Profile Post
I chose to write about the blog “My Culture Is Not A Trend” on tumblr. The author of this blog is a Native American who claims to be “fed up with the appropriation of [their] culture”. I think their source of authority would be that they are Native American so they are more in tune with the history of their culture. They are able to feel offended by other people appropriating their culture because they are from that culture instead of just accusing someone of appropriating a culture that they are not a part of.
When you look back on the history of Native Americans, they have endured many hardships by Americans. They are protective over their culture because of these hardships. Many people get accused of cultural appropriation because even when someone is not Native American, they find it offensive if someone were to borrow their culture.
This blog opens up a forum for people to talk about specific instances of cultural appropriation that they have seen either in the media or firsthand. The purpose of speaking about these issues shows people how offended those specific to a certain culture get when you borrow something as simple as a clothing item.
This blog has not been active for a while, but the posts on it generated a lot of conversation when it was more active. The tone of voice of the author is somewhat aggressive and passionate as they are speaking about an issue that angers them a lot. The people who comment on the blog are people who mainly agree with the statements that are being made by the author.
One hot topic that is brought up is the wearing of headdresses at popular music festivals like Coachella. This was adopted by the mainstream media as something that was trendy during festival season but it was met with a lot of controversy once it started to become popular. This blog seems to just take controversial topics and discuss them in an open forum with an original post. It is met with comments that are very supportive, but they also contribute to the conversation in a historical way by drawing on knowledge about the culture.
They do not talk about how appropriation can be open to interpretation. They focus on other people attacking their culture instead of people drawing on it for inspiration. By not discussing the other side of the argument, they are not rounding out their argument. The readership of the blog follows this same lead by not focusing on the other side of the argument instead of attacking those who are appropriating.
A lot of the arguments are valid, but in more recent posts, the readers are challenging the argument and the blogger stopped posting. I think this blog was more of a rant blog instead of one with valid arguments every time they post. Once they were under attack, they ghosted from the internet. Being Native American makes his defense valid, but it does not make every argument he makes about appropriation valid.
