magdalene's musings, resurrected

The BBQ Pit
1

In a thread which was already locked up for the protection of everyone, magdalene offered a question for us to ponder. Since I have an unabashed girl-crush on magdalene, I’m hauling this out to write my own little soapbox speech on it. It’s what I try to remember when I start thinking about throwing my weight around on email lists or bulletin boards of which I’ve been a long-time member.

Here is magdalene’s post:

'A Question for the Teeming Millions

What’s the standard treatment for “delusions of importance” and “chronic inability to express oneself clearly in writing?”’

My take on it: For all the occasional gripes about “newbies,” I submit that this is what is so wonderful about this being a fluid community whose membership is always changing. Thanks to the new influx of people, SDMB posters can ultimately be judged only by their current public posts.

Oh sure, the fact that you sent brownies to somebody when their parakeet died or chat real sweet or used to be funny or wrote the best damned soliloquoy anybody ever saw on why Star Wars Episode One made you bawl… that only goes so far. You can only rest on your laurels so long. New people are coming in all the time, and all they know of you is the post that you offered up this week. If it’s a shitty post, a whiny post, a mean post, a post filled with dangling participles… that’s all they know of you. And you can plead all you want about how beloved you are, or were… fact remains, people only really see what you post in the here and now. And that’s how you’re judged.

So if I or anyone else starts being a total asshole, the fact that anyone liked me a week ago won’t matter very much. Because the voices of my past fan base won’t be very loud over the hundreds of people who see my post and say “Christ, that Cranky sure is an asshole.” Maybe if you’re especially well-liked, you’d have to be an asshole for a longer time than I would before you’d start being treated like the asshole. But it’ll happen.

It’s the beauty of the message boards: there are too many people–and too many new people–for each of us to be treated other than at face value. People get what they deserve. If they make valuable contributions, they are rewarded with respect. If not, well, they gotta live with the consequences.

:stuck_out_tongue:

2

Yes, but…

I am on a long fuse. I am unlikely to get really uptight quickly and can be hosed down pretty quickly. The problem with your view is that assumes that other people are or can be like this. Annoying or not, some clever and nice people fly off the handle from time to time. Whilst that’s not a good thing, I don’t think this should be necessarily seen as an attempt to throw one’s weight around. Whilst you don’t have to accept or welcome such outbursts, drawing breath before hoeing in to the rantor - not that I take your post to be hoeing in - can help to contain the situation. Otherwise good people leave.

3

I’m sorry, Cranky, but I’ve read the manifesto twice now and I still don’t get it. Maybe a link would help put it in context?

:confused:

4

::hands Duck Duck Goose some tongs and rubber gloves::

The post she’s quoting was from techchick’s latest “I’m such a martyr” thread. The title is something like “For all of you who hate me.” Hamadryad’s posts make it a pretty entertaining read, you’ve just got to wade through lots of bizarre ramblings and the aforementioned “delusions of importance.”
Cranky, you know how I feel about that lovey-dovey stuff in The Pit…:stuck_out_tongue: Next time I see my name in a title of a Pit thread, it had better be for a flame war of epic proportions!

But I’m glad someone agrees with me. If you post stuff that makes you sound like a total fucking idiot, don’t be shocked when some people think you are a total fucking idiot.

5

Hey, look at me. I’m still trying to live off the glory days of a post I made two months ago. It doesn’t work! I’m in denial. No wait…damnit. Great. I’m no longer in denial. Thanks, cranky, you bitch.

I understand full well that popularity lasts, oh…a good 3.14159 seconds after clicking the reply button. If you’re lucky, someone will quote you in a later post and your popularity will be extended by another second or two.

Ah, but infamy will last forever. Who can forget the classic breakdown of FF? The superiority complex of Joe Malik? R_dawg 1 through 666? No one I tells ya. You can’t forget.

Hitler? Oh, that German dude sixty years ago. Mother Teresa? Hey, isn’t that the opening band for Godsmack?

It’s so damn easy to be the bastard too. To capture that sense of awe, the sense of wonder that is a good post, to be revered and held up in a cult like status for those precious few seconds on end, you have to have a good post. You must not only think, but be able to type as well. No one has that kind of time on their hands! Nobody!

But look at this “Hey Moderators! I wave my testicular parts around your general area! I spit on your aura, you piss poor excuses for human beings!” Simple, eloquent, and to the point. I even spelled most of the words correctly which is certainly not a prerequisite for a bastard post.

Heck, even easier “What the hell is up with those religious, gun toting, abortion freaks? I say kill them and their commie following.” Sure, I could spout out about how I learned it all from my Uncle Morty and he was in 'nam so he’s worldy cultured…but that would be research.

