Monday, June 21, 2004


Online Loyalty Oaths


During last weekend’s shenaningans, I noticed a curious and distressing idea pop up a few times. Because there’s nothing I love more than a drastic oversimplification, I’ll refer to it as the “Online Loyalty Oath”. Briefly, there were a number of posts that basically boiled down to:

“If you were a real friend and not a total coward, you’d join in and yell a those people over there that were mean to me.”

or (alternate formulation)

“Didn’t you see the completely insulting thing that person wrote? Why didn’t you join in and publicly condemn it?”

If there’s one thing the Slashdot trolls did get right, it’s the idea that the degree of self-absorbption on display in blogs is something to be pitied, embarassed by, and, yes, ridiculed.

Look, if the empty boilerplate people always recite about the true deep meaning (hic) of blogging (the old “unfiltered voice of an individual” hogwash that even I might have been a big enough, class A1 sucka to believe at one point) means anything, any damn thing at all, it’s that, really, we (aw, sheesh), we aren’t obligated to say anything. If my text editor’s open and I see you taking a hit from an asshole, hey, I might throw you a virtual heavy-metal-goat-head sign of support. I may solemnly clasp my hand over my heart and wish you well. Maybe I’ll just open another window and download some cat pictures.

I read about half of the weekend’s ugliest posts while sitting in front of my keyboard with a pretty seven-month old girl cooing in the crook of my arm. Do you know how little I cared about giving anyone an ego stroke at that moment?


:: Dave Walker 17:17 (EST/EDT) [+]

:: [/opinion/ruminations]
:: tags:

:: Comments (5)

Comments:

memer wrote:

Title:

Date:

Response:
Typing response while listening. Man, this is good. Guy, you gotta spot us like plus-minus a couple years or something. This is impossible. Very annoying. One of those tunes/beats you know you know but when...was...that?! Damn. Well, I can't miss an opportunity to show off my music ignorance. So here goes. Start with decade: 80s. Genre: Early house/late Funk? Now, where the hell would I've been when this came out... Damn. Fuck it. I'm goin with 1985. Final answer.
memer wrote:

Title:

Date:

Response:
Oh mi stars. I'm such a dweeb. I was actually respoding to the "Firecracker" post. Don't know how I got here. But FWIW, I agree. Can I go home now?
memer wrote:

Title:

Date:

Response:
Oh mi stars. I'm such a dweeb. I was actually respoding to the "Firecracker" post. Don't know how I got here. But FWIW, I agree. Can I go home now?
d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date:

Response:

Memer -- "Firecracker" was released in 1979. Unbelievable, isn't it?

Onto that other thing, the public cries of martyrdom are getting even thicker on the ground. Now folks are trying to call in the press to witness all the horrible, awful crimes being perpetrated by those nasty, nasty flamers. Give me an effing break, please.

memer wrote:

Title: Off beat.

Date:

Response:
1979?! Dag. Not even close. Good one. Dunno from where you dug up that ol gem, but it would fit nicely in a Jeapardy category called (say), "Perfect Beat Teasers." Cheers p.s. BTW, I'm, like, totally stealing your policy pages for myself.



Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes.