- I agree Naomi Wu is a force for good
- Elon Musk sucks
- This article does not actually establish any meaningful blame for Elon Musk in Naomi Wu’s plight.
Sorry, yes Elon Musk is the reason Twitter is shitting itself to death, but that doesn’t make Elon the main person responsible for Naomi’s problems. It’s probably not even top 10. It’s weird to call him out in this.
If you can’t understand the article: musk is blamed for making twitter shit and abandoned. Wu was on twitter, and she said it was a platform where she could be seen and supported, and this audience was protecting her, because a famous person would not disappear without it making noise.
It is an indirect responsibility, but a big one nonetheless.
Wu’s activity on Twitter declined well before Musk took over ownership.
It’s Lemmy, the sentence “and why I blame Elon Musk” is basically the unspoken rule of everything.
Now don’t get me wrong, he’s a POS businessman just trying to manipulate the market into a profit for himself, but if there’s no reasonable way to blame him for something and it seems like you’re just going “thanks Obama!” It’s getting old.
Skepchick.org is Lemmy now?
Here is something really bad going on with this person who has their literal freedom threatened, but let me twist this into why this is Elons fault.
IDGAF about Elon or anything he touches, but the mental gymnastics in this are worthy of a Olympic gold medal
The argument is that by making Twitter a far right cesspool, Musk had made it more difficult for non-western dissidents to reach an international audience. Certainly arguable but not entirely wrong.
Yeah, with that headline I am not very inclined to read this.
Shame, maybe you should because while the argument is not causally linked, it’s certainly something to suggest in the context of this. Especially in light of, as said in the video, the Musk-Drones are not exactly people who will provide a platform to someone like Wu. And losing Twitter as a platform is huge to her, and of course in turn this removes the audience that might have been protecting her.
Is it a bit of a stretch? Sure.
Is it entirely unpossible? Not at all, it actually sounds fairly reasonable even if it might just as well not be.Honestly, if in this day and age you build your personal brand and business on a free to use commercial platform, you should calculate in the inherent risk that this will backfire on you. After all the incidents with different platforms causing issues for creators/influencers, I am not sure that is still worth the risk.
Oh definitely, and it’s what I keep telling youtube personalities, too. Have an exit plan or a Plan B, you’re entirely reliant on Google’s auto-banning not getting too many bogus reports about you. Or if you need Twitter, on Musk and his Minion’s political stance not targetting you specifically (which in Wu’s case they do, of course).
Elon sucks, but its not his fault that China disappears dissidents
Yeah, the first 2/3rds of the article covering Naomi Wu was worth a read, but that last 1/3rd… I get her argument, but she should have left that out to focus just on Naomi.
This is something that Naomi had even talked about previously, how Western media only cared about the experience of people living in China when it could suit their narrative, and didn’t want anything to do with them when it didn’t.
The theory is that you can get away with a bit more in China if you have a big western audience. She had a fairly big one and that was protecting her, but the audience is fickle (made more fickle by Musk ruining Twitter) and once her audience declined, she lost that protection.
I guess the real lesson is that if you’re Chinese and develop a Western audience, us that to escape China. Don’t stay behind in China because your big audience is painting a target on your back, and eventually the Chinese authorities are going to ruin your life.
As an aside, did anybody else find her vibe really offputting? I liked her content, but her enormous fake boobs and skimpy outfits were a distraction from otherwise interesting content. If I found a video of hers interesting, it made me not want to share that with anybody because they’d think I was watching it because of her body. I’m all for women’s empowerment, if someone wants to look and feel sexy that’s great. But, with her stuff, it was so extreme that it felt like exploitation. Maybe she was exploiting herself, but it still felt icky.
She has a video explaining how she became the way she is that address that. Iirc she was raised as a boy by her parents which was one of the major contributing factors.
That might explain the ridiculous boobs, but not why she still chooses to wear incredibly skimpy outfits in her videos.
