memories of drama past, worries about drama future
I was on Facebook (I'm always on Facebook) and a local mom's group I was in was discussing nursing-friendly attire for a wedding guest. Suddenly I was taken back years to LJ drama of the past. It was a non-denominational (mostly Abrahamic faiths, with a few non-religious people who just preferred covering up) "modest fashion" group, and someone posted about how they were going to be a bridesmaid but didn't like the low cut of the dress and wanted ideas for dressing it up. I was the first comment, and I had just recently been reading a knitting book which contained a gorgeous pearlescent half-poncho that the pattern designer specifically mentioned having worn at a wedding, so that's what I suggested. Apparently, a poncho must have smothered the community moderator's puppy or something, because from this innocent comment major drama erupted.
I can't remember all the details (I had forgotten it entirely until just now) but basically the moderator reamed me out for suggesting using a poncho. It was the word "poncho" that set her off, and no amount of explanation on my part could get her to understand that what I was talking about was something like this:
and not like this:
I think the word "frumpy" may have been used. I was condescended to. My taste was sneered at. Fortunately I'd been around the internet enough to know that when an admin or moderator is being an irrational drama llama, there's no point in going on at all. Just run away as fast as you can and don't look back. I think I gave it two or three comments try to show her in pictures what I meant, and when she still persisted to slam me, I left the group with a little shaking of the dust from my frumpy sandals.
Remembering that also made me recall another time that I left a group in a cloud of drama. This time it was a Catholic moms group on BabyCenter. There was an account there by someone purporting to be living a life straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. I don't remember all the unlikely plot points, but the crux of the tale was the star-crossed romance between her and a priest. There was also an abusive family, a deadbeat babydaddy, a romantic ski lodge getaway, double crossing sisters, and lots of creepy fate stuff... plus the whole writing style was like an epistolary novel. A bad epistolary novel.
After mostly ignoring this poster for a long time, the aforementioned ski lodge getaway thread kind of goaded me into saying something. I tried to delicately hint that I thought this whole thing sounded 1. faker than a night market Gucci bag and 2. extremely weird regardless. I didn't even say it directly. It may have been as mild as "this seems a bit fishy..." but whatever it was, I got absolutely flamed for being judgmental. There weren't any mods involved in slamming me (and I seem to recall a mod PMing me that she thought the situation odd herself), but I ended up deciding that a place that repeatedly engaged this kind of troll would inevitably attract more of them, so I had better cut out while I could.
Anyway, after reminiscing on this crazy for a moment, I got uneasy. I'm slowly but surely networking and making friends, and a major source of networking/friendship has been this Facebook local moms group. But internet groups of all kinds are so easily prone to this kind of drama. One of my recurring nightmares is my baby liking or sharing something horrible on Facebook, people seeing it without knowing that it was the result of an innocent baby poke at a smartphone, and defriending/blocking me without me ever getting a chance to defend myself. #firstworldproblems I know, but the first world is the world I live in.
I can't remember all the details (I had forgotten it entirely until just now) but basically the moderator reamed me out for suggesting using a poncho. It was the word "poncho" that set her off, and no amount of explanation on my part could get her to understand that what I was talking about was something like this:
and not like this:
I think the word "frumpy" may have been used. I was condescended to. My taste was sneered at. Fortunately I'd been around the internet enough to know that when an admin or moderator is being an irrational drama llama, there's no point in going on at all. Just run away as fast as you can and don't look back. I think I gave it two or three comments try to show her in pictures what I meant, and when she still persisted to slam me, I left the group with a little shaking of the dust from my frumpy sandals.
Remembering that also made me recall another time that I left a group in a cloud of drama. This time it was a Catholic moms group on BabyCenter. There was an account there by someone purporting to be living a life straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. I don't remember all the unlikely plot points, but the crux of the tale was the star-crossed romance between her and a priest. There was also an abusive family, a deadbeat babydaddy, a romantic ski lodge getaway, double crossing sisters, and lots of creepy fate stuff... plus the whole writing style was like an epistolary novel. A bad epistolary novel.
After mostly ignoring this poster for a long time, the aforementioned ski lodge getaway thread kind of goaded me into saying something. I tried to delicately hint that I thought this whole thing sounded 1. faker than a night market Gucci bag and 2. extremely weird regardless. I didn't even say it directly. It may have been as mild as "this seems a bit fishy..." but whatever it was, I got absolutely flamed for being judgmental. There weren't any mods involved in slamming me (and I seem to recall a mod PMing me that she thought the situation odd herself), but I ended up deciding that a place that repeatedly engaged this kind of troll would inevitably attract more of them, so I had better cut out while I could.
Anyway, after reminiscing on this crazy for a moment, I got uneasy. I'm slowly but surely networking and making friends, and a major source of networking/friendship has been this Facebook local moms group. But internet groups of all kinds are so easily prone to this kind of drama. One of my recurring nightmares is my baby liking or sharing something horrible on Facebook, people seeing it without knowing that it was the result of an innocent baby poke at a smartphone, and defriending/blocking me without me ever getting a chance to defend myself. #firstworldproblems I know, but the first world is the world I live in.