#Outrage culture
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As we're all very aware, we live in a time when open hatred of many marginalized groups has been growing. And as many others have said, it's super fucking important that we stop fighting amongst ourselves over relatively minor issues when there are people who quite literally wants us dead, or at the very least, silent and subservient.
Punching down and sideways to attack the people who are 99% on our side might make us feel superior for a little while, but it's important to ask ourselves if attacking other marginalized people helps anyone.
With that in mind, I wanted to remind all of us that language, culture, and iconography all change over time, and not everyone keeps up with those changes at the same speed.
As an obvious example, 'they' is now a much more commonly used singular pronoun than it used to be. It's meaning has expanded and changed subtly.
Another example is the comedy genre in general: movies and TV shows from even a few years ago relied on humor that many of us now see as tasteless at best and dehumanizingly cruel at worst.
Then you have things like reclaimed slurs. For some of them, their meanings have changed multiple times.
We've also got all of the microlabels among queer folks, which are rapidly multiplying and evolving. Many of them didn't exist 2 or 5 or 10 years ago, but now they might be the most central part of someone's personality.
Pepe the frog is an example of an image whose meaning has radically shifted in a short period of time. What was originally a harmless cartoon was appropriated by the US alt-right movement and is now considered a hate symbol (though the ADL acknowledges that 'the majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted').
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have characters like Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, who were designed to be minstrels. Now, of course, almost no one associates Mickey Mouse with blackface or racism.
Those are just a handful of examples involving the English language and the internet's largely American-centric culture, but there are obviously many, many more. All of this is difficult enough for native English speakers to keep up with, but we should also bear in mind that, for many folks, English isn't their native language.
I've seen awful harassment by queer people against another queer person just because her English wasn't perfect and she used a term that, at that time, wasn't considered the correct one by the people who attacked her.
We should also keep in mind people who have other language or cognitive difficulties (I'm honestly not sure how to phrase this, so please don't assume I'm being derogatory or cruel—I am one of those people).
Even for those of us with the best of intentions, all of this can make online interactions feel like navigating a minefield because many people exclusively engage in paranoid reading of everything from novels to shitposts.
I think all of us would be better served if we stepped back for a moment to consider questions like, "Does this person have malicious intentions?" and "Is this something that causes real harm to real people or does it just bother me, personally?" and "Will calling this person out or shaming them help anyone?"
A lot of us are on the same side, and we might have slightly different beliefs, but we don't need to be enemies. Wasting our outrage on each other is exactly what our real enemies want.
#take a deep breath#and remember that not everyone is out to get you#you are not the prince with a thousand enemies#(ya like my watership down reference eh?)#marginalized groups#these groups aren't monoliths either - your way is not the only correct way just as mine is not the only correct way#a lot of us are on the same side#let's act like it#general human wank#racism#alt-right#queer stuff#paranoid reading#reparative reading#not sure how else to tag this#long post#internet culture#outrage culture
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Everyone's absolutely rallying over the opportunity to cancel another celebrity woman every week of the year. Another day rolls around and your social media feeds are swarming with fumingly instigated drama for you to pick a "team". To give you the hall pass for sightless bullying, to participate & watch the possibility of dismantlement of another undeserving woman, dropping off her throne.
I firmly believe that internalized misogyny and the pick-me behavior is so prevalent in today's society because girls understand from very early ages that what's expected of them is unfair, and in most cases, impossible without compromising from several aspects.
This creates shame & anger because it makes girls feel like they're somehow misadjusted for feeling the burden, when everyone else is seemingly okay and able to somewhat achieve what's excepted from an ideal female lifespan. Because it's not socially acceptable to show disdain or hurt the compromisation creates. Thus, many women settle with opportunistic bouts of bringing shame upon fellow women in higher places.
You're against your own team. Wishing you safe return.
#It's not funny it's not entertaining#hailey bieber#selena gomez#This feels dystopian#Justin fucking bieber#Outrage culture#amber heard#radblr
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Civanticism — The reason of Humanism and the compassion of Buddhism, with a touch of snark for good measure.
https://www.civanticism.com/
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I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.
— Richmond Feynman
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Outrage culture & Gen Alpha
Reminder: Today's teens, children, and young adults are not that different from previous generations.
