Thread by @twenty20sight

For those who may be/may have been wondering why I confronted that toxic misogynist gamer Homie via quote tweets the other day (y'know, the one who needed proof of male gamers being toxic to women gamers while being toxic to a woman gamer), here's a 🧵.

1/

For one thing, if nobody ever calls out people who bully others, those people never change. What's worse, they go on to influence *other* people who maybe start parroting the behavior. Perhaps children, which is the worst instance.

2/

The first misogynist tweet he made to me, I reported; it came back almost instantaneously as "not in violation" (Twitter's words, not mine). I wanted to give Homie enough shoelaces to trip himself up so that any further reports on him were OBVIOUSLY bad...

3/

...because OBVIOUSLY in a thread where a man is blatantly disregarding a woman's lived experiences by *literally perpetrating the exact behavior referenced in the woman's lived experiences on a different woman (me)* is DEFINITELY NOT "hateful conduct." 🙄

#sarcasm

4/

Additionally, by quote tweeting instead of just responding directly, I hoped some folks who saw what he was doing would *also* report him for hateful misogynist behavior.

5/

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So, I figured if he tripped himself up enough, PERHAPS the reports would actually stick.

Weird, I know, expecting Twitter moderation to get it right. 🙄

Moving on.

6/

Now to the most important part. Do I think my interaction with Homie is likely to have changed him? Nope.

7/

But maybe, just maybe, someone watching saw that I had the spoons that day to stand up to a nasty bully. Maybe someone needed the example that, hey, if Twenty can stand up to a bully, I can do [Thing] that is a hard thing.

8/

OR, perhaps there’s a man who saw that and went, “Wow, that homie really is treating Twenty and other women in a way I don’t agree with.” And maybe that man goes out of his way to say, “STOP” the next time some toxic gamerbro busts out the “make me a sandwich” bullshit.”

9/

Because until we all stand together on how human beings should treat one another in our communities - literally STAND UP TO those who mistreat others in our presence - nothing changes.

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Fannie Lou Hamer said, "nobody's free until everybody's free."

Our communities in general, and gaming in specificity, won't be free of toxicity without people calling the behavior out.

I had the spoons on Monday, so I called it out.

11/

To update y'all, Homie deleted all his tweets; apparently he didn't want a record. In the end, it doesn't matter. Here’s the truth: I didn't let up on calling him out, he only had one comeback, and then he gave up.

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So I guess the lesson is this: when you witness people being awful to one another, and IF you have the spoons, call them out.

"That's not okay."
"Homie, stop that."
“We don’t allow that kind of behavior in our community.”

13/

If you're NOT in possession of enough spoons, do NOT put yourself in a position to become another target for these types of bullies. I would never advocate someone put themselves in a position they're not feeling capable of handling.

14/

Likewise, if you know, believe, and/or are worried that the perpetrator can endanger your life/dox/etc. you/someone else, nope right the fuck out of the situation.

I would also never advocate that a person knowingly put themselves or anyone else in harm's way.

15/

In closing, I’ll just say what I say every day at the end of my broadcasts: take care of yourselves, and each other. This world needs more of that.

Love y’all.

/fin

PS - if you don't know what it means to "have spoons," check out this article:

t20sgaming.com/spoontheory

#spoonie #spoonies #spoontheory

PPS - In case permission is needed by some: y'all should feel free to RT this thread liberally.

@threadreaderapp Unroll please