Martial Law —
Hey everybody, just a bit of housekeeping today.
First of all, we had some special friends visit us this week from 4chan, which is basecamp for 99% of the world’s trolls. I can’t say for sure, but I have a hunch (based solely on the timing) that our buddies over at Bigger, Fatter Blog were behind it.
As I stated last weekend, we do have a comment policy known as the Asshole Rule, but due to the flood of assholes this week, I basically instituted martial law and deleted anything that I deemed verbal assault. I hated to do it, but there is no point in allowing a bunch of random trolls to hijack our space to try and humiliate and degrade us. Sorry, it’s not gonna happen on my watch ever.
Of course, deleting hateful comments turns trolls into a bunch of whiny bastards. As one of them wrote:
>delete the opposition
lol
freethinkers my ass
Just because you have a third-grade grasp on vulgar epithets does not make you “the opposition.”
I also liked this complaint from the guy who called himself “Former Fatty” who said (and fair warning, I’m leaving a bit of hate in it just as an illustration):
Wow, delete my posts. Ignore the good advice and positive motivation I tried to give you. This is why you are fat. You turn away from the hard truth seeking comfort amongst your fellow fat asses.
Emphasis mine.
Just to demonstrate what his idea of “positive motivation” is, here are a few lines from the two comments that preceded his whinging:
Also Mulberry, you are a disgusting excuse for a human.
And…
Finally, after reading your posts noceleryplease, I agree that there are privileges to being thin, but honestly, I can’t take you seriously. The first impression I get from your picture, screenname, and posts are so infuriating to me, I can’t even begin to describe the emotions I feel towards you. You disgust me on a very very primal level and if I ever saw you caught in a burning car wreck, or trapped under something, I would let you die.
Aaaaaaaaah, he’s like a modern Tony Robbins. I feel motivated to improve my life immediately. Where’s my fucking treadmill?
Incidentally, in these same comments, Former Fatty, who claims he was once 300 pounds, makes the following claims:
Sure its easy to be fat and lazy, hell its fucking awesome.
Followed shortly after by:
Being thin is so awesome.
Former Fatty, I’m pretty sure that this, right there, is an argument in favor of being fat and lazy, because I’d rather be fucking awesome than just plain ol’ awesome.
I also enjoyed his comments because he says this:
I’ve now lost all of that weight and I have big plans. I already ran my first marathon last summer and I’m planning to climb mount everest this May. I want to complete an Iron Man by age 25. What makes me happy is the simple joys of being thin…Stuff like how…its easy to breathe, if I’m ever in a dangerous situation I know I can safely and quickly run away, or if someone is in trouble I can carry them to safety.
LOOK OUT FORMER FATTY! THERE’S A LION RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
Oh man, look at him run. If that were a real lion, he’d have totally escaped danger. Way to go Super Fitness Dude!
But seriously, if you want to disagree with us, YOU ARE WELCOME TO DO SO. But you must present your opposition respectfully. Call me a landwhale and you’re a fucking asshole who’s on his way out.
It’s times like these that make me miss the classy, clever trolls like Tom Brokaw… almost.
Onto other news… last week I posted about how Feedee World wanted to join the FFFFeed and invited everyone to throw their two cents in. Our readers expressed their opinions and we heard from members of Feedee World, including Amanda, Mina, JJ, and Jenny Le Wren.
I am all about having an open dialogue about difficult subjects, and feederism is one of those subjects. The only reason I opened the dialogue on this subject was because Feedee World is not a porn site and it’s not posting the weight gain information of its members. It seems to be more of a forum to discuss the subject of feederism, which is no more or less valid than a site discussing the subject of BDSM or any other sexual fetish. Jenny invited people to read her post on what feederism means to her and if you are interested you can read it here.
As for the poll results, they’re pretty clear:
Although the day Amanda linked to our site saw a bump in the “Sure” side (nearly drawing even), after I limited participation to once, the “No way” side came back.
As far as the Fringe Feed, people are evenly divided:
If people have suggestions for other blogs that might fit the Fringe, feel free to share them. Until we have more blogs to contribute to this sort of feed, we’ll just have to leave it as is for now.
Personally, I voted against adding them to the FFFFeed simply because I don’t think our readers are interested in it, I don’t think feederism itself has a place in Fat Acceptance (although feeders and feedees are always welcome as individuals), and I think that it is particularly dangerous for Fat Acceptance to be seen as supporting or encouraging feederism in the least.
Bigger, Fatter Blog’s entire schtick is based on drawing feederism and FA together because it reinforces the belief that all fatties are, essentially, feedees. That is obviously bullshit, but if ABC News can be fooled by their parody, then the rest of society isn’t far behind.
That being said, I strongly believe that we should stop demonizing feederism. I don’t believe there is any more manipulation or coercion involved in feederism than there is in any other sexual fetish. There are those who are born (or influenced at an early age) with the fetish and there are those who are drawn into it as a way to feel attractive to someone who has the fetish.
As with any sexual proclivity, I believe that consenting adults should be free to engage in whatever kind of kinky shit gets them off. I think there’s a knee-jerk reaction to feederism because it is bizarre and can lead to self-destructive behaviors. But just because we don’t understand it or find it repulsive does not mean we should treat those who engage in it as terrible people.
The ladies who run Feedee World go through the exact same daily pain that all fat people do. They have the same doubts and self-loathing and public hatred and scorn to contend with. Let’s not add to their burden unduly.
Now, sannanina expressed interest in a guest post from a feederist, and Molly Ren, who has a feederism Tumblr, is interested in writing one. So, I put this to you all again for a vote. Would you be interested in reading about what feederism is all about?
