Yeah the length itself feels like a defense mechanism. It reminds me of gish galloping, although it's not the same thing. Will still try to give this a whirl later
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ContraPoints | Canceling
- Thread starter Infinity Times Two
- Start date
All of that gets addressed in the video, even the part of how Buck apparently had outed Lana.
And this video convinced me to just ignore people asking for others to tell them how they should feel about it. So I am not going to write a summary or explain anything.
It's funny because she addresses that too. "People will see the length of this video and not gonna watch it".
If people have already made up their mind, do yourself a favor and use the ignore thread function.
We live in an interesting time where we can engage in these para social relationships.
Contra got "cancelled" but retains a strong following and (presumably) a strong financial basis. Therefore some people have decided that the cancellation was irrelevant and not a problem.
While contra is a famous person, she is still a person. With feelings emotions and flaws.
So my concern is not that the cancellation will literally expunge her from the Internet, but rather that a dog Pilling from twitter will damage her on a personal level. And honestly, she's shown herself to have an issue with alcohol in the past and in this video, so this could lead to significant physical damage as well.
Back when the fappening happened I had a really bad (really bad) take. I though that because Kate Upton had posed nude previously the fact that her personal pictures were leaked. This is clearly ridiculous because the fact remains that these pictures were private and the leaking of them was an invasion of her privacy.
So I kinda of think the mindset of of "she's white and rich therefore her personal upset does not matter" is pretty similar to that super bad take I had on 2010.
There's a mod post which states that we shouldn't invalidate the feeling of non binary people hurt by Contra (which I ofcourse agree with).
But shouldn't this also extend to the feelings of Contra too?
This post feels very wishy washy and "can't we all just get along" but I'm kinda feeling that right now about the left in general.
Contra got "cancelled" but retains a strong following and (presumably) a strong financial basis. Therefore some people have decided that the cancellation was irrelevant and not a problem.
While contra is a famous person, she is still a person. With feelings emotions and flaws.
So my concern is not that the cancellation will literally expunge her from the Internet, but rather that a dog Pilling from twitter will damage her on a personal level. And honestly, she's shown herself to have an issue with alcohol in the past and in this video, so this could lead to significant physical damage as well.
Back when the fappening happened I had a really bad (really bad) take. I though that because Kate Upton had posed nude previously the fact that her personal pictures were leaked. This is clearly ridiculous because the fact remains that these pictures were private and the leaking of them was an invasion of her privacy.
So I kinda of think the mindset of of "she's white and rich therefore her personal upset does not matter" is pretty similar to that super bad take I had on 2010.
There's a mod post which states that we shouldn't invalidate the feeling of non binary people hurt by Contra (which I ofcourse agree with).
But shouldn't this also extend to the feelings of Contra too?
This post feels very wishy washy and "can't we all just get along" but I'm kinda feeling that right now about the left in general.
Have not followed this controversy surrounding her videos at all, was wondering why she felt weirdly absent from Twitter recently.
Hopefully this conflict can be resolved in a way NB folks can accept.
So to my understanding the criticism surrounding her revolves around the way she treats nb people on Twitter and her videos, I also don't know who Buck Angel is.
Hopefully this conflict can be resolved in a way NB folks can accept.
So to my understanding the criticism surrounding her revolves around the way she treats nb people on Twitter and her videos, I also don't know who Buck Angel is.
Oh wow. Thanks for the detailed response. I had to google transmedicalists. So these people see non-dysphoric trans folks kinda how TERFs see trans women, right?
I'm not sure how much to blame her for getting drunk and calling a shitty person hot, but hosting the guy in a video and pay walling her apology feels pretty crappy.
I guess she's having trouble reconciling her image of being a trailblazing progressive trans youtuber with her reality of being a human being who (like most of us) still has a lot to learn.
I know, I've already stated my views on the parts of the videos where she addressed all of that in the thread and I was explaining the discourse
No problem. The gushing over how hot he is was more just in bad taste than anything but it did stick with me so thats why I mentioned it
This isn't actually addressing the critique. It's dismissing it. That's a big difference.
It doesn't change the fact that she did exactly what I said. So now anyone who wants to address it has to not only watch a video that's longer than an university lecture, they have to address the whole 100 minutes as well. Otherwise they are told their take is invalid. If they would only see everything in context it would be so clear.
