For those of you that follow me on Twitter you know that I don’t shy away from personal opinion, banter, or heated conversation. I actually enjoy open dialog in person or online. Yesterday, I posted something to the effect of whether or not I should post pictures to Facebook from a recent charity event I attended at the Playboy Mansion. I was actually not even thinking of posting the pics (or at least the ones with the girls that were naked, but painted) but wanted to strike up the conversation – and bring more attention to the charity. This tweet of course brought up tons of response (“yes please” was the majority of responses) – good and bad. And as you hope REAL social media does – it instigated other thoughtful conversations that spread like rapid fire. This one post turned into conversations about modesty, teen promiscuity, being naked in general, liberal versus conservative views on nudity and porn, and of course breastfeeding.
Yes, breastfeeding.
Amidst all of the really colorful and interesting banter about the other topics there was a sudden deluge of commentary and tweets hammering at me and my followers about breastfeeding and some misguided thinking that I somehow didn’t support breastfeeding because I tweeted, and I quote “Sorry guys. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to publicly post pictures of naked breasts. I don’t want to expose anyone underage.”
And these weren’t tweets asking me to clarify, asking for clarification on my position, or even asking why I felt some way about breastfeeding (which I said NOTHING about.) It was puzzling to me, so I of course bantered back with my true opinion (I’m all for breastfeeding, but would appreciate some modesty when done in public) as well as questions to them about where they were coming from since their jabs didn’t even make sense given what I had said. Suddenly, a conversation where I was being cautious about nudity and young minds turned into, and I quote, “you are murdering mothers and young children with your body issues.”
Hmm…interesting. I wasn’t aware I had “body issues” except for being a tad (ok, @fuzionfitness) a bit overweight.
There were 87 tweets coming from 3 very angry “lactivists” (their word, not mine) in a course of 2 hours. None of them related to the original topic, and most of them ignored my responses about my position and the fact that they weren’t following me, so they were clearly not following the conversation (technically, they couldn’t be.) And all of this was fine and good, if not a waste of time, really. I was really more floored that their angry outbursts and accusations were diminishing their true cause – they are extremists – and this is typical of extremists on any issue (thank goodness most people are truly moderate at the core.) And I was really angry when I dug into their tweets (again, they won’t follow you back – they only follow their brethren) and found that this behavior is basically this groups MO. I read through numerous instances where these tweeters are going after people with a vengeance- just from the very mention of the word “breast.”
And that’s what they do. They comb for posts with keywords and then jump in randomly, assuming your being negative about THEIR topic (likely using a sentiment search tool to help them so they don’t actually have to READ conversations or be open to REAL chatter) and then attack – in droves.
And most of all – what concerned me most was what I found when digging. One of these individuals had posted this to their followers: “RT @amandavega women that breastfeed should be caned” WHICH I NEVER SAID.
I was SHOCKED. I would never say anything like this. Not even close. But apparently, people do this sort of thing all the time. They post and us “RT @insertpersonhere bad message/defamatory comment/lie” and spread false information. Now for me, I’m lucky that I’m on top of my social media presence pretty readily and can monitor for things like this relatively easy. I’m also very zealous with our team and our clients about defamation, trademark and the like to protect reputation and have the position that we will unabashedly take legal action if something like this isn’t removed immediately for us our our clients. (BE CLEAR HERE: I don’t condone removal of bad stuff like “amandavega is a bitch” or “tdhurst is a douchebag” – both real posts. I only believe and react to true legal issues like defamation or insight of illegal activity.)
But for most, this would be difficult for the average person, or the brand on Twitter. And it got me thinking about what we need to do to better protect our clients and their brands. As I did some digging today, I found instances where someone had said that “RT@majorcerealbrand we are going to put arsenic in our food starting oct 1” and also a tweet “RT @majorretailbrand we are pulling BRAND A off our shelves so buy BRAND B” – both of which are our clients. So clearly, this happens all the time, and because of a glitch with tracking software, and the fact that they at times misspell the brand name or miss the tweet name because they use the description on the screen instead of the real twitter name, can be missed.
So a word to the wise, make sure you do at least check out angry banter and dig – just in case they are misquoting you or worse. And use tools like Tweetdeck or Tweetie and Google Alerts to monitor your brand. You never know when someone is going to kill your brand or spread lies through a simple fake retweet. Stay tuned for more updates on how individuals and companies can respond to Twitter bullies and Extremists in the coming days.
