#i was a social activist for a couple of years i’ve handled worse insults than ‘sjw’ try better 💀

[elliesbelle]

It’s clear u were an early 2010s sjw w the amount of unfounded aggression and entitlement, you don’t gotta tell us 💀

‘unfounded aggression’ i’m a nonbinary lesbian who’s a teacher and a person of colour who grew up in a poor immigrant family and is not a citizen of the country they live in

[terminalpolitics]

A Short History of My Blog

I made this blog a few years back so that I could talk to various friends from an MMO after the game forums got overmoderated and complaining about racist behavior by a player earned you a ban.

In the beginning, I mostly used it to discuss things about that video game and to socialize or reblog pictures of charming cats. My friends would always cheer me on when I defended Obama or talked about how morally reprehensible Republicans were. They were also very happy with my call-out posts in which I archived evidence of sexual predation or bigotry by members of our small MMo community.

I noticed then, though, that when the creeper in our community was popular –or worse, one of their buddies– they suddenly took a much more “tolerant” veiw of when things like racial slurs were really in bad taste.

While posting more politics in defense of Obama and against Republican obstruction, I ran into Tumblr’s white supremacist and neo-Nazi community. Now, I had been antifascist for years and I have warned for a long time against the rise of the far-right and the dangers of rightwing extremism – in person as well as online.

So, I got into a lot of fights with Naziblr, and I got a lot of notes from folks (mostly anonymous) who thought I was being “unfair” or who wished my blog “went back to how it used to be”. And because I did feel bad springing Naziism on people’s dash, I made up a special tag for my anti-Nazi posts so that folks could filter it out and just enjoy MMO talk and cat photos.

A similar thing happened when I wanted to talk about Putin, Russia’s anti-LGBT bigotry, and the resurgence of the far-right globally. It got to be a bit much for my followers so I had to make a special tag again.

As I became more and more disgusted and realized that Obama was not the progressive we had voted for, and I began to criticize the United States more – attacking fuck-ups like the thankfully-late Chris Kyle, I got less and less “^^this”s from my friends.

When the Democratic primary happened and I started posting in support of Bernie Sanders, my friends (who were largely with her) started vague-posting anti-Sanders responses to my posts, but acted all “I don’t know what you mean” when I tried to discuss it directly. So, I (you may have guessed it) made a unique tag for my pro-Bernie Sanders posts so that people could block them. I also made a separate unique tag for my criticism of Hillary Clinton, and used #politics so if somebody wanted to ignore the whole election, they could block that too.

Then, having not really been connected to my MMO community in awhile and being bored of blogging in general. I shutdown my blog for a couple of months.

When I restarted it, I changed the name and informed everyone that it was 100% political from there on out. Bernie had lost the rigged Democratic Primary and I was now supporting Jill Stein and the Green Party as they were the only progressive act in town.

Well, that was completely unacceptable.

Though they knew I was planning on voting third party, my friends repeatedly reblogged memes and shitposts insulting third party voters. When I responded to these posts, they usually gaslit me and said I was actually attacking them by objecting to their post that insulted me.

And because I was voting for the wrong white women, they smeared me as being racist and sexist – in vague-posts or MMO chats of course.

At the same time, they posted ridiculous and objectively sexist things about Jill Stein. When I responded negatively, they lamented what I had “turned into” and called Jill Stein a “cunt” and “bitch” and added that I was a “pussy.” Yet, somehow I was the person being sexist here.

When I called out the clique who were responsible for the trolling, my friends again tried to gaslight me and acted like it was a coincidence or something that they all frequently dogpiled my posts.

In some cases, I asked people who obviously hated me to unfollow me and they refused because “Um, I kinda read some of the news you post even though I think you are a scumfuck.” So I blocked them.

Then, I just blocked everyone who liked the “Jill Stein is a cunt” post and suddenly about 90% of the trolling that my admittedly controversial blog received dropped off.

While blocked, whenever I made a post about something like Clinton’s complicity in the right-wing coup in Honduras and subsequent assassination of activists, there would be a spate of mirror-posts arguing that Rightwing coups were actually progressive. And I’d be told about it by our mutual friends.

When I didn’t respond, a “friend of a friend” made a parody of my tumblr called @terminallystupidpolitics that’s profile read something like “hurr durr Jill Stein mah white privilege.” I was told about that by another mutual friend.

And of course when Trump won it was my mostly my fault according to my friends. But I had blocked them, so I only heard echoes of it when mutual friends reblogged their sentiments.

I don’t tell you this because “Oh, I’ve had it so rough!” I haven’t. A few appleheads hating on you over politics comes with the territory. Even losing friends over politics is completely normal – especially when the politics reveals that your friend was only ever concern-trolling when it came to social justice.

The reason I tell you this is because I tried to self-censorship and I tried not to rock the boat, but that wasn’t enough. It isn’t enough that you hide your position or just keep your social justice on the downlow.

The very fact that you are committed to social justice is a threat to people who secretly feel that your committment makes theirs look bad. They can’t allow you to exist even on the margins because if someone says “I won’t compromise on this issue” and they will compromise, they suddenly feel bad about themselves.

And when people feel bad about themselves, the easy option is for them to take it out on someone else. 

Rather than recommitting to social justice which is hard, they can just discredit the person who is more real than they are – you see this done constantly by the Democratic Party on a much larger level.

Self-censorship gets you nowhere and just stifles your message. Your friends don’t want your civility, they want your conformity. Only when you stop having opinions outside the party line will you be allowed back into the fold. “Agree-to-disagree” is just shit they say when they are losing the argument and smearing you instead behind your back.

You can only be true to your own beliefs. You gain nothing by moderating your beliefs so that your friends will be more accepting of your difference – it is not your difference they value, it is your likemindedness. They want their biases and values confirmed and justified. They don’t want you to fuck up the bubble by offering an alternative.

These days I feel much happier being able to post what I want without pulling any punches. I like to think that I am expressing myself openly and honestly and people can either take it or leave it.

I do still see comments reblogged by mutuals from folks that gaslit and smeared me, but it seems pretty distant now – like we were all different people. Or maybe we just got a better look at each other.

I value the work that people are doing on tumblr in spreading truly progressive and antifascist messages. I think that a lot of good can come from that. If you think to yourself, hey, maybe I should start a political blog, my advice is to not worry about what your friends think – if they can’t handle you talking about social justice then they were pretty shitty friends to start.

As Trump consolidates power and the press and political system normalize his bigotry, it is more important than ever that we speak our minds. We cannot hold back because of society’s centrist propagnda, or because it might upset our friends, or because the Democratic Party tells us we aren’t allowed to criticize them.

We need to be real, and that is what I aim to do with this blog for the rest of my time here and I hope you will join me.