This is why I hate tribalism

What is it about Rebecca Watson (@Skepchick) that inspires me to blog? I think she has a nose for issues too complex for me to sum up in just a few tweets...also, because it seems particularly important to be cautious and avoid misunderstandings, given that she's attracted an unusually strident and persistent hate movement.

Anyway, here is a recent Twitter exchange, that for some reason was brought to my attention by my perennial favorite blog, Pharyngula (@pzmyers).

dcturner: @rebeccawatson Grab an iron bar and leave him "Para-para.....Paralysed"
Retweeted by Rebecca Watson

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson You complain about threats of violence to women on the Internet but think its funny to joke about paralyzingly someone?

rebeccawatson: @tkmlac You might have a point there, however the "victim" doesn't see it so I don't think it's equivalent.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson True, but the situations are similar enough so that it might be worth asking where to draw the line.

Wait, no. That only happened in the mirror universe, where people who have had no previous disagreement are polite, restrained, and sane.

This is how it went.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson You complain about threats of violence to women on the Internet but think its funny to joke about paralyzingly someone?

rebeccawatson: @tkmlac If you seriously think that's anywhere near the same, you haven't been paying attention.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson Please explain it to me, then. I put paralyzing someone in the same category as rape. Bad, low humor that could offend ppl.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson I don't think the rape jokes are taken any more srsly by those making them than this twerp joking about paralyzing someone.

rebeccawatson: @tkmlac You need me to explain the dif btwn that retweet & women getting real, direct threats of physical violence? B/c, no. Figure it out.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson For the record, I'm not defending those ppl. I think it's pathetic.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson thanks for clearing that up.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson So you think the rape stuff on reddit are real threats, not kids trying to get laughs from their friends by being shocking.

rebeccawatson: @tkmlac You are very sad if you think an avalanche of rape offers directed at a 15-yr old = 1 RT of a pun that the "victim" never sees.

tkmlac: @rebeccawatson That kind of humor should be treated equally. That's all. Let's all respect each other, whether we are women or Coldplay fans

rebeccawatson: One resolution already broken: Do not argue with twits on Twitter, lest you become one with the twit.

"tkmlac" was offended by Watson's tone and the way the discussion went, so she (judging by the name "Katie" on Twitter) posted the following on Reddit.

So, r/atheism, even with the juvenile and lowbrow sexist humor, you were right all along. (self.atheism)

submitted 8 hours ago by tkmlac

I didn't like seeing the rape jokes that Rebecca Watson pointed out on Skeptchick, but I didn't consider them actual threats like she did. I was glad she at least addressed the issue. Those jokes are stupid and offensive, but who am I to go on a crusade over it? Watson chose that as her "thing" and ran with it and more power to her for standing up for a young girl, even if the title of the blog was rude and misleading (you know the one, "r/atheism makes me hate atheists). I still followed her on Twitter, her and I both don't like getting hit on by drunk men, okay. Then she was complaining about her neighbor playing Coldplay loudly and retweeted someone telling her to go next door with a blunt instrument and "para-para-paralyze them."

Now, that's kind of clever, it's a play on words that incorporates a Coldplay song, but I wondered, this joke being maybe more clever than the rape jokes, still had an element of violence to it. If someone is going to go on a crusade over people insulting each other on the Internet, why would this be funny to her? So I called Watson on it, in a very nice way, explained my position, and instead of actually having a discussion about it, she shot off, flew off the handle, insulted me and called me a twit in a passive aggressive tweet.

R/atheism, I apologize from the bottom of my heart for doubting you. Rebecca Watson is a temperamental, hypocritical jerk. I un follows her so I don't have to see anymore of her mastubating her own ego anymore just to get attention. And damnit, she almost had a good points after elevatorgate, but now I'm thinking that what happened HAD to be over exaggerated by her. I wouldn't trust her to do otherwise at this point.

Tl;dr Rebecca Watson is a bitch.

...and that's when I found out about this flamewar, because while I love PZ, it does indeed seem that no flamewar that mentions him or Pharyngula is beneath notice. But I digress.

Arguably this rant is a much better example of "flying off the handle" than Watson's own dismissal. But this is what tribalism does. For months, the skeptical/atheist communities on the Internet have been doing their level best to divide the world into, to borrow PZ's terminology, "Watsonites" and "anti-Watsonites." So Watson was asked about the consistency of a bit of her humor with her stand against Internet bullying. She probably figured this was Hater #31813114 and was dismissive. tkmlac, being minorly offended/snubbed by Watson, then flew to Reddit, which is apparently now a bastion of "anti-Watsonites," and pledging allegiance to them, crying to all and sundry that obviously everything Watson had ever written or said was in question.

Watson deigned to reply to the post, making it clear to them just how much she was deigning:

To the OP: I'm sorry I called you (and myself) a "twit." It's difficult to get constant demands from people asking me to explain what are (to me) very basic concepts, particularly on Twitter, where I'm limited to 140 characters. For instance, the difference between the retweet of a one-off song-based pun that is not directed at a named individual, and a torrent of sex and rape jokes directed at a 15-year old girl.

If my neighbor was disabled and there were hundreds of people sending him direct "jokes" about paralyzing him? Yeah, that would be a problem, I agree.

So anyway, constantly explaining things like this to people who feel they deserve my time? It gets tiring. And when they persist, I will occasionally get dismissive. I'm sorry for that. It'll probably happen again because I do a lot of stuff online and I'm not perfect.

I'm not sorry for now thinking that you're an asshole for starting this thread, but whatever.

So go ahead, r/atheism! Post about what a bitch I am. I'm sure plenty of people have stories of me saying the wrong thing to them. Take all the stories and mash them together and sculpt a giant bitch statue that you can throw tomatoes at. Start a bunch more threads about the bitch statue, and then look at all the threads and point to them as evidence that the bitch statue is blowing things out of proportion again. "It was just a Tweet! Shut up already, bitch statue!"

It'll be fun.

Of course, dismissiveness aside, both times Watson was absolutely correct. Venting is not the same thing as a targeted threat, even if both involve threats about violence. She even acknowledges that she was initially too dismissive and insulting. And of course she is absolutely right that tkmlac's ridiculous overreaction was the action of, well, an asshole.

However I can't help but think that this whole thing would have gone really differently in a pre-"Elevatorgate," pre-"Redditgate" universe. If Watson hadn't (rightly or wrongly) assumed that tkmlac was insincere or opportunistic in her inquiry, i.e. that she was not on "her side," the exchange could have been much more interesting, even productive. And if tkmlac had put this whole thing into context instead of assuming that, since Watson was briefly less than a paragon of politeness, the "other side" was where she wanted to be, than I wouldn't have had to read about this horseshit in the first place.