Blorpy: Interesting stories found in comments
December 11, 2013 1:08 PM   Subscribe

Blorpy: Interesting stories found in comments "Internet comments are NOT all stupid. If you read through enough comments, you come across some amazing stories. I find them and post them here." [via mefi projects]
posted by rebent (22 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
Huh, I've actually been following this for a while. Small world.
posted by KChasm at 1:14 PM on December 11, 2013


Good idea.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:16 PM on December 11, 2013


I like it!
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:46 PM on December 11, 2013


There's at least one Metafilter-sourced story on that blog. Lots more to be found around here.
posted by beagle at 2:07 PM on December 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


MetaFilter: Internet comments are NOT all stupid.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:08 PM on December 11, 2013


There are some real gems here. Well done.
posted by Kabanos at 2:12 PM on December 11, 2013


>MetaFilter: Internet comments are NOT all stupid.

No but copyright laws are. Too bad there wasn't a mechanism to facilitate opening comments up to more sharing like this. Something like a copyright license which would allow sharing without giving up rights.
posted by stbalbach at 2:15 PM on December 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Another good source for this type of stuff is www.reddit.com/r/bestof
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 2:33 PM on December 11, 2013


Hey - that's my tiger story! that's me in the pink shorts
posted by Mchelly at 2:33 PM on December 11, 2013 [8 favorites]


Wow, this one's really good, the aside to his dad is beautiful:
Iraq vet here.

I was outside of the wire almost daily. I stopped counting the number of bombs that hit my convoys. I watched both American soldiers die and lots of innocent civilians.

That being said, I really hate the hero worship of veterans day. The vets I served with were a mixture of good and bad people just like everyone else. 99.9% of them weren’t fighting out of some delusion that we were keeping America safe. Most were in the Army because they liked the lifestyle or it was a guaranteed job or some other personal reason. But heroes? Hardly. In fact I saw some pretty damn unheroic shit.

Here’s the thing: just because you join the military and eventually get put in a situation where people are trying to kill you doesn’t mean that you are a hero because you survive and possibly fight back. It became perfectly clear to everyone but the most ardent fools in Iraq that the only terrorists there were the ones we created by invading their land and plunging them even farther into poverty than Saddam did.

Eventually this unwarranted hero worship will backfire. Lies have a way of doing that.

My heart sinks every year when my father calls me and thanks me for “protecting his freedom.”

Dad, you aren’t a redditor, and I just don’t have the heart to tell you that you would be just as free if we had stayed out of that country and not killed thousands of innocent people. :(

posted by Ned G at 3:06 PM on December 11, 2013 [11 favorites]


Don't we all have at least one Auntie Frances?
posted by BlueHorse at 3:37 PM on December 11, 2013


Here is another Mefi story.
posted by annsunny at 4:26 PM on December 11, 2013


Blorpy is not how you spell Metafilter
posted by clvrmnky at 4:26 PM on December 11, 2013


Oh, and this one, which has made me think a lot since seeing it last year.
posted by annsunny at 4:37 PM on December 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oo, is this the thread where we share our favorite finds? I found this one when I was looking through reviews for cologne. Powerful story, doubly so because I was completely not expecting something like this when reading Fragrantica. Added the paragraph breaks because the original thing was just one long paragraph.

"No one had any idea the beautiful morning of September 11th, 2001 would turn to soot and misery before noon. I remember crossing 5th avenue at around 8:30am, and thinking that a more glorious morning could not be conceived: It was crisp, clear....the temperature was perfect. I wore a brown suit, a white shirt, and a solid red neck tie: I've never been one for novelties and prints. I could smell the lavender wafting up from my linen, as I sped up the lift to the 34th floor.

By 9:30 all was mayhem. People were screaming. Then the second plane hit and the phones went dead. We were captive on East 49th street: Building security would not let us leave. Finally, by four in the afternoon, if we signed a waiver, we could go--and so I did.

For three days Manhattan shut down, and most everyone stayed in their apartments. There was hardly any traffic on the streets, and very little noise. Many had unexpected guests who lived below Canal Street. Myself, I was alone, and sat in the quiet without television nor radio, internet access or phone service. It took me hours of concentrated effort to tape up the windows, as was suggested, along with air-ducts and door cracks.

From that day on, all of New York City smelled like a backyard barbecue. "Ground Zero" smoked and gushed for months and months. A full year later it still smoked. Life just smelled of smoke, and loss: Every day for eight months I walked through funerals on Fifth Avenue: Huge ones--for all of the servicemen who lost their lives. They tend to put on quite a huge pageant in these instances.

