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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   31510 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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New Yorker article on Feeld: A Hookup App for the Emotionally Mature.

I'm curious what reactions and discussion this sparks.

  • -12

It seems like alot of effort for such meh outcomes. I wonder what she did to blow up her relationship.

Seems like a hook up app that's aiming at the demographic of non-MLM queers, bdsm types, and threesomes. I'm sure they view themselves as emotionally mature and "better" at sexual encounters, but don't most demographics? Ultimately that app just looks like FetLife for the modern age

80% of drivers think they are above average. For sex, that's probably 98%.

Please don't post bare links with minimal commentary.

I've used Feeld and this is such a bizarre description. I did not recognize it at all from the article until they named it. AFAICT the app is aimed at people who are interested in kink and/or polyamory. Most of the profiles that have any information at all include one or both of those things. This group is not necessarily more mature than anyone else, the age range seems pretty similar to other apps (maybe slightly more late 20s than early), and it's not any more hookup-focused than the average non-relationship-type-specific app. Lots of people on it are looking for serious, longer-term relationships. It's probably more progressive than average, but few people explicitly put anything like that on their profiles--again, not much more than any other app if you're in a big city. They would probably rate higher on the Big 5's openness to experiences measure, and are more likely to be upfront about what they want out of a relationship, but that's about it.

Yeah, the app itself sounds perfectly fine and, on a personal note, probably better-suited for me than the others. The site itself is also phrased quite reasonably. I got no problems there.

The author's description of it is kinda painful, but, y'know, journalism.

As irritating as it is, I don't think "journalist turns a niche product into a culture war issue" is particularly notable.

I wonder who the market is for these long-form New Yorker and Atlantic articles? You know the ones that start with long rambling sequences like: "Susan Hernandez was enjoying her coffee sitting at the Whistlestop Diner as was her habit on Tuesday."

When I was younger I read this stuff because I felt like I was supposed to. Now I just... don't. It's almost physically painful when the information content to fluff ratio is so low. Does anyone actually read this crap or does it just sit on one's coffee table for a week before heading to the recycling bin?

What Hanania said about books applies double to legacy magazine content:

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/the-case-against-most-books

I wonder who the market is for these long-form New Yorker and Atlantic articles? You know the ones that start with long rambling sequences like: "Susan Hernandez was enjoying her coffee sitting at the Whistlestop Diner as was her habit on Tuesday."

That sort of writing is how you win a pulitzer/other awards. "Writing for Story" (unintentionally) discusses that sort of shift, from news/facts to long-form journalism. The idea is that giving it that human element draws the reader in.

First, an obligatory comment that dropping bare links as top-level comments in the Culture War topic is a faux-pas, boo you, mods will probably scold you a bit for this.

Second, and rather low-effort, I can't get over how utterly obnoxious most writing for the New Yorker is. I assume everyone here appreciates detailed, long-form commentary, and the New Yorker superficially provides that, but the thing is that making an article long and wordy doesn't make it good. Scott Alexander's posts are long but what makes them good is that he uses this length to cover a lot of ground. New Yorker articles, including this one, often feel like someone took a mildly interesting anecdote and prompted an AI with “pad this short draft out to 10x the length it needs to be, while making the author sound like a pretentious twat that has no greater joy in life than smelling their own farts”.

Case in point, what the fuck is up with paragraphs like this:

I spoke with a trans person in their early thirties who told me that the number of available labels at first made them pause. “Those are the labels that exist, but they exist almost like a step ahead of where I exist,” they said. “I’ve gotten closer to those labels based on the connections that I’ve made, but I wasn’t in a place to know them ahead of time.” The language of identity does not always precede experience, they continued. Over time, “you figure out what language you need to speak in order to be seen.”

What the fuck is this supposed to convey? What's the information content of this entire paragraph? This is just fucking garbage writing that was included because the author is a pathetic handmaiden that had to include some trans POV to get her article published.

And not to mention the final paragraph:

The people who craft anti-trans legislation and laws to control sexuality see lives that are different than theirs as a threat to their own integrity. Imagine what that must be like, to not be able to think about change, and the possibilities it might offer.

What the fucking hell has any of this to do with a dating app for pretentious fartknockers?

Okay, let me try to balance out the pot shots with some commentary on the meat of the article. What I gathered from the article, Feeld is a hookup app for pretentious assholes who disguise their base horniness with pompous terms like “ethical nonmonogamist”, and you pledge allegiance to the woke by hating on straight white males, as is tradition.

With that in mind, look at the author (who, by the name, I assume is female, though given the wokeness of it all and the fact that their name is ”Emily” might well be a female-presenting transgender), and their experience on the app:

Feeld, unlike most other dating apps, quantifies the interest its users receive with a number that Kirova assured me is real. In the two years I’ve been on the app, more than eleven thousand people have liked my profile, whose only proscriptive has been “no liars.” I’ve never felt as much license to dismiss male entitlement as I have on Feeld. If a man casually insults my appearance; if he pressures me to meet after I’ve said that I’m busy; if he treats me like a food-delivery service, ready to serve him when he’s in the mood; if he imposes rote pornographic fantasies on me without any curiosity or charm; if he indicates that he’ll try to negotiate his way out of using condoms; if he is coy or unforthcoming in a way that makes me suspicious; if he has no sense of humor or isn’t kind—I disconnect without hesitation or regret. There is no reason to tolerate any dehumanizing or insulting behavior.

Summary: woman puts minimal effort in her dating profile, receives thousands of likes anyway (mostly from horny straight white males, who are to be despised), and quickly dismisses the majority of messages from men. This somehow makes Feeld special, but isn't this the absolute standard norm on every dating/hookup app ever?

I’ve gone back to the standard dating apps a couple times, but none offered the same ease of connection. I kept experiencing a suffocating gender dynamic: regardless of the kind of person I am, I was somehow forced into the role of a desperate pursuer trying to win the affection of the elusive and “emotionally unavailable” male, a dynamic that was confusing to see revived in a moment when I was experiencing as much sexual agency as I’d ever had in my life.

Again, assuming that this person is a cis-female that is not absolutely horrendous-looking, what dating app were they on that they can't get 100 messages from desperate males within an hour of signing up with a single bad photo of themselves? It all seems like total bullshit to me.

I wonder how much people get paid to write this kind of garbage, and who's paying them. I doubt they're doing it for free.