That's not a honest apology.
The August Ames section is interesting, but it coming AFTER Natalie did a whole lot of "look at how awful this has been for me" (which it has been, clearly) just feels kind of dirty. Like she was saying, "Look, the same type of thing could've happened to me and how would you feel if I'd killed myself, huh?"
I've been suicidal. I've stood on a balcony. I've been attacked for a lot of things, both on- and offline. I've dealt with, on a much smaller scale, the abuse she's getting. But guilting people through a 100-minute video isn't the best way to go about this.
Just getting into the last few minutes, seeing her drunkenly yell at her audience about how they're probably going to twist this video and take quotes out of context and so on. She ended it basically saying she's learned to just ignore everything. To "not give a fuck" as it were. Not sure how to feel about hte whole video.
1) Abuse and bullying sucks, doubly so when it has a profound effect on someone (they kill themselves, they stop creating, they develop disorders, etc.)
*HOWEVER*
2) Appealing to the emotions of your audience is just shallow manipulation, especially when you pull a bunch of rando Tweets to do so. Not sure what you want those of us that didn't hop on the abuse train to do. I empathise. I sympathise. But it still feels 100% self-indulgent. Though that is the Contrapoints™ brand, I suppose.
2a) Imagine if someone finds one of those tweets based on the avatar you didn't edit out and suddenly your own stans attack them. Curious to see what Nat's response would be to that.
I've been suicidal. I've stood on a balcony. I've been attacked for a lot of things, both on- and offline. I've dealt with, on a much smaller scale, the abuse she's getting. But guilting people through a 100-minute video isn't the best way to go about this.
Just getting into the last few minutes, seeing her drunkenly yell at her audience about how they're probably going to twist this video and take quotes out of context and so on. She ended it basically saying she's learned to just ignore everything. To "not give a fuck" as it were. Not sure how to feel about hte whole video.
1) Abuse and bullying sucks, doubly so when it has a profound effect on someone (they kill themselves, they stop creating, they develop disorders, etc.)
*HOWEVER*
2) Appealing to the emotions of your audience is just shallow manipulation, especially when you pull a bunch of rando Tweets to do so. Not sure what you want those of us that didn't hop on the abuse train to do. I empathise. I sympathise. But it still feels 100% self-indulgent. Though that is the Contrapoints™ brand, I suppose.
2a) Imagine if someone finds one of those tweets based on the avatar you didn't edit out and suddenly your own stans attack them. Curious to see what Nat's response would be to that.
You know being a casual fan of contrapoints and popping into this thread and seeing people say things that she addresses in the video while watching the video is a pretty trippy experience. One thing the internet has really taken away from people is the ability to be human.
I feel the need to point out again here that the Aesthetic did get clarified via a Twitter thread and she justifiably upset people with that clarification.
It's just classic respectability politics. Sucking up to groups who hate trans people thinking it will gain them acceptance.
The dumbest thing about transmeds though is that a huge portion of them are vehemently against minors transitioning while also simultaneously believing that only passing trans people deserve respect and acceptance, it's such an absurdly contradictory mindset it makes me want to scream.
I've seen her twitter threads but when I was referring to clarifications I was referring to the many she's made in the videos that have followed.
This video is way more complicated, it's not a simple apology, but it's a more honest response than a shitty 1 minute apology video she could have upped to twitter an hour after the controversy happened could ever be.
Agreed. This is standard for Contrapoints, not sure what some people were expecting.
I've only watched half the video but enjoyed it so far, will watch the rest later.
I'll watch it. I've been a fan of hers for a while now. She fumbled on the NB stuff so I'm interested in how she'll explain that.
I can certainly understand that for many this won't be nearly enough, but I enjoyed and appreciated this video from Natalie.
And this may not be the best thread to discuss the following topic in, but it's something my ex husband (who is trans) has brought up to me before (and was covered by Natalie some in the video), which confuses me: the in-fighting and factionalism that seems to be happening in trans spaces on social media (and perhaps also in non-binary and other LGBTQIA + spaces as well?). Natalie at different points brings up two factors that might have a correlation: the notion of black and white thinking combined with exaggerated hurt and it excusing cruelty in response, and the fact that it's easy for Nazis/alt-right trolls to pretend to be leftist (she actually said a very specific type of leftist, something akin to "trans anarcho-socialist" but I don't recall the exact wording and it's a long video to find precise quotes from) and instigate bad faith arguments in order to get actually marginalized individuals to turn on themselves.
