Robyn Blumner is busily defending Richard Dawkins now.
I think Richard Dawkins is purposefully misunderstood at times as a way to generate clicks on some bloggers’ page. It’s because his name brings page views and eyes so why not generate a lot of heat around something that is pretty tame if you really unpack it.
What is this? 2005? “Blogging for the clicks” is so last decade ago, and it was wrong even then.
Controversy doesn’t bring in long-term viewers. Consistency and frequent content builds an audience. Getting links from other big-time bloggers gets you traffic. This is remedial blogging 101.
What happens is that sometimes someone says something stupid, and when people notice and comment on it, they want to claim that there is some ulterior motive for their personal embarrassment, so they blame the blogger.
What Blumner is saying is simply a classic silencing tactic. You’re a bad person writing for money if you call attention to this other person’s bad behavior! So stop mentioning it!
And in my case, I dragged my heels for a long time, as regular readers can attest, trying and hoping that these outbursts on twitter and in blog comments were not representative of his views. I guess I should have cashed in on all those controversial clicks years ago!
I’ll also point out that criticizing the Heroic Leaders of the Atheist Revolution does not win you accolades and praise and money and appointments to leadership positions at major organizations. It gets you hate mail and stress and non-stop vilification and web sites dedicated to nothing but hating you. Blumner might want to think things through a little more if she thinks misinterpreting the biggest name in atheism is a fast-track path to success in the atheist community. It is a small tribal group that does not do introspection at all well.
Tame?
Dawkins. Deliberate provocation. Attention. Profit. Glass houses. Stones. Etc.
Oh, I see. Going back bloody years, the problem was never, ever Dawkins. Oh no, it was our fault, for not really, truly, deeply unpacking it. Yep.
For Fuck’s Sake, I don’t even have words anymore. I’m so damn weary of the same exact shit coming out of one new mouth after another.
It’s totally true. I happen to be, at this very moment, purposefully misunderstanding Richard Dawkins as a way to generate clicks on some bloggers’ page[s], and so are all of the other mindless hivemind sockpuppets controlled by the aforementioned nameless bloggers. No thinking here, no thank you … just making some clicks. Don’t even have a clue (being incapable of independent thought as I am) where those clicks might go or what they might do, but that’s just how we roll.
Movement atheist leaders know where their bread is buttered.
And by bread, I mean money!
Well, to be fair, Dawkins never cashed in on controversy.
He made his millions, uh, what was it again?
PS – I have an ad blocker installed. So, fuck your ‘clicks’ anyway.
I’m on a connection where I pay for bandwidth and all the bullshit ads were more than half my usage budget. When advertisers start covering the cost of the bandwidth they consume I’ll think about looking at their important messages again. Actually, that’s not true, I’ll ask them to pay for the CPU and memory they waste, and the screen real estate, and for every browser crash.
I’m looking forward to the CFI Form 990 for 2015 to see if “Dawkins apologetics” ends up being one of their three largest programs.
Marcus @ 7:
I have an ad blocker running as well, but only because I find ads to be annoying as fuck.
I blame Dawkins and Google for this “click bait” nonsense. Google had a service where google provided ads on a site would give the site owner a minuscule fee for every click on the ad a reader would make. Abhorrence to this, as a “profit scheme”, xformed into this “meme” (thanks Dawkins), that every click on a site generates revenue, regardless of whether the site has those little ads on it.
Some may say that “click bait” is just slang for titles that entice reading the full, pointless, article. Maybe.
Even so, clicks still do not get transformed into cash by some kind of intertubez administrators, as they are purely fictional.
I doubt there are many bloggers who obsessively monitor the number of clicks to each article on their blog, and revel in generating massive quantities of click. but then again, proverbial intertube trolls do so, so maybe this was a disguised slur against everyone who blogs: calling them trolls?
So what if clicks make money, this is ‘Murika where making money just isn’t a good thing it’s the only thing.
I’ve criticized Dawkins before on my blog, and never got popular for it. To be honest, I was worried it would have the opposite effect, because maybe most of my readers just don’t care about the latest internet drama.
I will even criticize Dawkins in meatspace conversations, to anyone who will listen. This generates far more glazed eyes than internet traffic.
