Anna is wrong. I do not know anyone who knows her well enough to say whether she knows when she responds to this (source: here) (April 2012) with this that she is distorting information.
That is: I don't know if she is consciously lying or just unable to tell lie from fact.
Like in today's blog, she claims on the one hand she never attacked us and then immediately links to a page where she falsely accuses me of shit.
"I have from time-to-time written about Zak in an anonymized fashion (i.e. "I have attacked Zak and his game group"), such as my original Gaming as Women post. But in each instance I attempted to file all of the serial numbers off of the incidents, and have always said when doing so that people SHOULD NOT name the person being discussed if they are aware of the circumstances being discussed."
Like not using the words "Zak S" somehow makes it not an attack anymore?
Like the people who harassed me and the women in my group didn't consistently link to her "Rebellious Artist" post as "evidence" we did something wrong?
Anna supported their harassment. Straight up. Every second of her life she didn't erase that post and the false claims in it, she was supporting it more.
Another example:
She goes out of her way to point out that I used her real name. Of course I did--the person I was talking to introduced her into the conversation (out of nowhere) and only used her real name. Her real name was the only name in the conversation. He said he wanted to put a product he disliked to "The Anna Kreider test", I responded (basically, full text linked above) that was kind of like the Phyllis Schlafly test.
Check the link if you think I am lying.
She also denies spreading or supporting the Something Awful libel article in a post where she links to the libel article and two retweets that support the claims in it.
You can't really get more reality-blind than that.
The rest of what she's saying has long ago been debunked. No-one has ever come forward to dispute that.
You don't have to pick who to believe, either. I will answer any question and will provide any evidence if asked. You may ask anonymously here. Anna, on the other hand, has made it a point of pride not to provide evidence.
Or just believe the victim: us.
We didn't back down from pointing out Brandon Morse's rhetoric was bigoted and we're not going to back down from pointing out Anna's is, too. If she wants to apologize for the harm it does and then attack me for pointing it out in the same breath, she has a problem.
So if you want to believe her: that's ok. But know you are believing her because you want to, not because you actually checked anything.
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| Oh, look, Anna has now redefined "sealioning" as "disagreeing with Anna" |
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You and you're group are super cool and awesome. You're group is a shining example of inclusivity and positivity. The blind hate and willful ignorance directed at you is disgusting. I really think just by being yourselves and refusing to be quiet you are doing good for the gaming community and just in a general sense.
ReplyDelete"Like she claims on the one hand she never attacked us and then immediately links to a page where she falsely accuses me of harassment."
ReplyDeleteOf all the things I don't understand about these people, this is the one I'm the furthest from having the slightest sympathy for.
Like, if they believe (however misguidedly) that they're bound by principle to take a certain stand, okay, they're wrong but at least that would be wrong in a way I would kind of get.
But if that's honestly how they feel you'd think they would FUCKING OWN IT. You'd think that when someone called on it they would say "Damn right I attacked Zak, and I'd do it again, here's why." Hell, you'd think they'd be *proud* of fighting what they think of as the good fight. Why try to minimize that, especially by telling such laughably transparent lies about it?
I can only conclude that principle has a lot less to do with it than they like to claim, and that it's really some sort of ritual or performance art. It's not about facts; when they say "Zak harasses people", they don't mean what you or I would mean by that -- that the world is literally, observably a certain way and that way involves acts of harassment for which you are more or less directly responsible. They mean something more like "Ug, me part of good tribe, Zak part of bad tribe" and nothing more.
Having said all that, I'm sometimes guilty of painting all these people with the same brush and I really shouldn't. (Although, I do think what psychologists call group polarization may explain a lot here.) All they have in common is attacking Zak and claiming - some much more sincerely than others - allegiance to the overall cause of social justice. Within those parameters, there's a surprising variety.
