Jul 2016
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Jul 2016
Jul 2016
Aspie_Gamer
Jul '16
1
BlueWindyHood

Y'know...I may as well confess and everybody here please don't hate me for this. The other day while trolling around on the app, I was dead serious about spending some free keys/tapas coins on Learning Curves just so I could say I did because as eye rollingly stupid as the premise sounded, I thought "Hey maybe its a so bad its good webcomic like The Ebola Files"

After reading this thread however and with how uncomfortable every one here is by LC glorifying teen pregnancy in a fetish sort of way, I'm now too grossed out to even think about the comic. Also, to the Tapastic Staff, WHY!?. You are much better than this! frowning I speak for everyone when I say we don't want Tapastic to become the horrifying section of DeviantArt.

BlueWindyHood
Jul '16

Thank you for taking the time to address our concerns, Michael.

I'm curioua, "It wasn't exactly to expand the demo", by that do you mean that that wasn't the goal, or that it wasn't entirely the goal?

Also if I might get clarification on the matter of keys and unlockable content? Does Tapastic benefit financially from lockable content? If so, is it wise to allow that sort of content matter, and the fact that there was some underage sexual content depicted?

carloswebcomic
Jul '16

Nice little public lynching you all got here.
So has anyone here read it before jumping on their sanctimonious soapboxes?

How about doing what normal humans do when they don't like something that doesn't directly affect them?
Ignore it.

noxfox
Jul '16
theawkwarddreamer

I believe there is such a thing as being responsible. When you created the App, it was pg13 at first, which means that probably a lot of kids had it –and I know some who did. Unsurprisingly, even after the App was raised 17+, those same kids still have the App. So I wonder if you saw a big drop in your numbers of App users, because if that's not the case, it would be quite safe to assume you still have a lot of underage users. And even then.
It is part of the teen's nature to seek for content that is not suitable for them, it's how we try to evolve into full-fledged human beings, rebelling against authority and rules to affirm ourselves. We all know very well that 12 year-old kids are shameless about playing 18+ games, and that parents are often not so good at controlling what their kids do with their phones, because the kids know how to use those better. We also know that a lot of kids read comics and will absolutely lie about their age if that's all it takes to access more of them.

In this context, I think that's where responsibility comes in. You can say "that's out of our control, let's not do anything about it," or you can say "we still have control in what we show and how we show it, and we'll do what it takes to be responsible of all of our audience because those kids could be ours."

(I quite believe that Beebutts is referring to Consuming Darkness)
Following up with what I said before, I am absolutely puzzled that you would be ok to feature Learning Curves despite the depiction of minors (by US standards) having sex, bearing sexualized religious symbols, etc ...while non-sexual nudity of an adult character is problematic (just so you know, there is no nudity whatsoever in the 10p of introduction episode, and overall only 2 pages out of 22 feature a penis, a bum, and boy nips, all of which are clearly warned of).

I'm not trying to pressure you here, I just don't get the reasoning behind this anymore. Especially considering that Singmire Haze has been featured before despite bearing a lot more non-sexual nudity, mostly of a character who looks like a child.
I fail to see the logic.

The thing is, it directly affects us all. Some of us are directly impacted when the topic of teen preg shows up, no matter it's because we've been there, know someone who's been there, or fear it could happen to us or someone we know. All of us are impacted when such a story can influence kids, who are the future of society, and may end up thinking that getting pregnant at 15-16 is a good way to be popular, or an ok thing, and who cares about the babies even?

Apparently, the story was supposed to be satirical, but after viewing screenshots, it appears to me that it's not funny and very much fails to be satirical. It's confusing, unclear, and quite disquieting.
It's possible to say "it's supposed to be satirical so you have to view it this way," but that's ostrich policy. We're not supposed to read a manual to understand a story. It doesn't matter what the intentions are, it's the result that matters, and if it's not what was expected, it's better to admit it, dump it, learn and go on. Hopefully the authors will do better next time.

Some before said that any story has its right to exist, but I believe freedom of speech comes to a limit when it's about publishing. You can write trash if you want, sure, but it should not be shared with anyone if it's going to be harmful. Freedom of speech for the sake of it is toxic when it allows for hate speech, discrimination, encouraging to unhealthy practices or views of society. So the question for Tapastic and @michaelson here is:

What society do you want? And how do you, as an online-publishing platform, contribute to building this future?

Sure, in the end, this question is an ethical one. But if we have the least hope of ever creating a better society, those are questions that need to be raised. You have the power to promote healthy romance, stories that are progressive, celebrate diversity, tolerance, fluidity of bodies and minds... You can do great things with this power.
The Next Big Thing™ might be just this.

carloswebcomic
Jul '16
2

Okay, but have you read the story and do you have supporting evidence that it actually glorifies teenage pregnancy?

You say you failed to see the satire. Could that be a fault in your part instead of the story?

noxfox
Jul '16

I could only see screenshots of what was accessible without paying, but I believe that should be enough to judge the story --if not, then it's the authors' fault, not mine. It's not impossible to make an introduction that reflects the story without having to be NSFW or putting a paywall straight away if that's what you want to do. And considering the number of people who also fail to see the satire, I'd rather fault the story. Of course, we may all be biased because the topic is itchy to us, but then again, that's something a good author foresees and addresses.

Besides, the media itself is very poor for what it's going for. As I said before, tapisodes are more alike to WIP, and WIPs are hard to judge. It's very difficult to get the right feeling out of a script. In this regard, again, that's something the authors should have foreseen too and taken in consideration.