Social media amplifies the voices of those who are enraged or say outrageous things, but the new generation still has a taste for chaotic and dark humoured content, as evidenced by the success of shows like Helluva Boss or Smiling Friends.
It's important to remember that social media craves attention and engagement, and anger is the most engaging emotion. So, don't assume that the new generation or people in general are just bitter and sensitive. There are plenty of places online where people of a younger generation abstain from anger and prioritize personal growth and education.
The idea that today's generation has lost the ability to concentrate due to TikTok is false as well. We've simply become better at identifying content we like and scrolling past what we don't.
Don't fall into the trap of stereotyping the younger generation based on the loudest voices or outrageous claims, like I did, and consider keeping in touch with the younger generation as to not estrange yourself.
Many of us won't have kids, but it's important to address the misconception that adult-child friendships are inherently predatory. If you happen to become friends with a child based on shared interests or through social connections, it's perfectly fine as long as the friendship remains healthy.
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Manufactured racial controversy alert 🙄:
“The Atlantic” used this photo in their article covering a Christian show about the life of Jesus. This photo was taken outdoors on a bright day and some of the actors skin looks a bit lighter because of the bright natural lighting.
However the cast of this show is more racially diverse than this picture above implies. The comments section was full of trolls and bots accusing POC of being white when they are not 🙄.
Here are some more accurate looking cast photos with better lighting that better shows their skin.
The show DID make a point to cast middle eastern and Jewish and Black actors. Many POC can be lighter skinned and it doesn’t change their race or make them “white”. 🙄
I work with several Egyptian people and yes some of them have lighter skin than others and that’s ok! Many people are mixed race and that doesn’t make them fully “white” 🙄 I have also met many lighter skinned Latin Americans and native Americans who would probably look like that under that sunlight.
The characters are supposed to be mostly Jewish and the Jewish community is very diverse and they don’t all have the same skin and that’s ok!
Don’t fall for trolls and bots trying to manufacture outrage and false divisions and controversy. Also don’t call people “white” when they are not!
Yes, racism and white washing are still a big problem in the television industry! Yes, racism is still a problem in the American evangelical church and in many Christian communities throughout history! I absolutely agree that many depictions of Jesus have been a bit “white washed”. I’m NOT here to excuse racism!
I just don’t think that applies to this show in particular in my opinion. This is one of the few portrayals of Jesus that isn’t white washed and some people can’t appreciate that because they are falling for fake outrage because of a bad picture.
It’s taking a LOT of self control for me to not feed the trolls and get into a comment section argument right now in this Atlantic article. 🙄
Imagine looking these Arabic and Semitic men in the face and saying “you are white because you sat in bright sunlight once”. 🙄
#the atlantic#white washed#white washing#racism#the chosen#manufactured consent#manufacturing consent#manufacturing controversy#manufactured outrage#outrage culture#internet culture#don’t feed the trolls#jewish lives matter#anti semitism#christianity#fight antisemitism#fuck racism#fuck anti Semitism#fuck antisemitism
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I'm convinced the moral panic towards influencers just isn't real. Like. If you think they're garbo and you think they're fake and they suck, then why are you interacting with their posts? Why are you watching videos made by them? Why do you know so much about them?
And like, I'm all for watching deep dive xyz on random person on the internet here, but like, what happened here? Did you realize that being parasocial lead you to feel betrayed or disappointed by them? Like of course, we all need that moment but also, I thought we all already knew that they're way out of touch and out of our reach.
Am I crazy or are people just getting radicalized by this, *now*.
And like, influencers just. are microcelebrities. Popular people. I don't see how that's anything that's new or different from what's been going on in life, always. Jay Gatsby would've been a influencer, so would have Marc Antony, it literally just is what it is.
I just don't get why we're all suddenly realizing this now, or having an epiphany about it. I'm convinced its just outrage culture and not anything to actually be angry about.
I think I'm too neurodivergent to understand.
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"This is going to be an epic battle between a conservative businesswoman and mother and a far-left birthing parent and career politician," Dixon said in her victory speech last week after she secured the Republican nomination to face Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Nevertheless, Dixon's allies have taken a cue. Meshawn Maddock, a co-chair of the Michigan GOP, last week described Dixon, 45, as a "younger, smarter and hotter" version of Whitmer, 50, according to local news reports.
