Entry tags:

have some fucking decorum!, person: winterfox, publishing, sj means never having to say you're sry, social justice, transfail

Your one-stop shopping for trolling and bullying disguise as social justice!
Blatantly cut and pasted from wank_report. Hat tips to the mice.

Requires Only That You Hate (http://requireshate.wordpress.com/) - Requires Hate for short - is a Thai Chinese lesbian blogger who has been ripping various sexist and racist science fiction/fantasy books apart in her online reviews. She's also better known as winterfox.

About 10 days ago, in one of her posts, Requires Hate posted a link to another person's review of the Inspector Chen books written by Liz Williams: http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/more-links/ (top paragraph).

Liz Williams - mevennen on livejournal - clearly dd not appreciate this. When Catherynne Valente posted about the sexual harassment at Readercon, mevennen's response was to ask whether she feels the same way about Requires Hate as she does about Rene Walling:
http://catvalente.livejournal.com/678836.html?thread=21468596#t21468596

"I don't think ANY of this is acceptable. I don't care whether it's puppy-eyed, I'm-sowwy leching American men, or wannabe sociopathic Chinese women."

Posting in the thread was not enough for Williams, however - she went on to write a long and ranty LJ post calling Requires Hate an "an aspiring fantasy serial killer" and announcing that "in the unlikely event that she is a potential psychonerd like the guy in Aurora, I’ve passed her details on to the relevant authorities and they can act if they see fit. Hey, if I’m going to be accused of being an Evil British Imperialist Whore [Tm] whatever I do, I might as well make the most of it": http://mevennen.livejournal.com/889924.html (comments now screened)

Valente posted a response:

"I believe that people should be able to voice their opinions, even if I disagree with them. Even if I agree sometimes and other times think that in a quest to answer injustice and be heard, they step over the line into cruelty."
http://catvalente.livejournal.com/679023.html

There's some humor in the comments, particularly in the threads involving Nick Mamatas (nihilistic_kid), who is also very outspoken about his likes and dislikes and who listed Requires Hate as an example of a "superior sort of reader" recently: http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1777161.html

In Caitlin R. Kiernan's journal:
http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/900453.html?thread=13564261#t13564261

Important background: a previous discussion in Valente's journal and follow-up twitter exchange with Requires Hate which led Kari Sperring (la_marquise_de_) to attempt suicide:

http://catvalente.livejournal.com/677154.html?thread=21396770#t21396770

https://twitter.com/KariSperring/status/206049221864980481
https://twitter.com/KariSperring/status/206048663041089539
https://twitter.com/KariSperring/status/206048219225006080
https://twitter.com/KariSperring/status/206047696480505858
https://twitter.com/KariSperring/status/206046672311156736

Nick Mamatas's comment on this today - "Apparently, Twitter makes people suicidal."
http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1781261.html?thread=27024397#t27024397

An annoyed friend of Mevennen and previous fan of Cat Valente posted to denounce Winterfox. It's a bit tl;dr but makes many good points. He cites FFA and quotes Cat's infamous line, "I, too, can, have, and will again write a book which communicates the Japan I can make up in my head - it's far better than the real thing."

http://tyrell.livejournal.com/847819.html

Meanwhile, Cat Valente continues bawwwwing on LJ and Twitter, sadly with a great deal of support from fans, friends, and minions.

http://catvalente.livejournal.com/679023.html

Some more info here: http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/38277.html?thread=172264837#t172264837 Including links to Winterfox's infamous death and torture threats/wishes to other people.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	sparkysrevenge 2012-08-06 11:57 am UTC (link)
	Mostly what I can glean from this: Every single person involved is completely facepalm-worthy. There is not a single "good" person coming out of this wank. I... I don't even. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	phosfate 2012-08-06 01:55 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, just the list of names involved is making me kinda nauseous. Hello, winners. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	mneiai 2012-08-06 10:42 pm UTC (link)
	If only that was always true and all the awful wank stayed between nasty people.... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	footsie 2012-08-07 06:36 am UTC (link)
	It's like watching a swarm of wasps attack a meadow of stinging nettles. It's too bad that someone decent will inevitable walk into that meadow and get stung by either nettles or wasps, but as long as only nettles and wasps are involved, I'll make popcorn. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	iamnotyourmuse 2012-08-07 02:57 pm UTC (link)
	It's kind of a cornucopia of fail, isn't it? Like, it's not all the same type or level, but what a variety! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	spawn_of_kong 2012-08-07 04:12 pm UTC (link)
	What's sad is that Caitlin R. Kiernan is on my LJ flist -- she and I share a passion for sci-fi/fantasy and paleontology. I suppose she's always been very opinionated, but her response to criticism here is simply embarassing. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ekaterinv
2012-08-07 11:38 pm UTC (link)

As far as I've seen, whenever winterfox attacks people, her victims become extremely wanky in their attempts at defense, if they try to defend at all. Winterfox is so cruel and frightening, and her thinking is so thoroughly black-and-white, it sets off flight or fight responses in others. She is probably the most skilled troll I've ever seen. She's been doing it for years, and with various topics, but she didn't find a real home until she landed in SJ spaces. And that is incredibly worrisome for SJ spaces.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

seiberwing
2012-08-08 12:04 am UTC (link)

I feel like SJ is especially vulnerable to this type of person because it deals in matters that are in fact quite emotional. With shipping or book preference you can say 'simmer the fuck down, it's just fiction' but in SJ it's not really appropriate to tell people to simmer down. Therefore you get a lot of people bullying and slinging their weight around and it gets endorsed by the populace as long as they can claim that the people they're bullying are enemies of the cause or white or whatever.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ekaterinv 2012-08-08 10:13 pm UTC (link)
	I think it is appropriate to tell people not to lob death threats, though. But apparently it's okay for Winterfox to threaten people for writing fiction. Because tone argument. I don't even know any more, I'd think death threats would be something that would always be seen as very not okay, but I guess not. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	seiberwing 2012-08-08 10:18 pm UTC (link)
	It falls into the 'it's okay because it's our enemies' department, where enemies is defined as people who disagree with you on anything. It lets bullies do as they please and still get backup for it from people who ought to know better. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	arionhunter 2012-08-10 02:55 am UTC (link)
	Also, these kind of encounters become ways of enacting "punishment," esp. in spaces without "mods" (i.e. Tumblr). That may be one of the big reasons I'm not a fan of Tumblr. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -