Why are you not posting

Well?

cause I don't want to interact w/ u

not enough threads

Alright, copenitul

specific user such as REDACTED

killfiled myself

I've forgotten the password to get back into my head

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IobNcpiwpSc

Because it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to remove a fool...to remove doubt from a fool...wait, no. It's better to remain a fool in doubt...um. Fool me...you can't get fooled again.

everyone is gay

I shall never post

I can’t turn my password into a head

Saving myself for marriage.

Flag Pósta

Ehh, what's there to post?

‘Tis better to have posted and self-banned, than never to have posted at all.

My thoughts exactly.

We have already gone beyond whatever we have posts for. In all posting there lies a grain of contempt.

too angry

Running on empty.

Just because you don’t post doesn’t mean you’re not posting

I would prefer not to
#OneThread

Just because you don’t think you’re shitposting, I can promise you, you’re shitposting

Some days you open up ILX, take a look, and say "nah"

who said i'm not posting

waylaid by days-long subterranean battle with the ancient, forgotten evil Durin's Bane

Imo a very legitimate reason.

Posts once every three days, at dawn, from the east

Calling Ted Cruz is even more pointless than posting.

― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Sunday, February 28, 2021 11:50 AM (thirty-five minutes ago)

model Ted Cruz as a point placed at the center of his mass

now place him in the potential well of milo's post

frostbite took all my fingers. typing this with my nose.

Gone to see the World's Second Largest Bee.

Alright, I'll answer this seriously.

I've been an active member of many communities over the years, both online and offline, and I place a high personal value on being part of a community. And yet, despite having been here for around 18 years - longer than any of the other places - I rarely post, and I'm much more of an observer than a participant. Some of the reasons for this are about me, and some of them are about the nature of this place.

(This first bit might sound a bit conceited, but there's humbler stuff to follow.)

In the other places, I'm generally one of the more active contributors, my contributions are valued, and I tend to be seen as one of the lynchpins of the community. I'm also seen as one of the smarter, funnier ones - which makes me popular, boosts my sense of self-worth, and makes me inclined to contribute more.

In this place, which is full of smart and funny people, I know I'll never attain the sort of special status which I've become used to. In fact, it's quite the reverse: I generally feel that any contribution which I might make will be of lesser value. My opinions might be too banal, my wit too lame, my knowledge eclipsed by others.

There's also an intimidating aspect to being here. I'm known elsewhere for being quite scathing and cynical at times, albeit wittily so, but this place (even though it's long past its late-00s nadir of viciousness) can outdo me on that score a hundred-fold, and I'm no good at being on the receiving end - so by not posting, I'm keeping myself protected.

More generally, I have developed a sense that ILX people are not "my" people. I find them endlessly fascinating - I'm literally here every day - but attempting to play the role of what I see as an "ILX person" (whatever the fuck that might be) feels like a stretch too far, even for someone who's usually good at adapting himself to the key characteristics of a group without losing his core sense of self. So I rarely engage with posters personally, I reveal very little about my own personality and circumstances, and the posts which I do make tend to be factual and neutral.

I'm basically OK with all of this, and I'm not really seeking to overhaul the ways in which I engage with this place. So this is just to let you know where I'm coming from.

I'm struck by the amusing notion that every single ilxor feels roughly the same as you - that they are not part of the in-group

...and thus, the community transcends its members and assumes an intimidating mantle that all are in awe of

...and whether this is true of all communities where a baseline of intellectual engagement is generally expected

when I started grad school people would not stop talking about imposter syndrome

I don't really find this place intimidating anymore -- I definitely used to -- but I can relate to feeling a gap between one's posting style and one's offline social skills. I've been chalking it up to the pandemic, but I'm often annoyed by the sound of my own ilx voice these days.

Could be that this place is less intimidating because it's more forgiving than it used to be

As Mike says, the Vicious Era was quite something. Character-building stuff but certainly not for everyone

AH WOZ BEA'EN AS UH YOUTHFUL POSTER AN' IT DID ME NOO 'ARM

lol

fewer posters probably helps too. when I got to ilx circa 2010, hot threads often felt like mosh pits

Present levels of abuse are fine albeit the art of the zing is being lost? Idk, idk. I wouldn't mind a bit more knockabout stuff so long as it doesn't punch down so much as across

And so long as it's funny. ILX is incontrovertibly less funny than it was

That's true. I think maybe it comes down to it being harder to surprise each other these days? I feel like I understand a plurality of deems's jokes these days ;_;

That's because he's gone senile

Jude the obtuse thats me

The key is to embrace shitposting, as I have.

We might need a ""shitposting"" has the meaning changed? thread

Tbf ‘shit’ in English is bafflingly polysemous to us ESL folks.

mike-t thats an interesting post!

ilx is not very cutting anymore, and bar the odd long-entrenched personality/policy (and after this long on a board for ideas theres essentially no difference tbh) clash ppl really dont seem to me to say very much mean to each other at all, rly

When they disagree on policy type issues, all bets are off but that criticism seems to me to be as dismissive and ad hom as it ever was- people are here so long that not very many are too interested in hearing anything from anyone else anymore i would say (vs the bad old days ppl seem to remember anyway)

But the day to day zings, which were often absolutely killer btw, are p much gone as a part of the site. Most ppl giving and taking these brushed them off as part of the tone of the site but it was also often (not always, not always) softened by the idea that in another thread thered be a conversation about whatever going on where the same posters were just burbling away happily. We discussed a lot more stuff and lot more breezily here once as well as talking through things in ye olde longer post stylings between heavyweights

Now, for me anyway, theres less of a thread by thread feel/culture and the personas and relative positioning of same carry over across every thread and board, again maybe its all one with posters being long long term here and everyone playing their parts at this stage.

