AUTHOR | HISTORIAN | ARTIST

fixyourwritinghabits:

findingfeather:

the-truth-within-the-lie:

findingfeather:

fixyourwritinghabits:

sparklingdisneyprincess:

elumish:

fixyourwritinghabits:

tehriz:

fixyourwritinghabits:

I know it’s late, but like… people know 99% of authors don’t have social media handlers, right? That most small time creators, artists, Youtubers, and TikTokers are both obligated to stay on social media for their livelihoods and also don’t have any barrier between them and people being shitty just for the hell of it?

And I feel like we all know that, or at least should know that, and that what happened to Tess Sharpe is an outlier, but I also see authors get tagged in negative reviews all the time. I see YouTubers get pulled into drama that had nothing to do with them, because someone parasocially decided they had to be involved.

And there are consequences. People leave social media, they shut down access to their work. Tess Sharpe is no longer going to have anything to do with a book she wrote, a book a lot of people liked, because a small group of people refused to admit what they were doing was wrong.

And man, I don’t know how to convey that a conversation or a debate stops being so once you start deliberating triggering someone. You can’t reason with an organized internet harassment campaign, so what do you do?

I don’t know the answer to this. I don’t think anyone does. But if someone’s being shitty to you and they’ve crossed that line, you gotta get out of that situation. Lock your stuff down, reach out to others for help if you need it, block what you can and have a friend take over if you must. Don’t sit there and suffer, you don’t deserve it.

And stay off twitter, probably.

I have been thinking about this all day (because I follow Tess and have watched it go on all day). Tess is incredibly generous with her time and energy in giving publishing advice for beginners. Her twitter is an incredible resource for demystifying publishing. She’s also openly queer.

She’s been harassed by (purportedly) lesbian & queer readers to the point where she is not only no longer going to discuss the book in question that they claim to love, but has said she will never sell the film rights (even though there’s been interest) and is going to write it into her author estate to never have a film made. Because people WON’T STOP HARASSING HER ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR BOOK.

Do you people KNOW how much writers need the extra revenue streams of various rights to make a writing career viable? Do you have any idea how much money–money that supports her and her family, money that MAKES MORE BOOKS POSSIBLE–she’s decided to now close herself off from because of this harassment? Because stan twitter has gotten so insular and toxically aggressive that they will casually send writers death threats (it’s not a joke if it’s sent to a stranger), make up fake lesbophobic tweets (yes, they edited her tweets in screenshots), publicly act sweet to her then in personal replies say they’re only doing it because she blocked their friends and they want to report back on what she’s doing?

It’s fucked.

And it’s queer teens doing this to a queer writer who has only ever tried to put a ladder down behind her for the rest of us.

I’m just so unbelievably enraged and disappointed and discouraged.

I think we need to start having serious conversations about Internet Harassment Culture and why people feel entitled to harass everyone from Black actors who have opinions about Star Wars to someone who writes a ship they don’t like. We need to discuss how being a marginalized person does not make your behavior any less vile or abhorrent. Regardless of how it gets started, if you are trying to deliberately trigger someone, you are in the wrong, end of discussion

The onus should not be on the person being harassed, yet it is. This is incredibly messed up, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen this happen, and it won’t be the last. Please take time to consider how you will handle your social media if you plan to publish or create content, how you will maintain barriers, who to block and when. Your own mental health is far more important than fan access to you.

Understand, also, that there is a very big difference between posting something in your own space and actively directing something at someone–and sometimes it’s okay to say something directly at someone, and sometimes it’s okay to say it in your own space, and sometimes it’s not okay to say it anyway.

Think an author got something wrong? That is usually fair to (respectfully) tell authors, once. “Hey, squids actually work like this.” Probably fine. “Hey, this is a disrespectful representation of autism because XYZ.” Probably fine.

Hate a book? Feel free to write a bad review, or complain on your own blog, or tell it to your friend. Don’t send it to the author.

Want an author to be hurt or die? Keep it to yourself and get a serious reality check.

And the first two can slip into harassment, and you need to absolutely check yourself.

