Template:Representation

Hi everyone! For those of you who don't know what this blog might be about, please consider this a continuation from my previous blog, Representation Matters. Whilst that blog was concerned with just offering a multitude of resources for people to find some diverse models, this blog aims to be a comprehensive masterlist of all things representation! From naming customs explained to LGBTQ+ terms explained to masterlists for model hunting and a list of any user willing to help with you and names, this blog aims to have it all!

What is Representation and Why is it Important?
I suppose the biggest elephant in the room with this blog is the question of what exactly is representation. It's a word no doubt we're all familiar with the term in some essence but what does it mean?

A thing to keep in mind whenever we talk about representation is that it is not limited to a single aspect. That is, there are many ways in which representation can be applied and presented. Though in recent years it can be argued that the term in itself is largely connected to that of race, representation is found elsewhere in the communities of the LGBTQ+, the disabled, religion, genders, weight and age. Representation is also largely centred around reversing the stereotypes caused by a type of representation that was - and still is - used as a way for media, film, literature and the like as a way to boast inclusiveness. Some notable ones being the femme gay man, the ghetto woman or, more controversially, characterising a whole religion incorrectly. Whilst these groups of people do exist, they do not encompass the entire community in which they come from and that is what representation aims to do; to show people of a certain community that they can be something big and that they can achieve their dreams. An example we could use on our wiki is Bailey Jeon who is regarded as the first Asian Minister for Magic and the first exotic to hold office - for those of the two communities IC, he would be a perfect example of representation as he could serve as a role model.

"The basic definition of representation in the media is simply how media, such as television, film and books, portray certain types of people or communities."

- Arab Film Institute There's a few terms that representation can get confused with and this is something we should all aim to avoid, both on the wiki and outside of it. The first is tokenism. This is the inclusion of an underrepresented community just for the sake of it - to boast diversity when these characters hold no sustenance or character development or impact other than the community they belong to. Notorious examples of this include the gay best friend and the sassy black woman who seems to just offer advice, or even the smart Asian that someone might use for academic gain - those characters. The next term is typecasting. This is when, typically, an actor is offered the same roles over and over because they fit the look of a certain stereotype or have done the role well once. This can be in the form of an actor of Indian descent being casted and having to use a thick accent - something Aziz Ansari commented on. Typecasting is, essentially, flared tokenism whereby the characters do have some character development but said development is stale, overused and feeds back into the stereotypes.

The importance can be summed up aptly from another statement by the Arab Film Institute;

"Strong and positive representations can help fight and break down stereotypes that can be detrimental to individuals and limiting to society."

- Arab Film Institute

Whilst representation can bolster massive successes, it is also the smaller wins that also matter. With the release of the Black Panther movie, black children across the globe were exposed to a new set of superheroes that were unique to them that they didn't need to share with anyone. There's that infamous story of a young black girl seeing the portrait of Michelle Obama and dressing up like her for Halloween and, quite simply, the feeling of warmth and acceptance of seeing a good representation of your community - of you - on screen can't be beaten by anything.

Why Care about it on the Wiki?
A very fair couple of questions about this whole issue is; we're a roleplay wiki, what does the enabling of representation do for us and why should we care because, at the end of the day, we are just one website in an ocean of media.

Representation matters in every community regardless of size, even more so when there's multiple types of people in any community. DARP is a beautiful place where so many different people come together out of a common love, whether that be for Harry Potter or for roleplaying. We've got members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of many races, ages, professions, economic backgrounds - the lot. It is because we are such a diverse group of people on a small site that representation becomes important. At the end of the day, roleplaying is fiction and fiction has served as the foundation for many rolemodels; rolemodels that exhibit positive representation. I'm not saying we're gonna have young kids who read all of our roleplays but that's what we should aim to do; create characters so that if someone from an underrepresented community saw themselves portrayed in a good way, they'd be proud.

Moreover, as many of us come from marginalised communities when it comes to representation, it becomes a situation where we can't demand representation if we ourselves don't put it into the world. Again, I'm not saying that big media outlets are going to add representation because a bunch of teens and young adults made some characters on a roleplaying website, but if we can identify what representation means to us and create that, we can better judge representation in the greater media.

UK Stuff
As this wiki is set in the UK, this section of the blog aims to provide some insight into demographics in the UK today so we can make an accurate guess as to what the future could look like. Much like everything to do with the future, our predictions are only that - predictions. Though we can guess what might happen in the future, there is no guaranteeing of it and thus an open mind must be kept.

2011 Ethnic Demographics
As the last census was taken in 2011, please realise that these figures are likely to be increased. This does, however, show a general idea of how the UK is proportioned in terms of ethnic diversity. To understand these parameters a bit better, This was what was used to gauge the numbers below.


 * Out of a population of 63,182,178...
 * White or White British people encompass 55,010,359 of the whole population, or 87.1%
 * Of the above number, White Travellers (Gypsy and Irish) encompass 63,193 of the number, or 0.1% of the 87.1%
 * Asian or Asian British people encompass 4,373,339 of the whole population, or 6.9%
 * Of the above number, Indians encompass 1,451,862 of the number, or 2.3% of the 6.9%
 * Pakistanis encompass 1,174,983 of the number, or 1.9% of the 6.9%
 * Bangladeshis encompass 451,529 of the number, or 0.7% of the 6.9%
 * Chinese encompass 433,150 of the number, or 0.7% of the 6.9%
 * 'Other Asians' encompass 861,815 of the number, or 1.4% of 6.9%
 * Black or Black British people encompass 1,904,684 of the whole population, or 3%
 * Those with a mixed heritage or multiple heritages encompass 1,250,229 of the whole population, or 2%
 * Other Ethnic Groups encompass 580,374 of the whole population, or 0.9%
 * From deduction, I believe Pacific Islanders may fall under this category.

Naming Customs
For this, I will be using this PDF document to help explain some of the more common naming customs that people might have a hard time with, as well as some of the more niche ones. I highly suggest everyone takes a look at this PDF file as really is extensive, covering Afghanistan naming customs to Tamil naming customs. There might be multiple naming customs listed under one country so do take a look! Likewise, there is a list at the bottom given common names - so a ton of name ideas!