Because it’s her body and she can do whatever she wants with it.
Yes and?
Being able isn’t a reason to actually do something.
A reason would be “Because I feel like it”HELLO SIR RANDOM INTERNET USER SIR
I AM HERE TO GIVE YOU MY DAILY CLOTHING JUSTIFICATION REPORT
AS WE ALL KNOW WE ALL HAVE TO JUSTIFY OUR CLOTHING CHOICES TO YOU SIR
Reasons and justifications are different, and largely unrelated.
Nobody was talking about justifying anything, just the reason.
I never actually asked for a reason. I only pointed out that ability isn’t a reason.
You might find more productive meaningful exchanges, when you engage with actual people rather than your own straw men.
But maybe meaningful dialogue isn’t important to you. In which case I have nothing more to say.
“I didn’t say that I needed a reason I just complained that ability isn’t a reason so basically I said fuck all”
You just seem to be mad that people are taking your idiotic contrarianism to it’s logical conclusion.
You might find more productive meaningful exchanges, when you stand by what you’re saying instead of crying.
“because I feel like it” is a good enough reason to give a stranger.
Yes? I don’t think I understand what you’re point is.
“Because I feel like it.”
So in other words, because she wants to? As in, “because it’s her body and she can do whatever she wants with it”?
That statements literally means [she want’s to] [because she can].
As in, the ability is driving the desire.But that’s not how it works. We’re able to do lots of things we don’t want to.
The desire might not come from anything identifiable. The existence of desire is it’s self the reason. The ability isn’t the reason.Does that make sense? It’s a nuanced difference for sure. But an important one logically.
It actually does. It’s a forty minute video and it was worth it for me, who had never heard of her and doesn’t care about tech at all (sorry lemmy).
Tl;dw: imagine a woman talking about how Freddy mercury’s chest hair makes her uncomfortable because she thinks he’s peacocking for her. That’s you. It’s initially very understandable- you saw something with one known cultural marker and assumed it tracked, I did too. It’s just not the same cultural marker (just like a Chinese person without much international contact sixty years ago would probably have a very different assumption when looking at a picture of a woman in a western wedding dress).
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I watched the video, it’s unconvincing. I don’t think she’s lying per se, just that her justification for doing all her videos wearing skimpy clothing is pretty thin. She says she’s doing it because she’s a “dee”, but in the videos she shows, she’s the only one who looks remotely like that. She shows herself walking her dog in fairly normal clothing, but claims she can’t do that on her videos. She thinks that unless she’s wearing absolutely skimpy clothing that someone’s going to mistake her for a boy. Sure…
For me, the imagery of hyper masculine leather daddies was a eureka moment (what a fucking sentence). I don’t think they’re doing it to be ‘marketable’ to women or men (on an immediately, trying to attract someone that day basis), it seems much more obviously just a style thing.
Plus, she’s right that she’d make more money with smaller breasts- a C-cup on her frame would probably appeal to more men, while looking natural enough that people like you might be interested in sharing her videos with others. I can’t imagine that’s new information for her (YouTube comments sections are not the most tactful places), so she probably would have tailored her look to appeal to more men over time, if that was her goal.
She thinks that unless she’s wearing absolutely skimpy clothing that someone’s going to mistake her for a boy.
I don’t think that’s likely at all, but I do believe her brain whispers that to her until she stops treating herself well. Mainly because truth is stranger than fiction- a 160 cm tall person (even in the most southern part of china, men’s average height is 168-170 cm) who has very long hair, shallowly set eyes, narrow shoulders, a high pitched voice and zero facial hair is not plausibly going to be mistaken for a man on a regular basis. That would be such a 4 year old lie to make up. Maybe she’s betting on that and it’s a ruse, but that’s a risky move if anyone who knows anything about Thai queer culture can out your lie.
the imagery of hyper masculine leather daddies
The point is, while they might dress up like that when going to a club, or while getting intimate with partners, they don’t tend to do that at their day jobs. And, if they did and their day job was presenting YouTube science / maker videos, I wouldn’t want to share their videos either.
