Respect?
Shelley has really gotten slagged lately, and she’s understandably kind of upset about it. Naturally, she’s wondering whether she caused it, and if so, how:
Recently someone who I consider a very close friend told me that I wear my heart on my sleeve - meaning that whatever I think and feel goes online for all to see. Well, this is true to some extent. However, there is more to this iceberg than what shows above the water line, so to speak.
Regardless, this statement gave me pause - there’s that respect thing again. Am I coming across as this whiney thing that starts a fight, and then tells those who show up to stop picking on me? I would be appalled if this is true, because that’s not how I am. That’s not how I want to portray myself.
I’m stronger than that. I’m better than that. If I am portraying myself as this emotional wimp, then I’ve screwed up royally in how I communicate. And if I’ve lost respect because of what I write, then I have to seriously take a long look at my writing, and the value of this weblog.
I can’t deal with this as thoroughly as I’d like because I have to leave to catch the bus to my D&D game in forty-five minutes or so. (Crud. Do I know where my dice are?) Still, I just gotta say something.
First let me pull a Stanley Fish. Is there a blog under those comments? The act of reading takes at least two people, only one of whom is the writer. I can be misread. Burningbird can be misread. Any of us can—and there may not be a darn thing we can do about it. Misreadings can be wilful, in which case the writer shouldn’t panic.
Second, let me acknowledge a growing body of evidence that hints that we tend not to show as much respect on the Internet as we would in person. We get mean. Personally, I think it’s a little more complicated than that; I suspect that people’s natural tendencies are amplified. Nice people tend to get nicer, mean people tend to get meaner. I can tell stories on both sides of that scale; I’m sure most netizens can. Howsowhatever, when the mean streak emerges, it hurts.
Third, it pays to remember how decontextualized stuff on the net can feel. From a stranger, “life messes” feels like an insult. From a friend, it may be a rueful acknowledgment of a shared awareness of frailty. Which is not to assert that Burningbird is misinterpreting the comments she gets; it’s only to say that misinterpretations happen, and are common on the net because of the lack of shared background to work from.
I’m not as brave as Burningbird, nor do I have as much invested in putting up a brave front. I am a whinging coward, in fact. (You notice I don’t have comments enabled? Now you know why.) Whirligig’s blogback, which I blogged yesterday, gave me a turn; though it is not disrespectful, its emotional charge is high, and nothing sends me into fetal position in a corner faster than a high emotional charge.
Obviously it is unfortunate that I can’t always resist the temptation to charge my own stuff. Sometimes I can’t take what I dish out, and I’m not proud of that. Rather than toughen up, though, I’ve tried to learn not to bite. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t.
I guess I’m encouraging Burningbird to examine her own writing. It’s not a bad way to learn about yourself. (Neither is RPGing, for that matter. Some of my characters have taught me quite a bit.) I suspect, however, that she’ll find that the worst of the abuse she’s getting is an artifact of the medium, and not her message.
Gotta run, gotta run—don’t know where my dice are…