(Update 2: August 2013: This post is a mess. There is a correction/update/clarification here.)
[Update] I'm No Picasso has written a very good response to this post. You should read it. I'm going to write my reply, which will be shorter, in the comments.
Music: this is a long post, with lots of words, so hit play and start reading:
Goin' Against Your Mind, by Built To Spill, who I'm loving these days: I may write a post about them. After finals.
I'm No Picasso has a really important post out, and I'm quite disappointed that there's been so little commentary on it so far. Has it been discussed on Tumblr and I missed it? No. There hasn't. I even asked INP and she said there's been nary a tumbleweed in reply.
Basically...
Four years ago, the K-blogs were overwhelmingly male, as were the online forums. Topics like
"Yo Korean bichez are da shit poor western fat hoes aint gettin any play at da HBC bro!"
were... well... that's an exaggeration (mostly). But the fact is, there was enough casual sexism and stereotyping, and enough knee-jerk response, that I'm utterly unsurprised when I hear from my female online friends that they usually just don't read comments, or avoid certain blogs or discussion forums.
Fair enough.
With the arrival of I'm No Picasso and a handful of other blogs written by expat women in Korea, there was a welcome change, where first of all, Korean women were no longer just K-girls, and western women started discuss things themselves, rather than just having things said about them, or maybe explained to them.
That was a really good development.
Now, INP is concerned that things have gone too far the other way.
Used to be, the menz were writing about K-girls - a term that is often quite reductionist and disrespectful, reducing a whole culture and heritage into the dateability (or let's be honest, the fuckability) of one subgroup of their females. Now, I love that people can be misogynist dickheads, ignorant racists, screeching axe-grinders or pompous asshats on the internet as much as the next guy -- it makes it easier to spot people I'd like or dislike to hang out with, when they're letting all their asshattery color up the interwebs. But as fun as those flavors can be, it's a little tiresome when it's the only flavor available. And as gender balance goes, only one flavor was getting major representation. As much as dickweed icecream might hit the spot for certain folks in a certain mood, one hopes there are more flavors available at the ice cream bar.
Then there was another flavor, and that was cool.
But now that other flavor is using the term K-boys, talking in the opposite gender direction, but with similarly dismissive or reductive attitudes, and that's disappointing to INP because the shoe so very recently was exactly on the other foot, and hopefully this new community can do better than the community against which its first formation was partially a reaction (not all: it's not all about men, you know... but partly).
You should go read her piece.
Mostly, I'm OK with there being gendered spaces on the internet -- as long as they're clear that's what they are (that is, not pretending they're representative of something other than their gendered space). And one of the hardest things about conversations on the internet is that there are very, very many cases where people head into conversations following different rules of engagement, and therefore have distressing or frustrating conversations where everyone's talking past each other. I've seen some very very smart and interesting people who, if they met each other, I think would like each other a lot, get into some nasty back-and-forths online, because they entered the conversation expecting dissimilar terms of engagement to be followed.
As I mentioned above: I'm OK with men being idiots online about women, and about Korean women, because if people flash their ignorance around that way, I know to avoid them before I even waste time meeting them. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so if women want to be idiots online about men, and Korean men, by the same token, have fun! Same for white people, people of color, racists, politically correct sensitivitybots, randy raunchsters and the rest. I think that ignorant, sexist, racist, and just stupid people will generally eventually attract the readers and commenters they deserve, or none at all, which is OK too.
There are a few times when writing on the internet disappoints me, and maybe these are some of the things that are bothering I'm No Picasso as well...
When writers don't develop as they go, that disappoints me:
I'd hope that anyone who's writing about Korea and trying to contribute meaningfully, who notices most of their writing is getting overwhelmingly negative feedback, or "Yea your rite bro thatz totally how it iz them bichez just don unberstand you hurff durff" or ignored entirely, would take that fact as a suggestion to try a different approach: not everybody needs to do this (not everybody has the same reason for writing), but when I write, I think about the ten most thoughtful commenters who regularly visit here, and basically write for them, and that helps me feel good about how I write, and who I'm writing for.
Sometimes there's no escape on Tumblr
Part of the problem here might be the nature of Tumblr, where female bloggers have cleared up a significant discussion space - on my blog sidebar (where I check to see what my favorite writers are up to) I can be really choosy, but on Tumblr, when somebody I like responds to somebody I DON'T like, the thoughts of the person I don't like appear on my page as well-- to put things crassly, Tumblr simply makes it harder to avoid the dipshits. On blogger and wordpress, if I delete the sidebar link, I can stay clear of dipshits. On Tumblr, I not only have to unfollow the dipshit, I ALSO have to unfollow everyone who interacts with the dipshit, before I can be sure my Tumblring is dipshit-free. And there are some dipshits out there. I'm not naming names. I'm sure you've got your own list, and maybe I'm on it. That's OK, because the internet's a wonderfully big place. But the great thing about the internet being so big is that you don't have to abide dipshits unless you want to... Tumblr, a little bit less so.
