I Think I've Reached A Boiling Point When It Comes To Social Justice

[Gorrila_thinktank]

So many people disappointed with "social justice", wow.
Did anybody complaining about social justice here actually fight for something, or are we just talking about internet forums?

I think it might be talking on forums for now, but sometimes talking leads to action right?

Just to clarify, what do you mean by fighting for something? I want to get a better hold on what you mean before I write anything to address your perceived condescension.

Nonviolent civil disobedience, peaceful boycotting, organize marches & protests, found organizations, actively produce and distribute pamphletary literature... that's social activism. You live for it and oftentimes you die for it.

Anonymously posting on public forums and forwarding hashtags in your spare time isn't social activism. That people can become somehow "disillusioned" with social justice because they've spent too much time on the internet - well, it's hard to take that seriously.

... A part of me wants to argue with you just for the sake of arguing, but you've got a point. Internet activism might be easier, but.. well thats it. It is easier and these problems are anything but easy.

But I think we can both firmly agree that internet hack-tavism is fighting the proper fight.

 

[EvilRoy]

I was thinking on your position and question OP, and I slowly came to a realization with regards to my own position.

It may make me the worst kind of person in the world, but honestly I find the debates and threads and endless articles tiresome. When I started consuming all this media way back when, I felt kind of generally irked by it, then I became interested and lurked threads and read opinion after opinion and article after article, much like you. And then it became tiresome, and I struggled through the odd thread hoping for some new opinion or argument that might perk my interest.

Now its just boring. Even being a little annoyed would be enough for me - if I can attach some kind of emotion to something I'm reading it becomes effective as a time sink, but unfortunately there is none of that. I am just so certain that any of this incapable of changing the system as it stands (because no matter how contrary to the system as it is, all this is basically in service of it), that I can no longer muster the will to care.

Its the same boring people with the same boring opinions, endlessly repeated sometimes using different words, sometimes not, by both sides - sometimes the sides will even switch arguments taking one anothers words, apparently unaware of the irony. When that bingo board was posted up the thread I actually had to re-read the post to see which side was being supported, because I've seen it all on both sides.

It just seems like a useless blast of energy off into space, safely directed where it couldn't possibly hope to make a difference, all participants oblivious to this.

 

[Macsen Wledig]

I see people bitching about it more than I actually see people who act like "social justice warriors," whatever that even means.

This, I don't even know what a "social justice warrior" is, I've only heard the term from people pissing and moaning about these imaginary/insignificant group of people. Never in my life have I met someone at Uni/work/on a night out who've said "I'm a social justice warrior!" or "Guess what I've been getting into? Social justice warriorism" or "Oh, I can't come, I'll be doing my Social Justice Warrior bit on Friday." They just don't seem to exist in the real world as far I can tell, like the Yeti and vampires they seem to only exist on the darkest depths of the internet or in the minds of the mentally ill.

oh wow, could you imagine? your at the club and someone saddles up next to you, leans in and whisper into your ear, "... you know i'm a social justice warrior, right?" or "I'd love to fight for your rights baby." XD

Honestly I've always thought the term was more of an insult that's morphed into a prerogative term. Can't you just hear the bitter cynicism in it?

I hope you realise that you can talk to people without hitting on them on a night out.

I can definitely hear the bitter cynicism in it but who are these supposed social justice warriors in real life? I've never met or seen or heard of anyone identifying as a "social justice warrior" and I suppose they wouldn't so who are these people? The OP mentions feminists but I've never met a feminist who wanted to kill me or any men for that matter. The OP also mentions blacks who complain that white people are destroying the planet, but I've never met or seen that either, I've seen people who happened to be black talk about ecological destruction but I've never seen ecology being discussed along ethnic lines, so who are these mythical "social justice warriors"?

Personally, I think they've sprung from the imagination of the internet and her denizens, a bogeyman to scare the children and rally the adults.

 

[Erttheking]

I've sort of adjusted to it in the same way one adjusts to losing a limb. Normally I roll my eyes at these kind of people who consitently whine about everything while innocents in 3rd world countries are slaughtered.

"THE WOMENZ IN DA VIDEOGAEMZ!!!"
"There are people in the world who lack the money, computers, electricity, and housing, to buy videogames. Go help them instead."
"DA WOMENZ IN DA VIDEOGAEMZ!!"

