Mar 7, 2022·edited Mar 7, 2022Liked by David Farrier
I don’t even know where to begin with that Liz Gunn clip 😳
Anyway, as a Wellingtonian (who works for the government and spends a fair chunk of my time eating lunch on that lawn), I’m so pleased they’ve now been moved on. Every day was a weird new level of low. My personal lowlights were the tinfoil hats, lamb lady and the black clotted blood and of course the peak destruction of the final day.
I was pretty saddened to see my 14 year old niece sharing images from the protest (she didn’t actually go) with captions like “I get to choose what goes into my body and I shouldn’t have any consequences”. It’s peak Pākehā privilege in her case and the fact that her entire family are anti-vax, led by my brother-in-law who regularly donates to VFF etc and is firmly down the rabbit hole. The sad part for me is they have effectively cut themselves off from the rest of the family now. Once a regular part of our lives, we haven’t seen them for months despite living up the road. To be honest I can’t deal with their vitriol, and we don’t intend to either. I’m not sure how we come back from this either. My brother-in-law is one of the smartest people I know, on the leadership team of a big international company in NZ, and the conspiracy crowd had him on board from the start of this virus outbreak.
Their disregard for their community and prioritising their individualism over the collective is hard for me to process. I guess that can be extrapolated out as a whole for the anti-vax crowd.
However, once we get to the other side of this, if we do, there’s gonna have to be quite a bit of healing time. I want my sister and her whānau back but at the same time, they’ve shown little concern for our elderly parents or the younger kids in our family who are only becoming eligible for their second jabs now. I’ve got a lot to process before I can forgive and I’ll do it but it is so hard.
Condolences, it’s definitely not easy having family who have been sucked in. I have a couple too, and I feel like even if the vax and mandate stuff blows over in the near future, do I really still want a relationship with people so prone to believing bullshit? My estimation of them will never recover, and I know that’s not the approach we’re supposed to take but I am TIRED of pretending that everyone’s feelings/beliefs are equally valid. If you feel like you want to hang the PM rather than get a safe effective vaccine or live with the consequences of being unvaccinated, your feelings are not valid. You need to get therapy. That’s where I’m at rn. Good luck with your family <3
I really feel for you, Kate. It's so tough when your siblings get radicalised like this and drag their kids in with them. I've noticed with my brother-in-law that being smart is no protection and in his case intelligence is a trap. I take some comfort from watching videos made by people who have come back from the rabbit hole to reality, sometimes after years, so I can hold on to a bit of hope that I can get my 2019 sister back. But you are right - it is all so hard.
14? That's so young to be led down that path. So sorry you have to deal with this. And you raise a good point - smart people can be taken down very dumb paths.
And it leads to such a selfish response.
I wonder if he ever looks around at the company he keeps. I guess the cognitive dissonance just has him going "They took it too far, I am not them"
So sad for you Kate. It is really hard to watch this toxic individualism take hold in society in general, let alone in one’s family. Hopefully, one day they will emerge from it.
I watched that Liz Gunn clip yesterday and was so sickened by the misogynistic vitriol directed at the PM. Is this bs happening to any male heads of state? It probably is, but it alarms me how patriarchy has so conditioned us to hate women that people (and I know many of them) are drastically changing their lives, losing jobs, friends and family just to avoid being ‘told what to do’ by ‘Jacinda’.
My sense of the video is that Liz Gunn has had a breakdown and is in need of help and I hope she gets it.
As someone who has worked in the mental health space for many years I suspect some of what we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. Our under resourced mental health services are buckling under the weight of many traumatised people who seem to have lost hope and meaning. A rabbit hole must seem awfully reassuring to a rabbit that is convinced it’s being hunted.
Of course none of that excuses the riot. I will never forget images of some of our new police recruits looking justifiably frightened as they found suddenly themselves in a vortex of violence. I have tremendous respect for how the police handled themselves with restraint and dignity. One positive take from what was for me a harrowing and deeply disturbing spectacle.
To be perfectly honest, having family or anyone to care about you enough to try to pull you out of the conspiracy quagmire...they certainly wouldn't see it as such, but there's definitely a certain measure of privilege there. Not everyone has someone to advocate for them and to see this through with them.
Ugh, I wish you weren't right but tip of iceberg is correct.
Part of the reason people fall so quickly is that they've held wonky beliefs for ages - they just haven't expressed themselves before in such an obvious way.
I truly think that the best thing we can do for our loved ones down the rabbit hole is not cut them off entirely. Because then they are completely at the mercy of the conspiracy grifters and alt-right crowd. They make "new friends" who "understand" (and fill their heads with more nonsense). I'm having some success with a friend who is very far down the rabbit hole by just engaging in "how are you" and then completely ignoring any conspiracy theory bullshit that comes up. If there's 3 paragraphs of conspiracy, I'll only reply to the part about how her kids are doing. She's actually started reaching out to me more for other things, and that means I'm maintaining a connection with her that she can use if she ever decides to come back from the VFF cult. It's so hard but holding the boundaries gently seems to be working.
very good luck to you with your friend - I have tried that tack and thought I was succeeding even, but discovered that they thought they were getting the right info to me when I needed it because I did not obviously disagree with it! So I made my position clear after that and refused to listen to any of it - and they disappeared overnight. Lol. That'll learn me!
Good for you Bex, that's bloody amazing. There's definitely something to the idea that maintaining links gives people options - a way to return to reality rather than their rabbit hole being the only place they feel they can belong. I really applaud the work so many are doing to offer community when these folk seem so determined to reject reality.
