Words of Prey

1-31-2015 (c) graveyard press
by Deacon Gray

Recently, Gordon Smith, of the Facebook group CLAVIS (Current and Longitudinal Analyses of the Vampire-Identifying Subculture) started what he calls a Academic/scientific Inquiry into, “The online discussion boards of the vampire-identifying subculture have long been associated with irascibility, but possible constructive consequences of these impassioned public debates go largely overlooked”

It is a long standing, but reasonably under considered topic in the vampire community as a whole. Why is that we have so many impassioned debates? Is it really just the VC, or has it become and epidemic in our post internet developed society?

If it were just the information Mr. Smith presented to us, I don’t think I would have considered it all much, likewise if it were just the rare story on the news about a bullied kid committing suicide or for that matter I might not have thought about it much at all but with even the “This American Life” story called “If you don’t have anything nice to say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS!’ budding to my attention.

Perhaps it is because I too like a good on line debate. I like to engage people and challenge myself. I like to play the better game, as it were, or at times educate the masses. Yet how is it that anything I do on line is so worth getting worked up about? How is it that the right challenge by someone can so easily set my predatory mind in motion? Is there something about the medium itself, this generation, or perhaps the safety of the format?

I counted five threads closed on the Vampire Community News since Dec 31 2014. In each one of those comments went from questioning, to reasonable, to explanatory, than all out name calling. Is this because we try to get through to people and when that fails, screaming at them is the next appropriate step? Is mocking them the right course of action? What about spreading the world to various other groups about what a horrid person/troll/asshat the person might be?

Is appropriate to stalk them on line and troll them? What about make threats, or make statements like “ I wish you would just killed yourself?” When is it too far? When do we as individuals write something like “You’re the dumbest person I have ever met!” or “I hope that gross slug of a fat girl in green chokes on her diet soda and dies!”

These are actual statements I read in posts today. Not posts in a forum, but in response to something as innocuous as a video posted on Facebook. How could someone in a video on Facebook make you so mad that you have to resort to attacking their appearance because you don’t like what they are saying? How did that become ok?

I don’t think there is ever and excuse. Oh sure I have fought fire with fire before, or even tried to shake someone up by taunting them in a rather ruthless manner among my favorites are “Did your mother hate you? Did she feed you lead paint chips?” I also liked “Did you have a English Nanny? Did she shake you?” was it right? I read back some things one debate had said a week after an argument. I asked how they felt about the terms, only I didn’t clue them into the fact that they had been the one to says these things. “I realize you were homeschooled so you most likely have a great education and about as much sense as a zombie sheep, but don’t bring your fat ass up here thinking that you know what you are talking about.”

His response was interesting “You should never attack some ones weight. I am over weight and I know how much that hurts. I mean sure I get called fat all the time, but using it as proof of a lack of intelligence or to bully someone is fucked up.” When I showed him the whole post that included  his name he said “That was different. That was a total moron who really needed to get it knocked into her thick skull that she was being stupid. Did she put you up to this? Are you her bitch now?” Why was it that with someone who could be so rational while In the dark about identify, could turn so angry so fast over the internet? Interestingly enough talking over the phone changed things. We agreed after the call on the wording of this, because I didn’t have a voice recorder at the time.

“it’s not that I am trying to be tough, or show how smart I really am. I just don’t understand why people can’t face reality when its right in front of their face. I feel like, like I have to get into their face as well and force them to see it. It just becomes important to me that they see why they are wrong and why I am right.

Maybe it is because the internet makes it less personal. I don’t have to speak to that person again if I don’t desire too.  I know that the worst thing that can happen is that some dude on the net will be pissed for a few days, and than move on. Well I did until you tracked me down. I didn’t really think that my words, hard as they were, would mean anything. You read about people committing suicide, sure, but those people really KNOW each other. In real time I mean. It’s not the same thing- is it?”