Flaming heart.
Have I blogged about flaming before? Well, probably not but even if I did, I'm revisiting it now.
So my sister was telling me about her friend's response to someone who called her 'attention seeker'.
Background info: My sis' friend commented on a webpage using her own real name, and some girl didn't particularly enjoy reading comments of someone who leaves her real name in the Internet, and so called her an 'attention seeker' because she thinks that my sis' friend is trying to attract attention by using her own real name.
So, my sis' friend responded with some form of civilized flaming which involves a lot of logic and beating down on the offender's ego, thus shutting her up.
And my sister didn't like what she saw, because she thinks that flaming is retarded and that one shouldn't flame back no matter what happens because it's pointless and makes it seem as if one is affected by the flamer's comment(s).
That I couldn't agree more, because it is true that responding to a flame message shows the effect the message has on the recipient. I mean, why bother responding to someone whom you don't care? Or respond to something that isn't true and which you couldn't be bothered with responding to because it's too far-fetched for you to bother?
Keeping quiet in times of flame would be the move of someone who views himself as a morally superior person, because not responding at all would mean:
1) A statement of indifference to the flamer: Bring it on, I don't give a shit because I didn't reply at all.
2) A form of self-satisfaction: Carry on, you're wasting your time and I know that I'm better than you because I'm morally superior and you're only talking to yourself.
3) Face: I'm not going to lose face by flaming back and making it seem as if I've lost my cool.
There could be other variations as to why people would not respond to a flame or bullying but I can't really recall that many things offhand, so good weather.
But does it really work that way? By not appearing to be affected by the flamer's message, are you really unaffected? This indifferent treatment is only useful for people who don't hate the victim, and would give up on flaming the victim once he knows(or thinks) that the victim isn't bothered at all. The I'm-talking-to-myself illusion kicks in, and the flamer gives up to the icy indifference of his supposed victim.
In reality, most flamers are intelligent. I must stress--Most, not all. And most flamers know that by attacking his victim's person/character, the victim is most probably unable to remain calm or emotionally isolated from the flame message, even if the victim appears to be so. It is impossible for someone to be totally unaffected by a random comment made by someone he doesn't know about perhaps how stupid he is for not knowing that the door is meant to be pulled and not pushed. I made it into a real life context because not everyone has been flamed before. Either way, bottom line is that you'd be affected by others' comments on you because their opinions matter to you especially if it's something sensitive.
I once tried to stop a flame-war on my friend's tagboard. OK, it's not really a flame war, it was a random dude who was stalking my friend's friend on my friend's blog. Weird chap, but weird people are all over the place. The random dude was like asking for my 2nd degree friend's daily routine, and how well is she doing in her CCA. My friend was quite distraught or so I think, and my other friends tried to chip in to help by trying to shut the random dude up. I was like:
Hey all, let's not bother with him at all. Let's not reply to him because there's no point in stooping to his level, because when we quarrel with idiots they bring us to their level and beat up with experience.
or something along those lines, just telling everyone not to respond to him and treat him with indifference(how oxymoron-ic). It didn't work. The random dude came back with:
Hmm. Now FUCK YOU, how do you like that? I know you're reading this, I know you're pissed with me, but YOU CAN'T REPLY because of your own rules. How do you like that? (:
I changed my tagname thereafter.
See, I was still emotionally affected. It happened a few years back but I can still remember it even now. Just because the flame occurs online does not make it less immediate than a personal attack offline.
My sister still couldn't relate to my view that her friend was right in flaming back logically.
I think that flaming back is a form of self-defence, it's a retaliatory action against people who invade your personal space or make weird random judgements on you despite not knowing you very well. It's in short an education about yourself to others, however it also shows that you're vulnerable(something everyone knows anyway).
As mentioned above, keeping silent, keeping a I-am-holier-than-thou attitude doesn't help when the flamer is persistent in his flaming and knows better that the victim is more affected than the victim wishes to be.
Seriously, they know. Flamers know that they are hitting where it hurts, and it doesn't matter whether you appear to be humanely involved in the flaming or not, they burn anyway. This carpet-bombing of your person would only result in collateral damage in your social network, unless you have the guts to stand up for yourself and fight the flamer logically.
My sis was telling me about how she think she'd handle such a situation. She thinks that she'd not respond to the flamer at all, and complain to her close friends about it. She doesn't really know much about flaming because she has a life that's not very virtual, but that's what she thinks she'd do. A lot of people would choose to do that too, because standing up for themselves online is quite a pointless act. But:
1) The flaming won't stop.
2) You remain affected even after the flaming stops.
Is it really worth keeping quiet because of this indifference of yours that you wish for others to feel, when they already know that you are affected?
My sis and I quarrelled over this for like an hour or so. Quite fun.
On a completely random note, I was at my uncle's house on Sunday because I needed to take my passport-sized photo for APPLES. Not the fruit, but because I'm going Genting with my (extended) family, and going overseas require travel documents in the form of a passport(duh), and mine expired liao. I think most are expired, but yea. So, I needed to take a passport-sized photo, which my uncle helped me with.
No, the point is not in the photo. The point is when Kieren(one of my cousins, like, 10years younger than me) pointed Kristie to my stitched area. I wasn't that interested in showing a 4year-old girl my (quite) gory wounds, but she was pulling my hand away from the covered area and so I relented. She didn't flinch, just asked 'Gor-gor what happened?', and she wasn't satisfied with my answer so she went to ask her grandfather.
Who replied: Coz he was climbing tables, then he fall down. Next time don't climb tables OK?
LOLOLOLOLOLOL OK that was the punchline in case you missed it because it's not very funny in retrospect but I've been getting a lot of comments for the sheer stupidity of the method I got my wounds by.
And because I don't know how to end this post I'm just going to make a random vague reference to the clock which read 2.38AM and buhbye.
-- 10/14/2009 01:40:00 AM
