BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Policy & Help >

Ugliness on the board

  
  

Page: (1)2345

 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
13:43 / 29.03.06
A three-headed thread.

One- An attempt to end hostilities between myself and Haus without wasting anyone's time.

Two- When is it OK to badger a poster and not okay?

Three- Why is the board so ugly?

The skinny: In the V for Venddetta thread I posted about my experience in the cinema citing my depression that the message of the movie was lost on the ignorant audience. I called them dumb animals or something (I'll leave the cutting and pasting to Haus as he loves to quote and it'll probably be the one thing that pleases him in this thread).

Two posters took objection to my blanket statement on humanity and used the word humatons. Two others not so much backed me up but portrayed examples of audience members 'not getting it.'

It seemed to in the case of the two objections that my individual reactions were being objected to and there seemed to be a need to villify me as a kind of subhuman or elitist (either high or low seemed to be the goal) person for my views on the audience. I asked that if anyone really wanted to discuss my feelings to PM me but the thread was about the movie so I didn't think it was the right place. I continued to post about the movie.

The sentiment that there was something not just wrong with my reaction but wrong with me as a person and that I had some kind of agenda seemed to rear its head. I ignored those posts and again asked that if anyone wanted to discuss my feelings, PM me.

Haus arrived making some statement about my having asthma.

I asked him to stop rotting the thread by trying to bait me and PMd him asking him to stop, if he wanted to argue to PM me and if he continued to personally attack me that I'd do what I'm doing here, try to resolve the issue in the way that I'm pretty sure was intended. I asked him in all instances. I attempted to be civil in this message.

He posted another, more hateful, post in the V forum, used some big words and linked to other threads I had nothing to do with saying that they were related to me. And he also said that I threatened him.

So... I'm confused. (Haus will no doubt copy that text as the one true thing I said)

I post my experience next to many others and I'm somehow wrong to do so? Making a 'this world stinks' statement is suddenly in need of a public apology?

Most importantly why is it OK for Haus to personally badger me I'm trying to discuss the movie? I've gotten PMs from other posters warning of Haus' behavior and saying that he just gets in moods, but it seems not just accepted by lauded by much of the board. Why is this?

I'm really sick of the board being filled with thos nonsense and would like it to stop. I've been posting here for about 6 years and the place has gotten decidedly ugly.

I know I'm not the only one to see that. Why has it been allowed to get this way?
 
 
Eloi Tsabaoth
13:50 / 29.03.06
I'm sorry, you call everyone in a cinema except you 'Dumb animals' and you're wondering why people called you elitist? That seemed like a perfectly reasonable accusation to me.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
13:51 / 29.03.06
Fair enough, but does it neeed to become the topic of conversation? Is that really interesting to anyone?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:55 / 29.03.06
I think the ugliness here is... well, is you, Mister Six.

First, quote and reference to support your self-exculpatory narrative above. If you can't even be bothered to remember what you said, it's hardly likely that you will produce a credible account of what other people said.

Second, am I to assume that you don't mind me quoting from the various abusive private messages you have sent to me in the past?

Third, poisonous comments about one's personal superiority to the common mass of humanity have a proud pedigree of being mocked on Barbelith - see the threads I linked to. Amusingly, you are happy to write off 350 people in the audience of a movie on the basis of no evidence except your own immature need to feel superior, but you have started a whole thread about how awful people are being to you when that superiority complex is challenged. Think that one through.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:55 / 29.03.06
Answer to question three: because of posts like yours, Mister Six. Now thank me for not saying "people like you".
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
13:59 / 29.03.06
And how is this OK?

"Haus in first entered Adam
16:27 / 29.03.06
I was the only person in the audience who truly UNDERSTOOD V for Vendetta. The other SHEEPLE did not understand its TRUTH! They are HUMATONS! As a result of my UNDERSTANDING, global capitalism will be DISMANTLED by MY EFFORTS by THURSDAY. I will certainly not just go home, sit on my ARSE and whine to my imaginary friends about how STUPID people who are not CLEVER LIKE ME are."

I mean, I'm irritated by Haus, angered by him, etc but I'm not about to do anything like that yet... it's okay for him to do this.

My point is that if you disagree, isn't there some kind of level at which two posters can just let it go at that?