Basically, there's only so much responsibility an author can reject before admitting that, maybe, they screwed up in some places.

BlueWindyHood
Jul '16
carloswebcomic

Actually, I did read it, it does effect me, and it IS a problem.

I'm a person who was traumatized by an unexpected pregnancy by way of rape by an abusive boyfriend, who then abandoned me, while living in a highly conservative, very Christian household, while still a young person. I was threatened with homelessness (specifically being sent to live with the father, who wanted nothing to do with me anymore because by then he was bored, so I would have had no home.)

What's the story about, hmm? A young woman getting pregnant and being shamed by a conservative Christian family and community, presented in such a way that its the young woman's 'fault', and angled in such a way that its 'intended to be humorous satire'. Wow. That hits home in the most uncomfortable ways, and is genuinely sickening. Guess who's spent the last couple of days swinging back and forth between panic attacks and seething rage? This guy. Its not funny. Not for me, not for the other young people who've been through it, or had friends or family go through it, or are the product of it.

On top of that "natural birth reigns supreme and popularity is measured in babyshowers" a paraphrase, but still. What the ever loving fuck. For reference, here's some screenshots I took of parts that I found particularly upsetting.

Not included: an image featuring a 16 year old engaged in a sexual act, a depiction of which is ILLEGAL in the us. The screen cap will not be posted publicly by me, but Michael has it and knows exactly the one I'm talking about I'm sure.

carloswebcomic
Jul '16

Perhaps, but unless they're a professional doing client work, an author has no obligation to work to anyone's standard other than his/her own.

carloswebcomic
Jul '16
BlueWindyHood

I'm sorry that you had to go through that as I can imagine that it must have been horrendous and very difficult, but I fail to see the glorification of teen pregnancy in the story.

What I do see though is the lack of damnation and finger pointing. It seems like it delivers a story in a matter of fact way with little judgement.

Maybe it's because I don't live in the US (I assume you live there) and Christian Conservatives are not a thing here.

JessJackdaw
Jul '16
carloswebcomic

After regretfully taking a look at it, it seems it's one of Tapastic's premium comics. It's hard to judge from only two pages, and the rest require keys.

Personally, it reads like a typical fetish comic. Does it glorify teen pregnancy? Well I'll let you decide.

Every female character (four, in the first two pages) so far is pregnant. Most don't seem concerned save one that expresses her disblief that she got pregnant. Author expresses the reason why as they didn't know the difference between a "condom and a condominium" at the end of the second page. Girls live in a white conservative town with highly religious moral system. Authority figure English teacher expresses sex is like being a stick of gum, "if you get chewed too many times who's gonna want to chew you after that?"

So ahh... yap. I mean I don't want to get too far into my opinion on the matter. I'm just going to leave that there and let you guys decide for yourselves.

carloswebcomic
Jul '16

I still fail to see the glorification. What it looks like to me is the depiction of the direct result of poor sex education due to a highly conservative society that believes "what they don't know can't hurt them".
What you've quoted there sure sounds like satire to me.
Hey, I could be wrong and everyone else could be right, but that's just the way it looks to me.

BlueWindyHood
Jul '16
carloswebcomic

You might want to look at one of those screenshots again. They display it pretty well. Or maybe its that you didn't grow up with Christian Conservatives and don't have a foundation for the understanding of Christian Conservative parental guilt trips, but its there.

carloswebcomic
Jul '16

I don't live in the US, so the whole Christian conservative thing is a mystery to me. I don't get it and I don't have much interest in finding out.

BlueWindyHood
Jul '16
carloswebcomic

And its not even satire. We literally get told that. I have a friend who's sex ed class showed them a pancake, limp-wristedly threw blueberries at it and called that fertilization. US sex ed is deplorable, and difficult to satirize because its so out there already.

Zikul
Jul '16
1
carloswebcomic

You forget, just like a piece of published work has the right to exist (unless it breaks against what free press and free speech speak for), people also have the freedom of speech, and press, to express concers and opinions. It's when we start robbing people of this freedom that we can truly start speaking of censorship.

Public lynching is something else altogether - this is people being critical about something that was not only put in public media. I myself got an email trying to sell me this garbage, despite the fact that I'm not even on the app - it's also one of the reasons I unsubscribed to the tapastic news letter. I'm no longer interested in getting this content in my inbox, and the fact that tapastic staff is directly financially supporting and commissioning this content, has further solidified my decision to not get the app, as well as discouraged me from ever submitting any of my novels to them - I don't want my work associated with this kind of content, it doesn't feel professional.

carloswebcomic
Jul '16
BlueWindyHood

Right, so I need to be interested in American Christian conservatives in to be able to speak my mind now?

But that's satire. Satire is making fun of something by exposing how ridiculous it is.

J.Z.Castillo
Jul '16

@carloswebcomic here's the glorification.

" Try attending Lumber Cove High, where hormones run rampant, natural births reign supreme, and popularity is measured in baby showers and ultrasound selfies."

We can tell that the social pyramid of this school is based on your pregnancy and the events leading up to the birth. If that is not glorification, damn, I have no clue what is.

Zikul
Jul '16
1
michaelson

You say you have never featured BDSM, but that's because you don't know what BDSM is - there have been stories with BDSM themes that were not upfront about it, that you've featured, and there are some in the Popular section too. Just because something doesn't have the awareness of what it is (nor the knowledge or research to properly present it), doesn't mean that that isn't what it is - just look at Fifty Shades of Grey. I know people get up in arms over that one, but I'm just saying - I know in my town, two people actually died due to getting into BDSM solely based on that work, and that's just so, so tragic.