#clout points online

[ceasarslegion]

One day tumblr may learn that blockbuster movies arent activism and are in fact just movies.

Apparently that day is not today

[mcsiggy]

Do yall like, know how to enjoy something w/o constantly criticizing it? don't you want to enjoy something-- anything for what it is? if it gives you joy and makes you happy, you dont have to be critical and pick a part about it to be a 'real' fan of the thing, or to show you're aware of the whatever problems it has.

just liking and enjoying it is enough.

[r0semultiverse]

It actually genuinely pisses me off that stolen voice acting chucked into a learning software generates thousands of views. Y'all really hate voice over artists & artists in general, don't you?

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Never surprises me how in the pursuit of ''challenging gender stereotypes/homophobia" we end up in the same spot

"We're deprogramming" no Susan you're still programmed except you cut your hair lmfao

When you see a post about women or gay people that sets off your “terf” alarm, you’re the problem, not the op.

You’re the one that feels the need to closely inspect anything about women or homosexuals to make sure it meets your standards. You’re the one who feels the need to heavily police the language women and homosexuals use, and the topics we discuss. You’re the one who is choosing to view us as malicious until we beg for you to think otherwise.

It’s not anybody’s fault but your own that your knee-jerk reaction to seeing posts about women or homosexuals is to assume they’re morally wrong.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Walmart didn't just happen. The rise of Walmart – and Amazon, its online successor – was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law. Walmart may have been founded by Sam Walton, but its success (and the demise of the American Main Street) are down to Reaganomics.

The law that Reagan neutered? The Robinson-Patman Act, a very boring-sounding law that makes it illegal for powerful companies (like Walmart) to demand preferential pricing from their suppliers (farmers, packaged goods makers, meat producers, etc). The idea here is straightforward. A company like Walmart is a powerful buyer (a "monopsonist" – compare with "monopolist," a powerful seller). That means that they can demand deep discounts from suppliers. Smaller stores – the mom and pop store on your Main Street – don't have the clout to demand those discounts. Worse, because those buyers are weak, the sellers – packaged goods companies, agribusiness cartels, Big Meat – can actually charge them more to make up for the losses they're taking in selling below cost to Walmart.

Reagan ordered his antitrust cops to stop enforcing Robinson-Patman, which was a huge giveaway to big business. Of course, that's not how Reagan framed it: He called Robinson-Patman a declaration of "war on low prices," because it prevented big companies from using their buying power to squeeze huge discounts. Reagan's court sorcerers/economists asserted that if Walmart could get goods at lower prices, they would sell goods at lower prices.

Which was true…up to a point. Because preferential discounting (offering better discounts to bigger customers) creates a structural advantage over smaller businesses, it meant that big box stores would eventually eliminate virtually all of their smaller competitors. That's exactly what happened: downtowns withered, suburban big boxes grew. Spending that would have formerly stayed in the community was whisked away to corporate headquarters. These corporate HQs were inevitably located in "onshore-offshore" tax haven states, meaning they were barely taxed at the state level. That left plenty of money in these big companies' coffers to spend on funny accountants who'd help them avoid federal taxes, too. That's another structural advantage the big box stores had over the mom-and-pops: not only did they get their inventory at below-cost discounts, they didn't have to pay tax on the profits, either.

MBA programs actually teach this as a strategy to pursue: they usually refer to Amazon's "flywheel" where lower prices bring in more customers which allows them to demand even lower prices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSwWYemLek

You might have heard about rural and inner-city "food deserts," where all the independent grocery stores have shuttered, leaving behind nothing but dollar stores? These are the direct product of the decision not to enforce Robinson-Patman. Dollar stores target working class neighborhoods with functional, beloved local grocers. They open multiple dollar stores nearby (nearly all the dollar stores you see are owned by one of two conglomerates, no matter what the sign over the door says). They price goods below cost and pay for high levels of staffing, draining business off the community grocery store until it collapses. Then, all the dollar stores except one close and the remaining store fires most of its staff (working at a dollar store is incredibly dangerous, thanks to low staffing levels that make them easy targets for armed robbers). Then, they jack up prices, selling goods in "cheater" sizes that are smaller than the normal retail packaging, and which are only made available to large dollar store conglomerates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Writing in The American Prospect, Max M Miller and Bryce Tuttle1 – a current and a former staffer for FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – write about the long shadow cast by Reagan's decision to put Robinson-Patman in mothballs:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-13-stopping-excessive-market-power-monopoly/

