Touchy Hypotheticals
Madam told me I should post about 8-bit’s situation, but I have no idea what to say. I think he crossed some lines, but he didn’t do anything to warrant the belittling responses of Wiseguy and several others. 8-bit presented a hypothetical situation. He used a good example from the community. The responses varied from someone insinuating he’s sore over a negative review Wiseguy gave him to someone I used to respect calling him a little punk trying to pick a fight. Something is lopsided, here.
I know, I know: “it’s the WAY he went about this whole thing!” I didn’t see a surly tone from him until Wiseguy threatened to sue him. That would get most people surly. 8-bit wasn’t even that surly. His first post bothered me because I will eventually work in a field directly overlapping with some of my fetishes. I have a fetish for the field itself. I still didn’t get a hint of malice or aggression from any of his posts. He was presenting a hypothetical. Maybe he should have left the name out of it, but that would have been twisted in other nasty directions likely by the same people twisting this one.
I told him he should leave it alone, for the record. I don’t see anything productive coming from this. I see someone proposing an honest thought and getting lambasted in response. Not all of this is happening in public. Wonder where he got the idea his account would be deleted when that wasn’t directly stated in the thread?
My own incident around the time I left the Garden was worse than this and I got some belittling responses. They weren’t so bad as what 8-bit is getting slammed with over a HYPOTHETICAL. Madam pulled no punches in her own parting thread. The responses to her weren’t this ugly. I won’t conjecture over why 8-bit is getting these responses. I don’t care, actually. This is ugly. This is ridiculous. This could have been an interesting discussion. People can’t tolerate uncomfortable hypotheticals related to their sexuality, apparently.
~Valbot
Labels: mc community, snark, valbot
posted by valbot at
7:42 PM
2 Comments:
I haven't seen any of the behind the scenes stuff, and I've stayed out of the public fight in the Garden because its always been at a point where anything I would have said would have felt redundant, or because it's been locked. That may also go some way toward explaining why I'm posting about it here...
As for the public stuff, while 8-bit may have intended a neutral hypothetical, what he actually said was "If I was one of wiseguy's clients, I'd be tempted to [try to ruin him professionally]" - compare that with someone who says "If I were a school-teacher, I'd be tempted to sleep with my students" - if a parent then said "sleep with my daughter and I'll kill you", I'd have no problems with the jump from the hypothetical situation to the hypothetical response.
Anyway, either 8-bit was offering a veiled threat to Wiseguy's livelihood, and attacking his professional integrity, or Wiseguy was simply discussing a hypothetical situation - if the "hypothetical" defence works for 8-bit, it should work for Wiseguy too.
Unless Wiseguy has been involved in the private attacks on 8-bit, I don't see a problem with his public reaction - sometimes you are prepared to defend something to the death. As for the rest of the responses to 8-bit, I sincerely doubt Wiseguy is involved other than as the cause celebre.
I'm not blaming Wiseguy for the general response to 8-bit. I think 8-bit should have worded his hypothetical more carefully to avoid the tone of a veiled threat. I can see that.
Wiseguy was a good example, though; he advertises his credentials widely (valid reason or not, he does) and I could see a client finding all of this feeling at least a little disturbed. He didn't handle himself much better than 8-bit. His tone was downright belittling at times! My biggest annoyance with this whole thing is the admin response. They went out of their way to protect WG despite his own condescending remarks while flaming 8-bit behind the scenes and pretending publicly to simply be 'talking him down'.
faery's last post on that thread was downright malicious. I don't think locked threads should be edited for ANY reason...but not all mistakes like that are made with a malicious intent.
I see your point. I see WG's side. I see 8-bit's side. I was disappointed in the Garden's response to this. Things got needlessly ugly, I think that can be objectively stated regardless of whose side one takes.
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