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generalelectionmusings · 4 years

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“A long thread about my personal experiences during this election dealing with my Labour voting family deciding to out themselves as casual racists by voting Tory / Brexit Party in traditional Labour "Red Wall" heartlands

I come from a genuine working class family .

Grandparents were miners and domestic cleaning staff

Dad was butcher , mum was a cleaner and when she remarried after their divorce she married a miner .

I grew up in a two up two down terrace house that my parents rented from the local Co-op society and then moved into a council house in Kendray (Barnsley) when my mum remarried .

One grandad was a NUM union rep ( at Woolley Colliery alongside Scargill )

Other grandad was a NUPE union rep .

Mum and her sister were both UNISON union reps .

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that we were a proper Labour supporting family , cut us in half and we would have Labour running through us like a stick of Blackpool rock .

And yet in this election I was the only one still voting Labour, in traditional "Red Wall" Lab areas.

I'm in Sheffield but my family is split across the Barnsley area, some in Dan Jarvis' constituency, some in Steph Peacocks and some in the Penistone area that's just turned Tory.

How the hell did this happen ?

Why did my mum and step-dad and my Dad and step-mum all vote Brexit Party ?

Why did my brother and his wife and my aunt and uncle both vote Tory ?

They're not stupid people , my step-mum is a nurse and educated to degree level , my brother an accountant and educated to degree level and my sister-in-law a teacher educated to degree level .

We all lived through Thatchers annihilation of our communities when she went after the unions and destroyed Barnsley after and during the Miners strike .

My step-dad lost his job when Woolley Colliery was closed and never worked again .

So how the hell did they all come to abandon Labour and vote for parties whose policies are the complete antithesis of their own needs and aspirations ??

To answer that you've got to look further back than just this last few weeks or months or the last couple of years .

You've got to look a lot further back .

Before the Miners strike everyone I knew lived and worked in Barnsley , my grandparents jobs were in Barnsley , my parents jobs were in Barnsley , my aunt's and uncle's all worked in Barnsley as it seemed did all my friends families.

The aftermath of the strike changed that .

Most people were employed at the Pits or in industry connected to the Pits or in the service industries like retail , pubs etc where the Miners spent their wages.

When those wages went then so did the local economy.

New Labour in 1997 gave people hope of a change but all they brought to the area were low paid minimum wage jobs to replace high paid skilled industrial jobs .

People thought that New Labour when they got in would regenerate and revitalize these traditional working class Lab heartlands.

They didn't.

Yes we got a far better funded NHS and Sure Start etc.

But areas like Barnsley just got left behind , their Labour votes taken for granted.

Life had changed .

Only my mum still worked in Barnsley .

I moved to Sheffield because of work . My dad ended up in Stoke were he met my step-mum before they returned to Barnsley .

My brother , his wife and most other family members worked in other nearby towns and cities , even though they still lived in Barnsley .

Some like my Step-dad and aunt and uncle relied on the benefits system to see them through to retirement age .

Then along came the banking crisis , followed by the high street crisis that saw the likes of Woolworths bite the dust .

Quickly followed by a Tory & Lib Dem government pushing their disastrous Austerity policies.

Areas like Barnsley took another hammering .

Jobs lost in the local economy which had never recovered from Thatcher thanks to New Labours indifference.

Cuts to essential council services and cuts to the NHS locally meaning longer waiting lists and crowded doctors waiting rooms .

And in amongst all this comes Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson .

The poisonous bastards gave everyone in areas like Barnsley exactly what the needed , exactly what they wanted .......

Someone to blame.

Immigrants .

Immigrants let into this country by the EU.

Immigrants taking our jobs .

Immigrants using our NHS

Immigrants taking our council houses

Immigrants filling up our doctors waiting rooms

You see it couldn't just be the Tory's fault that things were rough because it hadn't gotten any better whilst Labour was in power.

So it has to be someone else's fault .