Personally, I struggle to find the emotional energy. The existential dread is overwhelming and I find I can't summon the resilience and grace to engage. It's all just so heart breaking and it's people like you who give me a glimmer of hope. Kia kaha
I love reading the free Webworm newsletters when they come out, and this time I think you hit a nerve and I had to write back. This one in particular provided a unique perspective, with input from a social media manager that I don't think I've seen in other places online.
I can definitely relate to what has been said. I have quite a few friends who went deeply down the rabbit hole very quickly in 2020 when Covid came along, and most of them are EXTREMELY VOCAL!!! I think that is one of the hardest things, when you have friends who push their views and opinions really strongly whenever Covid comes up as a topic. Any opportunity they had they would complain about Covid and say it wasn't real, complain about lockdowns etc. Then over time when Covid did get here and deaths around the world were rising, they started admitting that Covid was real, but that it was very very mild and the mainstream media was slanting everything and making it worse than it actually is.
It's been most interesting to see how my "friends" have responded on social media. Sometimes this has meant hijacking peoples facebook posts, sending abusive messages, or posting large status updates with their alternative facts and other information about why the response was better in country X because they did X, Y, and Z.
My brother in Law attended the protest after it had been going for a week or so, and was there for two weeks and only left at the very end. He attended because he was loosely anti-mandate but I think the real reason he went along was he wanted to escape from reality, so it was less about attending the protest, and more about getting away from his life.
In two weeks we watched him descend swiftly down the rabbit hole, until he started messaging my wife with some alarming conspiracy theories. His last few messages on the final day of protest amounted to the police actually being trespassed from the property by the local Iwi because it was Maori land, and that all the protesters were actually there with permission. He said that the politicians who televised their injection were given something fake like a saline solution. I even saw messages from him that said Jacinda is an ex-junkie, Clarke Gayford imported cocaine and that they gave the mob 2.5 million for meth?!?
I think the whole ordeal is the most scary because of the innocent and well meaning people who attended the protest because they wanted to be heard about being anti-mandate, but over time they rubbed shoulders with other protesters, who had crazier views and other conspiracies they were chasing. I have to wonder how many people left the protest far deeper down the rabbit hole than when they first attended it... and it makes me feel sick to my stomach....
Thank you so much for your work and your writing, I really do get excited each time I see an email from you in my inbox. I really like the perspective you bring and find it refreshing!
I could not agree more with this comment. Thanks for being here, Jordan. May quote from this in an upcoming newsletter. It's incredibly helpful context.
I totally share your concern that many well meaning people turned up to the protest with moderate anti-mandate views and then got swept away down the rabbit hole due to sheer proximity. If you're placed in a confined environment like that, and you're told only the people around you have your back, and then you hear someone talk about spiked proteins on the PA for four hours a day, it makes sense that you're going to listen to that. And then it's a simple slide to the next outlandish claim, and the next. Part of me thinks this is the real violence done at the protest, not the fires and damage to property. It's going to take a lot longer to undo that damage.
Sometimes I despair that we are going to keep discussing how crazy their theories are and how bad their behaviour is right up to the next organised attack.
Definitely a concern. I remember shortly after the Christchurch attacks and there was this whole narrative from the govt around ‘how do we improve social cohesion?’ and even at the time, I thought the more important question was ‘how do we stop people being radicalised online and emboldened in their bigotry such that they feel entitled to murder a single person, let alone numerous people?’
This is a key point. There's always going to be people who fall for crazy ideas. Unfortunately, digital technologies enable both the exponential spread of such ideas, and likeminded people to connect at scale. Hard to see what can be done about that.
Another way forward might be to try to identify triggers - things that are more likely to tip people into anger and violence - and take measures to avoid or mitigate. In Wellington, a key trigger seems to have been mandates.
Personally, I'd agree with mandates, but perhaps the powers that be could have thought harder about what might happen before going with them, or else put in place measures to reassure or lessen the impact, such as time limits. It's possible that this might have been enough to avoid the trigger.
David, I am newly subscribed. I look forward to going through your archival work and look forward to your future work. Re 'kick Facebook to the curb" i only found your site due to a facebook group called 'best supported of Jacinda Ardern' One of our trustworthy members posted this article, to share with us all in the group. My question for you is, how can be best navigate social media to remain engages, informed and supportive of our Prime Minister and Labour Party, if not via facebook? The likes of me (a retired nurse, spanning 43 years of service, who cares are humanitarian and social justice concerns, and (in my case) am not savvy of the alternatives to facebook to engage with promoters of best practice views and actions. Would you mind addressing this with the group i have mentioned. The admin is Redalond Tsounga. Thank you
David Farrier, i am newly subscribed to your webworm. It is thanks to 'best supporters of of Jacinda Ardern roup' a trustworthy group member posting your article, that lead me to your work. Facebook is used by some of us 'oldies' who (in my case) are not social media savvy enough to know how else to connect and engage and support each other, our Prime Minister and the Labour Party. So, your advice to kick it to the curb (facebook) Would you mind going onto the support page i have mentioned, and telling us what we can do instead. Thank you. I am now subscribed to you and will access your archives and be better informed. I look forward to your future work. PS I am a retire nurse, spanning 43 years of service. I care deeply about all humanity.
Yeah definitely agree with you. I think the avoiding of triggers is a good line of thought and something that hopefully the government is considering. I think too though that a lot of our underlying social ills need more attention - misogyny, xenophobia, racism, because for people whose trigger is the existence of muslims or having a woman Prime Minister, we should not as a society be accepting of those view points. Even without radicalisation and violence, tolerating bigotry makes our society worse.
