You can @ me next time but please explain to me how a black slang term is a loaded term in this context.
Alot of y'all getting real diet racist with the slick commentary.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Lindsay Ellis appreciation thread
- Thread starter Deleted member 721
- Start date
Alot of y'all getting real diet racist with the slick commentary.
Used to it. >_>
Yeah, I'm sorta bummed. Literally a couple bad tweets and Lindey's whole library that's highlighted poor representation, or brought up lesser known works, or deconstructing popular titles, or looked at work issues...just really gets swept under the table. Chicks are literally worried about engaging with nerd shit or talking Star Wars online and thanks in some part to that level of toxicity they even reworked Star Wars to get Rose off the stage. 🙄
You're not making any arguments. You're not explaining how or why anything Lindsay did was wrong. You're not explaining how or why anything people are saying in this thread is wrong. You're not engaging with anyone else's posts. You just came in and started flinging insults around. I genuinely don't have any idea how to engage with you.
I don't think there IS an endgame, because I don't think there's a concerted campaign. I really believe it's the interplay of legitimate criticism, illegitimate outrage, in-group virtue signaling, and out-group harassment, all fueled by Internet engagement algorithms.
Put another way, I don't think there's a Discord out there with all of these actors conspiring on how to ruin the next woman. There's no mastermind, like in decentralized terrorist (or resistance) cells. There's no strict hierarchy.
But there's surely several Discords filled with individuals (all with different motivations) that will glom together in an amorphous, Katamari-style ball that's just mostly drawn by emotion towards Jenny.
I agree with this. It would actually be impressive if it wasn't so terryfing.
staff post
Official Staff Communication
So, this is a complicated topic from an intersectional perspective.
It is clear that Lindsay Ellis did offend many Asian people with her remarks last summer and has not really ever properly apologized for what she said. She is in the wrong for this.
At the same time, it is also clear that not all of the outrage has come from Asian people or even in good faith. There were more than a handful of people who seized the opportunity to act on unrelated vendettas and/or drive a prominent woman off of the internet. This is reminiscent of past harassment campaigns targeting public figures.
Both of these things are true and that's what makes the situation complicated and constructive discussion difficult.
So, here is how this thread is going to go:
1) We're going to stop speaking for groups that we are not a part of. If you aren't a women then stop presuming to speak for women members, if you aren't Asian stop presuming to speak for Asian members. The discussion is hot enough without people trying to appropriate minority points of view to support their own argument.
2) We're going to stop throwing inflammatory bombs and speaking authoritatively. All that does is make an important conversation harder to have. Do your part to keep the conversation constructive rather than trying to blow it up.
3) We're going to stop dismissing any of what happened. Both women and Asian members have legitimate concerns, both deserve to be heard, and there isn't going to be any pretending otherwise.
Anyone who cannot follow these rules is getting banned.
Anyone in the thread already who has only been throwing bombs has been threadbanned.
We clear?
It is clear that Lindsay Ellis did offend many Asian people with her remarks last summer and has not really ever properly apologized for what she said. She is in the wrong for this.
At the same time, it is also clear that not all of the outrage has come from Asian people or even in good faith. There were more than a handful of people who seized the opportunity to act on unrelated vendettas and/or drive a prominent woman off of the internet. This is reminiscent of past harassment campaigns targeting public figures.
Both of these things are true and that's what makes the situation complicated and constructive discussion difficult.
So, here is how this thread is going to go:
1) We're going to stop speaking for groups that we are not a part of. If you aren't a women then stop presuming to speak for women members, if you aren't Asian stop presuming to speak for Asian members. The discussion is hot enough without people trying to appropriate minority points of view to support their own argument.
2) We're going to stop throwing inflammatory bombs and speaking authoritatively. All that does is make an important conversation harder to have. Do your part to keep the conversation constructive rather than trying to blow it up.
3) We're going to stop dismissing any of what happened. Both women and Asian members have legitimate concerns, both deserve to be heard, and there isn't going to be any pretending otherwise.
Anyone who cannot follow these rules is getting banned.
Anyone in the thread already who has only been throwing bombs has been threadbanned.
We clear?
Thank you for the post, B-Dubs.
It was so frustrating seeing a couple of bad actors completely derail the discussion in the thread.
It was so frustrating seeing a couple of bad actors completely derail the discussion in the thread.
I want to copy-paste part of one of my posts from earlier in this thread.
So, there are two objectives to be met here:
I don't have any actionable thoughts of how to handle this dilemma.
