Enidigm
1727
Maybe that’s why social media turns into this circle jerk of attacking itself and ruining the small people while the big fish swim away; deplatforming doesn’t work against people who have “real” power. It only works against those with transitory, social approval based power. Like that billionaire heiress you’ve never heard of who got married and had Anna-Taylor Joy show up like an ornament for one of a dozen bridesmaid’s bouquets - her family has real wealth and power and doesn’t care what “Twitter” thinks about them. I think the problem for the mob of social media is that they don’t really have a proportionate understanding of power, and so can only use such little power that they have against themselves. Those who depend on the mob for their livelihood, most of all.
It’s terrible what she went through and it’s not her fault, but it’s also basically impossible today to have that “safe space” mentality with online content you post when you’re big, compared to that fan fiction stuff you post on “fan Twitter” when you’re nobody.
Alstein
1728
I do think deplatforming has hurt JKR. Harry Potter definitely seems to be much less of a “brand” now then before she went mask off. I think a lot of her fanbase did turn on her.
The folks who don’t need engagement for power aren’t effected though, but there’s not that many powerful people who don’t depend on it for power, and it only works if you can turn people.
Making someone more hated in a group usually doesn’t do much. (You can’t double boycott no matter how much you want to)
Enidigm
1729
JKR is someone who has a point but can’t express it well, which is sort of a black mark against an author, but I also recognize that inability to back down when those listening to you refuse to acknowledge what you’re trying to say, an experience many had from the early years of being online and having forum arguments that go nowhere, and so I have some sympathy. I don’t think she’s really been “deplatformed” though as her post-Harry Potter output has trended toward a certain ordinary mediocrity. It helps accelerate her decline though.
Reemul
1730
Harry Potter is everywhere, Sky has it’s own Harry Potter movie channel this year, shops were full of Harry Potter stuff and he still seems as popular as usual, personally I dislike the books and films(sure i know I am in the minority but that’s fine) and I get fed up constantly hearing about Harry Potter.
Maybe certain platforms and people that use those platforms are off HP but i think it’s a little naïve to just assume that’s true everywhere else.
Yup. If you’re an up-and-coming author, there is a lot of pressure to establish a base and market yourself through social media and in Lindsay’s case, she got her start on YouTube. When your career is defined and largely dependent on social media, it’s a lot harder to just “turn it off” and “ignore the haters.”
jsnell
1732
CraigM
1733
This would be largely correct. @Alstein what you are perceiving is almost exclusively tied to specific groups on social media. Outside of that bubble the whole controversy is unknown, practically unheard of.
That matches my experience as well.
Guap
1735
I think there is a huge distinction between someone who lives a private life with little or no social media/public presence and someone who uses social media/public presence to make money. When the former is filmed without permission in a public space say, losing their temper it’s a much different kind of “cancel culture” than someone who lives in the public sphere intentionally and gets called out for public or private bad behavior.
Seeking fame means you expose yourself to the mob, which is fickle.
“Fickle” is being extremely generous to these sorts of behaviors, and makes it seem less reprehensible than it is IMO.
Guap
1737
Perhaps. There is probably a better way to phrase that. Suggestions?
Enidigm
1738
I think the big difference here is that Lindsay isn’t getting called out for bad behavior, but for “bad behavior”, like literally falling on the wrong side of a knife’s edge distinction between completely irrelevant media criticism… and to be honest, isn’t getting “cancelled” really but seems to have a really hard time being criticized online, and then when the Tumblr or Twitter mob or whoever decide to work themselves up over incredibly unimportant distictions that matter to nobody but people who write fan fiction, decides she can’t really deal with it and decides to jet.
Lindsay seemed to come up from “fan YouTube” - if you look at the video that “made her”, it was “Is Freddy Got Fingered a Dadaist Masterpiece?” - and then gets popular trashing popular trashing targets like the Hobbit films and Cats. In some ways she just wants to talk shit about Big Popular Media Things. The problem is that once you become big yourself the logic of media criticism on social media changes because now you’re part of the media system that they like to criticize.
I honestly know nothing about her, but if this is accurate — that her popularity stemmed from trashing popular things on social media — I’m not sure how it is much different from individual behaviors in cancel culture. I understand the terrible power of the mob, but each member of the mob is just an individual trashing some popular or topical thing.
Is there a word that succinctly includes, “absent of empathy and violent-leaning?”
Enidigm
1742
If it is accurate - which i admit it may well not be, i’m hardly an expert nor concerned party here - I think it’s important to say i’m being extremely reductionistic. She’s well spoken, thoughtful and a great critic. I mean, ultimately, it is just trashing parts of popular media, but she gives it that patina of educated authenticity that runs so far on social media today. That’s selling her hard work short, but in the end if the hill you die on is your supposedly bad critical opinion between Avatar and Rya, the Last Dragon, it’s kinda accurate too.
Not saying that isn’t also true, but my impression hasn’t been the alt-right driving these sorts of things, but instead the severely-online and bubbled-up left Twitter types.
Thrag
1744
Yeah, just riffing on the given description.
Though as toxic as social media can be, and especially fan communities, is actual violence a thing? Are these communities actually violent?
Narrator: No.
I really don’t care for the business of repurposing violent words to describe things that aren’t actually physically violent.
CraigM
1746
This would be an extremely ungenerous summation of her work. Critical, in depth, sure. But she is not someone who is unthinkingly trashing things. In fact one of her major themes is it is ok to like things that are bad. You can understand why something may be flawed, but still enjoy it. And thinking about what makes even bad things work helps you understand and appreciate more.
She also talks about fan fiction and how she started her writing doing it. She goes over why much of it is not good from a literary sense, but why it is important to make even baad things and get feedback on them because it helps you improve as a writer, by learning from your peers, both as a recipient and giver of constructive feedback.
