Yeah. We've all seen them. Someone suddenly gets up on a soapbox when their ego and internet superiority complex is hurt and says in that passive-aggressive, high and mighty tone that's so common to an argument on the internet, "Screw you guys! I'm going home!" like people actually care that they're going to act like a seven year old who doesn't want to play a game anymore because their team lost, or because they weren't picked first.
Have you ever seen an especially hilarious one? Or one that was chucked over something completely mundane? Did you ever throw one yourself that you're really ashamed of? (*coyly raises hand and regrets being a stupid thirteen year old with a web connection*)
Please try not to mention any names or handles. We're not bashing anybody here or trying to start a flame war. Just give us a little background on the story and why this anonymous person was pissed. Unless, of course, the blowup is something especially infamous (like some sort of internet "celebrity" everybody has heard of) and it would be impossible not to know who you're talking about, because it's basically a Christian Bale-rant level meme.
So, have you ever laughed your ass off or just shaken your head disapprovingly at an internet hissy fit? Have you ever seen somebody come back to a community after throwing one?
Have you ever seen an especially hilarious one? Or one that was chucked over something completely mundane? Did you ever throw one yourself that you're really ashamed of? (*coyly raises hand and regrets being a stupid thirteen year old with a web connection*)
Please try not to mention any names or handles. We're not bashing anybody here or trying to start a flame war. Just give us a little background on the story and why this anonymous person was pissed. Unless, of course, the blowup is something especially infamous (like some sort of internet "celebrity" everybody has heard of) and it would be impossible not to know who you're talking about, because it's basically a Christian Bale-rant level meme.
The current incident that's inspiring this topic comes from a livejournal meme where people post prompts for a certain fandom and have an author come along and fill it. You know how fanfiction can get, right? Some kid gets a couple of "OMG! This was soooooo good!1!" reviews, and suddenly they have an ego the size of a small European country, regardless of the actual quality of their work.
So, to my surprise, my email starts flooding with alerts when this argument breaks out. An author asks people to post prompts to a specific thread for them, because they lost their bookmarks for the prompts they were going to fill. Basically, a few anonymous members are telling this poster they're breaking the rules and that they're supposed to read through the meme by their own self and find the prompts they were looking for instead of expecting some legion of fans to bring comments and prompts especially to them. Just because they've posted a few fics doesn't mean there are special rules for them. No one else is doing what this poster was doing, after all.
Now, how does this spiral into an argument? Well, instead of acting like an adult and saying, "Oops. Sorry. I guess I wasn't really thinking when I made this post. I'll just delete it and move on," what does our poster do?
They start an entirely new thread declaring how everyone on this meme (every meme in this fandom, in fact) is a hater and that they're going to move all their material away from the memes and go to their own live journal and every one who likes their fics can follow them. Yes. Basically, they're going on strike. Small name, big ego, much? Keep in mind that this was a person who had already gone off and started their own meme for this fandom only a few days after joining. Seriously.
I'm not involved in this argument at all. I honestly don't care. It's too stupid. I just think it's embarrassing, and the only reason I'm even giving it any thought here is that this argument is still going on in my inbox right now. I'm just watching the responses with the topic titles come flooding in, one after the other. And all I'm seeing is one person make an idiot out of themselves, basically gutting whatever good will there was towards them considering the attitude they've already shown in the past, while a bunch of other anonymous people pretty much do the same by feeding into this senseless conflict.
So, to my surprise, my email starts flooding with alerts when this argument breaks out. An author asks people to post prompts to a specific thread for them, because they lost their bookmarks for the prompts they were going to fill. Basically, a few anonymous members are telling this poster they're breaking the rules and that they're supposed to read through the meme by their own self and find the prompts they were looking for instead of expecting some legion of fans to bring comments and prompts especially to them. Just because they've posted a few fics doesn't mean there are special rules for them. No one else is doing what this poster was doing, after all.
Now, how does this spiral into an argument? Well, instead of acting like an adult and saying, "Oops. Sorry. I guess I wasn't really thinking when I made this post. I'll just delete it and move on," what does our poster do?
They start an entirely new thread declaring how everyone on this meme (every meme in this fandom, in fact) is a hater and that they're going to move all their material away from the memes and go to their own live journal and every one who likes their fics can follow them. Yes. Basically, they're going on strike. Small name, big ego, much? Keep in mind that this was a person who had already gone off and started their own meme for this fandom only a few days after joining. Seriously.
I'm not involved in this argument at all. I honestly don't care. It's too stupid. I just think it's embarrassing, and the only reason I'm even giving it any thought here is that this argument is still going on in my inbox right now. I'm just watching the responses with the topic titles come flooding in, one after the other. And all I'm seeing is one person make an idiot out of themselves, basically gutting whatever good will there was towards them considering the attitude they've already shown in the past, while a bunch of other anonymous people pretty much do the same by feeding into this senseless conflict.
So, have you ever laughed your ass off or just shaken your head disapprovingly at an internet hissy fit? Have you ever seen somebody come back to a community after throwing one?
