Marvel fires Chuck Wendig to salve alt-reich

[eMeM]

It's kinda interesting how many people react to something like that as if it was the Worst. Thing. Ever.

Unhinged? Really? He's swearing and he's angry, but that's about it. I think we all know that 'swearing and angry' aren't your standards for 'unhinged.'

If it was a single outburst? Very inapropriate and embarrassing, but shit happens. Maybe he was drunk or something. But what I posted was just one of countless examples from his twitter of this exact behaviour. If you think it's normal for an adult person to every day log in on a twitter account signed by their name and in front of hundreds of thousands of people scream profanities, insults, and occasionally tell people to kill themselves, I'm glad I don't live where you do.

Telling people to kill themselves? That's quite an accusation, one not backed up. Interesting how none of the articles mention that.

And 'every day.' Also you previously went with like a 12 year old and 'unhinged,' not just chronically angry.... about real stuff, mind you. And while getting that stuff and worse directed at him...

The exaggeration you're engaging in ain't exactly helping your case, nor is the ignoring of context.

Why, you even sound a bit.... unhinged, one might say? Eh?

Did you just... did you just reply with "no u"?

Maybe instead of reading some biased articles you could, I don't know, examine the evidence yourself? It's proudly displayed for everyone to see. For example here is our hero telling people to kill themselves:
https://twitter.com/ChuckWendig/status/ ... 6203915264
But of course he's speaking about GOP who are not people so it's the right thing to do.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm pretty sure he was being facetious, not literally trying to get people to kill themselves. Its not a nice thing to say, I wish he hadn't said it, but quite a few people have said as bad or worse to me on this site with zero reprecussions.

Seriously, for a group that whines constantly about how "SJWs" need to stop being so sensitive and just get over racism and sexism and rape, the Right sure is easily triggered. But that's just par for the course. Grind everyone under heal, all while insisting that they are the real victims and are just defending themselves.

Yeah, sure. The Right locks children in cages for the crime of having parents who are foreign, and they put a rapist in the swing vote on the Supreme Court and then publicly mock and laugh at his victim. But a liberal said some mean things on Twitter, so they're the real victims.

By the way, no one is saying Republicans aren't people. They're people, with all the rights that come with that. But then, Nazis and Klansmen are people too. Awful, awful people.

[Q99]

Did you just... did you just reply with "no u"?

As a way of pointing out how over-the-top and exaggerated you're acting, yes. Like, seriously, calm down. You don't do yourself any favors by calling everyone you don't like 12 and accusing them of being deranged.

I don't get the conservative obsession with calling everyone who disagrees with them or, gasp, shows anger while doing so, deranged.

Maybe instead of reading some biased articles you could, I don't know, examine the evidence yourself?

Ah yes, 'everything which says something I don't like is biased.'

Am I a fan of the wood chipper - which, judging by a search of his twitter for words like 'kill' and 'suicide' is a one-off and not directed to anyone in specific- tweet? No. Is it how you described it? Not really. Does it mark him as deranged? Also no. Angry, yes, but you actively tried to remove context from what was said until you were pinned down on it.


You make it as if he's trying to attack specific individual and jumping around attacking at random, not talking about a political party known for throwing people in camps and taking away their children. He's angry for some very specific, very major reasons, and angry at a political organization who's doing said actions.


Also, a wordsearch of his twitter shows he's said 'go kill yourself' or something along those lines, or used the word suicide outside of talking about the suicide squad movie.

[The Romulan Republic]

If Republicans want people to stop having contempt for them, they should stop supporting and defending a party that routinely violates practically every democratic norm in the name of power. Seriously, its that simple: if you don't want people to think you're a fucking asshole, don't be a fucking asshole.

[eMeM]

What I learned from this discussion:
I'm a Republican or at least a part of "the Right".
I call everyone who I disagree with deranged or a 12 yo.
In USA it is not considered abnormal or inappropriate to regulary shout profanities and insults in public in front of hundreds of thousands of people. It's also not a reason to get fired. In fact suggesting it's abnormal is a clear sign of being unhinged.
Every part of the life of an average American is a chapter in an ongoing holy war between the good guys and the evil fourth reich, including forum discussions and writing comics. In this bizzare country beyond the great water a person can't be fired for being an idiot on social media, not in 2018, it has to be a part of a Nazi conspiracy.
It's okay to tell people to kill themselves as long as the words "kill" or "suicide" aren't used. Throw yourself off the roof, jump under a train, tie a rock to your neck and go swimming, jump into a wood chipper etc. are okay.

