#it was giving twitter feminism and a little bit of 'i hate men'

[catboybatman]

I saw the barbie movie btw. I have... opinions...

[beardedmrbean]

Hey, I hope your dad doing well

But remember that shitty good times sequel cartoon where the daughter is the black military archetype? Which the proud family revival did

Okay, so people want to know why Huey Freeman worked?

Well Aaron Mcgruder remembers the later half of Malcom X life. So Huey got calmer over the seasons as he realize at the end of the day he just a kid and still have much to learn

Yes yes Malcom believe that Yakub shit

Until he went to Mecca to preach it… and when your seemingly higher than the Hassassins to Muslims…

He got a bitch slap of reality and converted to Sunni Islam

Random, I saw a YouTuber complain how forest grump made fun of the black panthers because they created due to systemic oppression

Just like Khemer rouge with French colonization. Because us black people loved the BP party-

Wait we actually hated them because they were racist af like the kkk? Also they have several domestic abusers in them?

I mean where are they now?…seriously why the kkk still around vs them? Or is blm a new front?

Also I love how they keep saying “they” aka white people out the guns and drugs into our community

It’s the fucking government, they used anything to keep their pets on plantation.

Here a thing I noticing

Black Activists: white people putting the drugs into our communities since the 80’s and killed MLK!

Me: Fascinating, oh should we analyze why our community 75% bastards right after the civil rights movement after primary upper middle boomer feminists projectbcasual sex and other primary upper middle class or elite hendoist behaviors onto the working class?

BA: Nah I like sleeping around

M: Oh that black boys being sexually abused by older girls or women is skyrocketing high

Sorry, yes it effect both genders, but on black twitter, the amount of times black men said they got lucky loosing their “virginity” at fucking 5. It feel like, we need to tell them they were raped

Yes it affects all races, thanks feminism for treating little boys like grown men while female pedos like toddlers.

But if the rampant CSA among black American kids caught wind in mainstream.

The fallout is going to be nasty, sorry just UGH

You guys hate what white people did to us but cling onto the sex revolution like a turkey leg

Hey, I hope your dad doing well

Just got home a little bit ago, he's home and as good as one can be after heart surgery.

But remember that shitty good times sequel cartoon where the daughter is the black military archetype? Which the proud family revival did Okay, so people want to know why Huey Freeman worked?

Huey worked because he called everyone out for their bs, wasn't giving people a pass for their skin colour, at least that's one reason imho.

Asshole but honest iirc.

Well Aaron Mcgruder remembers the later half of Malcom X life. So Huey got calmer over the seasons as he realize at the end of the day he just a kid and still have much to learn Yes yes Malcom believe that Yakub shit

He did chill ya, Wed night we were doing stuff in Genesis at church asked the pastor if Jacob had invented white people by this point in history yet, it got a chuckle, since both Islam and nation of islam have managed to lay claim to some of the Jewish patriarchs, Christians too but we don't claim them or deviate from the Jewish scriptures about them.

Until he went to Mecca to preach it… and when your seemingly higher than the Hassassins to Muslims… He got a bitch slap of reality and converted to Sunni Islam

Ya he managed to be a lot less hateful towards the end, probably why farrakhan (likely) had him assassinated.

Random, I saw a YouTuber complain how forest grump made fun of the black panthers because they created due to systemic oppression

OG BPP did a lot of good, also managed to help get several gun control laws passed in the state of CA because of a wrong turn, Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleavar and a bunch of the rest of them too, were well versed in gun laws at the time and followed them to the letter.

At that point in CA you could observe law enforcement in their actions, from a reasonable distance, 8-10 feet or so, with a shotgun sitting on your shoulder, legally.

Managed to keep some "roughhousing" we'll call it, from the cops happening, as well as making sure they followed the law, they were the cellphone cameras of their time, but far more intimidating.

(When you hear people say that gun laws have racism at their core, this is one of the reasons people say that)

But they had food banks and neighborhood programs to keep kids out of trouble and they did a lot of good, some bad too, but ya they were those uppity N* that wound up being part of the reason the FBI flooded the streets with crack.

You want to see something crazy though, you can learn what the "establishment" actually fears and why they've decided to let racism come back the way they have.

This is Chicago history here, that they likely left out of the books (Article Link here) This is what they fear, Hillbilly Harlem boys can do this, we might get some class solidarity and leave race behind us.

If you look at the timing of everything, what was just before the current wave of new racism was the occupy movement, and they did the whole thing again with that.

Got the NBBP now, they don't go for class solidarity anymore.

I do love to see Americans exercising their 2A rights though, may not like your politics but I support your right to self defense anyhow.

Good back and forth there

Sorry, yes it effect both genders, but on black twitter, the amount of times black men said they got lucky loosing their “virginity” at fucking 5. It feel like, we need to tell them they were raped

That is one of the things they don't really talk about and I don't recall how I managed to get read in to the big secret about everyone's favourite auntie in the neighborhood.

They ain't making a man out of you, like you said it's rape.

Yes it affects all races, thanks feminism for treating little boys like grown men while female pedos like toddlers. But if the rampant CSA among black American kids caught wind in mainstream. The fallout is going to be nasty, sorry just UGH

I feel like it's eeked out here and there, but someone big needs to do a thing about it, bigger than when L&O SVU had Ice-T throw the whole "on the down low" thing out there.

Which that's only gonna be a scandal in the black community, pointing out that there's a designated first lay for the boys in the neighborhood that parents send their kid to, well those that aren't aware of it might make enough noise to do something.

That or get called racist for calling it out for what it is.

You're one of the first people I've seen on here not speak about that in code and whispers.

You guys hate what white people did to us but cling onto the sex revolution like a turkey leg

It's weird the feminists scream about patriarchy and all that stuff but turn a blind eye to child rape that's got the express purpose of "making a man" out of the child that should be allowed to remain a child.

Probably to avoid being called racist, you see how they fail to address child marriage and such in developing countries in favor of things like sexist air conditioning here in the US

It's set that cold because men are expected to wear a suit coat and tie at work, you can wear a sweater they can't remove any more layers of clothing, if anything it's the dress code that's sexist but then you'd need to admit that sexism against men is possible.

Sorry that one has driven me crazy for nearly a decade.

I did say we got my dad home and he's catching up on his papers and all I think, if not he is and that's why this has taken 22 hours to get out, not enough time last night and busy all day.

Hopefully it was worth the wait

[captainobviois]

Ok thanks to @grinn-amadan and @l0v3c0r3e I will be telling.

I want to start with what many conservatives will consider as this movie being over “woke.” There were several moments in the movie where the narrative was slightly broken to insert a quip or a voice over that covered some kind of acknowledgment of something that that could easily have made a rando on Twitter/tumblr/tiktok/whatever mad. There’s a point where Barbie says she’s not pretty and a voice over quips that Margot Robbie was bad casting to make this point. Another time Sasha, played by hispanic actress Ariana Greenblatt, makes a quip about Barbie being a white savior. There’s other moments like this in the move but I think it’s not to just have every possible message covered in this movie, but to protect it from having the important feminist message it contains from being destroyed by the culture of canceling or ignoring the valuable lesson of an entire pierce of media because of one thing.

On to actual messages of this movie. One of the first things that my dad said about the movie was that Ryan Gosling and Margo Robbie are too old to play these characters. I think the casting was genius in so many ways. Gosling is 42 and Robbie is 33. One of the supporting themes in this movie is the way that society devalues you as you age. It’s mainly shown in the context of women losing their youth and being seen as worthless when they gain cellulite, wrinkles, eye bags, whatever else that comes form just living. But they’re all still beautiful and worthy of love despite growing up and aging. There’s no big comment about men getting older in the movie because overall society doesn’t start undervaluing men as they age. However, they do in industries like film. Gosling still looks so good at 42. But somehow people are age shaming him just so casually. It’s an incredibly meta part of the commentary of this movie. I sincerely hope Greta Gerwig made this casting choice with intent.

While we are still on age, I also want to talk about the perceived young mess of Barbie. The point do this doll was that she was an adult. The first major line of dolls for girls that were not babies or children. She could have a fucking career because she’s an adult. My dad (a great man, I love him. Although I will be ragging on him in this post a bit) always thought she was like 17. 17 years old. He, and most likely many men, thought this woman doll with perfect curves and makeup and full tits was 17. I broke the news to him that Robbie was too young to be Barbie last night, since Barbie is in her mid to late 30s. Several careers that Barbie has would take years of med school, PhDs, and not to mention that being the fucking president has an age minimum of 35. And somehow somehow men believe that this movie is still somehow meant to please them. Because they were surprised that the hot blonde doll wasn’t played by the youngest 20 something actress possible for their being pleasure. No one is saying it that plainly, but just thinking that Robbie isn’t good enough to be Barbie, makes this true, and proves the point that I had sort of referred to in a scene earlier when she says shoes not pretty enough. (Margot fucking Robbie is gorgeous and was also an awakening for me when I was 15 so everyone who thinks otherwise can fuck off)

Let’s talk about the message that women are never good enough. Who hates Barbie? Everyone. During a certain stage in everyone’s life, you hate Barbie. Little boys will be told that it’s girly and too feminine, so they’ll foster that toxic masculinity (or sometimes give it up, but I guarantee more most amab people, at some point you tried to live in that toxicity just to fit in and feel accepted). So many girls will hate Barbie while they are in the phase of feminism where you realize that just being associated with female anything is going to hinder you in life so you try to throw away every bit of pink you own and all tour Barbies and other dolls. Many afab people will come back to these things and the color pink and realize that just rejecting femininity isn’t going to solve thier problems. There’s someone else who has explained or talked about this phenomenon better than me, so I’m not getting into it. Y’all all know what I’m talking about. But the bottom line is that people hate Barbie. A doll who was literally made to just be liked. She’s pretty to appeal to the male gaze. She has every career imaginable and branched (imperfectly, but efforts were made) into different ethnicities and body types. And yet she’s still hated. But what is Barbie? Barbie, at her core is just the idea of a woman. And this movie points out, that just that, the idea of a woman is so hated by everyone at least once.

A C-suite of men can have the best intentions for women and think they are great feminists, and still get it so wrong. Ignoring the problems with large corporations for this post, men in charge can do good things. They can belive themselves to be good people. But it is fundamentally a problem for products made for women to be made by men (and this goes for any group to have something made by an other group). This extends to men speaking for women. To have the element of female voice missing from products, policies, spaces, anything made for women results in something that just doesn’t work. I’m not a gender studies expert or someone who knows everything about this manifesting in society. But I know it’s there. I live through the society built by men for men and women as an after thought.

Barbie was made to uplift women, but instead contributed to poor self esteem and oppression. Right so this is partially due to Mattel being run by white men predominantly. And honestly I think it’s really interesting that they chose to affiliate themselves so intensely with the movie (giving all permissions to use their logo and brand and everything). So a lot of girls also hate Barbie because she’s a standard of beauty and imperfection that is unreachable. And the point of Barbie was to help show women in more roles than just mothers. But at the same time it put the pressure on women to be extraordinarily to be valued at all.

There is so much gender binary in this movie. I can see how it’s unappealing for nonbinary people to want to watch it. I myself and somewhere on the spectrum of nb (but as you can probably tell I keep being afab as a major part of my identify because it’s shaped me in fundamental ways that I can’t remove from the structure of my being without crumbling everything I am). There’s something in this move for nb too. Allen was a doll made with the tag line “Ken’s best friend. All of Ken’s clothes fit him too.” It’s marketing to sell another doll with the assurance that he can also wear all the boy clothes that kids would own from the ken doll. There are multiple Kens. There’s only one Allen ever made. This character feels out of place in Barbie land. They’re not one of the Barbies or Kens. But all of Kens clothes fit. He could be like a Ken, but he takes the sides of the Barbies. They are someone other than Ken. They aren’t included in either side. I’m not sure how intentional it was, but there’s a metaphor somewhere in Allen for the trans and nb experience.

Ok now we are reaching territory that may be considered spoilers

The patriarchy is learned behavior. That’s all I think really needs to be said. The movie did such a good job with showing this. The Kens weren’t taught that men are better. But just a few hours in the real world, and Ken learned all these biases and harmful rhetoric about women. And it wasn’t shown as some thing where Ken really hated women, it’s just that a world that caters to your gender specifically is so enticing that he’ll let women be oppressed to have it. And really I think Ken was a good way to just attempt to show men what it’s like to be a woman in the real world. It’s too hard for most men to sympathize with women’s struggles, so here’s a man going through the same thing. Do you get it now? Does it make sense when you see the tables turned?

Ok and the point where Barbie feels guilty for rejecting Ken and dismantling the patriarch he built. The fact that she had to have it pointed out to her that dismantling a broken system that someone made to specifically systemically oppress you because you rejected him isn’t wrong. That is the experience of being a woman. That you are taught to not fight for your rights if it might hurt someone’s feelings. To be empathetic to a point of self harm.

Any kind of gender oppression is wrong. Full stop. Feminism means equality. This movie didn’t end in a perfect society of equality for the Barbies and Kens either. It’s not a perfect ending. It’s supposed to give men that watch it the feeling of disappointment because hey wait a minute that’s still not fair. Even if there was a step made in the right direction in Barbie land towards gender equality. It’s not there yet. BECAUSE ITS NOT THERE IN OUR WORLD EITHER.

The movie captured what it’s like to play with a doll. In the scene with Barbie floating down from her house. Skipping to the good part where the dolls have their parties and award shows without showing the in between because that’s how we think up play scenarios in our minds as kids sometimes. The Kens fighting is just what it’s like when you get a boy to play dolls with you, which is just as fun for girls and just not usually something that we are taught to do in play.

The discussion at the end of the move that Barbie has with her creator Ruth made me sob. Barbie is the idea of a woman. And she stands before her literal god, who loves her so much. The idea of a woman, hated by so many and only created to be loved, asks permission to be human. The idea of a woman asks to just be thought of as human. That’s heartbreaking.

The absolute last scene where she went to see a gyno. She’s dressed with a blazer on and you think she’s going out to her big job or a job interview. Because the two main happy endings for female characters are that they get a man (and it was established her happy ending wasn’t being forced with Ken) or a a corporate girlboss. But it’s a fake out. Because the point is that women are just ordinary people and all still human and she’s going to do something so ordinary and human in just seeing a gynecologist.

There’s so much more that could be said, but I’m not a professional or expert in film analysis or feminist thinking. I really hope someone writes something more eloquent than myself that can go around for people to see why they should take the message of the movie seriously and why it’s so good. It’s not “anti-man” as so many aware saying. It’s just showing what the world is like for women. It’s Mattel taking some responsibility for how their doll lines have affected women.

