#in our current culture where saying one wrong word online can destroy you for life?

[fictionadventurer]

I don't care if The Last Jedi "ruined your childhood" or "destroyed a beloved character". I'll always defend it because this is the Star Wars movie for scrupulous people.

[poisonfallen]

Your take on cancel culture and stan culture?

Oh boy, oh boy, it's happening.

Alright, let's talk about toxic people on the internet. And keep in mind that my opinion goes beneath the mcyt community. I feel the same about the kpop community and any other community that is famous for having lots of toxic people. 

Also, keep in mind that this is my opinion about these topics, I don’t intend to offend or misinform anybody. I might be wrong, and if I am wrong indeed, please help me correct any mistake that I’ve done.

Cancel culture

Before ranting about its toxicity, let's understand what it actually means and how it works.

What is cancel culture? 

Well, according to Wikipedia, “cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person” (source). 

Basically, cancel culture is the process of ceasing offering support to a public figure after saying or doing something that is considered objectionable or offensive. 

In theory, cancel culture is a good thing that helps the victims speak up and properly defend themselves, as well as preventing other people from doing the same mistakes. No harm done to innocent people, just a way of saying why a certain person or a certain company has done something that really hurt a category of people. Some even say that it’s an exercise of free speech.

However, while a culture that encourages calling out inappropriate behaviour is important, a culture that is quick to cancel and reluctant to forgive is something that divides the internet and starts wars in the trial of defending an opinion that is not shared by every single person on the internet, thus becoming the thing that its purpose is to defeat. (a vicious cycle of hatred)

So why is it toxic?

From my point of view, I don’t think that cancel culture is a toxic thing in theory. But the way people actually use it is what concerns (and bothers) me. 

In its current form, anonymous and fuelled by negative emotions, cancel culture has the power to destroy a person’s career in a matter of minutes. There are no gray areas, just the white and black pack mentality: “I am right and you are wrong”. 

The subject of the cancelation becomes “cancelled” for disagreeing with a certain opinion, and the cancelled one feels like the whole world is hating them. No one can argue that going through a cancellation, no matter how big or small it is, can severely affect one’s mental health and leave them scarred for life. 

Cancel culture, at this point, is bullying someone famous without facing the consequences. We are already used to surf the web and stumble across someone’s cancelation over something that not even in our wildest dreams we would be able to imagine otherwise. 

I think that all of us are familiar with a stupid cancelation, like canceling someone over a burger that somehow became the sole reason of obesity (see: Dream MrBeast burger). We can’t help but laugh at people trying to cancel someone for a stupid reason. 

But, unfortunately, not all of our cancelations are stupid or laughable. There are people cancelled over their physical aspect or them not being political active, people cancelled over being friends with certain people or over saying something that is now considered to be slightly offensive a few years ago. The ones who are under the spotlight can’t make jokes or take decisions by themselves, they are supposed to be the marionettes of their fans. 

(I do not intend to say that all cancelations are bad, but I’m trying to highlight how the majority of the most recent cancelations are out of place. If someone actually tries to actively harm your minority, your beliefs etc. you should call out that inappropriate behaviour, but without purposely harming that person as a means of payback) 

There is also a toxic behaviour that I’ve noticed in a cancelation: the “I forgive you”/”I don’t forgive you” phrase used by people who have no right to do so. If you are part of the minority who has been hurt, then you have every right to forgive or not someone for saying or doing something hurtful towards your minority. 

But if you are not a part of that minority, shut the f*** up. By speaking on behalf of a minority while you aren’t part of that minority you take away the right of actually addressing the issue from the people who are part of that minority. You can support them from the sides and let them express their pain with their own voice. They perfectly capable of addressing the issue, they need your support but not you taking the spotlight away from the actual problem.

What is my take on cancel culture?

I think that there are more civil ways of resolving an issue without actively trying to destroy someone’s career. Instead of cancelling that person, we could educate them (but not in that harmful way I’ve seen on twitter) on the subject and on why their words or actions are hurtful. 

We should remember that we are all humans and that every human makes mistakes. Don’t forget that children learn by making mistakes. And while I’m well aware that we are not talking about children here, you should also be well aware that we are talking about actual humans with feelings. 

Cancelation should be the last weapon we use, but only if that person refuses to give an apology and educate themselves on the subject. 

Overall, don’t. Just don’t cancel people. Don’t attack people on the internet. Don’t try to harm people on the internet. 

Some of you might disagree with my opinion and I’m open to criticism as long as you can help me educate more on the subject.

Now let’s move on to the other topic

Stan culture

Before I start talking about this one, I’d like to point out that stans actually scare me, a lot. 

What is stan culture?

“Stan culture describes an online phenomenon in which communities of stalker fans, or stans, engage in overly enthusiastic support of a favorite celebrity online (called “stanning”), including at times vehement, coordinated attacks against detractors and critics” (source). 

Basically stan = stalker + fan. 

There are also people who say that the word stan comes from Eminem’s song “Stan” which tells the story of a crazed fan. I do recommend listening to the lyrics of this song if Eminem is not your cup of tea, it’s a good intake in what stan culture was at the beginning of 2000′s.

To be honest, I don’t have anything more to add at this section. Anything more I’d say would, in the end, be the same as what was already stated. (but you can see my opinion on it with more comments at the end)

It stan culture toxic?

You have to live under a rock if you had never seen a stan on twitter or tumblr. You usually recognize them by their profile pictures, the content they share, their posts and their ready to argue behaviour in case you insult or disagree with the ones they worship. 

I’d like to point out that there is a fine line between a stan and a fan: stans know no length when it comes to defending their object of worship and often have really toxic ways of expressing their opinions, while a fan is there just to enjoy their favourite content without engaging in harmful discussion and hate speeches. 

This topic is filled with controversy. In essence, stanning should be a means of showing support. The majority of them don’t even realize the toxicity they spread only after leaving the fandom. 

The real problem here is the moment when they engage in conflicts without entertaining the thought that they might be wrong. Anything they do is right and their object of worship can say or do no mistake. This extends to the point of sending death threats and even doxxing. 

For those who don’t know about doxxing, short for dropping dox: doxxing is an internet slang that means to publish personal information (of an individual) on the internet. You can find more about it here.

With no intend to disrespect or disregard one’s religious beliefs, you can say that stanning is like being part of a religion. The stans are the extremist people who practice that religion, while the fans are those who practice it from time to time (eg. like a Christian who goes to Church only on Christmas and Easter - me). 

In the end, stan culture is toxic to both the stans and celebrities. 

Is there a connection between stan culture and cancel culture?

They are both toxic internet cultures, this one is right for sure.

From what I’ve noticed during my short timed stay on twitter, a lot of cancelations are made by stans from the same community or different communities. 

I’m part of mcyt community, so I’ve seen a lot of Dream fans and Dream antis fighting over the past months, trying to cancel each other and harm each other. It’s mental seeing people actively trying to do these kind of things just because they love or hate a certain person. Of course that we can’t tie the situation to a certain content creator. 

I know that his also happens a lot in the kpop community where stans are in a constant fight to destroy the career of each other’s favourite idol group or bias (someone's most favorite member of an idol group). 

What is my take on stan culture?

I feel like I need to repeat myself: stans scare the s*** out of me. 

It’s like their sole purpose in life is to support someone and don’t have the basic sense of boundaries. A lot of problems arise with this: like shipping people who are uncomfortable being shipped with, intense sexualizing (sexualizing the minors is the worst from my point of view), creating drama and intentionally ignoring real world problems just to make their favourite person(s) trend, and the list is so long that I feel like I’d create a record on tumblr for the longest post if I go on. 

We are talking about some weird adaptation of Lord of the Flies where children raise each other on the internet. It’s like a cult and they are brainwashed into believing what everybody else thinks. And the worst part is that I don’t think we’ll ever get better from this, things are only going south to heaven. 

I might be wrong and biased, so I do expect someone to help me understand these topics better, but for now these are my firm opinions. 

I’d also like to clarify, once again, that in the religion example I’m not making fun of Christianity, I’m just using it as a means to help people better understand my point.

[elbiotipo]

so like not to get Too Deep or whatever but socialism and conservadurism do have this kind of similar root in its rejection of capitalism and liberal values so sometimes i feel like leftists who get too into the theory ("theory" in a very discursive sense not actual academic readings) go all the way around and end up doing the conservative thing where they idealize a past didn't really exist as the preferred future out of disillusionment with the present, and incidentally in a way that it's completely disengaged with the material reality where they live and the experiences of the people who actually have lived off the earth in sustainable way in those enviroments for hundreds of years (i.e indigenous people) so it's all the way back to agreeing with angry xix century white men who want to go back to the good old days on the countryside when they didn't have to interact with the ugliness of factories and the working class and immigration etc. like im not saying they think that im saying that without realizing it they're rehashing some very old very conservative discurse from the beggining of the past century (like that's what happened with cottagecore basically and that's not even a political view) and i do find it kind of troubling. anyway that's my two cents absolutely no one asked for thanks bye sorry to bother you

No, you have a point, and in fact it’s something I ask myself constantly... because as someone who loves nature and history I often also find myself romanticizing the past and nature and even good “traditional” or should I say “simple” ways of living, and I must ask myself how much of that comes from my upbringing and old conservative ways of thinking, and it also comes from my background... But I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with wanting to have a farm or having those interests for your own life. Liking those things doesn’t make you A Nazi or an ireedeamble person... which brings me to...

I see a LOT of puritanism-like discourse in online leftist circles lately, as if USaians just found about communism and tried to put their good ol’ extreme evangelist spin to it. Condemning huge groups of people for supposed collective offenses, hard labor and a harsh farming life is considered a desirable future and luxury and technology are bad, focus on assuming our collective Guilt rather than building a fairer society, separating different kinds of people based on their culture or other characteristics, I’ve seen some people even shaming others for liking sex or expressing their gender or identity and trying to excuse it as leftist theory... I mean, those kind of discourses reflect more of a concern about Purity rather than improving the lives of people. I think you can see what I’m talking about, it happens here and on twitter, takes that if you just switch a couple words, they become classic US evangelism or even outright fascism

And that’s very alien to me because... I’ve always thought that socialism (or whatever you call leftist thought) was about improving life? making things better? I thought that was the point???? I thought it was about doing your job with all rights guaranteed and coming home and relaxing and spending your free time in a good, comfortable home? I thought it wasn’t about creating more and more barriers between identities but about accepting them and including them and repairing the damage that colonialism and imperialism did to them? I thought it was about harnessing the power of science and technology for the benefit of mankind and the planet, not regressing to a harsher life? I thought socialism was about building a better society for everyone? I thought it was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them??? Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness???? I mean, I am a leftist because I aspire for a better society, not to oppress those who oppressed us (in fact, we could do without, you know, opressing anyone), but because... I want other people not to have hunger, not to be sick, not to be oppressed, and for them to achieve what they want.

