I remember a while back someone (scylla?) mentioned that perhaps the ‘goat felching’ plague had run its admittedly funny course.
To me, and of course this is my humble opinion (but I’m ranting), something else has run it’s course.
The gratuitous swearing at the end of posts with the cute* little addendum “Since this is the pit:”
I, of all people, am not suggesting that we ban swearing from the pit, as sometimes it is absolutely necessary and in fact contributes to the funniness or emotional trauma of the thread. However, putting:
Oh, and since this is the pit: cocksucker, clitbag, shitstick, fuck
at the end of a four paragraph post that is otherwise clear of swearing or indeed other flying off the handle behavior…does not make it funnier.
As a matter of fact, the funniest line I ever read in the pit in all of my days at this board had no swearing whatsoever, and that was Cervaise to the telemarketer:
“You poor, addled cow”
I’m sorry for bringing it up, but I’ve read it a ton in the past weeks and it’s beginning to drive me mad…because I think some otherwise intelligent and funny and creative posters are sabotaging their own posts for no reason.
Gee, and all this time I thought it was like the Motion Picture Rating system, where people had to put some cusswords into their Pit posts lest they be moved to some tamer venue.
Ooh, I’m sorry Elhirist, but I’m gonna have to knock three points off your post for lack of obscenities. Sorry, but you wind up with a score of 5. (The other two points were the Romanian judge’s fault, don’t take it up with me).
The thread in reference is Flypsyde’s “Gratuitous Pit Behavior.” The search function is too slow for me to make you a link right now. Find it, read it, learn it. I would also recommend Lexicon’s “Things That Make You Look Like an Ass” thread.
How scary is it that I could name those thread off the top of my head? Someone…help…me…
This has been irritating me too. You read a great, funny, bitchy post by someone you like and at the end there is some twee “since this is the pit your mother was a whore and your father smelt of elderberries” remark. It’s like “Hi Opal” in lists - a couple people do it and so the newbies think it’s the standard so they start emulating it.
The “I like you, but I’m going to make you think I hate you by starting a Pit Thread about you, but then you’ll get there and see that it’s like a surprise party with everyone saying how much they like you” thing is getting Very Old. There is a whole forum for that congratulatory stuff.
And (sorry, Fenris, I generally like ya) the “I want someone to make a Pit Thread about me” is just the height of pathetic. Folks, really. If you want Pit Threads about you, PISS SOMEONE OFF! And don’t piss people off by being a jagoff troll because you want attention or suddenly turning into an idiot. Piss someone off by taking a stand on an issue. Start an actual debate, where passions and intellectual fervor run high and you can’t help offending those who cannot accept the Truths burning out of you.
You could be typing a list with the life-and-death importance or historical resonance of Schindler’s fucking list and typing “Hi Opal” in the middle of it would still turn your entire post into a steaming pile of dogcrap.
Oh my gosh, it does? You mean it’s not just a cute “in-thing” used by the old-school people? You mean doing that won’t make me more popular? You mean typing…uhmm…that (I can’t bring myself to do it, sorry) won’t make me look like I’m cool and in the know and down with the “it” crowd?
Well, crap.
And since this is the pit…I’d like mine beef barbecue, please, with cole slaw on it…and none of that newfangled store-made stuff, either.
When we see an entire thread in bold and italics, it doesn’t take Steven Hawking to realize you fucked up. “Must preview, must preview…” will not alliviate your fucking up. It does two things: pads your post count. Whoopee. And tells everyone you realized you fucked up. Hey, guess what? when fifteen paragraphs are like this, it’s pretty damn obvious something went wrong! Buy some post it notes, tattoo it onto your arm, write “Must preview” in pig’s blood across your walls next to “laces out!” The choices are wide open.
Please, for the love of all things noble and ignorant, STOP using ::d&r:: on comments so benign, so blase`, so middle of the road that Mr. Rogers himself wouldn’t get offended.
I agree – Gratuitious swearing just because it’s the pit is rather stupid.
This is slightly off the topic, so please forgive me. I’m a relatively new poster and don’t quite know all the posting ettiquette (sp?) – maybe there’s a tutorial or rules listing somewhere?
Anyway, I just have to ask: What the heck is the “Hi Opal!” thing all about? Hopefully, there’s a good story behind it…
OpalCat is a poster who used to get infuriated whenever someone would post a list with just two items, claiming that a series had to have three items in order to be made a list. So whenever anyone would make a list with two items, the third item would be “Hi Opal.” This custom later spread to the third item of any list, no matter how many items.
In ancient times, when the board was on AOL, I occassionally would start to list things in a post.
thing number one
thing number two (at which point I’d realize that was really all I had, and should really have just said “thing one and thing two” rather than making a list, so I’d add…)
I hate lists with only two items (or something similar)
After a while other people started making lists like
thing number one
thing number two
Opal doesn’t like two-item lists
when they didn’t have a third item.
I’m going to jump in and answer FalconFinder before somebody more irritable than I flies off the handle. It’s a question commonly asked by new users, and we always wonder why they didn’t try searching for an answer first. (It’s also one of the more compelling arguments for updating the FAQ, not as if people will actually read it.)
P.S. Thanks for the compliment, jarbaby. It never ceases to amaze me how popular that telemarketer rant was. I’m flattered, sure, but I didn’t think it would be more than a quickly-sinking one-off.
P.P.S. And since this is the Pit, drat! dang! shoot! fudge! cheeks! corkboard! sausage! crayola! whelk! teflon! sousaphone!
This is why I personally dislike the “Hi Opal” thing. Invariably, someone asks what the deal is with this inside joke. And like any joke, explanation of it reduces its humor (such as it is) by at least four orders of magnitude.
That’s not to bust on you for asking, FalcFind, its more of a knock on those who use insular quotes as a substitute for actual humor.
I’d also like to hold an official funeral service or the following Pit tendencies:
** Pit titles that start with In which… or end with …a word please?
** The expressions Who peed in your cheerios? and Don’t get your panties in a bunch