By David Futrelle
The Daily Mail is famous for its uniquely British mixture of judgy prurience and good old-fashioned xenophobia. So naturally the comments section of its online edition is home to some of the worst takes the internet has to offer.
The other day I was introduced to a Twitter account that catalogs the worst of these terrible takes. Specifically, to this tweet, which I obviously needed to share with you all:
Bad science and racism, two terrible tastes that taste extra terrible together! And the misspelling of “testosterone” as “tostesterone” is … chef’s kiss!
Also, I’m pretty sure most French people aren’t vegan.
But this tweet is only the top of the iceberg. Here are some other, well, illuminating insights on assorted gender-related issues that The DM Reporter has plucked from the vast wasteland of the Daily Mail comments.
This final tweet really doesn’t have anything to do with gender but I feel sort of bad for the Daily Mail’s Russian Misery correspondent
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@Anonymous
Well if you want a picture perfect example of what I’m talking about, Jenora Feuer brought up the example of the CBC blocking comments in any articles related to indigenous matters. Why indigenous matters specifically? Well, hop in the ol’ time machine with your humble Katamount and we’re speeding our way back to the far-off year of late 2012 AD. Barack Obama had just defeated Mitt Romney. The San Francisco Giants had swept the hapless Detroit Tigers to win the World Series. Wreck-It Ralph and Silver Linings Playbook were the hot items on the silver screen. And on the the frigid waters of James Bay, a hamlet called Attawapiskat dominated Canadian headlines as their third-world living conditions had required a state of emergency for the past year.
Chief Teresa Spence, dismayed by the lack of action on the part of a Conservative government already hostile to aboriginal issues, launched a hunger strike in November of 2012, which became the focal point of a movement started by four indigenous activists called Idle No More, which shut down railways across the country. The backlash was immediate and vociferous: with only a handful of exceptions the entire national media landscape tore Spence to shreds, leaning on the “corrupt aboriginal chief” stereotype to explain why a community that receives $31.2 million a year could be living in hovels in a G7 country. Comment sections were even worse: while dipshits like Margaret Wente and Christie Blatchford were merely content to portray Spence as a spendthrift to spare the people of Attawapiskat the indignity of being blamed for their own plight, online readers of the CBC, Globe and Mail and the National Post were not so charitable, leaving no aboriginal stereotype untouched. Lazy, drunk, violent, drug-addled, white–er, tax-paying Canadians had given them too much money and unless they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and worked in the local De Beers mine or just packed up and went to a city that didn’t share their language or culture, whatever they experienced was their own fault.
And this went on for three months. Between November 2012 and January 2013, it was pretty much all racism all the time on every Idle No More comment thread. Spence ended her hunger strike to little fanfare and Attawapiskat faded from the headlines in time, but did anything change in six-and-a-half years? Nope. Attawapiskat is still in shambles, in 2016 they had a major suicide epidemic, the RCMP was revealed to have major racism problems of their own (no shit) and Justin Trudeau’s policies range from pathetic to merely ineffective. I at least credit him for not acting with the outright hostility of previous governments. Margaret Wente and Christie Blatchford are bafflingly still employed, leaving only the CBC to have learned any lessons about just how hideous the underbelly of Canadian society really is.
I realize that human moderators are fallible and people still have this trust in automation, but I bring this example up because it was the perfect illustration of how left to their own devices, unmoderated comment sections amplify extreme views that no “marketplace of ideas” can push back on effectively, no matter how correct the pushback is. Even with automation, racism has a very specific language that may not be caught by an algorithm. It needs the eyes of a human being with understanding of the surrounding culture to monitor these threads for the same regurgitated racist stereotypes, because it reflects badly on institutions that are supposed to be venerable news sources. The CBC is a Crown corporation and the Globe and Mail is the newspaper of record started by George freakin’ Brown.
For me, a white urbanite in his mid-20s, that put to rest any illusions that Canada was a country that prided tolerance, hence why the example has stuck with me over the years.
Anonymous said
Really? I wouldn’t; it seems like a good way to throw away good money. At least, here in North America where the macho weapon of choice is the AR-15, which begat the military M-16.