So, there are two objectives to be met here:
- People should be informed about insensitivities, cultural biases, minor transgressions, etc. they've made in such a way that the voices of the people who are most affected and most knowledgeable are heard. Learning these things helps you grow as a person, broadens your understanding of other cultures, and reinforces empathetic thinking.
- At the same time, the above must not be hijacked by petty people looking for an excuse to bully, to push someone down to make themselves feel superior, to demonize others for social clout, or just from complete assholes using it as a trojan horse for their own insidious goals (as seen currently with shitbags circling Jenny and Sarah like sharks looking for blood).
I don't have any actionable thoughts of how to handle this dilemma.
Thank you for reopening the thread. I believe there is an important topic here and it's disheartening when a small group of posters are able to derail threads on topics they don't like.
I agree it's a difficult subject, but that's why it's important. Lindsay isn't perfect, but that can't be the standard we hold people to. Yes, I wish she had handled the reaction to her post differently, but I don't think anyone would agree that the scale of the reaction she received was on par with the scale of her offense.
If we drive away (or allow to be driven away) every single ally once they slip up, then all we're left with is trolls and the alt right that thrive on outrage.
I agree it's a difficult subject, but that's why it's important. Lindsay isn't perfect, but that can't be the standard we hold people to. Yes, I wish she had handled the reaction to her post differently, but I don't think anyone would agree that the scale of the reaction she received was on par with the scale of her offense.
If we drive away (or allow to be driven away) every single ally once they slip up, then all we're left with is trolls and the alt right that thrive on outrage.
So as an Asian woman, am I allowed to give Ellis the side-eye without people telling me why it isn't actually problematic now?
Because it doesn't feel that way tbh. 🤷‍♀️
Chick said something that came off as showing a lot of ignorance for another culture, dug herself deeper into a hole, never apologized and instead complained that she was the real victim all along because of bad faith actors.
Rather than just take a step back to think about the valid criticism and apologize for that, she disappeared off the internet (that's her right), and some people reacted by instead wanting to say that what she said isn't actually problematic. It's weird. It's like some people are more scared to be considered a racist, than to stop and think about not doing or saying things that are racist.
If intent was the only thing to consider, then sure, you can make the argument she didn't do anything wrong. But, that's an incredibly shitty way to go through life.
Because it doesn't feel that way tbh. 🤷‍♀️
Chick said something that came off as showing a lot of ignorance for another culture, dug herself deeper into a hole, never apologized and instead complained that she was the real victim all along because of bad faith actors.
Rather than just take a step back to think about the valid criticism and apologize for that, she disappeared off the internet (that's her right), and some people reacted by instead wanting to say that what she said isn't actually problematic. It's weird. It's like some people are more scared to be considered a racist, than to stop and think about not doing or saying things that are racist.
If intent was the only thing to consider, then sure, you can make the argument she didn't do anything wrong. But, that's an incredibly shitty way to go through life.
Last edited:
Like she quoted in her "Mask Off" video: "Who's next?" It's disappointing that some people can't look past the legitimate criticism to see that there is a lot of bad faith at play behind her harassment campaigns that they'd rather overlook.
The problem isn't as much that there is legitimate criticism being mixed with harassment, the problem is that a lot of people can't separate the two.
So I want to ask, and understand I'm not trying to be dismissive, I legitimately want to understand, is the comparison between Raya and Avatar inherently offensive, or is it the way she framed the comparison offensive. If I'm entirely honest when I saw Raya the best comparison I could think of was to Avatar, at least from media that I've seen.
It's because both stories are based on South East Asian mythology and to just lump them all together as being same-y/derivative hit a little too close to how minorities are generalized in the US.
At least, that's how *I* felt.
To explain a bit further, the mythology already exists and has existed and is culturally important the way mythology is.
Two works are based on that existing mythology, not to each other. To dismiss everything as copying Avatar shows ignorance of the existing mythology. That's fine, actually, to be ignorant of that. She didn't realize her flippant remark was ignorant.
But then, the way she reacted...like really, she should have thought about her word choice. She also probably should have wondered what the South East Asian people were tweeting about (because some people that responded to her initially were SE Asian content creators/writers/etc pointing out what I said above). Maybe taken a few minutes to think about if there was any merit in what they were saying.
And even if she thought they had no point (which she's allowed to think!), like I said earlier, she fucked up a second time (by accident maybe) with poor word choice while making her argument.
