Forum Drama. Forum Drama Everywhere.
January 19, 2017 6:43 AM   Subscribe

 
What we have here is a classic case of “mod drama.”

Beauty
posted by sammyo at 6:50 AM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


This is great. People, and communities, and online communities really do behave in pretty predictable ways sometimes.

I enjoyed this section:
But splinter boards aren’t just for raucous places like 4chan — you see it in all sorts of tamer internet worlds. For Facebook groups, the telltale signs are in the group names, where a group may proudly proclaim its splinter status. Take “Suffolk county thrift without the dumb rules,” a group for buy/sell/trade on Long Island. Clearly, some bad shit went down in the regular Suffolk county thrift group and a new, more lawless group was formed.
posted by aka burlap at 6:52 AM on January 19, 2017 [45 favorites]


The article is amazing for the other examples of forum drama just as much as the alt-right stuff. I think my persona favorite is the IRL drama with Celeb Heights.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:57 AM on January 19, 2017 [36 favorites]


I think my persona favorite is the IRL drama with Celeb Heights.

I started laughing so hard at that paragraph that I had to leave my desk and go to the break room for a few minutes. And I haven't even clicked through on the link. I don't think I could take it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:58 AM on January 19, 2017 [17 favorites]


I'd like to take this opportunity to promote my new community weblog MetaFilterWithoutThatJerkElementaryPenguin.com
posted by beerperson at 6:59 AM on January 19, 2017 [35 favorites]


In the Neopets forums, a place for people to discuss an online role-playing game for children, experienced a crisis of censorship when mods had to ban any discussion of the Twilight series, going so far as to ban the keywords “Edward,” “Bella,” and “Jacob.”
I. Can't. Breathe.
posted by Etrigan at 7:00 AM on January 19, 2017 [27 favorites]


we should totally all swap usernames
posted by thelonius at 7:02 AM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


But splinter boards aren’t just for raucous places

Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front?
Reg: Fuck off! 'Judean People's Front'. We're the People's Front of Judea! 'Judean People's Front'.
Francis: Wankers.
posted by nubs at 7:02 AM on January 19, 2017 [50 favorites]


I spent a great deal of time pre-confirmation in my early teens learning about comparative religion, religious history and in particular some of the various schisms that led to new protestant church movements. This article really hit home how little difference there is in 'in-group' membership and how it is recognized and enforced, no matter the setting or belief system.
posted by meinvt at 7:07 AM on January 19, 2017 [34 favorites]


+1 for this post's title.
posted by INFJ at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yeahhh...no. Rumors of the alt-right's demise are highly exaggerated. Somehow, I don't see them fading into obscurity anytime in the next, oh, four years or so. This is all just so much palace intrigue and posturing. In any case, animals fighting for scraps tend to be much more dangerous.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


Yeahhh...no. Rumors of the alt-right's demise are highly exaggerated.

The article doesn't claim that they're going anywhere. Just that their current drama is not unique to their ideology.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:12 AM on January 19, 2017 [23 favorites]


Hey cool, it's TWoP with actual Nazi moderators.
posted by Catseye at 7:13 AM on January 19, 2017 [28 favorites]


Once the goal of getting Trump elected was realized, some of its leaders are experiencing their own swings at mainstream success beyond just “popular poster on the internet.”

It was pretty transparent since the primaries--actually, really, since GamerGate happened--that for a number of these people, like Cernovich and Yiannopolis, the goal was never "elect Trump", the goal was "get rich and famous". Yiannopolis, I think, had money already, but Cernovich was a patently failed or failing attorney in California when he took up the GamerGate thing in an attempt to get attention.

They're not going to fade into obscurity because obscurity is literally the only thing they can't bear. There's no win scenario where they're happy enough with the world that they quiet down--a lot of these guys are primarily in this to avoid getting real jobs.

I think this kind of drama is fairly common on some level, but it was downright inevitable in this case, because it's all about the egos.
posted by Sequence at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2017 [11 favorites]


I feel a very queasy slurry of pride and self-loathing for recognizing all them dramaz.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


It's as old as mailing lists and dial-up BBS's and the first .d group on netnews.
posted by bonehead at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


Just that their current drama is not unique to their ideology.

