5 ms·

R.L. Stine accuses publisher of censoring Goosebumps books without permission

73 points by nhchris 4y ago

donatj 4y ago
Who are these censored books for? Like why ruin books instead of just reading things you want to read instead? Milquetoast books exist for the people who want them. Why do this.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Progressive activists
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    But who, specifically? I haven’t heard of anyone demanding this.
    - serf 4y ago
      a guess : the conflict inherent with the decision creates renewed interest in older franchises. might be a way to trade some short-term public outrage into revenue.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
      These nutcases worked on the Roald Dahl edits https://www.inclusiveminds.com/ https://www.inclusiveminds.com/
      - hackernewds 4y ago
        What was non-inclusive about Ronald Dahl?
        tohnjitor 4y ago
        Apparently everything
        hellisothers 4y ago
        Yea man, if you’re trying to prevent children from being uncomfortable and scared then you’re going to love Roald Dahl brand kindling. The books a great, but they’re scary and unapologetic in a slow burn way.
      - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
        Hi there fellow human! Your comment has unfortunately been found offensive. Don't worry though, we've updated the offensive language (n*tcases) to one deemed less offensive (weirdos). As you're now aware of this program, you won't be notified of future edits. Thanks for keeping this community safe and inclusive!
    - monero-xmr 4y ago
      You are hired for a DEI role, you need to fill up the hours of a full time job. After policing everyone internally such that nothing interesting is mentioned anymore, you make yourself useful by getting out the sharpie and censoring words.
    - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
      There is probably no publicly known figurehead or group demanding this. But this kind of thing doesn’t require that. All it takes is a group of likeminded and ideologically motivated employees at publisher pushing to have it done.
      - asfarley 4y ago
        Manufacturing consent
  - defrost 4y ago
    Unlikely. It's literally Scholastic middle management editors making busy work for themselves and to justify Scholastic taking a percentage on Yet Another Edition Release. There's a long history of publishers kicking popular works down the road again and again to keep extracting $$$'s and "cleaning up" potentially offensive language is just another manufactured reason to pretend to be brushing up and fettling old works as new again.
    - junofan 4y ago
      These books came out coincident with a movie in 2018. No other excuse needed to re-release. I also think you underestimate how organized these activists are.
      - defrost 4y ago
        > I also think you underestimate how organized these activists are. By all means do please link to the lobby campaign demanding changes to R.L.Stine.
      - hackernewds 4y ago
        > It's literally activists making busy work for themselves ftfy. they need something to protest as well, as an occupation
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    BS. This a very narrow, extreme and ahistorical extrapolation of identity politics.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  Publishers developed an industry of sensitivity editors, and they’ve mostly been effective in helping new work maintain an author’s vision while avoiding scandal (scandals are more expensive than editors). For new work, it’s a collaborative editing process no different than line editing for style/grammar or story editing for engagement, and authors are involved in the process. But what happens any time you have a whole department built around a new process? Some exec tries to start using it in new places. Thankfully, performing sensitivity edits to reprinted classics seems to be producing its own scandals and — since the whole thing is about avoiding scandals (to the publisher) - hopefully it won’t last.
- tonfreed 4y ago
  I said this in the last thread on this topic, it's not a conspiracy, it's a grift. Publishers are being pressured by a loud minority on social media and in their HR departments to hire diversity "experts" to review their content. I don't have specific examples, but I would be completely unsurprised if there was similar grifts 20 years ago with religious sensitivity readers or further back for people reviewing comics and music for "unacceptable" content.
gazpachotron 4y ago
[dead]
eric4smith 4y ago
People keep saying I’m “anti woke and anti tran$”. But it’s things like this that give me pause. Why not just not read the books you don’t like?? I love to re-read books I like every few years. Similarly If someone said that people should accept the fine ladies from the local gentleman’s clubs coming over to teach an 8 year old kid about their lives - everyone would be up in arms. Instead why not allow the fine ladies from the gentleman’s club to teach their 8 year old kid these things at home and then the local butcher can teach their 8 year old kid about their lives and principles at their home also? Shouldn’t classrooms be for the basics? And I (as a 58 year old black man) loved the original little mermaid! I remember going to see it with my girlfriend decades ago - was a magical day. Instead of changing the original story and characters, why not do something original instead? See how all of this stuff does not make sense anymore? Now because my eyes are going bad I listen to audible. Will I have to listen to a changed version of these books instead? The world has gone mad. Bruh.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - eric4smith 4y ago
