Messageboard Hell

[sistermagpie]

There's got to be some kind of big psychological study in the types of people one finds on messageboards--besides that site about the different characters that always appear, that is. I guess I'd be a good candidate for it--why did I even try to offer anything on a thread started by a person whose spent the entire thing being pissy and irritated at the fact that so far nobody has seen the brilliance of his thoughts? Newsflash: if nobody's supposedly "getting" what your saying to them? Maybe it's because you're not as brilliant as you think you are. And your obvious irritation really doesn't make you sound superior, just very very pissy. Oh, and threatening to take your toys and go home isn't all that impressive either. Even after all your sighing and telling everybody they're wrong, I still don't see any reason to need a Supreme Deity doling out punishments and reward in order to keep me from killing someone. In fact, even without God I am refraining from being constantly insulting while you with your all-important belief are acting like a big baby. So, you know, maybe believing in God actually isn't the key to being a better person for everybody.



Here's the the other type that always amazes me on messageboards--probably because this is the person who always ends up despising me on them. I've met more than one. The conservative, pompous guy who never uses one simple word where he could use seven fifty-cent words. He's insulting and rude, yet whenever he posts several people will tell him how erudite and fair he is. Do people just not get that he's being insulting because his posts are so verbose and boring? You know, quoting Shakespeare and Thomas Aquinas doesn't make a stupid idea any smarter. Especially if the quote really doesn't fit the argument anyway. Yet there's always all these people bowing and scraping and needlessly complimenting even though every post boils down to: This is what I think. It is the morally superior, smart way to think. Anyone who feels otherwise is morally corrupt or stupid. The end.

I always get the feeling I annoy these guys more because I'm female (among other things). They always start calling me by little nicknames, something they don't seem to do with the men with which they argue. Meanwhile they're overly chivalrous to women who agree with them. One guy even made a point of making sure I knew that some woman who agreed with him was a "lady" which I, of course, am not with my terrible views on things and--probably worse yet--my insistance on trying to argue them! Grrr.

The good thing is I get a perverse pleasure out of knowing that this is the kind of person I inexplicably bother. My mere existance seems to signal the coming of the Apocolypse. We're taking over--we single, uppity, non-Christian women with our evil liberal ways.

In other news, I am having a girlie weekend. Yesterday I got my hair highlighted--and I was planning to anyway even before my mother told me 9 times how much gray there was in it. My hair's been getting gray since college--premature gray runs in the family. Usually I do the highlighting myself with one of those caps but it's just been looking really pale and washed out lately (guess that would be the white but it blends in with the blonde so I can't really tell). So I sucked it up and went to a salon and it looks much better. It's a warmer blonde with more contrast to it. I think he used more than one color. It makes me happy. ::swishes hair back and forth:: Then I filed my nails, plucked my eyebrows and did an Indian Blue Corn mask. I shall now light more Green Tea incense and go back to reading InStyle magazine instead of working on this script I was really planning to get a lot done on this weekend. Ten pages. That's the goal I'm sticking to. I WILL get ten pages written today. Maybe. I hope.

ETA: I'm watching The Simpsons and Mo just called Maggie MAGPIE! This freaks me out cause, you know, that's me!!!

Comments

Seems it's Miss Anne Thropic night on LJ...

[willow-wode.livejournal.com]

...and I'm very much following along, here. I know what you mean about the boards, and I just don't even go there any more. The ones that really get me are the 'big fish in tiny pond' males. Doesn't it just crank your tail to see these guys fawned over like they're some alpha male, instead of a little runt that wouldn't get their butts kicked and fed to the puppies in real life? I ask you, what kind of females are these message board bimbos, that they have to pander these pomposities?

I found that I wanted to smack the 'ladies' even harder than the 'men'.

Re: Seems it's Miss Anne Thropic night on LJ...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Isn't it funny the way this night turned into a theme night? I honestly had no idea when I posted--we must have just hit a critical mass in the universe.

It's one of those mysteries of fandom. And yeah, I usually do want to smack the ladies more because it's so easy to deflate these guys by not buying into it, yet they do! What's even creepier is the way these guys often mention their wives and sometimes explain how in their marriage they (the man, of course) is the head of the house. Now, I realize that this is a model of marriage that does work. As a friend of mine says, "Anything that makes it more like one person instead of two people is bound to make things run more smoothly." But they never see it as the way their marriage works. It's the way things are supposed to be. The world would just be so much better if women would let men run everything. Ugh!

