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That's a quite uncharitable account.
"Lying to people to make a political point is a Good Thing, Actually" is commonly argued by people who think the Sokal or Sokal Squared hoaxes are good things, of which I am one. My observation was that Trace's hoaxing of LibsOfTikTok was fair enough, though I didn't think it proved what he seemed to be claiming, but also that the overwhelmingly negative reaction he received was very clearly both tribal, unreasonable and unnecessary. And sure, he eventually flounced out of here. Most of us have or do sooner or later. I did, more or less, once upon a time, and the only reason I'm back is because I managed to throttle it down to about 2% of what I originally wanted to say. The Culture War poisons us all sooner or later.
He's got the Schism, and he's grinding away at the mainstream conversation, from what I've seen. I have profound disagreements with his values and views, but everything I've seen shows me he's attempting to act in good faith to this day.
It's one of those weird things about left vs right and the modern social media landscape, but I continue to think there's an important difference in showing that academic publishing is useless versus demonstrating the low (but not zero) standards of a Tiktok outrage-merchant.
He took The Motte's offense particularly hard for obvious reasons, but the reaction of Blocked and Reported's subreddit was not much better from the "don't make yourself the story" angle and considerably less tribal IMO.
He learned an important lesson a hard way, and is at least as good faith as any other "personality" these days, and more so than many.
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Like one point specifically? Or out of all of the things you want to say, you voice only 2%? I'd love to hear you elaborate - what are you filtering? Why? If you think it's going to get you banned I'd be happy to receive a bullet list in a DM, if you have enough spare time to type it out
To clarify, I flounced once, and was able to return because in the heat of the moment I managed to throttle down the message to 2% of what I wanted to say, and so did not completely burn my bridges here.
I do not generally want to say those things any more, and even in my worse moments I want to want to not say them.
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I don't think it's uncharitable to characterize his actions as a emotional overreaction. If he didn't want to be known as the LibsofTiktok guy, he shouldn't have done it. Sokal himself is primarily known for his hoaxes rather than his academic work. What did he expect?
Is it fair that a singular act overshadows everything else he's done? No, of course not. But that's the impression he made on many of us. The moral of the story is that gay furries shouldn't throw stones from glass houses.
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My issue with Trace is that he wants to be simultaneously a Serious Investigative Writer Thinker Guy and also a Sassy Bitch Merry Prankster. And that's fine, really, but he also refuses to offer that kind of consideration to others, and also freaks out whenever anyone doesn't offer friction-free clown-nose code switching to him.
Take away any one of those clauses and he's fine. But when you add them all together... bro, what are you even doing?
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