There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not
being talked about. --Oscar Wilde.
It was not by
design but by
accident that one of the biggest wars I have ever seen (on-line) kicked off.
A small and under-rated
Goth-
blog posted a small but interesting
rant. The ranter used such words as
mammiferous and
patricidal in the same sentence and slagged of not only a little known and offensive band but also the fans of said
immature kids. The entire sentence was in fact:
The mammiferous obsession of many an adolescent is temporally bypassed by the plebeian patricide inclinations of the teen fans.
Not perfect
English but definitely showy.
The ranter was well pleased with his
comic creation and showed his friends (myself included) and one friend showed a girl who he fancied. This girl was a fan of said little band. (you can see where this is leading).
The girl posted a message on the
fan forum packed chock full of angry
Cool goth kiddies wearing all black and the result was an over night success - six jammed pages of rant in their forum spilled into war when the users found their swear-word filled flames deleted from the blogs comments section.
It might have ended there but for the
implementation of the challenge. A self important DJ
challenged the Goth Blog to a Blog-duel! So the Goth Blog complete with it's users
powerful command of long words proceeded to make the DJ look a little silly.
Somehow another Blog writer got involved and wrote a few posts on the both as judge and referee. At the same time an angry band member swore he'd get
vengeance if only someone could find the Goth's email address. The Goth obliged the ranter with said hotmail address.
A very funny post followed when the ranter couldn't use the email address due to not understanding the underscore
character "_".
Then another (band member this time) started a blog just to slag-off and denounce the single post and it's author.
In the end there were some four or five blogs, a forum and goodness knows who else
commenting publicly on a single post in an unheard of blog.
The poor under-educated ranters started to pale in the face of words such as
puerile,
esculence and
coquetting. I must admit that even I had reached for the dictionary by this stage.
The last new news I heard was that slash Goth had an article submitted on the subject. This debate has spread
across the world and back like a
virus on speed.
Re-reading the whole thing now I am stuck by the variation of
Regional information available to
non-Goths on the topic of Goths. There seemed to me to be a typically teen-age
Atychiphobia (fear of failing) in the angry response from the band and the fans or perhaps more
accurately
Allodoxaphobia (fear of opinions).
The goths have also posted a copy of
the flame to end all flames which the bands fans did not get.
In a weak moment I found myself thinking that this truly was
a vindication of the authority of fathers to beat total numb-nut teens
until respect is learned.
But the
sociology aside for a moment - there is an interesting side effect to all this and I wonder if the
Goths knew this from the start. All these blogs commenting and posting links has of course resulted in a jump in the
google rank and
blogshare.com value of this tiny on-line personal journal. It has raised in my mind new questions as to the nature of
fame,
self promotion and the power of the
individual to shake things up.
Interestingly today: I also found that one of the bands fans hate started a hate Blog dedicated to the
goths and thier defenders. It seems it is just starting to heat up.
The article that sparked it all: http://artofpain.blogspot.com/2004/05/and-now-nu-death-metler-skata-goth-it.html