Only slightly germane but because you mentioned her, Liz Breunig being attacked by someone for Freddie's Unherd article was peak Twitter. Just an absolutely hilarious moment.
The issues they focus on are NOT irrelevant. Their goal is to completely remake society, in ways most of us won't like very much, as in Kendi's proposed anti-racist constitutional amendment. (Though I do look forward to watching the much whiter and more asian NBA ...)
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.
On the other hand, her persona was always one of the dial-it-up-to-10-steeped-in-irony-meta-bois (she/her) and when it came time to either be sincere or sufficiently scathingly direct in her apology/response, she had no foundations on which to stand.
I think the intersection of irony-bros and woke discourse is kind of interesting and I enjoyed Freddie touching on it with the 'birds aren't real' post.
Yeah it's kinda amazing that Freddie watched that video and interpreted it as a grovelling apology. Makes it hard to take the rest of this post seriously.
I agree, but I also think getting so personal was exactly the wrong move. She seemed to think “fuck you, you haven’t thought about my humanity or my history or my feelings once before coming to destroy me” would, like... get people to think about her humanity or her history or her feelings, but of course it didn’t. You can’t shame the shameless.
Contrapoints did a video about one of the times she was canceled and I think it does a lot to explain why these people make appeals to the mob's humanity.
A lot of their identity, not only as a youtuber, but as a person was formed by their time online. They found community and comradery online with strangers. To have that community turn viciously on you is a lot to take in.
But, of course, as it has always been for celebrities: we love to build them up, but we love tearing them down a whole lot more.
Ellis’ video definitely took a lot of inspiration from Contrapoints’, but tbh I think CP threaded the needle better. Probably because she’d already learned the lesson about over-reliance on online communities.
I can't remember if I saw the Contrapoints cancelling video. I thought she was better when the videos were 10-15 minute rants rather than bizarre short films
I like some better than others - “Canceling” and “Cringe” are my recent favorites, though “Shame” was enjoyable in a more personal way. Some carry the thread through the whole length better than others.
Have to agree. I checked out of the last one (105 minutes total) around the 25 minute mark when she started using SpongeBob SquarePants for expository purposes (and she appears to have kept at it for about 25 minutes...).
From Contrapoint's Canceling video (apropos of Freddie's post):
'I realize that people on Twitter aren't actually gonna [watch] this.
...
But yeah, they're gonna see the title and they're gonna transcribe quotes out of context and they're gonna say I'm a fascist, I'm a TERF, I'm truscum, .... "
But they're saying all those things already, so I'm inoculated.
See, their mistake was completely breaking my spirit. They should have left a little piece intact. But it's good, it's good, because basically, my survival from here on out hinges on my ability to not care at all what people say about me online.
So here's to not giving a f*ck! [drinks champagne]'
True. But I think we can't help ourselves when we are being publicly shamed. It's a natural reaction to an outsized negative focus on one aspect of who we are.
Mostly agree, but—though it’s not fresh in my mind, I remember cringing at how much ground she was willing to cede to people who were committed to being completely unreasonable. The overall thrust of the video was positive but it was just sort of... embarrassing to see how little regard she seemed to have for her own judgement.
I always see the Lindsay Ellis thing as one of those live by the woke sword, die by the woke sword things. She built a career with appeals to that ideological weapon and felt herself defenseless when it was aimed at her, no longer able to swim with the mass of piranha. I largely liked her work though; hope she finds another pond someday.
I'm so far offline that it's taken me 20 minutes to figure out that Lindsay Ellis is NOT the same person as Lindsay Jacobellis, famous Olympic snowboarder.
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'm sorry that you can't read" in response to a request for an apology has a weird way of both intensifying short-term online conflict but also steering it into safer waters that allow both sides to remain cordial later. I'm not sure if it's the step down into a different conflict that does it (being rude is a lesser offense than perpetuating oppression or whatever, so if the conflict can become about that, it's less serious) or just the early acknowledgment that neither side is going to budge, or what.
Of all the things I don't quite understand about Being Online, perhaps number 1 is how social justice-y wrestling has become. I remember people suddenly talking about Raw again like 7 years ago and I was like wow, cool, a pro wrestling resurgence, can't wait to discuss old Stone Cold promos I loved as a teen! But that is not at all what happened
Occasionally I'll check in on pro wrestling message boards/Reddit when there's big news and... Yikes. It's like the casual homophobia and misogyny of twenty years ago was seemlessly replaced by sociopathic justice types. Or, for all I know, they're the same people just wearing a different hat.
I think that’s a big contributor for a lot of people. Also disaffection from religion. It’s the same story just different trappings.
I am very very lucky that I have a strong and loving partnership* and a small handful of very supportive people. I never take that for granted.
*my partner has a stable job in public service that funds our modest life until I return to work in a couple years.
I struggled for years to reconcile my intellectual and educational achievements with my desire to be an at home parent. There are certainly remaining social structures that make being a parent more difficult than it needs to be. But I discovered that a lot of the social expectations and pressures I was feeling and fighting against weren’t coming from some nebulous yet structurally significant “Them,” but inside my own head. I so often feel that way when I read things written by social justice activists or memes meant to be empowering against the haters and oppressors. I’ll look around and think, who are you talking to?
"Them". Tucker Carlson rants against "them" every night in order to rile up and immiserate millions of grumpy old people. His "them" is us. Giving a rat's ass about "them" is an equal opportunity way to become unhappy.
Tucker has plenty of young viewers and gets more all the time.
I realize that you may despise old people and think others do, too; but still, there are even more people to despise in his audience -- young, old, Democrats, independents, etc.