I never made Master Sargent, but I spent 8 years in the USAF and qualified on the M-16 multiple times with minimal (less than half a day) training. During that training, we were always told that the M-16 was designed for idiots. Unless you can’t figure out which end to shoot out of, you’ll be proficient in no time. Heck, I nearly got a marksmanship ribbon in basic training and I’d never touched a weapon in my life before!
Also, why should any given blogger have to allow unrestricted “free speech” in a personal blog? This space has some pretty strict rules and it works just fine. If some trolly rando wants to spout horrible stuff, there are other spaces online and in meatspace they can do that. We don’t have to tolerate that here.
I wouldn’t use the Mail to line a bin with, because I’d have to pay for it. The Metro on the other hand …
Imagine! UK railway stations just have racks full of newsprint that you can take for free; it has words on, but who cares about those?
@Anonymous, Katamount:
And, as I’ve noted before, part of the problem is that completely unmoderated comments sections pretty soon become free speech only for the bullies, because they will actively drive out anybody who disagrees with them.
When it comes down to a thoughtful person versus a hateful screamer who doesn’t actually think about the consequences of what they’re saying and isn’t constrained by having to face reality, it’s pretty clear who’s going to end up taking up the majority of the conversational space in the room. It’s so much easier to post long screen-filling rants if the poster doesn’t have to actually think about what they’re saying.
@Catamount, that is fascinating and horrifying at once. I put individual opportunity above group identity in all cases, and your comment really finely shows how shitty a choice that would be for many of those folks. Way above my paygrade, and totally brutal. Yikes.
@Hambeast yeah….I wonder if gun control folks should show more understanding like you just did. It’s like the recent scare in Denver with the teenager with a pump action shotgun. I mean, they closed every school in town over a pump action shotgun? Cowards. Schools are (lamentably) hardened targets these days, all they needed was a couple extra plainsclothes police keeping watch, that would have been a sufficient margin for safety. You don’t just waltz into a school with a long gun of any type…in fact, you don’t just waltz into a school at all. And it ended in a tragic suicide, which is how most folks die from guns these days. The rhetoric was just gross on “both” sides, which is my main conspiracy theory…….how “they” push “both” sides to keep everyone at each other’s throat.
This was the breaking point for me. I was recruited to a subreddit, accepted, started poking around, and was absolutely horrified that the would think that I would be a good target. It’s why I’m here, honestly. I have been and doubtless will be accused of trolling here, but it made me look at everything else I had read and interacted with in a different light.
I mean….for instance, I think porn is bad for men (and women, for different reasons). All I have to point to is ED among young men who should be primed and ready to go. I also think men (and women too!) should focus more on developing mental and physical strength, because stoicism taken in appropriate doses is good (life does suck). But the idea that (((they))) are conditioning us to be weak controllable soyboys is wrong on more levels than I can count.
That there is a softening is beyond doubt. I can dig up the study, it had to do with measuring grip strength, which is a great proxy for general strength and has been declining for a long time. Popeye had massive forearms, the mark of a strong man….these days, gym bros often do curls for the girls (curls are one of the least useful functional movements, esp. compared to deadlifts, squats, and overhead pressing). Reasonable people can disagree on how bad the softening is, or if it even is bad thing at all.
I actually buy the idea that “they” are happy to undercut men’s self esteem, in order to sell us more products. Hearty, self satisfied men are not great consumers. And this is part of the allure of the alt-right, from my point of view. “They” (read amorphous blobs of corporations and other institutions competing viciously against each other for our attention) controlling us can lead into (((they))) controlling us, magnified by the hateful Christian rhetoric towards Jews. It’s all really quite horrifying.
I’m really striving to not “mansplain” these are just my observations. Perhaps it’s an old story for anyone who takes the time to read it, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Hambeast and Katamount –
I didn’t mean to imply the bloggers *must* have a right to free speech on anybody’s blog. If it’s a private corporation, a blog owners, including a newspaper, can put any limits whatever on the comment section – including not having one at all, as some newspapers do.
All I am saying is that IF a newspaper has a comment section, it is sensible to allow free speech (within limits) because otherwise there’s no point to having a comment section at all: it is supposed to be for discussion, after all. The trick is to allow unpopular or controvertial opinion without allowing offensive or racist ones.