And on top of all that. It’s so damn FUNNY. I got whiplash going from crying to laughing. It’s so fun, the dialogue, the music, the costumes, the gags. It was just an enjoyable film

I have so many feelings about the Barbie movie. If one person asks I will be spilling paragraphs

[richardsondavis]

This post will NOT cover everything that took place in GamerGate. That simply isn't possible here. GamerGate wasn't one drama, it was many small and large events that unfolded and built upon each other over a period of years, and took place in every part of the internet at once. My aim here is to lay out the key figures, and give a general understanding of what happened and why. There are resources linked throughout the post which can expand on events I mentioned, but there are many more that I left out.

Come with me as we explore the dark corridors of the internet that gave birth to the modern alt-right. I'm going to try and keep this gaming related, because this isn't a political discussion board, but references to greater political movements are unavoidable.

Be warned, this post contains basically every ism and phobia that you could possible imagine. Tread with care.

Also, when I refer to 'gamers' with a lowercase G, I just mean normal gamers as a whole. When I say 'Gamers', I mean Gamergate supporters.

Anita Sarkeesian - Sexism in Gaming

This shitstorm began in 2013, though its roots trace back far earlier, and while it would come to suck in thousands of pundits, politicians and thinkers from around the world, it began with one woman: Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita is a Canadian-American media critic. She started her Youtube Channel Feminist Frequency in 2009, analysing portrayals of women in pop culture. In 2011 she worked with feminist magazine Bitch to create a series of videos titled 'Tropes vs Women', which examined the damaging cliches and stereotypes against women in film and tv. It did pretty well, but she was still a small voice in a small circle. The natural next step was to talk about games, and that's what she did in 2012. 'Tropes vs Women in Video Games' criticised the sexualisation of women in games, the way they are treated as helpless damsels in distress, or given to the player as a reward. As Sarkeesian herself points out in her first episode:

"It's both possible and necessary to simultaneously enjoy media, while also being critical of its problematic or pernicious aspects'.

The videos were pretty even handed, and never really took the 'rabid angry feminist' tone that people have come to portray. I recommend taking a look. Anita was clearly not much of a 'gamer' herself, but she saw the positives that could be drawn from them.

In order to fund the project, Anita created a Kickstarter - which was all the rage back then. The kickstarter drew attention from every corner. Some of it was positive - she asked for $6000, but ended up with almost 7000 backers and $160,000 pledged. However a lot of it was bad.

Keep in mind that this all took place at a very critical moment in the feminist movement. Tumblr and Twitter were at their height, and a lot of positive momentum was being made. The video game industry was gradually becoming more inclusive too. Games at the time were - to much controversy - including more POC, women, and LGBT characters. But at the same time, a push began against this. A lot of men were feeling alienated by the rapid change, and this negative stance on feminism tended to look past the majority (who were pretty reasonable) and focus only on the minority of feminists who were explicitly anti-male. And in time, the progressive community would make the same mistake with gamers. But for now, it was these anti-feminists who saw the premise of Sarkeesian's videos as a threat toward 'their territory' - the male oriented video game industry. Anita became the poster child for everything these men hated. There was a coordinated effort on 4chan to destroy her Kickstarter, to DDOS the site, to report her twitter accounts, and otherwise eliminate her. It got pretty nasty. At the time it was a bit of a shocker just how nasty it got, but little did we know it was just the start.

A number of articles started to surface on various sites documenting the bizarre outrage, and that only lent it more momentum. Kotaku, Polygon, and other more left-leaning gaming news sites headed the exposure.

Anita received enormous harassment on social media, including vast numbers of rape and death threats, and she was doxxed multiple times (a practice in which a person's home address is posted online). Her wikipedia articles were vandalised with racial and sexual slurs, and she was sent drawings of herself being raped. A video game was created, 'Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian', in which players cover a photo of her in blood by clicking on it. Critics who disparaged the 'game' received death threats themselves. The creator of the game, Gregory Alan Elliot, was taken to court. The case had significant implications for online freedom of speech in Canada. She was accused of being Jewish, and received enormous amounts of antisemitism dubbing her Jewkeesian, until it came to light that her heritage was actually Armenian - and the harassment switched to an Armenian theme without skipping a beat.

Anita capitalised on her infamy, and used it to speak out on sexual harassment at TEDxWomen, as well as several universities. She was scheduled to speak at the 2014 Game Developer's Choice Awards, and would receive an accolade herself, but an anonymous bomb threat was called in to try and get the event cancelled. It really is hard to overstate the sheer level of vitriol this woman had thrown at her. But she would not be the only one.

"I don't get to publicly express sadness or rage or exhaustion or anxiety or depression, I can't say that sometimes the harassment really gets to me, or conversely that the harassment has become so normal that sometimes I don't feel anything at all. I don't get to express feelings of fear or how tiring it is to be constantly vigilant of my physical or digital surroundings. How I don't go to certain events because I don't feel safe. Or how I sit in the more secluded areas of coffee shops and restaurants so the least amount of people can recognise me."

Zoe Quinn - Ethics in Journalism

Zoe Quinn is an American video game developer and writer. In 2013, she released the game 'Depression Quest', a text-based game in which the player roleplays as themselves and is taken through a number of scenarios relating to depression. The game was based on her own experiences, and was received positively by critics. It's a raw and heartfelt project, and I really recommend it. However, there was a contingent who insisted that Depression Quest couldn't really be called a game, and it's true that it blurred the lines between a book, a visual novel, and a game.

This began a broad - and still ongoing - conversation within the gaming community. What is a game? People tried to come up with a clear cut definition, but there was always something that fell outside it. Does it need a failure state? That rules out Animal Crossing, which is definitely a game. Does it need an end point? That rules out Tetris. Does it need violence? Does it need characters? Does it need interactivity? Does it need choice? Does it need goals? Does it need visuals or sound? It's easy to look at most games and say 'yes, that's a game'. It's easy to look at a book or film and say it isn't. But when projects approach the line, things get a bit confusing. There are those who looked at Depression Quest and saw a book with extra steps, and there are those who insisted it was a game, but with all the extraneous stuff taken away. This is a massive philosophical debate, but we're here for drama, so let's move on. All you need to know is - it got great reviews, and some players were unhappy.

Zoe was added to the list of persona non grata. She received her own wave of death and rape threats, but rather than backing away, she documented them and spoke out about them to the media. This earned her even more hatred, which steadily grew more and more intense, to the point where she fled her home out of fear for her own safety.

But it wasn't until August 2014 that 'GamerGate' as we know it would officially begin. And it started at the hands of a relative unknown name, even now. Zoe's former boyfriend Eron Gjoni published a long and sprawling blog post about their relationship in which he levelled a number of accusations against her, the most inflammatory of which was that she had been given positive coverage (of Depression Quest, among other things) by a Kotaku journalist with whom she was sexually involved. This was a false accusation. It later came out that this journalist, Nathan Grayson, had barely ever mentioned Quinn or her work, and when he did, they hadn't been together. But never let the truth get in the way of a good story. The letter included copies of chat logs, text messages, and emails, and for all the world appeared to be legit.

The Gamers in question accused Zoe of exchanging sexual favours for positive press and professional advancement in what they called the 'Quinnspiracy'. Of course, Zoe Quinn stood to gain nothing from the praise Depression Quest received. Contrary to the claims that she was using her status as a woman to gain money... the game was free. And always had been. But this spawned one 'debate' which would go on to define GamerGate - that of ethics in game journalism. Video game press came under enormous scrutiny, especially the left-leaning Kotaku. The idea was that if a pundit/reviewer/critic was left leaning, their views could not be relied upon, because according to GamerGate, they were biased. Large lists were created to map out the various 'SJW Journalists', which boiled down to a blacklist of public figures who spoke out against GamerGate.

But for Zoe, it just meant abuse.

A lot of this began on 4chan - because of course it did - and users leapt at the chance to renew their attacks on Zoe Quinn and Depression Quest. Adam Baldwin (yes that one) coined the term GamerGate on Twitter, and his followers sent it trending. GamerGate gradually developed into a movement which would viciously attack anyone it saw as a target, and had its base in 4chan and Reddit.

Within four months of the blog post, Quinn's record of threats had exceeded a thousand. Around that time she is quoted as saying:

"I used to go to game events and feel like I was going home [...] Now it's just like... are any of the people I'm currently in the room with ones that said they wanted to beat me to death?".

I would go into detail on the exact content of these threats but frankly, I don't want to. All you need to know is that they contain the worst possible things that some very creative people could come up with. Quinn's Tumblr, Dropbox and Skype accounts were hacked, and she once again fled to live with friends. Everyone even tangentially connected to her got showered with hatred. It was a full on witch hunt.

In a BBC interview, Zoe summed up her experience.

"To me, GamerGate will always be glorified revenge porn by my angry ex. Before it had a name, it was nothing but trying to get me to kill myself, trying to hurt me, going after my family. GamerGate will always be that to me. There was no mention of ethics in journalism at all, besides making the same accusation everybody makes toward any successful women, that clearly she got to where she is because she had sex with someone".

EDIT: There was a section here in which I covered the Alec Holowka scandal in 2019, but commenters pointed out that it isn't really relevant to GamerGate, and I agree with them, so I removed it.

Brianna Wu - Taking Action

Wu is an American video game developer and the founder of Giant Spacekat, a small game studio. In October 2014, she began monitoring 8chan (think 4chan's even worse cousin), and began tweeting about GamerGate, ridiculing them for:

"...fighting an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3 percent".

In the process, she placed herself in the sights of the mob. Anonymous details about her, including her address, were leaked on 8chan, and of course she got the standard death and rape threats, and had to flee her home. If this seems like it's becoming a pattern, that's because it is. The pattern would repeat itself over and over going forward. A minor figure speaks out about something, right wingers try to shut them up with abuse, they use that abuse to increase their platform (thereby becoming a minor left wing celebrity), they become an even bigger target, and they soon end up plastered across the internet.

But to the fury of many Gamers everywhere, none of these women were backing down. In February 2015, Wu declared:

"By attacking me so viciously, they're helping give me the visibility to usher in the very game industry they're terrified about".

Wu created a legal defence fund for women targeted by GamerGate, offered cash for information leading to the prosecution of its worst members, and became heavily involved with the FBI. She exclusively attended events with a security detail. As of today, she and her husband continue to live under aliases.

In 2017, the FBI closed their investigation and declined to prosecute any of the men who sent threats (even though two had confessed). Wu went to the media, campaigning for dedicated FBI agents who understand and monitor the dark corners of the internet like 8chan.

While Wu, Sarkeesian and Quinn would become the three horsewomen of the GamerGate apocalypse, they were not alone. Other women who became major targets include Jenni Goodchild, Liana Kerzner, Devi Ever, Leigh Alexander, Felicia Day, and more. It simply isn't possible to cover every single victim of this movement.

At the time, most people who played video games had no idea this was even going on. And often it was getting swept up in generalisations that turned regular gamers into Gamers. There were those who felt like they were being unfairly portrayed as sexist/racist/whatever else, and responded indignantly. This became heavily involved with the #notallmen and #yesallmen movements (and then #notallgamers). But sometimes those generalisations were right. There was a lot of anger going around in general.

Vivian James - Politics in Gaming

Of course, to the 4channer, the ideal woman doesn't exist. She has to be created. And so Vivian was born. Vivian James (chosen because it sounds like Video Games) was created as a mascot for GamerGaters on 4chan, and her portrayal tells us a lot about what Gamers wanted women to be. She was an anthropomorphized avatar of the /v/ (Vidya) community on 4chan, created in response to a totally separate Zoe Quinn controversy surrounding game jams (events in which developers race to make weird and wacky games). She was used in propaganda as a champion of ‘free speech’.

You see, one of the many debates (and we must use this term loosely) that GamerGate created was that of 'politics' in gaming. Representation was increasing of LGBT people, POC and women in games, and some players insisted that these inclusions were politically motivated. They claimed that games as a medium were not meant to be 'political', and forcing 'politics' into the games was a negative thing. They wanted a return to the 'non-political' status quo - and it just so happened that the status quo was white straight American men (usually with guns). Because they themselves were mostly white straight American men, it never struck them as political for a game to feature a white straight American man, it was simply normal. The default. And any deviation from this was labelled as 'political'.

Of course, any intelligent person can see through this to its deeper meaning - these players didn't want gays, women, and non white characters in their games because they were prejudiced. All media is political in some way. Even games which try not to be political.

This is what GamerGate boils down to - a war over the status quo. One side pushing for change, the other pushing to stop that change.

Vivian never mentioned her gender, her ideas or her politics when she played a game - you could play against her and mistake her for a guy. Rather than disrupt the status quo by existing, she allowed it to absorb her. And that's what Gamers wanted from all minorities - they were welcome as long as they didn't disrupt games as a haven where everything is catered to the default player, a white straight American man. Vivian was a 'real gamer' because she embraced the default. Anyone who rejected that default was a fake gamer, whose love of games was a lie, and whose real purpose was sabotage.

This links in pretty heavily to the #NotYourShield movement, basically a platform for women, POC and LGBT Gamers who supported GamerGate and saw its opponents as exploiting them as a shield to deflect criticism. Ironically, GamerGate used these people as evidence that they were not prejudiced at all, in a very 'I'm not racist, my best friend is black' kind of way.

Penning the Playbook

GamerGate had found an effective way of tearing down its targets, and its playbook would come to include strategies like gaslighting, dogpiling, sea lioning, gish galloping, and dogwhistling - and would inform the strategies of the alt right. By creating a state of fear, where people are too scared to even speak against GamerGate, they were able to silence opposition. And unlike its opposition, who were very real and public figures, GamerGate was decentralised and anonymous, akin to a swarm with no individual leader or face, and which therefore was incredibly hard to defeat. This was never a two way street. Of course, GamerGate had its open and public supporters. Let's go through a few of these colourful characters now!

Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad)

Sargon is your standard basement dweller youtuber, the kind of guy who DESTROYS libs with FACTS and REASON. He gained a lot of traction from GamerGate, and he explains why here. You can kind of imagine him as a more extreme Ben Shapiro.

Richard Spencer

Another Nazi. Richard Spencer was a big supporter of GamerGate. You can look into himself if you like but frankly I don't want to do the research into him because that means I have to watch and read shit he has said. His main claim to fame is being the man who coined the term 'Alt Right'

John Bain (Totalbiscuit)

Totalbiscuit was a popular game critic who died of bowel cancer in 2018. He is widely credited with being the man who legitimised GamerGate. It should be pointed out that Bain was never a white supremacist or abuser or anything like that - and he is often wrongly characterised as being more extreme than he really is. He was conservative, aggressive and thin skinned, but he wasn't evil. To him, GamerGate was always about ethics in journalism, what defines a game, and politics in gaming. He had been an ethical crusader long before GamerGate, and so none of this is truly surprising. He was either incredibly naive or just wilfully ignored the fact that these online movements were just fronts. It is somewhat ironic how much he had in common with James Stephanie Sterling (once known as Jim Sterling before transitioning), another British pro-consumer activist and long-time collaborator, who was always on the total opposite end of the GamerGate spectrum. Indeed, most of John's closest associates were anti-GamerGate.

