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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   22538 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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We supported him. We defended him against his critics. We evangelized his articles.

When you catch your buddy fucking your girlfriend, do you feel mollified if he excuses himself by pointing out that, actually, he never promised to not sleep with her?

The degree of parasocial relationship here is absolutely remarkable to me. He's fucking your girlfriend? Really?

I think you’re reading too much into the specific example. But yes, SSC was a purely organic phenomenon that succeeded pretty much through word of mouth. Scott started out as just another poster, and even when he made SSC he was a frequent commenter. Now he does meet-ups and community content. He asked fans to write to the NYT for him.

When you have such a close relationship between blogger and readers it’s inevitable that there are mutual expectations. It’s not like having a crush on Daniel Craig and thinking he owes you something because you once bought a James Bond poster.

I've experienced it myself with podcasters and bloggers, where I've had good feelings towards a content creator and wanted to support them. I don't think that's wrong.

What strikes me as odd is the extremity of the reaction towards what strike me as at most pretty mild alterations in position.

He stopped doing his thing from ten years ago and we stopped supporting, defending and promoting him.

Calling this a betrayal seems very overdramatic.

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