Jormus! I hate that guy

June 26, 2023 7:51 AM

"Egregore," by merritt k, is a short story about what happens when you make up a guy to get mad at and the guy gets mad at you back.

His status as a figure of simultaneous derision and fear made Jormus the perfect rallying point for the community. Whereas previously the forum had regularly broken out into flame wars over personal disagreements, opinions on the Star Wars films, and differing senses of humor, the advent of Jormus seemed to quell all of this. It was as if Jormus absorbed the collective hostility and negative feelings of the userbase. When arguments did get heated, it became easy to defuse tensions by invoking the Fleece Jester, the Crimebaron, the Web Wizard, He Who Japes — fucking Jormus.

An egregore, by the way, is (in this context) an occult concept meaning an independent magical entity created by a collective psyche.

posted by babelfish (52 comments total)

Jormus? Never heard of him.

Never.

Heard.

Of.

Him.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:06 AM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Invocations of Jormus began to be seen as old hat, somewhat embarrassing, and the community moved on to other things.
posted by Naberius at 8:08 AM on June 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

jormus (jean jormus)
posted by cortex at 8:14 AM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Amazing how long it took me to realize that this wasn't real. Although it is now, I suppose, in the nature of creepypasta.

(I feel that creepypasta sometimes straddles the line between literature and folklore, and I'd be interested in reading more analyses of it. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.)
posted by Countess Elena at 9:08 AM on June 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

Just started it--feeling this is going to be a metaphor for how the right demonizes groups that scarcely exist, like antifa, or followers of Soros, or children who identify as cats. 10 minutes hate, etc. Well if it's not a metaphor for that, such a metaphor is needed!
posted by Schmucko at 9:30 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wasn’t Jormus the thing that killed Tasha Yar?
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:32 AM on June 26, 2023 [10 favorites]

No, that was Armus. Jormus is one of the guys from The Lonely Island.
posted by a car full of lions at 9:52 AM on June 26, 2023 [11 favorites]

Jormus Jamz, Vol 2 is a real keg of bangers.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:57 AM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think that's Jorma. Jormus is that guy who directed Ghost Dog, isn't he?
posted by pmdboi at 10:01 AM on June 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

No, you're thinking of Jarmusch. Jormus is the latin name for the interior membrane/structure of the skin.
posted by cortex at 10:02 AM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

No, that's dermis. Jormus is cut off denim pants.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:16 AM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Nah those are jorts. Jormus is that yellowing of the skin and eyes you get when your liver is failing.
posted by jpziller at 10:40 AM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

you're thinking of jaundice, Jormus is Dio's son whose Stand ability Golden Wind breathes life into objects
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:45 AM on June 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

You're thinking of jaundice. Jormus is that sleepy little rodent from the tea party in Alice in Wonderland.
posted by babelfish at 10:45 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

DAMMIT too slow
posted by babelfish at 10:45 AM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think you'll find that's a doormouse. Jormus are a class of curries consisting of meat or vegetables braised in yogurt, water or stock with spices to produce a thick sauce or gravy.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:46 AM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

You're thinking of a korma. Jormus is an Australian term for sheep.
posted by Zargon X at 10:52 AM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

You're thinking of Jumbuck. Jormus are those little things that transmit diseases.
posted by The otter lady at 10:58 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

you're thinking of toddlers, jormus is the apostle who doubted Jesus
posted by cortex at 10:59 AM on June 26, 2023 [16 favorites]

You're thinking of Judas. Jormus is the World Serpent who encircles Midgard in Norse mythology.
posted by markslack at 11:06 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry to break the chain but answering "toddlers" instead of "germs" is just too funny
posted by a car full of lions at 11:12 AM on June 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

You're thinking of Jörmungandr. Jormus is a hit song by Dolly Parton.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:29 AM on June 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

You're thinking of Jolene. Jormus is an HBO sports comedy starring Robert Wuhl and Sandra Oh.
posted by cortex at 11:41 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Your're thinking of Korma, a spicy Indian cooking style. Jormus is the former guitarist for Jefferson Airplane.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:51 AM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh no, I think the chain may be well and truly broken now... fucking Jormus
posted by babelfish at 11:53 AM on June 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Cortex, was that Arliss? Arli$$? Arli$? Not Jormus, anyway. I don't worry about that goat/demon guy until Advent rolls around.
posted by inexorably_forward at 11:54 AM on June 26, 2023

you're thinking of Paul Kantner, Jormus is a British insult meaning "lacking in vitality or intelligence"
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:12 PM on June 26, 2023

jormus (jean jormus)

Jean Jormus lives on his back
The Jean Jormus loves chimney slacks
He's outrageous (Jean Jormus)
He screams and he bawls
The Jean Jormus let yourself go, whoa
posted by chavenet at 12:15 PM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

That middle "m" is critical...
posted by Jorus at 1:23 PM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

you're thinking of Paul Kantner

Jorma Kaukonen, actually.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:59 PM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

(I was being hilarious on purpose)
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:56 PM on June 26, 2023

I can't think of anything funny. It's a good solid story.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:01 PM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I used to wear a black trenchcoat and a fleece jester cap regularly, and hang out in game stores. I still own them. I'm large. I never owned a Dreamcast, though.
posted by jordemort at 3:07 PM on June 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

no, you're thinking of yourself, jormus is when a
posted by cortex at 3:10 PM on June 26, 2023 [9 favorites]

you're thinking of Paul Kantner, Jormus is a British insult meaning "lacking in vitality or intelligence"

You're thinking of "gormless." Jormus, of course, is a small, sparsely inhabited island in the Persian Gulf, belonging to Iran.
posted by chavenet at 3:12 PM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

No, that's Hormuz. Jormus is a hopping desert rodent found throughout North Africa and Asia.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:15 PM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

(should I interrupt this lovely comment thread to mention that merritt k has been accused multiple times of bullying and abuse? to the point where a story about how an entire community decides that it's okay to bully a specific person is really uncomfortable coming from her? I guess I already did.)
posted by Merus at 4:10 PM on June 26, 2023

Should you actually also provide links/receipts for those accusations if you're going to bring that into this sphere, yes.

