Internet ambiguity and the fall of common deceny

A ditty on responsible adult discourse between the sexes in the age of Substack

I’ve had an interesting career here on Substack.

My first note was hastily posted, announcing I had told someone I had a Substack, and should post— nearly two and a half weeks ago. Someone I’ve been trying to book another meeting with, and we’ve been back and forth, missing each other because that’s what happens in real life.

He runs a company. I run my life and document it.

And somehow, between us both having kids and lives outside of the projects we’re building, nearly three weeks stretch out before us, and we haven’t had time to connect. And it’s not that we don’t want to. shrug

He sent me an email at 8 pm last night with times for today, 10 and 11. I read it at 11.

I live 2 minutes from his studio. I mean, 15 minutes if you consider my car is unreliable to make it that far, but I am not walking in the cold.

This is the same thing that makes the internet have the opposite effect.

It’s fast.
It’s constant.
It doesn’t need to stop or slow down for life. Not really. Your phone is in your pocket or hands, or on your counter, but you always generally know where it is.

Leave it in the car, and you may just shit your pants. rite?

This creates lots of problems. Not just for speed, but for reaction time. We bump into each other at alarmingly fast rates, with increasingly bizarre expectations, with very little regard for the person on the other side of the screen. Not really.

I’ve met lots of wonderful people here.

I’ve met lots of dicks, pricks, and other such people.

I’ve met people whom I’d likely never even consider talking to.

And I am a different person than I was three weeks ago.

And, I have a lot of opinions.

Substack decided to dish me up a plethora of anti-woman, incel-laden treatsies my first week here.

This one is my favourite.

Oh, sweethearts.

This was March 8. My first block. I’m shocked. I thought men so confident about their discourse would at least TRY to bait me.

Disappointing.

Because this is the thing: I don’t see this as anything truly offensive. This is drivel. It’s so ludicrously demasculinizing to post this as power and not see the parallel to the porn they consume. Cuties, your internal daddy issues are showing.

Substack stopped showing me incel viewpoints fairly quickly.

But then a softer side of misogyny came through, which I need to mention. Less obvious, still internalized, absolutely adorable.

Enter a beard with opinions on the masculine. Not full out “I’m an incel” more, I have opinions that override the female experience, and I’m not afraid to voice them. Consistently.

This was not my first interaction with him.

I flip my beard over my shoulder on all his posts. I think he may have blocked me, too. I miss him.

But let’s get into the meat and potaties of this post, because last night I got dragged into a fight and to me, it’s a clear indicator of something that I see a lot. This space where we stop seeing each other as humans, and instead, as opponents.

Oh, internet:

You melting pot of ideas, education, social structure, trauma, and the biggest one, hierarchy. Don’t worry, I’ll tie it all together in a neat little bow for you to chew on for the rest of your day.

So.

Yesterday I wrote a note about pedophiles and motherhood. You know, nice light reading for you:

It got hijacked in the comments by a man who has been accused of being gross to women. I don’t really read articles; I scan. I can usually grab the substance in the first few paragraphs and then scan for gems.

(Some writers grab me all the way through, you sneaky time-sucking fuckers. <3 I love you.)

I don’t know this dude in my comments, not really. I saw one of his posts on March 10th and responded.

Here’s our origin story. Enter me, clearly ignoring who he’s talking TO, because I respond to the structure, not the person:

The clue for me was the blatant disregard for my comment (this pattern continues).

But I can’t help but answer a good setup. That is my weakness.

This chap followed me. To me, my job isn’t to tell someone they’re wrong. It’s to poke and prod at the edges of where people are actually trying to say something real and pull it out. If he’s an incel, if he’s a missy-moo-mogynist, why would he be calling out simps… it didn’t fit.

This interaction was on March 10. Fast forward to the 18th, and my post about PEDOPHILES and MOTHERHOOD.

Apparently, I restacked the wrong person, so this man followed the scent trail back to me, to promptly tell me he was being wrongly attacked on the internet.

