TfL Tube Announcement Changes: Why all the fuss over positive Gender Neutral Language and Greetings?

This month Transport for London (TfL) took the "brave" (I call it common sensical) decision to change the outdated greeting on the Tube for passengers. No longer will they hear "Hello Ladies & Gentleman" (which erases the existence of young travellers let alone non-binary ones such as myself); instead they will hear a much more cheerful, modern "Good Morning/Hello Everyone" and then carry on walking out to get on with the much more important business of the day- like going to work to put food on the table and roof over their heads. Stonewall praised the decision and Mark Evers, director of customer strategy for TfL wanted to make sure that announcements were "fully inclusive, reflecting the great diversity of London". Yet the uber rigid gender binary loving brigade of soppy traditionalists were outraged at the suggestion of a gender-neutral greeting becoming commonplace on Britain's streets. If you look at some of the comments sections that are provided under articles in the main newspaper articles announcing the changes, you realise not everyone was pleased. On the Daily Telegraph comments page, John  moans that those who advocate for gender-neutral language would be campaigning for "language control legislation" (shock horror klaxon) and Graham snaps that it is "insulting to the rest of us" (interesting that most comments seem to be from men: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/13/london-tube-scraps-ladies-gentlemen-make-announcements-gender/).

I hate to break it to John and Graham et al but gender-neutral language has been commonplace for a while and not just in "politically correct" spaces. Whenever I give a speech, I always start with a "Hello Everyone, I hope you are all well today" in a cheerful, positive tone of voice. I never think that when I am specifically choosing to do this I am being particularly subversive; nearly all of my university professors and school teachers used this gender-neutral greeting and shock-horror, didn't get stoned for it. It seems that gender-neutral language in general is receiving a bit of a pounding at the moment and I'm rather bemused by it.

Never forget that gender-neutral language has been championed by the feminist movement for decades. Let's not forget that in 1980, Casey Miller and Kate Swift created a manual dedicated to gender neutral writing, entitled The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing:For writers, editors and speaks in an attempt to try and reform the English Language so that sexist language that dehumanizes women became less common over time and eventually defunct. Swift and Miller offer numerous substitutes for common words (e.g. sales person instead of salesman) and suggested that "they" be used instead of a gendered pronoun (or at the very least use he or she and his or hers), something I have adopted in my own academic essays in the past. Now if those on the anti gender-neutral language disapprove of removing the jingle "Ladies and Gentleman" but are still abhorred by the use of "man" or "mankind" to refer to everyone, I'd be just a tiny bit flabbergasted. Same if they approved of using "businessperson instead of businessman and businesswoman but expressed dismay at the "erosion of traditional greetings." Facepalm for all those folks.

When looking at modern pronoun use, especially for people who define themselves as non-binary, gender-fluid or genderqueer  the debate seems to become ever so slightly more intense. I'm proud that my grandmother's country, Sweden brought in a specific gender-neutral pronoun "hen" (alt-right conservatives hate Swedish progressiveness; I think it's brilliant there are pre-schools in Sweden that have banished any reference to gender, referring children to their first names or as "buddies"; why should they be taught to adhere to outdated gender stereotype roles?). "Hen" first appeared in linguistic circles in the early 1960's and by 1994, Hans Karlgren had added "hen" as a new personal pronoun; arguing that the Swedish language would be vastly improved by the addition of a new pronoun. "Hen" was used in Sweden's first ever gender-neutral children's book, Kivi och Monsterdog (Kivi and Monsterdog) where Kivi is referred to in a gender-neutral way. When I read the book (in the original Swedish) I was happy to find out that it had been written by a male author, Jesper Lundqvist. They'd written a book that worked well, that introduced children (and parents) to gender-neutral language in a clear, concise and age-appropriate way. However, even in Sweden there were conservative critics who bemoaned the extension of the Swedish language (e.g Jan Guillou blaming feminists again). I just think that encouraging children from an early age to take a more gender-neutral and inclusive approach is a good idea and yet they can still celebrate calling themselves a boy or girl if they want to.

There are now a great variety of pronouns that are used by non-binary, gender-fluid and genderqueer people in the English Language; a few are listed below:

Thanks to Greta Bjornson of US College Today for the table! 

Conservatives always seem to be out in force with their ridiculous objections to linguistic changes designed to make the English Language more inclusive: "Oh you don't like what's been in existence so you have to stir the linguistic pot just to be politically correct". For goodness sake, just because I identify as neither male nor female doesn't mean I want to force everyone to adopt a non-binary pronoun or a title. That's my personal choice, my decision and the fact that others are doing the same indicates there is a legitimate demand for separate representation. It's only polite to try and learn the pronoun/title/gender marker that the non-binary, gender-fluid or genderqueer person you are going to meet (or correspond with) prefers and even if you get it wrong the first time, they can correct you without prejudice and you can learn quickly from that mistake. Besides, even if conservatives don't like it, non-binary, gender-fluid and genderqueer people are going to push for gender-neutral pronouns to be accepted on legal documentation and Stonewall are currently trying to get gender markers removed from official documentation such as passports anyways.

