Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Julia Allison wants the Internet's "Hobbesian state of nature" (state of nature? wtf?) to change.

Julia responds to the allegations that she's behind the shuttering of Tumblrs, via Gawker:

I haven't asked David to take down any sites in a long time, so I don't know where the impetus for this particular purge came from, but I'm thrilled that he has. I am absolutely in favor of ridding the Tumblr community - and the internet in general - of what one of my readers once called "mind cancer." That sort of nastiness is insidious and it will rot communities unless someone says, "This simply isn't an acceptable way to treat other human beings."


There is no reason the internet should remain in its current Hobbesian state of nature. Someone needs to begin the long process of setting basic standards of decency online, and I'm proud of David - as a businessman, but also as a friend - that he and his company have the balls to do so."
Oh, it is ON, woman. It is fucking on.

(Also, Gawker, Ryan Tate, et al: "Web startup" is being generous.)

48 comments:

  1. She's referring to the "state of nature" Hobbes describes in Leviathan, a world without any governance in which everyone would have terrible lives.

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  2. Oh, sorry, I got distracted. Yes, what a fucking hypocrite asshole.

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  3. Hobbesian refers to things related to the social contract.
    "state of nature" was the warlike state if everyone was entitled to everything.

    Good job conflating the two to try to sound smart. I'm guessing she used this to help her out:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Leviathan

    Get it, she studied POLITICS, PEOPLE.

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  4. Gawker's already on it: http://valleywag.gawker.com/5155491/julia-allison-im-thrilled-tumblr-muzzled-my-hecklers

    Fuck this self-righteous bitch. What a joke.

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  5. Again, I ask if it's time to go back to calling her a "little cunt."

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  6. Thank you, Erik. Hobbesian is actually the opposite of what she's suggesting; the "state of nature" is the problem. Jesus, nothing this woman has ever said bothers me as much as this. I try not to use words like C--T, but I can't think of a better one right now.

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  7. * Calls a Valleywag editor “a little cunt”
    * Calls her business partner Mary Rambin a “bitch” on a public entry
    * Lobbies to get her intern’s blog deleted and denies it, even going so far as trying to prevent her from getting school credit
    * Supposedly betrayed her friend Rachel’s trust
    * Outed her ex-boyfriend’s sensitive medical condition on Gawker, then asked him for a MacBook Air because she “deserved it”

    And WE’RE the assholes for calling her out on it???

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  8. Julia, in your own words (apparently, because I haven't the stomach to traverse to the original): "Someone needs to begin the long process of setting basic standards of decency online... ."
    May I humbly suggest that before we presume to police the "online" (and such as) for standards of decency, we first begin with ourselves. You go first.

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  9. Hey she posted her *speaking* schedule for the next couple of weeks. How come no event names?

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  10. She knows she's going to get a lot of new hits b/c of the two Gawker pieces and the Tumblr uproar. She's shilling her product with that schedule.

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  11. beautiful. totally beautiful. in the gawker comments: the irony meter is about to explode...

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  12. I don't think it's "Hobbesian," bunnykins Poofface, if we are actually calling you on your many many CONFIRMED un-truths and lies. In fact, pointing out your plagiarism, shady business practices and general laziness is more of ever-so valuable civil dissent. Shove that in your oft-cited politically-savy poofhole and smoke it.

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  13. "I haven't asked David to take down any sites in a long time"


    So then we are not beyond the plausible.

    Question, why didn't he remove baugher in its hey day?

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  14. Further to the irony department, how about just a few hours ago, when she:

    1. Used her friend's possible recurrence of cancer to get out of going to work.

    2. Obsessed about herself in her conversation with said friend after being so traumatized by his news that she couldn't go to work.

    3. Also blogged their IM discussion in which her friend suggests Mary and Meghan look anorexic next to the petite and tiny Julia, knowing full well Meghan -- her supposed BFF and "sister!" -- actually WAS anorexic
    and sought treatment for it.

    And that's just today, folks.

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  15. Where does she think this is going? Who the hell would ever ever hire her or put any money forward for any project she proposed? She is walking baggage. She can't see it because she's a narcissist and has zero insight. Her parents should intervene. She's addicted to this shit. She deserves what she's getting but not pleasant to watch.

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  16. Wait. Meghan actually was anorexic? Oh God. Now I feel really bad for calling her anorexic so many times. Poor thing.

    Is this what feelings are like?

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  17. @Anonymous 10:35 Because at that time "Any publicity is good publicity". Now that the tide is turning, one can only hope it will carry her out with it.

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  18. I'm sure this has been said a billion times, but just to make sure...everyone is moving their tumblogs to a different place now, yes? Because this is such crap? JGH, etc?

