Posts Tagged ‘cancel’

RE #LikeaGirl: Transcript

July 21, 2014

Many thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript to this video! 🙂

[0:00] Thunderf00t: First we had that fantastic Dove commercial:

 

[0:03] clip from “dove evolution” 

 

[0:16] Thunderf00t: Then we had “Ban Bossy”:

 

[0:19] clip from “Ban Bossy”

 

[0:23] Thunderf00t: And now following close in its footsteps we have #LikeaGirl. The format is pretty generic, you wanna get this behind-the-scenes feel to make it seem less staged and more authentic. You know, “trustworthy”. And you know, maybe get a clapper board in there or something . . . Like the girl sitting down while someone says that you’re “recording audio” . . . despite the fact that that’s the only audio used in the entire video, which, by the way, cost about $130,000 to make. And then take a point that everyone can agree with, you know, like say for instance that women on magazine covers are Photo shopped and then just hope no one spots that the title of these, um, uh, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!

 

[1:18] I mean I just kind of scratch my head at this one. Are these people really getting upset about people using Photoshop to make themselves seem more beautiful than they actually are, when the very product that they are trying to sell you is meant to make you appear more beautiful than you actually are?—you know, appearance-enhancing cosmetics.

 

[1:40] I mean, to be honest, if you don’t find this being transformed into THIS a problem, then why do you really care about the Photo shopping? And that of course is just ignoring the fact that the whole thing was just a Unilever marketing campaign time “to coincide with the expansion of Dove brand artificial appearance-enhancing cosmetic soaps and cleansers” (Wikipedia “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty”). Uh—sorry, no, nothing to do with that at all. It was just about how much Dove brand cosmetics agrees with you about just how wrong it is for other women to try to be more beautiful than they actually are.

 

[2:17] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”

 

[2:31] Thunderf00t: Now we have another corporation with an ENTIRELY philanthropically motivated message. This time they want young, confused girls—about the time they get their first period—to know that a sanitary towel manufacturer knows and understands their problems. And it’s got nothing to do with all that hormonal shit that kicks off in a woman’s body about this time. No, it’s all down to people saying ‘throw like a girl’.

 

[2:57] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “So when they’re in that vulnerable time, between 10 and 12, how do you think it affects them when somebody uses ‘like a girl’ as an insult?

“I think it definitely drops their self-confidence and really puts them down, because during that time they’re already trying to figure themselves out. And-”

 

[3:14] Thunderf00t: Well isn’t that nice of them, to know that the corporation like this has your best interest at heart. In that sense, it’s a perfect viral advertising campaign for something that is intrinsically difficult to market.

 

[3:29] clip from “Bodyform Responds :: The Truth”: “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no such thing as a ‘happy period’. The reality is, some people simply can’t handle the truth.”

 

[3:38] Thunderf00t: You get to engage with your audience without having to deal with all that icky stuff that’s usually associated with the subject.

 

[3:46] clip from “Bodyform Responds :: The Truth”: “In the past, we tried to be more honest in our approach. In the 1980’s we ran a series of focus groups to help us gauge the public’s reaction to periods: the cramps, the mood swings, the insatiable hunger—and yes, Richard, the blood coursing from my uteri like a crimson landslide.”

 

[4:02] Thunderf00t: They get what they want, which is for teenage girls to have a positive association with Always sanitary towels. That is, as long as they don’t think about it too much. Buut we’ll come back to that in a second. If you wanna see how eye-rollingly badly this game can be played, just watch the Pantene commercial. Pfft. No clapperboard. Amateurs.

 

[4:22] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”

 

[4:33] Thunderf00t: -where it insists that women keep apologizing like this isn’t something that EVERYONE does just to be polite—no, no. It’s only women who ever do this. Then, of course, what if women didn’t say sorry?

 

[4:45] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”

 

[4:59] Thunderf00t: Yes, Pantene wants you to be one of those people who never says sorry.

 

[5:04] clip from “ORIGINAL VIDEO – Bitchy Resting Face”: “Because if we wanted to be constantly misunderstood, we’d try and talk to a deaf person.”

