No Repost = Heartless? Yeah, right.

Dear Santa This year for Christmas I'd like to wait ... Forget that. Get in your sleigh, go to Afghanistan, get our soldiers and bring them home. They deserve to be with their family's on Christmas. Post this as your status to show respect for the soldiers who wont be coming home for Christmas

If you don't repost, I understand. You cant spend 6 seconds of your life to support soldiers..

My name is Chris, I am three, My eyes are swollen.. I cannot see. I must be stupid, I must be bad, What else could have made, My daddy so mad? I wish I were better, I wish I weren't ugly, Then maybe my mommy, Would still want to hug me. I can't do wrong, I can't speak at all, Or else I'm locked up, All day long. When I'm awake, I'm all alone, The house is dark. My folks aren't home. When my mommy .........does come home, I'll try and be nice, So maybe I'll just get, One less whipping tonight. I just heard a car, My daddy is back, From Charlie's bar I hear him curse, My name is called ,I press myself, Against the wall. I try to hide, From his evil eyes, I'm so afraid now, I'm starting to cry. He finds me weeping, Calls me ugly words, He says its my fault, He suffers at work. He slaps and hits me, And yells at me more, I finally get free, And run to the door. He's already locked it, And I start to bawl, He takes me and throws me, Against the hard wall. I fall to the floor, With my bones nearly broken, And my daddy continues, With more bad words spoken.'I'm sorry!', I scream, But it's now much to late, His face has been twisted, Into a unimaginable shape. The hurt and the pain, Again and again, Oh please God, have mercy! Oh please let it end! And he finally stops, And heads for the door, While I lay there motionless ,Sprawled on the floor. My name is Chris, I am three, Tonight my daddy, Murdered me. And you can help, Sickens me to the soul, If you read this, And don't re-post it. I pray for your forgiveness, You would have to be, One heartless person, Not to be affected, By this Poem. and because you ARE affected, Do something about it! So all I ask you to do, Is re-post this on! If you don't.. Then you obviously don't care about child abuse

Those are just two examples of posts that I have seen around facebook that have caused me to write this blog. These kidns of posts drive me up the wall, especially the second one, because it seems like such a ncie post, and then it tries to guilt trip me into reposting it. "If you don't repost, you have no heart!" That's the kind of things these posts say, and that's exactly the kind of thing that makes me not repost the damned things. I may care about what the post is saying, but if the post seems to be made only because it's trying to guilt trip people, then I question the sincerity of the post and refuse to post it. There are a few cases where I will repost, and remove that part that blatantly questions the integrity of the people who repost, but for the most part, I ignore it.

Why can't we just post things we care about and trust that people will repost if they want to? No, instead we have to say, "You're a heartless bitch if you don't repost this." Give me a freaking break. If I care about something, I don't need a line tagged on the end about how I must not give a shit if I don't post. I question whether half the people who do repost actually do care anyway, or if they're just trying to make face.

The sarcasm of the first one particularly grinds my gears. What kind of supercilious twit came up with that? Really, you think you're so much better because you made a post to a--spoiler alert!--fictional character about bringing soldiers home? Wow. You think Santa is going to answer your letter just because you obviously care since you took "6 seconds of your life to support soldiers"? Sorry to break it to you, honey, but nope. Santa isn't going to come flying along in his magical sleigh with a bunch of soldiers stuck in the back. Without that comeplete b.s. tagged on the end there, I might have thought it was an endearing post, but when you throw in your sarcasm, then you completely change the tone and intention of the post.

What I'm getting at is if you're going to post something to show your support, or because you want awareness brought to it, or just because you care, don't be a supercilious twit and say that people who don't repost are heartless. It demeans the message of the post and makes me question the intentions of those who repost. Do you actually care, or are you just trying to feel better about yourself because you don't want to be heartless? Besides, maybe not everyone shares your views about something, so saying they're heartless just makes you look like a closed-minded human being. Just because you don't agree with someone else's views, doesn't mean they're a horrible person, it just means that they don't see things as you do.

So next time you make or repost one of those, leave out the guilt trip. Otherwise...

Congratulations, you've effectively ruined your post.

The never change mantra.