(On the other hand, on the good side, the brilliant thing about tumblr is that sometimes the random stuff your friends find is illuminating, brilliant, and totally new -- something I would never have found if I didn't have tumblr friends who search for inspiration in different places than I do).
It's good that the internet takes all kinds, even dipshits, but...
It's not healthy to start blocking, deleting, or censoring other commenters. I'd never advocate that. I think that it's healthier for everybody to put their thoughts online, in the appropriate venues, and for thinking people to sort through and choose the things they read and the things they ignore. Society is richer and discussions are more robust if EVERYBODY feels safe posting comments. Even dipshits.
But for that to happen, there have to be enough spaces out there that people who are offended by republican dipshits have places to go without finding them, and that people who are offended by democrat dipshits have places to go without finding them. Ditto for every other category of disagreeable dipshit. Hopefully, I can find a place where I won't come across "Lol im gunna go out and bone three hawt K-girls this weekend" comments. And people who post comments like that should have a place where they won't get lectured for posting that way. It's not the internet's job, or my job, to make them not be dipshits, and if they ever stop being dipshits, it'll probably be because of people they know in person, or things they actually experience, and not because of strangers on the internet, frankly. But the internet should be able to help them be dipshits only around other dipshits of their particular dipshit stripe.
And there should be a place where people can rant, "man, the sexist dipshittery of Forum X is totally unacceptable" and find agreement, without dipshits answering "You just say that because you're a fat bitter white chick who can't get laid in Korea" or conversely, "You just say that because you're a tubby burger-flipping loser-back-home with b.o. and back hair who couldn't even get a sympathy fuck from geek-bangers"-- because the dipshits commenting at Forum X don't visit that other forum, and if they did, they'd learn that kind of dipshittery is unwelcome there. Or they already got banned there four months ago.
As it stands, are there enough venues that everybody can find the kinds of discussions they're looking for, and not have to be subjected to stuff they don't, while still having a handle on the meaningful, important conversations happening? Almost, but not quite, it seems.
Imagine a friday night when there are a few parties going on at different venues. I'd like to think that there's a frat party going on somewhere -- where people can rant and be noisy and get stuff off their chests. That's healthy. I'd like to think there are a couple of coffee shops, where dudes, ladies, long-termers, and non-teachers can each say their part and feel understood, too.
And I hope the community's big and robust enough that I never have to feel like I'd like to go to an open mike, but the only thing available is a frat party. I don't want somebody to spill beer on my moleskin notebook during a keg stand, nor to be pulled into a congo line when I'm looking for a live cool jazz combo. Perhaps that's what's happening to I'm No Picasso, perhaps not. I know I've felt that way numerous times -- like the guy at a party wanting to talk about books while some group is drunkenly singing "SWEET CAROLINE! WAH WAH WAH!" nearby.
Yeah Yeah Yeah. Zero. Shiny.
Most of all... self-awareness
my favorite forums and communities are the ones that pause from time to time and talk, or think, about what they're doing, and where they're going, as a community. Who stop and ask, "Hey. Are we just turning into another iteration of [forum we left, in order to join this one]?" They are a community, these groups of people who talk to each other often on the internet. Not necessarily the way ye olde homesteade was: internet communities are pretty loose and amorphous (that was one of the mistakes I made in my earlier writings about expat community: not accounting for that nebulousness), but they are communities, and communities that don't stop and think about who they are and where they're headed might zig or zag into unexpected and unfortunate places, or start losing members who are no longer finding what they're looking for there.
And if a community is losing members because they've made a choice to be this way instead of that way, and that's a calculated cost, well that's a choice the community has made as a collective. But if a community suddenly looks around and goes "hey. where the f*** did those five really interesting contributors go?" maybe a little self-reflection, and the development of a little self-awareness, IS in order, even if the end result is "well, we're going to keep going as we were.. but at least now we've talked about it." (A perfectly legitimate conclusion, and sometimes the only possible conclusion, but one that honors community members who ask these kinds of questions: better than ignoring them.)
Comments are open, here and at I'm No Picasso.
Because part of this topic is about forming communities on the internet, and freedom of expression, I'll be fielding comments like that.
