Is Twitter Toxic?
Is 'entropy' a good word to describe Enlightenment Liberalism?
I've been feeling a bit more angry than usual recently. I tried to unpack this a little in my Morning Pages, wondering whether researching a book on wokeism is affecting my serenity.
But I just had a moment in the kitchen where I felt compelled to come through and add a paragraph to my book doc saying how I'm enjoying this feeling of engaging with the world. I was listening to an interview with Mary Harrington on TRIGGERnometry at the time, and it was a nice feeling, like I'm learning something and it's triggering synapses in my brain.
At bedtime on Saturday night, I was feeling quite different. Then I was on Twitter and was feeling quite angry at some of the flag-bios that were commenting on a tweet put out by Isabel Oakeshott, the Lockdown Files leaker.
For the record @cathynewman the reason I didn’t offer the story to the Sunday Times is because they saw fit to splash on my private life with @TiceRichard during the Kim Darroch story. As their political editor for years, this really hurt. The @thetimes has never once asked me to… https://t.co/89s1hr5yBv
— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) March 4, 2023
And today, I'm wondering whether it might be social media in general, and Twitter in particular, that are causing this disturbance in my equilibrium. But I like the banter on Twitter, you know? It can be fun, too?
On Sunday I unfollowed everyone I was following with a flag in their bio. That's a good start. I was contemplating taking a break from the platform, but I'd miss my favourite posters and it's also my first port of call for news. So I'm going to start muting flag bios for now and see how that goes. Staying off Faceook is actually pretty easy these days, which is good, because it's a lot worse.
I might actually discover that it is the book research after all, but I do want to keep going, because I'm finding it to be very engaging and it's adding meaning to my life in quite profound ways.
Today's Research
This guy sued his agent for reverse racism. FF makes the point that if an agent were to discriminate against a black person and state that that is the reason, there would be an outcry. KK makes the point that, in the UK, we just accept the reverse racism trend.
14:50 - “It’s justified racism or discrimination. It’s not ‘reverse’. We can’t use these fake, made-up, woke words. Cis-gendered, or reverse, you know? It’s not. It’s exactly what it is. It’s the same definition. White people didn’t invent racism. You know? Go to Asia. Go to Africa.”
Interesting to note that I called it reverse. I didn’t even think that that was a woke, made-up word.
42:00 - Netflix and wokeism. Viewing numbers are going through the floor. It’s a religion. People are in so deep now. It’s the financial part that’s shifting. The ratings will force them to open back up again. There’s your EQUITY.
Andrew Shulz just put out his special. The streaming service wanted to edit his jokes and he said ‘fuck you’, and put it out himself. We need more people like that.
Tyler just produced his own special that went out on YouTube. His next one will also go out on YouTube and Patreon. He’s not even pitching to the streaming services.
So where does that put YouTube and Patreon? Because it’s not like those platforms don’t cancel content creators.
1:11 - The trans shit is insanely mental. That’s why the tide is turning. I identify as a woman, but there’s no such thing as a woman. The two things are colliding. Comics like FF, KK and Tyler as swimming with the tide.