Lovely chat with you lovely folks, I don't think I will visit you again, you can count this as a victory against the alt right.

[madd0ct0r]

the funny thing is, until eMeM got his spurs on, the first six comments were neutral or wary of Wendig. Pressing the argument he did hardened the people remaining in thread in oppostition. But given this forum explicitly allows you to insult creatively (albeit with the more recent 'cut the crap' amendment), I'm kinda unsurprised no-one cared about the language. There was sympthay for the argument he should not tell people to go kill themselves, I'm surprised eMeM didn't pursue that instead of clutching pearls.

I don't think anyone argued that company was acting incorrectly to fire him (as in, no-one has said he should have kept his job), just expressed glumness at a scalp taken by the other side.

As for why creative insults in these cases are less bad then things fascists get dumped on for: in the except eMeM provided, I can't see him attacking anyone for anything else then their chosen politcal posistion. Not things they have no control of, like race or gender or orientation. And given they are in power, he is punching up. He's not picking on the vulnerable. So the same language counts less. Much less.

[Q99]

What I learned from this discussion:
I'm a Republican or at least a part of "the Right".
I call everyone who I disagree with deranged or a 12 yo.

I mean, you did because a guy swore a lot.

And now you're playing a victim card as if you had done nothing wrong to warrant such criticism of your drama-school theatrics.



Like madd0ct0r said, it's not like people were totally unquestionable behind him, but your line of attack- and your decision to then play the put-upon victim are both transparently lousy acting jobs.

If you had posted something like "Eeeh... the woodchipper thing really pushes the line, don't you think?" you'd get a level of agreement. But nah, you pushed the deranged angle because you had to play things up in an overly-dramatic fashion, and the woodchipper thing was your retreat to point you had to look up. You didn't think he was deranged because of that, you decided that calling him deranged would score you 'points' because he swore at your political side before you even knew about that.


If you're really going? Fine, you're free to do so. Just be aware this happened because you were blowing things up and disingenuous about why you said you cared. People didn't dogpile on you because of conservative, but because you turned the conversation that way on purpose and people saw through you.

This isn't a victory over the alt right or anything, but your arguments were dumb and artificial, and you're mad you got caught.

[ray245]

Anyway, its pointless trying to appease the Alt. Reich, just as it was pointless trying to appease the Third Reich. They will never be sated. Even if they won, even if they managed to create a global Fourth Reich and killed or enslaved or otherwise subjugated every woman, brown person, gay person, etc, they'd just find some new scapegoat to vilify. Ultimately they'd turn on each other and eat themselves, because that's what they are. They are driven by fear and hate of the Other that will never be satisfied.

No matter how much gold and how many virgins you sacrifice to appease the dragon, it will always want more.

And they will always hate Star Wars as long as it has non-white male leads.

I don't think this is about appeasing the alt-right as much as creating a system that prevents alt-right writers from spreading their ideas via their connection to major entertainment giants like Disney. Generally speaking, I tend to think alt-righters are the king of people that will post angry twitter post raging at everyone. By creating a policy that disavow the kind of behaviour that Wendig was doing, it ensures angry alt-right writers will be fired from Disney/Marvel if they go on a tirade on twitter.

If Disney don't fire Wendig, then it makes it harder to justify their dismissal of alt-right writers who espouse rather hateful views online.

[Galvatron]

This nitwit has been getting more and more radicalized about "woke SJWs" in the past few months so he's loving the Wendig situation.

[Q99]

This nitwit has been getting more and more radicalized about "woke SJWs" in the past few months so he's loving the Wendig situation.

I try and avoid giving people like that views.

