this is not a test case

I think election week has had a detrimental effect on my temper. Yesterday I made myself delete a post on my level of exhaustion with the slasher == misogynist crap that magically pops up every so often with random uncited "But someone somewhere once said something about girlparts that could be construed as she thought they were icky!" and wow, five pages later, I put that away before something snapped.

However, this is the internet and while I totally thought I was topped out? It turns out I wasn't.

cereta posts here about the events that occurred during and after Wiscon this year. For a pretty thorough explanation, Angry Black Woman posts here about what happened. Short version:

A woman named Rachel Moss put a post on Something Awful mocking attendees not because of their politics or their feminism or their willingness to come to Wisconsin, but because they were too fat, too white, too male, or too black for her taste.

Not just a post. Pictures (faces blocked, badges not so much) of attendees.

Fannish community standards were created as a protective measure to fen from harassment that, as this has pretty much proven, still exists. We created it because we're fen, because our first reaction to being hit is to hit back as hard as we possibly can, because that shit hurts and no one wants to be around for a second punch. If we get rid of them first, they can't get us again.

(Or we vanish. For good.)

It was created to protect us, as much from each other as others. It gives everyone a quick, easy answer to the question. To protect our community. To make as safe as possible the spaces we created for ourselves.

It was not, and never has been, a way to protect the harassers. This isn't a fine line situation. This isn't even a grey spot of sliding scale. This was not the internet alone. This was real life, in the flesh, in a physical location, documented stalking of attendees and their children for the purposes of abusing them. Community standards are not a way to fuck each other over in RL and expect and require people to never talk about it.

This had nothing to do with fandom. RL harassment is not a protected fannish activity. Community standards do not apply.

...the posts I linked to say this a lot better. Go there.

ETA: Or go here, where coffeeandink gives an excellent, thorough, and well-measured response to the Unfunny Business post that I'm still--boggling over.

Comments

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Goddamnit, people suck!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes they do.

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

Yep, they do, and they are also pretty damn nifty. (http://purplefrog26.livejournal.com/47306.html) The level of ire is reassuring.

I think that Purple Frog's response is the one I would like to be able to claim. In practice, I know me, and I'd probably be one of the folks never again attending WisCon. That's what other conventions should hear from this.

I've taken Bear to cons (one of the country's oldest and largest anime cons is local and in fact, this weekend ) and we've revelled in the joy of shared geekness. To have someone choose to attend not to share but to deliberately poison that joy, is troubling.

And really the fact that the SA forums are now publishing Moss's info is, to my mind, more of "lying down with dogs" than retribution. Distressing, but not surprising.

[anjak-j.livejournal.com]

Short of actual physical harm, Rachel Moss deserves every bit of anxiety she feels as a result of people's harassment. She should have thought about that before she:

a. Went around photographing people without permission for purpose of identifying them and ridiculing them anywhere.

b. Made all people who have mental illness look bad by being a total asscrab. People really need to lay off using her eating disorder as a reason, never mind an excuse, for her behaviour. With the media, it's not like the general public needs any more ammunition to think we're all dangerous when cunts like her go around proving the point by stalking others.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Hell yes.

What you said

[(Anonymous)]

I've known a lot of ED folk in groups all over the country since I admitted I had one back in 1990. I've seen some really sick puppies, but I've never seen anything like Rachel Moss.

[cofax7]

You may want to add a link to coffeeandink's post, which lays out pretty clearly why LJ-based media fandom standards don't apply.

Also, Rachel Moss attended Wiscon under her own name, with her real name and her LJ name on her badge. Why she should get protection not extended to any of the victims of her viciousness is beyond me.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Added that link.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

I'm finding it really interesting how "all of the internet" and "all of LJ" having suddenly become bywords for "fandom", specifically media-based fandom. They aren't. They never have been, but lord knows the last week of lj-election should've reminded people that there is a big, wide, huge internet out there, and our version of fandom occupies a really small part of it.

