Author Topic: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet  (Read 274097 times)

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Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1020 on: September 28, 2017, 10:43:26 pm »
Which makes him a mixed bag. When someone like him dies there is nothing wrong in pointing out in the middle of all the glorification that they had their dark sides, too, and ignoring them is unfair for the people that he harmed.

There's discussing controversies about the deceased in an obituary, and then there's this. Hefner wasn't a terrorist, or a dictator, or a serial killer. I won't deny that he had his dark sides, but did he really deserve this?

Hypothetically, if Bill Clinton died tomorrow, how would you feel if - for example - Breitbart claimed that he shouldn't be mourned because of his sexual misconduct allegations?

Besides, the article was written by Julie Bindel, an openly misandristic political lesbian. I'm not exactly going to assume she had good intentions when she wrote this.
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Offline SCarpelan

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1021 on: September 28, 2017, 11:20:06 pm »
On the other hand, in most civilized Western societies, disparaging the recently dead is seen as a pretty huge breach of etiquette. And given that he died, uh... yesterday, I'd say that's pretty recent.
This part of etiquette needs shaking up a bit. If you are an influential person your whole resume should be up to discussion. With our tendency to glorify the recently dead instead of an honest evaluation I have no problem with people putting out dissenting opinions.

Which makes him a mixed bag. When someone like him dies there is nothing wrong in pointing out in the middle of all the glorification that they had their dark sides, too, and ignoring them is unfair for the people that he harmed.

There's discussing controversies about the deceased in an obituary, and then there's this. Hefner wasn't a terrorist, or a dictator, or a serial killer. I won't deny that he had his dark sides, but did he really deserve this?

Hypothetically, if Bill Clinton died tomorrow, how would you feel if - for example - Breitbart claimed that he shouldn't be mourned because of his sexual misconduct allegations?

Besides, the article was written by Julie Bindel, an openly misandristic political lesbian. I'm not exactly going to assume she had good intentions when she wrote this.

She said a feminist shouldn't mourn him. She didn't say that that people who were close to him shouldn't mourn or that anyone should have wished harm to him. I have no problem with someone whose opinion is that he represents great harm for women pointing out that she thinks his image shouldn't be glorified (even if I don't agree with her about all aspects of Hefner's influence on culture). I would treat anyone who said that feminists shouldn't mourn Clinton the same way as long as they base their opinion on facts and not lies even if I disagreed on how bad the flaws discussed actually are.

This is separate from the disagreements I have with her brand of radical feminism.

Offline dpareja

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1022 on: September 29, 2017, 02:09:46 am »
Didn't we have this conversation back when Margaret Thatcher died?

Anyway, in my view, when you're dead, your history is every bit as much a mix of its positive and negative parts as it was when you were alive. Ignoring one part or the other is being dishonest.
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Offline Eiki-mun

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1023 on: September 29, 2017, 10:26:28 am »
This part of etiquette needs shaking up a bit. If you are an influential person your whole resume should be up to discussion. With our tendency to glorify the recently dead instead of an honest evaluation I have no problem with people putting out dissenting opinions.

Anyway, in my view, when you're dead, your history is every bit as much a mix of its positive and negative parts as it was when you were alive. Ignoring one part or the other is being dishonest.

I, on the other hand, believe that there should at least be a grace period of a certain amount of time. Not for any religious reasons, but out of respect for grieving family and close friends. Imagine you're Hugh Hefner's nephew or something and you're sad as fuck that your uncle died, and you turn to Twitter to see "Anyone who calls themselves a feminist isn't going to mourn this evil man"? You're not gonna be happy about it.

It's not about trying to change history or ignore bad things that people have done. It's about respect for the grieving.
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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1024 on: September 29, 2017, 01:57:18 pm »
And, in my mind, respect for the grieving is only part of the reason you don't write an essay about how shitty a person is after they died. The question I have to ask of anybody who starts writing critiques about a person right after they die is:

"Why are you writing this now, instead of writing it while your target was still alive, and able to either apologize or defend their actions? Why did you wait until they were dead? It's not like we're ten years later and some new piece of information has come to light; you could've just as easily posted this a month ago."