I met TB once at a convention and he seemed nice enough.

Milo Yiannopoulos

During his time working at Breitbart, Milo was an outspoken supporter of GamerGate. His big thing was that he was a gay right-winger, and he used his homosexuality to deflect criticism for his views. He has since been banned from basically every site possible. Like many others, he seemed somewhat right leaning at first, but gradually unveiled himself as a full on nazi.

Steven Jay Williams (Boogue2988)

Boogie is a youtuber who came to fame through the persona of 'Francis', in which he would put on a funny voice and rage about minor things. But gradually he became more popular just for being himself, and his own views. When GamerGate first emerged, Boogie tried to stay moderate, but his views got more and more extreme as time went on. In 2017, Boogie had a gastric bypass surgery, which made him lose weight. But after that, he revealed himself to be quite a nasty person.

Christina Hoff Sommers

Sommers is an author and philosopher of ethics, and a resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. She is probably the most 'legit' of GamerGate's supporters, and has carved out a niche in making right wing talking points palatable to the average person, before they move on to the more extreme online figures.

EDIT: Steve Bannon

As a commenter pointed out to me, I've left out someone important. While Steve Bannon himself was not very strongly linked to GamerGate, he was the founder of the heavily right wing site Breitbart, which gave a platform to Milo Yiannopoulos and many others. Bannon would go on to play a pivotal role in the Trump presidency.

Sexism in Gaming Studios

While this is far removed from GamerGate, it's a case of 'the birds coming home to roost'. The movements that GamerGate helped to start have returned and taken many large game developers by storm in recent years. I thought I would go over some of them.

Part 1: The Fellowship of the Rats

The first big publisher to go under the magnifying glass was Ubisoft. In mid 2020 they came under fire for sexual harassment allegations.

Last month the company, one of the world’s largest video game publishers with a portfolio including Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, launched a probe after allegations of sexual misconduct were shared online. Serge Hascoet, chief creative officer and the company’s second-in-command, has resigned, as has the human resources director, Cecile Cornet, and the managing director of the Canadian branch, Yannis Mallat, Ubisoft said on Sunday.

MANY of Ubisoft's executives were forced to stand down.

This video goes into a lot of detail on exactly how much of this abuse was covered up at Ubisoft.

Unfortunately a year later, Ubisoft had made minimal changes. Luckily for them, the spotlight would soon be stolen away.

Part 2: The Two Lawsuits

This particular controversy concerns Activision Blizzard. After a two year investigation, the company was found to have extreme harassment against women and minorities, and has discrimination baked into its terms and conditions of employment. Everything from compensation, assignment, promotion and termination is affected by gender. The entire company is governed by a 'Frat Boy Culture'. California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against them..

At first, Blizzard's president Allen Brack claimed no knowledge of this. But then numerous former and current Blizzard employees spoke up to support the accusations. They insisted that almost nothing was being done within the company to fix it. On 26 June, more than 800 employees (eventually as many as 2000) signed an open letter too their leadership demanding that Blizzard recognise the seriousness and show compassion for victims. When that didn't work, employees held a meeting and on 28 July, organised the Activision Blizzard Walk Out For Equality. Turnout exceeded two hundred.

Renowned scumbag Bobby Kotick released a statement describing Blizzard's earlier statement as 'tone deaf' and promised 'swift action'.

An article by Kotaku went into more detail on the infamous 'Cosby Suite', and revealed that Ghostcrawler (one a high-up on World of Warcraft) was on the list of guests.

Numerous developers left the company, either in protest or due to allegations against them. More and more horrible stories began to emerge, far worse than the original lawsuit had uncovered. Sponsors pulled out, investors filed a class action lawsuit toward the company, and Brack stepped down.

You can read more about it here

Hilariously, Blizzard also completely neutered any remotely sexual or flirtatious lines, emotes and jokes out of WoW.

Part 3: The Return of the Gamers

Since then, numerous other companies have been accused of similar problems. Paradox Interactive, SCUF, Insomniac Games, Bethesda. In fact, it might be easier to list the gaming companies that haven't had any allegations.

It turns out that the people who worked in these companies were often just as nasty as the fans.

Luckily, the reaction has been a far cry from GamerGate. On that, at least, we seem to have made some progress. And I suppose that's something to be optimistic about.

A Troubled Legacy

So what is the legacy of GamerGate? It never really 'concluded' or 'finished'. But if we zoom out on our scope a little, we see that it was just a tributary which flowed into the greater river of the alt-right. And from that river would spill forth Donald Trump, Pizzagate, Qanon, the Manosphere, and Incels. GamerGate was arguably just a microcosm of a much greater societal movement, not its cause, but it was the moment that young online conservatives began to push back against progressivism, and collectively organise. It was the moment where their techniques for censorship, propaganda and recruitment would be rewritten for the internet era. And it was the moment when thousands of online fascists looked around and realised their views weren't that rare after all.

The positive effects have been there too, however. The push back against Gamergate has definitely helped us recognise the dark corners of the internet, and also led to widespread changes in the industry. But the consequences of GamerGate have not yet fully shown themselves.

It's hard to say where it will all lead.

[monkberries]

So here goes: Personally I find Paul to be hot with a beard. But it annoys me because there’s always some Paul stan who’s like “he was super depressed during that time you know” anytime someone says how hot he looks with a beard. Like first of all, I don’t think we should go around diagnosing people and assuming how he felt 24/7 just based on a couple of quotes when we don’t know him, and second of all I was just saying he looks good. Also idk why Paul stans want to pretend like Paul is STILL a victim when he’s definitely not. He’s a super successful billionaire musician. He’s fine.

I'm going to assume all four of these were from the same anon; I received another along these same lines that seems to be from someone else:

OKAY. There's a lot here.

As I've said before, I think the concept you are both talking about - that Paul is the favourite, that people will attack you if you criticize him, that people are vilifying John more now - is true, but is also a matter of perspective. I think sometimes we perceive the whole fandom as just the people we're surrounded by; that can be true in smaller fandoms, like for obscure shows or whatever, but for the Beatles, the fandom is so much bigger and more spread out across generations, social media platforms, and works of literature than almost any other fandom. There are literally thousands upon thousands of books either about or tangentially about the Beatles; there are pockets on every platform from tumblr to twitter to podcasts to instagram to facebook etc., and it branches off even more niche within those to like, facebook groups specifically for podcasts about the Beatles, or discord servers, or livejournal threads, or music forums, or fics on ao3. There are fansites with thoughtful speculative articles like heydullblog and blogs specifically reviewing Beatle books like beatlebioreview and sites cataloging every bit of minutiae like the Beatles Bible, all with their own flavor of comment sections. And not only that, the Beatles fandom spans generations and cultures in a way that almost nothing else ever has or ever will.

And this is not even going into the shifting narratives that have been in play over the years surrounding Paul specifically, and the huge, huge difference between the perceptions of him by the authors and the Counterculture People, the perceptions of him by regular ass Wings fans who have only idly flipped through Rolling Stone while waiting in line at the local bodega, and the perceptions of him by everyone in between, who may or may not have been unconsciously influenced by the wider narratives about him.

All that is to make the case that the fandom that you are experiencing on tumblr/twitter is an extremely small fraction of The Fandom at large. For every Paul stan on twitter that yells at people for not believing that Paul literally invented music, there is a John stan in a facebook group going on about John's supposedly tireless peace efforts. For every nuanced, well sourced post on amoralto's blog, there is someone in the Beatles Bible comment section saying that John and Paul hated each other. For every fan who's read the major Beatles bios with a critical eye towards bias, there are plenty more fans who just absorbed them as straight fact. This is not to say that your experiences are not real or valid! They absolutely are! What I am saying is that there are infinite permutations of infinite Beatles fandoms out there, and the people you see who insist that Paul is still treated worse than John, I would imagine, are occupying various permutations of the fandom where that is more true, alongside the one they share with you. It's not for me to say whether the Paul or John people have the upper hand on the whole - truly, I don't think anyone has enough perspective on the whole fandom to make any judgment on that, no matter what general Grand Pronouncements anyone may make about The Fandom.

As I've said before, any overly defensive "stan" behavior, whether it's for John or Paul or George or anyone, is exhausting to me, so I definitely understand where you're coming from re: him being supposedly underrated. He is literally one of the most successful musicians of all time; as of the beginning of this year, he is worth 1.2 billion dollars; and, thanks to his own efforts and the efforts of quite a few fans and writers out there over the decades, he now enjoys an incredibly positive "granddude" reputation. There are ways in which it can be exasperating to read yet another indignant refutation of music reviews for RAM that came out fifty years ago, when his last three albums have hit the top 3 in the charts in both the US and the UK and have gotten great reviews. I have seen people wonder, honestly wonder, how much more money Paul could have made, how much more respected he could have been, if the rock press had been inclined to give RAM good reviews. When I see that, it does start to feel like fans of Paul, at least the defensive ones in the fandom permutations I occupy, are arguing with the author photo of Philip Norman in the book jacket for Shout!. It's not that I think those arguments and discussions are not worth having; I do think they're worth having because I believe that the only way we can continue to grow is if we grapple with the mistakes made in the past. But there is a strange kind of disconnect that happens when you read about someone indignantly defending Wild Life as though the members of Wings are currently, actively having eggs and rotten fruit thrown at them, and then you remember that Paul is currently, and has been for many years now, one of the richest men in the entire world.

As for the misogyny thing, I'll copy and paste a quote from Erin Weber which may explain a little better than I can:

"Where it starts entering into serious discussion for me is when you have professional grown men (Schaffner would be the most glaring example of this, but not the only one) repeatedly using the term “pretty” or “pretty-faced” to refer to another grown man. (Norman does the same). Schaffner doesn’t only do that once or twice, he uses one of those exact words at least fifteen times in his references to McCartney. “Pretty-boy” is also a term that at least one journalist has used to describe Paul, and that’s not a stealth insult: that’s an overt one. (My husband, who hates the Yankees, routinely used the term “pretty-boy” to insult Alex Rodriguez. And it wasn’t meant as a compliment).

My reaction to this is based both on studies that I’m aware of (I’d have to hunt them up, but I’ve seen them referenced before) which argue that the use of feminized language can be a method of stealth insult/diminishment when used by men to describe other men, and my own personal experience. It is difficult to see a situation where a grown man using the term “pretty” or any variation of the word “pretty” to describe another grown man means it as a compliment. Even if its purely meant as a descriptive term, it is a descriptive term that is weighted with significant meaning and is feminizing. And given the rock press’s obsession with masculinity and its insistence, as noted in other studies, of using masculine terms to portray a song as good and feminizing terms to describe them as weak or inferior, I don’t think its a coincidence that a rock press that knew well the power of masculine and feminine language commonly used feminized language, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, to describe McCartney."

I personally see this more as pseudo-homophobic than pseudo-misogynistic (like, when I see a man called "pretty" by another man in an insulting way, I immediately think "oh, that author wanted to say a gay slur but he's too Professional"), but the two things can get muddled together, I suppose.

Anyway, actionable items:

Diversify Your Fan Experience. More perspectives can really help gain a fuller understanding of not just the fandom but the Beatles themselves. Don't be afraid to be wrong, and don't be afraid to be right; always be open to learning new things and hearing new insights.

If All Else Fails, Block 'Em.

[keyboardsinmyface]

@pobopolybius Why hello there! Glad you asked! I actually did some research on the TERF claim in the meantime, since the last thing I want is to accidentally defend incels again.

First, disclaimer:

I support women's right, and by extension feminism

I do not support TERF movement or any radical ideas that distorts true goal of feminism

I support freedom of speech

I do not support misandry and hate as freedom of speech

I do not support firing employees on short notice because of mob pressure

And now, let's get to the gist. You can skip this part and shit talk me anyway if you think this is too bothersome or doesn't fit in with your worldview :)

"The artist is not a TERF the incels said they chose to call her one so that westerners would get angry"

You've probably read the tweets that are going aroud as 'proof' of her being a TERF. I tried to get to the source myself to see the real things, but unfortunately I had no choice but to stick with what I have. (wayback machine didn't work. If anyone knows how to get the source of the images please let me know) Here is the translated tweets from someone on reddit. it's machine translated, so some of the nuances are lost in translation.

Yes, most of the tweets does not have or has very little value as proof. (and I just discovered that they included pro-abortion tweet in there which I find it stupid. Just because some scumbag said one right thing in their life doesn't mean it magically changes into wrong thing. Abortion rights ftw) However, I can say it with confidence that three of these certainy carries the rhetorics of Megalia-WOMAD, which is indeed a TERF community. (Here are some non-incel articles with actual in-depth research as to why they are such a big deal, and how they have ruined Korean feminism movement and escalated nationwide gender conflict for good: [X] [X] [X])

I know that these are just retweets and none of them are Vellmori's actual words, so I still can't figure out what her real opinion on these was. However, I can say for certain that she indeed had multiple exposures to TERF propaganda from her twitter mutuals in her teenage years.

This retweet was made in 2018, about an year after Megalia was shut down after causing series of public incidents and infighting(2017). By this time, Megalia's infamy was so widespread across the internet so there is very little chance that Vellmori didn't know about this.

But then again, she was still a teenager so we can't be sure if she really knew what she was retweeting.

("are you counting kimchi?" part is translation error.)

At first glance, this may sound like harmless joke towards men and razors, although the overall tone is a bit unnecessarily hostile (I can only assume that they tried to mirror the nasty things incels say about tampons or something). The word "냄성" , which is missing in the translated version due to error, is unmistakably the iconic slur used in Korean radfem community. and on top of that "Are you Kimchi?" at the end implies "You are a self-important incel who strokes one's ego by wasting money on expensive junks".

Again, this is just a retweet so we don't know Vellmori's real opinion on this. But there is no way she was completely oblivious about the TERF ideas behind the words.

And… this. the supposed "opposing illegal filming" rally that Vellmori supported. This is where many 'westerners' were fed with misinformation. All I can say that illegal filming issue was just a dogwhistle to give them some semblence of moral ground. Also, this protested is considered as one of the cause that drove Korea's gender conflict issue into the hellpit of TERF vs INCEL shitshow with very little grey area. I'll just provide you with some sources that will give you ideas as to how did this event unfold [1] [2] [3].

While this is the most solid proof that she was exposed to TERF ideas, I must admit that this has the loosest connection to Vellmori because this isn't a retweet but rather something that was sent to her by someone.

Perhaps she really thought she was doing something right without knowing the true nature of this protest? I have no idea. but seeing that the poster says this is already the 6th one, I don't think she had been that oblivious.

