

Reddit Troll Violentacrez Admits Doing CNN Interview Was a ‘Huge Mistake’ - met3
http://betabeat.com/2012/10/violentacrez-admits-doing-cnn-interview-was-a-huge-mistake/

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leoedin
Even in real life, I've noticed that when the proportion of men is high enough
and one person present in a conversation starts throwing in casual
sexism/racism (normally masquerading as jokes) it tends to suck everyone else
in. The conversation quickly collapses to fairly uninteresting lowest-common-
denominator nonsense. Some people are essentially poison to group
conversations because for whatever reason they're unable to stop themselves
constantly making crass comments.

It's actually quite remarkable. Recent changes in my life have meant that I've
often found myself in a pub with one of these people. Suddenly conversations
that I thought I'd grown out of when I was 16 rear their heads again, and
every single social event devolves into a pile of misogyny.

Given that Reddit is in many ways a very large conversation with a high
proportion of men, the likelyhood of one of them being conversation-poison is
much higher.

What we can all do, whether in real life or online, is stand up to it. The
best online communities are those that are obscure or very aggressively
moderated. If you make it clear that behaviour isn't acceptable, it tends to
die out.

~~~
awj
> Even in real life, I've noticed that when the proportion of men is high
> enough[...]

Whoa there, why do you think this behavior is exclusive to men? This can
happen in almost any social group targeting an underrepresented/absent
demographic.

Everything else you've said I can agree with, but "men in groups by themselves
devolve into misogynists" is painting with too fine of a brush.

~~~
leoedin
Giving it further consideration, I'm sure you're right. My comment was really
based on my experiences, in particular with misogyny (racism and to a lesser
extent homophobia are definitely more taboo where I live). Generally, (but not
always) misogyny requires men.

The thrust of my comment though is really that the entire group conversation
is often dictated by the lowest common denominator. Generally that person is
someone that's realised that saying something offensive will get them more
attention from everyone than actually trying to engage in interesting
discussion would.

~~~
papsosouid
>My comment was really based on my experiences, in particular with misogyny
(racism and to a lesser extent homophobia are definitely more taboo where I
live)

Of course if you classify everything under the sun as misogyny than it will
seem more common. Misogyny has an actual definition, which is the hatred of
women. When it is used in cases where there is clearly no such hatred, it
devalues the word and makes it meaningless. Thus you can't point out actual
misogyny any more, like the boy who cried wolf.

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Karunamon
I for one am tired of hearing about this guy, and even more tired of hearing
how evil and terrible reddit supposedly is.

~~~
papsosouid
But didn't you read the article? Reddit allows _men_ to discuss their rights!
Most of them are probably even white!

