Pat of Fantasy Hotlist has, naturally, responded to my post in a completely mature oh wait lol. I don’t really care that much, but I wanted to highlight a little something:
Keeping in mind that he wants a “friendly, more casual approach”? Keeping in mind that he said he’d “monitor” the comments? This is what he let through:
(Trigger warning: rape.)
Interesting that he’s a Ryan, by the way. Remember Ryan? The guy who was really obsessed with me and started flinging shit at anyone he thought agreed or cared to read me in any way? Mm-hmm.
In any case, this is the company Pat keeps and the kind of people who read Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist. My dear honky, this is not a compliment. This, you see, is what happens when you think you are a progressive liberal but are in truth nothing more than a racist, sexist asshole. The true colors show, Pat darling. That goes for most of his readership too.
I’d like to take this occasion to note how impotent they generally are–they are so scared shitless by the idea of feminism or anti-racism, expressed in a way they don’t like (i.e. a way they find difficult to ignore: hence all the tone arguments being flung around. For more, see here and here) that any time someone talks about such in a “tone” that riles them up, they close ranks and throw hissy fits. They hound anyone they think might possibly agree with, or not react like rabid dogs, to rhetoric like mine or that of say Tiger Beatdown, and whine at them until (it is hoped) the person who doesn’t scream “GOD SHE IS SO HATEFUL AND RACIST AND SEXIST” joins them in the chorus. Sadly, neckbeards are generally not possessed of half the persuasive power they think they do, so… all it comes off is TONE TONE TONE, which anyone who’s read Derailing for Dummies quickly recognizes. Then we have folks like Ryan, who fly absolutely off the handle and splat right into shit, like the above, no longer pretending that they are possessed of an intellect–but note that despite having said that shit he did, Ryan still thinks he’s not racist or sexist.
But taken all together, the neckbeards can’t really do very much apart from join hands and circle-jerk each other into a coma. They’re not very good at silencing anyone, and certainly not particularly good at recruiting. The more they talk, the more rampant douchiness and -isms they reveal, which generally tends to turn off decent human beings.
Charisma: the dump stat, as it were.
James Oliver (@DazedBastard)
/ January 31, 2012Personally, I adore the comments along the lines of “I spent a week in Thailand, and…” because we all know that roughing it in the hostels for a week makes you a fucking expert.
As for the comments that Pat is allowing, I am perplexed. As I mentioned on twitter:
“Called racist, misogynist, and sexist? Rant about it, allow comments exhibiting every one of those. Logic!”
Arthur B (@awakeasaurusrex)
/ January 31, 2012“Yes, as everyone made quite clear, it’s obvious this guy has never set foot in Thailand.”
I’m trollfacing like you wouldn’t believe over here.
- Arthur
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012:)
meishuu
/ February 1, 2012Haha, oh, seems Pat is also a comedian. I laughing like you wouldn’t believe over here.
naishee
/ January 31, 2012“And what’s wrong with American’s [sic] being proud of being American. Why is that bad but other countries can feel proud of their country [really big sic. Grammar?].”
This just made me think of how a disturbingly large ammount of Americans took to the streets waving flags and yelling “Yoo Ess ay! Yoo ess ay!” after Bin Laden was killed. Seriously, in other countries that kind of celebrating is for when you win a Cricket or Football game against whoever. And that is why American patriotism/nationalism is so ugly.
“And I agree, next time don’t take our fucking aid.”
I wonder if he realises the aid The West gives to developing countries is absolutely dwarfed by the income The West gets from said countries through tolls, exploiting natural resources et cetera. If the US stopped giving aid, and the developing countries stopped exporting to America (at a loss, which they are forced to do right now), the US would be the country in big big trouble.
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012I can’t remember the last time the west sent any aid of substance my country’s way, to be honest, so… lol. I wonder if he considers the bombs that brought democracy to Iraq a form of “aid”?
Ugh yes, I heard about it. What a quick, one-way ticket off the road of humanity and into being just shitstains.
naishee
/ January 31, 2012“I wonder if he considers the bombs that brought democracy to Iraq a form of “aid”?”
Well… In Sweden there are four big national newspapers. Three of them were all for the Iraq war. One of the even had the fucking gall to say this, when the bombs were falling:
“For the first time in its history the country has learned something abouth freedom”.
Considering that was the exact same argument the English used when they colonised Iraq back in the early 20th century… Idiots with no knowledge of history abound.
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012I, er… have no words. What the hell.
Inverarity Pynchon
/ January 31, 2012Damn, he has some bootlickers.
And evidently you don’t know your own country. Gads, the arrogance.
Your mode of polemic does require some familiarity to read past the f-bombs and creatively purple insults, but most fanboys just see the language and reach for their smelling salts.
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012But if there’d been no such language, they wouldn’t be reading it at all, in any case. :) That and even moderately-written feminist articles get fuckwad comments up to eleventy regardless.
Aliette de Bodard (@aliettedb)
/ January 31, 2012Dear God in Heaven. That’s some classy company he’s keeping.
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012To say the least.
(Also, hello! I was rec’d your story on current Clarkesworld issue recently and very much liked it. <3)
saajanpatel
/ February 2, 2012Just wanted to second the excellent story on Clarkesworld. Will definitely be picking up your books.
Aliette de Bodard (@aliettedb)
/ January 31, 2012Hello, and thank you for the blog, very enlightening (and entertaining)!
(And thank you! I’m glad you liked the story–I was trying to unpack a lot of things (some of them personal), and I’m relieved that it worked out fine)
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012Heh, sometimes I wonder if I should tone down the performance rage a bit, but it seems generally people upset by it are exactly the people I want upset.
(I can’t say I identified directly with it, due of course to vastly unlike background between us, but I thought it was both lovely and insightful. It’s something of an embarrassment to me that I can’t speak Mandarin nor read a single Chinese character.)
trevoresque
/ February 1, 2012Oh mercy, please never tone down the performance rage. That being said, I won’t complain if you compliment the hate with more reviews of stuff you enjoy. Any gems you find while wandering the genre shitscape are totally appreciated.
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012I’m rereading Angela Carter’s Bloody Chamber collection. Review should be up soon, and it’s a very lovely collection indeed. And then I’ll post my first impressions of the excellent Christine Love’s new visual novel.
Eddie C (@freezingkiwi)
/ January 31, 2012Ugh. God. So either you’re a lesbian or a dude, given that generous Pat is going to send you a girly calendar. Which implies he’s dumb if he thinks the first, and a dickhead if the second. Can we go with both?
Pat’s approach to fantasy reminds me of that hilarious kerfuffle last year w/ the fanboi on the Bioware boards asking for a “no homo” button for DA2 (yes, I know you’re not a huge fan of bioware, but stay with me on this!). David Gaider, to his credit, said “go to hell”, which triggered a rant about how mean it was of Bioware to cater to people other than the straight white male gamer (regardless of how successful Bioware is in that regard, that impression is still out there).
In the same sort of way Pat wants fantasy to be about and for the straight white (Catholic?) male, and seems to have trouble dealing with any books, or any person, that challenges that.
(Also, hi! Lurking for a while here, always find your reviews amusing and/or thought provoking even when I don’t entirely agree with them).
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012I’m a lesbian. :) But I don’t want that calendar even a little bit, and his slavering over it is pretty disgusting (as is the whole “I can’t be misogynistic, I LOVE to objectify women!”).
I heard of that thing with Gaider. One of the rare times I can more or less not think he and the studio are terrible.
I can’t decide how aware of his own issues he is.
Eddie C (@freezingkiwi)
/ January 31, 2012I think the slavering is made worse because he predominantly does it about foreign women. Go to foreign countries and make sure you comment on the beauty or otherwise of their women! He rightly (if clumsily) criticises gross old white men who go on sex tours, and it wouldn’t be fair to say he’s doing that, but he totally does “gross skeevy perv tourism!”.
As a gay male, I will say he’s never outright homophobic to gay men (and sung the praises of Vellum, which I rather liked and even if you don’t, is super super gay :P), but the grossness to pretty much every other group (not to mention the bad bad prose) made me run far far away.
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012Oh I don’t dislike Vellum, I just stopped reading for a reason I can no longer recall, although… I do recall an unfortunate rape subplot. :/ :/ :/ WHY, OF ALL THINGS.
Aliette de Bodard (@aliettedb)
/ January 31, 2012He, I can’t speak Mandarin either, except that I might possibly recognise the characters for “rice” and “tea” :=)
(I actually drew mostly on my mangled version of sino-Vietnamese culture for this, but I felt that if I gave everyone Vietnamese names, it was going to be too rooted in the real world Vietnamese War(s) of Independence, and I didn’t want the story to be dismissed as “oh, it’s solely about that bit of her family history, and has no point to make beyond that”. Hence the Chinese names. Though, given that the only thing most White people know of Vietnamese history is “the Americans fought for freedom!”, I might as well not have bothered…)
acrackedmoon
/ January 31, 2012I can recognize the ones for “moon”, “person” and “mountain.” Together we will combine and turn into… a very small Chinese-English dictionary?
Ergh, yes. That seems to be all most white people know about anything foreign to them, really.
Zach Rosenberg
/ February 1, 2012It might just be my own schooling, but we learned a lot of what a horrible fuck up and how horrendous an action the Vietnam war was. Unfortunately, what a lot of people don’t get is the difference between pride and blind loyalty or nationalism. And there is WAY too much of that to go around in the USA
and…”Masturbation would help you ease up?” What.
The. FUCK? I’m not a violent person, but I really want him punched for that one. And “This is grounds for a lawsuit?” I’m in law as well and…WHAT? Did he sleep through class when they brought up libel and defamation?
….Also…umm…why do they keep calling you ‘he?’
Gourmet Neurovore
/ February 1, 2012There are no women on the Internet. This is documented, scientific fact. If you encounter someone who appears to have more than the usual one X-chromosome, it is possible that you are suffering from hallucinations, and you should contact your doctor immediately.
Cyna (@endless_run)
/ February 1, 2012The masturbation comment is probably the most condescending bullshit I’ve read in a while. “Dude, lighten up, all that thinking you’re doing is probably just because you need to come, man, masturbate yourself stupid like the rest of us.” HA-HA I’M SO FUNNY. Not really.
I love the way he automatically assumes you’re an angry American white boy in the basement of your mom’s house. Projection much? The whole world /= you.
The assholes who say your being Thai and female make the comments worse is even better. Missing the point much? They know better because THEY’VE VISITED OK? Christ, the level of asshole is astounding. Ah, well, they’re not really there to think, just to make Pat feel better. *headshake*
thoughtfulsff
/ February 1, 2012Don’t look too far into the stupid. It will look back.
meishuu
/ February 1, 2012I know, those commenters are most likely neckbeards themselves so… Also, the about of mansplaining is just disgusting, but not surprising.
Gourmet Neurovore
/ February 1, 2012Given that masturbation was once a treatment for ‘female hysteria‘, it’s even creepier than that.
Jesus, Pat.
rizzrustbolt
/ February 1, 2012“Why would that Bangkok post piss her off?? After bemoaning the fact that prostitution will probably never go away, thanks to those Western pigs looking for cheap fucks, Pat says: There are a couple of universities here, so hopefully there is a brighter future for many Thai young women.
How is that patronizing bullshit?”
LOLtacular.
M Caliban
/ February 1, 2012I have difficulty believing that his comments are moderated.
I notice that when I google ‘Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist,’ this post is the third result. Between that and the 100+ comments, I’m guessing he’s getting a bit more traffic.
linesdrawninred
/ February 1, 2012I linked this on my Facebook page when author Mark Lawrence pointed it out to me on Friday morning.