I would also suggest that it is not unique to the online world, despite the article's focus on that context. The pattern is familiar to community groups both online and off.
posted by nubs at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2017 [10 favorites]


I'd also like to give a shout out to whoever is behind the recent public doxxing of a bunch of these douchebags. The guy in the upper east side especially. Time to stop ignoring the assholes and start fighting back.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:21 AM on January 19, 2017 [11 favorites]


I've heard reports of terrific, awful drama in the Facebook group Cool Dog Group, so really nowhere is safe.
posted by ominous_paws at 7:29 AM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


I would also suggest that it is not unique to the online world,

Fair point, but factors of scale and networking complexity come into play much more acutely online, which has important consequences for how the same basic dynamic plays out in reality. Namely, it likely accelerates the cycles these things go through.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:29 AM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


To second nubs, this has happened many times before. For something on the opposite side of the political spectrum, take a look at the history of the various communist parties in the United States in the late 1920s-1930's (wikipedia link). Factionalism and splitting have happened all over the left for close to a hundred years. It's nice to see it happening on the right for a change, but this is nothing new.
posted by Hactar at 7:32 AM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


Article was sadly missing flounce gif.
posted by vespabelle at 7:32 AM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


TALE AS OLD AS TIME
SONG AS OLD AS RHYME
DRAMA ON THE BOOOOOOARDS
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:38 AM on January 19, 2017 [85 favorites]


Similarity doesn't mean exactly the same. There are points of failure that are new. The identification of the RL meet-up, where talk becomes "real life" for a lot of people even still, is an interesting new feature of this. Even a local book club needs some skills and effort to keep running, while participation in a ML or on Twitter, very little.

When even those (minimal) social and organizational skills are tasked, the doers and the whiners and the too-unsocialized separate.
posted by bonehead at 7:41 AM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


Lenin: ugh dont feed the trolls, we have more import--
Stalin: BANHAMMERED FOH
Trotsky: thats it, im done, come find me on 4thWorld.mx
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:42 AM on January 19, 2017 [50 favorites]


There came a time at the Vampire LARP where the out of game plotting were twenty times more intricate than the in game plots. We called it HARD MODE.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:43 AM on January 19, 2017 [26 favorites]


My sister-in-law was a mod on a local mom's group forum, and the shit she would tell us about makes the worst MeTa flame wars look like mild parliamentary debate.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:45 AM on January 19, 2017 [25 favorites]


There came a time at the Vampire LARP where the out of game plotting were twenty times more intricate than the in game plots. We called it HARD MODE.

I used to hear the act of driving a player off OOC referred to as Stalin Rules, as the idea was that when the player disappeared, so did the character.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:54 AM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


I would rather eat my own foot au jus than be a forum mod of any kind.

I'm unfortunately constitutionally disposed to "HEY GUYS, LET'S DO A THING!" and have learned over the years to quash that impulse immediately because I'm also constitutionally indisposed towards drama of any sort. "Let's do a thing!" leads very quickly to "You're not doing the thing the way I want to do the thing! I demand we do this thing instead of that thing! You're clearly stealing nonexistent funds that no one is paying you for this! You said you wanted to do a thing, but really your only goal is boundless, universal fame and power!" It doesn't matter what the thing is. It could be knitting socks for homeless kittens (I DEMAND WE CROCHET THEM!!! I DEMAND PROOF THAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY DONATING THESE SOCKS TO KITTENS AND NOT HOARDING THEM FOR YOUR SICK KITTEN SOCK FETISH!!!), someone is always always going to make it weird.

Though it is satisfying to see it happen to Nazis instead of kitten sock knitters.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:57 AM on January 19, 2017 [74 favorites]


Metafilter: SICK KITTEN SOCK FETISH!!!
posted by sammyo at 8:00 AM on January 19, 2017 [9 favorites]


Ha! I think that might be my first Metafilter:
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:01 AM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


Yeahhh...no. Rumors of the alt-right's demise are highly exaggerated.

Not only does the article not claim that, it actually agrees with you:

Just as some online dissent about the dogma of a feminist march doesn’t mean the march won’t happen or its goals won’t be achieved, the mod drama of the alt-right doesn’t necessarily diminish its influence. The breakup of the centralized leadership may end up making it more powerful — if the “actual Nazis” cleave to one side, then the “I don’t approve of Nazis” crew like Bill Mitchell will be able to become more mainstream.
posted by chrominance at 8:08 AM on January 19, 2017 [9 favorites]


My sister-in-law was a mod on a local mom's group forum, and the shit she would tell us about makes the worst MeTa flame wars look like mild parliamentary debate.

oh no no no no no Moms' Boards are the steely horrorshow pinnacle of Hobbesian nightmares on the internet
posted by beerperson at 8:08 AM on January 19, 2017 [31 favorites]


if you took any nine people from a Moms' Board somewhere and put them on 8chan everyone else would leave crying
posted by beerperson at 8:09 AM on January 19, 2017 [98 favorites]


if you took any nine people from a Moms' Board somewhere and put them on 8chan everyone else would leave crying

8chan but every time you post CP someone from a mom forum shows up to tell you off.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:22 AM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


if you took any nine people from a Moms' Board somewhere and put them on 8chan everyone else would leave crying

Oh, sure, that's EXACTLY what someone would say who was FORMULA FED AFTER ONLY EIGHT MONTHS.

*visceral shudder*
posted by Mayor West at 8:22 AM on January 19, 2017 [52 favorites]


2017: I agree/disagree with breastfeeding/declawing/circumcision, times a hundred and taking place at your local community center.
posted by Donald Trump Sex Nightmare at 8:24 AM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


Given the tendency for any collective effort to quickly reduce to drama, it's amazing that humanity has achieved anything.
posted by mushhushshu at 8:24 AM on January 19, 2017 [13 favorites]


I do like the idea of mom-board exiles as alt-right-forum shock-troopers, though. Sure, fine, let actual Nazis into the orthodoxy. I'll just blow through with a one-off about letting them co-sleep with you, and the forum will be shuttered by next Monday.
posted by Mayor West at 8:25 AM on January 19, 2017 [28 favorites]


Did you know there's BPA in your Rockstar Energy Drink can?
posted by uncleozzy at 8:28 AM on January 19, 2017 [7 favorites]


Oh, sure, that's EXACTLY what someone would say who was FORMULA FED AFTER ONLY EIGHT MONTHS.

how fucking DARE you mr i-buy-toys-that-aren't-entirely-natural-wood
posted by beerperson at 8:28 AM on January 19, 2017 [8 favorites]


"Given the tendency for any collective effort to quickly reduce to drama, it's amazing that humanity has achieved anything."

I was just thinking about this in regards to the founding fathers. (Thanks 'Hamilton'). Major interpersonal drama, yet outstanding accomplishments. I find myself wondering if deulling may have acted as somewhat of a pressure release valve, to allowing folks to blow off steam, then get back to working.
posted by jetsetsc at 8:28 AM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


Take “Suffolk county thrift without the dumb rules,”

I watched this play out (mostly from a safe distance to keep myself from lapsing into Volunteer Mod mode) in the neighborhood facebook community over the last few years; we had a [neighborhood] group that was basically the catchall discussion space but which didn't cope well with conflict and social justice topics in basically exactly the ways you wouldn't expect a rando facebook neighborhood group to do so, and so [neighborhood] Real Talk started up as its own group with a no-moderation expectation and the goal of housing more charged discussions that the main group couldn't deal with. And it was a decent idea! And, its worth noting, the defacto home thereafter of stuff like critical discussions of police violence and racism and sexism and transphobia and etc.

But it was still facebook and the no moderation plan was an aspirational thing that ended up butting up against the reality that, while membership in the Real Talk group tended to be self-selecting toward folks actually interested in stuff like social justice, you'd still get the self-selecting assholes and racists and sexists and transphobes and so on showing up to fight. And it wouldn't be moderated, because no moderation, and that was a goddam mess. And so they started doing tactical moderation and kicking some folks out. And it improved the group, but inevitably it also led to schism and so Real Talk 2.0 was born. I don't think that one lasted long. There were immediately jokes about 3.0, etc.

It's hard for me to sit back and just be like "okay, that's happening, that's what y'all are, uh, doing?" but boy howdy is it a better idea than trying to wade in an fix it all. They're just gonna do what they're gonna do, that's how it goes everywhere.

We also have a NextDoor group that I peek at through spread fingers sometimes. It's not horrible or raucous and mostly just has that flavor of vague White Worrywart to it that is depressingly common when you get the volunteer neighborhood watch together, but when things go weird I'm glad again that it's not my domain. But on the flip side a MeFite in the neighborhood does do some volunteer modding there and it's heartening to see her apply some seasoned MetaFilter sensibility when and where she can, even if it sometimes seems like putting down a lot of stuff that the group members are too newbieish and wrapped up in their own shit to have the sense to pick up.
posted by cortex at 8:29 AM on January 19, 2017 [30 favorites]


Given the tendency for any collective effort to quickly reduce to drama, it's amazing that humanity has achieved anything.

