Force/Hack

Together with:

Issue #249 | June 25, 2024

Last Monday, I returned to work after a brief hiatus to find all 978 of my passwords had been compromised. My boyfriend said I was handling it well as I huffed and puffed through dozens of calls with “0….0…REPRESENTATIVE” of my credit cards, credit report, Apple, Google, etc. When I found my account had been flagged for hate speech on Twitter despite not having been on the platform for anything other than posting my epic license plate in recent weeks, it was more cause for eye-rolling than concern. Like okay daddy Elon, if referencing a sketch from “I Think You Should Leave” on my Mazda3 really that triggering to someone? I thought we’d just made comedy legal again!

It’d be hard to find anyone alive today with an email account that hasn’t been through this rodeo before: the blind faith that 2-factor authentication will thwart anyone but you; the encrypted vault services charging exorbitant annual fees for the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’ll be the first to be notified when some hacker group swipes someone’s credentials. You haven’t really lived until your social security and mother’s maiden name appear in some dark web data dump.

So yes, I’d say for a high-strung neurotic, I was handling mundane reassurance that I still had enough identity left on the internet worth stealing in a relatively sanguine manner. Until last night, when I tried to log onto my work account, and found that 2/3rds of the new passwords had already been compromised. This time though, I could see the new logins saved onto my keychain: nearly 1,000 passwords had been changed to my home address.

Any composure I’d had over the situation went straight out the window. For about three hours straight, all you could hear from our study was just a long string of expletives, to the point where my roommates — who are all super menacing, bat-wielding Doberman owners, just a heads-up — thought I’d cranked up the volume on the latest episode of “The Boys.” I hate to be dramatic, but changing 1k passwords to my mailing address made me feel violated. I’m still processing the wrongness of it all. As far as I know, the info hasn’t been leaked anywhere. Does it count as doxxing if only me and my hacker know about it?

Hoping to regain a little perspective, I took a break to watch “The Acolyte” and catch up on the intelligent and thoughtful dialogue that’s become so synonymous with Disney-era Star Wars fandom.

THE COMMENTS SECTION

“Youtubing is such an impossible job for people who rely on the adsense every single month like, because disney tried and failed to copyright claim the star wars hotel video I just have no idea how much money it’s made or when I’ll get it (in my experience usually 2 or 3 months)”
– YouTuber Jenny Nicholson (@JennyENicholson)

Just kidding. In case you needed a reminder of the raging Mustafarian dumpster fire #SWTWT (or Star Wars Twitter, for those who touch grass) has become, just try searching for the phrase “Ki-Adi’s Mundi.” Yeah, that guy. You know him, you love him, it’s the literal dick-head Jedi Council member going “Why, the Sith haven’t been seen in 1,000 years!” in “The Phantom Menace.” I’m paraphrasing because nothing in the prequels deserves to take up any more space in my brain than I’ve currently allotted.

So, Ki-Adi Mundi is an alien. Now: how old is he? It’s never said directly in the films, and unfortunately, there’s no director’s cut where Mace Windu and Yaddle throw him a surprise birthday party. A casual viewer may do some back-of-napkin math and figure that Baby Yoda is…what, like 50? And Yoda-Yoda was 900-ish when he died of what I can only imagine as a severe staph infection caused by drinking contaminated swamp juice.

In fact, according to the elder scrolls (AKA Star Wars Legends, the decanonized expanded universe of licensed properties pre-Disney acquisition), Ki-Adi Mundi was a spry “around 60.”

Still with me? The Acolyte, Disney’s latest Star Wars show, takes place 100 years before “The Phantom Menace.” And last week, Ki-Adi-Mundi had a small background cameo, thus retconning an extraneous piece of non-canonical trivia that even self-professed Star Wars superfans would not have known.

