What's With All These Personal Attacks?
 

I like reading Ctrl Alt Del. I like it because in my mind it's got a decent cast, some good story lines and some funny jokes. I also like Dane Cook, because I believe he has some good jokes. However, I've been hearing all these bad things about vandalism and theft, and I know in some cases they are warranted - but come on now.

People are describing burning, loathing, repulsing, pestilent hatred against a webcomic. A webcomic. Y'know, in the good old days, when you were offended by someone, you would each get a gun and then you'd try to kill one another - it was all legit, all legal, but based on honor. It was based on "This man has slept with my sister and has soiled the proud, noble line of our forefathers and he must be punished." Now it's "lol fag11!"

Seriously. There's been personal attacks on people I like, people I respect, and people I'm entertained by. I'm not saying that sometimes they don't deserve it. I'm not saying that sometimes it's unwarranted.

I went through a period of time in my life where my brother taught me to steal money from my mother's purse so that I could go to the store to by candy. It's not something I'm proud of doing, not something I've done in 12 years, not something I'll ever tell my kids, but I did it. We all have things that we're not proud of doing. But if you're a celebrity, these things are blown way out of proportion.

For instance - how many people do you think drive drunk? I'll tell you: lots and lots and lots. We're doing our best to stop it, but there are still a whole buncha people who do it. Guess what? mel Gibson drove drunk once - and for the next month was completely slammed by every media source everywhere. Guess what? I could drive drunk, and no one would care except for the cop, my parents, anyone I injure and me. Now, I won't get on the news for it.

Big corporate companies are issed lawsuits for money laundering, bribery, forced labor, no insurance, no coverage, not up to standards, too much, too little, cheap imports, and slave labor. Now, see - that gets covered. Everybodies all over that. But when Al from Al's neighborhood Liquor store gets busted for dealing perscription drugs through his business, it's not gonna be in the Wall Street Journal. Nobody in Japan will know about Al. But they'll be looking at Wal Mart and saying, "Boy. I haven't heard good things about that store. I heard about all the lawsuits they've been getting."

Guys - please lay offa people. I know that sometimes they do bad stuff. I know. But sometimes we do bad stuff, too. I have a friend who redid Wikipedia's notes on my home town, stating things like "Derka derka," and "Allah Jihad!" I don't think ny of you guys have heard of him. It's as was said by Chris Rock on the Monica Lewinsky scandal:

I don't see how saying "lol fag11!" is even as close to as bad as trying to actually kill someone. Honor or no.

So, like, you're annoyed at typical human reaction?

Sometimes people'll overreact, other times people just won't care. It's a sign of maturity to understand that and not let it bother you, even if you do get hit with personal attacks.

Well, that's kind of the point of being a celebrity. I mean, it's okay to whore out the good stuff in a massive public scale to people because that makes you look shiningly perfect, but when you get called on your crap, that's just kind of how it works and how it should. False idols are pretty crappy and all.

Conversely, you don't reap millions upon millions of dollars on being super famous and neither have you had massive media approval. It's just the other side of the coin -- if you want to be famous, but don't want people to get on to you about your crap, then the only solution is to not be a crappy person one way or another.

You know, I'm pretty sure that actually gets covered far less than it should, particularly because of big corporate companies like to settle out of problems and then fix the problems to stop it from happening again without ever getting bad PR.

Because Al isn't a world domineering super power of a company and doesn't affect near as many lives. Al's little business may directly effect a couple thousand people -- the shit Wal Mart does affects millions directly, and most likely billions indirectly.

Are you just like addressing this to NPF in general, or something?

The second I make bling bling off of the good stuff I do is the second I should expect similar comeuppance when I do something vile.

You know, I'm gonna opt out of taking my philosophical advice from famous a person who is famous for silly things like being an eccentric black actor/comedian that focuses on racial humor all the time/

Especially when what he's saying is just something millions of regular people have said, only he got to do it on Comedy Central.

I think he meant to describe the vast difference in ways of dealing with people you don't like now to how we dealt with it back then. Instead of dueling over honor, we're defaming people because we "don't like them too much."

