This is purely a rant. My hair is drying because I am currently too lazy to get up and dry it faster. Maybe this rant will help me. Maybe it will help you with something. That college essay isn't going to distract you from doing it all by itself.
I don't know a one-to-two-word term for this so I'm going to make up a fake quote here. I think, once you read this, you will know exactly what I'm trying to say:
"This is an interesting conversation about this heated topic. I can kind of see all of your points. Just so you know though, for future reference, if you scream 'you're an idiot' at someone and mob against them, it becomes a lot harder to take your point seriously."
NOW...
Some people will read that and go "lawl, I see idiots like this pretty often. I know exactly what you're talking about". Others will agree with the statement above. I feel like this is part of the reason I'm making this rant.
This is partially inspired by the showrunner of an undisclosed, animated, and frankly, infantile YouTube video series that has been going on for way too long and has far too much twerking for my tastes. Again, the inspiration will go undisclosed. I'm usually not afraid to name names but I have not really watched this stuff. That is to say, everyone has probably seen this if they have spent a lot of time online in the past decade but I have never been a fan. Because it looks like something I would fucking hate.
Anyway. The only reason I bring the showrunner up is that they were like "hey fans, you like my series that I pay a bunch of people to work on because I'm not actually very creative? NFTs of this brand are coming soon!" This was also in the heat of the more recent NFT discourse, despite the fact that NFTs are not a 2021 thing at all. Not throwing anyone under the bus here. I have done a little research into crypto but it wasn't until 2021 that I really looked into NFTs and learned more specifics on how crypto is made. For anyone wondering; I am against NFTs. I wouldn't murder someone or stop being friends with someone for having a passing interest in crypto, in a very general sense. I do, however, give these friends shit for being into crypto because I have personally always found the entire thing to be shady. If we're going to talk about NFTs, which we won't be after I'm done with this paragraph, I take a much harsher stance against it and am actually glad so many people took so many large L's on that one. This post isn't about crypto though, it's probably not even the best example for illustrating my point.
A lot of people, including fans of this undisclosed series, dogpiled the creator on social media. This is pretty warranted given any and all context I can fucking think of. The creator was like "okay, I'm all ears, but give me GOOD reasoning that isn't whiny or meanie, or else I won't listen!" Again, this was at the rise of the recent NFT discourse where a lot of people didn't even fully understand what they were mad about anyway. They were right, they were just kind of misinformed is all. I am still no expert myself. After a few hours of this, the guy pretty much said the made-up quote I gave a bit ago. So basically, for being mad about publicly being okay with destroying the environment and then being a smug douchebag about it after the fact, the people with actual factual information are the assholes because they raised their Twitter voice.
So that is what I want to rant about. Not crypto.
There are extreme examples we can give to what's a bit too much and all that. Threatening somebody's family over this sort of thing is an obvious example of "a bit too much" or at least I fucking hope that's an obvious example. But let's change one of the variables in the equation I spent too long explaining above. If it wasn't crypto, maybe it is whether or not we should care about other people's pronouns and whether or not saying "whatever" to the whole thing is problematic or not (it is).
So MinecraftFabio265 (not checking to see if that's a real screenname somewhere, if it is, I apologize, this isn't about you, and if it accidentally seems like it is, continue reading; you've got some learnin' to do, Fabio) makes a post saying "lol imagine being bent out of shape about having obvious breasts and people don't call you he/him". Most of us know, they would use a harsher phrase than "bent out of shape" but I digress. So this post is directly transphobic to transmasculine people who have not had top surgery and strictly do not use "she/her" pronouns, as many transmascs do not. Also weirds me out that tits are the deciding factor in respect for a lot of people considering literally everyone has them or is a dismembered corpse but this is also beside the point. A bunch of people get together and call out MinecraftFabio265 for his stupid post. So as I have explained so far, on paper, these people are in the right and MinecraftFabio265 is in the wrong. If you can't tell from the tone of this whole post up to this point, no matter what transpires, MinecraftFabio265 is still absolutely in the wrong. That said, let's move on.
