If you’re willing to alter your body as much as tiger man I doubt you’re sensitive about people making fun of your looks. And you know what? If you make yourself a freak on purpose then you can expect people to make fun of you.
Marc
But to casually suggest how much fun it would be to beat the living shit out of you? That would alarm me if I had a freaking pineapple tree growing out of my head.
Well you gotta point there. But I don’t think Bill H, or whoever it was, was seriously suggesting that. Unless I missed something.
Marc
Whoever it was. You’ve pegged me on the wrong side of this.
It was an accident. I apologize.
Marc
I personally find this thread revolting. I have had extensive surgery to make me into a perfect replica of a banana slug, complete with slime. But I would never publish a picture of myself. When I ventured outside my cave for the first time, I was observed by some campers who ran off shrieking when I simply said “hello” to them. Later I found the trail littered with bags of marijuana and tabs of LSD. These were appreciated.
I go through keyboards quickly, as they tend to become very sticky.
Anyway, I pretty much stay in my cave,now. I bet I could make a tiger person run away,though.
What a lot of people don’t think about re. ‘Tiger Man’, ‘Lizard Man’, etc:
For the same reason Seinfeld said he could never be ‘Orgy Guy’ , I have to chuckle when I think about Tiger Man doing the more mundane things in life. The glamor, if you will, sort of wears off. Imagine Tiger Man doing the following routine tasks:
- Cashing a check at the bank
- Going grocery shopping [and buying, say, a gallon of milk; a bottle of pepto bismol; insert boring product here]
- Going to the doctor for a routine proctoscopy.
- Undergoing software training at a new job.
- Standing in line to renew his drivers license.
Me? I’d feel a little foolish.
I’ve got a bottle of salt with your name on it.
Marc
Well, at least they’d be able to verify his identity pretty certainly.
Yes, I would still agree with it. I wouldn’t mind being teased or even made fun of, especially not if I didn’t even know the people involved (such as some random strangers on a message board I don’t even frequent). I’m not telling him to change or threatening him or denying him anything because of how he looks. I think that some people take the “PC” concept too far. IOW, lighten up.
Lighten up??? Are you making fun of my weight??? 
Personally I hate PC speech. Say what you want how you want, but be responsible for how/what you’ve said.
No, your just making fun of him simply because of the way he wishes to express himself. Why/how are you more qualified to draw the line between “teasing” and harassment. Someone called him a freak, who decides who the freaks are? I think he may be a bit socially maladjusted (a srew loose), and he certainly looks odd, even freaky. But, I don’t think it’s my place or right to organize a ridicule party in his name.
I get your point. Do you get mine?
As info (and because I’m feeling nitpicky), pineapples don’t grow on trees.
I know, actually. It was sort of the “dead cow/dead steer” bit. Pineapple tree = funny. Pineapple parent plant = stupid.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Hibbins *
**
Somehow I don’t think it can be considered harrassment. If a group of people on a message board I don’t even read were to make fun of me, that wouldn’t be harrassment. You have to actually interact with someone to harrass them.
As for who defines freak… everybody defines it for themselves.
I believe I have gotten your point.
You feel it is acceptable to get together to ridicule a person/persons as long as you don’t do it in their presence.
I really don’t care what your particular opinion of Tiger Man is you’re entitled to it.
I do think you were wrong to invite a bunch of people to get together in a public forum for the purpose of ridiculing an individual.
That’s a bit broader than my feelings. In this case, we don’t even know him, he doesn’t know us, therefore no one could get hurt here. It would be different if, say, we were making fun of a coworker or something.
I disagree. Threads like this reinforce the perception that it is OK to ridicule those we find different. Even if you personally would never take it further than a post to a message board that the tiger man would never read (though who’s to say he isn’t amongst us?), you encourage others to do so by fostering an “us against them” attitude.
Furthermore and more fundamentally it adds to a general undercurrent that those of us who are different are undesirable.
It isn’t as simple as “he’ll never read it so it’ll never hurt him”. Someone will read it, it will feed their prejudices against those who are different, they will reinforce those beliefs in their peer group and then someone else will hurt a totally different “weirdo”. Relationships are subtle and complex things.
pan
Yeah, what kabbes said.
The ideas seem so clear in my mind and yet get so muddled when I put them in words.
I just know that dude smokes pot.
So, are you saying that all of your neighbors that you haven’t yet met can make fun of the way you look and dress, as long as they do it behind your back?