(no subject)

[yvannairie]

Khadija Mbowe's latest video has me feeling extremely weird because it does have good points about how the commodification of the bodies of people, particularly racialised women, has inextricably shaped the way social economies and the internet attention economy has developed... IDK, I just feel weird about her talking about "whoring out" her personality and like she's somehow commodifying herself by being a youtuber, while talking about how sexual liberation only serves those who look good enough to be a product, and linking to a Medium post that argues for the abolition of sex work from the perspective that there's an inherent class antagonism between the sellers of erotic services and those who buy them.

And, like... In the context of an article that argues that all buyers of sex always want the most they can get for the cheapest price possible and are therefore incentivised to always abuse and coerce sex workers, I just get the weirdest parasocial vibrations from the whole thing? Like her audience from her perspective are people who don't care about her as a person and want the maximum amount of content from her and will stop watching if she doesn't.... IDK even what.

It just made me feel weird, because yes, I don't care if she doesn't make content. Her content is the thing I like. Me being told "you want access to me, which I'm willing to give as a transaction" just... Feels bad faith and accusatory in a way I don't feel comfortable with.

Maybe it's the juxtaposition of herself as a content creator... As somehow parallel to being a sex worker... IDK. It just. It just felt weird. I left a nice comment but I might go back and leave a slightly more dubious comment about being told I'm a john for a YTer whose Patreon content I don't even look at because I realised I don't care about "Patreon exclusive" content in the same breath as being told that johns are class enemies.

Comments

[sexytronians]

Did this video involve getting the views of sex workers on this topic as input?

Because IMO for me if not, it’s kinda atomically bad faith to not involve the people you’re using as an argument and comparison.

[yvannairie]

yeah the video apparently had both SW abolitionist and pro-sex work sensitivity readers so... haha. I'm just sensitive to people implying I'm dehumanising them by not doing something.