At what point is this feeding trolls? I don't mean to condone death threats, but response is exactly what they want. By acknowledging these responses, Fem Freq is (unintentionally) giving them a legitimacy they shouldn't have. What would happen if the anti-GG forces stopped responding to every asshat with a Twitter? I suspect that the furthest extremes would give up if they thought Sarkeesian was unphased by their remarks.
I wish the Pro-GG side did not have such a dominant fucking hold on youtube. Anything Feminist or that argues against GamerGate gets downvoted and ranted/flamed all to absolute hell. And when you disable comments, people go "OMG! They disabled comments and ratings! You don't want people to see the truth!" People are getting crazy enough that if a news source like ABC News or Colbert Report sides with Sarkessian, they are viewed as being corrupt.
Take this asshole. He regards himself as a critic but is clearly making hostile remarks about the woman and regards anyone who follows her as a sheep who is scammed or has drank the kool-aid. He has 284,710 Subscriber and this video has 99% Likes versus 1% Dislikes. People honestly want to believe that being a gamer is a noble practice that defines your moral strength.
I'm not invested in this mess at all except that I believe in feminism and that progressives will eventually win out. I think the pendulum is swinging all over the place w.r.t. what "feminism" actually even means, and that's a natural condition that has to exist before we all more or less find what the "norm" oughta be.
That said, Sarkeesian has always come off as a bit of a Ringmaster to me and less of a progressive. I think she thrives on attention and certainly seems to enjoy monetizing it, but I can't claim to be a Sarkeesian expert and wouldn't spend the time becoming one.
The anti-Sarkeesian and by extension anti-feminist bile popping up all over, though, is way, way, WAY more repugnant than anything she's ever done.
Sealioning is a new term for me. Haven't heard that one.
My daughter likes to show me the nuttiest possible examples of pseudo-feminism that she finds on tumblr from day to day, so I'm at least grateful that she seems to have her head on straight and doesn't get carried away like some of her classmates, one of whom insists on fae pronouns and is "gender fluid" and also (coincidentally, I'm sure) bipolar, on massive medications, and an enormous attention whore who has brought multiple classes to a standstill with her antics over the past 3 years she's been in high school.
I went on /r/feminism once and asked in the most neutral terms I could muster whether egalitarianism was the ultimate goal of feminism. There was actually an hour or so of REALLY GOOD discussion and open-mindedness, and then a mod came along and banned me from the subreddit forever.
Feminism is in the midst of a schism. There is conflict between the old guard (usually those over thirty) who want to preserve the brand as egalitarian and the new guard (the Tumblrites and SJWs) who are trying to redefine it as a more radical ideology, frequently making it unattractive to those who would have previously been mild feminists. I see it in going one of two ways, both of which I can only find analogous to American political parties. Either they will regroup and compromise, as the Democrats did after the fiasco in '68, and restore the brand to a more moderate ideology that is more presentable to the masses, or they will split as the Whigs did, with the moderates adopting a new brand altogether, leaving feminism to be populated by the most radical, bringing it further and further away from a feasibly popular set of beliefs.
I regard "tumblr" feminism more or less the same way I do the Tea Party, and I think I'm not even close to alone in that.
Having two daughters I'm pretty keenly interested in feminism, and I hate to see the kind of bile that gets posted online by, presumably, young men who are venting some of the most bile filled, disgusting viewpoints on the subject imaginable.
I wonder how much of that is just a blowback reaction inspired by the Tumblr/SRS brand of feminism (sorry, but that's just how I've come to label it and it may not be fair), and how much of it is trolling for the sake of self-justification, etc. It's just way too easy to sock puppet and warp the dialog and there are way too many people with far too much time to do such a thing who are totally willing to do it for various reasons.
I'm not sure that Reddit or Tumbrl are the places to look at if you wanna learn or understand feminism. Or anything serious. Those are Internet places full of Internet bullshit that has little to do with the real world.
