A minority opinion expressed directly and without personal attacks becomes "hectoring", and thus through the magic of synonyms "bullying". But I never intended it so, and yet you managed to feel hectored by it despite my posts explicitly excluding directions for behavior or anything much more than descriptions that, at worst, could be described as terse and pedantic. But something was threatened or insulted or triggered or irritated or stirred or something by their existence, and here we are. I did intend to offer a somewhat clinical assessment of the choices I think people made because I think seeing them from that angle tends to lead to reassessment even if we don't agree on the desired end state; as you know, just talking about a thing in clear terms makes it a different thing. Is that inherently hectoring because it's not softpedaled? Like I said, I don't have a clear opinion on the right and wrong of what happened with Gus or I would have said something at the time. I just want to be clear on what this is and what this isn't, from my perspective. That was my point. What you do know is what he did about it, and what you can plainly see is the community reaction to it, which is the previously mentioned mixture of vaguely articulated guilt and scorn with a frisson of passive-aggression that characterizes this thread (cue the genius who always says identifying passive-aggression is itself passive-aggressive). Why that should prompt extended apologia of behaviors that would plainly be recognized as a hazing ritual by any anthropologist observing this group's own best-light descriptions of the behaviors is not hard to realize: because hazing builds a bridge to bullying, which is something only bad people do in the Bioware alignment system that is the media narratives of these things. My point is that good, bad, it doesn't actually matter. I just want to be clear on what actually seems to have happened. Well, I don't really agree. He made his dislike of teasing abundantly clear, for one thing, and in the other, someone's feelings are only part of the equation depending on what you mean by OK. Well, that's where we differ. Hurting people's feelings is something I try to do less of than I once did, but it really depends on the situation, isn't much of a measure of wrongness, and frankly is sometimes really hard to avoid in the heat of the moment when adults speak directly. I certainly don't think the hazing bars here at BF are unreasonable on average, but I also think they have to be clearly identified when they have a strong effect, and then people talk about it as if it's just a bunch of separate things with no coherent effect on the recipient. As a corollary, I also think it's important to identify when it fails to have any discernible effect despite extensive, thread-destroying effort, as has happened numerous times with toxic posters. I don't really know what more I can say about this before it becomes even farther removed from my original, relatively simple post.
I've disliked Gus since Qt3 and I'm glad he's gone. It's nice to have a thread in which to talk about this. Someone should make a thread about the rest of you jerks.
If you think I was accusing you of bullying, we have radically differing definitions of that term. No, by "hectoring," I meant "judgmental lecturing." To wit: Emphasis mine. Your initial post was fine, and you made a lot of good points throughout, but you also delivered some judgmental lecturing from where I sit. Underlying events aside, you adopted the position that this thread was not in good faith and hammered it home. This isn't anything to be at war over, and I'm certainly not at war with you. Just wanted to make my usage clear.
My definition suits as far as I'm concerned, but I apologize if you thought I was accusing you of bullying per se. Bullying requires a victim, and I don't see any here. I'm not going to pretend I understand precisely what you intend with your snark at the end of your last post, but I'm not of a mind to play word games with you. Gus is gone and that's that.
The whole "humorless lesbian" thing is a real Catch-22, as is "hysterical," because if I object to either, I just prove that I AM those things. So I really have no choice but to laugh it off and prove 'em wrong. I never minded having those labels thrown at me in jest, but when they were applied to me fer serious I felt they were unfair and inaccurate. But this thread isn't about me, SO DANCE, LESBIAN CLOWN, DANCE! :) ~~~~~~~~ >. .<
Funny post, but you're conflating an actual asshole who made a big stink about leaving and AFAICT is not missed, with a cool guy who made worthwhile contributions that most people have said would like him to come back now but we had to act like stupid patronizing harassing bullies just to find out that we'd pissed him off.
I'm not. But please, be pedantic at me some more Monsewer. And uh, I liked Gus as much as anyone, but I don't think anyone really stepped over a line. Sometimes shit gets old, or sometimes people just do a cost/benefit analysis on time invested in itranets arguing and realize - "Hey, I could be doing yoga, or learning French." and they fuck off. It doesn't have to be anyone's fault.
Wait a minute. Are you people talking about an actual human named Gus? And all along I though this was a thread about the polar bear. Because . . . really. Who wouldn't love him??
While that may be true in society at large, I would like to think that this wouldn't be the case on BF. Then again, I like to think the best of people.
