Just an update on what I've been doing lately, since I wasn't reading...woah, that sounds crazy huh? Well,

That's right! You might wonder now what I've been doing instead. Don't worry: this post is all about informing you exactly of what! For those of you who recognised the gif, YES INDEED I'VE BEEN WATCHING THE LBD!

And of course, for those of you who have no idea what 'The LBD' is, I'll explain!

The LBD stands for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and simply takes less time to type. It's an awesome web series (which you can watch for free on youtube) based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - the 'Lizzie Bennet' kind of gave that away, huh?
Anyway, I really, really, really enjoyed it because the actors are genius in their roles as Jane Austen's characters. Of course some things differ from the actual story, but that's what makes it fun and realistic for this time period! The plot is pretty much the same (we still have a marry-crazy mother, an energetic younger sister, a Wickham and a certain mister Darcy) but I love how they worked it out for this series! Also, the episodes are only 4/5 minutes long so you can watch one whenever you feel like it or have some spare time.
Interested? Here you go!

Oh by the way, Hank Green developed this (with Bernie Su) so if you didn't have enough reasons to give this a shot, now you do (;

Yet another update to the YouTube Sex Scandal (for the full story check here, here, here, and this great video sums up the whole situation).

Good News: On May 4th, the official Nerdfigher tumblr (effyeahnerdfighters.com) FINALLY made an announcement about the elusive "resource team" that Hank Green said was putting together a response to the scandal and are putting in place measures to prevent it from happening again. [source]

Bad News: Luke Conrad, an admitted abuser of multiple women, will be a paid Special Guest at VidCon (a YouTube convention specifically targeted at teens). According to mellowblueness, who continues to be a great resource for information on this issue, at least two of Conrad's victims will also be attending Vidcon. [source]

This calls into the question the sincerity of the statement from the effyeahnerdfighters' post, that "The VidCon team is committed to improving safety options and opportunities for attendees." 

One would think the first step of ensuring the safety of attendees would involve not forcing them to have to share space with their abuser, much less to pay to see that abuser celebrated on stage.

It's even more interesting considering when author C.C. Finlay asked the official Vidcon Twitter account asking for a link to their official anti-sexual harassment and conduct policy, two days before the effyeahnerdfighters post went up, he was informed that not only did they not have one, but they didn't need one. [source]

Considering many of the victims who came forward about their abuse mentioned having met their abusers at Vidcon, this cavalier attitude about the lack of a harassment policy and the insulting/erasing declaration that everyone is "extremely respectful to each other" shows just how far the people who helm this organization have their heads shoved up their own asses. 

I think Whitney, one of Conrad's victims, does a fantastic job of summing up the situation:

"right, so, all of these ‘discussions’ and ‘panels’ and ‘video series’ about abuse and consent and manipulation and rape culture being planned by vidcon and the heads of the nerdfighter community in response to the past month & a half’s worth of conversations about abuse and consent and manipulation and rape culture are totally valid and not at all emblematic of laughably glaring hypocrisy considering the fact that they are still paying one of the most high-profile admitted abusers to appear at vidcon, where at least two of the women he abused will also be in attendance. 

 

right."

Sexual Abuse on YouTube

Fantastic video by PotterMosh, summarizing all the events of the YouTube Sexual Abuse scandal, and adding some much needed commentary. Absolutely worth watching and sharing, not to mention to yet again wonder why the "bigger names" on YouTube are staying so pointedly quite. 

The BEST video response to recent Youtube/DFTBA sexual abuse scandal [click here and here for details], and it's not by John Green or Hank Green, but rather a 16 year old girl, youtuber and sexual abuse survivor. 

What's really interesting is how she points out that the sexism in the Youtube/DFTBA community is systemic, specifically citing how the venue for the "Women on Youtube" panel at VidCon (run by the Green brothers) has been progressively smaller each year. Resulting in last year where the panel was held on the lawn outside of the convention center. 

The video is worth your time to watch and will leave you thinking about what community leaders owe to the members of their communities. 

1) Being creative or artistic doesn’t preclude you being an asshole or being criminal. It’s just your JOB. See: Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Terry Richardson. If any of those dudes did what was alleged while working as janitors, would it make a difference? Making art, while we want to believe it’s all lofty and beyond reproach, is just a job like any other job. And you will find assholes, predators and criminals in any occupation.

 

2) Hank Green’s video, “Sex, Consent & Culture” is way too glib to be of much help when it comes to a) consent b) sexual abuse and its complicated cultural components. If you are not an authority on the matter, Hank, that’s understandable. But there are plenty of people who are authorities and can speak about these issues without deploying jokes or abstractions. Sit still and interview one of them in a video together, please. I’m glad Hank is ‘gathering resources’ but there is no reason rushing toward a topic where you can’t speak eloquently or with any kind of nuance (missiles? kitties? wtf?) is at all productive; in fact, I’d venture to say this approach is absolutely insulting and offensive, especially to survivors of rape and sexual assault. Summing up consent and sex in three minutes is a fool’s errand. Make it a series, with people who deeply understand these topics, and let them do the majority of the talking. Then maybe you’ll ‘change the world.’

 

3) Sex and romance and consent ARE incredibly complicated. That they could remain a ‘chase’ while still involving enthusiastic consent isn’t an impossibility for me. Sex is a negotiation like all the other millions of negotiations we enter into as humans. It just happens to be very high stakes and multi-faceted. Being flippant and simplistic doesn’t assist anyone in this matter. Talking about sex and romance and consent and sexual violence by using concrete examples and sharing our own personal stories, biases and limitations is what helps, not summing up the whole situation with a handful of trite generalizations.

 

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I cannot recommend this post enough. Go Read!