I showed my students a couple of her videos, always hoping that the kids would note down the name and run with it on their own. (I hate to have to package every freaking thing that they could be interested in and lay it at their feet. My students seem to be of two types: the ones who follow up on things that are interesting, and the ones who sit back and wait for me to do it. Luckily, I have the courage to let some of them fail.)Vi Hart is a musician, a mathematician, a singer, and a generally multi-talented personality. But I was startled to see a video post by her this morning, in which she reacts with almost out of control grief to the death of an Internet girlfriend of hers who was shot down in Florida at a recent event. This girl was also an Internet personality, evidently one whom Vi Hart got to know from her Internet gaming days, and as a fellow-YouTube personality: Christina Grimmie.
The link to Vi Hart's video is at the bottom of this post. It is about the trend towards--or at least the large number of incidences of--guys on the Internet who feel that they have a right to at least have a chance at a relationship with an Internet personality. In other words, it is about Internet stalkers.
In the process of trying to explain her feelings about the Grimmie girl's shooting (she subsequently died), shortly followed by the shooting at the Orlando night club, Vi Hart reveals a little of her life story (there is a little more on Wikipedia). She makes a large number of observations, many of them having to do with violence toward women becoming so unbelievably common, domestic violence being so condoned by law-enforcement, and how increasingly people act out their hatred. Before our society became so open to the media, people who acquired a hatred for some sector of the population did not feel a need to actually put their feelings into action. That has begun to be commonplace only since the last twenty years or so, essentially the lifetime of Vi Hart.
This video should not be a basis for assessing Vi Hart as a media personality; it is --probably appropriately-- raw, unassimilated emotional response to two horrific events in close juxtaposition. If she were to try to make a similar statement in a few months, it would look very different, but I suspect it would be more bitter. Miraculously, whatever bitterness that is in this video is softened, because of not being more focused.
I have always been intrigued by Vi Hart, despite some of her abrasiveness that occasionally comes through; in particular, she seems to have it in for math teachers! I try to imagine what it would be like to know her, and though sometimes it feels as if she would be an awesome friend for me, at other times I definitely see signs that we would have insurmountable philosophical differences! How is it that I can see, even in her videos, more of her personality than these poor deluded guys can, who imagine themselves to be the perfect mate for Vi Hart? She shows us numerous e-mails from guys who simply say: marry me. There have always been foolish guys (and gals) out there who seem to have personality myopia. But these days, it's almost as though you can hardly turn around without stepping on them. But, notoriously, guys are eager to rescue helpless virgins who seem unhappily trapped anywhere; in this case, on the World Wide Web.
One thing we have to learn is to open our eyes, and open them again, as Terry Pratchett would say, and see people for real. Everyone, even the most obnoxious, deserves to be seen for what they really are, or really are as people. Falling in love with an image you create yourself is something you should keep to yourself, and not inflict on that image. By all means, create fantasy friends for yourself. But never forget that they're fantasies.
The video is here.
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