Tiger Beatdown

Theresa’s passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order…. Many Theresas have been born who found themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes… With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but, after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.

— George Eliot, Middlemarch

Good does not become better by being exaggerated, but worse, and a small evil becomes a big one by being disregarded.

— C.G. Jung, Psychology and Religion

If there’s one thing that might help you to understand me, in any given conversation, it’s that I was a very, very religious little girl. Catholic, to be precise, although our Catholicism took place in a time and a place that was dominated by Evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity — a lot of girls in my class, apparently, had Dads who were Promise Keepers — and borrowed a lot from it. My Mom was a convert, and participated with the enthusiasm of someone who had chosen a religion, rather than being born into it; we observed all the saints’ days, even the most minor, attended church very faithfully, prayed over everything. So, for a long time, it was impossible for me to imagine a world that was not drawn, pretty starkly, in contrasting shades of Holy and Unholy, or whose outcomes were manipulated by various magical powers; it was hard for me to organize my thought around anything other than a transcendent Goodness, which I had to achieve, or be punished for failing to achieve. And I loved that. The guilt, the judgment, the flames of hell; none of it bothered me. It was a relief, in fact. To know that there was one universally relevant form of goodness, and what that goodness was, and how to get there: I couldn’t imagine any greater thing.

(Continued)

Ladies: Don’t use real names when you write about your bad dates online.

I know! I know! The temptation to write about bad dates: It is IRRESISTIBLE! And that is fine. I myself have fallen prey to the temptation of writing about bad dates. It’s fun, it’s easy, it gets the bad taste out of your mouth. (But not literally, HEYOOO.) Sometimes, it is even instructive. But, for Pete’s sake, people deserve a little bit of grace in this world. Human beings are never more vulnerable and irrational and stupid and undignified than when they are trying to love and/or sex up another human being. If the only thing people knew about you was how you behaved on a bad date, or within a bad relationship, guess what? They would probably think you were a Grade-A Douche, or dork, or loser, or just plain mess. Just like all the douches, dorks, losers, and messes that you’ve dated. So: Disguise the identity of your bad dates, when you write about them on the Internet. They have friends and family and co-workers that they have to face in the morning.

And that’s it. I mean, really: That’s the only widely applicable moral lesson I can come up with, out of Alyssa Bereznak’s “I Dated A Guy Twice And Found Our Lifestyles Incompatible” piece for Gizmodo. She used the guy’s real name; that was wrong; that’s all I got. And that’s because I am not The Internet, Ph.D.

Right now, Bereznak is being called a “predator,” a “gigantic bitch,” an “elitist,” a “soulless harpie,” a “narcissist,” and a “dumb woman,” and that’s just on this one post. What did she do? She led a guy on! She fucked with a guy’s head! She broke a guy’s spirits! She… didn’t go out on a third date with a guy, because she didn’t share his interests. CATASTROPHE! ATROCITY! Alert The Internet, Ph.D!

His interests, for the record, are “Magic: The Gathering,” the card game, and he is not just playing it. He is the World Champion. He plays it regularly, and at tournaments, and he told Alyssa Bereznak that it was the foundation of his whole social life: “I’ve met all my best friends through Magic.” In other words, he is not the sort of guy with whom you can side-step or ignore the whole “Magic: The Gathering” thing. Calling this “unusual” or “weird” is almost beside the point; he is quite literally the only person in the world with this particular investment in the game. In her piece, Bereznak expresses the apparently-shocking sentiment that, given that the dude’s social life is based entirely around Magic, she wishes he had mentioned it before they started dating. It would probably be a good thing for someone who doesn’t care much for “Magic: The Gathering” to be able to avoid the guy, given that she doesn’t want a lifestyle based around lots and lots of “Magic: The Gathering.” Right?

NOT SO FAST THERE! The Internet, Ph.D. has found you guilty of OPPRESSION! That most horrible, socially harmful, Internet-comment-generating of all “oppressions:” Thinking stuff is kind of dorky. It’s awful! It’s mean! It’s unfair! And, worst of all, it results in women thinking they have the right not to sleep with men they find unattractive!

(Continued)

It all started because I deleted some link spam.

Let me explain. On this site, we sometimes get comments that are designed for no other purpose but to promote a certain blog, website, or blog post. “Spam,” these comments are called. Sometimes, these comments are nobly motivated, yet clearly robotic; a blog post about, say, domestic violence gets found by Google and we get a comment along the lines of “Domestic violence harms many women and children! Visit www.CauseWebsite.com to learn more!” Since this is spam, albeit of a well-motivated nature, it gets deleted so that our non-robot commenters don’t have to wade through it. Sometimes, it’s actual people looking to promote their own blog posts by hitching a ride on ours: “Nice post about Doctor Who! I also wrote about Doctor Who one time! My post is here at www.myblog.com/doctorwhopost!” Also spam, also gets deleted. My, what interesting facts about basic comment moderation these must be for you!

BUT. Sometimes — the specialest times of all — this spam comes from people who ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO REGISTER that they didn’t like something we wrote, and need ALL OF OUR READERS to read about that IMMEDIATELY. “You’re wrong! I wrote about how wrong you are at www.MyThoughtsAreTheBestThoughts.com! Click on it, stupid!” Etc. These do warm my heart, as they are composed of that ideal mixture of self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, and derailing dickery necessary to be a stereotypical Person On The Internet. But, I delete them as well. So sad!

Ah, but reader. In my recent Game of Thrones post, I was submerged by so many troll comments — we got linked by a few notably troll-breeding Forums That Shall Not Be Named, as well as a few blogs here and there — that I did not have time to hand-Google the resumes of each and every person who commented! And so, tragic as it is to confess this, I did a very evil thing. I deleted some blog spam by a dude who, by his own account, is Really Famous On The Internet. This dude is hereinafter referred to as “Professor Feminism,” or, if you prefer a manlier alternative, “Zoxhor the Destroyer.” From hence occurred a storm of mansplaining so archetypically perfect, and so deeply sad, that I feel the need to share the tale.

(Continued)

George R.R. Martin is creepy.

There! I said it! In days of yore, before the Striding Elves sailed West to Sygmagfhdflkglll, and giants did waylay travelers throwing stones carved from the mighty Tghfarghfr Mountains, and yon Good Queen Sady had not yet been assailed in that great war known as the Rage of Nerds, led by those black-hearted, dishonorable brigands known as the Knights of Rowling, joined later by those who would overthrow the land of Tiger Beatdown itself in the name of the Nameless King called Who — I will NEVER! READ! TIGER BEATDOWN! AGAINNN!!!! rang their rallying cry, feared of all who stood at the Gate of Twitter @ Replies — I maybe would have tried to downplay this conclusion a little.

But, nope! Today is a different day, my friends. Because here’s how it goes, when you criticize beloved nerd entertainments: You can try to be nuanced. You can try to be thoughtful. You can lay out your arguments in careful, extravagant, obsessive detail. And at the end of the day, here is what the people in the “fandom” are going to take away: You don’t like my toys? I hate you!

So, get it out of your system now, because, guess what, George R.R. Martin fans? I don’t like your toys. Deal with that. Meditate for a while. Envision a blazing bonfire in a temple, and breathe in its warmth and serenity. Then, imagine me dumping all your comic books and action figures and first-edition hardback Song of Ice and Fire novels INTO the bonfire, and cackling wildly. Because the fact of the matter is, in my ever-masochistic quest to be hip with what is happening in pop culture these days, I read the first four novels in the series. And my conclusions were: Dear God, George R.R. Martin is creepy. Quite possibly the creepiest author I’ve read in QUITE SOME TIME.

(Continued)