Some of you may have been aware that - for a brief period yesterday - the hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII was trending on Twitter.
Those of you who subsequently dared to investigate further would've doubtless been assaulted with thousands of tweets decrying the actions of an apparent racist movement.
They were, supposedly, advocating boycotting The Force Awakens, due to "White-hating" JJ Abrams decision to cast John Boyega - a black British male actor - and Daisy Ridley - a white British female actor - as the movie's leads. Either that, or you would've found dozens of links to websites reporting on the story.
Apparently, this was cited as evidence of "Cultural Marxism" and "White Genocide", and other inflammatory buzz terms... the like of which are basically red rags to the bulls of the impassioned and just.
So gripped was social media with the hashtag that Abrams himself even introduced the new trailer for The Force Awakens with a tweet stating "I don't care if you're black, white, brown, Jawa, Wookiee, Jedi or Sith. I just hope you like it!".
However, actually finding the racist tweets which led to the Twitterstorm was somewhat more difficult, buried as they were beneath Mount Furore. What the hell happened?
Those of you who subsequently dared to investigate further would've doubtless been assaulted with thousands of tweets decrying the actions of an apparent racist movement.
They were, supposedly, advocating boycotting The Force Awakens, due to "White-hating" JJ Abrams decision to cast John Boyega - a black British male actor - and Daisy Ridley - a white British female actor - as the movie's leads. Either that, or you would've found dozens of links to websites reporting on the story.
Apparently, this was cited as evidence of "Cultural Marxism" and "White Genocide", and other inflammatory buzz terms... the like of which are basically red rags to the bulls of the impassioned and just.
So gripped was social media with the hashtag that Abrams himself even introduced the new trailer for The Force Awakens with a tweet stating "I don't care if you're black, white, brown, Jawa, Wookiee, Jedi or Sith. I just hope you like it!".
However, actually finding the racist tweets which led to the Twitterstorm was somewhat more difficult, buried as they were beneath Mount Furore. What the hell happened?
TRACING
Tracing #BoycottStarWarsVII back to its origins, it seemed to be the work of a handful of users who were looking to be controversial, using the usual right-wing, racist rhetoric, purely to stir up attention.
Disgusting behaviour to be sure - and anyone who uses racist language even as a "joke" is still a racist, let's not pretend otherwise - but this seemed to be deliberately provocative. It wasn't The Queen posting those tweets, or Vladamir Putin - it was some utter dickflaps on the Internet.
Reading that initial flurry of tweets, there's no mistaking that the people responsible are fairly horrible human beings, but in this instance I don't think they were any sort of genuine cause, or were sincerely advocating boycotting the movie (Lando Calrissian was black, Darth Vader's voice was black, Mace Windu was black...). Let's face it: they're still going to see it, even if they do make racist jokes throughout.
The point at which #BoycottStarWarsVII flared up, and became a bona-fide trending topic, was when The Mary Sue - the self-styled femist pop culture "nexus" that has been the target of much GamerGater ire over the past year - reported on the story.
What frustrates most profoundly, is that #BoycottStarWarsVII would've just faded away had The Mary Sue decided to take the only course of action it deserved: ignore it. Once they ran the story it got picked up by everyone with an axe to grind when it comes to entitled, white, racist pricks - and suddenly those who started the hashtag got exactly what they wanted: attention.
Tracing #BoycottStarWarsVII back to its origins, it seemed to be the work of a handful of users who were looking to be controversial, using the usual right-wing, racist rhetoric, purely to stir up attention.
Disgusting behaviour to be sure - and anyone who uses racist language even as a "joke" is still a racist, let's not pretend otherwise - but this seemed to be deliberately provocative. It wasn't The Queen posting those tweets, or Vladamir Putin - it was some utter dickflaps on the Internet.
Reading that initial flurry of tweets, there's no mistaking that the people responsible are fairly horrible human beings, but in this instance I don't think they were any sort of genuine cause, or were sincerely advocating boycotting the movie (Lando Calrissian was black, Darth Vader's voice was black, Mace Windu was black...). Let's face it: they're still going to see it, even if they do make racist jokes throughout.
The point at which #BoycottStarWarsVII flared up, and became a bona-fide trending topic, was when The Mary Sue - the self-styled femist pop culture "nexus" that has been the target of much GamerGater ire over the past year - reported on the story.
