Hi, i'm Ashton. If my face looks a little
different today,
I tried to like do a five o'clock shadow-type thing with my makeup, I don't know
how well it worked, but
i'm enjoying my face. I also did the
thing where you, like, cut your eyeliner
down
because my eyes are hooded. Anyways,
whatever, you don't care, that's not what
we're here for.
I also haven't worn this shirt on
youtube yet, I don't think!
Dog Park Dissidents are one of my favorite
queercore bands,
and bandcamp a while ago did a day
where like
they waved their cut and all of the
money from any sales went directly to
the artist, so I was like...
Completely off-topic, not what we're
talking about today. I want to talk a
little bit about the phrase kill
your idols, burn your idols, because it's
something that i
say relatively frequently, and it's
something that's discussed a lot within
both like
leftist politics politics. Actually,
should this be patches and parley? I've
got a patch to sew on, let's do it. If
you've never watched patches & parley
before, or if you're new to my channel or
whatever,
this is a series where i sew
something onto my jacket and talk about
something queer and/or politically
related.
Today it's political, kill your idols. um
and i'm sewing on a patch that's
already like pinned onto my jacket, so
i'm just gonna go for it and i'll show
you at the end.
I don't have like, a definitive idea on
where to start with this video. I wrote down a couple of
points, so i'm just going to talk
as i do in patches and parleys, and
we'll see, we'll see what...
we'll see what happens! i don't know
where "kill your idols" like as
an idea or like as a phrase necessarily
started,
there is a 90s... 90s-question-mark?
hardcore band called kill your idols,
they're all right i
don't mind their music! i thought it
might be obvious but perhaps it's not,
because we don't listen to the same
music, but there's also the Sonic Youth
song "kill yr idols," kill y-r
idols, that's really good, um go listen to
it if you haven't. I don't know if that's
the origin of the phrase, i'm pretty sure
it's how i was introduced to the phrase,
but it's a good song anyway, so now you
know! don't put people on a pedestal, you
know?
I feel like one of the very first things
i like internalized about
politics and pop culture, and like the
bridge between them,
was that nobody's immune from criticism
and you shouldn't put people on a
pedestal that makes them immune from
criticism. But I also definitely think it
is related to the culture that's kind of
been built around
like, this person is my idol, they can do
no wrong i stan them, i believe
everything they say, etc etc.
And you know, fan culture on the internet
is not something that i think is
inherently negative.
It's also very frequently with like,
mainstream celebrities, you know the
Kardashians, whoever else is a celebrity.
I don't know anything about celebrities
because i disconnect myself from that
world on purpose, because i - i don't
trust rich people. Also because it's just
not something i find
enjoyment in, or entertainment in
really, but there's definitely this like
idea within, you know, some subsections of
some
fan cultures, um where their favorite,
their
person that they look up to the most, can
do no wrong. And i don't think there's
necessarily a fandom that's like immune
from this, i do think some are probably
better about it than others.
i don't know how many of you know this
about me, but my very first foray into
the internet
was actually on Tumblr as a My Chemical
Romance fan blog. i had maybe 3,000
followers at my peak, i made gifs
occasionally,
i made some art sometimes. um the blog's
still up, it still exists. As is the case
for many alternative people my age, mcr was
kind of the band that drew you in, you
know,
and i got into mcr like a month,
maybe, before they broke up, which fucking
sucks for me.
But regardless, my early days being on
the internet were on tumblr,
on mcr fan tumblr, which is a wild place
you know? There are people that are horny
on main, and there are people doing some
wild discourse that have no idea what
they're talking about.
Through the people i followed and
through my mutuals on tumblr and stuff,
nobody really idolized anybody or put
anybody on a pedestal that was
too much, you know. We critiqued mcr all
the time.
That circle that i was a part
of was definitely before the word
'stan' came into more popular use,
but i would say we were all pretty much
stans. You know, we spent portions of
our life
creating content around this one band,
and you know some
related bands, but nobody was above
critique, and that was something that i
appreciated.