Conclusion: I can't verify her as a TERF, but there's no mistake that she was at least influenced by their idologies. To what degree? I don't know. We don't know until Vellmori officially voices her opinion herself. You can spew out as many accusations on me as you like, but I stand my ground on this: the so-called 'feminist' ideas she was fed with was NOT a healthy variant at all.

They also accused her of being a shotacon because Sinclair is not wearing a shirt on his skin when he's a grown ass man. Are you gonna take their word for that too?

I have never heard of such accusations running about from the sources I know. Please give me some links to it, even better if it didn't come from twitter.

Also, If you thought I'd accuse someone of being a shotacon, then fuck off. I've seen too many lolicon scumbags who purposely draw women to look like underage girls, just so they can claim "its a grown ass woman so it's not lolicon". I know for a certain that such accusation is not to be taken lightly at all.

So yeah, here's my research, and my opinion that followed. Fuck INCELs, Fuck TERFs, Fuck extremists who doxxes people with false propaganda. Fuck Project Moon for ruining their game's reputation and digging their own grave by firing someone in such haste manner.

I hope you are satisfied. Have a nice day. please block me and move on with your life. I have my own to take care of, and I don't want to go through another ideology check like this.

Lesson learned:

I was a fucking clown for standing up for DC people 🤡

Peehaps I had become too insensitive to their casual misogyny over the times I've visited the website for information.

Hopefully I wouldn't make same mistake again in my life.

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

But the real tragedy of JK “during BLM Month, I will leverage my fear of rape to remove rights from a vulnerable minority” Rowling is...

...twitter is the wrong place to work through your trauma. I don’t doubt that experiencing sexual violence or intimate partner violence messes you up, in ways that take a long time to heal.

When she writes that, she liked a transphobic post she was reading, and was deluged with hate in response - let’s take her at her word that yeah, this is a horrible thing to experience. The type of thing that sets-alight deep rooted sense of threat. And when she writes that, at the same time, she was lovebombed by support from the transphobic feminist community - I can believe that too, that this would have felt great.

One thing I learnt today is this:

In other words, despite speaking On Behalf Of Women, transphobic feminism only really represents ~13% of cis women. 72% are fairly comfortable with it. 

(interestingly, cis men, are actually more uncomfortable/uncertain, but only by a little bit)

So who are those 4%, of which Rowling is a member? Despite the popular trope of referring to these women as privileged, it doesn’t take too much compassion to assume that these are women who are dealing with their trauma very, very badly. That doesn’t make it OK, but it does perhaps give us more data and insight. Similarly with radical feminism as a framework, the feminist strand most likely to explore/promote the experience of women as threatened and besieged by an occupying army of men, who are always and innately a violence risk; the feminist strand which promoted women’s land - only spaces without men can be safe - and political lesbianism - only relationships without men can be safe. Suffice to say, this is a movement within feminism profoundly shaped and motivated by fear.

And it’s hard to reason with that.

Now, this doesn’t fully excuse it as a behavior. Regardless of the intent or understandable, the damage is still very real. But check out the elision in Rowling’s argument: “speaking as a person who has experienced violence from a man outside of a single-sex space, this experience grants me legitimacy in fearing violence from a transgender woman inside of a single sex space.” Now, if one was to make an unclassy attempt to close-read a trauma survivor disclosing abuse, one could argue that...the behavior of men-who-live-as-men is not relevant to the behavior of men-who-live-as-transgender-women. And the experience of abuse in one’s life generally is not relevant to the danger of abuse in a single sex space. If this was a campaign of people who had been hurt by actual trans-identified people inside single sex spaces, then this would need to be a different conversation. But it isn’t.

And that’s how trauma works, and it’s horrible.

And this is relevant, and somewhat tasteless, for Rowling & the media to invoke at a time of focus on black history & protest because a very same line of argument was used historically to deny rights to, and in many cases hurt or murder, black men: “as a white woman, black men existing makes me feel ~a vague sense of threat~, and therefore it should be illegal for them to walk on pavements or look at me”.

When I watched to Kill a Mockingbird with my ex, he said he’d never before considered how problematic it was for such a foundational story to be one about a false rape accusation, and he wondered about the impact of that on beliefs about women because it is so often studied by teens. That’s a great point, and it’s sort of the same challenge here. You don’t want to dismiss or invalidate people who are, very sincerely, feeling afraid, especially if they’ve had these past experiences which have shaped their threat-response. But at the same time...

No one, really, works through trauma with perfect grace or dignity; but it’s still important to avoid taking it out on people when you can. And doubly so when you’re having a threat response to, not an individual, but a whole class of people. How do you navigate that? IDK, but I’m going to hazard a guess and say your twitter notifications is perhaps the worst possible place to find the support you need. Hash it out with a therapist or trusted friend. Journal it. Go to an in-person community group. You know? It’s like watching radicalisation take place in real time, and it is a tragedy because...survivors deserve better than having their experiences weaponised by a nasty political campaign, and now the boundless compassion of the British media, their readers and their comment sections too.

[simqly-me]

Everybody talks about how great an Avengers reality TV show would be, and I totally agree, but what about an X-Men reality TV show? Like, Charles allows a TV crew to come and record around the school so more kids want to go, and it all goes to complete shit. Like, imagine what they all would be doing

Peter-

He’d be annoying as he possibly could, and prank literally everyone. He’d try to make it look like the worst possible place you could go to. Sometimes Warren would get in on his pranks, unless Kurt found out and forced him out of it. He’d constantly annoy Scott to the point of Scott being completely ready to murder him, and would skip out on all of his chores. They try to get him to stop going on camera, but this little bitch always finds a way. He is super immature, but can act serious if needed. He’d make a bunch of shitty references and play video games all the time. When someone is talking, you can almost always see him doing Fortnite dances in the back for no reason but his own amusement. He plays a bunch of old songs, and is always blasting them, in the middle of the night. Scott almost throws his speakers out the window multiple times. He also has a record player- and he usually plays Queen or some shit. The show has almost gotten copyrighted so many times because of him.

Scott-

Tries to make the school look perfect. Talks about the academics, the clubs, and how everyone is welcome. In a lot of angles, you can see him quietly studying in the background. He introduces the newer kids to the camera crew, and the crew follow him around as he shows them around the school. He’s completely done with Peter’s bullshit. The crew has witnessed him try to laser Peter multiple times, but he only does it because he knows Peter can quickly dodge it. He’s often the subject of Peter’s pranks. Tries to make it look like they live in a safe environment, five minutes later the kitchen and common room are both up in flames, Ororo is trying to put them out with her powers, Jean happens to be the one who started them after Peter pissed her off, Peter’s running around because somehow his jacket caught on fire, Jubilee is bawling her eyes out, Warren is pissing himself laughing, and Kurt’s no where to be seen. He has teleported all the way to Guatemala. He is starting a new life there. He can no longer deal with the constant fear he has living there. Scott is just 320% disappointed with his friends antics.

Jean-

It takes the camera crew a while to find her, sometimes. She tries not to be on it a lot. She usually hides out in the back of the library, studying. She can also be found hanging out with the group, one of the only times she seems content when they film her. She also tries to help a bit with Scott’s cause, that the school is great, but often finds herself listing the shitty parts instead. She sets stuff on fire because of Peter a lot, and is quick to apologize after, begging for forgiveness. She can also be found at the archery range, but they decide not to bother her, as she seems happy and calm and not stressed for once. She’s usually the calmest one, except for one she gets really pissed. Everyone goes to her for advice, and she’s actually insanely trustworthy with information (Well, she has been hearing everyone’s secrets her whole life).

Kurt-

Literally has no idea what is happening. 110% confused he just wants peace and quiet. He was surprised the first time he watched a TV show, and now they’re suddenly in one? And there’s no script? What is he supposed to say?! He goes to Jean for help because he’s kind of embarrassed that he doesn’t get it. Even after getting advice, he’s still really confused. Almost every time the camera lands on him, he teleports away because he’s scared of screwing it up. Warren tries to assure him he’s fine, but he’s still scared as hell. Sometimes the camera crew catch him reacting to things he’s never seen before because of the circus. Jubilee usually is the one introducing him to them. Oh, him and Jubilee watch the Bachelor together. The camera crew find him sleeping all the time. Doesn’t matter where. He is asleep. They do not bother him. The simply get a quick shot, and move on. He’s just an oblivious adorable dork who needs help around things.

Warren-

Having the time of his life. He loves the cameras, because he can say things the whole world can hear. Has criticized his dad multiple times on camera, hoping he would hear it. He gets in on Peter’s pranks a lot and loves pissing people off. He honestly does not give a fuck if people are mad at him because he holds his own opinions. They catch him drunk multiple times, and it’s always fucking hilarious. The flying shots they get of him are pretty cool, too. He’s, surprisingly, apologized on the show about the Apocalypse situation. Acts protective of Kurt, and is almost always seen with him. Warren and Peter hold a love-hate relationship. They make fun of each other a lot, but, they’re kind of best friends. They tell each other almost everything. They’ve been caught smoking on the roof and talking before, and Warren calls him his birth name to annoy him. Warren’s wings are super fluffy, and the whole group seems to think so, because they’re always all up on them. He was caught red-handed one night when they found him with a bunch of conditioner, bringing the entire bag into the bathroom to shower with. He had to admit it then and there- he conditions them in fear of anyone getting hurt because of them. He acts bitchy, but he cares. He was lucky enough to earn their trust in the first place, in his opinion.

Ororo-

She often talks about serious issues on camera, because she finally has the platform to do so. The camera crew comes with her to Black Lives Matter and feminism events. She protests often, and people start to recognize her at the protests because of the show. She sometimes disappears for days to weeks, confusing everyone when she comes back with a group of new mutants. “Found them, adopted them,” Is her only response when questioned. She can be insanely hilarious at times. When she’s super upset, she’ll make it storm for days and lock herself away in her room. One time they recorded her decking a guy for catcalling her, even after she said to go away. Her hair is constantly changing, and nobody knows how. She’ll not leave the mansion at all and one moment she has this hair style, the next she’ll have a different one.

Jubilee-

Literally ecstatic about the cameras. Bubbly the whole time, she’ll bounce around and show the camera’s her favorite areas of the school. She rants about the most random shit on camera, and at random times will shout herself out. ‘Follow me on Instagram @-’ ‘My Twitter is-’. She’ll talk about her favorite shows and her dreams and such, and she’s just really pure the whole time. An absolute queen. She lets the camera crew record one of her girl nights with Jean and Ororo. Most expect it to be super cliche, with facemasks on while they paint each other’s nails. But- but no. They’re pranking everyone. Scott automatically believes it to be Peter, meanwhile the trio is climbing in the vents over him. Everyone in the mansion is surprised after seeing the episode, and Peter has a smug look on his face when Scott apologizes for getting pissed at him.

Wade-

Nobody knows how the fuck this dude is getting into the mansion. He literally should not be there. He keeps sneaking in and talking about shit that no one understands. ‘Wow, a TV show in a movie franchise?!’ They try to kick him out, but he keeps coming back somehow. He is everywhere. There is no stopping him. Starts paintball fights in the corridors and where the hell did he get all of these paintball guns?! They’ve tried every single thing they could, but, Wade is there to stay. Only a few people have actually seen his face since he’s always wearing that damned mask.

Charles-

A tired Mom™ . Regrets the show a few weeks in, but he can’t stop now. There’s a fan base. A fan base! And so many more young mutants have been registering to get in! Talks about mental health a lot, and how they can offer therapy sessions at the school. Tries to stop all of the shit that happens, but never can. He just needs a fucking break for Heaven’s sake. Get this man a vacation, stat! Actually very proud of all the kids, though. For everything they’ve done. They aren’t scared to talk about issues that need to be talked about, and, that makes his heart swell a bit each time.

Erik-

Not there half the time. When he is, he’s hanging out with Charles or scolding Peter. The kids call him Dadneto on camera, and he pretends to hate it. Also, trains the kids, a lot. Talks about how mutants should be viewed as equals (Charles wont let him start with his usual ‘Homo-Surpremacy!’ monologuing. So, he sticks with equality instead.) Makes an apology video apologizing for every time he’s tried to end humanity. Only there to support Charles, honestly.

[thestrawberryvintageuk-blog]

Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Colour Mood? A real moody blog!

The Truth About Colour Exposed.

Im a great believer in dressing for how my mood feels. Im less of a 'fashion follower' and more of a 'How much time and effort can I be arsed with dressing today?' 'What do I feel like wearing?' 'Is it hot? or cold out?' I HATE being cold!

You could well be the same, you might not even realise you're doing it. So why do we dress the way we do? Sometimes its comfort because you're planning on slobbing around the house and not getting up to much. Or maybe you're out to impress on a first date or meeting new people for the first time so you want to look fresh and stylish. It could be that its bloody freezing outside and you want to be warm and snuggly. Conversely its roasting so you want to be cool. Whatever the reason, your mood will have a big part to play. Lord knows how difficult it is to get dressed when the "I'm not in the mood for this" feeling hits you. This normally happens when your doing something pre-planned and it has some kind of expectations attached to it.

Get Moody With Colour

So what does your colour choice say about you? I predominately wear black, its easy, makes you look slimmer, goes with everything and it draws the attention to my multi coloured hair and away from my body that I'm not so confident with.

But what does wearing Black say about me? Well according to those "in the know" (whoever they are?) Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death and evil. As well as being slimming and practical.

It is also thought to be a subservient colour. Priests and Nuns are adorned in black to show that they are submissive to God. If you, like me,  are a lover of black then you might be be in tune with a few of these. Although I don't feel particularly evil or formal, I do feel comfortable.

So lets do a brief over view of the other main colours.

Red - A powerful colour that shows your energetic, excitable and passionate. It attracts attention and is seen to be a sexual and confidante colour. Wearing Red is a statement that you're in control, a leader and of a sexual nature.

White - Is known to represent purity, virginity, cleanliness and safety. Wearing white can make you feel peaceful and convey a well-balanced, optimistic personality. However you will need to find a balance, as wearing too much can project coldness, isolation and make you look too clinical.

Yellow - Beams with happiness, gives a sense of freedom, optimism and concentration.  Some shades of yellow however might suggest cowardice, such as "Yellow-bellied" or being "Yellow"  So choose your shade with care.

Brown  - Has an association with being stable and honest, practicality and commitment. Brown is an earthy colour and some will consider it, as "outdoorsy" or "horsey" even more so if its teamed up with Green and its typically associated with the season of autumn. It is also thought to stimulate your appetite by using your subliminal imagination to make you recall food, such as chocolate - MMMM! Chocolate.

Blue  - Is an authority colour, as it shows structure, communication, dependability, trust and loyalty. However some shades of blue can project a coldness, so you want to take care when choosing your outfit and don't go overboard.

Green - Has a suggestion of security, lushness, love, growth, luck (Four leaf clover) and balance.  As a naturally accruing colour it is also used for conservation, eco and recyling projects,.

