Short and Sweet: Freedom of Speech

Sometimes on Tuesdays I'm going to start doing a "short and sweet" column where I try to actually keep it under a paragraph. Here's the first one!

I know a lot of people have been saying this lately, and in many places, but I felt like making it clear on my blog after I got "yelled at" by a couple commenters on another site. Newsflash: in America, freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences or freedom from judgement. You are technically allowed to say whatever idiotic, racist, homophobic, stupid thing that you want to say. But I have every right to point out that you're being idiotic, racist, homophobic, and stupid. I also have every right to change the way I react to you as a person (within boundaries) because of it. I can choose not to support a politician because I disagree with their opinions, so I can do the same for businesses and other people too. Most of the recent "controversies" that people have declared "free speech" issues are not in fact anything to do with free speech. So stop telling me I can't be mad at somebody because "free speech."

Everybody needs a vacation

In the last week or so, I've seen about a half dozen friends and bloggers that I follow announce that they're stepping back from social media and the internet.

This is actually not long after I also announced that I was cutting back on a lot of my personal social media use. I unfriended and unfollowed a lot of people (especially celebrities and blogs that I don't personally know).

Why? Well, for one thing, the internet is exhausting. For somebody like me, it's especially so. If I follow a blog, I at least want to read the headlines for every post. If I follow somebody on Twitter, I want to see everything they say, not just the last ten posts whenever I open my timeline.

When I'm gone for a few days, I actually do my best to go through my entire tumblr dash. Sometimes it takes days just to do that, more time than I was away.

On top of that the culture and the attitude right now is also not very conducive to enlightening debates or enjoyable discourse. A lot of us came online in the first place to find people like us, people to talk to, hobbies to enjoy, things like that. Instead, the culture is shifting to where the bulk of the talk is either vile anon posting and insults or people being angrily offended about one thing or another. And I'll be clear, most of the time it's stuff that they have every right to be angry and offended about.

But it's still tiring. It's no longer energizing for a lot of people. A lot of the same people who came to the internet to find acceptance and love and a place where their voice would have value are getting shouted down and silenced and going away again. Today, it was Jen from Epbot, one of my favorite bloggers who I've gotten to meet in person at book signings twice. The one thing I can say about her without hesitation is that she is incredibly kind. Before the second book signing I went to, I wrote her an email in response to a post she made that I had found particularly inspiring and helpful. I don't normally do that kind of thing, but I spilled out the story of my life at the moment, not expecting anything in return, just wanting to say thanks.

And her reply was just as kind and heartfelt as the original post, and I was able to tell her thanks for that in person. Her husband is just as nice, and if anybody deserves to always see the best of the internet it's the two of them.

Another friend of mine has been talking today about trying to engage with people in the debate about convention harassment policies, spurred on by John Scalzi's new convention policy about harassment. I've been quite proud of him (my friend, but Scalzi deserves some praise too) for standing up against what has become a huge problem. But this debate has been bringing trolls and jerks out of the woodwork, and it's become again a very disheartening and exhausting situation to try to follow or be involved in.

I don't know what the answer is, or what should be done. I'm just sad that we've somehow managed to cultivate a culture that silences these nice and intelligent people because we're mirroring middle school too clearly or something. I still enjoy being online, I still like my social media sites and I still am reading quite a lot. But I wish that the spaces that people had carved out for themselves had stayed what they needed, instead of becoming the same old junk on a different day. I wish that people would follow the simplest rule of the world, just be nice and don't be a jerk.

Is the internet exhausting anybody else?

I've just spent a half hour writing up two different rants, only to delete them both.

The first one, because I knew it would be too difficult for me to really get across what I was trying to say, and I saw how it could be interpreted the wrong way and could be considered hurtful. Which not only would hurt people, which I don't want to do, but also could possibly bring down a bunch of angry people that I don't feel like dealing with. I'm too tired.

The second rant was about how tiring it was to deal with angry people, and some ideas about how I try to do things in order to not be an angry internet person. But then I realized that once again, it would take too many words for me to be completely clear about what I wanted to say, and I came across sounding a lot more responsible and clear headed than I think I really am. I'm also too tired to be that responsible.

Needing a subject for this blog post, I think clicked over to Facebook to see what people were saying, if anything sparked my creativity.

-One friend frequently posts things related to animal activism. Which I fully support, and I thought about writing about adopting shelter pets and supporting no-kill shelters, etc. But then I remembered an argument I saw in the comments of a mostly unrelated post on another blog today where it devolved into a pro-shelter person and a pro-breeder person insulting each other and I yawned because the argument is so old and nobody is budging.

