The Most 2020 Story Ever
[guest post by JVW]
The New York Post does a great job of laying out the story, so I’m going to liberally quote from them:
An Arizona State University professor who posted on Twitter for years about social justice issues and recently detailed her fight with COVID-19 was said to have died last week — but she actually never existed.
BethAnn McLaughlin — who announced the made-up professor’s death on July 31 — admitted to The New York Times on Tuesday that she was behind the hoax.
Appointed to a tenure-track assistant professor position at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2005, Dr. McLaughlin applied for tenure nearly a decade later. Vandy, after initially seeming moderately supportive, spent two years evaluating her application. A portion of the delay was to conduct a disciplinary probe of Dr. McLaughlin, who was accused of anonymously libeling colleagues through Twitter, all in the aftermath of a sexual harassment charge brought by a graduate student against a professor in the department. Dr. McLaughlin had testified against the colleague on behalf of the student, but the professor was ultimately cleared of the charges by both the university and by a judge. Though the committee voted two to one to acquit Dr. McLaughlin in the disciplinary matter, she was ultimately denied tenure by the medical school faculty in November of 2017. Further details about the tenure decision are in the link above.
Shortly thereafter, Dr. McLaughlin filed a grievance against the university and began styling herself as a leading MeToo proponent in STEM education. She was active on her Twitter account, @McLNeuro, arguing for zero-tolerance policies for harassment and supporting the BelieveAllWomen movement. She also began sockpuppeting on the account of a fictional person. Picking up again from the Post’s story:
Since 2016, the anonymous account @Sciencing_Bi had posted frequently about sexual harassment and diversity in science, making connections with other academics online.
The account claimed to be an anthropology professor who had grown up in Alabama and “fled the south because of their oppression of queer folk,” according to the Times.
It also made pointed references to being Native American and began to identify as Hopi earlier this year.
And it was active in the career of McLaughlin, a neuroscientist, even promoting a petition for her to receive tenure Vanderbilt University [sic], which was ultimately unsuccessful.
Dr. McLaughlin’s hoax account sure checked all of the right boxes, didn’t it? BIPOC? Yep, we’ve got the “I” part accounted for! LBGTQIA+? Yep, the “B” and the “Q” are in the house! Third-person pronouns? You betcha! She even added the nice touch of the professor having grown up in a deeply red state among all of the mouth-breathing redneck KKK bigots who deny that man-made global climate change is a crisis and probably drive pick-up trucks sporting gun racks and Confederate flag mudflaps. So how do we make this fake Twitter user even more sympathetic? Let’s bring current events into play and ratchet the victim quotient up to 10:
In April, @Sciencing_Bi announced its [sic] coronavirus diagnosis and then documented the symptoms including a loss of language fluency, according to Buzzfeed News.
The account blamed ASU for her condition, tweeting in June that the school “forced me to teach 200 person lectures instead of closing” in April.
She also claimed the university cut her salary by 15 percent while she was in the hospital.
Then, a seemingly distraught McLaughlin wrote in a lengthy, mournful Twitter thread on Friday that the anonymous professor had died.
“Looking at her side of the bed and crying. Just a lot of crying. I literally can do nothing,” she wrote.
Cherry. On top of the icing. On top of the delicious multi-layer cake. Naturally, a certain subset of high-strung academics ate it up immediately:
The supposed death spurred outrage from others in academia, with a professor saying: “This person was a scientist who got Covid because they’d been forced to teach.”
“@Sciencing_Bi is a Native American anthropology professor who first contracted #COVID19 April 11, likely from her college forcing her to teach well after the virus had established itself at her college,” another person posted on Facebook.
There was one small problem: ASU would presumably know if one of their professors had died, especially if from COVID-19. And, unfortunately for Dr. McLaughlin, ASU immediately blew the whistle on the hoax. Twitter has now suspended Dr. McLaughlin’s account, as well as some other sockpuppet accounts they believe she used. And one would presume, though maybe erroneously, that at this point her appeal of Vanderbilt’s tenure decision is as every bit as dead as @Sciencing_Bi. It is fitting that this story comes to a close in the insipid year of 2020.
