Wednesday, August 08, 2007

 
probably the more-or-less last post about Heart, at least for a while.

I don't know how many of y'all are really following the collapse of Heart's internet house of cards, but I have rather mixed feelings about it all.

which is not to say that I would not be distraught if (or, maybe more to the point, will not be distraught when) some idiot wind blows down my own internet house of cards. But nonetheless, I'm ambivalent --

One of the things I really admired about Heart, for all my disagreements with her, was her ability to build huge, apparently relatively diverse communities. And I still have to admit that her blogroll is enviably huge, her discussion threads enviably long, her readership enviably numerous and loyal (more loyal these days if not quite as numerous).

So, yeah, I'm awfully sad for her that her message board was destroyed. That's an awful lot of hard work and time and effort shot to hell - and that's a shame. That wide-ranging internet presence that is/was The Margins was not the result of an occasional offhand hour or two of HTML coding, but a real concerted effort to learn how to create functional web environments which, you know, takes real persistence and determination. And I have to say that even though our ideological differences are canyon-wide, I really respect that effort and dedication.

And now, all gone. Adieu, adieu, all's vanity. As a fellow human being who knows from loss, I can't help but grieve with her.

On the other tentacle, however, I hold no illusions that my shared grief will endear me to Heart or her pals. I am, and my pals are, after all, largely part of the problem in their eyes with all our porn-not-hating and Nigel-tolerating and patriarchy- um, whatevering. And that angers me to a level which threatens to eclipse my feelings of genuine sympathy. The idea that I, or any other nonradfem woman, is just the same as, just as bad as, a basement-dwelling adolescent 4channer is intolerably insulting.

I have to be honest about that, otherwise I feel like my expression of genuine sympathy is meaningless.

To be fair, maybe Heart herself doesn't believe that. but I get the sense that many in her community do. And I can't help but mention it.

Emboldened by my anger, and secure in the knowledge that she and her crew would spare me no tears if such a thing were to happen to me, I am moved to say this:

If y'all gonna talk shit, be prepared to draw flies.

Yes, I think that her campaign has something to do with the DNS attack. Absolutely. Presidential campaigns make people, um, inquisitive - just ask Gary Hart. People who are running for President ought not do certain things where people can see them - like hang out online with, and give all manner of approval to, people who would prefer to have aborted their male children rather than deal with knowing they masturbate with naked pictures. It's just not very presidential.

Yes, I think that it's reasonable to expect that a message board that amounts to a cesspool of intolerance is going to get hassled every now and then, not only by people with legitimate issues but also by people who think it's fun to wreck stuff and watch the fallout. And I think that a distinction should be made between one and the other.

Yes, I think she shoulda seen this coming.

So that's all I got on the subject. Good luck in rebuilding, Heart.

Comments:
They are attacking women's sites and each time they succeed in bringing them down it makes them more more powerful. They want all women off the internet. I'm not a fan of Heart's. The precedent means bad things for all of us.

Kathy Sierra was a women who bought into the boy's club and they destroyed her. It is at their whim. Who will they attack today. They are calling for personal attacks on Biting Beaver in real life. They are looking for her son in real life.
 
Well, the tone's a bit over the top, (I don't think "they" are particularly powerful except in the way that chronic trolls are; they're like dry rot) but I agree with anon that the precedent is bad. And while Heart is a dwama queen, anon's right: Kathy Sierra was not even remotely a dwama queen, and she got hateful scary shit anyway. Ditto Jill of feministe. ditto brownfemipower and Devious Diva. You don't have to be a self-aggrandizing dwama queen to bring the wrath of the Internets on your head (although it helps). You just have to be visible, and, yep, female and/or of color, queer, etc. etc.; and catch the eye of the wrong troll at the wrong time.

she didn't ask for this. neither did Beeb. I think they're total assholes, often abusive in their own right, and they suck, but there's no excuse at all for this. and yeah, I'm talking about the hacking of emails, the violent threats (I don't care if they're a "joke"), and yeah, the outing of BB's real name and attempts to track down her son (yeah, she shouldn't have named him publically either, but that doesn't really help -him-) are scary and creepy.
 
You just have to be visible, and, yep, female and/or of color, queer, etc. etc.; and catch the eye of the wrong troll at the wrong time.

which tells me (just me, mind you, just my opinion) that we should all expect it on some level. we should all see it coming.

I don't think the 4channers or the Encyclopedia Dramaticans really want all women off the internet. That seems a little hyperbolic to me.

in order for the ED and 4chan folks to do their thing, they need fuel. we're it. EVERYBODY's it. men, women, radfems, MRAs, homeschoolers, Republicans, Christians, earth mamas, mild-mannered shoeshine boys - we're ALL grist for their mill, it may be just a matter of time.
 
This whole thing is just fucking evil. It's got to be illegal, and I suspect that until some sort of law enforcement agency takes it seriously, the whole mess will just escalate and keep escalating.

Christ, I don't like Heart, and yes she should not engage in gratuitous shit-talking about people who disagree with her (which is more or less her modus operandi) but nobody deserves this.

---Myca
 
It was over the top. Sorry. I just saw encyclopediadramatica dot com/Cheryl_Lindsey_Seelhoff and it flipped me out. It was worse yesterday with more animated pictures and called out BB's son by name and their location.

You'll want to delete this post most likely but I wanted to let you know. They do want want the internet free of us.

I apologize for the anonymous post also. They have a list of targets all ready.
 
This Youtube video pretty much lays out their mentality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjU8bZR19A

Basically, random, free-floating anger that targets whatever catches their fancy.
 
yeah, that was some nasty shit, I don't blame you.
 
slip. yeah, it's a type, for sure.

I don't think we're all equally at risk for being randomly targeted, although it's true it can happen to anyone: it IS true that if you ID a certain way and particularly talk about certain subjects, they tend to come out of the woodwork. Not always, but enough so it isn't a coincidence. There was an active campaign to harass people who posted about the Duke case (blaming the alleged perps, that is), if you recall, for instance.

and I mean--love ya, AP, but "be prepared"--what does that mean, logistically, to you? Duct tape around your website? Resign yourself to the fickle finger of fate? You know?

I mean, if you want to say, Heart's a dwama queen and an asshole, by all means; but if anything I'd say she's more "prepared" for this eventuality than most people. in fact I'd say that it's moments like this that validate what was already a bunker mentality. Now it all makes sense!...
 
"So, yeah, I'm awfully sad for her that her message board was destroyed. That's an awful lot of hard work and time and effort shot to hell - and that's a shame. That wide-ranging internet presence that is/was The Margins was not the result of an occasional offhand hour or two of HTML coding, but a real concerted effort to learn how to create functional web environments which, you know, takes real persistence and determination. And I have to say that even though our ideological differences are canyon-wide, I really respect that effort and dedication.

And now, all gone."


Are you sure about that? My understanding of DDoS attacks is that the original info is not destroyed because nothing is actually hacked. The site is simply blocked by excess traffic.
 
and I mean--love ya, AP, but "be prepared"--what does that mean, logistically, to you? Duct tape around your website? Resign yourself to the fickle finger of fate? You know?

HA!

good point. maybe I too did not think things through as carefully as I should have.

when you look at it that way, that was pretty stupid of me to say.

BUT - there comes a point where, if your blog or message board or internet presence becomes so far-reaching that it becomes public, I think you do have to expect a certain amount of slings and/or arrows, and prepare for that somehow. at least mentally. so you're not dead shocked.

anon - let's assume that yeah, the 4channers and other jerkoffs that did this really really do want all girls off the internet. How could they tell who's female and who's male, for sure, each time? they could never accomplish that goal, even if they really really want it. So what would be the point?

they may be useless wastes of skin, but they're not stupid.

which makes me wonder if the DOS attack was not also motivated by wanting to appear "l33t" (elite) and smarter-than-mere-mortal-non-hackers.
 
Are you sure about that? My understanding of DDoS attacks is that the original info is not destroyed because nothing is actually hacked. The site is simply blocked by excess traffic.

well, that is good news for Heart.
 
You'll want to delete this post most likely but I wanted to let you know. They do want want the internet free of us.

why would I want to delete this post, anon?

do you mean this post (that is, the blog post I wrote) or your comment?

I'm not a comment deleter, generally speaking. I think that leads to trouble.
 
They are mowing down feminist bloggers right now. I just didn't want pull you into it.
 
bring 'em on.
I got nothing to lose.
 
oh, yeah, definitely, from the ED site, a lot of it is about alpha hax0rz skillz, or something.

that said, i think iacb's right: it doesn't necessarily mean all your shit's gone. Anyway I expect most of it is in google cache, although that would be a huge pain in the ass to reconstruct that way. It's a pain in the ass regardless.

or, like, when that happened to Bitch | Lab, it effectively took her down for a while because her host server decided her mega-bandwidth was more trouble than it was worth to keep hosting at whatever price it had been. like, vandals wreck your apartment, and your landlord decides to hike up your rent by 300%. something. i R a luddite.
 
As much as I disagree with Heart, I'm still feeling a lot of sympathy in this case. If the tone of the comments she got had been simply "You're wrong and I think you're an idiot, so there!" I wouldn't have felt much sympathy at all, BUT the actual tone was so clearly misogynistic that I agree with the first anon. This was about men and boys who want women as a whole to STFU. It may have started as hurt feelings over a particularly wacko commenter on her site, but that's not what's going on now. Threatening to go after Biting Beaver in real life? I'm not seeing how ANYONE can take a "you reap what you sow" attitude here.

Keep in mind, folks - next time it really could just as easily be one of us.
 
Yep.

And I'd be bloody beside myself if someone pulled the "you reap what you sow" thing if it did.

on the other hand, I wouldn't expect (or want) flowers and sympathy from Certain People.

you know, Certain People who show up to *gloat* when someone's already feeling kicked to the curb.. (hi, witchy-woo!)

It's beside the point, though: yeah, this shit's fucked up.
 
Keep in mind, folks - next time it really could just as easily be one of us.

of that I have no doubt.
 
And I'd be bloody beside myself if someone pulled the "you reap what you sow" thing if it did.

if it were me, or more to the point when it is me, I will be forced to assume that I said something dumb enough to show up on someone's radar, that I shot my mouth off in such a way as to make myself a great big deliciously attractive and quite stationary target.

it's just a matter of time, really.

who knows but I might have already done so, maybe more than once.

I don't know if it's a matter of reaping/sowing, but maybe simply the cost of doing business.

build a wall, paint it sparkling white, let everyone know you've built a beautiful white wall, and sooner or later someone's gonna come along and spray paint it. It's not your fault for building a wall and painting it white. It's not your fault for wanting a white wall. but it's a fact of life that vandals LOVE white walls.

***

note to Belle, Cassandra, Myca, anon - I know we don't agree here, and I want you all to know that I appreciate your comments, even though (or especially because) we disagree. it forces me to really examine what I'm saying, which is never bad.
 
I don't know if it's a matter of reaping/sowing, but maybe simply the cost of doing business.

because really, we're all reaping and sowing in the same field.
 
I will be forced to assume that I said something dumb enough to show up on someone's radar, that I shot my mouth off in such a way as to make myself a great big deliciously attractive and quite stationary target.

Well--we've talked about this before, AP, in other contexts. But I mean: translate that into real life (the Internets aren't really all that different) and what that boils down to is:

If someone attacked or abused me, I must have brought it on somehow.

And...no, just no. I just wish you could feel that, how -not true- that is. And here I'm not even thinking about bloody Heart, you know.
 

Are you sure about that? My understanding of DDoS attacks is that the original info is not destroyed because nothing is actually hacked. The site is simply blocked by excess traffic.


That's exactly right. DDOS doesn't touch the actual data. It just blocks people from accessing it via HTTP.
 
I wish luck Heart too, and went over there and said so personally.

Regarding the whole BB thing: Any stranger actually locating someone's children, (particularly someone who openly HATES you possibly spying on your kids as they leave school? leave your house?), sends Pavlovian, almost instinctual terror into the hearts of mothers. Some of us have had to worry about such things with exes or crazy boyfriends, who threatened us by threatening our children. (And Heart has.) THIS IS A PATRIARCHAL STRATEGY. I was really surprised that various people reacted the way they did to the threats; threatening to "find" kids and "talk" to them, takes this shit to a whole nother level.

And why can't those website hosts be sued for propagating threats against kids? If Bill O'Reilly can shut down N@MBLA, I can't understand why we can't shut down some of these assholes.
 
Well--we've talked about this before, AP, in other contexts. But I mean: translate that into real life (the Internets aren't really all that different) and what that boils down to is:

If someone attacked or abused me, I must have brought it on somehow.

And...no, just no. I just wish you could feel that, how -not true- that is. And here I'm not even thinking about bloody Heart, you know.


Amen Belledame, amen amen amen.

That damn book THE SECRET is to blame for the new victim-blaming fad: "I was thinking negatively, and now, my roof caved in. I did it to myself!"

AntiP, you say you are Jewish, but you sure you aren't Catholic? ;)

I will refrain from St Ignatius' definition of consolations and desolations (which I always liked, actually) and how if you leave the door open and evil comes in, you won't notice it as much as if you closed the door and therefore evil must make a big ruckus banging on the door, so you DO notice. Suffice to say, if he were alive today, he'd be suing the author of THE SECRET, who has a nice Irish surname and obviously stole the whole thing from the Jesuits!

...burble!...
 
"If someone attacked or abused me, I must have brought it on somehow."

And...no, just no. I just wish you could feel that, how -not true- that is. And here I'm not even thinking about bloody Heart, you know.


I get what you're saying. and I appreciate it. but maybe I'm not making myself perfectly clear.

there's triggers and then there's triggers.

consider this - once upon a time, Mr. Abusive Ex kicked the front door in, screamed and yelled, knocked my glasses off my face and grabbed me by the neck until I passed out and collapsed on the floor.

my crime? I left my key in my other purse, and didn't have it on me when I went to open the front door.

On one hand, I didn't do ANYTHING! jeez!

on the other hand, clearly the fact that I didn't have my key was enough to send him over the edge.

something I did (or in this case, didn't do) caused him to react violently.

I certainly didn't ASK for it. and my rather routine error didn't DESERVE such an inappropriately-violent response. but at least the proximate cause of his outburst was because I forgot my key.

most folks wouldn't go berzerk like he did.

the moral of the story is: no matter what you do (or don't do), somebody somewhere is going to be driven completely round-the-bend by you.

I am fortunate that I have learned to control my IRL exposure to dangerously-violent exhusbands and others of that sort. but online it's harder to control one's exposure to people who are enraged by one's very presence.

Because I said "X", I'm sure that someone somewhere is going "god damn that fucking stupid bitch!"

(or more graphic language, or ostentatiously-nonsexist language as appropriate.)

but they wouldn't be saying that if I didn't say "X".

or, for an animal metaphor, assume a bee (eeeeeeeK!) buzzing around your head. you wave it away, reflexively. the action of your hand pisses off the bee. angry bees sting. ouch!

you didn't deserve to get stung, but the way your hand waved caused a chain reaction that ended in that sumbitch stinging you.
 
"AntiP, you say you are Jewish, but you sure you aren't Catholic? ;)"

actually, I'm a recently-convinced Quaker.

Belle's Jewish.
 
