I have Will Stancil blocked on Bluesky, I have all mentions of his name muted just so I'm not tempted to get involved in Stancil discourse. For a while, I was annoyed because I couldn’t mute any images or screenshots that discussed him, so I spent an hour building something to do just that. For the sake of The Agenda, I've transcribed his interviews with Samantha Hancox-Li for free! Still, I have little desire to be associated with him because he attracts the wrong kind of attention. Honestly the only reason I'm writing this is because I see a bunch of my colleagues at Liberal Currents getting involved in Stancil discourse, and I want to explain why they should hesitate to do so in the future.

How do I manage to like someone as a person while also avoiding them and writing a public essay encouraging other people to avoid them? It’s simple — I only have a problem with Will Stancil the Figure, and plenty of good people are terrible at managing their own public figure.

In this essay, I'm using Will Stancil as an example of what not to do with your online reach. But if you like him too much, just skip to the parts where I explain the problem in terms of Basil and Roslyn Talusan.

Enter the rice paddy

Here, let’s set aside the philosophy for now and start off with a simple case: Roslyn Talusan, who had a few too many toxic fans.

So in 2021, some white woman named Pippi made an Asian cookbook. Roslyn Talusan found out and uh — she kind of tweeted what a lot of us in the Asian diaspora were thinking: "Why is she white though?"

Now, she could have gone into a nuanced thread of how difficult it is for minorities to prove expertise in their own culture while also dodging suspicions of bias, while some white chick gets to waltz in and get a book deal. Instead, she just kind of kept saying “lmao these fuckin whites” over and over again, against an increasingly large number of white people who couldn’t take a poke.

One of my Vietnamese-American friends quote-tweeted her with a mild critique, Roslyn Talusan quote-tweeted her back with some snark, next thing you know Roslyn Talusan’s followers are blowing up a university hotline trying to get my friend expelled.

Now to be clear: Roslyn didn’t say anything close to “Hey everyone! Go harass this house chink!” She just said something rude, so some of her dumbass followers took it way too far. She especially isn’t responsible for the fact that 4chan users were involved in this whole debacle, stoking flames and sowing disinformation to put a critical mass of her followers into a state of dumbassery.

Roslyn Talusan the Person, I assume, is a good person. But Roslyn Talusan the Figure, with her following, scares the yellow out of me. And for that reason I'm out.

Enter the mayo clinic

You know how when someone is an asshole to you, you have a right to be an asshole back, but you also know that it might escalate into something more vicious and extreme?

Not only that, but other people on both sides might get involved to defend their own people? Next thing you know, the one idiot on your side calls someone else an offensive slur or something, which pisses other people off, and now you’re associated with that idiot because you were in the same vicinity?

A Stancildome is what you get when that happens on a very visible place on the internet, and that’s really the core mechanism behind people hating Will. He doesn't necessarily start the fires, but he’s not the type of person to put them out. Here's the general structure:

1. Someone criticizes Will Stancil, holding him in contempt that’s not uh, entirely unprofessional.
2. Stancil rebuffs them in a way that’s, like — also not entirely unprofessional.
3. Their respective followers jump in to defend their main, but too many of them are idiots who quickly devolve into aggressive replies, insults, and maybe some slurs.
4. As the original idiots leave, aggrieved people direct their anger at the regular people that remain

This happens multiple times over the course of a year, and the only legible, visible constant in each incident is one person: Will Stancil.

You, dear reader, may object — “It wasn’t Stancil who started the fire. It was just some idiot who wanted to defend Will! Why is Will responsible for them?” You don't need to blame Stancil for anything. For that matter, you don’t need to get mad at him when people start fires on his behalf. Or get mad when he punches back. But then don’t get mad at me for pointing out that avoiding Will Stancil on the internet is a great way to avoid psychic damage.

Reversal

Now, if you’re Will Stancil and you’re reading this, you might be objecting, “What the fuck am I supposed to do? I’m not supposed to keep track of all my followers!”

My response would be: You don’t have to do anything at all! I’m not going to think any less of you as a person. But as a figure, a would-be political figure who has sought political power? Yeah, I’ll think less of you if you can’t understand that:

1. You, as a sufficiently large figure, will have shitty followers who say shitty things on your behalf
2. A lot of people will associate those shitty things with you
3. A lot of people are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if you simply denounce those shitty things
4. If you want power and influence, then denouncing shitty things is a great way to gain power and influence.