They tell the story of Robinson-Patman's origins in 1936, when A&P was using preferential discounts to destroy the independent grocery sector and endanger the American food system. A&P didn't just demand preferential discounts from its suppliers; it also charged them a fortune to be displayed on its shelves, an early version of Amazon's $38b/year payola system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

They point out that Robinson-Patman didn't really need to be enacted; America already had an antitrust law that banned this conduct: section 2 of the the Clayton Act, which was passed in 1914. But for decades, the US courts refused to interpret the Clayton Act according to its plain meaning, with judges tying themselves in knots to insist that the law couldn't possibly mean what it said. Robinson-Patman was one of a series of antitrust laws that Congress passed in a bid to explain in words so small even federal judges could understand them that the purpose of American antitrust law was to keep corporations weak:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Both the Clayton Act and Robinson-Patman reject the argument that it's OK to let monopolies form and come to dominate critical sectors of the American economy based on the theoretical possibility that this will lead to lower prices. They reject this idea first as a legal matter. We don't let giant corporations victimize small businesses and their suppliers just because that might help someone else.

Beyond this, there's the realpolitik of monopoly. Yes, companies could pass lower costs on to customers, but will they? Look at Amazon: the company takes $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar that its sellers earn, and requires them to offer their lowest price on Amazon. No one has a 45-51% margin, so every seller jacks up their prices on Amazon, but you don't notice it, because Amazon forces them to jack up prices everywhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

The Robinson-Patman Act did important work, and its absence led to many of the horribles we're living through today. This week on his Peoples & Things podcast, Lee Vinsel talked with Benjamin Waterhouse about his new book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America:

https://athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthings/2024/08/12/78-benjamin-c-waterhouse-on-one-day-ill-work-for-myself-the-dream-and-delusion-that-conquered-america/

Towards the end of the discussion, Vinsel and Waterhouse turn to Robinson-Patman, its author, Wright Patman, and the politics of small business in America. They point out – correctly – that Wright Patman was something of a creep, a "Dixiecrat" (southern Democrat) who was either an ideological segregationist or someone who didn't mind supporting segregation irrespective of his beliefs.

That's a valid critique of Wright Patman, but it's got little bearing on the substance and history of the law that bears his name, the Robinson-Patman Act. Vinsel and Waterhouse get into that as well, and while they made some good points that I wholeheartedly agreed with, I fiercely disagree with the conclusion they drew from these points.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out (again, correctly) that small businesses have a long history of supporting reactionary causes and attacking workers' rights – associations of small businesses, small women-owned business, and small minority-owned businesses were all in on opposition to minimum wages and other key labor causes.

But while this is all true, that doesn't make Robinson-Patman a reactionary law, or bad for workers. The point of protecting small businesses from the predatory practices of large firms is to maintain an American economy where business can't trump workers or government. Large companies are literally ungovernable: they have gigantic war-chests they can spend lobbying governments and corrupting the political process, and concentrated sectors find it comparatively easy to come together to decide on a single lobbying position and then make it reality.

As Vinsel and Waterhouse discuss, US big business has traditionally hated small business. They recount a notorious and telling anaecdote about the editor of the Chamber of Commerce magazine asking his boss if he could include coverage of small businesses, given the many small business owners who belonged to the Chamber, only to be told, "Over my dead body." Why did – why does – big business hate small business so much? Because small businesses wreck the game. If they are included in hearings, notices of inquiry, or just given a vote on what the Chamber of Commerce will lobby for with their membership dollars, they will ask for things that break with the big business lobbying consensus.

That's why we should like small business. Not because small business owners are incapable of being petty tyrants, but because whatever else, they will be petty. They won't be able to hire million-dollar-a-month union-busting law-firms, they won't be able to bribe Congress to pass favorable laws, they can't capture their regulators with juicy offers of sweet jobs after their government service ends.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out that many large firms emerged during the era in which Robinson-Patman was in force, but that misunderstands the purpose of Robinson-Patman: it wasn't designed to prevent any large businesses from emerging. There are some capital-intensive sectors (say, chip fabrication) where the minimum size for doing anything is pretty damned big.