Some care needs to be taken when wearing green as it can invoke different feelings such as envy, "the green eyed monster" or being "green with envy". If you match green and red for instance most of us will associate it with Christmas. This is perfectly acceptable in November or December but it might be a bit much in the middle of summer.

Grey - is a more practical colour, that is timeless, cool, balanced, successful, formal and solid. Intelligence is also denominated by grey. By using terms such as "Grey matter"

There are also a lot of less positive connotations with this colour. Like, old age "a grey head of hair" or being "old and Grey". It is also often used as a representation of depression and poor mental heath. "Feeling grey" having a lack of energy and "looking grey" and limp.

Wearing clothing towards the darker end of the Grey spectrum will keep you more into the timeless and balanced zone as you are then verging on the edge of black.

Pink - is considered a very femine colour. Loving, and full of sexuality,  Like the colour red it is often used as a sign of love, however it is much softer, it soothes rather than stimulates.

It can be seen, by some, to be rather emasculating when worn by men. Almost a sign of weakness, if you like. This view is thankfully rather old fashioned these days and more men are embracing there 'feminine side'

A COLOURFUL IMPRESSION

If you are wanting to make an impression or maybe you are trying to create a new kind of zen for yourself, you may find dressing by mood and colour helpful. It might give you a boost for a job interview or help you dress for an event you're attending. Sometimes we all need a little help.

If you do give it a go, please do let me know how you get on. I'd love to hear from you.  I will also being doing a blog on dressing for your body shape, so keep an eye out for that.

You can sign up for our newsletter if you want to be one of the first to know when my blogs will be live,  you can also be on the VIP list for offers and new stock drops to our store. Its all very exciting stuff!

You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and we have a thrift store over on Depop

The post Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Colour Mood? A real moody blog! appeared first on The Strawberry Vintage Store Limited.

[spookyghostiesandthings]

SUICIDE THREATS AND ENCOURAGMENT IS NOT OKAY.

Lately I’ve been seeing a LOT of the usual bullet points on the “why I’m not a feminist” list. And normally I can keep to myself but recently I’ve encountered a couple of the younger members of the feminist cult and it’s triggered a bit of a mama bird in me. Two girls, one said she was 14 and the other listed her age as 13, ( and no I won’t be giving you urls because I am 21 years old and I have enough sense to not risk two little girls being sent waves of hate) were posting the general feminist “men are evil! Burn the penises! I don’t need men!” Rhetoric. Which fine, do what you want. The real world is going to treat you like shit anyway so you might as well get out the fantasy land stuff early so that you’re not a 20-something still preaching about “reverse-racism” and the “wage-gap”. That’s all good, like I said do what you want.

But then I saw the posts they’d added on some posts they’d reblogged. Specifically a few by anti-sjws and a few anti-feminists. Posts that essentially read “I hope you die in [insert way]” “I hope your boyfriend kills himself” “I hope you get raped so you know you need feminism” and so on. And this isn’t targeting feminism specifically, it’s just an example. It happens in fandoms, feminism, anti-feminists, etc.

Doesn’t matter who. This is not okay.

Let me repeat.

THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY.

No one anywhere in the world regardless of their skin color, orientation, etc deserves to be told to kill themselves. No one anywhere in the work deserves to be told they should be raped for their opinion. That is disgusting and inhuman. And you are a disgusting, dehumanizing, garbage person if you do this to anyone.

Imagine your little sister. Your cousin. Your brother. Your daughter. Your niece. Your nephew.

Imagine they’re on social media and they interact with someone they disagree with. That person reacts like a douchebag and tells your sibling/child/niece/nephew,cousin to kill themselves. They hope they die horribly. They hope people they love die. Multiply this by the hundreds of people on sites like tumblr and Twitter that would join in. All of them telling your loved one to die.

Now imagine they do it.

That kind of disgust and anger is what I feel every time I see someone tell another person to go die while they’re hiding behind a computer screen. It’s the disgust I feel when I see you tell someone to kill themselves and then reblog a touching post on suicide prevention. What you’re doing is deciding that anyone with an opinion that’s different than yours doesn’t matter. If they don’t agree, they’re worthless.

That person you’re telling to kill themselves, the person you’re using anonymity to gang up on with people you follow, your mutuals, your own followers, strangers on the internet. They are human. They are someone’s brother, sister, daughter, son, mother, father, wife, cousin, nephew/niece. They are someone’s loved one.

And you are actively encouraging that person to rob the people they care about of a brilliant light in their lives.

Chew on that before you send another “go die” anon.

[barrydeutsch]

Cartoon: 36 Annoying Anti-Feminists

ETA: At least on my computer, the image on Tumblr is hard to read. There’s a larger, clearer image here.

Please support these cartoons on Patreon.

You may remember an earlier version of this cartoon, which had only 32 anti-feminists.

When this cartoon was first published, I got a lot of criticism. Some of it was the expected mindless anger (I hope you die, you’re just trying to get laid, etc etc) from the less intelligent anti-feminists. Some comments from the smarter anti-feminists were helpful (for instance, if a lot of people misread the same panel in the same way, that’s a panel I can clarify).

But the comments that really made me want to revise the cartoon came from feminists who reminded me of some anti-feminists I missed. (Indeed, on reading this, one of my housemate’s first comment was “where’s the bitter divorced guy?”) I had a little free time during my New York City trip, so I decided to add in four of the anti-feminists I missed last time. And while I was doing that, I thought I’d revise some of the old panels.  For instance, in the first version of Mr. Buzzword, I somehow forgot to include the word “snowflake,” an omission that has bothered me ever since. :-)

(In one case – “the comparison shopper” – I completely redrew the art. The original drawing for that showed an angry character. Anger seemed like the wrong emotion entirely, so I drew a different character who was more snotty than angry. The original, angry character drawing got moved to the “kicker” panel below the bottom of the strip.)

If you want to just skip to the new ones, they are panels 31-35 – that is, the fifth-to-last to the second-to-last panels.

Transcript of cartoon is below the cut.

Transcript of cartoon: Title At Top of Cartoon: 36 Annoying Anti-Feminists you will meet on the internet

Panel 1 (A wide-eyed man wearing a plaid shirt waves his hands above his head to make it clear he’s talking about a BIG deal.) Panel Title: The Molehill Grower Man: A feminist on twitter got her punctuation wrong… Clearly the whole movement has no legitimacy!

Panel 2 (A scholarly looking man with reading glasses, a sweater vest and a pleasant demeanor raises one hand in a “just explaining things” manner.) Panel Title: The Economist Man: Sexism can’t exist, because the free market is perfect! So if employers pay women less, women must be worth less!

Panel 3 (A quivering man with huge eyes and a very intense expression holds up a diagram showing a midsection; three arrows on the diagram point to a tiny dot within the midsection.) Panel Title: The Fetusphile Man: This is a zygote! It matters infinitely more than its oven does!

Panel 4 (A scruffy-looking man with a grumpy expression stands in a spotlight, speaking into a handheld microphone.) Panel Title: The Comedian Man: Feminists only criticize my “edgy” rape jokes because they have no sense of humor!

Panel 5 (A suit-wearing man with carefully styled hair and a devout expression holds a bible to his heart. In he backgrund, a woman clutches her hands together in an “oh please” expression.) Panel Title: God Told Him So Man: Feminism tells women to leave their husbands, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians! Woman: Where do I sign?

Panel 6 (A man with glasses and a sad expression, cartoon sweat droplet flying from his face, is looking at book with the title “Yearbook” and yelling with an anguished expression.) Panel Title: Not Yet Over High School Man: Why wouldn’t the hot girls date me? WHHYYY?

Panel 7 (A young, fit-looking guy wearing a sweatshirt shrugs with bewilderment.) Panel Title:  The Douchebro Man: Find out if she wants sex before I f**k her? How would that even work?

Panel 8 (A man with a long white beard, sunglasses, and a short buzzcut, stand with his arms crossed.) Panel Title: The Scholar Man: After extensive pursual of Wikipedia, I fail to see any difference between feminists and Nazis!

Panel 9 (A slightly smug-looking young woman in a striped shirt stands smiling, holding up a sign that says “I’m not a feminist because I don’t hate men!”) Panel Title: The Good Girl

Panel 10 (A young man with long hair in a ponytail and a short chin-only beard addresses the viewer cheerfully while holding a pen and notepad.) Panel Title: The Rationalist Man: My objective logic proves white men objectively deserve everything we have because we’re so super objective!

Panel 11 (A young woman stands, holding a beer and looking a bit annoyed, as a young man holds up a finger to indicate “wait” while reading a book with the title “How To Pick Up Girls.”) Panel Title: The Pick-Up Artist Man: It says to “neg” you now.

Panel 12 (A man sits at a computer, waving his fists, cartoon sweat droplets flying, apparently overcome with fury.) Panel Title: The Gamergater Man: How dare feminists say some gamers are sexist? @#%*ing whores!

Panel 13 (A 30ish man with a small beard and his nose stuck high in the air is speaking, arms folded.) Panel Title: The Comparison Shopper Man: U.S. Women should be embarassed to whine about “sexism” when Saudi Arabia is so much worse! Arrow-shaped caption pointing to man: Deeply distressed by anti-male bias in “Harry Potter.”

Panel 14 (A middle-aged man wearing a bathrobe and sunglasses grins while holding a glass of wine.) Panel Title: Creepy Man: When you think about it, it’s natural that teen girls are attracted to middle-aged men. Wanna see my hot tub?

Panel 15 (A young man spreads his hands wide, in an “oh come on!” sort of gesture.) Panel Title: Won’t Get Fooled Again Man: If females aren’t liars, then why do they wear makeup? Huh? Why? Explain!

Panel 16 (A man with stubble and spikey hair, and weird wide eyes, a huge scowling mouth, and fist held balled up at shoulder height, is yelling. He trembles with rage.) Panel Title: Mr Buzzword Man: PC militant misandrist cultural Marxist gynocentric authoritarian cuck snowflack SJW gender troglodytes!

Panel 17 (A 30ish man with short black hair speaks angrily towards the viewer. In the background, a cheerful young woman stands, arms akimbo.) Panel Title: Going His Own Way Man: This 20 year old doesn’t want to sleep with me so I’m giving up women forever! Woman: Promises, promises…

Panel 18 (A young man stands with his back mostly to the viewer, trembling with suppressed emotion. We can see a bit of his face; he has a distressed expression, and is trembling.) Panel Title: The Open Wound Man: Hearing people defend feminism is so painful it might kill me! …I demand that you defend feminism!

Panel 19 (A young man, wearing a tank top with a “male symbol” circle and arrow on it, points straight at the viewer and has an accusing expression.) Panel Title: He’s Rubber, You’re Glue Man: Feminazis are the real misogynists!

Panel 20 (A nicely-dressed woman with cats eye glasses and a fashionable haircut holds up a finger to make a point.) Panel Title: The That’s Not Real Rape Lady Woman: But if she didn’t say “no” a fifth time, then…

Panel 21 (A man with messy hair yells hugely into the air.) Panel Title: Back Away Slowly Man: Females have conspired to lower men’s sperm counts!

Panel 22 (A man with a very intense expression and a t-shirt that says “Red Pill” speaks to the viewer.) Panel Title: Back Away Quickly Man: Women control the sexual market so I am forced to “go alpha” and “take control” in a way that just barely falls short of rape!

Panel 23 (A smiling man with a dark suit and slicked-back hair speaks, looking relaxed and confident.) Panel Title: The SpokesMAN Man: As a man, I know all real men hate feminism! Because that’s how manly men roll!

Panel 24 (We see a door with wooden planks nailed across it to lock it closed. Next to the door a sign has been taped to the wall, which says “keep OUT!” There is a slot in the door; a voice comes out from the slot.) Panel Title: Wee Bit Paranoid Voice: THEY’RE COMING FOR OUR PORN!

Panel 25 (A cheerful young man with curly hair sits in front of a laptop computer.) Panel Title: The Amazing Twitterman! Man: I will prove this feminist wrong by tweeting an anonymous rape threat!

Panel 26 (A balding man, looking honestly bewildered, holds out a hand in explanation.) Panel Title: It’s Science! Man: How can feminists deny that women evolved to love dusting? Clearly they’re anti-science!

Panel 27 (A man, very close up, screams in the viewers face, wide mouth and sweat droplets flying.) Panel Title: The Swiss Army Knife Of Hate Man: Feminazis! And race pimps! And moose limbs! And Jews! And…

Panel 28 (A woman, smiling, stands in an enormous pile of money. From off-panel, a hand shoots out, holding  papers out to her.) Panel Title: The Anti-Feminist Feminist Woman: Speaking as a feminist, feminism is evil! Oh, look, another book contract.

Panel 29 (A young man is talking at a woman in the foreground, waving his hands around his head.) Panel Title: The Subject Changer Man: And speaking of whatever it is you’re talking about, male circumcision is worse than Hitler!

Panel 30 (An older, professorial man, holding a pipe, looks down his nose at the viewer.) Panel Title: The Traditionalist Man: Women hold jobs now? I despair for the ruin of our once-great society…

Panel 31 (A muscular man speaks, smiling and relaxed and perhaps a bit smug.) Panel Title: The Anti-Male Anti-Feminist Man: Men can’t be expected to refrain when women wear short skirts… because all men are beasts!

Panel 32 (A sock puppet of a young woman with a striped hoodie is being held up, the arm of the person holding it coming up from below the bottom of the panel.) Panel Title: The Sock Puppet Puppet: Brad is right! Feminazis do hate men! So says I, a total stranger who just happened to come across this discussion.

Panel 33 (A well-dressed man with glasses speaks, eyebrows knitted with anger.) Panel Title: The “Divorce Opened My Eyes” Guy Man: The government forces me to pay child support. Now I see that men are slaves.

Panel 34 A somewhat hippie-looking guy – long hair in a ponytail, plaid shirt – is speaking, a smile on his face, but with condescending body language. Panel Title: The Marxist Man: I strongly support feminism! (Until it distracts from actually important  issues like class.)

Panel 35 (A person with ambiguous gender speaks very intensely, one finger pointing into the air to make a point.) Panel Title: The Free Speech Purist Person: Accusing others of sexism is trying to shut them up which is censorship! Which is why you should shut up.

Panel 36 (An intense man, reading off an incredibly long list he holds up in one hand, glares at another man in the foreground.) Panel Title: The Cartoon Critic INTENSE MAN: It’s a list of 406 ways your vomit-worthy travesty of a “cartoon” is dishonest, deceitful and full of lies!

Kicker panel below bottom of strip. (And older, very angry man in a striped shirt shakes his fist in the air as he speaks.) Man: He only made this cartoon because he’s hoping it’ll get him laid! Pathetic cuck loser!