The former reminds me a great deal of the types of reactions common among individuals with untreated BPD - which is odd, because despite having 3 individuals in my life who have BPD and are trans, my understanding of the literature is that that's actually very uncommon (though I should say that said literature often errs dangerously on the transmedicalist side of things, to say the least, so I'm not sure how much to trust it).
The other potential explanation makes more sense to me on the face of things, although I admit that could just be me noting the glut of anime avatars during the "trashing" portion of Natalie's video, and my own experiences in social media leading me to equate such things with alt-right trolls (not attempting to imply everyone with an anime avatar is an alt-right troll in disguise, just that my own experience has been noting that I've seen more trolls with than without). There may admittedly be some correlation or emotional connection with anime avatars that I simply haven't had the perspective to understand yet.
Of course, there may be other factors at work here (it could certainly be some other form of trauma-informed behavior, for example), and of course the factionalism might very well be overstated by Natalie and my ex-husband. And I admit that I've only seen about 70% of Natalie's videos, so if there's a more detailed explanation of why she feels this occurs, I haven't run into it.
(Please feel free to correct me on any base assumptions/terminology/thought processes I've gotten wrong here, especially if I've caused anyone pain)
And this may not be the best thread to discuss the following topic in, but it's something my ex husband (who is trans) has brought up to me before (and was covered by Natalie some in the video), which confuses me: the in-fighting and factionalism that seems to be happening in trans spaces on social media (and perhaps also in non-binary and other LGBTQIA + spaces as well?). Natalie at different points brings up two factors that might have a correlation: the notion of black and white thinking combined with exaggerated hurt and it excusing cruelty in response, and the fact that it's easy for Nazis/alt-right trolls to pretend to be leftist (she actually said a very specific type of leftist, something akin to "trans anarcho-socialist" but I don't recall the exact wording and it's a long video to find precise quotes from) and instigate bad faith arguments in order to get actually marginalized individuals to turn on themselves.
The former reminds me a great deal of the types of reactions common among individuals with untreated BPD - which is odd, because despite having 3 individuals in my life who have BPD and are trans, my understanding of the literature is that that's actually very uncommon (though I should say that said literature often errs dangerously on the transmedicalist side of things, to say the least, so I'm not sure how much to trust it).
The other potential explanation makes more sense to me on the face of things, although I admit that could just be me noting the glut of anime avatars during the "trashing" portion of Natalie's video, and my own experiences in social media leading me to equate such things with alt-right trolls (not attempting to imply everyone with an anime avatar is an alt-right troll in disguise, just that my own experience has been noting that I've seen more trolls with than without). There may admittedly be some correlation or emotional connection with anime avatars that I simply haven't had the perspective to understand yet.
Of course, there may be other factors at work here (it could certainly be some other form of trauma-informed behavior, for example), and of course the factionalism might very well be overstated by Natalie and my ex-husband. And I admit that I've only seen about 70% of Natalie's videos, so if there's a more detailed explanation of why she feels this occurs, I haven't run into it.
(Please feel free to correct me on any base assumptions/terminology/thought processes I've gotten wrong here, especially if I've caused anyone pain)
User Banned (1 Week): Ignoring staff post
Going to watch this later tonight.
I've largely remained silent on the topic because myself being non-binary, I feel like I'll get shit on for empathizing with Contra, even if she's had some bad takes. I've never felt that she had any malice towards me or the non-binary community.
(Note: not trying to invalidate how others feel, I just disagree on her being trash).
Will return once I've watched it all.
I've largely remained silent on the topic because myself being non-binary, I feel like I'll get shit on for empathizing with Contra, even if she's had some bad takes. I've never felt that she had any malice towards me or the non-binary community.
(Note: not trying to invalidate how others feel, I just disagree on her being trash).
Will return once I've watched it all.
Something I've heard that could explain some infighting is this: Traumatized people develop defense mechanisms and will employ them whenever they judge a situation requiring them. Some of them involve extreme reactions which have been learned in situations that don't call for them.
I have definitely seen people who are actually alt right pile on to controversies surrounding left leaning subjects with concern trolling. Happens on Twitter, Reddit, the old place, and even occasionally here. I mean, Russia used the same technique in 2016 with fake pro BLM pages.
