I would, uh, dispute that Lindsay Ellis's video is an apology. She pretty explicitly tells the haters they can go fuck themselves. It's kind of amazing actually.
I encountered this very dynamic in the small world of Pro Wrestling Twitter. Arguments between me and a group that were coordinating through discord had been growing and growing for months, and then twice blew up, firstly due to a mistake I made in a podcast and then secondly due to people deliberately misreading some tweets I had made. In both occassions the backlash only stopped when I stopped being defensive and apologetic, and started fighting back. Doesn't seem the best way to conduct discussions online, but it is what it is
I was actually a fan of Ellis. I supported her on Patreon and watched all of her videos. I stopped doing so a few months before the controversy, because I just kind of lost interest in that sort of media analysis. I was really shocked by her inability to just shrug off that obviously nonsensical controversy, and I also found the two-hour video pretty pathetic.
Like many other clever, but painfully self-absorbed (only in as much as it is par for the course) internet personalities, Ellis would be a better writer and thinker outside of the panopticon, but then wouldn't have the same level of fame and reach.
I remember at the time she received a fair bit of criticism for being engaged in a public "take down" (I like Freddie's critique of this notion) of Tom Scott around the same time she was being "cancelled". It's strange to think that Scott managed to create any controversy worthy of cancellation of any spaces. I knew him at uni and he's one of the most inoffensively nice (very smart, very inoffensively nice!) men I've ever met, frankly. Like, if he can be cancelled, there is no hope of anyone of avoiding it.
TL;DR - Quit social media and try to make money, fame and friends through a different means if whatsoever possible!
Not sure why anyone thinks this is the right move anymore. I am starting to *crave* the day when someone finally realizes the impotence of the public apology and - intuiting that the only salvageable thing is their dignity - decides to publicly double down in an extremely hilarious and bombastic way. “I would like to issue a statement on the recent accusation that my usage of the word ‘silly’ was a coded way of disparaging the queer community. It WAS. When I said that “it’s silly to think we shouldn’t be concerned about the recent 0.5% fed rate hike,” in reality I was dog-whistling about my deeply seated gender- and sexuality-based prejudices. I apologize to the many crybabies and losers who I have offended and promise to do better going forward.”
Unfortunately, we're stuck in the politics of pure association and memes like you said. Not publicly apologizing and instead being defiant is considered a Right-Wing thing to do because that's what Trump did all the time.
Progressives nowadays have one principle and one principle only: Don't Be A Conservative. That's it. Nothing else. It leads to a never-ending witch hunt for heretics in your own movement because the one goal above all is to not be The Boogeyman.
I do think the best way for public figures of any notoriety do best when they simply ignore the mob. It served Joe Rogan well for years to just completely ignore every controversy that popped up about him. I remember, too, some YA novelist who was one of the first that YA Twitter tried to cancel. They wanted her book deal spiked and they wanted her book to never see print. To her credit, she just never responded to this and the publisher stuck with her (this doesn't really happen anymore, sadly) and even after getting review bombed (maybe one of the first instances of this!), her book came out to favorable reviews. And, I think, ended up with a 3.5+ rating on goodreads, for what that's worth (though it's pretty impressive after getting a thousand one star reviews calling you a racist).
Curiously, I came across Medieval twitter a few years ago after stumbling across a conversation about the term Anglo-Saxon being racist. I was genuinely curious because I'd simply never heard anyone say this. I even emailed the professor who's written a lot on this topic, though I never heard back.
But Medieval twitter is *weird* in a way that few places are. People are constantly accusing one another of being racist or anti-lgbt and on and on. I mean, this is a very small pocket of twitter (though some of these professors have tens of thousands of followers) and it is just a constant bickering about who is and how is not problematic.
In 2011 I saw an interview with an ex-scientologist, and found the guy well-spoken, thoughtful, and intelligent and knowing the whole Xenu story I was truly baffled at how this person could’ve fallen for something so ridiculous.
I have a tendency to fixate on subjects so I spent like 6 months obsessively studying what scientology was and how people get sucked into its madness. My friends/family found some of the stuff I learned about human nature interesting but generally wanted me to shut up about it because they didn’t really care about the psychology of PTS and Suppressive Persons.
Those same people admitted to me in mid-2020 that I was right to obsess over that, when all of a sudden everyone in elite spaces essentially became Scientologists. If you’re interested, look up the musical chairs scientology incident because it sums up the modern cultural left perfectly.
I would, uh, dispute that Lindsay Ellis's video is an apology. She pretty explicitly tells the haters they can go fuck themselves. It's kind of amazing actually.
