And in general, I am not going to take instructions to “back away slowly” from outraged teenagers who think they hold moral authority. I’m a fcking adult with a PhD studying online harassment, you back away https://twitter.com/bootleggirl/status/1300114191173517312

God I am so tired of this. Noelle Stevenson probably doesn’t even know if there’s any merit whatsoever to these allegations, so despite the fact that they were literally delivered in a package with allegations she *could* dismiss, she has to operate on the assumption SOMEHOW >

> that this one accusation actually led to people getting offended who aren’t offended bc they were told inaccurate things or whipped up into a rage, like happens ALL THE TIME and happened with the other arguments

And if she doesn’t her career is DONE

and she HAS to disclaim any aid from her fans, because if she doesn’t, she’ll be held responsible for anything they do

This is a perfect chan op. Another marginalized creator destroyed. Not one I care for this time but they will come for each and every one of you, including PoC

This is EXACTLY like a new G*mergate, a Zoepost. If you believe for a second the outrage is organic you’re being taken in

Remember, AT THE SAME TIME by the SAME PEOPLE the following was claimed:
- the Sow pun was HORRIBLY RACIST and about slavery
- saying “dyke” was offensive when you’re a lesbian and talking about your own podcast
- someone said a character was a pedophile [they didn’t]

- the team said that neurodivergent characters who did bad things were good representation[they didn’t,they quoted a fan,but that would have been fine to say]

But we’re expected to treat the ONE PART OF THIS that we can’t dismiss without being Black as DEFINITELY deadly serious?

Remember, these trolls are IN our communities. Some of them are probably visible posters. They plan ops on Chans and troll boards while maintaining identities in our communities. They know our rules. They crafted five arguments, threw them out, one stuck

And if even one of you tries to claim it’s a “conspiracy theory” to say ch*ns run ops I swear to god

Anyway this argument stuck because the creative team is predominately white (which in in fact something they could call out and be completely fair by doing, but they knew wouldn’t be as easy to twist) so no one could offer a contrasting perspective and stay in their lane

I want to be very clear that I’m not saying Black fans are doing something to Noelle Stevenson

I’m saying trolls are doing something to all of us, including Black fans, and that Stevenson doing the“right thing”by apologizing and telling people to back off is still a win for them

Her doing the “wrong thing” was basically a win too

But it was a no-win from the moment they made a claim (as part of *several other spurious claims the creative team did have the lived experience to deny*) that required lived experience no one on the team had.

Does that mean they should have Black people on creative teams? I mean, yes, with or without this situation

Does it mean I am willing to give an inch of legitimacy to something that came up in the context it did? No, and again, I AM NOT A FCKING FAN OF SHE-RA OR STEVENSON

If people were ONLY offended about the pun about Bow’s brother, if that had been the only issue raised, or even if it had been raised separately from the other issues related to the stream, the situation would be different

It’s not, though. This was a bundle of smears.

Let me put this as sympathetically as possible for anyone who is actually listening to this. You can dismiss it because I'm white and old, but I am trying to say that unlike the people responsible for this, *I am on your side*.

I care about racial justice. You care about racial justice. Noelle Stevenson cares about racial justice. It's entirely possible that you fck up way less than either of us, that both of us have done something hurtful. I am not talking about whether anything was hurtful.i

I am talking about the objective, well documented fact that there are unsafe people in the communities where these allegations come from. I've seen the discourse about being concerned with groomers etc, so I know this is a thing Very Online Zoomers are also concerned about

These people are not (in this case) grooming people sexually but they are manipulating the community that is directing this anger at Stevenson, and I, as someone who could happily live without ever consuming another Noelle Stevenson thing, am saying you shouldn't help them.

Because *they don't care about racial justice*. That's why they didn't argue the points about Double Trouble or the dyke podcast or Entrapdak after it became clear they weren't going to stick. *They want to abuse you psychologically and make you angry*

This is how generations of male nerds were turned into Nazis. This is how a generation of social justice activists will be traumatized into jumping at shadows.

I don't care about She-Ra or Stevenson but everyone should care about this whether they do or not

It would be *trivial* for me to create at least a relatively popular account impersonating a social justice activist Zoomer. It would be deeply wrong to do so, but that's the point: these bad actors don't care. They have their forums, which are dangerous to visit but you can.

And they sit on those forums and they look for ways to fck with you. They have learned generation Z pop culture fan social justice lingo like a programming language and they are writing malware to hijack your culture

For, as they say, the lulz

Take this fcking seriously.

I want to go back to the core of why this specific argument worked, and this is true whether or not the joke was offensive: because we have developed a code of conduct, for good reason, that if a Black person says something is racist, non-Black people accept that this is true

I follow this rule in 99% of situations. Again, I try to stay in my lane. But this situation maps so closely, in my professional experience, which is extensive, related to online harassment, to what someone would do if they wanted to exploit our desire for justice.

Again, the best way to neutralize this argument would have been to have a Black person on the She-Ra team. That should happen more with more of these properties. With the group as it was though, they could deflect every other argument as obvious bullsht.

Four arguments. Three tailored to identities belonging to people in the chat, who were in their lane and convincingly pointed out the argument was bad

What are the chances the fourth was really a valid point? And in any case, that it was brought up for good reason?

From what I've been told Stevenson is still being trashed on Twitter and Tumblr, despite her apology. This will damage her and it did not emerge organically from a Black fan hearing the joke and getting offended. It was a package of reasons the She-Ra team was terrible.

And yes, I blocked a former friend for telling me not to speak out on this, because I'm not going to put "following the rules" of the topics I'm allowed to speak on ahead of alerting people when my professional expertise tells me there is malice and danger.

https://twitter.com/BootlegGirl/status/1300227155356536840?s=19

&again, I'm not "defending my faves" nor am I "disobeying" Stevenson's request that fans not try to "defend her". Both bc I'm not defending her, but rather pointing out demonstrable patterns of online harassment and urging common sense, and bc I am not a fan and she's not my fave

Noelle Stevenson's wife has had my blocked on here for at least a year if not longer, for no reason I'm aware of (we've never interacted.) I'm not friends with Stevenson, I enjoy her show to an extremely limited extent.

I didn't adore or agree with Zoe Quinn, either.