I remember 2003 being a particularly tumultuous year here on the Flob. That was the year The War About Nothing was launched in Iraq and tempers were running high. Posters were regularly disappearing into timeout for weeks at a time for something they said. In fact, I think that was when the seeds were planted for the great Forumosa/Taiwanease rift to come.
What’s different now is people are a lot more polarized and intolerant. At least back in 2003 you were either a liberal or a conservative – or at worst a neoconservative. Now it’s ‘snowflake’ this or ‘deplorable’ that, ‘SJW’ this is ‘covfefist’ that – and at worst you’re a closet Nazi or a black-masked Antifa terrorist. Nobody is just a liberal or conservative any longer. We’ve all been demonized.
I suppose the reason for that is the giddy euphoria of being able talk to anyone anywhere about anything has given way to the disillusioning reality that superior wisdom and enlightenment aren’t enough to convince the “other side” that they’re wrong. In fact, all that the free marketplace of ideas has resulted in is an alarming increase in the ranks of the “others”, the “spawn of Satan,” rather than the other way around. Now there’s a nostalgic yearning for the really good old days when only some people got to talk and everyone else had to listen. Hence recent grumblings about “fixing the internet.”
In the good old days of Disoriented you could change your username at will – and I did. I started out as Gavin Januarus, got bored with that and tried Fire Chicken, DJ Spanky and spook. Then the music stopped and I got stuck with spook for a couple of years until I petitioned the high command to change my moniker to politbureau. Later, when Forumosa I imploded I became Winston Smith. Went back to politbureau when the Japanese email account I used to register Winston Smith no longer functioned.
I’ve never gotten the thing about sticking with one made up name. After all, it’s not as if major contracts or large sums of money are riding on our pseudonyms. I just like been able to try on different fake personas when I get tired of the old one.
What exactly is the problem here? Do @IbisWtf, @Dr_Milker and @rowland actually dislike the “alt-right” label?
I can understand people who often agree with those three but don’t share their extremism being upset – as Honorable Shiadoa seems to be – when they get perceived as fellow alt-rightists, but then again, it’s understandable that people would get that impression.
Again, I believe we have a troop of Covfefists here who are not ashamed of their beliefs. They’re a small troop, but they’re very, very active. (A few others show up from time to time.)
Having two accounts at the same time is officially verboten (unless you receive a special dispensation – like asking the US government for two simultaneously valid US passports).
Uh oh. I suspect I have a lurker account from 10+ years ago, dating from before my current one. But when I registered the current one I couldn’t figure out what that old one was.
I couldn’t be flopped to figure how to revive politbureau when Flob I folded. Used the same username (Winston Smith) I was using at Taiwanease until the email address I used to register it with became defunct. Finally made the effort to figure out how to fix politbureau and now here we are. So sue me.
I feel confident saying that if we were that upset about it, we would have taken action a long time ago. It’s not like you were super-subtle about it.
(We had an unfortunate incident not long ago in which someone tried to be subtle about his alter-ego but was discovered anyway. We’re still feeling the fallout from that one.)
Long time ago, had someone replying to me with two different accounts.
Don’t get confused when using different accounts.
And stop giving yourself likes on one or both usernames.
Actually, I just checked: I’ve given the most likes to… Dr. Milker! So there’s probably an algorithm that has me marked as an alt-right Covfefist wannabe, or something.
So there’s probably an algorithm that has me marked as an alt-right Covfefist wannabe, or something. 