Another aspect I should have touched on is "guilt by association." And I view that similar to how I view condemning someone for what social media things they've liked or who they follow: if that's ALL you have, it's pretty flimsy unless it is in extreme abundance (like, most of us have/had at least one crappy person as a friend, but most of us haven't been friends with nothing but crappy people), however it can function as supporting evidence for something that has a more concrete foundation.
I have friends with some decidedly dodgy takes. I don't think it's always great to distance yourself from them, if someone is a decent person with a not great grip on epistemology it's no wonder they might see 2+2 and get 5. If we give up on anyone that is even slightly problematic, then they will just get moved over further and further by those that do give them time. I'm also firmly of the opinion that facts are on our side. So just giving people the right tools is often enough to bring people round if they are genuine.
@@KaleighCee Yeah I definitely do that, if someone is not acting in good faith, give facts and then walk away. You are not writing it for them, and it's best if you try to look like the rational one.
The one I immediately think of is Scott The woz who for a while continue to be friends with a very out-there abuser and an unapologetic dude and he was later on that he basically separated himself. But oddly enough is a lot of other RUclipsrs from that area that know him that stuck-up from him so although I do not like him personally, their interactions were positive enough that it seems to be a fluke from the one guy.
I mean just fact check anything before jumping to conclusions; no need to try and be clever with your phrasing btw, you're really not. It's just lame and mediocre
The thing is, even when accountability is extremely necessary, it needs to include the opportunity for nuance, contrition, change, and redemption. If it doesn't include that, it isnt accountability. It's punishment. Those are not equivalent. Also not equivalent - explanations and excuses.
Also not equivalent, saying you're going to apologise and actually apologising. I agree with your points and just to add that accountability can include all those factors within it, including punishment when necessary.
@@Elwaves2925 Agreed! Accountability involves consequences, and some of those may be punitive. I'm just saying real accountability involves more than that
I think sometimes it is really important you don't apologise. I've seen it too often be seen as an admission of guilt, and then those attacking just double down on the attacks. If you believe you have done nothing wrong, don't apologise, read the criticism your getting. Take it on board, DO NOT take it personally. Do your research and if you then believe your position was wrong, or in a lot of cases was lacking nuance or clarity then go back a release a follow up video talking about it. Use it as a learning experience. But know not everyone has the same life experiences and therefore you may not please everyone. See Contrapoints comment on how she found "Pronoun Circles" set off feelings of Gender Dysmorphia, especially as she felt they were only used when she was around. And how sometimes she preferred walking into a bar down South and them just assuming her gender. These where her personal feelings, there was no claim that other people feelings were not also valid. She should not have to apologise for feeling things.
I don't think opportunity for redemption is always necessary. Once again, context. But if someone has a pattern of reprehensible behaviour for the last 20 years, like Harvey Weinstein, I don't believe they deserve an opportunity at redemption.
I saw a small aspect of this conversation pop up on Tumblr when the strikes were first starting to take off online. It was basically "Hey you're probably going to see some hit pieces on union leaders & members. These hit pieces are probably not about accountability, they are most likely attempts to delegitimize the unions and the strikes. Be wary of those types of headlines."
Back in the very late '90s and early 00s, just before the social internet became a thing, we talked a lot about being very skeptical of what you see online and not believing anything unless it was backed up by known, good sources. If recent years have proven anything, it's that we need to go back to having that discussion because far too many people forgot about it or never heard it.
@@PretendingToBeAHuman I think it's because, before social media, the average boomer and even a lot of Gen Xers (my generation) saw the internet as some scary new fad that they didn't understand or take part in. Then, social media gave them a nice walled garden where they felt safe. Soon, the normies outnumbered those of us who were around in the early days and learned all of those saftey procedures and chaos ensued.
I remember I’d look up something on some basic biology, for example what some tea is used for, and my mom would scream at me to not believe everything i believe on the internet. Even with literature that I could later find in the library. Now she believes everything she reads on facebook and i feel like the parent having to repeat to not believe everything written in facebook groups
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 Too many people who would be reasonably wary of something that came from some random stranger on the internet think that what their friends post on FB must be reliable ... completely overlooking the fact that it originally came from some random stranger on the internet.
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 exactly. It's the people that used to lecture is on not believing anything on the internet that fall for EVERYTHING and it's giving me whiplash
Verifying context before jumping to conclusions is so important. There's a horrifying number of people who are happy to maliciously twist things to create a false narrative. I've heard a guy literally brag about taking a video of a very stereotypical looking tough biker guy physically attacking someone, clipping it to remove all the context, and adding text to what remained using "she" instead of "he" to turn it into a video of a "violent trans woman attacking a stranger for assuming the wrong pronouns". In the same conversation he complained about Facebook occasionally deleting his videos and claimed it's because Facebook is part of a "far left conspiracy" and that's why they don't want him "spreading the truth". The mental gymnastics are exhausting.
Context is becoming something of a lost art, just like truth. It still amazes me how many people think context doesn't matter. Never mind individuals doing that type of thing, whole news agencies do it too.
It reminds me of the second live action Scooby Doo movie (that James Gunn was the writer for) when Fred realizes the reporter was trying to get him to say "Coolsville sucks" which, of course, was caught on camera and used exactly as he feared when he blurted it out
I'm not sure Context is becoming a lost art. Sometimes it's obvious that context is very much at the fore of peoples mind, which is why they go so far out of their way to obfuscate it and even dishonestly clip people out of context.
@@TheRodentMastermind It wasn't the best way to say it but that's what I mean, some people are deliberately taking things out of context, misrepresenting it and as you say, obfuscating it because it doesn't fit the narrative they want. When people can fake any context they like and others believe it, context has been lost.
Just needed to add a comment. We, as a mob, tend to be harsher in our criticism towards the more vulnerable. Even among the most liberal groups. My example is with books. Most writers overwhelmenly come from priviledge backgrounds. However, not all of them are treated the same. White successful male writers will often get a "I won't even promote This Guy by critizing his content." Female writers get whole videos, with millions of views, explaining in full detail, why they suck. And I'm only talking about white ppl. Minority writers will get nuked out of existence if they ever dare to make a bad take. Even if the bad take is only a perceived one in the eyes of a reader with poor critical thinking skills.
Once again, I really appreciate your very nuanced and thoughtful approach and analysis of issues like this. Things like accountability or "cancel culture" or whatever you want to call it can easily be manipulated by opportunists. And when it is, it devalues the concept of holding people accountable when it is warranted.
This subject actually reminds me of one of the things Illuminaughtii tried to pull, telling people that another RUclipsr (I'm choosing not to name him, because if you are familiar with the situation you already know who I mean) was using an ableist slur (stars with the letter R). And it was technically true, although he had not done so in years. And when it was brought up, he explained that he had not known it was a slur, and stopped using it when he learned that. Illuminaughtii acts as thought it's impossible for him not to have known that... except that English isn't even the guy's first language. It's one of the most BS things I've ever seen, and I effing HATE the use of that word as a slur. You, as pretty much always, approach this with a level head and a very reasonable perspective. Thank you.
Some quick, minor, notes on a couple of things you mentioned because they fit into a bigger picture because... Some of this feeds into more fundamental stuff. On narrative building - Humans tend to build narratives on instinct. It's why games like The Sims work as well as they do - Humans are able to see random events, brown noise, and the like and if there's some narrative context to it are able to construct a narrative about the inner workings of something that's not being modelled. It's also why it's really hard to talk about evolution because it's very difficult to talk about evolution without accidentally using language that implies there's an intentionality behind it, or that it's a process that works towards an end goal, neither of which are true. On confirmation bias - Another one that humans lean towards, and this might be why humans tend to form narratives on instinct. We are biological pattern-matching machines, as most animals are, because... Well... Mistaking a bunch of rocks for a lion is embarrassing. Mistaking a lion for a bunch of rocks is fatal. That creates an evolutionary pressure within all life with any form of central nervous system to see false positives rather than false negatives. While narrative building can be good in that it allows us to make stories out of random things, confirmation bias is something we have to be aware of in all aspects of life, or else we risk getting taken in by frauds such as Andrew Wakefield.
This reminds me of something Abigail Philosophy Tube said regarding retribution. Specifically, the opposing worldviews of retributivism and consequentialism, and how they can be decieving. Basically, the retributivist would argue "What happened to that guy's career was unfair. They didn't deserve to get cancelled for that." The consequentialist would argue " What happened to that guy's career was wrong. It shouldn't happen to anybody no matter what they do." This could also work in reverse. "If you do this specific thing, you deserve to be fired." "If you fuck up, prepare to face the consequences." If someone is criticizing or praising the cancellation of an individual, or if YOU are doing that (I'll confess, I've done both), think about retributivism vs consequentialism. Does the right think that "cancelling" should never be done on anyone no matter what they do, or do they only disagree with which actions should warrant getting cancelled?
I'm so glad to see someone talk about this! I've been noticing the word accountability being thrown at lots of black women in my digital circles lately and was starting to feel like a substitute for the word punish? I've started getting a bit of a guard up whenever I see it, unfortunately. I want to be accountable, but I don't know if we're all using the word to mean the same thing. Making sure the use of really important words and concepts like accountability stay focused is important. Thanks for bringing this up!
Truth. White men and women have the option to just jump ship to conservatism, so we get treated with kid gloves when we mess up more than black women ever will. Almost has a hostage negotiation feel to it -.-
tbh, I've been in the queer and feminist community for like ten years, I think ? first online and more recently irl? But since the start, I've seen enough weaponized accountability to believe it's a feature of those communities. I've seen it used on friends by their abusers, to isolate them.. And right now, with friends I'm doing damage control for a situation where a trans woman is accused, and it really seems a transmisogynistic case and the accusations are masking political and interpersonal conflicts involving work harassment and conflict between elected state official and lgbt and feminists orgs.
Small correction that I think might enhance your point. The people who targeted Gunn specifically stated they were coming after Gunn in retaliation for the firing of Rosanne Barr over racist tweets
It was actually largely due to his anti-Trump stance and the fact he was active in the MeToo movement and helped a co-worked deal with HR in an accusation. But it was a Far-Right think tank that went after him
Thank you. While, as you say, accountability should be a thing that happens, it can definitely be weaponised. As a recovering alcoholic, I must believe people are capable of change. However, evidence of that change goes a long way to mitigating some instances of dodgy behaviour in the past. A conundrum for sure. Blessings, P
Appreciate your suggestions. As an older person, I struggle to understand many aspects of online culture. Your video was very helpful. Thanks for being you.❤
18:27 Yeah I completely agree with that. There have been so many times I've seen someone give a person shit for supporting a terrible person on Twitter when we don't know if they actually know they're aware of the terrible things that person has done. For example Ryan Reynolds once tweeted something like "I met Denis Leary at an event. He's such a great guy!" and someone responded with something like "How dare you! Don't you know he stole from Bill Hicks?!!!" when it's like...he may not have. It doesn't excuse how Leary treated Hicks but not everyone is aware who Bill Hicks is or that Hicks accused Leary of stealing his act.
How to watch for weaponized accountability is an interesting question. I would answer it differently than you do. The primary things I look for are: 1. Who holds the power? 2. Who benefits the most from the narrative being told? Who loses the most? I'm also less interested in who started it than in who is sustaining it. For example (sorry...) in the Lindsay Ellis situation, there were some marginalized people who brought forward a minor criticism of her, but it wasn't these same people who caused her cancellation. Other people saw that and used it as an opportunity to attack her while blaming "the left" for "eating their own." On the whole, left leaning people were supporting her. It was the "gamergate" types that I saw bashing her. Some of these people seemed to be holding a grudge for a long time and they were all too happy to see her finally get what they believe she deserved. I see this kind of thing happen a lot. Marginalized people (and groups that ostensibly support them, like the "woke mobs" and "the left") are particularly attractive targets to be "held accountable" and to be blamed for "weaponizing accountability."
You touched on this bit but I wanna highlight it: here on the "left" we have a tendency to expect the worst from folk. It's extremely self defeating and painful. Imma gay dude who was accused of raping a woman two years ago. I lost everything - my job, my housing, my community, my friends, my family and my mental health. She didn't have evidence, just feelings, that were quickly amplified by others who didn't want to dismiss a woman. Even after she realized how badly she messed up and tried to take back her accusations it didn't matter; I couldn't be involved with community anymore. I'm still unhoused n unable to hold a job or see humans without feeling absolute terror. We can't do this to each other. It causes permanent damage. We have to see the best in folk and demand confirmation that things aren't what we see.
