¿Online con troversy? ¡Yo quería online sin troversy!

[matt1993]

I am constantly befuddled at the fact that everywhere I look online, I see people who have the amazing ability to read/listen to/participate in online drama that looks like it might be tongue-in-cheek but isn't 100% certain to be so, and not only not experience mental trauma because of it, but actually enjoy it, to the point of starting it just because it's "fun".

I'm not talking about typical trolls; I'm talking about stuff like this (a discussion thread on SROMG #1222), this (a discussion thread on LMOO #486), and especially this. There's the chance that all three of those are tongue-in-cheek, but if there's a chance that they're not, then there's a chance that those people will overanalyze anything I write in the same way. They're probably not aware of it, but the possibly joking controversy that they "enjoy" completely ruins my life whenever I read it. If the more recent ones continue like they have been, they could ruin some of my favorite webcomics, too.

And even worse, I'm the only person I know of who's affected by it in this way. I might as well call it "Matt1993's Syndrome", since I must be the only person on Earth who has it. Andy Weir of Casey & Andy (a webcomic I discovered because there's a few links to it in Irregular Webcomic!) is the only other person I know of who doesn't like political webcomics, but even he clearly doesn't have Matt1993's Syndrome, as he didn't have any problem with working political discussions in the annotations and even a few of the comics. Don't get me wrong, most of the comics cheer me up, but there's also one that's so much like the Forbidden Comment Threads that I'm not even going to try and find it just so I won't have to read that one again.

And since I'm the only one with Matt1993's Syndrome, no one's ever going to advocate for the rights of those with it... :(

I'm not sure how much sense this makes, especially given that I wrote most of it in only 5-15 minutes. I just felt that I had to rant about it. At least if it doesn't make sense, it proves another point about Matt1993's Syndrome: people (or person, anyway) with it are unable to even talk about controversy without saying something stupid.


Rant at me for weeks about some statement in this post that, with context removed, looks offensive

Comments

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

Rants are ok, especially on your own blog!

I didn't follow the links, mainly because it sounds like they'd annoy and upset me. :-p

I probably don't have the same exact experience as you, but I sympathize. There are days when I can't tell in person, let alone in text, whether someone is joking or entirely serious, and other days when I don't catch any jokes - it just never crosses my mind to question the literal meaning of what everyone around me says. Other days, it's easy, which is almost more frustrating than if it was always hard. I always have to be on guard, testing myself and asking "what kind of brain do I have today?"

[matt1993]

I didn't follow the links, mainly because it sounds like they'd annoy and upset me. :-p

From the looks of it, things like that usually only upset me. I've seen a few upset other people too sometimes, but they're at least able to recover from it and not be permanently traumatized like I've been. In fact, I'm probably going to need some of my LJ friends to look at them and figure out whether or not any of them are joking. At least for the SROMG forum, LMOO forum, and cartoonoveranalyzations.com links, anyway; Casey & Andy is awesome in general, so I highly doubt that the one strip that reminded me of the Forbidden Comment Threads is going to ruin it for me any time soon.

(Well, Square Root of Minus Garfield and Lightning Made of Owls are also awesome in general, but it's a bit harder to avoid seeing drama there, especially at the moment. So if drama is going to ruin one of the comics I've mentioned for me someday, it will probably be one of those two.)

As for the other links...how do I put this? Let's say you're working with chemicals and someone said that a certain solution/precipitate/whatever needs to be as white as possible, and someone else called them racist because of it. If you'd assume that this remark was just a joke and that they weren't actually offended by the non-existent subtext, then you're probably fine to read the other comments. (Even I used to make jokes like that before the weight of LJ drama started getting to me!)

[pathvain-aelien.livejournal.com]

:(
Were you hoping to start commenting there? Or are you already commenting and hope that they won't overanalyze?

[matt1993]

I actually still am planning on contributing some comics and commenting there once I've sent some in. I'm hoping they won't overanalyze, but luckily the discussions didn't end up that long, so I think they were just joking in those threads.