I wish luck Heart too, and went over there and said so personally.

good for you, Daisy.

if I thought for a minute such sentiment would be welcome from dirty old me, I'd have happily swallowed my anger.

but it's (obviously) a little too easy to be spiteful and uncharitable, given our history.

Regarding the whole BB thing: Any stranger actually locating someone's children, (particularly someone who openly HATES you possibly spying on your kids as they leave school? leave your house?),

very definitely NOT DESERVED. clearly. and Beav has my unreserved sympathy and support on that front, even though she said something unconscionable (that I'm sure she regrets now).
 
actually, I'm a recently-convinced Quaker.

Belle's Jewish.


Oh, sorry! Quakers aren't known for beating up on themselves! ;)

BTW, what "history" do you have with Heart? Got a link? Which fight was this?

When she said my blogroll contained "enemies of radical feminism"--I thought she meant Ren! LOL
 
but you sure you aren't Catholic?

My old therapist in Texas (who I LOVED) asked me that same question.

"You have a lot of irrational guilt..." she said.
 

but they wouldn't be saying that if I didn't say "X".


See, that's where we differ. Yes, they would. The only difference is,

1) they'd be using some other excuse

2) they might be doing it to someone else.

And no, you can't control the behavior of abusive people, or anyone else.

What you CAN control is your own boundaries, what you do and don't accept from other people.

It doesn't matter what rationale they use for their invasive crap. It's -interesting,- maybe; but, you're not their shrink. You're trying to protect yourself from them. As such, it's more important to identify the behavior up with which you will not put (and how you're going to enforce that, your boundaries) than to try to second guess what's going on in their pointy little heads.

and believe me, I love the armchair shrinkage as much as anyone.

but, I learn (not learned) this the hard way.

Sometimes, the only word you need is "no."
 
Daisy: she meant me, AP, Ren, Veronica, probably Bint, and probably a bunch of others as well.

"enemies of." That and the running of the Presidential campaign and I'm wondering when we get the Checkers speech already. sheez.
 

the moral of the story is: no matter what you do (or don't do), somebody somewhere is going to be driven completely round-the-bend by you.


Right, and, that is THEIR problem. THEIR shit. THEY are the one in need of behavior correction. THEY are the one with shit to own.
 
And why can't those website hosts be sued for propagating threats against kids? If Bill O'Reilly can shut down N@MBLA, I can't understand why we can't shut down some of these assholes.

well, definitely I don't want to invoke BillO here. as it happens, though, at least one of those sites is embroiled in a gleeful sort of Bugs n Elmer fight with Fox News.

it's hard to shut down hackers, is the thing. you can go after one site they're on, but they'll just pop up somewhere else, Hydra like.

which isn't to say "don't try," just--it's not like no one's thought of it or tried.
 


Right, and, that is THEIR problem. THEIR shit. THEY are the one in need of behavior correction. THEY are the one with shit to own.


Right. Which is why it's pointless to say things like "should have seen this coming."

Look, I get it, believe me. It's okay. I can't stand her ass either. And yes, I think she's a dwama queen, and yeah, okay, I do think some people seem to end up embroiled in dwamas more often than others. And, when it's a -chronic pattern,- with some individual, then yeah, that's maybe something the individual in question should look at.

Seeing as how I'm fairly certain Heart is impervious to self-examination that doesn't involve the carefully constructed worldview/rationale she's got going for herself there AND that in this particular instance I think the call for such is inappropriate, I...wouldn't bother really.

1) they're assholes

2) some other assholes attacked them

3) I disapprove strongly of what the other assholes did

4) they're still assholes too, however.

y punto.
 
I'll even go this far: if by "reap what you sow" you mean, not the attack itself, but the less than enthusiastic outpouring of sympathy and support from those who've been fucked over by her, then, yes. But, she's got her own little enclave, and welcome to them, you know?
 
daisy, try these on for size:

http://feet2thefire.blogspot.com/2006/06/from-heart-if-you-havent-had-cock.html

http://feet2thefire.blogspot.com/2006/11/huh.html

http://feet2thefire.blogspot.com/2007/04/in-recognition-of-my-blogiversary-here.html

http://feet2thefire.blogspot.com/2007/07/oh-wow.html

the first two were the results of trying desperately to comment on threads over at The Margins (with varying degrees of success), the other two are the results of lost patience.
 
Ohhh good reading, AntiP! thanks.

"enemies of." That and the running of the Presidential campaign and I'm wondering when we get the Checkers speech already. sheez.

Now you got me wondering what the equivalent of "Pat's Republican cloth coat" would be.

Heart's vegan hemp organic cloth coat?

:P
 
"Regarding the whole BB thing: Any stranger actually locating someone's children, (particularly someone who openly HATES you possibly spying on your kids as they leave school? leave your house?)"

Personally, I don't get the sense that the these people are directly out to hurt her son. A lot of these guys have some stupid idea that this is somehow helping him.

Now as far as directly threatening her, I definitely see that. Although ED is claiming that they'll ban people for posting "dox" (real-world info, addresses, etc), there all manner of pictures of her and her house, a map of the area she lives in, satellite photos of her house, etc. The implied threat is huge, obviously.

As for what can be done about ED. If anybody wants to pursue it, there is actually some kind of entity behind it called "EDRAMA LLC". I'm not sure if its actually incorporated, but I'm sure its liable, either as a corporation, or otherwise, the owner behind it. The also have a webhost and are probably violating all manner of terms of their ISP contract.

There's even going to be a real-world meetup of these guys (sponsored by EDRAMA LLC):

http://lulzcon.com/

Lots of ways ED is vulnerable.

4chan is a more diffuse entity, but 4chan.org probably has an ISP.

Lots of route somebody directly hit by these guys can take.
 
yeah, ED would probably be more vulnerable than the various chan boards, especially if they're having an RL meetup.
 
Heart's vegan hemp organic cloth coat?

Okay, that made me LOL.
 
I'm getting crap from them too, now, although I'm not particularly impressed with the extent of their 'attack.'
 
if it's not too personal (or stupid) a question, vanessa - how does it make you feel?

are you angry? annoyed? feeling violated? or just pissed off?

what have you been able to do to maintain your blog?
 
BD, I want to second everything you've said here.

And I want to point out that it's not just stopping at DOS attacks. It's violent threats, emailed to feminist bloggers and posted on their blogs. Things like "I hope you're gang raped by a bunch of n*****s" and "I'm going to rape you and cut you open and piss on your corpse."

And it's not just to Heart and BB.
 
And I want to point out that it's not just stopping at DOS attacks. It's violent threats, emailed to feminist bloggers and posted on their blogs. Things like "I hope you're gang raped by a bunch of n*****s" and "I'm going to rape you and cut you open and piss on your corpse."

And it's not just to Heart and BB.


Hi sheelzebub! Welcome!

the fact that violent threats occur to folks other than Heart and BB tell me that it's not so personal, but more just general bullying behavior tailored to make the most impact on the target. if some other rhetoric would have pushed their buttons harder, that's what the violent commenters would have used.

but that's just my opinion. I'm not saying that's the only interpretation, just mine.

for me, on the (remarkably) rare occasion that I do get such threats, I don't get the sense that they're so credible. scary, disgusting, shocking certainly - but I don't expect anyone to jump out from behind a bush tomorrow and manage to successfully subdue me, rape me AND cut me open AND piss on my corpse without anyone noticing. then again, I've never had my online behavior escape to meatspace - maybe if I had, I'd have a different opinion.

now - if someone threatened to use my IP address to somehow release a malignant virus with the express purpose of wrecking the computer system I'm using - that would be a threat I'd take seriously.

but again, would someone who genuinely meant me harm actually tip his/her hand before wrecking my life?
 
or, here's another threat I would take seriously -

"I'm going to tell your ex-husband where you live and where you work."

that's a threat that's just plausible enough to keep me up nights, although mitigated by the fact that Mr. Abusive Ex probably already knows all that stuff. (he's not dumb.)

of course, that's just my own personal button that a bully could push, if sie wanted to.
 
First of all, I think that what's happened to Heart & co.'s sites is appalling. And I don't think that they should have had to do anything differently to avoid it---beyond basic Internet security, which in any case can't deal easily with this kind of broad-spectrum DoS attack.

At the same time, I would definitely question the wisdom of taking the interpretation that they are taking. If you read the ED entry, they are clearly hoping that the attacks will encourage self-validating behaviour like you see on Heart's blog, because the irony-amusement value of that is high for people like that---the very definition of the "lulz"-schadenfreude By far the best response to such people is mere silence, since it's extremely frustrating for them not to get a reaction that gives them "lulz".

Also, I definitely don't agree that this is a maurauding MRA army or anything. It's a familiar and old phenomenon, this kind of ganging up on vulnerable targets. Is it misogynistic? Yes, in that women are a vulnerable target. Do these people actually care about what Heart says? Probably not so much, except insofar as they do actually seem to identify with BB's son.
 
and here is something else, inspired by Sheelzebub's comment above:

I know that Heart, BB, other women in the radfemiverse - I know that they are speaking the truth about men as they see it.

I do not doubt that what they are speaking is their truth.

And I also know that speaking their truth about men is considered very brave and courageous and noble and radical and in speaking that truth they hope to change the world.

I don't knock that effort. and I don't doubt that it feels very brave and courageous etc.

Further, I bet that those who are getting the worst of the threats and attacks are feeling like they are singled out solely because they spoke their truth about men, solely because they were brave and courageous etc.

HOWEVER

I think what makes the Hearts and BBs of the world so tantalizingly attractive to the lunatic fringe is the fact that they (Heart, BB, others in that vein) make rather sweeping statements to the effect that their truth is the truth of ALL WOMEN, and that ALL MEN are equally culpable in women's oppression.

which somehow, over time, seems to make it so that the ONLY brave thing, the ONLY courageous thing to say on sites like theirs is "Men suck."

so, that's what people say on those blogs and message boards. folks who think that way already gravitate to places where it's not only safe to say that, but it's NOT safe to say anything else.

which, from the outside looking in, must appear completely ludicrous, or at the very least, ripe for parody.
 
Do these people actually care about what Heart says?

obviously, no - which is why the threats, though luridly inappropriate, don't seem so tremendously credible to me.

though denial of service attacks and image raeps are no less of a loss, certainly.

I guess if a random criminal threw a brick through my window, or a team of anti-Heidi activists threw a brick through my window, I'd have a broken window just the same.
 
Well, I'm annoyed that I'm being grouped with a bunch of women who would call me a tool of the patriarchy. But I'm also amused that they're trying to threaten me with 'outing' when I don't blog anonymously.

It's hardly a scary threat that you've found out my real name when I put it right there on my blogger profile.
 
It's like Susie Bright was saying at BlogHer - being totally "out there" can be your best protection online. No one can threaten me with outing, because my full name is associated with my blog, and my contact info isn't hard to find.
 
I've now seen two sites (Wikipedia and Feministe) get hit with either trolling or DDoS very soon after posting a link to Heart's Margins blog. My advice at this point is to totally avoid direct hotlinking to that or any other targeted site, and Encyclopedia Dramtica and 4chan.org as well. (Text URLs are probably harmless.) Such links are potentially a direct doorway to "Anonymous".

The upside is that I only see new links being hit. If you've posted such links and haven't gotten hit within a few hours, you're probably OK. Taking down such direct links probably wouldn't be a bad idea, though.
 
I, for one, welcome our new anonymous overlords...

only kidding.

seriously, I doubt anyone's interested in me and my little house of cards. I'm not even remotely lulz-worthy to those folks.

which is not to say I'm not remarkably, deliciously, almost criminally lulz-worthy to others!
 
Hello!

I am a queer woman with a desperately horrid sense of humor, so I am really, really amused at the events.

I also think you are awesome, and you correctly understand the nature of the online beast -- most trolling is the result of a few individuals who dislike the target for whatever reason (usually social identification, or personally), but the sort of mass horde is a sort of vigilantism against ludicrous positions or statements, as perceived by the rather diverse, and young, demographic of places like /b/ and SA. Thus, you have Hal Turner getting knocked offline last winter, and you have BB and Heart now.

Also, you are awesome and I am adding you to my bloglist. <3
 
hi, friendly-anon!

why not give yourself a clever nickname so we know not to confuse you with, shall we say, less-friendly anons?
 
Hello friendly blogger who gets it!

This Name I choose as it is Sacred to me and my people.
 
to Encyclopedia Dramatica-types, following the link here from there:

oh HAI!

speak your piece, y'all. I'm not going to stop you.

as I recall, most leading child psychologists recommend simply riding out toddlers' tantrums, no matter how noisy and pointless and destructive they are. so, go ahead and get it out of your systems, if you must.

I didn't take my blog down for Stormcloud, and I'm certainly not going to scuttle it now.

this too shall pass.
 
This Name I choose as it is Sacred to me and my people.

Ha! you're right - you do have a horrid sense of humor ;)

Welcome!
 
I doubt you'll get very many, as you don't seem to hate dirty, filthy, heavy, sweaty evil womyn-enslaving soul-destroying eternity-in-hell enabling pr0n, or speak in Moonspeak, Moon-sister.

Also, you wouldn't be fun to troll, as there'd be no reaction.
 
Also, you wouldn't be fun to troll, as there'd be no reaction.

oh, I don't know as there'd be NO reaction...just not a very amusing one.
 
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LEt their fruit fly attention spans move onto the next round of furries or whatever it is.

first they came for the furries...
 
Well done, you are now on the MOAR list of the 4chan - an anti-feminist.
 
re: Shakesville.

845 comments and still going. I loved this comment:

"Desu: -I- am not on the rag at the moment, but you are still cordially invited to suck my week old festering tampon from the bottom of the trach compactor.
belledame222"
 
thanks. I try.

and yeah, it's everywhere now. echt.
 
Well done, you are now on the MOAR list of the 4chan - an anti-feminist.

did you not read the subtitle, located just under the title?

goes a little something like this:

"where any resemblance to feminism is purely coincidental."

you wanna throw down on whether I'm a feminist or not, you're too late. that was last year.

I don't care who calls me what anymore, although I used to. I used to care deeply. now, eh. I say what I say and feel how I feel. lots of folks don't think I'm so feminist. some folks do. it doesn't matter to me anymore.
 
thanks. I try.

belledame, ladies and gents - she'll be here all week!
 
This was great. So eloquently written, and you make a strong point. I just found about all of this business today!
 
Anonymous is here. This blog is unlikely to be attacked full force, though, sorry. We're too busy extracting lulz from the feminazis. Good day to you
 
Dear antiprincess,

I speak on behalf of Anonymous. Please rest assured Anonymous has no intention of bringing harm to you or your website. We are simply attempting to contact Brandon (the child BitingBeaver wishes she had aborted) and tell him what his mom has said. It truly concerns us to hear how his mom is raising him and her other sons. The sites that were attacked were chosen because they supported BitingBeaver and insulted us, some even challenged us to try and attack them. Also, many of them were very misandrist. The sites that spoke out against her - such as yours - were left alone. We can be civil, contrary to what many will tell you. I would hope that you allow this to be posted. We can respect your right to disagree, we surely hope you can respect ours.

Sincerely,
Anonymous.
 