At the time i didn't think about it, but
looking back at it that's something that
i like, is that you would see people
talking about like "hey isn't it kind of
fucked up that Frank Iero had a Japanese
sun tattoo on his elbow,
which is a symbol of Japanese
imperialism? isn't that fucked up?"
everyone's just kind of like "yeah, yeah
that is fucked up." And that was something
that at least like on the side of tumblr
that i
participated in, it was something that i
appreciated was that like,
people talked about things that weren't
100 million percent okay, and nobody
really
put the members of mcr on a pedestal.
Especially when it came to the drummers,
but that's a whole other story.
i think i kind of abandoned that blog
when i was oof,
15? 15, 16 at the latest. My time like
running that blog and this youtube
channel don't overlap at all, really. And
i suppose, ever since
like leaving that blog, i don't really
participate in fan
culture the same way that i did. i still
definitely follow like
fan accounts of some things, a lot of my
twitter mutuals are still mcr fan
accounts.
So tracing back to what i was saying a
few you know minutes, seconds ago,
whatever,
one of the first things that i learned
on the internet was even the people you
like are not immune from criticism, and i
think that was a healthy lesson for me
to learn, like a good thing for me to
learn. And in that sense, the internet
uh taught me something that school never
really did, which was that like
nobody, including celebrities and
including political people,
are immune from criticism. And if you put
someone on pedestal and respect the work
that they do that's fine and that's okay,
but that doesn't mean you need to
unconditionally love and support every
single thing that they do.
Because while i learned that surrounding
celebrities, i think it
is possibly even more important when it
comes to
political theory. Wow Ashton's talking
about politics again, what a surprise.
Which is where this ties into some
conversations i've seen recently, both
like on twitter and in
and more like i guess, personal,
local circles,
is conversations about like "hey you know
the political writers, the theorists that
we look up to
are not always correct." and it is not
only good, but
necessary, for us to critique the people
that we read. you know i'll mention
Marx relatively frequently, because i've
read marx and i do agree with a lot of
his critiques.
Someone in the comments will speak up
and be like well, didn't you know that
Marx is anti-semitic
or like, Marx was homophobic actually, and
like yeah... I know i know Marx was homophobe! But
when i talk about the things that Marx
said that i agree with, i'm not talking
about the homophobia. I'm gay, look at me.
Hello? Marx and Engles are both long
gone. They're dead and buried, you know,
and the fact that they did in fact have
some bad takes
doesn't take away from the fact that
their critiques of capitalism as an
economic system
were very good and very influential and
very powerful. And i think that's
something that people kind of
misconstrue
about politics in general, is that for
most people that i
know and talk to and follow, even,
nobody mentions like a theorist
you know, and says like literally
EVERYTHING this person ever says
i agree with. Nobody does that because we
know that politics are a lot more
complicated than that.
like i don't know personally, and i don't
think i follow any, leftists that put
Marx on a pedestal of like
literally this man can say no wrong,
because it's not true.
So no, i don't think it's like inherently
bad to look up to people or to respect
people's opinions obviously,
but i do kind of honestly think it is
inherently bad to idolize people to the
point where someone critiquing them
feels like an attack
on you. I do think one of the like, core
reasons that i
don't really enjoy engaging with fan
culture
as much as i once did is that sometimes
people do
idolize stuff, and that's just not really
my cup of tea.
Or like, my cup of coffee, because that's
my hot beverage of choice. But i guess it
didn't take too long for
for it to like, lose the appeal to me, and
even people that i
admire like musically, right, i definitely
disagree with sometimes.
I don't remember how long ago was now, um
but Laura Jane Grace is a musician
that i very much adore. um i've seen her
live
three times. Right there, that's a Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers' album.
a lot of Against Me's music was and is
very empowering for me as a trans person.
is there a single alternative trans
person out there who doesn't love true
trans soul rebel, you know?