God save the boobs, and please breastfeed (just not completely naked in public.)
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
These are the posts that attracted their attention (they have “breastfeeding” searches saved that they check so they can call out people who are all, “omg this woman is breastfeeding, gross!”)
“@strebel I’m not sure the conservatives are breast feeding in public. sounds pretty left to me. But Liking naked girls spans party lines”
“@strebel Nah. Not stupid. Be careful. Don’t mix my words or sentiment. My point was merely about WHO tends to push breastfeeding in public.”
These posts make you sound opposed to breastfeeding in public. Wait, stop, don’t jump to defend yourself. They do. They make you sound opposed to it. The idea that it’s a “left” (radical, activist, permissive, progressive) thing to do… the idea that it is being “pushed” on unwilling and unwelcoming women. There’s a lot of subtext in what you say, whether you intend it or not. You should know this, claiming to be such an expert.
And then you defend yourself by saying this sort of thing:
“(I’m all for breastfeeding, but would appreciate some modesty when done in public)”
As you keep saying this on the internet, no matter the original context, you’ll keep getting responses from people that want you to know:
1) Breastfeeding is exempt from indecency laws because breastfeeding isn’t indecent. Not “discreet” breastfeeding, not “modest” breastfeeding, not “breastfeeding that intends to be covered up, even if there’s the occasional slip”. Breastfeeding isn’t indecent, full stop.
2) The fact that you, and a lot of other people, go around saying “cover yourself” and “just be modest”, contributes to a culture where women feel embarrassed or ashamed to breastfeed in public and, more importantly, makes breastfeeding invisible and bottle-feeding the apparent norm.
Now, if you would like to cover up when breastfeeding, more power to you. Go right ahead. But why do you feel that it’s your place to tell other women how to “properly” feed their babies without offending you, without examining the validity and source of your kneejerk discomfort?
The reality is, nobody is going around taking their entire shirt off (or getting “completely naked”) to feed their baby. That is a strawman that you are using to make your POV seem innocuous. It seems that you actually have a problem with people who don’t carry anything “extra” to cover themselves with (hopefully something cutesy and branded and expensive, made just for the purpose, and represented by a PR person like you!). You have a problem with women who just sit down, pull their shirt up or down, and feed their babies without worrying about who sees a bit of nip – and don’t fancy spending hard-earned money or precious diaper-bag space on “solutions” to this non-problem.
You can pay lip-service to “supporting breastfeeding” as much as you like, but truly supporting it would entail supporting a culture of unashamed, visible breastfeeding, not conceding to the unreasonable, harmful, and illogical idea that it is something that nobody else should have to be “subjected” to the sight of, with the obvious implication that it is dirty, or shameful, or gross, or even just undignified.
As far as fake RTs go, I can’t believe you claim to be an expert on social media and this possibility “shocked” you.
You know, I have been following both the Tweets on this topic and the general conversation about this offline as well. I can tell you that the last thing that Amanda is unsupportive of is breastfeeding…in fact (and oh Lord Amanda I hope this doesn’t get you in deep crap with the other side of crazies out there) she can be downright extreme in her own right about how important it is.
I know this because Amanda is one of my closest friends and I just went through a pregnancy with her as such.
I can tell you also that I am a breastfeeding mom. Somehow, I managed to have a social life, crazy job, be a martial artist and never have my kiddo take anything but breastmilk until she was nine months old. (I know, I know…this still makes me a bad mom…I am sure I should have been solely breastfeeding for, like, ten years or something). Of course, this required that I breastfeed in public often, not to mention endless pumping in bathrooms and backrooms.
Of course, all you “lactivists’ out there will insist I am sure that I shouldn’t have been pumping in bathrooms and backrooms, right? I mean, by extension, it’s still about feeding my baby right? Maybe I should have just whipped out the tit in the company boardroom without apology to clients or coworkers and turned that sucker on?
