I have to read all of them, right?
April 26, 2016 12:26 PM   Subscribe

Sarah Spain is just a scrub muffin. Watch men sit down with ESPN anchor Sarah Spain and Chicago sports radio host Julie DiCaro and read off harrasing twitter comments about journalists to their face. As part of a campaign #MoreThanMean, to learn more about the project check out the discussion on how the video came about on More Than Sports podcast.
posted by MiltonRandKalman (21 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
I think it probably goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway: tw/cw for descriptions of horribly misogynist violence.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:33 PM on April 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


It's like that Jimmy Kimmel bit only it's horrible and depressing.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:35 PM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


Flames, flames... sigh.
posted by Etrigan at 12:44 PM on April 26, 2016


The men reading these are apologizing, but the men who are typing them don't see anything wrong. And there are men who think that the women should stop being "pussies" and "just block them".

Find the guys who are SAYING these things and make THEM do a public reading. If they said it in public, they should be willing to be on record with their real names and faces.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:47 PM on April 26, 2016 [31 favorites]


I just. that's. I mean. I don't even know what to say.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:57 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Find the guys who are SAYING these things and make THEM do a public reading. If they said it in public, they should be willing to be on record with their real names and faces.

Better yet, have them say it to a woman in their lives, in public. And the rest of their families should be there, too.

Jimmy Kimmel's Mean Tweets is an old segment with various iterations (musicians, NBA stars, etc.). It's always the recipients reading tweets about them, and some of the people play it off well.

I think the internet fame of this series isn't helping the issue of people being dicks on Twitter in the hope of attention and fame.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:00 PM on April 26, 2016 [9 favorites]


And just because the guys in the video are visibly uncomfortable reading the tweets face-to-face with a woman, that's no indication that they wouldn't anonymously make comments like those themselves.

The #notallmen stuff in the comments is pretty infuriating... you have no idea what those guys, or any guy you don't know well (or even some you do), would say when there aren't any women around.
posted by Huck500 at 1:23 PM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


I made it about a third of the way through and "had" to turn it off. Then I remembered that; as a straight, white, male, I get to go through life without having to think about these things, because "well, I'm not those guys" and unless I remember to actively look, I don't see it happening. (Even though I know that it happens all the time.) So I made myself go back and watch it again.

I made it about two thirds of the way through the second time before I had to stop and go into the bathroom here at work and cry. A lot.

When I finally pulled it together, I came back and watched the whole thing, but I'm starting to tear up again typing this. As it happens, just last night I had a long, impromptu discussion with my 15 year-old son about privilege (it started about race but then also moved into sex/misogyny, etc.) and how important it is for us not to ignore it while others 'pay' for it.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:37 PM on April 26, 2016 [34 favorites]


The #notallmen stuff in the comments is pretty infuriating... you have no idea what those guys, or any guy you don't know well (or even some you do), would say when there aren't any women around.

And also, of course, the #notallmen thing is ignoring the point. Its dudes saying "your harassment is not as important as you taking time to make sure that I don't feel personally bad about you being harassed." Yes, yes of course there are men who don't harass but we're not talking about that - we're talking about women being harassed and all women get harassed. It matters not a jot whether 100% of men are doing this or only like 75% of men. Its happened, its happening, its going to continue to happen and if we just smugly sit around saying "well, I'm not personally harassing anyone" we are not helping end the harassment.

And here I am letting a derail in the comments of another website derail me here.

Ugh ugh ugh. Let's all go out and call out some of our more misogynistic friends on social media today. Because they're probably harassing somebody right now.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:43 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I find it almost quaint to think that men don't understand that women are literally harassed constantly every day online. Everywhere.

