Tumblr users drive girl to suicide attempt

Akratus

Bleep bloop.
http://fusion.net/story/223425/zamii-steven-universe-fandom/
Paige Paz, a 19-year-old artist from Arizona who often goes by “Zamii,” posted tearful video after dealing with an outpouring of online harassment from the Steven Universe fandom. In the video she explains that she’s now in the hospital getting taken care of, but that she doesn’t know when things will be back to “normal.”
Days before, Paz, a fan of the Cartoon herself, seemingly disappeared from the internet after a number of SU fans targeted work on her Tumblr page that they considered to be problematic.

“I’m going to sleep forever,” Paz wrote. “I’m sorry everyone I’m just super tired. This will be the last you’ll hear from me. I’m going to be at peace now. I’m sorry.”
The series of events leading up to Paz’s cryptic message and video post is complicated and difficult to understand without grasping just how intense the Steven Universe fandom can be.
The fans that have sprung up around the Cartoon Network showare known for being broad, intensely dedicated to the cartoon and, generally speaking, fairly inclusive.
The show follows the adventures of a young boy being raised by his father and three alien, mother figures as they fight to save the world.SU’s drawn praise for being one of the first children’s shows to feature complex, queer relationships in a way that’s accessible to a large audience.
It isn’t just a show for kids, it’s a testament to what a modern family can look like.

Part of what’s made Steven Universe so popular is the diversity of (predominantly) female characters featured in the show. Though many of its characters aren’t traditionally human, they can easily be read as a broad spectrum of races–a rarity in most kids’ programming.

Many of the characters are also drawn with body types that you aren’t likely to see on primetime television. This stylistic choice was what many people took issue with in regard to Paz’s art.
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Cartoon Network (left) Paige Paz (right)
Rose Quartz, the character pictured above, quickly became one of the fandom’s most beloved characters for her role in the show’s plot and what the character represented in terms of body ideals.
As one of the few full-figured women currently being featured and celebrated on network television, Rose Quartz is as rare as she is valued by her fans. Many fans thought that Paz’s art, featured to the right, went out of its way to make Rose skinnier. This was interpreted as a form of implicit fat-shaming.


As the fandom turned its focus onto Paz, its criticism became increasingly vitriolic and overtly hostile. What began as an issue with fan art quickly blossomed into a wave of attacks on Paz’s character.
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kokoonjin.tumblr.com
At the height of the backlash there seemed to be at least 42 different blogs and online groups solely dedicated to going after Paz including: “zamiiisgarbage,” “zamiishitposts,” and “zamii070confessions.”

A large number of the disposable Tumblr blogs have been deactivated, but archived screenshots of some of the things written are still accessible. Most commonly, Paz was accused of white-washingSteven Universe characters who were implicitly coded as being people of color.
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Rebecca Sugar (left) Paige Paz (right)The gem fusion Sardonyx is widely thought to be influenced by American singer Janelle Monae and is voiced by Alexia Khadime, a black woman. Many have interpreted Paz's interpretation of the character's hair as attempting to de-racialize her.

A sizable chunk of the critiques being leveled at Paz are grounded in the very legitimate fear that creative works featuring people of color, queer people, and women are often overlooked and undervalued. That being said, the vast majority of Paz’s detractors came at the artist with a misguided fervor that ultimately led the artist to temporarily leave the internet.
What the people speaking out against Paz want other than to harass her is unclear. While they claim that they’re merely trying to draw attention to the problematic work of a single audience, it’s difficult not to view many of their claims and arguments as little more than old-fashioned online bullying.
Currently the Steven Universe fandom, which is wildly active on Tumblr is somewhat split. There are those who consider Paz’s art to be borderline offensive and others who think that people are overreacting in a way that isn’t exactly surprising.
“It’s amazing that people’s defense for constantly harassing a fanartist is telling people what they drew like it matters,” Tumblr user Stephan K wrote in a blog post. “It doesn’t matter what you think is fatphobic or racist, that doesn’t call for abuse.”
He continued:“You can say “hey, that made me uncomfortable” in a way that’s reasonable or, better yet, just don’t follow them. Abuse en masse is not the correct response. That’s the response of a bunch of over-reactionary assholes.”

Paz’s Tumblr blog has been inactive for a few days now, but she shared a post to Instagram assuring everyone that while she wasn’t in the best place, she was getting better.
“Tomorrow I have to go back to a new hospital so they can monitor me for safety so I won’t do anything dumb again,” she wrote. “But for right now I’m resting with olive. It’s been a long week.”
Obviously, what seems to have happened to Paz was awful and completely uncalled for, but as Comics Alliance editor-in-chief Andrew Wheeler articulated, it’s not as simple as pointing the finger at the fandom.
“The Steven Universe fandom meltdown shows how valid critical discourse is undermined by dyspeptic mob fury,” Wheeler lamented.