This is why I'm a Big Government Tax and Spend Social Democrat. Voluntary collective efforts becomes shitshows with precision timing and regularity. Government is boring. The rules are precise to the point of absurdity. There's no glory in the day to day grunt work.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:30 AM on January 19, 2017 [62 favorites]


I find myself wondering if deulling may have acted as somewhat of a pressure release valve, to allowing folks to blow off steam, then get back to working.

Well, to let one of them get back to working.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:30 AM on January 19, 2017 [15 favorites]


did cortex just subtweet all of metafilter
posted by beerperson at 8:31 AM on January 19, 2017 [29 favorites]


I find myself wondering if deulling may have acted as somewhat of a pressure release valve, to allowing folks to blow off steam, then get back to working.

Well, to let one of them get back to working.


True for poor Hamilton eventually, but he was in something like 8 duels before that. So they were rarely fatal.
posted by jetsetsc at 8:33 AM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


did cortex just subtweet all of metafilter

If I was gonna subtweet this place the very fucking walls would shake
posted by cortex at 8:35 AM on January 19, 2017 [72 favorites]


I started a Facebook group for my tiny neighborhood, and so far it has been all positive (awesome block party! someone jumpstarted my car!) but I worry for the future.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:49 AM on January 19, 2017


The linked writeup on the celebheights thing had a pullquote that made me laugh so hard I teared up:
Immediately he had to have a look himself. With intense scrutiny in his eyes and utter shock coursing through his body, he had faced the stadiometer and been measured 1 and 1/3rd inch shy of 5ft 8. The word devastated was brought up, and no wonder. Nobody wants to be measured smaller than they think they are. A fraction maybe, but over an inch? Unbelievable.
The righteous thundering or sniffily haughty dudgeon. The entire context. Crying.
posted by Drastic at 8:50 AM on January 19, 2017 [9 favorites]


Reminds me of this old joke:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are your Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are your Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, "Baptist!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are your Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are your Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.
posted by mono blanco at 8:53 AM on January 19, 2017 [53 favorites]


If I was gonna subtweet this place the very fucking walls would shake

pssst, cortex, please tell me what your secret Twitter account is.

This Buzzfeed article is fantastic, thank you for sharing it. It perfectly fits that niche between "well duh doesn't everyone on the Internet know this?" and "holy shit this explains everything!"
posted by Nelson at 9:01 AM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


That Celeb Heights thing...

Nobody will argue with you if you tell them you're shorter than you really are, even if you tell them something borderline ridiculous. I discovered this at the check-in to a local clinic. The nurses ask patients their height. And then they argue with them about it. After seeing a patient in check-in get in a shouting match with a nurse and then led to a scale to prove HE WAS NOT SIX FEET TALL, I decided to try something. I started misreporting my height too low by another inch every time I went in. I got down to something like 5'5" or 5'4" before anyone questioned me. And even then they didn't want to check.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:12 AM on January 19, 2017 [49 favorites]


A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...
posted by gottabefunky at 9:43 AM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


My wife used to hang out on the somewhat infamous DataLounge back in the 00s for celebrity gossip. There was a lot of diva drama on DL but it all paled when some poster found a bitter feud in a forum for the Michigan Womyn's Festival. My wife laughed so hard I had to come see what the fuss was. Jebus, the bloody drama over someone ignoring someone's stated boundaries made the Siege of Bastogne look trivial.
posted by Ber at 9:45 AM on January 19, 2017


The best part of Dashcon was being home on Tumblr and hitting refresh over and over, reading the increasingly horrified posts. It was high entertainment.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 10:03 AM on January 19, 2017 [10 favorites]


I used to be an online community manager in another life and people would literally make up stuff to be pissed about and freak out and start fighting and the meltdown would spread until I noticed it. Then I'd wade in and go "guys, show me where that ever happened, show me any evidence at all that anyone said anything of the sort" and naturally they'd accuse me of disappearing the post because why the hell would they get so mad about something they'd just made up and it was a conspiracy.

Now I work in bill collections which is ten times less stressful.