Recently I had a debate with someone over facebook about something that is trivial to the point of this post. More what I want to talk about is the person's reaction. She indicated that our views were just differeing, so our debate was getting nowhere, which was very true. She indicated also that her view would never change, and this is where I jumped again. I told her, "Views change all the time, even when we're not aware of it right away," which I believe to be exceptionally true, especially considering my experiences with changing. Her rebuttle was, "Sorry mine won't, that's just how I feel and always have." Now, I highly doubt that, but I knew that she was going to be adament in this statement, just as others are adament in this sort of statement.

I've noticed too that a lot of people, in particular youth, are shouting the cry of "I'm not going to change, accept me as I am, I'm not changing for anyone!" Blahdy, blahdy, blah. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude (really, I don't), these sorts of statements just irritate me, even though I was once one of those people shouting it at the top of my lungs (perhaps especially because I was one of those people). I'd write lyrics about not changing for anyone (including "never gonna change me / I will always be the same / I am never gonna change." Jeez, I'm glad I've changed, if only because those lyrics are terrible, haha), and how I would always be the same forever. Nowadays, all I can say is that is complete and utter nonsense. No matter what we think, we change, and more importantly, we change because of people. The change isn't necessarily intentional or conscious, but it happens. Really, if you had never changed from when you were a child, you wouldn't be where you are today. Simple as that.

I also get the impression that these people feel that change is the most terrible thing in the world. I understand the "accept me as I am" part; I think that we should accept each other for what we are, not who we want each other to be. Who are you to tell me who I should be? Changing because someone wants you to is one thing, and not something that I necessarily agree with. Changing because it happens is another, and it's not terrible. People change positively influence who you are and where you head in life. I for instance have so many people to thank for who I am today that it's ridiculous (thanks, all!). I changed because of their influencing my life. It's not a bad thing. I'm not some terrible person now because of it; in fact, I think that I'm probably happier because of it, but that's another story all together. Essentially, it boils down to this: Opinions change. People change. That's how life works. It's wonderful and condusive to functioning in society.

Mostly what I'm getting at is hearing people say that they're never going to change drives me up the wall. Seriously, it's not that big a deal. At the risk of sounding like a complete bitch, get over it. The more and louder you shout that you're never going to change, the more I want to tell you to stop being an idiot, which is perhaps really unfair, because I'm sure there were people who wanted to say that to me when I was shouting the never change mantra. I should be sympathetic, not irritated. I do understand where you're coming from, but being so narrow minded in that sense makes me want to beat some sense into you.

You will change. You just don't realize it yet. :)

It's real, trust me: IRL vs. OL

Many differentiate between their internet life and their life outside the internet as OL (online) and IRL (in real life). I too used to use the term IRL to make this differentiation, but the more and more I think about it, the less and less I think it works. Why? Because the more and more I think about it, the more and more it becomes apparent that our online world is part of "real" life. Rather than thinking of the internet as separate from our consensus reality (the "reality" that society for the most part agrees on), we should think of it as an extension of it. It's like having a home life and a work life; they're different parts of the same reality. Now we just need to add to that list the "internet life".

I think it is especially important to make this addition because there are many, many people who do not realize or take into account that our internet lives affect our non-internet lives. Things we say and do online can and will have consequences in our immediate lives, whether we intend them to or not. For instance, back when I was in grade school, a friend and I had things we were saying on the internet come to face us in reality. Long story short, things we said online angered people, and those people decided that they wanted to come and confront us in person and get into a physical altercation about it. Luckily for us, there were other people around, including adults who could take care of the situation. Needless to say, things that were said online nearly got out of control. If online things were truly not IRL, then nothing would have happened. These people wouldn't have done anything and things would have continued as if it didn't exist.

It seems to me that people think that the online world isn't IRL because sometimes we're dealing with people we've never met and probably never will meet, so the feeling is that there will be no consequence. The problem is that people we do know and could end up meeting are also privvy to whatever we post or say online because, to put it blatantly, this is the world wide web. Anyone and everyone with access to the internet can see it, regardless of "privacy" settings that the websites instill. Something we say about someone could reach that person in one way or another and there could be backlash. I see this all the time on websites like failbook.failblog.org that screencap things on facebook (fb) and post them to the site; there are people who call out there bosses or say crappy things about their bosses on fb, seemingly forgetting that they have their bosses on their friends lists. This scenario is just an example, but of course there are others.

