As most of you know, I deactivated my Twitter account earlier this month. It had been a long time coming, for a whole host of reasons, but Twitter’s decision to be the only social network that gives Alex Jones a platform to spew hate, hurt innocent people, and incite violence was the final straw for me. But I haven’t regretted leaving for even one second. Having that endless stream of hate and anger and negativity in my pocket wasn’t good for me (and I don’t think it’s good for anyone, to be honest).
I was on Twitter from just about the very beginning. I think I’m in the first couple thousand accounts. I remember when it was a smallish group of people who wanted to have fun, make jokes, share information and tips on stuff that was interesting, and oh so many pictures of our pets. It was awesome.
It started to get toxic slowly at first, then all at once, starting with the misogynist dipshits who were behing the gate-which-shall-not-be-named. That was clearly a turning point for Twitter, and it never really recovered from it. I watched, in real time, as the site I loved turned into a right wing talk radio shouting match that made YouTube comments and CSPAN call-ins seem scholarly. We tried for a couple of years to fight back, to encourage Twitter to take a stand against bad actors (HA HA LIKE ME BECAUSE I AM A BAD ACTOR RIGHT YOU GOT ME HA HA HA). Twitter doesn’t care about how its users are affected by themselves, though. Twitter cares about growth and staying on the good side of President Shitler’s tantrums.
I mean, honestly, the most lucid and concise indictment I can give Twitter is: it’s the service that Donald Trump uses to communicate with and incite his cultists.
Anyway, enough about how terrible Twitter is. We all know how terrible it is. That’s never going to change, by the way.I know some very good people who are working on making Twitter better, but I honestly don’t think they can overcome the institutional inertia that has allowed it to get to the point its at now. It may get incrementally better, but the fundamental problem of random, mostly-anonymous people being terrible isn’t going to change, because that’s not a Twitter problem. That’s a humanity — and specifically a social media — problem.
I thought that if I left Twitter, I could find a new social network that would give it some competition (Twitter’s monopoly on the social space is a big reason it can ignore people who are abused and harassed, while punishing people for reporting their attackers), so I fired up this account I made at Mastodon a long time ago.
I thought I’d find something different. I thought I’d find a smaller community that was more like Twitter was way back in 2008 or 2009. Cat pictures! Jokes! Links to interesting things that we found in the backwaters of the internet! Interaction with friends we just haven’t met, yet! What I found was … not that.
I found a harsh reality that I’m still trying to process: thousands of people who don’t know me, who have never interacted with me, who internalized a series of lies about me, who were never willing to give me a chance. I was harassed from the minute I made my account, and though I expected the “shut up wesley”s and “go fuck yourself”s to taper off after a day or so, it never did. And even though I never broke any rules on the server I joined (Mastodon is individual “instances” which is like a server, which connects to the “federated timeline”, which is what all the other servers are), one of its admins told me they were suspending my account, because they got 60 (!) reports overnight about my account, and they didn’t want to deal with the drama.
I respect and support that person’s decision, because it’s a private server and it’s run with their time, energy, attention, and (presumably) money. I don’t agree with it at all, and I think it’s deeply unfair, as well as rewarding abuse of a reporting system that’s meant to protect users, but it’s their site and it’s their rules, and I can’t say I blame them. The people going after me were pretty awful, and I can only imagine that an admin would get fed up with them, too.
I want to share the message I posted there when I left (Twitter is called ‘birdsite’ on Mastodon):
I have been notified by an Admin here that they are getting 60 reports a day about my account. As far as I can tell, I’m not breaking any rules, and I’ve done my best to be a good person here. But this admin is going to suspend my account.
It’s the Admin’s instance, so I fully support their choice to eliminate a source of frustration, but something to consider: a person who is doing nothing wrong can be run off one instance by a mob from another instance. That seems … not cool. 1/x
But it’s been made very, very clear to me that I am not welcome in the Fediverse, and I hear you. I hoped to find an alternative to the birdsite where I could find the same fun community that existed over there in the beginning, and it’s clear to me that I won’t be finding that. Before I leave, I want to just make something very clear, because I’ve spent most of my life being yelled at by people who don’t know me at all, and I want the record to be clear. 2/x
During GamerGate, I was dogpiled and mobbed and brigaded and attacked by thousands of accounts. I started using a blocklist that was supposed to help stop that. I did not know that the blocklist I signed up for also had a lot of trans women on it. When I found out, I did everything I could to remove those women from the list I shared. When there were still innocents on the list, I stopped sharing the list entirely. Despite this, a mob has decided that I’m anti-trans. 3/x
This lie that I am anti-trans, or anti-LGBQ, is deeply hurtful to me (I know it’s nothing like the pain LGBTQ people deal with every day, as they simply try to *exist* in a world that treats them so badly, but it is still hurtful in its own way to me). I just want to make it extremely clear: that is a lie, and the people spreading it are misinformed.
