The Horrifying Panopticon of West Elm Caleb
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มี.ค. 2022
- This video is not about West Elm Caleb. The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/sarahz02221
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Music:
Trevor Kowalski - Story is she left without a trace
Dusty Decks - Strings Attached
Zoë Blade - Walking in the Rain
Couch Guy article: slate.com/technology/2021/12/...
Rayne Fisher-Quann article: internetprincess.substack.com...
Couch Guy voiced by NathanWhy: / why_nathan
Michel Foucault voiced by Lindsay Ellis: / lindsayellisvids - บันเทิง
Hope y'all enjoy the video! This one's a bit of a return to form for me, so I hope it's well-liked. As a warning, this video goes into brief discussions of transphobia from 29 minutes- 31 minutes in. Please proceed with caution.
It's almost like the functions of the state apparatus, especially in how it objectifies, functions of its manufactured culture, the functions of labour extraction for money, all are reductive of personhood, reificating the alienation needed to sell You.
The whole social order of society is built on extracting value from the individual, converting their agency and autonomy into commodities to exploit, even when the transaction is clicks and likes, not even material monetary gain.
Social orders molded around this ontological nightmare of capitalist realism.
Fictional gains all the way down, to the blood soaked pit of human lives thrown asunder.
This one’s my favorite of yours! A lot of high concept stuff explained in a way that’s really easy to understand
Well done.
Well reasoned.
You converted me.
But.
How are we supposed to handle situations where someone, with power, really is dark triad, and a direct danger to our lives?
I worry that instead of an easily exploited outrage culture, we'll have an easily exploited outrage fatigue.
I mean, we live in a situation where one of the major US political parties has defended violence to protest imaginary election fraud, after also protesting basic pandemic safety precautions during a pandemic that's already killed more Americans than any of our wars.
And you couldn't use them as an example of predators weaponizing fake victimization, because it would make you a target too.
And that's just the start of things we accept as normal now.
How far will these trends go?
They're not just limited to North America.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 yes, well, the thing to probably not do is to make a 20-second post on social media about it. It misses the point and really is no platform to present anything with detail and nuance.
I wish I hadn't seen this comment. Trigger warnings do the opposite of helping.
As a body language expert it's clear from the way Sarah sits on her couch & drinks her tea & looks straight ahead into the camera that she's recording some kind of video
I, an empath, can tell from your comment that you are talking about Sarah's body language
Gosh that makes so much sense. I always knew there was something off about her
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I'm in no way an expert but I also sit on couches and can tell Sarah actually hates tea and has several people in her basement
From the reflection in the window I can tell she is using a spotlight in order to draw attention to herself.
"While I don't have a psychology degree I do watch a lot of criminal minds" this sentence dealt me so much psychic damage why must the internet be like this
I literally yelled at my Screen when I heard the sentence. The lack of selfawareness from the person saying it is unbelievable...
I wanted to throw my damn phone at the wall
"I don't have a medical degree but I do watch a lot of House M.D."
Yeah that part made me want to fucking vomit lmao
@@graquinn4058 I saw your pfp and thought you were me for a second lol
It's really telling how Couch Guy's girlfriend was treated. Everyone was trying to make the point that they were helping her, but when she didn't immediately break up with her boyfriend, they turned on her. This wasn't about helping her, it was about fulfilling a true crime fantasy
This.
And the evidence they've got about Couch Guy isn't actually speaking to anything clear when there's an equally plausible answer of 'his girlfriend just turned up unexpectedly, maybe he's just not emotionally quick on the uptake on the level TV and movies tell you someone should be, and so hasn't had the time to get happy yet'.
The emotional equivalent of 'don't attribute to malice what could easily be stupidity'.
Why am I not surprised...
@@EinDose it doesn't even have to be that. Like, maybe he is not happy to see her? That would be fine. It is not a requirement to always be happy for your SO to be present. It's pretty normal actually.
Literal gaslighting.
when are ppl gonna realize that “being an asshole” and “actual abuse” are not equivalent
Probably never -- I only see accelerating of this phenomenon in the future, tbh
People who want an excuse to be assholes to others while feeling righteous don't care about the difference.
Honestly, I know nothing of the Caleb situation outside of what was said in this video, but hearing the description of his actions framed as inherently malicious and abusive made my blood run cold, because quite a lot of it feels very similar to the defensive dating 'strategy' of someone who has been in an abusive relationship in the past. You lavish them in praise and affection to keep them in a good mood and minimize the risk of violence. You overstate how serious you are about the relationship (including 'personalized' gifts) to test if they're going to try and take advantage of someone who falls in love too easily. You keep constantly vigilant for any possible signs of controlling, possessive, or isolating behavior. And always make sure that you can disappear from their lives entirely if they show the slightest hint of a red flag.
Sure, it's entirely likely that Caleb is just a huge jackass, but seeing the same kind of behavior that someone who's deeply hurting would display being framed as some devilish and predatory behavior is very uncomfortable.
I've had this problem when talking about things in my past before. Like, I'll talk about some asshole teacher in my religious school I had growing up and some people are so quick to jump to the conclusion that that person was abusive. And I'm like, no, they were absolutely a dick and they had terrible opinions, but I definitely don't think they qualify as abusive. And there's been a few times where the person will insist that that person must have been abusive and I have been deluded into not seeing that they were abusive. And it's like 1) no, I'm a fully rational functional adult and I'm capable of knowing if that person was abusive or not and implying that I can't feels very condescending, and 2) often times I get the feeling that there's a bit of projecting going on and what they're saying isn't really about my experiences and feelings
@@katykatmeow5159 fully agree and have also had this experience. People start projecting so hard and will not believe you if you say someone was just an ass, not an abuser. It's ridiculous.
I swear... The rise of "body language analyses" is so infuriating to me. People act like it is an actual science when it is not. Every person comes loaded with their own context and this impacts their "body language". That's why you might be able to tell that your BFF is trying to keep a surprise party secret from you, but you can't tell that a complete stranger is having an affair from 20 seconds of body language.
I've hated every one of those that I've seen. It grosses me out and it always reeks of someone exploiting a situation to get attention using pseudoscience.
it also alienates people who dont have "standard" body language. my first thought is autistic people but it could probably apply other situations
I almost screamed when Sarah shared that clip of a tiktokker saying they may not have a degree in psychology but they do watch a lot of criminal minds
oh, good, you’re very good at uncritically consuming copaganda* and believe in fake tv science. that’s awesome.
*critically consuming copaganda is watching brooklyn 99 for the wholesome gay content
When body language is used by actual experts, it is NOT a single scratch to the nose on its own taken as a sign of lies. I's numerous signs taken together that are consistent and with consideration of cultural differences. A good 10 years ago or so a girl was expelled from her school because it was determined that she was lying about something. I don't remember what, and it's irrelevant. She was determined to be lying since she avoided eye-contact with adult men while she was being questioned. Turns out that women in the culture she was raised in aren't supposed to look men in the eyes. ACTUAL expects know this stuff, and don't take body language as proof, only as a guide on how to proceed next. Quite different than a three-second video clip or a screencap being used to condemn.
@@agraham9099 Over the years, it's been reported that jurors who admit watching a lot of procedural dramas are often excused due to how many of them think that procedural show are true. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is often believed to be "beyond a shadows of doubt." A defendant not read miranda rights is likely to be seen as having their rights violation even though cops don't have to recite that. Etc.
to quote a tumblr post i saw today, "all of you west elm caleb girlies would not last one day on lesbian hinge. ive had two different people block me because im an aries. i had someone send me zillow listing for the house she wanted us to buy together and then she ghosted me because her ex proposed. imagine how tired we are"
SERIOUSLY, me thinking about the multitudes of girls that have ghosted me 😭😭 like this really never once was about feminism or fighting misogyny or whatever because so many women do exactly the same thing but noooo one seemed to mention that. You have to wonder who exactly was the “we” these people were talking about while crying feminism when so many women and other people clearly weren’t included under their umbrella of “activism”
But honestly are we even surprised at this point
"I've had two different people block me because i'm an aries."
That's such an aries thing to say.
@@HeyItsNovalee Maybe because the feminism they talk about is nothing but the corporate (normally white-only), deranged and toxic "feminism" that is so emblematic on the USA.
Bro for reaaaallll. Dating women, you just have to expect shit like this all the time. Girls do this kind of shit all the time, where’s my liberation movement damnit!
@@CatLady-9327 I’ve been informed that my complaints about the popularity of astrology in the lgbt community are a very Gemini thing 😄
To everyone who thinks doxxing West Elm Caleb was fair retribution, I ask you to consider:
Are you currently defined by the worst thing you've ever done?
Due to mental illness and seeing stories like this, that is quite often how I define myself.
@@95rossc same :c
To my family? Absolutely.
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I think I remember in school something being bad? A scarlet letter or something?
"I don't have a psychology degree but I do watch a lot of criminal minds" is the kind of thing people write as parody and that person said it without a hint of self awareness. How deeply depressing.
I detected traces of irony in their delivery, but it's not a hill I'd die on. (My sense is that the person in that video was making at least a little fun of themselves for weighing in. Can be hard to tell since TikTok has a lot of casual unseriousness about it.)
@@Bitchpleasistan yeah i detected that as well but i wasnt sure about it either.
@@kaipoland3174 Whether it's ironic or not doesn't matter. Those words came out of that person's mouth, and this did not prompt them to rethink what they were doing.
@@Bitchpleasistan Being self aware of being full of shit doesn't make you any less full of shit, it just makes you... Self aware, but unwilling to shut up.
I felt a part of my soul die the moment those words were said
I don't have a psychology degree but I can tell by Sarah's body language and speech patterns that she's gotten into legal trouble with homestuck before
You could tell by the way she sits, the way she moves her hands, and that time she said in a previous video that she got into legal trouble with homestuck.
@@donnelwaddledee965 Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk
@@potatoesstarch2376 I can tell by your words that you're staying alive, I repeat staying alive
She definitely has that vibe about her...
A+ comment
It's like a digital stoning. One stone isn't gonna kill them but when everyone just wants to throw one, you have just destroyed a person.
@@creativeuserneim the term youre looking for is called "dogpiling"
@@creativeuserneim how was it misappropriation, is stoning not when multiple people throw stones at one specific target of people/a person?
@@creativeuserneim It's a directly-relevant simile that conveys a clear meaning of a group collectively punishing someone in a way that leaves no person technically the one who did the damage but the final outcome devastating. That's the whole point of simile and metaphor.
@@creativeuserneim so your "over" all the people using gaslighting and love bombing incorrectly too?
Wow, what an apt metaphor!
I can’t imagine being Sabrina Prater in that situation. She only posted a video of herself dancing and the internet started misgendering her and saying she killed someone like what the fuck
Cis people will do anything they can to hurt us. It’s a fact of life.
