Dan & Phil Part 52: And They Were Roommates

[nephilimcat]

Can we all just remember that several Japanese people/people of Japanese descent have expressed being uncomfortable with the Japanese merch?. Just because other Japanese people/people of Japanese descent think it's okay, doesn't mean we should dismiss their feelings. Whenever someone is offended or feels uncomfortable, your first reaction should be, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. What is it exactly that offended you? I would like to know so I can avoid offending you and other people in the future." Of course when you have a fanbase, your first step should be a bit different and you should be looking into it and see whether or not there's substance to it because people will always call you out for something, even if it's just your favourite colour or the person you date.
But in this case, there is substance. There are many good arguments why it is problematic to sell merch with Japanese writing on it. There are also some good arguments why it isn't, but I think because there are people offended, their concerns are more valid than people saying "But I am not offended, people are just soooo sensitive these days."
As a queer person, I have seen queer people (mostly cis gay people) say that homophobia is fine as long as nobody is beating anyone up for it. But that doesn't mean it actually is fine because other queer people - like me - don't think homophobia is acceptable and are offended and/or hurt by it. So who has a more valid opinion, the person who is being hurt or the person who is defending those who are doing the hurting (intentional or not)?

I also haven't seen anyone on here who is actually angry with Dan and Phil or sees them as racists. What they're doing is not being racist dickheads, it's them doing something they think is okay and probably never thought about in depth. We know that they are usually very careful not to offend anyone and we all love them for it (at least I hope we all do...). And as we just saw, they have matured enough to apologise for offending people with the comment in the latest video, even though they never intended to say something like that about monolid eyes. Which is great! And let's be real, I think we were all aware that they never meant to be offensive or actually think badly about monolid eyes. That doesn't mean nobody should have called them out for it.
I never meant to be racist or homophobic or ableist or whatever but if I had not been told how offensive some things are, I'd still say some of them. I still say things sometimes that aren't okay, I am sure about that. And just because I didn't and don't intend to be mean, it doesn't mean that's fine. But how am I supposed to know if nobody is telling me?

oh dear top of the page

Edit 2: very good post jaej!

[Sinister Shipper]

i'm posting to apologize to anyone I may have offended, it's never my intention to do so - sometimes I have a hard time articulating my thoughts into proper words and it comes across wrong.

I don't want to argue or fight with anyone, I should just learn to keep my mouth shut but I can't because I'm stubborn and at my age I don't bite my tongue very well.

I'm going to step away (which is probably a relief to most of you) from the merch conversation with my tail between my legs and regret on my mind but I can't promise I won't get myself into trouble again about another topic.


Just don't hate me

[Catallena]

Firstly, many excellent posts from people like fancybum, alittledizzy, Katka, jaej, nephilimcat that I completely agree with.

Capybantsa and magnolia From the bottom of my heart I am truly glad you weren't offended and your opinions and experiences are of course always infinitely more valid than mine. However many fans of Japanese descent in the phandom have expressed discomfort with it for more than a year now and their feelings are very valid too. Opinions are individual things after all, not of an entire society and it's important to recognize that and avoid generalizing statements. And I think it's important that these people feel comfortable liking D&P and participating in the phandom just as much as all of us. But sadly, I feel like people are looking over the concerns of these people and value your opinions more because they don't threaten their own views or D&P.

Sinister Shipper You lost me the moment you shared an article preaching about the evil left from a Libertarian website. Libertarians aren't exactly known for their progressive views on issues of racism or any other kind of -ism or phobia and they aren't the logical centrists of the political spectrum they like to present themselves as.

Anyway, I had a short mini rant and DM conversation about the cultural appropriation subject but fuck it let's do it here too and make some new friends on here ay.

I don't care that other people do worse. It's not relevant. Because I don't care about human wastes of space like Jake Paul or whoever else and they don't care about me. I already know they don't wanna do better. But I know that D&P do care and would like to better. And let's face it, most people using these 'but the other kids did it too!' excuses don't care all that much and only get mad when it's convenient to use in an argument like this. They're not exactly spending their time preaching about this supposed 'real racism' they supposedly care so much about. A bit like islamophobic homophobes who don't see a problem in using homophobic slurs because at least they're not throwing the gays of buildings like those evil muslims or whatever. I care about Dan and Phil and I care about a part of their audience who loves them too but has problems with some of the minor things they do. Everyone should be able to enjoy their videos, not just you because you weren't offended. If you weren't offended then people asking D&P to be more aware of things shouldn't affect you either.

