I fail to see the strawman here. You said her story about being cornered in the mall was laughable, as in ridiculous in how untrue it was and then later said that you didn't have to disprove something that she never proved. I argued the opposite. I said that you do have to prove that she is lying (whether about the mall or her niece) in order to base your argument on that. If your argument is that PinkiePony isn't blameless you haven't provided any evidence, just speculation, to prove your point. Me personally, have seen no reason to not believe PinkiePony. I know she sells really boring T-shirts but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that she started this whole thing just to make money selling T-shirts. I also don't care if she "profited" from a social movement since it doesn't really invalidate her point. It would be like saying "oh you made money off giving food to the homeless, what a terrible person you are." It just doesn't make that much of a difference. Also, with the kind of flak she received I would probably acting pretty nasty to people too. @Xalder: I agree with you that rape culture is still a problem that exists and needs to be fought. While it might seem moot at this point as to whether or not APM contributed to it or not, I think it's still important that we recognize it as problematic or not. Otherwise, something like it could just show up again, maybe even worse.
That's kind of my point. APM wasn't that bad and there are bigger fish to fry. Also I think pinning the burden of proof on Dragonbait as to whether or not pinkiepony is lying is unfair given he's simply saying that she hasn't provided any proof that her statements are true. You're entitled to believe her if you want (and I do think it is better to give someone the benefit of the doubt when they claim to have been abused rather than ask for proof), but for the 4 year old niece thing I do think that without proof there's a little bit to question about this person's intent with the the whole DWM thing. Basically, DWM was potentially a good cause if it provided enough proof that APM promoted rape culture. As far as I'm aware, DWM didn't give said proof, and in my humble opinion, APM didn't promote rape culture.
How do you prove something that just happens? I know I don't walk around with my camera recording all day long. Burden of proof is complicated....but basically I think it's unreasonable to assume that anyone can prove that any specific thing has happened unless it lies outside the realm of possibilities. That's why we should give the benefit of the assumption to the first person to make a claim and then give the burden of proof onto anyone who wants to dispute it. Basically, I can't prove that PinkiePony is telling the truth, I simply choose to believe her because nothing she says sounds impossible, there's nothing contradictory about it, and nothing she has said or done gives me reason to discredit her. The argument that she is lying seems to only rest on her not being able to prove that something has happened, which I believe is a burden of proof fallacy. If the argument against her somehow brought in other pieces of evidence that could discredit her then that might be something. Has she been proven to lie about things from before (I mean like actual contradictory statements or something) or evidence to suggest that she doesn't have a niece? Also, don't you feel like the intent doesn't really matter if it promotes something positive. I also think that DWM, as well as many others, gave examples of how rape was seen as not serious and how it portrayed it's rapist main character is quirky and silly. That promotes a lot of misconceptions about rape. Misconceptions that help prevent actual rape victims from getting the help they need and perpetuates an attitude in general society that favors the rapist rather than the victim. It isn't so much of a case linking APM to instances of rape culture in a literal (rapist admits to raping because of Princess Molestia), but more that it has qualities that perpetuate a continuing problem. For example, I don't think that the song "Blurred Lines" has caused anyone to rape someone directly, but I do think it is part of the problem that is rape culture. For the record, I'm not saying that the DWM has a list of ways in which APM promoted rape culture, I'm just pretty sure they do because I feel like I've seen it before. Google isn't really helping me and I don't want to go digging through the internet right now to try and find it. If I do find it, I'll be sure to post it.
It is impossible to confirm Pinkiepony's story one way or the other. That said, her claims are extremely improbable.
I dunno man. The last few years of my life has put a strain on what I thought was extremely improbable.
For starters, she claimed that the girl she was babysitting learned about Molestia through a Google image search. That was confirmed to be a lie, as hundreds of people attempted to duplicate the supposed search, with no success. If that was a lie, what else did she lie about?
Now that's ad hominem. Just because Pinkipony may have lied about one aspect of her reason for starting DWM, it was still a good intent, and my overall argument is that the intent was just misplaced. And if she made a cheap buck from the drama, yeah it's opportunistic and taking advantage of a situation, but it also raised awareness of the presence of rape culture (which I was only vaguely aware of before).
I'm a person that believes that the ends always justify the means, but only if the ends are well-intentioned. I've read her blog several times, and all I saw was a egotistical girl that cared more about raising her own public profile than silly things like 'facts' or 'the truth.' The fact that she lied is in no way irrelevant, because the lie was what started everything.
Ugh, is there any way to go look at her opinions without it being her tumblr page which just looks horrendous or watching that video of hers that has **** music playing on top of it?
It didn't "promote" rape culture in any way. Anyone who thinks that joking about a subject, even a sensitive one, somehow = endorsing it clearly has their head jammed so far up their plot that they can see China. </senseless analogy> It's not people who make off-color jokes who marginalize real-life victims of heinous crimes, but rather the social justice warriors who claim to speak on behalf of all victims. SJW culture is, in and of itself, so painfully hypocritical and full of contradictory behaviors that it actually end up harming the people it claims to defend. And considering tumblr is basically SJW central, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if APM's creator got hatemail from condescending white knights on a regular basis. SJW rant aside, I'm sad to see APM go, but if the guy feels he's ready to move on and work on other projects, more power to him.
I've already reblog this awesomeness on Tumblr but ill share my two bits here. Now I’m not on either side but I’m still going to share this. Both sides are pretty bad especially the hard core APM fans sending death threats and accusing her of a lot of blatant lies. Though Pinkiepony also is pretty bad for the whole movement to take down a blog she could of easily ignored. Anyway thats my 2 bits piece out. Also seriously bronies, Seriously. this has made me lose faith. Hopefully/luckily we have noone on here that actually does this type of thing:
It's not an accusation if it's been proven to be true. Her initial claim was, beyond all reasonable doubt, an outright lie.
Oh man, guys. I mean, I don't really care about the Molestia blog, what it represents, the people who took it down or why they wanted to. I don't care who lied and who didn't. Want to know what I do care about? I'm a feminist, and whenever this bogus stuff happens it always becomes [insert fandom] versus [feminists at large]. People who are prepared to be offended flock to the Feminist banner: not because they actually believe in what true feminism stands for, but because they want to have an opinion and condescend to anybody. Hey, I'm a feminist and I spend my time worrying about things that actually effect changes in the world around me, not some blog written by some guy. So do most people for whom feminism is a belief, not an internet hobby. Were the Princess Molestia jokes a little offensive? Sure, to some people. Did they allude to rape culture? Yes, they did. But it's just not important or relevant enough for me to want to spend time on. Be sensible, fellow feminists. Also, [MENTION=2361]Sinderlocke[/MENTION] has the best reaction posts.
