Rachel Gambling is a specialist in health promotion for Brook Southend. In her spare time she writes poetry and creates content for her website @girlblogzine that is dedicated to Oproer Grrrl -Art and Culture. Here she outlines a brief history of the rise of online misogynia from her own perspective.
In 2010, Hunter Moore became notorious on MySpace for his adult website Isanyoneup. The site organized thousands of explicit photos of women, often next to links to their Myspace or Facebook profiles. Many of these images were uploaded by ex-partners in an action that is now generally recognized as “revenge porn”, the intentional sharing of intimate images without permission. Some victims were even teenage girls. Others had hacked their private photos from E -mail accounts. This content unfortunately flourished. In the end, Vigilante Hacker Group Anonymous – and later sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
As the 2010 progressed, open misogynia, such as Moore’s that of Moore, began to make a new challenge: a wave of online feminism. This movement found a home on the tumblr microblog platform, where people discovered feminist theory, intersectionality and queer identities.
As a teenager I flourished on Tumblr. I could discuss my emerging sexuality anonymously and without shame. I learned about patriarchate, female hatred and sexual objectification. For the first time I realized that the unwanted sexual comments that I received from male colleagues were unacceptable.
Building on this growing conversation, feminist makers started reaching a wider audience. One of the most prominent voices was Anita Sarkeesian, who launched her YouTube channel Feminist frequency and the video series Tropen versus women in video games. She analyzed sexist stories in gaming and how they fed a negative attitude towards women.
The return was immediately and cruel. The gaming community dominated by men launched a targeted intimidation campaign that is later known as Gamergate, including death threats, threats of sexual violence, hacking and doxxing. Sarkeesian was even sent drawings that were rapidly being raped by video samples.
Gamgate soon became a collection point for those who called themselves anti-SJW (anti-social Justice Warrior) and the Alt-Right. These groups presented themselves as defenders of freedom of expression while promoting a reactionary agenda.
I remember this explosion on YouTube during my adolescence. Because I have often viewed feminist content, the algorithm of the Anti-SJW, anti-feminist and alt-right videos platform began to recommend that similar keywords used. These makers concentrated on spotting and devaluating pronounced feminists, sexual educators and activists, framing their work as harmful to men.
In 2016, filmmaker Cassie Jaye released the Red Pill, a documentary who explored the Men’s Rights Movement. Jaye finally concluded that men “had it worse than women”, a position that has since been widely criticized and is now often associated with incel communities. Although the film is poorly outdated, it meant a moment when exogynistic ideology was treated as a legitimate counterpoint for feminist politics.
Fast Vooruit to 2020: during the global pandemic we spent unprecedented hours online. Some people launched podcasts or passion projects; Others were attracted to conspiracy theories and extremist ideas that previous generations had largely rejected.
As we came from Lockdown, social media algorithms shifted again. Platforms realized that controversial content lets people scroll, so they pushed inflammatory figures such as Andrew Tate, Fris and Fit and Bonnie Blue on our feeds. Their rhetoric echoed earlier misogynistic voices from Hunter Moore to Gamgate. This time the public was bigger and the regular media acquired knowledge.
Today we are at a crossroads. We have to dispute wrong information, but with that we run the risk of strengthening the people who exploit social media for attention.
Tech giants such as Meta, X (formerly Twitter) and Tiktok now have an extraordinary influence on public opinion. I often wonder: how do we keep these platforms to account when they are literally in the palms of our hands and consume hours of our day?
Individually we can report content that promotes hateful speech, but too often those reports are rejected despite clear infringements of community guidelines. We can encourage lobby parliament members and encourage government action against platforms that promote extremist, right-wing content. But with social media CEOs such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who attend the inauguration of Donald Trump, the first convicted criminal to serve as an American president, and British politicians such as Keir starmer who validate anti-transmission and anti-immigrants, it is hard to believe that current leaders will decisive.
So what now?
Do we have to play platforms such as Meta and X? Do we have to use them to write a road of reliable information about our own channels? Should we concentrate on keeping our governments to take into account their complacency?
The conversation must continue, but our words must be converted more instead of later in action.
#short #history #online #misogyny #Brook