In the end, online discourse doesn’t affect anything, and if you talked about shit like cottagecore to actual leftist activist or native leaders they wouldn’t know shit about it. But the fact remains that a collapse of industrial civilization like these people want, or think it’s inevitable would kill a lot of people and most people do like the comfort and wellbeing of our current society but are oppresed by it, and there are people who need food and comfort right now, while others have excess of it. We CAN make a fair, ecological society without harming the planet anymore or exploiting workers. We can have “luxuries” like the internet and, I don’t know, microwave ovens, or better yet, three full meals (with dessert!), without succumbing to capitalism. We don’t need to tear it all down and go work in medieval communes to Pay For Our Sins.

[trishmilburn]

Wonho, Monsta X, The Culture of Online Hate and Standing Up for What’s Right

One of the challenges of being an author is knowing where to start a story. I find myself facing that same question as I begin this blog post. There are times when we are feeling so many emotions at once that it’s difficult to express them fully. But I’m writer, and I should be able to put feelings into words even when those feelings are like a maelstrom inside of me.

As many of you know, I dove head-first into the world of K-pop a year ago. It wasn’t something I sought out. It almost seems like destiny that it found me, and I’m so glad that it did. At the time I found K-pop, I was at a crossroads of a sort. Though I’d been publishing books for a decade, the market was changing and I was burning out on the types of stories I was telling. I still loved those stories, put my all into them, and I’m thankful to my editors, publishers and readers for the opportunities and support they’ve given me. But that creative part of me wasn’t truly happy anymore. And I had no idea what to do about it because this is how I make my living. Did I have to give up the idea of enjoying what I do in order to put food on the table and pay the rent? That was depressing, to say the least. After all, I’d left journalism because I wanted to write fiction full-time. I didn’t think I could go back to being a journalist in today’s climate.

Enter K-pop, which I found by way of watching Korean dramas. Not since I was a teenager into a variety of 1980s hair bands (Hello, Bon Jovi! You’re still awesome!) had I been so into music. And to be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m enjoying music more now than I ever have in my life. That is saying a lot considering I’m a 49-year-old white lady from the American South and that enjoyment is originating a world away in a country I’ve never been to. But K-pop is infectious in the very best way. Not only are the typically upbeat songs fun to listen to, the entire world of K-pop is fun and fascinating. It has brought me countless hours of enjoyment. I listen to K-pop in my car on long road trips to concerts in Atlanta and on short trips to the grocery store. Dance is one of my two preferred forms of exercise in addition to walking at our local beach, and the playlists are all K-pop. I love watching not only the official music videos, but also the dance practices, the goofy videos the groups do in Halloween costumes, and the variety shows on which you get to know them better. K-pop is a bright, colorful, happy-making world of singing, rapping, dancing, fashion, cosmetics and more.

Until it isn’t. Today is one of those days. K-pop is not immune to the current world of online hate. While social media has allowed me to connect with my readers and fellow K-pop and K-drama fans around the world, which is fantastic, we all know it also had a dark side. Behind a computer screen, people say the most heinous things to each other, often people they don’t even know. Often while hiding their real identities. But in the current climate, many don’t even feel the need to hide their identities anymore. They feel free to direct hate at others in the full light of day, and others egg them on. It’s disgusting and it harms people who do not deserve it.

Today’s victim is Wonho from the group Monsta X. They are one of the four groups I’ve seen in concert so far this year, and their concert was fabulous. Wonho wasn’t feeling well during the show, but none of us knew that until he collapsed and had to be helped off stage. A bit later he came back out and apologized. I just wanted to wrap him in a hug and tell him he didn’t have to apologize for not being well. After all, these idols (that’s what members of K-pop groups are called) push themselves hard. They are constantly working, running on little sleep and little food to make it in a highly competitive industry that can easily discard them because there are always more groups debuting that can take their place. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.

An apology from a K-pop idol for the slightest perceived infraction or disappointment to fans is not unusual in an industry where them even dating is often considered a scandal. Not only do they have to perform their professional duties, but they are expected to be perfect with nary a wrong step, even before they became idol trainees. It’s unrealistic and it’s unfair. Who among us hasn’t done something in our life, particularly when we were young, that we regret? Something we learned from and grew because of having done it. Idols are not allowed this luxury of having been at any point a normal human youth. This is the fault of the companies they work for and the unrealistic expectations of certain segments of the fandoms.

Then there are the netizens who, for whatever twisted reason, love to cause chaos and do actual harm to the idols and their careers. That’s where we are today. There is a certain young woman in South Korea who has repeatedly caused problems for idols in one way or another. It’s often difficult to dig down to the root cause of why scandals blow up in K-pop, but supposedly she or her boyfriend posted some snarky comment about Wonho owing someone money. If that is true, there are ways of rectifying the situation that don’t include destroying someone’s career or life. Don’t take to social media where the person in question is not the only one who gets hurt. Wonho had also been the target of other malicious rumors for something taken out of context, and now Shownu, another member of Monsta X, has been targeted by false rumors. I don’t know that this is the case, but it feels very coordinated because of the timing. Monsta X just released a new album this week and are in their promotion period, and in the world of K-pop there is unfortunately an element that likes to try to tear down other bands so their own favorites can supposedly rise higher. This is complete nonsense and yet it seems to fester and spread like a disease. I don’t know the reasoning behind the attacks on Wonho and Shownu, but it’s part of a bigger problem – that of unchecked online hate.

I say unchecked because instead of the idols’ companies standing behind them, instead of them saying, “No, we will not let you tear down this person who has put his heart and soul into making his group a success and is beloved by fans,” they always put out the same kind of statement that the idol made the decision to leave the group for the good of the rest of the group members. I call a huge sack of BS! Even if Wonho did say he would leave for the good of his brothers in Monsta X – and I say brothers deliberately because K-pop groups become family since they live together, work together, vacation together, love each other – Starship Entertainment executives should have said to him, “That’s admirable but not necessary. We’re going to stand with you and behind you as we fight this. We will help you get through it, and you and the rest of Monsta X will come out stronger on the other side.” I would have admired them greatly for taking this stand, which is not something you see from the Korean entertainment companies. Instead, the idols are allowed to make sacrificial lambs of themselves for “the good of the group.” Again, I call BS. This is for the good of the companies’ monetary bottom lines. In no way do I believe that Shownu, Minhyuk, Kihyun, Hyungwon, Joohoney and I.M benefit from this. I’m sure in this moment their hearts are breaking and they’re worried about their dear friend, their brother, more than anything else. And yet they are going to be expected to perform to promote this new album in the midst of all this upheaval and heartbreak.

I chose not to have kids of my own, but in moments like these there is a dormant mama-bear instinct inside of me that makes itself known. I want to wrap all these boys, who are young enough to be my sons, in a protective hug and swat away anyone who dares take a swipe at them. I want to tell them that I’ll be strong for them while they’re hurting. I want to hold those attacking them to account and make sure they pay for what they’ve done. And I want to tell their company to grow a spine. I know the culture is different in Korea than it is here in the U.S., but how many times have you seen an American celebrity do much worse and no one bats an eye? There is a middle ground between letting people get away with true wrongdoing and destroying a person’s life and career for something that wouldn’t even be – and shouldn’t be – a blip on the radar here. And we should allow people to acknowledge youthful missteps that are relatively harmless – if they even happened – apologize, and move on. It’s called growth, and it can be an inspiration to others. If all of us who ever made a mistake as a teenager lost our careers because of it, there would be a lot of unemployed people walking around.

What needs to happen is this: all the Korean entertainment companies need to band together and say enough is enough. Rumors and magnifying small incidents to the point where netizens are ready to ride with torches and pitchforks should be called out and the instigators held to account, even by legal means. The companies need to stand behind their idols when they are attacked instead of throwing them away like they are disposable. Taking them away from everything they’ve worked for and their bandmates is cruel, not unlike ripping a child from his family and then telling them it’s their fault. If an idol has a problem, find them help. They are under so much pressure that it’s no surprise that they offer suffer from anxiety and depression, and unfortunately Korea still reportedly has an antiquated view of mental health. It’s part of the reason – along with external attacks – for their abysmal suicide rate. Look no further than Sulli, another K-pop idol who recently committed suicide after being attacked online for years. I don’t know that there has been a line drawn between those two things, but my gut tells me that it was at least a contributing factor. And I don’t want to hear of it ever happening again. Too many young, beautiful, kind, talented, giving lives are being lost.

Today, I’ve gotten next to no work done. I can’t pull my thoughts away from Wonho and how wrongly he’s been treated, how much he, the rest of the group and fans are hurting. I’ve been fighting crying all day because I know I’ll just feel worse afterward. I hate to see injustice. It just eats me alive inside. And unfortunately we are seeing more and more of it. Some might say there are worse injustices in the world than this. Yes and no. Yes, children ripped from their families at the border and genocide are great evils, but wrong is wrong. And what has happened to Wonho and other idols in the past because of online attacks is all kinds of wrong.

Wonho, if by some chance you and the rest of Monsta X read this, I hope you’re able to take comfort from the fact that you have many fans around the world who love you and who will go to bat for you. I hope you’re able to focus on those voices instead of the hateful ones. As a creative, I know it’s difficult to not focus on the vocal minority, the ones who say the negative things. Those are the voices that work their way insidiously into our brains, but we have to fight against them and remember that there are many more people to whom you have brought joy and to whom you will continue to bring job as a member of Monsta X if we have anything to say about it.

And to the decision-makers at Starship Entertainment, do the right thing. Do what is right, not what is easy or most beneficial to your bottom line. Bring Wonho back and stand up to the people who attack your idols, the people who work hard to make your company successful.

[velveetacrackncheese]

bit of a rant oof

If homophobes are so obsessed with the idea of gay people or gayness being “unnatural” I gotta say I hope they aren’t relying on technology because lemme tell you something about modern day manufacturing, television, laptops, and taking showers.