UPDATE: Today, Paz reappeared online posting the number to a suicide prevention line and a 17-minute long video explaining the events in her life from the past few days.

“I don’t want to be remembered as the girl who tried to kill herself because of bullying from a fandom,” she says. “People say that people who commit suicide are weak and [if I’ve learned anything form this] it’s that they’re not weak at all.”

So yeah it seems to me like no matter what ideology one aspires to, there's always going to be terrible people.

There really is no solution for shitty behavior I think, though I can reiterate what I think is a need for most people who are affected emotionally by internet happenings, to step away from the computer when such a thing comes up. Though of course one shouldn't have to in the first place, especially this girl, innocent as her online activities were. But reality can be harsh. And of course we can all be quite glad she did not die.

It's a crazy age we're living in where this kinda shit can spawn from a freaking cartoon.

Thoughts?
 
Cultist mindsets. Neurologically, they are the same "triggers" that shoot off, and people become apes.
I can't even see what they were refering to (the white-washing or fat-shaming), which may indicate that they had "blinded" themselves with a certain predetermination towards her - something that is also common in such mindsets.

Also, dismissing suicidal people as "weak" (as she mentions) is something weak people do to come off as strong, it's the equivalent of shouting "HEY! HEY! I AM NOT IN NEED OF ATTENTION! EVERYBODY! I DONT NEED ATTENTION, YOU GUYS!"
I hate when people brush off suicide-talk as "just a cry for help", what the hell is *just* a cry for help? Holy shit, do they react that way during a fire too? "Don't mind them, they're just crying for help!"
 
My thoughts are simple: The anonymity of the internet breeds cruel and unusual behavior. People take comments on the internet personally, some take it more personally than usual. So you take a pinch of social awkwardness, add a couple of sprinkles of mental health issues, and a dash of internet obsessions/exposure and you have potential of someone being driven to hurt themselves or others.
 
Inevitable result when everything is problematic and fanaticism is encouraged with the young authoritarian left.
 
What the actual f-? Are those people completely crazy? I mean, I know it's tumblr, but there have to be some limits! Driving someone near suicide over their skewed perception of someone's art depicting a cartoon character? Some people really shouldn't have access to the internet...
 
...But reality can be harsh...
...It's a crazy age we're living in where this kinda shit can spawn from a freaking cartoon...

Meanwhile in the middle east:

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That's actually pretty human when you consider that the only target they have is the head. There are forms that have the victim just sitting there with a white sheet covering them, making it much more painfull if they don't hit the head right away with the first throw.

Still as horrorible as this is, I don't see what this has to do with the topic ...
 
Still as horrorible as this is, I don't see what this has to do with the topic ...

Nothing, it just hit me, that internet "violence" is a somehow a worthwhile problem in the face of people getting their heads bashed in for being raped in other parts of the world. I think schools should have some sort of a program for this kind of issue, as a confused mind somehow finds a reason for suicide in the most comfortable of existences.
 
Turns out fandoms are shite and in-groups with a certain ideology are breeding grounds for sociopathical behaviour. Who'd have thought?
 
Yeeeah ... but bullying is bullying, no matter if it happens online or offline. I mean I won't talk about the case above, I mean in general.

While the internet is different to the real world it is still a structure with a form of social interaction. People are still people when they go online. So when shaming, blame, guilt, social preasure etc. take place they do harm to people, just as when they happen on your workplace, in your school or your family. The point is, preasure. Some people can take it, some can't. While we might not see the internet as something real, it's effects are real.
 
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Shut up, hass. Everyone knows the only way to defeat people being dicks on the internet is to be an even bigger dick on the internet.
 
The girl had depression since way before and she obviously had a bunch of personal problems, if you think people can't feel miserable just because they aren't being bombed by the US you are part of the problem of why depressed people don't look for help.
 
Akratus said:
There really is no solution for shitty behavior I think, though I can reiterate what I think is a need for most people who are affected emotionally by internet happenings, to step away from the computer when such a thing comes up.
The internet is a central part of people's personal and professional lives. You can't "step away from the computer" any more than you can just not go out on the street because of harassment. Not to mention that the location isn't the problem, but the behavior of others.

TorontRayne said:
My thoughts are simple: The anonymity of the internet breeds cruel and unusual behavior.
Anonymity is only a tiny part of it. The grossest shit is said with incredible regularity in Facebook comment threads -- where people use their real names.
 
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