If Blumner actually believed it was click-bait then it would be completely expected, and (while annoying) just another thing to factor in to CFI’s marketing plans.
Complaining about someone “click-baiting” you basically means “I was unprepared and don’t understand ‘social’ media so I’m going to complain about it.” It’s all about ethics in game journalism.
Has anybody listened to the whole thing to see if she actually substantiates these claims?
Because, you know, simply making claims as the head of a skeptical organisation looks kind of bad.
@2 Ryan Cunningham
If there’s one thing that has been made very clear over these years is that something is only wrong when somebody who is not Dawkins, or someone he likes, is doing it.
You say provocation, he says “intellectual exercise”.
Hey, 14 comments already. That means probably 100 readers, maybe. If this keeps up at this rate, you’re looking at what, $1.47 by the end of the day. Ka-ching!
PS – having paid for web advertising, I ought to mention that frequently you’re paid for click-throughs and conversions.
– A click-through is when someone here sees one of the ads for evolutionary biology and clicks on it and goes to evolutionarybiologystore.com
– A conversion is when someone clicks on the ad and goes to evolutionarybiology.com and buys a new porsche
Internet advertising being the mega-pipe of bullshit that it is, click-throughs are rare and conversions are insanely rare. Internet advertisers are desperately trying to hide that fact because their absurd valuations depend on the idea that “eyeballs = sales” and they don’t want retailers to catch onto the idea that “revenue = sales”
The internet advertising that proves to have value is on the (thing) search engines. If I go to Google and search for “4tb bare oem hard drive discount” there is a really good chance that you may score a conversion if you toss me a couple links for discountharddrives.com instead of evolutionarybiology.com. But all the other stuff? Bullshit. Just the usual marketing mantra “brand recognition is critical to sales” that they have been screaming since they made it up. Because when I go car shopping I’m gonna buy that BMW because I saw banner ads on youtube? Nope. If I go put “beater BMW dirt cheap no rust north central PA” then, maybe I’m shopping for a BMW. Fucking marketing assholes (insert Bill Hicks video)
Has anybody listened to the whole thing to see if she actually substantiates these claims?
Yeah, I hear some skeptics made so much click-baiting that they wrap their holiday presents in sheets of uncut money. Oh, no, wait. That was a lobbyist. Never mind.
No, it’s true, I so desperately want one of the most instantly recognisable atheists – someone who represents me whether I want him to or not – to be a raging arsehole that I just invent it. I happen to love it when I have to add “- but I’m not a fucking monster! :D” at the end of every single sentence I utter that reveals a thing I like or that interests me. It’s absolutely the best thing.
“Why yes, random person I met on the street, that man you saw sharing neo-nazi propaganda on twitter last week is my public face as an atheist. Isn’t that just swell?”
*expletive string deleted*
It is not so much that Blumner disappointed me, just that she (like most folks) is more loyal to her paycheck and past alliances. The small bit of hope I had for something better from CFI never got a chance to form. Kind of like opening an old beer and finding it skunked. Not shocking but disappointing all the same.
@20 whywhywhy:
Just like Illinois Nazis, I hate skunked beer…..
Adding to the irony, this was an interview with Hemant Mehta, who has parlayed pandering to the establishment into a lucrative blogging career. You won’t see Hemant criticizing the atheist leadership! Yet somehow he does just fine.
If there was anyone engaged in relentless click baiting it would be Nugent in his quest for wider relevance. But that’s not the same when he does it, is it?
Re CFI. My hope is that the new appointment of Brian Engler to the CFI Board in December offsets the arrival in town of one of the horsemen. Brian is a Patreon supporter of Rebecca, Amy, Christina, Emily and Amanda.
I’d be more confident if he would stop supporting Kylie Sturgess (who harassed Rebecca), Mr Deity (who repeated the mocking “Shermer made me drink” meme) and Ophelia Benson (enough said).
But it is a start.
Brian is a pretty good guy. I don’t know if it can offset Dawkins, though — most people don’t know him at all.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
Ah, but you see, these people have gathered enough XP to level up to Level 9 Skeptic, which means they don’t HAVE to actually do mundane stuff like substantiate claims, provide evidence, or explain their SuperLogics. That is for the peons.