So I’m leaving the Fediverse, which has treated me with more cruelty, vitriol, hatred, and contempt than than anyone on the birdsite ever did. 4/x
Anyway, take your victory lap and collect your prizes. You’ve made it clear that I’m not welcome here, and even though I disagree with the action this Admin is taking (banning me when I didn’t break any rules doesn’t seem right), I respect and support the Admin’s decision to run their instance the way they see fit.
Please do your very best to be kind to each other. The world is a terrible place right now, and that’s largely because it is what we make it.
Bye.
6/end
This isn’t limited to Mastodon.cloud (the worst attacks and dogpiling came from a few other instances before the instance I was on became awful) and it isn’t limited to Twitter.com. I see this in the online space all the time now: mobs of people, acting in bad faith, can make people they don’t know and will likely never meet miserable, or even try to ruin their lives and careers (look at what they did to James Gunn). And those mobs’ bad behaviors are continually rewarded, because it’s honestly easier to just give them what they want. We are ceding the social space to bad people, because they have the most time, the least morals and ethics, and are skilled at relentlessly attacking and harassing their targets. It only takes few seconds for one person to type “fuck off” and hit send. That person probably doesn’t care and doesn’t think about how their one grain of sand quickly becomes a dune, with another person buried beneath it. That’s a huge problem that seems to be baked into social media, and I tried to mitigate it with a blocklist that I never intended to be problematic, but ultimately was. (And for what it’s worth, the part of me that wants to apologize to the people who ended up on it by mistake is overwhelmed by the part of me who was attacked really viciously by a lot of those people and feels like maybe blocking them wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.)
At the end of the day, I’m lucky and privileged as fuck. I can sign off from a website (or multiple websites), and go live my life with my amazing family and our dogs. I’m not a marginalized person who has to fight every moment of every day, just to live my life. So I’m keeping that in mind and keeping that perspective in my heart. Yes, the accusations and the big lie that took hold in remarkably short time about me is hurtful. Yes, it’s upsetting to know that there are a lot of people out there who have decided to take time out of their lives to actively hate me, without knowing anything about me other than a story they were told by someone else who doesn’t know me. But I can sign off and get away from it, so I will. And I will be grateful that I can.
Buuuuuuuuuut … I’m done with social media. Maybe I just don’t fit into whatever the social media world is. I mean, the people who are all over the various Mastodon instances made it really clear that I wasn’t welcome there (with a handful of notable, joyful, exceptions, mostly related to my first baby steps into painting), and it seems as if I was just unwelcome because … I’m me? I guess? Like, I know that I’m not a transphobe, but holy shit that lie just won’t die, and right now as I am writing this, someone at Mastodon is telling me that I am, because people said so, and I should apologize to them. I mean, how am I supposed to respond to that, when it happens over and over and over again? “You’ve been lied to about me. Please give me a chance” just doesn’t seem like a viable way forward with people who are, for whatever reason, very, very angry. And these people seem to have an idea of me in their head that doesn’t fit with the idea of myself that I have in my head. It’s honestly caused me to rethink a lot of stuff. Like, am I really the terrible person they say I am? I don’t think I am, but I’m doing my best to listen, and when I say, “please stop yelling at me and let’s have a conversation that I can grow from” I get yelled at for “tone policing” and honestly I just get exhausted and throw up my hands. Maybe I’m not this person they tell me I am, but I represent that person in their heads, and they treat me accordingly? This is one of those times when my mental illness makes it very hard for me to know what’s objective reality and what’s just in my head.
But I don’t deserve to be treated so terribly by so many random people, so I’m not going to put myself in a place where I am subjected to it all day long. As the saying goes, I’m too old for this shit. What we used to call microblogging isn’t worth the headache for me. I’m gonna focus my time and my energy on the things that I love, that make me happy, that support my family.
