This strip has always rubbed me the wrong way. If you make a statement in a public forum, don’t be surprised when the public responds. They are not entitled to your attention, but you’re not entitled to their silence. I will not be providing any sources to back up my position, but I’m sure your requests for them will be very witty.
If you make a statement in a public forum, don’t be surprised when the public responds
Sure. That’s not what sealioning is, though. As the comic illustrates, sealioning is bad faith weaponizing of false politeness and feigned high mindedness, not honest inquiry.
Did anyone else read the sea lion’s voice in a British accent?
I read it in the voice of Ben Shapiro. Like nails on a chalkboard lol
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I’m simultaneously envious of and happy for you that you don’t 😄
Does anyone else feel this (and, subsequently, the term itself) is mildly racist? Or at least defensive of racist/bigoted statements? Like, if someone said “I could do without [insert race here],” is it unreasonable to hold them accountable? I get this is intended to be about people not letting go of minor nitpicks, but the setup is pretty poor, imo.
It depends on the context as always.
Sealioning as genuine trolling is shitty and done in bad faith.
But it is completely fair to call out people and ask them for evidence when they make broad statements that are easily verifiable like “black people are more violent than white people” or “Republicans are just as unfriendly towards poor people as Democrats” Etc.
But yeah, here without the context it’s easy to get confused what Sealioning actually is.
Sealioning as genuine trolling is shitty and done in bad faith.
It’s literally part of the definition that it’s in bad faith. Otherwise it isn’t sealioning.
Sure, but in this comment the sealion is initially acting in good faith towards by what any standard of the world presented in the comic would be a racist.
Are you sure about that? The first actual request of the sealion is ridiculously overbroad and would be extremely difficult and time-consuming to comply with.
At which point the sealion would doubtlessly respond by either nitpicking one example amongst many or moving the goalposts.
Doesn’t seem to me that it was acting in good faith at any point.
Idk bro, you could replace the sealion with that guy who un-racisted all those Klan members and I bet the initial interaction was pretty similar. It gets back on track when the sealion follows him home and all, but I think it would have been a stronger comic if they were talking about other things when the sealion hounds him about a different topic.
Then people who don’t know what sealioning is look up what the fuck it’s about and it doesn’t look the sealion is just practicing active anti-racism.
I’d actually argue the contrary: that it’s initially questionable whether or not the sealion is acting in bad faith rather than immediately obvious mirrors real life and as such better illustrates how a sealion differs from an immediately obvious troll.
It’s clear from the context of the comic that it’s the behavior of such sea mammals that she dislikes rather than anything intrinsic that they don’t choose themselves and can’t change.
The sealion immediately latching onto a misunderstanding of intent and refusing to let go of it is in fact another way in which the comic effectively illustrates sealioning.
…this is beginning to feel uncomfortably meta…
Yeah, someone here isn’t admitting there’s a weird racial element to “I just don’t like the way all of those types act…” when all you need to say is “yeah it’s a little weird” and everyone can move on with things like saying “Yeah, fuck sealions.”
It’s also not a great look to pretend a direct, ongoing discussion in a specific post is the same as someone following you around social media, pretending ignorance of the topic, and endlessly requesting clarification.
You know I kind of find it funny that the internet has kind of, invented a million different technical debate sounding words for basically just “people that I don’t like”. It doesn’t really matter whether or not the person is actually “sealioning” anymore, or whether or not the word ever had a definition in the first place, because it’s just something that you’re gonna get slapdash labeled with when someone doesn’t like your line of argument, or the fact that you’ve disagreed with them, or whatever. Thought-terminating cliche, oh, there’s another buzzword, and, oh, ironically, there’s another one.
Oops, you’re a troll, you’re a bot, you’re a sealion, you’re strawmanning my position, you’re arguing in bad faith. Signals get crossed over the written medium, anyone will inevitably think someone else is arguing in bad faith when they’re not. There’s better insurance, better strategies against that, then just kind of labeling it and then moving on.
I think the biggest problem is that labeling the behavior doesn’t really tell you what your response should be. If someone is arguing against you in bad faith, you sort of have the options of, arguing back against them in equal measure, equally bad faith, which I would say is the trap most people fall into. You also have the option of arguing against them as though you don’t recognize them as being in bad faith, while being as courteous and nice as possible, which can go some amount of the way to clarifying that you’re not arguing in bad faith if you’ve been mistaken. Or you can just not respond, which is probably a good idea. Don’t feed the troll, don’t reward them with attention.
But also, to some degree, someone else arguing in bad faith shouldn’t really matter. What should matter, I would think, is whether or not they’re arguing correctly. If they’re doing so incorrectly, then they’re not going to be giving you anything interesting to work off of, and then you should probably just ignore them. That’s my advice. It’s like, they’re just a more advanced form of spam, and the solution to spam is pretty simple. You block it, you ignore it.
The internet has kind of, invented a million different technical debate sounding words for basically just “people that I don’t like”
No, a lot of terms for people arguing in bad faith have originated on the internet because there’s a lot of different bad faith arguments on the internet.
Confusing sealioning and other bad faith arguing with “people that I don’t like” is a classic and common example of the bad faith trope called a strawman.
It doesn’t really matter whether or not the person is actually “sealioning”
It absolutely does. You can’t have a rational discussion with someone arguing in bad faith. Someone who’s wrong or seemingly wrong but arguing in good faith might learn something or cause you to learn something, whereas someone arguing in bad faith is only interested in “winning” and completely closed off to even the most valid counterpoints.
it’s just something that you’re gonna get slapdash labeled with when someone doesn’t like your line of argument or the fact that you’ve disagreed with them, or whatever.
It really really isn’t. That you keep going on about this misconception implies that you’ve often been correctly accused of arguing in bad faith and are trying to fend that off by convincing others that there’s no such thing as bad faith, only subjective dislike. Which is objectively wrong.
Thought-terminating cliche, oh, there’s another buzzword, and, oh, ironically, there’s another one.
The real irony is that you’re trying to terminate the thought that bad faith arguing exists via a bad faith use of a thought-terminating cliché.
anyone will inevitably think someone else is arguing in bad faith when they’re not
Again objectively false and saying a lot more about how YOU argue on the internet than internet discussion in general.
labeling the behavior doesn’t really tell you what your response should be
While that’s technically true, it’s much easier to know how to deal with something when you know WHAT you’re dealing with, whether you say it out loud or not.
someone else arguing in bad faith shouldn’t really matter.
That’s just ridiculously false. Couldn’t be further from the truth.
What should matter, I would think, is whether or not they’re arguing correctly
…arguing in bad faith IS by definition a way of arguing incorrectly.
solution [to bad faith arguing] is pretty simple. You block it, you ignore it.
Sure, but simple doesn’t always mean easy. Especially when you have poor impulse control and were brought up to consider it incredibly rude and disrespectful to not answer when someone’s trying to explain you something, whether they’re right or wrong.
“cuntiness”
No thanks, I already ate
Yeah, I can’t help but feel that the message of this comic would be turned on it’s head if you’d replace the sea lion with a Jew, black, Palestinian, gay, trans, etc…
Yeah I interpreted the meme as them being sealion-phobic. The sealion was therefore rightfully offended and wanted to debate. However, the sea lion should’ve gone away after the 4th panel and not broke into the guys house.
Source: I am trans and would not break into a mildly annoying persons house harrasing them for a source.
Better just leave the annoying people be yeah. You’re not changing opinions by reinforcing them