So Farage and Johnson must be correct when they blame immigrants and tells us all politicians are the same

Both narratives that have been pushed relentlessly by Farage , Vote Leave and Johnson

Farage and Johnson must be correct if the news on the telly says the same thing and asks them to come on all the time to talk about it .

Farage and Johnson must be correct if the newspapers all print the same stories blaming immigrants for taking our jobs and our houses and clogging up our NHS .

And Farage and Johnson must be correct if everyone on Facebook is posting the same Memes especially if greasy Brenda from the local chippy is posting it cos she obviously knows here stuff !!!!

Under Thatcher we knew who to blame , the Tory's.

But under Blair who did you blame for life getting no better because of New Labours indifference ??

The politicians , both sides because they are all the same , none of them give a stuff about us .

Under austerity who do we blame ?

Not the Tory's cos they've told us that we are all in this together and there is no other way , we have to all make sacrifices .

So we blame the immigrants , the ones that the EU are forcing us to take .

And by default because we tend to class anyone who's different to us as a potential immigrant then we blame any and all ethnic minorities

All of this whipped up to a frenzy since 2016 by the likes of Farage , Vote Leave , Tommy Robinson , Katie Hopkins , Hartley-Brewer , Rod Liddle and Boris Johnson and his Tory cohorts.

Aided and abetted by the usual cast of idiots at the BBC , ITV and Sky .

Sadly I watched this unfold with my own family over the last 3-4 years and didn't do anything like enough to try and counter it

I ignored the initial flurry of anti EU comments and social media posts partly because I was voting leave too, albeit for completely different reasons

I spent far too long just telling them to stop spouting racist bollocks when they moaned about immigrants instead of actually sitting down and explaining why the stuff they were reading , watching and sharing was wrong and factually false .

I ignored the anti Corbyn comments because I just assumed that when it came around to election time they would just hold their noses and vote Labour as we had all done for years before regardless of the leaders popularity , just as they all had in 2017

I finally realised I hadn't done enough when the election campaign kicked in .

I only work part time now and that's from home so I'd decided to get fully involved in the campaign both on the ground locally and on social media .

Boy did I get the shock of my life when I started posting stuff about Labours plans and manifesto on Facebook .

I got absolutely frigging mullered ...........

by my own family members and friends.

My posts were full of comments from them with arguments and rhetoric that had been drummed into them by Farage and Johnson over the last few years .

My timeline was full of anti Labour Memes .

It got that bad that I ended up deleting my Facebook account .

Most of the family aren't speaking to me and Boxing day this year when we traditionally all meet up at my mum's is going to be an absolute nightmare .

Then you realise it's not just yourself and your own family thats experiencing this .

You speak to a friend in Rotherham and find they've had the exact same experiences.

You get a call from your oldest son in the armed forces to tell you that he's up on a charge after getting into a scuffle with some of his colleagues after being called a muslim loving terrorist supporting traitor just for sharing some Labour stuff on social media

Living in Sheffield possibly led to me being a little insulated from Labours problems .

It's a multi cultural city and apart from the usual quota of nobheads and Tommy Robinson types we all live side by side with few serious problems.

Brexit didn't seem to be as big an issue inside the city as it did in the out-laying towns .

But in fairness things never got as desperate or demoralizing in the cities as they did in the town's and old industrial area's

We weren't looking quite as hard for someone to blame

Corbyn had a definite image problem on the doorsteps .

He had a massive target on his back and there's no denying that the media were able to hit it's bullseye with alarming regularity

But this hadn't been insurmountable during the 2017 election even in areas like Barnsley and Rotherham.

And I genuinely believe that had Jeremy Corbyn been just as intolerant towards immigrants and ethnic minorities as the Tory's were we would have had a very different result.

After all the country happily elected an absolute racist bigot instead of Corbyn

That's an absolutely disgraceful situation to find ourselves in especially when you also come to the realisation that members of your own family voted this way .

How do Labour get voters like my family back ???

