Fuck 1300 Spaghetti
Femme rage and the inability to let bad men get away with it (again). Also, fuck community guidelines.
Content warning: SA.
As a woman in my early thirties, I’m incredibly tired of the way I’ve been treated by men. I’ve had boobs since I was ten or eleven, and men leering at them not long after. I’ve been groped in nightclubs (one such occasion was even captured mid club photo), yelled at from men in cars doing Chap Laps, and raped by the time I turned 25.
A few days ago, one of my social justice-minded Instagram friends shared a post from (the now deleted) whistleblower account @melbhospocreeps which pointed out that the owner of a Melbourne foodie darling was (at worst) a rapist and (at best) a wage-thief sex predator. The trendy inner-north locale, known for its nightclub atmosphere, streetwear-style merch, and a bizarre, vanity-driven jaunt in car racing (?!).
Like most do-gooder lefties, I shared the post. I firmly believe in the value of whistleblowers and how word-of-mouth is often the only way AFAB people are able to keep each other safe. The comments were filled with expressions of “Finally!” and “I was banned from [name of social media group] for talking about this”. For many people, it seemed, this was an open secret.
After talking to a couple of my friends, who were similarly horrified, I went to bed and felt gross. This is a restaurant I liked: I’d ordered from them numerous times during Melbourne’s many lockdowns, I’d praised the owner’s charity work on Insta, and it was a place I was dying to visit IRL - if, and when, I could be bothered crossing the Yarra.
The next morning, all traces of @melbhospocreeps were gone. The account which had successfully named many other abusers, including a bouncer from a club I frequented in my early twenties, was shut down after the unveiling of one man’s abuses. It made my blood boil.
I went onto Reddit, X, TikTok and Instagram, and it took my breath away to see that every negative mention of this man (save for one meme) had been wiped from all social media. So, I made a TikTok.
I work in media/comms, and I’m in the process of applying for a PhD in the intersection of social media and sexism, so I have a decent understanding of what kind of language is likely to get flagged as offensive or defamatory. I called the restaurant “1300 Spaghetti” (close enough) and I pointed to words on a green screen like “SA” (sexual abuse) rather than speaking them - where they’d likely be identified by TikTok’s community guidelines. I also used algospeak when I chose to refer to these concepts in writing, so “SA” instead became “essay”. It reads as utter nonsense, and it’s borderline Tom Hanks solving a cryptex in The Da Vinci Code, but it works. It’s been two days since I uploaded that TikTok, and it’s still there. [Author’s note: my TikTok was deleted 7:10pm on 04/06/24, but was immediately restored when I appealed that decision because - as I just said - I did not breach the community guidelines. However, I’ve uploaded it to other platforms just to be safe].
Dozens of people have left comments on this restaurant’s Google profile, others have left comments on the man’s Instagram - but every negative mention has been removed within hours. The team behind @melbhospocreeps re-emerged on TikTok, posting screenshots from victims several times before being mass reported and all content deleted. What’s worse? The restaurant has apparently had lines out the door every night since this certified creep was outed, and they’ve quietly disabled comments on their Instagram page.
It is absolutely maddening, and in every act of erasure, I feel my own smallness as a victim of sexual assault. I hate that the world is set up so that powerful men just get away with it, and that women have to speak in code so that we’re not silenced - but I’m not backing down. In the words of Dennis Reynolds: I am untethered and my rage knows no bounds.
1300 Spaghetti, fuck with me and find out.
PS- If you’re mad and you need something to channel that rage into, I highly recommend these movies. And if you’re a victim, I believe you.