empathy
This evening, on a bulletin board I post on, another poster referenced an ad for a fast food place with three guys and a girl. They were eating chicken sandwiches and the guys were all saying "chicken" in odd ways which they all thought were just incredibly hilarious, but when the girl did it they stopped laughing and looked at her as if she was some kind of freak. The poster noted that she often felt like that on the board -- she'll go into threads and post something and no one finds it amusing or they just ignore her and go on.
Now this board gets this type of thread -- well at least the woe is me type of thread -- with reasonable regularity so the thread isn't totally off the wall. Plus the thread starter had started another thread a few days ago that veered way off track, and although it was an admittedly a silly thread, all the threads in that section are silly threads, so I couldn't figure out what made this one so different.
Anyway, right from the start people started telling this woman that it was all her fault and no one was at all sympathetic. Three things really pissed me off about that. 1) many of the people posting replies will fall all over themselves being sickeningly sympathetic when one of their buddies posts a similar thread; 2) several told her to "lighten up" or "use humour." Well, fuck, she was trying -- didn't they see that? It wasn't the most deftly written "woe is me" post ever, but she did attempt to bring humour into the situation. If that's what people there want, shouldn't they reward the attempt, even if it wasn't perfect? ; and 3) sometimes everyone needs to hear other people say "yeah, sometimes I feel that way too. Sucks, doesn't it?" Would it have killed some people to have done that? Instead, they proved her right.
This person isn't a friend of mine, and we disagree -- vehemently -- on most things, but how thick do you have to be to not see that she needed understanding, not contempt?
Now this board gets this type of thread -- well at least the woe is me type of thread -- with reasonable regularity so the thread isn't totally off the wall. Plus the thread starter had started another thread a few days ago that veered way off track, and although it was an admittedly a silly thread, all the threads in that section are silly threads, so I couldn't figure out what made this one so different.
Anyway, right from the start people started telling this woman that it was all her fault and no one was at all sympathetic. Three things really pissed me off about that. 1) many of the people posting replies will fall all over themselves being sickeningly sympathetic when one of their buddies posts a similar thread; 2) several told her to "lighten up" or "use humour." Well, fuck, she was trying -- didn't they see that? It wasn't the most deftly written "woe is me" post ever, but she did attempt to bring humour into the situation. If that's what people there want, shouldn't they reward the attempt, even if it wasn't perfect? ; and 3) sometimes everyone needs to hear other people say "yeah, sometimes I feel that way too. Sucks, doesn't it?" Would it have killed some people to have done that? Instead, they proved her right.
This person isn't a friend of mine, and we disagree -- vehemently -- on most things, but how thick do you have to be to not see that she needed understanding, not contempt?
posted by eek at 12:21 AM
2 Comments:
Was this at the HW? Must have missed it if it was...
Nah. not HW. It's a large board, and although there are people I quite enjoy there, there are others who's main entertainment is mocking and exposing the insecurities of other people. And often they are quite popular....
Gah, it's sometimes like school all over again. Except I can actually tell these people to fuck off and die. :-)
Still, it's irritating and sad to see the bullying. You'd think people would grow up....
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