'“More surprising are the stats about Carlson and Fox News’ pull with self-proclaimed Democrats. Of those demo-aged viewers surveyed who identified as Democrats, 39% chose Fox News, 31% chose MSNBC and 30% chose CNN for programming from 8 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET.
“In total-day viewership, Fox News grabbed 42% of Democrats aged 25-54, CNN nabbed 33% and MSNBC got 25%."'
Both. A lot of what I say sounds nihilistic (I've given up, everything is meaningless, etc) but its actually very freeing to let go of striving. I haven't stopped caring or trying. I've just stopped needing/wanting/expecting certain outcomes. I have a lovely family and a small house and a car and everything I could ever need. Striving might get me a bigger house with a bigger bathtub, or a new car, but that's it.
I just bought Viktor's “Man's Search for Meaning”. Also, I agree that detaching from outcomes is fabulous and very freeing. It's a great way to live. I still have goals but none of my goals are about impressing other people beyond a certain basic professionalism so that people will hire me for projects. Mostly, my goals surround increasing my competence, skillsets, and education as much as possible. I would like to die knowing how to do everything. ;-)
Remote working has made it possible to not have to worry about grooming, which is one of the main ways humans posture. I can leverage my brain to make money without having to impress people visually - which is a good thing because I have frizzy Jewish hair that takes hours to tame and maintain and I only have the patience to wash it once a week. I have a suit jacket hanging in my office that I slap on over my t-shirt for zoom meetings.
Plus, organizing your life around impressing other people to gain social status is just exhausting. It means you are always trying to meet other people's expectations instead of feeding your own soul and living your own values.
I’ve not had to Dress to Impress in more than a decade and that has been freeing. I actually now know the types of grooming I enjoy spending time on (lately it’s my nails: my natural nails break easily and painfully so I’ve learned how to give myself fake ones that I actually have fun with; I enjoy the artistry of makeup AND the freedom to only put it on when I feel like it). My hair is another matter entirely that I have yet to care about.
I thought "Fuck you, I've got mine" meant "I've got what I need, so I don't care if you get what you need." It doesn't seem to me that Erin implied the latter part.
Ah, I had never heard of FFF, but I've had a few fun minutes learning about them. When I read your reply I was thinking "WTF? How did they get *that* from 'La donna è mobile'?" until I discovered that the movie as an In Name Only adaption.
We slipped them a couple Benjamins – I thought that would be enough. The help are getting above themselves: Time for some class struggle from the top down!
I think that maybe this comment is a form of signaling of virtue for social status... unless truly an anti-social recluse. I don't think most people can turn off that gene. The challenge is to direct it toward a true moral calling with conviction, or just a selfish one that seeks to harm others to be see as better by comparison.
Saying "I don't give a crap what others' think of me" is generally a lie for most people. I think it is "I have self-confidence for being a moral and righteous person, hence my self-worth is unaffected by criticism of others that I am not. But I am also human and prone to mistakes and can always learn, grow and be better."
Haha dude I have nobody to virtue signal to but the people on this comments section and I’m positive many of you think I’m full of shit. I’m in no way superior. I can be petty and bitter. I’ve just gotten adept at letting shit go, as compared to me at an earlier stage of life. And I’m happier.
Good for you. Letting shit go and being happier are good goals. Victim mentality is a soul-crushing exercise that seems to be an epidemic these days.
My point was that it is really difficult to not care what we think our peer group thinks of us. It is baked in. I agree with Peterson on that. But I do think as we get older we can care less about it... mostly because we have developed a level of wisdom and self-confidence and thus thicker skin against those that would attempt to shame us.
Agree. Of course my instinct is to care what People Think. But as I mentioned to another commenter, I’ve realized a lot of times the Person I’m Trying to Break Free from or Impress is in my own head.
I think the trick is knowing whose opinions to give a crap about.
My partner's? My friends'? My family's? Of course I care what they think, because I care about them and they care about me. But the internet kinda tricks you into thinking that the entirety of the world is your peer group and...it isn't. Or it shouldn't be. It should not matter or affect me that there are people out there who disagree with my life choices, but social media (and also activist groups...) try to convince you that it does matter because that makes their engagement better.
For what it's worth, one can't *not* signal with a comment - or a blog post, or an essay, or anything else made of language. It's *language*, it's made of nothing but signifiers. The question is, does the speaker really believe the words or not? (Which I think Erin does.)
The confusion arises with the question of purpose. If you're posting something out of the desire that you be viewed by other readers as "virtuous", you have to give them more to go on than a screen name. Logically.
I suppose that there are folks who obtain gratification by amassing upvotes like treasure on behalf of their pseudonymous screen name. But screen names are phantasmal practically by definition. Imperative as a placeholder, for anyone seeking coherence in a reply thread. But outside of a few specialized functions, a screen name has little inherent significance, per se.
Tough call. Would I like everybody to like me? Yes. Do I in my (by now ingrained) paranoia feel that far fewer people like me than I would like? Also yes. But I’m in my 60s and one of my parents died young, so I’m ever conscious of the claw of mortality out there somewhere. So in the nature of things I give fewer fucks every day. Do the best you can, try to be a decent person, try even to make some people happy, but don’t get too uptight about what people think of you.
On the Internet, no one can tell that you're a dog, okay?
As a rule, the participants in comment sections are all hidden by the same practically impenetrable veil. It's a cognitive mistake to conclude anything about them other than what can be directly inferred by their post content.
"I think that maybe this comment is a form of signaling of virtue for social status... unless truly an anti-social recluse."
Indulging in solipsism is a personal choice. You can think that way if you want to, but be aware that it is a personal choice. And not one you can assume that anyone else is necessarily making (much less that "everyone" is making, or that "most people" are making.)
