ballp.it
Snakes In The Ball Pit => Yay, I get to talk about me! => Topic started by: crow on March 17, 2015, 02:23:55 pm
-
You all keep talking about how you're friends with tumblr chicks, furries and other assorted internet people. Where do you meet them? I don't know any. The closest I know are anime fans, but these guys all have gfs and stuff and are normal.
Teach me your ways
-
Gaming club at college, sister is a Tumblr, middle school friend turned out to be a furry.
Also, I live in a part of LA that's huge on the ~new age~ stuff.
-
It used to be I just ran into them online, but one of them (the one who took me to the cuddle party) I'd known since high school. At that point, I was part of a "the only thing we have in common is we're not that popular" group, which attracted some fuckin' whackjobs.
I would say my friend group is a little less insane now that I no longer talk to my high school friends, but that's really not the case. I don't know how I meet these people, but it seems like if you put me in a room full of strangers, I will inevitably find the weirdest one there. Then he'll introduce me to his weird friends, and it sort of just grapevines from there.
-
i used to volunteer a bunch, go to shows, and i live in a witchy queer bubble
-
Internet, and I go to art college. In both cases I'm pretty chill about people being into weird shit and it takes a specific line being crossed for me to go "okay yeah that's fucking weird"
-
You all keep talking about how you're friends with tumblr chicks, furries and other assorted internet people. Where do you meet them? I don't know any. The closest I know are anime fans, but these guys all have gfs and stuff and are normal.Smoking Crow, March 17, 2015, 02:23:55 pm
This pretty much applies to me too. I just wanted to make sure you realized you weren't the only one.
-
Exist in the same room with one for long enough and eventually they'll see a new face who hasn't heard about their anime chemtrails yet.
-
Exist in the same room with one for long enough and eventually they'll see a new face who hasn't heard about their anime chemtrails yet.
Bobalay, March 17, 2015, 05:34:57 pm
Then why don't you politely tell them that you want them to leave you alone?
-
I'm pretty happy that I don't know that many weirdos in real life, and the few that I know are just through my friends. There are weirdos I went to high school with, but I'm not in touch with any of them. Anymore at least.
-
Exist in the same room with one for long enough and eventually they'll see a new face who hasn't heard about their anime chemtrails yet.
Bobalay, March 17, 2015, 05:34:57 pm
Then why don't you politely tell them that you want them to leave you alone?
Smoking Crow, March 17, 2015, 05:36:08 pm
you're making the mistake of assuming they'd care
-
Exist in the same room with one for long enough and eventually they'll see a new face who hasn't heard about their anime chemtrails yet.
Bobalay, March 17, 2015, 05:34:57 pm
Then why don't you politely tell them that you want them to leave you alone?
Smoking Crow, March 17, 2015, 05:36:08 pm
you're making the mistake of assuming they'd care
Tiny Prancer, March 17, 2015, 09:47:04 pm
Then I guess this hypothetical confrontation is going to the parking lot.
-
My ex-gf was a furry in the sense that she draws a lot on commission and all of her online friends some of her real life friends are furries. But her and the real life friends that I've met are all reasonably normal people outside of that, but they're also all female so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I also had one friend who is a furry that I met through a gaming community, but we've had a disastrous falling out and she's since jumped onto the radical trans 'movement' on tumblr. Since both those influences are no longer in my life I pretty much get all of my weirdness vicariously from The F Plus.
-
My ex-gf was a furry in the sense that she draws a lot on commission and all of her online friends some of her real life friends are furries. But her and the real life friends that I've met are all reasonably normal people outside of that, but they're also all female so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I also had one friend who is a furry that I met through a gaming community, but we've had a disastrous falling out and she's since jumped onto the radical trans 'movement' on tumblr. Since both those influences are no longer in my life I pretty much get all of my weirdness vicariously from The F Plus.
Ike, March 18, 2015, 12:32:51 pm
I intellectually understand every word in this paragraph but i still can't comprehend it
-
So originally I was making this long-ass post about how I run into these kinds of people in real life, but it just boiled down do "you work in a nerd industry, nerds who romanticize that industry to an insane degree will just come up to you and infodump all over you, especially if they have their own art/webcomic/Youtube channel and they think this is some kind of networking opportunity." No I can't give you a job, kid. I can't plug your work if I don't even know you. I sure as hell can't get you an in for "Playing Video Games" as your professional career because that's not a thing!
