Blue hair:Tick. Rant against JKR: Tick

[Amrapaali]

Bonus for quirky glasses. I mean it really is like a weird bingo.

Punching down FFS

www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/09/cathy-oneil-big-tech-makes-use-of-shame-to-profit-from-our-interactions?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I saw that too. Interestingly, the interviewer really pushed her on the JKR point and then moved on to cancel culture, so I think he thought it was nonsense.

I read that article twice, and I still don't really understand what she's talking about.

She completely misses the fact that most shame is internal; we feel ashamed when we know we are doing something wrong. Someone else cannot make me feel ashamed of something that I genuinely think is acceptable. If a jewish or muslim person tried to shame me for eating bacon, I would just laugh. It's their rules, not mine, so I don't feel anything.

Also the way that she says that shame is a tool used to try and make people "behave well" with respect to a social norm, but then also says that this is generally inappropriate to do. Because whenever I challenge social norms it's good, necessary in fact, but when JKR supports the idea that only women should be in the women's changing room, thats bad.

This is all just special pleading to validate her own desire to shame others, while rejecting shame for anything she disagrees with. In short, she loves shame she just hates that she can't make up her own rules and apply it solely to benefit herself.

Imagine being so incoherent that even a Guardian journalist can see it...

What a load of old shit. Good on the interviewer though, he didn't let it go!

She uses the term “Karen” in that article so for that reason alone, (in the words of Duncan Bannatyne), I’m oot

Her research can't have been very rigorous as she claims not to know JKR receives death threats! Unless I misread.

Ironic isn't it

Thinking it's not a waste of people's brains to read an article or her book with her denigrating JKR, after saying she thinks it's a 'waste of her brain' to even know what JKR thinks, after putting a section about JKR in her own book.

All nonsense - she wrote a whole section on JK Rowling but 'didn't know' about the death threats

I couldn't make sense of most of what she said - you know that thing where really smart people make everything simple and clear. Thats not happening here

Yep when a woman says Karen (even ironically), I judge pretty hard.

You have to hand it to her though, she has found another stick to beat people with, which is pretty good going considering how many people beating sticks there are around these days - very hard to find a new one. Then extra kudos to her for utilising that stick herself by getting all shocked about other people using it, writing a book and making money from it…….

( excuse me while I wander off into the woods with a little axe to see if I can find my own money making stick)

I thought it was just me, I couldn't engage with her answers at all, blah blah shame blah blah shame, social shame blah blah, very dull.

Ironic really that her book seems to be about how outrage is manufactured to shame people and she’s using the outrage manufactured to shame JKR and keep her quiet to sell said book. Without even having bothered to research properly into what JKR actually said, and the response to what she (is accused) of saying 🙄

The fact that I know what Cathy O’Neill thinks about anything is a waste of my brain.

She seems like a self righteous machine

She can't know much about JKR if she doesn't know about the death threats "enough to paper my house with". So obviously not taking up much brain space. Or perhaps she has limited brain space?

I've read her book about algorithms and it's really interesting - but a lot of it doesn't apply in the UK.

I really think her use of the term "Karen video" is a flippant reference to what they've become known as - I don't think it's buying into the term.

Not knowing about JKR shows the bias in her bubble. But I'd probably give her the benefit of the doubt and give the book a read. Jon Ronson wrote "so you've been publicly shamed" about online shaming in 2015, so it might be a good comparison. And yes I'm well aware of which side he's picked in his debate and how this goes with what he has written....

that shame is a tool used to try and make people "behave well"

Well why not in certain cases- I don't have a problem with shaming drunk drivers or that appalling football player who made a video of himself kicking his cat.

Agree that anyone happy with using the term "Karen" can probably be ignored.

Why all this talk about punching up and punching down?

I know JKR is wealthy woman

I know she has had death threats

But I didn't take any of that into consideration when I read her essay

I was more concerned about whether she had a point or not

Do algorithms target shame, or just anything that is popular?
I think algorithms are optimised to service that which will arouse us the most. That usually means outraging us so we perform shame. In our filter bubble, our in-group, the algorithm serves to us the most outrageous thing that some other filter bubble has managed to arrive at, so we have the opportunity to be righteous and lob shame on to that other group, and to create this shame spiral.

I think this is a good subject to explore. There were some great podcasts a while ago about how youtube etc pushed extreme videos eg white supremacists. How much this influences people is eye opening, especially younger people. The culture in the US over all of this is so different from here.

I really think her use of the term "Karen video" is a flippant reference to what they've become known as - I don't think it's buying into the term

No, probably not but given the sanctimonious tone of the rest of her comments perhaps more forcefully stating what's wrong with the term would have been appropriate?

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda

The fact that I know what Cathy O’Neill thinks about anything is a waste of my brain.

I was just about to say the same.

Another one who's high on their own farts, it's a crowded field right enough.

The interviewer's push back was good though and tbh I was surprised to see it, The Guardian being so captured when it comes to anything like this.

I wish they'd have mentioned Graham Linehan and asked her about that. What has happened to him is pure censorship - including the Father Ted musical, eagerly awaited by fans and nothing to do with his personal views, no longer being picked up by production companies because they don't want his name on it as the creator. Father Ted is still one of channel 4s highest rated programmes over 20 years on.

All this for pointing out individuals on twitter and elsewhere who are actively trying to do women harm, including issuing death threats. Its the new form of Fatwa.

Interestingly, the interviewer really pushed her on the JKR point and then moved on to cancel culture

Yes, I thought that was a surprisingly robust interview for the Guardian.

The fact that the author is complaining about shame being used against people and then targeting individuals is blissfully ironic.

I couldn't make sense of most of what she said

I think her main thesis is that personal responsibility is bad and we shouldn't ever try to hold people accountable for their choices (unless they are thought criminals, obvs).

I read that and didn't immediately think it was the attack on JKR that it might appear to be. I think she was obviously zoning in on the 'wealthy white person' being able to have the platform to be heard rather than anything related to JKR being the 'villain' figure. And her mention of 'Karens' was a reference to those types of memes and the self-righteousness of people who endlessly create and share them.

She's working in a world that isn't historically inclusive of women and I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Her work on data science seems fascinating and she's an interesting person who abandoned academia and the world of finance to join the 'Occupy' movement.

I'd like to read her book before jumping to any conclusions (although I do admit finding it hard to believe that she didn't know about JKR receiving death threats)

@SayYouDontMind

I read that and didn't immediately think it was the attack on JKR that it might appear to be. I think she was obviously zoning in on the 'wealthy white person' being able to have the platform to be heard rather than anything related to JKR being the 'villain' figure. And her mention of 'Karens' was a reference to those types of memes and the self-righteousness of people who endlessly create and share them.

She's working in a world that isn't historically inclusive of women and I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Her work on data science seems fascinating and she's an interesting person who abandoned academia and the world of finance to join the 'Occupy' movement.

I'd like to read her book before jumping to any conclusions (although I do admit finding it hard to believe that she didn't know about JKR receiving death threats)

I agree. I think she's getting more flak here than she deserves, although I totally agree my face was at the not knowing re death threats. The Guardian has obviously picked the JKR thing as the pull quotes but it does come across as more nuanced. In the context of the other literature in this subject and her previous book she seems open to discussion especially re data!

I think her main thesis is that personal responsibility is bad and we shouldn't ever try to hold people accountable for their choices (unless they are thought criminals, obvs).

I think this is a poor reading of the article tbh. I agree with a lot of what she says about people just joining a pile-on to feel righteous, it seems to echo a lot of what we've discussed on here about purity spirals. The subheading of the book suggests it's about who profits from this culture.