    When their careers is something that is suitable for 18 years and older I would agree with you. Otherwise you’re deliberately ignoring the elephants in the room.
  - Thoreandan 4y ago
    That escalated quickly. Considered eating a Snickers?
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Instead of changing the original story and characters, why not do something original instead? It’s also kind of bullshit that like Italians got their own new content and original characters (Rocky, etc.) and everyone else has to settle for being ret-conned into existing content.
bwi4 4y ago
This isn’t HN material, is it? Still, I’ll bite. Lamentations that this “censoring” ruins enjoyment of books is fully cancelled by those who think that the offensive material ruins enjoyment of books. I’m not offended by either, but my lived experience is unique to me and I respect others might feel differently. Ultimately, the publisher wants to maximize the profit from this back catalog, whether by stoking controversy , or by making the product more appealing to a 21st century audience, or by avoiding negative publicity. I don’t have the data to speculate.
- atdrummond 4y ago
  This is absolutely of interest to many here. It dovetails with plenty of areas explicitly interesting to the tech crowd, such as IP laws, copyright/trademark policy, DRM and remote editing of eBooks, etc.
  - bwi4 4y ago
    Fine, those are topics of interest. However, I don’t see any mention of IP laws, copyright/trademark policy or DRM, or remote editing of ebooks in the linked article.
- mc32 4y ago
  Some of those arguments are the same ones the Gores were making with their PMRC and got roasted by most people, including then progressives and people concerned with 1A rights.
- nhchris 4y ago
  To me, it's not about ruining or enhancing books. It's about falsifying them. They should remain artifacts of their time, so we may have perspective on changing attitudes, and not be gaslit that the sensitivity readers' sensibilities were shared by every author, from every time and place. “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
andrewstuart 4y ago
The right censor by banning books. The left censor by rewriting books.
- cmh89 4y ago
  A capitalist company changing books to make them as inoffensive as possible to sell as many books as possible doesn't exactly scream Marx to me. I'm guessing the main motivation for both the changes to R.L Stine and Roald Dahl's works to keep selling them to a new generation of children more than fight the 'culture war'
  - aliasxneo 4y ago
    Is there precedent for this, though? Given the existence of capitalism for a while now, it seems like publishers would have honed in on this technique in the past. Then again, my knowledge is limited here, so maybe it's not new.
    - cmh89 4y ago
      The Bible is a good example of a book that has been changed for its audience. They also make changes to books to update language. They make modern versions of the Canterbury Tales https://www.amazon.com/Canterbury-Tales-Version-English-Classics/dp/0307743535 https://www.amazon.com/Canterbury-Tales-Version-English-Clas... It's decently hard to find examples due to the discussion of Roald Dahls work. I just seriously doubt Scholastic is doing this for any other reason than making sure their books are never found to be objectionable.
likeraindrops 4y ago
A few years ago Disney+ added a note to the beginning of Aristocats and a few other movies that “This program includes negative depictions and / or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe.” I appreciated the note, the thought that went into it, and, of course, that I got to watch the movie exactly as I had years earlier. Changing 'plump' to 'cheerful' without any note to the reader about the alteration feels disingenuous.
- gandalfgreybeer 4y ago
  That’s honestly the best course of action imo. You can’t just block everything from the internet and some things are products of their times. However, seeing it and understanding why it’s bad seems best especially for kids. I don’t think it’s enough to know that something is bad, one should know why it is. There’s this Community episode that has “black face” (a character paints himself black to be a dark elf) and was called out for doing a hate crime by everyone in the room; this episode was pulled off of Netflix and I don’t understand why. It’s not like it was portraying it as something okay to do. In fact, it was very clear that it’s something you shouldn’t.
deanCommie 4y ago
I'll bite. I'm woke in every sense of the word. I'm pro universal trans rights, DEI efforts at my company, reparations, and anti-colonialism. I even think land acknowledgements ultimately do more good than harm. But this is stupid and I do not support this type of re editing of history. Even all the most progressive parts of Twitter agree its dumb (as was the Roald Dahl stuff). This isn't progressive, this is corporations cargo culting inclusivity for profit.
- vuln 4y ago
  > This isn't progressive, this is corporations cargo culting inclusivity for profit. Like when Corporations change their logo colors to support $month? Like when Coporations put out special edition flavors or color sways for $month? Like when Corporations trot out their diversity / EEO hires for an $month ad? AlwaysHasBeen.png Corporations and shareholders care about one thing and that's insane growth / short term profit at all cost, fuck everything else.
  - deanCommie 4y ago
