If you don't get chills from the ASMR audio experience of Tingle Monsters, then you'll definitely get them from the looming tension and sheer overwhelming sexist dread that oozes throughout this ten-minute short film (especially in the expertly-created comments section that helps to drive the plot). It is weirdly kind of relaxing, until it's absolutely not. Here's the official synopsis:

An ASMR vlogger with a devoted fan base returns from an extended absence with a livestream that spirals out of control.

Writer/director/actress Alexandra Serio had this to say as well:

I was compelled to make "Tingle Monsters" because I believe that violence against women truly starts with words. With this in mind, I designed the film’s unconventional viewing experience to feel like a real ASMR livestream.

Shot in screenlife format with no extra score or sound design, the film is designed to transport viewers into a scenario they are already familiar with—the harassment of women on the internet—ultimately inviting the audience to examine the link between what we say and think about women affects their real-world treatment.

I firmly believe that through gender parity and telling women-driven narratives we can begin to change the world. But we must start by taking a sobering look at where we currently are. Tingle Monsters aims to do that.

Serio also did a great interview with Paste, offering a behind-the-scenes perspective on this creepy little capsule of awful internet intersections.

The movie is only ten-minutes long, and definitely unsettling. I haven't much followed the ASMR phenomenon, but Serio uses the genre conventions deftly here to create a creeping experience that — I suspect — accurately reflects the horrors that often accompany simply being a woman on the Internet. Read the rest

During a promotional event for the movie Sonic the Hedgehog, Jim Carrey was asked by Heat Magazine's Charlotte Long if the actor had anything remaining on his bucket list (things one wants to do or see in life before “kicking the bucket”).

“Just you”, he replied. Read the rest

The latest turn in the Gamergate sage: Zoe Quinn (previously) outed their former partner, game dev Alec Holowka as a sexual and emotional abuser, which prompted others to come forward with their own stories of abuse at Holowka's hands, which led to Holowka being kicked out of his Night in the Woods game project -- and shortly thereafter, Holowka committed suicide. Read the rest

Supermajority's Gender Equality, the Status of Women and the 2020 Elections surveys likely 2020 voters (N=1912), finds a strong correlation between opposition and broad misogynistic beliefs, such as opposition to the idea that women and men should hold an equal number of positions of power; opposition to the #MeToo movement; a disbelief in the idea that access to birth control affects women's power in society (likewise, skepticism that the lack of woman role models in powerful positions is significant). Read the rest

Last weekend, Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon; Ng's acceptance speech calls Campbell, one of the field's most influential editors, a "fascist" and expresses solidarity with the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters. Read the rest

Riley's Farm is a staple of Los Angeles overnight school trips (my daughter visited last year with her elementary school); it's an apple farm with a pick-your-own apples sideline that branched out into civil war re-enactments, with some students staying overnight in tents. Read the rest

Despite gains over the past century in the area of equal rights, equal pay and, in some regions, not having some assclown with a penis dictate what they do with their bodies, women, on the whole, still hold the short end of a very shitty stick. While men might feel safest and most comfortable inside the walls of their home, a new report from The United Nations has reiterated what far too many woman already know: the place that women call home is more dangerous than anywhere else they might roam.

From The New York Times:

About one in five homicides is carried out by an intimate partner or family member, and women and girls make up the vast majority of those deaths, the report concluded after analyzing the available data.

Of the approximately 87,000 women who were victims of intentional homicide last year around the world, about 34 percent were murdered by an intimate partner and 24 percent by a relative.

The rate of women killed by a partner or relative was highest in countries in Africa, followed by the Americas. The lowest rate was in Europe.

