Looking more closely at this corner of online my sense of it is that Wu doesn't really care about the "political" stances she's taking, she's more a careerist political-chameleon donning and shunning values to suit her purpose. And my sense of this little episode currently in play is it's more about Wu conjuring a narrative about how bad the Western media is and using the mere color of a few choice political stances to rope a group along with her. Rabble-rousing, pot stirring, chaos creation, in the service of narratives that try to undermine the West I think is what she enjoys, as well as tech. So despite paying lip service to being "anti-China" (more hooks for her fans, much like Ai Wei Wei), she is of course pro-China. It's not hard to go into LiberalLaLaLand and stir the pot and create chaos and outrage. Once created that energy can be directed toward a purpose. Which is what I see Wu working hard and skillfully doing here. I think we will see more and more of this in future, as China takes advantage of the structural "narrative vulnerabilities" of the fake liberal ideology to damage and create chaos in the West (much as CIA likes to do in places like HK, W Africa, S America, I think). The irony, perhaps, is these fake-liberal values (identity politics, etc) were actually created to contain / delude and disempower activist movements by the IC, and now it's used against them by the Chinese. It's always the way with weapons, when you create something powerful it can end up being used against you.
Because I'm ok with it. I disagree with the narratives that are linking people to an assumed sexual intention (either as viewer or viewed, you don't get to speak about that for anyone else, unless you're protecting against badness), but I am okay with narratives like the one I advanced that are talking about political intentions / nation states. I just don't feel okay with the former, but feel okay with the latter. Former feels rude / inappropriate to me. Because it's too personal I think, not other people's business. It seems Wu feels the same way from what the whole issue of this topic is (VICE going off bounds into personal/ sexual) so please don't do it. But latter, commenting on her politically? I have zero issue with that. And I don't care if she's ok with political commentary or not because from my perspective, her actions make her fair political game. Some things are off limits. And I don't think people, through their language and behaviour, have a good enough understanding of that. Hope you got a better understanding now. Despite your attempt at a pithy equivalence, it's not the same. Hope you see that now. That's all.
I lack the intellect to fully follow how you turned me saying "her looking like a hooker and being a hacker taught me to not think of people that way" into this, but I respect the rethotic genius behind it.
You somehow managed to claim my words, words that she uses herself, to be disrespectful, while your accusations of a sinister political motive are not even to be questioned.
If you're pondering the question, How is it different?
Just remember it's because sex life is personal, while other stuff (like the political action here) is probably not. You have things you'd not like some people to know, nor to discuss, nor to speak for you for, perhaps especially in an open forum, unless you consented / opted in / chose to, right? So that's the same thing as sex intent being personal.
If then you are pondering the next question, but isn't she politicizing her appearance or, alternately, sexuality? And wondering why that should give her body image / identity / or sex persona some protection when she has chosen to publicise and politicise it, and use it as a vector / central column / medium for her political expression, then I think that's a great question.
Personally, right now, I still come down on the side of, it is still off limits, I think (without pondering it too much myself) because:
- it's still personal
- she's specifically said it's off limits
- and her reaction (whether concocted for politics or not) is very disparaging of their violation of this boundary she set
Now if you're wondering, still, yes, but she did politicise this personal thing, how then does it remain off limits?
Maybe it is a nuanced distinction, but personally I think it's good to have the option to afford people some amount of power in a discourse like this. Yes she is pot-stirring behind something which the US zeitgeist moral rules say make her unimpeachable / irreproachable. Whether we want to let this "protective shield" be valid or not I think comes down to how important we judge what her message is. Personally, I think you should respect it as a personal boundary, even in the same discourse as she is using it as a political vector and political shield because in this case I just think we should see what she has to say with it given that she has this shield active, before and rather than saying we will take this shield from her and then having done so being able to discuss that part of her expression / self as if it were not a personal /off-limits category.
And isn't she sort of setting a trap for VICE, by telling them they are not allowed to talk about, the very thing, that she chooses to use as one main medium for her own expression, and which as a news outlet they will be very eager to talk about? Isn't she just setting this boundary, knowing they will violate it so she can capitalize on that politically, by showing, among other things, that they violate their own supposed morality?
Well, I think these are all very good questions too. Maybe she is making a grand comment on an aspect of US zeitgiest discourse, subtly undermining its purported moral supremacism by highlighting where it is selectively applied / relative / hypocritical, and prodding the US-led zeitgeist discourse to ask itself if what it really considers to be off-limits-for-discussion topics, really are? Are these politicized-identities really beyond criticism? Maybe she is criticizing the way personal is used as political shield to perpetrate harm, or hate or vitriol / impose standards, by perhaps satirically and exaggeratedly doing the same thing. I think she is exploiting the US zeitgeist discourse's structural vulnerabilities as I said.
And, but isn't she basically trying to get away with doing anything, and shielding herself from any criticism because she's packaging her politics in her identity/ sexual expression which, by holding the US media to its own rules, ought to be beyond reproach?
I think these are fascinating questions. Maybe she is "holding them to their own rules" as an offensive tactic, just like Alinksky's Rules for Radicals instructs activists to do.
I think the exact circumstances under which we afford people this special type of narrative protection, which she is claiming here, and which I am still granting her here, is definitely something we need to investigate and consider thoroughly as a society. I definitely think that "umbrella narrative protection" is a powerful ability that will be abused to perpetrate attempted harm on people under the color of something that "cannot be questioned" because it's "off-limits/ sexual / identity/ personal." I think this dynamic (the delusion of irreproachable righteousness / moral invincibility), owing to using these personal topics as political shields, certainly drives a lot of the hate and vitriol, because people feel entitled/ privileged to act with impunity because they consider their position to be unassailable because it's based in a purportedly "off-limits" topic, which they are politicizing / using as a shield in their attacks.
And So I think your confusion / inability to follow or see the distinction is perfectly rational and normal. And even adaptive. And I think we definitely need to selectively investigate and grant this narrative protection and not just assume nor apply it in every case, since it clearly is being abused for badness and harm. And the temptation to do whatever you want behind an "invincibility shield" is clearly there, so that's probably too much power for people, so that's probably why you see things going crazy online, so we should probably, as a society, tone that power back some.
I also believe that if you listen to what I say here and try a bit, I think you can see the nuanced side. But to the extent that you can't, I think you yourself are well-shielded from being disturbed by the sometimes fraudulent / abusive / harmful moral arbitrage going on in the discourse these days, so maybe you want to hold onto that ability of yours, even if you choose to see these other sides too.