For Sure. The misogyny, xenophobia and racism has always been there. They are now just emboldened as it appears their community/ movement is much larger than it is thanks to social media
Yes, on reflection, perhaps 'triggers' isn't quite the right term, because as you say a lot of people are 'triggered' by bigoted views which should be unacceptable in our society. Maybe it's something like 'radicalisation points' or 'escalation points' - where behaviour shifts from being nasty but non-threatening to nasty and threatening / violent, or more crudely, from talking shit to taking action.
The problem is almost anything the government does or posts to social will attract negative comments and reactions from various walks of life - it honestly does not matter what the policy or the content of the thing is. I've seen this first hand (former social media manager in question), so there is actually nothing you can do at a policy level to soften the blow. And in the case of the Prime Minister, simply being a woman in power is enough to tip people into anger and violence.
Often the issue with the policy is entirely fabcricated to start with - as was the case with the UN Migration Compact. It also becomes really hard to differentiate what is a real issue and what is simply social being social, what deserves legitimate consideration and what is simply a vocal minority acting out.
Fundamentally this is a social media problem, and the way it elevates disinformation and traps people in feedback loops, but social media is so deeply embedded in almost every facet of our day lives, it's not as simple as just extracting yourself from it. I agree with you that it's hard to see what can be done. You almost need everyone to unanimously decide to get off Facebook. We almost got that after March 15, but I mean if that couldn't do it, I don't really know what can.
Mar 7, 2022·edited Mar 7, 2022Liked by David Farrier
If those questions were arrows, I'd imagine them pointing in almost the same direction. But I don't know very much about de-radicalisation and that's something I can learn about. My intuition is that more cohesion means less filter bubbles means less radicalisation, but I expect there is more to it.
I agree - I failed to add that the way social cohesion was framed at that time (in the part of government I was in at least) was more in the ‘minorities should be more integrated and visible and accepted in society’ space. I think a social cohesion more broadly imagined, e.g to improve everyone’s sense of community and prevent that kind of isolation and radicalisation that we see is the way to go.
We know that the vast majority of NZers do not support the views of the conspiracy theorists who have recently been evicted from Parliament grounds.
I hope that their credibility has been further eroded by association with violent thugs.
What concerns me most is the nasty misogyny aimed at our Prime Minister.
This reminds me of the sentiment that I was exposed to when I visited my expat relatives in Sydney during Julia Gillard's tenure as PM. I was constantly told how dreadful and useless she was without any explanation of her specific shortcomings.The nature of this talk was not that of informed criticism, it felt like blind hatred of a woman in a position of real power.
This is what is now being aimed at our PM.
In hindsight Julia Gillard regrets not 'calling out' early the misogyny she was exposed to. She had hoped that her record in office would dispel the misgivings of the public, however this is not the way it played out as we know.
I think all of us, Jacinda included, would be wise to learn from this and refuse to tolerate and to emphatically challenge the campaign of hateful misogyny now directed her way.
She'll need our help with that! Some of the worst misogynists are women, but whoever is coming out with this total kaka needs quickly putting in their place, be they man or woman.
isten to parlimentary debate, i cringe at the use of 'she' when it is directed to the Prime minister at question time. The question is directed to the head of Government. Jacinda replys third party by addressing Mr Speaker. The term 'she' is dismissive and intentionally derogatory, IMO
Yes, in the case of my Julia Gillard example she was always referred to as 'that woman', underlining the fact that her femaleness was what was 'all defining' and what was being objected to. The use of 'she' here is a similar tactic.
Thank you for the Liz Gunn clip. I am sure I will get angry and fall into despair about it all, but first I have to stop crying with laughter. Enhanced by some of the Twitter comments: "If she gets brain damage from long Covid, how will we notice?" I needed brightening up during a tough week and wasn't expecting the Wellington riots to do that but you can rely on Webworm.
It's an interesting question to what extent this woman might be suffering from a mental illness. I wouldn't say my family members and ex-friends who believe and say everything that she was saying have a treatable mental disorder. These aren't all psychosis or bi-polar presentations are they? What medication or therapy can cure ideological radicalisation? The only mental health support that I can imagine being useful for them is a full on cult deprogramming intervention.
IMO some of them are megamanical with illusions of granjour. Tale Damien Demental his blog at the onset of the protest was he didn't want to be the head of government when he (they) take down government and arrest Jacinda, no he will settle with being the interim leader. Alt right American, truly unbelievable the gall he has.
The guest commentary is spot on. Well done on getting this on (electronic) paper.
When someone says "The antifa is against us!" I wonder if they realise this statement makes them the fascists.
She's right. If you are in a protest and alt-right joins in you have two options: tell them to go away and make sure they go, or you go away. Otherwise you are participating in an alt-right protest.
It's the old saying "if there's a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis."
That was a good piece of writing from the social media person. My daughter and her husband went down the 4chan/alt right rabbit hole and he rang me the day after the mosque shooting expressing concern that there would be a clampdown on social media. I have known people who have said that the shooting didn't happen, or it did but no one was killed, or that the terrorist wasn't a terrorist, but anyway it was all about quashing dissent and taking our guns. Reading that today from the social media worker, asking could she have done more, could she live with herself. We end up with this guilt we know is misplaced, it might not be guilt but just heartbreak.
Thanks for your words Karen - I'm truly sorry to hear about your daughter. One of the hardest things to deal with in the aftermath of the attacks was the false flag narrative. Having witnessed something so truly horrific and sat in the live moment of it, it felt utterly mad that anyone could deny that this thing had happened. And to suggest that the government would stage it? Still makes me feel sick. I think we feel this immense sense of responsibility because we care, and it's hard, but it's not a bad thing. I hope your daughter came out of that - and if not, that she will.
