Having always been something of a fan of South Park, I have taken to using ‘Cartman’ or ‘Cartmans’ as a term for a certain tiresome type of person
mainly found on social media. There have certainly been a fine crop of them coming up recently, the best example being the ones who went after a self-published author for the Terrible Sin of… using a stock shot on a book cover which featured a model who had apparently been convicted of domestic abuse at some point. The poor author, completely blindsided by the attack, seems to have deleted the cover and issued an apology. But there is no way she could have known, or been responsible for any wrongdoing here. Stock shots are generally anonymous and feature models who are pretty much unknown; it should not be expected that anyone choosing an image does a deep dive into the history of the photograph and the life story of anyone featured in it. So this is the current peak of Cartman behaviour: attacking and punishing someone who did nothing wrong, just to make yourself feel important.
A Cartman is someone who assumes authority they have no right to, and screams and whines and tantrums over things which are none of their business and/or things about which they are mistaken in the first place. Cartmans yell about ‘holding people accountable’ when those people are not, never have been and never will be, accountable to Cartman. Yes, OK, if you notice something wrong about a product and wish to point it out to the creator/producer of said product, fair enough. Not unreasonable to give someone a civil heads-up, particularly if it’s likely that the error was made in good faith. But what makes it Cartman behaviour is carrying on; trying to rope in other people, demanding completely disproportionate ‘reparations’ and refusing to stop and back off.
A similar outbreak occurred around the fetish scene, when Cartman noticed that a club promoter had a door policy they disapproved of. Cartman went after… other promoters who used the same venue and were nothing to do with the ‘problematic’ event, demanding that the entire venue and everyone associated with it be ‘cancelled’ unless they grovelled and begged for forgiveness.
What these people need is to be told to fuck off. Bullies on social media have no power unless it’s given to them by those they attack. Don’t give them any. Laugh at them.