Archives for 2014

I owe some commentor a hat tip on this, seriously, because I don’t read Sullivan but I do love Tom Scocca. At Gawker:

Self-employed former Gap spokesmodel Andrew Sullivan has been typing about the Gamergate movement again. Previously, when he weighed in, he began by telling his readers that they knew gamer culture “far, far better than I.”

But ignorance, even admitted ignorance, has never inhibited Sullivan in pursuing his multifarious career as an amateur race scientist, forensic doula, or endocrinologist. “[P]art of my job is to write and think about burning current web discussions – and add maybe two cents, even as an outsider,” he explained.

So the latest investment of his well-worn tuppence is a blog post headlined “The SJWs Now Get to Police Speech on Twitter.” Quite a headline! The event to which it refers is Twitter’s announcement that it had agreed to receive—though not necessarily to act on—reports from a new harassment-tracking tool developed by the group Women, Action, and the Media…

…[T]he stock figures in Sullivan’s mind are more compelling to him than the people and events in the real world. He is aware, or has previously expressed awareness, that Gamergate has involved hideous harassment of its targets, including rape and murder threats. But that doesn’t mean now is the time to talk about new approaches to preventing harassment.

No, those things are a distraction from the valid points the movement makes about “creeping misandry” and “an atmosphere in which it has somehow become problematic to have a classic white, straight male identity.” …

Sullivan’s Dish should have a tag for “Show us on the doll where Margaret Thatcher touched you”. Ever since he fled the unsympathetic shores of Thatcherite London to preach its underappreciated Oakeshottian glory to us simple colonials, he’s been acting out his “good mommy, mean mommy” psychodrama in every media he can monetize.

Late Night Cheap Laffs Open Thread: #GibberingGatePost + Comments (76)