PZ:
Hemant Mehta, who has parlayed pandering to the establishment into a lucrative blogging career
Did you just say Hemant did it for the clicks?
Oops, I lost the silly face tag. :(
@Zenlike, 25
The really high level skeptics – 20 and above – actually have a special power that lets them tell at a glance which unskeptical thoughts you’re having right at that very moment. It’s quite a profound experience when you see it in action.
I hadn’t read Harris’s article on profiling, because I had no reason to. Then a Harrisite claimed that PZ had taken intentionally misunderstood it, so I read it. Then I told him that he should take up Christian apologetics because he sounds so much like one. Then I called him a fascistic racist and we haven’t talked since.
Yes I did. No she didn’t.
The entire interview was ~ 38 minutes. The discussion of Dawkins’ tweets comes some time after 30 minutes in.
To be fair to Robyn Blumner, I watched about 15 minutes of her interview with AronRa: he was trying to have a conversation, she was reciting her CV and repeating (perfectly valid) atheist talking points. So I’m now off to check the Mehta interview with the vague hope she’ll come off more human.
While I agree that her defense of Dawkins was poor, she somehow managed to be more critical of him than Hemant Mehta. Sure he asked the questions, but he also laughed things off and volunteered excuses, whereas Robyn Blumner made it very clear that what Dawkins says on Twitter does not reflect the views of his organizations.
Sure it’s a poor defense, but it contained more criticism of Dawkins than anything Mehta said as he was so careful to tiptoe around things and never use specific terms and always laugh things off.
Re: Zenlike, #25:
Intuit Truth (TM): Requires a Charisma or Conviction check rather than the Wisdom check you’d expect or hope for. Also popular among apologists, clergy, presidential candidates and politicians in general.
OK, so a write-up: the Friendly Atheist podcast mentioned is here.
First of all I’d like to say that Blumner definitely presented herself and managed the interview much better than I expected. Onto the main points I found there:
Before the quoted section from the OP:
There are more points she expresses her dissassociation with Dakwins’ twitter, and says she was the person recommending he express himself better in full on his website and link to it on twitter.
As @robertwilson #32 said:
is very true: Mehta lobbed the “Dawkins on twitter” question as the biggest softball he could and seemed to be apologetical even while jokingly claiming to be a devil’s advocate. At the same time Blumner obviously expressed her problems with some of Dawkins’ public performance. Conversely the “clickbait” part was directly from her (with Mehta nodding along) and sounded like her conclusions on this issue came after talking to Dawkins himself and accepting his version of events (his notpologics).
A section I found much more problematic, albeit on point:
I’m sorry, but I started being interested in atheism mainly due to YouTube (haven’t read any of the New Atheist books, perused a few and gobbled up many of the “atheist debates”). And YouTube is a platform where channels are entirely dependent on “average people too”. That Blumner views celebrity superstar power as the primary means to expand and forward “the movement” (where for her this is about secular orgs, financing and media outreach, primarily), to organise and campaign around, while “average people” are a sidenote and grassroots was not mentioned (as carefully as I listened) is problematic.
There was also a lot of talk of work supporting science education (specifically evolution), preparing materials for US teachers who want to teach evolution but are afraid to do so. That’s great and something I think everyone can support.
So yes, the World needs people like Blumner and atheists/secularists are helped by secular orgs, but the elitism was strongly felt there. Isn’t it just as important how we choose celebrities? For instance Rebecca Watson is a “celebrity” of the movement in her own right, but it’s a bit telling that who Richard Dawkins talks to is more important than who us “average people” actually respect and listen to?
bold emphasis mine (it’s a transcript), italics for scenic notes.
=8)-DX
robertwilson @32
That cause he’s so friendly! As long as you make more money and have bigger name appeal at least.
=8)-DX@34
The section you found problematic reeks of authoritarian bullshit. We need big names and money to bring people into the fold. Sure it may be true for some people, but that mindset brings in all the people who will defend Dawkins/Harris because they are famous for being “great thinkers” not because they are great thinkers. No God. No Masters.*
*Except celebrities cause swoon
I guess I sort of see the value of having c’lebs turn up and to their thing and bring the numbers along with them but, really, what’s the difference between a celebrity thinker who acts like an irrational arsehole in public and a celebrity thinker who’s actually just an irrational arsehole? And do we really want to be giving platforms based on rationalism to irrational people? Or platforms based on outreach, openness and visibility to arseholes? I’m having a really hard time seeing the PR angle on this.
