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Sunday, March 31, 2019

Hijacking Movements: The Toxicity of Counter Cultures


     With every new social media movement comes another, opposite movement. These typically undervalue the previous movements and speak over them; which the movements often are stating in the first place.

     #AllLivesMatter came soon after #BlackLivesMatter; even though nowhere in the tag, or has it been explicitly stated, that supporting black lives means f*ck everyone else's life. #AllLivesMatter (and, grossly enough #BlueLivesMatter) are simply means of telling those in support of BLM to shut up, quite down, and stop caring. Stop speaking so outwardly about your beliefs, because my beliefs are not only more important but they're the right belief.

     However, not all of these tags/movements has to be so passive aggressive/toxic and when done well can actually facilitate a environment for conversation and learning. #MeToo brought along #MenToo. MenToo was almost a great movement; stating that the typical person using #MeToo is probably female, and that it felt exclusive to men, who are often silenced or shamed when they are sexually harassed by society. While it could be seen as speaking over female voices (which, maybe it was), it was interesting nonetheless; and brought to the table that we should consider male victims of sexual abuse/harassment. Unfortunately, it devolved into a hugbox of men (and women) blaming false rape accusations for the fall of men and their careers.

     Hijacking a movement where rape survivors share their stories to say "But what about US? The (not even, but hypothetically) falsely accused! Aren't we victims, too?"

     And yes, those who are falsely accused are victims; their reputations and careers are publicly destroyed and their livelihood is ruined.

     However, women already don't report their rape/sexual assaults because they're afraid no one will believe them, so spreading and acting like it's extremely common to falsely accuse people of rape seems counter productive. It makes it sound as though women have power by using rape, when really at the end of the day, much, much more women (and probably more men, if society didn't shame them into not telling anyone, unfortunately) are actually being raped than falsely accusing anyone of rape.

     Does counter culture have to be this toxic? Why is it that it is seemingly difficult to come to a median agreement, or to create movements that don't mock/mimic previous ones and therefore hijack them? Which often the movement is about, anyways? (Ex: gay movements, black movements, feminist movements are all told to "shut up" by other movements, even though the entire point is that they've ultimately been quite all too long and are now speaking and are given a voice)

     According to Siva Vaidhyanathan, Trump won the election because of Facebook. Take that in, take the time to input that information as you will.

     The thought being that Facebook is very geared toward you, what you need and like to be swayed, and can create an echo chamber of mass opinions that are essentially all the same, or at the very least, can find common ground.
   
    Spending time with people who only have the same opinions and belief systems as you can definitely create an environment where anything deviating from the norm and is "different" can be taken as "wrong". Alongside that, social media makes it very hard to feel "neutral" about anything.

     In this age, everyone is forced to feel passionately about something. Even our news is biased, we have stereotypical news outlets for different political beliefs (ex: What type of people watch FOX?), and we are more likely to seek out news we agree with (or disagree with, and go "this is crazy!), than neutral news.

     This is how "special snowflake", "I identify as an attack helicopter", "triggered" and other (questionable) memes became to be. Those who already feel uncomfortable about trans* people are likely to accept the bait of an extremist (and probably fake person) who identifies as something ridiculous (say a fox), and use it as fuel to confirm their transphobia. It's the same as before, where "If we let the gays get married, then people will start marrying horses!" argument. Ridiculous; but still used for the campaign.

     I am not saying that only conservative people fall prey for these traps. Liberals have their same extremest cherry pickings, such as Kent State Gun Girl (who most pro gun people do NOT agree with), extreme incidents of racism, homophobia, etc (doubtful that conservatives are all just sitting around, waiting for the day a gay passes their part of town to hurl insults at), and pegging them all as white/Christian/straight/rednecks, etc; when that's certainly not the case when there's "Gays for Trump" "Women for Trump" "Blacks for Trump", etc.

     As everyone develops these extremist opinions, counter culture movements begin erupting from anywhere. Hell, did you see how big the debate on if pineapples belong on pizza was? (though they briefly joined forces).
Image result for pineapple on pizza meme
   
     To an extent, maybe the pineapples on pizza is a good metaphor for our current social media/political climate. Everyone is feeling extreme, but with a new extreme (like peas and mayonnaise), a productive conversation can come about. What that new extreme everyone can agree on will be (hopefully global warming), only time will tell.

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