Here’s the other thing: when I was growing up with the internet, one of the biggest lessons I learned (other than to be careful on MySpace) was that everything is forever on the internet. Teenagers today seem to have missed that lesson, so here’s a crash course from your internet older cousin or whatever:

The fact that you were cruel or bigoted or harassed people on the internet will follow you. People aren’t going to care that you were sixteen or queer or sad when you repeatedly told a real human being that you wished they were dead. People aren’t going to care that you didn’t mean it, or you only kind of meant it, or you didn’t mean it that way.

The people you send vile messages or harassment to aren’t going to care that you’re young or queer or joking when you call them c**ts and tell them to die.

The internet is forever, and the people you’re talking to are people too.

And if nothing else: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

I kmow nothing of what has occurred with said author that this post is discussing, however important points were made. Harrassment is not okay. It never will be. Don’t harass people. I know feelings can be intense and we can go overboard, but it’s not and will never be okay to send death threats, repeatedly spout hateful rhetoric towards someone online or in person.

Things do stay on the internet so be careful with what you put out there and be kind and respectful towards others.

Another thing to stress here is that all of us have to beware of parasocial relationships (please see StrucciMovies excellent video here or this HuffPost article if you don’t know what that is). Most authors/small content creators would not consider themselves all that famous, but it’s still hard to remember that person who makes you like and follow on Twitter is not your friend. They don’t get your jokes, they don’t understand that you didn’t really mean that death threat.

Everyone is susceptible to this – it’s just how your brain works – but I feel like this especially happens with younger people, because how content and media is shaped these days. When I was growing up, the idea of sending a letter to an author seemed impossible – how would I find their address? These days, you can threaten an author for killing off your favorite character on social media because you feel like you know them, and they have no way of knowing how serious you are.

Barriers and appropriate public interactions are important – they protect you from an employer googling your name five years from now and they protect the person whose work you like and want more of. We need to work to maintain them, or this will keep happening.

I would rephrase that as be aware of parasociality and how it works, rather than just “beware”, because the only way you can avoid having a parasocial relationship is realistically not having interactions with someone. Our brains are going to do this: if you interact with someone, especially if that interaction is reciprocal, there will be either a parasocial or true social relationship that forms over time. We form social bonds even when we try not to; you will almost certainly form parasocial bonds with people again, whether you want to or not. 

That is to say: your brain will decide hey we LIKE that person (when it’s a public persona) when you interact with or watch or otherwise expose yourself to another person’s content. It will do that even if you totally know that it’s a public persona, and that’s not in and of itself a problem. It’s just a thing our brains do. 

The problem becomes when you confuse parasocial with true social or try to impose the rules of a true social (ie act like someone is ACTUALLY your friend and you have rights to how they interact) on someone whose interactions with you are necessarily mediated by a persona (like a creator interacting with you in public, or for that matter a cashier interacting with you in public, where the conditions of their jobs absolutely constrain them to specific kinds of interactions with you). 

So absolutely yes be really aware that your brain does this, both to avoid being an absolute jackass to authors the way those (supposedly) kids were and also to avoid being preyed on by those who use this parasociality for evil because dude, this is absolutely something that can also be done. 

But also wanted to highlight: “We need to discuss how being a marginalized person does not make your behavior any less vile or abhorrent. Regardless of how it gets started, if you are trying to deliberately trigger someone, you are in the wrong, end of discussion.”

There has been an unfortunate thing where the needed push against genuine uses of tone argument (”that thing where someone derails the attempts of the marginalized to point out that something is fucking them up by complaining about how they weren’t nice enough about it”) has resulted in a real and deeply toxic situation where people are asserting – whether out of genuine misunderstanding or because they see a way to exploit this to act badly – that basically, as long as you’re (supposedly) addressing an Injustice, you get to treat anyone you want however you want, without consequence, and any objection is Someone Oppressing You.

This is a fucking problem.  

If you genuinely cannot figure out the difference between harassment, verbal abuse, etc, and speaking about genuine experiences and problems – even speaking passionately about them – then you need to step right back from “activism” of any kind until you’ve figured it out. If you actually think that being marginalized – on any axis – completely frees you from having to think about how you treat other people of any and every category, there is something wrong going on in your understanding, and what you’re working for is not justice, it’s just a change in the hierarchy where you get to be on the top punching everyone else. 

