Dan & Phil Part 82: now onto the future

Our two favourite full time internet nerds who never go outside!
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Nevermind
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I guess this conversation is leading nowhere. I mean I am not offended easily and I tend to have dark humor and I just can't see anything homophobic in his old blog entries. I only see a guy who is overwhelmed by people who harass him about a relationship he's not in and doesn't want to be in and doesn't know how to properly respond, so he gets defensive and rude. I don't see a guy who is against being with men in general.
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Ablissa
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Stakhanov wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 4:39 pm Have a good day and if you find the discussion unbearably stressful, I can only suggest you skip it. I sure plan on doing the same, this is just a difference of opinion after all.
Being condescending is not going to make you seem like the smarter one here. I'm not finding anything 'unbearably stressful'. Your opinions and your posts are usually 99% classic mansplaining, which doesn't stress me out and just makes me roll my eyes.

I see no point in replying to the rest of your post. We're walking in circles here. I'm not sure what constitutes as 'homophobia' to you, but it sure as hell will never be anything Dan ever did and I'm aware of it. We will have to agree to disagree here.
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coffeepenguin wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 5:08 pm
liola wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:55 pm Now people don't go about danrific with the same numbers because well, maybe because they barely interact anymore.
But back in the day, considering how smaller their audience was compared to now, and how many interactions there were between Dan and Phil and Cat, it wasn't the exact same but it was pretty divided. People wrote fics, people commented danrific vs phan under their collabs, people made edits and up until a couple of years ago people tagged Dan in edits with him and Cat.
wow, really? :shock: I've only been following them since 2017, so I don't have any knowledge on the prior state of the phandom, apart from people reminiscing on this very forum or some things that you just can't miss as a newly converted phanny, like the customer service blog. I have a huge weakness for fandom history, so I find it absolutely fascinating. Does anyone have a link to a danrific timeline or something?
No I don't think there isn't anything like that, to be honest? I might be wrong but there was never that need to save every interaction they EVER made I guess. I would be delighted if there was one though, because I always found it extremely funny whenever people shipped Danrific since, If I'm quite honest, I always thought she was way more taken by Phil, and generally more at ease with him than Dan - understandable since she got to know Phil first!
Will probably never be over the BONCAS and the beauty of Phil Lester.

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D (&P) both have said some pretty questionable things in their youth. They have said some ableist slurs and made racist and rape jokes in the past. It’s hardly a stretch to admit they had said some homophobic things. Just because some said something homophobic doesn’t necessarily mean they, themselves are homophobic but it certainly doesn’t negate the harmful impact it has and they still have to be help accountable for it.

They both said some pretty bad things but looking at it with context, they were young, under stress and back in the day things like that wasn’t so heavily scrutinised. Of course none of that excuses it.

I just think we should appreciate the growth that they both have shown and the fact that they are both more confident and no longer say things that could cause offensive to marginalised groups. <3
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Stakhanov
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Ablissa wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 6:59 pm
Stakhanov wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 4:39 pm Have a good day and if you find the discussion unbearably stressful, I can only suggest you skip it. I sure plan on doing the same, this is just a difference of opinion after all.
Being condescending is not going to make you seem like the smarter one here. I'm not finding anything 'unbearably stressful'. Your opinions and your posts are usually 99% classic mansplaining, which doesn't stress me out and just makes me roll my eyes.

I see no point in replying to the rest of your post. We're walking in circles here. I'm not sure what constitutes as 'homophobia' to you, but it sure as hell will never be anything Dan ever did and I'm aware of it. We will have to agree to disagree here.
Excuse you? You opened your post with "Wow, I'm not sure why I'm doing this to myself and even reading this whole discussion, but I did so I might as well reply." Talk about a condescending opening statement! If you don't even know why you're putting yourself through the apparent bother to read the discussion you can save yourself the trouble of replying and calling the person you specifically quote condescending, mansplaining. You can roll your eyes all you want, it doesn't make your arguments any stronger. Your contribution in this post was just 99% classic ad hominems.

I'm keenly aware we're walking in circles here, but I don't tailor my contributions specifically for the stress on your eye muscles so maybe someone else reading along will have found this interesting. The discussion sure seems to bring a lot of people to the table.
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(#neverminov? #stakmind? <3 lmao)

Will we get another vid this week? :snow: As frustrating as this purposeful silence is tho, it's exciting to me that we're no longer in predictable dnp territory anymore. Anything can happen next :6-year-old dan:
eternal dan and phil mood -> :happytears:
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I'm lacking the emotional energy to engage with the current topic, but here's some cute dnp tweets I found while deep-diving. And by deep-diving I mean that for half of them, searching for the phrase "dan just" and "phil just" tweeted from either of their accounts results in some funny anecdotes.

