Culture Feature

Myspace Was the Last Good Social Media Site

Myspace was the last social media that recognized the Internet's unique potential for individuality.

Myspace

At some point in 2006, I changed my name on Myspace from "Dan" to "D for Dandetta."

It was my freshman year of high school, and V for Vendetta had just come out in theaters (my friend and I snuck in after buying tickets to see Amanda Bynes' She's the Man). As a young, as-of-then-undiagnosed autistic nerd who thoroughly misunderstood social conventions, I decided that since V for Vendetta was easily the coolest R-rated movie I had ever seen, cute girls would think I was very cool by association if I tailored my online social presence to reflect it.

I made my profile background black to represent the darkness in my heart, and I changed the text color to red because revolution is bloody or something. I also set Vincent Valentine's theme song from Final Fantasy VII, which was edgy and mysterious just like me, to play on my profile in an endless loop.

One girl I had a crush on actually did start calling me "Dandetta." I thought she used it as an affectionate nickname, but in retrospect, probably not. In my defense, my brain was not fully developed.

Keep ReadingShow less
Culture Feature

Memes Protest Ecofascism: "Earth Is Healing, We Are the Virus"

The "Earth is healing, we are the virus" phrase often hides an underlying ecofascist ideology.

Nature

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

It's true: During coronavirus, pollution has decreased.

Many people have taken to the Internet to celebrate this, latching onto inspiring stories about animals returning to nature in the absence of humans. One Twitter user wrote, "Coronavirus is Earth's vaccine. We're the virus."

The tweet garnered 70,000 retweets, as well as some criticism of what it implies. "The problem is not people," replied one user. "That's some ecofash sh*t that leads to genocide."

"Ecofash" stands for "ecofascism," an ideology that essentially disguises white supremacy as environmentalism. Ecofascists generally argue that humans should sacrifice themselves in order to preserve the environment—but usually, this implies that an authoritarian, fascist, genocidal state is necessary in order to keep down the human population and to preserve the natural world.

The ideology usually houses a hatred of all things "dirty," which quickly becomes racism and classism that can be used to justify horrific actions. Ecofascists tend to believe in eugenics and often harbor anti-migrant and anti-multiculturalist sentiments rooted in Nazism. This thought process influenced the Unabomber, the Christchurch shooter, and the El Paso shooter, who all shared a disregard for industrial human civilization and decided to channel it into homicidal violence. Today, ecofascism is popular on forums like 8chan, and it often corresponds with an emphasis on outdated, misogynistic family values and a weird obsession with pine trees and Nordic imagery.

Most environmentalists and people with brains openly reject this entire absurd concept, understanding the fact that environmental degradation is actually primarily the result of capitalism and inequality. Namely, we should probably blame the destruction of the Earth on the 100 companies who are actually the source of 71% of the world's pollution, as well as the super-rich who hoard wealth and use far more resources than most of the rest of the world combined.

Reducing migration and even decreasing the size of the human population will matter very little if we fail to shift the energy sector away from unclean energy. In other words, the unironic "we are the virus" memes bear echoes of ecofascism, even if the people reposting them didn't intend to promote that sentiment.

Coronavirus is hurting people tremendously, and to argue that it's a good thing—or to imply that the people suffering deserve what they're going through—is insensitive at best, genocidally motivated at worst. If any people posting this meme really did care about the Earth, maybe they'd be protesting the fact that the EPA is rolling back its environmental regulations in the US or that big oil is sneakily using this crisis as a chance to push the Keystone Pipeline forward. Or maybe they'd do a little research and discover that the whole "dolphins have returned to Venice's canals" idea is actually incorrect. According to the city's mayor, the dolphins were always there—and now that there are no boats on the canals, we're seeing them for the first time. A little temporary reduction in pollution didn't save the world. While there's nothing wrong with finding solace in animal-themed content during these scary times, be sure to check that your dolphin fetish isn't just thinly veiled white supremacy.

In response to existing ecofascist sentiments, the Internet's army of justice-defending meme warriors have created a new trend: They've been photoshopping animals and strange objects into places they don't belong, repurposing the "we are the virus" catchphrase to successfully parody the ecofascists into obscurity. So the next time someone texts you about how the goats have reclaimed Wales, send them any of the following.




















CULTURE

If You Think "Karen" Is a Slur, Then You're Definitely a Karen

A brief history of "Karens" and how to spot them at your local Women's March.

Whether you know someone actually named Karen or not, there's a high possibility that you've met a "Karen."

Not all "Karens" are named Karen, and not everyone named Karen is a "Karen"—but "Karens" are constantly walking (and tweeting) among us. Not too far removed from the "can I speak to your manager?" meme before it, "Karen" has become a catch-all name for the type of white woman with whom we've unfortunately grown all-too familiar. "Karens" live with the idea that their womanhood exonerates them from white privilege, and their day-to-day shenanigans prove they truly don't know how to read the room.

If you're so lucky as to not have dealt with a Karen in real life, then you've probably read about them in stories online. The woman in Oakland who called the police on a black family for barbecuing by the lake? She's a Karen. That time "gun girl" Kaitlyn Bennett said "we don't live in a racist society"? She was being especially Karen-like. Just this week, when Alyssa Milano—starter of the #MeToo movement—said she was continuing to endorse Joe Biden, without acknowledging the sexual assault allegations against him? Peak Karen behavior.

But the most Karen of all Karens is writer Julie Bindel, who tweeted some absolute insanity over the weekend: "Does anyone else think the 'Karen' slur is woman hating and based on class prejudice?" Ah, yes—good ol' class prejudice against upper-middle-class white folks. What could be more nefarious?