“Hey, Taylor—I think you might actually be a bitch.

“In real life.”

“You should’ve all been aborted.”

 

[5:24] Thunderf00t: Oh yeah! Everyone loves someone who never says sorry. Ain’t that so, Liz?

 

[5:29] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”

 

[5:50] Thunderf00t: Buuut joking aside, and coming back to the thinking about the ‘throw like a girl’ commercial—as much admiration as I have for how well-executed this marketing campaign was, it’s still BULLSHIT. Annd maybe this would be a good time for those ‘meee tooo’ Tumblr-type feminists to get a box of Kleenex in, because if you think the expression “like a girl” is what destroys the self-confidence of young women, then a hard stare at reality will likely cause a gendered panic-attack of apocalyptic proportions.

 

[6:24] The expression ‘throw like a girl’ probably has its roots in fairly obvious biology. You know, guys tend to have almost twice the upper body strength of girls (Wikipedia, “Sexual dimorphism”). I know—it’s hardly rocket science. Add in there a spot of culture. You know, girls having less historical need to throw stuff than guys. And the fact that sports mostly focus on higher, faster, and stronger; which on a level playing field, with NO SEXISM whatsoever, is actually men in every category. And you would need a very special class of feminist idiot to say otherwise:

 

[7:05] clip from Feminist Frequency “Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth; which of course is completely false.”

 

[7:13] Thunderf00t: Aww, I know, let me taste those sweet, juicy, social-justice-warrior tears. Let me just say that again: on a level field, with NO glass ceiling and absolutely no sexual discrimination, men are faster, stronger, and better throwers. Yet, that’s not sexism you’re looking at. That’s just the reality of being a sexually dimorphic species.

 

[7:40] So, in demographic terms, little girls tend to be the weakest throwers of all. So guess what, this is simile—or metaphor, or whatever—for someone who throws weakly.

 

[7:51] Whoa—I know, rocket science! ‘But noo, the fact that little girls are the weakest throwers is clearly wrong because little staged girls in Barbie-pink and rainbow girl here can throw stuff too! to uplifting music which includes important demographics including sporty and token!’ And as with all advertising campaigns, absolutely no fattys and no uglys; because although you’re courageously battling for the self-esteem of young girls, the last thing that you want is your product associated with fat or ugly people. And the fact that you can confuse a teenage girl or actor or whatever into not understanding the difference between the meaning of ‘a girl throwing’ and the simile of ‘throw like a girl’

 

[8:35] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “Yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl because I am a girl. And, that is not something that I should be ashamed of.”

 

[8:45] Thunderf00t: I know, poor girl must go white with fear when someone says she’s ‘into shit’, or someone ‘eats like a pig’ or ‘I would kill for a royale with cheese’. But anyway, no—girls’ plummeting self-confidence is all down to the devastating metaphor of ‘throw like a little girl’.

 

[9:01] THIS is why girls’ self-confidence plummets during puberty. Well, that and of course being called bossy:

 

[9:08] clip from “Ban Bossy”: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher.”

“Being labelled something matters.”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”

“And that’s because they worry about being called”

“‘bossy’”

 

[9:22] Thunderf00t: And as many a feminist has pointed out, when women have such heavy crosses to bear, and the fact that they think that women are such weak and fragile creatures that they really need to have to have their hands held to deal with these horrific social burdens, it must truly amaze feminists that ANY women make it to adulthood at all. All the while having that perplexed look on their face as to why the term ‘feminism’ has inexplicably acquired a reputation of being a CULT, where the only tenent is that you whinely embrace victimhood. GOOD JOB feminists. That’s EXACTLY the role model that young women need.

 

[10:03] But as for the viral marketing campaign, yet it struck a great blow. And it’s certainly fighting against propagating harmful stereotypes. And it’s made #LikeaGirl mean amazing things, like how you can destroy a teenage girl’s self-confidence simply by using the expression ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘bossy’.

 

[10:24] clip from “Ban Bossy”: “By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”

“And that’s because they worry about being called”

“‘bossy’”

 

[10:31] clip from “The Doctor Vs The Prime Minister – Doctor Who . . .” and “Ban Bossy” [LOL!]

 

[10:49] Thunderf00t: Well, in this new age of gender equality they should just learn to ‘take it like a man’. Always. Good job.

 

 

Why ‘feminism’ poisons EVERYTHING (#cancelcolbert) :- transcript

July 12, 2014

Many thanks to Linda for creating this transcript 😉

 

[0:00] Thunderf00t: So meet Suey Park, the instigator of the #cancelcolbert. And she’s quite clear about one thing, that she’s NEVER claimed to be an educator.

 

[0:10] clip: “And I’ve never claimed to be, like, an educator. Um, I’m an activist and I think”

 

[0:15] Thunderf00t: However when she was sending a question to President Obama, she obviously felt that ‘#activist’ might sound, well, kind of pathetic. I wonder if there’s a way that she could make herself sound more important?

 

[0:27] clip: “Hi! I’m Suey Park, and I’m from Chicago, Illinois. A month ago, I started the hashtag, #NotYourAsianSidekick that sparked global conversation for, and by Asian American women. I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer”

 

[0:40] Thunderf00t: (LOLing) that’s just EPIC.

 

[0:43] clip: “And I’ve never claimed to be, like, and educator”

“I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer”

 

[0:48] Thunderf00t: So, Suey is one of those precious social justice warrior flowers, always so hair triggered to be outraged at the most trivial of things. And always so, so rational.

[1:01] clip: “And not just shift it to another group, is that we need to understand how genocide, and slavery, and orientalism, all work together to uphold white supremacy”

“how genocide, and slavery, and orientalism, all work together to uphold white supremacy. It’s really kind of the way that I understand my work. Which is why a lot of my work isn’t essentially with these mainstream Asian American activist groups. #NotYourAsianSidekick was actually not a call for Asian American visibility or Asian American celebration. It was actually a call to not be a sidekick to white supremacy”

 

[1:35] Thunderf00t: We have the great market out there for the professional victims. Giving keynote talks at places like Purdue University about their first-world problems and getting their articles in places like TIME Magazine. But I’ll come to those shortly.

 

[1:51]: The principle role in this was a keyboard social-justice-warrior, revolutionizing the world one ‘mee tooo’ keystroke at a time.

 

[2:00]: She’s best known for being the instigator of the #cancelcolbert. And she really, really believes in this online activism stuff making a difference, as can be seen in this Tweet here, of ‘(yawn) another online petition about me’.

 

[2:16]: Yes, it’s clear that she thinks that this hashtag activism about first-world problems can change the world. As long as the online activism isn’t about her racism. Or sexism. Or whatever. But yes, Suey. Claiming that people cannot understand things, based solely on their skin color, or their sex, is what we call racism and sexism.

 

[2:38] clip: “-especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying”

 

[2:43] Thunderf00t: So understand, Suey, that when you look in a mirror, that the person looking back at you, is what a sexist, and a racist, looks like.

 

[2:52] And then you gotta foil that up with an expert petulant and dishonest display:

 

[2:56] clip: “You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive, and I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”

“Explain”

“I just told you I wouldn’t enact that labor”

“Okay. Thanks for being with us, Suey”

 

[3:12] Thunderf00t: -where she reports this interview, where she says that the interviewer couldn’t understand things because of his skin color, and his gender, like this: “In case anyone thought I was censoring Colbert, please know I was just talked down to, muted, and silenced by @joshzepps and @huffpostlive.” To which Zepps actually told it like it actually happened: “Ahh, the righteousness of professional umbrage-takers. @suey_park wasn’t muted or silenced. I invited her to explain herself & she declined.”

 

[3:47]: At which point Suey really threw her toys out of the pram and just took the high road with: “You are so pathetic, @joshzepps”

 

[3:56]: In case you’re wondering what silencing tactics ACTUALLY look like, just see how feminists deal with an opposing viewpoint.