Therefore: fannish rules do not apply here. This is internet harassment. Period. It has nothing to do with fandom of any nature, because the where she did this is irrelevant. I wouldn't care if it was a school, or a sporting event, or a church. She didn't grey out the badges, she attended a public function where real names -- including her own -- were known. Nothing about that is fannish.

I am... more torn about her name and information being spread around, and I'm not sure I like the idea of contacting her supposed graduate school -- I don't know what that's going to do, really. The University is not her parent, she's a legal adult, etc. They're not legally responsible for her, and the idea that she broke their code of conduct is... really flimsy. Pictures posted on the internet and mocked is hardly uncommon.

However. I do think that someone needs to really research internet harassment laws and look into what kind of charges could be brought to bear. That is, to me, a far more appropriate response. She went to the con specifically to harass people, was thrown out because of it, and there's gotta be something done to limit her damage the next time. Since it's clear she wants there to be a next time.

So nice to be reminded that isn't just fannish shenanigans that are assholes. It's our whole damned species.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I am... more torn about her name and information being spread around, and I'm not sure I like the idea of contacting her supposed graduate school -- I don't know what that's going to do, really. The University is not her parent, she's a legal adult, etc. They're not legally responsible for her, and the idea that she broke their code of conduct is... really flimsy. Pictures posted on the internet and mocked is hardly uncommon.

From what I've read in the posts, her fellow students might be the ones doing that. amireal says the same, so she might have citations.

Since it's clear she wants there to be a next time.

With any kind of luck, the con mods who see this will blacklist her. She should *not* be at a fan convention again. Like, ever.

[drlense.livejournal.com]

The unfunny business entry was made of fail. The OP completely lost some of the main points- that RM went to this con for the sole purpose of taking pictures and making fun of people and that she posted that whole screed to SA HERSELF. It was not "picked up" by SA. There was a level of premeditation to this that makes me sick.

The people at the con who had their photos taken have (in my mind) every right to contact RM's boss- I don't know that I would do it myself, but they can make that determination on their own. I don't know that I agree with posting RM's address and phone number on the internet, but associating her real name with what she did IN REAL LIFE is A-Okay in my book.

This is NOT the same as getting into a shipping war with another fan and then outing said fan's fanfiction hobby to their family and friends.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

They are *still* calling for her to add context and corrections and she hasn't. The level of grudge in that one is freaky.

I don't know that I agree with posting RM's address and phone number on the internet, but associating her real name with what she did IN REAL LIFE is A-Okay in my book.

Okay, for disclosure, I read comments to page seventeen (and discovered--i don't even know what the hell that was) on page eighteen. Someone on SASS linked to her phone number via google. On the timeline, I dont' know when it was done, bu tI totally invite anyone who has a strong stomach for 4chan images to find it.

This is NOT the same as getting into a shipping war with another fan and then outing said fan's fanfiction hobby to their family and friends.

Exactly. Far as I know, stalking with the intent to do harm? Not a protected fannish activity.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

If I were at Wiscon, and worked at/went to her school? I would be having a long talk with her suprevisor/whatever. With printouts. She needs to learn that RL actions come with RL consequences, and I hope someone involved does this.

*sigh*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that. She also belongs to a community of college students as well who could be *directly* affected by her non-fannish actions.

Which again, it comes back to me, stalking cons for ridicule is not a protected fannish activity. That anyone can make that argument blows my mind.

[chopchica.livejournal.com]

pyratejenni is all about the biased grudgeposts. And, yeah, I have *zero sympathy* for Rachel Moss. You reap what you sow, and she sowed but good.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

That was *surprisingly* biased. The more I read, the more surprised I am how much she actually removed from the report.

[blushing-rose.livejournal.com]

Hubby is a regional alumni adviser for his fraternity. He cautions the undergrads repeatedly not to put anything on FaceBook, MySpace, etc., etc. that they do not want the world to see and know about them.

