Has the internet been getting nastier, or do we just notice it more now? The latter, says Kameron Hurley:
Just because internet harassment shows up on CNN doesn’t mean it’s new. It just means it’s more visible.
And yes, we’re the ones who made it visible, after enduring a lot of bullshit.
After dealing quietly with abuse since the beginning of the internet, many folks, most of them women, decided to air the reality of the abuse they received, and though it took nearly a decade, men and mainstream media outlets finally started believing it was something that existed, and started signal boosting. Suddenly we were seeing posts that compiled all the horrible comments they got, the ones we deleted quietly back in the day. Not a day goes by now, it seems, when someone on Twitter isn’t retweeting some horrible thing some troll said to them.
Also a neat little anti-hate-mail trick:
I also reduced the number of email threats I got really easily, by simply changing my email address to a “publicity@” address instead of a “Kameron@” address. When someone sends you something hateful, they want to KNOW you’re getting it. They don’t want to think it’s being vetted by some publicist.