Yes, sure. But nobody actually lynches anyone on social media, while they do in real life. The problem with social media is mostly that people are bad.
I can say “a lot of people exhibit bad behaviors with frequency”, but I’m not sure that’s more descriptive.
Not everyone can do an analysis on the Hobbit and include stuff on how it screwed up worker rights in New Zealand. She’s great, with a very unique look at stuff, and genuinely new takes, even when she’s talking about how the text of Transformers tells us that Mikaela (Megan Fox) is strong, independent, more of a hero than the main character, but the way she’s filmed turns the character into eye candy. And no matter how much the text tells you something, the way a character is shown is much more important to our brain.
But she made the mistake of being a woman while having opinions, and that was enough to accrue a bunch of people who dislike her for that, and add to that the regular “you like / dislike something I don’t” dislike that people with opinions on the Internet can get, and I guess it was enough to make for a less than enjoyable experience.
Matt_W
1769
It’s hard to conjure empathy if you think everyone is bad. I recognize I’m privileged, but 99.99% of my interactions with anyone on a day-to-day basis are perfectly civil and fall well within acceptable social norms.
I don’t really see why. My empathy for people really only starts to get harder to summon when they actually do bad things, just as yours probably does.
Scuzz
1771
She did a very well done 3-part story of what went wrong with the making of the Hobbit. It is well worth the watch. I believe she has done other such reviews. She is not the crazy YouTube reviewer you may have heard about.
I have no idea what went wrong here, sounds like she said something that led to criticism she wasn’t willing to accept. Too bad.
But YouTubeers tend to live and die based on their likes and dislikes.
Sharpe
1772
This is all very subjective but my impression was the criticism was much harsher and more personally judgmental than that. As in “Lindsay is a BAD PERSON for saying X” as opposed to “Lindsay’s opinion on X is wrong for Y reason.”
Look, the right wing in the US is continuously exaggerating and taking out of proportion so called instances of “cancel culture” and yet it’s also true that people can act badly in mobs, and that social media facilitates and exacerbates some of the worst tendencies. And, the left does occasionally engage in this mob behavior, particularly on certain social media sites (left wing censorship is still a much smaller problem than right win in the US - look at all the “anti-CRT” and “anti-porn” book banning/education bills in numerous states.) But left wing censorship also does exist, in a smaller way. (This is all a microcosm of my general view that the left in the US has the general “baseline” level of human frailties and flaws while the right in the US is an order of magnitude worse due to a lengthy series of processes of increasing extremism, disdain for science media, disregard of facts, norm violations, and pursuit of power at the cost of democracy.) It is hard to discuss all of this b/c the idiocy of “bothsidesism” has obscured so much of what the right wing has done/is doing, and yet it’s also true that the left has flaws, as all groups of humans do. We just haven’t gone through a series of massive extremism/ugliness feedback loops like the right had over the last few decades. Of course, one way to keep that true is to push back against the tendencies of any group, including the left, to engage in mob-assery.
In terms of Ellis, my impression-from-the-sidelines is that Ellis got mobbed unfairly and out of proportion to her alleged bad statements. This is unfortunate but I also think the solution for her, to pursue her writing career away from social media, to become an author with a successful first novel and a second releasing soon (or already?), AND to get the heck off of social media, is the right way to go.
Scuzz
1773
From my limited excursions into social media it does seem to eventually burn out the dispensers. Creating content just isn’t that easy long term.
I think, and hope she will land on her feet doing something she enjoys.
Alstein
1774
Same reason indie game development as hell. Tons of supply, demand can’t sustain the supply.
Folks are not willing to pay for social media with their money, outside of maybe Something Awful.
Scuzz
1775
I have seen live streams where viewers have “donated” pretty good money to streamers. But yea, I doubt most make minimum wage.
Alstein
1776
Yep, a few friends make a couple hundred a month from vtubing, but it’s a full time job.
My favorite streamers do it as a hobby though
Scuzz
1778
You forgot to yell “Get off my lawn!”.
ShivaX
1779
Frida Kahlo, Selena, Dimebag, Lennon and others would say: “Yes, very much so.”
And their killers liked them.
As far as Ellis, I don’t doubt that she has received credible threats because she is a female on the internet.
That’s literally all it takes. That she also said shit people didn’t like? I mean, that’s a guarantee at that point.
Now all that said, I have no idea what she’s even talking about and barely know who she is.
strategy
1780
This.
Sadly, social media is a cess-pool and people don’t seem to be capable of distinguishing between “this person said something that I don’t like” and “this person is bad, because that’s the only explanation for how she could have said something I don’t like”.
Aceris
1781
I love the way the usual suspects are posting lots of stuff about social media to elide the fact that, while Ellis had a broad reach, it was far-left posters who harassed and abused her off the internet. I guarantee you that if it was the alt-right harassing her you would hear a lot less “social media, what ya gonna do” on this thread.
Matt_W
1783
I don’t know if I’m one of the usual suspects, but I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent on this:
Alstein
1784
There’s a line you don’t cross, dunking on a shitty take is fake, cancellation is fine if someone crosses the line on the other end, but abuse is never fine. (actual harassment is abuse, but bad faith actors often try to conflate criticism with abuse)
The line to me is threatening something that isn’t related to deplatforming itself, or if you’re trying to push someone to self-harm like poor Hana Kimura.
And I will openly admit, the standard for when someone crosses into abuse is higher when right-wing assholes are the victim, because they’re a lot more likely to have crossed the line themselves.
When you advocate for marginalization of a group just for who they are, that itself counts as abuse and harassment.
We have to be careful to avoid bothsiding and accidentally legitimizing horrible views. Sometimes there is a tendency to that here among some of the “usual suspects”
Alstein
1785
Also, this is an interesting take on the whole Lindsay Ellis situation from the left, and a bit of a warning to how some folks here come off as sometimes.
Sorry for doublepost , but this was really good, and the previous is something I grapple with/wonder about where a line should be. Lines are to protect folks not to silence criticism, lines designed for the former often end up doing the latter.
That is a very interesting thread and take, and thanks for posting it!