Now, don’t get me wrong, when I had my girl out in public and she needed to eat while I was in conversation, I certainly wouldn’t be excusing myself from the table to miss out every two hours. But, that also doesn’t mean that I was waving my “milk jugs” around in anyone’s plate, either. Because that’s just a bit of respect, something that seems to be sorely lacking socially lately. And I’m not saying it’s because I think there is anything gross about it…simply that we as a culture have certainly decided that breasts share the distinction of sexual object and food source–and just because I am lactating doesn’t mean that all of a sudden my breasts have lost all other form of identity aside from motherhood (like the rest of me, right). I certainly wouldn’t be parading around in public, flashing my breasts if I wasn’t breastfeeding, so why would I now? And no matter what you try to make it into, a breast is not as innocuous as an elbow, or a toe. Unless you happen to have a weird fetish for that sort of thing.
Of course, this will inevitably bring the opponents to a lather at mouth. “BREASTS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE OBJECTS OF PLEASURE”. Really? So, how about your vagina? If you follow that train of thought, then ladies, I certainly hope you are only engaging in activities for the sole purpose of procreation. And you had better not be enjoying it either. If not, then you are just not making a lot of sense in this line of thinking. But then, you aren’t anyway are you?
My main point in all of this (if I have one) is that covering yourself isn’t hard and my baby never once suffered for a gauze-thin piece of material over her. And it certainly doesn’t require a “fancy branded cover that takes up too much room in the diaper bag” I mean, really? Have you SEEN how large diaper bags are? Seriously, a burp cloth will do. And the argument that it not being acceptable to breastfeed with the full monty somehow makes moms not breastfeed is ridiculous…I think that if this is the case, there are much deeper issues at work here.
Now, were there times that she was a bit energetic and I said screw it and flashed some nip, sure. Mainly, at those times, I just turned around, latched her on and was done with it. But, that doesn’t mean I was purposely going around without any respect for anyone else’s views and pulling my shirt up to prove a point. At the same time, I also went about it this way for me. I didn’t want to do that…and not because I have body issues either. Because, frankly, I have a gorgeous body and NO ISSUES with shame or embarrassment with it. But, I do have issues with lack of respect for others, extreme causes, false accusations and a general idea that all of sudden when you become a mom, you are no longer an entity in and of yourself…with opinions, feelings and SEXY BREASTS.
Bring on the army.
Thanks for participating “a breast feeding mom.” Your comments are always appreciated and welcome. I do want to add some clarity and response though just to make sure some points are clear and continue the conversation.
First, the tweets you refer to that started the rapid fire angry deluge of commentary from a bevy of “lactivists” stemmed from additional commentary from myself and from @streubel. As I say in my post, this started about not wanting to post naked boobs, and then @streubel, who I know personally and frequently have friendly political banter with on Twitter, chimed in. My response about conservatives not breastfeeding in public was actually a response to him talking about the healthcare plan, mammograms, and specifically saying he was shocked that a “conservative” would be concerned with naked boobs. My 10+ comments back and forth that then turned into the one you list here actually had nothing to do with feeding – that was actually his wording…a funny commentary about whether conservatives or liberals were more likely to show naked boobs for fun, or for feeding, openly in public. I still contend that a extreme position on feeding in public, while completely uncovered (because remember, there were a TON of posts during this same conversation that were indeed THAT extreme happening) is likely when broken down, a more liberal point of view or issue to take. And quite frankly, I’m not sure it’s a party-line issue at all – it likely crosses both. But the banter that ensued about nakedness in general, did by definition strike me as less a conservative battle and more of a liberal one.
The main point in this is that there were multiple conversation streams going on, that most of the extremists did not, and can not follow, when not following the players – regardless of the technology they use. So there’s a great deal of half conversations and context issues in this example, and in others that happen all the time. And it’s crucial to consider these things when managing a companies brand, period.
I do suppose that you are right – some of my posts may make it seem as if I’m opposed to feeding in public. Oh well – again it’s the context thing and I more than once confirmed my opinion publicly on Twitter, and on this blog. However; you are wrong in stating that the idea of breast feeding isn’t being “pushed” onto people and unwelcoming women is false. If you read the conversations between some of the lactivists and other women who are simply inquiring or mentioning formula, or issues with feeding, etc. there are indeed extremists that are forcing their message, in rapid fire, and without abandon to those not taking the same vigilant stance. And that is the problem with extremists in any argument at all.
My question to the zealots were why not just send helpful and thoughtful information about the importance or benefits of breast feeding rather than just yell and scream and berate women that simply have a different point of view, or are having difficulties. It seems their cause would be more duly served by being helpful instead of hateful.
