Hello everybody, my name is Cara, and today I'm here with a review for Bye
Felipe: Disses, Dick Pics, and Other Delights of Modern Dating by Alexandra
Tweten. I received a free review copy from the publicist in exchange for an
honest review. So as you can probably gather from the title, this book is a
nonfiction and it's about basically the difficulties and the stresses and the
dangers of being a woman on the internet. It does address kind of the modern
dating world and dating apps in particular, but I do think that this book
is applicable to basically anyone on the internet who's not a cis man. Like I
personally am not super involved in online dating but I still found a lot in
this book that was very relevant to my experience on the Internet. I also want to
point out, in case you are worried by the title, there are not actually any dick pics
in this book, so thank the Lord! So you don't need to worry about being
subjected to these if you decide to pick up the book. I also think that this book
overall is just a really good resource for any woman or non-binary person on
the internet who wants to feel seen and who wants to kind of learn more about
the statistics and the occurrences of this on the internet, but I also think
this would be a great book for men who maybe don't understand what it's like
for the rest of us, or even who do but want a clearer picture of some of the
things that can happen just on an everyday basis, that really shouldn't be
happening at all. Also a quick note: the "bye Felipe" is a reference to "bye Felicia,"
so that was basically the male equivalent that the author of this book came up
with and started using on social media as kind of a dismissive way to kind of
get past some of the offensive messages and things that men did on the internet
that she came across .So first I'm gonna talk about the things I really liked
about this book, then there are a couple of things that I thought were good but
could have been better, and then there are a couple things that I think this
book did not do very well. So first off I think that the whole book in general did
a really good job of balancing humor and kind of the horror of what goes on on
the internet every day. And the author kind of addresses this at the beginning,
that there are some times where *sighs* things happen where you either have to
cry or laugh, and she chose to laugh at some of them. But with that being said I
do think that she addressed some of the really serious safety issues later on in
the book. I think that it balanced those two things really well, it's like women
can kind of come together and like laugh at some of these ridiculous messages but
she also does a good job of pointing out that as a whole this--this trend is not a
laughing matter. I mean some of the alliterative names she uses for
the types of boys on these--on these dating apps or online, some of those are
a little bit cutesy but I think that overall the tone was handled really well.
They use actual messages that real people have received from men on the internet
and quite a few of them are just horrifying, like they kind of...*deep breath* make you
feel like you need to go take a shower after reading them because they are so
despicable and dehumanizing and the things--the things that these men have
threatened women with or that they say they deserve because they dared to not
want to go out with them on a date, it's pretty terrifying. And I mean it's not always
comfortable to read some of these interactions but I think that it's
important that we are aware of how often these things happen and how these are
not...like the really bad ones are not exceptions, you know, like it's not like
every once in a while you'll--somebody will run across a really bad and violent
example, it's like this is the norm and that's just unacceptable. I also think
that the examples she used and the way she talked about them did a good job of
communicating the kind of all-consuming fear that a lot of us go through on the
internet because even if you don't receive these messages every day you
know that it's always a possibility [that you'll receive one] and it's probably going to happen at some
point, just statistically, and also the fact that you never know which of them
are going to turn out to be the really dangerous ones you know? Like I know some
people say that "oh just write it off, you know, it was--it was one guy who was kind
of being a jerk and you...like, don't worry about it" but the problem is that you
never actually know which of those are going to be "harmless," you know, although I
would argue that any of these are not harmless because you are objectifying
someone and you are--you're treating them in a really disgusting way, but you never
know which of these are going to be the really dangerous ones that can turn into
a stalker situation or any of this, like you never know, so you have to kind of
approach all of them like they could be extremely dangerous. I also really like
the fact that the author used specific instructions and statistics, like she
doesn't just say "oh it's important to be safe on the Internet" she has like step
by step, "here's how to safeguard your account by using a different picture
that you've never used before because of reverse image search," and things like
that, so I really like that it wasn't just kind of vague "it's important to be
safe and to keep your personal information private" like she did, she had
actionable things that people could do on the Internet in
order to protect themselves, and steps to take if something went wrong along the
way, and I really really liked that. I don't think that's something that we see
enough of, is like tangible things that you can do to prevent this or to address
it once it has happened, and by it I mean like sexual harassment online or even
when things escalate further. Like for example she talked about the importance
of filing a restraining order if things go too far, and I really like what she
said because she pointed out that even if--even if you don't think the stalking
aspect is applicable, or even if you think it's not going to do anything, it's
really important to take a step like that because it sort of legitimizes your
claim for the law. So that as you kind of make this case against this person who
is threatening you, harassing you, abusing you, whatever, that you have done kind of
all of the things that you were "supposed" to do and that makes your claim more
likely to be acted upon by law enforcement. I also think the author did
a pretty good job of using inclusive language throughout the book, like she
specifically says women, non-binary people, femme people, I think overall she
was very inclusive as far as gender identity when she was talking about
experiences on the internet and how those differ for different groups of
people. I think that the book overall is a pretty good approach to kind of the
basics of feminism, and actually as I started reading the book I felt like it
was maybe a little too basic in the way that it approached feminist
topics, but I realized that actually that's one of the strengths of the book:
because people might be picking this up who don't really have any idea of what
it's like to be a woman or a non-binary person on the internet and I think
actually that's a good thing, that this book kind of starts out from a very
basic place and as you go on I think she gets more into the nitty-gritty of
feminism and things that I guess aren't so entry-level. So now moving into the
things that are kind of a plus/minus situation, where I think they were good
but could have been better. Unfortunately the intersectionality of
race and gender she didn't really address as much: there was a very very
short section that did address the fact that it is even more difficult for
people of color on the internet but I really think she should have been more
specific about it and incorporated that more throughout the book, maybe even had
a whole chapter on that. As far as I know the author is a white woman and I don't
know if she felt maybe like she couldn't speak on that topic, which is totally
fair and valid and probably correct *laughs*, but I think if that was the case she could
have made the effort to seek out a colleague who was a person of color who
could have spoken on that better. So I think even though something is better
than nothing, I think that she could have gone farther with that.
