Show Tom we appreciate him?

[khevtol]

Earlier today Tom posted this on his tumblr:
gunnerkrigg.tumblr.com/post/78532151832/a-post-without-pictures#notes

Views on the topic aside, the amount of hate he received was truly staggering. It can't be easy to deal with that many angry internet people. The amount of cruelty and hatred for a comment on twitter is...well. 

While don't really think there needs to be more argument on the topic, it is dead and done with.  I was however wondering if we as a community could do something to show tom that we appreciate him and support him. I think Gunnerkrigg is one of the best web-comics on the net currently, and a positive show of community might be a nice gesture. Any ideas on what to do?

Pardon if my delivery of ideas is sub-par, hopefully it gets across.

[eskhn]

Posting something here might be a good start, since I don't have a tumblr and don't really care to get one, and Tom might see this thread anyway, since he's been checking the forums recently.

Anyway, Tom, if you read this, keep in mind that for every slacktivist on Tumblr, throwing a tantrum over things that may not even concern them, there are a hundred people waiting for the next Gunnerkrigg update and not saying anything. It's another case of the silent majority, and the angriest voices shouting the loudest. You haven't "thrown away 8 years of work". You still have legions of fans who support what you do. Your response to this incident, acknowledging your mistake, has proven to be enough for many of the readers you "lost", and solidified your position as a respectable human being for those you didn't "lose".

Don't give up. There are thousands of people who will continue to support you, through Gunnerkrigg and whatever you decide to do next.

[Señor Goose]

Tom, please realise that if you do "fucking kill [your]self", you'll be letting down a hell of a lot more people than from that joke you made. I will happily support you until the comic runs its course, and maybe beyond. Those people don't represent the majority of your readers, and indeed a lot of us can see through that comment for what it was: a joke. A lame joke, but a joke nonetheless. Apart from its crudeness, there wasn't anything inherently offensive about it, and the majority of the people (on and off your forum) understand that. Don't let it get you down! We believe in you and wish you to continue being awesome with your comic!

[Señor Goose]

Oh my God, they won't stop whining! The entire comment section is just post after post after post of bellyaching! Won't they shut up?

[eskhn]

Mar 4, 2014 19:54:00 GMT Señor Goose said:

Oh my God, they won't stop whining! The entire comment section is just post after post after post of bellyaching! Won't they shut up?

Haha of course not. Have you seen some of the responses? Leave it to Tumblr to dogpile on someone for unintentionally offending transgendered people, but write off depression as "fake". You could cut the cognitive dissonance with a goddamn knife. Depression is real, and as a group that's had their own struggles with people denying them, the trans* community should know what it's like.
By the way, there's no helix fossil in Gen2, so you might want to update your signature?

[kafine]

I would like to reiterate my ongoing respect for Tom not only as a fellow artist whose work is both competent and thoughtful, but also as a fellow introvert who finds it hard to deal with the stresses of life and consequences of popularity.

I think that what is being done to him is terrible and given the other stresses he is dealing with right now, I really wish I were in a position to do something nice for him.

[Señor Goose]

Mar 4, 2014 19:59:38 GMT eskhn said:

By the way, there's no helix fossil in Gen2, so you might want to update your signature?

Gen1 or nothing, baby.

[Daedalus]

Just saw this. Seriously, I don't understand where the anger came from here. I mean, yes, it may have been a tasteless thing to say. Big deal. Everyone has done that. But I saw nothing there, even in the original post, that was against transgendered people. It was a comment on a style of writing, from a movie.

Tom, we all think you're fantastic. People overreacted, but you're not seeing all of the less-noisy people who didn't fixate on a single tumblr post. Keep on doing whatever you want to do - even if it's not GKC.

And yes, I recognize the irony, but the title text here applies: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1283

[eyemyself]

Oh Gods, some of the comments in that thread (on both sides of the issue) are heartbreaking. As is the thought of Tom being in the early stages of acknowledging and seeking treatment for severe depression. (I have struggled with major depressive episodes my whole life... they are crippling.)

