EPTever listen to the words of this song?
Part 1: Becoming the Shiverfish: Adventures in Pretension
Among my many numerous personality flaws, one that particularly stands out with regard to online interaction is my overly passionate distaste for people who I consider to have a disproportionately large ego relative to their actual value in playing whatever role they're playing, such as forum poster. Of course, this is a subjective evaluation. Nonetheless, this anathema against the perception of unwarranted pride drove and continues to drive many of my interactions, especially in the context of online social media.
I doubt anybody here remembers TunA the TL.net poster (as opposed to the current LD poster), but many of my posts back in the BW era were expressions of personal vendettas against particular users. I can remember two names in particular: Raithed and SiegeTanksandBlueGoo. I started campaigns to remove them from my forum experience by putting lines in my signature along the lines of "Leader of the Ban Raithed Movement" and trolling and flaming them in my own way as a response to growing more and more annoyed with how stupid and uninterestingly inflammatory their posts seemed overwhelmingly likely to be. I'm not going to attempt to justify that I was correct in my evaluation; that's not the point.
9 years ago, I wrote a blog post (linked at the top) to make fun of a particular TL.net user, Shiverfish, who had written a few blog posts, and eventually many more, with an off-puttingly pretentious tone. Not only did his OPs reek of haughtiness, his responses to comments pointing out so did as well, indicating an exceptional level of arrogance. My response post, taking the form of satire, was pretty popular and seemed to express the prevailing reaction to his posts (4.72 stars on 18 ratings, go bring it down right now), which was that his pretentious attitude was ridiculous, unnecessary, and symptomatic of delusions of grandeur. This post in particular, judging from its comments, is what triggered my response:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/89136-step-aside-youre-in-my-way
While this is the post from which I derived the title of my parody:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/89165-becoming-the-villain
Shiverfish was probably king among the personalities I disliked at the time. If you go ahead and read his blog posts, you can form your own opinions on how dislikeable he was. What I'd rather like to examine, however, is the responses to his posts:
On March 08 2009 14:55 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
I read the whole thing and I don't understand what your point is.
Is this just a way for you to brag about your above-average academic and athletic talents?
I read the whole thing and I don't understand what your point is.
Is this just a way for you to brag about your above-average academic and athletic talents?
On March 08 2009 15:09 SpiritoftheTunA wrote:
ur a douchebag mang
edit: tbh i'm kinda of similar, cept i'm not that competitive for the sake of.. being competitive... at all..
but like, i see no rason why you'd post this other than to be a douchebag
ur a douchebag mang
edit: tbh i'm kinda of similar, cept i'm not that competitive for the sake of.. being competitive... at all..
but like, i see no rason why you'd post this other than to be a douchebag
On March 09 2009 02:57 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
Jesus christ
You're not a philosopher.
Jesus christ
You're not a philosopher.
On March 09 2009 03:14 GGQ wrote:
DoctorHelvetica said it already. You aren't nearly as insightful, unique, creative, or enlightened as you seem to think you are.
You sound like you are an intelligent kid, perhaps in your mid teens, starting to think independently, and just assuming that the things you are thinking are somehow special. They really aren't. Not trying to be cruel, just honest.
And from your blog: "If you’ve read the extent of my previous blogs, I’m sure some of you have come to the conclusion that I am a veritable asshole." I don't think anybody thinks you are an asshole. You are a pretentious douchebag, there's a big difference.
DoctorHelvetica said it already. You aren't nearly as insightful, unique, creative, or enlightened as you seem to think you are.
You sound like you are an intelligent kid, perhaps in your mid teens, starting to think independently, and just assuming that the things you are thinking are somehow special. They really aren't. Not trying to be cruel, just honest.
And from your blog: "If you’ve read the extent of my previous blogs, I’m sure some of you have come to the conclusion that I am a veritable asshole." I don't think anybody thinks you are an asshole. You are a pretentious douchebag, there's a big difference.
These types of responses dominated the comments, but a few people pushed back, as KlaCkoN did here:
On March 09 2009 05:24 KlaCkoN wrote:
There is a swedish saying of sorts which goes like "Don't ever think you are anything". Swedes use it to jokingly describe their aversion for people who try to stick out.
However I don't think that I in my entire life have encountered a group of people who adhere to that saying as much as americans on team liquid =p
Seriously, way to shut down someone who is actually trying to develop his own view on the world?
If anyone here is pretentious, elitist or "wannabe adult" it's you guys.
Personally I find people who have not spent quite some time thinking about the world, their place in it, their morals etc extremely boring. And while I disagree with more or less everything in the OP I comend his effort to actually _think_.
Finally, to the guy with the obligatory get laid comment:
"An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting in life than sex"
=p
There is a swedish saying of sorts which goes like "Don't ever think you are anything". Swedes use it to jokingly describe their aversion for people who try to stick out.
However I don't think that I in my entire life have encountered a group of people who adhere to that saying as much as americans on team liquid =p
Seriously, way to shut down someone who is actually trying to develop his own view on the world?
If anyone here is pretentious, elitist or "wannabe adult" it's you guys.
Personally I find people who have not spent quite some time thinking about the world, their place in it, their morals etc extremely boring. And while I disagree with more or less everything in the OP I comend his effort to actually _think_.
