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mallorys_cameraWhat the hell happened yesterday?
Damned if I know.
I do know it snowed the night before and that around 10am, I went outside and shoveled a foot or so of snow off the steps and sidewalk in front of the house. There really wasn't a helluva lot to do after that – Reverend Cal had ordained a snow holiday, it sucked outside, and most of the sidewalks had not been dug out. Consequently, I spent most of the day in the house.
I guess I came down with cabin fever.
So I spent most of the day on Facebook, debating the ins and outs of the Woody Allen molestation accusations.
Do I give a shit about the Woody Allen molestation accusations?
I do not.
But somehow yesterday, I did. In fact, I cared passionately and when people disagreed with me, I wanted to crawl into my computer, tunnel down the labyrinth of network connections and emerge into their studies, bedrooms or dens so I could bitchslap them and ram their heads into concrete walls.
Over-reaction?
Ya think?
###
I first noticed the propensity of Internet bulletin board-type discussions to drive me mad in the late 1980s when I initially joined the Well.
Shortly after I joined, a computer guy named Blair Newman committed suicide by sucking down the contents of a nitrous oxide tank, surely a most Well-ian way to die. Newman was brilliant if erratic online, and by all reports, almost impossible to take in person, front and center in your grill, blowing cigarette fumes in your face and effervescing like an Alka Seltzer dissolving in a pint of DDT.
Shortly before his suicide, Newman been dumped on by a bunch of the usual Well suspects. These days, it would be called cyber-bullying. Back then, though, Well culture dictated that it was perfectly okay to say the most horribly unkind things about whomever was the designated goat that week and to invite all your buddies to pile on too.
After his death, of course, the Big Question was: Had the Well (gasp!) played a role in his suicide?
And I'm just a gal who l-o-v-e-s blood on the highway, so naturally I read through every one of that interminably long screed of postings, including the ones from Mister Suicide himself. And it was perfectly obvious to me -- with no dog in that fight – that yes, the Well had played a pivotal role in destabilizing an unstable guy even further and driving him over the brink. I said as much, and then I got piled on!
This pattern came to be a familiar one in 15 years or so I belonged to the Well. I mean, the Well was really quite wonderful in a lot of ways. All my life, I'd felt like a misfit. While other people talked about sports and mileage and the adventures of their favorite sit com characters, I longed to talk about books and ideas. I mean I could talk other-people-ese with the best of them (I'm good at dialects) but I longed for people whom I didn't have to translate, with whom I could speak my own language. The WELL abounded with these people. Although it never quite dawned on me in the earliest stages that they were people. More like penumbra.
As my real life connections to Well people grew – I fell in love with two of them, and Tom Mandel became my very best friend in the world – so did the virulence of those online pile-on's.
Easy enough to avoid, you're thinking. Just log off.
Except I found that I couldn't. My addiction to Well flame wars was as intense as anything I'd ever experienced in any of my intense flirtations with various high-ranking members of the pharmacological pantheon. And the addiction always centered around engaging in these epic spite fests, these blazing displays of language and meanness. I didn't really care about the more mannered discussions.
Eventually, I left the Well. Ultimately, I'm much more interested in people's stories than their opinions, so LiveJournal was a much better fit as an Internet home base.
Yesterday was the first time I'd felt anything remotely like that eddying, horrifying, irresistible urge to read more, write more, engage in snippy exchanges.
It was awful.
I couldn't make myself log off until really late at night. And then I couldn't sleep.
This is why people need to write more on LJ, goddamit.
Damned if I know.
I do know it snowed the night before and that around 10am, I went outside and shoveled a foot or so of snow off the steps and sidewalk in front of the house. There really wasn't a helluva lot to do after that – Reverend Cal had ordained a snow holiday, it sucked outside, and most of the sidewalks had not been dug out. Consequently, I spent most of the day in the house.
I guess I came down with cabin fever.
So I spent most of the day on Facebook, debating the ins and outs of the Woody Allen molestation accusations.
Do I give a shit about the Woody Allen molestation accusations?
I do not.
But somehow yesterday, I did. In fact, I cared passionately and when people disagreed with me, I wanted to crawl into my computer, tunnel down the labyrinth of network connections and emerge into their studies, bedrooms or dens so I could bitchslap them and ram their heads into concrete walls.
Over-reaction?
Ya think?
I first noticed the propensity of Internet bulletin board-type discussions to drive me mad in the late 1980s when I initially joined the Well.
Shortly after I joined, a computer guy named Blair Newman committed suicide by sucking down the contents of a nitrous oxide tank, surely a most Well-ian way to die. Newman was brilliant if erratic online, and by all reports, almost impossible to take in person, front and center in your grill, blowing cigarette fumes in your face and effervescing like an Alka Seltzer dissolving in a pint of DDT.
