But not so thick-skinned and not-offended that you couldn’t resist injecting your gender/drag-joke shaming into it.
It’s ok if you were offended but at least own up to it rather than coyly making it about something it is not as some kind of dog-whistle to get others feeling offense on your behalf.
I don’t know. People who prefer B-game or C-game may be too overwhelmed. People who like bad things may be offended too. People who enjoy seeing other people get offended may become offended when no one gets offended. Then people who don’t like seeing people get offended will become offended that people became offended.
I propose the following Board suggestions (not rules) to keep things under control and make sure everyone’s happy: From now on, every day and month shall remain nameless, no outside culture or society may be referenced, the year shall remain x.
Only general question threads about oxygen shall be posted, and no extraneous words (adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, articles (definite or indefinite)) should be used in any replies.
Punctuation should be used sparingly, if at all.
Non-traditional fonts, text colors and sizes are bad.
Foreign words, and English words that have been adopted from a foreign language within the past 300 years, are out.
Colloquialisms are out. Home-spun wisdom is out. Witty rejoinders are out. Phrases that would get your knuckles swatted by a nun are out. Furthermore, references to physical contact, religious figures and body parts are out.
Smilies are out; similes are out; metaphors are out; interjections are out; pronouns must remain gender neutral; sports references are definitely out; movies, music, television, books, poetry, history, newspapers, magazines, websites, social media and food are out; gender, sexuality, race, creed, nationalities, state and nation of origin, age, life experience, religion, political party and employment status are out; opinions on circumcision and SUVs are obviously out as they have nothing to do with oxygen; all other opinions are out; words over six letters or two syllables are out.
Typos are out. Correcting others’ spelling is out. Editing is out. Queen’s English is preferred. Robert’s Rules of Order must be observed during business hours GMT.
Private messages must be preceded by a thread (obviously about oxygen) which publicly announces the pending message, complete with identity of recipient, subject matter and desired response.
Attempts at humor, including (but not limited to) puns, satire, sarcasm, word play, pranks, knock-knock, deadpan, burlesque, epigrammatic, self-deprecating and screwball, is strictly forbidden.
New threads should be limited to one per year for each poster, responses should not exceed one per thread. All new threads should receive an OK from three mods or two admins before being posted.
All threads and posts must be reported for quality purposes.
Proper names should be avoided at all costs.
Usernames should now be limited to three non-repeating letters that don’t spell any words in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, Greek, German or Dutch, plus a series of 6 non-consecutive, non-repeating numbers.
Mods must only post “yes” or “no.” Admins may also use the word “thread,” but only in reference to a thread on this board, not in reference to sewing material, technology or any slang. Mods and admins may only use the word “word” in PMs.
Anything else we should consider lest we hurt anyone, offend them, bother them, chap their ass, burn their hide or prickle their pickle? Speak now, people, now’s your chance! Let’s go!
I stand by my comment. “I’m sorry if you got pissed off” and “I’m sorry to those who got mad” and “I’m sorry if you didn’t like it” and “I’m sorry if you were offended” are all in the same non-apology category. You’re not sorry for what you did. You’re sorry that someone else had a bad reaction to it. That’s not an apology.
Ok, then from here on out, I will assume that any time anyone is offended by anything you post (no matter how asinine the logic may be for the umbrage), you will apologize for the content, and not for how they received it.
It is most unfortunate that you feel that way.
That sound-bite just doesn’t have enough “bite” to work cmyk, you colorful fellow.
And, you can forget about your Confucius and your Jesus and your Allah and your Odin and your Quetzalcoatl and your Yhwh and your Amaterasu and all of those other jive turkeys, if you want immortal words to live by in times of strife and mayhem, you’ve got to go the divine master of inspiration, Rodney King: Can’t we all just get along?
Of course, assuming I was actually sorry for doing it.
You seem surprised by this concept. Is it not generally understood that this is how apologies work? An apology consists of three basic components: 1) acknowledgment that what you did was wrong, 2) regret for having done it, 3) assurance that you will not do it again. I teach my children this.
If you don’t believe that what you did was wrong, you don’t regret having done it, or you have no plans to refrain from doing it in the future, you shouldn’t apologize.
It was a dare. It’s a photo that was taken back in about 2008, so it’s unrelated to the current prank (both this one and the ones I’ve done on FB on past April 1sts).
I think that spinky put it best, but if you’re curious about my answer, I wrote it here (first part).
You must not have been online during the hour i was making them.
I’m offended by your condescending tone.
OK.
I don’t agree that apologizing requires acknowledgment that you did wrong. According to Merriam-Webster, an apology is
a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure.
“we owe you an apology”
This nowhere says that the offense was intended or that I regret my statement, only that I regret the offense you took. If I say that’s an ugly hat and you are offended, I will apologize for hurting your feelings but that does not change the fact that to me it’s an ugly hat and I won’t say it’s lovely.
