There will likely never be a concrete answer as to what happened, who was to blame, and how it went down. Likely it was a cluster-f*** of many people dropping balls, waiting to see what would happen, and bad decisions. It is what it is now, however. I am horrified at the mob mentality that was shown and the pure hate that was spewed towards Pao, whether or not she deserved any blame. No one should be treated like that.
It will likely forever be a thing of "he said, she said - but really we can't talk about it" from Reddit, no matter who the CEO is.
I think if a man slept with a female boss, didn't get a promotion, then sued his employer for almost the exact amount his bankrupt wife was in debt for... There would be plenty of questions over the credibility of that man. There are plenty of women being discriminated against because they're women... Ellen Pao does not happen to be one of those women though.
I kinda doubt it. There'd been a strange subcommunity of people who hated Pao well before there was any large-scale drama associated with her. You saw comments floating around ranting about her husband and her discrimination court cases months prior to fatpeoplehate's banning or any of that. Just weird stuff that I don't think you'd see with a male CEO (I guess we won't know because /u/spez is an insider and is going to be liked for that regardless).
Not that I think that all Redditors who were getting up in a huff were misogynists or anything. I think the admin actions of the last month or so gave enough fuel to the user's paranoia that these weird sexists who had been bouncing around the site were given an opportunity to convince everyone else that they're right.
At least people are sort of starting to see that they might have been a bit premature in turning Pao into their personal punching bag.
I wholeheartedly believe that the people to start the hard-core witch-hunt for Pao were misogynists. Then mob mentality took over and off it flew with swastika laden pictures and death threats and such. Granted, there were likely a few who thought "oh, easy karma" and tossed some pics up for the upvotes, but all it takes is a few carefully laid suggestions. I would not put it past theredpill to have laid the groundwork.
A small group made it popular to hate on Pao then a slightly larger group ran with it to get some of what they perceived as benefit. Reddit is the biggest High School drama machine in existence. I just wonder who is going to be next on that websites brow beat to death train of wrecking lives.
Honestly? I doubt it would've been the same or to that magnitude if she'd been male. But also, as /u/ChristianBale stated below, there was quite a bit of hate for her to begin with regarding her lawsuit and her husband's business - but if she'd been a male, there wouldn't have been a discrimination lawsuit due to her gender, and all that would be left would be her spouses business dealings, and barring her saying something horribly wrong in regards to that, would've been the spouses issue and not laid at Pao's feet (if she were male).
I agree. There is a group of people who hate women on Reddit, with an almost matching group of people who hate men. If she was a man and had attempted to explain what went wrong, I'm pretty sure I would have seen the term "mansplaining" thrown around a lot.
Very true! I was just throwing the term in because if the CEO was male, and tried to explain anything, I'm sure that would have gotten tossed around.
I have, however, seen far shittier parts of the internet where a lot of bile is summoned towards the male gender. Reddit has misandrists users side just as it has misogynists, and I have seen them posting.
EDIT: Reddit's community would be brutal towards any CEO who was in charge while things were growing screwy. Their gender just decides what slurs the assholes fall back on.
I thought it was particularly interesting that a community like Reddit that is often characterized as sexist was attacking Ellen Pao, a woman, in outrage and support of another woman, Victoria.
Internet is a horrible place, if you attract enough attention, people are going to find something to attack you for, no matter how little that has to do with the issue and no matter who you are.
I didn't read much of that drama on Reddit, but from what I saw, the biggest attack on Pao was that she doesn't understand Reddit and that she's a SJW, not that she's a woman. You want to see how Reddit reacts, when a man does something Reddit doesn't like? Look up Steam paid mod outrage. Here's one of the posts, with plenty of personal attacks. There was even a Skyrim mod, where you can kill Gabe... a bit above the usual "funny" images.
But this tale of drama is kinda ridiculous, not gonna lie.
I agree though that the treatment of Pao is unacceptable however. No matter if she did anything horrible to the site, death threats and personal harassment are unacceptable.
Yeah, at this point it's worse than a Days of Our Lives episode level drama.
I just can't imagine getting to that point. Like, I can count on two fingers the number of people in my entire life I've actually wished physical harm upon. Not even death, but maiming possibly. Those are people I know in my life, not on a computer screen. And to get that angry over someone who truly has no idea who you are beyond some pixels on a screen (if they even know that much) is just baffling.
This is what happens when people with very little experience with how the real world works are given a direct line to anyone they don't like.
99% of the people who sent those messages probably would never do anything and are just idiots overstating their ridiculously blown out of proportion rage. However, since there is no way of separating the cruel but harmless jackasses from the actual threats, all of those now have to be taken seriously.
I just hope our future generations understand better how to respect each other through the web, as it is an amazing tool that has far better purposes than this.
The future of the internet is so very unclear for just this reason - the people who feel a brazen sense of anger for things and people that are so far beyond their control. It is both a boon and a burden for sure. Even when I was new to the internet (hello 1994), I never go to the point where I felt that bloated sense of self-importance over others on the internet. If anything, I keep feeling smaller and almost struggle to have my voice heard.
There will likely never be a concrete answer as to what happened, who was to blame, and how it went down. Likely it was a cluster-f*** of many people dropping balls, waiting to see what would happen, and bad decisions. It is what it is now, however. I am horrified at the mob mentality that was shown and the pure hate that was spewed towards Pao, whether or not she deserved any blame. No one should be treated like that.
It will likely forever be a thing of "he said, she said - but really we can't talk about it" from Reddit, no matter who the CEO is.
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But this tale of drama is kinda ridiculous, not gonna lie.
I agree though that the treatment of Pao is unacceptable however. No matter if she did anything horrible to the site, death threats and personal harassment are unacceptable.
Yeah, at this point it's worse than a Days of Our Lives episode level drama.
I just can't imagine getting to that point. Like, I can count on two fingers the number of people in my entire life I've actually wished physical harm upon. Not even death, but maiming possibly. Those are people I know in my life, not on a computer screen. And to get that angry over someone who truly has no idea who you are beyond some pixels on a screen (if they even know that much) is just baffling.
This is what happens when people with very little experience with how the real world works are given a direct line to anyone they don't like.
99% of the people who sent those messages probably would never do anything and are just idiots overstating their ridiculously blown out of proportion rage. However, since there is no way of separating the cruel but harmless jackasses from the actual threats, all of those now have to be taken seriously.
I just hope our future generations understand better how to respect each other through the web, as it is an amazing tool that has far better purposes than this.
The future of the internet is so very unclear for just this reason - the people who feel a brazen sense of anger for things and people that are so far beyond their control. It is both a boon and a burden for sure. Even when I was new to the internet (hello 1994), I never go to the point where I felt that bloated sense of self-importance over others on the internet. If anything, I keep feeling smaller and almost struggle to have my voice heard.