Maybe some of these will make someone else smile too. :prideheart:

(I didn't screencap all of them, but as usual, maybe don't like/retweet old tweets.)
And screencaps of retweets for original tweets that have been deleted:
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('a stroke' is the cut off bit)
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Stakhanov
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A good selection of tweets they don't really make them anymore like in ye olden days ;-)
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liola
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Well apparently I'm just gonna be ignored, that in itself is an answer :3

Oh love me some domesticity. Would love some content soon from one of them, possibly involving their faces. What does Dan look like? Is his face the same as his profile pic? I forgot how a face works :c
Will probably never be over the BONCAS and the beauty of Phil Lester.

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Dan is liking some Valentines related tweets and it’s triggering my anxiety...
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Stakhanov
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@liola You quoted both me and nevermind though we have said different things so it's not always clear which point is exactly directed at whom, but since I understand you would like a reply here is one. I don't ignore anyone, but I do have to say I'm ready to close the discussion since it just seems to lead to ad hominems and i feel it is going nowhere.
liola wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 5:06 pm
Stakhanov wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 4:39 pm
liola wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:55 pm @Stakhanov and @Nevermind I'm gonna reply to both of you here: you're looking at the situation with the numbers he has NOW.
Now people don't go about danrific with the same numbers because well, maybe because they barely interact anymore.
But back in the day, considering how smaller their audience was compared to now, and how many interactions there were between Dan and Phil and Cat, it wasn't the exact same but it was pretty divided. People wrote fics, people commented danrific vs phan under their collabs, people made edits and up until a couple of years ago people tagged Dan in edits with him and Cat.

You don't get to pick and choose my friends.
From the very earliest days they talked on skype and tweeted and dailyboothed etc, there have been Phan comments. I don't find the danrific or phimmy ship at all comparable with how phan has influenced them and the tone of the fandom at large. I'm not looking at the situation and numbers now, I'm talking about the whole of interactions within the fandom at large. The actual irl relationship between them isn't the same either, or the effort they had previously put in clarifying their own position. So if your really think danrific and phan were equivalent at the the time of the writing of the blog (let alone now), you are free to pick and choose your opinion but I'm not convinced. They are not equivalent.
-It was said that Dan would've done the same if the comments were said about one of his girl friends.
-I pointed out that there were, in fact, comments and people who talked about him and his girl friend, particularly cat (hell, i's part of the reason why she was treated so unfairly bad)
-You said that the reason why he didn't lash out the same way is because there were less people "arrassing" him about it
-I pointed out that you can't talk about numbers because actually, at the time it sure wasn't 50/50 divided between danrific vs phan but it sure was similar enough that we can make a comparison, because he had a closer relationship to Cat than he does now, they collabed with her, his audience was much smaller than it is now and that kind of divider between ships went on even longer than just 2012, because even a couple of years ago there were fanfics, edits, blogs about it (one example is when she went to london and stayed at their house and people taking that as proof)
- Now you're saying that the danrific comments didn't influence them as much (but how do you know? that's a bit farfetched, we don't know because he didn't speak about it. He never said a thing about it, so if the problem is people oppressing him about a relationship with a close friend as Cat was at the time, there clearly is a reason for that.

So now either we say that Dan's strong reaction could be seen as quite homophobic since he didn't lash out at people shipping him with a girl but did at people shipping with a boy, or we understand that he was a scared closeted depressed barely-out-of-teen-years who wanted to protect his own privacy while trying to pay rent and bills.
-Never said that, but plausable
-Never said there weren't catrific comments
-Never uttered the word "harassing", but I am pretty sure from the comments I've seen from the early days and the liveshows that, maybe apart from short periods, the phan ship was much more prominent and influential in the fandom by and large. I also don't think the relationship Dan- Cat had in reality was comparable to the relationship Dan-Phil had in reality, so even with all other factors were equal (don't believe so) it would be different for that reason alone.
-That's my opinion, in my previous post about it I said you're free to believe that they Catrific was equally or more influential than Phan, but I'm not convinced.

