#lies amplifiers fucking twitter

[kcyars99]

READ THIS!!!!! Stop arguing with bots. Report. Hide their replies. Block. Then get back to work. Amplify @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris @BidenHQ Volunteer https://events.democrats.org Work the polls http://weall.vote/recruit Tell people about Project 2025 http://TrumpsProject2025.com

11h ago

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Me at the media for not condemning trumps behaviors and actions but spread lies and was relentless about Bidens age and all the hews and rich white men who want him to drop out because they are ableist weak as fuck bedwetter and because they don’t want THE COUNTRY TO BE RUN BY A BLACK FEMALE

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[orionsangel86]

Tickled about the death of twitter.

Signing up to the bird app was one of the worst decisions I made in life. It fucked up my mental health, turned me from happy tumblr fan to toxic obsessed stan, and then had me suffering from bullying and viscious lies when I tried to remove myself from that toxicity.

It turned fandom from fun to obsession, and then turned it into nothing but anxiety and panic.

It made dealing with the SPN finale much worse as it was an echo chamber and amplifier for fandoms pain.

It ruined OFMD for me.

That app breeds nothing but toxicity. I hope it dies a swift death.

And when those hateful toxic bullying assholes try to come back to Tumblr, I hope this userbase is absolutely ruthless with them. Take no shit Tumblr. Shut down twitter bullshit THE SECOND you see it.

Dont let twitter users turn this place into the cesspool they swam in daily.

Tumblr is a place for creativity, fun, art, meta, speculation, and community. Also memes and shit posting in good humour.

Dont let twitter users destroy that. Please.

[hellyeahomeland]

Costa Ronin as Yevgeny Gromov | requested by anonymous ↳ “He’s in this world with no one he can talk to about his work. He has no family. But he’s doing what he feels he was born to do.” [x]

[findmyrupertfriend]

I Watch Homeland So You Don’t Have To - Season 7 Episode 8 Lies, Amplifiers, F... Twitter

Quinn: “Is there no fucking line?”

Now I know why this particular line was kept in the title sequence. It’s because there is no line. We knew this all along, but the answer rings out crystal clear throughout this entire episode.

Opening scene is Carrie dropping off Franny at school LIKE NO BIG DEAL after the night she had. She asks poor Franny not to tell anyone anything about what happened, because mommy will be in big trouble (Cynthia: WHICH ANY REMEDIAL PARENT KNOWS IS NOT OKAY). Franny runs to her teacher and won't even tell Carrie bye, while the teacher gives Carrie a knowing glance. 

Next, Carrie calls Saul. OF COURSE Saul allows Carrie into his secret ops hideaway, and OF COURSE Saul allows Carrie to interrogate Dante. Dante rips into Carrie pretty good. (For all the parallel here with S2E5 Q&A, Cynthia pointed out a very important difference. Dante is not vulnerable like Brody was, so Carrie “can’t do fuck all” with Dante.)

Dante: “At least now it makes sense. I open my house to you, next thing I know the SWAT team’s breaking down my door.”

Carrie: “That wasn’t me.”

Dante: “Sure.”

Carrie: “You think I’d put my daughter through that?”

Dante: “Absolutely. I don’t think you give a damn about anyone.”

Dante: “Do they know? Do they know?”

Carrie: “What?”

Dante: “What a lunatic I’m sitting across from.”

Even Dante thinks there’s no fucking line Carrie won’t cross. Dante softens slightly, but he still won’t break for Carrie, and asks for a lawyer. (A lawyer? Yeah, I definitely scoffed at that one, cause since when does a fucking lawyer matter in situations like these? Didn’t help Brody!)

Meanwhile, Maggie is blowing up Carrie’s phone, and Saul tells Carrie to go home. Carrie pops a pill and finally slinks back home right after Franny falls asleep. Maggie won’t even let Carrie go upstairs to tell her goodnight. 

Franny wouldn’t stop crying at school. They couldn’t reach Carrie, so Maggie picked her up. Maggie finally pulled the truth out of Franny.

Maggie: “So she told me about last night at your friend’s place. Men breaking down the door, pulling her out of bed, you screaming as your friend was dragged from the house? And then in the morning, you took her to school. You took her to school and you left her there.” 

Just sit on that for a moment - how heartless it is to do such a thing. (Amy Hargreaves delivered those lines superbly.) 

Bottom line: Maggie is also a doctor and a mandated reporter. That means because of her profession, she is legally required to report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect to the authorities. Thus, Maggie gives Carrie an ultimatum: check herself into hospital now or Maggie starts legal proceedings for custody of Franny. Carrie tries to make a run for Franny upstairs, but Maggie stops her. 

Maggie: “Come with me right now. I will drive you. Franny will come see you every day. You’ll get well. You’ll keep your child.” 

Carrie hesitates.

Maggie: “Carrie. How is it possible you are even hesitating?”

Carrie goes on about the country being attacked and “lies, amplifiers, fucking twitter.”

Carrie: “I’m working with Saul. He needs me.”

Maggie: “Franny needs you more.”

In the end, Carrie makes a choice (just like Quinn made his choice in S4E1 The Drone Queen and saved Carrie instead of Sandy Bachman), and it isn’t Franny. She walks out of the house and enters her car, where she screams to herself. If Carrie is willing to abandon Franny (I could even say AGAIN at this point, because Carrie did abandon Franny when she took the Islamabad CIA station chief position.), then there’s definitely no fucking line she won’t cross. But Carrie’s not done crossing lines just yet...

Carrie rushes back to Saul with a new plan to break Dante. They provide Dante with a fake lawyer who requests that Dante sign a motion to release. After the lawyer leaves, Dante notices what looks like black ink on his fingers. He starts to feel ill and collapses on the floor, calling for help. Carrie attempts to go help him, but Saul makes her wait for a moment (almost like when Tasneem makes Handsome Khan wait 10 minutes before calling for reinforcements for Carrie and Saul during S4E10 13 Hours in Islamabad). 

Carrie runs to help Dante and finally gets what she wanted out of him.

Dante: (gasping) “It’s poison. Poison. Poison. It’s the pen. The lawyer. The lawyer.”

Dante: “Like McClendon. Russians.”

Carrie: “How do you now?”

Dante: “Simone. Simone told me.” 

Dante is given an antidote, but something goes wrong, terribly wrong. Maybe it’s because Saul made Carrie wait? Maybe it’s because Dante wouldn’t take the pills Carrie offered, and who would after just being poisoned? In any case, Dante’s heart stops, and he’s rushed to the hospital. Again, no fucking line... 

All the while, Keane dispatches Wellington to put pressure on the Russians through the Russian Ambassador, who twists the message slightly and passes it on to Yevgeny: Simone cannot testify. Saul races to Simone with his arrest warrant, but it’s too late. Simone is gone, spirited away safely into the arms of Yevgeny... her lover. 

The episode ends with Saul breaking the bad news to Carrie, while Carrie is in the hospital with Dante.  

Saul: “They got to her. The Russians did. Now Dante’s all we got.”

It’s Carrie’s turn to break the bad news to Saul about Dante. 

Saul: “Tell me he’s gonna make it.”

Carrie watches Dante’s nearly lifeless body being worked on by the medical staff. The look on her face (to me) seems like one of déjà vu...cause she’s been here before, with Quinn. 

So, Carrie crossed yet another line, but there may be no payoff in the end. And if Carrie whispers to Dante how he should follow her voice to the surface, because she’s waiting for him...I swear to fucking...

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Everytime I turn on the TV I get nauseated by the amount of fake news. I just get depressed, and it just gets worse seeing that my friends are regurgitating and accepting things that don't make any sense. Every critical thought they dont like is labelled "conspiracy" "far right". I (was) a fucking democrat god damn it. How can they lose touch with reality so easily? And now at ever minute theres a new wich hunt. I'm so done with them, with this country, college, everything.

