I need to have a conversation with people (mostly SJWs) who think that social media is their friend. Call it an intervention, because these SJWs are in perpetual state of anger and frustration. Fortunately, my operating principle is to troll the hell out of SJWs just for the lulz. But I’ll try to hold that back, for now.

I get that many people have lofty ambitions on Twitter. So many people think that they have reached out to the multitudes online through social media, and more specifically, Twitter. Congratulations, someone has gained 2,000 followers! Many people look to their Twitter feed for information and commentary, and they think that You Matter Very Much™. Thus, that person thinks that they have widespread public support and can use their social media presence to either push for their agenda or gatekeep and protect a preexisting one. And more often than not, they push for social justice positions. Fight for the oppressed! Systemic Racism! Injustice! Victimhood! Cis Whites are sexist! Homophobic! Racist! TrumpHitler! Nazis! Goddamn you, you you huff-huff-puff-puff badthought ungoodness!

They wait for people to join their SJW crusade, because Forward the Revolution, Comrade! It’s going to happen because they Yelled At The Right People™.
And then nothing happens. Their Twitter commentary doesn’t get picked up by a greater audience (on and off of social media). They scream louder. LOTS OF CAPS LOCK RANTING. LOOK AT ME, RANTY MCRANTFACE RANTSKIRT. Doesn’t work. They’ve plateaued on social media/Twitter and don’t know why. But that’s what I’m here for- I’ll tell everyone why.

The reality is that all these SJWs have done is get a small group of like-minded supporters to check out their social media accounts. And it’s not a cross-section of America (or the world), and it has very little pathway out of the echo chamber that they and their SJW friends have built. Heck, I know I have an echo chamber with this blog and I created it completely understanding both its value and limitations. Anyways, the problem is that they never bothered to recognize how limited their audience really is. A lot of it has to do with the kind of political commentary that SJWs like to assume is mainstream, but really isn’t.

Telling white people that they’re evil and must atone for sins is not a good way to gain support when about 75% of the country is white. Same goes for telling men they’re only capable of being rapists- half the country is male. To be honest, the other (right-wing/alt-white) side can have similar problems, especially if they’re anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Muslim, and just plain mean. You can’t really grow your audience if you spend a ton of time telling people that you hate them on the left or the right. You’re just not going to get any sort of critical mass of people agreeing with you if you go that route. Oh, while I’m at it the national LGBTQ percentage in America is somewhere around 3%. African-Americans also nationally represent 13%, and Muslims are around 1%. There’s certainly a market for media and consumption there, but it’s limited at best thanks to the absolute margins within the aforementioned percentages. There’s just not enough of a cross cultural and political alignment built into it.

That being said, SJWs and the left think that they can get away with being a jerk to everyone who’s not in their tribal group. SJWs like to tell the other side (ie; everyone else) to shut up, and they do it all the freaking time. Silencing opposing viewpoints works about as much as a mom telling a 5-year-old the word “no.” And it’s antithetical to the American spirit of free speech. Plus, for people who aren’t within the SJW tribal grouping, it’s utterly exhausting to deal with their attempts to tell everyone how to live their lives and what is appropriate speech and what is verboten. In the end, all the SJWs do is make the other side look rational and people gravitate to that.

I’ll give everyone some concrete examples of where you went wrong. There are two social media events that took place recently that can serve as a good example of how social media (especially on the left) is not a good judge for size of one’s overall target audience. They concern SJW-led social media mobs attacking two different science fiction/fantasy conventions online, and the ramifications of the attacks.

First, ConCarolinas was forced to remove a conservative guest author because SJWs didn’t like him and made threats to the convention and the author. This annoyed their larger audience and the convention realized it was a mistake and apologized. Afterward, SJWs continued to fight against the convention, and they created a petition to get the con to disinvite the con-committee figures who apologized and supported the author. Their petition garnered less than 150 supporting signatures (out of a desired 500). And in the same timeframe a countervailing petition to back the convention leaders had over 3,500 signatures. The disparity in support for each side’s petitions cannot be overlooked. The SJWs got almost nothing and were swamped by the conservative side. Some of it’s really good conservative networking (full disclosure: I signed the conservative petition), but a lot of it has to do with how the SJWs attacked the convention, tried to get an author expelled, and then tried to ban people from running the convention. Their side looks very much like the villain here- and they badly overestimated the overall number of your supporters.

Secondly, there’s a separate Origins gaming convention fiasco where their SJW leadership disinvited another well-known conservative author and did so very loudly and publicly (I hope you can see a pattern of SJW actions here). Once again, it ignited a conservative firestorm against Origins, and a lot of people demanded refunds. In retaliation, the convention doubled down, adding more SJW invectives to their decision to disinvite the author (sorry for the alliteration there). The result? The author was a pretty big name in SF/F, and the conservative backlash against Origins on social media was massive. Additionally, based on commentary from people who went to the convention and photos (of the con itself and the empty parking lots around it), I believe that the convention ended up with far less attendance than they should have had. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why- the author’s fanbase took their money and walked away from the convention when they disinvited him. It was a poorly thought out move that was done entirely out of anger and spite, and their SJW lies about the author belittled the audience. Now they’re stuck with a tarnished image and nothing to show for it- and the author is doing just fine without them.

In both these instances the SJWs thought that they had the manpower and the popular support behind them. They listened to their social media tribal groups and sought to dominate their cultural and political opponents. In both instances, the SJW side was catastrophically wrong; their social media presence was small and had no connection to the mainstream. It completely missed the Overton window on acceptable dialogue, and they sought to conduct shadowbox play-acting against fake conservative straw enemies, which ultimately was a poor substitute for the real thing.

The problem is that everyone outside of their bubble can see that it’s fake and reject it. SJWs have let their twitter bubble tell them that they were more powerful than they really are, and it’s going to damage them in ways they can’t begin to understand. And when they realize that few people outside of their closeted worldview actually agree with them, many will simply deny that reality and become more even more angry and violent.

This is just a small fragment of the culture wars that are ongoing. And it’s important to note that up until recently liberals and SJWs were winning. Ironically, conservatism has gained in popularity by recognizing that they can have a “big tent” and are welcoming more and more people into their fold on the internet and in the real world (but that’s a separate topic). But I think the SJWs and the left began losing the culture war when they retreated into the confines of Twitter, Tumblr, and other forms of social media and lost the ability to interact with the mainstream on a regular basis. Telling people that they can’t eat meat, Christians are evil, women should not be mothers, only Chinese people can eat Chinese food, men must wear bras and panties, and babies must consent to being diapered is not going to move the social, cultural, and political needle in your side’s favor. It will convince the average person that you are not a good person and probably crazy.

So, once again, Twitter is not your friend. Use it responsibly.