A guest post by Athyco in a comment on A new way to stir up trouble.
It has been a knotted mass of stupid from the beginning, and each one contributes their little bit to the mess.
I looked over the comments to Karla’s It’s Personal blog post dismissing this WBC contact, then clicked on her banner to look at some other post titles. I wasn’t looking for anything that would relate to a tweet/con problem, but one surprised me.
Did you know that Karla, as one of four organizers, was not at all happy to have a tweet to #NEPABlogCon (single day September 2012 con for Northeast Pennsylvania bloggers) from someone who wasn’t interested in promoting/attending the con?
I used TweetChat to livestream hashtagged tweets on the screen behind a presenter who did not bring a visual presentation. As the presenter was half way through his excellent talk on how to monetize a blog, the audience was exposed to the following tweet on the screen behind him:
How many people were raped at #NEPABlogCon? Like, 50/60? I trust fake neck things were banned; they always lead to rape.
Do you know who this horrid FTB/Skepchick/A+/Social Justice Warrior was? (/sarcasm) It was ElevatorGATE. The very one who started the Brave Hero stuff that Justin Vacula and Karla Porter use as the title of their radio show. The one who has AmbrosiaX (declared “twitter sister” by Karla Porter) as his co-author on WP. Karla continued:
Can you imagine the confusion and even horror experienced by attendees of a blogger / social media conference seeing this on the screen behind an internationally respected presenter at the conference they were attending? The looks on their faces were quite telling. How would they know the tweet by @ElevatorGATE was a joke?
I knew what was going on, what the reference was to but no one else in the room did except Justin Vacula. I couldn’t allow attendees to feel uncomfortable and so I didn’t hesitate to reply:
Well, if you must know, 0. Model attendees without a con policy. RT @ElevatorGATE: How many people were raped at the #NEPABlogCon? Like 50/60?
As you can see Matt [Dillahunty], attendees did not understand the context of @ElevatorGATE’s remark – because they have no idea whatsoever about the drama of the paranoid, sick and dysfunctional element of the online atheist ‘community’. [Excuse me, but exactly which part of the online atheist ‘community’ sent this tweet to your con?]
But I did, and I felt rather fortunate that I was in the room at that moment to provide the response I did to calm rather than incite. It’s called damage mitigation. If it would have been one of the other organizers in the room instead of me, I can only imagine they would have felt the event was being hijacked and assaulted for no apparent reason. [But you can’t imagine the feelings of WiS2 conference organizers only a few months later. Huh.]
I’m not happy at all that any of the content filtered to this event, completely removed from the freakish sideshow that occurs on a daily basis on the Internet by people proselytising in ways harmful to one another about the viscosity of mud.
All typographical emphasis above is mine. The emphasis of “confusion and even horror,” “hijacked and assaulted,” “paranoid, sick and dysfunctional,” and “freakish sideshow” are all Karla’s.
She wrote this angry stuff to Matt Dillahunty because he commented on the situation, but I can’t find a word of reproach to ElevatorGATE for his hashtag “joke,” and I’m positive that she never reminded Justin Vacula of it when he later camped on a couple of con hashtags. I wonder if she ever explained to the other three women organizers of NEPABlogCon what it was all about.
Sorry that the FTBullies ruined your con by being the target of an unhinged campaign of unthinking spray ‘n’ pray hate, Karla.
Well…no, you see….that’s completely different…because…
because, because, because, because becaaaaauuuuuuse…
Now, I’m constantly impressed at how good human beings are at rationalizing their own bad behavior while sincerely calling out the same behavior in others. But these people are really stretching the limits of even my credulity. I think Hanlon’s razor is getting a little dull from overuse.
… How is this level of cognitive dissonance even physically possible? Shouldn’t it have formed a dense singularity and sunk into the core of the Earth?
So let’s see: exhibit A from the paranoid, sick and dysfunctional element of the online atheist community sent an irrelevant and alarming tweet to her conference. Either he didn’t recognize it was irrelevant and inappropriate, or he’s just so obsessed he couldn’t resist–or both.
And Porter blames that on us?
These people have the self-awareness of comatose garfish.
I’m trying to comprehend Karla’s position. In which direction does causality work in her world?
Yeah, but you crazy folks with your equality this and your social justice that, you forced ElevatorGate to post that tweet.
“Look what you made me do!”
Am I understanding this correctly? She had a screen of twitter crap running behind a speaker who was actively doing a presentation? If I were a speaker in those circumstances, she would have have been told, from the podium, where she could cram her screen. I used the think she is an insufferably stupid ass. Now I don’t regard her anywhere near as highly as that.
Don’t you love that smug “It’s called damage mitigation”? We caused this embarrassing incident but she briskly and competently mitigated the damage we caused by forcing Mr GATE to post creepy nonsense on her con’s hashtag. Well done her!! Shame on us!!!
Maybe she gained so much valuable experience and insight from doing the damage mitigation that she thought it was the sort of thing from which everyone could benefit. Hence she very kindly tried to engineer such an opportunity for those organizing and attending WiS2 by inviting WBC to attend. Such a good person to think of others like that!
So Karla Porter has publicly called the victims of harassment “paranoid, sick and dysfunctional”? While demonstrating evidence on a giant screen (behind a hapless presenter, which was rude and stupid), that the harassment targets were absolutely not paranoid? Maybe, Karla should look up that word before she uses it again.
I think that #NEPABlogCon won’t have to worry about their hashtag being hijacked again by the pro-harassment team. As not only a harassment supporter, like all Slymepitters are, she is an active harasser. As when she contacted the WBC in hopes that they would show up to protest Women in Secularism. I’d wager that the professional harassers will leave #NEPABlogCon alone in appreciation for Karla’s work for them.