It will never be enough until Idle Thoughts pays each of you a most solemn, personal visit, dressed in sackcloth and covered in ashes to atone for this terrible, terrible offense.
What?
OK, what is happening in this conversation? I legit thought that what I just shared about apologies was common knowledge. I was taught this as a child. I teach my own children this. You are all acting like I just dropped some complicated legal document into the thread.
“I shouldn’t have hit you. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.” <– good apology
“Sorry I hit you.” <– minimal apology, missing some components but better than nothing
“Sorry you cried when I hit you” <– not an apology
Again, I am very surprised that this is apparently new information. And that some of you base your social interactions on the Merriam Webster dictionary.
Since nothing wrong was done, no apologies are needed.
except to those of us not in on the fun. 
Violence = deserves an apology and then some.
A harmless April Fool’s Prank = not so much.
Really, this is all so fucking silly.
Okay, I’m going to post one (just one) attempt at explaining why this was my idea of a prank and why it’s amusing/funny to me. I know some of you may not agree and still find it very unfunny, but here goes anyway.
Most of this is going to be an example, and here it is:
My aunt has met me many times. I mean, she’s my aunt…so why wouldn’t she have the opportunity to see me quite often?
She lives in NY now and I live in AZ, but I grew up around her (until age 10) and have seen her and hung out with her at least 20 times since then, sometimes for days or weeks.
So one day, I figured it would be funny to claim that I wasn’t a guy (from birth), but that I was really a girl (from birth) all this time and I was just SAYING (not dressing up as or living the life of…just saying I was) that I was a male all this time.
Now, very obviously, ANYONE who has met me in real life would know that was not true. They’d know it automatically and, thus, all I should be getting is a “WTF, Idle/Chris…what are you talking about, you silly goose?” from people who know me.
But my aunt didn’t know I was joking. She was like “What?? You’re really a girl! OMG, I had no idea”, and no, she wasn’t playing along or fooling right back, she was serious. Believe me, she’s since admitted it and we all still give her minor teasing about it. Even despite HAVING BEEN AT MY BIRTH, she thought I was serious.
Now I don’t care who you are, that shit is funny. To me it is. And that was one person. In the past, on FB, I’ve had many people (again, who have actually met me or know me in real life) go “Really??” Imagine it being many people now. Like many have claimed in this thread, I really, sincerely, honestly thought it would be so absurd a claim that I’d get nothing but “the funny” type of responses or people calling me out on about how it was April 1st.
Obviously I was very wrong and I fully admit (as I have before since this started) that it was a pretty lame idea for a prank.
…but there you have it, that’s the best way I can explain why I find it amusing or funny. When someone who has known you forever is convinced, it’s funny to see their reaction and that they still fell for it.
Obviously most of you have not met me or know me in real life, so…yes, that part of it is taken away and it makes less sense to try to pull it on here. But it was the only prank I could think of at the time.
Look. In this situation, you don’t need to apologize for the other person having hurt feelings. Assuming that you genuinely feel bad about what you did, you would apologize for being rude. You apologize for the action you took, not the other person’s reaction.
Jesus H. Christ, I swear I’m in Bizarro Land. I give up.
Yes, I am painfully aware. I used that example because it is simple and easy to understand, not because I am equating an April Fool’s prank to physical violence.
Idle Thoughts, many of us have had the experience of knowing a transgender friend, who presents as a totally different gender than the one they were born with. So it’s actually not the hilarious/ridiculous situation you seem to feel it is, for someone to know you as a man but find out that you were actually a woman and believe it. This sort of thing has been known to happen.
I have never seen anyone high five a canoe. The rest, pretty much. I went to that sort of college.
Idle Thoughts made an innocent joke.
Some people had their entire worldview crushed by the hour or so where they thought that some collection of 0s and 1s over the internet might have a different chromosome than they imagined (if they ever gave any thought to it beforehand, at all).
They reacted by saying that they may never be able to trust at the level that they did on March 31st, ever again.
Others responded by shrugging it off as a fairly lame joke, but found the overreactions to be entertaining.
Idle Thoughts, in an effort to placate the vocal minority, offered an apology for their hurt feelings, even though there was no ill intent. Most agree that there was nothing wrong in the execution of the joke.
How hard is that to understand?
And I’m still waiting for someone to make a legitimate connection between this prank and transgendered people. If anything, it’s catfishing. The PM never said that Idle Thoughts thought he was the wrong gender. It was that Idle Thoughts initially claimed on a board to be a different gender, and then found himself having to keep up the ruse, until he finally decided to come clean.
You left out the tail end: I summarize what an apology is, people flip their shit and start quoting the dictionary at me, I clarify my statement, and then you quote the clarification as a preface to melodramatically summarizing the entire thread.
And then I make this post, which brings us up to date as of 2:31 pm eastern time.
