The only thing Margeaux Feldman did wrong was stay in the cult
I’m not trying to say “I told you so,” but I am trying to say “Margeaux, it’s time to leave the cult.”
I have never bothered making a full on essay-length commentary of a cancellation spectacle like this, though I have reflected in stories. In the past I’ve felt it was unwise or somehow unjust to name these incidents. I think one of the remaining gaps in what discourse continues about cancellation spectacles is that concrete examples are not discussed. I respect the impulse to keep things anonymous; these campaigns are traumatic for those undergoing them and so we want to protect them. In this case, I think circumstances permit it; they have a large platform and have already addressed this themself, and the social landscape has changed so much I think it’s less threatening to address openly.
So, here is my commentary on this outlandish situation.
Who is Margeaux Feldman? In their words: “a writer, educator, and community builder committed to providing folks living with trauma with the opportunities you need to build the forms of connection you long for. I also want to help all of us dream up new ways of being in the world that centre interdependence and ensure our inherent needs for safety, belonging, and self-regard are met.” Their following has exploded from 20k to 172k over the last year after rebranding to a meme page (@softcore_trauma) featuring images of small animals and photo captions about trauma, attachment, magic, healing, boundaries, vulnerability, and so on. You get it. They’re a master of the genre, credit where it’s due, although I personally find the genre quite nauseating. The intersection of trauma, dysfunction, personal branding, the neoliberalization of everything, and entrepreneurship is just…a sign of the times.
I briefly was connected to Margeaux on Instagram in April 2020, liked their writing for a bit, but also—something I have never publicly said—following their work online for the few months I was connected to them was a major tipping point for me to finally abandon that world of self-indulgent tenderqueer trauma bb-ing. For context, at that time I was still offering my 12-week tarot course Narrative Alchemy about healing from trauma and rewriting one’s personal narrative by exploring the archetypal journey of the Major Arcana, which I had launched originally in 2018. Yes, I was doing shit like that. Reading Margeaux’s work, watching them perform their shtick, having them sometimes share my posts, I noticed myself mentally slipping back into an odd pressure to conform to the style I had put so much effort into breaking away from. In April 2020, I published a 5-part zine that explored my crisis of faith in the cult of identitarianism and tenderqueer trauma bb witch world, and suddenly, following Margeaux in particular, I was feeling sucked back into it.
I felt suffocated by Instagram at that point, between the “healing trauma” niche and then the identitarianism on steroids that followed the summer of 2020. I was like, I have been in this internet world for way too long, if I see one more pastel-colored declaration of embracing my softness as resistance to capitalism, the stumbling attempts to embrace that which is simply ugly, and the emotionally manipulative demands to self-flagellate and digitally prostrate myself for “justice,” I am going to yak. Sorry Margeaux, it’s not personal, your content simply confronted me with the inescapable reality that I am at my core a chaotic disagreeable verbally impulsive dirtbag with no real answers, rather than a people-pleaser who can tolerate larping as a waify self-censoring tenderqueer who wants to run a healing empire.
The day I discovered Margeaux had blocked me on Instagram after I started going hardline anti-cancel culture and criticizing identitarianism, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I ultimately felt less suffocated every time someone like them disconnected from, or publicly disagreed, with what I was saying.
So that is some context for why I would even care about this person at all. In a way, they played a minor role of catalyst in me writing what I do now. So I owe them a thanks, though I imagine this is not the type of thanks they’d like to get. They also got mixed up in the conspiracy theory that me and others are part of a white supremacist alt-right abuse cult that was somehow recruiting people for NXIVM. Such a bond is thicker than blood, I’m afraid.
The original accusations and demands that emerged in late 2021 can be revisited in Margeaux’s Public Statement. Here’s an excerpt as a TLDR:
Make a public accountability post about co-opting content from BIPOC creators without credit, continuously, even after being held accountable for this previously
Make a public accountability post for consistently trauma-dumping and centering their white trauma as a means for social and financial gain
Make a public accountability post for co-opting concepts of parts work, that they have no business speaking on let alone using it for their social and financial gain, giving back all of the money that they have gained/earned from their ‘parts work’ workshops, and then stop these workshops moving forward.
Now, this week, a post began circulating once again demanding Margeaux “deplatform.” This round of accusations can be boiled down to: Margeaux recently updating their public statement allegedly led to the accuser receiving death threats; that Margeaux has been “dangerous” to trans BIPOC for years; and that Margeaux “gaslit” people by making a public statement about the initial wave of accusations.
