Kinja reply list

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Meth Lab ShenanigansKatie Rife
10/12/15 12:07am
This guy's saying some important shit. The gleeful ease with which we destroy each other is easily the worst thing about the internet to me. You can say something utterly unforgivable without it registering that you're talking to a human being- whether to a previously-obscure person who suddenly reached infamy by saying something stupid or to a celebrity whose beliefs just don't align with yours (looking at you, people who hate Lauren Mayberry). Plenty of people decry it, but they go on to participate in it when it's directed at someone they don't like. If you blindly believe what you read on Gawker, Jezebel, Breitbart, or any number of other garbage yellow-journalism sites disguising themselves as proponents of justice, you're participating in that.
Good can comes from this sort of thing- it's severely damaged the career of serial rapist Bill Cosby- but the internet isn't picky. It's kind of a crapshoot whether it uses its combined fury for good. Sometimes it brings down a Cosby, sometimes it ruins someone's life for making a tasteless joke.
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  NonUnionMexicanEquivalentMeth Lab Shenanigans
  10/12/15 12:22am
  This is why I have never and will never understand the culture of 4Chan. How is that shit funny or entertaining to anyone older than the age of like 14? I know they have some really meaningful conversations about all kinds of important and engaging topics over there and a ton of really knowledgeable people, but do they have to act like racist kids on XBox live/sanctimonious pricks while they do it? I don't know, I just never got the appeal.
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  Meth Lab ShenanigansNonUnionMexicanEquivalent
  10/12/15 12:32am
  I think the appeal is that it's where you can be honest about the really nasty and awful parts of yourself that you have to hide everywhere else. And sometimes that can be cathartic. It's in places like /r9k/ and /pol/, where that nastiness is justified and solidified into a real belief system, that it becomes dangerous.
  I like a lot of the music 4channers do and in many cases I share their sense of humor, but I really just have a hard time immersing myself in that place- even in a relatively harmless board like /mu/- without feeling a little dirty afterward. If I want to know what they're listening to I can just watch Anthony Fantano, and if I want some surreal internet laughs I can just go on Weird Twitter, so I really just… don't have any need for it.
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kosmoheadonKatie Rife
10/12/15 12:41am
The old fogy in me, who is legitimately alarmed by things I see on the internet, wants to agree that web 2.0 and the rise of commenter/complainer culture and social media is coarsening us and making us less considerate.
But I don’t think it’s true.
When print culture first emerged in the late 17th century, and especially as it came to dominate in the early 18th century, the very same kinds of anxieties were expressed, along with the very same kinds of optimisms that attended the rise of internet culture. On the positive side, progressives hailed the newly accessible medium as a means of democratizing the flow of information, making knowledge available to all, whether or not they had access to expensive books.
On the other side, people bemoaned the lack of nuance, thoughtfulness, and erudition in the new print marketplace of ideas. The cheapness and ready availability of print meant that all sorts of people had access to publication, both as consumers and producers. Much of the anxiety centered on these new producers—who were often previously marginalized people: religious minorities, tradesmen, and women. It was especially anxious-making that these people might write satires (properly the sphere of the classically educated gentleman, whose familiarity with Horace and Juvenal would produce properly erudite satire) or, satire’s red-headed step-child, lampoon. These lampoons were generally associated with women writers. Such was the anxiety about women writers stepping into the public sphere that one of the great poets of the period, Alexander Pope, makes Eliza
Haywood (the most successful female writer of the time) into a chamber pot in his epic poem about the stupidity of the new print culture, The Dunciad.
I am not fond of much of the ugliness of internet culture, but a lot of the anxiety about its overreactiveness seems to center on those who speak about race and gender. People don’t like being called out for racism or sexism and especially don’t like having their beloved cultural artifacts exposed as having racist or sexist elements. That hurts feelings. But having hurt feelings, or feeling as if one’s place in the culture is shifting, doesn’t mean the other person is wrong for saying it. For every internet “lynch mob,” there’s someone who feels threatened and blames a “lynch mob.”
And it's not all ugly. And it's not all lacking in nuance. I've had my opinions changed by internet commenters. Some on this very site.
Pardon me while I put on my big white suit and sing…"Same as it ever was.”
To take an even longer view: when writing became the dominant technological form of communication, Plato and others thought it would be the end of rational thought.
