Okay, totally off topic...what is it with this annoying trend of censoring a company/name with an asterisk when it's a subject of ire? It just bugs me - and not in a way that focuses my anger to Microsoft.
With stuff like Tesla and Twitter, it can keep away the weird nerds who search those terms in hopes of white-knight-sealioning a conversation into oblivion. I think it just became part of the lexicon.
The inverse of this is that people who filter out specific words in their feeds will be tricked into seeing it. You get to piss off 2 groups of people by doing it!
Sea-Lioning is an Internet slang term referring to intrusive attempts at engaging an unwilling debate opponent by feigning civility and incessantly requesting evidence to back up their claims. The term was coined in September 2014 by anti-GamerGate Internet users to mock perceived online discussion tactics employed by GamerGate supporters.
I gotta be honest, the sea lion is not the bad guy in this comic. Lady randomly says some racist shit, and a member of the group she's being racist against calls her out for being racist. And then the fact that the sea lion called the racist out is apparently justification for the initial racist statement.
Sea lion is slang for a type of behavior a person exhibits not an immutable characteristic of the person like the color of their skin. They didn't have to prove the behavior because the behavior expressed IS the behavior.
Racism justifies harassment and home invasion? I don't think I can necessarily agree with that. Consequences, yes. But harassment? I'll have to think about it.
The point Malki was making, I think (and the way I take it) is less about the purpose or content of the discourse and more about the harassment veiled in false civility as a means of silencing discussion.
There's also an element of Person C inserting themselves into a private conversation between Person A and Person B, even if that conversation is being held in a public place.
Pretend he's not a sea lion, but a conservative, and you'll get the intended effect.
Yeah. Not gonna cry over what the victims of racism do to racists.
and more about the harassment veiled in false civility as a means of silencing discussion.
How is the sea lion silencing discussion? They weren't discussing anything, they were having a racist circlejerk. The racist lady said a racist thing and the sea lion invited discussion by asking, "Why did you say that racist thing?" and then they refused to actually explain why they're racist against sea lions, treating it as self-evident that being racist against sea lions is correct and thus that it is unreasonable to question it.
Pretend he’s not a sea lion, but a conservative
He can't choose not to be a sea lion. This is kind of incoherent. "Pretend he's not black, but a conservative." This sea lion could also be conservative, that doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that he's being criticized for immutable properties he was born with, not for anything of substance.
Again sea lioning is a type of behavior not a type of person or being. As a form of humor they rather than have a person embody the behavior be a literal sea lion because whimsical tension between the metaphorical sea lion also being an actual sea lion is funny.
That just doesn't work, because the sea lion's behavior in the comic is entirely reasonable, and it is the other characters who are being unreasonable. If the point of the comic is that the sea lion's behavior is bad, they should have actually made the sea lion do something bad instead of call out someone being racist against him
Not gonna cry over what the victims of racism do to racists.
Eh...I dunno. I'm not going to tone police anyone, and consequences for bad actions are definitely good, but do two very-wrongs make a kinda-right? I'm not sold.
[the rest]
Look...if you don't vibe with the comic, that's fine. It's just obviously not about all the stuff that you seem to think it's about.
It’s just obviously not about all the stuff that you seem to think it’s about.
But it literally is? You're the one coming up with weird interpretations about "what if it was actually about xyz"
What is actually happening in the comic is that a character is being racist and the victim of that racism is portrayed as being wrong and annoying for calling out the racism. That's literally what's happening in the comic. It doesn't require any kind of gymnastics or interpretation, that's the surface level reading of what is occurring in the comic.
No. What is actually happening in the comic is that a character is having a discussion with another person (not a racist conversation, because sea lions are not sentient beings despite what is about to happen). Treating it as anything more than that is reading something into the story not intended by the original comic. Not everything is so literal, particularly with Malki comics.
not a racist conversation, because sea lions are not sentient beings despite what is about to happen
sea lions literally are sentient beings in the context of the comic. the only justification the comic gives for why sea lions are bad requires them being sentient beings so that they can speak up against random racist tirades about them.
It's mocking the type of people that try to turn anything and everything into some sort of formal debate when it was just a casual conversation then act like they've won some sort of argument when you don't engage.
It conveys "I have such a disdain for that thing that I'm asterisking its name like it was a slur or swear word".
I'm not a big fan either, even if you can find some secondary roles for that (as keeping someone from finding it, like ilinamorato exemplified). It distracts the reader from what is being said to the author's personal opinion about what is being said.
It's ironic, except for when we're talking about the Fr*nch. It's self aware humor that you're being ridiculous. The tone it's supposed to convey in situations like thisis that you're being hyperbolically obtuse.
Those are generally used for bypassing filters on TikTok and Instagram
But like, come on man, no matter how much you censor it I know the word and I get the message. Because that's why you wrote it, you want me to read and understand it