I basically don't update my personal journal and probably shouldn't be doing so now, since I'm busy as hell with teaching a very intensive summer course, working on my dissertation and preparing material for going on the job market. Hell, I'm taking time away from my gaming, which is virtually unheard-of with me. But the current brouhaha regarding the little article which I wrote with korinna for inclusive_geeks has me thinking not-so-complimentary thoughts about a fair amount of supposed social justice warriors on the internet and LJ in general (which, ironically, was the subject of the article) and neo_prodigy in particular. So, while taking a break from grading, I thought I'd pontificate a bit about the subject.

I'm a cynical bastard. And a lot of the stuff that I see regarding people who present themselves as interested in social justice on the internet/LJ makes me even more cynical. I get that everyone makes mistakes, especially when dealing with complicated issues like SJ. I know I do, and not just because korinna is there to inform me when I do. But there's a whole lot of stuff which often seems to be utterly par for the course in SJ which seems, to me, utterly designed to maximize the chances of doing so. One among them which particularly bugs me is the cliquishness of SJ on the internet. What seems to matter is not what one says or does but rather who one knows, who vouches for one's words and deeds, and how much support one has. Of course people who share similar beliefs and interests gravitate towards each other, especially on LJ. Hell, that's why something like Inclusive Geeks exists. But when the value of one's ideas (and their expression) seems utterly reliant on or only validated by how much support one can pick up or how much cred one already has, I think something's being missed.

The related issue of credibility is one that often bothers me too. I understand why lived experiences are important when on the subject of SJ and I get that the issue of who can (and should/n't) speak on a given subject is a complex and thorny one. But, again, when one must parade one's credibility in order to be heard on a subject, or is considered worth listening to only/primarily because of one's supposed credibility, I think something is a little off. Especially since what this sort of approach also does is mean people who don't like an opinion don't have to actually be able to respond to it and take it apart, but can simply fall back on online character assassination instead. Which, of course, is made even easier when they themselves have supposed credibility that their targets don't, irrespective of the quality of the individual arguments. Admittedly this happens in a lot of areas outside LJ and the internet in general, but this is one of the few places where I regularly have to see it in action, so I notice it more here.

And, as a specific example of both of the above, we come to neo_prodigy. Ironically, I just saw the things I listed above underlined in spades because we were using him as an illustrative example in the original article. As was clear to anyone with reading comprehension and pointed out by many on the Inclusive Geeks thread, the primary thrust of the article wasn't about him. But, evidently, to him and to a number of people (most of them not-so-coincidentally his friends), the article was all about him. Which just makes me go – seriously? He's not that important. But, based on what I've seen of his writing and interactions with people, especially those who disagree with him, I'm not surprised that he would see it that way.

Actually, at this point I should probably pause to clarify that the rest of this post is, completely and utterly, about Neo. Which is very new for me, both on the internet/LJ and in real life. Normally, without fail, I don't really care about idiots. I am free to not interact with them and while their presence may sometimes impinge on me, I can (and always do) just walk away from them when I choose not to. So people I consider morons usually just amuse me. Even now, my primary emotion regarding Neo is amusement. Sure, I think he's a pathetic excuse for a human being who has neither the integrity nor the intelligence to realize when he's wrong and to admit to it when he is, which is topped up by a wonderful heaping of misogyny. But there are a lot of people out there who are as stupid. And, since they're generally inconsequential to me, I just grin when I encounter one and move on. But not this time. Thanks to his behavior after the original article, particularly towards korinna, I feel impelled to give him a little more attention. And, in the interest of honesty and since he's evidently incapable of reading, let me be clear here – this is totally a personal attack (hopefully the first and last one I'll ever indulge in). The article wasn't. But this is. So...

In case the above wasn't clear enough, let me spell things out clearly. Based on all of the evidence I've seen, collected by not just me but the people posting on threads such as the ones liked to in the original article, I think Neo is a hugely misogynist and hypocritical douchebag, who is far less interested in genuine social justice issues than in parading before people who will compliment and agree with him, an internet bully to those who don't have the online presence/popularity that he does, and lacking the integrity or courage to engage with dissenters in a forum where he can't just rely on deleting/banning those who disagree. The fact that his writing ability makes my horrible preceding sentence look like Nabokov on a good day (yeah, low blow, I know, but also true) is only icing on the cake.

