Category: someone is wrong on the internet

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someone is wrong on the internet

How to “win” an argument on the internet (without losing your mind)

Let’s get that obvious and ultimately unhelpful piece of advice out of the way. If you’re here and reading this post, you’ve already given in to the siren song of someone being wrong on the internet. But all is not lost. Change happens in you, my friend. Your perspective needs some adjustment for the sake of your own stress levels. So let Uncle Alex share their secret to not getting your life and sanity sucked out of you by randos on the internet.

1. Assume until proven otherwise that the other person is arguing in bad faith.

Most of us are kind people who want to believe the best in others. Deep in our souls, we want to believe that the person on the other end of the keyboard is just ignorant and wanting to be enlightened, or one argument away from understanding your position even if they still disagree, or at the least willing to listen.

Well, put that out of your mind. Place your faith in humanity in a lockbox and stick it in the back of the closet for the duration. In my entire career of arguing with randos on the internet – and I’ve done it a lot, thanks to being someone who was peripherally involved in climate change research among other things – I’ve encountered a grand total of three people who were actually interested in having a good faith discussion. The rest were just, with varying degrees of verisimilitude, pretending in an attempt to waste my time.

If you’re not sure what I mean by “good faith” and “bad faith”:

Arguing in good faith – The other person is approaching this argument with honest intention. They are willing to listen, understand your position, modify their argument if necessary, and maybe (GASP) even change their mind. They are entering into this discussion with, at the very least, the intention of listening.

Arguing in bad faith – The opposite of the above; the intention is basically dishonest or duplicitous. They’re not in it to reach understanding or have their mind changed or even listen to a damn word you’re saying. They just want to waste your time, make you mad, suck out your energy, or all of the above.

This is the foundation you need to start on. This isn’t a call to be rude or insulting out of hand – unless this addresses your ultimate goal, more on that later – but you need approach from word one with the understanding that the other person is not actually interested in having a debate, discussion, or argument. They’re interested in pissing you off. Sure, be open to the possibility that they’re the rare sort of unicorn that does want to have honest intellectual interchange and then you can have a really satisfying conversation – but don’t set yourself up for disappointment.

And what this frees you to do is take a step back from what’s in front of you and address it as a performance rather than an honest communication1.

2. Decide what your goal for the argument is.

And no, it should never be, I’m going to change the other guy’s mind or make them admit they were wrong2. That is, again, setting yourself up for disappointment at best, endless frustration at worst. You need to decide what you want to get out of this discussion, when you will consider yourself satisfied or having “won.”3 Probably the most major cause of troll-induced frustration is that you’re allowing some asshole who doesn’t give a shit about you (or facts in general) to determine what the victory condition for this encounter is – which means it’s going to always be out of your grasp.

Fuck that. You are choosing to engage, at this point. You decide what you want out of this.

Here’s a few sample goals to give you an idea what I mean:

  1. Thoroughly debunk the other person’s bullshit first point, ignoring any goalpost shifting
  2. Provide pushback against extreme bigotry, as otherwise silence can be perceived as agreement
  3. Explain your argument in full for the benefit of anyone watching
  4. Give them enough rope to full expand upon their hypocrisy,lack of understanding, or bigotry
  5. See how long you can counter-troll or insult the other person publicly <— this is not an approach I tend to use except for that time I repeatedly told the anti-trans guy to go fuck himself, but goddamn that was really satisfying

And so on. The point is knowing what you want out of this exchange and pursuing that goal rather than being tricked into playing a game that you cannot possibly win.

And if you don’t have a goal for this particular encounter? If there’s nothing you want out of it? Skip directly to point #5. You don’t owe anyone free access to your time, energy, or expertise. Mute, block, move on.

3. Remember all public argument is performative.

When you’re a scientist choosing to engage with obvious trolls, the question is often why you would want to waste your time like that. The thing you need to keep in mind is that you are never arguing for the sake of changing the mind of the person sea lioning you. You’re arguing for the people who are witnessing this public exchange. And there are a lot of reasons why you might want to do that. Including:

  1. They’re disseminating incorrect facts and there needs to be pushback and debunking for future reference.
  2. They’re espousing hateful, unacceptable views and it needs to be demonstrated that no, their viewpoint is not universally accepted.
  3. They’re acting as if their opinion is fact, and an alternate viewpoint needs to be offered.
  4. It needs to be demonstrated that their blanket statement is proven false by your very existence.

This is a non-exhaustive list. But keep in mind that you are almost never trying to convince the person you’re actually talking to – they approached in bad faith. You are addressing the silent watchers who may actually be listening in good faith. So keep that in your thoughts before your frustration gets the better of you. If you want to really give yourself a pep talk, think about how this asshole that’s started shit with you is maybe doing you a favor, because they’re giving you a chance to reach others.

Also remember: their arguing is just as performative.

4. Do not get distracted.

There’s a thing skeptics call “the Gish Gallop.” It’s named after creationist Duane Gish, who used to derail debates by posing an endless series of questions or counterpoints, to the frustration of scientists. Because the fact of the matter is, when the other guy is a total bullshit artist who doesn’t actually care about facts, they will always be able to throw out more random shit than you can sling back, even if you have the fastest research fingers in the west.

