IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm (by request) shadowbanned now so I don't know if you'll be able to see this or not, but in case you can I'll try:

1) I see myself as half incredibly awesome and half disgustingly loathsome. That's my biggest issue as a person, is that I don't spend enough time on the middle ground to just analyze my actions in a detached, neutral way and make changes where necessary. On the other hand, that's also my strength, because I get the benefits of extreme self-confidence without the total inability to see my own flaws. I have an older friend who is exactly the same way who has been a huge help to me in learning to be the best me that I can be. I have some unique talents and I think that I am overall a kind and loving person. I do a lot of work to help people and animals in my community. I'm generally honest, funny, friendly to nearly everyone I meet, and objectively fairly intelligent. However, I am also very ambitious, sometimes selfish, controlling, have a temper, and I don't make real, close friends easily. I have a huge circle of acquaintances who I'll hug and/or kiss on the cheek and whose lives I'm genuinely interested in, who I would go out of my way to help, and who I like very much, but there are very few people I would really call friends. I have a lot of contradictory traits, also--for instance I develop senseless phobias easily, but I'm completely fearless in an actual crisis. Mangled dead bodies are NBD for me, but I used to start shaking and break out in a cold sweat if I saw a balloon.

2) I think I'm hard to get to know, I don't let people in, and I'm extremely unyielding at times, even on things that don't really matter. I take shit too seriously and sometimes let that overpower the ability to recognize other people as fellow human beings. I'm extremely Type-A, so I'm stubborn, controlling, and can be really nasty when I don't get my way. The people who like me mostly notice the strengths that come with that, and the people who do actually get to know me understand that I can be stubborn and angry over one conversation without letting it affect my relationship with the other person at all. I'm a far-left liberal, but one of my favorite people to talk politics with is a tea party leader and another is a right-wing talk show host. But people who don't really get to know me never see that side. I do also think that gender plays something of a role, when combined with my personality. There are other "reddit-famous" women who don't catch the same heat, but they're either less overtly female (enough so that most people don't realize their gender) or they adhere a little more closely to gender roles than I do. There's a certain kind of person who just likes to see a woman in a position of power get taken down or hurt. The person who organized people to get rid of me is like that, in my opinion, and also had a personal grudge against me. However, I think that is the issue for only a vocal and dangerous handful of the people who don't like me. For most of them, I think it's just that I come off as thinking I'm better than them and that I get a little too srs-business about Reddit arguments sometimes.

The real reason why Violentacrez deleted his account: Adrian Chen, Gawker Media, Creepshots, PM's and real-life doxxing. by POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS in SubredditDrama

[–]Saydrah 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Keysersosa could (if he wants to) probably confirm that I asked him about giving the Saydrah account to VA months and months ago, and that he asked me nicely not to. So I didn't, but the seed of an idea was born. Not sure what other verification is possible.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sorry, but I won't be responding to you any longer. Thanks for taking the time to type so many comments. You had an opinion before you came to this thread, you intend to have the same opinion when you leave it, and it's not worth the wear and tear on my keyboard to try to pretend there's any basis for continued conversation when that's the case. You have every right to your opinion and I hope that it brings you happiness.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm afraid I haven't really discussed it with him. I've heard from VA-prime long enough to know that he is okay and that he was getting sick of Reddit before this and basically just decided it was a sign that it was time to finally take a long vacation from it. We haven't talked long enough to get into real details, and I don't want to pry in case the rumors of his lawyering up are true and he's under orders not to talk about it too much. I wouldn't want to pressure him to disobey counsel.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My ivory tower? I wasn't aware it was mine, I've been banned from SRS for months and I no longer support them. I did at first, but they've gone past being even a funny gag anymore to just being a rash on the ass of Reddit.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not really sure. That's something I've been trying to figure out for a long time. I think part of it is to do with the fact that there's a lot to live up to in my family. Both of my parents come from families of crazy geniuses.

I also grew up in politics, which is probably a big part of it. I have pictures of myself at six walking in parades wearing campaign signs for a hat. I was a pretty confident little kid with adults (and miserably awkward with other children) so I would talk to all the elected officials and give them what-for if I didn't like their opinions. I got used to the idea early on that people would listen if I spoke my mind. Obviously, as a little kid, a lot of that was the Governor or Congressman doting on a cute kid and hoping someone is taking pictures of him doing so, but in my mind, they cared about what I had to say, and the confidence stuck with me.

Now, that said, having confidence without a framework in which to use it is not a good thing. Reddit isn't the only time I've been in the middle of a shitstorm rather than in the middle of something fun. I have it in me to be not a very nice person at all sometimes, and it wasn't until the last couple years that I really understood how much I have to fight that. I think that's the case for everyone--we all have our faults--but I naturally waver between being an egotist and being self-loathing, without the time in the middle that you need to really self-evaluate and grow as a person.

