this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024

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Many of you may have heard of the Youtuber Shadiversity's homophobia but there's another. (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I tried to ask a another youtuber Living Anachronism who has worked with Shadiversity if he knew about Shad's homophobic content & the mod delete my question, told me asking about that was against the no drama rule, that it wasn't homophobic & proceeded to try to gaslight me with pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

I'm tired of bringing thing up in non queer spaces only to be told that's it not actually homophobic.

The original video I referred to:https://youtu.be/GiyMDN9j2OU?si=bDqnc1pCG8t3HASp

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[–] elbucho 44 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I'm an elder Gen X. Who are these people? Why should I care about them? Does their limited literacy and obvious homophobia have an impact on the wider world in general?

Edit: Sorry; I didn't notice the youtube link initially. I am shame.

Anyway, I'm like 30 seconds in now, and it's two fucking morons in shitty Costume City versions of chain mail talking about issues they're wildly unfamiliar with, and somehow they've got, like, 100k followers? WTF? Am I just taking crazy pills?

Edit edit: So, like, are these chodes like the Australian version of Andrew Taint?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Shad is Australian and his politics are shitty, but he's not an Andrew Taint if only because his influence is miniscule outside of the niche of people interested in medieval weaponry but not interested enough in that to actually go out and join a HEMA or SCA or similar club (because just about the first thing you'll learn if you do join a HEMA club is how shitty his opinions about history are...in addition to his modern-day political opinions).

[–] negativenull 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I believe he's Mormon as well, which is where some homophobia could come from.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

That would explain a lot of things. The best thing to do is disassociate from anyone on social media who is Mormon. Every subscriber and like just reinforces the notion that they are doing Gods work in every aspect.

[–] elbucho 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh, trust me - I wasn't putting his shitty views on the HEMA community in general. I'm friends with a couple of people who like to put armor on and bash the shit out of eachother. I don't understand it, but they're good people, and they wouldn't do shitty things like gaybash, like these fucking chodes are doing. So basically, they're, like, right-wing LARPers? Like, they strongly identify with the crusades because they want to fantasize about killing people different from them?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh yeah sorry I didn't think that you were doing that at all. All I thought you were doing was accidentally overstating Shad's relevance by comparing him to Tate. Like, Tate is broadly popular among reactionaries and conservatives. Shad just appeals to quite a niche audience who either don't know about or who agrees with his politics, and who are into the history thing.

But then also, his audience is limited by the fact that even if you completely ignore his political beliefs, his actual content is bad. It limits his appeal a lot because even conservative HEMA people (and unfortunately there definitely are some very racist conservatives who like HEMA for the reason your describe) don't like his uneducated bad takes about fighting. He does well only with people who don't know better.

[–] elbucho 4 points 4 months ago

Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I hadn't heard of this idiot, and I've heard of Andrew Tate, so I didn't place them on equivalent footing in any sense other than ideology. And yes - I'm a big fan of map painting games, like EU4, and the sheer quantity of people who are overtly racist in that community is fucking staggering, so I get it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

This is relevant for qweer people who are involved in the hobbies that these youtuber are involved with & they deserve to know.

Edit: I response just as you edited. The Shad guy wrote a shitty novel & has a dieing channel on medieval fantasy.

[–] Donjuanme 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'm not sure why one would need to be LGBT to point out homophobia? I'm not gay, half my parents are, I'll call it out whenever I see it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is more about straight people who tell qweer people calling out homophobia that it's not homophobia & downplaying their experience.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Well then why not say that then? I could follow the rest of the screenshot conversation but that part confused me. Anyone should be able to call out homophobia and gatekeeping the right to such critique hardly benefits any oppressed groups. And I think we probably agree on that.

Your statement likely made more sense in context, but that's missing in the screenshot. Generalizations like this are wrong and easy enough to avoid.

[–] Taalnazi 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You do not need to be, but a LGBTQ+ person will probably have more 'experience' with this discrimination and thus know when it's bad. They can often recognise it earlier and better, exactly because they themselves often are the victims of it, and experience the effects.

If you're not LGBTQ+, you don't really experience homophobia yourself. That said, you should still call it out.

[–] Fungah 3 points 4 months ago

There's a way to call it out. And it isnt inciting a pitchfork waving mob.or.publicly shaming someone.

This doesn't change peoples.opinions. it entrenches them. You know how to actually.create change in people with abhorrent opinions?

Exposure. Education (and not in a patronizing way). There's a guy that's been de-racisting KKK members for years, and he does it by just kind of hanging out with them.