Ive no idea what the question was

That's true. I think maybe it comes down to it being harder to surprise each other these days? I feel like I understand a plurality of deems's jokes these days ;_;

In this place, which is full of smart and funny people, I know I'll never attain the sort of special status which I've become used to. In fact, it's quite the reverse: I generally feel that any contribution which I might make will be of lesser value. My opinions might be too banal, my wit too lame, my knowledge eclipsed by others.

xp The changing shared external environments over time def a huge part, as well as us all getting old together and all that, yeah

otm

xp

The cruellest xp ;_;

There had to be one person on ilx who liked me better

Interesting post from mike t-d...I've been here for a similar length of time, find it fascinating, and am also very much in the 'observer' category.

The reason is time really. I feel that to be a core committed member you really have to be dedicated to putting the hours in and following and responding in real time to the cut and thrust of posts. As it is, I'm content to dip in - mostly as a passive consumer.

I’m sorry, deems, it’s just that my main commitment itt is to relieve lurkers of their lingering shyness. Not being arsed to post is a perfectly legitimate position, however.

I applaud the effort

Wouldnt think of neither luna nor mike-t as particularly invisible posters at all fwiw

There had to be one person on ilx who liked me better

― scampless, rattled and puce (gyac), Wednesday, 3 March 2021 17:17 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

POLL

On Deem's observation that "we discussed a lot more stuff and lot more breezily here once", this is true and there's often a rush of nostalgia when I see an early ile thread. People were a lot more open about their personal situations in the early days, which made for more distinctive voices - but quite understandably that kind of candour has mostly disappeared.

people are more wary about sharing stuff on internet now, i think

I think these are in fact less dangerous times to post personal information. Much less chance of someone, for example, idk...making a ytmnd of your sexual confessions using a picture someone else lifted unasked from your Facebook. If anything we should feel more comfortable posting all sorts of nonsense

I'm posting less - mostly due to being increasingly insanely busy for a way longer stretch of time than I had hoped/anticipated - but I do like to think, or like to believe, ilx is a place one can always return to, even after a (long) hiatus. Which isn't about having earned your stripes or being what mike describes as being or having become "an ilx person".

I don't see colour ilx people, I see a community with people drifing in and out, some always here, some perhaps overstaying their welcome, but a loosely connected yet connected array of individuals all the same. There is no "ilx person" imo, nor should there be.

But this is all perspective, I can see how others feel different. Regardless mike, to me you are def part of the community.

I really appreciate this place. Thank you all for tolerating me.

Thanks LBI, I appreciate that.

Seconding that - you're OG as far as I'm concerned!

But the newbies are also welcome I *guessss*

I think my brain has always had a bit of trouble with the text only format in terms of tracking individual personalities. A group of the longtime posters that I can match to a face or some other more straightforward memory, are easier to respond to. The new layers have gotten deeper and denser over time and without energy to sift it all, it’s maybe better to opt out.

as a lurker, as a college student, i used to feel like mike the diva felt, overwhelmed by how knowledgable and interesting the people here seemed, especially compared to the rest of the internet. these days i feel too close to ilx to really say what it's like, if it is good or bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_z_UEuEMAo

when i started posting, i was super intimidated. i think i started posting here -- and posting in a very transparent way, just writing what i thought even when i knew it would sound dumb to the cognoscenti -- because at some level, way below the threshold of consciousness, i wanted to be rejected by this community i admired. this is a weird thing to admit -- i just thought of it and i'm not even sure it's true. but when think back to who i was at 24, i really hated myself. i had no career prospects and i had just been dumped by a person i thought i was going to spend my life with. in any case, this community didn't reject me after all. that meant a lot to me -- probably more than i even realize.

again, i'm backtracking a lot here. i am no longer starstruck by the posters whose bylines i recognized or whatever. but yeah, when i was in my early twenties, i absolutely felt that way.

always liked your posts treeship

thanks dan. same to you.

treesh our origin stories are remarkably similar tbh

it's weird because i, in most respects, have a pathological fear of rejection. something to discuss the ol' psychoanalyst's couch.

Eh not the whole profile now buck, just the origin story

Physician, heal thyself.

fwiw mike-t-diva I always think of you as one of the disco experts around here

I would post more but often what I have to contribute is redundant - nearly always, someone has already said it faster and with more eloquence than me. When I see people casually tossing out posts full of insight and with flair and humour, I want to be positively contributing to the conversation in the same way.

Yeah, disco and Discogs are mostly where you'll find me posting...

I feel like I should post more, tweet more, email more, zoom more, talk to people 2m apart more. Shit is exhausting tbf.

I would post more but often what I have to contribute is redundant - nearly always, someone has already said it faster and with more eloquence than me. When I see people casually tossing out posts full of insight and with flair and humour, I want to be positively contributing to the conversation in the same way.

this for me.

but also I'm busier than ever off board and can't even lurk as much as I used to. hard to believe but there are even days where I don't look at ilx at all!

mike t-diva, I relate strongly to a lot of your post. I was a lurker far longer than I ever posted. Started posting again because a) this place has become much smaller, and because of that more tolerant; and b) from a selfish pov, I might get the occasional zing or apathy, but at least I don't get someone's racist friend chiming in as I would on Facebook or an avalanche of look-at-this-nazi posts (meaning quotes of actual nazis, not that I get called a nazi) as I do on twitter. If you have numerous online communities outside of social media, gotta say I'm jealous!