How about asking her to make a public statement to clear your name? Sue her if necessary. However, if she really regrets it I don't think you need to take it that far. I agree that false accusations of sexual assault do a lot of damage to the accused. We need to teach other people, especially women, not to throw false accusation.
@@tiararoxeanne1318 thanks for responding. I did ask for that. She agreed. We agreed to doing it in the form of a pre written document at a mediation w a third party present. Neither of us are willing to meet without a neutral third party. After six months of asking folk it became apparent NO ONE WAS WILLING TO MEDITATE who met our agreed upon criteria. Reasons went from "I used to be too close to you to be impartial", "I don't have time" to " I don't want that stink on me" or "I'm worried she'll do the same thing to me". Privately folk admitted what I already knew: no statement could ever clear my name because the very accusation made it untenable to be in community with me. This, combined with my deep structural involvement towards building communication/resource sharing between folk across a couple of states, made it simply impossible to be associated with me without closing doors that many folk need open. ULTIMATELY - it isn't possible to have a neutral third party after what she did. It really hurt NGL. What's worse is knowing - without that piece of paper - it's possible to come up at any point in the future no matter where I am at any time and derail my life all over again. Having said that, I'm a wily one. I documented her admitting that she made it up and wanted to take it back. It wasn't hard to do; she called me crying a couple times a week at 4am for a long time apologizing. I shared this documentation with a couple key folk who I hope I can trust in case it ever comes up again unexpectedly.
@@tiararoxeanne1318 as for legal action: I'm morally against using the violence of the state and frankly it would likely prove worse for my rep among my former anarchist comrades than anything else I could do
@@DigitalGhost269 But, how about your record? Do you have a criminal record or registered as sexual offender because of that? If you do, you need to clear it up. A pro bono lawyer might help. If your record is clean but you couldn't shake the stigma from your community, you can get out of there. Move to a new place, have a fresh new life. I wish the best for you🙏
@@tiararoxeanne1318 thanks for responding - fortunately no charges were ever filed criminally. I have no record as a result of this. Relocation is definitely on my mind; even being mindful that I likely can't organize wherever I do end up.
I genuinely appreciate how you approach and explain things like this so clearly and levelly. It's hard to find someone who can articulate the whys of these sorts of things.
I try to avoid drama unless I know it’s coming from a level headed party, and I tend to feel anxious when trying to do my own research; it’s why I struggled in school and college. But yeah, there is a marked difference between someone committing an offence and someone who said something tone-deaf over how-many years ago, especially if they’ve apologised for it.
Thank you for providing a nuanced perspective on the matter of "accountability". Nuance is so insanely important but it tends to be thrown out the window in any conversations happening on the internet.
This is fantastic video, especially the points about context and questioning exactly why it might be if there's a lack of context to a quote or action. I remember reading something once that's always kind of stuck with me that said "the biggest disadvantage the Left gives itself is the desire for 'perfect' constantly outweighing the reality of 'as good as it can be'". The original quote was talking about political candidates but I can't help feeling there's a lot of truth in that in regards to this situation as well, and why we on the left tend to keep falling for things like "mob justice" or weaponised accountability. We tend to want things and people to be perfect and immaculate right from the start - to have never made a mistake in language or action, to have never told an off-colour joke, to have never used a term that will be acknowledged as a slur in the future, etc. The fact is that wishing for everything to be perfect on the first go is tantamount to useless. We are human and humans are built on mistakes. It's fundamentally how we learn. If we get something right on the first go, chances are it was completely by accident. What truly matters and what should be focused on is if/what people learn from the mistakes they make. Some do learn, and some just dig their heels in and double down, and some don't even realise they've done anything wrong until it's basically spelled out to them. But the point is that the choice always has to be theirs. Dogpiling on someone at the first slip-up is honestly more likely to push them towards standing by their initial position since it's putting them on the defensive. One point I'd also add as an addendum to the "who is it coming from" issue is "who exactly is being targeted". I only say this because, at least in my experience, weaponised accountability (especially in exclusively-online circles) tends to be pushed heavily against minority, queer and AFAB content creators, largely as a means of attempting to silence them in retaliation for speaking out against someone else. And no, not every accusation against every queer/BIPOC/AFAB person will automatically be false, but I do feel like it's perhaps worth treading carefully (at least initially), especially in conjunction with the other points like whether the full context is included in the callout (and if not, why not) and, again, where exactly are the allegations/accusations/calls for accountability coming from.
Thank you for being compassionate to those of us who haven't much spare energy for checking sources. As a spoonie myself I choose to consume drama from a few steps back and not involve myself too much, as I know I won't be able to do so conscientiously. Saving that for politics. (Though I admit I couldn't stop singing 🎶toxic gossip train🎶 for *weeks* after the fact)
Most of the important things we already know are worth hearing again. I love it when you are the one repeating them because you do it with nuance and without the rage and impulsivity that confirmation bias thrives on. Thanks.
thank you so much for making this! because, as a young person on the internet, i didn't really know all of this and don't really have someone to teach me. I really apretiate you!
I need to make a playlist for media literacy because you and others have made so many great videos discussing aspects of it! This will be the first video on the playlist cuz that's where I'm starting 😊
Thank you for the video, Vera! Ironically, considering his previous controversies and seeing this video thumbnail, I was already asking myself: "What James Gunn did now?". The confirmation bias could be very dangerous, indeed. As Vera mentioned, the "cancellation" of people who did or keep acting in bad faith, in some cases, commiting literal crimes, is pointless if they do not take accountability and do not suffer the consequences for their actions. It is not surprise at all that the right wing likes to use the term "cancellation" as a form of dismissiveness over the bad actions by someone they admire. When dealing with social networks and news cycles, we really need to be more careful and have more scrutiny over clickbait news articles, especially with the spreading of misinformation and fake news. "Lies spread faster than the truth."
This is something I've been thinking about recently. I tend to get very upset at seemingly small things. it's really hard to know when I am in the right or if I'm overreacting. I want to hold people accountable because it feels like one of the only ways I can do anything productive. but I don't want to be one of those people that pull other people down for no reason. it's really hard to know where the line is because a lot of the time even when I know I am in the right, I still second-guess myself, because so much of what I believe is unpopular. when I call people out on ableism I am met with hostility and i'm not given a chance to explain myself. even though I know fighting against ableism is something I believe in and I want to keep doing it. It's hard when everyone fights me on it. makes me feel like im an idiot. when im the only person in my life who cares abt this stuff, its really difficult to hold onto my convictions
I know the phrase "touch grass" gets thrown around as an insult, but really... sometimes it helps to stop staring at a screen and just *be* for a minute. Your cause is absolutely a noble one. Take a deep breath and remind yourself why you're fighting for it in the first place. Go outside. Talk to a loved one about anything interesting you saw, like a bug or a flower. Trust me, social media is literally designed to make you feel like the world is out to get you. Reminding yourself that most people are kind doesn't make a profit, after all.
@@pbjmochi8400 ik you mean it in a nice way but it does still feel like an insult and its not helpful advice tbh. going outside gives me more anxiety and i have no one irl to talk to :D its so easy to say "just get offline" and act like thats the problem but its not. ik the internet isnt perfect ofc, ik im putting a band aid on a severed limb but its all i can do. until my life isnt dependent on my ability to make money, i will be depressed and anxious and doom scrolling thru yt, because its a small comfort, its all i can do to cope. also im disabled. i cant just go outside and drive wherever i want. i dont have that privilege. dont act like its a cure all to get offline. im glad it helps you but it doesnt help me at all, and the more ppl tell me i need to the more it makes me resent everyone!!! its shitty and dismissive and it makes me feel fucking horrible that you read my comment and the first thing you thought is "wow, chronically online much??"
I read something once where it advised, not in cases where someone's done something illegal or horrific, but when it's a friend who's said or done something insensitive, to 'call them in' instead of calling them out. Hard to explain in a paragraph but it's about how you do it - instead of accusing them (which naturally makes people defensive), saying it in a helpful way, as if they didn't know and you're not judging them for it, just asking they use a different term in the future, for instance. It's more effective, and can stop you self doubting when to talk to someone about something too.
I don't think it's a bad thing for us on the left to be willing to hold people accountable, but you can't convince me that the right hasn't honed in on it and exploited it to sow discord. Gotta give them credit for how good they are at making us fight amongst ourselves.
"Weaponized Accountability" saw that title and immediately went "ooooooh, there's a word for it?" because I knew exactly what you were talking about. I mostly hear about it in terms of twitter mobs (and every time I'm so happy I'm not on twitter), but it's definitely elsewhere to a lesser extent. It's very weird to me because I cannot picture a world in which I want to care that much about total strangers who I'd never heard of before. Like, yes, the big public figures who are doing something bad deserve talking about, but if some random youtuber or twitter user is "problematic"? Well, even if the criticism is totally justified, I do not care unless I personally watch them. The Channel Awesome stuff that you brought up was one of the rare times when I saw people freaking out online and looked into it because I watched them years ago and - on rare occasions - would go back and listen to a particular review. If I'd never watched Channel Awesome? Then I wouldn't have looked into it because there's nothing positive to gain from it. It's really not good for your mental health to constantly find things to get mad about, you know? Weaponized accountability hurts us all.
Where I live, in Argentina, we have a comprehensive sex ed law and the teachers that implement it correctly have been suffering a wave of false sex abuse accusations from far right parents. There is even like a brochure of how to do that given by religious and Anti LGTBQ+ organizations. This has lead to a very serious problem, where real sexual predators are pared and involved and dedicated teachers are facing legal and economic consecuences. Most cases after a couple months are dropped by lack of evidence, but these teachers face and administrative and legal stain that makes it harder for them to get a new position. The right is weaponizing left committment to believe and support victims, and the laws created around this principles, to effectively remove LGTBQ+ and feminist teachers from their positions. It's important to notice that a large proportion of child abuse were denunciated and prosecuted after kids were able to open themselves with teachers or at Home after comprehensive sex ed lessons...
This was a really good and important video. Nuance is key and it gets so easily lost, or worse, framed by parties with different interests. I do wonder which specific examples in the last year have triggered this particular video. Where does accountability turn into a weapon is a very good thing to ponder and must be viewed with each individual example. I stumbled across some of the more recent YT drama by complete accident and was a bit shocked by the amount of drama channels out there and the amount of infighting going on. Really love your takes on drama mostly because you seem like you'd really talk about anything else. The Joss Whedon case is one in particular that comes to mind that you handled brilliantly. I actually sent your videos to friends to discuss that particular case.
I hate how diluted and twisted the phrase “cancel culture” has become because I think it’s a very real thing(mostly but not exclusively online). Though I think a lot of the time the better phrase for it would be “cry bully culture” or “harassment culture”.
Thank you for this...I am SOOO glad I am not on social media, and with the experiences I've had in blogging spaces alone, I know how this can work, and have been on the "bad end" of it a few times (sometimes for legitimately stupid things I did; sometimes for nothing other than projections and baseless accusations by people who know nothing about me and have assumed things of me just because it's the "flavor of the week" to harp on this or that potential issue). It makes me especially wary of attempting to start a RUclips channel, which I've been strongly considering for months. I know I will get haters and such, but I am sure I'll get people who are just malicious drama farmers and the like as well, plus probably people who have old grudges against me from years ago returning and trying to make a dent in any efforts I have to try and do what I'd like to do in the world. Meh. :(
And: can I just say, I truly appreciate all the work you do, but I especially appreciate your outro lines. Things haven't been easy for me recently, and hearing those messages even from a relative stranger/parasocial relationship person (and one who visibly means it!) is nice, after all of the other messages I have been getting floods of over the last year telling me that I would be better off just killing myself, that my entire life has been meaningless and pointless, and so forth. One can only resist such messages for so long before starting to take it personally, and when things aren't going well otherwise (and they're not!), it just piles on a bit more. So, thank you so much! :)
Thanks for not getting into specific examples related to recent RUclips/Twitter drama. It's an important message because it's not just left vs. right or specific factions on the left doing this. It's 100% possible for someone whose other takes you (the viewer/reader/fan) respect to have a massive blind spot about how they're acting over someone/something else. And there's a bad tendency for people on Twitter especially to use a random new, relatively harmless post as a proxy for an existing beef. This has gotten bad before--I logged on well after the ContraPoints/Buck Angel thing blew up and took hours to piece together why everyone was screaming at each other--but the last few years of world events' effects on mental health and utter lack of real moderation on Twitter has made it so, so much worse.