She’s obviously free to do whatever she wants. Well… let me rephrase that. This article is about how she’s in China and has disappeared, so she’s obviously not free to do whatever she wants. But, as long as she’s within the margins of what’s acceptable on YouTube, she’s allowed to dress how she wants in her videos. Having said that, apparently she’s had videos demonetized for sexual content before. My point is just that as a potential consumer of her videos, I’d be more likely to watch and share them if what she wore wouldn’t result in HR violations in even the most freewheeling of tech startups.
It really doesn’t matter what her reasons for doing it are. Maybe it’s because she’s incredibly insecure about being seen as a boy. Maybe it’s because she’s a lesbian and part of a subculture that emphasizes a ridiculous take on the feminine form. Maybe she’s doing it because it attracts horny male viewers. It’s probably a mix of all those things, even if she doesn’t admit it. I wouldn’t want her kicked off YouTube, and don’t even think it’s reasonable to demonetize her content. But, personally, I’ll be watching and sharing other channels.
You definitely don’t have to watch her! I liked that video a lot, but don’t care about tech, so I won’t watch her channel either.
It just feels disrespectful to contradict someone we don’t know about the reason she acts the way she does, especially because she gives a logical chain for her beliefs.
I don’t know if it’s a healthy way to deal with her trauma, but as she said, she’s just glitchy, as are we all. I can’t look down while going down stairs that I can see through, because my brain tells me they’re less safe than opaque stairs. Is that real? No. Does my understanding that it’s not real make my heart rate slower or my palms less sweaty? No, it’s a glitch. Mine’s more common and probably easier to empathize with, but if I only hung out with rock climbers, they might not understand at all. If they said I was playing a damsel for male attention, it would be infuriating.
I don’t know if it’s in that video or a separate video, but she did talk about it in a specific video, and the short of it is, she was raised as a boy by her family and it messed her up for many years. Like, to the point where the trans community has adopted her to some degree for having had a similar experience to their experiences with gender dysphoria and other related psychological issues. So her dressing and looking like that is in part her embracing her feminity and the fact that she’s a woman. Kinda like that stereotype of the gay guy who comes out of the closet and starts acting “fruity” or whatever the term is. Or the trans woman who has a pigtails and overalls phase like having the childhood they never got to experience the first time.
She does, in fact, explain it in the video. Worth the watch.
She really doesn’t. She claims that because she’s a “dee” she has to look like that, but in her videos with other “dees”, she’s the only one who looks remotely like that.
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No, because I’m not a 12 year old boy who freaks out every time he sees a set of tits. She can dress however she wants, it has nothing to do with the quality of her content.
She released a video at some point explaining WHY she looked and dressed that way. It was an interesting PoV, and totally unrelated to her hobby as maker and influencer.
I guess the real lesson is that if you’re Chinese and develop a Western audience, us that to escape China. Don’t stay behind in China because your big audience is painting a target on your back, and eventually the Chinese authorities are going to ruin your life.
She couldn’t, her SO was Uighur and couldn’t get permission to leave.
As an aside, did anybody else find her vibe really offputting? I liked her content, but her enormous fake boobs and skimpy outfits were a distraction from otherwise interesting content.
indeed. I’ve never heard of her and seeing this I wanted to see what it’s all about - one look at her youtube (not even clicking on the video, the thumbnail and the short hover clip was enough) and I decided nope, don’t really care.
I read a Twitter post of hers a few years ago where she was extremely apologetic towards China, saying that Americans listened to a lot of propaganda and so on. Now I’m starting to wonder if it was really her who made that twitter post.
I wouldn’t doubt it. How many Americans apologize for our system despite the long history of continuing genocide. Overthrowing governments, occupying countries, or just funding international terrorism. How about British colonizers?