What frustrates most profoundly, is that #BoycottStarWarsVII would've just faded away had The Mary Sue decided to take the only course of action it deserved: ignore it. Once they ran the story it got picked up by everyone with an axe to grind when it comes to entitled, white, racist pricks - and suddenly those who started the hashtag got exactly what they wanted: attention.
IRONY
I appreciate the irony of me reporting on the story, and merely adding to the pile of digital dust motes.
But unlike many other websites - and national newspapers, for pity's sake - I'm not going to miss the obvious truth of what happened. Just to take two examples, The Hollywood Reporter called #BoycottStarWarsVII a "movement", while our own The Mirror said the hashtag had "backfired", because so many had come out in opposition to it.
I mean, it's great that so many people aren't racists and all that, but #BoycottStarWarsVII was no more a movement than half a dozen vocal, racist pricks in a pub nook. Likewise, the hashtag didn't backfire - it threw those racist pricks into the spotlight. It was exactly what they wanted. It's what they set out to do - and the victory was handed to them on a plate, because nobody was able to take a deep breath before responding.
HASHTAG TO FORTUNE
So, well done everyone who contributed to making #BoycottStarWarsVII a trending topic - you poured a can of petrol on a burning match that would've burnt itself out in seconds. It gave the hashtag a weight, and an importance, that it otherwise wouldn't have had. You recruited even more into their "cause" - many of whom hadn't just set out with the intention of trolling in as offensive a way as possible.
It's lunacy, and I grow weary of certain groups that identify with an 'ism', who seem to do this over and over again, without ever learning. It's perpetuating fights that would otherwise go away. It holds us back, clouds proper communication, and it makes me despair of social media.
We're not going to stamp out racism, or sexism, or transism, or any other ideological prejudice simply by shouting at idiots online. There's no empathy with online interaction, and their brand of jaundice is too engrained, too much a cast-iron frame of reference. You form a vocal, angry movement against them and you make them stronger - you make that ideology harder to break. They link arms, stand firm, and you give them something to fight back against.
I'm not saying it's not a dialogue that shouldn't be had - change doesn't come about if nobody says anything - but Star Wars The Force Awakens has cast a black lead and a strong female lead. That probably wouldn't have happened 40 years ago. It's progress.
Let's celebrate it, and ignore anyone who feels sufficiently threatened by the world to post 140 characters online about it.
I appreciate the irony of me reporting on the story, and merely adding to the pile of digital dust motes.
But unlike many other websites - and national newspapers, for pity's sake - I'm not going to miss the obvious truth of what happened. Just to take two examples, The Hollywood Reporter called #BoycottStarWarsVII a "movement", while our own The Mirror said the hashtag had "backfired", because so many had come out in opposition to it.
I mean, it's great that so many people aren't racists and all that, but #BoycottStarWarsVII was no more a movement than half a dozen vocal, racist pricks in a pub nook. Likewise, the hashtag didn't backfire - it threw those racist pricks into the spotlight. It was exactly what they wanted. It's what they set out to do - and the victory was handed to them on a plate, because nobody was able to take a deep breath before responding.
HASHTAG TO FORTUNE
So, well done everyone who contributed to making #BoycottStarWarsVII a trending topic - you poured a can of petrol on a burning match that would've burnt itself out in seconds. It gave the hashtag a weight, and an importance, that it otherwise wouldn't have had. You recruited even more into their "cause" - many of whom hadn't just set out with the intention of trolling in as offensive a way as possible.
It's lunacy, and I grow weary of certain groups that identify with an 'ism', who seem to do this over and over again, without ever learning. It's perpetuating fights that would otherwise go away. It holds us back, clouds proper communication, and it makes me despair of social media.
We're not going to stamp out racism, or sexism, or transism, or any other ideological prejudice simply by shouting at idiots online. There's no empathy with online interaction, and their brand of jaundice is too engrained, too much a cast-iron frame of reference. You form a vocal, angry movement against them and you make them stronger - you make that ideology harder to break. They link arms, stand firm, and you give them something to fight back against.
I'm not saying it's not a dialogue that shouldn't be had - change doesn't come about if nobody says anything - but Star Wars The Force Awakens has cast a black lead and a strong female lead. That probably wouldn't have happened 40 years ago. It's progress.
Let's celebrate it, and ignore anyone who feels sufficiently threatened by the world to post 140 characters online about it.
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