Thank you for this, and huge ups and thanks and hugs to the social media manager who shared their thoughts and fears here, because that feels like sane NZ to me. This para in particular - 'People try to make this into a “freedom of speech” argument. It isn’t. It’s also not about left and right. It’s about putting community first, it’s about respecting basic human dignity. There is no intellectualising your way out of white supremacy and fascism. ' Totally - no excuse for being in the same space, and therefore supporting, as these utter contemptible humans. I personally don't care if they were suckers or not, they went right down deep in there if they are threatening human lives and the lives of people in media and government. I hope we root them out and show them what consequences are - in a way that works for our own sense of justice. Expose them, call them out, lock 'em up for while or make them do community work. Whatever. But let's act on this. As for Liz Gunn - a total example of racism and determined ignorance. Her consequence in this case is clearly covid. I am trying really really hard not to hope that she gets very very sick with it - I fail often in that endeavour and so I resent her even more for making me ashamed of myself. :-(
Mar 7, 2022·edited Mar 7, 2022Liked by David Farrier
Having to wander up Lambton Quay and past the protest a few times in order to get to various meetings was certainly an eye opening experience, and it seemed to get more surreal by the day after the first week.
In hindsight, it has struck me more as an event of mass psychosis than anything else - ironically, the same claim made often by protesters about the COVID response - but absolutely understandable given the enormous pressures placed on people's mental health.
Unfortunately, this is not something that can be legislated away through a technocratic response, or dealt with by appeals to reason.
This paroxysm was all about emotion and 'fight or flight'. It's hardwired into us that humans revert to type under stress, and a percentage of the population will always look for answers and patterns - no matter how outlandish - to comfort themselves that there is a design or reason associated with an event, and gain some modicum on control over their own lives when in extremis.
The best we can do as a society is to provide a safe outlet for people's anxieties and support to get through them, but also to present an unflinching countervailing force to mitigate the worst excesses when that behaviour impacts other people or our collective social institutions.
Postscript: Watching a clearly out-of-her-gourd Liz Gunn didn't make my day.
It was a rough watch, right? She needs a buddy to intervene. Needs help. Plus - I don't imagine she's worrying much about infecting others.
And you're right - we're dealing with human brains and we're not going to rewire them anytime soon. This is such a deeply engrained cultural problem that's been left festering on social media and other networks for way too long.
In this context, social media is an amplifier / force multiplier rather than a root cause.
I don't believe that the root cause can be meaningfully addressed without some real action on the significant structural issues which affect our country around poverty (material and informational), access to quality education (including political and civic knowledge), social atomisation, racial inequity of outcome / engagement with State institutions.
These are all massive, inter-generational community problems that exist without social media and, as you note, political parties and institutions can't really take a moral position on the matter when they throw money at these companies in order to engage citizens.
Postscript: A timely piece published today on Newsroom written by Prof. Bob Gregory:
Oh god. I’ve just watched the Liz Gunn clip. It’s the first thing I’ve seen of the anti crowd. I truly don’t understand. I don’t understand where the hatred is coming from. Vile hatred. I agree with Kate, the selfishness makes me despair. A colleague of mine happily told me yesterday that he and his wife flew from
Auckland to Wellington while Covid positive. In response to my zoom facial response (couldn’t help myself) he exclaimed “we had the tickets!” Oh that’s ok then. Fuucckkkk!!
I know. I was so pissed off. The entitlement. He started the conversation with the immortal words, “I’m no epidemiologist but ..”. If it wasn’t so f**d up it’d be funny
Next time someone starts the convo with those words I’m going to interrupt and say “Quite right, you’re not.” 😆😇😂
Those riots sure were wild. I had a cousin who was part of the protest (not sure if he hung around for the rioting) and a few friends, and maybe another cousin, on the Police side of things.
It really would have made for a hilarious whānau anecdote if my Police cousin had arrested my conspiracy theorist cousin.
Some truely horrible stuff is said about Jacinda on social media. I wonder how much she is aware of. Her ability to not show any sarcasm or anger towards these people amazes me. Politically I wouldn't call myself a supporter of either of the two main parties but as a woman I am really proud of Jacinda. I can't help but feel that if she was a man she wouldn't be getting the same level of hate.
Happy international woman's day !
Liz Gunn on the other hand is just a huge embarrassment. Urghhh
I don’t even know where to begin with that Liz Gunn clip 😳
Anyway, as a Wellingtonian (who works for the government and spends a fair chunk of my time eating lunch on that lawn), I’m so pleased they’ve now been moved on. Every day was a weird new level of low. My personal lowlights were the tinfoil hats, lamb lady and the black clotted blood and of course the peak destruction of the final day.
I was pretty saddened to see my 14 year old niece sharing images from the protest (she didn’t actually go) with captions like “I get to choose what goes into my body and I shouldn’t have any consequences”. It’s peak Pākehā privilege in her case and the fact that her entire family are anti-vax, led by my brother-in-law who regularly donates to VFF etc and is firmly down the rabbit hole. The sad part for me is they have effectively cut themselves off from the rest of the family now. Once a regular part of our lives, we haven’t seen them for months despite living up the road. To be honest I can’t deal with their vitriol, and we don’t intend to either. I’m not sure how we come back from this either. My brother-in-law is one of the smartest people I know, on the leadership team of a big international company in NZ, and the conspiracy crowd had him on board from the start of this virus outbreak.
Their disregard for their community and prioritising their individualism over the collective is hard for me to process. I guess that can be extrapolated out as a whole for the anti-vax crowd.