With advancements in technology making it easier and easier to fabricate stories, everyone is going to need to start getting Really skeptical Really quickly.
Great video and great discussion. Thank you! Weaponized accountability also has some nasty side effects such as silencing ideas and breaking up movements. Acting from a place of grace first allows you time to observe and gather facts. It also changes your reaction from fight or flight, to calm and controled. Time for nuance.
Disney freaking out about James Gunn's historical shitposting is frankly hilarious given it took them 74 years to realise that Splash Mountain was maybe a little bit screamingly racist.
Thank you for making this video. As per usual it was great. I will say that I hate that the word “woke” was taken and placed in the wrong hands and then completely flipped to something different. Love ya😘
It is a lot of work, confirming the provided context. I've already ignore the things that come with little to no context because I have neither time nor energy to do it. Sometimes I think that social platforms will eventually lose users and necessary engagement levels because the way they're run requires more and more cognitive work from users - if not to avoid drama then to avoid marketing techniques that use drama to grab our attention, and scammers and grifters who latch themselves onto it.
I found this video very informative. While I knew a lot of it, like don't trust sources you don't know and look for patterns, I really didn't understand the deeper meanings of some of the things. A large part of that I think is I simply don't think like that. Sure, I've held people accountable for things they've done, but it's been people in my life, not online witchhunts dredging through someone's ancient history. Obviously as you said, some things are unforgivable, but one incident from 15 years ago that with context paints a completely different picture than the narrative is a completely different story. I don't remember the person, word, or language, so I feel comfortable using this example. Someone got clipped saying a slur. Well that is a slur in the English language, and they weren't speaking English. In the language they were speaking it was a normal word, no more offensive than apple or table. Oh, and the clip was like 12 years old and they were only just starting to learn English at that time. But people still eviscerated them for it. Like with the hundreds of languages that exist, there's a very good chance that basically everyone has said a slur from another language. Because there's a finite number of sounds producible by humans.
In regards to 'liking' a post, sometimes I will like something that I strongly disagree with to save it for later, either to argue against it or to add the poster to shinigami eyes when I'm at my desktop. There are other reasons besides a 'middle aged moment' that someone could have not so good posts in their likes. As you said, it needs to be taken in context.
I learned a quote that was quoted by Gordon B Hinkley. Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Said Everett, “Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it, did not read it. Half of those who read it, did not understand it. Half of those who understood it, did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway” (“Sunny Side of the Street,” Nov. 1989; see also Zig Ziglar, Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World [2000], 174)
Great video, Vera! I love when you make video covering topical events while trying to be as unbiased as possible. I feel that doing so, allows us the viewers to think more critically and not be swayed by the narrative that the RUclipsr is trying to paint in their data farm videos. Speaking of which, this video further cements my disdain towards drama channels, something that has been a guilty pleasure due to the Colleen Ballinger and Iilluminaughtii drama. The more I watch these channels covering the dramas over these two RUclips personalities, the more I question the individuals covering them. In this context, I don't mean questioning someone like Vera or the Savy Write books, who used the Iilluminaughtii news as a jumping off point to about something tangentially related. For example, Vera using The James Gunn controversially as a jumping off point to talk about how social media personalities can manipulate the narrative of someone for a desirable goal. What I mean are the RUclipsrs who make a living covering internet drama. The thing is that RUclipsrs in general have infulence over their audience, hence them being called influencers - a shocking revelation. The thing is that sone of these drama channel infulencers aren't trained news journalists. In addition, some started their career covering drama as kids after realizing that it was more lucrative than streaming video games. Therefore, some of the news they cover may have a bias slant torwards them especially if they want to paint a certain narrative. As such, do research on the news they are covering and ask yourself why the infulencer covering the video. Who are their audience and which political figures do they support? For exanple, not all left-leaning commentators get along with one another because of how they run their podcast. Pay attention to the diction they use in their videos. For example, are they describing one party in the situation with flowery and positive words with the other party in a negative one? Are they using words like "I hope," but "this individual" followed by something that individual did or was done to them was positive? Is their clickbait headline sound bias?
This might be a bit of a splittering tangent, but... When I was a kid, I remember hearing the adults talk about how the people they didn't like (for political reasons) should be tared, feathered and ran out of town. Now-a-days those same adults complain about "cancel cultre" every time one of their political darlings is held accountable for saying or doing something sht*ty. A few months ago I had lunch with a relative of mine. Without provocation they launched into a rant about how "wokism" and "cancel culture" was trying to erase everythig it didn't like for no reason other than just because. I tried to put things into a larger context by discussing other counter-cultre movements like the hippies of the 1960's, my relative cut me off and declared that all of those hippies should have been shot. My relative couldn't see the hypocrisy in their words. The "cancel culture" narrative has always been hypocritical BS. Humans tend to form in-groups & out-groups. It's what we do. Then our in-groups form mob mentalities and look for reasons to punish the out-groups and ignore complaints against the in-group. It's not a new phenomenon. It's been a trait of our species even before the monolith super evolved our monkey ancestors (that's a sci-fi reference). This behavior is instinctual & ancient. It probably has roots in the tribes of our monkey ancestors competing with each other for resources. We've long since evolved past the need for this monkey tribalism, but we still do it. We've done it all throughout history, and it's the root of all our maligned "isms". I don't know what else to say. All I know is that monkey tribalism is a much more fundamental problem for human behavior than we give it credit. We're just a bunch of monkeys with social media accounts jumping at every chance to fling our sh*t at others. It stinks.
Short clips of people with no context always immediately make me think of that part in one of the Scooby Doo movies where Fred is complaining that reporters are just going to cut him so it seems like "I think Coolsville sucks" and then the movie immediately cuts to a reporter using that quote out of context.
When “drama” happens I tend to mostly ignore it because I’m tired, if the thing continues for a little too long then I fact check it. Also it kinda depend on my “relationship” towards the person, if it’s someone that I like or like their work I honestly tend to ignore it unless is something too loud because my monkey brain don’t like the idea of being left down. I know I should probably put more effort on checking my bias, but I’m so tired
Hey Vera, I found your reminder to check things out useful and thought-provoking. I also didn't find you particularly venting (I guess you are annoyed about some particular things which have happened that you are specifically not mentioning, but if you are annoyed it doesn't come over that way). Don't find your tone patronising or condescending. I think it's the kind of thing that we can all use a reminder about on a regular basis. OTOH, it probably is the case that someone who is willing to listen to you make a serious argument to the end of your video is also someone less likely to need the advice, or more likely to be able to put the brakes on and think before getting involved in something. But thanks for laying things out clearly anyway.
Sorta reminds me of this guy who got recommended to me on twitter. He was hot, he posted nsfw content, and he was openly gay. I followed because we all get thirsty from time to time. But not long after I followed him, I was getting all this hate and fear mongering in my feed. A lot of propaganda and stuff tyiig to prevoke out rage over non topics and nonsense. So I took a week and went back and looked at why this was getting past my filters and blockings. And realized it was because the hot guy was reposting all this homophobic, transphobic, anti semetic evil. And I went, I'm sorry, but no one, NO ONE is hot enough to justify this stuff, and I unfollowed and blocked him. And my feed went back to normal. But twitter still recommends garbage people to me through hot thirst traps they posted because that'll drive interactions up. I don't follow anyone anymore unless I have the time to go through a year of their timeline. If I likee what I see, sure I'll follow. But the more red flags the less likely I am to follow, and certain topics I will not onlly not follow but I will block. Because I do not want or need unhinged calls for violence against people for made up things in my daily life. People seem to have forgotten we can block and mute people and walk away from them, we don't have to always engage, always react, always try to be right. And it boggles my mind how many people have forgoten that and don't even watch videos all the way through before they comment or start arguing. Reminds me of a video I clicked on by a creator I like on here. Frist clip was of something that scares me. I paused and went, weiird they didn't have x person on here, he loves this content, wonder what this video is about? Scrolled down to discover it was a 30-40 minute video of nothing but the thing that terrorfies me. I went to the comments, told them video quality is lovey, dig their personalities and their chemistry as a due on the program. I made the mistake of not reading the tags / descriptions first, that was on me. I hoped they had a lovely day and that they enjoyed themselves in a topic that was bringing them joy, and I fast forwarded the video so they sttill got the view and interaction and then I left the video. It's like the conversation I had about tipping the other day. I firmly believe if you're bringing my food to my door, you get a tip. And I've only not tipped when I didn't have money for it on my card and I make sure to give them a cash tip when they get here. Things have to go HORRIBLY wrong for me not to tip someone. But people have bad days all the time, so I'm not going to tip poorly just because someone's having an off moment. But if the weather is bad, that tip is going up for them for getting out at all. If the service goes above and beyond, then that tip is going up even more. And if the person has had the worst nght of their lives, they're offerrd a kiind ear to vent to, kind words, and a larger tip becauue sometimes you just need that one not shitty thing to turn a day around. Context is key. And people in customer service jobs deserve patience and kind words. Especialy if I'm the nnext cusomer after a karen... the horror stories I could tell Too much of this cancel culture, purity culure, and this "gotcha moment" stuff has infected us. There was a time we could just walk away from the hateful person, and somewhere along the line we started to have to get even with them, or get over them. I had to explain to my mom why something was propaganda the other day, annd I asked for the source, ad she told me and I went, mom... he believes a zombie of a dead man is going to rise from the grave and go to where his father was murdered... do you really think anything he says can be trusted? She went, he what? And I had to explain that "logic" to my mother. But SLOWLY I'm getting her to look at things objectively or to at least ask me to check if something's fake before she spreads it. I hope this finds you well, and that you have a lovely day. And may there be brighter days to come.
One thing people seem to do too easily in these drama situations is pick sides. When they hear how badly someone has behaved, they line up to support the 'victim' and pillory the accused. Thing is, it's entirely possible for multiple people involved in a situation to have behaved badly. People don't fall into neat 'goodie' and 'baddie' categories. Often a toxic personal or working relationship encourages both parties to be their worst selves. I can think of a whole load of dramas where people have tended to side with one person or another, picked one version of events to believe and drawn lines in the sand. But when you look into it, both sides are presenting highly partial and dishonest versions of events, and both sides have likely done horrible things. People can be genuine victims of abusive behaviour, but still exaggerate the situation and downplay their own wrongs to make themselves look better.
I hope you don't mind, my dad -- who's a Reagan Republican still in denial about the current state of the party -- would likely classify you as a 'leftist' just on your looks (you look amazing btw). So I'm thinking of taking the audio from this, as he likes to rant about 'leftist cancel culture' all the time, and having him listen to it, because he doesn't believe me that people on the left can approach things this way (logically). He's not an idiot (he's one of the smartest people I know) but he's spent decades in the evangelical right and doesn't even look for opposing viewpoints anymore. The most progress I've ever made in changing his views was making him realize that the average person on the left also wants to do the right things for the right reasons, they just do them differently, so I'm hoping this audio might help. Thank you for this, either way. It was sort of philosophical and I enjoyed it.
I would like to mention I have left likes on accident. I’ve even followed people on accident. I have tremors in my hands and it’s easy to tap the wrong place and not even know until new people show up in my subscription feed or I’m searching through my old likes to find a specific post and come across things I know I didn’t mean to like
To go along with how long ago, how old the person was at the time also matters imo. People often will have said crappy things in their teens that they now know better.
