I am very tired and depressed
There was a time when I was unthinkingly loyal to anything my "friends", as seen as the group of people I hang out with online, thought. I don't mean I didn't weigh the issues, but there was an awful lot of bias in how I did it.
That was most often happening during flamewars and various internet surges of outrage.
At some point that changed. No, I know when that changed: during RaceFail, when I realized that just because my friends held some things passionately, and where waving very enthusiastically the Flag of the Righteous, they were not automatically right.
I think it was the "with us or against us" attitude that did it. As long as I could choose sides, I would choose sides out of loyalty. But when choosing sides was a dealbreaker, then I couldn't do it any more.
I used the word "friends" in a very wide sense, of course, because a lot of them where people I liked, agreed with, laughed with, but with whom I did not have a real personal connection.
But then even now I don't have a real personal connection with a lot of people. And when I have, I realize that it's generally more strong on my side than in theirs.
Anyway... lately I have been particularly tired and depressed of the style of debate among my "friends". For example, somebody I know just tweeted a link to somebody she disagreed with by prefacing it with "X is auditioning for the position of douchebag of the day".
Of course Twitter is not necessarily a good debating tool, but the problem goes deeper. A lot of arguments are substituted with the message "if you want to be One Of Our People you must espouse this position."
There is something nasty and cruel and destructive in how these things work, and I am trying to think I took part in the past, without realizing it, to some pile-up that, now, would make me shudder.
The depressing thing is that I see a wave of "you are not one of Our People" experiences coming my way. I had plenty of those in Italian fandom, one of the reasons I left Italy. For a long time my most terrifying terror was that the same might happen in my new home, the international fandom.
It's never happened to the same degree, but there have been hints. I think it would kill me: in a very real sense, a shift in favour as the one that happened in Italian fandom where I went from being Miss Popular to universally reviled would demolish any self-esteem I have and drive me right back into plans involving exhaust tubes and garden hoses.
I feel very lonely and sad.
That was most often happening during flamewars and various internet surges of outrage.
At some point that changed. No, I know when that changed: during RaceFail, when I realized that just because my friends held some things passionately, and where waving very enthusiastically the Flag of the Righteous, they were not automatically right.
I think it was the "with us or against us" attitude that did it. As long as I could choose sides, I would choose sides out of loyalty. But when choosing sides was a dealbreaker, then I couldn't do it any more.
I used the word "friends" in a very wide sense, of course, because a lot of them where people I liked, agreed with, laughed with, but with whom I did not have a real personal connection.
But then even now I don't have a real personal connection with a lot of people. And when I have, I realize that it's generally more strong on my side than in theirs.
Anyway... lately I have been particularly tired and depressed of the style of debate among my "friends". For example, somebody I know just tweeted a link to somebody she disagreed with by prefacing it with "X is auditioning for the position of douchebag of the day".
Of course Twitter is not necessarily a good debating tool, but the problem goes deeper. A lot of arguments are substituted with the message "if you want to be One Of Our People you must espouse this position."
There is something nasty and cruel and destructive in how these things work, and I am trying to think I took part in the past, without realizing it, to some pile-up that, now, would make me shudder.
The depressing thing is that I see a wave of "you are not one of Our People" experiences coming my way. I had plenty of those in Italian fandom, one of the reasons I left Italy. For a long time my most terrifying terror was that the same might happen in my new home, the international fandom.
It's never happened to the same degree, but there have been hints. I think it would kill me: in a very real sense, a shift in favour as the one that happened in Italian fandom where I went from being Miss Popular to universally reviled would demolish any self-esteem I have and drive me right back into plans involving exhaust tubes and garden hoses.
I feel very lonely and sad.