It scares me, as a trans woman
@@TheEepyMagi and then she was forced to come out. That is so horrible
Watching this now, it really, really fucks with me.
Being a neurodivergent transfemme, it’s yet another reminder of the layers upon layers of masking and trying to appear normal to people. We’re so acutely aware of what happens when we’re seen as a little bit off.
I saw her dancing and thought she looked cute. She reminded me of some really sweet friends I have who I really care about.
The fact that other people saw that and thought “serial killer?”
I don’t even know what to say. I think I’m gonna go cry for a bit
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I can’t imagine being so conceited that when a person is kinda rude to me on a dating app, that my first instinct would be to push for that person to lose their job (which is completely unrelated to their dating life) and then shame people for “hating women” when they don’t agree with me.
Well, clearly, _you_ hate women because you don't think men should face the absolute worst consequences negotiable for hurting a woman's feelings.
Very sure that qualifies as being a narcissist.
Ikr?? Like it's fine to complain to your friends about the experience (I've done that, sometimes at great length - sorry friends) but keep that stuff private. You'll forget about it in a couple of months, that's how little it matters.
Hell truly hath no fury
One thing that INFURIATED me about the Couch Guy thing was how people treated the girlfriend, calling her an idiot for not "seeing the obvious." When she lashed out at people for harassing her and her boyfriend en masse and telling her to dump him (like she was supposed to dump her boyfriend on the word of literal STRANGERS), I saw a lot of people being like, "We're trying to help you!" and I was like, "NO the fuck you aren't." These people didn't care one whit about her, because they refused to STOP no matter how much she begged them to. My fyp was full of self-righteous vultures who presumed to know more about a relationship from a 19-second clip than the girl who was literally IN the relationship, and who gleefully turned on her too the second she refused to just roll over and let them have their fun at her boyfriend's expense.
Exactly. The sheer presumption of it all, too: like I really wish these people would have, at any point, stopped and let themselves consider that they were a bunch of strangers to this couple. They didn't know the dude or the girl let alone anything about their relationship. And they were demanding these two strangers break up because they had decided based on the *flimsiest* over-analyzed "evidence", that this man, again, a stranger, was a bad boyfriend - nay, a terrible person! They weren't even this woman's friends or family or anything, but they had the gall to tell her they basically knew better than her, what was good for her based off...that.
I think what is truly terrifying is what that woman said about “we all know these girls .” So many people are bringing their own preconceived notions , or ascribing their own character to these people that they’ve never met or seen beyond 19 seconds !!
@@kanvaros4451 exactly! It’s pure projection and a total lack of self awareness. Let’s “nOrMaLiSe” speaking for ourselves lol 🙄
Complete hypocrisy at his finest
@@DDoubleEDouble what’s terrifying is it’s like the Barnum effect , these people use “near universal truths” and extrapolate and ascribe these to these people
There was a tragic hilarity to the girl proudly announcing "While I don't have any psychology degrees, I do watch Criminal Minds" as if that is somehow an actual accolade that makes her an expert in any way.
Its a step below saying no but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I watched Matlock in a bar last night, the sound was off but I got the gist of it
I'm like, "yeah, this is a systemic issue, but that girl should delete her account and touch grass"
That was a real bruh moment for me
That's the kind of statement you make ironically... yknow, as a joke. Like...homegirl just announced to the fucking world how out of touch with reality she is by unironically saying that.
Body language pseudo-science is a huge problem. Any number of gestures or mannerisms can mean any number of things. Stiff body language can convey discomfort, but it can also convey shyness or even autism. Defensiveness can indicate guilt, but it can also indicate fear of not knowing how to properly defend yourself even though you really are innocent. No rando on the internet can come up with a definitive conclusion based on body language analysis, nor do they have any right to. This is the private relationship of people you don't know. It's none of your business. Keep your two cents to yourself. Even if you argue that by uploading the clip, they made it everyone elses business, but it was the girlfriend who recorded the clip, and last I checked, she wasn't the one getting every aspect of herself psychoanalyzed as a result of it
"The abuser adopts the language of the abused." This. This is so prevalent and can make any discussion hard to navigate.
It's extremely important to remember this. Abusers are not selective about who/what they abuse, because they're defined by a willingness to act outside of socially-agreed-upon boundaries. They will happily abuse language to protect themselves from scrutiny and even to perpetrate further abuse.
The solution is to make our language less abusable. When the meanings of terms like "love bombing" and "gaslighting" are well-defined in the public consciousness, it's difficult to abuse them, because the amount of deception necessary to convince people that those terms are being used appropriately becomes unmanageable.
If "love-bombing", to you, just means "being overly nice but in a creepy way I guess", there is a huge amount of ambiguity there that can be exploited by an abuser to convince you that just about any kind gesture is "love-bombing" and therefore bad. Conversely, the same ambiguity can be used by an apologist to dismiss any accusations of love-bombing as just paranoia on your part.
Ambiguity is not in itself a problem. It's an unavoidable part of language, and poetry and other artful uses of language often depend on ambiguity. But in the arena of social power, it's a vulnerability. Terms that are used to brand people as being either undesirable or unimpeachable are weapons in this arena, and they should be secured from those who would abuse them.
Is that kinda like DARVO, like same kinda principle?
@@alim.9801 yeah, specifically it's the "RVO" part given a bit more poetry
@@skootties very well put, thank you. The co-option of these terms not only equip abusers with language to, well abuse, but it also takes away the tools given to people to ask for help. I was in an intensive out patient program (IOP) for around four months, and many people there were hesitant to describe genuinely bad situations with terms like “gaslighting” and “trauma” when they should’ve, because the feared not being taken seriously. Which in turn caused additional pain to an already upsetting situation. The term “gaslighting” has become a meme, so how can someone seriously ask for help when most people have heard it used facetiously
As someone with a Hinge, the nude photo story isn't true. The app doesn't allow you to send photos
I did not think it was true. It was very odd to me that only one person got a nude. When dudes are into sending unwanted nudes they tend to send them to more then one person
I'm honestly disgusted by how casual people are with doxxing people. People can get in serious danger because of a doxx.
@Kay E Bruh
@Kay E lol did you get ghosted by Caleb
Should be reserved for Nazis and actually dangerous people in positions of power
@Kay E They shouldn’t be doxxed either, what’s your point?
@Kay E if you dont see the problem, it's because you're part of it.
The "I'm not a psychologist but I love criminal minds so I'm really into judging people based only on their body language" person is terrifying
And then these same keyboard activists sometimes have the nerve to talk about how important it is to undo bias in the criminal justice system. Lord help us all.
@@margaretgibbs6673 I doubt it's the SAME people
She is a stupid kid. Most people have some stupid ideas when they were young. I don't thing she is malicious. She should definitely not have the reach she has.
i literally thought that was a fuckin joke when i heard it. and then she kept going and i realized how serious she was :((((
Ale Titan a lot of them are, unfortunately lol
" but I *do* watch a lot of Criminal Minds" spoken with absolute confidence blew my mind. How do people get like this??
Dunning-Kruger.
They switch education and experience with entertainment and likes.
I laughed so hard.. that was comedy gold.. then I remembered it's real and I got sad.. but it's still hilarious.
_image_ _of_ _Barron_ _Trump_ _in_ _"The Expert"_ _shirt_ _momentarily_ _appears_ _on_ _screen_
As someone who has a PhD in psychology (yes, for real) and is a trained clinical psychologist, my reaction to that was... 🤦♀️
We've finally created the panopticon from the classic Sarah Z video "Don't Create The Panopticon"
So that's where the Federal Bureau of Control got the idea from!
Sick of people misusing terms like “love bombing” like I’m sorry but a new person being super affectionate towards you and then ghosting you is not love bombing. Love bombing usually refers to when an abuser will shower the person they are abusing in gifts or attention in an attempt to “minimize” the harm they’ve caused. It’s an awful manipulation tactic that contributes to people feeling stuck in abusive relationships and it bothers me that terms like that are being thrown around so frivolously online.
Between the misuse of “love bombing” and “gaslighting,” advocates for domestic violence victims are gonna have to use completely new terms
Also (I'm not an expert at all) but doesn't ghosting someone sort of invalidate the love bombing claim? Like if you don't carry on stringing the person along then it's not really love bombing as the abuser gets no real benefit out of being nice in the first place
Exactly!
@@nervousbreakdown711 pretty much.
@Kay E his actions were def scummy but being an asshole isn’t always tantamount to being an abuser. The way we use words matter, especially language used to describe domestic abuse.
I’m autistic. I don’t emote very well, I get uncomfortable smiling, and I frequently misinterpret tone both in real life and on the internet. The idea of some person filming me and getting labeled as a psychopath by complete strangers is fucking haunting and emotionally exhausting. All of this is absolutely horrible but thank you for including how neurodivergents get targeted at an even greater level
I’m really glad she mentioned neurodiversity as well! I’m also autistic, but for me I am the opposite in nature. I over-emote if I cannot mask, and I’m usually uncomfortable in clothing so I’m always shifting around and moving. I also have a lot of energy and I emote a lo with my handst/talk quickly, so I’ve had people assume I’m on drugs quite a few times. I cannot even imagine how I would feel if what happened to this poor man happened to me.
Same, it always scares me that I might do something or act a certain way and trigger this response in people unwillingly.
Same here - I've even had to make a conscious effort to look people in the eye more when I talk to them because I was coming across as disinterested. But the idea that I'm somehow inadvertently signalling my contempt and hostility for someone because my knees weren't pointing the right way when I spoke to them, and everyone else can see that but me, is like something out of a horror movie!
