Unless It's Mean

I pissed somebody off in the blogosphere recently.

This should not be altogether surprising.

I don't like upsetting people, but it happens. In my insatiable quest to be humorous and entertaining, I realize that I will inevitably rustle a feather or two. It can't be helped. I mean, some people are sensitive. And others are Catholic. I think one or two people might even be a combination of the two.

See what I mean?

I wrote a comment on a blog that hamhandedly suggested that someone's 90-year-old grandfather might have "something in common" with a beautiful, blue Beta fish which, unfortunately, had a life-altering ailment. This person thought I meant that her grandfather was "on the way out, like the fish." That wasn't what I meant, but my remark wasn't carefully thought out, keeping in tradition with 99.7% of the remarks I make on any given day, and the young lady freaked on me, old school. Well, I guess actually it was more like "new school" since it was done in the comment section of a blog and utilized a keyboard, as opposed to on the mulch pile at an elementary school playground, utilizing fists, and/or a tire-iron.

Flip comments get people into trouble all the time, but they shouldn't. Look at the tumult and backlash that poor Joe Biden created when he said on the Today Show that he would advise his family members not to get on a subway or a plane during the apex of the swine flu outbreak. People freaked-- namely, people who routinely get on planes and subways, because they don't want their way of life jeopardized or questioned, even if it's for their own good. So everybody went ape on Big-Mouth Joe. I don't see what the big deal is. If I had kids, I would bar them air, ground and sea travel as well, and I would place them in isolation during such an outbreak, home-schooling them while wearing matching wet suits and scuba-gear.

Part of the problem isn't just the people who make flip or cavalier comments, it's the people on the receiving end. There are some people out there, lots of them, actually, who like to get offended. They enjoy being outraged, or slighted, or indignant. They, well, kind of get off on it. You know who I'm talking about-- the woman who hears someone swearing in the bread aisle at the supermarket. She thins her lips, crosses her arms in front of her chest and exclaims, "Well, I never!"

Sure you've evered, biatch, and don't tell me you haven't.

There are just these people out there who will look for any excuse to get their nose out-of-joint. And that's okay, really-- that's their thing. Some people have a fetish like that. Other people are obsessed with... other things. There's a woman on my street who, every time she sees me picking up my dog's shit, she thanks me and launches headlong into a monologue about how her husband would have stepped in that if I hadn't picked it up. I've heard this now several times.

That, I guess, is her thing. And I admit that it makes me feel awkward and weird to stand there holding a bag of shit while I get praised for it in a rather mechanised, rehearsed style-- but I also admit that it's damn better than getting laughed at and ridiculed by the young, black children in the ghetto for picking up after my dog.

I think it's kind of funny that there are some bloggers out there who are very sensitive to anything less than ego-enhancing praise left in their Comment section. I mean, it says "Comments," right? It doesn't say "Affirmations" or "Supportive, redundant missives." If a blog is a place for you to say anything you damn well please, then your comment section should, really, be a place for your readers to say anything they damn well please. There's a blogger out there whose comment section has a warning that reads something like, "Leave it here. Unless it's mean. Then either click that red box/circle in the top corner, or try email." So, it's okay to be mean to you in an email, as long as your readers don't have to see it? Hell, we all know they'll see the mean comment the very next day, when you write a blog post about how mean someone was to you, and you lambast them with all the clever retorts you were able to brew up in your head during the night.

Come on. "Unless it's mean?" Grow up, buttsuck.

Maybe it's because I used to frequently engage in the socially ill-advised practice of writing editorials and commentaries, and a book that advocated for the continued imprisonment of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal that "mean comments" really don't bother me very much. I've had people threaten to kill me, and my family. I had one person threaten to burn my house down, and he even went so far as to mention my neighborhood, which kind of freaked me out, but it never happened. At a book signing event, the book store received threats and contracted the services of two uniformed police officers and one plainclothes officer to protect me and others who might have been caught in the cross-fire. Nothing bad ever happened, because most people are just angry and full of shit-- only a choice few are actually armed and insane. But those episodes, the hate and vitriol that has been spewed in my direction by people who love freedom of speech as long as you agree with them has definitely changed my view on the whole commenting thing.

Mean comments? Sure. Why not? You're allowed, aren't you?

On the old blog, I wrote a review of a concert I attended with Mrs. Apron. The opening act was Sean Hoots. I didn't like him, I thought he was a phony and a narcissist, so I wrote about it. A couple months later, his friendlettes and hangersons littered the comment section of that blog post with criticisms of my review, some were downright abusive. Did I delete their comments or tell them to stop "being mean" to me? Fuck no. I just let them go on and on, and, in doing that, I was able to let them show everyone else how petty, obsessive and stupid they were. See? People generally take care of things like that themselves-- especially idiots and assholes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: lighten up, world. Don't be afraid to speak your mind, especially here. If you don't like something, speak up. I don't mind. I'll still love you in the morning. You don't have to stop reading just because I made a comment that offended you, or burned you, or pissed you off or made you put your dog in a headlock. It's okay. We're human. We do that shit to each other. But don't just read things you agree with, and don't just leave warm and fuzzy comments that mimmick everybody else's. Don't be afraid to stir up the pot. Don't be afraid to disagree.

Don't be reluctant to speak your mind-- because nobody's going to do it for you. The blog is the champion of mind-speaking. So speak it, bitch.