By now you’re probably as bored of the Faux-Bo wedding as I am.
I planned to let this whole clusterfuck wither and die, despite prodding by defenders of the couple, who want me to know that they have media connections, and are working on a BIG STORY about bullies and crafting.
Also, THEY HAVE SCREEN CAPS.
But something about this has been nagging at me. And it wasn’t until this morning that I realized why it’s all so strangely familiar.
It started bubbling in my tiny mind when I read this passage in one of the 25,000 word emails the groom’s uncle sent me:
“Etsy used to be his wife’s safe place, where she could go and talk about crafting and vintage clothes with like-minded people. How could she have known a team of juvenile, faux-moral people were going to come piss all over it?”
And this morning, while I was clearing a huge branch that suddenly fell in our front yard – because God is punishing me – I realized this was all part of a larger story. And it’s a story I have wanted to tell you for almost a year.
* * *
Last Halloween, I put up a picture on the Regretsy Facebook page. A place I created and maintain, full of like-minded people. My safe place.
The photo was of me and Bronc, in costume at a party. He came as Chaz Bono, and I came as Chastity.
I have to admit, I was really pleased with myself. I couldn’t think of another scenario where a man and woman could go to a party as the same person, with neither one in drag!
LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM
Of course, it was a mistake (for a few reasons). An internet community you feel at home in – hell, even a community you create – is not your safe place. It’s the internet.
To say I was surprised by the reaction would be an understatement. The thread exploded into well over 1,000 extremely emotional and angry comments in a matter of minutes. People started calling me transphobic and homophobic – things I have never, ever been accused of before.
Then I made my second mistake, and it’s the same one the Hobo Wedding Party is making now: I got defensive.
How could they get it so wrong? I’m not making a comment, I was just being funny! And anyway, I am not an enemy of the LGBT community, not by any stretch of the imagination. I have fundraised, walked, delivered meals, sat with friends as they died… for fucks sake, I was MARRIED to a gay man for fifteen years! DON’T YOU INTERNET PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM?
No they don’t. They don’t know who you are, and they don’t give a shit. And now that they think they know who you are, their perception can’t be changed. Talking about how much you “love the gay community” or “these nice kids really care about poor people” sounds like the bigot who says, “One of my best friends is black!”
Fortunately for me, something clicked that night. Because at some point, while I back and forthed and obnoxiously tried to prove my point, I realized that I was not dealing with butthurt. These people weren’t reflexively offended on behalf of someone they didn’t know. These people were actually wounded by something I had done. And I was mortified. And I took it down.
One of the things that stuck with me from that thread was an interaction I had with one of the angrier people posting. I protested that context matters, and he said it did not. He said, “If you stepped on my foot and you did it by accident, it would not hurt less than if you did it on purpose.” I thought that was ignorant of course, because hurting someone purposely is very different than accidental harm.
But I’ve come to see that there is, in fact, truth in that statement, and that truth is simply this:
YOUR context doesn’t matter.
Etsy, Your Safe Place™, is the 53rd most popular site in the United States. How much traffic do you think that is? How arrogant are you to think that every single person passing through is going to give two fucks about your context?
Not as arrogant as me! Facebook, my safe place, is the 2nd most popular site in the world!
So I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that as soon as I took the image down, it came back. People started Facebook groups almost immediately using the photo. Someone tried to extort money from me. I got hate mail, threats of physical harm, threats of hacking, threats of boycotts, threats to my family.
And then there’s Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Click image for full sized humiliation
This bothered me the most, I think. Mostly because I can’t understand why anyone in the LGBT community would seek social justice on a site that routinely refers to its users as “fags.” But also because it memorializes my filing a DMCA on someone on LiveJournal who took the image off my personal Facebook account before I removed it. And for someone who thrives under the Fair Use umbrella, it makes me a hypocrite.
(Edit: I also cringe now when I see the word “stolen”, because while I think taking a photo off someone’s personal Facebook page is different than taking it from a public fan page, it was most definitely not theft.)
So this has all gelled for me today in a really surprising way. Watching the defenders of this wedding tweet, post, comment, threaten law suits, attempt to engage the New York Times, report me to Facebook as a hate group and generally piss their own pants only points up to me what an asshole I was.
But let me be really clear here. I am not sorry for the costume I chose, because I know who I am, and I know what is in my heart, and in no way did I mean to cause any suffering for an already marginalized segment of our society.* And I can see that Mr. and Mrs. Faux-Bo also don’t feel sorry for the choice they made, and I don’t judge them for that at all. We both have our contexts.
But.
When you put your wedding or your birthing video or anything private online where your context does matter, you are asking for a world of shit. And the internet is only too happy to serve it to you.
And you know, it’s not a matter of sociology or modern manners, or what the internet brings out in us. That is all grade A horse shit, and another way we excuse our own behavior and poor judgment. Villainizing the internet is like blaming McDonalds for making you fat. We are the internet, and what happens here is what you and I choose to do. I’m not going to campaign to improve it. I think it’s perfect.
And frankly, I’m not sorry that I don’t think about your context or your mental state or what you’ve been through when I look at something personal you have chosen to share with the world, and I don’t expect you to do it for me. This is not AOL Hometown, and we’re not all friends.
There is only one way to use the internet as your safe place, and that’s to create a private space where you control who sees your content and who can share it. Because when you share photos of your bad decisions and poor taste with friends, you can count on them to lie to you.
Well, not your real friends. But that’s another blog post.
* 8/7/11 UPDATE: In this post, I tried to take responsibility for my actions. But I could only apologize for the part I understood. If I just apologized without knowing why – to make it go away – it would have been meaningless.
I am grateful to all of you who have written to give me some insight. This is the first time in a year anyone has helped me to have a better understanding. Now I get it.
I humbly offer my apologies for making an insensitive choice, for not knowing why it was insensitive, and for causing any hurt to anyone.
I will never discuss this publicly again. If you still want to talk about it, you are welcome to email me, and I will keep our correspondence private.
BACK TO THE FUCKERY
