Yeah, I don't know how much "polite" pushback is going to help, but unfortunately the mods seem quicker to drop the banhammer on people for being impolite than for violating their "no culture war/politics" rule.

With grip, I'm increasingly getting the sense there's an element of deliberate trolling there as well. Especially with this latest conversation, it seemed like she waited out the discussion you and MKS were having until she could come up with the most noxious, outrageous take, and her involvement in that thread basically seems to be posts of that stripe. So maybe engaging with them isn't the healthiest. I don't know.

I've mentioned this to crumbs before, but what I think is obvious is not only the abhorrence of anyone's particular politics, but of a couple of people's political temperament.  SO I understand that the reason why the site has a prohibition on political arguments is because the attitude that these kinds of arguments are rarely productive and lead to hostility.  (Of course, anyone knows who remembers the likes of Ergill, BL, EA, or possibly myself on better days that political arguments can be very productive when argued effectively.)  And the idea, as I was made to understand, is that someone casually mentioning a political point of view (too many black people in movies, rap isn't music, women directors am I right?, masks and vaxxes are for pussies, etc) is deemed acceptable as long as someone of a conscientious inclination doesn't stop the flow to say "Wait!  What the fuck?" because then that would be starting an argument and being disagreeable.  That's the word - "disagreeable", I heard over and over.

But someone like Gripgrin doesn't qualify for the former.  Sure she likes to sprinkle her casual toxicity in various places where it is neither appropriate or wanted, but it really becomes clear after just a couple of interactions exactly how proactive and opportunistic, and really just predatory, she is on finding excuses to inject her sociopathy into a given conversation.  I think it took about 2 or 3 months (and I believe the breaking point was documented in my thread about Tarantino's mother) before I basically announced that I wanted nothing to do with her, amicably enough, you go your way I'll go mine, and I felt that this was reasonable enough.  How long did it take for her to start posting little pithy replies.  Not just to my posts, but passive-agressive things to others which were clearly, contextually aimed in my direction.  Or the first time I got banned, and there was some talk of it in crumbs' thread, and Yoda tamped that down and said that if anyone wants to discuss it with him to do so via PMs.  And then Grip shows up to dance on my grave, which, I guess, was more acceptable.

I just don't feel that there's any real way possible that Grip, not her politics per se but her very aggressive and divisive and contentious manner of pursuing her political engagements (with Tak being 'ground zero' as it were), is not tacitly being endorsed by the mods there.  There's no way that they cannot recognize her behavior or how sharply it is directly in contradiction to the very premise behind why they have a prohibition on political discussion in the first place.  I mean, they can claim not to be aware of someone like Yarn, whose tactics are not complicated either, but I find it hard to believe that they can claim not to know exactly who Grip is and what she's doing.

She must send a mean tit-pic, is what I'm saying.  All the mods love her.

Last edited by Jinnistan (6/02/2022 1:33 am)

I guess the post-Depp/Heard coverage is about as bad as anyone could expect.  Pod-bros (like Tim Pool) have videos with names like "Depp Strikes a Blow @ #MeToo" while even mainstream (NBC) headlines are asking things like "What does the Depp verdict mean for the MeToo movement?", both of them asinine in opposite but somewhat equally reductive ways.  The warning that I was trying to sound is that Heard does not need to be the standard by which MeToo should rise or fall.  But in these times of simple minds.

The Jezebel bit isn't too bad.  It's still presumptive of Heard's valor and, like Lewinsky's piece, contemptuous of anyone bothering to pay attention to the more inconvenient details of the trial which complicate that presumption.  But that's par for the course.  They shift the problem to even having a trial in the first place, and in public!, and shaming those who publicly partook, warning that anyone "witnessing how truly cruel the court of public opinion can be for any self-identifying woman who alleges abuse and assault will leave indelible marks".  And like Lewinsky the article never mentions how these allegations fell apart under the court of actual due process.  I don't think that latter part is a matter of trivial significance, and the conspicuous avoidance of these details, focusing instead on the lowest common denominator social media circus surrounding the case, is pretty telling and damning, and willingly or not puts a lot of the commentary in crystal context.  (And for the "filters" that Rock mentioned, TheRoot also weighed in with an article "Amber Heard Verdict Sends A Message To Black Women Everywhere", which I'm not going to bother going into except to point out that it also shares both the presumptive bias and lack of focus on the actual case as the other articles.)

But, kinda obviously, the worst has to be the AV Club's take, written by probably their most awful take-heater William Hughes.  And it's worth a couple of observations.