Then, the ~intent~ excuse. Of course D&P don't actually intend for things to be racist or sexist (see the discussion on Dan sometimes calling Tabitha a 'stinky hoe') and I know for 99% sure that they aren't. But I didn't intend to step on someone's foot yesterday in the bus but I still apologized. Because it still hurt someone. And it's the polite and right thing to do. Don't y'all learn this as children or something? No one put a gun to their head so that they'd apologize. We didn't make them post some 4 minute tearjerker apology video where they shave their heads in shame. What D&P did is listen to their audience, acknowledge the problem and act accordingly. Our favorite rich capitalist white guys do not need your pity. Apologizing is not an act that needs pity as a response. Good people like Dan and Phil setting examples like this is a good thing for the world.

"But it's appreciation! We know they really love Japan!" Eh no we don't. We just assume. They have never said anything about language, history or culture. We know they love anime and aesthetics and that's about it. And that's fine, you can like and appreciate those things and that's not wrong or problematic. Reblogging some aesthetic pic with a quote in kanji from your fave manga on Tumblr seems fine to me (and I do it all the time oops). But making money from this shallow and somewhat fetishist understanding of Japanese culture is just so different. That's not appreciation anymore. D&P and IRL Digital are not big corporate powerhouses but they are a business. Thinking that they just wanna share the love for a culture is incredibly naive imo.

Another favorite excuse; that they probably asked Duncan. Again, we're assuming things we don't know. But even if they did.. I like Duncan a lot, but he's hardly your epitome of sensitivity over on YouTube Japan. In fact, he's pretty controversial and that's kinda his thing. And having a Japanese friend doesn't entitle you to anything? That's just a variation of 'I'm not racist, I have black friends' surely you see that? And others can still take issue even if 'one of their own' said that it's okay. Aside from that, people who use arguments like these assume that every person in a minority is educated on hardships while that simply isn't true. There's the points raised by yoursinsincerely that someone born and raised in a homogeneous society like Japan has often not experienced active racial hatred and stereotyping, white supremacist ideas in society, and erasure of their culture or history. But even minorities in Western countries aren't always educated on this either. There are black people, muslims, gay people, women in general supporting Trump for god's sake.. and oh people will definitely come at me with 'just because they have different opinion doesn't mean-' but I'm not dealing with that today ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Been a while since I posted a wall of text but I had nothing better to do.

[darque_red]

It's just merch that is sold to a phandom, there are bigger issues in the world than Dan and Phil using Japanese language on bags and hats, so just take a deep breath and move on.

This^

I personally don't see why dnp's comment was such a big deal. There were no bad intentions behind it. It's not like they purposely made a racist joke. I don't think they needed to apologize for it, it was just phrased badly. Other youtubers get away with so much worse. And a lot of people are buying the merch, and actually liking it. I don't think they will pull it all down because a small portion of people are mad at the concept tbh. It's not like they're outright hating the culture. They're showing that they like it and that they enjoyed the trip. They haven't said anything bad about Japan.

[human]

I don't think you should feel like you've been pummelled into apologising with your tail between your legs at all, Sinister Shipper. That doesn't seem fair to me. You just have a different opinion and I've seen quite a few people say how good it is this forum has a variety of opinions so I don't see why, just because you had a strong opinion on something, that should be any different for you. So please don't vanish back into lurkerville

I'm just not engaging with this japhan merch conversation at all soooo lol moving theory it is!!!

Randomly, I really miss Phil's Sunday liveshows. I rarely get to see them on Thursdays because I work late and have a long commute between work and home but meh. Sundays still feel weird for me without them.

[autumnhearth]

Just popping on here to add that the other moments that added to the moving theory were Dan doing his last ls from the moon room, followed by Phil having an oddly long segment moving around a pretty iridescent drinking glasss that had reflections of the windows
They don't have to mean anything, but they could. Also Dan mentioning eviction

[somethingsketchy]

Just popping on here to add that the other moments that added to the moving theory were Dan doing his last ls from the moon room, followed by Phil having an oddly long segment moving around a pretty iridescent drinking glasss that had reflections of the windows
They don't have to mean anything, but they could. Also Dan mentioning eviction

We also can't forget the fact that they've been talking about dogs non-stop since they moved. We know that they can't keep a dog at their current place, but doggos still seem to be on their minds a lot, which makes it look like the forever home is not too far away.

[tumblr] <div class="tumblr-post" data-href="https://embed.tumblr.com/embed/post/Fvj ... 3260823959" data-did="f5ce8838d83e275fa4e9e29b7381bd2f7612965e">[/tumblr]

[Sinister Shipper]

I don't think you should feel like you've been pummelled into apologising with your tail between your legs at all, Sinister Shipper. That doesn't seem fair to me. You just have a different opinion and I've seen quite a few people say how good it is this forum has a variety of opinions so I don't see why, just because you had a strong opinion on something, that should be any different for you. So please don't vanish back into lurkerville

I'm just not engaging with this japhan merch conversation at all soooo lol moving theory it is!!!

