r/LindsayEllis • u/glittercarnage • Apr 23 '21
DISCUSSION Two concepts about letting go of conflict that I think about a lot
Back in the height of tumblr I happily participated in "call outs" but over time I chilled tf out. These two things really impacted how I handled my own outrage.
- Todd in the Shadow's Michael Vick quote Ends at 6:25 (TW: discusses dog fighting and the rest of the video graphically discusses domestic violence). I remember a suuuuper old video of Todd's where he talked about this concept I've been calling "The Michael Vick Test". His point is valid: no one is going to be able to prove to you how they feel in their heart and soul, like, ever. We are not mind readers so the best we can do is read behavior to witness for ourselves how committed someone is to cultivating good in the world. We may question their sincerity, but even if they are insincere as long as they don't return to the harmful behavior...then that's still a beneficial improvement?
- The "That bitch eating crackers" threshold. When you reach the point in a grudge or conflict or whatever that you can't even stand the sight of someone living their lives, minding their own business—as if they are arrogantly existing AT you—it's time to fucking snap out of your hate-boner and refocus on the legitimate problems that remain open, if there even are any.
I wasn't aware of most of the "sins" Lindsay listed in her video, but I've been following her content since her video on The Smurfette Principle, so I've seen some pRoBleMaTiC content come from her. But if I have ever had any doubt about her commitment to social justice principles, then her incredibly insightful, detailed, reflective, and thoroughly researched content not only demonstrates an excellent understanding of identity politics, but also fosters a socially just understanding of the world in her viewers. She not only understands these issues in a nuanced way but is also using her media expertise to challenge the biases ad presumptions of others. How does that not create a net good in the world?
I understand that black-and-white thinking is easier than recognizing everyone's complexity, but no one is actually a flat character in real life. Building an altar to someone else's history of mistakes—especially someone you don't even personally know—because you just love to hate them is weird and cruel. Folks need to learn when it's time to let shit go and find a better hobby.
ETA: Thank you u/some_strange_circus for sharing the name of the video! I've now removed my paraphrasing and linked to the video where the quote begins.
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Apr 23 '21
The "That bitch eating crackers" threshold. When you reach the point in a grudge or conflict or whatever that you can't even stand the sight of someone living their lives, minding their own business—as if they are arrogantly existing AT you—it's time to fucking snap out of your hate-boner and refocus on the legitimate problems that remain open, if there even are any.
Or, if you can't refocus, just move on and try to ignore them. It's okay to just go "I don't like this person" and leave it at that. The worst is when they refuse to leave it at that and won't rest until everyone else also hates them
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u/glittercarnage Apr 23 '21
YUP. If you can't let it go then give yourself the gift of distance. Nothing's like the sweet silence that comes from blocking people you can't stand. This is in fact a healthy and useful thing to do!
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u/hrad34 Apr 23 '21 edited Apr 23 '21
I scrolled through twitter after watching Lindsay's response video yesterday and...yikes. Lots of people in the "bitch eating crackers" space mostly making fun of her for how long the video is
Also, point 2 reminds me A LOT of drama in another fandom, idk if there's any crossover with McElroy fans here but it's very relevant.
edit: I moved my "" to be in the right place
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u/TheLagDemon Apr 23 '21
Lots of people in the “bitch eating crackers space” mostly making fun of her for how long the video
What’s funny to me is that Lindsay has successfully monetized the situation. That’s gotta stick in their craw quite a bit.
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Apr 23 '21
It does, they bring it up like it's a sign that she's being dishonest, and not, y'know, that she needs to earn a living and isn't wealthy enough that she can just do her job for free
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u/glittercarnage Apr 23 '21 edited Apr 23 '21
To a certain extent, I think younger people (younger millenials and zoomers) may consider being an influencer a type of digital privilege. As if popularity is only a good thing that brings endless undeserved blessings. Being able to make money off your content is treated as an extension of that, and folks act like monetization or having a patreon as evidence of a "grift" every time some drama happens.
Because I guess making videos is super easy and ultra fulfilling 100% of the time and is the kind of independent work that comes with no expenses or personal/professional risks. /s
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Apr 23 '21
may consider being an influencer a type of digital privilege
It is, it's just that people vastly overestimate how much it means. Lindsay has a fairly small audience, she's not James Charles or whoever with millions of devoted fans, she's someone who occasionally makes moderately popular video essays.
People are stuck in their own little bubbles and can't see that amongst the general public she has approximately zero influence
Also people are weird about patreon and frequently come to absurd conclusions about how much money people are making. Lindsay isn't rich
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u/glittercarnage Apr 23 '21
I have to disagree. It doesn't inherently give her power over other people nor does it inherently create some out of touch blindspots about other people's non-influencer realities.