Firstly, anyone who says that Neo hasn't said—and continues to say—extremely misogynist things is either uninformed or utterly delusional. All you have to do is check his usual posts to see reams of evidence, since he genuinely seems unable to write about virtually any subject without parading his hate (and I don't use the word lightly) for women. The links in the original article on Inclusive Geeks provide tons of evidence too. Not that Neo isn't trying to cover his tracks right now, such as by locking one of his particularly stellar rants about how if he was married he'd force his wife to take birth control pills, but I fundamentally don't see how you can read literally anything he writes without seeing it in some form, since he seems utterly unable to do so.

Actually, moving beyond misogyny, I'd say that a large part of Neo's problem is that his opinions about gender in general (and sexuality) are utterly fucked-up. I've seen afficionados of evo-psych trot out less generalizations about “men are men in this way” and “women are women like this” than he does. His “How to Write Slash Better” post is just one example of it, overflowing with the most reductionist of claims about what men do and what women do when it comes to sex. No, you narrow-minded neanderthal! At best that's what you, Neo, do, as the alpha male you are (and, seriously, any time someone uses the phrase “alpha male,” especially to describe himself, you should know he knows jack-shit about gender). But as I—and tons of other queer men and women out there (some of whom have posted at the links on the Inclusive Geeks post)—are intelligent enough to know, they aren't universal. Hell, you could be a heterosexual woman and know that, but apparently Neo doesn't get it.

But then lots of people out there don't get it, me included. The important thing is your response when someone points that out to you. I don't always agree when someone tells me I'm wrong. But I do give the person a hearing and at least think about whether they're right or not. Neo's response thus far has evidently been to obfuscate, vilify and otherwise shut down anyone who has disagreed with him. For example, one of the arguments which he has brought up multiple times is that it's heterosexual white women who are criticizing his points about the “How to Slash Better” post because he criticized them and it's just racism on their part. Firstly, that's both a lie and hypocritical as hell, since he's also banning people such as khajiiti, a WOC, who posted on his blog disagreeing with him, so that he can keep making this claim. He also utterly ignores the fact that many, if not the majority of people, are saying that they quite agree with his points about homophobia in slash fiction, but that they are disagreeing with his misogynistic and gender-reductionist ways of expressing himself.

And that circles us all the way back around to what I started this giant post with – the issue of credibility. Neo can say and do bullshit online because he has credibility and allies. He can pick on people like korinna, who has a much smaller online presence and whom he can write off as a white woman criticizing a black man. Which is bullshit. I'm a queer POC, like Neo is, and I think he's full of shit. My opinion shouldn't matter more (or less) because of my identity or my credibility, but because the evidence supports it. And it probably doesn't matter, because I am a no-name non-presence on LJ.

On the positive side, at least I can get a lot of amusement out of seeing the random flailing and hypocritical bullshit from Neo and his followers in trying to defend him from the imaginary hordes of straight white women who are supposedly trying to tar and feather him. And be utterly amused by looking at excerpts from the so-called novel he's published, complete with self-inserts (yes, Neo made himself a Gary Stu in his novel, but that's not surprising considering his narcissism) and the sort of horrendous language and grammar/mechanics issues my freshman composition students aren't allowed to get away with. Seriously – want to know “How to Write Slash Better”? Don't do what Neo does! Coincidentally, that's also the answer for how to be a honest human being with integrity.

Anyway, that's more than enough time on him, so I should quit here. I'm thinking I'll put this up as a public post, so if Neo wants to pop up and engage, he can. But I know he won't, perhaps because (as I said) I don't have the cred to matter. Or, more likely, because being an “alpha male” evidently also means relying on the numbers of one's fans and sycophants, skulking in areas where one has all the power and can just relying on bans and lies rather than an actual argument, and being an emotional and intellectual coward.

Or that's the way I'm betting.