Not gonna lie, I sometimes feel this way too. Not throwing any kind of hate, but it can be frustrating to realize how short our communal memory can be. A lot of my peers from the early 00’s were digital pioneers for AsAm identity discourse; rarely are they acknowledged today.
https://twitter.com/annajohn/status/1364706850822791168
Sepia Mutiny was my go-to blog for South Asian American identity discourse, and also a place I felt a kinship because folks like @annajohn and @TazzyStar were like me never forgetting to integrate strong feminist voices.
A lot of this work was being done when AsAm discourse was still niche, and virality and influencer culture wasn’t really a thing. We were filling a void utterly absent in mainstream media by effectively creating our very own, community-driven alt AsAm media sphere.
We weren’t going to get famous doing this work because this was sort of before anyone thought you could (or I guess would ever even want to) be famous for doing this stuff. The point was to carve out a space for Asian Americans to create our own narratives.
Not that I think anyone is looking for anyone to kiss the ring, but I do wish that spaces like Sepia Mutiny and others that were doing this work back then would get the acknowledgement they deserve for laying the groundwork for the Asian American digital spaces we have today.
Especially many of us are less active now because we’re in different stages of our lives (jobs, kids, trying hard to adult, etc).
Yet, many of us are still here, doing the work bc we believe in it & so see when we’re being overlooked in the digital history of AsAms.
Yet, many of us are still here, doing the work bc we believe in it & so see when we’re being overlooked in the digital history of AsAms.
I think most of us are happy to cede the spotlight to the next generation (oy, I feel old just writing that). The whole point was to create space for more AsAm voices, so that’s not the issue.
But like, if I’m sitting here listening to someone who only recently launched a website say they’re like the first AsAm feminist-focused space on the web, I can’t help but... well... side-eye.
Anyways, this thread has wandered into a bit of navel-gazing territory which wasn’t my intention.
The moral of this story is actually that Sepia Mutiny was awesome and I’m outraged it’s not on ALL. THE. LISTS.
The moral of this story is actually that Sepia Mutiny was awesome and I’m outraged it’s not on ALL. THE. LISTS.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
