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i wrote a thing
That thing is a rant about social justice on tumblr. And I thought about posting on tumblr, but then I realized I didn't want to deal with the very people I'm talking about in my rant. But I wrote it because I needed to get it out of my system, and so I'm going to post it here instead.
So there’s been talk again on my dash criticizing the specific kind of over-the-top social justice warrior-ing going on on tumblr, and I think this is a good conversation to have. My biggest problem with it is that it doesn’t leave any room for actual humanity—be that either mistakes or the fact that different people have different levels of education/access to educational resources.
The expectation seems to be that people will be 100% perfect in their social justice-ing all the time. And meanwhile the ott warriors are just circling below like sharks waiting for someone to slip up JUST ONCE so they can attack. You see this a lot with celebs: every single time a celebrity comes to the attention of tumblr culture, it’s like a competition to see who can find the thing to discredit them the fastest. And I have zero problem with people calling out behavior that is problematic. I do have a problem with the glee with which tumblr does it and the way they smash it in the faces of the ones who like that celeb. It’s not like all people who like a given famous person are the kind of fans who refuse to admit that oppar could possibly do anything wrong. There are fans like that, of course, and there’s no exucse for them, but there are also loads of people who like the work of a given person or who are fond of their face or just think they’d be cool to hang out with and who will readily admit that that person has done things that are NOT OKAY. But they still like that person (for whatever value of ‘like’ applies) and there’s no need to make those ‘fans’ feel terrible about themselves for still enjoying that person/their art. I’ll use a personal example: I like Amy Poehler a lot. I love Parks and Rec and I like her as a person and I think the way she wants to encourage young women and girls is inspirational. I also think that time she posed in a ‘Native American’ headband with the feather was gross and wrong. And there are other things she’s done that are not okay. But I still like her. AND I admit that she’s done things that aren’t okay. I can do both. And face it: if we stopped liking everyone who ever said anything problematic, there would be no one left to like. No one is a paragon of social justice. No one. Everyone slips up, everyone does and says stupid and offensive things, everyone has blindspots. The key is whether you admit to that and try to do better. And since most celebs aren’t called out on those things…we don’t know whether they’d admit, apologize and try to learn. We just don’t know. [Note: there’s a big difference between someone saying or doing something thoughtlessly offensive and someone, say, unrepentantly beating someone they claim to love. I am not conflating the two, so don’t think I am.]
And so the celebrity thing is exhausting. But celebs are a distance from us, and they have a huge amount of privilege to protect them, and so the tumblr attitude towards them is not nearly as bad as when I see this level of self-righteous zealousness leveled at other tumblr users. Honestly, as someone who comes from a very conservative religious background, it reminds me of nothing so much as those people in religious groups who seem to LOVE it when other people ‘sin’ and who lurk around waiting to find out that other people have messed up and then jump on them and badmouth them to everyone and basically just act like the exact opposite of how the tennants of their faith call them to act.
So many people forget that tumblr is full of really young people. I mean, I’m a dinosaur in my mid-twenties, and I’m in a constant process of educating myself. But when I was the age of the majority of tumblr, I knew NOTHING about systemic oppression. Nothing. I grew up in a very sheltered evangelical environment where I was taught to treat everyone with respect and kindness and politeness and that that would pretty much keep me from doing anything wrong. I was never, ever taught about systemic injustice. I didn’t know it existed. Yes, I was one of those ‘stupid’ people who thought that, say, racism was about actively hating/being cruel to people of a different race than you, and since I would never dream of doing that, I couldn’t possibly do anything racist. It was only when I got to college and started reading more widely on the internet that I discovered this whole new world of ideas about how the world was set up. That’s how I discovered feminism and the need for it, the idea of systemic oppression and the patriarchy/kyriarchy and heiarchies in general. Up until then I knew nothing. And I think of what would have happened to me personally if I’d said something unintentionally offensive/hurtful when I was that age and people ripped into me. It would have crushed me. It would have. And I realize that’s nothing compared to the constant grinding under the heel that people who are oppressed go through every day—but God, I used to think feminism was a bad thing! I did! Now it’s as necessary to me as oxygen, but I would have been turned off to it completely if I had felt attacked using it, despite how desperately I needed it…because I didn’t know that I needed it.
