By David Futrelle
On Sunday, freelance journalist Talia Jane took to Twitter to report a truly grotesque sexual message she’d gotten from a male colleague whom she later identified as Seattle Times reporter Mike Rosenberg.
Then this all happened:
- Rosenberg suspended his Twitter account at Jane’s request.
- The paper suspended Rosenberg while they looked into the matter.
- Twitter suspended, then unsuspended, Jane’s account over an innocuous tweet because some annoying nitwit got mad at her for reporting the DM, and Twitter’s abuse reporting system is so broken that annoying nitwits can get people suspended over innocuous tweets.
- Australian podcaster Aimee Terese, ostensibly a leftist, attacked Jane in a tweet that somehow managed to be even grosser than Rosenberg’s DM, and my mouth dropped open, leaving my lower jaw suspended in the air. (Figuratively.)
Before we get into #4, let’s go back to the original gross DM, sent at the tail end of a late-night conversation between Rosenberg and Jane, when the Seattle reporter suddenly transitioned from such topics as journalism jobs and the cost of living in Seattle to, well, this:
Rosenberg, who has acknowledged that he did indeed send these messages, claims that that last one was meant for someone else whose picture he was presumably masturbating onto. The out-of-the-blue strangeness of his comment had led some to think he may be telling the truth, but Jane isn’t buying this explanation.
You can find out more details on all this in Jane’s original thread, or in some of the news pieces that have been written about it already.
But I’m just going to move on to Aimee Terese’s tweet, though, because, holy hell, it’s in many ways even grosser than Rosenberg’s DM:
(This tweet has since been deleted; I grabbed the clearest screenshot I could find of it here.)
When someone asked if she really meant what she seemed to be saying, she doubled down:
And then she doubled down again:
Terese even tried to lay out a twisted sort-of Marxist case for … attacking someone with a gross sexual tweet for reporting a gross sexual DM.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am Twitter-friendly with @RivkaGheist and that as far as I can tell she is not in fact “ruling class scum.”)
In other tweets, Terese declared that Jane was “hysterical and cruel,” compared her to an abusive cop, and suggested she was a narcissist because … she once wrote an open letter to her then-employer demanding better pay and working conditions:
Shitting on someone for demanding better pay seems like an odd thing for a supposed Marxist to do, but I guess I don’t understand the finer points of the dialectic.
Terese even doubled down on calling Jane ugly:
Other ostensible leftists jumped into the fray with similar attacks on Jane, including the co-host of the Red Scare podcast:
Writer and podcaster Conner Habib alternated between sarcastic tweets laced with Marxoid jargon and … cum jokes.
Meanwhile, this guy evidently thought that the only thing this discussion needed to make it complete was a meme, er, humorously referencing the Chinese crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square.
Terese retweeted his meme, because of course she did.
It would be one thing if Terese and her pals in this discussion were just some tiny subgrouplet of a subgrouplet on the left.
But in fact they’re part of what seems to be a growing subculture of purported leftists who somehow manage to spend as much time attacking so-called “identity politics” — or IDpol, as they call it — as they do pushing their own reductionist class analysis, which as in this case often turns out to consist of little more than calling people they don’t like “ruling class scum.” They’re a sort of successor to what what was once called the “dirtbag left.”
This subculture now boasts a subreddit of its own — r/stupidpol, with nearly 10,000 subscribers — and it’s gotten celebrity endorsements of sorts from several relatively well-known names like journalist Michael Tracey — formerly of The Young Turks, now an occasional guest on Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour — and Angela Nagle — a sometime writer for The Baffler and Jacobin whose book on the alt-right has won plaudits from none other than “dapper Nazi” Richard Spencer, who was especially pleased with her extended diatribe against so-caled Tumblrinas.
The Spencer endorsement is no fluke. Given their delight in “triggering” liberals and those on the intersectional left, people like Terese and the whole r/stupidpol crowd bear more than a passing resemblance to the alt-right — so much so that some people describe them as a new variety of NazBol, or National Bolshevism, a sort of mixture of (you guessed it) Nazi-style nationalism and Stalinesque Marxism.
