I like to follow the tech news, for obvious reasons, and I have a morbid fascination with poking around weird internet subcultures—but I don't use social media at all. On the other hand, I know that most of the rest of youse mob are on social media, but probably don't follow the tech press all that closely, or hunt around in obscure speciality forums and the like. This leaves me in a situation where I don't know how much youse fellas know about the stuff I know about, so I'm constantly worried about either over-explaining painfully obvious things, or under-explaining completely alien things. If anyone has any ideas on how this can be addressed, please speak up. In the meantime, I thought I'd take some inspiration from Squib's comment about having seen a doco on Tinder, and write a post about something that's been kind of topical in the ASMR community recently.
A few years ago now, before this blog existed, I was chatting with Melba about a popular YouTuber who went by the name of "Nixie Pixel". Her shtick could basically be summed up as "tech tips + tits". Think of her as the Nigella Lawson of technology. At the time, she was getting a lot of hate, primarily from other women in the tech community, who felt like she was making life harder for them. While they were jumping up and down about people leaving vulgar comments on their videos and blog posts, Nixie would respond to somebody saying "Hey nice tits" with something along the lines of "Thank you, that's so sweet. Don't forget you can go to my merch store and buy a Nixie t-shirt, coffee mug, or calendar—all of which have pictures of my tits on them". At the time, I had conflicting feelings on the matter, being able to see things from both sides. I can remember Melba saying to me something along the lines of, "The ugly side of feminism is when women use a greater-good rationale as a way to control each other".
Fast forward to today, and prepare to enter the world of …
PROFESSIONAL THOTTERY
If you're not familiar with the term, THOT apparently started as an acronym for "That Ho Over There"; "Ho" being an American ebonic shortening of the word "whore". To understand the thot phenomenon, one also has to understand the concept of the "thirsty boy", also sometimes referred to as the "thirsty man"; and I think the best way to cover these two concepts in tandem is with a hypothetical scenario (all names, including names of websites are fictitious):
GameStream is a website where video game enthusiasts come to watch other video game enthusiasts stream live video of themselves playing video games. The general idea is that the more skilled a player is, the larger the audience they will attract—thereby moving them up the site's rankings and allowing them to earn money through sponsorships and the like. That's the theory anyway.
Emily is currently ranked 13th on GameStream, has a regular audience of 800K, and is able to make a living from streaming for two hours on most night. It's no secret, however, that Emily isn't very good at playing video games. On the other hand, Emily is young, pretty, energetic, and usually wears a pair of bike shorts and a bikini top while streaming. Emily is a thot.
Brian is a video game enthusiast. He isn't particularly skilled at playing them, but they provide him with some much-appreciated escapism. See, what Brian really craves is female attention; but he has no idea how to go about getting it, other than by paying for it outright. Every evening Brian watches Emily stream, and every evening he transfers $5 into her electronic tip jar. At the end of the evening, Emily reads out the names of all the viewers who tipped her $5 or more, before waving and blowing them a kiss goodnight. Brian is a thirsty boy.
In the past, I've talked about free-speech extremists, conspiracy nuts, and people who use ethnic slurs being kicked off Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and recently even being denied financial services. What I haven't talked about is the thot purge that's been going on as well. In the last twelve months or so, there's been a concerted effort to force thottery off of mainstream websites and onto places like PornHub where it apparently belongs. From what I can see, this has largely been a movement of conservative "think of the children" types; people who are upset about thots out-competing them in their chosen field of entertainment; and women who find that operating in the same space as thots makes it harder to convince people to take them seriously.
ASMR thottery is rife on YouTube. There are plenty of "whispering tits" channels out there that barely even try to hide the fact that their output is pure masturbation fodder. However, drawing a definitive line between who is and isn't a thot isn't a simple task. To start with, there are some ASMR thots who produce content that is legitimately good for falling asleep to (even I listen to a couple); there are regular ASMRtists who dip their toe into thottery from time to time; there are girls who've started out regular and devolved into thottery; and then there's those who started out as thots before going completely legit. As you might imagine, what this has led to is a witch-hunt type atmosphere, where everybody making a living from ASMR is covering up, and afraid to do anything that might be construed as suggestive, lest somebody point and cry "thot", and put their entire livelihood at risk.