Finally, to the guy with the obligatory get laid comment:
"An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting in life than sex"
=p
At this point, I think KlaCkoN was right, and most flamers, including me, were wrong. We may have been right to call Shiverfish out on being a sheltered, pretentious little kid, but we didn't have to be such assholes about it. And as he said, "Personally I find people who have not spent quite some time thinking about the world, their place in it, their morals etc extremely boring. And while I disagree with more or less everything in the OP I comend his effort to actually _think_."
He also recognized a particular neurosis of TL.net users that once again manifested when EternaLEnVy announced his intention to suspend his education in favor of pursuing competitive Dota 2 full-time. I'm not going to paste responses, but you can easily find them. He stood out as a particularly tall blade of grass, and TL.net members were exceedingly quick, almost reflexive, in telling him to decapitate the head that contained his true dreams and self.
I recently experienced the same thing when I posted a blog entry on my intention to live my life at least 30-50% high on weed and follow my creative dreams. Again, not going to post responses, but from the woodwork, people began expressing concern for my well-being and safety as if they weren't issues I had already considered. People wanted me to get a job: if I don't have marketable degree, I should just start working labor to get in the habit and start building up that work ethic and reward pathway. As if I hadn't considered that myself a thousand times over. Of course I don't blame them for not thinking I had thought it over like that, but I still found it interesting. I hold no bitterness towards the people who expressed that kind of genuine concern.
The people who I do hold bitterness towards are the people who are not only unwilling to engage in earnest with me regarding their concerns, but ones that have seem to have given up on me as a human being completely in prejudice. Even these two things would be okay by themselves, but there is a third fatal factor that brings upon them my everlasting hatred and derision: the assumption that one has license to express these feelings in a particularly negative way towards me, i.e., make fun of me. As if that simply because they think I'm mentally incompetent and a fundamentally broken human being, I don't deserve the luxury of not being made fun of. Either that, or they think I'm so pretentious that I wouldn't care what they think anyway, such that I'm a valid target in general.
I'd like to believe I am neither mentally incompetent nor overly pretentious, but assumption of either can make for a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you treat me like I'm too pretentious to care what you think, in order to psychologically shield myself from any attacks you hurl my way, I will have to consider you incompetent or otherwise too broken to judge me, if only just in terms of empathy or limitations in worldview. If you think I'm so dumb that I'm not worth any respect, I will treat you likewise. Either way though, I will no longer respect your opinions. Is this pretentious? Maybe in effect, but not in cause: the cause is the opposite of pretension, it is my default vulnerability to the opinions of everyone until they give me reason to question the value of that vulnerability.
Think about how you treat people you disagree with. Think about how you treat people who you think are stupid. Think about how you treat people who you think are incapable of taking jokes. Think about how you might treat someone respectfully even if you disagree with some aspects of their personality or life choices. Think about treating people you disrespect with respect, if only for your own sake. Consider treating people who are more different from you with more default respect rather than less. Really re-think whatever the hell it is you're smug about if you're ever smug about something.
As it stands though, I feel like EternaLEnVy and I are doing fine, and I know Shiverfish kept his personality too, judging from the fact that the pretentious blogs kept coming. Go ahead and hate us. Tell us we're trash in your own roundabout or direct way. We need training not to care about idiots like you. Just uh, on our behalves, try not to do it with more vulnerable, impressionable versions of us, should you ever come across such characters. Their lives aren't designed to be instruments to stroke your egos and make you feel better about yourself, so even if they seem to naturally lend themselves to that purpose, keep it to yourself. Thanks.
Love,
TunA
+ Show Spoiler +
P.S. Fuck Yous:
fuk u erasme u conventional-father-figure-havin well-adjusted handsome french econ major smug motherfucker think u know shit about shit just cuz u think u can handle ur EASY FUCKING LIFE u dont know shit about shit
fuk u cynic for pretty much the same reasons (diff major diff school who cares) and being even more smug about it
you two are fucking shit posters too, consistently producing literally almost nothing of interest
fuk u l3loodraven you pretentious fucking girl, thinking ur above telling me when ur brb or afk from a conversation and turning it around on me when i call you out on ur shit etiquette
fuk u andyrau for thinking me not getting some of ur shitty jokes makes u better than me and gives u license to further mock me while pretending to want to be cool w/ me
like i can take a joke sometimes
but sometimes when im talking about something i dont want fucking jokes so i wont assume jokes are jokes?!??!?
and honestly all ur jokes r shit anyway; they only elevate to decent when they involve the irony of me not getting them
fuk u sn0_man and ahswtini for similar shit
shameless bullies the lot of u
ur bad people
consider this my final earnest interaction with you subhumans
if provoking retards like me is all you have going for you then that's exactly what u deserve anyway
if it isnt then can you drop at least this one bad habit????
doubt it
special mentions to nixer and kadaverbb for apparently just fucking judging people from the sidelines and sometimes actually thinking their judgment means anything and is worth acting on or talking about despite almost no involvement in the LD community
tl;dr why is everyone so mean anyway. why's everyone gotta take sides and try to win and be right. why cant we take more effort to try to understand the weirdos in our midst rather than mock them.
prolly cuz its easy and natural?
prolly cuz we're all too busy with our lives for more sensitivity and vulnerability or something?
prolly cuz some ppl come here to blow off steam?
i know im a hypocrite about this sometimes, but hypocrisy is ad hominem