As you might have surmised, I am not a huge fan of professional activists. I don’t pretend to know what went on with Dr. McLaughlin at Vanderbilt and whether or not she was given a fair shake there, but clearly her behavior since losing her tenure battle suggests that she is dealing with issues which ought to be addressed through professional help, not through blindly accepting her claims without examination and turning her into the public face of MeTooSTEM as so many (including, alas, my own alma mater) eagerly did. Coupled with Trader Joe’s surprising reversal last week, perhaps social justice would be better served if more people stopped acquiescing to the auto-appointed avatars of activism.
– JVW
I really do need to seek help for my awful addiction to alliteration (see!). Thanks for bearing with me though my struggle.
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:20 pmEdit: I found a cached webpage of the @Sciencing_Bi account and it appears that the account used “she/her” as pronouns. The pronouns used in describing the account in the NYPost article led me to believe that the account used “they/theirs.” Apologies for the mistake, and I have stricken a sentence above.
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:39 pmTwitter is like a cesspool where the #$%@ of humanity floats to the top…
Dave (1bb933) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:43 pmTwitter is like a cesspool where the #$%@ of humanity floats to the top…
I used to think that too until a Playboy Playmate liked one of my tweets. As did another one of the actress crushes from my boyhood. Now I think it’s the best thing we’ve got going on these days.
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:47 pmTwitter has really laid bare just how many prominent voices in public life are little more than deeply disturbed. They should be getting help, not a platform.
(Not That) Bill O'Reilly (6bb12a) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:56 pmFixed.
Dave (1bb933) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:57 pmBut hey, grats!
Dave (1bb933) — 8/6/2020 @ 3:59 pmOT, but Ken and KAREN sure skated here… https://www.foxla.com/news/bloody-brawl-breaks-out-after-woman-throws-coffee-in-mans-face-for-not-wearing-mask
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/6/2020 @ 4:52 pmJust another hoax, add it to the pile.
harkin (5af287) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:00 pm_
If you read the full NYT article, many of her colleagues in “MeTooSTEM” bailed out of the organization before the scandal was revealed, because they found McLaughlin untrustworthy, impossible to work with, and some suspected the sock-puppet account was just that.
Buzzfeed reported in February that McLaughlin was accused of harrassing minorities:
The Activist Group MeTooSTEM Is Facing Allegations Of Harassment Against Its Own Leader
So it’s not like this woman was fooling the people working closely with her, in fact it sounds like quite the opposite.
Dave (1bb933) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:08 pmSockpuppet accounts? Self-insert RPF where someone was doing a social experiment and then pretended to die at the end? Classic old-style net-drama. Shades of fandomwank.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:14 pmSo it’s not like this woman was fooling the people working closely with her, in fact it sounds like quite the opposite.
Sure, but here’s what I think is an apt analogy: Lots of people who have worked closely with Donald Trump have come to see how dysfunctional, dull, and demeaning he is, yet millions of Americans who don’t work closely with the President still gladly support him and what he professes to stand for. Don’t you think BethAnn McLaughlin and MeTooSTEM are very similar in that regard to Donald Trump and his administration, albeit on a much smaller scale?
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:24 pmAnd with respect to whether it is Dr. McLaughlin or her colleagues-turned-antagonists who are more unrelenting and shrill, did you see this paragraph in the BuzzFeed article?
“All cops are Nazis.” Sounds like they all deserve each other, not unlike Donald Trump and his administration.
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:28 pmIn fact, the more you read the BuzzFeed article, they more you come to realize that Jaedyn Ruli and BethAnn McLaughlin are peas in a pod: each one every bit as unmoored from reality as the other. It’s crazy to watch them hurl social justice buzzwords at each other like mashed potatoes at a fraternity food fight.