Because part of this topic is about the way females are talking to females on the internet, I feel like that's mostly a conversation females need to have with females, so comments to that effect from males are generally unwelcome, unless you regularly add your voice to the female-dominated discourses... and if you do, I'll probably recognize your id name. Comments from known male commenters who DON'T fit that criteria, especially ones with a tone of accusation or righteousness in their comment, will be edited, disemvoweled, or deleted. If you'd like to explain why things are this way, because you're a logical man and these emotional women need to understand how it is, go ahead. Elsewhere.
It's up to the female spaces to keep their own spaces tidy, and enough women have been told to f*** off when calling male-dominated forums out on their sexist tone, that we don't need that going the other way.
[Update] I'm No Picasso has written a very good response to this post. You should read it. I'm going to write my reply, which will be shorter, in the comments.
Music: this is a long post, with lots of words, so hit play and start reading:
Goin' Against Your Mind, by Built To Spill, who I'm loving these days: I may write a post about them. After finals.
I'm No Picasso has a really important post out, and I'm quite disappointed that there's been so little commentary on it so far. Has it been discussed on Tumblr and I missed it? No. There hasn't. I even asked INP and she said there's been nary a tumbleweed in reply.
Basically...
Four years ago, the K-blogs were overwhelmingly male, as were the online forums. Topics like
"Yo Korean bichez are da shit poor western fat hoes aint gettin any play at da HBC bro!"
were... well... that's an exaggeration (mostly). But the fact is, there was enough casual sexism and stereotyping, and enough knee-jerk response, that I'm utterly unsurprised when I hear from my female online friends that they usually just don't read comments, or avoid certain blogs or discussion forums.
Fair enough.
With the arrival of I'm No Picasso and a handful of other blogs written by expat women in Korea, there was a welcome change, where first of all, Korean women were no longer just K-girls, and western women started discuss things themselves, rather than just having things said about them, or maybe explained to them.
That was a really good development.
Now, INP is concerned that things have gone too far the other way.
Used to be, the menz were writing about K-girls - a term that is often quite reductionist and disrespectful, reducing a whole culture and heritage into the dateability (or let's be honest, the fuckability) of one subgroup of their females. Now, I love that people can be misogynist dickheads, ignorant racists, screeching axe-grinders or pompous asshats on the internet as much as the next guy -- it makes it easier to spot people I'd like or dislike to hang out with, when they're letting all their asshattery color up the interwebs. But as fun as those flavors can be, it's a little tiresome when it's the only flavor available. And as gender balance goes, only one flavor was getting major representation. As much as dickweed icecream might hit the spot for certain folks in a certain mood, one hopes there are more flavors available at the ice cream bar.
Then there was another flavor, and that was cool.
But now that other flavor is using the term K-boys, talking in the opposite gender direction, but with similarly dismissive or reductive attitudes, and that's disappointing to INP because the shoe so very recently was exactly on the other foot, and hopefully this new community can do better than the community against which its first formation was partially a reaction (not all: it's not all about men, you know... but partly).
You should go read her piece.
Mostly, I'm OK with there being gendered spaces on the internet -- as long as they're clear that's what they are (that is, not pretending they're representative of something other than their gendered space). And one of the hardest things about conversations on the internet is that there are very, very many cases where people head into conversations following different rules of engagement, and therefore have distressing or frustrating conversations where everyone's talking past each other. I've seen some very very smart and interesting people who, if they met each other, I think would like each other a lot, get into some nasty back-and-forths online, because they entered the conversation expecting dissimilar terms of engagement to be followed.
As I mentioned above: I'm OK with men being idiots online about women, and about Korean women, because if people flash their ignorance around that way, I know to avoid them before I even waste time meeting them. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so if women want to be idiots online about men, and Korean men, by the same token, have fun! Same for white people, people of color, racists, politically correct sensitivitybots, randy raunchsters and the rest. I think that ignorant, sexist, racist, and just stupid people will generally eventually attract the readers and commenters they deserve, or none at all, which is OK too.
There are a few times when writing on the internet disappoints me, and maybe these are some of the things that are bothering I'm No Picasso as well...
When writers don't develop as they go, that disappoints me:
I'd hope that anyone who's writing about Korea and trying to contribute meaningfully, who notices most of their writing is getting overwhelmingly negative feedback, or "Yea your rite bro thatz totally how it iz them bichez just don unberstand you hurff durff" or ignored entirely, would take that fact as a suggestion to try a different approach: not everybody needs to do this (not everybody has the same reason for writing), but when I write, I think about the ten most thoughtful commenters who regularly visit here, and basically write for them, and that helps me feel good about how I write, and who I'm writing for.
