People who merely accept Movie Doom are not and have not been subject to criticism or "bullying" from me. People who insist that I shut up and accept things the way they are instead of discussing alternatives that I feel would have been better get what they ask for. Make no mistake, Lightnin, there is no more "bullying" of people content with the movie by malcontents than there is in the reverse order. The fact is, when I first got in the habit of posting on the internet, my arguments denounced the studios, not the posters. Since then, I've been labeled "fanboy purist" and "whiner" and so forth countless times, and it is this kind of behavior that led me to decide to increase the amount of force used to push back. I do not come barrelling into threads created by content fans and start attacking them merely because they aren't complaining or whatever it is people think I've been doing. I fight fire with fire, and if the people who are defaming me and people who think like I do don't have the logic to back up their disgust and scorn, then I don't consider that an unfair fight-- I consider it a smaller hostile animal getting beaten by a bigger hostile animal because it decided to attack first.
There's no doubt that I've attacked people who weren't directly addressing me, because I feel it's all a part of the same vicious cycle. The same occurs when a new poster pops in and attacks a dissenter when the dissenter is already engaged in an argument that may have been started by someone else. Am I supposed to just keep silent when other people are being allowed to ignorantly insult people merely because they value the source material more than dishonest rumors perpetrated by the studios creating the products about which we're fighting? Nobody can tell me that
I'm the one being unfair. If there's a misunderstanding and I went off on the wrong person or went too far, I'll gladly own up to it, because unlike many others, I'm not comfortable with being a hypocrite. I'm one of the most restrained people I've ever met, out of necessity, and so when people claim that I'm the one going overboard when there's hoardes of pro-studio fans describing "whining fanboys" as a bunch of pathetic virgins who live in their parents basement, it makes me sick.
People can say "that's the nature of the internet" all they want, and they can try to use ratios and numbers to justify why a large group of people is allowed to tear into a vocal minority, but that doesn't make it right. People who behave that way are largely cowards, even if they think they're being brave by standing up to the big bad fanboys that use big words and act angry. That's not even close to the far end of the spectrum when it comes to cowardice, but I like to see it get cut off before it progresses.
I've seen young teenagers start threads in the community asking for advice because they're depressed and flunking out of school met with merciless teasing and further persecution by pretty much every single poster who came rushing into the thread looking to make things worse. When I point out their cowardly and cruel behavior and invite them to gang up on a person who's also depressed and has troubles with school but have twice their !Q's, they tend to shut up, because they've got no argument to respond with and they're not full-blown sociopaths. That's an example of what happens of when the bullying majority is allowed to do as they please with no opposition.
Don't even think of telling me that the amount of conflict on these boards constitutes equal sides of the argument, and don't pretend that the "positive" side is any less nasty than the "negative" side. The fact that there are trolls and "Manspider"-types running around saying stupid things and annoying people does not excuse the conduct of people who attack dissenters of all types. And pretending to "respect" everyone's opinions doesn't constitute real respect, just like how when shallow people who claim to "love" all of humanity, that really just means their "love" is worthless and they make no distinctions. They fact that so many people play the "respect all opinions" card doesn't actually make these forums a place of universal agreement and civility. When Wetgorilla opened up his "20 Thing Going Wrong..." thread, I didn't see you trying to hold back the people that immediately attacked him in a far greater proportion than whatever they think he said that was so provocative. But in that very thread, when someone made generalizations about albafan specifically or out-of-line comments about Saph, did you see me just cheering them on? Every last wretched one of you is culpable for your own actions, no matter how much you hate me or respect me or how you feel about anyone else here, so don't pretend I'm the one leading some indiscriminate revolution just meant to piss people off.
