You all remember the post where one of the Amazon/GR bullies tormented someone with special needs. Well, here is another example of an attack on such a person. This article comes from an anonymous blog reader who wanted to share their opinion on GR troll attacks.
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Reviews that have merit and are written with some substance and thought, regardless of whether they’re negative or positive, on the book itself. Anytime, a review brings things in that are hearsay , or are gossip, by nature about the writer, that is not pertinent to the review itself; you no longer have a book review.
Emilie Autumn, an independent author, musician, and poet, recently was the victim of a mob of trolls on Goodreads, who left nearly two pages worth of reviews about her work, which were all one-star reviews. Some were not as egregious, but were still clearly part of some act of retaliation. The sheer number in such short time can only mean that there was a troll mob attack.
Emilie Autumn’s book “Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls,” is a book that is partly about her experience in a mental hospital, but it is really about her bipolar disorder, which defines a lot of her work.
I have paid witness to many trolls over the years on Goodreads, leaving many vulgar, abusive reviews, but these reviews really seemed more egregious, in their tone and vulgarity, about Emilie’s work, in specific. They are demoralizing in tone, when speaking about those with either mental illness or some traumatic incident of abuse in their past. Therefore, I caution anyone reading this to please exercise caution, when reading either of the below reviews.
For example, this one reviewer left a review of her work, containing very disconcerting, false accusations that Emilie Autumn faked her mental illness, and by extension, any fans of her work are thus similarly faking their mental illness:
Link to Goodreads review:
Another review, right around the same time, much like the one, implies that anyone with a past of self-mutilation, suicide attempts, must show proof for it to be legitimate. It also further implies how you act in response to the deep, paralyzing experience of sexual abuse, somehow evaluates whether that trauma was genuine or not:
Link to other Goodreads review:
This was really a last straw moment for me, with respects to Goodreads. To say this issue is about censoring criticism is beside the point, the above reviews are not even critical analysis of the content itself. They are more like veiled attempts to discredit an important advocate on the issue of mental illness, and to further bully those who are fans of her work. That is hardly a review, it is really harassment
Goodreads should be about reading and evaluating what we’re reading in a civil, ethically democratic way, and not about bullying, nor about spreading gossip. We venture to reviews to read responses on content. The above type of reviews become indiscernible, by the fact that they contain so much hearsay, and false allegations.
Most important, Emilie Autumn’s work was an artistic act of really legitimizing what happened to her in her past, when she herself, as a sufferer from bipolar disorder, struggles with really feeling mentally grounded to this reality. When people spread the dangerous idea that those that suffer from mental illness lack credibility, they are basically dehumanizing these people, shutting out their freedom to express themselves artistically and creatively.
