A summary in pictures for those with ADHD:
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Cliff’s notes were never so entertaining.
Yeah, I know what you mean, and I pretty much agree with you. It is getting kinda sad. In a recent post he mentioned obliquely about how it’s “been this way his entire life”… or something to that effect. I mean, the poor guy admitted publically that he’s been kicked around and laughed at his entire life, and he’s desperately trying to throw up a defense of “they don’t really understand me” that not even he believes.
The whole thing really is kinda depressing… and I don’t say this as a way of flaming Brian, but rather… well… I’m not quite sure why I’m saying it. I guess I’m saying it because it saddens me to see someone waste their life because of pain and fear. I dunno… here is the point where I feel like I should say something like “You’re an OK guy Brian… you can open up and be yourself.” Thing is… what he’s posted is himself… he really is a jerk who’s missed the point of every philosophical concept he’s tried to come to terms with, and I’m afraid he just doesn’t have the mental ability to understand them… not anymore… not after all the defenses he’s constructed.
How do you help someone who’s screwed themselves over so thoroughly? I don’t know… but I suspect that there’s no way to help them. Which really is sad.
Come on fellas. Brian Koontz is performance art. His performance and the reactions of his audience will no doubt be condensed into some pithy articles for The Village Voice, and will eventually become a slim volume published by Vintage.
No one takes message board posting that seriously.
I’m surprised our resident experts-in-all-fields can so easily profile the offline Koontz. I’ve never met anyone like him online, and only one person offline, and that guy was the coolest guy I’ve met in the last couple years (clever “you should get out more” line opportunity, don’t pass it up). It’s just not that simple to profile people. At least be honest, and not act like inventing an exaggerated negative offline persona for someone then displaying mocking pity for that persona is some kind of magnanimous act. Yeah yeah, you built it from Koontz’s actual statements, right? Now the argument is that you actually read his posts?
The vast, vast majority of the board finds it self-evident that Koontz is wrong. All the stupid diatribes where the psu^H^H^Hintellectuals treat him like the rapidly-saturating biscuit in a literary circle jerk are all preaching to the Branch Davidians. But they keep writing them! Why? Easy popularity, something Koontz has accurately called them on, but in language that was sufficiently flowery for them to fake like they missed the point and commence punching the bag.
What greater glass house situation is there than fiery posters at internet message boards projecting pathetic offline lives on their rivals? Hell, that’s why I don’t go there :)
It was pretty funny when you called me white trash, though.
PUT UP YOUR DUKES MOUNTEBANK
Funny, I’ve met several people like him offline, and they were all… well… complete dipshits. Pathetic academics who hid behind obscure speech so that they could pretend like “no one understands them”… rather than the truth, which is that people understand them all too well.
Is Koontz really like that? Who knows? He could just be an online persona of someone very familiar with this personality type. Maybe in real life he’s a well adjusted guy who has a real job and he’s just having one big joke on us. But then again… who cares? Whether he’s a persona or “real” doesn’t in the end make that much difference, since it’s not likely that any of us will ever really meet him.
Which makes projection and conjecture pretty useless as well, right? That’s all I’m saying.
There’s an alternative to your extremes: that who someone is on a message board is representative of who they are off of it, but the traits are weighted in a completely different manner. If somebody only talks about politics on this board, does that mean that’s all they do off of it? Likewise, if a person’s every post (which Koontz’s actually aren’t, he’s got one-liners and jokes in there too) was some deconstructive philobabble, does that even imply that they approach everything offline the same way?
A message board by nature allows someone to polarize themselves, life in its entirety generally doesn’t. But don’t let that discourage the game of Smear the Queer you’ve got going.
I don’t have an agenda? I knew something was missing from my masterplan.
Probably the glass house situation of acting like you’re the center of the forum, spewing sarky 1 liners all over the place rather than taking part in the actual conversation, then trying to pin the mindless flamer pin on everyone else. Didn’t you hissyfit your way into a self-imposed exile to rage against the groupthink machine a few days ago, shithead?
Jobe, any random bum on the street could make the responses you do. Ha ha, no, just kidding. Welcome back! I have to tell you, I’m relieved. After you went operation ape shit supernova on us in IRC for daring to question the appropriateness of your being a total dick over the death of a kitten, beatifically raised your eyes to heaven, asked why all the hate, then spewed insults at anyone who tried to discuss it with you and were finally banned from the channel - why, I was a little afraid that that might mean you might deny us your undeniable variety of charisma in Quarter to Three proper. Your comment in that log that “any forum that fucking stupid is a forum best put in the rear view” certainly indicated as much - we would never see you again, salaam. And you changing your profile mere minutes after that encounter to implicate Quarter to Three as a “groupthink community of hateful social outcasts with overexaggerated self-worth” (I notice you’ve now removed that. Too bad, it was classic!) really gave me The Fear… a creeping fear I’ve been swilling whiskey and snorting mescaline in order to suppress. A fear that this might be it and you might never return. A fear that Quarter to Three might lack its daily infusion of self-righteous one-liners and grudgsome contradictions. A fear that no one might take over your daily role as the classic megalomaniacal “nobody has it all figured out but me” archetype here on Qt3.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to suppress these fears for long because apparently your reserve of will power and self-restraint in shunning “groupthink communities of hateful social outcasts with overexaggerated self-worth” where you feel everyone to be “fucking stupid” (as opposed to Isle of Ewe’s sublime constabulary of gibbering sycophants willing to sooth every furrow on your brow, bruise on your ego or constipation of your pseudointellectual rectum with balmsome kisses) is about as deep a pool as your objective self-appraisal or your collection of culled-Something-Awful witticisms. I guess living off Trixie’s lunch trolley gives you a lot of free time, eh? Because you were back within one day. Sincerely - way to go, dude! It was a rough 24 hours.
Jobe, what I found hard to believe was your incredulity that people can put aside unimportant stuff to acknowledge a fellow person’s grief and loss. I thought that most people understood that despite all differences, there’s always common ground. Death is something that lets people take a breather and reevaluate priorities.
I’d like to finish my thread, but I have to go to my gf’s house because she needs some comfort, and I can finish this post later, so off I go.
So glad to be discussing this again.
What if people understood that there was common ground at times other than within 48 hours of a death?
Why doesn’t groupfeel accompany groupthink?
I am pleased to see that Jobe is recovering nicely from his self-curbjob. Any man with legs that flexible deserves more than half a head.
So glad to be discussing this again.
What if people understood that there was common ground at times other than within 48 hours of a death?
Why doesn’t groupfeel accompany groupthink?[/quote]
Why doesn’t free candy spew out of fire hydrants?
Because candy doesn’t put out fires as well as water does. Answering questions directly isn’t that hard.
I don’t understand what I don’t understand. I have long arguments with my friends offline about the death penalty, but I’m still friends with them. Why would it be different online? Why do you think everyone’s crazy for acting like perfeclty normal people?
Reading that chat thread, I think you have some larger issues to work through than the surface inconsistency of a bunch of people who violently disagree all the time occasionally being nice to each other.