Reports of my demise have been blah blah blah.

[HelloRaptor]

Since I've had people poking me via other media to make sure I'm okay, with various theories on what might have happened, I figured I'd drop in long enough to clarify:

• I am not dead, obviously.
• I was not divorced by @ES and summarily banned.
• I am not posting under a secret alias.
• I have not lost internet connection.
• I did not lose my hands in a horrible industrial accident.
• I am not in a dome stress testing for life on Mars.
• I have not lost myself in Hello Kitty Online.

So on and so forth. I'm fine, I'm just not reading or posting here, aside from making this post. I regret that I won't be following up to savor the various shades of don't really give a fuck to follow. You gave enough of a fuck to click on the thread title, so my ego is secure.

Since just saying "I'm not reading/posting anymore." hasn't been enough to stop people from nagging me, I'll include here what I've said elsewhere:

I enjoyed the board (by which I collectively mean the string of boards this general community has inhabited going way back, whatever its name) most when it was a bunch of assholes and bullies being more or less comfortable with being and dealing with assholes and bullies, and it was a venue to vent about how fucking stupid people can be, and how terrible both their roleplay and their life choices often were. It was filthy and pretty vile, but also quite cathartic.

I enjoyed the more serious conversations that grew out of it, because generally people said whatever the fuck they wanted to say without much regard for what other people would think of it, both in terms of the ideas put forward and the often brutal criticism that came out of it. Again, assholes and bullies, but again that was a feature not a bug. Nobody really worried about hurting anybody else's feelings, because if their feelings were going to get hurt over some shit said on an internet forum for and by assholes and bullies, they probably knew they shouldn't be here anyway.

Soapbox isn't really that place, though. Which, again, is fine. It doesn't have to be. But it's what I wanted, what I enjoyed, and seeing it steadily replaced by a more standard forum with a growing community of finger-shakers and tsk-tsk-tsk types doesn't really sit well with me. I didn't read WORA to have people worry about my feelings before they posted, I wanted them to post whatever the fuck they wanted to and to trust that I was enough of an adult not to go kill myself over it, and vice versa.

The fact that right now there's probably half a dozen people immediately thinking about posting with righteous indignation about how cyber-bullying and suicide are never funny and how dare I only really illustrates why I lost interest in posting here.

None of which is meant to suggest that the community here, despite what assholes remain, isn't probably better off for the shift. I'm sure plenty of folks are much happier and more willing to post with the trend of mockery and ridicule and outright insult over their ideas getting more and more pressure to shut the fuck up. No sarcasm is intended there, either. It's just gotten to be a pretty far departure from my expectations and interests.

I'm not trying to call out @Glitch in particular, but when he posted that there was a place here for Play-By-Post subforums and shit, it sort of cemented that disinterest. Whatever we're calling it now, this board came up as a place to house the community that existed on WORA when it went down the last time, and the very idea of encouraging folks to PbP on a board used even in part for making fun of people's RP seems pretty fucking antithetical.

As of a bit ago nobody was actually using it, mind, but that it even came up as a thing (and was given the thumbs up in post by folks as a good idea in the past) cemented my impression that this isn't really the place for what I wanted. Inevitably somebody will bumble through using it, maybe to wet their toes in RP, and when somebody makes fun of them for it somebody else will cluck their tongue and post disapprovingly about discouraging folks from trying and first times and blah blah blah. Which is a pretty legit response, but again, the fact it'd even come up in the first place is just... meh.

I'm okay with making fun of people's RP (even my own), and I like tasteless, even vile humor, and I enjoyed interacting with folks in an environment where mostly nobody worried about anybody else's feelings and censored their shit accordingly, or got on anybody else's case to do the same.

I'm not trying to condemn Soapbox, or the community. All in all I think things have had a pretty positive upswing for most folks, even if not for me.

So, there you go. I'm not going to pull any dramatic 'NEVER AGAIN!' nonsense, but I probably won't be back any time soon. There's officially no need to poke me on facebook or skype or whatever to ask me if something's wrong, or if I'm mad at somebody, or blah blah blah. Not that you can't poke me, I'm still social, I'm just not posting here.

Laters.

[Wizz]

@HelloRaptor
You'll be missed! The Soapbox will be a very different place without your voice. I don't agree with the idea that people have been hamhandedly forced to play nice just for the sake of playing nice; from my perspective the only real smack-downs were earned, when people went straight for the jugular for no reason or played dumb troll past the point of even the most exhausted shred of self-satisfaction. But I am a dumb duck treehugger, so what do I know.

[silentsophia]

I blame @Silentsophia . She's awful.

But, have fun wherever you go.

[Chime]

@HelloRaptor said: (paraphrased mildy)

First Poster
That rant was all bullshit.
Third Poster
Nay, that's certain:
We are blest soapbox is rid of it.
Second Poster
Peace! let us hear what yon Raptor can say.
HELLORAPTOR
You mother fuckers --
Citizens
Peace, ho! let us hear him.
HELLORAPTOR
Friends, MUSHers, Shang rejects, lend me your eyes;
I come to bury the forum, not to praise it.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with lost back'ps;
So let it be with SoapBox. The noble Glitch, he
Hath told you RP was kinda fun:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously have we all answer'd it.

Okay, no, I'm not really sure where I was going with that. Anyway. Raptor, you're an asshole for hating that a forum caters to others' tastes. We're assholes for disliking your dislike. We'll miss you either way. Have fun out there, you bastard.

[Sundown]

@HelloRaptor said:

The fact that right now there's probably half a dozen people immediately thinking about posting with righteous indignation about how cyber-bullying and suicide are never funny and how dare I only really illustrates why I lost interest in posting here.

