Ooooh, now that’s just mean!
Thanks WhyNot and neutron star. Maybe it is either a seasonal type thing, just how the 'net is or me being too touchy. Regardless, I do appreciate your replies.
And Justin, I’ll just quote myself to hopefully answer this part…
As to this, nothing is wrong with an opinion. < refrains from pulling hair out > However, I do believe if you’ll not post # 7, there’s a bit more on par with “disgusting.” Like "“people who get them don’t like their faces” and something apparently being wrong with their brain. I’ll let you decide about disturbing.
And again, I’d like to note that this is just an example. The thread about Shagnasty, I posted an opinion about the variety among those there and those in freekalette’s pit. What did I say? That I found the cross section “interesting.” I sincerely hope that if I was insulting to anyone, that they’d call me on it. Because I don’t want to do that, you know?
There was a Pit thread just recently where I was thinking the same thing; it was just page after page of people being just plain mean to each other, over what seemed like fairly innocuous things to me. I’ll see if I can dig it up later (off to work now). I know the Pit is where we are allowed to let loose and blow off steam and all that, but this thread I’m thinking about just seemed so angry for no apparent reason. Just because you CAN be mean in the Pit doesn’t mean you HAVE to.
I’ve certainly noticed it. I was a bit taken aback when NightRabbit went off on my nail photo in the nails thread, and the charter member title debate I stepped in was a bit snappish.
I’ve noticed people will behave much more nastily online than they would in real life, but when it’s directed at you it feels the same. I’m going to be careful what I post for a while because my skin is thin and when someone is nasty to me it can send me into a funk that rather ruins my day.
I thought that perhaps it had something to do with my name change, but the season makes more sense, combined with the fact I’ve been posting a teeny bit more.
This argument is also cyclical. We’ve gone through extended periods of arguing this out at least twice since I’ve been here. Then the Pit gets kinder and gentler again, then complaints about the “watering down of the Pit” ensue and people are told to take that huggy nice nice stuff back to MPSIMS.
NinetyWt, featherlou and Kalypso (by the way, I love your name!), thank you for the observations. Glad to know I’m not completely off my gourd. 
But you know, I am beginning to think, at least in my case, it has more to do with some internal snapping of mine than anything as overt as I feel. So, I’d like to apologize to twickster for being pissy. It honestly wasn’t directed at you and I have no idea how I got you caught in the crossfire. Just like about piercings in general, it’s okay that others find it unattractive. I simply didn’t grok the other, harder stuff.
So I’m sure it’s me. Perhaps I should finish up reading here and take a break for a bit. Sorry once more to any that I might’ve offended.
I’ll go make sure I don’t have any splinters in my own eyes now.
Apology accepted – and another one offered to you. I was definitely being a bit snappish in how I was responding. It was not my intention to call you stupid or lame. Or even oversensitive.
Yes, faithfool, I do understand where you are coming from.
But:
In my opinion, the SDMB culture is on the whole is more friendly than average to atheists/agnostics, non-mainstream religions, and to LGBT folks. But in other areas, I haven’t noticed that the general board culture is less judgmental than average. The place is full of people ready to tell you what you ought, or ought not, to be doing/thinking/feeling, if you give them the opportunity.
So the things that you’ve noticed don’t surprise me, and I don’t think it is a sign of exceptional pissiness, but business as usual.
None of this means that I don’t love it here.
The nails thread was interesting. In the more recent “Can older women have long hair?” thread, everyone was falling all over themselves to say “do what ever makes you happy, it’s your hair, we support you 150%.” But in the nails thread, a lot of posters seemed to view people with nails as victims of fashion and rushed to distance themselves and condemn the practice, nevermind that the people who get acrylic nails genuinely like them.
I’m confused.
We get to be judgmental about people who declaw their cats, people who take their small kids to restaurants, people who drive SUVs and people who wear shoes in the house - and get to make all sorts of assumptions about their worth as human beings - that they don’t care about animals, the environment, the rest of humanity or your carpet…but we don’t get to make assumptions about piercings, sub/dom relationships and acrylic nails? We get to assume anyone who supports Bush MUST be an idiot, and anyone who believes in God MUST be in the same category, but are supposed to be completely supportive of tattoos?
Well, as I said above, I’m happy to know it wasn’t completely just in my head. I’ve even intentionally stayed out of the mini-rants thread, and the new one on “pet hates” because I was afraid I’d take little things the wrong way. There simply seems to be lots of folks believing that their way is the only one to handle stuff and everyone else is much worse than misguided. So I stay more stumped than usual. 
I think my problem is this… whenever I see something that’s out of the norm for me, I figure the issue is undoubtedly on my end and I commence to attempting to grasp whatever the concept might be (right now, I’m trying to wrap my mind around the incest couple). Then I read the other responses and assimulate those into what’s gone before. At that point, I assume the onus to mash it up together into some sort of cohesive.
When that doesn’t happen for other people (especially if they keep making the same statements contrary to corrections – like when the piercing is NOT rebellious because no one ever sees it), then I become disgruntled that I haven’t explained myself well enough. And since the problem is mine, I must keep forging ahead. Then it continues to go more askew and I get fumbuzzled out the butt… And this all makes perfect sense, right?
Anyway, thanks for clarifying it for me a bit further KayElCee and tremorviolet. Perhaps we can all bring something better about from this. If not, you guys want to sing Kumbaya? And twickster, it’s all good. Thank you.
