Celebrity, Conspiracy, Internet, Social Media

Pete Evans: out of the (Fb) frying pan and into the (dumpster) fire

Pete Evans: Activated Almonds to Alternative Health

The first time I ever paid any attention to Pete Evans, it was when he’d done a “day in a plate” type interview and he spoke about “activated almonds”. I learned that these were almonds that were soaked and then dried. Wet nuts that became dry nuts. I found this hilarious, but over the intervening years he has gone from a bit of a joke to downright alarming. I got blocked from his Facebook page when I questioned why he was anti fluoride and frankly, he’s gotten even weirder since. Continue Reading

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Internet, Life, Relationships

Not All Men, But Definitely This One

Internet Dating

When I met my now-husband, it was over a decade ago on an online dating site. This was well before Tinder and the like and right in the middle of the time that internet dating was kinda new. New and regarded with suspicion. We went to a party once and people asked us how we met. He said “Actually, we met online.” The silence was deafening. People looked shocked and kinda uncomfortable. I said “We’re gonna come up with a better story than that, though!”

via GIPHY

Over a decade later, we never did come up with a better story. Not a credible one, anyway. And nowadays, online dating is pretty standard. What can I say, we’re early adopters. So when my friend, let’s call her Jane, decided to dip her toes back in the dating pool, I was all for it. Jane left an unhappy marriage several years ago. She focused on raising her kids, relocating and finding a new community. And recently, she decided she was ready to maybe meet someone new.

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Feminism, Humanity, Internet, Opinion

Thoughts About the Call-Out

Call Out: Blurred image of a band on a stage beyond a crowd in shadow. A mobile phone with facebook open is held in the bottom right corner.

INVISIBILIA: The Call-Out

I listened to this podcast, by Hanna Rosin and Alix Spiegel, recently and it made me think about the practice of calling people out. There’s also a transcription available here.

via GIPHY Rosin and Spiegel

If you just want a snapshot, it’s this:

A woman called Emily became heavily involved in the hardcore music scene. She loved the music, going to gigs, travelling with her best friend’s band and being part of the scene. But the hardcore scene was pretty male-dominated and she experienced firsthand things like sexual assault and the way the scene closed ranks around “good guys”. The expression was “good guy, backed hard”, so people making allegations against “good guys” weren’t believed. There was all kinds of sexism in the scene, including expressions like “no clit in the pit” meaning women weren’t welcome in the mosh. She eventually fronted her own band and used her platform to sing about feminist issues.

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Humanity, Internet, Social Media

It’s not a competition

call-outs and pile-ons- not a competition

I would like to think that many, perhaps even most, of us are doing the best we can to be good people. What constitutes a “good person” will vary, of course, but in a general sense it involves some level of kindness, generosity and consciousness. One thing I know for sure about being a good person, though, is that it is not a competition.

In the sometimes magnified world of social media, however, practices like call-outs and pile-ons seem to suggest that other people feel otherwise.

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