The Internet Mob

I believe my previous blog post Outrage Culture ties into this.

A few weeks ago, a Youtube channel called The Fine Bros attempted to file a trademark for their series of reaction videos. And I’m not trying to defend them here, what they were trying to do was either born of ill intent or idiotic oversight, depending on your interpretation of their intentions. And I’m not hugely familiar with them as content creators or people, or with what they were trying to do. But that’s not the point.

I’m familiar with the mob that went after them.

It’s the same mob that goes after politicians, game developers, and any controversial figure who happens to do something wrong. The initial outrage is to do with the matter at hand, but it so quickly and inevitably spirals into personal insults, digging up that person’s past and cheering when they inevitably fall from grace.

Sam Pepper is (was?) a Youtuber, notorious for creating ‘prank’ videos which were really just an excuse to be nasty to someone, and shame them on the internet. To give you an idea, he once collaborated with Friend A and pretended to shoot him dead in front of Friend B, causing Friend B to essentially break down into tears. All posted online. He’s done other awful things too, like sexual harassment in public for the sake of ‘pranks’ and ‘social experiments’. (I’d like to mention that I also frequently see him labelled as a rapist, but I’m unsure as to whether that’s truth or fabrication, or an interpretation of his sexual harassment. For the sake of this blog post, we’ll go with ‘innocent until proven guilty’.)

I’m not defending this guy. I didn’t think his videos were right, and the fact that he made money off of them was even worse. 2 days ago, he posted this tweet:

He removed all of his videos, tweets, and essentially his entire internet presence. And honestly, yeah, I’m happy his videos are down, his method of making money is scrapped, and his lesson is (hopefully) learned. But I’m far from happy about the means with which this was accomplished. Constant death threats and calls for suicide were made, as well as personal attacks against his appearance, his life, basically everything about him other than his videos. And that’s what drove him from his position. And you might retort with, “Well, it worked, no matter what the means,” but did he really learn that his actions were wrong? Or did he learn that the majority of the world hated him and wanted him to kill himself?

What if he does kill himself?

In case you think I’m being dramatic, here’s some of the replies to his one remaining tweet:

What purpose does this serve? At this point, people are just jumping on the hate train in an attempt to feel included in some justice-driven movement, to make themselves feel like they’re in the right. They’re the people cheering at the gallows, but this time they have a wall of anonymity and a more direct line of communication to the hanged man.And I’m willing to bet that these are the same people who pride themselves on their morals and values, and walk with their head held high.

This isn’t a blog post about Sam Pepper. This is a blog post about every ‘social justice movement’ that becomes twisted with hatred and warped into a mob, baying for blood, giving a thief a death penalty. It occurs on all platforms, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit and on Tumblr, on any social media website or whenever a voice is made available. And, as always, the self-righteous are louder than the level-headed.

The Right Amount of Death

(I discuss a few different fictions in this blog post, but give no spoilers.)

I remember being very young and stopping at the beginning of the book, thinking, “What’s the point? I know what’s going to happen. The good guy defeats the bad guy. He looks like he’s going to die but he doesn’t. He always wins.” And then I read A Series of Unfortunate Events and added, “Unless this is one of those depressing books that tries to do things differently.”

Well, of course, as I grew I learned that there was more to fiction than just good guys beating bad guys. Sometimes there were no bad guys. Sometimes the main character was the bad guy. Sometimes it was ambiguous as to just who the bad guys were. And sometimes the bad guys turned out to be the good guys. And whilst all these variations were true, the main character still survived, unless he had some heroic death at the end. It was all getting rather stale.

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series changed all that. With no lead protagonist or clearly defined antagonist, this narrative grabbed my attention. But then, many stories have done this, too. It wasn’t too far into the series, however, before I realised that characters were dropping like flies instead of being given tragic, Shakespearian deaths. They were dying pitifully, stupidly and sometimes without having the chance to even salvage their reason for existence other than to portray the cruelties of the world.

Shortly after finishing (what’s currently written of) the series, I thought, well that’s that then, George is a genius. He’s got it right. He’s made human beings squishy sacks of killable meat. (And whilst I’m sure other authors have done this before, this was my first instance of discovering such ruthless storytelling.) He’d done what I’d longed to see in fiction; he made me fear the deaths of my favourite characters. Whenever they got into fights I thought, oh no, this is all too possible, I really do hope they scrape out of this. If they came down with an illness my heart clenched. If they entered hard climates I’d worry about their survival. In short, George R.R Martin reworked the way my mind predicted narrative, and for the better.

But despite all of my praise, A Song of Ice and Fire does not fulfill the right amount of death.