It's like talking to someone with say....a heavily ingrained concept of FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS. And that's all it comes down to really, once you cut through all the kool aid indoctrination on the level of fanaticlly religious.

This will never be a valid argument. It's a logical fallacy, it's the children starving in Africa argument, AKA the appeal to worse problems argument, it only works because it operates on the presumed assumption that people can't care about more than one problem at a time.

And quick question, what have YOU done to help the people who lack all these things? Because I'd be willing to put down hard money that it's nothing. These people only matter to you when you're trying to use them as a flat and unstructured argument to shut people up.

And question, why can we complain about just about everything in video games, but when it comes to representation, all of a sudden nothing is more important than helping African children? This is a GAMING WEBSITE for Christ's sake! Of course we're gonna talk about games here!

OT: And question, how come non supporters of representation can call supporters SJWs, but we can't call them anything?

 

[Erttheking]

You and me both OP. I wanted to care, but I stopped a long time ago. The one thing no one understands is you can't force cultural change, and yelling about it just is just as good as screaming at a wall.

No one wants to admit that they aren't the next Rosa Parks, so everyone just keeps pushing their opinion of these situations without any regard to the damage they are doing to their own arguments by being an asshole.

You say that you can't force cultural change, yet you talk about a person who forced cultural change by doing something she wasn't supposed to do to make a statement. I'm not sure what your point is.

 

[Erttheking]

[

Nonviolent civil disobedience, peaceful boycotting, organize marches & protests, found organizations, actively produce and distribute pamphletary literature... that's social activism. You live for it and oftentimes you die for it.

Uh...would you considering including feminist ideals in a story that you have around a thousand subscribers to as something that counts?

 

[Nieroshai]

I see people bitching about it more than I actually see people who act like "social justice warriors," whatever that even means.

Apparently this terrible, mind-warping phenomenon is based on Tumblr. Another site I don't frequent. (It's a blog site, yeah? Like Twitter without the character limit?) So apparently all these people are jumping online, seeing something they disagree with and blowing their tops. One would think they'd just stop reading. I mean, it would be like me seeking out the nastiest right-wing website I could find or tuning into Fox News and then getting all angry about what I saw. Or getting myself all in a lather over Youtube comments.

You do have to go looking for it. I use Tumblr quite a bit and the only time I'm exposed to the "ermergerd SJWs" is when people post about them here. Mostly tumblr consists of entertaining gifs, kitsch fashion, artsy stuff, funny blog posts, unfunny blog posts and pictures of cute animals, at least in my experience.

I've brought this up before but I doubt that most people who moan about tumblr have ever actually spent a significant amount of time there, they just form their impressions from stuff linked by people who go looking for trouble.

Edit: Also, as always with these kinds of threads, hyperbole ahoy!

To be fair, all you have to find just about any flavor of SJW on the Escapist is to click on one of the many misleading or enflaming threads that land on this site's very front page. Or to just read Critical Miss. Because apparently according to JGC et al, I deserve to die.

 

[Gorrila_thinktank]

-Snip-

-Snipe-

-Snark-

-Boojum-

I think thats a really tempting explanation, and probably partially true. I know that I've seen people try and use SJW as a kind of 'rallying cry' in advertisements recently. I wonder if we've entered some weird second stage to the term. One where the internet created this idea of what a social justice advocate was, then people involved in social justice initiatives started to co-opt the commonly understood term for a kind of intellectual/social rallying point. We need a timeline on this thing.

I must firmly disagree with you on your first point thought. I've been out in the real world. When you go out for the night theres only two things your looking to do, and one of them is flirt. ...The other is go dancing with your girlfriends. Duh.
Get you mind out of the gutter.

 

[Nieroshai]

...You know calling people 'horse fuckers' doesn't help validate your point, right?

MLP fans often times refer to themselves and one another as horse fuckers.
I know that you're ignorant to this fact and normally would not hold that against you. But acting like you're in the right when you're demonstrably in the wrong is just pathetic.

Some black people call each other the "N" word. How much worse is it that you call a fandom a form of bestiality as a blanket statement?

 

[Gorrila_thinktank]

...You know calling people 'horse fuckers' doesn't help validate your point, right?

