“Find the means that work best for you and the people you’re in community with, and grab hold of what...
NOVEMBER 30, 2021 | WYV NEWS
Since 2014, Wear Your Voice has been a platform for those who needed a space that honored their voices, centered their narratives, and challenged oppressions in ways mainstream publications so often fail to or refuse to do.
News Feed
Goodbye from the Wear Your Voice Staff
Since 2014, Wear Your Voice has been a platform for those who needed a space that honored their voices, centered their narratives, and challenged oppressions in ways mainstream publications so often fail to or refuse to do. When a thing was unpopular to say, Wear Your Voice’s writers often said it and pushed back against the imperialist white supremacist capitalist...
Steve from ‘Blue’s Clues’ Doesn’t Know You and Other Hard Truths About Parasocial Relationships
Nickelodeon benefits from an ultimately one-sided relationship, in which Steve from Blue’s Clues serves a manufactured comfort. By Dede Akolo As we all know, Steve from Blue’s Clues is very proud of you and everything that you’ve accomplished. At least that’s what he says in this video released on Nickelodeon’s Twitter account for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beloved children’s...
Predating the Pain: Black Horror in Focus
There is a distinction between Black horror and horror that merely features Black characters. Black horror must engage with Black experiences, music, culture, references, or diasporic religion as central components and must be made with a Black audience in mind. By Adia Cullors Since the massive success of Get Out (2017), there has been a renaissance in Black horror and...
How ‘Sex Education’ Gets Modern Sex Ed Right
Sex Education stands out for focusing on the emotional impact that sex can have on discovering yourself, over and over again. I’ll admit: When Sex Education first aired on Netflix back in 2019, I was skeptical that they were going to get it right. Long before the show aired, media portrayals of sex education were shaming at best, and most...
Parasocialism and Industry Amnesia in K-Pop Fandom
While “Global North” parasocialism tends to lean towards non-reciprocal parasocial interaction of fans merely admiring a celebrity, parasocialism in K-Pop fandom proves to be a more multi-directional devotion. By Sharon Kong-Perring In February 2020, three weeks before the world shut down, I began the grand rituals of a night out with someone special. Like any serious employee, I took half...
How Online Parasocial Dynamics Impact Marginalized Creators
Marginalized people with platforms face harsher expectations and worse criticism when it comes to parasocial dynamics online. CW/TW: Discussion of white supremacy, queerphobia, social exploitation of marginalized people By Shaanth Nanguneri In every Tiktok, Youtube video, and Tweet we consume, our parasocial relationships with content creators are evolving. The idea of a parasocial relationship in the mind of consumers is...
A Parasocial Love Story: Where the Intimate and the Performative Collide
As socialization increasingly shifts online, we are likely to form more (and more intense) parasocial bonds and see a blurring of the boundaries between the real and the parasocial. By Sohel Sarkar In 1893, when Arthur Conan Doyle shoved his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes off a cliff, fans went into public mourning, forcing the author to resuscitate their beloved sleuth....
Defund the Celebrity Activism Industrial Complex
Capitalism has turned the legitimate organizing and activism efforts of everyday people seeking support and care for their communities into a competitive spectacle. Activism is in its flop era. That’s an uncharitable characterization, but based on current events and public sentiment it’s an apt one in the wake of CBS’ announcement for their soon to be revamped activist game show-turned...
Ambient Trauma: Giving Name To The Burgeoning Pains Of Our Times
Healing from ambient trauma will require destroying the ideologies and systems that engender harm and in their place cultivating more just and caring ways of living. CW: discussion of trauma in the general & abstract form (i.e. no specific details), with occasional reference to specific environmental disasters and general events By Jonathan Fisk Nobody is doing okay right now. This...
The Border Crisis of the Migrant-Slave
Black mobility, as seen in the case of the Haitian migrant-slave, is not only a threat to the sovereign-national border, but to the border-as-limit to the meaning of emancipation and agency writ large. By Tea S. Troutman Borders—like the nation-states, colonies, and otherwise legible cartographies of sovereignty they demarcate,—are first and foremost anti-black. That’s it. Send tweet. I did in...
White Mediocrity Is Diluting The Influential Power Of Music Awards Shows
The capitalist system of The White Celebrity™ keeps using music awards shows to reward itself for mediocrity at the blatant expense of Black and Asian artists. By Ebony Purks At the 1985 American Music Awards (AMAs), Prince’s critically acclaimed, avant-pop song “When Doves Cry” won the AMA for “Favorite Black Single.” At some point, this award category was changed to...
Encountering Biphobia And Challenging White Supremacy In Western Psychology
Western psychology was developed under and exists within a white supremacist society that more often than not works hard to quell any and every revolutionary bone in your body. TW: biphobia, racism, and ableism in Western psychology, mention of death By J.R. Yussuf I was drawn to therapy with hopes that it would help me become more comfortable with my...