P.S. You are actually quite right, antiprincess. The violent threats were only chosen as the way to get the biggest response, to get more lulz, if you will. It wasn't misogyny
as many have claimed, and wasn't an example of how men seek to intimidate feminists in order to keep them quiet.

Sincerely,
Anonymous
 
Err. To clarify (I don't know if you can see IPs, I've been going on the assumption that such is the case) those Anons ain't me the Anon-who's-been-commenting-before. *scratches head*
Maybe it really is time I got an actual name.
Re: getting attacked online (by anyone, really) I think the best tactic is to just ignore it and play possum as much as possible. There's no amusement to be found in a target that doesn't move/squeak/flap when you kick it.
 
"I speak on behalf of Anonymous. Please rest assured Anonymous has no intention of bringing harm to you or your website. We are simply attempting to contact Brandon (the child BitingBeaver wishes she had aborted) and tell him what his mom has said."

If I might ask, how do you actually intend on contact him? Is some /b/ from in or around Ohio going to physically find him and approach him? Call him on the phone? Email? (Doesn't have his own account, presumably.) What would you tell him if you found him? And how is this going to be helpful? I guess I'm not getting what the "real world" plan is here.
 
what IACB asked. again.
 
Also, many of them were very misandrist.

The violent threats were only chosen as the way to get the biggest response, to get more lulz, if you will. It wasn't misogyny
as many have claimed


There's a bit of a disconnect, here.

Personally I've never been too impressed with "it was just a joke, LULZ" when it comes to harassment of the level that it's gotten to. And yeah, you know, in the same way that young boys might feel it a bit personally when a mother talks about wishing her son had been aborted, a -lot- of women, not just the targets or even the feminists, feel it as kind of a cut to the jugular when people send shit like the now much-bandied about, "want to rape you, cut you new orifices," etc.

Because that shit -has actually happened to a lot of women.-

And not everyone is gonna react to it as dramatically as heart there, no. AP's got her own take, as you've seen here, and she's got her own stories to tell. But that doesn't mean it's all shits and giggles, either.

I mean, I'm answering this as though people are really serious that they're -concerned- for the kid, you know, even as strangers; if even this degree of earnestness is provoking yet more lulz, yet one more layer of irony (the all-purpose ass-cover) so be fucking it.

Just, if any of the Anons -are- serious (I realize it's a motley and diverse group), y'know, besides the practical questions raised above, I just think: dude, either it's Just The Internets, (tm), No Crying Allowed, or it's not. If you want to mock women for getting upset over people talking blithely about rape and so forth, assuming the worst of them when they may in fact not mean it -literally,- go ahead; but then it's a bit hypocritical to turn around and demand higher standards of someone else, just because you personally happen to identify more with the target in this instance.
 
I mean, look, there are levels and levels of "seriousness" here, right? I don't think anyone is suggesting that Beeb is literally planning to take a sharpened coat hanger to her teenager at this juncture. What's being objected to, the part where people think she -means it-, and might be causing damage in some less tangible but still real way, is the hate and anger, and the vividness of the imagery.

Okay. Now, a bunch of anons send threats full of violent imagery and all kinds of misogynistic language to a number of women, some of whom didn't even make the comment, merely said "hey, I support this person not getting hacked and sent death and rape threats," basically.

Color me clueless; i guess I'm not understanding -why- women, yeah, even those of us who are "exempt," apparently, aren't supposed to take that as "real" anger, "real" hate, "real" misogyny. Because whoever it was was just kidding? Well, shit, maybe Beeb was just kidding too; great, we can all go home now.

Or, what?
 
by the way, to respond to someone way upthread, iacb, maybe, per hacking: besides the DoS thing, at least some of the Margins regulars were complaining that their email accounts had been hacked. It's possible I suppose that they just meant they were getting floods of harassing emails at their regular addresses, and some people were impersonating others of them as well (that I've seen, people calling themselves Heart or Mary Sunshine writing stuff that's clearly not theirs). me, i figured when people say "hacked" they mean "hacked," especially when they're talking about changing the passwords and so on.

either way, it's still a royal pain in the ass; and frankly, what's the point? as others have said, it just feeds their martyrdom. It gets otherwise sensible people to rally to their side exactly when it was just about time to write them off for good as fringe lunatics. What's the point? LULZ? Okay, but I hope that's sufficient in itself, 'cuz there ain't nothing more productive coming out of this, I guar-an-tee it.
 
to anon whatever number it is: if you don't actually want to form a Blogger account, you can click the "other" option and pick a temporary name with no linkback. it just makes life easier if you want your own responses to be responded to as, y'know, yours, and not some other anon's.
 
o i see, they're making a "care package" for Brandon. upload files of your favorite pr0n. that's...really thoughtful, I'm sure that'll be fun for the whole family, you know.

sigh.

anyone for tennis?
 
by the way, just a friendly helpful tip in case they do track down the snail address: unless I'm much mistaking, sending "obscene materials" to a minor is a Federal offense. Really.

Not that anyone would do that, of course. Just putting it out there.
 
The sites that spoke out against her - such as yours - were left alone. We can be civil, contrary to what many will tell you. I would hope that you allow this to be posted. We can respect your right to disagree, we surely hope you can respect ours.

not so fast, buster.

I didn't make this clear before and I should have.

as my husband (and other people, I'm sure) says, "a condemnation of DDT does NOT constitute a ringing endorsement of the malaria mosquito."

I have issues with Heart and BB and those folks. I wish I didn't but I do. And I've tried to resolve them through normal channels, with really disappointing results. so, because I'm only human, I get huffy and pissy and don't want to be nice to them when they're trying to cope with difficulties.

that does not mean I support the 4channers and scriptkiddies and other internet hoodlums like you, speaker-for-the-Anon.

What Heart et al are up to is stupid, insulting, and pointless, sure. but what y'all are doing, even for the lulz, is just wrong.

If y'all sincerely wanted to show support for son-of-Biting-Beaver, there were other ways you could have done it that didn't involve this kind of wide-ranging scorched-earth humiliation. y'all are smart, you could have figured something out.

did you even read the parts of my blog that are unfriendly to folks like you?

y'all took the easy way out, totally. and now I have to work extra hard at convincing people that, when I disagree with members of the radfemiverse, I'm not just some lulzer looking for cheap thrills. thanks a lot.

don't get to comfortable here - you're no friends of mine.
 
because it's just a matter of time before I say something that lulz you off - and then I'm in the same position as Heart, as my own house of cards falls down around my feet.

it just hasn't happened to me YET. I'm sure I'll have my turn someday. if not from you, then from someone else.

so, no. in case I have not made myself abundantly clear - despite my quarrels with individual radical feminists and radical feminism in general, YOU will find no sanctuary here.
 
I am no longer an anonymous. I am a meat popsicle!
Thanks, belledame. :D
 
Yes, Anon. Rape and murder threats are teh funnneeeee.

You idiots insist that you targeted bloggers who defended BB. Problem is, you all targeted bloggers who didn't even know about BB and never visited the board in question.

And yeah--stalking? That's constructive. But if you do actually succeed in making contact with BB's family, all the better for her. She'll be able to press charges. I'll pop some some corn to watch that show.

Get bent, bedwetter.
 
Get bent, bedwetter.

now, see, I'm not the sensitive type (HA!), but I gotta say - if the bedwetters I know (and I know a few) knew that they were being compared to these assholes, they'd be mighty, erm, pissed.

otherwise, in complete accord, sheelzebub.
 
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belledame222 said...

I mean, maybe I'm missing something here.

1) Woman on obscure radical feminist corner of the Web says something disturbingly off-sounding about her teenage son, porn, and an abortion she didn't have. General consensus is that she's probably not entirely well, gee, poor kid, good luck to him really.

Then,

2) This is an outrage. A hilarious outrage, but an outrage nonetheless. People are Concerned, and did we mention outraged? Well, they are. Outraged, that is. This is a horrible way for a mother to talk about her own child.

2a) Also, it's misandrist. She's misandrist. Feminists are misandrists. -This is misandry.- Justice must be served.

3) A bunch of anons swamp this woman, that woman, a bunch of other women, and what the hell those women over there too, with DoS attacks and floods of trolls, with links provided so that more trolls and spamming and server attacks may be directed there.

3a) Threats of rape and violence and racial and other slurs are leveled at the radical feminists in question, who have in fact been raped and abused, in fact very probably this is what has led to their current siege mentality; and pics are manipulated to put the mother's head on a nude porn model, one with a gun pointing at her. "Cunts" and "bitches" and "whores" and all kinds of colorfully creative suggestions dredged in equal parts from the very pr0n Mom hates so much, Bret Easton Ellis, and the bottom of a cereal box are flung, nay scattered, nay -hosed-, in the general direction of these women, and their supporters, and the supporters of their supporters, and their little dog too). Many of the women express fear and upset at receiving these sentiments, for some strange reason.

3b) But this is -not- misogyny. Y'all are taking this way too seriously. It's a joke. Lighten up.

4) Efforts are being made to find the kid, possibly maybe for real, certainly Mom's real name or one purported to be such has already surfaced. The kid needs to be informed that his mother hates him and wishes him dead; this is for his own good. Also, they're making up a care package of uploaded porn images.

5) ...

6) Profit!

Did I leave anything out? I just want to be clear, here.
 
What Belledame said.
 
AP, a great post. I didn't know you were blogging frequently anymore and from having read the last few posts, I've been missing out!

I know what you mean about feeling ambivalent re Heart. I feel like, although I missed a lot of the history many of you have had with her, I have intersected with her enough to make some sort of statement. But I don't know what to say that wouldn't sound half-assed.

You really summed up a lot of how I have been thinking about this too. There are some positive things procedurally about what she has done. She didn't deserve what happened. And yet, reaching out more directly in sisterhood seems inappropriate in view of our previous interactions.

In other news, I wanted to comment here re your parenting post as I'm not sure it's still active. I think you will be a wonderful mom. You've had life experience, you're savvy, wise and warm. You have what it takes and more.

On schooling -- I did public all the way up until college. My feeling, and it's only MHO, it's probably safest to go the traditional, public or private route, and avoid homeschooling/unschooling. While people have had examples of how it's been great, I think there are more outliers one way or the other, and to me risk isn't a good approach for parenting. Also, I can't get past the fact that there are actually people who are trained to teach kids, and they're called teachers. Not parents.

Of course, if social issues arise and a school therapist advises, then maybe homeschooling comes into play, but until then my thinking would be to avoid it. That may be worth, of course, exactly what you paid for it.

Anyway, I am now going to check here more often to stay up to date!
 
either way, it's still a royal pain in the ass; and frankly, what's the point? as others have said, it just feeds their martyrdom. It gets otherwise sensible people to rally to their side exactly when it was just about time to write them off for good as fringe lunatics. What's the point? LULZ? Okay, but I hope that's sufficient in itself, 'cuz there ain't nothing more productive coming out of this, I guar-an-tee it.

I have no doubt that lulz is the point, the whole point, and nothing but the point. You're giving them too much credit. I tried to tell Heart that the best way to stop the lulz-monster is not to feed it, but she didn't publish my comment. Well, not surprising as I'm on the enemies list, it seems, in a way that most of you are not (because I can't just be merely deluded, being a boy).

(It's also not surprising in that it sort of directly contradicts the VERY MUCH DESIRED narrative.)

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize that everyone is just getting what they want here. Talk about serpents growing fat off their own tails.
 
In a way, I suppose. Although I have to say that after reading at some length (christ knows why) at part of the source website(s) (not ED, although I'm sure there's overlap, even though now they're trying to go "look! over there! it was ebaums!" and disclaiming responsibility for "dox," instigating raids, and so forth), I'm feeling a bit more sympathetic for the "abortion into the 42nd trimester" and beyond myself, for some people at least. the little dears, the little dears.

And fuck yeah, they're chock full o'misogyny; it's not a coincidence that they find this particular shit funny, and it's not as though the places where they're deliberately going after Heart, BB and so on are the only ones where they're using the "but rape is so funnnnneeee" and "go back to the kitchen" and so forth shit. and so on and so forth. It is nice to know that they and Heart's merry crew share one thing in common, at least: the utter distaste for transfolk, including referring to them as "it."

also, some of them are really serious about tracking down her name, address, work phone number, neighbor's names, and other suchlike; (and appear to have done so) although it's quite possible that they don't have much more thought about what they want to do with them than the Underpants Gnomes, still I think: nothing good.

I do think that at some level the confirmation of the horrible suspicion that -maybe Mom really does hate me- is part of what's fuelling this, for a lot of them.

It would be wrong, of course, even after all this, to smile sweetly and say,

"Of course she doesn't love you. Of -course- she wants you dead, dear: we all do. "You're horrible."

...you know, JUST KIDDING, KIDS. LULZ!!
 
and MAY I say that this little bout of uncharacteristic (snort) sadism and waking of my inner Medea was brought about not least by the little shits' actually succeeding in making me feel sorry for fucking Beeb and Heart. we had perfectly good reasons to dislike them and (frankly, funnier) mockery of them going -already-, you idiots: way to fuck it up.
 
so, wait, Ourobourous was actually supposed to be -eating- itself? I mean, actually digesting itself. For some reason I never quite realized that. "Huh."
 
Uh, it's unlikely that we'll bother with you. Anon attacks a group at random, then focuses in on certain targets. For example, when we harass the furfaggots we don't pick small targets that nobody gives a shit about - we'll crapflood their forums, follow it up with a DDoS attack, then fuck around with the authority figures on the site. We never attack people who don't deserve it, other trolls, or potential allies.

You also seem, in general, to assume that there are no female anonymous out there, which is a grave mistake. They exist, and they are as real as bitingbeaver's mental problems.
 
Do try to keep up. We know. We're questioning other aspects of your uh ethos, now.

And, you have a funny notion of "deserve," as well as the sort of language that's appropriate outside your own little pits.
 
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Don't flatter yourself. Our "potential allies" are racist hatemongers that we sometimes manipulate into jumping on our adversaries. Enemies of enemies, blah blah blah. Now excuse me while I go donate some porn to the Free Brandon Foundation, a noble organization that aims to help Brandon discover the joys in further defying his mother's anti-sexual fascism.
 
*nod* And meanwhile I'm off to send some saltpeter and gardening shears to the International Conspiracy of Homicidal Lesbian Terrorists (oh what a giveaway). toodles!
 
Uh, it's unlikely that we'll bother with you. Anon attacks a group at random, then focuses in on certain targets.

so, if it's random, there's no telling whether I'll be targeted or not. so telling me it's unlikely you'll "bother with me" is bullshit.

For example, when we harass the furfaggots

yeah - we don't use that kind of language in here, no matter who we're angry with.

if you have a reasoned objection that isn't based on "you're stupid and weak and I like to pick on you," then groovy. I am not a comment-deleter, I usually let people get whatever-it-is off their chests, I don't thing much of anything is served by being dictatorial in comments.

However, even I have my limit and "furfaggot" has crossed it.

we don't pick small targets that nobody gives a shit about - we'll crapflood their forums, follow it up with a DDoS attack, then fuck around with the authority figures on the site.