But the debate has continued. This summer, competing in a crowded primary, Dixon joined several GOP legislators in pushing for a bill to prohibit schools from hosting drag shows. MLive, the website of several state newspapers, reported at the time that no one at the news conference was aware of a Michigan school’s ever having hosted one.
Rethuglicans create controversy out of thin air.
Don’t mess with
#gov. gretchen whitmer#michigan#misogyny#faux outrage#outrage culture#that woman from Michigan#vote 2022
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This is the only post I’m going to make about this on here but I have to know
Am I the only one who thinks that the balenciaga outrage is mostly focused on the wrong thing? I’m sorry but harnesses and chunky necklaces with locks on them are 90s goth attire. Those accessories are not innately sexual.
The court documents? Absolutely feel weird about that— be mad about that sure. That’s super predatory. It’s like some creep definitely put them there as a gross joke thinking no one would be able to see them.
But please, as a kid of the 90s who rolled in the emo/goth/punk scenes, I thought we were past seeing that style as unquestionably sexual.
Controversial? Sure. Sexual? No.
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My take on the whole Ethan Klein anti-Semitism bit:
1: Holocaust jokes are funny, you laughless mother fuckers. No questions.
2: That being said, I think Ethan, Hasan, and others are hypocritical pieces of shit who’re just as bad as the Conservitards that they keep pointing “but actually” fingers at because they’re sitting here pretending their Holocaust/Jewish jokes are oh so much more vindicated than when Conservative people make them.
All jokes are just jokes. Some people will like them, others won’t. That’s literally all there is to it. You’re not a better or worse person for having made a joke, and you’re certainly not a better person for simply having different political opinions while making said-jokes.
Outrage culture is so beyond overblown at this point. It’s not heroic to gasp because some internet funnyman made a joke you found distasteful.
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The paranoic seekers of offence,
Those self-appointed ministers and chancellors
Who sentence minus jury or defence
Can f*ck themselves. I'm cancelling the cancellers!
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Following the recent events involving TW/CW, it's now appropriate to address the situation with a more composed perspective. Despite the unfortunate circumstances where a prominent content creator directed their audience towards me, it's worth noting the irony that I have consistently incorporated CW (Content Warning) in my writing. Had the individual prioritized constructive dialogue over instigating conflict and attempting to discredit me, they would have recognized this fact. Regrettably, their focus seemed to be on outrage and projecting their own biases onto me. Despite my efforts to foster reconciliation by extending an olive branch, it became apparent that some individuals are not inclined towards mutual understanding. Instead, they resort to hostility and seek opportunities to vilify and dismantle others while maintaining a sense of self-righteousness. While acknowledging my own imperfections, it's important to emphasize that my initial call for civil discourse was met with immediate hostility and disparagement from the aforementioned individual. Subsequently, they seized upon this opportunity to promote their books as "a safe space for all." This serves as a stark reminder that certain individuals are inclined towards weaponizing outrage for their own beneficial agendas rather than fostering cooperation and constructive dialogue.
Many of the criticisms leveled against me on that day were unworthy of repetition, descending instead into expressions of rampant hatred. These included manifestations of xenophobia, sexism, and racism, with some even advocating for violence and other abhorrent acts of bodily harm. It's intriguing to observe that individuals who vociferously advocate for trigger warnings are paradoxically swift to launch vicious and disrespectful attacks against others. This underscores the insidious nature of outrage culture, which operates as a collective echo chamber rewarding those who partake in its rituals. These participants exhibit a callous disregard for human dignity, all in pursuit of perceived grievances, while perpetuating a distorted narrative. In essence, it serves the same voyeuristic function as medieval public executions, albeit in a digital sphere, allowing individuals to indulge their basest instincts without the need for personal accountability.
#outrage culture#cancel culture#trigger warnings#content warning#indie writer#indie author#books#indie books#writing#book
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By: Richard Dawkins
Published: Aug 20, 2023
I was about to start work on this commission, when in came an email from Twitter. They’d received a complaint that the following tweet violated their standards.
“Sex is not the same as gender.”
But it’s not your gender that gives you the physique to tower over woman athletes & break their swimming records. It’s your sex. It’s not your undressed gender that upsets women in changing rooms. It’s your sex. You can’t eat your cake & have it.