[violet--minds-blog]

‘The Bold Type’ and Surface-Level Intersectionality

Piper Gibson | July 26, 2017

Long time, no write, I know. It’s hard, as a mentally ill person working and going to school and trying to stay politically aware in these trying times, to update this blog. But I’m back with another post, because I am annoyed.

I’ve caught up with The Bold Type, a new Freeform series which is about three friends who work at a women’s magazine and is currently airing its first season. As I’m writing this there’s four episodes, but each is packed with so much that rubs me the wrong way that I’ve been incessantly livetweeting on my (private) Twitter about it. I don’t even know where to start, so I suppose I’ll begin with a few things I like.

I like that it’s a women-driven show. I like that we get to see women in power and at the top of their game. I like that the side characters are kinda diverse. I like that it passes the Bechdel test in a major, major way. I like that they are at least trying to come from an intersectional feminist perspective. That’s actually why I’m really frustrated with this show, but I’ll talk about that more later.

Firstly. Jane, the kind-of main character (To me, she’s clearly the main protagonist, but it could be argued that her, Kat, and Sutton are all protagonists) is boring. I’m sorry. She just is the human embodiment of plain yogurt. I cannot bring myself to care about her budding career or mediocre hetero love life. I don’t care when she wins, and I don’t care when she loses. I guess to some, her story might be interesting, but I just... don’t... care. I feel basically the same about Sutton, but she’s a teense more likable because the glimpses of her backstory spark an interest in me. For Jane, I think the writers were going for a Gifted-Child-Who-Grew-Up-To-Need-To-Please-Authority-Figures vibe, which I can relate to, except I see basically nothing of myself in her. Maybe it’s the bland cishet girl thing, but she’s not doing it for me.

My main problem with this show is that they focus on Plain Jane (low-hanging fruit, I know, but I had to do it), who has the personality of a lightly-salted potato chip, way more than they focus on Kat, who is IMO the most interesting person on the show. For a series that’s at least kind of trying to be diverse, it’s frustrating to me that 2/3 of the main characters are white and cis and heterosexual, but anyway. They have two cis, heterosexual, white woman main characters and then a black woman main character who is questioning her sexuality. Who do you think a large portion of the viewership for a show that claims to be feminist is gonna gravitate towards? Not the pasty heteros, probably.

Kat is dynamic, and interesting, and good at her job, not to mention gorgeous as all hell. Yet they give her storylines like "Black Girl Who Grew Up Upper-Middle Class Has to Have Poverty Explained to Her by White Girl” and “Black Girl Living In Modern-Day America Somehow Doesn’t Understand Why A WOC Immigrant Might Not Want to Interact With Police” and “Black Girl Who Works at a Feminist Magazine Doesn’t Seem to Know About Bisexuality For Some Reason” and y’all. It’s honestly so tiring. I understand that Kat is the one with the majority of the interactions with Adena to set up the queer romance between them (which I love and appreciate) but this also means Kat is their point-girl to explain xenophobia and immigration issues to the audience. 

I would like that they’re showing interracial ignorance issues, because people of color can be ignorant about and discriminatory towards other people of color, but I don’t think that’s what they set out to do. I think they wanted this to be a cool, hip, intersectional show, so they do a few kind of performative scenes where the Muslim lesbian woman on a work visa explains to another woman of color why she doesn’t take her hijab off or why she ran when the police showed up after a man assaulted her. At one point, Kat’s white boss actually explains to her that Adena ran from the cops because she could’ve gotten deported, which Kat hadn’t even considered somehow. What this actually does is tell the audience that Kat is ignorant on issues pertaining to women of color, and since Jane and Sutton literally never have race discussions beside one throw-away line about the Civil War from Jane, it feels like race is a topic secluded to only a few WOC characters. The women of color do all the literal and metaphorical emotional labor on this topic on the show, and the white women characters don’t have to deal with it. Which, I guess, is realistic to actual race relations between women, but I would like it to be acknowledged on-screen. For Kat to have to be the person with the brunt of the ignorance on xenophobia and queer issues while her white friends don’t have to deal with it is upsetting, to say the least. Because the show doesn’t address it, to me, it feels like them saying that white women are just so much better and more knowledgeable about these things than women of color, which is just... straight up wrong. I’d like at least one scene of Sutton and Jane not understanding something about race and Kat saying “Just Google it, I’m not gonna do the emotional labor for the both of you,” please, for the love of God. 

This isn’t even all of my problems with the show. It revolves way too much around romance and sex for media that seems to say women’s lives don’t have to revolve around romance and sex, for one thing. Both Jane and Sutton’s love interests are white assholes. Sutton’s boyfriend works for the same company as her and as such, is in a position of power over her. At least the show acknowledges that if this were to get out, the high-up board member boyfriend would not be the one in trouble and probably fired. But he’s still touted as this super sweet guy who tries really hard, despite him talking down to Sutton about how young she is and how he “remembers feeling like” there was no time to accomplish things like he’s so much more worldly and intelligent than her. Ew. Dump him, sweetheart.

Jane’s love interest is the. Literal. Worst. His name is like, Tyler or Aaron or something douchey, and he’s my least favorite guy archetype. Tyler-Aaron works for the “rival” men’s magazine about sex and relationships, with stunning article titles like “How To Make Your Girlfriend Fuck Like a Porn Star.” I know. Obviously, White Feminist Jane hates him at first. But I am a smart person, so when I saw them get in a disagreement in which he condescendingly calls her article “cute” and she storms off, I said, “Oh no. They’re gonna fuck, aren’t they.” Because that’s what happens every time a man and a woman dislike each other in popular media. A woman thinks a man is sexist? Yeah, eventually she’s gonna see the error of her ways and they’re gonna have sex.

See, what bothers me about Tyler-Aaron is that they made him a Secret Male Feminist. He tells Jane, “You haven’t read my articles, have you?” after she calls them sexist, and everyone tells her that he’s a pretty good writer and not a bad guy. He told her there’s nothing he finds sexier than a woman speaking her mind, and he wrote one good article about how women feeling like they need to fake orgasms is the fault of men, so he really schooled her, huh? Jane stands there with her mouth agape as Secret Male Feminist struts away smirking, and then within a day or so she’s kissing him. Yawn. Puke. Etc, etc.

This storyline doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because he already was a dick. He already condescended her writing, said she was sexy when she called him out for legitimate reasons, and wrote shitty sexist articles. Him writing one good article or being nice to her now doesn’t change that. And making him teach her something about feminism or prove her ideas wrong is akin to gaslighting. Women are already told every single day that we’re imagining all this discrimination and violence, that sexism is basically over and we need to shut up, that Congress passed X thing or a movie had Y plot so we “won,” and it’s time to move on. We’re told this despite seeing and experiencing this violence on every level, starting with interpersonal and going up to governmental and global. Tyler-Aaron apparently being an okay guy instead of the sexist douche Jane once thought he was (and I still know he is) is basically the show saying, “Hey, crazy feminist, not all men are bad, and some can be feminist, so calm down, okay? Your gut-reaction of a man being sexist and condescending is a fake reaction and you’re just making things up and jumping to conclusions.” It’s gross. And I expect better.

That’s why I dislike the show. It’s clearly trying, at least a tiny little bit, to be feminist and intersectional. It could be a really great, diverse, ground-breaking show. Instead, it is still so limited, racist, and surface-level white feminist-y. Most of what it tries to do, it fails. And, okay, I recognize that it’s important that a show like this, with a large majority of female characters, even exists. But they’re doing a disservice to characters like Kat, a lot of characters are boring and one-dimensional, and they haven’t even mentioned issues like trans or disability rights. It’s just not great writing, folks. Personally, when a show claims to be feminist, I expect it to follow through.

[richmegavideo]

Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect

For me and all the other mid-80s millennials, 1999 didn’t signal the end of an era. It was the start of our definitive teenage years, rich with all the compulsive hormone-driven drama that would ultimately shape us into the adults we went on to become.

1999 was the year I started high school; the year that I got what was, at the time, a state-of-the-art three-CD player on which I blasted TLC’s FanMail, Backstreet Boys’ Millennium, and Sugar Ray’s 14:59 on endless loop. It’s also the blessed year that 10 Things I Hate About You was released.

I’m guessing many adolescent girls—and boys, for that matter—at the time could relate to at least one of the characters in 10 Things I Hate About You. There was quippy sidekick Michael (David Krumholtz), doe-eyed and floppy-haired new kid Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), effortlessly and often infuriatingly twee Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), the tragically underrated Mandella (Susan May Pratt), and of course, the mewling, rampallian wretch herself, Kat (Julia Stiles).

Like Kat, I existed on the fringes of my fairly affluent, mostly white public school’s society, although my banishment was less self-inflicted than hers. Yes, I haunted bookstores in my spare time and plastered my room with torn-out pages from Bust Magazine and dELiA*s catalogs, but I was neither thin, blond, or a voluntary member of any sports team. I couldn’t understand how someone who could effortlessly bare an enviably toned midriff be so bold as to snub male attention, which was the only type of attention I craved as a swarthy 13 year old who had yet to be kissed.

But her defiance of conventional feminine attitudes captivated me. The idea that one could subscribe to their own ideals rather than conform to anyone else’s expectations was a completely new concept in a time when teenage self-discovery was only just taking root. I did give a damn ‘bout my reputation… but maybe I didn’t have to.

In 1999, Kat’s brand of feminism seemed pretty extreme. But looking back on it 20 years later, it’s surprising how mainstream certain aspects of it now come across.

“Every time I watch this movie Kat seems more and more relatable,” explains Sarah Barson, co-host of Bad Feminist Film Club, a podcast that reviews movies through a feminist lens. “At the time this movie came out, I think Kat was supposed to be a super ‘out there’ radical feminist, but the stuff she talks about feels very relevant to modern conversations about pop culture and a woman's right, or even responsibility, to speak up and challenge social norms.”

But according to 10 Things I Hate About You writers Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Kat may have ended up differently if written for today’s audience.

“I think Kat would have to have a more extreme form of rebellion,” says Smith. “We’d have to dig her even further into a counter-culture, because in that era, it was all pretty simple.”

Rather than merely dreaming of playing in a riot grrrl band, Smith says Kat would’ve already been shredding on her pearly white Stratocaster, playing her angsty songs at different gigs. Had 10 Things been written in 2019, McCullah sees a version of Kat that’s more in touch with the activism of today’s teens.

“Like, kind of the Parkland student vibe, I think. We would add a little bit more of that,” she says. ”I think those kids are amazing, what they’re accomplishing. When I think of teenagers right now, that’s where my brain goes first.”

Smith agrees. “That’s a good point, yeah. When we wrote it, we were kind of in a freewheeling 90s bubble, not really thinking about the larger world around us. Now, as Karen pointed out, the experience of the youth is much different. They’re much more global in their thinking than we were.”

10 Things I Hate About You has its share of shortcomings, although it’s held up better over time than other teen flicks of previous eras, like Sixteen Candles. I’m willing to bet that a fresh audience today wouldn’t laugh quite as hard when Kat flashes her soccer coach to help Patrick (Heath Ledger) sneak out of detention—even with his swoon-worthy dimples—or let it slide when Bianca drops the R-word during an argument with Kat. And let's not forget how “nice guy” Cameron manipulated the entire love triangle just so he could have a shot with the younger Stratford sister. Oof.

Even so, the characters' relationships with one another and even their personal shortcomings hold up relatively authentically in a way that few other movies have been able to accomplish.

“The Craft was the perfect movie for any woman who felt disenfranchised, and Never Been Kissed really did stress the importance of self-confidence and self-acceptance, but 10 Things I Hate About You was about real characters to whom average women could relate,” says Dr. Randall Clark, author of At a Theater Or Drive-In Near You: The History, Culture, and Politics of the American Exploitation Film and associate professor of Communication and Media Studies at Clayton State University.

Dr. Clark’s students have expressed surprise that Kat was open about her sexual experience and yet managed to escape some of the consequences that society tends to heap upon young women who have sex at what they consider to be a young age.

“It was just a fact of her life,” he says, giving credit to the movie for being “not at all judgmental about her past.”

The filmmakers’ non-superficial portrayal of an unapologetic and (one-time) sexually active feminist was a groundbreaking achievement at a time when few other feature films even dared to explore the complexities of teen girl relationships. In the 90s, and to some extent today, feminism is often mistakenly equated with man-hating, an idea that both writers resoundingly reject.

“Feminists need love too!” laughs Smith.

Earlier teen-centric comedies like 1995’s Clueless helped lay the groundwork for 10 Things by weaving together real-life scenarios with tongue-in-cheek banter that managed to entertain, but also illuminate some of the basic pillars of modern-day feminism. The fact that both are remakes of classics— Clueless being a contemporary version of Jane Austen’s Emma and 10 Things I Hate About You being a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew—that revolve around young women with BIG personalities makes perfect sense. Women finding their place in the world, and being tamed by men, is by no means a novel idea.

But one thing that many of these iconic films of the late 90s and early 2000s lack is a sense of intersectionality. Bad Feminist Film Club co-host Kelly Kauffman cites Bring It On as one example of film from this era that addresses issues of race and class that other films—including 10 Things—shied away from.

“There's definitely some parts that haven't aged as well, but on a recent rewatch, I was struck by how the movie [Bring It On] touched on sensitive issues that most mainstream movies try to actively avoid,” says Kauffman.

10 Things I Hate About You may have helped shape the modern definition of “girl power” and inspired movies like Bend It Like Beckham to depict alternative stereotypes of femininity, but it’s not perfect. The one major theme I find particularly problematic upon rewatching is the apparent lack of understanding about consent throughout the film. Kat and Bianca’s father Walter (Larry Miller) doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that sex tends to occur between two people choosing to participate. His fears are clearly distorted for comic effect, but his misguided worldview holds his daughters hostage (as Bianca points out) rather than holding their partners accountable.

This concept extends to the prom scene when Bianca’s BFF-turned-nemesis Chastity (Gabrielle Union) smugly informs Bianca that pretty boy villain Joey (Andrew Keegan) “was gonna nail you tonight,” as though Bianca wouldn’t have had a choice in the matter. Then there’s the entire plot of the film’s inspiration: in The Taming of the Shrew, multiple men scheme and plot over who could obtain the most submissive, docile wife.

But the writers are adamant that the idea of “taming” doesn’t carry over to the film.

“I think at the end of the movie, you never get the sense that her character is going to be controlled by Patrick, in terms of Taming of The Shrew,” says McCullah. “Obviously, she’s not tamed and we don’t think Patrick is the type of guy who would want to control her. That’s why she likes him.” She goes on to call him an ally, or at least a prototype for one.

