Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Sadder But Wiser Girl for Me

How come whenever someone disagrees with something you guys do, John comes and screams at them and insults them until they leave?  It doesnt prove anything and it doesnt improve the scion community.


Fun Question!
Lets start with the first bit. It can be answered a couple ways, all of which are true in varying degrees.

1. Its an effective way of getting those people to shut up.  Its certainly not pretty, but its effectiveness cannot be argued(well I guess it could be argued.  By me and not you.  Because I'm better then you..../sarcasm).

2. Its just who I am.  I'm a giant, easily-angered, italian man.  Insults with yelling and screaming are how I was brought up to communicate.  Each member of my extended family(which is huge) was disowned at one point or another.  You piss off the matriarch(we had strong female heads of families, but in the case of the website itd be patriarch....anne will disagree ;) ) and the entire family shows solidarity and turns their back on you for a few years.  Its just how it went down.  These high stakes, along with generations of loudest people getting the most attention and continued breeding of larger, louder people has made me who I am.

3a.  Its my fucking website(damnt I was trying not to curse).  If you went to someones house, and shit in their front yard, you would not be surprised if they came out and yelled at you til you left would you?  Or maybe you are a sociopath and you would be surprised.  Which is fair, but if you did a poll, most people would not be surprised 

3b. I am  happy that people enjoy the website, and I'm happy that my ideas are being used by a wider audience.  That is cool.  And Anne loves blogging and helping people with questions.  But....its our property.  Except for rare(but AWESOME) donations, we pay for the website.  We spend many hours managing the website(html doesnt build itself) and we spend thousands of man hours making the content that you find on the website.  Then we release it to you for free.  FREEEEEE  

4. Im just a really honest person.  In addition to being loud and italian.  Im brutally honest.  My particular method for acting involves years of training in brutal honesty(I'm serious!)  I tell women who look fat in jeans that they look fat in jeans.  I will hesitate even less to tell you your idea is stupid if its stupid.

5. I burn with a deep seated hatred towards you.  It drives me to continue and propels me toward success.


**Ive calmed down so much in the past year or so.  I have 10 WW forum accounts for a reason(I was continually banned).  Actually having my own site has me taking pride in the level of discourse and communication between us and you wonderful peoples(OP not included).  Also since anne is attached to this project directly, we have a system set up before I freak out on someone.  They usually have to be particularly antagonistic or continually difficult before I'd actually insult someone on the site(and then I still usually ask permission before becoming hostile).  Its happened only a couple times in the entire life of the blog.

Second bit of question:
Eh.  On the one hand you're right.  Generally I'm aware that screaming and insulting doesnt end in a satisfying  conclusion for an audience.  But it does make me feel a lot better.  And I'm generally a fan of me feeling a better.
But I'm not sure that it "doesnt" improve the scion community.  Generally shortly after both anne and I(and others) stop wasting time with you, and get onto other projects.  Every moment not spent dealing with you(you here being whichever person Im yelling at and insulting I guess), is a moment we can spend creating scion stuff, or having meaningful discussions with people we actually like.

So I would counter with "yes, it does improve the scion community."
Anecdotal evidence though.  Perhaps the world will never truly know the answer to that question.

I dont see it happening often in the future(except perhaps the anons that will reply to this), but if you ever feel picked on, please refer to the top 5 answers above.  Or just talk to me about it in private.  Take a step back, make sure you arent also coming to the conversation with anger, and I'll probably respond in kind.  

9 comments:

  1. I'd like to throw in a Dgen X move here...

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  2. I've found that I've had disagreements on this site with things but generally the responses have been civil and well thought out. Discussions that expand the position and make me think about things. IS there something I am missing?

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    1. There have been a couple times when I've lost my cool. But they are usually deep in the comments when everyone but the person I'm arguing with has left the thread.

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  3. It's true. He tells me I look fat in jeans all the time.

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  4. Maybe its just because I really ENJOY arguing with people, but I honestly don't find that John's any more aggressive or argumentative than my friends and I are. I was about to say that he IS louder, but then, we're pretty loud. I dunno, I've only met him for 20 minutes and he wasn't yelling at me. He could be louder, but it'd take some work.

    Besides, he only screams and insults internet people when they're rude, stupid or bug him. That's what the internet is for, right?

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    1. I'm pretty sure it is the celebrity status issue again.

      When you are nobody, you have the freedom to say anything you want. When you become a celebrity, everybody starts thinking you should act responsibly. They pile their expectations upon you whether you want them or not.

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    2. ...somehow I don't think that's why Anonymous Question Asker is mad at John for bein' a net-rage-monster.

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    3. Well, I assume its what he means when he talks about it not helping the "scion community"

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