Language changes over time and adapts to social change. The historical denotation of the adjective "Gay" and how its meaning semantically has shifted should indicate that fact. In the 1970's it was seen as unacceptable for a woman to have "Ms" as her title; conservatives would say that it was pandering to feminists but today "Ms" is very commonly used by those who believe that their marital status does not define who they are as a person.  "Mx" (used by some non-binary, gender-fluid, genderqueer and intersex people) is now at least accepted as a viable title in its own right; MPs who are elected to Parliament have been able to use it since May 2015 and it is recognised by government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions. So if you still object to the use of Mx, you're a bit behind the times and if your only issue is that you don't know how to pronounce it, then you can be taught how to pronounce it by those in-the-know (see Spacious Perspicacious' wonderful Tumblr post on pronunciation here: http://cassolotl.tumblr.com/post/103744029100).

Of course some critics still want to get themselves into a tizz over gender neutral language and use every public opportunity they can to denounce it. A recent debate has been over whether university professors should mandate their students to use "gender sensitive" language in their essays. In April 2017, there was a report in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/use-gender-sensitive-language-lose-marks-hull-university-students-told) that Hull University undergraduates would lose marks if they didn't employ "gender sensitive" language in their essays. Now it must be noted that the guidance only referred to a religious activism course and it's not clear whether it was a policy being used across the university but I wouldn't have a problem with adhering to those guidelines. Cardiff Metropolitan University gave students a "gender neutral checklist" to help them come up with alternatives to commonly used gender-binary language. For example, is it really necessary to use the word "workmanlike" when "efficient" sounds more professional (let alone gender-neutral)? I was told when I was in Year 7 that the word "workmanlike" was bad standard English anyways and would never be used in a business document and I didn't use it in any of my work afterwards. You might say that was "political correctness gone mad" but I don't particularly care! As Professor Judith Baxter, emeritus professor at Aston University points out in the article: "The principle of gender-neutral language has been around for 30 years. Businesses, schools, publishing, academic and educational texts use gender-neutral language now. So there is a total expectation"; i.e. gender-neutral language is here to stay, get over it. I may think that deduction of marks is harsh but you get marks deducted for spelling and grammar mistakes and for incorrect essay length. If you know what is expected of you, you must ensure you do not submit substandard work. Simples.

However, as I have studied English Language at A-Level and at the University of York, I am aware that research has been carried out looking into how men and women use language currently and I wonder how such research would be conducted amongst speakers who define as non-binary, gender-fluid or genderqueer.  For example, research conducted by Jenny Cheshire in Reading in 1983 in an adolescent playground found that standard speech patterns used by teenagers were similar to those of adults and suggested that differences in male and female use exist during childhood. An amusing finding that I've often found to be true in my own experience is that men tend to use "ain't" and women tend to use "isn't" in spoken speech; my Mum often corrected my Dad when he was on the phone to clients because he'd drop in "ain't" unconsciously and she thought it sounded inappropriate. American linguist Robin Lakoff  in 1975 argued that women's speech patterns are created by their subordinate role in society, indicated by their increased use of hedgers and fillers ("sort of", "you know"-I use them pretty often too) and indirect request questions. Now it'll be interesting to see whether speech forms may have shifted since these two pieces of research were conducted and I'd certainly challenge A-Level students interested in gender-neutral speech-forms to question the findings. I loved carrying out my A2 English Language investigation project (I looked at dialect use amongst Lincolnshire farmers) and thoroughly recommend A2 English Language to any student who has an interest in examining social language use.

I don't think there will ever be complete consensus on the acceptability of gender-neutral language. But I feel that if most of us are using it in our everyday lives without judgement, then life for non-binary, gender-fluid and genderqueer will feel more equal as they will feel more represented within society. All non-binary, gender-fluid and genderqueer (and agender) folks are asking for is respect and tolerance. In a public service respect and tolerance should be given in accordance with the Public Sector Duty under the Equality Act 2010 anyways!

Moving beyond the micro-debate over gender-neutral language, I am glad to see further breaking down of gender stereotypes generally in British society; the fact that the Advertising Standards Authority is going to crack down on ads that peddle outdated stereotypes with new standards brought out in 2018 so that there aren't more adverts like the Aptamil baby milk formula advert that suggested only boys could be engineers and girls could be ballerinas or the Yorkie "it's NOT for girls advert" is welcome. Yet it'll be amazing to see more adverts with openly non-binary, gender-fluid, genderqueer and agender actors and characters in them. I am heartened to see more schools adopting a gender-neutral uniform option (isn't it great there are already 120 schools that have a specific policy in place?) and I was cheering on the boys at Isca Academy in Exeter who decided to take a stand and protest for their right to wear shorts (and skirts) by wearing skirts (because the academy mandated them to wear trousers all year round even in a heatwave). There's an increasing presence of gender-neutral toilets at arts venues and other public sector spaces (I don't mind whether they have the gender-neutral toilet as a fourth option after male, female and disabled or whether there is a gender-neutral toilet alongside a disabled one). The funny thing is, nobody that I know has told me directly that they feel threatened by these changes or gender-neutral language announcements. Not my Mum, Dad, Brother, Uncle or close friends. In fact, when my Dad turned on the BBC News and heard about the Tube announcement change, he said "Well, what's all this fuss about?" My thoughts exactly. Maybe some people, especially self-styled "defenders of tradition" need to take a step back and think whether the changes being proposed are really that controversial. And if they still want to be called "lady" or "gentleman", they have plenty of opportunities, to hear those words, just not so much in public anymore. And if that still really bothers them, more fool them I say! 