But as much as i love that music and as
much as i, you know, do in some ways look up to her
as a person, i still believe she deserves
critique, because i don't think there's
anybody
anywhere, in any sphere, that is beyond
that, that like, has
arisen past the ability to take
criticisms.
Recently-ish, i say -ish because for all i
know it was like a year ago,
six months ago, i don't know time is
slipping through my fingers.
Some time ago, Laura Jane Grace interacted
with Buck Angel on twitter.
And for anyone who is unaware, Buck Angel
is a trans man who got really popular for
being trans, and a lot of trans people,
specifically trans men, you know, kind of
looked up to him as someone who
is sexy and powerful, i never really
looked up to Buck Angel in that way. He's
very...
He tweets and says and does some really
harmful shit, and i'm not going to get
into it,
but basically i don't like Buck Angel as
a person, and i
very rarely, if ever, agree with the
things that he says. I know i said i
don't want to get into it, but i also
don't want to like
state what i just stated without giving
you any sort of
context at all. So um, Buck constantly
strawmans
more radical trans rights activists, he
interacts with a lot of alt-right and
white supremacist dog whistles, even if
he doesn't recognize them as such.
He also constantly uplifts her talking
points and like, dismisses any pushback as young
trans people that don't know anything,
like he
absolutely refuses to listen to anyone
younger than him because he thinks age
immediately makes you wiser. So when Laura Jane Grace interacts with him and stuff,
not only me, but like a lot of trans
people that look up to against me, and
her as a person,
we're kind of like hello? Like when Laura
Jane Grace burned her birth certificate
on stage, i felt that shit in my soul. And
then to see that same person interact
online
with someone who says things that
inherently devalue me as a person
because i'm non-binary,
it's a weird feeling but at the same
time, i feel like i wasn't hit as hard
with that
as i definitely saw some other people
being. Because it's not necessarily
something i would expect from her,
but it's not something that was
incredibly surprising to me.
Like my attitude was not so much damn
like Laura Jane Grace is cancelled,
but more of just well, like, kill your idols,
huh. Because it's not
the first time that someone that i look
up to has done something shitty, you know? But because i kind of put this wall up
between myself and the media that i
enjoy,
and the you know pseudo-celebrities that
i follow, i still listen to Against Me
without really any shame. It's not like
the entire band collectively murdered
someone.
The way that i view like
celebrities or musicians or whatever is
somewhat detached i suppose, i never
saw Laura Jane Grace as someone who's
completely above
criticism. Putting people on a pedestal,
putting people on
whatever sort of perfect, like flawless
platform, is something that i avoid doing
because i know at some point it will
backfire.
Like i don't think there is any single
person out there who is completely
unproblematic,
you know? Maybe it's just me, but i would
much rather engage with discussions with
my trans friends about like,
what do you guys think about Buck Angel,
and like do you know about his history,
and like what he's done, and
how do you think the visibility compares
to the things that he's said, and his
impact on the world?
Like, I would rather have those
discussions than get super worked up
about the lead singer of a band i like
tweeting about him. And maybe i'm like
harsh and scarred, you know, but for me i
feel like putting
all of your faith and love and energy
into putting someone on a pedestal, and
respecting someone in such like an
intense way,
that in your eyes they can do no wrong...
that's gonna inevitably
go downhill, i think. And i guess like in
my eyes, from my experience, it's been a
lot
healthier and more productive to, you
know,
you can follow people that are popular,
that have a lot of money, but
it's still important to give yourself
room to critique them, and don't put them
on a pedestal you know. Every so often, my
boyfriend Jack
and i will talk about youtube, you
know, we talk all the time, we're
dating. he's asked me before, like you
know, what would you do if you, you know
suddenly
got like millions of subscribers, or even
like a hundred thousand?
And every time, like i honestly don't
know,
because on one hand, like yeah it'd be
cool to have a larger community,
and more feedback, and obviously youtube
would pay me a bit more.
But at the same time, i enjoy the
audience i have now. I don't really feel
the need to like push and push, and i
guess that's also partially why
i don't really say the stuff of like you
know, subscribe, turn on the bell ,check
out my merch!
