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Jul. 12th, 2012
No links, too lazy.
Ben Spurr is the guy who created the punch-Sarkeesian game - he was eventually outed by someone on Twitter (and, take note, is apparently not to be confused with a reporter for a Canadian magazine with the same name).
Daniel Tosh is a comedian who I never heard of who apparently was making rape jokes at a comedy club, and a woman in the audience heckled that rape jokes are never funny, so he responded by saying how hilarious it would be if five guys just raped her right now. She blogged about it, instant internet controversy resulted.
I don't have anything particularly insightful to say except that first of all, it's fascinating to me how all of this has played out in large part on Twitter primarily, and blogs secondarily, and actual traditional news sources only minorly. Twitter is where the bulk of the discussion seems to be taking place, with lots of internet-famous people (like feminist bloggers, etc) getting involved.
Second, what's fascinating (and miserable) is that once women leapt to the defense of the original woman targeted, those women found themselves the subject of rape threats, death threats, and other forms of sexual harassment. Steph Guthrie had to call the police when she received Twitter death threats due to her criticism of Ben Spurr. Martha Plimpton (yes, that one) who criticized Tosh (after male comics leapt to his defense) was similarly targeted.
Meanwhile, a guy named AlekT tweeted that he had also been highly critical of Ben Spurr with numerous tweets on the subject - and yet he hadn't received a single death threat or rape threat.
So, that happened.
ETA: Melissa at Shakesville put all her tweets in one blog post, so that's easy enough for me to link.
Ben Spurr is the guy who created the punch-Sarkeesian game - he was eventually outed by someone on Twitter (and, take note, is apparently not to be confused with a reporter for a Canadian magazine with the same name).
Daniel Tosh is a comedian who I never heard of who apparently was making rape jokes at a comedy club, and a woman in the audience heckled that rape jokes are never funny, so he responded by saying how hilarious it would be if five guys just raped her right now. She blogged about it, instant internet controversy resulted.
I don't have anything particularly insightful to say except that first of all, it's fascinating to me how all of this has played out in large part on Twitter primarily, and blogs secondarily, and actual traditional news sources only minorly. Twitter is where the bulk of the discussion seems to be taking place, with lots of internet-famous people (like feminist bloggers, etc) getting involved.
Second, what's fascinating (and miserable) is that once women leapt to the defense of the original woman targeted, those women found themselves the subject of rape threats, death threats, and other forms of sexual harassment. Steph Guthrie had to call the police when she received Twitter death threats due to her criticism of Ben Spurr. Martha Plimpton (yes, that one) who criticized Tosh (after male comics leapt to his defense) was similarly targeted.
Meanwhile, a guy named AlekT tweeted that he had also been highly critical of Ben Spurr with numerous tweets on the subject - and yet he hadn't received a single death threat or rape threat.
So, that happened.
ETA: Melissa at Shakesville put all her tweets in one blog post, so that's easy enough for me to link.
I have to not read David Brooks columns
Jul. 12th, 2012 10:53 pmbecause there is a serious chance I will break my computer in my rage. I can't ... I can't even ... no, it's too much, I can't. Maybe later.