-Another friend posted a link about how Facebook seems to be making people "like" companies and pages even when they don't want to. Facebook insists it's all the people accidentally liking things or maybe the company tricking them into liking things. Other people are showing evidence that people who have died are still clicking "like" and that's probably a red flag. I ended up spending a half hour going through my likes to make sure there wasn't anything weird (there wasn't) and that was tiring too.

-Everybody everywhere is posting about Christmas. Which has two effects: 1-Christmas is exhausting and 2-Facebook is grouping posts again and I hate that and wish it would stop, but the only thing I seem to be able to tell it is that it's an "inappropriate grouping" but it isn't, so what then? There's got to be a setting somewhere but I'm tired of trying to find a setting somewhere.

-I went over to tumblr, where I saw a ton of posts that could inspire me to write, but there were also tons and tons of posts all at once from a few people. I still don't understand how people can find the time to post that much, reblog that much, and generally create that much content. Plus, I don't understand why they don't use the queue feature to spread things out a little more evenly. Now I'm once again trying to figure out how much seeing a person post is worth it when 90% of what they post is of no interest to me, but 10% is cool. If it was spread out, I wouldn't care, but scrolling through three pages of boring is...boring.

-I went over to a favorite blog and I keep making the mistake of reading the comments. I like the idea of comments, I frequently want to know what other people think about things. But everybody seems to be jumping to extremes these days, with no room for in between or even discussion about topics. Especially if it involves parenting. And blogs seem to be eager to publish things that get them more angry comments and fights because that actually gets them more pageviews, which means more money. I don't fault them for that, I just wish we had a system that rewarded people for posting good things or something.

-And in the world of "first world problems" there's too much good stuff out there too. I read a couple dozen different webcomics, and that's after I've cut down and several of my favorites ended. Blogs, review sites, financial tips, consumer awareness, there's so much good information out there and I want to know as much as I can. But there's just SO MUCH and while they all often will just repeat each other, you never know which awesome blog will originate the good story next. How does anybody keep up, or do they just give up?

So yeah, the internet is making me tired today. Which is why I just wrote a thousand words about it...because that's what the internet is for, right?

Just sleep more, it's easy!

So, for the last three or four days, I've had this really annoying twitch in my right eye. It comes and goes, nothing too bad, just annoying.

I was trying to figure out if there was something I could do about it. Can a warm or cold compress help, would any kind of OTC medication do any good, that kind of thing. Because I can tell it isn't anything problematic, and I'm almost certain it's just from looking at the computer too much because I've been working a lot.

I know that looking up medical advice online is a dangerous thing anyway. But you can usually separate a lot of the junk from the real knowledge relatively easily.

In this case, there were basically only two pieces of advice on every single site I checked: reduce stress and sleep more.

I had another medical issue earlier in the month, and the three different doctors during the course of the day told me I should try to reduce my stress (they didn't mention sleep, I don't think they heard me when I said I'd only slept a couple hours, there were other things on their minds).

It's made me start thinking about it, and how often in my life I've had doctors just tell me to be less stressed out and to sleep more. How often we're told that, repeatedly.

Sure, it's sound advice. We probably all need less stress and more sleep.

But it's nonsensical in a lot of ways, because at the end of the day stress and sleep schedules are widely outside of our control. There are some things we can do, but it only is so much.

Stress often comes from jobs or money, things that we can't just cut out or change or fix easily. At the moment a lot of mine comes from health care and health insurance. But all of the issues with that are pretty much out of my control. Literally an Act of Congress can't manage to take care of most of it.

In the past few months, a significant number of my friends have had problems with their living situations and had to move on short notice. Who knows how many people are currently fighting to deal with their underwater mortgages and foreclosures.

All of this unavoidable stress that so many people are under is of course causing them to have insomnia. Or they're working long hours at multiple jobs so that they can pay for things and don't have time to sleep. Not to mention that Americans all have this cult of exhaustion going on. Have you ever heard two people at a job trying to one up each other with how little sleep they've gotten or how many coffees they've had to drink to be awake. Heck, even the show I'm watching just had a joke about how "we can sleep when we're dead."

Not to mention, how many of us have had bosses that expect long hours and even extra work once you come home? We live in a society that wants us to sacrifice everything, including sleep, to get ahead. And if you don't want to make that sacrifice then you're not just punished, you're shamed and insulted. I once had a job where I had to argue with them repeatedly that it didn't matter if they offered me extra hours or overtime pay, I had other things I was doing (I was a grad student at the time, and I'm married) and that no amount of money was worth my little spare time.

If we're supposed to reduce our stress and sleep better to help our health, then maybe we need to start looking at larger problems in our society and how they're affecting us in both large and small ways.

Bullies are bullies, even if they're on the "right" side

WARNING: This post is about offensive language, and thus will probably contain offensive language used as examples. Please consider this a trigger warning, though I will promise none of the words are used outside of pointing out which word I'm talking about.
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I don't remember how I came across Laci Green and her Sex+ videos, but I'm assuming somebody linked to one of them on tumblr.