I don't see what any of those previous points have to do with homophobia, which I define as " an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals". Not rejecting in the exact same way as people were shipping him with Cat compared to people shipping him with his best friend Phil is not the same as having an irrational fear, aversion or discriminating against people for being gay.
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I literally typed all of this out now and I'm posting it, not my fault you moved on in the meantime, right? :?
Nevermind wrote:And that's exactly what I meant in my earlier post. People who strongly believe/want to believe that they are dating seem to read those old quotes in a totally different way than I do for example. None of the quotes posted above contain homophobia.


Hi, I don't ship them and I clearly see the internalised homophobia in those tumblr replies, just saying. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it ain't there.

What was homophobic about the customer service blog, you ask? The whole damn thing. Dan’s whole attitude. His aggressive replies that implied being perceived as gay was a bad thing that justified aggressive, rude replies. The repeated mention of creepy and wrong in the same sentence as queerness. Listen, I get that he was in a bad place and that the extreme shipping back then put a strain on him but his reaction was still homophobic. Good thing that was seven years ago and he’s not that 20-year-old anymore, right? Can we please move on from 2012 already? (And before y’all pull your “But I’m gay and I don’t mind” card. I’m gay and I mind, just accept it.)
Liola wrote:But people HAVE insinuated he was dating girls. There was a whole side of his own fans that shipped him with catrific and to this day there's still people who for some reason think they have dated/there were romantic feelings involved. When that pic of him and Bryony in the background was posted people asking him if it was his girlfriend and he replied to them in a very gentle way.

He never lashed out to people when it was insinuated that he was dating his female friends, sorry to contradict you.
Man, ain't this the truth. Exactly! Bryony and Dan were so close back then and people shipped them but he never lashed out at those people like he did at phan shippers. And that says something.

And don't give me "that shipping wasn't as intense", people. Were you actually there? When that joke picture of him "kissing" Bryony surfaced, half the phandom went ballistic. They always did when he was seen with a girl. That must have been horrible for him and those girls but still he never lashed out like that. Even though it would actually have been justified in cases where his fans actually sent those poor girls hate mail just for being in a photograph with him.

Cat was literally bullied by the phandom for years and Dan never said a word. (And I'm still salty about that, same with Bryony and the phandom's treatment of her.) So idk, "it wasn't as bad with the girls" is the weakest ass argument because actually I'd argue it was worse. People got death threats, my guy. I'd call that worse.
alittledizzy wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:05 pm I'm proud he rethought that blog so quickly and deleted it, just like I'm proud he eventually rethought some of his past videos and deleted them. I don't want to ignore his past but the Dan I like best is the Dan that I see grew from that. I still can't understand the appeal anyone sees in Dan if they think he is still the exact same person on the inside, who would say those exact same things today ~if only fans didn't oppress him so. But to each their own, I guess. I'll stay in my corner just appreciating the idea that Dan is self aware and has matured as a person to understand the meaning that words and implications like that have.
Yes to all of this and your other posts, I agree so hard.

@lionandllama: That's one great tumblr post. :stan:
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Nevermind
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Katka wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 9:06 pm I literally typed all of this out now and I'm posting it, not my fault you moved on in the meantime, right? :?
Nevermind wrote:And that's exactly what I meant in my earlier post. People who strongly believe/want to believe that they are dating seem to read those old quotes in a totally different way than I do for example. None of the quotes posted above contain homophobia.


Hi, I don't ship them and I clearly see the internalised homophobia in those tumblr replies, just saying. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it ain't there.

What was homophobic about the customer service blog, you ask? The whole damn thing. Dan’s whole attitude. His aggressive replies that implied being perceived as gay was a bad thing that justified aggressive, rude replies. The repeated mention of creepy and wrong in the same sentence as queerness. Listen, I get that he was in a bad place and that the extreme shipping back then put a strain on him but his reaction was still homophobic. Good thing that was seven years ago and he’s not that 20-year-old anymore, right? Can we please move on from 2012 already? (And before y’all pull your “But I’m gay and I don’t mind” card. I’m gay and I mind, just accept it.)
Liola wrote:But people HAVE insinuated he was dating girls. There was a whole side of his own fans that shipped him with catrific and to this day there's still people who for some reason think they have dated/there were romantic feelings involved. When that pic of him and Bryony in the background was posted people asking him if it was his girlfriend and he replied to them in a very gentle way.

