Leftist progressives ignore hate coming from their own side, calling upon social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to censor controversial speech.
The leftist progressives who operate and write for these websites push a narrative about the issue through fear-mongering, creating a false impression that trolling and “cyberbullying” is a problem strictly limited to the right. Missing from the one-sided coverage tying harassment to Donald Trump, GamerGate and the “alt-right” is the fact that the left’s social justice mobs are just as guilty of intimidation and bullying others online.
Last week, a graphic artist was bullied by Tumblr’s transgender community after she posted an illustration of a new video game called Dream Daddy. Her sin was to transform its male characters into female ones.
Known as a “genderbend,” the genre of artwork that sees male characters portrayed as female ones, and vice versa, is not typically controversial. However, one of the characters she drew was a biologically female transgender man.
Nicole Echeverria, who goes by OhNips on social media, faced a barrage of anger, mockery, and death wishes for “misgendering” the fictional character. Fat activists attacked her for making the characters young, fit and attractive. And more than a few feminists were upset that the female characters showed slightly more skin than the men. There was nothing they couldn’t find a reason to complain about.
Following the complaints, the artist considered deleting her social media presence. She eventually issued an apology to appease her harassers.
Echeverria’s encounter with Tumblr’s social justice community mirrors a similar event in 2015, when the fans of Steven Universe, a popular cartoon, harassed a teenage fan artist until she almost killed herself. In that instance, 15-year-old Paige Paz was the victim of an online mob of social justice warriors for drawing one of the characters “too thin.” Much like Echeverria, all her artwork was picked apart for problematic qualities like “transphobia” and “colorism.”
The progressive press had nothing to say about Echeverria’s run-in with the social justice mob. Instead, several articles were penned about Dream Daddy’s popularity on Tumblr on The Mary Sue, The Daily Dot, and Mic at the same time she was being harassed. The developers of the game even issued a plea to the public to stop threatening her.
The left’s harassment of Laci Green—the popular feminist YouTuber who had the audacity to speak to the ideology’s detractors—is a subject ignored by publications that harp on about online harassment. Her willingness to discuss difficult topics prompted social justice warriors to create a dossier detailing her list of crimes. Green says that one of them even doxed her, prompting harassment towards her family.
Rather than cover the harassment she received, progressive journalists have only negative things to say about her “heel turn.” Articles on Daily Dot, Huffington Post, The Mary Sue, and several others—all of which criticize her and contribute to the harassment she receives—fail to mention how the social justice mob torments her.
In contrast, countless articles covered a non-story about how a female Marvel Comics editor Heather Antos was supposedly harassed for taking a group selfie with a milkshake. One user commented that she and her friends resembled a stereotypical group of social justice warriors, prompting her to claim she was being “bullied, insulted, harassed, and targeted.”
It's the Marvel milkshake crew! #FabulousFlo pic.twitter.com/ogn8KEYuPM
— Heather Antos (@HeatherAntos) July 28, 2017
How dare I post a picture of my friends on the internet without expecting to be bullied, insulted, harrassed, and targeted.
— Heather Antos (@HeatherAntos) July 30, 2017
Over the weekend, there were more users posting their own milkshake selfies in the #MakeMineMilkshake hashtag in solidarity with her than anything else. Close to a dozen articles were dedicated to the “event” that sputtered out as quickly as it became a thing. However, it’ll no doubt be cited as yet another reason for why Twitter needs to erect more safeguards to keep mean people sequestered.
As for those guilty of offending the social justice left with wrongthink and problematic art, the rules remain weighted against them.
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