an analysis on and rant about what stan twitter did to grayson dolan:
as i mentioned earlier, i have quite a bit to say about the twitter stans trying to cancel the twins because of something they talked about on their podcast. not only do i have my own personal opinions on it, i also want to shed some light on the direction cancel culture has taken and why itโs so vile.
for context, hereโs a transcription of what a very small but loud group of people are โupsetโ about: โpeople just want you to not be sober and not be on a diet, because, yโknow, they-they kinda feel like shit that theyโre not.โ - ethan. also during the podcast, grayson mentions, vaguely, that heโs had an unhealthy relationship with food in the past, as did ethan. ethan later identified the problems as being eating disorders. from what iโve seen on twitter, people mention either/or rather than both aspects when talking about why it should have had a trigger warning. for some people, the whole issue was the nine second clip of what ethan said. others said they were triggered by the mention of eating disorders.
letโs get into this, shall we?
first of all, let me identify myself as a fat girl who is the furthest thing from sober. my entire life, i have been criticized by my family and the world around me for my weight. iโm at a point in my life where i embrace being fat, and i am comfortable with it, which i constantly have to justify. i am directly affected by diet culture, fatphobia, and eating disorders. i personally struggle with disordered eatingโdifferent from an eating disorder in that i have a generally unhealthy relationship with foodโand what they said does not warrant a trigger warning.
why? because theyโre not talking about needing to be on a diet. theyโre not shitting on people who arenโt on a diet. they arenโt forcing their diet & healthy eating onto us as an audience. they also didnโt talk about their eating disorders on the podcast; they said they might talk about it later. what they are doing is being condescendingโbut letโs unpack that quickly.
their condescension is not targeted or directed at us. it is directed toward people who try to pressure them to do things for instant gratification. specifically, other influencers and hollywood as a whole. not to mention, heโs clearly suggesting that people who try to get them to break their sobriety or their diets are the ones who probably feel shitty about themselves for not doing those things. idk about the rest of yโall but iโve never seen any fans trying to pressure them into getting off their diet or drinking. so, itโs clearly not directed at any of us.
hollywood is hedonistic. the whole aesthetic of youth, the advertisement of satisfaction is rooted in indulgence. maintaining a healthy diet, just like sobriety, is the complete opposite of that.
the snark and the comparison to sobriety are there because heโs annoyed with others trying to pressure him into enjoying his youth โlike he should;โ a standard set by culture that he & grayson donโt want to participate in for personal reasons. let me remind you that we do not know what they hear from other influencers. we have not been surrounded by a group of other influential peopleโreally influential, not your peers in high schoolโwho are trying to get us to just have one little drink, or just have one little milkshake, or just eat one little burger. connections matter in hollywood. consider how separate the twins seem from other influencersโdo you think thatโs merely coincidental? i can almost promise you itโs not. they likely avoid people who pressure them one too many times or who put them at risk of disappointing themselves because they might succumb to peer pressure.
what iโm saying here is ethan was projecting. he was projecting his annoyance, frustration, and perhaps some amount of bitterness or general bad feelings in a way that protected himself. yes, itโs a little condescending because a lot of his fansโincluding myselfโmight struggle with diet culture or sobriety, or some of us might make choices in our lives that differ from theirs so it feels mildly offensive or just makes you feel bad. iโll admit that when i first heard it, i was a little put off for a second. but then, i did precisely what so many twitter stans need to do: i got the fuck over it. because iโm not so unsympathetic that i canโt imaging that maybe their life looks a liiiittle different from mine, and iโm not so self-centered to believe that one passing comment applies to me or was ever intended to hurt me personally.
yes, delivery and effect matters more than intention. and if anyone was genuinely offended or triggered, yes, that warrants apology. but it doesnโt obliterate intention. intention matters.
onto my next point: responsibility. i believe people are responsible for correctly labelling potentially triggering information. BUT that doesnโt necessarily mean that you put a trigger warning on a podcast because of one passing comment and the mention of eating disorders. itโs not as though the twins were mocking them or carelessly talking about their experiencesโwhich i note would be careless because eating disorders are a social disease and they get stronger with validation from others as well as through normalization of the disorder. by normalization, i mean saying things or making jokes that encourage one to restrict or to binge. knowing that they did none of that, and that peopleโs primary issue (what ethan said) was a major misunderstanding, itโs pretty clear that they were under no obligation to put a trigger warning.
now, letโs consider the following: the twins have recently been being more open with us about their insecurities, especially ethan. while talking about what helped him get to a point where heโs comfortable with his acne, he mentions that working out and taking care of himself physically played a huge part in that. in addition to the last two recent points of discussion on their platforms and channel, they have also been sharing their journey through veganism and are very excited about how great they feel because of it.
taking all of that into account, if you know that youโre at such a sensitive point in your recovery or your disorder (which is nothing to be ashamed about, iโd like to note)ย that someone mentioning their own diet, their view of their own diet, or just the general existence of eating disorders is enough to trigger you, you have to understand that you have a responsibility to avoid potentially triggering content. excluding their eating disorders, we all knew about their recent healthy vegan diet and their devotion to maintaining their physique. i mention this because it seems as though the people who are upset wouldโve been triggered by the latter two things regardlessโitโs not the words โeatingโ and โdisorderโ that suddenly break you like a hypnotic command, itโs the whole premise of two guys talking about how physically fit they are and how healthy theyโve been eating. since this is what theyโve been talking about recently and this is whatโs going on in their life, you have to be responsible enough to not seek out or engage with something that could be triggering to you. you need to step away from those things yourself and come back to them when you are capable of hearing about someone elseโs healthy choices without internalizing that information and inflicting it upon yourself.