Practical Ideas for Helping Tom:
1. Cash Mob the Store: I know many of us have limited incomes... but if every reader in the forums committed to buying at least one item from Tom's Topataco store we could generate some serious income for him.
2. Link the comic to everyone you know who has even a minor interest in webcomics. Nothing like a massive boost of positive reinforcement (large growth in reader base over short period of time) to cut through the negative self messaging that is part and parcel of depression.
3. Heartfelt messages directly to Tom.
4. Gentle, respectful, concise rebuttals of the negative messages that are out there right now. Don't attack anyone and don't be dismissive, just politely suggest that pillorying someone for one mistake that has since been recanted and apologized for isn't doing anyone any good.

[fuzzyone]

I know what I'm going to do to support him... I'm going to his store to buy some things. Probably a pin or two. I'm planning to put it on my hat. I know not everyone can do something tangible like this. But he was legit worried that this ONE kerfuffle may cause him to be unable to do this comic as his "day job." That it would impact readership and revenue to the point that he couldn't continue as he has. My suggestion: Support the comic financially if you are able. Even if it's just a little thing. It will still be a visible expression of love and respect. Something he can look at and see.

Tom: As someone else who suffers from depression, the fact that you keep this comic going is amazing. I know what depression does to one's creativity. I tried to launch my own at one point. I couldn't keep it up. I couldn't maintain the motivation to keep working on something that I have talked about and wanted to do for more than half my life. You've done it. You are an inspiration to me. I started working on it again not long ago. I'm planning to relaunch. Your life is your own. Your decisions are your own. But please, do not let the vitriol of the worst kinds of people on the internet drive you to the irreversible. The world is a better place because you are in it. Your creativity has given us all something beautiful to experience.

[eskhn]

Mar 4, 2014 21:39:52 GMT eyemyself said:

4. Gentle, respectful, concise rebuttals of the negative messages that are out there right now. Don't attack anyone and don't be dismissive, just politely suggest that pillorying someone for one mistake that has since been recanted and apologized for isn't doing anyone any good.

A certain quote comes to mind for this one, that it's "better to light a candle than curse the darkness" (source unknown, I've seen it credited to a Chinese proverb). Instead of cursing the "darkness" on Tumblr, light a candle by trying to learn to see things from the other perspective. After this debacle, it's clear that Tom has. Now it's your turn.
(Not addressed to eyemyself, of course.)

[thedoomblahsong]

Tom, I bet that if someone offended you by mistake, and then apologized, you would forgive them. I bet you wouldn't tell them that they should leave the internet. You said something that offended people, but not because you wanted to offend them. Then you didn't respond to their complaints, but it's not because you didn't care about their feelings, you just didn't think that your tweet was offensive. Later, you changed you mind, acknowledged and accepted responsibility for hurting people's feelings, and like any decent person would do, you apologized.

About retweeting someone's comment: sure, it puts them in the spotlight and invites other people to confront them. However, some of those you retweeted are now complaining that you invited harassment towards them. You did no such thing. All you said about it was 'the internet is an incredible place'. The only people who were going to see these retweets were your followers, many of whom probably saw these comments to your tweet anyway. Anybody who saw the retweet was going to form their own conclusions, you didn't tell anybody what to think or say. You felt, at the time, that the commenters were overreacting (many of us contend that you were totally right about this) and it was reasonable of you to respond a bit dismissively. People can be a little ticked off at being dismissed this way, but to complain that you exposed them to the harsh cruel world that is the internet?! Uh, no, if they were so worried what people would say, they wouldn't have commented to your tweet in the first place. It's not like they made an anonymous message to you and you responded by making it the headline of Times magazine. The commenters seem to hold you responsible for anything anybody might possibly say in response to your retweet! That is the height of phony, whiny, cowardly butthurtedness. They are treating you as they would an actual bigot, rather than an ally of transgendered people who made a single tasteless joke, not even realizing how it might be perceived, and later apologized sincerely.

Trans people face real discrimination and harassment, and the way these assholes are behaving - crying that they will boycott your comic, whining about what a horrible person you are because you retweeted something they knew all your followers would see anyway - they are disrespecting and exploiting the pain of those transgendered people. You don't deserve to be treated the way you were.