As Katamount pointed out, this requires a human being. No algorithm (yet?) can distinguish between racist and non-racist views merely based on the vocabulary.
For example, to continue with the subject Katamount brought ul, a post warning about the high rate or unemployment and alcoholism on a reservation, and a post about the lazy, firewater-drinking injuns, can use almost the same words but be poles apart morally and intellectually.
Hambeast –
i really should be more clear when i post. When i said we should be “better safe than sorry”, as the context should have made clear, I meant that *we* shpuld be better safe than sorry *monitoring* the extreme right’s weapons purchases, despite the fact that i think it isn’t much of a threat, not that *they* should feel safe by buying guns.
Sorry about that misunderstanding!
oh my god, John.
You know what? No. No I am not reply to you, because you pretend that you want to engage, but as soon as it is obvious that your opinions are unformed and uninformed, you just never reply again.
You show up in a new thread, with some shitty new idea (closing down schools is a cowardly action? REALLY? Is that because a pump action shotgun can only kill a few students? What would it take, an arsenal???) and I am not going to waste my energy engaging with you.
You’ve said, right here, that you were recruited, and you were horrified that they thought you would agree with them, so you noped out of there.
(Good! That’s a great first step.)
But now you have HELLA introspection to do. What shitty ideas did you have and express for them to bother ‘recruiting’ you? Perhaps you have more brain weasles playing around in there than the really obvious dog whistles?
You need to read and listen, my dude.* Because engaging with you right now is just…
*throws hands up in the air*
*And before you go “But you told me to read and listen, that’s why I never posted again on those threads!!”, you also need to *acknowledge* the effort, and the ideas you are now thinking about. Let the other person know that their effort wasn’t in vain.
I mean, it really is never for you, it’s always for the lurkers, but maybe it’s also for you?? Maybe you can go down these tunnels and find the crap that’s clogging things up?
@John
The massive forearms are what you get from pulling nets all day, and have nothing to do with general strength. You really need to work on that Dunning-Krueger, old bean.
I’m not sure about anyone else, but I am getting really bored of this particular deep thinker with a rockin’ bod who totally doinks younger childless ladies on a regular basis.
It was cowardly because it is impossible to get a long gun onto a school property, especially Columbine, especially when authorities are on the alert. Schools are hardened targets. The closings caused mass panic and needless fear. It should have been taken care of quietly. It was incredibly poorly calibrated from a risk management point of view.
Doubtless.
Pulling nets, driving nails, turning wrenches, etc.
Grip strength is a proxy for general strength. I’m not on a limb here.
You’re right, you have none on which to stand.
[citation needed]
also [citation needed] on why we should care.
You’re trotting out your pet theories, and expecting us to engage with them on your terms.
No. I’m not playing your sportsball analogy, I’m taking my ball and glove and going to play catch with someone who *throws the ball back*.
Your game is no fun.
I don’t get it. I really don’t.
It sure seems like grip strength is a great proxy for general strength.
And every report from both physical and mental health experts is that training for physical strength has a plethora of physical and mental health benefits.
Including general feelings of well being, and yes, I do take the leap that when one is generally feeling good, he/she is less likely to be sucked in by advertisers who prey on feelings of inadequacy.
[CITATION]
[NEEDED]
(especially when you’re very close to saying ‘if only people would work out, and be stronger, they’d be healthier and better able to resist media designed to make them feel shitty! Why don’t they just lose the fat and gain the muscle?????)
Man I’m bad at sportsball analogies, I’ve just started throwing my ball, like… Somewhere? Maybe it’ll come back, who even knows.
Y’all realize Popeye is a *cartoon character*, right, and that it’s rather pointless to argue what his physique “proves” about anything? Besides, if anything, it is Bluto (or Brutus), a muscular, manly man, that is the “real man” there.
In any case, let’s see, Popeye… short, thin, handicapped (one eye), smokes a pipe, pencil-thin arms (as opposed to forearms), attracted to and would do anything for a girl with virtually no breasts and a boyish body, a total pushover unless he gets his fix of his favorite drug, spinach, which shows he’s obviously a vegan…
Oh my God, I get it. Popeye is the original soy boy!