Randomly, I really miss Phil's Sunday liveshows. I rarely get to see them on Thursdays because I work late and have a long commute between work and home but meh. Sundays still feel weird for me without them.

Thank you for that, honestly I really appreciate it.

I was rereading what I have written, I definitely just ran my mouth and didn't consider what I was typing before I typed it. I'm not saying that everything I said that I take back because I have very strong opinions about this topic (obviously) & I know that I used a terrible example of an article that doesn't necessarily 100% convey my views and for that I apologize to everyone. I also apologize for it seeming like I don't value others opinions that differ from mine because I truly do. I don't assume that a few opinions that are similar to mine make up a majority of opinions from other Asians and for that I'm sorry as well. I'm a really open minded person and I support so many things. I was taught that most of these things I support weren't right when I was growing up so it's like word vomit once I get going because I was repressed from having these kinds of opinions and speaking my mind when I was younger - that doesn't excuse me from offending people.

[onetruetrash]

Personally, the shirts and backpacks are appropriating (I'm white btw). I think it's the fact that they are profiting off of a culture that they don't care about apart from the country's pop culture.

Also, I haven't seen anyone bring this up, but last time this was discussed, people who were Asian were saying that they've experienced racism when they use their own language, but white people get to use it to make money off of. I think that's what makes it different from Asian people using English as an aesthetic. I haven't heard of white people being discriminated or mocked in Japan or any other country for that matter, but Asian people do have to face that.

[magnolia]

As someone else has already pointed out, we need to keep historical context in mind. Western nations have exploited, orientalised and oppressed East Asian people for centuries. I mean, look at the japonism trend of the late 19th century and the harmful stereotyping of Asian women that went along with it. That’s appropriation, imperialism and oppression at its best and just because it happened a hundred years ago doesn’t mean it doesn’t still effect us today because it totally does. I’m not going to talk about Japan here because I have no ties to Japan but I have ties to China and I see Hollywood stereotyping Chinese people as mysterious, sneaky and other to this very day, all associations that were formed when Europeans, especially the British, first decided they wanted something from China that China wasn’t willing to give them just like that.

Like, the reason people in Hong Kong speak English is because Hong Kong was under British rule for so long. The people of Hong Kong have not appropriated English, they were forced to assimilate. So if Chinese people wear a shirt with English writing on it it’s a whole other story than an English person wearing a shirt with Chinese writing on it. It’s just a completely different historical context, even though it might look like the same thing. It's not the same thing. Historical and social contexts matter.

I see what you're saying, and I will try to articulate my thoughts as best as I can.

First of all, I think most people are not taking into consideration the historical context like you at all tbh. Even if deppy were from a country that has never invaded or oppressed Asian countries most people would still accuse them of negative cultural appropriation.

Anyway, the way I comprehend your argument is that deppy's merch is contributing to the fetishism and stereotyping of Japan, like Westerners have done in the past, which I totally understand. However I also believe this goes two ways. When I talked about English being used all over the world, I literally mean all over the world, not just in Hong Kong, not just in countries invaded by the West, but the entire world, because English-speaking culture is the mainstream culture, everywhere. Granted this is largely due to their history of oppressing other countries, but basically I'm talking about culture exportation, and how that is an important sign of a powerful country. The Korean government spends millions on Kpop because this is a big part of their culture export, the Japanese government started the "Cool Japan" project because we want to put out more culture export, one of China's biggest current problems is that we have almost no modern culture export. Countries want foreigners to like and become obsessed with their culture because it is politically and economically beneficial.

I have firsthand experience when it comes to historical dissent and arguments, because one of the two countries I'm from has invaded and ravaged the other in the past yet its government still denies most of it to this day. And though a lot of Chinese people are still very bitter about it, a lot of them are also huge weebs. And their argument is always that they're purely enjoying the cultural content and elements, and that's independent from whatever political shit happened in the past. A lot of Japanese people also love ancient Chinese culture, in fact most of the best video games and anime based on Chinese culture are made by Japanese people, but at least some of them are probably history deniers as well. Culture export is powerful. I'm not saying it's right, but people do obsess over cultural elements, and governments promote cultural elements, without acknowledging shitty history, because in this context it literally doesn't matter to them, the government and the people just like having more global influence, and they don't see it as a bad thing at all. Even the Japan-haters in China aren't going to ask Japan to retract Sankokushi, because it's positive cultural promotion for China.

