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Amber Enderton on why Wil Wheaton got chased off Mastodon
Link information
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- Title
- Wil Wheaton Has a Listening Problem - Amber Enderton - Medium
- Authors
- Amber Enderton
- Published
- Aug 30 2018
- Word count
- 1112 words
Honestly, all this does is make me feel bad for Wil Wheaton because, were I in his position, I think it might have ended up in this exact same result. Not out of malice or any sort of phobia, but just because I probably couldn't consider all the angles before I do things and then get raked over the coals for it.
I'd like to preface this by saying that this is not a defense of Wil Wheaton, but an explanation of why I can't get behind this position on the man. I simply feel that I, as a person, cannot actually do better than he has in his position. I do not believe he is as malicious as this article is suggesting, and I don't think it's fair to gun for him so hard just because there are some areas that can be criticized. To me, it seems all to real that I could be in the same boat as him through pure accident, just because I sought to do something easy and quick for something I treat as easy and quick.
Going through this, there are a lot of value judgements made on Wheaton as a person from the author. I don't know anything about Wil Wheaton, this situation, or his history with the trans community so I am no expert—but I'd like to learn and know. This article did not teach, and has left me with so many more questions. For example, a large portion of this article is dedicated to the blocklist. Wheaton already apologized for its use, and stated that he tried to rectify the situation, but he is still being raked over the coals for it. In fact, this article is doubling down on being able to take him to task for it. Have we really reached the point where a public apology and genuine action isn't good enough to stop blasting someone for their original mistake?
Further, why is Wil Wheaton such a big target? Why do people insist on propping him up and tearing him down? He just seems like a D-list celebrity who is doing his own thing, and whose biggest sin seems to be living his life publicly on social media. Every action of his seems to be analyzed down to its molecular atom and I cannot figure out why so many give him so much scrutiny for every aspect of it.
This article points out that he's rarely been a real champion, but it seems to indicate that it's by intent. Wheaton doesn't seem to seek to be a champion, he's just claiming to be respectful. That rings true with me, I'd be a terrible champion but I try to treat everyone with respect and the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure I've supported and enjoyed things with a checkered history but that doesn't mean I would endorse it. I love B.I.B.L.E. from Liquid Swords but it's got a line about abortion I fundamentally disagree with. I can't help but feel if I was in Wheaton's position, and said that I love that song, I'd probably get put onto a list as a "pro-life supporter" at some point.
Also, on the title: what listening problem? The only time the word appears at all in the article is at the very end, when Wheaton is being told to listen. But... this is an article about how he listened to the trans community about this blocklist he was using, and even went so far as to try and manually adjust it. His quick and easy solution turned into a time-consuming manual task because he was listening to people. If the guy has a listening problem, I'm not really convinced about it.
But speaking about the very end of this article: woof. It is cruel. It lays out some seriously damning judgement statements over very, very little evidence or compelling rationale. "Routinely harms trans people" is a huge accusation and all the article has to provide is a) this issue about a GG ban list that he already tried to fix, and b) his support for Brianna Wu, who apparently donated to the GOP after they passed an anti-trans bill. Interestingly, she's running as a Democrat and doesn't seem to have ever donated to the GOP. I've been looking around various articles about Wu's issues as a candidate and none of them mention that he's a GOP donor—the closest it gets is that she spoke out against a Trump Donor Twitter bot. Wheaton's support of her is most certainly due to the fact that both of the hate GamerGate and were personally affected by it.
The only compelling argument I derived from this article is the bit about Hardwick. But, at the same time, considering what business Wheaton is in: why does he need to make a public statement? Or, more accurately, why must he make one or else be labelled as an enemy? The article is extremely unchartible with how it presents this situation: "Predators protect one another. Maybe Wil Wheaton isn’t a predator, but he is certainly no ally by staying silent."
Wow. While the second sentence is technically true, that delivery is designed to make people believe he sides with predators, especially with that hamfisted first sentence there. Yes, it would be very helpful if he would make a public statement of judgement on the matter for everyone. But why must he? Is it fair to suggest that he is a predator because he chooses not to be the best ally possible?
I'm just so unconvinced by this article. It's flimsy, and it's hostile. Honestly, I think this author would label me a pro-life, homophobic, transphobic, violent misognyist for my choice in music even though those are the same lyrics that I don't agree with.