And for the record, no, telling them to go away is not usually a good idea. I posted before about how these folks can lose their shit if you shut them down online, but at least then you have a record of your interactions with them. Without going into any detailed stories, let me just say that trust me, telling them "no" in real life can be a million times worse because then there's no evidence to the contrary when they run back to their blogs to flat-out make shit up. So if a geek wants to creep on you, stink up the place, or behave hellaciously inappropriately, you either choose to let them, or you choose to live with the consequences when they inevitably construct a tall tale about how no, the real reason they weren't worshiped as the god they are was that everyone else had all these ulterior motives and were unfair and hurf and blurf. It's a pattern, and one that won't go away any time soon. So while it's not nearly as frequent as getting gross messages online, the potential fallout can be even worse.
However, for those of you that don't run into these people much offline, something I did want to bring up is that there is indeed a hilarious side to their lying. As I said, they love to plug their own sites. Naturally I look up these sites after I'm done dealing with their painfully cringeworthy asses, and the best thing I've ever learned from that is that the bad internet strangepants people lie about their lives all the fucking time. Yes it's pretty obvious to figure that out even when you don't meet them. That one kid from the TV Tropes episode did not fuck up the Sicilian mafia. However, seeing the contrast yourself is just a special experience. Any time you read about some Internet Tough Guy Who Tells it Like it Is, or a Beautiful Strong Pink Princess, or Self-Proclaimed E-Celebrity, or a Tender Meek Little Angel Who Just Wants to do Right But Everyone Else is Too Mean, just know that the odds are that person's the exact opposite in real life, and not in a fun way. Mumbling, awkward laughter, creepy staring, overbearing and rude outbursts, annoying nonstop complaining, disastrous attempts at pulling their schticks in face-to-face social situations, etc. The more irritating and insistent they are about their personas online, usually the more socially inept, self-sabotaging, and inappropriate they are offline.
Try picturing it next time you listen to an episode! It's great!
... uh, picture the subject matter. Not the readers. We really are like this in real life, sad as that may be.
-
Game store, community college RPG group, the internet, a park.
-
They're my students. There was the guy who rolled into class with neon-colored furry feet and a tail accessory, the guy who was on psychiatric medication and would ask great questions that made everyone else in the room uncomfortable, and the guy who would try to correct me during class while being totally wrong. Community college is the academic equivalent of the Island of Misfit Toys.
I loved them all because they kept the day interesting.
-
My ex-gf was a furry in the sense that she draws a lot on commission and all of her online friends some of her real life friends are furries. But her and the real life friends that I've met are all reasonably normal people outside of that, but they're also all female so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I also had one friend who is a furry that I met through a gaming community, but we've had a disastrous falling out and she's since jumped onto the radical trans 'movement' on tumblr. Since both those influences are no longer in my life I pretty much get all of my weirdness vicariously from The F Plus.
Ike, March 18, 2015, 12:32:51 pm
I intellectually understand every word in this paragraph but i still can't comprehend it
Smoking Crow, March 18, 2015, 02:39:41 pm
It boils down to the fact that when you're a teenager you're less discerning in the sort of person you become close to, I guess?
-
So the bus ran criminally late today after class and I ended up being stranded at the bus stop with a bunch of other people, and while we were hanging out there and chatting a short lady who was COMPLETELY SOAKED and was using her raincoat to wrap something up rather than keep her dry walked up to us and asked if we were students and if we were writers and so on, and opened up the raincoat to reveal several soggy binders of pages, a box of gold tinfoil sheets, and a couple of CDs with vague patterns drawn on them with marker or pencil, and started going on about doing an art project where people make things with the tinfoil and waved her CDs around and said something about her bandcamp and “the next pink floyd” and started handing out the tinfoil sheets to people. I turned it down and she went further down the line of people, but she never actually said WHERE or WHEN she expected us to get in contact with her or give her that tinfoil again, since she was expecting us to make it into something, apparently.
