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Sonic the playwright
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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
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And that's good.
It would be time to stop with this stupid cult of personality that never brings anything other than fascism and sects.
But corporate mascots designed to maximise franchise profitability are so much better?
Yes, yes they are. Because it's much less likely that people will use Sonic as a national symbol of cultural superiority.
eh. I'm not taking that bet.
people are dumb.
There are entire works of fiction dedicated to just that (eg captain america). US law enforcement using the punisher symbol is another.
What interesting thinking. Let me just check something.
It's ok to kill puppies, because otherwise they might be adopted by fascist dog owners and trained to attack antifascists and minorities.
I'm not seeing how the Shakespeare > fascism pipeline is supposed to work here, much less how it's a greater threat than "megacorps controlling culture" > fascism
Cult of personality -> fascism
Shakespeare for example has been a very typical symbol of british "pride" which is one of the main roots of fascism.
But yeah, sure, it's not the worst one. The problem here is this fascination that people have for historical figures, where it doesn't matter whether you know the work of Shakespeare, what matters is that you know him and how he looks, as the post shows.
Why do you think Trump supporters have no clue what he actually did does ? They don't care because they follow the person, not the act.
When you start worshipping people, you never end up in a good place.
That seems like an awfully broad application of the term "cult of personality". Usually that term implies the personality in question influencing people's actions either with or similarly to political power. People just think that Shakespeare made excellent plays and poems
I also don't think it's reasonable to say that people are only enamoured with the idea of him as an exceptional writer that is English when there is still widespread study and performance of his work; people are clearly still engaging with the actual work, not just the image of him
Okay but you explicitly said "good" not to a post about people not recognising Shakespeare, but one about more people recognising Sonic than Shakespeare
You can appreciate art without worshipping anyone. In fact, a deeper understanding of art will also teach you about the flaws and the humanity of the creators. Also, the best defence against fascism is education, which art is an indispensable part of.
Yes, but this isn't what the post is about.
Here it's about knowing who Shakespeare is, and actually even worse, knowing how he looked.
There's no mention of Hamlet or Macbeth, there's no mention of art in any kind, to the point where the artist is being compared to a character (ultimately, art).
People don't give a crap about the art of Shakespeare, they just have to know him because he's famous and supposedly a genius or whatever, so you need to know his name and his face. There's no art in that, and no education either because knowing the name and face of a dead guy never brought any form of knowledge.
Shakespeare isn't an artist. He is an icon, a holy figure, an absolute reference that became close to a deity in people's perception, similar Mozart, Einstein, etc. Heck, how many people know Einstein and his face, compared to how many know his works?
This is where fascism hides. If you can consider anyone to be godlike without even knowing what they did, it's easy for you to do the same with a Hitler or a Trump. You believe blindly because it is a cult of personality.
Yeah, here's a big secret: people are interested in people. I don't understand why that triggers you so much.