Look, at the end of the day, making a conscious choice to carve a career out of “being an influencer”, they cultivate a public persona that attracts attention and admiration. By default, that public PERSONA becomes vulnerable to criticism, particularly if their actions or words are problematic or offensive as Keelin’s are. So many influencers confuse criticism of the persona with their private personalities, which the audience rarely know of or see. We can only measure influencers based on what they CHOOSE to show us. In Keelin’s case, it’s blatant classism and a fetishisation of poverty, the underclass, etc.
By perpetuating harmful stereotypes, as Keelin does, influencers run the risk of alienating their audience and therefore being called out for their problematic behaviour. For the most part, that’s what Tattle is used for. I will agree, people who use the platform to make nasty comments about a person’s appearance, size etc. are disgusting. That behaviour is unethical and frankly, vile. It says more about the users than the influencers being discussed here.
Nonetheless, choosing to “be an influencer” with a platform brings with it a responsibility to use the platform thoughtfully and with sensitivity. It's crucial to understand the power dynamics at play and ensure that your content doesn't perpetuate harmful beliefs or contribute to marginalisation. Keelin has not cared to understand those power dynamics or monitor her own content to ensure it’s free of harm.
Being an influencer, which she has chosen to do, requires a level of self-awareness and accountability that should not be taken lightly. Keelin expects to do and say all kinds of immoral
tit and have nobody speak to it. For that, she deserves criticism and re-framing the violent assault of another woman to serve her own agenda just proves that she lacks the moral and ethical code that so many of us have pointed out.
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I agree. I'm not going to go into it again since my posts got removed the other day for being irrelevant to the thread, but people comparing a gossip forum to a brutal attack on a woman is absolutely ridiculous.
Totally disagree with this. “Misogynistic trolling” is an identified, specific form of online trolling that targets women or people who identify as female. This can take many forms, such as posting degrading comments - as many of the comments posted about Keelin’s appearance in this thread have been.
Granted, the link between online trolling and violence is complex, but there is a huge amount of evidence to suggest that online harassment and abuse can contribute to real-world violence as per the attack on Charleen. Misogynistic trolling has been linked to a number of high-profile cases of violence against women, including the 2014 Isla Vista mass shooting in California, whereby the perpetrator posted a misogynistic manifesto online before carrying out his attack.
My only point in bringing any of this to light is to say that criticism of Keelin isn’t taken seriously where it’s not ethically-made. It’s the loophole that Keelin et al are able to use to negate real, valid criticism. They dismiss Tattle as being full of toxic trolls engaging in bullying behaviour. I also don’t know if many users here would be happy to think we were contributing to misogynistic anger via comments regarding Keelin’s appearance.
In the same way that her blatant classism and stigmatising of addiction is unethical and demonstrates a lack of empathy, which invalidates her discourse completely, it would be
crappy for Keelin to get off scot-free from the very valid and warranted criticism she gets by being able to say these are “sadistic gossip websites”. Which is exactly what she’s doing now on her Instagram stories; she gets to dismiss it all on the basis of a small minority and continue perpetuating her harmful stereotypes, inconsequentially.
I know Billy himself is from Walkinstown. Gas if so.