    Sigh. I knew this was coming. I almost ended my message with "Inb4, WellActually, this is what corporations have always done" but thought would be TOO cynical. Look. I led with a very high level summary of my other perspectives to signal that someone can hold all the above thoughts and still believe that the re-editing of existing books without the consent of their author is blatantly not OK. That it is not a contradiction or a "Woke SJW vs Free Speech Patriot" issue. I am not interested in a debate on the rest of the positions. Rest assured, I do not agree with you. Pride is important. Corporations showing that they support pride and LGBTQ customers and employees is important. Especially in reference to the corporations that deliberately show that they do NOT care about those things. Diversity is important. And while tokenism is bad, highlighting your commitments to diversity is also important. Now, if your corporation's response at the first sign of a tech downturn is to go "DEI was a zero interest rate phenomenon" (as many have), sure, it's hypocritical. But DEI, Pride, and LGBTQ support make financial sense because most people are supportive of these concepts. Most people are NOT supportive of Roald Dahl and R.L. Stein being re-edited.
ncann 4y ago
> One Goosebumps character is now “cheerful” instead of “plump.” Elsewhere the word “crazy” has been changed to “silly.” And a character who dressed as a “dark and stormy night” for Halloween now no longer wears black face paint. > Weight references such as having “at least six chins,” resembling “a bowling ball,” and having “squirrel cheeks” have been stripped from the novels. > “A real nut” is now “a real wild one” and “nutcase” is “weirdo.” > Scholastic told The Times that it had made the changes to “keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person’s view of themselves today, with a particular focus on mental health.” I know people hate being called snowflakes but if this isn't it then I don't know what to call it.
- hellisothers 4y ago
  Nobody ever likes somebody else’s promotion project.
paperwasp42 4y ago
In the 80s and 90s, right-wing Christian activists demanded the censorship of tons of "inappropriate" material from mainstream books. A good amount of censorship occurred at the height of the Satanic Panic, but ultimately the publishing industry grew tired of it and balked. The result was an explosion of the "Christian fiction" genre--it's a genre of books that is completely sanitized of things like premarital sex, illegal drugs, homosexual relationships, alcohol abuse, violent assault, rape, crime, cursing, spousal abuse, etc, thus leaving it "clean" and appropriate for Christian consumption. The result was less pressure on the publishing industry to censor books. When Christian activists came knocking, the publishing industry could say, "Look, you guys have an entire section of the bookstore filled with books that cater to your morals. So leave Twilight alone." I think it's probably time to create a similar genre for leftist activists. A "safe fiction" genre would allow for books that have been stripped of all things leftist activists find offensive. No body shaming, homophobia, mental health related slurs, etc. Having designated "safe fiction" books might have a similar effect of relieving the pressure to make all books "safe" in the eyes of left activists. Of course, there remains the barrier that most individuals in the publishing industry are hard-core leftists that fervently follow the whims of leftist activists. It's standard these days for books to be edited by "sensitivity readers", who point out all potentially offensive things from a left-wing activist viewpoint, before publishing is permitted. (Source: am deeply involved in the writing and publishing community, and have had many friends go through the sensitivity reading process.) Shifting away from this mentality is going to take a major push by the reading public, who will need to make it clear that they are not okay with a small minority enforcing their worldview through censorship, regardless of whether the censorship is coming from the right or left wing.
- nhchris 4y ago
  > Source: am deeply involved in the writing and publishing community, and have had many friends go through the sensitivity reading process. What happens if an author disagrees with some or all of the sensitivity readers' corrections?
  - paperwasp42 4y ago
    It depends a lot on the publishing house and editor you're working with. I have heard of editors who allow for sensitivity reader suggestions to be ignored, and some who are quite militant about enforcing all suggestions from sensitivity readers. There seems to be little rhyme or reason behind how strictly the edits are enforced. (e.g.: One friend got to keep a very crude weight-related joke that a sensitivity reader wanted to remove, because she convincingly argued that it was needed to show-case the character's dark side. Another friend was aggressively forced to remove her teen protagonist's insecurity over having freckles, because it "encouraged low self-esteem and depression" and would be "damaging" to the audience.) The difficulty with disagreeing with edits of any sort is that publishing is a reputation based industry. So if you put up a huge fuss and escalate issues up the chain of command, and possibly even involve the public, there is a chance you can resist even the most aggressive attempts to edit your work. But you will absolutely ruin your chances of another book deal. For this reason, it's frustrating to hear the typical retort of, "Well no one's actually forcing authors to change anything, and they have the ability to protest, so it can't be censorship." This is like telling a junior engineer at a large company, "Well no one forced you to write that code. You had the chance to disagree with the design and write the program differently." Sure, no one physically forced them to write the code, but did they really have the option to balk at the design handed down from senior engineers and management? Of course not. It would be career suicide.
UberFly 4y ago
God, this is like an art museum painting over breasts and genitals in the name of the public good.
mzs 4y ago
https://twitter.com/RL_Stine/status/1632817346803904513 https://twitter.com/RL_Stine/status/1632817346803904513