As far as I can tell, using one's full, verifiable name is an absolute precondition for receiving any legitimate social status validation (or condemnation) at all from others.
In that regard, unless that signifier of the presence of a personal ego is attached to other specific identification criteria, the name "Frank Lee" is as anonymous as "Mascot" or "Erin E.", or most of the other comment writers here. The rest of us don't care about you that much. We wouldn't know how to, honestly. Other than the content supplied, we don't know each other at all.
The text forums of the Internet are a pathetic place to expect personal validation (much less to seek it out.) The convenience of using conversations like these to generate interactions with others doesn't make up for the negligible amount of authentic personal attachment that's present in the typical run of Internet discourse.
Video and pictures are very different. You put an image of your body that you know is yours out there, and social status concerns arise. Text content attached to a human face and body is different from just writing like this, for that matter. Although when an image is presented, how can anyone be sure that it's you? (It's crossed my mind that I'd like to set up a contest: photos of 25 different people-and then guess which one is me, based solely on acquaintance with my writings. Maybe some day I'll find a valid reason to do it.)
Internet users need to reflect on the reality that everything on the Internet is not what it appears to be, or is claimed to be...come on, this is basic!
"I don't think most people can turn off that gene."
There isn't any "gene" of that sort.
This is how I read Internet comments: content first.
The identity of the post author runs a very distant second.
After a long span of time, it's possible to get acquainted with some features of the personality and character of another poster (their personality, from details of their writing style; their character, by the ethical standards they adhere to in debate, and sometimes by expressive details of their post content.) But even then, what's being viewed is the public persona, which is subject to being carefully curated by the author. I get that even real-life, in-person friendships can partake of some amount of image crafting. But the deeper they are, the less artifice is present.
I like to find out that my content is being respected or viewed as valuable by others. But if I were driven by a desire to improve my level of approval by the Public, I'd shorten the length of my written observations. You know, the Public. That amorphous thing out there, on the other side of the veil. "Anonymous readers of pseudonymous comments" really isn't a social status category.
You can’t see in the thumbnail, but that little orange bit behind her is a granola bar box that says “sweet and salty nut” which is a good description for her and me both.
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.
It was a real mise-en-abyss, but she's smart enough that it was plenty interesting... but it was a bit like Charlie Kaufman writing an apology video. I don't blame her mind - I do think she tried to work the whole absurdity of the situation into the video, but also was genuinely upset (and simultaneously aware of the danger of performing how upset she was).
I wish liberal-to-left YouTubers wouldn't make their videos so damn long though!
I like a good long video as long as there's meat there to justify it. Most of the time the video is superfluous and you can just listen to them like you would a podcast.
Well, Bob, I think it's because the "inclusivity" is so radical that pretend lines of demarcation are drawn so their inner turmoil has something to do with itself. For instance, last week was teacher appreciation week and I saw multiple memes listing the teachers who ought to be appreciated that included "teachers who have quit." So, like, people who aren't teachers? Or yesterday, mothers day, I saw memes listing "people who have chosen not to be mothers" as also worthy of consideration that day. So, like, not mothers? And the week before, lesbian day or whatever, the memes included lesbians who use male pronouns and have weiners. So, like, those original lesbians: males?
I also think some amount of it has to do with their belief that they are radically inclusive but when they look around the room, almost everyone is college educated and possibly also white.
It's sort of like you keep firing your pistol at people outside the house so no one asks too many questions about the people in the house with the guns.
One explanation I've seen floating around is that the left as such has little to no actual power at the moment (a slim Democratic lead in the Senate doesn't really count, especially with Manchin and Sinema making kings), so they just kind of eat each other and fight over dumb, inconsequential nonsense. Like they say: the politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low. The vast majority in the DSA will never get actual electoral power (and if they do, they'll probably be impossible to work with anyway, because, surprise! Just because you get elected as some sort of socialist doesn't mean the rest of your legislative body did). The idea that, maybe, compromising with Republicans to get a tax rate knocked down a few percentage points or a budget line item allocated for some extra social services, is pure anathema. That's obviously what _fascists_ and _neolibs_ do. They want to burn the entire thing down and... I don't know, they haven't gotten that far.
Having met a bunch of these people, I think a lot of them are also just incredibly broken. I think far-left, woke ideology just attracts a lot of profoundly emotionally-maladjusted people. Throwing out years of friendship because you don't think BDS is a good idea is pathological, but stuff like that happens all the time.
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!
The second time I had Covid I'd been vaccinated and it was a lot less gruelling than the first time (which was embarassingly early on). Not sure if there's a vaccination programme for cancellations...
Anyone who figures out how to stage and manage a cancellation that burns the dead wood in someone's spheres and leaves them looking bold, unflappable, and cancel-proof could make a killing.
Just find some nice "wedge issue" that gets someone cancelled but makes ordinary people say, "...huh? So what?", then manage the client's Twitter account for a month while the client disconnects and sips piña coladas by the beach or gin in a cabin or whatever. It'd probably be too pricey for schmucks like me, but they could get thousands or tens of thousands of dollars out of celebrities if they were good enough.
You need some sort of lightning rod, as it were, but I wonder how you could do it without perhaps-unmanageable amounts of deception. For example, if people try to get you fired, how do you deflect that? Do you just hope that you've hidden your job well, and then convince people you actually work for Lightning Rod Shell Company, LLC? (Complete with public e-mail address to send "receipts" to!)
That being said, I've had the same business idea. I think it could work pretty well for a few years if you can work out some of the kinks.
Humans spend an inordinate amount of time navel gazing.
This is yet another area in which humans would do well to emulate cats, for we do not obsess over ourselves in the same way.
