7 ms·

If anything, such controversies make me want to get a copy of said literature and read it at the first possible instance. Can I call it the Streisand effect? Ma

If anything, such controversies make me want to get a copy of said literature and read it at the first possible instance. Can I call it the Streisand effect? Maybe. I have an unsubstantiated theory that this moral compassing at the institutional level (like the article mentions) has gathered more steam after the internet went into our phones and thus became highly accessible to the general public.

ramraj07 6y ago
As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant, now do you want that to be written by a white author or a Mexican one? If the white author writes objectively better, why is that? Perhaps encouraging minorities to write about themselves is just one of the methods we can use to solve the social problems these factoids represent? Oh no! White men can’t write from the perspective of groups they have historically dominated and ruled! Cry me a river!
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  If we're censoring ideas based on culture then computers, and cars, and planes, should only be allowed to be used by white men.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - whydoibother 6y ago
    White isn’t a culture. Also BIPOC have made contributions to all those things. Way to erase them.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Then Black, Asian, or Latin aren't cultures either? The wright brothers, carl benz, charles babbage, invented flight, automobiles, and computers respectively. All very white dudes.
      - jmkb 6y ago
        "Black" was a label applied to persons of many different cultures in the context of colonialism and slavery. In some places, such as the USA, Black became a cultural identity because it was a legal one; these people and their offspring were governed by a separate set of laws and only legally allowed to raise families with each other. "Asian" is too broad a term to be much use outside of geography. "Latin" is a little more coherent, based on both geography and language. It's still pretty broad though; there are common threads but I don't know anyone who identifies simply as Latin. "White" as a cultural identity is a relatively new invention. Personally I don't see much in the way of a shared culture here. It's problematic for many because in the USA it's been very prominently used by persons and groups who've been opposed to increasing civil rights for non-whites. It's distasteful to others because it represents a flattening of culture -- in my experience, white Americans will generally more readily identify with a particular subset of European heritage and/or with their own state or region. But this may be changing.
        leephillips 6y ago
        I’m not even sure there is a single “white” culture within the US. I mainly see the idea promoted by people who want to absorb some credit for the accomplishments of others. See some of the other comments here, about computers being invented by “my people”.
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        Skin color is s an arbitrary physiological trait. There's no bald people culture. Or innie bellybutton culture.
- Koliakis 6y ago
  > As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. I've been trying to get the older Seuss books. They're impossible to get. And if one of them does happen to be available, the prices are astronomical. I do think there's some level of censorship happening here and I get inklings of book burning when I consider how difficult it is to get these books.
  - whydoibother 6y ago
    People are buying them to resell to all the chuds. It’s not some grand plot.
  - mcshicks 6y ago
    Did you try archive.org? I was curious what the concern was with some titles and was able to find a couple there.
  - wincy 6y ago
    A few days ago they were one of the top torrents on a high seas themed site. I archived them if for no other reason than because I’ve been told that I shouldn’t.
    - gregallan 6y ago