[Galvatron]

I used to agree with a lot of what he said, but I think he went full unhinged alt-right around the same time Kathleen Kennedy's contract got extended. Now every video is some rant about "get woke, go broke" and how awesome it is whenever an "SJW" gets fired for making angry internet posts about Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

I used to agree with a lot of what he said, but I think he went full unhinged alt-right around the same time Kathleen Kennedy's contract got extended. Now every video is some rant about "get woke, go broke" and how awesome it is whenever an "SJW" gets fired for making angry internet posts about Trump.

So basically, he's an insecure man who got triggered by a woman being hired to a position of leadership?

[Q99]

I used to agree with a lot of what he said, but I think he went full unhinged alt-right around the same time Kathleen Kennedy's contract got extended. Now every video is some rant about "get woke, go broke" and how awesome it is whenever an "SJW" gets fired for making angry internet posts about Trump.

It's funny how most of the type they crow about movies that do somewhat-less than expected, have a lot of other reasons for doing so, and like to completely overlook movies like, say, Black Panther, the wokest MCU movie.

[Tsyroc]

The easy solution is to stay the fuck off of twitter and just write what you want to write. Either people will buy it or they won't.

If they send bitchy ass emails or snail mail to you or your employer, well at least they put a modicum of effort into it by today's standards.

[Elheru Aran]

The problem with staying off Twitter and/or social media in general, as a content creator, is that in this day and age, fans expect at least SOME direct contact with the creator, even if it only consists of seeing whatever they choose to post that day. I don't think you can really get away with not having any social media.

But you can control what goes on to a degree-- you can choose to only post stuff that won't stir the pot, for example. Or you can just ignore/ban any users who start using your page as a platform. That kind of thing.

Ultimately though I don't think anybody will really deny the idea that Wendig can say what he wants to say, if it's his own personal page rather than one curated by his employer. Perhaps the only thing he did wrong, if anything, was in HOW he expressed his political opinions.

[The Romulan Republic]

Frankly, I'm sick of the Left hemming and hawing over whether we're being too "uncivil" while Republicans are locking children in cages, glorifying violence against journalists, mocking sexual assault victims, and then calling us a violent mob (Trump is pretty much outright calling the entire Democratic Party violent insurrectionists at this point).

We need to get our priorities straight, and stop arguing over whether we're being nice enough to the fascists.

[Q99]

The problem with staying off Twitter and/or social media in general, as a content creator, is that in this day and age, fans expect at least SOME direct contact with the creator, even if it only consists of seeing whatever they choose to post that day. I don't think you can really get away with not having any social media.

This is a major thing about harassment movements and such- if someone is being bombarded, it denies them ordinary usage of something most people can take for granted in expanding their brand and interacting with customers and colleagues.

[Vendetta]

Anyway, its pointless trying to appease the Alt. Reich, just as it was pointless trying to appease the Third Reich. They will never be sated. Even if they won, even if they managed to create a global Fourth Reich and killed or enslaved or otherwise subjugated every woman, brown person, gay person, etc, they'd just find some new scapegoat to vilify. Ultimately they'd turn on each other and eat themselves, because that's what they are. They are driven by fear and hate of the Other that will never be satisfied.

No matter how much gold and how many virgins you sacrifice to appease the dragon, it will always want more.

And they will always hate Star Wars as long as it has non-white male leads.

I don't think this is about appeasing the alt-right as much as creating a system that prevents alt-right writers from spreading their ideas via their connection to major entertainment giants like Disney. Generally speaking, I tend to think alt-righters are the king of people that will post angry twitter post raging at everyone. By creating a policy that disavow the kind of behaviour that Wendig was doing, it ensures angry alt-right writers will be fired from Disney/Marvel if they go on a tirade on twitter.

If Disney don't fire Wendig, then it makes it harder to justify their dismissal of alt-right writers who espouse rather hateful views online.

That's sadly a hopelessly naive perspective.

The alt-right is born out of movements which are long practised in not obviously showing you what they are, and finding ways to hide even their dog whistles behind seemingly normal criticism like "he's uncivil" or "Rey is a Mary Sue".