73 points by nhchris 4y ago

Who are these censored books for? Like why ruin books instead of just reading things you want to read instead? Milquetoast books exist for the people who want them. Why do this.

fullshark 4y ago
Progressive activists
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  But who, specifically? I haven’t heard of anyone demanding this.
  - serf 4y ago
    a guess : the conflict inherent with the decision creates renewed interest in older franchises. might be a way to trade some short-term public outrage into revenue.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    These nutcases worked on the Roald Dahl edits https://www.inclusiveminds.com/ https://www.inclusiveminds.com/
    - hackernewds 4y ago
      What was non-inclusive about Ronald Dahl?
      - tohnjitor 4y ago
        Apparently everything
        hellisothers 4y ago
        Yea man, if you’re trying to prevent children from being uncomfortable and scared then you’re going to love Roald Dahl brand kindling. The books a great, but they’re scary and unapologetic in a slow burn way.
    - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
      Hi there fellow human! Your comment has unfortunately been found offensive. Don't worry though, we've updated the offensive language (n*tcases) to one deemed less offensive (weirdos). As you're now aware of this program, you won't be notified of future edits. Thanks for keeping this community safe and inclusive!
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    You are hired for a DEI role, you need to fill up the hours of a full time job. After policing everyone internally such that nothing interesting is mentioned anymore, you make yourself useful by getting out the sharpie and censoring words.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
    There is probably no publicly known figurehead or group demanding this. But this kind of thing doesn’t require that. All it takes is a group of likeminded and ideologically motivated employees at publisher pushing to have it done.
    - asfarley 4y ago
      Manufacturing consent
- defrost 4y ago
  Unlikely. It's literally Scholastic middle management editors making busy work for themselves and to justify Scholastic taking a percentage on Yet Another Edition Release. There's a long history of publishers kicking popular works down the road again and again to keep extracting $$$'s and "cleaning up" potentially offensive language is just another manufactured reason to pretend to be brushing up and fettling old works as new again.
  - junofan 4y ago
    These books came out coincident with a movie in 2018. No other excuse needed to re-release. I also think you underestimate how organized these activists are.
    - defrost 4y ago
      > I also think you underestimate how organized these activists are. By all means do please link to the lobby campaign demanding changes to R.L.Stine.
    - hackernewds 4y ago
      > It's literally activists making busy work for themselves ftfy. they need something to protest as well, as an occupation
- miguelazo 4y ago
  BS. This a very narrow, extreme and ahistorical extrapolation of identity politics.
swatcoder 4y ago
Publishers developed an industry of sensitivity editors, and they’ve mostly been effective in helping new work maintain an author’s vision while avoiding scandal (scandals are more expensive than editors). For new work, it’s a collaborative editing process no different than line editing for style/grammar or story editing for engagement, and authors are involved in the process. But what happens any time you have a whole department built around a new process? Some exec tries to start using it in new places. Thankfully, performing sensitivity edits to reprinted classics seems to be producing its own scandals and — since the whole thing is about avoiding scandals (to the publisher) - hopefully it won’t last.
tonfreed 4y ago
I said this in the last thread on this topic, it's not a conspiracy, it's a grift. Publishers are being pressured by a loud minority on social media and in their HR departments to hire diversity "experts" to review their content. I don't have specific examples, but I would be completely unsurprised if there was similar grifts 20 years ago with religious sensitivity readers or further back for people reviewing comics and music for "unacceptable" content.

