checking out

My tolerance level for bullshit has now reached a breaking point. As digital hangout after digital hangout has been over-run with whining, personal attacks, and ever-lowering standards, I'm finding myself more mentally exhausted after 10 minutes on the internet than after hours of putting up with Ohio State's bullshit.

I am sick of people with God complexes.

I am sick of people with "take my ball and go home" syndrome.

I am sick of fucktards on ideological crusades who spend their entire digital lives dancing the kabuki dance of obfuscation instead of answering a fucking question.

I am sick of 'news' websites whose editors (if they exist) can't spot the difference between "bare" and "bear" and can't laugh at themselves when it's pointed out.

I am sick of endless negativity and fight-picking and hiding behind the "devil's advocate" defense (note: you're not the devil's advocate, you're an asshole)

I am sick of people who can't follow basic fucking instructions about where to post threads and then whine when it's pointed out to the for the 3,405,833th time.

I am sick of people who get their 'news' from ideological bloggers and try to innocently claim it's legit.

I am sick of people who can't fucking write, or express a coherent thought in anything resembling a sentence, and then trying to claim "you still know what I meant!"

I am sick of people who twist an ankle jumping to conclusions, then after the fact try to graft on some other ideologically-based reason to be outraged.

I am sick of condescending nut-suckers whose primary goal in life is to put down people who are working their ass off, because somehow it doesn't reach some nebulous standard of "approval" they have.

I am generally sick of the incredibly low standards we have set for ourselves in our discourse, our writing, our discussion, our political thought, our willingness to examine other sides of issue, our treatment of compromise as surrender, and our path-of-least-resistance-itis.

And I am frustrated with myself that I have caught myself in a few of these traps from time to time.

Somehow, I'm actually glad that the community of comment and discussion I was hoping to build at Grognews never took off, because if it turned into what everything else I used to enjoy online has turned into, then I'd just fucking nuke the entire thing out of existence.


I still plan to keep news running over there, but don't look for me anywhere else, except the occasional Facebook family update with the new baby. If I decide to dip my toe back into anything online I will do with a very cautious manner, a very jaded sensibility, and one foot already out the door. I'm just worn the fuck out.

So hoist a tall cool one Pit-brain, Hairsnog, Walt, Grumpy, Whiny, Sneezy, and the rest of you fucking intellectual dwarves. You win. I'm leaving. I'll be somewhere else, trying not to shoot myself in the face with an ASCII gun while I wonder if I'll ever have another intelligent conversation online again.


p.s. - to those of you with whom I've had the odd stimulating and meaningful online discourse, this is not aimed at you. there's just far more of them than there are of you... it's like vuvuzelas - they just won't fucking stop and my head is buzzing.