Woman Gets Banned From Facebook After Sending Unsolicited Dick Pics – Kat Abianac

veronica d in reply to Guy says:

The thing is, I consider “the redpill” a mostly nerd-generated phenomenon. I mean, if you insist on a very narrow definition of “nerd,” then maybe not, but that would be too narrow a definition. After all, redpill comes out of PUA, and the tribe of guys who sit around online pontificating about PUA bullshit were mostly nerds. It was that “let’s hyper-analyze and talk-talk-talk.”

I’m not saying a guy like Mark Manson is a nerd. But then, he ain’t redpill either.

(After all, the very term “redpill” comes from which movie, that was popular with which subculture? Obvious things are obvious.)

(The fact that the creators of that film now openly claim it was in fact, as many of us suspected, a metaphor for gender transition is — well — the irony is delightful.

Take the redpill, bitches.

In my case it is literally a blue pill. But whatevs.)

But anyhow, with the PUA shits, in theory they made “field reports,” some of which might have been true. But all the bad evo-psych and endless categories, broken down. This is nerd shit. This is how (a certain set of) nerds think about gender and romance. The whole, “I’m a sad beta” was nerd-thinking. It’s no wonder this culture sprang up in the places it did, among the men that it did.

I mean, there are no clear boundaries, but if you’re the type who hangs on 4chan, there is clearly some overlap between your life and nerd-space. And yeah, Reddit is not 100% nerd, but is KotakuInAction nerdy? Was ViolentAcrz a nerd? Yepperz.

Was each dude who downloaded the photos from “the fappening” a nerd?

Probably not. But the guys who posted shit like, “I don’t care how these women feel, they won’t fuck me anyway” (which is a fair paraphrase of a real post I’ve actually read) — yep, they were to-the-bone nerds. The guys who suggest that they are correct to bully and harass attractive women at gaming conventions, cuz “they won’t fuck me anyway” and “they’ll attract the popular guys, who will bully us” and so on — are these guys nerds?

Yep. To the bone.

This is a real thing.

On the other hand, the men who harass me on the subway are seldom nerds. In fact, only one time was one of my real-life, face-to-face harassers (someone I read as) a nerd. So it goes.Report

veronica d in reply to Guy says:

@guy — Honestly it’s a complicated question.

Let me lay it out, I was a nerd in high school. Ten years later I was a blue belt in Brazilian Ju Jitsu, lifting weights three days a week, trying so hard (and so badly) to “live male.” At the time I would have fiercely denied being a nerd. That person, should you have asked them, would have explained why nerds are garbage.

I was a nerd then, I’m a nerd now.

Can you say self-hate?

Right? You get it? I mean, are there bright lines?

Here is ESR explaining how he is a natural alpha: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3000

What a fucking nerd. Like, OMG what a try-hard ninny.

Do you think macho posturing is something no nerd would do? I don’t feel like browsing around to find ESR slagging on “cerebral” men, nor bragging about his mad martial arts skills, or whatever else, but trust me, that shit is out there.

There used to be a great essay by Matt Thornton from Straight Blast Gym, which sadly is no longer online, about young, physically weak men who fetishize violence. I don’t recall if he used the term “nerd,” but it was clear who he meant. Anyway, he talked about how these guys get suckered in to bullshit martial arts that promise magic powers — power power power — but actually deliver little, except perhaps an expensive weapons collection the kid doesn’t have any real skills with.

But then, an idiot with a knife can still kill. Unhappy, insecure men are a menace.

How many nerds are into the edgiest possible “black metal” or whatever? How many video games are shallow male power fantasies? Why are these popular with nerds?

How easy to play that role on an internet forum?

(#notallnerds, duh. Obvi.)

Anyway, he thought the “sports arts” (such as boxing and BJJ) were much healthier, in that they focus on REAL physical fitness and competition. The student gets real strength. His shoulders grow. His chest and arms develop. He can move with flexibility and grace. This means real confidence, rather than posturing. (Well, that’s the goal anyway. It isn’t perfect, as anyone who has watched that shitty MMA reality show can attest.)