I may be wrong, but I think people here are missing the subtext. This is a hookup app for old people. She likely is overweight and old. She can not compete with the average 20 something or even the the women a year or two older than 30. These is ease of connection on this app is because the people with dicks are likely not looking for fit young women or relationships with potential wives that can reproduce.

A quick google search reveals that she's actually decently attractive and not overweight (albeit most of the pics are 7+ years old). Old yes, but she could have certainly done better than whatever the hell she is doing now on this app.

we rant

As in "we need to talk", I always interpret this as the royal "we".

She likely is overweight and old.

It's easy to Google her name - she is rather thin and not ugly either.

Yeah she's quite pretty, looks well for her age

I can't get over how utterly obnoxious most writing for the New Yorker is

I used to subscribe to it. This is the reason I cancelled.

What the fuck is this supposed to convey?

I think the general idea is that being just trans is so passé, you need to acquire more identity labels to be trendy, and the app is leading the way, while the person in question follows.

What the fucking hell has any of this to do with a dating app for pretentious fartknockers?

Ritual abuse of the outgroup is an important part of communication for the target group of New Yorker, I think.

Even her "unexpected singleness" at 39 came after a relationship of only a few years. She mentions having lived through and used many of the iterations of dating apps thus far, leading me to believe that she started in on wanting a family way too late. Sad, but surely avoidable if it wasn't the outcome she wanted.

As an aside, this kind of aloofness in matters of sex necessary to use an app like this strikes me as the opposite of emotional maturity...it's just emotionally avoidant, no?

I could arrange an encounter in minutes. I would take a bath, exchange a few photos from the tub, and a date would be set up; once, a guy diverted his jog and ran to my house

Great for the guy I guess, but this just feels so cold to me.

The Gaymaleification/Sex-in-the-city of single women hasn't really produced much in the way of longterm happiness, from what I can see.

Had a recent longish stanza on dating apps and it always confused me a bit how many girls seemed to forever be on the more 'longterm relationshipy' ones.

My model is that those women are constantly lied to by men out of their (relationship) league. Note the lamenting of the “‘emotionally unavailable’ male” in the original article. All else being equal, guys will prefer to fuck sweet innocent inexperienced girls over sluts. This means that the winning move for chad is to get on a ‘longterm relationshipy’ app, lie about what he wants, and then spend every weekend pumping and dumping.

As an aside, this kind of aloofness in matters of sex necessary to use an app like this strikes me as the opposite of emotional maturity...it's just emotionally avoidant, no?

Yea. They’re dressing up post-wall hookup culture with a lot of modern psychology. They’re lying to themselves. No normal men their age want a 39 year old poor journalist. They just acquiesced to the fact that their only options at this point for easy sex are people with abnormal sexual preferences

She could move to Silicon Valley and easily get a fit millionaire; plenty of fit millionaire virgins out there.

No normal men their age want a 39 year old poor journalist

Well, not the men she wants.

The guy: “Yeah I was definitely out jogging and totally not lying on my couch in sweat pants and a t-shirt mass-texting chicks hoping one bites. This one bangable cougar sent me slutty photos of her in a tub so I immediately diverted my ‘jog,’ drove near her place, parked my car two blocks away and walked over for the slumpbusting lay-up.”

This is one of the more ridiculous articles I’ve ever read. Thank you. This journalist and her friend are the future. Post-wall women with no families, aged out of Twitter and Hinge, racking up body count with “open minded” men, nonbinaries, couples, and other people that are similarly alone.

They sound like big kids. The journalist loses her apartment suddenly and has to throw her stuff in a storage unit and her dad’s car (that she’s presumably using). She’s 39!!! And random hookup sex was her answer to this!

She talks about a friend who was “house sitting” for her parents. I’m guessing this friend is about her age, has a shitty apartment in Brooklyn, and is crashing at her parents house while her parents are at their vacation home. This is the kind of shit I did when I was 24.

I tend to enjoy the schadenfreude of hearing these types of stories and wondering what the future holds for this cohort. I think this is the answer. As much as people look down on tinder and hookup culture - this is worse. The young people on tinder at least have have hope. I met my wife on hinge. These women will be racking up enormous body counts. It won’t be normal sex. It will be strange kink. People using sex to fill the hole in their lives. Like an old alcoholic alone at a bar getting shitfaced each night.

Everyone should read this article. What a world.

I agree that quite of lot of such people are probably unhappy, but I don't see that it's as gendered a problem as you're making it out to be. It takes two (or more in this case, apparently) to tango, and I see no reason why the men in this situation should be presumed to be any happier than the women. Yet, as you have, whenever anyone discusses these things it's always the women who are accused of wasting away their life; not necessarily an unfair accusation, but one that applies to these men equally, surely. Your gleeful tone is also a bit unbecoming.

This is one of the more ridiculous articles I’ve ever read. Thank you. This journalist and her friend are the future. Post-wall women with no families, aged out of Twitter and Hinge, racking up body count with “open minded” men, nonbinaries, couples, and other people that are similarly alone.

The future? More like the present, it appears. This article is one long coffee emoji, better than any weak- or straw-woman the manosphere, dirtbag left, or dissident right could ever conjure.

They sound like big kids. The journalist loses her apartment suddenly and has to throw her stuff in a storage unit and her dad’s car (that she’s presumably using). She’s 39!!! And random hookup sex was her answer to this!

Can we call-in a wellness check for her father to make sure he’s okay?

Your childless, middle-aged daughter suddenly needs your car because her relationship “abruptly collapsed” (surely due to no fault of her own), then next thing you know she authors a longform article on how she continues riding the carousel to cope. feelsbadman.jpg

She talks about a friend who was “house sitting” for her parents.

Her friend couldn’t even house-sit at her parents’ for a night without inviting a random guy over to raid their liquor and rail their daughter. I’m sure her parents are proud.

Update on the Black Teens Versus Pregnant Nurse story.

This twitter thread seems like a reasonable summary. I know it's not entirely unbiased, but absent additional contradictory evidence, the story seems to basically check out like this:

  1. Kids had checked out the ebikes for a ride, and docked them before the 45-minute "free" period ended, planning to undock them to resume riding. (This is apparently a pretty common practice?)

  2. They're sitting on the bikes chilling, when Comrie, the pregnant nurse, approaches and asks to have one of the bikes.

  3. The teens say no, unmoved by her appeals for consideration for her pregnancy.

  4. She scans (checks out) a bike one of the kids is sitting on, and tries to take it.

  5. The kerfluffle we saw on video ensues. The kids apparently filmed it with a legitimate fear that she would turn it into "gang of teens harasses pregnant white lady."