I think that an awful lot of what goes on in those pressure cookers on tumblr and reddit finds its way into more credible channels. There's the standard archetype of the off-the-wall college feminism professor for a reason.
Like it or not, the internet has gone way beyond FTP sitez and usenet and IRC and has become more or less THE platform where 90% of society debates ANYTHING. If you're in college or freshly graduated, I can see how you may not believe that, but you're in the minority I think.
Sealioning is a new term for me. Haven't heard that one.
http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206 The best definition of the term and some others that I've seen. Go to 8:52 if you strictly want the definition but the video itself is well worth watching
Sealioning appears to be the current favorite term used to ignore criticism and attack the critic even when the person only posts ONE TIME asking for clarification. It's a great way to alienate people who might be inclined to support you.
I haven't seen it used, but I've definitely seen an awful lot of that attitude. It's OK for me to spew hate and bile but if you respond to it in the same venue, you're in my personal space.
Sorry, but fuck that. Responding to what's essentially hate speech in the same venue isn't stalking.
According to the way the term is defined calling someone out as sealioning is a way for someone to spew hate speech and then claim victim hood when they are called out for spewing hate speech.
Haha, you guys are on some next level ish. What is the "hate speech" in this instance?
I get that it kinda sucks when you feel like you have one legitimate question, asked politely, and then you feel like you get unfairly rebuked, but you have to understand, often, the people you're just "ONE TIME asking for a clarification" from have probably hundreds of people doing the exact same thing to them, some sincerely, most just to troll and add to a dogpile of assholes. It's nobody's job to educate you; acting like it is, even if you're coming from a place of sincere ignorance, is not a super great way to have a conversation.
Besides which, on something like twitter especially, it can be impossible to determine sincere questions from a flood of "Well, actuallys"--which is the actual definition of sealioning, not this "no fair this is how they get to spew hate speech >:| >:| >:| professional victimhood MYNEEEEEH!"
Unless we've accepted "gamer" as a protected class or embattled minority overnight, and therefore this 'hate speech' label has some weight.
Look, if like in the comic, you're entering someone's personal space to bait them into a debate they don't want to have (ie, you're PMing them, following them into other threads, emailing them, etc) then that's a dick move. You shouldn't be doing that. That's harrassment.
But crying about persecution because you posted a bunch of bile and someone wants to call you out on it in the same venue (forum thread, chat room, blog, whatever)? That's a whole other level of stupid.
And you're right, it's not always rising to the level of hate speech, but quite often it is, and typically the people crying about persecution when people politely disagree with them in an online forum are the ones spewing the most vile stuff. It's not about "gamer" in that instance, it's often about the male gender and wild, silly generalizations.
And framing it as "It's not my job to educate you" when someone is trying to debate your position is the height of condescension and hubris. It's ridiculous.
you have to understand, often, the people you're just "ONE TIME asking for a clarification" from have probably hundreds of people doing the exact same thing to them, some sincerely, most just to troll and add to a dogpile of assholes.
Exactly.
Further, most of the "just asking for clarification" people are literally copy/pasting their posts. You can google them and find the same text, typoes and capitalization and all, in several places. They're mostly recent twitter accounts or new forum accounts, all made around the same time and posting/tweeting mostly only about gomergate.
It's obvious to everyone that the gomergate people have no actual, legitimate concerns, and that the movement is steeped in misogyny and harassment. Pretending that it's anything but is an act of supreme denial or profound ignorance (or inept trolling I suppose).
And framing it as "It's not my job to educate you" when someone is trying to debate your position is the height of condescension and hubris. It's ridiculous.
It isn't anyone's job to educate anyone except teachers/professors. If your goal is to learn something, asking an actual human being is the absolute last resort. Just like you shouldn't be asking a tech question here without Googling it first.
One thing I think is a big problem is that due to things like Quora, Stack Overflow, etc. there's an expectation that all knowledge is bite sized. Even in a forum people will quote and debate on a line-by-line basis. No fact is longer than a tweet.
When it comes to something like a tech question, this often works. What's the command to do X? What's the best X?