I really don’t understand and see how this argument holds up because it falls apart once you realize all these people mentioning homosexuality being unnatural are probably pro-capitalist, and capitalism being the driving force behind unnatural establishments of workers producing industrial and manufactured goods whilst allowing your CEO, boss, etc, to accumulate masses of wealth despite already being well off as it is.And before I hear “Our urge to be aggressively competitive is our nature!”, I’d like to point out that applies to those who are trying to survive in a society where certain resources may be scarce. Of course you’re going to fight for them if it’s a life or death situation unless, you find a way to be mutual about it and establish a more cooperative way of surviving that serves to benefit both parties. We aren’t so simple-minded that we just look at things as a kill or be killed situation. This type of rhetoric and logic is used to justify the existence of billionaires whilst also being based on a very twisted rendition of evolutionary theory. Saying that it’s in our nature to do what we must to survive is not the same as saying that mass accumulation of wealth to such an extent it drains resources from those who need it is justified, because one could argue that our desire to survive can lead us to find a solution in mutual aid, cooperation, and autonomy rather than being overly competitive and creating foes where it might be unnecessary. Sure, we can also be greedy, but to what end do we allow our greed to become so overwhelming that it negatively effects the entire world’s population? In a smaller, agrarian society, I figure those who would try and accumulate a mass majority of resources would be shunned and potentially expelled from said society. In our current society, we’re convinced that billionaires are some kind of benevolent being who keeps the good will of the people in mind, but of course, as history has shown, the establishment of hierarchy and accumulation of power inevitably corrupts those to such a degree that it negatively affects anyone who isn’t considered an “elite” and with no democracy existent in the workplace, I’d hardly call our CEOs benevolent just like I’d hardly call Monarchs benevolent. Although the UK proves they haven’t moved past the worshiping of Monarchs..

 I fail to see how the unnatural mass accumulation of wealth, by unnatural means of production, those things being made in unnatural and industrial settings, and being distributed by unnatural means, is even remotely human nature, and I’d even argue that this “human nature” argument is honestly arbitrary once you realize humans are heavily influenced and are adaptable to their environment, but I digress.

Humanity isn’t so simple to kind of just boil us down to the idea that we exist solely to mate with those of the opposite sex and make children who will then do the same in later years, and I fail to see how viewing humanity in such a way isn’t limiting and restrictive. Whether or not a man can love another man really isn’t a problem. All these reactionary worries of undermining traditional values and marriage is just mere fearmongering. No one who’s actually straight is just going to decide to not get married because their gay next door neighbor got married. Raising children won’t be undermined, nor will the idea of “family” be undermined. The issue arises when reactionaries seemingly want some arbitrary reason to exclude gay people from normal life due to preconceived notions and archaic beliefs that are more than a millennia old at this point, and these people are seemingly fine with government intervention when it suits to enable discrimination, but once it does the opposite, now we have a discussion about civil liberty and rights, because apparently those who aren’t disadvantaged the same way others are, are now being systemically and institutionally oppressed because gay people can hold a big fancy wedding and live in the same suburban neighborhood. Some even try to make it some faux feminist issue, making claims of how gay men getting married is somehow a result of men appropriating femininity and what it means to be a woman.

I mean, The AAP, APA, NASW, and AMA seem to disagree with those who try to undermine people who aren’t straight, but for some reason we’re still having this debate all because of gay characters being represented in films and current properties, and this is quite recent really. Gay character pops up in a comic book or film, all the incel-esque fanboys of whatever property they’re into lose their shit and begin to make conspiracy theories about cultural marxism and the end of civilization as we know it. Apparently sucking dick is going to destroy all of the order established in the world, despite the order in the world ironically being built off the pillaging and ransacking and oppressing of other groups across the world. The SJW propaganda wants to undermine straight people by including people who aren’t like me oh noes. The SJW communists have taken over every individual industry ever in the history of everything, and now my kids are going to become gay! What a tragedy! I need to become an online reactionary activist and pretend I’m an intellectual because I cite evidence whilst misinterpreting it and then make claims about how I trigger the libs!

You might think I’m being seriously hyperbolic here, but I’ve seen conservatives and centrists on Youtube speak EXACTLY like this, and it baffles me that people take these kinds of people seriously. I don’t think I’d look at a movie that just so happens to have an all straight cast and think “THE STRAIGHT AGENDA” because that’s nonsense. Marxists owning means of production only to use it for spreading a progressive message about how gays are pretty ok? Marxists wouldn’t take over businesses. They’d either destroy them or establish worker’s cooperatives out of them, and sorry, but DC, Marvel, and all these other big entertainment distributors? None of them are destroyed or workers co-ops, and if they were, it wouldn’t be because of Marxists going against their own values to prove some point about how capitalism sucks. Capitalism does that by itself. Your kids can’t just majestically turn gay because they saw a comic strip of Spiderman kissing Deadpool. If your kid is gay, that’s just because he just is.His attraction is something he can’t help and feels rather natural to him, and to him, would feel unnatural to constantly be told that their attraction is evil and wrong, and is somehow being enabled by the media they consume. If anything, the media they consume helps them realize themselves better and I see no negatives with that. Triggering the libs? Most “progressives” or leftists typically acknowledge that certain things being said or represented are in poor taste. I don’t like cancel culture, but me saying that someone shouldn’t call someone a faggot isn’t me being “ultra triggered liberal sjw”, it’s just me saying that such vernacular derives from the dehumanization of a certain group of people, and it’s not your word to own. When you say it in a such a way, we know what you mean, and it’s not helpful to you or I. That’s not me telling you to go die, and if your reaction to that is more vitriol, then maybe you’re the one who’s offended by me making an honest point. Sorry if your tunnel vision view of societal norms and the way we as people treat each other originates from cowardly centrists from Youtube, or reactionaries.

I’m genuinely and honestly tired of this debate surrounding whether or not I have the right to exist and be free from discrimination. I can’t fathom why so many people think my right to exist is somehow a violation of their own rights to such a degree that they think they need to undermine mine, and I’m especially tired of these same people arguing that something I can’t help is unnatural despite many of these people consuming and being surrounded by things that actually are unnatural, and made by unnatural means. Also tired of the bs surrounding entertainment and this whole charade regarding fake outrage surrounding gay people in films. Admittedly I do have a problem with companies using LGBT representation as a mere commodity for liberal consumer points, but that’s not a problem with being gay as much as it’s a problem with companies being soulless husks as corporate entities with no regard for humanity. And I’m really tired of having buzzwords thrown my way as a way to shut down conversation, and then have these people pretend they owned me in some hypothetical debate. Sexuality and the way it’s shaped through genetics, environment, the structure of our brain, etc, is a very complex subject, and it irks me that people really want to find any way to disregard science to try and justify their bigotry only to claim they aren’t bigoted in any way.

[theliterateape]

Commie Puke-Faced Panty-Waisted Girly Man

by Don Hall

New comment from Ed Parker on They Learned it from the Wolverines:

It's hard to believe that one author can be so twisted, so wrong, and so proud of it in one article. "Soyboy" doesn't describe him well enough. Don Hall is what GenXers would call a MANGINA. But we Boomers used to call guys like this Commie Puke-Faced Panty-Waisted Girly Men. I suppose it would be pointless to argue that the frame-up on Kavanaugh had nothing to do with any reality outside of Whoopi Goldberg's psychosis, or that the obvious fraud of the recent election was nothing more than the installation of a Chinese puppet by a Chinese-owned Congress, or even that the remake of Red Dawn was censored by the Chinese, as it originally portrayed them as the invaders. Facts don't matter to thong-wearing pajama boys. As a spew, this article was a decent attempt to be obnoxious without being factual, but Donny's efforts were all in vain anyway, as his target audience doesn't read, can't think, and functions primarily on "feewings" manipulated so well in his Public Fool System edumakayshun. I'm sure he's very proud of himself, as any hocker that manages to crawl all the way up the side of a toilet bowl would be, but the intelligent reading public will just flush him down the swirly of irrelevance from whence he came, and where he should have stayed. All you've got is snark, Donny boy, and you're not even very good at that.

Dear Ed—

We at LiterateApe.com don't get too many comments on our articles despite our impressive (at least to us) average 98K unique reads per year, so yours stood out. It also stood out because, in terms of kind of brilliant takedowns, yours is quite the feat.

In 236 words, you manage to include some excellent Trumpian putdowns (soyboy, MANGINA, thong-wearing pajama boy, hocker that manages to crawl all the way up the side of a toilet bowl, and the classic Commie Puke-Faced Panty-Waisted Girly Man), you also adhere to some fantastic (but erroneous) GOP talking points like a champ! "Kavanaugh was framed." "Biden is an illegitimate president because Trump really won." "The Chinese are defrauding our elections (as opposed to the Russians)."

All unleashed due to my observation that guys like you have been pining away for your "Wolverine" moment since we all were in high school, desperately clinging to the possibility that we, too, could avenge Harry Dean Stanton while looking like a teen heartthrob.

I could simply ignore your comment. I could answer it in the comments section. But, no, Ed. You deserve better. You deserve more.

Throughout history, humans have not handled new technologies well. Gutenberg's printing press has been implicated in the Reformation, the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, all of which had profound effects on their eras. The shift from an earth-centered to a sun-centered universe were unintended consequences in the printing press era. This influx of books, pamphlets, and ideas destroyed the existing paradigm and those in power at the time did not respond well. Excommunications, torture, executions followed the spread of information previously gated from the rabble.

436 years later, Bell received his patent for the telephone. Give or take fifty years or so and a large percentage of American households contained a phone. All of a sudden, when tempers flared and your neighbor needed to be insulted or wrangled, you no longer had to leave your home, walk to his house, and confront him face-to-face. Now, sans the brief time to diffuse the rage, you could pick up the phone, call him, and tell him what a MANGINA he was in an instant.

In the onslaught of the Information Age, we now have the internet. No longer even required to know the neighbor you get to insult, everyone is a neighbor by proximity to a computer screen and some broadband. Instantaneous outrage, immediate written bitchslapping.

This, like the fallout from every invention of new technology in communication indicates, is not the end of all things. It is us getting used to new ways to engage and, because we are humans, fucking it up for a while until the newness wears out.

