I hate calling out people specifically, and this brand of snooty superiority wasn’t invented by the poster that pissed me off, so I’ll just quote anonymously. If you’re an avid reader of the GQ board, then you’ll recognize where it came from.
Poster A says something that makes it clear that he/she is misinformed about an aspect of history.
**
Poster B** offers this actual response:
Poster B also tells Poster A to go back and reread the post he’s replying to, as if it will cure him of his misapprehension to reread it…slower? Out loud?
Anyway, the point is, Poster B is doing nothing to fight ignorance, and with 2 words, a haughty ellipsis, and the most dickish smilie on the menu, comes off as a condescending, know-it-all prick.
Multiple other posters restored my faith in the Dope by following up thoughtfully and without judgment. Just the facts, ma’am; the way GQ is supposed to be. There are like 3 other forums, including this one, where you can lament our educational system and boast about how smart you are and how despicably stupid other people are. But please, be a decent fellow doper and keep the useless snark out of GQ.
Many people cannot enter into any type interaction with other people without being insulting and belittling, I presume to feel a bit better about their own inadequacies.
I think it’s pretty lame when someone gives us a hypothetical post and then rails against it. If you don’t have time to link to an actual occurrence of the behavior you are condemning, don’t expect us to do your homework for you.
You got two, John, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and call the whoosh.
I agree with the OP. Not much to add, except that – on the note of being annoying in GQ responses – if you feel you absolutely MUST post something along the lines of “Google is your friend”, at least include a link to the results of said Googling, so that all may benefit from your query-forming wisdom.
Also, if you feel you absolutely MUST type something along the lines of “Google is your friend”, then fuck you, you obnoxious horse’s ass. Never had this done to me, and I haven’t seen it recently, but it pisses me off enough when it does occur that I still want to rant about it. Grrr, and all that.
I’ve asked a question and then been given a wikipedia reference with a “here’s a good place to start researching.” as if that had never occurred to me. I use wikipedia for reference when I know a topic, and they have it explained it fairly well, but if all you’re going to do is to type it into google, then don’t bother.
Perhaps those folks posting in GQ are the same ones I’m encountering all over the place that seem so freakin’ pissed off. Is it from hanging out there and having to be all factual or something?
Sorry, my bad. I saw the “poster A” and “poster B” with no link and just assumed you made it up. I do think it has more impact if you link to an actual post and we can see things in context. There can be some snarkiness in GQ, but there can be some incredibly ignorant posts there, too. And when someone insists on piling ignorance upon ignorance, then it’s not too surprising that others are going to get snarky.
“Wow. Just… wow,” might be the pinnacle of dickish behaviour or a perfectly acceptable (and perhaps inevitable) response, depending on how hard the previous poster has worked to achieve and maintain their ignorance.
Are you talking about responses to gaffes on the order of misapprehending the nature and direction of the Carthaginian fig trade with Euturia at the beginning of the Common Era, or responses to posters asking about the roots of the fashion fad for black-and-white vertically-striped pajamas that swept Europe in the thirties and forties?
He (and I) have also been around long enough to see the opposite. Yes, out of thousands of GQ threads, there are some with undeserved snark. There are also some where people ask incredibly ignorant questions, that they could easily look up elsewhere, and then get hostile when their premises are questioned.
On a 100-yard field, the OP falls about 99 yards short of enabling us to know in which category this incident belongs.
I started a small board last year (no need to link as it’s about Australian railways and would bore you all shitless). Anyway, the very first thing I did as an admin was to fuck off the rolleyes smiley. Geez, that felt good.