This entire video could be summed up as "What if we recreated Catholicism but replaced god with a mob of randos" 15:50 You even got the mandated confession of the sin I don't ascribe to this world view. I don't believe in the concept of holding people accountable when I have no relationship with them (real relationship, not parasocial). 1) If it is a legal violation: They need to be held legally accountable 2) If it is a moral violation by a rando: I stop engaging with them. Their presence in my life was contingent upon them adding value. If they are grinding my gears they no longer serve their function & are removed 3) If it is a moral violation in an interpersonal relationship: We do the reconciliation process I have zero interest in reconciling with randos. Public figures & content creators exist solely to be consumed. If their actions make them non consumable, I don't consume them. Im not interested in becoming a project manager for a products moral atonement
The problem I have with online 'accountability' is... accountable to who? To the person demanding it? Why? How would the person being held 'accountable' even be able to verify that the person demanding it was actually affected by it? If, for example, I said something that hurt somebody else out of ignorance, then I am accountable to the person I hurt, and if what I said was generalised enough to possibly include a group of people then I would be accountable to that group. They, and they ALONE have 1) the right to hold someone accountable, and 2) the right to accept/reject any apology given. I simply don't feel any given Karen has the right to demand accountability. Now, if the mob can't be expected to 'do the work' to verify the 'facts' they're demanding accountability over, I don't feel anybody thus targeted should have to apologise to said mob at large. Doing the work goes both ways, and I really do feel a LOT of people on the left need to learn this. There's enough nonsense coming out of the right for those on the left to add to it.
The rules you lay down for filtering out weaponized accountability are important in this day and age as they are the same ones needed to filter out fake news. It can be exhausting to constantly be on alert, but we'd all be better off if we did a little more research into sources before reposting.
Yes, truly, more children actually need to be educated on their critical thinking, as well as researching and investigating. They need to know how important it is to not follow the loudest voice, and loudest voice alone. Consideration for not just other narratives, but also patterns in behaviors and speech of each narrative brought forth, as well as considerable evidence that can back up or thwart different narratives. Evidence sometimes requires deep diving, and even contesting established claims. We all are now in the age of mass manipulation from so many points across the internet; between politics, media, corporations, and even disputes among social groups. And children need to be taught about the importance of accountability (as well as not cheapening the value of accountability with false accusations), just as significantly they need to learn the importance of comparing narratives to any presented evidence. So much of the internet has been built on biases, and the children inheriting this reality need to eventually consider what built up those biases, as well as who, what and how those biases impact. There is a monolithically powerful domino effect with each presented claim, each declared stance for or against a bias, and awareness of how profoundly these things affect so many lives needs to be encouraged more than ever.
this video is so essential. something can be long ago and the person hasn't learned anything, but that's SO DIFFERENT from the person making amends and doing better.
also i am super late to the party and I hope this isn't weird but as a trans woman it's always awesome when a ytber i havent seen in ages (blame the algorithm!!) has transitioned! :D this is such a good take too. subscribed!!
Sorry, I have a short attention span, what I heard was "Try to.... get into fights in my comment section... please." :P Hot dogs are not a sandwich, they are a type of taco.
I can't remember the specifics, but I once remember hearing an accusation and wondering in the comments what the context was to be sure I was interpreting it accurately. Someone replied that the context didn't matter. No context would make that acceptable. That attitude is especially infuriating. Maybe it's true that the context doesn't make it any better. But we can only say that with certainty once we know what it is.
50 years ago - people relied (in general) on the professionalism of editors and professional bodies to curate the information they receive in a trustworthy way. Whether that was right, is indeed open to question - there were clearly good sources of information - but also - history has shown that there were abuses too. These days we have unedited information overload - and few people have the ability, training, instinct or will to navigate it. Certain people in our societies (politicians etc) are taking advantage of this innate society weakness. Personally I would wish that our education system would focus at least a small amount of time giving children the necessary skills and awareness to navigate this professionally unedited and largely unaccountable, information overload era, be aware of the pitfalls, our human frailties (that are being exploited) and arm the next generation with the tools to navigate & clarify it.
Some schools are trying. My own kid recently had assignments focused on identifying sponsored content in news articles and considering biases if the authors.
I'm dreading the exact moment someone in this comments section invokes the name of a *EDIT* - You know what? I'm not even gonna hint at who I'm talking about. Probably for the better
Sam Seder is another great example of this. The same figures behind the Gunn situation sought out an old tweet of his which is horrific out of context, but in context was actually satirizing people who weren't holding someone (Polanski) accountable for bad things he'd done
Commented this very early in the video, long before you said to avoid citing examples in the comments. Just trying to throw you engagement, not stoke any controversy or anything
For similar reasons to the topic of this video I make a policy never to retweet an article unless I've read it entirely. Which, yes, slows down a response but a lot of the times moving as fast as possible isn't necessary.
3:54 I think the fact that the evidence was stale and there was real counterevidence of Gunn having improved is what makes disneys initial reaction an overreaction. But what makes it weaponizing accountability is that the complainers didn’t actually object to the behavior they were allegedly complaining about. They were being disingenuous, “reporting” Gunn for something that they thought was just fine-laudable, even. This is basically somebody getting in trouble for something they think isn’t punishment-worthy-something they think _nobody_ should get in trouble for-and when they can’t evade the consequences they say “Jimmy did the same thing, once-why aren’t you punishing him‽” And I have zero respect for that. If you think that something shouldn’t be wrong or illegal or punishable, you should be _glad_ someone got away with it, even if you didn’t. Inconsistent enforcement _is_ a moral or legal failing, but as long as it isn’t a systemic racist/sexist/whateverist policy at work, having an unfair consequence enforced on fewer people is better.
"who likes by accident" I used to use the mobile version of twitter. It would like things when I didn't it to. I would unlike it but I would not be surprised if I missed some. Not many but some. I don't use twitter at all any more but with Elon in charge I wouldn't be surprised if the mobile version is even worse then it was. Edit: it would also not like a tweet I did want it too. It was very broken.
Quote tweets embedded in articles were the worst. I'd click on the like button that was clearly for the embedded response and when it opened the original Twitter page it would like whatever the original horrible tweet was. And that was before Elon's path of destruction.
Re: guilt through liking tweets: My fairly liberal MIL reposts and likes conservative memes her alt-right friends and relatives share. Taken without context, these memes can mean a totally different thing in a conservative circle rather than a liberal one. It's completely reasonable that a person could like a tweet and not look closely at who originally posted it and in what context it was meant.
This is very relevant to how the defunding of the BBC is talked about. Instead of calls to reform the BBC as what it should be, you'll instead see left wing people using right wing language and rhetoric - even tho they're usually arguing the BBC is too right wing. 'Defund the BBC' is a UK right wing slogan - even politicians have been seen using it. It's not very useful.
This is a very modern issue, in fact its slightly still ongoing though barely. It had to do with Board Game RUclips. Several years ago a creator was accused and confessed to sexual misconduct and harassment. Using their popularity to solicit pictures from fans and so on while claiming to be in an open relationship. This creator admitted to the actions, apologized, published a full article about the situation on an actual news site, then left the internet for awhile and sought out counseling and treatment. So cool, the issue was addressed and even from what I can find even the accusers or should I be specific say the victims were wanting to move past this. And for awhile they had and for those people its in the past. Then recently another creator makes vague posts calling the original creator problematic and saying they are predatory. When questioned by more people in the comments they make another vague post about it being copy and paste of their previous behavior. The creator who is saying this is fairly well liked and seems not to be into the drama thing, but gives no details, but states they will not be working with this channel or any of its people even if some might be good. The channel makes posts saying they are investigating these claims and of course the internet loses its mind making up all kinds of headcanon. Now this event is much different from the previous event in that as far as can be seen no one has come forward as a victim of this "copy and paste" behavior which I will remind you was the creator abusing their statue to solicit pictures and such from fans. The second creator did not mention if they where a victim or witness. Or if this is ongoing behavior or reference to the past behavior. But of course the implication was all that was needed to have people losing their minds and harassing the channel including various other creators on that channel whom from even the vague post had nothing to do with this situation. Now the accused creator has left the company, but this time they are saying that the claims are false where as before they confessed and admitted to it immediately, saying they are departing because their presence is allowing fans of this other creator and general people on the internet to use them as fuel to harass their colleagues and friends. This to me is another kind of weaponized accountability. The vagueness of the second creators post is hard to tell if this is a new claim or simply them becoming aware of the past and taking actions in the worse possible light and claiming they are doing the same thing. But even the second creator does not seem like they are pushing this as a full proper claim and accusations, but the internet immediately started calling for this person to be fired, arrested, etc when no evidence has been brought forward, no known victims have come forward. And the behavior of the accused is entirely different in denying the claims as utterly false and referencing that their past is being used as a way to attack them today. So do we want accountability or punishment? If someone did something bad like harassment and misconduct, openly confessed in a public forum to it, removes themselves from the situation in which they had gained the power to do so, and then sought professional help and has been several years without any further claims. Is that accountability? Or did they "Get away with it"?
Might be a controversial comment: This is what always bothered me about the John Barrowman situation. Whilst it's definitely a good thing that Barrowman has been held accountable for his practical jokes that fall under sexual misconduct/harassment, that information had been public knowledge and openly discussed for years - It's only once the much more severe allegations regarding Noel Clarke were doing the rounds that suddenly a video of a panel from 2018 where Noel Clarke jokes about Barrowmans behaviour was suddenly being spread around by a lot of right-wing and bigoted news sites condemning John's behaviour. Considering some of the headlines read like: 'Sexual Predator Noel Clarke exposes fellow perverted Doctor Who star in shocking clip - "He only gets away with it because he's gay"' It started to feel like less about the press actively condemning John's actions and more of a "We've finally got dirt on a major actor who's a big LGBTQ+ supporter, we need to weaponize it whilst the mob is hungry". Accountability is one thing, but it should never be used as a weapon.
So… now that enough time has passed that we know Barrowman didn’t stop doing this when he initially claimed he did (among other things), and seems to only understand that he’s in trouble but has failed to demonstrate that he understands why what he did wasn’t ok, this is where I’m at: the things he’s been held accountable for were warranted and action was necessary, however the reason people started looking into him was absolute BS and a distraction tactic from somebody facing worse accusations. But the sad truth is that a terrible motive from Clarke and those who went where he pointed doesn’t negate the damage or the problem or mean it shouldn’t be addressed. A lot of the fervor behind the fall of Joss Whedon was egged on by bitter Snyder fans, but that sadly doesn’t mean what was found out about Whedon wasn’t true.
If I had to guess, I would say this was a response to Keffals... She recently posted an attack video going after multiple RUclipsrs, one of whom she wanted "held accountable" for liking a tweet and another she wanted "held accountable" for things said in clips she took out of context. Then again, this could just be me seeing patterns where none exist.
![Digital Circus Episode 4 [TRAILER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/abZtsmMUbJo/mqdefault.jpg)
Another aspect I should have touched on is "guilt by association." And I view that similar to how I view condemning someone for what social media things they've liked or who they follow: if that's ALL you have, it's pretty flimsy unless it is in extreme abundance (like, most of us have/had at least one crappy person as a friend, but most of us haven't been friends with nothing but crappy people), however it can function as supporting evidence for something that has a more concrete foundation.
It does kinda suck that being a even semi-public figure makes every interaction one does on the internet interpreted as a big statement
I have friends with some decidedly dodgy takes. I don't think it's always great to distance yourself from them, if someone is a decent person with a not great grip on epistemology it's no wonder they might see 2+2 and get 5.
If we give up on anyone that is even slightly problematic, then they will just get moved over further and further by those that do give them time.
I'm also firmly of the opinion that facts are on our side. So just giving people the right tools is often enough to bring people round if they are genuine.
@@KaleighCee Yeah I definitely do that, if someone is not acting in good faith, give facts and then walk away. You are not writing it for them, and it's best if you try to look like the rational one.
The one I immediately think of is Scott The woz who for a while continue to be friends with a very out-there abuser and an unapologetic dude and he was later on that he basically separated himself.
But oddly enough is a lot of other RUclipsrs from that area that know him that stuck-up from him so although I do not like him personally, their interactions were positive enough that it seems to be a fluke from the one guy.
@@WiloPolis03 Don't befriend neo-nazis, then?
If you disagree with a thing someone said, fact check it, if you agree, fact check it twice
strange coincidence, that's the second time I've seen this sentence today (the other on a different platform) and I'd not seen it before.
I mean just fact check anything before jumping to conclusions; no need to try and be clever with your phrasing btw, you're really not. It's just lame and mediocre
@@EternalDensitypeople repeating lame quotes like parrots lol
@@Tedi652Spoken like someone who doesn't evaluate their own biases... lol.
The thing is, even when accountability is extremely necessary, it needs to include the opportunity for nuance, contrition, change, and redemption. If it doesn't include that, it isnt accountability. It's punishment. Those are not equivalent.