@@Blacknight8850 it's funny because this kind of obsessive hyperanalysing of a person's body language in order to ""prove"" that they have some secret negative feelings towards you that they're lying about is quite literally an abuse tactic, it's similar to gaslighting in that it's goal is to get you to be hypervigilant about everything you do and expect at all times that you are doing something wrong so you learn to always apologise and blame yourself and never hold the abuser accountable, this is also a great example of how a "red flag" isn't necessarily a red flag and it certainly isn't automatically abuse, because abuse has to be persistent over an extended period of time to the point where it's a recognisable pattern of behaviour to count, I highly doubt any of these people are doing this kind of body language analysis often, most of them probably only feel validated in making these judgements because it's the internet and this guy is the internet's new favourite punching bag, it does scare me though because my brother's abusive ex friends have been trying to use tiktok to spread rumours that he's a murderer (it's literally vile, I can't get into the details but its specifically intended to trigger my brother's trauma and its fucking evil) and I am always just a bit frightened that they're going to get too much attention and it's going to get out of hand and people are gonna start coming for him even though he's the victim in this situation, and while he has made mistakes (that they were usually equally involved in) he's the one who's actively healing and bettering himself while they continue to lie and spread rumours about him and vandalise our house two years after he cut them off because they just can't let it go. Point is though, only fucked up weirdos read into people's behaviour like that and if someone starts doing that to you get out of there, they're the dangerous ones, not you
Yep. I'm autistic and I'm also an actor, and Sweet Jesus the amount of times I'm offered these generic creepy bad guy roles never stops being upsetting. It's clearly because they see the way I move and think it's alien enough that they can just put me on a screen and the audience will instantly go "creepy! stay away!" I had to basically take most of them early on just to get experience or build up my CV, telling myself I was just particularly good at playing the bad guy (likely got plenty of experience on the other end being routinely bullied and abused growing up), but eventually I had to give myself a little rule that I'd no longer accept those roles solely for the sake of my mental health (I had to play an abusive boyfriend as a favor to a friend last minute a couple of years ago and it was so triggering and upsetting I can't even watch the film). I don't even have any bad guy roles on my showreel, aside from one stern cop. I do have to hold out the grudging belief that if Netflix or the big leagues ever come calling, I'm going to have to swallow my pride and take a lot of $$$ for the sake of career advancement. Oh and I was also advised to take being autistic off my CV by a casting director "in case it makes people think you'll be difficult on set" - but sure I probably dodged a bullet in Sia not approaching me for Music. Heartwarmingly enough, once I met other autistic filmmakers, they've given me the chance to play all kinds of different parts (I got to be a heroic zombie hunter last September :D) and I recently had a film in cinemas where everyone in it was an asshole and I was the most sympathetic of them all. But then there are times when I completely contradict myself and be like "okay THAT bad guy was fun to play". I guess my rule is that 'evil and fun' or 'evil and sexy' are the exceptions (I have yet to play evil and sexy but a man can dream lol).
Couch Guy was the "story" that actually made me quit using TikTok, and largely most social medial, at all. It seemed such a blaise, plain video: a girl surprises her long distance boyfriend and the boyfriend reacts. But then everybody called the boyfriend a cheating POS because he didn't jump for joy or something. But, like, his reaction was completely normal and warranted. I know I wouldn't be immediately jumping for joy if I got a surprise like that from my partner. I'd of course be happy to see them, but my mind would be immediately racing with thoughts like "oh my gosh how much was her plane ticket, I could have helped pay for it", "where is she sleeping, does she already have a hotel rented, or is she expecting to stay here? Are my roommates going to be cool with that?", "We just ate dinner and there's nothing left, is she hungry?". Plenty of people don't automatically love surprises, but those comments I saw calling him a POS and doxxing him just made me realize I needed to step away from the platform for good.
There was also a TH-camr I really liked but unsubbed from after they basically said that Couch Guy was cheating on his girlfriend and doubled down on it after the guy said nothing was wrong with their relationship.
It's scary how quickly everyone moved on after destroying this guy's life, it's hard to find relevant videos or articles or follow ups about this post-March.
Gotta move on to the next villain of the day ASAP. Content brain.
At this point I consider "body language experts" about on the same level as the people who used to stab every inch of a suspected witch's body with needles to see if she would react in a way that would "prove" that she is a witch.
Y E S, OMG YES, THIS! Honestly, we are talking about body language in my communication class and me and the teacher are constantly like "THIS MAY BE A CLUE TO [a thing] BUT IT'S NOT 100% AND YOU CAN'T JUDGE PEOPLE BY THIS ONLY" because many people are like "em, actually if you're not looking at so.eone, that means you're lying" and I'm here like "lol, sorry I can't keep eye contact well, apparently I'm a constant lier"
For real. All that crap that's like "they're folding their leg away from the other person, which means they hate them" like bro, no, my other leg was dead so I changed legs, and now a body language expert is saying I'm psychopathic.
Is there any actual science behind "body language reading"? Because sure, you get a bunch of "experts" attesting to its accuracy, but I never saw anyone support that with data. Body language is something pretty personal, and to be honest, people who overanalyse other's body language and try to use their own to influence/manipulate others come off the same way as people who try to use spoken language that way, that is, creepy.
@@dakunssd My understanding of it is that it's entirely pseudo-science. While we are a social species who communicates quite heavily via body language, the concept that we all speak the same 'language' is absolutely stupid. Even if we took neurodiverse individuals out of the equation (which we obviously shouldn't), there's still countries, status, upbringing and a shit load of other factors. Most criminology, police forces, psycologists and the like have started steering away from that sort of profiling.
you put the thing into words
The pathologizing language is the worst part imo. Everyone I dislike is a narcissistic, abusive, gaslighting sociopath. No such thing as assholes, disagreements, or honest mistakes: the only person acting in good faith is me.
It’s disgusting.
Hard agree. It's just license to fully dehumanize whatever target you set your sights on. At that point, nobody is allowed to defend them anymore.
Honestly, what happened to simply calling someone an asshole, a dick, a jerk, childish, mean, insensitive, etc.? None of those are diagnoses.
@@Aster_Risk It's like Sarah said in the "pro-shippers vs antis" video, over-stating harm is the trend right now. With the way things are right now victimhood and grievance are a kind of social capital, so whoever is the most offended, downtrodden, or hurt wins my default. If my ex calls me a jerk, that sucks, but it's not a crime. If I call him a manipulative gaslighting sociopath, that's pretty terrible, I'm oppressed, and I win.
I want to push back on you on one point there: "abuser" is not a pathologizing term. It's a description of someone's actions (accurate or not) rather than a diagnosis of a disordered mental state. People absolutely do use it inaccurately, but it's not pathologizing
@@marvelousTUD This's some anti-SJW mess.
Honestly what was wild to me is that I've been ghosted like this several times over the past few years. It's just...normal? Like mildly dickish behavior but accepted in modern dating culture lmao
It was accepted before as well; I do feel like having an expectation of immediate contact has intensified the reaction people have to it. It's not "Oh well, shit happens, his loss, hope nothing awful happened." It's "How dare you string me along and then ignore me, I know you saw my message"
A lot of times it’s not even a malicious thing. Sometimes people just get overwhelmed and scared when they think about their future with a person, and get too anxious to continue talking.
This is the first I'm hearing of this and it terrifies me.
I didn't realize people think that, you know, being too exhausted to respond to someone saying something to you on a message app and then forgetting about them because we've interacted like only a few weeks ever and I've got other shit to do, meant you were deserving of this kind of response.
It's like, wtf, my experience on these apps as a guy is I'm pretty much completely ignored by default, even if I matched (which is rare enough on its own) and I send some kind of greeting It's like 1/100 I get any response at all (and maybe 50/50 on it just being a scambot trying to advertise or steal money from me somehow). A tiny fraction of that results in a date. It really feels like the app wants it all to become a pure numbers game. But like apparently if I ignore one of these messages I'm a monster? What the hell?
I stopped dating attempts entirely during COVID cause I didn't want to spread the virus and this video is making me wonder if I should just give up entirely, it seems really dangerous if a social misstep gets the rumor mill going and you can just get crucified like this.
@@mind_onion I honestly don't think you should stop. Chances of something like that happening are very, very small -- plus, the guy didn't stop responding to one girl, but to a really, really big amount of them - which caused that crazy avalanche in the first place. You shouldn't bury your dating life because of that!
@@oulafursson Well, I definitely appreciate your encouragement. Thanks.
as someone who has been learning to manage my bpd and abandonment issues for years, the way people usually talk about ghosting is mind-boggling. yes recognizing your hurt is important but using that sort of catastrophic language is so dangerous. if i let myself get carried away like that i could accuse anyone, even a friend who forgot to reply for a couple of days because they had a hard week, of abusing me. it's extremely worrying how normalized it has become.
"Catastrophizing language" is a great way to put it. A thing cannot simply be "rude," "impolite," or even "dickish" anymore, it must be borderline, if not outright criminal.
But, like.... a VAST berth of human behavior falls underneath he auspices of "rude" but is not "abuse" or criminal. The dude who cut me in line at the sandwich place today is a douche, he's not an abuser. And that's okay! I'm sure I've been a rude douche at some point and time, it's part of the glorious imperfections and contradictions of being human.
this is by far the most troubling aspect to me. seeing the way people talk about these issues and thinking "oh, that sounds just like the irrational thoughts that i'm fighting every day to avoid hurting myself or others." i agree with the above reply about "catastrophizing language" it sums things up perfectly.
@@nadalekene2446 I'm honestly really proud of both of you, i really _cannot_ handle tiktok, Twitter or tumblr, they all foster such a terrifyingly toxic culture, and _nobody ever_ takes a step back to look at the abusive harassment campaigns they're gleefully participating in to consider the lines they've kept crossing to bring it this far. it's clear that _way too many_ people just don't HAVE the commendable insights that the two of you have and are actively applying to help youselves and everyone around you. so yeah, I find that touching and for that I'm very proud
The idea of everyone condemning Caleb as some sort of activist effort like he’s the first person to ever use a dating app for validation is ludicrous
i agree, Guy Fieri
@Kay E quick question, did you actually watch the video? or is this comment a joke?
@Kay E do so in your private life with people you meet in person. Do not gang up on random strangers. That solves nothing and is only a means of feeling control in a senseless world. Seek therapy, you likely have unresolved trauma.
@@damien678 is a contrarian troll, they are just shitting it up on all the replies.
@@tempesttossed6029 you're gaslighting
When the woman in that clip said "I don't have a psychology degree, but I do watch a lot of Criminal Minds", I think I pulled a muscle rolling my eyes.
I snorted. It would br hilarious if it wasn't so horrifying
Shows like Criminal Minds will make up shit to sound scientific, to tie an episode's theme or plot together, or sometimes quite simply to further a writer's bias or agenda. An important lesson to keep in mind when watching something; if you learned it from media, it's likely fake. They'll use real cases as inspiration, draw on professional testimonies, even potentially have a background in the topic. But writers will always change how their fictional world works to make the story make sense.
I thought it was a bit scary, because by the end she sounded so happily eager as if embarking on a fun diy project „I have never held a hammer in my life but I‘ve watched a lot of crafting videos on youtube and so today, I am going to build a birdfeeder“
Ok so, if she was someone I knew at a party, this would be a fun aside. Of course she doesn't know anything but it's fun to talk about, and if it was me and 4 other people it would be a fun dish session. But when she's one of many thousands people abusing a single man as a means of social clout it's very different, though i'm sure to her she's just having a fun aside at a party.
How people think they're using social media is so different to what social media's effects actually are. They're not joking with friends, they're yelling in an auditorium. To us she seems like she's saying why she should be heard among millions, though i'm sure to her she was establishing that she shouldn't be listened to at all.
I keep having to pause the video and alt tab out to something else for a long while because of the TikToks. For some reason that one set me off the most and I had to message my friend telling him this was something someone actually said and I couldn't take it.