That article is all over the place. First it's about trans then it shifts into several unrelated issues.
I mean was the fact the person who did the bofa was trans matter? And as far as, "not taking it well".. All he did was report them.
It just reads like the whole trans aspect was used as a weapon after the fact on several things.
Edit: first not fist
I wasn't sure if it was just me needing coffee, but the article was just incredibly poorly written and haphazard. It requires knowledge of a bunch of background drama for context, and without that it's just noise.
That was my take away also.
Admittedly I hadn't really thought about Wil Wheaton since that last TNG episode he was in, where he left the Enterprise to follow Phish around the Federation, but the Medium post really gives me flashbacks to grading undergrad papers. You'd occasionally get the sense that the author decided ahead of time on a conclusion that seemed easy, grabbed whatever they could to support it, then padded it out with some unrelated Googling. It was a very confusing post.
(...and the "a threat that has now been neutralized" coda reminds me far too much of the 2A-uber-alles dipshits who end all gibberings with "Tango down!")
(...and I don't mean to throw shade at all undergrads -- I definitely did the above in a couple classes when, after playing Brood War until 11:30, I realized I had a paper to write. I just only ever graded undergrads' papers.)
Thanks for that, hadn’t really smiled all day until I read that.
I think the article is muddled because, when you look at it, the reasons for disliking Wil Wheaton are often muddled. People dislike him for myriads of reasons, sometimes as simple as not liking his work or not liking his associations, and often also not liking his political positions (which he has always broadcast very openly).
I think, more then anything, this whole situation was just the fuse that lit the powder keg on a bunch of people who had axes to grind with Wil, and who had ground each other's axes for a long time.
I honestly feel that people who try to be 'allies' to this kind of hyper-demanding feminist are the ones who get harassed the most by the very same people they're trying to join hands with.
According to this article, Wil deserved to be harassed off mastodon for the following amazing crimes:
Blocking a troll.
Using the ggautoblocker.
Being friends with Chris Hardwick.
Really? Those are worth attacking and harassing and silencing someone? The author needs to take some time and examine themself and their actions.
I don't know who Amber Enderton is, but she needs to organise her thoughts before putting pen to paper, then she needs to arrange those thoughts into some form of coherence.
This read like a heat of the moment, publish and be damned rant.
Leave Wil alone. He's a chill dude.
All of my interactions with him have been nothing but positive. He's been nothing if not charitable and nice to everyone I've seen him interact with.
He got caught up in an honest mistake and apologized profusely for what happened. That's more than I'd expect out of someone in a similar situation.
I've only spoken to him a couple of times in some small private subs, but those few times were all positive. I've never understood the pettiness and vindictiveness thrown his way.
I think his recent 'confession' about his mental health was pretty brave and has the hallmarks of someone trying their absolute best to improve themselves and the world, as much as they have influence over anyway. Not to get too ad hominem but it sounds like Amber discovered gender politics, devoured it whole and now sees everything magnified through the lens of micro-aggressions and #metoo -- forgetting that life isn't so desperately black and white, that people need to spend more time understanding and being generous to their perceived opponents. And if i might blatantly engage in 'butter emails' level whataboutism for a second, of all the evil misogynists and genuine fascists in the world, she could probably find herself a more worthy target than Wil Wheaton on any page of today's NYT.
http://wilwheaton.net/2018/05/my-name-is-wil-wheaton-i-live-with-chronic-depression-and-i-am-not-ashamed/
It's unfortunate that you've used exactly the same phrasing as that overly dramatic teenager who screamed at us to "Leave Britney alone!"
Haha! Hopefully my lack of an exclamation point redeems me :)
Here's Wil Wheaton's take on the situation if anybody's interested.
Woah, boy. Shared blocklists sound like a terrible idea, especially when people share them without knowing who's on them. You're bound to end up blocking people you didn't intend to. Just because one person has a bad experience with someone doesn't mean everyone else should block them.
It doesn't sound like Wil Wheaton is intentionally anti-trans; but he blindly fired a loaded shotgun he let someone else aim and a lot of people got hurt. I don't think that makes him a bad person overall, but he does need to take responsibility for what he's done, as does everyone who blindly adopted the blocklist.
