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Someone was asking in a thread what kind of people could work for ICE right now.

I think it's a good time to remember that the image above are the people who put children into gas chambers.

When I was little, I asked what kind of person could work at a concentration camp.

The answer to both questions I think is "normal people who have accepted the dehumanization of another group of people."

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Tl;dr how you can personally make Neil Gaiman lose money (and not be a jerk to others.)

I see a lot of folks upset that NG will financially benefit from residuals and other compensation surrounding his involvement in the adaptation of Sandman and Good Omens (and he will.) But the answer isn’t “rage at the fans who are so emotionally attached to their blorbos because they grieve differently, and then somehow NG will be financially punished.” That’s lower-class/middle-class thinking. NG is too rich and financially diversified to really be hurt by little boycott or a couple of show cancellations (though said cancellations can cause life-changing poverty to the little guys who signed contracts and turned down other opportunities before all of this came out. Boy does NG love women in poverty 🤮)

So if you want to substantially reduce the wealth of someone at NG’s financial level—you need to do it with professional services fees.

Details below the cut:

The firm that NG has apparently engaged for online reputation management (ORM), called edendale, was once paid for their professional testimony in an unrelated slander lawsuit, which was delivered in the form of a report (2) outlining the strategy ORM firms use and (2) just how ludicrously expensive those professional services cost. (Credit to horrornobody77 for digging up the report.) We’re talking hundred of thousands of dollars for a small potatoes case, where NG’s could easily get into the millions for ORM and associated legal fees.

It’s not that long of a read, but to summarize the key action items you can take:

📆 -ORMs wait for the discourse to die down, because active discourse is much more expensive to counter. Wanna cost NG money? Talk about the accusations over time. Set a quarterly calendar event in your phone to remind yourself to post (and otherwise engage on other people’s posts) about the Vulture article. This needs to happens for years, so that NG has to pay for more comprehensive ORM and for longer.

✅-Make discourse that is Google-friendly. Use the words edendale will find concerning (they’re already running fluff pieces with the terms Neil Gaiman Uncovered to try and bury the similarly named subreddit.) If you just post a link without much comment, it’s not gonna be prioritized by search engines. Similarly, if you make a low effort post and then no one else engages with it—it’s not going to make it to the top ten search results. Engage with each other, for heaven’s sake!

🦾-Don’t let the fluff sit unaddressed. If you see random bot posts sharing NG quotes captioning random fantasy art (possibly AI or misattributed /stolen) with the comments turned on? Respond! Make it hard for the bots to understand your comment but easy for humans. “Nice quote! Mega bummer about what NG did, I used to really like him,” is hard for a bot to auto-delete. “Fuck NG,” is practically doing the bot’s autodelete command for it.

✍️ -If/when you post fan works for properties strongly related to Neil Gaiman, leave a lil callout in the author’s notes. Nothing that will get you sued, just a few words like: “I would definitely personally choose to not ever meet Neil Gaiman at a comic con.” Maybe throw in a link to your fav tumblr summary.

Anyway, to the person being paid hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour by Neil Gaiman for professional services—you’re welcome for the extra billable hours 😘

Also Edendale sounds like a law firm in a Good Omens legal AU fic, and I can’t believe it’s real.

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remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

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The Queen of duty and secrets.

Sounds like someone with a lot of stress, holding everything together by the hair.

let's make a "the [noun] of [noun] and [noun]" fantasy book title!

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I don't think ill ever get these 3 out of my head

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The hill I will die on.

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No, but the village elder says to hire three samurai only to admit when they turn out with more that he reduced the number because he expected the villagers to go overboard.

watching Seven Samurai

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I played this game as a teen and, not being from the US, the product placement went right over me. You had a magic resource and you combined it... The system worked well, the game is fun. Terribly buggy, though.

I enjoy how we talk about ill-conceived cross promotions in major video game franchises like they're wacky hypothetical scenarios as though the original PS1 release of Parasite Eve II didn't have you restoring magic points by drinking Coca Cola way back in 1999.