Such as bullying that goes from the face-to-face world to the online world. Whether over instant messengers, on youtube, on blogs, on forums or whatever, bullying goes to the extreme. From my perspective, it looks like people think that just because they are doing this in the online world that there will be no consequences. But there are consquences. Perhaps it won't be something like the bully getting sent down to the principal's office, but these things affect people's lives. People kill themselves over things said on the internet, or in less severe scenarios no longer want to participate in daily activities or they end up feel terrible about themselves, just like can happen "IRL". I realize that bullying happens with or without the internet, but it seems that with the internet especially, and therefore the loss of face-to-face a lot of the time, people are increasingly vicious because they have distance between them. They feel protected by this falsely perceived wall.

That's not to say that only bad things come out of the internet, because good things do, too, which is another reason that I think people need to stop excluding the online world from the "real" world. There are people I speak to online, who I consider to be my friends, that I likely would not have met had I not had the internet. These are people that live provinces or even countries away from me, so it's only because of the internet that I know them. In addition to that, the internet has allowed me to stay in touch with friends that have now moved away or that I had lost contact with over the years. So if we separate the internet from "IRL" does that mean that these conversations I have with these people aren't real? Does that mean that these friends I've made don't actually exist? I think not.

The internet really allows us to connect as a community on scales that perhaps would never be acheived otherwise; there are websites I've come across that touch people's lives, including my own. For instance, organizations such as To Write Love On Her Arms (twloha.com) are not only able to raise funds for charity because of the internet, but it also brings people hope and even saves lives. If that's not part of the "real world" then I don't know what is.

To sum up, I think that everything should be considered a part of the real world because everything affects us as human beings. Even something like a book, movie or video game shapes how we view things, even if we don't realize it. Even if it's not something tangible, that doesn't mean it's not real. Going by that principle, that only tangible things are real, then our emotions would not be real, our thoughts would not be real, our words would not be real, air would not be real, because these are things that we cannot physically touch. Our definitions of reality, then, are perhaps skewed and are what we need to reshape to fit in with today's world.

Part of the problem, too, I think, is that generally speaking we don't know how to talk about the non-internet world in relation to the internet one. Although I am of the mind that both are real, I also find myself tripping over what to call the world that is not that internet. Yet, maybe it's as simple as referring to them as the online and offline world, rather than the online and IRL world. Whether we refer to them like that or not, I still don't find that OL and IRL fit because, as I keep saying, both are real. Both affect us and we need to realize this.

Tabloid to Newspaper: Losing ED to OhI

Encyclopedia Dramatica: offensive, raw, politically incorrect, rude, crude, crass, shocking, unapologetic.

Or at least, it was.

Now it's gone, replaced by the watered down, politically correct website OhInternet. Now instead of a website where we can go to see the darkest, rawest opinions of the internet, we get a website that looks like about a hundred or more other websites that already do what OhI is now doing. A little bit useless, in my opinion.

The creator of ED, Sherrod DeGrippo says that the change to OhI was done because "Shock for shock’s sake is old" which has me wondering just what blissful little world she is living in. Apparently this woman does not pay attention to the media, where there are movies like Saw, shows like 1000 Ways to Die, and where there are thousands of videos on youtube that are popular just because they are shocking. I haven't looked into the scenario extensively, but I've seen things that say DeGrippo was facing legal action because of things said on ED, so part of me wonders if this is the real reason for ED's shut down and sanitized transformation to OhI.

This isn't to say OhI is terrible. Indeed, some people are very pleased with it, which is evident when looking at the comments on OhI's facebook page (which has interestingly been stripped of all negative comments and doesn't allow for discussions or original postings), but I am among those who are displeased with the change. Despite being offensive to the extreme and on occasion more disgusting than I can stomach, I enjoyed how raw it was. How real. How it was something that didn't take the internet too seriously. Honestly, it was the humorous, crass tabloid of the internet, and now it has been transformed into the mainstream, politically correct newspaper that doesn't want to step on anyone's toes. This is extremely disappointing.

