One item flowing through Men’s Rights social media circles recently was the occurrence at VidCon last week. Essentially, several people who could be said to be part of the men’s rights movement, notably Sargon of Akkad and other large-audience youtubers, showed up to an event on harassment online being held by Anita Sarkeesian. She called out those audience members for their videos critical of her and her content, which she perceives as harassment. The exchange mostly ended after Sarkeesian called security, who decided not to intervene, since the youtubers had not done anything, not even speaking to Sarkeesian. Many men’s rights groups and twitter feeds appear to be posting things about this, with very little pushback from anyone else. This exchange is an interesting example of some of Corder’s ideas, since both the youtubers and Sarkeesian have deeply conflicting narratives. These incompatible narratives were driven home as questions from the audience criticized Sarkeesian and the other panelists’ ideas on harassment. Neither group tried to understand the other side, and so there was not conversation or dialogue, as Sarkeesian became defensive, and the audience questions clearly attempted no common understanding.

De Certeau’s essay also had interesting implications on this exchange. One of his main distinctions between tactics and strategies was that those who implemented strategies had power, whereas those without power used tactics to use the tools created by the powerful in new and different ways. In this case, the powerful, Anita Sarkeesian, took part in a panel discussion about harassment at a significant public event, VidCon. Meanwhile, the less powerful youtubers, with most of their presence represented by anonymous subscribers online, used the event in a new way, both by simply appearing, and by other people in disagreement with the panel asking tough questions, that the panel often refused to answer. This is a good example of De Certeau’s distinction between tactics and strategy.