conspiracy chats and chats in general
Chats are an excellent social experiment, especially for someone as antisocial as I am.
I am getting a chance of learning skills without risking anything. And those skills are similar to those in real life.
Here's what happened in one of the truther chats I go to occasionally.
First of all, it was a chat replete with (US) veterans, into their 40s and 50s. You'd expect pretty peaceful people, at least I did. Wrong. At noon, from 12 to 2 pm. These guys get home at that time to take part in a chat, every day of the year - go figure.
This is a category quite far from academics, which is more my type of people. Academics would be less aggressive and yet harder to battle with. They would beat you with logic and arguments and content, rather than by calling you "gay" or similar.
Well, I came across the "you're gay" type of people (despite being truthers, which usually is a guarantee of intelligence and sensitivity, but in this case it was a bunch of simply... anti-government truthers - they don't care too much about non-violence or solidarity to someone they don't know - just about their family, and probably they're even racist).
So, since I am done with my problems at work, let's focus on this issue for a few more minutes.
These "truthers", veterans, from the southern US, a couple of them, got tired of my stealing the spotlight from them, so they ganged up on me and pretended they thought I was a woman, posing as a man and similar. I admit they caught me off guard.
I mean - I could have blown them away with logic, but i was not prepared for an attack, mostly because I didn't realize that they would have been annoyed by me stealing their spotlight, their chat throne, their "king of the chat" title. Indeed in the first two days everything was fine.
Then on day 3, bam! Suddenly I am a woman. You know, the typical thing "gay", "homo", but since the chat forbad insults, then suddenly... they had mistaken me for a woman - they claimed.
So I guess I lost the argument, didn't even try to rebut, and I left after 5 minutes, because i clearly wasn't wanted there. These two got there first, they've patrolling the chat for months, and I could not steal the spotlight. I had to get in line. I got out of line, and I got attacked. Pretty interesting social experiment - because it applies to everything.
1) you get too big and occupy someone else's space
2) you get attacked
3) you retreat or you hold your position, depending if it's worth it
In the case of the chat, the point of the chat is not to patrol the chat, but to have an interesting conversation, and I can have no such thing is a chat room ruled by two people who call you "woman" because you're taking their spotlight (by all means, I am talkative).
Another premise I should have made is that these truthers aren't the ones of my kind, concerned with chem trails, geopolitics... they're just concerned with guns, cars, hunting and being anti-government. Basically they're all veterans... and of course there's also intelligent veterans, but a place where there's just veterans should ring a bell. An alarm bell I mean.
Anyway, I'll keep you updated on how it evolves. I think I could beat them both with words. But it's not always easy to convince an audience of veterans that the two "tough guys" of the chat are idiot, especially if you're an (Italian) academic among US veterans. It's almost mission impossible, but I'll try sooner or later. When i'll feel confident enough.
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Now I am in another chat. No matter how good the show is, even if the host is not a veteran (often the case with truthers), the people in the chat are way lower intellectually speaking than the guy hosting the show. Way lower. Just slightly above people in a regular chat with smileys.
I always manage to take possession of the chat within 10 minutes. Then within 2 days I'd probably get kicked out by talking and preaching too much. I guess that's why these two veterans hated me.
What I do basically is I introduce a big topic to discuss and it's almost always successful. So these nimrods stop talking about idiot topics and writing OMG, LOL and LMAO, and get serious for a few minutes. Then of course the chat king rebels to me, because I am taking the spotlight from him in his role of king of the idiot chat.
The idiot king hates me, while the radio host usually quotes me and uses my words, terms, and questions, despite my being a foreigner. It's so satisfactory, because these radio hosts are extremely intelligent and freethinking.
Too bad that in order to be in the chat, everyone in the chat is kind of ignoring the radio show. But basically, out of the 20 people in the chat, I tend to be the most intelligent person. Or at least the one who uses his intelligence the most. At least among those who talk.
It is kind of pointless to go back to that chat and humble those braindead veterans who claimed that I am a "woman posing as a man". If that's their method to defend and keep their title of "king of the chat", then that chat is not worth anything.
...
More thinking:
Basically I was wrong in thinking that the truther community is all good, all nice intelligent sensitive people. There's also plenty of ignorant rude assholes who are truthers. Therefore, if I want to be in a chat, I should try to find the chat with the most evolved minds.
At the same time, if I find such a chat, I have to make sure I don't give in to my natural tendency to take up space and room, because that would bother people. I mean, if there's 10 people in a chat, you can't be writing 50% of the lines, or else this will happen:
1) the rude person will tell you that "you're a woman posing as a man" or "you're gay"
2) the polite person will tell you something nicer, but will find another way to make you uncomfortable
The problem is not really whether you're in a rude chat or in a civilized chat. The problem is... my problem is that I am not really willing to have a democratic chat, where I am part of the group, abide by the group's rules, I tend to lecture more than others. And I tend to get on someone's nerves.
Yep. It's like that time when my aunt told me that I was too old for something: that was an attack, very similar to these guys telling me that I am a woman.
It's an attack - they don't even know it - meant for someone who's taking up too much space in a group conversation. It doesn't matter if you reply successfully, and beat them. You're still going to be taking up too much space, by not following the social rule of... each one talks a fraction of the time available. The more you exceed your share of time, the more someone is likely to attack you.
The problem is this. In these chats with retarded people, like this one I was in, the conversation will be so boring and so stupid, that you will feel like helping them. And some will be grateful. But those who were there before you and were spending time talking about cars will resent you, and sooner or later they will attack you. Even if you beat them with words, they're still right from their point of view: you came after them, you brought new subjects, and you're taking the spotlight from them... not even that, because these people were not really abusing their share, so you're really... stealing the chat, "hijacking" the chat.
Now, people who really like me, will allow me to do that. Especially if there's just one or two of them. But my aunt reminded me my age, in order to prevent me from hijacking the coversation. This guy insulted me by telling me that I was a woman posing as a man (he called me both a liar and a woman at once). He said that attention-seeking is a character of women. Mother ****er.
However, no matter how much I dislike this guy, it is not the first time I have gotten in trouble for my seeking attention.
Here it is perfectly allowed, because it's "my" journal, but even here, many (asshole) readers have insulted me precisely for the fact that I dared to write personal things other than just "entered commodity here" and "exited commodity there".
So, of all this post, I can summarize this important message: want more than your share of attention? Prepare to receive insults.
Or, even better: want more than your share of attention? Prepare to receive more than your share of insults.
I guess I could get away with getting the attention I want without getting the insults by always finding places where I make sure the fight is uneven: my journal (where I can block people), my own family (where people give me a special attention), my own friends... when you go outside of this realm, you're at risk. You're even at risk of insults when you do nothing wrong, imagine when you're taking up time, space, attention that exceed your share.
I can't win the debate in a chat replete with a bunch of veterans, of which two are calling me a woman, because I am civilized and "seek attention". Can't win because I can't really... get as low and uncivilized as they do, and if I did I would either lose (because I am not used to it) or I would demean myself by doing it. It's a lose-lose situation, like getting into a fight with a child.
...
Whatever the reason, it certainly doesn't feel good to be attacked in a chat. It's really amazing to me how easily you can get out of the chat, by simply closing the web page, and yet you're screwed because:
1) it feels bad to leave the chat without replying to the insults
2) it feels bad to reply to the insults
3) it feels even worse to reply to the insults and have no one on your side
Lesson learned from all this: do not interact with people whom you do not appreciate. Avoid interact with people you don't like.