There are typically reasons for not liking them too much. Either you believe they get too much credit for work you consider far too inferior (Though, many don't eloquently express this), or they just end up being a jackass sometimes, or just do something you don't approve of, etc.

But I mean, "Instead of dueling over honor, we're defaming people because we "we don't like them too much." "?

I'm pretty sure that's progression really.

My inspiration for this rant piece came from the latest Tim Buckley thread posted on NPF, by people who hate Tim Buckley, hate his work... yet can't stop discussing. I guess my closing comment was focused a little on NPF, but mostly, it was just general.

I chose that quote from Chris Rock because it's from an immediately recognizable, famous person. It seemed to fit what I was going for. I know that you have to take the bad with the good, but I think that when the media and other people start in on things like "We traced your IP address and found out that you altered an internet page and made it look like blah, blah, blah..." while there's far more important things going on, like the war in Iraq for instance. (Don't read too much into that last sentence, I'm just trying to make a point.)

People are attacked for what seems to me to be stupid reasons; they lost five punds, they gained five pounds, this person talked to this person, that person hit this person, this persons on drugs, he said, she said - and when people go to the lengths that need to be gone through to actually prove a point, it just seems so much more stupid. (Kinda like how I'm trying to prove my point here without actually getting anywhere.)

And the "lol fag11!" comment was just there to state that while our forefathers dueled on a field of honor over a serious matter, we're stating that if you use sniper rifles in an online video game and happen to shoot someone and kill that person, that person will call your sexuality will be called into question and you'll be titled accordingly.

I read CAD. It was nothing special. Basically just like any other video game webcomic on the internet. How did this whole thing with Tim Buckley start anyway? I'm pretty sure Josh Lesnick despises him, too.

I still don't understand what you're saying here. At first I thought you believed internet slander and libel against a webcomic to be a serious matter worth killing for because God forbid somebody's honor was tarnished by the fat and greasy hounds of the internet who don't like them or their comic.

But now you're talking about dueling in videogames or something and I don't know where you're coming from.

The point I was trying to make was that the things we get upset over now pale in comparison to the seriousness of what people got upset for a few hundred years ago; and while they tried their best to settle it honorably, in a fair fight, we slander people's sexuality. People we will probably never meet in person, never see again or even hear about.

I was saying that way back when, we actually cared about what happened, or what we said or did to people. Now we're describing over things like Halo Live about what we'd do with access to a wide variety of painful things, Jack Thompson and someone's anus.

Maybe I'm just old, and the next thing I'll do is tell you to get off my lawn, or thatthe nurses are stealing from me. But I think that life isn't what it used to be. And I dun mean that in the good way. Things have advanced. People... haven't.

I think she's referring back to the days where if you mouthed off to someone, you backed it with either big muscles, friends with big muscles, or fast feet. People didn't act like the assholes they do nowadays when dueling was a legal option because that dick in the pub who you just tripped over could conceivably and legally kill you, a thought that tends to stop most jackassery in its tracks, and make people really think about whether or not it was really worth being a jackass.

Nowadays people are downright insensitive, rude, and hurtful over the stupidest things on the planet. Because someone doesn't like the way you look, the color of your hair, the webcomic you draw, the game you play, etc. Out of all the things to be a complete ass about, people are at present choosing the most godawfully fucking petty things that exist.

That is where he's coming from.

I want to make one thing very clear, Mel Gibson got on the news because he drove drunk got caught and then spouted a rage-filled misogynistic anti-Semitic hate-screed in front of police officers. Shortly after the box office success of his arguably anti-Semitic Passion play and Gibson's dismissal of accusations that said apparent anti-Semitism represented his personal views.

I mean just speaking personally, if you ever got drunk, crashed a car, and then Jew-bash at a police officer, you and me ain't friends no more.

...Also since we're on the subject, on the off-chance any famous multi-millionaires happen to frequent this forum I'd like to once again share my advice that if you are a multi-millionaire and you do not want to be arrested for drunk driving, hire a driver, and then have this person to whom you have paid money drive your big fancy car around for you. And then you can get just as drunk as you like!