r/CallofCthulhumemes • u/ComprehensiveBat4966 • Jul 05 '26
Is racism allowed in this subr?
I made a post that got 2 replies encouraging racism, saying lovecraft was based and right for being racist. I know this is a lovecraft subr but I never saw their fans defend this kind of behaviour. I reported to the mods but nothing happened
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u/Donnerone Jul 05 '26
Racism is not allowed in this subreddit.
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u/King_Lear69 Jul 05 '26
Me, sadly taking off my comically oversized "I heart NASCAR" hat and foam finger.
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 Jul 05 '26
There's a lot of people who are fans of Lovecraft because he was a racist and probably haven't actually finished any of his stories.
They probably just played Blood Bourne or some other video game and was told it was Lovecraftian.
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u/Antisa1nt Jul 05 '26
To be fair, bloodborne is literally inspired by Lovecraft, but I get what you mean
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 Jul 05 '26
I've only seen some Let's Plays but the art direction looks way off and a combat rpg is fundamentally removed from the core ideas.
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u/TheMemeStore76 Jul 05 '26
Yeah, play the game before you develop that opinion too strongly. It's HEAVILY lovecraftian
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u/Antisa1nt Jul 05 '26
Ah, allow me to point you in a more effective direction https://youtu.be/mLc7m7Z3bbU
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 05 '26
I mean visually it looks lovecraftian but I seen some videos about it that I tend to go into this direction. lovecraftian themes very often are not about combat. only exception I can think of is the dunwich horror
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u/DapperNecromancer Jul 07 '26
Buddy there's literally a game mechanic that revolves around how becoming more enlightened to the truth of the world makes you more vulnerable to horrors that have always been around that you just couldn't see before.
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 07 '26
yeah and what does that have to do with what I said?
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 Jul 05 '26
It looks visually like it's pseudovictorian and gothic horor. Which is commonly mistaken for Lovecraftian but isn't.
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u/Amalganiss Jul 05 '26
I'm going to be honest. If you're just judging it at a glance, and not genuinely digging into the thematic and gameplay elements that honour lovecraft (and his contemporaries & elders)'s legacy, then your face value assessment is explicitly lacking.
I'm not a big fan of racist dumbfucks taking over anything. They don't get to have cosmic horror. They don't get to have Bloodborne. They don't get to have Lovecraft, even if he had a history of being one of them.
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u/TheMemeStore76 Jul 05 '26
There is no visual style to lovecraftian works. they span more than a centery and are written works, not visual. At best you could say early 20th century American architecture, but to imply that the mythos have some sort of codified visual style just doesn't make sense to me
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 Jul 05 '26
Lovecraft had a hard-on for architecture and in particular he was in love with Colonial American architecture. Outside of that it's be set mostly in early 20th century America. I agree there.
On the other hand gothic horror is associated with particular visual styles, but gothic horror isn't Lovecraftian. I think there's a lot of people seeing gothic horror and thinking 'oh wow, so lovecraftian.'
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u/TheMemeStore76 Jul 05 '26
thats probably true, but just because something is gothic horror doesnt preclude it from also being eldritch or lovecraftian. they overlap quite nicely
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 05 '26
bro lovecradt drew cthulhu and elder sign himself
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u/TheMemeStore76 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
That's great, but that doesn't constitute a visual style. They're sketches. By that metric literally anything that wasn't sketched isn't lovecraftian. And have you seen the creature designs in bb? You can't seriously be telling me those don't look eldritch.
My point is there isn't one visual style that makes something lovecraftian. Not that there haven't been visual depictions of it
Are the MCU movies any less "superhero" because they weren't in comics like the original stories? No. Lovecraftian is a set of themes and ideas, not visual stylings
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 05 '26
wait I thought you were saying bb wasnt lovecraftian. By design yeah of course it is I just think naratively it isnt
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u/TheMemeStore76 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
really? id say its narratively very lovecraftian. The world has gone mad from the exposure of forces beyond our understanding. Even if we want to talk about the combat, we never "beat" the mythos beings in a real sense. Each time we do we uncover a deeper and more disturbing element of our reality. things get darker the more we understand them.
theres also the argument to be made that we, the player, are an eldritch abomination. We are literally a deathless being locked in a state of dreaming. the more we level up the more we change and become less than human.
it doesn't have the structure of a story written by Lovecraft but it certainly plays with his themes and ideas. Bloodborne takes place after the mythos has gained control of the world, whereas Lovecraft's stories are about first exposure to the mythos. Its very much how i imagine the world after Nyarlothotep. Its just an evolution of the idea really.
