Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Hell, Ship-to-Ship Combat in general shows how far people are willing to get offended. I've seen people bullied into silence, feelings hurt, suicide contemplated because people like to destroy each other emotionally over fictional character pairings.
Generally speaking though, if someone goes on a rant about "SJ Ws", they're probably full of shit.
Another thing to note is that whenever someone makes accusations of SJ Ws taking things too seriously, one should look at the context of the situation. More often than not, the full story behind the incident makes the so-called "SJ Ws" outrage a lot more understandable.
edited 13th May '18 11:28:03 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedYeah, the Alt-Right has ruined that term to the point I call myself one simply because it means, "Someone who thinks racism is bad and tells racists they suck."
I do think harassers over perceived injustices do exist.
But they're like Bigfoot.
They get mentioned a lot but only a few exist. Like me, for instance.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Bottom line: in the USA at least, "SJ Ws" are not a problem. At least, they're not the problem we should be worried about right now.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Thing is, though, there are some crazies who do fit the bill...Overwatch had a recent idiot explosion on Tumblr when a genderbent black Mercy character design was revealed as just one of the concepts for Mercy. Cue certain zealots screaming whitewashing and Overwatch not being diverse enough...despite half of the cast being PoCs and from countries that are barely represented in most Western/Anglophone media. The good news is that many, many tumblr users were actively shouting them down - they're not afraid to challenge and openly fight their own stereotype when it shows its ugly face.
The problem is that the entire SJW stereotype and slur has gone to simply mean "liberals" in general. Which is ridiculous.
edited 13th May '18 11:27:46 PM by TheWildWestPyro
This topic started when discussing the Alt-Right vs. just the Right. There are a lot of differences, as seen with the whole "RINO" insult as well as Alt-Righters saying Mc Cain is a cuck traitor.
Trump was a big swerve in the Right which is why he had his cult following. We can talk all we want about Republicans being hypocrites but the fact is that their messaging for half-a-century is "small government" "deregulation" "states rights'", etc.. The Alt-Right has no time for any of that. They hate the RINO's for selling out the white race by encouraging immigration and globalization.
In brief, I do not expect the black National Review editor I saw on PBS to be part of the group that is largely defined by crying for a white ethnostate.
edited 13th May '18 11:29:44 PM by Nikkolas
My review for THE BLACK WITCH also discusses the issue that divided people on the book, FYI.
Basically, the controversy was the fact the protagonist is a huge bigot for half the book.
(Against fictional races)
She also had one real life prejudice she had to get over—and readers just didn't want to spend that much time in Hermione Malfoy's head.
http://booknest.eu/reviews/charles/1160-theblackwitch
Bottom line: in the USA at least, "SJ Ws" are not a problem. At least, they're not the problem we should be worried about right now.
It's why I prefer the term "internet crusader." A Social Justice Warrior is someone who, by definition, supports Social Justice and is a good thing. So they are warriors for it.
Again, a good thing.
internet crusader makes it clearer that it's about fighting over the internet which is....well often nothing.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Yes. The people who I described in the Tumblr Overwatch black Mercy slapfight can be defined as "internet crusaders".
They also happen to fit the inaccurate stereotype of "SJWs" that the right throws around. But really those the right brands as SJWs are often liberals. The usual.
edited 13th May '18 11:32:22 PM by TheWildWestPyro
Social (or should I say, fauxial) justice-based internet fandom discourse can be an incredibly awful thing, and unfortunately does have a tendency to hook its tendrils in far-reaching places, if anyone here is tangentially familiar with the Steven Universe or Voltron Legendary Defender fandoms for example. But while the language is often heavily SJ-based, the ultimate motivations almost always turn out to be rooted in Ship-to-Ship Combat or character-centric Fan Dumb-slash-Hate Dumb, which is not. The Alt Right are sincere in their activist bigotry, which is even worse.
edited 14th May '18 12:27:55 AM by AlleyOop
And one also has to consider that a lot of the times people complain about "SJ Ws", it's not about fandumb like this. "SJW" is more or less now just a snarl word to insult anyone who takes offense to bigotry.