More to the point do we actually want them back ???

I'm not sure I want to be related to my own family members at the moment because of their willingness to blame immigration and ethnic minorities for all our ills .

And yes we may have had the policies that would have addressed the problems that led to them voting for the Tory's / Brexit Party but you can't enact those policies if you don't get into government in the first place .

Would a different leader have made a difference to these voters ??

Yes to some of them .

Would a different Brexit policy have made a difference .

Definitely , to most of them

Did they vote this way because they're racist ???

Who genuinely can say ???

I hope that for the ones related to myself that it isn't a deep seated racism , rather just a reaction to a constant and unrelenting malign influence of the mainstream media , targeted Facebook memes and snake oil salesmen like Farage , Johnson and Cummings .

But I guess we won't know that until 2024 when we go to the polls once more , with a different leader , with Brexit no longer an issue and with the realisation that even outside of the EU nothing has changed in Barnsley and similar towns under this bastard of a Tory government”

Link below:

#thread #voting labour #blaming immigrants #nigel farage #boris johnson #racism #xenophobia

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literaphobe · 5 years

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hi michelle! so want to start saying that i identify as bi and honestly, I would LOVE it if jake was bi. I think it'd be great. But i'm also okay if he's not, bc how cool is it that they're allowing a man to break down traditional gender norms/roles! i think one of the greatest parts of loving a show like b99 is that it lets us escape the 'real world' for twenty minutes every week. and that means something different for every person watching the show. 1

SO while i believe you are entitled to your own opinions, and you can share them on your blog bc it's yours, i don't think its fair to invite people to share their opinions but shut down anyone who feels differently than you. for example, you said to someone who said they didn't care if jake was bi that you hope they 'get well soon'. also, you posted saying that if bi people didnt want jake to be bi then they're wrong. im sorry but thats really hurtful. you dont get to decide how people think 2

just bc someone feels differently than you doesnt make their feelings less valid, ESPECIALLY someone who identifies as lgbt+. you run a popular blog and it makes me sad to think people might feel their opinions are less valid or wrong bc they see it here. again, im not saying you cant have opinions or post them. but maybe just think about how your words can affect others. also saying this off anon bc i respect you and am open to having a conversation. Thanks for reading, hope u have a good day

hi. thank you for ur mannerly tone and for having the courage to go off-anon.

mlm/bi representation will always be more important than ‘straight man comfortable with his sexuality’. while i am not saying that straight men in media shouldn’t be portrayed as comfortable in their sexualities, the stance that it’s okay to take away representation from people in the lgbt community as long as we have Good Hets is harmful, and it gives people in the tv/movie industries a cop out. they don’t have to give us more lgbt characters! straight characters who Know What’s Up are good enough to make them seem woke and avoid criticism! and whether you’re comfortable with this happening as an lgbt has nothing to do with it. we have to hold the media accountable, we can’t just settle for less. whether you want to watch b99 uncritically or not is entirely up to you. i get that it’s exhausting to analyze the media content you consume! i more than understand just wanting to escape and not ask for more! it’s tiring! it’s draining! it’s disappointing, it hurts so much and it gets so so lonely. but we can’t just let the world stagnate. progress needs to be made constantly, and shows can’t be made to feel like they can just do one or two good things and not be expected to do anything else! i’m not asking you to fight for this, i just want the acknowledgement that this is the right thing to do

i didn’t exactly... invite anyone to say anything. i truly am just sending my thoughts out into the void. and yes, i am aware that my words reach a wider audience because i have a larger than average follower count. of course i know my words can affect others. that’s what i’m trying to do. aside from getting thoughts out my brain, i want to promote a less passive line of thinking. i want lgbt folk to want better for themselves. unfortunately, because words and actions have responses, people will climb into my inbox and start conversations that i inevitably have to take part in (sometimes i don’t though. it really depends on where my head’s at that day. having to discuss this repeatedly is draining). most of the time, i’m just making a statement