However, once we get to the other side of this, if we do, there’s gonna have to be quite a bit of healing time. I want my sister and her whānau back but at the same time, they’ve shown little concern for our elderly parents or the younger kids in our family who are only becoming eligible for their second jabs now. I’ve got a lot to process before I can forgive and I’ll do it but it is so hard.
Condolences, it’s definitely not easy having family who have been sucked in. I have a couple too, and I feel like even if the vax and mandate stuff blows over in the near future, do I really still want a relationship with people so prone to believing bullshit? My estimation of them will never recover, and I know that’s not the approach we’re supposed to take but I am TIRED of pretending that everyone’s feelings/beliefs are equally valid. If you feel like you want to hang the PM rather than get a safe effective vaccine or live with the consequences of being unvaccinated, your feelings are not valid. You need to get therapy. That’s where I’m at rn. Good luck with your family <3
Jane you mentioned bullshit
I’m reading
“The Life Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit” John V Peteocelli
Helps balance the crazy stuff
Thanks, that sounds interesting! I’ll definitely check it out, maybe I can convince the tinfoil hat wearers in my life to have a read lol
I really feel for you, Kate. It's so tough when your siblings get radicalised like this and drag their kids in with them. I've noticed with my brother-in-law that being smart is no protection and in his case intelligence is a trap. I take some comfort from watching videos made by people who have come back from the rabbit hole to reality, sometimes after years, so I can hold on to a bit of hope that I can get my 2019 sister back. But you are right - it is all so hard.
Kia Kaha Kate. Kia Kaha
14? That's so young to be led down that path. So sorry you have to deal with this. And you raise a good point - smart people can be taken down very dumb paths.
And it leads to such a selfish response.
I wonder if he ever looks around at the company he keeps. I guess the cognitive dissonance just has him going "They took it too far, I am not them"
So sad for you Kate. It is really hard to watch this toxic individualism take hold in society in general, let alone in one’s family. Hopefully, one day they will emerge from it.
I watched that Liz Gunn clip yesterday and was so sickened by the misogynistic vitriol directed at the PM. Is this bs happening to any male heads of state? It probably is, but it alarms me how patriarchy has so conditioned us to hate women that people (and I know many of them) are drastically changing their lives, losing jobs, friends and family just to avoid being ‘told what to do’ by ‘Jacinda’.
Being a female leader... infinite respect. So much respect.
I am aware even doing what I do that I have such an easy ride being a guy. Instantly I am immune to so much hatred out there.
My sense of the video is that Liz Gunn has had a breakdown and is in need of help and I hope she gets it.
As someone who has worked in the mental health space for many years I suspect some of what we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. Our under resourced mental health services are buckling under the weight of many traumatised people who seem to have lost hope and meaning. A rabbit hole must seem awfully reassuring to a rabbit that is convinced it’s being hunted.
Of course none of that excuses the riot. I will never forget images of some of our new police recruits looking justifiably frightened as they found suddenly themselves in a vortex of violence. I have tremendous respect for how the police handled themselves with restraint and dignity. One positive take from what was for me a harrowing and deeply disturbing spectacle.
I agree with you about Liz Gunn, and similarly about the lamb lady. I just can't find it funny - these people are mentally unwell.
She needs a loving family member or friend to step in. Although in saying that, I imagine many have tried (and no doubt failed)
To be perfectly honest, having family or anyone to care about you enough to try to pull you out of the conspiracy quagmire...they certainly wouldn't see it as such, but there's definitely a certain measure of privilege there. Not everyone has someone to advocate for them and to see this through with them.
Ugh, I wish you weren't right but tip of iceberg is correct.
Part of the reason people fall so quickly is that they've held wonky beliefs for ages - they just haven't expressed themselves before in such an obvious way.
I hate it.
I truly think that the best thing we can do for our loved ones down the rabbit hole is not cut them off entirely. Because then they are completely at the mercy of the conspiracy grifters and alt-right crowd. They make "new friends" who "understand" (and fill their heads with more nonsense). I'm having some success with a friend who is very far down the rabbit hole by just engaging in "how are you" and then completely ignoring any conspiracy theory bullshit that comes up. If there's 3 paragraphs of conspiracy, I'll only reply to the part about how her kids are doing. She's actually started reaching out to me more for other things, and that means I'm maintaining a connection with her that she can use if she ever decides to come back from the VFF cult. It's so hard but holding the boundaries gently seems to be working.
If you can handle it for your own mental health - yes.
But increasingly I am thinking people have to manage their own well being first - and if cutting off is required, then I think you just have to!
Your technique is perfect though - you are a resilient gem. Thank you.
Oh absolutely! And I am a psychologist, so I've got some extra resilience and boundary holding reserves by nature of the work I do :)
very good luck to you with your friend - I have tried that tack and thought I was succeeding even, but discovered that they thought they were getting the right info to me when I needed it because I did not obviously disagree with it! So I made my position clear after that and refused to listen to any of it - and they disappeared overnight. Lol. That'll learn me!
Ah sorry to hear that Linda. So hard!
xx I console myself with the fact that at least I am not her.....
Good for you Bex, that's bloody amazing. There's definitely something to the idea that maintaining links gives people options - a way to return to reality rather than their rabbit hole being the only place they feel they can belong. I really applaud the work so many are doing to offer community when these folk seem so determined to reject reality.
Personally, I struggle to find the emotional energy. The existential dread is overwhelming and I find I can't summon the resilience and grace to engage. It's all just so heart breaking and it's people like you who give me a glimmer of hope. Kia kaha
Hi David,
I love reading the free Webworm newsletters when they come out, and this time I think you hit a nerve and I had to write back. This one in particular provided a unique perspective, with input from a social media manager that I don't think I've seen in other places online.
