cats changed me fundamentally as a person

What prompted this?

As most of you know, Tannah Levick as of this post is the current international tour Rumpleteazer actress, additionally covering the roles of Jemima and Demeter. When I understood that she would be a part of the cast that I will be lucky enough to catch, I did what I usually do with any musical I'm about to see live and followed the entire cast on social media just to catch any bonus content like livestreams or BTS selfies.

I already enjoyed this cast from their TikTok and Instagram videos, but as most of you can tell I'd fallen off on keeping up with them when the international leg of the tour rolled around because I then became aware of the videos Tannah was reposting—she actively reposted a pro-Israel post just as the cast had landed in Mumbai for rehearsals.

Now, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was just a general post about travel-- so I decided to look through her page and surprise surprise, she's not only a loud and proud Israel supporter but someone who additionally denies the genocide of Palestinians.

(The first post explicitly denies the genocide by calling it 'propaganda'—dismissing the ICJ's findings, the 75,000+ verified deaths, and the systematic destruction of Gaza's infrastructure. The second post frames all opposition to Israel as antisemitism, using attacks on diaspora Jews as proof that Israel must exist—a rhetorical move that erases Palestinian grievances and conflates criticism of a state with hatred of a people)

My immediate instinct was just to unfollow her and be done, but it later became apparent to me that my well-intended close mutuals weren't aware of her beliefs and why I was no longer comfortable making posts acknowledging her or being tagged with posts featuring her.

I'm Arab—I don't speak on that a lot, but I am. I've had friends in Palestine who I can't contact anymore because they died to Israeli drones. I've had friends who can't reach their families in Lebanon because of American-Israeli drones. So I really don't care if someone on Tumblr wants to lecture me about genocide not being real, much less if a performer wants to repost the same messaging to her followers.

Her TikTok reposts are even worse—I unfortunately forgot I was following her there as well. If you want a glimpse at the type of content she was reposting:

(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)

If you want to know what exactly she was reposting without going through the linked videos, in short, none of the reposts engage with Palestinian humanity, the occupation, and frame any criticism of Israel as irrational or bigoted.

She continues to repost such things. It's clear what her mindset is, and as such I don't feel comfortable giving her attention on my page—even if she's portraying one of my favourite characters.

I will still repost or even make my own posts about this tour and its other talented cast members, but don't expect anything like how I was posting for the South Africa run highlighting her specifically.