      Nobody is telling you you shouldn’t archive them. The publishers decided they weren’t comfortable selling them to be shown to children. I’m personally glad that you’ve helped preserve these once-beloved cultural artifacts. However, I’d hope that anyone would hesitate to give these particular books to children in 2021.
      - AlexandrB 6y ago
        It would be one thing if the publisher just stopped printing them. As pointed out in the article they were banned from eBay (a dubious honour achieved not even by Mein Kampf), and removed from libraries. In terms of giving these to children - I'd argue that this is the parent's decision to make and that there are far worse things we are seem to be ok exposing children to, like advertising or social media.
- kapp_in_life 6y ago
  >There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant Why is that? Surely if both are well written/marketed enough they could both be bestsellers?
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    Also, it's not like "NYTimes Best Seller" is the gigantic accolade people make it out to be. https://scribemedia.com/get-best-seller-list/ https://scribemedia.com/get-best-seller-list/
    - jfengel 6y ago
      It's free marketing -- or at least, a marketing amplifier. Sell enough books and you can get your name in front of a bunch more people. Those people at least know that other people are buying your book. That said, your link's observation that it's a curated list actually means that it is more of an accolade than merely sales. It means that somebody at the Times wanted the book on the list, which says more to its readers. It's not much, but when you're trying to stand out in a crowded market, each little bit helps. Popularity has a positive feedback effect, and it's really slow going if you can't take advantage of it. At least for a cycle or two.
      - moron4hire 6y ago
        On the other hand, if you can sell the "5,000 to 10,000 copies in a week" that is the supposed threshold for getting notice from the NY Times, do you really need help selling your book? Selling books gets you on the list, getting on the list sells books. Which is the bigger effect? Given the NY Times growing irrelivance in the market, the high-profile cases of having their list gamed more than once, their ongoing war against their own users with the 3rd party tracking and bullshit they pull over cancellations, I somehow doubt their list is having much of an impact on anyone.
        jfengel 6y ago
        I dunno. I do have an indirect personal experience: a podcaster wrote a book, and asked all of his followers to pre-order it in the hopes of getting on the NYT bestseller list. Which I did, and it did. I don't know how much that helped, but the underlying logic makes sense. He had a medium-sized niche audience, but their word of mouth wasn't going to sell a lot of extra copies. This put the book out on a world stage. And it just so happened that this particular book (a nerdy exploration of the politics of pre-Caesar Roman Republic) might appeal to the New York Times readership. That's what the list could be for at its best: a mechanism for breaking out of your niche. I have no idea how many extra books it sold, but it was a meaningful mechanism for trying.
- DC1350 6y ago
  You’re just asking white people to quit writing since a book with 0 minority characters is also going to be criticized.
  - at_a_remove 6y ago
    That's the point, as far as I can tell. An elaborate flowchart is constructed and all paths lead to DON'T, but stated in different ways, so that you cannot see the trap. Write characters that are not exactly like you: you cannot possibly do this right and have no business attempting it. Write characters that are just like you: where's my representation? It just needs a speech synthesizer uttering the words "The only winning move is not to play" at the end. Thus, effectively silenced by your own conclusion, other people can take your place. If you point this out, well, hasn't your kind said enough already?
andrewzah 6y ago
That is exactly the Streisand effect. My local libraries used to have day/week events specifically to read banned books. I wonder if that's still a thing? If not, publishers/libraries should bring it back as it's a win/win for them.
npteljes 6y ago
Social media being in everyone's pocket certainly fueled the fire.