You see Gish Gallop-like moments in a lot of internet arguing; someone poses a lot of questions they obviously have no real interest in having answered, but it’s sure going to waste a lot of your time. Or people will try to distract you by being insulting, by moving the goalposts, by changing the topic.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Remember your goal. And keep going for it.

5. And then walk away.

So then what, after you’ve had your performative argument and reached your goal?

Walk away, because you’ve accomplished what you were after. Feel free to block or mute or otherwise ignore any further attempts to engage. And if that means ye olde randome asshole runs off to their sweaty friends and claims they won because they made you block them? Who the fuck cares.

“Winning” and “losing” are relative, despite what many people seem to believe deep in their souls. You have “won” because you accomplished the goal you set for yourself. The other person declaring victory does not in any way detract from that.

The fact is, you have zero control over someone else’s smugness level. All you can control is the way you choose to address your end of the argument. And when you come down to it, no matter how furiously they masturbate about how they made some SJW mad on the internet, they’re still a sad, pathetic asshole who gets off on being a sad, pathetic asshole. That is not a path you want to go down.

Walk away tall.

Notes:

1 – This is not permission for you to argue in bad faith. Even if you’re taking that mental step sideways and understanding what you’re about to do as a goal-motivated performance, it behooves you to still be honest in your interaction. This is a defense against trolls manipulating you, not permission to engage in the same behavior you’ve come to hate.

2 – “Make the other guy admit he’s wrong” isn’t such a great goal if you’re having a good faith argument either, because it indicates an unwillingness to listen on your part. And I say this about even science issues that I’ve discussed with well-meaning but misguided people who weren’t trolls; my goal wasn’t to beat them into intellectual submission, it was to educate. It may seem like a fine line, but there’s a definite difference between helping someone understand facts and putting them in a corner and trying to make them lose face. Sometimes the greatest victory (in an honest conversation) comes from, “wow, you gave me a lot to think about. Thanks.” Keep that in mind.

3 – The fact that so much gets framed in terms of “winning” and “losing” is not great either, since it precludes compromise and places an arbitrary appearance of “victory” over things like, you know, having actual evidence to back up your claims. That said, I’m using “winning” and “losing” here because most of these bullshit internet arguments effectively are contests with arbitrary rules thanks to being initiated by bad faith actors.

Categories
reference post sarcasm someone is wrong on the internet

Reasons why I will not be replying to your argument

This post has been made for my own later use. Others are welcome to use it as well.

The numbers on the list are for reference rather than ordinal purposes.


To whom it may concern:

Thank you for your interest in my blog post/comment/tweet/facebook post/[insert social media of choice here]. I appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to share your opinion with me. However, I will not be addressing said opinion further or at all in any substantive way (beyond the link I have just shared with you) for one or more of the following reasons:

  1. Something you have said indicates to me that you are not interested in arguing in good faith. That is to say, I have reason to believe you are not interested in an actual discussion in which both sides listen to each other, modify their positions, and come to some form of agreement.
    1. I might have just given your social media profile a brief look and seen slurs indicating racism, misogyny, homophobia, or transphobia, or observed terms such as “libtard,” or other MAGA/MRA/Gamergater/Neo-Nazi flavored language thrown around and thus concluded this really isn’t going to be worth my time.
    2. Same if I notice you run a climate denial website or something similarly disconnected from reality.
  2. You have moved the goal posts at least once.
  3. Something you have said indicates to me that you lack the necessary factual grounding in order to have this argument, and I am completely uninterested in doing the background research for you.
    1. If you are interested in paying me to do the research for you, for example by way of writing an annotated bibliography that you can peruse at your convenience, we can discuss my hourly rates.
  4. You have thus far done such a good job at arguing with straw man conceptions of my words that I’ve come to realize my input is entirely superfluous. Please feel free to continue this argument without me.
    1. See also: the argument you are attempting to have has only the most passing resemblance to the argument in which I’ve been participating.
  5. You have said something so gob-smackingly insulting or downright evil that I don’t want to be on the same planet as you, let alone in some kind of intellectual interchange.
  6. Mommy taught me not to feed the trolls.
  7. I don’t see the point in responding to complete non-sequiturs.
  8. You said something about the First Amendment that indicates you have no actual understanding of the First Amendment; refer back to point number 3.
  9. This argument is two people shouting “Nuh UH!” “Uh HUH!” into the internet for eternity in all but the most literal sense.
  10. I’m annoyed enough that I have completely lost my ability to be either kind or only gently sarcastic.
  11. I have homework to do/I have work to do/I have cats to pet/I have a Fist of Havoc better utilized elsewhere/my pedicure could use some maintenance.
  12. Responding substantively to this argument would give it more intellectual cachet than it deserves.
  13. You immediately misgendered me and I can’t be arsed to deal with you right now.
  14. I’m too mentally or physically tired to want to mount an expedition down this rabbit hole.
  15. I just finished having this exact same argument with someone else and don’t feel like repeating myself, kindly refer to my comments/mentions.
  16. You appear to be attempting your own version of the Gish Gallop, and I have better things to do with my time.
  17. My humanity, my identity, or that of my siblings in struggle is not up for debate. You are simply wrong. The end.
  18. I have a deadline and my agent has a rubber hose.