Through all this, I find DeGrippo's actions very curious though. From deleting negative comments on the OhI facebook page to something more extreme it seems. While I was lamenting the loss of ED, someone came along to resurrect the website. I don't know who this person is, but I received a message to my facebook account announcing the launch of encyclopediadramatica.ch, which although filled with holes, was striving to bring back what many ED fans loved. Alas, now that is also missing, and even though it hasn't been explained outright why, I suspect that DeGrippo has something to do with it. It seems she wants to completely get rid of ED all together, and while I can sort of understand where she's coming from, it's more complicated than she thinks.

Perhaps she is the original founder of ED, but unless I'm mistaken, it was a website that was updated by the general populace of the internet (thus it's crude and controversial nature and why articles would go missing when someone became offended). So, if I'm correct in suspecting the DeGrippo has something to do with ED.ch's takedown, I suspect that she's crying out that ED is hers and that we shouldn't be reposting it without her permission. Except, as I pointed out, ED was written also by other users, and therefore is a collaborative work; to me, that means that everyone else should have a say in what happens to ED as well. If someone is reposting ED on their own, then what does it matter? DeGrippo doesn't have to pay for it anymore, and she does have people who like OhI, so it's not like she's losing readership, and even if she were, that's the nature of the internet as well as literature in general. You can't have all eyes on you at one time, mostly because not everyone is going to like what you write, but also because there are others out there who have websites as well. If she's worried about losing readership, she better try to shut down Know Your Meme--the website to which OhI is being extensively compared--and all those other websites as well.

One of the theories floating around that DeGrippo denies is that ED became OhI because of money issues, which would make sense. Due to the nature of ED, not many reputable websites and businesses would want to have their advertising on there. OhI, however, is clean and safe for work, so having ads on there doesn't seem to be a problem. So, if DeGrippo did make the change because of money, the fact that ED was relaunched shouldn't bother her, in my opinion. I mean really, now someone else has taken on the burden of controlling ED's fate, and the intention of that person seems to be to bring back the "lulz" that were lost in the transfer.

Another bit of info that I read was that ED's appearance hadn't changed since it's launch. I can completely understand changing the layout of something; cleaning it up, making it easier to use, etc., etc. But OhI, to me, wasn't a simple change of layout, it was a change of modus operandi or intent. ED was about the drama and the "lulz"; OhI is about being factual and safe. Not the same. Even if ED had simply undergone a layout change, I'm not a fan of OhI's layout at all. It's really compact, and in my opinion not as appealing at the wiki-style layout that it was and that sites like wikipedia and its wiki-spin off sites use. For me, OhI is just too boxy and too lacking in colour because of that boxiness. If things were more spread out, I wouldn't have a problem with the extensive use of white, but as it is, it's overwhelming and bland. I feel like I'm in a house that hasn't been painted and has only one or two pictures on the wall to try and cover up the lack of...well...everything. It's just unappealing.

Now, disregarding the "shock for shock's sake" and other things, I can completely understand why ED wasn't well liked. It thrived on negativity and stereotypes, but these things for me brought hilarity because I didn't take it seriously. I think that's one thing that should be taken away from ED: that we shouldn't take things too seriously. Yes, ED was offensive, was homophobic, and many other things, but it was outrageously so, to the point where I think any sane person could be able to tell that it's just stupid and that we should laugh at it. If people are concerned about their children finding ED and getting the wrong sorts of ideas about it, then I return to an argument that I constantly make. The parents need to be the ones to teach their children, not the internet alone. The parents need to instill right and wrong into their children's minds.

I understand that people can be influenced by the media. It's inevitable. It was around before ED and it will be around after ED (I don't expect ED will be around forever, but I think this absence and replacement is a little premature). I agree that perpetuating these ideas is wrong, and this is perhaps where I'm a hypocrite, but the difference is understanding that these things are wrong and being able to laugh at the stupidity of it all. The only way that something like ED is going to generate a new society of homophobic, biggotted little miscreatants is if we let it.