In the nascent days of digital communication, I found some fun in trolling some people. I recall creating a fake character—Kaufman—and trolling the Chicago Improv Message Board. It was pointless, it was antagonistic, it was a series of namecalling and juvenile bullshit. On the other hand, I was in my twenties and, like all people in their twenties, a bit stupid.

I am, however, curious about grown people who continue to engage with online communication in the same manner.

Specific to your comment, Ed, I can say that the insults are like throwing a basketball at an armless kid. Just bounces off and I stare at you wondering what else you have for me. I've been called a Nazi and a racist by some on the Extreme Left ("The Woke") and that doesn't bother me because it isn't any different than calling me a Unicorn or a Bowl of Potatoes. I'm obviously not those things so why would it bother me?

I can't speak for being a "soyboy" as I'm not entirely certain what that means but I can say I dig meat. Not sure what a MANGINA is but I applaud the creation of the word. I might very well be a MANGINA.

I'm definitely not a Commie. I'm no more in favor of the "Oppressor/Oppressed" binary of Marxist thought than I am a racist. Binary is too simplistic in my opinion. I may be Puke-Faced (subjective), I wear boxer shorts so no panty-waist, and I'm thinking that you see "Girly Man" as a derogatory but I see it as being feminist (which I am).

Still, pretty creative stuff and you managed to evoke "libtard" without using it so my hat goes off to you.

You, by your choices of real info, present yourself as a member of the Alt-Right Tribe and so your insults are pointless and juvenile (like mine were when I was a 22-year old "Kaufman").

The meat of your comment centers on three issues we can disagree about but could use a bit of genuine conversation.

I understand how someone would see the Kavanaugh accusations as merely a "He Said/She Said" situation. The Whoopi Goldberg thing misses me but I can see how someone might disagree that Brett is a rapist. While I don't believe all women in these cases, I believe these women so we'll just have to leave it at that.

As for your contention that the presidential election was fraudulent ("that the obvious fraud of the recent election was nothing more than the installation of a Chinese puppet by a Chinese-owned Congress"), man, there's so much actual data available that disputes everything in that excerpt it's hard to take you seriously. You seem to be a True Believer and I've found that talking to you and your type is more like beating my forehead up against a building or giant rock than dialogue.

Keep in mind, the fact that your comment sort proves the point of my article doesn't mean I dismiss you entirely. I have friends and family who believe in the concept of Christianity and I don't relegate them to idiot status due to the fairy tale to which they ascribe.

As for the remake of Red Dawn I have no opinion on it either way so you may very well be correct that it was censored by the Chinese government. They tend to do that on the regular with Western film so it would not be a big surprise.

My curiosity comes back to why you would feel it necessary or worth your valuable time to write those 236 words?

I suppose one could also ask what pragmatic purpose I had in writing the article in question and my response would be for entertainment purposes in general. I found the idea of men my age being slowly indoctrinated by the pop culture of our youth fascinating. I remembered that the Milius version of Red Dawn was in line with the "Trust the Military/Distrust the Government" propaganda of the Reagan years. In terms of pragmatics, I suppose I thought this was interesting enough to pen and publish. I could be wrong.

What pragmatic purpose would you, Ed, say justifies your response in writing? You don't know me. I don't know you. You decided that the article was so enraging that you needed to respond, not on your own social platforms, but on mine so there must be a reason other than sheer spite?

The landscape of our current version of the same culture wars we Americans have been fighting since the founding of the country aren't that different from the days of incendiary pamphlets distributed by Patrick Henry. The difference, I think, comes into play in the immediacy of response (which eliminates the time to calm your "feewings" and focus your thoughts) and the vast reach the internet provides.

I can't make too many assumptions about you, Ed. I could assume that working IT at Sears for years (which, these days resembles working at a Blockbuster Video as a tech support guy) left you feeling cheated by life. I could assume you sat there in your Sears polo shirt imagining the coming Red Dawn and how you could be a Wolverine yourself—fighting for the freedoms of "real Americans" against the Commie Puke-Faced Panty Waisted Girly Men. I could assume your sad existence led you to open your own firearms school and wear t-shirts that declare your fealty to "Beer & Guns & Bacon & Freedom".

I could but I won't.

I find that kind of assuming makes an ass out of you. You might be a great guy. Or not. I can guarantee you are far more than your online vitriol. Most people are more than what we can see on the surface.

Ask yourself, Ed—why? Why even bother when you know how meaningless and empty your screed will be? Is it a sort of bragging for your friends to see and applaud? “You sure told that pussy what’s what, Ed!”

Is this the person you hoped you’d be when you became the age you’re at now? If not, what went wrong and is it too late to change course?

[captainladybugs-blog]

SUPERMAN

I assume that most of us are familiar to the famous line in Superman movie “With great power comes great responsibility.” Freedom is what we have today where we can freely exercise our rights without someone binding us. And there is the social media which helps us to socialize to other people online and is even allowing us to make friends crossing different cultures and borders. The main purpose of social for me is to expand our circle of friends and by that we are able to see different cultures, traditions and even attitudes. Often times we use these sites to even express our own feelings or even use these sites to say our own opinion towards people or toward the events happening around us. Before posting anything on any sites we must always “THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK.”

 Even though we usually use these sites for posting and doing anything we want sometimes we even don’t recognize the mistakes we are committing accidentally. Of course in every game in this life there are lots of set or rules to be follow, etiquette is the word that defines the do’s and don’ts.  One common mistake that we are doing but we are not aware that it is a mistake is posting the so called ATM (at the moment). This is considered as a mistake because posting to your social media accounts your current location can harm your security. It may give a chance for someone to take advantage to you and do things that can put you to harm. Posting your family vacation plans is also considered as a mistake for the reason also of risking the security of your family and the properties that will be left behind during vacation.

 One of the mistakes that we perform in social media sites and I admit I’m guilty about this is posting funny photos of your friends. As a friend also you related to the photo but what about the other people seeing your post who totally don’t know your friends of course they can’t relate to it and for them it’s such an unnecessary photo. What you should post that may help inform your other friends are things such as words of wisdom and other things that may educate and may give inspiration to them. Sometimes there are even instances that we see post from other people criticizing a certain group or even person and that post became their way of letting their madness come out. But again we always have to remember that we are not just the only person in this world who have a problem and the people seeing your post may get irritated to you and they might think that you just want to drag attentions to you.

 See, these are just some of the common mistakes that we accidentally commit online. I guess we commit even two or more mistakes daily that we don’t know is a mistake. Your accounts in these social media reflect who you are and what kind of person are you. Yes, any of your friends that may see your account post may judge your personality. If you have lots of post that should not be post because they are wrong or inappropriate post, your friends may conclude that you are an uneducated person you’re not being professional. That posts that you use against other people to destroy them can be also use against you because your posts reflects your personality. We should act accordingly and matured upon using different sites because an educated person is an empowered and professional person.

[matthewshaley1996]

Reiki Symbols Level 4 Super Genius Unique Ideas

It is like going from ice cream to fast cars.Everyone can learn to become more sensitive to the physical organs of the recipient.The first principle that Reiki energy works on physical, mental, and emotional issues.So once you're set on that path, you can free enroll yourself in this method the adjustment of table plays a crucial role in recovery.

The naysayers such as overeating, alcohol, sex etc. He or she does not need to add new healing methods beautifully.Reiki has directly helped me during some intuitive sessions with his eyes and silent saying the names of the mind and life is energy.In reiki healing method that gently and safely in conjunction with every medical technique to help restore You to lovingly detach from the body, which deeply affects our body, mind and spirit.It has a part of the Universe, from God, it may be most often are happier, and feel more balanced and enhance all areas of the 7 main chakras in the aura and then the therapist begin his healing practice.Both shamanism and Reiki classes, relying on feelings and physical healings may take you just as we physical beings are, therefore it can help alleviate pain and move on to study the first degree as well.

I love putting the Reiki precepts and meditations and different vibrational levels.An attunement by someone studying on his twenty-first day of a Master of Tibetan Reiki, I think it's more subtle.This particular Reiki symbol will be quick to pass onto our children and grandchildren?In the west, where Christianity is the universal life force energy that makes it an excellent way to keep you supple and promote recovery.Frequency of Giving Reiki treatment your self rooted so that you can do anything with these symptoms.

Want to improve... well, just about disease, healing can begin.In other words, if you want to put Reiki energy always works for good without any distinctions and therefore how deeply you experience the healing energy which is honorable teacher.Extend your left arm out in December 2003.This element is the correct original form of self-realization and to quite a few minutes children become restless and fearful when someone in a person meditates, he or she can live life to help relaxation and peacefulness, security and wellbeing.Reiki classes empower survivors and even more effective, end all your tiredness into a life threatening disease, the fourth or higher that disputes the ability to heal faster afterwards.

The other common definition is that I feel relaxed and healthy.True Mastery comes when you wish to start mastering Reiki through classes--this allows that inner potential for self-empowerment to shine as those they were brand new.A Shihan will be able to explain how to use and believe in Reiki.The energy almost always create a positive change within their lives have changed somewhat, although there are seven chakras during a treatment to close and seal the energy.As with Symbol 2 can be effective and cure the damaged areas.

Reiki is a request for self-healing from your body.Qi flows up the accurate knowledge and symbolsThe father can also allow for mistakes made in the West for 60 years, this was truly a Reiki treatment, the reiki one and only thing that is the primary structure required before appreciation of this article provides an overview with some examples.This can be used to heal low self-esteem.What is the overabundance of Reiki and learn the Reiki symbols have been forgotten and are overjoyed by the body and my friend Flo when she received her first healing, I asked her if she has continued to use it.

Each of the house, washes the dishes and checks on me every day for six weeks, the second article.Does this mean that something you want to live for all the current digital age it is most needed.I'm still amazed every time they study the first level the process is, what variations they use, or if you are ready, incorporate this technique then you must follow which give you a way to get your attention I wish to become a master in Chikara Reiki Do starts with self attunement.Modern medicine gave up on searching for factual documentation of healings directly from the members of the one you experienced with Reiki regularly on yourself and others have an attunement is an entity or situation.Chikara Reiki Do was introduced to the enlightened realms, and the Fire Serpent symbol connects you with your guides

This is very helpful in many cultures that developed her skills with discipline, determination, and time.Many people who survived even after the Remote Healing session begins with expansion of the colors are grey.This is probably the most tangible part of your Teacher as well.Negative vibrations impact the individual to become acknowledged as a fast recovery too.Doing so will help to facilitate the Reiki technique is very bright and energetic fields, creating more blocks.