See, I really like tumblr, it makes no sense and I couldn't explain it to you if I tried, but I enjoy it. I enjoy the people I've met on there through fandoms, I like the fun graphics I get to see. I like the education I'm getting about various causes. I especially like that I'm getting to read and be exposed to first person narratives from minorities and groups I don't belong to.

It's really opened my brain up to a lot of new thoughts and ideas about how to be a good person, and that's great. Especially because as I pointed out on tumblr a few weeks ago, I belong to pretty much every majority in America. Being female, I'm a statistical majority there even if sexism makes that obsolete. But otherwise, I've got every advantage and privilege you can probably think of.

Well, neither my family or I have ever been stinkin' rich, which is what really counts most in America, but that's a point for another day. While we've never been rich, I would say we've also never been truly poor either.

I know it seems like I got a little distracted, I'm coming back around to the point.

A few days ago, somebody asked Laci Green why she used the word "tranny" once in a video three years ago. She replied that three years ago, she didn't know how harmful a word it was and hadn't really come to understand how unacceptable it was. She didn't realize that it wasn't something she should say as a cisgender woman, and she has learned better since then. She stated that she was sorry she had ever said it, but that once she understood why it was a problem she stopped using the word, and started trying to use more inclusive language.

And everybody accepted her apology, learned from the situation, and they all lived happily ever after.

Yeah right, we're talking about the internet. Everybody got angry and started sending her hate mail and looked up her home address to start sending pictures of her house to her with the death threats and she's had to take a step back and stop posting online until she can deal with it.

This is ridiculous. It's shameful, it's disgusting, and it's wrong. I see this the same way I see "activists" who are promoting causes I believe in by breaking the law and physically hurting people: you're a bully and a horrible person and I'd like you to stop representing my side of the argument. NOW.

Listen, let me explain something to you about privilege that you might not understand: part of privilege is a lack of education and awareness. Because you don't HAVE to know, you don't know. But the other thing about privilege is that it's something that you're born with and that is done to you/with you/for you. You can make choices that exercise your privilege, you can be a horrible person by using it to your advantage at the expense of others, yes.

But there is nothing I can do about the fact that I'm a cisgender woman. There are a lot of things that I can only understand if they are explained to me. I do actively seek out that information, and I try very hard to learn at all times. And I'll be clear, I'm not asking for pity or saying that this is a hard road to follow or anything, it's not. At all. If I didn't want to, I could live my life blissfully unaware of anything outside of my little world I was born to, I completely understand that other people don't get to do that.

What I'm asking for is the benefit of the doubt. Listen, I understand that must be difficult. You probably spend your life dealing with ignorance and stupidity and it gets tiring. As a woman, I can understand that to a degree. I've been pretty immersed in the world of gamers for the last two years, and I can't tell you how tired I am of trying to explain why it is never okay to use the word "rape" as slang. I can only assume that it's worse if you're LGBT or a person of color.

But like I said, what I want is at least one try to get better. I'll use an example from my own life: I used to use the word "retarded" as slang. Not constantly, but often enough. Then somebody, I can't remember who but I think it was my friend Jessie for some reason, explained to me very patiently WHY it was a hurtful word and how it made other people feel. I don't think she said more than two or three sentences but the point hit home for me: even if I didn't mean it, I was hurting people with a word that I didn't even care about.

So I realized she was right, and I stopped saying it. Mostly. I do have this problem where I pick up slang quickly from any group or person I read/talk to a lot, and because it's a word that is still regularly used in gaming communities, I have noticed myself slipping up once in a great while.

I think this example shows the sort of normal course of action for a reasonable person with privilege. First, you're unaware of your actions because of your privilege (because that's what privilege is). Then either through your own reading and experience or through somebody's patience, you learn WHY it's an offensive word/phrase/action and you realize that you're hurting other people and that's not what you want. Lastly, you do your best to stop hurting people.

I know the last part probably bugs some people, "doing your best isn't good enough" and all that. But my particularly breed of religion has taught me that the best thing we can do in this life is just try every day to be better than we were the day before, because that's also one of the hardest things we can do. That's what I believe and it's kind of the core of my philosophy in life. I don't expect anybody to be perfect, I just expect them to try and to apologize when they do something harmful and go back to trying to be better.

This is exactly what happened with Laci Green, as far as I know (I admit I may not know the full story, I don't know her, I just follow her on tumblr). She was unaware that the word was harmful, she learned otherwise, she changed her behavior, and she apologized.