People didn't speak much at first. The clubs were full: Everyone kept drinking...but there just wasn't a great deal of talking.

I, for the first time in my life, found that I couldn't wear perfume. Not only was I convinced my unwavering habit was unfit for such a gloomy time, nothing at all about it seemed alluring or necessary. Three weeks in to the New Era of Austerity and I gave in to a sudden urge to splash myself in signature brew, only to burst into tears as soon as I smelled it swirling around me. I would have to find a new one.

In those days, there was a beautiful replica, all in wood paneling, of the Penhaligon's shop in London on the ground floor of Saks Fifth Avenue. I had fond memories of "English Fern," so I went there to ask which of their fragrances could be considered the driest, least frivolous, and, more importantly, which would accommodate this stench of smoke that would not go away. The host of the Penhaligon's boutique was an Englishman, as is fitting. I remember he looked me straight in the eye across his spectacles, and through them I could see his eyes becoming glassy. "This might do," he said. And with that remark I was handed a mouillete sprayed in Blenheim Bouquet. The numbness that lingered all over New York for months did not encourage any sort of enthusiasm, so I just gave it a brief whiff: It smelled of wood smoke, like everything else, with a bit of pine and lemon. "Perfect. The largest size you have please, in an eau de toilette." "We have a 500ml" -"That will be fine. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Thank you."

Though I can't say I did in fact enjoy it, I used the entire 500ml decanter to the last drop. Its severity and seriousness was very precisely suited to the broken spirits of all and sundry: Encouraging to those who "kept calm, and carried on." It took me a year to empty the bottle: When that year was past, New York still smelled like smoke, and so did everything and everyone, except none of us noticed it any longer: We'd all grown accustomed to it. Faced with an empty bottle of Blenheim Bouquet, I again tried my own signature scent, which had lain forgotten in drawers and cabinets, and still, it wasn't right: Too French. Too romantic. I can't smell like this, I thought, and that's when I knew: Sitting at my dressing table with an enormous empty bottle looking in the mirror I saw it in my eyes. Something was just over. One month later, I left. I left New York. I moved away.

I still have the empty bottle of Blenheim Bouquet, and every year, on September 11th, I uncork it and give it a whiff. Every year, my thoughts vary...I remember odd things: How people who had lost love ones would burn candles in their windows...all of the "Missing" photocopy signs pasted all over every surface that nobody ever had the courage to remove, so they just disintegrated over time, while we walked by them, day in, day out, and watched. This year, I thought of how beautiful the morning was, and marveled at how that September would be the very last one like it: The beauty of innocence and the thrill and promise of early Fall in New York City, where everything was possible. None of that ever came back the way it was. But Blenheim Bouquet hasn't changed: A kind of therapy. Some days I would get out of bed only because I knew I would have my moment with it. I would look forward to rubbing it all over my chest, because when I did, invariably I would think that at least something was beautiful...and unchanged...and just that little bit of courage, a hint of hope that certain things endure, very often got me through the day. September 11th, 2011"
posted by C^3 at 6:53 PM on December 11, 2013 [8 favorites]


There's actually a MetaFilter tag on Blorpy. There are ten MeFi comments reproduced there, one of mine among them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 PM on December 11, 2013


I've read the blog start to finish (glossing over posts I'd already come across).

Very nicely selected.

I read reddit looking for these gems. There are a lot of them, along with very interesting glimpses into other lives and other ways of living in places like AskReddit.

C^3: That was beautiful.
posted by flippant at 2:10 AM on December 12, 2013


I've been following this since I discovered one of my MeFi comments... He does a great job.... It's a neat concept.
posted by HuronBob at 3:00 AM on December 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


Cheers for pointing out the MetaFilter tag DirtyOldTown, I've just read through all of them (I think there are more than ten but I didn't count). There are a lot of good stories from you folk up there!

At the end though there are a couple of comments by HoldKris99, which I didn't like to see. I know that it's likely a lot of comments from Reddit and other places are just as likely to be made up, but seeing that username broke my suspension of disbelief.
posted by Ned G at 5:15 AM on December 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


who's holdkriss99?
posted by rebent at 7:27 AM on December 12, 2013


He was a shithead who faked his own death in this community and probably made up a bunch of the other stories he told.
posted by jessamyn at 7:47 AM on December 12, 2013


oh yeah, thanks. a sad event.
posted by rebent at 7:53 AM on December 12, 2013


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