When you were running for the state legislature, someone mailed out a bunch of postcards containing a screenshot of you telling someone to kill themselves, minus the context showing that the other person kinda deserved it.

It made you look bad, but more importantly it made your opponent look bad that her side was resorting to dirty tricks! Sure she wasn’t personally responsible for it, but she wanted to win, which is why she made a public statement condemning that campaign.

(Backup links here)

Enter the gay bar

I say, "I stay away from this person because they attract the wrong type of attention." People push back when it's about someone they know. Explaining the problem with Will Stancil to my friends goes by smoothly, but then I explain that Basil has the same problem:

"They're fine, but they draw the wrong kind of attention. They publicly criticized Haus of Decline's comic style, saying that a certain Nazi comic artist was a better artist. Haus was having a bad day and insulted Basil, this drew more attention, So eventually the Nazi saw the whole thing and made a comic about Haus getting raped."

No, I'm not linking the rape comic.

Anyway, my liberal friends are familiar with Basil. My liberal friends have seen the kindness and warmth that Basil is capable of, so a defense mounts:

"But they're not responsible for what other people do! It's outside of their control!"

Sure, fine, whatever. Basil the Person is fine! We dated for a month and ended on good terms! But Basil the Figure is still actively posting on a website run by the world's most powerful white supremacist, and invoked the name of a Nazi for rhetorical flourish. And as much as I want that cute twink in my life and in my apartment, I don't want Stonetoss making comics about raping the people I actually like. To do that, I should probably hide my leftier friends from Basil's radar.

Some friends rebut:

"But Basil had every right to compare someone's art style to a Nazi's art style! It's valid artistic opinion!"

Yeah, it's also a valid opinion for me to respond, "Even Joseph Goebbels understood the importance of choosing your words carefully. Why can't you?" but I don't do that because I'm not a fucking idiot who wants to derail the conversation.

Finish the cringe run

Dina Pomeranz, a famous academic, was really active on Twitter for a while. One day, she posted some innocuous thread about global health trends, but it almost became a Stancildome:

1. Noah Smith came into her replies (talking about Asia, I presume)
2. Some aggressive account responded to Noah Smith with some unexpected rudeness
3. Noah Smith sniped back with an insult, continuing the escalation

But then Dina Pomeranz got involved in her own thread, and did something I hadn't seen in years: she politely told them (and I'm paraphrasing here) to stop being a bunch of dorks or she'd block both. And they did stop! Dina Pomeranz saved her thread's vibes, and saved us all the trouble of viewing a bunch of boring, energy-draining insults.

Now, you might think that Dina Pomeranz’s demand was cringe. But consider this: Dina Pomeranz is not tainted by some internet controversy involving toxic fans and slurs. So I ask you, would you rather be seen as cringe, or would you rather be seen as… one of them?

And it’s not a binary choice, by the way — I’ve Pomeranz’d a few people out of my mentions, because they agreed with me while also threatening violence against those who disagreed.

I’ve also slouched plenty towards Stancildome, telling Dylan Partner to kill himself because he:

1. Stancildome'd a bunch of Nazis into my mentions, and
2. is friends with my harasser.

I stand by my decision to tell Dylan to kill himself. In fact, I think white people like Dylan Partner are the reason why the Roslyn Talusans of the world need to exist. Additionally, creeps like Dylan Partner are exactly the type of person Stancil-haters think Stancil is. Furthermore, people would be giving Basil a lot more goodwill, if not for the rancid vibes that rub off on Basil every time they interact with Dylan on X. But I also know that there are costs to publicly shitting on Partner, and every paragraph like this draws me closer and closer to becoming someone whom I would block. Therefore, I don't publicly wage grudges all the time, especially against people who are in the same political tent as me.

Anyway — aside from Partner, I'm sure these are all good people, and I try to do right by them. Again, I’ve transcribed multiple interviews that Stancil has had with Samantha Hancox-Li, because those interviews have social value and therefore should be more accessible to the public. I’ve openly explained to people that Roslyn Talusan did have some point under all the drama. And I’ve defended Basil from unfair criticisms.

But not all allies need to be joined at the hip. Sometimes, you do your best work and be your best self when you keep your distance.