Anyway, I actually agree with him on the broad point. I’ve seen those guys who he criticizes. I’ve also worked out in a real MMA gym (American Top Team in Coconut Creek, under Ricardo Liborio, who gave me my blue belt). The differences are pretty stark.

Anyway, I don’t pretend to be a badass. I worked hard. I earned my belt. But if some young jock on the subway jumps me — I got maybe a fifty/fifty shot, probably less. If he has friends, I’m fucked. I ain’t that tough. Not even close.

You know the BJJ knife defense: run like a bitch.

At least we’re honest with ourselves. But I got truth, and I got respect for those who really achieve. When it comes to athletics, I’m not someone who has achieved. But I’ve seen those who have for real, and not just from the stadium.

#####

The “manosphere” is a big place, but it’s funny how much they agree on. I mean, the different strains hate each other, the narcissism of small differences and all of that, but it is uncanny how much they agree. For example, the majority of the bitter garbage in Eliot Roger’s manifesto is straight up “red pill social theory.” It’s all the same stew, believed by men who hate each other largely for how they express masculinity. They bully each other, but it ain’t much more than that.

Do you think nerds do not bully other nerds. I was bullied extensively in school. I also bullied others. It’s ugly.

Hurt people hurt people, as they say.

So yeah, the red pill guys want you to think they are all big muscle guys who fuck every gal who comes along. Some of them probably are — at least to a certain degree. But how many nerdlings crave that model of masculinity, and will do about anything to pretend to occupy it?

ESR certainly does. I don’t think he is a rarity.

But beyond that, the ideas of the place, all the flim flam social theory — that’s nerd shit, through and through.Report

veronica d in reply to Guy says:

[This went long. It’s filled with my normal range of tedious anecdote and weird speculation. You were warned.]

Yeah, #notallnerds. Agreed. But then, you can either get that or not.

The thing about nerd misogyny is — well — it’s gonna depend on who you are. If you are a female nerd, believe me, this shit is real and widespread and we’re gonna talk about it in very blunt terms.

Did you sleep through gamergate? Are you aware of Sarkeesian? Quinn? Watson? on and on?

Maybe this ain’t your problem. But it’s my problem. It’s the problem of women whom I deeply love. I’m gonna talk about it.

#####

We can separate the idea of “nerd culture,” which is the culture that nerds consume and create, from “the nerd in culture,” by which I mean the cultural representation of nerds. After all, we didn’t invent the idea ourselves. It was an imposed identity.

I didn’t wake up one day and say, “Hey! It would be fun to be widely hated and to completely fail socially,” but that is what happened.

Anyway, the “nerd in culture” begins I guess in the 50’s, he’s the scrawny guy with asthma who is hyper cerebral, but to a fault, and who never gets the girl.

The point is, this describes real people. Not everyone is perfectly their stereotype — for example, I’m 6 feet tall, breathe fine, and have great cheekbones — but still. Chess club existed. There were guys in chess club. I bet the guys on the football team got laid more.

Well, maybe. Real life is complicated. Evidently Feynman was quite the scamp.

Anyway, it has a lot to do with social skills, how fast they develop. It has a lot to do with one’s physical frame: big “high-T” guys get an easier ride when doing dudely things. It has much to do with neurodiversity, but not only neurodiversity. It is many things. And make puberty and high school a living hell for a certain cross-section of guys.

I’m talking about male nerds here. Female nerds are a different set. (And we trans gals get to star in our own shitshow.)

We nerds had our own culture: comics, computers, and games. Plus academics. We were often well-like by adults, I suspect because the adult-child relationship is often ritualized with clear status boundaries, unlike the endless status-conflict free-for-all you find with other kids. It was tough.

It fucking sucks. We find ways to deal.

It was after I left high school that the “suddenly nerds are cool” thing started. We had Tori Amos hanging with Neil Gaiman, and everyone wanted to read Sandman. We had White Wolf games and Vampire the Masquerade, and now the pretty goth girls might join your gaming group.

And some male nerds could capitalize on this, depending on their looks and social skills. Some could not.

Myself, I fell somewhere in the middle. By then I was going pretty hard into punk rock — but I still loved computers, math, and gaming. So, I did okay. For a while. Then something happened and it got bad. I went ten years with pretty much zero intimacy.

