u/Fantastic-Fennel-532

Hello, you might know me from this post (the focus of my new post here:) https://www.reddit.com/r/FeministsCallItOut/comments/1tf09vx/we_are_living_through_an_online_epidemic_of/

Or this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/FeministsCallItOut/comments/1smym0t/cnn_exposes_a_global_online_rape_academy_62/

I recently decided to start a Substack called Femosphere, reclaiming this word as a reaction against the manosphere. It is focused on internet culture, AI and online misogyny because I’ve become increasingly disturbed by the rise of hateful misogyny online.

The rise of these bizarre AI-generated fruit videos on TikTok and Instagram are a symptom of the rise of the manosphere.

People view them as absurd and harmless at first: anthropomorphic bananas, oranges, strawberries acting out family or relationship scenarios but so many of them feature:

• violent or controlling husbands
• 'gold-digging' women
• humiliation of women and children portrayed as 'comedic'
• racial stereotypes

What interests me is how the absurdity of the content masks the hateful ideology underneath it. Because it’s 'just fruit,' viewers consume it as nonsense entertainment rather than a miasma of misogynistic-racist stereotypes amplified through algorithms.

AI fruit videos are covert propaganda.

I wrote a longer piece about this here if anyone’s interested: https://substack.com/@adiakesserwany/note/p-198873798?r=4sesf9&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

I'm curious whether other people have noticed this trend too, because it's worrying when you consider how many people, including children, might be consuming this content daily.

These shorts sexualise women, portraying them as gold-diggers or struggling single mothers. They are attacked for having 'only fruits' accounts, for not being 'skinny' enough, for not 'pleasing' their husbands.

Men are portrayed as violent, controlling and aggressive towards children.

The guise of anthropomorphic fruit does not make this 'misogynistic' in inverted commas.

It makes it MISOGYNISTIC manosphere propaganda in capital letters. This is digital dehumanisation, designed to desensitise doomscrollers to hateful gender-based and racist stereotypes.

Lots of these shorts feature the 'orange' or the other 'race' of fruit being discriminated against, being treated as 'lesser than' by the dominant fruit, in this case the banana.

It's not 'just fruit.' The distancing effect of anthropomorphism makes this anti-women ideology easier to circulate (including among children) because doomscrollers consume these as absurd entertainment not what they are: misogynistic-racist slop.

AI amplifies human discrimination. We need better regulations on this technology. It's appalling and disgusting, this hateful miasma, this poison in our algorithms and conversations.

And the takeaway from someone in the comments section... policing women's clothing choices. Women's bodies were never the problem, sexuality was never the problem.

The problem is rape culture. Everything, from the rape jokes I encountered in conversation with one of my male university classmates, to the manosphere and the algorithms that push this hateful content.

Cut from a copy of Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264), Speculum historiale, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. France (Loire Valley, Nantes or Angers)

You can read my essay on if the later Middle Ages was a persecuting society here https://open.substack.com/pub/adiakesserwany/p/the-heretics-were-not-discovered?r=4sesf9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Public murals celebrating women in Gwalior were repeatedly defaced in a sexualised manner.

By a young boy. Who has learnt to hate and objectify women.

Why are representations of women in public spaces so frequently targeted in acts of vandalism?

Around this time last year, the 'She Matters' mural, created in Hosier Lane on International Women’s Day by Femicide Watch was vandalised.

Graffiti included phrases like 'war on men' written across women’s faces.

Ms Moody said: 'They have families who adore them and miss them and are angry at their loss and angry that … someone has f**king gone down there and erased them again.'

She said the person who sprayed the 'war on men' graffiti 'just doubly erased 124 women' in a 'five-minute sessions with a couple of spray cans.'

Read the full article on the 'She Matters' mural here: https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/fing-erased-them-again-outrage-as-womens-violence-mural-defaced-in-iconic-melbourne-laneway/news-story/b7bdd7e423fe53c10fdaa75f63840132

Public murals celebrating women in Gwalior were repeatedly defaced in a sexualised manner.

By a young boy. Who has learnt to hate and objectify women.

Why are representations of women in public spaces so frequently targeted in acts of vandalism?

Around this time last year, the 'She Matters' mural, created in Hosier Lane on International Women’s Day by Femicide Watch was vandalised.

Graffiti included phrases like 'war on men' written across women’s faces.

Ms Moody said: 'They have families who adore them and miss them and are angry at their loss and angry that … someone has f**king gone down there and erased them again.'

She said the person who sprayed the 'war on men' graffiti 'just doubly erased 124 women' in a 'five-minute sessions with a couple of spray cans.'

Read the full article on the 'She Matters' mural here: https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/fing-erased-them-again-outrage-as-womens-violence-mural-defaced-in-iconic-melbourne-laneway/news-story/b7bdd7e423fe53c10fdaa75f63840132

Public murals celebrating women in Gwalior were repeatedly defaced in a sexualised manner.

By a young boy. Who has learnt to hate and objectify women.

Why are representations of women in public spaces so frequently targeted in acts of vandalism?

Around this time last year, the 'She Matters' mural, created in Hosier Lane on International Women’s Day by Femicide Watch was vandalised.

Graffiti included phrases like 'war on men' written across women’s faces.

Ms Moody said: 'They have families who adore them and miss them and are angry at their loss and angry that … someone has f**king gone down there and erased them again.'

She said the person who sprayed the 'war on men' graffiti 'just doubly erased 124 women' in a 'five-minute sessions with a couple of spray cans.'

Read the full article on the 'She Matters' mural here: https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/fing-erased-them-again-outrage-as-womens-violence-mural-defaced-in-iconic-melbourne-laneway/news-story/b7bdd7e423fe53c10fdaa75f63840132

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/DXdiTVZCY5z/

Brielle is correct, but it's so frustrating that, as women, we have to be constantly hypervigilant and live in fear because of the pervasiveness of gender-based violence.

And that, as women, we are socialised from childhood to be accommodating, kind, polite. Even when something is off. That parents are having to teach their little girls how to keep themselves safe before they even know why. The violent headlines of sexual assault, of women and girls. Endless and enraging.

• You don’t owe anyone politeness at the expense of your safety
• Don't be afraid to say no to a stranger, ignore them, or leave without justification
• If you have a bad gut feeling, trust it
• Stay in public, well-lit spaces where possible
• Drawing attention, by screaming etc, can deter harm