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  Meth Lab Shenaniganskosmoheadon
  10/12/15 12:57am
  "I think there's a familiar whiff of threatened white guy privilege at work here."
  You're saying that being bothered by thousands of people sending death threats to (and ruining the career of, and permanently altering the life of) someone who made a joke on twitter that offended people is indicative of white privilege, and not basic decency?
  I think the internet will eventually figure out how to work this. We will reach a "democratization of justice" that is less nasty and hateful than the one we have now. I was raised using the internet, I'm not afraid of the internet. But it's terribly simplistic, and contributes to the problem, to react to the idea that people who you agree with might still do horrible things with "you're just afraid of equality." Just because someone agrees with you doesn't mean that they're a good person, or that anything they do in the name of the values you support is okay.
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  kosmoheadonMeth Lab Shenanigans
  10/12/15 1:06am
  Sorry—I edited that out right after I posted it. I think it's true, but I wanted to be fair to Ronson who does highlight the problems women face (although I don't think he has fully theorized his own anxieties—note in the interview how he focuses on male victims).
  And no, I don't think death threats are ever a good response to anything. But I also think that a lot of the panic about PCness or threats to free speech stem from people being uncomfortable hearing opinions that threaten their social position.
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Professor BananahotKatie Rife
10/12/15 11:11am
So I'm going to out my very specific non-Twitter-understanding age here, but…if Twitter is so toxic, why do people want to get in on it? Especially famous or influential people…it just seems like a minefield that you don't have to set foot in. What does it give back to you in exchange for the persistent risk of exchanging dialogue with terrible people?
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  The BishopProfessor Bananahot
  10/12/15 11:28am
  I am middle aged and while I do have a Twitter account, I just use it to follow celebrities I like. Mostly comedians who often announce where they'll be appearing on their account. I have only posted about five tweets when I realized " Who the fuck cares what I think? "
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  the lies of minnelliProfessor Bananahot
  10/12/15 11:31am
  I don't know what it was originally but everybody I know who uses it treats it as a more malleable RSS feed. As long as you don't post (or follow anyone who does post) things that end up being split into (1/?), then you're fine.
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mikefooKatie Rife
10/12/15 12:57am
It's a hard problem to address, because people see something that is (often legitimately) outrageous, and think that posting one "shaming" comment won't make much difference. But if thousands of people do that, it becomes something that's bigger than any individual person. But the only way it gets "solved" is if each individual person makes an individual decision to bite their tongue.
Also, people mostly don't bother to comment on something unless they have strong opinions about it (and even then don't always bother). The shaming looks bad, but I'd say it's about as representative of general opinion as the letters to the editor page was.
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  Much loved character from cancmikefoo
  10/12/15 1:27am
  There are those who would say that the problem is posting/tweeting is so much easier and more immediate than writing a letter to the editor that people who are just grumpy or vindictive can end up having too much power in a conversation. That it is too easy to share an opinion. Letters to the editor, after all, would be culled and edited before publication and only in rare cases of massive response would more than two or three similar statements make it to print.
  (at this point I start rambling and it is no longer directly tied to your comment. feel free to ignore)
  I think it is very hard to nail down exactly when it stops being a conversation and when it starts being a "mob" (I quote that word because I think it get slung around too much.) If someone is being a dick or homophobic or misandrist (it does happen), are the rest of us just supposed to hold our tongue because otherwise we look like we are "virtually lynching" him? The only other option is that whoever talks first has freedom of speech and everyone else doesn't.
  I used to participate in a survivors support group where one guy would say things like "you will never be healed until you find Jesus." No one except me and a friend batted an eye at that. But when we tried to point out that wasn't a fair thing to be telling non-Christians, we were told "we aren't here to argue politics. Let people say what they wanted to say." So then it became a game of trying to be the first one to bring up the topic of belief, because each side knew the other couldn't then respond without being called "reactionary." But that didn't work for long either because somehow a christian sharing his belief was on-topic for healing from abuse but an atheist sharing his lack of belief was instigating argument. Needless to say, it quickly became a toxic environment. One by one, those of us who weren't religious just ended up leaving the group.
  I see this problem in a similar way. Somebody says something insensitive. They have a right to say that. But anyone has a right to respond. It's not fair to call the first group instigators and its not fair to call the second group reactionary. Both are just talking.