I think (I hope!) that’s overstating it a bit. But these folks are truly the political equivalent of a creepy DM slide.
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Well, y’see, by acting like sexual harassment is an important issue, you’re distracting from the only real important issue in the world – class struggle – and therefore maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
@Mish
https://twitter.com/aimeeterese/status/1125593613411348480
Idk how David talking about her is silencing her but okay.
Her calling David a white knight while she is white knighting the creep ( I dont know what the word for a female equivalent is, if there isnt one we should make one) is funny.
“David doesn’t give a fuck about feminism! Not like me, who says that women should be grateful to receive unsolicited sexual messages from their male colleagues!”
I mean, wow. All right, then. I’m kind of surprised that someone could claim that kind of thing without a hint of irony, but apparently the world is full of new things to disappoint me with.
TFW the real feminists talk about writers they don’t like the exact same way Elam does.
I’m calling it, the next step is for them to gather in some cabin and get drunk for a rant video.
‘Snitching’, ‘tattling’, etc. are things I’m really tired of.
Reporting harassment, abuse, assault, any other kind of misconduct in private or professional life to the proper authorities?
IS NOT ‘SNITCHING’!!!
Demanding that people keep silent about things like that is the tactic of abusers.
For fuck’s sake, if I catch my coworker making up numbers out of thin air because they can’t be bothered to do the work? I’ll report them.
If my coworker greets me with ‘Nice tits’ one day? I’ll be knocking HR’s doors down.
Seriously, this attitude needs to die.
I love the Dirtbag Left, because some people deserve to be mocked…
This though… ugh.
@Knitting Cat Lady
Came here to say the same thing. Some people just gotta be reported on, and it’s the right thing to do. Didn’t we used to admire whistleblowers on the left, anyway?
@fcy
Yes, we women stand with Aimee Terese and reject David’s clownish male ideas.
We also stand with Sarah Palin.
Mocking a woman’s appearance: now that’s feminism. Thanks for leading by example, Aimee Terese.
It’s tough being simultaneously a white “night” and a misogynistic oppressor of “dissident women” but I’m doing my best.
It is a little ironic how this argument of hers is basically the same one trotted out by MRAs whenever one of their favorite antifeminist women get criticized — “how can you claim to be a feminist if you disagree with a woman.”
Well that original DM needed to be reported. Such unsolicited communication is inappropriate both in the workplace, where it’s misconduct, and outside the workplace, where it can be considered harassment at the very least. The capacity of some people to defend bad behaviour never ceases to surprise me.
@mya:
A “Joan of Ugh”, maybe? ?
Shorter fcy:
http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrqje546eW1qfzdi3o1_500.gif
fcy,
Telling a woman that sexual harassment is a compliment she’d be lucky to receive because she’s so ugly is classic misogyny though. It’s more like it’s such obvious misogyny that even men can easily see it.
Also, the whole too ugly to be raped thing is popular with fascists. See Jair Bolsanaro and Carl of Swindon.
There are cases where Identity Politics distorts leftist analysis. There are also cases where leftist analysis is needlessly reduced to economics and social class.
But for the most part I recognize the value of both and therefore the need for intersectional analysis.
With regards to that male reporter, it does sound as if he might have been sexting someone else and sent that message to the wrong person. But if so, that was extremely careless behaviour. And doing that on top of his other comments made it even more obnoxious.
As for the female podcaster; nasty, misogynist, inexcusable.
But now, …. a word about “purity ponies.”
You people here who use that term to disparage people who criticize politicians like Obama, or the Clintons, really need to stop. Because it makes you look silly.
Is it “puritanism” to protest 90% of GDP growth going to the 1% since 2008? Or to protest the use of predator drones that cause children in Pakistan to be afraid of clear blue skies? Or to protest destroying Libya and turning it into a country where Jihaadists operate open slave markets where Black African refugees are sold? Or to protest a surveillance state where state and corporate interests can spy on our every move?
