The truth may be a lie...
So, a while ago, a friend of mine got bad mouthed on an anonymous community on LiveJournal. It hurt her feelings, of course, and she made a post about it in her private LJ. Before that moment, I had no idea there were such things as anonymous communities, but apparently they are very common in all fandoms. (Who knew? Maybe I'm the only one who had no idea.)
So I learned something new, right?
The funny thing is, when I read the remarks, most of them were untrue, or at least skewed by obvious venom, whether the anonymous posters had actual knowledge of my friend or if they were just stirring the shit, as it were. Bottomline? The comments were totally ridiculous. I get that much of fandom is based on preference but it was obvious that the commenters enjoyed saying the meanest things they could and didn't even try to find one positive attribute.
I gave my friend a bit of an "atta girl" pep talk and told her how cool I thought she was and moved on. I didn't think about it again for a couple weeks.
Then I found out that another friend of mine actually went to the anonymous community fairly regularly, and it made me curious. I started lurking there I suppose to see if I could find her amongst the blather.
It's sort of like a carwreck. You want to look away, because it's just terrible, but then it's sort of fascinating also. I still have a hard time understanding why people are so full of meanness. (Not that everything that's posted there is mean stuff about other people in the fandom, but those threads pop up often enough that you can tell people get off by talking smack about other people.)
Depending on your personality type, I suppose, too, there are certain things you just can't wrap your mind around. I tend to be straightforward and polite, but I'm also full of enthusiasm within fandom, so finding other people who like the same things I do makes me happy. I make friends relatively easy in this format, and I've been trolling LJ for over four years now. I love it. But I don't like wank. I avoid it. The only times I've wrangled with anything is when I've been blatantly attacked (for writing certain ships people didn't approve of) or when a friend of mine was attacked in the same way for the same reason. I would never post anonymously on someone's journal, and even with reading the anonymous posts, I couldn't see myself logging off LJ to be able to say something among a bunch of other anonymous posters -- in short, I am generally proud of whatever opinion I have about something and would rather discuss it openly.
(And certainly if I were to say something of a corrective nature like, yo, guys, why can't you just be nice? that would never fly.)
So reading the anonymous posts was one of those things that every time I did it, I would wonder: why am I doing this?
Then my friend, the one first one I mentioned? She got defamed again. I read it and just shook my head, and thought to myself yet again: WHY AM I READING THIS SHIT?
But then like an addict, I went back the next day. And the next day? Well, it was finally my turn. They were talking about me, and I told myself before I clicked on the thread to be prepared for not nice things. Obviously, that's the nature of the anons--the meaner the better, really. And honestly, I can handle people not liking me, or thinking I'm stupid, or whatever--they don't really know me, they just have a perception of me, and whatever. I'm sure my perception of others is sometimes skewed. What I didn't expect was out and out lies. There were a couple of things posted that said I did things that I absolutely did not do. Not only was it something I would never do, like ever, I certainly haven't done it within the time frame they had claimed I did it.
So.
That's where the carwreck ended. I "unwatched" the community and I'm not going back. I realized just what the anonymous gift is to those that want to stir the pot: it's a complete unregulated ability to make up whatever they want and have no responsibility about it. It's like the National Enquirer, but you know, personal (only not because it's all ANONYMOUS).
It's like poison, in a bottle labeled POISON, and I was taking a swig from it, almost every day.
Because why? Yeah, I have no idea either.
So I learned something new, right?
The funny thing is, when I read the remarks, most of them were untrue, or at least skewed by obvious venom, whether the anonymous posters had actual knowledge of my friend or if they were just stirring the shit, as it were. Bottomline? The comments were totally ridiculous. I get that much of fandom is based on preference but it was obvious that the commenters enjoyed saying the meanest things they could and didn't even try to find one positive attribute.
I gave my friend a bit of an "atta girl" pep talk and told her how cool I thought she was and moved on. I didn't think about it again for a couple weeks.
Then I found out that another friend of mine actually went to the anonymous community fairly regularly, and it made me curious. I started lurking there I suppose to see if I could find her amongst the blather.
It's sort of like a carwreck. You want to look away, because it's just terrible, but then it's sort of fascinating also. I still have a hard time understanding why people are so full of meanness. (Not that everything that's posted there is mean stuff about other people in the fandom, but those threads pop up often enough that you can tell people get off by talking smack about other people.)
Depending on your personality type, I suppose, too, there are certain things you just can't wrap your mind around. I tend to be straightforward and polite, but I'm also full of enthusiasm within fandom, so finding other people who like the same things I do makes me happy. I make friends relatively easy in this format, and I've been trolling LJ for over four years now. I love it. But I don't like wank. I avoid it. The only times I've wrangled with anything is when I've been blatantly attacked (for writing certain ships people didn't approve of) or when a friend of mine was attacked in the same way for the same reason. I would never post anonymously on someone's journal, and even with reading the anonymous posts, I couldn't see myself logging off LJ to be able to say something among a bunch of other anonymous posters -- in short, I am generally proud of whatever opinion I have about something and would rather discuss it openly.
(And certainly if I were to say something of a corrective nature like, yo, guys, why can't you just be nice? that would never fly.)
So reading the anonymous posts was one of those things that every time I did it, I would wonder: why am I doing this?
Then my friend, the one first one I mentioned? She got defamed again. I read it and just shook my head, and thought to myself yet again: WHY AM I READING THIS SHIT?
But then like an addict, I went back the next day. And the next day? Well, it was finally my turn. They were talking about me, and I told myself before I clicked on the thread to be prepared for not nice things. Obviously, that's the nature of the anons--the meaner the better, really. And honestly, I can handle people not liking me, or thinking I'm stupid, or whatever--they don't really know me, they just have a perception of me, and whatever. I'm sure my perception of others is sometimes skewed. What I didn't expect was out and out lies. There were a couple of things posted that said I did things that I absolutely did not do. Not only was it something I would never do, like ever, I certainly haven't done it within the time frame they had claimed I did it.
So.
That's where the carwreck ended. I "unwatched" the community and I'm not going back. I realized just what the anonymous gift is to those that want to stir the pot: it's a complete unregulated ability to make up whatever they want and have no responsibility about it. It's like the National Enquirer, but you know, personal (only not because it's all ANONYMOUS).
It's like poison, in a bottle labeled POISON, and I was taking a swig from it, almost every day.
Because why? Yeah, I have no idea either.