By all accounts he did take full responsibility for it, apologized profusely and even attempted to rectify the issue by manually editing his blocklist to remove all the trans people unintentionally included in it, though... so I don't get where this campaign to get him off mastodon comes from. It was an honest mistake and one that any of us (even fellow LGBTQ) could have easily made.
Also your comment is rather hyperbolic, isn't it? "firing a loaded shotgun", "a lot of people got hurt"... by being accidentally blocked by a minor celebrity who was simply trying to avoid being constantly harassed by alt-right idiots and literal nazis... really?
The problem isn't that just one celeb blocked them, but that list got circulated. When you make your income based on things you have to advertise, possible retweets from celebs can be a gold mine. But since Will promoted this blocklist to other celebs, they adopted it and it spread higher and higher. From my understanding, the blocklist had already made the rounds with journalists and some trans creators saw their earnings drop because bigger names that would normally promote them suddenly couldn't see them.
Whether Will should be blamed for that, I'm unsure.
My position is somewhere in the middle. I don't think he should be run off mastodon or otherwise demonized. I don't think he's a bad person, just a person who made a mistake without realizing it until the whole thing blew up. But despite being unintentional it did affect people.
That's good to hear. That's a lot more than a number of people would do.
Perhaps I worded that a bit too extremely. Blocking people is not the same as shooting them, of course. But his actions did have a scattershot effect that indiscriminately affected a number of people. As @pamymaf pointed out some of them had their livelihood affected because of the blocklist being spread around. I can understand how some people could be pretty damn upset about that.
I think shared blocklists are problematic because of exactly what happened here, but I also don't think people should be pilloried for making a mistake.
https://archive.attn.com/stories/12125/debate-over-donating-north-carolina-gops-gofundme
She donated to a GOP office that was firebombed, but then withdrew the donation.
Thank you for posting this. It gave another side to the story for me. I do see some red flags raised now with Wil; if it was just one of these things, I would have an easier time explaining it away, but they all seem to pile up on each other:
I'm not saying anything about whether I believe he is transphobic, but the above information from the article raised some red flags for me.
Just some food for thought on each of these points:
You're welcome to believe that these are red flags, but I think that it's a shockingly nearsighted thing to do. I have certainly noticed that some people will attack those that aren't as extreme as them, and I believe this is what Amber Enderton is doing with Wil, and what many people probably did on Mastodon to him as well. In addition, there's always hundreds or thousands of GamerGators just waiting to take a crap on him for standing up for the very people that are currently attacking him.
It all just seems monumentally unfair to me.
I think it is the opposite. Red flags do not always mean there is a problem. They are just there to say, "proceed with caution." If there are several similar allegations that someone is a duck, I'm going to proceed with caution, and look into whether they are indeed a duck. If I were to charge ahead saying, "but he's always seemed like such a nice guy," that would be nearsighted.
I just think that none of your red flags are actually reasonable.
He used a well known and otherwise well promoted list, which was well known for being effective. If he didn't know that it was also secretly trans-phobic... well, shit, neither did I. Am I transphobic for not knowing about this list?
Then, when he switched off the list, he didn't go gung ho talking about the next list. That makes so much sense to me considering the blowback from the last time he promoted a list. Why would he ever promote a list again?
And how is endorsing someone for making a donation to people who were actual victims of domestic terrorism a bad thing? The message was that despite the fact that they disagreed with the GOP, they should still support them. But people were up in arms about that too.
As a society we need to collectively take some chill pills. These aren't red flags. These are a guy trying to make his life a little easier and trying to do things that he thinks are right for himself, his kids, and whatever people he can reach. He's not a predator, and treating him as such is, frankly, revolting.
I haven't looked into it. That's why I'm not defending him. I thanked the OP for posting, because it offered up another viewpoint.
It seems that people in the trans community find his lack of disavowing this blocklist as a sign that he might be transphobic. As far as I know, he never said to the internet "Hey! I just found out that this blocklist includes people in the trans community for no good reason. I just found out, and immediately ceased using it. You should too, I'm sorry that I promoted it without doing due diligence. To the trans community who I may have hurt by promoting this blocklist [thus, having their public and business accounts disconnected from many influential accounts in the television and movie industry, effectively making it impossible for them to network in the way they wanted], I'm sorry."
