Number 16: “Rape” as a joke stand-in for “something disappointing to me personally and probably no one else”

Number 17: YouTube Comments



Extra trigger warning on this, for Number 16 there will actually be a screenshot of an example below the fold.

As for number 17, online harassment on YouTube and Twitter is extremely pervasive. Writer, reporter, blogger, activist and all-round great person Rebecca Watson experienced this as much or more than any female daring to share her opinion online, and after a long absence from her YouTube Channel returned in a video which, among other things, addressed the problem. When some complained that she should stick to other topics than highlighting the abuse she received, this was her great response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8YSwB8AvWs



Now, for number 16.

Remember when Brazil lost 7-1 to Germany in this summer’s men’s World Cup? Internet commenters couldn’t help but joke that this loss was a “rape”.

Al-Jazeera (trigger warning: article is laden with examples):

But it’s not difficult to see that terminology related to sexual violence has institutionalised itself in the football vernacular.

Many responded to criticism of this behaviour by trying to say “it’s just a game”, but…

…the fact that it is just a game further trivialises the trauma of people who’ve been on the receiving end of real-life rape.

and lame attempts to compare it to saying “the opposing team just murdered us”, as though 1 in 5 women aren’t rape victims who may be seriously affected by the men around them joking about rape, as though we don’t live a terrifying rape culture that makes it so much harder to prosecute rapists than murderers, and, perhaps most strongly, as though one trivialization of violence exonerates another.

And it is the trivialization of rape in these pervasive “jokes” that lead to very biased and upsetting worldviews regarding rape, and can seriously distort how one approaches law and punishment, rape prevention, and empathy toward victims.



Case in point, this comment on a YouTube review of the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, screenshot taken moments ago:

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