One thing I've decided to do, instead of just highlighting people's hypocrisy, is use their words against them. "Problematic," for example.

It's genuinely problematic to me - and takes a greater degree of privilege - whenever people argue that those of us who want respite from real world politics through fiction, comedy, art and whatnot are "privileged."

How is it problematic? Aside from the obvious, that it's unhealthy for us to always be plugged in all of the time. It actually goes deeper than that.

I'm sure you've seen the argument by now that minority groups and women do not ever get a break, so someone who has the ability to take time away from thinking politically is actually due to a high level of privilege *because* they don't always have to think about it.

This is a form of prejudice, with both good and bad intentions. It's an attempt to assign a lived experience to people who fall into minority demographics. If you actually were to ask individuals (who do not use internet activism in place of a hobby) from those demographics...

...whether they want all kinds of media to focus on the same narrow political landscape 24/7, the majority would likely tell you that that's nightmarish nonsense.

As someone who falls into a few different minority groups, I'm telling you, it's nightmarish nonsense.

The biphobia I've experienced all my life doesn't just vanish and turn into, I dunno, "straight passing privilege" the moment I don't want *American politics* to be represented in Japanese manga, anime, or video games. That very idea is presumptuous and bigoted as heck.

Any good intentions one might have had arguing that minorities don't get a break from politics goes out the window, when one starts to force their political pet issues onto minorities who are seeking out that break that they apparently can never have.

It becomes apparent at that moment that the argument is purely a means to use minority groups as a political weapon. Which is actually problematic. Feigning care, sympathy and allyship is problematic; people who genuinely cared would want and advocate for people taking breaks.

Not to mention why people take breaks, and enjoy things that aren't real world political in the first place: mental health. Mental health affects everyone.

It isn't an exclusive club. Everyone has a state of mental health, and anyone can succumb to poor mental health, if put under enough pressure. Which is exactly what constant exposure to the ills of the world can do to a person.

It isn't burying one's head in the sand to focus on other things. It's a legitimate act of self care, knowing one's abilities, tolerances, and limits. People cannot and should not be plugged in all the time. Some people can't handle being plugged in at all, and that's okay.

To argue that they should - and that they are privileged if they protest this - is not progressive. It's not good politics. We do not know people's lives, beyond what they are comfortable expressing. We do not know their lived experiences, regardless of their demographics.

We do not know in what ways individual people are advantaged or disadvantaged, not really. It's presumptuous and prejudiced to assume so, one way or another.

So yes, I'm not holding people to their own standards as a way to lower the bar any further. I'm not interested in that. I'm not super interested in giving people a taste of their own medicine.

I am, however, sick of political bigots forcing people into boxes and claiming a moral high ground while doing so. No. You are the people you hate, you've just plastered over the old, and decorated it with rainbow wallpaper. Enough is enough.