Why I Don’t Imgur Any More

I used to try pretty hard to have a presence on imgur, because I had at the time the strange idea that an outcropping of Reddit might be a place that could be influenced positively by a positive attitude. Broadly speaking, I was wrong – it’s still a pretty randomly racist and misogynistic shithole. I still use the site for hosting files, but I don’t partake in the community, comment on pictures, or indulge in the points game.

From time to time, then, I go there, I see the front page, and I will, occasionally, check it out and see if the place has changed.

Currently, imgur is punching down at a woman who criticised a shirt. The scientist who wore the shirt cried; the woman who criticised it faced death threats. Imgur wonders why she had to be so mean. Poor scientist. They also threw in a bunch of sexist insults as well, about how women can’t drive, because hey, why not.

But what really stood out to me today is this one. The people who frequent a website where they explicitly want to see dozens of dozens of images sequentially, as if, say, browsing the cover of magazines in a rack, are concerned and bothered by the idea that somewhere, there’s a magazine cover displaying a picture of something that they don’t particularly care for, one way or another. They also quite like women in STEM, provided that woman can be used as a stick to beat another woman they don’t like, and definitely not the woman who complained that maybe women in bondage wear wasn’t a very welcoming sign for women who were interested in STEM.

In essence, fuck these people.