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  19. To all the Tumblr people on this RBNS:

    Start sticking it to this ego maniacal twat. If you are following her on your tumblr, UN-FOLLOW HER.

    Do the same with Rambin and Meghan, even if you like them.

    The thing she's looking for most is validation that the NS venture is viable. With Tumblr's dashboard NS gets at minimum two hits per every dashboard view she gets an unrealistic page view statistic.

    If a mass exodus occurs, those page views will drop dramatically. Almost to the point that this site(RBNS) should be higher.

    Cut and paste this into a post and ask others to reblog it. Seriously, this woman is deranged and you're doing Meghan and Mary a favour by ending this charade once and for all.

    God speed to rid the internet of this loon.

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  20. I'm probably going to back up my content...

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  21. I just deleted my other Tumblr. Fuck you, Karp!

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  22. @ theremustbeapony

    BEST COMMENT! "Julia, in your own words (apparently, because I haven't the stomach to traverse to the original): "Someone needs to begin the long process of setting basic standards of decency online... ."

    May I humbly suggest that before we presume to police the "online" (and such as) for standards of decency, we first begin with ourselves. You go first."

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  23. Man, I wish I had a tumblr JUST so that I could un-follow her.

    I feel so out of the loop.

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  24. JGH I APPLAUD YOU FOREVER:

    http://jgh.tumblr.com/post/79250782/i-just-did-a-phone-post-pretending-to-be-julia

    this if fucking hiLARious

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  25. She pretends she knew nothing about this recent purge, yet just a few days ago she had that quote about how we treat others on her twitter??

    We already know she lies regularly...

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  26. Famous last words: "I haven't asked David to take down any sites in a long time" since last month when you instructed him to banish big, bad, scary Charlsie's blog. Karp, you are naive and easily intimidated, grow a set.

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  27. Well, the big question is just which blogs she has told Krap to take down.

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  28. Can she really ever call herself a journalist? Ever? Has anyone, any writer who wants to be able to look herself in the mirror advocated CENSORSHIP?? If this is the future of the fourth estate, if Julia Allison is truly the pioneer she thinks she is, then allow me to weep for all of us in newspaper and magazine publishing.

    This woman has officially alienated me forever. There was a time where, if Ja showed that she actually gave a shit about writing or her business or anything other than the persistent glorification of her own ego, I'd have been in her corner. But if the sky is now truly falling on her head, with the business completely hitting the skids and she shows zero interest in even just maintaining her little corner of the blogosphere, what's the point? And I don't mean "what's the point of believing in NS?" but ""what's the point in giving this woman any more of my time and attention?"

    Julia, you are not a journalist. You see not a writer. Writers and journalists respect the first amendment - they don't applaud its subversion. You don't want the attention? You're practically begging not to be scrutinized. Congratulations, love, you've succeeded. Not only will I not give you negative attention, I will not spend one more second of my time thinking about the sad, unsustainable microcelebrity you've built for yourself. Attempting to take you down is a redundant effort - I've no doubt you've screwed yourself, your career and your credibility (and will continue to do so because of arrogance, laziness and a shameful resistance to constructive criticism) with a degree of thoroughness to which others can only aspire.

    So you have one less "hater." Too bad your tens of readers can't save you from yourself.

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  29. OMG! that phone mssg is perfection! Well done Jessica you little minx!

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  30. Damn, "not" a writer, not "see."

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  31. This deserves a resubmit, please listen. It is perfect.
    http://jgh.tumblr.com/post/79250782/i-just-did-a-phone-post-pretending-to-be-julia
    Signed: theremustbeapony@hotmail.com (i'm just too lazy to set up my name at the moment)

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  32. Kind of proud to say, I have a tumblr, I don't follow her [them] and it will be easy to leave karp.

    Take that off my list.

    Once again, thank you to the hosts.

    and goodnight.

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  33. thank you to the hosts of RBNS.

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  34. i am following on tumblr because i thought that it doesnt give theme PV's some people here are saying it actually does? i'm confused so i think i'm going to unfollow just in case. and i will unfollow mary to because if Karp thinks we're supporting one of them then we are supporting the whole "venture" and then justify what he does to people.

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  35. Dang. I go out for a little Mexican food, I come back and Julia Allison is expostulating about some "Hobbesian state of nature"? Life is sometimes stranger than I can imagine.

    Please note use of 2 multisyllabic i-words, the favorites of our Pink Princess: impetus, insidious.

    Use them 3 times and they're yours.

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  36. Scarry Mary just jumped the karp shark.

    She blogged that she is posting to blogger. I liked the way she said she didn't care why he hasn't deleted the blog yet, but she was going anyway.

