The battle for hashtag supremacy has evolved into a countermeasure dubbed by blogger Dorothy Kim as #TwitterPanic, according to her piece appearing in Model View Culture (graphic by Dan Moyle.)
Activists such as Suey Park have mastered the use of the hashtag campaign to carry their message to the masses. Park identifies with a group she calls WOC or women of color feminists.
The backlash over campaigns such as the #CancelColbert campaign is seen by WOC feminists as a means to control them. #TwitterPanic erupts. Moral panic ensues.
Kim writes:
#TwitterPanic allows status quo pundits to paint not just the WOC feminists, but Twitter the digital medium as frivolous, insubstantial, ephemeral, un-nuanced, unsophisticated.
Just who is this status quo? According to Kim, it can be mainstream media. It also can be traditional voices commonly heard in the Asian American community–those the media often turns to for Asian American expertise.
The self described “radical feminists” from AAPI Twitter are attempting to separate themselves from what they call the “liberal AAPI” Twitter.
It’s a complex theory that I’ve probably oversimplified. You can read it for yourself and see Kim’s views on the feminists killjoy in Model View Culture.