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And it's not even the first time his proposes marriage and is rejected.

If you’re ever having a shit day, remember that William Laurence once made a failed marriage proposal, got sued for £10,000 and committed an unrelated capital crime all within 24 hours

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i think ultimately you do really have to kill that part of your brain that vividly imagines how you would redo parts of your life.

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I'm not a fan of Jane Eyre, but you have to love that when Mr Rochester says she has radiant hazel eyes she notes:

" (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)"

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the pistachio food trend is soooo interesting because it's like. i've been following the californian pistachio water politics for years, as a californian with personal connections to agricultural workers but! basically there's been a big push in california agriculture over the last decade to pressure farmers to produce pistachios, because iran has dominated the global market in pistachios for decades, and the US government has been trying to weaken iran economically, so they want to make california pistachios a competitor. which is ridiculous, because california's agricultural infrastructure is suffering under a drought, and pistachios take insane amounts of water. so a ton of water is being redirected from the people in order to engage in a trade war with iran over fucking. pistachios.

anyway now that the US (i.e. california) is producing more pistachios than iran, the next step is to drive consumption of pistachios, so that the farmers who are producing these pistachios can continue to make money on them. ergo all the fancy pistachio coffees at starbucks and similar shit like suddenly being able to find pistachio butter in grocery stores when five years ago it was exclusively available at specialty stores and online, and the huge boom in pistachios foods in instagram and tiktok recipe content. like i watch a lot of instagram foodie reels (cooking/baking is one of my hobbies) and these get thrown onto everyone's feeds, to promote the purchasing of pistachios, so that the US can stick it to iran. it's. kind of incredible to watch this happen in real time, because it sounds like deranged conspiracy thought, but like. i've been watching this trend for the past decade and it's fucking real.

anyway one of the vegan recipe accounts i follow just posted like five pistachio-based recipes in a row and it makes me feel some kind of fucking way

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Smoke and mirrors. On a predator’s social manipulation

I have been following Neil Gaiman’s case from a distance these past few months while also thinking a lot about manipulation of public’s perception. You can read my thoughts about smear campaigns in this post.

I see people going back over his published works looking for “clues” of his abhorrent behavior, but considering that Gaiman preyed on fans, I think it’s more useful to think about his public engagement with fans. Gaiman crafted a kind and compassionate public persona that allowed him to get closer to his victims and to enjoy an aura of credibility as an advocate and ally. Let’s see how he did it. .

1.) False advertising

I first followed Gaiman’s tumblr account because it meant having access to a professional writer and I like reading and writing. For intellectual property reasons, writers can’t engage too much with fans about future projects, but they can talk about their craft: how to revise a manuscript, how to decide on a title, etc.

But that’s not what you get following his blog. It dawned on me when the first allegations came and he stopped updating the blog. I didn’t notice his absence; I didn’t miss the content... because I was skipping over it.

I distinctly remember him giving writing advice and encouragement at some point. But slowly, over the las few years, he pivoted on to giving life advice. He had the perfect excuse, too. He received many asks, so many that he couldn't and didn’t sort through them and we know that tumblr works in clunky ways. If the posts about writing and creating dried up and were substituted by “Please, Papa Gaiman, tell me everything will be all right” posts… Well, that wasn’t on him, was it? It was the fans who massively sent those asks.

The last few years people have been in desperate need of reassurance, so it’s likely that he didn’t have to go out of his way to choose the asks that allowed him to build his compassionate persona. Still, it’s interesting in retrospect how he was less of a writer/creator and more of an online therapist.

2.) Oh, but I come from a long line of plucky little heroes.

Have you heard the story of Neil Gaiman’s Jewish grand cousin Helen? The Jewish woman who survived the Warsaw ghetto? The plucky Jewish young woman who would read books aloud to her fellow persecuted Jewish folk? It’s a great story, masterfully told.