I don't think that MSB has gotten quite that bad. As someone who's been a victim of cyberbullying in a serious way that affected RL and involved going to the police, not even I can agree with that sort of hugboxy view. Dark humor is how people deal with things, political correctness sucks the life out of things.

There's been a shift towards the more constructive, and that's why the board is a success. The problem with the vitriol you enjoy is that it's ultimately destructive. If you only have that in a place, it'll eventually become a useless cesspit. But I understand that WORA had a particular balance of vileness vs content that you and others might've enjoyed more.

I'll miss your posts because they were always insightful and had good points behind all the vitriol. I genuinely think we'll be collectively missing out on that.

[Derp]

@HelloRaptor said:

The fact that right now there's probably half a dozen people immediately thinking about posting with righteous indignation about how cyber-bullying and suicide are never funny and how dare I only really illustrates why I lost interest in posting here.

This. I don't get this at all. Unlike @Sundown, I see a lot of this, and it never fails to boggle the mind. When did we become so obsessed with protecting people's feelings and insistent upon being politically correct in all things? It baffles me.

I was raised by people that honestly couldn't give a damn about my feelings. I was regularly told to suck it the hell up, because the world is a terrible place and someone making me feel bad was like, the very least of the bad things that could possibly happen out there. A world where the callous survivor has a much better chance of making it to old age than the delicate flower. Now, granted, my family is fucking nuts, but they taught me important lessons, and I think I'm now a better person for it. I can handle things with barely a blink that just break down other people for weeks at a time. I might not wanna always, you know, hug it out or whatever, but I function, and I function well. When did this become a bad thing?

[Deleted]

Soapbox isn't as cool as WORA.

But I also don't care that this mouthbreather won't be posting anymore.

In fact I'm only posting this post for my own amusement.

Hitler.

[Coin]

This entire thread just gave me alcohol poisoning. I need a medic.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Coin This entire thread, or just Admiral's post? I'm pretty sure there was at least three drinks and two finish your drinks just in his alone. XD

Also, total agreement to your post.

[Arkandel]

@HelloRaptor said:

• I have not lost myself in Hello Kitty Online.

Well, then get your ass back on Diablo 3 you filthy casual. Those demons aren't going to grind themselves, you know.

[Chime]

@Arkandel said:

Those demons aren't going to grind themselves, you know.

That brings to my mind an entirely different-- and not entirely unwelcome-- image of what activities might be involved therein. ^-^

[silentsophia]

I dunno. There's no real fucking reason to bully someone. But I guess 'don't be an asshole' is too tough for some folks and this makes the whole 'don't expect me to cater to your feefees. I'M BEING AN ASSHOLE UNDER THE GUISE OF HONESTY.' Plus, telling a kid they don't matter is pretty fucked up. But that sort of thing is a rant for another day (seriously, it's okay to have and express emotions, including offense, hurt or whatever). I think @Sundown has the right of it. Why should someone have to be a beaten up callused survivor to hang out here? Eesh.

But I suspect the asshole vs blunt debate has gone on since Ogg told Ug he smelled funny. I am digging the more constructive nature of the place, even if some of the rawr from WORA was hilarious. I just would never want to be entirely on the receiving end.

Also, I did have fun running around with HR in CoH/V when we did that. I really miss the game.

Also. HITLER! BONERS! SEX ICE CREAM MACHINES! FERAL DD ORBS!

[Coin]

@silentsophia said:

Why should someone have to be a beaten up callused survivor to hang out here? Eesh.

I suspect @HelloRaptor agrees with this to an extent, which is why he left, instead of flipping a desk and complaining that no one was being enough of an asshole and how dare they.

[silentsophia]

@Coin Yeah, I was more commenting on some of the threads downstream.

[Monogram]

If I were to take anything away from the intial post.

[BetterJudgment]

I dunno. One the one hand, I think that HR is a loudmouthed, self-justifying shitpile. On the other hand, the worst I've seen from him--and he recently here made me as angry as I've been at anybody online since 1996--seemed at some level to be his attempt to trounce some sort of intelligence and life back into a place that has become irretrievably stale. Just like gaming has gotten a lot less fun as people have become increasingly wrapped up in themselves and less able or interested in entertaining others, this forum has gotten a lot less fun and a lot less interesting. Turning what has been several days between checking it to not checking it at all will make no difference in my life.

[Misadventure]

I guess if you are sure no one who thinks about what is here will interact with you online, it won't affect you.

I'd give up and walk away if I was you.

[WTFE]

@silentsophia said:

I dunno. There's no real fucking reason to bully someone. But I guess 'don't be an asshole' is too tough for some folks …

Well, there's also the issue that "being an asshole" varies wildly from person to person. A friend of mine that I've known for decades asked me for some recommendations on computer hardware. I know what he uses his computer for, etc. and said, "well, based on your use profile, there's no reason for you to waste money on a top-of-the-line rig that you won't even use 10% of". Another friend of his who was present thought that had me being an asshole (while the guy I said it to nodded in agreement and went on to buy a computer he used for four years before he finally outgrew it).

Some things are pretty obviously "asshole behaviour", but the dividing line between "asshole" and "not-asshole" are not as clear as some would like to pretend they are.

[Arkandel]

@BetterJudgment said:

I dunno. One the one hand, I think that HR is a loudmouthed, self-justifying shitpile.

Unlike the rest of us shining examples of humankind here?

I've seen HR go out of his way to help people then never mention it anywhere. That's way better than most folks who either never do anything for others or if they do, they feel the urge to shamelessly use the fact to promote themselves.

[silentsophia]

@WTFE Yeah, but like I said, people mix up blunt and assholish very easily.