gazpachotron 4y ago

[dead]

eric4smith 4y ago

People keep saying I’m “anti woke and anti tran$”. But it’s things like this that give me pause. Why not just not read the books you don’t like?? I love to re-read books I like every few years. Similarly If someone said that people should accept the fine ladies from the local gentleman’s clubs coming over to teach an 8 year old kid about their lives - everyone would be up in arms. Instead why not allow the fine ladies from the gentleman’s club to teach their 8 year old kid these things at home and then the local butcher can teach their 8 year old kid about their lives and principles at their home also? Shouldn’t classrooms be for the basics? And I (as a 58 year old black man) loved the original little mermaid! I remember going to see it with my girlfriend decades ago - was a magical day. Instead of changing the original story and characters, why not do something original instead? See how all of this stuff does not make sense anymore? Now because my eyes are going bad I listen to audible. Will I have to listen to a changed version of these books instead? The world has gone mad. Bruh.

hgsgm 4y ago
[flagged]
- eric4smith 4y ago
  When their careers is something that is suitable for 18 years and older I would agree with you. Otherwise you’re deliberately ignoring the elephants in the room.
- Thoreandan 4y ago
  That escalated quickly. Considered eating a Snickers?
rayiner 4y ago
> Instead of changing the original story and characters, why not do something original instead? It’s also kind of bullshit that like Italians got their own new content and original characters (Rocky, etc.) and everyone else has to settle for being ret-conned into existing content.

bwi4 4y ago

This isn’t HN material, is it? Still, I’ll bite. Lamentations that this “censoring” ruins enjoyment of books is fully cancelled by those who think that the offensive material ruins enjoyment of books. I’m not offended by either, but my lived experience is unique to me and I respect others might feel differently. Ultimately, the publisher wants to maximize the profit from this back catalog, whether by stoking controversy , or by making the product more appealing to a 21st century audience, or by avoiding negative publicity. I don’t have the data to speculate.

atdrummond 4y ago
This is absolutely of interest to many here. It dovetails with plenty of areas explicitly interesting to the tech crowd, such as IP laws, copyright/trademark policy, DRM and remote editing of eBooks, etc.
- bwi4 4y ago
  Fine, those are topics of interest. However, I don’t see any mention of IP laws, copyright/trademark policy or DRM, or remote editing of ebooks in the linked article.
mc32 4y ago
Some of those arguments are the same ones the Gores were making with their PMRC and got roasted by most people, including then progressives and people concerned with 1A rights.
nhchris 4y ago
To me, it's not about ruining or enhancing books. It's about falsifying them. They should remain artifacts of their time, so we may have perspective on changing attitudes, and not be gaslit that the sensitivity readers' sensibilities were shared by every author, from every time and place. “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

andrewstuart 4y ago

The right censor by banning books. The left censor by rewriting books.

