Read on Twitter
Had some thoughts while remembering some of the details of this incident.
To start: I think, in general, you can judge the health of an online community by whether women are openly posting (as themselves) without receiving piles of bullshit. https://twitter.com/MOOMANiBE/status/1354179466294042624
To start: I think, in general, you can judge the health of an online community by whether women are openly posting (as themselves) without receiving piles of bullshit. https://twitter.com/MOOMANiBE/status/1354179466294042624
Telling a woman to "make me a sandwich" isn't a joke. It's social posturing, simply translated as "belittling women is cool, right fellow bros?". Somehow this kid learned that this was a acceptable way to make themselves an 'in' with an online community.
If you've got authority over an online space, you must fight this posturing by taking a swift and hard stance against it.
That kid? Probably nice enough in person. And for him, it was excruciating to be made the bad guy in front of everyone and not be able to explain himself.
That kid? Probably nice enough in person. And for him, it was excruciating to be made the bad guy in front of everyone and not be able to explain himself.
First he'll try to weasel out of it, it was "a joke" as per Schrodinger's Douchebag. He didn't mean it like that. Yeah, well: ya fucked up, kid. You're the asshole, and it feels terrible. (God knows I've been that asshole a few times and I would have done anything to undo it.)
You can't though. (I mean, you _can_ double down and make excuses for yourself about why being an asshole is correct, & believe them. Do that enough and you'll turn yourself into a horrible person.)
Accepting that you screwed up takes strength, you gotta learn that at some point.
Accepting that you screwed up takes strength, you gotta learn that at some point.
Back to the forums:
Without curation, moderation, something, you may end up with communities that are made up of a small pack of belligerent loud-mouths who pat themselves on the back for how open and honest they are with each other.
Without curation, moderation, something, you may end up with communities that are made up of a small pack of belligerent loud-mouths who pat themselves on the back for how open and honest they are with each other.
Meanwhile, for every one of them that feels the wind of freedom in their hair, a score or more of more worthwhile people have quietly decided that dealing with this level of acrimonious bullshit isn't worth the emotional toll they entail, and they left. Long ago.
Now your forum is a wasteland with a few spikey citadels standing, pock-marked by craters of The Flame Wars. Anyone popping their head up gets shot, and that's the last you hear of them. This Officially Sucks. (And it's a very Too Online Internet Guy thing to thing this is Good.)
Back to sandwich kid: What happened? He harassed the woman he told to 'make a sandwich' via DM. He badly wanted to explain that he didn't mean it like that, he was sorry (that he got called out?), why can't you explain it to them, and so on.
Part of the growth of realizing that you're the asshole is accepting that you don't deserve absolution from the guilt of what you've done. You can't ask for it, and you shouldn't get it, and demanding it makes you even more of an asshole.
You earn absolution by doing the work of being a better person for the rest of your life. I don't know what happened to that kid; he didn't stick around. Maybe he shed his identity, came back, acted differently. Maybe he went off and complained elsewhere & never learned anything.
What we got back at the forum, at least, was a clear and public stance in that community about what was acceptable and what wasn't. It worked.
People speak fondly of that community years later, and that's something I feel good about.
People speak fondly of that community years later, and that's something I feel good about.
