Watched Contra's new video in full. Not up to full Discourse or any kind of fully-thought out condemnation or exaltation of the video but it made me take stock of and reassess what I've been through online and how it feels to always function under a microscope.
I don’t tweet about it but on top of people saying that I concocted my own harassment, the repeated nasty/transphobic rumor that I'm an AMAB trans woman, and various intrusions into my private life, along with of course various death/rape threats, online stalkers, whatever,
I'm also considered personally responsible for all of the actions of every person I've even vaguely associated with, and often these messages are just as angry/hostile in tone as the ones from anti-SJW lunatics telling me to kill myself
There's a popular podcast I've never been on or worked with and every time a particular member of it says anything upsetting I for some reason get a bunch of furious messages about how disgusting my "friend" is and how I need to disavow this person(??????)
Sometimes I'll get angry, pseudo-threatening messages about something someone I know did months or years ago, typically exaggerating or distorting or outright fabricating the situation
Sometimes these are about close friends of mine who I work with. Most of the time they are either twitter friends or acquaintances I have barely interacted with but are still for some reason my responsibility
I have found a lot of what Natalie has said on twitter/in her work to be hurtful and hurtful in a way that was hard to not take personally and I would not have made many of the decisions she made.
I think any of that has been self-evident just from how I carry myself on here or in my own work even though I didn't want, especially at the time, to contribute to the onslaught of harassment she faced, or get into the LeftTube drama drain-circling parasitic destruction squad
Because while criticism is essential, and it’s good to point out hurtful rhetoric, and I’m not going to lie about my feelings, I do wish there was less pressure to either put someone on a pedestal or to eviscerate them! there are other options!!!!!!
I have also seen multiple times “Shannon Strucci is friends with X, this means they must be a good person, Shannon wouldn’t be friends with shitty people!” and that makes my blood run cold lmao. That’s fucking terrifying. Why would you do that esp with "parasocial hell person"
A couple years ago I found out one online friend was a sex pest and that another was a pedophile within like a week and immediately cut contact with both of them. But it was pretty out of left field for both (esp the latter). I’m not a fucking moral arbiter! And I’m not psychic!
I do think the video is worth watching. I don’t agree with all of it and didn’t expect to. But it made me reflect on how I have repressed or tried to downplay my own harassment or fear of being a “burden” because of mistakes or just how difficult life under a microscope is.
I’d never work with Buck Angel lol and had the same exasperated reaction to his inclusion that a lot of people did, but I have (ON A MUCH SMALLER SCALE!!!) faced a lot of the same pressure to disavow and discredit that Natalie then everyone who ever interacted with her faced,
and I do feel like that pressure, especially with each additional degree of separation you get from the person who actually did something shitty, becomes more about control than about any positive change or deplatforming of bigots
When Max Landis was outed as a rapist I got gleeful spite-filled messages asking what I’d do when RLM had him on again. 1) what the fuck 2) they never did 3) WHAT does that have to do with me, especially as an SA survivor who has never had anything to do with their videos???
and as a frequent target of both “proximity to Shannon is a sign of good character! :)” and “SHANNON WHEN WILL YOU ATONE FOR THE SINS OF THIS LIST OF PEOPLE I HAVE HERE THAT MAYBE YOU ARE FRIENDS WITH PLEASE RESPOND!” it hit me
Because I see myself as strong and as able to handle weirdos. And when Natalie was reading off all the tweets calling her a monster and telling people to disavow her, my first reaction was “That’s not that bad. I see stuff like that about my friends or me all the time. Come on”.
And then I realized that the fact that I see that as expected or normal is more of an indictment of how far gone I am in five years of YouTube and me/people I care about being scrutinized or screamed at or called a monster constantly than of her being sensitive or something lmao
Someone once tried to get me to be friends with June and I (politely) laughed at them and said something to the effect of June is a dumbass I openly make fun of and that I’d never want to be friends/associated with- again I agree with some of Natalie’s decisions but not others
But I’ve been friends with, sometimes close friends with!, people, and have in the past myself been a person, who made unkind jokes or said hurtful things. I just “evolved” faster and have been open about being a former edgelord so no skeletons to gleefully dig up lol
And it’s not visible because I hide it, but I’ve faced a ton of scrutiny and obsessive stalky harassment and career repercussions because of who I associate with, regardless of the actual character of these people or how many actual! abusers! I did cut ties with
Generally my biggest criticism of Natalie is defense of people like June or Angel or others without a stronger condemnation of some of what they’ve done. But the language of online is always a forced “spirited tireless defense” or “complete disavowal and destruction"
My perception is nobody wants to just be like “Ah yeah that one thing was super shitty, it was fucked and stupid. I don’t like that. I think that was bad. But x things are important and helpful to me and I think overall y is still valuable."
And that’s more of how I function and in a way I’ve always felt like a weird outlier for it. I’ll immediately cut contact with bigots and abusers, but nobody gets to tell me what youtube channels or podcasts I can watch/listen to. Jesus. Stop.
I won’t ask anyone to agree with Natalie/support her work, your prerogative to do neither, but even though I took issue with parts of it her new video did give me a forced realization of internet trauma I just try to repress/ignore just as everyone with a platform is expected to
And I think it’s worth watching and giving consideration to her perspective, and I don’t have to 100% stan her or be her bff or whatever to have found it impactful. And the fact that I didn’t want to post this thread first out of fear made me know I should probably post it lol
Even if I’ve disagreed with how Natalie has handled her platform, I do think this kind of honest discussion of trauma is really important and that everyone needs to be mindful of what they’re doing online- and I say this as someone who has strangers screaming at me all the time
There’s a moment in the video where she talks about how what happened was more devastating to her than when she was sexually assaulted- even with my own issues and at time exasperation wrt her work, SURELY this is worth discussing and having empathy and awareness about??
and when disagreement with particulars of someone’s work, even if I share some of the disagreements, becomes a quest to destroy them, then everyone who loves them, then everyone who knows them, then everyone who has listened to their podcast, to maybe take a step back
I think my own paranoid misgivings about having a fanbase have helped insulate me from being hurt by being emotionally rejected by my own fan community (I actively try not to foster one), as has already being a fan of/friends with people a lot of folks hate so I'm used to it lol
I also have never seen anyone talk the way Natalie did about the fear of you/your mistakes hurting people you care about which is something I've freaked out about in a lot of different contexts and have had fears over even as someone who hasn't ever officially been cancelled