So basically, no one looks like an entirely innocent victim here. The kids were just hanging out in preparation to check out the bikes again, but since they were docked, you don't really get to "call dibs" on a bike you are not currently renting. Technically Comrie was entitled to take an available bike; the kids shouldn't have been squatting on them. They were also kind of jerks for not showing a little compassion for an obviously pregnant woman (their version is that if they'd given up the bike, one of them would have had to find some other way to get back to the Bronx).

That said, deciding "Screw you, I'm taking your bike anyway, get off" wasn't great behavior on her part, even if legally justified. I cut her more slack because apparently she just got off a 12-hour shift, and she was pregnant.

However, even if the teens were perhaps being inconsiderate and less than gentlemanly, the narrative that's basically portrayed them as ganging up on her and trying to steal her bike appears to be inaccurate.

Interesting, my priors were very strongly on "black teens from da hood try and swindle bike from pregnant woman" when I saw the video. I freely and openly admit that I was wrong.

I guess I should update away from them and towards the opposite, sometimes that pregnant white female trying to leverage her "oppression" really is the unreasonable one there.

  • -22

Huh? Even assuming everything happened as described, how is that "a pregnant white female trying to leverage her oppression" ?

She tried to claim the bike, even though the black teens were using it. The fact that it had been redocked doesn't mean the teens were done with it as any reasonable observer could see they intended to take it out again very very shortly (they were even sitting on it as a further signal that it was claimed!). The fact that the bike makers never intended the repeated 45 free minutes trick to work but didn't do anything to patch this exploit is a lapse of their judgement, not a shortfall in goodness from the black teens.

This case is no different to you leaving your stuff at an arcade machine for two minutes because you need to go get more tokens from the main desk. Even though you aren't playing a game at this exact moment, leaving your stuff is a very strong signal that you are still using the machine. If someone came and started a new game in your absence I would absolutely say they were in the wrong.

It was OK for the women to ask the teens to give up the bike as she needed it too, but the prerogative on what to do with the bike lies with the teenagers as they were using it, no different to a case where someone had asked them for the bike while they were out riding in the street. Once the teenagers had said no, the woman should have gracefully bowed out instead of snatching it from under their noses and claiming her "oppression" gave her a greater right to the bike than the people who were using it.

  • -19

they were even sitting on it as a further signal that it was claimed!

Then how did she get on the bike? Did she physically remove that young man from the bike? Did he get off when she checked it out?

Also you are using hostile language to describe innocuous actions. I very much doubt she did or even could "snatch" anything from a group of teenagers.

This case is no different to you leaving your stuff at an arcade machine for two minutes because you need to go get more tokens from the main desk.

Well their plan was very much not like this, because they were exploiting the system to NOT PAY AT ALL.

They weren't using it, they had returned it and wanted to use it again but had to wait for a timer that is built into the bike rental system to allow other users a chance at the bike.

In an arcade this is more like losing to a friend and keeping your spot because that one didn't count.

The fact that it had been redocked doesn't mean the teens were done with it

So this is the crux of the disagreement, the fact that they weren't done with it means absolutely nothing.

This case is no different to you leaving your stuff at an arcade machine for two minutes because you need to go get more tokens from the main desk.

The analogy is not applicable because in it you're actually paying for usage, unlike what these teens were doing.

The fact that the bike makers never intended the repeated 45 free minutes trick to work but didn't do anything to patch this exploit is a lapse of their judgement, not a shortfall in goodness from the black teens.

Hard disagree. The fact that the bike temporarily locks you out from immediately re-renting it demonstrates that the bike makers deliberately attempted to prevent this exploit, they just didn't expect people to go so far as to physically guarding the bikes while they were docked. Effectively, the kids are taking up the bikes so that they can't be used, as if they were renting them, without paying for it while it's docked. The fact that a protection is possible to get around if you go to extremes that reasonable people wouldn't go to (physically intimidating and harassing cusomters away from the rentals) does not make it acceptable behavior.

Further, there are tradeoffs to behaving in this low-trust way. Because the bike makers "patching" this exploit is to make the lockout period longer. Maybe they make it so the subscribed customers only get 45 minutes once every 4 hours, to make it untenable for squatters to sit around that long. Except now that harms legitimate good-faith customers who had a 30 minute bike ride, a 2 hour meeting, and then 30 minutes back. Straining the system in an adversarial relationship with the manufacturer forces them to make increasingly draconian patches to prevent exploits.

This is more akin to a sale of some item at a store that says "50% off, limit one item per customer" and having one person guard them so nobody can get any during the time it takes for your friend to continuously grab one item, go and check out, and then come back for more until they're all gone. You don't get moral dibs if the rules are clearly trying to prevent you from doing what you're doing but failed to account for the fact that you might use physical intimidation.

The fact that the bike temporarily locks you out from immediately re-renting it

They do not. Docking and re-renting immediately is allowed. So why not do that? Well, this was an e-bike, and there's an extra fee for an e-bike. Unless the e-bike is taken from a dock that doesn't have any regular bikes. So dock, wait for everyone else to take the regular bikes, then re-rent. Why wouldn't other people take the e-bikes? Because you're guarding them, of course.

you don't really get to "call dibs" on a bike you are not currently renting

Don't you? I don't live in New York, but if someone was doing this I would think extremely bad form to try and take one they were obviously just about to take out, especially if you've already asked and they've said no. Indeed, the very fact that she asked surely implies she recognises they do have some sort of 'dibs' on it.

  • -14

I feel like some of the disagreement here is what I would term “adult privileges”. As adults we have money but are often short on time. So we can buy stuff to move up in the queu. But adults also have to do things like have jobs and responsibilities.

Everything has social norms. I can think of pick up basketball and people respect who called next if they’ve waited their turn even if their next causes a weak kind of boring game.

I don’t know the norms on Citi bikes. I do know in broader society he who has the cash usually gets to make the rules. Perhaps there are other norms in the bikes but my first prior as a capitalistic American is the one with the cash is in the right.

The weird thing is America is so obsessed with race and see this as a race discussion. But I think the correct frame is adult versus kid. And I believe this is one of the benefits of being an adult. Being a kid has a lot of benefits (lack of responsibilities) but the negative is waiting for adults time schedule.