MLP fans often times refer to themselves and one another as horse fuckers.
I know that you're ignorant to this fact and normally would not hold that against you. But acting like you're in the right when you're demonstrably in the wrong is just pathetic.

Some black people call each other the "N" word. How much worse is it that you call a fandom a form of bestiality as a blanket statement?

Why wasn't this common knowledge!!! I could have been calling my friend a horse fucker this whole time!

 

[Nieroshai]

...You know calling people 'horse fuckers' doesn't help validate your point, right?

MLP fans often times refer to themselves and one another as horse fuckers.
I know that you're ignorant to this fact and normally would not hold that against you. But acting like you're in the right when you're demonstrably in the wrong is just pathetic.

Some black people call each other the "N" word. How much worse is it that you call a fandom a form of bestiality as a blanket statement?

Why wasn't this common knowledge!!! I could have been calling my friend a horse fucker this whole time!

Incidentally, a friend of mine from England is an insult riot. He's so good at it, you WANT to be roasted by him.

 

[Loonyyy]

OT: And question, how come non supporters of representation can call supporters SJWs, but we can't call them anything?

Because bigots get very angry when you call them that. I think it's pretty telling that they think Social Justice is a slur (Leaving out the keyboard warrior part). Personally, I'm growing to love the term "SJW", it's a warning sign that someone's going to come out with some seriously bigoted shit shortly, and their best defense of it will reduce to pointless ad hominem.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I see people bitching about it more than I actually see people who act like "social justice warriors," whatever that even means.

Anyone who says this isn't counting posts properly or isn't referring to the Escapist.

bigots

pointless ad hominem.

The ironing is strong with this one.

OT:
I'm firmly of the belief that the majority of both sides are people that should be largely ignored. They both have this nasty tendency to ignore all conflicting evidence, reason and other points of view in favor of righteous indignation. As far as I'm concerned, preach whatever you want, but be prepared to be called a moron if the thing you're saying is extremely silly.

As for my reaction upon seeing it, it's really just part of the landscape to me now, like pony shit. When the MLP craze was first happening, I had a similar reaction whenever I saw terrible fan creations and whatnot, but now it's no different than furries or whatever other groups and art. The same goes for social justice and anti-social justice crap. It just blends in.
The thing sets it apart and makes it fascinating is how badly both sides still want attention. The various fandoms I mentioned were happy to go into seclusion fairly quickly, but these people just keep screaming. And of course, both sides will say [i/]their[/i] crap is really really important, no srsly u guise, but that doesn't stop it from becoming background noise.
Until these people start doing actual activism, I.E. not on the internet, nothing will change for better or for worse.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

I see it a lot too. But there is something that makes me feel better about it every time. This image helps me out and it will help you too.
http://i.imgur.com/Nen7F2s.png

Oh my goodness! where did you find that? Those 4chan folks can be disturbingly poetic at times!

I know right? I have a ton of them on gun rights and other issues that were screencapped.

can you.. can you start up a thread where you dump them all for your escapist family to read? please? pretty please? pretty please with a gold statue of Marcus Fenix on top?

Sure, I'll get on it tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[peruvianskys]

I think a lot of women are tired of seeing things significantly worse than some mean words on Tumblr. Things like rape, sexual exploitation, harassment, abuse, the denial of economic opportunity, disparities in education and employment, etc. That seems like a bigger bummer.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As mentioned, it's rather telling that there are people who being worried about social justice to be an insult.

Yes, it does get very tiring to have to listen to the problems of people who aren't you, and it's not fun to hear how the society that benefits you is treating others very badly.

Ignoring things that don't (currently) affect you isn't a great response, though.

"THE WOMENZ IN DA VIDEOGAEMZ!!!"
"There are people in the world who lack the money, computers, electricity, and housing, to buy videogames. Go help them instead."
"DA WOMENZ IN DA VIDEOGAEMZ!!"

Right...I take it this doesn't apply to complaints you are making, such as that one, or did the world's troubles disappear while you pretend that people can only be concerned with one problem at a time?

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Look don't touch. The SJW dens around the internet are housed in vats of acid. Sometimes there might be shiny pennies or even quarters in there, but don't immerse any part of your being into it, lest you come out minus an arm and some mental sanity.

SJWs are like the uber left answer to the WBC. It keeps the world in balance, so to speak. Just accept that both exist and try not to trod on them.