Message Board Wars

I'm getting way too old for this.

I guess this is just another line from the old song and dance of "can't we all just get along?" combined with a smattering of "get over yourself already, you twit!" Cause let's just face it. None of us have all the answers and to pretend otherwise just makes you look, well, stupid.

Way back in the late 1990s I found a place called The Knot. The Husband was going to be Best Man for his brother and I, being the dutiful wife, wanted to find out what a Best Man was supposed to do because, well, we eloped and never went through all that crud. On that site (and oh my golly is it ever so Stepford Wife!) they had message boards to ask various questions on, to bitch about things and have other assorted fun. One such board was appropriately named "The Bitching Post." Being of the curious sort, of course I clicked. And that one click sucked me into a world that would shock and amaze you. Well, mostly just shock.

From that board, I met women all across the country, mostly brides-to-be and some newlyweds, all with something to bitch about, be it their witch of a future mother-in-law, their husband-to-be, or their maid of honor who just didn't quite know what to do. Cliques formed, as they always will, some of us formed "secret" boards on another site so that we could bond together and bitch about our favorite assholes far from our target's field of view. Trolls abounded, of course. We even had our own personal Internet scammer who weaved her web long and thick and drew many into her grasp, only to suck them dry and spit them back out. Some people caught on long before the truth came out fully, and they made fun of those who defended this person, who later had to admit that they were completely duped. We even had an Internet "death" that wasn't. Good times.

Over the course of time, most of the women on the board married, and eventually we figured it just wasn't all that great of a thing to hang out on a wedding board anymore. Plus the boards were being flaky on The Knot and so we created another community on MSN. Well over 300 women gathered to the new board. At one point, I think membership was nearly 1,000. But then the usual infighting happened, people were ganged up on for the stupid things they said or were misunderstood about, more fractures occured, more boards were spawned, lather, rinse and repeat. And of course there's always the hate and discontent between "rival" larger boards, the ubiquitous "they're so stupid" posts refering to the "others," nevermind that most people belong to several of the big boards. It's like being back in high school again.

I still belong to a few of the main boards that survived several fallouts as well as one "secret" spinoff board. It has it's days where things are boring, and then something comes along that we can really sink our teeth into and be utterly stupid about. This week it was a post about some man who is the co-worker of a board member and the tactics he used to enforce a form of discipline on his 8-year-old son for not finishing his homework in the proscribed time. Three hundred and some-odd posts later, my brain was mush because of the stupidity being babbled by those who just knew they were perfectly right. Because THEY would never subject their child to a non-naturally occuring punishment for not doing homework.

Just what precisely is that? What in the hell is a naturally occuring punishment for not doing homework? I mean, besides getting a bad grade, which to some kids isn't a punishment at all. The psycho-babble that some people spout out is unreal and just made my head hurt.

Anyway, I have eight or nine years of experience with these type of boards. Then when I started researching WLS seriously before my surgery, I stumbled upon WLS-related boards. And now I belong to a slew of them. And it's the same. damn. thing. all. over. again.

While for the most part, the different boards are not spin-offs of each other, however one was made because he/she saw a lack of real accountability for post- and pre-ops in the realm of food. Okay. No problem. Good for them. Lots of people are non-compliant, and need to get a reality check. Also helps that said person owns a company that sells products to help WLS patients. All good.

This this board started up, there were all these attacks against it because they were "against" the biggest board. It was silly, stupid and petty. Some people managed to make themselves look like asses, others took a higher ground. Typical and standard for human behavior as a whole.

Time has passed, but apparently the "rivalry" has not. A shit-stirring post was made on the big board about the owner of the newer board. Responses were typical with people for or against, blah, blah, blah.

It gets tiring. I don't go to message boards to get sanctimonious people spouting all over me. I go to get advice, or to while away some time, or to have fun. I don't go to read things like, "Oh, you're such a great person for taking the high road in this. They just don't do things the way they're supposed to. They'll feel terrible once their fat again and realized they should have listened to you." Blech, puke, gag. Why don't people realize that this kind of fawning obsequesity (is that a word? should I use obsequeousness instead?) is just as bad as the trash talk? And it actually is worse in a way. I mean, this person isn't God almighty to the WLS world - instead they just happened to build a rather successful business around it. Lucky them. But they don't know it all, and I'm tired of reading that yes, yes they do. Over and over.

Maybe I've truly grown out of the whole message board thing. It was great to meet people from all over the country/world and chat with them about things, get into arguments with them, have fun snarking at things, relate with them, pass on information and gain some from them. I've had tons of fun. But it seems to have devolved into the whole "us versus them" thing, and I don't have the stomach for it anymore. I've been posting less and less - usually only when I have a bit of information that's directly related to the topic at hand. I just am not into it anymore.

I have my one board of a handfull of women that I've been with for several "cycles" of board cloning and destroying. I think I'm going to stick with them, as they are the real "friends" that I've made in the cyberworld and back off from the rest. It will probably cut down on my ranting about stupid people a whole lot more. And be a whole lot better for my sanity.