I know I speak for thousands when I say I love and respect your comic, and I want to see more of it. A lot more. Please don't delay any pages on account of this fiasco. I'm going to go order AitF 2 now to keep AitF 1 company on the shelf. Please don't devalue your life. Get help for your depression, feel well, spend time with people who support you.

[freeformline]

Goodness. I'm not exactly rolling in money and everyone I can communicate with has already heard of Gunnekrigg Court (you're welcome, everyone I have met). Maybe I'll take this as motivation to actually finish some fan art. I can very well understand how much it sucks to make an offensive mistake, so if I can make someone feel less bad about it, I will.

[exdevlin]

Dear Tom,

I realize this has been a very hard few days for you. I've discovered I can't actually send you direct messages on Twitter, and that's fine, I don't mind posting what I have to say publicly.

You are a very talented individual; talented people on the Internet garner a lot of attention, good and bad. I know you've accepted that what's happened has happened and there isn't much to be done about it. However, I am *not* part of that corner of the internet that delights in scrutinizing what well-known personalities do and say in public forums and letting fly tons of hate in their direction. I mean, goodness, have you SEEN what the (former) mayor of Toronto has been doing and saying in publicized settings in recent months? He is the ultimate butt of all Canadian jokes now, and it's disheartening that one of our biggest cities is/was run by THAT GUY. What you've done pales in comparison, so as much as the situational conundrum sucks, don't feel too poorly about it. You will grow and you will get past it. You've already handled it in the most admirable way that you could have. You're a strong person, and it shines through in your writing.

I've donated to you before and am happily doing so again, twice the amount than last. You need to know that there are many of us who speak for you, and not against you. For many selfish reasons, I'm donating to you: I don't want to stop being in love with a story I've read for nearly a decade, and I don't want my thrice-weekly source of happiness and entertainment to disappear. Call me set in my ways, but I honestly don't want to go out in search of something that can replace Gunnerkrigg Court -- it has become a ritual every MWF to check the strip, then see what people have to say in the forums. A very deep pocket in my heart knows that nothing can, anyway.

I encourage you to continue your labour of love -- you make so many of us so very happy.

x.

[eyemyself]

Mar 4, 2014 21:36:36 GMT Daedalus said:

Just saw this. Seriously, I don't understand where the anger came from here. I mean, yes, it may have been a tasteless thing to say. Big deal. Everyone has done that. But I saw nothing there, even in the original post, that was against transgendered people. It was a comment on a style of writing, from a movie.

It's the f*cking internet. Deal with it, people.

Tom, we all think you're fantastic. People overreacted, but you're not seeing all of the less-noisy people who didn't fixate on a single tumblr post. Keep on doing whatever you want to do - even if it's not GKC.

And yes, I recognize the irony, but the title text here applies: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1283

Love that you are preaching the "Please Be Okay Agenda."

Some insights from my own history with depression and a little bit of not so wild speculation here; I suspect that part of what is making it difficult for Tom to shrug this off and move on is that in this particular instance that he is being accused of being offensive towards a group he actually has deep respect and sympathy for... members of which were then attacked for "calling him out" which is likely adding to his anguish and emotional trauma over the whole thing. We did not see this kind of reaction from him when the fundies were all up in arms about Kat's attraction to Paz. I know if it were me, and I accidentally offended a vulnerable group I considered myself an advocate for and then my response to being called out caused members of that group to be attacked by other people I would be devastated. The guilt alone would be debilitating and being told something along the lines of "it's just a few sour apples" would do nothing to assuage that guilt over having caused individuals who were already vulnerable to be attacked. I can only imagine what Tom's experience right now is like, but my imagination doesn't paint a pretty picture of his head-space right now.

From the things that Tom has written since the incident it is clear that he feels he was in the wrong and nothing anyone else says is going to counter that feeling. Trying to tell him that he didn't do anything wrong, or that it was no big deal is likely to actually just reinforce his negative internal messaging and deepen his guilt by giving it something to push back against. More useful, potentially, are the messages that speak to the fact that we all make mistakes from time to time... and that one mistake does not undo a lifetime of good intentions and positive actions.

