#hate that the only things i've reblogged recently is spike but also.... him

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things Rebel Robin (Book and Podcast) Review (Part 2 of 2)

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from the book and podcast!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews. Like, Reblog, and let me know what your thoughts are regarding the show or the upcoming season! :)

Stranger Things Comics/Graphic Novels:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger Things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Stranger Things Into The Fire

Stranger Things Science Camp

Stranger Things “The Game Master” and “Erica’s Quest”

Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons

Stranger Things Kamchatka

Stranger Things Erica The Great

Stranger Things “Creature Feature” and “Summer Special”

Stranger Things Tie-In Books:

Stranger Things Suspicious Minds

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 3 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 3 of 3)

NOTE: If you would like to listen to "Surviving Hawkins," the companion podcast to Rebel Robin, you can find all 6 episodes here.

Part 3: Dash Montague (and people like him)

I wanted to do a separate post talking specifically about Dash's character. It's not just about how Dash relates to Robin's story, but how he's representative of certain types of people I've seen for a while now: Those who claim to fight against social injustices and for people who face discrimination, only for these so-called advocates to reveal themselves to be just as hateful, cruel, condescending, self-serving, contemptuous, and hypocritical as those they criticize. It's a trend that's been around for a while, but started spiking again in recent months due to a number of different factors and world events, and it's caused me (and other mutuals I know) to become deeply distrustful of others currently.

As I noted earlier, Dash is the kind of person who frames himself as a geek/nerd who's unfairly an outcast and deserves better because of how "intelligent" he is. In reality, he is a small-minded prick, and a contender alongside Billy and Angela for one of the most unpleasant and loathsome characters in the series. On the surface, Dash presents himself as a friend to Robin and other members of the Odd Squad (the nickname for Robin's friends). He eventually shows his true colors when cheats on Kate (his girlfriend at the time) and tries to force a kiss on Robin without her consent. When Robin expresses her disgust, this is how Dash responds:

And we later find out that this wasn't a one time thing or a lapse of judgment on his part: He is a serial cheater who had multiple flings with other girls when he was supposed to be dating Kate.

Now, sleazy womanizing creeps are nothing new. Nor is the concept of entitled "Nice Guys" who pretend to be decent people on the surface before showing a nastier side to themselves when they don't get what they want. Dash isn't unique in those departments, and most of us probably know at least one person out there who behaves like this. It's gross, but that isn't what got under my skin.

What made Dash truly revolting to me, aside from how callously he throws away friendships like used condoms, are these observations Robin makes about Dash after he reveals himself to be a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:

People minimizing evil in their own minds.

Inverting the Social Pyramid.

Pretending to want to change things when it's really about coming out on top and looking like the underdog while doing it.

Using intelligence as a means to justify putting others down.

Becoming obsessed with fighting monsters without realizing (or caring) that you've also become one.

Like I said, I have constantly seen these aspects from people who champion themselves on social media as an ally to the oppressed, who love to virtue-signal for everyone to see as if to say "Look at what a great person I am!", who claim to be against cruelty and unfairness, who position themselves as being empathetic and understanding.........and yet constantly reveal their hypocrisy and demonstrate they are the kind of people I want nothing to do with.

I am no stranger to being on the receiving end of belittlement and condescension from these kinds of people. Last year, I had an extremely unpleasant encounter with a Hughie Campbell Stan from The Boys fandom because I said something about the character they didn't like, and they got condescending about it. I proceeded to block them, only for them to use another account to send me a nasty reply accusing me of being "triggered" along with a snide suggestion to leave social media. All of this was followed by a separate post from them where they tried to make it sound like I was unreasonable for blocking them for their behavior and called me "weak." In other words, someone didn't like what I had to say, belittled me about it, got mad when I blocked them over their attitude, used another account to continue harassing me, and then called me weak for not putting up with their bullying. This was over a fictional character from a TV show no less. 🙄 And it was also from a user who not only claims to be against people who use that kind of Trump-like language (i.e. calling people "triggered" and "weak"), but also posts disingenuous messages about caring for other people's self-esteem. She sure as hell didn't care about being unkind to me as long as she could get away with it.

Sadly, she isn't the only person on the Left who acts like this.

