penguinfaery: (random-"Why bother with the real thing w)
Terra ([personal profile] penguinfaery) wrote2009-11-08 01:41 am
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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.

[identity profile] bloodsorrow.livejournal.com 2009-11-09 01:08 am (UTC)(link)
Well, it does demand the question: How did the RP'er die?

[identity profile] penguinfaery.livejournal.com 2009-11-09 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
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...)

[identity profile] bloodsorrow.livejournal.com 2009-11-09 01:14 am (UTC)(link)
...if it were illness, how did they deserve it?

[identity profile] penguinfaery.livejournal.com 2009-11-09 01:19 am (UTC)(link)
No, people were saying their mourning friends deserved to be mocked for posting a memorial secret on rp!s

[identity profile] bloodsorrow.livejournal.com 2009-11-09 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
Oh. I find that infinitly less interesting then.