[eyemyself]

Can the folks who've been using negative language to describe the people who called Tom out please stop? It is counter-productive and may in fact be exacerbating his feelings of guilt to see anger directed at those he feels he injured.

[philman]

Good lord... I don't really use tumblr much, and judging by some of the responses there it doesn't look like I'm missing much in the way of community...

I noticed Tom locked the thread where people were talking about the twitter thing earlier, so I kind of assumed he wanted us to drop it and just leave it at that, and I was going to come in here and just say that and leave. But jeez, that tumblr post made me change my mind a bit, I'd want a pick-me-up after that too. I've never had depression, but I know people who have and I know that the some of the responses he is receiving there aren't helpful, or constructive, or understanding. If he needs help dealing with his demons he should seek it, there are good therapists out there.

I'm british so I know we often don't like expressing our problems, I'm sure Tom isn't liking us even talking about it really. But if he reads this, and I'm going to assume he does, listen to your actual fans man. Sure you made a mistake (Personally I think the mistake was the re-tweets and making fun of the offended people, not the original comment), you apologised to those who were offended (at least you seem more apologetic than celebrities who actually DO say bad things!), what more can you do?

We can't tell you what to do with everything, it's your comic not ours, but I think if people never said anything that could ever be construed as offensive, there would be very little talking going on anywhere.

[philman]

Mar 4, 2014 22:09:02 GMT eyemyself said:

Can the folks who've been using negative language to describe the people who called Tom out please stop? It is counter-productive and may in fact be exacerbating his feelings of guilt to see anger directed at those he feels he injured.

This as well.

I was about to get annoyed and insult some of them in my post but stopped and changed my mind when I thought about what the initial problem here was in the first place!

[khevtol]

Mar 4, 2014 22:09:02 GMT eyemyself said:

Can the folks who've been using negative language to describe the people who called Tom out please stop? It is counter-productive and may in fact be exacerbating his feelings of guilt to see anger directed at those he feels he injured.

I can agree with that. I mostly figured that something positive and supportive would be something that would help. I like the idea of buying things from the store and heartfelt messages. I already have a treatise poster hanging on my wall. I need to check if I have enough money to get another.

[zbeeblebrox]

I don't even understand how Tumblr works. Where are the responses? How to you interact with people? Why is the "comments"(?) section just an everlasting list of statements about how so-and-so "liked" this or "reblogged" this? How is that even useful for anyone? I just looks like a total disorganized mess.

It seems to me that Tumblr is what Wordpress would be if it was built by a moron.

[philman]

Also I saw an idea on Tom's twitter responses, he should set up a Patreon for the comic. Monthly voluntary donations, rather than relying on people remembering to click the support button now and again!

[GK Sierra]

Tom, that post was completely unnecessary, and I mean that in the best possible way.

You have nothing to apologize for in the first place.

Mar 4, 2014 19:54:00 GMT Señor Goose said:

Oh my God, they won't stop whining! The entire comment section is just post after post after post of bellyaching! Won't they shut up?

This is what I was afraid of. The SJW crowd does not see this as an apology so much as blood in the water, proving that they can get to someone over the internet.

Tom, you have no reason to feel shitty about this. The people at fault were the ones harassing you for an apology. I repeat- anyone who says they are going to stop reading your comic is almost certainly lying for melodramatic effect. Your eight years of hard work are exactly the reason why nothing is going to be "thrown away". Everyone who knows anything about you knows that this whole thing is bullshit started by drama-seeking internet dandies who having nothing better to do than wait for something to be offended by.

[exdevlin]

Mar 4, 2014 22:40:12 GMT philman said:

Also I saw an idea on Tom's twitter responses, he should set up a Patreon for the comic. Monthly voluntary donations, rather than relying on people remembering to click the support button now and again!

If you click on the Donate button on the main site, there's actually an option to continue doing it monthly while you're in there.

[sleepcircle]

be careful, please. i am not saying this particular forum topic is fomenting violent retribution but, both sides, please keep this danger in mind when considering engaging in a dialogue about this on the internet. there are a lot of blindly angry people out there.