i don’t particularly enjoy “shutting down people who feel differently from me”. usually, if i’ve done that, i really am tired because i’ve likely discussed and explained numerous times whatever it is the person who got shut down said to me. i might also come off as mean-spirited or perhaps aggressive if i know some anon is just trying to pick a fight/spew hate at me. if you don’t understand where i’m coming from/don’t believe why having an opposing stance is harmful (this might vary depending on the issue), i am (given i have energy that day) more than willing to elaborate on whatever it is i say here. if i say stuff like ‘get well soon!’ it is a tired response to something i have already covered in depth and i am making some semblance of a joke to deflect/put a lid on the stuff i really want to say (likely because i have already said it)

i never said that bi people who didn’t want jake to be bi were wrong. i was trying to get them to think deeper and explore why they don’t want that. being lgbt sometimes means that we allow and normalize a lot of unfair treatment. we think that we have it good enough so we decide not to ask for more, to settle. and i will never blame any lgbt for falling victim to this line of thought. we were brought up to think this way, we were conditioned to think this way. acceptance does not equal inclusion, and sadly many of us are so grateful for the acceptance that we do not bother to even think about having inclusion. or, better inclusion, for that matter. of course, it is definitely not up to me to decide how anyone thinks. i’m just trying to convince you! very desperately. but if you don’t agree no matter what i say then what can i do? it’s your life. it doesn’t affect me much in the grand scheme of things. i’m not going to hate you for disagreeing. i’m not going to sic the dogs on you. am i going to be kind of annoyed if someone walks into my inbox, turns on anon, and hurls insults at me? yes, that’s hurtful, and it’s kind of funny sometimes depending on how dumb you sound, but it’s mostly tiring and a lot of pain. so like... read, if u don’t like it, move on, if your well-being is drastically affected from reading the things i say, i’ll tag it so you can blacklist

the sad thing is, being a member of the lgbt community doesn’t automatically make your opinions on lgbt issues valid/unproblematic. internalized homophobia exists. things i described in the point above can lead to this. just because a bi person says ‘im bi! and i don’t care/don’t think bi jake is important!’ doesn’t mean that suddenly, there is no need for him to be canonically bi, that we aren’t being queerbaited/pandered to by the show. do i think that the show is intentionally/heinously queerbaiting us? not exactly. but lack of awareness and lacking understanding on why bi-coding jake w no intention to make it canon is just as harmful bc it produces the same result (in jake’s case)

once again, i don’t intend for people to feel “less valid/wrong” when they read what i have to say on this blog. self-reflection is important. sometimes, people have opinions that are wrong! including myself! which is why more often than not i think deeply into the things people say to me here and consider whether my opinion holds up. you don’t have to feel bad for being wrong. we are all constantly wrong on stuff. everyone, at some point, has had a bad take/the wrong take on something. if you hold yourself up to this standard that you must always be right or you are suddenly a horrible person/must feel bad and demoralized, i suggest that you change your approach to issues such as this. i hate to say this but it is not my job to make sure everyone is 100% cool and chill about everything i do and say here. some things need to be said. some things need to be acknowledged. i’m sorry if any of you have been hurt/upset by anything i’ve ever posted but after a certain point... that is your issue and not mine

#ask #ncrit #sorry for the long post #thank you once again for being respectful #i hope this wasn't too harsh #i hope you have a nice day too :)#arnie-santiago

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chickadee-sun · 6 years

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IRA Propaganda tactics that worked on me

(Note that many posts used multiple tactics, so I'll link to them multiple times.)

Stealing real content from real activists on social media

Most often this is done by screenshotting tweets, Facebook posts, etc. Or at least, those are the easiest for me to notice. Some of these posts don't directly further the IRA's objectives. They just make the pysop blogger look more like a real person and increase their popularity and influence. Other times they add snide little comments to help alienate and demoralize their readers. Stuff along the lines of "nobody is talking about this," or "nobody cares about this," designed to make people despair and give up on improving their country.