Please do not take my lack of interest in responding as a sign that you have “won” in any sense but that of water “winning” over a piece of rock by wearing it smooth. My silence is neither agreement nor assent, but rather lack of interest in anything further you might have to say coupled with disinclination to waste energy or breath better spent elsewhere.

I wish you luck in your future endeavors. Have a nice day.

Categories
movie science fiction someone is wrong on the internet

Luke vs Rey, a point-by-point comparison

Since there’s been shit talked about the comparison between Rey and Luke (and how “realistic” Rey is as a character in a universe where there is sound in the vacuum of space and magic exists but okay) I wanted to actually sit down and granularly compare the two characters. Rey’s information comes in after my fourth viewing of The Force Awakens. I filled out the Luke column last night and tonight, while rewatching A New Hope. Note that I suffered through the CGI-ed up version with the incredibly stupid, added Jabba the Hutt scene in there, so you should send me pity donuts.

I decided since Rey’s arc in The Force Awakens basically takes her from zero to dropping her in front of a Jedi Master, who had better be training her in the next film or Luke and I are going to have words, I should pick a similar point for Luke for comparison. That basically gets him through the battle on Hoth (beginning of The Empire Strikes Back), when he goes off to find Yoda and get himself some proper training too.

EDITED TO CORRECT: Apparently time elapsed between Yavin and Hoth is three years? I got pointed toward a better timeline. Damn, Luke. Obi-Wan took his fucking ghostly time telling you where to find a teacher, didn’t he.

This does make my inclusion of Luke’s lightsaber grabbing a little more ehhhh (imagine me wiggling my hand here), though I’m still of the opinion that if it would have been of narrative use in A New Hope, he could have done it just fine. But your milage my vary there and I’m really not looking to argue this particular point.

Of course this contains spoilers for The Force Awakens, gosh. And A New Hope, if you have managed to avoid that for all these years.

Luke Rey
2
 Background Moisture farmer; actually Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala’s kid, adopted by a family on Tattooine, a desert planet, for his own protection. He’s a secret prince! Abandoned by her family at 5 years old on Jakku, a desert planet. Became scavenger to survive. Other background as yet unknown.
3
 Age at the start of the adventure 19-ish 19-ish
4
 Major character flaw at start Immature (whiney, unworldly) Unable to move on from past abandonment, a little too fiercely into the self-reliant loner thing
5
 Develops past character flaw? Yes (definitely no longer whiney, goes from unworldly to otherworldly by the time he hits RotJ thanks to a stop at the dramatic cloak store) Yes (stops trying to return to Planet Bumfuck, comes to trust her friends will come through for her thanks to Finn)
6
 Has boobs*** No Yes
7
 Skills going in to film Good at fixing droids and other machines

Good enough pilot to be considering the Imperial Academy; later compares the Death Star trench run to doing a canyon run back home. (Getting the impression that he’s only flown on-planet, but he doesn’t specifically say that.)

 Proficient at fighters and freighters via flight sim; has flown actual freighters on planet only**.

Repaired a wrecked light freighter (Ghtroc Industries 690) and made it space worthy**

Has survived on her own as a scavenger since early childhood, capable of repairing and refurbishing components in order to sell them.
8
 Good with blasters? He can sure bullseye some Womp Rats! Not bad with the Millenium Falcon’s turret guns either. Not at all going in, mediocre coming out
9
 Melee? Manages to wave around the lightsaber immediately without hurting himself or alarming Ben, decent with it by the time he hits Hoth in Empire Strikes Back Expert with staff, basically wields a lightsaber like it’s a half staff
10
 Non-Force skills they show off during the course of the film Talks Han into rescuing Leia like a canny little shit

Swings Leia across a chasm-ish thing in swashbuckling style while being shot at by Stormtroopers

Apparently went to the Han Solo school of door repair

Unveiled as the best X-wing pilot EVAR, hotdogging it all around the Death Star. (Leia later compares Poe Dameron, the “best/most daring pilot of the Resistance,” favorably to Luke**.)

 Does some darn good repair work on the Millenium Falcon, earns Han’s respect

Navigates around Starkiller base very cannily while rescuing herself

Good enough pilot that Chewie doesn’t mind flying with her on the Falcon

Beats up a group of thugs on her own to protect BB-8; manages to get the drop on Finn, who was a squad leader before he left the First Order**
11
 Major in-film mistakes His plan to rescue Leia isn’t exactly A+, though a lot of that can be blamed on the influence of actual human disaster Han Solo Accidentaly releases the Rathtars in Han Solo’s freighter by resetting the wrong fuses. Almost gets Han, Chewie, and Finn killed in the process.