And this is where I saw it all click into place.

I don’t care what someone else is saying about him.

My head goes:

I know you from X. You were clearly a man dealing with some confusing internal issues. You fit the category of Y, but didn’t react that way. You didn’t fight me (I thought he would). He didn’t mock me.

He DID ignore the content of what I said.

He DID follow me, and DID NOT proceed to DM me, like other men have (who don’t even follow me. Uhm, hello? This heifer does not give out milk for free.)

For me, that left him at a solid 6/10 on my men ranking scale. That’s pretty high, actually.

So I was both unsurprised and a little disappointed to hear he’d been sending some questionable comments to women in the DMs.

But also… I WANT THE CONTEXT.

My brain can’t jury and judge without the meat. And frankly, I already skim. I don’t want drama. Please god, don’t get me involved more than I already somehow am.

What I want is— can this person learn from the calling out?

With Colin, I think he can, IF the person delivering the message isn’t coming at it from an angle of “you are wrong and let me educate you.”

A lot of men do not respond to that well.

Colin did— with me. That exchange above could have gone an ENTIRELY different way. I have had less confrontational exchanges go down the pisser much faster.

So, this is why I was not surprised:

His opinions are clear. He fits himself inside a category of men, but speaks to them as if they are the ones who need calling out.

But also, he is receptive to specific feedback if delivered in a way that breaks the “you are wrong” frame.

Is it our job to hold the hands of everyone on the internet? No. Trust me, no.
But also, it is our job to ensure that we are not blindly handing out judgment on people who may very well be struggling, who may not realize their actions/behaviours have a negative impact, and where we let our own wounds press against theirs.

That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn.

I call myself bi-partisan. And honestly, I draw a line at damage. I think that should be pretty central, but who the fuck am I, right?

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‘So you can understand why I want a daughter while I’m still young. I wanna hold her hand, show her some beauty, before the damage is done.’ - Arcade Fires. Many, many.

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Oh, goody. I redirect:

He dismisses what I say. Ignores the point, misses the parallel to his current situation.

By this point, it’s after midnight, and you don’t feed a Melissa after midnight.

Yeah, yeah. Too much right.

I wrote this chunk of the article and have just responded.

We’ll see how he takes that. If enough time has passed for him to be able to see our mutual humanity underneath it all.

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There’s a part of me that recognizes you. Do you feel it too? - Billster Eilish

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Underneath all of this, we are all just humans trying to be seen and felt and met. We’re just on different frequencies.

We can’t all tune into each other, and some people are just fucking garbage noise. I tune them out. Some people are not bad; their antennas are just bent. We teach, not cast out that which can be rectified. Otherwise, we ostracize. And ostracized people (often) go deeper into the wells of darkness. At least, this is what I try to do.

And that is from my experience. I don’t know what happened to these women. I am not them. I am not in their brains or bodies or pasts. I am not in Colin’s either.

So, 1/10 of wanting to be dragged into this. I’d give it a zero, but I’m not allowed to.

Now, the final group I want to speak of, I’ll touch on briefly, because I’ve mentioned them before, but I think it’s important, because there’s something undeniably funny to me about it. Not funny, funny.

Married men on Substack. NOT ALL MARRIED MEN, literally.

But there is a group of men who intellectualize their way into closeness with women on this platform, without realizing that for those of us who can meet or pass them, context is critical.

I shouldn’t have to teach smart, good men this.

But unfortunately, I do.

Because it’s easy to point the finger at others who are blatant in their disregard, or blind to it, like those who are trying to do better with their beards, or those who don’t have the social grace to recognize and then correct their behaviour.

But when you think you’re not part of the problem, you usually participate in unseen ways.

Remember what you stand for. Don’t cross lines. Stay clean. Being smart doesn’t mean access to touching something that isn’t available to you.

It’s as simple as that.

I just need you to remember that everything I write is intentional.

xoxo, Gossip Girl.

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I’m a ninja, yo. — Die Antwoord

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