Attention Whoring and You - A Guide For Flamsterette

The BBQ Pit
21

I would just like to state for the record that hardygrrl was trying to keep this off the boards by having an IM conversation with me earlier tonight. In my opinion. I was quite willing to listen to and consider what she had to say. However, I got kicked offline by a phone call. When I was finished with my phone call, and tried to get back to the conversation, she had gone offline.

I’d like to thank my supporters in this thread: wring, bare, Ice Wolf, Duck Duck Goose, Aesiron, Joe K, Zoe, kambuckta, and jackelope (I swear I owe you at least one email, and you’ll get it, really…). You all rock :cool: I’m not going to get a swelled head from the support shown here, and I certainly won’t go all hysterical. This is as mature and dignified as I can get past 3 AM after a long day.

In my OP in the linked thread, I did acknowledge that there were people who probably have read the story before. For those that hadn’t read it before, they could read it or skip it if they liked. I wouldn’t have cared, because this was NOT a bid for attention / sympathy.

Indeed, I thought long and hard about even posting it at the SDMB (and at those other places, actually)… and even asked a few people here for their opinion on that, privately. End result: a deeply personal thread by me. Yes, I know that there’s a certain kind of irony in posting deeply personal things on a public forum, but I wanted people to know my story. As someone once said to me, it’s about catharsis / awareness. If anyone didn’t want to read it, and it got zero replies (aside from my inadvertent double-post), I would NOT be bumping it back up to the top every few hours to try to ensure a reply.

That said, it is probably very true that when I first came here, I didn’t know a whole lot about how message boards in general worked. (this has been a good teaching ground in many respects) I was guilty of starting at least a few threads such as post parties, indirect self-promotion, and the like. I’d like to think I’ve learned from these experiences, but that doesn’t guarantee I won’t slip up again. But for now, I don’t quite think it’s warranted. I may have had a compulsion to post in the past, but (IMHO) I’ve toned it down now.

Aesiron, one way to tell when you’ve reached the stage of being so mundane and pointless what you just disappear is to do a vanity search for yourself. If you haven’t been quoted / mentioned in other people’s posts for a reasonable length of time (amybe two ro three months), then you may have achieved it. Of course, that’s just my opinion.

F_X

22

I think hardygrrl and Flamsterette should sit down together and have a meat dose.

23

It’s all been said and done before. Good try hardygrrl. Best thing to do is just skip the threads and posts as best you can.

24

I just can’t keep track of attention whore o’ the month. Who’s this one? I thought that it was supposed to be Smileypants, or was that December? Or was it december? Blimey.

I love the pitting though. Most entertaining.

pan

25

Are you accepting an award or something?

26

Thanks for that comedy image Twisty. Now I’ve got my head full of a picture of this random woman I’ve not previously heard of clutching some kind of golden attention-whore-o’-the-month statuette, crying because it isn’t just an achievement for her, but also for all overexposed posters everywhere.

:smiley:

pan

27

I don’t know what the root cause of the situation is, and I don’t care. hardygrrl, I like you lots, and I know you’re not going to like hearing this, but don’t bring my Board into this. If the only reason you didn’t post a link to her Members Only thread was because its in a private forum, well, let me add this - please don’t even think of posting any links to my Board in the SDMB BBQ Pit as part of a flame so 5,000+ people can hit my server to see what’s going on and crash it.

Her Members Only thread, like all others by 50 or so people on the Board, is intended to be all about the person starting it. If you have a problem with it or with her, you can politely complain about it under Section 2.1 of the Rules in ATMB[sub]UnaBoard[/sub], as in the case of all issues like that.

Una

28

Well, let me be the voice of dissent here (I mean, dissenting from the crowd).

I’d never Pit Rant about it, but I see where HG is coming from.

Of course there is a certain level of attention-whoring on the SDMB. And it ranges from the sort of attention you get for being funny/thoughtful/weird while revealing absolutely nothing about yourself, to the sort of attention you get for being totally open and personal and revealing about your life. Everyone’s comfort level varies, but I think it’s safe to say that most posters fall in the middle, and that makes me feel as though it’s the norm, sort of a more, or unspoken rule about the general level of personal posting people are “supposed” to do.

I also think there is a norm about give-and-take. This is a discussion board, in my opinion. Of course personal narratives can invite discussion, and some posters have made this an art form. But sometimes all it is is one person writing a story, and 20 posters saying “interesting” or “thanks for sharing.” That isn’t give and take.

There are certainly no official rules. But it attracts particular notice when someone posts at the end of the bell curve. There is a hubris involved, when someone makes the decision that their personal narrative is important or funny or unqiue enough to warrant being posted, even though it’s extraordinarily personal or very long or not put into a “let’s discuss this” format. Their judgment might certainly be right–their story or poem or essay migh very well be that interesting or capable of provoking discussion despite its form.

