Social Media and Behind the Scenes: AKA Everything Else Not "News and Media"

[Ruby25]

I shudder to think what his wife and/or her family members have been saying about this all day before he felt the need to tweet about it. I'm sure they're the reason he decided to feel passionate about defending white Texans, so imagine the kind of opinions he's been hearing from them. And since he's Canadian anyway, he's probably just allying himself with her and the in-laws, so this may even tell us more about the kind of people they are than it does him actually! Unfortunately.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Ruby25

[TanyaKay]

Stephen probably asked his father in law to deactivate his Facebook because his profile has now vanished.

By the way that comment was made over a year ago. What makes that Nazi DNA comment ten times worse was the fact that a black acquaintance made a comment on father in law's photo with Stephen's daughter and said that she is cute and looks a lot like him (the father in law Papa Whitehead). Instead of responding with a simple thank you, he preened to a Black woman about his Nazi DNA. What a swell guy. If I was Amell, I would have grabbed my child and ran far away from Grand Pa Whitehead.

[dtissagirl]

 

Its really challenging to to express thoughts on a rather delicate & complicated situation in 140 characters with absolute strangers.

 

"I stand with Ahmed" is really not hard to type. 

 

I'm not saying you're doing it -- not at all -- but I've seen so much of this in defending Stephen -- this idea of "oh my gosh, Twitter is soooooo hard", and then blame the 140 character restriction, or the whole platform, for misunderstanding of intentions. Just. No. Hundreds of thousands of people every day use Twitter to engage in eloquent social justice discussion. Just as hundreds of thousands are intentionally and unintentionally assholic jerkwads within the same 140 character restraint.

 

Stephen didn't mean to be offensive. I believe that. I also understood exactly what he meant in the first Tweet -- I just  disagree with what he meant to say. And found it extremely offensive. He also showed himself to be completely uneducated in white privilege, and Islamophobia, and he seems to not grasp what racial profiling means at all. Those are his problems. Not Twitter's.

 

...

 

I'm just so bummed out about this. Gah. It's gonna take effort to not let this affect my excitement for the show.

[Serena]

Three weeks from S4 premiere, too. Bad timing.

Honestly, what the school and police did in that case was so obviously egregiously wrong I have no idea why SA didn't just keep his mouth shut.

Yeah. And if he really wanted to say something about #NOTALLTEXANS, there were ways to do that that didn't diminish what the boy went through, like "What happened to him is horrible. I know my Texan wife and friends feel really bad and embarassed. If you ever want to come by the set of Arrow, we'll show you some true Texan and Canadian hospitality [etc]" or some crap like that.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Serena

[kismet]

"I stand with Ahmed" is really not hard to type. 

 

I'm not saying you're doing it -- not at all -- but I've seen so much of this in defending Stephen -- this idea of "oh my gosh, Twitter is soooooo hard", and then blame the 140 character restriction, or the whole platform, for misunderstanding of intentions. Just. No. Hundreds of thousands of people every day use Twitter to engage in eloquent social justice discussion. Just as hundreds of thousands are intentionally and unintentionally assholic jerkwads within the same 140 character restraint.

 

Stephen didn't mean to be offensive. I believe that. I also understood exactly what he meant in the first Tweet -- I just  disagree with what he meant to say. And found it extremely offensive. He also showed himself to be completely uneducated in white privilege, and Islamophobia, and he seems to not grasp what racial profiling means at all. Those are his problems. Not Twitter's.

 

...

 

I'm just so bummed out about this. Gah. It's gonna take effort to not let this affect my excitement for the show.

I think you misunderstood my point. I wasn't trying to defend anything the SA said or did. I was trying to express that twitter & 140 characters is not the best platform to discuss one's opinions on such poignant issues that require more in depth analysis & sensitivity. It's just a horrible platform, where stuff can be easily take out of context or blown out of proportion. Likewise, it can also be used intentionally to incite a response. But most of the time its just a breeding ground for miscommunication. There are some eloquent/savvy people on Twitter regarding social issues, but that is the minority - not the norm. And SA has never been one of the more savvy twitter users.

