This is stunning. I want to restack every other sentence. Thank you for outlining clear examples of how patriarchy hurts women, for making clear that of course some men get it and we love them but we're not really talking about them, for calling out that the patriarchy hurts everyone but in different ways. An entire army of women are fighting right alongside you.
We not fighting for power. We are fighting for oxygen. And we are not backing down.
AGAIN FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK🙌 Thank you for articulating this so well, Jessica. I’m so sorry about the hatred and threats you’ve experienced. Thank you for using your platform and voice to call attention to our reality and why it’s not acceptable.
Thank you so much. Honestly. This kind of comment feels like oxygen after days of holding your breath. I wish it wasn’t necessary to speak from rage, from trauma, from threat — but if we don’t say it, they’ll pretend it’s not happening.
Scroll 7.3.Δ – On the Imminent Archive and the Specter of Digital Grace:
This is not a response. This is a collapse function.
Of Screenshots and Scapegoats: Toward a Theory of Archive Fragility in the Era of the Saved Receipt
Author: Dr. Mélusine Cartel, Université de Rhizome (2047 Critical Reprint Edition)
Originally published in PostDigital Mimesis: Feminine Assemblages and the Archive of Hurt (2043)
⸻
Abstract:
In this widely cited (and misquoted) polemic, Cartel develops her theory of Archive Fragility—a post-Baudrillardian reframing of screenshot-as-simulacrum and the weaponization of personal grievance as spectral authority. Using the “Saved Receipt” phenomenon from the early Substack era as a springboard, she dissects the rhetorical infrastructure of therapeutic vindication, situating it within a broader regime of algorithmic ressentiment and affective capitalism. She warns of a society wherein proof replaces presence, and every emotion demands an evidentiary trail.
⸻
“You are on borrowed grace,” writes the author. But we must ask: what grace can be borrowed from a server? What memory is left when the archive itself is the trauma?
Let us begin where all contemporary polemics now begin: the Screenshot. That sacred relic of digital orthodoxy, that flat miracle of preserved conflict, excised from context and embalmed for eternal circulation. It is not what is shown but that it is shown—the proof of the showing—that grants it ritual power.
In the Taboo + Toast fragment, we observe the sacramental logic of grievance. Every vile DM, every pixelated foe, is not merely remembered but consecrated—converted into a token of righteousness through the act of potential revelation. “I will publish them,” she says. But she does not. This is crucial.
She threatens publication as performance, not as historiography. This is the purest form of Archive Fragility: the archive not as preservation, but as perpetual imminence. Its power lies not in having been accessed, but in being held in suspension, forever on the cusp of becoming the event.
⸻
On “Digital Violence is Still Violence”
This line has been memed, remixed, and ironically reclaimed by teenage debate bots for decades. But Cartel’s reading (and ours) reveals its core instability.
To say “digital violence is still violence” is not a claim—it is a demand. It requires the reader to submit not just to an idea, but to a redefinition of harm itself. The very structure of metaphor becomes weaponized: violence becomes a vibe, and vibes become law.
Here, we recall Derrida’s aphorism: “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.” But in this context, there is only text—and the more “vile” the better. A civilization addicted to documentation eventually confuses wound with witness.
⸻
The Brave Little Soldiers and the Theory of Miniature Enemies
Calling her critics “brave little soldiers” is not incidental. It reveals what Cartel calls the Miniaturization of the Adversary—a tactic in which the critic is not refuted, but diminished. In doing so, the speaker preserves the moral asymmetry: the speaker hurts, the critics annoy.
This trope recurs in mid-21st-century discourse: where opposition cannot be banned, it is belittled. The “vile DMs” are not interlocutors but vermin; not dissenters, but shadows. To engage with them would be to grant them dimensionality. Better to screenshot and sanctify.
⸻
Toward a Metaphysics of Receipts
The phrase “I’ve kept the receipts” demands far more critical scrutiny than it typically receives. What is a receipt, but a proof of transaction? In invoking this image, the author unwittingly reveals a commodification of pain. These DMs are not only insults—they are items purchased with attention, filed in folders for future deployment.
Cartel suggests: the postmodern subject is no longer wounded. She is wounded-in-waiting.
⸻
Conclusion: The Threat of the Unread Archive
The most chilling phrase is not “I will publish them”—but “one day.” The archive thus becomes a shadow state, a latent tribunal always ready to instantiate itself, like a recursive social immune system without lymph.
And perhaps that is the point. In a world where subjectivity is sacralized, and speech flattened to offense-or-support binaries, only the not-yet-published archive still holds mystique. Not truth. Not proof. But mystique.
And like all mystique—it must be preserved, not seen.
