You know, messageboards are a funny thing. The original purpose for messageboards (especially themed ones) was that they were a place where folks with some similar interest could discuss ideas, current events, news and even personal stuff.
Then, a funny thing started to happen. People who originally joined for the same reason or reasons as everyone else suddenly began stirring up trouble, flaming other posters and generally being pains in the ass.
Every board has them. Whether you are a member of a board about flowers or football, racing or racism, someone or several someones will be those people.
Now, I understand that not everyone agrees about everything, and if a board allows talk of, say politics, they are opening themselves up for some headaches. But if everyone can agree that “respect is the key” and that while we may disagree, we’re all still people, then everything would still probably be okay.
Except it isn’t. Because in the end, the assholes that make people start their own messageboards come along, promising to be good, and then they aren’t. It’s astounding how you can find that the same shitty people do the same shitty things regardless of where they are posting.
See, here’s the thing. The internets is a wierd, entertaining, scary, and sometimes dangerous place. Yet, some folks have actually found friends thru various boards. My wife participates in a messageboard with other women who share the same due week as her, and they are, for the most part, a very friendly and supportive bunch. My sis-in-law has friends she met on a baord several years ago that make a point to getting together once or twice a year in cool places to spend time together. And I’ve met a couple of folks thru a board and one of these folks, it turns out, I enjoy very much and my family does too.
Except we talk less and less now because this person has grown tired of the same old bullshit that goes on with a few posters ruining it for everyone else. So much hate and venom and lack of respect for others is inevitably what ruins a board, regardless of that board’s initial purpose.
So now, I sit and wonder what I am going to do. I like many of the folks that are posters like myself. I enjoy some of the funny things I see, read, hear, and have even learned some things about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the process.
But in the wake of some events recently, I just don’t know if the roses are worth all of the pricks I get from the thorns. (I think that was a metaphor, but I’ll wait until someone tells me for sure).
So now I’m left to decide whether the good fun and entertainment I get from the board is worth the aggravation I also get. It sort of feels like what I have heard a bad marriage is like, and I’m not sure I want to tough it out anymore.
p.s. I just re-read this and decided that it may be the lamest blog I’ve ever written. But fear not, people. Things are about to get better. Next week, starting Monday October 3rd, I will be serving jury duty for my local community. While they don’t have wireless hotspots (lest some dumbass start browsing beastiality porn in the waiting room), they do have analog access so my plan is to basically blog my jury duty experience: good, bad and indifferent, so stay tuned…
What say you?