Gandhi News Corp Reports: Longtime Moderator Resigns in Protest, Citing 'Indefensible Double Standard'
It was a solemn Saturday afternoon. Longtime Sherdog moderator
@Lead was wiping streaks of eyeliner from his cheek as he tried to pass off a stony resolve.
"Cut my wrists and black my eyes! So I can fall asleep tonight! (or die!)" echoed through the master bathroom. His Sherdog career had afforded him the luxury of a master bathroom and primping station. It had afforded him a lifestyle he could never have imagined when he was a shy, sexy 19 year-old barista. But as he whisked away the chop-cut bangs from his face, he knew his time at Sherdog needed to end.
He arrived at the coffee shop nearly thirty minutes late. He looked frazzled as he entered the revolving door, caught his breath, and unbuttoned his pea coat. As he removed his coat, he unveiled shocking, crystalline nipples showing through his v-neck tee shirt. I averted my gaze but couldn't help but wonder why he didn't wear shirts that were less tight if his nipples were prone to standing at such attention. As it were, I felt as if I was sitting down to interview Jennifer Anniston circa-2001.
"It just got out of hand," he began. "We didn't want to seem as if we were playing favorites. A moderator booth is no place for ideologues or partisans."
Lead was in denial of the fact that he was, though, an ideologue of sort. His ideology was one of false equivalency. He was sure of the fact that politics did not define a person: their intelligence, their cordiality, or their honesty. He was therefore sure that the rules could be levied in an equal way and that enforcement would be equal across the political community that he oversaw.
"We were naïve...we were just so fucking naïve," he recollects with regret and a tinge of anger accompanying his words.
As he sips on his double shot extra foam gingerbread soy latte, it's hard to know whether it's the thick steam rising from the cup or the harsh realizations of lost idealism that bring about a teary glaze over his eyes.
"We thought we were going to change the world," he says. "We were going to manage the public conversation in a way that was truly nonpartisan and usher in a new era of discourse: one that heightened civility and reason regardless of petty politics. It wasn't about political gamesmanship or our own egos."
He soon after realized that his colleagues were less self-scrutinizing than he was. He recalls moderator firebrand Madmick instantly banning three posters for making fun of Mick's micropenis. In reality, they had been talking about shrunken GDP, and Mick had jumped the gun. Lead tried to advocate on their behalf and clarify that the posters were not pointing and laughing at Mick's adorable genitals. But his pleas fell on deaf ears.
However, the occasional moderator tantrum or vendetta aside, he remained resolved in his bothsidesist charter.
Then Trump happened.
Although, if he had been honest with himself, right-wing posters had always been less rational and more prone to flagrant rule-breaking, the Trump era brought a whole new wave of derp. Conservative posters regularly spammed threads with throwaway partisan buzz phrases like "TDS," "Orange Man Bad," or "nothingburger." And those were the good ones. The rest of them, invigorated by having a coarse and proudly ignorant would-be authoritarian in office, focused their posts on some of their president's favorite subjects: immigrants, racial minorities, and violence against liberals.
The best among the forum Trumpers merely regurgitated baseless conspiracy theories about marginalized groups and political enemies. The worst, however, openly called for their slaughter.
Although the now-unsuppressed furor on the right did result in some increases in incivility on the left, the changes between the two sides were completely asymmetrical. Soon, in an effort to keep enforcement numbers relatively equal amid clearly unequal trends in behavior, Lead found himself and his mod brethren censuring left-wing posters for minor offenses like not saying "please," while dozens of right-wing posters were permitted to refer to Muslims as invasive species, employ toxic racial stereotypes, and call for the slaughter of ethnic groups.
As he scrambled for solid footing, he turned to a man that he'd always looked up to. The man's name was Ruprecht.
"I looked up to him. He was wise, stern, and, it seemed at times, profound." He pauses, his eyes making contact with mine for a few moments. "I thought of his as a father figure. Or a grandfather figure. Well, but not my own grandfather. My grandpa is hilarious. Ruprecht was humorless. You ever see the Lion King? You know the crazy baboon who becomes the mentor of Simba? Okay, think like the opposite of that." He begins to chuckle to himself. "I remember one time when all the mods got together to watch Borat. Most of us were howling. I looked over to Ruprecht. He appeared as if holding in a risky fart. I asked him if he was enjoying the movie. 'That accent is utterly unbelievable,' he responded. 'You know Pamela Anderson has fake breasts, right?' I sheepishly nodded and returned to watching the movie."
"In the end, he wasn't the man I thought he was," he dejectedly concludes. "Ultimately, Ruprecht wasn't interested in whether our regime was being honest."
Then came the straw that broke the camel's back.
The banning of
@Fawlty.
"It wasn't right." he begins. Fawlty did nothing wrong. We have posters here doxxing each other and calling political figures pedophiles...and they ban him for that? A long-time fixture in the community? For saying that banging Thai prostitutes might pay into exploitative industry practices? It was absurd!" His voice has at this point risen to a holler. He recomposes himself.
"Ultimately, I just had to get out of there. It's not that the revolution was betrayed. It's worse. The revolution was rotten at its core. We thought we were creating a system of equality, but we failed to entertain the possibility that not all posters are equal. Ultimately, we created an indefensible double standard."
I ask him what is the next stop in his journey.
"Well, that's the exactly it. Journey."
I anticipate where he's going with his words: that the journey is now the point and that lofty goals and idealistic endeavors are now behind him.
"No," he interjects. "I'm just going to listen to a lot of Journey."
An awkward pause.