I mean, I wash between my toes, but I don't try and imagine that this is some transcendent act of self-identification that gives my existence meaning. Mostly, it means that I like the space between my toes to be clean, and besides, keeping my scent down is important to avoid alerting predators and prey.
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.”
I remember when Charlie Sheen did it, and everyone damn near lost their minds over it. I can't blame him - he worked extremely hard to be rich enough to afford hookers and cocaine, so he damn sure wasn't going to apologize for any of it.
In many ways, I think Charlie Sheen is the patient zero of the never apologize school of PR, I mean he actually shot a car commercial where the punchline was him wearing an ankle monitor.
May I present Lauren Hough. A few months ago, when her memoir came out, she posted about Goodreads reviews: "Glad to see most of the goodreads assholes still giving 4 star reviews to show they're super tough reviews who need to like, fall in love, you know? Anyway. No one likes you." / "All the writers scared to even like that tweet. I see you. I will hate them out loud for you. I know they're scary as shit. Fucking nerds on a power trip, you forgot to assign homework motherfuckers."
Cue huge shitstorm on Twitter, an army of Goodreads reviewers giving the book 1 star to protest her "bullying," and media attention. Hough refused to apologize and was telling people to "grow up" and "eat shit" days into the controversy.
A few weeks ago, it happened again when she got into a Twitter feud with a reviewer who called her friend's book transphobic. Lambda Literary withdrew her nomination for an award, and Hough published a long essay in her own defense on her Substack (titled, hilariously, Badreads: https://laurenhough.substack.com/p/a-question-for-lambda-literary).
For example: “I haven’t the first fucking clue who this person is but I’m glad to know I’m their entire world. Warms my cold heart. Let’s all smoke a fatty to that.” She still hasn't apologized and probably never will.
Good on her for showing confidence, I guess, but yelling at reviewers for leaving four- instead of five-star reviews is pretty shitty behavior. If the people now having apology contests realize the futility of it and all start acting like that instead, I'm not sure we will have gained anything.
Oh definitely. She is very combative and unprofessional on Twitter.
Edit: To be clear, I don't think anyone should lash out at reviewers. I would never complain about reviews, and I tell new authors the same thing. It's bad behavior.
*However* as a spectator, I perversely enjoyed watching Hough go down fighting just because social justice book Twitter is so merciless. And as usual, the claims of harm and trauma were exaggerated (and made by people who weren't even involved). So I watched it all unfold like the Michael Jackson popcorn GIF.
So she starts out basically trolling herself, in the persona of a diva attacking any reviewer who falls short of crowning her as Goddess Empress of Literature, and then acts shocked, shocked, at the audience reaction that ensued?
(I'd follow the links, if I found anything especially intriguing about a situation like that.)
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.
Well, the truth is the opposite! Mostly young women and gay men and many people of color (which is new to the field of Medieval European history, I guess). You'd think maybe then they'd only be arguing with the old white men, but they seem to mostly just argue with one another.
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.
It feels more like 1930s Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks had legitimate political disagreements with the Mensheviks. By the 1930s, it was purely about power and personal issues.
So many of these stories read like the tempest in a teapot version of a Zinoviev or Kamenev. Freddie's line about prosecutors becoming defendants sounds like a history of the 1930s. Except those stakes were a wee bit higher.
Only slightly germane but because you mentioned her, Liz Breunig being attacked by someone for Freddie's Unherd article was peak Twitter. Just an absolutely hilarious moment.
I was just going to comment, "Congrats. Freddy! You've channeled Vox Day from 2015."
This link from M. DeBoer above explains a lotta it. Leastways, I enjoyed it:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159083886558305&id=516128304
It appears to have been taken down.
Hm. Ain't that the Way. Ah well...
The issues they focus on are NOT irrelevant. Their goal is to completely remake society, in ways most of us won't like very much, as in Kendi's proposed anti-racist constitutional amendment. (Though I do look forward to watching the much whiter and more asian NBA ...)
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.
On the other hand, her persona was always one of the dial-it-up-to-10-steeped-in-irony-meta-bois (she/her) and when it came time to either be sincere or sufficiently scathingly direct in her apology/response, she had no foundations on which to stand.
I think the intersection of irony-bros and woke discourse is kind of interesting and I enjoyed Freddie touching on it with the 'birds aren't real' post.
Agreed. She mostly defends herself by picking apart every accusation and showing how it's being blown out of proportion or just straight up imaginary.
True, but I would have preferred no response
Yeah it's kinda amazing that Freddie watched that video and interpreted it as a grovelling apology. Makes it hard to take the rest of this post seriously.
I can only imagine that he didn’t watch and is letting his imagination/preconceptions about Ellis and YouTube culture fill in the blanks
I agree, but I also think getting so personal was exactly the wrong move. She seemed to think “fuck you, you haven’t thought about my humanity or my history or my feelings once before coming to destroy me” would, like... get people to think about her humanity or her history or her feelings, but of course it didn’t. You can’t shame the shameless.
Contrapoints did a video about one of the times she was canceled and I think it does a lot to explain why these people make appeals to the mob's humanity.
A lot of their identity, not only as a youtuber, but as a person was formed by their time online. They found community and comradery online with strangers. To have that community turn viciously on you is a lot to take in.
But, of course, as it has always been for celebrities: we love to build them up, but we love tearing them down a whole lot more.
Ellis’ video definitely took a lot of inspiration from Contrapoints’, but tbh I think CP threaded the needle better. Probably because she’d already learned the lesson about over-reliance on online communities.
Yeah, I also think Ellis was using hers as a permanent goodbye, which makes its goals a bit different.
True!
