This is in reference to this thread here, one of the more pompous displays of proclaimed persecuted faux-uniqueness I’ve ever seen.
I’m not quite sure what precisely it is that causes this, but people LOVE to proclaim their opinions and then state how controversial or unusual or certain-to-be-attacked those opinions are. Among things people mentioned that Should Not Be Admitted are:
-liking sports (or was it NOT liking sports? or both?)
-not liking Terry Pratchett
-not having seen any Lord of the Rings movies
-not liking Buffy
As if, were you to be a brave rebellious unique person of unique brave uniqueness who stood up and made a super-brave declaration of non-sports-liking, then certainly the backlash from the sheeple masses of the powers-that-be would be overwhelmingly smiteful and you had best don your flame-proof underwear to survive the roasting that will undoubtedly ensue. Which is just ridiculous. When was the last time someone was harassed or chased off the board for admitting they didn’t like Buffy?*
Hey, I’ll perform an experiment:
I Do Not Like Terry Pratchett.
(waiting for anything even remotely bad to happen…)
Now, I can see the point of the original thread, in that there are some legal and at-least-quasi-societally-acceptable positions which, were one to state them on the dope, one really WOULD get the shit flamed out of one. The most obvious one being “homosexuality is immoral/bad/shouldn’t be allowed”. But not liking sports? Not liking fucking SPORTS?
Jee-sus.
*Yes, a lot of people on the board like Buffy. They may even be too eager to introduce Buffy discussions where they are not necessarily going to be welcome by all participants of a discussion. But there is a MONSTROUSLY huge gulf between that and a state in which admitting that you do not like Buffy is Punishable Board Heresy. And note that the thread was not “opinions that are very unpopular and disagreed-with on the SDMB”, it was things you SHOULD NOT ADMIT.
I didn’t read all the posts, but I think the idea of the thread was more about, what things are sure to get a strong, perhaps negative reaction, not that you actually feel, believe or do. So the 2nd poster is just saying, if you say, “I don’t like cat’s,” a lot of people will express contrary feelings, in a strong way, not that s/he doesn’t actually not like cats.
Since when must things be enormous grand cosmic issues to be pitted? This irked me becuse it is emblematic of a trend among dopers that really irritates me, so I pitted it. Not like I’m losing sleep over it.
Not at all. It’s certainly a pitting of fairly minor importance, but I’m quite serious.
I agree. But (a) a lot of people didn’t take it that way, and (b) saying that you don’t like Buffy is just NOT going to cause people to scurry around in alarm and get mad at you*. For that matter, neither is saying that you don’t like cats, as long as you don’t also say that you hurt cats for fun. The thread felt to me like people trying to stress their own special uniqueness by stating mildly-opposed-to-the-SDMB-consensus opinions as if they were statements of stunning and dangerous rebellion.
*People will get mad at you if you go into a thread entitled “what is your favorite season of Buffy” and post “Buffy sucks”. But that’s because you’re being an ass, not because of your dislike of Buffy.
Really? Well, okay then. I’ve only skimmed the thread in question, so I’m admitting to incomplete knowledge here, but have you considered the possibility that the people who were suggesting things like “Not liking Buffy,” were engaging in hyperbole? That is to say, they don’t actually expect to be attacked for not liking the show, but are instead poking fun at the pervasive popularity of the show by pretending that a differing opinion would be unacceptable to the rest of the boards?
I’m not pitting the idea for the thread, or the OP. I’m pitting an attitude I perceived (perhaps incorrectly) in many of the participants.
Yes, because that’s even in the UNIVERSE of my point.
My point is that EVERYONE deviates from the norm, EVERYONE has things that they think or believe or like or dislike that deviate from the “sdmb consensus” (to the extent that there is one) (and I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say that there is, for instance, an sdmb consensus that Buffy is good). But there’s a huge difference between having an opinion that differs from consensus and having an opinion that is going to get you flamed to death so you’d better not express it, you rebel, you.
On the other hand, not a single person seems to have had the same reaction I did, so I may have just been reading that thread out of the wrong side of the bed, or something.
I did in fact consider precisely that, but if so there were an AWFUL lot of people engaging in utterly straight-faced hyperbole for no particular reason.
I’m going to keep it real here. I have no problem with the thread in question, because I understand the OP, and the folks in that thread are mostly having fun, which is great.
However, I do think I understand the feel of what annoys Max, and if I understand it correctly, it is kinda annoying.
Sometimes I will notice a poster saying “Oh my stars and stripes! Let us not say anything about fat people, or the offenderati will get all upset!”
Or they will say, “Oh, if we want to get in trouble, lets do mention something about black people! Then the offenderati will come out of the woodwork, they will!”
I mean, please. Stop trying to make yourself seem all cool because you are wordly and bold enough to bring up blacks or fat people or whatever. No one cares if you bring them up but a handful of people that you just love responding to, because it gives you the chance to be all offended.
I have to say I kind of sort of agree with the Pit OP. I mean I thought it was a lighthearted list of things that have been known to cause problems in the past, hence my original post in that thread. However, many whackjobs seem to have taken it as an opportunity to trot out their pathetic little sacred cows in order to air them in a forum where they would not be called the dumbshits they are.
There’s a certain snooty class of people who will take it upon themselves to turn up their nose at any one of a dozen ideas or beliefs on here. There is orthodoxy and heterodoxy here. You are astute in observing that nothing horrific happened to anyone in that thread. However you failed to notice that this is because these statements were carefully made under the big glowing neon banner of irony. Although there are indeed people here who will make asses of themselves by biting the hook of ironic provocation, none of them showed up in that thread to take the bait (fortunately you started your own thread here).
In other threads, sometimes minority viewpoints often result in an ugly beatdown of groupthink. Some of them are on such laughably trivial matters that you wonder why it takes a dogpile of 15 people to correct the offender. I guess you’ve either never noticed or you’ve usually found yourself on the side of the mob, lucky for you either way.
Edited to add: yes, unfortunately the thread police were not able to keep out the couple of yahoos with the weird-ass conspiracy theories, racist attitudes, or for mild reverse recreational outrage, or whatever. That’s just life on a message board. Some dumbass is always going to ruin the joke (never me, though).
And if, you were a super-brave and unique rebel who made a declaration, or someone who stood against an unfair onslaught, I might give this thread a second glance.
As it is, I invite you to come with me and get OVER our oh so credulous selves.
(a) Can you point me towards such an example?
(b) Were those 15 people all saying:
(i) “no, I disagree, that show is great, you’re a numbskull”
(ii) “no, you are objectively wrong, that show is provably great, you’re a numbskull”?
or
(iii) “go away I hate you you jerk leave this board”?
I guess part of what I’m saying is that people slightly over-dramatically live in fear of such taste-in-things-related-dogpilings, which I have very rarely if ever witnessed (although of course that might be observer bias).
But I repeat myself from upthread: I do not like Terry Pratchett. His books don’t appeal to me. I read Good Omens and was only vaguely entertained and felt no urge to pick anything else of his up. And I feel absolutely no fear or anything other than disagreement by so posting. And while I happen to like Buffy, if I didn’t, I’m fairly certain that the worst that would happen to me would be a bunch of people disagreeing with me and telling me I’m missing out (unless I went way out of my way to be a jerk about it).
(Upon a bit of reflection, I would think that the worst you get for simply expressing an opinion about an issue is a condescending response along the lines of “oh, yeah, a lot of people don’t understand Buffy”, which strongly implies that to-not-like-it is to not-be-smart-enough-to-have-understood-it.)