If he did say that stuff, then I'm wrong. Also, the article made it sound like for a while he did a lot of hand-wringing and saying "I'm trying to unblock people, but I can't." Instead of just ceasing to use the blocklist.
Note: the following has little to do with Brianna Wu and Wil's support of her. I've sort of switched to my general thoughts on the matter
I have mixed feelings about this. I am a cis, white person, I truly believe that I have the luxury to say "Let's all just get along. Help out the GOP, who were victims of domestic terrorism!" because they're not literally trying to end my way of life.
Many (if not most) members of the GOP actively fight against the rights of trans people every day. Sometimes it's "only" trying to let businesses refuse them because of who they are, but other times it's literally trying to make them live as their assigned gender. This can cause gender dysphoria, a serious health condition, and suicide. So I 100% believe that trans people (and other minorities) have a right to say "I don't care if your operation has been destroyed. Now you can't actively try to ruin my way of life!"
I have adopted family members. If an organization had just lobbied to ban adoption and return all children to their birth parents, I would be pissed if my friends, family, or celebrity heroes donated money to help them rebuild.
So I guess I do I think it was shortsighted of Brianna Wu to donate to the GOP, and I'm glad she took back her donation.
Source: http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-right-now-and-thats-largely-because-it-is-what-we-make-it/
This is just the most recent time he admitted it was a mistake. It's not even particularly recent, and I think he's apologized a lot for it.
If that apology happened after the mastodon stuff, then it doesn't really apply, unfortunately.
This attitude that you're displaying is what a lot of people on the gamergator side of things are fighting back against. To recap:
That is really negative, and it's something that people are repelled by, and when you do it enough, there's a reaction to it that is based on that repulsion. I don't agree with almost anything to do with gamergate (or any of the ensuing tribes that cropped up), but I understand, and to some degree feel, their anger about it.
People make mistakes (and I don't mean "bad choices that people make where they knowingly hurt other people", but more "this had an unintended consequence") and when they apologize for them, we should recognize that, not dither about which quote someone quoted to you in the timeline of apologies. He tried to fix it right away. There's ample evidence of that. He told people about the mistake. There's ample evidence of that. He took ownership of what he had done. There's ample evidence of that.
What more do you actually need?
Hey, I'm cool with stopping this conversation. I'm not trying to be nasty, or even very emphatic. I consider myself a mostly reasonable person, a feminist, and an ally. I feel very calm about all this, so I don't intend my words to be read with vitriol or condemnation. Just... casual conversation.
It sounds like you've taken umbrage with my use of red flag. I honest-to-goodness meant every word that I said, even (and especially) my qualifiers. Literally all I meant by my statement was "Thank you for posting this, it's interesting, this raises some questions that I need to look further into."
The reason I kept going with you is that it seemed like you didn't understand what I meant and why I might want to look further into it. I want to value the opinions of the trans community, not accept them wholesale, and certainly not dismiss them outright.
I truly just want to be friendly. Thank you for sharing your facts and opinions on this matter. I think it's a bummer that we both mistook our conversation for something that it wasn't.
/* I feel like I should edit with: I think all the Mastodon stuff is super childish. Repeatedly reporting someone you don't like is just hurting the innocent mods of the site. If people in the trans community felt hurt, betrayed, and worried because they hadn't heard him apologize or speak out yet, brigading is not the way to get your point across.
My utmost apologies, especially since you're correct and reading back it looks like I'm quite upset. I'm not actually upset with you at all (I'm also not trying to be vitriolic or condemnatory), I just tend to either engage really lightly in any conversation, or to engage too much and seem like I'm super invested.
Also, I'm not trying to be unfriendly, though I'm sure it came across like that, and I should have chosen my words more carefully than I did.
We're good, friend.
@burkaman gave the response above about Wu:
Thanks for the link!
His accounts are still there, so it doesn't really seem like he was actually banned. He left in a hissy fit.
