This whole Jennifer-bashing at SFist has continued, with the usual biases. It reminds me of why I hated blogs to begin with: many early ones were put together by journalist wannabes, who couldn’t see objectivity if it danced up to them wearing a G-string and offering a shag. They would, say, quote a letter but only the parts that supported their side, then say that the only omissions were for clarity. SFist, for example, has gathered up its favourite comments and links relating to the non-story that it perpetuated, coming through with a generally anti-Jen view of the world. No equal time to those with whom it disagrees.
   Now that it is a non-story that has run out of steam (as opposed to a mere non-story earlier in the week), it continued today. Boring.
   But fair enough in some respects. Of course SFist is not going to push the other side of matters. It has a prerogative to showcase its own view of the world, but we need to be careful as readers. We also need to realize that for some people, attacking others is a fun pastime.
   The basic claim is that Jennifer had no business commenting on an affair her boyfriend had. So how does that make it a blogger’s business? In the few years I have blogged, I have usually stayed on topics I have had dealings with. Some exceptions, but I certainly don’t give this much attention to someone who had expressed an opinion. I might counter with my thoughts, but I don’t bash them for days on end.
   You have to wonder about the type of person that does bash and turns it into a hobby. I bash the odd public figure, but I like to think I have reasons. Here, there were no solid reasons. Just entertainment, playing on the organ-donor audience that seems to be growing here in the blogosphere. (Once upon a time, email had no spammers. Guess where blogs are heading?)
   I’m no psychoanalyst, but I have watched The Bob Newhart Show. That makes me a freaking expert.
   (1) The writer must have a distaste for the person. This may have stemmed from childhood, and is usually linked to some inferiority complex. Hence, on the blog, (s)he acts out a fantasy, since you can look like anything online, till you get found out. Thus, the attacks need not correspond with any human values, as long as they are personal.
   (2) The writer must have a distaste for reasoned arguments, the truth, or basic civility. I put a pretty good defence on there, and the worst the anti-Jen camp could do was accuse me of working for the Mayor or saying I spelled defence wrong. (Look in the dictionary, dumbass. And not one that deals with minority, i.e. American, usages. An English dictionary, used by more than just 300 million people.) Supportive arguments were mocked.
   In other words, there was no reasoning in return. Just attack the person, as any good Communist Party member would do. Here we are, in 2007, claiming we want transparency and people saying that they mean. SFist evidently believes that we should not have either on the first sign of both, while inferring that we should have them. And that blogs, supposedly democratic, cannot be democratic for those whom the writer disagrees with, so she cannot express her opinion without the consequence of being mocked or discredited for a few more days. Perfect Maoist Commie playbook stuff, all in the good ol’ US of A. I think the Nazis did something similar against the Jews.
   (3) Pretend that you are taking someone’s side and say that you are defending a victim, when in fact, you use that as a licence to attack a party and hide your own insecurities. This is a typical bleeding-heart approach. For example, those politically correct types saying that Mind Your Language, the old British sitcom, was racist. The odd thing is, if you go to the IMDB page discussing the show, the minorities loved it and did not need defending. But the critics have had their say against the show’s producers, or whomever. The result: the critics look more powerful, and the minorities look weaker because (usually through silence, because they think the critics are just nutjobs) it appears as though they needed defending. If anything, the “majority race on top” idea is actually strengthened, with the critics wrongly claiming they speak for others.
   (4) The writer does not understand subtlety and sweats the small stuff in his or her daily life. Nothing much to explain here. Go over the top in the discrediting, and before you know it, you have exterminated a few million people in concentration camps.
   Gosh, it was rather easy spotting the behaviour. If only I watched more Bob Newhart episodes. I could have got a Ph.D. Posted by Jack Yan, 06:35  permalink

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