Pretty much everyone I was with went “what the hell just happened” and all I can think is that I feel really sorry for that lady, walking around soaking wet and expecting something to come out of her giving people gold tinfoil sheets and talking vaguely about her bandcamp
I also tried googling what she was rambling around and I think I found her bandcamp (https://newpinkfloyd.bandcamp.com/), but I feel too weird about this to try actually listening to any of the music. Someone tell me what it's like.
-
I also tried googling what she was rambling around and I think I found her bandcamp (https://newpinkfloyd.bandcamp.com/), but I feel too weird about this to try actually listening to any of the music. Someone tell me what it's like.
Tiny Prancer, March 23, 2015, 05:21:56 pm
it's weird synthpop but I enjoyed it and you should check them out!
I'll fill it right up by bringing you some chicken soup.
I'll bring you fuckin' chicken soup.
I'll bring you tater tots but you don't know what they are..
Are they swaggerin? Do you got a swagger?
They don't need a swagger they need something to be three.
If I wanna be your Mom I'll birth you from my hip.
If I wanna be your Mom I'll take you on a fantastic journey trip.Quote from
those are copy/pasted from the Lyrics on their bandcamp all the words get bounced against each other a bunch and aren't in that order
-
I also tried googling what she was rambling around and I think I found her bandcamp (https://newpinkfloyd.bandcamp.com/), but I feel too weird about this to try actually listening to any of the music. Someone tell me what it's like.
Tiny Prancer, March 23, 2015, 05:21:56 pm
it's weird synthpop but I enjoyed it and you should check them out!
I'll fill it right up by bringing you some chicken soup.
I'll bring you fuckin' chicken soup.
I'll bring you tater tots but you don't know what they are..
Are they swaggerin? Do you got a swagger?
They don't need a swagger they need something to be three.
If I wanna be your Mom I'll birth you from my hip.
If I wanna be your Mom I'll take you on a fantastic journey trip.Quote from
those are copy/pasted from the Lyrics on their bandcamp all the words get bounced against each other a bunch and aren't in that order
chai tea latte, March 23, 2015, 05:42:51 pm
It reminds me of Blanche Blanche Blanche and I like them so I enjoy this
-
I have friends who fell down the fanfic hole, which led to the LiveJournal rabbit hole, which lead to the Tumblr rabbit hole, which led to the SJW rabbit hole .... etc etc etc until your mind bleeds out your ears. It's like the worst form of networking.
Also, being a bus rider in a relatively major city, it's hard not to see people wearing cat ears or hanging horse tails from their wheelchairs on a daily basis.
-
Anime club, goofy internet roleplay communities. Basically, do nerd stuff in not-terribly-private spaces and you will encounter the weirdos.
(It also definitely helps to be too polite/nervous to shut them down quickly. I get most of my encounters via friend-of-a-friend stuff, though, since I've got terminal bitchface, which repels a lot of them.)
-
I was about to ask the same question that Smoking Crow asked to start this topic, and then I saw these posts. I am someone who didn't really get into the heart of the internet until relatively recently, especially not before I ran into this podcast. When I saw posts on here talking about these bizarre internet beings that people actually knew, it was sort of hard for me to believe. When you only see the internet through these strange anecdotes, it is easier to pretend that it is all isolated, or barely exists. Then, after reading this topic, I started thinking about the people that I have come across in my life and realized that even if I didn't know it at the time, some of those people were the weirdos that this podcast is about. I've known conspiracy theorists (in my family), fetishists, achievement hunters, New Age hippies, men's rights activists, and all sorts of weird, messed up people. I especially knew men's rights activists because I am an electrical engineer. Goddamn, those guys from my college are just waiting for Boots to step down as voice of the Spearhead so that they can spew their hate even louder. So, I guess what I am saying is that internet weirdos are all around you, Smoking Crow, even if you don't realize it yet. In fact, they are probably sitting on the bus next to you, wearing a diaper and buttplug.