Yeah, I'm still trying to comprehend how dark the media has become to call it “kidnapping,” and “fascism” when federal officers, who they also described as “Trump’s mercenaries” despite being the same men and women who served under Obama, finally arrested rioters who have spent months terrorizing streets, burning buildings and destroying federal property. It seems nothing can pass now without the media lying to our faces about it.

They have lied every step of the way, from the travel ban, Charlottesville, the Mueller Russian probe, Brett Kavanaugh, Michael Flynn, the Covington kids, Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president and the impeachment farce that ensued, the coronavirus and the White House response, now they’re lying about the riots. Whatever might be happening in the country, whether a global pandemic or entire cities being burned and looted, the most important part of the story must always be that Trump is bad, nothing else matters.

The problem is many actually believe Twitter and media reflects the sentiment of the majority, but this is an artificial consensus that’s artificially amplified, don’t get sucked into believing it too. I wouldn’t be so quick to lose faith in people. Most Americans are sitting back, watching all the violence, destruction, lies and craziness and will vote accordingly. The media might control what we see and hear, but don’t let them decide what to think or make you lose faith in our country. 

[angelkerisimasi]

I have literally never hated any one person more in my life than this wannabe dictator ready to commit mass genocide of black people, immigrants, muslims, the lgbtq+ community, and the poor. The protesters were assembled to make their outrage at the murder of George Floyd heard. They were not initially looting places or "violent", but cops started using water cannons, tear gas, and pepper bombs against them. I do not give a fraction of a fuck if people who were tear gassed stole some milk or something to flush that stuff out of their eyes.

This poor excuse for a human and failure or a president is literally encouraging the murders of people who are protesting the cops murdering another unarmed black person. He's giving the cops and military permission to commit murders because he knows that most of the people who would be murdered here are also black people or people of color in general. If the cops had actually done something about the white people with weapons of war storming government buildings and threatening lives, Trump would have had a twitter barrage ready to trash them. White people can do no wrong in his eyes; Just look at his comments about Charlottesville. Actual nazis marching in the street, one of whom killed a woman by running her over with his car, and there are "good people on both sides"? No.

I'm so sick of this president's absolute hatred of minorities and how blatant it is. I'm sick of his administration, who are as heartless, apathetic, and evil as he is. I'm sick of people trying to find any tiny thing that "justifies" the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Geroge Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Tony McDade and so many more unarmed black people killed by cops. I'm sick of Trump supporters not holding their "leader" responsible for the hate and division he has brought on our country since the moment he began giving his political opinions and has only amplified more and mire since the beginning of his presidential campaign.

I'm sick and tired of seeing stories and videos of black people having their lives stolen from them by the very people whose motto is to "serve and protect". The cops do not serve and protect all Americans. The police and justice systems are racist, and it's never even been subtle. These institutions are corrupt and they are held up by so many as righteous because of the lies we've been bombarded by, claiming that the law is on our side. When unarmed black people are murdered, sometimes in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses around, the law is not on everyone's side. The law has actively been against minority groups for as long as white supremacy has left its wretched stain on this land.

People have had their lives stolen from then. The president is inciting violence against black people and people of color. Cops have launched an assault against peaceful protesters. We are hurt. We are sad. We are fucking angry. Our country has seen too much bigotry, too much racism, too much violence. We've been silent for far too long. If you are not angry that black people are still being murdered, so often by cops, then you don't care. It's long overdue that racism, bigotry, and white supremacy get destroyed.

[scientistowengottlieb-newtkelly]

Thoughts and feelings about Pacific Rim 2?

you sure you wanna open up that particular can of worms?

movie review time! be warned i'm not in a good mood as i am shaking in pain, however this review would have been scathing regardless. and none of this is to say pacific rim is perfect, it's not, but... aye, i have no words for the world of difference there. oh wait! i do:

so. first and foremost, i hate it. as both a movie and a sequel. did i find it entertaining? yes, mildly, so i suppose it did its job, however the only thing that keeps me watching it is because, simply, it's part of the pacific rim franchise whether we like it or not. therefore, i squeeze as much salvageable content from it as i can, such as how one might analyze the precursors, how we are to view hermann and newt as characters pre-, during, and post-uprising, what we are to expect from drifting (though this one i take with a grain of salt, there is a whole other rant preserved for the joke of an attempt to develop that shit within the movie)

one of my biggest issues with pacific rim is really simple: it plays out like DeKnight did not watch the first fucking movie or was scrolling through twitter while doing it and decided he'd make a cash grab since the first one was relatively popular. "haha the kaiju were going for mount fuji the whole time!!" bitch no they weren't!!! why the fuck did they end up anywhere near sydney, australia, then!!! why did they turn tail on places like manila and san fran instead of heading straight for japan!!! WHY DID THE ONE THAT WAS IN JAPAN NOT SUCCEED, THERE'S NO WAY WITH THOSE MARK 1 JAEGERS THEY'D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REASONABLY FIGURE OUT THEIR PLAN AND WHERE THEY WERE GOING IN TIME TO STOP THEM!!! newt literally lays out what they are doing in the first movie and they completely ignored that!!! not to mention, if the destruction from elements found in mount fuji would have been enough to terraform the earth, WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FUCKING DO THAT WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSEDLY ON EARTH AGES AGO??? THERE WERE VOLCANOES WITH THOSE SAME ELEMENTS BEFORE RIGHT NOW, VOLCANOES ARE NOT A RELATIVELY NEW THING EARTH CREATED SUDDENLY AND I WOULD IMAGINE NEITHER ARE THOSE ELEMENTS!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! and.... okay the fucking drones. how did those bitches make breaches??? we know the breach is some result of precursor/kaiju technology, apparently they know the breach's atomic structure as hermann said in the first movie, but how tf some kaiju organs and tech from earth only is ALL it takes to open a breach... illudes and confuses me... why were no more breaches made by the precursors once they realized how long and how many resources it was taking to kill the humans off??? if it's??? shit they could do with simple earth materials + their own biology??? they could have ended things much faster??? shit just doesn't add up, idk, that was Vague and Annoyed Me

and the jaegers.... were....... strange? the fight scenes were so underwhelming, i could count on one hand the number of maneuvers—NOT SCENES, MANEUVERS—i thought were badass and moved well. their fighting was confusing and paced really weird and some of the moves they pulled... don't... work like that... like some of those scenes were just hand-to-hand combat but in big robot form and they didn't sit right with me at all.

and the characters......... oh my word, the characters. look: i love jake pentecost with all of my heart and soul and john boyega's beautiful acting just barely saves the movie from its poor writing. i do love him as a character. but can someone explain to me why in the world they thought it was a good idea to make the only black guy a black market thief/runner, deep-record criminal with daddy and authority issues, and who they dare try to play off as some kind of lazy??? they made him every stereotype they could and said "yeah let's go with that". i'm- aaaaaaaaaaaaaa and what was with the child soldiers??? ROBOCOPS?????? mako....... character assassination at its worst........ my baby......... but the movie was paced so GOD DAMN POORLY I GOT BORED AND LITERALLY MISSED HER DYING THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED IT. and i couldn't tell you the names of half of those poor damn kids, i really couldn't. and can i also say they killed off one of the only two darker skinned kids?? like y'all???? the other darker skinned kids (one of the children i can't remember the names of because it was uttered ONCE in the entire movie or some shit) didn't even GET characterization. my whole heart goes out to her and those other underdeveloped fucks. speaking of...... i am ashamed about jules. from the movie that brought us the mako mori test, they threw in a girl simply for the sake of some shitty, awkward, and unexplained love triangle between jake and White Angst without much else to put to her name. she deserved better. amara was... a decent shot, but very hit or miss because of the writing. i, personally, am very neutral about her leaning towards liking her, but i know people who swing love and who swing hate. liwen was like,,,, they tried really hard to make her unlikable at the beginning because "oh no, she must be the villain! GOTTEM plot twist!!!" and then suddenly she's no longer. threatening everyone except newt. idk i feel like they leaned to heavily one way and i got whiplash when she's actually another but there was nothing to... portray that. at all. i do like her character, and that says a lot because they got me to sympathize with a capitalist without actually regretting it later, but there could/should have been More there. she was powerful, though, in multiple different aspects, and we saw that from her CONSISTENTLY and i 😳🥵👀💕 mako mori test pass for her

now, let's talk about hermann (and by extention, newton, however he'll be getting a section all his own the rat bastard). that man is one of the single instances of decent cross-movie characterization i saw in the whole god damn film. the idea that he takes on newton's roles, that he is more outspoken for himself, that he is just slightly more unhinged after his drift with newton: THAT is on point. he's himself, you can see it, you still know that he's hermann with ever step, but there's something that has shifted in him in those 10 years and it's good without being too much. the "i still get nightmares" scene, the way he presents himself, that scene gives me chills because god bless burn gorman and his acting ability. every face and intonation of his voice is just wonderful and i think his performance was great for what he was given. king shit.

