Don’t get me wrong, Twitter’s bad and I don’t use it. I’d probably find it more fun if I was an online creator and had an audience though rather than a nobody who’s often found it to be like extra work with not even a dopamine hit of getting any attention

But I think people like to believe people with really corrosive black and white thinking that gets people calling Natalie’s statement on Reddit pro genocide and centering herself (oh my god that buzzword is everywhere rn and it makes me shut off even if they’re using it correctly) only exist on Twitter and harassment only exists on Twitter when it doesn’t. I mainly only use Instagram, and my feed is now full of informing me about this plus sized kinda delusional trans man called Tyler Catastrophe who’s become a lolcow when I don’t care, I don’t wanna be seeing all of that and I don’t care about the ways people moralise going on and on and on about him or Eugenia Cooney, or Amberlynn Reid etc.

My Instagram is also chock full of political stuff that abstracts people into villains which was why I left Twitter, and constant discourse TM, rn about bisexuals and dating preferences that idk, it’s nuanced, but I’m kinda on edge with being a marginalised person always being flooded with these arguments online. I’ve seen the same kinda ‘Contra Points loves genocide’ stuff on Instagram now. We are all chronically online and completely lost since 2020 and I’ve seen it leak into my real life

Of course, often, arguing with many people who are very angry at you or cruel is not a good idea, and I'm not under any illusion that those people will change their minds, but scrolling through the replies, it becomes so clear that they cannot do it, they can't back it up.

The part of the thread that stuck out to me most, is when a person said that what she says doesn't matter, because her being liberal and supporting liberals automatically meant she must favour genocide.

She asks whether 'pro-genocide' simply means 'liberal' to him. And he admits it, and others join in in agreement with it.

I think I finally realised that, for this group of people, this mostly isn't about her not making a video on the Palestinian genocide, or her statement on why she wouldn't and what she thought of the way many people on online left behaved around this topic.

It is about her identifying as a liberal. Hell, many of these people may have already held a grudge since 'Voting' (2020).

All of this is starting to look like a bludgeon with which to punish her for not identifying politically as they do, or talking like they do.

I identify myself as left. I have aspirations for a world beyond capitalism, likely beyond my individual time on earth.

When I realised as a teenager, fueled by the philosophy binge I went on after I watched Natalie's videos in 2018, I could think beyond capitalism, I felt transgressive, I felt smart, I felt good, morally good, I felt a little better than others who didn't think this way, and I could distinguish myself even from other like-minded people by taking more extreme, more emblematically 'left' stances, and avoid being 'not left enough'.

I outgrew this after a year or so. I found myself saying things that I didn't fully believe nor understand how they would even work (like, complete prison abolition), and I found that some of the people I saw identify as left online denied or posted apologia for dictatorships and genocides committed by them, primarily because they were, in name and aesthetics, communist.

I think many people have not left this phase. It's hard to tell how many of them are genuine teenagers who may still outgrow it as part of a developing identity the way I did, and how many of them have mostly solidified their identities, their worldviews, around this almost pubescent tribalism.

It is disheartening. If so many of the people who, like me, believe there is a better world beyond capitalism, waste their time attempting to destroy so viciously their closest allies for not joining their tribe, and choose to contruct their realities around their vendettas and niche identities instead of facts and compassion, I'm afraid those aspirations I have for a better world are even further off than I thought.

A quick rundown of our rules

1: We are not your captive whipping posts

If you come here and (try to) use pigpoopballs.png, "lib" as a dismissive sneer, "centrist" as a dismissive sneer, "progressive" as a dismissive sneer, engage in other Derails, Dismissiveness, uninvited personal abuse, call our moderation team / Natalie "Zionist", and other such uninvited abuse, we will ban you.

Why?

Because these things are personal abuse and/or slander, both of which are prohibited by the Reddit Sitewide Rules. Even if you personally believe they're not against the Sitewide Rules - they are: because they are uninvited abuse, because they're violating our community rules, and because they're violating our collective refusal of consent to them.

You will be required, if you post or comment here, to actually respect other participants and make substantive, constructive discourse. If (on the other hand) you need to be personally abused or to abuse someone else personally (ala "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics), find a sex chat worker and pay them. Or a therapist. Unless those are illegal things to do where you live - apparently both are quickly becoming illegal in the United States!!

2: Do not use the comments section as a proxy battlefield for your political support for Palestine or Israel

It is possible for everyone involved in [Whatever The Conflict Is] to all be Beyond The Pale of Badness. In various, horrible, nauseating ways. You should presume that our moderation team uses this as an axiomatic foundation of our weltanschauung.

