inhahe · 5 answers · 9mo
I wanted to answer this question by Sleet (@STREAMER), but Retrospring seems to be having issues and the question won't load, so I'm going to post it myself and see if I can answer it.
₊˚⊹ — Do you feel as though you could be (reasonably or not) targeted for something like a ‘call out’? If so, would people believe it?
Now, I’m not inviting you to talk about your ‘’’hot takes’’’, or controversial opinions. Firstly because I don’t really care (I would still read it if you spoke about it, to be honest) but secondly because it isn’t exactly what I’m trying to convey with the question.
Okay so I may have slightly deceived you. I have a secret second question that I’d much prefer you try to answer; a hypothetical scenario!
If someone were to write a call out about you—COMPLETELY false—would people believe it naturally?
Would your answer change depending on specific variables? Does it matter who wrote it? Does it matter what the accusation is (take it as something pretty serious)?
And maybe an interesting follow up: do you think you would be able to defend yourself with skill? Would people believe you after hearing your side?
Do you maybe have experience with this in the past?
(Do you think you deserve any false accusations?) —
This may seem a bit much, so my bad… but for those of you who always answer my questions, with a lot of thought and effort, who at least seem to have fun with it—I look towards your answers.
I'm not a part of the Retrospring culture that does callouts, I've only seen them once or twice and didn't know they were an actual thing until this question. I'm oldschool Retrospring, we're pretty chill and drama-free. And I don't really engage in problematic behavior, except some things that may be slightly problematic once in a while. So I'm unlikely to be called out by anyone, but I can't say it's impossible because you never know what people are going to do, people can be erratic and unreasonable.
If it happened, I'm assuming some people would believe it, just because that's the nature of drama, gossip, and cancel culture. Those who have actually been following me for a long time may not, but maybe some would, I'm not sure. And those people probably wouldn't be following the type of people who would do a callout anyway.
Would it depend on what the accusation is? I'd say of course it would, or at least of course it would for some/most people, but I can't really think of any examples. It would probably depend on who wrote it, specifically on whether they know and trust that person. Or maybe if the accusation included actual quotes, they'd figure the person wouldn't likely have made them up? But if there were actual quotes, they should be available for all to see, so the person should have included links. Unless I they're talking about things that happened off Retrospring, but I don't know any Retrospringers on any other sites, except for a couple on Facebook, who I never interact with there. But I guess somebody could make something up about things I said on another site, or could conceivably misidentify me as them.
To whether I could defend myself with skill, I'm pretty good at writing and expressing or defending myself, but I'm not sure there would be any possible way to prove or be convincing that I didn't do those things so I'm not sure it would matter. If the meaning, intentions or context of what I said was misconstrued or spun, though, I would be able to effectively articulate the misunderstanding. Well, it's more certain that I'd be able to if it were misconstrued than if it were a spin, but I still would probably would be able to in the case of a spin.
I don't really have any experience with being called out in the past. One person on Retrospring did accuse me of something very taboo that people tend to be hysterical about, and I think the label was exaggerated/misleading, but it was just as a weapon to use in the course of argument, not an elaborate call-out for its own sake, and nobody else responded to it and it was deep in the comments so probably hardly anyone saw it. It was also made by someone who was widely regarded as emotionally imbalanced and combative.
To the last question, of whether I think I deserve any false accusations, that's a rather weird question. Why would anyone deserve any false accusations? False accusations are practically unjust by definition. The only possible argument i-is if they did other bad things that they went unpunished for, but then they should have been punished for those things, not the thing they didn't do. I don't think any type of misinformation is ultimately healthy.
There's also the possibility that the person just has low self-esteem/hates themselves so they think bad things should happen to them, but even in that case I think they'd be unlikely to wish for an injustice/misunderstanding. They'd have to be pretty masochistic in a broad/flexible (or oddly specific and unlikely) way. Which may be remotely possible, but no, it doesn't apply to me.