But yes with race today. Blacks some times get to break existing social norms (adult privilege).

Perhaps there are other norms in the bikes but my first prior as a capitalistic American is the one with the cash is in the right.

I'm not American, but I am in the Anglosphere and this seems entirely alien to me.

And I believe this is one of the benefits of being an adult. Being a kid has a lot of benefits (lack of responsibilities) but the negative is waiting for adults time schedule.

I think this is one reason why it was also rude of the kids not to let a pregnant nurse just have the bike, they are in the wrong too, but if they were breaking a social rule in keeping the bike the answer to that is not break some social rules yourself but to act graciously and move on. You do have an obligation to be, within reason, polite to the impolite.

  • -12

I thru up a couple frames right? Pure capitalists. Adult vs kid. Who gets higher priority black or white pregnant chick.

This story would have been way more interesting if they did an apology and said they should recognized she was pregnant and ceded the bike. Breaking all online tribal lines.

but if they were breaking a social rule in keeping the bike the answer to that is not break some social rules yourself but to act graciously and move on. You do have an obligation to be, within reason, polite to the impolite.

This is terrible game theory and terrible incentives.

Adult vs. kid makes no sense when you realize that most groups of teens would never do this. Kids will rebel against systems, yes. But a group of well adjusted teenage boys would not lash out against a 30 year old woman like this, basically ever. And if the races were reversed, goddamn they'd be socially dead and their moms would not be defending them.

But this isn't merely rebelling against the system. It is cheating the system (fair, sort of) while also abusing a singular person. It is the difference between sneaking back into line at lunch to get a second dessert and stealing a classmate's dessert.

I don't think the idea of adults vs teens is that there is animosity, it's that adults, by dint of being at the game where they're actively contributing to society and thus have money, have many privileges set up to let them trade off this productivity to save time. As kids have very little productivity and quite a bit of time they frequently take the opposite end of that trade. Situations like the free bikes are supposed to enforce this time vs productivity trade off. Most kids do respect this, but these teens in particular are defecting on the system.

I don't read this as "hey, can you relinquish your moral claim on this bike and transfer it to me" and more "hey, please relinquish your physical claim on this bike because it is immoral".

They're perverting the very reason the lock in is required. The whole point is so that the people on the annual pass have to give up the bikes to people who are paying the higher per ride cost. You're not even supposed to be able to use the ebikes on the annual pass.

You can use the ebikes on the annual pass, you just have to pay a surcharge. The game the kids were playing is that if you get an ebike out from a dock which has only ebikes, the surcharge is waived. So they camp on the ebikes until the pedal bikes are gone, then take the ebikes.

There's a whole lot of people in this thread who don't understand that being in the wrong isn't a zero-sum game. Like you said, it's hard to tell if the woman actually acted like the teens claim she did (since they have every incentive to lie and all), but still. Assuming they are telling the truth, it sounds like everyone here acted poorly.

This doesn't look like he paid $0.06/min on the way there.

This is misleading to the point of being a lie, and shows that you have been getting your information from people trying to backpeddle and deceive:

If there are no regular bikes left at a station, the E-bikes become free for people on the special subscription, as if they are regular bikes. The boys were trying to bully everyone into taking the pedal bikes so that the E-bikes they were camping would become totally free for them. They did it all for 6 measly cents a minute (or they could have just pedaled a non-E-bike for free like normal kids), which to be fair is a more moral motivation than the people still trying to ruin the nurse's life have.

It's not that you get the 45 minutes totally free.

Your colleague was at best incorrect and missed the scam the boys were trying to pull by bulling people into taking all the regular bikes rather than the E-bikes. At worst he was repeating the new narrative that is going around liberal twitter to keep blaming the nurse.

The idea that any reasonable person is even entertaining the idea that these children had the right to effectively assault this woman

I don't see that at all, either an "effective" assault or anyone defending assault. But it's possible she will come forward and say this version of events is a lie, in which case we're back to she-said/they-said.

  • -10

They got her fired from her job.

That is actual, tangible harm that they’ve done to her. While this different than a physical assault I think is a valid comparison.

My understanding is that she was put on leave; I hadn't heard she's been fired. Which I agree is terrible and I hope she sues her employer. But that still isn't "They physically assaulted her."

  • -10

I didn’t say “they physically assaulted her”. I specifically said that they didn’t.

Is that not the employers fault for firing someone for such an absurd reason? I find it hard to blame the teens for that particular aspect of this.

She was fired?

In isolation I would agree with you but a lot of the criticism came from the sort of people who say stuff like “you can't call the cops on black criminals because the police might shoot them [and if they do, that's on you for not wanting to be victimized]”, clearly implying that ultimate consequences are on the consciousness of the instigator. If we are consistent and apply that same logic here, then the black men are at least partially responsible for the harmful results of the video they chose to share online (despite knowing they were in the wrong!)

Take for example this article (from a “journalist” that cannot group sentences into paragraphs):

This was a dispute over a rental bike, but she escalated it in a way that could have caused harm to those young Black men, and we cannot lose sight of that.

And:

The situation could have easily been resolved, but Sarah Jane Comrie chose a different tactic.

She chose to do a thing a lot of white women before her have done — a thing that has caused the deaths of so many Black people — and that is why everyone is upset.

That is why her actions are being labeled racist.

That is why she is being called out.

This was a dispute over a rental bike, but those black men escalated it in a way that has caused harm to this pregnant woman. This situation could have easily been resolved, but the men chose a different tactic. They chose to do a thing a lot of black people before them have done — a thing that has caused so many white people to get fired from their jobs — and that's why everyone is upset. That's why they are being called out.

What is the purpose of recording her, then publishing the video and lying about the interaction?

The goal was to bring harm to her.

Yeah her demeanor isn’t frightened at all. Someone frightened would be looking for a way to leave the situation. She was pressing.

So here's the part I can't figure out:

Was one of the kids literally sitting on the bike at the moment she scanned it? (Most people are acting as if this is a known fact. Is it? How do we know that?)

If so, how did she come to be riding it? Is she supposed to have physically pushed him off of it (before he then physically pushed her and the bike back into the dock?) That doesn't pass the smell test.

Did he get off the bike for some other reason, or because he was agitated for moment and didn't think what he was doing, and then she promptly hopped on? I suppose that's believable, though it's a bit weird. In any case, I just want to be clear what the story is.