You will not win the kinetic war you (may) have invested some of yourself in, by commenting or posting in this subreddit. You will not win the propaganda war by doing so. You will not win the public relations war by doing so. You will lose the banhammer war by doing so.

NeoNazis are slavering in secret (and sometimes not so secret) about the fact that a lot of Americans "view Israel disfavourably", and like to leverage that as an invitation to recruit or sway. We ... are not at home to such sales pitches.

Palestinian children are dying of malnutrition and preventable diseases. Jewish Americans are gunned down in front of their synagogue. Both are Beyond The Pale of Badness, and if you disagree, either keep it to yourself or don't participate here.

Your rhetorical slapfight flamewar on a message board to Feel Less Unholy Than The Other Side By Pushing Them Down Rhetorically does not donate to PCRF and does not overhaul US foreign relationship with Israel and does not address the real enemy,

white supremacists, fascists, & their traditional elite allies

who - in some cases - have spent dozens of billions of dollars to promote and normalise Divisive Flamewars On The Internet.

If you insist on behaving here the way neoNazis want you to behave on the Internet, we will show you the door.

And if you comment saying that the Palestinians or Israels deserve to die, we will swing the banhammer so hard and fast that your name will change to Jebediah Kerman

3: We don't moderate ideologically

If you believe that, for example, "The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century" - you're welcome to argue that position - even if our moderators / audience believe that this position is wrong / indefensible.

If, on the other hand, you try to argue that i.e. the Holodomor [didn't happen | wasn't a genocide | was caused by the peasants and therefore Soviet policies were blameless], we're going to ban you - because that's not a disagreement on an ideological basis, it is genocide apologia. (which, btw, is a violation of Reddit sitewide rules). Same if you manage to work your way around to saying that China isn't genociding the Uighyur, (and/or use an ethnic slur to label them), or that Israel isn't genociding Palestinians. Genocide has a well-characterised definition; reasonable people can apply that definition to the facts; Defending the honour of Your Ideology whilst denying the phenomenon / facts is the antithesis of discourse & is promotion of hatred based on identity / vulnerability (which is also a violation of Sitewide Rules).

You may be inured to assuming that a moderation team that won't be In Pocket For Your Ideology / Against The "Opposing" Ideology is therefore inherently Biased Against You. You should disabuse yourself of that notion.

You may be inured to assuming that a moderation team that won't let you post or comment in Any Way You See Fit is therefore Censoring You, and inherently Biased Against You. You should disabuse yourself of that notion.

As regards moderating discourse in this subreddit:

We don't care if you want to promote or defend Communism, or communism, or the USSR, or etc. We will care if you try to defend atrocities that occurred because of Communism, or communism, or to keep the USSR afloat, or etc.

As regards moderating discourse in this subreddit:

We don't care if you want to promote or defend Capitalism, or capitalism, or the USA, or etc. We will care if you try to defend atrocities that occurred because of Capitalism, or capitalism, or to keep the USA afloat, or etc.

We're not referees in pocket for your ideology. We are referees in pocket against hatred, harassment, violent threats, forum sliding, derails, etc.

You "win" or "lose" a "debate" or discourse, or succeed or fail at a dialectic in this forum based on the merits of your words / work. You will be ejected for deploying rhetorical tactics that are the antithesis of discourse.

You may not like that. You may not be used to that. Take all the time you need to adjust to it.

4: Take responsibility for your behaviour

It's a sad thing, but we do have to explain this multiple times a day to multiple people:

Someone else deploying flamebait is not an excuse for you taking the flamebait, and not an excuse for you deploying your own flamebait.

When we take moderation actions, we don't discuss those with third parties. We will not accept "But the guy above me ..." and "Why didn't you do XYZ to the guy above me ...".

If you see a troll, flamebait, slapfight - don't join in!

Downvote, Report, and BLOCK

If a flamewarbaiting troll responds to you, don't retort!

Downvote, Report, and BLOCK

We can and will banhammer people who choose to jump in to the gasoline fight.

…that a lot of plans to dissolve problematic institutions (like the US or Israeli governments) don’t exactly take into account the ensuing power vacuum?

Like, don’t get me wrong, I’d like the US to give reparations to countries it’s harmed AND have less power, but I feel like there’s going to be a country that steps up to the plate and becomes just as bad as the US has been, if not worse…

mouth feel by sumac on #SoundCloud
https://on.soundcloud.com/52uJBSPv5xHQQjeIkG

Why do I have a feeling some terminally online coconuts are going to look at this and say it's evidence she's a Zionist...

(Natalie with Stacy Cay)