Now, people have every right to find this annoying, or rage-inducing, because this somehow ruined the last remnants of childhood that weren’t already ruined by Ghostbusters, He-Man and Ahsoka. What they really shouldn’t do is do what inexplicably popular YouTuber Star Wars Theory did. Known for his hard-line stance on Disney “wokeness” and that time Mark Hamill had to shut his ass down on social media for using a Luke Skywalker deepfake in one of his fan films, Star Wars Theory’s response to “The Acolyte” episode (which I won’t link to here) was out of control. His reaction to Ki-Adi Mundi showing up in the background of a scene was to have the type of temper tantrum appropriate for a five-year-old being told he can’t grow up to be a dinosaur and proceeded to stomp out of the room. All because this imaginary alien isn’t younger than Bryan Cranston.

And look, feel the way you want. maybe don’t direct all of your rage at the editors of the Star Wars wiki, Wookiepedia, for merely updating the information on the site and leading to pet death threats and the doxxing of at least one female contributor. PET death threats, people. Over Ki-Adi freaking Mundi’s birthday.

Now, women already feel unsafe in the community because of channels like Star Wars Theory, which traffics heavily in sex-based gatekeeping. The toxicity is strong with this one, etc., etc. Naturally, the impulse among many Star Wars creators was to stand up against this behavior and publicly denounce it in a video featuring a seemingly non-controversial message of “Star Wars is for everyone.” It took less than 24 hours to reveal that even such a benign gesture of tolerance couldn’t exist without revealing its own dark side,

Guys…as someone who just got doxxed (and again, only to myself), can I just say let’s quit this shit already? You can care about whatever you want, as deeply as you want, but a love of IP should never lead down a path that ends with the release of someone’s home address and threatening their dogs. Can we just agree on this one, super basic tenant for engaging with each other on the Internet?

– Drew Grant, Editorial Director

PERSONALITIES

Why Do We Still Care About DrDisrespect?

The streamer’s ban from Twitch has reached a mythic, unanswerable status.

By Steven Asarch, Passionfruit Contributor

→ READ THE FULL STORY

START YOUR BEAUTY LINE TODAY

Blanka lets anyone create their own branded makeup or skincare line and generate income. Choose from hundreds of products that you can brand, customize and sell on your IG/TikTok. When you get orders, Blanka ships your orders to your customers, so you never have to deal with inventory.

GET FREE ACCESS NOW

IN THE BIZ

Patreon is introducing new features like countdown clocks, live chats, gifted memberships, and promotional tools to help creators connect with their fans and grow their communities.
TikTok’s new AI avatar tool, Symphony Avatars, was accidentally made accessible to the public due to a technical error, resulting in the creation and sharing of disturbing content before the issue was fixed.
Threads now allows users to like and view replies from federated social media platforms, expanding availability to over 100 countries and bringing the platform closer to full integration with the fediverse.
Pokémon has disqualified several finalists from its 2024 TCG Illustration Contest after fans alerted the company that some entries were likely AI-generated.

TIPS & TRICKS

How To Remove the TikTok Watermark (And When You Should Leave It Alone)

Get a clean copy of your TikTok videos in no time.

By Rachel Kiley, Passionfruit Contributor

READ THE FULL STORY →

PLATFORMS

You’ll Soon Have To Pay To Live Stream on X

‘Nice job on being a YouTube, Twitch, and Kick competitor.’

By Charlotte Colombo, Passionfruit Contributor

READ THE FULL STORY →

Our No Cap: Creators Off The Record party in Anaheim is at capacity, but Passionfruit Patreon subscribers can still get on the list. Sign up for Patreon here, then put yourself on the wait list here. If you’re already confirmed please arrive early, entry is subject to capacity.

YOUTUBE MADE ME DO IT

This week, the Reactorverse podcast welcomes JL of EOM Reacts,
the Murder Whistle himself, whose on-screen personality has captivated the reaction community,thanks in part to his off-screen chemistry with his partner Blank.

Subscribe to the Passionfruit YouTube channel so you don’t miss an episode, and if you’re interested in seeing the episodes early, join our Patreon!