Another way in which I am perhaps hypocritical is that I know words can hurt and that a site like ED can be seen as a form of bullying. Again, I think it comes back to not taking it seriously, even though people do. I've seen ED cause bullying to occur on websites like deviantART, but I think that speaks of the immaturity and naivite of those people doing the bullying rather than the website. For instance, although the morality of it is constantly in debate, we do continue to allow movies, video games, novels, artwork and other media that depict, sometimes in great detail, acts of violence towards other human beings. We expect people to be rational enough to know not to go out and kill someone just because they saw it in some form of media, even though people do. Media is very problematic in that way and I don't know that we'll ever find a balance of acceptable media and those who won't take it too far. For those who do go out killing or even just bullying people because of something they saw in the media, we should look at what that says about that person, not about the media. The fact that there are those of us out there who partake in those kinds or media and don't going around practicing it is often overlooked or downright ignored. It's ridiculous.

At the same time, media does say a lot about a culture. As a student of English literature, I often am looking at what that piece of literature suggests about the society from which it comes. Looking at something like ED would indeed probably suggest to me that those that created it are a horrible bunch of people who support and endorse violence, biggotry, homophobia and bullying, but at the same time, the fact that it is so outrageous says to me that it's not realistic. Perhaps I'm just speaking from a biased point of view because I know that to put the things from ED into practice is wrong, but again, that comes from upbringing. Parenting. Not allowing a child to become immersed in the media without some guidance.

I think one of the most important aspects about ED is that it was for the "lulz". In lulz we trust--wasn't that what it claimed to be all about? As I said, I understand that words hurt, but I think we should all stop taking everything so seriously and just learn to laugh. I think that would take some of the power out of the hurt in the end.

Ultimately, I fear this post will become a case of tl;dr, since this is often the response of the audience I'm aiming to read this, but I'm hoping that considering it's about our beloved ED that it will be stomached. If you have read this far, thank you, and feel free to comment.

Update: Just figured I'd update to avoid confusion. I know that ED.ch is now back up and ready for the lulz to be viewed. At the time that I wrote and posted this, it was down.

Sources:

http://www.geekosystem.com/encyclopedia-dramatica-ohinternet/

http://ca.gawker.com/5792738/what-happened-to-encyclopedia-dramatica

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/04/18/6489864-notorious-nsfw-website-cleans-up-its-act

http://ohinternet.com/Main_Page

OhInternet's facebook page.

EncyclopediaDramatica.ch's facebook page.

A Royal Annoyance

With the royal wedding coming up, it's taken over the media. Even smaller local news channels are taking time to talk about how the design for Kate Middleton's wedding gown has been leaked. I couldn't be less interested and think that there are more important things to be talking about in the world. For instance, what are the updates on Japan? It was this big tragic thing and now it's fallen off the media radar save for when there is something about the nuclear plants to be said. However, what's being done for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami? Admittedly, I have not been out searching for this information because I think the media represents things to fit an agenda, but I would think this would be more appropriate to talk about than how someone leaked out the design of a wedding gown. And another event deemed a tragedy just popped into my mind: the BP oil spill. Hey news media, how's that going? I don't hear you talking about that; indeed, haven't heard anything about that in a while and I don't even know what's been done since they were trying to stop the leak. Wow, that just strikes me as sad--no, not because we're losing all that "precious" oil, but because of the environmental impact. Apparently we don't care about that in the wake of royal wedding vows.

Don't get me wrong, we should be celebrating happy moments in the world, too, and not just flooding ourselves with disaster after disaster, but the sheer hype for this wedding baffles me. For one, it's just a wedding--I don't care that these are future British monarchs. People didn't really care much about them before the engagement and once the wedding is done I'm sure people will go back to the nonchalance, especially here in Canada since the British monarchs are only figureheads to this country. Yet right now, it's all the rage; the newest fad to distract us. But people, it's just a wedding. I don't care that they're famous and royal, they're human beings. That being said, if we're going to make this much hype about one wedding, let's make this much hype about them all. Ridiculous, right? Well I think it's equally ridiculous to have this much hype over one wedding that is going to have very little bearing on my life. I say very little bearing because it's obviously having some effects, for instance causing me annoyance and prompting me to write this blog.

Even in places that the monarchy does have power, these are still just people. I can understand making a mention about it, but the media going to the extreme that it is where it is mentioning gown design leaks and to the point where channels are going to broadcasting the wedding and other channels are having royalty-related movie marathons is just overboard. I honestly think this is being made more important than it actually is.