I can definitely relate to what has been said. I have quite a few friends who went deeply down the rabbit hole very quickly in 2020 when Covid came along, and most of them are EXTREMELY VOCAL!!! I think that is one of the hardest things, when you have friends who push their views and opinions really strongly whenever Covid comes up as a topic. Any opportunity they had they would complain about Covid and say it wasn't real, complain about lockdowns etc. Then over time when Covid did get here and deaths around the world were rising, they started admitting that Covid was real, but that it was very very mild and the mainstream media was slanting everything and making it worse than it actually is.
It's been most interesting to see how my "friends" have responded on social media. Sometimes this has meant hijacking peoples facebook posts, sending abusive messages, or posting large status updates with their alternative facts and other information about why the response was better in country X because they did X, Y, and Z.
My brother in Law attended the protest after it had been going for a week or so, and was there for two weeks and only left at the very end. He attended because he was loosely anti-mandate but I think the real reason he went along was he wanted to escape from reality, so it was less about attending the protest, and more about getting away from his life.
In two weeks we watched him descend swiftly down the rabbit hole, until he started messaging my wife with some alarming conspiracy theories. His last few messages on the final day of protest amounted to the police actually being trespassed from the property by the local Iwi because it was Maori land, and that all the protesters were actually there with permission. He said that the politicians who televised their injection were given something fake like a saline solution. I even saw messages from him that said Jacinda is an ex-junkie, Clarke Gayford imported cocaine and that they gave the mob 2.5 million for meth?!?
I think the whole ordeal is the most scary because of the innocent and well meaning people who attended the protest because they wanted to be heard about being anti-mandate, but over time they rubbed shoulders with other protesters, who had crazier views and other conspiracies they were chasing. I have to wonder how many people left the protest far deeper down the rabbit hole than when they first attended it... and it makes me feel sick to my stomach....
Thank you so much for your work and your writing, I really do get excited each time I see an email from you in my inbox. I really like the perspective you bring and find it refreshing!
All the best,
Jordan.
I could not agree more with this comment. Thanks for being here, Jordan. May quote from this in an upcoming newsletter. It's incredibly helpful context.
I totally share your concern that many well meaning people turned up to the protest with moderate anti-mandate views and then got swept away down the rabbit hole due to sheer proximity. If you're placed in a confined environment like that, and you're told only the people around you have your back, and then you hear someone talk about spiked proteins on the PA for four hours a day, it makes sense that you're going to listen to that. And then it's a simple slide to the next outlandish claim, and the next. Part of me thinks this is the real violence done at the protest, not the fires and damage to property. It's going to take a lot longer to undo that damage.
Sometimes I despair that we are going to keep discussing how crazy their theories are and how bad their behaviour is right up to the next organised attack.
Definitely a concern. I remember shortly after the Christchurch attacks and there was this whole narrative from the govt around ‘how do we improve social cohesion?’ and even at the time, I thought the more important question was ‘how do we stop people being radicalised online and emboldened in their bigotry such that they feel entitled to murder a single person, let alone numerous people?’
This is a key point. There's always going to be people who fall for crazy ideas. Unfortunately, digital technologies enable both the exponential spread of such ideas, and likeminded people to connect at scale. Hard to see what can be done about that.
Another way forward might be to try to identify triggers - things that are more likely to tip people into anger and violence - and take measures to avoid or mitigate. In Wellington, a key trigger seems to have been mandates.
Personally, I'd agree with mandates, but perhaps the powers that be could have thought harder about what might happen before going with them, or else put in place measures to reassure or lessen the impact, such as time limits. It's possible that this might have been enough to avoid the trigger.
I think our leaders need to stop using Facebook. Kick it to the curb. It's beyond excusable now.
(one tiny little aspect of a very giant problem, I know)
David, I am newly subscribed. I look forward to going through your archival work and look forward to your future work. Re 'kick Facebook to the curb" i only found your site due to a facebook group called 'best supported of Jacinda Ardern' One of our trustworthy members posted this article, to share with us all in the group. My question for you is, how can be best navigate social media to remain engages, informed and supportive of our Prime Minister and Labour Party, if not via facebook? The likes of me (a retired nurse, spanning 43 years of service, who cares are humanitarian and social justice concerns, and (in my case) am not savvy of the alternatives to facebook to engage with promoters of best practice views and actions. Would you mind addressing this with the group i have mentioned. The admin is Redalond Tsounga. Thank you
Best Supporters of Jacinda Ardern Admin Redalond Tsounga
Absolutely. Just at a policy level, it's really hard for government to regulate something when government is a prolific user.
David Farrier, i am newly subscribed to your webworm. It is thanks to 'best supporters of of Jacinda Ardern roup' a trustworthy group member posting your article, that lead me to your work. Facebook is used by some of us 'oldies' who (in my case) are not social media savvy enough to know how else to connect and engage and support each other, our Prime Minister and the Labour Party. So, your advice to kick it to the curb (facebook) Would you mind going onto the support page i have mentioned, and telling us what we can do instead. Thank you. I am now subscribed to you and will access your archives and be better informed. I look forward to your future work. PS I am a retire nurse, spanning 43 years of service. I care deeply about all humanity.
Yeah definitely agree with you. I think the avoiding of triggers is a good line of thought and something that hopefully the government is considering. I think too though that a lot of our underlying social ills need more attention - misogyny, xenophobia, racism, because for people whose trigger is the existence of muslims or having a woman Prime Minister, we should not as a society be accepting of those view points. Even without radicalisation and violence, tolerating bigotry makes our society worse.