So now it's time to just admit that perhaps this is a series of unfortunate events that is the result of thoughtlessness and ignorance.
I understand why she felt that there were a lot of "bad faith actors" and immediately became defensive and didn't want to listen to criticism. But to think that literally ALL the criticism was the result of bad faith actors and not try to consider where one may have fucked up (and at least tried to apologize for) is not exactly a great or progressive look.
Women totally get a disproportionate critical response/level of hate to their mistakes in male dominated spheres. That part is true. For example, I think it happens even on ERA. It doesn't mean that they still don't make that initial mistake. To react by claiming no mistake was ever made is just baffling.
Last edited:
That's fine as far as it goes, but I would say that describe it either Raya or (particularly) Avatar as Asian media, as we've seen several times over the course of the thread, feels a little wide of the mark, given that they're widely brought into the world by white people cribbing from other cultures. I think that noting the comparisons is totally fair criticism without dipping into anti-Asian sentiment- they're both examples of white people pulling from similar sources, IMO.
To piggyback off your reply.
I remember you called me out for subbing one part of Asia for another in a post (in my meager defense I was high, lol) but I remember apologizing and also realing how that's normalized to paint broad brushes to the point ive seen more than one hacky joke used off it in pop culture media(the "But I am -insert nationality here- after a character intentionally assumes they are from another country dead hoese joke).
Even as someone who doesn't face it I assume it to be exhausting even if it was a side comment like mine.
User Banned (1 month): dismissive commentary, ignoring the staff post
No dismissal here at all but you are missing a step where she was targeted and harassed by a large number of people for this, most (all?)of whom weren't offended and just had it out for her and were using this as an excuse. (I'm assuming that anyone with a legitimate grevience probably wasn't out there harassing her)
If that didn't happen, it would have been easier to take a step back and apologize etc. I'm sure.
Ya know, fair enough. The two stories pull from similar source materials and as a result the broad strokes of the plots are similar, but that doesn't make one derivative of the other, after all no one says that every story that has a kid retrieving a magical artifact are derivate of one another, even though it's a commonly used trope due to all of them pulling from Arthurian legends.
When an online mob is after you there's nothing much you can do, even if you apologize it won't be enough to satisfy them.
I remember when reading So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson, the conclusion was that women fair far far worse when the twitter mob goes after them compared to men. It is persistent attacks for years that never let up.
I remember when reading So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson, the conclusion was that women fair far far worse when the twitter mob goes after them compared to men. It is persistent attacks for years that never let up.
Yeah :). And really, like I added in my huge edit, it's okay that she didn't know about the original source material. That part is totally fine. It's how she reacted.
If I complained that every kdrama that was popular outside of Korea (or in the English speaking world) after this year was just a "Squid Game derivative," I'd be very wrong. Like no, kdramas have existed way before Squid Game. And if someone was like "lol you eurocentric idiot," I would hope my response would be to be embarrassed by my unintentionally ignorant statement and be like "lol yeah actually that was a dumb thing to say," not try to argue how actualllyyyyyyyy if you squint...
🤷‍♀️
But I probably would have doubled down too lol.
I've been reading this thread and learning a lot from people that were critical of her actions and this post really helped me understand those that had complaints and what they were. Just wanted to say I appreciate your expanded thoughts and has really helped me understand a perspective I don't have. I also know it isn't your job (or any minorities) to have to constantly explain things like this, as I'm sure it is exhausting, but thank you for typing this out.
It definitely helps all around when there isn't a mob of angry people with pitchforks shouting above everyone else.
Could you elaborate on what original source material is? I can't seem to find any mention of a story or myth it's derived from. It seems to be an original work.
The people in the film and the (fictional) land it takes place in are all heavily inspired by various SEA countries (in fact - I found some people criticizing it for this being a pastiche of people who are distinct IRL), but I couldn't find anybody from the production team talking about this being an adaptation of anything specifically, or even mentioning what combination of myths or mythological stories might have served as inspiration. I did find them talking about how they were influenced by Indianna Jones and Seven Samurai, neither of which are South East Asian.
I've only watched the first few episodes of Avatar so far, and not watched Raya, but my understanding was that the two of them are actually really really similar in terms of plot beats and overall story. Like, that they both involve a main character revived after decades of being "frozen" who has the power to use multiple different types of power/magic, who then travels with their new friends across a land split into about 4 tribes/people who each specialise in one type each of the aforementioned powers/magic while being pursued by the villainous yet sympathetic offspring of the royal leader of the one of the tribes/people. Is this due to them both being inspired by the same SEA story?