I lurked for years before posting, never posted enough to be a regular. Went through periods of not posting at all because I didn’t feel that I could commit the time and energy to even be noticed, let alone engaged with. But thanks in part to the occasional otm and an unexpected excelsior, I’ve come around to being comfortable as an occasional poster, and I don’t feel shunted aside for not being a regular anymore. All it takes really is a bit of friendly interaction and engagement to make someone feel welcome, and for all the talk of how ILX used to be different and better in some ways, I think that’s one thing that nu-ILX does better. There are people here I think of as friends - whether it’s because of a kindly interaction at some point, possibly forgotten by them but not by me, or because of my early sojourn in the slack, at a time when I really needed people and they were there for me. But as the slack grew I found it impossible to be an occasional contributor and still keep up, whereas back here in the warm confines of ILX, it seems to work out fine.

i've already embarrassed myself enough

But as the slack grew I found it impossible to be an occasional contributor and still keep up, whereas back here in the warm confines of ILX, it seems to work out fine.

Very much my experience as well. As LBI put it upthread, you can drift in and out of ILX and remain a member in spirit, and this flexibility is part of the appeal, as though every return were a new beginning in medias res.

For a moment I thought that was referring to the ILX Slack channel.

You were correct!

oh wait yes lol

“as the slack grew” must have seemed a cryptic phrase haha

nashwan sowed seeds of doubt in my mind and so for a sub-caffeinated split-second there I parsed 'in the slack' as slang for 'in the slammer'.

*dialectal slang

tbf nobody keeps up with the slack

i think i'm somehow not emotionally cut out for the strange sort of public intimacy that comes with being a truly prolific poster. i was 18 the first time i posted in ilx's tetchier days and i received a fairly catty response from a (former) regular who i promptly insulted as if this were some random internet shitbin. i was still wrapping my head around the idea of a forum where posters generally knew and respected each other and so i was embarrassed enough to stop posting for a while. i got into tons of great music, posted sporadically and stupidly from time to time, grew up a bit, stopped smoking weed, posted more coherently and felt a bit more "accepted" but never enough to become a regular. i've been reading and intermittently posting here for well over a decade, yet i'm still very much on the periphery. i keep a barrier up, though i have a ton of love for posters who don't

I don't have anything interesting to say on here. What's changed I think, is not that I have run out of interesting things to say on here, it's that I have become painfully aware that the things I have to say on here are not interesting.

I don't mind joining in chatter / recommendations from time to time, and I do mostly enjoy reading the conversations.

like mike t-diva & others here i went through periods of lurking and posting over 16(?) years, making it through The Brutal Years by changing usernames and never ever ever talking about myself to avoid provoking zings and pileons. until at some point after a period of lurking and getting a sense that the sharp edges had dulled a bit around here i decided it felt weirder to lurk anymore, like i wasnt admitting how connected i felt to this place, and decided to start posting more openly and treating it like what it was for me - a community that was very important to my online life. (although my posting style has not really improved over the last 15yrs and remains close to what boxedjoy described, redundant thoughts others have said faster & better.) tbh looking back now i regret staying aloof for so long and not having it in me to put myself out there more during the years of ilx's tumultuous adolescence, for the relationships i didnt build.

I don't even know if I'm posting -- like I have no idea whether my level of engagement with ILX is what people are referring to as "regular" -- I have been doing it a long time though, fortunately I didn't know my shit was supposed to be original or interesting

I think most of us posters are like anonymous ancient or medieval workers, each carrying a humble stone to add to a structure that becomes a great pyramid or cathedral.

(This is really "why ARE you posting".)

An Elder Brain Architect-Deity guides our hands.

but whose stones are the most otm?

“as the slack grew” must have seemed a cryptic phrase haha

― epistantophus

haha, as i was first reading your paragraph i honed in on that too and smiled at the ambiguity :)

i have dipped into the slack a few times, and in a different time for me, or different circumstances now, i think i'd enjoy it there too. but i already have a few "slack-like" places with friends and people i know, and i prefer to stay on the slightly more asynchronous ilx boards, even though when i get Pepped up i may post so often that it's like a yahoo! chat in 1998 (which was my posting prime, tbh)

i would like if everyone on this thread posted more, just throwing that out there, but i understand why you might not. fwiw, it took me a long time to feel welcome here, and part of it was just being ignored for a few years and just sticking around until enough of the old schoolers had left that i had graduated to middle school. or 6th grade. one of those. i'm still in 6th grade, on ilx, and i am the tallest boy.

anyway, i guess i just hope that the people who don't post are doing it for positive reasons and because it fits their lives and personalities and preferences for communicating, and not because they're worried what people will say, or worried about that sting when you put a lot of time into something and no one responds. or someone responds in a dismissive way. or i accidentally post a giant image of a cat puking right after what you posted, but it had nothing to do with you and was actually part of a long-running series of cat puking images that i've been posting for years that are all connected, and yet no one has made the connection yet. like that, kind of. in can sting, in the moment. it's easy for me to advise "just don't worry about it!" or, on the exact other side of the advice-effort-continuum: "think of it as like a writing exercise or prompt for yourself that is valuable in and of itself, and if someone else has something to add, all the better", or in the middle, "try asking a question of someone else" or "find the one thread that makes sense to you and become part of the walls", or any other nonsense. it's all dumb. it's all good, it's all pointless. none of this truly matters. so if you're happy to lurk, then i'm happy to know you're lurking. but if you're discontented with lurking, in the words of Peter Sloterdijk, "You Must Change Your Life"

possible posting and lifestyles: just never look back, never edit, keep going, drink coffee, wiggle your fingers, don't worry

in the words of Peter Sloterdijk, "You Must Change Your Life"

He cribbed that from Rilke, akshuallyyy.

the book is on my shelf, it was part of my partner's studies. i've never once read it or even opened it. it's just a big thick book from a philosopher that says "You Must Change Your Life" on the spine, and i believe it

there's nothing in that book that is more convincing to me than the immediate things that come to mind when i see it

A superb way to interpret all self help and or philosophical titles imo

good stuff Karl. If I am not posting much it is in this positive mode yes. I read here daily and enjoy it. By the way I just remembered to give "Binasu" another shot and it's extremely pretty yes.