If I may, I think this is a point of departure between you and various other people reading the piercing thread. The goal of that thread was not to spread understanding about why someone might want to get certain piercings. The goal was to find out what people thought about them.
Certainly there were some individuals expressing their opinions rather bluntly, but come on… not everyone is going to agree with your perspective, or think it’s a good idea. ForumBot said somewhere on the first page that he was trying not to be offended, that he was shocked that so many respondents didn’t agree with his perspective. Really? That suggests a naivété bordering on the extreme to me.
It also actually betrays the fact that he and his crowd don’t actually regard piercings as truly rebellious at all (since they are so accepting of it), so it’s kind of amusing that he did it in part to cultivate a “wild boy” look… and here come a bunch of people, who he probably expected to say that it was somehow shocking, telling him they consider the piercings to be anything but rebellious and shocking these days. That’s gonna sting no matter how nicely you phrase it, isn’t it?
Sorry, you snuck in on me while I was finishing up that post.
Well, as the author of this thread, I can only speak for myself and, as far as I can ever recall, I have never been judgmental about those things. As a matter of fact, I’ve fought for being respectful to the religious although I’m an agnostic (borderline atheist). I’ve never even been in an argument over SUVs or declawing cats and if I was to espouse my opinion on such things, there wouldn’t be a moral component to it.
Like with any of the stuff previously mentioned, I believe there’s a way to go about things without intentionally being insulting. But I’m probably barking up the wrong tree and have no problem admitting to that.
This may be a very important point for me, as I’m really trying to learn something out of all this. True, the apparent goal of that thread was to people to tell ForumBot what they thought about piercing. However, what is the goal of people responding to it? Is it just to have their opinion out there? Do they care if they are incorrect (IE: state that’s it’s, say, exhibitionism, yet the agoraphobic has no one else see theirs)? Do they wish to take anything away from the exchange? Indeed, I may really be screwing myself over here depending on why.
Hopefully, I’ve answered this portion already a good bit. If you need more information, I think some of the links I’ve posted could be seen as why some take the responses as “hostile.”
Obviously, I can’t comment on this part, since I can’t speak for ForumBot. Perhaps he’ll pop in here to share his views on that.
Well, saying that he expected them to say that when he said he didn’t… doesn’t seem fair to me. I mean, I can only take his word for it, right? And finally, I don’t think he’s bothered that they don’t find it shocking. However, my interpretation certainly could be off. Again, I hope he might make an appearance here. We’ll see.
Language is a funny thing. On a board where people are able to, and encouraged to, be witty and edgy, colourful, etc it’s to be expected.
One persons hyperbole is another persons insult.
Think about the word lame for a minute. There are young people out there who throw this word around everyday without any insult intended. Yet we’ve all seen it used as exactly that.
I don’t disagree with what you’re observing, I think you’re probably right. But I expect it is cyclic and comes and goes in varying degrees.
I recently started a pit thread thinking all sorts of ire would be expressed at my viewpoint, hence the pit as my choice. Instead it was very civil and dignified and never really strayed into ire. It was all very kumbaya and a couple of people noted same.
In a lot of cases people just leave off the ‘Well, I think…’ before their opinion. So it comes out as a statement of fact and appears more offensive than if they had included it.
‘Facial piercings are stupid and lame!’ vs ‘Well, I think facial piercings are stupid and lame!’
That said, look around your world there are more angry people. Anger born of frustration and overwork. Look at how busy the world is. When was the last time you met someone who wasn’t trying to do too many things? Pity the children who are growing up in a world of parents, teachers, every adult they encounter, rushed and often angry/frustrated.
It seems different when you’re talking about the way someone looks. Yes, you can control whether or not you get piercings. But substitute piercing for a touchy topic on this board.
What if they said “Fat people are stupid, lame, and shouldn’t be taken seriously.” People would come out in droves to be offended. We’re talking about two different things that affect the appearance of a person, both of these things can be changed.
For the record, I’m NOT saying these things about overweight people. It just seems like a silly insult to say that if someone has a piercing they are stupid, lame, or any other insult being thrown around. If you’re not attracted to a person who has a tattoo or a piercing, so be it. To make an assumption of their intelligence based on whether or not they’ve been pierced only makes YOU look stupid.
Naturally, YMMV.
But very few people are saying the piercee is stupid, lame, etc, etc, etc. People are saying the piercing is stupid, lame, etc, etc, etc.
And then the pierced people freaked out as more than a few of these posts are saying “How dare you judge me!” when it was an opinion thread.
Oh it’s the inanimate object that is stupid? Well, of course it is!
Let me rephrase it then…
What if someone said “The fat on that fat person is stupid and lame?”
There, better.
I wanted to wrap up for now (I haven’t slept in like 36 hours or something, so I’m off to bed) and give thanks to both elbows and Butterflies for their contributions. Everyone, as well, for your input.
Lastly though, I’d like to specifically ask Justin opinions of what I presented in post # 22. Because, to me, that’s going a bit beyond “saying the piercing is stupid, lame, etc, etc, etc.” Thank you Justin.
I agree that people seem a bit snappish lately - moreso than usual for the Dope, and I’m not even including the Pit in this observation. But I’ve noticed the same phenomenon with my friends lately, so I’ve just chalked it up to the weather. (Yeah, what WhyNot said.)