Though my personal favorite are the hate boards that splinter off. Something Awful has had several and when you read them it's ten or so posters spending every second obsessing about drama on the mother board. "Heh look how stupid this board is I don't read it anymore but ugh look how stupid it is just read this whole stupid 50 page thread"
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:36 AM on January 19, 2017 [11 favorites]


I've never been on a Mom Board, but I have a friend whose wife gets sucked into Mom Board Drama. One time he checked out the board she was on to see what the problem was and he told me "It's worse than sports boards! SPORTS BOARDS!!!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:44 AM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


I used to be an online community manager in another life and people would literally make up stuff to be pissed about and freak out and start fighting and the meltdown would spread until I noticed it. Then I'd wade in and go "guys, show me where that ever happened, show me any evidence at all that anyone said anything of the sort" and naturally they'd accuse me of disappearing the post because why the hell would they get so mad about something they'd just made up and it was a conspiracy.

The other side is sometimes the mod does actually lose his damn mind - users may have some complicity in driving him there but once that happens the forum is done for.
posted by atoxyl at 11:34 AM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Reminds me of this old joke:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are your Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are your Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, "Baptist!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are your Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are your Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.
posted by mono blanco at 10:53 AM on January 19 [12 favorites +] [!]


That's an Emo Phillips joke and I was lucky enough to hear him tell it live (along with about 800 other jokes) last year. Amazing to hear it recited without any pauses!
posted by Twicketface at 11:37 AM on January 19, 2017 [12 favorites]


If I was gonna subtweet this place the very fucking walls would shake

This one's for you, cortex.
posted by clockzero at 11:58 AM on January 19, 2017


(I know Emo told that joke, but I *think* I remember hearing it much earlier.)
posted by uberchet at 12:38 PM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


BernieOrBust and NeverTrump.
posted by adept256 at 12:41 PM on January 19, 2017


(On the topic of the derail (sorry), Emo definitely claims it as his own, and seems to be pretty convincing about it here).
posted by YAMWAK at 1:16 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


if you took any nine people from a Moms' Board somewhere and put them on 8chan everyone else would leave crying

To be fair, I was very sad when Wordshore brought a Mom's board thread over here and it was deleted because no one believed the OP was joking about having got upset over the wanking monkeys. On the other hand, we did enjoy the penis beaker here, so we're OK with some Mumsnet.

In a UK where there's little to be proud of, I guess we still have Mumsnet.
posted by ambrosen at 1:17 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Uberchet, if you're suggesting that The Luminous and Infallible St. Emo of Downer's Grove would stick a freaking street joke in his act, then we're about to have some serious forum drama up in here.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:17 PM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


I believe you mean The Infallible and Luminous St. Emo of Downer's Grove.
posted by Etrigan at 1:26 PM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


Die, heretic scum.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:31 PM on January 19, 2017 [8 favorites]


Re: IRL Events AND kitten socks

Knitting is the only hobby-based community that I've ever been involved in in any way, so while I suspect this may be true for other hobbies, I know that the combination of people who knit for funsies, people for whom knitting, yarn, and the like are their true professional jobs, and that Dunning-Kruger fueled group of folks for whom managing an Etsy shop with 10 sales/month is "a business", creates all kinds of assumptions about what folks are capable of that seem to get disappointed, often.

The Ravelry.com equivalent of DashCon 2014 was Knit Camp UK 2010. A fairly charming sounding event that would bring teachers from all over the world to the UK for a conference catering to folks from around those parts. Except that the organizer wasn't up to the task. I can't remember what pinged on my radar that something was going very wrong, but watching Famous Knitters encountering problems with UK customers and immigration on Twitter was a highlight (that many of the teachers were never fully paid was a disappointment, however).

And that's on top of general forum drama (with specific knitting flavors: if you don't know that acrylic melts babies prepare to be both mom and yarn shamed), and over-enthusiastic would-be small business moguls taking money for preorders and then failing to, you know, produce product.

One super fun one involved a yarn dyer who seemed to have the magic touch when it came to producing vivid colorways that others just couldn't manage. She was very popular. Until people started finished their projects with the yarn. And washing them for the first time. That one even had a fake death.

Add all of that to the naivete of the mid-aughts-early-teen years regarding the corrosive nature of stuff like doxxing and stalking, and you will find that knitters on the internet rarely stick to their knitting.
posted by sparklemotion at 1:31 PM on January 19, 2017 [23 favorites]


you will find that knitters on the internet rarely stick to their knitting.

beautifully done
posted by Existential Dread at 1:34 PM on January 19, 2017 [8 favorites]


I think this kind of drama is fairly common on some level, but it was downright inevitable in this case, because it's all about the egos.