For Sure. The misogyny, xenophobia and racism has always been there. They are now just emboldened as it appears their community/ movement is much larger than it is thanks to social media
Exactly. Putin is almost unanimously described as a lunatic (he totally is!), but never in the same terms that Jacinda gets.
Yes, on reflection, perhaps 'triggers' isn't quite the right term, because as you say a lot of people are 'triggered' by bigoted views which should be unacceptable in our society. Maybe it's something like 'radicalisation points' or 'escalation points' - where behaviour shifts from being nasty but non-threatening to nasty and threatening / violent, or more crudely, from talking shit to taking action.
The problem is almost anything the government does or posts to social will attract negative comments and reactions from various walks of life - it honestly does not matter what the policy or the content of the thing is. I've seen this first hand (former social media manager in question), so there is actually nothing you can do at a policy level to soften the blow. And in the case of the Prime Minister, simply being a woman in power is enough to tip people into anger and violence.
Often the issue with the policy is entirely fabcricated to start with - as was the case with the UN Migration Compact. It also becomes really hard to differentiate what is a real issue and what is simply social being social, what deserves legitimate consideration and what is simply a vocal minority acting out.
Fundamentally this is a social media problem, and the way it elevates disinformation and traps people in feedback loops, but social media is so deeply embedded in almost every facet of our day lives, it's not as simple as just extracting yourself from it. I agree with you that it's hard to see what can be done. You almost need everyone to unanimously decide to get off Facebook. We almost got that after March 15, but I mean if that couldn't do it, I don't really know what can.
If those questions were arrows, I'd imagine them pointing in almost the same direction. But I don't know very much about de-radicalisation and that's something I can learn about. My intuition is that more cohesion means less filter bubbles means less radicalisation, but I expect there is more to it.
I agree - I failed to add that the way social cohesion was framed at that time (in the part of government I was in at least) was more in the ‘minorities should be more integrated and visible and accepted in society’ space. I think a social cohesion more broadly imagined, e.g to improve everyone’s sense of community and prevent that kind of isolation and radicalisation that we see is the way to go.
Yeah. Like in America with every shooting. "Thoughts and prayers" and then onto the next one. Endlessly.
We know that the vast majority of NZers do not support the views of the conspiracy theorists who have recently been evicted from Parliament grounds.
I hope that their credibility has been further eroded by association with violent thugs.
What concerns me most is the nasty misogyny aimed at our Prime Minister.
This reminds me of the sentiment that I was exposed to when I visited my expat relatives in Sydney during Julia Gillard's tenure as PM. I was constantly told how dreadful and useless she was without any explanation of her specific shortcomings.The nature of this talk was not that of informed criticism, it felt like blind hatred of a woman in a position of real power.
This is what is now being aimed at our PM.
In hindsight Julia Gillard regrets not 'calling out' early the misogyny she was exposed to. She had hoped that her record in office would dispel the misgivings of the public, however this is not the way it played out as we know.
I think all of us, Jacinda included, would be wise to learn from this and refuse to tolerate and to emphatically challenge the campaign of hateful misogyny now directed her way.
She'll need our help with that! Some of the worst misogynists are women, but whoever is coming out with this total kaka needs quickly putting in their place, be they man or woman.
I'm afraid that misogyny will appeal to a larger audience than foil hats and shedding
Sadly, I agree. However, the push back has to happen!
isten to parlimentary debate, i cringe at the use of 'she' when it is directed to the Prime minister at question time. The question is directed to the head of Government. Jacinda replys third party by addressing Mr Speaker. The term 'she' is dismissive and intentionally derogatory, IMO
Yes, in the case of my Julia Gillard example she was always referred to as 'that woman', underlining the fact that her femaleness was what was 'all defining' and what was being objected to. The use of 'she' here is a similar tactic.
The misogyny is BLEAK as all hell, right? Some deep seated hateful shit.
Thank you for the Liz Gunn clip. I am sure I will get angry and fall into despair about it all, but first I have to stop crying with laughter. Enhanced by some of the Twitter comments: "If she gets brain damage from long Covid, how will we notice?" I needed brightening up during a tough week and wasn't expecting the Wellington riots to do that but you can rely on Webworm.
I know we have to laugh, but I also hope she gets help. Mental health support, and physical health support. It's so, so rough.
It's an interesting question to what extent this woman might be suffering from a mental illness. I wouldn't say my family members and ex-friends who believe and say everything that she was saying have a treatable mental disorder. These aren't all psychosis or bi-polar presentations are they? What medication or therapy can cure ideological radicalisation? The only mental health support that I can imagine being useful for them is a full on cult deprogramming intervention.
IMO some of them are megamanical with illusions of granjour. Tale Damien Demental his blog at the onset of the protest was he didn't want to be the head of government when he (they) take down government and arrest Jacinda, no he will settle with being the interim leader. Alt right American, truly unbelievable the gall he has.
spelling, sorry should be 'grandeur'
The guest commentary is spot on. Well done on getting this on (electronic) paper.
When someone says "The antifa is against us!" I wonder if they realise this statement makes them the fascists.
She's right. If you are in a protest and alt-right joins in you have two options: tell them to go away and make sure they go, or you go away. Otherwise you are participating in an alt-right protest.
It's the old saying "if there's a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis."
And that's not even invoking Godwin's Law.
Felt very lucky to get this piece from her.