But, see, this doesn't make you anything but a malignant pest. it certainly doesn't put a cork in the endless flow of stupid flooding the internet. it's not like you're making the world wide web safe for humanity. you're providing rather dubious entertainment for yourselves at the expense of others who often can't defend themselves.

the only reason I can think of why that would be fun for y'all is that you've been mercilessly bullied and humiliated in public yourselves.

which, sad. was there anything you could have done to not make yourself a target? probably.(as a target for bullies myself, looking back I can see a hundred ways I could have made the situation better for myself) but that doesn't mean I am particularly sympathetic to the person doing the bullying.

We never attack people who don't deserve it, other trolls, or potential allies.

so, for some reason today I don't deserve it. who's to say I won't deserve it tomorrow, in Anonymous's expert opinion?

or I'm "another troll"...hmph.

or I'm a "potential ally" - yeah, NO. I'm not your friend. enemy of enemy - whatever. you may not make yourself at home here.

You also seem, in general, to assume that there are no female anonymous out there, which is a grave mistake.

this is actually a good point.
 
Free Brandon Foundation, a noble organization that aims to help Brandon discover the joys in further defying his mother's anti-sexual fascism.

ok, see, this is problematic.

I have no problem at all with defying anti-sexual fascism.

AND I think that BB could be styled an anti-sexual fascist without straining credulity.

which is a shame. she's had it rough, and I think she comes by it honestly, her anti-sexual fascism.

HOWEVER - what you're doing, by this mass meddling into this kid's life, is making it harder, not easier, for him to cope. because he still has to live with his mom, who, despite her issues, I expect he's still trying hard to love.

how do you know he doesn't get savagely punished for every "care" package he receives? how do you know he isn't locked in a closet because of "the free brandon foundation"?

I mean, it's a sorta-clever idea, a play on the "free software foundation", lots of reasons why it sounds good on paper, but ultimately, no.

I gotta say - the occasional DDOS attack seems to be the cost of doing internet business, roughly equivalent to having to have your house exterminated from time to time to kill the various insect pests that may accumulate in your walls and floors.

but this whole "Free Brandon" thing? causes more trouble than it solves - for everyone involved.
 
how do you know he doesn't get savagely punished for every "care" package he receives? how do you know he isn't locked in a closet because of "the free brandon foundation"?

yeah, that's been asked a few times now and still hasn't been answered. at this point I'm thinking the answer is

1) as far as most of these people know or care, the "care package" thing is just a joke, even if some other people did indeed hunt down their actual address and so forth

2) if it does pan out the way you suggest--hay! more LULZ! WIN!!
 
well, according to the "shit rolls downhill" principle, any trouble that is made for BB is likely to trickle down to her kid.

"see! see what these people are doing to me! because of you!"

no way to win for ANYONE.
 
yeah, this is what always goes through my head whenever i see a parent screaming at or smacking their child in the supermarket, say.
 
I'm no friend to anonymous, but the more and more I read about Biting Beaver, the more kind of frightened and freaked out I am.

Denial of Service attacks are uncool and illegal, but if there is a serious concern that Biting Beaver might savagely punish her son for every "care" package he receives or lock him in a closet (and I think that given her posting history that sort of concern is not out of line) . . . well, that's child abuse, and it exists in a different fucking universe than DDoS attacks.

For that matter, I think a decent argument could be made that 'writing off' your 13 year old child because he's masturbating to porn is abuse too.

---Myca
 
well, that's what a number of us have been saying.

but...yeah. If you say anything like that right now (or ever, really), you're clearly aligned with the people sending them death threats and cheering them on. If you say "hey, death threats=bad and y'know, feminists DO get harassed," you're apt to draw the beady eyes of the flying monkeys as well as (more annoying) the BUT BUT BUT A MOM THREATENING HER CHILD O WOE THAT'S AWFUL HOW DARE YOU BE SO MISANDRIST YOU (redacted, string of hateful misogynistic slurs), GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN.

I mean, I care about as much about the opinions of the fringey folks as I do about that of the flying monkeys and the rightwingers gleefully jumping on board (you see! you SEE! this is what supporting abortion rights leads to, people!), but, just...gah. And yes, as usual, no matter what happens, the kid is probably screwed.

gah.
 
that said, I don't think any of us knows how Beeb will really respond if she gets crap in the mail; that was sarcasm, mostly.

and, truly, there's something rather fucked up when something like this gets this much attention because, well, women/mothers just don't SAY such things (i do think that is part of it); whereas the reason a lot of us who don't respond in the same way as some people to the barrage of rape, violence against women, etc. imagery is because, well? we've become used to it. I mean, it's not like it's difficult to find.

So, yeah, it does tend to kind of confirm the radfems' point, in that respect: any give flying monkey may or may not "mean" the American Psycho-esque language and images being used to flood and harass them; but boy, they sure are easy to come by, ain't they? Can you imagine if this were reversed? Multiply the Luckys and the Mary Sunshines by 10,000, give 'em the wherewithal and cultural permission to track down and harass, like, one guy, with detailed and graphic explanations of -just how- they ought to have been aborted, have their dicks skinned and their balls cut off and stuffed into their various orifices, pictures of such, rocks thrown through their windows...

or, consider: a woman walks into a frathouse or an Elks meeting with a sawed off shotgun and opens fire.

and, oddly enough, it doesn't generally play out that way.

The difference between me and people like lucky, MS, etc., is that I don't believe this is because of any inherent moral superiority. I think if more women were socialized to think they could get away with this, were entitled to it, whatever, they'd do it in two seconds flat.

Which is of course exactly what's so fucking terrifying to the rampaging body politic whenever a bit of genuine anti-male hostility -does- leak out.

I mean, I still remember the John Wayne Bobbitt business: we were in fucking Istanbul, and some guy in the marketplace is all, "You're American?!" all excitedly waving the newspaper in my face, headlines in Turkish but still clearly about That Case, "do you KNOW this woman????"

but yeah, all that said, coming back to the actual case at hand:

1) It's not a man. It's a kid. Her kid. He's dependent on her

2) As you say, the individual in question is indeed a bit scary in her expressions, and not just in that post; one can examine the sociocultural phenomenon and agree that yep, there's misogyny at work here as well as the "harassing IRL is So Uncool," and still go, um, that does sound rather abusive, actually. yeesh.

which point is now just about utterly lost in the three-ring circus over Porn and Abortion and Silencing and yadda that has erupted.

i hate everyone, sometimes.
 
Right, exactly . . . I have much less of an issue with just random "I hate men" sentiment, because although hey, I'm a man, I try not to take it personally, because I figure the anger and bitterness is come by honestly, and what I have to deal with on a daily basis is such a tiny fucking fraction of what most women have to deal with that it's not like I'm going to bitch and moan about it too much.

On the other hand, yeah, BB's kid isn't 'men' in general, he's an actual person in his early damn teens with an actual mother who is publicly announcing that she would rather he be dead than masturbating to porn.

I will defend to the death her right to engage in this vile, hateful, criminally fucking stupid rhetoric without the anonymous folks shutting her down, because that's how it's supposed to work, I believe in free speech, the answer to speech is more speech, I don't believe in cyberbullying, it's not like 'anynymous' is morally superior to BB, and so on . . . . but that doesn't make the shit she says any less vile, hateful, or criminally fucking stupid.

---Myca
 
yup. it annoys me that some people act like it's an either-or: you know, if anyone criticizes Beeb or Heart in any particulars the terrorists have one.

and, announcing that what she said was -obviously- a forgery before confirming was a dumb move. and then with the, well even if she did it isn't SO bad. dude, if you went out of your way to exclaim that she -couldn't- have said such a thing, y'know, you're too late: the implication is that it's bad.

i mean, i do think that some of the people saying that what she said is no big deal aren't maybe as familiar with some of the other shit she's said. sure, everyone gets a vent moment. it's not that she said it, it's the -way- she said it. there's a difference between "god, my kid's driving me crazy, no matter how many times I tell him I don't want him looking at porn he's right back at it, some days, you know, I think it would've been easier if he hadn't been born"

and what she actually said, which kind of y'know makes it seem like she's a lot more serious, if not with the actual wanting him -dead,- then with the, as you say, writing him off. it reads, in short, like a religious fundamentalist despairing because her kid has teh Gay, and no matter how many times she's shoved tracts and AIDS stats and this and the other in his face, prayed for him, etc., he still won't change, he's so WILLFUL.

...with a bunch of fellow fundies commiserating over the lost black sheep.

It didn't have to be porn. It could've been anything, really. Smoking, say. And then, if other people stepped up to protest her well extreme talk/behavior, they MUST be working for the tobacco industry, pro lung cancer...
 
"terorists have -won-," even. jesus.
 
They're insisting it's all to save BB's son, but you go to the boards, and they're smacking their lips over the lulz it'll cause--they don't give a fuck about him. They're launching a campaign of harassment against her IRL. Reading that board with the things they plan on doing (all illegal) makes my skin crawl. Shit, I don't think much of Glen Sacks or Warren Farrell, (or Hugh Hefner for that matter), and I'm not launching some twisted fucking harassment campaign against them and their families.

They keep tap dancing around the issue that in fact they are also harassing and shutting down blogs of people who weren't even aware of that freaking board's existence, or that post's existence. They're trying to say that it was because these "feminazis" (very dittohead of them) all justified/rushed to the defense of BB. Now they're insisting everyone's thrown her under the bus. Both statements are bullshit. The bloggers currently targeted had the gall to say that the threats Heart got were out of line.

They're freaking out over something BB said, but don't mind sending death and rape threats to bloggers and harassing people in real life. That, you see, is just funneee and we should all realize that it was a joke and suck it up. I guess it all depends on who's making the threats in their world.

And for people who insist they don't care what we think, they sure do get pissy when they're called misogynist or racist (proving yet again that being called misogynist or racist is way worse than actually being misogynist or racist). For people who whine about being censored on blogs, they're more than happy to shut down blogs with DOS attacks and threats.
 
They're freaking out over something BB said, but don't mind sending death and rape threats to bloggers and harassing people in real life. That, you see, is just funneee and we should all realize that it was a joke and suck it up. I guess it all depends on who's making the threats in their world.

sums up what i was trying to say somewhere back there much more succinctly.

And for people who insist they don't care what we think, they sure do get pissy when they're called misogynist or racist (proving yet again that being called misogynist or racist is way worse than actually being misogynist or racist).

Classic, isn't it?

You know, I'm fairly certain I've never once whined about being tagged "misandrist." I don't even usually go into my "some of my best friends are" spiel. When some self-important dork accuses me of being sexist or reverse racist or hating America or whatever the fuck it is.

Because, I know it's got nothing to do with me.

But more to the point -here:- it's like, toots, either everything's a humongous joke or it isn't. Once you start with the but but but -this- is TERRIBLE!, can't you SEE?!?! well, gosh, people are gonna start coming back at you with what -they- think is TERRIBLE.
 
For that matter, I don't even usually make a production of it if someone calls me a regular ol' racist (anti-feminist, whatever). If I take them seriously, I'll consider the charge. If I don't, why bother? It's not like those are magic woids and phrases any more than anything else; oddly enough quite a lot of people seem to manage just fine even having been charged (legitimately or otherwise) with such...charged.
 
that said--I'm sure there -are- some of 'em who are more genuinely upset than others. but the funny thing about electing to become part of a giant hivemind is, not only do you share in the glory and protection of the group, you share responsibility for everything they do as well.

therefore, if you're anon, in -this- case, it's "you," singular. You want to talk more seriously, pick a nym and let's talk. Otherwise--really, don't bother. There's nothing more to say.
 
sure, everyone gets a vent moment. it's not that she said it, it's the -way- she said it.

Agreed. There's a world of difference between the text equivalent of a primal scream or a sigh of exhaustion this, which seemed more like a well-thought out argument on 'why the world would be a better place if my 13-year-old son were not in it.'

They're insisting it's all to save BB's son, but you go to the boards, and they're smacking their lips over the lulz it'll cause--they don't give a fuck about him.

SO. FUCKING. TRUE.

It really bugs the shit out of me, and I hope that he does have someone around who is looking out for him, because at this point I think that precisely nobody involved with this gives much of a shit about him.

---Myca
 
"suffer the children."

and how.
 
...yea, poor kid. sigh.

My 14 year old is homeschooled. I pulled him out of public school last year, when I found out, much to my dismay, that he was the target of a large amount of bullying. My eldest son came to me one day after I had yelled at the younger one for not doing his chores and asked me to please be kind to Mike because Mike has a much harder time than I know. My eldest began telling me about how he followed Mike after class to protect him because other boys were hitting him and throwing him around between classes. Apparently this had been going on for some time, as in years, and I didn't know about it.

Mike was being pushed, shoved, thrown to the ground, being hit with textbooks, having HIS textbooks thrown onto the roof or into toilets, being thrown into trashcans and dumpsters and generally being harassed and humiliated at school. I had noticed Mike acting strangely; it had been growing slowly, for quite some time, until he kept himself away from the family and slept all the time. I knew that something was up, but he wouldn't tell me what and so it was with great relief that I listened to my eldest son fill in the blanks for me.

As you can imagine I was livid, I went to the school and was that I “had to understand, our teachers can’t be everywhere at once”. Of course, they couldn't explain to me why a teacher actually helped Mike from the cafeteria trash can but I was never told about the incident.

In any case, I spoke to Mike about it and he told me who the offenders were. He did so with great trepidation however, and the reason? The offenders were his friends. They were kids that he thought of as his friends, children he defended vehemently. While my eldest was busy pulling the kids to the side and threatening to beat the tar out of them if they touched Mike, Mike was busy trying to hang around with these kids.

He explained that they did these things because they liked him. They were friends and sure, sometimes they bruised him or made him pay for their lunch or threw him into dumpsters and left him, but they were his friends. My wrath was fierce, but I didn't know where to direct it. Here, I had a son who was clearly having the shit knocked out of him on a daily basis, being beaten and bruised and he appeared to actually be defending the perpetrators. I was torn between wanting to grab him by the shoulders and scream at him "These are NOT your friends!" and wanting to go to the school and grab the principal by the shoulders and scream "Why don't you stop this?!" as well as wanting to grab the offenders by the shoulders and tell them to leave my son alone.

Ultimately, Dim and I talked to Mike, we tried to explain to him what friendship is and what it isn't. Slowly he came to understand and even resent the treatment he was being given at school. However, it became clear very quickly that the school had no intention of helping us on this and so I pulled him out entirely. I believe it was my responsibility to remove my son from the torment, I took it upon myself to protect him, even when, at first, he didn’t want protection. It's also interesting to note that Mike had been a part of an abusive household for 11 years with my X. This was what he was used to, and he once remarked to me that he missed my X because, "When he hit me I knew that he loved me".


fuck.
 
meanwhile, the freepers found it:

In earlier times, womon (heh) such as Biting Beaver were usually sequestered in asylums when exhibiting such behavior that put their offspring at risk. Of course, this was during the times of recognizable patriarchy, when men wouldn’t put up with their sons being poisoned by the deranged actions of their womonfolk.

Today, most of the asylums are history and the mental health facilities still in existence wouldn’t consider such a case worthy of their time or patience. At any rate, the batshit behavior exhibited by Biting Beaver is considered nowadays to be normal and protected by the feminist groups who share similar conditions. Meanwhile, legions of young men held in the crossfire of these womyn’s rage and anger will grow to be mentally and emotionally dysfunctional creatures who will either self-terminate themselves or be removed from society after fulfilling the very prophecies embedded into them by the very womyn who raised them.