As a left-field closer to a sonnet about a rundown statue of Apollo, it's a terrific line, especially in the original German, where it rhymes.

xp

Glad some serious replies showed up. In a mix of self-loathing, insecurity and a shameful need for validation I shy away from posting because of all those times I'd put in efforts to contribute which end up getting unacknowledged in the conversation, making it feel a little like walking up to a group of people talking in closed circle and trying to shoehorn in a thought over a few of their shoulders but nobody really hears you. Then you kind of listen a little longer and maybe try again or move on defeated. Then you see someone they all know say anything at all and everyone trips over themselves to reply. Dumb to be that insecure, but when none of your few IRL friends really care about the niche music you like and you reject regular social media anyway, the craving for interaction becomes a little more desperate. Also when you have ADHD keeping yourself away from distractions like this during work hours is a good idea!

Heh, I had a screename once that riffed on source of that Rilke quote, although I had forgotten it was via Delmore Schwartz.

Nice. I like it.

Evan, I appreciate your posts! I know we’ve both posted similar thoughts on a previous thread.

And KM, you are a gem. I hope you don’t read that as germ, even for a second, because it says gem.

Thanks epistantophus! Appreciate yours too!

this is meant to be a nu zing era not some cuddlestein fucking piffle

evan you are a shoegaze. epistantophus you are a longname. KM you are a former cartoonist

I recognise a lot of what Evan says. Not being around enough (hey, I work for a living, unlike you feckless wasters), the dread of coming across as dumb, portentous, humourless, or worse, barely there at all. It's all ego-bollocks of course and often I just like reading all the smart people on here. Like just yesterday I have wanted to applaud the Coen brothers thread.

epistantophus, germs are people too, so no worries :)

imago i am a future cartoonist as well, and you are a word that i only came to fully understand in the last year, when i was trying to write a REALLY weird post here that involved insects and i had to look up the life stages

I love the Coen brothers thread!

Imago, don’t worry, I’ll come up with a compliment for you, too. Just give me a few hours.

A clever writer realizes the more autobiographically h/she posts, the higher the screen between him/her and the world.

I miss just about everybody here. Let's say ILX is a more welcoming place than when I joined in December 2004.

mike-t diva : brilliant post, massively OTM.

it may have helped if i had created a sock account back in the day so i could let loose more, but that's never been my thing.

Thanks, Mark. I've just been thinking about this while smoking in the porch, and maybe the lesson I need to learn here is that it's probably healthy to disentangle myself from the Beloved Community Lynchpin narrative which has characterised my interactions in other offline and online places. In other words, it's OK to be Just Another Member. This might even encourage me to post more in future.

I characterized the star posters as "ILX blue checkmarks" offhand and it seemed to resonate. I don't need to be that but I also don't want to keep being the record holder for "most often to be last post on thread ever or for months until someone revives it for unrelated reasons".

"most often to be last post on thread ever or for months until someone revives it for unrelated reasons".

ooh boy do i relate to that.

I see what you're trying to pull. Nice try.

We both know this thread might die right here and now and you can't take my record away from me, not without a fight. Though I do respect your comedic timing.

Evan, I refrained from posting for several months before leaping into the fray, as the conspicuous cliquishness was too much to bear at first, even though I was briefly around in the mid-noughties. These days, as long as you're not being an ass, I see no reason not to post if you feel like it. This place will always benefit from a plurality of socks voices.

Also, if yours is the last post on a given thread, you can imagine that you have so completely incapsulated the topic that every one reading just falls mute in admiration, giving you the last word.

caca

i just wanted to share some of my early thread attempts. not even early posts (those are worse), but just a sample of my first new thread attempts under the Z S handle

Interkosmos (Califone + Dirty Three members + others) (anyone? anyone? bueller?)
90 Day Men S/D (thirteen days after the previous thread, lol)
Blonde Redhead - 23
Girls and Electronic Music

honestly i understand if people want to tell me to fuck off for that last one. for what it's worth, i apologize and i'm glad no one ever posts on it. it's 14 years old and i was 23 when i wrote it, but i should have been smarter than that, especially when i was desperately trying to sound mature and smart. giving up the burden of trying to sound mature or smart has been my way of becoming more mature but not more smart. i'm posting that garbage thread here just because
A) it seems wrong to conspicuously skip over your worst early thread,
B) i don't recognize the person that wrote it, while also feeling really, really dumb and recognizing that's still me,
C) i've always wanted to apologize in some form for that thread but never wanted to bump it to do so,
D) there's no way anyone on this thread has ever said something dumber or less-informed on ilx and if anyone here posted anything resembling that today, they'd probably get FP'd that afternoon (i would probably be one of the people being strangely extra-harsh on whoever did it, i would hope). so come on, you're fine!

I miss just about everybody here. Let's say ILX is a more welcoming place than when I joined in December 2004.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

otm

I suppose it's too late to change the title of the thread to "Girls and IDM", which is really what I meant.