Now, screenshotting instead of linking should be a red flag. A link would make it easier to interact with the actual activist, not the person screenshotting their words. But tumblr's coding suppresses offsite links, making screenshotting seem like a completely normal and reasonable way to reference other platforms. The snide comments often fly under the radar because that attitude is sadly common among genuine users as well.

Of course I already knew that grabbing people's tweets and posts is a lazy and effective way to "write" a clickbait article without effort or creating content. Apparently it's also a lazy and effective way to supress the progressive vote and increase division.

I am pleased to note that I grew more fed up with the nihilist comments and less likely to reblog them over time. In another recent post (which as far as I know doesn't come from the IRA) I pushed back slightly against "why isn't this in the news?" So I think I've been on the right track even before this new information. https://chickadee-sun.tumblr.com/post/171839411085/thatpettyblackgirl-urgent-if-you-are-in

This appears to be what I interacted with the most. Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic: post/146412193105/musingsofaraven-valerie-volatile post/146757386220/verolynne-open-plan-infinity-swagintherain post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152473414650/bellygangstaboo-this-is-happening-in-america post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153147035545/thetrippytrip-i-wish-the-world-would post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/153483724025/dorowot-gogomrbrown-thread-my-moms post/153538772200/bellaxiao-2-years-ago-today-on-november-22 post/153734325290/an-gremlin-the-real-eye-to-see-and-media-is post/153736403455/mousathe14-raptorific-fromchaostocosmos post/154092886970/17mul-nevaehtyler-so-um-let-me-get-it post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155697023025/nevaehtyler-this-is-important post/155719509740/fenrisesque-shepherdmoon-foxnewsfuckfest post/156425339773/snailchimera-ephitania-dukeofellington post/157571042371/gogomrbrown-exactly-what-the-whole-terrorism post/157590672069/go1ds-heartless-tony-blog-lagonegirl post/157983742239/roachpatrol-blackness-by-your-side-my-utopia post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege post/163641274771/blackness-by-your-side-people-need-knowledge-not post/164382771945/lazyscience-nevaehtyler-whats-next-take-away post/168358486495/aokayinspace-witwicky-down-to-venus-when

What I plan to do better: I'm just not going to engage with this sort of stolen content. If someone wants to screenshot *their own* twitter thread, that's fine, but if you just copy and paste someone else's content I'm not interested. Screenshots are inaccessible for people who use screenreaders anyway. This isn't foolproof, as nothing stops a propaganda blog from copypasting and pretending text is their own content, but it's a start. I also plan to push back harder against the "no one is talking about this" "nobody cares" narrative. Even when it's not from psyops on purpose it's still really harmful and counterproductive to activism. (Not foolproof; see "positivity and celebrating accomplishments" below.)

Fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda

A while ago there was a meme going around angry about how often the media allows the right wing to define terms and eumphemises the shit they pull. OK, but it claimed that "white nationalism" was a euphemism for "white supremacy," which is isn't. White nationalism is a specific type of white supremacy and the specificity matters. Likewise it claimed that "fake news" was a euphemism for propaganda. Nope. Fake news is stuff that's made up and factually untrue. Propaganda isn't defined as being untrue; it's defined by being heavily slanted and trying to prompt people into a particular course of action. Advertisements are propaganda even if they never say anything factually untrue about the product.

