{"id":284115,"date":"2018-09-14T21:04:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T21:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/14\/greenglassgirl-fierceawakening-wetmattos\/"},"modified":"2018-09-14T21:04:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T21:04:40","slug":"greenglassgirl-fierceawakening-wetmattos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/14\/greenglassgirl-fierceawakening-wetmattos\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/greenglassgirl.tumblr.com\/post\/177826766954\/fierceawakening-wetmattos-betterbemeta\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">greenglassgirl<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fierceawakening.tumblr.com\/post\/177513131735\/wetmattos-betterbemeta-recently-youtuber\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">fierceawakening<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wetmattos.tumblr.com\/post\/177414812279\/betterbemeta-recently-youtuber-natalie-wynn\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">wetmattos<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/betterbemeta.tumblr.com\/post\/177409609907\/recently-youtuber-natalie-wynn-brought-up-a-great\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">betterbemeta<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Recently, youtuber Natalie Wynn brought up a great concept in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0&amp;t=0s\" target=\"_blank\">her breakdown of why Incels believe the things they do<\/a>\u2013\u00a0\u201cmasochistic epistemology.\u201d She put it simply,\u00a0\u201c<b>what hurts, is true.<\/b>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said this in the context of how incels basically form parasocial death cults when they are \u2018blackpilled.\u2019 They come to believe that because they feel terrible about themselves right now, that feeling is objectively true and forever, and even the reality of how the\u00a0\u2018world really works\u2019 and there\u2019s no hope to change it, only to\u00a0\u201cLDR\u201d. Which is,\u00a0\u2018lie down and rot\u2019, a form of suicide baiting. What\u2019s happened here is that otherwise genuine feelings of pain or insecurity have been validated <i>maybe too much<\/i>\u00a0and have evolved into an entire worldview centered around affirmation of pain. <b>And once pain-as-truth becomes social capital, the way people behave changes to maximize its growth and spread<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>But I have to say? I feel like I have encountered versions of the very same behavior in my own spaces, on tumblr, on facebook, etc.:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There\u2019s definitely forms of love-bombing that surround mental illness or depression support connections<b> that shower you with confirmation and praise only as long as you reject any steps of managing mental illness<\/b>, so long as it unstoppably dominates your life<b>.<\/b> Once you question someone else\u2019s behavior or declare that you\u2019re seeing a therapist or something all your new parasocial friends turn against you.\n<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019ve seen it in supposedly feminist spaces where women <b>that are otherwise strangers to each other talk each other into hopelessness<\/b> and heightened fear of sex and fear of other people in their life, especially male figures. Sometimes not even based in a specific personal experience, but instead just this collective \u2018dark truth\u2019 of womanhood. TERFs love to do this, and segue younger people into fear of trans women this way.\n<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019ve seen it happen a lot within lgbt+ spaces where someone\u2019s personal despair about dysphoria, homophobia they face, not being able to find a partner or being judged by family or strangers, or even fear of violence, enters a feedback loop with other people<b> they don\u2019t actually know<\/b> and <b>don\u2019t have any interests but their own consumption in mind\u00a0<\/b>amplifying it, forming these insular enclaves where fear is truth and everyone else is wrong because <i>they<\/i>\u00a0don\u2019t feel as terrible about being attracted to the same sex or for being trans as they <i>should<\/i>. Meanwhile no one struggling within this structure is actually getting the support or help they need, they\u2019re just arguing about it and building cases for, when the mythical support does fall from the sky,\u00a0 why they should get it first.\n<\/li>\n<li>There\u2019s mounds of discourse where people argue over how because <i>that\u00a0<\/i>group couldn\u2019t possibly live as terrible a reality as <i>this<\/i>\u00a0group, their lived experience isn\u2019t the order of the universe and therefore doesn\u2019t <i>deserve<\/i>\u00a0validity or attention at all.\u00a0<b>And to argue, inexperienced people fall into the trap of trying to <i>artificially\u00a0match<\/i>\u00a0the despair levels of their critics<\/b>, or try to counter one black pill with their own black pill which will never be credible to outsiders, resulting in cringy disaster at all vectors. In the red-hot radioactive mess troll accounts prosper.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Which is not to say that all these situations are full of people as baseless as incels\u2013 some of them are living very difficult lives, but are using \u201cmasochistic epistemology\u201c as the internal logic of their world. And the effect of such an internal logic is<b>\u00a0extremely dark self-confirming biases <i>in excess of<\/i> what is necessary to communicate the dangers of their lives, or cope with hardship<\/b>. And any similar person who goes off seeking friends who acknowledge their pain is going to find a black hole of people who\u2019d otherwise be peers escalating that very pain in themselves and others in order to confirm it\u2019s all real.<\/p>\n<p>Natalie Wynn herself, a trans woman, struggled with the urge to go to 4chan\u2019s \/lgbt\/ and wait for the most toxic and hopeless crowds there rip her appearance apart even though it made very little logical sense. The people there shared the same insecurities as her, that they don\u2019t pass, that people will despise them, and in some way hearing those insecurities confirmed rather than denied to her felt more like\u00a0\u2018the real truth\u2019 or\u00a0\u2018what people really think\u2019 than it did to hear praise and encouragement. Even if what they had to say wasn\u2019t anywhere near an objective truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0\u201cpain is real\u201d mindset is that hard to shake! It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re smart, prepared to identify the phenomenon with philosophy education, intellectually aware that it\u2019s bad for you. There is a self-harm impulse to\u00a0\u2018face reality\u2019, but a very specific reality that confirms the bias of your pain or insecurity. <b>The comfort zone of discomfort, in a way<\/b>! It just wants you to not feel crazy for feeling those things and is willing to hurt you even more to prove you\u2019re right about your environment or your life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/tagged\/masochistic-epistemology\" target=\"_blank\">#masochistic epistemology<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/tagged\/the-root-of-I-think-a-lot-of-parasocial-hells-on-the-internet\" target=\"_blank\">#the root of I think a lot of parasocial hells on the internet<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/tagged\/where-the-worst-discourse-often-comes-from\" target=\"_blank\">#where the worst discourse often comes from<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"tumblelog\" href=\"https:\/\/tmblr.co\/mYFHwXOgEWp0luwm1x5hz6A\" target=\"_blank\">@betterbemeta<\/a> tags are relevant, here<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh lord, yes.<\/p>\n<p>When I\u2019m at my sickest, I feel like my pain is objectively true in a way nothing else is. The people who love me are lying or duped by my manipulative nature, the hope I had was false and I never should have tried, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Online communities of a certain kind of political bent really encourage this\u2014present the idea that there\u2019s a way the world is, and that way is not just unfair and unjust sometimes but endlessly destructive. People on the right and the left do this.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s\u2026 unlivable, and breaks people.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>greenglassgirl: fierceawakening: wetmattos: betterbemeta: Recently, youtuber Natalie Wynn brought up a great concept in her breakdown of why Incels believe the things they do\u2013\u00a0\u201cmasochistic epistemology.\u201d She put it simply,\u00a0\u201cwhat hurts, is true.\u201d She said this in the context of how incels basically form parasocial death cults when they are \u2018blackpilled.\u2019 They come to believe that &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/14\/greenglassgirl-fierceawakening-wetmattos\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[20240,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}