General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI think this whole "stare-rape" 4-Chan incident is a beautiful, accidental Rorscache test...
And many of us have given away our deepest, darkest secrets because this test has allowed for emotion to overcome inhibition.
We are witness to a perfect example of Poe's law. There is no easy way to discern good satire from sincere belief. I am not entirely certain of the intent behind the meme beside the desire to piss people off. But, frankly, I don't need to know because what is more important than knowing the intent is witnessing how we respond to ambiguity by inflicting our own ideology.
What did the woman in that photo become? Besides being the victim of immature prankery, she became feminism to those who hate feminism. And she became the enemy of feminism to those who love feminism. Maybe one group was faster to generalize than the other, but my point still stands. And I'm not even talking just of DU. I am part of other internet communities which went absolutely apeshit over that photo.
The failure of intellectual argumentation is too often at the hands of ideology. We see what we want to see and we believe what we want to believe. How fast we adopt shoddily crafted evidence is a function of how deeply we need confirmation in a vacuum.
With the advent of sophisticated photo editing software, the ability to digitally manipulate a photograph has become so easily accessible that we should suspect a controversial photo just like we might suspect a controversial piece of writing. It might be fake. Then again, it might be real.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)I need to see what this "stare rape" thing is about. I've missed the original incident.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)I'm a fairly typical "dude" in many respects - and I don't identify as a feminist or anything like it in everyday life - but I certainly don't think that being dismissive of feminism is generally compatible with progressive politics. To be frank, some of the posters on here strike me as appallingly reactionary.