Dogpile!

[dysprositos]

What I don't get is:

1. one person messes up (or multiple people mess up) in a fail-y way
2. someone else complains (skip to step 6 sometimes)
3. other people, having now encountered the mess, complain
4. some people are like, "What's the big deal?"
5. lots of people explain what the big deal is
6. the whole thing gets Metafandomed and/or UnfunnyBusinessed (repeat steps 3-5)
7. several people complain about "dogpiling" and "censorship", viz., that several people complaining about fail is dogpiling and thus fail, and also that talking about why someone oughtn't to say or write fail-y things hurts the original failer's freedom of expression and is totally censorship!!!11!ZOMG!

Do the people in step 7 even hear themselves? I mean, yes, the accusations of dogpiling and censorship and such are stupid for the reasons several other people have explained in detail (freedom of expression: you keep using that phrase; I don't think it means what you think it means), but what you have here is:

• several people
• complaining
• about someone else's speech,
• trying to get them to not say what they were saying,
• on the ground that it is fail-y (censorship, dogpiling)
• because it is wrong and bad and shouldn't happen whenever:
  
  • several people
  • complain
  • about someone else's speech,
  • trying to get them to not say what they were saying,
  • on the ground that it is fail-y.

Maybe this phenomenon is like with people who support sexism or racism or whatever, how they always think they are the First One Ever to make such-and-such particular arguments, the Pioneer of Anti-anti-ism-ism, and that's why we make bingo cards. Not that it stops them, usually, but it's worth the shot.

So, here is a PSA for anyone who believes themselves to be the One Brave Soul who will stand up and defend freedom of expression from the dogpiling hordes: You're not! There are a ton of you! And you're all saying the same things, and you're trying to shut people up by criticizing them! Which you have defined as dogpiling and censorship! You have met the enemy, and we are you! Now disappear in a puff of logic.

Comments

[theleaveswant]

I'm not sure how I found your journal but I've just read all the essay-style entries and I love them.