As Miller and Tuttle write:

The goal of RPA was not to create a permanent Jeffersonian agrarian republic of exclusively small businesses. It was to preserve a diverse economy of big and small businesses. Congress recognized that the needs of communities and people—whether in their role as consumers, business owners, or workers—are varied and diverse. A handful of large chains would never be able to meet all those needs in every community, especially if they are granted pricing power.

The fight against monopoly is only secondarily a fight between small businesses and giant ones. It's foundationally a fight about whether corporations should have so much power that they are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/14/the-price-is-wright/#enforcement-priorities

[germiyahu]

I still think about that girl who accidentally talked to Nazis at a Palestine rally. It's been dissected and memed to death already, but one point of her bafflingly long essay sticks out to me and I haven't seen people really talk about that aspect of it.

She mentioned her burning need to finally do something about Gaza, that's why she's taking a stand and organizing and getting out there and protesting, right? And yet she starts her essay mentioning that she has KLANSMEN in her extended family and they're a deeply entrenched part of the South where she lives. And I just nodded skeptically because wait wait wait wait wait!

You mean to tell me that a war happening a world away, which does not affect you aside from how much social clout you'll have among your online leftie friends, is important enough to start protesting and organizing and "resisting" for. But you have done nothing about the Klan?? That's just presented as a status quo, they've always existed where you live and always will. Sorry that's just how it is now let's move on?

You could be actually trying to dismantle the KKK in your region, for what little you can actually contribute to that, it's still much more tangible and direct than marching up to a Jewish owned business and shouting "From the River to the Sea!" I think it really speaks to something about White American Leftists. I'm not sure what yet, but I'll let you know. Maybe it's their delusion that they're not "safe," combating injustice so they pick on Israel because truly Israel and Israelis do not care about them. They're gnats.

But according to these WALs, a Jewish state, flawed as it is, merely existing and engaging in combat with its hostile neighbors, is more of a threat, more of a yearning cry for justice, than the Ku Klux Klan?? I know those creeps haven't just been idling by twiddling their thumbs in the post Obama era either. After Charlottesville? No no no, you just don't want to confront your own complicity in White Supremacy (considering you have family in the Klan??). You don't want to disrupt the tenuous truce between the various political factions of your family at Thanksgiving.

But you're gung-ho full steam ahead calling for the largest Jewish community on Earth to lose their sovereignty and possibly their homes, maybe even their lives, and you just don't see an issue with that. You're delusional, you're narcissistic, and you're lazy and immature. You're every bit as pathetic as your conservative father tells you you are.

[carsonjonesfiance]

Something about having a Norwegian lecture me on how “both Republicans and Democrats are neoliberal capitalists”… great but you don’t fucking live here you have no skin in the game and it’s not like America is ever going to illegally invade Scandinavia so all you’re doing is telling foreigners not to participate in their own democracy for online clout points and that’s um. How do I say this nicely? Incredibly self serving?

[preppyquate]

i need you to know that being a white person and being racist is bad. making fun of/taking racism lightly is bad. defending at all costs an ideology based on circular definitions that contradict themselves and caring more about that than clear plain real life racism shows you’re a reactionary liberal more than i ever could.

I need black TERFs to understand that using the race card in an argument over you being transphobic does not make people think ‘oh shit, I better cool it so no one thinks I’m racist.’

What it DOES make people think is that POC who are bigots are a special kind of trash. Just how it works.

[king-dumbasz]

Hi🫶🏻🫶🏻 could u do a mammon oneshot that takes place after fizz quits.(pretending the twins don’t exist) Like the reader is like the new face of his brand. Ppl start shipping the reader and him online, so he goes along with it for clout and money. But they both eventually end up catching feelings. ( ik it’s rlly specific but I keep thinking about it) also I like ur writing 💜

The internet is a magical place💚

I immediately liked the request and had an idea in mind. It's not something too difficult so my mind was happy Lmao

TW:why do I even put it in if there's never anything to worry about except for swear words, but c'mon, it's Helluva Boss

Mammon x GN! Reader

The news were full of what happened at the last clown pageant. Everything was about Fizzarolli and his relationship with Asmodeus and how Mammon was ridiculed...

Mammon was FURIOUS

He needed a new face, a new someone to put everywhere and make money. He did everything until he finally found it... He found you.