…Oh god they’re in contact, a dudebro hivemind is forming. D:
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012Too late. The dudebro hivemind has always been there.
thoughtfulsff
/ February 1, 2012I love how he specifies “author Mark Lawrence”, as if he’s got to make it utterly clear that he’s totally friends with an author omg the popularity.
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012And yet, Larry of OFBlog gets paid to review and Pat does not! But Larry’s supposed to be jealous of him or something.
Eddie C (@freezingkiwi)
/ February 1, 2012I just (stupidly) finished reading all the comments on Pat’s “waaah waah” post, and then a friend tweeted this comic. It seemed oddly appropriate:
http://www.gabbysplayhouse.com/?p=1444
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012I love that comic.
saajanpatel
/ February 1, 2012Having had to shed my own coat of privileged, whiny angst I like to believe others can as well….but….
Wow. The density of privileged self-righteousness in terms of faux-knowledge (“Thailand has the biggest prostitution problem in the world!”) to derailment (“Why should Pat mention what women in Thailand think about sex workers? This is a blog about fantasy!”) makes it hard to go back but I did promise Pat I’d go through all the referenced posts you had and have my own critique…
(Started with “Islam and the Soft Left: 1 Freedom of Speech: 0″ so I can hope we’re going uphill from there.)
Part of me wants to believe that without the performance rage people would take notice and listen but honestly I doubt it. In some ways the butthurt is better, it makes a few people dare to reflect and change.
ps. The above quotes are paraphrased, but honestly I think I made them look better.
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012The thing with tone argument is that if you are polite, privileged piggies will find it easier to ignore you, not the other way around. So when people say “you should be nicer!” they are really saying “you should be quieter so I won’t have to listen.” And so on. I’ve rarely seen privileged piggies react to moderately-written feminist/anti-racist blog posts with anything but “no, you’re wrong and I, mighty man/mighty whitey, will explain why” because they believe a moderate tone invites them to lecture–that they, as men (or white men), have been given room to voice their views when their views are anything but relevant.
He’s really quite scrambling hard to save face and protest his innocence. Disgusting.
Larry
/ February 1, 2012Or they decide to ignore a polite request when linking to your blog to post their thoughts here instead of on my blog and I get excuse after excuse after excuse despite it been stated to them that I am not interested. I don’t know if it’s because they think they can get by with more or that because I’m a male that I’ll be sympathetic. It’s irritating.
acrackedmoon
/ February 1, 2012I think it’s either “you’re male, why aren’t you calling her a crazy lesbo bitch?!” or “you’re male and you aren’t calling her a crazy lesbo bitch, so we’ll pester you until you do, traitor!” The idea that a man, or indeed a straight white man, mightn’t want to join in their sexist/racist/homophobic shit-slinging is one they cannot wrap their minds–insofar as they have a mind–around because they are used to the automatic camaraderie that being straight and white and male grants them.
jennygadget
/ February 1, 2012“The thing with tone argument is that if you are polite, privileged piggies will find it easier to ignore you, not the other way around.”
Yes. It generally makes me want to start quoting Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” at them, when they start claiming otherwise.
Next Friday
/ February 2, 2012Hm.. Yes. If you’re polite, then it’s easy to ignore you (that is unless you make a typo), and there’s just not enough fire in the air to keep the discussion going. If you’re not polite, then you’re stuck with the derailment into the tone argument. The best results can be probably achieved using ‘good cop, bad cop’ tactic, but pulling it through alone would be a full time job.
acrackedmoon
/ February 2, 2012Being polite also invites derailment, actually; I’ve seen this secondhand and experienced it firsthand. If I can find it I’ll show you an old thread on LJ someday, where I started off perfectly polite and moderate, but the other party got really pissy and defensive anyway.
See also this twitter exchange: I didn’t exactly start off tearing into him, and was in fact quite polite.
Next Friday
/ February 2, 2012True, you have to watch for derailment all the time. I think they are a bit more creative, when they can’t jump into the tone argument immediately, but in the end, if they insist on derailing, they get some express trolling back.