Gaiman has openly stated that he is not a practicing Jew. I think he may have even said he does not consider himself Jewish, something like “Judaism is my family’s religion”. He would often talk about his heritage, though, about the persecution Jewish people have faced, about discrimination. Now, this is perfectly all right and understandable. Talking about your ancestors while not belonging 100 % to that group is fine. Nothing to see here. Each one deals with their family’s history as they see fit.

But it turns into a completely different color when you learn that the Gaiman family (parents, sisters and first wive) all belong to the Church of Scientology.

The relatively frequent mentions of the heroic Jewish cousin against the almost zero mention of his active-in-a-cult close family does arise the suspicion that he was commodifying his family history. By being and not being Jewish, Gaiman belonged to a persecuted group when convenient. He could inspire and request sympathy and he could position himself as someone who naturally understands discrimination, something that specially resonates with a LGTBI fanbase.

I want to make this very clear, talking about your family history and finding pride in your roots is not a red flag. It’s the contrast, it's reaching far back in the famlity tree and bringign to the light small pieces while keeping in the dark something very big.

3.) A prince among the common folk

This is about class division. The rich and famous sit at the top and us common folk crawl at the bottom, with little to no contact among the groups. Common folk look up in admiration and privileged folk look down and occasionally wave.

But not Gaiman. Remember the memes during the last Tumblr Sell? “This is the cringe website, the autistic website, the weirdo website. Oh, there is also Neil Gaiman, don’t mind him, he lives here”. Gaiman jumped the class barrier and hung out in the common folk spaces, like one of us.

However, his posts are designed to remind us that he is not, in fact, one of us. Like a royal boon, he bestowed attention and interaction (that he could sever at any moment if the fans displeased him. The control was always firmly clutched in his fist). He relied on the starstruck effect for his predation, which meant his presence had to be extraordinary, special; his engagement laden with worth. he had to keep his privileged status while also playing coy.

He did this through name dropping. Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adam, Salman Rushdie, Michael Sheen, David Tennant, (especially Tennant because he is more popular than Sheen), Tori Amos.

One way or another, we would know he had access to these famous people, that he got to see them in a different, private, light and that he chose to interact with us instead of with them.

I can’t think of a better way to make someone feel special.

4.) Others

There are other little clues that point at dishonesty and deliberate misdirection:

His assertion that he wrote 50 % of Good Omens and that it’s impossible to tell who wrote what, when anyone familiar with both his and Pratchett’s writing can tell that 80% of the book is Terry Pratchett’s work.

His general insistence that the TV show, especially the second season, was his way of completing T. Pratchett’s unfinished business. Good Omens was published in 1990 and Prachett’s last book came out in 2015. I think if Sir Terry had wanted a sequel of Good Omens out, he would have got it out.

Declaring himself autistic only to use it as an excuse for his behavior just a few months later. What a great way to casually prop a shield in advance.

Conclusion

Neil Gaiman’s public behavior and interactions built the image of a very sympathetic character with multiple built-in defenses against allegations (he is so nice, of course you attack the Jewish man, all these famous people vouch of him, he is just autistic!). This strategy also helped him encourage and exploit parasocial relationships by positioning himself as a special companion. 

Hoepfully, seeing this laid out can help us be more aware of manipulation tactics from regular and famous people both.

Note: I am including cscreenshots rather than links because I want to anonymize the fans. Also, in case his tumblr is deleted.

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I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

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It's mad how midshipmen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used to be literal children. like can you imagine being an ordinary seaman in the royal navy having been at sea your entire adult life surviving countless dangers and living through countless battles on a diet of lemon juice and salt pork getting beaten with a cat o'nine tails for various misdemeanors and shot at with cannon by whatever european power your king is currently beefing with for no reason every day and also your boss (the future sir john ross) is nine years old

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Happy 30th anniversary to Eric Cantona's flying kick to a fascist.

Even though Cantona was banned from playing the rest of the season he still considers it the best moment of his career. "My only regret is that I did not kick him harder".