the biggest disappointment of my life came in the form of a kaiju vest wearing bitch at work. at his corporate job. as a boss. for a tech company that undermines all of his and, frankly, hermann's work over their lifetimes. 10 years older and exaggerated to the teeth. newton "move you fascist" geiszler. let me preface this by stating for all to see that i do not hate the idea of newton being the villain. story wise it was a bold move and there was something possible there. BUT THE IMPLICATION THAT ONE OF THE MOST OBVIOUSLY NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS IN THE WHOLE FUCKING FRANCHISE, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN CHARACTERIZED AS HAVING A "BORDERLINE MANIC PERSONALITY" AKA HAVING ONE OF THE MOST DEMONIZED MENTAL ILLNESSES OUT THERE, ENDS UP ACTING AS THE GOD DAMN VILLAIN OF THE STORY IS A HOT GARBAGE TAKE WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THINGS LIKE POOR WRITING NOT MAKING IT CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT NEWTON IS EVEN IN CONTROL OF HIS OWN FACULTIES AND THE VAGUENESS OF "WILL HE BE 'REDEEMED' OR NOT" BEING UP IN THE AIR LIKELY NEVER TO BE CANONICALLY FUCKING ANSWERED BECAUSE BECKHAM AND DEKNIGHT SHAT OUT A MOVIE THAT BOMBED IN THE BOX OFFICE. we aren't even gonna TALK about the fact that this bitch got AWAY with it despite not even acting in a remotely stable way comparable to himself in the first movie in the 10 years he supposedly dropped off the map from all of his friends because, clearly, hermann hadn't seen him or he wouldn't be so excited with a picture of the two of them on his desk, nor would he have to tell newton about his idea for rocket thrusters with kaiju blood fuel because he would have simply written to him about it. for some strange reason people see his ass show up decked out in a suit he wouldn't even wear for Stacker Fucking Pentecost and a behavior of "Haha Gotta Listen To The Boss" and think "ah, yes, well, time changes a person. THIS BITCH HAS APPARENTLY BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME, YOU THINK HE GOT A JOB WITH LIWEN LOOKING AND ACTING LIKE HE DID BEFORE AND THERE WAS A SHIFT OVER TIME? NO, HE HAD TO HAVE CHANGED IN A SPLIT DECISION AND LIED ABOUT HIMSELF THROUGH HIS TEETH AND NO ONE CONTACTED HIM, OR WAS WORRIED ABOUT HIM, OR DECIDEDLY THOUGHT "YOU KNOW, HE MAY BE EMBOLDENED THAT HE SAVED THE WORLD, BUT I THINK SOMETHING LIKE THAT WOULD HAVE THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT ON HIM AND HE WOULD DO HIS BEST TO AMPLIFY HIS CURRENT STANDING TRAITS. LISTENING TO AND KISSING THE BOOT OF AUTHORITY FIGURES? DIVORCING HIMSELF FROM HIS WORK WITH KAIJU XENOBIOLOGY THAT EVEN HERMANN PICKED UP? TO BECOME THE THING HE HATES? AND FOR WHAT? MONEY? FAME? BITCH WHO ARE YOU?" unreasonable. ridiculous attempt to do this just for a plot twist that was underwhelming at best. i've decided to stick to the fan theory that he was not in control 99% of the time but literally that movie causes such a hellfire path to appear in my wake as i think about it because i know people who don't take it like that and think newt wants what's happening because "haha horny kaiju man" and i wish to scream at the top of my lungs because this is exactly WHY you CANNOT spare ANY EXPENSE to the GOOD, PROPER, INTRICATE directing and writing of a character who is neurodivergent and also ONE OF THE CENTERS OF NOT JUST THE MOVIE YOU'RE WRITING, BUT THE FUCKING MOVIE AFTER THAT. i could go on but i sincerely don't fucking want to, despite how long i've been waiting for someone to willingly hear me out on all of this. all i'll say is if by some miracle they are greenlit for a third film and deknight's working on it and i see ANY sign of a bury your gays end for newt, i'm going to commit the first hate crime against a cishet white male.

to end, the only valid kaiju in that movie was the mega-kaiju, i don't remember the appearance or the names of the three that got through the breaches but the mega-kaiju could kill me and i'd die happy 🥰 beautiful design, that scale comparison when it came face to face with newt? amazing, chills, *chef's kiss* there are exactly two things i liked about uprising and that bitch is one of them.

sorry if this isn't what you wanted, but as i said i am in a bit of a bad mood and have been curled up in bed trying not to think that i'm dying and i've repressed all of this for a couple months now and very few people have actually heard PORTIONS of my frustration so. here it is.

[onisiondrama]

Just checked your blog for the first time in months, and I would just like to say, HOW is this guy still on the internet? How are people still watching him?? Why

He’s still here for $ and attention.

He actually gained back a chunk of his fan base. There was also an enormous drop in anti accounts and YouTube videos compared to last year so things have been easier for him in a sense.

I’d say there two main reasons. One is people have a hard time separating all the stories going on. It should just be Sarah’s word vs Onision’s. Shiloh vs Onision. Billie vs Onision. (Etc) Instead people see it as Onision vs Shiloh, Sarah, Billie, Shane, Blaire, Chris Hansen, anti-o Twitter, Repzion, some random guy Hansen interviewed about Onision’s MySpace presence, etc. Peoples original perception of a lot of these people are not the same as a year ago so it makes them distrustful of EVERYONE on that “side” instead of looking at his exes as individuals. I hear more people saying now they they aren’t sure about the Onision situation rather than denouncing him like before. Before it was pretty unanimous.

The other reason is his videos. Idk if anyone here actually reads all of my video summaries or watches them themselves but holy shit. Those things are like some kind of indoctrination shit. They are all super long, extremely repetitive, us vs them mentality, paints himself as the ultimate victim, amplifies everyone (that I mentioned above)‘s flaws and wrongdoings to make everyone seem untrustworthy and greedy, convinces his fans he’s the only honest person, plus he’s adopted a lot of self help rhetoric so it seems like he is teaching them valuable life lessons as he’s shitting on his exes. I don’t watch his streams but I imagine they are similar and those things are sometimes 6 hours long.

The more “anti-os” (Hansen, Shane, Blaire, etc) fuck up or get canceled, the more waves of people come back to him. Especially since a lot people were first introduced to the “story” from them. He mentions a lot in videos he receives emails from old fans apologizing for switching sides a year ago and believing the lies about him. He also currently has two (paying) moderators who were (from my understanding) fairly prominent anti-os on twitter a year ago.

It doesn’t help that all the exes who spoke about him went silent for their own personal reasons. That’s totally understandable when you look at things from their individual perspectives, but he is convincing his audience they all ran away because his receipts against them were too good. 😑

The fact that platforms are still randomly demonetizing / banning him is actually helping him. It helps his victim narrative and strengthens the bond he has with his supporters. It makes them want to financially support him more.

