Just want to make sure I have that right. He spoke up so now they are making shit up to try and defame him? Do I have this bullshit right?
Just want to make sure I have that right. He spoke up so now they are making shit up to try and defame him? Do I have this bullshit right?
I’ll take you at face value if you say you were being sincere in your original posting, but it certainly didn’t come across that way at all to me (and I assume most of the downvoters). Just another interesting example of how tone doesn’t translate in online forums, I guess.
Relevant Kids in the Hall sketch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziH9St7ajuw
Do you think OP was sincere when they said it was beyond them?
I also don’t see how the video you link to is relevant.
OP wasn’t claiming to be sincere. You are.
Since you don’t see how the link is relevant, I’ll take the time to explain. The character played by David Foley in the Kids in the Hall sketch is not being intentionally sarcastic, but his affect is so sarcastic-seeming that the character played by Kevin MacDonald in the sketch is offended and leaves, despite Foley’s good intentions and desire for human contact.
In the same way, your post, by your own declaration, is not meant to be sarcastic or condescending, but was certainly taken that way by me and probably by a large number of the folks who downvoted it. I hope this simple answer has bought it into your range of understanding.
I’m not claiming op was being sincere. I read him as sincere. It appears others are not. So he is insincere that this is beyond him. Rather that everything I wrote is understandable to him and he chose to be insincere. I imagine it’s for some reason I don’t understand. Do you understand?
Thank you for taking time to explain this to me. It is now in my range of understanding. I do not know why people have downvoted me. I think they disagree with me. I do not know why people upvoted me. I think they agreed with me.
I’m not sure if you take me at face value any more. I think you think I’m being condescending and sarcastic. Are you being insincere?
I am not being insincere.
Fair enough. I believe you. I don’t think you’re being sarcastic, but, even upon re-reading, your original response more readily comes across as sarcastic to me than sincere. I don’t think you were being sarcastic, I’m just saying what the choice of words conveys to me. Again, I think that tone can get lost in online conversations and I understand that this is not what you were trying to convey.
Well thank you.
I reread it and I’m not seeing it. Can you point to any specific sentence that was particularly sarcastic? Elsewhere someone said the last sentence. I think I can see that. When I wrote it, I felt like I was helping.
I read Gorilladrums statement:
“It’s truly beyond me how people have the energy to keep with celebrities”
as being sarcastic. I find it difficult to see it any other way. I read it as Gorilladrums expressing exasperation with cultural obsession with celebrity. I didn’t read it as him asking for someone to explain it to him. I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing he wanted. In that view of his post, which is the view that I assumed most folks reading his post would have, your response of explaining it to him in simplistic terms comes across as sarcasm and condescension. I understand now that this is not the context that you were viewing his post in.
Given my understanding of his post as an expression of exasperation with the culture of celebrity that does not expect or invite a response, I’d say both your first and final sentences come across as deliberate condescension, because both of them seem to imply that Gorilladrums didn’t understand something, and required an explanation, when it seemed clear to me that he didn’t expect or want. Therefore a response providing an explanation seemed like a teasing or a taunting in defense of celebrity culture that he was really just railing against. Again, I understand now that condescension was not your intention, and you were sincerely trying to assist.
A sincere question: is English your first language?
Yes. Why do you ask?
I can see that. I think a lot of what you wrote follows if you assume they were not being sincere. Would you like to know how I saw it as sincere?
This is a minor point, but I wasn’t defending celebrity culture. I was defending autonomy. In particular, had I been asked, I would have said that I was defending those who engage in interests that aren’t a direct harm to people without being derisively criticized for having those interests by those who don’t have them.
This is causing me some emotional vexation. I also never asked for someone to comment upon my comment. Yet you, OP, and others did. I understood this to be the normal flow of conversation in this online community. I assumed it was part of the I stated norms. And now I’m being told that it is not and appears to be a rule just for me. I assume this special rule is for me because I wrote something in content or tone that people disagreed with. I don’t think that is fair. Which is vexxing. I might be missing something, but I don’t know.
I only asked whether English was your first language because of our wildly different interpretations of Gorilladrum’s post. Obviously, there’s room for different interpretations among native speakers, but I thought it was a possibility that a language or cultural barrier may be in play.
I didn’t mean to cause you any vexation. And dialogue is appropriate for online forums. I only meant that given my perspective on the post you were responding to, that it was a very sarcastic expression of exasperation, like someone yelling “FUCK!” It seemed to me that, despite his wording, he was actually just railing against the futility of keeping up with celebrities, rather than a lack of understanding of why some people do so. So it never would have occurred to me to respond the way you did. Obviously you read it differently and responded with a sincere attempt to shed some light on it. I can imagine it was frustrating to get downvoted so hard when you were making an earnest effort to help someone.
Anyway, you do seem like an interesting person, and I appreciate your interaction. I value your contributions and I will carry this forward into future interactions and not be so quick to assume people online are being sarcastic or condescending. I hope you walk away from this interaction with more positive feelings than negative ones.