The Media's Misogyny Narrative about Star Wars Fans Is Fake
Stars Wars actress Kelly Marie Tran deleted her instagram content and immediately the narrative is that she did this due to harassment. However we don't really know what happened or why she deleted her account. Regardless the media has pushed the story to the extreme, stating definitively that Star Wars fans are misogynist trolls who want to make Star wars "white and male again"But the truth is that women are not harassed on the internet more than men. But if that's what the research shows why is the narrative inverted?Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Last week we saw the story about Kelly Marie Tran, the actress who played Rose Tico in Star Wars The Last Jedi, and how she deleted her Instagram account.
Most stories are saying that she did this due to online harassment.
That might not be true.
We actually don't know for sure, and I'll go over that.
But I also want to talk about the cycle of fake news.
How a story will start as a rumor, become speculation, and then someone will use that speculation to claim that people have reported this may be the case, and from there, something that was entirely speculative or rumor becomes fact.
In the news media.
There are a lot of myths that persist when it comes to the culture war.
The gender wage gap is one of them.
It's completely misunderstood, and it seems like no matter how many times people will debunk the gender wage myth, it persists.
There's another myth, that women are harassed online more than men.
That's also not true.
There is research to suggest that men are harassed online more than women.
And if that's the case, why is it that everyone keeps playing it up like women are the overwhelming majority of victims of online harassment?
And if men are being harassed more than women, why aren't they talking about it?
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One of the first articles we saw used a non-sequitur.
This from Vox.
Star Wars fans harassed Kelly Marie Tran for months.
She just deleted her Instagram posts.
Tran is one of the first lead actors of color in the Star Wars franchise.
Now this headline doesn't follow through.
We understand she was harassed.
What does that have to do with her deleting her Instagram post definitively?
Will Vox provide evidence that somehow these concepts are related?
Many people will probably just see this and assume she deleted her Instagram because of harassment.
But in reality, this first sentence has literally nothing to do with the actual headline, with the actual story here.
In the story they say, although Tran's Instagram account remains, all of her old posts have now been deleted, and a Twitter account called Star Wars Facts is saying that it's because of the months of harassment she has experienced at the hands of Star Wars fans.
Okay, so maybe there is something that suggests she might have actually been harassed.
Except this is just an unverified Star Wars presumably fan Twitter account that's making this claim.
This post is from June 4th, and there is still no proof or statement from Kelly Marie Tran as to why she deleted her posts.
Which is probably why Vox took the light approach and did not definitively make a statement.
They just, well, used a title that would lead people to assume something is true.
Because there's no proof.
This then evolves into another headline.
The Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran wipes Instagram amid reports of harassment.
You see what they're doing here?
Yes, there have been reports of harassment.
No, there are no definitive facts.
No, there is no definitive proof.
And no, there is no statement from Kelly Marie Tran herself as to why she deleted her posts.
But because there have been reports of this, time has now stepped up the fake news game.
The story is basically the same as the Vox story.
That Kelly Marie Tran wiped her Instagram.
but they add amid reports of extensive harassment over her role in the Star Wars franchise.
But once again, there's still no proof that she was being harassed on Instagram,
and still no statement from the actress.
The only thing we can see on our Instagram is it says, afraid but doing it anyway, and we can't speculate as to
what she means by that.
In fact, there may be truth to the contrary, that she was not being harassed on Instagram.
Well, I will say, I think probably a lot of people were commenting on her Instagram
saying mean things because that happens on the internet, especially if you're very famous.
But we can go back in time and look at a story from BuzzFeed and check out what people were actually saying on her Instagram account.
In a story called, We Must Protect Kelly Marie Tran and Her Instagram Account at All Costs, in the story it says, The press campaign for the film also coincided with her joining social media.
Both of these things combined have created a true blessing of an Instagram account.
Right away seeing that, I have to wonder, is it possible she only created the Instagram account because of contractual obligations with Star Wars?
Because as the story points out, around the same time as the press campaign, she joined Instagram.
But that's just speculation.
So, you shouldn't take this as fact, and you shouldn't run with it as fact, and that should be the end of it, right?
The story actually talks about her fears about social media.
In a post, she talks about how she avoided social media for a long time because she was afraid.
She was terrified of being picked apart, of being scrutinized, of being seen.
It took a year of self-work and some really amazing support of friends to make her realize that it's none of her business if people like her or not.
When you actually look at what BuzzFeed posted, you can see that the comments were overwhelmingly positive.
These are the default comments, the comments that appear on the top.
See where it says load more comments?
That means when you go to her Instagram, this is what you see.
I love you guys.
The truest tea.
I'm so happy you are on Instagram now.
I can't wait to see Rose in the movie.
In another post, I love you so much.
You need to be protected by Daisy.
So lovely.
God bless.
And I can go on.
This is a BuzzFeed story from December where people are saying, you rock.
This would be us.
This would be me.
You're so adorable and relatable.
There's even a post where she talks about how she doesn't understand the rules of Instagram and once again expresses her reluctance to even be on the platform.
So there's the context.
When we look at BuzzFeed, we can see that She got a ton of positive comments, she talked about how she didn't even want to be on social media, and how she felt that what people thought of her was none of her business.
It would seem like she was doing okay.
But there's still more, because Polygon, which is far left, didn't even make the definitive statement either.
Star Wars' toxic fanbase may have driven the Last Jedi actress off of Instagram.
They say it is possible that Tran deleted Instagram because she simply didn't want to be on the platform anymore.