Seeing a privileged angry white girl like me grapple with trust, relationships, and finding herself inspired me to follow a more unconventional path in my own right. By the end of 1999, I had moved from Sugar Ray to crust punk, spiked my hair, and amassed a collection of ballpoint pen-decorated Chuck Taylors. I eventually dabbled in dating and going to art school, although I unfortunately never did start a band. But seeing someone chase her unorthodox dreams in a world designed to stifle misfits allowed me to dream outside the box in a way I'd never been shown before.

Compared to 2019, 1999 was a relative vacuum of women in media. “There were not a lot of female writing teams when we first started,” recalls Smith. “Now it seems like the appetite for female voices and female-fronted stories is ever-expanding."

Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Captain Marvel, with Brie Larson starring in Marvel’s first female-fronted superhero film, prove that we’ve come a long way with female representation. Both Smith and McCullah hope the trend continues, both in their future work, in the entertainment world at large, and with the resonating impact of 10 Things I Hate About You.

As McCullah says, “I hope it keeps inspiring young girls to be badasses and not let other people define them.”

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Beth Demmon on Twitter.

The post Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect appeared first on .

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[richmeganews]

Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect

For me and all the other mid-80s millennials, 1999 didn’t signal the end of an era. It was the start of our definitive teenage years, rich with all the compulsive hormone-driven drama that would ultimately shape us into the adults we went on to become.

1999 was the year I started high school; the year that I got what was, at the time, a state-of-the-art three-CD player on which I blasted TLC’s FanMail, Backstreet Boys’ Millennium, and Sugar Ray’s 14:59 on endless loop. It’s also the blessed year that 10 Things I Hate About You was released.

I’m guessing many adolescent girls—and boys, for that matter—at the time could relate to at least one of the characters in 10 Things I Hate About You. There was quippy sidekick Michael (David Krumholtz), doe-eyed and floppy-haired new kid Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), effortlessly and often infuriatingly twee Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), the tragically underrated Mandella (Susan May Pratt), and of course, the mewling, rampallian wretch herself, Kat (Julia Stiles).

Like Kat, I existed on the fringes of my fairly affluent, mostly white public school’s society, although my banishment was less self-inflicted than hers. Yes, I haunted bookstores in my spare time and plastered my room with torn-out pages from Bust Magazine and dELiA*s catalogs, but I was neither thin, blond, or a voluntary member of any sports team. I couldn’t understand how someone who could effortlessly bare an enviably toned midriff be so bold as to snub male attention, which was the only type of attention I craved as a swarthy 13 year old who had yet to be kissed.

But her defiance of conventional feminine attitudes captivated me. The idea that one could subscribe to their own ideals rather than conform to anyone else’s expectations was a completely new concept in a time when teenage self-discovery was only just taking root. I did give a damn ‘bout my reputation… but maybe I didn’t have to.

In 1999, Kat’s brand of feminism seemed pretty extreme. But looking back on it 20 years later, it’s surprising how mainstream certain aspects of it now come across.

“Every time I watch this movie Kat seems more and more relatable,” explains Sarah Barson, co-host of Bad Feminist Film Club, a podcast that reviews movies through a feminist lens. “At the time this movie came out, I think Kat was supposed to be a super ‘out there’ radical feminist, but the stuff she talks about feels very relevant to modern conversations about pop culture and a woman's right, or even responsibility, to speak up and challenge social norms.”

But according to 10 Things I Hate About You writers Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Kat may have ended up differently if written for today’s audience.

“I think Kat would have to have a more extreme form of rebellion,” says Smith. “We’d have to dig her even further into a counter-culture, because in that era, it was all pretty simple.”

Rather than merely dreaming of playing in a riot grrrl band, Smith says Kat would’ve already been shredding on her pearly white Stratocaster, playing her angsty songs at different gigs. Had 10 Things been written in 2019, McCullah sees a version of Kat that’s more in touch with the activism of today’s teens.

“Like, kind of the Parkland student vibe, I think. We would add a little bit more of that,” she says. ”I think those kids are amazing, what they’re accomplishing. When I think of teenagers right now, that’s where my brain goes first.”

Smith agrees. “That’s a good point, yeah. When we wrote it, we were kind of in a freewheeling 90s bubble, not really thinking about the larger world around us. Now, as Karen pointed out, the experience of the youth is much different. They’re much more global in their thinking than we were.”

10 Things I Hate About You has its share of shortcomings, although it’s held up better over time than other teen flicks of previous eras, like Sixteen Candles. I’m willing to bet that a fresh audience today wouldn’t laugh quite as hard when Kat flashes her soccer coach to help Patrick (Heath Ledger) sneak out of detention—even with his swoon-worthy dimples—or let it slide when Bianca drops the R-word during an argument with Kat. And let's not forget how “nice guy” Cameron manipulated the entire love triangle just so he could have a shot with the younger Stratford sister. Oof.

Even so, the characters' relationships with one another and even their personal shortcomings hold up relatively authentically in a way that few other movies have been able to accomplish.

“The Craft was the perfect movie for any woman who felt disenfranchised, and Never Been Kissed really did stress the importance of self-confidence and self-acceptance, but 10 Things I Hate About You was about real characters to whom average women could relate,” says Dr. Randall Clark, author of At a Theater Or Drive-In Near You: The History, Culture, and Politics of the American Exploitation Film and associate professor of Communication and Media Studies at Clayton State University.

Dr. Clark’s students have expressed surprise that Kat was open about her sexual experience and yet managed to escape some of the consequences that society tends to heap upon young women who have sex at what they consider to be a young age.

“It was just a fact of her life,” he says, giving credit to the movie for being “not at all judgmental about her past.”

The filmmakers’ non-superficial portrayal of an unapologetic and (one-time) sexually active feminist was a groundbreaking achievement at a time when few other feature films even dared to explore the complexities of teen girl relationships. In the 90s, and to some extent today, feminism is often mistakenly equated with man-hating, an idea that both writers resoundingly reject.

“Feminists need love too!” laughs Smith.

Earlier teen-centric comedies like 1995’s Clueless helped lay the groundwork for 10 Things by weaving together real-life scenarios with tongue-in-cheek banter that managed to entertain, but also illuminate some of the basic pillars of modern-day feminism. The fact that both are remakes of classics— Clueless being a contemporary version of Jane Austen’s Emma and 10 Things I Hate About You being a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew—that revolve around young women with BIG personalities makes perfect sense. Women finding their place in the world, and being tamed by men, is by no means a novel idea.

But one thing that many of these iconic films of the late 90s and early 2000s lack is a sense of intersectionality. Bad Feminist Film Club co-host Kelly Kauffman cites Bring It On as one example of film from this era that addresses issues of race and class that other films—including 10 Things—shied away from.

“There's definitely some parts that haven't aged as well, but on a recent rewatch, I was struck by how the movie [Bring It On] touched on sensitive issues that most mainstream movies try to actively avoid,” says Kauffman.

10 Things I Hate About You may have helped shape the modern definition of “girl power” and inspired movies like Bend It Like Beckham to depict alternative stereotypes of femininity, but it’s not perfect. The one major theme I find particularly problematic upon rewatching is the apparent lack of understanding about consent throughout the film. Kat and Bianca’s father Walter (Larry Miller) doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that sex tends to occur between two people choosing to participate. His fears are clearly distorted for comic effect, but his misguided worldview holds his daughters hostage (as Bianca points out) rather than holding their partners accountable.

This concept extends to the prom scene when Bianca’s BFF-turned-nemesis Chastity (Gabrielle Union) smugly informs Bianca that pretty boy villain Joey (Andrew Keegan) “was gonna nail you tonight,” as though Bianca wouldn’t have had a choice in the matter. Then there’s the entire plot of the film’s inspiration: in The Taming of the Shrew, multiple men scheme and plot over who could obtain the most submissive, docile wife.

But the writers are adamant that the idea of “taming” doesn’t carry over to the film.

“I think at the end of the movie, you never get the sense that her character is going to be controlled by Patrick, in terms of Taming of The Shrew,” says McCullah. “Obviously, she’s not tamed and we don’t think Patrick is the type of guy who would want to control her. That’s why she likes him.” She goes on to call him an ally, or at least a prototype for one.

Seeing a privileged angry white girl like me grapple with trust, relationships, and finding herself inspired me to follow a more unconventional path in my own right. By the end of 1999, I had moved from Sugar Ray to crust punk, spiked my hair, and amassed a collection of ballpoint pen-decorated Chuck Taylors. I eventually dabbled in dating and going to art school, although I unfortunately never did start a band. But seeing someone chase her unorthodox dreams in a world designed to stifle misfits allowed me to dream outside the box in a way I'd never been shown before.

Compared to 2019, 1999 was a relative vacuum of women in media. “There were not a lot of female writing teams when we first started,” recalls Smith. “Now it seems like the appetite for female voices and female-fronted stories is ever-expanding."

Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Captain Marvel, with Brie Larson starring in Marvel’s first female-fronted superhero film, prove that we’ve come a long way with female representation. Both Smith and McCullah hope the trend continues, both in their future work, in the entertainment world at large, and with the resonating impact of 10 Things I Hate About You.

As McCullah says, “I hope it keeps inspiring young girls to be badasses and not let other people define them.”

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Beth Demmon on Twitter.

The post Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect appeared first on .

The post Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect appeared first on .

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[jimdsmith34]

27 progressive Twitter users worth following for a deeper look at a few familiar topics.

Twitter can be a huge waste of time unless you’re following the right people.

To mix things up, I try to follow new people at every available chance. Finding new voices and views to follow, however, can be challenging. After all, Twitter’s “Who to Follow” section can feel a little stale at times. So if, like me, you’re on the lookout for some fresh perspectives, here’s a short list of some of the people who make my own Twitter feed fun and informative.

1. Sara Benincasa @SaraJBenincasa

Author and comedian Sara Benincasa is your go-to Twitter account for lighthearted takes on current events, measured opinions on serious matters, and more than a few laughs. Her latest book, “DC Trip,” came out late last year, and her next, “Real Artists Have Day Jobs,” is due this April.

I just published Dear America: Heres Your Gun Solution https://t.co/AM77CHGql1 Sara Benincasa (@SaraJBenincasa) December 3, 2015

2. Jane Doe, MD @DrJaneChi

Jane is a physician (who happens to also provide abortions), an intersectional feminist, and lover of small, furry animals. There’s almost certainly something important happening in the world you don’t know about that Jane is tweeting about right now.

When a cis white liberal uses the phrase “overly politically correct,” it

3. Robin @caulkthewagon

Robin is a Bostonian who spent much of last year organizing around the #NoBoston2024 cause, fighting the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics. She tweets about labor, organizing, and a variety of progressive causes.

The majority of Bostonians are being shut down by the city and #Boston2024. They ignore dissent. We will be heard. #NoBoston2024 Robin (@caulkthewagon) June 13, 2015

4. Melissa Gira Grant @melissagira

Journalist Melissa Gira Grant is the author of “Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work.” She writes on sexual politics, technology, and workers’ rights.

An excerpt from PLAYING THE WHORE up now at @thenation: http://t.co/mSiWKVnSYY (+ get the whole book: http://t.co/0wf0e7QYM3) Melissa Gira Grant (@melissagira) March 5, 2014

5. Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady

Imani is the senior legal analyst over at RH Reality Check. Her tweets on race, gender, and pop culture are supplemented by some really great, insightful articles.

My latest. | I Don

6. Andrea Grimes @andreagrimes

Andrea is a digital editor at the Texas Observer. She’s passionate about reproductive health, and she’s absolutely hilarious on Twitter. In response to the “ice bucket challenge,” Andrea launched the “taco or beer challenge,” in which you eat a taco and/or drink a beer, and donate to help fund abortion. Because hey, why not, right?

Abortion is a social good necessary to the empowerment and freedom of anyone capable of becoming pregnant. #Roe43 #7in10forRoe Andrea Grimes (@andreagrimes) January 22, 2016

7. Michelle Kinsey Bruns @ClinicEscort

As her handle indicates, she’s an escort for patients in and out of abortion clinics, helping to shield them from anti-choice protesters. Michelle’s series of tweets about clinic violence using the #is100enough hashtag went viral late last year after the shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood.

I talked to @Upworthy about #is100enough and changing the conversation on abortion. https://t.co/Il7BfwdllT thx @Legallyphoenix! ClinicEscort (@ClinicEscort) December 2, 2015

8. Katie Klabusich @katie_speak

Katie is a writer and host of “The Katie Speak Show” on Netroots Radio. She’s a fierce advocate for abortion rights and bodily autonomy and is just an all-around solid choice to follow on Twitter. Last year, she was featured in an Upworthy story about abortion stigma.

The hardest thing I

9. Chris Mosier @TheChrisMosier

Chris is an athlete and the first transgender member of Team USA. He’s the executive director of GO! Athletes, a nonprofit for current and former LGBTQ high school and college athletes.

Did it! Made Team USA! pic.twitter.com/rnOEZ2VQDZ The Chris Mosier (@TheChrisMosier) June 7, 2015

10. Molly Knefel @mollyknefel

Molly is a journalist, writer, and co-host of the “Radio Dispatch” podcast. She’s also an after-school teacher for grades K-8. She’s a great follow for anyone interested in hearing a fresh take on current events.

I wrote about Brendan Dassey, false youth confessions, & the cop tactics that make them happen, for @RollingStone https://t.co/nXRwqHymTj Molly Knefel (@mollyknefel) January 8, 2016

11. Jessica Luther @scATX

Jessica is an Austin, Texas-based independent journalist and sportswriter. She’s done some truly impressive work on the topic of sexual assault within college athletic programs.

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a piece called “The Wrestler and the Rape Victim” https://t.co/qlw9QFPCk8 Jessica Luther (@scATX) December 11, 2015

12. Carlos Maza @gaywonk

Carlos is a research fellow at Media Matters for America. Until recently, his work focused primarily on LGBT rights, but it has since expanded to include a wide range of progressive causes.

Thanks to @grouchybagels and @erintothemax for dropping knowledge about abortion stigma: https://t.co/VerzdxKIfI https://t.co/s3yRpgCsqc Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) January 21, 2016

13. Jamie Kilstein @jamiekilstein

Jamie is a musician and comedian. He’s the co-author of “#Newsfail” and co-host of the “Citizen Radio” podcast. Last year, Jamie was featured in an Upworthy article about catcalls not being compliments.

If people were as scared of mass poverty or climate change as they were if the pretend IRAN threat we would be golden. Jamie Kilstein (@jamiekilstein) January 17, 2016

14. Ijeoma Oluo @IjeomaOluo

Ijeoma is a Seattle-based writer and editor-at-large at The Establishment, a multimedia company founded, funded, and run by women. She’s a great follow for smart takes on the intersection of feminism, race, pop culture, and parenting.

