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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   35389 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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"this is a group that makes a huge point out of being welcoming and non-judgemental to the unconventional and the neurodivergent, can she really be shocked at this hour of her life to learn sometimes unstable people are unstable and interpret things in a wildly different way to what happened?"

Yeah, I'm not at all informed about Aella herself aside from what she herself posts and a information from some people who have met her personally.

But its one thing to say "people will make up lies about you, sometimes." and another to be shocked at how the behavior that you admit to and the other facets of your public persona might lead people to weird conclusions about you.

She's a professional escort who is incredibly open about her drug use and her hosting of orgies, who often makes ambiguous jokes about edgy topics.

How might people end up with the belief that she may have hosted drug-fueled orgies where edgy sorts of behavior occurred?

No, that doesn't justify the lies. But if you know how humans have a tendency to leap to incorrect conclusions from limited/bad evidence, then notice that your entire persona is custom built to shock normie sensibilities, one would not be particularly surprised that normies have been primed to believe shocking things.

Or maybe they aren't lies at all. Maybe "the prudes" are correct about how entertaining someone who's whole schtick is being a transaction-bot seeking to extract the maximum amount of utilitons (aka hedonism points) for herself really is ultimately stupid, dangerous, and socially corrosive.

There's always the outside possibility that she is manipulating every facet of her public persona to control the narrative around herself, and the stuff she admits to is just the tip of a large iceberg.

I have no special insight on that.

I don't even know if they're lies. Reading the (I think) original complainant, they came across in how they wrote as someone with a shaky grasp on reality and possible neurodivergence. So for them, it may be the real truth that all the bad stuff happened the way they described it, while for Aella it's "But I didn't organise that party, we weren't doing free-for-all drugs there, etc." fact-checking. People with problems can convince themselves of the truth of what they think they remember, and let's face it, the party was probably confusing enough even if you were sober and sane.

But its one thing to say "people will make up lies about you, sometimes." and another to be shocked at how the behavior that you admit to and the other facets of your public persona might lead people to weird conclusions about you.

That isn't what she's talking about, however.

Consider a concrete example of hers: "drug roulette". She is not talking about internet randos sneering at her "oh that silly drug roulette and sex party chick, can't wait for her next twitter poll about fucking gnomes". That would be a vaguely reasonable thing for people who don't know her and dislike her to say.

How might people end up with the belief that she may have hosted drug-fueled orgies where edgy sorts of behavior occurred?

According to her, it's because someone wrote on the internet that a) they attended parties she hosted b) drug roulette happened at more than one and c) one of the drugs is rohypnol.

That is not a "leap to incorrect conclusions" nor is it in any way based on her reputation or an edgy joke. It's based on an unambiguous and literal interpretation of a statement that someone made about her.

Yes, I'm agreeing that people tell baldfaced lies about her.

But it's not surprising that, given the persona she's cultivated, some people (irrationally) accept the bald-faced lie at nearly face value. She's living a life that shocks normies, so it's easier for normies to believe shocking things about her. I assume she finds this worth the tradeoffs!

Similar to how people believed many, many untrue things about Donald Trump, because his persona made it easy enough to believe. Even leaving aside their biased motivation to believe it.

Unfair? Sure. Unexpected? Not in my book.

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