 

[4:04] clip: “It’s my hope that as a result of my talk, a few of you may decide to–okay, you know, it’s the signature—it’s a signature of a totalitarian ideology to attempt to quash descent. So every time you interrupt, you’re merely showing your repressive tendencies. You’re not showing anything about your virtue . . . So you think this is a victory? Yeah, why are you so frightened of hearing an opinion different from your own?”

 

[4:43] Thunderf00t: And you’ll be happy to know that Anita Sarkeesian, popped up to suggest that the backlash was nothing to do with the stupidity of what she said, or the racism or the sexist things that she said. No, it was entirely because she was a woman.

 

[4:58]: Oh, professional victims of the world unite! Interestingly, the article she links to describes the above interview like this:

 

[5:06]: “Her treatment on Huffington Post Live by Josh Zepps illustrates how even the mainstream media decorousness could not restrain the impulse to publicly punish and shame a disobedient woman of color”

 

[5:21]: However, other than the article being hilariously over-the-top, there’s links to a screenshot of a petition, which looks curiously like a White House petition. The curious thing is though, I can find no such petition on the White House. And my suspicions are further aroused by the fact that by the time this very low-resolution screen shot was taken, only ONE person had signed the petition.

 

[5:44]: I mean, let’s be real. A natural, next-phase in the lifestyle of these professional victims is if they can’t actually get a real threat narrative going, is just gonna be to invent one wholesale.

 

[5:55]: However, even if the petition was one hundred percent legit, let’s just remind ourselves of some of the other online petitions of the White House, like for Obama to do the Hokey Pokey, or for the U.S. government to build a Death Star. The latter receiving some thirty-thousand signatures and actually got an official and very funny response.

 

[6:14]: But OH NOES when there’s a petition with just ONE signature to deport Suey Park and remove her first amendment rights, this is actually a real threat against women! And that it’s therefore entirely reasonable for these professional victims to lose their shit.

 

[6:30]: Now, to a degree, she may have a point about this hashtag activism changing the world. But probably not in the way that she thinks. In this interview here, this is the pertinent bit:

 

[6:42] clip: “-already”

“Wow. It’s so funny because I feel like there’s new change happening, um, with new media where, social groups that haven’t necessarily had a voice—ever, before—now has a platform.”

 

[6:58] Thunderf00t: Yes, giving a voice to AFFLUENT, middle-class women in their twenties, still living with their Moms:

 

[7:05] clip: “One second. My Mom just came home”

 

[7:07] Thunderf00t: -who NEEDS something to be neurotic about so they can Tweet about their therapy; and how they’re soon to be getting a therapy animal. OH MY god, really—she’s getting a therapy animal and she has the gall to call anyone else PRIVILEGED. I mean, I can see the architecture of the internet now, gently sobbing in a moody basement somewhere:

 

[7:27]: ‘We invented the internet to make society a better through communication of information. We never—in our most hideous nightmares thought it would be used by the most whiny, and self-righteous losers on the planet to unite in the mother-of-all outraged-about-nothing PITY PARTIES. We just didn’t KNOW!’

 

[7:50]: But occasionally these whiners do hit the big-time. Well, for fifteen or so minutes anyway. But for ALL of the WRONG reasons. For instance, Suey Park got her opinion into TIME Magazine. An interesting article to be sure. Especially if you do a word analysis on it and you find that the most used word in the entire article, is ‘white’. Followed in second place by, ‘racism’, ‘satire’, and ‘racist’. And in third place with, ‘you people anti-liberals’.

 

[8:20]: But mainly the star sentence in the whole thing is, “These white liberals are not mad that we pointed out racism, they are mad that they now have to consider the ways in which THEY may be racist.”

 

[8:34]: OH, SWEET MONUMENT to passive-aggressive irony. Berating people for being racist in the VERY sentence where you were judging people SOLELY on their skin color. Seriously, just Google #cancelcolbert or Suey Park and you’ll get pages and pages of this stuff.

 

[8:55]: The amazing thing is though, that it gets as much support as it does for these utterly vacuous arguments.