In your case I guess some people would start hyperventilate as soon as they saw your name. :)
g2-22745856cc8b56416cc6c344655eb99f
/ February 4, 2012Being polite is always the best way for minorities or those without privilege to get their demands heard. This is exactly why the most polite activists such as Malcolm X or Susan B Anthony were the most successful.
OWAIT
Zach Rosenberg
/ February 1, 2012I’m curious if Pat has any idea how bad human trafficking actually is in North America (starting work with the Florida Center on Human Trafficking soon, and I can tell you: It’s fucking BAD)
madness111
/ February 2, 2012acrackedmoon, what is this accomplishing?
acrackedmoon
/ February 2, 2012Making people like you cry butthurt tears. :)
Horza
/ February 2, 2012But is it worth all the damage?
The suffering?
The millions of lives crushed and glorious futures lost by you um, being mean to people with reprehensible opinions on the internet?
Think of the soggy neckbeards, straining under their salty burden and ask yourself: where does it end?
acrackedmoon
/ February 2, 2012The total annihilation of Pat and people like Pat? IT IS TO BE HOPED.
meishuu
/ February 3, 2012Kill all the neckbeards!
Horza
/ February 3, 2012I will answer you with literatures:
[quote] any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the neckbeard tolls; it tolls for thee. [/quote]
madness111
/ February 2, 2012Have you ever perused any cognitive psychology, acrackedmoon?
acrackedmoon
/ February 2, 2012Dunno, you’re banned tho.
siedhr
/ February 3, 2012I think you may have just banned Mr. Bakker.
acrackedmoon
/ February 3, 2012That’d be pretty amusing since last time he showed, I just trashed his comment (though may not have actually banned him).
g2-22745856cc8b56416cc6c344655eb99f
/ February 4, 2012Nah, that’s just one of his friends from Westeros.
siedhr
/ February 3, 2012If you don’t mind my asking, did you consider publishing his comment just to watch him hang himself? He’s doing a terrific job of it in his latest blog post.
acrackedmoon
/ February 3, 2012I did! But at the time his comment seemed really boring–”blah blah accusations of misogyny SPURIOUS WAH WAH.”
Oh actually you know what, it’s still there, I didn’t delete it outright. I could let it through now I suppose, for people to engage with if they’d like to. Here you go.
nathan lightfoot (@nathanlightfoot)
/ February 9, 2012Ok, your blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites ( recently introduced ) but the term butthurt is almost as bad as the crap being spewed over at the hotlist. Don’t stoop to that level.
acrackedmoon
/ February 9, 2012It’s interesting to me that you think comparing someone speculating that I’m a “black lesbian rape victim who pulled herself out of the gutter” is “almost as bad” as using the word butthurt.
nathan lightfoot (@nathanlightfoot)
/ February 9, 2012Its interesting to me that your going to defend using it, or don’t see an issue with it. Also, that comment was so far out of line I can’t comprehend someone even typing it, then actually posting it. I wasn’t referring directly to that, seeing as there is a ton of nonsense in the comments, but you can cherry pick all you want. To correct myself, its almost as bad as SOME of the crap over there
acrackedmoon
/ February 9, 2012How can it be cherry picking when I’m… repeating back what you said?
I use it in reference to people acting like little children who were spanked, thus a hurt butt. So?
acrackedmoon
/ February 9, 2012Oh, I see. After googling it up, I found out it has something to do with the “surprise buttsex” meme? If that’s what you mean, then yes, I can understand why you find it off-putting; it carries connotations I’m not fond of either. Apologies.