Please do your best to be kind, and make an effort to make the world less terrible. Thanks for listening.
Comments have been closed on this post.
For what it’s worth, I’m B and my brother is T and we both adore you.
Hi Wil,
I am sorry this happened to you. No one from either side deserves that. I’m a Trump supporter saying this. You also blocked me on Twitter using a blocklist and I still feel this way. Good luck and take care.
Here I was, naïvely thinking that Mastodon would not have descended into this sort of chaos just yet—that, like email, it would take some time before the equivalent of spammers to come along. Looks like I was wrong. What happened to you was so quick I’m only catching up on it now as the dust settles. And I’m seriously disappointed this happened to you, Wil. You’re right, social media are a reflection of their user bases and it is a real shame that Mastodon, like Twitter, like Facebook, reflects some unsavoury elements of humanity.
I’ve been looking for that “early Twitter” experience as well, and, having a much lower profile, got to enjoy something akin to it, though I’m beginning to see it unravel. If this is the sort of shit that goes down, then I, too, might depart. Like you, it’s not as though social is my only outlet.
You’re good people, and an inspiration for actors, writers, and human beings. Thank you for everything.
It’s because you’re a pretentious dick. Nothing more. Your pop culture, far left attitude is toxic and the fact that you can’t just be without shoving your views into everyone’s face is part of the exact problem that you blame for all of this.
Sorry that anyone has to go through this, but blaming others for acting the same way you have is just another symptom of the larger problem.
He says as he shoves his view into everyone’s face…
Hey Wil,
You have me blocked on twitter and I’ve never spoken to you so it likely I’m blocked via a block bot you use/d. I’ve been snarky and even mocked you about it.. But hey, maybe I’ll get an opportunity now to say a few words directly to you. Sorry, I made the two sentences about me. I actually like a lot of your work, never saw Star Trek after the original run so no ‘Shut up Wesley’ jokes from me, promise. I’m actually super bummed to hear you had that sort of experience in a place that was supposed to be fun. It doesn’t even sound like you got a fair shake at the place.
I’ve gone through some of the comments here and It’s nice seeing mostly positive things from people that you have blocked, that’s good because I think you need to hear positive things from not just people who like you but also people you normally consider enemies. A few people rubbing salt in the wound.. I think thats to be expected considering the internet. If I’ll be perfectly honest that’s why I initially came here too, I have a nice heaping bag of salt of my own but.. reading the entirety of your post and I guess I identify with this disappointment. It sucks. Moreover the position you’re in. You’ve made a promise to not go back to twitter and there aren’t many other places to go. I think you’re right about the monopoly twitter has on social interaction on the internet. You’re in a tough position, I can’t say that I envy that. Hell, If I were in your shoes I’d quit the internet and go back to a flip phone cuz screw that noise.
Now, this whole block bot business.. and man do I have a novel to say about it. It never made sense to me why a person who wants to make the world a less terrible place would want to close off themselves blindly from a part of that world. Ultimately Wil, you can’t trust other people to moderate your content for you. And I’ll leave it at that. Again, I really am not here to be a dick- In fact: I can see you’ve really given it a lot thought, reflected and on some level maybe even regret using it. Honestly, that’s enough for me that you actually gave it some thought.
Anyway.. You’re far from a bad person, Wil. If anything I think your work and activism shows that you are a man whos compassions run deep. So deep that sometimes it obscures your capacity to understand others. The world can definitely be a terrible place, and you are absolutely right in saying we make it that way. But I like to think that if we take the time to sit down to understand each other that simple act alone makes the world just that much better. However we cant do that if we walk into a conversation swinging. We can’t call each other nazis, or bigots or cultists or just awful awful things. I think we are all just people and as flawed individuals its hard to see outside of our own experiences. Luckily, many of us have the capacity to understand and empathize with one another and buddy I think you have that in spades. So use it when you can, even with those you least expect need it.
Try to enjoy your break from social media, do something fun.
I feel sad that you didn’t feel welcome. Maybe the internet goes to shit. I hope you keep posting on your blog where you have things a bit under control.
I would really love to have you on our instance. It’s quite small but we are all nice people 🙂
Wow, what a crappy experience. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’ll never forget how nice you and Anne were when we played Ticket to Ride back at PAX years ago. You’re good people and you deserve to be treated as such.