Runs off into the woods and gets captured by Kylo Ren. Finn, Han, and Chewie come rescue her, and Han gets killed by Kylo Ren while there.
12
 Does Han Solo offer them a job? Yep, right before the attack on the Death Star Yep, right before introducing her to Maz
13
 Do they speak droid? Yes. Yes.
14
 Nemesis Sith Lord Darth Vader, who was supposed to be Jedi Jesus before Palpatine got his hooks into him, fully trained and badass for the last twenty years

(Darth Vader blocks multiple blaster bolts with his fucking hands in the Empire Strikes Back)

 Kylo Ren, who has lots of raw power but is not well trained (Snoke says his training isn’t complete, Han implies Snoke isn’t training him properly because he’s just using him), and has temper tantrums because his self control sucks that bad. Also, his lightsaber is literally called “the junk saber” in the script because it’s badly made, unstable shit.

(Kylo Ren stops a blaster bolt mid air)
15
 Do they fight their nemesis? Sort of? Darth Vader chases him down the trench in the Death Star while flying a TIE Fighter. Yes. Toe to toe lightsaber battle.
16
 Advisor Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, who gives Luke the Force 101 before fucking off into ghosthood; Luke gets like a day worth of lightsaber training while flying on the Millenium Falcon, followed by some noncorporeal coaching Maz Kanata, self-described as someone who isn’t a Jedi but “knows the Force,” who tells Rey she needs to close her eyes and feel the Force
17
 Is their advice useful? Luke trusts in his feelings and blows up the Death Star Rey closes her eyes and feels the Force, then defeats Kylo Ren
18
 Force powers utilized prior to proper training Uses the Force to make the torpedo shot no one else can make and blow up the Death Star right before it destroys the Rebel Base at Yavin, when failure is really not an option.

Doesn’t get his ass killed by Darth Vader, who is in a TIE fighter at the time and chasing him. Presumably partially due to using the Force, since Vader even remarks on strong he is before Han comes swooping in.

Force grabs lightsaber (beginning of Empire Strikes Back); my presumption is he could have done this at the end of A New Hope if the script had called for it. It’s not like Ben trained him how to do this particular trick before getting evaporated by Vader.

 Jedi mind trick on Stormtrooper James Bond to get him to release her from Kylo Ren’s villain chair and leave the cell door open, getting it right on the third try when failure is really not an option.

Stands up to Kylo Ren’s telepathic attack on the second go round, turns the tables on him.

Force grabs Luke’s lightsaber away from Kylo Ren in the most epic scene of the entire movie

Manages to “trust in her feelings” enough to beat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel, notably after he’s been shot by Chewbacca and poked in the right arm with a lightsaber by Finn
19
 Blows up the Empire’s/First Order’s giant super weapon? Yep. No, that was accomplished by Poe Dameron, after Han and Chewie blew an X-wing-sized hole in the Scientifish Jargon Generator Housing
20
 Gets a medal? Yep. No, but General Organa hugs her.
21
 Leia hugged Luke too, you know. Sure did! :D Yeah but his was a creepy potential incest hug!

** – Information from the Before the Awakening stories.

*** – This should not actually be relevant, yet somehow is to some people.

In conclusion, Rey and Luke are each shining, precious space babies in their own way. She gets more badass Force tricks and beats the snot out of disgruntled Mini Snape. He gets to single-handedly blow up the most pants-shittingly terrifying megaweapon the galaxy had seen at that point, by using the Force. Please stop undermining Luke’s enormous, medal-earning accomplishment just because Rey has boobs and made Stormtrooper James Bond drop his blaster.

Categories
fandom someone is wrong on the internet

Wish Fulfillment

I already had words about this asinine Mary Sue bullshit yesterday. Charlie Jean Anders wrote a good piece about it at io9 today and mentioned something that was on my mind as I went to bed last night: wish fulfillment.

The “Mary Sue” is a very specific wish-fulfillment fantasy, in other words. It’s about getting to hang out with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and having them admire you. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of fantasy—we’ve all had it, when we get especially invested in a particular universe—but the term acquired a pejorative meaning because people felt it made for bad stories.

I think the thing that made Mary Sue (and Gary Stu, because yes Virginia they do exist) characters so mortally offensive in fandom that they needed their own name was because it was wish fulfillment run completely amok.

These books and shows, practically anything that doesn’t combine classic everyperson-struggles-with-the-greatest-enemy-which-is-themselves drama with scifi and fantasy, are all about wish fulfillment. It’s wish fulfillment that legions of us can participate in by identifying with the hero. And in fact, there are plenty of successful and decent works of fanfiction out there in which original characters aren’t Mary Sues and manage to continue that delightful line of wish fulfillment by welcoming the reading audience in. Original characters in fanfiction are not automatically Mary Sues. This is a battle I had many times in the fanfiction trenches, and I’ll stand by it.

I’d argue that actually, the two problems with the Mary Sue characters (beyond generally shitty writing) that make them so basically offensive are:

  1. The wish being fulfilled is so specific to the writer that no one else is welcomed in.
  2. The needs of the fantasy being played out by the wish fulfillment character act without regard for the canon that fans hold in common and in fact warps the canon in the service of the Mary Sue.