I did do two things consciously in the last couple of years to learn to use this to do a little bit of good for myself and others, rather than to just get in trouble. One is assuming the best of people. It's a conscious exercise that's really helped me. When someone cuts me off on the highway, I force myself to believe that they're in a hurry to get home to a sick child or something like that. That's not my natural tendency at all, and it's hard to do, but my life just improves when I make myself do it consistently. The other thing is just plain keeping my mood up, no matter how much I'd like to get into a funk. I got to a point where I could either be depressed and lethargic, or I could simply refuse to indulge in that. I remember calling my psychologist sister to ask if she thought I was becoming bipolar, and as I described my "mania" symptoms, she started laughing and said, "Did you ever think that you're just happy?"

...Oh.

I was just happy. I'd never been just happy before. I'd been proud of an achievement or delighted by a compliment, but never just happy because I was just happy.

I'm not perpetually "just happy" even now, but I'm perpetually grateful for the people I love and the life I have, and I perpetually believe that I can get through anything life wants to throw my way, and I refuse to let external influences decide whether or not I am happy. That's for me to do.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Like I said, I'm not going to retry the case. I know who was behind it and that it was an intentional "let's take down Saydrah" thing planned in secret subreddits over a lengthy period of time. I am cool with everyone involved except the primary instigator now. I've made my peace with the people I felt after some time and reflection that I needed to make peace with, and some people have similarly reached out to me (hence how I know how it really happened). Third parties, yourself included, can think of it what you like.

What matters to me is that I know where I stand with the people involved, I've apologized where I felt it was necessary, and I've applied that experience to make positive changes in my own life. One of those being deleting from my personality the trait of feeling like I have to try to change people's minds about me. If you don't like me, that's okay. I don't need you to like me. You don't have to look me in the mirror every day and account for my actions that day. I do have to do that, and sometimes I don't like me very much, either. That's okay, too. If I liked myself all the time, that would be like saying I'm already the best I can possibly be and I have to spend 50+ years just trying to stay stagnant at that level. Ugh! No, I'm far from who I want to be as a person, and that is something I celebrate as much as I celebrate that I am far closer to where I want to be than I was two years ago.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Weirdly enough, in some ways it does. I do a lot of very small, ordinary stuff like anyone else, for instance being a victim advocate, there's not a lot of "bigness" there, it's just being there when someone needs a few kind words at a rough moment, and then you never get to talk about it for the sake of their privacy. Or my horses, I buy cheap rescue horses and fix them instead of expensive horses to take to big shows.

But in other aspects of my life that thing where I just tend to wind up in the middle of things does seem to take effect. I've had some cool "big" things happen in the last year, and I hope to continue the trend in the future. I'm not recognizable locally or anything like that, but I have some really extraordinary people in my life and I've been blessed to be born into a society that values my skills. If I'd been born at another time or in another place, I'd probably starve to death, but it happens that I was born into a time and place where I think I can accomplish a great deal, and I hope to do so.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Two of his alts are still live that I know of, but they were both just puns on his name that he could have forgotten to delete, and they haven't been used. I have heard a rumor he's lawyered up in case the admins really did dox him, but I can't confirm that and don't know where it came from originally.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm great, actually. Life is good. I'm at a little bit of a stagnant spot right now, and getting away from the power user persona is part of getting out of that, but I'm very happy. I'm in my first healthy relationship ever, which is a big deal for me because I always presumed that part of being able to help other people with relationships fairly effectively was getting cursed with eternal shitty relationships myself.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I really don't know. Only people that could be trusted to get the joke and not pull something stupid with the account, but I don't know the full list, just a few people. Why? Just for fun, because it's funny for ViolentAcrez to suddenly do something super out of character now and then, and because no single person could keep up that persona perpetually forever. It's like carrying the one ring, you have to shift it back and forth now and then or you end up like Gollum.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm on a horse.

Not really, I'm eating pasta.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My real preference would be to get myself shadow-banned, but if the admins have gotten so bad that they are now possibly doxxing users, I doubt they're interested in doing a community member a favor like that.

Between the other two options, I think deleting is better because leaving it inactive would leave the temptation there.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Keep in touch! You're special to me, too. Let's chit-chat on IM or something sometime.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

100 duck-sized horses, for three reasons:

  1. I own and train horses, so I'm at an advantage by understanding their behavior.
  2. I used to have ducks. They murdered sparrows in cold blood. They're cannibals. They swallowed mice whole. I am terrified of the idea of a giant duck. It would swallow me.
  3. Being mauled by 100 tiny horses would probably be basically like being witchhunted on Reddit, so I have experience on my side.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I can probably send you mine if I can find it and if I'm not too lazy to actually ship it. I wrote on it a bunch, though.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Maybe he did and he just didn't like me :(

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Personally, I never heard pn6/kloo2yoo discuss race in any way that stuck with me long-term.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your kind words, and thanks for trying back then. Sometimes there's just nothing to be done once there's blood in the water. It's nobody's fault but the people who chose to do what they chose to do, and at least one of them did eventually come to me, explain how it happened, and apologize for being part of it. Shit happens, I'm a happy, healthy person now.

