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Jordan Peterson got suspended from Twitter for a transphobic tweet, and even his fans think it might do him some good

Orange man bad

So fusspot Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson got himself suspended from Twitter for a tweet about actor Elliot Page that pretty clearly broke the site’s rules on hate speech.

To get back on, all he has to do is to delete it. But he refuses to, issuing a 15-minute-long video response to the suspension in which he rants more about Page and the alleged evils of the trans “industry,” declaring, like some defiant emo teenager, that he would “rather die” than take down the tweet. “Up yours, woke moralists,” he concludes, doing his best to sound like a tough guy, which, with his voice, is a rather difficult thing to pull off.

After hearing about his suspension I took a look at the Jordan Peterson subreddit to see how his fans were reacting to the suspension, expecting lots of long screeds about “cancel culture” and “free speech” and the right of every middle-aged ex-professor to misgender trans people online. But there was very little of that kind of talk to be found.

Instead, I found a bunch of Jordan Peterson stans who think a suspension from Twitter will do him some good. In the top post in the thread, with several hundred upvotes, a JP fan called LogicalView suggests that Peterson needs a time out, like a tantrum-throwing child.

I used to prefer when Jordan was more into philosophy and culture in general. More intellectually focused and driven.

Now he seems to be more focused on making mean comments about individual people who didn’t really do anything to him. Like in this case and in the case of the big sized woman on the magazine cover. You can make your point without being mean.

Not sure what he is going through now, but I think Jordan needs a time out for his own good and also the good of the many people who benefit from his wisdom.

“Wake up Jordan,” wrote typeplus.

You are helping noone with this spate of silly behaviour.

It’s not you and it doesn’t suit you.

“Frankly he’s better off Twitter,” sighed DoodleBuggering. ” I don’t think it’s been helping him mentally or his image.”

“I hope this makes him rethink,” someone called ILOVECORNSYRUP432 added.

Lots of people put off his philosophy because of his Twitter rants- he should stay off Twitter for a while and promote his thought

A number of commenters blamed Twitter for turning wise old Peterson into an raging asshole.

“Peterson is a fantastic psychologist and most of what he says he is spot on with,” dosn wrote,

but he needs to get off of twitter. Its not good for him (or anyone else for that matter).

“I agree with a lot of people here saying that he’s caught up in the toxic Twitter environment,” wrote Szikk.

This is not philosophical and nuanced, it’s “owning the libs” just like the “sorry, not beautiful” tweet. He’s going from being more libertarian to being just plain right wing. It’s not Big Brain like he thinks to publicly shame people who are undergoing these elective surgeries, even if you don’t agree with what they’re doing. He just looks like a dick, imo.

Weird that there are millions of people on Twitter who somehow don’t end up being shrill transphobes constantly throwing fits.

Peterson has declared himself done with Twitter in the past only to return to it the next day. If he manages to stay off this time, I guess we’ll see if he’s really an asshole, or if that’s just what being on Twitter does to him.

I’m guessing it’s the former.

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LouCPurr
LouCPurr
2 years ago

Peterson’s daughter made a Tiktok where she claims that her father would pull her out of school when it was ‘political correctness week’*, so I think he’s always been on the right-wing side of things. Having thousands, maybe millions of followers who hang on his every word and defend him no matter what has probably inflated his ego considerably. Why shouldn’t he say exactly what’s on his mind, no matter how ridiculous it is? His fans lap it up. He doesn’t need Twitter–being blocked from Twitter is raising him in the esteem of the sort of people he wants to attract to his YouTube videos and Daily Wire articles. Trump has demonstrated that there’s no limit to how low you can go–your minions will still follow.

*Some Canadians of the same age and provenance say that there was no such thing, just the occasional First Nations speaker talking about environmental issues.

Moon Custafer
Moon Custafer
2 years ago

Semi-related: Last week I learned about Dr. Alan Hart and now I’d like to see Elliot Page play him in a movie. Mind you, since Dr. Hart was from the early 20th-century, and also a human being, it’s likely he did at least one problematic ™ thing in his life, and there’ll be Discourse about how it’s “bad representation,” even if he also wrote novels and pioneered better techniques for TB diagnosis.

Gen X
Gen X
2 years ago

Why is Peterson immune from police investigations and civil lawsuits when others who post similar content get punished more severely? White privilege? A union which protects the bad apples?