cw: csa | so this wayfair thing, huh
uh oh what happened with wayfair now
oh BOY
there's no real csa here, but the ongoing pizzagate/qanon conspiracy clearing house has decided wayfair is also a den of child sex
......
this is so many words that i didn't want to put together in a sentence
if you see a cabinet on wayfair that seems to be overpriced, it's because it also comes with a kidnapped child
my favorite part of this is that. absurdly overpriced items are and have been a staple of wayfair. for so long.
but it's harder to claim it's a human trafficking scenario when it's like. soap dishes.
but it's harder to claim it's a human trafficking scenario when it's like. soap dishes.
anyway now a bunch of mom influencers with eyelash extensions and tasteful waves are taking up the cause of sex trafficking awareness
Wayfair Conspiracy Theory Is Spreading Among Lifesty...
my favorite part is that they're like THESE EXPENSIVE MELANIE SHELVES ARE ACTUALLY THIS MELANIE WHO WAS KIDNAPPED LAST YEAR and it's like um there's a lot of melanies and also a lot of kidnappings.
I have insider information I can't reveal, but tl;dr the reasons absurdly expensive things have people's names are from two completely separate half-assed decisions by two completely separate departments
I think some of them are using this as an excuse to gain back moral high ground after BLM made them feel threatened
neither of which involves human trafficking
but it's not just that, clearly, because this scare has been around for a long time, it's really just new pizzagate
at least they're not doing this to a company that doesn't work with ice
god I wish people would turn their goblin energy onto real problems
assuming wayfair is competent enough to run a child trafficking scheme is...generous
i was literally reading about this earlier because i was SO confused
I mean, sex trafficking is a real problem, it's just this fantasy about it is like, the specific neurosis of white american suburbia
oh yeah I didn't mean that like
I was actually thinking about ice and the abuse at the child detention centers
like, I'm gonna bet these people in the IKEA weren't sex traffickers
the "someone was a bit rude HUMAN TRAFFICKING" thing is wild
like how do you jump to that
shady people at an ikea: current or former art students probably
I am pretty sure that sex trafficking rings do not look for the prettiest toddlers in local starbucks to kidnap and then sell on the internet
following you = literally just trying to get around you taking selfies with your child in the aisle
why are you putting your baby's face online if you're that paranoid honestly
i would be afraid of baby rp more than traffickers
the baby rp threat is real
~a mothers intuition~ 
like can you imagine if these people were actually have as concerned about documented abuse at detention centers as they were about, idk what this is
I was also thinking of baby rp but just like creepy people looking for random baby photos in general
lord my cousin buys into it SO MUCH
it's very wild but it also happens a lot, apparently. like, I'm not sure how people were convinced that daycare was full of satanic orgies, and yet.
people were convinced of a lot of dumb shit in the 80s
and sure one explanation of the satanic panic is anxieties about the necessity of two incomes to fund the stereotypical middle class life / fears about children going unmothered due to women existing in the work place
and I think that's a lot of it, but not all of it…
is protestantism to blame??
I think it's at least partly to do with the attitude of moral panic reagan etc cultivated
if you're already afraid of GANGSTERS breaking into your HOME all the time it's easy to think everyone is out to get you
yeah, agreed, that's an element
but I'm also thinking of like, anti-masonic panic of the 1820s and 30s 
like ig these moral panics have popped up every few decades--lmao yeah
I was thinking of "white slavery"
it's definitely the puritans
GASP
it happens in the uk too tho
yeah well like
and australia???
puritans came from england
so checkmate
the dingo ate my baby thing was mad satanic panic which I did not know until last year
So when the protests really heated up... keeping in mind that I live in a silent, hidden suburban neighborhood like 15 miles away
the dingo ate my baby was the police not even bothering to look into an actual thing that happened and trying to blame it on the woman for being a bad mother
ugggh oh my god it pisses me off so much
yes!!! but then it turned into a weird satanic panic thing
oh yeah
My mom, who is definitely a paranoid person with some Qanon-adjacent beliefs, ordered security bars for all our doors.
i honestly think its just
salem over and over again
people stay home for awhile
and they just go fuck crazy about it
Like, the kind you jam under the handle. There is a picture window two feet away from the front door.
have you read the paranoid style in american politics?
also yeah when the 'rioting' happened right-wingers were deliberately fearmongering in neighborhoods likely to be sympathetic is
*so
I cannot tell you what a Karen Wastes $50 thing this struck me as.
