W!ll Sh3tt3rly
“How is he wrong on EVERYTHING? HOW. He's not even a stopped clock, he's like a stopped version of Dr Manhattan's radioactive watch from when he was trapped in the lab which exploded and was put together again and is right twice a millennium upside-down on the other side of the universe.”
— Nov. 8, 2014
W.S. is a mediocre (kindly speaking) sf/f writer whose hilariously bad novels feature, among other things, a vegan vampire and Jesus jerky. More importantly, he is a serious wanker, a harasser and stalker, and a relentless self-Googler.
He first became wank-notorious during RaceFail '09 for plunging into discussions of racism and insisting that the only salient oppression in the U.S. anymore is classism. He also “outed” LiveJournaler and writer CoffeeandInk, as well as stalked and harassed her. Since RaceFail, he has been involved, if even tangentially, in just about every major SJ wank covered in this wiki (with the exception of Vividcon) and — with the sole, shining exception of Elizabeth Moon losing her Guest of Honor status at Wiscon after an Islamophobic 9/11 rant — been on the wrong side of every single one.
He inevitably shows up in online discussions about him and takes over the discussion, wanking away with purposeful obtuseness. To keep him from doing so on FFA, nonnies have munged his name in any number of ways, such as “Wool Sweaterly,” “Wails Soulfully,” “The Sweaterly One,” etc. However, he Googles on those variants as well. In one instance of this, he showed up in this thread about his defense of the racist novel Save the Pearls.
The silver lining is that he inspired a nonnie to identify themself as “Not Wool Sweaterly (But an Incredible Simulation!)” in various parody comments, such as:
- “I have no idea what this quote means or how to use it in discussion. But there's something about class in there and by God, I am gonna deploy it!”
- “I am incapable of letting things go and I am incredibly self righteous.”
- “My vague (at best) understanding of words makes it baffling that I have had any success in my chosen career. And I am way, way up my own ass.”
A helpful nonnie created A Simple Guide to Recognizing Anonymized, Third-Person Wool Sweaterly:
- Faux-chummy tone. “No big.”
- Assertion that only privileged people would disagree with him.
- Assertion that he is the only person in fandom who ever discusses class.
- Disparaging reference to “critical race theorists.”
- Assertion that all his opponents went to expensive private schools.
Nonnies downstream of this list came up with other signs that you've spotted the wild W.S.:
- Total failure to engage with argument.
- Liberal use of strawmen.
- Link to Thandeka essay.
- Assertion that coffeeandink deserved to be outed because she was already out.
- “If you feel the desperate longing for the superpower to permanently prevent your opponent from ever getting online again… you just might be arguing with Wool Sweaterly!”
An earnest nonny asked His Wooliness to recognize that he might need professional help for his compulsive, life-wrecking internet behavior. Naturally, this nonnie did not get a response.
Some of his other greatest hits and/or FFA discussion thereof:
- Nick Mamatas, another professional fandom wanker, noted in July 2011 that W.S. had announced some sort of bizarre, threatening countdown to unspecified revenge against CoffeeandInk. He blamed his bizarre behavior on his vegan diet, then went right back to it.
- With a few exceptions among her friends (who soon after walked their words back or fell silent), W.S. was virtually the only person to defend Kynn, and he popped up on the meme to scold us over it.
- Yes Gay YA prompted him to deny that homophobia exists in YA publishing and call anyone who says otherwise a “cultist.”
- As W.S. does not acknowledge misogyny as a serious societal problem, it is probably unsurprising that he didn't think Rene Walling did anything wrong at Readercon and he supports Julian Assange.
- When Dear Author protested the outing and stalking of Good Reads reviewers who write critical book reviews, the OP mentioned W.S.'s outing of CoffeeandInk. W.S. turned up in the comments like a bad penny, got told by romance novelist Courtney Milan (which of course went right over his head), and executed a spectacular triple flounce. Gentlefailer discussion.
- He weighed in on the flap about the 2014 Hugo Awards, meaning he came down on the side of the odious Vox Day. FFA discussion.
- In October 2014, one nonny brought to meme's attention the fact that W.S. had written a book about "SJWs" (his definition) that includes “failfans” in its title and had also done an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit. Another nonny lamented, “My desire to not ever give W'ghll S'hterrlftaghn money is warring with my desire to do a Hollowstone-style reading thread…” When yet another begged for fic of “W'ghll S'hterrlftaghn,” still another produced a "Wimoweh" parody (also see "The Sweater Lies Tonight"), and mods titled the next post "W'ghll S'hterrlftaghn."
- In November 2014, a nonny announced that W.S. “is deleting yet another of his “SJ Warrior” blogs….*AGAIN*” and provided a no-follow link. “How long will it last this time? Two days? Three hours? Fifteen minutes? place your bets!”
- Later in November, a nonny suggested that FFA “do a Mixon on The Woolly One” — referring to Laura Mixon, who famously posted a collection of Winterfox's many incidents of abuse against other fans and writers. The next day, Ann Somerville linked to a post on her own blog in which she “Mixons” W.S. And, another few days later, yet another nonny reports (with a munged link to W.S.'s blog) that “Ann has FORCED the Weary One back into social justice blogging! … I noticed this while looking at some of the links in her post – he just can't ever leave while someone's still posting about him. It's like he wants everyone to just drop him completely, THEN he'll leave.”
- Around the same time, one nonny who'd acquired an epub of W.S.'s book and asked if other nonnies wanted to do a readalong, like we've done for Neo_Prodigy's and Vox Day's books. “Give me a page number from 13 - 261, and I'll give you the 'best' quote from that page,” but with screencaps rather than text, à la Ann Somerville. Much amusement was had.
- In early December, a nonny linked to a post by s/f writer Steven Brust that pushes the “It's all about class, not race” meme but “but at least shows a willingness to listen to other positions … And of course Sweater is all over it,” offering up such pearls of wisdom as, “I do wish someone would ask working class white men whether they would trade their privilege for the oppression of an Oprah or a Herman Cain. The historian in me wishes there was some way to ask working class white men in 1850 whether they would trade their privilege for the oppression of a William Ellison or Madame Antoine Dublucet.” His wife Emma Bull “Emma makes an appearance as well, suggesting that she, Steve, and Will all feel this way because they're the Right Age to have fought the Right Fight.”
- The same week, nonnies wondered if they should hateship W.S. with Nick Mamatas, as they would not stop hatetweeting one another.