Tran has repeatedly said that she doesn't like using social media, including Instagram, adding that she doesn't like to be in the public eye, scrutinized, and judged.
Many of these statements were posted on Tran's Instagram account.
Those Instagram posts are now deleted, making them impossible to embed, but tweets with the screenshots illustrate some of trans fears over being such a publicly accessible figure on Instagram.
Polygon has reached out to trans representatives for comment on the situation.
Polygon looked at comments on the official Star Wars account, not Rose's account, and this is what they saw.
Most unnecessary character in the movie.
At least we don't have to see her anymore.
Yeah, she really was pointless character to add to the Star Wars movies.
Almost as worthless to the story as Phasma.
Worse than Jar Jar.
Worst film.
That's not harassment.
That's just them saying they didn't like the character or the movie.
So we don't necessarily know what kind of comments she was receiving outside the ones that were really, really nice.
It is possible that she was getting harassment, and even a small amount of harassment may have driven her off the platform.
But the main point I'm trying to drive at here is how the evolution of fake news and the myth of misogyny online has persisted to a point where the stories have gone absolutely insane.
From USA Today, Mark Hamill supports Kelly Marie Tran against racist fans on Twitter.
From Esquire, Star Wars fans fundamentally misunderstand Star Wars.
The franchise was founded on progressive values, No, it doesn't.
This is fake news, and this is where we are today.
One week later, the story has officially become that white, angry, misogynistic males don't understand Star Wars, celebrities have to speak out against this, when nothing actually happened.
Or I should say, we don't even know what happened!
How has the narrative shifted to the point where all of these outlets are saying, this is what happened, when even Polygon has entertained the idea it has nothing to do with harassment?
Esquire says, following a barrage of extremely sexist, racist, and downright disgusting discourse unleashed across all major social media platforms, the trash compactor of BS that swallowed up Kelly Marie Tran is yet another example of the rising current of hatred and discrimination in our culture.
And a lightsaber-bright indicator that many Star Wars fans simply no longer understand Star Wars.
The director of the film even insinuated that there were man babies involved.
What we talk about when we talk about man babies.
And this seems to be the cycle in the culture war.
Many people who don't follow the news, who still work in media for some reason, and many people who work in media who are just ideologically driven, don't fact-check and then write stories making definitive statements based off of rumors.
So let's go all the way back to the beginning and talk about exactly what happens.
Kelly Marie Tran deleted all of the posts on her Instagram account.
We don't know why.
Then, a story comes out and says, maybe this has something to do with harassment.
Then another story comes out saying, reports of harassment, and Kelly Marie Tran deletes her Instagram.
Then a bunch of celebrities step up and say, it's not cool, you should stop harassing her, and I can't believe this is how bad it's gotten.
We then see stories talking about celebrities defending her from racist abuse, and finally, Esquire, where it definitively states that a barrage of racism and sexism proves that the Star Wars franchise fans are terrible, discriminatory people.
So here we have two issues, the myth of online misogyny and the cycle of fake news.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes stories are true, journalism isn't always bad, and there is online misogyny.
But when I say the myth of online misogyny, I'm talking specifically about this idea that women are harassed more than men, when it's just not the case.
And I'm not gonna get too in-depth into this story because I've already covered this extensively, but Pew Internet Research has done a study to figure out what is going on behind online harassment.
So first, according to Pew, only 8% of those who receive online harassment say it is because of their gender.
And, according to Pew, men receive the majority of online harassment.
Out of all of these, women do receive more sexual harassment and stalking, by a few points.
But, across the board, men receive the overwhelming majority.
44% of men receive harassment online, but only 37% of women.
Now, I think it's fair to say that we can actually try and quantify which of these issues is worse.
Sexual harassment, in my opinion, is substantially worse.
Stalking is substantially worse.
However, across the board, men do receive more harassment, more threats of physical violence, and they are sexually harassed, and they are stalked.
So if it is true that men receive way more harassment than women, why is the narrative inverted?
There's two reasons I think this is the case.
For one, a lot of guys probably don't really care.
They get harassed online so much that they probably just ignore it.
The other reason is that when men do complain about some of these issues, they're just insulted or, like Rian Johnson said, they're man babies.
In which case, a lot of guys probably aren't going to speak up about the problem of online harassment targeting men.
But there is data to back up my claims.
From the research, nearly three quarters of young men feel offensive content online is taken too seriously.
It says that 64% of men believe offensive content is taken too seriously, but 50% of women believe that offensive content is too often excused.
So I think now we can see the root of why this myth persists.
Overwhelmingly, men just don't care.
They do receive more harassment, but don't feel like it should be taken seriously and probably don't talk about it.
Women, however, think it is much more serious, so they probably talk about it a lot more.
In which case, the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
But I don't want to discount the other issue of people like Rian Johnson calling men who do take issue with certain things, man babies.
Because if our culture says any man that speaks up about being harassed or targeted or anything like this is a man baby and should be ridiculed, then don't expect men to speak up about the problem.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
I just want to say, it is entirely possible that Kelly Marie Tran left Instagram because she was being harassed, for sure.
But there's no evidence to suggest this, and these stories that are coming out making these definitive claims are over-the-top fake news.
People need to be more reasonable about this.
But it's not surprising, and I guess I can't expect people to be reasonable, so I'm just left sitting here wondering how the hell it's gotten so bad that the rumor mill just churns out these myths that negatively impact our culture.
Comment below and we'll keep the conversation going.
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