Exploring the GE2017 Manifestos: Housing

Labour:

• Build at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year.
• Establish a new Department For Housing to tackle the housing crisis by "improving the number, standards and affordability of homes".
• Re-structure the Homes and Communities Agency so they can deliver housing and give local councils "new powers to build homes" where there is high demand for houses.
• Prioritise brownfield sites and protect the greenbelt from development.
• Build "a new generation of New Towns" to avoid an increase in urban sprawl.
• Building of new homes would be a priority in Labour's National Transformation Fund, which will also seek to create new jobs and apprenticeship opportunities in the construction sector.
• Insulate more homes to reduce preventable winter deaths and help the UK meet climate change targets.
• Consult on new minimum standards for house dimensions so that people do not end up living in "rabbit hutch" properties.
• Consult on new minimum standards for "zero carbon" homes.
• Keep the Land Registry in public hands.
• Guarantee Home-To-Buy funding until 2027.
• Give young local people "first dibs" on new homes built in their area (but how long will you have had to have lived in the area to be eligible? Would you had to have been born there?)
• Give protections to leaseholders from "rip-off" rises in ground rent and end the use of routine leaseholds in new housing developments.
• Ensure that 3 year minimum tenancies are "the norm" and introduce an inflation cap on rent rises.
• Ban letting agency fees for tenants.
• Introduce new minimum standards to ensure private rental properties are "fit for human habitation" and give tenants the power to take action if landlords are unwilling to bring their homes up to standard.
• Reverse the decision to abolish Housing Benefit for 18-21 year olds.
• Remove government restrictions on local councils so they can build more council homes.
• Restore the long-term tenancy programme for council tenants.
• Scrap the bedroom tax.
• Suspend the Tory "Right-to-Buy" a council house scheme with councils only being allowed to resume the scheme if they have a plan in place to replace the council house with a new house of a similar type (e.g. semi-detached for semi-detached).
• Set out a "new national plan" to tackle Homelessness, with 4,000 additional homes reserved for tenants who have a history of rough sleeping. Labour would also safeguard homeless hostels and other forms of supported/sheltered housing from housing benefit cuts. 
• "Drive up standards in Service Accommodation, taking action where private companies fail to deliver" and have a consultation that involves Armed Forces personnel to discuss the housing options they want and "review and improve the Forces Help-to-Buy scheme. 
• Create a "Homes Fit for Heroes programme that will insulate the homes of disabled veterans for free.

Lib Dems:

• Build 300,000 homes a year through the creation of a "government commissioning programme"; the houses would be for sale and for rent. 
• 500,000 affordable and highly energy efficient homes will be built by 2022.
• 10 new Garden Cities would be built in England.
• Set up a Housing and Infrastructure Development Bank; this would provide long-term capital to housebuilders to build major new settlements.
• Right-to-Buy pilot would be scrapped and the High Value Asset levy would be abolished.
• Borrowing cap on local authorities would be lifted. 
• The borrowing capacity for Housing Associations would be expanded further. 
• Smaller housing development schemes would be told to provide affordable homes.
• Local Plans would take into account 15 years worth of future housing demand.
• A Community Right of Appeal would be created in cases where planning decisions go against an approved Local Plan. 
• Local councils would be able to place a 200% levy on Council Tax for second homes and "buy to leave" investment homes bought by absent overseas buyers. 
• Local councils would be able to build on unwanted public land.
• Local councils would be able to penalise any house building films that landbank excessively after they receive planning consent and haven't built on the land after 3 years.
• People who want to own their own home but can't afford the deposit would be able to rent the place for 30 years until they own the house outright- a "Rent to Own" scheme.
• Lettings fees would be banned for tenants.
• Up-front deposit amounts would be capped.
• Minimum standards in private rental housing would be increased.
• A new "Help to Rent" scheme would be brought in for young people, with government-backed tenancy deposit loans being made available to all first-time renters under 30.
• Housing developers would not be allowed to advertise their homes abroad before they have been advertised in the UK.
• Tenants would be given first-refusal on buying their home from their landlord who makes a decision to sell, with a price given "at market rate" by an independent valuer.
• Longer-tenancies would be promoted, with inflation-linked annual rent increases built into the contract.
• Rogue Landlord protections would be improved, ensuring every landlord must have a licence and giving tenants access to the Database of Rogue Landlords and Letting Agents.
• Increase support for homeless prevention and "appropriately fund age-appropriate emergency accommodation".
• All local authorities must have "one provider of the Housing First model of provision for long-term, entrenched homeless people". 
• Create a Green Buildings Act which would enshrine energy-efficiency targets (e.g. every home in England to reach an energy rating of Band C by 2035) in law.
• 4 million homes would be made Band C energy efficient by 2022, with a priority given to those households who face fuel-poverty.
• The Zero Carbon Standard would be restored, extending it beyond domestic buildings by 2022.