These two factors combine into a reading experience that is nothing short of infuriating, because you’re seeing a canon that you love get twisted out of shape to serve a character with whom no one but the writer can identify.

This is, by the way, why I deny the existence of canon Sues/Stus. You might not like what the writer of the property is doing with the canon, but you’re not the authority on it. They are. Sorry, suck it up and deal. If it pisses you off that much, stop reading or watching. But you don’t get to decide that, say, what JK Rowling wrote isn’t canon because it’s a ship you don’t like. That’s not how it works, cupcake.

So obviously, I’m in the camp that says Rey is a canon character, she cannot possibly even be a Mary Sue, so we don’t even need to discuss this further. Kindly weep into this tea cup so I can drink your tears. But that’s not the point of this post. This is about why so many people are attempting to cover their chapped little asses with a banner that read “But she’s a Mary Sue!”

Rey is a character that does not fulfill their wishes. They don’t identify with her. They don’t understand her. They don’t want to be her. They believe their beloved canon has been twisted in order to serve her character. And they assume that their experience is or should be universal. I imagine this is the feeling behind a lot of female main characters who don’t shit the bed in the third act getting smeared with the dreaded “Mary Sue” label. And to a certain extent, I sympathize, because I’ve sure watched a lot of movies where I thought the male wish fulfillment character was quite terrible.

But this is the thing:

Just because you do not like a character does not mean she is a bad character.

There are more wishes to be fulfilled in the world than yours.

Get the fuck over it.

Categories
someone is wrong on the internet stoopid

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

tumblr_inline_mp1zixZpKP1qz4rgp

I already went off on this on Twitter, so I will be brief.

Mary Sue. Go read the TV Tropes essay, which is a good history of the term and its rather fuzzy meaning. But note some of the common factors. Special powers. Implausibly talented in an incredibly wide variety of areas. Remarkable physical traits. Everyone wanting to be with her. Closely related somehow to the writer’s favorite character. TOO PRECIOUS FOR THIS WORLD. Single-handedly saves the day while the canon characters watch dumbfounded. Obnoxious and everyone loves them anyway, even the antisocial characters. And so on. Oh, and is shittily written. Frankly, it’s a term that gets too widely applied as is; it’s become almost meaningless after migrating out of fanfiction and at this point reads as shorthand for “there is a canon character that I personally don’t like and think is too powerful so nyah.”

But if you want to redefine “Mary Sue” to mean “any young, untested character who has special powers, is the protagonist, and saves the day by developing said awesome powers” then every goddamn fucking character who has ever existed in a scifi or fantasy film and undergone the coming of age or chosen one narrative is a Mary Sue. The entire fucking point of the coming of age or chosen one narrative as it’s combined with the science fiction or fantasy genre is ordinary person proves to be extraordinary and goes on a journey to save civilization/the world/whatever.

You wanna bitch about Rey from The Force Awakens being a Mary Sue? You better also have already shit all over Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter, to name the top two offenders on the male side for having the same goddamn character arc*.

Or do you actually mean “any young, untested character who has special powers, is the protagonist, and saves the day by developing said awesome powers while being female“?

Fuck off.

 

* And actually, I’d fight you anyway if you wanted to call Luke or Harry “Mary Sues” or “Gary Stus.”

Categories
feminism science fiction someone is wrong on the internet

She’s not like other girls.

I’m not that tuned in to YA because I live under a rock, so this was the first I heard about Bergstrom poking YA authors as a whole in the eye. Went and read the interview linked in that post. Have some serious fucking problems beyond the general feeling of dude have you just managed to sleep through the existence of Katniss Everdeen?

A couple quotes from the interview:

As the father of two daughters, I became pretty appalled at the image of women they received from the culture. It was all princess-this, Barbie-that. It was almost a satire of femininity. My wife—a very strong, highly-motivated attorney—was appalled too. What century were we living in if the feminine ideal little girls learned about was still a woman in a pink dress and a nineteen inch waist? I decided to create a female heroine who was the opposite of all that—a young, strong female who discovers real heroism within herself.

And

I knew I wanted to create a strong heroine for The Cruelty, the opposite of the cheerleader-prom queen. She starts as a lonely, introverted girl, bullied by her prettier, richer classmates. After her father is kidnapped she transforms herself into a cunning, strong warrior.

As the auntie of two fantastic little girls, one of whom has already gone through a princess phase that left me feeling like I was going to be vomiting pink rainbows for the rest of my life, I have serious fucking problems with this. Because you want to talk about the shit society does to young women that leaves us fucked up forever?

It’s telling us that pink and the trappings of stereotypical femininity are signs of weakness while simultaneously punishing us if we eschew those trappings.

It’s convincing those of us that develop an allergy to pink that we’re “different from other girls” and therefore better, and encourages us to shit all over the women who should be our allies in the struggle because obviously if they’re feminine, they’re losers.