I think it’s good to call people out on problematic things they say. I really do. And I think anger is powerful and necessary. But I think that sometimes that anger should be at the system or at people in power who perpetuate oppression, not at some kid who’s probably got no clue what they said was wrong because they’ve been brainwashed by the culture they live in not to see the oppression around them. I’m not saying people need to pander to offensive people, especially when they’re privileged. But there’s a big difference between a matter-of-fact, “Hey, you screwed up big-time here”/“hey, that think you said really, really hurt me”/“hey, you seem to have some ideas about people who are different than you that are very incorrect” and someone’s inbox being flooded with insults. I realize this skates perilously close to the tone argument, and I want to emphasize that I’m not telling people they can’t be angry about things. BE ANGRY. But maybe don’t unleash the fullness of your anger on someone who maybe has no idea what they’re doing is wrong. Rant and rave and scream on your own blog about it. Talk about how it represents just one more terrible thing you have to deal with day in and day out and how sometimes you think you’re going to explode from trying to carry all of that around. But before you contact the person who said or did whatever pissed you off, take a moment to think: is this something that shows real malice or is this something that perhaps signals that this person is just really ignorant? It’s hard to tell sometimes, but I do think we should take the time to think about it. You don’t have the responsibility to educate anyone. But if you do decide to contact them, I think it’s a good thing to take their possible situation into account. Intent doesn’t lessen the pain or anger that person stirred in you. But intent can give us some idea of whether that person could be brought around to enlightenment. Don’t we want everyone to come around to our team? Isn’t that the goal?
People can be eduated. Even deeply, deeply ignorant people. I’m living proof of that. But it probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a very young, very vulnerable, and very sheltered girl who felt overwhelmed by people older, more educated, and more articulate than I was telling me what a terrible person I was. That would have triggered my anxiety on a profound level. I know it would have. I just want people to be careful with each other.
So there’s been talk again on my dash criticizing the specific kind of over-the-top social justice warrior-ing going on on tumblr, and I think this is a good conversation to have. My biggest problem with it is that it doesn’t leave any room for actual humanity—be that either mistakes or the fact that different people have different levels of education/access to educational resources.
The expectation seems to be that people will be 100% perfect in their social justice-ing all the time. And meanwhile the ott warriors are just circling below like sharks waiting for someone to slip up JUST ONCE so they can attack. You see this a lot with celebs: every single time a celebrity comes to the attention of tumblr culture, it’s like a competition to see who can find the thing to discredit them the fastest. And I have zero problem with people calling out behavior that is problematic. I do have a problem with the glee with which tumblr does it and the way they smash it in the faces of the ones who like that celeb. It’s not like all people who like a given famous person are the kind of fans who refuse to admit that oppar could possibly do anything wrong. There are fans like that, of course, and there’s no exucse for them, but there are also loads of people who like the work of a given person or who are fond of their face or just think they’d be cool to hang out with and who will readily admit that that person has done things that are NOT OKAY. But they still like that person (for whatever value of ‘like’ applies) and there’s no need to make those ‘fans’ feel terrible about themselves for still enjoying that person/their art. I’ll use a personal example: I like Amy Poehler a lot. I love Parks and Rec and I like her as a person and I think the way she wants to encourage young women and girls is inspirational. I also think that time she posed in a ‘Native American’ headband with the feather was gross and wrong. And there are other things she’s done that are not okay. But I still like her. AND I admit that she’s done things that aren’t okay. I can do both. And face it: if we stopped liking everyone who ever said anything problematic, there would be no one left to like. No one is a paragon of social justice. No one. Everyone slips up, everyone does and says stupid and offensive things, everyone has blindspots. The key is whether you admit to that and try to do better. And since most celebs aren’t called out on those things…we don’t know whether they’d admit, apologize and try to learn. We just don’t know. [Note: there’s a big difference between someone saying or doing something thoughtlessly offensive and someone, say, unrepentantly beating someone they claim to love. I am not conflating the two, so don’t think I am.]
And so the celebrity thing is exhausting. But celebs are a distance from us, and they have a huge amount of privilege to protect them, and so the tumblr attitude towards them is not nearly as bad as when I see this level of self-righteous zealousness leveled at other tumblr users. Honestly, as someone who comes from a very conservative religious background, it reminds me of nothing so much as those people in religious groups who seem to LOVE it when other people ‘sin’ and who lurk around waiting to find out that other people have messed up and then jump on them and badmouth them to everyone and basically just act like the exact opposite of how the tennants of their faith call them to act.