Like, I've encountered small pockets of people who still use the term "SJW" to refer to certain specific breeds of fandom morality police that send them threatening messages for things like, say, daring to ship a canon bisexual character with opposite-gendered characters, for enjoying ships where the characters weren't absolute paragons of moral virtue (mainly because they want one of the characters in that ship to end up with their own supposed "cinnamon roll", and often engaging in a good helping of Ron the Death Eater), or for daring to enjoy any kind of content with characters they don't like at all (under the guise of said character being "problematic" and therefore tantamount to condoning whatever supposed evils they did, also with a good helping of Ron the Death Eater).
But that's about it, they're usually liberal-leaning themselves, and it's usually because they're fandom vets or spend time in circles with such vets, holdovers from when "SJW" originally did mean just that, originating among Tumblr space to criticize certain notorious BN Fs with a history of indulging in awful extremist behavior like that (Korra fandom was full of them). They're not talking about leftist beliefs in general, just people who like to pay them lip service in order to bully and harass people over something much pettier.
edited 14th May '18 12:48:13 AM by AlleyOop
Exactly.
I mean, I have been floating around ideas for shipping Ciri, who's canonically bisexual, with Edmund Pevensie. Thankfully the Witcher fandom likes the bisexual interpretation - while they do refer to Ciri as a lesbian most of the time on tumblr, a lot of fans who do so also really enjoy pairing her with Cahir from the books. So it'll go down OK, I think.
Others I know have not been so lucky.
edited 14th May '18 12:57:47 AM by TheWildWestPyro
There are small sections of the left that are a problem, like TERFs, a group mostly consisting of transphobic lesbians who claim to be "radical feminists". They believe such things as "trans women are actually perverted men who fetishise women and are jealous of them" and "women are, and always have been, the most oppressed group on earth, so women are inherently justified in doing anything wrong while men are all raping monsters".
A lot of the big name TER Fs are holdovers from the second wave. They were radical for the time but now they are a testament to the sort of paradox everyone who calls themselves a Progressive is in. What does Progressive mean? Progress. We're all steadily marching towards a better world.
In 50 years we will all be regarded as intolerant monsters with very problematic views on something.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't clamor for good things or whatnot, it's just kind of a historical fact that even yesterday's champions of freedom have some views we consider detestable today.
RE: "alt-right":
It's worth considering that a lot of alt-right figures these days aren't even calling themselves alt-right. They're "realists" or "intellectuals" or my favorite, "classical liberals". The term "alt-right" has become so associated with bigotry that people with alt-right-esque views have to call themselves something else to look more appealing.
edited 14th May '18 3:37:56 AM by PhysicalStamina
i'm tired, my friendClassical liberalism
is basically early libertarianism
I know I've seen it used by right-wing types to avoid identifying with mainstream conservatism and libertarianism, but I'm not sure I've seen alt-righters use it
edited 14th May '18 4:06:25 AM by Hylarn
Classical Liberals is how spineless worms like Dave Rubin and Carl of Swindon describe themselves.
Ostensibly it's supposed to show how they oppose anything more than the minimal state and their one and only love is freedom.
So yeah, Libertarianism but with no principles and somehow worse because these "classical liberals" do nothing but support Trump and Le Pen (the exact opposite of supporting the minimal state) and hate on anything vaguely Left of center.
I'm unaware of any outright Alt-Righters describing themselves as such, though... I THINK maybe Baked Alaska did and he was at the Unite the Right Rally.
edited 14th May '18 4:23:47 AM by Nikkolas

Well, internet crusaders do exist. People who fight over fiction and harass as well as growl at people versus trying to help real people.
I was one of the reviewers involved in this controversy. Just very very late.
http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/the-toxic-drama-of-ya-twitter.html
edited 13th May '18 11:22:37 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.