(I'm new, so please be gentle if this has been discussed before)
In short form: How do you feel about new-age/'nu goth' tweens and teens wearing Ouija boards on t-shirts and using planchettes for necklaces? (Personally, I think it's incredibly tacky.)
But to be much more broad and serious about it: On a scale of 'rolling my eyes' to 'literally tearing my hair out', how angry/upset does it make you to see non-Pagans wearing symbols such as pentacles/pentagrams, triple moons, Vegvisir, Celtic runes, and various other religious/spiritual/magic symbols and/or objects? Especially when they claim to either not believe the sincerity of such things ("Pagans are just attention wh*res trying too hard to be different!" or "It's just fairytale junk!") or outright say that Paganism is wicked. Sort of apples and oranges, I suppose, as Ouija Boards are more of a novelty compared to long-standing religious symbols, yanno.
From personal experience, it upsets me greatly to see teenagers wearing Satanic symbols to be 'edgy'. (Nevermind those confusing a pentacle for a pentagram or assuming either is 'evil' and therefore "SO EDGY XD".) Outside of my own faith, it's still... disturbing to watch the appropriation of other spiritualities for the sake of fashion. I've mentioned this once to a (non-Pagan, non-spiritual, non-religious) friend and he told me, "People outside of a faith have no obligation to respect that faith; symbols mean different things to different people. What might be sacred to you, is simply decoration for them. And that's acceptable. You can't care about things like that, dude. It's dumb to get offended." I only really read the rebuttal as "I don't care because it isn't relevant to me, so stop whining."
In short form: How do you feel about new-age/'nu goth' tweens and teens wearing Ouija boards on t-shirts and using planchettes for necklaces? (Personally, I think it's incredibly tacky.)
But to be much more broad and serious about it: On a scale of 'rolling my eyes' to 'literally tearing my hair out', how angry/upset does it make you to see non-Pagans wearing symbols such as pentacles/pentagrams, triple moons, Vegvisir, Celtic runes, and various other religious/spiritual/magic symbols and/or objects? Especially when they claim to either not believe the sincerity of such things ("Pagans are just attention wh*res trying too hard to be different!" or "It's just fairytale junk!") or outright say that Paganism is wicked. Sort of apples and oranges, I suppose, as Ouija Boards are more of a novelty compared to long-standing religious symbols, yanno.
From personal experience, it upsets me greatly to see teenagers wearing Satanic symbols to be 'edgy'. (Nevermind those confusing a pentacle for a pentagram or assuming either is 'evil' and therefore "SO EDGY XD".) Outside of my own faith, it's still... disturbing to watch the appropriation of other spiritualities for the sake of fashion. I've mentioned this once to a (non-Pagan, non-spiritual, non-religious) friend and he told me, "People outside of a faith have no obligation to respect that faith; symbols mean different things to different people. What might be sacred to you, is simply decoration for them. And that's acceptable. You can't care about things like that, dude. It's dumb to get offended." I only really read the rebuttal as "I don't care because it isn't relevant to me, so stop whining."
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