DeleteI sometimes think about writing up a sort of "bestiary" for want of a better word, but it would probably be more time and trouble than it's worth. Like, Ettin is a weasely manipulative politician-type, saying whatever he thinks will make him more influential. He may or may not believe his own bullshit. On the other hand, there is no room for doubt that David Hill is consciously dishonest, and about a lot more than just Zak. The Hurleys are sincere, but overzealous and, more importantly, dumber than shit (especially Fred). Peters is probably just going along with who she perceives as her friends. And so on.
Wundergeek shows every sign of being sincere, and I don't think she's stupid, exactly. But she also seems easily trolled and manipulated. I wonder if Ettin and people like that aren't maybe using her for their own ends, though that's speculative. I don't have that much of a handle on her and am unlikely to invest the effort to develop these thoughts much further.
the problem is:
DeleteIt's all speculation. You can't make judgments like that about people you can't talk to and the strategy of avoiding all conversation invalidates that.
All I can say is, objectively Anna says things that aren't true and acts like they are.
I don't know why she does it.
"David Hill is consciously dishonest" is a statement I'm prepared to stand by regardless of the fact that I've never talked to the guy. Some of the rest, yeah, you're probably right.
DeleteIt's pretty hard to deny that one:
Deletehttp://40.media.tumblr.com/563fe07d6551f657fb18326153df0311/tumblr_nivos2abPJ1rjame3o1_1280.jpg
For the record, I'm the guy who's been arguing with you about tone on Ask.fm. I didn't mean to get into such an involved debate on there; it's hard to articulate a nuanced position in 300 characters or less. (I don't know how people manage it on Twitter...)
ReplyDeleteI'm clocking out for the moment - I'm pretty sleep deprived and I can't seem to get my point across, so maybe I'll be more persuasive another day. For what it's worth, I don't disagree with much you've said, which is why I think I'm not getting my point across. Anyway, thanks as usual for being committed to dialog. I may not always like how you go about it, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing. I hope you have less stupid drama to deal with in the future.
"it's hard to articulate a nuanced position in 300 characters or less. (I don't know how people manage it on Twitter...)"
DeleteThey don't. That's part of the problem here. Not a root cause or anything, but probably an exacerbating factor. (And the main reason I use Twitter so little.)
(And by "they" I mean everyone, not just Wundergeek or other enemies of Zak's. Twitter is a really horrible medium for this type of discussion. When I use it in this context it's generally an attempt to talk sense into people who leave no other obvious way of communicating with them. It sort of worked with ProfBanks but on the whole I grow ever more convinced that Twitter sucks nuclear weasel penises.)
DeleteYou mean, stealing from masked people. The people made anonymous where the people being targeted. (if I understand this correctly).
ReplyDeleteSo for example, instead of saying Zak S robbed me! You say, some guy on the internet robbed me.
(It probably was, some artist, porn star, guy who writes about dnd, robbed me. Which is pretty easy to deanonimise. And she probably felt the same way, as she put up a big disclaimer 'don't ID him').
And about the term sealioning. Never saw a new term be devalued and abused so quickly as that one. It went from valid criticism of the sealion tactic (or monsterizing, for you transmetropolitans out there), to a term that you used when people ask you to explain yourself. 'Hey, you said something bad about somebody, could you elaborate?' 'Don't sealion me!'
Zak, I might not always agree with you, or some of your opinions, conclusions, but one thing has me wondering. Where do you get the energy from? How do you keep on going, and not throw in the towel and say 'fuck, im not engaging these people, im not going to talk to them, as the clearly don't want to change their mind, or are so entrenched in their opinion it will take me hours to try'?
ReplyDeleteI think it is great btw. Still trying to engage people. To many people just kick out people instantly when they disagree with them. I just don't get where you get the energy from to carry on and on.
I am not interested in changing their minds--I am interested in providing an honest record so that people can make up their own minds.
DeleteAs for energy--finding out why people believe things (especially things that make no sense to me) is interesting. Curiosity is part of it.
That explains why you don't get energy drained by it. As you don't want to change their minds. I still have too often that I feel like that XKCD comic about people being wrong on the internet. This one https://xkcd.com/386/ I should drop that impulse. And just interact.
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