When incel guys complain, I listen. I don’t put up with their misogynistic crap. Fuck that. But their pain is real and needs to be acknowledged.

(I’m leaving out my gender shit. But yeah, that was a big part of this. My trans stuff was a lingering crisis in my life. It’s hard to explain.)

My point is, my brain was weird, and thus I lagged maybe 3-10 years on anything like normal social development. That never quite went away. Now I’m in my 40’s, and I’ve basically “caught up,” at least learned to compensate for the things I’ll never fix. I’m still socially awkward. I’ve learned to “play it” though. My job helps.

Being the weird, purple-haired transsexual who is spergy and math-obsessed, but who works for {company} and makes a fuckton of money, and actually looks good and loves to dance, even if she is shy and awkward as fuck is not the ideal social role, but I make it work.

Anyway, it’s complicated. Social skill are not a singular thing. They are many things.

Let’s return to our history. The 90’s pass. The “oughts” arrive. Video games get super mainstream, as do superheros. Anime takes off. It’s suddenly cool to be a pretty cosplay girl.

And whythefuck not?

When I was young, there were always the “cool weirdos” existing adjacent to the “nerdy weirdos.” I had friends who went the drama-club-plus-Rocky-Horror social route, while I went the obsessive-loner-with-a-computer route. I envied them. There were never bright lines around nerd-space. Spaces like RenFaire and SCA always crossed many lines. Even tabletop roleplaying had a spectrum. This was our culture.

And so it goes these days, same thing, but so much bigger.

And the result: I hear so many young weird-brained nerd dudes saying stuff like, “They like everything about ‘nerds,’ but they still don’t like me.”

Which, give it time, kid. Your social skills lag, but you’ll get there.

Except some of them won’t.

If you grow up with this, you choose a path.

Some folks end up on 4chan. On /pol/. On /r9k/. Or worse, over on sluthate.com. (All of that is very NSFW and — holy fucknuggets — sanity destroying.)

On those sites, you will find nerds who hate themselves. The only people they hate more are other nerds. They hate their reflection. There is a deep bitterness that cycles back on itself.

And maybe that’s only one guy who shows up at the comic shop, and if you’re a dude maybe you don’t care that he’s a creepy freakoid. But maybe I care. He ain’t messing with you. He’s messing with me.

On the internet he can find thousands like himself, and they can act together.

Did you ever read the gamergate chat logs that Quinn gathered, where they were actually forming little teams, some of whom would dig up dirt, others would deal with the media, etc. Like, this was their goofball attempt at tactical planning. Well, we can mock them. But on the other hand, one group was tasked specifically with harassing Quinn until she committed suicide?

They didn’t succeed.

Everything these guys say about themselves matches closely what the redpill dudes say. They believe the same collection of terrible ideas. Where they differ is where they fit among “masculine men” and what they try to do about it.

Some guys make a transparently terrible, sadsack attempt to play the “alpha” role. Those guys are thick on the redpill forums.

I’m very familiar with this strategy. I actually tried it a couple times during my life. The first time, I literally lost all my friends. The second time, I was older and kinda-sorta made it work, but not really. I was never a “playa.” I was just too fucking shy.

At least I got fit and moderately athletic. I kept some of that. The point is, whether or not I get dates, I still have to climb stairs. I took (among other things) a pretty good Hapkido class. I’ve never gotten in a fight since then (nor do I plan to), but I’ve fallen on the ice a few times. I fell “correctly.” I did not hurt myself. Hapkido works.

So yeah, guys with this history are a big part of the “manosphere.” They ain’t all of it. Guys like Paul Elam are a different flavor of terrible. But still, the giant seething misogynistic internet shitshows are thick with nerds.

#####

Okay, so here is the big summing-up. I kinda don’t give a fuck about guys like Paul Elam. I mean, he’s terrible, but he’s a lonely miserable shit and who fucking cares? I ain’t likely to meet him.

I mean, I’m not saying I have zero concern about these guys. I’ve had “angry white dudes” harass me on the subway, including one (very minor) physical assault. Those guys seem cut from the same cloth as Elam. I mean, I don’t get to check their browser history. I cannot say they’re literally “MRAs.” But whatever.