Gourmet Neurovore
/ February 9, 2012Yeah, ‘butthurt’ usually means ‘feeling the aftereffects of violent anal rape’. There are worse terms to throw around, but it’s not exactly ideal.
nathan lightfoot (@nathanlightfoot)
/ February 9, 2012OK! Partially my fault as I was operating under the assumption you were aware of that. It’s used pretty regularly, at least where are I am from, in that manner. My 11 says it ( even worse, in front my 4 year old daughter who literally will repeat everything ) and it drives me fucking nuts.
acrackedmoon
/ February 9, 2012No, I use/have seen it used regularly as well, but I’ve always assumed it came from the gamer context of “haha I kicked his ass/butt in the arena match and he went to whine about it on the forums, what a butthurt loser!” which, while not exactly mature, is fairly harmless. Didn’t particularly connect it with rape… which, I suppose, is how rape culture functions. Thank you for alerting me to it and taking me to task for the use, and again, apologies for being so glib.
nathan lightfoot (@nathanlightfoot)
/ February 10, 2012Yes, I hear it in games or on the internet in general pretty often. I have a cousin who lived with us for about a year during our senior year and he had this insult thrown at him regularly ( he is gay, which is why he lived with us in the first place ). Before that, I honestly didnt give much thought to the term. Anyway, apologies if I came off as an ass. I’m not trying to be, and im glad I can even mention it without someone blowing up. :)
acrackedmoon
/ February 10, 2012No, you didn’t come off as an ass–I did! I’m very glad you brought it up and made me look up connotations to it I wasn’t aware of. <3
Katrina Witt (@Katyourwittsend)
/ February 21, 2012I’d just like to say, because it needs to be said for all of the “oh, look how progressive I am” folk of this sort who share my coloration but little else: I’m whitey, and I apologise. (to quote Christopher TItus.) We’ve fucked up, for hundreds of years, and really screwed up, wilfully misunderstood, and generally trod on people of non-white non-christian non-eurocentric-normative sorts all over the globe. We have undeserved privileges to this very day because of the various cultural and psychological mind-fucks of the past, and we really don’t like thinking about it because it makes most of us deeply uncomfortable.
I can’t apologise for the slightly more religious types who hold people of non-hetero non-christian/non-westernized-normative sorts as inherently lesser, because as a flamingly bisexual female atheist who has NO interest in being wife or mother, they want to be associated with me almost even less than I’d ever want to be associated with them.
Other than that, though: yes. We fucked up, a lot, and it seems we will persist in doing so. I don’t ask for forgiveness or understanding of my people: it’d be unfair of us to ask for something we ourselves still haven’t quite figured out how to give.
I’m the product of the cultural vacuum that is lower-middle-class whitey-dom in America, and I apologise on behalf of anyone of a similar background who wishes they had the cajones to do it themselves. For the rest: fuck ‘em, they’re idiots.
Keep blogging. I love the way you rage.
acrackedmoon
/ February 21, 2012Aw, thank you.
It’s okay, some of my best friends are white! Kidding aside, I do actually understand and don’t spend all my time yelling DIE WHITEY DIE; there are white allies who have a fair grasp of things, and don’t just behave like Pat and his fanboys all the time. Unfortunately, Pat/similar seem to comprise the majority.
Hugs for queer lady solidarity!
katyourwittsend
/ February 24, 2012I think it’s pretty clear you’re not so much “DIE WHITEY DIE” as you are “TACT, WHITEY! IT’S CALLED TACT! Get some, for fuck’s sake!” And I all sorts of approve of that, especially when it’s delivered eloquently and with a fair dose of wit, which you do quite well.
The particular group of whiteys you “offend” consists mostly of people for whom logic and self-awareness are paradigms to which they do not subscribe, and which they’ve never had to learn, usually because they live within their own well-blindered ideals and give no credence to opinions that contradict the ones bouncing around their little echo-chambers. They are the hero/martyr: it is them.
I’s good to hear a voice of reason from somewhere, and it’s good when the anger is justified instead of merely, “Waaah, you’re being mean! HOW DARE YOU.” The occasional snark is an added bonus.
And hooray solidarity! You get hugs too.
acrackedmoon
/ February 24, 2012Madam, you make me blush.
On twitter we came up with a term for those: “fauxgressive testerical men.”