The pro-misogyny (yes, misogyny) crowd is passing around an article on “liberal bullying.” Of course they are. The people who stalk a few bloggers day in and day out for a year and a half are “brave heroes” and freedom fighters; the people they stalk relentlessly are liberal bullies.
Still, there’s something to it, at least if the descriptions are accurate.
Increasingly, I’ve started recognizing this kind of behavior for what it is: privilege-checking as a form of internet sport. It’s a kind of trolling, with all the politics I agree with, but motivations and execution that turns my stomach. It’s well-intended (SO well-intended), but when the motivations seem to be less about opening dialogue about the issues, and more about performance, righteousness, and intolerance for those who don’t agree with you… well, I’m not on-board.
You know what it reminds me of? The Slacktiverse. There are some liberal bullies there, I think – except that they’re not liberal in the sense I use it. Ariel Meadow Stallings uses it in a different sense, though, and the bullies at Slacktiverse fit that sense. And they ooze righteousness.
There’s such a thing as the Social Justice Troll; it’s a meme.
A commenter has some doubts though.
What it sounds like you’re saying with this post is “I am tired if having to think about this stuff, and dealing with it is annoying me.” Now, by labeling people who call someone out as a troll and a bully, we can dismiss those people, and silence their concerns. The problem is, it won’t be the balloon examples– and this is already happening– it will be the examples of calling out overt misogyny (as in the skeptic community) or racism that will see the brunt of this labeling.
And oh gee golly guess what that’s already happening, and has been happening for lo these many months.