I don't know if maybe she just didn't want to bring in somebody to write an
extra chapter who wasn't herself or maybe like the publisher didn't want her
to do that, I don't know what the reasons were, but I think that the book could
have benefited from another perspective like that. I also want to talk about the
formatting. So you do get a lot of the actual messages themselves along with
some commentary or kind of who submitted the--the exchange. Overall I think this is
formatted really well; but my only gripe with that is that there were a couple of
places where it was hard to tell which description went with which message that they
included. Okay, so now I'm going to talk about the things that I think were not a
success. So one of them is kind of this "just ask for it!" attitude that she gets
into at the end of the book, when she's talking about confidence and women
having confidence, and there's a quotation that inspired this I think,
that was like basically, [paraphrased] "have the confidence of a basic straight white man"
or something like that, and the author kind of takes that as like a "get out and
just ask for what you deserve!" and kind of a call to arms, to just ask for what
you want, you know, and I feel like in theory that's a good idea, and I think in
a lot of cases we could stand to take that like, take that attitude on but
there are some times where it's like, if you just like storm into your
boss's office and demand the raise that you know you deserve, like you're gonna
get fired, you know? *laughs* You're not gonna get a raise. I think she could have been a
little more, I don't know...a little more understanding of the like systemic
issues and also just the personal issues that would maybe prevent that from being
applicable across the board. Like it's a nice idea but I don't think she handled
it with as much like nuance as she did some other topics in the book. And kind of
going along with that, the--she talks about this one experience she had where
she dated somebody who she knew even at the time that like it wasn't gonna work
out, he was stringing her along, he was kind of emotionally...I don't, I don't want
to say emotionally abusing her, I don't remember if she used that term, but like he
was not a good person and he was not treating her well and she talks about
that--that experience and she kind of uses it as like a like "sometimes you just
have to date the bad ones to--to grow as a person!" and she doesn't say that, like
she doesn't tell people "you should date someone you know doesn't treat you well
in order to grow" but it did kind of come across as like, she was happy that this
had happened, and that kind of bothered me a little bit because...because yes,
sometimes experiences with people, whether they are
romantic relationships or friendships, sometimes those experiences that are
negative overall can still help you get to know yourself better and to like kind
of grow in your confidence and your [sense of] self-worth. But I think a lot of times,
that's not the case, and it's like she didn't really take into consideration
that like some people who date one of these *pause* end up as murder victims, or in an
abusive relationship, or there are so many other ways that that can play out
that I think she didn't take into consideration, which I thought was
especially weird because again, in earlier chapters I felt like she handled
the darkest examples of these interactions or relationships really
well, so like that was kind of strange. Also this is like completely personal
preference, but there were a couple places where I felt like she used
examples that were not...I don't know, were not ethical? Like she was--she
talked about how like all the many ways that you can use Tinder and "it's not
just a dating app anymore" and she said that she has a friend who was using it to
"fuck his way to the top", I think is the expression that she used, and that
personally just doesn't sit right with me because like basically this idea that
he--he was not getting promoted based on competency, it was just like he had sex
with the right person? And I feel like that's kind of a weird double standard
to have where it's like we look down on women who do that and actually we have
all these stereotypes about like secretaries and like oh they're sleeping
with the boss in order to get a promotion, so that's how we think of
women who do that, but for men who do that it's like "oh good for you man, like
getting what's yours!" so I just thought that was kind of weird and like a
strange thing to throw in there, because it was sort of a one-off comment and I
was like why would--like why would you bring this into the book, because by
including it in this list of ways you can use Tinder that is not just dating,
it kind of sounded like she was in support of it or like that she was
recommending people use it for that purpose, even though it wasn't her
personally, it was a friend, and like she didn't come out and say like that this
was a good thing to do, but I just thought that was really strange. So even
with those last few things that I do think could have been handled better, I
did enjoy this book overall. I think it was a really good discussion of this
issue and it had a lot of concrete details and a lot of specific
recommendations and analysis, and actually she gets into some--some like
response like survey statistics and she comes right out and says like, you know
she's not trained in this but [she covers] kind of the conclusions you can draw from this
that are just sort of logical, and I thought that was really well done. So I
do think this is a really important book, I think if you're a person who has
experienced this kind of harassment on the internet, which is unfortunately most of
us, I think it would be great for you, and I also think it would be great just for
everybody to read to really understand what women and non-binary people
experience on the Internet on a day-to-day basis, a lot of times, or
at least there's like that--that constant threat that it could happen [on any given day.] So altogether
I gave Bye Felipe 4 stars, and I would recommend it. So let me know what you all
thought of this book if you have read it, or if you're planning to pick it up.
Thank you so much for watching, I will see you soon with another video, and I
hope you love the next book you read. Bye!
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