The overriding sense I get is that I have either the extraordinary luck of laziness or the extraordinary discipline not to spend my time on "social media" (thankfully, message boards don't qualify, which is why they've been abandoned).  Whether it's Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitch, Dischord or whatever other possibly just made-up names, what these articles have in common is that their respective problems seem to have more to do with whatever's happening there than anything that happened in the courtroom.  That's why so little of their analysis involves courtroom argumentation and evidence, and so much of it is consumed with what are (I assume they're correct) these "soul-deadening" platforms (the "Online American Psyche", Hughes calls it).  Which is a shame, because it's now difficult for me, who stuck deliberately to the courtroom developments with which to form my judgment, to have to convince people like these writers that I'm not one of those assholes.  And if someone wants to do a deep-dive piece on all of the toxic garbage being dumped out on these trashhole platforms, then I think there's a lot there worth exploring, as it is with so much of the horrible online subcultures of the past decade.  All I ask is that, in regard to this case in particular, that they add a simple word, like "irrespective", just to clarify that the outcome of this case, or any case, or any major subject for that matter, should not hinge on the quality of internet posts pertaining to it.  That's always going to be a losing proposal.  So I don't doubt the fact that there'a a ton of awful cringy business coming out of these cyber cesspools, I just think we need to put that in proper perspective and context.  And, as such, a lot of the commentary in these articles seem to be more indictments of the larger psychic toll of social media submersion, which, again tellingly, each of these writers assumes is a common affliction because they cannot fathom someone who not only has little interest but also the soul-strength to resist the magnetic void of their fairly petty distractions.

Lots of examples: 

In case you somehow missed the screaming—exultant, despairing, confused, good old-fashioned "This is my voice at the height of its capacity for volume because I need to remind myself I exist," etc., take your pick...

I have no idea what's happening right here.  I don't want to know.  As much as I've had my inner struggles with the lurid lure of this tawdry goss that has no meaningful or spiritually enriching impact on my life (and I admit that I probably spent more than a healthy amount of time watching the trial footage over the past 6 weeks), I'm glad that I wasn't ever reduced to such a screaming desolution.  On the other hand, I have heard of these so-called social media nervous breakdowns before.

We have to have learned something from it, right? We didn’t just open our mouths and guzzle down an industrial sewage pipe’s worth of figurative shit for months without gleaning something edifying from it?

Again, Ima go ahead and assume that this "figurative shit" is something different than the more substantial evidence introduced during the trial.  Must be the memes.

Even as the whole concept of consensus reality seems to be collapsing into the abyss...

Hm.  Wonder what's been accelerating that?

It’s the functional apotheosis of the principle that you’re not really alive in 2022 unless you’ve expressed an opinion on something—and the louder, less-informed, and more misogynistic, the better.

I'm going to step right over the implication here that an opinion supporting Depp's verdict is "less-informed" (coming from someone who avoids mentioning any actual information of the case) and "more misogynistic".  Instead, I'll just say that this aversion to "people with opinions" also smacks of someone with the fatigue that comes from ingesting way too many empty twitter calories.

Maybe it was the pandemic, a wellspring of deadened emotion and sublimated horror finding a safely unsafe way to express itself. Maybe it was the forces of Shitty Dudes International... Maybe it was just the general online vibe, which demands that we all become experts on everything while simultaneously trapping us in an ever-more-complex labyrinth of contradictory and self-selected information.  Maybe it was all the fucking bots.

Maybe it's fucking Twitter, dude?  Didn't that occur to you, dude?

The fevered reaction to the trial—an unholy marriage of Tumblr-style fan devotion, image board provocation-for-the-sake-of-provocation, and Twitter’s horrifying, inescapable reach (with just a smidge of TikTok’s "all of reality is content" ethos slapped on top of the whole thing)—feels like a brink we’re unlikely to walk back from.

He's so close to the heart of the matter, but just can't see it.  This isn't about Johnny Depp at this point.  He's like an addict, with that same fatalistic dead-eyed determination to ride that click/like lightning wherever it takes, whatever it takes.  But it's not Hughes who has a problem.  It's society, man.  He's just self-mediating away the pain and confused why that dopamine rush just ain't kicking any more.  Oh, this "horrifying, inescapable reach"!  Just like Mercury Rev's Everlasting Arm!  How can he tell reality from the content?  Why can't the world meme as one?  This is the brink!  This is the scream!  "Because I need to remind myself I exist" in this lattice of maya meta-memes which deceives us into believing it is sensation.  If I touch my phone is it not real?  "The Content has become paramount"!  This man needs help, can't we all see that? 

The parts of us that hunger for this—as expressed through a million trial commentary videos, DuoLingo promotional videos [???], angry tweets, and the exact text you’re reading at this very moment—will not allow themselves to go unfed for long. Minutes after the trial ended, our inboxes began filling with PR offers for legal consultants to talk to, takes to mine, and even a list of bookmaker’s odds for questions like "Who will Amber Heard get engaged to next?"....none of this feels fun. It feels hungry, and hungry doesn’t go away.

Hunger indeed.  Not fun hunger either.  I just need enough to take the edge off, keep me functional through the drudgery of the day.  You feel it too, don't you?  You know!!!  That text you know you're reading right fucking now, because we're all junked on the notification-done, don't act like you're not!  (I'm not alone!!!)  Inboxes!  Flooding as we speak.  Minutes after!  From whence!?!  These pores of exhaustless distraction!?!  Must 'mine the takes'!!!  Why am I reading it?  Why can't I stop?!?  What valve fashioned by man can I twist!?!  Where can I send it all to die!?!  Maybe some kind of folder out of sight.  Named something cute and innocuous, but yet unpalatable.  Maybe some kind of rancid pseudo-meat.  But I'm hungry!  I'll eat anything that moves!

