2097

Brilliant. I am stealing that joke.

2098
2099

Audio Caesaria sounds like a local stereo and electronics chain.

2100

They tricked out my chariot real nice!

2101

That was a really good well thought-out piece, regardless of punctuation crimes. Thanks for posting it!

2102

When I was trying to nail down a reasonable definition of “cancel culture” earlier, it’s because it seems to encompass something more than just online bullying. This seems to be a pretty good definition:

my problem with this situation is not that caleb is innocent, it’s that nobody engaging with it is doing it out of a virtuous desire to right a wrong: they are doing it because we are addicted to consuming the lives of others and bringing vicious suffering on those we deem to deserve it. anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to themselves.

And yes, great article!

2103

I think we need separate terms for two phenomena:

  1. Celebrities who say things and expect to be able to escape criticism for them.
  2. Internet “sleuth” mobs who track down, dox, and harass people because of supposed offenses.

Conflating these two is part of the problem. I’m not sure I see any problem with JK Rowling being online shamed for transphobia. Maybe there could stand to be more nuance in online discussion, but she fully knew the horns she was grabbing. But I do think that non-celebrities doing ambiguously bad things being exposed to the bright light of the internet by strangers is not great. Twitter/TikTok/Instagram/Facebook could burn in a fire tomorrow and I would cheer. I don’t think we’re well equipped as a species for that kind of social exposure.

I thought the article’s author articulated well the tension here in the sentences immediately preceding the part you quoted:

importantly, and perhaps most controversially, most people should be allowed to do sort-of-bad things without having to worry that 15 million people are going to know about it the next day, or that it will still be the first thing people find when they google you twenty years in the future.

even as i type these words, it is difficult for me to fully commit to them. i am a militant feminist who knows that men as a whole are still not called out even a fraction as much as they should be; the implication that we are being too harsh on a man who has violated women feels strange and foreign in my mouth. so let me be clear: i think this man needs to radically change the way he engages with relationships, as many of us do. in a better world, word of his behavior would have spread around his circles and he would be held accountable in a private, personal, and ultimately more meaningful way.

2104

I would agree with this.

Of course it’s almost always used in relation to #1.
I would add to #2 that it’s often a matter of things taken out of context on top of it.

2105

Yeah, I think that the second one is an actual issue of concern, and the first one is people trying to deflect criticism or consequences by crying “cancel culture!” I think the second one is definitely worthy of discussion.

I think it’s used in bad faith that way, yes, but there are also other cases–like Lindsay Ellis or Couch Guy–that are actually dangerous and kind of scary.

2106

To be clear, and I don’t think you’d disagree, harassment and threats to #1 are bad too. And, grudgingly, I think constant replies do count as harassment.

2107

So yesterday I was introduced to the term “milkshake duck”. Internet English is so much fun.

2108

Jeez. That’s so old. I don’t even think anyone uses that term any longer.

Edit: Ha! The original tweet is from 2016!

2109

Pixelated boat is a great Twitter follow.

2110

Ha ha. That is a great handle.

I was watching a video on YouTube when one of the guys mentioned another YouTube. He then mentioned that a commenter called the guy a “milkshake duck”, which led to a discussion on what that meant. Turns out the guy the comment was about was arrested for killing his wife. They decided that was probably a different thing than a milkshake duck.

2111

I think milkshake duck was originally made as a joke after that dude Ken Bone won jeopardy, and everyone was like, “hey, this nerd in a sweater is so nerdy he’s cool!”

And then it turned out he was a huge racist or pedophile or something.

2112

Just to clarify, Ken Bone was/is the “uncommitted”/undecided voter in the red sweater from the 2016 presidential debates with the rather distasteful Reddit history. Ken Jennings is the Jeopardy guy, who tweeted support for a podcast co-host (“bean dad”) who had a racist, homophobic and antisemitic history.

2113

Freaking Kens.

2114

Yup. The original “milkshake duck” reference is about the crazy Twitter fandom that sprung up after Ken Bone’s appearance in that televised town hall. People were making up all sorts of jokes about how awesome Ken seemed and ironic jokes about how hot he was, etc. The someone figured out that he was kind of a creeper on Reddit, hence the idea that this thing (the milkshake duck) could suddenly pop up in the twittersphere and become a fun fad could just as quickly disappear when unsavory facts were found.

2115

I contest this every time someone brings it up, he (John Roderick, “bean dad”) had old tweets taken out of context in a witch hunt after his bean dad thing went viral in a bad way, but we don’t need to rehash it.

2116

So cancel culture? The targeting is most of the problem, rather than the magnitude of the punishment.