I have a decent amount of fun with the lunatics who inhabit social justice Tumblr and social justice Twitter because they're ridiculous and making fun of ridiculous people amuses me. But they're also ridiculously toxic, prone to mobbish bullying whenever someone transgresses whatever norms they've erected in the past week about who can be portrayed how, and by whom, and when, and where.
If you have a few minutes, you should go down the fascinating, terrifying rabbit hole that is this Daily Dot piece. Entitled "'Steven Universe' fandom is melting down after bullied fanartist attempts suicide," it's an amazing glimpse into the totally nutty world of slights and perceived slights and non-slights-blown-up-into-world-shattering-slights that is SJW Tumblr.
You really should read the whole thing, but the short version is this: A fan artist (that is, someone who draws images of fictional characters for fun) faced mountains of criticism for creating "problematic" depictions of characters for a popular cartoon show beloved for its commitment to diversity. The criticism was so monumental and so withering that she (allegedly) tried to kill herself. The creators of the show also found themselves drawing fire after they defended the fan artist's right to create fan art without being bullied to death.
What were some of the things that this horrible no good very bad fan artist did to deserve such despicable treatment? One SJW has created a running catalogue of her sins. Some of them are run-of-the-mill accusations of racism. Others are a bit more ... esoteric. Here are some highlights:
- "Drew an Indian character purposely with a smaller nose twice";
- "Reacted to being called out for antiblack art stating she can draw what she wants";*
- "Drew the 'boys in dresses are funny' trope";
- "Drew genderbents";**
- "Ships murderer x victim"***
You get the idea. After the show's creators came to the aid of the bullied fan artist—saying, in effect, that no one should be driven to suicide by jerks on the Internet because they drew a fat character slightly thinner—SJW Tumblr turned on them, attacking older works of art and labeling the creators pedophile apologists, or something. As one user critical of the attacks put it,
Last month, the Crewniverse was a diverse group of talented people who made an amazing show. Now Rebecca Sugar is sick because she drew Ed, Edd, ‘n’ Eddie porn at one point. Ian JQ is a disgusting pervert for liking lolicon. They’re all racists, fat-phobics, and terrible people because they promote artistic freedom in their own fandom, but none of it mattered before they got tired of the bullying. None of it mattered before the fans drove someone to a suicide attempt.
This isn't the mindset of a group of fans or even a group of social critics. This is the mindset of a mob. And a mob only knows how to do one thing: burn shit down.
As a parting thought, could you imagine how much attention this story would be getting if the girl was driven to suicide not by warriors for social justice but by GamerGaters? Just something to think about.
*Remember, the only proper response to being "called out" is to say "yes sir, sorry sir, it won't happen again sir, may I please have another, sir?" It's like that scene in Animal House where Niedermeyer is hitting Kevin Bacon with the paddle. But with more social justice.
**I had to look this one up; a "genderbent" is when a fan artist draws a character that is male as female, or vice versa. I was familiar with the genre but not the term. I didn't even realize this was problematic—indeed, I thought it was often laudable. I'm old enough to remember when the Internet lost its mind over the awesomely empowering Lady Avengers; I guess things have changed.
***I have literally no idea what this means. [Editor's Note from young person Stephanie Wang: "Shipping" is when one hopes for a relationship between characters in a story that have not yet gotten together. For example, some people on the Internet "ship" Hermione Granger and Harry Potter.]