― Z S, Friday, March 30, 2007 2:00 PM (thirteen years ago)

i have to tip my cap at my first follow-up post though

after a useful conversation with euler, prompted by algerian goalie or whatever he's called right now reaching out to me, i have seen pomenitul's thread here and i thought it might be a good place to say why i ceased posting several months ago.

a more intense than usual discussion flared up in the free speech and creepy liberalism thread, around some point about how to deal with transphobes who will be viewed sympathetically by some people (like some terfs can be but also like celebrity transphobes tend to be because of their celebrity). i understood in that discussion that kate was taking it rather personally, but i didn't bear her any animus and was broadly not in disagreement with her position in the discussion. all the same, my perception was that i was not speaking out of bounds, but was being treated by her and others as if i were doing so, in fact severely so. i don't fault kate for that, it's clear she was going through a lot at the time and she made every effort to draw lines and let everyone have their say. but i felt that other people involved in that discussion were rather eager to treat me unfairly, intemperately so, and i was surprised to find aimless stepping in as a voice of moderation of ME without bothering to assign the fault accurately.

i don't feel attached to that discussion i have no great wish to 'defend controversial opinions' or something like that. i understood myself to be pursuing a somewhat academic discussion of limited appeal in a thread with a well-attested record of doing it, sometimes for the sake of doing it, sometimes because with that principle, it can never ultimately just be academic (as suits a 'principle of free speech' thread). i understand the difference between doing that and trying to force unwanted discussions in places where they are not welcome, and ilx is well set up to manage that by this point in its history.

still, i thought that some people in that discussion, and in others in the more recent past that i had participated in or read people participating in, had leaned in, with an alacrity that gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach, to reflexively disparaging people as soon as anything they say can be identified—with little concern for accuracy, understanding, or charity—as falling into some pre-identified range of proscribed content. everyone knows how much of a hot-button topic this behavior is nowadays and i'm not wont to identify myself with any stance on it that associates me with disreputable sorts, but all the same, i think it's true that ilx has collectively, or in pockets, become more prone to this in specific ways during the past several years. shitposting is fine, shitposting is eternal, but shitposting fused with censoriousness and sanctimoniousness does not bode well for the health of a community based on discussion. the marker of it that's familiar to us is the disparager's belief that they are given cover by their superior political affiliation, morality, or insight into some issue, or even personal experience that others are supposedly barred from accessing or sharing. but aside from that, the way it seems, and feels, is that there are just a lot of posters right now who think it's fine, even good, to shit on other people, and refuse to truly be held accountable or reflect on their behavior. at best they say oh bad i got too heated, it's just my views, my passion, you understand. and then they turn around and do it again, over and over. ilx gives them the latitude to do this because its moderation practices are set up to deal with more egregious cases, and individual posters misbehaving singly. but whenever there is a shared sense that 'people' are of one mind or a shared sentiment, the opinion that tends to rule says that these behaviors are just the expression of a community's values and can only be accepted or changed by changing the community—however that is supposed to be accomplished by scattered people who find themselves falling out of step with the community.

i could have pushed back on this at the time of the discussion i mentioned above, or just tried to steer clear of it, but i felt very acutely at the time that my voice was being treated as unwanted on ilx and that there was no real way to respond to that except by withdrawing my voice from it. i have posted more or less continuously—there have been some lulls—on ilx since the beginning. twenty years. so it saddens me to feel its decline finally touch me. i had been willing to wait it out and just accept that it was a legacy community that would never quite satisfy in the way that it used to—that the life was departing as its posters continued to. ilx was my home and i need a home. but if you remember the spirit of its earliest discussions, then i think the best feature of them was how people would go out of their way not just to make arguments or cases that really moved others to reconsider or see something new, but to SEEK arguments and to try to entertain the idea that other people might have a case to make even when they've said something few people are inclined to credit with much insight or authority. mark s, for one, was an exemplar in this regard. we would be blessed if we could enjoy people capable of his generosity again.

i don't really feel like resuming posting, but given the thread, i thought there might be a chance i was heard.

B) i don't recognize the person that wrote it, while also feeling really, really dumb and recognizing that's still me,

Karl your presence is requested on the "What is your take on continuity of self?" thread

Have missed yr posts around the place j.

same

Good to hear from you, j. Given the type of discussion you favour, I'm not surprised you've decided to take a break from ILX. For better or for worse, I've come to think of this website as a safe space that stands apart not only from the usual nastiness that spoils online discourse writ large but also from the ethos of academic debates, which generally require a greater degree of detachment on their participants' parts. I don't think we can rightfully expect that kind of collegial dispassion here, which is something that bothered me for a long time but that I've adjusted to over the years because I ultimately believe kindness and gentleness to be necessary for this place to grow – to survive, even – despite the oversimplifications that occasionally prevail as a result.

Besides, there's always ILM.

yep, and that's a very thoughtful appraisal of a strain of moral purity-test I've occasionally lost it at as well

that said I'd need to read the relevant thread again to adjudge the motivations and good/bad faith of your various interlocutors

what I will say is that, bless Kate and I hope she's able to return to ILX now, but her disdain of, for example, Contrapoints' extremely sensitive handlings of public-eye transphobia demonstrated a sort of extremism that I think did her no favours above all

xp too late eephus! :)

lmao i opened that thread to play post-hoc adjudicator and found alphie's most cuntish treatment of me and my most powerful counterblast, great times

funny how a thread about not posting is full of posts with high character counts

I don’t post on the bobbins thread because I’m a poser but I feel ok posting on specific artist/label/style/scene threads

oh god i was really on a tear ahaha, definitely had more reason to quit than j. did but my obtuse self-confidence kept me here ffs

I did not expect (or intend) this thread to be taken seriously but I'm glad it happened.

