HEADS UP: If you're supporting comics and trying to enforce some positivity in light of all the #comicsgate nonsense, do not, DO NOT, use #movetheneedle. It is not a positive response hashtag to comicsgate. I know some of you out there know this, but let's be clear:
Comicsgate is just Gamergate again. This should be obvious. It holds the same intention, and that is, to put it bluntly, abuse women and minority-status peoples within an industry while masking it as a social movement.
There is going to inevitably be push back to that statement, that's part of how it works. We all went through this in 2014, we should know the signs. What's different now is movetheneedle, and it's important to figure out the distinction.
Movetheneedle is masked as a positive hashtag. The intention behind it is to publicly announce when you've bought approved comicsgate comics (they have a list) and show support for them, and on some level this move is genius.
For context, understand that over the years the alt-right has been perfecting how to appropriate leftist rhetoric, and this is the latest in these attempts. Movetheneedle operates on the idea of spreading positivity, which has been a trend in pretty much anyone left of center.
Why is this more clever than other tactics? Because there is a deliberate ambiguity to the hashtag. People in the know will post innocuous, positive posts, and people out of the loop who would do the same are going to either perpetuate the intention of the hashtag...
Or, more interestingly, people deviate from its, giving comicsgate people access to fresh targets.
If you tag people involved in a comic that comicsgate doesn't approve of in an otherwise positive tweet with #movetheneedle plastered all over it, you are putting targets on their backs. There is an insidious element to all of this, no matter what your good intentions
I cannot restate this. Comicsgate is, at its heart, an attack campaign. The people pushing this movement want to harass women and minority-status people. Do not help them do this.
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