Conservatives:

• Commitment to building 1m homes by 2020 with another 500,000 by 2022.
• Free up more land for new homes in the right places (whatever is deemed as a right place...)
• Encourage modern forms of construction.
• Give councils specific powers to intervene where developers landbank (aka "do not act on their planning permission").
• Support the building of mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets.
• Protection against house building on greenbelt, National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty would be maintained.
• Government will build 160,000 homes on publicly held land.
• Support the building of sheltered housing and helping housing associations increase their specialist housing stock.
• Enter into "Council Housing Deals" with councils that are "ambitious" and "pro development", providing them with "significant low cost funding". The houses built would be "fixed-term social houses" which would be sold privately after 10-15 years "with an automatic Right-to-Buy for tenants" with the proceeds used to build more houses.
• Compulsory Purchase Orders would be reformed, with councils able to better determine the market value of properties/sites.
• Greater flexibility would be given to Housing Associations to build more housing.
• Work with public and private sector house builders to "capture the increase in land value created to reinvest in local infrastructure".
• Continue with the £2,5bn flood prevention programme to protect 300,000 existing homes by 2021.
• Halve rough-sleeping by 2022 and eradicate it by 2027. 

Thoughts:

Interestingly, the Conservatives stated that their social housing plans would be paid for out of existing budgets (£1.4bn has already been set aside for existing infrastructure projects budgeted for in the 2016 Autumn Statement) but this isn't mentioned specifically in the manifesto. There's also no number given and there's been no indication of which local councils would benefit directly from the policy. The City of Lincoln Council would like to build more homes but they don't know whether they'd be able to be selected for a "Council Housing Deal".  The nod to the types of homes the Conservatives want to build won't be for everyone (not sure whether I'd particularly enjoy living in a mansion block) and whilst it's good to see that the Conservatives would encourage house builders to invest in modern types of construction techniques, we're going to need the bricklayers and engineers to be able to make that happen. 

A more general problem is that we're going to need more bricklayers and construction workers to fill the jobs created to help build the number of homes that all three parties are proposing. It's essential that apprenticeships are created to help train local people to help give them access to a stable career but in the meantime we're going to need experienced bricklayers, plumbers and construction workers. Migration Watch believes that there should be temporary visa given to bricklayers from the EU so that the skills gap can be plugged (http://www2.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2017/05/11/three-year-brickie-visa-would-plug-uk-skills-gaps-says-think-tank.aspx?); the visa would initially last a year but could be extended up to a maximum of 3 years whilst housebuilding firms train local young people up to take their place. I'm a bit sceptical of these plans as I believe such a temporary visa would not be enticing to EU workers, especially as the visa would not entitle workers to in-work benefits at all.

That being said, it's important to state that the Conservatives have pledged to implement the recommendations set out in their recent "Fixing Our Broken Housing Market" White Paper released in February 2017. Proposals contained within the paper include requiring councils to come up with plans to address housing demand in their area, reducing the landbanking time with planning permission from 3 to 2 years and giving more help to smaller housebuilding firms to compete with larger firms through access to the Accelerated Construction programme and £3bn House Building Fund (see more of the "Fixing Our Broken Housing Market" White Paper here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/590464/Fixing_our_broken_housing_market_-_print_ready_version.pdf).

Recently, there was a U-Turn on social housing from the Tories with the Housing Minister, Gavin Bardell openly admitting that houses planned to be built under the Tories would be much less affordable than previously thought because the homes would not have rents determined through the National Rent Scheme (a formula set by the Government) but rather be under the "no more than 80% of the local market rent" definition (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-housing-policy-u-turn-affordable-homes-general-election-2017-manifesto-a7769866.html). If the Tories can U-Turn on a reasonably progressive policy such as social rent homes, it makes you wonder whether you can trust them not to U-Turn on other progressive policies contained within their manifesto. Can you really trust them? I don't think I can. 

Labour and Lib Dems clearly have policies in their manifesto to help first-time buyers. However, PM May seems to abandon them. There's no Cameronesque promise to create cut-price starter homes for first-time buyers. There's no indication of whether the Help-to-Buy scheme will be extended beyond its cut-off date of 2021 (Labour will extend the scheme to 2027) and there won't be an extension of the scheme to housing association tenants (selling council homes to pay for it) which I think on balance is actually a good decision from PM May. 

The Lib Dems do have a few controversial housing policies in their platform; overseas investors and second-home owners won't be pleased at the thought of potentially paying a 200% levy on their council tax and the idea of a "Rent to Own" scheme sounds great but with first-time buyers under 30 being given access to a government-backed tenancy deposit scheme it may seem unfair to those over 30 who would have no other option than to go down the "Rent to Own" route (if they qualify for it in the first place). That being said, the Lib Dems do have a lot of practical policies in their platform, including ensuring that housing developers advertise their homes in the UK before they advertise them abroad and bringing in a 15 year Local Plan to help shape housing policy in the longer-term. 