Twitter sensibly over-ruled the complaint and cleared me of the proscribed sins that they helpfully listed for me:
Violent speech, violent and hateful entities, child sexual exploitation, abuse/harassment, hateful conduct, perpetrators of violent attacks, suicide, sensitive media, illegal, private information, non-consensual nudity, account compromise, plus various legal technicalities.
I’m sure the complainant was sincere. And that’s my point. A certain type of activist has a level of paranoid hypersensitivity that almost literally warps their hearing. You can say ,“I disagree with you for the following reasons.” But all they actually hear is “Hate hate hate!” So instead of putting a counter-argument (which I would be interested to hear), they resort to censorship. All too often it goes further, and they boil over in virulent abuse: “Transphobe! TERF!”
At least the above tweet was partisan. But so hair-trigger is the hypersensitivity, a mere invitation to discuss something is enough to set it off.
In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.
That 2021 tweet caused the American Humanist Association to withdraw my title as 1996 Humanist of the Year. A 25-year retrospective swipe, which cost them the loss of several major donors. Once again, I have no doubt they were sincere.
On July 26, I interviewed Helen Joyce about her book Trans. The interview is being very well received on YouTube. As it should be, for Joyce is extremely well-informed in her subject and she spoke cogently, soberly, reasonably.
But one of YouTube’s in-house judges heard only hate. And tried to censor the interview.
Short of an outright ban, YouTube has a variety of punishments at its disposal. In this case we got a minor slap on the wrist, a restriction on our video’s licence to advertise. But the real point is, yet again, the ludicrous hypersensitivity of the complainant. Those warped ears heard not reasonable argument deserving a reply, but “hateful and derogatory content”, and “hate or harassment towards individuals or groups”.
Obviously I can’t disprove that here. The interview runs to more than 10,000 words. But judge for yourself, it’s still up on YouTube. I earnestly challenge Evening Standard readers to search diligently for literally anything that a reasonable speaker of the English language could fairly call hateful. Enter it, labelled “Challenge”, in the comments section under the video, and I promise to respond.
I just said “a reasonable speaker of the English language”, and maybe here lies the key: language. If we want a fruitful argument, we’d better speak the same language. In today’s overheated sparring over sex and gender, both sides may appear to be speaking English, but is it the same English? Does “hate” mean to you what “hate” means to everyone else?
Or there’s “violence”. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the deliberate exercise of physical force against a person, property, etc”, and that is certainly the meaning I understand. Advocates of free speech often invoke, as a sensible exception, “incitement to violence”, where physical force is normally implied. But that sensible exception would mean something very different if you redefine “violence” to include the non-physical. If someone calls you “she” when you prefer “they”, I might see it as a mild discourtesy. But if you see it as a “violent” threat to your very existence, then our interpretations of “incitement to violence” — and hence of freedom of speech — are going to diverge sharply.
As a textbook example of incitement to real violence, you could hardly do better than “Sarah Jane” Baker’s speech at London Pride this year, where she told the cheering crowd: “If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face”. Or Sky News (January 23) has a picture of two SNP politicians grinning in front of a large, colourful sign depicting a guillotine and the slogan “DECAPITATE TERFS”. They claimed they didn’t know the sign was there, and I sympathise. You shouldn’t be blamed for the company you keep. No doubt I shall be labelled “right-wing” for writing this article — and that’s the most unkindest cut of all.
The Guardian (February 14, 2020) reported that police officers turned up at Harry Miller’s workplace to warn him about his allegedly “transphobic” tweets, such as the obviously satirical, “I was assigned Mammal at Birth, but my orientation is Fish. Don’t mis-species me.” One of them told Miller that he had not committed a crime, but his tweeting “was being recorded as a hate incident”.
Well, if Miller’s light-hearted satire is a hate incident, why not go after Monty Python, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Rowan Atkinson, Private Eye’s royal romances of Sylvie Krin, the early novels of Evelyn Waugh, Lady Addle Remembers, Tom Lehrer, even the benign PG Wodehouse? Satire is satire. That’s what satirists do, they get good-natured laughs and perform a valuable service to society.