It was her bike, they had returned it and she had rented it. They were trying to enforce a claim that the lockout was expressly designed to prevent someone not paying for a bike and using it all day preventing others from using it.

They had every right to pay for the bike, and use it as long as they wished, but since they didn't it was entirely up for anyone else to use.

I hope their actions end the free 45 minutes for everyone, this is why we can't have nice things.

This seems a very bizarre conception of decorum. Ok, they hadn't technically rented it and she in theory was able to, but recognising that good manners require you to refrain from doing things you are 'entitled' to do is the most basic and foundational rule of social grace.

  • -21

Except the "camp the bike" rule, if allowed as "good decorum" means lots of people will show up to bike rental stations where no bikes are available when the app told them it was. There have been many stories corroborating the nurse where a guy went to the station, and was menaced away by roving bands of professional victims and had to walk to the next station, and then the next.

They are basically lying, kidnapping, and assaulting all at once!

kidnapping

How do you figure?

Right, but it does have extra charges after 45 minutes to prevent someone with the subscription claiming a bike in perpetuity for free and denying them to paid customers. You don't get 720 hours of bike rental for $5, you get 45 minutes each time you need it over the course of the month, plus more if you pay more. Which these kids were deliberately attempting to subvert, exploiting the technicalities to claim bikes for long periods of time, denying them to paid customers.

That seems like it might be a necessary evil, and why we can't have nice things. Because of bad faith actors who attempt to exploit simple systems, it's necessary to create stricter regulations that have annoying side effects on good faith actors. Because it's entirely reasonable for some people to go somewhere, spend less than 2 hours there, and then need to leave, which your stricter regulations will harm. Might be necessary, but it would be nice if people could just be more ethical and it wasn't necessary. Like those stores and stands that don't have a cashier and just ask people nicely to put money in a box. It's efficient, it saves labor and thus enables cheaper prices for customers. But they can only survive in high trust areas. It'd be nice if there could be more of those.

While I agree with your analysis, I'm having trouble picturing a race-flipped version of this story where the woman isn't portrayed as a modern-day Rosa Parks and the boys aren't charged with a crime.

While I agree with your analysis, I'm having trouble picturing a race-flipped version of this story where the woman isn't portrayed as a modern-day Rosa Parks and the boys aren't charged with a crime.

Indeed. And in the race-flipped version, right-wingers wouldn't be indignant about teenage thugs bullying a pregnant nurse.

ETA: All right, acknowledged, this was too uncharitable ( @gattsuru ) because I did not qualify it enough. Would every right-winger be flipping sides as readily as @jeroboam claims leftists would? No. Do I think an awful lot of right-wingers are every bit as hypocritical as I see leftists being right now? Yes. There are ample examples on right-wing social media of outrage over teenage thugs, with varying degrees of thinly (or not) veiled racism, and I don't think that outrage would be the same, and I think even a lot of folks here would be more inclined to consider a more charitable explanation of the kids' behavior (or a more skeptical attitude towards the nurse's story), if it was a pregnant black lady claiming she was beset by white youths while they're claiming she tried to take their bike.

  • -25

Your edit is doubling down by saying "it was only uncharitable on a technicality". I'm sure there are right wingers on social media complaining about teenage thugs, but the racism comes from your own head.

Indeed. And in the race-flipped version, right-wingers wouldn't be indignant about teenage thugs bullying a pregnant nurse.

There's an interesting asymmetry here that I'd like you to acknowledge (no hard feelings if you don't): the only real world consequences in either the actual or race-flipped version would see the white participants punished (suspended from their jobs, or severely harming their prospects of getting a place in higher education) whereas no punishment of any kind of would come to the black participants.

Another interesting asymmetry is that we never actually see the race-flipped version.

Most likely true, yes.

You made the claim that one party’s evidence free account after the fact with holes in the story “basically checks out.”

I don’t think you are thinking clearly on this issue and should just take the L.

I am thinking very clearly. It's possible everything they are saying is a fabrication, but I've seen no evidence of that.

  • -17

No you aren’t. People have already pointed out the holes. You’ve largely dismissed without much thought.

People have pointed out that our priors should already disbelieve the claims of the people you are supporting. Those priors are based both demographically (black male group of teens v pregnant early middle aged medical professional) and on the specific known actions of these actors (the youths were already gaming the system in an anti social way; they attempted to harm the woman despite the fact she was in the right). You have ignored this (while for some reason patting yourself on the back).

Third, your biggest argument to believe them is they aren’t contradicted. This assumes the other side heard this allegation and that the other side benefits from trying to contradict it. I’ve already given reasons to reject this claim.

In short, this isn’t clear thinking. We’ve all been there where we say something but don’t want to backdown.

I think this is resoundingly uncharitable.

I can't imagine more than 6 white parents in the country find this sort of behavior acceptable no matter the demographics of the victim.

What is on display, in the charitable version of the story, is a display of extreme entitlement that only exists in Hollywood scripts when we are talking about white men.

White teens of certain social classes would pull the same crap, and their parents (or more likely parent) would find it acceptable. But in major US cities that niche tends to be taken by minority youth.

No, I'm pretty sure that average right wingers would be shouting about the youths these days if it went viral. @fashycumgroyper1488 on twitter wouldn't, but he's one person who is not very mainstream.

If your point is that /pol/ is hypocritical, that's probably true, but the mainstream right is not /pol/.

First, I don't think it's true that if the races were swapped the right would be defending the men. Right-wingers like pregnant women and don't like selfish gangs of young men. In general, I think the left hates white people way more than the right hates black people. So you would not necessarily see a reversal of attitudes, but rather loud condemnation from the left (how dare those white privileged male privileged devils harass a proud woman of color?), and at best a muted response from the right.

Second, practically speaking, even if right-wingers would condemn the black woman in the hypothetical gender-swapped version, there is absolutely no chance in hell that right-wingers would be able to get a crying pregnant black female nurse suspended from her job for being bullied by a group of abusive white guys, and that's double true in New York City. Let me know if you disagree but I think this is such a blatantly obvious truth that it doesn't really require more elaboration.

Right now right-wingers are more indignant about the clear bias in charity shown to parties of the bike conflict, to the point that the wholly innocent party got royally screwed.

My read is that, rather than just downplay the teens' actions on the object level, in that scenario right-wingers would be busy protesting asinine federal hate crime law proposals, dealing with accusations of genocide and wrapping their minds around novel concepts like «stochastic induction of miscarriage»; and we would be fuming over twitter threads from ethnic studies Ph.Ds shoehorning that episode into some chattel slavery history crap with pregnant black mistresses forced to work in the fields.