As for your other points of contention, we will just have to disagree. This quite frankly isn’t a conversation about breast feeding at all. It’s about cyber bullying and illegal acts on Twitter that companies and individuals need to be aware of. I won’t shy away from my opinion simply because yours is different – any more than you should shy away from yours.
I also don’t think it’s of value to assume that someone who disagrees with your take on a subject is somehow uncomfortable in their own skin or with the human body. And there are indeed premises in some of the radical groups that encourage women to get completely shirtless to prove a point. And that’s where I take issue – extremism. Moreover, I completely take issue with false RT messages that are falsely posted, as well as the beating up of people on Twitter by extreme groups when someone has a differing stance. And I will not, ever, apologize or hide that. Hopefully, that isn’t one of YOUR tactics.
And if you expect experts to not ever be stunned by behaviors that organically happen in their space, then I am afraid you will be sadly disappointed. Did you ever consider that the very nature of the human is changing into a more violent stream because people can hide behind their computers? So yes, the fake RT did shock me. It’s never happened in a malicious way to any of our clients (thank goodness) and we’ve never seen it used in a negative way, until this instance. And instead of hiding and letting it just go – I have decided to speak about it, and let you chime into the conversation as well.
Amanda Vega
As far as fake RTs go, I can’t believe you claim to be an expert on social media and this possibility “shocked” you.
“My question to the zealots were why not just send helpful and thoughtful information about the importance or benefits of breast feeding rather than just yell and scream and berate women that simply have a different point of view, or are having difficulties. It seems their cause would be more duly served by being helpful instead of hateful.”
I can’t remember where I heard this, but I read or heard one time that people are likely to read the words of people with opposing viewpoints with the wrong tone of voice in their head. I’m not going to say that nobody screams or berates, but I gotta be honest – most of what was being said to you (and I read way, way back on an @amandavega search, to the very beginning) was perfectly fine if read in a calm, measured tone of voice – especially at first. It seems like they were trying to give you helpful and thoughtful information about cultural taboos, the actual harm that is done to breastfeeding relationships because of disapproval of showing any breast, different ideas of “modesty”, how some babies (especially older babies) resist any and all coverings, and the arbitrary and silly nature of the squeamishness about it. You disagree, clearly – but that doesn’t mean they are hateful. For example, one of the first tweets:
‘Artemnesia @AmandaVega NIP=exempt from decency laws. Clearly you’ve not breastfed. Not always possible to keep covered. Nipplephobia is goofy anway”
A lot of people are not aware that “indecent exposure” laws do not apply to breastfeeding. They think the law is on their side, and they think that gives their viewpoint validity. But really, the law is on the side of breastfeeding moms, no matter how offensive you find it. Your only legal recourse is to look away – so pondering why that is might help you get some insight. And it’s true – your cavalier attitude about how easy it is to cover up might be different if you had breastfed (especially if you had breastfed more than one child, and past a few months.) Maybe you would be aware of how incredibly different babies are. Just because you know someone whose baby happily and quietly nurses away at 9 months with a blanket on her head doesn’t mean my 5 or 6 month old won’t pull it off over and over and over again, eventually coming unlatched to yell her protests at me. Seriously. And if you think about it, it IS pretty goofy to get all squeamish about seeing nipples (or, in most cases, the small edge of an areola that isn’t covered by the baby’s head.) Hands and mouths have EXTREMELY sexual secondary purposes, and yet we don’t mind seeing them. It’s just a cultural taboo without any basis in logic. Which is fine – until it starts affecting mothers and babies.
If you read that tweet without assuming that Artemnesia is yelling at you, you’ll find that she wasn’t – you just don’t like what she’s saying. If you already agreed with the information and point of view she wanted to share with you, there would be no point in her sharing. The shortness of tweets can often make things sound curt, and people should be careful about that, but that goes both ways – you should probably make an effort to interpret things in the least offensive way possible.
You also might be careful about your own language. You have been accusing people of terrorism, extremism, bullying, and in this post, “beating people up”. It’s just Twitter. It’s just words. They might be trolling, but they aren’t terrorists, they aren’t dangerous, and they aren’t threatening you or attempting to silence you. You come off a bit hysterical.