Sometimes there's no escape on Tumblr
Part of the problem here might be the nature of Tumblr, where female bloggers have cleared up a significant discussion space - on my blog sidebar (where I check to see what my favorite writers are up to) I can be really choosy, but on Tumblr, when somebody I like responds to somebody I DON'T like, the thoughts of the person I don't like appear on my page as well-- to put things crassly, Tumblr simply makes it harder to avoid the dipshits. On blogger and wordpress, if I delete the sidebar link, I can stay clear of dipshits. On Tumblr, I not only have to unfollow the dipshit, I ALSO have to unfollow everyone who interacts with the dipshit, before I can be sure my Tumblring is dipshit-free. And there are some dipshits out there. I'm not naming names. I'm sure you've got your own list, and maybe I'm on it. That's OK, because the internet's a wonderfully big place. But the great thing about the internet being so big is that you don't have to abide dipshits unless you want to... Tumblr, a little bit less so.
(On the other hand, on the good side, the brilliant thing about tumblr is that sometimes the random stuff your friends find is illuminating, brilliant, and totally new -- something I would never have found if I didn't have tumblr friends who search for inspiration in different places than I do).
It's good that the internet takes all kinds, even dipshits, but...
It's not healthy to start blocking, deleting, or censoring other commenters. I'd never advocate that. I think that it's healthier for everybody to put their thoughts online, in the appropriate venues, and for thinking people to sort through and choose the things they read and the things they ignore. Society is richer and discussions are more robust if EVERYBODY feels safe posting comments. Even dipshits.
But for that to happen, there have to be enough spaces out there that people who are offended by republican dipshits have places to go without finding them, and that people who are offended by democrat dipshits have places to go without finding them. Ditto for every other category of disagreeable dipshit. Hopefully, I can find a place where I won't come across "Lol im gunna go out and bone three hawt K-girls this weekend" comments. And people who post comments like that should have a place where they won't get lectured for posting that way. It's not the internet's job, or my job, to make them not be dipshits, and if they ever stop being dipshits, it'll probably be because of people they know in person, or things they actually experience, and not because of strangers on the internet, frankly. But the internet should be able to help them be dipshits only around other dipshits of their particular dipshit stripe.
And there should be a place where people can rant, "man, the sexist dipshittery of Forum X is totally unacceptable" and find agreement, without dipshits answering "You just say that because you're a fat bitter white chick who can't get laid in Korea" or conversely, "You just say that because you're a tubby burger-flipping loser-back-home with b.o. and back hair who couldn't even get a sympathy fuck from geek-bangers"-- because the dipshits commenting at Forum X don't visit that other forum, and if they did, they'd learn that kind of dipshittery is unwelcome there. Or they already got banned there four months ago.
As it stands, are there enough venues that everybody can find the kinds of discussions they're looking for, and not have to be subjected to stuff they don't, while still having a handle on the meaningful, important conversations happening? Almost, but not quite, it seems.
Imagine a friday night when there are a few parties going on at different venues. I'd like to think that there's a frat party going on somewhere -- where people can rant and be noisy and get stuff off their chests. That's healthy. I'd like to think there are a couple of coffee shops, where dudes, ladies, long-termers, and non-teachers can each say their part and feel understood, too.
And I hope the community's big and robust enough that I never have to feel like I'd like to go to an open mike, but the only thing available is a frat party. I don't want somebody to spill beer on my moleskin notebook during a keg stand, nor to be pulled into a congo line when I'm looking for a live cool jazz combo. Perhaps that's what's happening to I'm No Picasso, perhaps not. I know I've felt that way numerous times -- like the guy at a party wanting to talk about books while some group is drunkenly singing "SWEET CAROLINE! WAH WAH WAH!" nearby.
Yeah Yeah Yeah. Zero. Shiny.
Most of all... self-awareness
my favorite forums and communities are the ones that pause from time to time and talk, or think, about what they're doing, and where they're going, as a community. Who stop and ask, "Hey. Are we just turning into another iteration of [forum we left, in order to join this one]?" They are a community, these groups of people who talk to each other often on the internet. Not necessarily the way ye olde homesteade was: internet communities are pretty loose and amorphous (that was one of the mistakes I made in my earlier writings about expat community: not accounting for that nebulousness), but they are communities, and communities that don't stop and think about who they are and where they're headed might zig or zag into unexpected and unfortunate places, or start losing members who are no longer finding what they're looking for there.
