“Hate narratives, conditioned language and networked harassment: A new breed of anti-shipper and anti-fan – antis” by Samantha Aburime (copy request link on Twitter)
Coming back to Tumblr after years and seeing the “izzy critical” tag which stems from this hate campaign used in connection to my queer pirate show kills me inside, actually. Thanks for asking.
angel in space who falls in love with an astronaut floating out in the void, not realizing they’ve been dead for years out there nor comprehending what death even is. is that anything
the angel starts leading them back to earth cuz they think that’s what’ll make them feel better, finally talk back to them, open up. it takes lightyears to get back to earth’s atmosphere and when they do, the angel embraces them as gravity takes hold and pulls them crashing down. they both incinerate into ash and disappear. is that anything
When I’m out with Deaf friends, I
put my hearing aid in my purse. It removes any ability to hear, but
far more importantly, it removes the ambiguity that often haunts me.
In a restaurant, we point to the menu and gesture with the wait
staff. The servers taking the order respond with gestures too. They
pantomime “drinks?” and tell us they learned a bit of signs in
kindergarten. Looking a little embarrassed, they sign “Rain, rain,
go away, come again another day” in the middle of asking our salad
dressing choice. We smile and gently redirect them to the menu. My
friends are pros at this routine and ordering is easy ― delightful
even. The contrast with how it feels to be out with my hearing
husband is stunning.
Once my friends and I have ordered, we sign up a storm, talking
about everything and shy about nothing. What would be the point?
People are staring anyway. Our language is lavish, our faces alive.
My friends discuss the food, but for me, the food is unimportant. I’m
feasting on the smorgasbord of communication ― the luxury of
chatting in a language that I not only understand 100% but that is a
pleasure in and of itself. Taking nothing for granted, I bask in it
all, and everything goes swimmingly.
Until I accidentally say the word “soup” out loud.
Pointing at the menu, I let the word slip out to the server. And
our delightful meal goes straight downhill. Suddenly, the wait
staff’s mouths start flapping; the beautiful, reaching, visual
parts of their brains go dead, as if switched off.
“Whadda payu dictorom danu?” the server’s mouth seems to
say. “Buddica taluca mariney?”
“No, I’m Deaf,” I say. A friend taps the server
and, pointing to her coffee, pantomimes milking a cow. But the damage
is done. The server has moved to stand next to me and, with
laser-focus, looks only at me. Her pen at the ready, her mouth moves
like a fish. With stunning speed, the beauty of the previous
interactions ― the pantomiming, the pointing, the cooperative
taking of our order ― has disappeared. “Duwanaa disser wida
coffee anmik? Or widabeeaw fayuh-mow?”
“Everything was going so well,” he says. “The waiter was
gesturing, it was terrific. And then I just said one word, and pow!!
It’s like a bullet of stupidity shot straight into the waiter’s
head,” he explains by signing a bullet in slow motion, zipping
through the air and hitting the waiter’s forehead. Powwwww.
Hearing people might be shocked by this, but Deaf people laugh
uproariously, cathartically.
“Damn! All I did was say one word!” I say to my friends. “But
why do you do that?” they ask, looking at me with consternation and
pity. “Why don’t you just turn your voice off, for once
and for all?” they say.
Hearing people would probably think I’m the lucky one ―
the success story ― because I can talk. But I agree with my
friends.
And please don’t feel at any point in your life that you have to announce yourself until you’re ready because when you’re ready, you’re fucking ready, and i’m ready and i’m blessed and i love you all. And thank you for being a part of my community.
This all happened a long time ago, and my memory is imperfect, but here’s my memory: The cock monologue certainly hurt my feelings! But when people are trying to force someone out of a virtual space, they sometimes resort to behavior that is similar to bullying except it’s not completely identical to bullying because the person they’re making fun of has a lot of power. (As someone who got bullied a lot in school, the feeling was similar in 2014 but it wasn’t identical–because I was aware of the fact that I was okay, that what was in danger was certain aspects of my identity/self-value that I treasured but not my entire personhood itself.)
Anyway, it hurt my feelings, and still hurts my feelings when I see it shared (it feels to me like a joke about my sexuality, although I understand other people don’t see it that way; but yeah, you don’t know much about my sexuality and I don’t really want you to but it feels like a joke about that to me, which just bums me out).
But all of that stuff is a side effect of my job and having been successful at it, and I like my job. It is a great job. All jobs have aspects that suck. My job has fewer such aspects than other jobs I’ve had.
So yeah, I did not quit tumblr because of the cock monologue. (I also did not ask tumblr to make reblogs un-editable.) .
I quit tumblr because a few people started to make extremely specific threats. One might, for instance, send me an ask that featured a google streetview screenshot of my home alongside a plan for breaking into it.
I was super scared of these people (or possible person pretending to be a few people?) because they seemed to have a lot of knowledge about me and my family. We lived in a normal middle-class neighborhood in Indianapolis and I felt very exposed and nervous all the time in my real life, and eventually the freaked-out feeling just got too big and that’s why I quit tumblr.
(Edited to add: I am aware that prominent people sometimes use death threats against them to portray themselves as victims and protect themselves against justified criticism for their bigotry or abusive behavior or whatever. I don’t want to do that; it’s important to note that I have a lot of resources and power and so was able to, for instance, move to decrease the threat, which a lot of people can’t do. But I also feel like not talking about the experience honestly has not really helped me or anyone.)
I SHOULD’VE quit tumblr much earlier–I needed to realize that people weren’t comfortable with me in their virtual spaces and that to them I came across as cringey or even creepy, but at the time, I wasn’t nearly self-aware enough to leave for any of those reasons, and plus there was a lot of pressure from movie studios etc to stay on the social Internet so I could continue to promote my books and the stuff around them. So I didn’t quit when I should’ve, and as a result had and caused quite a few negative experiences for people. I’m sorry about the role I had in causing those negative experiences. I should’ve had a better understanding of not just how I experienced myself but also how other people might experience me. That’s something i’ve worked on over the years but still come up short on sometimes.
At any rate, I might delete this later because it makes me feel a bit like all my nerves are exposed to the air but I did just want to clarify that the, like, Tumblr Legend of this whole thing is at minimum a bit over simplified.