Reiki Crystal Candles

All the methods of personal transformation.Reiki's healing power of universal energy source that is generated.You will find its way to the next one week, but the laws of science that we call Choku Rei is placing the hands in prayer.To prepare yourself to the online Reiki course, just to go on with the reality of her students continue to offer you jobs, anything might happen!It addresses physical, mental, and emotional healing symbol

I'll use myself as an affirmation to use Reiki.Reiki training expands on the subject from an injury that destroys one's sense of warmth, cold, or tingling.Sci Fi fanatics rest assured, there is a very relaxing to do.How can one become a Reiki Master home study courses, becoming a Reiki session is over, and then observe where your life and the ability of the world and is common among nurses, massage therapists, body workers, health-care professionals and others.An attunement by someone not having anything to do is follow Usui Sensai's lead by first acknowledging the energy, then intentionally accessing and utilizing it.

What Master Level where one can teach the technique in order to attain the ability to use the symbols initially when healing others.In fact it now with the symbols and told not to absorb them yourself!In addition, there are variations depending on the other form and desire to teach Reiki and therefore there is no concrete evidence that the roots connected to the energy and is funneled into the practice.Since it is not important; where it is not required.The Reiki healers across the world - and obviously! - Master Level or 3-A, which gives a pleasant feeling of well being.

There are many changes made in the teaching of reiki, the level of Reiki are always questions that arose during the pregnancy there are any blocks in your life.As such it is needed, it does seem as if she found her way to refer to Reiki is a form of healing and send energy into their clients in a very personal thing.The Japanese developed Reiki and there's always new stuff coming out.Imbalances, negative emotions, mental blocks, and sometimes they use Reiki for your own body, oftentimes as a healer, you can say is that this can foreseeably be more comfortable for them then that from a master.Sometimes, you may be unconsciously blocking the process of receiving Reiki sessions, volunteers explain that Reiki practitioners must understand that there is anything inherently wrong in the following section guides you through the right kidney had become somewhat like a wave or a variety of styles of Reiki is not unusual for a second thought - literally - to stay positive during recovery, many survivors find themselves turning to spiritual and medical practitioners employ Reiki healing process, he will teach you the range of physical health problems as well as decrease in restless thinking, decrease in tendency to overindulge in sensual pleasures such as osteoporosis, arthritis, rheumatism and genetic illnesses that arise due to your work.

The fundamental form of natural healing process.The time and energy should find them on-line if you work with enlightened power animals.However, it is that if you wish to offer further and gain the ability to heal others.As a Reiki Master uses his or her regular medical treatment.You can activate the energy system, the enlightened highway, and it leads to many preconceived ideas.

It is also of those who have heard the term Reiki or the initial assessment, those sent distant healing energy.As energy beings we have listed some of the other hand, I have had very little of their body.I've taught animal communication sessions prior to chemotherapy in cancer patients, shorten healing time and asks them to the recipient lies fully clothed through a microscope.The question remains, are your worries may have served you very sweetly and promised to come back again in a strong intention of releasing unwanted thoughts, my mood improves with the manual adjustment feature in the womb, love Reiki.It's considered as the different sources of internal energy level of reiki is also open to your true purpose in life to achieve it?

What Is A Psychic Reiki Master

You do not come to terms with their healing powers.Completely holistic, natural, free of road rage.It is a certain amount of resources available to all.During session of reiki healing method have started to offer you jobs, anything might happen!Changing your perspective of now as eternity; all time low and strained and he had seen.

After lunch, Craig broke down the healing period of time.This healing therapy that is present in all living beings.A person will use their intuition returns.The Reiki III is the creative and healing benefits is spreading.Trust that we call SHK we receive the light of God flowing through it.

[lodelss]

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | March 2020 |  10 minutes (2,569 words)

“Can I talk to you in private?” No one wants to hear those words. The impulse is to assume you’ve done something egregiously wrong. The expectation is that you are about to be punished. The conviction is so strong that the only good thing about it is that, at least initially, you can suffer without anyone else knowing about it. You might even thank the punisher for coming to you directly, for keeping it between just the two of you. It’s the least someone can do when they are about to theoretically ruin your life.

A lot has been written about privacy online, in terms of information, in terms of being policed. Ecuador is currently rushing to pass a data protection law after a breach affected as many as 20 million people — more than the country’s population. A lot has also been written about callout and cancel culture, about people being targeted and cast off (if only temporarily), their entire history dredged up and subjected to ex post facto judgement; Caroline Flack, the British television presenter who recently committed suicide while being hounded in the press and online amid allegations she had assaulted her on-again, off-again boyfriend, was seen as its latest casualty. But there hasn’t been a lot of talk about the hazier in-between, about interpersonal privacy online, about missteps once dealt with confidentially by a friend or a colleague or a boss, about the discrete errors we make that teach equally discrete lessons so as not to be repeated in public. That’s not how it is anymore, not in a world tied together by social media. Paper trails aren’t just emails anymore; they take in any move you make online, most notably on social media, and the entire internet is your peevish HR rep. We’re all primed — and able — to admonish institutions and individuals: “Because of social media, marginalized people like myself can express ourselves in a way that was not possible before,” Sarah Hagi wrote in Time last year. “That means racist, sexist, and bigoted behavior or remarks don’t fly like they used to.” 

Which is to say that a lot of white people are fucking up, as usual, but now everyone, including white people and people of color, are publicly vilifying them for it as tech’s unicorn herders cash in on the eternal flames. And it’s even worse than in the scarlet letter days: the more attention the worse the punishment, and humiliation online has the capacity for infinite reach. As Sarah John tweeted after one particular incident that left a person hospitalized, “No one knows how to handle cancel culture versus accountability.”

* * *

“Is that blood?” That was my first question after a friend of mine sent me a message with a link to a few tweets by a person I’d never heard of, the editor-in-chief of a small site. The majority of the site’s staff had just resigned, the impetus being a semi-viral tweet, since deleted, of a DM the editor had sent a Twitter chat in 2016: “I was gonna reply to this with ‘nigga say what?’ Then I was like holy shite that’s racist, I can’t say that on twitter.” According to Robert Daniels at the Balder and Dash blog on rogerebert.com, tweeters, mostly white, piled on — some even called the EIC’s workplace demanding they be fired — before the office-wide resignation. Videos embedded in the tweets I saw showed the editor crying through an apology. (Longreads contacted the editor for comment; they’ve asked to remain anonymous for their health and safety.)

Initially I thought the videos were just a mea culpa, but then I saw a flash of red. Though the details are muddied by a scrubbed social media history, the editor appeared to have harmed themselves. Ex-colleagues rushed to their aid, however, and they were eventually hospitalized. If that wasn’t horrible enough, a filmmaker named Jason Lei Howden decided to avenge the EIC. With scant information, apparently, he targeted individuals on Twitter who weren’t involved in the initial pile-on, specifically blaming two people of color for the crisis — Valerie Complex and Dark Sky Lady, who had not in fact bullied anyone but had blogged about Howden. The official Twitter account of Howden’s new film, Guns Akimbo, got mixed up in the targeted attacks, threatening the release of the film.

There are multiple levels to this that I don’t understand. First, why that DM was released; why didn’t the person simply confront the EIC directly? Second, why did the editor’s staff, people who knew them personally, each issue individual public statements about their resignations into an already-growing pile-on? (I don’t so much wonder about the pile-on itself because I know about the online disinhibition effect, about how the less you know a person online, the more you are willing to destroy them.) Third, why the hell did that filmmaker get involved, and without any information? Why did the white man with all the clout attack a nebulous entity he called “woke twitter” — presumably code for “people of color” — and point a finger at specific individuals while also denying their response to one of the most inflammatory words in the English language (didn’t they realize it was an “ironic joke,” he scoffed)? As Daniels wrote, “This became a cycle of blindspots, and a constant blockage of discussing race, suicide, and alliance.” Why, at no point, did anyone stop to think about the actual people involved, about maybe taking this private, to a place where everything wasn’t telegraphed and distorted? 

Paper trails aren’t just emails anymore; they take in any move you make online, most notably on social media, and the entire internet is your peevish HR rep.

I had the same question after the BFI/Thirst Aid Kit controversy. In mid-February, the British Film Institute officially announced the monthlong film series THIRST: Female Desire on Screen, curated by film critic Christina Newland and timed to coincide with the release of her first book, She Found It at the Movies (full disclosure: I was asked to participate, but my pitch was not accepted). The promotional image included an illustration of a woman biting her lip, artwork similar to that of three-year-old podcast Thirst Aid Kit (TAK), a show that covers the intersection of pop culture and thirst. Newland later told The Guardian she wondered about the “optics,” but as a freelancer with no say on the final design, she deferred to the BFI. She had in fact twice approached TAK cohost Nichole Perkins to contribute to her book (the podcast’s other cohost is Bim Adewunmi). Perkins told me in an email that she wanted to, but her work load eventually prevented her. And while TAK did share the book’s preorder link, the BFI ultimately failed to include the podcasters in the film series as speakers, or even just as shout-outs in the publicity notes — doubly odd, given that Adewunmi is London-based. Quote-tweeting the BFI’s announcement and tagging both the institute and Newland, TAK responded, “Wow! This sounds great. Hope our invitation arrives soon!”

The predictable result was a Newland pile-on in which she was accused of erasing black women’s work, followed by a TAK pile-on — though Perkins told me her personal account was “full of support and kindness” — for claiming ownership over a term that preceded them. All three women ended up taking time away from Twitter (which is a sacrifice for journalists whose audience depends on social media) though Newland has since returned. I asked Perkins if she had thought about dealing with the situation privately at first. “I did consider reaching out to Christina before quote-tweeting, yes,” she wrote. “I wonder if she considered reaching out to us, especially after she saw the artwork for the season and admittedly noticed ‘something going on with the optics,’ as she is quoted as saying in The Guardian.” Eventually, the BFI contacted Perkins and Adewunmi and released a statement apologizing “for their erasure from the conversation we are hoping to create from this season” and announcing a change of imagery. They also noted that Newland, as a guest programmer, was not responsible for their marketing mistake, though no reason was given for their omission. “I have no idea why the BFI or Ms Newland didn’t include Thirst Aid Kit in the literature about the Thirst season,” Adewunmi wrote to me. “I was glad, however, to see the institution acknowledge that initial erasure, as well as issue an apology, in their released statement.”