It’s conflating the feminine with the misogynistic bullshit view of the feminine. There is nothing wrong with liking princesses and makeup if you derive personal strength from them. The problem isn’t the makeup. The problem is the societal narrative that says you deserve to be dismissed because of it. The problem is the poisonous bullshit that says women are lesser and attacks the outward appearance of womanhood as if that’s the root of the problem. Because you know what? Not wearing pink and not wearing makeup isn’t going to save you from the pay gap.

It’s telling us that the only heroism that counts is the sort that girly girls can never exercise. It’s telling us that heroism is connected only with violence when some of the most impressive heroes in the history of our species have been those who exercised radical non-violence. It’s telling us that the lone wolf is the real hero when the greatest movers of our societies have been the organizers.

Oh, and you know what else? Some of the most fantastic fucking people I’ve known in my life were cheerleaders in high school, and I’m ashamed I started out believing the stereotype of them as queen bitches. And the cheerleaders I once knew who were jerks? How much of that was because they, like every other woman in this fucking society, got fed the bullshit notion that being female is a zero-sum game that someone has to lose?

So yeah. Problems. Major fucking problems.

I spent years getting told I “wasn’t like other girls” because I didn’t like the feminine stuff. And I spent years thinking that made me better, which is such bullshit I’ll carry that shame until my dying day. And this is how fucked up that narrative has left me. I have to constantly question myself and my own gender presentation because of it. Do I not like dresses because of internalized misogyny, or because I really don’t like dresses? Do I hate being called miss and ma’am because there’s still part of me that believes to be female is to be lesser, or is it really because I feel more like a goddamn sir? Is my knee jerk, emotional reaction of I’m not a girl because I’m really not a girl or because I’ve been taught to hate girliness and still haven’t expunged that cancer from my brain? Is the queerness of my gender an internalization of the shit that’s been fed to me my entire life, or because I’m just bent this way? I don’t fucking know. I’ll never fucking know. At least now I’ve finally figured out that it doesn’t make me better. It just makes me different and that’s okay.

But I resent the promulgation of these poisonous narratives. I resent that in 35 years there’s probably going to be another person like me who’ll be asking these same questions and having these same conflicts because people can’t figure out the problem isn’t pink, the problem is that we’ve all been taught to hate women.

Categories
rants someone is wrong on the internet writing

Yeah, whatever happened to starving like a *real* artist?

Sameer Rahim, are you fucking kidding me?

I know people rarely get to write their own headlines, so I tried not to just punch my laptop in the screen when I saw this one: Whatever happened to writing for love, not money?

But the article isn’t any better.

I know they have to eat, but when did it all become about the money? The time when writers could live comfortably off their income was an anomaly of the Eighties and Nineties. These days, apart from a few big-money payouts for the next big thing, publishers are going back to being as cautious as they were before. And why shouldn’t they? Everyone else is tightening their belts.

I know you have kids and a mortgage, guys, but why should you expect to be able to make a living off a craft you’ve been perfecting for years? The art should be its own reward! Starving is awesome, it makes you all thin and waif-like and then maybe you’ll get consumption and it’s so romantic.

Call me a romantic but it might actually benefit a writer not to rely on books as their main source of income.

There is nothing in that sentence that I would call romantic. Because there is nothing in the least bit romantic about having to work a shit job to make ends meet while you attempt to write in your rapidly dwindling spare time. There is also nothing in the least bit romantic about working an awesome office day job like I do and then attempting to write in your rapidly dwindling spare time.

I would actually argue that there’s some good to doing a bit of work, volunteer or otherwise, outside your field at all times just because it gives you a chance to meet people and be in new situations and talk to others you wouldn’t necessarily talk to. That’s idea fuel right there. But trying to work two full time jobs is a good way to destroy your health and sanity and never have time to recharge.

Alternatively, I have heard it suggested that, rather as the bankers were bailed out by the, state so authors should be given public subsidies – the perils of which should be obvious. This isn’t China.

Yeah, I know man. Writers and dancers and sculptors won’t stop trying to crash the economy with their irresponsible gambling. (Also, special bonus for gross China reference. A+)

Luckily, the freedom offered by the internet offers a chance to resurrect the idea of writing for love, not money.

The notion was never dead. People have always been writing for love rather than money. The internet just makes distribution easier.

So far online self-publishing has been the preserve of fan fiction and erotica but it can’t be long before high-quality fiction starts to emerge.

Wow. Every time I think you can’t get more insulting, you do. Frankly, there is plenty of fanfic out there that is of publishable quality. And there’s also some damn good erotica out there too.

Right now there is a distressed writer sitting in front of her computer somewhere, worrying not about whether she’ll make enough money to give up the day job or how many copies she will sell, but obsessing over form and language, meaning and truth.

Yeah, and you know what helps the writer hone those skills that go into the art? Having some fucking time to practice them. If you’re working 40+ hours a week (and heaven help you if you have kids) your time to practice the actual craft of writing is severely limited. And then on top of it when more and more often you’re having to act as your own publicist? Eats up even more of that time. And what your readers want are books, regular as clockwork, and those books are damn hard to write and much slower to produce if they are not the main focus of your energy.