And if a community is losing members because they've made a choice to be this way instead of that way, and that's a calculated cost, well that's a choice the community has made as a collective. But if a community suddenly looks around and goes "hey. where the f*** did those five really interesting contributors go?" maybe a little self-reflection, and the development of a little self-awareness, IS in order, even if the end result is "well, we're going to keep going as we were.. but at least now we've talked about it." (A perfectly legitimate conclusion, and sometimes the only possible conclusion, but one that honors community members who ask these kinds of questions: better than ignoring them.)
Comments are open, here and at I'm No Picasso.
Because part of this topic is about forming communities on the internet, and freedom of expression, I'll be fielding comments like that.
Because part of this topic is about the way females are talking to females on the internet, I feel like that's mostly a conversation females need to have with females, so comments to that effect from males are generally unwelcome, unless you regularly add your voice to the female-dominated discourses... and if you do, I'll probably recognize your id name. Comments from known male commenters who DON'T fit that criteria, especially ones with a tone of accusation or righteousness in their comment, will be edited, disemvoweled, or deleted. If you'd like to explain why things are this way, because you're a logical man and these emotional women need to understand how it is, go ahead. Elsewhere.
It's up to the female spaces to keep their own spaces tidy, and enough women have been told to f*** off when calling male-dominated forums out on their sexist tone, that we don't need that going the other way.
17 comments:
I no longer feel I can write about my relationships with Korean men or my opinions about dating them. I have been burned so much before and recently that I am giving up. I am tumblr and read other tumblr bloggers and I get burned on there too for my personal blog. I'm starting to feel like many female expat bloggers can't see eye to eye, and are very passionate about their opinions, that it makes them see anyone who disagrees with them as horrible people. I don't know where the middle ground is and when I try to approach it, I get called a coward.
It's sad Rob, and I want to have these meaningful conversations, but I find myself in the corner. Thanks for writing a post to light up this situation.
People on tumblr/blogs were jumping down your throat because in an older post, you openly called them all sluts. Don't deny it--we all read the post. Later you refleted and decided to take back the words. That was nice to see. However, a lot of your musings on men/wpomen and dating in Korea is general, based off of limited personal experience, and extremely narrow-sighted. But you shouldn't worry about what people on tumblr have to say--most of them are young, cranky, or don't know any better either.
I think each community has the right to set their own tone of discussion, and wouldn't have written this post if it were about tone rather than attitudes... For whatever reason, the Korea-bloggy crowd is usually a tough crowd with pretty stiff pushbacks when they don't like things. I don't know why that is, though it's true of the internet in general, not just Korea blogs. I've suggested before that getting a thick skin is more viable than trying to get the internet to change... Joy you've been blogging for four or five years now... I'd have thought by now you'd be ready for a little harshness now and then. Many of the people commenting on the internet are not talking to a human being: they're reacting to some words they just saw. Remember that, buddy.
I mostly removed the posts because I didn't want to further soil Dating in Korea's reputation. I still stand by myself and say that I wasn't directly calling her or anyone else sluts. I was using her as a reference so people can see what it is like to date Korean men.
Will I get stronger from this who knows. Also you didn't write a comment on my blog about the issue I raised or commented on Dating in Korea's blog on the issue she raised. This tells me you don't want to get involved, yet here you are trying to get other people involved.
I don't expect you to defend me, but your words here tell me even you don't understand me, which we really disappoints. You expect me to be a tough cookie on the web since I've been blogging for 4 years now. Maybe you're disappointed because I write too lightly, unlike INP. You seem to point out INP as this all-time great writer about these issues and that us female-life-and travel bloggers are just here say. I've seen you do it before in other posts where you try to show triumphant woman bloggers and you leave out my name and other female K bloggers. I'm just saying I think you are a bit bias here.
ANd now I see not many other people have posted a response to this post. In fact so far just me. Is it that people really don't feel they can talk about this issue, too scared to start a rousing...or just plainly don't care?
Otherwise, I hope people move on from the mistakes on my blog and talk about the bigger picture.
Joy I find it a little weird that in your mind Rob's post has now become about how he's trying to get involved with your Slut posts situation. I can't speak for Rob, but as for his references to my post, I can assure my post was far from being all about you and your posts (although the charge that Korean men are with foreign women because we are less demanding and somehow have lower expectations than Korean women definitely contributed to the post -- I found that to be pretty offensive to Korean women, Korean men and the foreign women they are with, all at once).