  I know I do hate it when people get all judgy about motives. Sure, we
  can all guess that there are people who are out to take others down
  simply for the thrill of the hunt or for their own ego. But we don't
  know it about any specific individual, and even if we did what good does
  it do to focus on that? Arguments and counter-arguments should flow
  from logic and evidence, not from pointing out flaws in the combatants
  motives.
  But on the internet, where conversations often take place devoid from relationships, all things may be permissible but not all things are beneficial. I may have a right to be outraged, but that outrage might not be a move that is really going to help the conversation. But also if someone else is outraged and I think they are over-reacting, I have a right to say that I think they are over-reacting but maybe I don't need to police the "PC police." Maybe it is ok for them to have their say and their outrage doesn't need to be met with counter-outrage. But then again, if it is never met with any reaction there is a fear that the loudest voice or the first voice wins the day. And that may be true in a particular venue. But since we are never going to silence every outraged person any way, those of us with any level of self-restraint can at least pick our battles. If we start yelling "SJW!" at every single person who is yelling "OFFENSIVE!," what good is either side doing? Someone will always be yelling something. In the real world, we pick up our drink and move to a more constructive conversation. We don't bother with the name calling and the motive judging. We just walk away . . . usually. Again, usually, because sometimes a stand needs to be made. But on the internet maybe we take that stand more often than we need to? I dunno.
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  ZebedeeDooDahMuch loved character from canc
  10/12/15 2:10am
  Responding to your first point, I know at least anecdotally that some absolutely batshit, hateful or insane letters get written to newspapers, and probably have been since day one. There are some truly dark and disturbing worldviews lurking amongst middle-class suburbanites [this shocking opinion brought to your from 1963].
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The Lance of FreedomKatie Rife
10/12/15 1:32pm
I'm so glad to see more discussion of this. In recent years, I've become more parsimonious with my words and opinions precisely for this reason. I consider myself someone pretty far left of center, but it's so impossible today to know which errant thought of yours, even if sent in confidence to a friend, will be the end of your career.
Frustrated with Israel's settlement program? Congrats, you're on blast as an Anti-Semite.
Think that economic issues are more important than identity politics? You're now widely known as a privileged neo-liberal.
Do you not dismiss conservative critics out of hand when they talk about economics? You're literally bourgeois scum.
It's demoralizing more than anything. The growth of the internet, paradoxically, makes me feel like I have less room to express my opinions and discuss ideas outside the small window of social acceptability.
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  Maniac CopThe Lance of Freedom
  10/12/15 1:48pm
  Yup. The great hope was that the Internet would open up all sorts of alternative voices. Instead, it's limited them. Everyone wants to prove that they're counter-cultural while also having their views validated through consensus.
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  weaselsoupThe Lance of Freedom
  10/12/15 2:40pm
  just read the Eli Roth interview on here and found this interesting:
  The Green Inferno was very much my reaction to this social activism—I call it “slacktivism” or “quicktivism”—with people hashtagging or retweeting things because it’s trendy. Everything starting from Occupy Wall Street to the shame that went on with Kony 2012, people are blasting my Twitter account saying, “What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you tweeting about Joseph Kony, don’t you care about child soldiers?” Then a month later they’re saying, “Why aren’t you tweeting about Free Pussy Riot, don’t you care about freedom of speech? And why aren’t you tweeting about bringing back our girls, don’t you care about these kidnapped girls?”
  I hadn't thought much about how not engaging could also be a source of shaming but it makes sense that people do this. You not only have to not do certain things, you have to do certain things to be OK.
  you see people yell at celebs for not retweeing yet another justgiving page about their 5k run. 'It's for KIDS with CANCER you MONSTER'. I'd be willing to bet literally no one has ever donated a fiver to some guy in Derby's charity fun run just because a TV chef retweeted them, but.
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Spaghetti LeeKatie Rife
10/12/15 2:31am
I think it will decline in some ways and increase in others.
On the one hand, I get the feeling that the Social Justice/tumblr left has passed some kind of ridiculousness threshold (and not just among Redditors and channers who hated them from the start; I'm talking about society at large here), and there have been lots of cultural/social movements in history that catch on like wildfire among high schoolers and college kids, because they happen to coincide with those people wanting to stake out their identities and shake up the world around them. Then a lot of them get older and kind of lose the fire.* Why exactly won't they be seen a few decades from now the way hippies were after the 60s? I also think that once the right catches up in the arms race, both sides will rethink the whole "If you see anything vaguely offensive, go nuts, scorched-earth or die" tactics out of fears of mutually-assured destruction. But maybe that's too optimistic.