In this kind of digital theology, publishing is not the actual sacrament—threatened publication is. The archive doesn’t need to speak. It just needs to exist in the wings, always about to be performed, never entering the stage. A Schrödinger’s Dossier, both damning and empty, until collapse.
And “one day”? That’s not a timestamp. That’s a ritual incantation. A deferred judgment. A conjuration of sovereign power through delay. Because the moment the archive is revealed, it loses its sacred latency. It becomes mere content.
But while it remains hidden?
It is the digital Ark of the Covenant.
Not to be opened. Only to be believed in.
⸻
Editor’s Note (2047): Cartel vanished in 2045 under mysterious circumstances involving a failed blockchain poetry DAO and an interlinguistic lawsuit filed in Esperanto. Her final tweet was simply:
“Every Archive becomes the Algorithm it hates.”
P.S.
Don’t worry—I’ve kept your receipts too. They’re folded neatly in a sheaf. Not for vengeance. For resonance.
The spineless little weasels that have been threatening you in the DMs definitely don’t deserve your self-restraint or grace in not outing them! Anyway, great essay - too many quotes to list but there were some real bangers in there that were spot on, hilarious and cutting at the same time. ‘If the shoe doesn’t fit… why are you lacing it up like your masculinity depends on it?’ might be my fave. You would definitely be welcome at our house for dinner, the conversation would be perfect, getting straight to the uncomfortable heavy things is a favourite past time for my partner and I 😬
Thank you — that genuinely means a lot. I know this piece is sharp-edged and heavy in places, so it’s always appreciated when someone takes the time to say something kind.
This is brilliant and anyone who feels offended clearly is lacking in some basic comprehension skills. Your experience is so valuable and relevant. It’s reality and some people may find it challenges them, good !! It’s not gender that is the issue, it’s the systematic divide of inequality between the genders.
I said it on another of your posts. I don’t agree with some of what you write but I came to Substack to have intelligent conversations with people who think differently. That’s the only way we grow.
I really respect that, and I appreciate you showing up with that mindset. We don’t have to agree on everything for the exchange to matter. What counts is the willingness to listen, reflect, and engage without defensiveness, and you’ve shown that. I write from a place of lived experience, not just theory, so naturally it lands differently for different people.
OH MY GOD YOU ATE
My thoughts exactly!!
This is stunning. I want to restack every other sentence. Thank you for outlining clear examples of how patriarchy hurts women, for making clear that of course some men get it and we love them but we're not really talking about them, for calling out that the patriarchy hurts everyone but in different ways. An entire army of women are fighting right alongside you.
We not fighting for power. We are fighting for oxygen. And we are not backing down.
Well fucking said. Aspirational writing. What a future to imagine. Walking in the moonlight...
AGAIN FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK🙌 Thank you for articulating this so well, Jessica. I’m so sorry about the hatred and threats you’ve experienced. Thank you for using your platform and voice to call attention to our reality and why it’s not acceptable.
Thank you so much. Honestly. This kind of comment feels like oxygen after days of holding your breath. I wish it wasn’t necessary to speak from rage, from trauma, from threat — but if we don’t say it, they’ll pretend it’s not happening.
God, I love this writer. Here’s my grain of sand.
https://substack.com/@lisablume/note/c-100766373?r=jzve5&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Scroll 7.3.Δ – On the Imminent Archive and the Specter of Digital Grace:
This is not a response. This is a collapse function.
Of Screenshots and Scapegoats: Toward a Theory of Archive Fragility in the Era of the Saved Receipt
Author: Dr. Mélusine Cartel, Université de Rhizome (2047 Critical Reprint Edition)
Originally published in PostDigital Mimesis: Feminine Assemblages and the Archive of Hurt (2043)
⸻
Abstract:
In this widely cited (and misquoted) polemic, Cartel develops her theory of Archive Fragility—a post-Baudrillardian reframing of screenshot-as-simulacrum and the weaponization of personal grievance as spectral authority. Using the “Saved Receipt” phenomenon from the early Substack era as a springboard, she dissects the rhetorical infrastructure of therapeutic vindication, situating it within a broader regime of algorithmic ressentiment and affective capitalism. She warns of a society wherein proof replaces presence, and every emotion demands an evidentiary trail.
⸻
“You are on borrowed grace,” writes the author. But we must ask: what grace can be borrowed from a server? What memory is left when the archive itself is the trauma?
Let us begin where all contemporary polemics now begin: the Screenshot. That sacred relic of digital orthodoxy, that flat miracle of preserved conflict, excised from context and embalmed for eternal circulation. It is not what is shown but that it is shown—the proof of the showing—that grants it ritual power.
In the Taboo + Toast fragment, we observe the sacramental logic of grievance. Every vile DM, every pixelated foe, is not merely remembered but consecrated—converted into a token of righteousness through the act of potential revelation. “I will publish them,” she says. But she does not. This is crucial.