I'm interested to know what youse all think of the subject. About thots and thirsty boys in general, or about the purge specifically. Also, if you were younger, do you reckon you could've been tempted to give thottery a go? It seems like a fairly easy way to make a few quid. Given what I was like in my early twenties, I can't honestly rule out the possibility.
11 comments :
In case I don't get a chance to read all this and comment today, just saying for now that I find the tech stuff really helpful. I hardly follow it unless it's a major event (like the whole Cambridge Analytica thing which, is this right, ended up in us now having to click all these stupid cookie boxes every time we open a page)...
OK, I don't see anything wrong with it. Thots should be free to do what they want with their bodies/wear what they want
Would I have been tempted to? No. I'm a total introvert
But now that I think about, my earliest website (which I constructed myself) which showcased my really shitty poems did feature pictures of me in a little mini skirt and itty bitty shorts. I wonder if that was verging on thottery...
I have a question for you. Do you think conspiracy theorists who encourage their listeners/subscribers to believe that victims who have died in a terrorist attack are actors should be shut down?
One of the message boards I used to be active on had a cleavage thread, and a butt thread - the former where women posted pics of their cleavage (ample or not - all was appreciated) and the latter where men posted pics of their butts to be admired. I should not that these were all clothed - though the fashion at the time was for low-cut tops, so there was a lot of tit on show. I did post. I posted several in fact. These pics did not elicit lascivious comments though - actually most viewers just looked and thanked all who had posted recently, without singling out any one person. It was very tame compared to what it could have been. I'm not ashamed of that at all, only regretful that it would take more than a nice bra to make my tits that perky these days!!!
Maybe people judged us, maybe they masturbated - who cares! The photos were posted without faces so it wasn't that big a deal if they ended up in someone's photo database or whatever.
This reminds me of the time I got told off by someone on FB for posting a pic of me as a 4yo naked by my uncle's pool (it was a group shot - everyone else was clothed, but I'd forgotten my bathers that day. Big woop. I was 4). There are other photos of me naked as a child that I would post too if I could get hold of them (they are not scanned yet). I put them up for my family to see and reminisce on ("oh that was when we lived in that house!" kinda thing), they weren't public. And anyway, if some pedo amongst my friends has a wank at the sight of my 4yo camel toe, well so what? It doesn't hurt me in any way, does it, if he does that? No child was harmed in the taking of that photo, unlike a bunch of other non-consensual things that pedos look at. I mean, come ON.
Suze, I agree. And it makes me uneasy to think that, under the letter of the law, my Mum could by charged with trafficking child porn, because of all the pictures of kids playing in the nude that she shares with the other grandmothers in the family.
pictures of me in a little mini skirt and itty bitty shorts. I wonder if that was verging on thottery...
Well, some people would definitely considered that thottery, but it's getting to the point where just about anything is these days. And the question isn't whether thots should be barred from the internet altogether, but whether or not they should be barred from websites that ban pornography. Basically, I guess, it's a question about how broad the definition of pornography should be.
Coincidentally, I see that one of YouTube's most notorious ASMR thots has just released a video poking fun at her detractors. You only have to watch the first couple of minutes or so to get the general idea.
I have a question for you. Do you think conspiracy theorists who encourage their listeners/subscribers to believe that victims who have died in a terrorist attack are actors should be shut down?
It'd be nice if I had a good answer to this, but I don't really. Do you shut down every left wing commentator whose ever inspired anyone to join Antifa? Do you shut down every mosque that's ever produced a terrorist? Of course, if you're being rhetorical, you can go to the other extreme too. If there's a mosque that's producing dozens and dozens of terrorists, do you stick to your principles and let them continue?