Look man, nobody deserves to be treated like that, but will you please have some self awareness?
“I found a harsh reality that I’m still trying to process: thousands of people who don’t know me, who have never interacted with me, who internalized a series of lies about me, who were never willing to give me a chance.”
Welcome to OUR world. You’ve been doing this to US.
I really struggle to stay neutral and ‘kind’ on this because I honestly believe that no one deserves to have this stuff happen to them, but you’re making it really difficult for me, Wil. You would make it a whole lot easier on yourself if you just own up to the consequences of your own actions. You’d be surprised how many people would be willing to accept you if you just acknowledge what you did.
The relative anonymity of the internet brings out the cruelty in some people. They say things they would never say to a person face to face. I think those people take particular delight when their target is NOT anonymous, and you are so very far from that. In addition to being a public figure, you expose your deepest, most personal feelings, and that makes you a huge target for the incomplete souls who make themselves feel better by slaughtering through their words in a forum that has no consequences for them.
Be kind to yourself, because those people will not be. Remember that what they say is more a reflection of them than it is of you.
While I don’t think you deserved it, I have to say I am not sorry about it happening. You actively supported harassment and banning of people you didn’t agree with, so when the same people you associated with and helped came for you I would say it is a poetic justice.
You don’t deserve to be treated that way, I’ll personally miss your posts. If you’re looking for a new social site that’s a little different. I’d look at Cake. I know the engineers there and it’s a fantastic twist on social media and they do not tolerate abuse in any form.
It’s a shame that you won’t be able to interact with those of us that are true fans and love to hear your stories and opinions. Stay strong.
You so don’t deserve this negative treatment, Wil. I consider you to be a force of good in the world; a buoy one can cling to while traversing a turbulent sea of shittiness. Even though I wasn’t involved in anything that happened to you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry FOR those people who don’t even deserve it. I’m sorry the world sucks. I respect and admire you very much, and I hope you can find a comfortable place (besides here) to let yourself express what you want to express. I, for one at least, will appreciate it.
The world doesn’t deserve dogs, but I’m sure glad we have them. Last night, I met a blind German Shorthaired Pointer who was sweet and wiggly and happy to be near me and get cuddles and sniff my not-present dogs on my legs. Maybe if more people got to cuddle little blind dogs, more people wouldn’t spend their time on the Internet being mean to others for no other reason than because they can. Anyway, thanks for the picture of Marlowe, and keep being you.
I’m so sorry to hear that this has been your experience, and even sorrier to know that this behavior is now the norm for social media. It’s too bad that the loudest and most violent voices, are the ones that spoil it for everyone else just looking to have fun and connect. I can only hope that the decent people in the world will someday drown out the voices of the assholes. I support you!
It was inevitable that all open social media would turn into a sewer, and quickly. The bad actors have learned from TW/FB exactly how to destroy a social media platform, and they are just better at it now than they used to be. Today’s trolls have way more than Gladwell’s 10,000 hours invested in this practice, so of course they’re more efficient and faster than they once were.
When I was first on the Internet back in the dawn of prehistory also known as the early-mid 90s, e-mail lists were the thing: curated lists where you knew who was on it and could get kicked the hell off of killfiled if you made other people miserable. That is the ONLY way I would return to socializing on the Internet at this point, through a group e-mail alias that I owned and controlled, preferably through a g/d unix shell.
Dear Wil,
I agree Twitter has been breeding hatred and is growing. However, I personally would not leave the platform all together because then you are letting them WIN! When I go on Twitter I put up filters were I follow only my top 25 Twitters and I create a LIST of Favorite Twitters. Then I click the List and I only see those 25 people Tweeting. Then I go through the list and respond and retweet. I put up blinders to everything else. I use this filter because it protects my peace of mind. I focus on only people I love such as you, Hank Green, John Green, Mayim Balik, Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs, Zach Nelson, Lindee Link, and Charles and Allie Trippy, etc.
Think of it this way you are “PUTTING ON SHIELDS.” Like Star Trek Next Generation. Imagine a silver sphere surrounding you reflecting all negativity away from you. Put on your psychic shield, your physical shield (Your custom list of favorites on Twitter).
