Thread by @JoohnChoe

I think a common mistake people make in online confrontations is the idea that it’s a single event. You win, it’s over.

It’s not. Consider #ParmesanGirl:

Our ridicule will follow her and limit her career. She’ll always be a D-list loser.

That’s a relationship, not an event.

Parm is never going to be on Fox News; I doubt OAN would take her. I'm sure she'll make some dinky podcasts, which will mostly discredit them.

Nothing on the left is going to have her on; everyone from MSNBC to Democracy Now! knows what she is.

NAFO is a ceiling on her career.

Going one by one and dominating & bullying known liars like Maram Susli is not scalable practice, there's too many goddamn liars.

Instead, I think it's going to be much more developing these adverse relationships, and starting to tell stories more about NAFO than its targets.

It dawned on me, thinking about what Joy-Gray is doing by cherry-picking (or false-flagging) racist comments to play the victim against NAFO:

We can do that back with real racists in her replies, but more importantly... NAFO is still better at earning media than she is :)

Look, I'll make it real simple here.

This is not the usual situation you troll in, as a movement participant. The situations are reversed now.

BJG is literally a nobody outside Twitter.

We are somebody.

Act like it, is what I'm saying :)

Think of it as The Show.

I've heard a few people speak of this, mostly American political strategists and a few media folks.

The Show is the national conversation; it's what we talk about and pay attention to.

Sometimes, The Show is elections, or war; sometimes, it's people.

If you can make The Show about you, even for a day, even just a tiny part of it, it can make or break your career.

Lavern Spicer is a great example of this: for one day, because she said something so titanically stupid ("There Are No Pronouns In The Bible"), she WAS The Show.

An entire field of professionals competes to be on The Show.

It's like my media person (I have a media person!) told me once, talking about an FBI agent I admire; I told them, straight-facedly, "oh they're legit, they're on, like CNN all the time"

They said, "you know why?"

"No one's on CNN unless they need money - it's exposure for their careers, more sales for their books, it's a higher profile on their academic CV... but that's why they go on CNN."

This was in the context of getting people sanctioned; going on CNN doesn't help the way you think.

NAFO's role of fundraising for the war in Ukraine and fighting disinfo makes it both a natural fit for The Show, and also puts us in an interesting position relative to other people who want to be in The Show.

Again, Joy Gray is the classic example of this.

I see a lot of people treating this as being about Joy Gray. To an extent, it is; that's the nature of fact-checking and calling people on their bullshit.

But it's more about The Show. And winning here is more about having NAFO be The Show than keeping Briahna Joy Gray off of it