bonus/proof:

When I hear "tumblr sexyman," I think of Cecil Night Vale being constantly depicted as a skinny white man instead of literally anything else. I think of the background character white men who get elevated over protagonists that are women, people of color, or otherwise not the white man power fantasy.

Cecil Night Vale, as previously mentioned.

Oncelercest, because if there aren't two skinny white men to ship, tumblr fandom will start shipping the skinny white man with himself.

Bill Cipher inexplicably being fanon'd as a white twink despite being a fucking triangle.

Everyone fawning over Marvel Loki while shoving every woman and Black person in the MCU aside.

The way nearly every single character in Hazbin Hotel has the same "tall and skinny" body type, along with all the criticisms Black audience members have made about the issues with Alastor's design.

Sans has no canon human skintone to my knowledge. He is a skeleton and does not have skin. But the Undertale fandom is famous for its long list of detailed AUs and character reinterpretations. So...when was the last time you saw a Black depiction of Sans? Sans may be short and squat, and therefore not the tall and skinny sexyman archetype, but when the fandom reinterprets him as a living human man instead of a skeleton, is he commonly depicted as a man of color? Or is he typically a white man? Do you think Sans would have reached the same popularity if he was canonically a Black character?

"Tumblr sexyman," when I first saw the term rise in popularity over a decade ago, was very specifically a criticism of tumblr's whiteness. It was a critique of the intersection of racism, misogyny, and fatphobia within fandom.

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.

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