Sorry for the verbal diarrhea, but all this has been in my mind for the past couple weeks.

Im pretty worried about if Keemstar will actually make that anti Hansen / pro Onision documentary. I think it will help him immensely. There isn’t really any popular, prominent “anti-o” right now that has a clean slate so to speak for people who are on the fence to trust enough to look at for a solid rebuttal. If they are on the fence they are probably already distrustful of the current big names.

Maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion. His fan base is still incredibly small. People can support him if they want to. I guess what bothers me the most is he’s so blatantly lying and people are just taking it. I guess it’s similar to years ago when he had a very large fan base, but it’s crazy going from how things were a year ago to now. I haven’t gotten past the whiplash yet I guess.

Commentary channels are afraid to talk about him now because they don’t want to be labeled as “anti-o” because anti-o = crazy. LC is pretty dead and cynical. KF gets sidetracked easily because there’s nothing interesting going on. Twitter and tumblr are pretty dead, a lot of accounts went silent and we just don’t get as much interaction as we use to. My blog page views have been at an all time low since I started this blog in 2011. Idk about the Onision subreddit, I haven’t visited in months. The only videos I see now that get traction are the occasional videos making fun of Onision or his books.

[itsagutthing]

Carrie interrogating Brody in Q&A | Carrie interrogating Dante in Lies, Amplifiers, Fucking Twitter

[deddie-eddie]

Hypocrisy in fandom.

TW // suicide, suicide baiting, harassment

.

.

.

Yesterday, I nearly killed myself.

I was in the midst of a breakdown, I was shaking so hard I couldnt breathe, and if I wasn't I likely would have been able to open the pill bottle and I likely would have gone through with it.

I had to be talked down via phone call while I was on a camping trip with my family.

But why?

Two days ago, I did something awful. I found a "pedo struggling" account, run by an anti, who was posting screenshots of me and my friends, and called them out.

Little did I know, this would be the start of something horrible.

It started out fine. I made a couple jokes, laughed along at other proshippers in the comments, and it was all fine.

Then, the account posted a vague tweet. "They won't stop." I thought this was funny, so I poked more fun at them. Watched them squirm as they replied to my friends in shaky, broken English. I called it crytyping. I mocked them for it. I assumed I knew what I was talking about and instead of realizing that they were having a breakdown, I assumed that they were being performative and made some horrid accusations in a long callout thread about them. I posted screenshots of them as they replied with, what I thought was, performative nonsense. I privately mocked them. To summarize, I did something entirely, unarguably, factually awful. I made assumptions I had no right to make and acted on them in the worst way.

Then I went to bed.

When I woke up, I had hundreds of notifications. Spammed messages of "deactivate," "how could you do something like this," and a barrage of fancams.

It had come out that the person I was mocking was having a genuine panic attack, and that I had mocked them in a time of immense struggle and pain. I had no right to mock them in the first place, but now that it was genuine, my actions were amplified.

I finally took more than two seconds to think about what I'd done, and realized I was a huge, giant, absolutely massive asshole. I deleted the thread, released a long apology, and tried to take every comment and all my criticism in stride. I was still getting a lot of hate. That was understandable. I knew I didnt deserve to be forgiven yet. I let it be. I didnt tweet anything else for fear of it seeming like I wasnt taking this horrible situation seriously. I sincerely, honestly replied to people asking me why, how, and what I thought I was doing. They had every right to know. Still, the cries of "deactivate" rolled in. I knew I deserved them.

Then, it got worse.

I got a comment. I checked it.

"I dont usually say this but ummm... you should kys."

My heart raced. It had been a while since someone had told me to kill myself. I knew I had fucked up but I didnt realize just how hard, if people were really telling me to kill myself. But i brushed it off. It was one comment. I deserved it.

But it kept. Coming.

More people. "Deactivate," "kill yourself," "you're a freak." All day. Every minute I'd have a new notif, and every moment a new threat. "You'll be alone forever." "I hope you rot alone." I knew I had to take it because I had inadvertently sent people to harass that person. I didnt deserve to be forgiven. I still dont.

People watched my follower count drop. So did I. I lost mutuals I had interacted with for months. I lost people who said that they would always be there for me. I lost people who used to call me their best friend.

I had no one ask me for my side. No one that i was close to, anyway. None of the tens of people who told me that they cared about me, that they loved me, that theyd always be there for me. Not a single one of them was there to ask me. They all read the same callout post, and came to the same conclusion. That I was a horrible, unforgivable person. And I dont blame them for that. Sometimes I think I am too.

Then they kept going even more. More hate. More callout posts, except now people were making things up. They were lying and I couldnt do anything about it because I was in the wrong and not to be redeemed. Old friends took the sides of people who genuinely suggested that I die or kill myself, and people who said they loved me were handing over screenshots to these people in hopes that they wouldnt get thrown under the bus.

They took old things that I said and did and exaggerated them, posted old DMs out of context, and when they couldnt manipulate my words they just didnt provide evidence at all. They had that power. They had the power to lie about me and I had given it to them.

More people joined in. There was a hashtag spread of me. #staymadeddie on twitter. Look it up if you think I'm lying. People tried to get this trending.

After over a day and a half of NOTHING but constant harassment, I started to think I should take their advice. If I was dead, I'd finally be quiet, and theyd get what they wanted. If I was dead, they wouldnt yell at me anymore. They wouldnt harass me. I would be free.

They managed to make me feel like this in a day and a half.

I had a public breakdown. I screamed over the internet, phone held in shaking hands as I tried not to sob in earshot of my family. I frantically pleaded to what little I had left that they stop. I begged to know what they wanted from me. I asked if they really wanted me to die. I begged them to leave me alone. I threw my phone at my bed, ran to the med cabinet, and grabbed a bottle of pills. If I hadn't been shaking so hard, I'd have opened it. If I had opened it, I dont like to think about what I might have done. I was flooded with comments telling me to get help. Close friends begged me not to do what I wanted so badly to. They dmed me left and right, but i ignored it. I felt numb. Everything had been hurting so much that when presented with death felt almost better. Obviously that was a ludicrous thought. It was a day and a half. I was being rash. But I didnt care. I couldnt take it anymore. I'm 15, I have severe anxiety and depression. When overwhelmed, my impulsive thoughts and actions take over.

A friend called me and had to talk me down over phone call while I was camping with my family. It was successful, of course, but the rest of the day I was plagued with a deep depression that left me feeling hollow and worthless. I still cant keep my thoughts away from it. I think about all the people I've lost. All the people who, in their eyes, I'm dead to. All the people who swore they'd be with me, but when push came to shove they couldnt even spare me a glance.

My crime was harassing a minor. I made assumptions I had no right to make and publicly blasted someone for having a panic attack. In no way was that okay and in no way am I entitled to be forgiven. However, I deleted the post. I released an apology. I took criticism as best I could, without blaming my actions on anything or anyone but myself. I did what they always tell you to do when you fuck up.

But it didnt work.

I *was* genuinely sorry.

I *did* recognize my mistake

I *tried* to make amends.

I *didn't* pass blame.

I fucked up. Hard. But no matter what I did no one would stop. I lost close friends. I lost a best friend. It almost seemed like I'd made it worse.

There is no moral. Because real life isnt black and white. I did an awful thing. These people did awful things too. There is more than one victim here. In people's quest to gain justice for me harassing a minor, they harassed a minor into near suicide and laughed at it.

Dont forget that behind EVERY account there is a real person. Be they adult or child, everyone will fuck up and even though in general we need to think before we post, like I clearly didnt, it is possible to learn from our actions and one negative one doesn't define a person.

I'll say this again.

To some people, people I trusted, people who said they cared about me, i am dead. They hate my guts. I'll never be redeemed. But I'm expected to improve myself with this knowledge. I'm supposed to take all the hate and never speak about the hate coming my way for fear of trying to victimize myself.

No. Fuck you.

