Most people reading this won’t have experience of what I’m complaining about today, although you can apply “the changing face of today’s youth” if you wish to commiserate!
Ok, I know it is both hypocritcal and ironic to use sarcasm to have a go at rude people who use too much sarcasm, but I can because I’m a groan up. So there. Nyah.
I own a kids’ club – 13+ ideally but I suspect we have deviants of younger years in our midst. Oldest is around 50 probably, the average is probably about 18 if you let the young ‘uns balance out the old ‘uns. Actual 18 year olds are rare – too busy with life apparently.
Anyway, in recent months myself and others within the club have noticed a trend. A Rudeness Fad. Apparently it is considered acceptable, nay, “cool”, to approach life with the “I’m mean/rude/tactless because that’s who I am, and if you have a problem with that that’s your problem – it’s wrong for you to restrict my right to be who I am” attitude. Now, why I agree that everyone, including moody teenagers and people with social problems should be allowed to be themselves, if they could be themselves without making other people feel like shit it would be a hell of a lot nicer for all involved. It irks me that they think that tact, being polite and being civil or nice is a sign of weakness, when it’s blazingly obvious to me and many others that the skill of tact is just that, a skill you must learn, and if you become adept at it it makes you better able to deal with life, the universe and everything. Being tactless is not a get out of jail free card for people who are unprepared to put in the effort of learning civil behaviour. It’s just lazy.
We used to ban controversial subjects such as religion, politics, animal rights, docking, cropping and declawing (it’s a pets club ;)) as we felt the younger more rebellious members couldn’t manage themselves in a civil manner. However, due to my “my club can be life-educational too” campaign, I decided to encourage such “lively debates” (AKA raging arguements); my mind is that if you can’t argue constructively you will learn how to or you will make many enemies. Learning to argue constructively and non-offensively is a vital life skill, and one that I think is especially important to individuals who lack social skills in general. Many members of the club have either professionally or self-diagnosed mental conditions, ranging from autism to aspergers to ADD etc. (said diagnoses ranging from true to pity-pleas, which in itself is a lack of social skills) and many more are simply confused young people growing up (most of us have been there).
So, to allow discussions of more touchy subjects I set up a 16+ forum within the forum, with strong caveats that it was suggested that people under 16 and people easily upset/offended don’t enter the forum. Me doing this was viewed with concern by my staff, worried I’d opened a can of worms, and some refuse to moderate it (being either under 16 or easily upset/offended themselves). However, someone pointed out today that the one place on the entire forum where you can be sure of NOT being harassed is this 16+ forum. Is this because the age limit is working and all the ill-feeling is due to under 16’s? Or is it due to somehow, the fact they are allowed free reign and therefore know that everyone else is likewise allowed free reign they have nothing to rebel against. I suspect it is in some part the latter, as some of the people being unnecessarily aggressive in the main forum are active posters in the 16+ forum.
The bitterness, the nasty comments, the unnecessary sarcasm, is all driving good, hardworking, quality members into becoming lurkers, leaving the noobs to be preyed upon by these… mean people as almost a form of sport.
We’ve tried deterents. First we used warnings – anyone behaving inapproproately recieved a warning by private message. Some people seemed to consider these brownie badges – something you collected for fun. Pushing the system was considered a skill worth earning. We’re currently running a Zero Tolerance scheme where anyone who posts something unacceptable gets the whole post locked and their post quoted with the simple phrase “Zero Tolerance”, in an attempt to embarass them into behaving. That too isn’t working, and people continue to aim their jibes just under what could reasonably be considered unnecessary. i.e. we know they are being mean, they know we know, but they also know we know they know we know we can’t prove it. And yes that wasn’t excessive, but was indeed accurate “knows”. What next? Suspend them? Close the forum? The punishment severity doesn’t seem to be the problem, more the general attitude. Their attitude shouldn’t be becoming more subtle to avoid the punishments, it should be improving, dammit!
I’m not innocent – if you know me you’ll know I’m not a people person, and I’m certainly not a children person. I can cope with people younger than me on the single condition – they act older than they are. Froggy and I became friends when she was by 13/14, so I have a low tolerance towards people of a similar age who are unable to be mature, civil, polite people I can have a conversation with. My tolerance can be stretched and rarely broken by especially irritating noobish folk (of any age) and I have zero tolerance to people who I have to tell the same thing twice too. Other than my mother telling me things at 7am when I’m asleep, I remember things, and if I don’t know things I look them up. I am easily irritated by people who can’t fish for themselves. That’s another life skill worth learning – resourcefulness. The entire world is full of resources. Failing that, Google it.
Sly jibers. Pah.
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