Also not equivalent - explanations and excuses.
Also not equivalent, saying you're going to apologise and actually apologising.
I agree with your points and just to add that accountability can include all those factors within it, including punishment when necessary.
@@Elwaves2925 Agreed! Accountability involves consequences, and some of those may be punitive. I'm just saying real accountability involves more than that
This. This right here.
I think sometimes it is really important you don't apologise. I've seen it too often be seen as an admission of guilt, and then those attacking just double down on the attacks.
If you believe you have done nothing wrong, don't apologise, read the criticism your getting. Take it on board, DO NOT take it personally. Do your research and if you then believe your position was wrong, or in a lot of cases was lacking nuance or clarity then go back a release a follow up video talking about it. Use it as a learning experience.
But know not everyone has the same life experiences and therefore you may not please everyone.
See Contrapoints comment on how she found "Pronoun Circles" set off feelings of Gender Dysmorphia, especially as she felt they were only used when she was around. And how sometimes she preferred walking into a bar down South and them just assuming her gender.
These where her personal feelings, there was no claim that other people feelings were not also valid. She should not have to apologise for feeling things.
I don't think opportunity for redemption is always necessary. Once again, context. But if someone has a pattern of reprehensible behaviour for the last 20 years, like Harvey Weinstein, I don't believe they deserve an opportunity at redemption.
I love the medieval vibe of “outrage merchant” and “drama farmer”😂
I saw a small aspect of this conversation pop up on Tumblr when the strikes were first starting to take off online. It was basically "Hey you're probably going to see some hit pieces on union leaders & members. These hit pieces are probably not about accountability, they are most likely attempts to delegitimize the unions and the strikes. Be wary of those types of headlines."
Back in the very late '90s and early 00s, just before the social internet became a thing, we talked a lot about being very skeptical of what you see online and not believing anything unless it was backed up by known, good sources. If recent years have proven anything, it's that we need to go back to having that discussion because far too many people forgot about it or never heard it.
@@PretendingToBeAHuman I think it's because, before social media, the average boomer and even a lot of Gen Xers (my generation) saw the internet as some scary new fad that they didn't understand or take part in. Then, social media gave them a nice walled garden where they felt safe. Soon, the normies outnumbered those of us who were around in the early days and learned all of those saftey procedures and chaos ensued.
I remember I’d look up something on some basic biology, for example what some tea is used for, and my mom would scream at me to not believe everything i believe on the internet. Even with literature that I could later find in the library.
Now she believes everything she reads on facebook and i feel like the parent having to repeat to not believe everything written in facebook groups
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 Too many people who would be reasonably wary of something that came from some random stranger on the internet think that what their friends post on FB must be reliable ... completely overlooking the fact that it originally came from some random stranger on the internet.
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 exactly. It's the people that used to lecture is on not believing anything on the internet that fall for EVERYTHING and it's giving me whiplash
Verifying context before jumping to conclusions is so important. There's a horrifying number of people who are happy to maliciously twist things to create a false narrative. I've heard a guy literally brag about taking a video of a very stereotypical looking tough biker guy physically attacking someone, clipping it to remove all the context, and adding text to what remained using "she" instead of "he" to turn it into a video of a "violent trans woman attacking a stranger for assuming the wrong pronouns". In the same conversation he complained about Facebook occasionally deleting his videos and claimed it's because Facebook is part of a "far left conspiracy" and that's why they don't want him "spreading the truth". The mental gymnastics are exhausting.
Context is becoming something of a lost art, just like truth. It still amazes me how many people think context doesn't matter. Never mind individuals doing that type of thing, whole news agencies do it too.
It reminds me of the second live action Scooby Doo movie (that James Gunn was the writer for) when Fred realizes the reporter was trying to get him to say "Coolsville sucks" which, of course, was caught on camera and used exactly as he feared when he blurted it out
I'm not sure Context is becoming a lost art. Sometimes it's obvious that context is very much at the fore of peoples mind, which is why they go so far out of their way to obfuscate it and even dishonestly clip people out of context.
@@TheRodentMastermind It wasn't the best way to say it but that's what I mean, some people are deliberately taking things out of context, misrepresenting it and as you say, obfuscating it because it doesn't fit the narrative they want. When people can fake any context they like and others believe it, context has been lost.
Okay but saying a huge corporation is far left… I mean that’s just borderline - anyone knows a better word for “insane”?
Just needed to add a comment. We, as a mob, tend to be harsher in our criticism towards the more vulnerable. Even among the most liberal groups. My example is with books. Most writers overwhelmenly come from priviledge backgrounds. However, not all of them are treated the same. White successful male writers will often get a "I won't even promote This Guy by critizing his content." Female writers get whole videos, with millions of views, explaining in full detail, why they suck. And I'm only talking about white ppl. Minority writers will get nuked out of existence if they ever dare to make a bad take. Even if the bad take is only a perceived one in the eyes of a reader with poor critical thinking skills.
Once again, I really appreciate your very nuanced and thoughtful approach and analysis of issues like this. Things like accountability or "cancel culture" or whatever you want to call it can easily be manipulated by opportunists. And when it is, it devalues the concept of holding people accountable when it is warranted.
This subject actually reminds me of one of the things Illuminaughtii tried to pull, telling people that another RUclipsr (I'm choosing not to name him, because if you are familiar with the situation you already know who I mean) was using an ableist slur (stars with the letter R). And it was technically true, although he had not done so in years. And when it was brought up, he explained that he had not known it was a slur, and stopped using it when he learned that. Illuminaughtii acts as thought it's impossible for him not to have known that... except that English isn't even the guy's first language. It's one of the most BS things I've ever seen, and I effing HATE the use of that word as a slur.
You, as pretty much always, approach this with a level head and a very reasonable perspective. Thank you.
Some quick, minor, notes on a couple of things you mentioned because they fit into a bigger picture because... Some of this feeds into more fundamental stuff.
On narrative building - Humans tend to build narratives on instinct. It's why games like The Sims work as well as they do - Humans are able to see random events, brown noise, and the like and if there's some narrative context to it are able to construct a narrative about the inner workings of something that's not being modelled. It's also why it's really hard to talk about evolution because it's very difficult to talk about evolution without accidentally using language that implies there's an intentionality behind it, or that it's a process that works towards an end goal, neither of which are true.
On confirmation bias - Another one that humans lean towards, and this might be why humans tend to form narratives on instinct. We are biological pattern-matching machines, as most animals are, because... Well... Mistaking a bunch of rocks for a lion is embarrassing. Mistaking a lion for a bunch of rocks is fatal. That creates an evolutionary pressure within all life with any form of central nervous system to see false positives rather than false negatives. While narrative building can be good in that it allows us to make stories out of random things, confirmation bias is something we have to be aware of in all aspects of life, or else we risk getting taken in by frauds such as Andrew Wakefield.
This is an excellent comment.
This reminds me of something Abigail Philosophy Tube said regarding retribution. Specifically, the opposing worldviews of retributivism and consequentialism, and how they can be decieving. Basically, the retributivist would argue "What happened to that guy's career was unfair. They didn't deserve to get cancelled for that." The consequentialist would argue " What happened to that guy's career was wrong. It shouldn't happen to anybody no matter what they do." This could also work in reverse. "If you do this specific thing, you deserve to be fired." "If you fuck up, prepare to face the consequences." If someone is criticizing or praising the cancellation of an individual, or if YOU are doing that (I'll confess, I've done both), think about retributivism vs consequentialism. Does the right think that "cancelling" should never be done on anyone no matter what they do, or do they only disagree with which actions should warrant getting cancelled?
I'm so glad to see someone talk about this!
I've been noticing the word accountability being thrown at lots of black women in my digital circles lately and was starting to feel like a substitute for the word punish?
I've started getting a bit of a guard up whenever I see it, unfortunately.
I want to be accountable, but I don't know if we're all using the word to mean the same thing.
Making sure the use of really important words and concepts like accountability stay focused is important. Thanks for bringing this up!
Truth. White men and women have the option to just jump ship to conservatism, so we get treated with kid gloves when we mess up more than black women ever will. Almost has a hostage negotiation feel to it -.-
tbh, I've been in the queer and feminist community for like ten years, I think ? first online and more recently irl? But since the start, I've seen enough weaponized accountability to believe it's a feature of those communities.
I've seen it used on friends by their abusers, to isolate them..
And right now, with friends I'm doing damage control for a situation where a trans woman is accused, and it really seems a transmisogynistic case and the accusations are masking political and interpersonal conflicts involving work harassment and conflict between elected state official and lgbt and feminists orgs.
Small correction that I think might enhance your point. The people who targeted Gunn specifically stated they were coming after Gunn in retaliation for the firing of Rosanne Barr over racist tweets
It was actually largely due to his anti-Trump stance and the fact he was active in the MeToo movement and helped a co-worked deal with HR in an accusation. But it was a Far-Right think tank that went after him
Thank you. While, as you say, accountability should be a thing that happens, it can definitely be weaponised. As a recovering alcoholic, I must believe people are capable of change. However, evidence of that change goes a long way to mitigating some instances of dodgy behaviour in the past. A conundrum for sure. Blessings, P
Appreciate your suggestions. As an older person, I struggle to understand many aspects of online culture. Your video was very helpful. Thanks for being you.❤
18:27 Yeah I completely agree with that. There have been so many times I've seen someone give a person shit for supporting a terrible person on Twitter when we don't know if they actually know they're aware of the terrible things that person has done.
For example Ryan Reynolds once tweeted something like "I met Denis Leary at an event. He's such a great guy!" and someone responded with something like "How dare you! Don't you know he stole from Bill Hicks?!!!" when it's like...he may not have. It doesn't excuse how Leary treated Hicks but not everyone is aware who Bill Hicks is or that Hicks accused Leary of stealing his act.
How to watch for weaponized accountability is an interesting question. I would answer it differently than you do. The primary things I look for are:
1. Who holds the power?
2. Who benefits the most from the narrative being told? Who loses the most?
I'm also less interested in who started it than in who is sustaining it. For example (sorry...) in the Lindsay Ellis situation, there were some marginalized people who brought forward a minor criticism of her, but it wasn't these same people who caused her cancellation. Other people saw that and used it as an opportunity to attack her while blaming "the left" for "eating their own." On the whole, left leaning people were supporting her. It was the "gamergate" types that I saw bashing her. Some of these people seemed to be holding a grudge for a long time and they were all too happy to see her finally get what they believe she deserved.
I see this kind of thing happen a lot. Marginalized people (and groups that ostensibly support them, like the "woke mobs" and "the left") are particularly attractive targets to be "held accountable" and to be blamed for "weaponizing accountability."
You touched on this bit but I wanna highlight it: here on the "left" we have a tendency to expect the worst from folk.
It's extremely self defeating and painful.
Imma gay dude who was accused of raping a woman two years ago. I lost everything - my job, my housing, my community, my friends, my family and my mental health. She didn't have evidence, just feelings, that were quickly amplified by others who didn't want to dismiss a woman.
Even after she realized how badly she messed up and tried to take back her accusations it didn't matter; I couldn't be involved with community anymore. I'm still unhoused n unable to hold a job or see humans without feeling absolute terror.
We can't do this to each other. It causes permanent damage. We have to see the best in folk and demand confirmation that things aren't what we see.
How about asking her to make a public statement to clear your name? Sue her if necessary. However, if she really regrets it I don't think you need to take it that far. I agree that false accusations of sexual assault do a lot of damage to the accused. We need to teach other people, especially women, not to throw false accusation.
@@tiararoxeanne1318 thanks for responding.
I did ask for that. She agreed. We agreed to doing it in the form of a pre written document at a mediation w a third party present. Neither of us are willing to meet without a neutral third party.
After six months of asking folk it became apparent NO ONE WAS WILLING TO MEDITATE who met our agreed upon criteria. Reasons went from "I used to be too close to you to be impartial", "I don't have time" to " I don't want that stink on me" or "I'm worried she'll do the same thing to me". Privately folk admitted what I already knew: no statement could ever clear my name because the very accusation made it untenable to be in community with me. This, combined with my deep structural involvement towards building communication/resource sharing between folk across a couple of states, made it simply impossible to be associated with me without closing doors that many folk need open.
ULTIMATELY - it isn't possible to have a neutral third party after what she did.
