For some reason the Young Adult Fiction subculture has become one of the most woke and therefore toxic online. Nearly two years ago Jesse Singal wrote about the cancelation of author Amélie Wen Zhao whose unpublished novel Blood Heir was accused of being racist despite the fact that no one had read it.

This week Singal has been tweeting about another case of mob justice in the YA space on Twitter. Author Jessica Cluess has been accused of racism. The problem wasn’t her book in this instance it was a disagreement she had with someone else on Twitter. That someone else happened to be a minority and so the cancel culture mob is off to the races. Singal’s thread starts with Jessica’s agent throwing her under the bus:

If my agent threw me under the bus like this I would fire him immediately. It wouldn't even be a question. It's just insane what goes on in this corner of the literary world. pic.twitter.com/3ozNGH8fKS

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 2, 2020

3/ In this corner of literary Twitter, unhinged denunciatory tweetstorms are completely normal. Some of the biggest and most popular figures regularly participate in them! It's a very very very strange place.https://t.co/AaHXWuuWsy

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 2, 2020

Singal then highlighted some of the responses to the agent’s statement demanding more action against his own client:

5/ "I cannot fathom the pain and horror of being the victim of [mean tweets]" pic.twitter.com/K1NsQSv4VU

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 2, 2020

As usual, the woke crowd is suggesting that harm is being done to everyone by the author’s tweets.

10/ "Virulently harmed."

Either these people are genuinely unwell — you cannot be well if you think one person making fun of another person "virulently harms" others by some sort of process of racial osmosis — or they just intentionally inflate harm claims (that is, lie). pic.twitter.com/FK9Us1Ohww

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 2, 2020

One of the people demanding the woman’s agent respond with harsher treatment was another literary agent named Laura Zats:

Agent 1 throws his client under the bus over some internet bullshit. Agent 2, Laura Zats, chimes in to publicly reprimand him for not being harsh enough on her.

DO PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW WEIRD THIS IS? This is literally the 100% opposite of what agents are supposed to do!! pic.twitter.com/F5ixKQaFBg

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 3, 2020

She labels Cluess a “racist, violent author.”

3/ "put marginalized people at risk"

"a racist, violent author"

(violent!!)

I am so frustrated that these people have so much sway and can ruin so many people's ability to be excited about reading and writing. This is a cult. It is very, very hard to go against cultists. pic.twitter.com/9dKPxUVGK3

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 3, 2020

Again, it’s worth noting the author in question never brought up race. Her racism was inferred:

This is exactly what it is. And there's no discusion. She's just declared to be Racist, full-stop. It's a charge that *should* mean something, and is used to attempt to end careers, as people are actively trying to do. It's disgraceful to watch. https://t.co/BcY014StCU

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 2, 2020

The author also apologized for disagreeing with a non-white person which, of course, only made things worse:

An unfortunate violation of The Amran Principle: Never apologize to bad-faith online jerks. That way lies only deeper trobule. https://t.co/6yec9MlANA

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 2, 2020

One response included a markup of the apology with a red pen. If you actually look at it those aren’t corrections to grammar, they are corrections to thought. This is the red pen of Critical Race Theory. The other cultists are thrilled.

The YA author whose career is being torpedoed by a plainly fabricated accusation of racism apologized, but the apology wasn't enough, so one of her critics literally marked up her apology like she was a third-grader, and the other critics are celebrating this as a noble act. pic.twitter.com/7D86sAhFmA

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 3, 2020

Singal argued that agents needed to learn that just because people on Twitter are angry doesn’t mean anyone did anything wrong:

6/ isn't allowed, and where agreement with (often exaggerated or fabricated) claims of 'harm' brings with it social currency and group standing.

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 3, 2020

Giving in to the mob only encourages the mob:

10/ When publishers cave to this strange clan, in other words, they are responding not to what readers want, but to a very strange group of people with a specific set of esoteric concerns and a less developed sense of morality and nuance than the average, say, 14-year-old reader.

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 3, 2020

But Jessica’s agent did eventually give in to the mob (2nd tweet below):

Update: Brooks Sherman has dropped his client Jessica Cluess, repeating the baseless claim of racism in the process. Nothing in her tweetstorm was racist. It's just a completely made-up charge stemming from the fact that the person she was (harshly) criticizing is nonwhite. pic.twitter.com/z8OeYpp48K

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 4, 2020

Having successfully canceled an author who did nothing wrong, the mob is finally happy, though that probably won’t be the end of their crusade against the author:

The next step is for the mob to take every step they can to prevent her next book, slated from next year, from coming out. Tagging her publisher etc.https://t.co/Z1VIUF1xFL

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) December 4, 2020

Anyway, I’m sorry for Jessica Cluess and I’m sorry that this sort of behavior is taken seriously by anyone. Keep this in mind the next time someone claims that cancel culture doesn’t exist.