Great video on the subject.
Some (more like a lot of) people lack the ability to self-reflect or have any form of self-awareness.
This was also the impression I got and it bothered me in a similar way, though I liked the substance of the rest of the video.
I am getting pretty tired of whatever you call her "heygorgehowareyou" affectation, though. I hope she changes up her style a bit soon or these are going to get progressively harder for me to watch.
So the thing that gets me is that for whatever claim she has of being cancelled, she's still making upwards of $15K a month via Patreon under some of the most conservative estimates (everyone donates at $2 level and patreon takes like a 10%+ cut). As always I make fun of the cancel culture stuff because people are almost never not using it to talk about relatively rich and powerful people (i.e., folks getting Netflix comedy specials, retired politicians) who are now slightly less rich and powerful. Contra is at least an edge case because, since that doesn't account for the costs of production or health coverage, that's not exactly fuck you money.
If she's cancelled now someone forgot to tell all her subscribers.
How much of the video is her just highlighting opinions from twitter randos to show the scourge of leftist twitter violence? I heard something like 10-20 minutes.
If she's cancelled now someone forgot to tell all her subscribers.
How much of the video is her just highlighting opinions from twitter randos to show the scourge of leftist twitter violence? I heard something like 10-20 minutes.
I mean she directly attacks pretty much every criticism head on and even apologizes for a number of things outright. But half of the people in this damn thread either stopped watching after 5 minutes or are just cultivating hot takes based on 3rd hand information from someone else who also probably only watched 5 minutes of the video.
Not sure what more people want from her honestly.
I watched the whole thing. As I've stated before, I think her mistake was to use Twitter as a stand-in for a close friend or a therapist. Out of everything, I felt that the justification for the reluctance to check whether Buck Angel outed Lana Wachowski was incredibly weak. I do hope if there's a followup video that she'll reconsider.
With that criticism out of the way, I agree with her that it's not really fair to obfuscate her positions as demonstrated by hours and hours poured into her greater body of work with the literal seconds she spent on making tweets. And while these tweets, thoughtful or thoughtless, out-of-context or not, are certainly hurtful, I don't think it's entirely fair to say, call Natalie a truscum while she literally had a video refuting transmedicalism.
And finally, while I do think that it's important for marginalized people to respond en masse to any form of injustice, there's a conversation to be had with the possibility of taking it too far when you're not only harassing the perpetrator to the point of doxxing, but extending that to their friends and others in their support network.
EDIT: And for fuck's sake I'm all for eating the rich, but if you've ever been lonely or ostracized in your fucking life tell me the amount in dollars that makes any of that shit palatable so I can set up a fucking gofundme.
With that criticism out of the way, I agree with her that it's not really fair to obfuscate her positions as demonstrated by hours and hours poured into her greater body of work with the literal seconds she spent on making tweets. And while these tweets, thoughtful or thoughtless, out-of-context or not, are certainly hurtful, I don't think it's entirely fair to say, call Natalie a truscum while she literally had a video refuting transmedicalism.
And finally, while I do think that it's important for marginalized people to respond en masse to any form of injustice, there's a conversation to be had with the possibility of taking it too far when you're not only harassing the perpetrator to the point of doxxing, but extending that to their friends and others in their support network.
EDIT: And for fuck's sake I'm all for eating the rich, but if you've ever been lonely or ostracized in your fucking life tell me the amount in dollars that makes any of that shit palatable so I can set up a fucking gofundme.
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Part of cancel culture that is particularly terrifying to me is the complete elimination of nuance and assumption of good faith. As a trans woman who grew up in the South, it was a long road come to better, fuller understandings of myself and the world around me. I didn't come out with a perfect model and vocabulary of gender identity (among other things!) baked in and being trans didn't come with a booklet to jumpstart that process. Watching this play out, I can't help but feel like TGNC people are held to a higher standard than cis people when it comes to being able to, at any moment, understand and describe the whole queer community. Imagining a cis woman being treated like this (I'm speaking broadly here, not about Era) for the same mistakes is almost inconceivable. It took forever for criticism of Rowling to finally hit critical mass - and it took her publicly supporting a TERF troll.