I'll preface this with: I'm a visible minority, but not south east Asian specifically. So maybe / probably her comment would have hit differently if it was my culture she had been talking about
The thing I keep coming back to is the question of scale. Problematic statements aren't all equal.
Was it a bad take? Sure. But are we to write people off for one bad / insensitive / poorly thought out take? People aren't good until a single slip up. or even multiple. We all have slip ups. It depends on how bad those mistakes are. I guess I just struggle to see where the line is, and why this specific comment justified this specific outcome. I guess you could say "well, her reaction to the controversy is the line", but even then I can't bring myself to judge her too harshly because I know how much of a nightmare discourse on twitter can become, and there were more than a few people who would have dragged her through the dirt no matter what she did.
I can't tell you how to feel, and you have more stake in this game than I do, but it seems very harsh to me.
User Banned (1 month): dismissive commentary, ignoring the staff post
The works in question are not Asian; they're Western works mostly made by white people which take a lot of things from Asian mythology. So this comparison doesn't work because it's more like if multiple Western directors started making works obviously inspired by Squid Game and having similar plots.
I haven't seen much of Raya so I can't say how close the Avatar comparison is, but it's still being overlooked that the works in question were never "Asian" in the first place.
Yeah. I think one lesson I've had to learn after like 20 years of being On The Internet(TM) was that you can never control how people react to the things you say. The only thing you can control is how YOU react to the way people react to the things you say.
Whether or not I think the harassment that came as a result of it was justified, at the end of the day Lindsay chose a method of reacting to people's reactions to her initial bad joke that made everything exponentially worse.
I don't think that distinction matters *too* much if they decent enough representations of the culture they're inspired by.
I guess if you break it down like "Thing based of (X) culture is too much like other thing based off (X) culture" when it's obvious you don't know much about that culture yourself, it's understandable why they would rub people the wrong way.
User Banned (1 month): dismissive commentary, ignoring the staff post
What if someone compared Squid Game to Battle Royale cause they're both part of the death games subgenre?
The way I read the tweet, Lindsay was comparing the plot beats and world building, not really the fact they're both asian inspired.
♥
I did actually appreciate that, really.
And, definitely more than I appreciate the avalanche of people eager to tell me why I shouldn't feel the way I do, lol.
You can probably understand though why someone might interpret it that way though, especially if they are part of that culture themselves?
Part of why this so messy though is that I don't really believe that this is actionable advice. Quoting from 15:25 from Lindsay's video:
Lindsay Ellis said:
Is it at all reasonable to expect a person to react with perfect grace and dignity when blindsided with something like that? Is it reasonable to hold that reaction against that person forevermore? I just... I don't think that's reasonable. I, personally, absolutely would fail that test. I know that I personally would likely react even worse, and I expect that most people wouldn't fare any better.
None of this is the fault of Southeast Asian people who wish to express their feelings on the subject. They're absolutely not to blame. Obviously. At the same time, insensitive comment or not, Lindsay is also not to blame for any of what happened here. This is being framed as the Southeast Asian community vs Lindsay, but that's bad framing because I feel that both sides are essentially blameless when you look at the situation as a whole. The actual transgression is so minor compared to the outcome.
There's a deeper issue here with the way social media works, where the loudest, angriest, and most outrageous voices are promoted over all others. I don't know how we change it.
I've seen them both and that's an accurate assessment of their similarities. I'm Malay-American and I don't know of a particular SEA story that I could name as the clear inspiration for both Raya and Avatar. It's pretty clear though that Avatar specifically has had a huge influence on YA fantasy. Even if these particular tropes originated with an older story, Avatar popularized them. For example, The Hunger Games wasn't the first dystopian novel to feature teenagers killing each other for sport but it definitely lead to a lot of thematically similar stories in its wake. Ellis was simply identifying a current trend in media and that's how I read the tweet but I don't speak for other Southeast Asians obviously.
hello! I'm Malaysian. I don't see it at all. More power to other Asians who do see it but I'm really sick and tired of hearing I should be offended by this shit. Avatar is some American kids show and raya was some dross I put in while I made dinner for my kids, these are not things worth getting angry over (IN MY OPINION)
Delete your social media. There is no way to solve this.
The impersonality of social media that makes this form of abuse so easy is built-in to how the internet works.
I don't disagree. Social media is fundamentally broken and parasocial relationships make things like this magnitudes worse than they otherwise might be.
