Andare, Partire, Tornare ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet boards and flaming wars I almost hate to put up a new entry because I love the photos of studly Faramir and Boromir cozying up with little pseudo-colonial clothespin dolls with Sharpie-colored hair and insincere smiles. So if you don't know what I mean by this, go back an entry and have a gawk. It's fascinating to see how people's personalities get revealed and to a certain extent altered over the medium of the Internet. I'm watching my husband play out a part in a flame war on a local music board, and wincing as I see him fall into traps that newbies usually fall into. (He's not new to the Internet, but is new to boards and other direct personal interaction with people.) He let himself get angry at a snide and quite unfair comment, and responded with vitriol and a few misplaced swipes that didn't make him come off looking very good, despite the fact that he's mostly in the right in the discussion. (As so many things do, it all began over somebody making vast sweeping assumptions about personal politics simply because of a minor humorous aside that had been made. Tempest in a teacup rapidly turning into an all out, asbestos-laden flame war.) I'm staying out of it, partly because of the fact that this board is local, so all the people on it interact with each other face to face quite frequently. My jumping in won't help anything and would definitely hurt a lot of things, so I'm keeping my nose clean. However, I can tell that his anger is covering up a great deal of hurt - what was said to him was basically that he was an old man who had no buisness even attempting to play music when his audience would be 'half his age' - and so I'm just sort of making myself a little more present around him to reassure him that despite this 20 year old snot's statement, I still believe in him and his dream about making a viable music career. Bemo's argumentative style isn't the best because he gets worked up and starts making sweeping statements that he knows he can't defend, but tries to anyway, and he also tends to eschew politeness when he thinks somebody's deliberately missing the point. This is a huge difference between the two of us, especially since I prefer "a bland and deadly courtesy" because outright yelling at people is so rarely productive. Of course, this is frequently a coward's way out because I don't have to confront anybody directly and can always look like the good, meek little person being put-upon. Hmm. I realized that a lot of this was just written in a tone of voice that reads pretty condescendingly towards Bemo, despite the fact that that wasn't my purpose or my attitude. I'm going to leave it up because it's mostly accurate, and writing it helped me think about some other things a little more clearly. Watched Y Tu Mama Tambien last night, and remembered again that when a foreign movie is described as 'erotic,' it means that you get full frontal everything, and some very frank and graphic sexual discussion and sex scenes. It's an interesting movie - a Mexican version of the American journey to adulthood being played out on the highways of the country you live in. It's also got a lot of subtleties tucked in under and around the major plotline. Plus, it's an excellent look at a culture that's both very similar and very different from the stereotypical American one. I recomend it, but only to those who aren't bothered by lots of naughty bits being bumped. 11:23 a.m. - 2003-04-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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