someone sent my dad a text about 'looters' coming for the MALL
yeah its definitely like
FEAR
in the suburbs
with nowhere to go
so it just goes buckwild
and similar things were circulated in black neighborhoods I heard
there were definitely like "antifa is coming from portand to terrify our poor quaint southern oregon town" rumors being spread online
Yep
I am sure part of it was people openly trolling
yeah its why i didn't buy into the cops setting off fireworks rumor for a little while because it sounded so much like one of those YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD IS AT RISK
Anything my mom read or heard wouldn't have been specific to our neighborhood --
panic panic panic things
She's just hugely paranoid
but that would go to the Reagan thing, white flight after the great migration
people confirmed the rumors in southside neighborhoods were planted I'm p sure
yeah i could never be Sure because i live in new jersey and we always have goddamn fireworks all summer
Every time I walk past the Karen Bar on the front door I look at the HUGE WINDOW NEXT TO IT and laugh.
this, specific, qanon thing is prob at least part right wing bad actors manipulating panicky white people
so i figured it was just 'everyone's fourth of july explosion fest got cancelled and suddenly you can get professional grade fireworks for dirt ass cheap because the city of Toledo bought them'
OH YEAH its definitely got the hallmarks of like
fox news induced paranoia
yeah lmao I've always had fireworks all june so I didn't think anything of it
yeah haha
like fox news is just...
i don't know a better way to say it except it feeds into paranoid delusions deliberately
(It's not really bad to be concerned about home security in an apartment although we've been here for five years with no problems, it's just sad to buy this kind of device in response to protests in a completely different part of town that happens to contain the Statehouse.)
I think someone was selling of pro fireworks here tho
oh yeah, probably. but again, i live in jersey so
everything is legal in new jersey
yes, and I don't like that people market these nonsense security contraptions by making them feel safe in their own homes
I live in chicago and I wouldn't put uch past cpd but also, fireworks are illegal here
not pumping your own gas
MY PARENTS' HAVE ONE THAT ACTUALLY CALLS THE COPS FOR YOU I HATE IT SO MUCH
A lot of people didn't lose their jobs and got $1200 anyway, also, and if you're stuck at home and there won't be municipal fireworks displays....
fdngjnsgkjdskj
you also can't make left hand turns in new jersey
I accidentally triggered it once it was so bad
it upsets the devil or something
.............................none???
I MEAN SURE YOU CAN SOMETIMES
EVERY NOW AND THEN
AS A TREAT
you just keep going right
but nine times out of ten we're gonna make you do a huge annoying jughandle instead
If you turn left three times the jersey devil appears and causes issues with your construction permits
its true
just don't drive in new jersey. you'll thank me for this advice.
i mean yes that also solves the problem
but then you miss out on the joy of driving in the brakedown lane and getting stuck in traffic on the turnpike for seven hours so
once a cab made me pay his toll fare from newark to brooklyn!!!!!!
lol <3
One thing I can say for my little city: NO TOLL ROADS.
i remember once i was going up to my aunt in queens house for easter and traffic was so bad people were legit making illegal u-turns on the grass and median to turn around and get out of it. the illegal u-turns part wasn't shocking just, like, how many of them
anyway uh
so back to Karens
Maybe not great since everyone appears to be spending the extra money on opioids anymore, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what can you do.
my parents won't turn the lights off all the way in their house when they leave bc of THEFTS
ronald reagan's ghost haunts this country
they don't even like me to turn the lights off in my apartment???? even tho there's an outside light that never shuts off
omg
isn't there a new reagan book coming out
yes
I'm not sure what to make of that "hypercaffeinated herodotus" line, though. what makes a writer herodotean?? lots of digressions??
there's a part where george bush sr kicks idk the ayatollah into a pit
... that is not a ringing endorsement
Nixonland is supposed to be great!
the thing about asoiaf is that some of the characters are sympathetic,
Redoing the Game of Thrones Finale | Sundance Reject... also obligatory link to these two/multiple idiots making their own GoT finale. with uh. photoshop. and dumb jokes.
idk maybe there will be sympathetic cutaways to jimmy carter
I'm sure it IS interesting but it would probably also give me cortisol poisoning
perlstein talks about the opponents of conservatism, too
lol I was like is Reaganland by the same guy who wrote Nixonland? I think I read that in a cinema studies class in school.
and then I clicked on it and the answer was yes
yes
also importantly not a conservative
One day I'll read all the things
Until then, there's tags.
(I actually used to read all the things but I've found myself on something of a hiatus.)
I've wanted to start his whole conservatism series but the books are like 800 pages each
honestly a major reason why I haven't read ASoIF, too
Legit.
Lo, it is good (?) that it came out when I was still aggressively reading all the things
Marc-André Argentino on Twitter
see, protestantism
it probably doesnt help.
though obviously the history of blood libel goes back further than the reformation
is it the same phenomenon tho?? do these moral panics exist outside of anglophone media spheres??
no one expects the spanish inquisition
ah,
I do think the sort of "paranoid style" of qanon conspiracies or mormon plural wife narrative (wild that's in sherlock holmes) relies on mass media in a way that makes it tricky to draw a direct line back to… salem or whathaveyou.
but does apply to 20th century european antisemitism
well, hm. after the war it gets complicated,
you see it pop up in criticism of israel
or, like, using criticism of israel as an excuse
yeah, obviously there are still ongoing """globalist""" conspiracy theories
conversely in israel the far-right conspiracy theories are that human rights activists etc. are foreign agents, including of european countries lmao
tho they are like more concerned with??? destabilizing the country??? unclear
Yeah
I mean all conspiracy theories are basically an attempt to align the universe to your worldview
I've read one of those anti-Catholic nun abuse narratives. It's wild.