Obviously, at the end of the day, the people who are dead set on destroying Lindsay would not have been placated if Lindsay's word choice was different - based on how they're acting toward Jenny and Sarah, they'd just find something else to try and burn her for - but the whole situation would be far less complicated if she had thought her response to the initial response through better.
At the end of the day, the folks who were hurt by what Lindsay said should be allowed to feel the way they feel without ridicule or minimization. Unfortunately, at the same time as all of that, we also have people who just want to see blood and want to see prominent women in media destroyed. And I don't know if it's even possible to allow people who mess up space to learn and grow, to allow the people they wronged to speak their truth and express their feelings without judgment, and prevent bad faith actors from hijacking both of those processes to suit their own ends and inflict suffering on vulnerable groups.
Maybe it's not possible. Maybe there's no way to prevent it from happening as long as sites like Twitter exist. I wish there was something that could be done.
I don't want to take away from the abuse that's now (and has been for a while now) being aimed at Sarah Z and Jenny Nicholson.
But I don't feel comfortable with Melina Pendulum being left out of the conversation here. Melina is a popular Black Woman in the nerd essayist space who now has a huge contingent of these assholes out against her because she dare be a Black Woman who stood by Lindsay.
She's already began retreating from her social media, and I just find that terribly unfortunate.
But I don't feel comfortable with Melina Pendulum being left out of the conversation here. Melina is a popular Black Woman in the nerd essayist space who now has a huge contingent of these assholes out against her because she dare be a Black Woman who stood by Lindsay.
She's already began retreating from her social media, and I just find that terribly unfortunate.
Yeah. I've been talking about it the past couple of pages, but Melina just being in the same HEMISPHERE as Lindsay is taking a ton of flak and it's absurdly tragic. She's such a nice person and her insight has been incredibly helpful for me in viewing media through a different lens than I usually do. She doesn't deserve this.
Not to pile on Era, but this is an issue some here help perpetuate. You see new threads created frequently here about some dumbass on social media saying dumbass things, and the posters often don't realize that they're just feeding these people by giving them attention.
I've not heard of her before and just went and subbed to her YouTube. I'll check out her stuff tomorrow! I hate what is happening to people now in this space but I do appreciate this thread pointing me towards others in this space I wasn't familiar with.
Her posts on this issue are incredibly disheartening:
Agreed. We really need to stop giving these people the attention they crave. Block them and move on.
I've watched a couple of her videos and really enjoyed them! I'm going to watch more of her stuff in the new year! It just sucks that you will also be attacked for just being friends and/or supporting Lindsay.
I'll just add that this is the beauty of Era vs Twitter: we're not in parasocial and/or anonymous relationships here, so when someone like Pet describes something like this, of course we should listen. (I didn't see the distinction initially, although that's because I haven't seen either movie.)
This is more a meta-commwntary, but we're a relatively small community here, and we have the luxury (unlike Twitter) of getting to know each other; and I hope that translates into more empathy and discussion.
Anyway, this is a meandering way to say that I appreciate your viewpoint!
Haha thanks Addie ♥. No one has to listen to any of my opinions (much less agree with me), but having someone I personally respect as much as you say that is humbling.
I do have a lot of sympathy for Ellis because, to me, her initial tweets and the doubling down didn't warrant anything more than an eyeroll (and in my head, "I bet she said that because she just sees two "Asian-y" stories). She doesn't deserve to have threats, to feel afraid for her life, to be bullied. I didn't want to dogpile her (and I didn't post in any of the initial threads nor did I get involved on Twitter in any way).
What made me post was how so many people here responded by trying to "explain" (handwave) how what she initially did wasn't actually problematic. For me, that was the most uncomfortable part of this entire situation- having a bunch of people trying to, once again, tell a person why their feelings aren't actually valid. Ellis may not have intended or meant to do so, but sometimes the obliviousness to a problem is part of the problem.
I haven't seen her work outside of her contributions to the PBS series "It's lit" but it's a shame to see history repeat itself.
I feel like there is something just inherently wrong with social medias where people can just get run off by mobs. Imagine that you're walking into a city square and some people would constantly hound you there and so you cannot hang around there in peace. This feels like the digital equivalent of that. I think for me currently, I operate under the logic that people should be allowed to post on their social media, even if their opinions is questionable, as long as it does not violate the TOS. There is a difference between a potentially disagreeable opinion and dangerous opinions that could cause civil unrest.