I’d still say the US is better, but only just. Naomi has seen a lot of improvement with society there in her life. I don’t have the video where she went into detail handy. Or know if it is even still up. But it’s worth a watch if you haven’t seen it. Are things great there? No. But they are much better for many of them despite their oppressive government.
Unfortunately Naomi’s S.O. is uyghur. And despite all the progress minorities like her have seen in China, uyghurs haven’t. And even her mild criticism of the government over it. Brought their ire.
Nah that sounds like her
I’ve been aware of her for a long time, even before she started looking like a freak and she was always a pro-China shitheap who’d shit on the west.
Good riddance frankly. Let her enjoy her better country.
Wow, what a disgusting asshole you are. Though, what do you expect from an Australian.
You support authoritarians, I don’t support you. It’s that simple. She made her choice years ago, now she can live with the consequences.
I never said I support China, but I also don’t blame a lesbian dating a minority woman from a group who is actively being ethnically cleansed by the Chinese government for doing what she has to do to survive. She’s been blackbagged multiple times over the years and the government watches what she says very closely. And I also don’t blame her for opposing Westerners who apparently often just tried to use her as a tool to support whatever narrative they were trying to spin at the time and then criticize her for bringing up issues she faced that didn’t support their narrative.
That would be like me saying that you made your choice when you decided to live in a country founded by a British prison colony, and now you can live with the consequences. Which is where I was sarcastically going originally, but I think the comparison would’ve been lost on you.
Not you you, you as in her (or anyone else who would). And I’ve known of her from when her works first popped up on HackADay, before China was clamping down on Uyghurs, before she went into the extreme body modding, etc. I’ve disliked her longer than the majority of you known she even existed.
But hey make it racist, keep talking about westerners and what not. Show your real colours.
I made it racist because you bodyshamed her, called her a freak, and then said she deserves to be silenced, kidnapped, possibly killed along with her girlfriend, and whatever other horrible things the Chinese government can come up with. All because you don’t like her. I fail to see the difference between racism and what you said. Which was my point in going that route.
I’m a trans woman in the US. My life expectancy is 30 years due to suicide rates and how commonly we end up murdered. My colors are supporting minorities against oppression, regardless of whether or not I like them or agree with them.
You fail to see a difference between hating someone for being born vs hating someone for supporting genocidal regimes?
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I really hope we’ll see her again some time.
Authoritarian due to intrinsic insecurities always cut heads that rise a little bit above
Fuck, loved watching her content and back when Kaidi first showed up I was hoping they could just get the fuck out.
Turns out, she can’t leave anyways. Damn :'(
We now understand the inherent value of a social media platform. We have yet to figure out how to build a space that doesn’t hand control over to a private entity that only has profit in mind.
Sorry, we can’t yet place the blame solely on the billionaires who own the platforms. We have to create safe heavens away from moneyed interests than protect and maintain them.
It’s interesting to think that if Wu had more love in the West that the Chinese authorities would have been more slow to crackdown on her…
I think we all remember back in 2017 or so when the Hong Kong protests were at the forefront of everyone’s mind and, still, the crackdown continued, and the resistance was crushed.
And what has China’s response to the popularity of the Ukraine war been? To question its generally positive relations with Russia? No, not at all. China shores up its own front against Taiwan and its trade with Russia is growing exponentially. BRICS gets stronger.
China will not bow to popular Western opinion no matter what. Blaming Musk for this is pretty asinine.
I read the whole thing and then saw that she’s continuing to prop up the same platform and same platform model she blames. Make it make sense.
Iirc MakerMuse mentioned her disappearance in a video quite a while ago. I don’t understand the article well, has she resurfaced silenced or is she still missing?
Wasn’t a great fan of Naomi’s outfits but she made great videos. With the Amber B1 robot arm she was the only one calling out the kickstarter company was a bit sketchy and not just blind advertising it.
The post is from August, last year. I was confused as well.
