Today we're going to be talking about a social direction that can be equal parts intimidating and confusing for people posting their comics around the internet.

Now, we’re all doing our best to be respectful of different groups out there. It is never okay to be a phobic jerk, and there’s all kinds of resources out there for making sure you’re not doing something harmful that you do not intend. But there’s also a lot of challenging topics out there that you might want to talk about in your webcomic, and a lot of reasons people might get mad about the fact that you’re addressing them. There’s a lot of nuance and we probably won’t be able to handle all of it, but we’re going to address that fear of backlash that we’re loosely calling “purity culture” in this context.

Because there is a lot of nuance in this episode, I highly recommend listening to it. I've tried to sum up some key ideas, but listening is going to give you the best experience

Purity culture stems a lot from folks who think there's a good way and bad way to do things, no in betweens. Nuance is a topic that is unfortunately escaping a lot of circles, and black and white thinking can be really harmful when approaching deep or complicated subject matters.

Art sets off moments, meanings, and a whole load of reactions that differ from viewer to viewer. You can never anticipate every reaction to a piece of art. Art that invokes intense emotion, whether positive or negative, can sometimes make viewers uncomfortable. And sometimes from among those viewers, someone will decide that their own discomfort means everyone is uncomfortable and therefore the art needs to go.

When you see a particular harmful piece, something that aims to specifically hurt someone with a message or imagery, that’s certainly a time to be alarmed. Popularised during many war times, political unrest, and a way to gain favour of fearful folks, art has been, and continues to be in many ways, used against minority groups, political sides and opinions, and even a way of living for as long as it has been around. Recognising what is and what isnt trying to make you hate another person or vehemently disagree with a statement is key here. It always comes back to intent. Now, subtlety can and does exist to sway an opinion, so further reading and analysing is a good way to broach certain subjects. But what does it look like when it goes too far?

Saying a comic that depicts a moment of a cat being abandoned does not automatically mean that it is a comic about abandoning cats. When you explore a facet in your story, a particularly deep and complicated one, there comes a ‘price’ or ‘burden’ in which the lens we view it with requires understanding and nuance. If the intent of a story is not some political sway into thinking cats are meant to be abandoned, and instead largely about lizards in space who met an abandoned cat in their adventure, punishing a story to a single moment isnt doing it justice, like any avenue of an artistic piece. It all requires nuance and understanding. Your reaction is key, the artist wants to make you feel bad for the abandoned cat, or maybe the cat has more layers as to why it got there in the first place - But a feeling of, ‘oh this poor cat’, is not an equal translation to ‘this story is therefore bad and mean’.

There’s a lot of good discussion when talking about when something needs correcting or some extra feedback. I always encourage a beta zone for certain aspects of your work, designs, moments, and most of all, intent. When we go in blind with some aspects of life that perhaps are not our own experience, however, we can run into a few snags. Appropriating cultures in designs without the understanding of certain aspects can read as ignorant and harmful, so when we want to explore those aspects, its good to be aware of what we're going for, especially if it’s an experience so far from our own.

When you have some readers who come in with questions on the intent of your work when exploring these certain aspects, it’s always good to keep an open mind out on what they are feeling too. What are you trying to depict here? Is it a culture beyond your own? How much are we taking from it? Is it okay to take from it?

That said, it is NEVER OKAY to go on a hate campaign or dogpile to make a creator ‘own up’ to their mistakes.

Nuance is a hard topic to discuss in open forums and spaces like social media, and it's also not specifically up to you as the viewer to champion ‘correcting’ works you feel are inappropriate, regardless of intent. Take things with a grain of salt, and there is always the option to disengage when it becomes unreadable to your standards. You can stop reading something if you don't like it.

Beta readers, Sensitivity Readers and Trigger Warnings are great and useful tools! USE THEM!

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Episode Release Date: October 4, 2023

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Rae Baade (@overlordrae) - they/them, empyreancomic.com

Phineas Klier (@tentacledeity) - they/them, heirsoftheveil.fervorcraft.de

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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.