I know everyone on this board hates me. I understand that because I only take showers on a monthly basis, I have a smell that flows through my posts and back out your side of the monitor. I know that just because I am clearly superior to everyone reading this right now, you all feel that you can hide your pure sense of jealousy in rage. I accept that.

But I still feel sorry for you closed minded fools. May whatever sock puppet you pray to have mercy on your souls.
Me? I’m just going to go post some more.

6

Enderw23:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeyoooooooooooore!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeyoooooooooooore!

:smiley:

7

So–what you’re all saying is basically, “Some days you’re the hero, some days you’re the goat”?

Why do I have the feeling that everybody else in this thread is getting paid by the word?

8

Good point, Duck Duck Goose!

Where are my royalties, Cranky?!?

9

I actually thought this was better taken OUT of context, lest I be accused of pointing fingers. But I kept it in the pit since that’s where it started.

It works the other direction–a former SDMB asshole can straighten up and fly right, and the newer people are none the wiser.

It’s less the hero/goat dichotomy… it was more like “Don’t tell me how well-liked you are. If you’re posting like a dumbfuck, you’re probably a dumbfuck.” Similarly, as a bystander don’t gnash your teeth when you see someone being a dumbfuck but seeming to pay no consequences because of their groupies chiming in and supporting them. The rest of us aren’t idiots: we can see when a dumbfuck is a dumbfuck, no matter how big the cheering section is.

And yes, I think we all have room to forgive the occasional asshole post from an otherwise rational poster.

Thus, I won’t bother to tell you that USUALLY I’m not this verbose and rambling. Really. No, truly. Being concise is my special gift! Ask all my friends! I’m really not like my last 600 posts would lead you to believe! Honest!

10

Fuck me, I’ve found an epitaph.

11

It just burns me up when some moe-rons use the word “whilst” over and over and over EVERY DAMN TIME THEY POST!

(Well, at least this one time.)

Now I’m off to play the grand pianer.

12

Dinsdale: :confused:

Care to name names?

13

I come in, claws sharpened, for magdalene’s own personal Pit thread, and the phasers are set on “love-fest?”

I agree, though. The brilliant light of my sparkling posts fades like the setting sun as threads slip all-too-soon to Page 2.

Maybe we can start producing bound volumes?

14

Milo, TELL me about it. Yesterday was a crappy day, a flame war would have been perfect. I keep hoping all the people who hate me will come in here and give me something to work with, but I guess they are just too chicken.

I’m going to have to work harder at pissing people off. Especially that rowdy Michigan crowd. Stop adoring me from afar, goddammit!

15

I like to sneak it in there every so often for the snob appeal, myself. You got a problem with that?

eyebrow arched, PMS set to “on”

16

And then there’s them posters who prefer to try to impress you with their creative smilie skills (Look! This one is purple and has curly hair) instead of reading the frickin thread. Meanwhile, they pretend to be these disgustingly saccharine sweet, lovey-dovey, peacemaking, Can’t-we-all-just-get-along, earth mothers, when we all know what intolerant, opinionated, narrowminded, veal eating, back stabbing, two-faced, clown haters and puppy beaters they actually are.

And no I won’t name names, thank you. That would eliminate any possibility of plausible deniability on my part.

Why don’t you go flush some floaters you gum chewing wannabe socialist you?!

(Sorry, best I could do right now. If you walk into the Wrigley Building chewing Dentene, do they make you spit it out?)

17

Maggie, how dare you post on a message board? Where do you get the balls to make valid, yet debatable points? Shit on a ritz cracker, every time I read one of your damned posts I can clearly understand it, WTF!

Your jokes? Sometimes funny. Your observations? Can be insightful. Your grammer and spelling? It’s fucking decent!!

And if you don’t like me calling you Maggie, well I’m sorry!

That’s the best I can do magdalene. Wasn’t much of a flame, was it?

18

Look, you middle-aged devastatingly handsome government lawyer with beautiful children, I don’t have to take this crap from you!

The Wrigley Building has advanced Dentyne and Bubble Yum sensors - anyone who walks in chewing it is immediately encased in a giant butterfly net and hauled off for “reeducation.” ::shudder::

And Biggie, or would you prefer Girlie, I didn’t know you cared.

Proud clown-hater to the end,
mag

19

I wonder if they will NOW authorize a bigger office for me? My head no longer fits in this one!

That’s downright mean for a purty young thang like you to say that sorta thing to an old man. You may have to be spanked! Wear the schoolgirl skirt and knee socks, m-kay?

So what have we proven here? That maggie is unflameable?

Come on, assholes, either pick up this torch, or mods, please close this embarrassingly adulatory lovefest of a Pit thread.

20

You can just lick my greasy twat, Dins. I can start a crush thread if I goddamn well please! And we can all just keep posting to it, tradition be damned!

bats eyes at everyone