pissing off the squares: classique or duud?

It all depends on the people you work with. Thankfully my coworker Tom grew up loving thrash and hardcore punk, so not much fazes him. If anyone ever asks about something that I loathe, I don't hold back.

trivializing the holocaust: classic or dud?

shouldn't you be out gay bashing?

fuck off you anti-semite cocksucker.

Throw on Yngwie Malmsteen's "I Am a Viking," and insist that it's the pinnacle of Western music. It'll shut up everyone (and get you a raise, guaranteed!)

I unintentionally but triumphantly piss off the people who try to piss of the squares by throwing myself into my studies with a vigor that completely obscures the fact that I don't really care one way or another about Andrew Jackson and all his little friends. If they are going to make me sit through history class I will at least sit through it loudly.

Pissing off people you don't like is always fun, childish or not. I approve.

I always took a certain joy from being the naughtiest person in the school but also getting the best marks. They hate you even more if you beat them at their own game.

It's more fun to mess with the hipsters, who are generally more worthy of contempt than the dockers massive anyway.

It's more fun to mess with the hipsters, who are generally more worthy of contempt than the dockers massive anyway.

Agreed. Ergo, Yngwie's "I Am a Viking." Does double-duty, Yngwie's a real trooper he is!

Dan, I do think you are right. Pissing off squares is like shooting fish in a barrel. What is more important acting right or saying the right things?

I often feel too obscure to effectively piss off squares...I don't think it's childish, it's kind of exerting one's opinion, diversifying the world.

Oh yeah! Pissing off hipsters is much more fun! My obscurity is suddenly a much more effective weapon!

Most of the hipsters you are pissing off probably did time as some kind of wuss or geek before they went hip. Personally, I was totally saved from years of bullying by the hippest girl in my school standing up for me (not that I couldn't stand up for myself; she said she'd make their lives Hell if they didn't stop which I couldn't use as a threat, really). You will make yourself indistinguishable from the squares if you hassle those who are not.

Pissing off squares is fun, but as much as I like to do this, I save up for special occasions!

DG in 'buoyant' mood + wee bit of alcohol + dreadful Hainault sports bar + Abba tribute band = dirty looks all round. FERNANDO!

surely not the Old Parkonians Cricket Club DG!?!

Aggravate the squares aggressively, openly, mercilessly, constantly ridiculing their tastes, attitudes and very existence. Make fun of hipsters too, but in such a dry fashion that they don't realize they're the butt of your joke.

In fact, I think squares get too much of an easy ride here. Remember, empathizing with them is a form of false consciousness.

the truth is, I don't know any squares or hipsters.

I think my brother might be a hipster. Well, he's definitely more hip than me. What is a hipster exactly?

No Katie, not the Old Parkonians, I went to 'The Old Maypole' up Fencepiece Road which has just been refurbished as one of those dreadful sports-themed bars. How comes you know of the Parkonians, anyway?

I was a complete wuss/geek (erm...still am, I'd reckon) and got contempt for it but I listened to music most people didn't know about (hahaha a self-consciously indie statement there) what does this make me. Geek or hipster? Or are the two actually undividable. I'm also now (didn't used to be when the contempt was happening) not sure what the problem is exactly with the dockers wearing massive, they are most people and only some of them are bad so what's the point in slagging them off?

Years ago, I used to get all tarted up with make-up and stuff and slink around my school and round the local pubs etc to provoke people, whilst there was much grumbling and muttered insults I never got beaten up for it.

Right. Having received (well, DG received it but I'm a moderator too) a formal request to delete or edit the thread I've had another look at it, including Jess' "new answers" post which I'd skipped before in the way I skip all new answers posts.

I would prefer not to edit or delete the original post. The question being asked is "is this acceptable? is it desirable?" ("it" being making jokes about taboo/sensitive subjects, in this case the Holocaust, to "piss off the squares"). There is plenty of opportunity for debate here but for whatever reasons the board largely didn't take it, or hasn't yet. (We've had threads about black humour before and there was a similar shuffle away from the central issues). For a poster to be so offended that they stop reading the boards is, in its way, a response to the question. I still think this is a legitimate and valid question, and I think most reasonable readers would not be offended by it, though they might well be disappointed or even disgusted by the lack of relevant response.

If Jess agreed, though, I would happily delete the 'new answers' post - it doesn't add anything, I don't think, and is likely in my opinion to shift any 'potentially offended' visitors into being fully 'offended'.

This raises more general issues about moderation. The reasons given for wanting the posts edited/deleted were (apologies if this summary loses some of the points, no distortion is intended): making this kind of glib comparison is de facto offensive and should not be done. And Holocaust survivors or relatives of survivors might be offended or hurt and upset were they to encounter the thread.

My position as a moderator is this: a forum set up to debate "everything" loses more than it gains if it sets certain subjects off-limits, no matter how self-evident the conclusions may seem or how ghastly the topics in question are. It's in the interest of most communities - be they a silly Internet community or a wider social one - to censor as little as possible. In the case of ILE, the lines get drawn at the existing legal limits of speech (as far as we moderators know them!) and at specific personal abuse of named posters, should that poster request deletion. And even then some stuff gets through. Similarly, it's my opinion that you can't take hypothetical offense into account when moderating, though surely you should when posting. I have read stuff on ILE that makes me very personally uncomfortable and upset thanks to my own private experiences - I think that gives me the right not to read or be expected to read those threads, but not the right to stop others reading them.