Yes. I cant think of a single sympathetic black victim in the last decade where conservatives attacked the victim. Complaints generally were about “this isn’t representative or there is no evidence racism caused this.”

Suggesting with zero recent precedent (to my knowledge) that the right would react to support the gang of white youths seems questionable at best.

To be fair, there's been a number of "but they really did <insert minor sin here>", usually related to drugs, alcohol, or fleeing from the police. There were some conservatives and even social conservatives that handled the Arbery shooting with grace or at least recognizing uncertainty, but at the very least there were some pretty dedicated bad trolls pretending to be socons.

I'm skeptical that this particular case has the necessary ambiguity or secondary valence to this those points, though.

Agreed if 3 white guys were sitting on a bike and told a pregnant black female to get away. Well they would be looking at 10 years.

He’s not presenting a neutral version. But assuming black people have preferential treatment.

And there is a bit of - sorry I got in the news. I’m the one who posted the video.

I’ve been poor before. Sometimes the rich (this case middle class) get to go first. Wait till the next bike shows up. That’s what you have to do when your poor.

And one of the poors greatest advantages is you have the hustle they don’t.

I know it's not entirely unbiased

The article linked in the Twitter thread is entirely based on an interview they did with the kid and his mother, so I think that's putting it lightly. Unless I'm bad at Twitter and missing where they got her side of the story.

I think the narrative that they ganged up on her and tried to take her bike is accurate. If you get the last rental car but I really honestly had intended to make a reservation soon I don't get to car jack you and take it.

The kids apparently filmed it with a legitimate fear that she would turn it into "gang of teens harasses pregnant white lady."

They knew exactly what they were doing:

Michael added: “She did something wrong, and she basically got rewarded for it. She’s made over $100,000 on a GoFundMe. She got all the white conservatives on her side. Everyone who was on my side has just kind of stayed silent.”

That wasn't some legitimate fear of being demonized like this is Alabama in 1912. They immediately publicized the video and spouted all of the right code words to start an internet mob to get her fired and a nice big GoFundMe for himself.

their version is that if they'd given up the bike, one of them would have had to find some other way to get back to the Bronx

It says that the e-bikes specifically were rare. They could have made it back on another bike but would have had to pedal.

The article linked in the Twitter thread is entirely based on an interview they did with the kid and his mother, so I think that's putting it lightly. Unless I'm bad at Twitter and missing where they got her side of the story.

I haven't seen any dispute of the facts, though.

  • -23

First, you call them facts. They are claims.

Second, why would you expect dispute over a factual point where no evidence exists? The white woman was already shown to be much less powerful. It was only because she had hard evidence that she could overcome. There is no hard evidence. What value does she have of disputing without evidence the claims made of her socially more powerful opponent?

First, you call them facts. They are claims.

Very well. I have seen no dispute of their claims about the sequence of events.

You accused me of not thinking clearly, but I have no inclination to side either with a white nurse or a bunch of black teenagers. I strongly suspect I am not the one being biased by my priors.

  • -14

The fact that your priors are to treat each side as equally likely to be true demonstrates your priors are terrible.

One side are youths, already proven in the wrong (even in your story) acting in an anti-social way. To make matters worse, they belong to a group that acts anti socially more than other groups. This group also released a video intending to (and did) cause significant harm to the other side

On the other side, you have a pro social women who is pregnant and has already proven to be more truthful.

The fact that your priors are to treat each side as equally likely to be true

That is not correct.

  • -15

So what do you think the prior should be? To me, I think you need extraordinary evidence to at this point accept the black teens’ claims.

She scans (checks out) a bike one of the kids is sitting on, and tries to take it.

Wait, what? In the video don't we see the nurse sitting on the bike? How the fuck did that happen? This chain of events as given makes no sense with the video of the nurse sitting on the bike.

Unless my eyes were lying to me, I call complete bullshit.

I can think of an explanation that fits the "teens trying to take her bike" narrative, and one that fits the "she tried to take the bike" narrative. You probably can too.

  • -17

No, I literally cannot imagine a scenario where a pregnant woman successfully forces a teenaged male off a bike he doesn't want to be removed from, and takes his place. Especially not without everyone falling over in a tangled mess and getting scrapes and cuts all over their hands, elbows and knees. Probably some decent bruising as well. I especially cannot imagine such a thing happening with not just 1 teenage male present, but 5. Its not just a physical impossibility, it boggles the mind the consider the psychology of the person who thinks thats a thing they could pull off.

No, I literally cannot imagine a scenario where a pregnant woman successfully forces a teenaged male off a bike he doesn't want to be removed from

That's not the scenario I am imagining.

The scenario I am imagining is she says "Get off that bike!" and swipes her card, and the kid, not wanting to get into a shoving match with a pregnant lady or have her scream that he's sitting on a bike that she just paid for, gets off and loudly protests, as she pulls the bike out and the other kids start filming. They're all shouting at her, she freaks out, and we get the story we have now.

  • -13

You have consistently been the voice of reason. Until now. This, of all dumb culture war topics, is what got you.

Oh well, we all have our failings. Mine greater than yours on internet forums. But this one is bad.

That you think this is amazing, and rather illustrative of my initial point. I think both sides are slanting the encounter according to their own perceptions of it and neither side was wholly innocent, and the reaction from you is "My God, you actually can see both sides instead of agreeing that this is black and white, don't you know righteousness is a binary value?"

You're right, though, that this thread is a breakpoint of sorts.

  • -14

That you think this is amazing, and rather illustrative of my initial point. I think both sides are slanting the encounter according to their own perceptions of it and neither side was wholly innocent, and the reaction from you is "My God, you actually can see both sides instead of agreeing that this is black and white, don't you know righteousness is a binary value?"

You're right, though, that this thread is a breakpoint of sorts.

Unkind, uncharitable and needlessly vague. And in response to a compliment no less!

You have consistently been the voice of reason. Until now.

Nah, he apparently went through peak trans recently, but otherwise this is perfectly in character.

Being reasonable and even-handed and waiting to see the evidence is in character for me? Why thank you.

You've consistently been inaccurate in your judgments about me. (I was never on board with TWAW, for example. You see me criticizing trans ideology and think I made a heelface turn. I would gently suggest this should be reason for you to question your priors.)

