One of the most seemingly wholesome fandom accounts on TikTok (without animals) focused on Star Wars lore told through a lilac puppet named Dinx. While there was an occasional side-eye moment, like when he said he didn’t care for Rose Tico, that kinda got swept aside in favor of giving him the benefit of the doubt because there didn’t seem to be enough there to outright say this person was bigoted. However, that all changed as their identity was revealed online, and Facebook posts from the last few years showed Dinx to be homophobic with touches of anti-Blackness and classism.
The original callout videos by @whitetear2go have been removed by TikTok, but the rumblings were there enough for Dinx to address this controversy in a video. In the video (which, despite being “serious,” still uses the puppet), Dinx begins with “I need help, I’m being attacked” before saying the accusations of racism and homophobia are “thrown around a lot” and “losing their meaning.” Then, he addresses the evidence.
Now, this comes from a Facebook post from 2018, and in the post, I was disgusted on how Disney was using the homosexual agenda as a tool to get more viewership. To me it sounded like they didn’t really care about the people. They were just using the agenda to get more money and it disgusted me.
He then goes on to say he has his “personal views” but that going into his personal life (as if he can detach himself) was too far. He ends by asking people to refute these videos and report them if they’re “inappropriate.”
Unlike the Rose Tico situation, he outright used the right-wing talking point of a “homosexual agenda,” thus denying him the cover of actually talking about rainbow-washing. While his account has since been deleted, the video of Dinx is been shared many times by other accounts. It wasn’t just Star Wars Dinx took issue with, either. I’m not sure what even happened that resulted in Dinx writing, ” We knew it was coming Gay marriage only opened the doors to all the rest.” In 2018, he shared a Daily Wire (Ben Shapiro‘s site) article about Marvel promising to add more LGBTQ+ superheroes, and his response was “as if ruining Star Wars wasn’t bad enough … here it comes.”
Other puppet accounts condemn him
In addition to his outright homophobic shares and cheers on Facebook, there were also several posts of him applauding bigoted articles about Ron DeSantis, Candance Owens, Glenn Beck, Dan Bongino, and Tim Pool. He’s almost got all the mainstream Infinity Stones of hateful clowns. To absolutely no one’s surprise, he was also promoting election conspiracies the day after the election was called by all major press. (But no, there’s no evidence that he was at the Capitol on January 6. That came from a meme.) Before closing all his accounts and making his Facebook private, Dinx said all the hate was because he was Christian, instead of acknowledging it was because he doesn’t like gay people existing and that’s homophobic.
Despite a well documented and wide palette of bigotry flourishing in the Star Wars community and on TikTok, it just felt extra weird that it came from a puppet. To be fair, some puppets online are just another version of anonymous accounts, and people really like to be themselves free of accountability. I’ve since found many similar puppet accounts (not to be confused with “sock puppet accounts”) with large followings, but they’re more outright in their hate towards women’s reproductive health and the existence of LGBTQ+ people. Other puppets that don’t stand for that are making it very clear that those like Dinx (and worse), along with people who feel like Dinx did nothing wrong, are not welcome in their space.
My (and everyone’s, probably) favorite comes from the Magic: The Gathering community.
Also, some non-puppet Star Wars accounts are giving him and his bigotry the boot, too.
It’s quite surreal to see puppets condemn bigotry. However, they’re doing more than that by affirming that their geeky content, be it D&D, Magic: The Gathering, or something else, is for everyone. Given the consistent pushback against diversity and the way marginalized people are forced to navigate fandoms with trepidation, this is a welcome change.
(via TikTok, feature image: Disney, Lucasfilms)
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Published: Jul 19, 2022 01:39 pm