Someone on Mastodon summed it up well (I was going to share the username, but it can be found by searching Mastodon and I don't subscribe to naming names under these circumstances. Wil wheaton had/has a troll army of his own. One that he cultivated, promoted and celebrated over the years on Twitter)
Here is the summary:
"you have to consider the possibility that he was the problem. he burned a lot of bridges with the kinds of people that have signed up on mastodon from twitter. The problem is he blocked, like, tens of thousands of people, many who didn't even interact with him, then advertised the list... [His] blocklist included tons of leftists, basically anyone who annoyed him or anyone who's blocklists he imported - this included a ton of trans people but also lots of socialists, activists, (including those that have accomplished good work - such as during Arab spring) bernie supporters/volunteers etc. And if he was just blocking people, fine, but he was also advertising the blocklist as... "trolls," basically implying everyone on the list was gamergater/MAGA chud/etc"
He was aware ppl were being swept up in his blocklists that most likely didn't belong there, on his listS. He wrote a blog in 2014 about it: (http://wilwheaton.net/2014/12/unblock-the-block), asked people to leave their handles, stating he'd take a look on a case by case basis. However, going by the responses, he didn't follow up. There's just a pile of responses unaddressed. He might have wrote more blogs about it too? Idk. He was addressed about this many times on Twitter and while I didn't follow him, nor can I claim to know how he responded in every instance, I saw enough to know he was, at least in some instances, a garbage human to people that didn't deserve it.
I recall him on Twitter, promoting his block list and encouraging his 3 million followers to subscribe and block. He blocked a friend of mine for no discernable reason, and then responded callously to others when asked about it. Often he didn't know why, and made it clear that he didn't care, stating they must be *insert accusations here..
I watched a friend that expressed admiration and asked in puzzlement why blocked.
On Twitter:
Friend
*realizes blocked
Another confirms Jan 2017
"yup you're on it along with 25,500 others"
Friend
"i'd like wil a lot more if he didn't put me on his blocklist when i had not even interacted with him on twitter & tells his followers that it's filled with "the worst of the worst." so many activists I know are on these huge blocklists causes lots of issues."
*no wil tweet to quote as I didn't bother to save anything and all of his tweets were wiped when he rage quit Twitter. Wil just didn't gaf in instances I personally witnessed.
Here an example that I just found, of an individual offending tweet. As wil's Twitter is wiped, I could not grab an entire exchange with above mentioned friend. It is also difficult to find examples of those he individually blocked because all of his tweets are wiped. But here is someone that thinks he found the offending tweet that earned a block:
https://steemit.com/blocking/@awgonnerman/is-this-why-wil-wheaton-blocked-me
Apparently, in the most recent controversy about the same old topic of his blocklisting, only this time on Mastodon, he again states he wasn't aware until just now. He then explains how he tried to address and unblock. Perhaps this time he was genuine, actually took care to look at individual accounts and unblock. Idk.
But, I do know, he was aware repeatedly prior to this "incident", yet he continued to advertise his blocklist(s) to his 3million followers and vocally encouraged them, and anyone else looking on, to subscribe and block. He promoted automated blocking. He encouraged all to import lists by which thousands are auto blocked.
I have no clear concept about what happened in Mastodon and the article doesn't help this effort.
From what I can gather he started reporting posts on Mastodon. I'm not sure if it was all about him getting trigger happy at reporting, or it was others that joined in reporting him. Most likely a combination. He clamors about toxic environments and what a victim he is, while also creating, spewing and spreading toxic behaviors by his own actions. It's hypocritical lame for him to cry about his feelings after showing zero regard for other people's.
To be clear, I do not support the harassment that happened to him. I still can't say that I feel bad for him. He can perhaps learn a lesson and move on to another instance of Mastodon. He has an account on dot social. The admin there, has made it clear such an occurrence would not happen there. I'm sure that's not the only instance. Btw - that admin (like me) thinks wil to be a jerk. However, that doesn't translate to mobbing and harassing. It simply means not engaging. Wil has no blocklist on Mastodon. He won't be able to pull his same bs there (that he did on Twitter). With that said, he won't be chased off for his past shitty behavior on another platform either.
Here is a msg from social admin
"For mastodon.social users:
Dogpiling and harassment are off-limits no matter how justified you think you are. The rules are for everyone.
Strongly considering adding screenshot-dunking to the code of conduct as well. We don't need that culture here."