20 Comments

"The other people are the meanies. So if you’re bullying someone online, it isn’t bullying because it’s you who’s doing it and you are the smol bean."

Professional victims are incredibly dangerous. They feel strongly that since they've been victimized, nothing they do to anyone else could ever even come close to what *they've* been through, so they will beat the everlasting shit out of other people while still understanding themselves as the True Victims. I encourage everyone to try not to be related to these people.

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Many of my friends have somehow mutated into Smol Beans over the last few years. It's tragic, and I'm starting to give up on them ever getting better in that regard.

Naturally, they're all on Bluesky! (I tried it. I have an account and had for ages, but come ON! If I wanted to see that level of humorless, sanctimonious nonsense, I could just actually use my Facebook account and scope my eyerolls to people I actually care about, not the series of Big Name Smol Beans they folllow over on BS.) Some have even made names for themselves, bless.

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I'm sorry. I'm not even gonna try with Bluesky. Just have to tolerate all the people on Twitter who hate women over 30.

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OMG I’m on twitter and I LoVe women over 30!

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I just read the article you pinned in bluesky and think your upcoming book sounds brilliant. I followed you and you immediately blocked me. Which is your right. I'll still buy your book!

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Who are you? I’ll unblock! It was a blur there earlier.

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Bluesky feels like a cross between X and Reddit, but without the apolitical parts or fun.

X is a bit of a mess. A few minutes on there can easily showcase an unholy mix of tankies, groypers, Trump-worshippers, unhinged K-pop fans, bots, and other miscellaneous unpleasantness. But it can also be very funny. It’s the platform that brought us Dril, Three-Year-Letterman, sassy arguments between different fast food chains, and Chuck Grassley writing “Windsor Heights Dairy Queen is good place for u kno what.”

I think Reddit can sometimes be overly censorious and hostile towards views that don’t align with its ideologically uniform admins and power-mods, but Reddit also has sections that are completely apolitical, silly, or educational. If you want running humour, home repair advice, AMAs with celebrities, heated debates about which Latin American country has the best empanadas, gorgeous photos of nature, they’ve got it.

Right now, Bluesky lacks the depth that can make platforms like X or Reddit entertaining and attractive for people of different political leanings. If you are politically progressive and want to have politically progressive conversations with other politically progressive people, you’ll probably be pleased with it. However, I think they’re not really at the point yet where they have much beyond that. Maybe in a few months or years.

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Been thinking about the strong reactions to your G&M pieces since I start reading them this year. I don't get all the rage since the topics are interesting and mainstream and seem to represent the interest and curiosity of typical G&M subscribers. And it's the same patterns: Not reading the whole thing but commenting (I couldn't comment on Kat's locked FP articles), attacking the paper itself, and assuming the worst about you even if they might have heard of you years before I did. Pointless.

I hope you're doing fine and people have cheered your day up. An enlightening read as always.

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Also, Roxane Gay is the worst

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This is some of your funniest best work (imo anyway, I’m biased since I love the online stuff.) love it.

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Thank you!!

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I count myself among the X-odus, less for political reasons than because of the relentless bottom-of-the-barrel advertising and the heavy hand of the algorithm, both of which got much worse in the Musk Era. I'd had a satisfying perch in Twitter since 2008, and relied on Twitter for research. I now have accounts on Threads (useless), Bluesky (so far, so good), and Mastodon, the scoldiest and most arcane of the three. I don't need social media to represent the full spectrum of human opinion and experience; I just need it to feed my admittedly niche interests: language, brand names, culture. I haven't experienced bullying myself, and I hate seeing others get bullied. But argument seems to be the coin of the realm unless you stick to less-polarizing topics like mine. Btw, for positive atmosphere I recommend LinkedIn — seriously.

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If I’m Trump, I’m funding these BlueSky people on the road to winning a third term and Congressional supermajorities.

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Effectively the thesis of my article!!

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This is my intro to Smol Bean discourse!

THANK YOU PHOEBE

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He seems nice...

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If you ever want to see the definitive, quintessential example of "smol bean," look up "Ana Mardoll." I can't remember if you and Kat covered their shenanigans back in 2022 or not, but they are the absolute model of a modern smol bean internet bully.

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We should learn from the Brits how to deal with smol beans: eat them on toast

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I’m not really interested in apologists for the “middle ground.”

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4dEdited

You're interested enough to read and comment on a blog post.

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