@HappyNat #35
As I pointed out: except celebrities because their superstardome and phone-books. Like literally Dawkins should be lauded because if he phones Bill Maher (or Sam Harris), he doesn’t get voicemail. Oh and also the money and the visibility and the … the twisted idea that we have to follow celebrity instead of having a say in what is celebrity, in who are our atual heroes, in being able to be a part of a “marginalised minority” where the voices most marginalised get heard. Where we sometimes shut up and listen to the people who are hurting the most.
(I once accepted the “radical” idea that who becomes celebrity, and for how long they are relevant is relative to how strongly they resonate with society. Because Dawkins still resonates so strongly, we are rightly worried that our community is still tolerant of twits. If we’re marginal, those margins should be more important to us than brute force normative popularity).
Pretty sure the “clickbait from controversy” argument was debunked almost four years ago.
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/238749907551412224
(Unfortunately the original Shane Brady analysis of the Alexa data is no longer on the web.)
something that is pretty tame if you really unpack it.
Oh, my bad. I didn’t realize it was okay to insult people with bigoted language intending to hurt them, as people, in a deliberate way, as long as the insult is “pretty tame.”
So as long as I call Dawkins and Blumner “poopyheads” I haven’t actually done anything wrong. Even if I do it all day every day, and use this infantile insult combined with my leverage from having a large platform to marginalize them both entirely out of the conversation.
No, that’s a right and proper thing, and I’ve done nothing wrong.
Also, it’s not disrespectful, no matter what you say or in what context, if you don’t swear.
@34:
LOL
she is where I was in trying to figure out what Dawkins was up to 7 years ago.
since then, it’s become obvious that it is NOT just the medium (twitter) that is somehow limiting Dawkins ability to clearly express himself. He has indeed clearly and repeatedly expressed himself… and left many messes in the process that he refuses to clean up as well.
anyone who thinks otherwise at this point is in denial or ignorance.
those are the only 2 choices, really.
I’m guessing for Blumner it’s intentional ignorance (doesn’t really know, and doesn’t want to).
The deification of celebrities reminds me of $cientology. As does Dawkins’ incitement of hatred and harassment against troublemakers.
@Ichthyic #41
More of a cost benefit analysis: Dawkins brings in the bucks, the players, the media attention. As I quoted – those things are what really matters to her style of activism. A few insensitive cranky old man tweets from someone she knows to be a sweetie-pie codger with good intentions in real life are worth tolerating in return in her view.
So no, there aren’t only 2 choices if you take into account having different values and priorities.
I read a quote somewhere (and dammit if I can’t remember the exact quote OR who said it), but it was something like: Every organization reaches a point where their goal is merely to ensure the continued existence of the organization, and not its original stated aims. I think movement atheism is very, very much there.
Oh fuck me, but the dishonesty is nauseating:
1/ Dawkins is not ‘anyone’, he is the guy who has his name as part of the name of the fucking organisation.
2/ Would she say the same about, for example, the catholic church? I am sure the Dawk fanboys will be happy when they are told to stop attributing everything said by any bishop, pope, or priest to the catholic church. This is just tribalism at its worst. OK if it is done to the ‘other’, but suddenly not ok if done against ‘us’.
#22 / PZ: “I cringe when I see him tweet certain things, and I don’t think he really understands why people are upset over the more “controversial” things he says, but I don’t think it comes from a place of hate. Ignorance, maybe, but not hate.” That sure seems like criticizing atheist leadership to me, and comes from Hemant’s latest post…
#14 / Gilliel: In the same post, (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/02/10/if-youre-going-to-criticize-someone-for-an-interview-why-not-link-to-it/) he calls most of the reposters out for not linking to the video so that people could judge for themselves.
Surely that proves that he’s only doing it for the clicks, right?
#47/LykeX:
I assume that was meant as a joke, right?
With the world the way it is, I sometimes wonder, but yes, mostly a joke.