There is this idea from people that if you have certain attributes, like serving in the military, or being a part of the Democratic party, or supporting left leaning causes, or NOT voting for people like Trump, or even if you are a part of a minority that faces discrimination for who you are (i.e. being a POC, or LGBT+, or a woman, or a nerd, or whatever is supposed to make you an "outcast" by today's standards), it somehow means you're automatically a good person and your actions are above criticism. I've seen this mentality REPEATEDLY used by people like this to justify being cruel and unkind to others, or saying the type of heinous rhetoric I expect from the Alt-Right as opposed to someone who claims to denounce that kind of behavior (like the Hughie Campbell stan who called me triggered and weak because I wouldn't put up with her patronizing behavior).

At the beginning of this year, there was a Tumblr post that came out which got a lot of traction and controversy.

Now for me, this post was a pretty straight-foward message from the OP about not treating 12 year old boys like they're inherently monstrous before they've actually done anything, and then later acting surprised when people from the Alt-Right swoop in and begin to groom them with their hateful ideologies because the Left demonized them first. Unfortunately, while some people took that message to heart, others..........did not. A post that could be summed up as "Be kind and empathetic" got twisted by other users with their own personal agendas into "YOU'RE PROMOTING MISOGYNY, RACISM, FACISM........" These people not only became the very strawmen the OP was calling out, but also validated the OP's point about the Left's obsession with identity politics, being intelligent over being kind, and demonizing boys:

I find the last two comments ironic considering this is the EXACT mentality Dash has in Rebel Robin: He believes he's smarter than "the popular kids," and uses intelligence (and his insistence that he's an underdog in the social pyramid) to justify his nasty, contemptuous behavior, and then pass it off as him being "morally correct."

Also, speaking as a gay man and someone who's been on the receiving end of bullying and abuse, I'm not impressed with the attempts by these people to justify their thinly-veiled hatred, most of which can be summed up as "I was abused, so it's okay for me to be abusive to others." Disgusted isn't even a good word to express my feelings about this. I don't give a damn who you are, what experiences you've had, what your political affiliations is, or what minority you belong to: If you're going out of your way to be vicious to others and then try to justify it like it's okay, you're a terrible person, and no amount of "intelligence" on your part changes that.

I knew someone like this named Daze_Confuse, a Redditor who was on the site for 10 years before his account got permanently suspended this year. He is someone who identified himself as gay (like me), was against Donald Trump and the Republicans, claimed to speak on behalf of the LGBT+ community and other minorities, and served in a branch of the military.

He is also one of the most vile people I had the unfortunate displeasure of encountering.

This is the kind of person who put other people down out of a sense of moral superiority. This is a person who was repeatedly condescending, contemptuous of people he disagreed with, smug, coasting on self-righteousness, petty, deeply insecure, and cruel to others when he could get away with it. This is the kind of person who made comments designed to shrink others, and then would later try to pass off his comments as "jokes" when he was called out on them by the moderators (which happened frequently). This is the kind of person who, in order to "win" an argument, would go through a person's entire Reddit history and cherry-pick certain comments or posts and take them out-of-context so he could metaphorically beat them into the ground and feel justified in doing so.

This is the kind of person who railed against "toxic masculinity," but never once looked at his own behavior even though it had elements of that.

This is the kind of person who pretended to be against "Nice Guyism" and yet defended people who behaved like that (both fictional characters and real people).

This is the kind of person who acted like he was against bullying (similar to the homophobic troll I dealt with years ago) and yet was one of the most vicious bullies you could run across.

This is the type of person who intentionally went out of his way to provoke fights with people and make others feel bad for having opinions he didn't like or agree with. He did this over fictional characters and TV shows, and he did this with his real life political and social opinions.

I remember coming across him. I wish I hadn't. He made things personal with me in a way I will never forget, or forgive.

He is the embodiment of Dash from the books (with a little bit of Billy Hargrove and Angela sprinkled in there). He was the kind of person who would use intelligence to justify his awful behavior because he constantly believed he was in the right. He is the kind of person who positioned himself as an underdog in society (much like Dash), but was more interested in "inverting the social pyramid" (as Robin would put it). If you saw how many times this guy projected his issues onto others, or went out of his way to paint himself as the smartest person on the site, or expressed jealousy at men who (as he put it) "got pussy" or were conventionally attractive, you'd be able to peg pretty quickly that, for all of his posturing and virtue-signaling and claims about how he was against injustices, he was a worm who only cared about social issues when it was convenient for him.