I AM a victim. I was harassed as much as they were, and even though I threw the first stone, I never told anyone to die. I never lied about anyone. I didnt cancel them. I learned my mistake and apologized, but I KNOW that NO ONE will EVER be expected to apologize for what they did to me.

What I did was horrible. I am not entitled to forgiveness. I will repeat that a hundred times. But to beat me down until I'm nearly dead, to call me a freak and a pedo and a disgusting person, to tell me to kill myself, then laugh when I call myself a victim, is disgusting.

I DON'T deserve this, and I'm tired of having to pretend like I do.

By all means. Criticize me. Make jokes. Be harsh. But do NOT tell me to kill myself over a lack of forethought, and then have the guts to call yourself a "protector of kids." You're not.

You're only out to protect your friends, and the people who agree with you, other people's lives be damned. I dont matter to you. And you'll never admit that you hurt me.

[obiternihili]

Ngo writes for the National Review and Quillette. Spins stories such as a hit and run into a group of BLM protestors as antifa attacking an old man. ( https://katu.com/news/local/driver-plows-through-protesters-in-downtown-portland | https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-leftist-mob-polices-portland-1539298766 ) . In the aftermath of that, right wing groups started protesting around Portland which led to what should be understood in democratic countries as normal outcomes of protest; groups A and anti-A arguing in the streets, occasionally breaking out into brawls in the same way drunks do in bars or sports fans do in parking lots. https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2018/10/13/portland-streets-descend-into-bedlam-again-as-proud-boys-and-antifascists-maul-each-other/

And because apparently now “militant” means throwing a milkshake, despite the A groups being known for literally killing people, despite far-A groups being known for stockpiling weapons. An informal, completely unorganized aesthetic some informal counter-protestors with all the coordination of football brawlers get the militant label while the people they’re reacting to, people who nakedly want to overthrow democracy and commit human rights violations discriminating against and deporting a reasonable chunk of the country, despite being nakedly in bed with explicitly white nationalist groups and pushing their agenda, one gets the label militant and the other doesn’t. Gee, I wonder why?

At this point I’m largely going to plagiarize the article I’m using as a middle man. Sorry I just figure if I lead with the source instead of putting the text down as is you’d dismiss it instead of considering the fact that the article draws its information from such horrifically communist tabloids as “a local sinclair broadcaster” or “the wsj” “ It didn’t end there. The flash march created new viral moments. A video of a left-wing activist harassing a woman claiming to be a 9/11 widow was posted days later to The Daily Caller, which was cofounded by Tucker Carlson. (The woman appears to have lied about being a 9/11 widow.) Efforts to doxx the man hurling invective resulted in a professional skateboarder from Portland being falsely identified and inundated with death threats. Eventually the man in the video was identified, which started a new round of harassment. One source says the social service agency that fired him over the video “was flooded with hundreds of harassing calls and Facebook messages that were explicitly racist and threatening to harm and kill staff.”

Carlson credited Ngo with publicizing the videos. Ngo was a bit player, but the incident bolstered him. The incident was an example of a disturbing media model for the Trump era: opportunists using biased reporting, social media, and wild accusations inflame vigilante and digital mobs to target “enemies” such as the media, Democrats, and left-wing activists. Figures like Carlson and Ngo reap followers, prominence, and income from the outrage and threats of violence. But to keep the ratings and the money flowing, the outrage machine must be cranked ever louder, risking greater violence.

One political organizer in Portland who has received death threats stemming from Ngo’s work says, “It’s an arms race for money, and the narrative isn’t the point — the grift is. The larger, more offensive thing you can do, the system rewards it.”

This appears to be Ngo’s model. He uses social media to push biased opinions in conjunction with selectively edited videos that play to the bigotry of his audience. His followers get worked up, and this is often followed by a deluge of threats against his subject.

[source] has talked to six people in Portland, including journalists, political officials, and activists, who described harassing messages and threats of violence resulting from Ngo’s work or political involvement in Portland. Friends of two other activists claim they went into hiding after Ngo spread their names and they became targets of harassment. Some individuals who’ve tangled publicly with Ngo are reluctant to go on the record. They say they want to avoid the “trauma” of being subjected to a new round of death threats.

In fact, Ngo appears to rely on people not speaking up about his effect on them. He often writes of how activists won’t talk to him or they take down social media profiles after he focuses on them, seeming to imply they have something to hide. What he doesn’t mention is many say they are doing so to avoid harassment and threats of violence.

Madison, a Portland activist who tracks Ngo, says, “Ngo signals this is a person that should be targeted, should be harassed, and should be threatened. Andy puts a target on them and that results in the person being doxxed. Andy is giving people explicit permission to unleash hatred and violence on people. He absolutely knows what he is doing.” 

Ngo is so intertwined with the specter of violence [writer I’m plagiarizing] encountered it after just a Facebook post.  [writer I’m plagiarizing] wrote a post with the headline, “Andy Ngo is no journalist.” The post was shared by notorious right-wing figure, Carl Benjamin, aka, “Sargon of Akkad,” who has been featured on Ngo’s podcast and was banned from YouTube for repeatedly “joking” about raping a British Labour MP. In the comments on Benjamin’s post were calls for violence against [writer I’m plagiarizing], Antifa, and others. Within hours  [writer I’m plagiarizing] started receiving threats directly, such as “You’re a bunch of retards and it will be a glorious day when you all are dealt with,” and “You are a disgraceful liar. If you or anyone of your ilk throws even a fucking tissue at me or my family watch what the fuck happens to your family lol.”

Now this model threatens to turn deadly. On June 29, Andy Ngo was attacked in Portland while videoing a Patriot Prayer rally heavily outnumbered by Antifa. A video shows him being punched, kicked, and hit with coconut milkshakes and silly string by masked individuals. Within minutes, videos of the attack and of a beaten Ngo narrating the incident were picked up by right-wing media such as Breitbart that have a dodgy relationship to facts. Headlines screaming brutal assault, vicious assault, and vicious attack by Antifa on Ngo were pumped out.

The sensationalism breached the mainstream with CNN’s Jake Tapper sending out an ill-informed tweet above a video of Ngo being attacked, writing, “Antifa regularly attacks journalists; it’s reprehensible.”

In a bizarre twist, the Portland police threw fuel on the fire by tweeting that some milkshakes thrown on June 29 “contained quick-drying cement.” The police never provided evidence and observers, including journalists, noted that many counterprotesters drank the milkshakes, making it extremely unlikely anyone could have laced them with concrete. But amplified by conspiracy theorists like Jack Prosobiec, the tweet went viral, whereupon right-wing media turned the disinformation into fact and the mainstream press treated it as a credible assertion. The police tweet incited the Right further and the group that made the milkshakes was deluged with death threats. It culminated in the city being flooded with death threats. Days after Ngo was attacked, City Hall was evacuated after a bomb threat. One source inside City Hall says the mayor’s office received “insane vitriol” and every office was receiving threats, including almost 100 harassing calls that tied up emergency service dispatchers.

Far-right figures responded to the June 29 attack on Ngo with graphic threats, and plan to hold an “End Domestic Terrorism” and “End Antifa” rally in Portland on August 17. Such is the level of far-right anger that many in the city fear the rally could become another Charlottesville, or worse — given the anti-Latino murder spree in El Paso and other foiled white nationalist plots since then.”

Here’s a point where I mildly disagree with the writer I’m plagiarizing:

“ To be clear, the attack on Ngo should be condemned. It serves no political purpose, and the Left should not be attacking media makers, even if they use dicey methods.”