But at the same time, I also find it odd that you now interpret the entire slut situation as *you* getting burned, when people simply responded to your post, which they felt was burning them. You, out of nowhere, decided to charge the foreign female population with the question of whether or not we were sluts, or somehow ruining our own reputations and tainting relationships with Korean men for other, more "chaste" foreign women (formerly, you). I don't know where your wires got crossed, but to me that's a pretty clear case of you "burning" a number of prominent female bloggers. The fact that you seem to think anyone responding in disagreement is out of bounds is not on, in my mind, frankly.
If you decide to get dug into harder issues with these kinds of things, public disagreement is a risk you take. It's not reasonable to claim that it begs harsh, derogatory replies, but I guess the missed the part where Grace's response to you was anything other than measured and patient. I don't recall her calling you any names, or really doing anything other than laying out her own case in her own defense after you repeatedly brought her name up. Is she not allowed to do that?
Being a part of a community doesn't mean saying whatever you want, attaching it to other people's names, and then denying their right to respond. If you want to have the conversations, have them. But they are conversations -- they are not you speaking into a vacuum, especially when you drag other people's names into it.
As for this conversation, I do feel like this is a bit off topic, and to Rob I apologize for that, but at the same time, I think it demonstrates a pretty clear support of the issue of people entering discourse with different expectations. There do seem to be two main camps here -- those who view these blogs as a form of conversation, and those who think that any form of reponse or disagreement constitutes an unwarranted attack, and that "freedom of expression" means being able to say whatever you want about whoever you want, in public, and not have anyone disagree. I guess it's pretty clear which side I fall on.
I agree, I don't want to drag that issue into here and make things go off topic. And I agree that I don't speak into a one room audience.
Anyways I hope to move on from what I wrote in the past and learn.
But since I also agree that this space is divided I find myself pushed onto the side that gets little voice or understanding. I'm obliged to just not write about this issue or any form of dating a Korean guy on my Foreigner Joy blog, because I know it'll come out wrong in the end. I have a private blog on tumblr for that, which I have found is a better space to write about dating Korean men. Therefore, I'll leave it up to you, Rob and other folks to tackle these bigger issues. Maybe respond here and there (like I did with my original response here) and see what happens.
Thanks
Thanks for your discussion especially towards the end there... the topic of Internet communities, where people flock, self-awareness... these are things that I actually think and worry about often. I also really like your approach of writing with the ten most thoughtful commenters in mind, definitely will be adopting that in the future.
I'm part of a community that plays a balancing act between providing an open forum for coffee-shop goers (our ideal clientele) but also leaving an open door for frat party kids to come in to play as well (we need a diversity of customers to keep the business end of things afloat). My vision of the community has always leaned towards the former (more so, I suspect, than my other colleagues), but I respect the practicality of the latter as well. Sometimes, smart management requires compromises.
Still though, there are consequences. It's always a tough wake-up call whenever favorite regulars fade away or disappear over time. For those fostering and growing a community, those great commenters -- who help shape the discussion and thus the community -- are simply invaluable and their absence is always felt.
I don't think we DO need to get along -- when I say "It's not healthy... " etc., what I mean isn't that every forum should smile and nod for every dumbass who doesn't understand the goals and purpose of that community ... more that every dumbass should have a place they can go and be dumbasses with other dumbasses of a similar stripe.
While I usually don't read "LOL KOREANS ARE RICETARDS" blogs myself, I don't think they should be blocked, censored, deleted, or bullied into silence by enraged netizens who can't tell a piss-take from genuine hate, which has happened, as you know. That's what I meant with that line. And I think that was made clear in my post, WC.
That said, I think it should be well possible to navigate Korea blogs without having to deal with the "LOL RICETARD!" comment-makers unless one wants to.
I don’t want to comment on the K-Boy/K-Girl issue, mainly because it’s not something that I ever give a moments thought to. What I do find strange though is this notion of a blogging community. I read loads of blogs, some Korean, some not. Some because I’m interested in the blog subject, others because I enjoy the writing. Some of them I think are fantastic, others I read peeping between my fingers at the car-crash unfolding before my eyes. Whatever, it’s all about entertainment and finding ways of idling away a bit of time on the internet, similar to reading on-line newspapers or wasting hours on messageboards. They are all just stand-alone blogs though, individual musings, not part of something bigger.
I think it’s easy to attach a bit too much importance to the ’blogging community’. Does anyone really think that what they write is influencing the outside world, or even their own little part of it? Good luck to you if you do. Genuinely. But I just can’t see it myself.