It really hurt NGL. What's worse is knowing - without that piece of paper - it's possible to come up at any point in the future no matter where I am at any time and derail my life all over again.
Having said that, I'm a wily one. I documented her admitting that she made it up and wanted to take it back. It wasn't hard to do; she called me crying a couple times a week at 4am for a long time apologizing. I shared this documentation with a couple key folk who I hope I can trust in case it ever comes up again unexpectedly.
@@tiararoxeanne1318 as for legal action: I'm morally against using the violence of the state and frankly it would likely prove worse for my rep among my former anarchist comrades than anything else I could do
@@DigitalGhost269 But, how about your record? Do you have a criminal record or registered as sexual offender because of that? If you do, you need to clear it up. A pro bono lawyer might help. If your record is clean but you couldn't shake the stigma from your community, you can get out of there. Move to a new place, have a fresh new life. I wish the best for you🙏
@@tiararoxeanne1318 thanks for responding - fortunately no charges were ever filed criminally. I have no record as a result of this.
Relocation is definitely on my mind; even being mindful that I likely can't organize wherever I do end up.
I genuinely appreciate how you approach and explain things like this so clearly and levelly. It's hard to find someone who can articulate the whys of these sorts of things.
this is why i really appreciate content creators like yourself who make sure to talk of more than one aspect and give sources!
I try to avoid drama unless I know it’s coming from a level headed party, and I tend to feel anxious when trying to do my own research; it’s why I struggled in school and college.
But yeah, there is a marked difference between someone committing an offence and someone who said something tone-deaf over how-many years ago, especially if they’ve apologised for it.
Thank you for providing a nuanced perspective on the matter of "accountability".
Nuance is so insanely important but it tends to be thrown out the window in any conversations happening on the internet.
This is fantastic video, especially the points about context and questioning exactly why it might be if there's a lack of context to a quote or action.
I remember reading something once that's always kind of stuck with me that said "the biggest disadvantage the Left gives itself is the desire for 'perfect' constantly outweighing the reality of 'as good as it can be'". The original quote was talking about political candidates but I can't help feeling there's a lot of truth in that in regards to this situation as well, and why we on the left tend to keep falling for things like "mob justice" or weaponised accountability. We tend to want things and people to be perfect and immaculate right from the start - to have never made a mistake in language or action, to have never told an off-colour joke, to have never used a term that will be acknowledged as a slur in the future, etc. The fact is that wishing for everything to be perfect on the first go is tantamount to useless. We are human and humans are built on mistakes. It's fundamentally how we learn. If we get something right on the first go, chances are it was completely by accident. What truly matters and what should be focused on is if/what people learn from the mistakes they make. Some do learn, and some just dig their heels in and double down, and some don't even realise they've done anything wrong until it's basically spelled out to them. But the point is that the choice always has to be theirs. Dogpiling on someone at the first slip-up is honestly more likely to push them towards standing by their initial position since it's putting them on the defensive.
One point I'd also add as an addendum to the "who is it coming from" issue is "who exactly is being targeted". I only say this because, at least in my experience, weaponised accountability (especially in exclusively-online circles) tends to be pushed heavily against minority, queer and AFAB content creators, largely as a means of attempting to silence them in retaliation for speaking out against someone else. And no, not every accusation against every queer/BIPOC/AFAB person will automatically be false, but I do feel like it's perhaps worth treading carefully (at least initially), especially in conjunction with the other points like whether the full context is included in the callout (and if not, why not) and, again, where exactly are the allegations/accusations/calls for accountability coming from.
Thank you for being compassionate to those of us who haven't much spare energy for checking sources. As a spoonie myself I choose to consume drama from a few steps back and not involve myself too much, as I know I won't be able to do so conscientiously. Saving that for politics. (Though I admit I couldn't stop singing 🎶toxic gossip train🎶 for *weeks* after the fact)
Most of the important things we already know are worth hearing again. I love it when you are the one repeating them because you do it with nuance and without the rage and impulsivity that confirmation bias thrives on. Thanks.
The situation with James Gunn, always reminds me of What happened for years to Lindsay Ellis. How she's been houned for over a decade now
@@saphcal Wrong Lindsey, this one was formally known as The Nostalgia Chick part of Channel Awesome
thank you so much for making this! because, as a young person on the internet, i didn't really know all of this and don't really have someone to teach me. I really apretiate you!
I need to make a playlist for media literacy because you and others have made so many great videos discussing aspects of it! This will be the first video on the playlist cuz that's where I'm starting 😊
But yeah, concern trolling is something to definitely look out for when it comes to this sort of thing
Thank you for the video, Vera!
Ironically, considering his previous controversies and seeing this video thumbnail, I was already asking myself: "What James Gunn did now?". The confirmation bias could be very dangerous, indeed. As Vera mentioned, the "cancellation" of people who did or keep acting in bad faith, in some cases, commiting literal crimes, is pointless if they do not take accountability and do not suffer the consequences for their actions. It is not surprise at all that the right wing likes to use the term "cancellation" as a form of dismissiveness over the bad actions by someone they admire. When dealing with social networks and news cycles, we really need to be more careful and have more scrutiny over clickbait news articles, especially with the spreading of misinformation and fake news. "Lies spread faster than the truth."
You’ve managed to perfectly translate a feeling I’ve been having for a while. Thank you!
This is something I've been thinking about recently. I tend to get very upset at seemingly small things. it's really hard to know when I am in the right or if I'm overreacting. I want to hold people accountable because it feels like one of the only ways I can do anything productive. but I don't want to be one of those people that pull other people down for no reason. it's really hard to know where the line is because a lot of the time even when I know I am in the right, I still second-guess myself, because so much of what I believe is unpopular. when I call people out on ableism I am met with hostility and i'm not given a chance to explain myself. even though I know fighting against ableism is something I believe in and I want to keep doing it. It's hard when everyone fights me on it. makes me feel like im an idiot. when im the only person in my life who cares abt this stuff, its really difficult to hold onto my convictions
I know the phrase "touch grass" gets thrown around as an insult, but really... sometimes it helps to stop staring at a screen and just *be* for a minute. Your cause is absolutely a noble one. Take a deep breath and remind yourself why you're fighting for it in the first place. Go outside. Talk to a loved one about anything interesting you saw, like a bug or a flower. Trust me, social media is literally designed to make you feel like the world is out to get you. Reminding yourself that most people are kind doesn't make a profit, after all.
@@pbjmochi8400 ik you mean it in a nice way but it does still feel like an insult and its not helpful advice tbh. going outside gives me more anxiety and i have no one irl to talk to :D
its so easy to say "just get offline" and act like thats the problem but its not. ik the internet isnt perfect ofc, ik im putting a band aid on a severed limb but its all i can do. until my life isnt dependent on my ability to make money, i will be depressed and anxious and doom scrolling thru yt, because its a small comfort, its all i can do to cope.
also im disabled. i cant just go outside and drive wherever i want. i dont have that privilege.
dont act like its a cure all to get offline. im glad it helps you but it doesnt help me at all, and the more ppl tell me i need to the more it makes me resent everyone!!! its shitty and dismissive and it makes me feel fucking horrible that you read my comment and the first thing you thought is "wow, chronically online much??"
I read something once where it advised, not in cases where someone's done something illegal or horrific, but when it's a friend who's said or done something insensitive, to 'call them in' instead of calling them out.
Hard to explain in a paragraph but it's about how you do it - instead of accusing them (which naturally makes people defensive), saying it in a helpful way, as if they didn't know and you're not judging them for it, just asking they use a different term in the future, for instance. It's more effective, and can stop you self doubting when to talk to someone about something too.
I don't think it's a bad thing for us on the left to be willing to hold people accountable, but you can't convince me that the right hasn't honed in on it and exploited it to sow discord. Gotta give them credit for how good they are at making us fight amongst ourselves.
"Weaponized Accountability" saw that title and immediately went "ooooooh, there's a word for it?" because I knew exactly what you were talking about. I mostly hear about it in terms of twitter mobs (and every time I'm so happy I'm not on twitter), but it's definitely elsewhere to a lesser extent. It's very weird to me because I cannot picture a world in which I want to care that much about total strangers who I'd never heard of before. Like, yes, the big public figures who are doing something bad deserve talking about, but if some random youtuber or twitter user is "problematic"? Well, even if the criticism is totally justified, I do not care unless I personally watch them. The Channel Awesome stuff that you brought up was one of the rare times when I saw people freaking out online and looked into it because I watched them years ago and - on rare occasions - would go back and listen to a particular review. If I'd never watched Channel Awesome? Then I wouldn't have looked into it because there's nothing positive to gain from it. It's really not good for your mental health to constantly find things to get mad about, you know? Weaponized accountability hurts us all.
Where I live, in Argentina, we have a comprehensive sex ed law and the teachers that implement it correctly have been suffering a wave of false sex abuse accusations from far right parents. There is even like a brochure of how to do that given by religious and Anti LGTBQ+ organizations. This has lead to a very serious problem, where real sexual predators are pared and involved and dedicated teachers are facing legal and economic consecuences. Most cases after a couple months are dropped by lack of evidence, but these teachers face and administrative and legal stain that makes it harder for them to get a new position. The right is weaponizing left committment to believe and support victims, and the laws created around this principles, to effectively remove LGTBQ+ and feminist teachers from their positions. It's important to notice that a large proportion of child abuse were denunciated and prosecuted after kids were able to open themselves with teachers or at Home after comprehensive sex ed lessons...
This was a really good and important video. Nuance is key and it gets so easily lost, or worse, framed by parties with different interests. I do wonder which specific examples in the last year have triggered this particular video.
Where does accountability turn into a weapon is a very good thing to ponder and must be viewed with each individual example.
I stumbled across some of the more recent YT drama by complete accident and was a bit shocked by the amount of drama channels out there and the amount of infighting going on. Really love your takes on drama mostly because you seem like you'd really talk about anything else.
The Joss Whedon case is one in particular that comes to mind that you handled brilliantly. I actually sent your videos to friends to discuss that particular case.
This is a discussion that needs to be had. It's shocking how many people fall for the faux outrage crusades. Save your spoons, save your headaches.
I hate how diluted and twisted the phrase “cancel culture” has become because I think it’s a very real thing(mostly but not exclusively online). Though I think a lot of the time the better phrase for it would be “cry bully culture” or “harassment culture”.
I like "harassment culture", that's a good way to put it
Thank you for this...I am SOOO glad I am not on social media, and with the experiences I've had in blogging spaces alone, I know how this can work, and have been on the "bad end" of it a few times (sometimes for legitimately stupid things I did; sometimes for nothing other than projections and baseless accusations by people who know nothing about me and have assumed things of me just because it's the "flavor of the week" to harp on this or that potential issue).
It makes me especially wary of attempting to start a RUclips channel, which I've been strongly considering for months. I know I will get haters and such, but I am sure I'll get people who are just malicious drama farmers and the like as well, plus probably people who have old grudges against me from years ago returning and trying to make a dent in any efforts I have to try and do what I'd like to do in the world. Meh. :(
And: can I just say, I truly appreciate all the work you do, but I especially appreciate your outro lines. Things haven't been easy for me recently, and hearing those messages even from a relative stranger/parasocial relationship person (and one who visibly means it!) is nice, after all of the other messages I have been getting floods of over the last year telling me that I would be better off just killing myself, that my entire life has been meaningless and pointless, and so forth. One can only resist such messages for so long before starting to take it personally, and when things aren't going well otherwise (and they're not!), it just piles on a bit more. So, thank you so much! :)
Excellent video, Vera.
Thanks for not getting into specific examples related to recent RUclips/Twitter drama. It's an important message because it's not just left vs. right or specific factions on the left doing this. It's 100% possible for someone whose other takes you (the viewer/reader/fan) respect to have a massive blind spot about how they're acting over someone/something else. And there's a bad tendency for people on Twitter especially to use a random new, relatively harmless post as a proxy for an existing beef. This has gotten bad before--I logged on well after the ContraPoints/Buck Angel thing blew up and took hours to piece together why everyone was screaming at each other--but the last few years of world events' effects on mental health and utter lack of real moderation on Twitter has made it so, so much worse.
Gaslighting has become dilluted as well! Words are being weaponized and destroyed to the point of us needing new ones.