So what, people should only get paid for doing work they find hideous and agonizing? The only people who should get paid, then, are perhaps janitors, garbagemen, soldiers, and so on. Not politicians or professional athletes or scientists. Certainly not successful actors or dancers or fashion designers. Or are artists just the exception to the rule because we don’t actually produce something you deem personally worthy? Or is it just writers who are the exception, because we’re not real in our art unless we’re fucking miserable?

(This ignores the fact that being fucking miserable and depressed is not a good way to produce art.)

What bothers me most about this piece, which is so full of bullshit the stench will never leave my keyboard, is the idea that you should be happy not getting paid for work so long as it’s work you enjoy. Work is work. It requires time and energy and a big chunk of the limited lifespan you have on Earth if you want to be any good at it. And this same argument has been used for years to try to justify things like keeping the wages of teachers severely depressed. Yeah, you teach because you love it, right? It’s so irresponsible of you to want to make a decent living. The smiles of children and the glow of a job well done should pay for your housing and the clothing of your own children.

Tell me, Mr. Rahim, did you write this piece for free?

Categories
charity sexism someone is wrong on the internet writing

Two storifies, two podcasts for Wednesday

I know, there has not been bloggening in forever. July has been and will continue to be totally crazypants as far as scheduling goes. But here, I have some stuff for you!

Storifies:

During my one long break at DetCon1, I went to the Detroit Institute of the Arts. I only had a bit over three hours there, which wasn’t nearly enough, but it made a profound impression on me.

John C Wright (misogynist, unconscious self-parody, conservative with desperate fantasies of being persecuted rather than simply irrelevant, and one of my favorite chew-toys) has put on his whineypants mightily (lo, verily he hath) because the evil liberal conspiracy that wants to set fire to every velvet Jesus ever painted forced Marvel to make Thor a woman. Or something. Thus doing his small part to answer the question we were all asking ourselves since the announcements about Thor and Captain America: Are comics fans more racist or misogynist? Anyway, I made fun of him on Twitter because I couldn’t be arsed to write a full blog post. And really. After a while all you have to say is would you get a load of this fuckin’ guy?

 

Podcasts:

Comes the Huntsman is now a Podcast! Go listen! I just did, and I’m really pleased with it. And, recall that Comes the Huntsman was a gift story. Therefore.

I was on Skiffy and Fanty again, to talk about BBC’s Sherlock, season 1. As you might already suspect, I expressed a lot of unpopular opinions.

 

Other stuff:

I will be at ArmadilloCon this weekend! Here’s my schedule! If you’re there, please say hello!

DetCon1 was lovely. Major thanks to everyone who said hello to me and came to my panels. And a big extra thanks to everyone who came to the reading I shared with Leah Bobet! And then managed to survive Leah and I playing feels chicken with each other with our readings. You’re all super awesome!

I want you all to start thinking about this now, in readerland. How much would it be worth to you, to make me watch the Fifty Shades of Grey movie? And put your thinking caps on for worthy charities that could benefit from that level of agony.

 

Final thought:

Free fajitas are the best fajitas.

Categories
rants someone is wrong on the internet

Only YOU can prevent fires.

I remember firefighters coming to my elementary school. They showed off all their cool gear and even wore their SCBA units so that we’d know what they look like in a fire and not be scared of them. They taught us stop, drop, and roll. They taught us to call 911. And they also drilled us on one other very important thing: don’t set fires.

What do you do if you find matches or a lighter? Give it to mom or dad or your teacher!

What do you do if you see someone playing with fire? Tell an adult!

Are matches toys? No!

Are lighters toys? No!

This is what fires do, kids. They hurt people. And you can stop fires from happening by not setting them. And you can stop fires from happening by not letting your friends set them. And you can stop fires from happening by getting help if you see a stranger setting them.

So of course, this isn’t actually about fires. It’s about rape. And apparently self defense is a fire extinguisher. Don’t blame me, man, I’m not the one who came up with that metaphor. If you’re in the mood to grind your teeth, here is a do-not-link-ified link of Larry Correia being a jerk about the “naive idiocy of teaching rapists not to rape.” Instead you could just read Jim C. Hines’s response, which is quite succinct.

I went off on a Twitter rant about this last night, and it’s still pissing me off, so I’m going to get it all down here.

Let me be clear: I’m not trying to equate rape and surviving a fire. The experience of assault and being caught in a fire are two very, very different things. But maybe there’s something to be said about the concept of prevention.

The point of fire prevention is that it’s a multi-pronged approach. Laws make arson illegal. Regulations require every day objects to not spontaneously combust, be less likely to burn, etc. Fire extinguishes, sprinkler systems, and smoke detectors can stop fires before they get bad, or help people escape. And early education plays an important role. When firefighters aren’t off saving lives or training, one of their other major duties is public outreach and prevention education.

Because this is the thing: the best way to fight fires is to do your best to keep them from happening in the first place. And a big part of that is telling people to not fucking set fires. And to not let other people set fires. And to call for help immediately if you see a fire.