Alicia,
Nobody has a problem with you feeling that your breasts are sexy and private, and covering them up when you feed your baby if that works for you. You say that it’s “ridiculous” to think that modesty makes moms not breastfeed, but lactation consultants like Artemnesia see it all the time.
You say, “covering yourself isn’t hard and my baby never once suffered for a gauze-thin piece of material over her. And it certainly doesn’t require a ‘fancy branded cover that takes up too much room in the diaper bag’ I mean, really? Have you SEEN how large diaper bags are? Seriously, a burp cloth will do.”
YOUR baby. It wasn’t hard for YOU and YOUR baby never suffered. Babies are different, moms are different. I don’t want to carry a huge diaper bag – one of the things I love about breastfeeding is that I can strap her on and head out the door with nothing but a diaper wallet or a small purse. I’d rather carry a bag of cheerios than a burp cloth that she will just rip off her head anyway. Sometimes I’ll use the tail of my sling to cover some skin, but there is ZERO point in my putting anything over the critical area. It will be removed by an angry baby before you can blink, and there’s no fighting it.
Some mothers, confronted with a baby who likes to nurse frequently, pop on and off, wiggle, pull things off their head, etc are too afraid of “making a scene” or “offending” people to continue breastfeeding in public. Some moms sequester themselves, resent the inconvenience, and give up. And some never even try to nurse in public. Then they start relying on bottles (and, frequently, formula) which DOES jeopardize long-term breastfeeding. Anything that makes nursing less convenient does. Anything that gets between the baby and the breast does. And though many babies can switch back and forth between breast and bottle with no problem, not all can.
If you don’t believe me, just look at the countries with the highest breastfeeding rates and consider whether they have anybody running around saying, “Hey ladies, I’m all for this breastfeeding business, just don’t let me see it, ok?” No. They don’t. And American babies will be healthier if and when we become like those countries. I’m not sure which came first – the lack of taboo in that context, or the high rate – so I’ll go ahead on both fronts, fighting for better support of and education about breastfeeding in general, and also fighting against the social taboos that hinder success.
Oh, Alicia, I should clarify that when I say “nobody has a problem with you covering”, I don’t mean that they don’t wish you felt differently. The goal, of course, is a society that allows you feel sexy about your breasts without also feeling the need to cover them while nursing. Plenty of women are already there, and the more the better, so we wish you felt like we did about nursing in public. But not everyone WILL feel that way. There are women who feel the need to cover their hair, without then projecting that need onto all other women. There are women who feel that tank tops are too revealing, who do not go around shaming the bare-armed. That’s the goal – women feeling free to nurse covered OR uncovered without the disapproving tsking. We are trying to shift the social norm in favor of open breastfeeding – which will always allow for more conservative participants, but shifts the responsibility for their feelings off of the uncovered mother and back where it belongs – with themselves.
This conversation is again going away from the original point. The series of tweets to me, and more importantly to many, many other women escalated from three specific angry feeders and were indeed defamatory, threatening, and bullying. In fact, one of the lactivists went as far as to tell a woman she was going to be reported to CPS for not breast feeding, and another has been harassed to the point of having someone call her boss. There are indeed angry posts, and your assessment of the ones above are still missing context. They were not helpful, and were over the top. If you don’t see it that way, oh well. When you dig into some of the other conversations in this arena, you will indeed see what equates to bullying, and attacking. I still contend that some of the examples I see with this topic and with some others related to major brands, does equate to Twitter terrorism…especially when someone uses false/fake retweets and when they ding someone over and over who simply have a different opinion than theirs.
Well, ok, but I think it’s pretty disrespectful of the victims of real, actual terrorism to talk about “twitter terrorism”.
As for CPS, are you talking about this tweet from RadicaLactivist:
@missyoyo2009 HOW DARE YOU call a breastfeeder abusive and threaten to call CPS!!. SHAME SHAME SHAME
Because if so, you are completely misrepresenting (or misunderstanding – probably the latter) the situation.
She was not threatening to call CPS on a formula feeder. She was calling out someone who said they should call CPS on a BREASTFEEDER.
If that’s not the tweet you are referring to, would you mind pointing me toward the one you are?
Hey there, no that’s not what I’m referring to. That would have been a lot better. This was a much bigger conversation that happened a few weeks ago. The woman was interviewed in the paper as well. It was pretty bad. If I have time I’ll find it and post it for you.