When I have written a few blogs on “Social Justice Warriors” in the Tech industry, I’ve chosen not to call specific people out in order to avoid backlash, but this situation has really riled me. I’ve only watched a few videos from Brad Traversy so I have no reason to defend him, but those attacking him seem very misguided. This is how I see things:
So back in June, Anastasia Marchenkova posted this:
So Hays is a guy in the tech community sending hate to a woman in the tech community. It’s unknown what triggered this, but it doesn’t matter – the abuse is out of order. Anastasia is suggesting that he was positively interacting with her by retweeting her content. If you view the full tweet, you see that her initial response to the abuse is this
“Hey Hays! This seems like a weird message from you- you’ve seemed to like my links to resources – have you been hacked”
Anastasia’s initial reaction
Remember this response. It’s key to understanding the misguided reactions.
Just like that quote, she also elaborates in the follow-up tweet
“I asked if he was hacked because we always had a good dialogue”
Anastasia
So it seems not only has Hays retweeted her content, it very much sounds like they have shared messages before too.
It’s worth noting that: if someone has been hacked and the hacker is sending abusive messages, asking if they have been hacked isn’t actually going to get a valid answer. Probably will just get more abuse back.
Brad Traversy then shows support for Anastasia with this tweet
“Such weird and incoherent messages, I would have sworn he was hacked by some low IQ incel that hates women. He has always seemed pretty chill in any interaction I’ve had with him. Maybe some kind of mental break. Unfollowing for now though. That shit is unacceptable”
Brad Traversy
So what did Brad say here that wasn’t echoing Anastasia’s thoughts? He agrees with her initial reaction of questioning the possibility of being hacked. He then mentions he has never witnessed this behaviour in previous interactions. Although he wants to give Hays the benefit of the doubt, he has unfollowed him.
But here comes the Social Justice Warriors that presumably, haven’t actually read the entire thread.
If Anastasia hadn’t made these comments herself, and Brad was the one to initially suggest them, then maybe Ali has a point that he is “minimizing” this experience. That’s not what has happened though, and Brad is being supportive.
So Brad obviously reacts to it and points out that this Social Justice Warrior and virtue signalling behaviour has to stop, because it is just toxic.
People really didn’t like Brad using the phrase “you people”, presumably because they thought he was attacking women. He wasn’t. He was attacking Social Justice Warriors, overreacting to anything. He wanted to show support for women in tech, and he has been lambasted by the people he was defending.
I thought this guy’s response was funny.
Brad responds to him with “There is a group of them that do it”. This is referring to some of her friends that gang up together, pooling their followers to collectively abuse, and even cancel someone completely. It had happened before when someone posted a joke; a tech pun based on current events. They requested all their followers unfollow this person, then contacted the CEO’s of several companies that the guy made money on, and demanded they delete his account. I could understand if he had done something really bad like committed a murder, but tweeting a joke isn’t enough to lose several sources of income. The guy could have lost his house or something.
I have even seen them respond to people that tweet “here are my personal favourite software developers” with something like “this isn’t representative of the industry because there’s no women”. If the person says “it is my list, with opinions from my experience, then they get accused of being a “tech bro”. If they back down and agree to add a woman, then they then say “what about women of colour”? Where do we stop? Do we need to list a developer from every country in the world? It was their personal tweet, you don’t have to comment on it.
Anastasia’s thread was supposed to be about Anastasia’s abuse, but Ali has then made it about Brad. Ironically, she then attacks Brad for making it about him.
The tweets have since been deleted, so I may be making this bit up, but I think Brad tweeted something on his own page along the lines of “if you are gonna cancel someone, then make sure it is justified”. He didn’t call Ali out specifically, but then she replied to it, so people then knew he was attacking her. She claimed that Brad was out of order because she would never publicly call him out. Well, apart from all these tweets I’ve linked to, which triggered Brad to make his tweet.
This stuff happened in June, but for some reason it has been brought up again as if it was some major turning point in the industry. They are acting like it is Armistice Day or something.
The intention is fine. Abusing someone is bad. Defending someone who abuses someone is bad. However, if you are gonna call someone out on it, it needs to actually be legit. They are attacking Brad when he didn’t do anything wrong.
Why is this being brought up again? It was 5 months ago. Sure, if it was a huge deal and actually accurate, it would be fine to bring it up. Brad wasn’t the huge deal, it was Hays. Surely something has triggered myraccoonhands into discussing this, so why not tweet about whatever the new situation is?
What riles me is that it’s a screenshot where you can’t see Anastasia’s original post. So now when people see this, it really does look like Brad is minimising women’s experience of abuse. Since people don’t research things, you then get responses attacking Brad.
This shows that Ali did have some success in cancelling Brad:
Check out this vitriolic tweet. When I initially saw it, I thought he meant Brad deleted his responses to Ali which is why myraccoonhands used a screenshot. But no, they used a screenshot to be deceptive. Not sure what sweetestshuga is on about with the apology. I don’t recall Brad apologising but he had nothing to apologise for.
Conclusion
I’ve personally never witnessed any hate in the workplace towards women, but I have no doubt that women do get patronised in the workplace and get abuse online. It’s out of order, but you need to tackle the problem effectively.
I think the problem with “Social Justice Warriors” is that they come across as extremists and don’t go after the actual problems. It just creates more divide.
I think it is kind of a “boy who cried wolf” scenario (probably will get in trouble for that, why can’t the girl cry wolf?), that if people falsely accuse people of being sexist; then when there is a case, it’s harder to believe them. Accusing people of being sexist for tweeting about their favourite developers (that just happen to be male), then accusing people of being sexist for agreeing with a woman’s accusations…surely the next accusation I’m going to dismiss. Then I’ll be called a misogynist and minimising the person’s experience, and it will seem like there is a case for it.
In future, Brad would be less inclined to speak up due to his experience; further perpetuating the “bro culture” that they aim to eradicate.
Anastasia described a problem with one guy who was abusive, but yet it quickly became about some other male who was an ally. Emily Kager, myraccoonhands , and Ali aren’t reminiscing about Hays awful posts to Anastasia, they are reflecting on how they attacked Brad, who was their ally.
People need to remember that if they attack people, then all their followers may join in on the attack, if they intended or not. The Youtuber The Quartering often discusses “controversial takes” and has been on both ends of that. If he is negative towards someone, he does tend to remind people not to be a lynch mob. We are merely discussing events that have happened. We are criticising the lynch mob behaviour and don’t want to create it. I only have 31 followers, but don’t go after anyone I’ve mentioned here.
Now I have written this blog:
- myraccoonhands thinks I defend stalkers
- wellis321 thinks I’m a prick who is not good for the industry.
- Emily has now validated me as a misogynist
- denvercoder will never promote my blog
- Ali thinks I am minimising her experience
If this blog disappears, then I have been cancelled.
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