#alanrickman pic.twitter.com/4WXwnoUtM7
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) January 14, 2016
Earlier today, as you no doubt have heard, legendary British actor Alan Rickman passed away, at age 69, from cancer. Actress and activist Emma Watson, who had worked with Rickman on numerous Harry Potter films over the years, paid tribute to a man she had considered a friend, writing on Facebook that she felt
lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you.
Watson followed up her tribute by posting a number of quotes from Rickman on Twitter, including the one above.
And that was all it took to rouse the vast internet antifeminist troll army, who took to Twitter to attack Watson for supposedly “exploiting” Rickman’s death to push her evil man-hating agenda. They called her a bitch, a feminazi, a whore, a tw*t, and of course an SJW; they dropped the c-word so many times I fear it might be permanently broken.
Never mind that the “agenda” she was supposedly pushing was in fact Rickman’s agenda too. She didn’t make up the quote; they were his actual words, from an interview he gave to Australian chat show One Plus One. Watson was remembering Rickman as the feminist he was proud to be.
Perhaps the most offensive Tweet of the day came from the unlovely and untalented “journalist” Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart. Several days ago, you may recall, Milo attempted to use David Bowie’s death as a way to get some cheap publicity for himself; he rather outdid himself in this department today with this insensate Tweet:
I told you feminism was cancer pic.twitter.com/syKFBkF3cG
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 14, 2016
Congratulations, Milo; you’ve won today’s Worst Person on the Internet award.
Delete your account.
By Grabthar’s Hammer! As if we needed any more reasons to love him…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/alan-rickman-was-helping-students-raise-money-for-refugees-just-weeks-before-his-death-a6812821.html
Speaking only for myself, I have no shits to give if someone feels dogpiled after waltzing into a metaphorically crowded room, loudly stating an opinion they had to have known wouldn’t be well-received and then completely unsurprisingly finds themselves being addressed by a number of justifiably unhappy people.
After a point this becomes tedious and trollish, but doing this once? Why does something have to already be well-received before it is said? Without that, there would be no debate.
Too bad the comments got derailed so early. There are so many real issues to debate.
(1) Emma Watson is “pushing an agenda” and “exploiting” someone’s death and not mourning and celebrating the life of someone she actually knew and worked with? And that meme was just one of many and is singled out as if that’s all she did? I find these tactics tiresome yet they work. People will say this is her only interest.
(2) Why is it bad to “push an agenda” anyway? Just like, why is it bad to “politicize” an issue? These are great tactics to stifle actual debate and shut someone down while convincing others that the agenda or issue is trivial and not worthy of consideration. I think people say this when what they are criticizing is effective. Like here, Watson is giving a Rickman quote that is in favor of feminism. Instead of addressing Rickman’s support (after all, he’s a man, how could he be wrong?), they criticize her. She shouldn’t push her agenda by quoting his support. And we avoid why he supported feminism and just bash a woman.
@ nparker
Jo is far from the first person to make this “it’s not bad where I come from” argument. They’re far from the 10th. Or the 100th. Or the 1000th.
Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s an oft repeated, completely facile, completely fucking wrong argument. And it’s been refuted multiple times in this thread, including by you. And I don’t have to meet it with a smile on my face *this time* just because Jo specifically has never made it in my presence before. I don’t have to be patient and pretend it’s not fucking bullshit just because Jo wasn’t overtly rude. And Jo has no right to expect to be treated as if they’re saying something worthwhile when they saunter into a place and start waxing philosophical about shit they clearly know nothing about.
One more thing about “lady”: generally it’s an excellent idea to avoid gratuitous gendering.
Nparker, I’m not speaking of right or wrong, nor good or evil: just the scope of the rules.
Well, good job at erasing all meaningful context, I guess?
This is a blog for mocking misogyny. It is about misogyny and how fucking awful it is. We sometimes mock and sometimes feel appalled.
Jo came in to derail a thread about misogyny (there are OTHER types of threads too) and did something the rules specifically and very politely request not to.
Bringing up the (possible, alleged, proven or whatever) misogyny in a thread about David Bowie in a blog about misogyny, is nowhere near similar.
Jo entered a thread and consistently broke all rules regarding slurs and the discussion of them: it’s right there in the rules that I quoted.
Since you’d rather not address it, I’ll break it down for you:
I was there when this rule was discussed and then published, and it was all mainly about the c-word to begin with.
There are many words who can have an offensive or non-offensive meaning/taste depending on where you’re on, but c*nt is the default example of this problem.
So there. The rule was especially made for comments *exactly* like Jo’s, and even if it wasn’t its clear it comes from endlessly repeated experiences.
Responding to that with “you’re all mean, don’t think, don’t read, whaaa” is as trolly as it can get, and defending it is borderline troll in my radar (in MY personal radar which holds no official affiliation to David’s or WHTM’s).
This pretty much answers anything Jo might have been claiming to be asking in good fatih.
And in case it wasn’t enough:
There! What did we learn today class?
