Assuming you saw it trending last night, you're probably asking that question. I was asking that question as well, though I had a small bit of context.
The second I saw it, I knew it probably had something to do with the ... Gamegates? The Anti-Feminists? Not sure what they're calling themselves nowadays, but the point still stands. Anyway, a bit of research later and I found that the hashtag was in response to a European Union ban on all hate speech across major social networks. Okay, that makes a bit more sense -- here in the United States things tend to go more around the way of "You're allowed to say what you want, but you're going to have to suffer the consequences for it". A ban like that would likely never be allowed in the US, so its reasonable to believe that Americans -- particularly the young conservative "anti-SJW" kind -- would be very upset at such a ruling. And to be honest, it makes sense, and I too disagree with the ruling. So, that's it then? Actually not. In fact, that entire paragraph was just the context. In reality, this article will be answering a different central question:
Who the fuck thought this hashtag was a good idea?
Awhile back, I wrote an article called "Opposing Fronts: Why both Radical Feminism and Men's Rights are Stupid". Looking back on it, I don't really like a majority of the article because it feels like for the most part I was trying to stray away blame that I wasn't actually receiving. The whole thing seemed kind of pointless, except for one key part:
"...some moron somewhere decided it was a fantastic idea to name two
opposite ends of the spectrum the same thing. Seriously, I used to have
an early post up called "Feminists are fucking hilarious" because it was
before radical feminists were even called anything, not even SJW.
People just decided to go all "literally" on it, except "literally"
isn't an extremely controversial topic that constantly gets confused on
which one you're talking about. "Yeah, I saw a guy bashing feminism..."
Which one? The one we all believe is wrong, or the one we all believe is
right? I understand that most of us by this point have been able to
find our own words for radical feminism besides just feminism, but I
feel like there's just enough of the population who is using the same
word for both that it STILL manages to be an issue."
And could this statement be ANY more right than with this case right here? Like I feel as though I don't even need to explain it any farther than that. Of COURSE the hashtag "IStandWithHateSpeech" is going to sound bad to practically EVERYONE who isn't involved in your movement, and isn't the point of a movement like, I don't know, to get other people into it? Like which autismo on 8chan stepped up and said "You know what? Know what we should call our hashtag? We should call it ISTANDFORHATESPEECH". And who AGREED WITH THAT? Who actually thought that was a good idea? If you gave people some fucking context on the topic, they would likely agree with you. But if you just say "I Stand with Hate Speech" they're going to think you're some sort of bigoted white supremacist. It's like saying "I hate white people" in a crowd of white people when in reality you're just talking about like the Nazis. And then you get mad at those white people and call them Nazis for liking the Nazis, but then the white people think you're just calling them Nazis because you hate th- listen the point is that this whole thing is really stupid and you all need to STOP
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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Friday, May 20, 2016
Why Donald Trump is so Successful
As more people progressively talk more and more about the election, it may come at a surprise to many of you that, especially after promising for more political articles, I haven't mentioned the star of this year's show -- Donald Trump. In fact, I don't think I've mentioned him a single time either in private or public conversations until this article. Well, now that I'm finally making this, I might as well mention the reason that I haven't brought him up until now: I don't support him.
Trump is a stupid genius. Though his policies and statements may sound dumb, he knows how people work. He knows how to manipulate groups as small as an individual campaign opponent and as large as international news media. You see, Trump doesn't need to convince people to vote for him -- well, maybe a little -- but for the most part, he already has a very large, very loud group of people playing as his marketing card for him. It's the people who criticize him.
Yes, I'm talking about YOU (well, unless you're a Trump supporter, but I guess I'd still be talking about you?). You who post day and night articles and shitty memes on Facebook and Twitter on how Trump is literally the next Hitler. You who can only seemingly talk about how bad Trump is as a starter discussion for anyone in any environment. You who's punchline to a shitty joke is simply the name "Donald Trump". You constantly seem to be looking for reasons why he tends to be so popular, but you've checked everywhere but one last place -- yourself.
Let me explain this via an example. Very recently, a ton of drama and controversy was drummed up over Kanye West via a series of tweeting rants that made him look dumbfoundedly delusional. Also and coincidentally very recently, Kanye West's new album, Life of Pablo, came out. Or, was it really a coincidence? I mean, what are the chances that Kanye's rants begin shortly before the release of TLOP and end shortly after the release of TLOP? I mean, it's sure convenient -- after all, those rants have gotta have a bunch of people seeing his name, only to find the album itself, then having a listen to it to find out what this guy is all about...
...In case you haven't realized it yet, Kanye's controversy was planned -- by Kanye himself. Now, I'm not saying he faked it; Kanye is a pretty genuine person, and would think of the type of crazy shit that was mentioned in those tweets. However, he could've asked Mark Zuckerberg for money any time he wanted (most preferably in person or perhaps as a PM on Facebook) but instead decided to say it live as apart of one of his rants, live to the world. And so, people thought it was stupid. And further so, people decided to talk about it. People decided to talk about it a lot. And because people decided to talk about it a lot, The Life of Pablo ended up being the most successful digital only album of all time, despite also being the most pirated.
