In reply to Rain.

I don't see how you could take it as a criticism. I already said pretty much everything I'm saying here on your Facebook page! I wouldn't be criticizing anybody for spreading something that offends them; I do it all the time. It's always done with good intentions. Even the Kony 2012 links a lot of people were sending around were forwarded with good intentions. I don't feel like anybody who linked to the tumblr should feel criticized by this post, any more than I really feel like I'm being called an "illiterate" with "abysmal reading comprehension" by anyone who'd linked to it.

And I'd thought I'd made it clear that there's plenty of stuff on that blog that's legitimately awful and deserves to get called out. (And as for YouTube in particular: I can't recommend this extension to turn off comments on websites highly enough!)

What I'm reacting to, though, are two things: first, that I kept seeing so many links to that Tumblr on Facebook and Twitter, and they were repeated over and over again, and the comments were universally acting as if it were one of the most horrible things they'd ever seen. And it's been spread around what seems like a majority of the blogs I've been following, and dozens and dozens more news sites. And I'm asking: what is it about this case that's so much more horrible than the offensive shit that stupid people say on the internet, constantly? Is it that it's been sensationalized?

And when I see these things, I've got to be skeptical of how much of it is legitimate, and how much is just stirring up shit to get page views. That Jezebel post has screencaps of the worst tweets called out. I never said they're not offensive, and I never will. But then they put a 3x3 grid of more screenshots in a smaller grid at the bottom. It makes it look like the tumblr's full-to-bursting with horror. But if you look at the picture, about half of those tweets aren't offensive at all. Why the need to sensationalize it? Isn't it enough to have three or four awful ones to make the point?

But the main thing I'm wondering about: do the people who are paying attention to this story agree with the tone of that tumblr? Are they — and you, only because you're one of the people who linked to it — agreeing with the idea that "I didn't remember that she was black" is racist? Do you believe that it's an example of white male homogeneity and that it's a social problem?