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Self Righteous Internet Dwellers
May. 30th, 2007 09:50 amOr SRID as I am going to call them have been popping up all over the place recently. They want to protect people from that which they find offensive (or dangerous as they call it) and many time the rally cry is we are doing it for the children.
I have found them recently sniffing around some internet groups I belong to looking for misdeeds and what they see as things that are not to their way of thinking. Recently Live Journal has been hit with a rash of requests for people's web logs to be suspended because of reasons that seem good to the SRID including stuff that is said in private journals but because the person is a member of a community that the SRID were checking out. The material in the personal journal was never posted to the group and had no bearing on how the person acting to their fellow community members. It has caused a lot of people who had very interesting public journals to jump to friends only because they don't want to have to deal with the SRID posse out to cleanse the Internet.
The other word that I have noticed popping up as the reason that an entry should be deleted or a web log community be banned is "trigger." Trigger seems to be the new favorite buzzword that someone pulled out of their psychology 101 text. It does have a specific clinical meaning and is a very real thing in many peoples' lives. But it has become the all purpose excuse to shut a thread down. When informed that it is possible to not read something, they come back with that they have right to not have to deal with things that cause them to have a (fill in the blank with yet another Psyc 101 term being used badly) and anyone who is telling them otherwise is being meeeaaan to them and trying to hurt them or cause them emotional pain. The self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome or OCD or (fill in the psychological disorder) people drive me round the bend also. There are real people with these disorders who have to live with them every day. Just because these form of SRIDs don't get along with a majority of the population doesn't mean they meet the clinical definition of these disorders.
Another form of SRID is the person who joins a group that has been getting along and for whatever reason decides to make the group their personal dumping ground for all that is wrong in their lives. When asked nicely to let up a bit (after getting lots of sympathy, advise on ways to solve their problems, places to go to help and cyber hugs) goes off on the group for being meeeeeeaaaan and cruel to them. When called on it, they shout even louder that the group should be nice to them because of (insert what ever is wrong in their lives or with them) and there is usual leaving in a huff which makes the members of the group scratch their heads and be more leery of the next person who joins the group or even some members within the group that chide the rest of the group for their lack of empathy.
Then there are the know-it-all SRIDs who of course know better than you do (you poor dear for even thinking that way tsk-tsk-tsk). They are the end all and be all of information and of course are always right even when proven wrong by evidence to the contrary of what they believe. Once it is pointed out that they are the ministers of misinformation they do one of two things. They either back-peddle on what they said ("that word/phrase/entry didn't mean what you thought it meant" mentality) or they go off to prove that they are right and you are wrong and gosh darn logic or consequences.
For the most part SRIDs in their heart of hearts think that they are doing good for all of us who dwell here on the World Wide Web but their methods to save us from ourselves is making my hackles rise. I find it funny that this week I had all kinds of SRIDs show up in the places I frequent on the internet which prompted me to write this entry which someone I am sure is going to find and be offended by even though this is my space on the Internet to write what I want to write.
I am grateful that I don't run into SRIDs that often.
I have found them recently sniffing around some internet groups I belong to looking for misdeeds and what they see as things that are not to their way of thinking. Recently Live Journal has been hit with a rash of requests for people's web logs to be suspended because of reasons that seem good to the SRID including stuff that is said in private journals but because the person is a member of a community that the SRID were checking out. The material in the personal journal was never posted to the group and had no bearing on how the person acting to their fellow community members. It has caused a lot of people who had very interesting public journals to jump to friends only because they don't want to have to deal with the SRID posse out to cleanse the Internet.
The other word that I have noticed popping up as the reason that an entry should be deleted or a web log community be banned is "trigger." Trigger seems to be the new favorite buzzword that someone pulled out of their psychology 101 text. It does have a specific clinical meaning and is a very real thing in many peoples' lives. But it has become the all purpose excuse to shut a thread down. When informed that it is possible to not read something, they come back with that they have right to not have to deal with things that cause them to have a (fill in the blank with yet another Psyc 101 term being used badly) and anyone who is telling them otherwise is being meeeaaan to them and trying to hurt them or cause them emotional pain. The self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome or OCD or (fill in the psychological disorder) people drive me round the bend also. There are real people with these disorders who have to live with them every day. Just because these form of SRIDs don't get along with a majority of the population doesn't mean they meet the clinical definition of these disorders.
Another form of SRID is the person who joins a group that has been getting along and for whatever reason decides to make the group their personal dumping ground for all that is wrong in their lives. When asked nicely to let up a bit (after getting lots of sympathy, advise on ways to solve their problems, places to go to help and cyber hugs) goes off on the group for being meeeeeeaaaan and cruel to them. When called on it, they shout even louder that the group should be nice to them because of (insert what ever is wrong in their lives or with them) and there is usual leaving in a huff which makes the members of the group scratch their heads and be more leery of the next person who joins the group or even some members within the group that chide the rest of the group for their lack of empathy.
Then there are the know-it-all SRIDs who of course know better than you do (you poor dear for even thinking that way tsk-tsk-tsk). They are the end all and be all of information and of course are always right even when proven wrong by evidence to the contrary of what they believe. Once it is pointed out that they are the ministers of misinformation they do one of two things. They either back-peddle on what they said ("that word/phrase/entry didn't mean what you thought it meant" mentality) or they go off to prove that they are right and you are wrong and gosh darn logic or consequences.
For the most part SRIDs in their heart of hearts think that they are doing good for all of us who dwell here on the World Wide Web but their methods to save us from ourselves is making my hackles rise. I find it funny that this week I had all kinds of SRIDs show up in the places I frequent on the internet which prompted me to write this entry which someone I am sure is going to find and be offended by even though this is my space on the Internet to write what I want to write.
I am grateful that I don't run into SRIDs that often.