You know what my psych professors in college all had in common? None of them ever mentioned body language.
Same. Well, the one who did bring it up mentioned that it was a bullshit science and supposed human lie detectors were scam artists.
Couch guy is my worst nightmare realized: trying my hardest to live my life without thinking if others are talking about me behind my back, and having hundreds of people judging my character from the very little they know about me. And my nightmare was about bumping into someone without apoligizing, not giving another person my seat fast enough or getting into a fight where it looks like I'm the worst person ever because I got a little heated for standing my ground.
This dude was sent to the gallows for nothing, NOTHING and he wasn't even using the internet, it was someone else who uploaded his clip, so my worst nightmare became even worse.
I really hate this trend of using feminist rhetoric to mask what are basically bullying and harassment campaigns. I feel like they do it because they know bullying is bad. So in order to continue to do it publicly they use feminism as an excuse. Please we have more important things to worry about than this one dude who ghosted you on a dating app.
Exactly. They use feminism as a shield for their opinions, because if you dare to disagree or point out the issues with their line of thinking their counter argument is "you just hate women" which doesn’t even make sense but it gives them an excuse not to actually respond to you criticism.
i absolutely despise this whole brand of fake woke passive-aggressive "activism" because they'll literally cyber-bully someone and still think they're the bigger person because they pointed out the "problematic" thing and 'the person deserved it anyway'. Like they'll harrass someone and think *they're* the ones doing good???
While I agree that many people are just using feminism as an excuse for bullying and feel a sense of power/justice from hurting an "acceptable" target, I would be careful about painting literally everyone who does that with the same brush. Just from the example comments in OP's video, I suspect many of the people participating in these campaigns were genuinely hurt by guys like West Elm Caleb, and really believe they're doing something good by "holding him accountable".
I do think what happened to him is way overboard, but I honestly don't have that much sympathy for the guy either-- he's neither an uncommon asshole nor the worst sort out there, but he's still an asshole, and I'd rather save my sympathy for people who deserve it more. I actually have more pity for those people with legitimate grievances, because they think they're accomplishing something meaningful by scapegoating this one guy. In reality, this will change absolutely nothing, because people like that don't ever think their actions will have actual consequences-- and for the most part, they're right. West Elm Caleb was a fluke, pure and simple. This is the same logic that has people thinking punishment actually deters crime, when criminals are already the kind of people who never count on getting caught.
As for the rest (...) yeah, it's incredibly frustrating. They're mindlessly indulging in some of the worst impulses humanity has to offer, yet they're somehow under the pretention that makes them good people just because they get their kicks from victimizing "acceptable targets". Is it sometimes necessary to organize mass harassment campaigns against people in power to effect real change? Regrettably yes. Is it ever justifiable to participate in a hate mob against an ordinary person who has zero actual power? Hell no.
@@scr9069 genuinely believing you’re doing something good is different from actually doing something good.
I doubt think the original comment was trying to imply that these people were consciously using feminism with malicious intent, but whether malicious or not the result was the same and it is important to criticize it that. Acknowledging the injustice that was done to Caleb does not mean being “anti-feminist” or “hating women” and it is incredibly important to point out this flawed way of thinking even if the person who thinks this way meant no ill will and was not consciously using feminism as a shield.
Caleb is not a nice guy but having his full name, private information, and personal address leaked is NOT okay and I personally find this worth sympathizing considering the fact that his only real flaw was not texting back after a date or two
@@hillary96renteria82 You seem to be replying to me, but I'm not sure what about my comment you're replying to? Your first line is a good chunk of my second paragraph reduced to a snappy quip (not to be bitter or anything, lol), and I didn't say anything about whether those people were consciously using feminism with malicious intent or about how important it is to point out this kind of thing. I am, in fact, personally inclined to think that the vast majority of people don't consciously recognize when they're acting in bad faith.
For the record, I disagree on the first point-- the comment implies that those doing the bullying know what they're doing is bad but use feminism as an excuse to do it anyway, which is intentionally malicious-- and agree wholly with the second. I commented because I felt it was worth it to point out that there are other potential reasons to act that way than being a bad faith feminist to bully people, not because I wanted to silence that critique, and I am again confused by your apparent impression that I felt otherwise.
In any case, I think you're downplaying his flaws (he did worse things than just not texting back, even if he doesn't seem to be an actual abuser), but I agree that it isn't okay that Caleb was doxxed. Nor was it okay for people to try to get him fired or harass him in real life, and it especially wasn't okay for big companies to get in on the whole thing with an eye on profit. I don't have to sympathize with him to know that what happened to him was wrong, because no person nor group of people should be able to do that to an ordinary person with zero oversight. He's still an asshole, though, and it doesn't matter to me that he's not a particularly special kind of asshole. You're free to be sympathetic toward him as a person-- I can understand that feeling-- but I'm not personally going to waste pity on an asshole who played with people's hearts just because something bad happened to him.
The absolutely unhinged shit of “Yeah, I know those girls on the couch. I think we ALL know those girls” is what truly ruins my brain. They’re literally just sitting there but these true crime people will act like there’s a secret sociopath hiding behind every door.
yeah they're projecting their own bad experience with someone on these random people they don't even know
Yeah, I lost it at "I'm not an expert on body language, but I do watch a lot of criminal minds." like that sounds like satire, pls tell me it's satire
That clip and the Criminal Minds girl were the most terrifying parts to me. One thing that jumps out was this woman looked older, so it's not just juvenile teenagers having a laugh playing private detectives. And to project their own perception to rile up the mob ("WE ALL KNOW") is just so vile. I lost a little bit of faith in humanity seeing that.
@@mhawang8204 She is Peggy Hill irl. The kind of person that likes to pretend they know more than they actually do to the point where she apparently even fooled herself. I only pray she was just playing this up for clout.
You can tell from the way Sarah holds her cup, always in every video, drawing attention to it and pouring to make sure we know its tea is clearly a desperate bid to subliminally convince us that it is in fact tea. It's definitely not tea. As an empath I see her cry for help, something is definitely very wrong here.
I agree shes obviously gaslighting us. How toxic 🙄
@@samyen3210 no, I think it's something more. Someone is pulling the strings here, forcing her to make videos like this. I bet it's Homestuck; they already gave her a legal threat, so it's not exactly a stretch to think they used it to force her to continue to bow down to their control under the threat of being left penniless and hated by all.
@@cifge_404 what do the clouds mean??? Did you see the halo? It matches the circle on her necklace! And Isn't the blinds arranged like a bar code? What does it all mean?
But how many episodes of Criminal Minds have you watched?
@@luminousbanjoAll of them, obviously. I've also watched Bones so I'm a qualified mortician
This video essay perfectly articulated what has been pushing me away from social media, and especially tiktok, for months. Bullying someone who you think "deserves it" is still bullying, and morally equating all people slightly south of neutral as monsters is damaging, because it not only trivializes the victims of actual atrocities, but also makes it totally unappealing for individuals who have made a mistake to learn from their actions and improve themselves, because they have witnessed huge swaths of the population demonize them in the past. This was awesome, Sarah. I audibly yelled "Yes!" several times while watching.
It also hide the fact we are transforming punishment into a espectacle with all that invold.
@@raro344 people used to watch public executions and participate in lynchings this isn't a new phenomenon.
@@raro344 it all becomes a matter of: If the whole world isn't on the punishment and harrasment then, will the wrong doer ever learn his lesson?
To me it seems like people have a very shitty grasp on what punishment fits the crime in a personal situation. Say, you’re in a bar,and someone punches you in the face. You have every right to defend yourself and even punch them. What you don’t have the right to do is pull out a comically large sword and slash the person in half, or pull out a glock and shoot them in the kneecap,forever crippling them. The punishment should always fit the crime.
Not even gonna start on the whole “being a bigger person” thing, because people who follow mobs like these will never comprehend the importance of sometimes stepping down no matter what the situation is.
"Likely partly as a result of the True Crime brain poisoning where the private lives of private individuals are fun mysteries to solve in real time"
THANK YOU. Finally, somebody called out this weird murder fetish we've all just accepted as normal entertainment
I think you'll like the episodes about true crime by the you're wrong about podcast
I mean, it's been called out well before this video.
@@mechanomics2649 Sarah Z. is the only media commentary channel I sub to, so it's news to me.
@@imsmolandangery4274 "you're wrong about" is such a great podcast I love it. 🧡🦇
It's unrelated but if you interested in nerdy subjects/pop culture & enjoy having 2 new pffs(pod friends forever lmao) that a very loud & proud 🏳️🌈 check out "like a virgin" it's my 2nd favorite podcast after "you're wrong about" I can't recommend those 2 shows enough 🧡🦇
I despise the true crime genre for so many levels, this being the latest reason for me to hate it.
I'm so tired of seeing the term gaslighting used as a synonym of lying. Gaslighting is so much more destructive it makes you questions things and events you were so sure of, you question your own reality. So no, someone just denying something they did is not gaslighting, it's plane old lying
Yep. In online circles gaslighting turned into "Lying about something" or "being rude/talking over someone".
As someone who was gaslighted by years by someone who even faked a whole ass job and life plans while making me look crazy and paranoid when questioning to everyone and specially by me, that makes me so fucking mad.
Honestly. It's a prolonged story weaved to create mental and emotional abuse.
Yeah I was gaslit by someone in the past, it's not lying to someone, it's making someone feel like they're crazy. Those are different things, and at the same time, I wish people wouldn't immediately jump to gatekeep the word and instead describe it. Because gaslighting is a type of lying but not just lying by itself.
Because for the people who are gaslit, are more likely to be confused than to know it's gaslighting, unless they have previous experience.
To this day, the person who gaslit me, I didn't even know that they were lying to me until other people told me experiences with that person.
EXACTLY! It annoys me when gaslighting is used to describe lying. Someone dating many women at the same time, telling them they're the only one he is dating and confessing his love just to ghost them after a few dates is not gaslighting. It's being an asshole and lying. Gaslighting is a manipulation tactic and emotional abuse. I was gaslighted in a 3-year relationship and he made me question my reality.
I also wish people would explain the difference more as someone who is genuinely gaslit might then realize it.
I truly cannot understand how people feel justified using that way. I don't even feel confident calling something that only _mostly_ fits the definition because I'm not sure if the person asserting they didn't do X thing genuinely forgot about it. Or that the behaviour doesn't "count" as gaslighting because it's not actively malicious, even if the end result of having me question my own reality/memory is the same.
I always used to wonder how women were condemned as witches and no one questioned it, but these scenarios have painted a clear picture. They choose a target, find a way to justify it, and "burn" them. Albeit more humane, it is very clear to see this was the same process that once killed women or other prisoners.
