Friendly Reminder That You Should

Hey, let's talk about anons like this, because I know some people haven't been in a position to see the patterns these play out in on broader scale and may indeed not spot the trap.

And it is a trap.

An ask like this has several purposes.

First, it uses social justice language in passive aggressive and manipulative ways to try to coerce a behavior. In this case, the desired behavior is usually for the recipent to participate in community shunning and/or harrassment. The language above is intended to put the recipient on the defensive where, in the haste to disassociate themself from the Bad Thing, they quickly disassociate themself from the bad person, often with no particular fact checking or evidence.

The message is also intended to create a sense of being surveilled and judged by an unknown amount of people with unknown amount of social power and an unknown amount of relevance to your life.

Notice that these asks are usually framed as if they are coming from a follower or potential follower, someone who is addressing you personally and who cares about your opinion and who your blog has an effect on. However this is usually.... very much not the case. If you've ever had the misfortune to watch a gossip campaign from like this from the outside, you will very quickly notice that messages like this get sent in mass batches to dozens and dozens of strangers. (You can often turn these up with a tumblr search, if you look.)

The sender does not know you and probably does not follow you. They have a person they don't like (possibly for their stated reason and possibly not), and they are going through the reblogs of a post from that blog and mass messaging *everyone* with a form letter. They will not see your response and they will probably never even see your blog again.

Which brings us to the second goal of whisper campaigns like this:

Notice that I blacked out the names above? That's because when the recipient answers anonymous asks like this, they provide a platform for the opinion on their blog. An anonymous message like this that gets posted doesn't just spread gossip and apply pressure to the recipient, it is spread to the recipient's entire community.

The *goal* is to get access to your community. The *goal* is to use you as a soapbox.

Is the information accurate? Did anyone check? Does the anon have an ulterior social motive? BIG SHRUG

If you go into the comments on one of these whisper campaigns you will see that *most people never bother to check.*

They assume good faith from a follower, they're off balance defending themselves, and they jump straight to conciliation.

It's a really, really effective form of social manipulation, and really really commonly misused.

Hey, so they’re making a Netflix Harry Potter.

With that in mind, we’re all gonna remember that JKR is a terf who has literally been cited by legislators engaged in legislation that actively harms trans people, and we’re not gonna give her any more money.

That means not streaming the new show on Netflix, because regardless of how much influence she has on the production, she gets paid for it.

We’re gonna make the show flop. We’re gonna show Warner Brothers that we don’t forget (of course, how would we forget, it isn’t as if she’s stopped), and that their business association with terfs is no longer profitable.

It is NOT like Lovecraft, because Lovecraft is very dead and his works are in the public domain. By consuming Lovecraft media, you are not giving any money to old Howard.

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detail abt how rick eats sugary colorful "kids" cereal rather than like oat cereal as does the rest of the family

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That’s it. That’s the best tweet. We can all go home now.

you can only pick one.

choose wisely.

you’ve been here before.