As you may have heard, noted billionaire shitbag fascist Elon Musk recently conducted an interview with fellow shitbag fascist Jordan Peterson, in which he repeatedly deadnamed his trans daughter (Vivian Wilson), claimed he was tricked into signing the permission forms for her gender affirming care, and professed that his child had been "killed by the woke mind virus" while essentially blaming her for his own embrace of openly fascist politics. Now, Wilson has responded, both in an NBC interview, and online, to refute Musk's lies about her and offer up some damning criticism of why Musk defamed her on a fascist podcast.
https://www.advocate.com/elon-musk-trans-daughter-vivian-wilsonElon Musk's trans daughter Vivian Wilson slams his anti-LGBTQ+ comments as 'ketamine-fueled haze'
"This entire thing is completely made up and there’s a reason for this. He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness," Wilson wrote. "Obviously he can’t say that, so I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype f*g-ing along to use at his discretion. I think that says a lot about how he views queer people and children in general."
Look, I know most people reading this are primary here for the pointed (and accurate) criticism of Musk; an unfathomably rich corpo muppet who nevertheless actively chooses to spend his days hanging around with extremely online nazis and talking like a 4Chan poster with a particularly raging case of transphobic obsession. When Vivian Wilson says that Musk is an popularity-seeking poseur "because in a ketamine-fueled haze, he’s desperate for attention and validation from an army of degenerate red-pilled incels and pick-mes who are quick to give it to him," that's a message that resonates with virtually anyone who has seen his online behavior, or observed his clearly *personal* quest to harm trans people at every available opportunity. Nobody is surprised to learn that he was an absentee father, or that he's the kind of ascclown who would lie about his own child to protect his fragile masculinity and score some favestars from internet nazis and Jordan Peterson fans.
My reasons for sharing this piece, and not the sanitized for mass consumption interview Wilson gave however, are personal. Like Vivian, I too became wholly estranged from my (late) father after choosing to live my life as my authentic self and seek gender reassignment surgery. Unlike Musk however, my father chose hoping for my demise rather than pretending it had already happened; my last conversation with him on this earth featured him saying, a little too hopefully, that I would "kill myself" and me replying "don't get your hopes up, Pops." While I don't know if he actively chose to lie about me after I broke off contact, I do know that reconciliation with my family, namely my mother, was impossible until after his death; I still haven't spoken to my brother in the 25 years since.
I say all this not to make the story about myself, but to explain that I empathize with Vivian Wilson's anger as presented in this piece. I too know what it's like to have a parent that would rather pretend you're dead, than accept the idea of their child being a trans woman living her best life. We live in a society that barely has room for trans people to simply exist, where trans identities are subject to endless intellectual debate, where our right to simply *be* is somehow a "question." In this situation, the concept of trans individuality, feelings, personhood, and yes rage at our mistreatment is an unwelcome distraction from the far-too casual debate about whether we have a right to personhood and agency, if it's acknowledged at all.
Reading this piece, I felt Vivian's anger, and her power, jumping out at me through a few short lines of reprinted social media text. I recognized that anger, and experiencing it made me feel a little more whole. Trans people are not props in a game of political football, we're not science experiments, we're not an excuse for the terrible behaviors and cruel inhumanities of cis-het society. Trans people are human beings, just like cis-het people and I need you folks to realize that we're not going to silently forget how you treat us in *your* moments of confusion and obstinate refusal to accept our agency and right to live our own lies. Vivian didn't forget, I haven't forgotten, and cis-het people have no right to ask trans people as a whole to forget the staggering cruelty we're being subjected to by a society currently engaged in a horrifying debate about whether or not we have a right to simply be.
What you do and say now, will last a lifetime; and I'm not begging cis people to realize that, I'm warning you.
#
TransRights #
Musk #
VivianWilson #
LGBTQ
"I look pretty good for a dead bitch," Wilson, a transgender woman, said of her biological father's claims that gender-affirming care "killed" her.