So many people forget that tumblr is full of really young people. I mean, I’m a dinosaur in my mid-twenties, and I’m in a constant process of educating myself. But when I was the age of the majority of tumblr, I knew NOTHING about systemic oppression. Nothing. I grew up in a very sheltered evangelical environment where I was taught to treat everyone with respect and kindness and politeness and that that would pretty much keep me from doing anything wrong. I was never, ever taught about systemic injustice. I didn’t know it existed. Yes, I was one of those ‘stupid’ people who thought that, say, racism was about actively hating/being cruel to people of a different race than you, and since I would never dream of doing that, I couldn’t possibly do anything racist. It was only when I got to college and started reading more widely on the internet that I discovered this whole new world of ideas about how the world was set up. That’s how I discovered feminism and the need for it, the idea of systemic oppression and the patriarchy/kyriarchy and heiarchies in general. Up until then I knew nothing. And I think of what would have happened to me personally if I’d said something unintentionally offensive/hurtful when I was that age and people ripped into me. It would have crushed me. It would have. And I realize that’s nothing compared to the constant grinding under the heel that people who are oppressed go through every day—but God, I used to think feminism was a bad thing! I did! Now it’s as necessary to me as oxygen, but I would have been turned off to it completely if I had felt attacked using it, despite how desperately I needed it…because I didn’t know that I needed it.
I think it’s good to call people out on problematic things they say. I really do. And I think anger is powerful and necessary. But I think that sometimes that anger should be at the system or at people in power who perpetuate oppression, not at some kid who’s probably got no clue what they said was wrong because they’ve been brainwashed by the culture they live in not to see the oppression around them. I’m not saying people need to pander to offensive people, especially when they’re privileged. But there’s a big difference between a matter-of-fact, “Hey, you screwed up big-time here”/“hey, that think you said really, really hurt me”/“hey, you seem to have some ideas about people who are different than you that are very incorrect” and someone’s inbox being flooded with insults. I realize this skates perilously close to the tone argument, and I want to emphasize that I’m not telling people they can’t be angry about things. BE ANGRY. But maybe don’t unleash the fullness of your anger on someone who maybe has no idea what they’re doing is wrong. Rant and rave and scream on your own blog about it. Talk about how it represents just one more terrible thing you have to deal with day in and day out and how sometimes you think you’re going to explode from trying to carry all of that around. But before you contact the person who said or did whatever pissed you off, take a moment to think: is this something that shows real malice or is this something that perhaps signals that this person is just really ignorant? It’s hard to tell sometimes, but I do think we should take the time to think about it. You don’t have the responsibility to educate anyone. But if you do decide to contact them, I think it’s a good thing to take their possible situation into account. Intent doesn’t lessen the pain or anger that person stirred in you. But intent can give us some idea of whether that person could be brought around to enlightenment. Don’t we want everyone to come around to our team? Isn’t that the goal?
People can be eduated. Even deeply, deeply ignorant people. I’m living proof of that. But it probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a very young, very vulnerable, and very sheltered girl who felt overwhelmed by people older, more educated, and more articulate than I was telling me what a terrible person I was. That would have triggered my anxiety on a profound level. I know it would have. I just want people to be careful with each other.
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Here's another thing though: it's not "users" or "celebrities" who get targeted. It is women, particularly young women. And I just really dislike the way people are co-opting social justice language and causes in order to engage in good old-fashioned sexist bullying. DEAR WOMAN/GIRL: as soon as you do one thing WRONG, you are defined by this, it turns you into an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PERSON, well sort of a person, fair game for shunning and berating and shaming. You have destroyed your REPUTATION and have no credibility as to any objection you might have to the way you are treated. We are RIGHTEOUS in enforcing our ideals, so BE WARNED. SINCERELY, SOCIAL JUSTICE.
For fucking real?
Basically this:
it reminds me of nothing so much as those people in religious groups who seem to LOVE it when other people ‘sin’ and who lurk around waiting to find out that other people have messed up and then jump on them and badmouth them to everyone and basically just act like the exact opposite of how the tennants of their faith call them to act.
word, word, word
It's especially appalling to me when this happens FOR FEMALE CHARACTERS!! because women who are not real are entitled to more considerate treatment than women who are real.