cmh89 4y ago
A capitalist company changing books to make them as inoffensive as possible to sell as many books as possible doesn't exactly scream Marx to me. I'm guessing the main motivation for both the changes to R.L Stine and Roald Dahl's works to keep selling them to a new generation of children more than fight the 'culture war'
- aliasxneo 4y ago
  Is there precedent for this, though? Given the existence of capitalism for a while now, it seems like publishers would have honed in on this technique in the past. Then again, my knowledge is limited here, so maybe it's not new.
  - cmh89 4y ago
    The Bible is a good example of a book that has been changed for its audience. They also make changes to books to update language. They make modern versions of the Canterbury Tales https://www.amazon.com/Canterbury-Tales-Version-English-Classics/dp/0307743535 https://www.amazon.com/Canterbury-Tales-Version-English-Clas... It's decently hard to find examples due to the discussion of Roald Dahls work. I just seriously doubt Scholastic is doing this for any other reason than making sure their books are never found to be objectionable.

likeraindrops 4y ago

A few years ago Disney+ added a note to the beginning of Aristocats and a few other movies that “This program includes negative depictions and / or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe.” I appreciated the note, the thought that went into it, and, of course, that I got to watch the movie exactly as I had years earlier. Changing 'plump' to 'cheerful' without any note to the reader about the alteration feels disingenuous.

gandalfgreybeer 4y ago
That’s honestly the best course of action imo. You can’t just block everything from the internet and some things are products of their times. However, seeing it and understanding why it’s bad seems best especially for kids. I don’t think it’s enough to know that something is bad, one should know why it is. There’s this Community episode that has “black face” (a character paints himself black to be a dark elf) and was called out for doing a hate crime by everyone in the room; this episode was pulled off of Netflix and I don’t understand why. It’s not like it was portraying it as something okay to do. In fact, it was very clear that it’s something you shouldn’t.

deanCommie 4y ago

I'll bite. I'm woke in every sense of the word. I'm pro universal trans rights, DEI efforts at my company, reparations, and anti-colonialism. I even think land acknowledgements ultimately do more good than harm. But this is stupid and I do not support this type of re editing of history. Even all the most progressive parts of Twitter agree its dumb (as was the Roald Dahl stuff). This isn't progressive, this is corporations cargo culting inclusivity for profit.

vuln 4y ago
> This isn't progressive, this is corporations cargo culting inclusivity for profit. Like when Corporations change their logo colors to support $month? Like when Coporations put out special edition flavors or color sways for $month? Like when Corporations trot out their diversity / EEO hires for an $month ad? AlwaysHasBeen.png Corporations and shareholders care about one thing and that's insane growth / short term profit at all cost, fuck everything else.
- deanCommie 4y ago
  Sigh. I knew this was coming. I almost ended my message with "Inb4, WellActually, this is what corporations have always done" but thought would be TOO cynical. Look. I led with a very high level summary of my other perspectives to signal that someone can hold all the above thoughts and still believe that the re-editing of existing books without the consent of their author is blatantly not OK. That it is not a contradiction or a "Woke SJW vs Free Speech Patriot" issue. I am not interested in a debate on the rest of the positions. Rest assured, I do not agree with you. Pride is important. Corporations showing that they support pride and LGBTQ customers and employees is important. Especially in reference to the corporations that deliberately show that they do NOT care about those things. Diversity is important. And while tokenism is bad, highlighting your commitments to diversity is also important. Now, if your corporation's response at the first sign of a tech downturn is to go "DEI was a zero interest rate phenomenon" (as many have), sure, it's hypocritical. But DEI, Pride, and LGBTQ support make financial sense because most people are supportive of these concepts. Most people are NOT supportive of Roald Dahl and R.L. Stein being re-edited.