34:01 "there is still this underlying notion that there exists a right person to hurt, and that by harming that kind of person, we are making the world a better place" that one hit different
Just wanna say as someone diagnosed with autism thank you for mentioning neurodivergency and not everyone fits into the stereotypes of what counts as 'manipulative' body language -- I literally had a dream once that I was being interviewed on TV and everyone thought I was lying cause I was so stiff and awkward talking to someone new haha
wait people think your body language can be inherently manipulative??? oh, oh no
I swear, people judging me for my awkward body language is a recurring nightmare of mine.
But I always told myself that was just my anxiety speaking, that people don't actually care...
Welp.
Shit.
Almost every single “spot a narcissist” video is just describing autism traits
@@damien678 yes. Nobody has any idea what a red flag actually is these days, it seems.
@@cjboyo ironically, ain't it a narcissist trait to project horrible mental afflictions onto other people to make themselves seem reasonable in comparison.
"Everyone else is the problem, but not me."
I saw Sarah Z at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told her how cool it was to meet her in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother her and ask her for photos or anything. She said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but she kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing her hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard her chuckle as I walked off.
When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw her trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in her hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Ma’am, you need to pay for those first.” At first she kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, she stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, she kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
This is true I was the cashier
The Flying Sarah Copypaste
its true I was one of the Milky Way bars
It's true I was the electrical infetterence
its true i was the price scanner
The commodification of therapeutic language is one of the most horrifying things that's happened in the last few years. Growing up, everyone would say "ugh, I hate my parents," and the like, so it took until I was an adult to realize that they didn't actually mean it, and that the real sentiment wasn't normal. That I Did have literal c-ptsd, they Were literal narcissists and abusers, that I Was literally gaslit, that hating them was warranted and that the appropriate response isn't a sympathetic laugh. If I had that problem with regular hyperbolic language, what's going to happen to those who will grow up with the terminology equated to high-school drama? Especially the neurodivergent like me, who have trouble differentiating between figurative and literal?
I'm so, so afraid for the coming years of all the people going through abuse, having been robbed of the language to address it. Worse still, I'm afraid for those who won't make it until these terms fall out of fashion.
As a psychologist, I agree wholeheartedly
literally same
It should be said, that gaslighting isn't just manipulation, it's the rewriting of a person's experience and memory, to the point of pushing a person to question their sanity. I am so sorry you went through that. I felt the need to clarify, because it is awful and it's current use in the lexicon of today waters it down.
@@sorejackAlso, doesn’t gaslighting have intent behind it? Like a person suffering from something like dementia or some other memory altering condition might actually think what they are saying is true and have conviction with it enough to convince the other person what actually happened, didn’t happen or other way around. But even in that way it isn’t gaslighting because the intent wasn’t to manipulate the other person. It was either confusion or defensiveness about the situation or memory loss.
Being robbed of the laungage to address trauma and mental illness is a brilliant way to put it. Normal people have co-opted serious, life ruining symptoms and conditions to make their problems look more legitimate or to make themselves look smarter and it is infuriating. It’s now nearly impossible to tell if someone has serious trauma and/or abuse, or if they just like using terms they heard on tiktok to describe normal unpleasant experiences.
"true crime brain poisoning online" YES YES YES! Missing persons and crimes and murders aren't your fun little mystery to solve online with your buds, they're real life people with real pain that don't deserve to have every aspect of their lives dissected in a public venue. True crime can be really interesting to talk about but I only support true crime that talks about older cases that don't impact people currently (like Buzzfeed unsolved true crime) or things that actually interview and talk to the people involved in a respectful way (like the Dr Death podcast). people really, really need to examine the consequences of their online behavior. this isn't just a game, it's real life.
Yes! I love true crime but the latest story sweeping the news isn't some Hunt-a-killer game where you can solve it! Hell, for Gabby Petito's boyfriend people were CONVINCED he was hiding in a bunker in his parent's backyard because... they bent down near it? It was so ridiculous!
There are some true crime podcasts where I think it's valid to do recent cases, though. Some Place Under Neith is one that focuses exclusively on missing women, and most of their cases are recent, but it's not to exploit and sensationalize stories, it's because mostly they tell stories of missing women and girls who otherwise wouldn't get wide media attention (women of colour, indigenous women, impovrished women/girls, trans women, sex workers, etc.,) and making these names public and keeping these stories told can help in these women being located.
"There's still this underlying notion that there exists a right person to hurt."
This is such a good quote, like damn.
true. it really seems like some people just really want a bag to punch but also wants to feel morally riotous for doing so. having their cake and eating it too.
+
@@kenpanderz672 yeah, but....I mean they'll never come from stupid internet drama (only serious internet drama like Austin Jones or Lionmaker level, maybe) sometimes there are people you MUST hurt. Which leads to a question, if you must, what's the moral baggage associated with that?
(I've been thinking a lot about Ukraine- specifically their now hardened and armed civilians and how they probably don't want to hurt anyone but they must.... just weird shower thoughts don't mind me.)
@@milhousevanhoutan9235 How would you determine who MUST be hurt though? Nobody's all-knowing. Even if you were all-knowing, how would you make the moral judgement of where in the vast ethical gradation of human actions to draw the line. There's a certain practical necessity in self-defense, and that extends somewhat to defending others, but that's also not really about hurting them. It's more about neutralizing a threat. Mitigating harm.
@@milhousevanhoutan9235 As Morris said, Ukraine isnt trying to hurt Rusia, but stop them from doing more.
Feels a bit odd to say "Disclaimer: this is nothing against her" right before calling someone a serial killer
"For legal reasons, this is a joke"
It's like the people who claim "fair use" when uploading an entire episode of Death Note to TH-cam.
@@BrickBuster2552 i was thinking so much about death note while watching this
@@ADevilFromHeaven Not surprising. The West Elm Caleb bashers are essentially advocating for a world where everyone has a Death Note, except that someone only dies if enough people write their name in their Death Notes. And I guess they haven't _literally_ called for the murder of any Twitter Protagonist of the Day...yet.
Actually, that sounds like a fun premise for a speculative fiction story. Black comedy, but still comedic.
The pathologist has language is extremely concerning to me. Some background: My spouse is autistic. He’s not subtle with affection. He comes home from work and his reaction to seeing me is “MAR!! *glomp* I LOVE YOU!!!”
One time I vented to friends in a private discord chat about him buying a video game without my knowledge (I was frustrated because I was going to buy him that game and didn’t know what to get him for his birthday now). I realized I was a little harsh/dramatic so I deleted the rant.
Within five minutes I get the following message “OMG Mar are you safe?! Is *spouse* financially abusing you? I’ve seen how he lovebombs you he’s so toxic! Did he force you to delete your message? Do you need help getting out?!?!”
I respond, “No, I am safe. I deleted the message because I realized I blew things out of proportion. Thank you for your concern though. It’s great that you care about your friends :)”
Friend goes, “DONT LET HIM GASLIGHT YOU. You deserve better! He’s abusive. I can call someone who can get you everything you need to get away from him!”
She meant well and I managed to talk her down but damn.
Jeez
As someone who is autistic i really appreciate your understanding. Sometimes even friendships can be weird because friends might be weirded out by my insistence to pay for their movie ticket because i enjoy hanging out with them. I only have a few friends who i still do this with now because they have stuck around so long.
Completely off topic, but I love the use of “glomp”
Oof, that sounds so uncomfortable, especially with a friend.
Lmao RIP to any guy that dates her. He's gonna get bombarded with false accusations.
The ironic thing about spreading the word about how “horrible” of a dude Caleb was to these women is that he became so famous that even IF he changed, his reputation was so utterly destroyed no one would probably give him a chance to prove he’s changed. And even if they did, the minute he’d slip up or genuinely fucked up, he’d be put on blast and the whole cycle would start over again. It’s kind of like the phrase “poisoning the well” but there’s probably a better term for it that I can’t think of atm
Couch Guy was such a horrifying thing to witness, personally. I'm an incredibly awkward dude who tends to have stiff body language in social settings, even moreso when I'm surprised or caught off-guard, and I'm terrified of the thought of having 18 seconds of that behavior recorded and uploaded online only for people to overanalyze my natural behavior as somehow suspicious. Like just because he wasn't excitedly jumping up a down like a toddler means he was a cheater. Maybe that's just... how he is, fellas. Ever consider that?
Of all the things mentioned here it was the only thing I came across myself on social media and I was like "well maybe he is cheating but, that's literally how I might react especially with other people around".
This being so incredibly dumb might be a reason it doesn't happen again or at least not very often. But I feel a bit naive in that hope.
@@freaki0734 it will certainly happen again, couch guy was not the first time
I don't even know why anyone brought up cheating (I mean I know... but also,) like, even if you decide to overanalyse the guy's body language, why not reach the conclusion that he's just "not very attached to his girlfriend"? (If you're choosing to read this 2 seconds clip negatively in the first place.) That does not have to mean cheating. At all. And that's not even mentioning the needless and weird slutshaming behaviour of claiming that women who sit next to your partner are "not your friends".
I honestly was just thinking, idk guys, how would *you* stand up after probably getting really comfortable on a couch after a long day of school work. idk bout anyone else but when I'm comfortable and sitting/laying down I don't want to get up for any reason and if I did it'd probably be tired or stiff or something honestly. he might have just not moved his body in a hot bit lmao
Couch Guy reminds me of my boyfriend so much tbh. He doesn't like surprises and if I had showed up out of the blue like that with somebody behind me recording his reaction he would've looked less than excited. Sometimes people don't like surprises, sometimes people don't like to be filmed, sometimes people are shy and awkward. And that's ok.
As an actual psychologist (yes, really), we are constantly reminded that one action can have a bunch of interpretations, which is why we never diagnose anyone based on a single tool or interaction, and we must always rule out other reasons for a behavior (e.g., maybe someone is avoiding eye contact because they have bad vision and not due to stress or anxiety).
Seeing people straight up diagnose STRANGERS over minuscule observations without context or any training is just ridiculous.
As an autistic person I especially despise the attitude of "they're not making eye contact so they must be lying and untrustworthy" like damn that's jumping to conclusions so quickly it deserves a medal for gymnastics
Wait. Psychologists are real?
@@notproblempal8343 they're not. They're a myth that was invented to give Freud's ideas more credibility
No! You don’t understand! I’VE watched Criminal Minds!
@@horricule451 SHHH
rewatching this and the air of "i support trans women, i'm just about to accuse one of you of being a serial killer based on literally nothing" from some of the sabrina prater videos is the most tiktok shit i've ever seen
It's funny how every single time a body language expert comments, it ALWAYS confirms the views they had prior to the analysis.