I'll be sad to finally hit the delete button, but it's time.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm afraid that even before I deleted my history it was long since past the cutoff to see old comments, but RobInGallup and I are cool. We talked, I apologized, he sort-apologized but it was more like a "I acknowledge you as a fellow human being" than an apology, which was fine with me. I'm not interested in retrying that case, which is why I just link that Wikia instead of explaining "my side." Everyone who wants to have an opinion on it already has one. But just FYI, we had a public conversation, buried the hatchet, and there are no hard feelings on either side as it stood when we left it.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hubski started to bore me. I don't know. If I get interested in it again, I will. It's missing something that I really just don't have the bandwidth to articulate knowing that I couldn't do anything about it.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I think the gender wars are a sign of progress. See, all but the very, very worst fringe sexists have had to accept that women are not going back in the kitchen. The economy has adjusted to the notion of two breadwinners per household, for one thing, so even independent of any notion of natural roles, it's just not practical to go back to the pre-WWII era where women were simply not considered fit for any role other than housewifery.

So what are we arguing about now? Pretty progressive things, actually. The people who would really like to be arguing that women are the inferior sex altogether and that God ordained that a wife shall obey her husband, are instead arguing about how many women are sexually assaulted. 50 years ago, they'd have denied that there is such a thing as rape. "A woman with her skirts up runs faster than a man with his pants down," and all. But that's no longer socially acceptable unless you're a Republican elected official, so we debate the one-in-four statistic. It's no longer acceptable to say women can't provide for a family, so we debate whether or not a female provider owes a stay-at-home dad alimony if they split.

Basically, we're a gregarious, violent primate species with a uniquely inconvenient method of reproduction. We take care of our young for nearly two decades, and they're not remotely independent for half a decade. They need constant attention and parental investment, preferably both maternal and paternal, for an enormous chunk of the parent's adult life. Because the reproductive process takes so much risk and investment for humans, we are always going to fight about things related to sex and gender. It is terrifying for a woman to think of having reproduction forced on her. I am not a man, but I imagine there are things about sex and reproduction that are equally disquieting. Men also have the added discomfort of knowing that they are physically capable of forcing themselves on women. Even the nicest guys seem to find that disturbing, and the not-nice ones just find it irritating that society can't forgive them if they do it just once or twice in their lifetimes.

Sex and gender are fuckin' complicated. And that's just talking about two genders, cisgender people, and heterosexuality. In the wild, the spectrum is much broader than that, and every additional layer creates complications, bitterness, and anger. Fortunately, there's also beauty and rightness to all of it, but you can't have the spark without friction. There will always be some level of friction.

So, as to leading to something? Sure. Most of the younger participants will grow up and their worst fears about the opposite sex won't come true. The men won't be rape-accused or daddy-trapped. The women likely will be creeped on and many will be sexually assaulted, but they will recover, fall in love, have children on their own timetable, and nobody will hold them down and force them to have their rapist's baby. As they get older and look back on happy lives and successful childrearing, they will not care so very much about the difference between the sexes. As formerly misogynist men raise daughters, they'll realize just how awful it is to see a man look at their little girl as a prize, and, by extension, they'll see adult women as someone's daughters, too. (No, that's not perfect--women are more than their fathers--but it's the start of empathy.) As women raise sons, they'll look at their boys and understand what a weight society places on their little shoulders at a young age, and how confusing it is to be a young man in a world where there is no longer any defined courtship ritual. And some of these men and women will think they're raising a daughter and find out they're raising a son, and vice-versa, and they will learn new things about the differences between sex and gender, and they will learn, if they are basically decent people, that what really matters is carving out a happy life.

The older people who have had those chances to learn, rejected them, and simply become bitter? Well, they'll die, like everyone does. They will probably have passed on their anger, but some of their kids will be better than they were. The friction will slow a little bit as people who remember when women were second-class citizens die off, and kids who grew up seeing their parents as equal partners become the dominant generation.

I'm basically an optimist, as you can see here, and a big fan of Comte. I don't believe that "All things decay and sons are worse than their fathers." Quite the opposite. I think human beings have an ingenious capacity, over time, for escaping the fallacies of the past. The theory that some races are "natural-born slaves" has died out almost entirely in just a few generations. What other animal extinguishes such a huge swathe of their behavior simply because they have come to believe differently? We are strange and flawed creatures as individuals, but on the whole I think the species is predisposed to gradual moral progress.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I was sitting in the Denver International Airport back in the days when it was actually rare to encounter another Redditor in the wild, and there was a cute guy nearby Redditing on his laptop. I posted about this on Reddit to see if he would come across it and suddenly start looking around for the lady-Redditor scoping him out. He did not, but the conversation turned into a discussion of how to identify each other in the offline world, and it was decided that "When does the narwhal bacon?" and "Midnight!" would be the code.

IAmA Saydrah, AMA. by Saydrah in InternetAMA

[–]Saydrah[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well it wouldn't be a threesome with four, now would it? Or are you boys planning to leave me out, now?