Benjanun Sriduangkaew and RotyH

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

This seems like a general problem with geek communities.

And hitmen too.

[kuenjato]

I stand with Tricia Sullivan.

The accusations against her seem to be to be victim blaming of the highest order.

There's been a sustained campaign by Mamatas and co. to rehabilitate RH, including casting aspirations and accusations upon others, blatant lies about past behavior, and general casual air of 'above it all.' That last in mind, it's no surprise that once the ship lists and begins to sink the rats start swimming.

[Darth Richard II]

I didn't. :(

[Shryke]

Not seeing the 'brilliant trick', and I never have.

I mean, if someone actually calls themselves 'Requires Only That You Hate', it does not take a perceptive genius to conclude that they are not in this for the high principles: they're in it for the hate. That's what they enjoy, the energy they get from spouting hate. They're a troll and they have helpfully labeled themselves as one. If people didn't see that from the name, it should have been obvious from the writing (it certainly was to me).

Good god yes. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who looked at a bit of her work, looked at her name and thought it was stunningly obvious she was a essentially a troll. Never understood why people gave her the time of day.

[Darth Richard II]

Good god yes. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who looked at a bit of her work, looked at her name and thought it was stunningly obvious she was a essentially a troll. Never understood why people gave her the time of day.

Because white privileg!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Altherion]

Not seeing the 'brilliant trick', and I never have.

I mean, if someone actually calls themselves 'Requires Only That You Hate', it does not take a perceptive genius to conclude that they are not in this for the high principles: they're in it for the hate. That's what they enjoy, the energy they get from spouting hate. They're a troll and they have helpfully labeled themselves as one. If people didn't see that from the name, it should have been obvious from the writing (it certainly was to me).

That the nominal targets of the trolling were supposedly powerful groups is not a particularly clever trick either. It's almost banal. People do this shit all the time (including people on this board).True, they don't all have the success that RH did and they don't all write as well as she did. But to be blunt, anyone who didn't realise RH was a troll was being obtuse, and anyone who did realise but excused it on the grounds of 'punching up' was more than likely guilty of kidding themselves, not being fooled by RH's 'brilliant trick'.

Now, we may want to ask, why were these people so willing to kid themselves? But I don't think we can say it's some inevitable consequence of the concept of 'punching up', because it's not. The concept is a description of the facts of a power relationship, and those facts remain.

ETA - I realise, on reflection, that this sounds much too harsh towards people who did excuse RH's behaviour. Your point about 'reference positions' is a valid one, in that none of us are in any doubt that there is an 'up' and a 'down', nor as to where those positions are in our society. If that were not so, there would be no space for the RHs of this world to exploit.

Granted, if that name was the first one, it would be extremely puzzling why people didn't catch on -- but it was not. From the same summary as before:

What has also become clear in recent weeks is that Benjanun, in the roles of Requires Hate and her other known pseudonyms (including Winterfox, acrackedmoon, ACM, pyrofennec, Valse De La Lune, valsedelune, and Lesifoere), has a decade-plus history of destructive trolling behavior in online SFF and videogaming communities, going back to at least 2003.

My impressions is that she starts off by attacking white people who write about Asia or something of the sort, gathers followers, and then expands the range of operations to basically everyone else. At the first step, it is very difficult to argue with her. For example, The Windup Girl is a book written by a white American man, but set in 23rd century Thailand. Would you feel comfortable contradicting a Thai woman who criticized it, even if the criticism was very harsh? I wouldn't. At later steps, once she has her "inner circle", it is also very difficult to argue with her unless you likewise have friends in the community because when there are of order 5 people piling arguments onto a single target, the latter generally has no chance (well, unless the target is somebody like Shryke, but I'm talking about average people).

[Darth Richard II]

Uh, requires only that you hate was the name of said blog from the start.

[sologdin]

althy, i recall getting into it with her crew one time regarding race politics, arguing the old left position that the most important color is green. they generally responded with vague intersectionality arguments, and would not concede that someone like oprah probably has a leg up on a west virginia coal miner. it never became vitriolic, however, and the ROH persona remained aloof from the colloquy.

[polishgenius]

I do think calling her blog 'Requires Hate' was clever. Sure, it was outright stating her intentions to be vitriolic, but it was inviting readers in on the joke, and thus making it seem like a bit of a club for anyone reading it. Wink wink, nod nod, sure I'm being hateful but that's the point so it's okay*.

I also don't think it's much of a coincidence that, on the blog itself, she seemed to target white men, often already-established authors that it would be difficult to characterise in any sense as a victim or underdog, in a much greater proportion than she seems to have done in any other form including in more private settings as RH, where her victims appear to be in great numbers the sorts of people the actual blog purports to be standing up for. I think it's that which has led to the 'punching up' narrative, far more than any actual vagueness in the term.

I'm not sure I'd characterise her as a genius, but she was certainly very good at manipulating perception for a long time. Hell, even now she's shown smarts, by posting the apologies and then apparently disappearing from view. In PR terms that's entirely the best thing she could be doing.



*Full disclosure: and I think there's nothing wrong with a blog doing what ROH claimed to be doing, straight-talking criticism covered in comedically OTT, but impersonal, criticism, if that's all she had been doing. But it obviously turns out that wasn't what she was doing.

[Darth Richard II]

You slipping sologin, I actually understood most of that