I go to the same school as couch guy. People were hanging up polls asking whether he was cheating in the elevator of my apartment & I heard people hung it up in his apartment complex too. Almost all of the votes said he was a bad person or cheating. Everyone at this university was talking about him and condemning him out in the open as casual conversation. It was absurd to watch everyone in your general vicinity, on the whole, think you’ve done something you very well may not have (and most likely didn’t).
Holy shit. This poor dude
I hope couch dude is okay eventually. Giving humanity the internet was a mistake, we suck enough on our own without being given this much power.
i go to the same school as the girlfriend, and we had a class in common last semester. i didn't know until the person sitting next to me, a stranger, pointed to her in a several hundred person lecture hall and said "that's couch guy's girlfriend" it's fucking crazy
@@smagdarine This whole "Couch Guy" thing is making me feel like I'm the sanest person in the world. I don't understand how people got "he's having sex with other people" from a SINGULAR TIKTOK. Like I'm just trying so hard to figure out the thought process of these people. Any shred of rationality just went out the window with these people and it's terrifying how hardcore they went in on the guy. Imagine being demonized or someone you know demonized for a clip of hugging.
@@miseryfell6417 It's honestly baffling how much people latched onto a single brief clip and came down on him with absolute condemnation...like jeez my own high school friend group had a mix of guys and girls and we were all friendly and close with each other, even if some of us had significant others. We'd sit squished on top of each other, drape over each other, play on each other's phones, etc, because that was 'normal' for us. We never know what's going on in someone else's life or what their definition of 'normal' is, yet so many people just plaster their idea of 'normal' overtop of everything else and act with absolute certainty on it, jumping to awful conclusions. I felt so bad for the guy and the girl involved..
It's scary how people can just see others as "characters" and not people with real lives and that mobs can have consequences.
Internet:(
I see that happening with Zelenskyy, it’s frustrating
I think the medium (internet/social media) plays a big part in this. It's personally removed enough that people can be judgemental behind a screen safely for entertainment.
Most liberating thing I have learned on the internet: You never HAVE to engage with a piece of content. I have several times found myself typing an enraged comment or reply, paused, reflected on why I wanted to make that comment, and then deleted it. I have never once regretted NOT making a comment.
The level of entitlement to assume you're "owed" some sort of proper breakup after one to two weeks would be wild enough on it's own but the whole "you go girl" energy behind the Caleb thing is insane. I remember a certain group of men who also felt they were "owed" something after a few dates but the social response to their assertions seems to be incredibly different.
Underrated comment.
Also, the sheer escalation from "let's have a laugh at this weird situation" to "let's harass this guy's neighbors and coworkers".
Yeah the unsolicited nudes were the only thing this dude did wrong and for some reason were what the mob was least interested in.
yeah, i think im so confused by how strongly everyone reacted to this guy because im so disconnected from dating app culture. it really appalls me that people will go looking for people for the SOLE purpose of dating them. feel like im getting off track tho
Eh the response was way over the top but tbh its still a dick move. If you have been talking a lot with a person for a few weeks expecting a person to not suddenly disappear isn't unreasonable. Not abusive but just a bit mean and rude
"Can't I just be an asshole without being pathologized, please?" Is not a question I'd ever thought to ask, but when I put myself in the position of one of these people getting socially crucified for being a just being kind of a shitbag, it was the first thing that came to mind.
On the flip side, as a mentally ill person "Can't someone just be an asshole without being ill, or is your definition of mentally ill synonomous with 'asshole its ok to hurt'?"
Sometimes you have shit takes all until someone challenges them. There is no room for growth on the internet because once you have an opinion that's all people will know you for. You can change your mind, but you can't change the crowds perception about you. at least not easily.
It’s just so weird that huge corporations are getting involved in these situations lol. Same with “Couch Guy”. It shouldn’t be normal for people basically being put on blast like this.
The fact that couch guy's girlfriend was relentlessly teased and bullied by the internet under the guise of "looking out for her", and then when she did the bare minimum to capitalise on all the unwanted attention she was accused on milking it for money..... like this poor girl couldnt win
@@julidagar so the girlfriend goes to my university and our majors are similar enough that we've had some similar classes - last semester the person sitting next to me leaned over and pointed to some person in this large lecture hall and was like "you know couch guy? that's his girlfriend" i was horrified! like what the fuck!
@@smagdarine THAT'S SO WEIRD and also literally middle school bullying... The way that these types of situations can get grown ass adults to act that way is... Weird.
@@eevee2Glacia The internet has and will always reward immaturity.
@@jonjon4634 True!
phenomenal video and essay. I've been trying to talk to people about the retributive justice angle, esp during the early pandemic, so was really happy to see that brought up.
Hey it's my favorite Star Wars (and other stuff) channel
This is one hell of a crossover
What in the fuck...Justin?! You're here??
Dude I just came back from watching some of your videos and saw you post, was not expecting it
What the crossover fuck?
i despise finding out that tumblr call-out culture was a mere appetizer :/
The misappropiation of love bombing... dear god
Love bombing is when an abuser, after a particularly big blowout, or just when they notice their victim is considering leaving the relafionship, starts being REALLY romantic for a while. Flowers, presents, dates, they're really attentive and romantic and *seem* apologetic about their past behavioir.
The thing about love bombing is that it's not genuine and always tempprary. They're not actually trying to do better, they just want to keep the victim in the relationship. Eventually they'll go back to their old behaviour and the cycle starts anew.
It is NOT a guy you met on a dating app being overly familiar before you've even met. That's weird, and a possible red flag. But it's not love bombing. When we muddy these terms we make it even harder for abuse victims to realize and express what is happening to them.
It's like how people say "gaslighting" aka just lying or being rude. You can't gaslight or lovebomb someone you don't already have a very close personal relationship with
Sort of like how people with PTSD can't use the word "triggered" any more without getting an eye roll in response because a bunch of oversensitive dipshits on the internet misused the word to the point an actual psychological term needed to convey how serious the aftermath of someone's trauma is to others got turned into a punchline for edgy, wannabe-internet comedians.
Lovebombing is also a part of narcissistic abuse. I experienced it as my partner expressing he loved me and wanted to marry me after 2 weeks of knowing each other, buying me extravagant and unwanted gifts, and then suddenly becoming a different person and wanting to leave me several months into the relationship. (He was definitely a narcissist, told me multiple times how he thought everyone else besides me was beneath him). While I agree West elm Caleb wasn't lovebombing, your definition isn't exactly correct either. It can start without abuse, at the very beginning of a relationship to lure someone in.
@@howdypardner6278 you can gaslight someone you don't have a close personal relationship with
@@goblin6587 ... no, you can't, because gaslighting is a technique of RELATIONSHIP ABUSE, which requires one to have a relationship. Stop cheapening serious words
I've only tangentially run into the Caleb stuff but it is baffling to me. The original TikToks are fine - some girls realized they were all going on dates with the same guy who's kind of a mid-grade asshole. Honestly I feel bad for the original girls who didn't mean for the videos to spread like this. But people are bringing gaslighting and love-bombing into it?? Those are really specific terms for types of interpersonal abuse, and showing interest for a couple dates and then ghosting is. Not that. Like yeah, West Elm Caleb's behavior with the women he dates suggests he's probably a douche in his dating life. That so does not justify the people looking up his real information, trying to get him fired, etc. This is why I don't share pretty much anything important to TikTok even when I think I have a really funny story to tell.
doing that to many girls at once with no intention to ever date them is manipulative, and absolutely gaslighting
@Kay E no one owes you attention. people have the right to stop talking to you whenever they want. get over it.
@@suicidal.nihilist2107 and if you manipulate people they can expose that
@@goblin6587 gaslighting is when you tell someone they hallucinated you hurting them not this
@@goblin6587 What do you think gaslighting is? It doesn’t just mean lying, it specifically means making someone doubt their own perception of reality. Referring to any instance of dishonesty as gaslighting just devalues the term.
Another factor that actively hinders efforts to put the brakes on this kind of mobbing is the incentive to position oneself as morally pure, manifested in this case as a rejection of any suggestion that the subject has had enough, or dismissal of any attempts by the subject to apologize or speak for themselves.
Even as some people voice doubts about whether this has gone too far, there's always the incentive to show just how committed to the cause you are by contrast, and all you have to do is say "no mercy."
Yup.
When really, I want all the mercy. I want to be merciful to others and have them be merciful to me. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, in fact I think that's a much better world than one with no mercy.
I wonder if the mob becomes more extreme as individuals act in more and more extreme ways, so as to stand out as being exceptionally "pure"
I think the way you connected cancelling individuals and the rise in true crime fans was really insightful, there’s something about the consumption of the punishment and suffering of other people, and the desire to personally be the executioner of justice
It's infuriating that as soon as I heard you speak about the trans woman I thought "oh, she's gonna be seen as either a sex offender or a murderer, possibly both" and I was completely right. I hope she is alright and was able to overcome this horrible experience.
I can't even imagine. Because it just. Never stops as long as you're online because now your trauma is turned into a meme people will ignorantly pass around forever whether they even know the source or not. This poor woman...if I was her I'd seriously delete everything and stay offline at least under my own name. Certainly I'd never go back to TikTok. If she stayed she's a lot tougher than I'd be. And I'd dearly love to see these ppl try to justify themselves in a few years if they grow out of this and realize 😱😯 "omg...I did a BAD thing uwu!"
I’m a trans woman early in transition myself. If that happened to me, it honestly might have bullied me back into the closet again. I looked her up, she seems to be fairly active on tiktok and making dancing videos still, which means she certainly is a stronger person than I am.
I just hope I live to see the day where people will stop invoking Buffalo Bill whenever they see a trans woman that doesn’t meet cissexist beauty standards behaving in a manner they deem socially unacceptable.
my mind after registering "Trans woman dancing in a dirty basement" immediately went "Oh no"
Every video that mentions a trans person in a social media controversy I just start a countdown to when the blatant contempt for trans existence kicks in. Pretty damned rare it doesn't.
The one tik tok of someone questioning why she had security cameras was so weird like how on earth are you going to question why someone has security cameras in their home??? I just don’t see how someone can see someone dancing in a rundown place (that if a cis person did would probably be considered cool and edgy) and immediately assume they’re a murderer, there isn’t a shred of logic in that!! The woman was just fucking dancing
When I saw the title I had genuinely no idea what it meant and if this was a random channel I would assume this would either be something I wasn't interested in at all or some cryptic bs that I wouldn't be able to understand. But Sarah has earned enough of my trust through her poignant analysis that I decided to watch this anyways because I figured I was going to learn something interesting, and I was not disappointed.
It’s only been out for like 20 minutes and it’s an hour long video 😐 how did you watch it already
Same!
@@DOMDOTCOM518 Playback speed. click on the little gear on the lower right corner of the video. i watch most of these on at least 1.5 and it really saves a lot of time through dragged out moments. also, some of the example videos here are somewhat redundant so i just skipped through them.
for many, it's just their latest excuse to bully and harass others
This is every single video for me. I never know anything about the subject, and without fail, I come out having learned something, with the video being a highlight of the week.