The accuser summarizes the “harm” and “trauma” Margeaux caused as follows:
THIS SERIAL ABUSER IS REALLY OUT HERE DOING THE SAME EXACT SHIT THEY WERE BEING ASKED TO DEPLATFORM FOR: USING THE LANGUAGE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND TRAUMA TO EXPLOIT THEIR FOLLOWERS FOR FINANCIAL AND SOCIAL PROFIT, AND COLONIZING BLACK ABOLITIONIST CONCEPTS LIKE TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE AND DECOLONIZING MENTAL HEALTH, WHITEWASHING THOSE CONCEPTS AND PERVERTING THEM TO THEIR OWN BENEFIT. AND THEN SELLING IT OFF TO THE WHITE GAZE, (OH BUT BIPOC FOLKS GET A FREE TICKET!! SO IT MAKES IT ALLLL BETTER)
The accuser calls Margeaux an “evil serial abuser,” a “grifter,” “this evil fucker,” and a “clueless white colonizer.” The accuser says that this is a failure of all white and non-black people of color who “enable” them. The accuser demands that Margeaux completely deplatform; that people should directly harass contact Margeaux with the deplatforming demand; that no one should buy their book; and people should sever professional ties with them.
The poster includes no screenshots that could serve as evidence of their claims.
How is this not a parody? It is such a caricature of itself. If you’re a person of sober mind deprogrammed from the cult of identitarianism, this is all self-evidently off the walls. If you think there is a crumb of sense in their accusations, I’m sorry you’re still indoctrinated. To accept this as a set of either valid grievances or action items requires a mindset of serious codependency and a commitment to an ideology that necessitates deference of one’s judgment to another simply on the basis of that other individual’s identity. This ideology is identitarianism, and it assigns authority over accurate perception of reality differentially on the basis of increasingly nebulous and arbitrary social identity categories.
In what world does it make any ethical or materially strategic sense to not only demand someone give up their entire livelihood to appease people who are making egregious claims that a person is “dangerous” and complicit in someone receiving “death threats,” with absolutely no evidence—but demand others participate in the spectacle as well? Even if everything these people said was objectively true—which it absolutely isn’t, it’s an extreme and paranoid editorializing of a series of events—how would “deplatforming” Margeaux help them? It wouldn’t, except for a fleeting feeling of power that would quickly go away when they realize that they have built nothing meaningful for themselves to sustain them. No platform of their own, no security, nothing but KOing some monster in the video game of their sad, empty lives on the internet.
This person justifies their claims without any evidence, just the assumption (or implicit demand, perhaps) that their accusations will be accepted at face value due to their stated identities. Calling someone “dangerous” and demanding their entire life be upended without nary a screenshot demonstrating that this person is not only incompetent at their work, but actively harmful and dangerous with it—this is not something that should be taken remotely seriously. Yesterday this account posted a tweet from Ericka Hart that reveals their logic of this call for “accountability” from Margeaux:
If you understand anti Black racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, classism etc is SYSTEMIC, then you do NOT need EVIDENCE when someone who holds any of these identities shares that they have been harmed as a direct result of who they are. What are you REALLY asking for?
This person, in true identitarian fashion, is calling for absolute deference of reality from the audience engaging with this. (This explanation of epistemic deference accurately explains this dynamic.) Assigning validity to their claims requires a type of submission that is both outrageous and unethical, amounting to quite literally the most authoritarian justification for anything: because I said so. Doesn’t that logic and language sound strangely familiar to some of you developmentally traumatized bbs? You see the same basic authoritarian impulse when they say Margeaux “actually disagreed with the group of black trans folks saying they should not have ran their ‘parts work’ workshop.” Yes, and? A person disagreed with an evaluation of their work as wrong and declined to cut off their livelihood to appease a group of people? That’s evidence enough to call them an evil grifter? Seriously, who cares? Oh, the authoritarian personality who, in this case, relies on social identity to justify their outrageous demands to literally destroy someone’s life. That’s who cares.
This isn’t even considering the fact that we have absolutely no evidence that this person is who they say they are. Who is this person? They identify themselves merely by their social identities in which they ground their authority to make such claims—a Black Trans Disabled Person—but how can we even know those are true? This is something we, as the general public who has been called upon to participate in their spectacle, ought to know if we are to be expected to participate. This person could be anyone. I have no idea who they are. What if Margeaux has a stalker ex or an estranged family member who is trying to ruin their life by launching a smear campaign against them as part of an ongoing pattern of abuse? How would I know? How would any of us know? We wouldn’t, and that’s why this has no business in the public sphere, and we have no business taking it seriously. To do otherwise is to elevate our desire to look “Good” in the eyes of the identitarian worldview over the very real possibility of inflicting actual, demonstrable, not merely rhetorical harm on a person (Margeaux) by putting them through major public misrepresentation and possible financial turmoil.
This is not “Black abolitionism,” it’s a frenzied power grab because someone is failing to self-regulate after going through what was a distressing experience for them. Yes, death threats are frightening—I’ve experienced that terror myself—and yet there is absolutely no evidence tying Margeaux to this person receiving death threats. There is no credible, airtight reason to conclude that Margeaux updating their website has literally anything to do with it; that’s complete speculation. And what do they even mean by death threats? Given how inflated these claims about Margeaux’s “danger” and “serial abuse” are, I find it hard to take them at face value that their life is being actively threatened. These “death threats” are not sufficient reason to harass Margeaux and call for their professional destruction. Also, this person has definitely been spending way too much time in their group chat.