And I think it's really interesting that you brought up Japonism, because I don't know any Japanese people who sees Japonism as a bad thing, it's just remembered as this really long time period when Westerners really freakin liked Japan, and that relates to what I just said, as in when the history is long and gone, Japan's just happy that they left cultural influence on the world that supports the economy, and they want it to happen more. Yes the whole Madame Butterfly thing was horrible, but I think it's a bit too much to say that just printing out cherry blossoms is supporting the negative crazy submissive stereotypes of Japanese women.

Back to deppy, seriously, none of what they did is reinforcing untrue Japanese stereotypes like in the past, literally everyone's gonna think either "that's cute i really like japan too", or "wow u like japan alot", and that is literally not bad for anyone, and is exactly what the Japanese government and the people of Japan are happy to hear. Why should we erase negative stereotypes and stop the mocking by telling everyone to stop talking about it, and not get everyone to talk about how great we are? (Which is like East Asian cultural exportation in a nutshell) And I see what you're saying about negative Chinese stereotypes in Hollywood, and that does suck balls, but I really don't see how that's the same thing as positive culture exportation...sneaky old Chinese men are one thing, using Chinese cultural elements and appreciating its beauty is another. And China is trying to show the world positive & progressive Chinese figures on screen too, like the female warrior in The Great Wall.

Basically, forcing people to not use elements of culture isn't good for anyone, especially for that culture in question, because cultural export is so important in this day and time. Realistically speaking, no one wants to dwell on the historical context and discourage people from liking and having a positive image of their culture.

Disclaimer here, I'm not an expert on this or anything!! Feel free to disagree about stuff

[cherrybomb3]

pff of course i love dan and phil


Dcultural
Appropriation
Nqueerbaiting

Alibertarianism
Nr e l a t a b i l i t y
Dmoving

P(un)ironicuseofsjwasaphrase
Hbedrooms
Ivases lol
Lapologising

[mysterylovescompany]

pff of course i love dan and phil


Dcultural
Appropriation
Nqueerbaiting

Alibertarianism
Nr e l a t a b i l i t y
Dmoving

P(un)ironicuseofsjwasaphrase
Hbedrooms
Ivases lol
Lapologising

I fucking love you

The srs bsns of the current convos kinda makes me want to post the marge simpson meme about lightening up a little but i'm highkey afraid of being murdered

[LtrllySusan]

pff of course i love dan and phil


Dcultural
Appropriation
Nqueerbaiting

Alibertarianism
Nr e l a t a b i l i t y
Dmoving

P(un)ironicuseofsjwasaphrase
Hbedrooms
Ivases lol
Lapologising

How long were you trying to actually make it work before you said fck it

[cherrybomb3]

pff of course i love dan and phil


Dcultural
Appropriation
Nqueerbaiting

Alibertarianism
Nr e l a t a b i l i t y
Dmoving

P(un)ironicuseofsjwasaphrase
Hbedrooms
Ivases lol
Lapologising

I fucking love you

The srs bsns of the current convos kinda makes me want to post the marge simpson meme about lightening up a little but i'm highkey afraid of being murdered

should probs clarify that im not trying to seem above of to stifle all the genuinely interesting important discourse that goes on and highlights issues etc by being all cynical and stuff. it just occasionally gets a bit intense

[cherrybomb3]

pff of course i love dan and phil


Dcultural
Appropriation
Nqueerbaiting

Alibertarianism
Nr e l a t a b i l i t y
Dmoving

P(un)ironicuseofsjwasaphrase
Hbedrooms
Ivases lol
Lapologising

How long were you trying to actually make it work before you said fck it

too long

too busy tho so lets say the meme was totally intentional

[citizen_erased]

pff of course i love dan and phil


Dcultural
Appropriation
Nqueerbaiting

Alibertarianism
Nr e l a t a b i l i t y
Dmoving

P(un)ironicuseofsjwasaphrase
Hbedrooms
Ivases lol
Lapologising

I fucking love you

The srs bsns of the current convos kinda makes me want to post the marge simpson meme about lightening up a little but i'm highkey afraid of being murdered

that's beautiful, thanks & well done

i'd say just post the meme but now i'm wondering if anyone here has ever ~mysteriously disappeared~ after srs bsns discourse

[mysterylovescompany]

should probs clarify that im not trying to seem above of to stifle all the genuinely interesting important discourse that goes on and highlights issues etc by being all cynical and stuff. it just occasionally gets a bit intense

oh, definitely agree (esp with the last part)

i'd say just post the meme but now i'm wondering if anyone here has ever ~mysteriously disappeared~ after srs bsns discourse

see, now it has two meanings!