I encountered this very dynamic in the small world of Pro Wrestling Twitter. Arguments between me and a group that were coordinating through discord had been growing and growing for months, and then twice blew up, firstly due to a mistake I made in a podcast and then secondly due to people deliberately misreading some tweets I had made. In both occassions the backlash only stopped when I stopped being defensive and apologetic, and started fighting back. Doesn't seem the best way to conduct discussions online, but it is what it is
I simply cannot believe how irrelevant to real life so much of the left has become. These are the kind of issues they focus on? Shame.
I have found my life so much more fulfilling and peaceful since I gave up wanting anything having to do with social status.
I was actually a fan of Ellis. I supported her on Patreon and watched all of her videos. I stopped doing so a few months before the controversy, because I just kind of lost interest in that sort of media analysis. I was really shocked by her inability to just shrug off that obviously nonsensical controversy, and I also found the two-hour video pretty pathetic.
The left is bankrupt, exhausted and vicious.
why do progressives have to be so annoying
Like many other clever, but painfully self-absorbed (only in as much as it is par for the course) internet personalities, Ellis would be a better writer and thinker outside of the panopticon, but then wouldn't have the same level of fame and reach.
I remember at the time she received a fair bit of criticism for being engaged in a public "take down" (I like Freddie's critique of this notion) of Tom Scott around the same time she was being "cancelled". It's strange to think that Scott managed to create any controversy worthy of cancellation of any spaces. I knew him at uni and he's one of the most inoffensively nice (very smart, very inoffensively nice!) men I've ever met, frankly. Like, if he can be cancelled, there is no hope of anyone of avoiding it.
TL;DR - Quit social media and try to make money, fame and friends through a different means if whatsoever possible!
Not sure why anyone thinks this is the right move anymore. I am starting to *crave* the day when someone finally realizes the impotence of the public apology and - intuiting that the only salvageable thing is their dignity - decides to publicly double down in an extremely hilarious and bombastic way. “I would like to issue a statement on the recent accusation that my usage of the word ‘silly’ was a coded way of disparaging the queer community. It WAS. When I said that “it’s silly to think we shouldn’t be concerned about the recent 0.5% fed rate hike,” in reality I was dog-whistling about my deeply seated gender- and sexuality-based prejudices. I apologize to the many crybabies and losers who I have offended and promise to do better going forward.”
Re: The Lynch Mob - I'm reminded of the character Grouch in the old 'George of the Jungle' cartoons....
Unfortunately, we're stuck in the politics of pure association and memes like you said. Not publicly apologizing and instead being defiant is considered a Right-Wing thing to do because that's what Trump did all the time.
Progressives nowadays have one principle and one principle only: Don't Be A Conservative. That's it. Nothing else. It leads to a never-ending witch hunt for heretics in your own movement because the one goal above all is to not be The Boogeyman.
I do think the best way for public figures of any notoriety do best when they simply ignore the mob. It served Joe Rogan well for years to just completely ignore every controversy that popped up about him. I remember, too, some YA novelist who was one of the first that YA Twitter tried to cancel. They wanted her book deal spiked and they wanted her book to never see print. To her credit, she just never responded to this and the publisher stuck with her (this doesn't really happen anymore, sadly) and even after getting review bombed (maybe one of the first instances of this!), her book came out to favorable reviews. And, I think, ended up with a 3.5+ rating on goodreads, for what that's worth (though it's pretty impressive after getting a thousand one star reviews calling you a racist).
Curiously, I came across Medieval twitter a few years ago after stumbling across a conversation about the term Anglo-Saxon being racist. I was genuinely curious because I'd simply never heard anyone say this. I even emailed the professor who's written a lot on this topic, though I never heard back.
But Medieval twitter is *weird* in a way that few places are. People are constantly accusing one another of being racist or anti-lgbt and on and on. I mean, this is a very small pocket of twitter (though some of these professors have tens of thousands of followers) and it is just a constant bickering about who is and how is not problematic.
In 2011 I saw an interview with an ex-scientologist, and found the guy well-spoken, thoughtful, and intelligent and knowing the whole Xenu story I was truly baffled at how this person could’ve fallen for something so ridiculous.
I have a tendency to fixate on subjects so I spent like 6 months obsessively studying what scientology was and how people get sucked into its madness. My friends/family found some of the stuff I learned about human nature interesting but generally wanted me to shut up about it because they didn’t really care about the psychology of PTS and Suppressive Persons.
Those same people admitted to me in mid-2020 that I was right to obsess over that, when all of a sudden everyone in elite spaces essentially became Scientologists. If you’re interested, look up the musical chairs scientology incident because it sums up the modern cultural left perfectly.
Agree about political action. It's the Bolsheviks vs. Mensheviks online and not good either way.