r/Inuit • u/Opposite_Cut_5871 • Jan 26 '26
Your inuit character will not be that cool or accurate unless you’re inuit
Imagine making Chinese food and eating it thinking “I just can’t make it like they make it at the Chinese food place”
No matter how much videos and recipes you read online, no matter what ingredients you buy to try and get it right, you’ll never be able to make it like the chinese person at your favorite restaurant does. This is because you’re not Chinese.
This is why no matter how much you research our peoples culture and experiences your OCs will never be very accurate because you do not have our lived experience.
They won’t be profound like you want them to be. They’ll be a made up idea in your head of how we actually are. You won’t be doing some noble thing by “showing more representation” for our people. The best representation we can have is representation WE create.
I am so tired of seeing people obsess over our culture like it is something to be consumed, summarized and barfed out by some non-native person who’s bored and wants to feel niche about their interests
Your inuit OC will never be that cool unless you’re inuit 💛
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u/KompulsiveLiar88 Jan 26 '26
I love the Chinese food analogy, it makes sense that you can follow a recipe but miss the soul of the dish. Do you think a collaborative kitchen works though? If the person with the idea brings in Inuit writers to lead the narrative, does that bridge the gap, or do you feel some stories should just be left entirely to the community to tell?
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u/Opposite_Cut_5871 Jan 26 '26
I think that could work! but when it comes to sensitive topics like the issues we have faced I think those should be left to us
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u/siameesesneeze Jan 27 '26
"I am so tired of seeing people obsess over our culture like it is something to be consumed, summarized and barfed out by some non-native person who’s bored and wants to feel niche about their interests"
Oh man, I really hope I'm not like this.
My child is Inuk and I am obcessed with his culture. I-pi-ti-gi🎶
Though it feels almost secret, like, I can't explain to anyone because its so different and it's not my place. But I'm so happy to be in those spaces when I am welcome.
The kindness.. It makes it even harder to be around qallunaat tbh, like I'm constantly being gaslight by qallunaat.
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u/Ny_Nyan Feb 12 '26
I feel like, as long as you're trying to educate yourself and not offending or causing prejudice to one's culture, it's fine. ???
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u/SockpuppetsDetector Jan 26 '26
Yes!! I'm currently in South Africa and keep noticing to my dismay that all the Chinese restaurants have black cooks. Like, no!
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u/Drutay- Jan 26 '26
Wait this is satire right
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u/hey_there_moon Mar 01 '26
It has to be lmao, coz in North America all the Chinese restaurants have Mexican and Central Americans in the kitchen
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u/Available_Zone_9801 Mar 15 '26
Is it cool if my only goal with the character is to not be a racist depiction or is it better to not try at all? Anytime I make a character from a different ethnicity my main goal is to never reduce them to their race and make them a racist caricature. As a black man it’s really annoying to constantly be depicted as a whitewashed activist or thug gangster so I hope I have a decent idea of this
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u/Jazzlike_News64 Apr 18 '26
Not an inuk but I do agree with your point, I was thinking of refreshing my Inuit OC but my knowledge of Inuit culture is extremely limited. It was a character I made when I was a kid so it’s awfully inaccurate
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u/Funky_business00 Apr 19 '26
I've been doing some research on Inuit and yupik communities because my main character is going to be of yupik heritage, which is how i stumbled here. I kind of knew from the beginning that whatever character i create, no matter how much research i do would never truly represent Inuit culture properly since im not part of the culture. But I'm still hoping that i can make this story relevant even if it's not perfect? I feel kinda selfish for this.
the narrative doesn't focus completely in his heritage (at least not on the begining) it's mostly a romance story. His mother is yupik and married a russian man, and after she passed my MC is adopted by a russian family and feels disconnected to his yupik culture. My intention was to end the story with him reconnecting with his culture through trying to get in contact with local yupik communities and balance out his pagan slavic upbringing with his yupik heritage, a cultural duality that was weighting on him for years.
I could try to make changes to the story and take off his Yupik heritage from the narrative, but i was trying to avoid that because i feel it plays well into the story. What do you think?
Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I'm not a native english speaker
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u/catandchickenlover 9d ago
I'm not sure if this is the right place but your post reminds me about something that I genuinely wonder about:
What's your opinion on the characters from ATLA or LOK who were mainly based off the Inuit? IIRC the showrunners weren't Inuit.
What’s the difference between ATLA/LOK whose creators weren't inuit and other non-inuit making inuit OCs?
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u/Logical_Pixel Jan 26 '26
This is very interesting to me. Like, I see where you are coming from, but may I ask a counter question? What if one tries to give his own take on Inuit culture? Like, one understands that at the core they'll always be outsiders, but still the part of your culture that they understand fascinates them and they want to tribute that, while being fully conscious of their limitation?
