Comments on: Paying for Free

By: Adamo

Adamo — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:57:57 +0000

If something else you love takes you away from this, it must be a powerful love indeed. While I’d personally miss this, as long as it’s for love, it can’t be all bad. Just be lucky enough to make your choices for love. That’s all I’d really ask.

By: Stephanie Zvan

Stephanie Zvan — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:16:59 +0000

Paul, that’s an excellent point, and a very hard thing to do sometimes, as I know all too well. Kudos to you for working at it.

Yannis, what’s really funny is that I don’t even need to follow that link. That’s a url I have memorized. And thanks for commenting.

Jason, for what it’s worth, when you’re not in one of those protracted battles, you’re one of the more rewarding commenters I’ve seen.

D. C., I did have “Angie Baby” lyrics running through my head the day I wrote this. Of course, since we’d been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum the night before, the lyrics were running, “It’s so nice to be insane. No one asks you to explain, Harley baby.”

Adamo, if I quit doing this, it won’t be because I don’t love it anymore. It will be because something else I love has demanded the time that this takes. And it does take time.

By: Paul S.

Paul S. — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:56:58 +0000

Some people have difficulty separating criticism of opinions from denial of their worth as a person. These are people who either get excessively emotional in face-to-face arguments or avoid them entirely because they know that a serious argument will be emotionally painful for them or others or both. The internet opens a whole new avenue for debating or just plain arguing, one where a person doesn’t have to worry about seriously offending people whom they actually know face-to-face. This is often attractive to people who just like to bully and offend others, but it also snares some people who have a hard time separating debates about the value of their arguments from debates about their value as a person.

The shorter version: I think that some people do it just to be jerks, others do it because they have emotional difficulties that lead them to confuse disagreement on issues with insult. I’m in the second group, myself. The only cure I’ve found so far is to just avoid things that really hit on a personal level, or at least to try and look at what the person online wrote and my own reaction from a more dispassionate viewpoint, which is not an easy thing.

By: Yannis Guerra

Yannis Guerra — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:57:10 +0000

You have clearly not read this
http://xkcd.com/386/
Therefore you are wrong. Therefore you are evil. Therefore you should be shamed into oblivion, as you have voiced an opinion that differs from mine.
QED (obv!)

Ahh…i would be a terrible troll. I can’t do it…

So I will compliment your article. Well done! Sadly the people that would need it will not read it (TL;DR as they would say)
The thing is the internet let people say what in real life they have to internalize, because you know…you don’t know me, and you can’t punch me in the face. So na na na!

But please continue writing. Some of us enjoy it.
Even though we are to lazy to comment about that.
And we leave our effort in the middle of doin

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:46:47 +0000

I have, in the past, especially after protracted battles with specific evangelicals, taken to reading more into what they write than the face value of what they’ve written. You’ve hit the nail on the head there. I’ve been to that precipice, and it’s taken better people than myself to drag me back away.

That I’ve been away from blog-drama for a bit gives me fresh eyes. I hope I can use them to spot these exact issues in myself the next time they crop up, before they make it into comments with my byline.

By: D. C. Sessions

D. C. Sessions — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:13:36 +0000

Despite my continued interaction with the frustrations of social media, I’m truly unlikely to suddenly go around the bend.

Pity that — insanity can be so … liberating.

Oh, well. We love you despite your limitations.

By: Adamo

Adamo — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:36:51 +0000

There’s something about the internet that divorces individuals from the reactions to their usage, real time. First, it’s easy to find those who agree with you, regardless of how socially unacceptable that may be. Second, we don’t get the reactions from the large group who might recoil in disgust because we never connect with them except via typed words. No intonations, no body language, and thus no reality check. If one hasn’t internalized that parent watching over your shoulder and scolding misbehavior, it’s like giving some people license to try and do anything, apparently consequence free. In their own little internet world, there’s only one human who counts, the one in the room at the keyboard. With the illusion of a like group surrounding them, and thinking they have complete anonymity, nothing is off limits.

Delete buttons are handy, at least for the words. And Steph, please keep doing it for the love.