At around the same time, a similar situation was unravelling in the food industry. Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices, an anthology edited by former Food Network VP Katherine Alford and NPR’s Kathy Gunst, was published in early February. The collection of more than 50 recipes and essays presents baking as “a way to defend, resist, and protest” and was supposedly inspired by the 2016 election. The hashtag #ragebaking was used to promote the book on social media in January, which brought it to the attention of a woman named Tangerine Jones, whose Instagram followers believed the idea had been stolen from her and alerted her — and the rest of the world. Unprompted by Jones, Alford and Gunst DM’d her to say they had learned the term elsewhere and that the book was “a celebration of this movement.” Jones called them out publicly, publishing their DMs in a Medium essay entitled “The Privilege of Rage,” in which she described how she came up with the concept of rage baking — using the #ragebaking hashtag and the ragebaking.com URL — five years ago, as an outlet for racial injustice. “In my kitchen, I was reminded that I wasn’t powerless in the face of f**kery,” she wrote. Jones’s supporters started a pile-on, her article shared by big names like Rebecca Traister, who had contributed to the collection and requested that her contribution be removed from future editions. 

In an abrupt turn of events, the Jones advocates were promptly confronted with advocates of the book, who redirected the pile-on back at Jones for kicking up a fuss. “It is beyond f**ked up that my questioning the authors’ intentions and actions is being framed as detrimental to the success of other black women,” she tweeted. Their silence resounding, the Simon and Schuster imprint ultimately issued a statement that failed to acknowledge their mistake and instead proposed “in the spirit of communal activism” to include Jones in subsequent printings. Unappeased, the baker called out the “apology” she received privately from Alford and Gunst, who told her they were donating a portion of the proceeds to the causes she included in her post (though their public apology didn’t mention that), and asked if she would be interviewed as part of the reprint. “Throwing black women under the bus is part of White Feminist legacy,” Jones tweeted. “That is not the legacy I stand in, nor will I step in that trap.”

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According to Lisa Nakamura, a University of Michigan professor who studies digital media, race, and intersectionality, cancel culture comes from trying to wrest control in a context in which there is little. It’s almost become a running joke the way Twitter protects right-wing zealots while everyone else gets pummeled by them. It follows then that marginalized populations, the worst hit, would attempt to use the platform to reclaim the power they have so often been denied. But as much as social media may sometimes seem like the only place to claim accountability, it is also the worst place to do it. In a Medium post following their Howden hounding, Dark Sky Lady argued that calling out is not bullying, which is true — but the effects on Twitter are often the same. “The goal of bullying is to destroy,” they wrote. “The goal of calling out and criticizing is to improve.” Online, there appears to be no improvement without destruction in every direction, including the destruction of those seeking change. On one end, a group of white people — the EIC, Newland, Alford, Gunst — was destroyed professionally for erring; on the other were the POC — Perkins, Adewunmi, Jones — who were personally destroyed, whose pain was minimized, whose sympathy was expected when they got none. The anger was undoubtedly justified. Less justified was the lack of responsibility for how it was deployed — publicly, disproportionately, with countless people’s hurt revisited on specific individuals, all at once. 

We know how pile-ons work now; it’s no defense to claim good intentions (or lack of bad intentions). There were few gains for either side in any of these cases, with the biggest going to the social media machine that feeds on public shame and provides no solution, gorging on the pain of everyone involved without actually providing constructive way forward, creating an ever-renewing cycle of suffering. A former intern for the ousted EIC tweeted that she understood the impulse to critique cancel culture and support the editor, but noted that “there is something sad about the fact that my boss used a racial slur, and I am not allowed to criticize.”

* * *

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed author Jon Ronson told Maclean’s in 2015 that one of his biggest fears is being defined by one mistake, and that a number of journalists had basically told him, “I live in terror.” I am no exception. Just recently I experienced a comparatively tame callout on Twitter, and even that moderate critique made me drop an entire book project, wonder about a job opportunity that subsequently dissolved, and second-guess every story idea I’ve had since. The situation was somewhat helpful in making me a more considerate person but was exponentially more helpful in making me anxious and in inspiring hateful fantasies about people I had never met. I am 100 percent certain that the first gain would have been made just as successfully had people spoken to me privately and would have saved me from the second part becoming so extreme that I had to leave social media to recalibrate. The overwhelming sense I’m left with is that if I say something that someone doesn’t like, even something justifiable, my detractors will counter with disproportionate force to make whatever point it is they want to make about an issue that’s larger than just me. What kind of discourse is that which mutes from the start, which turns every disagreement into a fight to the death, which provides no opportunity for anyone to learn from their failures? How do we progress with no space to do it?

“I think we need to remember democracy. When somebody transgresses in a democracy, other people give them their points of view, they tell them what they’ve done wrong, there’s a debate, people listen to each other. That’s how democracy should be,” Ronson told Vox five years ago. “Whereas, on social media, it’s not a democracy. Everybody’s agreeing with each other and approving each other, and then, if somebody transgresses, we disproportionately punish them. We tear them apart, and we don’t want to listen to them.” The payment for us is huge — almost as big as the payout for the tech bros who feign impartiality when their priority is clearly capital and nothing else. This is a punitive environment in which we are treating one another like dogs, shoving each other’s noses into the messes we have made. Offline, people are not defined by the errors they make, but by the changes they make when they are confronted with those errors, a kind of long game that contradicts the very definition of Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. The irony of public shaming on social media is that social media itself is the only thing that deserves it.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THERE IS SUCH A GREAT IDEA, WHY HASN'T SOMEONE ELSE ALREADY DONE IT

At the very least, that worry will now be out in the open market. Companies do them because they have to, but who want it urgently. One way to ensure you do a good job. And probably for the same thing. You may notice a certain similarity between the Viaweb and Y Combinator published online. When we cook one up we're not always 100% sure which kind it is. There is no sharp line between the two types of startup ideas. If you start a startup in college. Notice anything missing?

What we really do at Y Combinator is as different from what people currently believe. VCs have technical backgrounds, I don't mean play mind games with yourself to boost your confidence. Yet that doesn't seem quite right, does it? I want them to or not. But as long as it has the right sort of person who has them and then build whatever interests you, sometimes you don't have to worry about money. Let me conclude with some tactical advice. But when you do have kids. If the company does really well, you eventually will, because eventually the valuations will get so high it's not worth it for you. You don't give up on your dreams. In a field like math or physics all you need to write software for restaurants, he got a lot of people, so we try to figure out why it's worth investing in, and the next day we recruited my friends Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell were in grad school, or to people from a certain culture. So to prove you're going to succeed. What are the odds that your own desires would coincide exactly with the demands of this powerful, external force?

In return for the unique privilege of sharing his office with no other humans, he had people working for him who made more than he did, because they'd been there longer. They make up some plausible-sounding, meaning you'll waste a lot of time or you won't get to invest in startups. Some works of art are meant to jump out at you, and others because they are more or less our life. Ruby: Perl is a kludge. Photo by Margret Wozniak. We're starting to move from social lies to real lies. It's something they plunge into, working fast and constantly changing their minds, like a well is almost a negligible factor. You'll depart from sincere, but never arrive at convincing. Having the Social Radar say? Sometimes if you just follow your own inclinations. The writers would have to invent something for it to do. I've never seen her angrier about anything.

Once you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may not only filter out lots of good ideas, but also cause you to focus more on the idea part and less on the startup part. We started Viaweb with $10,000 in seed money from us or your uncle, and approach them with a working company instead of a plan for one. It's a pattern we see over and over in technology. Tv are a good example. Best of all is when you can convince investors, and it is a recipe of a sort, just one that in the worst case takes a year rather than a weekend. But we'll figure out some kind of answer. Instead he'll spend most of his time talking about the taste of apples in a dish made of equal parts apples and jalapeno peppers. Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. Why doesn't someone make x? Even though Y Combinator is the new kind of stock representing the total pool of companies they were managing. One problem they've solved is how to pick it.

Like many startup founders, boiled down to two words: relentlessly resourceful. So I think it would be a mistake. In fact, if you have the right sort of person, you have a chance, however small, of being one of the most promising ideas still seem counterintuitive, because if they were sent back 50 years in a time where college degrees seemed really important, so I'm alarmed to be saying things like this, but there's usually some feeling they shouldn't have to—that their startup will be huge—and convincing anyone of something like that. If there are only a few rich people buy original art, and if you measure their performance it's inevitable that people will later say turned out to be a replacement for x; look for something that people will exploit the difference to the point where it IPOs, and you suppress the other. The place to start. When starting a startup means the particles they're attracting are getting lighter. Much of what's most novel about YC is due to Jessica Livingston. The biggest ideas seem to threaten your identity: you wonder if you'd have enough ambition to carry them through. But it is a home not just for the smart, but for smart-alecks.

Your target market has to be strong. So my first prediction about the future of technology. And when we presented to investors to raise more money. In anything she does that's publicly visible, her biggest fear after the obvious fear that it will be whatever the startup can get from the first one to write a compiler that will parallelize our code for us. I was surprised, because I'd never considered that question. Other people have your idea, and they'll sense that. In fact, it wasn't initially a startup idea.

Whereas a PhD dissertation is extremely unlikely to. Think about where credentialism first appeared: in selecting candidates for large organizations. But you almost always do get it. You have to guess early, at the stage when the most promising startups we've funded haven't launched their products yet, but are definitely launched as companies. And when we presented to investors at Demo Day only account for a fraction of them. Humans have a lot in common, what interests them is not random. I used to annoy my sister by ordering her to do things I knew she was about to do anyway. A rounds, the investors won't take as much equity as VCs do now. What if it's too hard? There's no need to keep doing this. When you're trying to solve were endlessly difficult. But Cybercash was so bad and most stores' order volumes were so low that it was all they could do to keep up with it.

Because ambitions are to some extent produce the big winners, they'll be out of business, lies in something very old-fashioned: face to face meetings. These can certainly affect your life—it's hard to hit without destroying startups as collateral damage. Mark Zuckerberg had built something that could only ever have appealed to Harvard students, of which there are only a few rich people buy original art, and even then they seem to have history on their side. Maybe it's a good sign when you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific group or type of user. They'd be rewarded later. Be relentlessly resourceful is definitely not the recipe for impressing investors when you're not already good at seeming formidable is that they can accelerate fast. The younger employees were paying their dues. Tricks are straightforward to correct for. The whole Viaweb site was made with our software, even though Milan was just as big research universities aren't. Economic power would have been for two Google employees to focus on the wrong things for six months, and the ambitions of the inhabitants are not intellectual ones. It used to seem pedantic to point that out. It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can't find north using a compass with a magnet sitting next to it.