If I had said specific posters on the board were dumb animals or that anyone who didn't like the movie was an idiot that would not be okay and I agree with that.

What I posted was my depressing experience in the theater. If you think I'm being an elitist prig for it I don't think you got my point so I obviously didn't put it across well enough. I mean I felt that the movie was a call to action but I hardly did anything different the next day.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:02 / 29.03.06
Fair enough, but does it neeed to become the topic of conversation? Is that really interesting to anyone?

Again, hypocrisy. You believe that your opinion of the people watching the movie with you, which has no relevance to the movie itself or to anyone's experience of the movie except yours, is a topic of worth to be included in the thread. Anybody questioning that? That is threadrot.

So, is your complaint that people are saying things that are interesting, whether or not they are ontopic? If so, then I'm afraid I see somebody else on the Internet dehumanising t3h HUMATONS very, very dull indeed. I think others might as well.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:03 / 29.03.06
I don't have an ego problem or a superiority complex.

I feel alienated by the country I live in where it seems that ignorance and hatred run rampant. It would be great for the world to wake up to this and change and here's this film that to me says this and it's charting very well as a success money-wise yet the situation remains the same. Hence my blanket statement.

Then these posts about my being a fucking idiot, an elitist and other personal attacks are shot out. I did not whine I asked for it to stop.

Yet it's lauded as viable.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:06 / 29.03.06
Others posted their experiences as well. It seems fine with everyone. What isn't is taking a reaction and running with it as a topic as the many posts that had nothing to do with the thread but to do with my reaction.

If I had continued to talk about the dumb cattle and nothing else, yes that would be thread rot. Threadrot that people seemed to want for some weird reason. I kept trying to shut it down abd if you look kept posting about the movie while doing so.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:08 / 29.03.06
Okay, let's start again.

What did the entirity of the cinema audience at the screening of V For Vendetta you attended do, or say, to make you believe that either a) the message of the film was lost on them, b) they were "dumb-faced animals", and/or c) they were full of "ignorance and hatred"?
 
 
The Falcon
14:13 / 29.03.06
I don't know, Sixy. Is your problem that Haus is taking the piss out of you? That's totally allowed, if a bit a pain to be on the receiving end of.

Frankly, I can't discern any qualitative difference between your viewing and that of the 350 other 'blank dumb-faced animals' who watched V that night. Except that you got in a fight on Barbelith about it. And it made you feel a bit superior, for whatever reason. I don't really know how you can make the distinction; it's a quite unpleasant bit of misanthropy, which has no part in my revolution (ongoing since I read the V for Vendetta graphic novel in 1998 or whenever.)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:13 / 29.03.06

What I posted was my depressing experience in the theater. If you think I'm being an elitist prig for it I don't think you got my point so I obviously didn't put it across well enough. I mean I felt that the movie was a call to action but I hardly did anything different the next day.

Oh, hang on - that does make a difference. What you meant to say was "I, Mister Six, am a dumb animal". Yes? You don't know what any of the other people in the audience did the next day - maybe they all started plots to spread anarchy. So, you, Mister Six, are a dumb animal who did not respond to the call to action? OK. In which case, when you wrote:

Unfortunately, the actual audience in the cinema consisted of dumb-faced animals. This is what filled me with a deep sadness.

You meant to write:

Unfortunately, I am dumb-faced animal. If the other members of the audience, as I did, failed to change their lives in any way havng seem this, then so are they. Unable as I am to speculate on that, nonetheless my own dumb, animalistic nature fills me with a deep sadness.

Is that right? If so, then yes, I think you failed to express yourself very well, and I don't understand any of your following comments. has a similar problem occurred? So, when you wrote:


I posted my experience and for some reason it's being argued??

This is far off-subject.

Why has my attitude toward the social climate of my suburban setting suddenly become the center of attention?

Stick to the movie. If anyone really cares about my personal feelings enough, just send me a PM. I'll do my best to discuss it if you really want to.

I'm really getting tired of threads getting derailed. My feelings on the society I live in is hardly worth having this discussion in a movie thread.

You meant to write:


I posted my experience and for some reason it's being argued??

This is far off-subject.

Why has my attitude toward my own dumb, animalistic nature suddenly become the center of attention?

