hashtag-toxic - Tumblr blog

[hashtag-toxic]

#toxic

The Internet is the great equalizer of people: the wealthy and famous may cross digital paths the anonymous everyman, and the regular Joe can achieve great peaks with viral content while the public figure may indulge in private wonders without ever being traced. Mankind has always derived pleasure from the whims of war, brawl, and debate: #toxic is the liminal space where anger becomes a vehicle for justice, and when anger becomes a catalyst for engagement. #toxic is more than online mobs or public freakouts; it raises questions to our digital culture of obsessive stalking, jealousy, trolling, and constant scrutiny in a self-made surveillance anarcho-state. A question for the culture: are you being #toxic right now? 

[precedents: #rant #cancelled #fail #troll #ragequit #publicfreakout #worldstar #umadbro #meltdown #cringe #xboxlive #lolcow #clapback #cyberbullying] ____________________________________________________________

CONTENT WARNING: vulgar language, offensive language, racism, transphobia, homophobia, physical violence

[hashtag-toxic]

 Untitled [Charli XCX Snaps at an Unassuming Fan on Twitter], screenshot of deleted tweet, March 3, 2022.

Pop singer-songwriter Charli XCX began the rollout for her most recent record Crash in early 2022. The singles were met with lukewarm reception, a tragic fall from the universal acclaim gained by her preceding project How I’m Feeling Now (2020). The original poster (whose response is obscured in this screenshot) had said: “the only thing consistent about [Baby] is how underwhelming it is TBH, but yes still love you and your music overall 😅💓”. The British songstress addressed the tweet on Tiktok as “accidentally calling a fan a c*nt” and urged her fans to stream “Baby” in the same video.

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Figure 1: kiwifarms.net, screenshot from Google Chrome Version 98.0.4758.80, macOS Mojave v. 10.14.6, March 15, 2022.

Figure 2: lolcow.farm/pt/, screenshot from Google Chrome Version 98.0.4758.80, macOS Mojave v. 10.14.6, March 15, 2022.

The “farms”, as the Internet has endearingly dubbed them, are anonymous gossip forums in which users may post in various threads about (often female) Internet personalities (lovingly called “cows”, and when provided new drama or scandals, the “cows” may be “milked”). The above screenshots are of Kiwifarms’ “lolcow” forum search and Lolcow.farm’s /pt/ board, which comprises of the biggest personalities and their meticulously documented histories/scandals. 

curator’s note: These forums are often loaded with bigotry, ableism, and transphobia. A glimpse of that is provided in these screenshots, but know that this is merely the iceberg. I strongly encourage reading the “update” on Youtuber Lillee Jean provided in the lolcow.farm image.

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Serena Shahidi [Glamdemon2004], Spell Pharaoh, Tiktok video, 2021.

The ever-glamorous podcaster from the Big Apple, Serena Shahidi provides her two-cents for young women all over the Internet/Tiktok in response to the wave of “feminist bimbofication” that went viral on Tiktok last year.

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Elliot Rodger [The Santa Barbara Shooter/Supreme Gentleman/King of Inceldom], Untitled [Video Diary], Youtube video, c. 2013-14.

(Recommended viewing: 15:25 - 18:27)

Elliot Rodger rose to infamy after murdering 7 individuals in Santa Barbara, CA after a slough of video diaries detailing his dating-life woes and his desire for “retribution” on a culture of “worthless” fraternity men and their “too beautiful” girlfriends. Rodger is considered the origin point of “inceldom”; “incel” is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibate/celibacy” created by anonymous groups online (notably the now defunt incel.me and r/incels) that are closely aligned with neo-traditionalism, right-wing extremism, and anti-feminism.

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Kanye “ye” West, Untitled [Instagram Meltdown], series of screenshots from Instagram, February 4th-6th, 2022.

Musician and cultural icon Kanye West has always been on the fringes and cutting-edge of the culture at large. However, his long-term battle with bipolar disorder has posited him in a position of flux as a public figure and in his own private life. After a divorce with wife Kim Kardashian, West began to publically lose face– especially after a series of concerning Instagram posts in which the musician directly calls out/insults Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson, Kid Cudi, and other high-profile names in a last-ditch effort to “get his family back”.

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Tyler Okonma [Tyler, the Creator], Untitled [How Is Cyberbullying Real?], viral tweet, December 31, 2012.

This tweet has circulated the Internet and meme pages for nearly a decade, conceived by the great jester and musical firestarter himself Tyler, the Creator, in his ragtag Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All era. 

[hashtag-toxic]

BBQ Becky [The Original Karen], Youtube video (via Michelle Dione Snider), 2018.

From Snider: “According to many historians and journalists, this is the first viral "Karen" video that created awareness and started the trend of filming "Karen's" calling the police on Black people for frivolous reasons, in this case, it was BBQing in a popular park in Oakland, CA. The park is located in the very center of Oakland and regularly has people BBQing there, but before this video, many Black people faced the police being called on them for being in the park. 