At the end of the day, I think you do have to draw an arbitrary line in the sand which represents how much you're willing to put up with, and then you have to argue with people about why your arbitrary line is better positioned than their arbitrary line.
Unfortunately, that reduces me to discussing the specifics. Are these listeners/subscribers taking action against the victims? What sort? In what numbers? It also depends on what you mean by "shut down". At the point where you're talking about financial institutions like banks and payment-processors cutting people off, that's getting up there with water and electricity, as far as I'm concerned. At that point, the person should have really committed an actual gaolable offence, in which case you shouldn't need private enterprise to get involved.
I suppose I'm referring to so-called 'truthers' and their internet gurus. Yes, they send death threats and cause victims' families to move from house to house but the worse part to me is that the victims of whatever tragic event are essentially denied having ever existed. I feel like denying the existence of a real person, especially one who has physically died, is almost like a timeline crime and maybe it even deserves its own category and response
People who engage in harassment should be prosecuted to the extent that they can be, which is often limited, given that they may reside in a different legal jurisdiction to the victim.
Of course there's also the question of what does and doesn't count as harassment. For example, if I was to write 20 posts every day, detailing why I think Tony Abbott is a cunt, I wouldn't count that as harassment. However, if I was to phone or email Tony Abbott 20 times a day so that I could tell him how much of a cunt he is, that's overstepping the boundary in my opinion. Other people's views may vary.
Having said that, we're not so much talking about the people who engage in harassment directly, so much as the people who egg them on. To be honest, I think a lot of this is just part and parcel of social media. People with fringe views are able to find and connect with each other, just like everyone else. The flat Earth society is a bigger deal than it's ever been before. And if you want to talk about dangers to society, the anti-vaccers are probably a much greater threat than the conspiracy nuts. But I'm not keen on the idea of just banning the lot of them. Where do you stop? Scientologists? Christians? Communists? Anarcho-capitalists? People who believe "Russia hacked the US elections" is unsubstantiated propaganda? 'cause that last one rules me out too.
Unfortunately, if you get rid of people who say 9/11 was a hoax, you're probably also going to end up getting rid of the people who say "weapons of mass destruction" was a pretext. Is it worth tolerating one in order to protect the other?
Again, all I can do is go back to my arbitrary line in the sand and say "how much damage are they actually doing"?
Oh, and here's something else to think about …
I've heard people discuss the fact that Donald Trump regularly breaks Twitter's guidelines and that a number of people have been kicked off for saying much tamer stuff than he has.
Also, there was the meltdown caused by that viral video of the school-boy in the Trump hat smirking at a native American man playing a drum. A number of minor celebrities were offering rewards for anyone who could video themselves punching the boy in the face—including one comedienne who offered a blowjob. As far as I know, none of them lost their accounts.
Ironically, one account that did get banned recently was called "verified hate". It was a Twitter feed that archived hate-comments left by verified Twitter users (blue ticks), and pointed out the hypocrisy inherent in the fact that they weren't being booted from the platform in the same way average plebs are.
One rule for the people at the top, and another for everyone else. I know that's how it's always worked, but is it sustainable in the internet age where people aren't reliant on a handful of media barons to decide who is and isn't a celebrity?
I know, it's not even slightly realistic. They can't be shut down and if they could, where does that leave free speech *sigh* - of course, sooner or later, a conspiracy does end up being true and a vaccination does end up going wrong. If education at a global level could emphasis logical reasoning from a young age, that might help
Speaking of conspiracy theories and Russia-gate - watch out for any news story that quotes "New-Knowledge" as a source.
New-Knowledge are a consultancy and cyber-security group made up of a bunch of ex-military-intelligence blokes, who just got kicked off of FaceBook for operating fake Russian bots. This is basically the equivalent of the pest exterminator breeding and releasing rats in order to drum up business.
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