Stick to the movie. If anyone really cares about my dumb, animalistic personal feelings enough, just send me a PM. I'll do my best to discuss it if you really want to.

I'm really getting tired of threads getting derailed. My feelings on my status as a dumb animal is hardly worth having this discussion in a movie thread.

And when you wrote:

I'm laughing, but you're right. I gave animals a bad rep. and it was at a Jordan's Furniture iMax which if you're living in Boston... 'nuff said. And hail to a fellow Bostonian.

I think I should drop the whole animal analogy and just call them open anuses.

In any any case, it has no place here, I'm ignoring her posts since I asked her to PM me if she wanted to talk about it.

You meant to write:

I'm laughing, but you're right. I gave animals a bad rep by likening them to myself and any other members of the audience who, like me, have responded with passivity. and it was at a Jordan's Furniture iMax which if you're living in Boston... 'nuff said. And hail to a fellow Bostonian.

I think I should drop the whole animal analogy and just call myself an open anus for the passivity which I can only speculate might have afflicted others in the audience, but certainly affected me.

In any any case, it has no place here, I'm ignoring her posts since I asked her to PM me if she waned to talk about it with a self-confessed open anus.

Wow. Are you attempting to type with your nose? Only you seem to be having some real trouble here...
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:15 / 29.03.06
Start again? I'm not being interrogated.

If you must know it was a feeling, not an action. I felt overwhelmed by the film and the others just didn't seem to feel this. If you want to get all psychological yes the audience reaction did exist in my head but it existed. It wasn't my goal to take over the V thread with 'why don't this dumb animals get it!!??' infact I kept asking people to drop it when it came up.

That's not what I'm objecting to, though. People can do whatever they like, obviously. I'm hardly one to tell anyone what to do.

What I'm trying to accomplish with this thread is an understanding of why badgering is allowed, and how to end it.

Regardless of how I felt about anyone's opinion, I'd hardly go calling them a fucking idiot.

I asked for others to respect my request that they drop it.
 
 
The Falcon
14:17 / 29.03.06
x-post with G, there.

but, yes, you may well have heard some people go 'I don't get it', in which case - fine - they obviously didn't get it. I'm not going to argue with your own interpretation because I've not seen the film, but I'm sure there's better ones right here on this mb. However, I find it hard to believe a whole cinema chorused 'I don't get it' at the end, and this disavowal of humanity will only serve to further your own alienation. Here and in the real.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:18 / 29.03.06
Haus, whatever man.

If tearing me to pieces makes you feel better just go ahead and continue.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:22 / 29.03.06
If you must know it was a feeling, not an action. I felt overwhelmed by the film and the others just didn't seem to feel this.

Yes, but something must have made you think, or feel, that they didn't feel this. That is, unless you interact with the world in a profoundly different way to the rest of us. There must have been some outward sign on their part that they weren't overwhelmed by the film (a different thing from not getting its message or being dumb-faced animals, but hey), and presumably there must have been some outward sign on your part that you were overwhelmed by it. Right? It wasn't just a feeling you got in your "water", was it?
 
 
The Falcon
14:23 / 29.03.06
Look, why not try and engage with why people found what you said deeply irritating and wrong, instead of deciding it's a personal (v for) vendetta? It really isn't. Haus is only pointing out how fundamentally flawed your logic is.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:23 / 29.03.06
Regardless of how I felt about anyone's opinion, I'd hardly go calling them a fucking idiot.


You PMed me about 9 months ago to call me a wanker. Hypocrisy again.

Nonetheless, dude, I'm not trying to tear you down. I'm trying to help you. Right now, your case is tissue-thin and you keep changing your story. That's not going to fill the theatres of Europe.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:25 / 29.03.06
I hardly went online, posted about my experience and said 'there I feel better.'

If I gave you that impression, then I fucked up there.

It was an off the cuff comment about my own feelings.

Which has gotten me called a fucking idiot.

And this is acceptable why?

I'm trying to figure out how to resolve conflict on the board and I keep getting nasty posts.

If you felt offended by my calling the cinema a bunch of dumb animals came across as war cry on others then it wasn't recieved as it was intended. It certainly wasn't meant to be analyzed or taken as a statement that sums up my entire person as it seems to be,

Regardless it was not a statement pointed at one particular person as Haus' posts are at me.

