you know how some parents do that toxic thing where they don’t notice or reward kids for improving their behavior, but every screw-up gets remarked upon and used to inflict shame? so you’re stuck in that awful cycle where there are no rewards, only the inevitability of eventual punishment?
and how that makes it extremely hard to judge your own actions or grow into a better person, because there’s no one to confirm that you actually are doing better, and are capable of improving, and are not doomed to forever be a terrible person incapable of growth?
ok so: I don’t know how to explain to you that we’ve built a social media culture that treats people the same way. with the same abusive cycle.
That sounds like cancel culture
I don’t know what to call it anymore. people get heated about terms like “purity” or “cancel” or “call out” culture, or can’t seem to agree on a meaning. I’m not talking about like. no longer supporting rich and powerful celebrities when their abusive actions come to light. I’m not talking about holding people accountable, or warning people about active abusers. but I am seriously concerned about how we treat social media users once they get even a small amount of attention, even in small niche spaces.
I am concerned about this culture of combing through years of people’s social media accounts, looking for “problematic” shit they’ve done. I am concerned with the whole culture of using “call outs” as a tool to harass and ostracize users large and small. I am concerned about the malice we spread behind people’s backs, in screenshots and posts they aren’t able to see. I am concerned with this culture of demanding apologies for things said years ago, things already outgrown and regretted, and of ignoring those apologies even while pilling on more censure. I’m concerned about this whole culture of accusation and misinformation, where the most outrageous claims and holier-than-thou performances are rewarded with notes and views, even as facts are ignored and context removed. I am concerned about the lack of accountability, the way the accused is given no opportunity to defend themselves from the onslaught, the way their responses and explanations go ignored, the way any charge can be made at any time on any evidence, with no ability to appeal or exonerate. I’m concerned about the way this culture targets minority users and turns their own communities against them. I’m concerned about the actually harmful and predatory behavior that is lost in the bog, and how we have lost the ability to distinguish between shades of gray with any level of sanity. And I am concerned by the sheer number of people who fail to realize they are perpetuating bullying and harassment.
I am enormously concerned with the way people who are “called out” are never forgiven, never allowed to make amends, never allowed to grow, how their efforts to learn and do better are ignored even while strangers callously repeat and reblog and retweet the same criticisms ad nauseam.
And I see this everywhere, happening to anyone. And yes, this applies to larger accounts and youtubers and “influencers,” and a bunch of content creators who may or may not be making a decent living off of their work, but who are certainly not “rich and powerful celebrities.” (Because apparently we spend so much time in online microcosms that ya’ll can’t tell the difference???) Christ, my blog isn’t nearly as large as some people seem to think, it’s obscure by most measures, and still I’ve been the target of mass harassment for years. I’ve seen bad and watched others go through worse, seen users with far larger and far smaller followings driven off of this and other platforms—driven off with a violence and bloodthirst that had nothing to do with making a community safer and everything to do with a toxic culture gone wrong. Fucking fix this already.
Abuse is still abuse when it happens online, when done by strangers, when done en masse. Now do BETTER.