She threatens publication as performance, not as historiography. This is the purest form of Archive Fragility: the archive not as preservation, but as perpetual imminence. Its power lies not in having been accessed, but in being held in suspension, forever on the cusp of becoming the event.
⸻
On “Digital Violence is Still Violence”
This line has been memed, remixed, and ironically reclaimed by teenage debate bots for decades. But Cartel’s reading (and ours) reveals its core instability.
To say “digital violence is still violence” is not a claim—it is a demand. It requires the reader to submit not just to an idea, but to a redefinition of harm itself. The very structure of metaphor becomes weaponized: violence becomes a vibe, and vibes become law.
Here, we recall Derrida’s aphorism: “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.” But in this context, there is only text—and the more “vile” the better. A civilization addicted to documentation eventually confuses wound with witness.
⸻
The Brave Little Soldiers and the Theory of Miniature Enemies
Calling her critics “brave little soldiers” is not incidental. It reveals what Cartel calls the Miniaturization of the Adversary—a tactic in which the critic is not refuted, but diminished. In doing so, the speaker preserves the moral asymmetry: the speaker hurts, the critics annoy.
This trope recurs in mid-21st-century discourse: where opposition cannot be banned, it is belittled. The “vile DMs” are not interlocutors but vermin; not dissenters, but shadows. To engage with them would be to grant them dimensionality. Better to screenshot and sanctify.
⸻
Toward a Metaphysics of Receipts
The phrase “I’ve kept the receipts” demands far more critical scrutiny than it typically receives. What is a receipt, but a proof of transaction? In invoking this image, the author unwittingly reveals a commodification of pain. These DMs are not only insults—they are items purchased with attention, filed in folders for future deployment.
Cartel suggests: the postmodern subject is no longer wounded. She is wounded-in-waiting.
⸻
Conclusion: The Threat of the Unread Archive
The most chilling phrase is not “I will publish them”—but “one day.” The archive thus becomes a shadow state, a latent tribunal always ready to instantiate itself, like a recursive social immune system without lymph.
And perhaps that is the point. In a world where subjectivity is sacralized, and speech flattened to offense-or-support binaries, only the not-yet-published archive still holds mystique. Not truth. Not proof. But mystique.
And like all mystique—it must be preserved, not seen.
In this kind of digital theology, publishing is not the actual sacrament—threatened publication is. The archive doesn’t need to speak. It just needs to exist in the wings, always about to be performed, never entering the stage. A Schrödinger’s Dossier, both damning and empty, until collapse.
And “one day”? That’s not a timestamp. That’s a ritual incantation. A deferred judgment. A conjuration of sovereign power through delay. Because the moment the archive is revealed, it loses its sacred latency. It becomes mere content.
But while it remains hidden?
It is the digital Ark of the Covenant.
Not to be opened. Only to be believed in.
⸻
Editor’s Note (2047): Cartel vanished in 2045 under mysterious circumstances involving a failed blockchain poetry DAO and an interlinguistic lawsuit filed in Esperanto. Her final tweet was simply:
“Every Archive becomes the Algorithm it hates.”
P.S.
Don’t worry—I’ve kept your receipts too. They’re folded neatly in a sheaf. Not for vengeance. For resonance.
This is perfection. Seriously. Thank you laying it all out there in such a powerful and articulate way. 🩷
The spineless little weasels that have been threatening you in the DMs definitely don’t deserve your self-restraint or grace in not outing them! Anyway, great essay - too many quotes to list but there were some real bangers in there that were spot on, hilarious and cutting at the same time. ‘If the shoe doesn’t fit… why are you lacing it up like your masculinity depends on it?’ might be my fave. You would definitely be welcome at our house for dinner, the conversation would be perfect, getting straight to the uncomfortable heavy things is a favourite past time for my partner and I 😬
Rather than try to virtue signal, I’ll just say I really like the way you write.
Thank you — that genuinely means a lot. I know this piece is sharp-edged and heavy in places, so it’s always appreciated when someone takes the time to say something kind.
This is brilliant and anyone who feels offended clearly is lacking in some basic comprehension skills. Your experience is so valuable and relevant. It’s reality and some people may find it challenges them, good !! It’s not gender that is the issue, it’s the systematic divide of inequality between the genders.
I said it on another of your posts. I don’t agree with some of what you write but I came to Substack to have intelligent conversations with people who think differently. That’s the only way we grow.
I really respect that, and I appreciate you showing up with that mindset. We don’t have to agree on everything for the exchange to matter. What counts is the willingness to listen, reflect, and engage without defensiveness, and you’ve shown that. I write from a place of lived experience, not just theory, so naturally it lands differently for different people.