Green Room - Week 3 - Weekend Edition

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Before I start rambling, I have the solemn duty to let you know that two of your comrades have fallen on their swords. I'm a huge fan of one of them (or at least her work from high school) and I'm was really looking forward to seeing what the other was going to be able to produce this season. Goodbye to Kari Hilwig and kshandra. Thank you both for coming out, and I hope you will consider playing the Home Game!

***

One of the things that I've always loved about the internet is that it's a great tool for helping to level the playing field. You get people with viewpoints and backgrounds that you might not encounter in your everyday life. You get folks marginalized speaking with a voice that has the potential to be as loud as anyone else.

Heck, I personally benefit from this nifty invention. I highly doubt people would be interested in a speech-recognition version of this post! On a particularly bad day, it would take me forever just to get out the words "before I start rambling"! ;) Even on a good day, once I open my mouth, people tend to dismiss what is coming out of it.

It's an interesting study of privilege from someone lucky enough to have been born with it, and see some of it slip away by the simple act of communication.

On the other hand, here on the internet fluency isn't an issue. Being a vague SOB certainly is, but at least you know the words coming off my fingertips, and embarrassing typos not withstanding, you have the basic idea of what I'm attempting to get across.

So - yay internet!

In the midst of this praise for the series of tubes that gives us so much, there is one thing that I want to say - and I figured that in the confines of somewhere where I control the vertical and the horizontal was the place to do it:

Under the levels of the things that make us who we are, the cultural and the life experiences - under the levels of race and gender, there is basic humanity and personality traits.

You can measure those through various assessments and figure out what kind of things suit you and how to use that which is "you" to the best of your abilities, focusing in on the methods that will give the most benefit.

When we celebrate - and on occasion fetishize the traits and experiences that make us unique, there is one thing that we should keep in mind, because it doesn't get said enough. No, not that we need to be reminded that we are all human beings and learn to respect each other. That gets said all the time.

No, what needs to be said is that regardless of race, gender, life experiences and anything else you can think of, regardless of what a person might be processing at any given moment, the universal truth is that some people are just assholes.

In your daily journal through this cyber world we live in, and in the imaginary thing people have taken to calling "Real Life", you are going to meet a lot of these assholes. Some of them will even agreed with us about things. It's OK. They can't be wrong all of the time! Where would be the fun in that?

***

The new topic is up: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/720983.html
The Work Room is in full swing with people dealing with figuring out this topic: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/721357.html and if you have a few minutes and want to help out a couple of your fellow contestants with other things they are working on, venture onto The Killing Floor and see what you find! http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/719625.html

***

Hope you have a good weekend!

Comments

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

Bummer losing two players. We will miss you.

OT we just had a 5.1 earthquake. Good times!

Eta: FRIST! Whee! Didn't expect that.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I saw that from the numerous posts on facebook! :)

Glad that (so far) it seems that everyone is safe. (hopefully the end count stays that way)

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Glad you're ok. And yay first! *hands you cookies*

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I am a big fan of the Internet, most of the time. So many fun things (and quite a lot of annoying ones) and lots of interesting facts, and some bogus stuff, and games and GrumpyCat, and well... it's just a nice place for a slightly-introverted person like myself to be!

Off to bed now, to let my subconscious dwell on this topic more, although at least I have a glimmer of where to run with it (and no, there won't be scissors)... :)

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Here, have a FRIST before ellakite declares you dead to him! :)

Wow, a 5.1 earthquake, eh? How shaken up were you?

[crazypuce.livejournal.com]

OT:
We also had a small earthquake here, Magnitude 4.1.
It didn't stop me from sleeping, I guess I've gotten used to it.


I think the internet is an awesome place to make friends and enemies can just be deleted. ;)

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

the universal truth is that some people are just assholes.

So true. And "feeling strongly" about something isn't a built-in excuse for behaving like an asshole. Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly have strong opinions too, and it that does not begin to make the things they say and do all right.

Not that I'm referring to a particular incident that happened on a mutual media site today or anything. ;)

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have been having lots of little shakes in the last 24 hours.

[crazypuce.livejournal.com]

It doesn't bother me much, at least my current room isn't spinning like the previous one.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Your previous room was spinning? Was it on a Merry-go-round?

