penguinfaery | (no subject)

So I just read a bunch of the comment in RP!S and responded to more then I should have as I have nothing to do with this but some of the fail in there was just mind blowing.

For those that don't keep up on RP drama, an rper passed, unexpectedly, and her friend have been posting in a few RP related comms about it, including RP!S (Which is notoriously wank and anon tastic)

Two things occurred to me:

One about victim blaming that I think gets ignored. Victim blaming is something that, for obvious reasons sits badly with me, but I also hate how our society can push it to the point of not taking any responsibility at all for yourself, and if anyone points it out, they get yelled at for blaming the victim. (And I think that is a rare circumstance, not the norm)

And I think what gets lost is the idea that having a part in what happened=/=being responsible for what happened. Yeah, posting a mourning secret in something that has become an LJ RP specific 4chan type niche is not necessarily the best move....but that doesn't compare at all the horrid comments. That doesn't make them excusable. And it bothered me that somewhere people lost the ability to draw the line between "Yeah, this was a bad idea." and "This is all their fault, they were asking for it." And a comment to the later doesn't make you ALL that much better then the anons. Because I'm sure who ever posted that comment probably figured out that it was a bad idea the first nasty anon comment they got, and blaming them for grieving "wrong" over and over again? Is tackier then them posting it.

Way Tackier.

The second...how to we mourn online friends who pass?

Mourning is hard, but when you only know someone as words on a screen? Specially if it's the online equivalent of a "good" friend and not a "best" friend. It's not really socially acceptable to go to their funeral, IMO. Your friends and family in real life probably won't "get" it. Posting about it online too much, or in the "wrong" place, clearly, get you labelled as tacky and disrespectful (And although I do agree there are places that are hands down tacky, like say....4chan, there's also a lot of gray area. Is a Myspace memorial tacky? A facebook group? My gut reaction is to say the later isn't and the former is, and I have no logical reason for that. No standards)

We're taught not to mourn in public, but online relationships really are primarily public. Even private journals are us and our 100 closest acquaintances, you know? It's not true with most of my friends lists, but I know I have people on here that, if our relationship was a "real life" equivalent of out online was....it'd be really weird to tell them half the things I say on here. And that's just if I flock things.

I dunno. I really have no answers and this post got WAY long. But it all just got me thinking.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I didn't read it because I don't wanna deal with the headache of stupidity.

1. There ARE people who lie about this shit and bring it to such communities to get attention. There's even an Fake LJ Deaths community that covers this shit outside of RP.
2. I understand people wanna show their respect, but they need to limit that to the following: Their OWN personal LJs, and maybe whatever community the person was a part of. NOT on RP!S.
3. I think the person that posted the secret probably was looking to gain some kind of positive/negative reaction. The secret was for the purpose of attention and stirring some conflict, otherwise like I said, it would have/should have been kept in a more personal setting.

I don't know anything of it, other than the posts on my flist, but it pisses me off all around because, true or not, that stuff shouldn't be publicized on RP!S or even

rpanontalk or whatever, as it did become a conversational piece over there from what I've read.

I personally have been through the pain and hurt that a "fake" death in rpland can cause.... Cassie at Econtra faked her own baby's death... and really, basically lied about her whole self. It was a big punch in the gut, finding out what a liar she was, because I had considered her a close friend.

I like keeping my friends close on here, but like... if anyone I knew died, I'd be sad, but I wouldn't e making secrets about it. I'd be too busy emoing.... or something. It just depends on who it was :[ There's a handful I'd be depressed for weeks over, and others I'd move on, but miss. I'm just like that though.... even people I don't often talk to, I think about and miss occasionally.... and apparently even if I forget about someone I met online, my subconscious will eventually remind me of them D: Which is funny, because I found this out recently when I had a dream about an old forum friend who I haven't thought of or spoken to in years. Haha.

That was rambly an really just... venting my thoughts rather than a specific comment directed strictly at you XD

Like...generally I think I'd be a lot like you. But I don't think it's right because they didn't handle things in the most graceful way to be asshole for it, and for THEM to get blamed because OTHER people are asshole.

Like if the whole response had been "We're sorry for your loss, but here, maybe this is a better place to mourn/funnel your energies/etc." it wouldn't have bothered me at all.

I think someone put it perfectly when an anon was like "When someone is mourning they don't run into the street in their underwear screaming that their loved on has died!" and someone responded "Yes, but if they did that, would your reaction be to try to help them find a more healthy outlet, or would it be to call them a psycho bitch and tell them to get back in their house?"

For me, it would be really cool to have both you and some of my other friends on LJ as real life friends. Not just because you are cool and probably a lot of fun to be around and you would make a great friend, but because I have not yet experienced a real life friendship of someone who celebrates me being gay. I have only one friend who accepts it, and the rest either tolerate it or I haven't told them. So for me, I know I would still spill the same dirty dirty as I do on this journal in real life because damn, I mean, someone actually looks at me and sees a person close to the one I see when I look in the mirror, you know?

Actually, this of course applies online as well, but my last relationship with a guy ended in a terrifying way because I started to realize his story was not adding up. When a person is found to be a liar, you truly don't know who they are. If I had called him on it when we were alone together, what would he have done to me? It's scary. At least online you can try to disappear if someone is found to be two-faced, but it still is painful I'm sure.

I LOVE YOU CLOUDY CLOUD. Like....I'm sorry that's not entierly relevant to what you're saying, but like *Snuggle* I want you to come here so I can show you everyone is not as bass akwards as you have run into D:

Aaaahaha what a sweetie *hugs* Okay sounds good *starts walking east to Colorado*

Well, it does demand the question: How did the RP'er die?

Sickness. Like...always there's the possibilty for faking it, but from what I understand there are both people who know her IRL and people who don't invovled, and legit obits, etc.

(Which someone really creative could still fake, but...)

...if it were illness, how did they deserve it?

No, people were saying their mourning friends deserved to be mocked for posting a memorial secret on rp!s

Oh. I find that infinitly less interesting then.