Ngo doxxes people and sicks his far right buddies on them, and it’s known he doesn’t do the due diligence to make sure the people he’s targeting are actually guilty. If you think it’s wrong when left-wing adjacent people on tungle or twitter do it, it’s still wrong when right wingers do it, holy shit. If you think it’s dangerous, the type of action that gets people lynched, you’re right! Fuckers like him and Milo need to be silenced. Yes, legally it’s unfeasible to do this without opening people up to loosing their freedom to publish or accuse; which is what movements like antifa serve to do - they do the dirty work the law cannot do so the law doesn’t have to break over every item-line exception to the necessarily clumsy, overgeneralized, poorly thought out “““principle”““ put into place. It’s the same sort of deal as wide-eyed idealistic and overly-narrowly focused deontic reasoning and utilitarian thinking, you know, the ethics that actually deal with consequences and reality.

Does it break the law? Yes. Does it violate principles? Yes. That’s the point - the principles underlying this shit aren’t fundamentally different mechanically speaking from the principles that lead to people’s hands being chopped off for stealing a snickers bar or because they didn’t want to live as a serf or why people are content with sending ethnic minorities to concentration camps because the Party said so. A principle that doesn’t have the nuance or flexibility to recognize when it needs to let other principles take the lead is a bad principle; you’ve fetishized it.

Of course there are other issues too. If you’re not comfortable letting Nazis throw milkshakes too you should be comfortable with people getting arrested for it. But of course fuck all because the cops take one side in all of this, lying about wet cement mix as seen above, so this principle needs to be nuanced for the fact that some people receive more violence from law enforcement than others.

It’s late, I’m tired, lazy, mad, and exhausted. At some point before the last paragraph I was going to ask for evidence of antifa kills comparable at all to the number of far-right kills in the last decade in America. Because it’s a valid question that’s rarely answered. Because again antifa have all the organizational structure and systematization of belief as drunks at a bar. But I can’t remember my rhetorical point.

Continuing.

“Some Antifa activists in Portland also admit the attack played into right-wing hands by elevating him.

That is exactly what’s happened. Trump has beatified Ngo as one of his sinless followers — “A single man standing there with a camera who never got hit and never hit back before in his life” — under assault from the “evil” Antifa full of “sick, bad people.”

But it would also be a mistake to see Ngo as an innocent or as a journalist, considering that whoever he turns his camera, social media, or pen on is at significant risk of being inundated with violent threats from the far right.

Shane Burley is author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It, and a Portland-based journalist who covered the June 29 rally. He says, “I would never condone what happened to Andy Ngo, but I think there is a reason why he got in a conflict with protesters and dozens of other reporters present seemed to be left alone.”

Burley says, “One way to think of Andy Ngo is he is part of a far-right mediasphere that creates victimization narratives of conservatism and profit from it. It’s all about the embattled American man who is under siege at every turn, whether its trans children, immigrant criminals, anchor babies, or dangerous college campuses. ‘They are all out to destroy us and our values.’ It’s an entire infrastructure that’s moved from commentary like National Review to populist media hucksters drumming up a controversy. Ngo doesn’t seem to have many real journalistic credentials, and any he does is from creating controversy. He gets in the Wall Street Journal and New York Post from being a conservative celebrity. His actual reporting is very infrequent and sparse.”

Ngo adds a new element in facilitating violence, intentionally or not. Burley says, “He appears to target ideological opponents, which can make them fair game for harassment and violent confrontation.” The scale of the threats keep escalating. Now Portland is bracing for the August 17 rally.

                         Killing in the Name of Free Speech?                                      

For the last few years, the far right has used fascistic language about “cleansing” Portland, while its brawlers wore T-shirts proclaiming themselves kindred to South American death squads that killed thousands of leftists in the 1970s. But in advance of August 17, the language and memes from the far right have become more extreme. They’ve posted dozens of threats on social media pledging to kill Antifa and naming left-wing activists in Portland who should be shot during the End Antifa rally.

Individuals affiliated with Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys talk of wanting to “slaughter” Antifa. Others have posted hair-raising images of a Portland activist and his partner with crosshairs over their faces and the words, “End Domestic Terrorist’s [sic].” Another image is of a knife cutting the throat of an antifascist with blood spraying out. This is especially ominous. In April 2017 white supremacist Jeremy Christian attended a Patriot Prayer in Portland and threw Nazi salutes while yelling “Die Muslims!” Weeks later Christian allegedly slashed the throats of three men, killing two, after they came to the defense of two black teenage girls, one wearing a hijab, whom Christian threatened by saying, “Go home. We need America here!”

One organizer of the End Antifa rally is Joe Biggs, a former staffer at Alex Jones’s Infowars website who has “encouraged date rape and punching transgender people.” He shared an illustration for the rally of a Proud Boy punching an antifascist, warning, “Free speech was fought for and paid for with blood. It will not be lost for anything less!” Biggs, whose Twitter account was suspended recently, used the platform to advise his followers to bring guns and declared “DEATH TO ANTIFA!!!!!!”

After the FBI visited him, Biggs now says “he wants a peaceful demonstration and has told his followers to keep their weapons at home.”

But that may be too little, too late as the far right is encouraging potential mass shooters to come to the rally. Recently, Haley Adams, a provocateur in Portland who told a reporter last year, “Damn straight I support white pride,” said on Facebook she “couldn’t wait” to meet Thomas Bartram on August 17. Bartram is an Infowars fan who showed up in El Paso days after the anti-Hispanic massacre and was briefly detained after allegedly brandishing a gun and trying to enter a migrant solidarity center. The center claimed police did not search Bartram’s truck that was decked out with violent pro-Trump images, saying “he has rights.” After being released, Bartram told media he was headed to the End Antifa rally.

What connects these dots is Andy Ngo. He even did his bit to stoke right-wing paranoia in El Paso. In a July 29 tweet Ngo included an image of a flyer about an immigrant rights “border resistance tour.” Ngo claimed stick figures on the flyer represent “border enforcement officers being killed & government property fired bombed” as part of a plot by Antifa to “converge on a 10-day siege in El Paso, TX.” It’s been retweeted more than 11,000 times and hundreds of comments endorse violence against Antifa. Four days later Patrick Crusius allegedly killed twenty-two people in an El Paso Walmart in “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

                         Gateway Bigotry                                      

Ngo’s ascendancy began as an editor at the Portland State University newspaper, The Vanguard. At a university interfaith panel convened in April 2017, Ngo tweeted a brief video claiming, “the Muslim student speaker said that apostates will be killed or banished in an Islamic state.” The entire clip shows the student gave a long answer in response to a hypothetical question about Quranic law. The panelists stressed they weren’t experts, and the Muslim student later said “he may have misspoke.”

Ngo’s tweet was picked up by Breitbart. The Vanguard fired him days later for a “dangerous oversimplification that violated very clear ethics outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists.” The Vanguard said Ngo’s actions “placed a PSU student in significant danger.” Ngo twisted his termination into an article for The National Review, “Fired for Reporting the Truth,” which the student paper said was a “misrepresentation” that resulted in “unjust threats” against them.

Critics see this episode as establishing a pattern in Ngo’s work: using charged language and selective facts on social media that stoke bigotry, putting his subject at risk of harassment while boosting his own reach and status. It worked because in 2018 Ngo graduated to writing a “racist” and “massively Islamophobic” travelogue to two Islamic communities in England for the Wall Street Journal.

But it’s in the city of Portland and state of Oregon that Ngo calls home where the most damage has been wrought. Zakir Khan is board chair of the Oregon chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization. Khan says of Ngo, “That guy is obsessed with us.”

Ngo has tweeted dozens of times about CAIR, saying it “has done PR for terrorists & their families.” He characterized CAIR’s representation of the surviving child of the Muslim couple who committed the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino as advocating for “the terrorists’ orphaned baby.”

Recently, in a sprawling New York Post opinion Ngo claimed a “suspicious rise” in gay hate crimes in Portland fits a pattern of hoaxes. (Ngo found space in his 2,100-word article to quote a member of the Proud Boys, which experts call a “gang” notorious for violence, as “the most welcoming organization that I have ever been a part of.”)

