I don't know anybody who knows anybody like this.
All of you are wrong! On the internet!
4: No, you're wrong on the Internet! Just like [Hillary/Maureen Dowd/John Bolton/The Knights Templar/former Times pop music critic Ann Powers/that Battlestar Galactica/i> guy/the flat tax]!
i thought BW particularly is a non-judgmental and tolerant being
6: I agree that i>guy[sic] is very wrong.
Shaye Saint John still freaks me the fuck out.
This is all missing the point. The very raison d'être of the internet is to be a virtual Library of Alexandria of wrong.
Meanwhile, this xkcd strip manages to be both confusing and depressing at the same time, all without being wrong.
Shaye Saint John still freaks me the fuck out.
Maybe you're more of a Goddess Bunny sort of guy. Or pequeña Adriana.
Different strokes 'n all that.
Maybe you're more of a Goddess Bunny sort of guy.
For once I completely agree with a YouTube comment: "nigga whaaaat"
13: An unprecedented number of people signed on to the forums after that strip (or so it seemed by the reactions of the regulars), wondering if the artist was okay. I was almost one of them.
Yeah. The forums aren't on my radar, so I wouldn't have thought of that, but I was worried about him too.
xkcd funfact:
When this comic was written on Jan 13, there were 2 google results for "died in a blogging accident". AOTW, a little over a month later, there are 48,300.
I love 9 so much I can't stand it. That reminds me of quite a lot of video art from the early days of broadcast tv.
We need to understand and take seriously the perspective of people who are wrong on the Internet, in as calculatedly even-handed a manner as possible.
Your blog has gotten really technical lately, Tim.
I think I need to talk more about comic books or something. Political discussions are really depressing me in exact proportion to a candidate that I actually like apparently succeeding.
Plagiarism! You got that from Susie, didn't you? (But where did Susie get it from?)
That cartoon isn't funny. People who have arguments on the Internet are trying their best to intervene politically by changing hearts and minds. It's democracy in action, and sneering at it just seems wrong to me.
I posted 25 before reading other comments, and I'm relieved to find that I am not fully pwned -- though Tim Burke's comment may count as a tangential pwnage.
Is 26 a joke? I'm a boring and earnest person, so it's hard for me to tell.
Fuck, I meant 25. I'm already self-pwned.
That cartoon isn't funny. People who have arguments on the Internet are trying their best to intervene politically by changing hearts and minds. It's democracy in action, and sneering at it just seems wrong to me.
Yes, exactly. They are just trying to do a little good in this cold, cold world. However misguided and ultimately futile their efforts may be, mocking the effort is just so horribly cynical and fatalistic.
Tim's and Adam's comments are the same conceptually, but are refracted through different sets of concerns and personal styles.
URL fixed. You can't be wrong on the Internet if no one can find you.
Or can you? Hm. Tree, forest, sound?
Wrong, Internet, 404 not found?
28: It's clear to me that you don't understand the concept of "pwn."
28, 32: Yeah watch it. Adam is in charge of our collective sense of humor now.
25
"... People who have arguments on the Internet are trying their best to intervene politically by changing hearts and minds. ..."
Actually most people arguing on the internet are more interested in scoring points than changing minds.
34: Not exactly. I may not be trying to convince the actual people I am arguing against, but I am trying to make my position look like the correct one to other people who are undecided and are watching from the audience.
You're wrong, Shearer. Now where's my book. +1 for me, -1 for Shearer...
33: That's cool. I'm humorless ™ myself, so someone's got to be managing things.
34: That's such a cynical overgeneralization. These are really well-meaning people, and if they occasionally fail to live up to their own high standards, you want to piss on them? Why don't you just cut to the chase and kick a puppy?
(1) People who engage with others' errors on the internet are performing a valid and useful service,
and
(2) the cartoon is funny.
I would thank you all for your kind thoughta, but Im trying to stay invisible.
39.2: What? The comic is poorly drawn -- not to mention heavy-handed.
41: it's tough to draw when you can't get your hands off the floor, Mr. Critical.
That cartoon isn't funny. People who have arguments on the Internet are trying their best to intervene politically by changing hearts and minds. It's democracy in action, and sneering at it just seems wrong to me.
Really? It makes me want to recycle.
Is this more evidence for the idea - suggested somewhere in the archives, I think by Tim Burke - that he and Adam are very similar people at different points in their lives (or something to that effect)?
STANLEY!!!
Posted by: eekbeat | Link to this comment | 02-20-08 9:15 AM
I would like to note for the historical record that I have read this comment a full ten hours after it was posted, thereby disproving its contention.
I think we're both white people, at any rate.
It's democracy in action, and sneering at it just seems wrong to me.
The cartoon isn't by necessity about politics or political discussions/arguments.
The cartoon (a) is hilarious and (b) makes me think that maybe the death of Usenet wasn't just inevitable but really, really good.
USENET WILL RISE AGAIN! ALT.REVOLUTION.RESIST.RESIST.RESIST!
Geez, peeps. Kotsko's just pissed about the defense of white people thread. He's, like, being cleverly ironic or something. And making an analogy, too!
How did that white person thread end anyway? Are people still talking about cheese?
50: I don't know, but it's pretty clear--from his own blog, among other things--that Kotsko feels Unfogged, as a whole, embarrassed itself by jumping to the defense of white people and the things they do in its critique of the humor in the original blog. I'm not sure exactly what I think about the whole debate (though I am sure that I'm not interested in reopening it); I just wanted to point out to those responding to Kotsko as if he were writing in earnest are being trolled.
Yeah, well I basically agreed with Kostko on the point he's making here. Then I brought up cheese and people finally changed the topic (on the surface).
48: Try telling that to the screen-washed miscreants of alt.sex.hello-kitty.