You were perfect! You were funny, good looking and great for the audience! The perfect clown to replace Fizzarolli!

Mammon immediately made plushies, cereal, service bots (you choose what kind of service), hell, even a body pillow of ya!

Phone cases... Halloween costumes for kids... Lamps... Everything!

You became a star!

But like every star, you were a victim of the internet effect of the rule too

For some unknown reason, people shipped you and Mammon

No one knew why, but when you opened your phone, on Envybrl (Tumblr), on Sintter (Twitter or X), there were fanart of you and Mammon

All kind of Fanart! (I know I don't do NSFW, but when I say any kind, I mean any kind)

Mammon saw it too, a lot of it too

"What is that? Wh- why are we hugging in this one?"

He says, pointing at his phone, looking at a fanart of him and you cuddling

"i don't know, sir... The internet scares me"

"Ye..."

Mammon didn't understand why. When Fizzarolli was there no one made these things, but with you it was different

The more Mammon watched, the more he realized how beautiful you looked, and how he liked these fanarts

Mammon started to like every post and imagine these things were true...

Every day, you find a new gift at your door from an unknown person, even if it wasn't that unknown because the wrapping was green black and yellow

One day though, Mammon decides to Rizz you up, because obviously he won't do it normally

"Sir, you wanted me here?"

You said after being called in his office, only to find Mammon in his special valentine outfit (It's just the old one but pink and with hearts)

"Hey, Are you a Wi-Fi signal? Because I’m feeling a strong connection"

That was horrible, adorable, but horrible

"Sir... What?"

"oh, shit uh... Well, I'm out of lines"

"What is happening?"

"Well, I never thought that would've happened, since you're a lower class and shit- but, I found myself liking these fan arts mentally unstable people post of us.."

"Oh!"

You were stunned. Mammon. THE Mammon... Likes you?"

"Well... If I'm gonna be honest... I also found myself liking some of those posts..."

Mammon didn't realise at first and looks at you confused (Idiot)

"I like you too"

Just after you tell him he realises. Mammon smiles widely and hugs you with his four arms, so tightly you couldn't breath

"oh, you're a bloody legend, Y/N!"

"Eh... The internet is really a magical place..."

[ericshoney]

Hate~ Brothers!Sturniolo Triplets

Summary: Being a sister of famous YouTubers can be hard, especially with the hate that follows

Warnings: usual swearing, online hate, angst, mean comments/words, name calling,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bitch.

Slut.

Clout chaser.

Fake.

Fat.

Many more comments flooded your latest Instagram post. You saw a good few sweet comments, but they were quickly shadowed by the horrible hate. You knew having famous brothers would cause jealous fans to swarm you, but not to this extent.

Nick, Matt and Chris talked about the hate with you. How there would be horrible people out there who were jealous and rude, who wouldn't show their faces because they were just idiots. You tried really hard to ignore it, only posting on your public socials occasionally.

You were visiting your brothers in LA, having a break from school before your final year. You sat on the sofa, when Chris came running in.

"Hey kid, get your shoes on!" He exclaimed.

"Why?" You asked, already slipping your shoes on.

"We're going to get ice cream." He answered.

You nodded as Matt and Nick appeared from their rooms. You all then left, your focus on your comment section of your phone still.

"What are you looking at, sweetheart?" Nick asked as he sat next to you in the car.

"Just some comments." You answered simply, closing your phone.

"Don't focus on them, kid." Chris called from the front.

You nodded, but silently kept thinking. They had started to get worse, more rude and hateful comments seemed to flood your comment section and DMs. You tried to ignore them like your brothers said.

After the drive, you all arrived at the ice cream place. It wasn't too busy which made you feel better. You started to look at the different flavours across the menu. When it was your turn to order, you told Nick what you wanted, not feeling up to talking to the worker.

You then looked around the place, seeing some seats around. What you also saw were three teenage girls looking at you. They made it obvious they were looking back at you, whispering and pointing your way. You turned away, feeling uncomfortable, only for them to approach you.

"Here you go, petal." Matt said, passing you your ice cream, which you thanked him for.

"Hi, your the Sturniolo triplets, right." One of the girls called.

"Yeah that's us." Nick replied.

"Can we get a picture please?" A second asked.

The guys looked at you as you nodded, not wanting to stop them interacting with their fans. You stood to the side as they took some pictures with the three girls.