Khan says, “We are seen as experts on hate crimes reform, so I questioned Ngo’s groundless claims of ‘hate-crime hoaxes.’ He is not an expert in the field.” Ngo responded by accusing CAIR of “terrorism” and “terror.”

After the exchange with Ngo, Khan says, “We received dozens of threatening and harassing messages. We weren’t able to log them all.” One post that tagged Ngo, as well as Michelle Malkin (who signal boosts Ngo and started a “Protect Andy Ngo” fundraiser after the June 29 attack that netted him nearly $200,000), read, “CAIR IS HAMAS! If you stand with your Muslem neighbors; prepare to die with your Muslem neighbors. We will take our country back![sic]” Ngo frequently claims that Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, is connected to CAIR.

The irony of all this is that after CAIR challenges Ngo’s claim of hate crime hoaxes, he responds with what could be considered hate speech, accusing them of terrorism. This appears to have incited his followers to threaten and harass CAIR, actions which might qualify as hate crimes.

For his next act, Ngo joined Quillette where he is a “sub-editor.” Described as the voice of the intellectual dark web, Quillette published a report on May 29 claiming fifteen reporters who cover the far right were really “Antifa journalists.” According to the Columbia Journalism Review, the article by “estabished right-wing troll,” Eoin Lenihan, was picked up by the neo-Nazi Stormfront website within a day, and a day after that a video was uploaded to YouTube containing “imagery of mass shooters intercut with images of the [Antifa] reporters.” The names of the journalists were put on a list called “Sunset the Media,” while the video ends with a notorious neo-Nazi saying he won’t “disown” anyone who kills the reporters.

Two journalists, including Shane Burley, wrote of the unnerving effect of being put on a Neo-Nazi death list. Another targeted journalist wrote that Quillette had crossed the line from being merely reactionary to “reckless endangerment” and bluntly stated that its list “could’ve gotten me killed.”

The article was so shoddy, Lenihan was suspended from Twitter. But Ngo promoted the article and more significantly continues to promote it — just as eight months after the fact, Ngo continued to claim that striking the protester from the Patrick Kimmons march is really evidence of Antifa taking their anger out on an elderly man.

In at least one instance it appears Ngo has doxxed activists himself. During May Day 2019, Ngo published a YouTube video that included him talking to members of the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America who were tabling for “Hands Off Venezuela.” The entire time Ngo points his camera at a sign-in sheet, not the person he is interviewing. In the video the sheet is digitally blurred. However, Connor Smith, a Portland DSA member, provided a still from what he claims is an earlier version of the video. The still includes a watermark of Ngo’s twitter handle, “@MrAndyNgo,” exactly the same as in the YouTube video. Eleven names can be seen on the sign-in sheet, including Smith’s, all of which have visible email addresses and six of which include phone numbers. Smith says at least one person on the list received threatening messages such as “Die commie.”

Smith claims it is a common right-wing tactic to doxx people on social media like YouTube and Twitter and then delete the offending material before it is removed for violating the platform’s rules. He says this cat-and-mouse game achieves the results the far right is looking for. “I’m sure some fascist has put all our names and phone numbers in a list.”

Ngo is more of a symptom, however.

Ngo couldn’t exist without social media companies which turn a blind eye to right-wing violence because having to monitor their platforms for hate speech would cut into their profits. Ngo also needs Murdoch-owned media such as the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News that allow him to masquerade his bigotry as journalism. These outlets, in turn, are amplified by the larger landscape of mainstream media, which often fail to distinguish between fact-based journalism and pro-Trump, white nationalistic propaganda. Add in police who collaborate with the far right and weak political leaders, as in Portland, and you have all the conditions needed for opportunists like Andy Ngo to grab the spotlight.

Ngo is just the latest inflammatory right-wing agent in Portland who’s tried to vault to the big leagues. Before him was Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, who has seen his ranks of violent white nationalists dwindle due to infighting and long-overdue arrests.

Way back in 2016, before Gibson, was another media provocateur, Michael Strickland. Strickland shot his YouTube career — which mainly featured him doxxing and harassing local activists — in the foot after he pulled a gun on a Black Lives Matter protest while being armed with enough ammunition for a massacre.

That’s not to say the Left should ignore the likes of Andy Ngo or even Tucker Carlson. They are both the cause and effect of white nationalism and the violence that comes with it. Their synergy is also a reflection of the complex digital landscape. Legacy media like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and even Fox News need Andy Ngo just as much as he needs them. They gave him a platform not for his shoddy reporting and tired bigotry, but for the audience he’s amassed, even if it’s a digital lynch mob.”

[lisinfleur]

VPR: Have the boys ever heard of ASMR? And if they did what did they think? I have an incredibly hard time falling asleep if its too quiet and ASMR has been like a gift from the gods.

LIS! Ivar yells, looking around, noticing the NSFW content made Lis disappear again That fucking shy girl… LIS!! he yells louder and so Lis comes, totally red, barely looking Hvitserk after the last questions answered, stopping near Ivar. This questioner is talking about something we don’t know yet… Oh c'mon don’t be so shy, we were just talking about sex, ok? Sex. Normal and healthy sex. Now, what is ASMR?

She blushes even more and takes the laptop making a searching for them while they all push and pull their chairs to sit in a way they all can see the stuff.

I gonna have to pass the headphone to each one of you to listen a little because the experience involves those sounds I told you guys that are dimensioned and amplified ok? she explains and so Björn starts, hearing the thing and twisting his face.

He passes the headphone to Ubbe who’s curious and frowns when the video starts, frowning more and more with the sensations it provokes on him.

He passes the headphone to Hvitserk and so they start to talk while Hvitserk is listening.

It is strange, isn’t it? Ubbe asks.

I never thought someone brushing a paint-brush on my ears would be something so good to hear… Björn answers.

Sigurd and Ivar are paying attention to Ubbe and Björn’s conversation and waiting when suddenly a loud snoring can be heard and all of them notice Hvitserk slept with the headphones on his ears, open mouth, starting to droll.

Really??? says Ivar, surprised as Sigurd takes out the headphones from Hvitserk, waking him up.

Oh! Give this thing back. This stuff is fucking good! Hvitserk complains.

Not for the ones without the headphone, brother. Says Ivar about his snoring.

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[hellyeahomeland]

Yevgeny Gromov + leaning | requested by anonymous ↳ “I just like how he's always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great.” 

[hyhpodcast]

"This show is... a beautiful disaster"... is pretty much the theme of much of our conversation (with @ascloseasthis and @pinkys143) about the eighth episode of season seven, "Lies, Amplifiers, Fucking Twitter." From Carrie's decision to walk out the front door; to the downfall of Dante, eerily paralleling both Brody and Quinn; to the wonderful idiocy of David Wellington, Chief Dunce. We cover it all!

(Alternate titles: "11 Carrie Mathisons Out of 13," "Things in Boxes," "Go Bang It Out," "He Puts the Dunn in Done!")

iTunes | Direct Download

[crazywalls]

Homeland, S07E08: Lies, Amplifiers, ****ing Twitter

We’ve featured Homeland many times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) but, finally, here’s a crazy wall that wasn’t made by Carrie! This time it comes from Saul’s secret gloomy lair (images brightened slightly here) and this time the wall features Carrie herself.

I imagine the first draft of this scene, when she discovers the place, went something like:

CARRIE: What is this shit? Fuck! Fuck, Saul! This isn’t crazy! I know crazy! If you need a crazy wall you come to me, understand? This is so... so... small, you know? Simple. Unambitious. Here, let me...

SAUL: Carrie.

CARRIE: Max, hand me that yarn. And that pack of Sharpies. I’ll show you crazy, Saul!

SAUL: Carrie.

CARRIE: [LAUGHS.] I’m just trying to help, Saul! [LOOKS AROUND.] We’ll need those other walls too… And the floor.

SAUL: Carrie.

etc.

[deehollowaywrites]

A serendipitous confluence of events occurred over the past several days when one of my favorite television shows returned with an unexpected side character, the AWP writing conference took over downtown Tampa, and three Kentucky Derby preps ran, including a much-contested San Felipe Stakes.