I can't remember if I saw the Contrapoints cancelling video. I thought she was better when the videos were 10-15 minute rants rather than bizarre short films
I like some better than others - “Canceling” and “Cringe” are my recent favorites, though “Shame” was enjoyable in a more personal way. Some carry the thread through the whole length better than others.
Shame is a great video!
Have to agree. I checked out of the last one (105 minutes total) around the 25 minute mark when she started using SpongeBob SquarePants for expository purposes (and she appears to have kept at it for about 25 minutes...).
From Contrapoint's Canceling video (apropos of Freddie's post):
'I realize that people on Twitter aren't actually gonna [watch] this.
...
But yeah, they're gonna see the title and they're gonna transcribe quotes out of context and they're gonna say I'm a fascist, I'm a TERF, I'm truscum, .... "
But they're saying all those things already, so I'm inoculated.
See, their mistake was completely breaking my spirit. They should have left a little piece intact. But it's good, it's good, because basically, my survival from here on out hinges on my ability to not care at all what people say about me online.
So here's to not giving a f*ck! [drinks champagne]'
True. But I think we can't help ourselves when we are being publicly shamed. It's a natural reaction to an outsized negative focus on one aspect of who we are.
Mostly agree, but—though it’s not fresh in my mind, I remember cringing at how much ground she was willing to cede to people who were committed to being completely unreasonable. The overall thrust of the video was positive but it was just sort of... embarrassing to see how little regard she seemed to have for her own judgement.
I always see the Lindsay Ellis thing as one of those live by the woke sword, die by the woke sword things. She built a career with appeals to that ideological weapon and felt herself defenseless when it was aimed at her, no longer able to swim with the mass of piranha. I largely liked her work though; hope she finds another pond someday.
I'm so far offline that it's taken me 20 minutes to figure out that Lindsay Ellis is NOT the same person as Lindsay Jacobellis, famous Olympic snowboarder.
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'm sorry that you can't read" in response to a request for an apology has a weird way of both intensifying short-term online conflict but also steering it into safer waters that allow both sides to remain cordial later. I'm not sure if it's the step down into a different conflict that does it (being rude is a lesser offense than perpetuating oppression or whatever, so if the conflict can become about that, it's less serious) or just the early acknowledgment that neither side is going to budge, or what.
Of all the things I don't quite understand about Being Online, perhaps number 1 is how social justice-y wrestling has become. I remember people suddenly talking about Raw again like 7 years ago and I was like wow, cool, a pro wrestling resurgence, can't wait to discuss old Stone Cold promos I loved as a teen! But that is not at all what happened
Occasionally I'll check in on pro wrestling message boards/Reddit when there's big news and... Yikes. It's like the casual homophobia and misogyny of twenty years ago was seemlessly replaced by sociopathic justice types. Or, for all I know, they're the same people just wearing a different hat.
I have found my life so much more fulfilling and peaceful since I gave up wanting anything having to do with social status.
I think that’s a big contributor for a lot of people. Also disaffection from religion. It’s the same story just different trappings.
I am very very lucky that I have a strong and loving partnership* and a small handful of very supportive people. I never take that for granted.
*my partner has a stable job in public service that funds our modest life until I return to work in a couple years.
I struggled for years to reconcile my intellectual and educational achievements with my desire to be an at home parent. There are certainly remaining social structures that make being a parent more difficult than it needs to be. But I discovered that a lot of the social expectations and pressures I was feeling and fighting against weren’t coming from some nebulous yet structurally significant “Them,” but inside my own head. I so often feel that way when I read things written by social justice activists or memes meant to be empowering against the haters and oppressors. I’ll look around and think, who are you talking to?
"Them". Tucker Carlson rants against "them" every night in order to rile up and immiserate millions of grumpy old people. His "them" is us. Giving a rat's ass about "them" is an equal opportunity way to become unhappy.
Yes! So true.
He invites them to come on and talk, but THEY decline. That seems to confirm his rants.
Going on Tucker Carlson to "defend" your views is as dumb as going onto whatever Jon Stewart's show is called
Tucker has plenty of young viewers and gets more all the time.
I realize that you may despise old people and think others do, too; but still, there are even more people to despise in his audience -- young, old, Democrats, independents, etc.
'“More surprising are the stats about Carlson and Fox News’ pull with self-proclaimed Democrats. Of those demo-aged viewers surveyed who identified as Democrats, 39% chose Fox News, 31% chose MSNBC and 30% chose CNN for programming from 8 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET.
“In total-day viewership, Fox News grabbed 42% of Democrats aged 25-54, CNN nabbed 33% and MSNBC got 25%."'
"I realize that you may despise old people". Nice call. I'm 59.
Astute.
is it an age thing or a common sense thing or a bit of both?
Both. A lot of what I say sounds nihilistic (I've given up, everything is meaningless, etc) but its actually very freeing to let go of striving. I haven't stopped caring or trying. I've just stopped needing/wanting/expecting certain outcomes. I have a lovely family and a small house and a car and everything I could ever need. Striving might get me a bigger house with a bigger bathtub, or a new car, but that's it.
go on and spoil yourself then
If it’s good enough for Viktor Frankl, Oprah, the Buddha, and Nick Offerman, it’s good enough for me
I just bought Viktor's “Man's Search for Meaning”. Also, I agree that detaching from outcomes is fabulous and very freeing. It's a great way to live. I still have goals but none of my goals are about impressing other people beyond a certain basic professionalism so that people will hire me for projects. Mostly, my goals surround increasing my competence, skillsets, and education as much as possible. I would like to die knowing how to do everything. ;-)
Remote working has made it possible to not have to worry about grooming, which is one of the main ways humans posture. I can leverage my brain to make money without having to impress people visually - which is a good thing because I have frizzy Jewish hair that takes hours to tame and maintain and I only have the patience to wash it once a week. I have a suit jacket hanging in my office that I slap on over my t-shirt for zoom meetings.