He never lashed out to people when it was insinuated that he was dating his female friends, sorry to contradict you.
Man, ain't this the truth. Exactly! Bryony and Dan were so close back then and people shipped them but he never lashed out at those people like he did at phan shippers. And that says something.

And don't give me "that shipping wasn't as intense", people. Were you actually there? When that joke picture of him "kissing" Bryony surfaced, half the phandom went ballistic. They always did when he was seen with a girl. That must have been horrible for him and those girls but still he never lashed out like that. Even though it would actually have been justified in cases where his fans actually sent those poor girls hate mail just for being in a photograph with him.

Cat was literally bullied by the phandom for years and Dan never said a word. (And I'm still salty about that, same with Bryony and the phandom's treatment of her.) So idk, "it wasn't as bad with the girls" is the weakest ass argument because actually I'd argue it was worse. People got death threats, my guy. I'd call that worse.
alittledizzy wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:05 pm I'm proud he rethought that blog so quickly and deleted it, just like I'm proud he eventually rethought some of his past videos and deleted them. I don't want to ignore his past but the Dan I like best is the Dan that I see grew from that. I still can't understand the appeal anyone sees in Dan if they think he is still the exact same person on the inside, who would say those exact same things today ~if only fans didn't oppress him so. But to each their own, I guess. I'll stay in my corner just appreciating the idea that Dan is self aware and has matured as a person to understand the meaning that words and implications like that have.
Yes to all of this and your other posts, I agree so hard.

lionandllama: That's one great tumblr post. :stan:
Tbh I didn't even know that people shipped him with any girls. I was never really deep enough in the phandom. I didn't care for Dan at all in the earlier years, because I thought he was annyoing. I was only there for Phil and started watching and enjoying their joint content sometime in 2016. But Phan was something that you just couldn't get away from if you watched any of their videos, that's why I assumed it was always the big main ship.

I don't get this whole "saying creepy and wrong in the same sentence as queerness" thing. Context matters. He never said that anything is wrong with being queer. He only said that it's creepy that people think he's in a relationship with Phil, which is a personal preference.

But I already said all of this before and I don't think it's possible to ever come to an agreement on this topic.
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Ablissa
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@Stakhanov
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Anyway. Let's appreciate Dan's twitter like. I'm posting this version of it because Dan's photo fits perfectly.
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Stakhanov
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@Ablissa

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Good to know Dan is breathing and expressing his sarcastic take on St. Valentine's Day.
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Oh my life, those two photos under the cut :rofl:
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coffeepenguin wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 5:08 pm
liola wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:55 pm Now people don't go about danrific with the same numbers because well, maybe because they barely interact anymore.
But back in the day, considering how smaller their audience was compared to now, and how many interactions there were between Dan and Phil and Cat, it wasn't the exact same but it was pretty divided. People wrote fics, people commented danrific vs phan under their collabs, people made edits and up until a couple of years ago people tagged Dan in edits with him and Cat.
wow, really? :shock: I've only been following them since 2017, so I don't have any knowledge on the prior state of the phandom, apart from people reminiscing on this very forum or some things that you just can't miss as a newly converted phanny, like the customer service blog. I have a huge weakness for fandom history, so I find it absolutely fascinating. Does anyone have a link to a danrific timeline or something?
I also had no idea how much shipping there had been between those two. coincidental I just re-watched YER A WIZARD DAN and noticed the description:
also here is the video our friend Cat filmed that day! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enMncyWO6Ro

(no we are not dating and she is totally lovely so you have no reason to hate her)

(EDIT: after 12 hours people are derping in the comments even though i put this in the description which in itself should be unnecessary. internet i am dissapoint)
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:glasses: Interrupting the debate to wish you all happy voldy day anniversary, fellow demons. I like it here, on the less cynical side of phanland, where we celebrate the love of these two nerds.
Came across this cute deh video & thought it had general dnp vibes and also IOM vibes at the end, so I’m sharing it here. 🥰
eternal dan and phil mood -> :happytears:
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So nice to know that Dan and Phil spent the day watching slime anime together :') never change, boys <3

