There's been a lot of folx who think the route to self-promotion is to be as edgelordy as possible. I see far too many young genre science fiction writers who go over the top with their outrageous comments in order to get attention (they think) for awards and sales. In other words, the Gamergate mentality has spread to the general public, especially in the world of pundits and opinion influencers.
Now. Was that stuff said in the past around politics? As a former political campaign worker and organizer, my response is "oh absolutely YES." Except that it was said over pizza, joints, and beer, and didn't go beyond those sitting in the room at the time. What has happened with social media is that things which were said in a casual setting with adrenaline fading from a day's activities is now part of the 24/7 connected world.
I'm tired of the edgelord wannabes. Sometimes I feel like my 23-year-old mare pinning her ears at the sparky young ones in the herd who want to push and try themselves against the older ones. But until society as a whole finds a means to draw attention away from outrage bait, we have to figure out how to handle those who offend purely to get a reaction from those who disagree with them.
Thank you. It's also an issue I had to deal with professionally for ten years, back when I was a middle school learning specialist. Middle schoolers, especially middle school boys with ADHD, really, really want to play the outrage bait game. Since that was the era when I was also writing (and publishing a little bit) in short science fiction, I got to deal with first Gamergate and then the whole Sad/Rabid Puppy debacle in my writing life as well as the edgelord wannabe kids in my working life.
That Bari quote irritates me to no end. I know professional circles are different but any time I'm with friends or out in public with people etc I say atheist one outrageous thing or witness someone else doing so.
One of my best friends has a Trans daughter. We talk about all the issues around it openly and he's not offended. I really think a lot of this is still confined to really high status professions.
Not all the time (the Palestinian refugee who's life was ruined by of his daughter's tweet comes to mind) but mostly its not something regular people are experiencing. Pushback? Sure! But censoring, losing jobs, etc? Idk anyone in that boat. And none of my friends talk about it either.
As someone that is concerned by the excesses of the cultural left, I don't know if anyone has been more counterproductive at combatting those excesses than Bari Weiss. To be frank, she's intellectually dishonest and argues in pretty bad faith. She constantly straw mans and exaggerates. She's not really trying to persuade anyone other than Thomas Chatterton Williams and Yascha Mounk.
In addition, she's written and/or published a number of ill considered posts on her Substack that demonstrate that she struggles with vetting people. She's not really anti-woke as much as she is anti-left. That's fine! Lots of people are anti-left! This is proven by her unwillingness to criticize the right for pretty much anything. I need to step back and take a breath because she genuinely gets under my skin with how dishonest she is.
Yea I think as a person who is very far left but likes to hear other ideas and consider different positions, she strawmans a lot. I know the left--I'm part of it. And I have some huge concerns with certain aspects of it (it's fine to shoplift if no one is hurt for example).
The truth is most average lefties living outside of major cities are very different from say, Portland hippies or woke people in NYC. it's hard to even argue with her points sometimes bc she's not even accurately assessing what most lefties believe.
People across the spectrum have different ideas about what to say and how to promote themselves. Its a big swirling colorful mess of humanary stew, the best you can do is swim through it with purpose and faith in your convictions. Educate your children to do this and trust that the mistakes they are inevitably going to make are going to result in them becoming greater than you could imagine.
I agree that Fleischman’s promo tweet was cringe-inducing. But, I do think these radical centrist types have a reason to be jazzed up about this stuff. Bo Winegard literally was fired from his professor job for statements he made while teaching.
Good point. And we’ve published Winegard in our pages before. What I would say is we still need to get away from the mindset that transgressiveness is intrinsically valuable.
There's been a lot of folx who think the route to self-promotion is to be as edgelordy as possible. I see far too many young genre science fiction writers who go over the top with their outrageous comments in order to get attention (they think) for awards and sales. In other words, the Gamergate mentality has spread to the general public, especially in the world of pundits and opinion influencers.
Now. Was that stuff said in the past around politics? As a former political campaign worker and organizer, my response is "oh absolutely YES." Except that it was said over pizza, joints, and beer, and didn't go beyond those sitting in the room at the time. What has happened with social media is that things which were said in a casual setting with adrenaline fading from a day's activities is now part of the 24/7 connected world.
I'm tired of the edgelord wannabes. Sometimes I feel like my 23-year-old mare pinning her ears at the sparky young ones in the herd who want to push and try themselves against the older ones. But until society as a whole finds a means to draw attention away from outrage bait, we have to figure out how to handle those who offend purely to get a reaction from those who disagree with them.
Excellent stuff here, Joyce
Thank you. It's also an issue I had to deal with professionally for ten years, back when I was a middle school learning specialist. Middle schoolers, especially middle school boys with ADHD, really, really want to play the outrage bait game. Since that was the era when I was also writing (and publishing a little bit) in short science fiction, I got to deal with first Gamergate and then the whole Sad/Rabid Puppy debacle in my writing life as well as the edgelord wannabe kids in my working life.
That Bari quote irritates me to no end. I know professional circles are different but any time I'm with friends or out in public with people etc I say atheist one outrageous thing or witness someone else doing so.
One of my best friends has a Trans daughter. We talk about all the issues around it openly and he's not offended. I really think a lot of this is still confined to really high status professions.
Not all the time (the Palestinian refugee who's life was ruined by of his daughter's tweet comes to mind) but mostly its not something regular people are experiencing. Pushback? Sure! But censoring, losing jobs, etc? Idk anyone in that boat. And none of my friends talk about it either.
As someone that is concerned by the excesses of the cultural left, I don't know if anyone has been more counterproductive at combatting those excesses than Bari Weiss. To be frank, she's intellectually dishonest and argues in pretty bad faith. She constantly straw mans and exaggerates. She's not really trying to persuade anyone other than Thomas Chatterton Williams and Yascha Mounk.
In addition, she's written and/or published a number of ill considered posts on her Substack that demonstrate that she struggles with vetting people. She's not really anti-woke as much as she is anti-left. That's fine! Lots of people are anti-left! This is proven by her unwillingness to criticize the right for pretty much anything. I need to step back and take a breath because she genuinely gets under my skin with how dishonest she is.
Yea I think as a person who is very far left but likes to hear other ideas and consider different positions, she strawmans a lot. I know the left--I'm part of it. And I have some huge concerns with certain aspects of it (it's fine to shoplift if no one is hurt for example).
The truth is most average lefties living outside of major cities are very different from say, Portland hippies or woke people in NYC. it's hard to even argue with her points sometimes bc she's not even accurately assessing what most lefties believe.
I would rather be offended than censored.
People across the spectrum have different ideas about what to say and how to promote themselves. Its a big swirling colorful mess of humanary stew, the best you can do is swim through it with purpose and faith in your convictions. Educate your children to do this and trust that the mistakes they are inevitably going to make are going to result in them becoming greater than you could imagine.
Both of these are excellent points.
Great point about the "you can't say" silliness.
In an indirect way, your contrast between to appall vs, trying to enlighten reminds n=me of the contrast between campaigning and governing.
I agree that Fleischman’s promo tweet was cringe-inducing. But, I do think these radical centrist types have a reason to be jazzed up about this stuff. Bo Winegard literally was fired from his professor job for statements he made while teaching.
Good point. And we’ve published Winegard in our pages before. What I would say is we still need to get away from the mindset that transgressiveness is intrinsically valuable.
Atheist=atleast