With advancements in technology making it easier and easier to fabricate stories, everyone is going to need to start getting Really skeptical Really quickly.
Thank you for all you do, Vera. Your thoughts are well articulated and I greatly appreciate your content.
James Gunn used to work for Troma. Makes me wonder what anyone expected.
Great video and great discussion. Thank you!
Weaponized accountability also has some nasty side effects such as silencing ideas and breaking up movements.
Acting from a place of grace first allows you time to observe and gather facts. It also changes your reaction from fight or flight, to calm and controled. Time for nuance.
Disney freaking out about James Gunn's historical shitposting is frankly hilarious given it took them 74 years to realise that Splash Mountain was maybe a little bit screamingly racist.
Thank you for making this video. As per usual it was great. I will say that I hate that the word “woke” was taken and placed in the wrong hands and then completely flipped to something different. Love ya😘
Yeah it was a legitimately useful word before… well before the last year or two.
Not me over here wanting to grab a clip of the section about context to use without context just to make a point. Love what you did here, btw.
It is a lot of work, confirming the provided context. I've already ignore the things that come with little to no context because I have neither time nor energy to do it.
Sometimes I think that social platforms will eventually lose users and necessary engagement levels because the way they're run requires more and more cognitive work from users - if not to avoid drama then to avoid marketing techniques that use drama to grab our attention, and scammers and grifters who latch themselves onto it.
I love the way you end your videos, it really feels like you're talking to me and makes me feel really nice.
I found this video very informative. While I knew a lot of it, like don't trust sources you don't know and look for patterns, I really didn't understand the deeper meanings of some of the things. A large part of that I think is I simply don't think like that. Sure, I've held people accountable for things they've done, but it's been people in my life, not online witchhunts dredging through someone's ancient history. Obviously as you said, some things are unforgivable, but one incident from 15 years ago that with context paints a completely different picture than the narrative is a completely different story.
I don't remember the person, word, or language, so I feel comfortable using this example. Someone got clipped saying a slur. Well that is a slur in the English language, and they weren't speaking English. In the language they were speaking it was a normal word, no more offensive than apple or table. Oh, and the clip was like 12 years old and they were only just starting to learn English at that time. But people still eviscerated them for it. Like with the hundreds of languages that exist, there's a very good chance that basically everyone has said a slur from another language. Because there's a finite number of sounds producible by humans.
In regards to 'liking' a post, sometimes I will like something that I strongly disagree with to save it for later, either to argue against it or to add the poster to shinigami eyes when I'm at my desktop. There are other reasons besides a 'middle aged moment' that someone could have not so good posts in their likes. As you said, it needs to be taken in context.
I learned a quote that was quoted by Gordon B Hinkley. Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Said Everett, “Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it, did not read it. Half of those who read it, did not understand it. Half of those who understood it, did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway” (“Sunny Side of the Street,” Nov. 1989; see also Zig Ziglar, Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World [2000], 174)
Are you a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?
I ask because I am too & I wasn't expecting to bump into a fellow member here lol
Great video, Vera! I love when you make video covering topical events while trying to be as unbiased as possible. I feel that doing so, allows us the viewers to think more critically and not be swayed by the narrative that the RUclipsr is trying to paint in their data farm videos.
Speaking of which, this video further cements my disdain towards drama channels, something that has been a guilty pleasure due to the Colleen Ballinger and Iilluminaughtii drama.
The more I watch these channels covering the dramas over these two RUclips personalities, the more I question the individuals covering them. In this context, I don't mean questioning someone like Vera or the Savy Write books, who used the Iilluminaughtii news as a jumping off point to about something tangentially related. For example, Vera using The James Gunn controversially as a jumping off point to talk about how social media personalities can manipulate the narrative of someone for a desirable goal.
What I mean are the RUclipsrs who make a living covering internet drama. The thing is that RUclipsrs in general have infulence over their audience, hence them being called influencers - a shocking revelation.
The thing is that sone of these drama channel infulencers aren't trained news journalists. In addition, some started their career covering drama as kids after realizing that it was more lucrative than streaming video games. Therefore, some of the news they cover may have a bias slant torwards them especially if they want to paint a certain narrative.
As such, do research on the news they are covering and ask yourself why the infulencer covering the video. Who are their audience and which political figures do they support? For exanple, not all left-leaning commentators get along with one another because of how they run their podcast.
Pay attention to the diction they use in their videos. For example, are they describing one party in the situation with flowery and positive words with the other party in a negative one? Are they using words like "I hope," but "this individual" followed by something that individual did or was done to them was positive? Is their clickbait headline sound bias?
Thank you for this one. Great content, as usual.
This might be a bit of a splittering tangent, but... When I was a kid, I remember hearing the adults talk about how the people they didn't like (for political reasons) should be tared, feathered and ran out of town. Now-a-days those same adults complain about "cancel cultre" every time one of their political darlings is held accountable for saying or doing something sht*ty.
A few months ago I had lunch with a relative of mine. Without provocation they launched into a rant about how "wokism" and "cancel culture" was trying to erase everythig it didn't like for no reason other than just because. I tried to put things into a larger context by discussing other counter-cultre movements like the hippies of the 1960's, my relative cut me off and declared that all of those hippies should have been shot. My relative couldn't see the hypocrisy in their words. The "cancel culture" narrative has always been hypocritical BS.
Humans tend to form in-groups & out-groups. It's what we do. Then our in-groups form mob mentalities and look for reasons to punish the out-groups and ignore complaints against the in-group. It's not a new phenomenon. It's been a trait of our species even before the monolith super evolved our monkey ancestors (that's a sci-fi reference). This behavior is instinctual & ancient. It probably has roots in the tribes of our monkey ancestors competing with each other for resources. We've long since evolved past the need for this monkey tribalism, but we still do it. We've done it all throughout history, and it's the root of all our maligned "isms".
I don't know what else to say. All I know is that monkey tribalism is a much more fundamental problem for human behavior than we give it credit. We're just a bunch of monkeys with social media accounts jumping at every chance to fling our sh*t at others. It stinks.
Short clips of people with no context always immediately make me think of that part in one of the Scooby Doo movies where Fred is complaining that reporters are just going to cut him so it seems like "I think Coolsville sucks" and then the movie immediately cuts to a reporter using that quote out of context.
When “drama” happens I tend to mostly ignore it because I’m tired, if the thing continues for a little too long then I fact check it. Also it kinda depend on my “relationship” towards the person, if it’s someone that I like or like their work I honestly tend to ignore it unless is something too loud because my monkey brain don’t like the idea of being left down. I know I should probably put more effort on checking my bias, but I’m so tired
Hey Vera, I found your reminder to check things out useful and thought-provoking. I also didn't find you particularly venting (I guess you are annoyed about some particular things which have happened that you are specifically not mentioning, but if you are annoyed it doesn't come over that way). Don't find your tone patronising or condescending. I think it's the kind of thing that we can all use a reminder about on a regular basis.
OTOH, it probably is the case that someone who is willing to listen to you make a serious argument to the end of your video is also someone less likely to need the advice, or more likely to be able to put the brakes on and think before getting involved in something. But thanks for laying things out clearly anyway.
Sorta reminds me of this guy who got recommended to me on twitter. He was hot, he posted nsfw content, and he was openly gay. I followed because we all get thirsty from time to time. But not long after I followed him, I was getting all this hate and fear mongering in my feed. A lot of propaganda and stuff tyiig to prevoke out rage over non topics and nonsense. So I took a week and went back and looked at why this was getting past my filters and blockings. And realized it was because the hot guy was reposting all this homophobic, transphobic, anti semetic evil. And I went, I'm sorry, but no one, NO ONE is hot enough to justify this stuff, and I unfollowed and blocked him. And my feed went back to normal. But twitter still recommends garbage people to me through hot thirst traps they posted because that'll drive interactions up. I don't follow anyone anymore unless I have the time to go through a year of their timeline. If I likee what I see, sure I'll follow. But the more red flags the less likely I am to follow, and certain topics I will not onlly not follow but I will block. Because I do not want or need unhinged calls for violence against people for made up things in my daily life.
People seem to have forgotten we can block and mute people and walk away from them, we don't have to always engage, always react, always try to be right. And it boggles my mind how many people have forgoten that and don't even watch videos all the way through before they comment or start arguing.
Reminds me of a video I clicked on by a creator I like on here. Frist clip was of something that scares me. I paused and went, weiird they didn't have x person on here, he loves this content, wonder what this video is about? Scrolled down to discover it was a 30-40 minute video of nothing but the thing that terrorfies me. I went to the comments, told them video quality is lovey, dig their personalities and their chemistry as a due on the program. I made the mistake of not reading the tags / descriptions first, that was on me. I hoped they had a lovely day and that they enjoyed themselves in a topic that was bringing them joy, and I fast forwarded the video so they sttill got the view and interaction and then I left the video.
It's like the conversation I had about tipping the other day. I firmly believe if you're bringing my food to my door, you get a tip. And I've only not tipped when I didn't have money for it on my card and I make sure to give them a cash tip when they get here. Things have to go HORRIBLY wrong for me not to tip someone. But people have bad days all the time, so I'm not going to tip poorly just because someone's having an off moment. But if the weather is bad, that tip is going up for them for getting out at all. If the service goes above and beyond, then that tip is going up even more. And if the person has had the worst nght of their lives, they're offerrd a kiind ear to vent to, kind words, and a larger tip becauue sometimes you just need that one not shitty thing to turn a day around. Context is key. And people in customer service jobs deserve patience and kind words. Especialy if I'm the nnext cusomer after a karen... the horror stories I could tell
Too much of this cancel culture, purity culure, and this "gotcha moment" stuff has infected us. There was a time we could just walk away from the hateful person, and somewhere along the line we started to have to get even with them, or get over them. I had to explain to my mom why something was propaganda the other day, annd I asked for the source, ad she told me and I went, mom... he believes a zombie of a dead man is going to rise from the grave and go to where his father was murdered... do you really think anything he says can be trusted? She went, he what? And I had to explain that "logic" to my mother. But SLOWLY I'm getting her to look at things objectively or to at least ask me to check if something's fake before she spreads it.
I hope this finds you well, and that you have a lovely day. And may there be brighter days to come.
One thing people seem to do too easily in these drama situations is pick sides. When they hear how badly someone has behaved, they line up to support the 'victim' and pillory the accused. Thing is, it's entirely possible for multiple people involved in a situation to have behaved badly. People don't fall into neat 'goodie' and 'baddie' categories. Often a toxic personal or working relationship encourages both parties to be their worst selves. I can think of a whole load of dramas where people have tended to side with one person or another, picked one version of events to believe and drawn lines in the sand. But when you look into it, both sides are presenting highly partial and dishonest versions of events, and both sides have likely done horrible things. People can be genuine victims of abusive behaviour, but still exaggerate the situation and downplay their own wrongs to make themselves look better.
I agree that many of us already know these things. However, it is helpful to hear it again every now and then. Thanks!
I hope you don't mind, my dad -- who's a Reagan Republican still in denial about the current state of the party -- would likely classify you as a 'leftist' just on your looks (you look amazing btw). So I'm thinking of taking the audio from this, as he likes to rant about 'leftist cancel culture' all the time, and having him listen to it, because he doesn't believe me that people on the left can approach things this way (logically).
He's not an idiot (he's one of the smartest people I know) but he's spent decades in the evangelical right and doesn't even look for opposing viewpoints anymore. The most progress I've ever made in changing his views was making him realize that the average person on the left also wants to do the right things for the right reasons, they just do them differently, so I'm hoping this audio might help.
Thank you for this, either way. It was sort of philosophical and I enjoyed it.
Best of luck.
I would like to mention I have left likes on accident. I’ve even followed people on accident. I have tremors in my hands and it’s easy to tap the wrong place and not even know until new people show up in my subscription feed or I’m searching through my old likes to find a specific post and come across things I know I didn’t mean to like
To go along with how long ago, how old the person was at the time also matters imo. People often will have said crappy things in their teens that they now know better.
This feels very much like a media literacy Ted Talk. I've seen so many people lose their mind over out of context stuff.
Confirmation bias is something people exploit in malicious ways, however. Especially in context collapsed callouts.
This entire video could be summed up as "What if we recreated Catholicism but replaced god with a mob of randos"
15:50 You even got the mandated confession of the sin
I don't ascribe to this world view. I don't believe in the concept of holding people accountable when I have no relationship with them (real relationship, not parasocial).
