the darkerside to rants

Last night I had a wonderful example on how limiting online communication can be.

The whole thing started out when I noticed that Raincoaster had a poppy on her Twitter Avatar. I sent her a (private) direct message on twitter saying (in my mind at least mockingly) that I was surprised she actually did show a poppy.

The reply that came back was essentially: “There are many things you don’t know about me.” Which is fine, I don’t. I continued in a (to me) sarcastic tone and replied:

Shocking, Raincoaster giving in to peer pressure AND promoting Groupthink.

And this is where things took a turn to the utterly bizarre.

If you ever read or talk to / with her you realize very quickly that she is, how shall we call it, sarcastic and outspoken. Things that show up on her radar that she does not approve off she relentlessly mocks.

So imagine my surprise when the next reply was not a private message but a public one, and not only was it a snarky one but she also proceeded to retweet some of my replies (My tweets are private). Next thing I know some of her “friends” decided to kick me in the shins too, that even though they pretty much only knew (and retweeted) her tweets to me. So at best someone got only half the story.

The main accusation around this was that I didn’t bother to ask her as to WHY she was showing it, which is funny, because in the entire two preceding messages there was really no intend to seriously discuss this. In turn I could also say that she never asked what my problem with the poppy might be.

Now clearly, my remark seems to have hit some kind of nerve with her, which is fine; you don’t always know how people react to things you say, and if she would have indicated what she thought about my remark we could have easily cleared it up. Instead though she chose to make me a target for her “friends” and put words and opinions into my mouth that I don’t have (if you want to read my opinion on what I think of Remembrance Day and similar holidays, you can read it here).

The end result for me was a simple one. I ended up closing down the lines of communications this morning after sleeping over it. I removed her from my networks and I blocked her.

No, this is not about me being miffed that she shows a poppy or that she felt hurt or insulted by my remarks, it’s about the simple fact that she decided to take a private matter into the public domain in order to… Well, whatever it was / is that she decided to make out of it.

A few minutes ago, before I started writing this, she decided to kick after me yet once again. It is “funny” how she decided to make a big deal out of it that I am German and thus my opinion doesn’t count and any criticism of Remembrance Day by default should automatically be disregarded. If someone reduces me to my place of birth, how could I ever deal with that? Racism in reverse, but I am sure she’d disagree and would say it’s nothing like that. Let me channel my female here for a second: Whatever.

It is also interesting that her second argument was essentially: “Because you work for a large multinational, you have absolutely no right to criticize anybody in the DTES, many of whom who have served.” I love these kinds of “holier than thou” attitudes, but having been involved with some people in the DTES poverty industryThe Georgia Straight has a piece that echos many of my thoughts on the subject of the military.

It’s all about the timing and the light….