I won't claim to know the circumstances behind what happened to him, but given that Reddit is a site where incels like this still have their accounts up despite the bile they spew, whatever u/Daze_Confuse did to get permanently suspended must have been egregious enough that the Sitewide Administration wasn't willing to ignore it. Considering how he acted, I'm not surprised. It's gotta sting to lose access to 10 years of posts and comments though.

And if it sounds like I'm being judgmental of him, just know he behaved much worse with multiple people besides me. You reap what you sow: He chose to be a smug asshole, and paid the price for it. The world is better off without him.

My overall point is I'm tired of these types of people. I'm tired of people like Dash who frame themselves as outcasts who are better than the popular crowd, and then reveal themselves to be just as heinous as the people they criticize. I'm tired of seeing people on the Left, who claim to be against injustices and bigotry, engage in the same level of hatred they condemn the Alt-Right for. I'm tired of people who claim to fight for my rights, but would gleefully turn on me in a heartbeat and throw me to the wolves the moment I said or did something that constituted "stepping out of line" in their eyes. I'm tired of people who talk a big game about caring for other people's self-esteem, but will bully others when it's convenient for them (looking at the Hughie Campbell Stan who is still active on this hellsite). I'm tired of seeing people who put on a big show of advocating for social causes, and then use their political ideologies and philosophies to justify being cruel and contemptuous to others. I'm tired of seeing people act like bigots and then trying to pretend they aren't doing that.

I'm not going to claim I'm a paragon of virtue when it comes to doing things right. I've had my moments of being unkind. I've said things before that I look back on with regret and wish I hadn't said. I've acted in ways I'm not proud of. I am not even going to say I'm the most intelligent person on this site. For all of my flaws though, I am consciously making an effort to be better than I was before.

The roughest thing I've seen so far as I've gotten older, aside from people looking for any excuse to be nasty to others because reasons, is how we as a culture have started defining others in extremes, or love digging up other people's history and then flinging it at them as if to say "This is who you are," like there's no way to change it and you will forever be defined by it.

This post put it best: We are so obsessed these days with "gold-star activism" and "purity culture" and looking like the smartest person in the room that a lot of us have abandoned empathy and compassion and refuse to acknowledge when other people grow and attempt to become a better person. There's a difference between someone who continues to behave badly (which is why I am calling out people like u/Daze_Confuse, the Hughie Campbell stan, the homophobic Reddit troll who is unfortunately still active and engaging in the same behavior from years ago, and the users who responded to the post I linked to earlier who justify being vicious to 12 year old boys) vs someone who recognizes that their behavior was bad and makes an effort to grow from it.

In one of the many conversations I've had with my friend @stillhidden, she told me something I haven't ever forgotten: Truly stupid people are the ones who think they're right about everything. They are people who are so calcified in their beliefs that they refuse to change them or consider the idea that they could be in the wrong, even if there's overwhelming evidence to show their thinking is flawed. They lack the self-awareness to realize how awful their behavior is, which leads them to falling down the pipeline of smug superiority, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy.

I see this as the biggest difference between Dash Montague and Steve Harrington: For all of his flaws, or even how he started out at the beginning of the show, Steve isn't stupid like he gets treated by some fans. He's someone who's willing to grow, own up to his actions, and learn from his mistakes. He's someone who's willing to change his thinking and perspective on things, and be the kind of ally and friend that other characters need. It's why I find it annoying whenever Steve-Antis come out of their caves to continue bringing up the same tiresome arguments about Steve's behavior in season 1 to say "THIS IS WHO HE REALLY IS" while ignoring any character development he had later on.

Dash, for all of his talk about being intelligent, is one of the dumbest characters in the series. It takes a special kind of stupidity to throw a friendship with one person (Robin) and a relationship with your girlfriend (Kate) into the trash because you think you know better, and act like your so-called intelligence gives you carte blanche to act however you want to.

If Dash continues behaving like this into adulthood, it's gonna be a rough ride for him, and there's a very real chance he will end up friendless, alone, and bitter. I know plenty of people out there on social media (Reddit, Twitter/X, Tumblr, TikTok, etc) who are still trudging through life with Dash's self-serving mentality, and I can 100% say from what I've seen that it's going poorly for them. They brought it on themselves.

#stranger things #stranger things rebel robin #robin buckley #dash montague #angela stranger things #steve harrington #tgh opinions #tgh reviews #homophobia #bullying #purity culture #lgbt+ books #lgbt+ media #nice guyism #u/Daze_Confuse