There's nothing wrong with doing that,
half the people, at least most of the
people that i watch do that.
It's just not really my style? like i'm
so quirky, right i'm so weird!
But personally, it is because
this isn't a job for me, i don't get paid
a lot by any means
um i once calculated it, and i like
compared to the
time i spend making videos, i get about
25 cents an hour,
so, so this is a hobby for me, right? I
enjoy the interaction, I enjoy the
discussions, I enjoy the things i learn, i
enjoy expressing myself in this way,
it's somewhat of a creative outlet, right?
I honestly don't know
how i would respond if more and more
people
started to follow me, to interact with me,
to like my content, to subscribe to me.
I guess something that, if that were to
ever happen, that i would be more and
more vocal about is like,
i want you to critique me. I don't want
to feel like i'm
unreachable or like enlightened. I don't
want to feel like i'm
on a level above you, and i don't want
you to feel that way. And that's not
something i
actively worry about, because i don't
think i'll ever get to that point, like
i don't know how long i'll be doing
youtube. Inevitably, i know
some of you probably watch me because
you look up to me, whether it's
because of how comfortable I am with my
gender, or whether it's because of
the shit i know about politics, or the
things that i talk about, or the cadence
of my voice. Like for whatever reason,
there's at least like 10 of you probably
that watch me because you look up to me,
and that's fine, and i'm not saying that
you shouldn't. But i also
actively want you to recognize that you
shouldn't put me on a pedestal.
And it sounds self-centered to say that,
because it feels self-centered to be
like,
don't idolize me guys, no pictures!
But at the same time, i want anybody that
consumes anything i make
to be actively aware that i don't want
them to
consume my content without critique. I
don't want people to
take everything i say as fact, because
i really don't want any sort of
pedestal, i don't want to seem
intimidating, i don't want to seem
uncritiquable. Like, wielding that amount
of
influence, even the amount of influence,
the small amount, that i have now
i- i want to be careful about that. Next
time you follow someone on social media,
or even like go through who you're
following now,
and talk to yourself about it. It's okay
to like idolize people, it's okay to have
role models,
but i want you to simultaneously be able
to critique them.
And this is something i want for myself
too, the people that i follow, people that
you follow, the people that we mutually
follow, aren't
immune from being wrong, no matter how
many followers they have. no matter how
many people reference their work, no
matter how many
academic citations they have, and no
matter how many books they've written,
right?
ow! fuck, i'm gonna sew my own hand to
this jacket.
So you know, with all the JK Rowling shit
going on, um people
are talking about "cancel culture," again.
um if you want to know my thoughts on
cancel culture, i honestly
could not be bothered to make a whole
video about it. Amandabb on youtube,
who i've recommended dozens of times at
this point,
has a long video about it. Her videos are
wonderful and i agree with the vast
majority of her points in that video, so
i'm going to link that down below.
If you want to know my thoughts on
cancel culture, she's probably already
said them,
so go go watch that. Like, JK Rowling can
moan about cancel culture all she wants,
moan about her
her feminist views being silenced by
the trans, transgender advocates... ugh,
life is so hard! But at the end of the
day, that woman
is a millionaire. She's never gonna be
silenced, she's got a verified twitter
account and millions of followers, she
can say whatever the hell she wants.
She could get a book published in a snap
because her name is
so widely recognized, and she has, and she
is, and she will do it again.
She is not being silenced, okay, cancel
culture will not work on her, she is so
rich.
Popular media transphobes, JK Rowling,
Graham Linehan,
they love to talk about being cancelled
and being silenced, but the truth is,
people like that have so much influence
they don't have to fucking worry about
it. If you weren't aware this was all
over like leftist /
radical twitter um for a week maybe, um
there was this big letter about cancel
culture and the silencing
of people that went out, and was signed
by a bunch of people.
I'm not gonna go through the whole thing,
i have not read the whole thing, i'm not
going to bother.