Re: Seems it's Miss Anne Thropic night on LJ...

[anamirza.livejournal.com]

Anything that makes it more like one person instead of two people is bound to make things run more smoothly.

At what price, though? So many couples I've known, where one partner has had to give up significant things for the other, or where one partner feels unconsulted in important decision-making, have been unhappy couples, where one spouse is rather bitter. On the contrary, most of the egalitarian marriages I know are doing well, with the exception of the one couple who have lived together only 3 months of their 2 years of marriage, but then,that's hardly likely to be a common event.

Of course, if you don't have a very equal relationship with your wife, what is the change you really know how she feels? Sure, in some cases, she is perfectly happy to have someone else making all the decisions. And in the other cases?

Re: Seems it's Miss Anne Thropic night on LJ...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh God, I totally agree! My friend was just saying that the reason that this model of marriage worked for so long (and still does for a lot of people) is because it's like a business arrangement where there's a boss and an employee. So if you're willing to enter into that then you can make it work.

Personally, I would never want to be in that kind of relationship (and neither would she). I really could be, I think, even if I was supposed to be the one in charge. I would think it would be very lonely making all the decisions. What if you're not sure what you're doing, after all? Part of why I would want to be married would be for somebody to talk to about stuff like this!

Heh.

[jewelsong.livejournal.com]

I think I read the poster you are referring to...could it have been on the Philosophy Board on TORC by any chance? I remember thinking "this guy is a flaming asshole."

The good thing is I get a perverse pleasure out of knowing that this is the kind of person I inexplicably bother. My mere existance seems to signal the coming of the Apocolypse. We're taking over--we single, uppity, non-Christian women with our evil liberal ways.

I get the same kind of pleasure. It's my dark side...I love producing the "squirm." And let me tell ta, it ain't just the "non-Christian women" who can be uppity and liberal. Christianity has gotten a bad rap these past few decades...Jesus weeps, lemme tell ya.

Re: Heh.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think I read the poster you are referring to...could it have been on the Philosophy Board on TORC by any chance? I remember thinking "this guy is a flaming asshole."

That's the place! This particular post was inspired by a guy I haven't spoken to much before--he's just done this one thread and it's been like one long tantrum for him. But there's this other poster who's like the epitome of this type. He posts in philosophy and movies and always calls me "Maggie" (guess he can't be bothered to type all the extra letters in M-a-g-p-i-e. For a while there in movies he'd taken to always referencing me in his posts by name, usually as "part of the problem." LOL.

I get the same kind of pleasure. It's my dark side...I love producing the "squirm." And let me tell ta, it ain't just the "non-Christian women" who can be uppity and liberal. Christianity has gotten a bad rap these past few decades...Jesus weeps, lemme tell ya.


Very true. I stuck that in because that's the way I get it but believe me, there's plenty of the same stuff thrown at the uppity and liberal Christian women as well. Cause, you know, if you're not interpreting the Bible the same way as these guys you're not really a Christian. Just so you know!

[flyby.livejournal.com]

I started my internet career on a certain messageboard. It was the official site of an author, and at the time when I was posting there, it was quite sparsely populated, and mostly by adults - or people who could act like adults most of the time. And then, over the years, more and more and younger people started arriving, and it went so far downhill that it became impossible to find any actual discussion of the author on there. I haven't even visited in over a year - all there is now is silly people flirting with each other and preening themselves. It's just nowhere near worth the effort of winnowing through so much rubbish. I made a load of great friends there, and most of us ended up retreating to other communities with lower profiles where we can actually have a decent conversation.

The point? My theory is that open BBs go downhill over time. They seem to attract weird/pointless people, and the longer they exist the more of these people turn up, until everyone else leaves in disgust and the idiots are left to natter pointlessly away to themselves.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think you're definitely right. I'll bet there's probably a basic life for any boards that way. I just have no interest in places where people aren't talking about a subject and one-liners get really tiring on them. Luckily, you're right, you usually end up following the people you like to smaller boards and lists.