Conspiracy theories also align with feelings of powerlessness
conspiracy theories kind of all sound anti-semitic when you think about it
except maybe the flat-earthers??
They usually wind up going there
and yeah I agree, re: feelings of powerlessness, though would also say that feelings don't always match reality (esp in this case where they by definition don't)
even if it's not explicitly codeword jews the ''''shadowy cabal'''' trope is very, warning signs
not wrong
Maria Monk - Wikipedia that's the one I recall reading years ago
In the case of the Wayfair thing it just seems to be related to the typical right-wing persecution complex.
the interplay with blm is something
Oh noes you expect us to be polite and not persecute people, truly this is oppression of the worst sort, here is "evidence" that it is actually "liberals" who are the bad people.
if liberals were good people they'd care about the children
But they're too cowardly and too brainwashed by Killary to do anything to stop the evil!
usually those people just cling to anti-abortion stuff tho
this is like, extra
(Etc etc ok I don't think I can rp this hypothetical conspiracy theorist anymore, I feel gross already.)
I think it interacts with like… in the case of instagram influencers, anyway, there has been a ton of pressure on public behavior and conformity
I've also seen leftists repost obvious hillary nonsense in this the year 2020 so like
I think the anti-abortion thing is like... the group base, and not all of those people fall for additional conspiracy theories.
there's some serious disinformation campaigning going on
Like, not all people who don't like abortion rights thought Benghazi was a thing. But there was overlap.
like there's the qanon people and then there's like stuff tailored to specific group, it's wild
between covid and blm which involved a lot of… performative gestures? i don't think blm is a performative thing, obviously, but there was definitely a lot of performative instagram content
Not all people who thought "they" needed to "take Hillary down for Benghazi" were qanon people. But I'm betting people like Dinesh D'Souza are a gateway between the two.
towards a united theory of batshit conservatism
and this lets them change the topic
it's interesting to me because I think conspiracy theories generally play masculine
Because every one of my relatives who swallowed "Hillary's America" ( basically a conspiracy theory in the form of a documentary) also seems really prone to adopting other Q-adjacent theories even if they don't know what Q-anon is.
but kidnapped children myths are sort of an exception to that
performative isn't necessarily bad as judith butler tells us in her seminal response to the turducken article
yeah it's this weird white woman performative victim strand of conservatism
Yeah this is something that appeals to 1. Men who think their role is to be a strong protector 2. Paranoid suburban moms worried about trafficking.
which isn't necessarily restricted to white women but all women willing to like, play along with white supremacy's idea of what women should be
Some of the people falling for this are probably not necessarily conservative (though they may lean in that direction in the future due to exposure to it and related ideas): I've seen some otherwise v progressive women freak out about things like The Ikea Traffickers
But yeah!
yeah like I said repackaged versions of anti-hillary whatever makes its way into leftist circles
p galling since youth rights was one of her strong points
which is probably why this
yeah
I mean antivaxx fearmongering happens on the left and the right
Sigh. (Not at either of you, of course.)
and is very much related to the same set of "women, protector of children" anxieties
Yep. and indeed, my friend with the trafficking panic is a low key antivaxxer who's very concerned with feeding her kids organic foods.
Tolerable because she's a lovely person otherwise, it's just... your kids are going to be fine, A.
tbh with the usda/fda being what it is rn sourcing concerns are valid but because of like, e coli
Lol yeah
well and currently covid outbreaks at meat processing plants
a good time to not touch raw chicken
oh yeah speaking of historic satan panics how could I forget
the affair of the poisons
is this giulia tofana
or victorian babyfarming
It’s this! The Anne Somerset book is what I’ve read (well, I’ve also read The Oracle Glass but that’s just because I like Judith Merkle Riley). The Somerset book is very interesting. 