 

Honestly, my point was that topics of this nature should be kept off of celebrity twitter. It is not a place that easily lends itself to education or tolerance. It brings awareness, but that can be a double edged sword depending upon how it is used. Personally, I am disappointed in what & how SA said it. He is free to have his opinion, but he should be more savvy about how he promotes his opinions and receptive to others opinions. He is a public figure and his words carry weight. He should have been smarter and found a better way to express his ideas. Or better yet, keep them to his personal circle. I also think twitter is just a horrible medium for him because it reveals a lot of his communication weaknesses. But my post was not intended to be a support of him, just a recognition of some of the inherent flaws of twitter. But you're right the thoughts are all his own, regardless of the medium he chose to express them on. At the end of the day, he chose the wrong medium & revealed some uneducated viewpoints.

Edited September 17, 2015 by kismet

[dtissagirl]

I think you misunderstood my point. I wasn't trying to defend anything the SA said or did. I was trying to express that twitter & 140 characters is not the best platform to discuss one's opinions on such poignant issues that require more in depth analysis & sensitivity. It's just a horrible platform, where stuff can be easily take out of context or blown out of proportion.

No, I understood this is what you were saying. I just completely disagree with that view of Twitter. I disagree that it's a horrible platform, and I REALLY disagree that 140 characters cannot be used to discuss complicated issues in-depth and with sensitivity. I do agree that Stephen Amell specifically cannot do that, but again, his problem, not the platform's.

 

I'm gonna disengage from this discussion now.

[kismet]

No, I understood this is what you were saying. I just completely disagree with that view of Twitter. I disagree that it's a horrible platform, and I REALLY disagree that 140 characters cannot be used to discuss complicated issues in-depth and with sensitivity. I do agree that Stephen Amell specifically cannot do that, but again, his problem, not the platform's.

 

I'm gonna disengage from this discussion now.

Fair enough. I worked all night, so I am exhausted. I wasn't trying to convince you to change your opinions on twitter or negatively engage with you. I just felt that my sentence was being taken out of context so I just wanted to clarify it. We each have our own opinions & experiences regarding twitter, and that is fine. I'm glad that we both can agree the SA specifically cannot use Twitter well.

[EmeraldArcher]

No, I understood this is what you were saying. I just completely disagree with that view of Twitter. I disagree that it's a horrible platform, and I REALLY disagree that 140 characters cannot be used to discuss complicated issues in-depth and with sensitivity. I do agree that Stephen Amell specifically cannot do that, but again, his problem, not the platform's.

 

I'm gonna disengage from this discussion now.

Any medium can be used to make a statement or show support: Twitter, Facebook, T-shirts, buttons, graffiti on walls, ball caps. It sometimes takes only one word to be on the right side of an issue. Yes, I believe that there can be only one right side when supporting equitable treatment of historically disenfranchised or maligned groups of people. Profiling denies people their individuality and reduces them to their genetic heritage.

I'm not trying to drag you back in to the conversation, dtissagirl, but wanted to contribute to the discussion.

[apinknightmare]

Yeah, 1 out of his 8 or however many tweets could've easily been, "Please explain to me why I'm wrong," when he saw he had created a stir instead of IF YOU'RE OUTRAGED YOU'RE JUST BORED. Which is funny because he was obviously outraged about the hurt feels of his good people Texan frands, instead of the part of that story that actually deserves outrage, which is what started this whole mess in the first place. 

 

He had the potential to engage people in a good way, but he chose to be an asshat instead. I understand now why he loves Facebook so much though, because all the top comments are people kissing his ass, while a large majority of his @ replies are...not. 

Edited September 17, 2015 by apinknightmare

[Carrie Ann]

Yeah, in this instance, the 140-character thing doesn't wash for me because it wasn't just one tweet. He didn't just drop that first false equivalence bomb and then leave for a few hours and come back to a mess he didn't know how to clean up. That, I probably would have been more sympathetic to. It's the following dozen tweets and replies and RTs that showed the depths of his ignorance and worse, that that ignorance is willful. It was the attitude--that if people are "outraged about an opinion, they must be bored." Way to dismiss hurt and disappointment as outrage, pal!

 

He has yet to show himself open to learning something from this, other than your standard-issue white dude "People are too easily offended!!!" lesson. I hope to hear something different from him in the coming weeks, but I'm not holding my breath.

[AyChihuahua]

Stephen probably asked his father in law to deactivate his Facebook because his profile has now vanished.