Labour also has a number of interesting policies in their housing platform; the idea of having a dedicated Department of Housing seems sensible and helping Armed Forces personnel with their housing needs by driving up standards in Service Accommodation and extending the Forces Help-To-Buy scheme as well as insulating the homes of disabled veterans feels like the right thing to do. I'm a bit sceptical of Labour's promise to allow young people in the area to have "first dibs" on housing because I'm not sure of how far that would extend; would only young people born in the area benefit or would there be a minimum qualification period of 10 years or so in place so that a 26 year old who had moved to Lincoln from London at 16 would still be able to benefit? What would the cut-off age date be? 30? There's also a bit of vagueness around the "minimum standards" for private rental housing but I'm guessing that they would be wide ranging and cover aspects such as faulty wiring, leaky roofs, damp, broken sewage and old toilet facilities and ensuring that kitchens are in working order. 

All three parties have pledged to protect greenbelt land from being developed (roughly 13% of UK land) and there are also proposals to help those who are homeless, with Labour wanting to provide 4,000 homes for tenants who have been long-term homeless and the Conservatives have pointed to their £40m programme for early intervention to stop people from sleeping rough in the first place and doubling the size of the Rough Sleeping Fund to £20m (according to their aforementioned Housing White Paper). The Lib Dems talked about homelessness last month, arguing that £60m should be spent by local councils to provide emergency accommodation and intervene to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place (http://www.libdems.org.uk/60m-fund-homelessness).

Based on what I've read, I believe that that it's going to be difficult to solve our Housing Crisis and not one party alone has the magic bullet to solve it over the course of one parliamentary term. There are elements of housing policy that I like contained within each of the party's manifestos but the Lib Dem policy platform does seem balanced and detailed, especially when talking about making our houses more energy efficient and providing a number of different opportunities for home ownership. I also like Labour's proposals to help Armed Forces personnel and private sector tenants and I do feel there is a need to look at housing dimensions for new homes to make sure that people aren't living in properties that have no space for gardens or space for storage. Housing isn't my No 1 priority so whichever party I vote for (between Labour and Lib Dems) there will be at least some commitment to helping aspirational home owners and private sector renters and protect the greenbelt and that's good enough for me. 

Teen Celeb Fandom Congregations and Meme Overloads :Understanding the Logic Behind Modern Twitter Parties

Positive Meme doing the rounds on Caster Seymenya support hashtags

Everyday there seems to be a new celebration on Twitter; a form of covert prestige (memeing) hashtagging of which slightly older twenties folks like myself will never truly be part because the partying seems to be centred around the cult of YouTube, TV and Pop music celebrities, usually based in the US.  Hearing of an endless stream of celebrities being praised or dissed as per the prejudice of one Twitter user galvanising support from a bunch of other tweeters bemuses some tweeters and angers others. Often the Alt-Righters, thinking of their own prejudiced agenda, bark that "Twitter Parties are full of morons trying to act like uneducated sheep" and even self-confessed left-wing commentators have asked what the real "purpose" behind a Twitter Party is meant to be, as they believe they are created over "trivial issues" such as trying to find out whether Louis Tomlinson of 1D fame is "OK" or the most recent #MichaelHit7MillionParty which I've discovered is part of the 5S0S fandom racketeering circuit. They bemoan that these hashtags are trending over the more grown-up ones such as #LabourHustings events during the current UK Labour Leadership race between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith or the recent #Brexit ones confirming whether someone had voted Remain or Leave being overtaken by #DogsAtPollingStations which was a comic attempt to defuse some of the tension that had been generated during the Brexit campaign and to amuse those that had already voted or couldn't vote during that Thursday.  Who'd really object to seeing images of cute canines smiling and woofing outside drab "Polling Station" signs?

I think critics have taken a rather harsh line with Twitter hashtagging recently. They are unwilling to understand that social media parties are essentially a new way for fans to express approval/disapproval as a collective and to follow/communicate with one another in the future through sharing their positive (or negative) views about a celebrity or group. One has to remember the early days of mass teenage fandom, when Beatles fans had to show their love by standing out for hours in the pouring rain to wait for John et al to emerge from their hour gig or to send letters of admiration that would too often be censored by Brian Epstein (their slightly overbearing manager) before being given to the Boys to sign/acknowledge and send back appropriate replies. Nowadays fans have the right to take advantage of a variety of channels of which to communicate with one another. The question is whether these channels can be open to abuse and allow legitimised threats and trolling under the radar? When does fan trolling/defending go too far?

MemeFest: A New Form of Satire?

A Meme of my very own special creation!

Internet Memes being used on social media party hashtags have courted a certain level of controversy over the past couple of years in the social media platform world. Meme generators have made the ability to captain existing and new pictures easy for even the most amateur of Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook users, so the variety and abundance of them is difficult to ignore. Critics of meme-users state that it is not a "digital artform", it doesn't "make a statement worth reading" and are used to try and silence opponents before a conversation can even begin. Some Memes can be classed as witty if the creator has taken the time to try and properly associate the image with the message they wish to convey; for example I created a "A Merry Can Fail" meme using the famous Mr Willy Wonka picture from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film when Twitter users in the US started mass complaining about NBC cutting their Rio Olympic Opening Ceremony coverage short and sending it out on a 1 hour time delay despite the BBC broadcasting live coverage of the same ceremony even at 12am! You can be thus satirical with a meme if you choose to be; it can get mass appeal laughs when posted at the right time and on the right hashtag where you know it will have most impact.

