The Locking of the Avril Thread

Momus "I've never held any position of responsibility in my life."

You THINK so?

-- C-Man

Hmmmmm, let me see...then

IF
Calum = Vice Magazine
THEN
Momus = Aja

it's becoming so clear now.

I did try to note that -- to little effect.

Quite. Now why Nick thinks we *wanted* a pet monster is his own blind spot here...

You have made him yourselves

Guess what? You're one of us! You don't stand above the fray! If "ilx created Calum," YOU created Calum! Your whole spiel above reminds me of undergrads in crit-theory classes who think that "there is nothing outside the text" is only for people who haven't been let in on the secret: that is, "there is nothing outside the text" for all those silly little people who aren't as clever as us. Sheesh.

http://www.mystery-hill.com/images/monster.jpg

calum, at cannes.

I like this one best.

633 new answers about me! RAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRR!

I think what I see in this thread, people getting at momus w/r/t "vice magazine" is this sense of dissapointment. People think he's smart, and they're kind of let down by the fact that he props this magazine, which people think is poor and repellent. I can see the point, I must admit. I mean if writing for "vice" makes you happy, Momus, and if you get paid, then that's great, but I remember when I discovered your site, being really thrilled by the content of the essays I found there. Compared with, say "mms vs prml scrm" or that one about gatekeepers, the stuff I read on "vice"s site seems kind of lame and empty.

When I flatshared in the early nineties, one of my flatmates had a copy of "answer me", which was on a pile of similar mags in the bathroom. It was printed on cheap newsprint IIRC, and the industrialist wound up (ahem) using it one day, when we ran out of andrex or whatever. It became like this running joke in our flat, this copy of "answer me" that got thinner and thinner, till there was just the glossy cover left. Because I'm yer typical working class trying to better himself l@ym0r, and possibly because of autistic behavioural tendencies, the idea always disgusted me, so I'd always check, and nip round to the corner shop if we'd ran out.

I have one issue of a magazine called "Crow" from the nineties, issue 6 I think. It appeared to have been written by a consortium of queens and goth nihilists, they'd cover John Waters, Camper van Beethoven, shit like that. It was really good, really funny, w/lots of reviews and essays. I never found another copy. Whatever happened to that?

The people who write 250-word "articles" for Vice Mag could conceivably be paid by the magazine, but this can only be in an abstract, technical sense. "Thanks, Mr. M. for the story. Since we're a legitimate periodical with a keen sense of our burgeoning market, we can afford to pay you for your insights. Please accept this check for $7.25 with our compliments." Clearly, income derived from writing for this publication contributes to nobody's standard of living.

Well see, Calum's attacks are not exactly verbal, are they?
Since we all like analogies here, imagine yourself walking down the street in your neighborhood and you see a man holding up a sign with something daft like "if kylie showed up at your house at 3am asking you to give a ride to the prime minister, would you?" written on it, and you start conversing with the sign-holder. The sign-holder turns out to be a major asshole and makes personal attacks on you. You walk away. The next day, that asshole is there again, with another sign. You start talking to him again. He threatens you. You walk away. Next day. You see him holding another sign. You start talking to him. WHY?

But you know, I've been a member of many different forums/chat rooms/net communities over the past few years, and I've never seen a single occasion where the "let's just ignore him and go away" approach worked. People ALWAYS end up responding to trolls, and the only way these situations are ever resolved is a) if the troll leaves, b)if the troll becomes "tamed" or c) if the troll is somehow banned. People just can't resist the temptation of interacting with trolls...we could talk a lot about the psychology of this (and it really is like that in every single occasion I've witnessed, which sort of destroys Calum's "haha, you're all obsessed with me" pose; he's eminently replaceable), but since (IMO) interaction is, realistically speaking, inevitable, those who become offensive during it shouldn't be regarded as harmless.

"A Calum In Harlem"

any "damage" he is capable of is restricted to that thread and those people who choose to interact with him.

This thread sort of shows that this isn't the case, coz those who interact with him then get mad and it flows over into other parts of the forum. Which isn't his fault, granted, but whaddyagonnado.

The "street" analogy is maybe not so wise, because even tho it's a public forum ILX is also a community based on certain views & attitudes, I think, so it's more like he's sitting around with his sign in some big house that we all own (or haha, a garden, as mark s used to refer to it).

i'd much rather have a beer with mr. momus. in a pinch.

BEER? You're trying to make me think like you, aren't you?

The "initiation ceremonies" exist; you've gone through some of them, so have I, so has Calum. They're not something concious, they just happen, they're inevitable.

And I don't like personal attacks happening at any place I frequent, real life or online. There's a difference between not being nice when you have some sort of point to make and throwing up insults at random. Really Momus, you of all people should know that "being nice" isn't something ILX places much value on, I mean, look at the amount of nastyness regularly happening here (and that goes doubly for ILM)

1. Nothing is inherently more authentic than anything else.
2. However, some people want to emphasize the 'real' aspect of a thing, and others want to emphasize the 'fake' aspect.
3. The people who emphasize the 'real' aspects are often convergers, the people who emphasize the 'fake' are divergers. Because 'keeping it real' is about imposing a restricted code ('to thine own self be true', 'stay in touch with your roots', etc) whereas 'keeping it fake' is about breaking free of restrictions ('become whoever you want to be', 'find new facets', 'copy people you admire' etc).
4. Some, looking at a virtual community, stress the 'community' part of it. Others stress the 'virtual' part of it. The 'community' stressers end up saying that there is basically no difference between real life and the online space. The 'virtual' stressers see a big difference.
5. By seeing an online community as basically no different from real life, we throw away the freedoms of virtuality, all its unique properties. For instance, it's amazing that in a virtual community I can say something rude to the very testy hstencil and not get punched. (Then again, perhaps hstencil is only free to be testy because he is in a virtual space, not a bar.)
6. One problem the people who think that 'URL = IRL', at least metaphorically, is that when you press them on the metaphor, it's always a different one. The 'real life' which the URL is 'like' is sometimes a private club, sometimes someone's house, sometimes the nation state, sometimes a crowded theatre, etc.
7. What this reveals is that etiquette, context and the physical body are all much more intimately connected than we sometimes think. Why use real world, bodily etiquette in a virtual world space where bodies are not present? Why impose real world laws in a virtual world where conditions are very different? Where you can effectively walk through walls, fly through the air, pretend to be whoever you want, mask yourself, etc? Why fear the freedoms of the virtual world, which include the freedom to be rude and the freedom to be fake?

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), June 20th, 2004.

Ned wakes up and checks ILx. Fucking typical. [[big winky, Ned]]

-- Matos W.K. (michaelangelomato...), June 20th, 2004.

Yay!

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), June 20th, 2004.

I am at the tail end of a bender, came into the office to grab my laptop, couldn't resist checking email again, and voila. ulp.

-- Matos W.K. (michaelangelomato...), June 20th, 2004.

Yeah, I was about to wonder which end of the 'must check ILX before I sleep/after I wake' course you were on.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), June 20th, 2004.

Calum's lame taunts about my time and so forth are based upon ignorance. *That* is patently obvious to me as well, as well as to others, and I suspect to you to some extent or another.