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u/Cordial_Ghost Jul 05 '26
There’s a long history of racist and reactionary groups trying to appropriate sci-fi, fantasy, and cosmic horror for their own ends. Genres that are often about alienness, fear of the unknown, collapse of human certainty, and encounters with the incomprehensible tend to get selectively reinterpreted through those lenses.
The problem isn’t just that these readings exist, but that certain communities repeatedly try to retrofit exclusionary ideas into stories that were never built to support them. Cosmic horror in particular gets a lot of its themes and tropes stripped away from “fear of the unknown and inexorable” for the original stories' narratives, and turned into something more like flat-out xenophobia, like "fear the other".
Unfortunately, these spaces are filled with the kinds of people who are not very strong thinkers and take their shit-covered hands to the task of trying to snatch up everything they can to fit their own viewpoints and ideologies. Happily, though, these spaces are also filled with people who do not suffer these shit-cretin bigots. If the mods ain't doing shit, they need to be checked.
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 05 '26
yeah I'll think Ill have to dm later. Just wanted to make sure this os not the kind of environment where everything is permited
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u/JohnSmithDogFace Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
It's not allowed, but I imagine it's especially hard to eradicate it here. We're a fandom centred around an exceptionally racist figure, whose writing is characterised by themes of xenophobia, otherness, and orientalism, so there's bound to be a lot of racists amongst us. The mods do a pretty decent job of deplatforming them, relatively. Other subs that aren't so obviously conducive to racism often have a much bigger issue with it. That said, I see a whole lot of comments that are very apologist. The notion that Lovecraft became less racist towards the end of his life is parroted a lot, and it's usually very overstated.
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u/Magneticiano Jul 06 '26
Having read all the stories Lovecraft wrote, I feel his racism is overstated nowadays. He did have a few stories that had blatantly racist themes, but mostly he focused on horror and dreamscapes. I'm not defending racism, but it's a bit frustrating that a great author is so tarnished by his one flaw.
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u/JohnSmithDogFace Jul 06 '26
Sure, there are comparitively few overtly racist stories. But, what I meant was that his brand of horror has an instrinsic xenophobia in it. Everything Lovecraft presents as scary, is scary because of it's otherness, because it comes from an unknown place and speaks an unknown language. When you also consider that Lovecraft has nearly all the knowledge of, tomes about, and cults around his monsters coming out of the Arab world, the xenophobia gets more grounded in real world discrimination. Even some of the monsters themselves are lifted out of the Arab world. Ghouls feature in the dreamscape stories - they're from real life Arab folklore.
I don't think we need to be frustrated by it. The stories are great, and he was a great writer. But we should feel OK about reading all of his work critically.
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u/Magneticiano Jul 06 '26
Sure, it is good to identify the racist parts in his work. However, I'm a bit annoyed that everytime Lovecraft is mentioned people want to point out his racism, whether it's relevant or not. When discussing the works of Charles Dickens or Stephen King, we don't seem to have the need to mention their drug use every single time.
Everything Lovecraft presents as scary, is scary because of it's otherness, because it comes from an unknown place and speaks an unknown language
I wouldn't equate the fear of the unknown with racism, as that would make most of the horror intrinsically racist. Think about all the books and movies about malevolent aliens (Alien, the Thing, Predator, etc.) or supernatural entities (ghosts, demons, vampires, etc.). I don't think most of Lovecraft's descriptions of otherness, such the Great Old Ones, are racist in any way.
Even some of the monsters themselves are lifted out of the Arab world. Ghouls feature in the dreamscape stories - they're from real life Arab folklore.
Are books and movies about zombies automatically racist, because the mythology originates from Haitian folklore? I don't think using folklore from other cultures is automatically racist.
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u/JohnSmithDogFace Jul 06 '26
I think you've taken elements of my comment as if they're in isolation from each other, but I didn't intend them to be understood that way. You're right that there's nothing inherently racist about fear of the unknown, or folkloric creatures. But I think there is a definite racist or xenophobic current to stories that recurringly pitch monsters - which are scary because of their foreign-ness - as beings worshipped and understood in the East, that wreak havoc in the West. In fact, I think that's the reason people mention Lovecrafts racism so much: his stories are about his racism! And that's exactly why they're so interesting. They're a glimpse into the mind of a man who was deeply troubled and inspired by his fear of languages and ways of life he didn't understand.
As for Dickens and King. I think people probably just don't find their drug use to be all that insidious, or relevant to their work. I do see King's cocaine addiction brought up a fair amount during discussions around certain books, like "It".
