How to Spot a Sea Lion
The “DDoS” Attack on Human Beings
In this newsletter, we’ve talked previously about the DDoS attack on Ao3–how bots can be utilized to send too many requests into a server to increase server load until it shuts down and the service is no longer available. Believe it or not, there’s a way to do that to people. If you’re on Twitter, you’ve seen the most rampant terrible bad-faith argument-styles ever conceived by human beings on the planet. From ad hominem attacks to strawmen, there is no end to what people will do online to be perceived as correct through the creation of unfair advantages in their “debate.”
“Sealioning” is a style of bad faith “debate” which requires one actor working in good faith and the other working bad faith: the Sea Lion. The origin of the term is derived from a popular comic strip by David Malki, Wondermark, which depicts the Sea Lion…well…sealioning. The idea behind sealioning is in endlessly asking for elements of evidence or anecdotes that have often already been provided and then dismissed by said Sea Lion: their goalposts constantly moving and their requests more and more marked by an insistence that their target is “unable” to provide evidence because said evidence doesn’t exist. Often if evidence is provided, they will claim that because it was not produced in a timely manner, it can be disregarded because their target was “just saying things” without handy screenshots ready to fire away in the moment. Despite that evidence may flood in from multiple sources, the Sea Lion will relentlessly attack and harass either one or multiple targets for more evidence or attempts to discredit them with whatever buzzwords are popular at the time.
The idea behind a Sea Lion’s harassment is that they seek to provide a source—their target—with so many bogus requests that their target will simply stop talking, shutting down whatever it was that they were saying and effectively silencing them. It is, in its very basic nature, a type of silencing technique. It’s important to keep in mind that not all requests for evidence are an example of sealioning. In fact, more often than not, asking for evidence in good faith is the default. So how do you tell a Sea Lion from someone who is asking you questions in good faith? There are a few things to look out for.
An artificial or forced politeness — the purpose of this is to make their “audience” perceive their target’s frustration as evidence of a loss
Consistently trying to goad you into discussion of a topic you do not wish to debate — the purpose of this is to discredit your experiences, even sometimes going so far as to call you outright a liar
Insistence that they are “just trying to learn” while asking for easily Googled material or well-known objective fact
An inability to understand boundaries, demanding that you debate on their terms and for as long as they want, feeling very entitled to your time, energy, and attention
Many Sea Lions will have multiple accounts in order to block-dodge, having favorite targets online such as discourse accounts that they will consistently spy on in order to engage if not them then their followers in bad-faith attacks
The weaponization of social justice language or the struggles of marginalized people even if the Sea Lion is not a member of those communities
Some Sea Lions have gotten more clever over the years, choosing to go private every so often and purge their account after every “debate” they have so that they are not often caught red-handed arguing in contradiction to their previously stated ideologies (which, as you can imagine, can change with every argument) and so that they are not haunted by supremely awful things they say while they’re out there trying to be as edgy and ridiculous as possible for engagement. They have a myriad of different usernames and accounts utilized for spying and for engagement but most of the time a Sea Lion in one arena is recognizable from their argument or writing styles if one is paying close enough attention to notice patterns. Sea Lions are also relatively rare especially in smaller more insulated communities such as specific fandoms, making their tactics that much more noticeable.
So what do you do when you come across a Sea Lion? Well you have a couple choices. You can antagonize them by calling them a Sea Lion, flood them with evidence unendingly until they block you (sometimes a difficult task but one that can bring great joy) or refuse to engage, blocking them and all of the alts you can find. Encourage others to block them as well. Eventually they’ll have to create a whole new identity in order to have any engagement at all and then all you have to do is alert your friends and colleagues of the new handle(s) once you’ve noticed that their pattern is the same. Denying a Sea Lion engagement is possibly the best option but sometimes it’s important to step in if you see some poor new soul getting trapped in the line of fire, letting them know that their mission is doomed from the start is one way to absolutely infuriate a dedicated marine mammal.
Good luck out there! And shout-out to everyone’s most detested Hannibal Fandom Sea Lion! Love you, Laurel! <3