The behavior of these burner accounts is so reprehensible and disgusting. It's absolutely terrifying how these young women's lives can be absolutely ripped to pieces through no fault of their own. Kowalski sounds like such a strong, amazing young woman to be willing to put herself out there publicly and push back against this.
All of this makes me really glad that I'm old enough to have made it through secondary school and college before social media really took off.
If you search for “Kamran Ahmed university of Florida” you will find a link to his now deleted LinkedIn. Apparently he has/had an internship with a London based company called Changer.
I had a range of emotions reading through this story. Horrified something like this is happening, anger at those who perpetuated it, disgust at the lack of accountability and the school’s response, and sadness for the victims. What is it about our society that creates and encourages young men to treat women this way? How do so many seem to have such a lack of empathy?
We could probably learn a thing or two from elephants. The lone elephant male in musth acts out in the herd, attacking younger ones and being generally aggressive. Due to human expansion into their territory, herds are much smaller than they were in the past and they essentially kick out the offending male. But elephant conservation has discovered that introducing an older male into the group helps calm them down by showing them how to act appropriately. The role models young men have today are the exact opposite of what is clearly needed. We have audio of the president bragging about assaulting women. This story is an unfortunate reflection of the misogyny so prevalent today.
The article notes that the damage is amplified by older men, that the "burner" community, like fraternities, depends on a network aged 15 to 40.
So unless the plan is to introduce 70+ year old men to try to calm them down, I think a major part of the problem is that this is happening with the support of people who are at least middle aged.
I used to study elephants. I understand the sentiment of what you’re saying, and I think you have good intentions, but we also need to be careful not to anthropomorphize other species with vastly different social structures and biology to humans if we want to solve human problems.
For one, there are relatively few systematized research studies into what you’re describing. A handful of studies just isn’t a lot, and these studies were sometimes conducted on herds that don’t have a naturalistic composition (humans translocating elephants into new herds is not the norm). Elephant musth is also MUCH different from the human male sex drive, being a dramatically more intense and violent process than what the modal human male endures. The comparison doesn’t even scale. Elephants also deal with these problems through agonism which yes, can and does get quite physical. Fistfights between a younger guy and an older guy don’t usually go particularly well for the older one, and putting people in those situations to begin with just sounds like a disaster.
As another poster here mentions, unfortunately there are plenty of older men who have no problem encouraging the atrocious behavior mentioned in this article. That is a cultural problem among a subset of American men that needs to be reckoned with. I suspect there’s more to this problem than simply introducing a bunch of older men into these groups. If anything, it’s a matter of getting rid of the incentives for these groups to occur in the first place. For one, the culture of fraternities needs to change radically to de-emphasize this type of behavior, and two, we as a society need to in part stop enabling this by pedestalizing college as a time for uniquely raucous bacchanal behavior and instead bring it back to academic rigor. So much of this is enabled by large swathes of incoming students from the Boomers onward prioritizing college as this Animal House-like experience as opposed to being an opportunity for higher education. We need to reframe what university means in our society. That’s not even to mention reframing why a healthier masculinity looks like, and what sorts of behaviors we ought to lionize in young men to encourage valor over savagery (that’s something that will require too long a discussion for this post, but someone else is free to take that). Elephants have nothing to do with that.
To iterate: I think you have the right intentions here. But, this feels like introducing borderline spiritual woo about another species with a vastly different social structure and biology from humans to approach a uniquely human problem.
She has PTSD and was losing hair and getting rashes on her body. Don’t think she’s mentally ready for a cross-examination of a defense lawyer and having to relive that night.
Chanel Miller wrote about that experience in her memoir Know My Name.
No-Stress-7034 | 3 hours ago
The behavior of these burner accounts is so reprehensible and disgusting. It's absolutely terrifying how these young women's lives can be absolutely ripped to pieces through no fault of their own. Kowalski sounds like such a strong, amazing young woman to be willing to put herself out there publicly and push back against this.
All of this makes me really glad that I'm old enough to have made it through secondary school and college before social media really took off.
MongolianBBQ | an hour ago
Kamran Ahmed, Brendan Pitfield, Jacob Gomberg. May their future potential employees find them on this story.
Deez2Yoots | 47 minutes ago
Pitfield and Gomberg have clear online presences on IG, LinkedIn, and sports sites celebrating their stats.
Kamran Ahmed is much harder to find. A singer shares the same name with him and there’s little to nothing about him as a student.
MongolianBBQ | 23 minutes ago
If you search for “Kamran Ahmed university of Florida” you will find a link to his now deleted LinkedIn. Apparently he has/had an internship with a London based company called Changer.
running_hoagie | 52 minutes ago
There's so much to be upset about here. There's no resolution, no happy ending.
theshadowofself | 2 hours ago
I had a range of emotions reading through this story. Horrified something like this is happening, anger at those who perpetuated it, disgust at the lack of accountability and the school’s response, and sadness for the victims. What is it about our society that creates and encourages young men to treat women this way? How do so many seem to have such a lack of empathy?
We could probably learn a thing or two from elephants. The lone elephant male in musth acts out in the herd, attacking younger ones and being generally aggressive. Due to human expansion into their territory, herds are much smaller than they were in the past and they essentially kick out the offending male. But elephant conservation has discovered that introducing an older male into the group helps calm them down by showing them how to act appropriately. The role models young men have today are the exact opposite of what is clearly needed. We have audio of the president bragging about assaulting women. This story is an unfortunate reflection of the misogyny so prevalent today.
MissPearl | an hour ago
The article notes that the damage is amplified by older men, that the "burner" community, like fraternities, depends on a network aged 15 to 40.
So unless the plan is to introduce 70+ year old men to try to calm them down, I think a major part of the problem is that this is happening with the support of people who are at least middle aged.
ToTheDeath84 | 31 minutes ago
I used to study elephants. I understand the sentiment of what you’re saying, and I think you have good intentions, but we also need to be careful not to anthropomorphize other species with vastly different social structures and biology to humans if we want to solve human problems.
For one, there are relatively few systematized research studies into what you’re describing. A handful of studies just isn’t a lot, and these studies were sometimes conducted on herds that don’t have a naturalistic composition (humans translocating elephants into new herds is not the norm). Elephant musth is also MUCH different from the human male sex drive, being a dramatically more intense and violent process than what the modal human male endures. The comparison doesn’t even scale. Elephants also deal with these problems through agonism which yes, can and does get quite physical. Fistfights between a younger guy and an older guy don’t usually go particularly well for the older one, and putting people in those situations to begin with just sounds like a disaster.
As another poster here mentions, unfortunately there are plenty of older men who have no problem encouraging the atrocious behavior mentioned in this article. That is a cultural problem among a subset of American men that needs to be reckoned with. I suspect there’s more to this problem than simply introducing a bunch of older men into these groups. If anything, it’s a matter of getting rid of the incentives for these groups to occur in the first place. For one, the culture of fraternities needs to change radically to de-emphasize this type of behavior, and two, we as a society need to in part stop enabling this by pedestalizing college as a time for uniquely raucous bacchanal behavior and instead bring it back to academic rigor. So much of this is enabled by large swathes of incoming students from the Boomers onward prioritizing college as this Animal House-like experience as opposed to being an opportunity for higher education. We need to reframe what university means in our society. That’s not even to mention reframing why a healthier masculinity looks like, and what sorts of behaviors we ought to lionize in young men to encourage valor over savagery (that’s something that will require too long a discussion for this post, but someone else is free to take that). Elephants have nothing to do with that.
To iterate: I think you have the right intentions here. But, this feels like introducing borderline spiritual woo about another species with a vastly different social structure and biology from humans to approach a uniquely human problem.
Brief_Direction_5647 | 3 hours ago
Archive version
hellolovely1 | 25 minutes ago
This story was absolutely horrific. It's like these young men completely lack empathy and are clearly doing this shit to build cred with other men.
Xoxitl | an hour ago
I wonder why she doesn’t want to press charges against the men who raped her and are on the videos raping her while she’s incapacitated.
seiryuu-abi | an hour ago
She has PTSD and was losing hair and getting rashes on her body. Don’t think she’s mentally ready for a cross-examination of a defense lawyer and having to relive that night.
Chanel Miller wrote about that experience in her memoir Know My Name.
EatMorePieDrinkMore | an hour ago
If you read the article, she explains that she does not want to be re-victimized by the criminal “justice” system. She has PTSD.
PreviousSalary | 26 minutes ago
Part of wonders if she knows these men too, this is so tough. I feel for her, I am glad I lived before this echo chamber of social media.
EatMorePieDrinkMore | 21 minutes ago
She probably thought they were her friends, tbh.
champagneface | an hour ago
The article says why, did you read it?