I asked some friends what they thought, and one of them mentioned they were accused of being antisemitic for doing exactly that. So what is true about the lizard joke that’s definitely not true about the robot one that you think determines antisemitism?

Yeah, things like calling me “sweetie” and implying that my mild criticism is me acting like you committed a high crime are not exactly going to change my mind. Telling other people what to do based on a misplaced notion of what’s harmful is exactly what I mean. It reminds me of that really creepy phase of internet discourse when a large ammount of people started insisting on saying “Latinx” as a gender-neutral inclusive version of “latino” or “latina”. The worst part about that was it was an exonym that was being forced on a minority community by a bunch of white liberals who had a notion of what was wrong with someone else’s culture and were actively trying to fix it. So instead of being slightly annoying and unhelpful they were being actively harmful in their ignorance. BTW, for anyone wondering: I’ve learned through speaking with people that the preferred term is “Latine”.

Now, obviously the same damage is not being done in this instance, but it illustrates why I’m saying this, and shows the dangers of bandwagoning as soon as you think something might be perpetuating oppression. No doubt that it’s good to be aware of how our behavior affects others and to adjust accordingly, but what I see here is people defending a billionaire against a term by saying that it’s antisemitic without being educated on it by the wider Jewish community beforehand, and so I find it largely unconvincing. If I see further discourse about it I’ll investigate, and if one of my friends starts talking to me about it I’ll heed their concerns. However, a small number of strangers on the internet saying something isn’t enough to change my mind, especially not without a good argument.