The Worst Blog Post Ever

[Russ Pitts]

The Worst Blog Post Ever

There's a pic going around that was supposedly captured from the WoW forums. It's a screen cap of a forum post made by the brother of a WoW player, announcing to the rest of the forum that his brother has passed away. He says that he's making the post because his brother was always proud of how well-regarded he was in the WoW community, and that he thought his brother would want his fellow WoWers to know that he'd died.

The very first response to this heartfelt posting was:

"So did he drop any good loot?"

When I first read this I chuckled lightly. It's a funny joke. When characters in WoW die, the drop loot. Everybody get's that right? And then I thought about the poor guy who just lost his brother and, out of love, turned on his computer (the computer he must have been using shortly before he died), opened up his WoW account (another piece of his life) and posted a message to the friends and guildmates who might have known his brother better than he did.

I can imagine the strength it must have taken to make that gesture. The love and respect he must have felt for his brother to even bother. And I try to imagine how he must have felt reading that single sentence:

"So did he drop any loot?"

And I died a little inside.

Obviously, the folks at Kotaku had a different reaction. Earlier today, Kotaku declared this [http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/wow/best-wow-forum-post-ever-212318.php] the "Best Forum Post Ever."

This is why people think gamers are immature children. This, right here: Because, it seems, most of us are. Shame on Kotaku. Shame on us all.

You can rationalize crassness and insensitivity as much as you want. Sure, the internet is a negative place, and people post without thinking. Sure it's just a joke. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe nobody cares. But sometimes you have to have enough class to not encourage that kind of behavior. Sometimes you have to care, even when nobody else does. Because that's what people do.

This is how [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/lounge/view/57085-In-Memory-of-One-of-47] honorable men and women are supposed to respond in a situation like that. More of this would be a good thing.

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[generalissimofurioso [deprecated]]

I wholeheartedly agree

 

[Goofonian]

I'm a little upset that anyone would find that funny at all.

Im even a little disappointed in russ for finding it amusing, even if he did come around in the end.

The guy that posted that article on kotaku needs to be shot.

 

[_Nocturnal]

That last sentence doesn't show you as too caring and compassionate either, don't you think?

"Some guy I don't know should be killed for saying a joke about a dead man I also don't know on the Internet!"

It's not like he offended the deceased, nor the brother - he simply made fun.
Since when is fun a bad thing?
Does it have to interfere with whatever other emotions the first post was seeking to evoke?

And why no one's discussing how appropriate exactly it is to impose the information that someone they don't know has died to a public?
A public, by the way, that keeps getting wider and wider, the more the subject is discussed. The wrong subject.

Hey, people we don't know die all the time! Have you ever considered the fact that we couldn't care for all of those deaths even if we wanted to? Even if we knew all those people? We can't or, I'd imagine, we ourselves would collapse from the grief.

Then there's that other thing: WoW is a game. People play games for entertainment. People go to the WoW forums to discuss that entertainment and, hopefully, get some more. You post an obituary - it's turned to entertainment.

Death is a personal thing (Especially if you're on the receiving end. Oh, no - a joke! My reflection in the screen suddenly changed to Satan's!). You should either deal with it in that manner, or face the consequences.

All that being said, WoW players are freaks.

 

[te2rx [deprecated]]

It's called trolling. The poster of "So did he drop any good loot?" was most likely fishing for heated replies like... well, take this thread for instance. I saw the now infamous screencap of that thread earlier. Admittedly I wow'ed at the (deliberately) bad taste of that reply, but you gotta chalk it up to "lol internet" and move on.

 

[Bongo Bill]

Ah, the anonymity principle at work. When there's no consequences for speech, people occasionally get their kicks from getting a rise out of others. We've all done it. Best to just ignore it.

 

[Lex Darko]

All this can be explained with this one link [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19].

I'd also like to add what did Nano's brother really expect?

If people spent time grieving because of the deaths of people they didn't even know, all people would ever do is grieve.

 

[Russ Pitts]

If people spent time grieving because of the deaths of people they didn't even know, all people would ever do is grieve.

I think it's possible to respect the grief of others without sharing it. But the lack of respect displayed here is exactly the problem.

I recognize that, for the most part, we are talking about children who are behaving as children will. I also know, from experience, that children can learn, and will often follow an example set. What example we set is our choice.

 

[DesertChicken]

It's not like he offended the deceased, nor the brother - he simply made fun.
Since when is fun a bad thing?
Does it have to interfere with whatever other emotions the first post was seeking to evoke?

I think there are alot of assumptions being made about both posters in the WoW thread. We don't know how the brother responded to the joke post. Sure, it was a joke, and I certainly hope the OP got a laugh out of it instead of being hurt. But when someone's mother dies in a car accident, you don't crack a joke about women drivers.

