Let’s see.
- You say she has a novel out, selling poorly.
- You say her chimp out now is much ado about nothing.
- You say her Patreon tap is still open.
- You say her flounce gave her a lot of extra attention.
- This was trending.
Is this … a publicity stunt then?
Imagine you earn $10,000 based on the loose promise to drop a video every once in a while, but you pay a handful of people for helping making the video. If you make none, you could pocket the money yourself and have a bit of vacation, or time to take care of your health. I don’t know if she keeps paying employees as long as the Patreon tap is open, but it seems that’s not her intention. This chimp out gets publicity for her book, and a lot of money for nothing. Not too bad a plan. Many will pay up because they can’t possibly deprive this poor, ill, woman of a few pennies.
She’s always been a morally flexible person. I’ve seen her trolling and baiting before when the first book was underway. Maybe it’s also a way to find a different niche. There’s a bit of pivoting going on with the bready sjw/woke clergy on the Tube right now, watch her friends, Contrapoints, HBomberguy, and so on, as their corner is getting a bit uncomfortable.
They picked an area about as stable as rodeo-riding a stallion whose balls have been poked with a hot rod, with intense competition, capricious algorithms, and toxic orthodoxies that only permit to ever say thrice-vetted, sensitivity-read platitudes and slogans. You know, the “consequence culture” they’ve helped create and for which we should have eternal gratitude and thanks, just so their important work is never forgotten. Thanks Sarkeesian, Shawn, Brewis, Thorn, Wynn, Olson and Lindsay Ellis! (and many more).
They should get a nice card on their desk every day, thanking them that even the CIA made a properly woke feminist advertisement video. Soon drone operators will have the correct ratio of native—white—latinx—black, and semidemi genderqueer. An appropriate number of billionaires will identify as they/them. A resounding success! Uncle Joe is in the White House, too, and HR departments monitor their employees for spreading hate on the internet, like making a dongle dad joke to a colleague next seat, for which both absolutely should be fired.
But are they happy yet? Of course not, for various reasons. Chiefly among them the conundrum of having spent years alienating people, berniebros, occupy wall st campers, gen x slackers, all the anti-authoritarian lefties too, and burning all these bridges (also sabotaging Sanders, which backfired in comical ways). What a legacy.
Imagine you spent years advocating for consequences, and limiting speech, and simultanously that cancel culture or this whole toxic abuse in the name of “social justice” wasn’t real. Everyone who said otherwise was at least alt right, some phobist or straight nazi. What can you possibly do now, when it clearly hits you or your friends, and every last bit of criticism from ten years ago was right? Even admitting that the critics were right all along opens the huge can of worms that it is. What’s more, all of these people who would agree and sympathise now are sufficiently fed up, and moved on, and have their adult conversations elsewhere. That must irk these people even more. Paraphrasing H L Mencken, the puritan has the haunting fear, someone, somewhere may be having fun, whilst they have to put up with their merry unhinged community, or to bury anything interesting in costumes, funny accents and three-hour waffling as to prevent it from being used against them.
However, Lindsay Ellis is probably just pulling a publicity stunt.