I really am starting to wonder how purposeful Dan's silence is right now, in conjunction with not posting a dinof in almost a year. Gets my brain gears turning.
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@Stakhanov.....…so many posters here have tried to explain to you that intent and impact are not the same. If you’re unable to form any kind of sympathetic or empathetic link with the pages on pages of arguments countering your position then at least take it from the point of view of conventional implicature, where the tone and structure of the language Dan used back then contributes to a negative, derisive and harmful point of view. Even if the tone he used is understandable from the perspective of defensive posturing, to shield himself against the unwanted, overwhelming public scrutiny of an attraction/relationship/facet of himself he was only beginning to understand, navigate and accept, it still left the sour aftertaste of conflating a same sex relationship with something shameful and taboo. This falls in line with the way that some companies and individuals compare being fat/old/physically or mentally impaired (or anything deemed 'socially unconventional') with something undesirable when paired with language like ‘ugly’ ‘sad,’ ‘unfortunate,’ ‘unwanted’ or by using more abstract, euphemistic language that doesn’t directly state a negative but indirectly connotes it anyway. Dan's intent or words might not have been overtly homophobic according to your own definition, but the impact of the language implied, the resounding negatives behind his chosen mode of expression at the time which overrode all intent, is a large part of what contributes to the aggressive frame of mind which constitutes homophobia in the first place.
When it comes to any bias, theory or belief, there’s always a complex latticework of contributing factors, mostly social cues within one’s community, social network, family, etc, which makes a person lean towards one end of a spectrum versus another. In particular, whether it’s internalized homophobia or a vocalized bristling expression of unequivocal hatred, that type of belief arguably finds its beginnings in the kind of small conversational prompts which associate a given idenitity with something undesirable, framing it in the context of something comedic, shameful, or illogical. In short, it’s a foundation built on direct negative associations or euphemistic shortcuts which over time create a mental and/or physical aversion to the very idea of same sex relationships. Sometimes those types of social cues are the most impactful, the ones that aren't the publically visible bigot with a megaphone shouting slurs, but the comments of friends, family and public figures whose implied tones and actions are more suggestive in influencing what other people find acceptable or questionable. In the more specific example of Dan’s old blog and some old liveshow comments, the scope of influence with his replies went beyond his intent to curtail public scrutiny into his private relationships and budding awareness of himself/his identity, etc. and devolved into what came across instead as a shuddering, lip curl of distaste towards the idea of any relationship between himself and another man. Even if the specific context was meant to deflect unwanted attention involving him and Phil or to protect himself from feeling trivialized, the end result of how he chose to phrase his replies was more far reaching and detrimental.

You called for critical reflection in one of your many replies here and we can definitely do so (though many people already have) We can critically reflect on the one side of the issue in which we understand Dan's reactionary posts from the point of view of someone young, confused, and insecure facing perceived pressure both from his audience and his own internal conflict in not having the context of experience, emotional support, comfort or maturity to deal with those pressures and then we can critically reflect on the unintended but nonetheless real, potentially harmful consequences of those off the cuff replies which later (partly? Hopefully?) provoked his own decision to delete the blog along with other videos in which past comments and jokes he made were rendered inappropriate in the context of him finally reaching those markers of maturity, experience and understanding to learn about their negative implications and realizing the large gap between how his past self no longer reflected the mode of self-expression or frame of mind of his present self.
And this part in particular is what I love best about Dan, this version of himself that is open to understanding; to evolving beyond opinions and beliefs he outgrew with time and better context of experience and education to willingly correct himself and others as evidenced by that lovely liveshow clip of him genuinely laughing at that comment about the wig and then gently correcting the commenter’s statement by talking about the implications of correlating a sexuality with an accessory as if it’s something terrible or ugly, in turn stirring up a balanced conversation about the issues behind using certain negative language when speaking of individuals and groups. This demonstrated effort to break free from outdated and flawed conventions of past thinking suggests someone willing to learn from and allow for the introduction of multiple perspectives and contexts of experience different from his own, where statements aren’t dismissed as superfluous or reduced to baseless ad hominems and people aren’t belittled to being nothing but immature contributors to a conversation, but looked at from the more compassionate, educated angle of someone open to a true conversation. And the truth here is that while Dan’s identity and relationships are his own to debate and define, it’s also true that some of his past statements- however flippant or understandable for who and where he was at that point in time- left the overall negative impact of carrying prejudiced undertones.

