Some people’s voices don’t deserve to be heard

This morning I read an article in The Atlantic written by someone talking about how no one who lives outside of cities is concerned about Covid. Based on the headline, I thought the author would be a normal and reasonable person, but I was wrong. This douchebag, a white homeowner in a wealthy suburban community who works as the head editor of a conservative Christian magazine, argues that Covid isn’t a problem, and that preventative measures like masks and booster shots are nothing more than virtue signals.

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I guess I understand how straight white male privilege can create a bizarre sort of sociopathic solipsism. What I can’t understand is why The Atlantic would want to publish something so offensive. I mean, I guess it’s clickbait, and here I am being baited, but still. This culture of manufactured outrage isn’t healthy, and it’s not cool that trying to read even left-leaning news outlets feels like running an obstacle course in avoiding shallow attempts to provoke engagement.

Webcomic Drama

This webcomic made it okay to be sad online. Then its artist vanished.
https://www.inputmag.com/culture/pictures-for-sad-children-webcomic-simone-veil-interview

Each of the aggrieved commenters seemed to find personal injury in Veil’s actions. Like, because she took their money, she owed them something — not just a copy of a book, but something more. A piece of her life. Through the whole post, it was clear Veil was fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of owing people answers. She wanted to make art.

People online who make art ask for money. She asked for money. And she seemed to be realizing just how toxic that transaction could be.

This is a longread about a popular webcomic artist who used Kickstarter to publish a book of her comics and then disappeared after posting a series of updates that mocked her fans for supporting her.

The article asks the reader to sympathize with the artist, but a bunch of people from the same generation of webcomic creators have responded with testimony about how unhinged she was, like so: https://twitter.com/jephjacques/status/1463145631443263490

This was all a bit before my time, but I remember how people went after Tess Stone for years after his webcomic Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name stopped updating. Which is absurd, because Tess Stone was just some kid posting a comic on Tumblr in 2011. He's currently pursuing a successful career as a professional artist, which I understand is easier to do when you're not a twenty-year-old student trying to negotiate a publishing contract while going through a gender transition.

Given the sort of absurdist fandom drama surrounding Tess Stone, it's difficult to say what was actually going on with Simone Veil, but I feel like the pressures of being a young artist with a large and opinionated fanbase are probably enough to make even the best of us crack under pressure.