Call-Out Culture Isn’t Toxic. You are. – Riley H – Medium
Every month or so, an article comes out screeching about how terrible, horrible, no good very bad “call-out culture” is. Before I get into that, I want to start from the beginning.
Why Do Call-Outs Exist?
The idea of “calling out”, first and foremost, came from Black femmes on social media who were being violently harassed every single day. Rape threats. Death threats. Ban evasion. I watched as the idea of “calling out” developed around 2011–2012 on Tumblr, a site that had no real means to block someone or prevent them from harassing you in any way they saw fit.
Why did we use call-outs back then? Because the only way to stop people from abusing us daily was to scream at them until they stopped.
That was the original goal of a call-out. To make someone stop harassing you.
So How Did Call-Outs Become What They Are Now?
Those same constantly harassed Black femmes realized that people were learning when they did those call-outs. There’s no better learning experience than to watch it directly. Their hypervisibility allowed multiple people to watch, in detail, from beginning to end, how something that seemed okay to white sensibilities quickly devolved into racism. People actually began to learn about why Black femmes appear to “jump the gun”, that is, call something racist before they themselves can see the racism, because they could view the progression through the process of a call-out.
The hypervisibility of Black femmes allows what they do to be seen and also not be seen. What the people viewing Black femme call-outs saw was what they eventually began to turn call-outs into. They saw these “Sassy Black Girls” doing some proverbial neck-rolling and finger-snapping at people online and they wanted to be that too.
They didn’t and still don’t realize that for Black femmes, call-outs may be the only way to stop a violent motherfucker from sending you threats from multiple accounts. Particularly on these social media platforms that never listen to our complaints, even when we have screencapped evidence of threats.
Then How Can You Say It Isn’t Toxic When People Are Misusing It?
People misuse everything. Again, the hypervisibility of Black femmes allow what they do to be seen while also being unseen. Black femmes doing call-outs are either mean bitches or Sassy Sassmasters. There is no consideration or our pain, aggravation, or PTSD from the perpetual abuse we face online. The multiple attempts at more calmly speaking on things that happened before the call-out? All ignored. Anything that may give us humanity is ignored for the sake of the spectacle.
Calling out was originally our last resort…and for fun, performance and ally cookies, it’s been appropriated and now we’re the ones suffering from the results of your multiple articles on Why Call-Out Culture Is Totally Evil.
Calling out wasn’t and isn’t toxic. It was all Black femmes had for protection in multiple online worlds that didn’t care about protecting us. What’s toxic is the people who stole. The people using it now. The people who don’t bother to connect it to its context and history, its creation. The people who never bothered to understand why it existed in the first place.
Is this by crackerhell riley???????? The OG scammer and callout ringmaster???????? LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOO
The same Riley who got their friend to say Asians are just white people with slanted eyes? The same Riley who crowdfunded for a video game they had no damn intention of creating? The same Riley who would be the first to sic their lil crew onto minors for disagreeing with them on shit? That Riley????????
“ Black desi. They/them. Pro software engineer and game developer. Creator of #TransLawHelp. Pay me: http://cash.me/$ril-yatdtwps
ITS THAT RILEY LMFAO
Hooooooooooooooooly shit.
hey riley have you paid back all that money you stole from teenagers who wanted diverse video games yet
“callout culture can’t be toxic because of the group memberships of the people who originally invented it!”
MAN DO I HAVE SOME NEWS FOR YOUI watched as the idea of “calling out” developed around 2011–2012 on Tumblr
https://quinnae.com/2014/01/03/words-words-words-on-toxicity-and-abuse-in-online-activism/
http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
https://books.google.com/books?id=1wdCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA80
That’s quite a narrow view of callout culture. The name “callout culture” may have originated on tumblr or not, but the concept of toxicity in activism goes back for centuries.
The focus on “black femmes“ is peak identity politics. It makes it look like the right people do callouts the right, non-toxic way, and all other people do it the wrong, toxic way. There is no real explanation of what makes callouts good or productive, and what makes them toxic and counterproductive, beyond identity categories. Is there a way to do callouts properly beyond being a “black femme”? Is there ever the possibility of black femmes participating in toxic discourse?
The truth is that what you reap, you shall sow.
*facepalm*
I watched as the idea of “calling out” developed around 2011–2012 on Tumblr
Riley you dun watch fucking nothing, you actively participated and formed that shit since your livejournal days what the fuck