But media people have realized that in the absence of advertising, outrage-fueled traffic is a good way to make money, and that genie's harder to stuff back into the bottle. I wouldn't be surprised if it just becomes mainstream journalism, with most outlets hiding content behind incitements to (share-able, commodifiable) moral outrage. That sounds depressing.
*-For the record, I'm not saying social justice activism is for dumb kids, I'm saying super-passionate countercultural youth movements of any political description tend to crest and then flame out.
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  BaulderstoneSpaghetti Lee
  10/12/15 8:28am
  "Why exactly won't they be seen a few decades from now the way hippies were after the 60s?"
  The reason for pessimism is that there will always be a new generation of bullying, insecure youth. Sure, the current spin of the bullying will dies as this generation matures, but the next generation will find some other reason to brutalize people online.
  We just need to accept that we now live in a world where 13 year olds have the power of mass media now.
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  Son of Now See HereSpaghetti Lee
  10/12/15 8:49am
  To be honest about it, it kinda feels like something went genuinely weird and ugly in the internet social activist circles in 2010 and we've kind of started to reach it's peak.
  I'm just not sure what's coming after it.
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Heer KromstafKatie Rife
10/12/15 12:48am
People being mean doesn't surprise me. It is what it is. I'm more "surprised" at the willingness of old media to treat new media blips as newsworthy. I guess it's inter-media integration; or maybe just an admission that readers/viewers care what happens on social media, and therefore might be more likely to watch TV news or read the paper if those outlets engage with social drama.
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  Meth Lab ShenanigansHeer Kromstaf
  10/12/15 12:54am
  The surprising part is the intensity of the meanness, and how it's come from every corner of the political spectrum. I never understand why independents claimed to hate both liberals and conservatives until I went on twitter.
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  Heer KromstafMeth Lab Shenanigans
  10/12/15 1:01am
  I'd call myself politically independent. If I had to talk to a jerk, I'd rather talk to one who is sure he's right than one who's only sure that others are wrong.
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WaffliciousKatie Rife
10/12/15 12:30pm
I don't know what to think from the interview itself, there are a lot of nuanced issues brought up that I can't judge one way or the other from the length of the interview. But it does make me want to read his books.
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  DanielleWafflicious
  10/12/15 1:31pm
  I've read every one except this one and the Goat one, and they are definitely worth the time and effort…IMO…he is kind of intuitively open-minded, and fairly comprehensive about a fairly broad topic.
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  Can With No NameWafflicious
  10/13/15 6:35am
  I liked this book quite a bit. He weaves together a pretty interesting collection of cases (around the time of the book's publication, some individual chapters were released online as magazine excerpts, so you can sample it if you'd like; for example, http://www.esquire.co.uk/cu… ).
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TheDeansofQarthKatie Rife
10/12/15 1:30pm
This just in: man is named Jon Ronson!
Just kidding. Sounds like an interesting dude. Any recommendations?
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  Violetta GlassTheDeansofQarth
  10/12/15 2:06pm
  Basically any of his books although I think The Psychopath Test and So You've Been Publicly Shamed are the strongest.
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  cybersybilTheDeansofQarth
  10/12/15 2:11pm
  So You've Been Publicly Shamed is still very relevant and well-written. It'll make you think twice before joining anything that might turn into an online dogpile, which is probably a good thing. That said, I also really enjoyed The Men Who Stare At Goats and The Psychopath Test (although the latter made me feel self-conscious reading it on public transit).
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Son of Now See HereKatie Rife
10/12/15 9:23am
The democratization of justice is one of those ideas that horrifies me so fucking much that I would commit whatever atrocities that would be required to stop it happening for the simple reason that whatever I do would be far, far kinder than what it would result in.
It's one of those things that we have tried very, very hard as a society to avoid.
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  the lies of minnelliSon of Now See Here
  10/12/15 11:22am
  I'm not fond of the way things are going in regards to democratisation of justice but what's the alternative? The concept of justice as defined by the state is incredibly flawed and reformation is actively being fought against by those who benefit from it.
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  DanielleSon of Now See Here
  10/12/15 11:44am
  Good point…people need to read DUNE, for Leto's sake!! (I am not being snarky, I totally agree with you)….
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