And God help us all if they stumble upon Islam as a way to reclaim the manhood stripped of them by these womyn. If there is ever a growing trend for disaffected males to turn to the Religion of Peace in lieu of a patriarchal figure, the feminists will be responsible for condemning their fellow womynfolk to a religion which views them in the same regard that the womyn viewed the “evil rapist” men.

Just notice how Islamic cultures don’t have the “rabid feminist” problem. And there is a very good reason for that.

 
...yes, dear, we long for the good old days of patriarchy when men wouldn't let their wives...get in the way of...their sons...watching porn.

or, you know, be punitive.

well, it's planet freepbat, but still, that explains a lot: i've often wondered if some of the reactionary troglodytes really believe this.

"Daddy loves me better."

oh Mary. didn't you read the rest of it? the father was WORSE. and who'd you think instigated the whole "masturbation saps your precious bodily fluids, here son have a chastity belt" routine?

losers.
 
I am going to make a general response here to all the comments that made me lul because really, the only ones of you that have to worry are the ones taking this way too seriously.

a comment by bellewhatever in another blog: "I do also think that the actual hackers (lulz) are mostly amoral little fuckheels who aren't really "incensed" so much as "AMUSED."'

Do you see the word amused? I would put it in red and surround it with stars if I could to make the point But bold and italics will have to do. Because that's what this is ultimately about. Amusement.

Those of you shitting your pants and crying 'oh noez they wants all teh wimminz off teh int3rtub3s' are so wrong it's funny. Actually, it's all funny. Think I'm just trying to placate you?

We fucking laugh and point fun at 9/11. Do you really think we'd take a bunch of feminists seriously in the face of terrorists? We don't take anyone seriously. If we're going to do something righteous (shut down a white supremest's radio show, whut?) it's not because we think it's for the better good. It's because it's going to be fucking hilarious.

Learn to fail to deliver. If you stop running around acting pathetic and saying 'good lord they're dangerous because they say "rape, lol"' then just be warned: You're giving us exactly what we want. Amusement. Maybe you can't understand it. But at least pay attention to what I'm saying because I think belle's fucking awesome so if you all want a 'stay the fuck out of jail' card, then don't tell me I'm wrong and continue to overexaggerate this situation.

Continuing on to quotes I enjoyed/wanted to comment on:

'Mom says her kid should've been aborted. I'm not surprised that it caught the attention of a lot of teenage boys and girls (fix'd), you know? And no, it's not all about the pr0n.'

I'd just like to point out that this attack on feminazi's is all about the pr0n. It's about the fact that a /b/rotha isn't allowed to fap to his heart's content. That's where this is all stemming from. The fact that his mom supports abortion in the puberty trimester and doesn't deserve to have a child, let alone a vagina to make moar childrenz, just fans the flames of our rage.

And of course, I have to add in some shit about the nasty wasty feminazis.

All these women claim to be 'strong' and 'independent' and yet the minute one of them falls they all start wibbling and crying 'oh noez'. It's pathetic. They're fighting for the right to stand by themselves and yet it seems like most of them are simply replacing the domineering man in their life that tries to wax their vaginas shut (he had the right idea, then our precious bb wouldn't be able to ruin any more childrynz [lulz] lives) with a radical batshit insane feminist. (Cue Heart and Bitingbeaver)

I'm a woman for fuck's sake and I'm anon. Maybe about 35% of anon is female. Saying they want to eradicate women from the internet is just being a fucking martyr and drama queen. That's the problem with minority movements. Everything has to be serious fucking business and personal. IT'S NOT! IT'S FUNNY! YOU MAY NOT BE LAUGHING BUT I AM!!!!

rape, lol.

[rant continued] It's radical feminists that claim to fight for equality when their true aim is women's superiority that I'm fighting against (note: this is second to /b/randon's freedom to fap).

And women that fucking shit bricks when they find out someone DECIDED to be a stay at home mom, and fight against generalizations, and yet have the audacity to say that all men are rapists. The dumb-asses that come up with the 'Are you a rapist checklist' that -actually- says if a drunk guy gets on a sober girl he raped her because it's his fault somehow. (...wtf?)

That's who I'm fighting against/pissing off.

So calm the fuck down. Treat this like it is: a phase that will pass once we've done what we've set out to do (besides getting epic lulz, which you are providing in truck loads btw. thnx) And you'll be left alone.

(Why the novel of a response? I was surprised by how down to Earth Belle is and just clicking a few links led me here. She's probably one of the only people that will read what I say and not say 'I beg to differ' and get her panties in a knot over the truth because OMG it HAS to be about silencing wymynz~!!1! not pissing off feminazis. The rest of you. Are overreacting. No I'm not going back to my sekret website to bring you down. In my mind, Belle=immunity. So if you do end up getting raided I won't be part of it.)

Oh, and one more thing: I move away from the mic to rape heart until she screams like the drama whore pansy she is.

Anon out.
 
um, yay?

...yeah. where to begin, really.

How old are you, self-ID'd female anon, might I ask?
 
belle - I think someone likes you like that.

'course, with friends like that, who needs enemas...

yes, anon - we all know belledame is totally the kitten's mittens. we've known that for years now. are you new, honey?

but look, she doesn't approve of your shenanigans any more than I do. (as far as I know.)

I can tell you're all kinds of smart, anon, despite your behavior, and obviously have some sort of bright future ahead of you when you grow out of your "merry prankster" phase and join the grownups.

maybe then Belle will like you too.
 
So calm the fuck down. Treat this like it is: a phase that will pass once we've done what we've set out to do (besides getting epic lulz, which you are providing in truck loads btw. thnx) And you'll be left alone.

what exactly is it that you've set out to do?

and how do you think that acting like jerks will accomplish it?

(for what it's worth, I don't see where you get to tell me to calm down. my hysteria level has been remarkably low, I think.)
 

We fucking laugh and point fun at 9/11.


*nod* Were you here, too? It -was- rather hilarious that day, I expect, I mean in hindsight, of course. But then, what isn't really.

yeah. There's "laughing wild amid sever'st woe," you know, you laugh at your -own- shit, the sheer blissful miserable absurdity of the universe, because it's either that or howl till you burst a lung;

and then there's the whole Mel Brooks adage, however that goes exactly:

"Tragedy is when -I- hammer my thumb. Comedy is when -you- fall down a manhole and die."

Somehow, I get the feeling we're a bit more in the latter territory, here.

It gets old pretty fast.
 
Right, anon. It's all for the lulz. But then you inbred basement dwellers start yelping on and on about "saving" BB's son by harassing her IRL and impersonating her to CPS and CPS to the neighbors. Then it's just for the lulz. Then you all hate "feminazis" and get their personal contact information to harass them, because they are oppressive to the MENZ!1! Then it's not political. Then you whine about censorship while trying to shut down blogs and message boards.

Oh, and it's really amusing to try and hack into email accounts, too. And harass people on the phone. And send death and rape threats.

And if you think Belle's awesome, you should actually read the posts here:

I mean, look, there are levels and levels of "seriousness" here, right? I don't think anyone is suggesting that Beeb is literally planning to take a sharpened coat hanger to her teenager at this juncture. What's being objected to, the part where people think she -means it-, and might be causing damage in some less tangible but still real way, is the hate and anger, and the vividness of the imagery.

Okay. Now, a bunch of anons send threats full of violent imagery and all kinds of misogynistic language to a number of women, some of whom didn't even make the comment, merely said "hey, I support this person not getting hacked and sent death and rape threats," basically.

Color me clueless; i guess I'm not understanding -why- women, yeah, even those of us who are "exempt," apparently, aren't supposed to take that as "real" anger, "real" hate, "real" misogyny. Because whoever it was was just kidding? Well, shit, maybe Beeb was just kidding too; great, we can all go home now.

Or, what?


Didja miss that one?
 
I'm just kind of gobsmacked to find a bunch of kids (?) that are even more obsessive than I am.

and all for what? a cruel crank call?
To a kid who's got enough other shit to deal with already?

I guess I missed the funny part.
 
but yeah, clearly the thing to do is, find a bunch of mentally disturbed men who might be abusing their wives or daughters, track 'em down, and send them a pizza. That would even things out, and be most LULZ worthy.
 
by the way, anon-the-most-recent, the whole "don't have time for so-called feminists who act more like Victorian fainting goats than people who're interested in the radical notion that women are people (who go to work or stay home or fight or fuck or fart however they want)" riff? You're playing my/our song. Actually, you might want to cough up some royalties, long as you're here. And not to us, either. This is not news, what you're saying here, this. Not to anyone here, at least; am I right?

The feminism riff, that is. The Crank Yanking Legion O'Doom...not so much.
 
Well, and, last time I checked, the two rad fems you're targeting are SAHM's, Anon. So you can put that strawfeminist away.
 
And if you think Belle's awesome, you should actually read the posts here:

point of order - Belle is objectively and quantifiably awesome. She is eight feet tall, walks on water and glows in the dark. I know - I've seen her.

her awesome-osity is not a matter of debate here.

still doesn't mean she's down with the nonsense.
 
You're playing my/our song. Actually, you might want to cough up some royalties, long as you're here. And not to us, either. This is not news, what you're saying here, this. Not to anyone here, at least; am I right?

yes, you're right.

see? Belle=awesome. and yet, not your pal, Anon.
 
point of order - Belle is objectively and quantifiably awesome. She is eight feet tall, walks on water and glows in the dark. I know - I've seen her.

She is awesome, absolutely. Too bad anon doesn't get that she doesn't think the anons are awesome.

And AP, she's 8'5". Let's be accurate here, shall we? ;)
 
And AP, she's 8'5". Let's be accurate here, shall we? ;)

see, I had converted from British Imperial Cubits to inches.

for a more accurate measurement perhaps we should use the metric system.
 
"Eight foot two, solid blue,
twelve transistors in her shoe
has anybody seen my gaaaaaalllll..."
 
"yes, anon - we all know belledame is totally the kitten's mittens. we've known that for years now. are you new, honey?"

AHAHAHAHAHAH.

as the anons say: "epic win."
 
Belledame, just to let you know that your words on here are been taken out of context on the chan boards.

"Quote:
3a) Threats of rape and violence and racial and other slurs are leveled at the radical feminists in question, who have in fact been raped and abused, in fact very probably this is what has led to their current siege mentality; and pics are manipulated to put the mother's head on a nude porn model, one with a gun pointing at her. "Cunts" and "bitches" and "whores" and all kinds of colorfully creative suggestions dredged in equal parts from the very pr0n Mom hates so much, Bret Easton Ellis, and the bottom of a cereal box are flung, nay scattered, nay -hosed-, in the general direction of these women, and their supporters, and the supporters of their supporters, and their little dog too). Many of the women express fear and upset at receiving these sentiments, for some strange reason.

3b) But this is -not- misogyny. Y'all are taking this way too seriously. It's a joke. Lighten up.

4) Efforts are being made to find the kid, possibly maybe for real, certainly Mom's real name or one purported to be such has already surfaced. The kid needs to be informed that his mother hates him and wishes him dead; this is for his own good. Also, they're making up a care package of uploaded porn images.

5) ...

6) Profit!"



OMGZ THEY'RE LEARNING OUR SEKRET LANGUAGE!!

Subsequent comments show that 3b is viewed as though you are advocating that 3a is NOT misogyny. This is disingenuous to your intentions.
 
Subsequent comments show that 3b is viewed as though you are advocating that 3a is NOT misogyny. This is disingenuous to your intentions.

hope you spoke up, anon. that would have been the right thing to do.
 
"They want all women off the internet. I'm not a fan of Heart's. The precedent means bad things for all of us."

"I apologize for the anonymous post also. They have a list of targets all ready."

"BUT the actual tone was so clearly misogynistic that I agree with the first anon. This was about men and boys who want women as a whole to STFU."

I'm pretty sure these are clear examples of running around saying "OHNOEZ THEY WAnT US OFF THE INTERNET" in replies to this blog. In case you didn't notice I didn't say anyone in particular was being overdramatic, it was just a general statement to those who are.

Also, yesssss I'm madly in wub with belle! Actually I'm already looking into getting her DOX (ONOEZ!) so I can stalk her down and start a wuving relationship with her ♥♥♥.

And addressing the final point brought up repeatedly: The general idea of my big long novel-lengthed rant was not to preach to you what you already know, but to impart upon you all why we're (though of course I was speaking for myself more than anon because, fuck, there's too many of us for just one voice to sum it up properly) doing this. Because from what I've seen, that's what most of the speculation on the femnazi's part is focusing on. WHY R THEY ATTACKING US?!?!?!?!

People keep bringing up ridiculous reasons such as 'They want all women off the internet.' That's not the point. The point is to laugh, to get /b/randon the fuck out of his mother's grasp, and to take down other 'challengers' that say 'they can't touch us. let them come our way'.

'as the anons say: "epic win."'
Epic wins are fucking awesome experiences. I'm glad you've had the pleasure of being part of one.

And as for the age question: old enough to vote, drink, and join the army.
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
to get /b/randon the fuck out of his mother's grasp

uh, seriously? Because the last I saw it looked like y'all had a "plan" only marginally more coherent than that of the Underpants Gnomes.

but at least one person I noted was very eager to inform Brandon that his mother wanted to abort him.

So, yeah, that's the part I really don't understand. I don't understand why it's "lulzworthy," and I certainly don't understand how anyone (if indeed they really do) thinks this is supposed to -help the kid.- The kid. Not the mother. Not feminism. The -kid.-

...aaaaannnndd right about here, i reckon, is where we fall back on the snork snork it's just a joke don't take it so seriously.

lather rinse repeat.

And with that, I'm off for a nice refreshing wank.
 
This started to try to get Brandon away from BB. Maybe you all were too busy trying to take away peoples' freedom too look at porn and talking about the evil penis to notice; it's okay, we forgive you. It escalated when some feminists started whining and saying it was an attack against feminists. It's okay, that happends. Then they started insulting Anonymous, which is not only a bad idea to start out with, but they didn't even check to see what the raid was about, only said something along the lines of "ZOMG SHES GETTING ATTACKED AND SHES A FEMINISTS ANONYMOUS MUST BE ATTACKING ALL FEMINISTS", which is wrong and only leads to anger. If everyone would've checked to see why the raid was being done, this would not have happened.
 
"Maybe you all were too busy trying to take away peoples' freedom too look at porn and talking about the evil penis to notice; it's okay, we forgive you."

Smirk. This crowd? Trying to Take Away people's porn, freedom to look at porn, and the evil of the penis? Good Gods I just fell into OddWorld.

Shit, AP, Belle, IACB? You aren't coming for my porn are you? Cause I'll tell you now, I will answer the fucking door with a spear. Like, through the door....before you knock...

Snicker, shrug, wander away...
 
"Smirk. This crowd? Trying to Take Away people's porn, freedom to look at porn, and the evil of the penis? "

ahahahahhahaha

srsly.
 