[nb: having looked in depth into the Tess Sharpe thing, I’m going to be honest: I do not think those individuals are even slightly confused about what they’re doing, I do not think there is even a shred of believable ignorance there. I think they know exactly what they’re doing, I think they are doing it on purpose, and I think they just figured out that if they use this framework, they get to avoid feeling bad about it and had at least a better chance of justifying themselves to others and avoiding consequences that they cared about. While I think it’s entirely possible for Young/Unsavvy people to end up crossing boundaries more or less by accident, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be fooled into thinking that’s the only way this shit happens, or to extend too much good faith in the direction of people who have clearly and repeatedly spat on it.]

Unfortunately I’ve found the only way to really cope with people who behave this way is to block their access. They’re not capable of hearing any of this, and they’re convinced they’re in the right. It’s horrific but it is part and parcel of the Internet. I wish to God it were otherwise but it’s not.

I mean it’s part and parcel of PEOPLE; some of the mechanisms are new but the bad behaviour at core is ancient.

It’s also a mistake, I think, to perceive these discussions as even primarily aimed at the people being Actively Shitty; while there’s a small change they’ll read and change, it’s not really about them. They, like almost everyone, operate within contexts of community norms, and most of their power arises from what those around them will tolerate, accept and support.

They also tend to be quite good at the social manipulation and manoeuvres that convince others to accept and even reward their behaviour. THOSE are the people that might relevantly read this kind of discussion.

Lost track of this thread, but there are several very good branches of discussion coming from it, and I recommend looking through the notes for some good insights. Thanks, everyone, for carrying through with difficult but needed discussions.

renthony:

Leftists who have it in their head that there won’t be any religion or spirituality post-capitalism are not my comrades. Leftists who are convinced that religion=oppression are not my comrades. Leftists who think that spiritual occupations (clergy, etc.) aren’t “real” labor are not my comrades. Non-religious leftists who deride or harass religious leftists are not my comrades.

If you view all religion/spirituality as universally bad or regressive, you’re being unbelievably callous toward every marginalized person whose faith has been used against them.

Religion and spirituality are extremely personal, extremely complicated subjects, and you can’t just dismiss them as “religion bad; no more religion for anyone.”

diaryofanangryasianguy:

07/04/21

Hate Crimes Surge in NYC

Hate crimes have soared 139% in New York City, with Asian-Americans and Jews bearing the brunt of the hate. NYPD statics show that police have investigated 320 alleged hate crimes through June 27, up from 134 incidents in the same period in 2020, the New York Post reported. Offenses against Jews have risen by 69%, from 67 reported last year to 113 this year.

Offenses against Asian Americans have surged more than 400%, with 105 cases reported in 2021 so far, while only 21 were reported last year. Many of the hate crimes against Asian Americans have been aggressively violent and perpetuated against defenseless older people, causing the NYPD to create a specialized unit to tackle the rising intolerance against Asian Americans.

paperandinklings:

“I am certain that most, if not all, Americans have heard of Hawai’i and have wished, at some time in their lives, to visit my Native land. But I doubt that the history of how Hawai’i came to be territorially incorporated, and economically, politically, and culturally subordinated to the United States is known to most Americans. Nor is it common knowledge that Hawaiians have been struggling for over twenty years to achieve a land base and some form of political sovereignty on the same level as American Indians.
Finally, I would imagine that most Americans could not place Hawai’i or any other Pacific island on a map of the Pacific. But despite all this appalling ignorance, five million Americans will vacation in my homeland this year and the next, and so on into the foreseeable capitalist future. Such are the intended privileges of the so-called American standard of living: ignorance of, and yet power over, one’s relations to Native peoples.”

— Haunani Kay-Trask, “Lovely Hula Hands: Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture

hymnsofheresy:

hymnsofheresy:

indigenous religions need to be acknowledged and treated with respect and so do indigenous sacred lands.

fun fact: just because something isn’t sacred to you doesn’t mean it isn’t sacred!

naaicha:

hong kong resources masterpost (content warning: discussion of police brutality, violence, colonialism/imperialism)

since i’m fed up with seeing misinformation about hong kong and chinese politics from people who don’t know what they’re talking about… here are some articles i have personally found helpful. i also might continue adding to this in the future if i have more resources to share

Keep reading