By the way that comment was made over a year ago. What makes that Nazi DNA comment ten times worse was the fact that a black acquaintance made a comment on father in law's photo with Stephen's daughter and said that she is cute and looks a lot like him (the father in law Papa Whitehead). Instead of responding with a simple thank you, he preened to a Black woman about his Nazi DNA. What a swell guy. If I was Amell, I would have grabbed my child and ran far away from Grand Pa Whitehead.

Holy crap, that is terrible!

 

I was thinking about this this morning, and I'm also pretty annoyed by his whole "I've been to Texas and have had only great experiences meeting nice people."  Um, dude, you're a wealthy, famous, handsome white guy.  Is it really beyond your ken that maybe your experience is not the same as everyone else's experience?  That's not even a Texas thing; that's an everywhere thing. 

 

And, this was a really dumb hill for him to choose to die on.  This particular story is not nuanced.  The kid did absolutely nothing wrong.  By all accounts he was perfectly respectful (MUCH more than I would have been), and he consistently stated that it was a clock.  He showed initiative, intelligence, and imagination building it.  He looks fantastic in this story, and the school and police absolutely, utterly terrible.  And that's from what the police themselves have said, for example they kept saying he wouldn't tell them the purpose of the clock and that's partly why they arrested him.  I cannot begin to comprehend the depths of stupidity inherent in that question.  SA should have either tweeted support and then dropped it or just kept his mouth (fingers) shut entirely. 

Edited September 17, 2015 by AyChihuahua

[tv echo]

Olicity fans managed to trend #BestOfOlicity in the U.S.A. and Brazil on Sept. 16th...

 

https://twitter.com/OlicityMafia/status/644256634781368321

[Velocity23]

TV Line helped also ROFL

[Delphi]

Tough to be bothered when your daughter spends 25 minutes meticulously arranging a nap for her 11 favorite stuffed animals.

Stephen didn't stay gone long.

[apinknightmare]

Hmmm...condescending asshat combined with calculated cuteness. A combo you rarely see. 

[Guest]

'Tough to be bothered...'

 

Oh, Stephen. 

[apinknightmare]

He's doing a Q&A on Facebook.

 

Hold me.

[lemotomato]

I guess that's his safest option since there are more than enough people on his FB page that are condoning his asshattery so he feels he can just sweep it all under the rug.

Edited September 17, 2015 by lemotomato

[dtissagirl]

Dammit, Steve, stop ruining it.

[Guest]

Wow. This break from social media lasted all of twelve hours. I'm frozen with shock. 

[Sakura12]

Hasn't he broken up with Twitter and Facebook multiple times now? He can't stay away.

[apinknightmare]

Well, that's the tiniest crumb of...something, I guess.

 

ETA: Nevermind, I read a later response that ruined it, haha.

 

Edited September 17, 2015 by apinknightmare

[AyChihuahua]

People are mostly just kissing his butt or saying they're excited for S4.  Very few actual questions.

[HighHopes]

Some of his replies if anyone is interested: 

 

 

[apinknightmare]

I LOLed at his comment about hating when people announce breaks from social media. He does that...um....all the time? 

[Guest]

I'm...I've actually had enough of him. 

[HighHopes]

And another one. He really should have just stayed away for a few days. 

 

[calliope1975]

I'm of the opinion he should just stop. Right now. He doesn't seem to understand why people had legitimate issues with what he said. His supporters are going to back him up, and those disappointed are just going to become more so. 

 

I'll just back away slowly, go back to fanfic, and hope Felicity has some awesome story lines this year. How many weeks left? Three? Oh boy.

[apinknightmare]

His latest tweet. Please take a longer break. Please.

[dtissagirl]

"Shit happens". Are you fucking kidding me? I'm back to HULKSMASH now.

[wonderwall]

Apparently his publicist is taking a vacation? Okay then. 

 

I'm going to go back into my little cave and wait till the season premier. 

 

I also hope he actually responds to people who have legit concerns and not hte people who are kissing his ass

[rainydawn]

I don't think that coming back this quickly is the smartest move. He doesn't understand why people are upset and why they have a right to be, he doesn't want to. He’s choosing ignorance over education and that's just sad to me and it upset me.

Edited September 17, 2015 by rainydawn

[Guest]

I think some people have been using this to hate on SA for the wrong reasons. There's been a lot of agenda hate going on. I noticed that from some comments on that ONTD article. Just pathetic and they should be ashamed of themselves. 