When I see nice people here slamming a wonderful organization like CODE-PINK I can only shake my head with disappointment.
JFC I read more from @Ooglyboggles’ link and um she has a Jordan Peterson style solution to the incel problem
(this is in response to an article by David for the Globe and Mail)
David “steps on the necks of dissenting women” to “advance his career and make $”, says the woman with a Patreon link in her Twitter bio as she bullies a sexual harrassment victim for the crime of speaking up about her harrassment.
Edit: @Mish oh, gross. She, of course, wouldn’t be in the front lines volunteering for this.
Aimee Terese states that she is a struggling comedy writer. From this content this is clearly true, not funny, not clever.
Let’s not forget that ‘the left’ has often expressed misogyny. I have seen it so many times aimed at professional women, as if that makes it OK. Not all though – trade unionists have been notoriously sexist to ‘working women’ in the past and I expect there is still a vanguard left.
Lots of leftists are also anti Semitic, because the actions of the State of Israel validates that apparently.
I remain leftist in many ways, but there is no point in thinking that you are among friends.
fcy –
Do you concede that not ALL women are feminists?
Do you accept that men can be feminists?
Do you recognise that Aimee’s response is fucking awful?
If so WTF is your problem?!
Heh. She’s still carping. Now she’s trotted out “digital witch hunt.” I’m pretty sure we’ve got a bingo game of tired misogynist arguments going here:
https://bingobaker.com/view/1484754
re: this day and age…
I’m I living in a parallel universe?
This last few years have been SO MADDENINGLY BIZARRE I DO NOT KNOW….
@Knitting Cat Lady
THIS. Seriously, we’re all so hung up on brands and monetization that even the little bits of humanity that we express have to be scrutinized for hidden agendas. No no, it’s just somebody reporting an inappropriate DM. People do this so that the appropriate change in behaviour gets enforced. If one has issues with “cancel culture” (and I have my own qualms), that’s a different story and not on the person blowing the whistle.
@Mish
Case in point. As much as we all love Dave and shower him with our own modest riches… this isn’t exactly the kind of activism one becomes wealthy on. I mean if I wanted to murder my own soul, I could easily become a right-wing YouTube vlogger and rake in the CHUD dollars until some dark money think tank picked me up. Fighting the good fight for the underdog is typically not a path one finds wealth in.
There’s a lot to unpack with this. The way too many ostensibly left-wing people lose sight of humanism to praxis (there’s a reason IDPol is a thing, folks). The abuse of leftist jargon. The godawful “comedy” that YouTube has popularized (looking your way Joanna “Seriously, my opinions on Maduro have nothing to do with my dad” Hausmann).
To share another Brocialist Dan story (seriously, I’m tired of getting new ones, this guy will never leave me alone on this), I related how I don’t trust Joe Rogan after watching him go off on a transphobic tirade where Steven Crowder of all people was actually dialing it back a bit (!!!). Brocialist Dan listens to JRE often and claims he hadn’t heard that one, yet also claims that Rogan’s nonsense about puberty blockers being given to six-year-olds (they aren’t) was true because, and I quote, he “heard other people saying it.”
As I challenged him, he offered no shortage of excuses (“I’m on the left on all sorts of issues,” “I don’t trust the lying mainstream press,” “why does everything have to be political?”) before coming back to the old standby of how terrible Anita Sarkeesian is. Yes. Anita Sarkeesian. IN 2019!
I don’t have the energy to deal with this guy and a full work day. Thank the four deities I only have to deal with him twice a week, sometimes less.
@Dalillama:
“Tankies”?
@Buttercup:
It’s a truism that, when fighting the right, no irony meter survives contact with the enemy. (And make no mistake: this Aimee person is more right than left.)
@Katamount:
“Cancel culture”?
“CHUD”?
She can still be a leftist. Not sure why she’s only ostensibly one because she happens to not be a perfect feminist. This isn’t a thing and it’s part of that shrill leftist perfectionism that deters so many to be a literal centrist that would rather have an actual fascist in office than deal with every bleating mishap.