In fact, I'd say that the egos involved would tend to make this more likely on a white supremacist forum than some others. It's over-sized egos that lead a person to bend the facts to fit their worldview rather than bend their worldview to fit the facts and gets people to do the mental gymnastics it takes to defend positions that are clearly wrong by any objective standard. It will also lead people to make sure to blame anyone or anything other than themselves if something goes wrong. So I hypothesize that a larger portion of white supremacists or any other hate-group have problematically large egos than the population at large. It's like they self-select for drama.
posted by VTX at 2:44 PM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


This exact series of things has played out in so many online communities that I am a heavy particpant in, several of which are diametrically, if not explicitly, opposed to the alt-right. I felt shudders of fear and shame reading this. Most recently this played out in a reddit group about Seattle. Just, you know, Seattle news.

It ended up as a huge thread on r/subredditdrama (whose very existence was revealed to me by this). And I still can't wrap my head around why people got so damn angry.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:51 PM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: Now I work in bill collections which is ten times less stressful.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:08 PM on January 19, 2017



Nobody will argue with you if you tell them you're shorter than you really are, even if you tell them something borderline ridiculous. I discovered this at the check-in to a local clinic. The nurses ask patients their height. And then they argue with them about it. After seeing a patient in check-in get in a shouting match with a nurse and then led to a scale to prove HE WAS NOT SIX FEET TALL, I decided to try something. I started misreporting my height too low by another inch every time I went in. I got down to something like 5'5" or 5'4" before anyone questioned me. And even then they didn't want to check.


I've been told more than 100 times that I must be lying about my real height (As a 5'11" lady this is something strangers ask me regularly). Every dude in the world apparently is over 6 feet tall, and if they are shorter than me at 6', it must be me who is wrong.
posted by matcha action at 4:18 PM on January 19, 2017 [15 favorites]


I used to be a member of the Embroiderer's Guild of America, and lost interest after a HUGELY ENTERTAINING SHITSHOW over the yearly convention. One of the EGA's stated goals at that time was to recruit younger members because the average age of the membership was something like 65. (This was slightly before the knitting renaissance kicked off renewed interest in fiber arts in general.) So the yearly convention was at some HELLA expensive hotel, and a few of the younger members (mostly grad students) suggested ALSO booking a block of rooms at a nearby Super 8 or something, for people on budgets too tight for plane travel AND a $500 room. The senior members flew off the fucking handle -- "This is my only vacation by myself every year and I'm not going to spend it in a fucking budget hotel!" "Why are you trying to exclude older people with mobility issues? SUPER 8s ARE NOT HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE*, I HAVE TO STAY IN HIGH-END LUXURY HOTELS FOR MY CANE!" "I don't think people who are so uncommitted to embroidery they can't afford a piddling $500 hotel room once a year should even be IN the guild!"

Of course the younger contingent fought back and got real shirty, pointing out that conventions all the time have a less-convenient budget option and that people could buy day tickets and stay off-site with friends or at cheaper hotels or whatever, and demanding to know why all these rich old ladies were biased against young people who just loved the art, and it devolved into everyone calling each other liars and correcting each others' grammar and old ladies shrieking about how they would NEVER STAY IN A BUDGET HOTEL (nobody asked them to) and half the mailing list quit.

It was good fuckin' entertainment, but it did put me off ever thinking about attending a convention!

*super 8s are totally handicapped accessible
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:20 PM on January 19, 2017 [25 favorites]


I dunno, having been a member of NextDoor in Seattle (Ballard neighborhoood, which is well-known for it's NIMBYism), I can definitely imagine the Seattle Reddit group self-destructing over something innocuous! I got banned from the ND group for speaking up repeatedly against the pictures of "suspicious people" when those suspicious people were non-white. I saw stuff like that on r/Seattle pretty frequently.

After I got banned, a neighbor I was friends with invited me to an "anti-NextDoor Ballard" Facebook group that promised to be drama-free, which I thought was cool, because all I wanted was a place to buy/sell/trade shit with neighbors and find out when block parties were happening. It turned out the founder was some dude who had an axe to grind with a local writer (Erica C Barnett) who occasionally would write about NextDoor shenanigans. Apparently this guy was only anti-NextDoor because he felt persecuted by this writer for tweeting about his views that hispanic men wearing backpacks at 7pm were probably casing the neighborhood and wanted to avoid her scrutiny.

I think that certain Seattleites—well-off, white, living in lovely Craftsmen houses—have something significant common with white supremacists: they belong to a privileged group that they think is under attack from outsiders and it leads to all sorts of defensive and paranoid behavior. This description could widen to all sorts of groups where people are proud of their identity and wary of anything that might threaten that pride.