Last edited by Jinnistan (6/02/2022 10:13 am)

Hey Crumb, how 'bout that provincial election?

crumbsroom wrote:

Rock wrote:

Hey Crumb, how 'bout that provincial election?

Oh shit. That was today?
 

lol

It's ok, you were better off not following the results. PC majority as projected.

Only good thing coming out of it is that Horvath and Del Duca are stepping down as leaders of their respective parties. The right thing for them to do, given the absolutely embarrassing campaigns they ran.

Rampop II wrote:

that’s somehow all Twitter’s fault.

But it kinda is, though.  I agree with the basic concept of the "Online American Psyche" described by William Hughes above, only I think that he's misdiagnosing how the disease is manifesting.  That's likely because he seems to still be heavily invested in the myth that our tech environment over the past 10-15 years, and specifically the habits and behaviors that this environment encourages and fosters, has helped to make society a more informed, connected, liberated and critically enlightened populace.  Like all addicts, he seems incapable of considering the rehabilitation of these habits as an option.  Just as the act of multi-tasking fools our brains into believing that we're more productive (when in fact it makes us much less), a similar phantom validation is that these "filled inboxes" and "constant texts and notifications" make us feel as if we're processing more information than normal.  In fact, this fusillade of superficial stimulus only numbs our ability to think deeply and carefully about a focused subject.  This is why Hughes is so frustrated that he's screaming to himself in anguish, not Johnny Depp.  He's just too dumb to understand.  And in denial, because it's clear that people like him, in this industry of media commentary ("people with opinions") this constant connection is the currency in which they traffic.  He's feeling the symptoms, and can vaguely gaze the disease, but cannot bring himself to dismantle a whole decade's worth of false promises and tech pretensions,

And he's not alone.  These symptoms are evident all across our corporate news media, which has used Twitter as their editorial North Star since at least 2010, using it to determine the shape of the popular worldview.  It's not a coincidence that many of these headlines echo whatever the trending phrases of the day may be.  There's attitudes surrounding this Depp/Heard trial which tell us that, regardless of the "truth" of this case, that the symbolic virtue of handing an abuse survivor a win (for the team!) is more important than the particular facts of this particular case.  "Johnny's a rich man, he'll live."  Unfortunately, most of these folks cannot even fathom all of the problems that opening that door would produce, this subjugation of facts to perception (ie, the Stalist version of "politically correct").  It's a short-term strategy for immediate gratification that plunges us into normalizing arbitrary attitudes.  It's the road of "mutual truths" and "alternative facts" and other rationalizations to perpetuate division and tribalism.  One common element among the diseased is a desperation for simplicity, which, historians can tell you, is always an invitation for demagogues and fascists selling the most simplified ultimatums of either/or and good/bad.  What's needed is the kind of simplification of information consumption that comes from extracting oneself from the nervous-exciting emotional-exhausting cycle of chaotic acoustical noise, the cascade of constant contextless content.  It's no wonder that people have become confused and incapable of individual critical judgment.  It's no wonder that adult professionals are led to believe that anyone who thinks Top Gun 2 is a cool movie is pushing Scientology propaganda (as idiotic as it is completely insignificant).

I did find one reasonable take on the Depp/Heard 'affair', and from a source I'd otherwise given up looking for reasonable takes on these kinds of cultural issues - The Young Turks.  It is refreshing though, and helpful to know that there are at least a few women out there who can still recognize a BPD Mean Girl when they see one.

Last edited by Jinnistan (6/03/2022 2:26 am)

And a lot of this has the appearance of rabble bloodthirst. It's easy to recall the guillotines of the French Revolution, first soiled by the blood of the elites but eventually fed over 16,000 additional heads amid the rabid fervor.

"I am not Cinna the conspirator!"
"It is no matter, his name's Cinna."
—Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

As for the business about it being Twitter's fault, the "it" I'm referring to is not our often–discussed societal sickness, this epistemic crisis of cogency, this torrential tribalistic terror and rabid addiction to the rush of dragging someone, anyone, to the gallows... and a fever fueled in part by the fear of being next.
The "It's all Twitter's fault" I was referring to in this case was the defense's assertion that the jury was influenced by social media to arrive at their verdict. 

Last edited by Rampop II (6/03/2022 8:25 pm)

So...I guess this is the thread where we complain about stupidity in the guise of social justice?

Anyway, I'm used to seeing a lot of inane gestures during Pride Month, but I just got an ad from Levi's that said "decolonize sexuality". What does that even mean?!? I assure you that gender is not a colonial construct.

I mean look at this C-3PO bitch.  You're going to churn this nonsense into milk and rice?  But not for all the starving Ukrainian kids.  Just the swarthy ones.  This bullshit doesn't grow on trees.

Last edited by Jinnistan (6/22/2022 3:35 pm)