But it would change the SDMB quite a bit if too many people think that way (in error) and this turns into a bulletin board where people post stories and poems and personal journal entries where the rest of us just read, leave a platitude, and move on.

Overall, that posting style irks some people more than others, and some people (more than others) pessimistically worry more about this becoming a SDMB trend.

29

I don’t have the patience to read anything that begins at birth and ends with the assassination of archduke Ferdinand. But giving the historiography a quick skim appears to indicate it is the tale of someone’s life. The other links seem to be the ponderings of someone desirous of a higher post count irrespective of content.

Though I might like to, my heart isn’t quite obsidian enough flame someone over posting their life story. Hardy has my utmost respect for being that blackard. And she probably has a point, however mean-spirited or unpopular, and I can’t help but nod in agreement.

30

I’ve actually noticed that Flami has been making an effort to not post quite so much in recent weeks.

Fer cryin’ out loud Hardygrrl it’s just sad that you follow Flami around double checking where she has posted and what she has posted, might I recommend a life?

31

I don’t believe that hardygrrl is following anyone around. It’s just a surprise to see something posted in three places, and for it to be exactly the same.

32

I have to say, as a former or maybe current attention whore who was pitted about six times in a week for talking too much on the boards and urged to STOP POSTING FOR A WHILE…I find this massive turnaround amazing. BBJ was one of the FIRST ONES to come out and say I needed to ‘stop and think’ before posting so much and now she’s defending Flammi, who’s post per day ratio is astronomical if I do say so myself.

Are we the kinder, gentler SDMB? Maybe so.

33

I disagree ** Ginger ** to go into Flami’s own LJ in order to criticoze it, then consciously read her threads on other message boards and then come in here complaining about it takes a great deal of effort…seems to me she’s been checking up on Flami.

34

Sorry, Flam, but I have to disgree with this:

Honey, if that’s the way you judge your worth on the SDMB–by how many times a vanity search turns up your name in other people’s posts–then you have more problems than we can help you with. :smiley:

'Sides, you’re scaring the Newbie.

Aesiron, don’t worry, after a while you’ll find your niche here. We have lots of people who just put in a quiet word here and there, and they’re just as much Dopers as the Fanatical Partisans and Temper Tantrum Specialists and Attention Whores and One-Trick Ponies and Drama Queens are (not naming any names). :smiley:

The whole point of the SDMB is not to be “famous”. It’s not necessary to have a “gimmick”, or to be extremely prolific, or to otherwise “make your mark” here. The point is to have interesting conversations with people via the Internet. And eventually, after you’ve spent enough time here in conversations, folks will start to get a feel for what kind of person you are, and you’ll discover a coterie of posters whose threads you know you always find interesting, and some folks will start doing the same with your threads.

35

DDG beat me to the last point. I never vanity search, personally, though I can see how some posters who are often called upon to answer questions (our resident doctors, scientists, advice types, parents, and so on) could do well to do this. The effect that a poster creates with good posts isn’t necessarily reflected in how many times their name gets repeated here - sometimes they affect others who don’t post, but learn something, sometimes they get spoken of off the board, and so forth.

There are many posters here who seem to me to be wise, funny, and to have great insights. And yet when I notice the post count under their name, it’s far lower than I’d assumed. They stand out in my mind because of the quality of their contributions.

Many a time, I find myself typing out a response to a thread. I look it over, I look at the thread. Then I hit the back button and leave it unposted - even though it was complete, it wasn’t worth posting. If I never did this, I might have double my current count. And of the posts I’ve made here that I think have any value at all, you could probably cut my post count in half and still leave a lot of drivel.

This isn’t to say that drive-by humorous comments are meaningless or that anyone with a lot of posts is just babbling; numerous counterexamples are easy to find. I just try to be very aware of whether or not my posts will contribute to an ongoing discussion, a give-and-take. I fail a lot in that. But I know that standing out from the crowd isn’t necessary, or even always a good thing.

36

Jar our situation is different…Flami has been told this many times…plus she has toned it down.
I agree Flami has a bit of a posting problem but it’s different. She has made an effort. And Jar you know I read your LJ stuff, but I would NEVER NEVER in a million years comment on in here…and I wouldn’t chase you around other message boards…

That is what is wrong to me…not the fact that she is discouraging Flami from opening too many threads, I can’t judge that cause I don’t really read her stuff. So, in short, this is entirely different than the other situation.

37

originally said by Duck Duck Goose:

A quick Google search of the word Gimmick turns up 242,000 results.

38

BBJ, just to defend hardy briefly, Flam posts to the SDMB community journal, so it’s not like you have to go searching to find it…it’s in a community format, for everyone who posts there to see, as far as I know.

39

Hey! Leave Esprix outta this …

:stuck_out_tongue:

40

ahh, did not know that…you mean you can go there and look at all the SDMB folks who post their LJ there?

Like I don’t waste enough time on the internet…ARGH!

:slight_smile: