on the hair bounty

[brainwane]

So I saw the news story about Martin Shkreli getting punished for posting online and offering USD$5,000 for a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair. And it gets at a bunch of deep primal or overlapping things, doesn't it?
* girls being pressured/socialized to have longer hair, and Hillary specifically revamping her hair for decades to avoid particular narratives about her feminism
* pulling people's hair as a childish bullying tactic
* entitlement to women's bodies
* this specific guy's obsession with using his wealth to collect rare stuff that people think he should not have/monopolize (e.g. the Wu-Tang Clan album)
* punishing Hillary specifically for being a public figure who interacts with ordinary, unscreened people
* perverting the well-known oldschool token of affection valence of a lock of a woman's hair (_consensually_ given & taken)
* stealing _a single hair_ as literalizing the idea of microaggression
* figuratively: a single hair is like the metadata we cannot help emitting, for other people to scoop up, as we traverse the world

Comments

[resolute]

Yes to ALL OF THIS ANALYSIS yes.

[brainwane]

Thank you! *bow*

[moem]

It made me think of the way that people use other people's hair or fingernail clippings in rituals, such as voodoo. Having a part of someone's body gives you a kind of power over them.

And yes, hair = DNA = identity, like in the movie Gattaca.

[brainwane]

I was thinking about Gattaca too!

[naomikritzer]

Oh, yeah. All of this.

The other things that occurred to me are the stories about using someone's hair magically to curse or control them.

Shkreli is one of the most profoundly creepy people in public life today. He's a comic book villain from the sort of story where you pull back the curtain to find someone ridiculous rather than frightening, who then almost kills everyone because they stop taking him seriously.

[brainwane]

I'm so delighted you found it an apt analysis.

The other things that occurred to me are the stories about using someone's hair magically to curse or control them.

Do you suppose the locket-with-hair custom partly relates to this? As in, I will give this to you willingly, as a sign of trust?

And what you said about Shkreli is shiveringly on-point.

[ivy]

Yep. Super fucked up, and yet I know a bunch of dudes who are like "it's one hair, it's not a big deal". Lacking having lived on the inside of this context, I think they're missing how utterly fucked up it is. :/

[brainwane]

Oh dear. I do not know whether it is plausible or kind to hope for those dudes to learn better.

[watersword]

When I saw the NYT article, skimming the site over tea in bed, I made a sound that only dogs can hear and literally pulled the covers over my head.

[brainwane]

It's just ..... a new bouquet of horrible, a novel combination of awful and scary and demeaning and gross, a particular chord I haven't heard before but I know all the notes too well.

[watersword]

a particular chord I haven't heard before but I know all the notes too well

YES THIS.

[jesse_the_k]

Spot on.

[brainwane]

Thanks!

[altamira16]

My first extinct was a deep desire to high five Lauren Duca because the dude who was harassing her was going to jail.

[brainwane]

I hadn't even realized this facet of things. Thanks for the heads-up!

[altamira16]

Wow, I am impressed by my inability to spell the word instinct. 🥇

[sasha_feather]

Excellent analysis. I'm also bothered by the "I was just joking" defense; it was so helpful to me when I learned that's a common bullying/ harassment tactic.

[brainwane]

Uggggggh "I was just joking".

Once, in a situation talking to someone who had done me a small wrong, I said I wanted a public apology, and then they started asking what I'd want in the apology, and I realized that there was a big possibility for blowback that would hurt me if I actually made them do this. So I said "oh I'm just kidding" and acted like I hadn't been serious. So I have had an experience of being on the other side of it and I know how untruthful and slippery it can be from the other end, and it only solidifies my opinion that it's a dirty trick.

I think it might be better, net, for people to sometimes have a face-saving way of backing off, so they have an attractive option that is not "double down on really awful thing I have said." But it is still so gross. And "well obviously I didn't mean it literally" (from someone who usually wants their word taken literally) is in the same category, to me.

[sasha_feather]

That's a good point, maybe "I take it back" like backsies / no backsies that kids do. "I've reconsidered, let's rewind."