In case you don't know, Twitter recently added Trending Topics to its home page (it used to be viewable from its search page.) It aggregates what people are tweeting, or posting, about. And since it's got a prime spot on the main page, it just tends to concentrate topics.
Well, as of the time I posted it (late Tuesday night) one of the top hashtags? #liesgirlstell. Featuring all the sexist goodness you'd ever want, in a bite-size 140-character form! It's remarkable how unoriginal this stuff is, and how irritating.
Now, this isn't Twitter's fault. Someone independent started the hashtag, and thousands of people clearly thought and think it's a great idea to follow suit. It's one of those small symptoms of a big problem. Note the lack of a #liesboystell - or, for that matter, a #lieswomentell. No, there's clearly a high demand for casual misogyny. And this is absolutely important. Something like this being on Twitter just highlights just how prevalent it is - all these people in real time!
Obviously, posting about it on Twitter would just keep it on the list. But I think that if it's still up there by the time this posts (a distinct possibility; the "three words" tags are irritatingly long-loved) people with Twitters should hijack it and post stuff like "Isn't casual sexism awesome? #liesgirlstell" or "Women are the only people who lie, ever! #liesgirlstell" or, for that matter, go for broke and just tack the hashtag onto something like "This is fucking ridiculous."
Because this is fucking ridiculous.
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Well I agree with you, but... what are you going to do? I mean Twitter's just an outlet for people to put their thoughts in written form. And the biggest demographic for the site, or even the internet as a whole, is young college-aged males. I mean, it's not anything new.
True statement. However, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out as ludicrous. This stuff will never stop if there is no voice of reason.
I'm pretty sure the second place twitter trend right now is #liesboystell
Not that it makes the trend better, because I'm sure they're just a huge of BS as the hashtag the OP is speaking of. Just saying...
Just an update: I wrote this at about 11 PM last night. I see there's now a tag for #liesboystell, but it isn't all that much of an improvement, is it?