1) If it is a legal violation: They need to be held legally accountable
2) If it is a moral violation by a rando: I stop engaging with them. Their presence in my life was contingent upon them adding value. If they are grinding my gears they no longer serve their function & are removed
3) If it is a moral violation in an interpersonal relationship: We do the reconciliation process
I have zero interest in reconciling with randos. Public figures & content creators exist solely to be consumed. If their actions make them non consumable, I don't consume them. Im not interested in becoming a project manager for a products moral atonement
Good, well-articulated argument - and I like how the problem was explained in this video. Thanks.
A good example is what happened to Al Franken.
what happened to him
I gotta make things hard for her. Lindsay Ellis.
I’d recommend looking into the alt-right playbook - the ship of Theseus by innuendo studio’s for how it can work, and things to watch out for
I've been following that one since about the second episode.
Thank you so much for making this video. I'm sorry that Blair of all people tried to do that to you. You're a badass creator!
This comment is an offering to the Engagement Fairy. I hope lots of people see this video. As always, you make all your points fairly and coherently.
This video essay reminds me of that Simpsons' episode with Homer, the babysitter and the gummy Venus De Milo
I saw she was sittings on her… sweet can… so I grab… her… sweet can.
The problem I have with online 'accountability' is... accountable to who? To the person demanding it? Why? How would the person being held 'accountable' even be able to verify that the person demanding it was actually affected by it? If, for example, I said something that hurt somebody else out of ignorance, then I am accountable to the person I hurt, and if what I said was generalised enough to possibly include a group of people then I would be accountable to that group. They, and they ALONE have 1) the right to hold someone accountable, and 2) the right to accept/reject any apology given. I simply don't feel any given Karen has the right to demand accountability. Now, if the mob can't be expected to 'do the work' to verify the 'facts' they're demanding accountability over, I don't feel anybody thus targeted should have to apologise to said mob at large. Doing the work goes both ways, and I really do feel a LOT of people on the left need to learn this. There's enough nonsense coming out of the right for those on the left to add to it.
The rules you lay down for filtering out weaponized accountability are important in this day and age as they are the same ones needed to filter out fake news. It can be exhausting to constantly be on alert, but we'd all be better off if we did a little more research into sources before reposting.
My kids. My kids and their peer could do with hearing this. As a reminder, even if they already get it.
Yes, truly, more children actually need to be educated on their critical thinking, as well as researching and investigating. They need to know how important it is to not follow the loudest voice, and loudest voice alone. Consideration for not just other narratives, but also patterns in behaviors and speech of each narrative brought forth, as well as considerable evidence that can back up or thwart different narratives. Evidence sometimes requires deep diving, and even contesting established claims.
We all are now in the age of mass manipulation from so many points across the internet; between politics, media, corporations, and even disputes among social groups. And children need to be taught about the importance of accountability (as well as not cheapening the value of accountability with false accusations), just as significantly they need to learn the importance of comparing narratives to any presented evidence.
So much of the internet has been built on biases, and the children inheriting this reality need to eventually consider what built up those biases, as well as who, what and how those biases impact.
There is a monolithically powerful domino effect with each presented claim, each declared stance for or against a bias, and awareness of how profoundly these things affect so many lives needs to be encouraged more than ever.
this video is so essential. something can be long ago and the person hasn't learned anything, but that's SO DIFFERENT from the person making amends and doing better.
also i am super late to the party and I hope this isn't weird but as a trans woman it's always awesome when a ytber i havent seen in ages (blame the algorithm!!) has transitioned! :D this is such a good take too. subscribed!!
Sorry, I have a short attention span, what I heard was "Try to.... get into fights in my comment section... please." :P
Hot dogs are not a sandwich, they are a type of taco.
No dammit! A hot dog is an open faced egg roll!
Hot dogs are absolutely a sandwich! ...But only in America. 🤣
All sandwiches are sandwiches, except of course for ice cream sandwiches which are ravioli
@@CouncilofGeeks An open faced eggroll is just another word for a taco. And an eggroll is just another word for a burrito :P
Burritos are a lie. It’s all just Hot Pockets.
I can't remember the specifics, but I once remember hearing an accusation and wondering in the comments what the context was to be sure I was interpreting it accurately. Someone replied that the context didn't matter. No context would make that acceptable. That attitude is especially infuriating. Maybe it's true that the context doesn't make it any better. But we can only say that with certainty once we know what it is.
D’Angelo Wallace is such a sweetheart. Which video is the clip from?
“The Disappearance of Blaire White.”
@@CouncilofGeeks Thank you!
50 years ago - people relied (in general) on the professionalism of editors and professional bodies to curate the information they receive in a trustworthy way. Whether that was right, is indeed open to question - there were clearly good sources of information - but also - history has shown that there were abuses too. These days we have unedited information overload - and few people have the ability, training, instinct or will to navigate it. Certain people in our societies (politicians etc) are taking advantage of this innate society weakness. Personally I would wish that our education system would focus at least a small amount of time giving children the necessary skills and awareness to navigate this professionally unedited and largely unaccountable, information overload era, be aware of the pitfalls, our human frailties (that are being exploited) and arm the next generation with the tools to navigate & clarify it.
Some schools are trying. My own kid recently had assignments focused on identifying sponsored content in news articles and considering biases if the authors.
I'm dreading the exact moment someone in this comments section invokes the name of a
*EDIT* - You know what? I'm not even gonna hint at who I'm talking about. Probably for the better
Sam Seder is another great example of this. The same figures behind the Gunn situation sought out an old tweet of his which is horrific out of context, but in context was actually satirizing people who weren't holding someone (Polanski) accountable for bad things he'd done
Commented this very early in the video, long before you said to avoid citing examples in the comments. Just trying to throw you engagement, not stoke any controversy or anything
For similar reasons to the topic of this video I make a policy never to retweet an article unless I've read it entirely. Which, yes, slows down a response but a lot of the times moving as fast as possible isn't necessary.
I also enjoy your Dr who videos and your other ideas and opinions
3:54 I think the fact that the evidence was stale and there was real counterevidence of Gunn having improved is what makes disneys initial reaction an overreaction.
But what makes it weaponizing accountability is that the complainers didn’t actually object to the behavior they were allegedly complaining about. They were being disingenuous, “reporting” Gunn for something that they thought was just fine-laudable, even.
This is basically somebody getting in trouble for something they think isn’t punishment-worthy-something they think _nobody_ should get in trouble for-and when they can’t evade the consequences they say “Jimmy did the same thing, once-why aren’t you punishing him‽”
And I have zero respect for that. If you think that something shouldn’t be wrong or illegal or punishable, you should be _glad_ someone got away with it, even if you didn’t. Inconsistent enforcement _is_ a moral or legal failing, but as long as it isn’t a systemic racist/sexist/whateverist policy at work, having an unfair consequence enforced on fewer people is better.
Your videos are so thoughtful!
Really appreciate the intelligent way you present things. Thanks.
"who likes by accident" I used to use the mobile version of twitter. It would like things when I didn't it to. I would unlike it but I would not be surprised if I missed some. Not many but some. I don't use twitter at all any more but with Elon in charge I wouldn't be surprised if the mobile version is even worse then it was.
Edit: it would also not like a tweet I did want it too. It was very broken.
Quote tweets embedded in articles were the worst. I'd click on the like button that was clearly for the embedded response and when it opened the original Twitter page it would like whatever the original horrible tweet was. And that was before Elon's path of destruction.
Something to remember about accountability is that we must leave room among the woke for the waking. People can grow.
Re: guilt through liking tweets: My fairly liberal MIL reposts and likes conservative memes her alt-right friends and relatives share. Taken without context, these memes can mean a totally different thing in a conservative circle rather than a liberal one. It's completely reasonable that a person could like a tweet and not look closely at who originally posted it and in what context it was meant.
This is very relevant to how the defunding of the BBC is talked about. Instead of calls to reform the BBC as what it should be, you'll instead see left wing people using right wing language and rhetoric - even tho they're usually arguing the BBC is too right wing. 'Defund the BBC' is a UK right wing slogan - even politicians have been seen using it. It's not very useful.
This is a very modern issue, in fact its slightly still ongoing though barely. It had to do with Board Game RUclips. Several years ago a creator was accused and confessed to sexual misconduct and harassment. Using their popularity to solicit pictures from fans and so on while claiming to be in an open relationship. This creator admitted to the actions, apologized, published a full article about the situation on an actual news site, then left the internet for awhile and sought out counseling and treatment. So cool, the issue was addressed and even from what I can find even the accusers or should I be specific say the victims were wanting to move past this. And for awhile they had and for those people its in the past.
Then recently another creator makes vague posts calling the original creator problematic and saying they are predatory. When questioned by more people in the comments they make another vague post about it being copy and paste of their previous behavior. The creator who is saying this is fairly well liked and seems not to be into the drama thing, but gives no details, but states they will not be working with this channel or any of its people even if some might be good. The channel makes posts saying they are investigating these claims and of course the internet loses its mind making up all kinds of headcanon. Now this event is much different from the previous event in that as far as can be seen no one has come forward as a victim of this "copy and paste" behavior which I will remind you was the creator abusing their statue to solicit pictures and such from fans. The second creator did not mention if they where a victim or witness. Or if this is ongoing behavior or reference to the past behavior.
But of course the implication was all that was needed to have people losing their minds and harassing the channel including various other creators on that channel whom from even the vague post had nothing to do with this situation. Now the accused creator has left the company, but this time they are saying that the claims are false where as before they confessed and admitted to it immediately, saying they are departing because their presence is allowing fans of this other creator and general people on the internet to use them as fuel to harass their colleagues and friends.
This to me is another kind of weaponized accountability. The vagueness of the second creators post is hard to tell if this is a new claim or simply them becoming aware of the past and taking actions in the worse possible light and claiming they are doing the same thing. But even the second creator does not seem like they are pushing this as a full proper claim and accusations, but the internet immediately started calling for this person to be fired, arrested, etc when no evidence has been brought forward, no known victims have come forward. And the behavior of the accused is entirely different in denying the claims as utterly false and referencing that their past is being used as a way to attack them today.
So do we want accountability or punishment? If someone did something bad like harassment and misconduct, openly confessed in a public forum to it, removes themselves from the situation in which they had gained the power to do so, and then sought professional help and has been several years without any further claims. Is that accountability? Or did they "Get away with it"?
Might be a controversial comment: This is what always bothered me about the John Barrowman situation.
Whilst it's definitely a good thing that Barrowman has been held accountable for his practical jokes that fall under sexual misconduct/harassment, that information had been public knowledge and openly discussed for years - It's only once the much more severe allegations regarding Noel Clarke were doing the rounds that suddenly a video of a panel from 2018 where Noel Clarke jokes about Barrowmans behaviour was suddenly being spread around by a lot of right-wing and bigoted news sites condemning John's behaviour.
Considering some of the headlines read like: 'Sexual Predator Noel Clarke exposes fellow perverted Doctor Who star in shocking clip - "He only gets away with it because he's gay"'
It started to feel like less about the press actively condemning John's actions and more of a "We've finally got dirt on a major actor who's a big LGBTQ+ supporter, we need to weaponize it whilst the mob is hungry".
Accountability is one thing, but it should never be used as a weapon.
So… now that enough time has passed that we know Barrowman didn’t stop doing this when he initially claimed he did (among other things), and seems to only understand that he’s in trouble but has failed to demonstrate that he understands why what he did wasn’t ok, this is where I’m at: the things he’s been held accountable for were warranted and action was necessary, however the reason people started looking into him was absolute BS and a distraction tactic from somebody facing worse accusations. But the sad truth is that a terrible motive from Clarke and those who went where he pointed doesn’t negate the damage or the problem or mean it shouldn’t be addressed. A lot of the fervor behind the fall of Joss Whedon was egged on by bitter Snyder fans, but that sadly doesn’t mean what was found out about Whedon wasn’t true.
I think this stuff is worth talking about. Thank you for talking about it.
If I had to guess, I would say this was a response to Keffals...
She recently posted an attack video going after multiple RUclipsrs, one of whom she wanted "held accountable" for liking a tweet and another she wanted "held accountable" for things said in clips she took out of context.
Then again, this could just be me seeing patterns where none exist.