I personally feel like most people would see the responses and point at the responders as the bad guys here. This melts a lobe in my noggin. Let me take you down the Willy Wonka chocolate cruise for a second here, just humor me. Let's go down the hypothetical train of thought that the naysayers in this hypothetical scenario are whackjobs and bullies. The original poster ever so simply said that if a transmasc person has not undergone top surgery or has other features that another individual may see as feminine, it is okay for the individual to refer to the transmasc person staunchly as a woman. It is then implied that it is the job of the trans person to deal with that responsibility. That any assertion that the person might heavily prefer other pronouns is absurd and/or none of the other person's business. So how do we respond to this?
Angrily? Yes!
It can be well-articulated or it can be CAPS LOCKED and feral but I honestly don't blame anyone for getting fucking infuriated at the OP for regurgitating such nonsense. "Well, he didn't say that! Never said that! You're making up drama for clout!" In such few words, MinecraftFabio265 absolutely implied a lot of things there. The "lol" is actually important here, you see. He finds it laughable that someone would expect someone to give this person basic respect. I was thinking about this earlier today. MinecraftFabio265, who we have established is a man, would probably start feeling kind of blue if a lot of people started referring to him as "her". I mean, this is the MinecraftFabio265! A man of notoriety. Surely, this trend would catch on, and bam! Now you have a couple thousand people calling MinecraftFabio265 her royal majesty; queen of pronouns. None of these people ever consider the shoe being on the other foot. Isn't that strange? Genuinely. Is that not just a very weird thing that these people never consider?
Also, a lot of transmasc issues are swept under the rug constantly. Transfemme people still face many scary issues in 2021 but at least in 2021, these issues are gaining more visibility. I rarely see anyone in any position of power doing anything to boost transmasc people. This is part of the reason why everyone freaked the fuck out about Elliot Page. He was worth freaking out about. Name another transmasc person even one tier of popularity down from Elliot Page. Yup? Yup. All this to say that I am of the opinion that saying things like what MinecraftFabio265 has said this very day are very arguably hate speech. I think a lot of people would say "that's not even an opinion, you are absolutely right". I have my moments.
So then (this is where it all comes full circle) one has the goddamn gall to even remotely insinuate that the person saying "bad take, Fabio" is the toxic one; the hateful one. MinecraftFabio265 is most likely to say something like "yall are just haters lol I am just voicing a simple opinion and all these sjws come to attack me lol". I really hate that this MinecraftFabio265 quote is not one that took me more than one minute to make up because I see stuff so close to it all the fucking time. I would say at least once a month and my timeline is fairly clean of bigoted dummies. To my knowledge, it is as clean as it can be. I still see "hoes mad" when it comes to just hatred. I think passive hatred is one of the worst things I can think of. It is the notion that because "you didn't mean it" erases hundreds of years of history behind a sentiment. MinecraftFabio265's post wasn't even fucking funny. There isn't anything about it that qualifies as a "joke".
People post problematic stuff, especially with 0% added creativity or nuance. Other people see this and either calmly or angrily call them out. OP and the OP's fans blame the people sticking up for basic human respect or their own basic human respect for this getting "out of hand". "Cancel mob".
I could have summed this up in a tweet but here we are, like a half-hour of writing later. If you didn't take this journey with me though, I would have gone one day of my life not conjuring MinecraftFabio265 into your psyche. Very subtly, I may add. I was very good at it. Now you can never forget the character. MinecraftFabio265. From YouTube. Who plays WoW 40 hours a week. So I thank you all for experiencing this moment with me. For those who originally were okay with this:
"This is an interesting conversation about this heated topic. I can kind of see all of your points. Just so you know though, for future reference, if you scream 'you're an idiot' at someone and mob against them, it becomes a lot harder to take your point seriously."
I hope you learned something today and realize how easy it is to just listen when a bunch of people from a community gets mad at you. For one second, entertain the thought that when a swarm of people comes at you with what may look like pitchforks and torches, you are not fucking Belle from Beauty and the Beast so these farmers might have something worthwhile to say to you tonight. They might even know what they're talking about and wish to share such wisdom with you. I hope you accept it.