 

But most people have a very valid reason to dislike what he said yesterday and the fact that he's just dismissing it and blaming Twitter instead of owning up to his actions is just. I cannot with him right now. I think I'm angrier now than I was yesterday because he just doesn't get it. But that's entitlement and privilege for you, I guess. *Disappointed*

[SonofaBiscuit]

He sure seems to have a lot of disdain for the Twitter folks, doesn't he?  He actually seems to believe that it's just "bored" people on Twitter making an issue out of what he said, and the same never would have happened if he had posted his initial comment anywhere BUT Twitter.  Blech.

Edited September 18, 2015 by SonofaBiscuit

[Guest]

I also hope he actually responds to people who have legit concerns and not hte people who are kissing his ass

 

No, he's not. I made the mistake of reading some of his replies and it's basically all 'SA we love you! What charity do you support? You didn't do anything wrong? Come visit us in Brazil!' 

 

No wonder he likes Facebook. He's getting all the support and validation he needs.

 

I'm gonna sound like Mr Knightly to Emma here but BADLY DONE, STEPHEN.

[apinknightmare]

Yeah, Twitter is so not the issue. I can see why he thinks he could express something like that on Facebook though, 99% of those people are kissing his ass. 

[catrox14]

Ugh. Stephen.  I feel like he has this blind spot about what the issue is here. I imagine he's getting a lot of heat from the network about this. I feel like he's channeling Oliver in his stubbornness here. 

 

He was on the right track with the first part of his comments on FB and then derailed the whole thing again.

 

Stephen. No. It's not about being "mad" at you. Sigh. :(

. I'm Canadian for goodness sakes. If you can stay mad at me when I clearly didn't have malicious intentions you're the same type of person who doesn't smile at puppies when you walk by them on the street. A wise man once said and I'm paraphrasing: The minute you realize you can't make everyone happy, your life will get much, much better.

 

[Belinea]

Well, I actually thought they'd make him stay off social media for a short period of time. But then again, I doubt he is a person who likes to be told what to do. He seems like a nice enough person but he also seems very aware of himself. He comes across to me as somewhat egocentric and therefore he does not feel the need to question himself. I think he even said somewhere that he is right almost all the time. I assume he also followed the coverage of that incident closely and a lot of people agree with the fact that he can say what he thinks. I doubt he wants this kind of attention either way. (The comments on ONTD are also filled with rumors about him as a person and his personal life as a result) 

 

In my opinion, he can speak his mind but he should then be able to understand the deeper issue. 

[Serena]

If you can stay mad at me when I clearly didn't have malicious intentions you're the same type of person who doesn't smile at puppies when you walk by them on the street.

That is so freaking tone deaf. He still hasn't learned why people were mad yesterday, hasn't he? Ridiculous. 

 

And yes, some people on ONTD were just waiting for him to screw up because they're gleeful about taking people down. But people here are, or used to be, fans of his. They really WANT him to understand what he did wrong. But I'm starting to think he never will. He just can't FANTHOM what's it like being racially profiled (it just came out that Ahmed's sister was suspended from school for 3 days because a classmate claimed she wanted to blow up the school!). It's just so outside of his experience, he thinks people saying "Texas is racist" is the same thing. He is THE definition of #NotAllMen

[BumpSetSpike]

When I read those comments he just made, all I could muster to say was "Oh Stephen..." (with a head shaking back and forth followed by a face palm).

[kismet]

I'm gonna sound like Mr Knightly to Emma here but BADLY DONE, STEPHEN.

Nicely worded. OQ is full throttle Emma trying to perhaps make things better but only making them worse because he is completely oblivious to what the problem was in the first place. Twitter is not the problem. People's responses are not the problem. He needs to step out of his ego, and see the bigger picture. He made offensive comments that hurt people. He spoke without really thinking about the power of his words. He recognizes this early on in his FB posts. He said his piece then & now. He should make amends and back away. He is rubbernecking his own verbal trainwreck which is only making it worse- its getting rather sad. Somebody needs to stop him, or better yet he should learn some self-restraint. He is only exacerbating the situation. Step away from the social media, please.

[catrox14]

I will say this.  I don't like that he's being labeled a racist over this. Because I don't think that's true. Blind to the way it came across? Yes. Blind to the idea that Texas has it's problems? Sure.  But racist? No. I don't think that's the case.