It's not that I'm completely gullible or without skepticism. But my skepticism and fact-checking were badly, badly miscalibrated to protect me from psyops. I was only looking for false statements from people who were misinformed or lying. I was checking to see if a reliable source backed up their basic fact claims. So when a post appeared to pass this test, I let down my guard. I was completely oblivious to the possibility of people deliberately using a pattern of basically true information presented in a misleading or inflammatory way to sway the public. And like many social media users, I had a tendency to merely skim the referenced article and not pay close attention to how closely it backed up the specific claims in the post.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic (reliability isn't binary; some are more reliable than others): links to Mother Jones links to Democracy Now and Al Jazeera links to CBS links to the Huffington Post, though the linked article appears to be about Standing Rock in general and doesn't mention Maori activists screenshots Boing Boing, links to The Guardian screenshots CNN, The New York Times, and Amnesty USA links to The Daily Beast gifset of Trevor Noah on The Daily Show screenshots The New York Times, gifset from Fusion TV screenshots Democracy Now and a scanned-in print article screenshots Al Jazeera OK, this one I'm very ashamed of reblogging, since it actually does fall into the fake news category. It embeds a video from the Youtube account 1 Soul Global, which describes itself as "an acronym for “One Source Of Universal Love.” We are a Spiritual Nexus for Global Transformation." I don't like watching videos in posts, but if I'd watched this one I would've figured out it's bullshit. It links to a, I don't know, blog? I've never heard of called Women In the World but it does some trick with the url so that when you hover over it it appears to include "nytimes.com". Oh my god, did I just hover over the link without checking it??? I guess I was too impressed the post having slightly more caution than I'm used to seeing in pseudoscientific woo??? Most of these I can see how I fell for them but this one I don't have a fucking clue. Am I really this stupid? screenshots The Atlantic Screenshots The Daily Mail--not that The Daily Mail is a reliable source for anything other that "what The Daily Mail is claiming," but that's what the post is about so good enough. Or was it? I took this post as "The Daily Fail is a trash rag, let's make fun of it," but the troll blog never really said that they were singling out one evil tabloid for ridicule. Were other people in the thread interpreting this as "news media in general is untrustworthy and unreliable"? That's actually a pretty subtle double meaning for a foreigner to pull off. I'm kind of impressed. gifset of Laverne Cox on CBS, links to Media Matters (Oh my god, Media Matters was created specifically to be a watchdog checking on media misinformation. And it was linked to by the IRA. Nothing is real anymore.) screenshots Quartz, links to The Guardian and MIT's Technology Review, as well as to some local sources I don't know the reliability of screenshots Mother Jones, links to the National Organization of Women

What I plan to do better: if someone claims an article backs up their claims, I will make sure to read the entire thing to confirm that it actually does, and does not just make sort-of related statements. If I don't have time or energy to do this, I won't reblog the post. But for the larger issue? True things arranged in misleading or manipulative patterns? I'm not sure what to do about that, though I suppose just being aware of the tactic might help a little. Suggestions?

Value added later in the reblog chain by non-IRA users

Because of how tumblr works, when I interact with a thread I'm not just interacting with the OP, but with everyone who has added to the reblog chain. Sometimes those are what attracted me to the post, rather than the psyop's post. This is one reason getting popular was so important to them! It allowed their posts to become part of the natural ecosystem of tumblr. I'm not sure how much this counts as a "tactic" because it's mostly passive, but it's significant.

This category overlaps a lot with "fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda" because often what the reblog chain added was sources with more information.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

Added a link to a Mother Jones article better explaining the issue.

Added more information and links to news sources.

Added news stories and a more positive slant. Note the IRA posters pushed their nihilist view of "why aren't we talking about this" while other users shifted the conversation a little to how the guy deserves a financial reward and how 70 lives were saved.

Added a link to a Guardian article referenced by the screenshotted boingboing article and a list of cities from said article.

Added a lot of cool true information about the history of the comics industry. Added something readers can do, a gofundme page. This would seem to run counter to the attitude of helplessness the IRA was trying to encourage. And yes, the gofundme did meet its goal. Added several paragraphs of details from the screenshotted article, including Theresa Kachindamoto's name which allowed me to easily look up the article. Added more information about Evan McMullin. Added more information about Asia Ramazan Antar, and shifted the focus a little (not fully) from how trash the Daily Fail is to how awesome Antar was. Added a lot of debunking of the psyop's anti-science attitude and a lot of information about how science works and how important it is. This one I'm proud of reblogging. Added a lot more information about Cameroon and sources. Added more information about voter suppression and link to the National Organization of Women. Added more information about comic history.

