#myfandomrealitea

Mark Lee's original company is one of the main 'powerhouses' of kpop who would've absolutely done research into global politics and history, particularly of America, as part of managing an objectively massively popular kpop idol group.

His current company stated they were directly aware of what the flag represented, and tried to hide the fact that he was wearing it. A company he as co-power in, by the way.

Mark Lee didn't even apologize using his own voice. His company "apologized" on his behalf and he spent the next day trotting around grinning and refusing to comment on it.

And, I don't know about you, but I never wear clothing with flags or symbols I don't know the meaning of without at least looking it up first. Especially in this modern era where facist groups are cropping up like weeds and adopting symbols and flags to represent themselves.

I especially wouldn't do that if I was a Korean stylist or idol in an industry that will crucify you for using the wrong brand of toothpaste.

It's harder to disagree with, or disapprove of, or convince other people that a likeable person is a bad one. It's so much easier to discredit your victims and sow doubt when everyone likes you.

I see a lot of media criticism of movies and tv shows at the moment, where people deem villains as 'too likeable' and 'too human' and 'its too hard to see him as a villain because of X and Y.'

And that is the whole fucking point.

Let's make it heterosexual.

It isn't saying you'd harm little children or you'd shoot someone's dog in the face or you think all women under 40 should be raped until they've had at least one child.

It just isn't. And that's not me being sensitive.

Ragebait is inciting harmless anger for funsies. Watching someone tweak out because you keep telling them the sky is actually green. Moving everything in the house slightly to the left to listen to your dad bang his knee every morning and curse the roof off of the house.

Telling a grieving mother you're going to graverob her child and rape it's dead corpse? Not ragebait.

And, yes. The vast majority of these comments are just bots. But there are also handfuls of shitty little teens and fuckless grown men who think 'extreme dark humor' is peak comedy and edgy and fuckability.

And it simply isn't.

I mean genuinely. Go to your next family dinner and proudly tell them you spend your free time telling assault victims you hope their abusers come back and kill them too.

Genuinely go into your workplace and tell your colleagues and bosses that you spend your time commenting on videos of peoples' children online that you'd rape them.

Not even as a 'gotcha.' Just genuinely tell them. See what they think about it. If it's ssssoooo funny and edgy and cool, surely, nothing is going to come of it, right? They'll laugh and clap you on the back and life will continue as normal.

Tell your friends you commented on a cute video of a dog online with a whole paragraph about how you'd strangle it with your bare hands and cut it's body into tiny pieces and feed it to the dog's owners.

Do it.

I beg of you, start watching old movies. Don't watch them for flashy CGI and fantastical plot themes. Stop looking for the hottest actor and the fastest car and the most popular soundtrack.

Watch Dead Poet's Society. Mourn, laugh, learn how to make something beautiful out of something that makes no sense at all.

Watch the original Nanny McPhee. Heal the child you were, and learn to understand the children you have.

Watch The Elephant Man and think about what true empathy means. True kindness. How to navigate the world not by sight, but by heart.

Watch the Goonies and imagine a pirate ship and a dream and an impossible treasure that saves the bond of brotherhood.

Watch Knight Rider. The original, not the shitty remake. Watch the true meaning of transcending human boundaries. Fall in love with a car. Laugh and cry and think about what it means for a machine to truly experience love.

I genuinely cannot express how better older movies are once you stop measuring media by how flashy and technical and modern it is. I promise you you'll stop thinking of slop like Euphoria as groundbreaking once you watch films like My Girl and Hook.

WRONG.

I proship spitefully. I proship and hate. I have duality. Do I hate your shitty heteroification of queer ships? Yes.

And I get studios are often under a lot of financial and time pressure, unexpected cuts, ect, but like. From a storytelling point of view.