The way people call things out gives people ammunition for their persecution complexes and makes them double down on their beliefs. It may feel good to scream "you're a fucking homophobe" from the rafters but it makes the problem worse.

It doesnt mean someone isnt homophobic. But the aggregate of this approach is to create communities of people that cling to these ideologies like life rafts.

Like. There is no better way to ensure they never have a real interaction with a gay person than trying to have the entire internet shame them for being homophobic.

Even if this dude wakes up tomorrow and sees the error of his ways would be ever be allowed to forget the public and humiliating fashion in which it was called out?

I've no doubt this dude deserves to be called out for being ignorant but it also doesn't work. Its hard to listen to opinions you know are wrong, especially when they're based on ignorance, but the only way this guys opinion changes if he sees firsthand that gay people are just like him in every way that counts.

So if you want to call him out and publicly shame him go ahead, because he no doubt deserves it, but don't be surprised when he just doubles down on it all.

[–] Ballistic_86 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I used to watch this guy because I liked castles. Didn’t consume a ton of this content. But last year he made a video to specifically call out Barbie. Like his channel doesn’t involve movie reviews, he just decided it was such a controversial film he had to made a video calling out “the woke”

After I saw he had made that video I unsubscribed and found other cattle content. His brother seems nice.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

He did this for Captain Marvel too. Suddenly a movie review channel. For me there’s got to be more of a gap between having an interest in medieval stuff and actually believing that women only exist as the property of men and that the king is appointed by God.

[–] CodexArcanum 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Jack Saint (YouTuber) did a take down vid on Shad that revealed his real nature to me. I also had previously enjoyed his historical content.

The thing is, as another poster pointed out, once people started looking, he's actually not historically accurate either and is barely more knowledgeable about it than your friend in the SCA who won't shut up about long swords and katanas.

It's a pattern with bigots: you can't trust their information or expertise on anything. Because either they aren't willing to update their views with facts, or they're willing to lie to cover up facts they do know but dislike. Neither are good qualities in any person, but especially not in historians and educators.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I also just found out that Shad has been less then civil to another youtuber who's a HEMA & Stage fight instructor who criticized --one-of-Shad's-videos.-- never even mentioned Shad specifically.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

No idea who this is, but I find this is a very common reaction and a big reason why I try not to interact too much in spaces that don't make it absolutely crystal fucking clear that they're queer friendly.

Usually that means I have to stick to lesbian or bisexual majority spaces and trans spaces, but very very rarely i find cishet spaces that are genuinely welcoming.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm just gonna repost a comment I made on a thread about YouTubers you don't watch anymore:

Oh it gets worse with Shadiversity. Huge AI art guy, his brother's an actual artist too so it's hard seeing Shad brag to him. Very "anti-woke" and paints his conservative Mormon beliefs on everything.

The worst unforgivable part is the end of his book has impregnated rape victims step up to defend the rapist protagonist because he "gave them" a child, while the ones that didn't get pregnant were jealous.

He loves to bring up that the book is supposed to explore this immoral character. But this isn't the protagonist's viewpoint this is just how Shad thinks the world works. This is how Shad believes rape victims think.

Very sad to see, I followed him for swords and castles but Jesus Christ.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yikes. It's times like these that I am glad to not follow any particular celebrity fandoms. Not everyone who is widely known is a shitty person but, a lot of them are. And they're less interesting than most other people you'd meet.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit. I didn't know Shad is homophobic. What a shame...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's not that much of a shame because even without his bigotry, the substance of his videos is severely ill-informed and lacking. He mostly makes it up based on vibes and what feels right, and he gets very grumpy when the people who have actually studied and practised based on historical manuals point out where he's wrong.

But yeah, he's got a whole second channel that's your typical right-wing reactionary media critic, whinging about how Star Wars got woke or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah. I didn't know his videos are actually factually inaccurate. I was mostly entertained by his videos on castles. I wonder if there are any other YouTubers who cover castles and such who are decent people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah it's been a long time since I've seen his videos, but I think his ones on castles are probably mostly ok. It's the times he's done direct HEMA stuff that he's shown a more ignorant side.

[–] vaquedoso 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I used to watch his castle videos and found them interesting during the pandemic, and i hadn't heard he was a deranged and hateful person. It's really a shame, but i went ahead and unsuscribed and blocked his channel

[–] Caboose12000 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not my autistics ass not realizing "homophonic" was a typo for "homophobic" and thinking this guy just really doesn't approve of people who sing in harmony with a melody (as opposed to polyphically, where there are multiple melodies) 💀 bruh why am I like this

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

pats head It's OK fellow autist

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Mhm never heard of his homophobic takes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Watch the linked video.