The Last Word


I got sucked into an email flame war. I should have just hit delete and moved on, but I was annoyed. Then I got pissed and then I got childish. I was playing follow the leader so I am not entirely to blame.

Why is getting the last word so important. I have an overwhelming urge to have it. I will go to great lengths to get it and I am deeply offended if the other guy gets it first. I know I am not alone in my Last Word desire, I have seen enough flame wars to know that this is an epidemic.

When I thought about that it made me wonder if The Last Word and general flamyness is something that email and Usenet have made worse. It’s so easy to tell someone to go to hell when you can’t actually see them and there is no chance that you will see them. It helps when you hide behind screen names. You may share an office with “90120fan” and not even know it. He or she, and sometimes that is a question, falls of short of being someone you feel a need to be civil to. Why bother they aren’t really real are they?

I have seen endless flame wars caused by a perceived slight to a favored actor, show or power that be. I mean if you’re going to get up a froth about something, whither Joss Wheadon or Chris Carter or Hot New Show Creature Of The Month, at least have a real position to start from. Saying that thus and such is a genius because he cast this on or that one and went with that story line over other story lines - is just a waste of time. The raging fans of the show wouldn’t mind if the actors sat on the floor and did puzzles , as long as the show was not a rerun and the characters didn’t do or say anything different then they had for the last 16 episodes.

Bad acting and worse line reading can be easily over looked as long as favored actor is dressed well and looks soulful enough. It doesn’t matter that the actor has exactly one facial expression and has confused monotone delivery and dirty hair with the portrayal of clinical depression. As long as he or she is hot, it’s all good.

A new poster comes to the board. Happy to have found a place where his or her favorite show is discussed, posts about his less then positive reflections of the most recent episode or “epi” and finds that on this board, This Show Is Always Excellent, The Cast is Perfect, The Direction is Flawless and the Scripts are always Perfect. But the new poster suggests, that episode was not really that strong, lead actor seemed a bit off… Ah. Ha. Says the Forum Powerful, that’s right, the script was written by someone less then totally obsessed with the show, the character was forced to do something that They Don’t Think He Would Have Done , He Should Not Have Done – He Changed!!! He learned something! Perish the thought!. And a flame war is launched.

256 “RE: HE SAID HE DOZNT LOVE HERs” later, the war has evolved into a discussion of the merits of vaginal birth verses c-section and if you were to walk on Mars would you need shoes or swim fins - is abandoned and taken to email, and a new topic is forged. Over the long hiatus it gets worse, there is nothing to talk about, so it becomes important to argue about everything. It is so boring and the reruns long ago stopped being worthy of discussion that all there is left is fighting over who loves the show more.

The other kind of forum is inhabited by folks who hate the show and post every day about how much they hate the show and how they have hated the show the whole time they have been watching it and hate it more every day, but won’t stop watching it. If they stopped watching it they couldn’t hate it and what would they do then? They may concede that the show was marginally better the first season but then went down hill after that and now that it is in its fifth or sixth season it is just unwatchable. They know because they watch it every week and can attest its awfulness. It really pisses them off that the show is so bad, that it has fallen so far, that anyone watches this drek, but they won’t stop watching it, and boy do they hate it. The only thing to fight about is who hates the show more.

My Birthday is Friday and I’m going out of town for the holiday, so no new update until Tuesday. Have a Safe and Happy Holiday.