(no skin in this game, but if you're gonna say it, -say- it, don't just be vague)
posted by FritoKAL at 6:00 PM on June 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

merritt k has been accused multiple times of bullying and abuse? to the point where a story about how an entire community decides that it's okay to bully a specific person

Listen to yourself.
posted by figurant at 6:21 PM on June 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

Hopping desert mouse? You mean Jerboas. Jormus is one of the three musketeers.
posted by saeva indignatio at 7:38 PM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Should you actually also provide links/receipts for those accusations if you're going to bring that into this sphere, yes.

yeah, that's fair, and part of the reason I was vague was because I didn't keep screenshots when I found out about it in 2019, and most of the tweets about it have been deleted or made private. I believe the links in this contemporary Waypoint forum post would have been some of them, and some of them have been partially cached by the forum software. My recollection is that the allegations were that she would use her position as news editor at Fanbyte to bully contributors, while cultivating positive relationships with those with more institutional power.

She came up in the San Francisco queer games scene in the early 2000s with Anna Anthropy, porpentine and ellaguro/Liz Ryerson; that scene infamously descended into pretty horrendous emotional abuse. I've read a few accounts about that scene; everyone has a slightly different story, there's some DARVO going on, but for what it's worth I believe ellaguro's account the most. It's twenty years ago now and I'm willing to accept that people change a lot in that time; which is why the accounts from 2019 stick in the mind.
posted by Merus at 8:29 PM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

No, that's Milkshake Duck.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:28 PM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

recollection is that the allegations were

This is a crappy way to act, come on
posted by Haere at 5:04 AM on June 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

After diving down the "is Merritt K an abuser?" rabbithole for entirely too long this morning, the allegations against her are... thin, at best. Even after bending over backwards to find archived links for content that's been deleted, the only provable claims against her are that she tweeted some off-color jokes, which were labeled biphobic despite being (again) pretty clearly some jokes.

A couple of people made claims that she abuses her reputation to take advantage of less-powerful trans members of her community. I'm open to the possibility that that is, in fact, true, but the evidence of it consists of one tweet thread from somebody claiming that a handful of different people abused and controlled them (without differentiating much between which people did which things), and another claim that this article was "primarily" about Merritt. The article itself, however, is incredibly vague about describing details. None of that is intended as a criticism of the article or the tweeter in question, but it means that there's a whole lot of vagueness to the incident(s) in question, and pretty much nothing specific.

(Ellaguro's account is also a little hard to parse, but that aside, it seems to be entirely about someone who I guess Merritt is friends with and doesn't mention Merritt at all? At some point it mentions being scared of "trans women" plural, but again, that's the most concrete mention of maybe-Merritt in the whole piece, and the allegations in the piece as a whole are not a lot more concrete than that.)

People looking to draw their own conclusions might find this album of partly-deleted posts useful, but even there, the most I got was that there was some sort of fight with Charity Heartscape, and that Merritt is sometimes kind of an asshole on Twitter. And I totally buy that Merritt can be a jerk and I don't at all doubt that she's capable of diving into the trenches when a fight gets ugly, but this all feels like Internet in-fighting to me, in a way that makes it really hard to draw any more substantial conclusions than that.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:33 AM on June 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Anyway I'm kinda amused that this comments section has had two primary reactions to the actual piece, neither of which has to do with the contents of the piece itself.

I liked the piece!
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:34 AM on June 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

After diving down the "is Merritt K an abuser?" rabbithole for entirely too long this morning, the allegations against her are... thin, at best.

This was way too much effort to put into debunking someone's half-remembered, half-invented grudge but I salute it!
posted by babelfish at 6:24 AM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Anyway I'm kinda amused that this comments section has had two primary reactions to the actual piece

no, that's juxtaposition, you're
posted by cortex at 6:54 AM on June 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

While I guess I am pleased that someone who continues to be connected in the industry is not in fact a missing stair, and thank you to Tom Hanks for looking at it with fresh eyes, I’m a bit put out that trying to remember as many people who’ve been accused of being missing stairs as I can (it is mostly white men, to be clear) turns out to not merely be unhelpful but shameful. Fuck it.
posted by Merus at 7:09 AM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

No, that's self-justification, y
posted by babelfish at 8:22 AM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Merus: honestly, you made a good-faith attempt to raise awareness of a possibly-shitty thing. The only real asshole in this thread is that fucker Jormus
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:20 AM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

For whatever it's worth, I've worked with Merritt a number of times over the last 10 years and she has been absolutely lovely to me and all on my team, every time.

Also, this story is great and I didn't realize it was fiction until the end and now I'm kind of disappointed. I blame Jormus, what a shithead.
posted by dogbusonline at 12:55 PM on June 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hmmm, any relation to Geedis?
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:22 PM on June 27, 2023