Why not just say 'are you saying that you felt superior to the rest of the audience?'

To which I'd say I wasn't, I just felt depressed and alone.

Why jump to attacks?
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:29 / 29.03.06
I don't see how calling me a fucking idiot and posting nonsense about me elsewhere would be helping me.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:32 / 29.03.06
Yes, but you are, by your own admission, a dumb animal and/or open anus, albeit one with amazing telepathic powers. I'm trying to change that. I want to help you.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:34 / 29.03.06
Never mind.

This is just more badgering.

I leave you to it.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:34 / 29.03.06
Now you are just blatantly lying, Mister Six, about the train of events, which is foolish given how easy it is for anyone to read the thread.

The immediate reaction to your comment about the audience not getting the film's message was perfectly civil questioning/critical engagement, from miss wonderstar most notably. In response, you escalated your view of the audience to "dumb-faced animals" and "anuses", and expressed shock and disapproval that people were responding even with polite engagement:

I posted my experience and for some reason it's being argued??

At which point Haus stepped in, and frankly, I understand why.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:38 / 29.03.06
So, hang on - you start a thread specifically to attack me - that is, you create the battleground and the objective - and then you storm off it?

Dude, that's weak.

You seem consistently to be confusing "badger" with "call me on my shit when I am either hateful or self-contradictory, and not stop doing it when I tell them to stop, but continue to insult them myself". In these terms, I'm not sure you can stop badgering, because badgering to you is the everyday exchange of ideas that makes a discussion to others. It's worth noting that not one person on this thread has endorsed your viewpoint - you've managed to find perhaps the one thing on which Duncan Falconer and Flyboy agree - and yet at no point have you even for a second considered the possibility that you might not be completely in the right. Why exactly is that?
 
 
Olulabelle
14:42 / 29.03.06
Call me naive, but it's possible bringing up 9 month old PM's isn't going to help all that much.

Mr Six, I think it's really hard for people to just 'drop' something and take it to PM if it's a thing they profoundly disagree with, such as everyone else being referred to as 'dumb animals'. Perhaps you meant that you felt like everyone in the cinema didn't get it and I do understand why that might be something you were aware of; sometimes when you come out of a cinema you can really sense a general vibe, especially if it's a film that blows most of the audience away.

However, it's not very fair to ask everyone not to talk about something you've said (as it might derail the thread) because in essence what you're asking is that you be 'allowed' to say what you like but that no-one else can publicly debate that with you.

I know that sometimes a person vehemently disagreeing with you might feel like badgering, but it's important to take a step back and consider where that poster is coming from. Veve gives some very good advice about doing this in the Agent Smith thread.

In fairness to you I do think the use of the barbeannoy thread for personal comment is problematic, but I have already stated that elsewhere and I don't think anyone ended up agreeing with me so I'm not flogging that horse corpse anymore.
 
 
Ganesh
14:43 / 29.03.06
If you felt offended by my calling the cinema a bunch of dumb animals came across as war cry on others then it wasn't recieved as it was intended. It certainly wasn't meant to be analyzed or taken as a statement that sums up my entire person as it seems to be

I doubt people reading your comments would've been "offended", merely irritated. Irritated not because of any sort of "war cry" on your part, but because it's an irritating thing to say. Perhaps Barbelith is unusually sensitised to such comments as a result of a long line of deeply irritating Matrix Warrior style trolls proclaiming themselves possessed of awareness/awakeness which sets them apart from the common mass of sleeping sheepletons. Perhaps it's something to do with Barbelith's average age being twentysomething (it's a rather adolescent way of framing one's relationship with the world).

If you don't want this sort of statement to be analysed, don't make this sort of statement. Don't be so utterly convinced of your own ability to get it that you so sweepingly dehumanise and dismiss an entire cinema of people - even as a passing comment. It's not nice to refer to your fellow humans as "dumb-faced animals"; in fact, it might be said to be ugly. You may be unable to appreciate the (IMHO, valid) reason you're being harangued for it, but a simple way to avoid future haranguing is to never say anything like it again.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:44 / 29.03.06
Christ on a bike... one last time.

The point is to end hostilities... read it a few times.

You're 'helping me' by calling me a fucking idiot, psychic anus, etc.