Now, people have argued, that the joke post guy is a troll or he's just making fun. We have no evidence either way:

All that being said, WoW players are freaks.

I agree. The WoW forums are an enviroment where "trolling" threads are made on a daily basis. Basically threads where people make up some absolutely outrageous statement in order to see how much attention they get. This happens to the point where people have a rating system for them. For example, if I thought the OP of this thread was trolling, I'd say

2/10, Nice try, but I could sense you sarcasm before I got past the first sentence.

Now this situation applies to both the OP of the WoW thread and the joke response. Faking someone's death on the internet for attention isn't something new, and maybe the joke response guy thought the OP was trolling?

 

[Sean Sands]

I thought I must be overreacting when I first saw this posted earlier today in another forum, because I was disgusted and saddened by it immediately where others seemed to find it funny. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought it was awful.

 

[Echolocating]

Goofonian wrote: "Im even a little disappointed in russ for finding it amusing, even if he did come around in the end."

I'm glad Russ was honest with us in his reaction. I'm not disappointed in him at all. It is possible to be in between both ends of the spectrum while not coming off as an insensitive jerk... or someone who needs to lighten up a little.

People seem to feel the need to strongly support one side or the other. By conceding it was funny, some think they are being disrespectful. They think they might be seen as condoning this sort of thing so they sit strongly on the side of "It wasn't funny... and anybody who thinks so is a jerk." In another context, I'm sure we could all agree that it was funny.

On the other side, those that want to get their point across that is was funny are trying to justify the reply as not disrespectful. "Humour is a part of life AND death... learn to laugh a little." People deal with grief differently and we should respect THAT... especially when we don't know them.

It was clever and funny... at the same time it was inappropriate and inconsiderate. I really don't know why some people cannot acknowledge this.

 

[Goofonian]

That last sentence doesn't show you as too caring and compassionate either, don't you think?

"Some guy I don't know should be killed for saying a joke about a dead man I also don't know on the Internet!"

It's not like he offended the deceased, nor the brother - he simply made fun.
Since when is fun a bad thing?
Does it have to interfere with whatever other emotions the first post was seeking to evoke?

I think you missed the point.

I was refering to the poster on kotaku not the poster on the wow forums. I couldn't care less how depraved some loser on the wow forums wants to be, but a so called "journalist" on one of the largest blogs on the net should have a little more decency, or at the very least just be less of a tool. I don't read kotaku and after this I dont think I ever will. Also, saying somebody needs to be shot is a figure of speech. I'll assume you know what that means. That said, I would like to see said tool shot literally, perhaps in the leg cos that would hurt like hell and would be slightly amusing for onlookers to see him hopping around in pain. that'd learn him.


Back to the point at hand, I'm not ashamed to be one sided about this at all, I didnt find it to be amusing in the slightest. Not even in the first couple seconds after I read it. Clever maybe but never funny. Although I will have to admit that I'm not 100% sure what the brother of this guy was expecting posting such a thing on such an obviously corrupted message board.

 

[_Nocturnal]

Hm, yes, my bad. Got mixed up with the Kotaku comments and all.

 

[Echolocating]

All I'm saying is that it's not a crime to see the humor in things, Goofonian. Finding something humorous and broadcasting inappropriate humor are two different things. I just found your disappointment of people who saw the humor in it(but still understood the inappropriateness) as being extreme. Humor can catch you off guard and hit you when you least expect it.

Have you ever laughed at a sexist joke? ...or a racist or religious joke? It's okay to find humor in things, just don't praise it and convince people it's somehow appropriate, that's all I ask... and don't make it seem like a crime for even thinking it was a bit funny.

Anyway, I agree that the Kotaku guy was a jerk. Praising a post that's easily considered disrespectful was not very smart... not at all. That was worse than the guy that made the joke in the first place.

 

[Goofonian]

Yeah, your right and I'm glad russ told us the whole story. At the very least it made for good reading.

I was just so damn appalled when I first read it that the thought of anyone finding that funny was sickening.

 

[MrKat [deprecated]]

The problem with things like this *on the Internet* is that 9 out of 10 posts of this nature are fakes and jokes, things done by muppets wanting a bit of attention or wanting to damage someones reputation in some way, shape or form.

That obviously 'taints' any sense of reality that pervades the *real* passing of a *real* person, which is sadly hard to grasp amongst the dross that gets posted in response to these events.

The long and short of it is that unless they were a widely known member of a given community how do people know? Does it fall in to a "here we go, yet another idiot messing around" category of message? If it's a genuine event there are way to 'back it up with evidence' but in doing that one should expect a majority of posts to be dross in the mean time. That's just the way of the Internet right now.