i find it also incredibly important to note that the language ethan uses is very clearly a way to defend himself and ward off anyone who disagrees with his dietary choices. itโs his way of validating himself. which, if youโve been paying attention, is a sign that heโs insecure about his diet to begin with; if you have more than three brain cells, you should be able to figure out from that fact alone that even if he didnโt have an eating disorder, he clearly has issues with eating. which is why i think nitpicking a nine second clip out of a 45-50ish minute episode of a podcast is absolutely disgusting to me; look at whatโs happened now. in their lack of consideration for what he might be going through, despite them literally telling us that they have struggled with eating disorders in the past, they essentially ended up โoutingโ him. at least, iโve spent enough time listening to that clip and typing up this analysis of the situation to see it that way.
the last overarching thing iโd like to talk about here is the how this whole situation demonstrates the dangerous and frankly disgusting turn that cancel culture has taken in recent times. cancel culture is no longer expository; it has evolved to be exploitative. people take any opportunity to cancel someone in the hopes that they get attention and validation from others. i believeโand i urge you to read this part carefully and to not misconstrue my intentions or meaning when i say thisโthat we have pushed the idea that we should support, trust, and listen to the disenfranchised to a degree that we no longer allow any space for critical thinking and analysis of a certain claim. LET ME BE PERFECTLY AND COMPLETELY CLEAR. this does NOT mean that a white person can analyze a BIPOCโs experience with racism to dismiss it, it does NOT mean that nonvictims can analyze a victimโs allegations against someone to disprove it, and thus, it does NOT mean that any oppressor of any kind can apply their ignorant, blind assumptions to any oppressed personโs claims to disqualify what they have said.
with that being said, the reason i mention this is because there are going to inevitably be people, like whoever started this whole mess, who make claims that are either false, dramatized, or that are based on misunderstandings. a part of me wants to believe that the person who initially claimed to be triggered by what ethan said misheard him or took what he said personally when they should not have. if we encouraged people to have discussions about these things, then perhaps someone wouldโve pointed out to them that no where in that statement does he shame people for not being on diets or for not being sober. rather, he was projecting his feelings of being criticized onto those who criticize him.
now, the other possibility (that i would rather not believe) is that this personโthe first person to say somethingโpicked out a nine second segment of the podcast where ethan said something less than positive and went out of their way to make it seem like an issue. still, the same problem ensues: weโve created such a culture that if you challenge the position of the accuser then youโre simply brainwashed by the accused and youโre part of the problem.
i can say with utmost certainty that even if the first person to complain about the clip hadnโt intended to make something out of nothing, a fair 90% of them who said blatantly disrespectful things to ethan and grayson DEFINITELY just wanted to hop on a bandwagon. there was one girl who replied to grayson several times, claiming that what they had said was VERY triggering to a lot of people, but within her frantic outcry for an apology from him, she admitted that she herself wasnโt triggered and didnโt even struggle with an eating disorder, before proceeding to tell someone else who does have an eating disorder that if they werenโt triggered itโs not their place to say the twins donโt have to apologize.
......................since the girlies from the bird app like to lurk here, let me spell that one out for yโall:
โจstop demanding apologies that you cannot acceptโจ
hopefully that gets through to them. because this is the second time in a row that theyโve gone ahead and demanded apologies from the twins that they cannot accept. the heteros were down their throats about the f-slur (which i use in reclamation as it has been used against me personally but i wonโt repeat here on the off chance that someone is hurt by it).
itโs so painfully obvious that theyโre doing it for likes, retweets, and replies. whether they want people to argue with them or just want attention, theyโre hiding behind the guise of caring about a very serious issue and speaking FOR the people who might be offended. i believe people like this noticed a pattern under celebrity tweets when BLM was the center of discussion on twitter. if a celebrity wasnโt talking about BLM, people were under that tweet demanding that they did. those tweets would often get a lot of interactions from people who agreed that someone with a platform should speak up. and since local stan twitter does nothing but regurgitate whatโs โtrending,โ theyโre trying to find any reason to be the social justice warrior precisely no one asked them to be and absolutely no one needs them to be.
i donโt think that anyone really needs me to explain why they should be ashamed of themselves, but in case one of them is floating around: itโs because when a bunch of people demand an apology for a non-problem, gang up on that person, flood their replies with nothing but those demands in hopes that someone with as much sense as them on twitter-dot-fucking-com will engage with it and maybe join their futile efforts, it leads to people having to expose a part of themselves that they wanted to keep private. itโs a violation not only of their privacy, but of their emotional consent and the boundaries they had set up.
iโd like to leave anyone guilty of contributing to this situation with this to consider: they start to open up to us more, they start to be more honest with us, they try their best to show us their appreciation for support, and as soon as they mention having an eating disorder itโs a personal attack on you and they need to apologize for it? or worseโsomeone else said that it was a personal attack on them so you reply five separate times even though itโs not your apology to accept and therefore is not your apology to ask for. itโs bitches like you who make them keep everything vague and private. i donโt even want to consider what theyโre going through right now; it breaks my heart to imagine how badly theyโre hurting. all for likes and retweets on the fucking bird app. let me know what that gets you in five years.