ncann 4y ago

> One Goosebumps character is now “cheerful” instead of “plump.” Elsewhere the word “crazy” has been changed to “silly.” And a character who dressed as a “dark and stormy night” for Halloween now no longer wears black face paint. > Weight references such as having “at least six chins,” resembling “a bowling ball,” and having “squirrel cheeks” have been stripped from the novels. > “A real nut” is now “a real wild one” and “nutcase” is “weirdo.” > Scholastic told The Times that it had made the changes to “keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person’s view of themselves today, with a particular focus on mental health.” I know people hate being called snowflakes but if this isn't it then I don't know what to call it.

hellisothers 4y ago
Nobody ever likes somebody else’s promotion project.

paperwasp42 4y ago

In the 80s and 90s, right-wing Christian activists demanded the censorship of tons of "inappropriate" material from mainstream books. A good amount of censorship occurred at the height of the Satanic Panic, but ultimately the publishing industry grew tired of it and balked. The result was an explosion of the "Christian fiction" genre--it's a genre of books that is completely sanitized of things like premarital sex, illegal drugs, homosexual relationships, alcohol abuse, violent assault, rape, crime, cursing, spousal abuse, etc, thus leaving it "clean" and appropriate for Christian consumption. The result was less pressure on the publishing industry to censor books. When Christian activists came knocking, the publishing industry could say, "Look, you guys have an entire section of the bookstore filled with books that cater to your morals. So leave Twilight alone." I think it's probably time to create a similar genre for leftist activists. A "safe fiction" genre would allow for books that have been stripped of all things leftist activists find offensive. No body shaming, homophobia, mental health related slurs, etc. Having designated "safe fiction" books might have a similar effect of relieving the pressure to make all books "safe" in the eyes of left activists. Of course, there remains the barrier that most individuals in the publishing industry are hard-core leftists that fervently follow the whims of leftist activists. It's standard these days for books to be edited by "sensitivity readers", who point out all potentially offensive things from a left-wing activist viewpoint, before publishing is permitted. (Source: am deeply involved in the writing and publishing community, and have had many friends go through the sensitivity reading process.) Shifting away from this mentality is going to take a major push by the reading public, who will need to make it clear that they are not okay with a small minority enforcing their worldview through censorship, regardless of whether the censorship is coming from the right or left wing.

nhchris 4y ago
> Source: am deeply involved in the writing and publishing community, and have had many friends go through the sensitivity reading process. What happens if an author disagrees with some or all of the sensitivity readers' corrections?
- paperwasp42 4y ago
  It depends a lot on the publishing house and editor you're working with. I have heard of editors who allow for sensitivity reader suggestions to be ignored, and some who are quite militant about enforcing all suggestions from sensitivity readers. There seems to be little rhyme or reason behind how strictly the edits are enforced. (e.g.: One friend got to keep a very crude weight-related joke that a sensitivity reader wanted to remove, because she convincingly argued that it was needed to show-case the character's dark side. Another friend was aggressively forced to remove her teen protagonist's insecurity over having freckles, because it "encouraged low self-esteem and depression" and would be "damaging" to the audience.) The difficulty with disagreeing with edits of any sort is that publishing is a reputation based industry. So if you put up a huge fuss and escalate issues up the chain of command, and possibly even involve the public, there is a chance you can resist even the most aggressive attempts to edit your work. But you will absolutely ruin your chances of another book deal. For this reason, it's frustrating to hear the typical retort of, "Well no one's actually forcing authors to change anything, and they have the ability to protest, so it can't be censorship." This is like telling a junior engineer at a large company, "Well no one forced you to write that code. You had the chance to disagree with the design and write the program differently." Sure, no one physically forced them to write the code, but did they really have the option to balk at the design handed down from senior engineers and management? Of course not. It would be career suicide.

UberFly 4y ago

God, this is like an art museum painting over breasts and genitals in the name of the public good.

mzs 4y ago

https://twitter.com/RL_Stine/status/1632817346803904513 https://twitter.com/RL_Stine/status/1632817346803904513