In the words of Reagan political strategist Lee Atwater:

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****". By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****".[11][12]

The only way to "win" is to convince major companies to recognise substance over style in the personal expression of their employees, and they'll only do that if they get worse responses when they dance to the alt-right's tune again (which Disney are starting to pick up a bit of a habit of) than if they don't.

(Edit: Also if we all point and laugh and mock them for firing employees on the say-so of bots.)

[mr friendly guy]

This nitwit has been getting more and more radicalized about "woke SJWs" in the past few months so he's loving the Wendig situation.

So he's upset because its apparently wrong to insult people, but then goes on to do it to other people. Oh wait, its wrong for employees to insult customers, so presumably he as the customer could insult them. Brilliant. Unless I guess the employees are politicians and the customers are the voting public. Seriously. Do all of these guys have such a lack of self awareness?

[The Romulan Republic]

Not so much a lack of self-awareness, as blatant double-standards being the basis of their ideology. The übermensch can do things that the untermensch would never be permitted to do.

Simply put, they feel entitled. They have the right to do anything they want, and if anyone else does something they don't like, or if anyone else gets a piece of the pie, they're the ones being "persecuted". Like how Christian fundamentalists claim that they are victims of "religious discrimination" if they're not allowed to discriminate against others. They view society as a zero-sum game played along demographic lines, where only one demographic (ie straight white men) can win, and any gains by another group of people must come at the expense of straight white men. This is the essence of the Alt. Reich, and conservatism in general.

Or even more simply: "I've got mine, fuck everyone else."

[Lonestar]

The problem with staying off Twitter and/or social media in general, as a content creator, is that in this day and age, fans expect at least SOME direct contact with the creator, even if it only consists of seeing whatever they choose to post that day. I don't think you can really get away with not having any social media.

I got blocked by Harry Turtledove on Twitter for commenting on a tweet of his with a dril tweet.

[Elheru Aran]

The problem with staying off Twitter and/or social media in general, as a content creator, is that in this day and age, fans expect at least SOME direct contact with the creator, even if it only consists of seeing whatever they choose to post that day. I don't think you can really get away with not having any social media.

I got blocked by Harry Turtledove on Twitter for commenting on a tweet of his with a dril tweet.

Those are the chances you take. Content creators are people too, they can get pissed off as easy as anybody else.

[Lord Pounder]

Was there an editing issue with the first Aftermath book?

When it was first released I had a look at the first chapter on Amazon preview, the text read like a script and was unpleasant to read. However a few days ago I saw the book in my local bookshop and I decided to have a read through and it looked less jarring. I bought it and actually quite enjoyed the 200 pages I’ve read so far.

As for the firing, if I was a liberal leaning creative working for Disney I’d be careful. James Gunn and Chuck Wendig are just the first.

[Mange]

Was there an editing issue with the first Aftermath book?

When it was first released I had a look at the first chapter on Amazon preview, the text read like a script and was unpleasant to read. However a few days ago I saw the book in my local bookshop and I decided to have a read through and it looked less jarring. I bought it and actually quite enjoyed the 200 pages I’ve read so far.

As for the firing, if I was a liberal leaning creative working for Disney I’d be careful. James Gunn and Chuck Wendig are just the first.

I don't think it can be less awful with its references to trilobites, snow globes, milkshakes, hamsters, the use of modern slang ("duh", "bummer") and Phoenix flying again. Yeah, that doesn't keep me in the GFFA. Oh, and a comet that threatens the entire Core... Yes.. And the shitty writing: "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air, careening drunkenly across the Myrrann rooftops - it zigzags herkily-jerkily out of sight." The writing is, at times, almost incomprehensible and his descriptions sometimes made me feel that I was reading a description of a setting written for a gamemaster in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game.

I haven't read the comic, but I heard that Wendig also took a lot of flak for Darth Vader Annual 2: Technological Terror. Apparently, Wendig not only ignored elements from (the far superior author) Luceno's Catalyst, but also that Vader disliked the Death Star. But Wendig has also said to the effect that canon doesn't matter.
EDIT: The spoiler tag doesn't work, so I cut it off here.

[Q99]

I got blocked by Harry Turtledove on Twitter for commenting on a tweet of his with a dril tweet.

Which is, honestly, fair ^^