Maybe you all were too busy trying to take away peoples' freedom too look at porn and talking about the evil penis to notice;

yeah, ren, this sumbitch blew my cover...I'm-a come after your stash with an axe, old school like Carry Nation.

look, anon - if you're not gonna read my damn blog don't bother commenting.

seeeeeeeeeriously. you got the wrong lady.

and this is where you say "god, I didn't mean YOU personally, I meant all those other shrill feminist whiners..."

yeah, but you're saying it here, in my comments, to ME personally unless otherwise specified.

to which I say, please suck my tampon.

as far as "helping brandon", I'm real sorry but that has no credibility with me.

any idiot with an eighth grade education has to be able to see that calling his mother up and hassling her, playing (or threatening to play) mean little CPS games, and otherwise making trouble for his mother is actually MAKING TROUBLE FOR HIM. that must be some strange new definition of the word "helping" with which I'm unfamiliar.
 
That's it AP...swords at dawn! ;)
 
"in order for the ED and 4chan folks to do their thing, they need fuel. we're it. EVERYBODY's it. men, women, radfems, MRAs, homeschoolers, Republicans, Christians, earth mamas, mild-mannered shoeshine boys - we're ALL grist for their mill, it may be just a matter of time."

In situations like this, I find that I am behooved to educate the average internet citizen on what, exactly, Anonymous is.

The first step to understanding Anonymous is to understand our mantra (I will spare you the full length of our creed and code, and summarize):

Anonymous is legion. Anonymous does not forgive. Anonymous does not forget. Anonymous is amoral. Anonymous is neither good nor evil.

Anonymous is legion: There are many anonymous people on the internet, and all members of Anonymous are anonymous, but Anonymous is not a single anonymous. There are many. While Anonymous has specific goals, individual members of Anonymous may behave erratically.

Anonymous does not forgive: Self-explanatory.

Anonymous does not forget: We have very, very long memories. Self-explanatory.

Anonymous is amoral/Anonymous is neither good nor evil: Anonymous is beyond morality and human notions of right and wrong, good and evil. Anonymous may appear cruel to some, saintly to others. Your perception of us is colored by what you believe. One thing is certain; none of us are as cruel as all of Us.

Anonymous is much like an ant colony. Remember, we are legion.

Individuals of Anonymous may act with autonomy, but we are all driven by a single, driving need: find food. Our food, is lulz.

Are you a moderate Christian who pays his taxes, loves his family, donates to charity, goes to church once a week and cares nothing for the sexual preference of his neighbors? You are not food.

Are you an intelligent graduate student who has little time to spend on the internet between working on your dissertation and your budding career? You are not food.

Are you the female CEO of a successful corporation who balances motherhood with professional advancement? You are not food.

Are you a crazed racist who runs a website, community and podcast dedicated towards promoting racism, and will you react to criticism and harassment in an uproariously satisfying fashion? You are food.

Are you a histrionic teenager who posts weepy Youtube videos of you making the audacious claim that your fringe subculture is the spearhead of a revolutionary social movement that will uproot all of society after said subculture acquires "equal rights" (whatever that means)? You are food.

Are you an insane radical feminist who believes that all men are rapists, that pornography is rape, that it is acceptable to indoctrinate your children into your rabid ideology simply because they are beginning to explore their sexuality, despite your best efforts to make them hate their own gender and their own genitalia? You. Are. Food.

Anonymous is the entity that comes to restore balance when Bad Things® happen on the internet. While individual members of Anonymous may aspire to specific goals, Anonymous as a gestalt entity only desires food.

You see, Anonymous is always hungry, and Anonymous must always feed. If you aren't food, stay out of the way.

Signed,

Anonymous
 
sure, but here's the problem with that.

today, I'm just another blogger. I say something Anonymous thinks is stupid, whether by mistake or out of rocksolid conviction, and behold! tomorrow I'm food.

there but for the grace of god go I.

or you.

or anyone.

on the one hand, it's the cost of doing business. lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

on the other hand, when one's territory expands beyond the confines of the internet and escapes into real life, I can't condone that or even accept it as the cost of doing business.
 
Shit, AP, Belle, IACB? You aren't coming for my porn are you? Cause I'll tell you now, I will answer the fucking door with a spear. Like, through the door....before you knock...

!!!!! HA

that is most excellent.
 
"today, I'm just another blogger. I say something Anonymous thinks is stupid, whether by mistake or out of rocksolid conviction, and behold! tomorrow I'm food."

Yes, you are "just another blogger." Blogging is not something to which Anonymous takes kindly, being, as it is, the antithesis of what Anonymous stands for. When you start a blog, you admit that your goal on the internet is, basically, to win respect for your handle and its ideas. Bloggers want to make the internet about IRL respectability.

Those of you who've gone to one of the *chans should have figured out by now that IRL respectability is a constraint at which Anonymous chafes. Anonymous does not believe that the internet is an extension of real life, subject to the same rules. The internet, rather, is for those who do not want to be respected, nay, who do not even want to be known.

The real reason that Anonymous went after feminist bloggers is that feminist bloggers think the internet is for moralizing. The more strident and untempered by cynicism or moderation the moralizing, the stronger Anonymous's ire. When people react to Anonymous by moralizing and reinforcing one another's moralizing en masse, Anonymous lulz.
 
I know it's late but I just wanted to add that I also lubs me some Belle.

Belledame
-Chocolate Reigning over all the internets
 
First off, I do not claim to speak for all Anonymous, nor do I claim to excuse our actions or claim they're all perfectly justifiable. Both BB/Heart and Anonymous are "radical" entities in my opinion. I personally haven't even been much a part of this, originally due to time constraints and now because it's gotten to a point where I just don't care to press the point further. Truth be told, the only person I sympathize with throughout this whole thing is Brandon. Note the capitalization and lack of slashes.

As far as I'm concerned, the random shock images and assaulting the message boards aren't particularly funny, as they've been done to death. Any real-life, in-person events Anon has ever scheduled ended up with a total turnout of about four people in their late teens/early twenties.

Sending boxes and pizzas is funny in a prank call way; it causes an inconvenience without much physical harm to the individual, aside from a potential sore throat from yelling at the deliverypeople.

As for the death threats and other things of that nature: I don't think that they're funny, though I've known people in real life that would. I've always thought of those people as annoying at best and dangerous at worst. Thankfully, Anonymous is closer to "best" in this case.

No matter what any of you say though, telling a radical feminist to go back to the kitchen is hilarious because it will make them oh so mad. What's funnier though, is when you approach them with rational thought and logical retorts to their arguments and you end up banned, as was the case on one particular message board. In the same vein, it's funny to go to, say, one of the boards on the *chans and put up something that will obviously get them mad and respond irrationally and with vulgarity, because fanatics of every stripe deserve to be made fun of. I personally prefer to laugh at both my own misery AND the misery of others; It allows you to take a step back and realize that shit happens and that both Thomas Gray and Mel Brooks are right.

I haven't participated in this whole "Porn for Brandon" thing for the exact reasons you all pointed out up there.

I suppose the whole point of this reply was that you'll get a different response from every Anon. The problem we face with this whole thing is explaining our collective reason for this happening. In truth, it's all of it, no matter how much of it contradicts itself, because we're all individuals doing different things for different reasons to the same target. Is some of it funny to me? Heck yeah, I explained what up there. Do I agree with all of it? No, but I'm not all of us. Asking one of us to speak for everyone simply because we all choose to remain pretty much nameless is about as useful as asking one person to speak for their entire city. In fact, there's a bit of a political rift brewing amidst Anonymous's ranks at the moment, though it hasn't really panned out and likely won't.

All in all, you folks are pretty even-minded, which is something I appreciate. I may keep an eye on things here, if you don't mind.
 
Couple of things:

1. Belle does rock. I think she does deserve immunity, Anon.

2. Some of these radical feminists have been pissing me off for some of the same reasons Anon mentions.
When I think of how Heart treated other women who didn't agree with her 100% ... well. Let's just say I'd never fucking vote for her overblown with self-importance ass.

3. But since, selfishly perhaps, I have no interest in being food, I'll not say anything else.
 
What's funnier though, is when you approach them with rational thought and logical retorts to their arguments and you end up banned, as was the case on one particular message board.

you keep using that word "funny". I do not blah blah blah what you blah blah blah.

seriously - I found that whole round of desperately trying to be rational and fair and reasonable, only to get stonewalled (or worse) every time, to be non-funny. or perhaps just barely ruefully amusing.

I found it really frustrating. crazy-making, even. but, their blog, their rules. whatchagonnado...you know, besides launch crazy ddos attacks and other pointless shenanigans.

I may keep an eye on things here, if you don't mind.

well, I can't tell you what to do, and I can't stop you. if you want to get a good seat for my (eventual) execution, do what ya gotta do.

but if you're going to comment ever (which would be fine), I personally would prefer it if you picked some sort of name, just so I can recognize you more easily.

some other anon said:
Anonymous is much like an ant colony.
see, I woulda said "termites".
 
Bloggers want to make the internet about IRL respectability.

We do? Huh, news to me. I guess some do. I've never been real keen on "respectability" myself, although I have my own code I guess, same as everyone. To me it was more: hey, i feel like writing, this is interesting, here's a free platform where I can decorate and say whatever I want, maybe meet some likeminded, smart folks: instant gratification. Before that I was on a semi-private comm, but it was small and starting to get a little too incestuous for me.

Curiously enough, the whole anti-personal-credit thing is something the radical feminists were very keen on for a while there. you know, don't claim personal credit, because we are uniting as Class Woman, individualism is a tool of the Patriarchy, something of that sort. Unsurprisingly that doesn't seem to have lasted very long.
 
anyway, yeah, I get the whole "gawk at the trainwreck" thing, believe me. On the comm in question I spent a lot of time in the "flame" conference. There was a bit more personal accountability, though. But I do get the impulse. Right about when I quit the place as a whole was when I was starting to think, you know, never mind the fee-fee's of the frootbats (as we called them), this is starting to get to -me.- Also, it's getting kind of boring and uh dare we say, unfulfilling.

not saying i've totally reformed my ev0l ways or anything. just saying, as a steady diet, it...gets old. To me. like eating nothing but Twinkies or something.

and well, I've said my piece wrt taking it to real life harassment, no point repeating it, either you buy it or you don't.

I am reading the Hal Turner saga, and that is a case where I'd probably have cheered anon on, not just because of his foul politics but because, as they say, "He started it." with the outing and so on.

I do think this is different for a number of reasons. but, well, my opinion and $3.50, you can take it and go get a nice frappuccino, you know. You pays your money and you makes your choice.
 

No matter what any of you say though, telling a radical feminist to go back to the kitchen is hilarious because it will make them oh so mad.


And see, that alone, I get; it's just that, well, like I said, been browsing, and 1) it doesn't stop at mild tweaking like that 2) it seems to have been a rather common meme whether talking about feminists or not.

But I mean--well, one of the standards at the flamepit I knew was that you don't resort to shit you can find just anywhere, partly because yeah politics ethics, but also because: too easy, not that funny. it wasn't a question of being mean; there was a different standard of fairness, and no, i don't think we even lived up to that most of the time, but...

Well, taking it offline, take South Park f'r instance. Sometimes I think they're hilarious. Other times--it's not that I'm shocked, shocked, it's more: seriously? Didn't I read that in a Truly Tasteless Jokes back when I was in third grade a million years ago? And: why is that funny? I guess I just honestly don't get it. (not gonna channel Henri Bergson here, who in any case was probably no fun at parties, but there's more shit to be said on the strange art and science of humor, I expect).

anyway, if the only standard is "it pisses people off," well, shit, you can kick people in the ankle and it'll piss them off, but I don't know that that's funny -all by itself;- -any- asshole can do that...
 
or, back on the feminist tip: I happen to think Hothead Paisan is hilarious, for instance. and predictably enough, a number of people react with shock, shock, you can't dooooooo that, when she draws her cartoons about, say, shooting "hey baby" assholes on the freeway, kidnapping rapists and ripping their spines out through their assholes, even beating the crap out of a kid who tells her "I'm gonna rip yer pussy out, faggot ass dyke!" with a baseball bat ("I have no problem with kids! Kids are people too!" G'BANG G'BANG G'BANG), that sort of thing. never mind that

1) the cartoon character is not the author, as is pretty clear if you read the whole thing in context

2) hi, -it's a cartoon.-

But, so, I can do that, enjoy Hothead, and still speak up and say that this is hateful bullshit when assholes like Heart's merry crew seem to be saying -in all seriousness- (humor is a tool of the Patriarchy) that, like, a real radical feminist would withhold milk from her infant son, or pre-emptive castration for potential rapists is a really good idea. You know: real life: fantasy. Real life: fantasy. There's a difference. Sort of like o I don't know, porn.

but then you get to a grey area where people -seem- to be totally serious but then when you call them on it, they were only venting, or they were only kidding.

f'r instance, well, that's now the line being used wrt Beeb talking about her son. No, she's not literally gonna -kill- the kid, probably, we don't guess.

And no, most of the people posting shit like "I want to tie you down, rape you, stick my knife into you and fuck the wounds, bitch" etc., well, same: -probably- they're not literally gonna go through with it.

but, well, the tone...one gets the impression that the hate, the malevolence, you know, is the real deal.

And then, there's such a thing as invasiveness. No, email does not get "raped;" but harassment is still invasive, and yeah, it makes a lot of women nervous because they have direct experience with "harmless" shit like small boundary invasions turning into bigger and more serious shit.

Now, what's not being said -as much,- I think, although yeah, plenty of feminists and nice sane people -are- saying so, is that the way Beeb talks about her kid is -also- invasive, and has overtones of emotional abuse at the very least. Which is disturbing -all by itself.-

-And so is a lot of the harassment.-

'sall, really.
 
Truth be told, the only person I sympathize with throughout this whole thing is Brandon.

Agreed.
 
Heh. Reading through most of this thread, I can see mass levels of delusion going on. Let's take a closer look at one example:

1)Anonymous said "Anonymous is amoral/Anonymous is neither good nor evil: Anonymous is beyond morality and human notions of right and wrong, good and evil." I can imagine it must make the writer feel somehow vastly superior to us poor schmucks still stuck in the world of morality. But wait- "Are you a crazed racist who runs a website, community and podcast dedicated towards promoting racism, and will you react to criticism and harassment in an uproariously satisfying fashion? You are food." In case it's lost on the brilliant minds of anon, calling someone a racist is a moral judgement. Or for that matter, a crazed feminist, or whatever 'food' you're lulzing (clever, clever) on. In fact, humour itself is inherently an act of moral judgement, placing one act against the background of normalcy, or expected behaviour.

2) This whole idea of 'if you just do as we say, you won't get hurt'. (mafia, anyone)Who the hell are you to tell anyone what they can and can't do at their own website? Do what you like at yours, and let others do what they like at theirs, isn't that the libertarian way?

You get the idea. They're coming up with rationalizations for being total tools. At least just own up to it. You're asswipes, and you get off on misery. Was that so hard? That might offset the pathetic need to hide behind your 'legion', but I kind of doubt it.
 
beyond morality and human notions of right and wrong, good and evil."

"It's like Nietzsche, only stupid."
 
I feel the need to respond to certain things.

you keep using that word "funny". I do not blah blah blah what you blah blah blah.

seriously - I found that whole round of desperately trying to be rational and fair and reasonable, only to get stonewalled (or worse) every time, to be non-funny. or perhaps just barely
ruefully amusing.