“Well then, Kristian,” I hear you say. “Just what is the right amount of death? Do you want fully fleshed out characters to have their cadavers piled high as Mount Rushmore?” Well actually, I think A Song of Ice and Fire might be the only fiction I’ve read that overdoes the amount of death. Sure, it’s shocking to begin with, but after a while you grow accustomed to it. I won’t spoil anything, but a character died in the last season of Game of Thrones that made me go, “Well that sucks,” as opposed to freaking out as I would have if this had happened earlier. It has become a running joke that if you state your preference for a character then they’ll be promptly killed off, and the series itself is known for its relentless body count, shaping expectations of those that come fresh to it, readers or watchers.

There’s a balance. There was a time when, after reading A Song of Ice and Fire through to in-completion (sorry George), I almost sneered at most other fiction for shying away from death. If a character came to the brink of death and survived, I’d tut. I wouldn’t be annoyed if death clearly didn’t suit the narrative, but whenever it was, for example, implied instead of shown, I’d be left wanting more.

A few days ago I watched a series which changed my perception on the matter. I won’t name it or hint at the series, for that would give away the game to newcomers, but it’s not something you’d expect to have a lot of tragedy in it. In the first few seasons a few deaths were implied, but never outright shown or discussed, or carried impact or significance. This didn’t put me off, per se, but the amount of danger the characters faced at this point led me to think more and more about the likelihood of death and how it just wasn’t happening.

And then they killed my favourite character. Swiftly. Brutally. Realistically. And I didn’t see it coming. And it was perfect.

So the moral here is that there’s a balance. If this character’s death was preceded by a mountain of bodies, I’d have been less affected. I’d have even seen it coming as they charged heroically into the fray. But without prior tragic events occurring, such as the deaths of minor villains and a few less minor ones, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb for shock value. With this perfect balance, that narrative instead allows you to fear for the characters whilst still being caught off-guard when they die. And that’s how you really destroy people’s emotions.

Tragedy in Comedy

Like most people of my generation, I’m typically in the middle of watching a television series on Netflix (or some other streaming service). These shows are usually dramas of some kind; I just recently got finished watching The Tudors, for example, and before that, Luther. Fantastic show. I personally prefer it to Sherlock, if you think it fit to compare the two. Perhaps I’ll write a blog post about it sometime, but it’s mostly due to plot coherence and maturity of tone (the second point being personal preference and the first being a measured criticism). But I digress.

Sometimes, when I’m in-between shows on Netflix and all feels wrong in the world, I jump over to a comedy. Most notably, I’ve rewatched all of Scrubs which is without a doubt the best comedy show of all time (more on that later). I watched a good five seasons of Community which I also thoroughly enjoyed, and right now I’m currently powering through another popular comedy series.

A quick side note, one comedy I’ve never been very invested in is Friends. I don’t know if maybe I was just barely out of their target audience or what, but I find the show highly overrated. It’s funny enough, and I’ll watch it if someone else has it on, but there was this whole culture built up around the show’s characters in which people tried to mimic them and apply their logic to real life, and it always sort of… irked me. And I’m not sure I like laughter tracks. Why should I need to be told when to laugh?

Well, anyway, what I wish to discuss is the balance of how much tragedy to put in a comedy. I believe Scrubs had the perfect balance, with your typical conflicts between friendships arising and being dealt with in a humorous or heartwarming manner, but also the larger themes of death, love, personal growth, and the stress of working as a doctor. I could watch the chronicles of John Dorian many times over (barring the season we do not speak of) and still find life lessons and reassurance. Also, seeing as this blog post is the king of unrelated side-notes, isn’t it cool how ‘John Dorian’ is so similar to ‘John Doe’?

Community was excellent as well, especially Abed. I haven’t actually seen the last season yet (it’s not on Netflix, boo) but I’ve seen the majority and whilst Community is overall more lighthearted than Scrubs, it still has its poignant moments. Most notably, for me, was Abed’s character.

The problem with comedy is that without some elements of tragedy, or continuity of plot, you leave the audience with no lingering interest. It’s why, I think, so many comedies opt to have a potential couple whom they propose to the audience through a series of will-they-won’-they events, usually only allowing this plot-line to have a conclusion when they’ve sufficiently built up lasting interest in other elements of the series. And to have plot you need conflict, and to have conflict you need some sort of tragic event. This is why death happens in comedy, even though it isn’t funny. It allows characters to develop, making you more invested in their character and increasing the vibrancy of the comedy.

Perhaps there’s something to be taken away from that.

Stephen Moffat is Leaving Doctor Who

(This is not the weekly blog post, as it discusses a subject which many readers may not be invested in.)

Mild Doctor Who spoilers ahead; knowledge of up to season nine is recommended, though no key plot points are spoiled, merely referenced. Season 8’s “Kill the Moon” and “In the Forest of the Night” have their finales discussed briefly.

So this news is a little old now, but it’s taken a while to simmer at the back of my mind whilst the front pretends it has more important things to do. Showrunner Stephen Moffat will be stepping down from Doctor Who at the end of Season 10, after six seasons of leading the show and having written some episodes prior, under Russel T Davies’ running.