That was a good piece of writing from the social media person. My daughter and her husband went down the 4chan/alt right rabbit hole and he rang me the day after the mosque shooting expressing concern that there would be a clampdown on social media. I have known people who have said that the shooting didn't happen, or it did but no one was killed, or that the terrorist wasn't a terrorist, but anyway it was all about quashing dissent and taking our guns. Reading that today from the social media worker, asking could she have done more, could she live with herself. We end up with this guilt we know is misplaced, it might not be guilt but just heartbreak.
I am so sorry about your daughter. I can't imagine how difficult that is. A few Webworm readers in similar positions.
Thanks for your words Karen - I'm truly sorry to hear about your daughter. One of the hardest things to deal with in the aftermath of the attacks was the false flag narrative. Having witnessed something so truly horrific and sat in the live moment of it, it felt utterly mad that anyone could deny that this thing had happened. And to suggest that the government would stage it? Still makes me feel sick. I think we feel this immense sense of responsibility because we care, and it's hard, but it's not a bad thing. I hope your daughter came out of that - and if not, that she will.
Thank you for this, and huge ups and thanks and hugs to the social media manager who shared their thoughts and fears here, because that feels like sane NZ to me. This para in particular - 'People try to make this into a “freedom of speech” argument. It isn’t. It’s also not about left and right. It’s about putting community first, it’s about respecting basic human dignity. There is no intellectualising your way out of white supremacy and fascism. ' Totally - no excuse for being in the same space, and therefore supporting, as these utter contemptible humans. I personally don't care if they were suckers or not, they went right down deep in there if they are threatening human lives and the lives of people in media and government. I hope we root them out and show them what consequences are - in a way that works for our own sense of justice. Expose them, call them out, lock 'em up for while or make them do community work. Whatever. But let's act on this. As for Liz Gunn - a total example of racism and determined ignorance. Her consequence in this case is clearly covid. I am trying really really hard not to hope that she gets very very sick with it - I fail often in that endeavour and so I resent her even more for making me ashamed of myself. :-(
Having to wander up Lambton Quay and past the protest a few times in order to get to various meetings was certainly an eye opening experience, and it seemed to get more surreal by the day after the first week.
In hindsight, it has struck me more as an event of mass psychosis than anything else - ironically, the same claim made often by protesters about the COVID response - but absolutely understandable given the enormous pressures placed on people's mental health.
Unfortunately, this is not something that can be legislated away through a technocratic response, or dealt with by appeals to reason.
This paroxysm was all about emotion and 'fight or flight'. It's hardwired into us that humans revert to type under stress, and a percentage of the population will always look for answers and patterns - no matter how outlandish - to comfort themselves that there is a design or reason associated with an event, and gain some modicum on control over their own lives when in extremis.
The best we can do as a society is to provide a safe outlet for people's anxieties and support to get through them, but also to present an unflinching countervailing force to mitigate the worst excesses when that behaviour impacts other people or our collective social institutions.
Postscript: Watching a clearly out-of-her-gourd Liz Gunn didn't make my day.
It was a rough watch, right? She needs a buddy to intervene. Needs help. Plus - I don't imagine she's worrying much about infecting others.
And you're right - we're dealing with human brains and we're not going to rewire them anytime soon. This is such a deeply engrained cultural problem that's been left festering on social media and other networks for way too long.
In this context, social media is an amplifier / force multiplier rather than a root cause.
I don't believe that the root cause can be meaningfully addressed without some real action on the significant structural issues which affect our country around poverty (material and informational), access to quality education (including political and civic knowledge), social atomisation, racial inequity of outcome / engagement with State institutions.
These are all massive, inter-generational community problems that exist without social media and, as you note, political parties and institutions can't really take a moral position on the matter when they throw money at these companies in order to engage citizens.
Postscript: A timely piece published today on Newsroom written by Prof. Bob Gregory:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/political-ignorance-and-conflict-go-hand-in-hand
Oh god. I’ve just watched the Liz Gunn clip. It’s the first thing I’ve seen of the anti crowd. I truly don’t understand. I don’t understand where the hatred is coming from. Vile hatred. I agree with Kate, the selfishness makes me despair. A colleague of mine happily told me yesterday that he and his wife flew from
Auckland to Wellington while Covid positive. In response to my zoom facial response (couldn’t help myself) he exclaimed “we had the tickets!” Oh that’s ok then. Fuucckkkk!!
what utter tw*ts, those people........
I know. I was so pissed off. The entitlement. He started the conversation with the immortal words, “I’m no epidemiologist but ..”. If it wasn’t so f**d up it’d be funny
Next time someone starts the convo with those words I’m going to interrupt and say “Quite right, you’re not.” 😆😇😂
Those riots sure were wild. I had a cousin who was part of the protest (not sure if he hung around for the rioting) and a few friends, and maybe another cousin, on the Police side of things.
It really would have made for a hilarious whānau anecdote if my Police cousin had arrested my conspiracy theorist cousin.
Family Christmas 2022 would be interesting.
Some truely horrible stuff is said about Jacinda on social media. I wonder how much she is aware of. Her ability to not show any sarcasm or anger towards these people amazes me. Politically I wouldn't call myself a supporter of either of the two main parties but as a woman I am really proud of Jacinda. I can't help but feel that if she was a man she wouldn't be getting the same level of hate.
Happy international woman's day !
Liz Gunn on the other hand is just a huge embarrassment. Urghhh
Hate to say it, but she will be very, very aware.
I am so dumbfounded by that Liz Gunn clip I cannot articulate what is in my head. Wow just wow.
Thank you to your writer today. What a hell of a lot of pressure you put on yourself.
Really glad I got here. Part of having Webworm is giving voices that like a place to be heard. Very honoured. Thanks for reading and digging it.
I'm not a detective or a doctor but I have a hunch about it