However, one person's laughs at a meme can be another person's displeasure, especially when memes are used for malicious reasons- e.g. to make explicit death threats against opponents or mock their race/sexual orientation/gender identity/age without sufficient context as subtext around the meme. For example, the popular Harambe Gorilla meme was recently placed on Ms Leslie Jones's website after she was hacked and had nude pictures and personal information stolen from her iCloud account (25th August 2016). Many tweeters who defended Ms Jones implied this meme was used because it has an implicit racial undertone (as gorilla images have been used in the past to state to black people they are subhuman to white people) as well as an ironic Alt-Right appeal to those who hold Harambe up as a "heroic animal figure" apparently shot to prevent him from killing a three year old child at Cincinnati Zoo. As Aja Romano has noted in his article on the Harambe Meme in Vox (17th August 2016) it had a much wider appeal than had at first been recognised: "If you were a progressive, the Harambe meme gave you a chance to mock what you viewed as the hypocritical haranguing of the mainstream whilst avoiding real issues of social justice and  if you were a conservative, the Harambe meme gave you a chance to mock liberal hysteria".  I may have interpreted the meme differently from others by taking offence but from responses I've read it seems my emotional response was not in the minority. So if a majority of tweeters take explicit offense to a meme image posted on social media, should the meme be automatically deleted by the Twitter Safety team or should a person automatically report the image when they see it so it can be referred and then blocked when the team have reviewed consensus evidence? Should memes be removed at all if a person claims they were exercising freedom of expression and didn't primarily aim to cause offence? Should a meme creator be prepared to take down their own image if they see it causes offence? Such questions are raised regularly in my mind when I see certain memes and I often wonder whether I have a duty to report the meme or tweet the person disseminating it to express disapproval or whether to stay silent and ignore the meme in the future. If ignoring racist memes is showing complicity with them, perhaps in the future I have to be more vocal/active in showing disapproval. Should the same standards be applied to Twitter hashtags and parties too?

The Origins of the Twitter Party?:
Thus it's rather interesting to note then that Twitter party memeing was originally designed as a way of promoting a company, product or political group in order to gain followers and highlight and disseminate its key message. Twitter parties were meant to be the modern, perfected, globalised form of the "Meet n' Greet" sessions put on to raise that hype to improve the potential future market success rate. Some hashtag parties (not branded as parties) in 2016 seem to achieve this to a certain degree; I'm reminded of #LincsHour which aims to promote Lincs based companies and bloggers to a wider Twitter audience (Mondays 8-9pm) and promoted content hashtags such as #TryMeFree, created by Coca-Cola to get potential consumers interested in the improved Coke Zero Sugar drink which they say #TastesMoreLikeCoke.

Yet left-wing tweeters are angry that marketing content hashtags designed to create "buzz" can be promoted to trend higher than the free hashtags that those tweeters have made. It can get even more vindictive when they discover a political party has paid Twitter to promote a partisan hashtag close to an important electoral event; this was seen most clearly when the Labour Remain social team promoted #StrongerIn in the last few days before the Brexit vote and Brexiteers saw this as a sign by Twitter to try and manipulate the outcome of the election to favour Remainers who they believed were more "Pro-Big Business and Banks" than for the "ordinary people". Such narrative gained them favour among some undecided social media voters but was based on feeble ground: if Vote Leave had realised the full potential of social media marketing and generating a positive modern buzz they would have used the Promotional content tool to do this. You can't berate a social media team for being conscientious or clever in their attempts to disseminate a message in the same way you can't be angry at meme creators for trying to be comic or satirical or teens wanting to idolise their latest crush via a Twitter party using virtual attendance tweet confirmation.

If we are wanting to be smart about social media platform optimal utilisation, it may be a good idea to start coming up with more positive meme campaigns containing serious messages, in the same way hashtagging has started being used as a tool of empowerment- e.g. the recent conversation started by a tweeter with #WhatAltRightMeans because they wanted to highlight the dangerous anonymous nature of Alt-Righters and how they may hold the key to winning or losing the US Election or #EndTheStigma relating to confronting prejudices behind those suffering with mental illness through telling their personal stories; the hashtag took UK Twitter by storm on a Tuesday evening last month and got UK politicians and care providers talking about possible future solutions to help end such stigma. If we start embracing the semantic narrative of hashtagging for teen audiences, perhaps older users may be able to spread these positive messages further; engage a wider audience and keep a conversation going by tracking a hashtag that you create and you could raise awareness of that issue better than you could ever have imagined. And that's the real "logic" behind successful, modern Twitter parties!
 

Hacking Ms Jones, Closet Homosexuals And Politicos : An Act of Empowerment or Act of Revenge?

"Playing doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking"- Richard Stallman.