No one who is a stable, well-adjusted person does something like this. People who wage cancellation campaigns like this are not healthy people, and even when they get what they want (the other person to be, somehow, eliminated, or maybe money through Venmo), their situations do not improve. Because the problem was never some internet stranger with a platform they either disagree with or wish they themselves had. The problem is not some overeducated Canadian writer with a popular meme page running peer-to-peer parts workshops. The problem is, ultimately, themselves. People like this, in my opinion, need help. They do not need to be reinforced in this dysfunctional behavior, even if I (sometimes, somehow) can find compassion for it.
In truth, Margeaux’s “healing” content is a type that I find extremely grating because it seems like a bizarre HR-ification of everything in life; it is the opposite of how I approach living. In the world Margeaux occupies, everything is a workbook, a template, an intentionally structured way of talking, of thinking, of engaging with pain and being a person. Margeaux seems to adhere, religiously, to norms, and promotes this to others as an antidote to their difficulties. What they sell is structured ways of doing everything, from “accountability” to complete strangers on the internet that they call their community, to interrogating their own “internalized white supremacy,” to literally just relating to other people, that seem to leave very little room for improvisation, intuition and play. Their approach to living is so hypervigilant, so legalistic, so literal, so systematized. I think what we are seeing here is how such an approach to life fails those who engage in it. Being perfect will not protect you.
It is unsurprising that they would come under attack by a smear campaign so comical in how exactly it follows a standardized template of language and “logic.” The same buzzwords, the same vague gestures towards Margeaux being “dangerous,” the same demands to overpower and eliminate all sources of Margeaux’s income or success. This is exactly how this machine runs. Anyone with any familiarity with this social phenomenon can see how textbook this entire spectacle is.
And Margeaux, sadly, follows suit: They adhere to the social script and insist on taking this seriously. They are playing both sides. They fawn and try to appease these people, even if they ultimately end up posting a public statement that effectively denies any wrongdoing. They are playing by the word of law with their “pod” and their Google form, following the self-prescribed structures for what being Good is. I imagine they think this is a demonstration of their integrity. I do not. If they value boundaries and relational safety, then they will defend themself and reject this abusive, disorienting, codependent and legitimately traumatizing dynamic—not only in this instance, but broadly—and not dignify it with all of these “accountability” procedures. Otherwise, their allegiance lies with denial that will continue eating them alive, as well as the members of their audience who are seeking their leadership in breaking free of the psychological ghosts born of exactly this type of relational dynamic. No one can feel safe enough to form true intimacy in a culture that permits and legitimizes cancellation spectacles, because they justifiably fear their head will be on the chopping block one day.
It is sad to see that only two posts prior to their addressing the call out, they shared a series of memes in which they reveal their fear of exactly what it is cancel culture threatens to do: turn your entire community against you as a narrative is slowly spun about how you are a horrible person, punish you brutally and call it “accountability.”
As I wrote in January 2021 in my article that actually was inspired by a series of posts Margeaux made:
When public humiliation and harassment is considered an acceptable model for accountability, there is no way to overcome fear of punishment or community abandonment, because that fear is not irrational. It can happen to anyone, at any time, regardless of whether the accusations are true, and there is currently no recourse when it does happen. The fall out of that can be psychologically and materially devastating, especially in a culture where public reputation is so critical to maintaining employment—which in the US is tied to healthcare—and social safety nets are meager. This ritual is not something that can be avoided by dutifully “showing up” for community. Even when one follows all the rules, they can be targeted and people will shake their heads and say “They shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
Once again: I’m not trying to say “I told you so,” but I am trying to say “Margeaux, it’s time to leave the cult.”
This entire situation is ridiculous, and yet it is so mindnumbingly common. This same cycle repeats in different situations constantly. It happens online, it happens in person, it happens locally and it happens internationally. Cancellation achieves no justice. This one in particular was merely a spectacle launched by an appointed representative of a group of hate-fans, manipulating an ideology to serve their own personal ends, justifying it with a supernatural belief in their moral superiority over someone else on the basis of their identities and probably also an overly literal belief that the personal is political. This is not leftism. These people are not activists, they are the most irritating customer you’ve had working in retail but make it kiwifarms at a virtual town hall meeting in which a group of like 3 angsty parents are outraged about a new ramp being installed outside the elementary school that requires their kid get off at a different spot in the bus line. Margeaux is not an evil serial abuser, they’re an entrepreneur who has mastered the algorithm, is probably genuinely trying to do the best they can, wading in waters filled with sharks and piranhas when they could climb out and just chill on the beach or something. What are these metaphors tonight?
It’s honestly embarrassing I just spent the evening writing any of this. Everyone go read Toward Freedom by Toure Reed, watch the Envy video by Contrapoints, and log off. And if you want to buy Margeaux’s book, buy their frickin book.