Part of the reason I keep posting is so as not to have to answer questions such as these. DO U SEE?

what I will say is that, bless Kate and I hope she's able to return to ILX now, but her disdain of, for example, Contrapoints' extremely sensitive handlings of public-eye transphobia demonstrated a sort of extremism that I think did her no favours above all

― imago

This is completely boggling to me. I think Contrapoints has done some worthwhile stuff but most of my trans* friends are wary at best and outright damning the majority of the time. I can't see disdain for her as "extremism" at all.

(I tried to go into that thread and see any evidence of aforementioned "extremism" but it's far too big to slog through)

Fwiw I don't think lj was referring to that thread in particular, but maybe I'm misremembering.

The free speech and creepy liberalism thread was where I lost the plot at some of my UK compatriots and also attempted to engage Kate at length about some of her statements. This was long after j. had been warded off I think. I found Kate to be at least...arguable-with. We were having an argument, it was fine. I was much more irked by certain others. But in general I think it was a losing move to post to that thread, which is a shame, but I was always going to be on the defensive

I also hope we're able to fully have it out over Contrapoints one day

Is this about the stuff she discusses in her 'Canceling' video or is there more to it? I haven't been paying close attention.

I think it's largely about some people saying CONTRAPOINTS IS A TRANSMEDICALIST and other people saying WE STAN WE STAN and the actual truth being that Contrapoints is just a very open-minded person who thinks about important and thorny issues from a lot of different angles without ever being particularly dogmatic, whomst we stan ;)

Hyper-consequentialism ftw.

I was also going through a weird personal time during my outbursts in that thread, which can't have helped! But I really do think I felt similarly to j. - that I was engaging in what I thought was good faith, only to be dismissed as coming from a morally inferior position

It struck me as a massive misunderstanding that had no chance whatsoever of being resolved on ILX.

I haven't even found the j. bit yet! Gonna keep scrolling...

Most of the criticism I've heard is of the way she treats non-passing trans people. The things that I've seen of hers that relate to this I have tended to read as being framed as an admission of guilt, bad thoughts that she still thinks even though she knows she shouldn't. But the thing is, that guilt doesn't stop those things from being extremely damaging to actual real people in the world, and being spouted by one of the most visible trans voices doubles the damage.

Anyway, I don't have a strong opinion on Contrapoints myself because I cede that ground to people who have lived experience that I don't. I just found it very weird that imago described it as extremism, but now I see he is a major stan, so that goes some way to explaining it.

anyone getting upset in that thread from the reaction they got should be glad they never posted something stupid about house music in 2006 that vahid replied to

Sorry for derailing this thread after it went in an interesting direction, too. I just really wanted to know what imago meant by it.

xp

bad thoughts that she still thinks even though she knows she shouldn't

Iirc she treats it as internalized transphobia and it's clearly a source of suffering for her as well.

^^^

I'm going to go back to some of the stuff being discussed before - it is interesting to me that a lot of the people posting about not being some kind of ILx Character are names that I recognise and would definitely characterise as being regulars. I mean, mike! You're the disco king.

I'm pretty much a nobody in terms of posting style, I've just been here so long that I'm stuck to the place. I also don't post in a lot of threads that I'm interested in because I feel like other people have got to my points first, or I think my points would be overly obvious, or because it's something that I have studied and don't want to say something stupid about that will be there forever and one day I'll see it again and it'll make me want to die.

xpost Iirc she treats it as internalized transphobia and it's clearly a source of suffering for her as well.

Well yeah, that's basically what I said. But I don't know that expressing it in some of the ways I've seen her do (I'm thinking tweets now rather than the videos) is reasonable with such a large following. Basically, imagine if I had thousands of followers and posted some of my worst suicidal ideation posts. I would be hurting and endangering a lot of people. Would it still be okay, because it's a source of hurt for me too?

and this is when i lose the plot re such threads and disconnect.
i think i know what folks are on about, but i dare not ask for fear of chaos.
hence : 'why are you not posting' becomes all the more relevant.

Sorry to self-indulgently harp on, but here's a good example of where that thread went well for Kate and I, imo. I now realise that it was bad of me to describe Kate's views on Contrapoints or various shades of liberalism as extremism - that's quite othering of me, and I retract it (after all, are we not all extremists in some regard?) This bit I'm linking is where Kate and I had what I believe to have been quite a productive discussion, where I challenged her on some of her hopelessness rhetoric and even managed to extract, a few posts later, an admission of hope! Meanwhile, she eloquently and thoughtfully put forward the reasons for her own pessimistic perspective and made what I'd considered to be the extremity of her position much more explicable and sympathetic:

Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

emil.y, if you're curious, she addresses this in section IV of her 'Canceling' video, of which there is a very helpful transcript:

https://www.contrapoints.com/transcripts/canceling

When I said 'a sort of extremism' I think I meant that Kate had at times conflated her experience of Contrapoints as someone who didn't speak for her own experience - fine - with someone who should be mistrusted or morally castigated. In posts subsequent to the one I linked there, I think Kate clarified and refined her position in a manner that made it clearly not extremist or overly judgemental. Reading through it, I'm struck that progress was made. I still need to find the j. stuff haha

Basically, imagine if I had thousands of followers and posted some of my worst suicidal ideation posts. I would be hurting and endangering a lot of people. Would it still be okay, because it's a source of hurt for me too?

― emil.y, Thursday, 4 March 2021 23:40 (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

imo yes it would. I have seen you post your pain on here and on Twitter and I'm glad you feel able to do so. Keep reaching out no matter who's listening

otm

Hmm, hmm. I'll take a look at that transcript, pom. I do think this is a bit too much of a derail for this thread (and I'm also a little wary about the discussion being driven by non-trans people and about a poster not present) so I'm going to step back from it. I will say I really miss Kate's presence here, and wish she was posting again.

