On Captain Awkard and Hugo Schwyzer
Feb. 26th, 2012 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupI have something like 6 half-written posts on how awesome Captain Awkward is, but I never finish them because I would rather just read more captain awkward. But! now there is something I absolutely must share (also, I finished the entirety of the archives). It is in fact not something said by captain awkward herself, but by a commenter, because Captain Awkward is so amazing she even has a good comments section.
Yes, that.
Blogging is a weird thing and privacy matters and he does talk about current things some times (mostly relating to parenting), and honestly I've been extremely impressed with his "well, this a bunch of new information that I need to spend a long time thinking about" response to uproar, but... this rings extremely true to me. He doesn't glorify his past, but he does romanticize it to an extreme degree.
It's a fine line to tread. I think it is good and beneficial for everyone- and I mean absolutely everyone- to have a culture in which people can talk openly about mistakes they've made. It reduces the stupid things people do for fear of being found out, it helps people who listen avoid that mistake, it helps people who have been victims of someone else's mistake realize it wasn't them. I guess it's kind of like rape in media- I'm glad it's no longer so taboo we can't even talk about it, but I'm not happy with sexualizing it or using it as punishment, and I'm really unhappy with how Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is used to titillate and moralize that those sluts got what they deserved.*
Schwyzer is sort of like that. He has shaped up an incredible amount, but part of him still revels in the thing he's done and is getting its kicks the only way it can.
*In contrast, see: Bones, where murder victims have sex, even kinky sex, and may even be murdered by their kinky sex partners, and the male lead is portrayed as a prude for looking down on them for this.
I have to agree with the Captain. Telling her now about things is a bit of a Schwyzer – i.e. “Look, I used to be awful, but now I’m a much better person. Let me tell you in excruciating and self-absorbed detail just how awful I used to be (and also how much I enjoyed it) so you’ll be able to comprehend just how much great a person I am to have changed so much.”
Yes, that.
Blogging is a weird thing and privacy matters and he does talk about current things some times (mostly relating to parenting), and honestly I've been extremely impressed with his "well, this a bunch of new information that I need to spend a long time thinking about" response to uproar, but... this rings extremely true to me. He doesn't glorify his past, but he does romanticize it to an extreme degree.
It's a fine line to tread. I think it is good and beneficial for everyone- and I mean absolutely everyone- to have a culture in which people can talk openly about mistakes they've made. It reduces the stupid things people do for fear of being found out, it helps people who listen avoid that mistake, it helps people who have been victims of someone else's mistake realize it wasn't them. I guess it's kind of like rape in media- I'm glad it's no longer so taboo we can't even talk about it, but I'm not happy with sexualizing it or using it as punishment, and I'm really unhappy with how Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is used to titillate and moralize that those sluts got what they deserved.*
Schwyzer is sort of like that. He has shaped up an incredible amount, but part of him still revels in the thing he's done and is getting its kicks the only way it can.
*In contrast, see: Bones, where murder victims have sex, even kinky sex, and may even be murdered by their kinky sex partners, and the male lead is portrayed as a prude for looking down on them for this.