 

[9:01]: Now let me just say for those people with no discernable skill or talent—for them, playing the professional victim is probably the best option they have available to them. And that the people who really are paying that much attention—to them, all they see is someone saying that ‘I’m being victimized by an evil majority’. And these folks immediately put it into the David –versus-Goliath category and root for the underdog.

 

[9:27]: Now thankfully, it’s not a long-term winning strategy, and that as time goes on it becomes clearer and clearer—this is actually more The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Oh maybe more aptly, the professional victim who cried ‘sexism’ and ‘racism’ over their first world problems.

 

[9:44]: And yeah, sure, all of this does wonders for the credibility of REAL victims of sexism and racism.

 

[9:53]: But the verpidity of these morons—I mean, they think that THIS is a good argument for sexism:

 

[10:00] clip: “Men occupying the highest ranks in virtually every industry in the world”

 

[10:05] Thunderf00t: -then just immediately gloss over the fact that men also make up 90 percent of the prison population. I mean, I guess that just must mean that the entire criminal justice system is SEXIST against men. I mean, how else could you explain it? Yes, these are EXACTLY the sorts of sexual partitionings you would expect in a fair but sexually dimorphic species. That is, if you want to claim sexism, you’ve got to demonstrate sexism.

 

[10:33]: And no matter how many times you bounce up and down and say ,‘look, there’s inequality of outcome’, that simply doesn’t cut it as evidence of sexism. Because in a sexually dimorphic species, even when there IS equality of opportunity, you do not necessarily expect equality of outcome.

 

[10:50]: Or the vacuous nature of Suey Park claiming everyone else is privileged. I mean, can you imagine her outrage if she was told to ‘check her yellow privilege’ because Asians are universally the BEST PAID demographic in America.

 

[11:05]: And actually, yes they are. Earning on average twice as much as blacks. Maybe you need a new hashtag, Suey; maybe something along the lines of your ‘BETTER PAID Asian sidekick. Especially when you’re talking about privilege, of the back drop of the immensely well-stacked FINE CHINA teacups.

 

[11:23]: But fundamentally, yes. Saying ‘check your yellow-woman privilege’ is dismissive, and racist. For EXACTLY the same reasons that THIS is dismissive and racist:

 

[11:35] clip: “-especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying”

 

[11:39] Thunderf00t: Now let me say this in PLAIN language, so there can be absolutely no ambiguity. Suey Park is not only a racist, and a sexist—I think we’ve covered that already. But also a WORLD CLASS hypocrite. I mean we’ve already seen how she dismisses other people’s online activities “yawn”. But thinks that her hashtag activism is gonna change the world.

 

[12:05]: In her own words: “This is not reform, this is revolution”—OH, sweet mother of delusion of grandeur! But back to the hypocrisy. You will remember her outrage when someone just called her opinion ‘stupid’.

 

[12:19] clip: “No. No one’s minimalizing your experiences. No one’s minimalizing your right to have an opinion. It’s just a stupid opinion. I mean, it’s a misunderstanding of what satire is—it’s a misunderstanding of what irony is”

“You just called my opinion ‘stu-piiid’”

“You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive. And I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”

 

[12:40] Thunderf00t: Yes, that’s INCREDIBLY patronizing and offensive to call someone’s opinion stupid. It’s demeaning and so forth. Unless of course you’re Suey Park, then it’s perfectly acceptable for you to call other people’s questions stupid: ‘“When white men ask me stupid questions—I zap them into trolls and put them in my garden”’

 

[13:01]: Suey, tell us what you think of that argument:

 

[13:03] clip: “You just called my opinion stupid. That’s incredibly unproductive. And I don’t think I’m going to enact the labor of having to explain to you why that’s incredibly offensive and patronizing”

 

[13:12] Thunderf00t: But for me, the one that sealed the deal that she’s just formally unplugged from reality, was in her interview with Salon. And it went like this:

 

[13:22]: ““Interviewer: What do you think is the best way to work with white people, to get them on our side?”

“Suey: I don’t want them on our side”

“Uhhh. You don’t want them on your side?”

“This is not reform, this is revolution”

 

[13:38] Thunderf00t: I’m not quite sure what you’ve got in mind here, Suey. A society free of racism where absolutely everyone is equal—uhh apart from the white people. Really, when you were given that keynote talk at Purdue University at the Conference on Diversity:

 

[13:53] clip: “I’m an activist, an educator, and a writer. And this spring, I’ll be travelling to all different colleges in the U.S. to connect with students”

 

[13:59] Thunderf00t: I’m just curious—did you hang a sign outside saying: ‘whites not welcome’?

 

[14:04] clip: “I think that facebuilding and dialogue are necessary in continuing to build an inclusive movement”

 

[14:09] Thunderf00t: But this one REALLY knocks the whole thing out of the ballpark in that she’s on a whole new level of bat-shit crazy:

 

[14:18] ““Yes, because I think it’s important. A lot of white America and so-called liberal people of color, along with conservatives ask, “Do I understand context?” And that’s part of wanting to completely humanize the oppressor. To see the white man as ALWAYS reasonable, ALWAYS pure, ALWAYS deliberate, always complex and ALWAYS innocent. And to see the woman of color as literal””

 

[14:46] Thunderf00t: HOLY CRAP woman, what planet are you ON!? Always see the white man as REASONABLE!?

 

[14:52] clip: “Tide goes in, tide goes out—never a miscommunication. YOU, can’t explain that”

 

[14:57] Thunderf00t: Always see the white man as, REASONABLE!?

 

[15:00] clip: “I know that human being, and fish, can coexist peacefully”

 

[15:04] Thunderf00t: Always PURE, always—always INNOCENT!?

 

[15:07] clip: “It appears, that, there were not weapons of mass destruction there”

“You said you knew where they were”

“I did not-”

“-know where they are, in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and-”

 

[15:20] Thunderf00t: WHAT PLANET are you ON? Here on planet earth, we judge arguments based on their merits. And we call those who judge arguments based on skin color, RACISTS because it’s a STUPID way of judging if an argument is valid or not. Nor do we judge arguments on “privilege”.

 

[15:38] clip: “Because they live in white privilege”

“Yeah”

“And they live, like, so deeply in white privilege that they can’t get their asses out of it”

 

[15:44] Thunderf00t: This woman, is a BILLIONAIRE. She’s as privileged as they come. But bizarrely, when she does something stupid—outrageously stupid—we don’t judge her actions based on the fact that she’s a woman. Or that she’s rich, and privileged, and entitled. We judge her actions based on their merits. Or, in this case, the lack of them:

 

[16:07] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

 

[16:09] Thunderf00t: ‘Yes, I was called ‘bossy’ when I was a kid. And now I’m a BILLIONAIRE and one of the most powerful women in the world! So let’s get more women involved in leadership by banning the word ‘bossy’’’.

 

[16:20]: And this man is a billionaire, and as privileged and white as they come. But, according to Suey, we must regard “the white man” as ALWAYS reasonable, ALWAYS pure, ALWAYS deliberate, ALWAYS complex, ALWAYS innocent. BULL SHIT!

 

[16:36]: If he claims that vaccines cause autism, then his opinions are moronic.

 

[16:41] clip: “You just called my opinion stu-piiid”

 

[16:43] Thunderf00t: Sure, Suey. And I don’t say that because he’s white, or a man, or a privileged billionaire. I say it because his arguments are demonstrably WRONG. And only morons and social-justice-warriors would base an argument’s validity—well, lack of it—on whether someone is poor or privileged. That is, only a moron would dismiss someone’s opinion simply by saying, ‘check your privilege’ because it’s a matter of supreme irrelevance to the validity of an argument.

 

[17:14]: Just like saying someone’s skin color—or if you have girl parts or boy parts—is a matter of SUPREME irrelevance to the validity of an argument.

 

[17:23]: But for Suey, it’s of almost NUCLEAR face palm proportions. And they are supposedly trying to END racism in a revolution in which white people will NOT be welcome.

 

[17:36]: Oh, and #NuclearFacepalm!