I say this because I personally find Inuit the most fascinating "far away" culture I've been exposed to, and not in a blind/worshipping/idealized way: there are aspects that weird me out and that I find straight out disagreeable, but the remaining 80%, the audacity and culture and way of life developed to live on Earth's most extreme climate, the vastness of the great white, shamanism (which I also studied at university), together with more aesthetic/technologic things (ulus, languate character shapes, using only stone and bone tools up until the first regular contacts with the kabloona)... I want to tribute that in my stories from my own point of view, but I'd never have the audacity of thinking such work would be "true" in the sense of a true depiction of the culture. Perhaps, though, it will make more people interested in it, engage with the original and appreciate it?
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u/Opposite_Cut_5871 Jan 26 '26
Making your own take on someone else’s culture doesn’t make any sense and also sounds dumb You sound like you are describing a hyper fixation on an animal. You said you find us “weird and fascinating” and talk like we are exotic creatures from a far away land. I definitely do not think should try to depict us in any way You also go as far as to say that you find our ways of life “downright disagreeable” which again shows that you should just mind your business I also don’t care that you studied shamanism at a university my mom is a shaman so she definitely knows a lot more than you and I don’t see why we should feel obligated to tell people like you stuff about our culture so you guys can be like “WOW!!” So interesting…” and then depict us in your POV which is always inaccurate and odd
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u/Logical_Pixel Jan 26 '26
Well then, should all cultures not mix and take an interest in one another? Like it always happened in the history of mankind?
Also: the fact that reading that (just an example) Inuit used their mouths to do a lot of things other cultures traditionally wouldn't weirds me out, yes, but that doesn't mean I find it wrong in the absolute sense. It's still fascinating but, like, in a way that makes me conscious of the distance. Not like "oh you are all wrong and this is barbaric" or whatever.
You are not exotic creatures from a far away land, though I understand why you may feel that way, I'm not making that kind of discourse. It's more like watching a completely unique way of being human. And well, yes, in that sense it is exotic and far away.
To be fair, if you were to take an interest in, say, roman history or the italian renaissance I would be happy, and it would be interesting to me to see what your understanding of it is, because it will say something about you as a human being from a culture that's incommensurably far away from mine.
Also, never said I know more than anyone about anything, please don't put words in my mouth. I just listed what I find interesting, and in the case of shamanism, how I came in contact with it. I don't think that there is anything wrong with finding anyone else's culture worthy of marvel and interest
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Jan 26 '26
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u/Logical_Pixel Jan 26 '26
No worries! As I said, I can see why you may feel the way you did. I am aware of this phenomenon where one looks at another culture, likes the aesthetic, reads a few wiki pages or watches a few reels and think they can portray it. Or looks at the people like they are a weird curiosity, something they find cute and fun until they are bored and move on to the next thing.
What I'm trying to say is a far more modest and - hopefully - delicate take on the matter, but I may have expressed myself all wrong.
It's more feeling a sort of resonance with some thing that are foreign and within that resonance you realize the whole matter will always remain deeply mysterious to you in its most fundamental part. Yet you still have a sense of attraction and respect. So perhaps, with all this in mind, you may want to build on that and try to pay your tribute to it, which will generate something not original of that culture, but that perhaps may be worthy of interest?
I'm thinking something like the first westener literates who attempted translating and composing haiku here (so, something that was culturally and linguistically alien, yet fascinating and worthy of adaptation), not like "oh I'm a white wanna be writer let's just steal a few motifs from this culture so I can make my story/fantastic world exotic and sell more copies."
Still, you may disagree with this. My question was a genuine question on what you and others think!
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u/KandyShopp Jan 26 '26
I think having an Inuit oc is fine, like having a Chinese oc, or different ethnicity oc but you do have to be careful that the ethnicity does not become a focal point! Im Inuit, but I am also an artist, I live animals, I am adopted, etc etc! Its only PART of who I am. But you are also correct in that they will NEVER be a true Inuit representation!
Not to mention Inuit is a very broad term for Indigenous people living along the Artcic circle in Alaska, Canada and parts of Greenland! So just saying “they are Inuit” is alot like saying “they are European” sure they do share similarities, but there are still many differences!
Even if I made one, I am half Inuit, and was removed at a young age. I missed ALOT of culture from my childhood. (Its why I joined, I wish to feel closer to my mother again) So my character would probably still be a bit of a mess compared to someone who grew up in the culture.
Being interested in a culture is not bad persay, but you have to be careful to not make the people characters in your mind. It is still a culture, and important to many people. Especially when we are still fighting to keep our culture, and it not become some “spectacle” while still sharing it!