Internet Outters and "I Thought We Talked About This"...
(If you're not an Internet insider, feel free to skip today's entry.)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well, that's just not a motto I ascribe to, mostly because I don't really have enemies - other than a handful of men on the Internet who: Just. Can't. Stand. Sooey. I don't take them seriously because if I did, I'd be afraid to blog - and I like blogging.
But because I'm a woman and a mother, with, as I say, male enemies on the Internet (one local yokel, who knows who I am, was once so consumed with jealousy that he posted my phone number and address on a chatboard and invited any lurking gunowners to "hunt" me down and sodomize me - you know, because I'm an ugly skanky hag), I prefer to blog - anonymously. It frees me up to really speak my mind about abortion, men on the Internet, the Middle East, even the workplace.
So, imagine my surprise when I caught one of my favourite haunts gloating over/cheering for another blogger (a particularly nasty operator, in my opinion) because he had just outted (two 't's?) a blogger with whom he disagrees politically, culturally and, no doubt, romantically. Whatever. The outter isn't exactly known for his principles or character - I'd say he has a distinct lack thereof (and I say this in spite of the fact that I, more often than not, agree with his views, ironically) - but there my fellow bloggers were, like flies on shit, as they say, engaging in back pats all 'round - almost as if their hero of the Internet wouldn't do the exact same misdeed to any one of them in a blackheartbeat.
Let me be clear, in case I haven't been quite enough. The outter in this instance isn't just someone I can't imagine anyone with an ounce of integrity championing - he's someone who should be mocked mercilessly and unrelentingly and kept on the fringes for as long as he witlessly, and yet with astounding moral certainty, stalks the earth. Call me Pollyanna Sunshine but wrong is wrong, usually, and it doesn't matter if it's Peter or Paul doing the wrong - but when you know fully well that either/or is the enemy of all that is good (and I mean "actual" good, not winning good, not Church good - actual good) you just don't give him the ball.
Because he'll either aim at your head, poke a hole in it, or throw it through Mrs. Grundy's window, all the while pointing at you and holding up his get out of jail free card.
Indeed, Dear Reader, if you're still there, the Internet is such a cesspool of "macho" dumbassery today, you should be embarrassed to be on it. Scram! Before you get any on you.