The answers tend to be one of these reasons, none of them good:

  • The poster is using the influx of interest in the now-dead celebrity to get a bigger audience (clickbaiting)
  • The poster is deliberately averting "respect for the dead" in order to be subversive (edgelording)
  • The poster prefers to criticize people who cannot defend themselves (defaming)
  • The poster wants to upset the grieving (trolling)
« Last Edit: September 29, 2017, 01:59:12 pm by pyro »

Offline SCarpelan

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1025 on: September 29, 2017, 07:40:14 pm »
I, on the other hand, believe that there should at least be a grace period of a certain amount of time. Not for any religious reasons, but out of respect for grieving family and close friends. Imagine you're Hugh Hefner's nephew or something and you're sad as fuck that your uncle died, and you turn to Twitter to see "Anyone who calls themselves a feminist isn't going to mourn this evil man"? You're not gonna be happy about it.

It's not about trying to change history or ignore bad things that people have done. It's about respect for the grieving.
And how are you going to feel if you are someone who has awful memories from her time as a playboy bunny being subjected to shitty treatment by Hefner and nobody acknowledges this? Everyone just glorifies the person who treated you like a decorative item instead of a human being? When a person was influential it's not only their family whose feelings are influenced by the media coverage.

  • The poster is using the influx of interest in the now-dead celebrity to get a bigger audience (clickbaiting)
  • The poster is deliberately averting "respect for the dead" in order to be subversive (edgelording)
  • The poster prefers to criticize people who cannot defend themselves (defaming)
  • The poster wants to upset the grieving (trolling)
  • The poster sees that the celebrity suddenly gets a lot of attention in the media since they just died and thinks this coverage is one sided and doesn't give the whole picture.

Offline dpareja

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1026 on: September 29, 2017, 07:43:31 pm »
But only giving the other side is also dishonest.
Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline SCarpelan

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1027 on: September 29, 2017, 08:41:32 pm »
Only if the other side isn't discussed everywhere already.

Edit: Sorry, dpareja. I thought you were answering to me but taken in the context of your previous post that apparently is not the case. I apologize for the confusion.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2017, 04:53:29 am by SCarpelan »

Offline Askold

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1028 on: September 30, 2017, 04:13:09 am »
Technically,  saying that there should be a "grace period" before talking about the bad stuff the deceased had done is silencing one side of the discussion in favour of the other (which may be lies and pandering depending on who they are talking about.)

Hefner is a good example of this. So is Bill Cosby or Johnny Depp. All have done remarkable things aside from the questionable stuff but pretending that the bad stuff does not exist is not the right answer even if their families probably grieve their loss when it happens. 
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Offline Eiki-mun

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1029 on: September 30, 2017, 04:45:23 pm »
And how are you going to feel if you are someone who has awful memories from her time as a playboy bunny being subjected to shitty treatment by Hefner and nobody acknowledges this? Everyone just glorifies the person who treated you like a decorative item instead of a human being? When a person was influential it's not only their family whose feelings are influenced by the media coverage.

This is true. I didn't really consider this option, to be honest. It still doesn't make me at all comfortable on a personal level to see highly negative coverage of those who've recently died, but I will admit that you do make a good point here. I'm not sure what to say to that.
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Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1030 on: September 30, 2017, 05:47:19 pm »
I, on the other hand, believe that there should at least be a grace period of a certain amount of time. Not for any religious reasons, but out of respect for grieving family and close friends. Imagine you're Hugh Hefner's nephew or something and you're sad as fuck that your uncle died, and you turn to Twitter to see "Anyone who calls themselves a feminist isn't going to mourn this evil man"? You're not gonna be happy about it.

It's not about trying to change history or ignore bad things that people have done. It's about respect for the grieving.
And how are you going to feel if you are someone who has awful memories from her time as a playboy bunny being subjected to shitty treatment by Hefner and nobody acknowledges this? Everyone just glorifies the person who treated you like a decorative item instead of a human being? When a person was influential it's not only their family whose feelings are influenced by the media coverage.

