kyliesparks27:

inastateofwishing:

I am very, very proud of all of my friends who are involved in Wonderly, and it sounds wonderful, but I’m also a little dubious about a project that supposedly creates a space for “all girls” whose members are almost exclusively white, upper class, cis women. (I would say straight too but I don’t know enough about the women involved to make that assumption, so I’ll give the project the benefit of the doubt.)

As someone who works in feminist media, I am super excited that this exists, and I think it could be a great thing, and I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing it or the people involved, but it’s very important to take a step back and see who you’re really representing when you say you’re a voice for women everywhere— and I learned that the hard way, so I’m not just being an asshole here. I am a white cis woman, and I run a website that is mainly populated of white cis women, and I work very hard to make sure that we are not ~only by and for white cis women,~ because that has never and will never be our goal. But you can’t just say that you represent women; you have to live it, too. You have to prove yourself. You have to make sure that your privilege does not become the site’s privilege, that you actively seeking out voices from all backgrounds and all perspectives. And yes, Wonderly is not a feminist space; it’s an artist’s space, but I think the same concept still applies.

That said, it looks cute, and I hope it continues to grow and reaches out to more and more members of the youtube community— hopefully diversifying in the process.

first, i love that the title is ‘please don’t hate me’ because honestly, i don’t think it’s hateful at all to state an opinion that is a valid argument, and i have always said valid arguments that create discussion and change are more proactive than witchhunting and torching something that is harmless that CAN change.  i think this is a really interesting, thoughtful, and pretty valid post that highlights something i’ve heard about my own show from people around me, and as someone who is an actor on the ‘main show’ of wonderly right now (there will be other shows, trust me) i wanted to at least state things i have witnessed (this isn’t a rebuttal, i think it’s actually a really good point but just from my perspective wanted to add my two cents)

i wanted to point out two things that 1. tiffany (aka shelly on squaresville) is persian (or arabic, i’m seriously blanking right now tiff don’t kill me i love you) and was supposed to be part of our wonderly weekend doing promos and press but unfortunately was sick.  however tiff and i have things up our sleeves we’re working on and obv she is part of the squaresville group, and 2, [and if you haven’t watched season 1, this will be a spoiler so go watch and come back when you are good and ready] my character on squaresville is a lesbian, and while i personally identify as straight, i am a proud ally of the LGBTQ community and have my own thoughts on gender and sexuality and am proud to be carrying a storyline of this nature. as i stated in my season 1 finale wrap-up, most web shows deal with already out LGBT characters, and in the finale, we discover esther is starting to go on her journey of coming out and discovering who she is, and i want nothing more to reach out to people who, no matter who they are, where they come from, what they look like, to feel secure in their own skin.  yes, i am a white female from a semi-affluent situation, i won’t deny that at all, but i can’t speak for the backgrounds of my fellow wonderlings.  what i CAN say from my experience with wonderly, yes, even as an actor/writer of blogs on the site and not a youtube content creator because i do not consider myself one, is that i want people from ALL backgrounds, regardless of gender, class, ethnic and cultural groups, sexuality, handicaps, medical issues, what have you, to be able to participate with us in wonderly, and i’m excited what the future brings for wonderly because it has just begun, and knowing how hard Rachel, Megan, Sarah, the entire big frame crew, plus the rest of the inaugural group of wonderlings have worked, we can only go from here and begin to see wonderly evolve.

so basically, shorter kylie: don’t count us out yet.  we’ve only just begun, and i personally will be making sure that everyone gets to be involved in where wonderly is headed, even in my tiny position as actor/contributor to the blog.

Thanks for the response! I’m definitely not writing off the site; I think it’s a really beneficial space to have, and as I said in my first post, I have a few friends on it, and I fully support them and all of you. This was more meant towards the creators of Wonderly than to anyone specifically involved. I have no problem with anyone in Wonderly; I think you’re all lovely.

(Also, a clarification: a few responses I’ve gotten seem to think that I think that Wonderly should be for men, too, but that wasn’t one of my concerns. When I specified “cis women,” I was pointing out the lack of inclusion of trans* women.)

Anyway, I think all of you have your hearts in the right place, and I’m sure it’ll be fantastic. Just wanted to put forward some thoughts for you to keep in mind. And yeah, the title was “don’t hate me,” because sometimes I get a lot of eyes rolled at me for pointing out things like this, haha.

I am very, very proud of all of my friends who are involved in Wonderly, and it sounds wonderful, but I’m also a little dubious about a project that supposedly creates a space for “all girls” whose members are almost exclusively white, upper class, cis women. (I would say straight too but I don’t know enough about the women involved to make that assumption, so I’ll give the project the benefit of the doubt.)

As someone who works in feminist media, I am super excited that this exists, and I think it could be a great thing, and I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing it or the people involved, but it’s very important to take a step back and see who you’re really representing when you say you’re a voice for women everywhere— and I learned that the hard way, so I’m not just being an asshole here. I am a white cis woman, and I run a website that is mainly populated of white cis women, and I work very hard to make sure that we are not ~only by and for white cis women,~ because that has never and will never be our goal. But you can’t just say that you represent women; you have to live it, too. You have to prove yourself. You have to make sure that your privilege does not become the site’s privilege, that you actively seeking out voices from all backgrounds and all perspectives. And yes, Wonderly is not a feminist space; it’s an artist’s space, but I think the same concept still applies.

That said, it looks cute, and I hope it continues to grow and reaches out to more and more members of the youtube community— hopefully diversifying in the process.

I’m thinking of writing an article about youtube beauty gurus for Feminspire, so if you follow any gurus, please give me their usernames and I’ll check them out! Thanksloveyouall