Plus, organizing your life around impressing other people to gain social status is just exhausting. It means you are always trying to meet other people's expectations instead of feeding your own soul and living your own values.
I’ve not had to Dress to Impress in more than a decade and that has been freeing. I actually now know the types of grooming I enjoy spending time on (lately it’s my nails: my natural nails break easily and painfully so I’ve learned how to give myself fake ones that I actually have fun with; I enjoy the artistry of makeup AND the freedom to only put it on when I feel like it). My hair is another matter entirely that I have yet to care about.
“Grateful for enough” as the adults say.
Just submission to this reality, KT:
"The things you really need are few and easy to come by; but the things you can imagine you need are infinite, and you will never be satisfied."
LOL! You crack me up. 😁
"Desire is the cause of all suffering" as the Buddhists say.
"Only God can judge me" as the gangsta rappers say.
I thought "Fuck you, I've got mine" meant "I've got what I need, so I don't care if you get what you need." It doesn't seem to me that Erin implied the latter part.
You get me, pj. If I’m saying anything it’s “I don’t need more”
I've found that a healthy dose of basic Stoicism can be an excellent foil to the modern 'woke' ideology.
Being controlled by one's desires is its own tyranny. Pick your poison.
The evils of self-control are typically more tolerable than the evils of excessive self-indulgence.
It's hard to do, but it's possible.
I recognized that I wasn't trying to prove the kids in elementary school wrong (or, possibly worse, prove them right).
For me it's just enjoying my family. That's what's important.
aaaaaaah!
👀
god I wish that were me
It can be, darling. I've managed it with the consistent application of a line from a movie I saw when I was 10: "change the way you feel."
Which movie was that? A couple of search attempts failed.
You're going to laugh. It was a Feature Films for Families VHS of Rigoletto. I've since learned that FFF was funded by the Mormon church, which I've never been part of. https://www.amazon.com/Rigoletto-Feature-Films-Musical-Fantasy/dp/B00HGEB2N2
Ah, I had never heard of FFF, but I've had a few fun minutes learning about them. When I read your reply I was thinking "WTF? How did they get *that* from 'La donna è mobile'?" until I discovered that the movie as an In Name Only adaption.
Lol yeah. Totally random.
That’s fine for you, Erin, but I intend to fuck my way to the middle! 🤯
You do you honey
Room 408.
But you knew that.
Yes. That’s the room number associated with all the complaints from the maids.
We slipped them a couple Benjamins – I thought that would be enough. The help are getting above themselves: Time for some class struggle from the top down!
I think that maybe this comment is a form of signaling of virtue for social status... unless truly an anti-social recluse. I don't think most people can turn off that gene. The challenge is to direct it toward a true moral calling with conviction, or just a selfish one that seeks to harm others to be see as better by comparison.
Saying "I don't give a crap what others' think of me" is generally a lie for most people. I think it is "I have self-confidence for being a moral and righteous person, hence my self-worth is unaffected by criticism of others that I am not. But I am also human and prone to mistakes and can always learn, grow and be better."
Haha dude I have nobody to virtue signal to but the people on this comments section and I’m positive many of you think I’m full of shit. I’m in no way superior. I can be petty and bitter. I’ve just gotten adept at letting shit go, as compared to me at an earlier stage of life. And I’m happier.
Good for you. Letting shit go and being happier are good goals. Victim mentality is a soul-crushing exercise that seems to be an epidemic these days.
My point was that it is really difficult to not care what we think our peer group thinks of us. It is baked in. I agree with Peterson on that. But I do think as we get older we can care less about it... mostly because we have developed a level of wisdom and self-confidence and thus thicker skin against those that would attempt to shame us.
Agree. Of course my instinct is to care what People Think. But as I mentioned to another commenter, I’ve realized a lot of times the Person I’m Trying to Break Free from or Impress is in my own head.
how dare you signal virtue
Hey if the shoe fits I’ll wear it
I think the trick is knowing whose opinions to give a crap about.
My partner's? My friends'? My family's? Of course I care what they think, because I care about them and they care about me. But the internet kinda tricks you into thinking that the entirety of the world is your peer group and...it isn't. Or it shouldn't be. It should not matter or affect me that there are people out there who disagree with my life choices, but social media (and also activist groups...) try to convince you that it does matter because that makes their engagement better.
For what it's worth, one can't *not* signal with a comment - or a blog post, or an essay, or anything else made of language. It's *language*, it's made of nothing but signifiers. The question is, does the speaker really believe the words or not? (Which I think Erin does.)
The confusion arises with the question of purpose. If you're posting something out of the desire that you be viewed by other readers as "virtuous", you have to give them more to go on than a screen name. Logically.
I suppose that there are folks who obtain gratification by amassing upvotes like treasure on behalf of their pseudonymous screen name. But screen names are phantasmal practically by definition. Imperative as a placeholder, for anyone seeking coherence in a reply thread. But outside of a few specialized functions, a screen name has little inherent significance, per se.
Tough call. Would I like everybody to like me? Yes. Do I in my (by now ingrained) paranoia feel that far fewer people like me than I would like? Also yes. But I’m in my 60s and one of my parents died young, so I’m ever conscious of the claw of mortality out there somewhere. So in the nature of things I give fewer fucks every day. Do the best you can, try to be a decent person, try even to make some people happy, but don’t get too uptight about what people think of you.
“A ringing statement of the blindingly obvious” perhaps. But then, as Orwell said, to see what is in front of one’s nose takes a constant struggle
On the Internet, no one can tell that you're a dog, okay?