This also makes me think of the shitshow that is Get Off My Internets — exactly what Ghostride the Whip describes going on in the Something Awful hate boards. People on the forums there take so much glee in making fun of bloggers they hate for being overly dramatic and it turns into some weird cult where any suggestion of "white-knighting" by defending, like, a gluten-free mommy blogger, is met with accusations of pulling a Scott Adams on Metafilter. It's the horrifying mean girls underbelly of the internet.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 4:35 PM on January 19, 2017 [16 favorites]


This has been going on for a long time. St Paul's letters in the New Testament are basically all, "Hey, knock it off!"

Fissiparous. I've always liked the sound of that word. It effervesces on the tongue. Fissiparous fissiparous fissiparous.

That is all.
posted by mono blanco at 4:53 PM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


I mostly miss Livejournal for the insane drama explosions, especially in the fandom communities. Faked deaths, faked illnesses, faked robberies, fundie Christian sock puppets, years-long betrayal plots...

I'm surprised the thread made it this far without bringing this up, because it was the first thing I thought of. There's a reason why fandom wank was a thing. I remember once spending an embarrassingly long time reading a multi post takedown (I think this particular post was about the Cassandra Claire debacle.)

I feel like this was one of the most defining features of the Harry Potter fandom. There was a combination of the fact that I'm guessing the fandom skewed young, and for a lot of people, it was probably there introduction to fandom (it was to me). And it was also in the early days of fandom online, pre-AO3 and pre-tumblr and all that fun stuff.

More recently, I know there was some controversy and upheaval with AO3 and the board and lack of financial disclosure, which you can read about in this fantastically well sourced FPP by divabat.
posted by litera scripta manet at 5:00 PM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


Complementary Schismogenesis
posted by spitbull at 5:09 PM on January 19, 2017


Freud's term: the narcissism of small differences
posted by XMLicious at 5:24 PM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


Thanks for posting OP. Great article. I'd also recommend Katie and Ryan's podcast Internet Explorer which is all about weird things on the internet.
posted by SarahElizaP at 5:32 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Hi Im new to momsforums.com does anyone know where i can buy GMO formula, i hear it contains extra nutrients
posted by benzenedream at 5:32 PM on January 19, 2017 [13 favorites]


Over a few months last year, Jezebel ran a series of updates regarding a bunch of conflict among vegan YouTubers.

Now, in regular forum drama, there usually aren't any winners except maybe if the forum runs ads (like Reddit), the forum owners might make some money. However, with YouTube ad revenue, it's the actual drama participants who stand to make financial gains. So, I wonder if there's always lurking in the background the suspicion when drama arises whether it was organic or manufactured purely for the views. At some point, it hardly matters but it's another weird, added dimension.
posted by mhum at 5:58 PM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


If you want to read some WILD irl fandom dramz it really doesn't get more OMGWTFBBQ than Tentmoot and Jordan Wood/Andy Blake. I'm warning you now, if you have never heard of any of this and start clicking, it's a rabbithole from which you will not emerge for days.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:17 PM on January 19, 2017 [10 favorites]


Cernovich was a patently failed or failing attorney in California

Let's put it this way - his Wikipedia bio calls him a "law school graduate."

(actually it looks like he was admitted to the CA bar in 2013, but that's a long time after he graduated law school)
posted by atoxyl at 6:27 PM on January 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


I was a denizen of many Disney Parks boards (and rec.arts.disney.parks) and holy balls there were constant fevered flame wars and drama over the tiniest things. Tiny Walt Disney World things! Like, the ethics of using the food court toaster for Pop Tarts you brought from home, or whether you could bring home the towel sculptures left on your bed. And every opinion made you the most awful person on Earth.
posted by kimberussell at 7:12 PM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


Uh yeah basically every lefty/social justice group I've ever been a part of has inevitably self-destructed in drama and witch hunts and factional infighting. The whole "People's Front of Judea" scene prompted a bitter snort of recognition the first time I saw it and that was probably 20 years ago.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:24 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Hope they don't have any long knives lying about.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:35 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you want to read some WILD irl fandom dramz it really doesn't get more OMGWTFBBQ than Tentmoot and Jordan Wood/Andy Blake. I'm warning you now, if you have never heard of any of this and start clicking, it's a rabbithole from which you will not emerge for days.