Joy, If you have something to say to me, by all means, please do so. But please, please, do not believe that you have anything to do with my reputation on the internet. If you would like to continue calling me a slut, go for it. But. don't expect me to sit by and accept it. You started the fire, then you couldn't handle the heat when I replied. There's no need to put it here on Rob's blog. If you'd like to find me, you know where I am. datinginkorea@gmail.com is a great place to reach me. Or, datinginkorea.com is also open. As you know, each post has open comments.
I get the idea of a "gendered space", like the places where boys go to talk about boy things (girls?) and girls go to talk about girl things (boys?), but it just gets really confusing when I'm not sure what Rob is referring to with the term "gendered space". It's even more confusing when the Korean blogosphere has been so divided, in terms of gender. I guess I just don't like the idea of thinking of my Tumblr blog as a gendered space, given that so many men do read it, and given that I don't think my writing is particularly "gendered" -- I don't even think the writing that is about dating is very gendered, given how many men read and comment on some of the dating blogs as well. I guess that's the trouble with not being terribly specific when you make an analysis like this.
But in general, I guess I just don't like the idea of a gendered space to begin with. I don't necessarily like the idea of foreigners in Korea being divided up by gender, and I don't think it's even very true anymore -- certainly not to the extent that it was. I would like to think that even if boys are discussing girls, and girls are discussing boys, that we could make both spaces friendly enough to both genders that they would be encompassing of both. Which is sort of my original point -- I don't think stereotyping lends itself very well to creating that kind of atmosphere.
But furthermore, I get that there are a lot of women on Tumblr and that a lot of the more popular female bloggers in Korea can be found there, but it gets a little tiresome having the men who were able to just set up camp on the other platforms analyze that fact, as though it was something women willfully created because we want to be our own club or, god forbid, because the platform is just easier for us to understand. The whole rest of the internet was not very welcoming to female foreigners in Korea, and as a result, a lot of them found a safe place to go and not be interrupted or shouted down on Tumblr. It wasn't an active choice for some, so much as something that was resorted to.
And, as it is, it gets tiresome having men discuss and analyze "the female Tumblr bloggers", while acting like it's a phenomenon that is occurring altogether separate from them. Especially when it's not an accurate analysis.
The obvious factor that's being ignored here is that men have a long history of ignoring any female voices or categorizing them as irrelevant to them simply because they don't feel the need to identify with anything other than other male voices. Women are expected to read men as neutral, and men are expected to view female writers (bloggers) as not for them. So a female voice automatically creates an implied gendered space. Which isn't really fair.
Rob may be a man but he's not an outsider to Tumblr. So to hear him discuss the community as if he's not a part of it is a little awkward. I didn't realize when he came over that he was setting up camp just to make observations.
I just tried to clarify what I meant by gendered space in a comment above to DatingInKorea... I've opened myself to being misunderstood by dropping a loaded term into a conversation without explaining it well at all. I apologize for that.
I joined tumblr with full intention to be a participant, not an observer... promise! If you look at my archives, you'll notice I'm posting here on my main blog half as much as I historically do as well, because of classes, and baby, and other stuff... I really like the conversations on tumblr, and contribute when I can, and where I feel like I have something to add. I'm having trouble curating my tumblr feed so that I catch all the stuff that really makes me think, while not getting too overwhelmed with gifs of kpop stars, which are fun and nice and cute, and my classmate is writing a research paper on them, but they're time-consuming to scroll past.
I don't like the idea of lumping "the female tumblr bloggers" together either -- it's a reductive thing to do, and I like your point that
"And, as it is, it gets tiresome having men discuss and analyze "the female Tumblr bloggers", while acting like it's a phenomenon that is occurring altogether separate from them."
the fact that many female bloggers set up on tumblr because the other blog and online forum spaces made them feel unwelcome should not be forgotten in these kinds of conversations, and the male-dominated spaces where females rarely comment ARE part of the ecosystem that led to a concentration of female voices in one place. And it's a shame it went that way.
My favorite line from your comment was this:
I would like to think that even if boys are discussing girls, and girls are discussing boys, that we could make both spaces friendly enough to both genders that they would be encompassing of both
I 100% agree with you here.
THank you and Dating In Korea for your comments. I appreciate your taking the time.
Yes and I have offered for you to email me and have a talk. I guess we just don't feel like it, eh. LIke I said in another comment, I don't want this to be about me, and I am glad people are discussing the main issue above. I was only putting in my two cents that writing about dating Korean men is a tricky business out here. Thanks and I admire your honest comment above in response to this post of Rob's.
