I am totally furious

[luckykaa]

I know shirtstorm is news, but it's been really infuriating me.

Bullying has always been an issue I'm passionate about. I identify with those who speak out and campaign against it. Yet this week, because of a shirt, a mob formed. Hundreds of people weighed in to criticise someones choice of clothing. Telling him he's the reason women aren't going into STEM; that he's a sexist pigdog, that anyone who wears a shirt like this is a sexist pig. Over a shirt! Over what he was wearing. I mean sure, he probably should have been a little more circumspect. Hey, he probably should have covered those tattoos as well since not everyone likes them. He didn't. It was a fairly minor mistake and he didn't deserve the abuse.

Matt Taylor made a mistake. He apologised. The apology was accepted. Those who harrassed him also made a mistake. They are yet to recognise they have even made a mistake. Outside of the small echo chamber that's defending this hrassment, I see comment where people are ashamed to be associated with feminism.

As far as I can see, this is ganging up. I checked the people who are usually socially aware of bullying. A lot of them not only weren't critical of the mob. They were actively joining in! When people say "hey, this is bullying" tweets were disected and analysed and the bullies decided, that what they were doing wasn't bullying. Not one of them even considered the possibility that perhaps this was an overreaction.

When you gang up under a banner and collectively harass a guy over what he wears, then it is bullying. When you drive a man to tears, then it's bullying. The bullies aren't the ones who get to decide what bullying is.

I tried adressing this with other people. My complaints are dimissed.

This is bullying plain and simple, and the worst thing is, it's been defended by those who usually take a stand against bullying. This is the worst kind of hypocrisy. These people have formed a morality police, telling people what they may and may not be offended by. Well, I reject your assessment. This offends me, but the hypocrisy offends me more. Anyone who defends the haters digusts me.

Comments

[cath-er-ine.livejournal.com]

Wow. This post finally made me go and see what the fuss was about. Really? That's it? A T shirt with some half naked ladies on it? *confused*

Of course, everyone's welcome to an opinion. For me, bullying is only bullying when it is a sustained attack. If 20 million people said it was wrong once each does that make it bullying? I'm not sure. Harrassment is obviously wrong though, and from what I can make out this is what has happened.

I don't have all the facts but I can't understand why people are making such a fuss about this when it's apparently fine to create the video games and music videos in the first place. Do these people stand up for the environment or children's or animals' rights as well? Not convinced they have their priorities right!

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

Oddly, despite the puritanical reaction, the complainers are mostly the ultra-liberal types who are angry about every social justice issue except this particular one.

But the main reason for posting was that I needed to vent. It just seemed so cruel. It's been on my mind and distracting me since I became aware of it and been interfering with my sleep. Like I said, it's an issue I'm passionate about.

[flickums.livejournal.com]

Nothing gets my skin up more than bullying. It is the one issue that turns me into a frothing homicidal maniac. I am very protective of the people I care about and will not play nice with anyone who sees them as an easy target.

Now on to the controversial bit.

The big problem with Shirtstorm/Shirtgate/whatever the cool kids are calling it is that with so many people wading in, it makes it very difficult to establish a clear idea of what the situation is.

An example being that shortly before you posted this, a friend argued the point that the original complaints aimed at Taylor were fairly minor, politely worded and quite well constructed. They then went on to point out that the majority of abuse has been aimed at the feminist movement rather than being aimed at Taylor himself (I can pop you a link to this argument via Facebook if it's something you want to read through)

Personally speaking, I have pinups on my walls at home and don't lie awake at night feeling like I'm holding back the sisterhood, nor do I feel ashamed of expressing the fact that I find the female form beautiful.

This guy landed a probe on a comet! Who cares what he wears or how much ink is on his arms? Let him enjoy what he accomplished without making assumptions regarding his gender politics.

