Analysis: TWD board as woman-friendly
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Walking Dead
dbentley666 — 6 years ago(March 03, 2020 07:40 PM)
This has always struck me as so obvious as hardly to need mentioning. True, the dominant trolls tended to be male (e.g. Pete, Bentley), but there was always a huge number of very influential female trolls (or at any rate posters) on the board. Bee, Klam, Crystal, MoB, Raven, Cornell, Nudes, Jane, Gigi, and even Dalaryca come to mind (Dal was a TWD reg till she quarreled with Pete: now that’s a really interesting story, I’m sure, if anyone knows it).
One of the reasons why there were so many powerful female posters is that there were very few powerful male posters who overtly
performed
their masculinity. From the beginning, male posters were playful, even somewhat effeminate: maybe metrosexual is the defining term. Rob is probably the perfect example: effortlessly masculine, but amused by demonstrations of masculinity in any form. Pete was perhaps closer to alpha male status, but even he was quite playful. And then there was Horatio who was probably the single greatest provider of entertainment that this board has ever witnessed, and who was also very woman-friendly, although Bee says emphatically not. Bentley was, if anything, even more flamboyantly metrosexual and ambiguously gendered than any major troll before him (to the annoyance of those moustachioed quasi-women, MoB and FRTT). Corwin and Styg, arguably the two most interesting male posters of the Bentley era, are not particularly invested in macho posturing either. Shredder tried to set himself up as the perfect man, again and again, and failed resoundingly. Spec, I think, was driven off because he was really nasty to Cornell. MoB became more and more unpopular because she represented a strange compensatory masculinity: she was like Lady Macbeth (selling underwear on the Web). Nobody on TWD board ever aspires, or aspired successfully, to the kind of hyper-masculine status that hungry, say, pulled off without too much comment on GoT board. The soapbox here seems to be full of angry men seeking redemption through message-board violence.
So it is, in a strange way, a woman’s board. When the board relocated, whose board was it? Crystal’s. When the board was in the doldrums who resuscitated it? Bee.
I rest my case. -
Bee — 6 years ago(March 03, 2020 07:45 PM)
i love that you always try and downplay klam's trolling
and this thread "about women" is very focused on the men lol
but overrall i love the analysis! well done, bentz!
When the board was in the doldrums who resuscitated it? Bee.
aww i doubt that's true but i'll take it! -
Alpha Raven Andromeda — 6 years ago(March 13, 2020 01:48 AM)
That's right Bentley. I think Gigi was the first female troll of walking dead. She became th at way out of necessity. Before Gigi, the board females were groupies chilling on the sidelines chatting among themselves and with the guys.
After Gigi showed the females it was cool to troll, there was that explosion of female trolls. They wanted all the attention and glory. They immulated Gigi until they blossomed into something entirely different and sexualized. Gigi pretty much was run off the board at that point. She only returned to watch the new breed of trolls from GoT and walking Dead.