And finally, as some of you may recall, last October we held a Beg-A-Thon to raise money for FFFs 2.0. Well, at first, it seemed as though we weren’t going to meet our goal for our own needs, let alone to donate the remainder to Collective Shout.
However, due to some last minute generosity and the awesome Elizebeth Turnquist turning up bountiful coupon code for hosting, we had enough money for ourselves PLUS a little extra for Collective Shout.
Thanks to everyone who contributed, we were able to donate $40 to Collective Shout, which will be used to fight sexploitation in Australia. And someday, hopefully, we can get Collective Shout to the United States, where they are desperately needed.
You can read more about the incredible success of Collective Shout in this guest post by Lydia Jade Turner and donate directly to them here.
Since the money we raised for ourselves will cover Fierce Fatties for two years, next October we will host another Beg-A-Thon with all proceeds going to Collective Shout.
Thanks again for all of your support, everyone.
And don’t forget, Tuesday is our one year anniversary. In celebration, I will have a super-special surprise for everyone to kick off our second year of kicking fat ass!
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Wow… I totally missed that post where dude wanted me to die in a burning car wreck just because I don’t like Celery. That’s pretty darn harsh. I wonder what he would say if he found out I also hate Brussels Sprouts?
Yeah, I thought that was hilarious, but I threw it into the spam filter because it was over-the-top dickish.
But inspirational… definitely inspirational.
Peace,
Shannon
I hope they are gone. But trolls are like herpes. They tend to pop up again to bring further misery.
Great analogy. It’s a good thing I’ve got an industrial-sized tube of Valtrex to minimize further outbreaks.
Peace,
Shannon
Hi Atchka,
Thanks again for outing the vote out for Feedee World. I know you are voting for MollyRen (awesome person btw) to do a guest post, but I wanted to offer that FeedeeWorld do a guest post as well. Either myself, Mina, or Jenny Le Wren. Or, our frequent commentator JJ.
Please let me know.
Sincererly,
Amanda
Also, another thank you for not completely disregarding us at first glance, and for working to understand our side of the story.
I checked on 4chan, and yeah, it looks like Chris Brady was there siccing them on you. What is “4chan” anyway? A haven for Janapime-lovin’ emos?
Hey now, no need to throw all of us japanime geeks into one pot. Some of us are respectable members of society in our free time
But yes, its founder was an anime nerd back when anime was starting to fade out of cool again.
OH, believe me, I know several respectable members of society who are japanime fans.
It wasn’t that I think all japanime fans are asshats-far from it!- it’s just that I was trying to figure out what the “theme” (if you want to call it that) of 4chan was. The graphics on the site led me to think it had something to do with that hobby.
*g* I didn’t mean to imply you did, just joking around a little. You got the emo part right IMO, after all ;D
Running with the nerd crowd has made my humor go flippantly haywire.
4chan used to be a pretty good source of images (for the more “mainstream” anime and the more… eccentric), but most people I know who used to frequent it don’t anymore due to the unbearable vitriol. It was also a fast-paced forum for finding fansubs and the latest facts on the newest episodes of most current fad series. Now it’s LOLcats. And nasty comments.
I wasn’t aware of the anime history of 4chan. I just know they’ve became a sort of half meme factory, half troll headquarters. I think they’re behind the whole Scientology anonymous campaign, which is awesome. And many of the well-known cyberattacks have been the work of 4channers (including the recent failed attempt to shut down Tumblr).
They’re pretty much everything that’s good and everything that’s bad about the internet, all rolled into one.
The best thing is to stay off their radar and disengage. Fat Bastard basically gave 4chan a link to us and we saw the results.
Peace,
Shannon
It’s like they live in some form of reality where viscerally loathing someone for reasons that aren’t important and wishing they’d die horribly for those same reasons aren’t psychotic, and are, by some twisted logic that I must be too fat to understand, benign debates from a rational opposition.
And whoever created “Bigger, Fatter Blog” needs to be sent into a treatment clinic. Never have I seen a more obvious case of body dysmorphia.
Shannon, you’re the best! Thanks for dealing with these jerks, they obviously have nothing to contribute.
Thanks Vitty. These assholes can spout whatever hate they want on their own blogs. I’m not the government, so me making this an asshole-free community is not violating their free speech. You can’t walk into a Home Depot and start evangelizing to people about Jesus either. Go ahead and try preaching in the tile section. I promise the manager will come ask you to not be an asshole in their space.
Peace,
Shannon
Dang! And here I was planning on going to Home Depot today and evangelizing about the Flying Spaghetti Monster in their plumbing section. What a total buzz kill!
“But I can’t tell you how fat and disgusting you are that’s not fair! Waaaahhhh!”
Then go back to 4 chan and Bigger Fatter Blog and post all the hate you want. Don’t come over to this part of the web and spew your crap here, you will get owned and banned. I don’t understand why they feel the need to troll other sites. And they think fatties have no lives.
*sharpens pitchfork* What can we do to help your implementation of martial law?
Also, I’m very interested in a guest post on feederism and would like to see one from Amanda, Mina or Jenny too, just to have more than one voice shedding light on the issue. I honestly hadn’t even heard of feederism until I heard it mentioned on FFF and I’m intrigued to learn about it in a way that isn’t sensational news commentary (because I tend to avoid that IRL and online). Thank you for offering, ladies!
Hey, given that Chris G. Brady aka “Fat Bastard” aka “Proud FA” and various other aliases is still harassing your blog here, can you track down who is internet provider is and send a complaint directly to them? That’s what one admin did on a message board where he was trolling.
I have no idea. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
Peace,
Shannon
lol what’s this? Just dropping in and I see you guys were 4chan’ed eh?
You should be proud, that’s really moving up the troll food chain. You get judged by the enemies you make. That’s good stuff.