Thank Og for that.
Amen.
(shuffles feet)
Umm…
I guess I’ll be the first, here, to confess to writing more than one RO thread. Of the last six threads I’ve started, I consider three of them to meet a standard of being RO threads. They didn’t affect me personally, nor my family, nor even anyone I know casually. Certainly nothing in any of the incidents that lead me to write my Pit threads is anything I could say was of earth shaking importance. Just things that left me frustrated, and angry. And more, with something I wanted to say about the incidents.
I’m a brooder. I’ll let things get into my head and stay there. Festering often seems an overused word in mental health circles, but I think it’s quite accurate in my case. These ideas will fester in my mind, often becoming obsessions.
Unless I organize my thoughts. Get them down, and out. And when I get them out, they generally do stay out. I put my anger into the screen, and it’s gone from me. I still am upset and angry over whatever incident happened, but it’s a clean anger, and something I can put aside, and not have to keep coming back to worry over. Not becoming some kind of feedback loop in my mind.
I used to use my LJ for the purpose of getting the crap out. But, as my circle of friends is pretty small, and I’d never really wanted to become some kind of named blogger, it’s not exactly a venue where I could think I was getting any exposure. If I put things into the Pit, I know I’ll get a few readers, and some will usually comment. Some will tell me I’ve got my head up my arse, some will tell me why I shouldn’t be so upset about it, and some will usually agree with my position. And whatever reaction I get, I have accomplished my main goal - I no longer have the original crap circling in my head.
So, I really hope that the Mods won’t ban RO threads.
Just my two cents, and worth just about as much as you paid for it.
I find it funny that everyone here is saying “Well I don’t personally like them, but some people must!” Well, who then? I don’t see anyone here that actually finds them useful, and those defending their right to exist are doing it on the basis of teh oh noes censorship!!1.
Except OtakuLoki, who’s apparently made six recent RO threads. Maybe he’s the entire problem.
Yes. Because threads about moderator’s posting styles are soooo much more worthwhile.
Actually I think this might be a nice idea. One big screaming thread, solicited by those who like screaming at offensive articles.
Can we ban threads about Lost and 24? I don’t watch those shows, so I don’t see why I should have to read threads about them.
I support these threads as the rage outlets I use them for. I don’t have people to bitch to when the subject pisses me off, and this pit is perfect, because until I vent about the sick fucker doing the sick shit they do, I’m going to keep up my rolling boil. Yes it’s a rage outlet for me, even if you don’t consider it so, and it helps me to give the world notice of some sick fucks activities. It also helps me deal with sick fucks, when I know at least some people in the world agree with me and that society hasn’t sunk to a pacifism that doesn’t become outrage at these activities. I want to know some people care about these horendous crimes happening, and your attitude of I don’t want to know about this stuff, is what allows this type of activity to run unchecked. Moral outrage is the reaction this type of stuff should elicit, or you’re fairly passifistic and emotionaly dead already with a need for a wake up call. You need to stop and not continue on reading the stuff if your incapable of handling the material these threads cover. It’s obvious though your incapable of stopping reading at the point you realise you don’t like the subject. Just keep on reading it and bitch afterward. It’s nice when nobody is allowed to express their outrage at these events, for the people that like to pretend this stuff hardly ever happens, and pretend it’s never near you. It’s bad to suppress this type of stuff, because then nobody works on solutions to minimize the problem, or feels it worth the effort to support those who do.
Just a guess here, but maybe all the people who created them, posted to them, and read them?
I understand that you believe that posting about this sort of stuff helps you, but I don’t think it’s healthy to dwell on it. As I said, bad things happen all the time. And how is an “attitude of I don’t want to know about this stuff” supposed to allow “this type of activity to run unchecked”? The event happened whether or not I read about it afterwards.
Now it may be productive to look at an event like, for example, a mother drowning her children because of postpartum depression and begin a discussion of whether there should be greater resources available for new mothers and perhaps a formal system for evaluating them for such depression, but most of these threads don’t go in that direction.
Can we ban threads about posters I don’t like?
Or just ban the posters; it’s all good.
Not to dwell on it is why I post it, because i then move on, instead of seathing over it for a week. What’s happened has happened, but prevention needs thought and effort put into it. Most people never get to the point where they expend the effort to stop this and it takes a kick in the rear to get them to react to a situationnot involving a crime against themselves.
(bolding and snipping mine)
So, you’re essentially calling the population of the SD idiots who are incapable of accessing news reports for themselves. It must be nice to believe oneself to be the arbitor of what we need to know- would you like to set up a mass mailing list so that we can always be informed of Horrible Events? In other words,
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU to decide what I should and should not be outraged over, how I should respond to these events, and whether or not I need a wakeup call?
Look, the majority of us here are well aware that there are sick fucks in the world. We are well aware that, at any given time, in any given place, awful things are happening to both deserving and undeserving creatures. Are you aware that by posting links to The Offensive Act Of The Day you are giving a lot of those sick fucks exactly what they want (notoriety, in case you needed some help there)?
I’m sorry you (collective) don’t have enough time to become an author, or have a large enough circle of friends to make it worth your while to post to your blog, or have rage issues. News flash: I am a therapist. I am not your therapist. It is not my responsibility to make you feel better about the world, yourself, or the state of mankind, and if you continue to put me in that position, I’m going to have to start billing your insurance.
