I’m sorry but if there is one thing the Tumblr left needs crucially, it’s the ability to celebrate.
I remember when marriage equality was called and there were waves of rainbows and love wins posts. When we successfully defeated Donald Trump, there was lukewarm relief, a reminder that you were only allowed one or maybe two days to celebrate and then it was back to work. That is if you were even a good person for voting Biden. We never did settle if he was better than Trump. (We did.). We didn’t celebrate student loan debt relief or any of the accomplishments of the Biden administration, or any of the times Trump was blocked, or other countries succeeding in keeping fascists out of office. Who cares if we had successes? It’s not good enough. Back to work!
And this anti-celebratory attitude stretches back to the past. On the 100th anniversary of female suffrage in America, we were reminded that not all women had the vote and so we weren’t allowed to celebrate. The only post I saw about Juneteenth was reminding us that there were enslaved people who were killed instead of freed and therefore celebrating the end of chattel slavery was wrong, and besides, we have prison labor so nothing really changed or got better and there’s nothing to celebrate anyway. Trans Day of Visibility comes with Trans Day of Remembrance so that people don’t fill the tags with hate crimes and death. So on and so forth. Nothing gets better. Nothing changes. Back to work!
So of course when we have a major setback, we fall apart and have to start frantic damage control. Frantic discourse ensues over how much people are allowed to unplug before it becomes bad and selfish. Yes, maybe you can have this one day off Mr. Cratchit but you better be here and miserable early the next morning. Like abusive bosses always insisting you squeeze out more, more, more, and any achievement is just proof you were lazy the other times and impetus for more work.
If we are never allowed to acknowledge any of our victories, how are we supposed to survive our defeats?
Good post, and as you touched upon, the problem is that celebration is seen as some kind of intentional ignoring of some issue. I remember when marriage equality became the law of the land and there were posts like, “Umm there are a bunch of states that still have these other discriminatory laws sooo it’s problematic if you’re celebrating right now :/“ This is an example of what tumblr does best: whatsboutism, and accusing people of malice so the person pointing the finger looks Socially Aware and righteous. It’s ridiculous for someone to go, “oh you’re celebrating A? BUT WHAT ABOUT B???” But people do it all the time, and they often do it as a cynical way to make themselves look good, like “see how much more enlightened I am because I’m pointing out that people are still suffering while you’re being ignorant by being happy?”
It both keeps everybody miserable, and it’s not actually enlightened at all. I remember so clearly when we defeated Trump, and there were posts with thousands of notes literally on the day the election was called scolding us for being happy. I hated those posts then, and considering the outright despair I’ve seen over the past 3 weeks since his re-election, I hate them more now. When people are shamed into not celebrating wins, the message becomes “these wins aren’t actually THAT important”, and then people take everything for granted until it’s too late. Again, I’m thinking of people who reblogged “don’t celebrate Trump losing!” posts getting a rude awakening 4 years later when he won again.
Sorry for the rambling, OP, but people on here seriously need to stop acting like we can’t celebrate when good things happen! And no one ever says that every problem on earth is solved now because x win happened, so people need to stop being dishonest with their “you’re ignoring B by celebrating A.”
amhrancas 