But when it comes to a very complex social issue, you can't possibly hope to have any meaningful discussion using such a medium. How can I answer even the most basic question about racism with less than an essay? And if the audience has absolutely zero prerequisite knowledge, that essay now becomes a book. That's why Anita has to make an entire series of long videos to even begin to make a single point.
You wouldn't be going to tweet your physics questions at Stephen Hawking or NDT. They wouldn't even bother to answer them either. They don't have time to personally tutor you. They can't possibly teach you all the physics you need to know in one tweet anyway. Unless you've already studied physics extensively, there's no reason you should be asking them anything. Even thinking about debating them is laughable. Even if they are wrong, you are not the one to be saying so.
And the same goes with women's studies. Did you know that most major universities offer a degree in this topic? It's as large and complex as any other liberal art. If you haven't studied it extensively, you aren't qualified to debate it with anyone, especially not experts. Since most people never learn anything about it during any part of their education, most people know absolutely nothing about this topic. To answer even the most basic question requires an entire books worth of information. Average people are actually more qualified to debate physics, as they have probably at least learned Newton's Laws.
The only person who has the job to educate you is a teacher that you have paid money, or has volunteered to help you. Asking or, even worse, demanding that a real human being answer your questions about anything at all is a form of harassment. It's not any different than if I kept asking some stranger on the Internet to do any sort of labor for me. "Hey, come over and wash my car!" "Hey, come and change my lightbulbs complete stranger!"
If you legitimately want to learn about something you have the entire Internet, your local library, every book on Amazon, plus more to educate yourself with. If you haven't taken advantage of all those resources to already learn, your desire to learn is clearly not genuine. If you ask a real human questions demanding education you haven't thoroughly researched yourself, you are sea lioning.
The Wondermark comic from which the term originated really explains it all.
We're talking about two different things, and that's fine. Literally spamming requests for "clarification" on twitter is harrassment. Twitter isn't a debate platform. If you want to address an issue on twitter, you can do it without "replying" to anyone in particular.
Apreche, I'm not talking about people literally expecting "feminists" to educate them, I'm talking about the condescending pretense that an attempt to debate is a request for education.
The wondermark comic paints both parties as being in the wrong and the key part (to me) of the comic is that the sea lion is going beyond the initial location of the comment and entering stalking territory. I see this accusation dropped on people who are only in the one discussion and not jumping around and stalking (unless they are sock puppeting.)
I also see this one tossed out when someone is asking not for education on a topic but for a clarification on where the speaker stands because what they are saying is ambiguous. Some of it can be kind of dickish behavior (responding to the #all[subgroup]livesmatter hash tag with #alllivesmatter) but if you only believe that a certain subgroup of lives matter then what does that say about you?
There is a big difference between asking someone to educate you on the topic and asking them to be more clear on their personal view of the topic. If someone I generally am in agreement with starts heading down the hate speech road I want clarification not to start a fight but to see if they are batshit crazy or have a legitimate gripe with a given subgroup of people. If their hate is based off of a real injustice than I can at least understand their hate even if I do not agree with it and possibly, if we have a deeper relationship, fix the hate.
In closing, if a speaker is constantly being asked for clarification is not possible they are simply terrible at getting their point across?
We're talking about two different things, and that's fine. Literally spamming requests for "clarification" on twitter is harassment. Twitter isn't a debate platform. If you want to address an issue on twitter, you can do it without "replying" to anyone in particular.
Apreche, I'm not talking about people literally expecting "feminists" to educate them, I'm talking about the condescending pretense that an attempt to debate is a request for education.
I am an expert at computers. If you try to debate me on a topic at which I am an expert, I expect you to also be an expert. If you are not, then it is literally impossible for me to debate you because you lack the prerequisite knowledge to do so.
If we do debate, then you will make points which are entirely wrong, and every rebuttal will in fact consist of me educating you, which is not my job.
If someone of low knowledge asks to debate someone of higher knowledge, they are just pestering them.
In closing, if a speaker is constantly being asked for clarification is not possible they are simply terrible at getting their point across?
