[Trigger Warning: Racism] I Am Perplexed

Last night I'm reading an article on Salon - which is something that I rarely do because they tend to push their advertisements a bit aggressively for my tastes and their script keeps messing up on my version of Firefox - when I came across the article titled, When “harshtags” backfire: Mocking #whitegirltears and joking #killallwhitemen stir up more university debate. In the article there is this suggestion that there is a legitimate debate about who can be labeled "racist" which I find disturbing to see coming up again.

See, back when I was in college I had a very intelligent young man try to argue that only white people could be racist because white people had the power in the United States. For him the term was a subjective one that relied on power structures. For example, if a Chinese man living in China hates a white man because of his race he would then be a racist because in that situation his race has all the power in that society. However, if that same Chinese man were to move to the United States he would no longer be a racist because in the United States the white man's race has power in that society. That the Chinese man hates another person because of their race is secondary to the power of his own race within the context of society. 

I pointed out that this argument struck me as disingenuous and as a way to excuse racism. The Chinese man in the above example is just as much a racist in New York as he is in Beijing. Making allowances for his terrible behavior because of his location and the society he currently occupies is wrong in every way. If you hate someone because of their race you're in the wrong and you're being a racist jerk. He had trouble with that argument because his mind was so wrapped up in the idea that power structures mattered more than anything else in the world. For him every relationship was bound up in who had the power and who was disenfranchised as a result. All his views were constantly shifting standards that would change based on what relationships you entered and your standing within those relationships. The argument was soon put aside, however, as other more pressing issues arose that occupied everyone's debates (read: 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan). 

Anyway, here that argument is again and after being away from it for so many years it's shocking to me. I am completely perplexed that people would actually believe that they're not racists because they happen to be a minority in a society even though they fully participate in racist actions. Look, if you hate someone because of their race, regardless of your own race and its standing in your society, you are a racist. You're not exempt because of your own race's societal power, nor are you a reverse racist (which is the dumbest term to ever be coined). You're just a racist and that makes you a shitty person.

Enough talk, Riker beard of space awesomeness.

Okay, that enough of this serious talk. More silly imaginary dwarf games shortly.

WTF is a Mary Sue / Gary Stu / Marty Stu [[Updated]]

A Mary Sue (for female characters) or Gary Stu / Marty Stu (for male characters) is a character who effectively stands in for the author and acts as a form of wish fulfillment. This type of character is most often inserted into amateur fiction that takes place within an established narrative. For example, "Emily was a new student at Hogwarts. She was intimidated by all of the young wizards and witches around her; but when she saw Prof. Snape her heart skipped a beat . . .". While there is nothing inherently wrong in wish fulfillment fantasies, in published literary works it is often seen as a hallmark of an amateur.  

[Edit 5/7/2015 10:55 AM EST] +A. Miles Davis brought up a good point and I would like to add it to the definition.

The issue with a Mary Sue character isn't the part where you're putting yourself into the story. It's the part where you're better than everyone at everything within that story without an actual reason to be; that all attention focuses on that character to the exclusion of proven experts; and there is a false pretense of modesty about it.

Batman, for example, doesn't fall under this trope due to the actual training he puts himself through to become an expert in his field of Batmaning.  There are things he cannot do, he has limits (and sometimes will admit so), and doesn't prance about "accidentally" solving crimes.

Bella Swan, as a counterexample, is a useless lump of nothing that everyone inexplicably wants and is treated as this perfect thing, to the point where she has a vampire-jesus-baby.

[Edit 5/7/2015 12:56 PM EST] +Dan Head had some additional thoughts on the subject of the Mary Sue that I felt should be included:

1. Every author puts themselves into every story. So does every reader. This is why writing is inherently personal, and also why two readers take different messages from the same works. The idea that "only" amateur authors put their own hopes/dreams/fears into their work is totally at odds with reality.

2. The issue with a Mary Sue (I hate that term) is that it's a viewpoint character around which the whole plot revolves for no good reason. An excellent example is in the current season of Agents of SHIELD. Skye is our viewpoint character. Like her or not, this is okay. What's problematic is when OTHER CHARACTERS' arcs revolve around their unaccountable fixation with the audience surrogate, Skye. Specifically, Fitz & Simmons have had an interesting relationship dynamic independent of Skye. But sometimes the writers fall into the trap of having them obsess about their relationship with Skye in context of their relationship with each other, and it's just bad writing. It's putting the AUDIENCE SURROGATE (not the writer's surrogate) into the center of every plot point, especially when it's transparently because the work itself is escapist. So the audience surrogate HAS to be there, or else the audience isn't escaping.

3. Writers write. Those who can't spend time calling stuff a "Mary Sue". Writing is hard. It's also imperfect. This is not news.