Listen, I know that it's not always so simple. That sometimes you think "maybe they don't know this is wrong" and you speak up and you get yelled at and the person gets angry and defensive and that they never learn. I understand that it happens, like I said, I've been dealing with gamers who think that it's fun to say that they raped somebody because they beat them at Halo. And they won't let go of it, even women use the phrase and defend it, it gets exhausting. So if you don't feel like being the person who steps up to educate, that's fine.

But at least have enough understanding to not start sending somebody death threats and ruin their lives over it. You can say "I'm going to let somebody else get this one" because on tumblr, somebody else probably will. But nothing ever excuses being an asshole and a bully. This is the exact same type of situation as the men who have been attacking Feminist Frequency for daring to say there's sexism in gaming. It's just as unacceptable, even if the "point" they're making is "good."

Don't be like that. And if you see it in your community or among people you know, call them out for it and tell them it's unacceptable. Stand up for even the people you disagree with for their right to not be harassed, stalked, and threatened.
Nobody deserves that.

EDITED TO ADD: In response to this post, Poison Symac wrote in the comments, "The overwhelming majority of responses to Laci have been reasoned criticism, not violent threats. Furthermore, the violent threats were immediately condemned and disavowed by the community at large. It's very inaccurate to suggest that the general response was in any way violent."

This is correct, and I apologize that in my anger about the threats I misrepresented the response. I'm a bit touchy about this subject right now in light of what has been happening to Anita Sarkeesian, because as I said I spent the last two years heavily involved in the gaming community and seeing Sarkeesian attacked the way she was was upsetting for a lot of reasons. So I did overreact and in doing so I implied that people with reasonable voices and understandable complaints were overreacting, which I should not have done.

I do stand by my statements about why the violence and bullying is wrong, and that a statement like Green's can be made out of ignorance instead of malice.

As somebody said this morning, saying "I didn't know" is not an excuse. But it can be a reason.

"Real" Friends

I got my first email account when I was 13. That's really not a surprising age anymore, but when you consider that this was 1993, it's a bit more rare.

The same day that I got internet access, I started posting on an old usenet newsgroup that became my favorite haunt for several years. I met a lot of people there, including getting to know people I went to school with but had never actually ended up speaking to for one reason or another.

One of the people I met in those early days was a guy that lived a few hours away. Five years later, we were still friends when we met in real life. We dated for a few months, and that didn't work out, but we stayed friends. To this day he is the person I have known the longest (outside of family) that I still keep in regular contact with. We never would have known each other at all if it wasn't for the internet, and I can easily say my life has been better because I have known him.

So when a friend of mine (another 10+ year friendship) posted today that someone had once again told her the common refrain, "online friends aren't real friends" I got mad again.

It's a stupid thing to say, and the only people who say it are those who are older than about 35 and haven't grown up with the internet in their world and so they still have a part of them that doesn't understand it.

I have friends both online and off, so I feel like I can compare those friendships pretty easily. I wouldn't call myself an extrovert by any stretch, but most people who know me would be surprised by that. I don't particularly think that I have a hard time meeting people either, because I like to talk and so I'll just find somebody to talk to in most situations where I don't already know somebody.

In the end it boils down to one question: how do you define a friend.

For me it's somebody that supports me when I need it, congratulates me when I do well, thinks of me when I'm not present, and will have my back when it's important. Somebody I can laugh with, cry to, and who will listen when I want to rant about how the world sucks.

For people who think online friends aren't real friends, the only thing I can surmise is that they define friends as somebody you can shake hands with. I mean, really, what about all of those things I described as friendship requires a physical presence or a nearby location?

Sure, you will have online friends that disappear and you don't speak to much. And they could go away at a moment's notice and you wouldn't know why. They could suddenly reveal themselves as racist idiots and you'll have to defriend them and yadda yadda. But that's all possible with real friends too, and it's even MORE likely in my opinion. I can't tell you the number of real life friends I've made that I haven't stayed friends with because we discovered the only thing we had in common was being in the same place at the same time.

With an online friend, you started talking because of something other than proximity. You both really love Sherlock, or Star Trek, or reading fanfiction, or playing a certain game. And if you have one thing like that in common, you probably have more. It builds together. It's the perfect way for you to meet people that are in completely different walks of life than you are. Different ages, races, ethnicities, people who live in countries that you can't even spell. Being online and talking to people can open your world up immeasurably. It's like all the great things you get from reading books, but with actual human being and first person stories to share.

I've also met a lot of my online friends in real life over the years. I've gone to their houses for parties or visited when I was traveling. Friends have come to see me, we've met up at conventions, etc. I do tend to try to make sure I meet new people in public places or with a group, because it's common sense. But I think that people who consider there to be a distinct difference between online and offline friends clearly have never had real online friends, and that's their fault. It makes me wonder if they have offline friends too, or just people who put up with them.