Abuse is not dialogue. Abuse is not speech. Abuse is abuse. Why We Don

15. Pasta @pastachips

Pasta is an Edinburgh, Scotland-based sex worker who writes and blogs about politics, labor, police violence, stigma, and other issues.

even accounting for the exploitation that criminalisation brings, suspect sex work is biggest transfer of wealth from men to women in the . [pasta emoji] (@pastachips) December 27, 2015

16. Monica Roberts @TransGriot

Monica is a Houston-based blogger and civil rights activist. She’s won multiple awards for her blog TransGriot, and in 2013, she was named to the inaugural Trans 100 list.

In the spirit of #MLKDay2016 we

17. Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner

Chris is the legal editor over at BuzzFeed News. In the past, he’s done some truly phenomenal writing on LGBTQ issues, but lately he’s been churning out some truly informative posts about the death penalty and the Supreme Court’s role in its future.

More fallout (now in Alabama) from this week

18. Cameron Russell @CameronCRussell

Cameron is a model, writer, editor, and climate activist. In 2012, she gave a TED Talk about appearance and the privilege that comes along with winning a genetic lottery. In 2013, she founded Space Made, an artist collective based in Brooklyn. Her tweets tackle issues of gender, race, and climate.

the most important work fashion has ever enabled me to do data-verified=”redactor” data-verified=”redactor” data-verified=

19. Linda Sarsour @lsarsour

Linda is a racial justice and civil rights activist and media commentator. She’s a Palestinian-American and Muslim. Her informative tweets give a fresh look at what sadly remains a very relevant issue: Islamophobia around the world.

“If ur not careful, the newspapers will have u hating the people who r being oppressed, & loving the people who r doing the oppressing.” Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) October 13, 2015

20. Zo S. @ztsamudzi

If you’re interested in issues surrounding race and gender, then Zo is a must-follow. She’s blunt, unapologetic, and so frequently just spot-on in her observations.

Protect black women while we

21. Chase Strangio @chasestrangio

Chase is a staff attorney at the ACLU, working with its LGBT & AIDS Project. He’s a great follow for anyone interested in learning a bit about some of the struggles facing trans and gender-nonconforming people when it comes to the police.

Last night we publicly filed our opposition brief in @xychelsea

22. Cyd Zeigler @CydZeigler

Cyd is the co-founder of Outsports.com, a website dedicated to covering LGBT athletes. With some of the first athletes in major sports coming out as LGBT in recent years, Cyd’s work has been essential reading as we watch these early pioneers make history.

Gay #Orioles exec Greg Bader has seen nothing but support from the team @BaltSunSports https://t.co/Gzbby9Jwzo pic.twitter.com/mi0IIt1Ue6 Cyd Zeigler (@CydZeigler) November 17, 2015

23. Leah Torres, MD @LeahNTorres

Leah is an OB-GYN who, yes, provides abortions. She’s an advocate for her patients and is a proponent of comprehensive sex education.

I perform abortions. I am not evil. I keep my patients safe. I respect my patients. I am a person. I do not deserve to be murdered. Leah Torres, MD (@LeahNTorres) December 1, 2015

24. Tina Vasquez @TheTinaVasquez

Tina is an immigration reporting fellow at RH Reality Check. On Twitter, she shares her eye-opening opinions on race and gender and is most certainly worth a follow.

My latest for @rhrealitycheck about how the raids by ICE of Central American families may have been unlawful: https://t.co/S6XRdMpWJC Tina Vasquez (@TheTinaVasquez) January 6, 2016

25. Ian Thompson @IantDC

Ian is a legislative representative at the ACLU. He works on issues ranging from LGBT rights to sex education. Prior to working at the ACLU, he was an intern in Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s D.C. office.

Major reforms are needed before the no-fly list should be used to stop gun purchases: https://t.co/YUkOetfasu. Ian Thompson (@iantDC) December 7, 2015

26. Dave Zirin @EdgeofSports

Dave is the sports editor at The Nation. He hosts the “Edge of Sports Radio” podcast, and his work rides the line between sports and politics, giving him a unique perspective. He’s the author of eight books.

My latest piece @thenation “Dear Cam Newton: Please Don

27. Upworthy @Upworthy

OK, OK, I work for Upworthy, so of course I’m going to recommend you follow us. But have you seen our live-tweets of award shows and debates? Or how about one of our UpChats? They’re super fun and informative. And as a bonus, you get all our fun articles delivered right to your Twitter feed.

3 countries are capturing wind to power all our futures. https://t.co/nGRLuhetnX pic.twitter.com/05nhEKxKP8 Upworthy (@Upworthy) January 21, 2016

source http://allofbeer.com/2017/10/09/27-progressive-twitter-users-worth-following-for-a-deeper-look-at-a-few-familiar-topics/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2017/10/27-progressive-twitter-users-worth.html

[samanthasroberts]

27 progressive Twitter users worth following for a deeper look at a few familiar topics.

Twitter can be a huge waste of time unless you’re following the right people.

To mix things up, I try to follow new people at every available chance. Finding new voices and views to follow, however, can be challenging. After all, Twitter’s “Who to Follow” section can feel a little stale at times. So if, like me, you’re on the lookout for some fresh perspectives, here’s a short list of some of the people who make my own Twitter feed fun and informative.

1. Sara Benincasa @SaraJBenincasa

Author and comedian Sara Benincasa is your go-to Twitter account for lighthearted takes on current events, measured opinions on serious matters, and more than a few laughs. Her latest book, “DC Trip,” came out late last year, and her next, “Real Artists Have Day Jobs,” is due this April.

I just published Dear America: Heres Your Gun Solution https://t.co/AM77CHGql1 Sara Benincasa (@SaraJBenincasa) December 3, 2015

2. Jane Doe, MD @DrJaneChi

Jane is a physician (who happens to also provide abortions), an intersectional feminist, and lover of small, furry animals. There’s almost certainly something important happening in the world you don’t know about that Jane is tweeting about right now.

When a cis white liberal uses the phrase “overly politically correct,” it

3. Robin @caulkthewagon

Robin is a Bostonian who spent much of last year organizing around the #NoBoston2024 cause, fighting the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics. She tweets about labor, organizing, and a variety of progressive causes.

The majority of Bostonians are being shut down by the city and #Boston2024. They ignore dissent. We will be heard. #NoBoston2024 Robin (@caulkthewagon) June 13, 2015

4. Melissa Gira Grant @melissagira

Journalist Melissa Gira Grant is the author of “Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work.” She writes on sexual politics, technology, and workers’ rights.

An excerpt from PLAYING THE WHORE up now at @thenation: http://t.co/mSiWKVnSYY (+ get the whole book: http://t.co/0wf0e7QYM3) Melissa Gira Grant (@melissagira) March 5, 2014

5. Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady

Imani is the senior legal analyst over at RH Reality Check. Her tweets on race, gender, and pop culture are supplemented by some really great, insightful articles.

My latest. | I Don

6. Andrea Grimes @andreagrimes

Andrea is a digital editor at the Texas Observer. She’s passionate about reproductive health, and she’s absolutely hilarious on Twitter. In response to the “ice bucket challenge,” Andrea launched the “taco or beer challenge,” in which you eat a taco and/or drink a beer, and donate to help fund abortion. Because hey, why not, right?

Abortion is a social good necessary to the empowerment and freedom of anyone capable of becoming pregnant. #Roe43 #7in10forRoe Andrea Grimes (@andreagrimes) January 22, 2016

7. Michelle Kinsey Bruns @ClinicEscort

As her handle indicates, she’s an escort for patients in and out of abortion clinics, helping to shield them from anti-choice protesters. Michelle’s series of tweets about clinic violence using the #is100enough hashtag went viral late last year after the shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood.

I talked to @Upworthy about #is100enough and changing the conversation on abortion. https://t.co/Il7BfwdllT thx @Legallyphoenix! ClinicEscort (@ClinicEscort) December 2, 2015

8. Katie Klabusich @katie_speak

Katie is a writer and host of “The Katie Speak Show” on Netroots Radio. She’s a fierce advocate for abortion rights and bodily autonomy and is just an all-around solid choice to follow on Twitter. Last year, she was featured in an Upworthy story about abortion stigma.

The hardest thing I

9. Chris Mosier @TheChrisMosier

Chris is an athlete and the first transgender member of Team USA. He’s the executive director of GO! Athletes, a nonprofit for current and former LGBTQ high school and college athletes.

Did it! Made Team USA! pic.twitter.com/rnOEZ2VQDZ The Chris Mosier (@TheChrisMosier) June 7, 2015

10. Molly Knefel @mollyknefel

Molly is a journalist, writer, and co-host of the “Radio Dispatch” podcast. She’s also an after-school teacher for grades K-8. She’s a great follow for anyone interested in hearing a fresh take on current events.

I wrote about Brendan Dassey, false youth confessions, & the cop tactics that make them happen, for @RollingStone https://t.co/nXRwqHymTj Molly Knefel (@mollyknefel) January 8, 2016

11. Jessica Luther @scATX

Jessica is an Austin, Texas-based independent journalist and sportswriter. She’s done some truly impressive work on the topic of sexual assault within college athletic programs.

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a piece called “The Wrestler and the Rape Victim” https://t.co/qlw9QFPCk8 Jessica Luther (@scATX) December 11, 2015

12. Carlos Maza @gaywonk

Carlos is a research fellow at Media Matters for America. Until recently, his work focused primarily on LGBT rights, but it has since expanded to include a wide range of progressive causes.

Thanks to @grouchybagels and @erintothemax for dropping knowledge about abortion stigma: https://t.co/VerzdxKIfI https://t.co/s3yRpgCsqc Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) January 21, 2016

13. Jamie Kilstein @jamiekilstein

Jamie is a musician and comedian. He’s the co-author of “#Newsfail” and co-host of the “Citizen Radio” podcast. Last year, Jamie was featured in an Upworthy article about catcalls not being compliments.

If people were as scared of mass poverty or climate change as they were if the pretend IRAN threat we would be golden. Jamie Kilstein (@jamiekilstein) January 17, 2016

14. Ijeoma Oluo @IjeomaOluo

Ijeoma is a Seattle-based writer and editor-at-large at The Establishment, a multimedia company founded, funded, and run by women. She’s a great follow for smart takes on the intersection of feminism, race, pop culture, and parenting.

Abuse is not dialogue. Abuse is not speech. Abuse is abuse. Why We Don

15. Pasta @pastachips

Pasta is an Edinburgh, Scotland-based sex worker who writes and blogs about politics, labor, police violence, stigma, and other issues.

even accounting for the exploitation that criminalisation brings, suspect sex work is biggest transfer of wealth from men to women in the . [pasta emoji] (@pastachips) December 27, 2015

16. Monica Roberts @TransGriot

Monica is a Houston-based blogger and civil rights activist. She’s won multiple awards for her blog TransGriot, and in 2013, she was named to the inaugural Trans 100 list.

In the spirit of #MLKDay2016 we

17. Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner

Chris is the legal editor over at BuzzFeed News. In the past, he’s done some truly phenomenal writing on LGBTQ issues, but lately he’s been churning out some truly informative posts about the death penalty and the Supreme Court’s role in its future.

More fallout (now in Alabama) from this week

18. Cameron Russell @CameronCRussell

Cameron is a model, writer, editor, and climate activist. In 2012, she gave a TED Talk about appearance and the privilege that comes along with winning a genetic lottery. In 2013, she founded Space Made, an artist collective based in Brooklyn. Her tweets tackle issues of gender, race, and climate.

the most important work fashion has ever enabled me to do data-verified=”redactor” data-verified=”redactor” data-verified=

19. Linda Sarsour @lsarsour

Linda is a racial justice and civil rights activist and media commentator. She’s a Palestinian-American and Muslim. Her informative tweets give a fresh look at what sadly remains a very relevant issue: Islamophobia around the world.

“If ur not careful, the newspapers will have u hating the people who r being oppressed, & loving the people who r doing the oppressing.” Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) October 13, 2015

20. Zo S. @ztsamudzi

If you’re interested in issues surrounding race and gender, then Zo is a must-follow. She’s blunt, unapologetic, and so frequently just spot-on in her observations.

Protect black women while we

21. Chase Strangio @chasestrangio

Chase is a staff attorney at the ACLU, working with its LGBT & AIDS Project. He’s a great follow for anyone interested in learning a bit about some of the struggles facing trans and gender-nonconforming people when it comes to the police.

Last night we publicly filed our opposition brief in @xychelsea

22. Cyd Zeigler @CydZeigler

Cyd is the co-founder of Outsports.com, a website dedicated to covering LGBT athletes. With some of the first athletes in major sports coming out as LGBT in recent years, Cyd’s work has been essential reading as we watch these early pioneers make history.

Gay #Orioles exec Greg Bader has seen nothing but support from the team @BaltSunSports https://t.co/Gzbby9Jwzo pic.twitter.com/mi0IIt1Ue6 Cyd Zeigler (@CydZeigler) November 17, 2015

23. Leah Torres, MD @LeahNTorres

Leah is an OB-GYN who, yes, provides abortions. She’s an advocate for her patients and is a proponent of comprehensive sex education.

I perform abortions. I am not evil. I keep my patients safe. I respect my patients. I am a person. I do not deserve to be murdered. Leah Torres, MD (@LeahNTorres) December 1, 2015

24. Tina Vasquez @TheTinaVasquez

Tina is an immigration reporting fellow at RH Reality Check. On Twitter, she shares her eye-opening opinions on race and gender and is most certainly worth a follow.

My latest for @rhrealitycheck about how the raids by ICE of Central American families may have been unlawful: https://t.co/S6XRdMpWJC Tina Vasquez (@TheTinaVasquez) January 6, 2016

25. Ian Thompson @IantDC

Ian is a legislative representative at the ACLU. He works on issues ranging from LGBT rights to sex education. Prior to working at the ACLU, he was an intern in Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s D.C. office.

Major reforms are needed before the no-fly list should be used to stop gun purchases: https://t.co/YUkOetfasu. Ian Thompson (@iantDC) December 7, 2015

26. Dave Zirin @EdgeofSports

Dave is the sports editor at The Nation. He hosts the “Edge of Sports Radio” podcast, and his work rides the line between sports and politics, giving him a unique perspective. He’s the author of eight books.

My latest piece @thenation “Dear Cam Newton: Please Don

27. Upworthy @Upworthy

OK, OK, I work for Upworthy, so of course I’m going to recommend you follow us. But have you seen our live-tweets of award shows and debates? Or how about one of our UpChats? They’re super fun and informative. And as a bonus, you get all our fun articles delivered right to your Twitter feed.

3 countries are capturing wind to power all our futures. https://t.co/nGRLuhetnX pic.twitter.com/05nhEKxKP8 Upworthy (@Upworthy) January 21, 2016

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/10/09/27-progressive-twitter-users-worth-following-for-a-deeper-look-at-a-few-familiar-topics/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/27-progressive-twitter-users-worth-following-for-a-deeper-look-at-a-few-familiar-topics/