What I plan to do better: I'm... not sure I did wrong here. If I refused to reblog anything without thoroughly vetting the OP, that would be pretty bad purity shit. Some people are feeling vindicated because the threads they reblogged contain pushback against the IRA's narratives, or because they themselves added the pushback. Not so for me; only one example pushed back with any force. But several of the chains did shift the tone or focus of the conversation a little. I guess be less timid about pushing back when someone's tone or emphasis is off? Suggestions?

Positivity and celebrating accomplishments

Remember how I said above that rejecting a nihilist hopeless slant wasn't foolproof? I got exhausted with that attitude, though I didn't connect it to deliberate psyops, and instead tried to signal boost stuff that was positive and/or included a way to help. And yet.

I think some of these were just the innocuous posts used to gain popularity and influence. You can see a some "nobody is talking about this" narrative in a few of them, but not the majority.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152657046470/gogomrbrown-maori-activists-in-new-zealand post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/154007254270/broadlybrazen-badscienceshenanigans post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154505677960/himteckerjam-bitterbitchclubpresident post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155547170460/jkl-fff-lagonegirl-green-who-lost-her post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege

What I plan to do better: I don't know? I think boosting positivity is a good habit, even if it's exploitable? Shut down the "no one is talking about this" narrative I guess. Suggestions?

Jokes and memes

There's a reason so many "ironic" bigots hide behind, "calm down, it's just a joke!" People often let their guard down when something has a humorous lighthearted tone. This also serves to disguise English as a second language skills, as people often use deliberately bad grammar to emphasize a joke.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic. Gonna explain some of these in more depth:

Non-IRA people are joking about the news media's habit of allowing the right to define terms and bending over backwards to be sympathetic to bigots while scrutinizing progressives. I didn't really notice that the-real-eye-to-see went beyond that and said "And Media is Nazi too". Journalism is an important foundation of a democratic society and there's a difference between critisizing it and dismissing it. Trevor Noah's humor is being used to promote blackness-by-your-side's insinuation about deaf ears. Stealing some viral humor that snarks about bigotry. I think this was one of the posts that's just to grow the troll's popularity, as I can't find anything harmful in it. Combines positivity with sarcastic humor, a twofer. The target of the sarcasm is how rare white people using their privilege to educate is. Not really false, but kind of a demoralizing thing to emphasize in a post that could and should have been just about congratulating the white student. People dragging ICE for being evil. The psyop didn't actually add anything bad, so I guess this was more about looking natural and getting popular.

What I plan to do better: Remember that hiding toxic messages in humor isn't exclusive to the libertarian right. Allow myself to be that humorless killjoy who scrutinizes jokes for harmful implications. Be less afraid to nitpick a joke I broadly agree with. It's less that I lacked this skill and more that using it tends to be socially unacceptable. That's part of what makes these "jokes" such an effective manipulation tool.

Conclusions: wow, these people are really really good at this. I've gotten used to right-wing infiltrators who suck at pretending to be progressive, but those are amateurs. These are professionals. I've seen some bad takes going around. "Oh, of course tumblr users fell for this shit, they're horrible people with purity culture who never factcheck." But no. Some of my vulnerability in fact came specifically from not being a negative stereotype of a tumblr user. I didn't worry about purity enough to vet the OP if other people added information. I did factcheck, to the point that it distracted me from other problems with a post. I didn't micro-analyze joke posts looking for imperfections in them. I made an effort to boost positive stories about good people accomplishing things.

You guys, if I were the stereotypical toxic tumblr essjew, I wouldn't have interacted with a lot of these posts, or my interaction would've been attacking them. People who think they're immune to cons and manipulation are the most vulnerable. Maybe don't just groan in disgust at "tumblr culture" while patting yourself on the back for being better?