[000dia000]

Let's talk about houseplants!

Phil couldn't find any good tweet ideas in his drafts, so decided to just recycle an old, iconic tweet. Apparently insinuating jerking off??

[LtrllySusan]

Let's talk about houseplants!

Phil couldn't find any good tweet ideas in his drafts, so decided to just recycle an old, iconic tweet. Apparently insinuating jerking off??

Excuse me but who the hell connects buying toilet paper with jerking off. Lol, we all like offers in the store and we all poop.

Sorry I just made the quality of discussion in this thread hit rock bottom

[SneakyLizard]

Let's talk about houseplants!

I laughed so hard, absolutely perfect use of that quote. You're my favorite person right now

[Speedygonz33]

According to the results of the Dan and Phil Survey, nobody preferred the internet support group. I don't like those series of videos at all, frankly, and wished he would drop them with his rebranding because at this point they feel so scripted and kind of boring (my opinion). But many people out of Phil's videos preferred Sleepless night which makes sense why he made a second one recently (for that $) and I actually like those types of videos because they feel more chill. Of course Dan's diss track did the best because it was relatable. And collabs seem to be favored on their channels, too. They should do more collabs. (Sorry bout this rant, I'm bored)
Anyways, somebody should send some of these results to DnP cause they're probably searching for new ideas for videos. Tell them they should do another collab. Also tell them to hurry up on their mysterious August project cause I'm really impatient lol

[quercussp]

I saw someone mentioning on Tumblr that the fact that Phil didn't tweet yesterday meant that he was really upset about the Dream Daddy video "backlash". Along with hundreds of comments about how we will be lucky if they EVER make another video and how now they are going to be afraid to be sincere in their videos.

Is there any truth to the amount of tweeting they do and their mood? What do you think? Personally, I think that's ridiculous, but I haven't been in the phandom that long, so...

[fancybum]

I saw someone mentioning on Tumblr that the fact that Phil didn't tweet yesterday meant that he was really upset about the Dream Daddy video "backlash". Along with hundreds of comments about how we will be lucky if they EVER make another video and how now they are going to be afraid to be sincere in their videos.

Is there any truth to the amount of tweeting they do and their mood? What do you think? Personally, I think that's ridiculous, but I haven't been in the phandom that long, so...

That might be a lingering idea from them going dark for a bit after the tabinof announcement didn't go over well. I think generally it has more to do with them just being busy rather than retreating from attack lol. They're probably busy having All The Meetings right now to ramp up to their convention announcement or whatever it is coming up. Maybe they're just announcing Japhan 2.0 on Thursday. I'd laugh.

[Speedygonz33]

I saw someone mentioning on Tumblr that the fact that Phil didn't tweet yesterday meant that he was really upset about the Dream Daddy video "backlash". Along with hundreds of comments about how we will be lucky if they EVER make another video and how now they are going to be afraid to be sincere in their videos.

Is there any truth to the amount of tweeting they do and their mood? What do you think? Personally, I think that's ridiculous, but I haven't been in the phandom that long, so...

This is either from those people who think Phil is a little angel bean who should be protected at all costs or those people who feel the need to create drama cause there's nothing happening in the Phandom right now.

They'd be stupid not to make another Dream Daddy video. It has so many views already for only being posted 2 days ago. I think they were working on their secret project yesterday and maybe Phil was too tired to post anything, or he simply didn't have any relatable or funny content to post about. Or maybe he was filming a new video.

[leaveimreading]

I saw someone mentioning on Tumblr that the fact that Phil didn't tweet yesterday meant that he was really upset about the Dream Daddy video "backlash". Along with hundreds of comments about how we will be lucky if they EVER make another video and how now they are going to be afraid to be sincere in their videos.

Is there any truth to the amount of tweeting they do and their mood? What do you think? Personally, I think that's ridiculous, but I haven't been in the phandom that long, so...

I suppose if there was a sad family thing (an example) or something along those lines, they wouldn't tweet like usual. But other than that, no imo. Their accounts aren't 'personal' after all. They can't really go on rants. Dan was ia for like 4 days while filming his tinder video. Sometimes they just don't have anything to tweet about. This seems like it was just Phil's little way of saying 'hi I'm alive and everything is fine (as far as you guys are concerned).'

The tumblr thing made me laugh. As if they'd stop making videos over a little misunderstanding. They're professionals who've been doing this for years. I'm pretty sure it's gonna take a little more than than that to actually cause a change. I really can't with some of the tumblr phandom sometimes.

EDIT: I'm out of the loop, what happened with the tabinof announcement that made people upset??