Content Warning: Lolicon/Shotacon/Underage, Harassment, CSAM, Transphobia, Fictional Gun Violence
Image credit to Aggy/stwawbwewypwess/stwawbwewymilk
BLAM!! is the latest piece by Aggy, best known as stwawbwewymilk, the trans woman who was put on blast for her depictions of chibi, cutesy, child-like pornographic content. Once popular YouTuber CreepshowArt (the very same who was outed for having real CSAM of then fifteen-year-old Emily Artful) created a video featuring what they claimed to be CSAM, drawn by Aggy, and sent a myriad of her subscribers to her Twitter, resulting in a volatile harassment campaign that got Aggy's work removed from Gumroad, one of her (at the time) sources of income.
Aggy was mass-reported with no remorse, constantly harassed, and has been dubbed as a pedophile for her work. Never mind that she herself is a survivor, and her most popular piece, Puppy Milk, was an exploration of that trauma.
Those who still "hate follow" Aggy, or those who have talked about her on KiwiFarms, lolcow, and YouTube, are often blatantly transphobic against her, or otherwise claiming to "revoke her right to be queer," and "we don't claim her."
Aggy has taken the harassment both in stride and poorly at times, and has made several controversial statements regarding sexuality. She also often insults the quality of work of those who dislike what she does, and several other "low blow" remarks. She is not out of line to feel deep, hateful anger towards these people.
Now that you've been given a bit of background, you may suspect that BLAM!!'s content being so vulgar would be stoking the fire. BLAM!! portrays toddler-esque characters with guns, shooting one another in the heads. All characters are AMAB (assigned male at birth), have erections, and appear serene in expression and environment.
This is part of Aggy's style; showing horror in a cute, flowery, sweet sort of way, which some accuse of "taking away from the severity" of the actions. However, there's an argument to make that showing atrocities in this light re-contextualizes them: in this instance, it could be suspected that the flowery, palatable nature of the art may be indicative of how normalized gun violence is, particularly in America. People no longer bat an eye when a school shooting occurs, it's a part of our daily routine. It's presented on the news as a tragedy, while nothing is done about the source of the problem. Instead, we hold flowery funerals and pray, while nothing is actually done.
Yet another interpretation could be that this is a piece of frustration, a piece of vent work made to direct feelings towards these cute, chibi characters, who may embody the anime profile picture-having pseudo-cutsie culture that "antis" (a group who believes others should be harassed or physically harmed for the content one consumes, simply because it makes them uncomfortable) have built themselves upon. Indeed, blowing out their brains in fiction could be cathartic after the volatile behavior shown by Twitter, YouTube, and other communities.
Perhaps that's high speculation, however, and the piece is more straightforward. Aggy wanted to draw cute characters blowing each others' brains out. It was fun. Drawing blood is fun, drawing little penises are cute, or what have you. Often there is no reason behind a piece of art, and there does not need to be. Sometimes art is made for the sake of it, and it's up to the viewer to decide for themselves what a piece means.
Myself? I don't think the piece means anything. It's just for fun. And while I dislike some aspects of the artist, I love their work. It's raw and vulgar, just like I like it.
Comments