If you (collective) are so freaked out by the state of the world, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. If your pet cause is children being used as pawns in divorce proceedings, volunteer as a Court Appointed Special Advocate. If your pet cause is sexual predators, work to have laws changed. If your pet cause is women abusing their kids as a result of PPD, get a social work or counseling degree and focus on that population. If your pet cause is domestic violence, or rape, volunteer at shelters or crisis centers. Put your fucking money where your mouth is. Anyone can sit in front of a monitor and bang away at their keyboard and pretend to be SO SHOCKED AND OUTRAGED that these things are going on in what is supposed to be a civilized world. But all you’re (HD specifically, but also including the just-for-fun-and-profit RO posters) doing is making so much noise and thinking that others must envision you as the most caring person in the world, because the plight of total strangers constantly has you in a state of the vapors. By your own admission, you just like to express rage so that others will go out and DO SOMETHING. You goddamn hypocritical sissy.
For all of you crying about “Well, don’t read the thread, then!”- I would like to point you to an example of the crux of the problem with that theory- oddly enough, Harmonious’ own RO thread. The title offers no indication of what the thread is about. A mouse-over (for some of us) does not provide enough information. And there is nowhere to go with a thread of that nature (well, except into hijack land, which is what happened)- are we expecting someone to come in and support baby raping? Or someone else to come in and say “Well, holy shit! I had NO CLUE this sort of thing was going on! WOW!”? Of course not.
You know what would be great? Let’s say your peeve is child sexual abuse. You see an article that gets you all het up. Now, instead of posting a RO thread, you take a few moments, compose a post that looks something like this:
“I came across (this article) today, and became upset about the ongoing problem of child sexual abuse. It seemed to me that the problem has been increasing, as there seem to be a lot of articles about it (include links to other SA articles here). This really upsets me, because (insert motivation here). I think the people who do these things are sick fucks, and I’d be really, really glad to see every one of them strung up and eaten by ants. I want to do something about it, so I’m soliciting ideas/suggestions on how I can help laws get changed because OMIGAWD WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN. In the meantime, I’m going to volunteer to become a Big Brother/Sister to some underpriviledged kids.”
You get your rage out, you get your message out so other people can be Made Aware Of The Problem, you look like The Good Person You Are, and something actually gets accomplished. Win-win-win.
If we absolutely have to keep the RO threads, then I would like to see at least the following put into place:
- I know it gives people a little thrill to come up with the coolest, most obscure or curse-heavy title possible, but the title of RO threads MUST be descriptive. “Man rapes and kills two year old.” “Boys break into Human Society, kill puppies.” “Mother sprays household cleaner into baby’s face.” THEN we can truly make a choice of whether or not we will read the thread.
- The OP needs CONTENT. We know you’re upset, but a link followed by :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: is, simply put, stupid as fuck. If you’re going to be recreationally outraged, and you want me to be outraged too, TELL ME WHY. Especially tell me why I should care about your story about a 3 year old drowning in a bathtub while mom and dad smoked crack over all the other stories out there.
- The “blog” test. Are you posting more than, say one RO thread a week? Are you searching the vast ocean of the internet to find just the right thing to get pissed off about, then hurrying over here, salivating and praying that someone else hasn’t beaten you to the outrage? Then venting your anger isn’t helping. You need to see someone about your anger issues and GET A BLOG.
Were we looking at criteria by which to reduce or eliminate RO threads, I would suggest the following:
- Proximity. Yeah, it’s a small world after all, but there are probably tons and tons of awful things going on in your home town; I find it difficult to believe you have to look on-line at a newspaper halfway across the country to dial up your anger. Better yet; are you somehow connected to the situation.
- Education. The 90-year-old vs the police thread is a good example, and I know there have been a number of good threads on PPD. Over in the Florida Child Murder thread someone is asking for a cite on how many parents kill their kids as a result of divorce; people can actually learn something from these threads. They offer an opportunity for discourse and ignorance fighting, and can raise awareness for your pet project.
- So what? What is the purpose of the thread? What do you want people to do about it? What are YOU going to do about it? I don’t care that you can read the paper and knock out a post that links me to some backwater town’s current scandal. I don’t care that you’re upset, and I REALLY don’t care that you want me to be upset too. I want to know what you are going to do about it, and what, if any, help you need from me. Then I get to decide how upset I am, and what I’m going to do.
There are good things going on in the world too; where are all the Recreational Glee threads??
I didn’t read that thread through, but it was interesting to me because I’d never heard the slang term “po-pos” for police before. And as I remember, the shooting victim was a neighbor of the doper who created the thread, so it didn’t qualify as recreational outrage.
In MPSIMS threads often get closed for being too stupid to live. Why not do the same for the really stupid threads in the BBQ?
Damn, bobkitty, that was perfect.
In the interest of fairness maybe we should each give a topic we’d like to see banned and get rid of all of them.
I’ll vote for driving threads and the stupidity of getting pissed at a random driver that doesn’t even know your alive.
I’m not interested in the R.O. threads either, but I don’t read them. I have a mother for that. She calls me daily to tell me about all the horrible things she reads in the newspaper.
That’s the crux of it for me. Giraffe once said that one test he applies to a pit thread is whether it is ever likely to solicit anything beyond sympathy and understanding for the OP. I like Pit OPs that take risks. Sometimes they make a trainwreck thread, and sometimes they surprise me, like Jsgoddess’s death penalty thread, where people as different as she and I completely agree. There’s no risk involved in OPs about child rape or elderly abuse. It’s too safe for the Pit. Maybe sometimes people write them for personal confirmation, having a need to be agreed with by others or something.
Yeah, but… this guy mugged a 101-year-old woman!
My God… there are no words for! What has happened to our society when? What kind of sick fuck would? Et cetera!
So what. He should have shot her in the head. It’d be one less decrepit old hag that our tax money has to support, when we could spend it on important things like bridges in the Alaskan wilderness.
[…just wondered what a non-sympathy post might look like in one of those threads…]