[beldarzfixon.livejournal.com]

True, the Internets are full of A-holes, but the best that I can do is make sure, to the best of my ability, that I'm not one of them.

How am I doing? =)

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

I have a little swinging pineapple on a hook on my shelf. It swings with the building :-)

I sleep through if I am already asleep, but we have had three small ones today.

your room was spinning?

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

A+ in my book! :D

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

Last week's was much more terrifying. Maybe it had to do with when it struck. Then again, seeing pictures of the damage closer to the epicenter (http://www.buzzfeed.com/passantino/51-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-los-angeles-area), I'm wondering if I shouldn't have worried more.

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

Yay, cookies!

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

It wasn't too bad where I was, but we definitely felt it. My daughter talked about it for the rest of the night.

A lot of people fled the building we were in after the tremor, since swinging lights can be scary. People in Orange County got a bit more of a shake though, and it sounds like about 2000 are without power.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

Well, corners of the internet can be full of you-know-whats because of the can't-see-others and/or the anonymity factor. Unless you absolutely do not give one iota of a shred of empathy (or you have none to begin with), you're one of them UNLESS you've become famous for grandstanding on things controversial, then people EXPECT you to be a you-know-what all the time.

It's like Colbert's persona: He's supposed to be a you-know-what even though Colbert himself isn't. Colbert has made a name for himself through that persona, so it's not like the persona can suddenly change lanes and go a completely different way. There are teeming millions out there who don't get that.

Still pondering the topic. I've brainstormed and came up with an idea, but it's such a "Kizzy kind of idea" that I wish I could put my thumbs in my ears while wiggling my fingers and blowing myself a raspberry :p

[crazypuce.livejournal.com]

It was a old wooden house. More like moving from left to right then front to back and anywhere on the diagonal. It felt a bit like spinning.

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

comments. Comments on articles etc seem to bring out the worst in people. I can be happily living in a bubble, then BAM I read the comments and my faith in humanity is destroyed once again

[crazypuce.livejournal.com]

Yes, it used to shake a lot. But curiously nothing ever fell. Not even on March 11th.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

You are FRIST!!!!

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

ETA: I think passion can bring out the worst in people too. The more you care about something, the more emphatic you're going to be defending it and/or attacking someone who isn't as emphatic about it as you are. I've seen this very scenario play itself out over the years both here in Idol as well as LJ in general. Given the choice of "being what kind of a-hole", I'd rather be this type because I'd be fighting for something I personally care about vs. fighting for something just for the hell of it, you know?

And now I have to get ready for work! Catch you when I go on break/lunch!

:blows kisses:

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

Wow, earthquakes sound scary (don't get many of them in Georgia).

[elledanger.livejournal.com]

I was talking to a friend about this last night actually, and I think everyone has the potential to be not-an-arsehole (I'm British... I just can't say ass). I hate to write people off in their entirety, even though it is tempting sometimes, and it would make my life a lot easier in some ways.

For me it comes down to how much investment I have in helping the particular individual that's crossed my path be less of an arsehole.

There are of course limits and there is a cut off point of how much involvement I'll have with some folks to save my own sanity. But I'd rather confront offensive behaviour than let it go. And confrontation doesn't mean being aggressive, it just means questioning it and helping people towards finding a different answer.

Basically, not many folks are irredeemable, most just take a long while to change.

Which is very erudite for me considering I've just been woken up by one of my housemates hoovering rather loudly after going to bed at 4am.

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

Facebook and politics--can we just not? I think it's because people (at least the ones in my age group) tend to think of Facebook as their "well-adjusted" Internet personae (the ones they can add their bosses or their moms to). So they're all basically living this huge lie of a perfect life, and then they get this one socially acceptable outlet (political discussions) and let loose.

I really don't like to talk about politics to begin with (I follow them--I just don't like discussing them because people are gross about it). And it's not that people aren't weird about them here or on tumblr or all the other places I don't go or in the comments on articles, too. But I think the polarity between "usual persona" and "political discussion persona" is really, really obvious sometimes on Facebook. I've almost unfriended people over it before.

Me, I'm just kind of an asshole, period, but sometimes I try not to be. Read the reddit thread "raised by narcissists" and you will understand why it's hard. XD