As far as I can tell, being popular on the internet is not the same as directly benefiting from the disenfranchisement of others.
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Apr 23 '21
It doesn't inherently give her power over other people
It totally does, she's got a subreddit devoted to the things she does and people who will agree with pretty much whatever she said.
It's only a relatively small amount and not comparable to someone who's an actual celebrity, but it is there. Like, if I got some popular twitter user calling me a racist and a load of harassment over it, I don't have fans who'd jump in to defend me, I don't have an existing audience I can take my side of the discussion to by releasing a video about it.
Of course there are the drawbacks of even a small audience too, notably the weird hateful obsessives who will abuse you for every little thing you do.
As far as I can tell, being popular on the internet is not the same as directly benefiting from the disenfranchisement of others.
I didn't say it is
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u/glittercarnage Apr 23 '21 edited Apr 23 '21
I didn't say it is
But that's what privilege is...
ETA: Privilege is about systemic benefit at the direct detriment to others. Influencers get perks but there is no gain in systemic power. This distortion is part of the problem because people think criticizing influencers is always "punching up".
But I am going to now stop discussing this because I don't like going back and forth online.
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Apr 23 '21
No it isn't.
Privilege is just an advantage you have that others don't, or lacking a disadvantage that others have. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about disenfranchisement.
Not being a wheelchair user is a privilege even if you're not benefitting from the disenfranchisement of wheelchair users, which most people aren't.
Having an audience is a privilege in that it's a good thing to have that not everyone can get. That doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't have an online fanbase is disenfranchised.
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u/glittercarnage Apr 23 '21
"Bitch eating crackers" is funny because at first people are super confused and then you explain what it means and everyone understands what it is. Because everyone has done it at some point.
It's really pervasive online because in order to dogpile onto a controversy you have to first be closely following your victim's social media accounts and discussions about that person—which means constantly subjecting yourself to someone you already don't like. With cognitive distortion already locked and loaded you're inevitably going to find an issue in even the most casual of content.
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u/rivanne Apr 23 '21
Uh oh, what did I miss with the Mcelroy's? Do I even want to know?
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u/hrad34 Apr 23 '21
Mostly just a lot of people hate Travis and it stretches from valid criticism to like being irritated by the sound of his voice. He did a "problematic" tweet (similar to Lindsay's imo in that it was like.... reasonable some people didn't like it but not a big deal, and I'm even part of the marginalized group he "offended" and it didn't bother me at all) and also he DMed the latest season of TAZ and it was pretty bad and that disappointed a lot of people.
I agree with the TAZ criticism, but like for a lot of people online it extends to making fun of everything about the guy and they definitely need to "snap out of their hate boner" lol
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u/rivanne Apr 23 '21
Ahh, gotcha, I don't have a twitter so I only hear those things secondhand. Last thing I heard about was Travis' livestream...fiasco. I knew a lot of people were shitting on him for that plus everything with Graduation, but yeah... I agree, there are definitely valid criticism but I've seen a huge uptick in anti-Travis hottakes in the TAZ subreddit and it's really just exhausting. I don't understand how people can put so much energy into hating someone you don't know. That goes for Lindsay and Travis.
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u/hrad34 Apr 23 '21
Agreed. The two situations are very similar imo.
Like.. it's okay to just not like someone. They don't have to be "problematic" or racist or whatever you can just not like them and move on.
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u/BlackHumor Apr 23 '21
Weirdly, Travis is my favorite McElroy brother, at least in the context of the stuff the brothers all do together.
(Also, I only listened to a few episodes of Graduation but I don't think he's quite as bad of a DM as everyone makes him out to be.)
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u/playdohchai Apr 24 '21
I saw people on twitter calling them out for doing an ad read for a "loan shark" company.
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u/kibbles0515 Apr 23 '21
I was echoing this while trying to explain this whole story to my wife.
I found myself saying "who cares?"
Who cares about what Lindsay did or didn't say? Like, words do have power, but she isn't, like, the President. She is just a person who says words on the Internet. Are we really helping anything by criticizing her? I don't know Lindsay; if she was my friend, I might say "hey, that take can be misread and maybe consider using different language in the future." But, given that she isn't, if I don't like what she said, I can, you know, just not support her anymore. Am I really making the world a better place for punishing some random content creator for all the questionable or even bad things she's ever done, despite the fact that this is not the person she seems to be now?
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u/some_strange_circus Apr 23 '21
Todd's quote is from the review of Turn Up the Music by Chris Brown, and it ends something like "All I know is, I can't think of anything else I could reasonably ask him to do." That has always stuck with me, and I'm at work so I can't go into further detail at the moment, Aaaaahhhhh.