Giving in and fleeing and just handing it to the enemy and letting them fester and grow is letting them WIN in my opinion. I would prefer to take a stand with psychic and Twitter shields up!.
Blessed Be!
Wenona Lee Gardner
Hey Will,
I’m glad you shared your experience. You have been treated soo unfairly.
Stay strong! My son and I are huge fans (we play more games).
From what I can see, all social media, keeps people glued to their phone.
-Cheers
I only follow 3 blogs: Verypink (knitting), IJM (International Justice Mission- anti-slavery), and Wil Wheaton. So, what you have shared is important to me. I also have a mental illness. Please remember to cultivate relationships with real people. I continue on my path. As a Chinese American female whose grandparents were immigrants, some times I feel like the Caucasian male is portrayed as scum. My well wishes to you, Wil.
Barb
Hello Wil,
I’m not here to rub salt in the wound, but I would like for you to take this time as a moment of introspection on the treatment of other people on social media. In particular, your own treatment of other people on social media.
You see, that feeling that you experienced of being misrepresented, accused, even judged based on things entirely attributed to things other people said about you is exactly what many people feel every single day on these social media sites. Like, for instance, Randi Harper’s blocklist on Twitter. Which is a blocklist that you subscribed to. Every person on that blocklist was really only a terrible person because the blocklist said they were.
But the blocklist aside, let’s instead look at people who are suspended from twitter, every day. Most of them suspended for really no worse reason than what has happened to you: lots of people get angry about something they said, and start flagging their content until they are gone. Now, in the past you’ve said that this is just righteous vengence for hateful and bigoted things. However, as you have seen, ‘hateful’ and ‘bigoted’ are emotional concepts that can be applied to everyone, even you.
I don’t want the takeaway from this to be that you’re a terrible or hateful person. I want the takeaway to this to be you reconsidering if you still agree with the practices and methods of censorship and deplatforming. Now is the best time to consider it, as you now know first-hand how terrible it feels to be labeled and ostracized for reasons beyond your control.
I think we could start being nicer to each other if we can agree that everyone deserves to have a voice or at least a chance to explain themselves.
Intersectionality ends in tears. It hurts the worst for those who really want to make the world a better place for as many people as possible. It is inherently impossible to make it a great place for literally everyone.
Wil, you and I disagree politically on a lot of things, but through reading your long form blog, coming to one of your shows, and growing up wanting to BE Wesley (mostly the first), I’ve realized that despite all those things, you are trying to be the best person you can be. That is what people lose on social media of all forms. The striving. That visible striving is what allows us to “agree to disagree” on things without labeling someone a “garbage person”. But when the lens we look through life is so small as it necessarily is with social media (And twitter type media in particular), it is virtually impossible to see that striving. That is why so many people are becoming drawn towards long form interviews and media like your blog, The Joe Rogan Experience etc. There we can see that the person is struggling through things and working towards things and aren’t entirely encapsulated in a single 280 character message.
What I’m trying to say is, I think you have very valid desired both personally and in terms of your activism (not that I agree with all of your causes, but I agree with the sentiment behind them), but the desire to define the world by perceptions of victimhood will ALWAYS lead to what you have experienced, and I know you are smart enough to think this through and realize it is true.
Wishing you serenity and sanity. I’m sorry you’re experiencing all of this.
Honestly, I’ve been having this kind of struggle with Facebook. I want to find a competitor and unless I want to try to fire up something worthless like MySpace – it doesn’t seem to be out there.
wil wheaton come to tumblr!! tumblr is a blogging site as well as an images site and is full of the nicest people I know!
Sorry to see you go, but happy you are still out there.
Keep being Wil Wheaton and that will be a point on the positive side for everyone else out here in this world.
First you complain about “toxic” comments and “hate” and “violence” (did Alex Jones ever call for violence? I don’t think so) , then you call people “mysogonist dip-shits”.
Yeah, uhmm, right. Ofcourse, the bad people are always the others, because your opinion is the correct one …
LOL. You told people they should stop being friends with Trump supporters, because it made them bad people to still be supportive of that hatred.
AND YOU STILL haven’t had the guts to say anything about Chris Hardwick.
By your own standards of associating with shitty people, lots of people stopped respecting and liking you. You’re a coward and a fraud. And now everyone knows.
Enjoy your life on the easy setting, and congrats on holding o to Chris and Felica’s coattails long enough to get a taste of the success you were willing to sell your morals for.