Absolutely. Me too.

Agreed.

Is there anyone who knows her offboard that could perhaps reach out to her to see if she's ok?

OK I've read basically most of it. Here is my Fair Breakdown:

j.'s departure was a bit soft imo. yes, he politely and thoughtfully laid out his apologiae for the modern liberal tradition, only to be accosted by Kate, silby et al, but I thought that stuff was largely quite bracing tbh - it was Good Content and I'm sad that j. felt compelled to depart. for sure, there had been ad hominem presumptions of bad faith, but silby was operating from a place that was largely quite funny, and Kate from a place that was above all anguished. what galled j. I suppose was the effort he was putting into his posts, only for them to be met with what might have seemed like dismissiveness. but j. also had a LOT of people largely on board with him and his arguments (ahem), and it seems like it was really that Aimless post that broke him (and I'm not surprised tbh).

My recommendation is that j. returns to ILX and tries to not mind it when, for example, silby gets zingy or Kate gets despairing, but continues to plough his argumentative furrow, because as I say I could detect plenty of agreement towards his posts, and I also think that after he left, the conversation continued to improve (not BECAUSE he left, lol, but if anything powered by the spirit of thoughtful analysis his posting had engendered, and ongoing reflection on all sides).

I'd forgotten what a central role I myself played in that whole farrago, so I also feel a bit guilty for my part in what was, yes, a bracing argument, but not one without its traumas.

I mean i keep rubbing my eyes at the thread title you are doing this in

tl;dr: if you think silby has driven you off ilx then you've misunderstood silby

#onethread

That strikes me as a fair assessment of that FFA btw.

leave Future Farmers of America out of this

The finnish football association would like to make it known that they have no idea what is going on, generally

I have no memory of this at all!

I wasn’t going to post in this thread, because that would be posting, but now I’ve posted

Tbf there's posting and there's posting.

Wow I posted a lot, actually.

^this was exactly my own reaction, haha

I've averaged two (2) posts a month for the last thirteen (13) years, ama.

probably the healthiest posting rate tbh

ama

Are you not worried about breaking your remarkable streak?

Whove yall fpd

why are you not pooping

F'n Post Office holding up my posts. They are stuck in a router in Omaha.

Serves you right for perpetrating posting fraud.

*poster fraud

Postal lurkers strike

maybe I will post tonight

someday i hope to write the greatest ilx post in history

I want to say why Im not posting but my 57000+ posts kind of belie that I suppose. But I'll go with Cruts "Ive embarrased myself enough".

Also, too many dicks on the dancefloor.

Are you not worried about breaking your remarkable streak?

Nah. I usually post a bunch at once, then go quiet for months. See you in November!

Whove yall fpd

I flag posts, not people.

why are you not pooping

There's enough shit on ilx as it is.

wow it's amazing how angry j's post made me, dude fuck off along with your "academic" "intellectual" buddies Oor Neechy and Euler, gee it's such a shame that you can't have a thread on ILX where you deny trans people's lived experiences right to their face without getting pushback (a lot of which was funny tbh). do any of you care that it probably made Kate leave? all three of you suck.

no I'm not posting itt again,no bookmark, fuck you

branwell made kate leave iirc

Can we not with this yet again ugh

sorry, that's just very literally on the record and it should be clear where that responsibility lies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsW040wrMNA

0:34

i do not know if the ppl involved were unaware that it's uncool to try to extensively diagnose an old conversation that caused someone to leave, especially when one of the parties involved has not returned either. however that is what happened here, and it's pretty uncool fyi

how old are people here? how do they find time to post?

i guess work keeps me busy

we’re not all flipped McGriddles here, mcpunisher

(sorry

flippin

goddamit

wow FPed sleeve thrice in two weeks, sadly only one of them counts.

Kumbayah, my lord
Kumbayah

Late to post this, but some time ago mike t-diva very kindly sent me an out of print CD set that I was after - a gesture that to me seemed to sum up ILM at its generous best.

Oh, the Dolly Mixture boxed set - yeah, I was sent some complimentary copies, so it was good to pass one on.

For some ex-posters, not posting is the best outcome for all.

FP'd sleeve. dragging Oor Neechy and Euler into it for absolutely no goddamn reason?

I thought j.'s post addressed a wider couple of points that were at least valid to them and the approach taken by ppl since in relitigating the specific thread was nonsense

eh? I had nothing to do with that thread, please keep me out of it.

Yeah, sleeve's post was just bizarre.

I think Brad was otm about not autopsying this. But I'm also not sure how we should respond to posts like j.'s, where a departed poster returns to denounce "us," but then also announces their immediate renewed departure. I reread the posts j. was discussing and disagree with his characterization of what happened (not as vehemently as sleeve did), but I guess it doesn't really matter anymore?

i agree with that sentiment even though i feel like if i get into why i will inevitably be doing the thing i was complaining about

if i relitigated it, it was only because i was heavily involved and feel unresolved about whether my own engagement therein was fine or otherwise. how solipsistic

I'm sorry Brad - at the time it felt like a genuine + innocent question to ask imago to explain a comment that seemed very off the mark to me. But I totally should've realised that it would end up in relitigation of an old topic and talking too much about other posters, it's pretty obvious in hindsight. Sorry to everyone.

figured out in my early twenties that there was far more stuff i regretted saying than there were times i regretted staying silent. feel the same way about posting and so try my best to only really post to drama and contention free limited interest threads like football and golf.

no need to apologize to me, it's totally fine and i understand why it happened, it just felt very weird to me for reasons i still can't really articulate

i think it's been a bit zero-sum. we don't need to be 'allies' or 'enemies', we don't need to take sides

there is no team j., there is no team anti-j.