Much like communism, this is true on paper. In the real world you will find that the person made their position abundantly and crystal clear. The people asking for clarification consist of pedants, jerks, people who didn't read in the first place, and those who lack reading comprehension skills.
Comments
A lot of people genuinely got royally shafted by both sides in this one.
Edit: Ok, I laughed at "This is an anonymous death threat.". That guy wins a medal.
Didn't realise how much of space pimp Ra was.
Take this asshole. He regards himself as a critic but is clearly making hostile remarks about the woman and regards anyone who follows her as a sheep who is scammed or has drank the kool-aid. He has 284,710 Subscriber and this video has 99% Likes versus 1% Dislikes. People honestly want to believe that being a gamer is a noble practice that defines your moral strength.
Which would be fine (relatively) if they didn't roam outside of their ghettos pooping on everything.
That said, Sarkeesian has always come off as a bit of a Ringmaster to me and less of a progressive. I think she thrives on attention and certainly seems to enjoy monetizing it, but I can't claim to be a Sarkeesian expert and wouldn't spend the time becoming one.
The anti-Sarkeesian and by extension anti-feminist bile popping up all over, though, is way, way, WAY more repugnant than anything she's ever done.
Lately it's been:
Feminist makes ambiguous statement.
I request clarity after explaining that the statement is ambiguous.
Feminist responds with claim that I am sealioning.
My daughter likes to show me the nuttiest possible examples of pseudo-feminism that she finds on tumblr from day to day, so I'm at least grateful that she seems to have her head on straight and doesn't get carried away like some of her classmates, one of whom insists on fae pronouns and is "gender fluid" and also (coincidentally, I'm sure) bipolar, on massive medications, and an enormous attention whore who has brought multiple classes to a standstill with her antics over the past 3 years she's been in high school.
Having two daughters I'm pretty keenly interested in feminism, and I hate to see the kind of bile that gets posted online by, presumably, young men who are venting some of the most bile filled, disgusting viewpoints on the subject imaginable.
I wonder how much of that is just a blowback reaction inspired by the Tumblr/SRS brand of feminism (sorry, but that's just how I've come to label it and it may not be fair), and how much of it is trolling for the sake of self-justification, etc. It's just way too easy to sock puppet and warp the dialog and there are way too many people with far too much time to do such a thing who are totally willing to do it for various reasons.
The best definition of the term and some others that I've seen.
Go to 8:52 if you strictly want the definition but the video itself is well worth watching
EDIT: Not ALL terms misused. Not ALL peens pointed in odd directions.
Sorry, but fuck that. Responding to what's essentially hate speech in the same venue isn't stalking.
I get that it kinda sucks when you feel like you have one legitimate question, asked politely, and then you feel like you get unfairly rebuked, but you have to understand, often, the people you're just "ONE TIME asking for a clarification" from have probably hundreds of people doing the exact same thing to them, some sincerely, most just to troll and add to a dogpile of assholes. It's nobody's job to educate you; acting like it is, even if you're coming from a place of sincere ignorance, is not a super great way to have a conversation.
Besides which, on something like twitter especially, it can be impossible to determine sincere questions from a flood of "Well, actuallys"--which is the actual definition of sealioning, not this "no fair this is how they get to spew hate speech >:| >:| >:| professional victimhood MYNEEEEEH!"
Unless we've accepted "gamer" as a protected class or embattled minority overnight, and therefore this 'hate speech' label has some weight.
But crying about persecution because you posted a bunch of bile and someone wants to call you out on it in the same venue (forum thread, chat room, blog, whatever)? That's a whole other level of stupid.
And you're right, it's not always rising to the level of hate speech, but quite often it is, and typically the people crying about persecution when people politely disagree with them in an online forum are the ones spewing the most vile stuff. It's not about "gamer" in that instance, it's often about the male gender and wild, silly generalizations.
And framing it as "It's not my job to educate you" when someone is trying to debate your position is the height of condescension and hubris. It's ridiculous.