[the-smut-fairy.livejournal.com]

That thing's gone that way? I had last read the story on the first day, when it went something like "This aspect of your public appearance seems rather ill-judged" - "Ah, yes, I see what you mean. In hindsight, that was a mistake, and I sincerely apologise". Then taking it beyond "OK then, let's move on" is worrying.

[chess]

I haven't seen it doing so - I've only seen a massive backlash of 'you shouldn't have criticised him at all!' and people going 'uh, actually, that backlash is a massive over-reaction'.

Some of the latter can look like they're still attacking the poor guy who made a genuine mistake and apologised and generally acted like a decent human being, but I haven't seen anyone actually doing so - they're actually aimed at the people who are making bad analogies and sending rape threats to the people who politely raised the issue that it might not have been the best choice of attire.

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

It's not that people are still attacking. Nobody is.

They attacked in the first place. Then denied that it was an attack.

They're wrong. It was an attack. It was a mob. They were bullying. The only person who I will accept tell me it wasn't bullying is Matt Taylor.

Here's wikipedia's page on mobbing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobbing)

In the book MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, the authors identify mobbing as a particular type of bullying that is not as apparent as most, defining it as "...an emotional assault. It begins when an individual becomes the target of disrespectful and harmful behavior. Through innuendo, rumors, and public discrediting, a hostile environment is created in which one individual gathers others to willingly, or unwillingly, participate in continuous malevolent actions to force a person out of the workplace."

Aside from him not actually being forced out of the workplace, which parts of this don't apply?

[chess]

'One individual gathers others to participate in' - there's no co-ordination here.

I do understand that when someone does something wrong in a high-profile fashion, the result feels a lot like a mob / pile-on / bullying because a large number of people independently decide to talk about it, and that it causes more upset / suffering / harm than was necessary to fix the problem - especially in such a borderline case as 'wore a shirt without realising that it had problematic connotations when taken out of context'.

I'm not sure what we can _do_ about that without unacceptably limiting people's ability to criticise people who are in the public eye, though.

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

There's a #shirtstorm tag. Did people spontaneously and independently start using that? There's coordination.

We can be aware. Awareness is important. We can start a discussion. All I saw was "this isn't bullying", even from people I thought were serious anti-bullying campaigners.

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

That's not the problem.

There's a tendency on the internet for things to hit critical mass. For people to start brigading. Pretty soon you have a trial by social media. You have thousands of people weighing in. Unless you've experienced something like this, people who don't know you talking about you and judging you and you being powerless to do anything about it, it's hard to understand how this can affect you without experiencing it, but it is a horrible feeling.

The problem is it was going on in the first place. Whether it stopped when the mob got what it wants is beside the point.

The punching always stops when the victim cries. When that happens the bully gets defensive. "He deserved it" "I hardly touched him" "That's not bullying" "He's such a cry baby" "You're all cry babies too"

I've seen all these sentiments in the responses

[xenaclone.livejournal.com]

The very same shirt turned up on 'Sky at Night' in a programme about the comet. The scientist in question actually wore several different shirts and is evidently a fan of the Hawaiian type [G].

As long as the shirt doesn't say, I want to kill X' or 'Let's murder puppies' [ono] on TV, anyone has the freedom in the west to wear what the heck they like.

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm actually fairly sympathetic to the argument that the shirt is sexist. I'm fine with it but I accept that some people might be offended.

My problem is that these people are claiming a monopoly on taking offence. So they're offended. I accept that. That does not give them the right to form a mob.

[chess]

Whereas my problem is that it's very difficult _not_ to 'form a mob' when there's no co-ordination between people - but a lot of people have the same feeling at once and express it.

All the solutions to this seem imperfect - no-one in the 'mob' knew that anyone else was going to step up and say something until other people did; then some people were moved by someone finally saying something about an issue they cared about to 'pile in'...

Like the original act itself - no individual is malicious - a bad outcome arises.

Unlike the original act, in this case it's not part of a structural society-wide system of oppression, so it is probably a lower priority to deal with (but we should get around to putting some thought into it and implement solutions if we can find any that don't break other important things).