Fuck off
Date Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 03:32 AM PST
Topic Rant


I had the strangest sensation reading Shmeng today. I realized that it is the source of the most shmeng in my day-to-day life. I realized that it had become the "them" to my personal "us". When I first started coming here, it was just a test and a bulletin board to bitch about failing that test. I was the sort of thing you went back to, say once a week, to see if there was any new ranting twits and to tease them. Then some of us started commenting on other people's comments and *poof* a very small community was formed, a very small group of "us". The cult was born.
The New website came into being. I became stand-in editor. We got flooded with new people, most of which we treated the same. We teased them until they went away or said something interesting. Then we teased them some more. I spent more time on shmeng and more effort on the articles. I started telling people why their articles were not going up instead of just dumping them. I became the default editor.

The site changed again. Suddenly the unwanted weren't just going away, they were now outnumbering the people that had made this site cool. My life got hectic and I stopped paying as much attention to each post but kept up with the articles, the letters to potential authors, and helping people work on their submissions, college essays, school homework, and so forth.

Then it changed again. Now I can barley find comments that don't make me feel like I need a shower. I only see a few comments that are posted by people I know and care about and most of those are telling people to behave or else. I can barely face the slush pile because I KNOW its full of more stuff I don't want to read by people that don't get it and wont get it no matter what I say to them. Moreover, I find I no longer know what to say. I cant help but feel that they are now "right" through sheer mass of numbers and that I am wrong, a strangely dualistic idea for me to have. I wonder what happened that has shifted me from the "us" to the "them" and why. I'm the sort of person that wonders about things like that.

I wonder at Bettie's ability to keep saying the same things over and over every (almost) 2 months to some new pinhead about Satanism. I wonder if she just cut and pastes it with a few alterations each time. I think I had known her for, well more than a year, before I heard that she was a Satanist. Now, I get to read about it every few months as she tries again to make the point that a) the media is there to make money and b) Satanists don’t believe in the Christian Devil. I marvel at her strength of will that lets her keep fighting against the "them" that keep posting these things.

Arth hasnt posted more than once or twice in the past few months. I wonder if that means that he too is feeling the threat to this little haven of "us".

Ick went from babysitting the forums to keep the peace and to try to get people to talk, to refusing to come to the site anymore.

Dev is hiding behind computer scripts as his weapon of choice.

I have stopped writing, or at least submitting what I write.

Meranda barely comments at all where she used to be one of the most talkative people here.

Feral is reduced to occasional outbursts.

Mono doesnt even bother to comment on things, not with the depth that he used to.

Our self-proclaimed kings of the forums are down to an occasional catty remark or update on thier lives. I could go on, but its just depressing.

I don’t know how I feel about being the "them" here; is it freeing and liberating, depressing and demoralizing, or just par for the course. All things change and I have seen many changes at shmeng. Maybe this is for the best for the most people, maybe not, I'm sure that time will tell eventually. It is just strange to be the hated "them" in a place I helped make.

This article comes from Shmeng
http://www.shmeng.com/

The URL for this story is:
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