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:32 pmJVW… prayers as you battle your propensity for propagating periodicity.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:43 pmJVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:24 pm
I agree, JVW, it is an apt analogy. Good post, too. Thanks.
felipe (023cc9) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:44 pmWhy do you always have to make everything about Donald Trump, JVW?
;p
Dave (1bb933) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:47 pmOmg, this story. What has happened to people!
Great work on this post, JVW.
Oh, btw, your reasons for loving Twitter crack me up.
Dana (292df6) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:47 pmHeh, colonel and JVW! My favorite parsimonious purveyor of patterns is Dr. Zachary Smith.
Oh, the pain, the pain.
felipe (023cc9) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:54 pmThats a sokalian exercise.
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 5:55 pmThat is painful, felipe!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/6/2020 @ 6:19 pmSokalian as in denial of gravity. That was a classic
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 6:22 pm“The most 2020 story ever”
The worst pandemic in a century was released unto the world.
Socialists/communists/anarchists have used the death of a man in police custody which was universally condemned to unleash the worst civil order breakdown and racial animosity in our lifetimes in the USA.
The media have reported on these two happenings with a much higher regard for politics than journalism standards to the point of greatly exacerbating the breakdown.
We have two completely unfit persons as our choices for chief executive in Nov. One is already in the Oval Office and the other is not allowed out of his playpen.
An explosion equal to more than a kiloton of TNT just flattened and/or shattered a good part of Beirut near the port.
I’m thinking nah and still waiting for Godzilla to step out of the ocean before the new year.
harkin (5af287) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:35 pm_
Kaiju on line 2,
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:36 pmOh a state atty general is going after the leading advocacy group of the second amendment
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:41 pmOh
https://amp.dailycaller.com/2020/08/06/missouri-cori-bush-financial-disclosure
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:44 pmHeh, colonel and JVW! My favorite parsimonious purveyor of patterns is Dr. Zachary Smith.
I’ve never watched that show. I know it’s a cult hit in reruns, but is it as good as Star Trek?
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:44 pmJoe Biden
@JoeBiden
Earlier today, I made some comments about diversity in the African American and Latino communities that I want to clarify. In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith—not by identity, not on issues, not at all.
__ _
Joe Biden
@JoeBiden
·
My commitment to you is this: I will always listen, I will never stop fighting for the African American community and I will never stop fighting for a more equitable future.
__ _
Stephen L. Miller
@redsteeze
·
Well he just turned the Washington Post fact-checker inside out.
__ _
Yossi Gestetner
@YossiGestetner
·
In 2007, @JoeBiden said of Obama “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
__ _
Errol Webber For Congress (CA-37)
·
US House candidate, CA-37
We did not ask for clarification on what you did not mean to suggest.
We are asking for clarification on what you said.
What did you mean by what you said, Joe?
Also, am I black?
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Catturd ™
@catturd2
·
Chance of Joe writing this thread ..
0.00%
harkin (5af287) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:49 pm__ _
When has not spoken unchecked jibberish.
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:51 pm“but is it as good as Star Trek?“
__ _
Only in the level of camp.
harkin (5af287) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:51 pm_
Better than space 1999, a decade later. I had the lander as a kidm
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:52 pmOh really now:
https://mobile.twitter.com/drsimonegold/status/1291554276527837184
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/6/2020 @ 8:16 pmbut is it as good as Star Trek?
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/6/2020 @ 7:44 pm
No, not by a long shot. But harkin has a point about camp. Lost In Space was, to me, pure camp – and I watched it when it originally aired! A popular taunt (when playing against my cohort) at the poker table after a high bet is “danger Will Robinson.”
felipe (023cc9) — 8/6/2020 @ 8:53 pmJVW,
Your are such a good writer that I would have guessed you went to a liberal arts school. I didn’t know that MIT excelled at the literary arts. 🙂
norcal (a5428a) — 8/7/2020 @ 7:12 pm