From the report: “Among healthy 45- to 68-year-old men, hand grip strength was highly predictive of functional limitations and disability 25 years later. Good muscle strength in midlife may protect people from old age disability by providing a greater safety margin above the threshold of disability.”
That’s kind of important for all of of us. And that was just the first article that came up. Grip strength is used as a proxy all the time.
From the report: “Strength scores were statistically lower that older normative data in all millennial grip strengths, with the exception of the women in the age group of 30-34 years. Specifically, this statistically significant trend was observed in all male grip strengths, as well as in women in the age group of 20-24 years (bilateral grip) and 25-29 years (right grip). However, the lateral pinch data reflected was similar to the older norms with variances of 0.5-1 kg.”
What does this have to do with anything? Consider the logic of this post in the first place. The “feminized vegan” crap is, indeed, crap. Most of those who talk of “soyboys” couldn’t even deadlift their own bodyweights. But let’s not pretend that it’s not a problem that people do seem to be getting weaker.
Citations provided, apologies for the bad formatting.
John
Please just go away. We don’t want to hear about your theories. We don’t want to hear about your “awesome” body. We don’t want to hear about the young women you chase after and have sex with. (as a young woman, seriously ew dude). We don’t want to hear the crap you spew. And honestly last couple threads you’ve been gross.
@John:
Dude, were you in the Denver area when Columbine happened? Because I was. Closing the schools was a good idea. You have no idea what you are talking about.
@Katamount
Wow. Just wow at the indigenous situation up there.
Reminds me of an Australian series called First Contact where a small group of urbanites agree to meet and live with Aboriginal families and communities for several weeks to challenge their assumptions, good and bad. Excellent series and I think both the States and Canada could benefit from a similar program.
I remember one woman who was certain aboriginals got massive child benefits. After staying with a lower middle class Aboriginal family for a couple days, she learned not only did they work just like she did, but the benefit was about the same.
Some people will not believe first Nations or Aboriginal situations without seeing it with their own two eye balls.
Because the media is obvs a conspiracy….
Re: CBC
Rather underwhelmed with thier work overall…
@John
That would be me. I’m glad that say you don’t blame vegans, women, or soy for it, but the “men are getting weaker” stuff is exactly what you said you were trying to avoid: mostly a marketing campaign to make men feel insecure so they will buy shit. You will never achieve the ultimate masculinity because they will just keep changing what that means. Maybe now it’s grip strength, I’m willing to be in six months it will be something else. I’m not saying don’t try to better yourself, just be aware that the fitness/health industry is also motivated by profits.
I don’t know John, but it is not necessary to express “shiity ideas” to be recruited by cultish groups. Often they have the ” cast a wide net” strategy, and are looking for people who can be useful to them or they believe can be brainwashed and manipulated.
For instance, radical leftists critical about Palestine are too often targeted by anti semite front groups hoping to get new zombies. Most pathetic example: Medea Benjamin. She really should know better.
Scientology of course is famous for it’s abuses… No one who signed up to Co$ for fair game or disconnection.
Even the Tea Party, at the very beginning, pretended to be more tolerant than it was.
Introspection is still probably a good idea for John, if only to understand how he was sucked in and avoid it in future.
I was.
Taking the official story at face value, which I do, she made no specific threat. She was “obsessed with Columbine,” bought a one way ticket Denver, then bought a long barrelled pump action shotgun with 2 boxes of ammo. She then got an uber and went up to the hills, where she was lost track of.
All of this was known to the authorities.
Putting Columbine on alert and sending some undercover cops to keep an eye out for her would have been sufficient to meet the threat. It’s not like they would have just let her walk into the school (or any school) with a shotgun. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have even been able to get into a school, even unarmed, never mind with a long barrelled shotgun.
Instead they disrupted hundreds of thousands of families and stoked considerable fear. Had they not found her body when they did, the snowstorm which was coming would have buried her until well into runoff. Fear would have been rampant for at least a month. It was a vast overreaction to a serious but containable threat.
But the real threat was to herself, which tragically came to fruition.
I am happy to engage on particulars, but am otherwise done.