The discussion of the panopticon really resonated for me, and the fear of public shaming has affected me personally and professionally even though I specifically have never been publicly shamed. It's caused me to avoid expressing my opinion except pseudo-anonymously or in a context where I don't face digital repercussions for being wrong or for my transgressions.
i know this comment is two months old, but i genuinely feel the same way. the idea that at any moment i could be dragged for a different opinion, my personal appearance, or even just someone saying i did something bad 4+ years ago has caused me to be a digital hermit. my only forms of social media are fb (to talk to my family), youtube, and reddit (both of which are kept so i do not give out any information regarding personal info). even in my personal life with my friends, i keep any differing opinions or even things i find them doing that are negative to myself, as they all share the same mob mentality which is shared in this video . in some ways i feel better than i have in the past, where my instagram felt more like a numbers game, however being in an age where social media is king, i have felt quite isolated from my peers when they speak on a new artist, or trend. just last week, someone asked for my socials and when i said i didn’t have any, they asked “what do you do all day?”
Speaking as someone who is neurodivergent, everything to do with the "a mob of random people on the internet will meticulously study your body language and determine who you are based on that" is FUCKING HORRIFYING. Just nightmare world bullshit all around
ghosting is a rude thing to do. it is not abuse.
I honestly don't even think it's rude. Jarring yeah. But shit happens, people fall away. I wonder if the expectation of immediate connection that we have these days is part of it. Because it just didn't get the same kind of reaction before the smart phone.
@@lyanacat1943 It's rude in the way that just walking away from a conversation in the middle of it is.
@@mechanomics2649 See that's exactly what I mean; texting to me is still akin to writing a letter. Talking on the phone or talking face to face is different. Not saying it's not hurtful, just that society has definitely shifted.
Trying to look at this thing as objectively as I possibly can being a biased human and all, I don't think it is even rude. It is inconsiderate, indifferent, not in line with decorum, and not polite. But failing to be actively nice and considerate doesn't default to being rude in western society. Being rude implies some actively rude behavior, not simply the absence of politeness.
Everybody has full right to arbitrarily unmatch or ghost anyone on the dating market. And in the polite-rude spectrum it falls somewhere in the middle, that I don't have a word for. It doesn't feel nice when it happens to you, but rejection never does, regardless of how politely it is done.
Yeah for real, also the safest option in many cases
As a gay cis men, making a whole situation just because a guy shown interest initially and after a couple dates just disappears is SO FUCKING WILD. Like.. That's online dating. It's shitty, but it's just some asshole taking the easy route and just disappearing. And people started to use stuff like gaslighting as it's nothing. It's just a word now. And most post at the time seems to just try to turn the whole situation in a paragon or an iconoclastic symbols. There was no deep exploration about how awful online dating is, or about the shitty men dynamic on it and the patriarchy role in it.
For real. This situation reminds me of the Dan Avidan situation, where he did some shitty things and ghosted fans after promising a relationship, but a bunch of people blew it out of proportion and claimed he had slept with a minor and committed sexual assault, which were things he definitely did not do.
As a het cis woman, I don’t get it. I would’ve thought the dude stole from them or murdered their pets.
honestly its like... i know ghosting is shitty but comparing it to abuse?? like i've been ghosted and been abused and they're literally completely different things. i know it sucks to be ghosted but that's also just someone not wanting to talk to you again and not having the good sense or guts to say it to your face. like jesus christ someone ghosting you isn't gaslighting??? what an insult to gaslighting victims. no one who ghosted me has ever made me question my own reality. i know language evolves but come on words have meanings
Lmaoooo. As someone in this Caleb's shoes I'm very thankful I don't live in the shithole that is USA. USA USA USA HELL YEAHH
man i've had ppl i had ZERO romantic friends in but got on well with as friends that i met via the net who have ghosted me some come back some don't
This is happening in real time with the Depp v Heard case. It’s terrifying.
Shit dude, it happened with Michael Jackson multiple times (although the vultures in the media and at Sony had as much to do with it as mob mentality). Shit's scary.
God... I cannot even begin to explain how heart-poundingly anxious it makes me, as an autistic person, to think about things like body language analysis. Thank you for bringing that angle up. So many people claim to support neurodivergent folks, but then turn around and start ascribing intent onto total strangers who really may just have an odd social presentation. As if that isn’t EXACTLY a major form of ableism towards said groups (and particularly Autism/ADHD).
I am so scared of being randomly recorded or falling into the public eye, even for more positive reasons, because of stuff like this. This culture of armchair psychoanalysis & telephone gossip is seriously vile.
And if this a result of true crime... just... how? I know certain true crime media is very... spectacle/entertainment oriented, and I don’t approve of that in general. But I occasionally listen to true crime content myself, and I’M able to understand that it is akin to a historical documentation and NOT a fictional thriller. There is a difference between the two, and it is a VERY important line to draw.
Body Language analysis is a fake science, people claiming to be experts are bulls***ing you, it's like mediums, and snake oil sales people. None of them actually know what they are talking about. Time to stop giving them attention 100%
same, ive always been super conciuous of my body language bc i dont express myself "normally" and im always scared of ppl judging me based on misinterpretations of things like my facial expression, so this shit is terrifying to me. masking is exhausting but clearly its often neccessary.
As someone with a Master’s in forensic psychology, seeing that girl claim that her criminal minds knowledge was enough to make my soul leave my body and complain to my roommate in the program.
Also, we don’t even like profiling and don’t believe in analyzing body language unless it’s to help get a mental health diagnosis! WTF??!
I agree, it’s insulting to the people that put real life work into getting educated. It’s like saying I’m a biologist because I watch nature documentaries🙄
I’m currently doing a forensic science class in high school rn and just noticed body language isn’t mentioned/brought up lol.
the fact that that one girl said she watches criminal minds so she thinks she knows about body language and psychology…. this scares me bc criminal minds has so much misinformation about psychology (especially neurodivergent people and mental illness) and it baffles me people use it to make real world observations.
also the way the guy was asking a psychologist and she pops up like “HI IM NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST BUUUUUT” lmao
G O D. Y E S. criminal minds is so hollywoodized about how that branch of the FBI actually works, I grew out of it when I was 14. Seeing people talk about it like it's valuable information infuriates me so much.
I love Criminal Minds, but I realize that it is a *fictional* TV show! It’s primary purpose is to be entertaining, not to function as a psychology textbook. Watching CM doesn’t make me a psychologist anymore than watching Grey’s Anatomy makes me a doctor.
So youre saying I shouldnt have cited Criminal Minds on my research paper?
@@Danielledaydreamer There's a reason why, when you're a kid, your parents, teachers, or even the creators of the TV shows themselves, tell you not to imitate the characters you see on TV: THEY'RE NOT REAL. It's honestly troubling to think that so many people never really learned that lesson and insist on using their favourite media as a lens to view reality through (see also the Harry Potter fanbase)
I think that this all goes to show just how insidiously dangerous the mindset that "there are no bad tactics, only bad targets" can be.
Also okay the girl being like “as your older sister” is instantly throwing me off. Fandom mom energy.
A huge problem is that when people on the internet gang up on someone who’s later proven to be innocent or misrepresented they think the lesson was that they ganged up on the wrong person, not that they didn’t have enough information and shouldn’t have mobbed someone at all.
It’s a laughable cycle. Someone directs a personal complaint against another, the internet vilifies that person completely, new facts come to light and humanizes said person, internet switches targets to the original person who complained.
Ikr, people want to be an expert in all these fields but don’t care for actual facts. Only the ones that fit their agendas and the point they get across. I see this when people write neurodivergent people especially.
“No, they cannot be emotionless, they can have a lack of displaying those emotions, but they are still going on underneath.” “But I want her to be emotionless, she is emotionless.” Is just an example.
yup. its just mob mentality.
Clearly, the way to fix the problems in society isn't to change the systems that allowed the problems in the first place. No, instead we should just find all the racists/sexists/homophobes/what have you that are living among us, waiting for their "mask off" moment and banish them to racist island forever, while we live in utopia.
@@thanatoast Or we could fix the problems and kill all thr racists
The first time I remember seeing this was after the Sandy Hook shooting when early reports had had the wrong name for the shooter and named his brother instead.
This poor man, whose mother was just murdered by his own brother in a horrifying mass shooting/suicide, was also being targeted on social media as though he was the guilty one.
“Abusers adopt the language of the abused, marginalisers adopt the language of the marginalised”. Brilliant! I need this in an article form to quote on every essay i write for uni from now on.
There is standard format for citing TH-cam in MLA now.
Sooooo you would like to adopt this kind of narration for your own personal use, right?
@@filipszwejser3945Spiders are bugs, not all bugs are spiders.
@@aazhie spiders are not bugs, they are arthropods.
I think there's no actual definition to what a bug is because it's just a layman's way of referring to small insect-like animals.
As someone with social anxiety and depression (that causes me to act very apathetic and emotionless sometimes) the couch guy drama terrifies me. People already make jokes about quiet kids being school shooters. I'm sick of the hate on socially awkward/anxious people. We're struggling too, you just can't see it on the outside!
this whole thing really shows how people are getting narcissistic to an alarming rate. "He ghosted me? ME?, I'm the one who ghosts, I am the main character" "time to destroy his life"
I think couch guy also shows a another important aspect of how dangerous this is. This wasn't his video. It was a video someone else posted with him in it. You could have a minimal online presence and still become the target of the machine just from being in someone else's content. That's nuts. You could distance yourself all you want from social media and still get fed into the machine.
It reminds me of how there was a trend of justifying this kind of harassment with something to the effect that people open themselves up to it just by virtue of sharing things online. "If you can't handle it then get off the internet" and all that. And all I could think of was the Star Wars kid being bullied out of school for a video that was uploaded without his consent.
I mean to be fair he was the subject of the video. They were filming his reaction to seeing his gf, but I still get your point.
Yep, there is the idea that 'they asked for it' (attention) for people who post themselves online, when that doesn't apply to people who have no consented to being filmed and posted online. He was not in public, this wasn't caught on a security camera. He was in an apartment, chilling on a couch with his friends.
It's crazy because it was originally the content of someone very close with him, but essentially became something neither of them owned anymore. It got claimed by the public. Your girlfriend posting a small clip of you with good intentions becoming something so hateful, something neither of you were able to control, is almost scary.
Okay the other thing with couch guy that I remember thinking when I saw it was, even if they have something going on where hes not faithful or whatever thats *their* issue and I was pretty deeply embarrassed for both of them that everyone in the comments was immediately like "oh hes totally cheating on her". Like she just wanted to do something fun and cute and he didnt even consent to the vid or prep to be in it. People should really understand how to separate "real life" videos on tiktok from peoples actual real lives.