... While most people saw this as a funny meme, there is a lot of context to this story, and it gets frustrating when people do not understand how this relates to race, especially in Oakland where the Oakland Police department is still under federal oversight. There is plenty of documentation into the "Rider 5" and the scandals with OPD, and Jennifer Schulte switched from authoritative power figure to victim quickly throughout the video, understanding what kind of power she can hold to target the 2 Black men having a BBQ.”

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Alexandra Peirce [HRHCollection], Defund the Police [A Cop Told Me to Get Off of My Phone At The Intersection], Youtube vlog/clip via Zeo Khan, 2021.

Alex Peirce, known as HRHCollection on Youtube, progressively became more irrationally angry as her channel grew over the last decade. Now, HRHCollection is a household name across “stan twitter” and reaction video extraordinaires. In this clip, derived from a vlog that has now been unlisted from Youtube, Peirce explains how a police officer blared his siren at her when she was caught using her cell phone at a red light. She jokingly declares that “we need to defund the police”, before spiraling into a brief tirade about the abolitionist phrase in a completely serious manner (note the redness in her chest as she speaks). Brief, violent tirades are Peirce’s signature appeal as a generally maligned Internet personality.

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Elizabeth Grant [Lana Del Rey], A Question for the Culture:, text in Instagram post carousel, May 2020.

Mysterious songstress Lana Del Rey went on a shocking public rant against her contemporary women in music in the early quarantine stage of the pandemic, not long after her sweeping Grammy “snub” after 2019′s Norman F*cking Rockwell became Del Rey’s first critical darling record. The rant went viral and was met with disdain and embarrassment from fans and non-fans alike, noting Del Rey’s inherent “white woman victimhood” reeking through what seems to be a racially-motivated list of singers.

curator’s note: Please just read the entire thing.

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Figure 1: Chuck Grant and Mel Ottenberg, Lana Del Rey for Interview Magazine, Interview, September 2020.

Figure 2: Elizabeth Grant [Lana Del Rey], public sighting after meet-and-greet in mesh face mask, October 5, 2020.

Aforementioned starlet Lana Del Rey donned this pink mesh facemask (with no protective layer) several times publically in late 2020, most pertinently after a meet-and-greet held indoors with many fans. She received widespread criticism– which only seemed to build upon her “question for the culture”– for being a “Republican Del Rey” and potential anti-masker/COVID-denialist. Glamorous or tasteless? High-fashion or irresponsible?

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Operation Money Drop, Maskless people go in Trader Joe’s, Santa Cruz, CA, Youtube video via Stevo, February 14, 2021.

“Operation Money Drop” is a group of anti-mask, anti-vaxx demonstrators that terrorized the beloved Trader Joe’s on Front St, Santa Cruz, CA on Valentine’s Day in 2021. The store had a strict mask-on policy since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is theorized that the group originated from south San Jose/Los Gatos.

[hashtag-toxic]

Onika Maraj [Nicki Minaj] and Miley Cyrus, Miley, What’s Good? [2015 MTV Video Music Awards], Youtube clip via Emilio Torreblanca, 2016.

From @memedocumentation: “This line was in reference to an interview Cyrus had recently had with the NY Times, in which, when asked about a previous Nicki Minaj/Taylor Swift interaction on Twitter, she was quoted saying, ‘What I read sounded very Nicki Minaj, which, if you know Nicki Minaj is not too kind. It’s not very polite.’ ... It should be noted that Nicki Minaj’s statements are not about starting drama but rather serve to address Miley Cyrus’s inappropriate, dismissive statements in the interview (that went into race and gender in the music industry) for issues she was unknowledgeable about.”

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HBO, Sam Levinson, Cassie and Maddy Fight, Euphoria Season 2, Episode 8, Finale, Youtube clip via delxaid, 2022.

This scene from the finale of hit HBO show “Euphoria” (2022)’s second season, both in its climactic quality and instant predilection towards internet virality (the clip provided currently has 1.6 million views as of March 18, 2022), recall the publicity of Twitter fights and Worldstar videos. The blonde girl, Cassie, has fallen from her Season 1 grace as a fan-favorite as writer and director Sam Levinson has botched her storyline beyond redemption– for some uncharacteristic drama. However, this culminating moment felt relieving for the teen audience at large (#MaddyHive)

curator’s note: Instead of providing real footage of fights between real people as objects for this gallery (as the subjects of those phenomenons are often regular, non-famous individuals), I have decided to touch upon that note of web culture through this clip from a show that has pervaded the internet for the past few months.

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Ivana Cruz, J.K. Rowling, “J.K. Rowling’s Transphobic Tweets and the Erosion of the Harry Potter Franchise” by Raven Smith for Vogue Magazine, June 2020.

curator’s note: I condemn the statements made above by Joanne K. Rowling. Just thought I should clarify.