twitter is not your therapist

most of the time, i just think berlatsky's kind of a boring eeyore poster, but he frequently dips into sensitive topics that demand knowledge, care and nuance with all of the caution of the kool-aid man smashing through your kitchen.

his tweeting through the entire tara reade saga was absolutely fucking reprehensible and he should be ashamed of it.

the main thing that makes him worse than, say, jeet heer, is that berlatsky will choose to have very strong opinions about like, trans people's mental health or familial relationships or women's experiences with sexual abuse, whereas heer sticks to being stupid about politics.

and while his heart may be in the right place most of the time (i have no ability to judge), the way in which he ventriloquizes people whose experiences are not his own really rubs me the wrong fucking way.

like, this whole exchange willfully misunderstands the law, parental abuse, parenting, boundaries, and probably a half a dozen other things in a pretty fucking problematic way.

the thing about him is that he genuinely *does* take a lot of nasty abuse from the internet, which makes me feel bad, but he frequently also has absolutely indefensible takes like this, often times, on the same day!

if you're going to be a twitter armchair expert, please stay out of psychology and away from the subjects of children or parents, i beg of you. pick almost anything else to hot take about.

no one:

absolutely no one:

noah berlatsky: here are my thoughts about parental oppression and the patriarchal tyranny of child psychology