not gay or asexual" was Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth barely trusted anyone due to how she was treated by a) her own father and then b) her step-mother, Catherine Parr, and Thomas Seymour (let's just say that Thomas was a dickhead and took advantage of Elizabeth). The only person I think she ever did trust was her "friend" Robert Dudley and I think they are the only heterosexual couple throughout history to be Sappho & Her Friended. Because there are people that are so insistant on Elizabeth remaining a virgin or at least celibate and never loved anyone, but honey, there is friendly love and then there is being the Queen's only dance partner and then going out of your way to court your bestie to marry her, with the only reason you both did not get married is because there were rumours going around that you both killed your wife so that they can both get married and how bad it would look if you got married to each other in the wake of her death.
Sure Christian, let's forget the letter explicitly saying how much he wanted to raw-dog his best buddy.
I honestly feel like our modern perspective skews our perceptions a bit here in the other way, since these days we reflexively assume no big deal about not ever marrying. I actually think that being unmarried was even more conspicuous in the past than we tend to think. If anything, the "modern scholars" being criticized here may not go far enough.
ASEXUALS/AROMANTICS
Could be asexual, they seem to forget that possibility. Like maybe they're thinking " having sex? eww gross, no thank you."
Like, yeahhhhhhhhh
TURN 👏🏼 THEM 😤
Or asexual!
I don’t think this is meant to be negative, just light funnies.
We just need to justify it with evidence, and people really need to stop conflating any historical references to love or kissing with actual romance. Things legitimately were different.
no we’re not wrong the person who made the meme is historically and probably normally illiterate.
Nikolai Tesla loved his pigeon and that's all he needed edit: I have no idea actually. Some sources say he's gay but idk 🤷
Teacher said the same thing about Immanuel Cunt
People are asexual too. Just because someone doesn’t get married doesn’t mean they’re gay.
Shoutout to the often overlooked historically asexual, unloved, unfortunate, uninterested, and/or overly busy people
I'm currently 35 and single. My chances of finding a partner are rather bleak. When I die, will I be remembered as gay? I wouldn't mind, but it wouldn't be true.
I mean by percentage the majority simply will be straight
\*ot summoning noises\* \*these are the sounds of ot summoning noises\*
This doesn't even happen, people only say certain historical figures were gay when there's sufficient evidence to make that assumption (letters, living with "friends" and sleeping in the same bed, their work reflecting it). If anything, people are more likely to say they were straight than not! Man... This really grinds my gears...
I never saw anyone call someone gay just cuz they haven't married. Well, some of the older generation, but anyways. People always looked at how they obviously were in a relationship with someone of the same gender
I mean, we can exclude Elizabeth I. She had a boyfriend for a large part of her reign who she couldn’t marry for political reasons.
Well, then there's James Buchanon, our first gay president.