It's not either/or. You can acknowledge that while still not running a hatchet job against him.

  • The poster is using the influx of interest in the now-dead celebrity to get a bigger audience (clickbaiting)
  • The poster is deliberately averting "respect for the dead" in order to be subversive (edgelording)
  • The poster prefers to criticize people who cannot defend themselves (defaming)
  • The poster wants to upset the grieving (trolling)
  • The poster sees that the celebrity suddenly gets a lot of attention in the media since they just died and thinks this coverage is one sided and doesn't give the whole picture.

Even if that was their motivation, that still doesn't justify focusing entirely on the bad. I'm fine with a balanced perspective on the deceased, and giving the other side a chance to speak. But there's a difference between a balanced perspective and a hatchet job. What Ms. Bindel wrote was the latter.
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Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1031 on: September 30, 2017, 06:10:49 pm »
Let it be known: anyone attending my funeral can call me a shitheel all they want, provided that they can back it up.
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Offline SCarpelan

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1032 on: September 30, 2017, 07:22:36 pm »
I, on the other hand, believe that there should at least be a grace period of a certain amount of time. Not for any religious reasons, but out of respect for grieving family and close friends. Imagine you're Hugh Hefner's nephew or something and you're sad as fuck that your uncle died, and you turn to Twitter to see "Anyone who calls themselves a feminist isn't going to mourn this evil man"? You're not gonna be happy about it.

It's not about trying to change history or ignore bad things that people have done. It's about respect for the grieving.
And how are you going to feel if you are someone who has awful memories from her time as a playboy bunny being subjected to shitty treatment by Hefner and nobody acknowledges this? Everyone just glorifies the person who treated you like a decorative item instead of a human being? When a person was influential it's not only their family whose feelings are influenced by the media coverage.

It's not either/or. You can acknowledge that while still not running a hatchet job against him.

  • The poster is using the influx of interest in the now-dead celebrity to get a bigger audience (clickbaiting)
  • The poster is deliberately averting "respect for the dead" in order to be subversive (edgelording)
  • The poster prefers to criticize people who cannot defend themselves (defaming)
  • The poster wants to upset the grieving (trolling)
  • The poster sees that the celebrity suddenly gets a lot of attention in the media since they just died and thinks this coverage is one sided and doesn't give the whole picture.

Even if that was their motivation, that still doesn't justify focusing entirely on the bad. I'm fine with a balanced perspective on the deceased, and giving the other side a chance to speak. But there's a difference between a balanced perspective and a hatchet job. What Ms. Bindel wrote was the latter.
The article doesn't exist in an informational void and isn't a scholarly paper. It's fair to assume that the reader has heard the other side several times already so it's unnecessary to repeat what others keep shouting from the rooftops when the whole point is to give an opposing viewpoint.

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1033 on: September 30, 2017, 07:43:20 pm »
While it's a bit off-topic, it's dumb and hypocritical that celebrities tend to get so more praise right after they die than they got while still alive. For all the people talking about how much impact Hefner had, I never heard of the man until this topic was posted, which I'm sure is mostly to blame on my own pop-culture myopia (TBF, I have heard of Playboy magazine, just not Hugh Hefner).

And it's not like the stuff people are writing about this, positive or negative, adds anything of value to the discussion. It's mostly clickbait-y crap that only serves to reinforce opinions that people already have. You never knew him personally, and it's not like the magazine is going to change in any important way because of his death, so I don't see how you can claim to mourn him.

You're jumping on a bandwagon. That's all.

Offline Svata

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Re: Not-Good Things People Say on the Internet
« Reply #1034 on: September 30, 2017, 08:05:45 pm »
I don't mind his dirt being exposed. Like, at ALL. What I DO mind is the immediate "I'm glad he's dead, the world would have been a better place had he never been born." Why? The simple reason that he had a family and they're trying to fucking grieve, and you're REVELING in their grief. That just feels a liiiitle scummy to me.
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