Correction/update! I have, in fact, read it
now. Um, i was right,
it sucks. Dozens of people signed it,
the majority of which were very wealthy
people, just saying.
Including, to the dismay of many a white
twitter leftist,
Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is, unfortunately
in my opinion, probably one of the more
widely recognized like
leftist modern leftist philosopher names.
um and Chomsky's a linguist first and
foremost, right? A lot of people really
like him as a speaker, um i've read one of his
essays and didn't particularly
enjoy it, i talked about it in
my recent leftist reads video. I don't
know if any of you are Noam Chomsky
stans, if you are,
live your life you know. I enjoy reading
theory, not everybody doe,s but
i enjoy it. And i would recommend, if you
want to read
theory, there are better people to read
than Chomsky. And let me circle back how
this is related. um in my eyes,
with like theorists, right, when you place
them on this
immovable platform and you say they can
do no wrong in my eyes,
that puts you in a position where you
are tied to everything that they say,
right, and it puts them in a position
where if they make one false step,
suddenly you look at them and you're
like "wait, hold on, what the fuck?"
There's nothing like, inherently wrong
with reading some Chomsky,
but i do think you should be not only
ready, but
like, more than willing to, and looking
for ways to critique
not just Chomsky, but like anybody you
look up to, anybody that you even
think about putting on a pedestal. Now I
want to talk about Angela Davis,
right. I have talked about Angela Davis
before, i read "Are Prisons Obsolete?" i've
read a couple of her shorter works, i
have multiple of her books on my ebook
shelf that i really need to get to.
I read two trans YAs recently, and
neither of them were good,
and i need to stop reading trans YA. If
you follow me on goodreads and you see
me reading another trans YA...
stab me in the back. But, Angela Davis is
someone that a lot of people that i
follow talk about,
because within like the academic sphere
of leftism, she's someone referenced a
lot, she's someone that is constantly
talked about --
rightfully so, i think, because her work
is, for the most part, incredible.
But she's not beyond criticism either.
i've watched a lot of her talks, i
definitely plan on reading more of her
work than i already have,
but at the end of the day, she's still
someone that deserves criticism.
And she recently talked about, she's
gonna vote for joe biden.
This is something that is hotly debated
within leftist spaces, and a lot of
radicals, including myself, have kind of
lost faith in electoralism.
um and there's been so many things
written about it, there's like, there's so
much on that, i'm not gonna get into it
here. But, there were a lot of critiques
towards Angela Davis, because she was
endorsing, more or less, joe biden.
"Endorsing" probably isn't the right word
here, and a lot of liberal people have
kind of co-opted the message of her
talking about joe biden to be like, "vote
for biden! what,
what do you know that angela davis
doesn't?" and then they don't listen to
her on like palestinian liberation, or
like
prison abolition, or like communism, or
anything, because they just want to
promote the things that they agree with,
and not actually engage with her work as
a whole. But anyways, i'm going to be
linking a bunch of
accounts down below that talked about
the Angela Davis thing. If you scroll
back far enough, you'll be able to see
more takes on it outside of mine.
They're also just people that i've
learned a lot from following and i would
recommend you follow anyway, so!
And yeah, she's Angela fucking Davis,
right, her work is
incredibly influential to a plethora of
people and a plethora of other radicals.
But that doesn't mean that she's beyond
criticism and i think she probably knows
that. And everyone that i follow seems to
know that. It's encouraging to me
that people can simultaneously look up
to people and read people like Angela
Davis, like bell hooks, right, and still
find space to critique them,
because it means that they haven't been
put on a pedestal. And we can applaud
Angela Davis all we like, we can listen to
her, we can read her books, but you can
simultaneously listen to critiques of
her. Those two things are not mutually
exclusive.
i have actually gotten to the end of my
string that i was sewing my patch on with,
so i'm gonna cut this off right here. I
guess my overall message is just really
like,
you can listen to people's music, read
people's work, respect people's work,
and listen to them without putting them
on a pedestal
and like worshiping them. And not only
can you do that, but i think you should.
