Cancel Culture & Cultists

The West, social & mass media, sociological academia, and their influence on the world has paved the way to a politically hyper-polarised population that lacks nuance but has an abundance of raw, often irrational, emotion.

[TL;DR: Scroll down for screenshots]

Identity/Gender Politics, ‘Cancel Culture’, Critical Race Theory, et al are simultaneously symptoms and causes of a lot of it. In the modern world we so disconnected from a common society that as individuals we are all fighting for affirmations of our unique selves and micro societies to the point that people become quite forceful and authoritarian in demanding their hedonistic selfishness is embraced by all.

I won’t go into great detail about it here, this isn’t an academic paper on the subject – and academia is where much of this nonsense belongs (referring to people as ‘CIS-gendered’ for example), not in the public consciousness. You can respect someone’s identity and wishes without infringing on the rights of other groups (i.e. not permitting biological males to enter safe places for women).

As for modern life, it is making as all mentally unwell. I don’t think our wellbeing, as people in ‘the West’ has been this low in a very long time. Poverty may be less universal, but we are generally unhappier than ever with the world and society. There’s a video on YouTube called “How the Modern World is Making Us Mentally Ill” which is quite informative in a fun way that I recommend you check out.

But I digress; the primary motivation for this post was after receiving malicious reports on Twitter, and reviews on TrustPilot & Facebook by people who have never ordered from this website nor knew about it until they came across my personal account on Twitter. As I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t separate different aspects of my online life any longer – so I have opened myself up to such abuse by interacting with people online, who turn out to be a bit bitter and filled with negativity.

I’ve seen cancel culture in action – it’s quite common for people to become so enraged over silly things like politics and dedicated a lot of time to ‘cancelling’ the person with the alternative or opposing view. Making malicious police reports, reporting their accounts on social media, writing to their employers(!), threatened IRL (in real life). Behaviour that is seemingly accepted among groups of these people – often connected by an acronym in their profiles or a flag (FBPE – Follow Back Pro-EU, EU flags, union jacks, pride flags, etc – the subject or affiliation itself is incidental).

Although not technically fascism by definition, the mob-like actions of these people from any group and intolerance of people who don’t fully subscribe to their ideologies can’t really be compared to anything other than a form of authoritarianism with nationalism (be it Scottish, British, European Union nationalism – or a form of nationalism associated with a group of people connected by something else, such as BLM, Pride, AntiFa, or militant white/black supremacy).

From the outside they seem like reasonable people, because many (particularly those considered to be politically ‘left’ in polar politics) purport to support equality, tolerance, human rights, etc. But when you scratch the surface, they are no different to their polar opposites – small-minded, xenophobic, bigoted, and filled with hatred for anyone outside of their clique.

Encountering the cultists

I’ve had my fair share of confrontations on Twitter, most pretty harmless – but since listing this website in my bio I’ve found people to be particularly ruthless in their harassment and twisted authoritarian “I don’t like you so you don’t deserve to earn a livelihood” ways. Rather than attack me personally or confront my views (which are pretty centrist and rational), they think it’s acceptable to make malicious reports and reviews about my ‘business’, abuse my contact form with death threats, and maliciously report accounts – all coordinated in this instance by a single person with a large amount of followers – @sillyshib.

What could have triggered such a hateful reaction? Well it started with this. I didn’t realise at the time I was replying to an #FBPE cultist so obsessed with Brexit that her entire account has been dedicated to attacking people who voted for it over almost 4 years (similar to many others, including the now suspended @fbpe_JoJo77). For clarity, I didn’t vote for Brexit – I have never voted.

This interaction doesn’t seem too bad, I was a little rude but for anyone who has been on Twitter – it’s /relentless/. An army of angry people constantly tweeting about how evil the UK is and how backward and small-minded English people are.

I can’t find the screenshots in-between, but I ended up saying something unkind. Then she summoned the minions, as Twitter hags so often do – and there are hundreds of White Knights waiting to come to their aid.

For anyone who doesn’t know how pile-ons work on Twitter (or anywhere else for that matter) – the coordinator selects a tweet which looks terrible when isolated, without context; the quoted tweet is accompanied with a cry for help, an innocent damsel in distress has been assaulted, unprovoked! Most users won’t even read the thread, the others will but will side with the coordinator regardless because they’re in the ‘pack’/clique.

Suddenly I was receiving hundreds of abusive tweets, and messages (including threats) through this website, as well as malicious reviews calling me a “racist misogynist”, even subjected to homophobic abuse and my religion ridiculed.

Arguably ‘hoor’ wasn’t true – though it is used as a general insult and exclamation in East Scots, my native tongue. But the rest was accurate. My dad’s side are Scots-Irish and my maternal side is Scottish and Indian; my sister is a person of colour! So that puts the ‘racist’ part to bed. As for misogyny – she is a bitter, vile hag; I am a Shakta – I worship the Goddess in various forms, the Goddess and women in general are not like this. If she was a man it would be no different; the response would have been the same.

Meanwhile, Siobhan was not basking in her misery – she was basking in the toxic harassment she had unleashed on me and this website, and relishing it.

In a similar but somewhat unrelated encounter, there was a group of sock accounts that had been harassing a mutual follower for well over a year. Being thoroughly abusive and posting personal information about the user. He decided, after seeing the website in my profile when I called him out on his abusive behaviour, to do the same.

I don’t agree with Mark’s tweets – but like the vast majority of people I can disagree with them and move on, even without blocking him! This stalker, however, has dedicated over a year of his life stalking and harassing him.

Conclusion

Despite Twitter “billy big accounts” insisting (or demanding) people use real personal details and photos for their accounts, so far I have witnessed and personally experienced all that comes from doing so is an increase in the level of abuse and harassment you will receive from people who live on Twitter; mentally unhinged, bitter people who are full of hatred – not just garden variety trolls (which I may be considered!) but people who are dedicated to destroying lives and wishing death upon people for having an opinion.

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I will continue to be myself on Twitter, and maintain this personal-business hybrid account – but I must be prepared to deal with (and I never use this word to describe anyone) scum. We all have our off days, and Twitter has become an extension of the brain in that random thoughts that people normally wouldn’t hear become tweets that everyone can see… but there’s something sinister about people who see the world with monochrome tunnel vision and are dedicated to trying to destroy people.

The incident with the FBPE cultist happened on the 26th of December and I’m still on the lips of her minions today.

I would like to send a warm thank you to all my friends who cheer me on, and have supported not just me but this website by purchasing items and leaving lovely reviews on TrustPilot following the abusive ones that have nothing to do with how I run this site.

I love each of you very much and you are the only reason I remain on the cesspit that is Twitter.

D.

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