WTF is Sealioning

The term Sealioning, or Sea-Lioning, originates with the Wondermark web comic in issue #1,062, The Terrible Sea Lion. In the comic a Victorian couple are riding in a steam powered car when one of them remarks, "I don't mind most marine mammals. But Sea Lions? I could do without sea lions." This comment then brings on the terrible sea lion who barrages the couple with overly polite questions demanding proof to substantiate the stated opinion. These questions seemingly occur throughout the day without regard for the couple's privacy or unwillingness to further discuss the matter. The term would soon find itself being used more commonly in the wider internet community as a shorthand for dealing with people who are intentionally trying to subvert an individual's statements by asking polite, yet persistent questions. 

Where the original term appears to have been designed to denote individuals who are expressly arguing in bad faith and using their questioning as a way to deflate and defeat their target it has since become a way to undermine anyone who questions an unsubstantiated statement that's been expressed publicly (for example, "John Q. is a bigot"). The logic behind this change is difficult to fully express but a lot of the reasoning was described by James Murff in his article, Why Sealioning is Bad.

". . . The biggest reason why people hate sealioning is because responding to it is a complete waste of time . . .  [T]hese questions are not asked because the person genuinely wants to know. If they did, they would do their own digging based on your statements, and only ask for obscure or difficult-to-discover information. This is the 'debate principle'; when you go to a debate, you educate yourself on the topics at hand, and only request evidence when a claim is either quite outlandish or unflinchingly obscure . . ." (Why Sealioning is Bad)

The problem is that this line of reasoning presupposes that the person asking the questions is doing so in bad faith while the person making the statements is not. That isn't always the case. Let's look at our earlier example, "John Q. is a bigot." If John is actually a bigot then there should be some proof. Asking for it is a reasonable act as the accusation is unsubstantiated at this point. Now the author making the argument can claim that the person asking the questions is 'sealioning' as they haven't done their research. After all, it isn't the author's responsibility to educate you when you go entering into a debate. 
Only you're not entering into a debate but rather you're actively asking a for proof of an unsubstantiated statement. It's a tricky situation and as sealioning actually happens and part of it is expressly designed to bury an individual under a sea of questions to drain their energy and prevent them from defending their statements. Yet as it continues to become a more main stream term it's being used more often by bad actors attempting to stifle debate around their unsubstantiated statements.

Telling the difference between actual sealioning and not is difficult for observers but not impossible.

". . . When the target is continually asked questions - especially the same question under a different phrasing, which is very common when sealioning - it's rattling. They have to fight the natural instinct to respond in good faith to neutrally-phrased questions, as answering them will only bring more. It's a forced violation of the empathy that a compassionate person feels towards others, as it pushes them into noticing that their questioners are not particularly interested in the questions themselves . . . Compound this with being sealioned but multiple people, as is common on Twitter, and you've got a recipe for a very frustrating and fruitless timeline. If you respond, you are bombarded with even more questions by people who aren't asking to actually be convinced. If you do not respond, you are insulted as somebody who doesn't wish to participate in reasoned discourse, despite the clear and simple fact that such a discourse is not reasonable; it merely has the appearance of rationality . . ." (Why Sealioning is Bad)

Under these conditions it's relatively easy to notice when someone is sealioning; however, even here there is a possibility that what's happening isn't sealioning. It could be that you have made an unsubstantiated statement without actual proof and only substantiated by rumors, hearsay, and innuendo. Under those circumstances you have become the bad actor and the people asking you questions are acting reasonably. 

While the term was created with good intentions, as a way to deal directly with people who are attempting to undercut and devalue your statements, in recent weeks it has become the favorite tool of bad actors attempting to stifle debate and force their unsubstantiated comments to be taken as fact.

Works Cited

Maliki, David. The Terrible Sea Lion. 2014. Wondermark. Web. 4/10/2015

Murff, James. Why Sealioning is Bad. 2014. Simplikation. Web. 4/10/2015

WTF is CHORF

CHORF is an acronym coined by Brad R. Torgersen to describe the worst sort of fans. The term actually stands for Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary, Fanatics. Unlike terms such as SMOF there is no good side to being labeled with this term. 

A person who is a CHORF is specifically trying to prevent others from enjoying the topic that they profess to enjoy. Their group of friends and accepted acquaintances/allies are the only true fans. They often administer 'tests' that are designed to force someone to prove that they're a real fan (think of the kid who confronts you at a comic convention demanding that you answer them when they ask, "What happened in issue 12 of Green Lantern, volume 1, page 7, panel 4?"). They express a superiority over others for their self-perceived superior knowledge on the subject. When confronted by any change or imagined threat to their favorite subject they react with volatility (think of the kids who drop rape and death threats because you suggested that maybe a comic book cover shouldn't pose the women in sexually suggestive ways when it's specifically targeted at little girls). 

A CHORF is a complete jerk and is unwelcome anywhere they go.

WTF is SMOF?

Recently I've been seeing the term SMOF show up in my feed quite a bit. The acronym was a new one for me so I started researching it to try and understand. After looking into it, it became clear that SMOF stood for Secret Masters of Fandom. 

