On the other side of this duality of blogs I wrote a review of Ruocchio’s first book and mentioned in there that I had started casually watching the “booktuber” island of content. So I eventually bumped into Daniel Greene. His videos looked more like artsy style than depth, but I appreciated a recent review he posted about Ken Liu’s series, it satisfied a lot of the curiosity I had. That first book was part of a big lists of books I planned to get next and the result of having my curiosity quenched was that I decided not to order it. Not because the review was mildly negative, or because I decided not to read it, but with that initial curiosity gone I just don’t feel a priority about it. Sometimes things go in weird way (the order ended up being, Robin Hobb’s third in the first trilogy, Empire in Black and Gold by Tchaikovsky and… Duncton Wood. Plus other non-fantasy stuff. In the list I still have Ken Liu, The Mists of Avalon, The Sword of Kaigen, The Tainted Cup, The Justice of Kings, A Memory Called Empire, The Failures, The Emperor’s Blade… as you can see a few more of youtube-induced curiosity.)
But the topic here is the drama that popped up recently. Literally popped up because it started for me with a video randomly shown (and now gone, apparently). Titled: “I Received a CEASE AND DESIST from Daniel Greene”
I watched that video without knowing about anything else and I had a similar reaction to most of everyone else, I suppose. It was a strongly emotional video and quite damning of Daniel Greene. After that, my feed got populated by other youtubers sharing that general area of interest, showing support to this Naomi King. One of which especially got my attention (also gone now), from this other guy. It got my attention and now I regret of not having downloaded a copy. I know how these things go and I suspected it could have gotten deleted, eventually, but what do I care? The video was simply very good. It was again very emotional and honestly heartfelt, but didn’t stop there. It commented the situation with such a strength and clarity that I thought it sent a very powerful message, that superseded the specific drama. That was important outside of its specific moment.
And now it’s all gone. Everything is gone. All these youtubers are withdrawing their previous emotional reactions and support for the abused side, and now apologizing to the other.
I get it. And I do feel somewhat the same. There is a certain uniformity to these “community” reactions where (for once) I’m no exception. I feel and behave like everyone else. But I do think these erasures of previous comments do not really help, the community as a whole, to move forward and LEARN. The point is that YOU CANNOT (we cannot) level accusations to someone only, a few days later, withdraw everything and apologize. EVERY SINGLE TIME (every time this happens, I’m not implying accusations are usually proven false.)
It’s obviously perfectly fine to correct your stance on some event, while more information is disclosed. This is the basis of everything. But we have to learn to suspend judgment. I know there are implications. I don’t know Daniel nor Naomi, I only watched a few videos. But for some people it’s a big deal, because maybe they joined their discord, are more involved in a community. Those people have to decide whether to continue to support someone who, they find out, is not someone that aligns with their views. So you also HAVE to make a choice.
But the main topic here is not the drama, but the way I (we) react from the very beginning. Naomi’s first video didn’t leave much space for doubt. Daniel’s first response (still up, but may be gone soon), if anything, confirms the negative judgment on him. Now everything turned around. Are we all just wind vanes who turn today in this direction and tomorrow in another? Are we all just slaves to whims?
This is why I think history is important. Why these videos that are published only to get deleted two days later only contribute to these mistakes happening again, rather than learn from them. We need to ANTICIPATE these paths rather than continuously get surprised by them. Pretending ourselves naive and innocent. That’s why I think the video mentioned above by Jackson Dickert CONTINUES to be an important video. Because Daniel is just another guy, and Naomi another woman, and these things will continue to happen, and as a community (in the broader term, not related to booktube here, but as a whole society) we should learn to anticipate the outcomes.
I usually suspend judgement, and I have, innately, a much more indecisive nature. I always have a perception of things being way more complex and, on the internet, involving people that I don’t personally know, I just arrive at the absolute conclusion that I simply don’t have ways to know things well enough to be able to judge them. There is no way, for me, to be sure about anything about the private life of whoever else (like an agnostic stance applied to worldly events). My opinion is IRRELEVANT. But, as already said, sometimes you don’t have the luxury of indecision, sometimes you have to make choices. For me, the empathy I felt watching Naomi’s video still RINGS TRUE. This doesn’t mean that empathy turns into hate toward Daniel, or that I still defend the merit of Naomi’s position. I just think that we all are too fast to cling to certain positions, only to then being too fast again forsaking them and apologize. I see that as way too cowardly, because it’s innately dishonest.
As I said, if you want to judge other people, then you have to anticipate the outcomes. You need to have doubts. So you want to “doubt” women when they gather the strength to publicly denounce some abuse? Of course not, but then it’s a contradiction. For me, when these twists happen, it’s important to double down on the initial reaction. To UNDERSTAND why it was legitimate. Not because I prefer to persist in the error rather than be exposed to hypocrisy (it would be deciding between two faulty positions), but because reactions have reasons. It is always more important to understand, than to judge.
That’s why deleting all those initial responses isn’t helping. Those reactions are ALL legitimate. Rather than simply apologize and move on, we should instead stay, for once. Not to understand what truly happened with Naomi and Daniel, but to understand how this society is shaped and reacts. It’s important to not just transform it in another field of battle between two factions. It’s important that empathy doesn’t get simply stopped by doubt, or then reversed by more information.
OWN those reactions, even in the light of new information coming up. You can’t constantly erase the past. Every truth stays truthful. Those initial reactions to Naomi’s video stay TRUE. You can’t simply pivot from “Daniel is a monster” to “Oh, sorry, Naomi is the monster.” It’s not a binary war, and truth is never binary either. Things move contextually. Truths are never falsified, in the real world, they are only revealed partial, as more light is cast.
Stand your ground.
[The lives of others come together in fragments. A light shining off a separate story can illuminate what had remained dark. Brains are miraculous; humans storytelling creatures. The shards draw themselves together and make something whole.]
Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
P.S.
Some context: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1iqs8lv/naomi_kingdaniel_greene_megathread/
Oh, and now I watched Dickert’s second video and he has an on-screen transcript of the previous. So that part is not completely gone, even if I think the video itself was more powerful. “The way I worded this was flat out terrible.” Nah, it was good. May have been imprecise about details, but the message was legitimate and important.
A look at the comments under this video also tells a lot about the “climate” around these things.
Because why not, this video is related. From gossip drama to science, it all comes down to basic epistemology.