I have a LOT to say about this so I'll probably be back later but I am so glad you posted this.
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. DEAR WOMAN/GIRL: as soon as you do one thing WRONG, you are defined by this, it turns you into an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PERSON, well sort of a person, fair game for shunning and berating and shaming. You have destroyed your REPUTATION and have no credibility as to any objection you might have to the way you are treated. We are RIGHTEOUS in enforcing our ideals, so BE WARNED. SINCERELY, SOCIAL JUSTICE.
YES. It's this all-or-nothing thing that just drives me absolutely crazy. Like...if you make one mistake YOU HAVE SURRENDERED EVERY RIGHT TO RESPECT and you will never, ever be acceptable again. Except maaaaaaybe if you grovel and self-flagellate for a while and then we MIGHT offer you absolution. Because we have the right.
because women who are not real are entitled to more considerate treatment than women who are real.
YES.
Your tag essay on that post yesterday inspired me.
I admit to being perpetually torn between my faith that really does believe in the golden rule and my conviction that anger is powerful and useful and that the tone argument is bs. Sometimes those things seem to overlap. And I as someone who's provileged don't want to tell, say, a black woman that she can't get mad over something racist. But I think we need to separate our anger over the issue and the whole culture that perpetuates it and some dumb kid on the internet.
*sigh*
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ITA! And even with the tone argument, I think a lot of people now misuse it as an excuse to insult people gleefully and then yell tone when they're called on it. No one's saying you can't be angry and that it's not incredibly frustrating to have people say that you're too angry for them to listen too, so by all means call people out on that. But swear at me personally or call me insulting names, you'd better believe I'm going to address your "tone"
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Thanks for saying all that. I feel like this a lot of the time, not necessarily with tumblr, because I'm not on there much, but definitely in some other online discussions. Honestly, the more the atmosphere gets like that, the more social justice movements halt their growth because people are too scared to try to participate and learn. And sure, it's not anyone's responsibility to recruit people, but why give up on people and say they're beyond redemption, when all they need is a little more information? But then, yeah, it gets tricky because you don't want to police people's tone.
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Yes, yes. I've seen the real tone argument made time and again,a nd it's the most frustrating thing ever. But that's really different than people sending 28 insulting messages to some kid who made a mistake on the internet.
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Also, from my experiences, it's very USA-centric. These people don't really seem to get that not all countries have the same baggage with racism, for example, and that they might not have gotten the same education on it. There were lots and lots of things about racism (and other issues too, but racism in particular) that I didn't know until I got involved with fandom and the internet. Since Sweden has had such a homogeneous culture (getting less so now) these things aren't usually taught or talked about here, and it's hard to seek out and learn something you don't even know exists. Not saying Swedes shouldn't be called out on racism, because we definitely should, or that we shouldn't talk more about those things over here, because we really really should, but generally teenage white girls from Sweden (depending on the area a bit too I think) don't have that much knowledge about racism and even though it sucks I don't think hating on them is the way to go.
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This attitude you're talking about bothers me A LOT and it's why I keep my tumblr just to have images and some other things tagged and classified for future uses and to fangirl about kpop and Teen Wolf. For serious discussions I still prefer livejournal or other sites (even though I do reblog a lot of serious stuff).
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(Anonymous) 2013-05-03 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)Recently I was appalled by the sheer ignorance of a young girl in her teens (at least I assume she was very young) angrily posting about how Justin Bieber had gone to see Anne Frank. Now obviously he went to see the place where she was hidden and so on. He tweeted about how he felt about visiting.The girl was pissed off and jealous and posted about how ugly Anne was and so on as if she were alive now and a "rival" for Justin's affections. Leaving aside the utter ridiculousness of a fan getting jealous about their idol's having relationships or interests or affections, the vitriol which this girl poured over the situation was scary and more than a few young people echoed her. Until someone finally clued them in on who Anne Frank was and why she was important and so on. I can only imagine that 80 years from now those people will still want to die of sheer embarrassment over their own stupidity.
These kids also came in for a lot of hazing and bashing and ugliness and I'm pretty sure the original OP closed her tumblr and twitter.