This was something to email David about, not to do in the comment because that’s what trolls do, and we do not troll each other in tired, boring, exhausting and disingenuous ways.
Other types of non-offensive trolling can be tolerated, even from the most dedicated trolls!
But this one is covered in the rules because we’re all tired of it, and I’d like to know one single reason why you think we should bend the rules to benefit someone who breaks them.
It’s not even like anyone will be punished for not following this rule, just to stop arguing something that is not up for debate.
The part of doing it in a post about Emma being attacked (again) because she honored Alan compassionate and feminist life is just an extra layer of nastiness.
http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2014/03/Fuck-This-Shit-Reaction-GIFS.gif
Such teal deer, much grammar. Wow.
Never said you had to meet it with a ‘smile on your face.’
OT: Please, more German insults. One needs a collection for amusement, if not actual use.
If I may suggest a bit of nuclear comic relief, here Mark Twain’s essay on the awfulness the German language: http://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html
Please don’t drink and read.
@ scarlettathena,
Maybe it’s because people have this weird idea that the status quo is somehow neutral and objective? If you’re pushing an agenda or politicize and issue, you’re biased and everything you say is less credible and therefore nobody should listen to you. Nevermind that privileged people are privileged; if you want to change something, you’re political, but because we just want to keep things the same and demand proof (not evidence, proof) if you make claims of injustice, we’re neutral and objective.
Or alternatively, because once a topic is politicized, polarization tends to happen and people do become more biased and impervious to good, honest arguments. But this is probably not it, since this would be a reasonable point to make.
No, you just expect us to protect Jo’s feelings.
I don’t agree with what Jo did, and I am not actually defending her comments, how she expressed them or the content. I am merely defending her against what I saw as dogpiling. Everyone has done something wrong, and everyone was being unreasonable, I merely pointed that out. I don’t have to 100% side with one person, but from what it sounds like you are saying I’m trolling if I don’t 100% side with one person. I’m not the one removing all context. I would appreciate not being condescended to.
I’ll continue to comment, but no longer on this. Everyone, including me, and you, and Jo, and everyone else has allowed this petty squabbling to get in the way of actually discussing something that is really, really meaningful to me, the actual article at hand.
How heartless can you be?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i36pTOi9f64/U8VIw9I_aOI/AAAAAAAAMBs/_70WFtMu17o/s1600/why%252Bwould%252Byou%252Bdo%252Bthis%252Bto%252Bme%252B_d0e5c74cb589190aab91829852291bff.gif
Hmm,
weirdwoodtreehugger said the c-word is not against the rules.
Luzbelitx says it is.
It is in the article title and I have not used it with any hostile intent or aimed it at any individual.
There is something really, really weird going on here.
Thanks for reminding me to follow Emma Watson.
@ ScarlettAthena
The trolls always seem to forget that they don’t know the people they claim to be ‘defending’ as well as the person who’s percieved ‘offence’ it was. The trolls David has described here I’m sure were not fans of Alan Rickman, probably a lot of them had no idea who he was. Anything to bash a woman.
Absolutely. Couldn’t say it better myself.
I second LindsayIrene. A toast to Dreckschweine, Scheissköpfe and Arschlöcher, but above all to the fantastic and talented and fantastically talented Alan Rickman. You left us too soon.
@ lindsayirene
10 out of 10 for both message and medium 🙂
Jo, shut up and stop trying to stir it.
We know you think you’re the cleverest person in the room. Stop trying to drive a wedge between regulars and continuing your giant de-rail. Comment when you have something interesting, cute or funny to say. Otherwise, please shut the fuck up. /sigh
How much energy wasted on something off-topic, instead of on the article…
Nparker,
For fuck’s sake. Go back and read the whole thread. Jo got defensive after ONE person replied to her. One person. She started acting like an asshole immediately.
If you or Marshmallow or anyone else thinks someone who comes into a feminist and uses terms like “thought free feminists” and “liberal fools” and says misandry unironically, you need to get your trolldar checked. Because it’s fucking broken.
Look back over the thread and see how she is deliberately misconstruing everyone’s points. Including EJ, who was as he usually is, patient and nice.
Awww, thanks WWTH.
I was going to type some more stuff and then I realised that a) I don’t want to dogpile, and b) sevenofmine said what I was going to say, better than I was going to say it.
yes, auf die Schweinehunde und die Saubazis, die Grattler und Grasaffen, allesamt. And RIP Alan Rickman, I only now have realized what a good guy he was.
(curious aside: in the German synchronisation of Die Hard, they decided to translate Bruce Willis’ “Yippiekayee, Motherfucker” with “Yippie Yah Yeh, Schweinebacke” which isn’t actually an insult I have ever heard, before or after. I don’t think it exists in German. “Schweinebäckchen” are actually a really nice pig steak. It always sounded weird to me).
@newbie:
thanks for that, I’ll read that on my commute home tonight. I love Mark Twain, but didn’t know this piece.