I don’t know how to feel about Moffat. On the one hand, he created the Weeping Angels, arguably the best villain introduced in New Who. On the other hand, he ran them into the ground, taking them outside of their niche narrative and inserting them as smaller roles with each passing appearance. He created the Eleventh Doctor, my favourite of them all, trumping even Tenant. But he also created season eight, and whilst the head writer is not to blame for an entire season’s collaboration of multiple writers, he must surely take some of the blame for London turning into a forest and the moon being a goddamn egg.

Here’s one thing I do know, though: Hearing people cheer for your departure from the role of showrunner must be crushing. The constant complaints and utter hatred launched his way for some sketchy writing and questionable plot lines is over the top, and the sheer fact that he deleted his Twitter account (to escape, I’m assuming, from said hatred) just makes me feel ashamed. Am I happy he’s stepping down? Yes. It’ll be nice to step away from shaky plot lines being explained with a mere “wibbly wobbly” and a laugh. It’ll be nice to see what Chris Chibnall brings to the table. But give credit where it’s due. Doctor Who has always had some dodgy writing. It’s not meant to be hardcore, steeped-in-fact Sci-Fi. And Stephen Moffat has done some brilliant episodes, and not just far in the past; did anyone else catch Heaven Sent? Because that was a narrative masterpiece. (Shame about Hell Bent.)

My main issue with Doctor Who is not its writers or lead writer, but its structure as a seasonal narrative. Monster of the week worked for the first few seasons, because the overarching plot was smaller, subtler, and lead up to a finale which left no loose ends. But I think Moffat’s writing was different. It was geared towards longer story archs, more potent in their importance, more grand in their aspirations. Season five didn’t do it too badly, continually drawing out attention back to the cracks and having large plot lines develop in the more notable two-parters. But lately it’s been like… sorry, what was that whole thing with the Time Lords? Yes well that was all rather interesting, let’s go do something completely irrelevant for the next few episodes. It just doesn’t work, and moreover, it’s frustrating. And unless Chris Chibnall either changes the way plot lines work, or changes the overall structure of the series, then I worry that it will continue to fall short of expectations.

Titular Interest

Over the years, I’ve created many different forms of content, from stories to poems, to game playthroughs and levels. I’ve written blog posts and I’ve uploaded photographs, and one thing which all of these things have in common is that they’re preceded by titles.

I don’t know if I’m unique in this regard, but giving something a title is one of my favourite parts of creating it. When I can, I try to make a title have multiple meanings, and sometimes I simply resort to puns such as ‘Tauren the World‘ on my gaming blog. (I never said the puns were good.) I typically don’t give something a title until I’m done creating it, which has led to a plethora of interesting file names in my personal stories folder, such as the great ‘Desert World Rename’, the intriguing ‘Feminist Arthurian RENAME’, and the hit success that was ‘Not A Hitchhiker’s Ripoff’.

A title is a consumer’s first impression of your content, bar illustrative eye catchers. Therefore, it is always something I try to make as succinct and as impressive as possible, something which will make you go, “Ah! That sounds like a read!” I’d like to think that previous blog posts ‘Devil’s Advocate’ and ‘Infinite Butterflies’ represent examples of such thinking. However, sometimes ambiguity isn’t necessary, hence ‘Respecting Faith’ and ‘History Repeats’. Before I toot my own horn too much, however, I think it necessary to acknowledge some title gore which can be found on this very site; for instance, ‘Prospective Retrospective Perspective’ tries far too hard to be clever and only ends up making little sense, whilst ‘Ancients as Moderns, Moderns as Ancients’ just doesn’t sit right with me. They must have seemed like good ideas at the time, though.

In 2013 I tried to write a diary-type thing which I’d completely forgotten about until I re-discovered it the other day. Essentially, every day I’d simply document notable events in bullet-point fashion, thereby documenting the year whilst not spending too long on the details, which I’d surely remember after the initial memory boost of the bullet point. This project lasted for exactly four months, ending alongside April, presumably forgotten with whatever intrigues May thrust into my life. (Spoilers: None.)

At the beginning of this year I had a similar idea, one which sits with me far better. Rather than documenting my life, this project holds the aim of being ambiguous whilst still somewhat autobiographical. To get to the point, I am giving each day a title to represent the key events (or whatever the hell else I did) in those 24 hours. It is made with the intention of being able to look back and wonder just what on earth titles like ‘Coldplay Bullets’ were referring to. (To be honest, already forgotten.) January is home to numerous hits, such as ‘The Infuriating Redundancy of Battery-Powered Lamps’, ‘Rare Appearance of the Iridescent Zebra’ and, of course, ‘Dinosaur Head’. I may publish the full list of titles at the end of the year, assuming I stick with it and that it doesn’t stray into personal territory. So far, the project has been fun, taking very little time and producing amusing results. I highly recommend it.