I tried to ask a another youtuber Living Anachronism who has worked with Shadiversity if he knew about Shad’s homophobic content & the mod delete my question, told me asking about that was against the no drama rule, that it wasn’t homophobic & proceeded to try to gaslight me with pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

I’m tired of bringing thing up in non queer spaces only to be told that’s it not actually homophobic.

The original video I referred to:https://youtu.be/GiyMDN9j2OU?si=bDqnc1pCG8t3HASp

45 points
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I’m an elder Gen X. Who are these people? Why should I care about them? Does their limited literacy and obvious homophobia have an impact on the wider world in general?

Edit: Sorry; I didn’t notice the youtube link initially. I am shame.

Anyway, I’m like 30 seconds in now, and it’s two fucking morons in shitty Costume City versions of chain mail talking about issues they’re wildly unfamiliar with, and somehow they’ve got, like, 100k followers? WTF? Am I just taking crazy pills?

Edit edit: So, like, are these chodes like the Australian version of Andrew Taint?

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24 points

Shad is Australian and his politics are shitty, but he’s not an Andrew Taint if only because his influence is miniscule outside of the niche of people interested in medieval weaponry but not interested enough in that to actually go out and join a HEMA or SCA or similar club (because just about the first thing you’ll learn if you do join a HEMA club is how shitty his opinions about history are…in addition to his modern-day political opinions).

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13 points

I believe he’s Mormon as well, which is where some homophobia could come from.

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6 points

That would explain a lot of things. The best thing to do is disassociate from anyone on social media who is Mormon. Every subscriber and like just reinforces the notion that they are doing Gods work in every aspect.

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7 points

Oh, trust me - I wasn’t putting his shitty views on the HEMA community in general. I’m friends with a couple of people who like to put armor on and bash the shit out of eachother. I don’t understand it, but they’re good people, and they wouldn’t do shitty things like gaybash, like these fucking chodes are doing. So basically, they’re, like, right-wing LARPers? Like, they strongly identify with the crusades because they want to fantasize about killing people different from them?

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4 points

Oh yeah sorry I didn’t think that you were doing that at all. All I thought you were doing was accidentally overstating Shad’s relevance by comparing him to Tate. Like, Tate is broadly popular among reactionaries and conservatives. Shad just appeals to quite a niche audience who either don’t know about or who agrees with his politics, and who are into the history thing.

But then also, his audience is limited by the fact that even if you completely ignore his political beliefs, his actual content is bad. It limits his appeal a lot because even conservative HEMA people (and unfortunately there definitely are some very racist conservatives who like HEMA for the reason your describe) don’t like his uneducated bad takes about fighting. He does well only with people who don’t know better.

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10 points
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This is relevant for qweer people who are involved in the hobbies that these youtuber are involved with & they deserve to know.

Edit: I response just as you edited. The Shad guy wrote a shitty novel & has a dieing channel on medieval fantasy.

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25 points

I’m not sure why one would need to be LGBT to point out homophobia? I’m not gay, half my parents are, I’ll call it out whenever I see it.

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20 points

This is more about straight people who tell qweer people calling out homophobia that it’s not homophobia & downplaying their experience.

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3 points

Well then why not say that then? I could follow the rest of the screenshot conversation but that part confused me. Anyone should be able to call out homophobia and gatekeeping the right to such critique hardly benefits any oppressed groups. And I think we probably agree on that.

Your statement likely made more sense in context, but that’s missing in the screenshot. Generalizations like this are wrong and easy enough to avoid.

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3 points
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You do not need to be, but a LGBTQ+ person will probably have more ‘experience’ with this discrimination and thus know when it’s bad. They can often recognise it earlier and better, exactly because they themselves often are the victims of it, and experience the effects.

If you’re not LGBTQ+, you don’t really experience homophobia yourself. That said, you should still call it out.

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3 points

There’s a way to call it out. And it isnt inciting a pitchfork waving mob.or.publicly shaming someone.

This doesn’t change peoples.opinions. it entrenches them. You know how to actually.create change in people with abhorrent opinions?

Exposure. Education (and not in a patronizing way). There’s a guy that’s been de-racisting KKK members for years, and he does it by just kind of hanging out with them.

The way people call things out gives people ammunition for their persecution complexes and makes them double down on their beliefs. It may feel good to scream “you’re a fucking homophobe” from the rafters but it makes the problem worse.

It doesnt mean someone isnt homophobic. But the aggregate of this approach is to create communities of people that cling to these ideologies like life rafts.

Like. There is no better way to ensure they never have a real interaction with a gay person than trying to have the entire internet shame them for being homophobic.

Even if this dude wakes up tomorrow and sees the error of his ways would be ever be allowed to forget the public and humiliating fashion in which it was called out?

I’ve no doubt this dude deserves to be called out for being ignorant but it also doesn’t work. Its hard to listen to opinions you know are wrong, especially when they’re based on ignorance, but the only way this guys opinion changes if he sees firsthand that gay people are just like him in every way that counts.

So if you want to call him out and publicly shame him go ahead, because he no doubt deserves it, but don’t be surprised when he just doubles down on it all.

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20 points

I used to watch this guy because I liked castles. Didn’t consume a ton of this content. But last year he made a video to specifically call out Barbie. Like his channel doesn’t involve movie reviews, he just decided it was such a controversial film he had to made a video calling out “the woke”

After I saw he had made that video I unsubscribed and found other cattle content. His brother seems nice.

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10 points

He did this for Captain Marvel too. Suddenly a movie review channel. For me there’s got to be more of a gap between having an interest in medieval stuff and actually believing that women only exist as the property of men and that the king is appointed by God.

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15 points

Jack Saint (YouTuber) did a take down vid on Shad that revealed his real nature to me. I also had previously enjoyed his historical content.

The thing is, as another poster pointed out, once people started looking, he’s actually not historically accurate either and is barely more knowledgeable about it than your friend in the SCA who won’t shut up about long swords and katanas.

It’s a pattern with bigots: you can’t trust their information or expertise on anything. Because either they aren’t willing to update their views with facts, or they’re willing to lie to cover up facts they do know but dislike. Neither are good qualities in any person, but especially not in historians and educators.

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3 points
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I also just found out that Shad has been less then civil to another youtuber who’s a HEMA & Stage fight instructor who criticized one of Shad’s videos.

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15 points
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No idea who this is, but I find this is a very common reaction and a big reason why I try not to interact too much in spaces that don’t make it absolutely crystal fucking clear that they’re queer friendly.

Usually that means I have to stick to lesbian or bisexual majority spaces and trans spaces, but very very rarely i find cishet spaces that are genuinely welcoming.

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