Hacking; a world of people who are hacked off by societal actions of some person or group or another. Traditionally hackers have been held up by the left as paragons of virtue for exposing government/establishment vices to the "ignorant masses" to protect them from making "ill informed decisions" or expressing "incorrect sentiments". Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are examples of high-profile hackers who have risked their lives and "given up" their  freedom to expose hypocritical actions that have been carried out by the US, UK and other world Governments to spy on ordinary citizens for no other reason other than to try and collect data that is on the whole not useful in helping those governments to fight corruption or terrorism. Chelsea Manning is actually being sued by the US Govt because she attempted  to commit suicide whilst being held in an all-male prison despite being transgender. The message from her legal team showed that she wished she'd been able to keep her "medical information private, so she could focus on her recovery" but US Govt's actions prevented her from doing that.  US Govt officials didn't bother helping to encourage Ms Manning to dispel those suicidal thoughts and embrace her new identity by facilitating her move to a female prison but it is great to see that Ms Manning is now attempting to do by writing articles for Medium from behind bars, despite not having direct Internet Access. Her article recounting her fears being a transwoman out of prison was gut retching to read, but it shows that hackers can be emotional, thoughtful and caring, qualities that weren't readily ascribed to hackers despite their "god like status".

Yet recent cases involving anonymous troll hackers of private celebrity accounts and government databases has exposed an uncomfortable truth for PC defenders on the left: some hackers only hack because they want to cause harm to individuals and not to make the Establishment more accountable, diverse and accepting of differences. Where do and where should hackers draw the line morally?

Exposing Individuals Willy-nilly:

Ryan Grenoble, a Huffington Post reporter and technical specialist has recently stated: "Radical transparency is no excuse for outing people, naming teenage rape victims and disclosing health records". The Associated Press (AP) investigation itself has uncovered evidence that showed WikiLeaks failed to filter out documents including:

• a document claiming a "Saudi man was gay" (despite the fact that I'm sure plenty of the hackers know homosexuality carries the death sentence if discovered and that guy had not consented to that information being made publically available.) WikiLeaks denies they released that information and came from the US Govt figs 2015 and being "re-run" for the election.
• 22 other people affected were in Saudi Arabia; The Guardian (Wed 24th August 2016) contacted these people to let them know their information had been released; they highlight the story of "a partially disabled woman who had gone into debt to support a sick relative" and had kept it secret from her family. She said "What is the use in publishing my story?"
• marital records stating whether a bride was virgin or not (since when did the public need to pass judgement on a person's state of purity in the Western World?)
• health documents indicating whether a person's partner had HIV (in which case the persons affected would tell others they slept with but not in the public interest for everyone else to know HIV status).
• 2 cases of documents naming teenage rape victims (when those rape victims are entitled to anonymity from persecution under UK law let alone US law).

I don't understand the significance of such a slack organisation needing to hack into Govt systems to collect this sort of information. Compliance systems can't seem to be working appropriately at WikiLeaks, otherwise the only information being published would be truly "in the public interest". And I'm sure any hacker with half a liberal braincell (if they are indeed as liberal as they've stated in the past) would know sexual health information, even if it involved politicians like Trump or Clinton is not in the public interest if it is released without the consent of the individual(s) concerned. We don't need to know who's out the closet and who's stuck in Narnia with ... because it's not our business to determine how individuals wish to identify sexuality wise and how they wish to disclose it and who to disclose it too. It's no secret there are many more LGBTQIA people in the world than what the mainstream media would have us believe. Equally it is disgusting that an organisation aligned with Mr Assange would support disclosure of teenage rape victims records. Perhaps it's related to his cognitive dissonance surrounding his "understanding" of rape that may explain why he saw fit to allow such information to be released. I know he may have gone through years of "persecution" for being accused of rape but he's never truly answered the questions surrounding his refusal to wear a condom so I'm not particularly surprised why he feels vengeful against those victims who need anonymity whilst trials are conducted which is guaranteed to them under current legislation in the UK. So when does hacking constitute nothing more than an act of revenge? And if "innocent people "get hurt as a result of enacting that revenge, are they nothing more than "collateral damage"? Has Hacking of individual information become more about fulfilling a fetish for data stealing, than truly  being in the public interest?

The Hacking of Ms Jones:
Some hackers believe that celebrities are "undeserving" of a private life because they have chosen to get paid for serving the public interest for entertainment, whether it be playing a black feminist Ghostbuster in a "controversial" all female Ghostbusters remake, or being a porn star making teacher-student seduction movies for dissemination on XTube et al. It seems that celebrities are no longer entitled to express their own opinions, especially if they are on issues they care deeply about. Mention an opposition to "free speech without consequence" and ironically get your fingers burned in the process. Now I don't condone some of the tweets that have been purportedly sent from Ms Leslie Jones's Twitter account to bait white people into expressing racist views. I've seen them on Twitter and some referring to the crappiness of a DJ because he's white or that "white women look the same" probably wasn't in the best possible taste. I'm not sure that she'd properly drawn the line between being comic/satirical and being racist/offensive but let's be honest that line is difficult to draw even though her account is personal which she has headed with information about her profession. I'd naturally assume when I see "stand up comic" on a Twitter handle I'd know some tweets may be distasteful to me but may seem comical to others.