Affair of the Poisons - Wikipedia
Affair of the Poisons - Wikipedia
basically a scandal in the court of Louis XIV that went pretty high up the chain.
huh this is close to salem in time and tone
oh hey that reminds me of mercy brown
interesting bc a lot of europe is so quick to be like 'the sälæm wîtch trïåls wêrę sœ låtë fôr a wîtch trîãl, wė hævēn't bürnęd wįtchês sïncę thè 14th cēntürÿ'
This plurk is so much
Hopefully no one shows up at Wayfair HQ with a rifle to Save the Children
I ordered a desk from Wayfair last year and did not receive a child with it
Speaking of conspiracy theories I read this yesterday and it had an interesting debunking of the "conspiracy theories are mostly men" thing 
How a Fake Baby Is Born
How a Fake Baby Is Born
I have also read the Anne Somerset book but I want to try Strange Revelations now, it's been hard for me to find a more academic book about it
I click, and Benedict Cumberbatch was not what I expected to see
But this is a good article!! I don't really think conspiratorial thinking is gendered, just that the leading conspiracy spaces are dominated by men. But part of that is probably the bias toward "things men care about" as being more important, even when they're nonsense
stroopwafelling: wayfair hq is in Boston and we have decent gun control, plus the building it's in requires you to go through a really upscale mall and up several escalators to get to the wayfair floors
yeah, I would agree with that
and the Canadian and German consulates are in the same building
although I will say that like, I wonder how much of fake-baby-conspiracy-theorizing is driven by people who Do Not Want To Accept that their fave is in a relationship and thus unavailable?
a lot, but like
but the customer service associates have been getting threats
there's other stuff beneath that. If you look at various royal baby conspiracies it's hard to deny a certain amount of racism at play
ughhhhhh I Hate people who threaten customer service, ahving been that girl
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely re: royal baby
it's a very good thing wayfair only has like one showcase physical store
...er, having been the customer service girl, not the one making threats, yikes, phrasing, self
you do wonder where the fake baby community would be without the internet
hollywood gossip rags?
like the stuff they wrote in the 40s-80s was. surely something.
yeah, but they didn't follow individual stars quite so obsessively taking frame by frame stills of candid reactions to "prove" something delusional
that's true
like I am sure people constructed their fantasies about celebrities beforehand, but there's an element of collective enabling
that I think would be hard to get from gossip rags
Yeah, although I wonder like - early fandom zines that were passed around
there probably was something like that for celebrity fandom
the ability to, say, freeze-frame video easily is a recent development, too
incidentally there's a fun online novel about this kind of obsessive detective fandom
so it's a lot easier to build up "evidence" by dicking with the contrast slider and calling the jpg artifacts suspicious
"the light in the club is purple, so it signifies john is bi"
and there's just a huge volume of content to "analyze" now that there wasn't last century
and a way to instantaneously share it
that's good to know at least!
my husband's not real happy about any of this, but he's not outright worried yet, either
me opens this plurk
this plurk: the fake baby community
me: 
this plurk is herodotean in its scope I feel
and its digressions
I do also like getting Real Reporting from Inside Wayfair
The Fandom Experience
'Patty has a passing interest in Markle only because she believes she and Hunter share nefarious connections through the elite club Soho House' holy shit I've been there. my sister used it as a workspace for her last job
I think my cousin still works there
also this
this is a good article generally
it's not like a group of people club, it's like a country club in the city
The Soho House Brand Is Bigger than its Members-Only...
lmao that the sidebar is all about JAM MOLD DRAMA
lmao
yeah it's dumb and overcurated but it provides a place for people who work remotely to have meetings not at coffeeshops
also they employ people like my cousin to do workshops
ah,
my city is clearly too hipster for soho house
Chicago has The Wing, which is also in DC and is kind of the same thing
glitzy membership coworking space
chicago has a soho house
interesting
that's where my sister worked
I've never looked into it because a. we didn't have wfh until The Quarantimes and b. I'm not dragging myself downtown to work in a coworking space, if I gotta get to the loop I'll be in my own office
now if they had put it on the north shore that would be different
lmao it is listed in "cities without houses" locations
the wing has gone bankrupt
not surprised
their membership fee was Very High
and like, that was fine, Before
I think it's near the united center?
I only went there once
it was caught up in some of the "feminist branded start-up companies not being very feminist" drama but that's another digression
there will never be anything cool in the north shore unless billy corgan opens his teahouse in highland park
the wing was a cheaper than we work and seemed to have better perks for me, I will say
but yeah co-working space is an industry that uh, would struggle in these times
I think my sister might've interviewed there
The Wing Is a Women’s Utopia. Unless You Work There.
she wasn't really excited about that job lmao but she did get a callback I think
maybe dodged a bullet???
yeah honestly most of the problems there seemed to be "they are a new company and don't have an hr structure set up"
but like… all power to people finding better jobs
the wing london was eehh
very expensive, very pretentious
wework is also bankrupt i think
they've certainly had their own saga
that was exactly what my sister was afraid of lmao
it's ok she works for the obama foundation now
anyway I'd love a fancy co-working space (in.......normal times) but they don't allow you to have ink in there
That's a tough call on which end of bougie to be: Soho House or expensive fountain pens? /BITES NAILS
lmao they are dip pens for drawing comics
I would ink digitally if I could, at least sometimes..........................