I've always been pro-Kate and pro-j. Dispiriting misunderstandings shouldn't define how we interact.

i am on team pomenitul

there were some posts on that creepy liberalism thread that seemed to treat trans issues as hypothetical, like they were oblivious to the fact that trans people post on this fucking board.

I am pro trans, I am anti-bullying, I am anti-police

imo the creepy liberalism thread is cursed and no one should post in it

it was very typical of ilx that we managed to find so much to argue about despite basically all agreeing that the harper's letter was some self-serving bs

I didn’t detect that in j.’s posts, which were aimed at fostering a philosophical discussion on historical liberalism and the ethics of universalism. Unless I’m missing something here?

2xp

also fitting that we'd moved past it and sleeve dredged it back up, doing their usual demonizing "you are terrible and should stop posting, asshole" schtick. which is fitting because one time he attacked a mod for being a terrible mod and cited their treatment of another poster and then that poster stepped in and said "please do not speak on my behalf, I like this mod"

ok i'll recuse myself now, i'm taking us further off topic.

There was no need for sleeve to drag me in to this at all. He could have talked to me off-board on FB if he had an issue with me.

I hope mods are looking at his actions.

In the 'why do people leave ilx for good' thread, several people said they'd basically fled to Twitter, which I didn't get then, but then it happened to me

I perfectly understand why people choose to quit.

Sleeves post wasnt mod worthy fer gods sake it was a bit man and ball and i dont agree with it maybe meself but lads can we put an area of calm into play here at all or else VAR is gonna get a look in and we none of us want that

men and ball tbf, created and unfairly vilified a clear out-group, def FP-worthy, big fan of sleeve tho so no drama rly

I understand why people would want to quit, but fleeing to the angriest place on the internet feels like a lateral move, at best.

things feel much more personal here

idk I'd rather it be personal

well yes, it isn't bad per se, but it can sting when you find yourself on the wrong end of it

imo the creepy liberalism thread is cursed and no one should post in it

For sure! But then that makes it easier to quit in an aggrieved huff for a long break without admitting wrongdoing. Twitter just induces anxiety and self-loathing and doesn’t unhook you.

Yknow in my experience

branwell made kate leave iirc

I always thought they were the same person? Now 85% of the board drama is even less coherent to me.

for some reason twitter does not have that effect on me nearly as much, I think because I steer away from content that would cause that

xp

milo, there are 2 different Kates here is the thing

There aren't. If there's one courtesy I'd extend to the departed it's not to deadname them

fair enough, there have been at times and this is the source of confusion, but yes you are correct

Twitter is a horrible place because the format encourages an atmosphere of soapboxing with compartmentalized hot takes in a sea of competitors all trying to have the hottest take for maximum visibility and the stimulating/attention grabbing nature of the rhetoric infects even the users that are there just as an audience to the point that everyone is unaware that they're all boiling down and dramatizing everything so opinions are now clickbait headlines.

I don't use twitter though so maybe I'm wrong.

Twitter doesn't really 'algorithm' so it's easier to wade through the sea of shit and also you can talk to your favorite rappers sometimes

most of that that is true, but also applies to middle school

xp

i will be ambiguous about which post i was xp'ing, but honestly a lot of life is like middle school

Karl what rappers did u know in middle school

ZERO

the cowboys (the name of their clique in middle and high school) dominated where i grew up. country, rock and roll, very little rap. i didn't even know who tupac or biggie smalls were until college (2001)

actually, scratch that - the only rap i remember people listening to is the beastie boys. gee wonder why

(beastie boys are cool, but still)

oh god i was really on a tear ahaha, definitely had more reason to quit than j. did but my obtuse self-confidence kept me here ffs

― imago, Thursday, 4 March 2021 bookmarkflaglink

pic.twitter.com/6nXjnmsY9H

— joolsd (@joolsd) March 4, 2021

lol

🤡

Twitter is a horrible place because the format encourages an atmosphere of soapboxing with compartmentalized hot takes in a sea of competitors all trying to have the hottest take for maximum visibility

Maybe! I mean quite probably! My experience of twitter is that it's as much of a bubble as anything else? I often see other ppl freaking out about what "Twitter" writ large is saying when my timeline is not saying that at all.

on the note of "leaving a board due to a period of hostility, I used to write music reviews for a defunct site called Satan Stole My Teddybear in my early 20s. I was a terrible writer and was going to college and working for shit wages in a terrible Cali-Mex restaurant, and I used to get in flamewars with this guy who called himself Vic/Lord Vic, who if you scour alt.rocknroll.metal.metallica on Usenet in the mid 90s, you will see he posted all over the site there. he fronted this band Rampage and trolled us all and got me riled up. I think he was last around in 2003. I would stop posting any time this guy or other guys started trolling too bad as I got wound up too much (wasn't on my meds yet).

dude found me on FB minutes ago and apologized to me TODAY for his trollish behavior and was asking how i was doing. lol. that's out of the blue. seems a dece guy now.

Damn, big up to Lord Vic.

The cover of their live album from 1999 is, uh, something.

In case anyone wants to google that, yes, it's NSFW.

he was hanging around with the anus.com folk back then, until he realized they were actual Nazis and fled

Maybe! I mean quite probably! My experience of twitter is that it's as much of a bubble as anything else? I often see other ppl freaking out about what "Twitter" writ large is saying when my timeline is not saying that at all.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, March 5, 2021 4:17 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's the "retweet" feature that really does the thing I'm complaining about

And fair point but I'm not necessarily commenting on the "bubble" effect. Yes all social media definitely has that problem!