What is clear to see is that Ms Jones has been the victim of a sustained, brutal cyberbullying campaign on social media platforms that have focussed specifically on her race which has culminated in a hacking of her iCloud. Strange that the hackers have gone for her nuke pics and chosen to distribute them on social media and their defenders have stated that this was "in the public interest". I'd never take nude pics of myself to show another person as I realise the risk of being hacked and it doesn't particularly interest me to take them but I have no interest in viewing nudes to avenge the supposed acts that Ms Jones "faked" to get conservative, Alt-Right blogger and "free speech" activist Milo banned off Twitter permanently. Did people really need to know that she takes them in the first place? Viewed within this narrow prism, hacking is seen as nothing more than a revenge attack by those determined to make Ms Jones feel "sorry" for her previous actions. Yet I've still not seen any comments that would indicate she is prepared to apologise for causing "possible offense". So it looks like the slut-shaming hack has failed big time. So hackers who are using their skills and experience to exact revenge on celebrities for their viewpoints aren't really doing the hacking to empower the public, they're doing it as an act of revenge. Very petty!

Hacking Politicos: Exposing the Democrat National Convention (DNC):
So away from the hacking of individual accounts (which on the whole seems fairly dubious) when is it acceptable to gain access to political party information to "empower the public" to make the right decision in an election cycle? WikiLeaks's main raison d'etre after all is to "bring censored or restricted material involving war, spying and corruption into the limelight". So revelations about Bernie and Hillary's primary campaigns, correspondence with CNN and other mainstream media networks could vaguely be classified as being in the public interest. Bernie voters may have had a right to know about the direction the party was going in to support Hillary's candidacy as the primary season progressed, especially as there is evidence to suggest DNC staffers were keen to question Sanders on his faith/beliefs (May 2016) with an implicit nod to that potentially damaging his candidacy hopes.

The resignation/sacking of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wassermann Schultz was justified in that she failed to prevent the systems from being hacked in the first place, let alone her official email circulating stating "Bernie Sanders will never be President", a bias which should not have made clear until the end of the primary cycle. But I do wonder what WikiLeaks hoped to achieve by leaking certain emails/documentations in the first place. I don't think their aim of "fighting corruption" was particularly achieved with the July leak of documentation that openly had "two dozen social security and credit card numbers" displayed on that documentation. Since when was it in the public interest to know those numbers (unless you want to use them for fraudulent purposes?) The Guardian has reported that 2 of those people have been "targets of identity thieves following the leak" and that one "was a retired diplomat who said he also had to change his number after being bombarded with threatening messages". Similarly the recent leaked email stating Hillary Clinton searched for a dementia drug to try and combat her "decision fatigue" is ill-judged considering the stigma attached to developmental disorders such as dementia at this current time. This leak reeks a bit of political bias, where hackers and WikiLeaks attempt to discredit a candidate through the referencing of one incident that many older people who fear they may have dementia or are suffering fatigue. The fact that the message refers to "decision fatigue" in the first place is suspect; I doubt many would have explicitly stated their fatigue was due to decision making!

We will never know for definite who carried out the hacking of the DNC servers although several sources believe it was a self-styled Romanian hacker called "Guccifer 2:0" who is working for the Russian authorities to discredit Hillary (although the Romanian language he was using during the interview seemed "clunky" and seemed to point to evidence of him using an online translator). Regardless of authenticity it does seem clear that Assange is prepared to use a range of hackers without checking fully the authenticity of documentation or motives of the hackers themselves. So again, there is a feeling that the hacking activities of some politicos may be an act of revenge based on socio-cultural prejudices against a woman who has no favourable opinions of Putin or Russian regressive policies rather than truly being in the public interest.

Conclusion:

We need to stop seeing all hackers as automatically "heroes of the Left". Hackers have their own agendas, inspired by their socio-cultural and political views and so will ultimately only target victims that oppose their views in a strong way. That's their cognitive dissonance in action. I guess some people will go against their mainstream views in the vain hope of gaining a "rad" reputation that none will actually see in the flesh. WikiLeaks protects hackers from prosecution and indignation by offering them the same level of anonymity that they wise to deny to teenage rape victims or closeted LGBTQIA people in Muslim countries. That's why I'm not surprised that some WikiLeaks hackers will be extreme left-wing as well as Alt-Right supporters. Free speech, freedom of information they want at any cost to decency and compassion. It's the sort of attitude we desperately need to condemn and reform. Hacking is not always a correct act of Free Speech, and when people's privacy is restricted or even destroyed by trolls hell bent on fetishistic revenge, there has to be consequences to those acts. If hackers can be traced via their internet imprints, then they have to be exposed and prosecuted under the Data Protection Act/ Equality Act in the UK to deter those trolls from trying to emulate their success to gain a sense of credibility they may not get in other spheres of their lives. Hackers have a right to demonstrate their skills but why not encourage them to put their skills to good use by establishing hack-security firms such as Gregory Evans's Hacker For Hire or showcase creativity such as "Jules's" IkeaHackers.net, an online social community which "Jules" created to share her and others’ modified uses of IKEA products (e.g. a dish drain repurposed as a tie rack and a dresser-turned-bathroom-vanity). Hackers can be empowering figures, provided they refrain from persecuting and baiting individuals/celebrities online who may share different viewpoints from themselves.