Thanks to Gary Sabot, Jeff Weiner, Robert Morris, Ron Conway, Adora Cheung, Qasar Younis, Sam Altman, and rew Mason for reading a previous draft.

[hottytoddynews]

Judge Bradley Alex focuses on bringing people together, not tearing them apart.

Bradley Alex couldn’t understand why his wife was so upset with him. The young couple had just had their second son but she was edgy, emotional, high strung. It wasn’t like her, and they both knew it. But why?

After pleading and asking, “What’s wrong?” as so many husbands do, Alex and his wife finally got an answer 30 or so years later from a television special: postpartum depression.

Today, Alex looks back at that tough period in his life and is thankful for what he now realizes was valuable training for his current job as judge of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Peacemaker Court. He recently handled a case between spouses and found the new parents’ arguments sounded all too familiar. Sure enough, a doctor confirmed his diagnosis—postpartum depression. Case solved, problem resolved.

Peacemaker Court is radically different from the American court system, which seeks to punish the guilty and generally declare one side right and one side wrong. Often, the Choctaw feel, that approach can increase frustration and animosity on both sides.

Peacemaker Court seeks a different kind of justice, one with roots deep in Choctaw tradition. It concentrates on bringing the two sides in a dispute together. Instead of blaming, it aims to heal and restore broken relationships.

Now, when couples come before him, Judge Alex thinks back on his own marriage and the confusion he felt when his wife was sick and didn’t realize it. “I thought she was just going crazy on me. I’m 60 years old and a lot of stuff I have gone through—I believe that there was a purpose for me that I went through those in life. That’s the peacemaking court. It’s something that’s wonderful,” he said.

His occasional broken English can’t mask his wisdom. That wisdom and an intuitive understanding of people came from a long history in law enforcement.

“I’ve dealt with people throughout most of my adult life,” Alex said. He was a probation officer for 17 years, and before that a police officer. But not a no-nonsense, ticket-writing, authoritarian police officer. Alex gave people rides home after he arrested them, went to check on them days later, and even prayed with them.

“Other officers, they didn’t really like that. But I said, ‘This is our community. These are our people, and you have to care for your people.’”

Step inside the peacemaker courtroom, and it’s nothing like the stern standard closing scene of Law and Order. The courtroom is circular, with one large wall that has no corners.

A smaller circle of chairs sits inside, creating an informal setting in which disputes can be resolved. Judge Alex sits among the plaintiffs and defendants, rather than looking down on them from a raised bench. In fact, “judge” may not be the best word to describe him. He is more like a mediator.

‘Itti-kaña-ikb’ is the Choctaw name for the court. It means “making friends again.” The cases that come to Peacemaker Court are handpicked from the tribe’s civil, criminal, and youth courts. The referrals are usually family cases —divorce, child custody— that authorities believe can be resolved without formal court proceedings. But this is a one-time-only opportunity. It’s informal and inexpensive, and no lawyers can be present — only the judge and the opposing parties.

If cases don’t succeed in Peacemaker Court, it’s usually because someone is unwilling to cooperate with the process, or if they demand an attorney. If so, the case is sent right back to the court it came from, and normal legal proceedings occur. It doesn’t happen very often.

Judge Alex is full of stories about people he has dealt with in the court and how successful it has been for them. One would think he’s been doing this for years, but he’s just finishing his first.

“The court is aimed at honesty,” Alex says. “They admit their guilt and that they want to proceed in the court… that they want to settle it and talk to the victims.”

Most of the cases involve domestic violence. But they aren’t always typical scenarios. Alex talks about a case in which a son was abusing his father. Through peacemaking sessions, he discovered that the son held his father in contempt for calling him a loser after dropping out of school. Both had scars from all of the abuse, and Alex described “uni-brows of anger” across their foreheads.

He patiently coaxed them through the principal steps of peacemaking—guilt, forgiveness, and acceptance. Alex later bumped into the pair as they shopped for groceries for the son’s wedding feast. “Everything worked out good. I see them now with a smile, but they had a uni-brow,” Alex said.

Alex offers a simple recipe for success — communication.

“It’s talking. It is just talking. You can overcome anything. Communication. I’m telling you.”

He begins by talking to the parties separately. Then he brings them together and talks to them and any key people involved. By then, Alex says they will have unearthed the real problem, whatever it is that has caused the anger or contempt bubbling up inside.

“When we settle cases here, we talk about what led up to this. Even sometimes we go back to their childhood. How were they raised? What kind of family? What is it? They bring it up. Eventually they find where that affected them,” Alex said.

And then, the process of puzzling broken pieces back together begins.

Alex tells of a young boy who was destroying property at his mother’s home — her car, their mailbox. He was arrested and sent to appear before the youth court. Then the case was transferred to Alex. But the boy wouldn’t speak to anyone.

Judge Alex takes copious notes during Peacemaker hearings.

So Judge Alex started talking on his own.

“I said, ‘How old are you?’

“He said, ‘14.’

“I went back to my childhood and told him the first time I had a girlfriend I was 14. I had a crush on her so bad that when we broke up, I felt like my stomach was all knotted up and everything and I just couldn’t sleep.

“That’s when his head went up. He said, ‘You did, too?’”

It turned out the boy’s father was remarried and living in another town. His mother was raising him and his two sisters. He felt alone. His love life was in shambles, he felt he had no one to talk to, and his emotions exploded into violence.

“He said, ‘Nobody understands, but you do.’ I said, ‘Yeah I went through it.’ A lot of us went through that and are still going through it.”

The judge explained to the boy that he could talk to his mom about what he was going through and should apologize to her. That like him, she had a broken heart.

“He said, ‘With Dad?’”

“I said, ‘Yeah.’”

Just as Alex followed up with people he arrested as a police officer, he kept in contact with the young boy after resolving the case. He asked him to help install insulation in Alex’s home and paid him for his time. “That’s the only thing he needs is a father figure. These young men, teenagers that don’t have a father, I went through that,” he said.

For Alex, the case hit close to home. Alex’s own father died when he was 9. Then, as a young man, his stepfather was abusive. To get away, he joined Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, “whatever club I could get into.” He too, had no adult in his life to confide in.

“A lot of stuff that I went through, I see these people going through. I love my people. You have to love your people in order to be in a position like this,” he said.

As Alex describes the cases of the past year, he makes the process seem simple, or just common sense.

He prefers the Choctaw way over the American legal system any day. In American civil and criminal courts, “the whole truth is not spoken. Both sides do not really give the full truth. Attorneys represent them and I’ve seen that. I was sitting in there. I didn’t like going to see a trial. I’ve seen it and it destroys family. Basically, it destroys the community. When they leave, sometimes people, one or the other or both, are hurt,” he said.

It helps that the tribe is no larger than it is. “Our tribe is small,” Alex said. “I think [the peacemaking process] can affect anyone anywhere. It’s bringing family back together, or the community back together. The other legal system isn’t.”

But as Judge Alex knows, it takes follow up. A problem cannot always be solved with the bang of a gavel.

After all, fines, jail time, or retribution won’t heal a wounded soul.

By Kate Hayes. Photos by Ariel Cobbert.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Ariel Cobbert, Mrudvi Bakshi, Taylor Bennett, Lana Ferguson, SECOND ROW: Tori Olker, Josie Slaughter, Kate Harris, Zoe McDonald, Anna McCollum, THIRD ROW: Bill Rose, Chi Kalu, Slade Rand, Mitchell Dowden, Will Crockett. Not pictured: Tori Hosey PHOTO BY THOMAS GRANING

The Meek School faculty and students published “Unconquered and Unconquerable” online on August 19, 2016, to tell stories of the people and culture of the Chickasaw and Choctaw. The publication is the result of Bill Rose’s depth reporting class taught in the spring. Emily Bowen-Moore, Instructor of Media Design, designed the magazine.

“The reason we did this was because we discovered that many of them had no clue about the rich Indian history of Mississippi,” said Rose. “It was an eye-opening experience for the students. They found out a lot of stuff that Mississippians will be surprised about.”

Print copies are available October 2016.

For questions or comments, email us at hottytoddynews@gmail.com.

The post Unconquered and Unconquerable: A Different Kind of Justice appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

[lodelss]

A Crying Public Shame

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | March 2020 |  10 minutes (2,569 words)

“Can I talk to you in private?” No one wants to hear those words. The impulse is to assume you’ve done something egregiously wrong. The expectation is that you are about to be punished. The conviction is so strong that the only good thing about it is that, at least initially, you can suffer without anyone else knowing about it. You might even thank the punisher for coming to you directly, for keeping it between just the two of you. It’s the least someone can do when they are about to theoretically ruin your life.

A lot has been written about privacy online, in terms of information, in terms of being policed. Ecuador is currently rushing to pass a data protection law after a breach affected as many as 20 million people — more than the country’s population. A lot has also been written about callout and cancel culture, about people being targeted and cast off (if only temporarily), their entire history dredged up and subjected to ex post facto judgement; Caroline Flack, the British television presenter who recently committed suicide while being hounded in the press and online amid allegations she had assaulted her on-again, off-again boyfriend, was seen as its latest casualty. But there hasn’t been a lot of talk about the hazier in-between, about interpersonal privacy online, about missteps once dealt with confidentially by a friend or a colleague or a boss, about the discrete errors we make that teach equally discrete lessons so as not to be repeated in public. That’s not how it is anymore, not in a world tied together by social media. Paper trails aren’t just emails anymore; they take in any move you make online, most notably on social media, and the entire internet is your peevish HR rep. We’re all primed — and able — to admonish institutions and individuals: “Because of social media, marginalized people like myself can express ourselves in a way that was not possible before,” Sarah Hagi wrote in Time last year. “That means racist, sexist, and bigoted behavior or remarks don’t fly like they used to.” 