With the nerds, on the other hand, I share hobbies. I’m smart the way they are smart. My social spaces are their social spaces. The big “culture war” in nerd space affects me directly. The point is, I got stakes.

Plus my life history overlaps so closely with theirs. It is natural I would pay more attention to them. I have more to say.

Anyway yeah, #notallnerds. It’s worth pointing out. But I won’t necessarily say it each time. You can figure that out on your own.Report

veronica d in reply to Kim says:

I think women like Sarkeesian and Wu are entirely reasonable to take the threats against themselves very seriously. The culture-space that is arrayed against them is the same space that produced Eliot Rogers. Now, he killed randomly. Most of “that type” have. So far.

So far.

Things are a certain way until they change. Clearly -chan-space is full of angry, unhinged young men who are violence obsessed. It only takes one.Report

veronica d in reply to Kim says:

You know I’ve actually met Brianna Wu. She liked my hair. Anyway, yeah she was pretty fucking scared when they published her address and someone said he was on his way over to her house to murder her. I dunno. Different folks are going to respond in different ways to that shit.

I never met Quinn, but I’m a weirdo who lives in Boston, so we do have a few mutual face-to-face friends. Anyway yeah, shit landed heavy on her. There is a level of sustained abuse that is hard to understand if you have not experienced it.

There is this thing called empathy. I’m not always so great at it, but neither is it entirely absent from my weird little brain. In any case, saying “Just ignore it” is easy enough, but shows a tremendous lack of empathy.

I post on Tumblr using something rather like my real-life name. I talk openly about my job. I post selfies — cuz I’m pretty! I do this because I want to.

But I also speak my mind. So what happens if the gater-types come at me?

I dunno. Some of this is a throw of the dice. I’ll deal however I have to deal. Advice from randoms who’ve never experienced it — they don’t know shit.

I can’t hire a team of mercenaries, cuz they are expensive. I earn a decent income, but not “private security” type income. How much fucking money do you think Wu has? She runs a goofy little game company. Evidently she has one employee whose full-time job it is to read all the threats that come in, categorize them, and then send them to the FBI. She pays a person to do this. You want her to hire a team of mercenaries?

Could Sarkeesian? I dunno. Feminist Frequency brought in a nice chunk of cash. But full-time private security? That’s rich-people stuff. Money burns quickly.

A lot of it comes down to, keep shit secret, watch your back, require that those hosting your public appearances provide security. This all seems reasonable to me.

Anyway, you cannot let threats and fear shut down your life. If they come, you gotta deal. But don’t pretend it isn’t seriously scary for people.Report

veronica d in reply to Kim says:

I assume a full-time bodyguard is going to want to collect a normal salary, which I would spitball at anywhere from 20k up to 120k depending on their background and skills, plus benefits.

For 20k you’ll get 20k worth of human talent. For 120k you’ll get 120k worth of human talent. Which do you want to trust with your life?

Anyway, I guess you contract out. We have this: http://www.whatitcosts.com/hire-bodyguard-cost/

I dunno. Obviously Sarkeesian is not going to hire someone full time. Don’t be silly. She’s gonna hire someone when she is doing something public. Of course, she actually expects the venue to pay, which seems reasonable.

Brianna Wu came out to my office to speak. I didn’t notice much extra security, but we already have security. I assume it was discussed and she was satisfied with the arrangements.

Yeah, an alarm system, a dog. Sure. Fine. I ride the subway. Am I supposed to take my big attack dog onto the subway? Good grief.

I’d probably have to stop taking the subway. Quinn did. I don’t really blame her. I get harassed enough. I don’t want to think about being singled out by a hate group.

A wealthy person is concerned about kidnapping. A person like Sarkeesian is concerned about a batshit suicidal freakshow with a gun. It’s a different concern. “Big scary-looking security guy” won’t necessarily help much.

(All this said, I have no idea if she’s hired security or not. Maybe she has. It’s not like she’d tell us.)

My point is simple, she has good reasons to take the threats against her seriously. That is all.Report