Over at Wife Aggro, PVTHudson, asks: Why be nice anymore? Apparently, I am not nice, which may be a good thing according to PVTHudson, who seems to have grown bitter on the idea of playing nice.
Bloggers are guilty of being human. It is better to be nice, because no one likes to get noticed for being the Negative Nancy in the room. There is an argument to be had about the Internet and the effect anonymity has on a person, but in my decade of travel across the vast online sea, I've found most people to act fairly normal. Even as much as I'd like to argue that I'm a pretty nice guy in real life, and I am, I can't deny the fact that I have a whiny and combative edge.
The real effect of the Internet: amplification. I am inherently more whiny and combative on the Internet. I wish I could fully-explain why it occurs, but I can't. I observe it in almost every blogger I know personally, whether it is politics, gaming, or knitting (yes, with needles and yarn).
I know part of it comes from passion and the fact that most blogs get started out of a person's passion for something. Bloggers inevitably break down and say "Here it is world! Here is the fire that lights my world!". That opens the door for criticism and most people do not want to deal with criticism.
This blogging thing they started was suppose to be about them and their passion, how dare criticism become involved. How dare what they say matter. How dare that someone else on the Internet has an opinion. Honestly, how many bloggers have woken up to find some massively rude comment on their blog? I know I've had my fair share of wake up comments on this blog.
So, we end up with a lot of bloggers that talk in hushed tones and rarely have an opinion differing from the mainstream. I like to call it the "I agree too" problem. How many multi-blog posts have occurred where hundreds of comments and dozens of posts are written basically agreeing with the one before them. Everyone gets together at the end and pulls out some grand conclusion that the rest of us better live by, or else!
Lastly, it is wrong to go against the grain, because it puts a label on a person. For example: Heartless_ is an angry gamer. See what happened there? In reality though, it isn't going against the grain. It is following the grain, but differentiating one's self from the noise.
More to come...
Hey I got called a whiny little bitch after a wow post I made one time, so I think any post complaining about a game may come across that way. Oh well!
ReplyDeleteBut why is it considered 'human' or 'politically correct' to be nice all the time and try to be nice to everyone? No one is, and I for one appreciate people for their honesty -good or bad- more that the ass kissing everyone is catering nowadays.
ReplyDeleteIn the sea of 'everyone is nice, pink and fluffy' every opinion start to look the same, and there really is no personality anymore.
As to the criticism and taking it: if you put your self into the fire, get ready to get burned. You cannot please everyone, even if you try to go along the public opinion, so you will receive critics. But if you are true to yourself and honest, you stand fast and steady and minor critics (or even heated flames) cannot touch you.
Besides, if some jerk in the virtual world can hurt the real you... get a life, buster!
Copra
I wrote a piece about guitar hero a while back. And after writing it i got a couple of life threating emails. It made me bust at the seams laughing, what are they going to do, crack the system and come to my house. All in all, i usually use the words they say in another blog on related topics. Helps on those days were material for a topic just isnt there.
ReplyDeleteYou have to take criticism with a grain of salt, look who it is coming from. Be it on the halo or wow forum, you will always run into a troll or two. Sometimes its good to just walk away, but im the type to get a kind of amusement by using my witty retorts from time to time. You cant always be mr peachy sunshine with lemons all the time, Be mean, BE agressive. It only helps collect a bigger fanbase. Look at don and stern.
Take it easy heartless i look foward to more things to come.
- Gurkehk
p.s: if they ever bombard you again with insults and banter, just refer to them all them as nappy headed hoe's. Just putting it out there :P
There is a difference between being angry and being hateful. I know I have crossed into hateful a couple times, but I try hard to draw that line.
ReplyDeleteYour examples of Don and Stern are horrible for this conversation, as they are Shock Jocks simply trying to provoke responses from people. That is just as fake as being nice.
I would like to say that there is a difference between being "nice", and common courtesy. Example:
ReplyDeleteA "nice" person would be happy to give me 200g should I choose to stand around panhandeling in one of the WOW captal cities. A person with common courtesy would realize that the bum begging gold is a retard and as such, wouldn't go out of their way to help or hurt said bum. A "mean" person might spam in trade that player X is a mooch and needs to be spam ignored. A rotten SOB would deliberately taunt said bum by opening a trade window with 500g-just so the bum can see the loot- then go afk for 20 minutes to eat a sandwhich.
I think many of us who consider ourselves to be nice, are giving ourselves way too much credit. We aren't nice, nor are we the online personification of evil; we are average, pure and simple.
Oh.. and if you don't like what I have to say, you can all kiss my ass ;) heheh
Wolfgangdoom