Ryan Adamczeski (Advocate.com)
Friendica software. To learn how to make your own, go look at https://friendi.ca
#MichelleSterling, 2014
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jp5vdg/the-antisocial-network-how-the-90s-internet-died-like-diaryland
Clever.
Imagine if every responsible email host in the world did this. It could have a similar effect to those 'digital stamp' proposals - tiny charges for sending email aimed at reducing spam - but without the unavoidable friction of avoidable micropayments;
https://freakonomics.com/2009/02/blnk/
#SpamPrevention #AccountCreation
The Antisocial Network: How the 90s Internet Died Like Diaryland
Michelle Sterling (VICE)It would also provide some income towards the costs of hosting, of course. Although since revenue would only be coming in as long as new accounts are getting created, it would encourage server hosts to optimise for growth. Which isn't ideal.
Maybe Smales will be right."
#MichelleSterling, 2014
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jp5vdg/the-antisocial-network-how-the-90s-internet-died-like-diaryland
10 years on, it's pretty hard to deny that Smales was bang on. Even then, the #IndieWeb and early fediverse had already been around for a few years.
The Antisocial Network: How the 90s Internet Died Like Diaryland
Michelle Sterling (VICE)#CatherynneMValente, 2022
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
#NetCulture #TechRegulation
> To say hey maybe one guy shouldn’t be able to own the village square. Because it was never remotely possible before
There is a precedent that predates the net; the mall.
In his book Life Inc. Douglas @Rushkoff talks about how the mall was originally conceived as a utopian vision. But in the hands of US capitalists, it became a tool for corporations to own and control pedestrian shopping streets, which were once public spaces.
#CatherynneMValente, 2022
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
Of course you could. These people are mercenary sociopaths.
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Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media
Catherynne M. Valente (Welcome to Garbagetown)(2/2)
#CatherynneMValente, 2022
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
This conservatism can also be found among people who call themselves "liberals", or identify with "the left";
https://strypey.dreamwidth.org/2071.html
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Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media
Catherynne M. Valente (Welcome to Garbagetown)https://meaningness.com/misunderstanding-stage-theory
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Natural misunderstandings of adult stage theory | Meaningness
Meaningness#CatherynneMValente, 2022
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
Sounds like capitalism to me 🤷
I love the passion and the raw emotion with which it expresses something deeply important about what the internet *is*. When we stop reducing it to a set of kitset parts (protocols, software, servers, etc) and see it as grand, new experiment in social life. I love the way it ends with the one good thing about The Last Jedi; it *is* about love and compassion overcoming hatred.
> people thought of this in the 90s during the spampocalypse
I remember reading various proposals for digital stamps per email back then, but I don't remember anyone talking about charging at the point of account creation. Probably because at the time, most people got email as a free extra with their net connection, or were setting up addresses with gratis hosts precisely because they couldn't or didn't want to pay.
Imagine if this had been standard practice among fediverse servers when Eternal November began. All those new accounts people set up would have brought in a huge wave of funding for server admins, some of which could have been passed on to fund software dev. It would also have massively reduced the number of accounts that were created and then never used.
This service is really worth it to me.
PLEASE DONATE TO MASTODON.NZ IF YOU CAN.
https://ko-fi.com/nzfedi
True. But there's also nothing obliging them to. So most don't. Especially if they're only setting up an account as an escape hatch if things get bad on the DataFarm they're still intending to use for now.
@paulhellyer
This was graphically illustrated to me when I recently said that InternetNZ's $21/year membership fee shouldn't be a barrier. The person sitting next to me reminded me that if I were on the benefit, it would mean having to give up several blocks of cheese or bus fares.
I felt correctly chastised.
There's a huge difference between an ongoing subscription and a one-time contribution.
> The person sitting next to me reminded me that if I were on the benefit, it would mean having to give up several blocks of cheese or bus fares
I am on a benefit and have been for most of my adult life, due to various forms of neurodivergence that make me completely unsuitable for most paid roles.
@paulhellyer
100% agree. This is precisely what I've spent my career doing, due to being chronically broke. But I can afford a $2-5 one-off contribution to join a service, and I stand by the arguments I made in favour of this.
@paulhellyer