To me this is a perfect example of the mob rule thing. When I originally saw the post, I immediately thought, "oh you poor girl, you have just eaten your foot up to the thigh and you will be wishing you could take this back for the rest of your life." I immediately understood that the post was nothing more than ignorance and teenage angst. At no time did I think to myself, well this girl is obviously anti semitic and so on and so forth and even a bit further on. (terry pratchett wins at life)
I, like many others I hope, sent messages to correct the girl's ignorance since that was the real problem. But meanwhile an internet "gang" developed. And the girl was sent a lot of negative crap that helps nothing and I'm sure made the huge pit of embarrassment she was wallowing in a million times worse.
I've seen this same thing happen on livejournal too, I've been online in some form or fashion since 96 so I've seen a lot of water under the online bridge. But I do think by and large Livejournal uses these days seem of an older median age and therefore think a little more before they act.
My point is, we as a community should be alert to jumping on the bandwagon just because it happens to be going by. Sometimes that bandwagon is really nothing that a mob with pitch forks and torches.
And that a lot of times really offensive stupid things are said out of ignorance not out of a desire to be cruel or stupid or to hurt someone else. I think if more people thought "oh you dumb little fuck" rather than "oh you racist bigoted pig", we might get a lot further in rectifying social problems.
SA
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Quite a few posters mentioned actually that they were very uncomfortable with being told that their opinions were worthless and to shut the fuck up, because it was very triggering for them and the way their families had treated them in the past, and I think that argument doesn't get considered enough with all this talk of respect people's triggers, yet it rarely seems to apply when it comes to dogpiling a poster who got it wrong. People joke about oh no you got told off on the internet poor you, but something like that can really affect anxious people if they feel like an entire community of people are mocking and insulting them, yet it always seems to come back around to linking people to the tone argument if they do protest at being spoken too rudely
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I think we need to separate our anger over the issue and the whole culture that perpetuates it and some dumb kid on the internet.
Wait, you're saying scapegoating isn't a totally fair and useful way to deal with The World and its attendant issues? GET THE FUCK OUT.
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This is an excellent point. Like I said in my post--if I'd been fourteen or so and said something I thought was innocuous and the internet descended on me? It would mess with my head SO MUCH.
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These people don't really seem to get that not all countries have the same baggage with racism, for example, and that they might not have gotten the same education on it.
Yes, definitely. There are some things that should be obvious to anyone who takes a minute to think about them, but there are other things that are much more subtle and tied to specific cultures, and it isn't always right to assume that everyone knows about those things.
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think the nature of tumblr has made them do it in pretty agressive ways that I don't think are going to make them reach their goals
Absolutely!
"You did wrong therefore you are worthless!" Shit, if I had been told that some years ago I'd be screwed!
Yes, yes, me, too.
I don't like to talk about serious stuff myself there very often--I keep that for lj. I reblog others' stuff, but I don't write much serious stuff myself there.
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Oh, that girl was so incredibly ignorant and it was gross what she said--even if she didn't know who Anne Frank was (which: HOW?), she shouldn't be bashing some other girl, especially not for her looks. And there's NOTHING wrong with educating her. But you're so right the internet gang was terrible and gross and helped exactly nothing.
I've seen things get ugly very fast, too, on multiple websites, and it always seems to happen the same way, doesn't it? Mob mentality, absolutely.
But I do think by and large Livejournal uses these days seem of an older median age and therefore think a little more before they act.
Agreed. It's more mellow here than it was before.
And that a lot of times really offensive stupid things are said out of ignorance not out of a desire to be cruel or stupid or to hurt someone else. I think if more people thought "oh you dumb little fuck" rather than "oh you racist bigoted pig", we might get a lot further in rectifying social problems.
I agree. Have a little mercy in your hearts, people.
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(Anonymous) 2013-05-04 12:41 am (UTC)(link)no subject
I'd like to echo everything Poco said above about young women being the ones held to the highest standards possible when it comes to behavior. I mean. There's nothing I ~*~love~*~ better than blatant misogyny dressed up as feminism. I feel like it comes from a profoundly black & white line of thinking? Anyone who fucks up MUST BE SHUNNED. Anyone who perpetuates oppression MUST BE REVILED. Which skates disturbingly close to victim-blaming tbqh. Frex. ignorant young women who prioritize the men who oppress/abuse them, at the expense of other women: that's the kind of thing that's indisputably a result of a patriarchy that tells women to hate both ourselves and other women. Yet, we're all expected to be totally enlightened and ~empowered~ for the sake of the movement. We OWE IT to Feminism to be empowered.
but God, I used to think feminism was a bad thing! I did! Now it’s as necessary to me as oxygen, but I would have been turned off to it completely if I had felt attacked using it, despite how desperately I needed it…because I didn’t know that I needed it.