I still remember reading "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson. Finding people to shame so you can make yourself feel like a good person.
There was one guy who lost his job because woman over heard making a bad, private joke at a conference. She posted him to twitter and everyone piled on. Then the people who felt he was treated unfairly piled on the woman and got her fired.
Then people piled on Jon Ronson when a delete section of his manuscript featured online.
The problem is so many people think they're right so they feel confident going after people who are wrong because their morals are so absolute. That's on both sides of the political divide.
I remember he interviewed her and she vomited up all of her childhood memories unprovoked and she has a terrible relationship with men because of her father.
The phrase "while I don't have a psychology degree, I do watch criminal minds" was what broke me
As someone with social anxiety this is absolutely terrifying to me. Seeing how people can have their life destroyed by doing nothing really wrong or all that terrible reinforces to me that it would be better to never leave the house or get into any kind of relationship. All this just feeds my anxiety.
Couldn't put it better. No one wants to step up on stage when the last guy got guillotined.
same. same. same. just reinforces my belief that it's better to stay quiet and alone than trying to interact and being blindsided with something like this. because even the more socially adept have it happen, what chance does someone completely unprepared for interaction have?
As someone who is autistic adhd, this explains why so many people think certain things about me. Everyone thinks I’m suspicious and hiding something, I didn’t know it was because I couldn’t make eye contact and my fidgeting is perceived as “being anxious.” It’s absolutely laughable
Reminds me of being bullied on elementary school for being “”weird””… literally triggering
Yes. Someone could make a video on tik tok claiming that I returned a tape to Blockbuster in 1996 without rewinding it and it could escalate to the point of getting messages at work accusing me of crimes against humanity without knowing what Blockbuster was. (Even though I didn't have a VCR until 1999!)
It frustrates me so fucking much how the meaning behind “gaslight” has been eroded. It’s a genuinely important term for talking about and identifying abuse, but when it just means lying it breaks the ability to help identify abusers
The internet waters down a lot of phrases, even just harmless jokes get watered down by endless repetition.
'lovebomb,' too. It's a tactic cults use to get you to replace all of your social circle with cult members so they can isolate you, not something fucking Jeremy, who you've gone on like, two dates with, is doing by texting you a lot.
Yeah as someone whose been abused this is very irritating.
@@turner15 yeah my partner’s ex was abusive and gaslit them in the literal sense of the word and it’s honestly made it harder for them to identify what he did as wrong because the term has been neutered so much
Sarah is honestly what you'd get if you took all the best part of 2017s Tumblr, matured it, and sent it too an Ivy league university. I always love your videos. You somehow always manage to say in words what the rest of us are trying to grasp at, and I think thats an amazing talent
I think this also got really bad on "left" Twitter for a while when anyone who didn't support your exact political stance, or even had a different strategy for achieving the same goals, was seen as morally reprehensible and therefore fair game for a pile on.
Very good observation. Sarah's content tends to attract a lot of lefty and social justice-y type people who can't see the negative sides of the discourse at all. You either agree unconditionally or you're every right wing label in the book
How much are we allowed to differ from a belief before we must allow people to dogpile on us? I know this is about an interpersonal relationship but I wonder what Sarah has to say about the ethics of bullying right-wingers.
Obviously I don’t know what Sarah has to say about that but I think it’s the wrong framing of a question. I think there’s a clear difference between somebody who is actively against Medicare for all and a person who thinks we should have Medicare for All but using a slightly different tactic. I am extremely pro punching Nazis
Sarah has this way of diving deep into the nuance of public shaming, pulling out the most powerful details that are being ignored, forcing us to look at the harm we have done and, with kindness and understanding, shows us how we could do better. She doesn’t shame us for our sins, she doesn’t get angry, she doesn’t resort to using right-wing buzz words or any form of toxic tribalism. She simply cuts through the chaff and says what news to be said. THAT is how you change things for the better. THAT is how you use your voice to make a real difference. Sarah, you are bound for greatness.
Hear, hear!
Fundamental to all these kinds of stories is an inability to admit that people can be a bit shitty without being explicitly harmful. We have these collective purges to convince ourselves that we're the good ones living up to all the impossible ideals we set for ourselves.
"They thought she was leaving clues to her murders in the videos, as all competent serial killers do."
Yeah, I feel like the Riddler and the Zodiac Killer have really ruined public perception of serial killers. Unless you're taunting the authorities by deliberately sending fake clues or you have some kind of compulsion to leave clues behind because you perceive it as a game, no serial killer is gonna actively sabotage their own killing sprees like that.
And no, I'm not a serial killer, I just watch a lot of Criminal Minds.
This is more of a true crime issue. The 24-hour, ratings-hungry news cycle has desensitized us to violence and horror that now we have become a collective Nightcrawler. I’m no Luddite or a pedagogical moralist, but there’s a palpable disregard for Real people that’s permeated social media. And it’s a highly profitable environment.
That's the thing I always wondered about: when does it stop? Whenever I've seen people shaming a supposed bad person, it seems like no matter what they do or say, it will never be over until they delete all their social media and never appear in public again. There's no room for improvement and growth, it's just isolate yourself from society and never show your face again.
It doesn't stop. Woke culture wants you dead at your first mistake, even if it was years ago
yes just touch grass
@@TheMorous shut up twitter user
I remember when that porn star was bullied into killing herself and the immediate reaction was those same people turning and going "we need to talk about mental health" there was no reflection (I mean how could you reflect? People can't deal with that guilt)
"I don't have a psychology degree but I watch a lot of Criminal Minds" melted my brain. Excellent video as usual, Sarah.
I lol'ed
I honestly thought the girl was making some kind of satire, then I realized she was serious...
@@cassiebeal9646 same 😭
This is the type of shit i use to say as a joke. To seen it been said unironically is GREAT
Damn near had to physically resist the urge to vomit, seen that kind of person too often in my life and it never goes well.
Yesss yes yes! People really gravitate towards scapegoating individuals in the name of abstract, systemic issues. I really do think it's a natural human tendency because it makes these problems easier to grapple with, especially when we don't feel like we have control over systems that harm us. But when it comes down to it, it's an actual human being who gets harmed/dehumanized in the process. Such a good video!
It's partly that, and partly as a form of self-assurance.
That's especially the case when it comes to labeling people as other - attributing certain behaviors to easy negative labels like "psychopath" or "narcissist", perpetuating terrible mental health stereotypes. The thought that ordinary people might do bad things scares people because "Hey, if they're just like me... No way. There has to be something inherently wrong with them, because I could NEVER do that... Right?"
Moral crusades on the other hand serve to reinforce that notion of "Well, I'm a Good Person and these are Bad People, so I have to punish the Bad People". It's for the gratification of having Been Virtuous without actually, you know, making sure it helps those in trouble. In the end though, slaying fictitious dragons does no kindnesses, and essentializing a person inevitably damages your ability to understand that person.
Even in the comments here we're all complaining more about the individual actors instead of the corporations that set up these systems that incentivize this behavior!
I agree, there's enough of a similarity with the historic xenophobic rhetoric of "this other group of people are to blame for our problems" that I definitely think it's in no small part an instinctual thing. I'd hazard a guess that it stems from some combination of ego preservation and primitive tribalism meant to protect/comfort us psychologically.
Yeah. For real this guy might have been rude for acting the way he did but he certainly didn’t “harm women” (I started laughing when Sara said that around 9:10 lmao still can’t tell if she was serious) and if the genders were reversed everyone would be jumping on the crowd for “slut shaming”. Instead it’s a dude who ghosted a lot of women being accused of “love bombing” just stupid. Like people don’t have a right to choose who they keep talking to or not?
i don't think its human nature. i think its a result of the atomization, alienation, disorganization of the working classes in north america
Ah yes, the extremely well-informed psychoanalytic skills of *flips through papers* some people on tiktok. Surely this can’t go wrong.
i'm literally twenty minutes into this video and i keep pausing it to applaud. one, this whole "prioritizing women as a collective" over these women's individual experiences reeks of bad faith radfem rhetoric, and two, as a disabled woman who's only just stepped her toes into the dating world, i can't help but notice that all the women in the tiktoks calling west elm caleb out are skinny and conventionally attractive. that's *not* to say the harassment they received was justified in any way but i can't help but wonder if this story would have gotten any traction if the women in question were, say, fat, disabled, etc. how many other women has harassment like this happened to that don't get the attention these popular tiktokers did? it just makes it really transparent that this whole situation was less about "women's rights" and more about the catharsis of publicly shaming of, what sarah and emily have correctly pinpointed here as basically a nameless, faceless avatar of misogyny as a concept.
*edit:* "marginalizers adopt the language of the marginalized", "everybody thinks they're punching up" 👏 thank you for this video. the whole "taking terms out of context" thing is still a big problem on tumblr. "p*dophile" has basically become an alternate word for "person who ships something i don't like." it's ridiculous.
I definitely smelled terf-y-ness on a bunch of those comments, especially the one which kept going on about knickers
the fact that brands can join in public humiliation now is really weird
This reminds me of a guy I dated in high school who would date girls, drop them, and be dating someone else in the next week. Eventually we agreed he was an asshole, but “abusive” never crossed my mind. He was a kid too, and he was looking for love and affirmation due to some issues in his home life. That doesn’t make his actions okay, but it also doesn’t make him an abuser! I’m very glad I missed this window of social media when I was young.
Exactly. Especially on dating apps that are basically set up for this system of dating many people at once without any commitment. Just because to date someone and have a good time, doesn't mean they owe you their attention. Is it shitty to lead people on and then ghost them? Yeah. But it's not abusive. I admittedly haven't done a huge amount of research into the whole west elm guy (I really don't want to add to it) but it doesn't sound like much of what he did was even particularly creepy or disrespectful. I have to wonder if this had been a woman if the same dogpilers wouldn't have been up in arms about slut shaming.
Shit situation all around just made worse by the internet mob.
I feel like women do this way more than men and men react by either accepting its part of the game or becoming incels lol
TikTok is like a Captain Planet made of all the worst aspects of social media ever
Not only is there not a single person (or "certain persons" or "all persons") in the "mob" who gets to decide when someone has been punished enough, each new person to arrive "on the scene" will behave as if the precipitating incident (perceived or otherwise, if there even is one) is brand new, and act accordingly.
Because no one is really keeping time on these things. As you said, that's not the point of these things.
I learned all about this at an early age that one time my first grade teacher organized a hate mob out of my peers to "scare me straight" (I'm neurodivergent- at the time about 6 years prior to diagnosis)- and then that hate mob followed me for the next six years,
because in small rural public schools, you basically keep your peer group, K-8th