Shortly before his suicide, Newman been dumped on by a bunch of the usual Well suspects. These days, it would be called cyber-bullying. Back then, though, Well culture dictated that it was perfectly okay to say the most horribly unkind things about whomever was the designated goat that week and to invite all your buddies to pile on too.
After his death, of course, the Big Question was: Had the Well (gasp!) played a role in his suicide?
And I'm just a gal who l-o-v-e-s blood on the highway, so naturally I read through every one of that interminably long screed of postings, including the ones from Mister Suicide himself. And it was perfectly obvious to me -- with no dog in that fight – that yes, the Well had played a pivotal role in destabilizing an unstable guy even further and driving him over the brink. I said as much, and then I got piled on!
This pattern came to be a familiar one in 15 years or so I belonged to the Well. I mean, the Well was really quite wonderful in a lot of ways. All my life, I'd felt like a misfit. While other people talked about sports and mileage and the adventures of their favorite sit com characters, I longed to talk about books and ideas. I mean I could talk other-people-ese with the best of them (I'm good at dialects) but I longed for people whom I didn't have to translate, with whom I could speak my own language. The WELL abounded with these people. Although it never quite dawned on me in the earliest stages that they were people. More like penumbra.
As my real life connections to Well people grew – I fell in love with two of them, and Tom Mandel became my very best friend in the world – so did the virulence of those online pile-on's.
Easy enough to avoid, you're thinking. Just log off.
Except I found that I couldn't. My addiction to Well flame wars was as intense as anything I'd ever experienced in any of my intense flirtations with various high-ranking members of the pharmacological pantheon. And the addiction always centered around engaging in these epic spite fests, these blazing displays of language and meanness. I didn't really care about the more mannered discussions.
Eventually, I left the Well. Ultimately, I'm much more interested in people's stories than their opinions, so LiveJournal was a much better fit as an Internet home base.
Yesterday was the first time I'd felt anything remotely like that eddying, horrifying, irresistible urge to read more, write more, engage in snippy exchanges.
It was awful.
I couldn't make myself log off until really late at night. And then I couldn't sleep.
This is why people need to write more on LJ, goddamit.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-06 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 03:37 pm (UTC)Which is kind of pathetic when you think about it...
no subject
Date: 2014-02-06 07:07 pm (UTC)I decided not to as no one else would see the humor in it, and I'd just end up with replies from some nasty scold.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-06 08:26 pm (UTC)Loved this.
I agree 100000000% about caring much more about people's stories than their opinions. That's the main reason Facebook is unappealing to me now. I mean, is it so much to ask that we just interact about OUR OWN LIVES and personalities? I'm not even asking for anything deep. Mainly I like colorful/bizarre personal anecdotes or observations (especially sketches of situations you've been in, people you've seen that day or come across), gossip (good gossip—not like soap opera or Housewives dinner throw-down gossip), and imagined scenarios.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-06 09:17 pm (UTC)it's called coriolanus. it's about a general who is too stiff to pay tribute to politicians. as such, they villianize him with words, make him from a hero into a scapegoat. the play ends with his death.
part of what makes group identity is external pressure. it's true for monkeys and its true for humans. us vs them. we band together because they are a bigger threat than we can handle.
since pressure is so low today, in terms of physical threat, we have this huge influx of manufactured pressure from moral and symbolic "threats". depending on what kind of values you like, or how you think people should be -- we are likely to scapegoat one side or the other as being tagged "should not be". on BBSes , of which I was a part as well, it's more obvious the resources we fight for are completely social. in a way, like a james bond movie, it's all about adequacy. if you can turn it around, you're good. if james bond ever cracked under pressure or revealed that his fiction was something he didn't believe in, you can sure the other spies would just kill him out right.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 03:40 pm (UTC)Extremely astute observation.
Maybe this is why we need wars.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 07:03 pm (UTC)those in charge, or those with the most must be most paranoid if they realize how little others have in comparison... hence the need to manufacture constant and contradictory drama. if you were filthy filthy rich, wouldn't you live a modest upper class lifestyle to hide the fact that you were in charge? in a way, james bond movies have so much fiction and double crossing that the true people being served are the ignorant that never knows they are on the verge of disaster. in this way, james bond movies pat us on the back for being complacent citizens.
real life is the opposite; on both sides of the planet the rich and in charge laugh that their populations are kept on constant edge of the threat of war. north korea plays the puppet and the middle east broils because of their manufactured british borders, designed to keep them in constant turmoil. we bite our nails, eat our fast food and live life for today because we think terrorists will destroy everything tomorrow... in imitation of "spring break" orgies shown constantly on bravo and tmz. no one challenges anyone and we all fiend for the next enjoyment while the planet slowly runs out of raw material...
no subject
Date: 2014-02-07 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 12:25 pm (UTC)I think you're on to something there.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 02:49 pm (UTC)I'm thinking I want to delete my FB account. Except it's got some photo albums I like that I'm too lazy to download and store elsewhere.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 12:43 pm (UTC)