You haven't posted any evidence when you said the nurse was also wrong, you posted the testimony of one of the sides of the conflict, and explicitly haven't waited for any of the evidence.

I also never said you were specifically in favor of TWAW, so I don't see what I should update.

More comments

There is no evidence here. Yet you conclude the story “basically checks out” which is the opposite of waiting for evidence; it is seeking a particular outcome despite the story still not really making much sense and requiring some inferences that seem likely.

And the story isn’t exculpatory so seems entirely pointless to commit to a story that is at best irrelevant.

Nah, he apparently went through peak trans recently, but otherwise this is perfectly in character.

Although the mod team is, in general, comparatively thick-skinned, this is still not the sort of response we ever, ever want to see here in the Motte. It is low effort and antagonistic, all heat and no light, sweeping where it should be specific (the fuck is "peak trans" in this context?) and specific (i.e. personal) where it should be more sweeping.

This is a bad comment. Don't post like this.

You have consistently been the voice of reason.

Not the voice of reason. The voice of neutrality. These are often confused for each other, but the truth does NOT always lie in the middle.

Maybe (seems unlikely) but even so who gives a fuck? It wasn’t his bike.

More likely:

He was doing some other stupid activity in the vicinity of the bike, not paying much attention because he has a low attention span, as teens do.

She swipes the bike, gets on, he and his company run over to stop her.

That is the charitable take that is mildly plausible. But he's still a criminal in that scenario.

A shame they weren't as smart as you to come up with a more plausible story.

if they'd given up the bike, one of them would have had to find some other way to get back to the Bronx).

There are hundreds of locations all over the city. Their inconvenience is walking to the next closest location and getting a bike there. Seems like a pretty minimal cost to me, if they want to avoid even that they can pay for a ride like everyone else who wishes to use the bike for longer than the free ride time. They're 100% in the wrong and the nurse is 100% in the right.

Human coexistence is vitally dependent on common sense, understanding of the spirit of the community that is imperfectly captured by instructions, guidelines and laws. At its innermost core, it is something like the Golden Rule and the maxim to not squander the commons; but it's ineffable and complex.

I don't care much for formal rules and am extremely sympathetic to small system exploits like that – so long as they do not substantially interfere with the welfare of anyone who tries to use the system legitimately, and who is willing to invest into it. Squatting on rent bikes is maybe okay if you are competing with frivolous riders who will say «eh» and walk another block. If there is a motivated user who needs it and especially has already paid – give up and screw off, pronto. This kind of understanding is not obvious for everyone, which is why we need to legibly codify rules even for very small things like bike renting etiquette. But it should be recalled when we find ourselves excusing their habitual flouting that goes wrong.

In my experience most things that should be legally formalized already are. Generally formal rules and instructions help peaceful orderly folk that just want to live their lifes in society, while informal honor and moral codes often used by violent быдло/riffraff to justify their dysfunctions and rule-breaking. Consequences from their actions are then felt by everyone, in self-checkout monitoring or likely cancelation of 45min free riding policy.

Imagine you're riding home on the train, you're tired, and you need a seat. You spot an empty seat, but there's a guy standing next to it who stops you from claiming the seat. The guy says he's already called dibs on the seat, even though he got up from the seat 40 minutes ago, and has been hanging around for 40 minutes not using the seat, but also not allowing anyone else to have the seat because he might feel like sitting down again. Would you consider this reasonable behavior, or would you call the guy a cunt? What would you call him if you were elderly, or pregnant? How long do you have to wait until it's no longer "his seat"?

I'm familiar with Darrell Owens from rw twitter hatereading his Substack, and his reasonable summary is predictably just an extension of his belief that black people are the protagonists of America, with everyone else existing only to accommodate them. He's from San Francisco, and back when there was a spate of black people assaulting and even murdering Asian women and elders on the streets of SF, he wrote a Substack explaining that Asians need to understand how angry black people are about immigrants gentrifying SF and voting against progressive politics. He's not a serious person. He's a "black intellectual", and like most black intellectuals, his intellectualism takes the form of projecting his own beliefs onto the actions and motivations of low-IQ lumpenproles who are often simply acting out of malice and entitlement rather than any political convictions.

Based on this explanation, the kids were 100% in the wrong, and the nurse 100% in the right. They might not have been trying to steal her bike and make her pay the lost fee, but they were still entirely at fault for the whole interaction.

The entire point of public bikes is that anyone can reserve them. When the kids returned the bikes they no longer had a claim on them and the nurse had every right to try to rent one for her own use. That she was pregnant and came off a 12 hour shift doesn't even have anything to do with it: the boys had not rented any of the bikes, and did not want to rent any of them at this moment, which meant they had absolutely no justification for stopping the nurse from renting one.

their version is that if they'd given up the bike, one of them would have had to find some other way to get back to the Bronx

This is a pitiful excuse. First, that's not her problem in the least. Second, this has an obvious solution: the final guy just waits until someone else returns another bike.

Even if you accepted that there were only X bikes and X+1 people needing to get home. Shouldn't one of the healthy able-bodied teenage boys walk home rather than the obviously heavily-pregnant nurse?

In conclusion, according to your version of the story, the boys were selfishly abusing the system. This is why we can't have nice things: assholes want to benefit from the system (free rides), but don't want to play by its rules (after a certain amount of time, you either start paying or return the bike so someone else can rent it).

In conclusion, according to your version of the story

This is my interpretation of the story they are presenting. I am not trying to construct my own narrative.

  • -18

I'm not accusing you of fabricating anything. I'm just saying I find your conclusion baffling, according to the facts as you present them.

I don't think there's anything at all wrong with what she did. If they really needed the bike, they could have paid for it, including paying her to give up the bike she rightfully rented. They were deliberately circumventing the intention of the free period limit - why is there any free period at all by the way? - so I don't see why they should feel entitled to the bikes. They're trying to do something the system is clearly designed to not allow them to do.

I don't think we need to play sympathy games to figure out who deserves the bike more based on pregnancy status, sex, age, race, tiredness, or who got there first. We have a system for allocating the bikes and she followed that system to get the bike over someone who was trying to exploit the system to get something for free. We also have an even older and better established system for getting something that legally belongs to someone else. It's called trade. You can pay for something with money.

I agree that the narrative that they ganged up on her to take a bike that was already in her possession is false, but she is still completely in the right.

why is there any free period at all by the way?