I'm almost certain this is true for all of us.
And I think anger is powerful and necessary. But I think that sometimes that anger should be at the system or at people in power who perpetuate oppression, not at some kid who’s probably got no clue what they said was wrong because they’ve been brainwashed by the culture they live in not to see the oppression around them.
In one.
Also, there actually are people who treat feminism as something that's representative of taste. And that is such a WORLD OF NO. Like, people on tumblr who equate liking really problematic things to being "basic" (or derogatory phrases along those lines). And for real, it's almost hilarious in how much that kind of rhetoric goes against the spirit of the very thing these people claim to support. Once you start using "feminism" to police WHAT IS COOL TO LIKE... I weep. I really do.
Le sigh. You know something is wrong when you're equally angry at people who claim to be on the same side.
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Like the quotation by Ye Old White Dude goes, never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance or stupidity.
Absolutely.
Thank you for commenting! I really appreciate it!
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I mean. There's nothing I ~*~love~*~ better than blatant misogyny dressed up as feminism. I feel like it comes from a profoundly black & white line of thinking? Anyone who fucks up MUST BE SHUNNED. Anyone who perpetuates oppression MUST BE REVILED. Which skates disturbingly close to victim-blaming tbqh. Frex. ignorant young women who prioritize the men who oppress/abuse them, at the expense of other women: that's the kind of thing that's indisputably a result of a patriarchy that tells women to hate both ourselves and other women. Yet, we're all expected to be totally enlightened and ~empowered~ for the sake of the movement. We OWE IT to Feminism to be empowered.
YES. This reminds me of that post that went around a few weeks ago about how we don't owe it to feminism to love our bodies. It seems like the ott feminists take things that should be really great goals--like being comfortable, at least, with our bodies--and instead make them things we HAVE to have accomplished NOW. There's no acknowledgment of journey or developing ideas or continuing education. It's all, like you said, black and white, and if you aren't on the right side of the line, you deserve any hate that comes your way.
Like, people on tumblr who equate liking really problematic things to being "basic" (or derogatory phrases along those lines). And for real, it's almost hilarious in how much that kind of rhetoric goes against the spirit of the very thing these people claim to support. Once you start using "feminism" to police WHAT IS COOL TO LIKE... I weep. I really do.
I hate the word 'basic.' I hate it so so so much. I refuse to use it, and when I see people use it, I become uncomfortable or angry. And I will also address that the characters, for instance, who are held up as NOT basic are usually evil characters. And there's nothing wrong with loving evil characters! I love some of them too! But being good is not the same thing as being boring or basic. It isn't. Also, I see it leveled at real people, and that is not a good word to use that way. By all means call out people's behavior. But labeling THEM as basic, especially when they're trying to operate within the incredibly misogynist system (for instance--Taylor Swift, who has some real problems and needs to be called on them but who is also trying to play the game, which these people tend to adore in fictional characters when it's fueled by hate but hate in her) is sexism because it's just another reason to hate women who aren't performing in the way you want them to. Gross.
You know something is wrong when you're equally angry at people who claim to be on the same side.
YES. And if anyone should know better IT'S THEM.
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My biggest problem with Tumblr and the way it approaches social justice is the complete lack of context that seems to occur. It is almost like those sharks (and even some of the bigger name SJ blogs) forget that Tumblr and the world do not exist in a vacuum. This isn't to excuse the -isms that occur of course but rather there are systems that are occurring that cause certain things and that gets lost in the conversation of calling someone out. And they also forget the context of who they are talking to as well (like Anon's Anne Frank example).
I actually encourage people to call me out when I say something and you've been, if it happens, I do course correct. But I had to turn my anon off because of the sheer hatred I would get. I think there is a right way and a wrong way to approach things and coming for someone's head is not going to change their beliefs, it is only going to steel them to hold on stronger. Compassion is lost on the internet sometimes.
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I definitely agree with this, though I think the nature of tumblr makes it easier for more and more people to get involved and harder for anyone to keep a low profile.
Yes, absolutely re: context.
Compassion is lost on the internet sometimes.
It absolutely is.