Featured Post

SIX KEYS TO A LITERARY GENETIC CODE

In essays on the subject of centricity, I've most often used the image of a geometrical circle, which, as I explained here,  owes someth...

Friday, October 31, 2014

AGGRO AGGRAVATIONS

Another quickie BEAT-post, again on the same Sarkeesian thread:

_____________________


Can one find a lot of aggro comments by gamers? Yes, one can.
Can one find a lot of aggro comments by comics fans? Yes, one can.
This correlation led the first poster on this thread to conflate the two groups. But is it accurate?
I googled "death threats" and "wrestling fans": one of the first links led me to a piece about wrestler Ric Flair getting death threats.
I googled "death threats" and "sports fans," and the first ones up referenced Flair, Kyle Williams and Josh Morgan.

It is not a rationalization to point out that this kind of crap goes on in many, if not all, walks of life.  There are apparently thousands upon thousands of dumbasses in all those arenas who have nothing better to do than vent their aggressions with cowardly death-threats.

All such offenses should, indeed, be met with the full force of legal retribution, regardless of whether they spring from "nerd rage," "sports rage," "politics rage," or whatever. But the big reason such offenses happen so often is that you usually can't find the schmucks.

So yes, if you personally overhear someone making a death-threat to anyone for any reason, you ought to report it, or maybe even, in some circumstances, tell the sucker what you think of him.  But if the sucker pulls a knife on you, maybe you will find out that some kinds of subculture are a good deal more toxic than what Dana Stevens is pleased to call "fanboy culture." 

No comments: