By all rights, the furor over rocket scientist Matt Taylor’s cheesecake shirt should have died down by now. After being chided earlier this week for marring the celebration over the landing of a space probe ON A GODDAMNED COMET by doing interviews in a tacky shirt covered with half-naked ladies, Taylor offered a brief but heartfelt apology. You would have thought we’d all be able to move on.
Not so fast. Because these days apparently no controversy can ever be over as long as it serves someone’s interest to keep it going. And so a loose but very familiar coalition of reactionaries and antifeminists and angry techies have started flogging an amorphous cause they call #Shirtgate or, more popularly, #Shirtstorm, purporting to be outraged that Taylor was “humiliated” into apologizing.
So many of the angriest voices in this, er, conversation are #GamerGaters it looks a lot like a sequel. Call it GamerGate Part Two: The Straw Graspening. And it’s not just me making the connection: #GamerGaters and #Shirtstormers, often one and the same, are making the connection:
So radical #shirtstorm SJW have attacked my games my #gamergate revolt and now they are attacking #science. Am i allowed to be mad ?
— Anti-ProcrusteanBed ☀️🏴 (@antiprocrustes) November 16, 2014
I am a man. I'm sick of hearing that because of my gender, my opinions don't count and sexism towards me isn't real. #GamerGate #shirtstorm
— Lord Inquisitor Ineptus Astartes (@AstartesIneptus) November 16, 2014
https://twitter.com/Scrumpmonkey/status/533409838207078400
Heck, our old friend Milo is making the connection:
Note to those infuriated by poor Dr Matt Taylor and #shirtstorm: this is what #GamerGate has been fighting against. Are you getting it yet?
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) November 15, 2014
Oh, it’s a veritable #GamerGate Old Home Week! GG mainstays Thunderf00t and Mundane Matt have rushed out videos about The Shirt.
People are making graphics covered with hard-to-read text:
There are giant complicated conspiracy theory graphics covered with red lines and angry red text. This one notes that Chris Plante, who wrote an article criticizing Taylor’s shirt, also wrote one of the now-notorious “Gamers are Dead” pieces.
https://twitter.com/Reyeko_/status/533482641774100480
Apparently there were a few dudes who were none too pleased with Plante’s story on The Shirt:
https://twitter.com/plante/status/533244307105648640
#Shirtstormers wrote angry “letters” in too-small-type. (Click here for larger, more readable version and here for one with angry graphics, too.)
https://twitter.com/Alpha_duck1/status/533698520100777984
While others tried to draw a parallel between Taylor’s alleged “humiliation” and … rape.
#shirtgate #SupportMattTaylor #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/L8s1GrOow7
— Mark 🐸 🗑 Samenfink (@MSamenfink) November 16, 2014
#ShirtStorm #shirtgate Matthew 7:1 pic.twitter.com/bRXr7bA1Si
— Be Just & Fear Not | Let None Survive (@SuperNerdMike) November 16, 2014
Neo-reactionaries and “Dark Enlightenment” types see opportunity in the #Shirtstorm hashtag.
https://twitter.com/voxday/status/533336186535030784
Don't judge me because of what I'm wearing – unless I'm a guy. Then you can define my personality and try to ruin my life. #shirtgate #NRx
— VDARE (@vdare) November 15, 2014
https://twitter.com/antidemblog/status/533341319184531456
https://twitter.com/BernardChapin/status/533628518077186049
As do MRAs:
https://twitter.com/deanesmay/status/533758421158227969
As does this familiar name:
Women do not face a hostile climate in science. And they can handle seeing a guy in an edgy shirt. #GamerGate https://t.co/8gvTyo0bg6
— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) November 16, 2014
They’re all there, all hoping to turn a debate over a shirt into another endless internet Benghazi.
The only effect that this has had on society is to make the creator of “Gunner Girl” shirts very rich (Capitalism 1 Socialism 0), and to make a hipster scientist cry. This is why SJW leftism sux so bad. Bring back the Old Left, I say.
OH FUCKING HELL!
Look at this bullshit written by Boris Johnson. Yes THAT Boris Johnson, the freaking MAYOR OF LONDON.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/11234620/Dr-Matt-Taylors-shirt-made-me-cry-too-with-rage-at-his-abusers.html
I noticed he provides ZERO SOURCES to demonstrate the “abuse” Matt Taylor faced.
I swear, the Telegraph is on the fast track to being as bad as the Daily Fail.
“SJW leftism” sucks because in our attempts to make the world less shitty for people, we get bogged down in a stupid argument not of our own making?
It’s like elevatorgate all over again: “hey dude, that’s not cool” gets turned into a shitfest of epic proportions that completely misses the point (or just succeeds in making the point for us).
@CroneGeek: Thanks for the background information. I’d wager that you’re on to something re: the ESA (or at least his immediate bosses) attempting to replicate (or “let happen”) another Mohawk Guy moment.
@kirby et al (sorry, on my phone – hard to c/p and quote) re: Megamind: You know, I’d never thought about it from the “good guy”/damsel trope perspective. That’s something to chew on.
I do still appreciate the movie for playing with outcome vis a vìs circumstance, though, and addressing perception/expectation dynamics.
And, as someone who worked in A/V while I got my BA (and, yes – I was like *the* woman at the time), I will always adore this sequence:
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/1miFW
Misuse of the word “Hipster,” misspelling of the word “Sucks”… Well, my 4Chan is a little rusty, but I’ll give it a shot.
topkek, failtroll is fail, gtfo and gb2/gg/ b4 ur b&.
Yes!
I know it was a roundabout reference, but it’s the first place I went when I saw that cartoon.
Ohh! And on the subject of heros/superheroes & girls:
I’m thinking of getting this for my kiddos (3 girls):
http://society6.com/product/hall-of-heroes_stretched-canvas#6=29
proxieme, if your girls like videogames, get them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Operative:_No_One_Lives_Forever
May be hard to find, though.
proxieme – it was absolutely the first thing I thought of, too! 😀
How many of the guys whining sanctimoniously about “bullying” then turned around and piled on Matt Taylor for being a “wuss” and a “mangina”? I’d guess there’s considerable overlap.
Just like all the Veteran’s Day war memes, they manage to show massive disrespect for actual victims of bullying by trying to appropriate the concept. This isn’t a bunch of mean girls making fun of a nerd’s dress sense. It’s adults with basic knowledge of PR and organizational etiquette pointing out that the message of the shirt wasn’t appropriate in that venue.
Landing a probe on a comet is insignificant compared to running a blog that actually manages to sound like it originates from Planet Earth. The manosphere hasn’t mastered that small feat yet.
As an anti-dote to the #shitstorm, I recommend checking out the #scishirt hashtag on Twitter – a load of folks have declared this week #scishirt week and are posting photos of themselves in non-sexist but fun science-y shirts. It’s wonderful.
I was just having drinks with a former ESA employee in Oz who knows the people and organisation very well. I asked him why there weren’t numerous levels of alarm bells before Matt Taylor got to the camera with the shirt. He said that he doubted most ESA people there would have recognised that the shirt conflicted with the ‘yes we support women in STEM’ ideals, and that the few women there at Darmstadt – not very many, he said – would likely have been reluctant to call it out as it would then have cast them as troublemakers/targets.
I am also an atheist and i SAW my community being destroyed by SJW. Do you think is ok to have rules that can be bended to mean anything? I don’t want to stir up problems but when someone makes u sign a paper that u will not rape someone at a conference – i feel offended especially when only white males have to sign it.
When the hordes of SJW arrive at your event every white/cis male has to prove that he is not a rapist and a horrible human being. And THIS is WRONG.
Indeed, being expected not to rape people is terrible. Who has unleashed this horror upon the world? SJWs, that’s who.
I assume it’s them who broke your shift key, too.
I’m torn between wanting to laugh at the grammar here and feeling guilty because English might not be their first language.
Define what you mean by “destroyed”.
SJW’s also lost my kindle and infected my laptop with viruses, the swines. When will the raging horde be stopped (well, technically it was me, but also technically it was an SJW. Damn them/me).
My cat keeps trying to sleep on my ipad, which I suspect isn’t very good for it. Damn feline SJWs.
I take this as that these guys would not have a problem with women wearing shirts with half-naked men on them to important interviews. Although I have a feeling they’d still be crying “misandry!!!” and not see the irony.
SJWs keep untucking the sheet from my bed in the middle of the night. It’s uncomfortable to wake up with a face full of bare mattress. *shakes fist at SJWs* My one weakness – mattress face!
Oh the huge manatee! He has to sign a paper at conferences! Atheism is ruined forevah! /sarcasm
Sorry. I can’t take the guy seriously if this is his definition of a great injustice.
I just came back from a meeting with one of my tutors and all the ice melted in the cola I left on my desk. Now it’s room temperature AND it’s diluted.
Those damn SJWs have been at it again!
Eh, having to sign a paper that you won’t rape someone is kinda iffy, to be honest. Yes, nobody should EVER do that, but having to sign a special paper, yeaaah, that’s strange. Because it more or less turns the ide “innocent until proven guilty” on it’s head.
That being said, I highly doubt the story is true. IF it is true, you should also ask yourself what kind of community you’re part of, if their conventions require such forms. And then put as much distance between yourself and that community as possible.
“Indeed, being expected not to rape people is terrible.”
You are missing the point. being expected not to rape or harass is not terrible. however being forced to prove your innocence, when everything the accuser has against you, is your race and your gender is terrible, wrong, sexist and racist.
“I’m torn between wanting to laugh at the grammar here and feeling guilty because English might not be their first language.”
yes, English is not my first language and you can laugh as much as you want.
The problem is that we lived in my country under communism, for over 40 years, and criticizing or even joking about the party, transformed you into a hooligan, anarchist criminal. criticizing 1 communist was equal to criticizing the whole system and all the people in it.( And this is exactly the SWJ playbook.) They did this using laws so vague that merely existing = guilty.
“Define what you mean by “destroyed”.”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Atheism%20Plus –