ISTM that this post and several of the responses to it are classic illustrations of what I observed in this recent IMHO thread post on SDMB evolution:
Here’s the part of Sam’s remarks that was most notable for its stupid-shit qualities:
And here are a bunch of reasonable responses by posters not “mercilessly attacking” Sam, but rationally pointing out the problems with what he said:
And here are some actual “attacks” and flames from other posters about some stupid shit that Sam didn’t actually say, some of which were pushed back on in subsequent posts by others:
All of which is perfectly legit for the Pit, of course, but it bears out my points in the other thread that
- it’s not mere “deviating from the crowd” that gets posters piled on for saying stupid shit, and
- it is true that sometimes anti-stupid-shit pile-ons can broaden to include complaints about stuff that wasn’t actually said.