-
I was about to ask the same question that Smoking Crow asked to start this topic, and then I saw these posts. I am someone who didn't really get into the heart of the internet until relatively recently, especially not before I ran into this podcast. When I saw posts on here talking about these bizarre internet beings that people actually knew, it was sort of hard for me to believe. When you only see the internet through these strange anecdotes, it is easier to pretend that it is all isolated, or barely exists. Then, after reading this topic, I started thinking about the people that I have come across in my life and realized that even if I didn't know it at the time, some of those people were the weirdos that this podcast is about. I've known conspiracy theorists (in my family), fetishists, achievement hunters, New Age hippies, men's rights activists, and all sorts of weird, messed up people. I especially knew men's rights activists because I am an electrical engineer. Goddamn, those guys from my college are just waiting for Boots to step down as voice of the Spearhead so that they can spew their hate even louder. So, I guess what I am saying is that internet weirdos are all around you, Smoking Crow, even if you don't realize it yet. In fact, they are probably sitting on the bus next to you, wearing a diaper and buttplug.
achillesheelies, August 11, 2015, 08:22:20 pm
During a student comity meeting at my university (my friend was the rep for our year) which included a number of students as well as lecturers and such from civil(my degree), electrical, and mechanical engineering a couple of the electrical guys piped up with a suggestions/request. They didn't appreciate the number of group assignments that they had been given (the way the university saw it was that as an engineer you'll pretty much never work alone so group assignments were often a thing). At this stage the head of the school piped up and said "No. You just don't like group assignments because you electrical engineers are all socially backwards". What I am saying is thanks for reinforcing that stereotype, though presumably being an outlier.
-
one of my coworkers the other day decided to go on a rant at lunch about how charred meat is highly toxic. so that was fun.
-
What I am saying is thanks for reinforcing that stereotype, though presumably being an outlier.
Well, I'm still a huge geek, just not a misogynist shut-in. It wasn't even most of the people in my major, just much more than you would hope. They were just the insufferable kind of nerd that sublimates their frustration (sexual and otherwise) with women into hate. A lot of them are shit engineers too, and are the kind that would complain about having to work on teams because of course they fail at team projects. If no one can stand to talk to you, no one can work with you that well. You can't be a good engineer and not be able to work on a team, not for most jobs anyway. So yeah, that stereotype holds partially true, but I don't feel that it is completely unique to electrical engineering.
one of my coworkers the other day decided to go on a rant at lunch about how charred meat is highly toxic. so that was fun.
I now hate the words "toxic" and "toxin." Thanks to bullshit dietary "science," those words have lost all meaning. Were they referring to the trace amounts of carcinogens in ash, or were they not so specific? Not like those carcinogens matter at all, that's just the argument that I've heard against charred meat most recently.
-
the carcinogenic effects, as it turns out.
the conversation started up again in one of our public slack channels. he linked to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbon#Human_health), so i promptly reviewed the sources and asked how they applied. his response was to essentially inform the whole company that he had no idea how dietary scientific studies worked since he apparently believed that the study was "we're going to inject you with dangerous substances and see how they affect your health".
and then because this story is close enough: then the office president promoted me to lead scientist and my coworker who is super cute asked me out on a date and i also won the lottery!
-
and then because this story is close enough: then the office president promoted me to lead scientist and my coworker who is super cute asked me out on a date and i also won the lottery!
jack chick, August 12, 2015, 09:45:47 am
What an exciting day at the science factory!
-
And Jack Chick was... Albert Einstein.
-
Then Jack Chick was the demon
-
Community college for me. I knew I was really in for it when on orientation, the middle-aged tour guide said, "Oh, and we have lots of clubs for different things. We even have a gaming club, and even a club for, uh.. Those little ponies..."
Shockingly, they weren't listed on the college's website.
-
Yeah, there was guy around my Community College who walked around with a Rainbow Dash backpack. Of course I think he graduated, while I'm still fucking here, so there is no end to this sentence that isn't depressing.
-
Community college for me. I knew I was really in for it when on orientation, the middle-aged tour guide said, "Oh, and we have lots of clubs for different things. We even have a gaming club, and even a club for, uh.. Those little ponies..."
Shockingly, they weren't listed on the college's website.
Sion, August 18, 2015, 12:07:40 pm
Most campus-life organizations have their own equivalent to the Taco Bell secret menu.
-
I just fucking though about this dude and since I don't want to rant about him where people I know would see it and it would possibly get around to him, I'm gonna put it here because (1) he absolutely counts as a weird people and (2) it is admittedly very fun to talk about the bizarreness that was this dude
there was a guy at my college who joined the same year as me and graduated the same year as me (I thought staying an extra year would mean I would be free of him for the final year but nope, he took an extra year too). I am gonna call him B, for the purposes of him having a name. He is one of those dudes who basically screams autism to be around. I took an instant dislike to him because he reminded me uncomfortably of a guy who I had previously been in school with who was fucking horrible to me, and their shared fondness for impersonations of family guy characters didn't help that. I'm also Autistic myself, and have gotten a lot of shit about it in my life that sort of taught me though trial and error how to function, and I have very low tolerance for other people with autism who actively avoid learning to function/don't put any effort into trying to function, because (1) it sucked learning to function but I fucking did it and genuinely try to learn from my experiences even today and (2) one of the great things about having autism is that other autistic people can and will have quirks that combine poorly with your own and basically make it sensory hell to be around them
here are some experiences I had with him over the next five years:
-during the first week I knew him, a mutual friend did a telling of The Licked Hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Licked_Hand), and B literally did not understand the story and kept asking about it. Said friend ended up having to retell and explain the story multiple times and he didn't get it. Like, B seemed to assume that there was some sort of important motivation behind the killer licking the hand and kept asking about it. Friend gave up trying to explain it.
-I was in a job coaching group for people with disabilities that B was also in. he would come in late, loudly talk about being sorry that he was late and try to go into all of the things he was doing that made him late, and constantly would derail discussions to talk about off-topic subjects, which the counselor moderating was hesitant to break away from, probably for fear of being "mean". I ended up going to another counselor who was more familiar with B and telling her that B was derailing the meetings, and said counselor showed up at the next meeting and gently but firmly reminded him during the meeting to stay on topic. He did not show up at the next meeting, probably because he was so upset he was told to behave. he later was involved in the production of a play he wrote and starred in in the final quarter and every time he came in late he would go on about how busy and tired he was because of the play, pace around the room, and constantly interrupt about how he had to leave early. At one point I told him if he had to leave early he didn't have to talk about it, he could just leave, and his response was.... to leave the room for ten minutes, and then come back and do the same thing.
-in my last few years I ended up doing project work in the computer lab a lot, and it turned out B came in there often to... watch movies and youtube videos with no headphones, and turn the sound up so he could hear it better. In the final year this happened I would approach him and tell him he needed to put on headphones, and his responses included things such as "ARE YOU THE RA? DO YOU OWN THE COMPUTER LAB???" and either leaving the computer lab in a huff because how dare I tell him to respect other people using that space, or loudly going on about how he was leaving as he gathered his stuff as I explained, no, he just needed to put on headphones. I legit saw him pull out a pair of earbuds right after he went on about leaving and didn't, so it wasn't that he didn't have any, it was that he was just refusing to use them.
-this is a milder complaint but almost every time I saw him in the computer lab, he had claimed one of the very few computers that was hooked to a scanner. I never once witnessed him using the scanner. Ever.
-B also talked to himself. a LOT. and usually while in the computer lab while watching things. I once witnessed him get so angry that a printer wouldn't print, that instead of just trying a different printer, he loudly argued with no one whatsoever about how the paper needed to print and how he was going to miss the bus. I should add, when he argued to whatever nonexistant subject was his focus of the moment, he SNARLED and sounded absolutely goddamn terrifying. He spent 20+ minutes arguing with absolutely no one, rather than trying a different printer, which probably would have printed and saved him the time he was using to complain to the air. I also once saw him arguing with no one as he watched a movie, pausing it to complain, and I realized he was arguing with the characters in the movie.
-after largely avoiding B for my first few years at school, my first major interaction with him was when I ended up being at the same airport terminal as him when we were both returning to college after break, and when he approached me to talk I told myself "oh he's probably not that bad give him a chance to talk to you". It turned out I was entirely right to avoid him because he asked me about how I was in the comics program and then turned it into a discussion about how he wanted to do disney fanfiction comics (I am not fucking joking about this, he wanted to make comics along the lines of "WHAT IF THE LION KING CHARACTERS WERE HUMANS") and apparently assumed that I would instantly love the idea and be on board to draw this for him. I told him disney probably wouldn't allow for that to happen, what with copyright issues, and he got incredibly huffy. I then left so I could get in line to board, and he got in line right behind me and "muttered" loudly about how he wasn't done talking.