What Kanye West used -- and what Donald Trump is using -- is a technique called Large Crowd Manipulation. LCM (not to be confused with Least Common Multiple) is when an already popular figure appeals to the act of controversy by stating particularly dumb ideas or goofs that the public will find stupid, thus strengthening their popularity for some time before people finally get over it. Of course, for Donald Trump, people haven't gotten over it -- and its because he pulls a particularly controversial stunt every few weeks or so. Could it be, perhaps, that this is a case of Trump using LCM to its maximum effectiveness? In reality, yeah -- probably. It's very likely that, when Trump does these stupid things, he himself understands the stupidity of it, and that's how he's able to get ahead so easily.
Now, here's the real kicker -- there's nothing we can do to stop him. Think about it, how do you stop someone from being so popular? You stop talking about them. But to get people to stop talking about Trump, given the massive amount of people who are talking about him, is just straight up impossible. Even if we were to reach this message out to every single individual who talks about Trump all the time, many will likely forget about this message and continue to talk about him a few days later regardless, thus kickstarting the trend once again. Trump in a lot of ways has America in the palm of his hand, and he knows this -- despite a large amount of America not. He won the Republican party nomination the day it started -- and he may very well go on to do it in the general election. A reasonable person would see Trump's claims and policies as absurd, but only a fool would refuse to recognize that his campaign is perhaps one of the most ingeniously designed campaigns ever run.
---
Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis
Trump is a stupid genius. Though his policies and statements may sound dumb, he knows how people work. He knows how to manipulate groups as small as an individual campaign opponent and as large as international news media. You see, Trump doesn't need to convince people to vote for him -- well, maybe a little -- but for the most part, he already has a very large, very loud group of people playing as his marketing card for him. It's the people who criticize him.
Yes, I'm talking about YOU (well, unless you're a Trump supporter, but I guess I'd still be talking about you?). You who post day and night articles and shitty memes on Facebook and Twitter on how Trump is literally the next Hitler. You who can only seemingly talk about how bad Trump is as a starter discussion for anyone in any environment. You who's punchline to a shitty joke is simply the name "Donald Trump". You constantly seem to be looking for reasons why he tends to be so popular, but you've checked everywhere but one last place -- yourself.
Let me explain this via an example. Very recently, a ton of drama and controversy was drummed up over Kanye West via a series of tweeting rants that made him look dumbfoundedly delusional. Also and coincidentally very recently, Kanye West's new album, Life of Pablo, came out. Or, was it really a coincidence? I mean, what are the chances that Kanye's rants begin shortly before the release of TLOP and end shortly after the release of TLOP? I mean, it's sure convenient -- after all, those rants have gotta have a bunch of people seeing his name, only to find the album itself, then having a listen to it to find out what this guy is all about...
...In case you haven't realized it yet, Kanye's controversy was planned -- by Kanye himself. Now, I'm not saying he faked it; Kanye is a pretty genuine person, and would think of the type of crazy shit that was mentioned in those tweets. However, he could've asked Mark Zuckerberg for money any time he wanted (most preferably in person or perhaps as a PM on Facebook) but instead decided to say it live as apart of one of his rants, live to the world. And so, people thought it was stupid. And further so, people decided to talk about it. People decided to talk about it a lot. And because people decided to talk about it a lot, The Life of Pablo ended up being the most successful digital only album of all time, despite also being the most pirated.
What Kanye West used -- and what Donald Trump is using -- is a technique called Large Crowd Manipulation. LCM (not to be confused with Least Common Multiple) is when an already popular figure appeals to the act of controversy by stating particularly dumb ideas or goofs that the public will find stupid, thus strengthening their popularity for some time before people finally get over it. Of course, for Donald Trump, people haven't gotten over it -- and its because he pulls a particularly controversial stunt every few weeks or so. Could it be, perhaps, that this is a case of Trump using LCM to its maximum effectiveness? In reality, yeah -- probably. It's very likely that, when Trump does these stupid things, he himself understands the stupidity of it, and that's how he's able to get ahead so easily.
Now, here's the real kicker -- there's nothing we can do to stop him. Think about it, how do you stop someone from being so popular? You stop talking about them. But to get people to stop talking about Trump, given the massive amount of people who are talking about him, is just straight up impossible. Even if we were to reach this message out to every single individual who talks about Trump all the time, many will likely forget about this message and continue to talk about him a few days later regardless, thus kickstarting the trend once again. Trump in a lot of ways has America in the palm of his hand, and he knows this -- despite a large amount of America not. He won the Republican party nomination the day it started -- and he may very well go on to do it in the general election. A reasonable person would see Trump's claims and policies as absurd, but only a fool would refuse to recognize that his campaign is perhaps one of the most ingeniously designed campaigns ever run.
---
Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis
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