So, i just checked email today (oh dear me). There were so many fun notes from friends and from folks that i don’t yet know – silly congrats, intriguing questions, business proposals, etc. It’ll take me forever to sort out my email, but it was still such a nice little moment to be thankful for. Of course, i can’t help but emotionally react to the one cruel email:
Subject: sociologist?
Dear ‘Ms.’ Boyd,
I would certainly agree that you are a geek among sociologists, so-called, or maybe just simply a geek. And a Yupster of course. Have you ever read any real sociologists, of which Max Weber is arguably the paradigm? Ever study Nietzsche, where all serious modern discourse begins, if not ends? (There is Heidegger, of course.)
A rebel from Lancaster PA might explain a lot. You and the people you allegedly study should “get a life,” it would seem.
(Try some Joan Osborne rather than Ani Defranco — all of you spaceshots spell your names wrong, it would seem, or have ones that should be dumped at least: Shulamith Firestone?)
Ed W. – PhD., Chicago; Dok. Rer. Nat., Freiburg im Breisgau [that’s in Bavaria, btw]
First, there’s no doubt that i raise my eyebrows about being called a sociologist. Sure, many of the tools that i currently use for studying Friendster come from sociology (and i’ve even drawn from all 3 aforementioned philosophers in various arguments i’ve made). Still, i think that my advantage in the academic sphere is that i draw from such a variety of methods and theories and come up with new ways to bridge them all together. That said, i never take issue with people labeling me as a sociologist (or an anthropologist or even a computer scientist) even though that doesn’t quite describe what i do. Still, people need a category.
But aside from that point, i just don’t understand what motivates someone to read a profile and write a scathing note to the person profiled in an attempt to discredit her. What satisfaction does this man derive from the knowledge that this note got through? What is so offensive about such a profile? Is it not valid enough because it is not written in discourse speak or littered with references to academics that most of the audience would not recognize? In my many conversations wtih Michael, i constantly referenced different academics, explaining what their foundational contributions were, but i totally understood that he had no reason to publish them. But it’s clear that this man took the time to reference what i present digitally in order to write this note.
It reminds me of what a friend of mine once told me… he said that you finish your PhD when you hate your advisor, you hate your topic, you hate your life, you hate everything. Apparently, this man never stopped hating. So weird.
danah… don’t let trolls waste your valuable time and energy. It’s much too valuable.
Oh no! Not the dreaded “Your thoughts aren’t valuable because your spelling is off” argument. Oh the Horror, The Scandal! Apparently *someone* didn’t have a happy Thanksgiving…
What a bitter, bitter man… howsabout “netologist”?
As I’ve said before in your comments, “Fuck ’em”! That’s started to become my motto… all you can do is do what you do and do it well… which you do. And that picture of you in the article is so hot… this guy is probably just playing the asshole angle to get some attention from a girl like you. 🙂
Jelousy is an unattractive expression of insecurity. It is always pathetic, however it happens to manifest itself, even if frightening sometimes. You happen to kick some serious ass at the moment and some people feel slighted cause they didn’t get a story in the NYT because their topic wasn’t hot enough… so what? Don’t you find the generalizations amusing and the philosophy mentioned, so severely German inclined as if none other exists (some people might agree with that), and the point of view so limited. This is a waaaaa…. but I want an article toooo 🙂 pfffft… so? laugh at that, and keep kicking ass darling, you and your furry pink coat are worth ten thousand of those.
funny. you actually called him a “man”. that’s taking a higher road than i would have taken.
no matter what language and sentiment a message is couched in, there’s still often a worthy signal in the noise. so, while the easy way out is to just say “bite me” and to ignore him, the high road is to strip away his antisocial ego-trip and to consider whether the cargo of his wrath has any substance. and it sounds to me like that’s exactly what you’ve done in this blog entry, and perhaps it will inspire you to critically reflect even further on your methods — which is never a bad thing, as you’ve taught me time and again.
btw, i once saw ani open for joan in central park, around 96 or 97. both performances were excellent.
but most importantly, an anagram of “Dok. Rer. Nat” is “Rent-a-Dork”. 🙂
Actually, I thought his email sounded laughably full of shit. Really, adoring Neitzsche is *so* sophomore year of college.
Furthermore, isn’t DiFranco an Italian name… spelled correctly? I strongly suspect he got that Ph.D. by mail order.
Congrats on the NYT profile! You rule.
Danah, one of the I Ching’s hexagrams notes that if you get up on a tower in order to see further, it also makes you more of a target. Now that you are becoming more visible, people will take pot-shots at you. The real challenge is to keep listening to your critics, and keep honing your ability to learn from them; some of them might be cruel AND know what they are talking about, in which case they can show you where you can learn and grow; some of them (like the self-important fellow who sent you the email you posted), are cruel (or attempt to be cruel) but DON’T know what they are talking about. My advice is to do quick triage, and don’t devote any more attention to critics in the latter category, but treasure those in the former category.
Last month I was leaning strongly in favor of the idea that the Internet set off special and unusually intense forms of agression. But then I was at a friend’s house and they had a book there that was a history of lynching in the South. I opened it and there were all these dead black men hanging from trees, photo after photo, and all these cheering whites around them. And it occurred to me, okay, people simply like to kill other people – the agression seen on the Internet isn’t really that special, it’s just a form of this kind of rage that 40 years ago might have lead to the death of a black man. The murdering done back then was not anonymous, the lynchers nearly always knew the man they decided to lynch. And it occured to me, as well, that much of the worst trolling that I see on the Internet is not anonymous. People are willing to put their names to some pretty sick things.
Sorry this guy gave you such a hard time, but do realize when you’re dealing with a pathology.
Keep up the good work and the calm professional attitude. There’s way too much noise on the net and yours is a clear cool refreshing voice that I haven’t come across before.
Nick in Athens