From what I've been able to ascertain it was coined by Jack L. Chalker, the author of the Well-World novels (which are actually a really good read). This version of the word describes a tongue and cheek conspiracy theory about a secret cabal of science fiction fans who, through their own nefarious means, change the popular tastes and ideas about what constitutes the best in the genre. This appears to have mostly faded into the history of the word. Now it appears that SMOF is often used as a joking way to describe the people who run conventions for nerdy things. When used in this sense it isn't really a pejorative but more of a friendly needling; however, the term has another meaning that is far less kind. In this sense the term is used to describe the sort of boorish, snobbery that tends to characterize those gate keeping schmucks who are constantly delineating who is, and isn't a fan; what constitutes a true fan; and what constitutes the "right-good-fun" as opposed to the "bad-wrong-fun".

The last definition of this word has caused some consternation so recently a new term has been coined by Brad R Torgersen, CHORF, which is being used to separate these jerks from the word.

WTF is DARVO?

This weekend I was mostly reading a conversation online when a term that I had never heard before appeared: DARVO. The term is actually an acronym which stands for Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender. It was coined by Jennifer J. Freyd in her essay, Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory, which is specifically dealing with sexual abuse. The term came about as she was attempting to grapple with the actions of sexual predators when confronted with accusations of their abuse. As she explains it:

". . . I have recently begun to think about a way to conceptualize the events that occur when a victim or a concerned observer openly confronts and abuser about his or her behavior after a long period of silence in which the abuser could abuse without facing consequences. My proposal, currently very speculative, is that a frequent reaction of an abuser to being held accountable is the ‘DARVO’ response. ‘DARVO’ stands for ‘Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender.’ It is important to distinguish types of denial, for an innocent person will probably deny a false accusation. Thus denial is not evidence of guilt. However, I propose that a certain kind of indignant self-righteous, and overly stated, denial may in fact relate to guilt. I hypothesize that if an accusation is true, and the accused person is abusive, the denial is more indignant, self-righteous and manipulative, as compared with denial in other cases. Similarly, I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior. This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of law suits, overt and covert attacks on the whistle-blower’s credibility, and so on. The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. The attack will also likely focus on ad hominem or ad feminam instead of intellectual/evidential issues. Finally, I propose that the offender rapidly creates the impression that he abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. The more the offender is held accountable, the more wronged the offender claims to be. The offender accuses those who hold him accountable of perpetrating acts of defamation, false accusations, smearing, ect. The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense. ‘Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender’ work best together . . ." (29 – 30).

Freyd notes in the above quotation that innocent people will deny a false accusation but that someone who is acting along the lines of a DARVO defense will do so in 'a certain kind of indignant self-righteous, and overly stated, denial.' It won't simply be a case of someone denying an accusation but it will be this substantively different form of avoiding accountability for the act. She details a good example of this sort of behavior shortly after when she wrote:

". . . I have observed that one particularly useful strategy for avoiding accountability that appears in the cases of accusations of sexual abuse and assault uses logic like this: ‘I am innocent until proven guilty. You cannot prove I am guilty. Therefore I am technically innocent. Therefore I am actually innocent.’ . . . The offender takes advantage of the confusion we have in our culture over the relationship between public provability and reality . . . in redefining reality . . .” (30)

When confined to its original meaning the DARVO response makes a lot of sense; however, it has moved beyond its original meaning and has begun to be used to describe the actions of anyone that you don't like who denies an accusation.  For example, let's say that you're accused of being a bigot in public through the use of online social media. You're innocent of the accusation but when you demand proof your accusers begin to claim that you're committing a DARVO defense. You haven't engaged in ad hominem or ad feminam attack but rather have focused on asking for evidential proof - something that is completely reasonable under the circumstances and which is the opposite of what a DARVO defense would do - and yet your very asking is being taken as an attempt to use the DARVO defense. When DARVO is manipulated in this fashion it becomes an effective tool against an innocent individual by invalidating everything they attempt to do and say in their defense. It effectively silences them.

Works Cited:

Freyd, Jennifer J. “Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory.” Feminism and Psychology. Volume 7. 1997. Print  pg. 29 - 30

Abandoned Blogs

Working on the Great Blog Roll Call this year has lead me to change a definition on the list in a big way. Previously I had always determined that a blog was considered abandoned after it had been left without an update for two full years (730 days). I think that's too long to keep a blog in my active list for reading or for the active list of blogs that update regularly (or even semi-regularly). So I'm moving any blog that hasn't updated in the last 365 days into the abandoned blog list. I'm not sure how much of a negative impact this will have on the overall list, but I would rather have the list be something that people can use effectively than have it filled with a hundred or so blogs that the authors don't even cares about enough to update on a regular basis. 

Once a blog has been moved onto this list it will be out of contention for the Weekly Best Reads column, the Monthly Best Reads column, or the Yearly Best Reads Column. It will be checked once for the following year's Great Blog Roll Call and if it has not been updated it will not be checked again until the following year.