Anyway, the psyops didn’t try to create entirely new ideas or change people’s opinions 180 degrees. They played on pre-existing weaknesses among progressives such as infighting, defeatism, disillusion with institutions, and so on. Being careful about those lines of attack is good whether the attacker is an agent of a foreign government, an agent of your own government, or a genuine activist who’s being counterproductive. So when I talk about what I plan to do better, I’m not just talking about the Internet Research Agency.

#IRA psyops

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lovepox · 7 years

Text

rant that doesn’t really have a direction

honestly truly, i hate premed culture. if it wasn’t for anything else, i would still be premed. but the mindset of most premeds ive met has gone so against my moral compass that i can’t anymore.

every once in a while, you meet one or two genuine people who truly want go help people. and those are the people that truly deserve to be doctors.

but i feel like such a large majority of people who are premed are so exploitive. they’ll do anything it takes to get that rec letter, that higher grade. ive seen people fake friendships with professors to get rec letters. ive seen people pass fake notes around to sabotage their fellow students. ive seen people belittle each other just to demoralize each other. it has just gotten so twisted and the core values so dealigned with what a doctor should be that i needed out.

like. one of the WORST PEOPLE i know from high school is premed. he has no empathy. no compassion. only insults, belittling, putdowns, racism, sexism, and more like that to offer. a person like that, premed. i would rather be sick than be treated by a person like him. he makes it KNOWN that he can talk his way through anything. he constantly has told me that i won’t make it. and even in the rare times we see each other on college campus now, he makes it known that he’s ever so shocked that i’m still prehealth. because theres NO WAY someone like me could ever be a doctor.

it hurts. it hurts that someone else can fake their way to medical school with charm and charisma if they needed to. it hurts that i want to help people so bad but i won’t be able to because i don’t have that same ability to talk my way into things. why has it become like this? why am i unable to be what the perfect premed student is? so many questions that make me sad when i think too much about it.

it hurts being told by a close friend that they can’t see me as a doctor. you work so hard and dream as hard as any other premed student on campus, just to be casually told that you’ll never succeed in their eyes. a close friend. and if a friend doesn’t even believe in you, who will? this happened has not happened just once, but three times. it was said under the statement “im saying this because i don’t want you to wake up hating your job.” how do you know that i will hate my job? how do you know that my desire to help people and be a health profession isn’t want i want? who gave you the right to judge me like this? and another statement made about me: “i thought she would drop premed already because she doesn’t have the personality.”

this is exactly what i’m trying to say. today there is such a specific idea of what a premed student should be, and i feel along the way, authencity and genuineness has been compromised. no, you just need to have a great GPA and be a great speaker. thats it.

a big reason why i’m pre PA now is because of this toxic culture. how i would love to be premed, but i just can’t find myself succumbing to the culture. i can’t see myself scamming others for my own success. its against my morals.

i know being a PA is better for my personality, leadership style, and life plan. but there will always be a part of me that wishes i could be a doctor. i hate the stigma of PA. they say its the job of failed premeds. a job where you aren’t respected. the same friend who said i could never be a doctor said he basically doesn’t respect PA as a real career. and i hate that this is a common sentiment. but if the only reason that people don’t want to become PAs is because they don’t have the same respect and prestige as doctors, then the problem lies with them for not giving PAs the respect they deserve.

off topic ish, but i like the fact that PAs let patients call them by their first name. gets rid of the whole superiority complex that doctors sometimes have over patients and nurses honestly. when i shadowed at the hospital, janitors, nurses, nutrionists, CNA's— all said hi to me. asked how i was doing, if i ate, if i wanted water. doctors on the other hand— couldn’t even take the time to reply “hi” when i told them hi. this is what i mean by superiority complex. i get that they’re busy but cmon. a doctor is there to be compassionate, caring, and a person to trust. i feel like the field is drifting so far away from this core value.

rant over. its 5AM, theres soooo many typos because im typing this on my phone. i need to be up at 9, and hell week has begun.

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