"Maybe lay off the ice cream." The third girl whispered to you.

"I'm sorry?" You called.

"I mean it's not doing your figure any good." She responded.

"You calling me fat?" You asked with a scoff.

"Yeah, what are you going to do about it?" She replied.

"Her, nothing. Us, something." Matt said.

He then took the phones from all three girls and deleted the pictures they took. You looked at him in shock as he gave the phones back.

"Next time, think about what you say. Our sister is perfect as she is, it doesn't help her with rude people like you getting involved and putting her down. If you got nothing good to say to people in person or online, don't fucking bother." Matt said, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and leading you out the shop, Nick and Chris closely behind.

You all returned to the car, you were very quiet as you finished your ice cream. The guys finished theirs too as you sat in the car quietly.

"How long?" Matt asked.

"How long what?" You replied.

"How long as this been going on?" He replied.

"Oh...Maybe a month. It wasn't too bad at the start, just got worse the past month. I tried hard to ignore it, I swear." You admitted.

"Can I see your phone, kid?" Chris asked.

You nodded, knowing there was no point to hide anything. You passed your phone over, watching as Chris went onto your Insta, seeing all the rude, hateful and disrespectful comments on your posts and in your DMs. He sighed seeing them all.

"I'm sorry, I just tried to ignore it. I don't respond honestly. It's just not fun reading them all." You said.

"We're not mad at you, sweetheart." Matt said softly.

"Someone start a live on Instagram." Nick instructed.

Matt nodded and pulled out his phone, starting a live. You were confused slightly on why Nick suddenly wanted to do one now. You saw the fans flood in and the comments soon follow.

"Hey everyone, I know this is sudden but we have a very important subject to discuss. Chris show them the comments." Nick said.

Chris held up your phone, showing the comments the best he could. You then realised what it was about.

"This is our sister's Instagram comments. As you can see, most of them are sweet, but there are a good few that aren't. More of those hateful comments are rolling in and we're not fucking having it." Nick continued.

"If any of you out there think it's funny to leave a hate comment or DM, then one, your not a real fan and two, your just a horrible person. A lot of these comments come from an account that doesn't have anything on. Be a real person and grow the fuck up." He finished.

"This goes for in person too. We just met these three girls who wanted pictures but one was so fucking rude to Y/n that I deleted them. None of us are taking you saying shit that isn't true about our sister." Matt then said.

The live continued, the guys speaking about the topic and how they weren't going to accept anymore hate towards you or any of their other family or friends. You spoke up a bit, but let them have their talk.

When they wrapped up the live, Chris gave you your phone back, letting you see a lot of the comments gone. You smiled at the three of them.

"Thank you." You said.

"Anytime kid." Nick said, ruffling your hair.

[prickly-paprikash]

The Bishop in the first Castlevania season is pure evil who believes himself good. He's nearly every crime and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church distilled into one neat, wrinkly, putrid man. He is easy to hate. He is supposed to be despised and we are expected to cheer and rejoice when Blue Fangs chewed on half this man's face.

He uses god to control and manipulate the powers and people that be. While his belief in god may be true, the church and the faith are more tools for him to retain control. It is glaringly obvious that this man is power-hungry.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing at all redeemable about that asshole.

The Abbott is every conservative relative who genuinely loves you, but is a blind idiot holding on to institutions simply because they are "right".

While the Bishop's character is real, most of us won't encounter him. We see him on the news. I'm not even American (been there once for two weeks) but even I've seen his like on news and media. He's a televangelist who consolidates wealth, clout and power through the fanaticism of his followers. He is drunk on the authority he possesses. His belief in god isn't the point; whether or not he holds faith, the man cares solely about power.

The Abbott is someone in our lives we know well. Your conservative mother who refuses to even show a modicum of tolerance towards queer people. Your father who is buying into the religious side of Youtube and Tiktok. Your brother who has grown up to carry terrifying, fascistic beliefs. Your sister who feels lost and found some semblance of acceptance in a church who still believes women are lesser. Your aunt who despises vaccines. Your uncle who tells you that you should've become a priest or a soldier.

The Abbott, deep down, has some redeeming features. But it's not enough to forgive him for his idiocy.

Ask any child who had to grow up with a religious parent, especially a Catholic or an Evangelical. They fucking love the story of Abraham sacrificing his child to God, and finding a ram in its place.

