“This is not ok. Ever. I don’t care if it’s a ‘joke’.”
Sydney-based DJ Alison Wonderland has more than 214,000 followers on Facebook. She’s signed to a major label, EMI Music Australia, is riding high on the success of her debut electropop/dance album, Run, and recently sold out 3,000 capacity shows across Australia within 24 hours.
In short, she’s usually too busy kicking arse to pay attention to misogynist idots.
But this week, she was targeted by some online abuse so appalling, she chose to call it out.
The abuse began when Instagram user ‘b.coves’ left a comment on one other her photos tagging a friend, ‘r.macks’ and writing: “can we rape her or something please”.
The friend wrote back, tagging in a third friend, ‘jacobm0’ and commenting: “‘I would roofie her’.”
Wonderland, whose real name is Alex Scholler, posted a screenshot of the conversation to her Facebook page, pointing out that it was “not ok”.
“I wouldn’t usually call people out but I feel like this time it is important… this is not ok. Ever. I don’t care if it’s a ‘joke’. Not. Ok,” she wrote.
It was a short statement, but a powerful one. And within minutes, her fans had flooded her page with messages of support.
“I’m glad you decided to speak up about this whole situation,” one commenter wrote.
“You’ve handled this well,” another said.
“Nice to see artist taking care of how people behave and try to make a real change, even with simple actions,” another Facebook user weighed in.
Male fans were among her supporters, with several commenting on the importance of calling out sexism.
“To many ‘dudes’ Alison is JUST a sexual symbol and her image and physical appearance is what they see… They would refuse to see a musician and compare her to the likes of male DJ’s… It took me WAY too long to grow out of that macho private school bullshit and realise women are LITERALLY the same as men… We are Human Beings! Nothing more, Nothing less,” wrote one male fan.
“Even if it was a joke! That’s something that should never be joked about and we as a nation need to stand up and show zero tolerance for any disrespect towards women of the rape/violent nature!” Another wrote.
The trolls’ profiles were soon deleted, and Wonderland followed up by encouraging a peaceful resolution to the issue, calling on her fans not to harass the trolls.
“Please do not send aggressive threats to them or their family,” she wrote. “I do not condone that.”
She also said the boys had apologised.
Thank you, Alison Wonderland, for sending the message — loud and clear — that rape “jokes” are simply not funny.
We hope those idiots have learned their lesson.
Top Comments
I'm so sick of living in a world that continues to be dominated by racism, sexism and religious discrimination. I'm sure that those young men would have been taught in schools that sexual assault is by no means okay, and yet they continue to post such hideous comments! It baffles me how some people can be so stupid.
Good on her...She handled that awful situation very well.