The point here is not to hold the past over Dan’s head like a guillotine (or Damocles’ sword to use his favorite metaphor) and again, it’s not to dismiss how age, experience and the emotionally fraught complexities of his situation almost definitely colored the language and tone he used, it’s more so that there’s a working lesson in acknowledging the testimony of those who point out that his choice of words were divisive, hurtful and dismissive in equal measure and how important it is to put effort towards understanding why that is even when you don’t necessarily see it at first. It's part of what helps mindfully educate people against using that same language themselves to perpetuate a harmful mindset they might otherwise be oblivious to contributing to. Digging in your heels on a subject to buoy your own narrow point of view while using reductive reasoning to diminish the importance of all counter arguments and attempts to clarify doesn’t make for an intellectual high ground or critical reflection nor does it contribute to the conversation behind how intent is not always equivalent to impact and how certain modes of expression can and does contribute to the stigma and hostility behind all acts of discrimination, whether towards groups, individuals or internalized self-hatred.

Lastly, there’s also equal importance in acknowledging that Dan learned from the past and has long since moved on to outgrow those remarks and become someone who appears more critically thoughtful of himself and others, a small detail I’d hope more people would learn from as well.
:dildo:
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phanfckingtastic wrote: Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:47 am :glasses: Interrupting the debate to wish you all happy voldy day anniversary, fellow demons. I like it here, on the less cynical side of phanland, where we celebrate the love of these two nerds.
Came across this cute deh video & thought it had general dnp vibes and also IOM vibes at the end, so I’m sharing it here. 🥰
This video along with Ben Platt's newest (East My Mind) have brought me so much joy this week. Oh, and a I may have watched an unnamed video over my lunch break. As I do every year on February 14th.
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The hivemind in this forum is unreal. It's one thing to ship phan, but saying Dan was homophobic and gaslighting for denying it when people wouldn't stop pestering him about it? Where's your common sense people? Can't you hear yourselves?
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Ah, condescension first thing in the morning. My favorite! Lots of people having the same logical opinion/conclusion ≠ hivemind.
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glitterintheair
phillluminati
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If people weren't offended by what Dan said back then, good for them. But if people were, they had the right to be - just because for someone certain actions are not considered offensive, that doesn't mean that it must be the case for literally every single person in the universe. Why is that so hard to understand?

I don't even know why Dan's actions in 2012 are still so intensely discussed, here. We're talking about a guy who said not long ago that he's constantly changing and evolving, to the point that he feels like that the person he was just few months ago is not who he is now, and yet people are still here defending with so much passion what he said when he was 22, claiming that those words are still true to this day? MOVE. ON. ALREADY.
I'm a winter flower underground, always thirsty for summer rain.
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Ablissa
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so_cheesy wrote: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:30 am The hivemind in this forum is unreal. It's one thing to ship phan, but saying Dan was homophobic and gaslighting for denying it when people wouldn't stop pestering him about it? Where's your common sense people? Can't you hear yourselves?
Literally no one is saying that Dan was homophobic for denying phan... Please read the posts before you get all passive aggressive. Quoting my own post here:
Ablissa wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 4:03 pm Him denying phan has NOTHING to do with the questionable wording he used to do it.
And also quoting @alittledizzy, who went through the trouble of pointing out the problem with the WORDING:
alittledizzy wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:42 pm It's also hard for me to understand why you believe you get to be the authority that defines what is homophobic to other people, so we're definitely at an impasse. (And, just to get out ahead of this remark, I'm not at any point saying you personally need to find it homophobic. If you aren't offended, that's fine. But other people aren't wrong just because they don't share your casual perspective and that's what I'm defending against.)

Since it got buried at the bottom of the last page, I'm just going to include my last response here that clarifies why I am not talking about Dan's responses to him being specifically with Phil: Things like "secretly gay" "bumming my friend" "wrong and creepy" "'gays' lol." and adding "haha" to the end of the question that just directly asked if he was gay - all phrases that specifically mention queerness or queer acts in the context of demeaning the relationship that people were asking him about. If he really wanted to make it just about saying he and Phil weren't together he could have very, very, very easily responded to the same question using respectful phrasing or keeping his disrespect limited to saying they weren't together and not linking the animosity toward sexuality as well.
And again, let me reiterate - NO ONE IS BLAMING DAN. He's grown up so much, changed for the better, and it's clear that when he said those things, he was in a really bad place himself and would do just about anything to get the shippers to calm down.
That doesn't make the words he used non-homophobic.

I really wish we could just drop this conversation. Everyone is sick of it by now. The only reason I responded is that I refuse to allow you to insult the people on this forum without at least bringing in the receipts.
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