As a rule, the participants in comment sections are all hidden by the same practically impenetrable veil. It's a cognitive mistake to conclude anything about them other than what can be directly inferred by their post content.
"I think that maybe this comment is a form of signaling of virtue for social status... unless truly an anti-social recluse."
Indulging in solipsism is a personal choice. You can think that way if you want to, but be aware that it is a personal choice. And not one you can assume that anyone else is necessarily making (much less that "everyone" is making, or that "most people" are making.)
As far as I can tell, using one's full, verifiable name is an absolute precondition for receiving any legitimate social status validation (or condemnation) at all from others.
In that regard, unless that signifier of the presence of a personal ego is attached to other specific identification criteria, the name "Frank Lee" is as anonymous as "Mascot" or "Erin E.", or most of the other comment writers here. The rest of us don't care about you that much. We wouldn't know how to, honestly. Other than the content supplied, we don't know each other at all.
The text forums of the Internet are a pathetic place to expect personal validation (much less to seek it out.) The convenience of using conversations like these to generate interactions with others doesn't make up for the negligible amount of authentic personal attachment that's present in the typical run of Internet discourse.
Video and pictures are very different. You put an image of your body that you know is yours out there, and social status concerns arise. Text content attached to a human face and body is different from just writing like this, for that matter. Although when an image is presented, how can anyone be sure that it's you? (It's crossed my mind that I'd like to set up a contest: photos of 25 different people-and then guess which one is me, based solely on acquaintance with my writings. Maybe some day I'll find a valid reason to do it.)
Internet users need to reflect on the reality that everything on the Internet is not what it appears to be, or is claimed to be...come on, this is basic!
"I don't think most people can turn off that gene."
There isn't any "gene" of that sort.
This is how I read Internet comments: content first.
The identity of the post author runs a very distant second.
After a long span of time, it's possible to get acquainted with some features of the personality and character of another poster (their personality, from details of their writing style; their character, by the ethical standards they adhere to in debate, and sometimes by expressive details of their post content.) But even then, what's being viewed is the public persona, which is subject to being carefully curated by the author. I get that even real-life, in-person friendships can partake of some amount of image crafting. But the deeper they are, the less artifice is present.
I like to find out that my content is being respected or viewed as valuable by others. But if I were driven by a desire to improve my level of approval by the Public, I'd shorten the length of my written observations. You know, the Public. That amorphous thing out there, on the other side of the veil. "Anonymous readers of pseudonymous comments" really isn't a social status category.
<— Full disclosure: that is my real dog
if I can believe you ;-D
one way or another- it's a shameless appeal! it's like it generates a force field of "aww..."
You can’t see in the thumbnail, but that little orange bit behind her is a granola bar box that says “sweet and salty nut” which is a good description for her and me both.
...whereas my avatar photo says absolutely nothing about me personally. (what, reader- you thought that it did?)
Unless my name happens to show up in one of the files of the government entity depicted, perhaps. I've never checked.
I could change the picture. But that, too, would be an illusion.
<— Full disclosure: that is NOT my real dog
imagine my relief!
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.
It was a real mise-en-abyss, but she's smart enough that it was plenty interesting... but it was a bit like Charlie Kaufman writing an apology video. I don't blame her mind - I do think she tried to work the whole absurdity of the situation into the video, but also was genuinely upset (and simultaneously aware of the danger of performing how upset she was).
I wish liberal-to-left YouTubers wouldn't make their videos so damn long though!
I like a good long video as long as there's meat there to justify it. Most of the time the video is superfluous and you can just listen to them like you would a podcast.
The left is bankrupt, exhausted and vicious.
why do progressives have to be so annoying
Well, Bob, I think it's because the "inclusivity" is so radical that pretend lines of demarcation are drawn so their inner turmoil has something to do with itself. For instance, last week was teacher appreciation week and I saw multiple memes listing the teachers who ought to be appreciated that included "teachers who have quit." So, like, people who aren't teachers? Or yesterday, mothers day, I saw memes listing "people who have chosen not to be mothers" as also worthy of consideration that day. So, like, not mothers? And the week before, lesbian day or whatever, the memes included lesbians who use male pronouns and have weiners. So, like, those original lesbians: males?
“teachers who have quit” /ded
Why don't they award purple hearts to those of us who don't fight????
I also think some amount of it has to do with their belief that they are radically inclusive but when they look around the room, almost everyone is college educated and possibly also white.
It's sort of like you keep firing your pistol at people outside the house so no one asks too many questions about the people in the house with the guns.
Right, I think we should have realized by now you can have diversity of gender, sexuality, race, etc and still no diversity of thought
I think a bigger part is that they rarely even have the kind of diversity they take such pride in.
That last example is OFF TOPIC Erin, you have been warned!!!
Don’t report me or I swear to god it’s war
One explanation I've seen floating around is that the left as such has little to no actual power at the moment (a slim Democratic lead in the Senate doesn't really count, especially with Manchin and Sinema making kings), so they just kind of eat each other and fight over dumb, inconsequential nonsense. Like they say: the politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low. The vast majority in the DSA will never get actual electoral power (and if they do, they'll probably be impossible to work with anyway, because, surprise! Just because you get elected as some sort of socialist doesn't mean the rest of your legislative body did). The idea that, maybe, compromising with Republicans to get a tax rate knocked down a few percentage points or a budget line item allocated for some extra social services, is pure anathema. That's obviously what _fascists_ and _neolibs_ do. They want to burn the entire thing down and... I don't know, they haven't gotten that far.
Having met a bunch of these people, I think a lot of them are also just incredibly broken. I think far-left, woke ideology just attracts a lot of profoundly emotionally-maladjusted people. Throwing out years of friendship because you don't think BDS is a good idea is pathological, but stuff like that happens all the time.
