Breaking the COVID Purity Spiral
Knitting Wars & Purity Spirals It is hard to imagine how Instagram knitting can lead to someone having a nervous breakdown. But that’s exactly what happened to Nathan Taylor. Taylor was part of an online knitting community on Instagram. As a gay man living with HIV, he started a hashtag to promote diversity in knitting: Diversknitty. It went viral. Yet not long after, this call for diversity was dominated by discussions about white supremacy and racial privilege. The hate Taylor received was so horrific that he had a nervous breakdown. Even his suicidal hospitalisation was described online as a ‘white...