As a,long time fan and supporter of what you pretended to stand for, good bye.
Long before the “social media” of the Interwebs, I used to run a dial-up BBS (late ’70s to early ’90s). Back then there were networks of BBSes that would host discussion groups, and sure enough, just like the birdsites of today, there were assholes. We “sysops” used to call it “the glass eye effect” (CRTs were made of glass – yes, I’m old). With just a glass eye staring back at you there’s no feedback that there’s an actual person on the other end of your vitriol. The only thing that’s changed is the network is larger and the number of people with access is larger. Other than that, people are still assholes, especially when they can’t see your eyes.
All that said, I do get your decision to separate yourself from the toxic hatred of social media. For those of us with more self-awareness than a five-year-old in need of a nap, you will be missed. And we hope you someday find the fortitude to return.
Godspeed old friend (whom I’ve never met). //B
“The world is a terrible place right now, and that’s largely because it is what we make it.”
Part of what makes it terrible is people not willing to take a stand for what’s right, even if it’s hard.
You’ve taken a hard, but right step, that’s going to be healthy for you.
Unfortunately there is still a desire from a lot of people that you take a stand and tell us your thoughts on Chris Hardwick. You asked for time to process what’s going on, but that was over two months ago and your silence gives the impression that you are supportive of him.
Additionally, you say you’re not transphobic but you omitted the T when you said “anti-LGBQ”, and you put CIS in upper-case like it’s an acronym, both of which provide ammunition to your critics. It might be best to consider how your words come across when you have as powerful voice as you do.
I’m sorry that you appear to be powerful enough that attacking you isn’t seen as punching down, without actually having the framework to support you on social media, and I wish you all the very best.
damn it must be really difficult for people you never interacted with before to be pre-judging you based on the opinion of a third party. anyways check out my new blocklist that i promise definitely doesnt have any innocent trans people in it
Couldn’t agree more – I deleted Twitter a while back as I decided the endless vitriol wasn’t something I needed in my life – and it wasn’t even directed at me.
Sad to hear his you’ve been treated. I’ll definitely miss your social media presence. I wish you, Anne and the dogs at the best.
It took bravery on your part to put up with all the negative crud out there. FYI: I liked your Wesley Crusher character. I love Tabletop.
To not mention Chris Hardwick on a post about why people might not like you is pretty disingenuous.
Oh, there’s lots of reasons people don’t like me. I’m sure that not feeding them what they want about Chris is one of those reasons. I’ve spoken directly with Chris and people who are close to both of us, and regardless of how I personally and privately feel about the allegations against him, I’ve made a choice not to say anything publicly, because, quite frankly (and I know you don’t want to hear this) I don’t owe anyone anything, no matter how loudly and persistently they demand it.
If someone has decided that they are owed my public comment on this, or anything else, and will hate on me because I’m not giving it to them, that’s entirely their choice and their right. It is also my choice and my right to not engage with or respond to random people on the Internet.
“I’ve made a choice not to say anything publicly, because, quite frankly (and I know you don’t want to hear this) I don’t owe anyone anything”
You absolutely have the right not to say anything publically but it was inferred from your tweet in mid-June (since deleted) that you would do so.
I am a complete outsider to the situation but, I vehemently believe that, in general, we should trust victims especially because abusers are very good at hiding their abusive behaviours which is how they can get away with it.
I appreciate it’s hard but your lack of comment, and your remarks that indicate you’re still friendly with him, implicitly suggests you value his word over hers. If that’s not what you intend then there are steps you could take to address that. If that is what you intend to say then perhaps you should make it explicit, and accept the consequences. Your current approach looks to be straddling the fence and that allows people to come to the worst conclusions. Of course you don’t have to care, but it comes across that you’re trying to have your cake and eat it by both choosing not to make a statement and not wanting to have to deal with the consequences of that position.
Again, I absolutely respect your position, and your right not to say anything. And I applaud you for allowing “random people on the Internet” to effectively come to “your house” and rant at you, by allowing comments and replying to us. Thank you for engaging, even though you don’t have to, and I hope that I have been helpful in presenting an alternate perspective.
As before, I do genuinely wish you the very best.