Further, most of the "just asking for clarification" people are literally copy/pasting their posts. You can google them and find the same text, typoes and capitalization and all, in several places. They're mostly recent twitter accounts or new forum accounts, all made around the same time and posting/tweeting mostly only about gomergate.
It's obvious to everyone that the gomergate people have no actual, legitimate concerns, and that the movement is steeped in misogyny and harassment. Pretending that it's anything but is an act of supreme denial or profound ignorance (or inept trolling I suppose).
One thing I think is a big problem is that due to things like Quora, Stack Overflow, etc. there's an expectation that all knowledge is bite sized. Even in a forum people will quote and debate on a line-by-line basis. No fact is longer than a tweet.
When it comes to something like a tech question, this often works. What's the command to do X? What's the best X?
But when it comes to a very complex social issue, you can't possibly hope to have any meaningful discussion using such a medium. How can I answer even the most basic question about racism with less than an essay? And if the audience has absolutely zero prerequisite knowledge, that essay now becomes a book. That's why Anita has to make an entire series of long videos to even begin to make a single point.
You wouldn't be going to tweet your physics questions at Stephen Hawking or NDT. They wouldn't even bother to answer them either. They don't have time to personally tutor you. They can't possibly teach you all the physics you need to know in one tweet anyway. Unless you've already studied physics extensively, there's no reason you should be asking them anything. Even thinking about debating them is laughable. Even if they are wrong, you are not the one to be saying so.
And the same goes with women's studies. Did you know that most major universities offer a degree in this topic? It's as large and complex as any other liberal art. If you haven't studied it extensively, you aren't qualified to debate it with anyone, especially not experts. Since most people never learn anything about it during any part of their education, most people know absolutely nothing about this topic. To answer even the most basic question requires an entire books worth of information. Average people are actually more qualified to debate physics, as they have probably at least learned Newton's Laws.
The only person who has the job to educate you is a teacher that you have paid money, or has volunteered to help you. Asking or, even worse, demanding that a real human being answer your questions about anything at all is a form of harassment. It's not any different than if I kept asking some stranger on the Internet to do any sort of labor for me. "Hey, come over and wash my car!" "Hey, come and change my lightbulbs complete stranger!"
If you legitimately want to learn about something you have the entire Internet, your local library, every book on Amazon, plus more to educate yourself with. If you haven't taken advantage of all those resources to already learn, your desire to learn is clearly not genuine. If you ask a real human questions demanding education you haven't thoroughly researched yourself, you are sea lioning.
The Wondermark comic from which the term originated really explains it all.
The GG sealions are a conscious, active form of harassment. The intent is to harass.
Apreche, I'm not talking about people literally expecting "feminists" to educate them, I'm talking about the condescending pretense that an attempt to debate is a request for education.
I also see this one tossed out when someone is asking not for education on a topic but for a clarification on where the speaker stands because what they are saying is ambiguous. Some of it can be kind of dickish behavior (responding to the #all[subgroup]livesmatter hash tag with #alllivesmatter) but if you only believe that a certain subgroup of lives matter then what does that say about you?
There is a big difference between asking someone to educate you on the topic and asking them to be more clear on their personal view of the topic. If someone I generally am in agreement with starts heading down the hate speech road I want clarification not to start a fight but to see if they are batshit crazy or have a legitimate gripe with a given subgroup of people. If their hate is based off of a real injustice than I can at least understand their hate even if I do not agree with it and possibly, if we have a deeper relationship, fix the hate.
In closing, if a speaker is constantly being asked for clarification is not possible they are simply terrible at getting their point across?
If we do debate, then you will make points which are entirely wrong, and every rebuttal will in fact consist of me educating you, which is not my job.
If someone of low knowledge asks to debate someone of higher knowledge, they are just pestering them. Much like communism, this is true on paper. In the real world you will find that the person made their position abundantly and crystal clear. The people asking for clarification consist of pedants, jerks, people who didn't read in the first place, and those who lack reading comprehension skills.