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  37. Julia Allison calling the internet Hobbesian is pretty Kafkaesque to me.

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  38. If you haven't read The Depressed Person by David Foster Wallace, here is a link to the pdf file (8 pages). It was published in Harper's in 1998, but I swear, it could have been written about Julia just this week.

    http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf

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  39. Okay, intervention required. Just read this: "May 13 - London. I’m giving the keynote at a media awards ceremony there." (JAB)
    I give up. Srsly. WTF? I mean, how is it possible?

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  40. Judging by Karp's reply

    http://www.davidslog.com/79256809/this-is-really-upsetting

    Tumblr thinks it's legitimate to ban reblogging sites because apparently Tumbr's role is to protect their (non-reblogging) bloggers from critics.

    The whole thing is an absurd joke and an institutional/organizational extension of the victim mentality and hypocritical stance some bloggers take in which they believe they have the right to share their views immune from criticism and mockery.

    It's one thing for some with thin skins and weak sense of irony and hypocricy to insist on the right to blog their views free from criticism of others' views but another for a company and blogging platform to actually formally take up the same cause. I've never been a fan of Tumblr but now I am simply disgusted with them.

    If banning blogs that criticize other bloggers is not censorship I'd hate to hear what Tumblr's definition of censorship is.

    I don't understand why many bloggers who disagree with Karp's approach seem to intend to continue to host their blogs on Tumblr and by default support this type of policy.

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  41. Calling her a C U Next Tuesday seems apt. My jaw is on the floor. How does she keep getting away with it?

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  42. I think it's time to say goodbye to the immature playground that is Tumblr. It isn't really a viable short blog site based on these actions.

    I'm considering an alternative platform at this point and have backed up all my content.

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  43. Hobbes :

    He rejects free will in favor of determinism, a determinism which treats freedom as being able to do what one desires.
    Oh, so like freedom of speech. Which JA is advocating against but also would like for herself.


    Hobbes is perhaps most famous for his political philosophy. Men in a state of nature, that is a state without civil government, are in a war of all against all in which life is hardly worth living. The way out of this desperate state is to make a social contract and establish the state to keep peace and order. Because of his view of how nasty life is without the state, Hobbes subscribes to a very authoritarian version of the social contract.
    Note that authoritarian is NO positive term (and I'd know because I'd grown up in a household run in such a fashion; it doesn't encourage anything but dissent in a HUGE way)

    Naturally, JA wants a "Hobbesian" (really?) environment for the internet, but very, very likely wouldn't be so keen applying it to herself and her non-business. The norm. OOPS.

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  44. "I haven't asked David to take down any sites in a long time, so I don't know where the impetus for this particular purge came from, "

    It took these morons months - months! - to figure out that the way to keep negative and mocking posts off their own website was to screen posters. They used a poor version the type gawker has. Congratulations.
    Now, they don't like people going negative anywhere.
    Julia will decide? Julia Allison and David Karp will decide what goes on the internet? Govern? Govern the internet? Are you fucking crazy?

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  45. 12:09 - When she contacts places/events for speaking opportunities (sorry, highly doubt they seek her out except in dire circumstances and for misguided reasons - as in the case with DLD, their last minute courting of her and their wrong assumption that what she does is "digital storytelling), she doesn't promote nonsociety (though it may get a mention), but her better organized, less vanity-driven (not much, but still) personal site JA.com. It looks legitimate enough for someone scrambling for additions or somewhat relevant presenters to "accept" without doing due diligence (their problem). Consider what comes out of all this. First of all, we've seen her performance and speaking ability, and it's no surprise WHY she didn't go out of her way to promote the easily accessible video of her DLD speech (or even tape and post it on her own). It's even less surprising that her calendar items are so vague. If they were events of importance (at least to those she values/wants to impress) she'd be name-dropping non-stop. Her vagueness is more likely due to the low-scale nature of the event (as with the MIT thing, which we could already assume had much to do with her brother being or having graduated from there and being a prized student BEFORE she even qualified it as such) or that it's tentative. The latter wouldn't surprise me because we all know how much she likes to rewind and rewrite history as if everyone isn't aware of what they'd seen initially.

    In fact, her terrible usage of "Hobbesian" to sound smart is such gold because she sent it in an email to someone at Gawker - where it will stay in all its unedited glory to receive all the requisite ridicule - without the benefit of her being able to remove the mention or edit it to actually be relevant. C'est la vie.

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  46. "mind cancer" is priceless, considering this was written the same day that she blogged about possible reoccurrence of Actual Cancer in her ex-boyfriend.

    Rather akin to saying this like, "I just got raped by the new prices at J. Crew." to a friend who just got Actually Raped.

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