[philman]

Mar 4, 2014 22:46:31 GMT exdevlin said:

Mar 4, 2014 22:40:12 GMT philman said:

Also I saw an idea on Tom's twitter responses, he should set up a Patreon for the comic. Monthly voluntary donations, rather than relying on people remembering to click the support button now and again!

If you click on the Donate button on the main site, there's actually an option to continue doing it monthly while you're in there.

Ah, I, uh, did not see that when I was donating... I just tend to automatically uncheck all boxes on payment forms out of habit!

[lysende]

Tom didn't do anything wrong even in the slightest. The people harassing him are bad and they should feel bad.

[sleepcircle]

Mar 4, 2014 22:56:13 GMT lysende said:

Tom didn't do anything wrong even in the slightest. The people harassing him are bad and they should feel bad.

i can empathize but I don't think this particular response will help the situation.

[keef]

I know money is not a cure for depression. But having not enough money certainly won't help.
Click here.

[fish]

So, I saw what happened last night semi-live. I didn't want to add anything to the discussion until now because, you know... it's the internet. But there seems to be a misunderstanding regarding what happened and Tom's apology, both here and on Tumblr (at least for some people). Please excuse my not-so-perfect English in the following rant:

Tom, if you're reading this, you can just skip this paragraph, it's only a reiteration.
The thing Tom is apologizing for is NOT the silly joke on twitter. We can all agree that it was a rather harmless one. And the initial reaction to that tweet was quite meek as well. Some people were confused and asked for clarification. Now Tom, for some reason, retweeted those questions and comments and made those people susceptible to transphobic harassment (I don't know, if they were really harassed or not). And that is really not a nice thing to someone. But Tom, being the person that he is, realized the problem in his actions and apologized profoundly.

Now my problem:
If I were in Tom's position -feeling guilty and being convinced I deserved to feel that way- every time somebody made a comment like "don't worry, you did nothing wrong" or "you shouldn't need to apologize for something so trivial" or "all those people demanding an apology are [insert insult here]" would make me feel even worse about the whole thing.
I don't know if the same is true for Tom, but I would like to ask everybody to pleas stop putting blame on anyone, be it Tom or the people that felt hurt by Tom.

Having said that, is there really someone on Tumblr claiming Tom's depression is fake?! If yes, then I will go now and collect their f*ucking head! This is about one of the worst things you could possibly say to anybody with depression. And Tom does not deserve this in the least! (Please excuse my outburst here. I didn't check all the Tumblr-replies, but even the notion of somebody calling this a "fake" makes me sick.)

Finally, Tom, I just want you to know, I really admire the way you handled this. In my opinion a true apology is an apology without excuses, and I am really glad you seem to see it the same way. And I admire many other things about you; the cautiousness with which you approach the internet, your relentless work ethic, your pleasant sense of humor, your story-telling talent...
To me the mere existence of your comic is miracle. It's one of the best things in my life, something that is always there to make me feel happy or sad or excited or relieved or just emotional. You put so much effort into it, it really shows. And I think these things every other day but I never say (write) them to you (and now I'm tearing up, dammit). I'm just really glad I found this place on the internet... it's the best place!

[Rasselas]

Do you think it's not valid to feel upset that a good person is being bullied by a petty, attention-seeking mob?

I am trying to stay out of the whole business (too late), but it makes me incredibly angry.

Good people are the perfect target for mobs to tear down. Because they will not fight back and they will try to apologize and atone. But that's not what the mob wants, they want blood. The more he bleeds, the happier they are. Evidence for this is half the responses on tumblr to his post. Evidence for this is that his apologies fall mostly on deaf ears.

It is sad that such people wield so much clout.

As for whether it's true that Tom's struggling with depression, I think that was clear to anyone who even just glanced in passing at his past twitter posts. I think I have known for a long time.

I'm not happy to reiterate stuff that people would rather not hear, but I think my feelings also matter and I feel worse when I can't express them. I wish I could do more stuff that's actually helpful to Tom.