“Assigned Mammal at Birth” satirises the trans-speak evasion of the biological fact that our sex is determined at conception by an X or a Y sperm. What I didn’t know, and learned from Joyce in our interview, is that small children are being taught, using a series of colourful little books and videos, that their “assigned” sex is just a doctor’s best guess, looking at them when they were born.
A provisional guess, pending the child’s own decision (which is what really counts).
Joyce’s comment is: “And what are you meant to make of this if you’re eight? First off, that you’re very boring if you simply go along with what you were assigned at birth”. Her book quotes the boast of a mother of eight children, “without a single boring cis child in the whole bunch!” I recently received a moving letter from a highly intelligent American 12-year-old, worried that at her school it was not cool to retain your assigned gender. Yesterday I chanced to meet an American teacher whose school rules compel her to go along with a child’s declared gender and not tell the parents.
Miller’s case came up before Mr Justice Knowles, who thankfully didn’t mince words when it came to freedom of speech: “In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society”. 1984’s Appendix lays out the principles of Newspeak, the nascent language of Orwell’s dark dystopia. Newspeak was designed to make unorthodox thoughts impossible. There would be no words to express them.
O’Brien, Big Brother’s enforcer, holds up four fingers, and tortures Winston Smith until he really believes that 2+2= 5 if the Party wills it. Is that realistic? Could political power ever make you really believe a logical contradiction? The Times (January 18) reported that “a transgender woman has denied raping two women with her penis”. If “with her penis” is not quite 2+2= 5, it’s getting close. 2+2= 4.5? Joyce’s book quotes Orwell in an epigraph: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” Are we approaching that point?
But shouldn’t we just indulge the harmless whims of an oppressed minority? Maybe, were it not for a strain of aggressive bossiness which insists, not so very harmlessly and not sounding very oppressed, that the rest of us must humour those whims and join in. This compulsion even has the force of law in some states. And alas, we often zip our lips in abject self-censorship because we aren’t as brave as JK Rowling, and don’t fancy becoming a target of Twittermob vitriol. No, we don’t fear Big Brother or the Stasi. We fear each other.
==
It's a feature, not a bug.
You're not supposed to discuss, you're not allowed to consider, it's not acceptable to debate - #NoDebate. You're just supposed to believe, based on faith. "Listen and believe." If you question it or doubt it, then it's because you're a heretic with Satan in your heart who wants to lead others to their damnation. Salvation is not up for debate when souls are at risk.
#Richard Dawkins#The Poetry of Reality#censorship#gender ideology#queer theory#outrage mob#outrage culture#Orwellian#approved message#compelled speech#no debate#words are violence#words are words#violence is violence#religion is a mental illness
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#women#feminism#identity#pop culture#outrage culture#the shouting class#social justice#self worth#worthiness
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Posted this on Reddit, posting here too.
The "Karen" meme and the fascination with public freakouts and cringe culture need to die.
Half the time someone is accused of being a "Karen" it's someone having a mental breakdown.
They're rarely actually about justice. Real entitlement isn't someone having a freakout in public.
Of course, sometimes the person freaking out is the perpetrator and they deserve to be called out for their behaviour. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be called out ever! Just that the idea of "virtuously calling out bad behavior" is often just used as an excuse to bully and ostracise people without feeling bad about oneself. And when people are called out we need to be better at *how* we do so in a manner that isn't self-serving.
This kind of content overwhelmingly targets those with mental illnesses. Sometimes it targets people just standing up for themselves in a society that frequently fails to listen to them. And, as seen with the "Karen" meme, it disproportionately affects women.
In the case of "cringe culture", the pretense of social justice is dropped and the idea of being "cringe" becomes the apparently unforgivable crime for which it is apparently not bullying to bully. Frequently the victim of this kind of outrage is someone who is likely to have been bullied offline too - neurodivergent or socially isolated people with interests or behaviour deemed "cringy" just for being unusual.
I think we need to be more aware of our instinctual reactions to cringe-inducing or otherwise socially unacceptable behaviour. It's very easy to go along with the mob without stopping to think whether our behaviour is actually acceptable.
I'm personally learning to stop viewing things as cringy and judging myself or others for liking them. Often I realise that I have no issue with them and my earlier reaction was just rooted in how I felt like I *should* feel. And sometimes I just don't like something and have to remember that that's not anyone's fault.
Mob mentality sucks.
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