I would be all over that if it weren't for the fact that I just spent the last several hours revisiting the MsScribe Harry Potter debacle. If anyone else wants to dive in, here's an archived copy of "The MsScribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography" or the more abbreviated fanlore entry.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:41 PM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


More directly relevant to this article, the MsScribe story includes the schisms in the HP fandom world which were sort of entwined with the MsScribe drama, particularly regarding fights between various online fanfic archives (Sugarquill, Gryffindor Tower, FictionAlley) since that was back in the days before we had AO3 to unite all the fandoms. There was:

1. IRL drama (aka the first Harry Potter fan convention)
2. Metaboard drama (the good old days of fandom wank)
3. Splintering (both original splintering that led to the creation of these fic archives and then the splintering that led to the eventual implosion of Gryffindor tower)
4. "An identity crisis of priorities, complete with censorship and fear of outsiders"; in addition to the "shipping wars" there was a lot of back and forth and moralizing about explicit fanfic, and then even more about which kinds of explicit fanfic were okay. And thanks in part to some of the crazy MsScribe hijinks, this caused the Gryffindor Tower people to close themselves off from the rest of the fandom.

Anyway, I now feel slightly dirty for wading in to all of that, but it's pretty fascinating in a vicarious "watching a train wreck" way. (I was only on the outskirts of the fandom, so although some of the drama and names are familiar to me, I wasn't following any of this super closely at the time.)
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:55 PM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


Uh yeah basically every lefty/social justice group I've ever been a part of has inevitably self-destructed in drama and witch hunts and factional infighting.

Long ago when I was less sympathetic my view was this was 100% of what those groups did. Now I realize it's only 85% and you just have to try and ignore it.
posted by bongo_x at 10:37 PM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: every opinion made you the most awful person on Earth.
posted by bongo_x at 10:38 PM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


I was a denizen of many Disney Parks boards (and rec.arts.disney.parks) and holy balls there were constant fevered flame wars and drama over the tiniest things. Tiny Walt Disney World things!

Look, I don't see what's wrong with using these refillable mugs I bought in 1996. They said UNLIMITED when I bought them.

The DisBoards had a debate board once upon a time and it was always but always good for a "Walt would have found the WMDs in Iraq" shitshow.
posted by ThatSomething at 1:50 AM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you want to read some WILD irl fandom dramz it really doesn't get more OMGWTFBBQ than Tentmoot and Jordan Wood/Andy Blake. I'm warning you now, if you have never heard of any of this and start clicking, it's a rabbithole from which you will not emerge for days.

Just got done reading this post narrating the Jordan Wood/Andy Blake debacle, and wow, it's way more bizarre than even the convoluted machinations of MsScribe.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:51 AM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's not horrible or raucous and mostly just has that flavor of vague White Worrywart to it

Dibs on Vague White Worrywort next time sock puppets are on sale.
posted by rokusan at 9:14 AM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


I remember the HP fandom wars, too! I was only on the periphery, but some of my friends really got splattered by the fallout. Those were the days! With the demise of Livejournal and most of fandom being on Tumblr now, and not as cohesive, the days of giant, life-altering fandom wars seem to have died down.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:57 AM on January 20, 2017


Litera Scripta Manet: re the giant wankstorms in Harry Potter fandom, I think that, as you said, the fandom skewed young (though, ironically, that epic shit-stirrer MsScribe was in her 30s), and this was a first fandom for many, or at least the first fandom participated in by lots of people, played a part. I recall reading somewhere that the really old-school fandoms (newsletter-based) were quite tightly gatekept - newbies had to have mentors, and those mentors kept a short leash on their proteges until the proteges had "proven" themselves, and this was made possible because this was pre-Internet - but, thanks to message boards, Usenet, LiveJournal, etc., anyone and everyone could just dive in right away. I think this was a good thing, making fandom more accessible and democratic, but it was a free-for-all.

I complain about Tumblr being hard to hold a conversation on, and things just disappear from one's dash and get swept on and replaced by new posts, but it makes concerted grudge-holding somewhat harder. Plus there are fewer people who are utterly new to internet conversations and fandom in general.

Now Reddit, and political forums, just seem to attract screamy, fanatical grudge-holders the way garbage dumps attract seagulls. This is why so many online news sites are disabling their comment sections.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:12 AM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


95 Theses = "the mods are all corrupt and fascists" meta-board flameout
English Reformation = Catholicism without the dumb rules [about divorce]
U.S.A. = ultimate splinter board
posted by mhum at 1:03 PM on January 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


Martin Luther did the ur-flounce
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:15 PM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


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