One thing I have appreciated about Contra is the way she covers her own thoughts and feelings, even when they aren't perfect. I remember being in meetings years ago and having thought similar things about pronouns to what she's shared. (And now I personally use both she and they!) Usually you only get to see the raw materials - an imperfect person - and the final product - a perfect social justice beacon - with nobody ever getting a look at the rocky liminal space in between. That's why she's so relatable to me. I recognize those thoughts and that process. I knew they probably needed work but was reluctant to be candid about not being perfect, so it took me even longer to get through them on my own and with select few trusted trans friends. I value the sharing of that journey and the fact that it exists, because it's happening all over in isolation whether we acknowledge it or not.
I literally write and pass many of the laws you've heard of in the area of TGNC rights - my bona fides are in order - but I have no desire to ever put myself out there and be open about my personal growth and internal dialog the way she does. I'll do my work in obscurity, thanks.
One thing I have appreciated about Contra is the way she covers her own thoughts and feelings, even when they aren't perfect. I remember being in meetings years ago and having thought similar things about pronouns to what she's shared. (And now I personally use both she and they!) Usually you only get to see the raw materials - an imperfect person - and the final product - a perfect social justice beacon - with nobody ever getting a look at the rocky liminal space in between. That's why she's so relatable to me. I recognize those thoughts and that process. I knew they probably needed work but was reluctant to be candid about not being perfect, so it took me even longer to get through them on my own and with select few trusted trans friends. I value the sharing of that journey and the fact that it exists, because it's happening all over in isolation whether we acknowledge it or not.
I literally write and pass many of the laws you've heard of in the area of TGNC rights - my bona fides are in order - but I have no desire to ever put myself out there and be open about my personal growth and internal dialog the way she does. I'll do my work in obscurity, thanks.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Ignoring staff post; dismissive behaviour in a sensitive discussion.
Those people want nothing from her. They only want to be in a perpetual state of self-righteousness and moral outrage.
Could elaborate on both these points with who lacks the ability to self reflect or be self aware over this topic.
It's not actually that difficult. For one thing there isn't actually a trans community. In part because most trans people after a few years in their transition will stop attending trans spaces. Some will stay to mentor others, some will remain as activists. But for the majority of trans people the "trans community" is more a transitory space as well. Most of the people in it are early in their transition or working on coming out to themselves.
Which leads to an important problem. Every single trans person must work through their own internalized transphobia. It's part of transitioning as much as medication, coming outs, name changes or surgery. It's a difficult and often painful process. If you do it in public it's really easy to hurt other trans people while you do it. A lot of trans spaces have that problem and sometimes even have to throw out people seeking help. Helping them simply comes at too great a cost for other vulnerable people.
The second problem is that you're extremely vulnerable early in transition. All trans acceptance is extremely conditional. In way too many places you still have to perform transness "correctly" to get access to treatment. It can be quite threatening when people demand acceptance that haven't or can't jump through these hoops. Like your own acceptance could be endangered. Therefore respectability politics. Passing at any cost. Cutting any contact that could out you as trans.
Finally there is the fact that being trans is a pretty weak group category. Everyone whose gender identity is different than their assigned gender at birth. That could nearly mean anything! Even "binary" trans man and woman are often at odds. Feeling the other side is privileged. And most often feeling like they aren't actually heard. Resources for trans people are sparse. That's one of the reasons for infighting. Certain voices will get listened to far more and it's cis people who decide who gets attention and who gets ignored. Whose story will actually be told and who gets told to shut up instead.
Watched the video, whole thing.
I thought it was a good video. Very much a casual fan of her videos; I've seen maybe 3-4 of them. Discovered her a few months ago.
Had no idea of any of the Buck Angel stuff or other controversies; I don't really spend any time on Twitter
I thought it was a good video. Very much a casual fan of her videos; I've seen maybe 3-4 of them. Discovered her a few months ago.
Had no idea of any of the Buck Angel stuff or other controversies; I don't really spend any time on Twitter
I mean, if you watched the video your see that her complaint isn't being silenced but being harassed and having people tangentially related to her also getting harassed and how draining that can be for a person who is marginalized, to the point that she came close to serious self harm
Thanks so much for sharing. Highly educational. It certainly explains the behavior coming out of some parts of leftist twitter (although I don't feel justifies it).
That's a big ask for anyone. It's longer than most movies released this year.