[note: this is fucking long, sorry.]
No, I don’t think so.
ET’s position was that people who call others ‘putz’ are themselve putzes. If we want to be forgiving, we can accept the theory that ‘they didn’t mean all the time’, in the same way that a person might occasionally troll without actually being one.
But I don’t feel like being forgiving to someone who starts shit in a condolences thread. It seems to me that he believes that the use of that insult marks one as a loser.
Besides, calling someone a putz isn’t that bad. It’s a tofu-like insult that takes on the context of the post. Alone, it’s slightly goofy; especially since the smiley is winking in the icon.
ET’s attack on putz-users is a) insulting to Wally and b) insulting to Jewish people, since putz is an old Yiddish insult. This doesn;t mean ET is anti-Wally or an antiSemite. But his ignorance of the word’s history, both IRL and on this Board, seriously decreases my sympathy for him.
I also disagree that Wally was often being a putz when he called someone a putz. He was generally trying to protect us from lame-brained assholes who took the Board, something that should have been fun and enlightning, and made it unpleasant. Wally was, in my memory, very rarely a putz. And when he was he apologized.
I also seriously hope you’ve been lurking a long time and aren’t just talking out of your ass about people you know next to nothing about. Either way, making your second post in the Pit isn’t always safe. I did it (hell, my FIRST post was in the Pit), but it usually doesn’t turn out so well.
And lastly, don’t you fucking DARE tell me about Wally. Wally was a fucking friend of mine. Not in the, we’re all friends here, sense; he was a friend. I know he was human, shithead. The symbol isn’t him. But it’s a symbol in memory of him, the same way the banners were. Saying that everyone who uses it is an asshole DOES impugn Wally.
–John