AlmightyLoli made an hour-long video about the Hogwarts Legacy controversy.
Everything from the trans activist hate campaign and gaslighting attempts to YouTubers and journalists downplaying the hate mobbing
as well as the harassment of Silvervale and Pikamee.
Silvervale (and I think pretty much the majority of VShoujo) was on board with the "social justice" crowd somewhere from the very beginning. Maybe not overtly and as part of their branding, but from what I remember, they endorsed these people, and it slowly crept up on them. I remember seeing a long time ago the VShoujo side of the vtubing sphere tweeted out or at least said some kind of endorsement for the usual talking points that aligned with the LGBT talking points (at the time I think we were still on the feminism and LGB-without-the-T phase, or we were entering the T phase). Mind you, I literally never get any vshoujo accounts or related content on my feeds, so this was probably a clip. I genuinely believe people are just afraid of being cancelled, and maybe the VShoujo or Silvervale-herself endorsement I saw a long time ago was something they thought would just be a innocuous statement to get the mob off their back. This is a pretty common tactic when you are trying to appeal to a clearly hostile entity, whether it is concrete or nebulous, by dropping small bits of their talking points to hopefully make them not consider you a target. In my opinion, Silvervale had the nerve to call the
very loud and very dense mob of trans rights activists (the TRA's ) the very appropriate name "Twitter Freaks" because she finally realized what kind of monster was being courted. The emotional response (appropriate for an emotionally charged situation) she mustered while crying on stream was... FREAKS. She could have picked a more offensive word, but... the mundanity of "freak" has its own punch. Only until the mob comes for you, do you support them out of fear of social retribution.
Most people, I think, are convinced that it's only a few bad apples. However, I think the Hogwarts Legacy situation (particularly Silvervale's harassment and especially Pikamee's graduation) plus the Nashville shooting by miss Audrey Hale is starting to wake up normies.
It's not just a few. I personally know a few people who are still running defense for the TRA's because they are personally friends with some people that identify as trans, which is a predictably reasonable thing to do. However, I am of the opinion that no principles have been truly tried and challenged to really get at the heart of this problem, and people are going along with it to try and not step on any toes. Letting people be themselves is no longer the case when they and many others like them start to force and
enforce their politics and ideologies onto you. Compelling speech, coercing action, and even bullying into submission. That's where we went wrong; no one told the trannies to STOP making everything about themselves... or at the least, only a few did and were silenced. That, or many people did but no concrete
action was taken to maintain our control over our hobbies. I've been against the whole social justice (and especially trans) thing since the first phase with feminism watering down my hobbies, and now it's worse with every character needing to be non-binary or trans (see Shiver from Splatoon, Bridget from Guilty Gear particularly Strive, and Chihiro from Danganronpa). Go quarantine yourselves in the ValiDate "community," please.
Something I've been thinking about regarding the idea that the Hogwarts Legacy debacle was "only a few bad apples" is: Without receipts, how do you rhetorically challenge that idea? Well, it's quite simple: it is the responsibility of the "trans community" to purge those bad apples. Why is it the responsibility of the trans community to police their own? After all, it's not fair that someone has to be responsible for the bad actions of someone else. However, that's naive and selfish. Use their points against them: We're just trying to be ourselves and you guys hate us for what a few bad ones are doing! Well guess what, the "trans commuinty" is the real estate that
the trans community and those few bad actors share stake in. You cannot proudly walk around and claim to be a part of a community if you are not going to try and preserve it, because everyone else is simply
responding to the offenses of
your community. The burden of proof to disprove how poorly everyone looks at your community is on you... not the responding agency. Jim Sterling is right: "Cis people's feelings are not our responsibility." But the opposite is also true: "Trans people's feelings are not our responsibility." Prove to us that the mass harassment and cancellation campaigns by the TRA mob was just a few bad actors. Neither me nor you reading this thread is ever responsible -and never will be- for refusing to validate their existences. But, well, I think we know the real answer to whether it's just a few bad actors or not.
One of the benefits of being a formless group (like the TRA's) is that you cannot really be attacked. For every Keffals, there are probably hundreds more that are just your every day Discord grooming-server-goer that you don't keep track of at a high profile. The downside is that they rely on behaving like a hivemind, but humans are not a hive mentality, so we found many conflicting narratives being put out during Pikamee's harassment. "It didn't happen", "the transphobes deserved it", or "it was a right-wing psyop". Either it happened or it didn't happen.
Also seriously, I think it's a great disservice to just say "Pikamee was already planning to graduate." Multiple things can be true, you know? She was already planning to graduate at the start of 2023, but wasn't sure when. Combine someone with less mental fortitude, a history of bullying, and an existing 2 years of regular harassment (including death threats), and you get someone that is susceptible to a "final straw" situation. By the way, I am not saying that in an insulting way to Pikamee; some people are bad at handling stress. I mean, even Silvervale cried, and I think we can all agree in terms of disagreeability she is much more disagreeable than Pikamee, yet Silvervale still cried from the onset of harassment.
This is a turning point in our cultural history, and to think it all happens by tying together a kid's game about wizards, anime girls, and a school shooter.
As a reminder, the narcissist's prayer (with respect to Pikamee).
That didn't happen. > They literally denied it.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad. > It was like one or two bad apples.
And if it was, that's not a big deal. > She was going to graduate anyway.
And if it is, that's not my fault. > It was a right-wing op.
And if it was, I didn't mean it. > I was just trying to educate people about not supporting transphobia.
And if I did, you deserved it. > You are a transphobic bigot.
P.S.: god damn transphobia is such a meaningless word. Even before now, it was never an irrational fear, it's concrete recognition of a hostile entity.