They really don't. And it's even more darkly amusing to watch them shake off the moral equivalent of "What was she doing wearing that skirt in that neighborhood at that time of night?" as a defense when they embrace the radical notion that hey, women deserve to be treated like people in a public space.
posted by sobell at 1:49 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wow, that internet activist guy they interview on the Troll Hunters documentary has never spent a moment trying to empathize with someone else.
posted by lauranesson at 2:21 PM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


I just don't get the reaction to this. "Just scroll past it", "block them", "it's just the internet", "I've had similar stuff said to me", etc. - why does that make it OK? Sure, yes, you could just scroll past it. But why should you have to scroll past three quarters (for example) of your comment feed just to get to legitimate comments?

Male sports reporters get harsh comments, too. But Ken Rosenthal's harsh comments are basically all "he's biased against team X in favour of team Y" (and of course, it turns out he's against and in favour of every team if you read all the comments), which is hardly in the same league. Their intelligence or their neutrality is questioned, but I can't recall ever seeing an actual threat of physical violence.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:51 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ugh, god, I didn't even think of the comments. Hope them meta trolls got their little jollies off.
posted by lauranesson at 2:58 PM on April 26, 2016


For me, what takes this to the next level of atrocity is that the "Up Next" sidebar alongside this video contains (for me):

-CRAZY DAREDEVILS + MORE (AMAZING) (the still image is of a woman in a tank top/shorts)
-CUTE ATHLETIC GIRLS (SPORTS) (still image is of a woman in shorts, bending over)
-THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY AND AWESOME (still image is of a woman in tight shirt & shorts, bent over)
-Bill Burr - Women Are Assholes

So yeah. Way to go YouTube algorithm, way to go.
posted by nubs at 2:59 PM on April 26, 2016 [7 favorites]


It feels like a wasteland now.

Its because MRA types run filters and post this stuff on forum so they can brigade. The only nice thing is we keep seeing the same arguments and retorts over and over again, so its gets easier to expose their copy-pasta and dismissive 'solutions'. Its like a predictable support call script or sword-fighting in Monkey Island

"Its not that big of deal" The content says otherwise.

"Happens to men to" Its not about men, this is addressing issues women face

"You're thin-skinned, you can just leave the Internet" Your solution is the goal of the harassers

"They are not real victims. Wo/men get sexually assaulted, they are real victims" Its not a either/or problem. Empathy and compassion is not a finite resource

"Can I at least get you to bundle a home phone line to your current package?" Please add me to your Do Not Bullshit list
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 5:06 PM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is a really well made video, and really well delivered. The comments, while not actively awful, are tiring. They suggest many future, tiring conversations about the same things, will have to be had.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:30 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Speaking of running filters to brigade, a face recognition search engine is being used to dox porn actresses:

Earlier this April, a Russian photographer named Egor Tsvetkov used photos and an app called FindFace, a neural network that can link photos with social media profiles using facial recognition, to show how much information we willfully give up online. Unfortunately the nightmare he was trying to warn against swiftly came true.

According to Global Voices, three days after the Russian press covered Tsvetkov’s project, a online hive of scum and villainy on a 4Chan-esque Russian forum called Dvach began using the FindFace app to analyze photos of porn actresses. After finding a match, the hordes descended, attacking them on the popular Russian social media network, Vkontakte, and posting photos to friends and family members. The photos don’t appear to limited to images of women from Russia, either. The woman in the above image appears to be an American college student.

posted by NoxAeternum at 6:28 PM on April 26, 2016


That was hard to watch.
posted by flippant at 1:28 AM on April 27, 2016


Honestly, I'm just waiting for this kind of "discourse" to become dirt common in person. As in yes, some bro will scream at some poor barista just like this in public because hey, what's going to happen to him?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:26 AM on April 27, 2016


Well, if you're an Ontario Hydro One employee, you get fired and then rehired six months later.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 11:10 AM on April 27, 2016


Yeah, I'm divided on that one. On one hand, yes, what he said was pretty revolting. But on the other hand, it looks like the union was fighting the firing on the grounds that he wasn't on duty nor was he in a front facing position, and as such Hydro One firing him for off the clock statements was against their CBA. Which is a position that's hard to argue against.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:26 AM on April 27, 2016


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