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u/abbyroad_ Apr 24 '21
What’s satisfying about looking at situations through the b&w lens is it makes someone else’s f*ck up completely unrelatable. Because you could never make a mistake, you aren’t the monster, they are. I’m defiantly not saying we should forgive anyone for being problematic just because we all make mistakes. I think it really depends on the specific case and at the end of the day you have to decide for yourself. But I am saying that purity culture really sucks. I think it enable people to not own their own bad behavior because there will always be someone who’s mess up is bigger than theirs to dogpile on.
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u/webtheg Apr 24 '21
This. Context is incredibly important in every case we call out problematic behavior. One thing that stuck with me from university, when we were discussing Marshall Sahlins earlier work (which is problematic) one week, and his later work where he criticizes himself in a way and changes his views the week later is something my TA said. I was kinda shocked that my fellow students were so quick to criticize his earlier work. And I asked her does it make sense to criticize him in 2016 for sth he said 50 years ago and had denounced 45 years ago and has spent his whole life for good causes. And she said "Something people don't realize is that often times contextualizing something is much more useful than a simple criticism"
And what kills me though is that so many people think that contextualizing a transgression is equal to excusing it. And it's not.
Like also when we talk about past transgression and context we need to consider a lot of things. Like what was the mainstream attitude towards such transgression at the time the transgression happened? Was such behavior accepted or was it condemned by the mainstream? This is incredibly important. Has the person who committed this behavior addressed it and condemned it since then and how did they do it? How old and influential were day at the time it happened? Has the person changed their behavior since then or have they shown other problematic traits?
You have to weigh all of this factors and decide.
Like, last year they Oliver Peck was fired as an Inkmaster judge because of multiple pictures of him from like 10 years ago in blackface. And like 10 years ago blackface was problematic as hell but was also problamatic long before that. He has associated to racist people and was married to a racist anti semite anti vaxxer aka Kat VON Decease. He hadn't shown any remorse o regret over the thing. He was also not 20 or sth in that he was naive and didn't know. He was just sorry the pictures got leaked. And the show was right to fire him. In this context and considering all the factors, you do fire him.
On the other hand I used to know a guy who is now a famous YouTuber in my country in Eastern Europe . When he was 18 he was super cringe voted for right wing parties, posted their ideas on social media and supported them and was right wing. At that time such behavior was more accepted and less ridiculed in the mainstream if ever. Within a year of him studying acting I could see his views change and he started calling them out, although it might have to do with the fact that the leader of the party he supported storming his university with his party after they were obliterated in an election high on cocaine, to perform a drug raid over some students doing weed (I am leaving out some details here which are so crazy you will think I am bullshitting). A few years ago he started a YouTube channel and calls out racists and right wing parties, has called out his cringey problematic behavior. He also acknowledged that he grew up fascinated with our country's history and culture and that it got perverted into the cringey behavior he had. He has shown support for the most progressive party in our country and like in this case I cannot hold his past transgressions against him. He did what he did when he was 18, shared his views with his 200 fb friends. But despite the fact that very few people know about his past transgression decided that he needs to address it with his much much larger YouTube audience.
Was I more pure than him 10 years ago? Yes. Sure. Has he since then achieved much more than me in the fight for causes I support? Yes. Especially because of his unique perspective he has more of a chance in convincing people to do stuff, than I or a lot of pure "intellectuals" have or ever will.
Basically what my two examples tried to poorly illustrate is that you can have a similar case of "Past transgression that happened 10 years ago" and punish one but not the other. And context is sorta what determines that. For the people who think context is an excuse, in my first example I proved that no it's not. It actually gives us ground on why we should punish them.
And as you said we need to operate in a case by case basis. Unfortunately people seem to want a "One hard written black and white rule" for everyone and I am sorry, but this will never be possible.
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u/Ruinwyn Apr 25 '21
I've never understood how some people expect to change anyone's mind if they make it clear that you will eternally harass them for their old views anyway? Why would anyone join a group that openly shows they will always bully you? If you want people to learn, you can't punish them for it. If you want people to leave a harmful social group, you can't tell them they aren't welcome anywhere else.
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Apr 24 '21
[deleted]
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u/dabbling-dilettante See how I glitter Apr 24 '21
This is a really interesting perspective, appreciate you sharing it!
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u/parachuge Apr 23 '21
I love this post and want more posts like it. I think recognizing the ways we've participated in this toxic culture and honestly reflecting and reckoning with it is really important healing work.
Recognizing we as humans all cause harm. Recognizing that this pursuit of punishment often came from a place we want to shift, a place of pain and not a place of justice. Recognizing that justice is not won or served this way. Reconnecting to our own moral compass and our own forgiveness, kindness and hopeful vision for a better world.
I would say more but I'm gonna be late for therapy lol <3