ramraj07 6y ago

As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant, now do you want that to be written by a white author or a Mexican one? If the white author writes objectively better, why is that? Perhaps encouraging minorities to write about themselves is just one of the methods we can use to solve the social problems these factoids represent? Oh no! White men can’t write from the perspective of groups they have historically dominated and ruled! Cry me a river!

nickthemagicman 6y ago
If we're censoring ideas based on culture then computers, and cars, and planes, should only be allowed to be used by white men.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- whydoibother 6y ago
  White isn’t a culture. Also BIPOC have made contributions to all those things. Way to erase them.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Then Black, Asian, or Latin aren't cultures either? The wright brothers, carl benz, charles babbage, invented flight, automobiles, and computers respectively. All very white dudes.
    - jmkb 6y ago
      "Black" was a label applied to persons of many different cultures in the context of colonialism and slavery. In some places, such as the USA, Black became a cultural identity because it was a legal one; these people and their offspring were governed by a separate set of laws and only legally allowed to raise families with each other. "Asian" is too broad a term to be much use outside of geography. "Latin" is a little more coherent, based on both geography and language. It's still pretty broad though; there are common threads but I don't know anyone who identifies simply as Latin. "White" as a cultural identity is a relatively new invention. Personally I don't see much in the way of a shared culture here. It's problematic for many because in the USA it's been very prominently used by persons and groups who've been opposed to increasing civil rights for non-whites. It's distasteful to others because it represents a flattening of culture -- in my experience, white Americans will generally more readily identify with a particular subset of European heritage and/or with their own state or region. But this may be changing.
      - leephillips 6y ago
        I’m not even sure there is a single “white” culture within the US. I mainly see the idea promoted by people who want to absorb some credit for the accomplishments of others. See some of the other comments here, about computers being invented by “my people”.
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        Skin color is s an arbitrary physiological trait. There's no bald people culture. Or innie bellybutton culture.
Koliakis 6y ago
> As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. I've been trying to get the older Seuss books. They're impossible to get. And if one of them does happen to be available, the prices are astronomical. I do think there's some level of censorship happening here and I get inklings of book burning when I consider how difficult it is to get these books.
- whydoibother 6y ago
  People are buying them to resell to all the chuds. It’s not some grand plot.
- mcshicks 6y ago
  Did you try archive.org? I was curious what the concern was with some titles and was able to find a couple there.
- wincy 6y ago
  A few days ago they were one of the top torrents on a high seas themed site. I archived them if for no other reason than because I’ve been told that I shouldn’t.
  - gregallan 6y ago
    Nobody is telling you you shouldn’t archive them. The publishers decided they weren’t comfortable selling them to be shown to children. I’m personally glad that you’ve helped preserve these once-beloved cultural artifacts. However, I’d hope that anyone would hesitate to give these particular books to children in 2021.
    - AlexandrB 6y ago
      It would be one thing if the publisher just stopped printing them. As pointed out in the article they were banned from eBay (a dubious honour achieved not even by Mein Kampf), and removed from libraries. In terms of giving these to children - I'd argue that this is the parent's decision to make and that there are far worse things we are seem to be ok exposing children to, like advertising or social media.
kapp_in_life 6y ago
>There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant Why is that? Surely if both are well written/marketed enough they could both be bestsellers?
- moron4hire 6y ago
  Also, it's not like "NYTimes Best Seller" is the gigantic accolade people make it out to be. https://scribemedia.com/get-best-seller-list/ https://scribemedia.com/get-best-seller-list/
  - jfengel 6y ago
    It's free marketing -- or at least, a marketing amplifier. Sell enough books and you can get your name in front of a bunch more people. Those people at least know that other people are buying your book. That said, your link's observation that it's a curated list actually means that it is more of an accolade than merely sales. It means that somebody at the Times wanted the book on the list, which says more to its readers. It's not much, but when you're trying to stand out in a crowded market, each little bit helps. Popularity has a positive feedback effect, and it's really slow going if you can't take advantage of it. At least for a cycle or two.
    - moron4hire 6y ago
      On the other hand, if you can sell the "5,000 to 10,000 copies in a week" that is the supposed threshold for getting notice from the NY Times, do you really need help selling your book? Selling books gets you on the list, getting on the list sells books. Which is the bigger effect? Given the NY Times growing irrelivance in the market, the high-profile cases of having their list gamed more than once, their ongoing war against their own users with the 3rd party tracking and bullshit they pull over cancellations, I somehow doubt their list is having much of an impact on anyone.
      - jfengel 6y ago
        I dunno. I do have an indirect personal experience: a podcaster wrote a book, and asked all of his followers to pre-order it in the hopes of getting on the NYT bestseller list. Which I did, and it did. I don't know how much that helped, but the underlying logic makes sense. He had a medium-sized niche audience, but their word of mouth wasn't going to sell a lot of extra copies. This put the book out on a world stage. And it just so happened that this particular book (a nerdy exploration of the politics of pre-Caesar Roman Republic) might appeal to the New York Times readership. That's what the list could be for at its best: a mechanism for breaking out of your niche. I have no idea how many extra books it sold, but it was a meaningful mechanism for trying.
DC1350 6y ago
You’re just asking white people to quit writing since a book with 0 minority characters is also going to be criticized.
- at_a_remove 6y ago
  That's the point, as far as I can tell. An elaborate flowchart is constructed and all paths lead to DON'T, but stated in different ways, so that you cannot see the trap. Write characters that are not exactly like you: you cannot possibly do this right and have no business attempting it. Write characters that are just like you: where's my representation? It just needs a speech synthesizer uttering the words "The only winning move is not to play" at the end. Thus, effectively silenced by your own conclusion, other people can take your place. If you point this out, well, hasn't your kind said enough already?

andrewzah 6y ago

That is exactly the Streisand effect. My local libraries used to have day/week events specifically to read banned books. I wonder if that's still a thing? If not, publishers/libraries should bring it back as it's a win/win for them.

npteljes 6y ago

Social media being in everyone's pocket certainly fueled the fire.