Its basically a social justice program of sorts. Or welfare. Or a combination of the two. Basically if you are poor you can get a special Citi membership that works that way.

All Citibike annual memberships allow a free period; the reduced price program is just cheaper (both the annual fee and the per-minute fee if you go over the free period).

Yeah it mentions that his immigrant parents are on welfare and that's why he gets the cheap rides.

They were squatting on the electric bikes, trying to bilk the system to get free rides, and you don't think they were in the wrong?

They filmed for posterity and posted it in order to gin up an outrage mob, and you don't think they were in the wrong?

That said, deciding "Screw you, I'm taking your that bike anyway, get off" wasn't great behavior on her part, even if legally justified.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this behavior. If they didn't want to give up that bike (not theirs), then they should have paid for it.

the narrative that's basically portrayed them as ganging up on her and trying to steal her bike appears to be inaccurate.

They were ganging up on her, and trying to intimidate her into letting them continue to squat on the electric bikes. I don't see how that portrayal is inaccurate. I also don't see how this is supposed to be exculpatory for the teenagers. They wanted to cheat the system, someone didn't want to let them cheat the system, and so they intimidated her, harassed her, then recorded it out of context, released the video, and cost her her job and shamed her publicly. The woman literally did nothing wrong and deserved none of this.

I think this is a better explanation than that twitter thread.

If they didn't want to give up that bike (not theirs), then they should have paid for it.

If you believe in this legalistic tripe then the whole edifice of decorum collapses, and I think decorum is good. If someone was standing at a bus stop in the rain, person A asked if they could stand under person B's umbrella would 'if they wanted an umbrella they can pay for their own' be an appropriate response? It's ironic that people complain a lot about low-trust society here but as soon as it's black teens and a white woman it's all 'well technically she paid for the bike so she has zero obligation to act in polite and accommodating manner'.

  • -28

What system of decorum doesn't favor a visibly pregnant woman over a youthful male in choosing one of the two to rest their feet?

Not really relevant as that's not what the comment said. I agree the kids should have given the bike up (though I think the woman was still in the wrong for her subsequent actions), given that she is pregnant, but not on the grounds that the comment above suggested.

  • -13

Nobody said that what the teens did isn't a violation of decorum. As I have repeatedly pointed out, it's possible for both parties to be in the wrong.

  • -13

They were squatting on the electric bikes, trying to bilk the system to get free rides, and you don't think they were in the wrong?

I said I think they were in the wrong. I don't think they were trying to steal her bike or assaulting her.

  • -18

She rented it, it was her bike, they were trying to intimidate her into letting them use it for free after the system decided that no one wanted to use it.

There's also a narrative that she was stealing the bike. Why ignore that?

It seems like you're trying to justify a pretty poor reaction by a lot of people.

You said both sides were wrong. I don't see how the pregnant lady is anything other than entirely blameless

There is a pathological need for some people to find “nuance” or “both sides” any dispute.

There is a pathological need for some people to find “nuance” or “both sides” any dispute.

At least when it appears the side they favor is in the wrong, anyway.

Because at worst she's objecting to people engaging in antisocial behavior.

Exactly. She wasn't agreeable and submissive but that doesn't mean she did anything wrong

Some say people who game the system like this actually deserve to have the bike taken more.

Burning man has a set of free use bikes called “yellow bikes”. They’re just left around the city and wherever they are you can take them and ride them.

Some people will take them and try to reserve them for themselves by hiding them, locking them to their friends bikes, or decorating them in a way that disguised their status as a free, community use bike meant for eveyone.

Every year it is considered good sport to spend some time hunting for these bikes and punishing the people that do this.

My favorite is when I find that they’ve locked a yellow bike to their friends bike, to pick up both, and move them somewhere else, not so far that the owners will never find it, but far enough to cause them some panic. Others are if somebody leaves one of these bikes in their camp to loudly and publicly take it back and put it in the street, hopefully shaming the camp along the way.

Somehow burners, often some of the most entitled people on earth, can figure out the concept of a shared resource, and figure out that the people abusing it should be punished, but the people reading this story can’t?

These kids should be getting fucked with for abusing the system. Not only is the pregnant lady in the right to take a bike she simply paid for. She’s also in the right for doing it to these kids, who are effectively acting as thieves.

I encourage anybody who sees people abusing a public resource like this to act like pregnant lady.

Edit: the more I think about this the more angry it makes me. A normal person, the type of person I grew up with, not only wouldn’t bully a pregnant lady, they would get off of their bike and give it to her, even if it cost them money, simply because she is pregnant.

What level of anti social behavior are we at where anybody is defending these kids? I don’t even care if the most charitable version of their story is true. Get off your bike and give it to the pregnant woman you idiot. We are trying to have a society over here.

I would agree with this were it not for the fact that, so I am told, such behaviour is a widely accepted part of New York bike culture. If a rule like that (i.e. a 'first come first served' principle where if you get a bike out you can keep redocking as you like until you're finished) has been broadly established among most users, as it seems, conversely, it has not in the place you cite, then it seems perverse to lay blame on anyone conforming to the widely accepted rule. This also doesn't seem nearly as bad as the stuff you cite, since those people are clearly trying to just keep the bike for themselves semi-permanently even when they're not using it, whereas these chaps it seems were just keeping it for the time they were using it, albeit longer that the technical limit.

  • -11

What if that's a rule that is established and tolerated in some cultures but not others? How do we decide who is right?

this is the best summary of how the citibike system works from a new yorker:

https://twitter.com/adamnewyork/status/1661905991829536768

so basically they were waiting for someone to take the last regular non-electric bike so they could get another free 45 minute rental, and guarding their 'own' bike, which is generally considered a dick move.

If we're not embracing full cultural relativism there must be a line somewhere beyond which certain things are unacceptable even if they are part of some group's culture. Jumping the subway turnstiles in New York or shoplifting in San Francisco are actions that are widespread and largely overlooked and while it would be personally unwise if an individual attempted to stop someone doing those things (in the same way it may have been unwise in this case for the pregnant woman to press the issue of these teenagers camping on the rental bikes), I think society would be better off if instances of antisocial behavior were challenged by citizens when the authorities are unable or unwilling to intervene.

4. She scans (checks out) a bike one of the kids is sitting on, and tries to take it.

When the video starts, she's sitting on the bike. How, exactly, did she dislodge the teenager and get on the bike herself?

The fallacy of gray is in full effect here.


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