I didn't tell anyone to do anything. I asked.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:48 / 29.03.06
So to close the thread:

Don't say anything that might offend anyone... ever.

Anyone who does this opens themselves to public ridicule and personal attacks.

This is fine as long as enough people say it is fine.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:50 / 29.03.06
So, Sixy, still not actually listening to anybody who has questioned your version of events, id est everybody?

Call me naive, but it's possible bringing up 9 month old PM's isn't going to help all that much.

Call me unnecesarily prone to impolitesse, Lula, but blatantly lying about whether one would or would not not insult another member of Barbelith doesn't seem all that helpful either. In fact, it seems either to be a dip in the waters of a particularly self-delusory tributary of the river Lethe, or a rather nasty attempt to deceive people by giving a false impression of yourself.
 
 
Olulabelle
14:52 / 29.03.06
Okay Mr Six. Then one way to end hostilities is to say that you realise saying the whole cinema audience were 'dumb animals' was basically a/impossible for you to know and b/quite rude and maybe make some reference to understanding why people felt the need to engage with you on that particular point.

I'm sure that would work, and it might make you feel better in the long run. Currently what seems to be happening is that you are still saying the debate shouldn't have happened, but people are just not going to agree with you on that one, because actually it should.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:53 / 29.03.06
Yeah, that's fine.

I do feel that the discussion should have happened elsewhere, but otherwise I agree.
 
 
Ganesh
14:54 / 29.03.06
Christ on a bike... one last time.

The point is to end hostilities... read it a few times.

Well, then, perhaps you've learned that starting a thread in which you conceptualise the reactions of others as "badgering" and assume straightoff that the board is "ugly" (the implication being, of course, that the two are linked) is rather an ineffective way to end hostilities.

Also, when the original point of contention is the suggestion that you're being superior and dismissive, the exasperated read it again until you get what I'm saying response might not be a hugely effective way of addressing that contention.
 
 
The Falcon
14:55 / 29.03.06
I am not doing that, Six. Questions two and three of your summary have been answered more than satisfactorily, and all this complaint about being called exactly what you called your local cinema patrons is reading a bit like crocodile tears. It's okay for you to anonymously refer to people as 'open anuses' (nice, that one. Mmm.) but not to have the same term turned on you? Question one isn't a question, and I'd argue the phrasing, before suggesting the only way you will end 'hostilities' w/out wasting everyone else's time is by discussing civilly through pm (assuming Haus still wants to speak to you.) And hopefully reading. And thinking about the words, which you are not doing a good job of displaying much evidence of thus far.

(As an aside: I think I agree with Flyboy on a great many things, and don't know where you've gotten this impression from, Haus.)
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:55 / 29.03.06
Hmmm.

Let me start off by saying that this does appear to be a genuine attempt by Mister Six to resolve a situation that he is finding uncomfortable - and I can well imagine that it is uncomfortable. He is clearly trying to avoid a fight which, if I'm not mistaken, he sees as a largely unprovoked (or at least unjustified) attack on himself. He feels he is being bullied, in other words, and is asking the community to step in.

I have some sympathy for his position, and I would feel happier if people were to try to engage him in a more constructive manner. That is, seriously, and without the point scoring.

On the other hand, Mister Six, I'm afraid that I agree that what you said was pretty obnoxious. I think that calling you an elitist or a misanthrope are quite justified based on your post. You don't agree, and this is a problem for you since I suspect that I am with the consensus here. You could try putting Haus and others on ignore, I suppose. You could try to talk the issue out. I am personally convinced that you honestly don't see anything wrong with what you said, but I may be in a minority in seeing that as a reason to cut you some slack.

I think the best thing to do is to consider your phrase

Unfortunately, the actual audience in the cinema consisted of dumb-faced animals.

and ask yourself if a reasonable person might be forgiven for thinking that you were being dismissive and superior. Think about "dehumanisation" and how it would relate to such a statement (especially, and this is important, for someone who doesn't know you and doesn't have very much else to go on for your "real" attitudes). I'd be very surprised if you find it hard to see that it might have been, at the very least, an unfortunate way to express yourself.
 
 
Olulabelle
14:56 / 29.03.06
Haus, yes. Fair point.
 
  

Page: (1)2345

 
  
Add Your Reply