{"id":4426,"date":"2009-08-30T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2009-08-30T09:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4426"},"modified":"2009-08-29T21:14:18","modified_gmt":"2009-08-30T01:14:18","slug":"hell-is-for-trolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hell-is-for-trolls","title":{"rendered":"Hell is for trolls?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was enjoying this A.V. Club Patton Oswalt interview<\/a> about his new movie, Big Fan<\/a>, enough from the outset, but he won my heart with this riff about internet commenters:<\/p>\n

AVC:<\/strong> You yourself are not a sports fan. Is that right?<\/em><\/p>\n

PO:<\/strong> No. But nowadays\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to make some dopey cultural statement here\u00e2\u20ac\u201deveryone can be, just by existing in society, a nerd like Paul Aufiero, because we all have a ship that we follow. Even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other people, like on MySpace pages, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just as collective of enthusiasts now. That seems to be the world we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in. In a way, Paul seems like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost this old-school enthusiast, because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the Internet or the Twittering or the text-messaging. It is just flat-out, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I will go and worship this team in my own quiet way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Which is a very real way, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost a form that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dying out now. Rob sees that type of fan sort of flickering a little bit.<\/p>\n

AVC:<\/strong> Though you could say that he does create this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Paul from Staten Island\u00e2\u20ac\u009d persona for the radio that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s related to him, but anonymous. In that sense, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like an Internet persona.<\/em><\/p>\n

PO:<\/strong> Oh, totally. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something kind of beautiful about that pure love of things. Like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll show that I love the thing I love by hating everything else.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yeah, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a sports fan, but I certainly am good to ask about film and food and literature and comic books, so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly a big part of that guy in me. And you know, look at the comment threads on The A.V. Club. [Laughs.]<\/em> Full of delightful little Paul Aufieros. They either want to say how much they love this thing that is being written about, which I always think is beautiful, or what I think is even more beautiful, they have to make sure that the world knows that, under their pseudonym, they hate this thing. They think, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to go on record.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In their minds, there will be an afterlife where they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re presented with an inventory of everything they could have commented on, and are asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you step up and make your voice heard?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Maybe there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a weird commenter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nirvana. Is there anything different if you go into every comment thread to say that something sucks? How is that different from a guy who goes to church every single week and praises God and rebukes Satan? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some weird afterlife that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing time for.<\/p>\n

AVC:<\/strong> They have to make their stand on every little thing.<\/p>\n

PO:<\/strong> Exactly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want to be able to get into commenter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paradise.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d [Affecting voice of God.]<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, Dr.WhoFan07, there was a blog written in 2004 which stated that Tom Baker was not the best Dr. Who, and you did not get on the comment thread to say what a shithead the writer was. So because of that, you are denied access forever!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was enjoying this A.V. Club Patton Oswalt interview about his new movie, Big Fan, enough from the outset, but he won my heart with this riff about internet commenters: AVC: You yourself are not a sports fan. Is that right? PO: No. But nowadays\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to make some dopey cultural statement here\u00e2\u20ac\u201deveryone … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Hell is for trolls?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[838],"class_list":["post-4426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-patton-oswalt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-19o","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2591,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-price-of-popcorn-pimp-hats","url_meta":{"origin":4426,"position":0},"title":"The Price of popcorn pimp hats","author":"Gil","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In my previous post, I mentioned how little of a crap I give for contemporary literature. There are very few works of fiction published this decade that particularly impressed me. Two of those books were Lush Life and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In what seems to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00139XS1U","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1156,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nothin-stupider-than-a-man-chasin-his-os","url_meta":{"origin":4426,"position":1},"title":"Nothin’ stupider than a man chasin’ his OS","author":"Gil","date":"October 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Both BizWeek & the NYTimes run interviews with Microsoft bigwig Steve Ballmer this week. I'm not sure why there's a PR push just now. Maybe it's due to the impending release of the new version of Windows, but that's still months off. Could be to get the business world's attention\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4457,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-91409","url_meta":{"origin":4426,"position":2},"title":"What It Is: 9\/14\/09","author":"Gil","date":"September 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: This note about the 400th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Loew inspired me to re-read Introducing Kafka (mainly for R. Crumb's drawings & strips). I also read Locas II, a huge collection of Jaime Hernandez's comics. Occasionally I forget how wonderful it is to live in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1560978066","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1288,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/but-plug","url_meta":{"origin":4426,"position":3},"title":"But, plug?","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a piece from Cato fellow Jerry Taylor on the hype for plug-in hybrid cars: Of course, if [plug-in hybrids] really were the wave of the future, there would be no need for ranting in Washington -- automobile manufacturers would be busy making them as we\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0speak. It\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s only when corporate\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0America\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (implicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (implicit)","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-implicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2266,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-an-apology-for-raymond-sebond-take-1","url_meta":{"origin":4426,"position":4},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: An Apology for Raymond Sebond, Take 1","author":"Gil","date":"August 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for the long-unawaited return of Monday Morning Montaigne! You ask, \"What is MMM?\" It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me, working my way through the Everyman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Library edition of Montaigne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Complete Works (only the essays, which comprise 1,045 pages; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on page 450 right now). Every Monday, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll post about some aspect of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1400040213","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":933,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-good-to-be-the-shah","url_meta":{"origin":4426,"position":5},"title":"It’s good to be the Shah?","author":"Gil","date":"May 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Human Events runs a long and implausibly candid interview with Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah of Iran, who seems to be campaigning for U.S. backing for a 'peaceful' overthrow of the mullahs. Highlights include: I\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2m against developing any weapons of mass destruction. I work to see the world develop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4427,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions\/4427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}