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!
"no hope of anyone of avoiding it." We're all gonna get covid, and we're all gonna get cancelled.
The second time I had Covid I'd been vaccinated and it was a lot less gruelling than the first time (which was embarassingly early on). Not sure if there's a vaccination programme for cancellations...
But they're even more into eugenics than the history of vaccinations is...
Anyone who figures out how to stage and manage a cancellation that burns the dead wood in someone's spheres and leaves them looking bold, unflappable, and cancel-proof could make a killing.
Just find some nice "wedge issue" that gets someone cancelled but makes ordinary people say, "...huh? So what?", then manage the client's Twitter account for a month while the client disconnects and sips piña coladas by the beach or gin in a cabin or whatever. It'd probably be too pricey for schmucks like me, but they could get thousands or tens of thousands of dollars out of celebrities if they were good enough.
You need some sort of lightning rod, as it were, but I wonder how you could do it without perhaps-unmanageable amounts of deception. For example, if people try to get you fired, how do you deflect that? Do you just hope that you've hidden your job well, and then convince people you actually work for Lightning Rod Shell Company, LLC? (Complete with public e-mail address to send "receipts" to!)
That being said, I've had the same business idea. I think it could work pretty well for a few years if you can work out some of the kinks.
Yes! Bring back the subversive. I am so sick of the goody two shoes posturing. It makes me want to smack someone.
Humans spend an inordinate amount of time navel gazing.
This is yet another area in which humans would do well to emulate cats, for we do not obsess over ourselves in the same way.
I mean, I wash between my toes, but I don't try and imagine that this is some transcendent act of self-identification that gives my existence meaning. Mostly, it means that I like the space between my toes to be clean, and besides, keeping my scent down is important to avoid alerting predators and prey.
Just one cat here on this site, as far as I know. Hard to get the smell through the computer screen so there may be more of us.
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.”
I would love a major IDGAF response too. How cathartic would that be?
Agreed! It would release a shock wave of cultural catharsis, I’d imagine
I remember when Charlie Sheen did it, and everyone damn near lost their minds over it. I can't blame him - he worked extremely hard to be rich enough to afford hookers and cocaine, so he damn sure wasn't going to apologize for any of it.
You don't get famous enough for hookers and cocaine by apologizing all the time.
In many ways, I think Charlie Sheen is the patient zero of the never apologize school of PR, I mean he actually shot a car commercial where the punchline was him wearing an ankle monitor.
May I present Lauren Hough. A few months ago, when her memoir came out, she posted about Goodreads reviews: "Glad to see most of the goodreads assholes still giving 4 star reviews to show they're super tough reviews who need to like, fall in love, you know? Anyway. No one likes you." / "All the writers scared to even like that tweet. I see you. I will hate them out loud for you. I know they're scary as shit. Fucking nerds on a power trip, you forgot to assign homework motherfuckers."
Cue huge shitstorm on Twitter, an army of Goodreads reviewers giving the book 1 star to protest her "bullying," and media attention. Hough refused to apologize and was telling people to "grow up" and "eat shit" days into the controversy.
A few weeks ago, it happened again when she got into a Twitter feud with a reviewer who called her friend's book transphobic. Lambda Literary withdrew her nomination for an award, and Hough published a long essay in her own defense on her Substack (titled, hilariously, Badreads: https://laurenhough.substack.com/p/a-question-for-lambda-literary).
Hough did not apologize and kept insulting the reviewer. This thread has a bunch of screenshots. https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/1505966181009829891
For example: “I haven’t the first fucking clue who this person is but I’m glad to know I’m their entire world. Warms my cold heart. Let’s all smoke a fatty to that.” She still hasn't apologized and probably never will.
Good on her for showing confidence, I guess, but yelling at reviewers for leaving four- instead of five-star reviews is pretty shitty behavior. If the people now having apology contests realize the futility of it and all start acting like that instead, I'm not sure we will have gained anything.
Oh definitely. She is very combative and unprofessional on Twitter.
Edit: To be clear, I don't think anyone should lash out at reviewers. I would never complain about reviews, and I tell new authors the same thing. It's bad behavior.
*However* as a spectator, I perversely enjoyed watching Hough go down fighting just because social justice book Twitter is so merciless. And as usual, the claims of harm and trauma were exaggerated (and made by people who weren't even involved). So I watched it all unfold like the Michael Jackson popcorn GIF.
So she starts out basically trolling herself, in the persona of a diva attacking any reviewer who falls short of crowning her as Goddess Empress of Literature, and then acts shocked, shocked, at the audience reaction that ensued?
(I'd follow the links, if I found anything especially intriguing about a situation like that.)
I mean, that's basically the GOP strategy at this point.
I'd love this as well. Sarcasm is so refreshing. It just clears the air.
Plus, it would restore my faith in humanity which appears to have turned into an immature, vile succubus.
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.
Well, the truth is the opposite! Mostly young women and gay men and many people of color (which is new to the field of Medieval European history, I guess). You'd think maybe then they'd only be arguing with the old white men, but they seem to mostly just argue with one another.
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.
One crucial difference is unlike the Bolsheviks or Mensheviks the participants are about as far removed from the mechanisms of power as one can be.
Слава Богу
It feels more like 1930s Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks had legitimate political disagreements with the Mensheviks. By the 1930s, it was purely about power and personal issues.
So many of these stories read like the tempest in a teapot version of a Zinoviev or Kamenev. Freddie's line about prosecutors becoming defendants sounds like a history of the 1930s. Except those stakes were a wee bit higher.
Fair point!
So far.