If these seem disjointed, know that horses are always--shall we say--the glue of my spiritual landscape.

A few friends who also watch the soapy, sneakily feminist Lifetime twist-buffet UnREAL admitted that they didn’t want to spoil my delight at the inclusion of a jockey character, however briefly poor, much-maligned Norman was onscreen (I assume my Twitter reaction delivered). The show, which is a dramatized take on the Bachelor empire of reality TV, attempted to lampshade the ingrained humor of a petite man trying to win the affections of a statuesque woman by having all the characters involved remark on this apparent absurdity. Producers Rachel and Quinn, Everlasting’s star Serena, and Norman all know he’s being played for giggles. A few heated conversations and a drunken bathroom tryst later, Serena cuts Norman from her lineup of possible future husbands. Knowing the show, he might pop up again, but I was sorry to see only one episode devoted to exploring this particular corner of heteronormative masculinity.

“So you’re a jockey jumper, then?” asks the protagonist of Jason Beem’s racetracker novel Southbound. The narrative elaborates, noting that most of the women one might reasonably class as race-rider groupies are “at least five foot seven,” and then moves onto the more pressing topic of whether the woman in question, beautiful and popular paddock host Maria, might shift her interest to the horseplayer protagonist. Despite the novel centering around various racetracks, jockeys rarely show up; there are 44 instances of the word in a 400-page novel. When jockeys do appear, they’re at a distance, on horseback or in the saddling paddock, and seen through a specific, borderline-hostile lens: that of the horseplayer who mistrusts riders. Jockeys are there to be yelled at by spectators, to “stiff” bettors, to do anything other than their jobs, and most saliently, they’re “notoriously horny little creatures” who can be trusted neither to ride their horses honestly nor remain faithful to their partners. Simultaneously sexualized by their in-group and unsexed by external observers, (male) riders are shrouded in layers of marginalization. How is it possible for a rider to be trite joke fodder in one context and erotically imposing in another? In both the universes of UnREAL and Southbound, jockeys fuck women but they’re not meeting the parents--the difference lies in admission, in context required for comprehension.

“I’m an elite athlete!” Norman protests, standing on his five-five dignity, and later, as it seems Serena might be opening up to him, starts a spiel about how his profession is misunderstood. But Serena is intent on hiding their hook-up once she’s sober again, the show’s narrative turning ambiguous as to whether her shame is rooted in poor decision-making, loss of control, or the fact that the guy giving it to her doggy-style was half her height. Meanwhile, Maria the paddock host is casual about dating or sleeping with riders; protagonist Ryan is the one with opinions about it, and so the reader’s attitudes are directed by this point of view. It’s normative but distasteful, where the cast and producers of Everlasting find the idea of a jockey romantic lead neither normative nor tasteful.

Readers of the nonfiction canon of Thoroughbred writing will see reference to a few superstars of the sport edging into popular consciousness as viable romantic heroes. These nearly always fit within a certain profile: white, blond, all-American. Steve Cauthen, Chris Antley, Gary Stevens. Norman of UnREAL is, of course, white. Observers might also note that the current lineup of rock-star jocks is heavily Latino. The sport relies on sexy imagery to sell itself as glamorous and attractive but limits this imagery to female spectators and participants, largely sidelining the appeal of male participants. Barbara Livingston’s infamous beefcake calendar notwithstanding, racing is shot for, marketed to, and discussed almost totally within the realm of the heteronormative male gaze. It’s impossible to untangle the overarching reputation of jockeys from their status within the sport, their concurrent location at its center and its fringes. Physically, according to UnREAL and the accepted romantic tropes it trades on, riders cannot fit the profile of a romantic lead (they might tick the box marked abs with a bullet but they’re--gasp!--short). According to Southbound, reams of five-foot-seven-and-above women are willing to set this deficit aside, and starfucking can’t always account for taste, since low-level Portland Meadows riders get their fair share too.

It’s almost like the height-gap trope beloved of romance enthusiasts only applies to tall men and short women. Who’da thunk?

My favorite panel out of the two days I attended AWP’s writing conference was “Shooters Gotta Shoot: Voice in Sports.” Never have I felt so understood by a bunch of strangers! Author and panelist Katherine Hill noted that football players talk a lot, an offhand comment that kicked the hamster wheel of my brain into high gear. Do jockeys talk? Not where horseplayers can hear them, usually. What they say is filtered through the lens of what the trainer wanted from the race, how the odds stacked up, whether their horse won or lost. Their voices are reduced and fragmented from intersecting angles:

English may be a second language;

The sport of racing itself is a niche one, replete with specific, exclusive vocabulary;

Secretiveness prevails on the backstretch, while the pop-media view of Thoroughbreds relies on tired images of corruption, rigging, and under-the-table deals;

The riders’ place within their sport is layered with uncertainty, from physical danger to the tentative handshake that confirms a mount or takes it away.

If certain trainers had their way, jocks wouldn’t talk at all and no one would request it of them. They would be emotional whipping boys for the losing horse, emotionless mannequins for the winner. Within the shelves of fiction, it’s also rare to hear a jockey speak, likeliest in the crime-novel aisle under Francis. On Harlequin’s website, a search for “football” returns 142 titles, while “baseball” gets 94 options and “hockey” 73. These are the Big Three of sports romance, with basketball, soccer, tennis, NASCAR/F1, and all Olympics-related sports making minor showings as well. Horse racing, when it shows up, falls largely into historical-romance settings--a scandalous duchess at Newmarket, a sheikh’s stable girl--or again in crime and suspense, with horse-theft plots and murdered barn managers. Trainers appear as romantic hero/ines almost to a fault; out of Harlequin’s 9 results for “jockey,” only 2 titles feature an actual Thoroughbred jockey, and both characters are female. While I’m always pleased to read (and write) about female jocks, I don’t find it cynical to assume that these books exist in part because short women are palatable and appealing romantic heroines, while short men are perceived as having Napoleon complexes or little-guy syndromes, and generally being 200 pounds of testosterone in a 115-pound body. So who gets the happily-ever-after? Viking-esque hockey hotshots, American-beefcake ball players, and any hero who falls within an appropriate, narrow conception of heterosexual masculinity. Whose voices are reflected and amplified within the larger field of sports fiction? Whose experiences are projected as normatively male and typically American? Whose bodies are portrayed and received as alluring and desirable, and whose are operating within a historic context of abuse, control, and ownership?

I ground up my nerve to ask a question in that “Voice in Sports” panel, which I rarely manage because I’m a shy doofus. After the panelists’ conversation shifted to the imperial "we” of sports fandom, I asked Hill and poet Jason Koo to discuss how the collective love of fans for their sport can turn toxic--how the boundary is transgressed, at what point possessiveness becomes ownership and how that in turn affects how players are permitted to speak. I was thinking, as I am always thinking, of the relationships between horseplayers, trainers, owners, and jockeys; of that word, owner, and racing’s intertwined history with slavery; of a sport built on the underpaid and sometimes unpaid labor of people of color; of the vitriol casually displayed on the apron, as two days later at Tampa Bay Downs I’d listen to a man next to me yell SHITHEAD! at Julien Leparoux in a post parade. I said that racing is my sport of choice, waited for someone to say that racing isn’t a sport. I said after the panel, thanking Hill and Koo for their remarks, that I write romance--that I have marginalized my own voice in my choice of sport to write about, and my choice of genre to frame that sport, and my choice of mostly queer characters to people that sport’s fictional world.

Nonetheless Javier Castellano has his better story, his voice triumphing over Mike Smith’s. Nonetheless I write on, delighted in the space in which I’ve found myself, continue to find myself.

It’s my job as a romance writer to depict race-rider leads and love interests as exciting, sexy, and appealing. It’s my pleasure as a racing fan to depict jockeys themselves as multifaceted, compelling, and human.