So let’s go with self defense being like a fire extinguisher. (And yes, Mr. Correia, I do agree that it would be incredibly silly to trash one’s fire extinguisher because they’re not effective against forest fires.) Are private citizens expected to carry fire extinguishers on them at all times? No. It’s awesome if you’re prepared, but you don’t have to be. If an arsonist burns someone’s house down, doe the victim get harassed because they couldn’t put the fire out on their own? Are they asked repeatedly if they’re sure they didn’t do everything they could to stop their house from getting burned down? Do they get publicly shamed because they couldn’t afford to have a sprinkler system installed? Does the arsonist who burned their house down get a sympathetic media portrayal because this has ruined their life? No. (Well, maybe if they’re a football player in certain sectors of the country.)

(By the way? The above is basically part of the “rape culture” that Correia dismisses out of hand.)

I think you get my point.

If you want to get self defense training, that’s great. (I’m not being sarcastic.) I actually do agree with Correia on the point that there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting self defense training, and people who advocate for it shouldn’t get shit on—at least up to the point that advocacy turns to preaching or shaming. I know that there are some excellent courses out there. There are also some incredibly shitty courses. And there are miles of difference between a self defense course that’s aimed exclusively at rape defense and martial arts classes that claim to be for self defense, by the way. A good self defense course is going to be focused, specific, and involve a lot of rote practice and paired exercises.

You never know how you’re going to react in a terrifying situation until you’re there and it’s too late. The point of training is to turn techniques into muscle memory, so even if you can’t think, you can still react. Sometimes self defense training can work really well. Sometimes even if you’re scared out of your mind, you’ll remember one useful thing, and that will be enough.

Sometimes, people never get to that point. They might not mentally be in a place where that works. They might not have time for that kind of practice or the money to pay for it—make no mistake, these are skills that can take time to develop, and free time is something of a privilege these days. Sometimes you bring your fists to a gun fight. Sometimes the person who hurts you is someone that you love and thought you could trust. There are people who cannot defend themselves for a multitude of reasons, such as disability or infirmity or the existence of an insurmountable power differential. And that’s okay.

And don’t tell me that the solution is for all women to carry guns. (Thanks MoJo.)

Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.

Fact-check: In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop a crime.

• In one survey, nearly 1% of Americans reported using guns to defend themselves or their property. However, a closer look at their claims found that more than 50% involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating an argument.

• A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.

Statistics aside, fuck you. Not in my house.

So is self defense training wrong? No. There is no single solution to a big problem, and there will always be bad people out there. But self defense is also a last resort to be used when everything else has failed, not the first and only solution. It should be our undying shame as a society if violence is treated as the optimal answer while the entire concept of prevention by education is dismissed. Not when people stand by and turn a blind eye to assaults. Not when people admit to rape as long as you don’t call it rape, or think rape is okay under certain circumstances. Education may not change the mind of evil people who like to rape, just like education doesn’t change the minds of bad people who like to set fires.

But it does take away their unwitting accomplices.

Don’t set fires. Don’t let others set fires.

Don’t rape people. Don’t let others rape people.

Categories
feminism someone is wrong on the internet

Sibling bonding in the modern age, Or: My brother and I get lost down the MRA rabbit hole together

So yeah, this was a thing that happened on twitter today and kind of ate my afternoon. Mostly because I saw someone saying incredibly stupid shit  about women/feminism to my older brother and like any good little sister, I rolled up my sleeves and waded in. And then it just kind of went down this strange rabbit hole that involves communism and… I just can’t even describe it. It’s sure a thing. Well, I guess at least this gave me a chance to do some real sibling bonding with my brother, as we both marveled again and again at wow would you just get a load of this fuckin’ guy.

I haven’t had that much to say specifically in the wake of the hate crime that went down in Isla Vista yesterday. I haven’t really had anything beyond mute horror, and anger, and sickened disbelief. I’ve been watching the #YesAllWomen tag on twitter but haven’t had anything really to contribute because I’ve lead a really charmed life, to be honest. I’ve been lucky.

And then you find yourself arguing with some random dude on Twitter who is offended–offended!–that everyone is talking about misogyny when there were guys murdered to and that’s totally misandry and therefore… something. (Never mind that functionally, those men were also murdered because of misogyny; if the murderer hadn’t gone on his little hate crime spree they would all still be alive.) And I’m a penis-envying wanna-be man for disagreeing with him.

But I finally do have something to add to #YesAllWomen, because this has reminded me of the every day bullshit I do get exposed to, and I don’t even notice it any more because when you’re swimming in water, how do you know if you’re wet?

#YesAllWomen get told our experiences are invalid, irrational, or not good enough because we’re women.

#YesAllWomen get told that every time something terrible happens to women, we should stop acting like it’s a problem because it happens to men too.

#YesAllWomen get told that our anger is invalid because we don’t start off by praising the “good men” involved first.

#YesAllWoman get told that we’re being oversensitive or we just don’t understand what people mean when yes, we fucking understand harassment when it’s happening to us.

#YesAllWomen get dismissed because we are “snotty bitches” who “hate men” and have “penis envy” and that’s a good enough reason to not listen to us.

#YesAllWomen know that we’re lucky if this is all the bullshit we ever get hit with because it gets so, so very worse from here.