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Too many people have peed in the pool

stephenfry.com

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Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#121

Post by lkrubner »

carsongross wrote: post #15

I'm a bit monomaniacal about this, but the current online culture wars (and the previous offline culture wars) make me wish that secession didn't have such a bad name. It is obvious that large groups of people have irreconcilable differences of opinion on matters of free speech, sexuality, gun ownership and so on. It is a shame that rather than a firm handshake and friendly wave goodbye, we will end up with a totalit…

Unilateral secession has to have a bad name or civilization would be impossible. But a peacefully negotiated and mutually agreed upon secession would definitely be a good thing.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#123

Post by rblstr »

KerryJones wrote: post #97
rblstr wrote: post #86

I watched the BAFTAs with my girlfriend last night and I have to say, when Stephen made that comment we both said 'woah that's a bit mean' out loud. Of course, being the general public we're not aware of Mr Fry's relationship with the lady who won the award but from an outside perspective it came across as a bit bullying. I only found out today about the twitter backlash and I don't think it should be lumped in with…

This is the problem. He shouldn't have to clarify his relationship, he shouldn't have to explain everything. In essence, that destroys jokes. It's not our job to know, but as we should assume innocence until proven guilty we should assume friendliness before assuming ridicule. If Beaven had a problem -- let her handle it. She's a big girl, we're not her collective parents.

Without clarifying it it looks like he stood on stage in front of a bunch of rich celebrities and slagged off the winner of an award for not wearing conventional dress to an award show.

I'm all for offensive comedy, but this wasn't a joke, he was basically slagging her off in public, live on television to a room full of people. Without context of their relationship it really looks like bullying. That's completely different to an offensive stand up comedy joke, especially when its so personally targeted. Some context to clarify that it wasn't mean and they're friends would have taken the edge off the 'joke' and nobody would have cared, but it was so off the cuff and mean it just looks like he is bullying her, which is probably what touched a chord with so many people. I'm sure Mr Fry is the last person who would want to be seen as bullying anyone.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#124

Post by gthtjtkt »

This is true of almost any internet forum today. Every comment you make is meticulously deconstructed in an effort to find some kind of "gotcha". Well, either that or it's completely ignored.

And god forbid you have an opinion on any subject in which you don't hold a doctorate degree. You can't even tell people "it's alright to eat eggs" without the conversation devolving into a back-and-forth war of citations.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#125

Post by [deleted] »

AJ007 wrote: post #102
jonstokes wrote: post #38

I have a theory about FB and Twitter -- or maybe more of an observation. Anyway, back in the stone age, people had bumper stickers with little slogans on them. And in the break rooms of various places of work, there was always a bulletin board an on a corner of it there was always some faded-from-to-many-xeroxes bit of humor/racism/sports fandom/sexism/dirty joke or other us-vs.-them thing on it that people would loo…

There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons. It might be derogatory jokes, but this can also include things like spreading urban legends which were debunked four decades ago. Just like Usenet and countless other online communities, what starts a a small group of fairly privileged and elite eventually degrades in to garbage as the reach increases. This is not so much an overall size issue but a rela…

[deleted]

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#126

Post by [deleted] »

AJ007 wrote: post #102
jonstokes wrote: post #38

I have a theory about FB and Twitter -- or maybe more of an observation. Anyway, back in the stone age, people had bumper stickers with little slogans on them. And in the break rooms of various places of work, there was always a bulletin board an on a corner of it there was always some faded-from-to-many-xeroxes bit of humor/racism/sports fandom/sexism/dirty joke or other us-vs.-them thing on it that people would loo…

There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons. It might be derogatory jokes, but this can also include things like spreading urban legends which were debunked four decades ago. Just like Usenet and countless other online communities, what starts a a small group of fairly privileged and elite eventually degrades in to garbage as the reach increases. This is not so much an overall size issue but a rela…

[deleted]

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#127

Post by bdreadz »

jgrahamc wrote: post #91
zkhalique wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emojis are fine. But I remember the first times I started seeing "LOL" and "ROTFLMAO". And I realized that the person wasn't really laughing, but they were quietly typing that on the keyboard. If you think about it, before AIM and online chat (way before texting), people hardly ever faked their emotions so much. I mean, you could fake a small laugh, but you didn't outright say that you're rolling on the floor laughin…

If you think about it, before AIM and online chat (way before texting), people hardly ever faked their emotions so much In the late 1980s terms like LOL were used on BBSes and on Usenet. Perhaps you just aren't old enough to remember that? :-)

Thank you. On BBSes and even IRC /me laughs, /me

Before LOL I'd use hahaha or hehehe all the time as well in IRC, Chat Rooms, BBSes, etc.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#128

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

lmm wrote: post #12
lordnacho wrote: post #4

It's a wonder he lasted as long as he did. I've joined a number of online forums through the years, and I've always ended up leaving them due to a spiral of "tone gets rough / the good people leave". I'm still in this one, but I guess we'll see how long it lasts here. Seems different somehow, but they all do in the beginning. What are some innovations in solving the asshole/quality spiral? There's lots of takes on mo…

Anonymity helps a lot, I think. This site isn't completely anonymous but it de-emphasizes usernames such that it's easy to miss them. Explicit policies are the other thing, and strong personal leadership. It's when the moderators become an unaccountable committee that a site starts to go downhill.

Conversely, the best online community I know is our village website, where real names are required - on the basis that you're less likely to be rude to someone who you might meet in the street tomorrow. It's notable that the biggest aggro we have is generally from people who live outside the village and therefore aren't invested in making relationships work.

And yes, I do realise it's all a bit Royston Vasey - "a local website for local people"...

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#129

Post by gaur »

jgrahamc wrote: post #63
jonstokes wrote: post #38

I have a theory about FB and Twitter -- or maybe more of an observation. Anyway, back in the stone age, people had bumper stickers with little slogans on them. And in the break rooms of various places of work, there was always a bulletin board an on a corner of it there was always some faded-from-to-many-xeroxes bit of humor/racism/sports fandom/sexism/dirty joke or other us-vs.-them thing on it that people would loo…

It's like the way that millennials communicate with emoji I'm GenX and not a millennial. I don't see anything wrong with using some emoji as part of my language. I already speak a language (English) which is some bastard child of French, German, Dutch, Arabic, etc. I'm happy to add a (poo emoji) when it's appropriate.

> I already speak a language (English) which is some bastard child of French, German, Dutch, Arabic, etc.

It's a Germanic language (not a child of German), with significant lexical input from French and Latin. The input from "Dutch, Arabic, etc." is minor.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#130

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #125
AJ007 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons. It might be derogatory jokes, but this can also include things like spreading urban legends which were debunked four decades ago. Just like Usenet and countless other online communities, what starts a a small group of fairly privileged and elite eventually degrades in to garbage as the reach increases. This is not so much an overall size issue but a rela…

[deleted]

[deleted]
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