Well see, that's because you are doing it with an attempt to discuss things maturely, while I do it mainly because I know that when you're speaking to someone who is so entrenched in their beliefs, they'll aggressively reject any notion to the contrary. When they overreact, they only make themselves look foolish. Though I do agree, when you're attempting to have a rational discussion and someone continues to disregard what you're saying it is VERY frustrating.

whatchagonnado...you know, besides launch crazy ddos attacks and other pointless shenanigans.


Well as I said, I don't participate in DDoS attacks personally. Pointless shenanigans, on the on the other hand...

if you want to get a good seat for my (eventual) execution, do what ya gotta do.

Pfft, if Anonymous does decide to attack you guys for this, I'll stop going to /i/. That's when it's gotten to the point where people are attacking anyone, and that's not fun for me.

And see, that alone, I get; it's just that, well, like I said, been browsing, and 1) it doesn't stop at mild tweaking like that 2) it seems to have been a rather common meme whether talking about feminists or not.

This is true, and as I said I'd still consider Anonymous just as radical as the feminists they're supposedly targeting. There's an ongoing claim that there are no women on the internet, and there is a definite... "Fraternity" mentality going around, whether or not any female Anonymous disagree or not. Again, I was only speaking for myself, as "One Anon's Perspective" as it were. Now, if these people they were attacking were retorting with something just as childish or, in some cases, witty, I'd laugh at that just as much. Anonymous trolls Anonymous just as easily as it trolls others.

anyway, if the only standard is "it pisses people off," well, shit, you can kick people in the ankle and it'll piss them off, but I don't know that that's funny -all by itself;- -any- asshole can do that...

Well yeah, but if the person is shouting, "LOOK AT MY ANKLE! IT IS SUPERIOR TO YOUR ANKLE, AND ANY WORD TO THE CONTRARY WILL BE SUMMARILY MADE FUN OF AND THEN IGNORED BY MYSELF AND MY FOLLOWERS!"

Then it becomes a little funnier.


Now, as for the question of why I go there and side with Anonymous if I don't agree with all of their actions: I have the freedom to go as far as I please. No more, and no less. That's starting to become rare in this increasingly politically correct world, and I'd rather risk being insulted by someone that doesn't agree with me and laugh my ass off if it's funny enough than be forced to make sure I don't hurt someone's feelings.

You get the idea. They're coming up with rationalizations for being total tools. At least just own up to it. You're asswipes, and you get off on misery.

Oh, I make no rationalizations. We are total tools. However, you bring up valid points about how Anonymous collectively views itself, and what blatlant asshattery it is. That's actually part of the minor cause of contention I mentioned in my previous post, whether or not this is some "Righteous Crusade" or if Anonymous is just a horde of vile, hate-spewing beasts only in it for their personal amusement. The horde argument is retarded because there are other reasons Anonymous does things, and the "Righteous Crusade" is similarly wrong for reasons best summed up by belle:

"It's like Nietzsche, only stupid."
 
if you want to get a good seat for my (eventual) execution, do what ya gotta do.

Pfft, if Anonymous does decide to attack you guys for this, I'll stop going to /i/. That's when it's gotten to the point where people are attacking anyone, and that's not fun for me.


this made me smile.

consider this, though - it might not be the same Anonymous-es next time.

last winter was it? some folks in my circle of blog pals were threatened with outing and such if they didn't stop blogging about certain subjects (or stop blogging altogether).

the threateners? HA! not 4channers. not Encyclopedia Dramaticans. not Mr. John Q. Anonymous-Legion. just a few cranky radical feminists.

and you know, they have the right to disagree, to disagree vociferously, to come here on my blog and take me on keyboard-a-keyboard. Anyone does.

but what Stormcloud and those folks were planning was no different in intent than what this recent Anonymous bunch actually accomplished, in my opinion.

the only real difference is that Anonymous succeeded.
 
There's an ongoing claim that there are no women on the internet, and there is a definite... "Fraternity" mentality going around, whether or not any female Anonymous disagree or not. Again, I was only speaking for myself, as "One Anon's Perspective" as it were. Now, if these people they were attacking were retorting with something just as childish or, in some cases, witty, I'd laugh at that just as much. Anonymous trolls Anonymous just as easily as it trolls others.


I noticed in passing that someone suggested trying to stir up some MRA's along with the Margins brigade with the "let's you and her fight" idea, which gave me a momentary twinge as I've been saying for -years- that I wish Certain People on various sides of that weird gender hatefuck war thing they've got going on would just Get. A. Room.

and then I noticed someone else note that that might not work so well, as there were MRA's who were anons.

which, I gotta say, did not surprise me. I'm sure not -all- of y'all are. but I definitely got the impression that that particular ah worldview was a lot more sympatico with anon's worldview (apart from the Taking Oneself Way Too Seriously) than was the radical feminism. so, yeah, while they're clearly being targeted in part because of the Purple Prose/Dwama thing, which, if that were -all- that was happening, people mocking them for that, I'd have no problem; but also I did get the impression that at least some of the people who'd edited ED, posted on the chan boards, etc., really meant the racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc., not just in a South Park so-ironic-we've-disappeared-up-our-own-assholes way, either. I did wonder if some of that might have come in the wake of the Hal Turner business. still, I gotta say, the racism in particular I found particularly virulent and repellent.

and it wasn't just being "politically incorrect," whatever I think about that; I think Trey Parker and Matt Stone are shall we say out of their league when "satirizing" a lot of shit they don't actually know about personally; still, there's a difference between say having a black character called "Token" and simply using the sort of language and stereotyping you -do- find at VNN without any apparent effort at distinction.

but back to the subject at hand: there's stuff that could appeal to my own "horrid" sense of humor, where it's more Onion than Andrew Dice Clay, you know. I mean,

"When he wants to jerk off, everything just goes right out the window"

--that really is kind of comedic gold, all else aside. The -prose- they write, oh my lordies...
 

last winter was it? some folks in my circle of blog pals were threatened with outing and such if they didn't stop blogging about certain subjects (or stop blogging altogether).

the threateners? HA! not 4channers. not Encyclopedia Dramaticans. not Mr. John Q. Anonymous-Legion. just a few cranky radical feminists.


and the best part of THAT was, the reason thingie was doing that, try to get the threatenee to shut up, was because

1) they, the fringe-wymynists in question were being Silenced

2) other people such as the threatenee talking smack about them in public were making them, the wymynists, Look Bad.

...as opposed to saying "stop talking smack about us or I'll release the hounds," which TOTALLY gives credibility...
 
but yeah, wrt SC and her ilk, the fact that she's totally inept and not the brightest bagel in the box doesn't lessen my contempt for her any; as they say, sometimes, "It's the thought that counts."
 
per the argument: my impression is that if Anon has any sort of underlying creed besides "this is lulzworthy," it's anti-authoritarianism. which is why Mom coming down insanely hard on her kid attracted so much attention, and is also why Hal "Supremacist" "respect mah AUTHORITAH!" and Fox News, the pompous eejits, were targets.

which in itself I kind of respect; thing is, as with the "P.C. nannies are oppressing us! Help help we're being oppressed!" thing that happens, sometimes there is, imnsho, a bit of confusion between who's really got the Authoritah and who's just some hapless dweeb who's been kicked on the playground one too many times.

the fact that one can sometimes morph into the other is worth noting; but, y'know, Perspective.

so here it's confusing because Beeb -does- have power over her kid(s);

but,

1) anon isn't supposed to be doing anything for any sort of noble reasons

2) even if everyone were dead serious about "rescuing" him, that's a wee bit more complicated than just shutting down someone's radio show, considering she's the only halfway responsible adult he's got, seems like

3) "feminazis" (and btw Rush Limbaugh is at least as much of a tool as anyone ever; the word, she irks) really don't have the kind of real world power that say Fox News does. random kids who dress up in fursuits, even less so.
 
"Well yeah, but if the person is shouting, "LOOK AT MY ANKLE! IT IS SUPERIOR TO YOUR ANKLE, AND ANY WORD TO THE CONTRARY WILL BE SUMMARILY MADE FUN OF AND THEN IGNORED BY MYSELF AND MY FOLLOWERS!"

Grin. That was funny.
 
consider this, though - it might not be the same Anonymous-es next time.

Yes, but I'd see it on the board if it was them, so I'd know. Besides, I'm sure feminists and Anonymous use a different... "style" when it comes to their brand of verbal abuse.

and it wasn't just being "politically incorrect," whatever I think about that; I think Trey Parker and Matt Stone are shall we say out of their league when "satirizing" a lot of shit they don't actually know about personally; still, there's a difference between say having a black character called "Token" and simply using the sort of language and stereotyping you -do- find at VNN without any apparent effort at distinction.

But again, it's all a matter of how far you yourself want to take it, and your own sensibilities. I don't think I've ever said or participated in anything that defamed someone simply due to their gender, race, or religious preference aside from withing my circle of friends which in that case would be a back-and-forth and usually reversed(i.e. I'm being called the black racial stereotypes and they're being called the white). I can put up with ideas I don't agree with and indeed make fun of myself, because Freedom of Speech isn't about protecting what you agree with, it's about protecting what you disagree with.

I guess it's mainly because I go to those sites more for the the other boards, /b/ is somthing I rarely frequent and /i/ is something I pop into nowhere near the frequency of some of the more "rabid" Anonymous. I've been exposed to said racism, but it's a less frequent outside those two boards. If you go into an even remotely anonymous situation and don't expect people spewing hate to be shouting it loud and proud where they don't fear legal or social problems, then you're either naïve or foolish.

1) anon isn't supposed to be doing anything for any sort of noble reasons

2) even if everyone were dead serious about "rescuing" him, that's a wee bit more complicated than just shutting down someone's radio show, considering she's the only halfway responsible adult he's got, seems like

3) "feminazis" (and btw Rush Limbaugh is at least as much of a tool as anyone ever; the word, she irks) really don't have the kind of real world power that say Fox News does. random kids who dress up in fursuits, even less so.


1) Pfft, as much as people want to posture that Anonymous is Legion and we're all in it for the lulz, the truth is we're still all individuals. We have our own reasons for joining or passing on any given raid target, and most of that "Unstoppable Army" is mostly psyops. It's demoralizing to think that it's a great collective descending down upon you, and even if you don't believe that you believe THEY believe it.

2) Yeah, but most people who SWEAR they're going to save him are either kids themselves, or idiots. While I do believe CPS should look into things and see if there is any genuine emotional(Oh definitely) or physical(That I doubt) abuse, and getting this kid some help would be a good thing, it doesn't help to send him porn, or do all this other crap in Brandon's name. It only makes his mother associate him with the decidedly male group attacking her even more.

3a) Rush Limbaugh is indeed a tool, but people like him and Bill O'RLY are huge, with a considerable legal team and fanbase, many of which may even be Anonymous themselves. Were Anonymous to go after them, they would also draw the ire of the considerable umbrellas they're standing under.

3b) While I am anti-authoritarian, I would attempt to affect any changes I could think of in a venue with more impact than the internet through a group that isn't known now by the nation as "hackers on steroids." I use this to make fun of them. Heck, I do it on my own too, Anonymous just provides leads for me. Furries, their word not mine, are often targeted because a lot of them are whiny and far too stuck up for what they are. It's just another fetish in the world, and while I don't care what blows your skirt up when you become rabid if anyone questions or criticizes your fetish you become worthy of ridicule. I've yet to come across a Dom/sub fetishist that screamed about how nobody but fellow D/s fetishists understand them, and unless you do the same things they do they regard you with an air of dislike. Heck, a former friend of mine discovered she was a furry, and after she met others that shared her interest she starting treating me like crap because I wasn't into it, even though I was happy for her that she found something she liked and accepted her regardless. We don't talk anymore, and it's left a definite bad taste in my mouth when I first meet with a furry.


Now, what a lot of you may not notice is that not all furries, or christian sites, or whatever else you can think of get attacked. Plenty of times people have linked to potential targets, but I've found that most of them fall through the cracks because their members aren't those annoying, uptight idiots that fear and loathe dissenting opinion. This kinda brings me to the last thing I think I should address...

thing that happens, sometimes there is, imnsho, a bit of confusion between who's really got the Authoritah and who's just some hapless dweeb who's been kicked on the playground one too many times.

Well see, that's the thing. Some of them ARE the kid on the playground at the time. Unfortunately on the internet it becomes hard to tell sometimes, especially when on one board they're the kid and on another they're the Authoritah.


I hope I'm addressing things well enough. If there's anything else, lemme know.
 
no, that covers much of it, I'd say.

3a) Rush Limbaugh is indeed a tool, but people like him and Bill O'RLY are huge, with a considerable legal team and fanbase, many of which may even be Anonymous themselves. Were Anonymous to go after them, they would also draw the ire of the considerable umbrellas they're standing under.

well, yeah, that's kind of what i was getting at. which does sort of tend to validate some of the feminists' point a bit, i'd say, in that the specific animosity toward feminists and leftists, is real. although yeah, calling it a concerted attack to shut all feminists/women up is... overdramatic, and doesn't help here, I would say.

speaking of the latter, I see Heart just weighed in again with what i presume she thinks is damage control. oy. I'll be in the bar.

but, anyway, at the same time, there are good reasons why feminist bloggers are gunshy: the Kathy Sierra thing (who wasn't even particularly feminist or controversial, just a popular blogger working in a primarily male field), and a number of the high profile feminist bloggers have gotten some pretty disturbing shit.

And per concerted attacks: the last one people are probably thinking of is the Duke business, which, whatever you think of how it all went down, for a while there -anyone- who said anything that might be sympathetic toward the accuser got -flooded-, and proportionately more so if the blogger was a woman, and if it was a -black- woman, the hateful bullshit level went through the roof. I don't mean "disagreeing," I mean floods and floods of epithet-ridden spam, highly personalized shit, and what looked like boilerplate defense of the accused, more castigations on the accuser and anyone who remotely resembled her...well, you know the drill. It's not just peoples' imagination. Hell, even Heart and Beeb, you read their stuff, they have reason to be paranoid, even if it's not always applicable in the instances or ways they think it is.

sometimes I think the real definition of insanity is just bad timing and misdirection.
 
...oh, maybe i misunderstood with part of the O'Rly/Limbaugh thing, i was responding to yeah, I think some of the fanbase -are- probably anon.

otoh there's the Fox baiting already, no?

O'Rly must be pretty close to popping already. I didn't get the impression the ED editor was a fan of his, at least. there was some editor who I was talking to somewhere who seemed to be a fan of Colbert. it is a model to aspire to, I would say. not there at the moment, but I'd certainly be rooting for y'know quality control on that front. the world needs more gutsy and smart satirists.
 
Heck, a former friend of mine discovered she was a furry

I kind of want to ask, and yet...kind of not.

I admit I don't get the furry thing at all. Horses (snort) for courses and all; but, well, just...people've managed to be queer, transgendered and practice D/s even before the current labels and exact configurations for them, historically. What did the would-be furries do before the Internets? For that matter...well, I'm one to talk, there are a LOT of things that would've been really different without the Internets. Still.

lord help me. I keep thinking of the Monty Python sketch "The Mouse Problem," which for some reason I never tweaked was a piss-take on the sensationalized "gay lifestyle" documentaries of the era. Little did they know that one day that might be -literally- applicable.

