Queen Bee of Tina Fey’s ‘Mean Girls’, Regina George contained her nasty comments about her peers to a ‘Burn Book’.
I can only imagine the havoc Regina George could have wreaked had she had Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at her disposal; instead, Mean Girls’ infamous queen bee had to make do with her Burn Book in order to spread her scorn of her peers’ behaviour – true or otherwise.
Internet trolling is today’s Burn Book, and in terms of feminism, the worst case scenarios see women denigrating women; in the words of Tina Fey’s Ms Norbury, “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores; it just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores.”
This apt sentiment is relevant throughout media today, demonstratively in the case of Australian feminist Germaine Greer’s comments regarding current Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (http://www.pm.gov.au), when Greer appeared on political talkshow Q&A in March 2012.
Greer begins by defending Gillard’s role in parliament, however this support is undermined by her controversial comment, “You’ve got a big arse Julia, just get on with it.”
This live-to-air humiliation of the prime minister saw media backlash around the world. What is interesting, however, is not necessarily the news reports themselves but the comments.
Comments on the YouTube page on which the video was published, as demonstrated in the following image, show a descent into denigrating, obscene and violent language with little attempt made at intellectual debate, which Q&A aims to inspire.
Interesingly, these trolls are attacking Greer, rather than Gillard; there are no attempts made to defend Julia, but rather personal attacks made towards Greer. Hidden behind their computer screens, individuals seem all to eager to let their virtual alter-egos play out abusive scenarios.
Unfortunately, as is the state of current cyber laws, particularly in Australia, much regulation of comments is left to the discretion of site operators, and these verbally violent offenders have no justice to face.
‘Feminist and other nonmainstream online forums are especially vulnerable, in that they must balance inclusive ideals against the need for protection and safety,’ reports The Information Society: An International Journal in an article entitled ‘Searching for Safety Online: Managing “Trolling” in a Feminist Forum’.
If this spiral of denigration continues, as was suggested by Tanja Dreher in her BCM112 lecture, “#mencallmethings: identity and difference online” on May 13th 2013 at University of Wollongong, we may see websites ban comments all together, detracting from the participatory nature of the internet; if this were to happen, trolls would be returning to photocopied Burn Book extracts; changes need to be made in order to see that neither of these scenarios are played out.
Education and regulation are key areas the government needs to address in terms of cyber conversation. This does not suggest censorship at all; people have the right to free speech; however, people also need to be educated to understand the difference between personal and public personas, and the impact of the stroke of a key – no longer is the keyboard has stolen the pen’s might over the sword.
P.s. Thankyou Fashiolista for the image.
P.p.s. Thankyou TVMamamia for the video.