As with a lot of slang that's been adopted by the masses over the past decade, this usage of "Karen" was first coined by black people. It's since become canonized in reference to women like Bindel, who are so caught up in their narrow, self-centered view of feminism that they fail to acknowledge their glaring white privilege.

Most of all, Karens don't want to be left out of anything—especially oppression. They will latch onto any inconvenience that gives them the tiniest semblance of systematic oppression, arguing that "Karen" generalizes a specific collection of traits—white, middle-aged, upper-middle-class—as if those aren't the exact traits most frequently found in men of power. What makes Karens so dangerous is that they claim to be feminists but only act on it when that feminism directly benefits them; their racism, homophobia, and transphobia aren't always explicit, but their actions lack all the nuance of intersectionality.




Worst of all, Bindel's tweet seems to liken "Karen" with racial slurs, as if "the K-word" could ever come close to approximating the malicious history of actual derogatory words (plus, FYI, there already is another "k-word").

In summary: Don't be a Karen. "Karen" isn't a slur. If you're innocent and your name just so happens to be Karen, I'm so terribly sorry.

CULTURE

We Are Anonymous: A Brief History of the Internet's Most Elusive Hacktivist Collective

Ideas are indestructible, and Anonymous was always—first and foremost—an idea.

via We Are Anonymous

Anonymous is back.

Today, the hacktivist group broke a long silence and delivered a few stunning blows to institutions of power. They briefly took down the Minneapolis Police Department's website and threatened to expose the department's "many crimes to the world". These crimes include the murder of George Floyd, which has sparked a wave of protests across the nation.

Keep ReadingShow less
CULTURE

Teen Victim of Slender Man Stabbing: "I Still Sleep With Scissors"

Payton Leutner has spoken out for the first time since she was stabbed as part of attacks inspired by Slender Man.

In 2014, after a night of roller-skating at the local rink, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier took their friend Peyton Leutner to the woods.

They stabbed her 19 times, leaving her to crawl out onto a path, where a cyclist found her. All three of the girls were twelve.

Geyser and Weier had apparently been planning this for months. It was all inspired by Slender Man—the infamous tall, thin, child-eating demon who started as a concept on Creepypasta and later ingrained himself into a generation's minds through a series of Photoshopped images and gory Internet threads.

Yesterday, the now 17-year-old Leutner spoke out for the first time since the attack. She appeared on ABC's 20/20 program, which airs this Friday night, and she apparently said that she still sleeps with broken scissors "in case someone tries to murder her again."

As for why she's decided to speak out, she said, "I feel like it's time for people to see my side rather than everyone else's."

Most of the information that exists about the Slender Man stabbing concerns Morgan and Anissa, both of whom are currently in mental institutions. But this story really began over a decade ago, in the darkest and most infected laboratory known to man: the Internet.

The first mentions of Slender Man appeared on Creepypasta's Something Awful forum. It was 2009, the era of MySpace and early Internet, and a user named Victor Surge responded to a request for spooky photos by submitting an image of a tall, thin man without a face. It was captioned, "We didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time. — 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead."

From there, Slender Man became a viral meme, the modern equivalent of a popular folktale. Evading fact and authorship, Slender Man instead seemed to exist only in echoes and whispers. Always skeletal, thin and faceless, usually seen in the woods, he fit into the old, monstrous archetype of the children-snatcher, being the kind of specter used to discourage children from running away into the night. But unlike the cryptids and stringy-haired witches that are so common in horror movies, he has no precise precedent in folklore.

What happened to Peyton Leutner is an absurd, random tragedy, one that evades logic. It is evidence that the things the Internet dreams up can come to life. It plays into the deepest fears of every parent who has allowed their children to go out at night or go online (regardless of the fact that very few people actually are moved to violence by what they read about online). In that, it's a tale that feels particularly resonant in 2019, when it's becoming clearer that we have far less power over the Internet than we imagined, and when we know that powerful men wearing suits have been stealing children away for quite a long time.

But maybe sometimes, all this violence can become a catalyst for healing. Inspired by what happened to her, Leutner has decided to become a doctor. When asked if there's anything she would say to Morgan Geyser, Leutner said she would thank her.

Leutner said, "I would probably, initially thank her," Leutner said.

"I would say, 'Just because of what she did, I have the life I have now. I really, really like it and I have a plan," she said. "I didn't have a plan when I was 12, and now I do because of everything that I went through. Without the whole situation, I wouldn't be who I am. I've come to accept all of the scars that I have. It's just a part of me. I don't think much of them."


BTS

Jordan Strauss/AP/Shutterstock

Kids these days are up to a lot of things.

Saving the planet, running businesses, starting social movements... It's fair that we'd all be concerned for their well-being. Fortunately, the Internet has come through with a handful of codes and cheat sheets that you can use to decipher what your child is really getting up to online.


Astrology

BTS

(Timothée) Chalamet

Decolonization

(Edgar Allan) Poe

Financial Crisis (2008)

Guinea Pigs

Hamlet

Intersectional Feminism

Julio-Claudians

Kingdom Hearts

Love, Simon

Molecular Biology

Naruto

Oklahoma

Pop-Punk

The Q'uran

Radical Liberalism

Stew

Tide Pods

Unions

(Two Gentlemen of) Verona

Writing

X Factor Auditions


(The New York) Yankees

Z


The truth is that these memes are more about Boomers and Gen X'ers than they do about kids these days. We all know that older generations spend more time than anyone leaving angry comments on Facebook pages, and they're the ones who worry relentlessly about the Internet when maybe they should have been worrying about climate change or gun violence. But hey, as long as your kid isn't texting about communism, everything's going to be just fine.

Now, please, let's all get off the Internet.