"So, one of the blokes, he started...(swallows) passing cheese around. And then some began to, to...dress up a bit, and then they started...squeakin'."
 
And I return, because it's my day off and I have nothing better to do!


but, anyway, at the same time, there are good reasons why feminist bloggers are gunshy: the Kathy Sierra thing (who wasn't even particularly feminist or controversial, just a popular blogger working in a primarily male field), and a number of the high profile feminist bloggers have gotten some pretty disturbing shit.

I'm not saying that there isn't a REASON behind being wary of a "sudden addition" with a dissenting opinion, but on the other hand outright refusing to hear anything about it is wrong as well.


And per concerted attacks: the last one people are probably thinking of is the Duke business, which, whatever you think of how it all went down, for a while there -anyone- who said anything that might be sympathetic toward the accuser got -flooded-, and proportionately more so if the blogger was a woman, and if it was a -black- woman, the hateful bullshit level went through the roof. I don't mean "disagreeing," I mean floods and floods of epithet-ridden spam, highly personalized shit, and what looked like boilerplate defense of the accused, more castigations on the accuser and anyone who remotely resembled her...well, you know the drill. It's not just peoples' imagination. Hell, even Heart and Beeb, you read their stuff, they have reason to be paranoid, even if it's not always applicable in the instances or ways they think it is.

While I see the point, I have to wonder about this. Is it better to speak one's opinion and treat the responses accordingly based on the nature of it and your knowledge of the individual, or to apply a blanket response to any and all opposition? Now, as far as I know Anonymous didn't participate in said bile-spewing, especially if their opinion was presented rationally and not in a "they're white men, she's a black woman, henceforth they're guilty" manner. If they did I was clearly not paying attention at that time. Hell, had I been around I'd probably be ridiculing the attackers myself despite the evidence pointing to it all being a lie, only because they were responding with complete idiocy to a rational argument.

Also, Heart and BB should be paranoid - anyone that espouses hate in any form would be stupid not to be.


What did the would-be furries do before the Internets?

Touch themselves to Bugs Bunny and Minnie? I dunno. I'd guess it's the alt-lifestyle that received the biggest explosion thanks to the advent of the internet. I'd imagine it didn't even really exist in the form it does now, with conventions and magazines dedicated to it.

I kind of want to ask, and yet...kind of not.

Said friend of mine was actually a disturbed and troubled girl, dealing with repressing her homosexuality around her family. Her main escape was her "fursona," the character representing her. She could have a girlfriend that way and not worry about her parents finding out. Meh, not that surprising, as most fetishes are about escape in some form, and alternative lifestyles are in fact making reality a little closer to what you want it to be. More power to ya if it makes you happy, imo.

Just don't belittle people that don't immediately understand what the attraction is, or aren't interested in it themselves. The same can be said for anything, though. From political affiliation or world views to sex, it boils down to not crossing that line dividing being proud of who and what you are and feeling superior to others based on those qualities.
 
dealing with repressing her homosexuality around her family.

Ah so. Well, maybe the "mouse problem" isn't that far off after all then. Ergh. Well, I thought sort of the same thing of Timothy Treadwell, who was sort of a um vicarious furry, I guess...
 
While I see the point, I have to wonder about this. Is it better to speak one's opinion and treat the responses accordingly based on the nature of it and your knowledge of the individual, or to apply a blanket response to any and all opposition?

Oh, I didn't say their response made a hell of a lot of sense. That was kind of what I was getting at wrt the "definition of insanity" thing. It's not particularly logical, no; on the other hand if you're in permanent siege mentality, well yeah, you probably ARE gonna go with the blanket response. It's a self-perpetuating cycle too, of course.

and, as they say

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you."

and vice versa too, I expect.

anyway I actually didn't mean them per se wrt the Duke business and such; I was trying to explain why so many other feminist bloggers and their supporters are going "sound the alarms." In this instance it's as much a case of Internet "telephone" as anything else. I just noticed a friend of mine who's decidedly not a radical feminist or a Heart fan, put up a note of support for what he believes is "feminist bloggers under attack" (again); naturally he promptly got linked at ED, and now with the race-baiting spam.
 
Oh, I didn't say their response made a hell of a lot of sense

actually it DOES make sense, in its way. what I was getting at more there:

"..didn't say their response was -ideal.-"
 
That's possible. He wanted to "be" a Grizzly to get away from the problems he had in life. I also think he was waiting to get killed, though, kind of like a soldier that takes risks of a heroically foolish nature to, say, rescue a comrade or defeat the enemy quicker. He did a lot of good, but it was ultimately his downfall.
 
part of the reason I'm/a few of us have been responding with a sort of bemusement here is because, well, it's particularly delicious that we were getting tagged, especially Ren (!), as anti-porn radical feminists. as far as BB and Heart and so on are concerned we're, well:

The true enemies, the enemy that can truly subvert are the enemies within, the women who are basking in the chaos that has happened here, the women who are implying and out and out saying that this is all made up, all a campaign to garner sympathy and the men who will attached themselves to those women, convince those women that porn is fun, being a submissive is fun, cool, and eventually, it will be the way of life for all women. Radical feminists fight this goal and are obviously putting a dent in their mission, making sense, being logical, gaining allies, —the works, if not, the opposition would not be interested in trying to retard us, hinder us, destroy us.

...which well, as you say, LULZ. o the Dwama!

so, but: yes, dear, that's exactly right: you were just getting too popular and -making too much sense.- Curses!

"It's fascinating to watch an ego just before it dies"

--the Pointy Haired Boss
 
yeah, it was...odd, the whole thing. I actually wrote a piece on him, or rather the Herzog documentary, here, if you've an interest.
 
"..didn't say their response was -ideal.-"

Okay then, I misinterpreted that then.

Then yeah, it's understandable. In fact, it's probably wise to some extent. What I'd recommend is to keep an eye out and not let your guard down, but at the same time don't go into this whole "THEY'RE OUT TO GET US ALL DGHFSJKFDSKJF" mentality because if anything that'll get their attention even better than silently disabling anonymous comments or in the case of message boards temporarily suspend registration and cite an imaginary error.


Also, it all makes sense now. It wasn't the potential child abuse; it was logic woke the beast.
 
Totally. That and their -stunning- ability to Make Friends and Influence People...
 
but yeah, the Margins crew seem to be of the belief, as expressed in just about so many words by at least one particularly assholian person who was getting pelted with Internet peanuts for, o something or other, why fellatio was "objectively" disgusting and no sane woman would partake therein, during a previous internecine war,

"The fact that so many people are paying attention to me and trying to Oppress! Me! means that I am saying something Important."

...to which, well, there is and was the rejoinder:


But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.


--Carl Sagan
 
why fellatio was "objectively" disgusting and no sane woman would partake therein

THIS IS MADNESS.

THIS. IS. BLOWJOOOOOOOOOOOB!

*cough* I apologize for this outburst. I couldn't help myself. But seriously, I'm sorry I missed that, I would have had a laugh at best and a new archvillain at worst.

Also, give them some credit. They do indeed have the ability to influence people. It just happens to more often than not be in the way they DON'T want them to go.





By the way, I read that piece, and it was definitely interesting to read. That whole "patriarchy" point was an interesting one for someone who hasn't put much thought into gender when it isn't specifically being brought to their attention.
 
I forgot my name... Aw well. Hey, I have a Google account, so I suppose I can use this thing.
 
thanks, glad you enjoyed. yeah, I'm...at least a bit tongue in cheek with the term "patriarchy," there, certainly in the all-encompassing way used by certain *koff* blamers; but yeah, I still think gender role analysis is a useful tool.

*cough* I apologize for this outburst. I couldn't help myself. But seriously, I'm sorry I missed that, I would have had a laugh at best and a new archvillain at worst.

oh trust me, it's been LULZ-o-RAMA around these parts, with a healthy heaping of heartburn to go along. yeah, the Great BlowJob Wars of 2006. it was...something. the initiator tried to follow it up with her take on anal sex a couple of months ago; as with many sequels, it didn't do as well as the original. tant pis.
 
But seriously, I'm sorry I missed that, I would have had a laugh at best and a new archvillain at worst.

oh, stick around a while. it will come around again. it always does.
 
"I've yet to come across a Dom/sub fetishist that screamed about how nobody but fellow D/s fetishists understand them, and unless you do the same things they do they regard you with an air of dislike."

As someone who is into D/s I can assure you: they exist. And they are extremely annoying. But they're not most of us, no -- because well, with D/s and sadomasochism and these other things, you actually have to know what you're doing lets people get hurt in ways that are not the fun kind. So the actual community is fairly self-selecting.

But you still can definitely find the people who never quite managed to figure their shit out making castles in the air on the Internets, asserting that their slaviness or dominant soul makes them smarter cooler and the! Uberspecial!

and yes, it is in fact lulzy. there are LJ communities dedicated to snarking these fools. I'm not in them any more, as I got tired of pointing and laughing at the fools and more interested in actual discussion with the clueful (y'know, people with actual OFFLINE PRESENCE IN TH' COMMUNITY and all.)
 
hahahaahahaha

"FUNK FILLED BRATWURST." (actual quote)

while it was going on it was annoying, but now that it's over... oh the hilarity. :)
 
gah. i just went back and looked at the BJ war.

the stupid, IT BURNS, IT FREEZES! NASTY ELVES TWISTED IT, YES PRECIOUS!
 
yep!
 
"I've yet to come across a Dom/sub fetishist that screamed about how nobody but fellow D/s fetishists understand them, and unless you do the same things they do they regard you with an air of dislike."

yeah, I have to second Trinity's opinion on this.

there are as many variants of dominant-submissive play as there are players. and some people accept that as all part of life's rich pageant, and some people decidedly DON'T.

some folks are all "my kink is ok, your kink is sick/abusive/weird/humorous."

which, in my opinion, rather misses the point, all things being consensual.

which is why I'm not such a fan of, for example, furry-bashing, furry-mocking, etc. bewildering as it may be, there but for the grace of god go I.
 
"which is why I'm not such a fan of, for example, furry-bashing, furry-mocking, etc. bewildering as it may be, there but for the grace of god go I."

Same here. I do think some people who take their fursonas way too seriously and insist that the human world is the fantasy could be mockworthy, simply for the, y'know

REALITY CALLING CHIBIBLUEFOX ON LINE TWO

thing, but I'm not bothered by the idea that some people get off on pretending to be furry animals. I don't have reason to care, really.
 
I do think some people who take their fursonas way too seriously and insist that the human world is the fantasy could be mockworthy

although I often think the human world is CLEARLY the illusion, anyone who takes hir "sona" way too seriously probably is inviting mockage.

I once knew folks who were civil war re-enactors. talk about taking the persona way too seriously! oh my stars and garters!
 
yeah, when it comes down to it, we all have our Walter Mitty moments. it's part of the rich tapestry of being human. but, there is a difference between building castles in the sky and moving in. And then yelling at everyone else to keep the hell off of your royal lawn/drawbridge.
 
very definitely NOT DESERVED. clearly. and Beav has my unreserved sympathy and support on that front, even though she said something unconscionable (that I'm sure she regrets now).

Good grief. You really are a bunch of total hypocrites, aren't you? Attempt to sympathise with a woman because she's being attacked for what she said (in a private forum) and yet agree with those who are attacking her in order to keep your own house straight.

Be careful you don't get splinters in your ass from all that fence sitting, won't you...

Your display of sycophancy would be embarrassing if I thought you were feminists.

Lucky i know better, huh?
 
I said I was ambivalent. did you even read the post?
 
Anon, see my post above re: assholes and other assholes. What part wasn't clear? Look, I'm not interested in playing your little reindeer games any more than anyone else's. Converse like a human being or piss off.

AND pick a goddam nym, unless you want to be lumped in with all THOSE anons.
 
btw, it wasn't a private forum. It was an off the beaten path forum. Still on public display.
 
and, anon? I don't agree that what she said was unconscionable because I want to "keep my own house straight." I -already- thought it was unconscionable because -I- think that -talking that way about your kid is fucked up.- Really and truly. Sorry you see it as an affront to all Wimminhood, but you know something: there are a -lot- of people who are not with you on this. Most of them are not, in fact, MRA's, anti-feminists, flying monkey trolls. Keep playing that tiny violin, though.
 
"I -already- thought it was unconscionable because -I- think that -talking that way about your kid is fucked up.- Really and truly. Sorry you see it as an affront to all Wimminhood, but you know something: there are a -lot- of people who are not with you on this. Most of them are not, in fact, MRA's, anti-feminists, flying monkey trolls."

What she said.
 
As someone who is into D/s I can assure you: they exist. And they are extremely annoying. But they're not most of us, no -- because well, with D/s and sadomasochism and these other things, you actually have to know what you're doing lets people get hurt in ways that are not the fun kind. So the actual community is fairly self-selecting.

See that's the thing, there's a sort of "social filter" for that behavior. The thing with the furry community is that it's predominantly on the internet first off, and second that there IS no such filter because the majority of highly visible furries are the obnoxious kind, and nobody in the community publicly decries them.

I've met furries that take things as seriously as any kink should be taken, but wouldn't get all knotted up over someone being ignorant about it or even flat-out mocking to a degree. They're no different from anyone else other than that, same as a person who will freely admit to being a member of the D/s community but isn't exactly wearing the gear in public and putting on a face whenever someone looks at them funny.


which is why I'm not such a fan of, for example, furry-bashing, furry-mocking, etc. bewildering as it may be, there but for the grace of god go I.

Well it's not so much the fetish(though collectively for Anonymous it has indeed escalated to that point as they have a habit of blowing things out of proportion) as much as it's the attitude the community seems to collectively share. At this point though, it's like the Hatfields and McCoys, nobody knows who started it, but they hate each other just the same.


Attempt to sympathise with a woman because she's being attacked for what she said (in a private forum) and yet agree with those who are attacking her in order to keep your own house straight.

Yay, one of you showed up while I'm posthumously paying attention!

First off, You mean SYMPATHIZE. With a "z." Do use proper spelling in the future, as it will help to present your case. Besides, don't you get those little red dots below a misspelled word? Isn't that annoying?

Second, as belle pointed out it was a public forum. It required no password to view, and therefore is not private. So, that part of your argument is invalid.

Third, one can sympathize with a person and yet still believe they had something coming to them. It's like saying, "I'm not surprised that person is going to prison, but I think the death penalty is a bit excessive." It has nothing to do with maintaining a ninety-degree angle in regards to the abode.

Fourth,
Your display of sycophancy would be embarrassing if I thought you were feminists.

Lucky i know better, huh?


You know, you're the second person in this post's 200 replies to miss the fact that antiprincess's subtitle for this blog is, copy pasted for your pleasure, "where any resemblance to feminism is purely co-incidental."

Shame on you. First you misinterpret the post, then you misuse sarcasm. I would add in a joke that suggested you're deliberately missing things simply to add the "miss" sound before words and make yourself appear super-extra-feminist to drive home the point, but I can't think of anything really funny and I wouldn't want to potentially offend our hostess or the regulars.

Finally, in regards to this little gem of a colloquialism: Be careful you don't get splinters in your ass from all that fence sitting, won't you...

I feel sorry for you if the only way you can prove your point is by adding in vulgar imagery.



So, do they often come back, or was all that just to make myself feel better? Either way is fine with me.
 
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