Green Room - Week 27 - Day 12

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Maybe the last time you voted things didn't turn out exactly how you wanted - but now is the chance to get it right!

http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/803824.html

Consider it an extension of the "Love Threads", but instead of comments - if you love what they are writing, and want to see more of it, give them votes! :)

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I've been seeing more and more online clashes along gender and racial lines. Is it actually getting "more heated" or am I just hanging out in the wrong places? Should I be playing more Farmville? (or whatever game is popular now)

***

BTW - Happy Veterans Day to those who have served!

Comments

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I don't do Farmville any more, I'm more stuck on Castleville and Castle Story now. :)

Also - FIRST!

[tonithegreat.livejournal.com]

If you pay attention to all the ads, I think Bubble WItch Saga is where it's at. Not being any kind of computer gamer, I couldn't tell you. The facespace seems to have improved things so I don't have to block so many game requests individually anymore, so I feel even more out of it.

Although, there is the online/ap version of Carcassonne. That could be a pretty happy time waster if you were looking for one. . .

But I like it when you bring the drama back to us in daily bite-sized chunks.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

If you are so inclined - go to the Ramshackle Glory FB over the past couple of days and have yourself a good "I'm glad that's not me" chuckle.

Highlights: Band posts article (written by a member of the band) about diversity in punk with an unfortunate title
People take it to mean there are "too many white people" involved, get riled up
Band: F-you (and say they are just going to close down comments altogether)
Followed by loud explosions in pockets of their fandom over "the freedom of expression"

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

I was talking about the big clashes I've been aware of lately online with a sweetie last night - my theory is that these are the last dying gasps of cultural holdouts who are feeling threatened. You get a lot of pushback against change when it gets real. And then a few years later, it's the new norm.

At least.... I really really hope that's what it is. :/

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I was actually just saying that.

Of course, then it occurred to me that it may have to do with the perceptions of *other groups* that I've been a part of, and that it might not be dying at all.

(and then of course someone will connect something - IMO - ridiculous to the subject and I'll be riled back up again. :D)

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

I apologize to the people on the first love thread post who I never gave any love to. I started from the last one and worked my way back. I promise it's not that I love you any less. XD

[dmousey.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah, excuses excuses. ;0) no worries kiddo. We love ya anyway. :)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

You should be playing Words With Friends! :-)

But yes, online discourse is getting more polarized.

Which is odd to me because one of the reasons I first started getting involved in online discourse was to have the opportunity for civil conversations with people whose points of view are radically different from my own.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the reason that I got involved with it, but it was definitely something that kept me interested over the years.

It's a balance that I've tried very hard to maintain here in Idol. (Some days I've been better at it than others)

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

You should be writing and posting. The internet will suck out your brains unless you reverse the suction.

Or do what I did this past weekend - secretly escape to the ocean and spend hours searching for sand dollars.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I'm sure if I secretly escaped to the ocean that my boss would notice. ;)

[ryl.livejournal.com]

Did you find any? I've never found a whole sand dollar. It's my Seashell Holy Grail.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

There are tiny white flakes falling from the sky. I really want to be happy about this - I love snow! Nature's glitter! - but damn, Wisconsin. Too soon. Too soon. Give me at least another week, ok?

~bundles up to go to the grocery store, grumpily~

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

I was talking to my parents on Sunday who said the weather predictions for today by them ranged from 6-24" of snow. It is way to early for snow to possibly be measured in feet.

Stay warm!

[ryl.livejournal.com]

It snowed two weeks ago in the NC mountains. Too soon, winter, too soon.

[adoptedwriter.livejournal.com]

I was wearing a pink shirt and switched because I thought it clashed. That's all the drama I have going on here. I play Words With Friends!
AW

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

I think some of it is a difference in who has access to the Internet. 20 years ago when I first "got online" it seems like there was a much higher barrier to entry - most people using the Internet worked in certain professional fields or were college students. That probably kept a lot of what Captain Awkward calls "the cranky old man Internet" away, but at the same time it also underrepresented a lot of other groups.

Even then though there were a fair share of controversial and polarizing things - I remember spending a lot of time on a Usenet group that many people were strongly convinced should not exist. (Yes, I was an a.s.h.-er - surprised?) I was also aware of the original "A Rape in Cyberspace" article (http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle_vv.html) and all of the things that people had to say about that. So I don't think any of this is "new" precisely, just that it's becoming harder to ignore?

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I had to look up a.s.h.!

I vaguely remember hearing about it, as something that existed, but I was so far from the Usenet that I don't think that it registered as something that I had formed an opinion about.

I think you are on to something - that this has just been building up, in general, for quite some time. I'm not sure we've reached that "explosion" point either. Not sure what that is going to look like.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

Nowadays whenever I run across someone "outraged" online and/or purposely posts a trigger warning because IT'S OBVIOUS I HAVE ISSUES AND I HAVE TO ESPOUSE UPON IT I just figuratively walk away. I've got enough of my own issues. I simply don't have the stamina to keep with all that anymore. It's almost like people force themselves to outraged about X because if they don't OMG THE WORLD WILL END.

Of course my wrist is probably having a lot to do with this. I've found that I now have to do tasks piecemeal and it's driving up the frickin' wall because everything is taking twice or three times as long as it should. Plus the splint is irritating the crap out of me.

Oh, and we have a new-to-us member of the family! His name is Oakley. He's a husky like Max, but stubbier and has those what I call "snowglobe" eyes which makes him look like he's perpetually high. Photo forthcoming when I upload to Photobucket ;)

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

" It's almost like people force themselves to outraged about X because if they don't OMG THE WORLD WILL END."

What if they were outraged about the actual END OF THE WORLD? ;)

Missing an organ? Me too.

[favoritebean.livejournal.com]

Hi GR! How is everyone?

After being very ill for a little over a week, I checked into a hospital Sunday. At first, we thought I was suffering from appendicitis, but it turned out that I had a bunch of stones leaking out of my gall bladder, disrupting my pancreas and liver. So in between the morphine and nausea, they punished that nasty organ Gary style. Around 3:30 yesterday, I had the offensive stone machine removed.

I am gall bladder free! Still not quite pain free though, but we are working on it.

My question- is it too late to turn in the Luna home game entry? I have a piece I would like to finish writing after I'm discharged from the hospital, but it is at home.


I am also behind on adding love thread comments, but I will try to catch up. In the mean time, here is some love from me. HUGS!

ETA:the only games I have been playing lately are Frozen Jewel quest, and Torchlight II. The latter is a lot of fun.


Also, my kitten had his shoulder amputated Friday. He is recovering well, and is a very cute tripod.

Re: Missing an organ? Me too.

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

All the cool people don't have an organ or two, I myself am missing a thyroid.

Glad to hear that you're okay and on the mend, hospitals and surgery are never the most fun times.

HUGS right back at you.

PS. I would say finish the Luna entry and post it in whatever green room is up when that happens, I don't know that many people are going back to check that thread.

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

I think it's also a little bit about where you hang out, most of this stuff seems to happen on Facebook so I remain blissfully ignorant. Of course, it also means that while I have heard of the various games folks are referencing in this thread I've never played any of them.

Yesterday my boss said she was going to talk me through some new stuff to do (yay for new stuff). Then she had a thing that had to get done before EOD so new stuff would happen this morning. Now there are more things due ASAP so new stuff might be this afternoon. I would like to have new stuff to do, but this seems to be a regular pattern. Oh well, more time to start reading entries I suppose!

[reckless-blues.livejournal.com]

I think it's a positive thing. It's now a normal part of youth culture to discuss the treatment that you or other people receive as a marginalized person and the way that you feel about it, and because of the nature of the internet you can easily reach the right audience, and although people might fight with you, you know you'll be backed up by people in your same position or allies. Nowadays people genuinely want to listen to your pain and become educated on how not to hurt you.

It has a lot of unpleasant aspects - for example, young hormonal people just love to get angry about stuff. There's this attitude that if you or a famous person don't toe the line exactly you're irredeemable and evil trash. You have people getting continuing hatred, harassment, and death threats because they screwed up and said something ableist once, or whatever, even if they became educated about it and apologized, and that's NOT HOW THE TONE ARGUMENT WORKS, THANKS.

Also, that American teenagers think that all problems everywhere are exactly like America's problems. In America, for instance, ethnic tension is almost all racial, white people vs. everyone else. But in Europe plenty of white people have been oppressed for their ethnicity. (see: the Russification of Finland around WWI, and that's only one example.) There was a gifset going around mocking the white guy in Bend It Like Beckham for saying to the desi girl, "Of course I know what that's like! I'm Irish!"

Fortunately a woman from Northern Island who was old enough to remember what it was like for her in the early 00s shut that one down right quick.

(also I can't remember if I actually saw that movie back when I was like 12 or if it was just that everyone around me wouldn't shut up about it and I acquired it through cultural osmosis)

But the important thing to remember is that these problems and this pain and anger and frustration has always been there. Now it's just that people can talk about it.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I wish that this post was a little further up, so that more people could see it. Maybe I'll mention it in a couple days and link back, because I think your response was that good.

Ultimately, I think you are right - it's a good thing.

From a "making a joke" standpoint though - do we *really* need to give teenagers more of a sense of entitlement and things to complain about? ;)

[fodschwazzle.livejournal.com]

"And when you gaze long into the abyss of internet people's comments the abyss of internet people's comments also gazes into you."

I think Nietzsche said that.

[dmousey.livejournal.com]

I just want to tell people ... quickly... there's no time!... my server is out to to get ...(gasp)... me... am read..ing..bu..may..not.able..com..nt.... arghhhhhh