Mr. Wheaton:
I do not hate you. But what’s missing from this post of yours, as is true of so many of your tweets, is any sense of self-awareness. Everything is always something someone else has done to you. You refuse to accept any responsibility yourself for anything. You have, over the years, said terrible things about people you disagreed with politically and about people who supported GamerGate, as but two examples. You publicly supported the use of a blocklist that treats everyone as identically evil and prevents viewing or listening to others as people. And even now, everyone else is to blame for what happens to you–you have played no role in any of it.
The truth is this: You have not only participated in the climate of hate you now decry, you have helped foster it yourself. You have helped make the world bad for others, and you have expressed not the tiniest bit of self-reflection or remorse about it. Again, as you present yourself: Everyone else does bad things all the time but you never, ever do. That attitude is the problem here. Not the specific treatment you’ve been subjected to in this instance, or in any.
I don’t think you deserved to be kicked off Mastodon, but I don’t think GamerGate supporters or Donald Trump voters deserved the scorn, rage, and mockery you’ve heaped on them in recent years. Ultimately, I believe you deserve to be treated like a worthy human being. But you need to start doing the same to other people if you want those people to care when it happens to you.
In other words, you need to stop hating and start loving if you want there to be more love in the world.
It’s a cliche, but it’s true in this case: Be the change you want to see. Stop blaming everyone else for once, take responsibility for your action, and start behaving better toward everyone around you–whether you agree with them or not. Maybe you’ll start seeing that other people aren’t all evil, but instead have different points of view that are worth listening to and not making fun of or auto-blocking. That, however, requires taking initiative and, for once in your online life, being an adult.
Are you up to the challenge? I sure hope so. I, for one, believe you are much better than you have chosen to act.
Now’s the time to prove it.
Wil, I’ve followed your blog since the early days, and you were one of the first people I followed on Twitter. It sucks that the trolls are chasing all the good people, like you, away. I hope you will keep posting here every once in a while, though.
You left Twitter because they wouldn’t deplatform someone you think is a hater, and are complaining that you got deplatformed from Mastodon by people who think you’re a hater.
Did this experience teach you anything?
Yes. It taught me that people will seek out and create false equivalence to feed their narrative.
If someone expresses a viewpoint you disagree with, you simply ignore them or block them. There’s literally nothing else you can do. You can’t force everyone to agree with you. But here you are screaming and crying like a whiney little baby because people exist with a different perspective. The fact you’ve taken it upon yourself to fixate yourself over those you don’t like shows your lack of character. You could have taken the high road, but now it’s too late.
Wil I am with you. I went through something almost exactly the same the only thing different is that you have a lot wider foot print than me. People will make up all kinds of shit and get so pissed when you don’t agree or even remain silent. Its a no win situation with people like that.
Let me just say this: you are hands-down my favorite audiobook narrator! I will totally listen to a book JUST because you narrated it.
Also, people suck. Twitter is the 21st Century equivalent of villagers with pitchforks and torches.
You’re awesome. Your family and friends think you’re awesome. Your fans think you’re awesome.
And most importantly remember: depression lies. (you and Jenny taught me that. I owe you both big time!) I hope you are doing what you need to do to take care of yourself.
Really sad to see you go. It was fun to read your posts. The nice thing with Mastodon decentralized model is that you can become an admin yourself… and by that have full control and never be booted. Sure some instance might block you and you could block some instances but others would not. Another way would be to create an anonymous account.
Anyway take care! You are awesome!
I’m truly sorry that this happened to you. Federation and decentralization doesn’t magically solve online abuse, it just means there are more points of failure, and admins generally have fewer resources to cope with dogpiling than large companies do. If you ever go back to the fediverse, I’d recommend hosting your own instance (or just use https://micro.blog/ or similar), so that you control your own content and aren’t dependent on a stranger for protection.
This sucks. I just starting listening to Ready Player One because I learned on social media that you read it. I’m going to miss knowing these things. And by the way, you’re a good worder, don’t let the knuckleheads win.
Hey Wil. Just want you to know that my life is better because you exist. I loved TableTop and TitansGrave and your audiobooks and your blog and your Choose Your Own Adventure Twitch streams. I get that celebrity culture fools my little monkey brain into thinking that just because I consume content that you’ve created, it means that you’re actually part of my social group, but from what I can tell, you’re a great guy and you don’t deserve all the crap you get. Keep up the good work.