But anyways, you are allowed to critique
people
larger than you, quote-unquote, with more
wealth or more,
you know, academic clout than you, and you
know not only can do that, in my
opinion, but i think you should.
You should critique me as well, like
i'm- i'm not separating myself from this.
You can listen to people and look up to
people and respect people
and read their stuff, listen to their
stuff, without idolizing them to a level
where it becomes toxic and like a cycle, you
know, where you just can't disagree with
them because of the way you look at
their life and them as a person, or their
work.
Is it perfect? No, but we're living!
um
I need to figure out what i want to do
for a back patch for this, because really,
that's the only space i majorly have
left.
To give this video a bit more of like a
conclusion i guess, i also
wanted to like point out and, i hope, i
maybe made you think about
like the different ways that we give
critique to and respond
to critique about people in different
areas. Obviously there's a difference
between people being called out for
things that are genuinely harmful and
bad,
and like and like academic leftists
being critiqued for a take that isn't
perfect in everyone's opinion. I just
think it's really interesting
the different ways that like different
groups of people reply to their faves
being critiqued. Like when it comes to
stan culture, people get
really fucking nasty and attack anyone
that critiques their favorite band or
k-pop group or youtube star, and like i
was saying in this video, i find it more encouraging when, within political
spaces, we'll talk about theorists or
academics and
both critique their views and like
accept and expand upon them. like that's
something that i appreciate about
politics that i wish that, i guess, i wish
would like
translate more into the wider world, i
guess.
and i guess the way that this all ties
back to 'kill your idols,' right, as a theme
for this video,
is that to me that's a phrase that
almost bridges like
alt music and culture and leftist
politics, right. Because, in a lot of the
leftist discussions and spaces that i've
been in, people are very happy to
critique the theorists that they
usually agree with, you know, and
oftentimes the same can be said with
alternative
counterculture, because of y'know, kill
your idols, and
whether or not people are sellouts, and
staying true to like a more diy punk
ethos even
when a band becomes bigger, and that's a
whole other discussion that i didn't
really get into, but
you know, it's connected. I think you're
allowed to talk to people, you're allowed
to get inspiration from people, and when
it comes to politics, you're allowed to
agree with people's points,
but you know i think, along with Sonic
Youth, that putting people
on this level that's so high up that you
can no longer see anything they do wrong
and you can no longer critique them
and you can no longer like, acknowledge
that they aren't a million percent
perfect can be dangerous,
and isn't necessarily always a good
thing. um
so yeah that's what i wanted to talk
about. I don't have like a concise thesis,
and i'm not here to present my
dissertation.
I just think it's an interesting
discussion, getting into different alt
music scenes throughout the years, right,
has always had this kind of consistent
energy of like, you're allowed to
critique your favorite artist, and you're
allowed to be mad at them, you're allowed
to disagree with them.
Like, it's interesting to me that, from my
perspective, there's this shared energy
between like
alt spaces um both online and
in real life, and then also like
political spaces, both online and in real
life,
where you're allowed to critique your
favorite people, where you're allowed to
discuss how the politics of this one
band
are maybe not the best. And critiquing
people is generally seen as like,
building upon discussion, bringing up new
issues.
It's not seen as like you trying to
personally attack everybody that likes
them, and i feel like in pop culture
sometimes that's the way that
i've seen it go down. Does that make
sense? I feel like this video is a little
bit all over the place, but it was fun to
talk about, and i think it's an
interesting
thing to talk about. Yeah, that's just a
little bit of input i have while editing
this, so ah, back to- back to past me to
close off this video.
This conversation is not the end-all
be-all obviously, feel free to critique
me if you think that people
are unable to be critiqued, that would be
an interesting meta-discussion, wouldn't
it? I'm going to go take off my makeup,
because it's been on my face for like 10
hours now,
and help my brother uh get a fly out of
his room!
So, goodbye comrades, i hope that even if
you look up to me, you do not see me as
uncritiquable, because that would make me sad.
And i will talk to you later maybe!