Evangelicals are bent on this tale. They will always preach that god comes before children. That children and their suffering and their needs must always take a backseat to the word of god.

A trans child asking their parents to understand��their words will fall on deaf ears because god and the holy man told them that 'transgenderism' is a vile philosophy that seeks to groom and twist kids. A college freshman debating with their parents about free healthcare and immigration will be stonewalled because the charismatic preacher said that god will provide. god will heal. god did not invite these foreigners into this land.

It is Maria, begging her father to listen and having her pleas fall on deaf ears.

The Abbott is someone I hate more than the Bishop.

Men like the Bishop exist, but they are few and far in-between.

But the Abbott? The Abbott is someone I share a table with at dinner. He's someone I see during family reunions. He's someone who shares misinformation online, and I see it on my timeline because we're social media friends.

I fucking hate him so much and I hope he gets what's his.

He never deserved Tera. He never once deserved Maria.

[justoneotherthing123]

Okay but like he's not working as a video essayist anymore though. He was trying to rebrand on tiktok and the "free advertising" the "Online Leftist Discourse Industrial Complex" gave him made him stop doing that. It's because people keep pointing out that he lied and scammed people that he's not currently lying and scamming people on youtube and tiktok.

On the hbomberguy subreddit there's a weekly thread talking about good youtubers that aren't as famous. It's a weekly thread that's trying to give attention to people with less clout in their community who do deserve that attention. They've been doing that for months. By contrast, they spent five months NOT talking about James Somerton until they found out that 1) he was trying to go back to tiktok, 2) also he was never sorry about plagiarism, and 3) he was absolutely manipulating people with that suicide note.

I know that some people out there consider all criticism a personal and hateful attack, but do you maybe think there's a reason why The Left™ chose to show that this specific guy had two alt accounts? Do you think they chose to show the tweets in which he goes "plagiarism and lies are no big deal, stop being angry about it," "if plagiarism and lies are a big deal then his cowriter did it," and "you people made him kill himself" for some reason? Do you think it may have something to do with him trying to rebrand on tiktok after he wrote a suicide note that made a bunch of people call the people who accused him of plagiarism and lying of being murderers?

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hey there sex witch! This one might be a little bit out of your wheelhouse, but I don't really have anyone else to ask 😅 and this seems mostly relevant to what you talk about.

So recently I (a very shy person for a long time) have gotten pretty active in some fandom discord communities, and I've been making a ton of friends. Which is great because I used to have social anxiety to the point where I could barely talk to people, especially online. The problem is that my new friends are all VERY horny, all the time. Which, great for them, I don't really feel the same way. They're also very interested in ERP and other varieties of e-sex and often ask if I want to join. I really don't, but it's fine that they're into that. One guy in particular is really starting to freak me out though. He's a semi-popular creator and a mod on one of the servers. He's becoming a pretty good friend of mine and I play online games with him and others a bunch. He, like the rest of the crowd, is also very horny all the time. He often makes sexual comments about me, sometimes very graphic ones. Stuff like telling me to take my clothes off IRL while on call with him or saying stuff like "I want to fuck you until you cry" or just dming me asking if I want to have sex with him. Sometimes he notices that his comments make me uncomfortable and he did reach out to sincerely apologize for it once, but he hasn't changed his behavior a whole lot.

The big thing that worries me about him is the fact that he's 28. I'm 18, just graduated high school. He knows this about me. He does a very good job of keeping his server 18+ and would never make a sexual comment about a minor, but is still comfortable doing sexual things with people ten years younger than him. Another thing is that even though I've told him I already have a boyfriend, he assumes I'm in an open relationship even though I never told him I was. My boyfriend also says this guy kinda freaks him out and that he's a little worried about me.

I know that age gaps between older people can be perfectly healthy and problems arising from them vary pretty heavily from person to person, but I'm not entirely sure if this is ok or not. This guy doesn't want to hurt anyone. Have I probably just not properly expressed my boundaries with him? It's not like he's targeting me or anything, he acts this way with basically everyone. I'm torn on what to do, he's still my friend and I like him otherwise. Should I just keep laughing it off? I am uncomfortable but I guess it's not a huge deal to me. Should I stop talking to this guy?? Help??