Wait, we can just make up our own definitions for words now? Awesome. Lizard_King: You're a quim, and when I say that I mean you're judgmental lecturer.
Please stop sending me messages. I got a Steam message today, from whom I don't know, since his Steam handle doesn't match any Broken Forum handle. I don't like being reminded of my time here. I'm trying to move on. I didn't particularly like leaving behind people whom I consider friends, like RyanMM, Tyjenks or Bryce, but it was an even bet on any given day whether I'd read something that was nasty directed at me personally. You don't keep eating cheesecake with the occasional rat turd just because the cheesecake is really tasty. This thread is kind of a case in point. On the one hand I appreciate people like Lizard_King, BaconTastesGood, and Bahimiron defending me - something that wasn't happening when I was actually here being harassed - but on the other hand some of the rhetoric, mischaracterizations, and outright lies from others in the thread just makes me angry all over again. I could pick some of those apart with links to the posts in question, but it's not like the people in question are going to change. It went far beyond a little give-and-take, I turned into a board meme, and I was treated like a Brett or Vetarnias. I had no intention of posting anything about this - again, what's the point? - but 1) people continue to ask me when I'm coming back and 2) I'm venting a bit because I read this thread.
I'm sorry, Gus. I didn't mean to be a part of what made you feel like that, but I probably was, too. I hope you have/find another place to hang out and shoot the breeze that'll make you feel more welcome.
I don't know if you'll ever see this - probably not, all things considered - but I'm sorry to hear being on the community turned so ugly for you, Gus. I remember your posts on a wide variety of subjects over the years, and I'm sad that we won't have you around here in the future. I'm sad that things apparently went so bad and left such a bad taste. I didn't see the whole mess that led to your departure, but I can't imagine that any of the people who joked or teased would have ever wanted to actually drive you away or make you quit the community. I hope there's some kind of chance that you'll reconsider, if only for the purely selfish reasons that I'll miss your posts - but I understand that if it was making you miserable, it's not worth sticking around. I guess what I'm saying is that if you don't come back, and our paths don't cross in the future, I hope things are better for you at whatever community you end up at in the future.
I find it interesting that people have continued to use what I'll call Gus-tags even after he showed up and was like, "That shit right there? That's stupid and mean and it's why I left". Seriously, do we need to get Lum to wordfilter Gus to tapir or something?
I think the rationale is "Well, it'd be dickish if I did it if he was still here, but since he's gone IT'S TOTALLY FUNNY RIGHT GUYS?"
I have no idea what the fuck you people are all yammering about, but the evidence within this thread leads me to believe it's hugely uninteresting. Also you all smell bad. Like, asparagus piss bad.
But not like asparagus and coffee piss bad? Am I the only one that gets coffee piss? I never see anyone talk about it like asparagus piss.
On the other hand, when you've been a member of a community for years* and you know that the community occasionally involves ribbing each other, you might think that asking people to tone it down a notch before bailing would be the thing to do. A number of people on OtherForum and now BF have had silly goofs follow them for months or years but eventually we all just cool down and move on to our next in-meme because that's what communities do. It's actually trivial to think of examples of people here who have had this happen. And those who get goofed on either ignore it, ask people to stop, leave with a brief note, leave in a blaze of glory, or leave quietly. In my opinion, when you've been around a community for awhile, the latter two options aren't cool man so a little further ribbing is hardly out of line. I consider Gus a cool guy even though we headbutted a couple times (if memory serves, over technical issues/honest differences and not much name calling/internet pedantry) with solid contributions and I'm sorry he left and he has every right to do so. But he hasn't become some sacred cow as a result. And to be honest he dialed up the martyr to 11 by comparing his treatment to brettmcd and Vetarnius whose in-memes are rather more negative; the latter being in fact such a grotesque troll that Lum straight bagged that shit. But if we're going to dig in to what is the appropriate level of carrying on community in-memes, there are a couple BFers who were never even on OtherForum that have jumped wholeheartedly into the Tom bashing. Appropriate? Sacred cow? Socially acceptable? Over the line? Not for me to say; but maybe something to think about. (I'm assuming this was at least in part directed towards me due to this post. Also I'm riding an emotional and physical roller coaster right now so please don't take this post super-negatively.) *Gus joined QT3 in August 2009
You have it assbackwards. I don't think Gus or anyone else owes you* an explanation for leaving, especially if one think things have taken a distatseful turn. And someone who feels the way Gus apparenty does have no obligation to respond in a way you* decide upon in response to your ribbing. *Not you in the specific sense.