These guidelines may very well be luxuries I can afford based on being a well-off English white male whose family came through the 20th century relatively unscathed. And I may very well be arrogant and naive for not being stricter in moderating what are after all tiny and trivial Internet forums, or for caring about them. Fair enough. I also absolutely respect the decision of the offended poster to stop reading and contributing to the boards, and wish them all the best.

Speaking personally, I wouldn't have laughed as Jess' joke, and I certainly didn't laugh at his new answers post: I think both were damn stupid but I think he thinks so too. I'm probably squarer than a lot of people, though.

Generally speaking I think pissing people off is classic if you're trying to provoke thought and dud if you're trying to provoke anger. Which doesn't stop me doing both sometimes.

tom you are free to delete the new answers post or the whole damn thread. i'm glad to see, however, that tom at least realized that the original post was NOT designed to provoke a response, but instead to critique a particular activity, even on my own part. i will confess that both posts were made under the influence of alcohol, which doesn't excuse them, but i think it at least explains why i even remotely felt that the new answers post would fly. i made the mistake - while hammered - of assuming that something which wouldn't have offended my friends (which include several lapsed jews, in the same way that i'm a "lapsed" catholic) wouldn't offend a large, unweildy, un-unified group of people all across the globe. my mistake and i own up to it. i hope this doesn't damage my standing in anyones eyes, but i'm going to be more careful in the future obviously. i also posted a related commentary on my blog about it, if anyone is interested.

(also, the new answers quote - i think - is attributed to g. colsoy of matador records fame in a another, more immature time. i'm sure he's just as mortified that it's still making the rounds as anyone. perils of print i guess.)

::waiting for mssr. colsoy to google his name and happen upon this atrocity::

New answers message gone.

As the Pinefox would say - cor! Once again, I apologise for not acting sooner, I was out all afternoon and evening and have only just now (1:34am) discovered that this thread has upset certain posters. I have to say sorry, but when I set up ILE I had in mind a forum where literally anything could be discussed, with no tyrannical moderators deleting anything they don't like for whatever reason. If someone says something here you don't lkke, have it out with them, as you would if you were in a pub or at Speaker's Corner or back at school etc etc. The job of the moderators here is merely to ensure the smooth running of the board, categorising threads etc, we aren't really authority figures at all. Though Jess has renounced his earlier comments, I feel that his original question is valid and should stay (unless of course Jess you strongly feel otherwise), though I will delete the new answers post, as it is superfluous and needlessly offensive. Ethan, it would be nice if you were to retract your accusation of anti-semitism, I don't feel that a flippant tasteless comment about Auschwitz displays deep-rooted hatred of the Jewish people, to be honest. And as for the mystery offended poster, obviously you have the right to walk away from the boards, but I would be disappointed that you have gotten so little from these boards that one silly comment would cause you to exile yourself. Please please please re-consider leaving.
And for the record, I am Jewish.

dg, i *do* want the question to stay, and i feel like something might actually be generated from it if people actually got to the meat of it (i'm exhausted by the whole thing myself) but we are ile, therefore we mutate. it's in the charter, i think. i also think the question was phrased improperly from the start, but after everything else that's gone down, i think people probably got the message. jesus, i never thought *i'd* be the one to come off as most offensive on il*, but hey, live and learn.

(i also think ethan was offended by my comment, but i also don't think he really thinks i'm an anti-semite, as he's still talking to me as i type this. unless he has no problem with anti-semitism, which is his own problem.)

gerard cosloy won't find his name here until you spell it correctly.

i'll never win that pesky indie rock spelling bee now.

Wasnt Ethan taking the piss? Wasnt Jess too?

Is this ILE or Oprah or is everyone drunk?

I don't think theres anything offensive on this thread.

Damn, I want to see the offensive new answer. Otherwise I can't find anything here to jump on my soap box with and start feeling empowered. The Auschwitz comment is just stupid. The only effect on me is I lose some respect for the poster. It has less to do about anti-semitism and more about ignorance and tact.

So who threw the hissy fit? Enquiring minds, etc...

I had family who were snuffed by Hitler (and Stalin, for good measure) and I wasn't particularly offended by Jess's comment. Looking at it now (in light of whatever has transpired), it does look pretty tacky and stupid but I don't think Jess meant to be anti- Semitic or deliberately offensive to those who lost family in the Holocaust. But I'm not the most accurate barometer of these things, anyway.

Lets not play im a worse victim then you were . Jess apologized , Tom made a fairly well informed and very well thought out executive descion. The only one i am know angry at is the anon. complainer. Nothing makes me more upset then anononymus complaints. Stand by your words and defend them or think about it and then rescind them . DO not go sneakign around and learn to seperate . Tom had nothing to do with this and should not be punished.

actually dg (and/or tom), the more i think about this, the more i would like the entire thread taken down. call it me wussing out, but frankly, i don't think any *good* is going to come of it at this point, and the fewere people that read it the better, as its not how i want to be remembered at il*. in any event, i apologize to anyone i may have offended and i think i'm going to spend a couple days away from the boards (if only to get some of my own work done.)

So who threw the hissy fit? Enquiring minds, etc...

This actually all began because of a message I received from Said Anonymous Complainer -- however, I don't see fit to reveal who it was precisely because it was private mail. If that person wishes to post openly on the matter, that's their business.