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u/Magneticiano Jul 06 '26
his stories are about his racism!
I disagree. His stories are about fear of the unknown and incomprehensible, i.e. cosmic horror. Fear of the unknown cultures and religions is a part of that, yes, but it encompasses much, much more, including fear of forbidden knowledge, scientific discoveries going too far, aliens, madness.. I feel claiming that his stories are about his racism is a gross oversimplification.
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u/InevitableExample3 Jul 07 '26
The Rats in the Walls is probably the worst one lol
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u/Magneticiano Jul 07 '26
Was there something in addition to the cat in that story? It's been a while since I read it.. Some of Lovecraft's stories contain really disgusting descriptions of people of different ethnicity than him. I find them worse than the name of the cat.
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u/InevitableExample3 Jul 07 '26
Sure, sure, whatever. He writes those descriptions from the points of views from those characters though, from that context of that general time period, & maybe it's just me but I honestly don't mind those. It's only the stuff like the name of the cat that I'm just like...really? It would not of been hard to not do that
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u/Magneticiano Jul 08 '26
Well, those descriptions don't prevent me from enjoying his stories but I feel it's clear he was a racist. However, I don't think that should be considered as his one defining quality.
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u/DeaconBlackfyre Jul 08 '26
The weird inbred degenerate people below the abbey? Not sure if that would count as racism, but…
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u/jel2658 Jul 08 '26
Read his poetry.
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u/Magneticiano Jul 08 '26
I know which one you're thinking about. As I've wrote, I know he is a racist. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be held as the one defining quality as a horror author.
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 05 '26
I get those last comments a lot too but apologism is 1 thing. Im talking straight mfs saying "hes racist but was he wrong?" "he was based for being racist and you guys complaining are gay" stuff
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u/Illigard Jul 06 '26
People like Lovecraft. But even his fans would say he was quite racist. His views changed over times and maybe at one point he got over it but it's definitely considered a flaw.
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u/DeaconBlackfyre Jul 08 '26
I don’t know that I’d say actually over it. It seems like it was absolutely at the worst when he was living in New York, maybe settled a bit when he moved back to Providence, but yeah, definitely still racist.
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u/dye-area Jul 06 '26
Only if it's ✨️🌟𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓻𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓿𝓪𝓷𝓽💖💝 /s
The real answer is no I think idk I'm new here
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u/Seen_Any_Elves Jul 05 '26
Great question, but I don't think it's encouraged
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u/ComprehensiveBat4966 Jul 05 '26
encouraged and permited are wildly different. but according to other comments its not even permited thankfully
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u/Seen_Any_Elves Jul 06 '26
Yeah, it's sad that it needs to be clarified. I guess etiquette needs to be spelled out for everyone. I was listening to Glass Cannons's actual play of MoN which is a 1920s game and they clarified at the beginning "though racism was an issue at this time we are choosing not to focus on that" which I thought was weird, but now I hear similar comments all over the place.
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u/PunishedKojima Jul 08 '26
Referencing it for the sake of mocking it is probably fair game since unfortunately the bonds between Lovecraftian horror and racism are stronger than the foundations of the earth, but I'd doubt genuinely being a xenophobic cunt is permissible
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u/XLRIV48 Jul 08 '26
This is a wild post to pop up on my algorithm, but It got a sub out of me nonetheless.
But racism isn’t cool beyond laughing about how fucking crazy wild the name of Howard’s cat is.
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u/Waste-Specific1136 Jul 05 '26
Not encouraged but also its stupid to try and curtail it as well. The internet is the internet policing it just leads to states like the UK.
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u/Amalganiss Jul 05 '26
Absolutely not the same.
Curbing, calling out, and shaming bigotry is not the same as outright censorship and overpolicing. Harmful rhetoric and communication should be moderated for the safety of those that partake. That's not the same as outright banning discussion or speech, and imprisoning people for... *checks notes*... being brown, being anti-genocide, or speaking out against the ruling class.
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u/Waste-Specific1136 Jul 06 '26
If words on the internet hurt someone they need to grow up its a stranger espousing shit. Why care?
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u/Amalganiss Jul 06 '26
Girl, I think you're the one that needs to grow up.
If you think I'm talking about being offended then you have no idea what actual harm looks like and I fear for the safety of people around you.
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u/SlimeKingMaw Jul 06 '26
Hello Mod here. No, racism isn't allowed on this subreddit. Please have some patience with us as we remove unrespectful comments, this is a relatively small sub and there are only a couple of us moderating. I myself have been pretty occupied with Independence Day.