Suugar-Fiend wrote:As your just taking an aspect of a culture for your own gain and not doing anything in return.

Doing... what in return. Paying reparations, what? Or are you only talking about explaining the history of all Native American beliefs as "doing something in return"?

This is why the idea of "appropriation" is so ridiculous. Everyone "appropriates" everyone else. The world is a melting pot. If you have to take your time to educate everyone on everything just before you can do something creative, then the world is broken. Drawing some random things to put on an avatar is not even the tiniest bit of what's wrong with the world. Firn wants to make us some stuff to put on our avatars, that doesn't mean she's responsible for educating us on the history of the world. She's not in the wrong at all, and she's hurt no one.

People taking offense to people who mean no offense, however, are the ones who are in the wrong, always.

Suugar-Fiend wrote:Although it might not be "serious" to you or a big deal...

What I find serious and a big deal is someone coming along and saying that while they know someone didn't mean any offense, but oh sorry your intent is meaningless you've actually just been super racist and offensive!

I mean just think about that for a second. I KNOW you didn't mean any wrong, but you did horrible terrible wrong by drawing that thing.

It's madness.

Anyone with a thinking mind knows that words are meaningless and intent is what matters. If you reverse that, as is trendy to do nowadays, and say, "Actually no, intent is meaningless and it's the words that matter, and you used the wrong ones!" then you're the villain. At the very best you're an idiot, but at the worst you're a villain out to cause drama and hurt where there is none.

So yeah, I came out combative. Because it's a serious, horrible thing to try to make someone feel crappy when you absolutely know they didn't intend any harm. Which is exactly what Den's trying to do to Firn. She made this, and she probably thought it was pretty, and she probably thought we'd think it was pretty, and then on page one someone comes and says "RACIST." She said USING IT AT ALL in this context (which means any context) promotes misunderstandings. For crying out loud, seriously.

"I know you're nice and have no malice, but I'm going to scold you and punish you anyway, and make you feel like a bumbling fossil who's not behaving to today's standards." This is not a nice, forward-thinking person. This is a bad person, trying to signal to others that they are better than the person they've singled out. Because NO ONE has been hurt here, and no one with sense could ever be, and claiming someone has or could be harmed by SOME CLOTHES FOR AN AVATAR just to start drama and show how advanced you are, yeah, that makes you the bad guy.

Explain to me how you know which culture to be "sensitive" to and which not to.

She's done things with Odin before without explaining that she's not trying to offend Swedes or Danes or the Norse. She's done Isis without saying "If you're Egyptian, I implore you not to hate me, I mean no disrespect!" And the Arabian Nights (not part of HER culture, surely, she should explain that!) and there's the voodoo, and the Zodiac, and Wicca, and don't forget the Chinese items, and on and on and on.

How is this different? Or do you think she needs to explain herself for absolutely everything, and should have done for all of those as well?

No, just some things? Just the things people randomly choose to be important enough to need explanation?

And how do the apparently-insensitive jerks like me know ahead of time? Because you know intuitively, but I don't. All I know is that offense should be taken where it was intended. I don't know your arbitrary rules that you've somehow decided in a secret meeting I wasn't invited to.

Okay. Islamic. Alright. It's all so obvious and common sense.

Islamics enslaved Christians, but we don't need to be careful of Christians of course, because common sense, sure.

Haha what, which part was bigoted? The truth part? So you think anyone who was persecuted needs to be coddled... but I just said that Christians were persecuted BY your persecuted group, and you dismissed it as invalid by not even addressing it. You don't even believe what you believe.

I get you though. I've seen you time and again, you're not new to me. You don't have logic and reason, you only have feelings. I treat everyone equally and don't coddle certain groups over others because I recognize that at some point in (recent) history, EVERYONE has been beaten, enslaved, persecuted, murdered, raped, pillaged, etc. I treat people like people and I keep muh feels separate from my common sense (something you claim to have but obviously don't), so yeah I guess to you I must look absolutely, super extremely bigoted. I'm obviously a racist douche, sitting here, trying to actually make sense of the garbage you're saying. (I am actually trying, by the way, while all you seem to be doing is applying some things to some things but not others while claiming it's obvious what goes where.)

No shit I don't understand. If the rules don't apply to everyone like they should, then you're right, I'll NEVER understand. And I don't want to "understand" the side that creates drama and problems where there were none, on a freaking announcement for new items on virtual dolls.

So.

AutobotDen wrote: It's the same sort of thing as portraying a "German" set with a huge beer mug and a sloshed face.

You mean like this?


I am truly sorry and would like to apologize if this set offended someone's feelings. I really am. It was never my intention and I am sorry if I am being insensitive here by not fully comprehending the problem. I am really trying, but find it incredible difficult.

I have done many cultural sets in the past and in fact that is something that has been requested by users many times.

I have done sets dedicated to Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Nordic, Greek, Indian, German or Egypt culture, of African tribes or Romani people - and never has anyone stated that they thought it was offensive. (And never was it my intention to be offensive or look down on any of these cultures!)
Now after I have made sets of all kinds of different cultures and of course, when you try to capture a culture in an image, you use stereotypes - No one would have "understood", for example, the Oktoberfest set, if it was just a person wearing normal, common everyday clothing, which is what we Germans wear - suddenly one of them is considered offensive.

I do not wish to offend anyone. But my problem is - What am I to do if it is okay to depict one culture as an item set, but not another? How am I to know that someone will find one offensive and not the other? Which ones are offensive and which ones are not and how am I to know? Because to me none of them are offensive, as I tried to draw something that I consider beautiful - otherwise I would not think anyone would want the sets and there would be no point in drawing them. So all cultural sets were drawn with admiration for the culture. I tried to draw something appealing and beautiful, not something I look down on. (Maybe my lack of understanding comes from me living in Germany, where we do not have native americans, so to us they are something beautiful and exotic and nothing anyone here would look down on. We even have a native american fictional hero here in Germany, Winnetou, who is the hero of many novels and movies in Germany - Movies l loved to watch as a child.)

Of course this does not change how others might see this and just the fact that the set was not meant to be offensive and was created with nothing but respect for this culture, doesn't change that someone still might be offended by it, but this brings me back to the original problem: What am I supposed to do to avoid this in the future? Not draw any cultural themed items at all anymore? Because that would indeed be a problem as probably at least a quarter of all items on KOfK can be considered cutural as that's a topic I often draw inspiration from. I am having a hard time seeing a solution here other than not drawing any cultural related items anymore, but different cultures is an icredible and wonderful thing! Wouldn't it be sad to avoid it? No saris, no kimonos, no mythology items, all these wonderful things gone?

How do you know? Oh but what, apparently it is common sense, that's how you know!

No worries, in the future just ask the cultural-appropriation police before you dare to draw something. They will then tell you how to be right and just and good, and never ever offend anyone, and they will pat you on the head for being so super-sensitive in your over-carefulness.

(Even though no one ever was or ever could be legitimately upset by a tame item (that's friggin' HONORING its origin let's not forget) on a avatar dress-up site. They only pretend offense. Still better safe than sorry. Only a matter of time before they start executing us for such terrible, awful, Hitler-like mistakes as drawing something that has feathers on it.)