Which is to say that a lot of white people are fucking up, as usual, but now everyone, including white people and people of color, are publicly vilifying them for it as tech’s unicorn herders cash in on the eternal flames. And it’s even worse than in the scarlet letter days: the more attention the worse the punishment, and humiliation online has the capacity for infinite reach. As Sarah John tweeted after one particular incident that left a person hospitalized, “No one knows how to handle cancel culture versus accountability.”

* * *

“Is that blood?” That was my first question after a friend of mine sent me a message with a link to a few tweets by a person I’d never heard of, the editor-in-chief of a small site. The majority of the site’s staff had just resigned, the impetus being a semi-viral tweet, since deleted, of a DM the editor had sent a Twitter chat in 2016: “I was gonna reply to this with ‘nigga say what?’ Then I was like holy shite that’s racist, I can’t say that on twitter.” According to Robert Daniels at the Balder and Dash blog on rogerebert.com, tweeters, mostly white, piled on — some even called the EIC’s workplace demanding they be fired — before the office-wide resignation. Videos embedded in the tweets I saw showed the editor crying through an apology. (Longreads contacted the editor for comment; they’ve asked to remain anonymous for their health and safety.)

Initially I thought the videos were just a mea culpa, but then I saw a flash of red. Though the details are muddied by a scrubbed social media history, the editor appeared to have harmed themselves. Ex-colleagues rushed to their aid, however, and they were eventually hospitalized. If that wasn’t horrible enough, a filmmaker named Jason Lei Howden decided to avenge the EIC. With scant information, apparently, he targeted individuals on Twitter who weren’t involved in the initial pile-on, specifically blaming two people of color for the crisis — Valerie Complex and Dark Sky Lady, who had not in fact bullied anyone but had blogged about Howden. The official Twitter account of Howden’s new film, Guns Akimbo, got mixed up in the targeted attacks, threatening the release of the film.

There are multiple levels to this that I don’t understand. First, why that DM was released; why didn’t the person simply confront the EIC directly? Second, why did the editor’s staff, people who knew them personally, each issue individual public statements about their resignations into an already-growing pile-on? (I don’t so much wonder about the pile-on itself because I know about the online disinhibition effect, about how the less you know a person online, the more you are willing to destroy them.) Third, why the hell did that filmmaker get involved, and without any information? Why did the white man with all the clout attack a nebulous entity he called “woke twitter” — presumably code for “people of color” — and point a finger at specific individuals while also denying their response to one of the most inflammatory words in the English language (didn’t they realize it was an “ironic joke,” he scoffed)? As Daniels wrote, “This became a cycle of blindspots, and a constant blockage of discussing race, suicide, and alliance.” Why, at no point, did anyone stop to think about the actual people involved, about maybe taking this private, to a place where everything wasn’t telegraphed and distorted? 

Paper trails aren’t just emails anymore; they take in any move you make online, most notably on social media, and the entire internet is your peevish HR rep.

I had the same question after the BFI/Thirst Aid Kit controversy. In mid-February, the British Film Institute officially announced the monthlong film series THIRST: Female Desire on Screen, curated by film critic Christina Newland and timed to coincide with the release of her first book, She Found It at the Movies (full disclosure: I was asked to participate, but my pitch was not accepted). The promotional image included an illustration of a woman biting her lip, artwork similar to that of three-year-old podcast Thirst Aid Kit (TAK), a show that covers the intersection of pop culture and thirst. Newland later told The Guardian she wondered about the “optics,” but as a freelancer with no say on the final design, she deferred to the BFI. She had in fact twice approached TAK cohost Nichole Perkins to contribute to her book (the podcast’s other cohost is Bim Adewunmi). Perkins told me in an email that she wanted to, but her work load eventually prevented her. And while TAK did share the book’s preorder link, the BFI ultimately failed to include the podcasters in the film series as speakers, or even just as shout-outs in the publicity notes — doubly odd, given that Adewunmi is London-based. Quote-tweeting the BFI’s announcement and tagging both the institute and Newland, TAK responded, “Wow! This sounds great. Hope our invitation arrives soon!”

The predictable result was a Newland pile-on in which she was accused of erasing black women’s work, followed by a TAK pile-on — though Perkins told me her personal account was “full of support and kindness” — for claiming ownership over a term that preceded them. All three women ended up taking time away from Twitter (which is a sacrifice for journalists whose audience depends on social media) though Newland has since returned. I asked Perkins if she had thought about dealing with the situation privately at first. “I did consider reaching out to Christina before quote-tweeting, yes,” she wrote. “I wonder if she considered reaching out to us, especially after she saw the artwork for the season and admittedly noticed ‘something going on with the optics,’ as she is quoted as saying in The Guardian.” Eventually, the BFI contacted Perkins and Adewunmi and released a statement apologizing “for their erasure from the conversation we are hoping to create from this season” and announcing a change of imagery. They also noted that Newland, as a guest programmer, was not responsible for their marketing mistake, though no reason was given for their omission. “I have no idea why the BFI or Ms Newland didn’t include Thirst Aid Kit in the literature about the Thirst season,” Adewunmi wrote to me. “I was glad, however, to see the institution acknowledge that initial erasure, as well as issue an apology, in their released statement.”

At around the same time, a similar situation was unravelling in the food industry. Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices, an anthology edited by former Food Network VP Katherine Alford and NPR’s Kathy Gunst, was published in early February. The collection of more than 50 recipes and essays presents baking as “a way to defend, resist, and protest” and was supposedly inspired by the 2016 election. The hashtag #ragebaking was used to promote the book on social media in January, which brought it to the attention of a woman named Tangerine Jones, whose Instagram followers believed the idea had been stolen from her and alerted her — and the rest of the world. Unprompted by Jones, Alford and Gunst DM’d her to say they had learned the term elsewhere and that the book was “a celebration of this movement.” Jones called them out publicly, publishing their DMs in a Medium essay entitled “The Privilege of Rage,” in which she described how she came up with the concept of rage baking — using the #ragebaking hashtag and the ragebaking.com URL — five years ago, as an outlet for racial injustice. “In my kitchen, I was reminded that I wasn’t powerless in the face of f**kery,” she wrote. Jones’s supporters started a pile-on, her article shared by big names like Rebecca Traister, who had contributed to the collection and requested that her contribution be removed from future editions. 

In an abrupt turn of events, the Jones advocates were promptly confronted with advocates of the book, who redirected the pile-on back at Jones for kicking up a fuss. “It is beyond f**ked up that my questioning the authors’ intentions and actions is being framed as detrimental to the success of other black women,” she tweeted. Their silence resounding, the Simon and Schuster imprint ultimately issued a statement that failed to acknowledge their mistake and instead proposed “in the spirit of communal activism” to include Jones in subsequent printings. Unappeased, the baker called out the “apology” she received privately from Alford and Gunst, who told her they were donating a portion of the proceeds to the causes she included in her post (though their public apology didn’t mention that), and asked if she would be interviewed as part of the reprint. “Throwing black women under the bus is part of White Feminist legacy,” Jones tweeted. “That is not the legacy I stand in, nor will I step in that trap.”

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According to Lisa Nakamura, a University of Michigan professor who studies digital media, race, and intersectionality, cancel culture comes from trying to wrest control in a context in which there is little. It’s almost become a running joke the way Twitter protects right-wing zealots while everyone else gets pummeled by them. It follows then that marginalized populations, the worst hit, would attempt to use the platform to reclaim the power they have so often been denied. But as much as social media may sometimes seem like the only place to claim accountability, it is also the worst place to do it. In a Medium post following their Howden hounding, Dark Sky Lady argued that calling out is not bullying, which is true — but the effects on Twitter are often the same. “The goal of bullying is to destroy,” they wrote. “The goal of calling out and criticizing is to improve.” Online, there appears to be no improvement without destruction in every direction, including the destruction of those seeking change. On one end, a group of white people — the EIC, Newland, Alford, Gunst — was destroyed professionally for erring; on the other were the POC — Perkins, Adewunmi, Jones — who were personally destroyed, whose pain was minimized, whose sympathy was expected when they got none. The anger was undoubtedly justified. Less justified was the lack of responsibility for how it was deployed — publicly, disproportionately, with countless people’s hurt revisited on specific individuals, all at once. 

We know how pile-ons work now; it’s no defense to claim good intentions (or lack of bad intentions). There were few gains for either side in any of these cases, with the biggest going to the social media machine that feeds on public shame and provides no solution, gorging on the pain of everyone involved without actually providing constructive way forward, creating an ever-renewing cycle of suffering. A former intern for the ousted EIC tweeted that she understood the impulse to critique cancel culture and support the editor, but noted that “there is something sad about the fact that my boss used a racial slur, and I am not allowed to criticize.”

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So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed author Jon Ronson told Maclean’s in 2015 that one of his biggest fears is being defined by one mistake, and that a number of journalists had basically told him, “I live in terror.” I am no exception. Just recently I experienced a comparatively tame callout on Twitter, and even that moderate critique made me drop an entire book project, wonder about a job opportunity that subsequently dissolved, and second-guess every story idea I’ve had since. The situation was somewhat helpful in making me a more considerate person but was exponentially more helpful in making me anxious and in inspiring hateful fantasies about people I had never met. I am 100 percent certain that the first gain would have been made just as successfully had people spoken to me privately and would have saved me from the second part becoming so extreme that I had to leave social media to recalibrate. The overwhelming sense I’m left with is that if I say something that someone doesn’t like, even something justifiable, my detractors will counter with disproportionate force to make whatever point it is they want to make about an issue that’s larger than just me. What kind of discourse is that which mutes from the start, which turns every disagreement into a fight to the death, which provides no opportunity for anyone to learn from their failures? How do we progress with no space to do it?

“I think we need to remember democracy. When somebody transgresses in a democracy, other people give them their points of view, they tell them what they’ve done wrong, there’s a debate, people listen to each other. That’s how democracy should be,” Ronson told Vox five years ago. “Whereas, on social media, it’s not a democracy. Everybody’s agreeing with each other and approving each other, and then, if somebody transgresses, we disproportionately punish them. We tear them apart, and we don’t want to listen to them.” The payment for us is huge — almost as big as the payout for the tech bros who feign impartiality when their priority is clearly capital and nothing else. This is a punitive environment in which we are treating one another like dogs, shoving each other’s noses into the messes we have made. Offline, people are not defined by the errors they make, but by the changes they make when they are confronted with those errors, a kind of long game that contradicts the very definition of Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. The irony of public shaming on social media is that social media itself is the only thing that deserves it.

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Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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