A chapter (not one of hubby's)at a major university here was closed down a few years ago. They were one of the leading fraternities on campus, strongly known for their community service and high GPA standards. Why were they closed down? Well, someone thought it would be fun to post some pictures of one of their costume parties on FaceBook. And some of these pictures included members of the fraternity putting on blackface and participating in pseudo-lynching scenes...with nooses around their necks.

Facebook and MySpace pages have cost college students jobs, scholarships, entrance into graduate schools, and who-knows-what-else. Some of them learned the hard way that everything they put on the Internet, if they choose to use anything that can connect them to their RL identity can and will come back to haunt them.

I say she deserves what she gets. First, what she did was wrong, period. Second, if she's stupid enough to use her RL identity when posting such garbage on the Internet, it should come back to haunt her in RL.

Bigotry is wrong. Period. Nothing in this world makes me angrier.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yep. Exactly.

[logovo.livejournal.com]

If nothing else this is the first time that I've seen people being OK with contacting third parties. As I've read. people contacted her school and her employer. Most fandom people I've read since yesterday are OK with this, because what she did is supposed to be on a whole new level of cruelty, but I'm sort of freaking out. I've never seen this before.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't fannish behavior, it was stalking, so I personally think it falls under non-fannish. I mean, seriously, if I met a fan in RL who started stalking me, harassing me, etc, I would have no qualms reporting that with name etc. So--I don't see a difference here. There's no exposure to her fandom activiites, because she has none. IT's exposure to her real life actions.

[red-eft.livejournal.com]

This had nothing to do with fandom. RL harassment is not a protected fannish activity. Community standards do not apply.

I want this posted in giant blinking text. I don't understand why this is a difficult concept.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Honestly, me either. I am still boggling that anyone would compare this to a ship war.

[ragejt.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I usually ignore most blogging because truthfully I just don't have time but on checking my LJ I found this and something about it caught me. So instead of deleting it and going on with the million things I actually have to do or working, opps, I read this post and then link myself to the post you were talking about and then it went on and on.

This woman needs serious help because what she has expressed in this doesnt say anything about the people she is crucifying, which she doesn't even know, but instead says some major things about herself. This woman has so little a life that she spent her day somewhere so she could literally just reticule the people she saw and the things she heard. I'm thinking maybe she needs a job or at the very least some friends to occupy her mind.

To be so insecure that you have to mock people for any and everything you can think of is a sign of some serious neurosis and to rip apart a child like that is just psychotic. I'm not sure whether to be angry at her or try to find someone to offer her some help.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods* I have to agree.

[rensreality101.livejournal.com]

See, I know it is unfair but things like this (and the OSBP) make me a little wary of going to a con. Our 13 year old daughter is dying to go to dragon con this summer. While I can tell some creep to back off from either of us (and gleefully report him for harrassment), the thought of having recognizable pictures of my kids floating around on the internet really freaks me out.

(And the horrible icon the guy made from ABW's picture...I had to go log off for a while to calm down.)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods* Child's eleven and I promised when he hit junior high I'd take him to one of the big ones. That's--two years from now. It's creepy to imagine it for him, for my friends--God. I just--seriously. Did she think SA would hail her as a new god or something?

[skadi.livejournal.com]

This is still blowing my mind. How does this girl's mind work so that she thought this was okay?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Wanting ot be the coolest girl in SASS?

Who the hell knows.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

She did this in real life, under her real name. And it was mean, and hurtful, and there was no way she did not understand it was mean, and hurtful. What I don't understand is how she thought she was going to get away with it.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Maybe she thought she could make SASS ride out to defend her? It's pretty aweing.

[thatratorpheus.livejournal.com]

People who bully and harass like this think their victims are weak, and they depend on bystanders to be polite and play by the rules. It's hard to know where to draw the line, but sometimes one has to reach past those "fandom standards" and give hate a smackdown. It might not change the way she thinks but maybe she'll go do her thinking someplace else where she can't hurt anybody.