The New York Times points out that the U.N.'s report comes with a few caveats. First, it's worth mentioning that the vast majority of those murdered every year are men. But they're far less likely to be killed by an intimate partner or family member than a woman is. Second, women are just as capable of killing a family member or intimate partner as men are. Read the rest

The FBI describes the group Proud Boys as an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism” in a document provided to reporters by law enforcement in the state of Washington. Read the rest

Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually assaulted hundreds of young girls, will spend the rest of his life in jail. USA Gymnastics circled the wagons and shredded the files, and as a result it's hard to understand details of how it faciliated and protected Nassar. But Kerry Howley's startling article in New York Magazine shows how important medical bullshit was to his strategy and how the fraternal relationship between medical and administrative authority covered for him.

17-year-old Brianne Randall filed a complaint with Meridian Township police and had a rape kit administered at the local hospital. Detective Andrew McCready called Nassar and asked him to come in for questioning, which he did. Nassar told McCready that he had indeed touched Brianne’s perineum, that it was part of a treatment called “sacrotuberous-ligament release,” and that the treatment was “published in medical journals and training tapes.” He also gave McCready his PowerPoint presentation on said ligament, in which he is pictured cupping a girl’s buttocks and pressing near a girl’s vulva. McCready then called Brianne’s mother to tell her the case would be closed and that “no crime was committed.”

And:

in 2014, cheerleader Amanda Thomashow reported an assault to one of MSU’s Title IX investigators and university police... Thomashow, concluded [investigator Kristine] Moore, failed to understand the “nuanced difference” between osteopathic manipulative medicine and sexual massage. “Dr. Nassar has presented on this nationally and internationally,”

This sort of thing was constant and typical. It's hard to see where dumb respect for the doctor stops and willful contempt for his victims begins. Read the rest

Republican Rep. Jason Lewis mocked a woman who complained of sexual harassment by affecting a traumatized feminine voice during a radio segment where he made quite clear that "she wasn't raped." In another recorded segment, Lewis complained about not being able to "call her a slut" anymore when "they behave as a slut."

https://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/comeon.mp3

Here's the full clip, from a 2012 edition of his radio show, as posted by CNN:

A transcript:

LEWIS: How traumatizing is it? How many women at some point in their lives have a man come onto them, place a hand on shoulder, or maybe their thigh, kiss them, and they would rather not have that happen, is that really going to be seared in your memory, that you'll need therapy for, that you'll never get over tHe MoSt tRaUmAtIziNg ExPerIeNce? COME ON. She wasn't raped.

CNN's Andrew Kaczynski reports that Lewis threatened to sue them for copyright infringement if they posted the recording. Read the rest

“Lying Skanks.”

That is what radio host and Fox News pundit Kevin Jackson (screengrabbed above) called Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's alleged sexual assault victims, in a series of tweets today. Read the rest

More horrifying news from Donald Trump's racist 'zero tolerance' war on brown asylum seekers. Read the rest

Male supremacy has gotten a strong foothold online through men's rights activism (MRA), pickup artist movement (PUA), and the "tradwife" movement. Now SPLC has started naming the leaders on their hate watchlist. Read the rest

What a huge bummer. David Corn is the guy who broke the 'Steele Dossier' story, and did a great job of it. Read the rest

“The worst part of my whole encounter with Oreskes [was] the fact that he utterly destroyed my ambition,” says one victim.

Michael Oreskes is now NPR’s Senior Vice President of news. He is accused by two women of sexual harassment dating back a number of years, including “unwanted physical contact with them” while he was employed by another news organization “nearly two decades ago.” Read the rest

Her name was Lilias Adie, and she died in prison while waiting to be burned at the stake as a witch. Forensic artist Dr Christopher Rynn used the latest reconstructive methods to show us her face.

Lilias Adie was tortured in prison and it is believed she may have taken her own life.

Louise Yeoman said: "I think she was a very clever and inventive person.

"The point of the interrogation and its cruelties was to get names.

"But Lilias said that she couldn't give the names of other women at the witches' gatherings as they were masked like gentlewomen.

"She only gave names which were already known and kept up coming up with good reasons for not identifying other women for this horrendous treatment."

A GOP lawmaker swears he's not the notorious internet misogynist who said this... Read the rest