🐟🐟 So I can find this quickly if/when you answer it

hi 🐟🐟,

this guy fucking sucks and needs to be banned from interacting with maybe anyone until he learns what "no" means. literally every individual thing you've described him doing would be alarming in it's own, but altogether this man is a walking collection of red flags. this is not your friend and this is not a guy who cares about your boundaries or well-being; this is a man using his fandom clout to sexually harass you (and likely others). him being ten years older than you isn't even really the biggest issue here; all of this would be shithead behavior even if you were exactly the same age.

get out of there, double fish.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

So a pet squirrel called Peanut got euthanized for risk of rabies. I really don’t think the guy should have owned the squirrel, but from my basic understanding of the situation there was some police brutality involved too. Is it possible you could look into and help explain the situation?

Basically a guy had an illegal pet squirrel and raccoon that he “rescued”. They were both overweight because he fed them waffles and other human food for easy clicks. The squirrel especially he used for a ton of instagram clout and the like. Someone reported him to the state of New York for having wildlife illegally. His house gets raided to confiscate all illegal wildlife. Original plan was to send them to a wildlife center. Squirrel bites cop. Squirrel and raccoon are not vaccinated. State law more or less requires any wild mammal that is unvaccinated and exposed to high risk rabies vector to be euthanized to test for rabies. This leads to squirrel and raccoon both being euthanized. Conservatives for some reason make this into the woke left trying to use the government to oppress innocent white men. Weirdos online start doxxing the woman who made the report and have been harassing her to the point I am genuinely concerned someone is going to attack her.

It’s the guy’s fault for having a wild animal as a pet that he chose to exploit for profit rather than actually use proper husbandry for.

[devotion-disorder]

What if Noel’s darling didn’t want their identity to be on the internet? Like, they’re fine to let him talk about them, or are even happy to hear he likes telling his viewers how in love he is. But they don’t want their face shown, or for their real name to be mentioned (maybe they even request a nickname instead)?

For most cases, Noel can accept not fully showing their partner’s identity (ie their face/ name) in his content. However, his partner will still be the focal point of his content if that’s what he set out doing. Let’s say he decides to do a cutesy “Couples QnA” video. He will find a way for his partner to be in frame with him for the entire duration of the video, even if it means handcuffing them or strapping them to a chair. Blurring their face/ using a fake name is honestly the least he could do and he’ll happily oblige, as long as you agree to let him shoot a video of you both.

It’s not like Noel cares about the clout or money. To him, making these videos is just another way of “proving” his complete ownership over his partner. It may also be some sick form of showing-off, but mostly it’s to fuel his obsession with marking them, to intermingle their identity with his in this collective online presence. Now his wonderful relationship with his loving partner is out there for all the world to see, in the irrefutable form of video content, marked on the internet forever. He may be unable to convince both you and himself that your love is true, but he sure as hell can convince his millions of impressionable fans of it. so i guess the point is less so on their partner’s identity, but the fact that they are in a relationship.

I say most cases, because if his partner happened to be very defiant and difficult, leaking your real name/face would be the least of your worries when he’s uploading videos and photos of you in…compromising situations; or hosting livestreams on shady websites for a completely different demographic than his usual viewers.

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

Ben Brody says his life was going fine. He had just finished college, stayed out of trouble, and was prepping for law school. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Elon Musk used his considerable social media clout to amplify an online mob’s misguided rants accusing the 22-year-old from California of being an undercover agent in a neo-Nazi group.

The claim, Brody told CNN, was as bizarre as it was baseless.

But the fact he bore a vague resemblance to a person allegedly in the group, that he was Jewish, and, that he once stated in a college fraternity profile posted online that he aspired to one day work for the government, was more than enough information for internet trolls to falsely conclude Brody was an undercover government agent (a “Fed”) planted inside the neo-Nazi group to make them look bad.

...

The lies and taunts, which Musk engaged with on social media, turned his life upside down, Brody said. At one point, he said, he and his mother had to flee their home for fear of being attacked.

Now, he’s fighting back.

Brody filed a defamation lawsuit last month against Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter. The suit seeks damages in excess of $1 million. Brody says he wants the billionaire to apologize and retract the false claims about him.

Brody’s lawyer—who is the same attorney who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre —said he hopes the suit will force one of the world’s richest and most powerful men to reckon with his careless and harmful online behavior. [...]