-continuing with him arguing with movie characters: I have a friend who was part of the gender equality club on campus. B would also attend. According to her, the only thing that B would ever do at these meetings was to attempt to turn the topic to be about how he's scared of violent female characters because he can't tell fiction from reality and he thinks that The Bride from Kill Bill is real and going to murder him. Not fucking joking about this.
-also on the "loudly talking to himself" thing: another friend, while we were mutually bitching about B, said that she also experienced him arguing with nobody in the computer lab, but she realized that what was going on is that he was writing my little pony fanfiction and reading it aloud at the same time in the goddamn school computer lab
this is all the major stuff off the top of my head, and I'm sure there's more shit he did that I forgot about or that I didn't think was worth getting into, but that was my experience with B. I am thrilled to be way the fuck away from this dude now because hooooooly shit.
(For the record, I was never able to figure out if his "leave in a huff when you get told not to do a thing and then come back and do the thing again" tactic was because he legitimately forgot everything and assumed his actions had no consequences or he assumed everyone present would have forgotten and leave him free to repeat his actions. Given the fact that he quite clearly had some sort of fucking weird brain shit going on, I'm not sure which is more likely)
-
That's the kind of stuff that worries me a bunch, since I'm going to be starting a fairly intensive dual major bachelor's program soon, and I feel like I involuntarily attract weird people and I won't have the time to deal with that kind of bullshit.
-
if it helps, politely telling people when they're causing problems is usually effective (like "hey sorry to bother you but you're being kind of loud and it's distracting, could you be a little quieter/use headphones/etc", especially since in my personal experience I usually don't realize I'm being disruptive and would rather be told early on so I know to watch out for that behavior rather than having to find out about it later because no one bothered to talk to me and feel shitty about it) as long as you make sure to be polite about it (avoid "hey you're being a dick turn it down" because that's never a good way to break it to someone), and if it's clear that they've outright refused to consider their behavior, you are not required to deal with them or interact with them any more than you have to for school. You can also possibly go to student counseling and let them know about said person being disruptive and see if counseling is willing to talk to them about it, or your RA if they're a roommate and see if you can switch rooms or work something out with them.
-
That's the kind of stuff that worries me a bunch, since I'm going to be starting a fairly intensive dual major bachelor's program soon, and I feel like I involuntarily attract weird people and I won't have the time to deal with that kind of bullshit.
A Meat, August 22, 2015, 04:57:17 pm
'sorry, I don't have time to be your friend/talk about this right now.' repeat both variations until only the ones who actually want to talk to you are left.
Be nice to nice people, and be kind to everyone else.
-
Meet with and caught up with one of the more enjoyable weird people I went to high school with. She might have accidentally told me some confidential things from her army service while complaining about her 'bitch' commanding officer who was probably severely mentally ill, but I was mostly glad to hear that her life is becoming less potentially dangerous (mostly i'm happy she isn't together with the brony boyfriend she had).
She's still slightly self deluded and arrogant, but I'm always happy to hear about people getting less weird, or at least less dangerously weird. I do wish she got rid of her increasingly worse smoking habit though.
Always glad to learn people are improving their lives even if they're making them worse in other ways.
-
Oh shit I just remembered something else about B that I can't believe I'd forgotten
One night I had to run out to a nearby print shop to get something done for class the next day, as you do, and as I get to the corner I realize that B is there next to a trash bin that's been put out, and I do my best to pretend I don't see him. But then I realize something: he's going through the trash bin for recyclables. Just casually rooting through it and pulling plastic bottles out and sticking them in a bag.
Now, I'm sure his idea was that he was doing a good thing (he was involved with a lot of volunteer stuff as I remember), and was making sure those recyclables would get put in recycling, but this was also someone else's trash can, sitting out on a public street, right next to busy traffic, where he would clearly be seen doing this by any of the many people who passed by.
I feel like this incident sort of says a lot about him, that he clearly went "this is a good idea" and ignored/forgot the fact that it's not exactly socially acceptable to do it.