This is a post/issue where I have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees, so I'm just going to comment on two trees that stood out:
1. I don't know if you've noticed this in your writing in the above, Rob, but your "I'm sorry if..." statements kind of reek of the classic "non-apology." (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology ) I'm not going to accuse you of non-apologizing, because you're generally chill and also you've issued REAL apologies, so I think this is a writing style thing and not a weasel thing. More like: "Hey, this it how it sounds, and I know you don't mean it like that, so just be mindful of how you write stuff like this next time."
2. When I say "I'm OK with gendered spaces existing" my meaning was analogous to saying "I'm OK with locker rooms existing, so that locker room talk stays in the locker room"
See, to me that it isn't a "gendered" space. These are spaces that are divided by cognitive effort, self-insight (or lack thereof), tolerance...but not by gender. Of course, I do avoid like 99% of the Korean blog community so it may be that the douchebag arenas are highly populated by men while the reasonable arenas are highly populated by women, thus making it highly gendered...but I still wouldn't see the *inherent, important* divide being something gender-based. If that makes sense.
thanks for your comment, Katherine.
from the definition of "non-apology" you linked, a non-apology is someone...
"saying that he or she is sorry not for a behavior, statement or misdeed, but rather is sorry only because a person who has been aggrieved is requesting the apology, expressing a grievance, or is threatening some form of retribution or retaliation"
I'm not just sorry that someone got upset about something I said. I'm also sorry that I did such an ass-poor job of explaining myself that people (rightfully) got upset. That's all on me. I explained my thoughts so badly that people thought I was encouraging women to " stay in their place" which is pretty much a polar opposite of how I'd like things to be.
I'm glad people who were upset about what I said, let me know it, and clued me into how awfully I was coming across, so that I had an opportunity to clarify. I hope my attempts to clarify didn't come across as trying to explain things away or brush aside or invalidate anyone.
If apologies followed by explanations come across as non-apologies, I don't know what to do about that, because I kind of want to set the record straight on what I was trying to say about the way people form discourse communities online, and I hope that hasn't detracted from the fact... yeah. I stuck my foot in it this time, and I'm sorry. I'll try to do better next time. I took a pretty big swing, and had a pretty spectacular miss.
secondly, yeah, it's clear the term "gendered space" needs to be retired. I'm OK with that. It's done a terrible job of helping me say that I have a ton of respect and admiration for the way that a group of writers... who tended to be female... created a discourse arena that hadn't existed before, where things could be, and were, discussed in a different way than they had been elsewhere on the Korea-related blogs and forums -- the community/discourse building effort outlined here: http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2012/05/role-reversal-i-never-wanted-to-see.html
I like your phrase "douchebag arenas." it doesn't sound as academic as "gendered spaces," but it works a lot better.
I'm glad people who were upset about what I said, let me know it, and clued me into how awfully I was coming across, so that I had an opportunity to clarify. I hope my attempts to clarify didn't come across as trying to explain things away or brush aside or invalidate anyone.
Oh, you didn't. You're so consistently anti-douche that's why I even made a note of it (that is, if you were an asshole, I wouldn't even have commented...though I also wouldn't even be reading, I suppose, except INP linked here.) I definitely wasn't trying to tiptoe around a "THAT'S NOT AN APOLOGY YOU STUPID MAN" sentiment but legitimately (hopefully helpfully?) making an observation about style.
And here's where I gracefully duck out because the rest of this discussion is beyond my ken, and I agree with Wittgenstein-taken-out-of-context: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Rob, I'm not trying to argue but.... I am having a really hard time reconciling this comment with A LOT of your original post. I guess what I read in your original post was basically that people who want to engage in "locker room talk", as we are now calling it, should have the right to do so, and should have uninterrupted spaces to go where they can do so and not be bothered by people who disagree with it. You also seem to have implied that me (or anyone -- but in this case, me) pointing out the issues I have with some of the things going on on Tumblr was akin to me attending a frat party and expecting a book club. I'm a little confused about how stereotyping and generalizing is on par with having a frat party, which is something that just may not be to my personal taste.
In other words, I was getting a pretty clear indication of, "If you don't like it, you don't have to read it." Which is fine, if that's your opinion. But it's in pretty stark contrast with what you're now saying in this comment. Which is that you wish sexism against foreign and Korean women was not as common as it is. So... now, I guess the stereotyping is not something that's up to your own personal opinion, but is something that shouldn't be happening?
I am also still confused about some of your terms. Could you expand a little more about what is a place where you can choose to avert your eyes, or, better yet, what is a space where you *can't* choose to avert your eyes? Because I have a lot more to say about that idea in particular....
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