[apinknightmare]

Yeah, I don't think he's a racist at all. He's just willfully ignorant and completely oblivious of his privilege. He'd go a long way if he tried to correct some of that or at least legit acted as humbled as he seemed in that video last night. 

[Serena]

I will say this.  I don't like that he's being labeled a racist over this. Because I don't think that's true. Blind to the way it came across? Yes. Blind to the idea that Texas has it's problems? Sure.  But racist? No. I don't think that's the case.

Okay, but there are different "levels" of racist. Nobody thinks he's gonna go out and punch the first black person he sees. I'm sure he's perfectly lovely with fans of all races at cons and various gatherings. But he has zero empathy for the fact that he has a huge privilege, and thinks stereotyping Texans is the same as profiling Muslims in America. He literally said they're two comparable "wrongs". They're not. The first may not feel nice (but hey, maybe his Nazi DNA-having FIL may think it's a compliment?) but will totally not impact anythingin their day to day lives. The second... well, we've seen what it does.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Serena

[jaytee1812]

I will say this. I don't like that he's being labeled a racist over this. Because I don't think that's true. Blind to the way it came across? Yes. Blind to the idea that Texas has it's problems? Sure. But racist? No. I don't think that's the case.

I don't think he means to be racist, but inadvertently yes I think he has been. I know what you mean that he hasn't appeared to be negative to any racial group. But if your white privilege is so tone deaf that you think saying a Sudanese Muslim was racial profiled is insulting white people (because let's face it that's the Texans he meant), and make a link between the two, it's definitely bordering on racist.

I'm waiting for him to tweet that #alllivesmatter*

*im joking.

Edited September 17, 2015 by jaytee1812

[apinknightmare]

Okay, but there are different "levels" of racist. Nobody thinks he's gonna go out and punch the first black person he sees. I'm sure he's perfectly lovely with fans of all races at cons and various gatherings. But he has zero empathy for the fact that he has a huge privilege and thinks stereotyping Texans is the same as profiling Muslims in America. He literally said they're two comparable "wrongs". They're not. The first may not feel nice (but hey, maybe his Nazi DNA-having FIL may think it's a compliment?) but will totally not impact anything on their day to day lives. The second... well, we've seen what it does.

 

 

I hesitate to call it racism though. He's a white dude who has probably never had a suspicious glance cast his way for anything, so he doesn't know what it's like to constantly live in fear of police, of showing his schoolwork to a teacher, of walking into a convenience store, because he just does all those things without a second thought. That's his life, and he's never thought about it outside of that, because he's never had to. He's getting all defensive of his white Texan family and friends, because they're being "wronged" to him, because this is probably the first time he's ever been a "victim" (or had a loved one be the "victim") of one of those "wrongs." 

 

What he fails to realize is that his wife, or his cousin, or his friends, or his father in law, or whoever in the hell he's defending will never be followed or shot at or arrested for being Texans, and therein lies the privilege and the ignorance in what he said that he just cannot/will not accept. 

Edited September 17, 2015 by apinknightmare

[dtissagirl]

I'm always reminded of this Jay Smooth video when the coversation goes from "that sound racist" to "he's a racist":

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc

[apinknightmare]

I love that video. 

 

It's disappointing, because so many people were pointing out to him (including myself) that his experiences are colored by his whiteness, and he chose to take that as people claiming that he was just looking to be oppressed or whatever, instead of standing back and saying, "Yes, my skin color and my experiences are influencing the way I'm seeing this." I mean, he didn't have to do a complete 180, just stepping back and absorbing what people were saying to him would've been an improvement. 

[jaytee1812]

For someone to be that self-aware they have to have a decent level of intelligence and I just don't think Stephen Amell is capable of that. The dude was hired because he's got a great set of abs and isn't horrible at acting. And he has all the entitlement of being a rich straight, white man in the USA today. He's not awful, but he has no concept of how his skin colour, gender or sexuality makes his life so much easier.

Which is strange when you think he's only one of two regulars on Arrow who are straight, white men.

[TwistedandBored]

Stephen didn't stay gone long.

 

I wish he stayed gone. Honestly, someone should just take his social media passwords or something. The more of his comments I see and read the more I move away from "what he said was racist" to "he is low-key racist".